ROCKVILLE, Md., Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Federal Realty Investment Trust (NYSE:FRT) today announced the acquisition of Hastings Ranch Plaza, a 274,000 square foot shopping center in Pasadena, California. The Trust acquired the leasehold interest in the shopping center for $29.5 million cash. Hastings Ranch Plaza enjoys immediate access to Interstate 210 at the Rosemead-Michillinda exit and is within walking distance of the Sierra Madre Station on the Metro Gold Line. Hastings Ranch Plaza is currently 100% occupied. The property is anchored by Sears, Marshalls, HomeGoods and CVS. Federal Realty anticipates increasing the value over time through potential redevelopment and/or the re-leasing of space currently leased at below market rents. "We're very happy to expand our Southern California shopping center portfolio and presence with the acquisition of Hastings Ranch and look forward to taking the property to the next level as leasing, and possibly, redevelopment opportunities unfold over the medium term" said Jeff Berkes Federal Realty's President West Coast. "Hastings Ranch has an outstanding location in a great community with a very strong nearby interstate and public transportation infrastructure." Hastings Ranch Plaza is located at the northwest corner of Foothill Boulevard and Michillinda Avenue an excellent freeway-adjacent location with significant frontage along a major east-west thoroughfare that stretches for 60 miles through Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, in a shopping area that services some of Southern California's most affluent, stable and centrally located communities. Hastings Ranch Plaza enjoys immediate access to Interstate 210 at the Rosemead-Michillinda exit where average traffic counts are around 240,000 vehicles daily. Hastings Ranch Plaza is also within walking distance of the Sierra Madre Metro Station, which serves the Metro Gold Line. The Property boasts demographics that enhance Federal Realty's already sector-leading position, with 141,385 people and average household incomes of $119,886 within a 3-mile radius. About Federal Realty Federal Realty is a recognized leader in the ownership, operation and redevelopment of high-quality retail based properties located primarily in major coastal markets from Washington, D.C. to Boston as well as San Francisco and Los Angeles. Founded in 1962, our mission is to deliver long term, sustainable growth through investing in densely populated, affluent communities where retail demand exceeds supply. Our expertise includes creating urban, mixed-use neighborhoods like Santana Row in San Jose, California, Pike & Rose in North Bethesda, Maryland and Assembly Row in Somerville, Massachusetts. These unique and vibrant environments that combine shopping, dining, living and working provide a destination experience valued by their respective communities. Federal Realty's 96 properties include over 2,800 tenants, in approximately 22 million square feet, and over 1,800 residential units. Federal Realty has paid quarterly dividends to its shareholders continuously since its founding in 1962, and has increased its dividend rate for 49 consecutive years, the longest record in the REIT industry. Federal Realty shares are traded on the NYSE under the symbol FRT. For additional information about Federal Realty and its properties, visit www.FederalRealty.com. Investor Inquiries Media Inquiries Leah Andress Andrea Simpson Investor Relations Vice President, Marketing 301/998-8265 617/684-1511 [email protected] [email protected] SOURCE Federal Realty Investment Trust Related Links http://www.federalrealty.com SAN JOSE, Calif., Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Highlights: FICO and Circulo de Credito have made the FICO Score available to lenders in Peru The score is available now through Circulo de Credito Peru . through Circulo de Credito . The FICO Score is the world's leading credit score, with more than 10 billion sold each year Millions of Peruvians will find new credit opportunities thanks to the introduction of the FICO Score in Peru. Circulo de Credito, the fastest-growing credit bureau in Mexico, has partnered with Silicon Valley analytics firm FICO to introduce the FICO Score, which will help lenders measure risk more accurately and extend credit with greater confidence. The score is available now at Circulo de Credito's Peruvian licensee. FICO built the score by applying its advanced predictive analytics and unmatched expertise of credit patterns to data on millions of Peruvians. FICO data scientists studied hundreds of possible variables to build the model, which has performed extremely well in rigorous validation testing. "Peru joins the more than 20 countries worldwide to benefit from the FICO Score's unparallelled risk assessment," said Jim Wehmann, executive vice president of Scores at FICO. "As always, we have performed the most extensive research possible on Peru's credit patterns to deliver the FICO Score built exclusively for this market. Together with Circulo de Credito, we are expanding the FICO Financial Inclusion Initiative to Peru, helping lenders gauge credit risk more accurately, which allows them to make more credit available to more people profitably." The FICO Score is the world's leading credit score, and the standard measure of US consumer credit risk. More than 10 billion FICO Scores are purchased each year by lenders. Last year, FICO announced the FICO Financial Inclusion Initiative, aimed at improving access to billions of consumers worldwide. "This is the first time lenders in Peru have had access to the FICO Score," said Juan Manuel Palmieri, director at Circulo de Credito. "We are proud to work with our partners FICO to bring this global risk standard to Peru. Together, we are giving a powerful tool to the nation's credit risk management, which will in turn open new doors for Peruvians and help bolster the fifth largest economy in South America." Circulo de Credito has more than 2,600 clients in different sectors, including financial institutions, retail, microfinance, telecommunications and government institutions. The credit bureau offers customer data, value-added products such as scores, and customized solutions. FICO and Circulo de Credito recently announced the launch of the FICO Extended Score in Mexico. About FICO FICO (NYSE: FICO) powers decisions that help people and businesses around the world prosper. Founded in 1956 and based in Silicon Valley, the company is a pioneer in the use of predictive analytics and data science to improve operational decisions. FICO holds more than 170 US and foreign patents on technologies that increase profitability, customer satisfaction and growth for businesses in financial services, telecommunications, health care, retail and many other industries. Using FICO solutions, businesses in more than 100 countries do everything from protecting 2.6 billion payment cards from fraud, to helping people get credit, to ensuring that millions of airplanes and rental cars are in the right place at the right time. Learn more at www.fico.com. Join the conversation on Twitter at @FICO & http://www.fico.com/en/blogs/ FICO is a registered trademark of Fair Isaac Corporation in the US and other countries. SOURCE FICO Related Links http://www.fico.com "FOURMIDABLE is proud to be part of the city of Verona and looking forward to managing such an upscale community," said Michael Schocker, President of FOURMIDABLE. "Tall Oaks is going to be a wonderful addition to the community and surrounding area." Tall Oaks is being developed in cooperation with the Mississippi Home Corporation under the state's Low Income Housing Tax Credit program. The general contractor on the project is Winters Construction of Oxford, Miss., and the developer for the community was Tall Oaks East and West 2015, LP. The first residents of Tall Oaks moved into their beautiful new homes in January. Applications are still being accepted online at www.talloaksms.com with preferences being given to veterans. Rental rates are $530 a month. While there are income limitations for potential applicants, there are no direct rent subsidies. Fountain Square to open in May 2017 FOURMIDABLE also has plans to open another new community in Columbus, Miss. The rental community, Fountain Square, is expected to open in May 2017. To be added to the reservation list, please visit http://www.fountainsquarems.com. Rental rates for the three bedroom townhomes are $530 a month. About FOURMIDABLE FOURMIDABLE is a national real estate management and brokerage company that specializes in managing, marketing and leasing market rate, tax credit, senior and family government assisted, public housing and rural development apartment communities. Founded in 1975, FOURMIDABLE currently manages 87 communities in ten states, with more than 9,256 units under management. FOURMIDABLE is a member of the elite AMO (Accredited Management Organization) and is an approved management firm for HUD, MSHDA and other State Agencies. Additionally, FOURMIDABLE affiliated companies offer support for property management companies and owners, including agility-pm, a provider of back office accounting, HR, IT and compliance support; eCrosstown, a provider of free WiFi amenity services to apartment residents and ePhonz, a specialized telephone product for apartment management companies. For more information, please call 248-593-4634 or visit www.fourmidable.com. CONTACT: Michael Schocker, President 248-593-4634 Sue Voyles, Logos Communications 734-667-2005 SOURCE FOURMIDABLE Related Links http://www.fourmidable.com FRANKFURT, Germany, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- - FRA's passenger growth trend continues - Strong rise also in cargo tonnage Dear Sir and Madam. Due to a technical error, the January 2017 traffic figures have been prematurely distributed to the capital market. Contrary to the generally valid publication dates, we therefore are now distributing these traffic figures to representatives of the press. Thank you for your understanding. FRA/er-rap - Some 4.2 million passengers used Frankfurt Airport (FRA) in January 2017, resulting in an increase of about 75,000 passengers (up 1.8 percent) and a new January monthly record at FRA. Thus, this continues the passenger growth trend set during the last two months of 2016. FRA's cargo volume rose briskly by 5.6 percent to 168,556 metric tons. The growing global demand for goods and the timing of the Chinese New Year encouraged these dynamic developments at the beginning of 2017. Accumulated maximum takeoff weights (MTOWs) at FRA dropped slightly by 1.6 percent to about 2.2 million metric tons. Aircraft movements also decreased slightly by 1.0 percent to 33,900 takeoffs and landings. Fraport's international airport portfolio reported the following traffic performance in January 2017. Ljubljana Airport (LJU) in the capital of Slovenia achieved a noticeable 21.5 percent rise in traffic to 89,396 passengers. At Lima Airport (LIM) in the Peruvian capital, traffic advanced by 11.8 percent to 1.7 million passengers. Fraport's Twin Star Airports of Varna (VAR) and Burgas (BOJ) on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast together welcomed 39,326 passengers, down 4.5 percent year-on-year. With 675,991 air travelers, Antalya Airport (AYT) on the Turkish Riviera also experienced a slight decline of 1.9 percent. In contrast, in northern Germany, Hanover Airport (HAJ) received 300,722 passengers, up 1.7 percent. St. Petersburg Airport (LED) in Russia reported a noticeable 29.8 percent jump in traffic to some one million passengers. In China, Xi'an Airport (XIY) recorded a strong 19.2 percent surge in traffic to more than 3.3 million passengers in the reporting month. Print-quality photos of Fraport AG and Frankfurt Airport are available for free downloading via the photo library located in our Press Center on the Fraport Web site. For TV news and information broadcasting purposes only, we also offer free footage material for downloading. If you wish to meet a member of our press team when at Frankfurt Airport, please do not hesitate to contact us. Our contact details are available here. Fraport AG Robert A. Payne International Spokesman Press Office, Corp.Communications 60547 Frankfurt, Germany Telephone: +49-69-690-78547 E-mail: [email protected] Internet: http://www.fraport.com Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/FrankfurtAirport For further information about Fraport AG please click here. Fraport Traffic Figures January 2017 Fraport Group Airports[1] January 2017 Fraport Passengers Cargo* Movements Fully-consolidated airports share (%) Month DELTA Month DELTA Month DELTA % % % FRA Frankfurt Germany 100,00 4,227,110 1.8 165,835 5.8 33,900 -1.0 LJU Ljubljana Slovenia 100,00 89,396 21.5 861 14.6 2,212 12.1 LIM Lima Peru[2] 70,01 1,681,625 11.8 25,217 3.2 15,072 4.3 Fraport Twin Star 60,00 39,326 -4.5 1,741 22.6 600 -4.5 BOJ Burgas Bulgaria 60,00 10,506 -19.3 1,644 16.3 209 - VAR Varna Bulgaria 60,00 28,820 2.4 97 > 100.0 391 7.1 At equity consolidated airports[2] AYT Antalya Turkey 51,00 675,991 -1.9 n.a. n.a. 5,093 1.7 HAJ Hanover Germany 30,00 300,722 1.7 1,619 2.4 4,788 0.5 LED St. Petersburg Russia 25,00 1,018,295 29.8 n.a. n.a. 10,828 20.7 XIY Xi'an China 24,50 3,310,411 19.2 22,278 -3.3 25,650 11.4 Table continues... Fraport Traffic Figures January 2017 Fraport Group Airports[1] Year to Date (YTD) 2017 Passengers Cargo Movements Fully-consolidated airports YTD DELTA % YTD DELTA % YTD DELTA % FRA Frankfurt Germany 4,227,110 1.8 165,835 5.8 33,900 -1.0 LJU Ljubljana Slovenia 89,396 21.5 861 14.6 2,212 12.1 LIM Lima Peru[2] 1,681,625 11.8 25,217 3.2 15,072 4.3 Fraport Twin Star 39,326 -4.5 1,741 22.6 600 -4.5 BOJ Burgas Bulgaria 10,506 -19.3 1,644 16.3 209 -20.5 VAR Varna Bulgaria 28,820 2.4 97 > 100.0 391 7.1 At equity consolidated airports[2] AYT Antalya Turkey 675,991 -1.9 n.a. n.a. 5,093 1.7 HAJ Hanover Germany 300,722 1.7 1,619 2.4 4,788 0.5 LED St. Petersburg Russia 1,018,295 29.8 n.a. n.a. 10,828 20.7 XIY Xi'an China 3,310,411 19.2 22,278 -3.3 25,650 11.4 Frankfurt Airport[3] January 2017 Month DELTA % YTD 2017 DELTA % Passengers 4,227,368 1.8 4,227,368 1.8 Cargo (freight & mail) 168,556 5.6 168,556 5.6 Aircraft movements 33,900 -1.0 33,900 -1.0 MTOW (in metric tons)[4] 2,194,930 -1.6 2,194,930 -1.6 PAX/PAX-flight[5] 134.2 3.0 134.2 3.0 Seat load factor (%) 73.9 73.9 Punctuality rate (%) 72.0 72.0 Frankfurt Airport PAX share DELTA %[6] PAX share DELTA %[6] Regional Split Month Month Continental 57.9 2.6 57.9 2.6 Germany 11.2 0.9 11.2 0.9 Europe (excl. Germany) 46.7 3.0 46.7 3.0 Western Europe 38.9 3.5 38.9 3.5 Eastern Europe 7.8 0.6 7.8 0.6 Intercontinental 42.1 0.7 42.1 0.7 Africa 4.9 7.0 4.9 7.0 Middle East 6.9 6.9 6.9 6.9 North America 12.5 -2.5 12.5 -2.5 Central & South America 5.2 2.8 5.2 2.8 Far East 12.6 -2.3 12.6 -2.3 Australia 0.0 n.a. 0.0 n.a. SOURCE Fraport AG LONDON and NEW YORK, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Even in the gravest humanitarian crises, compassionate donors have the power to help people who are suffering. But in crisis-ridden areas like Syria and South Sudan, giving requires a whole new way of thinking. When roads are destroyed, conflict lines shift, and there is very little or no government infrastructure, traditional ways of giving may not be effective at reaching those in dire need. Today iguacu (weareiguacu.com), a global nonprofit organization aimed at effectively reaching crisis-ridden areas, offered guidelines for donors who are aching to take action. "Choosing the right charity is a complex process," said Katherine Davies, CEO and founder, iguacu. "For example, there were more than 300 charities online after the Nepal earthquake, many making similar statements about their capabilities." In that kind of situation, people may be tempted to default to a well-known organization, but according to Ms. Davies, "every serious humanitarian crisis is different, affected by a broad range of factors including the geography, climate, history, politics, culture and economy of the region. Donors need to make their selections in that context, because a charity's ability to succeed may vary significantly from place to place." Moreover, donors who wish to contribute to a particular region need to ensure that their money will go where they intend it to. "Many charities are in fact channeling donations to the general fund, rather than directing them to a specific area or group of people affected," said Ms. Davies. With all this complexity, how can a caring donor make sure that Syrian families, for example, have enough to eat, or that children in the Central African Republic are getting the medical care they need? Enter iguacu, whose researchers and analysts identify effective charitiesregion by regionso donors can give knowing that their monies will be effectively spent. What makes iguacu different is the depth and scope of its investigations. iguacu's expert research-based network comes from academia, international/national/local aid and humanitarian relief organizations on the ground, and more. Based on these experts' input, iguacu provides recommendations for donors via weareiguacu.com, so that people who want to make a genuine difference can do so. iguacu is currently offering guidance on Syria, Nepal, South Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, Myanmar, and the Central African Republic. To learn more and make an immediate gift, please visit weareiguacu.com/TakeAction. Media who would like to speak with Ms. Davies should contact Dawn Ringel, Warner Communications at 781-449-8456 or [email protected]. About iguacu iguacu (pronounced igwah-soo) is a nonprofit organization that empowers people to give effectively to alleviate human suffering. Analyzing research and intelligence from a worldwide expert network, iguacu's team identifies effective charities serving areas in crisis. This approach enables donors to give where they can truly make an impact. To take action today, go to weareiguacu.com. SOURCE iguacu Related Links http://www.weareiguacu.com ZEIST, The Netherlands, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Global Alliance for Banking on Values (GABV), a network of the world's leading values-based banks, is proud to announce that this year's GABV Annual Meeting will be organized in Kathmandu, Nepal (7-9 March). The co-organizer of the meeting is a local GABV member NMB Bank Nepal. This three-day event will gather CEOs and Senior Executives from more than 40 Banks and financial institutions (who have embraced value based banking) operating in countries across Asia, Africa, Australia, Latin America, North America and Europe. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160725/392614LOGO ) The theme of the Meeting in Nepal "Shifting the Financial Paradigm - Courage to Act Together" captures the work of the Global Alliance aimed at changing the world of finances to put people before profit. The members of GABV are putting their efforts in the strengthening of the local communities and supporting local entrepreneurs to become self-reliant. With this meeting, we hope to show the existence of banks who are working for the local communities, who are not driven by profit and who are #BankingOnValues. "The Global Alliance is enthusiastic to gather the CEOs of member banks at one place and discuss and advance the shared mission of using finance to deliver sustainable economic, social and environmental development. We will focus on the way we all create and support new systemic realities by practising values-based banking. We will hear stories of our bankers on how they foster these new realities in South East Asia: Nepal, Bangladesh, and elsewhere. We will think together on how we can strengthen our individual and collective capacities as "systemic changers", and how values-based banking and the Global Alliance family can become a relevant instrument to achieve a more sustainable economy" stated Dr. Marcos Eguiguren, GABV Executive Director. "Shifting the Financial Paradigm - Courage to Act Together" is a call for action and joint effort in the areas of the Values-Based Banking for the advancement of the Real Economy. About the GABV The Global Alliance for Banking on Values is a not-for-profit organisation and independent network of banks and banking cooperatives with a shared mission to use finance to deliver sustainable economic, social and environmental development. Founded in 2009, the GABV comprises 39 financial institutions and four strategic partners operating in countries across Asia, Africa, Australia, Latin America, North America and Europe. Collectively we serve more than 24 million customers, hold up to $110 billion USD of combined assets under management, and we are supported by more than 42,000 co-workers. Learn more about the GABV and how we're working to build a growing, global, values-based banking movement. Latest news: CEMS and GABV join efforts to strengthen value based banking education GABV Welcomes Three New Members Real Economy - Real Returns: A Continuing Business Case for Sustainability-focused Banking 20 Million For #WorldValuesDay And #BankingOnValues Collaboration Building A Global Brand To Build The #BankingOnValues Movement Media Relations Jasmin Panjeta E: [email protected] T: +31-61-525-4228 #BankingOnValues SOURCE Global Alliance for Banking on Values (GABV) ATLANTA, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, First Liberty Institute announces they reached a settlement agreement between the State of Georgia and First Liberty's client, Dr. Eric Walsh. The State of Georgia agreed to pay $225,000 to settle Dr. Walsh's religious discrimination lawsuit. "I am grateful this trial has finally ended," Dr. Eric Walsh says. "It's been a long, difficult journey, but it's worth it to have my name cleared and to ensure that all Georgia government employees know they have religious liberty." "This is a clear and resounding victory for religious freedom," Jeremy Dys, Senior Counsel for First Liberty Institute and counsel for Dr. Walsh, says. "We always knew the law was on our side, so we are pleased the State of Georgia agreed to settle this case and clear Dr. Walsh's good name." Dr. Walsh, a lay minister and former Georgia government employee, filed a lawsuit against the Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) after evidenced surfaced that he had been fired because of his religious beliefs. In May 2014, Walsh accepted a position as a District Health Director with the DPH. A week later, a DPH official asked him to submit copies of sermons he had previously preached as a lay minister with the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The day after Dr. Walsh provided his sermons to the state, the DPH terminated Dr. Walsh. In April 2016, First Liberty Institute, along with Atlanta law firm Parks, Chesin & Walbert, filed a lawsuit against the DPH on behalf of Dr. Walsh, charging the DPH with religious discrimination. "No one should be fired for simply expressing his religious beliefs," Dys says. "We are grateful that the State of Georgia agreed to settle the case and acknowledge the right of their employees to express their religious beliefs." Read more about the case and access photos and videos at FirstLiberty.org/Walsh About First Liberty Institute First Liberty Institute is the largest legal organization in the nation dedicated exclusively to defending religious freedom for all Americans. SOURCE First Liberty Institute LONDON, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Persistence Market Research analyzes the global air cargo security and screening systems market in a new publication titled "Air Cargo Security and Screening Systems Market: Global Industry Analysis and Forecast, 20162024". This study provides data for 2015 along with a forecast for the period 20162024. The main objective of the report is to identify the factors influencing the market and provide recent updates and insights into various segments of the global air cargo security and screening systems market. To provide better understanding of the market, the report also includes an analysis of drivers, restraints, and trends in all five regions namely, Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East & Africa, which influence the current market scenario and future status of the global air cargo security and screening systems market over the forecast period. Report description This research report provides a detailed analysis of the global air cargo security and screening systems market and offers insights on the various factors driving the popularity of air cargo security and screening systems. The report includes an extensive analysis of key industry drivers, restraints, market trends and market structure. The market study provides a comprehensive assessment of key stakeholder strategies and imperatives for succeeding in the business. The report segregates the market based on the size of screening systems, technology and applications across different regions globally. The report starts with an overview of the global air cargo security and screening systems market in terms of value. In addition, this section includes an analysis of key trends, drivers and restraints from the supply, demand and economy side, which are influencing the air cargo security and screening systems market. Impact analysis of key growth drivers and restraints, based on the weighted average model is included in this report to facilitate clients with crystal clear decision-making insights. Key Segments By Size of screening systems For small cargo For break and pallet cargo For oversized cargo By Technology Narcotics trace detectors Non-computed tomography Explosive detection systems By Applications Narcotics detection Explosive detection Metal & contra band detection Key Regions North America Latin America Asia Pacific Europe Middle East & Africa A detailed analysis has been provided for every segment in terms of market size analysis for air cargo security and screening systems across the assessed regions. The section provides a detailed analysis covering key trends, absolute dollar opportunity and BPS Analysis. The next section provides a detailed analysis of the air cargo security and screening systems market across various countries. It provides a market outlook for 20162024 and sets the forecast within the context of the air cargo security and screening systems market, including latest technological developments as well as offerings in the market. This study discusses key trends within countries contributing to the growth of the market, and also analyzes the degree to which drivers are influencing this market in each region. The final section of the report includes a competitive landscape to provide clients with a dashboard view, based on categories of providers in the value chain, presence in the air cargo security and screening systems portfolio and key differentiators. This section is primarily designed to provide clients with an objective and detailed comparative assessment of key providers specific to a market segment in the air cargo security and screening systems supply chain and the potential players for the same. Report audiences can gain segment-specific vendor insights to identify and evaluate key competitors based on an in-depth assessment of capabilities and success in the marketplace. Detailed profiles of providers are also included in the scope of the report to evaluate their long-term and short-term strategies, key offerings and recent developments in the air cargo security and screening systems market. Research Methodology In order to offer an accurate forecast, the report starts by sizing the current market, which forms the basis of how the air cargo security and screening systems market will grow in future. In addition, the report not only provides forecasts in terms of CAGR, but also analyzes the market on the basis of key parameters such as year-on-year (Y-o-Y) growth to understand the predictability of the market and to identify the right opportunities across the global air cargo security and screening systems market. As previously highlighted, the global air cargo security and screening systems market is split into a number of segments. All segments in terms of size of screening systems, technology and applications, and based on different regions are analyzed in terms of basis point share to understand individual segments' relative contribution to market growth. This detailed level of information is important for identification of various key trends impacting the global air cargo security and screening systems market. Also, another key feature of this report is the analysis of all key segments in terms of absolute dollar opportunity, which is critical in assessing the level of opportunity that a provider can look to achieve, as well as to identify potential resources from a sales and delivery perspective in the global air cargo security and screening systems market. Introduction of key ratios in the detailed profiles of leading market players provides a comprehensive view of the financial health of these companies A new feature named key ratios has been included in the detailed profiles of key market players to present a detailed view of the financial health of the companies operating in the global air cargo security and screening systems market. The key ratios covered are: Inventory turnover % Tax rate % Net Margin % Return on invested capital % Current ratio Debt-to-equity ratio Solvency ratio % Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4688594/ About Reportbuyer Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers http://www.reportbuyer.com For more information: Sarah Smith Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com Email: [email protected] Tel: +44 208 816 85 48 Website: www.reportbuyer.com SOURCE ReportBuyer Related Links http://www.reportbuyer.com ATLANTA, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Grady Health System has earned the prestigious Stage 7 on the HIMSS Analytics Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM) SM. Grady is Georgia's only adult acute care hospital to earn the highest rating for improving patient care and safety through health information technology. "We demonstrated that our advanced use of technology and data is making a real difference in how we care for patients and in patient outcomes. The effective combination of our people and technology has driven clinical quality and financial improvements throughout the organization," said Ben McKeeby, senior vice president and chief information officer, Grady Health System. Grady leverages an integrated EMR and many innovative technologies to provide high quality care. Through actionable analytics and guided pathways, Grady patients are benefitting. One example involves Grady's infectious disease program. Grady implemented alerting for clinicians in the EMR and recommended ordering pathways to screen patients for HIV and link those patients to treatment. The result has been a 96% reduction in transmission of HIV, when the patient is in treatment. Grady has identified and linked hundreds of patients to treatment through this program. "Grady implemented a Meds to Beds program focused on reducing 30-day readmissions and improving patient experience. In this program, when a physician places a discharge order, the pharmacist receives an automatic alert to visit the patient. The pharmacist then ensures the patient (or family member) has the medications needed before discharge, and they understand the instructions. Of the patients entered into the program, Grady is seeing an increase in revenue and decrease in 30-day readmissions," said Philip W Bradley regional director, North America, healthcare advisory services, operations, HIMSS Analytics. Grady will be recognized at the 2017 HIMSS Conference & Exhibition, Feb. 19-23, at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla. About Grady Health System Grady Health System is one of the largest safety net health systems in the United States. Grady consists of the 953-bed Grady Memorial Hospital, six neighborhood health centers, Crestview Health & Rehabilitation Center, and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Hughes Spalding, which is operated as a Children's affiliate. With its nationally acclaimed emergency medical services, Grady has the premier level I trauma center in the Metro Atlanta region and serves as the 911 ambulance provider for the city of Atlanta. Grady's American Burn Association/American College of Surgeons verified Burn Center is one of only two in the state. And the Marcus Stroke and Neuroscience Center is a Joint Commission designated Advanced Comprehensive Stroke Center. Other key services include Grady's Regional Perinatal Center with its Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Georgia's first Cancer Center for Excellence, The Avon Comprehensive Breast Center, the Georgia Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center, and the Ponce de Leon Center - one of the top three HIV/AIDS outpatient clinics in the country. SOURCE Grady Health System FORT WORTH, Texas, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Harvest Returns, an investment crowdfunding platform for agriculture, today announced that it will attend the Commodity Classic convention and trade show to be held March 2-4, 2017, at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas. "We're looking forward to meeting farmers and investors interested in owning income-producing agriculture products at the Commodity Classic. Investing in farmland provides solid returns that outpace the stock market over the long term. Connecting investors with America's food producers is an important part of our company's mission." Chris Rawley, Harvest Returns Founder At the show, Harvest Returns will highlight how land owners and farmers can raise capital to acquire new land with its innovative online crowdfunding platform. The company is currently soliciting deals in farmland, timberland, livestock operations, and solar farms to list on its crowdfunding platform. Anyone visiting Harvest Returns' designated table at the Commodity Classic can register to win one of several door prizes. The Commodity Classic is America's largest farmer-led, farmer-focused convention and trade show, attended by nearly 10,000 people each year. "Agribusiness companies large and small know that America's best farmers are walking the aisles at the trade show, so they bring out their best in terms of equipment, technology and people to make sure farmers get the information they need to make good decisions," said Kevin Ross, an Iowa farmer and co-chair of the 2017 Commodity Classic. "If it's new, it's at Commodity Classic. If you need to know about it, you'll learn it at Commodity Classic." About Harvest Returns Harvest Returns, LLC is a financial technology company created in 2016 by two military veterans to bring agricultural producers together with investors. Through the democratizing investment process known as equity crowdfunding, our online platform provides curated, diversified offerings of farm and timberland to accredited investors. Harvest Returns is headquartered in Fort Worth and will launch its platform in Spring 2017. If you would like more information about this topic, please contact Austin Maness at 844-673-8876 or email at [email protected]. Contact: Austin Maness Telephone: 844-673-8876 Email: [email protected] Website: http://harvestreturns.com SOURCE Harvest Returns Related Links http://harvestreturns.com CHICAGO, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- WE Day, an international series of inspiring stadium-sized events, announces the initial list of speakers, performers and presenters attending WE Day Illinois on March 1, 2017 at the Allstate Arena. Alongside Title Sponsor The Allstate Foundation and other partners, WE Day Illinois brings together 15,000 local change-makers, inspirational speakers and world-renowned performers to celebrate their commitment to taking action on social issues. Apply for media accreditation to attend WE Day at we.org/press/we-day-press Bios, photos and information for WE Day Illinois available on the WE Day Illinois Electronic Press Kit WE Day will stream live at 9:00 a.m. CT on March 1, 2017 at we.org/watchweday on at we.org/watchweday WE Day Illinois is free to thousands of students thanks to partners led by Title Sponsor The Allstate Foundation Hosted by Shay Mitchell, a cast of new faces and returning WE Day favorites will take the stage this year, including Buzz Aldrin, Xzibit, Jordan Smith, LaRoyce Hawkins, Monique Coleman, Dante Brown, Arne Duncan, Stedman Graham, Frank Waln, Grace VanderWaal, Silento, Celebrity Marauders, Spencer West and more. This star-studded lineup will join international activists and WE co-founders, Craig and Marc Kielburger, to share their passion for change and energize the crowd with unforgettable performances and motivational speeches to inspire another year of change. Click to Tweet: [email protected] announces #WEDay #Illinois lineup @shaymitch @TheRealBuzz @xzibit @GraceVanderWaal @RoyceDaVoyce "I truly believe that youth can do anything they put their minds to. The thousands of passionate young people at WE Day are proof that no one is too young or too small to make a difference," said actress and global youth advocate, Monique Coleman. "We can all create real change by simply standing up for our beliefsI'm honored to be a part of this day that invites youth to stand up, inspire change and celebrate their amazing accomplishments." WE Day is part of WEan organization that brings people together and gives them the tools to change the world locally and globally, achieving transformative outcomes for themselves and others. Through the yearlong educational program WE Schools, WE provides schools and community groups with educational resources and student-led campaigns designed to enhance a school's existing social initiatives or spark new ones. Students involved with WE Schools are challenged to make an impact on at least one local and one global issue, and are supported with curricular resources, service campaigns and mentorship programs to help them become change-makers. To celebrate their efforts, students are invited to WE Day, earning their tickets through action. WE Day Illinois will bring together students and educators from more than 525 schools across the state. More than half of attendees come from Chicago Public Schools and nearly 70 per cent are low-income youth, all making remarkable social change in their communities. The student council members at Chicago's Ebinger Elementary, for example, collected food, personal hygiene items, baby supplies, winter clothing and more than 400 toys during their month-long series of service activities called "Four Weeks of Hope," which supported a neighborhood food pantry. "The most important message we can tell our youth is to believe in themselvesthat they can make a difference," said Tom Wilson, national WE Day Co-Chair and Allstate's Chairman and CEO. "Throughout historyfrom fighting apartheid in South Africa to the civil rights movement in Americayoung people have helped transform our world. WE Day is about inspiring our next generation of future leaders to step up, get involved in societal issues and make their voices heard." In the 2015/2016 school year, schools and groups across the state improved their communities through WE Schools, volunteering more than 385,000 hours and raising over $500,000 in support of 300 local and global causes such as hunger, homelessness, bullying, youth advocacy, education and literacy. Making WE Day a true community celebration of youth taking action, some of these young people will join the celebrity lineup onstage to tell their own inspiring personal stories. One such youth is 9-year-old Jahkil Jackson, founder of Project I Am, an organization that donates "Blessing Bags", filled with everyday essentials, to a homeless center for those in need. To date, Jahkil has handed out more than 1,600 bags to support his community. "WE Day celebrates the amazing young people who have taken action at home and around the world, to create sustainable change for a better tomorrow," said Craig Kielburger, co-founder of WE. "Standing in a stadium full of passionate youth will affirm your belief that real change can happenand is happening every single day right here in Illinois. This past school year more than 650 Illinois schools in the WE Schools program made an incredible impact in their own backyards and in communities around the world through their commitment and passion for change." In a 2015 study, current and former WE Schools participants were 2.5 times more likely to have a long term commitment to a social cause, 2.3 times more likely to use their professional skills to solve social problems and 1.2 times more likely to report they had voted in the prior election than their non-participant peers. A global movement of 2.4 million young people strong, youth involved with WE have raised $79 million for more than 6,500 local and global organizations, volunteered 27.6 million hours for local and global causes and collected over 9.8 million pounds of food through service learning programs and campaigns. You can't buy a ticket to WE Daystudents from across the country earn their way by the actions they take on one local and one global cause of their choice. WE Day is free of charge to students and teachers, thanks to the generous support of The Allstate Foundation. The Foundation believes good starts young, and is committed to empowering America's youth with the strength, confidence and leadership skills to step us as leaders and achieve success in their lives. WE Day is supported in Illinois by Co-Chairs Tom Wilson, Allstate's chairman and CEO; Alex Gourlay, president, Walgreens; and Arne Duncan, former U.S. Secretary of Education and former CPS CEO. The initial list of WE Day Illinois speakers, performers and presenters, in alphabetical order, announced to date includes: Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish Doctor, human rights & peace activist, author and founder of Daughters for Life Doctor, human rights & peace activist, author and founder of Daughters for Life Buzz Aldrin (@TheRealBuzz) Astronaut, Apollo XI & Gemini 12 Global Space Statesman (@TheRealBuzz) Astronaut, Apollo XI & Gemini 12 Global Space Statesman Dante Brown (@DanteBrown) Actor, rapper, producer, host, and activist (@DanteBrown) Actor, rapper, producer, host, and activist Celebrity Marauders International DJ collective including Kardinal Offishall, Cipha Sounds, DJ Starting From Scratch and Dready International DJ collective including Kardinal Offishall, Cipha Sounds, DJ Starting From Scratch and Dready Michael "Pinball" Clemons (@Pinball) Co-Founder, Pinball Clemons Foundation (@Pinball) Co-Founder, Pinball Clemons Foundation Monique Coleman (@gimmemotalk) Actress, global youth advocate (@gimmemotalk) Actress, global youth advocate Arne Duncan (@arneduncan) Managing Partner, Emerson Collective and former U.S. Secretary of Education (@arneduncan) Managing Partner, Emerson Collective and former U.S. Secretary of Education Stedman Graham (@OfficialStedman) Speaker, author, educator, entrepreneur and CEO of S. Graham & Associates (@OfficialStedman) Speaker, author, educator, entrepreneur and CEO of S. Graham & Associates LaRoyce Hawkins (@RoyceDaVoyce) Actor from the hit series Chicago P.D. (@RoyceDaVoyce) Actor from the hit series Chicago P.D. Jakhil Jackson Founder of Project I Am Founder of Project I Am Craig and Marc Kielburger (@craigkielburger) International activists and co-founders of WE (@craigkielburger) International activists and co-founders of WE Shay Mitchell (@shaym) Actress, entrepreneur and author (@shaym) Actress, entrepreneur and author Mpumi Nobiva (@mpumi_nobiva) Global empowerment & motivational speaker (@mpumi_nobiva) Global empowerment & motivational speaker Silento (@TheRealSilento) Producer, rapper, songwriter and actor (@TheRealSilento) Producer, rapper, songwriter and actor Jordan Smith (@JordanSmithLive) Republic Records artist and winner of The Voice (@JordanSmithLive) Republic Records artist and winner of The Voice Grace VanderWaal (@GraceVanderWaal) Singer, songwriter and winner of America's Got Talent (@GraceVanderWaal) Singer, songwriter and winner of America's Got Talent Frank Waln (@FrankWaln) Award-winning Sicangu Lakota Hip Hop artist, producer and performer (@FrankWaln) Award-winning Sicangu Lakota Hip Hop artist, producer and performer Spencer West (@spencer2thewest) ME to WE motivational speaker, WE ambassador and author (@spencer2thewest) ME to WE motivational speaker, WE ambassador and author Tom Wilson WE Day Illinois Co-Chair, Chairman and CEO of Allstate WE Day Illinois Co-Chair, Chairman and CEO of Allstate Wilson & Jackson The last Maasai Warriors The last Maasai Warriors Xzibit (@xzibit) Multiplatinum rapper, actor, and record producer Anyone can find their place with WE and commit to making a change in the world. The first step is to take the WE Pledge at WE.org. By taking the pledge, participants are joining the WE Community and making a commitment to live WE every day. For every pledge taken on WE.org, $10 will be donated to local and global programs. Stay connected on the latest news and updates on WE Day: #WEDay Facebook @WEMovement Twitter @WEMovement Instagram @WEMovement Visit our Media Center About WE Day WE Day is part of WEan organization that brings people together and gives them the tools to change the world. A unique family of organizations, WE is made up of WE Charity, empowering change with resources that create sustainable impact, and ME to WE, a social enterprise that creates socially conscious products and experiences that allow people to do good through their everyday choices. The celebration of that change happens at WE Dayinspiring stadium-sized life-changing events that take place around the world. You can't buy a ticket to WE Dayyoung people earn their entry by taking action on one local and one global cause. WE Day unites world-renowned speakers, presenters and award-winning performers with thousands of young people and families to celebrate and inspire another year of incredible change. This year alone over 200,000 young people will come together in 16 stadium gatherings across the U.S., Canada, and U.K. to take part in this unprecedented educational initiative. A global movement of 2.4 million young people strong, youth involved with WE have raised $62 million for more than 2,400 local and global organizations, volunteered 19.9 million hours for local and global causes and collected over 7.6 million pounds of food through service learning programs and campaigns. WE was founded more than 20 years ago by humanitarians, activists and social entrepreneurs, brothers Craig and Marc Kielburger. Learn more at WE.org. About The Allstate Foundation www.theallstatefoundation.org/GoodStartsYoung For more information on WE Day or to request an interview, please contact: Camila Ossa Associate Director, Public Relations, WE Day +1-416-885-5522 [email protected] Sarah Evans Manager, Public Relations, WE Day +1-647-462-0654 [email protected] SOURCE WE Day Related Links http://www.WE.org ST. LOUIS, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- INROADS, Inc., a non-profit focused on development and career preparation for talented, under-served youth, received a $100,000 Community Impact grant from The Executive Leadership Council (ELC) to enhance and expand the INROADS College Links program. INROADS College Links exposes talented, diverse high school students to careers in business and STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) with year-round educational instruction and corporate visits. "A 2012 ELC grant supported the INROADS College Links pilot in Chicago and Washington, D.C.," said James Tolliver, INROADS Chief Development Officer. "Based on the success of those pilots, we're expanding the program, and we're grateful for The ELC's continuing support." In a recent examination of 255 institutions, current graduation rates for underrepresented minority students were slightly higher than those for White students, but the gaps between them had narrowed less than 1 percentage point in 10 years.[1] For Black students, the gap actually widened. Unless Black student completion rates increase faster, the gap will not close in this century. INROADS College Links addresses this gap, increasing college success for first-generation and lower-income students, while addressing the need for highly skilled, diverse STEAM employees. Research suggests high school dropout prevention and college preparatory programs like INROADS College Links longitudinal, with multiple services such as mentoring, academic preparation, and college application assistance are most effective.[2] Currently, INROADS College Links supports predominantly Black students in Atlanta, Chicago, Cincinnati, Washington, DC, and Hartford, CT. "Through our Community Impact Initiative, we are making a strategic investment in the next generation of business leaders, providing nearly $2 million in grants since 2010 to deserving grantees," said Ronald C. Parker, president and CEO of The Executive Leadership Council. "We are pleased to expand our impact and reach by providing this grant to support and grow the INROADS College Links program." The grant stems from The ELC's Community Impact Initiative, a national program aimed at closing the achievement gap between Black middle, high school and college students by partnering with organizations to improve educational outcomes and prepare the next generation of leaders. INROADS will use the grant to implement Summer Career Academies, two-week intensive learning sessions with workshops and simulations, across the five INROADS College Links sites. About The Executive Leadership Council The Executive Leadership Council, an independent non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation founded in 1986, is the pre-eminent membership organization committed to increasing the number of global Black executives in C-Suites, on corporate boards and in global enterprises. Comprised of more than 600 current and former Black CEOs, board members and senior executives at Fortune 1000 and Global 500 companies, and entrepreneurs at top-tier firms, its members work to build an inclusive business leadership pipeline that empowers global Black leaders to make impactful contributions to the marketplace and the global communities they serve. For more information, please visit www.elcinfo.com. About INROADS Founded in 1970, INROADS develops and places talented under-served youth in business and industry, preparing them for corporate and community leadership that effects community renewal and social change and elevates economic status and quality of life. Throughout its history, INROADS has placed students in over 127,000 paid internships with over 1,000 corporate partners. Currently, INROADS serves nearly 1,500 interns, 90 high school students and 230 corporate clients. To learn more, visit www.INROADS.org . [1] Rising Tide: Do College Grad Rate Gains Benefit All Students? (Rep.). (2015, December). Retrieved January 27, 2017, from The Education Trust website: https://edtrust.org/resource/rising-tide/ [2] Long, B. T. (2010). High school dropout prevention and college preparatory programs. In P. B. Levine and D. J. Zimmerman (Eds.), Targeting investments in children: Fighting poverty when resources are limited. University of Chicago Press, Robin Hood Foundation, and the National Bureau of Economic Research. Bettinger & Baker (2014) SOURCE INROADS Inc. Related Links http://www.inroads.org NEW YORK, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Levi & Korsinsky announces it has commenced an investigation of USANA Health Sciences, Inc. (NYSE: USNA) concerning possible violations of federal securities laws. On February 7, 2017, post-market, USANA disclosed that "[t]he Company is voluntarily conducting an internal investigation of its China operations, BabyCare Ltd. The investigation focuses on compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act . . . and certain conduct and policies at BabyCare, including BabyCare's expense reimbursement policies." Upon this news, shares of USANA were down more than 10% on intraday trading on February 8, 2017. To obtain additional information, go to: http://zlk.9nl.com/usana-usna or contact Joseph E. Levi, Esq. either via email at [email protected] or by telephone at (212) 363-7500, toll-free: (877) 363-5972. Levi & Korsinsky is a national firm with offices in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Washington D.C. The firm's attorneys have extensive expertise in prosecuting securities litigation involving financial fraud, representing investors throughout the nation in securities and shareholder lawsuits. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes. CONTACT: Levi & Korsinsky, LLP Eduard Korsinsky, Esq. 30 Broad Street - 24th Floor New York, NY 10004 Tel: (212) 363-7500 Toll Free: (877) 363-5972 Fax: (212) 363-7171 www.zlk.com SOURCE Levi & Korsinsky, LLP Related Links http://www.zlk.com In addition to the approximately 3,200-square-foot residence and all its furnishings, the grand prize winner will receive the keys to a new Honda Pilot, plus $250,000 from national mortgage lender Quicken Loans. This year's HGTV Dream Home, located on St. Simons Island, Georgia, has been completely remodeled from its former 1980s fashion. Interior designer Brian Patrick Flynn restored this hidden gem into a one-of-a-kind getaway with a design aesthetic that can be described as Southern Transitional. With Sea Island as the backdrop, the home maintains a traditional look that embodies true Southern charm with an emphasis on architecture reflective of its coastal location. "The charming location of St. Simons fits the bill as a 'dreamy' location where our fans can see themselves relaxing by the backyard fire pit or hosting friends by the pool," said Ron Feinbaum, general manager and senior vice president of Home Promotions for Scripps Networks Interactive. "Working with architect Michael Stauffer and builder Allen Construction, we were able to transform this home into a residence with design inspiration that our fans can use in their own homes." The main living spaces reflect an entertaining-savvy layout that features muted, muddy earth tones mixed with bright whites. Comfortable furniture and formal statement pieces are intertwined with casual textiles. A selection of modern art elevates the house to a game-changing showstopper. The three bedrooms and four bathrooms take their cue from the property's mossy vegetation with shades of green, and the neutral browns are a nod to the nearby beaches. Complete with a private pool, the abode is a fresh new take on Southern style. Learn more about this year's giveaway and its sponsors Honda; Lumber Liquidators, Inc.; Quicken Loans; Wayfair; Cabinets To Go; Delta Faucet; CESAR Canine Cuisine; Realtor.com; Trex Company, Inc.; Belgard; Bush Brothers & Company; ICON Health & Fitness; SimpliSafe Home Security; Sleep Number; Greenworks Tools; and Bose Corporation at HGTV.com/HGTVDreamHome. About HGTV HGTV delivers the superstar experts, fascinating families, compelling renovations and stunning transformations that make all things home fun. America's favorite way to get entertaining, relatable and inspirational home and lifestyle content, HGTV offers: a top 10 cable network that is distributed to more than 92 million U.S. households; a website, HGTV.com, that attracts an average of nine million people each month; social media platforms that engage nearly nine million users; HGTV Magazine, a monthly publication that reaches more than one million readers and exclusive collections of home-oriented products through the HGTV HOME consumer products line. Viewers can become fans of HGTV and interact with other home improvement enthusiasts through Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. Headquartered in Knoxville, Tenn., HGTV is owned by Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc., which also owns and operates Food Network, Travel Channel, DIY Network, Cooking Channel and Great American Country. SOURCE Scripps Networks Interactive Related Links http://www.hgtv.com/design/hgtv-dream-home?vty=dreamhome KANSAS CITY, Mo., Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Kansas City Art Institute (KCAI) announced today a $10 million gift to build a state-of-the-art student residence hall on campus. "Today surely marks the beginning of a significant new chapter in the 132-year history of the Kansas City Art Institute," said Tony Jones, The Nerman Family President of KCAI. The visionary gift was made by an anonymous donor via the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation (GKCCF). It will be used as the catalyst for a plan to create a new residence hall, dining facility, student services and studios for academic programs all of which will be designed specifically for the contemporary student in art and design. Designed in 1963, the current residence hall at KCAI was built for a very different type of student, one without a laptop or cell phone. "Thanks to this amazing gift, we have an opportunity to address that challenge head-on by building a center for campus life that will attract students from around the world to Kansas City to receive a fantastic art and design education," said Pat McCown, chair of the board of trustees. In 2015, KCAI received "The Great Gift" of $25 million for the endowment, student scholarships, endowed positions and campus improvements. "We are humbled by this further outpouring of generosity and the confidence in KCAI that it demonstrates," said Jones. "As I consider the magnitude of this new gift and what it will do for our students, campus, and community, I am overwhelmed with gratitude to the anonymous donor and our friends at GKCCF." For more than a century, KCAI has been a leader in art and design education helping to prepare students for successful careers after graduation. For most students, that path begins in the residence hall. "The board is fully engaged and believe this project has the potential to shape campus culture and provide a unique experience for all KCAI students," said McCown. About KCAI Located in Kansas City, Mo. at 4415 Warwick, KCAI is a private, independent four-year college of art and design awarding the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with 13 studio majors. Founded in 1885, KCAI is Kansas City's oldest arts organization. For more, visit www.kcai.edu. SOURCE Kansas City Art Institute Related Links http://www.kcai.edu LifeStraw's Follow the Liters program follows a simple formula. When a consumer in North America or Europe buys any LifeStraw product, one school child in a developing country receives safe drinking water for an entire school year. In February, LifeStraw will distribute 2,652 water purifiers and educate over 257,000 children and teachers at 380 schools in western Kenya and Homa Bay. After this distribution, 1,011 schools will have the purifiers and over 618,000 school children will have ongoing access to safe water. LifeStraw Follow the Liters is aiming to reach over one million school children by 2018. Furthering its mission to be the global safe water leader, LifeStraw also begins a brand licensing partnership with the American Red Cross in 2017. The American Red Cross recommends that households and businesses have a supply of water on hand for each person in case a disaster occurs. LifeStraw's water filtration products provide American consumers with the confidence that their water will be filtration safe for use in the event of emergencies. LifeStraw is partnering with Thirst, as official hydration partner and a member of the leadership group for its #Run4Water, a collaboration to generate awareness and mobilize action to address the global water crisis. LifeStraw will support Thirst's founder, Mina Guli and her team, as she takes on the enormous challenge of running along six rivers in six contents in six weeks. LifeStraw has also expanded its Safe Water Fund, an online non-profit platform that enables socially conscious individuals and organizations to support safe water programs. In 2015, the Fund mobilized access to safe water for victims following the earthquake that struck Ecuador and the hurricane that destroyed parts of Haiti. LifeStraw will unveil an ambitious collection of category-expanding water filtration products for diverse consumer uses. The brand will enjoy a vastly increased retail presence with expansion into major mainstream outlets. LifeStraw is sold in North America through exclusive partner, EarthEasy, and can be purchased in retail stores or online at www.lifestraw.com. About LifeStraw: LifeStraw focuses on innovation of technology that converts microbiologically contaminated water into safe drinking water with products that are designed to fit the needs of the people that use them. The first LifeStraw was the LifeStraw Guinea Worm Filter introduced in 1996, which has been instrumental in the near-eradication of Guinea worm disease. In 2015, the personal LifeStraw filter was introduced for use in developing countries. Today LifeStraw is used in 64 countries and includes filters and purifiers for households, clinics, schools, and for outdoor recreation, travel and everyday personal use. Media Contact: Meryl Rader [email protected] +1 908 5283826 SOURCE LifeStraw Related Links http://www.lifestraw.com WASHINGTON, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Yesterday, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick appeared on Washington Watch with Tony Perkins, a national radio show which airs on more than 240 stations across the country. On the show, the Lieutenant Governor discussed the Texas Women's Privacy Act (SB 6), which will protect women and children. The bill prevents public schools, state government agencies, and political subdivisions from adopting policies that would open women's showers, bathrooms, and changing facilities to men and visa-versa. It also prevents political subdivisions from forcing private entities, including contractors, to open their showers, locker rooms and bathrooms to people of the opposite sex. It leaves private entities free to determine their own policies regarding the use of shared bathrooms and showers. Lt. Gov. Patrick responded to critics of the bill and dismissed a report issued by Texas Association of Business. "We have some of these business organizations who have been misled and they've taken these positions based on erroneous business projections," said Patrick. "In the case of Texas we have the TAB (Texas Association of Business) that put out this report that if we pass this bill, this common sense legislation, that is all about public safety, that it will cost the state of Texas somewhere between $960 million and $9 billion." He went on to explain "We talked about that issue and then we talked about the real evidence we have. We're the only big city in America that's held a vote on this issue. That was in Houston two years ago. When black, white, and brown churches came together, in a heavy democrat city, and turned back an ordinance that would allow men in ladies rooms, by 61 to 39 percent. And since then I can't find anyone who can name one business that didn't come to Houston because the voters stood up for the right thing. The Super Bowl was played there Sunday; we've had big NCAA tournaments. In other words, zero economic impact. So we're dispelling that whole myth that passing laws like this has a negative impact." Lt. Gov. Patrick went on to discuss Texans' backing of this bill, "The support is obviously strong with Republicans, but it's also strong with Democrats. And in fact, there are two different polls. One poll has African Americans and Hispanics in the mid-sixties who are supportive of keeping men out of ladies rooms and not having children shower together in schools and share locker rooms and bathrooms. The other poll had them in the seventies." Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, the host of Washington Watch, added, "Seventy-seven percent of the people surveyed about SB 6, the bill we're talking about, support it! They want it! They believe that their daughters and their wives and their mothers should be protected when they go into a public facility," concluded Perkins. To listen to the full interview, click this link: https://soundcloud.com/family-research-council/20170208-dan-patrick SOURCE Family Research Council Related Links http://www.frc.org CARNEGIE, Pa., Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- With the extended weather forecast calling for lows in the teens and highs in the 30's, KDKA AM reporter James Garrity, aka "The Man In A Box", will be experiencing some of the harshness of being homeless during a Pittsburgh winter first hand, during the fourth year of The Salvation Army and CBS Radio's "Man In A Box" homelessness awareness campaign. The campaign, which started as a partnership between The Salvation Army and Pittsburgh-based CBS Radio station 100.7 Star in 2014, was expanded to include promotion on KDKA AM, 93.7 The Fan, and Y108 Country in 2016. This added promotion will continue for this year's event, which will take place on February 16-17, 2017 from 6 am to 6 pm each day. Organizers are hoping that this year's event will attract even more attention as the placement of "the box", a 4 foot by 8 foot Plexiglas structure which will be James Garrity's shelter for two days, is being moved into the center of Market Square in downtown Pittsburgh. The box had previously been positioned on Highwoods Property Management's property between PPG Place Buildings # 2 and # 3 near the Mass Mutual Ice Rink. Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield, a strong supporter of The Salvation Army for many years, has been the Presenting Sponsor of "Man In A Box" since its inception, and is joined this year by Carlow University as "Brought To You By" Sponsor, as well as additional sponsors The Salvation Army Harbor Light Center, GetGo, UnitedHealthcare, First Commonwealth Bank, and Highwood Properties. In addition, many of the restaurants in Market Square have agreed to place Salvation Army countertop kettles at their businesses to collect donations for "Man In A Box" and/or disseminate information, donate a portion of proceeds, or otherwise support the effort. Other critical support comes from volunteer bell ringers from sponsoring organizations and The Salvation Army's Greater Pittsburgh Advisory Board who will brave the cold to stand at kettles encouraging the contributions of passers-by. Those wishing to volunteer can contact The Salvation Army's Divisional Fundraising Director, Lauren Brant at 412.446.1644. During the two 12-hour days of the event, radio stations 100.7 Star and Y108 Country will alternately be broadcasting live from Market Square, encouraging support of "The Man In The Box" and The Salvation Army. In "the box", Garrity will have minimal shelter and heat, and only the same food provided to the homeless by The Salvation Army. At night, the "Man In A Box" will be sleeping at The Salvation Army's Harbor Light Center, a residential treatment center for men suffering from addiction. KDKA AM will be broadcasting John McIntyre's show live from the Harbor Light Center on Thursday, February 16th where James and others will educate the public about this facility, as addiction is often a contributing factor to homelessness. The Salvation Army Emergency Disaster Services (EDS) Team will be on site at various times throughout the event to provide breakfast and lunch for James, and coffee and hot chocolate for volunteers and passers-by. "After serving as "Man In The Box" last year, and shadowing The Salvation Army's EDS crews during a homeless feeding run, I am even more committed to helping raise awareness of the issues and funds for The Salvation Army," said Garrity. "I have learned even more in preparation for this year's event, researching the problem of addiction and visiting The Salvation Army's Harbor Light Center. I am even more humbled to be are part of this important event and to share what I have learned." Over the past three years, "Man In a Box" has raised over $62,000 in support of The Salvation Army's Red Shield Campaign which benefits their Emergency Disaster Services program, Family Caring Center and Comprehensive Social Services, all of which play a role in assisting the homeless. This year's goal is $25,000. Funds will be raised through corporate donations, on-site kettle collections, and online donations made at wpa.salvationarmy.org. "I am truly grateful to James Garrity, and certainly also thank and commend CBS Radio for their continued support of The Salvation Army through this unique event," said Major Deborah Sedlar, Divisional Commander of The Salvation Army's Western PA Division. "The awareness generated through this campaign is invaluable, as are the funds that help The Salvation Army in meeting the needs of the community." The Salvation Army is dedicated to caring for the poor, feeding the hungry and educating youth. Every day, The Salvation Army attends to the needs of homeless families and their children, helping break the cycle of poverty. They respond to disasters, shelter the homeless, reunite families, and renew health to addicts. Holistic service is the goal, meeting physical, social, psychological, emotional and spiritual needs of families and individuals. Celebrating over 150 years of global service as both a church and a social service organization, The Salvation Army provides critical services in 128 countries worldwide. The 28-county Western Pennsylvania Division serves thousands of needy families through a wide variety of support services. To learn more about The Salvation Army in Western Pennsylvania, log on to www.wpa.salvationarmy.org The Salvation Army doing the most good for the most people in the most need. SOURCE The Salvation Army Western PA Division Related Links http://www.wpa.salvationarmy.org/ NEW YORK, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Mesothelioma Compensation Center says, "We are passionate about assisting a power or energy worker with mesothelioma because we know with the help of some of the nation's most skilled and capable mesothelioma attorneys, these victims really can get a better financial compensation settlement. Oil Refinery Asbestos Warning Sign "We specialize in assisting oil refinery and oil production workers with mesothelioma because we want them to get the best possible mesothelioma compensation results. We are urging an individual who now has mesothelioma because of exposure at an oil refinery or oil/gas production field to call us anytime at 800-714-0303 for on-the-spot access to some of the nation's most experienced and skilled mesothelioma attorneys. You are going to need some of the nation's very best mesothelioma lawyers if you want to receive the best possible mesothelioma compensation." http://MesotheliomaCompensationCenter.Com When the Mesothelioma Compensation Center mentions oil refinery or oil production workers, they also mean to include the construction workers that built these facilities in the 1960s and 1970s. At the top of their list are workers who built the Trans Alaska Pipeline and/or people who worked at Prudhoe Bay in Alaska. The Center says, "About 70,000 workers were involved in the construction of the Trans Alaska Pipeline in the 1970s. Many of these workers were exposed to asbestos on the job. "If you have recently been diagnosed with mesothelioma and your asbestos exposure occurred at an oil refinery, an oil production facility, or as a construction worker please call us anytime at 800-714-0303 because you deserve to have the nation's very best mesothelioma attorneysdon't settle for less." http://MesotheliomaCompensationCenter.com US Navy Veterans account for about one third of a people who will be diagnosed with mesothelioma each year. The average age for a diagnosed victim of mesothelioma is about 70 years old. The states with the highest incidence of mesothelioma include Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Louisiana, Washington, and Oregon. However, a former oil refinery or oil production worker with mesothelioma could live in any state including California, New York, Florida, Texas, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Nebraska, North Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Montana, Arizona, Idaho, and or especially Alaska. http://MesotheliomaCompensationCenter.Com The Mesothelioma Compensation Center says, "If you call us at 800-714-0303, we will see to it that you have on the spot access to the nation's most skilled mesothelioma attorneys, because these incredibly skilled legal experts consistently get the best financial compensation results for their clients on a nationwide basis." http://MesotheliomaCompensationCenter.Com The Mesothelioma Compensation Center specializes in assisting high risk workers who have been diagnosed with mesothelioma. High risk groups for exposure to asbestos include the US Navy Veterans, power plant workers, shipyard workers, oil refinery workers, public utility workers, chemical plant workers, nuclear power plant workers, hydro-electric workers, plumbers, electricians, welders, or machinists. In most instances people with mesothelioma were exposed to asbestos in the 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, or 1980's. For more information about mesothelioma please refer to the National Institutes of Health's web site related to this rare form of cancer: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/mesothelioma.html Media Contact: Michael Thomas [email protected] 800-714-0303 SOURCE Mesothelioma Compensation Center Related Links http://MesotheliomaCompensationCenter.Com LONDON, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Mica is primarily used as insulator, pigment extender, and filler in electronics, paints & coatings, construction, cosmetics, and other (rubber, plastics, etc.) industries. It is light, relatively soft, and flexible kind of product with dielectric, hydrophilic, insulating, and elastic properties. It occurs in different forms and grades. The report estimates and forecasts the mica market on the global, regional, and country levels. The study provides forecast between 2016 and 2024 based on volume (tons) and revenue (US$ Mn) with 2015 as the base year. The report comprises an exhaustive value chain analysis for each of the product segments. It provides a comprehensive view of the market. Value chain analysis also offers detailed information about value addition at each stage. The study includes drivers and restraints for the mica market along with their impact on demand during the forecast period. The study also provides key market indicators affecting the growth of the market. The report analyzes opportunities in the mica market on the global and regional level. Drivers, restraints, and opportunities mentioned in the report are justified through quantitative and qualitative data. These have been verified through primary and secondary resources. Furthermore, the report analyzes substitute analysis of mica and global average price trend analysis. The report includes Porter's Five Forces Model to determine the degree of competition in the mica market. The report comprises a qualitative write-up on market attractiveness analysis, wherein end-users and countries have been analyzed based on attractiveness for each region. Growth rate, market size, raw material availability, profit margin, impact strength, technology, competition, and other factors (such as environmental and legal) have been evaluated in order to derive the general attractiveness of the market. The report comprises price trend analysis for mica between 2016 and 2024. The study provides a comprehensive view of the mica market by dividing it into end-user and geography segments. The mica market has been segmented into paints & coatings, electronics, construction, cosmetics, and others based on end-user. End-user segments have been analyzed based on historic, present, and future trends. Regional segmentation includes the current and forecast demand for mica in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa (MEA). Additionally, the report comprises country-level analysis in terms of volume and revenue for end-user segments. Key countries such as the U.S., Germany, France, the U.K., Spain, Italy, India, China, South Africa, Mexico, and Brazil have been included in the study. Market segmentation includes demand for individual end-users in all the regions and countries. The report covers detailed competitive outlook that includes market share and profiles of key players operating in the global market. Key players profiled in the report include Asheville-Schoonmaker Mica Company, The Premier Mica Company, Santa Fe Gold Corporation and Gunpatroy Pvt. Ltd. Company profiles include attributes such as company overview, number of employees, brand overview, key competitors, business overview, business strategies, recent/key developments, acquisitions, and financial overview (wherever applicable). Secondary research sources that were typically referred to include, but were not limited to company websites, financial reports, annual reports, investor presentations, broker reports, and SEC filings. Other sources such as internal and external proprietary databases, statistical databases and market reports, news articles, national government documents, and webcasts specific to companies operating in the market have also been referred for the report. In-depth interviews and discussions with a wide range of key opinion leaders and industry participants were conducted to compile this research report. Primary research represents the bulk of research efforts, supplemented by extensive secondary research. Key players' product literature, annual reports, press releases, and relevant documents were reviewed for competitive analysis and market understanding. This helped in validating and strengthening secondary research findings. Primary research further helped in developing the analysis team's expertise and market understanding. The global mica market has been segmented as follows: Mica Market - Form Analysis Natural Synthetic Mica Market - Grade Analysis Ground Mica Sheet Mica Built-up Mica Mica Market - End-user Analysis Paints & Coatings Electronics Construction Cosmetics Others (Rubber, Plastics, etc.) Mica Market - Regional Analysis North America U.S. Canada Europe Germany France U.K. Italy Spain Rest of Europe Asia Pacific China India Japan ASEAN Rest of Asia Pacific Middle East & Africa GCC Egypt South Africa Rest of Middle East & Africa Latin America Brazil Mexico Rest of Latin America Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4268688/ About Reportbuyer Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers http://www.reportbuyer.com For more information: Sarah Smith Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com Email: [email protected] Tel: +44 208 816 85 48 Website: www.reportbuyer.com SOURCE ReportBuyer Related Links http://www.reportbuyer.com CHICAGO, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Miller Lite wants to give $100,000 to fund the next big idea. Miller Lite Tap the Future returns, celebrating its 5th year and is searching for innovators with an unwavering commitment to making their dream a reality. As the creator of the light beer category, Miller Lite, annually sponsors the competition to empower entrepreneurs to hold true to their innovative business ideas. The competition provides business owners the opportunity to pitch live in front of Daymond John from ABC's Shark Tank and a panel of national judges for a chance at the cash grand prize. Beginning today, entrepreneurs can submit applications to be entered into the three-phase competition: Entry: February 9 through April 14, 2017 , entrepreneurs 21 and older can apply by submitting their business information at MLTaptheFuture.com. Top ranked businesses will receive expert coaching and an invitation to compete at future live pitch events. , entrepreneurs 21 and older can apply by submitting their business information at MLTaptheFuture.com. Top ranked businesses will receive expert coaching and an invitation to compete at future live pitch events. Live Pitch: Twenty-five semi-finalists will be selected to compete in five regional live pitch events in Atlanta , Houston , Los Angeles , Chicago and New York throughout the month of July. Daymond John and a panel of expert judges will select one business in each city to win $20,000 and advance to the national finals. Twenty-five semi-finalists will be selected to compete in five regional live pitch events in , , , and throughout the month of July. and a panel of expert judges will select one business in each city to win and advance to the national finals. Finals: Five finalists will present before a panel of executive judges in Chicago in September, where one company will win the $100,000 grand prize. "Tap the Future is a phenomenal opportunity for entrepreneurs to gain access to essential expert advice and funding," said Daymond John. "For those who have made the commitment to dedicate their life to a business idea; this program offers the practical and inspirational resources to achieve their goals. If you're a serious entrepreneur in need of a jumpstart to your business, I highly recommend applying for the Tap the Future competition." In its five-year history, Tap the Future has awarded more than $1 million in equity-free capital to entrepreneurs from around the country. Alumni of the program have gone on to achieve great success generating millions in the marketplace and creating jobs. Most recently, Santa Fe, New Mexico based company, HoneyMoon Brewery was awarded the Tap the Future grand prize. Led by co-founders Ayla Bystrom-Williams and James Hill, HoneyMoon Brewery produces a probiotic Kombucha tea with a touch of alcohol. "Miller Lite Tap the Future provides entrepreneurs with the support and resources to help them succeed in business," said Steve Canal, MillerCoors national community affairs. "As a company, we understand what it means to stick by an idea, and bring it to fruition, even when no one has done it before. We're celebrating and encouraging those cutting-edge visionaries to fully commit themselves and hold true to their vision to take their business to another level. And that's the purpose of this program; to let entrepreneurs know that despite adversity, you never give up, and success is waiting" For official rules and more information, visit www.MLTaptheFuture.com. About MillerCoors Through its diverse collection of storied breweries, MillerCoors brings American beer drinkers an unmatched selection of the highest quality beers, flavored malt beverages and ciders, steeped in centuries of brewing heritage. Miller Brewing Company and Coors Brewing Company brew national favorites such as Miller Lite, Miller High Life, Coors Light and Coors Banquet. MillerCoors also proudly offers beers such as Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy from sixth-generation Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company, and Blue Moon Belgian White from modern craft pioneer Blue Moon Brewing Company, founded in 1995. Beyond beer, MillerCoors operates Crispin Cider Company, an artisanal maker of pear and apple ciders using fresh-pressed American juice, and offers pioneering brands such as the Redd's franchise, Smith & Forge Hard Cider and Henry's Hard Sodas. Tenth and Blake Beer Company, our craft and import division, is the home to craft brewers Hop Valley Brewing, Revolver Brewing, Saint Archer Brewing Company and the Terrapin Beer Company. Tenth and Blake also imports world-renowned beers such as Italy's Peroni Nastro Azzurro, the Czech Republic's Pilsner Urquell and the Netherlands' Grolsch. MillerCoors, the U.S. business unit of the Molson Coors Brewing Company, has an uncompromising dedication to quality, a keen focus on innovation and a deep commitment to sustainability. Learn more at MillerCoors.com, at facebook.com/MillerCoors or on Twitter at @MillerCoors. SOURCE MillerCoors Related Links http://www.MillerCoors.com SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Madison Reed, a prestige hair color brand, today announced that Heidi Dorosin has joined the executive team as Chief Marketing Officer. Dorosin's appointment is the latest news from the digital retailer, which recently opened the Madison Reed Color Bar in Manhattan its first physical location signaling a new phase in the company's commitment to an omnichannel marketing strategy. Heidi Dorosin, Chief Marketing Officer, Madison Reed Dorosin arrives at Madison Reed with 18 years of experience marketing to women across a number of categories in highly competitive sectors. Most recently at Clorox, Dorosin served as a business unit General Manager and Vice President of Marketing, with a combined responsibility for $1.5 billion in business sales. Tasked with modernizing the brand and creating affinity among millennials, Dorosin led Clorox's award-winning "Bleachable Moments" marketing platform, the most successful and long-lasting marketing initiative in the brand's history. "Heidi is a well-rounded senior executive who knows how to drive revenue and innately understands CPG and omnichannel marketing," said Amy Errett, CEO and co-founder of Madison Reed. "Not to mention the fact that she had me at hello. When we spoke for the first time, it was clear Heidi had a synergistic understanding of why Madison Reed exists, the essence of our brand, and what we're trying to do." As CMO, Dorosin will help grow the business substantially in 2017 as the company launches new products, continues to grow its relationships with retail partners Sephora and QVC, and opens new store locations that will enable customers to have an immersive brand experience. "The philosophy behind Madison Reed spoke to me on a deeply personal level. I believe that all women should demand gorgeous hair and an experience that respects their time, wallet and health," Dorosin said. "Amy's vision is shared by every single person at Madison Reed, and I feel privileged to work at a company devoted to empowering women and giving them what they deserve." Many more women will be introduced to that message this year. "We will continue to make our customers our highest priority and keep the brand authentic, but we also have an aggressive goal to double revenue," Errett said. "That's a challenge, but it's also a massive opportunity. Heidi is uniquely qualified to navigate those waters." Dorosin holds a bachelor's and master's degree from Stanford University and a master's of business administration from Harvard University. About Madison Reed: Madison Reed is a San Francisco, California-based company disrupting the $50 billion hair care industry by using technology in creative ways to make the at-home hair color experience a more luxurious, fearless, happy process. The direct-to-consumer line has quickly become recognized as a category leader thanks to a nutrient-rich hair color formula crafted without ammonia, parabens, resorcinol, PPD, phthalates, and gluten the irritating chemicals typically found in hair color. The entire line of color products is enriched with argan oil, keratin, and ginseng root. In addition to salon-quality hair color, delivered on a flexible schedule, Madison Reed offers additional products to perfect, protect, and prolong hair color. Madison Reed empowers the modern woman to look and feel her best, with support from expert colorists, plus 24/7 color recommendations. Go to www.Madison-Reed.com for more information, or visit the Madison Reed Color Bar in Manhattan. Contact: Nora Murray 419-250-0016 SOURCE Madison Reed Related Links http://www.madison-reed.com FORT WORTH, Texas, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC) will celebrate Women in Construction (WIC) Week March 5-11, 2017. WIC Week is the most important date on the NAWIC calendar. This week helps NAWIC advance its mission to enhance the success of women in the construction industry. "NAWIC has enhanced the success of women in the industry for more than 62 years. We are proud to highlight contributions of women to the industry during Women in Construction Week," said NAWIC President Connie M. Leipard, CIT. Connie M. Leipard, CIT, is the 2016-2017 President of the National Association of Women in Construction. The focus of WIC Week is to highlight women as a visible component of the construction industry. It is also a time for local chapters to give back to their communities. WIC Week provides an occasion for NAWIC's thousands of members across the country to raise awareness of the opportunities available for women in the construction industry and to emphasize the growing role of women in the industry. "Women work in every facet of construction in critically important roles," said Leipard. "NAWIC's goal during WIC week is to raise awareness and visibility of the women in these roles. This increased visibility will promote the recruitment of more women and encourage others to start careers in construction. This will ultimately ease the workforce shortage in the industry." NAWIC chapters across the nation will celebrate WIC Week with a wide variety of activities. Community service projects, jobsite tours, membership drives, children's activities, hands-on workshops, fundraisers and school programs are some of the ways local chapters will observe WIC Week. Local chapters are also appealing to their local, state and national representatives to issue official WIC Week proclamations. Visit www.nawic.org to locate a NAWIC chapter near you. Founded in Fort Worth, Texas in 1955, NAWIC is an international association serving 125 chapters in the United States. NAWIC also has affiliates in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom. To learn more about NAWIC, visit www.nawic.org. For more information, please contact Communications Director Autumn Daughetee at (800) 552-3506. Media Contact: Autumn Daughetee 817-877-5551 [email protected] SOURCE National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC) Related Links http://www.nawic.org LOS ALTOS, Calif., Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Netskope, the leader in cloud security, today announced that it has partnered with Viptela, the software-defined WAN company, to address today's enterprise cloud connectivity and security challenges. This integration enables joint customers to marry the benefits of a unified WAN for on-premise and cloud applications provided by Viptela with the robust security assurances of Netskope's CASB solution. New applications and cloud service models are shifting traffic patterns within the enterprise. Today, the majority of traffic flows to public cloud services and the Internet. This creates security challenges since traditional perimeter security solutions provide limited visibility into cloud threats. Viptela's technologies for virtualizing the WAN allow enterprises to modernize and optimize their infrastructure for agility and high performance, while the Netskope cloud security platform provides customers safely enabled direct internet access from the branch without sacrificing their security. The Viptela Secure Extensible Network (SEN) dramatically decreases WAN infrastructure costs and application performance issues, helping make it the largest deployed SD-WAN solution among Fortune-1000 enterprises. Viptela SEN provides the following advantages: Reduces deployment times for new applications by 75 percent Boosts application performance by 2x to 5x Cuts WAN operational costs by 50 percent in typical deployments The Netskope cloud-scale security platform uses patented technology to provide context-aware governance of all cloud usage in the enterprise in real time, whether accessed from the corporate network, remotely, or even from a mobile app or sync client. This means that security professionals can understand risky activities, protect sensitive data, stop online threats, and respond to incidents in a way that fits how people work today. "We are excited to partner with Viptela to enable Fortune 500 customers to enable new network and security architectures that enable secure access to cloud services," said Amol Kabe, VP Emerging Products, Netskope. "Netskope is about allowing the enterprise to safely enable their users to work no matter where they are. Security that follows the user and protects the enterprises' most critical assets whether on premises or off premises is now possible." "We are pleased to be partnering with Netskope and providing Viptela customers with a valuable additional layer of security for cloud application and Internet usage," said Paul Kohler, Director of Technical Alliances for Viptela. "The Viptela SD-WAN platform enables enterprises to achieve the same response time and user experience for cloud applications as they enjoy for on-premise IT resources. This partnership also allows them to benefit from Netskope cloud-scale security on Viptela WANs." Resources Learn more about how the industry's most advanced Cloud DLP Solution, Netskope Active Cloud DLP helps protect sensitive company data from leaks and breaches Visit the Netskope Hub for the latest commentary and insight on trends from the Netskope team Download the January 2017 Netskope Cloud Report for the latest on enterprise cloud service usage trends, including top DLP violations by type and industry Netskope Cloud Report for the latest on enterprise cloud service usage trends, including top DLP violations by type and industry Learn more about the Viptela Netskope partnership here at the Viptela Technology Alliances page: http://viptela.com/technology-alliances/ About Netskope Netskope is the leader in cloud security. Using patented technology, Netskope's cloud-scale security platform provides context-aware governance of all cloud usage in the enterprise in real time, whether accessed from the corporate network, remote, or from a mobile device. This means that security professionals can understand risky activities, protect sensitive data, stop online threats, and respond to incidents in a way that fits how people work today. With granular security policies, the most advanced cloud DLP, and unmatched breadth of workflows, Netskope is trusted by the largest companies in the world. Netskope security evolved. To learn more, visit our website. About Viptela Viptela provides Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) technology that virtualizes WAN infrastructure. The platform allows global companies to build carrier agnostic, policy-controlled and cost-effective WANs. Viptela has been deployed at thousands of sites by more than 25 Fortune 500 enterprises; and major carriers including Verizon and Singtel are using Viptela to deliver managed SD-WAN services. The company has been named a Next Billion Dollar Startup by Forbes, 2016 Red Herring Global 100 Company and CRN Tech Innovator. Viptela is backed by Redline Capital, Northgate Capital and Sequoia Capital. For more information, visit: viptela.com or follow us on Twitter @viptela. Media Contact Matt Coolidge Bateman Group for Netskope 347-410-7974 [email protected] SOURCE Netskope Related Links http://www.netskope.com IRVINE, Calif., Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Netwrix Corporation, the first vendor to introduce a visibility and governance platform for hybrid cloud security, today announced strong 2016 results: 69% growth in the enterprise sector and 40% growth in global revenue compared to 2015. Netwrix also reported substantial growth across North America, France, Asia Pacific and other regions, and market leadership expansion all by winning customer loyalty, upgrading the Netwrix Auditor platform and gaining recognition from IT industry experts. Market Momentum "2016 will be marked as a notorious year for the largest data breaches in history so far, from Yahoo and LinkedIn to FriendFinder Networks. Hardly anything will change in 2017: Hacking techniques will continue to evolve, forcing companies to be more vigilant and search for new ways to protect sensitive information. To address this market demand, Netwrix will continue to focus on providing visibility and user behavior analytics to organizations of all sizes to help them gain better control over activity across their complex IT environments," said Michael Fimin, CEO and co-founder of Netwrix. Netwrix reports 66% revenue increase in Q4 2016 compared to Q4 2015. The company has also achieved success in the enterprise sector: 69% YoY growth in enterprise sales and 40% growth across the globe. Netwrix demonstrated 60% increase in channel sales compared to 2015. Netwrix also showed 73% growth in Asia Pacific , 91% growth in Italy , 55% in the DACH region, 41% growth in the U.S. and unprecedented 455% growth in France . , 91% growth in , 55% in the DACH region, 41% growth in the U.S. and unprecedented 455% growth in . In April 2016 , the company launched Netwrix Auditor 8.0 with support for hybrid cloud environments. In October 2016 , it released Netwrix Auditor 8.5, which further extends visibility into hybrid cloud infrastructures and enables detection and investigation of abnormal user behavior. "Netwrix Auditor has helped us on a number of occasions to proactively deal with potential security incidents, such as a sub-contractor's violation of permissions, and minimize user impact on our security," said John Adams, IT Director, Washington County Information Systems Department. "Netwrix Auditor's reports and the Interactive Search feature provide detailed information about issues and enable the team to resolve them faster, before they impact user productivity and stifle business activity. Now we can easily identify anomalies and coordinate with IT staff to understand whether they were planned or might be problematic." In 2016, Netwrix experienced considerable revenue increase across several applications, including Netwrix Auditor for SharePoint (214%), Netwrix Auditor for VMware (153%) and Netwrix Auditor for SQL Server (139%). Netwrix added a number of high-profile clients to its customer base, including Precision Castparts Corp., Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Builders Choice, Yale New Haven Hospital and Atlantic Aviation. Partnerships and integrations Netwrix established partnerships with Runexy ( Japan ), e92plus (UK) and UBM (Benelux) to proactively address local market needs for security and compliance. ), e92plus (UK) and UBM (Benelux) to proactively address local market needs for security and compliance. Netwrix extended the support of hybrid and cloud environments by announcing integration with Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services. In addition to its HP ArcSight certification, Netwrix announced integration with other leading SIEM systems (Splunk, IBM QRadar, Solarwinds LEM, Intel Security, LogRhythm and Alien Vault USM) to help customers fully leverage their existing IT security ecosystems. Netwrix launched its one-of-a-kind Add-on Store to ensure smooth integration with an unlimited number of IT systems and applications. Industry recognition Netwrix carried out several industry surveys that exposed the major problems of IT pros: The 2016 Netwrix Visibility Survey revealed that 75% of organizations have limited visibility into their IT environments and 67% of companies lack insight into user activities. The 2016 IT Risks Survey found that less than 17% of organizations are confident about their ability to beat cyber risks. The 2016 Cloud Security Survey showed that 70% of organizations are concerned about the security and privacy of data and systems in the cloud. Netwrix appeared in the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing companies, and received Five-Time Honoree recognition for being on the list for the fifth consecutive year. Netwrix was named a finalist in the 2017 SC Awards U.S. in two categories Best Regulatory Compliance Solution and Best Database Security Solution for the second year in a row. Netwrix Auditor was selected as a finalist in the Best Compliance/Vulnerability Assessment Solution category of GSN's 2016 Homeland Security Awards. Netwrix exhibited at major industry events, including RSA Conference, Microsoft Ignite, Gartner Security and Risk Management Summit and Infosecurity Europe. About Netwrix Corporation Netwrix Corporation was the first vendor to introduce a visibility and governance platform for hybrid cloud security. More than 160,000 IT departments worldwide rely on Netwrix to detect insider threats on premises and in the cloud, pass compliance audits with less effort and expense, and increase productivity of IT security and operations teams. Founded in 2006, Netwrix has earned more than 100 industry awards and been named to both the Inc. 5000 and Deloitte Technology Fast 500 lists of the fastest growing companies in the U.S. For more information, visit www.netwrix.com. CONTACT: Erin Jones Avista PR for Netwrix P: 704.664.2170 E: [email protected] SOURCE Netwrix Corporation Related Links http://www.netwrix.com LONDON, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Over 520 delegates will gather in Cape Town, South Africa, for the 8th annual Argus FMB Africa Fertilizer conference, taking place on 15-17 February 2017, bringing the biggest conference of its kind to southern Africa for the first time. The conference is organised by leading commodity price reporting, consulting and events company Argus. Two major industry initiatives will be launched at the conference the African Fertilizer Access Index (TAFAI) being developed by the Africa Fertilizer and Agribusiness Partnership (AFAP), and an annual report on fertilizer consumption in Africa prepared by the International Fertilizer Association (IFA). TAFAI is a scorecard for the enabling environment for fertilizers in particular national markets that is, the extent to which a range of political and economic factors support the objective of increasing farmers' access to fertilizer. It does this by measuring and weighting the following seven indicators research and development, fertilizer quality, industry competitiveness, market access, services to smallholder farmers, fertilizer policy, and regulations and institutional support. Through the use of TAFAI, countries can establish their baselines and monitor their progress. The conference agenda features over 30 speakers who will seek ways to increase African farmers' access to fertilizer and consequently to boost agricultural yields across the continent. "We have been running this conference for many years," Argus Media chief executive and publisher Adrian Binks said, "but in the last 12 months we have seen a big surge in interest, in line with a renewal of political will to bring transformative changes to African agriculture. Cape Town is proving to be a very popular location and we are expecting our biggest ever attendance." The lead sponsor of the conference, fertilizer producer OCP Africa, has recently announced a string of new investments, establishing a presence in a number of new locations across Africa. OCP Africa chief executive Karim Lofti Senhadji will give a keynote speech at the conference, which will be opened by the vice-president of agriculture, human and social development of the African Development Bank, Dr Jennifer Blanke. The conference is supported by IFA, AFAP, IFDC, AfricaFertilizer.Org, FERTASA and One Acre Fund, which are all actively involved in promoting fertilizer use in southern Africa. The agenda will focus on improving access to and increasing consumption of fertilizers and building meaningful supply chain partnerships in Africa. Delegates will hear from speakers from the private and public sectors discussing how to create enabling environments for fertilizer supply and distribution, improve access to finance and develop infrastructure that in turn will broaden intra-Africa trade, increase fertilizer consumption across the continent, and ultimately boost agricultural productivity. "Argus FMB Africa Fertilizer has become known as the event that brings together the most important players in the global fertilizer trade with all the links in the African supply chain," Argus vice-president, conferences, David Monaghan said. "We draw delegates from 63 countries, of which 23 are African, and this number is increasing every year, as we build on our commitment to increase access to the conference for the small-to-medium enterprises that are crucial to delivering appropriate and effective fertilizers to African farmers." Argus conferences have provided opportunities to address issues of policy and regulation and uncover emerging trends in the fertilizer markets for over 30 years. They also provide a platform to meet and do business with leading global producers, traders and distributors. Conference banner: http://view.argusmedia.com/rs/584-BUW-606/images/FMBAfricaEmailBanner2.jpg Argus logo: http://www.argusmedia.com/cms_images/argus-logo.png For more information about Argus FMB Africa Fertilizer 2017: Meeting dates: 15 -17 February 2017 Venue: The Westin Cape Town, South Africa Contact: Laura Monk, Conference Marketing Manager Tel: +44 (0) 20 7780 4352 Email: [email protected] Visit: www.argusmedia.com/fertilizer-africa About Argus Media Argus is an independent media organisation with more than 800 staff. It is headquartered in London and has 21 offices in the world's principal commodity trading and production centres. Argus produces price assessments and analysis of international energy and other commodity markets, and offers bespoke consulting services and industry-leading conferences. Companies in 140 countries around the world use Argus data to index physical trade and as benchmarks in financial derivative markets as well as for analysis and planning purposes. Argus was founded in 1970 and is a privately held UK-registered company. It is owned by staff shareholders and global growth equity firm General Atlantic. In 2011 Argus purchased FMB Consultants Ltd (FMB), a provider of price reporting, market intelligence and events to the global fertilizer industry. ARGUS, the ARGUS logo, ARGUS MEDIA, ARGUS DIRECT, ARGUS OPEN MARKETS, AOM, FMB, DEWITT, JIM JORDAN & ASSOCIATES, JJ&A, FUNDALYTICS, METAL-PAGES, METALPRICES.COM, Argus publication titles and Argus index names are trademarks of Argus Media Limited. SOURCE Argus Media Related Links http://www.argusmedia.com LONDON, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- This research study analyzes the market for nickel alloy welding consumables in terms of revenue (US$ Bn) and volume (kilo tons). The nickel alloy welding consumables market has been segmented on the basis of product, alloy type, welding technology, end use applications, and geography. The geographical segmentation includes regions, which are further divided into 20 countries. The report features a detailed regional segmentation with market growth forecasts for the period between 2016 and 2024. For the research, 2015 has been considered as the base year and 2016 the estimated year, while all forecasts have been given for the period from 2016 to 2024. Market data for all the segments has been provided at the regional and country-specific levels from 2016 to 2024. The report provides a broad competitive analysis of companies engaged in the development of nickel alloy welding consumables. The report also includes key market dynamics such as the drivers, restraints, and opportunities affecting the global nickel alloy welding consumables market. These market dynamics are analyzed in detail and are illustrated in the report with the help of supporting graphs and tables. The report also provides a comprehensive analysis of the market with the help of the Porter's Five Forces Analysis model, which helps in understanding the five major forces that affect the structure and profitability of the global nickel alloy welding consumables market. The forces analyzed are the bargaining power of buyers, the bargaining power of suppliers, the threat of new entrants, the threat of substitutes, and the degree of competition. The high-level analysis in the report provides detailed insights into the nickel alloy welding consumables business globally. There are currently numerous drivers for the market. The most prominent drivers include rapid growth in various industries such as transportation and power and the increasing use of nickel and its alloys. With nickel finding applications in renewable energy including wind and solar energy, the nickel alloy welding consumables market may find new avenues for demand generation. Lack of skilled workers and knowledge about the use of welding technologies and welding consumables might act as restraints for the consumable market. Market attractiveness analysis and comparison analysis was carried out for the nickel alloy welding consumables market on the basis of product, alloy, technology, application, region, and country. Market attractiveness was estimated on the basis of common parameters that directly impact the market. The global nickel alloy welding consumables market has been segmented on the basis of products into stick electrodes and wires. By welding technology, the market has been segmented into shielded metal arc welding, gas metal arc welding, gas tungsten arc welding, flux cored arc welding, and submerged arc welding. By alloy type, the market has been segmented into monel alloys, inconel alloys, and other alloys. Furthermore, the nickel alloy welding consumables market has been segmented by various end-use applications including oil & gas, power, construction, marine, and other applications. Other applications consist of the transportation and manufacturing sector. Applications such as transportation and manufacturing are expected to occupy a leading share in the nickel alloy welding consumable market. In terms of geography, the market has been segmented into five regions: North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East & Africa, and Latin America. China is expected to remain the dominant market in the nickel alloy welding consumables with market for nickel alloy welding consumables reaching 417.74 kilo tons by 2024. GCC countries are anticipated to show a significant growth rate of 7.14% in the period between 2016 and 2024. The rapid development in infrastructure and trading activities in the emerging economies of the region, such as Latin America, Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa, will boost the market for nickel alloy welding consumables. Key players in the nickel alloy welding consumables market are Ador Welding Ltd., Colfax Corporation, Illinois Tool Works, Inc., Kobe Steel, Ltd., Lincoln Electric Holdings, Inc., MEC Holding GmbH, Sandvik Materials Technology AB, Special Metal Corporation, Tianjin Golden Bridge Welding Materials Group Co., Ltd., and voestalpine Bohler Welding GmbH. Other players included are Arcos Industries, LLC, Berkenhoff GmbH, Cor-Met Inc., Kunshan Gintune Welding Co., Ltd., Lin'an Dayang Welding Material Co., Ltd., Oxford Alloys, Inc., Ramtec Welding Products Limited, Senor Metals Pvt. Ltd., and Weld Mold Company. Nickel alloy welding consumables market: By Product Stick Electrodes Wires Nickel alloy welding consumables market: By Technology Shielded Metal Arc Welding Gas Metal Arc Welding Gas Tungsten Arc Welding Flux Cored Arc Welding Submerged Arc Welding Nickel alloy welding consumables market: By Alloy Type Monel Alloys Inconel Alloys Other Alloys Nickel alloy welding consumables market: By Application Oil & Gas Power Construction Marine Other Applications Nickel alloy welding consumables market: By Region North America The U.S. Canada Europe Germany France The U.K. Italy Spain Rest of Europe Asia Pacific China Japan India ASEAN Rest of Asia Pacific Middle East & Africa GCC Egypt South Africa Rest of Middle East and Africa Latin America Brazil Mexico Rest of Latin America Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4268675/ About Reportbuyer Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers http://www.reportbuyer.com For more information: Sarah Smith Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com Email: [email protected] Tel: +44 208 816 85 48 Website: www.reportbuyer.com SOURCE ReportBuyer Related Links http://www.reportbuyer.com PINEVILLE, La., Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- On Wednesday, Feb. 8, Darren Olagues resigned as president and CEO of Cleco Corporate Holdings LLC and Cleco Power LLC, the company's regulated electric utility. "The board thanks him for his many contributions to Cleco over the years," said Peggy Scott, Cleco board chair. The Cleco board will begin a search for a permanent successor to Mr. Olagues. The search is expected to take up to 12 months. While the search is underway, the board has asked Scott, its chair, to assume the role of interim CEO of Cleco Corporate Holdings. Scott, of Baton Rouge, recently retired as the executive vice president, chief operating officer, chief financial officer/treasurer of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana, the state's largest health insurer. The board appointed William "Bill" Fontenot, Cleco's chief operating officer, interim CEO of Cleco Power. During Fontenot's 30 years of Cleco service, he managed the development and restructuring efforts of generation projects valued at over $900 million, as well as led the development and construction of a $1 billion power plant. In the last five years, he has been responsible for operating the company's generation, transmission and distribution assets. Both appointments are effective immediately. Cleco is a regional energy company that conducts substantially all of its business operation through its primary subsidiary, Cleco Power. Cleco Power is a regulated electric utility company that owns nine generating units with a total nameplate capacity of 3,310 MWs and serves approximately 287,000 customers in Louisiana through its retail business and supplies wholesale power in Louisiana and Mississippi. Media Contact: Robbyn Cooper 318-484-7136 SOURCE Cleco Corporate Holdings LLC CINCINNATI, Feb. 09, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Unker's brand of therapeutic products is sponsoring professional race car driver Matt Wallace in the 2017 World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing, an annual racing event held at New Smyrna Speedway in New Smyrna Beach, FL. The Smyrna races are scheduled to begin February 17 and continue through NASCAR's Speedweek, the sport's annual series of season-kickoff events held in Daytona, FL, leading up to the marquee Daytona 500 race on February 26. Wallace will be racing the black and green #6 Unker's car at New Smyrna. If the Wallace name seems familiar, it should be where racing is involved. Matt Wallace is the son of NASCAR driver Mike Wallace and nephew of NASCAR drivers Rusty and Kenny Wallace. In addition, Matt's sister Chrissy and cousin Steve are also stock car racing drivers. At the age of nine, the now 21-year old racer from Concord, North Carolina started racing Bandoleros, which are smaller sized stock cars for entry-level drivers. These days Wallace can be found behind the wheel of full-sized and full-speed Super Late Model cars. Unker's is a multi-purpose therapeutic salve manufactured in Upton, Wyoming by Olde Tyme Remedies, a Cincinnati, Ohio company operated by second generation owner Patricia Pendleton. The company also makes a spray version of the product, called NATURub. Both brands of pain relievers are made with all-natural ingredients and are 100% sourced and made in the USA. The products are sold nationwide at independent pharmacies and specialty retailers, as well as online. This will not be the first time that the Unker's brand logo has been emblazened on the outer shell of a Wallace-driven race car. Through business connections, Ms. Pendleton met driver Mike Wallace which led to Unker's sponsorship of Wallace's #28 car during the 2014 NASCAR Nationwide Series race in Daytona. About Olde Tyme Remedies and Unker's Olde Tyme Remedies, LLC, manufactures and markets therapeutic pain remedies to consumers everywhere. Since 1982, Unker's salve and its spray version, NATURub, have been 100% sourced and manufactured in the USA, made of the purest essential oils. The variety of aches and pains for which consumers have Olde Tyme Remedies is a second generation privately held, woman owned company headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. For more information on Olde Tyme Remedies and Unker's, please call 307.468.2843 or visit http://www.unkers.com. For media/press inquiries, please contact: Andrew Ferrigno, 307.468.2843, [email protected] SOURCE Unker's Related Links http://www.unkers.com Partnership has grown from a successful commercial G.fast deployment to a reseller model for next generation ultra-broadband access in the country Tokyo, Japan - Nokia has signed a distributor agreement with Energia Communications (EneCom) to sell its G.fast fixed ultra-broadband access technology in Japan. EneCom, Nokia's first customer for next-generation broadband access technology in the country, will now become the reseller for the fixed access technology, making it available nationwide across Japan. G.fast is a technology that delivers customers fiber-like speeds over copper cable over short distances, such as, for instance, in apartment buildings with no fiber connections. The new service in EneCom's portfolio will enable the company to expand its business and interests in the utility service provider space by offering a fast, easy and economical way to replace traditional VDSL2 technology and offer subscribers a choice of higher speed access packages. Satoshi Kumagai, CEO of Energia Communications, said: "Ten months ago we became Nokia's first G.fast technology customer in Japan and one of the first customers worldwide. We have been very happy with the service and have complete trust in Nokia's capability and strengths of its fixed access business, which is why we decided to take the relationship forward as a successful business partnership/reseller model." Jae Won, head of Nokia in Japan, said: "This strategic partnership with EneCom will increase G.fast deployments in Japan, providing real benefits to subscribers who might otherwise be unable to enjoy ultra-broadband speeds. Japan is a very important market to us, and we look forward to a successful venture that will boost local economies." Did you know? G.fast relies on Nokia Bell Labs' vectoring technology to cancel crosstalk and make broadband even faster. Nokia leads in innovation and holds world speed records using Bell Labs' XG-FAST technology, demonstrating speeds 10Gbps on a single copper pair. Resources: Connect with Nokia: About Nokia Nokia is a global leader in creating the technologies at the heart of our connected world. Powered by the research and innovation of Nokia Bell Labs, we serve communications service providers, governments, large enterprises and consumers, with the industry's most complete, end-to-end portfolio of products, services and licensing. From the enabling infrastructure for 5G and the Internet of Things, to emerging applications in virtual reality and digital health, we are shaping the future of technology to transform the human experience. www.nokia.com Media Enquiries: Nokia Japan Communications Takanobu Hori Phone: +81 80 5686 4643 E-mail: takanobu.hori@nokia.com LONDON, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Global Oleate Esters Market: Overview Oleate Esters are known as the esters or salts of oleic acids. Esters are synthesized by the reaction between alcohol and oleic acids in presence of catalysts. They are obtained from natural sources such as animal fats and vegetable oils, most preferably palm oil, canola oil, soybean oil, etc. As they are obtained from natural raw materials, they are preferred over other chemical compounds. Generally, oleate esters are manufactured using natural resources such as vegetable oils and animal fats as their raw materials. Besides, the demand for oleate esters is expected to rise in future as well due to rapid rate of industrialization as well as awareness among the consumers regarding the benefits of using them. Due to these reasons, manufacturers are looking for alternative raw materials which can be used as substitutes instead of the conventional natural raw materials. By utilizing chemicals it would be easier to obtain oleate esters at a large scale. The market is expected to experience constant change as a result of improvement in the techniques involved in the manufacturing processes. Due to the constant changes in the market, there can be improvements in the standard and quality of oleate esters, which in turn would change the dynamics of the market. The market players operating are investing large amount of their revenues in the development of new and better products by carrying out R&D activities. This would eventually bring about change in the overall market of oleate esters. Global Oleate Esters Market: Scope of the Study The report estimates and forecasts the Global Oleate Esters market on the global and regional levels. The study provides forecast between 2016 and 2024 based on volume (kilo tons) and revenue (US$ Mn) with 2015 as the base year. The report comprises an exhaustive value chain analysis for each of the segments. It provides a comprehensive view of the market. Value chain analysis also offers detailed information about value addition at each stage. The study includes drivers and restraints for the Global Oleate Esters market along with their impact on demand during the forecast period. The study also provides key market indicators affecting the growth of the market. The report analyzes opportunities in the Global Oleate Esters market on the global and regional level. Drivers, restraints, and opportunities mentioned in the report are justified through quantitative and qualitative data. These have been verified through primary and secondary resources. Furthermore, the report analyzes substitute analysis of Global Oleate Esters and global average price trend analysis. The report includes Porter's Five Forces Model to determine the degree of competition in the Global Oleate Esters market. The report comprises a qualitative write-up on market attractiveness analysis, wherein end-users and regions have been analyzed based on attractiveness for each region. Growth rate, market size, raw material availability, profit margin, impact strength, technology, competition, and other factors (such as environmental and legal) have been evaluated in order to derive the general attractiveness of the market. The report comprises price trend analysis for Global Oleate Esters between 2016 and 2024. Global Oleate Esters Market: Segmentation The study provides a comprehensive view of the Global Oleate Esters market by dividing it into product, application and geography segments. The products have been segmented into ceramics, glasses, polymers, composites and metals & alloys (M&A). The applications are segmented into medical devices, automotive, aerospace, electricals & electronics (E&E), industrial, power and others. These segments have been analyzed based on historic, present, and future trends. Regional segmentation includes the current and forecast consumption of Global Oleate Esters in North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa (MEA). Market segmentation includes demand for consumption in all the regions individually. Global Oleate Esters Market: Competitive Analysis The report covers detailed competitive outlook that includes market share and profiles of key players operating in the global market. Key players profiled in the report include Procter & Gamble, Wilmar International Ltd., and Croda International Plc. and Others. Company profiles include attributes such as company overview, number of employees, brand overview, key competitors, business overview, business strategies, recent/key developments, acquisitions, and financial overview (wherever applicable). Secondary research sources that were typically referred to include, but were not limited to, company websites, financial reports, annual reports, investor presentations, broker reports, and SEC filings. Other sources such as internal and external proprietary databases, statistical databases and market reports, news articles, national government documents, and webcasts specific to companies operating in the market have also been referred for the report. In-depth interviews and discussions with a wide range of key opinion leaders and industry participants were conducted to compile this research report. Primary research represents the bulk of research efforts, supplemented by extensive secondary research. Key players' product literature, annual reports, press releases, and relevant documents were reviewed for competitive analysis and market understanding. This helped in validating and strengthening secondary research findings. Primary research further helped in developing the analysis team's expertise and market understanding. The Global Oleate Esters market has been segmented as follows: Oleate Esters Market Product Analysis Methyl Oleate Ethyl Oleate Butyl Oleate Tri-methylolpropane Trioleate (TMPTO) Others Oleate Esters Market Application Analysis Agrochemical Cosmetics Lubricant Plasticizer Absorbent Others Oleate Esters Market Regional Analysis North America U.S. Canada Latin America Brazil Mexico Rest of Latin America Europe Germany France U.K. Italy Spain Rest of Europe Asia Pacific China India Japan ASEAN Rest of Asia Pacific Middle East & Africa GCC Egypt South Africa Rest of Middle East & Africa Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4683610/ About Reportbuyer Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers http://www.reportbuyer.com For more information: Sarah Smith Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com Email: [email protected] Tel: +44 208 816 85 48 Website: www.reportbuyer.com SOURCE ReportBuyer Related Links http://www.reportbuyer.com CHARLOTTE, N.C., Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Duke Energy Renewables has completed its large-scale wind power plant in Oklahoma, the 200-megawatt (MW) Frontier Windpower Project. The wind facility, located in Kay County, east of Blackwell, became operational in late December 2016, and increases Duke Energy Renewables' U.S. wind capacity to 2,300 megawatts (MW). "We had several 'firsts' with the Frontier project," said Rob Caldwell, president, Duke Energy Renewables and Distributed Energy Technology. "It was our first wind project in Oklahoma, and it was the first time Vestas' extra-large 126-meter rotors were deployed in the U.S. "We also formed a unique partnership with Blackwell Industrial Authority for our operations and maintenance building. A project of this scale was made possible by the overwhelming support of the community, landowners, vendors and our customer, City Utilities." City Utilities of Springfield, Mo., is purchasing the power from the Frontier Windpower Project under a 22-year agreement. "We're excited about the partnership we have developed with the Frontier Windpower Project," said Scott Miller, general manager, City Utilities of Springfield. "Providing a long-term renewable source of power generation in this changing market is critical to the future of our utility." "Rarely does a project, by design, have a multigenerational economic impact on a region like Duke Energy Renewables' new Frontier wind farm," said John Robertson, executive director of Blackwell Industrial Authority. "Blackwell, Oklahoma, is fortunate to have been selected for their operations and maintenance facility, assuring decades of high-tech jobs and investment in our rural location. We are excited to welcome them to our community and are looking forward to future growth of the green energy sector in our state." The 200-MW Frontier Wind produces enough emissions-free electricity to power about 60,000 average homes. Amshore US Wind provided development support for the project, and Wanzek Construction was the contractor. Vestas supplied 61 V126-3.3 MW turbines for the site. Video available: Visit our illumination site to download a 60-second time lapse video at http://illumination.duke-energy.com/articles/oklahoma-project-captures-the-power-of-the-wind. Still photos upon request. About Duke Energy Renewables Duke Energy Renewables, part of Duke Energy's Commercial Portfolio, is a leader in developing innovative wind and solar energy generation projects for customers throughout the United States. The company's growing portfolio of commercial renewable assets includes 20 wind projects and 55 solar facilities in operation in more than a dozen states, totaling about 2,900 megawatts in electric-generating capacity. Follow Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK) on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook. About City Utilities of Springfield City Utilities of Springfield (CU) is a progressive, community-owned utility serving southwest Missouri with electricity, natural gas, water, broadband and transit services. CU has a diverse electric supply resource mix including coal, natural gas, wind, solar, landfill methane, and hydroelectric. CU provides electricity to 111,000 customers in our community. About Vestas Every single day, Vestas wind turbines deliver clean energy that supports the global fight against climate change. Wind power from Vestas' more than 55,700 wind turbines currently reduces carbon emissions by over 60 million tons of CO2 every year, while at the same time building energy security and independence. Today, Vestas has installed turbines in 74 countries, providing jobs for around 19,600 passionate people at our service and project sites, research facilities, factories and offices all over the world. With 52 percent more megawatts installed than our closest competitor and more than 71 GW of cumulative installed capacity worldwide, Vestas is the world leader in wind energy. Duke Energy media contact: Tammie McGee 800.559.3853 City Utilities of Springfield media contact: Joel Alexander 417.831.8902 SOURCE Duke Energy Related Links http://www.duke-energy.com NEW YORK, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Oregon Mesothelioma Victims Center says, "We are appealing to the family of a mechanic or skilled trades worker such as an electrician or plumber who has been recently been diagnosed with mesothelioma in Oregon to call us anytime at 800-714-0303 so we can explain-to get the best mesothelioma financial compensation they will need to hire one of the nation's most skilled and experienced mesothelioma attorneys." http://Oregon.MesotheliomaVictimsCenter.Com Mechanic The Oregon Mesothelioma Victims Center wants to emphasize their initiative is statewide and available to a diagnosed victim anywhere in Oregon including communities such as Portland, Eugene, Salem, Gresham, Hillsboro, Beaverton, Bend, Medford, Springfield, and Corvallis. "Not only do we offer on the spot access to some of the nation's top mesothelioma attorneys we also offer peace of mind for a family attempting to assist their loved one. That last thing we want to see happen to a person with mesothelioma in Oregon is for them to get shortchanged because they did not hire the most capable attorneys, we also want to see to it that a person in this situation does not get overcharged by a law firm. "Not only are the attorneys we suggest considered to be some of the very best mesothelioma attorneys in the nation when it comes to compensation results-they also only get paid if there is a financial settlement for the diagnosed person. The reason we appeal to the family members of a diagnosed person to call us anytime at 800-714-0303 is because we pride ourselves on providing a family with a lot more than instant access to the nation's top mesothelioma attorneys. We also can help find the best possible treatment options and we can make some suggestions about how the family can help their loved one. "If your family member has been diagnosed with mesothelioma in Oregon please call us anytime for our unsurpassed free services." http://Oregon.MesotheliomaVictimsCenter.Com The Oregon Mesothelioma Victims Center is also incredibly focused on making certain a diagnosed victim of this rare form of cancer gets the best medical treatments. For the best possible mesothelioma treatment options in Oregon the Oregon Mesothelioma Victims Center strongly recommends the following heath care facility with the offer to help a diagnosed victim, or their family get to the right physicians at this hospital. * OHSU Knight Cancer Institute Portland, Oregon: http://www.ohsu.edu/xd/health/services/cancer/ The average age for a diagnosed victim of mesothelioma is about 72 years old. This year between 2500, and 3000 US citizens will be diagnosed with mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is a rare form of cancer that is attributable to exposure to asbestos. High risk work groups for exposure to asbestos in Oregon include Veterans of the US Navy, power plant workers, factory workers, truck building workers, maritime workers, pulp and paper mill workers, plumbers, electricians, welders, auto mechanics, machinists, and construction workers. In most instances the diagnosed person's exposure to asbestos occurred in the 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, or 1980's. http://Oregon.MesotheliomaVictimsCenter.Com The states indicated with the highest incidence of mesothelioma include Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Louisiana, Washington, and Oregon. For more information about mesothelioma please refer to the National Institutes of Health's web site related to this rare form of cancer: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/mesothelioma.html Media Contact: Michael Thomas [email protected] 800-714-0303 SOURCE Oregon Mesothelioma Victims Center Related Links http://oregon.mesotheliomavictimscenter.com Comprising 40% of SEA economic output , Indonesia is the largest pharma market in the South East Asia Pacific region (SEA/AP). The country has the biggest and fastest-growing economy in the SEA region and a pharma economy consisting of over 200 pharmaceutical companies . There are already 25-30 generic domestic companies with access to the international market, and equally, there are approximately 35 multinational companies established in the area. These favourable macro trends will be reflected at CPhI South East Asia where domestic manufacturers in particular are increasingly attending the event, with a view to opening up sales in international markets. The biggest pharma event in the ASEAN region, CPhI South East Asia will gather over 5,500 attendees from 41 countries and more than 260 exhibitors (click here for the full list) to network, learn and do business for three days. Co-locating this year with Health Ingredients South East Asia, the event welcomes the best pharma ingredients professionals, packaging experts, machinery providers and contract manufacturing as well as nutraceutical companies from across the region. The event's conference programme is a dedicated, content-enriched platform that will cover business outlook and markets, regulations and compliance, and manufacturing and supply chain. Sessions include "Strategies to improve market access", "Effective compliance strategies when managing 3rd parties" and "Big Data trends and applications in Supply Chain" and panel discussions on "A look at the pharmaceutical industry in South East Asia" and "ASEAN regulatory harmonization developments". The event is supported by national and regional governments and regional trade groups, such as: the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Industry, the Indonesia Investment Coordinating Board, and the National Agency for Drug and Food Control. Rutger Oudejans, Brand Director CPhI South East Asia at UBM EMEA, commented: "2017 marks the 5th anniversary of CPhI South East Asia, and it is incredible to see how far this pharma economy has come. We are seeing a strong interest from international companies coming to the event looking to do business not only in Indonesia, but in the entire ASEAN economy. Additionally, in the last few years more and more Indonesian regional manufacturers are using the event as an essential conduit to begin established sales outside their core domestic market.This year we will also introduce the ASEAN-India strategic forum to help increase bilateral trade with Indian counterparts, as well as an Investment Forum and Distributors network." Highlighted features at CPhI South East Asia in 2017 include: The Investment Forum, matching key international players interested in investing in Indonesia with the top tier pharma companies in the country looking for reliable partners. matching key international players interested in investing in with the top tier pharma companies in the country looking for reliable partners. The ASEAN- India strategic sourcing Forum provides a business-networking platform for ASEAN companies, both manufacturers and distributors alike, focusing on bilateral trade with their Indian counterparts. provides a business-networking platform for ASEAN companies, both manufacturers and distributors alike, focusing on bilateral trade with their Indian counterparts. All distributors in the region have been invited to visit the event and network with peers and exhibitors through CPhI South East Asia's Distributor Network -- expanding its database of providers in the region with the aim of magnifying the reach throughout the whole ASEAN region. -- expanding its database of providers in the region with the aim of magnifying the reach throughout the whole ASEAN region. The Business Matchmaking programme provides attendees with the opportunity to browse potential clients, schedule meetings before the event, and find new business partners. provides attendees with the opportunity to browse potential clients, schedule meetings before the event, and find new business partners. Roadshows have been organized in many ASEAN countries to further promote CPhI South East Asia as a pharma bridge in the region. For more information please visit: http://www.cphi.com/sea/ About CPhI CPhI brings together more than 100,000 pharmaceutical professionals each year. CPhI hosts events in Europe, Korea, China, India, Japan, Southeast Asia, Istanbul and Russia. Media Contact: Ivan Ferrari Phone Number: +62-21-2930-5959 Email: [email protected] SOURCE CPhI SEA Related Links http://www.cphi.com/sea LAS CRUCES, N.M. and WASHINGTON, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, a poll of New Mexico business leaders found that less than one in five of them think the state is headed in the right direction. Executives voiced their concerns about the considerable influence of money in politics, campaign finance and lobbying, among other issues, and expressed overwhelming support for reforms to minimize unscrupulous activity. The poll was sponsored by the Committee for Economic Development of The Conference Board (CED), a nonpartisan, business-led public policy organization, and conducted by Research & Polling, Inc. 251 business leaders from across the state were surveyed between December and January and identified the following areas of concerns: Consistent with the 2016 study, nearly nine-in-ten (86%) business leaders in New Mexico say that big campaign donors have either a great deal of impact (39%) or some impact (47%) on state government corruption. say that big campaign donors have either a (39%) or (47%) on state government corruption. The vast majority (88%) of business leaders continue to say the ethical behavior of state elected officials over the past twenty years has been either a somewhat (40%) or very serious (48%) issue. (40%) or (48%) issue. Consistent with the previous study, approximately two-thirds (64%) of New Mexico business leaders feel that greater transparency is needed in regards to the disclosure of political contributions. "We all want a vibrant New Mexico that generates more good-paying jobs for current and future generations," said Carrie Hamblen, CEO/President of the Las Cruces Green Chamber of Commerce. "Great strides can be made in realizing that vision by enacting common-sense solutions such as reforming the state's gross receipts tax laws and exemptions, which six in ten surveyed business leaders strongly back." New Mexico's business leaders were also asked to rate their level of support for proposals that the state Legislature may consider adopting. Consistent with the previous studies, the vast majority of leaders support each proposal tested. In fact, support for each proposal has risen since the previous studies. Over nine-in-ten (92%) leaders somewhat (17%) or strongly support (75%) the proposal requiring all political contributions and expenditures from individuals, corporations, political action committees (PACs), non-profits, or unions be made public. (17%) or (75%) the proposal requiring all political contributions and expenditures from individuals, corporations, political action committees (PACs), non-profits, or unions be made public. Over eight-in-ten (83%) leaders say they somewhat or strongly support the creation of an independent Ethics Commission to establish and enforce rules regarding the ethical behavior and actions of state officials. Of note, 82% were supportive in the 2016 study and 76% were supportive in the 2015 study. or the creation of an independent Ethics Commission to establish and enforce rules regarding the ethical behavior and actions of state officials. Of note, 82% were supportive in the 2016 study and 76% were supportive in the 2015 study. The vast majority (89%) of business leaders either strongly (66%) or somewhat support (23%) continuing to place limits on how much individuals and PACs can give to candidates. The percentage of leaders who are strongly supportive has increased since the previous study (66% currently compared to 59% in the 2016 study). (66%) or (23%) continuing to place limits on how much individuals and PACs can give to candidates. The percentage of leaders who are has increased since the previous study (66% currently compared to 59% in the 2016 study). An increase since the 2016 study, nearly nine-in-ten (88%) leaders currently say they somewhat or strongly support reforming New Mexico's gross receipts tax laws and exemptions (79% were supportive in the 2016 study). or reforming gross receipts tax laws and exemptions (79% were supportive in the 2016 study). Eight-in-ten (79%) leaders say they somewhat or strongly support restricting the number of no-bid contracts that are given to private businesses by state government (77% were supportive in the 2016 study). "New Mexico's business leaders want a level playing field one where all have a fair shot at thriving in the marketplace," said Leah Messina, CEO of Sinuate Media. "Increasing transparency and accelerating ethics reform will go a long way toward achieving a sound, balanced environment for job creation." The poll and its methodology can be read here. About the Committee for Economic Development Founded in 1942, the Committee for Economic Development of The Conference Board (CED) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, businessled public policy organization that delivers wellresearched analysis and reasoned solutions to our nation's most critical issues. CED's work is grounded on seven core principles: sustainable capitalism, longterm economic growth, efficient fiscal and regulatory policy, competitive and open markets, a globally competitive workforce, equal economic opportunity, and nonpartisanship in the nation's interest. Learn more at www.ced.org. Media Contacts Joseph DiBlasi, CED [email protected]; 202.469.7824 Brian Sanderoff, Research & Polling [email protected]; 505.821.5454 SOURCE Committee for Economic Development Related Links http://www.ced.org NEW YORK, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Headaches are one of the most common medical complaints. However, the nature of the condition, its many possible underlying causes and a myriad of misconceptions among caregivers and patients alike make a proper diagnosis and treatment plan often elusive. In a concerted effort to help address the unique and complex needs of patients with headaches and migraines, NYU Langone has recruited nationally renowned expert Lawrence Newman, MD, to serve as its new director of the division of Headache Medicine division and as professor (clinical) in the Department of Neurology, where he will lead research and clinical efforts to combat these conditions that can drastically affect a patient's quality of life. "Dr. Newman's expertise in headache medicine is known internationally throughout the field, and under his leadership, we look forward to expanding our headache medicine program into one of the most robust and cutting edge in the country," says Steven L. Galetta, MD, the Philip K. Moskowitz, MD Professor and Chair of Neurology at NYU Langone. Headaches affect almost everyone at least once in their lifetime, and there are more than 300 medical conditions that are associated with them. Head pain may be primary (benign) or secondary to a more serious disorder, and once headaches start to interfere with quality of life and daily activities, additional consultation and treatment by a specialist may be necessary. Recognizing and appropriately diagnosing which type of headache a patient suffers from is paramount in the treatment. Common primary headache disorders include the various forms of migraine, tension-type and cluster. Migraine is an especially common, serious and potentially disabling disease that affects more than 38 million people in the United States. About Dr. Newman and Headache Care at NYU Langone A pioneer in his field, Dr. Newman was one of the first clinically-trained specialists in headache medicine in the country when he completed specialized fellowship training in 1989. He and his team comprise one of only a handful of centers in the country with an accredited headache medicine Fellowship program. Still, there are only about 500 physicians nationwide with board certification in headache medicine, five of whom will be at NYU Langone working in Dr. Newman's division. They include Adelene Jann, MD, Mia Minen, MD, MPH, Thomas Berk, MD and Sait Ashina, MD. The headache division will also bring other disciplines into the care spectrum, including a biofeedback and stress management specialist, and physical therapy. This team also has the ability to call upon other specialty areas throughout the NYU Langone health system as needed, including the Preston Robert Tisch Center for Men's Health and NYU Langone's Concussion Center. The physicians in the Headache Division employ state-of-the-art therapies for their patients. These include medical and nonpharmacologic strategies, nerve blocks, trigger point injections and Botox treatments. There is an infusion room in which intravenous medications can be administered to break a severe headache, eliminating the need for patients to go to an emergency department for treatment. Additionally, the division will be expanding its research capabilities so that patients can gain access to the newest agents through clinical trials. Dr. Newman will see patients at two multidisciplinary care centers: the Preston Robert Tisch Center for Men's Health in Midtown Manhattan and NYU Langone Orthopaedics at Westchester in White Plains, NY. Dr. Newman, who joined NYU Langone on January 1, previously served as director of the Headache Institute at Mount Sinai's St. Luke's Division in New York City, and held the academic title of professor of neurology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Prior to that, Dr. Newman served as a clinical professor of neurology and director of the Headache Unit at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. Dr. Newman's research interests focus on the clinical management of headache medicine, investigating new treatment options for migraine, cluster, and uncommon headache disorders. He is a member of several advisory boards related to new pharmacotherapies and devices for treating these conditions. His work has been presented and published extensively in dozens of journal articles and book chapters. He also lectures internationally on headache and migraine-related topics, for which he has received numerous awards, including the Leonard L. Lovshin Lectureship Award from the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and the John R. Graham award from the American Headache Society. Dr. Newman earned his medical degree from the Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara, and completed his neurology residency at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, serving as chief resident and later completing his fellowship in headache medicine at Montefiore Medical Center. He is a member of prestigious medical societies including the American Headache Society, where he recently served as president for a two-year term, the International Headache Society and American Academy of Neurology. "It is a tremendous privilege to join NYU Langone, where I have the opportunity to collaborate with world-class clinicians in multiple medical disciplines to provide state-of-the-art care for patients with headaches," says Dr. Newman. "As a longtime migraine sufferer who went through years of misdiagnoses, I understand fully how debilitating these conditions can be and how frustrating it is for patients when they can't get relief. I look forward to working with colleagues to provide patients all available options, and to research more ways to treat headaches." Media Inquiries: Ryan Jaslow Phone: 212-404-3511 [email protected] SOURCE NYU Langone Medical Center Related Links http://nyulangone.org HERNDON, Va., Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ROMAD Cyber Systems, creator of the revolutionary Malware Genetics technology aimed at disrupting the global malware and ransomware cybercrime ecosystem, was recently named a "Key Innovator" in the latest Endpoint Detection and Response Market Forecast by MarketsandMarkets, a global market research and consulting firm. ROMAD is proud to be recognized as a forward-looking visionary and a Key Innovator among such established industry firms as Deep Instinct, SentinelOne, Cybereason, Tanium, and Cyberbit. The report forecasts the global Endpoint Detection and Response market through the year 2021 and highlights ROMAD Cyber Systems as a technology innovator leveraging deep machine learning to power its patented Malware Genetics platform. ROMAD represents an evolution in malware analysis, detection, and response, and a decisive advantage in the struggle against organized cybercrime syndicates who continue to rely on malware and ransomware for illicit profiteering. ROMAD Malware Genetics enables disruption and diffusion of entire categories of threats ahead of a breach. Since the technology sequences the genome of entire malware families, ROMAD-powered solutions are able to reliably identify behavioral characteristics of malicious software as it attempts to execute. This capability blocks offensive actions before they do harm and without impacting benign system processes. "Deep learning and behavioral analytics technologies are radically changing the shape of the endpoint detection and response ecosystem and are opening up greater growth avenues for the vendors in the industry," said Shreyas Waikar, Industry Analyst, Information Security, MarketsandMarkets. "Increasing digitization and enterprise mobility trends in developing nations from the Asia Pacific region would drive adoption of such an advanced EDR solution profoundly across banking and finance, IT and telecom and healthcare sectors." Igor Volovich, CEO of ROMAD Cyber Systems, commented, "It is exciting to be at the forefront of a market with such amazing forecasted growth, and to deliver products that help companies defeat cyber threats at the source. We take great pride in our technology and the contribution we make to evolve the industry's approach to cybercrime from traditionally passive and reactive models to a truly proactive and preventative threat response capability, delivered to each user and endpoint with minimal cost and overhead." ROMAD's vision and state-of-the-art innovation was recently recognized by top industry CISOs when selected as the winner of the Security Current's Security Shark Tank Cupertino, CA event in October 2016. The company will be showcasing its technology once again on Tuesday, February 14, at the Security Shark Tank 2017 in San Francisco, hosted by Robert Herjavec, during the upcoming RSA Conference 2017. This premier invitation-only event will bring together emerging security vendors and leading global enterprise CISOs. About ROMAD Cyber Systems ROMAD was built for one purpose: to eradicate the global malware epidemic. We set out to find a better way to deal with the root cause, rather than the mere symptoms of the problem. Our patented Malware Genetics technology enables ROMAD-powered solutions to reliably and sustainably disrupt entire threat categories, instead of endlessly chasing after the latest viral strains. Our unique capability enables us to detect emerging threats before they exist. Ahead of the threat. Before the compromise. Turning 0-day into just an ordinary day. ROMAD makes it possible. Learn more at https://romadcyber.com. SOURCE ROMAD Cyber Systems Related Links https://romadcyber.com "When Adam and I started tasting the different blends, I knew we had something special that people would love," said Hagar. "It was only right to get the team back together and share Santo with the world." Sammy Hagar, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee and no stranger to the tequila world, joined forces with his The Voice co-star and tequila aficionado Adam Levine, and reunited the group behind the successful Cabo Wabo brand, including Jack Daniels and Marco Monroy, to build Santo Mezquila. Creative and tech agency Narrative_ helms the branding and advertising, while Infinium Spirits is managing the sales and marketing of the unique spirit that joins the two renowned beverages. "With Santo you get that smooth, full agave, rich tequila flavor with a touch of smoky-sweetness that you can only find with Mezcal perfect for sipping," said Levine. Santo is crafted by third generation master distiller, Juan Eduardo Nunez, from the famed distillery El Viejito in Jalisco, Mexico, and is being distributed in select markets nationwide, launching in Las Vegas, California, New York, Texas and Florida in the first quarter of 2017. Tasting Notes: Santo's intense agave aroma mixes with an earthy, light smokiness with a hint of herbs. The initial bite is mellow and fades gently, while the full taste and finish elicits the intricate agave flavor and herbal complexity layered with gentle smoke, slight floral fruitiness and low saltiness. It has a particular sweetness to its finish. Santo will be available in finer establishments nationwide - find a retailer and give in to a #HigherSpirit at SantoMezquila.com or find us on Facebook and Instagram @SantoMezquila. MEDIA CONTACT: Kelly Vogt Campbell [email protected] (310) 927-4537 SOURCE Santo Mezquila Related Links http://www.santomezquila.com Satelytics examined the methane leak over Aliso Canyon, California which was discovered in October 2015 and controlled in February 2016. AVIRIS and WorldView-3 imagery was used. The methane algorithm accounts for wind and atmospheric variation to ensure only the actual plume is quantified. Satelytics is able to monitor large areas, visualize methane plumes, and alert operators if measurements fall outside of prescribed thresholds. Satelytics routinely processes multispectral data from a variety of sources including satellites, planes, drones, and fixed cameras. Advancements in nano-satellites and commercial space travel means near-real-time monitoring is on the horizon. Satelytics was developed to seamlessly integrate with this high rate of data availability. The objective of Satelytics is to identify and quantify an expanding list of chemical and biological constituents which result in disruption to operations, financial and environmental disasters, and violate governing body regulations. Satelytics identifies threats at the earliest stages possible and notifies customers to the location and nature of the event. Providing data with a high degree of specificity and probability allows Satelytics customers to minimize consequences and mitigate risk. Infrastructure operators can continuously monitor data and alerts using Satelytics to ensure remediation spends and resources are targeted and effective. The growing oil, gas, and pipeline community around Satelytics applies the software to a host of problems including liquid hydrocarbon leak detection, high consequence areas, change detection, heavy metal detection, water quality analysis, and land movement detection. Methane detection will immediately be added to the already impressive list of capabilities within the Satelytics AWS-hosted cloud platform. "The goal is to innovate the deployment of big data analytics capabilities, not only to alert, but to predict threats to customers' geographically dispersed infrastructure and assets," comments Allan Adams, Director of Science at Satelytics. "Methane is an enormous breakthrough in that objective." Media Contact: Daniel Paquette Digital Content Coordinator [email protected] 419-728-0060 x103 https://www.satelytics.com/ SOURCE Satelytics Related Links https://www.satelytics.com SAVANNAH, Ga., Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) is pleased to announce "Savannah Songs," a unique program of performing arts events that embraces the city's remarkable historical legacy. The event is timed to Georgia Day. A celebration of different eras from the city's storied history, "Savannah Songs" will take place on Saturday, February 11, 2017 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in various SCAD buildings, each featuring an interactive and immersive performance by SCAD students. Savannah College of Art and Design's Gryphon building is transformed into a 1920s high tea in "Savannah Songs," a musical tour through time exploring Georgia's rich history. The university presents "Savannah Songs" on Saturday, February 11. SCAD President and Founder Paula Wallace states, "History sings through every street and square of this remarkable city. Savannah Songs is SCAD's unique way of sharing that history with neighbors and visitors. Delightful musical tableaux, written and performed by brilliant SCAD students, are a gift to the city, to all of Georgia. And watch out: a few of these numbers may get your feet moving!" Attendees of "Savannah Songs" will travel through time as the program unfolds in four different SCAD spaces: Morris Hall, Poetter Hall, Art's Cafe, and the Gryphon. Morris Hall, built in 1853 and originally the private residence of Alexander Smets, will focus on the Antebellum and Civil War era. Poetter Hall, the former Savannah Volunteer Guard Armory dating to 1892, will be transformed into a 1940s USO dance. The Gryphon and Art's Cafe, in the ornate 1926 Scottish Rite building, will feature a 1920s-era high tea. A 1980s theme will infuse Art's Cafe next door, also in the Scottish Rite building. Musical renditions specific to each era will anchor the performance at the different locations, with original arrangements and bespoke adaptations of songs from U.S. history performed by costumed SCAD students. Giveaways, including food and time period tokens, will be offered as guests are guided by SCAD students from the School of Building Arts, who will share information about the architecture and design of each SCAD space. "Savannah Songs" will highlight the remarkable breadth of SCAD's degree programs as more than 50 students come together from a range of departments including production design, performing arts, dramatic writing, preservation design, interior design and architecture to bring the event to life. The celebration will offer local residents and visitors to Savannah a fresh perspective on the culture and history of the city, and a unique opportunity to tour four distinctive venues that comprise SCAD's preservation footprint in the historic seaport. Admission is free for SCAD Card holders and children age 12 and under, and $10 for the general public. Purchase tickets online at scad.edu/savannahsongs. SCAD: The University for Creative Careers The Savannah College of Art and Design is a private, nonprofit, accredited university offering more than 100 academic degree programs in 43 majors across its locations in Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia; Hong Kong; Lacoste, France; and online via SCAD eLearning. SCAD enrolls nearly 13,000 undergraduate and graduate students from all 50 U.S. states and more than 100 countries. The innovative SCAD curriculum is enhanced by advanced professional-level technology, equipment and learning resources, as well as opportunities for internships, professional certifications and collaborative projects with corporate partners. In 2015, the prestigious Red Dot Design Rankings placed SCAD in the top four universities in the Americas and Europe. Career preparation is woven into every fiber of the university, resulting in a superior alumni placement rate. In a study of Spring 2015 SCAD graduates, 98 percent were employed, pursuing further education, or both within 10 months of graduation. For more information, visit the official SCAD blog. SOURCE Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) Related Links https://www.scad.edu Wereldhave N.V. announces new appointments in the Group. Richard Braun (43) has been appointed Director Finance and Investments. He joined Wereldhave in 2007 and held several financial positions in the Group. The last two years he was Director Finance of Wereldhave France. A successor has been contracted from the sector, who will start in April 2017. Wereldhave has signed Ruud van Maanen (38) per April 2017 as the Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Development. Ruud has worked the last 10 years as sell-side equity research analyst, currently as senior at ABN AMRO. In the Netherlands 3 of the 4 Business Unit Managers have been appointed. Doris Slegtenhorst (33), currently Senior Leasing Manager, joined Wereldhave in 2014, after having worked in different positions at Unibail Rodamco for 5 years. Jeroen Verwolf (35), currently Regional Manager Operations, joined Wereldhave in 2014 from Annexum in the position of Asset Manager. Michiel Biermans (33), currently Senior Leasing Manager, joined Wereldhave in 2015 after having worked at AS Watson as Acquisition Manager for 3 years. The Board of Management is confident with the pace of the reorganisation, the professionalism of all employees involved and the quality of the appointments at these key positions. Information for the press: Richard W. Beentjes E richard.beentjes@wereldhave.com T + 31 20 702 78 37 Information for analysts: Jaap-Jan Fit E jaapjan.fit@wereldhave.com T + 31 20 702 78 43 BILLINGS, Mont., Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, SleekEZ, a leading Montana-based pet grooming brand with a loyal international client base, has confirmed that its best-selling pet grooming product is now fully protected by Utility Patent No. 9,474,250 which has been officially issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Also known as Patents for Invention, companies can only be awarded this level of protection with proof of superior original innovation. After inventing the best de-shedding product on the market, the company has enjoyed numerous dramatic daily sales spikes of in excess of 2,000%. What is SleekEZ? SleekEZ(R) Patent no. 9,474,250 Founded with the needs of pet and livestock owners and animal caretakers firmly in mind, SleekEZ and its team of highly skilled professionals have set their sights on significant global expansion on the back of the new patent. Already, word has spread and the company has just signed a contract with a major distributor in Europe. This is in addition to an impressive wholesale distribution agreement in the United States. Online, the SleekEZ Original De-shedding Grooming Tool is consistently a best seller in the prime categories of Pet Supplies, Dogs, Grooming, Brushes, and Cats on the giant international Amazon platform. It has also nurtured a dedicated following on Social Media with almost 93,000 followers on the SleekEZ Facebook page. "I'm so proud we've achieved the impossible with SleekEZ. When everybody said it couldn't be done, seasoned Denver-based Attorney, Edward Crabtree, helped to make this amazing day a reality," expressed Jennifer Tipton, Inventor and Founder, SleekEZ. "The fact is that our product was already a success with consumers before we started the patent process. Today, we have confirmation that SleekEZ is the best product of its kind anywhere in the world and we now have the capacity to go global." Inspired by a powerful quote from her mother, "Do what you love and you will never work," the SleekEZ brand was lovingly built from the ground up by Jennifer Tipton, a veteran advanced equine dentistry industry professional licensed in 3 states. This has also given her a keen sense of animal behavior which has helped to propel the popularity of the SleekEZ brand. A former Journalist at The Los Angeles Times, she graduated with a Degree in Journalism from the University of Montana School of Journalism. A standout product aside from the patent, the USA-made SleekEZ has already become a winner with passionate pet owners and well cared for pets who would normally reject grooming. This is due to a unique patented design with variable pitch wave patterns. The comb and metal teeth were custom built for maximum comfort, effectiveness, and ease of use. SleekEZ never pulls on healthy hair within dense and longer coats. Interestingly, the multipurpose SleekEZ also works brilliantly on carpets, upholstery, and automobiles. About SleekEZ: Since 2011, SleekEZ has officially been giving pet and livestock owners and animal caretakers the best grooming experience in the world - now the only product of its kind on the market that holds a U.S. Utility Patent. Our Founder has dedicated many years to advancing the needs of owners and animals alike in the United States and abroad at the highest levels at up to 50% of the cost of non-patent holding competitors. SleekEZ is proud to be a Member of the non-profit organization the American Pet Products Association (APPA). Discover how easy pet and animal grooming can be today with our superior tools and combination packs. Explore our fine collection by visiting: http://www.sleekez.com/ Join our vibrant Social Media communities: https://www.facebook.com/sleekjen/ https://www.instagram.com/_sleekez_/ https://www.pinterest.com/sleekez/?etslf=9381&eq=sleekez Sources: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=9,474,250.PN.&OS=PN/9,474,250&RS=PN/9,474,250 http://www.aspca.org/animal-homelessness/shelter-intake-and-surrender/pet-statistics Media contact information: Jennifer Tipton, Inventor, and Founder, SleekEZ. Email: [email protected] Tel: 1-855-SleekEZ (855-753-3539) SOURCE SleekEZ Related Links http://www.sleekez.com LOS ANGELES, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) today announced a pilot hydrothermal wastewater processing project has been selected by the U.S. Energy Department (DOE) to receive up to $1.2 million in federal funding. SoCalGas is part of a consortium conducting the pilot, which will be required to share the cost at a minimum of 50 percent in order to receive federal funds. The consortium is being led by the Water Environment & Reuse Foundation. The project will use hydrothermal processing technology to convert wastewater solids into renewable natural gas as well as liquid fuels. DOE funding is expected to pay for about half of the design and planning of a pilot plant to produce these renewable fuels at a municipal wastewater treatment facility near Oakland, California. SoCalGas will help oversee the project's design and assist in obtaining state and federal regulatory approvals and incentives. The new technology converts waste solids from a wastewater treatment plant into biocrude and methane gas using water, heat and pressure. The biocrude oil replaces fossil oil, providing green fuels with nearly zero net new carbon emissions. The methane gas can be used in the same ways as fossil natural gas. "SoCalGas and its partners have demonstrated that this process can very effectively convert wastewater solids into renewable natural gas, using existing infrastructure, to help replace fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions," said Jeff Reed, SoCalGas' director of business strategy and advanced technology. "This new technology could have an enormous impact on energy and waste. Converting the wastewater solids produced by treatment plants in the U.S. with hydrothermal processing could produce about 128 billion cubic feet of natural gas per year and save treatment utilities $2.2 billion in solids disposal costs. A city of one million people could produce more than 600 million cubic feet of natural gas per year, save more than $7 million per year in disposal costs, and power nearly 7,000 vehicles per day." The Central Contra Costa Sanitary District, near Oakland, California, will host the pilot system. The consortium includes the Water Environment & Reuse Foundation, which represents many of the 16,000 wastewater systems in the U.S. The consortium also includes Genifuel Corp. with technology from DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Merrick & Co., Tesoro Corp., Metro Vancouver, MicroBio Engineering, Brown and Caldwell, and over a dozen utility partners. About Southern California Gas Co: Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) has been delivering clean, safe and reliable natural gas to its customers for more than 145 years. It is the nation's largest natural gas distribution utility, providing service to 21.6 million consumers connected through 5.9 million meters in more than 500 communities. The company's service territory encompasses approximately 20,000 square miles throughout central and Southern California, from Visalia to the Mexican border. SoCalGas is a regulated subsidiary of Sempra Energy (NYSE: SRE), a Fortune 500 energy services holding company based in San Diego. SOURCE Southern California Gas Company Related Links https://www.socalgas.com NEW YORK, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- This Transparency Market Research report examines the 'Sterile Medical Packaging Market' for the period 20162024. The core objective of the report is to offer in-depth view of the key factors impacting the global sterile medical packaging market, along with analyzing the future scope and opportunities in this market. Sterile medical is modern definition of pharmaceutical packaging. Sterile medical packaging drives from demand of pharmaceutical & biologics product, medical supplies, and medical equipment. The report has been divided into four parts, for better understanding and assessment of the global market scenario; the above mentioned divisions are: market analysis by product type, material type, application and regions. The report starts with an overview of sterile medical packaging and its usage in various applications across the globe. In the same section, TMR covers the sterile medical packaging market performance in terms of value. This section includes, TMR's analyses of key trends, drivers and restraints from supply and demand perspective. The next section of the report analysis the market based on product type and presents the forecast in terms of value for the next eight years. Product covered in the report include: Pouches & bags Gusset bags Header bags Liner tear bags Semi-ultra clean bags Spout pouches Thermoform Trays Vials & ampoules Clamshells & lids IV Containers Others The next section of the report analysis the market based on material type and presents the forecast in terms of value for the next eight years. Material covered in the report include: Plastic Films Foils Papers Glass Non-woven Foam Sheets Others The next section of the report analyses the market based on application segments and presents the forecast in terms value for the next eight years. Application segment covered in the report include: Medical supplies Gloves Scissors Syringes and needles Surgical tapes Others Medical equipment Surgical Therapeutic Diagnostic Pharmaceutical & biologics The next section of the report analyses the market based on regions and presents the forecast in terms of value and volume for the next eight years. Regions covered in the report include: North America Latin America Europe Asia Pacific Middle East & Africa The forecast presented here assesses the total value of sterile medical packaging. The starting point is sizing the current market, which lays the foundation for the forecast of how the market is anticipated to take shape in the near future. Given the characteristics of market, in-depth analysis based on supply side, demand side and sterile medical consumption rate, is taken into account. However, quantifying the market across above-mentioned segments and regions is more a matter of quantifying expectations and identifying opportunities rather than rationalizing them after the forecast has been completed. In addition, we have taken into consideration year on year growth to understand the predictability of the market and to identify the right opportunities across the sterile medical packaging market. As previously highlighted, the market for sterile medical packaging is split into various sub categories based on region, products, material and application segments. All segment and sub segment further presented in table form. These sub segments or categories have been analyzed in terms of market share (BPS) to understand individual segments relative contribution to growth. This detailed level of information is important for identification of many key trends in the global sterile medical packaging market. Also, another key feature of this report is the analysis of sterile medical packaging market by its revenue forecast in terms of absolute dollar. This is traditionally overlooked while forecasting the market. However, absolute dollar opportunity is critical in assessing the level of opportunity that a provider can look to achieve, as well as to identify potential resources from a sales perspective in the global sterile medical packaging market. Furthermore, Transparency Market Research has developed market attractiveness index for all three segmentsproduct type, material type, application and regional segments. This index helps in identifying the real opportunities that lies in the market. In the final section of the report, sterile medical packaging market landscape is included to provide a dashboard view, based on different categories of market players, along with their product portfolio and key differentiators. Key market participants covered in the report include: Amcor Limited Placon Dupont Steripack Wipak Group 3M medical Packaging Nelipak healthcare Packaging Oracle packaging Sonoco Plastics Europe Billerkornas AB Ampac Group Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p04268682-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 SOURCE Reportlinker Related Links http://www.reportlinker.com PETACH TIKVA, Israel, Feb. 09, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Aquamor, the Veterinary Unit of Stockton STK, develops and commercializes products based on its proprietary, patented intellectual properties for the growing aquaculture industry is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Yaki Keinan to the role of Business Development for Aquamor. Yaki will be responsible for identifying and leading strategic business development, alliance and acquisition opportunities for Aquamor. Stockton New Business Development for Aquamor Aquamor technologies provide cost-effective solutions to reduce mortality of fish, shrimp and other aquatic organisms. The products are based on innovative formulations of organic compounds extracted from plants, which have been extensively tested and proven in clinical and field tests. "As part of our journey of growth and success, we believe that Yaki is not only an expert in his field, but his business skills exemplify invaluable traits which will help us strengthen our global reach and our relationships with our partners" said Guy Elitzur, CEO of Stockton STK. "Yaki possesses a wealth of knowledge and experience in the feed industry and we look onward to his future contributions to the business." Prior to joining Stockton, Yaki worked as head of sales and marketing at CHS Inc. in Israel, a leading global agribusiness owned by farmers, ranchers and cooperatives across the United States. Yaki holds a BA from Derby University in Business Administration. He lives in Tel Aviv with his wife and 4 children. About Us Aquamor, the Veterinary Unit of the Stockton STK, develops and commercializes a number of products based on its proprietary, patented intellectual properties for the growing aquaculture industry. Aquamor provides cost-effective solutions to reduce mortality of fish, shrimp and other aquatic organisms. Stockton STK currently operates in more than 25 countries worldwide. Stockton's Research and Development Innovation Center is devoted to catering to the complex challenges facing modern sustainable aquaculture, and to meet today's global food consumer markets' demands. Contact: For more information, please visit our website: www.stockton-ag.com, or contact Judy Jamuy at: +972-52-7599242 or [email protected] SOURCE Stockton STK NEW YORK and MUMBAI, India, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), (BSE: 532540, NSE: TCS) a leading global IT services, consulting and business solutions organization, today announced that it has been officially certified as a 'Top Employer in North America 2017' by the Top Employers Institute, an independent organization that certifies employers around the world for excellence in creating a total work environment for their employees. This is the third consecutive year TCS has been certified in the U.S. and the second consecutive year for TCS in Canada. The Top Employers certification is awarded to a select group of employers who provide excellent employee conditions, nurture and develop talent throughout all levels of the organization and strive to continuously optimize employment practices. TCS was recognized as an exceptional performer across nine categories: Talent Strategy, Workforce Planning, On-Boarding, Learning and Development, Performance Management, Leadership Development, Career and Succession Management, Compensation and Benefits, and Culture. "TCS is proud to be certified as a Top Employer in North America for three consecutive years," said Sury Kant, President, North America, UK and Europe, TCS. "We have a deep commitment toward providing the best programs to retain, engage and enable our employees to learn and grow." "Optimal employee conditions ensure that people can develop themselves personally and professionally," said David Plink, CEO of the Top Employers Institute. "Our comprehensive research concluded that Tata Consultancy Services provides an outstanding employment environment and offers a wide range of creative initiatives, from secondary benefits and working conditions, to performance-management programs that are well thought out, and truly aligned with the culture of their company." Established in 1991, the Top Employers certification is designed to identify and recognize the world's leading organizations in the field of HR management and employee conditions. The award certification is based on an industry-leading research methodology, conducted by the Top Employers Institute. About the Top Employers Institute The Top Employers Institute globally certifies excellence in the conditions that employers create for their people. Optimal employee conditions ensure that people develop themselves personally and professionally. This in turn enables companies to grow and to develop, always. Headquartered in the Netherlands, the company has recognized Top Employers around the world since 1991. The company is now active in more than 100 countries and in six regions: North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Latin America. Almost 1,100 Top Employers were successfully certified in 2016. About Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS) Tata Consultancy Services is an IT services, consulting and business solutions organization that delivers real results to global business, ensuring a level of certainty no other firm can match. TCS offers a consulting-led, integrated portfolio of IT, BPS, infrastructure, engineering and assurance services. This is delivered through its unique Global Network Delivery Model, recognized as the benchmark of excellence in software development. A part of the Tata group, India's largest industrial conglomerate, TCS has over 378,000 of the world's best-trained consultants in 45 countries. The company generated consolidated revenues of US $16.5 billion for year ended March 31, 2016 and is listed on the BSE (formerly Bombay Stock Exchange) and the NSE (National Stock Exchange) in India. For more information, visit us at www.tcs.com. To stay up-to-date on TCS news in North America, follow @TCS_NA. For TCS global news, follow @TCS_News. SOURCE Tata Consultancy Services Related Links http://www.tcs.com SAN DIEGO, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- It was a lot like being on Shark Tank. Teen sisters Tana and Myla Zapf look back at the night they presented their innovative creation of a Slap-On stuffed animal called Curly Petz to the San Diego Inventor's Forum and won the coveted $1,000 prize for 1st place. It was the launch-pad for a journey that would propel the young entrepreneurs to turn their idea into a reality. They have launched a Kickstarter campaign where people can go now through March 2 to pledge support for their business and receive Curly Petz as a reward, it's a win, win. View the campaign at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/curlypetz/curly-petz-a-fun-wearable-plush-pet-that-holds-on "When we were little kids we both lost special stuffed animals," said Tana. We remembered how traumatic it was for us and how our parents searched everywhere trying to find them." That was the inspiration for the idea of a stuffed animal that would hold on to a child instead of the child having to hold on to the stuffed animal. The Zapf sisters loved playing with slap bracelets and found a way to incorporate them into a fun and innovative stuffed animal toy. Curly Petz is so unique it was issued patents in the U.S and E.U. "Children can have their hands free and play without worrying about dropping or losing their special stuffed animal," said Myla. "Parents won't have to retrace steps and console heartbroken children like our parents did." CURLY PETZ PHOTO: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7egnvgncstkrgzi/AACyVaGT6QL9L4PNygMsh3aEa?dl=0&preview=On+Wrist+-+Ready+to+Slap+on+cropped.jpg Another unique benefit is a specially designed magnetic wall mount that acts as the Petz "Home Base" and keeps them organized and off the floor at home. The journey from idea to Kickstarter involved an extensive education about the business world. The Zapf sisters met with manufacturers, distributors and buyers where their time watching Shark Tank and The Profit really paid off. "One of the most important things we learned is that although buyers and retailers really liked Curly Petz, it's all about hitting the right price points," said Tana. "The San Diego Zoo buyers told us they would sell Curly Petz if we could get it to them at the right price" Teen Inventors: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7egnvgncstkrgzi/AACyVaGT6QL9L4PNygMsh3aEa?dl=0&preview=Girl+Power+-+Kickstarters.JPG SOURCE Curly Petz Related Links https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/curlypetz/curly-petz-a-fun-wearable-plush-pet-that-holds-on PITTSBURGH, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Sridhar R. Tayur, the Ford Distinguished Research Chair and professor of operations management at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), one of the highest professional distinctions an engineer can receive. Tayur has been recognized by the NAE "for developing and commercializing innovative methods to optimize supply chain systems." His academic research spans topics such as supply chain management, enterprise analytics and software, private equity and lean operations, entrepreneurship and social enterprises, and health care operations. "We are very pleased by Sridhar's election to the National Academy of Engineering," said CMU President Subra Suresh, who was elected to NAE in 2002. "This is yet another honor in recognition of the excellence of our faculty, whose work not only has an impact far beyond Carnegie Mellon but also provides our students with educational opportunities that are second to none." Tayur is also the founder (and served as CEO) of SmartOps, an inventory and service-level optimization software company (acquired by SAP in 2013) that created the market for Enterprise Inventory Optimization (EIO) software, commercializing his supply chain research. Beyond SmartOps, he is also a highly sought-after supply chain and optimization consultant for leading companies including GE, Deere, Microsoft and Caterpillar, and he serves on the advisory boards of several startups. "I am excited to be elected to the National Academy of Engineering," Tayur said. "Operations management is central to engineering and business practices, and this recognition by the NAE for both my supply chain research and its commercialization is particularly satisfying to me. To be a scientist-entrepreneur, or more broadly to be an Academic Capitalist, is very important to me professionally." Tayur joined the Tepper School faculty in 1991 and has been recognized with the Gerald L. Thompson Teaching Award in the Undergraduate Business Administration Program, as well as the George Leland Bach Excellence in Teaching Award given by the MBA Program. He has also won the INFORMS Teaching Case Award, and his Ph.D. students have gone on to have wonderful careers in academia and industry. Beyond supply chain, in the area of health care operations he won the Healthcare Best Paper Award from the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS) in 2012 and the Pierskalla Award from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) in 2015 for his research on OrganJet, a social-enterprise he founded to help provide smart and affordable multiple listing for kidney transplant patients. Both SmartOps and OrganJet are subjects of MBA cases distributed by Harvard Business School. He was also elected a Fellow of INFORMS in 2012 and made a Distinguished Fellow of Manufacturing and Service Operations Management (MSOM) Society in 2017. "This honor is well deserved and illustrates both the practical and powerful impact of Sridhar's work and research," said Tepper School Dean Robert Dammon. "This prestigious recognition highlights the lasting legacy of his work to the field of operations management." Tayur earned his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology at Madras, and holds both a master's degree and a Ph.D. from Cornell University. NAE membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to "engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature," and to "the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education." Tayur will officially be inducted into the NAE in October at an event in Washington, D.C. He will join two other NAE elected fellows from the Tepper School of Business: Gerard Cornuejols, the IBM University Professor of Operations Research, who joined the fellows group in 2016, and Egon Balas, the Thomas Lord Professor of Operations Research and University Professor of Industrial Administration and Applied Mathematics, who was elected in 2006. With Tayur's election, Carnegie Mellon has been home to 54 NAE members. About the Tepper School of Business - Founded in 1949, the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University (www.tepper.cmu.edu) is a pioneer in the field of management science and analytical-decision making. The school's notable contributions to the intellectual community include nine Nobel laureates. The school is among those institutions with the highest rate of academic citations in the fields of finance, operations research, organizational behavior and production/operations. The academic offerings of the Tepper School include undergraduate studies in business and economics, graduate studies in business administration and financial engineering, and doctoral studies. SOURCE Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon Related Links http://www.tepper.cmu.edu LONDON, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Given the increasing prevalence of expensive household goods, cars and consumer electronics, insurance has become an unavoidable and often necessary cost in modern life. Mobile phones, and smartphones in particular are no exception to this trend. Most major wireless carriers, insurance specialists, device OEMs, retailers and even banks now offer insurance plans that cover theft, loss, malfunctions and damage of mobile phones. Many policies now also integrate enhanced technical support and additional protection features such as data backup facilities, allowing users to securely backup their phone data online. SNS Research estimates that the global mobile phone insurance market is expected to account for nearly $20 Billion in revenue by the end of 2016. The market is further expected to grow at a CAGR of approximately 12% over the next four years, eventually accounting for over $30 Billion in revenue by the end of 2020. The "Mobile Phone Insurance Ecosystem: 2016 2030 Opportunities, Challenges, Strategies & Forecasts" report presents an in-depth assessment of the mobile phone insurance ecosystem including market drivers, challenges, opportunities, value chain, future roadmap, case studies, ecosystem player profiles and strategies. The report also presents market size forecasts from 2016 through to 2030. The forecasts are segmented for 5 regional and 25 country level markets. The report comes with an associated Excel datasheet suite covering quantitative data from all numeric forecasts presented in the report. Topics Covered The report covers the following topics: - Mobile phone insurance ecosystem - Market drivers and barriers - Insurance policy structure, distribution channels and key trends - Case studies of mobile phone insurance initiatives - Industry roadmap and value chain - Profiles and strategies of over 40 leading ecosystem players - Strategic recommendations for ecosystem players - Market analysis and forecasts from 2016 till 2030 Forecast Segmentation Market forecasts are provided for the following regional and country level submarkets: Regional Segmentation - Asia Pacific - Europe - Latin & Central America - Middle East & Africa - North America Country Level Segmentation - Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, UK & USA Key Questions Answered The report provides answers to the following key questions: - How big is the mobile phone insurance opportunity? - What trends, challenges and barriers are influencing its growth? - How is the ecosystem evolving by region? - What will the market size be in 2020 and at what rate will it grow? - Which countries will see the highest percentage of growth? - Who are the key market players and what are their strategies? - What risks are typically covered in mobile phone insurance offerings? - How can insurance plans help wireless carriers in reducing churn? - What strategies should wireless carriers, device OEMs and insurance providers adopt to remain competitive? Key Findings The report has the following key findings: - SNS Research estimates that the global mobile phone insurance market is expected to account for nearly $20 Billion in revenue by the end of 2016. - The market is further expected to grow at a CAGR of approximately 12% over the next four years, eventually accounting for over $30 Billion in revenue by the end of 2020. - In an effort to boost the uptake of mobile phone insurance, wireless carriers and insurance providers have extensively enhanced their insurance offerings with the addition of location tracking, data protection/recovery features and integrated technical support. - The success of mobile phone insurance plans has driven several wireless carriers, such as NTT DoCoMo and Orange, to invest in the sales of other insurance products through mobile phones and their retail outlets. - New insurance models are also beginning to emerge, such as London-based So-Sure's social insurance for mobile phones, which allows customers to get up to 80% of their money back, if they and their friends don't claim. - Device OEMs are beginning to invest in tailored plans to suit the specific requirements of certain regional markets. A good example is Xiaomi's Mi Protect plan in India, which covers accidental and liquid damage, for as little as $7 per year. Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4086083/ About Reportbuyer Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers http://www.reportbuyer.com For more information: Sarah Smith Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com Email: [email protected] Tel: +44 208 816 85 48 Website: www.reportbuyer.com SOURCE ReportBuyer Related Links http://www.reportbuyer.com IAmElemental, which was launched to worldwide acclaim via Kickstarter, envisions kids as the creators of a play experience in which they are the active agents in a story of their own design. The company's female action figures boast a forward-thinking design and engineering unique among products designed for children. Its Series 1/Courage figures, modeled on Joan of Arc, represent character traits including Bravery, Honesty, Fear, Enthusiasm, Energy, Industry and Persistence. Series 2/Wisdom, with ancient Alexandrian STEM pioneer Hypatia as the muse, includes Creativity, Ingenuity, Curiosity, Logic, Exploration, Mastery and Oblivion. At Toy Fair 2017, IAmElemental will offer Booth #5207 visitors the opportunity to pose with Exploration's Wings, human-scale animatronic wings with a nine-foot wingspan. The wings are based on the Exploration action figure from Series 2/Wisdom and were fabricated exclusively for IAmElemental by Academy Award-winning Jim Henson's Creature Shop. "With our Series 1/Courage and Series 2/Wisdom 4-inch articulated female action figures, IAmElemental kicked off the trend of female superheroes and captivated a broad audience including not only kids but also parents, grandparents, educators and collectors together, they made 2016 our best sales year yet," said Chief Elemental Officer Julie Kerwin. "We're both thrilled and grateful that our female superheroes received industry recognition as Toy of the Year finalists, and after experiencing triple-digit growth in 2016, we look forward to continued forward momentum in 2017." Also in 2017, IAmElemental is continuing its "Buy One, Donate One" program of its 6.5-inch Courage Core Power figure. In memory of IAmElemental superfan Anna Bosma, the company distributes one figure to a child affected by cancer for each figure purchased. "Our generous fans have donated hundreds of Courage figures so far to organizations including Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, The Make-A-Wish Foundation, and C.S. Mott Children's Hospital, where Anna was treated. We began the BODO program last year for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and we plan to keep it going through Valentine's Day, to help put Courage into the hearts and hands of children with cancer," said Kerwin. For more information, visit http://www.IAmElemental.com/retailers, call (800) 274-8282, or visit Booth #5207 at the 2017 North American International Toy Fair. About IAmElemental: New York City-based IAmElemental is a privately held toy company creating the first-ever female action figures designed specifically for girls (and boys!). Founded in 2013, the company conducted a Kickstarter campaign in 2014 which was fully funded in two days, drawing backers from all 50 states and six continents, and was named by TIME Magazine as one of the "25 Best Inventions of 2014" and "Top 10 Toys of 2014." "If you give a girl a different toy, she will tell a different story"; "Play with power"; "It's character, not characters"; "Shared, everyone's powers grow stronger"; and "We have Superpowers. Want some?" are trademarks of IAmElemental. For more information, visit http://www.IAmElemental.com, Twitter: @IAmElementalToy, Facebook: IAmElementalToy, Instagram: IAmElementalToy. SOURCE IAmElemental Related Links http://www.IAmElemental.com WASHINGTON, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- URAC, the independent leader in promoting healthcare quality through accreditation, certification and measurement, is proud to announce that LeMed Specialty Pharmacy has earned URAC accreditation in Specialty Pharmacy, 3.0. By achieving this status, LeMed Specialty Pharmacy has demonstrated a comprehensive commitment to quality care, improved processes and better patient outcomes. LeMed Specialty Pharmacy is a Community Specialty Pharmacy that has served the Bronx, NY and surrounding communities for over two decades. LeMed Specialty Pharmacy Logo Icon "Pharmacy services have never played such an important role in the delivery of care as they do today. LeMed Specialty Pharmacy distinguishes itself for having voluntarily undergone a rigorous review of quality standards that earned it URAC accreditation," said URAC President and CEO Kylanne Green. "Independent URAC accreditation shows that LeMed is dedicated to quality and safety, and that it strives for a continual improvement of its services." LeMed has worked closely with patients, prescribers, and health systems in New York for almost two decades with the goal of improving patient health outcomes through an integrated approach to removing all barriers to treatment. "Our team is dedicated to providing the community with a consistently high level of services. The achievement of URAC Specialty Pharmacy Accreditation is demonstration of our commitment to that goal," said Shaleen Patel, CEO of LeMed Specialty Pharmacy. "It's necessary for specialty pharmacies to provide a higher level of treatment for patients so desired outcomes are achieved. LeMed Specialty Pharmacy shows a dedication to patient education and safety through the recognition of quality it received with URAC's independent accreditation," said URAC President and CEO Kylanne Green. "With URAC accreditation, people know that LeMed strives to adhere to industry best practices." About LeMed LeMed Specialty Pharmacy is a Community Specialty Pharmacy that has served the Bronx, NY for over two decades. LeMed provides a high touch experience for patientsour Clinical Pharmacists and Patient Care Coordinators work to "remove all barriers" that may otherwise prevent patients from receiving the proper treatment. This includes help with patient education, financial assistance, adherence reminders and delivery of medication. In addition, our internal team works closely with Healthcare providers to provide clinical guidance on patient treatment, aid with Prior Authorizations, and act as a resource to provide patient adherence monitoring. For more information, visit us at www.lemedrx.com. About URAC Founded in 1990, URAC is the independent leader in promoting healthcare quality through accreditation, certification and measurement. URAC is a nonprofit organization developing evidence-based measures and standards through inclusive engagement with a range of stakeholders committed to improving the quality of healthcare. Our portfolio of accreditation and certification programs span the healthcare industry, addressing healthcare management, healthcare operations, health plans, pharmacies, telehealth providers, physician practices, and more. URAC accreditation is a symbol of excellence for organizations to showcase their validated commitment to quality and accountability. Shaleen Patel, CEO [email protected] 347-913-4656 SOURCE LeMed Specialty Pharmacy Related Links http://www.lemedrx.com French English PyeongChang, 9 February 2017 - Atos, a global leader in digital transformation and Worldwide IT Partner for the Olympic Game and Paralympic Games, today announces that for the first time, all Games critical IT applications - including the distribution of results in real time like the Olympic Diffusion System (ODS) - will be remotely managed and hosted on the Cloud. Technology plans for the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 are all on track and operational tests are already underway. First Olympic Games to be delivered 100 percent in the Cloud In order to meet the technical challenge of ensuring that all 12 venues are virtualized on the Cloud, Atos teams have been carrying out all of their testing via the Cloud, resulting in over 100,000 hours of testing prior to the competition to deliver real time results (0.3 of a second) to the world's media for all 15 disciplines and 102 events. Up until now, ad hoc infrastructures had to be built for each local venue. Most efficient and cost-effective solutions with new Atos Testing and Operations Centers Another technological first sees all system testing carried out remotely at a new dedicated Atos Integration Test Lab (ITL) in Madrid and at the Central Technology Operations Center (CTOC) in Barcelona, which will support the Technology Operations Center in the host city. Remote testing is both cost and time efficient, while greatly reducing carbon footprint, one of Atos' priorities and ensuring the highest level of quality, with the exact virtual environment that will prevail at Games time. It is also more flexible, due to the fact that any venue can be simulated as if the teams were actually on site in South Korea. Hee-beom Lee, President, PyeongChang 2018 Organizing Committee, says, "We are dedicated to make the 2018 Winter Games the most digital Games ever and are thrilled to be working with Atos, the Worldwide IT Partner of the IOC. We really value the fact that we are able to rely on Atos' expertise gained from delivering eight previous Games". Patrick Adiba, Group Executive Vice President / Chief Commercial Officer - Olympics & Major Events at Atos, adds, "One year away from the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 and we are confident that the technology is right on track. Performing all the testing remotely via the Atos Cloud strengthens our motivation to deliver our personal best to ensure a successful Games in 2018 and share in the PyeongChang 2018 slogan: Passion. Connected." The remote configuration of PyeongChang 2018 will also be replicated for the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic Games to be held in Asia, namely Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 and Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022. Next milestones will include the homologation tests with various federations this summer and the first rehearsal test in PyeongChang in October 2017. Atos has been the Worldwide IT Partner for the Olympic Games since Salt Lake City in 2002 and, over the last 10 years, has been integral to making every Winter and Summer edition of the Olympic Games a success. It is all of this experience and expertise that allows Atos to consistently deliver outstanding results for clients across the Globe. Rio 2016 marked a first milestone in the digital transformation of the Olympic Games with the use of Cloud for the first time for key applications, such as the accreditation and volunteer systems. For more information on what Atos delivers for the Olympic Games visit: https://atos.net/en/olympic-games *** About Atos Atos SE (Societas Europaea) is a leader in digital transformation with circa 100,000 employees in 72 countries and pro forma annual revenue of circa 12 billion. Serving a global client base, the Group is the European leader in Big Data, Cybersecurity, Digital Workplace and provides Cloud services, Infrastructure & Data Management, Business & Platform solutions, as well as transactional services through Worldline, the European leader in the payment industry. With its cutting edge technologies, digital expertise and industry knowledge, the Group supports the digital transformation of its clients across different business sectors: Defense, Financial Services, Health, Manufacturing, Media, Utilities, Public sector, Retail, Telecommunications, and Transportation. The Group is the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic & Paralympic Games and is listed on the Euronext Paris market. Atos operates under the brands Atos, Atos Consulting, Atos Worldgrid, Bull, Canopy, Unify and Worldline. Press contact: Terence Zakka - terence.zakka@atos.net - +33 1 73 26 40 76 - @Mr_Zakka King will be responsible for creating and implementing the accounting and finance tactics used to structure and support the brand's growth. She will also implement, direct, and evaluate the financial operations activities of all Virgin Hotels to ensure compliance with applicable laws, policies, standards and procedures. Raul Leal, CEO of Virgin Hotels, remarked, "We are thrilled to have such an outstanding finance and accounting professional like Korollan join the team. Our finance department serves as the backbone of our expansion, and we are excited to grow the brand under her guidance as we strive to deliver strong financial results to our owners and shareholders." Most recently, King served as the Corporate Director of Finance & FP&A at Nikki Beach International, where she oversaw financial statement preparation, budgeting, internal controls, process improvement, and cash management for the brand. She has also held several senior accounting positions at Ernst & Young, where she developed detailed audit plans and identified risks for the various business processes. Virgin Hotels Chicago opened in 2015, and the brand recently announced plans to open additional properties in New Orleans, Silicon Valley, Nashville, and Palm Springs. Hotels in Dallas and New York City are currently under construction, slated to open in 2018 and 2019, respectively. About Virgin Hotels: Virgin Hotels is a lifestyle hospitality brand that combines heartfelt service, straightforward value and a seamless, personalized hotel experience with the track record of innovation and smart disruption that Sir Richard Branson's global Virgin Group has pioneered for over 40 years. Each property will intermix a passion for food and beverage with music and culture, fusing with the local landscape and providing a vibrant and inclusive environment for travelers and locals alike. Virgin Hotels Chicago, which was named the "#1 Hotel in United States" by Conde Nast Traveler's Readers' Choice Awards 2016, is now open and accepting reservations at virginhotels.com, with Nashville, Dallas, Palm Springs, New Orleans, New York, Silicon Valley, and others to follow. Virgin Hotels continues to explore hotel and office conversions as well as ground-up development in cities such as Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, Austin, Seattle, San Francisco, Washington DC, and London. SOURCE Virgin Hotels NAMUR, Belgium, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- VolitionRx Limited (NYSE MKT: VNRX) today announced that it will present at Source Capital Group's 2nd Annual Disruptive Growth & Healthcare Conference being held on February 15-16, 2017 in New York, NY. Scott Powell, Executive Vice President of Volition, will provide an update on Volition's business, clinical, regulatory and operational milestones, as well as the Company's recently announced product launch of its Nu.QTM Colorectal Cancer Screening Triage Test. Event: Source Capital Group's 2nd Annual Disruptive Growth & Healthcare Conference Date: Wednesday, February 15, 2017 Time: 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time Location: Convene, New York, NY Persons attending the conference who would like to schedule a 1-on-1 meeting with Volition management during the conference may do so by contacting Tirth Patel of Edison Advisors at [email protected] or Scott Powell, Executive Vice President of Volition, at [email protected]. Check out the NEW Corporate Video and Website at www.volitionrx.com About Volition Volition is a life sciences company focused on developing diagnostic tests for cancer. The tests are based on the science of Nucleosomics, which is the practice of identifying and measuring nucleosomes in the bloodstream or other bodily fluid -- an indication that disease is present. Volition's goal is to make the tests as easy and simple to use, for both patients and doctors, as existing diabetic and cholesterol blood tests. Volition's research and development activities are currently centered in Belgium as the company focuses on bringing its diagnostic products to market first in Europe, then in the U.S. and ultimately, worldwide. For more information about Volition, visit Volition's website (http://www.volitionrx.com) or connect with us via: Twitter: https://twitter.com/volitionrx LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/volitionrx Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VolitionRx/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/VolitionRx The contents found at Volition's website address, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube are not incorporated by reference into this document and should not be considered part of this document. The addresses for Volition's website, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube are included in this document as inactive textual references only. Media / Investor Contacts Nucleosomics, NuQ, Nu.QTM and HyperGenomics and their respective logos are trademarks and/or service marks of VolitionRx Limited and its subsidiaries. All other trademarks, service marks and trade names referred to in this press release are the property of their respective owners. SOURCE VolitionRx Ltd Related Links http://ir.volitionrx.com ESKILSTUNA, Sweden, Feb 09, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Volvo Buses has secured its largest ever order for complete solutions for electric bus traffic. The Belgian cities of Charleroi and Namur have together ordered 90 Volvo 7900 Electric Hybrid buses as well as 12 charging stations. The buyer is public transport company TEC Group. The charging stations will be delivered by ABB. The order from TEC Group covers 55 buses for Charleroi and another 35 buses for Namur. ABB will supply 4 charging stations to Charleroi and 8 charging stations for Namur. Delivery and installation will get under way this autumn. After the delivery, the TEC Group will have ordered in total 101 Volvo electric hybrids and 15 ABB charging stations. "This is extremely gratifying! The order is a new milestone in our electromobility drive and confirms the competitiveness of our offer. We can see that more and more of the world's cities are choosing electrified city bus traffic in order to deal with poor air quality and noise. The common interface for fast charging of buses and trucks, OppCharge, is gaining ground. The use by many suppliers of a common interface will facilitate the transition to electromobility in the world's cities," said Volvo Buses President Hakan Agnevall. The customer and operator, TEC Group, previously ordered 11 Volvo 7900 Electric Hybrids along with charging stations for Namur, a system that became operational in January this year. Once the 35 new buses take to the roads, 90 per cent of Namur's public transport will be electrified. "As public transport company, the TEC Group is very proud to be a leader in the increase of the energy efficiency of its fleet. This strategic investment will participate in the improvement of the quality of life in the main city centers, and will allow the Walloon Region to achieve its environmental goals. The hybrid technology is the best compromise between the operational constraints and the energy efficiency for urban buses today", said Vincent Peremans, CEO TEC Group. Volvo's electric hybrids and ABB's fast-charging systems are based on a common interface known as OppCharge, whereby the charging stations can also be used by electrified buses from other vehicle manufacturers.OppCharge is now being implemented as a common interface in more than 12 countries. The Volvo 7900 Electric Hybrid operates quietly and exhaust emission-free on electricity for about 70 per cent of its route. Battery recharging takes 3 to 4 minutes with so called opportunity charging. Energy consumption is about 60 per cent lower than for a corresponding diesel bus. Volvo's electric hybrids have already entered service in cities such as Gothenburg, Stockholm, Hamburg, Luxemburg, Namur and Curitiba. Volvo 7900 Electric Hybrid Propelled by electricity for about 70 % of the route. Quiet and exhaust emission-free when running on electricity. 60 % lower energy consumption compared with a corresponding diesel bus. 7590 % lower carbon dioxide emission1, depending on choice of fuel. Equipped with an electric motor, batteries and a small diesel engine. The batteries are fast-charged at one or both ends of the bus route and charging takes 3-4 minutes. 1) Estimated figure for a 10 km city bus route, compared with a Euro 6 diesel bus. OppCharge (Opportunity Charging) station Common interface between charging station and vehicles, based on the car industry CCS standard Charging power 150, 300 or 450 kW. Pantograph attached to the pylon makes it possible to use a cost-effective solution that adds little weight to the bus roof. Conductive charging using current collectors, with communication between the bus and charging station via Wi-Fi. More information about OppCharge: www.oppcharge.org Contact: Helena Lind, Media Relations, Volvo Buses Tel: 46 (0) 31-323-62-57 This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com http://news.cision.com/volvo-buses/r/volvo-buses-receives-order-for-90-electric-buses-from-belgium,c2184339 The following files are available for download: http://mb.cision.com/Main/5070/2184339/626156.pdf PDF http://news.cision.com/volvo-buses/i/volvo-electric-hybrid-tec,c2072760 Volvo Electric Hybrid TEC SOURCE Volvo Buses NEW YORK, Feb. 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- WeissLaw LLP is investigating possible breaches of fiduciary duty and other violations of law by the Board of Directors of GenVec, Inc. ("GNVC" or the "Company") in connection with the proposed acquisition of the Company by Intrexon Corporation ("Intrexon"). Under the terms of the agreement, GNVC shareholders will receive 0.297 of a share of Intrexon for each share they own, representing consideration of $7.00 based on Intrexon's 5-day value weighted average price as of January 23, 2017. GNVC shareholders will also receive a right to contingent consideration equal to 50% of any milestones or royalty payments received within 36 months of closing of the transaction under GNVC's ongoing Research Collaboration and License Agreement with Novartis. WeissLaw is investigating whether GNVC's Board acted to maximize shareholder value prior to entering into the agreement. Notably, GNVC shares traded at $10.44 per share, or $3.44 above the consideration, as recently as January 10. Further, according to Intrexon, the acquisition of GNVC and its many proprietary and patent-protected technologies will "accelerate [Intrexon's] ability to develop cutting-edge gene therapies." Given these facts, WeissLaw is investigating the Board of Directors' decision to sell GNVC and whether GNVC shareholders will obtain their fair and proportionate share of the Company's continued success and future growth prospects. If you own GNVC shares and would like more information about your rights or our investigation, or if you have information to share with us, please contact Joshua Rubin by telephone at (888) 593-4771 or by email at [email protected]. WeissLaw LLP has litigated hundreds of stockholder class and derivative actions for violations of corporate and fiduciary duties. We have recovered over a billion dollars for defrauded clients and obtained important corporate governance relief in many of these cases. If you have information or would like legal advice concerning possible corporate wrongdoing (including insider trading, waste of corporate assets, accounting fraud, or materially misleading information), consumer fraud (including false advertising, defective products, or other deceptive business practices), or anti-trust violations, please email us at [email protected] or fill out the form on our website, http://www.weisslawllp.com/genvec-inc/ SOURCE WeissLaw LLP Related Links http://www.weisslurie.com LONDON, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Women Who Tech, a US-based nonprofit that advocates for women in the tech and startup industry, and craigslist's founder Craig Newmark, today announced plans for the inaugural Women Startup Challenge Europe, which will unite female tech innovators from across the UK and Europe to compete for 50,000 in cash grants. The competition will feature 10 finalists pitching their ventures before a panel of tech industry executives on Wednesday, May 3, at London's City Hall, hosted by the office of Mayor Sadiq Khan. Women Startup Challenge Europe is open to tech startups with at least one woman founder or cofounder across the UK and Europe. A panel of esteemed online judges will score applications and select 10 finalists to pitch their businesses in person at London's City Hall. Competition criteria and submission details can be found at Women Startup Challenge Europe 2017. "This will be our first international pitch competition for women-led tech startups," said Allyson Kapin, founder of Women Who Tech, which has sponsored four prior pitch competitions for women innovators in Silicon Valley, New York, and across the US. "We're doing our part to disrupt a tech culture that has made it difficult for women entrepreneurs to access capital. There is an abundance of talented women out there, and we hope to spotlight the true innovators so that they can get the funding they need to scale." Judges will include Baroness Martha Lane Fox, founder of Doteveryone; Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia; Marie-Laure Sauty de Chalon, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors of auFeminin.com (the world's leading internet portal for women); Fatou Diagne, co-founder of Bootstrap Europe; Martin Bryant, Community Editor of Tech North and former Editor-at-Large of The Next Web; Cathy White, founder of CEW Communications and former Head of Communications for Tech City UK; and Hussein Kaj, Founding Partner of Hoxton Ventures. The winning entrepreneur will receive a 50,000 cash grant to scale her startup. The Women Startup Challenge Europe is being held in partnership with tech entrepreneur and craigslist founder Craig Newmark. "Only 10 percent of global investor money goes to women-led startups, yet women-led companies yield a 35 percent higher return than those led by men," said Newmark. "We've got to do better." The Women Startup Challenge has support from tech industry leaders including Stephanie Hospital, Founder of OneRagtime; Rajeeb Dey MBE, Founder of Enternships.com & CEO of Learnerbly; Susan Lyne of AOL's BBG Ventures. Partners have also included Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, IBM, Medium, 500 Startups, and others. The Women Startup Challenge is one of the largest pitch competitions to showcase and fund women-led tech ventures. In the past 18 months, the organization has hosted four competitions, featuring a total of 42 women-led startup executives delivering elevator pitches onstage to VC investors and hundreds of attendees. Accomplishments to date: Over $1,000,000 in cash and prizes has been awarded to support women-led startups. in cash and prizes has been awarded to support women-led startups. 1,300 applicants have participated, representing diverse, women-led startups across the U.S. 40% of finalists have been women of color. 1400+ attended the competitions, including founders, engineers, investors, and tech press. Alumni have closed seven-figure rounds. Alumni have been accepted into some of the most competitive accelerators. Competition and winners have received extensive press coverage (e.g., BuzzFeed,INC, New York Observer, Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Recode). #WomenStartupChallenge has trended on Twitter during each competition. MEDIA CONTACT: Bruce Bonafede 760-831-5080 [email protected] SOURCE craigconnects In this newly created role, Stevens will work closely with the senior level team on the company's overall strategy and execution. Stevens will oversee, develop and set direction for operations as the company continues to remodel its existing store base as well as open new locations. Stevens will report to the CEO of Yoshinoya America, Dar Vasseghi. Stevens has nearly three decades of experience in all aspects of QSR management and joins Yoshinoya from Checkers Drive in Restaurants / Rally's where he was on the Executive Team as Ops Leader and led the turnaround of the brand. Stevens started his career at Yum Brands in 1992 and he has worked his way up through multiple management positions including VP Operations at Arby's and COO at Captain D's. "We are thrilled to have Jim Stevens fill this important role as we accelerate our growth and remodel existing stores," said Dar Vasseghi, CEO of Yoshinoya. "A big part of our future success will come from improving store operations. Stevens is a seasoned and trusted Operations leader who along with our existing management team will help Yoshinoya continue to deliver positive results." Yoshinoya has recorded four years of continuous annual same store sales growth through both higher average check and steady increases in transactions. Yoshinoya has also recently embarked on an aggressive remodeling of company locations to a warmer, more contemporary look by the end of 2018. "I have tremendous confidence in Jim's ability to align our strategy with industry-leading operational practices to drive the next phase of Yoshinoya's market leadership," says Dar Vasseghi. "I am excited to take on this role and look forward to partnering with our talented senior leadership team to deliver on our 2020 Vision. Each of Yoshinoya's stores has enormous potential to deepen our relationship with our guests. I am incredibly energized to help lead the company into its next phase of innovation and operational excellence," said Stevens. An Arizona native, Stevens is a graduate of the notable W.A. Franke College of Business at Northern Arizona University with a Bachelor of Science in Hotel & Restaurant Management. An avid Ironman athlete, he has competed at one of the most challenging triathlons in Kona, HI and is currently a member of TEAM USA for the Duathlon and Aquathlon. He has recently relocated to Torrance, CA where he resides with his wife and two English bulldogs. About Yoshinoya: Fresh, wholesome Japanese-style cuisine is the essence of the Yoshinoya Japanese Kitchen menu. Dating back to 1899 with the opening of its first restaurant in Tokyo, Japan, Yoshinoya is among the oldest quick-service restaurant chains in operation. Throughout its century of experience, Yoshinoya continues to grow aggressively while operating or franchising more than 1,833 restaurants in Japan, Mainland China, Shanghai, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Philippines and the United States. The Yoshinoya Japanese Kitchen menu is based on fresh ingredients served in a variety of rice bowls, including the original Beef Bowl that started it all in 1899. Yoshinoya has more than 100+ restaurants in California with plans for expansion through additional company restaurants. For more information, visit http://www.YoshinoyaAmerica.com SOURCE Yoshinoya America Related Links http://www.yoshinoyaamerica.com FORM 8.3 PUBLIC OPENING POSITION DISCLOSURE/DEALING DISCLOSURE BY A PERSON WITH INTERESTS IN RELEVANT SECURITIES REPRESENTING 1% OR MORE Rule 8.3 of the Takeover Code (the "Code") 1. KEY INFORMATION (a) Full name of discloser: Rathbone Brothers PLC (b) Owner or controller of interests and short positions disclosed, if different from 1(a): The naming of nominee or vehicle companies is insufficient. For a trust, the trustee(s), settlor and beneficiaries must be named. (c) Name of offeror/offeree in relation to whose relevant securities this form relates: Use a separate form for each offeror/offeree Booker Group PLC (d) If an exempt fund manager connected with an offeror/offeree, state this and specify identity of offeror/offeree: (e) Date position held/dealing undertaken: For an opening position disclosure, state the latest practicable date prior to the disclosure 08/02/2017 (f) In addition to the company in 1(c) above, is the discloser making disclosures in respect of any other party to the offer? If it is a cash offer or possible cash offer, state "N/A" NO 2. POSITIONS OF THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE If there are positions or rights to subscribe to disclose in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 2(a) or (b) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security. (a) Interests and short positions in the relevant securities of the offeror or offeree to which the disclosure relates following the dealing (if any) Class of relevant security: Interests Short positions Number % Number % (1) Relevant securities owned and/or controlled: 30,841,192 1.73 (2) Cash-settled derivatives: (3) Stock-settled derivatives (including options) and agreements to purchase/sell: TOTAL: 30,841,192 1.73 All interests and all short positions should be disclosed. Details of any open stock-settled derivative positions (including traded options), or agreements to purchase or sell relevant securities, should be given on a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions). (b) Rights to subscribe for new securities (including directors' and other employee options) Class of relevant security in relation to which subscription right exists: Details, including nature of the rights concerned and relevant percentages: 3. DEALINGS (IF ANY) BY THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE Where there have been dealings in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 3(a), (b), (c) or (d) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security dealt in. The currency of all prices and other monetary amounts should be stated. (a) Purchases and sales Class of relevant security Purchase/sale Number of securities Price per unit (p) 1p Ord Sale 94,100 205.1487 1p Ord Sale 754,350 205.1487 1p Ord Purchase 5,000 204.9 1p Ord Sale 10,000 205.65 (b) Cash-settled derivative transactions Class of relevant security Product description e.g. CFD Nature of dealing e.g. opening/closing a long/short position, increasing/reducing a long/short position Number of reference securities Price per unit (c) Stock-settled derivative transactions (including options) (i) Writing, selling, purchasing or varying Class of relevant security Product description e.g. call option Writing, purchasing, selling, varying etc. Number of securities to which option relates Exercise price per unit Type e.g. American, European etc. Expiry date Option money paid/ received per unit (ii) Exercise Class of relevant security Product description e.g. call option Exercising/ exercised against Number of securities Exercise price per unit (d) Other dealings (including subscribing for new securities) Class of relevant security Nature of dealing e.g. subscription, conversion Details Price per unit (if applicable) 4. OTHER INFORMATION (a) Indemnity and other dealing arrangements Details of any indemnity or option arrangement, or any agreement or understanding, formal or informal, relating to relevant securities which may be an inducement to deal or refrain from dealing entered into by the person making the disclosure and any party to the offer or any person acting in concert with a party to the offer: Irrevocable commitments and letters of intent should not be included. If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state "none" (b) Agreements, arrangements or understandings relating to options or derivatives Details of any agreement, arrangement or understanding, formal or informal, between the person making the disclosure and any other person relating to: (i) the voting rights of any relevant securities under any option; or (ii) the voting rights or future acquisition or disposal of any relevant securities to which any derivative is referenced: If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state "none" (c) Attachments Is a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions) attached? NO Date of disclosure: 09/02/2017 Contact name: Emma Mulhearn - Compliance Department Telephone number: 0151 236 6666 Public disclosures under Rule 8 of the Code must be made to a Regulatory Information Service. The Panel's Market Surveillance Unit is available for consultation in relation to the Code's disclosure requirements on +44 (0)20 7638 0129. The Code can be viewed on the Panel's website at www.thetakeoverpanel.org.uk. If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here New York, Feb 4 : Convicted Democratic Party fundraiser Sant Chatwal got an invitation to a State Department lunch for then Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2009 through Hillary Clinton's aide Huma Abedin, according to emails obtained by a conservative activist organisation. During that time, Chatwal was secretly funnelling illegal political contributions to Democratic Party politicians for which he was later convicted. On Thursday, Judicial Watch released the emails, which were among a trove it obtained through a court order. The organisation was following up the controversy over Clinton using a private email server while she was the Secretary of State. Abedin, who is of Indian and Pakistani descent, served as Clinton's deputy chief of staff in the State Department and later as the vice chair of her presidential campaign. New York hotelier Chatwal was considered close to the Clintons, travelling to India with former US President Bill Clinton, and serving as a trustee of the Clinton Foundation. In a November 2009 email to Abedin, Chatwal asked to be invited to US President Barack Obama's State Dinner for Singh. "We have no control over the White House State Dinner," Abedin replied using an email address on "clintonemail.com" server. "But, Hillary is hosting the state lunch for the Prime Minister with Vice President (Joe) Biden at the State Department and you should be receiving your invitation to that soon. Will be the same day (as Obama's dinner), November 24," she wrote. A federal judge ordered the State Department in 2016 to give some of the emails to Judicial Watch, which made the demand under the freedom of information laws. In 2014, a federal judge in Brooklyn found Chatwal guilty of making illegal election contributions of $180,000 to three candidates between 2007 and 2011 and tampering with witnesses. He admitted in court that to overcome the legal limits on contributions an individual can make to a candidate, he made his employees send in the funds in their own names and repaid them. The federal prosecutor, Loretta Lynch, who was later promoted to Attorney General by Obama, did not identify the three candidates in her press statement about the conviction. But The New York Times and other media said that one of them was Clinton. Chatwal was not given a prison sentence, even though he faced a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison. Despite prosecution protests, he received only three years of probation and a $500,000 fine. Clinton's use of a private email server for official business as the Secretary of State was considered a violation of government rules because of the security risks and was issue in 2016 presidential election. Clinton handed over 55,000 pages of emails from her server to the State Department during the investigations into the use of the private server. Judicial Watch said that the Abedin-Chatwal emails it obtained through court order were not a part of those emails. (Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in) Los Angeles, Feb 5 : Chaotic scenes were witnessed at the Los Angeles International Airport as protests against US President Donald Trump grew after a federal judge halted enforcement of the executive order barring refugees and people from select Muslim-majority nations entering the country. Travellers has a tough time coming out of the airport, one of the busiest in the US, on Saturday afternoon as both anti- and pro-Trump protesters blocked almost all exits, shouting slogans amid heavy police deployment. Irfana, one of the anti-Trump supporters at the rally outside the airport, told IANS: "We have a ray of hope after the federal judge blocked the enforcement of Trump's executive order instituting the travel ban. We know that the battle will now go to the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and even to Supreme Court, but we believe in the law of the land." According to her, the fight is not only about the Trump ban on people from Muslim-majority nations from entering the US. "The fight has a broader meaning. We want the government to restore civil rights, minority rights and true liberty of immigrants in the country," Irfana said, hailing the work of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) which is fighting for the cause. Later in the day, the US Justice Department filed a formal notice of appeal on the court order suspending immigration ban. "We'll win. For the safety of our country, we'll win," Trump tweeted. "The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!" Trump had earlier tweeted. Media reports said it was unusual for a President to attack a member of the judiciary, which the US Constitution designates as a check to the power of the executive branch and Congress. According to Daniel, who works at the LA airport, the situation created by the protests is not acceptable as this has affected day-to-day life. "I don't like this situation. I hope a solution to this issue arrives soon and the country comes back to normal," he told IANS. But Trump had his supporters too at the airport. James, who was part of a pro-Trump rally, told IANS: "The US has become a country of immigrants and refugees. We want our land, our jobs back. We support Trump and believe he will get us our country back." Meanwhile, after the ruling by the US District Court Senior Judge James L. Robart, the State Department said it had reinstated thousands of visas. The provisional revocation of visas under Trump's executive order has been reversed, a State Department official told Efe news agency. The official added that people with visas that were not physically cancelled may now travel if the visa is otherwise valid. On January 27, Trump issued an executive order that banned citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the US. The order has been met with widespread protests across the globe, with multiple lawsuits already filed in the US and many more expected in the coming days. (Nishant Arora can be contacted at nishant.a@ians.in) Islamabad, Feb 6 : Pakistan is seeking Afghanistan's cooperation to secure their nearly 2,600 km-long common border to consolidate achievements made in major military operations in tribal regions, the media reported on Monday. Pakistan said it had long been insisting that loose border control benefits militants by allowing them to move freely across the border and carry out terrorist activities in both countries, which is a source of tension and mistrust between the two neighbouring countries, Xinhua news agency reported. The military and other forces, after conducting major operations against the Pakistani and foreign militants in tribal regions bordering Afghanistan in recent years, have now shifted their focus to border security to stop the cross-border movement of the militants. Pakistani military spokesperson Major General Asif Ghafoor said on February 1 that the leadership of the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has been "living in Afghanistan for a long time", which security officials describe as a serious challenge for anti-terrorism efforts. Pakistan had deployed a total of 34,000 Frontier Corps personnel along the border after the US launched its military action against the Taliban in 2001. Pakistani officials said more units of the paramilitary Frontier Corps are being trained for new check posts to be established along the Afghan border. Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, who assumed office on November 30, has spoken twice with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and suggested a "robust border management mechanism". Pakistani officials say that the Pakistani Taliban militants who had claimed responsibility for major terrorist attacks in the country, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces, entered Pakistan from Afghanistan. Besides border management, the Pakistani military and other law enforcing agencies are carrying out combing and intelligence-based operations in the suspected hideouts of the militants and their facilitators, mostly in urban areas. This strategy has been adopted to ward off the possible threats by the remnants of the Taliban, who are believed to have taken shelter in cities. Sequa Petroleum N.V. ("Sequa" or the "Company") today announces that following a strategic review it plans to cease its E&P activity in Norway conducted through Tellus Petroleum AS, and focus on acquiring assets elsewhere in Europe. Pursuant to local statutory requirements, consultation procedures with Tellus employee representatives have been initiated and other required steps will follow in due course. Further to its press release of 23 December 2016 in relation to the Sequa Petroleum N.V. USD 300,000,000 5.00 per cent Convertible Bonds due 2020 of which USD 204,400,000 in principal amount remain outstanding, ISIN: XS1220076779 ("Bonds"), the Q4 2016 USD $5.11M coupon is still outstanding, however the Company understands that the required majority of the Bonds is now held by its main shareholder (Sapinda and affiliates), who are supportive of restructuring the Company's debt. The cessation of business in Norway constitutes under article 10 (g) of the Terms and Conditions of the Bonds a potential default of the Bonds, which the Company also expects to be resolved with Sapinda's support. By way of update on the convertible loan facilities totalling USD 62.5M from Sapinda Invest Sarl and Sapinda Asia Limited ("Convertible Loan"), since 23 December a further USD 1,527,640 was provided meaning a total of USD 5,118,521 has now been received since 30 June 2016. The amounts received did not match the timing or quantum requested by the Company, however the Company currently expects to be able to draw sufficient further funds to enable it to continue to trade whilst the Company's debt is being restructured and the process to cease activity in Norway and liquidate Tellus assets is completed. The net funds expected from the repatriation of liquidated assets together with debt restructuring will enable the Company to progress selected high quality acquisition targets of production and development assets elsewhere. Effective today, Jelte Bosma will relinquish his role of director of the Management Board, to pursue additional interests outside the oil & gas sector. Mr Bosma will continue as an employee of the Company with a focus on business development. Contacts: Jacob Broekhuijsen, Chief Executive Officer +44(0)203-728-4450 or info@sequa-petroleum.com Agartala/Aizawl, Feb 6 : The Tripura and Mizoram governments would implement the Supreme Court order to ban liquor shops and outlets along the national highways, officials said on Monday. The Tripura government has asked all the eight District Magistrates and Collectors to relocate the liquor shops and outlets 500 metres away from the national highways. "We have already asked the DMs and Collectors to take immediate steps to move the liquor shops and outlets 500 metres away from the national highways. We would execute the Supreme Court directives by March," Tripura's Commissioner of Taxes and Excise Debapriya Bardhan told IANS. He said: "Of the 97 foreign liquor and 37 country liquor shops in Tripura, around 84 liquor shops and outlets fall within 500 metres of the national highways. We would relocate all of them." As per the apex court directive, wine shops, outlets and bars should move beyond 500 meters of the national highways. The court in its December 15 order had also stipulated a deadline to the states asking them to relocate the liquor joints by March 31, 2017. "Licenses of existing liquor shops along the national highways would not be renewed after March 31," Bardhan said. In Aizawl, Mizoram's Excise and Narcotics Minister R. Lalzirliana said that the state government would implement the Supreme Court order to ban liquor shops along national highways. "The license of these shops would be cancelled if they do not comply with the direction," the minister said. After 18 years of imposing stringent prohibition, the Mizoram government lifted the liquor ban in the state in March 2015, allowing opening of liquor shops in the Christian dominated tribal majority state under the Mizoram Liquor Prohibition and Control Act, 2014. New Delhi, Feb 7 : More Indian visitors are expected in this year's edition of Taiwan's leading information and communication technology (ICT) show, Computex, one of its organisers said here on Tuesday. "For now, we're expecting to have over 1,600 companies with 5,010 booths in Computex 2017," Thomas Huang, Deputy Executive Director of Taiwan External Trade Development Council (Taitra), one of the two organisers of the annual event, said at a press conference here. "We saw a great turnout at Computex 2016 which attracted more than 40,000 international visitors," he said. "Indian visitors who are the 12th most number of international visitors, saw a substantial increase of 14 per cent from the previous year. With our extensive campaign this year in India and the growing interest of start-ups and ICT brands in our event, we are hopeful to see an exponential growth in the number of visitors from here for Computex 2017." This year's edition will focus on new themes on artificial intelligence and robotics, innovations and startups, business solutions, internet of things (IoT) applications, and gaming and virtual reality (VR). Taiwan's Representative in India Chung Kwang Tien said that bilateral trade between Taiwan and India increased by five times from the year 2000 to reach $7 billion in 2014, and added that his country was adopting a new trade liberalisation policy. Tien said that Taiwan has also adopted a new foreign policy called New Southbound Policy and as part of it, would promote trade, education, and cultural tourism among other things with India. He said that Taiwan's rapid turnaround from an agriculture-based economy to that based on high technology was not a miracle as the world dubbed it. "We transformed very rapidly in the last 60 years going from heavy industries to high technology," Tien said. "But it was not an economic miracle. We worked very hard for it," he added. Rome, Feb 9 : Rome's grassroots mayor Virginia Raggi on Wednesday refused to accept the resignation of the city hall's planning chief Paolo Berdini after comments he allegedly made to an Italian daily including that she had an affair with her ex-cabinet chief. "I meet town councillor Berdini asking for clarifications. He apologised and tendered his resignation, which I refused -- with reservations," Raggi said in a note. Berdini has denied he gave an interview published Wednesday in La Stampa newspaper in which he was quoted as saying Raggi and her former cabinet chief Salvatore Romeo "were lovers". Romeo is also cited by La Stampa as saying Raggi was "unprepared" for the job, had "surrounded herself by a gang" and that the city council was "a moral abyss". Prosecutors are probing Raggi and Romeo for abuse of office over his hiring after he allegedly took out a 30,000 euro ($32,061) insurance policy in Raggi's name in January last year, six months before she appointed him and almost tripled his previous salary. Raggi and Romeo deny wrongdoing and both claim Raggi did not know about the life insurance policy. Raggi is also under investigation for abuse of office and false testimony over her appointment of Renato Marra, brother of the graft-tainted former city council personnel chief Raffaele Marra, as Rome tourism chief. New York, Feb 9 : A Pentagon spokesman on Wednesday said that it was interested in leasing a "limited" amount of space at the Trump Tower in Manhattan to the Department of Defence. The 68-story skyscraper, where President Donald Trump resides when he's not in the White House, boasts luxury amenities and sweeping views of the New York City skyline. "The space is necessary for the personnel and equipment who will support the POTUS at his residence in the building," NBCnews quoted Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. JB Brindle as saying. He said the Defence Department would work through "appropriate channels and in accordance with all applicable legal requirements" during the leasing process. There is already a large contingent of Secret Service personnel who maintain a round-the-clock presence at the address, which accommodates both residential and commercial tenants, the report added. Available commercial space there runs $80 to $100 per square foot - and a full floor can pull $1.2 million to $1.5 million a year, said Jared Horowitz, of the real estate firm Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, which leases commercial space at the building. Any Pentagon rental is sure to raise questions of conflict as the federal government would be sending tax dollars to the Trump Organisation, which is run by the Trump family and owns the building. Jerusalem, Feb 9 : Palestinian organisations on Wednesday petitioned Israel's top court against a law legalising thousands of settler homes built on private Palestinian lands, in a first challenge to the internationally condemned law. The coalition, composed of 17 organisations, including local Palestinian councils and civic organisations from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, collaborated with Adalah, an Israel-based Arab legal rights group, and the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Centre, submitted the petition. According to Xinhua news agency, the petition asked the Supreme Court to block the law, which the parliament passed on Monday night. Under the new legislation, about 3,850 housing units in dozens of outposts built illegally on privately owned Palestinian lands would be retroactively legalised. The State of Israel would seize the lands, offering compensations or alternative land to the landowners, even if they do not agree to waive their property. The outposts were erected by ultra-right settlers without permits from the Israeli authorities, but the government often turned a blind eye to their construction. There are additional 120 settlements that Israel considered as legal. Both outposts and settlements are illegal under international law as they were built on lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Mideast War, where the Palestinians wish to build their future state. Mogadishu, Feb 9 : Former Prime Minster Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo was elected the new president of Somalia after the incumbent Hassan Sheikh Mohamud conceded his defeat after two rounds of voting. Farmajo garnered 184 votes against his closest contender Mohamud who got 97 votes in the second round to emerge as winner. The third candidate, former president Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, got 45 votes, Xinhua news agency reported. Farmajo, a former prime minister in Somalia's transitional federal government between 2009 and 2010, thanked the electoral teams and organisers of the election for the success of the process. The former Prime Minister and university professor fought off a tough fight which featured 21 candidates vying for the next occupant of Villa Somalia in the next four years. Farmajo who holds a US passport got his Master's degree in political science from the State University of New York at Buffalo and subsequently worked in New York State, including at the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority, the Erie County Division of Equal Employment Opportunity, and the New York State Department of Transportation. He was appointed Prime Minister in 2009 by then President Ahmed to succeed current Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, who resigned from his post following a dispute. Rome, Feb 9 : Germany on Wednesday extradited to Italy an Eritrean accused of belonging to a people-trafficking gang that smuggled hundreds of people from Africa to Europe across the Mediterranean. Fitiwi Negash arrived at Rome's Fiumicino airport under police guard aboard a flight from the German city of Frankfurt. He was on an Interpol list of "most wanted" trafficking suspects and was among 24 Etritrean, Ethiopians, Ivoirians and Guineans targeted in April 2015 by a probe spearheaded by prosecutors in Palermo. Negash played a key role in the trafficking gang's Italian operations and organised the transfer of migrants to various northern European countries after they arrived by boat in Sicily from North Africa, investigators said. The alleged gang had bases in the Sicilian provinces of Agrigento and Catania as well as in the capital Rome and the northern city of Milan. From Italy, the gang trafficked migrants on to Germany, Norway, Sweden and other countries, police said. The gang organised the migrants' entire journeys from their villages to the Libyan coast and had affiliates in other European countries as well as in several African countries, according to investigators. Canberra, Feb 9 : The Australian Federal Government on Thursday announced that it will ratify an international treaty to improve the oversight of the country's prisons and detention centres. Attorney-General George Brandis said the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT) would be ratified by the end of this year, national broadcaster Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported. Australia's prisons and immigration detention centres would then be monitored by a network of independent inspecting bodies, which could include existing human rights bodies. The appointment of those inspectorates would be worked out in consultation with the states and territories. "These are intended to assist states to better protect people in detention from torture and mistreatment," Brandis said. "The aim is not to shame, it is not to engage in an act of moral vanity, it is to cooperate in a mutual endeavour to bring about a tangible improvement to the treatment of people in detention." The ratification of the treaty would not affect the Manus Island offshore processing centre because Papua New Guinea has not ratified the same treaty. The Government of Nauru ratified the treaty in 2013. The move has been hailed by the Amnesty International and the Human Rights Commission. Australia has been criticized or the cruel and inhuman treatment of asylum seekers detained at processing centres in Manus Island, Papua New Guinea and Nauru. Images aired by ABC last year, showed children aged between 10 and 17 in a Darwin centre subjected to mistreatment by guards, including images of a young boy whose neck was tied to a chair and his head covered with a hood, and the use of tear gas inside the cells. Lucknow, Feb 9 : Campaigning for the crucial first phase of polling in Uttar Pradesh for 73 seats will end on Thursday evening, an election official said. The seats are spread across 15 districts in the western part of the state, including Muzaffarnagar and Shamli that were singed by communal riots in 2013. The other districts are Baghpat, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Gautam Budh Nagar, Hapur, Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Mathura, Hathras, Agra, Etah, Firozabad and Kasganj. Polling in these seats would be held on February 11. Stakes are high for all parties as this phase is likely to set the tone for the elections in the remaining six phases which would end on March 8. There are 2.57 crore eligible voters in the first phase which includes more than 24 lakh first-time voters in the age group of 18-19 years and 1.17 crore women. While the Bharatiya Janata Party did exceedingly well in the region in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) shared 24 seats each in the 2012 assembly elections. The BJP won 11, Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) nine and the Congress five seats in the last assembly polls. This time around the Congress is contesting the polls in alliance with the SP. New Delhi, Feb 9 : As Taiwan adopts a new foreign policy, a women's parliamentary delegation from that country will visit India to engage with their counterparts here next week. The delegation would tour the parliament complex on February 13, Taiwan's Representative to India Chung Kwang Tien said on Wednesday at an event to mark the first anniversary of the formation of the Taiwan-India Parliamentarians' Friendship Forum here. Taiwan last year adopted the New Southbound Policy that seeks to engage proactively with six South Asian nations, including India, the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), Australia and New Zealand. Tien said that India was "not one of the, but the most" important country for this new policy of Taiwan. He said that bilateral trade between India and Taiwan increased by five times from 2000 to reach $7 billion in 2014. Stating that 1,143 Indian students were studying in Taiwan as of 2016, he said the East Asian nation, officially called the Republic of China, will offer scholarships to talented Indian students from this year. Speaking on the occasion, Lok Sabha MP from Sikkim P.D. Rai said that there were a lot of things in common between India and Taiwan. He said that if the two countries engaged with each other more actively, the bilateral trade figure of $7 billion could be easily surpassed. DENVER, Feb. 09, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pax8, the leading value-added cloud distributor, today announced it has launched Marketing on Demand as part of its Cloud Wingman partner program. The Marketing on Demand piece of the program was created to enable small and medium-sized business (SMB) service providers to build and scale their companys marketing efforts. We are excited to launch Marketing on Demand through our Cloud Wingman partner program because it offers the resources service providers need to grow their businesses, said Ryan Walsh, senior vice president of Partner Solutions at Pax8. Marketing is time consuming, and it can take up a lot of money and resources that SMB service providers simply dont have. This program is designed to ease the pain when it comes to designing collateral and creating comprehensive marketing campaigns to gain new leads and generate business. We remove the hassle so our partners can successfully grow and thrive. That is what it means to be your Cloud Wingman. Pax8 understands the value that marketing support and resources can provide. In addition to providing pre- and post-sales support, Pax8 is now offering partners access to powerful marketing tools. Marketing on Demand provides partners with the comprehensive resources and marketing assets for service providers to creatively and effectively position their company in the market and enhance their brand without the additional headcount or associated cost. From customizable collateral to automated email campaigns, Pax8 is providing partners the marketing essentials. As a new small business, Pax8 has been instrumental in helping us grow through Pax8s Marketing on Demand, said Lincoln Christensen, Founder & CEO at Link Source IT. We are not designers, and we have very little bandwidth to create marketing collateral. The program has given us access to customizable assets, collateral, and email campaigns all in one centralized location. The marketing material we can share with our customers has been a huge value for us, and it helps us look polished and professional. To view a recent case study featuring Link Source IT, please click here. Get started with the Pax8 Cloud Wingman partner program and Marketing on Demand by viewing this short video. Sign up to become a Pax8 partner today. To learn more about Pax8, please contact the cloud experts at (855) 884-PAX8, email info@pax8.com, or visit www.pax8.com. About Pax8 Pax8 is the leading value-added cloud distributor offering top cloud products and solutions to the IT channel. The company is driving the business transition to the cloud through its comprehensive enablement and technology. The Pax8 cloud marketplace provides efficient and intelligent cloud product configuration so service providers can easily create and customize bundled solutions for their customers. To fuel partners success, Pax8 offers on-demand marketing programs, sales assistance and training, provisioning automation, and subscription billing. As the experts in cloud innovation, Pax8 is well-engineered to sell, assemble, and deliver quality cloud solutions to its worldwide channel of service providers. For more information, please visit www.pax8.com. Follow Pax8 on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Vijayawada, Feb 9 : Buddhist spiritual leader The Dalai Lama has said he was fortunate to be once again visiting Amaravati, a sacred place for Buddhists. He reached here on Thursday on a three-day visit to Andhra Pradesh. State legislative assembly speaker K. Sivaprasad Rao, ministers and senior officials received him at the Gannavarm Airport here. The Buddhist leader left for Amaravati, a place of Buddhist pilgrimage, where Buddha was believed to have given his first Kalachakra sermon. Amaravati is where is new capital of the residual Andhra Pradesh is being built. "I feel fortunate to be in the sacred place of Amaravati once again," the 81-year-old told reporters at the airport. The Nobel Laureate said he was happy in the place associated with Nagarjuna, the great Indian Buddhist philosopher. He said Amaravati becoming the state capital of Andhra Pradesh will augur well. He will address the first National Women's Parliament, beginning at Amaravati on Friday. This is Dalai Lama's second visit to Amaravati. He had last visited the place in 2006 to initiate Kalachakra, a huge gathering of Buddhists. New Delhi, Feb 9 : Gossip mills have been in overdrive with rumours of his relationship with actress and "Padmavati" co-star Deepika Padukone, but Ranveer Singh has always chosen not to speak about it. The actor says he prefers to be protective about his personal life. "The thing is I find that there is too much scrutiny anyway, and I don't want to encourage it or add to it. So, I am very protective about my personal life. I would like to protect a few aspects in my life," Ranveer told IANS in an e-mail interview. "I am mostly open and honest, but there are some aspects that I choose to protect and I hope people respect my decision," the actor, the recently-appointed ambassador of eyewear brand Carrera, added. The 31-year-old star has been a part of the industry for over six years and has worked in hit films like "Band Baaja Baaraat", "Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela", "Dil Dhadakne Do" and "Bajirao Mastani". He describes his experience in the Hindi film industry as magical. "I genuinely believe that I am living a dream. Every day when I wake up, I can hardly believe that I am a mainstream actor who works in Hindi films. Working in mainstream Hindi films has been my dream ever since I was a little kid," he added. The actor, who was also lauded for his role in "Lootera", says he has learnt so much by collaborating with many gifted people who have enriched his life and creativity. "My work has been appreciated and I have learnt from the highs and, more so, from the lows. I have become more of a well-rounded person thanks to my experience," he added. Ranveer's next film is "Padmavati", directed by ace filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali. The film also features Shahid Kapoor and Deepika. This is not the first time that Ranveer is working with Bhansali. They last worked together for "... Ram-Leela" and "Bajirao Mastani". "I have learnt the maximum from him (Bhansali). He has moulded me as an actor and shaped me as a creative person. He has been a tremendous influence on me. Some of the greatest learnings that I've had are by simply observing the way he goes about his work... He really is the epitome of someone who believes that the process is the prize," he said. The "Ladies vs Ricky Bahl" actor feels honoured to be working with the filmmaker for the third time. "It's a matter of great honour that I have been selected to be his leading man for the third time in a row. That in itself is a great achievement to me. And I hope to collaborate with him and continue to make memorable cinema," he added. Talking about "Padmavati", which was recently in the line of fire, Ranveer said: "It is an extremely fascinating story... I am overjoyed that we have one of the most talented actors in Hindi film, Shahid Kapoor, joining the team this time... The way it's shaped up has me really excited. I have gone and seen the rushes of whatever we've shot so far and there's a long way to go." (Durga Chakravarty can be contacted at durga.c@ians.in) Washington, Feb 9 : US forces killed 11 Al Qaeda operatives, including a longtime ally of Osama bin Laden, in two airstrikes last week in Syria, the Defense Department has said. Abu Hani al-Masri was killed in the second drone strike near Idlib on Saturday, a US senior defence official told CNN on Wednesday. He was "a legacy Al Qaeda terrorist with ties to the group's senior leaders, including Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden", said Eric Pahon, a Department of Defense spokesman. "These strikes disrupt Al Qaeda's ability to plot and direct external attacks targeting the US and our interests worldwide," Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a spokesman for the Pentagon, said. He said 10 Al Qaeda operatives were killed in the first strike near Idlib last week. Like Zawahiri, Masri was an Egyptian national who is reported to have fought along with Al Qaeda during the group's earliest days, reported CNN. Masri oversaw the creation and operation of many Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s where he recruited and trained "thousands of terrorists who subsequently spread throughout the region and the world", according to a statement issued by the Defense Department. New Delhi, Feb 9 : Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Thursday rejected a notice by the AIADMK on Tamil Nadu Governor C.V. Rao asking to expedite the swearing in of General Secretary V.K. Sasikala as Chief Minister. Soon after the Question Hour ended, Mahajan said she had received a notice of adjournment from AIADMK leader P. Venugopal. "The notice is regarding the conduct of the Governor. This can't be discussed in the house. So I can't allow," Mahajan said, disallowing other notices of adjournment given by opposition members as well. Maharashtra Governor Rao, who holds the additional charge of Tamil Nadu, is under attack from Sasikala supporters for apparently avoiding Chennai amid the political turmoil in Tamil Nadu. Earlier, the AIADMK members created a ruckus, demanding an early swearing in of Sasikala. Soon after the house met, the AIADMK members trooped near the Speaker's podium shouting slogans like "Save democracy in Tamil Nadu". Venugopal wanted to speak from his seat but Mahajan ignored him and called for Question Hour to begin. After a few minutes, Mahajan adjourned the house till 11.30 a.m amid the din. Manila, Feb 9 : Postmen in the Philippines will play cupid this Valentine's Day through a "Love Express" campaign that will accept flowers and chocolates for personal delivery. The Philippine Postal Corp Philpost will revive the so-called "singing kartero", wherein people can pay 2,000 pesos ($40) to deliver a bouquet of roses, a greeting card and serenading the recipient with their favourite theme songs, Xinhua news agency reported. It is issuing a limited edition of Valentine's Day personalised stamps that people can use to send their presents. "With the popularity of taking selfies, one can now have their selfies printed on stamps for 17 pesos (#0.34) each," Philpost said. A team of letter carriers called the Express Elite Force will deliver these gift items via Domestic Express Mail Service on Valentine's Day to clients within Metro Manila and nearby areas. Kolkata, Feb 9 : West Bengal opposition leader Abdul Mannan, who was taken ill during a scuffle with the security staff in the state assembly, was shifted to the Apollo Gleneagles Hospital on Thursday, officials said. "He has been brought to the emergency ward where the doctors are examining him. The protocol for treatment will be finalised after the investigations are complete," a hospital source told IANS. Mannan had to be admitted to the G.D. Hospital in central Kolkata on Wednesday due to high blood pressure and a complete heart blockage after he was forcibly removed by the security staff following his suspension by Speaker Biman Banerjee. Mannan and other opposition legislators were protesting against the West Bengal Maintenance of Public Order (Amendment) Bill, 2017, brought by the Mamata Banerjee-led state government, which envisages stringent measures against destruction of public property. The Speaker slapped a two-day suspension on Mannan for disobeying his order to remove aprons, placards and posters containing pictures of the vandalism in the assembly lobby on November 30, 2006, by then opposition Trinamool Congress members. Defying the Speaker, Mannan went near the Speaker's podium in the House. Other Congress legislators also joined the scuffle. Kabul, Feb 9 : The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has suspended operations in Afghanistan after the killing of six of its employees by militants in northern Afghanistan. ICRC's director of operations Dominik Stillhar said the operations of the global charity are on hold at the moment after Wednesday's attack, Khaama Press reported on Thursday. The Red Cross official said that they needed to temporarily suspend aid activity to understand what had happened. "We will do everything we can to maintain our response in Afghanistan," Stillhar further added. No group has so far claimed responsibility for the incident but local officials suspect that the aid workers were shot dead by loyalists of the Islamic State (IS) group, according to the report. According to the ICRC, two of their workers were also abducted by the gunmen and there are no reports regarding their fate so far. New Delhi, Feb 9 : The Delhi government on Thursday decided to employ Israeli technology to clean the Yamuna river for a cleaner environment and water, the Israeli Embassy here said. Ayala Water and Ecology Ltd. will focus on a stretch of eight km of sewage which drains into Yamuna River as an initial step towards cleaner water and environment. On the joint partnership in Delhi, Daniel Carmon, Ambassador of Israel in India, said: "I commend the Israeli company Ayala Water & Ecology on their work in India, and is now reaching New Delhi. Addressing the challenges of water and environment is a challenge both India and Israel share. I am proud to see this partnership in action." "As we celebrate 25 years of growing partnership, we are glad that Israeli technology is integrated in government initiatives for the benefit of the Indian citizen. This is another example of the multifaceted partnership between India and Israel," he added. Ayala is also partnering with other Indian cities, including Hyderabad and Chennai, offering Israeli technology to help address water and ecological challenges. Israel, in addition to being one of the major exporter of weapons to India, is also contributing in the areas of agriculture and horticulture, among others. Israeli drip irrigation technologies are now widely used in India. The two countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in Water Resources Management, as well as a Declaration of Intent to further cooperation in agriculture during the visit of Israel President Reuven Rivlin to India in November 2016. New Delhi, Feb 9 : The government has not taken any decision with regard to introducing a tax on bank transactions, though it has received a set of recommendations from the Committee of Chief Ministers, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das said on Thursday. "The government is carefully examining the report. No decision has been taken so far... as and when a decision is taken, naturally the government will give it out," Das said at the 96th annual function here of the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham). The committee of Chief Ministers on digital payments, headed by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, had submitted an interim report to the government suggesting a banking cash transaction tax on deals amounting to Rs 50,000 and above in order to curb the use of cash. The panel said the government must tax cash transactions above Rs 50,000, abolish banks' interest on credit card transactions, give tax refund to consumers on digital payments and extend Rs 1,000 subsidy on smartphones to income-tax non-payees to promote a less-cash digital economy. The high-powered panel was asked to suggest measures to enable all sections of the population to migrate to digital payments, and recommend measures to leapfrog to the advanced digital payment systems of global standards. It was constituted on November 30 last year after the government demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. Highlighting India's strong fiscal foundation, Das said: "Fiscal deficit has gradually been brought down, it is necessary to find the right balance between requirements of public expenditure and fiscal consolidation by targeting those sectors of economy where you need to spend more." The government has certain fiscal constraints and it will be difficult for the government to reduce corporate tax rates to 25 per cent overnight because fiscal cost will be very high and government will not be able to do justice to various other sectors of the economy -- agriculture, rural infrastructure and other areas, he added. Das said though the world scenario remains uncertain, the outlook for India's growth is very positive. "We would expect the growth to be upwards of seven per cent on the back of various policy measures taken by the government both before and during the Budget and which the government will continue to take in the coming months," the Economic Affairs Secretary said. "Our growth is premised on creating more job opportunities through increased infrastructure spending by carrying out reforms and new policy initiatives in sectors like -- textiles, leather, footwear and other similar sectors by taking tax reform measures, by continuing with the policy of reforms," he added. With regard to taxation, he said the government is committed to ensuring that the administration is taxpayer-friendly. "Emphasis of the government is on honouring the honest. The Revenue Department, CBEC (Central Board of Excise and Customs) and CBDT (Central Board of Direct Taxes) are taking steps to ensure that there is no misuse of power," he said. "The annual performance reports of officers in the tax departments together with orders passed by officers of income tax are also being gone through by senior level officers," he added. "While from the government side, we are taking steps, I think from the private sector and industry side we would encourage similar steps to be taken. The tax administration at the highest level, in the Ministry is working towards bringing about greater accountability and transparency," he added. Highlighting the strong and robust reforms undertaken by the government, he said the reform agenda of the government will continue as spelt out by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the Budget. On the issue of transfer of technology, Das said India has to use its low-cost manufacturing capabilities to ensure that there is domestic manufacturing. "We have to spend more on research and developing own technological capabilities," he added. New Delhi, Feb 9 : India has handed over a request for the extradition of liquor baron Vijay Mallya to the British High Commission here, the Ministry of External Affairs on Thursday said. "We have today handed over the request for extradition of Vijay Mallya as received from the CBI to the UK High Commission in New Delhi. We have requested the UK side to extradite him to face trial in India," said Vikas Swarup, the official spokesperson of the ministry. AUSTIN, Texas, Feb. 09, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SmallCapVoice.com, Inc. (SCV) and The Chron Organization, Inc. (OTC:CHRO) (The Company) announced today that Byron Young, founder and chairman of The Chron Organization, Inc., is featured in an audio interview at SmallCapVoice.com. The interview covers the amazing home automation and energy saving services offered by Zen Technologies, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of CHRO. The interview can be accessed directly here. Mr. Young called in to SmallCapVoice.com to go over his personal background, the story on how CHRO was formed, the future of the Company and his personal insights regarding the markets the Company will tackle in 2017. In the interview, Mr. Young commented, This is a real joy. Alex and I have decided to create the next major energy, smart home and security company. We are going to plug all that into mass marketing channels and take these markets by storm. To date, we have funded this with our own capital along with friends and family. I am so excited about where we are today and the strides we have made in just a year. About Zen Technologies, Inc. Zen Technologies, Inc. (Zen), a wholly owned subsidiary of The Chron Organization, Inc. (OTC:CHRO), is a 21st century home services company whose mission is to make the Smart Home a reality for the millions of homeowners and apartment homes across the United States. Zen provides homeowners with the latest and most effective in smart home technology, including security, monitoring and automation controls empowering homeowners to have peace of mind and peace in their home, at an affordable price. Zen combines that with its green energy services, reducing both their carbon footprint and their monthly energy expense. The Companys plan is to capture 5% of the homeowners market while dramatically reducing the nations peak electricity demand. About the CHRON Organization, Inc. The Chron Organization, Inc. (OTC:CHRO) is an entrepreneurial-minded company founded and envisioned by Mr. Byron Young and Mr. Alex Rodriguez. The Company's purpose is to develop a portfolio of highly successful and unique wholly owned businesses by providing incubation, advisory and capital services to the same. CHRON's interests include the smart home services, Internet of Things (IOT) platforms, deregulated energy & energy efficiency offerings. To learn more about CHRON, visit the company's corporate website at www.chronorganization.com. About SmallCapVoice.com SmallCapVoice.com is a recognized corporate investor relations firm, with clients nationwide, known for its ability to help emerging growth companies build a following among retail and institutional investors. SmallCapVoice.com utilizes its stock newsletter to feature its daily stock picks, audio interviews, as well as its clients' financial news releases. SmallCapVoice.com also offers individual investors all the tools they need to make informed decisions about the stocks they are interested in. Tools like stock charts, stock alerts, and Company Information Sheets can assist with investing in stocks that are traded on the OTC BB and Pink Sheets. To learn more about SmallCapVoice.com and their services, please visit http://smallcapvoice.com/blog/the-small-cap-daily-small-cap-newsletter/ FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS This press release may contain forward-looking statements. The words "believe," "expect," "should," "intend," "estimate," "projects," variations of such words and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements, but their absence does not mean that a statement is not a forward-looking statement. These forward-looking statements are based upon the company's current expectations and are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions. The company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Among the important factors that could cause actual results to differ significantly from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements are risks that are detailed in the company's filings at www.OTCMarkets.com New Delhi, Feb 9 : The year gone by was marked by huge uncertainty on the energy front with anti-globalisation events on one hand conflicting with the interconnectedness of the market as demonstrated by the volatility in global oil prices, a renowned Saudi expert on the oil industry said here. "The sheer volume of unexpected events in 2016 is overwhelming for the sheer twists and turns," said Abdallah S. Jum'ah, former President and CEO of Saudi Aramco, one of the world's largest oil companies, while addressing the opening session of the World Energy Policy Summit here. "Two aspects of the global geo-economic environment are particularly striking. First, the high degree of uncertainty on the trajectory of recent developments," he said, referring to the difficulty in predicting whether policies and events during 2016 would have implications that are transitory or long-term. "At the same time, significant developments at the national and regional levels, particularly in energy development, show how interdependent the world is," he added, giving the example of the volatility in global oil prices witnessed in 2016. Highlighting the anti-globalising trends during last year that have increased the levels of uncertainty, Jum'ah cited the British vote to exit the EU (Brexit), the election of Donald Trump as US President with his declared intent to take America out of the UN talks on climate change, as well as the continuing war in Syria. "The combination of uncertainty unleashed by recent developments along with global interconnectivity means that we are living through turbulent times," the Saudi expert said. Kolkata, Feb 9 : Several students and two police personnel were injured in a clash between two opposing factions of Trinamool Congress students union at a college in West Bengal on Thursday, police said. Two opposing factions of the Trinamool Congress-run students union at North Dinajpur's Islampur college clashed with each other over the General Secretary's election, a police officer said. Both groups hurled bricks and attacked each other with wooden staves. Police had to fire tear gas to control the situation. "A student was hit in the head. Two of our personnel were also injured while trying to stop the clash. The situation is normal now," the police officer said. Trinamool legislator of Islampur, Kanailal Agarwal and ex-legislator Abdul Karim Chowdhury blamed each other for the clash. "I wanted the college union to have a single panel from our party so that the election can be conducted peacefully. We had an agreement that the general secretary would be our choice while they would provide the candidate for Assistant General Secretary. But three days before the election, they have changed the decision," Chowdhury alleged. Kanailal Agarwal, who won on a Congress ticket in last year's state assembly election and then switched over to Trinamool, denied the allegation and said the candidature of General Secretary (GS) has been decided after following the proper procedure. New Delhi, Feb 9 : Storytelling is an art; and a story can be told through different mediums, including through narration, theatre, dance, song and even paintings. And the first edition of the three-day Udaipur Tales International Storytelling Festival, which is all set to begin from February 24 at the lake city of Udaipur in Rajasthan, celebrates this art of storytelling. "Story telling has different mediums and we though of reviving the old culture. Earlier we used to listen to stories from our parents or grandparents and this event will take the audience into the old era of listening to narrations," Sushmita Shekhar, Director, Udaipur Tales International Storytelling Festival told IANS. The festival will be ushered in by eminent storytellers from both India and abroad. The programme will involve a plethora of genres including humour, real-life, fantasy, sentimental and dark humour to enthral the audience. The festival is going to witness a host of wonderful storytellers including the likes of Shantanu Guharoy, Ajay Singh, Durga Bai and Subhash Vyaam, Varun Narayan, Bindeshwar Pathak and Salil Mukhiya Koitsu. "This idea has been floating in the mind for the past one year. We did a lot of research before setting the stage. This kind of events are popular in the US where it is not only restricted to children but to adults as well. We thought of incorporating something similar on this," Shekhar added. Beijing, Feb 9 : After US President Donald Trump sent a letter to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, China said "cooperation" was the only right choice between the two countries. However, China's state-controlled newspaper Global Times suggested that Trump writing a letter and not phoning Xi reflected that the US President wanted to keep his distance from China. "China attaches great importance to developing the relationship with the United States," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said here. "Cooperation is the only right choice for China and the United States," Lu added. The official said Beijing was ready to work with Washington to expand cooperation and differences. Lu added, just as President Xi said, China and the US both had a responsibility to safeguard world peace and stability, and promote global development and prosperity. Wednesday's letter, Trump's first direct communication with Xi, follows the Chinese President's congratulatory note on the occasion of his inauguration on January 20, Efe news agency reported. In the letter, the US President offered belated wishes to China for the Lunar New Year and said "he looks forward to working with President Xi to develop a constructive relationship that benefits both the US and China", according to a White House statement. Chu Yin, Associate Professor at the University of International Relations, said after his inauguration as the US President, Trump spoke to many countries' leaders but not China's. "This led some people to believe that he might intend to keep his distance from China and even raised concerns about future conflicts even though his daughter appeared in the Chinese Embassy in the US on February 2 to participate in a Chinese New Year's celebration event," Chu was quoted by Global Times as saying. "Since Trump has made a lot of provocative statements toward China, this letter is a good signal but we still need to observe his real actions," Diao Daming, a research fellow at the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences was quoted by the same newspaper. The world's two largest economies and great military powers are locked in dispute over a host of issues which range from South China Sea to trade dealings. After his ascension to power, Trump has sort of taken on China, needling it on the Taiwan issue about which Beijing is very touchy. Kolkata, Feb 9 : West Bengal Leader of the Opposition Abdul Mannan, admitted in the ICU of a city hospital a day after he was taken ill during a scuffle with the security staff in the state assembly, would undergo a pacemaker implantation on Friday, the hospital said. "Mannan is conscious, alert, oriented and aware. He is haemodynamically stable on paced rhythm," said a bulletin issued by the Apollo Gleneagles Hospital, where the senior Congress leader was shifted on Thursday. The implant would be done under the supervision of cardiologist Suvro Banerjee. On Wednesday, Mannan underwent a temporary pacemaker implant at the G.D. Hospital and Diabetes Institute. Mannan had to be admitted to the G.D. Hospital due to high blood pressure and a complete heart blockage after he was forcibly removed by the security staff following his suspension by Speaker Biman Banerjee. "After his admission in our hospital yesterday we found that he had a serious second degree heart block. So we didn't take any chances and installed a temporary pace-maker. After that he was absolutely fine throughout the night. His condition was also stable in the morning," said attending physician Subhasish Ganguly of G.D. Hospital. Mannan and other opposition legislators were protesting against the West Bengal Maintenance of Public Order (Amendment) Bill, 2017, brought by the Mamata Banerjee-led state government, which envisages stringent measures against destruction of public property. The Speaker slapped a two-day suspension on Mannan for disobeying his order to remove aprons, placards and posters containing pictures of the vandalism in the assembly lobby on November 30, 2006, by then opposition Trinamool Congress members. Defying the Speaker, Mannan went near the Speaker's podium in the House and other Congress legislators also joined the scuffle. New Delhi, Feb 9 : A court here on Thursday directed Delhi Police to file a report on allegations that some people are receiving threats for filing a plea seeking an FIR against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, his brother-in-law and two others over alleged irregularities in grant of contracts for building roads and laying of sewer lines in the city. Metropolitan Magistrate Abhilash Malhotra asked the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police to immediately analyse the situation on the allegation by the complainants -- Rahul Sharma and Viplav Awasthy -- that they are receiving threats. The court is hearing a criminal complaint filed by founder of Roads Anti-Corruption Organisation (RACO) Rahul Sharma and organisation secretary Awasthy. The complainants' counsel Kislay Pandey told the court that they are getting serious threats and are being pressurised to withdraw the application. The court directed police to assess the threat perception and if required provide necessary security to them. The court asked police to file a report on the protection measure by February 13. Meanwhile, police has sought more time to file a detailed report. The court granted more time to police to file a detailed action taken report on the complaint and listed the matter for further hearing on February 25. Meanwhile, Public Works Department (PWD) filed a compliance report of the court order directing it to freeze the records pertaining to the contract and keep those in safe custody. Sharma has sought registration of FIR against Kejriwal, his brother-in-law Surender Kumar Bansal, the proprietor of a construction company, and an officer of the Public Works Department (PWD) under various sections pertaining to cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy. Sharma's counsel Pandey told the court that they cheated the government and defrauded the government treasury to the tune of over Rs 10 crore in criminal connivance with P.K. Kathuria, who was posted then as an Executive Engineer in Delhi PWD. He alleged that Bansal, who is proprietor of Renu Construction, operated through several dummy firms to obtain government contracts to build and improve roads and sewer lines in connivance with officials of the PWD. He further alleged that the work never got executed, whereas all the payments were cleared under the pressure of Kejriwal. New Delhi, Feb 9 : The family of BSF trooper Tej Bahadur Yadav, whose social media video clip on "substandard food" dished out to the men in the force triggered an uproar, on Thursday filed a habeas corpus petition in the Delhi High Court. Yadav's family said in their plea that they have no idea of his whereabouts. The plea is likely to be mentioned by the family's lawyer before the court on Friday for an early hearing. "We have filed a habeas corpus petition in the High Court. His wife talked to him last on February 7. We have been calling him on his mobile number but it goes unanswered. When we contact on his official phone number, nobody tells us about his location or they keep our phone calls on hold," Yadav's brother-in-law Vijay told IANS. He said the family also sent two letters to the Border Security Force Director General to know Yadav's whereabouts but got no response. The family earlier alleged that the trooper was being "threatened and tortured mentally". Last month, Yadav posted a video clip on a social media website, complaining about the quality of food served to security personnel and accused unnamed officers of illegally selling food supplies meant for troopers. After the video went viral, the Prime Minister's Office and the Home Ministry sought detailed reports on the incident from the BSF. The trooper now faces an inquiry over various charges, including indiscipline. His plea for voluntary retirement has since been rejected by the authorities. New Delhi, Feb 9 : The headliner here is not politics of Kashmir. It is the food from the land also known for its lovely wazwan -- a spread of various, mostly spicy, non-vegetarian dishes that can make you forget everything else. Although the spread at the Kashmir Food Festival being hosted at The Shangri-La's - Eros Hotel, here is less than one finds at the elaborate wedding receptions in Kashmir, but it is definitely worth a try. The authentic stir fried lamb ribs - Tabakh Maaz - makes you feel heavenly. Among the other starters, was the Kashmiri seekh kabab served with the traditional onion chutney. Inside one of Shangri-La's oldest restaraunts, Tamra, one could smell and feel Kashmir as the strong aroma of spices are displayed on the buffet's counters. Dried turnips, Saffron, dried red chilly, dry cockscomb flower and shallots are the ingredients that Chef Neeraj Taygi, along with his team of local Kashmiri chefs, use to prepare the wazwaan. Mushtaq Ahmad, the head Kashmiri chef also known as "waza", feels that only those spices brought from his homeland could be used to prepare a perfect recipe. "I have bought all those spices, including turmeric, from Kashmir. We have our own taste and we cannot take the risk of mingling up with ingredients in case of wazwan unlike other cuisines," Mushtaq told IANS. Many restaruants in Delhi serve the most famous Roganjosh, mutton cooked in a deep red gravy but not all matche the one served here. Not only the food, the entire setup -- including the decoration of Kashmiri copper utensils, carpets and music -- gives a feel of the heaven itself. One cannot miss the white tender meat balls, called goshtaba, cooked in a thick yogurt gravy (yakhni). "It is everybody's favourite. We have been serving this a lot in the last few days," one of the chefs said. What brought wazwan to Shangri-La's? Head Chef Neeraj said: "This festival is hosted in order to relish the taste of the most loved cuisines". "What makes Kashmiri food special is the preparation. The way every cook puts in the effort, how can the dish not be so tasty and wonderful," he asked while speaking to IANS. Ofcourse wazwan does not please vegetarians a lot, but it does not disappoint as well. Tamatar chamen or cottage cheese with tomato puree made by a waza is the best paneer, any vegetarian would ever have. Apart from the famous dum aloo and haakh, the chutneys, including walnut chutney, will leave you licking your fingers dry. Although the one served here is not as thick as the authentic one is, but nevertheless, I loved it. Before leaving the place, do not miss the hot Kashmiri kehwa served in copper samavar. Also, the waza special dryfruit-rich milk-based firni. The festival is on till February 12 from 12.30 p.m. till 3.30 p.m. (Ruwa Shah's visit was at the invitation of Shandri-La. She can be contacted at ruwa.s@ians.in) Chennai: AIADMK leader Sasikala Natarajan arrives to attend a party programme where she formally took over as the AIADMK's general secretary in Chennai on Dec 31, 2016. Image Source: IANS Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam talking to media after visiting the Jayalalithaa memorial at Chennai's Marina beach on Feb. 7, 2017. Image Source: IANS Chennai,Feb 09: : Over the last few weeks, Tamil Nadu has been in the news for various reasons ranging from the historic protests at Jallikatu to the change of guard at the state's ruling party. The recent turn of events at the AIADMK party headquarters made everyone in India and people of TN, in specific, glued to The TV sets with greater anticipation. After Jayalaitha's demise, Sasikala was unanimously elected as AIADMK's general secretary and was all set to become the third women chief minister of the state, until Tuesday evening when media flashed images of the outgoing CM, Panneerselvam, meditating in the Jayalaitha's memorial for almost 45 minutes - a rather unusual precedent. AIADMK played down the event by terming it as a 'normal routine' by the interim CM. Very little was known that Marina beach, that witnessed one of the largest gatherings for Jallikatu will again become an epicenter for another revolution of change, this time for taking over the reins of the state's leadership. Panneerselvam, who resigned from the post of Chief minister on Sunday, made allegations that he was forced to resign and also recommended to set up a team to probe the death of Jayalalitha, further deepening the suspense and mystery at the last hours of 'Amma'. He was single-handedly leading the charge against Sasikala. The turn of events sent jitters down the spines of Sasikala camp, for whom to become the next chief minister was a smooth sailing process till now. Allegations started coming from the Sasikala camp, who in turn even labeled Panneerselvam as a 'traitor' and alleged him to be in a secret alignment with DMK. The charges were refuted alike by both Panneerselvam and the DMK leader, Stalin. The absence of the Governor, Vidyasagar Rao - who is also in charge of Maharashtra, from the state further delayed the process of swearing-in and allowed Panneerselvam enough time to hog the limelight and appeal to the MLAs' to support his move. Panneerselvam received a shot in the arm when one of his colleagues and a sitting AIADMK Rajya Sabha MLA V. Maitreyan decided to join him. O. Panneerselvam further indicated that more AIADMK MLAs' will support him. Sasikala safeguarded all the elected MLAs' and boarded them in three buses to a five-star resort to ensure nobody jumps the ship. She claims to have the support of 130 MLAs' from the 134 AIADMK legislators in the assembly. The governor has arrived today and a meeting was arranged with both Panneerselvan and Sasikala camp. The nation awaits the outcome of these events more than the ongoing India-Bangladesh test series. New Delhi, Feb 9 : The Congress on Thursday threatened to boycott Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the remaining part of Parliament's Budget session if he didn't withdraw his "unacceptable" remarks against his predecessor Manmohan Singh. Modi had remarked that "only Doctor Sahab (Manmohan Singh) knows the art of bathing with raincoat on". "We will boycott the Prime Mminister when he comes to the house. We will not listen to him. But, we will not assault the dignity of the office of the prime minister. At the same time, we will continue to protest," Anand Sharma, Deputy Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, told the media here. Modi on Wednesday took the dig at Manmohan Singh, raking up the his speech during the winter session when he described the government's demonetisation move as a "monumental mismanagement" that might shave at least two per cent off India's economic growth rate. Modi, alluding to Manmohan Singh's clean reputation while heading a "scam-riddled" UPA government, said in the Rajya Sabha, "There is a lot for us politicians to learn... Only Doctor Sahab knows the art of bathing wearing a raincoat." The remark sparked ruckus in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, with Congress lawmakers staging a walkout during Modi's speech and seeking apology from the Prime Minister. "We know that he is an obdurate person. The Prime Minister is intolerant to criticism. He lives in denial. We have an arrogant person who occupies the chair of Prime Minister. He has demeaned his office repeatedly by his choice of words and language," Sharma said. "He has injected bitterness in the political narrative. He has lowered the dignity of his office repeatedly. He has used language which is unacceptable in political debates," Sharma said. "He has also dragged political debate to unacceptable low depths. We have been repeatedly urging the Prime Minister to desist from doing this but it is very clear that he actually relishes using foul language, insulting and berating the political opposition," he added. Sharma also said the manner in which Modi conducted his speeches, the kind of language he used and provoked and targeted the opposition, it was "unbecoming" of a Prime Minister. "We condemn it and we want to make it very clear that we have boycotted the Prime Minister yesterday. We walked out. The party consciously took this decision because we could not have been sitting there as he was hurling insults and abuses on our leaders former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh without any provocation and also insulted Indira Gandhi," said Sharma. Fort Lauderdale, FL, Feb. 09, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NuState Energy Holdings, Inc. (NSEH OTC US) announces the launch of a new corporate blog. This blog is intended to increase transparency and supplement the existent corporate branding initiatives. The corporate blog will be updated by company management and investor relations as the company progresses on its business dealings or has other pertinent updates to share. In addition to corporate updates, the company will publish articles in the green energy and technology space to increase brand and product awareness to a targeted audience. We are very excited to have another platform that allows us to communicate directly to our stakeholders, said CEO Kevin Yates, It will become a key part of our latest transparency and branding initiatives, and were confident that we will make frequent use of this incredibly efficient communication tool. Initially, the company plans to target articles in the green space, by providing information and company platforms on ecological issues. Additionally, the company plans to clear up misinformation and ensure the public is up to date on the correct information surrounding the companys past, present, and planned future. You can subscribe to the new blog via RSS at http://www.nsehinc.com/feed/ or follow along directly on the webpage at http://www.nsehinc.com/blog About NuState Energy Holdings, Inc.: NuState Energy Holdings, Inc. is a true green technology holding company based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. NuStates management has placed strong emphasis on acquiring, developing, and commercializing efficiency-bolstering software solutions in the automotive industry. For over 15 years, the company has managed a web-based collaborative marketplace for freight transportation and secure trucking. More recently, the company branched out to work on a telematics solution with consumers in mind. The result: GPSTrax, an innovative solution that can turn nearly any passenger vehicle into a smart car, capable of reducing fuel consumption and emissions by learning from and optimizing around driving patterns. The company is currently licensing its technologies abroad, with hopes to expand sales and decrease hazardous vehicular emissions across the globe. Going forward, NuState is committed to green energy and technological solutions. Our corporate goal is to make a global impact through strategic acquisitions and partnerships. Please visit our website today at www.nsehinc.com , while there sign up for our Company Newsletter. Connect with us on Social Media https://twitter.com/nsehinc https://www.facebook.com/NuStateEnergyHoldings/ http://investorshangout.com/NuState-Energy-Holdings-Inc-NSEH-91860/ Investors Hangout is the only authorized Investors blog page for NuState Energy Holdings, Inc. Safe-Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: This press release may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the Exchange Act), 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 companys financing plans; (ii) trends affecting the companys financial condition or results of operations; (iii) the companys 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. 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 companys ability to control, and that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements, due to various factors including the risk disclosed in the companys Forms 10-K and 10-Q filed with the SEC. Lucknow, Feb 9 : Chief Election Commissioner Naseem Zaidi on Thursday assured full security to the people who migrated from Kairana in western Uttar Pradesh and were interested to cast votes in the February 11 assembly poll. Talking to reporters in the state capital, the CEC also said that district magistrates and police chiefs have already been directed by the poll panel to ensure full security to such people. Zaidi was in the state capital to review the preparations for the seven phase poll in Uttar Pradesh. The first phase of polling is scheduled in western UP districts on Saturday. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been raking up the issue of migration of Hindu families from Kairana and party chief Amit Shah has on many occasions made it amply clear that for his party, security and safety of such migrants remained a poll issue. The Allahabad High Court has also recently asked officials to ensure the safety and security of people in this communally sensitive areas. When asked about the repeated demands of the BJP to remove the state DGP Javeed Ahmad and the chief secretary Rahul Bhatnagar on charges of being very close to the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP), Zaidi said the poll panel was seized of the matter and action would be taken on the issue at an appropriate time. Noida, Feb 9 : It's been a colourful campaign in this high-profile seat abutting Delhi with BJP's Pankaj Singh, son of union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, locked in a triangular contest with candidates of the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party. The election is vital for Pankaj Singh, 38, as he is making his debut in an assembly poll. The outcome and its margin are likely to have political ramifications for his father who has been a Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. BJP's victory in the previous two assembly polls in Noida has given some momentum to Pankaj Singh's campaign, but residents here say that BSP's entry has made the contest tight for him. The BSP has fielded a new candidate Ravikant Mishra, a Brahmin, while Samajwadi Party's Sunil Choudhary had contested an earlier election. The three contenders campaigned extensively on Thursday, the last day of electioneering for the first phase elections across 73 constituencies in Western Uttar Pradesh. Noida is a relatively new assembly seat, carved out as a separate constituency from Dadri in 2012. Enthusiasm among voters was evident with many shops and houses sporting party flags. While posters were placed tactically near major roundabouts, auto drivers were also flying party flags on their vehicles. BJP's Mahesh Sharma, who is Union Minister of Tourism and Culture (Independent Charge), won the seat in 2012. After Sharma was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2014, the seat was won by BJP's Vimla Batham in the by-election. Batham acknowledged that she was initially "deeply pained" over being denied the ticket but later came to terms with it when she was promised "bigger responsibility" by the party, she told IANS. She has been campaigning for Pankaj Singh. According to locals, the BJP's election margin was less in 2012 when the BSP contested and more in the 2014 by-election when the Mayawati-led party did not put up a candidate. "BSP's presence has made it tougher for Pankaj Singh as the party has a committed support base. The BJP got more votes in 2014 compared to 2012. The BJP is strong in the urban sectors, while BSP is strong in rural areas," Baljit Singh, a resident of Morna village here, told IANS. "Gurjar votes are getting divided in three everywhere. Most of the Gurjars will give their vote to BJP, some to SP and a few to BSP," he added. Mahesh Sharma polled 77,319 votes in 2012 while BSP's Omdutt Sharma got 49,643 votes and finished second. Samajwadi Party's Sunil Choudhary got 42,071 votes. In 2014, when the BSP did not contest and the SP replaced Choudhary with Kajal Sharma, the BJP got 61 per cent (1,00,433) votes. Sharma polled 41,481 votes. The BJP's rivals are also banking on a possible split in its votes as Batham was denied ticket. Batham's supporters, who were earlier upset, have now reconciled and accepted Pankaj Singh as the candidate. The SP and BSP have termed Pankaj Singh as an "outsider." "Replacing the sitting MLA will also have an impact in the elections. They (BJP) have brought an outsider, while I belong to Noida. People will vote against them," Choudhary told IANS during his tour of Morna village in Noida. BSP's Mishra said he will get votes from all sections as party leader Mayawati has the reputation of being a strong leader who is harsh on anti-social elements. "They (the people) want Noida to be free of crime and Behenji (Mayawati) had worked towards this during her rule. My contest is with the son of the country's Home Minister. I belong to a humble family and my father is a retired bank employee. We will get votes from all caste and communities and from rural and urban areas," the BSP candidate said, adding that his agenda was development. Pankaj Singh, who has been touring both urban and rural areas, said the BJP was putting up a united fight and "all were together". "The campaigning has been going good. It looks very positive," Singh told IANS. Asked about Vimla Batham, Singh said he has her support. "We go for campaigning together. We are all together," Pankaj Singh, who was active in the youth of the BJP since 2002, added. Noida has about 5.2 lakh voters, nearly four lakh of whom are urban. Gurjar, Jat and Dalits are among major communities here and it also has a substantial migrant population. Kishan Kumar, a businessman in Atta Market, said that demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes does not appear to be going against the BJP at least in the urban areas. "Demonetisation was a good decision. There were some difficulties but that did not make such a difference," he said. Kumar added that the BJP was more strong in urban parts of the constituency while the BSP and SP have their pockets of strength in the rural areas. Uttar Pradesh goes for seven-phased election for its 403 assembly seats from February 11 to March 8. (Sidhartha Dutta can be contacted at sidhartha.d@ians.in) New Delhi, Feb 9 : The India-Australia dialogue for an economic accord, which started in 2011 to boost trade and investment between the two countries, is expected to resume this year. In an interview to VNI, Indian-origin Australian High Commissioner to India Harinder Sidhu denied that the talks about the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) were on hold. "The Australian side has presented a stock take to India and New Delhi is examining it," Sidhu said stressing that Australia would be happy to conclude the agreement. The Free Trade Agreement or CECA talks have missed the final deadline because of two contentious issues: Reducing tariff duties and Indian access to the service sector in Australia, she said. Sidhu reiterated Australia's strong support and advocacy for India's inclusion in the 48-member Nuclear Suppliers' Group. The two countries had signed, in 2014, a nuclear cooperation agreement that cleared the sale of uranium to India and Canberra had followed it up by putting in place the implementing arrangements, including a legislation and legal framework to facilitate the export. Asked whether the supplies can start this year, Sidhu said there is no impediment to that from the Australian government's side. She said the India-Australia relationship is based on its own terms and is not steered or impacted by changing world scenario -- be it Brexit or the change of administration in the US. Sidhu is the second Australian High Commissioner of Indian-origin to be posted in India after Peter Varghese, whose parents had migrated from Kerala. Sidhu's parents hail from Punjab. New Delhi, Feb 9 : The paper presented by India at the World Trade Organization for a proposed Trade Facilitation in Services (TFS) Agreement is a welcome initiative that has been well received by many member countries, WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo said here on Thursday. "India's paper on a Trade Facilitation in Services Agreement is a positive move... a very welcome initiative that has been well received, in general, by members," Azevedo said at an event here organised by industry chamber CII. "Members, however, are awaiting clarifications...it is still a conceptual paper," he said. Noting that services have become a key part of economies around the world, Azevedo said that India's paper on a TFS accord contained a number of ideas like facilitating the cross-border movement of people, information flows and of health services. "Services make up 36 per cent of Indian exports, which makes it the fifth largest services exporter globally," he said. The TFS Agreement aims to ease norms including those relating to movement of foreign professionals across borders for short-term work. Among the objectives of the proposed accord is to ensure portability of social security contributions, and that fees or charges for immigration or visas are reasonable, transparent and non-restrictive in nature. It also aims to pave the way for a single window mechanism for foreign investment approvals. The World Trade Organization chief, who is on a two-day official visit here from Wednesday, said he would be discussing TFS issues with Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. Azevedo also referred to the very uncertain period for global trade, especially in the context of recent global developments including America's shift towards on protectionism and Britain's vote to exit (Brexit) from the EU. "This has been a very uncertain period for the global economy with trade growth for 2016 to be around 1.7 per cent, the slowest pace of trade growth since the financial crisis (2008-09). The outlook for the trade and the global flows has weakened significantly and has not returned to the pre-crisis level," he said. "In such a fragile scenario, we hear more and more talks on inward moving policies. We must emphasise that turning into protectionism will not solve the problem of slow growth." "There is a false notion that trade disrupts the local markets and leads to unemployment. The impact of the new technology and innovation is more significant for that matter. Studies show 8 out of 10 jobs are lost owing to that reason and not faulty trade policies", he added. In his address, Additional Secretary of Department of Commerce Anup Wadhawan said the proposal is also about making market access effective and commercially meaningful and not about new or greater market access. New Delhi, Feb 9 : India on Thursday handed over a request for the extradition of liquor baron Vijay Mallya to the British High Commission, seeking his presence to face trial in connection with a Rs 9,000 crore loan default case. "We have today handed over the request for extradition of Vijay Mallya as received from the CBI to the UK High Commission in New Delhi. We have requested the UK side to extradite him to face trial in India," Vikas Swarup, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson said at a briefing here. India's request comes nearly three months after British Prime Minister Theresa May's India visit during which Prime Minister Narendra Modi had handed over a list of 57 fugitives, including Christian Michel, Vijay Mallya and Lalit Modi, against whom extradition requests are pending. Mallya fled to Britain in March 2016 after being pursued in courts by a consortium of banks seeking to recover about Rs 9,000 crore owed by him and his now defunct Kingfisher Airlines. A Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) official said the agency's Mumbai branch had managed to issue a court order regarding Mallya's extradition last week and it was later handed over to the External Affairs Ministry through legal channels. The CBI and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) are the two agencies probing Mallya's case on different aspects. The CBI had in January filed its chargesheet against Mallya in the Rs 9,000 crore loan default case under charges of cheating and criminal conspiracy. He was later declared absconder. Despite multiple injunctions, Mallya has failed to appear before the ED investigators who are probing the case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Asserting that India has a "legitimate" case against Mallya, Swarup said if an extradition request is honoured, it shows the UK's "sensitivity towards our concerns". "We have an extradition treaty with Britain and a legitimate case against Mallya. Now, it's up to the British authorities to take further action," Swarup added. Under the laws of extradition, a host country is expected to ship back a man wanted for crime in his own country. Mallya, who has called his stay in the UK since April 2016 a "forced exile", has denied the charges against him. New Delhi, Feb 9 : The Delhi High Court on Thursday sought the Centre's response on a PIL over the non-appointment of chairperson in National Commission of Minority Educational Institutions (NCMEI), the post which has been lying vacant since December 2014. A division bench of Chief Justice G. Rohini and Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal asked the Ministry of Human Resource Development to respond by March 22, the next date of hearing. The plea was filed by journalist Mohd Khalid Ansari, who said the commission has remained headless for two years as no chairperson has been appointed till date. In December 2014, the Chairperson of the commission demitted office upon expiry of his tenure. The commission hairpeeson has to be from a minority community and must also have served as a judge of a High Court, said the plea. "Without the chairperson, all orders passed by the commission are liable to be set aside as being of no legal consequences and void ab initio. The other members of the commission are not judicially trained of appreciating the finer nuances of the law," said the plea filed through advocate Aly Mirza. The NCMEI Act came into effect from November 2004 and in January 2005 the central government issued notification identifying the community of Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Zorastrians (Parsis) as minorities for the purpose of the act. The commission was established to protect and safeguard the educational institutions which are established by the minorities in India and also to ensure rights of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice. Rabat, Feb 9 : Madagascar's Senate President HonorA Rakotomanana and Morocco's ambassador Mohamed Benjilany held a meeting to foster cooperation between the legislative institutions of the two countries. During the meeting on Wednesday, held in the Madagascar capital Antananarivo, the two reviewed bilateral relations and Rakotomanana congratulated Morocco over its return to the African Union (AU). The Malagasy official underlined that Morocco is a great country and an influential power in Africa, and its return to the AU will help spread its experience in terms of development for the benefit of Africa. New Delhi, Feb 9 : The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Thursday asked the Ministry of Water Resources and the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) to file an affidavit listing the actions taken in pursuance of its previous orders to clean the Yamuna river. The bench, headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar, asked the Director General of NMCG (Namami Gange) to submit the affidavit detailing the actions taken on its previous orders since 2015. "We direct the Ministry of Water Resources and the Director General of Namami Gange to file a complete and comprehensive affidavit positively before the next date of hearing, keeping in view the judgments of the tribunal dated January 13, 2015, May 8, 2015 and the order dated February 8, 2017," the bench directed. In January 2015, the NGT through its over 100-page judgement had directed taking up cleaning of the Yamuna river under "Maily Se Nirmal Yamuna Revitalization Plan, 2017". The project involved rehabilitation of existing waste treatment plants and constructions of several sewage treatment plants. The Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation is supplementing the efforts of the states for curbing pollution of the river. Meanwhile, during its daily hearing on the pollution of the Ganga, the tribunal was on Thursday informed about 30 major drains which flow into the river. Since February 6 this year, when the Supreme Court forwarded the matter of pollution of the river to the NGT, the tribunal is hearing the case on a daily basis. So far, the tribunal has pulled up the authorities stating that the river has not been cleaned, though the entire money is spent. "Not a single drop of the river water has been cleaned so far," a bench headed by the Chairperson said on Monday. The difference in data presented by various authorities and the petitioner on the number of industries in Uttar Pradesh between Haridwar and Unnao near Kanpur also reflected on the complete lack of planning to clean the river. While the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) kept the number of industries at over 700, Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) put it at 6,385, and petitioner M.C. Mehta said the number was 1.82 lakh. The tribunal several times lambasted the stakeholders for the lack of information and planning. There are over 35 distilleries, 442 tanneries, 63 textile mills, 67 pulp and paper plants, and 28 chemical industries along the river stretch between Haridwar and Kanpur. New Delhi, Feb 9 : Prime Minister Narendra Modis "bathing with a raincoat on" jibe against his predecessor Manmohan Singh triggered a political outrage on Thursday with the BJP defending the remark and lashing out at the Congress for disrupting Parliament proceedings over the row. Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi ridiculed Modi for his "penchant" to grab headlines and said the remark was an insult to the nation. Addressing a rally in the poll-bound Uttarakhand, Gandhi said Modi was the first Prime Minister who can't speak with respect about his predecessors. "Modi has this weakness of grabbing headlines. The day he isn't in the news, he doesn't get a proper sleep. To get into headlines, be it inside Parliament or outside, he creates this laughter show of sorts." Gandhi said the remark was "not a personal insult rather an insult to the entire nation because it was the people of this country who elected Manmohan Singh as their Prime Minister". Bharatiya Janaata Party President Amit Shah rallied behind Modi and targeted Manmohan Singh over a series of alleged scams in the previous Congress-led UPA government. "What wrong did Modi say by pointing out that Manmohan Singh didn't take responsibility for any of the scams," said Shah, enumerating various scams during the UPA regime, at an election rally in the hill state. Shah said the Congress Vice President himself had humiliated Manmohan Singh by shooting down a cabinet decision when the UPA was in power and asked him to recall Sonia Gandhi's "maut ka saudagar" (merchant of death) comment made against Modi during the 2007 Gujarat assembly elections. The issue also resurfaced in Parliament with the Congress joined in by the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal satging a walkout from the Lok Sabha. Raising the issue during Zero Hour, Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge said Modi's remark was unbecoming of a Prime Minister and "not good for parliamentary democracy". Congress members also trooped near Speaker Sumitra Mahajan's podium and started shouting slogans against Modi and demanding his apology. The Rajya Sabha also witnessed uproar over the issue with Congress members demanding Modi's apology. Upping the ante, the Congress also threatened to boycott Modi in the rest of the Budget session if he didn't withdraw his remarks. "We will boycott the Prime Minister when he comes to the House. We will not listen to him. But, we will not assault the dignity of the office of the PM. At the same time we'll continue to protest," Deputy Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma told reporters. Senior BJP leader and Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad defended Modi's remark and slammed the Congress. He targeted Manmohan Singh for "allowing" scams from the "space to beneath the earth" during his decade-long prime ministership. "Fun, pun, repartee, sarcasm, hot exchange of words are part of a healthy democracy. Why so much fuss about this," said Prasad. "What wrong did Modi say? The entire Manmohan Singh regime witnessed a new low of corruption where we had scams in the space -- the Antrix-Devas, on air -- the 2G spectrum. On land, there was the Commonwealth Games scam, on water there was the submarine scam and beneath the earth -- the coal scam," the Law Minister said. Union Information and Broadcasting Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu said Modi had actually complimented the Congress leader. "The Prime Minister did not insult Manmohan Singh, he gave a compliment to him by saying that even after such a long public life he has had no taint." Attributing the raincoat jibe to Modi's "peculiar imagination", CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said even if Manmohan Singh had risen up to respond to Modi, the Prime Minister in all likelihood would not have listened to him. "There is a saying that in a street fight, a gentleman never wins because he cannot stoop to the level of the street fighter," said Yechury, attacking Modi for "destroying" the accountability to Parliament by refusing to answer members. "The Prime Minister refuses to answer a single point raised in the debate, destroying accountability to Parliament and people. He has lowered the bar of parliamentary democracy to near-obscene levels. Fascistic demagoguery is no substitute for accountability." Latest updates on Howdy Modi Houston New Delhi, Feb 9 : Nearly 20 years after a raging fire at the Uphaar cinema in Delhi killed 59 persons, the Supreme Court on Thursday awarded real estate baron Gopal Ansal, one of the theatre owners, one year in jail. The apex court said since Gopal Ansal, 69, did not suffer any age-related complications, as was the case with Sushil Ansal, 77, there could be no principle of parity and he must spend one year in prison. The court gave Gopal Ansal four weeks to surrender to undergo the sentence. Since Gopal Ansal has already been in jail for four months and 29 days, he will serve the remaining sentence of over seven months, his counsel Salman Khurshid said. Co-accused Sushil Ansal was, however, let off with the sentence he has already served because of his old age and ailments. The Association of Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT), which fought a protracted legal battle against the Ansal brothers, said the verdict against Gopal Ansal had come as a "big disappointment". Its members said they have "lost hope" in the judiciary of the country. "We are very disappointed; justice is not done. We didn't expect just one-year punishment by the Supreme Court. We have been fighting for long and now we have lost hope in the judicial system of our country," Neelam Krishnamoorthy, head of AVUT, told IANS. The Ansals, who co-owned the Uphaar cinema in south Delhi, were earlier held guilty of "criminal negligence" but escaped jail terms beyond a few months after the top court's 2015 order. On June 13, 1997, a huge fire broke out when Hindi movie "Border" was being screened at the cinema hall. Trapped inside, 59 persons died of asphyxia while over 100 were injured in a stampede. On Thursday, almost 20 years after the tragedy, Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Kurian Joseph by a 2:1 majority verdict partially modified the August 19, 2015, order that had let off the Ansals by directing them to pay Rs 30 crore each, along with the jail sentence already served. Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel, however, reiterated the 2015 judgment. The court pronounced the verdict on pleas seeking a review of its 2015 order. On Thursday, a teary-eyed Krishnamoorthy of AVUT regretted approaching the courts instead of picking up the gun to avenge the death of her two children. Gopal Ansal's counsel Khurshid expressed sorrow, remorse and regret over the tragedy on behalf of the Ansal brothers. The August 19, 2015, verdict was delivered by a bench of Justice Anil R. Dave (since retired), Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel. The matter relating to the quantum of punishment was referred to the three-judge bench following the March 5, 2014, split verdict by a bench of then Justice T.S. Thakur and Justice Gyan Sudha Misra (both have since retired). Justice Thakur and Justice Gyan Sudha Misra, while agreeing with the conviction, had differed on the quantum of punishment. While Justice Thakur had sentenced the Ansals to one year imprisonment, Justice Misra enhanced it to two years but imposed a fine of Rs 50 crore each in lieu of the second year. Justice Misra had said that Rs 100 crore that the Ansal brothers were asked to pay would be used for setting up a trauma centre in Delhi's Dwarka area. The March 5, 2014, split verdict on the quantum of punishment had come on an appeal by the Central Bureau of Investigation and AVUT against the December 19, 2008, Delhi High Court judgment by which the two-year sentence awarded to each of the Ansal brothers by the trial court was reduced to one year each. The trial court on November 20, 2007, had convicted the Ansals and others under Section 403 of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced them to two years imprisonment each. Finnish English SATO Corporation, Press release, 9th Feb 2017 at 3:35 pm Annual report highlights successes in customer service and sustainability SATO's Annual report 2016 complements the figures and charts of the financial statement released last week by bringing forward the everyday work and successes of SATO's personnel. Aiming towards a continuously improving customer service is bearing fruit: Customers are increasingly willing to recommend SATO as a housing provider and the Net Promoter Score among SATO residents went up by two percentage points. SATO also did well in energy saving as for example specific heat consumption went down by 3.3%. - We updated our strategy and raised the customer-first principle to the core of everything we do, says SATO President and CEO Saku Sipola. - We were more actively present for our residents: at meet ups in home buildings, during apartment inspections, by telephone and at different customer events. All in all, the largest family event gathered approximately 1,000 of our customers. SATO launched the design of a new customer service model last year. This spring, the company will bring real estate management back as part of its own operations under a service approach that differs from traditional real estate management. - We're determined to revolutionise housing and offer our customers more than just walls. With the new service model, we'll look after our customers even better than before, Sipola says. SATO also succeeded in its environmental goals. Developing energy management processes for residential buildings, encouraging residents to save energy, switching to wind power and improving building automation systems paid off: paid off: specific electricity consumption went down by 1% and heat consumption by as much as 3.3%. - We compare our sustainability work with the work of others in our field by participating in Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB) annually, Sipola adds. - In the latest benchmark we renewed our Green Star rating. We ranked the best among five Nordic unlisted housing companies, and at the global level SATO was the ninth-best among the 65 participating housing investment companies. - We also took a closer look at the social impacts of our operations last year, Sipola continues. - The employment impact of our entire supplier network is almost 3,300 full-time equivalents of employment and exceeds 3,400 when taking our own personnel into account - a bigger impact than we had previously estimated. For example, in renovation projects our operations have, in addition to the direct construction site impacts, also indirect impacts in fields such as the construction products industry and construction services. This is the first time SATO's annual report is only published online and also serves as the sustainability report. If you would prefer to read the report on paper, you can print it out in full or compile a more compact document from the sections of your choice on PDF. Read the SATO Annual report at http://reports.sato.fi/annualreport2016 For more information, please contact: SATO Corporation Saku Sipola, President and CEO, p. +358 201 34 4001 and +358 40 551 5953 www.sato.fi/en SATO is one of Finland's leading rental housing providers. SATO's aim is to offer comprehensive alternatives in rental housing and an excellent customer experience. SATO holds roughly 25,300 apartments in Finland's largest growth centres and in St Petersburg. In our operations, we promote sustainable development and initiative-taking, and work in open interaction with our stakeholders to create added value. We operate profitably and with a long-term view. We increase the value of our housing property through investments, divestments and repair work. SATO Group's net sales in 2016 were 318.0 million, operating profit 267.2 million and profit before taxes 219.4 million. SATO's investment properties have a value of roughly 3.4 billion. Paris, Feb 9 : Five persons were injured in an explosion and fire at a nuclear power plant in northern France on Thursday, but no radiation was released from the plant, according to the power utility company that operates it. The explosion was reported at an Electricite de France (EDF) nuclear power plant in Flamanville on the Normandy coast, Efe news reported. "Flamanville 1, a fire was controlled in a non-nuclear zone," EDF said on its official Twitter account. "No casualties and no consequences for safety and the environment," the energy giant added. According to the EDF Flamanville's website, the incident took place at 9:45 a.m. in the engine-room of reactor number 1, that has been in service since 1986. The reactor was automatically shut down and switched off the national grid in accordance with safety protocols. The prefect of La Manche, Jacques Witkowski declared the incident as "over." Although the cause was not yet known, an overheated ventilation system in the engine room appeared to have caght fire and affected a transformer that exploded. The transformer's electrical insulation provoked a fire that belched thick clouds of smoke, but there was no radiation risk involved, Witkowski said. A technical inquiry will examine the causes of the incident, he said. New Delhi, Feb 9 : Dozens of JNU students on Thursday held a demonstration in solidarity with those killed, maimed or blinded in the Kashmir Valley during the 2016 unrest, a year after a similar event triggered a row on the university campus that also led to the arrest of student leaders, including Kanhaiya Kumar and Umar Khalid. Remembering the victims of Kashmir violence post the killing of militant commander Burhan Wani, the Jawaharlal Nehru University students raised pro-freedom slogans and put blood stained bandages on their eyes -- depicting the pellet victims in the valley. "In solidarity with The Country Without A Post Office," wrote Umar Khalid, who was arrested last year in February on charges of sedition and later released on bail. The students gathered outside the Administrative Block of the university and demanded "peace and freedom" for Kashimir. The day also marked the fourth death anniversary of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru who was hanged in 2013. The RSS's students front Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) denounced the demonstration, calling it a revival of "anarchy" on the campus and demanded top JNU officials' resignations for failing to stop pro-Kashmr protest. "It's a shame on the part of the administration that it was unable to stop them. Thus, those in administration should resign," the ABVP said in a statement. It also called on the Delhi Police and the Delhi High Court to "take note of the impunity with which such separatist sentiments have been flared in JNU year after year". On the same date last year, similar slogans were raised on the JNU campus during a cultural event at Sabarmati Dhaba. A number of students were arrested as result of the ensuing controversy. Students including Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya, Ashustosh, and former JNU Students Union President Kanhaiya Kumar were arrested and subsequently released on bail. The matter is pending in courts. Bhubaneswar, Feb 9 : Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay, who has been arrested for his alleged links with the Rose Valley Group chit fund scam, on Thursday moved the Orissa High Court seeking bail. The TMC MP has moved the high court after the Khordha District and Sessions Judge Court rejected his bail plea on February 4, said informed sources. At present, Bandyopadhyay is lodged in Jharpada Special Jail here. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probing the multi-crore chit fund scam arrested the four-time Lok Sabha member from Kolkata on January 3. Another TMC MP, Tapas Pal is also is in the special jail. He too was arrested for his alleged involvement in the Rose Valley chit fund scam. Meanwhile, the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) has registered a fresh case against all five directors of chit fund company Artha Tatwa (AT) group, including CMD Pradeep Sethy. "The case was registered for alleged violations of the rules of Company Act. We are investigating the irregularities occurred in the financial transactions that violated the Company Act guidelines," said SFIO Assistant Director Manoj Kumar Sahoo. Notably, the agency had earlier questioned Sethy and four other directors in the Jharpara special jail in connection with the massive ponzi scam. Beijing, Feb 9 : Two days after China again blocked an attempt to ban Jaish-e-Mohamed chief Masood Azhar in the UN, an influential Chinese daily said on Thursday that India, "under the defence of its counter-terrorism crusade", could step up military pressure on Pakistan, which would risk escalating tensions between the two arch-rivals. Defending China's latest veto to have Pakistani terrorist Masood Azhar -- mastermind of the Pathankot airbase terror attack last year -- declared as an international terrorist, the Global Times said that India had its own reasons to push against the militant. "India has its own reasons to have Azhar listed as a terrorist. However, observers are also worried that under the defence of the counter-terrorism crusade, India can increase its military pressure on Pakistan, thus risking escalating tensions between the two countries," it said. The editorial in the newspaper lamented that Indian media accused China of adopting double standard because Beijing had rejected India's proposal to add Azhar to the UN list of international terrorists. It said Beijing did so because India failed to provide concrete evidence against Azhar. On Tuesday, China blocked a US proposal to get Azhar listed as an international terrorist. Last year, Beijing thrice rejected India's proposal for the same, frustrating New Delhi. The issue is one of the irritants in the India-China relationship. However, the editorial said China was willing to work with India to combat terrorism, but peace and stability will always be its priority "The India-Pakistan feud has been a thorny issue in South Asia for a long time and China is caught in the middle, given geographic and geopolitical proximities to the two." "The failure to bring the two on the path to peace underscores their different domestic and diplomatic trajectories. Any action the UN takes should assist the peace process rather than escalate tensions between the two." "However, observers are also worried that under the defence of the counterterrorism crusade, India can increase its military pressure on Pakistan, thus risking escalating tensions between the two countries. "Chinese analysts said they believe India did not provide enough evidence to support its proposals, as evidence is required not only because of the need to maintain the UN's authority, but also because of the complexities in the region. "What is troublesome is some Indian media view China with prejudice and overly interpret China's moves, especially after China and Pakistan hastened the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project. "As a responsible power, China must help maintain regional order. Any India-Pakistan confrontation may bring other players into the region, which would complicate the situation." "China supports India's efforts at curbing terrorism. India can work more to bring all the parties to reach a consensus over the issue, instead of only blaming China for its failed attempts." "China is aware that the terrorism issue is a burning one, and has been trying to work with all stakeholders to crack down on terrorists in the region. China has also set up anti-terror mechanisms with India in this regard. In the future, China will enhance anti-terror cooperation with India, but regional peace and stability will always be a priority," it wrote. Lucknow, Feb 9 : Imam Bukhari, the Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid in Delhi, on Thursday appealed to his followers in the community to vote against the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, beginning February 11. Addressing a press conference here, Bukhari said he would expect the Muslim community to vote for the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). He said the BSP had always maintained law and order in the state and fulfilled its promises towards the community. Blaming the Akhilesh Yadav-led SP government for the troubles and insecurity among Muslims in the state, Bukhari also accused the Samajwadi Party of going back on its 2012 electoral promise of reservations for Muslims. "I had met both Mulayam Singh Yadav and Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav over the issue but they did not pay heed to our demands," he said. "Mulayam told Akhilesh to look into the matter but he did not listen," Bukhari added. Taking a dig at the strained relations between the father and the son, Bukhari asked how can a person do justice to the state when he had humiliated his own father. The development comes in stark contrast to 2012, when just before the elections to the state assembly, Bukhari along with Mulayam Singh Yadav had held a joint presser in a five-star hotel in Lucknow, wherein the Jama Masjid Imam had thrown his lot behind the SP and had asked Muslims to vote en masse for the SP. Thiruvananthapuram/Manama, Feb 9 : Bahrain is willing to increase its ties with Kerala in various sectors, Bahrain's Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa informed visiting Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. A statement issued by the office of Vijayan on Thursday night said that the Chief Minister also met with Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa who informed Vijayan that the Gulf nation has close ties with Malayalees. The Crown Prince conveyed that they wish to have closer ties in sectors like culture, education, IT and health and for that a special fund would be set up. Vijayan mooted the idea of setting up a bi-lateral Chamber of Commerce and also extended an invite to the rulers of the island nation to visit Kerala. Vijayan reached Bahrain on Wednesday and was accompanied by Keralite businessmen M.A. Yusuf Ali and Ravi Pillai besides his special secretary and senior bureaucrat Nalini Netto amongst others during the meeting. This was Vijayan's first visit to Bahrain after taking over as Chief Minister last May. He is accompanied by his wife also. New Delhi, Feb 9 : Two days after Beijing again blocked the move to ban Jaish-e-Mohamed chief Masood Azhar in the UN, India on Thursday hoped that China would eventually come around to accepting the view that it was not a bilateral issue with Pakistan but a matter of global terrorism. "We don't view this as a bilateral matter between India and Pakistan but as an issue of global counter terrorism. We hope that eventually China will also come around to accepting this view," said Vikas Swarup, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson. "This proposal was not moved by India but by three permanent members of the UN Security Council - the US, UK and France. It is our understanding that this was a classic counter terrorism proposal meant to proscribe a dreaded terrorist leader Masood Azhar whose organisation the Jaish-e-Mohammad has already been proscribed by the UN 1267 Committee," Swarup said. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang on Wednesday, defended the block, saying "The purpose for China to place the technical hold is to allow enough time for discussion among relevant parties to reach a tenable decision widely accepted by the international community." China blocked the US' move at the United Nations to have Pakistani militant Masood Azhar declared as international terrorist under the 1267 Committee of the Security Council. Last year, China rejected thrice India's resolution to add Masood to the UN list of international terrorists. Mumbai, Feb 9 : Tata Steel UK on Thursday said it signed a definitive sale agreement to sell its speciality steels business to Liberty House Group for a total consideration of 100 million pounds. "This is a good news for speciality steels and for Tata steel's core business in the UK. For speciality steels, which is largely independent of our European strip products supply chain, this is an important step forward in securing a future for the business under new ownership," said Tata Steel UK's CEO Bimlendra Jha. The sale agreement covers several south Yorkshire-based assets including the electric arc steelworks and bar mill at Rotherham, the steel purifying facility in Stocksbridge and a mill in Brinsworth. Completion of the transaction remains subject to the receipt of necessary regulatory clearances, a company statement said. "Like our Scunthorpe-based long products business which we sold last year, we will be handing over a business which has been transformed following difficult decisions to restructure and re-focus on higher-value markets," Jha said. Speciality steels directly employs about 1,700 people making steels for the aerospace, automotive and oil and gas industries. The company is currently consulting with its employees on number of proposals that would structurally reduce risks and help secure a more sustainable future for its wide UK business, it said. New Delhi, Feb 9 : The BJP on Thursday said it will start 'Reality Check Yatra' in the national capital ahead of the completion of Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government's two years in the office. Bharatiya Janata Party's Delhi unit President Manoj Tiwari will start a Reality Check Yatra on February 10, the party said in a statement. "During the 'Reality Check Yatra', Tiwari will assess the claims of development work done by the Delhi government and bring truth before the people," the statement said. "MPs, MLAs, senior leaders and Delhi BJP office-bearers will travel with Tiwari area wise," it added. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) came to power in Delhi on February 14, 2015, with a huge mandate. The party, led by Kejriwal, won 67 of 70 seats in the assembly. Tiwari, after being appointed as the new party president of the BJP's Delhi unit, has led an aggressive campaign against the Delhi government. With the Municipal Corporation of Delhi elections just a few months away, Tiwari, who is an MP from the northeast Delhi, has spent four nights in the slums of the city, eyeing people of slums who supported AAP over the issue of free water supply and electricity at half rates. The statement read that the Reality Check Yatra of Tiwari will go to all areas of the national capital. New Delhi, Feb 9 : Two college girls from Delhi, missing from their houses since November 2014, have been traced in Rajasthan, the Delhi Police said on Thursday. According to police, both young women went missing, one from Swaroop Nagar area in Delhi and the other from Bharatpur in Rajasthan, more than two years ago but found living together in Jaipur. "Kavita (name changed), a student of Delhi University, was reported missing by her father in November 2014," Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Milind Mahadeo Dumbere said. "The police were informed by the Rajasthan Police on Wednesday that the girl we are looking for is residing in a rented accommodation in Jaipur. Police visited her house and found her living with a girl who too was missing from Bharatpur. Their family members were informed for identification," Dumbere said. Deepa (name changed) was also missing from her Bharatpur residence since November 2014 and a missing complaint was filed by her family with the Rajasthan Police, the officer said. Kavita had gone to her grandmother's house in Bharatpur, where she befriended Deepa. Both are adults and decided to spend their entire life together, Dumbere said. Kavita was working as an accountant in Jaipur and Deepa as a receptionist in a private company in Jaipur, the officer said. A reward of Rs 20,000 was announced by the Delhi Police for help in tracing the young woman. "Both the women were brought to Delhi and got medically examined. Kavita was presented in a court here for recording her statement, while Deepa was handed over to Rajasthan Police," the police officer said. On questioning, Kavita said both fled their homes and started living together in a rented accommodation in Jaipur, the officer said. NEW YORK, Feb. 09, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AXIM Biotechnologies, Inc. (AXIM Biotech) (OTC:AXIM), a world leader in cannabinoid research and development, today announced that George E. Anastassov, MD, DDS, MBA and Chief Executive Officer of AXIM Biotech, is scheduled to meet with business prospects and investors at the annual BIO CEO & Investor Conference in New York from February 13-14, 2017 at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. Now in its 19th year, the BIO CEO & Investor Conference is one of the largest investor conferences focused on established and emerging publicly traded and select private biotech companies. AXIM Biotechs presentation will be available for download on Monday, February 13th at this link as well as previous presentations. About AXIM AXIM Biotechnologies, Inc. (OTC:AXIM) focuses on the research, development and production of cannabis-based pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and cosmetic products. Our flagship products include CanChew, a CBD-based controlled release chewing gum, and MedChew Rx, a combination CBD/THC gum that is undergoing clinical trials for the treatment of pain and spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis. We prioritize the well-being of our customers while embracing a solid fiscal strategy. Medical Marijuana, Inc. is a major investor in AXIM. For more information, please visit www.AXIMBiotech.com. FORWARD-LOOKING DISCLAIMER This press release may contain certain forward-looking statements and information, as defined within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and is subject to the Safe Harbor created by those sections. This material contains statements about expected future events and/or financial results that are forward-looking in nature and subject to risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements by definition involve risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Axim Biotechnologies, Inc. to be materially different from the statements made herein. LEGAL DISCLOSURE AXIM Biotechnologies does not sell or distribute any products that are in violation of the United States Controlled Substances Act (US.CSA). Bengaluru, Feb 9 : India's largest beer maker United Breweries has directed tycoon Vijya Mallya to step down from its board as non-executive Chairman, the company said on Thursday. "We are compelled to request you to step down from the Board of United Breweries Ltd with immediate effect," said Company Secretary and Vice President-Legal Govind Iyengar in an email to Mallya on late Wednesday night. The board's directive was made to comply with the stock market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India's (SEBI) January 25 order and in the absence of stay or vacation on it. The market watchdog had restrained Mallya from holding the position as a Director or a key managerial position of the group's listed companies. The Bombay Stock exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE) had also sought from the company the status of compliance with the SEBI order. "The independent and other directors, present at the board meeting in Mumbai on February 6, had resolved not to send notices and agenda relating to board meetings or other privileged information to Mallya till he obtains stay on the SEBI order," said the company in a regulatory filing to both BSE and NSE. The flamboyant 61-year-old Mallya is reported to be in Britain since he left India on March 2, 2016, after the consortium moved a tribunal in February last year to expedite hearing on its debt recovery petition. The board's directive to Mallya came a day after the Karnataka High Court on Tuesday ordered winding up of the group's United Breweries (Holdings) Ltd to recover dues of its now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines Ltd. New Delhi, Feb 9 : Employees of the Central Public Work Department (CPWD) have decided to stage a protest on February 22 against moves towards corporatising the department, saying that such a decision will be against the public interest. A CPWD official said that employees were "gravely concerned" over media reports that a Group of Secretaries has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to "corporatise" the CPWD on the lines of NBCC (India) Ltd. The official said that joint front, a forum of CPWD service associations, will hold a mass rally at Nirman Bhavan on February 22 to demand that the proposal to corporatise the CPWD be stopped. The employees had earlier this month written to Urban Development Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu demanding that the proposal be scrapped and termed it as "irrational, illogical and not supported by proper reasoning". In its representation to the minister, Central Engineering Service Group `A' Association said that CPWD officers and staff needs to be duly heard. They also said that the government's position on the issues raised by it should be put in public domain for a discussion. Officials said the CPWD had about 35,000 employees and the government had in November last year requested expression of interest for selection of reputed agencies for studying the working of the CPWD. They said that reports about corporatising the department had come even as study had not been carried out. The CPWD came into existence in 1854 and functions as premier public works organisation of the government. Kolkata, Feb 9 : The Congress and Left Front members held joint and separate protests in the assembly premises and also hit the streets on Thursday to protest the alleged assault on Leader of Opposition Abdul Mannan inside the house. The Opposition groups announced they would place a symbolic alternate budget by holding a mock session on Friday -- the day two of their boycott of the session -- when Finance Minister Amit Mitra is slated to place the budget in the house. Wearing aprons containing pictures of the vandalism in the assembly lobby on November 30, 2006, by then opposition Trinamool Congress members, the Congress members shouted slogans and staged demonstrations in the assembly lobby and outside the gate. Mannan was suspended by Speaker Biman Banejee for two days on Wednesday as the Congress legislator refused to heed his directive to take off a similar apron he wore during the house session on Wednesday. Mannan, carrying a placard, instead trooped to the well of the house and staged a sit-in, prompting the Speaker to call in the marshal and other security men to remove him. However, with the other Congress members joining him, Mannan tried to resist his eviction, triggering a scuffle between the security personnel and the lawmakers. Mannan fell ill during the disturbance, and was rushed to a hospital and was admitted in an ICU. He is to undergo a pacemaker implant on Friday. On Thursday, both Left Front and Congress members held demonstration at the base of B.R. Ambedkar's statue in the assembly premises. "Tomorrow we will place an alternative budget and hold a mock session in the assembly premises when the government places its budget in the house," Congress lawmaker Manoj Chakraborty said. "The state Congress President will be there with us on Friday. We will then sit down and chalk out the next course of action," he said. The Opposition had earlier announced a two-day boycott of the assembly on Thursday and Friday. Left Front legislature party leader Sujon Chakraborty said: "Our budget presentation will be symbolic -- a two-page document statement. Inside, they are going to utter untruths about our industry, agriculture and employment generation. This is ruining the state." The Opposition parties also blockaded roads and took out protest rallies in various parts of the state on the issue. Some Congress activists were arrested when they staged a noisy demonstration outside the north gate of the assembly. The demonstrators scuffled with the police, who arrested some of them. Congress workers put up a road blockade in North East Kolkata's Chinar Park. They also demonstrated near the Curzon Gate of Burdwan town. The Left Front took out a protest rally from Dharmatala to Ramlila Maidan, calling Wednesday's developments as black day for democracy and an effort to muzzle the opposition. Led by Left Front chairman Biman bose and CPI-M State Secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra, the protesters carried posters, banners and flexes which cried out against "snatching of democratic rights of legislators in the assembly". However, the state government condemned the behaviour of the Opposition. "It's a shame that such things are happening in a democracy. The Speaker presides over the House. This is our tradition and culture. I hope all lawmakers will abide by this tradition and culture," said Education and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Partha Chatterjee. Bengaluru, Feb 9 : Regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had reviewed the Brand Licence Agreement (BLA) of AirAsia India Ltd and submitted its report to the Delhi High Court, said the low-cost airline on Thursday. "AirAsia (India) Ltd (AirAsia) would like to share an update with members of the Press about the on-going litigation in the Delhi High Court. Pursuant to the Delhi High Court order dated 11.11.2016, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation was to review the Brand Licence Agreement to ascertain the 'control', as defined in Aircraft Rules, of AirAsia. "The DGCA has reviewed the BLA and submitted its report to the Delhi High Court pursuant to the latter's November 11 order to ascertain the control of AirAsia," said the budget carrier in a statement here. The three-year-old low-cost airline is a joint venture between Tata Sons Ltd and AirAsia Berhad in Malaysia, with each holding 49 per cent equity stake, while its Chairman S. Ramadorai and Director R. Venkataraman hold 0.5 per cent and 1.5 per cent shareholding, respectively. With a fleet of eight aircraft, the carrier flies to 13 destinations, including Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Goa, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Imphal, Jaipur, Kochi and Vizag, with Bengaluru and New Delhi as its northern and southern hubs. Asserting that it is committed to the Indian aviation industry and the people who were yet to fly, the airline said its expansion was on track, with triple-digit revenue in December, flying new routes and a growing fleet of aircraft. "As we are supportive of the government's policies and aviation industry's initiatives, we will continue to expand our network in India," added the statement. Brussels, Feb 9 : The European Union and India underlined their desire on Thursday to strengthen strategic partnership and to boost cooperation in many sectors, including political, security, trade, economy, human rights and environment. "India is one of our four strategic partners in Asia. We want to build our relationship further to reflect the strategic nature of this partnership. We have had some difficult years behind us," said Gunnar Wiegand, Managing Director, Asia and Pacific, in the EU foreign service, known as the European External Action Service. He was speaking at a debate on EU-India relations, hosted by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament in Brussels. "The strategic partnership is currently being shaped in a very tangible and complex global and European environment," he said referring to the Brexit referendum and to the new US administration. "...We have agreed on an ambitious EU-India Action Plan 2020 on a broad range of common issues," said Wiegand. He called for more EU-India cooperation on key global issues in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, and to strengthen trade and investment partnership, adding that the EU remains committed to a broad and comprehensive Free Trade Agreement. The top EU diplomat also called for more high-level visits from India to Brussels. Addressing the debate, India's ambassador to the EU, Manjeev Singh Puri, said: "The EU and India are the largest bastions of democracy. We need to come together and work to make things better for ourselves and the world. I believe we have a vested interests with each other. "The European Union and India have a joint and shared interest in multipolarity and have a shared and joint interest in discharging global responsibility," he stated. Puri noted that the EU and India agreed on a strategic partnership in 2004 and underlined that the two sides are cooperating in several areas, including security and counter-terrorism. The last EU-India summit was held in Brussels in March 2016, just a week after the horrendous terror attacks in the Belgian capital. Puri said that the visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Brussels last March was a very important sign to stress India's solidarity in the fight against terrorism. He said the EU and India have been negotiating a broad-based trade and investment agreement for several years and recently high-level talks were held to re-launch these negotiations. An EU-India summit is planned to be held in New Delhi later this year. On his part, Geoffrey Van Orden, the chair of the European Parliament's delegation for ties with India, argued that "India, in spite of the fine words and cliches that we hear, is a much neglected country in terms of our EU relationship. "Although there are strong bilateral relations, it is also neglected in terms of bilateral relations. There is so much more to be done." He said talks are continuing to establish an EU-India friendship group in the Lok Sabha and said that members of the delegation will be visiting India shortly. Members of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament are also expected to visit India later this month. Two British Members of the European Parliament of Pakistani origin, Afzal Khan and Amjad Bashir, raised the issue of Kashmir during the debate. In reply, the Indian ambassador stressed that "Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India". "My suggestion to you would be to tell the country of your birth to stop fomenting terror, stop being an epicentre of global terrorism and stop trying to export it across," added Puri. Lucknow, Feb 10 : A second-year Law student sustained serious burn injuries on Thursday when he set himself on fire outside the Allahabad University campus, police said. The incident is believed to be linked to the ongoing students' agitation there. The student, Zaabir Raza, sustained 30 per cent burn injuries and was rushed to Delhi in an ambulance late in the night. Following the incident, tension griped the university campus and angry students held hostage some of the university officials. Police had to resort to a minor cane charge to disperse the unruly mob of students. The students have been agitating against the university management for some days. President of Allahabad University Students Union Rohit Mishra has termed the incident as "sad" and the cane charge by police as "very unfortunate". Lucknow, Feb 10 : Ahead of the first phase of Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday sacked Minister of State for Higher Education Sharda Prasad Shukla for contesting on an RLD ticket. Considered close to his father Mulayam Singh Yadav, the minister was denied ticket by the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP), after which he chose to contest on a Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) ticket from Sarojininagar constituency in the state capital. As Akhilesh Yadav recommended his sacking, Governor Ram Naik accepted the decision and Shukla was immediately relieved of his charge. Bari, Feb 10 : Police in southern Italy on Thursday seized an Albanian's passport and banned him from leaving his place of residence after they found jihadist propaganda videos, including executions staged by the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group on his smartphone and computer. Named by local daily La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno as Edmond Ahmetaj, he has been put under special surveillance for two years, during which time he may not leave the town of Noci, near Bari in the Puglia region or use the internet. Ahmetaj is also required to take part in a "de-radicalisation" programme on the orders of a court in Bari, police said. The 38-year-old suspect is under investigation for international terrorism and is accused of proselytising extensively for IS online and of being in contact with a network of jihadist groups, police said. Evidence against Ahmetaj gathered by investigators included violent jihadist videos and Facebook comments mocking the victims of IS's November 2015 attacks in Paris and lauding the extremist group, police said. Investigators said they also found a photo on Ahmetaj's Facebook page of him holding an assault weapon and a video urging the conquest of Italy by IS. He also shared a video of an interview with jailed hate preacher Anjem Choudary in which Choudary threatens Italy and claims IS will turn it into an Islamic 'Caliphate' ruled under Sharia law. A doctored version of the video game "Assassin's Creed" in which the original soundtrack had been replaced with IS propaganda railing against Britain was also found on Ahmetaj's electronic devices, according to police. Ahmetaj lives with his family and acquired Italian citizenship in May last year. He was put under investigation shortly after IS's attacks on Paris by gunmen and suicide bombers on November 13, 2015 which killed 130 people. Los Angeles, Feb 10 : Hollywood actor Channing Tatum is launching his own brand of vodka called Born and Bred. "On the inside label, once you drink it down, or if you get your eye really close to the bottle, it says, 'Cross my heart and hope for mischief'. That's just what I want when I pour myself a drink. I want to just cause a little havoc, get into some trouble, get into some safe, manageable mischief," Tatum told Bon Appetit magazine, reports femalefirst.co.uk. The 36-year-old star came up with the idea for the spirit line after going on a quest to find a "good American vodka" with his friend. He said: "It was me and my buddy Jack, we were just sitting around drinking one day and he was like, 'Why are all vodkas foreign and from somewhere cold? I would like an American vodka!' This was before Titos became what Titos is. We had no intention of jumping into the business at all. We just drank vodka. That was it. From there we went on a search. "We wanted to find a good American vodka. We tried 25 or so and we really only liked about three. Grand Teton became our favourite. It just tasted better, different than any vodka that was on the top shelf. There was a smooth taste to it, like a cool feeling in your mouth. The aftertaste doesn't burn. That's the difference." Tatum is not surprised by his new venture because every part of his life has been "shocking". "I'm a stripper that became an actor that I guess is working in vodka. Nothing surprises me anymore. It's all shocking. Every day I wake up and I have a pinch-yourself reality moment," he said. SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 09, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP reminds investors in BT Group plc (NYSE:BT) of the March 27, 2017 Lead Plaintiff deadline. If you purchased or otherwise acquired securities of BT between May 24, 2012 and January 23, 2017 and suffered over $100,000 in losses contact Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP. For more information visit: https://www.hbsslaw.com/cases/BT or contact Reed Kathrein, who is leading the firms investigation, by calling 510-725-3000 or emailing BT@hbsslaw.com. On January 24, 2017 BT filed its Form 6-K with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company disclosed that an internal accounting investigation identified a significant overstatement of earnings in our Italian business over a number of years. The Company stated that the required adjustments would total approximately 530 million. This news drove the price of BT shares down over 20% on January 24, 2017. Were focused on the material failures of BTs financial controls and when management knew or should have known they were broken, said Hagens Berman partner Reed Kathrein. Whistleblowers: Persons with non-public information regarding BT should consider their options to help in the investigation or take advantage of the SEC Whistleblower program. Under the new SEC whistleblower program, whistleblowers who provide original information may receive rewards totaling up to 30 percent of any successful recovery made by the SEC. For more information, call Reed Kathrein at 510-725-3000 or email BT@hbsslaw.com. About Hagens Berman Hagens Berman is a national investor-rights law firm headquartered in Seattle, Washington with offices in 10 cities. The Firm represents investors, whistleblowers, workers and consumers in complex litigation. More about the Firm and its successes can be found at www.hbsslaw.com. For the latest news visit our newsroom or follow us on Twitter at @classactionlaw. We Buy Homes is pleased to announce exceptional growth in 2016. When compared to the number of homes purchased in 2015, We Buy Homes grew by 55 percent in 2016. The companys management credits this substantial growth to tremendous team work, successful recruiting and retaining the hardworking staff that help homeowners sell their properties As Is for cash. From the companys start, integrity, hard work, and keeping its word were key drivers of success, and those principles still hold true today. We Buy Homes has proven that it is possible to get a competitive cash offer in seven minutes for a house As Is, and that homeowners can skip the Realtor commissions and not have to worry about a home sitting for months on the market. We Buy Homes has more than delivered on its promise to put cash in the homeowners hands fast without the property owner having to do a single repair, a single upgrade, any appliance replacements or even cut the lawn. One call, a cash offer in seven minutes, closing within 7 days and its all done. The homeowner walks away with cash. The saying if it sounds too good to be true, it is simply does not apply when it comes to We Buy Homes. It is good, and it is true; 2016s outstanding company growth proves that this radically new and disruptive selling model really works. In fact, much of the companys growth is due to extremely satisfied customers being so happy with their experience, they spread the word organically on social media and through word of mouth. If you are a homeowner looking to sell a property As Is for cash, look no further than We Buy Homes. The company is currently purchasing homes in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. To get a cash offer in seven minutes for a house As Is, visit webuyhomes-inc.com/about today. About We Buy Homes We Buy Homes is a cash-for-home company that purchases houses in any condition. If necessary, the company then renovates the home and prepares it for sale. The aim of We Buy Homes is to provide a fast and easy way for property owners to divest themselves of homes they no longer want or need, and to help those who do not want to engage in costly renovations or rely on the unstable housing market for a sale. We Buy Homes is proud to improve the real estate values in the communities in which it operates. Contact Details: We Buy Homes 1725 I St NW, Suite 300 Washington, DC 20006 Phone: 1-877-715-5508 Source: We Buy Homes ### Companies that can meet higher demands without missing a beat in their exemplary performance standards truly do stand apart from their peers Action Air Conditioning, Heating and Solar has earned the home service industrys coveted Angies List Super Service Award, reflecting an exemplary year of customer service to members of the local services marketplace and consumer review site in 2016. This achievement is particularly significant as Angies List experienced unprecedented member growth in 2016. More than 1.6 million consumers, many of whom were eager to quickly hire highly qualified service pros, joined Angies List after the company added a new, free membership tier. Companies that can meet higher demands without missing a beat in their exemplary performance standards truly do stand apart from their peers, said Angies List Founder Angie Hicks. Only a fraction of the Air Conditioning, Heating and Solar companies in San Diego were able to do it. Angies List Super Service Award 2016 winners have met strict eligibility requirements, which include an A rating in overall grade, recent grade, and review period grade. The SSA winners must also be in good standing with Angies List, pass a background check and abide by Angies List operational guidelines. "We pride ourselves on being extremely accountable to our customers," said Brian Amodio, CEO of Action Air Conditioning, Heating and Solar. "From our Comfort Specialists to our Service Technicians, we are all passionate about delivering exceptional service. Winning this award for the 9th year shows our commitment to our employees and to our customers." Service company ratings are updated daily on Angies List as new, verified consumer reviews are submitted. Companies are graded on an A through F scale in areas ranging from price to professionalism to punctuality. For more than 21 years, Angies List restricted access to its verified reviews to consumers who paid membership fees. When the company removed that barrier, some companies worried that the new, non-paying members would not be as engaged as members of the past. Experience has shown, however, that these newly added members are just as engaged across all age groups as prior members. Also, because the company continues to adhere to its review verification process, there has been no degradation of review quality. The biggest change at Angies List is that we are connecting even more consumers to high quality service professionals, Hicks said. And thats good for everyone. ### Angie's List helps facilitate happy transactions between more than 4.5 million consumers nationwide and its collection of highly rated service providers in more than 720 categories of service, ranging from home improvement to health care. Built on a foundation of more than 10 million verified reviews of local service, Angie's List connects consumers directly to its online marketplace of services from member-reviewed providers, and offers unique tools and support designed to improve the local service experience for both consumers and service professionals. Estonian English Tallinn, Estonia, 2017-02-09 15:30 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AS Merko Ehitus has launched the second stage of Tallinn-based Noblessner Home Port development project and started with the sales of Staapli 3 apartments. The 6-storey building with 105 apartments and interior courtyard will be completed by the end of 2018. Staapli 4 apartment building and underground garage, connecting the whole complex, are currently in active construction and will be completed by the end of 2017. The size of Staapli 3 15-storey apartments range from 26140 square metres and they offer nice views to the sea, interior courtyard and inner streets. The energy class B residential units have heat exchange forced air ventilation system and floor heating, glass-enclosed balconies, and some apartments a sauna and readiness for a fireplace. Homebuyers can choose from six interior finishing packages, developed in cooperation with interior architects Eeva Masso and Katrin Tammsaar. The price per square metre of the apartments in Staapli 4 building ranges from 2,3904,350 euros and in Staapli 3 building from 1,7113,553 euros. Almost half of the apartments at Staapli 4 have been sold. People, who had registered their interest in Staapli 3 apartments, have received personal pre-information and they have booked quarter of the apartments at Staapli 3 building. The Noblessner Home Port development project (noblessner.merko.ee) encompasses four apartment buildings with 200 apartments and close to 3,700 m of office and retail space. In addition to the Staapli 3 and 4 buildings in the future will be constructed also houses at Staapli 8 and 12. Noblessner Home Port is located just seven metres from the sea. The architecture was authored by an Estonian architectural design office Arhitektuuriburoo Pluss, the winner of an international invitational competition, which has put peoples living environment, logistics and activities in the focus. Cars will be parked on an underground level, ensuring space mainly for pedestrians and cyclists. Private and semi-private play and recreational areas will be created in the interior courtyards, and for pedestrian access, stairs will be established in the hillside on Kalaranna street facing the sea in the summer of 2017. The goal of the BLRT Group, which is developing the entire Noblessner port complex, is an integral and prestigious living, business and leisure time environment that puts a premium on the historical legacy and the picturesque seaside location. In the immediate vicinity is the Seaplane Harbour, Kalamaja Park and the European IT Agency headquarters to be completed by the end of 2017. By the completion of the first apartment building, the shipyard operations that historically were based here will be wound up. BLRT will demolish the production facility, build a promenade with a new plaza and renovate the yacht club and recondition the area around the Valukoda (foundry). There is a plan to open the first Virtual Reality Experience Centre in Northern Europe in the Valukoda by 2019. Today, access to the Noblessner quarter is via Toostuse street, and an additional access route will be developed directly from Kalaranna street, including a pedestrian and cycle ramp that will be connected with the existing pedestrian and bike tunnel and sea promenade. Parking areas will be established, and later parking garages as well. The Noblessner Home Port project is being developed by Kodusadam OU, a joint venture, established in December 2014 by AS Merko Ehitus ja BLRT Grupp AS, both owning 50% of the company. More information: Mr. Tiit Kuusik, Director of Residential Construction Division, AS Merko Ehitus Eesti, tel. +372 680 5105. Merit Kullasepp Communication and Marketing Manager AS Merko Ehitus Tel: +372 650 1250 Email: merit.kullasepp@merko.ee Estonian industrial group BLRT Grupp (www.blrt.ee) is one of the biggest in the Baltic Sea region. Operations were launched in Tallinn in 1912. Today the group includes 57 companies that provide jobs to 4,000 specialists in 10 different sectors in seven countries. AS Merko Ehitus (group.merko.ee) group consists of Estonias leading construction company AS Merko Ehitus Eesti, the Latvian-market-oriented SIA Merks, UAB Merko Statyba that is operating on the Lithuanian market, construction company Peritus Entreprenr AS in Norway and the real estate development business unit along with real estate holding companies. As at the end of 2016, the group employed 797 people and the companys 2016 revenue was EUR 252 million. The Corporate Compliance Roundtable, formerly New Jersey Corporate Compliance Roundtable, is expanding its reach to better serve their members throughout New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. The Roundtable was founded in New Jersey in 2010 by Nicoll Davis & Spinella LLP to provide a setting for business owners, executives, compliance professionals, and corporate counsel seeking professional growth and networking opportunities. The Roundtable also provides Continuing Legal Education (CLE) opportunities for member attorneys. Upcoming events include Auto Dealers, Risk & Compliance: What Keeps Us Up at Night on March 7, 2017, a private discussion moderated by Marc Snyderman; and Legal for Non-Legal Executives: Seminar 1: Enterprise Risk Management on March 16, 2017, the first of a three-part seminar series focused on risk management. Please visit the Roundtables newly-designed web site at CCRoundtable.com to register and for information. For more information on the Corporate Compliance Roundtable, call the law offices of Nicoll Davis & Spinella LLP at 201-712-1616 or visit our newly designed website at http://www.ccroundtable.com. Golden Gate BPO Solutions, a global provider of customer management, contact center and business process outsourcing solutions, has announced a new operating partnership with KG Information Systems Private Limited (KGiSL). Based in Coimbatore, India, KGiSL is an innovative provider of business support services, IT consulting and services and back office support. Through this partnership with KGiSL, Golden Gate BPO Solutions will enhance its current offerings by leveraging KGiSLs India-based Global Business Support and Software Support Services divisions. KGiSLs Business Support Services (BSS) division focuses on a complete and comprehensive suite of customized services, including multi-channel contact center services, financial services, revenue cycle management (RCM) services, HR services, back-office services and KPO solutions by leveraging its world-class infrastructure and implementing streamlined processes. The Global Software Services (GSS) division primarily develops and supports software requirements for insurance, banking, financial institutions, capital markets and other service-based industries. KGiSL is committed to helping clients operate more efficiently and improve business process performance by way of their proprietary technology platforms, highly trained and engaged employees, world-class infrastructure, operational excellence and streamlined processes, says Stephen Ferber, CEO & Managing Partner of Golden Gate BPO Solutions. Aside from expanding our global delivery footprint and capabilities, we went into this partnership because we share the same core beliefs when it comes to delivering the highest quality solutions for our clients, including customization and adaptation of our clients culture, increased speed to market through an entrepreneurial mindset and management culture and the necessity to achieve operating efficiencies in order to yield a lower cost of outsourcing for each of our clients. Jayamurali Balaguruswamy, CEO of KGiSL Business Support Services added, Our entire team is very excited about the partnership established with Golden Gate BPO Solutions and we know it will provide us the opportunity and support necessary to serve more US-based clients with customized and creative outsourcing solutions that meet their quality, economic and strategic needs. Since 1994, KGiSL has established the growth of IT / ITeS services by delivering support to Fortune 500 companies and small/medium enterprises to meet goals, drive business growth and foster innovation. KGiSL has over 2,000 employees in locations around the globe, including India, United States, Jamaica, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. For more information, please visit http://www.kgisl.com. Founded in 2006, Golden Gate BPO Solutions provides multi-channel contact center management, customer engagement and business process outsourcing services. We offer a unique and effective call center outsourcing alternative that provides our clients with a high touch client-service provider relationship. Our outsourced call center alternative yields world-class customer care, technical support and sales along with the full spectrum of outsourcing functions required to serve clients customers. Our customer engagement centers are located in the United States, Dominican Republic, Belize, Jamaica, the Philippines and India, from which we offer multi-lingual voice, email, web chat, social media, back-office, online help desk and automated support. Golden Gate BPO Solutions is ranked NO. 975 on Inc. magazines 35th annual Inc. 5000, the most prestigious ranking of the nations fastest-growing private companies. The Inc. 5000 represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the American economys most dynamic segment its independent small businesses. Started in 1982, this prestigious list of the nations most successful private companies has become the hallmark of entrepreneurial success. Companies such as Microsoft, Dell, Dominos Pizza, Pandora, Timberland, LinkedIn, Yelp, Zillow, and many other well-known names gained their first national exposure as honorees of the Inc. 5000. For more information on Golden Gate BPO Solutions, visit http://www.goldengatebpo.com. ### PresenceLearning Students have developed a real affinity for the online format and it really helps meet students needs in an efficient way. PresenceLearning, the leading telehealth network of live, online special education related services providers, recently named Randolph Academy Union Free School District (Randolph Academy) in Randolph, NY as a winner of its 3rd annual Award of Excellence. The awards program recognized six educational organizations from across the country for their leadership, teamwork, and outstanding progress in helping students with special needs succeed. Randolph Academy is currently partners with PresenceLearning to provide access to highly qualified mental health professionals and speech-language pathologists via its online therapy solution in order to help students meet the goals outlined in their Individualized Education Programs (IEPs). Randolph Academy is a Special Act school serving students who need a small-school setting and more support services because of emotional and behavioral needs. Its two campuses in Hamburg and Randolph serve approximately 200 students in grades K-12, almost all of whom have IEPs mandating related services like counseling. In addition to helping students meet their IEP goals, the districts 11 counselors often need to provide crisis counseling at a moments notice for students in need. If a student is having a rough day, our counselors first priority is to provide on-the-spot support, meaning they sometimes have to cancel regularly scheduled sessions with other students, said Lori DeCarlo, superintendent of Randolph Academy. That was frustrating for our students so we turned to PresenceLearning for online behavioral and mental health services to provide regular skill development sessions, which freed-up our on-site counselors for crisis counseling when needed. Since starting online behavioral and mental health services during the 2015-16 school year, the approximately 20 students using PresenceLearning have made progress on, or even achieved, their IEP goals. Last year, two students met their IEP goals and were able to return to their home school district, which is the ultimate goal for Randolph Academy. Other success factors DeCarlo and the on-site counselors have witnessed are student behavior and improved decision making. I dismissed online therapy because I didnt think our students would engage in pre-recorded, canned sessions, said DeCarlo. It wasnt until I realized this was a living, breathing mental health professional conducting live sessions with students via videoconferencing that I had my a-ha moment. Its been amazing to see. Students have developed a real affinity for the online format and it really helps meet students needs in an efficient way. The six Award of Excellence winners, including Randolph Academy, were selected based on positive student progress and engagement indicators, strong organizational leadership, informed parental support, and the onsite teams collaboration with PresenceLearnings online clinicians during the 2015-2016 school year. Among the thousands of students we serve, those who make the best progress tend to be in educational organizations with courageous leadership and a committed and collaborative approach to working with our online clinicians. Randolph Academy is a shining example of this, said Clay Whitehead, co-Founder and co-CEO of PresenceLearning. Each of this years winners, including Randolph Academy, overcame serious challenges in serving their students with special needs by fully leveraging the potential of our online therapy network. Through their hard work, these schools have given their students access to the life-changing care they need to unlock their full potential. About PresenceLearning PresenceLearning (http://www.presencelearning.com) is the leading telehealth network of providers of clinical services and assessments to educational organizations. The PresenceLearning care network has provided over one million sessions of live, online speech-language therapy, occupational therapy, behavioral interventions and mental health services, diagnostic services and assessments, and early childhood services for children with special needs. ### Eco Achievers, a nationally recognized energy, engineering and design consulting firm, has announced its relocation to offices in Chicagos West Loop. Located in the same neighborhood as Google Chicago, the new McDonalds corporate headquarters, and Hyatt Hotels headquarters, the new office location provides ample space for Eco Achievers recently expanded staff. Were excited by the vibrant and innovative energy of the West Loop neighborhood," said Jason LaFleur, Eco Achievers President and Managing Director of Building Science. Well have quick access to our clients in the Loop, and easy access to major highways that will allow us to better serve our green building projects throughout Chicagoland and the region. The move to the West Loop location at 1647 West Fulton Street will be completed in February 2017. With more than 100 active projects, and having added new staff, were thrilled to be expanding our working space, noted Lindsey Elton, Director of Rating Services for Eco Achievers. Our new offices not only are located in an area rich with history and character, but also give us the room to grow in 2017 and beyond. Staff most recently added to the company roster include Emily Rhea as an Energy Analyst, and Margaret McPhillips as Project Coordinator, bringing a full compliment of building performance and zero energy expertise to the firm. In business since 2007, Eco Achievers takes building performance consulting to the next level, provides services to a wide range of residential and commercial clients nationally and in Mexico. Services offered include consulting for commercial and residential owners looking for zero energy buildings, adaptable green energy design and modeling, and third party testing for green building standards including LEED certification, HERS ratings, Passive House (PHIUS+) and home efficiency and air quality evaluations. About Eco Achievers Eco Achievers is smartly transforming the built environment as the leading building performance consultant in Chicago, and offers services nationally and internationally. A wide variety of services are provided, including building/home/air diagnostics and testing, HERS ratings, LEED certification, Passive House, zero-energy design and much more. http://www.ecoachievers.com/ BMI far exceeded our expectations BMI Mergers & Acquisitions announces the sale of The Rose Corporation to a strategic buyer based in Philadelphia PA. The Rose Corporation, 401 North Eighth Street, Reading, PA a privately owned contract manufacturing steel fabrication company, has become a sister company to Abbott Furnace, St. Marys, Pennsylvania. Having been purchased by the same owner, Edmund Gaffney, of Haverford, PA, both Rose and Abbott will continue to operate independent of each other but will cooperate strategically to broaden their support of existing customers and jointly pursue new avenues of growth. The Rose Corporation, also sold their Mark Metals steel sales and service division as part of the transaction. The acquisition of The Rose Corporation focuses on broadening new industrial furnace sales opportunities using intellectual property developed/owned by both companies and the ability to build larger furnaces with the expanded facility in Reading. Elaine McDevitt, CEO and daughter of the companys founders, Louis and Rosemary Bruno, spoke on behalf of her family when she said she couldnt be more delighted with the opportunities this acquisition means to The Rose Corporation and the co-workers who have worked so hard to help build it. Ed Gaffney could have invested anywhere and he chose to do it in our community, in our company, in our people because of our 30 year history of building a solid reputation in quality, on-time custom steel fabrication. We are so proud of our skilled workforce and what they accomplish every day and are looking forward to the opportunity to broaden our horizons even further with this acquisition. Gaffney is also excited about the long term prospects for both companies. Abbott Furnace Company has a reputation as a world leader in the production of continuous thermal process equipment and customer service that is second to none. said Gaffney. We feel the cultures of both companies create a very positive synergy for moving forward together. Speaking of BMI, Elaine McDevitt CEO of the Rose Corporation had this to say, Selling a family business is complex and takes a toll on your time, your emotions and your patience. Because of BMIs experience and knowledge, they were very supportive in navigating my family to a successful close; one we feel good about in terms of our employees, our customers and our own wellbeing. BMI far exceeded our expectations in the way of buyer interest and service and their integrity in doing so was unparalleled. We feel very fortunate to have worked with BMI on this acquisition and would recommend their services to others without exception. BMI Mergers & Acquisitions represented The Rose Corporation, introduced the buyer, and assisted with bringing the transaction to a successful close. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ About The Rose Corporation Established in 1987, The Rose Corporation has produced a variety of custom built equipment including thermal oxidizers, industrial furnaces of all kinds, condensers, sterilization chambers, ladles, machine bases material handling equipment and more. In 1990 Mark Metals, a steel service center was added to their offerings. Rose and Mark Metals are located in Reading, Pennsylvania. About Abbott Furnace Company Abbott was established in 1982 as a manufacturing and service company for control panels. In 1986, Abbott Furnace Company manufactured its first continuous belt furnace for the production of powder metal products. Abbott Furnace Company is recognized as a leader in the production and technology of continuous thermal processing equipment with a reputation for outstanding customer service. Abbott Furnace Company is located in St. Marys, Pennsylvania. About BMI Mergers & Acquisitions BMI specializes in the sale and acquisition of privately held businesses. Our process is designed to be thorough, confidential and attract a large pool of qualified buyers. The end result: Maximum Value for business owners. Our professionals include holders of the FINRA Series 79 Investment Banking registration*, certified business broker intermediaries, and M&A Master Intermediaries. BMI has offices in Philadelphia, Allentown and Reading Pennsylvania, Stamford Connecticut and Los Angeles. Securities transactions are handled thru StillPoint Capital, Member FINRA and SIPC which is not affiliated with BMI. Were proud to be able to provide our customers with great financing to buy their home as well as peace of mind knowing that with Mortgage +Plus the personal investment in their home can be secure regardless of where life takes them. First Heritage Mortgage today introduced Mortgage +Plus, an innovative mortgage product that protects a homebuyers down payment, available immediately on all applicable First Heritage mortgages. Mortgage +Plus will include +Plus down payment protection by ValueInsured embedded directly into buyers mortgages. With exclusivity in Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina, First Heritage Mortgage is the first mortgage lender to offer this protection to homebuyers in the region. With Mortgage +Plus by First Heritage Mortgage, homebuyers may safeguard their down payment and buy with confidence. Even if they need to move and real estate market values are down when they sell, up to the full amount of their down payment may be covered and, if all program requirements are met, any potential loss would be reimbursed. At First Heritage Mortgage, our priority is to empower our customers to buy their dream homes. Weve been seeing hesitations due to todays transient lifestyle and uncertainty in the housing market, said Alex Wish, President of First Heritage Mortgage. To help our customers buy a home with confidence, we realized that the one thing we can do is assure them that their down payment can be protected. ValueInsured has created a truly innovative product and were thrilled to be the exclusive mortgage lender offering down payment protection in the Mid-Atlantic region. Determined to provide security for todays homebuyer, we created the first product that protects the homebuyer, the same way private mortgage insurance has been protecting the banks for years, said Joe Melendez, CEO of ValueInsured. First Heritage Mortgage has always been one of the best in mortgage financing services, which is why were excited to work with them on a next generation mortgage product that provides todays modern homebuyer with the flexibility and mobility of renting, but with the freedom, pride and investment value of owning a home. Launching new sales and marketing campaigns to support loan officer, realtor and builder relationships, First Heritage Mortgage has also released a new website to support and address the needs of modern homebuyers and their agents. First Heritage Mortgage services the entire Mid-Atlantic region with offices in Fairfax, Charlottesville, Richmond and Woodbridge, Va; Bethesda and Prince Frederick, Md.; and Raleigh, N.C. While Americans want to own a home, many have been comfortably renting for the past 10 years because of the flexibility its provided them, said Wish. Were proud to be able to provide our customers with great financing to buy their home as well as peace of mind knowing that with Mortgage +Plus the personal investment in their home can be secure regardless of where life takes them. To learn more about purchasing a home with Mortgage +Plus protection, and for details on program requirements, visit fhmtgplus.com. NOTE: Coverage restrictions apply. Please refer to http://www.fhmtgplus.com/faq for important information and disclosures on Mortgage +Plus down payment protection coverage and how it works. Mortgage +Plus by First Heritage Mortgage is distributed by PVI Agency, LLC. PVI Agency, LLC dba ValueInsured is a licensed agency in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and is not affiliated with First Heritage Mortgage. Term and conditions of the insurance described herein as Mortgage +Plus, including pricing, are determined solely by the issuer of the coverage and not by First Heritage Mortgage. The description of Mortgage +Plus contained herein should not be considered as a solicitation no an offer to provide such insurance in any jurisdiction whatsoever where it would be unlawful to do so. Approval of a mortgage loan from First Heritage Mortgage will not be conditioned upon the obtaining Mortgage +Plus down payment protection. About First Heritage Mortgage First Heritage Mortgage, LLC was founded in 1996 to be the premier source of mortgage financing in the Washington, D.C. metro area. As one of the regions largest privately owned mortgage companies, First Heritage is a direct lender, meaning every aspect of the mortgage process from start to finish in controlled in-house. Headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia, First Heritage also has branch locations in Charlottesville, Richmond and Woodbridge, Virginia; Bethesda and Prince Frederick, Maryland; and Raleigh, North Carolina. From the outset, First Heritages blend of best in class service, combined with competitive rates and extensive products has won the confidence of the companys referral partners and legions of satisfied borrowers. Learn more at http://www.fhmtg.com. First Heritage Mortgage, LLC is an Equal Housing Lender Company NMLS ID# 86548 (http://www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org) About ValueInsured PVI Agency, LLC dba ValueInsured, is the only provider of down payment protection for modern homebuyers, giving them greater control, confidence and flexibility in a volatile real estate market all for the cost of a lunch per month. Led by a team of professionals experienced in every part of the home buying process, ValueInsureds +Plus down payment protection is easy, affordable and backed by one of the worlds largest re-insurance companies, with over $8 billion in capital http://www.valueinsured.com. DeWys Manufacturing Inc., a West Michigan based metal solutions company, is delighted to announce that in 2017 they are celebrating 40 years in business! Their road to success has taken them on a journey of changes- from location and ownership to technological advancements and the development of DeWys University, their in-house training program. The company has grown to 160 team members. Starting in 1977 in a little red barn producing fireplace inserts, DeWys Manufacturing is now a 90,000-sq. ft. contract manufacturer serving over 160 customers in more than 10 different industries. DeWys Circle of Companies includes precision sheet metal, contract manufacturing, powder coating, machining, and product assembly. Providing all of these services allows DeWys to partner with their customers in every aspect of the production process from the initial design to a completely finished and assembled end product. With the mission to provide solutions today that meet their customers requirements tomorrow, the company has been quick to adapt to changes in technology over the past decades and worked as a team to implement the new and upcoming trends. Ive always encouraged our innovation teams to be progressive, to try new things without the fear of failing forward, said Jon DeWys, CEO of DeWys Manufacturing. This mentality allowed us to stay afloat during the challenging economic recession from 2008-2013. During this time period many manufacturing companies experienced a decline in sales and some even closed their doors. Because we were diversified in our service offerings and customer base and have always invested in technology, we made it though and came out stronger than ever. Second to technology, DeWys top resources are their team members. The company realized that as a manufacturer in Michigan, they needed to create the talent required to keep up with their growth. In 2012, The DeWys University was born. DeWys University has really allowed our business to grow. Weve been able to build a team of motived, well-trained, and knowledgeable employees who are excited about their future with the company, said Laura Elsner, Workforce Development Manager. While the company will take time to celebrate and acknowledge the major milestone achieved, theyre also looking forward to the future. We take a lot of pride in hitting this 40 year mile stone. We know that well never be finished finding new ways to innovate and were looking forward to the growth ahead of us, said Jon DeWys. About DeWys DeWys (pronounced De-Wise) Manufacturing provides precision metal fabrication to a range of clients from commercial equipment, office furniture, medical supply, and many more. From its manufacturing facility in West Michigan, the company provides a wide range of metal production and assembly capabilities to more than 160 clients in Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, and several other areas of the United States. For additional information, visit dewysmfg.com or contact DeWys Mfg. at (616) 677-5281. Communications and marketing professionals are invited to attend PR News webinar, Build a Brand Newsroom that Puts Your Organization into the Media Mix, on February 21 at 1:30 p.m. ET. The 90-minute webinar will be led by: Stephanie Chan, Editorial and Video Producer, Cisco Erica Sackin, Director of Political Communications, Planned Parenthood Margaret Magnarelli, Managing Editor of Content and Director of Marketing, Monster.com Bart Verhulst, Co-founder and CCO, PressPage Brand newsrooms allow organizations to take leadership roles in their industry by creating their own content. The media turns to these platforms for their stories, and customers and influencers for the shareable content. To learn how to build a dynamic brand newsroom that satisfies the needs of both journalists and customers register for PR News' webinar online here. Brand Newsroom Webinar attendees will learn how to: Use brand newsrooms as a distribution hub for company content Engage audiences by seeding content through social, email and paid distribution Create an editorial calendar to consistently develop fresh stories for journalists and customers Create an online space thats the definitive resource for company information and news Build a team that can respond to real-time opportunities and news events Create a measurement strategy to understand what content is effective This interactive webinar will allow for real-time Q&As to ensure specific questions are answered. For more information click here. Webinar registration includes access to the speaker presentations and webcast recording for one full year. For further questions, contact Client Services at clientservices(at)accessintel(dot)com. The PR News Group at Access Intelligence, LLC is a go-to source that serves the communications and marketing community at corporations, agencies and nonprofits. With the launch of its weekly newsletter over 70 years ago, PR News has remained dedicated to supporting the growth of communicators all while keeping them abreast of the latest news affecting the industry. For more information, visit: http://www.prnewsonline.com. American Residential Services (ARS), a Memphis, Tenn. based, privately-held national provider of air conditioning, heating and plumbing services, donated 2650 clothing items to Dress for Success due to a generous donation from ARS employee Frank Lamitina and his wife Marina. Marina Lamitina discovered she had Stage Four Lymphoma cancer while she and Frank were living in Florida, where she owned a clothing boutique called Queen Grace. When the couple relocated to New Jersey so that Marina could receive treatment, they put her stores retail into storage. Shortly after, Frank took a position at A.J. Perri, an ARS network provider in New Jersey. When ARS held a dress drive, Frank knew what to do with all of their stored merchandise. He and Marina turned over the garments to the ARS Corporate Office, who facilitated the donation to Dress for Success. Dress for Success affiliates in the following areas received merchandise from the donation: Fort Myers, FL; Lantana, FL; Winter Park, FL; Miami, FL; Tampa, FL; and Jersey City, NJ. The garments include wrap dresses and womens separates that range in size and are work-appropriate. The donation retail value is approximately $285,000 worth of merchandise. ARS is passionate about giving back to the community, and we are honored to assist women in empowering themselves professionally, says Chris Mellon, SVP and CMO of ARS/Rescue Rooter. We are also fortunate to have people like the Lamitinas in our ARS family who are committed to serving others. ABOUT AMERICAN RESIDENTIAL SERVICES: Based in Memphis, Tenn., privately-owned ARS operates a network of more than 70 locally-managed service centers in 22 states, with approximately 6,000 employees. The ARS network features industry-leading brands including, A.J. Perri, Aksarben ARS, Allgood, Andys Statewide, ARS, Aspen Air Conditioning, Atlas Trillo, Beutler, Blue Dot, Brothers, Columbus Worthington Air, Conway Services, Efficient Attic Systems (EAS), Florida Home Air Conditioning, Green Star Home Services, McCarthy Services, Rescue Rooter/ Proserv, Rescue Rooter, RighTime Home Services, RS Andrews, The Irish Plumber, Unique Services, "Will" Fix It, and Yes! Air Conditioning and Plumbing. United by Exceptional Service, the ARS / Rescue Rooter Network serves both residential and light commercial customers by providing heating, cooling, indoor air quality, plumbing, drain cleaning, sewer line, radiant barrier, insulation and ventilation services. Each location has a knowledgeable team of trained specialists, who have undergone rigorous drug testing and criminal background checks. Providing exceptional service and ensuring the highest standards of quality, ARS has the experience to do any job right the first time, with all work fully guaranteed. About Dress for Success: Dress for Success is an international not-for-profit organization that empowers women to achieve economic independence by providing a network of support, professional attire and the development tools to help women thrive in work and in life. Since starting operations in 1997, Dress for Success has expanded to 145 cities in 23 countries. To date, Dress for Success has helped more than 1,000,000 women work towards self-sufficiency. Visit http://www.dressforsuccess.org to learn more. Search License Plate Records Online Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac? Historically, people have traveled to the DMV to obtain license plate and vehicle records. Visiting the DMV, especially without an appointment, can be a time consuming endeavor that limits access for some to obtain the vehicle information they need. Now, with the advent of the internet and public record websites, it is possible for most anyone to perform a license plate search online. SearchQuarry.com has recently launched a license plate lookup tool to provide the general public with easy online access to the vehicle records online, without having to visit the DMV. Anyone with a smartphone, computer or tablet can access this free resource online. Vehicle Records via License Plate Number Before taking out a loan to buy a vehicle, consumers often want to learn as much as they can about a vehicle to know the potential issues. Buying a used car is a risk that is not always avoidable, but using this online resource can add a layer of protection to the process. With the ability to view vehicle information online, buyers can see a multitude of vehicle information to help make an informed decision. License Plate Information Privacy Concerns Although a lot of people are excited when they learn about the license plate lookup tool, not everyone takes advantage of the features, states a SearchQuarry.com representative. He continues to elaborate, The biggest concern that people have is that their privacy will be compromised. After looking up the desired reports, they don't want the person whom they were investigating to find out. To mitigate this concern, SearchQuarry.com has a strict privacy policy and has vowed never to share its users' personal data with anyone, providing consumers with peace of mind. All searches performed on this website are confidential and anonymous. Getting Started With The License Plate Lookup Tool To begin using the free license plate lookup tool, a user only needs to input the full license plate number and state of registration to begin. The search typically takes a few seconds and displays results online for the user to view. These results may include vehicle records, VIN number, owner information, safety and recall information. If license plate owner information is available the user can also check their background records if they opt to sign up for the premium service. All this information is made available via the Freedom of Information Act of 1966, some restrictions apply via the Driver's Privacy Protection Act. Driver's Privacy Protection Act of 1944 A person may conduct a motor vehicle records search only for a purpose permitted under the Drivers Privacy Protection Act of 1994 (DPPA), 18 U.S. Code 2721 et seq., as amended. By proceeding, the user must represent that the terms of the DPPA have been read, and upon conducting the search for a purpose authorized by the DPPA. The user must understand and agree that use of this service and of the results of a motor vehicle records search for any purpose other than a DPPA permitted purpose may be subject to liability under the DPPA. Vehicle owner information is not always available. The user will be required to attest to these statements again in the member's area prior to conducting a search. As required by the DPPA, SearchQuarry.com will retain a record of all requests, including the name and selected permitted purpose(s). English Icelandic Islandsbanki will publish its 2016 Consolidated Annual Financial Statements before market opening on Friday 24 February 2017. Investor Presentation in Icelandic Later that day at 12.30 pm Icelandic time, Birna Einarsdottir, CEO of Islandsbanki, and Jon Guni Omarsson, CFO, will present the financial results to market participants, followed by a Q&A session. The meeting is conducted in Icelandic and held at the Bank's new headquarters at Hagasmari 3. Investor call in English The Bank will also host an investor call in English to present the results at 2 pm Icelandic time. The call will start with a short macro update on the Icelandic economy, followed by a review of the financial results and Q&A. Please register by replying to ir@islandsbanki.is. Dial-in details and presentation will be sent out two hours prior to the call. All presentation material will subsequently be available and archived on www.islandsbanki.is/ir. For information on Islandsbanki's financial calendar and silent periods see http://www.islandsbanki.is/english/investor-relations/calendar/. For further information: Cuebiq, a next-generation location intelligence company that helps businesses glean actionable insights about real-world consumer behaviors and trends, has closed on $3.5M in Round A funding. The round was led by Tribeca Angels, a network of financial professionals that finances and supports advancements in the finance and enterprise technology sectors, and ARC Angel Fund NYC, an early-stage investment group. Cuebiq will use the financing to grow its publisher supply, as well as expand its product and sales teams, open new offices across the U.S. and enhance its predictive analytics and AI algorithms to advance its location intelligence platform. We are excited to see investment in Cuebiq, which will allow the company to expand its sales and marketing efforts and extend Cuebiqs technology beyond the marketing world, said Antonio Tomarchio, CEO of Cuebiq. We give companies the ability to harness strategic, real-time location data to gain valuable intelligence on consumer behaviors and trends, and the funding will also help us quickly enhance capabilities within our platform. We are excited to be investing in Cuebiq, added John McEvoy, Tribeca Angels. With the mobile revolution upon us, location data is quickly becoming an integral part of all marketing initiatives and will soon also be vital to verticals like retail, finance and transportation. The location data industry is flourishing. Cuebiq stands apart from its competitors by tapping into a large pool of smartphone users, and thus offering its clients unparalleled data accuracy, said Joe Rubin, ARC Angel Fund NYC. Along with the new funding, Cuebiq has appointed former Microsoft President and COO Rick Belluzzo as its Chairman of the Board of Directors. Since 2015, Belluzzo has been a U.S. Venture Partner at Innogest SGR, a leading Italian venture firm. Belluzzo is a long-time technology industry veteran. In addition to serving as COO of Microsoft, he held top executive roles at Hewlett Packard and has been deeply involved in helping private technology companies grow to become global leaders. Cuebiq helps companies amplify their business intelligence capabilities by allowing them to harness the power of location, said Belluzzo. The company has had impressive momentum in this space, and I look forward to serving as Chairmen of the Board as Cuebiq continues its trajectory toward becoming a leading location data company. Cuebiqs proprietary data methodology and enriched mobile user data enables marketers to leverage consumers mobile location data via its AudienceQ, VisitQ and InsightQ offerings. AudienceQ is a geo-behavioral audience segmentation and enrichment tool that provides marketers with anonymous enriched data from more than 160 partner apps to improve the user experience and advertising. VisitQ helps marketers to analyze the impact of their advertising campaigns on in-store visits and foot traffic patterns either post campaign or in real time. By maximizing these offerings, marketers get a clear, data-backed view of how effectively they are driving consumers to stores and achieving other campaign objectives. InsightQ gives marketers and partners outside the advertising industry a new way to inform their strategic business decisions. About Cuebiq Cuebiq is a next generation location intelligence company that allows businesses to glean actionable insights about real-world consumer behaviors and trends. Using its data intelligence platform, Cuebiq provides geo-behavioral insights and offline location analytics, geo-behavioral audiences for cross-platform ad targeting, and offline attribution analysis. Cuebiq is a member of the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI), the leading self-regulatory industry association dedicated to responsible data collection and its use for digital advertising. Cuebiq is headquartered in New York with offices in Italy and China. Data captured by the Aeryon SkyRanger displayed as DroneDeploy maps This partnership enables us to provide the ideal end-to-end solution for Enterprise UAS operations. Aeryon Labs Inc., the premier manufacturer of small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) and DroneDeploy, the leading drone data platform, today announced their partnership to deliver integrated UAS solutions to end-users and service providers in the commercial/industrial market. Aeryon is pleased to make a new bundled hardware and software solution available today to commercial operators, and be the first sUAS manufacturer to resell subscriptions to DroneDeploys industry-leading cloud-based photogrammetry and analytics platform. The new solution enables operators to capture imagery using the Aeryon SkyRanger sUAS and process it into unlimited interactive maps and 3D models on the DroneDeploy platform. Industrial users will be able to easily share maps across multiple users, devices and locations to collaborate and utilize the aerial data and leverage the analysis tools developed by industry experts available within the DroneDeploy App Market. This initial joint offering is just the beginning. Aeryon also plans to integrate DroneDeploy services with the AeryonLive platform for seamless media management, processing, and aircraft fleet management. The combined solution will provide a single sign-on experience with a complete and integrated workflow for all aspects of commercial drone operations. The DroneDeploy platform complements the capabilities of AeryonLive and the Aeryon SkyRanger sUAS, said Dave Kroetsch, President & CEO of Aeryon Labs, This partnership enables us to provide the ideal end-to-end solution for Enterprise UAS operations, without compromising aircraft performance, application security, compliance or record keeping. Mike Winn, CEO of DroneDeploy said, We are excited to partner with Aeryon in developing and delivering an Enterprise-grade combination of drone hardware and software to market. Aeryon is welcomed into our market-leading ecosystem of partners, who together provide a fully integrated solution that spans compliance, data processing and management, and sophisticated machine learning tools. All current SkyRanger operators that purchase annual subscriptions of DroneDeploy Business before March 31, 2017 will receive a 25% discount from Aeryon. About Aeryon Labs Inc. Aeryon Labs is the premier manufacturer of small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS) which are at the center of major world events and international media stories. The company is the trusted partner of civil and military customers, resellers, and other commercial business partners around the globe. Aeryon Labs is headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Field-tested and mission-proven, Aeryon sUAS set the standard for immediate aerial intelligence gathering by anyone, anywhere, anytime, for a wide range of military, public safety and commercial applications. For more, information visit: http://www.aeryon.com Media Contact: Andrea Sangster, Sr. Marketing Manager media[at]aeryon.com | +1 519-489-6726 x360 About DroneDeploy DroneDeploy is the leading cloud software platform for commercial drones, and is making the power of aerial data accessible and productive for everyone. Trusted by leading brands globally, DroneDeploy is transforming the way businesses leverage drones and aerial data across industries, including agriculture, construction, mining, inspection and surveying. Simple by design, DroneDeploy enables professional-grade imagery and analysis, 3D modeling and more from any drone on any device. DroneDeploy users have mapped and analyzed over 8 million acres in over 135 countries. DroneDeploy is located in the heart of San Francisco. To learn more visit http://www.dronedeploy.com and join the conversation on Twitter @DroneDeploy. Media Contact: Elaine Ordiz dronedeploy[at]10fold.com |+1 415-800-5375 Our clients have demanding applications in passive components which requires a strong level of technical expertise. Now customers in Eastern Canada and the Mid-Atlantic will have these resources available locally. Aerovox Corp., a global market leader in film capacitors has expanded its sales and distribution network in Canada and the US. Aerovox capacitors are highly customizable depending on the application, which requires robust, technically sophisticated, sales support. These new sales organizations have the specialist know how to assist Aerovox customers in solving their applications needs. In Canada, Aerovox has selected ATT Microelectronics to serve the Canadian marketplace. ATT Microelectronics are technology consultants and electronics representatives with over 23 years of technical sales experience in the Canadian technology sectors. They provide semiconductor, passive and connector solutions. For Aerovox, ATT Microelectronics will cover Eastern Canada, providing strong technological insights and solutions for Aerovox customers there. Additionally, Aerovox has named Utech Electronics as a distributor in Canada.Utech was created in 1991 to fill a void in the Canadian marketplace for a distributor specializing in Surface Mount Technology. Today, Utech supports OEM customers throughout Canada servicing the most diverse technical requirements for its customers. Utech offers offer quality components from stock at competitive prices with on time delivery through ISO 9001:2008. In the US, Aerovox has added Colrud-Lowery, serving the mid-Atlantic to its American sales groups. Colrud-Lowery is a fifty year old manufacturers representative group in the electro-mechanical and passive components fields. They primarily focus on original equipment manufacturers (OEM's) in a broad range of industries. Colrud-Lowerys great depth of experience in related passive electronics fields makes them an excellent sales and technology resource for Aerovox customers. We are pleased to be working with three outstanding sales/distribution groups with the technological background to serve our customer base, said Guy Hudson, Sales Director, Aerovox Corp. Our clients have demanding applications in passive components which requires a strong level of technical expertise. Now customers in Eastern Canada and the Mid-Atlantic will have these resources available locally. About Aerovox Corp. Aerovox is a leading provider of film capacitors for industrial, medical, military/aerospace and specialized applications serving original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and distributors. The company has world-class design, manufacturing and testing facilities in New Bedford, Massachusetts and global manufacturing facilities in China and India to enable quick turn-around for shipping and delivery worldwide. Aerovox capacitors are among the worlds most reliable electronic components. The companys extensive custom design and development capabilities coupled with its broad, standardized product offerings allow it to provide intelligent capacitor solutions that meet or exceed customers application requirements. http://www.aerovox.com This e-Book is the ideal starting point for any organization that has a website or conducts business online A businesss online activities can put it at risk of being subject to lawsuits in other states or even foreign countries. Internet experts and attorneys Eric P. Robinson and Steven D. Imparl have written an informative complimentary eBook which explains basic concepts relating to jurisdiction and provides some best practices for controlling the risks. Checklists for avoiding pitfalls are also included. The eBook is adapted from content in Internet Law: The Complete Guide, published by Specialty Technical Publishers (STP). In order for any court to hear a legal dispute and enter a valid judgment, it must have jurisdiction over both the plaintiff and the defendant. Jurisdictional questions related to cyberspace typically address whether a court has jurisdiction over the individuals or entities (known as personal jurisdiction). Such disputes are inevitable, because the Internet transcends state and national boundaries and fosters much human interaction that might not have occurred but for the Internet. Ordinarily, a state courts personal jurisdiction is based on whether the people, businesses, transactions, or events at issue in the case lie within the states physical territory, and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment limits the states ability to assert jurisdiction over nonresident defendants. However, these traditional geographic limits no longer adequately define jurisdiction in a world where commercial transactions are routinely conducted in cyberspace by parties living thousands of miles apart, who may not even know where the other party is located in a geographical sense. If a site exists on the Web that allows commerce with anyone from anywhere that has Internet access, is the owners business address really relevant? A seller may have a brick-and-mortar shop in Tennessee, a website hosted by a server in California, a warehouse in Kansas, and customers dotted around the globe. Where then, is this business located? One of the ways courts are adapting to this new situation is by redefining personal jurisdiction to be based on more than simple physical location. Unfortunately, many businesses remain unaware of these shifting sands of culpability that may leave them vulnerable. This eBook will help reassess a businesss online activities with a view to reducing the danger that the business will be subject to personal jurisdiction in areas outside their state. The eBook includes information and checklists on: Long-Arm Statutes Reaching Out Across Borders. Minimum Contacts. Personal Jurisdiction in Cyberspace. Download here. Steve Britten, President of Specialty Technical Consultants: In line with our companys philosophy of producing must have content for professionals, this e-Book is the ideal starting point for any organization that has a website or conducts business online. Given the universal reach of the Internet it is good business practice to arm yourself with the knowledge of what might go wrong if legal problems were to arise with an entity in another state or worse, in another country. The self-assessment checklists will help you prevent costly legal complications and minimize business risk before you reach out for legal advice. About the Authors Eric P. Robinson, JD, PhD is an attorney and scholar focused legal issues involving the media, including the Internet and social media. He is currently assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of South Carolina, focusing on media law and ethics. Steven D. Imparl, JD, holds a law degree and a Bachelor of Science degree, With High Honor, from DePaul University. He resides and practices law in Chicago, Illinois, concentrating his practice in Internet, e-commerce, and computer law. STP has also recently released a new chapter on U.S. Social Media Law. This standalone chapter is part of STPs Internet Essentials series and can be bought for US$89. Read more. About Specialty Technical Publishers Specialty Technical Publishers (STP) produces technical resource guides covering environmental, health & safety, transportation, accounting, business practices, standards and law, offering comprehensive guidance on key compliance and regulatory issues. STP is a division of Glacier Media Inc., a Canadian information communications company that provides primary and essential information in print, electronic and online media. Glaciers Business and Professional Information Group publishes directories, technical manuals, research and development materials, medical education, electronic databases, investment information and specialty websites. Sunrise Hiteks Business Leather Portfolio was reviewed by iPhone Life Magazine writer Todd Bernhard http://www.iphonelife.com/content/review-leather-portfolio-integrates-ipad-business-tech-era. The article discusses the versatility of this product especially for business professionals. He points out the high quality of the product and the reasonable price tag. The final verdict was: :If you are want to make an iPad part of your business routine, but also want to be able to carry papers with you, the Business Leather Portfolio from Sunrise Hitek should meet your needs. The Business Tablet Portfolio offers excellent protection for your tablet computer, plus ample storage for business professionals on the go. It features our unique Universal Corners which adjust to perfectly fit any size tablet. The case itself is made of high-grade leatherette, offering tough protection for day to day use. An exterior zipper pouch provides easy access for bulky items such as keys and calculators, while the expandable file folder offers plenty of storage for documents, brochures, and catalogs. A micro-fiber divider is sized perfectly for a 8.5"x11" notepad, protects the tablet's screen from scratches. The 2016 model of the Business Leather Portfolio features a built-in easel-stand which allows easy demonstrations with a tablet, keeping the hands free and also maintaining a polished look https://www.sunrisehitek.com/product/ipad-business-leather-portfolio. The 2016 model also has elastic corners to keep the tablet in place when in or out of use. This tablet is universally compatible with all tablets up to 12.9" screen, including iPad Pro, iPad 2/3/4, Air, Air 2, Mini, Mini 2, Mini 3, all Samsung Galaxy tablets from 7" to 12.2", all Microsoft Surface tablets including Pro 3/4, and all other tablets on the market with a physical dimension of up to 9.5"x12.5". Sunrise also offers volume discounts. Check their website or email for a custom quote https://www.sunrisehitek.com/product/ipad-business-leather-portfolio. About Sunrise Hitek Sunrise Hiteks Hitek store, is a leading maker of protective gear for Apples iPad. The brand changed to uuber when the company starting developing cases for other devices, such as the MacBook, Chromebook, and Samsung devices. Sunrise Hitek Group, LLC, owner of the uuber brand, also operates Sunrise Digital, a leading digital printing company based in Chicago. As a G7 Qualified Master Printer, Sunrise is uniquely qualified among protective gear makers to offer a wide array of customization options, ensuring the most consistent and accurate color reproduction. Sunrise is an Inc. 5000 company established in 1988 and employs the most advanced equipment and technology, such as G7-certified HP Indigo and UV flatbed presses, and digital die-cutting, to create best-in-class products. A privately-owned enterprise, the company is based in Chicago and sells products worldwide. Rhonda Harper, Founder & CEO, Penrose Senior Care Auditors I am honored to be recognized by Cartier, McKinsey, INSEAD, and The Women's Forum for improving the lives of seniors and their families. Among the thousands of entries, Rhonda Harper, Founder & CEO, Penrose Senior Care Auditors has been named North American Finalist in the 10th Annual Cartier Womens Initiative. The Cartier Women's Initiative Awards is an international business plan competition created in 2006 to identify, support and encourage projects by women entrepreneurs. Its aim is to encourage inspirational women entrepreneurs worldwide to solve contemporary global challenges by supporting and recognizing creative women who are making concrete contributions to finding solutions for the future of our planet and bringing these business solutions to the largest audience possible. Rhonda Harper has more than 25 years of Fortune 100 strategic planning, marketing, and general management senior executive experience. A successful serial entrepreneur as well, she received an MBA from Emory University Goizueta Business School. I am honored to receive this recognition from such prestigious companies, remarks Harper. Personal experience led me to create senior care auditing as a service and launch Penrose in 2014. Our mission is to improve the quality of life among seniors and their families though a high-touch and hi-tech approach. PENROSE PROVIDES SENIOR CHECK-IN SERVICES, INCLUDING THE CARE-CHECK During the Penrose Care-Check, certified and insured auditors visit seniors in private residences and senior living communities, assess 150 items across 7-Quality-of-Life Factors (i.e. well-being, safety, comfort, cleanliness, maintenance, supplies, and caregiver observations), and report back to families all by using Penroses proprietary app. THE CARTIER WOMEN'S INITIATIVE AWARDS The Cartier Women's Initiative is a joint partnership project initiated by Cartier, The Womens Forum, McKinsey & Company and INSEAD business school. Since the Awards inception in 2006, they have accompanied 162 promising female business-owners and recognized 58 Laureates. Harper will join the other 17 global finalists for The Awards Ceremony taking place in Singapore on April 12th, 2017 where 6 winners will receive $100,000, a place on the INSEAD Social Entrepreneurship 6-Day Executive Program (ISEP), one-to-one personalized business mentoring, media visibility and networking opportunities. ABOUT PENROSE SENIOR CARE AUDITORS The United States has approximately 50 million seniors, 75% of whom need some type of daily assistance. Meanwhile, around 50% of caregivers admit to abusing seniors and 95% of seniors say they have been abused or witnessed abuse. Many adult children of seniors are shouldering the burden of care, close-by or at a distance, while working and raising their own families. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, Penrose Senior Care Auditors is a nationwide team of certified, insured auditors who visit seniors, assess their living conditions and deliver a detailed report, complete with images and videos to support their findings. Penrose launched in 2014 with a proof-of-concept rollout. A tech-enabled smartphone app, developed in 2015, allowed the business to scale and it now has 80 auditors from coast to coast across the country. In 2016, Penrose won the prestigious AARP Health Tech Innovation@50+ competition and was recognized by the American Geriatrics Society as a Top 15 Senior Start-Up. #SeniorLiving #HomeCare #AssistedLiving #SeniorCare #SkilledNursing #Entrepreneur #Technology The single biggest thing is that Ctuit allows us to look to the future while referencing the past. Knowledge is power. - Peter Lessing, Director of System Analytics, Lessings, Inc. THE BUSINESS. Lessings, Inc. is a fast-growing, family owned hospitality company that was founded in 1890 by Maxwell Lessing in Great River, New York. Lessings prides itself on being the the oldest family-owned, continuously operated, highly diverse food service company in the United States. Today, the day-to-day company operations are still maintained by six generations of the Lessing family. As of 2017, the company has over 100 locations across the U.S., representing a multitude of successful concepts from full service restaurants and catering, to a franchisee agreement with Blaze Fast Fire'd Pizza to develop a chain of pizza restaurants. Lessings now has a hand in effectively every type of business in the restaurant and hospitality industries, including a small hotel. THE CHALLENGES Lessings realized that they were spending too much time looking at data from the past when it was needed in the moment. Though they appreciate the value of information, Lessings needed increased speed of information and aggregation. "To continue our 125-year tradition of innovation and excellence, we need to focus on the future. Having constant access to real-time data makes it easier for management to make quick, informed business decisions, said Peter Lessing, director of System Analytics at Lessings." THE SOLUTION "Lessings, Inc. is very complicated. We have a myriad of technologies; sometimes savvy, sometimes a mechanical cash register. There is a little bit of everything in the mix," says Lessing. Having one set of analytics for all types of operations made a tremendous amount of sense." In their search for a restaurant management software solution, Ctuits name kept coming up. The speed of information, cost drivers and data aggregation immediately caught Lessings eye. Lessings has now been with Ctuit since 2014, and continues to use their software in a myriad of ways. THE RESULTS COGS Suites, Labor Scheduling, On the Fly, Event Management, Budgets, and custom reporting Lessings makes use of just about every feature that Ctuit offers. Moving forward, they plan to extend their Ctuit usage in 2017 with Checkbooks and Invoice Imaging. Prior to Ctuit, Lessings was using excel spreadsheets for their accounts payable and inventory data. "The COGS modules have provided Lessings ten times more for the same amount of input, since Ctuit polls information from the Point of Sale itself," said Lessing. "With the inventory system, we can consolidate and compare data across the restaurant group as a whole. For example, if there are 150 bottles of a particular whiskey in the company that could possibly be moved around, then no one buy more." In addition, Ctuits product mix reporting provides comparisons of their locations to see what items are selling where, ultimately allowing them to analyze sales and introduce location-specific new items. One the biggest results Lessings has witnessed with Ctuit is through the Labor Scheduler. Ctuit offers a single interface, unlike their previous scheduling platform outside of Ctuit. To Lessing, the Ctuit labor scheduling module, payroll tools, and labor reports, provide transparency of data - ultimately creating cost savings. Recently, Lessings began using the Event Management module at some of their restaurant locations. "We have moved from sticky notes on the wall, to an integrated system where everyone can see what is going on. Its has really streamlined our event procedures, says Lessings when asked about his impression of the module. Now with a consolidated system each restaurant in the group is reporting in the same language. With the company actively applying an array of Ctuits features, Lessing has become a good friend and advocate for the client services team at Ctuit. The Client Services team is the reason all of this works, replied Lessing, when asked about his customer service experience. The Lessings-Ctuit partnership has cultivated much success for the Lessing industry. As Lessings future continues to grow, so will their relationship with Ctuit. ABOUT CTUIT SOFTWARE Ctuit Software is the creator of RADAR, a comprehensive restaurant management software that helps restaurants reduce food and labor costs while streamlining operations. Since launching in 2000, Ctuit continues to solve the restaurant industrys most difficult challenges. The entire Ctuit support team is comprised of seasoned industry veterans providing knowledgeable customer service to help restaurants run seamlessly. This all-in-one software equips restaurateurs with powerful business intelligence and meaningful data to deliver success that you can see and taste. For more information on improving your restaurant's efficiency and profitability, please visit http://www.ctuit.com. We look forward to working closely with higher education institutions and school districts to improve productivity, as well as reduce strain on their operations, resources and budget while helping them on their road to paperless - Softdocs CEO Mike Murphy Education-focused enterprise content management, e-forms and workflow solutions provider Softdocs today celebrated its 2016 successes, including more than a one-third growth in its workforce and continued year-over-year annual revenue growth. Other notable achievements included maintaining its 99 percent client retention rate and the rollout of its entire Etrieve platform, including the launch of the Etrieve Forms Builder, via a new cloud-based deployment model. 2016 was a pivotal year for Softdocs as we expanded our workforce with highly talented and knowledgeable professionals in the software, enterprise content management and education sectors to meet the growing needs for our Etrieve platform, said Mike Murphy, CEO and Co-Founder, Softdocs. As we continue to innovate and offer increased accessibility, we look forward to working closely with higher education institutions and school districts to improve productivity, as well as reduce strain on their operations, resources and budget while helping them on their road to a paperless environment. The Etrieve platform received a number of industry accolades in 2016 including being recognized as making a positive difference in education with the Readers Choice Top 100 Product Award by District Administration. School Planning & Management and College Planning & Management also acknowledged Softdocs Etrieve platform in their 2016 New Product of the Year Awards. On the product side, Softdocs completed the launch of their fully browser-based Etrieve platform that includes Etrieve Content, Forms and Flow, as well as the Etrieve Forms Builder that allows for the user-friendly creation, modification and management of dynamic HTML forms. They closed out the year with the announcement of Etrieve Cloud, which brings increased accessibility to the entire Etrieve platform through a cloud-based deployment model. The Etrieve platform offers ERP-integrated applications that store and organize content, as well as redefine common business processes, reducing the need for paper and improving productivity across the entire organization. For more information, please visit softdocs.com. About Softdocs: Softdocs develops enterprise content management, e-forms and workflow solutions exclusively for the higher education and K-12 markets. The companys Etrieve platform redefines business processes, reducing the need for paper and improving student service and employee productivity by providing educational institutions complete control over how content is captured, processed and distributed. A privately held company founded in 1998, Softdocs is headquartered in Columbia, South Carolina. For more information, visit http://www.softdocs.com. # # # Europe is home to some of the most innovative brands today and Tims background makes him perfectly suited to bring our industry leading capabilities to them. mParticle, the Growth API, today announced the opening of its EMEA headquarters in London and the appointment of Tim Norris as General Manager for the region. The new office will support mParticles existing European customer base, which includes such international brands as Ticketmaster, Spotify, and King, and address the strong demand for mParticles next-generation data platform by other top companies in the region. The move comes at a time when the EU is preparing to enact new data protections, which will heighten the importance of well-managed first-party data. Tim is a rare talent who combines deep technical expertise with rich industry experience, said Michael Katz, Co-Founder and CEO. Europe is home to some of the most innovative brands today and Tims background makes him perfectly suited to bring our industry leading capabilities to them. Norris brings more than a decade of technology experience to the new role, most recently in data management, marketing and advertising technologies. Before joining mParticle, Norris was Country Manager DACH for Krux. He previously led publisher sales for AOL Platforms in the UK, across its ad serving, SSP, and rich media technologies. mParticle recently closed its $17.5 million Series B funding round, led by Bain Capital Ventures, in October 2016. Since January, the company has extended support for data collection onto connected TV platforms such as AppleTV and Roku, as well as announced new integrations with Snapchat, Oracles BlueKai, comScore, and others. To learn more about mParticle, visit http://www.mParticle.com. About mParticle mParticle empowers brands to accelerate growth in a multi-screen world. Our single, secure API connects to all of the leading marketing and measurement tools and is used by forward-thinking brands including Airbnb, Venmo, Hulu, King, and Spotify to accelerate growth. Since launching in 2013, the mParticle platform has grown to manage more than 1 billion mobile users a month, capture more than $5 billion in mCommerce transactions and process more than 250 billion API calls, on a monthly basis. Headquartered in New York City, mParticle was named as one of Crains 20 Best Places to Work in New York City and recognized as a Cool Vendor in Mobile App Development by Gartner. Philips Academy Cover She will finally be able to appreciate the content of every page independently - just like the school's mission states. The yearbook team of Philips Academy, a special needs middle- and high school located in Charlotte, North Carolina, is collaborating with Entourage Yearbooks this year to create a yearbook that can be enjoyed by all. Kris Shields and Deborah Hofland, representatives from the school and leaders of the project, are looking forward to the opportunities that Entourage's technology will provide. As the mission of Philips Academy is to empower students and prepare them to live and work independently, this years team is particularly excited about Entourages QR Code Generator - a new tool that will make the yearbook more accessible to all members of the school community. Cindy, a visually impaired student at Philips Academy, used to need assistance to enjoy her image-based yearbook. This year, for the first time, she will be able to experience her yearbook independently. With Entourage's QR Code Generator, each page will incorporate audio that Cindy can scan and play on her smartphone. In addition to photos and text, each page will feature the voice of a student who will provide a self-written description of the page as well as additional information. The narrations will provide an opportunity for each child to add a personal touch, as well as to practice their communication skills. Shields and Hofland note that the same method can also be used by larger schools, if they record by class rather than by student. Shields and Hofland worked with their schools Braille teacher to find a location on each page where QR codes could be placed consistently. In the end, they decided to place the codes on the bottom right-hand corner of the pages, because a visually impaired individual can find that corner more easily - and students will still be able to dog-ear a page if needed. For Cindy, the addition of audio to her school's yearbook is significant. She will finally be able to appreciate the content of every page independently - just like the school's mission states. Elias Jo, CEO of Entourage Yearbooks, remarked: "We're excited to be part of Cindy's journey. The team at Philips Academy is truly the future of yearbooks." ATLANTA, Feb. 09, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Avangate, the global eCommerce and subscription billing platform that maximizes revenue for software, SaaS and digital solutions, today announced that Kaspersky Lab improved user experience and increased revenue from local markets following the implementation of Avangates solution for marketplaces in several countries from Eastern Europe. With revenue over $700 million, Kaspersky Lab is the worlds largest privately held vendor of endpoint protection solutions and one of the fastest growing IT security vendors worldwide. As part of Kaspersky Labs effort to continually optimize the customer experience, Kaspersky Lab decided to migrate existing stores in several Eastern European countries to Avangate localized marketplaces. As part of this project, Avangate developed and implemented localized marketplaces for the majority of Eastern European markets, including Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Hungary, Greece, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine. With the marketplace project, Avangate helped us improve certain key elements. We have simplified the user journey which resulted in a significant increase in conversion rates and revenue. In fact, in one geography, we increased revenue per visitor by 63%. Internally, we obtained an improvement in resource efficiency. Plus, the projects are easily scalable, said Kamilo Tomas, Senior Online Sales Manager - Eastern Europe, Kaspersky Lab. We are very pleased with the results of these projects, for both the benefits we provided to end-clients, such as simplified user journey or faster page loading, and also to our client, Kaspersky Lab, in terms of increases in conversion rates and revenue. It was also important for our client that the eCommerce team can handle updates independently, without help from developers or any other department, said Erich Litch, Chief Revenue Officer at Avangate. For more details on the marketplace project for Kaspersky, please read the full case study. About Avangate Avangate, a Francisco Partners portfolio company, is the digital commerce provider that helps Software, SaaS and digital solution providers to sell their products and services via multiple channels, to acquire customers across multiple touch points, to increase customer and revenue retention, to leverage smarter payment options, and to maximize sales conversion rates. Avangate's clients include ABBYY, Absolute, Bitdefender, FICO, HP Software, Kaspersky Lab, Telestream and many more companies across the globe. More information can be found on www.avangate.com. Duns Castle in Scotland With excitement building for the live-action adaptation of Disneys Beauty and the Beast featuring Emma Watson and Dan Stevens, HomeAway is teaming up with Disney to celebrate the film by giving one lucky winner and 20 of his or her chosen guests an unprecedented #HomeAwayCastle stay experience in Scotland this summer. With its contest that launches in several countries today, the world leader in vacation rentals is offering the chance to make someones dream of living a real-life fairy tale come true. The prize package includes a five-night stay in a majestic 14th century castle located in Duns, Scotland and all travel arrangements for the winner and up to 20 of his or her favorite people. The group will have the entire castle and its 1,200 acres to themselves to enjoy as they wish and can partake in a variety of activities ranging from archery to falconry. Or, they may prefer to dance, sing, read books, or perhaps even talk to the furniture and hope it will talk back, just like in the much-anticipated film. Our mission at HomeAway is to help families and groups make unforgettable vacation memories and to be part of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, said Steve Stamstad, HomeAways global brand vice president. Whether staying in one of our hundreds of castles spread across the world, or even in a simple beach bungalow, we provide more than two million unique places to stay and help travelers get HomeAway from it all. Travelers from the US as well as France, Germany and the UK can enter the #HomeAwayCastle prize drawing by visiting HomeAway.com/Disney until the competition closes on March 31, 2017. HomeAway is also giving away a trip for four to the world premiere of Disneys Beauty and the Beast in Hollywood on March 2, 2017, including roundtrip airfare, spending money and a three-night stay in a luxury HomeAway villa in Los Angeles. Fans can enter at http://www.homeaway.com/lp/beautyandthebeast. More information, including visual assets, can be found at http://www.homeaway.com/info/media-center. About HomeAway: HomeAway, based in Austin, Texas, is the world leader in holiday rentals with sites representing more than two million unique places to stay in 190 countries, and is a part of the Expedia family of brands. For more information about HomeAway, please visit http://www.homeaway.com. About the film: The story and characters audiences know and love come to spectacular life in the live-action adaptation of Disneys animated classic Beauty and the Beast, a stunning, cinematic event celebrating one of the most beloved tales ever told. Beauty and the Beast is the fantastic journey of Belle, a bright, beautiful and independent young woman who is taken prisoner by a Beast in his castle. Despite her fears, she befriends the castles enchanted staff and learns to look beyond the Beasts hideous exterior and realize the kind heart of the true Prince within. The film stars: Emma Watson as Belle; Dan Stevens as the Beast; Luke Evans as Gaston, the handsome, but shallow villager who woos Belle; Kevin Kline as Maurice, Belles father; Josh Gad as LeFou, Gastons long-suffering aide-de-camp; Ewan McGregor as Lumiere, the candelabra; Stanley Tucci as Maestro Cadenza, the harpsichord; Audra McDonald as Madame de Garderobe, the wardrobe; Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Plumette, the feather duster; Hattie Morahan as the enchantress; and Nathan Mack as Chip, the teacup; with Ian McKellen as Cogsworth, the mantel clock; and Emma Thompson as the teapot, Mrs. Potts. Directed by Bill Condon based on the 1991 animated film Beauty and the Beast, the screenplay is written by Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos and produced by Mandeville Films David Hoberman, p.g.a. and Todd Lieberman, p.g.a. with Jeffrey Silver, Thomas Schumacher and Don Hahn serving as executive producers. Beauty and the Beast will be released in U.S. theaters on March 17, 2017. About the #HomeAwayCastle giveaway: No purchase necessary. Competition opens Feb. 9, 2017, at 5:59 a.m. CST and closes March 31, 2017 at 4:59 p.m. CST. Competition is open to residents of the UK, USA, France and Germany. One entry per person. See competition rules: http://www.homeaway.com/info/disney-rules. About the Hollywood premiere ticket giveaway: No purchase necessary. Competition opens Feb. 9, 2017 at 5:59 a.m. CST and closes February 14, 2017 at 4:59 p.m. CST. Competition is open to residents of the UK, USA, France and Germany. One entry per person. See competition rules: http://www.homeaway.com/info/beautyandthebeast-rules. Romantic Island Vacations "You will fall in love all over again." Travelers know that romance is best celebrated all year long, not just one day in February. In fact, in 2016, Couples & Romance ranked among the top 10 travel interest searches on TravelLeaders.com, according to Travel Leaders Americas largest retail travel agency brand with thousands of travel agents across the United States. Couples seeking to enhance their relationships, as well as all other visitors to the organizations website, can find a travel agent by destination, specialty, travel interest, and select factors that best suit their needs. With Valentines Day right around the corner, Travel Leaders travel agents are recommending six of their favorite romantic beach and island destinations. There are a number of amazing vacations where couples can take in the scenery, the amenities and activities that celebrate why they fell in love. Since sorting through the options and executing the details can sometimes be time-consuming and stressful, our travel agent experts help their clients kick off romantic getaways with peace of mind, said Roger E. Block, CTC, President of Travel Leaders Network. Thats why consumers seek experienced, travel professionals who are skilled at recommending and creating customized itineraries to suit the individual tastes and desires of their clients. It is what our Travel Leaders travel agents do best, so that their clients can focus on other important aspects of their lives. TravelLeaders.com features extensive profiles on nearly 3,500 travel agents who specialize in destinations, cruises and resorts and have personally experienced them so that their clients can rest assured that their agents recommendations are coming from firsthand experiences from the feel of the bed sheets, to the food on the menu, to the shade of blue of the water at the beach. Given the popularity of interests focused on couples-related vacations, here are Travel Leaders top recommended beach and island destinations for planning a romantic getaway. Hawaii. Hawaii is a beautiful destination with so many opportunities to experience romance, no matter what that means to you, said Debbie Isom, a Travel Leaders travel agent in Bloomington, Indiana. This tropical location, accessible without the need of a passport, is a wonderful getaway for those who appreciate ecotourism and natural beauty. A particular romantic spot is the Na Pali coast one of the most spectacular coastlines in the world. Mexico. From Cabo San Lucas to the Riviera Maya, add some romance with a trip to Mexico. Visit one of 10 Secrets Resorts throughout Mexico for the ultimate spicy getaway with authentic award-winning Mexican foods and the ultimate in romantic vibes throughout the all-inclusive, adult-only properties, advised Alex Trettin of Travel Leaders in Tacoma, Washington. Secrets Cabo is a romantic weekend getaway accessible within just a few hours from any southern or western state. For something a little off the beaten path, visit Huatulco or Secrets Aura Cozumel. St. Lucia. Everything from the dramatic Piton Mountains in the west to the quintessentially Caribbean white sand beaches by luxury resorts makes the island of St. Lucia scream romance, said Fort Worth, Texas-based Travel Leaders travel agent Sandy Duvall. If youd like a more secluded getaway, there are fabulous resorts all over St. Lucias eastern coast. Nothing beats a tropical getaway. Costa Rica. If you want an intimate setting for just you and your sweetheart, a sparkling champagne toast and a candlelight dinner for two under the stars on a white, soft sandy beach in Costa Rica, with a gentle breeze will create a wonderful memory, said Jaime Buss, Travel Leaders, Woodbury, Minnesota. New Zealand. Head to New Zealand and drive across the famous Ninety Mile Beach, or go yachting along any one of New Zealands picturesque coastlines, advised Debbie Sebastian, a Kiwi Specialist from Travel Leaders in Danville, Kentucky. The scenery is picture perfect no matter where you are and what you do on the island, because in New Zealand, from sunrise to sunset, you create your own love story. French Polynesia. You will fall in love all over again as you fall in love with Tahiti and these other awe-inspiring little islands, atolls and motus, exclaimed Teresa Scannell, a Travel Leaders agent in Mesa, Arizona. Bora Bora is breathtaking, but if you want to disconnect from the world and focus on each other, then try a hidden gem like Le Tahaa or Vahine Island. Travel Better with Travel Leaders. Travel Leaders has many travel agent specialists who advise on the perfect vacation, domestically or internationally. To find a qualified travel agent or to find the nearest Travel Leaders location, visit TravelLeaders.com or call 800-335-TRIP (8747). #iTravel Better with @TravelLeaders. # # # Travel Leaders is transforming travel with a name that boldly embodies our commitment to our vacation and business travel clients via a progressive approach toward each unique travel experience. As one of Americas top ten-ranked travel companies, Travel Leaders has assisted millions of travelers through our strong roots the former Carlson Wagonlit Travel Associates, TraveLeaders and Tzell Travel Group joined together in 2008 to form one of the industrys fastest-growing and robust networks of travel agents. Travel Leaders Franchise Group can trace its beginnings to 1984 as the franchise system Ask Mr. Foster Travel, which itself was North Americas first travel agency chain established in 1888. Leslie Saunders, CEO and founder of Leslie Saunders Insurance Agency, Inc. is a recipient of the Legacy of Leaders Award for Women of Distinction presented by WBENC. Leslie Saunders, CEO and founder of Leslie Saunders Insurance Agency, Inc., is one of the elite inaugural recipients of the Legacy of Leaders Award for Women of Distinction. This award will be presented at the Womens Business Enterprise National Councils 20th Anniversary convention in New Orleans, LA, March 21-23, 2017. This first-ever award recognizes a deep commitment to the organization and its mission to break down barriers for women-owned businesses in corporate and government supply chains. As a woman who founded our company over three decades ago, it is an honor to earn this Award along with 25 women business leaders selected from 14,000 certified members of the Womens Business Enterprise National Council, states Saunders. This award is the result of years of unrelenting work by our team, as well as essential collaboration with our innovative and inclusive clients. We work with business leaders from Fortune 500 companies to thriving local businesses. Beyond bringing the right skills and products to service complex insurance needs, earning the trust and business of leading corporations takes tenacity and time. The power of WBENC for women-owned businesses is credibility, access and acceleration. Saunders built her insurance business with a specialization in servicing car rental agencies and airport concessions. Since 1994, LSI has been the only certified woman-owned insurance agency, which now encompasses all 50 states and 240 airports. LSI is an innovative agency well-known and respected for partnering with other organizations as they develop and meet minority business contracts and requirements on local, state and federal levels. This first-ever Women of Distinction Award from WBENC not only acknowledges the hard work of each woman selected, but it also opens the door for other women and minorities to excel in their fields. Saunders started her own one-person agency not knowing it would become a national enterprise. Meeting and networking with other women in multiple fields of industry expanded her exposure to strategies and opportunities for business development, where she could grow beyond her neighborhood and go national while giving back to others. Receiving certification through WBENC powerfully opens doors for women- and minority-owned businesses. WBE certification provides proof a woman (or women) has majority ownership and control of a business entity. As a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit with 14 regional partner organizations, WBENC, founded in 1997, is the largest third-party certifier of businesses owned, controlled and operated by women in the United States. Being part of WBENC, and serving on their board, made it possible for me to achieve nationwide connections. I could never have accomplished this level of business without the networking opportunities presented by membership in this group, says Saunders. I would urge all businesswomen to join WBENC. The organization is huge now, with over 600 corporate members and provides amazing access. The mentoring, peer advice and access to procurement is definitely worthwhile. About Leslie Saunders Insurance Agency: Leslie Saunders is the only certified woman-owned insurance, benefits and training company in the U.S. WBE/DBE certifications extend to all 50 states and Puerto Rico, covering 240 airports and providing a range of insurance products for corporate and public entities. The company designs and implements employee benefit plans and creates and deploys HR training systems for small and large businesses alike, including many women-owned firms, airports and airport concessionaires. Travel, trip cancelation and pet insurance are also available. LSI also offers general liability, workers compensation, as well as aircraft liability for drones, helicopters and jets. For more information about Leslie Saunders Insurance Agency, Inc. visit http://www.lesliesaunders.com. Press Contact: Missy Shorey Shorey PR missy@shoreypr.com 202-277-7100 ### Businesses with multiple locations appreciate the convenience of an all-in-one monitoring appliance such as IntellaStore II. APCON, a leading provider of intelligent network monitoring and security solutions, today announced that Portland Community College (PCC) has selected APCONs IntellaStore II network monitoring solution to enhance security and vulnerability analysis throughout the colleges central data center and network core locations. According to Scot Brooks, network engineer for PCC, the APCON solution was chosen as part of a network visibility and security initiative. The project is aimed at complementing a recent redesign of PCCs network. The IntellaStore II was selected based on its unique ability to introduce the highest level of data visibility throughout the network and maintain compatibility with the latest security and network management tools PCC has selected to incorporate into its network architecture. The IntellaStore IIs packet capture and store functionality provides additional capability, enabling troubleshooting across PCCs monitoring deployment. Businesses with multiple locations appreciate the convenience of an all-in-one monitoring appliance such as IntellaStore II, said Richard Rauch, president and CEO of APCON. For Portland Community College, a big factor was the ability of IntellaStore II to capture network traffic from across the network and aggregate, filter, groom, and send the data to the preferred analysis tools. Brooks said PCC also has appreciated the level of service provided by APCONs Professional Services Team throughout the transition. They are extremely responsive to our needs and are quick to answer whenever we need it, Brooks said. IntellaStore II is a complete network visibility solution for midsize data centers and remote locations, combining APCON's world class data monitoring switch with integrated traffic capture for analysis. Network engineers can monitor data center networks plus analyze traffic and application performance all within a single solution, reducing costs and improving problem resolution. To learn how network visibility enhances security, join the APCON team at this years RSA Conference at booth #S519. APCON will be demonstrating its family of IntellaStore all-in-one network monitoring appliances. Any media representative who wants to schedule a product demonstration may contact the APCON public relations team at 503-682-4050. About APCON For more than 20 years, APCON has consistently delivered smart, stable and scalable technology solutions that provide an unparalleled level of confidence to service providers and businesses seeking total data center visibility and security. Its customers range from midsize companies to Fortune 1000 enterprises in more than 40 countries. APCON assures superior network monitoring while supporting traffic analysis and streamlined network management and security. For more information, visit http://www.apcon.com or follow us on Twitter @apcon. Successful PLM Go Live for American Sportswear Brand GANT Working with Centric is not only about implementing a PLM system. It is about developing new ways of working together and benefiting from the industry leaders best practices and expertise. Centric Software announces that well-known American lifestyle brand with European sophistication, GANT has announced a successful Centric Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) implementation on time, on scope and on budget. Centric Software is the leading PLM solution for fashion, retail, footwear, outdoor, luxury and consumer goods companies. GANT was established in 1949 in New Haven, Connecticut, as the family business of a Ukrainian shirt maker, Bernard Gantmacher, and his sons. Renowned for its preppy East Coast style, GANT offers premium clothing, accessories and home furnishings for men, women and kids. Today, this major American sportswear lifestyle brand headquartered in Sweden enjoys a global presence in over 70 markets, 750 stores and 4,000 selected retailers and has annual revenues of $1.3 billion. With ambitions to become the leading lifestyle brand in the world by 2020, GANT decided to adopt a new digital approach across all of its sub-brands under House of Gant GANT Rugger, GANT Diamond G and GANT. We wanted to improve our product development process and switching to Centric PLM system was a major stepping stone in reducing time to market and having greater control over the entire product lifecycle. But working with Centric is not only about implementing a PLM system. It is about developing new ways of working together and benefiting from the industry leaders best practices and expertise, explains Carl Borg, Global IT Director at GANT. Only six months after the project kicked off, teams at GANT Diamond G are already using the Centric 8 PLM suite across all product categories. Our goal for 2017 is to scale our Centric PLM system to our two other brands GANT Rugger and GANT across all of our products and concepts to improve our product hit rate and shorten lead times, continues Borg. Chris Groves, CEO of Centric Software, says, We are very proud to have gone live across GANT Diamond G and fully met our commitment to support their new digital strategy. It is a confirmation that our Agile DeploymentSM methodology speeds value delivery and we are looking forward to supporting GANT in achieving its aggressive growth plan. GANT, AB. (http://www.gant.com) GANT is the original American lifestyle brand with European sophistication, offering premium clothing, accessories and home furnishings for men, women and kids. Born in 1949 on the campuses of the American East Coast universities and raised in Europe, GANT enjoys a global presence in over 70 markets, 750 stores and 4,000 selected retailers. Please visit gant.com for more information. Centric Software, Inc. (http://www.centricsoftware.com) From its headquarters in Silicon Valley and offices in trend capitals around the world, Centric Software builds technologies for the most prestigious names in fashion, retail, footwear, luxury, outdoor and consumer goods. Its flagship product lifecycle management (PLM) platform, Centric 8, delivers enterprise-class merchandise planning, product development, sourcing, business planning, quality and collection management functionality tailored for fast-moving consumer industries. Centric SMB packages extended PLM including innovative technology and key industry learnings tailored for small businesses. Centric Software has received multiple industry awards, including the Frost & Sullivan Global Product Differentiation Excellence Award in Retail, Fashion and Apparel PLM in 2016 and Frost & Sullivans Global Retail, Fashion and Apparel PLM Product Differentiation Excellence Award in 2012. Red Herring named Centric to its Top 100 Global list in 2013, 2015 and 2016. Copyright 2017, Centric Software Inc, All right reserved. Media Contacts: GANT Camilla Astrand, Global PR Manager: camilla.astrand(at)gant(dot)com Centric Software Americas: Jennifer Forsythe, jforsythe(at)centricsoftware(dot)com Europe: Kristen Salaun Batby, ksalaun-batby(at)centricsoftware(dot)com Asia: Lily Dong, lily.dong(at)centricsoftware(dot)com Ornellaia 2014 L'Essenza Vendemmia d'Artista Ernesto Neto For the 9th edition of Ornellaia Vendemmia dArtista (http://www.ornellaia.com/it/vendemmia-d-artista/), a project that showcases the marriage between the world of contemporary art and fine wine, the iconic estate has chosen Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto to illustrate Ornellaia 2014 LEssenza. For Axel Heinz, Ornellaias Director and Winemaker, the 2014 vintage exhibits the character of LEssenza, or the Essence. When one is confronted with a challenging growing season, in order to make a great wine, one has to focus on simply extracting that years very essence. And, in fact, the 2014 year unexpectedly turned into a pleasant surprise, since the heavy rains and low temperatures during the ripening stages were followed by a September and October which brought us exemplary weather conditions. What one notices immediately about the 2014 vintage is the high quality of the tannins: elegant and silk-smooth, with no rough edges at all. 2014 will be remembered in Tuscany for the summer that never was and as one of the most unusual. While we had an incredible amount of extra work to do in the vineyard, the combination of the Estates varied subsoils, the varietals of Cabernet Sauvignon & Merlot and our own detailed knowledge of the terroir all played distinctively in our favor. To artistically interpret Ornellaia 2014 LEssenza, Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto turned to his current field of art research, shamanism as science, natural phenomena, and the artisanal arts that are the collective fruit of the community. In 2014, Neto and the members of the Huni Kin tribe in Brazil undertook a series of artistic collaborations that analysed shamanic rituals and traditions. The spiritual life of that tribe, their striving for healing in harmony with nature, and the wisdom and serenity that they draw from their intimate bond with the energy of our earth infused into Netos oeuvre an unprecedented awareness of the power of nature and of the dynamic factors that regulate it. Drawing generously from these traditions, and from the shamans and their rituality, the artists recent works convey aspects of transformation and add multiple layers of meaning to his research into social- and ecology-based connectivity. For Ornellaias Vendemmia dArtista project, Ernesto Neto sought to convey the concept of natural balance as it is exemplified in our modern societies. He encapsulated 100 large-format bottles with an interwoven mesh, specifically 100 3-litre double magnums, 10 6-litre Imperials, and a single 9-litre Salmanazar, which together represent a social hierarchy with a single King, 10 Nobles, and a populace of 100 subjects, and in so doing illustrates the equilibrium that should reign in every community, with a hierarchy that is necessary so that all can live in harmony within the group and in uniformity with Mother Nature. In addition, Neto designed a special label for the 750ml bottles of Ornellaia, and one bottle bearing that label will be included in every 6-bottle wood box. To date, Ornellaias art project has raised more than 1 million euros, all of which the estate has donated to foundations and museums that support art across its full range of expressions, including the Whitney Museum of New York, the Neue Nationalgalerie of Berlin, the Royal Opera House of London, the H2 Foundation of Hong Kong and Shanghai, as well as the Museo Poldi Pezzoli of Milan, the AGO of Toronto, the Fondation Beyeler of Basel, and the Hammer Museum of Los Angeles. On April 27, Jamie Ritchie, Sothebys CEO & President, Americas & Asia, will preside over a gala dinner and auction that will raise funds to be donated in their entirety to the host institution, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation in New York. The auction will center on 9 lots, which will include the special bottles created by Ernesto Neto for the 9th edition of Ornellaia Vendemmia dArtista. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is thrilled host Ornellaia, Sothebys and the renowned artist Ernesto Neto as they present the 9th edition of LEssenza Vendemmia dArtista. We are honored that Ornellaia choose the Guggenheim Museum for this spectacular event and are grateful for its generous support. Like wine, art has universal significance. Richard Armstrong, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation Today, as the Vendemmia dArtista marks its 9th year, it continues to attract funds for the restoration of artworks belonging to our universal heritage, stated Giovanni Geddes da Filicaja, Managing Director of Ornellaia. In just eight years we have succeeded in donating more than one million euros across the globe, just a small drop perhaps, but there is much more to come. The Vendemmia dArtista series is a wonderful way of combining the characteristics of each vintage of Ornellaia with a world class artists interpretation of that specific year. For the ninth edition, Sothebys Wine are delighted to continue our collaboration with the launch of Ornellaia 2014 LEssenza Vendemmia dArtista, through a very special dinner and auction benefiting the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Jamie Ritchie, Sothebys CEO & President, Americas & Asia. Curating the Ornellaia Vendemmia dArtista project are Bartolomeo Pietromarchi (Curator, MAXXI, Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo) and Maria Alicata. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ ORNELLAIAs philosophy considers the birth of the wines to be the truest expression of their terroir. The grapes for Ornellaia are selected by hand, and picked in the estate's vineyards in Bolgheri, on the Tuscan coast. The varying natures of the estate's terroirs, marine, alluvial and volcanic, are ideal for the cultivation of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc ad Petit Verdot. The Estate extends over 97 hectares along the Tuscan coast, just a short distance from the medieval hamlet of Bolgheri and the famed cypress-lined avenue Viale dei Cipressi. The constant work of the Ornellaia team and the ideal microclimatic and geological characteristics have brought the wines, in just twenty years-- 1985 was the first vintage of Ornellaia -- great international success. In 2001, the 1998 Ornellaia was declared Wine of the Year by the American journal Wine Spectator. In 2011 the German publication Der Feinschmecker awarded Ornellaia its most sought-after award, the Weinlegende. Ornellaia has received considerable recognition also in the national and international press, and is consistently ranked among the top estates by the Italian Wine Guides, including Gambero Rosso, Espresso, Veronelli, Duemilavini AIS, and Luca Maroni. ERNESTO NETO, born in 1964 in Rio de Janeiro, continues to live and work in Brazil. He studied at the citys Escola de artes visuais do Parque Lage in 1994 and in 1997, and also attended the Sao Paulo Museum of Modern Art from 1994 to 1996. Neto, known for his large installations utilizing mesh, fabrics, spices, and stones, draws inspiration from a wide range of sources, from the modernist traditions of Biomorphism, Arte Povera, and American Minimalism, to Brazilian Neo-concretism, succeeding in unifying together into a coherent and harmonizing discourse apparently disparate influences. Since the 1990s, Neto has created an oeuvre in which elements such as improvisation and chance intersect with geometry and gravitational force, to fashion an utterly unique artistic language. His activity brings together mind and body through the experience of space, utilising the senses to align together the viewers physical and psychological dimensions. Taken together, these aspects constitute both a distinctive signature as well as an unprecedented vocabulary that has influenced a generation of artists throughout the world, making Ernesto Neto one of the worlds most respected and influential artists. THE SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM FOUNDATION, founded in 1937, is dedicated to promoting the understanding and appreciation of modern and contemporary art, through exhibitions, education programs, research initiatives, and publications. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, joined by the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice in 1979, has since expanded to include the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (opened 1997), and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi (currently in development). The Guggenheim Foundation continues to forge international collaborations that take contemporary art, architecture, and design beyond the walls of the museum. Stratus gives UCHealth the ability to analyze all points of care for patients and share that information with their providers to ensure the highest quality across the continuum of care. Best Doctors, the global health company that solves the unsolvable in health care, today announced the launch of a partnership with UCHealth that will bring Stratus, a high-powered health care data intelligence application, to its care providers and patients. Stratus helps health systems pinpoint where limited resources can make the greatest impact, by focusing in from a population perspective down to a patient view in a matter of seconds. Beyond information, Stratus drives its users toward opportunity and action in support of value-based care, while improving clinical performance and patient satisfaction. UCHealths utilization of Best Doctors innovative technology will contribute to better outcomes for patients and improved efficiency among our clinical operations, said Jean Haynes, UCHealth chief population health officer. Stratus gives UCHealth the ability to analyze all points of care for patients and share that information with their providers to ensure the highest quality across the continuum of care. Stratus features a comprehensive integrated dashboard, robust data visualization, dynamic analysis and expansive reporting that produces deep insight in a highly usable format to drive adoption and impact. UCHealth plans to utilize Stratus to support Accountable Care Organizations (ACO), as well as their provider clinical integration strategy. The system is designed to maximize efficiency while containing costs. UCHealth and Best Doctors are both driven to innovate for improved health outcomes, said Peter McClennen, chief executive officer at Best Doctors. Using the broad capabilities of Stratus, UCHealth will help to further ensure that resources are directed appropriately and that patients receive the best possible outcomes. Based in Aurora, Colo., UCHealths network of seven hospitals, more than 100 clinics and over 17,000 employees in Colorado, southern Wyoming and western Nebraska cared for more than 1.2 million unique patients last year. By using high-impact data analytics, UCHealth places itself on the leading edge of population health management. In its highly anticipated study rating population health management providers, KLAS Research rated Best Doctors among the highest ranked for its data tools, service, and overall performance. In addition to its state-of-the-art analytics tools, Best Doctors is world-renowned for its ability to combat medical uncertainty and misdiagnosis. The company, which works with the top 5% of physicians in over 450 subspecialties of medicine, uses a unique process to bring together the brightest minds in medicine, cutting-edge technology and analytics to help members navigate increasingly complex health care systems around the world. With published studies indicating that 15-28% of patients are misdiagnosed translating into needless suffering and billions of wasted health care dollars annually Best Doctors innovates to maximize clinical efficiency while dramatically improving patient outcomes. Historically, these clinical-advocacy and second-opinion services have resulted in corrected or refined diagnoses in 37% of Best Doctors U.S.-based cases, while correcting or improving treatment in nearly 75% of cases. About Best Doctors, Inc.: Founded in 1989 by Harvard Medical School physicians, Best Doctors is a medical information services company that connects individuals facing difficult medical treatment decisions with the best doctors, ranked by impartial peer review in over 450 subspecialties of medicine, to review their diagnosis and treatment plans. Best Doctors has grown to over 40 million members worldwide utilizing access to the brightest minds in medicine, analytics and technology to deliver improved health outcomes while reducing costs. For further information, visit Best Doctors at http://www.bestdoctors.com. To schedule an interview with a member of the Best Doctors Executive Team, contact Justin Joseph at Ph: 617.359.5522 or jjoseph(at)bestdoctors(dot)com. About UCHealth UCHealth is an innovative, nonprofit health system that delivers the highest quality medical care with an excellent patient experience. UCHealth combines Memorial Hospital, Poudre Valley Hospital, Medical Center of the Rockies, UCHealth Medical Group, Broomfield Hospital, Grandview Hospital and University of Colorado Hospital into an organization dedicated to health and providing unmatched patient care in the Rocky Mountain West. With more than 100 clinic locations, UCHealth pushes the boundaries of medicine, providing advanced treatments and clinical trials and improving health through innovation. BEST DOCTORS, the STAR-IN-CROSS logo, THE REINVENTION OF RIGHT and CRITICAL CARE INTERCONSULTATION are marks or registered marks of Best Doctors, Inc. Used with permission. # # # Faviana, the leading designer dress brand for prom, bridal, pageant, and evening wear dresses, announces the launch of the 2nd annual National Celebrate Yourself Essay Contest for high school girls. Faviana believes it is important to give back by helping women feel good about themselves and celebrate their lives; thus The Faviana Foundation was born under which the National Celebrate Yourself Essay Contest is held. Designed to address women's issues, such as education, healthcare and awareness, career assistance and socio-economic inequality, Faviana is aiming to encourage, help, inspire and bring out the best in women around the world. Favianas mission statement is To help women feel good and celebrate themselves. Faviana invites high school girls to take the opportunity to explain the ways in which they celebrate themselves under three essay prompts that the girls will be able to choose from: (1) How do you celebrate yourself as an American. (2) How do you celebrate yourself as a woman. (3) How do you celebrate yourself as a leader. The girls are asked to relate their experiences back to the Faviana mission statement in order to submit an impactful essay that catches the eye of the judges. The top 5 winners will be awarded their Faviana dream dress to wear to their prom. One exclusive winner will be awarded a $1,000 college scholarship in addition to her ultimate Faviana dream dress. The deadline to submit an essay is Friday, March 24th and the winners of the Faviana Celebrate Yourself Essay Contest will be announced on National Prom Day, March 31st. Applicants can register today by going to this link The 2nd annual National Celebrate Yourself Essay Contest is being launched under the Faviana Foundation. Most recently Faviana has worked with the Revlon Run/Walk for Women, The Enchanted Closet, Beccas Closet, The Kids in Need Foundation, Red Nose Day, The Fathers Heart, and Project G.L.A.M. Faviana has distinguished themselves over the years as a leader in the industry for being able to create the perfect formal dresses for any special occasion, including prom. The company is known as the go to brand for the best designer-inspired looks. Designed with the fashion smart girl in mind, Faviana speaks to a variety of discerning fashion forward consumers. More Information Here The Best and Brightest Companies to Work For is one of multiple awards PayLease has received based on its workplace culture. PayLease, a leading payments, billing, and utility expense management provider for property management companies and HOAs, today announced it was selected as one of San Diegos Best and Brightest Companies to Work For by the National Association for Business Resources. The Best and Brightest Companies to Work For competition identifies and honors organizations that display a commitment to excellence in their human resource practices and employee enrichment. PayLease is one of ten businesses in the San Diego area to be honored with this distinction. To be selected as a Best and Brightest Company, an independent research firm evaluates each nominated company based on various categories including: Compensation, Benefits and Employee Solutions; Employee Enrichment, Engagement and Retention; Employee Education and Development; Recruitment, Selection and Orientation; Employee Achievement and Recognition; Communication and Shared Vision; Diversity and Inclusion; Work-Life Balance; Community Initiatives and Strategic Company Performance. Furthermore, employees at each nominated organization are asked to complete an optional survey to rate their satisfaction with their job and company culture. The Best and Brightest program also awards approximately 1,200 companies in various cities throughout the nation with this honor. The program also has a ten-to-one ratio of companies that apply for the award. We are proud to honor this years winners, said Jennifer Kluge, President and CEO, National Association for Business Resources. Needless to say the San Diego winners are among the elite employers in the country, and the Best and Brightest team prides itself on the quality of the program verses the quantity of winners. The Best and Brightest Companies to Work For is one of multiple awards PayLease has received based on its workplace culture. PayLease has also been featured as a Best Place to Work by the San Diego Business Journal, in addition to being recognized as one of the countrys top places to work for millennials. Commenting on the award, Dave Dutch, CEO of PayLease said, Maintaining a positive work environment where our employees are satisfied, engaged, and thriving inside and out of the office is one of PayLeases top priorities. To be selected for this award is an honor and lets us know that our emphasis on company culture is making a difference for our employees. The full list of winners can be viewed here. About PayLease PayLease provides online payments, billing, and utility expense management tools to HOAs and property management companies. Property managers use PayLease to offer their residents convenient online payment options and to improve their business operational efficiencies. Our solutions are easy-to-use and are backed with the highest levels of security and customer support. Since our inception in 2003, PayLease has grown to serve thousands of property management companies nationwide and is among the fastest-growing technology companies in the United States. About the Best and Brightest Programs The Best and Brightest Companies to Work For is a program of the National Association for Business Resources that provides the business community with the opportunity to gain recognition, showcase their best practices and demonstrate why they are an ideal place for employees to work. This national program celebrates those companies that are making better business, creating richer lives and building a stronger community as a whole. Bridge being tested at the 49th Annual Colorado High School Bridge Building Competition The Bureau of Reclamation is hosting high school students from across Colorado at its facility at the Denver Federal Center at the 50th Annual High School Bridge Building Competition. Students will test their engineering knowledge and design capability to see who has the strongest bridge. This is a free event. Friends and family of participants are also welcome. The Colorado High School Bridge Building Contest is a statewide program aimed at providing interaction and communication among practicing engineers, high school students, and other professionals. This event enhances the appeal of engineering careers to high school students by establishing their relationships with the professional community. The top winners from each region in the state competition are eligible to advance to the international contest. A student from Parker, Colorado took first place in the international contest and received a four year scholarship to the Illinois Institute of Technology! For more information on the International Contest, see the National Bridge Contest website. For more information, visit: http://nspe-co.org/events3.php. CLEARWATER, Fla., Feb. 09, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- I never thought Id ever have life without pain. I broke my back as a kid, and then I busted up my leg and foot real bad. Ive been pretty much in pain 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, said Mark Ruff, who migrated to Clearwater a year and a half ago. Then Mark walked into the Scientology Volunteer Ministers Center in downtown Clearwater asking to learn more about Scientology and what he got were answers, assistance and tools to deal with a 30 year debilitating injury. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/ba358163-ad19-47cc-833c-f186c1853bc4 Originally from Maine, Mark was in the landscaping business and had three thriving companies with more and more customers asking for the special touch that he gave to his jobs. Things were going pretty well, and he was keeping up with it all until a car accident in 1987 which changed everything. His foot and leg were crushed and his back was further injured. Mark received extensive medical treatment including five surgeries which fused his leg and ankle leaving it without feeling and his foot at an unnatural angle. He was in constant pain which only subsided with heavily addictive opioid pain killers. Once the cast was off, Mark had to teach himself how to walk. Regardless of the constant pain that it gave him, he was determined to walk again no matter what it took. Amber, the Manager of the Scientology Information Center was very tolerant and answered all my questions. She referred me to the Volunteer Ministers Center just down the street. One of the free courses I did was the Assists for Illness and Injuries Course where I learned to deliver assists and sometime later, I was offered an assist myself. Man that helped me a lot! Now I can stand up without pain. Its quite amazing how much better I feel. An "Assist" is one of 19 tools based on the works of L. Ron Hubbard covered in the book called, The Scientology Handbook. With the chapter, Assists for Illness and Injury anyone can learn to help a person speed their recovery after standard first aid and medical treatments have been administered. Formed in 1976, the Scientology Volunteer Ministers (VMs) motto is, Something Can be Done About it. The Scientology Handbook also includes tools which provide life skills for improving ones marriage, having happy children, how to resolve learning difficulties, relieving stress at work, how to achieve ones goals and more. These courses are of no cost and are available to anyone, of any faith and are delivered at the Scientology Volunteers Ministers center at 101 N. Fort Harrison in downtown Clearwater. In addition to the assists course, we also hold a more in depth Assists seminar every Tuesday at 7:45pm which has drawn people of all ages. It helps them to become more proficient in delivering all types of assists and is easy to learn. I highly recommend it, said Ms. Glendy Goodsell, Executive Director for the Scientology Volunteer Ministers Florida. To learn more about the Scientology Volunteer Ministers please visit www.volunteerministers.org or contact Glendy Goodsell at (727) 467-6965 or email glendy@volunteerministers.org. To find out more about Scientology please contact Amber Skjelset, the Scientology Information Center Manager at (727) 467-6966, amber@cos.flag.org or visit www.scientology-fso.org About the Church of Scientology: The Scientology religion was founded by humanitarian and philosopher, L. Ron Hubbard. The first Church of Scientology was formed in the United States in 1954 and has expanded to more than 11,000 churches, missions and affiliated groups, with millions of members in 167 nations. Scientologists are optimistic about life and believe there is hope for a saner world and better civilization, and actively do all they can to help achieve this. Based on L. Ron Hubbards words, A community that pulls together can make a better society for all. Were proud to be a long-time supporter of AAJ and their events, and are honored to be moderating a panel of some of the nations mass torts experts covering a topic we expect will provide meaningful information to many of its members. Counsel Financial, the nations leader in law firm financing, announced today its Diamond Sponsorship of the 2017 American Association for Justice conventions. Several members of the Counsel Financial team will travel to AAJs Winter Convention this week, being held February 11 14 in Austin, Texas. The event draws the nations top litigators and speakers who convene to discuss the latest updates in various practice areas and specialized topics and to participate in cutting-edge continuing legal education programs. Counsel Financial is set to host a panel discussionBuilding a mass torts practice: straight talk from the expertson Sunday, February 12 at 12:30pm for attorneys interested in expanding their practice to include mass torts or building upon their existing case portfolio. The program will feature presentations from some of the most-respected firms in the industry, including Sanders Phillips Grossman, Weitz & Luxenberg, Beasley Allen, Girard Gibbs, Pogust Braslow & Millrood and more. Topics will include challenges and barriers to entry, various business models to apply, managing numerous claims and MDLs and examining case studies. The program will conclude with a robust Q&A session to delve further into specific areas of interest. Paul Cody, President of Counsel Financial, states, The American Association for Justice is an extraordinary organization, bringing together some of the most prominent trial attorneys from across the country. Were proud to be a long-time supporter of AAJ and their events, and are honored to be moderating a panel of some of the nations mass torts experts covering a topic we expect will provide meaningful information to many of its members. As the only law firm financing company exclusively endorsed by AAJ since 2006, Counsel Financial remains the trusted source for law firm funding among AAJ members. Beyond financing, the company offers a multitude of benefits to its clients, such as assistance with budgeting and financial analysis, industry insight and co-counsel introductions. To learn more about all of the financing solutions offered, visit booth 601 or Counsel Financials Diamond Sponsor Boardroom (302) during Winter Convention to meet with a representative. 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 since inception. 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 multiple national and state trial organizations, including the American Association for Justice and The National Trial Lawyers. Anyone who is interested in exploring the world of the living should be able to pursue it, whether it is through DIY Biology, Biohacking, or PhDs in Life Sciences. This diversity is necessary. Everyone should have the opportunity to unearth their passion for solving humanitys grand challenges through biology, regardless of their access to university labs. A response by Amino Labs and Biorealize, collectively, Accessible Bio companies. For the German translation, please visit here. On Friday February 3rd, 2017, Make Magazine (Germany) published "Biohacking: Federal Office warns against Do-It-Yourself kits", pointing to the German federal government's declaration on GM projects. This declaration, published by the German government on January 25th, 2017, as "Genetic engineering with biology kits: simple, but potentially criminal", outlines the current legislation for the handling of DIY genetic engineering kits bought from abroad (North America). Who can do genetic engineering experiments, and where can they do them? These are the types of questions that very frequently arise in European countries as the accessible science movement gains momentum worldwide. Unfortunately, each European country has slightly different rules, making it difficult to get a straight answer. Since the DIYbio and Maker movements are growing rapidly around the world and Making with Biology outside of universities and corporations is now an exciting and feasible exercise no longer relegated to the realm of science fiction, it is important for governments to clearly delineate the current laws and regulations. In fact, looking at the German DIYbio Google Group, the legal uncertainties surrounding DIYbio in the home are brought evident. The German government along with Make: have done Europe a service in clarifying the rules in Germany. Initially when reading the Make: article using Google Translate (as many native English speakers would do), it comes across as polarizing, and even suggests that the products are potentially criminal kits. After a careful read, one would realize that the intention is not to crackdown on biohacking or limiting access to hands-on biology education but that it is rather a timely reminder of the containment level and environment required in Germany to complete genetic engineering tasks. For this, we see the German government's move to clarify the current rules as a positive undertaking. Furthermore, the Make: article closes on a constructive note with a link to information about how non-scientists in Germany can learn about biotechnology and genetic engineering. The Accessible Bio companies recommend that all European countries follow Germanys lead and clearly and concisely communicate GM regulations to DIYbio and makers in their countries, as well as recommend appropriate locations where this type of exploration can be done if they are unable to complete the Risk Group 1 experiments at home. For example, in the United Kingdom you can find accredited DIYbio labs such as MadLab and London Biohackspace. In the Netherlands, the Waag Society, La Paillasse in France, and the OpenBiolab in Austria. Efforts are also being made by EKoli, a European Maker initiative that aims to standardize and make learning and hands-on genetic engineering possible for Belgium schools. Were pursuing and working with government to establish a scalable model for setting up appropriate containment levels in an ad hoc basis in schools, so that this important [genetic engineering] content can be effectively taught., says co-founder Deepak Mehta. We are North American companies building products for North American customers, under the North American regulatory framework. At the moment, it is more complicated for those in European countries who wish to learn about genetic engineering hands-on as the rules are unclear, says Justin Pahara, Fellow of the Johns Hopkins Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative (ELBI) and former Biosafety Committee member of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge. Safety is one of our greatest considerations, and we encourage everyone who purchases our product(s) to comply with their local containment laws and follow the safety and disposal instructions. In North America, these DIY, Education, and Design kits do not require regulated containment as they are considered non-harmful to humans or the environment. The regulations for containment in North America begin with potentially hazardous agents and pathogens. We design our kits and technologies in response to information inequality says Orkan Telhan, co-founder of Biorealize and faculty of Emerging Design Practices at University of Pennsylvania. "Not everyone has access to the same resources and infrastructure to start learning biology. And anyone who is interested in exploring the world of the living should be able to pursue it, whether it is through DIY Biology, Biohacking, or PhDs in Life Sciences. This diversity is necessary. These educational kits are stepping stones that will turn young curious minds into a growing community of professionals who can design the next generation applications of biology. Through our research, we found that once a person reaches the age of 16, theyve often already decided on a career path based on the opportunities they have had access to, says Julie Legault, CEO of Amino Labs. The world needs innovation that leads to more abundant and cheaper medicine - more nutritious and non-animal-based sustainable food options - more eco-friendly and sustainable manufacturing methods all of which will lead to economic growth. Genetic engineering is a key tool for achieving these goals, and, as a complex topic, is best explored hands-on. Everyone should have the opportunity to unearth their passion for solving humanitys grand challenges through biology, regardless of their access to university labs. We see this response as an opportunity to jointly express our commitment to make biology accessible to anyone who would be willing to use it responsibly. We invite the all policy-makers and enforcers of GM laws to consider the following: The mission of Accessible Bio companies is mainly to address information inequality. We intend to support biotech education to make it more accessible to those who do not have the resources. We invite all stakeholders to be in dialogue with each other to address the regulatory concerns together. There is no need to contemplate, pass and/or enforce regulation due to fear and unverified opinions. We are always ready to hear new perspectives from everyone who would like to learn genetic engineering with our kits and technologies. We are ready to improve our products to support your interests. Attorney Carlos E. Sandoval, founder of Carlos E. Sandoval, P.A., was recently appointed to the Board of Directors of the Legal Aid Service of Broward County. The organizations mission is to provide high-quality free civil legal advice, representation and education to the disadvantaged of Broward County so as to improve the lifestyle and living conditions of the low-income community and encourage self-sufficiency. Sandoval, with his new position on the board, will be able to help the less fortunate who dont have the means to afford legal representation. As a member of the board I will be involved in the decision-making process of the organization towards formulating strategies to meet the legal needs of the most disadvantaged members of our community, said Sandoval. I feel very honored to be a part of this organization, and look forward to working with my fellow board members to make an impact in the community. Sandoval, who focuses his practice on immigration law, has always been community-minded, and extends his assistance to new members of the community. In the past he has raised awareness of and given advice to immigrants on various issues and changes affecting U.S. immigration policy, immigration applications, immigration eligibility law, H-1B visas and more. Sandoval is also involved with Hispanic Unity of Florida, whose mission is to empower immigrants and others to become self-sufficient, productive and civically engaged. About Carlos E. Sandoval, Attorney at Law Carlos E. Sandoval is a member of the Florida Bar, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the Broward County Hispanic Bar Association and the Broward County Bar Association. Carlos, who speaks fluent English and Spanish, is licensed to practice law by the Florida Supreme Court and the Federal Court for the Southern District of Florida. He focuses his practice in all areas of immigration, naturalization and removal. For more information or a consultation, call (954) 306-6921, or visit http://www.carlosesandoval.com. The law office is located at 450 N. Park Road, Suite 803, Hollywood, FL 33021. About the NALA The NALA offers small and medium-sized businesses effective ways to reach customers through new media. As a single-agency source, the NALA helps businesses flourish in their local community. The NALAs mission is to promote a business relevant and newsworthy events and achievements, both online and through traditional media. For media inquiries, please call 805.650.6121, ext. 361. The Friends of the California State Fair Scholarship Program is currently accepting applications for the 2017-18 academic year. Since 1993, the Friends of the California State Fair Scholarship Program has supported high achieving California students. The program offers 14 categories of scholarships ranging from $1,000 - $2,500 each with varying eligibility requirements. Categories include: International Agricultural Trade, Culinary Cooking/Hospitality/Event Management, Trade School and Viticulture and Enology. Applicants may apply for one scholarship category of their choice per year and will be evaluated based on academics, community service, quality of essay and recommendations. Top scholarship winners in select categories may be invited to compete for the $5,000 Ironstone Concours Foundation Scholarship. Scholarships are not renewable; however, students may reapply each year as long as they continue to meet the eligibility criteria. The Friends of the California State Fair Scholarship Program is a collaboration between the Friends of the California State Fair, the California Exposition and State Fair, the California State Fair Agricultural Advisory Council, the Ironstone Concours Foundation, Blue Diamond Growers and Western Fairs Association. International Scholarship and Tuition Services, Inc. (ISTS), an independent scholarship management company, hosts the online application process and disburses awards for the program. The deadline to apply is March 2, 2017. Learn more at http://www.castatefair.org/scholarship/. About the Friends of the California State Fair The Friends of the California State Fair is a charitable, nonprofit, volunteer organization that supports programs and education initiatives at the California Exposition State Fair. For nearly three decades the Friends of the California State Fair have supported California students through their scholarship program. About the California State Fair For more than 160 years, the California State Fair has showcased the best of the Golden State. During the 2016 State Fair at Cal Expo nearly 675,000 people experienced the best and made memories that will last a lifetime. Cal Expo was dedicated as a place to celebrate California's achievements, industries, agriculture, diversity of its people, traditions and trends that shape the Golden State's future. International law firm Greenberg Traurig represented Phacil, Inc. in the sale of the company to its newly formed Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). Established in 2001 in Arlington, VA, Phacil, Inc. is one of the countrys leading providers of technology solutions to the federal government. The Greenberg Traurig transaction team for the sale of Phacil, Inc. to the ESOP was led by Shareholders Scott Meza (N. Virginia), Jeffrey S. Kahn, Rebecca G. DiStefano and Brandon G. Feingold (Boca Raton). They were assisted by Shareholders Timothy J. Jessell (N. Virginia) and Michael R. Einig (Miami) and Associate Christopher T. Turek (N. Virginia). The investment banking firm The McLean Group, worked closely with the Greenberg Traurig team and was led by Managing Director Greg Nossaman. Greenberg Traurig provided counsel in the areas of plan design, tax, employee benefits and other matters related to the Companys ESOP structure. The firm also advised in the areas of corporate and ERISA fiduciary duties. We are pleased about Phacils transition of ownership to our valued employees. The employees win and the continuation of the company is not disrupted. We will continue to work together to deliver our customers the very best customer service, said Mark Cabrey, Phacils President and Chief Operating Officer. We are grateful for the expertise, counsel and attention to detail that the Greenberg Traurig team brought to our ESOP transaction. Their commitment of their deep resources was integral to the success of our transaction." Scott Meza, who together with Jeffrey S. Kahn, Co-Chair of Greenberg Traurigs ESOP Practice, led Phacils legal transaction team, commented, "We were extremely fortunate to have been able to work with Phacil on this transition to employee ownership. Phacil and the other senior management team embraced the use of an ESOP as a way of achieving their goals, and ensuring the well-being of their employees. Meza further said, "The ESOP was an ideal strategy to best meet these objectives and a perfect fit for Phacils existing culture. We have also found that an ESOP is an excellent ownership transition vehicle for companies in the government contractor space. About Phacil, Inc.: Phacil, Inc. (Phacil) is a leading, employee-owned provider of mission-focused, results-driven technology solutions to the Federal Government. Phacils diverse range of solutions in Software Services, Systems Engineering, Integration & Operations (SEI&O), Cybersecurity, and Service Desk operations enables its team of over 800 technical professionals to effectively serve customers throughout the U.S. and overseas. Phacil was founded in 2001 as a Delaware Corporation and in late 2016, became an employee-owned company. The company is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia and have a team of over 800 technical professionals to effectively serve customers throughout the U.S. and overseas. For more information on the company, visit http://www.phacil.com About ESOPs: ESOPs are qualified retirement plans that primarily invest in company stock for the benefit of the employees, providing an ownership stake in the company. An ESOP also allows for a better-managed ownership transition, preservation of local jobs, and the maintenance of a companys legacy in the community. According to the ESOP Association there are approximately 10,000 ESOPs in place in the U.S., covering 10.3 million employees (10 percent of the private sector workforce). In 2016, the ESOP practice of global law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP received the ESOP Law Firm of the Year award at the 8th annual Americas M&A Atlas Awards in New York City, New York. About Greenberg Traurig, LLP Greenberg Traurig, LLP (GTLaw) has more than 2,000 attorneys in 38 offices in the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East and is celebrating its 50th anniversary. A single entity worldwide, GTLaw has been recognized for its philanthropic giving, was named the second largest firm in the U.S. by Law360 in 2016, and among the Top 20 on the 2016 Am Law Global 100. Web: http://www.gtlaw.com Twitter: @GT_Law. Global Technology Transfer Group, Inc. (GTT Group), the premier provider of patent analysis and transaction advisory services to information and communication technology companies worldwide, announces the availability of a patent portfolio related to connected devices in a Smart Home environment. The portfolio contains 12 issued U.S. patents and one US application in eight patent families. The portfolio is relevant to the control and automation of connected devices in a home or a business environment. The emergence of the Smart Home is something that has been discussed for decades. The potential for increased consumer comfort, security and convenience has fueled our imaginations as evidenced by the futuristic homes portrayed in movies. While this vision of a smart home has driven a significant amount of investment from technology companies, consumer adoption has lagged expectations. This lack of adoption has been attributed to several factors, including the complexity of deploying connected devices, limited functionality of devices and the lack of interoperability, leading to poor user experiences. Companies today are attempting to address these barriers by providing feature rich devices, increased integrations and improving the user interface for managing all of a users connected devices. Several inventions in the portfolio relate to the management and support of connected devices. According to Boston Consulting Group, the connected device market is projected to reach $267B and will include 24 billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices connected to the internet by 2020. The dramatic increase in connected devices has resulted in increased competition from large technology enterprises seeking to provide the platform to manage these devices. The automation patent portfolio includes key technologies or features that have become fundamental to device management platforms. The Home Automation market, a significant segment of the IoT market, is projected to reach $78B by 2022 according to Research and Markets and includes products such as security cameras, electrical appliances, thermostats and lighting. The portfolio contains inventions that cover key features of the Smart Home, including home monitoring and security. The Internet of Things and Home Automation markets are growing rapidly and patent portfolios in these areas are receiving wide market interest, said GTT Group Director of Asset Services, Andrew Godsey. These inventions cover common features used in connected devices on the market and we expect the Portfolio will be an attractive offering. To receive more information about this opportunity, please contact Andrew Godsey. All inquiries will be kept strictly confidential. GTT Group is approaching potential buyers and providing materials explaining the strategic advantages of acquiring the portfolio. In addition, GTT Groups subject matter experts will be available to discuss the strengths of the patents and evidence of use in the market. GTT Group expects the portfolio to be fully divested by the end of April 2017. About Global Technology Transfer Group, Inc. Global Technology Transfer Group, Inc. is a patent analysis and transaction advisory firm. The companys corporate headquarters are in Portland, Oregon. For more information, visit GTT Group online. Husson University is one of only a few institutions of higher education in Maine that uses interprofessional education, a cutting-edge method of preparing future healthcare professionals. Communication is an important key to maximizing patient outcomes and eliminating medical errors. Interprofessional teamwork has been credited with improved health care experiences. More than 300 students from Husson University, will participate in the Fifth Annual Interprofessional Evening of Conversation on February 23, 2017 from 5:30 p.m. 8 p.m. at the Gracie Theatre. This event, structured in a manner similar to grand rounds, features a simulated case presentation with an actor portraying a patient with a health condition. Students observe the case presentation and then engage in small group interprofessional discussions in which they talk about the care of the patient. This years actor will portray a patient with an opioid addiction and other problems. Students observing the patient and discussing her care include aspiring professionals majoring in physical therapy, occupational therapy, pharmacy, healthcare studies, education, graduate counseling, along with those pursuing bachelors and graduate nursing degrees. Twenty-five faculty facilitators help engage the more than 300 Husson students participating in this event. Husson University is one of only a few institutions of higher education in Maine using this cutting-edge method of education for their healthcare and education programs. Once completed, it is expected that the students from the various healthcare and education disciplines will have gained insight into identifying the roles and responsibilities of the various disciplines, and using interprofessional communication skills to discuss potential plans of action to improve patients outcomes. For a significant number of our students, the Evening of Conversation is the first experience these future professionals will have with patient-focused interprofessional activity, says Dr. Peg Olson, PhD, PT, NCS, a faculty member in Husson Universitys School of Physical Therapy. Being effective in todays team-oriented healthcare delivery system requires professionals who can exchange information, listen, and work with others who possess expertise in a variety of disciplines. Students do this best when they learn about, with, and from students of two or more different professions! Why is Interprofessional Communication Important? Communication is an important key to maximizing patient outcomes and eliminating medical errors. Interprofessional teamwork has been credited with improved health care experiences. In fact, this process has led to 50 percent reductions in both adverse patient outcomes and the average length of intensive care, a dramatic decrease in the clinical error rate, and lowering the per capita cost of health care, all while increasing in the professional satisfaction of those employed in health care fields.[1] Continuing to educate aspiring healthcare and education professionals in the importance of good communication can help improve the health of millions of Americans. More About Husson University For more than 100 years, Husson University has prepared future leaders to handle the challenges of tomorrow through innovative undergraduate and graduate degrees. With a commitment to delivering affordable classroom, online and experiential learning opportunities, Husson University has come to represent superior value in higher education. Our Bangor campus and off-campus satellite education centers in Southern Maine, Wells, and Northern Maine provide advanced knowledge in business; health and education; pharmacy studies; science and humanities; as well as communication. In addition, Husson University has a robust adult learning program. For more information about educational opportunities that can lead to personal and professional success, visit Husson.edu. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ {1} Agents of C.A.R.E.: Health care disciplines team up through interprofessional education (IPE) to tackle the challenges of the future, Ohio Northern University, http://www.onu.edu/features/57325 The company, branded as Islandbargains.com, has been shipping cargo into the Caribbean, since 2009. With corporate headquarters in South Florida, and exclusive agents in over 45 different countries, Island Bargains network has sprouted and they have become a leader in the shipping industry. Providing weekly ocean shipments, as well as, daily air shipping, Island Bargains touts its fast and economical service, as the premier Caribbean shipping service. Island Bargains focus has been to provide affordable methods for islanders to enjoy online shopping, without the expenses and hassles of traditional shipping. Similar to the United States Post Office, Island Bargains offers Flat Rate shipping, which allows Caribbean citizens to shop freely online, and receive their packages within days, at one low landed cost. Shipping fees to most Caribbean islands are as low as $10. And clearing is always included as well, saving islanders both time and money. A major contribution to Island Bargains success has been the surge within the business community. Island Bargains was created, for Caribbean citizens to shop online, and have easy access to ship their purchases abroad. The surprise for Island Bargains came, as the commercial community embraced the Flat Rate shipping model, as a cost savings method for shipping their goods, from the U.S. vendors. Many commercial businesses throughout the Caribbean now rely on Island Bargains for weekly shipments, rather than normal once month shipping. Because Island Bargains offers Flat Rate shipping, without the extra expenses of clearing, documentation, etc, Caribbean businesses are saving thousands a year on their shipping expenses, which translates to higher profits for these island businesses. In a recent interview, CEO Richard Chilton was quoted as saying, The time was right, for the Caribbean community to be given a break from the traditional high cost of shipping. This seems to be visible within the Islandbargains.com logo and theme of FOR THE PEOPLE, a motto that Mr. Chilton takes pride in, when speaking about his companys Flat Rate shipping model. With record growth in revenues, and in the customer base, its apparent the Caribbean islanders are embracing Island Bargains Flat Rate shipping model. Mr. Chilton credits the feverous pace of customer sign ups, to their current customers word of mouth, the oldest and best form of advertising. In many islands, we have not needed other advertising, simply due to the viral spread of our service, throughout the local community, says Mr. Chilton. As internet shopping increases throughout the world, it would be safe to assume that Island Bargains will continue to flourish in the market. So, whether youre an online shopper looking for a pair of shoes, or a commercial business needing inventory supplies, it would be worth trying Islandbargains.com for your next U.S. shipment. You too, may be telling your family and friends about Islandbargains.com. The Alaska Forget Me Not Coalition is hosting a free wills clinic for income-qualifying Service members and Veterans on Monday, March 13th from 10a.m. 4p.m. at the Alaska National Guard Armory in Bethel. Volunteer attorneys from the Alaska Legal Services Corporation (ALSC), as well as law students from Columbia Law Schools Native American Law Students Association, will be onsite to prepare wills for all eligible Service members and Veterans, regardless of branch or component. All participants must be income-qualifying and hold a Department of Defense ID card. For those who are interested, register by emailing Bethel(at)alsc-law(dot)org or calling 907-542-2237. Advanced registration is required. Navigating legal issues and family dynamics can be stressful, especially when faced by the unique challenges of Military life. We would all like to think that well never need a will, but it can be one of the most important tasks that someone can do for family readiness, said Magen James, Army OneSource State Community Support Coordinator. The Military Wills Clinic is the first clinic to offer no cost will preparation for Service members and Veterans in Bethel and the surrounding area. The event offers the Military community an opportunity to meet with qualified lawyers from the Bethel ALSC Office, all ready to provide this will preparation service free of charge. Additionally, a group of five students from Columbia Law Schools Native American Law Students Association will be on hand to do pro bono work for the residents of Bethel and the Yukon-Kuskokwim Region. In fact, Agatha Erickson, a first-year law student and member of the Native Village of Kaltag, is among the group of visiting students. To determine eligibility, Service members and Veterans may call 907-542-2237 or email Bethel(at)alsc-law(dot)org. ALSC requires certain income requirements be met in order to be qualified for these free services. The Military Wills Clinic is made possible by the Alaska Forget Me Not Coalition, including Army OneSource and the Alaska Legal Services Corporation. Media Contact: Magen James, State Community Support Coordinator, Army OneSource, (907) 306-3442, mjames(at)afsc(dot)com ### Rotary Senior Living is collaborating with Avera eCAREs Senior Care Long-Term Care program to connect residents to providers at the Avera eCARE virtual center which provides around-the-clock urgent care. With a simple click of a button, this service brings a geriatric team and other specialty providers via two-way video to long-term care residents. This immediate access will provide consultative support on a residents condition or medication needs at any time of the day. When residents in long-term care facilities need health care services, Senior Cares Long-Term Care program can help virtually connect residents to providers in remote locations, avoiding unnecessary transfers to an unfamiliar location. Rotary Senior Livings use of virtual telemedicine services has been proven to decrease the number of emergency department visits and hospitalizations, by providing education and tools to help facility staff identify earlier treatment for acute conditions and gives residents easy access to urgent care services. A second set of eyes on cases not only provides a deeper level of care for residents, it decreases the stress level of local physicians, said Joshua Hofmeyer, Avera eCARE Senior Care Officer. Residents have peace of mind knowing they have the entire Avera eCare team of specialists at their disposal, and doctors do, too. Tara Behrendsen, Project Manager at Rotary Senior Living said the addition of Avera Senior Care takes our facility to the next level for offering innovative and cutting edge care. The implementation of this telemedicine program is one more example of how our system is continuously pursuing clinical excellence, said Tara Behrendsen. This virtual support in addition to our experienced nurses and caregivers will provide a greater level of care to our residents. Since 2004, Avera eCARE has worked to connect the vast knowledge of specialists to patients in areas without nearby services. Avera eCARE offers one of the largest telemedicine networks in the United States, supporting more than 300 health centers, clinics, long-term care centers, schools, and correctional facilities within a 13-state region. To learn more about Avera eCARE, visit AveraeCARE.org. Rotary Senior Living is a licensed 42 residential care facility (RCF) and a 46 bed skilled nursing facility (SNF) located at 620 SE 5th Street, Eagle Grove, IA. Facilities include apartments, duplexes, townhomes, and low income housing. The Wellness Center is a recent addition and provides out patient rehabilitaton and community fitness programs. Information on the services provided are available at http://www.rotaryseniorliving.com, on Facebook and by calling 515-448-5124. QUEBEC CITY, Feb. 09, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- InnovMetric Software Inc., the leading provider of universal 3D metrology software solutions, today announced it will hold the 2017 edition of its annual PolyWorks Conference USA from April 19 through April 20 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi, Michigan. At this conference, metrology professionals from across North America will discover new and innovative ways to work smarter with PolyWorks and leverage 3D metrology data to optimize engineering and manufacturing processes. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/698178b1-1ed2-40b0-958c-a50e51880a2e. This conference represents a unique opportunity for all metrology professionals to learn how the new 2017 release of PolyWorks will play a key role in increasing their productivity and maximizing the benefits of their 3D measurement technologies, said Marc Soucy, President of InnovMetric. PolyWorks Conference USA|2017 will feature: The launch of PolyWorks 2017 by Marc Soucy, PhD, President of InnovMetric, and by the product management team. by Marc Soucy, PhD, President of InnovMetric, and by the product management team. Technical sessions, presented by PolyWorks experts, on all the new features and enhancements to help metrology professionals improve their 3D measurement and inspection processes. presented by PolyWorks experts, on all the new features and enhancements to help metrology professionals improve their 3D measurement and inspection processes. The ever-popular Doctors Office , where conference goers book one-on-one appointments with PolyWorks experts to tackle specific measurement challenges and learn how to optimize their use of PolyWorks tools. , where conference goers book one-on-one appointments with PolyWorks experts to tackle specific measurement challenges and learn how to optimize their use of PolyWorks tools. Guest speakers, from major automotive and aerospace manufacturers, will share compelling case studies on how their organization has used PolyWorks to achieve impressive gains in their manufacturing processes. from major automotive and aerospace manufacturers, will share compelling case studies on how their organization has used PolyWorks to achieve impressive gains in their manufacturing processes. InnovMetric hardware and service partners will showcase their latest 3D metrology measurement devices, accessories, and services. will showcase their latest 3D metrology measurement devices, accessories, and services. Social activities to connect with hundreds of users and grow your professional network. For more information, visit PolyWorks Conference USA|2017. Media and metrology professionals are invited to register here for the conference. About InnovMetric Software Founded in 1994 and headquartered in Quebec, QC, Canada, with subsidiaries worldwide, InnovMetric Software Inc. is the leading provider of universal 3D metrology software solutions. The worlds largest industrial manufacturing organizations (Toyota, GM, Volkswagen, Honda, BMW, Daimler, Ford, Rolls-Royce, Pratt & Whitney, Boeing, Embraer, Bombardier, Apple, and many more) trust InnovMetrics PolyWorks software solutions and associated technical services to maximize the benefits of 3D measurement technologies for their engineering and manufacturing applications. With its subsidiaries and joint ventures, InnovMetric has more than 250 employees in 13 countries: Canada, United States, Mexico, Brazil, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Turkey, India, Thailand, China, and Japan. Iconic Santorini Overview Enjoy the magic and romance of Santorini at special rates with Early Booking Offers for vacations between April 28 and June 18, 2017 at the serene retreat voted Greeces Leading Boutique Hotel at the World Travel Awards 3 years in a row. If thinking about sitting in the sun gazing at a sweeping view of the Aegean Sea or bathing in a private plunge pool while sipping on a glass of local Greek wine, then think about booking the Iconic Santorini now. An early booking will assure a view and the best possible rates. Iconic Santorini, a truly extraordinary multi-level hideaway carved into traditional caves on the volcanic cliffs, is perched 1,000 feet above the sparkling blue bay of the caldera. Its 19 residences and rooftop decks feature balconies and terraces so that guests can dine, relax, cool off and cast off the cares of the everyday life enveloped by awesome panoramic views. The individually designed suites, re-imagined from traditional Santorini homes and craft shops, reflect the islands unique white-vaulted style and colorful fabrics, now skillfully adapted for todays demanding travelers. Guests live the authentic Greek experience while still enjoying luxury amenities like individual air-conditioning, flat-screen televisions with international channels, private routers for hi-speed Wi-Fi, JBL sound systems and sumptuous 4-layer COCO-MAT beddingall the comforts of home, in other words, with the bonus of Hellenic hospitality from a dedicated highly professional staff. In addition, discerning travelers, honeymooners and lovers rave about Iconics serene fitness and massage suite with its own grotto pool, the outdoor swimming pool with a jetted seating area and the hotels modern take on a traditional taverna serving Greek cuisine of the highest quality. Regular double rates at "Greece's Leading Boutique Hotel include breakfast, mineral water, roundtrip airport transfers, and complimentary high-speed Internet access begin at $621 a night . For details of the specific Early Booking Offers for each individual suite, email info(at)iconicsantorini(dot)com and include booking code ICO-10 Please visit our website http://www.iconicsantorini.com for full details of each residence with photographs hard to resist. Remember, with only 19 suites in the entire hotel, availability is limited: to ensure the residence of dreams, on the desired dates book soon. Coming Soon: 2017S Special Romance Packages Special Romance Packages include sightseeing, Moet & Chandon Champagne, dinners and other extras at great value-added rates. Full details are available at http://www.iconicsantorini.com/iconic-santorini-romance-packages Media Information For more background, interviews and hi-res photography, please contact Martha Morano: martha(at)moranopr(dot)com or 212/860-5566. The Iconic Santorini is managed by Hospitality America, LLC, a proud member of the Mantis Collection of award-winning five-star Hotels, Eco-Escapes & Lifestyle Resorts. That combination means guests can be sure of authentic, world-class service and a warm, friendly welcome. Soilworks will participate in the 2017 Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration (SME) Annual Conference and Expo in Denver, Colorado. The SME Conference gives us an outstanding opportunity to talk with the best experts in the mining industry and showcase our products to mining professionals. Soilworks, the worldwide leader in dust control and soil stabilization, will participate in the 2017 Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration (SME) Annual Conference and Expo at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver from February 19 to 22. Soilworks experienced and knowledgeable Mining Business Developer Luke Short will be available in Exhibit Hall Booth #945 to discuss the companys innovative products, designed to solve soil stabilization and dust control challenges for large-scale open pit and underground mining operations. Soilworks products are currently used in many major mining operations around the globe. Every year attending the SME Conference gives us an outstanding opportunity to talk with the best experts in the mining industry and showcase our products to mining professionals, said Chad Falkenberg, founder of Arizona-based Soilworks. Were looking forward to speaking with attendees about the products that are solving so many dust control problems in the mining industry. Soiltac and Durasoil, Soilworks biggest selling mining products, will be on display during the SME Annual Conference and Expo. Using gas-to-liquid technology (GTL), Durasoil is a patented, ultra pure, synthetic fluid applied to mine entrances, tunnel walls and underground haul roads to stop unwanted particles and fugitive dust. Durasoil is the only non-petroleum product on the market and has been proven to help mines comply with their strict water treatment process regulations. Soiltac, a revolutionary copolymer product, serves to control dust and erosion and stabilize soil. By combining advancements in nanotechnology and chemistry, Soiltac binds particles together to treat mine tailings and roads from days to years depending on the application rate. Soilworks has proven its dependable ability to solve difficult soil stabilization and dust control challenges that impact each mines profitability and safety. With dust control products like Durasoil and Soiltac, Soilworks is helping to create a safer work environment, boost employee morale, lower fines and increase productivity. We can speak from experience about the solutions our products present to challenges faced every day in large-scale mining operations around the globe, Falkenberg said. Our products are proven to help you meet those challenges head on. For more information about Soilworks, please visit http://www.soilworks.com. About Soilworks Soilworks provides engineered solutions to meet the broad needs of the dust control and soil stabilization industry. Whether the market is commercial, industrial or military, Soilworks has the innovative tools, unmatched technical support, and environmentally friendly technologies to fulfill specific requirements. Soilworks performance-driven portfolio of industry-leading products include the Patented U.S. Dept. of Defense Surtac, Soiltac, Powdered Soiltac, Gorilla-Snot and the newly patented Durasoil. Soilworks international sales network, global distribution centers and integrated customer service provide an ideal platform to satisfy all its customers needs. Get to know Soilworks better at http://www.soilworks.com or call 1-800-545-5420. Tarkan Multi-Platinum Recording Artist US Tour Tarkan is one of the finest live performers I've ever seen. - Ahmet Ertegun, founder Atlantic Records International recording artist Tarkan takes the stage next month with his first ever, "Bi-Coastal US Tour." The highly anticipated concerts, sponsored by Turkcell, will take place at the Hammerstein Ballroom at the Manhattan Center Studios on March 2nd and 3rd in mid-town New York, and at The Novo by Microsoft in the heart of Los Angeles on March 5th. Tarkan performs a unique blend of pop music infused with a soulful Turkish sound and infectious rhythm. Music industry legend Ahmet Ertegun, founder of Atlantic Records said, "hes one of the finest live performers I've ever seen. From Europe and South America to Asia and Australia, wherever he tours, Tarkan quickly sells out arenas, including a record-breaking show in his native Turkey attended by 200,000 fans. "We're excited to bring Tarkan's electrifying show to his many American fans, who've waited to see him perform here for a long time," said promoter Metehan Oguz, president of SM Production Group. The promoter's VP of Events, Sengul Oguz added, "Tarkan has the energy and charisma of a young Elvis. His performances are long remembered by concertgoers, and those who see him next month can expect an incredible night of music." Tickets are on sale now for all US dates at tarkanliveus.com or through TicketMaster. Dates: March 2 & 3, 2017 Location: The Hammerstein Ballroom, New York Ticket Prices: $ 80 - 250 Date: March 5, 2017 Location: The Novo by Microsoft, Los Angeles Ticket Prices: $ 80 - 175 About Tarkan: Over a career spanning two decades and going, Tarkan has won over fans worldwide with a string of hits that have sold in excess of 29 million copies. Whenever this award-winning performer takes the stage, Tarkan mesmerizes his audience with an unmistakable sound and an electrifying presence. SM Production Group: As a full service production and management company, SM Production Group specializes in project management, communications, licensing and consultancy, event management, as well as a full range of concert, festival and event production services. smproductiongroup.com Our tendency to match specific sounds with specific shapes, even abstract shapes, is so fundamental that it guides perception before we are consciously aware of it, according to new research in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The bouba-kiki effect, originally reported over 85 years ago and replicated many times since, shows that people consistently pair the soft-sounding nonsense word bouba with soft-looking, round shapes and they typically pair the sharp-sounding nonsense word kiki with spiky-looking, angular shapes. This effect seems to emerge across cultures and age groups, indicating that it may represent a universal mapping between different modes of perception. The new findings from three experiments show that the bouba-kiki effect operates on a deeper, more fundamental level than previously observed: This is the first report that congruence between a visual word form and the visual properties of a shape can influence behavior when neither the word nor the object has been seen, says researcher Shao-Min (Sean) Hung of Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, first author on the research. In one experiment, Hung and co-authors Suzy Styles (Nanyang Technological University) and Po-Jang (Brown) Hsieh (Duke-NUS Medical School) used a technique that involves presenting different images to the left and right eyes. To participants dominant eye, the researchers presented a series of flashing images; to the nondominant eye, they presented a target image that gradually faded in. Initially, participants were unaware of the target image and could only see the competing, flashing images. In this experiment, the target image was always a nonsense word, bubu or kiki, inside of a shape. Sometimes the word (bubu) was congruent with the shape it was in (round) and sometimes it was incongruent with the shape (angular). The participants pressed a key whenever the target image became visible. Timing data showed that the target image broke through to conscious awareness faster when it was congruent than when it was incongruent, indicating that participants perceived and processed the relationship between word and shape before they were consciously aware of the stimuli. To ensure that participants were mapping the roundness or angularity of the word sounds and not just the shapes of the letters in the written words, the researchers conducted a second study in which they taught participants to read two unfamiliar letters that lacked distinctive round or angular components. That is, participants learned to arbitrarily associate the sounds bubu and kiki to these unfamiliar letters. Again, the results showed that whichever letter was taught as kiki broke through to awareness faster when it was inside the angular shape compared with the rounded shape; and whichever letter stood for bubu broke through faster when it was inside the rounded shape compared with the angular shape. The findings here show that once we have learned the sound of a letter, we are able to not only extract the sound without consciously perceiving the letter, but also map this unconsciously extracted sound to an unconscious shape, Hung explains. Additional findings revealed that the bouba-kiki effect operated outside of awareness even when participants listened to word sounds. In a third study, the researchers used another technique for measuring perception outside awareness, presenting a faint shape very briefly in between two images that masked the shapes visibility. The researchers varied the intensity of the shape, to determine the level at which it became visible to the participants. Once again, the data showed that congruent sounds facilitated conscious awareness of the shape, lowering the threshold at which the participants reported seeing the shape. All these findings expand the limit of unconscious processing, demonstrating that crossmodal mapping occurs outside of the realm of conscious awareness, says Hung. Together, these experiments show that the bouba-kiki effect emerges unconsciously before we even have a chance to deliberately consider the relation between sound and shape. That is, a word can sound like a shape before the shape has been seen, Hung concludes. This study was supported by a Nanyang Assistant Professorship Grant to S. J. Styles for The Shape of Sounds in Singapore. Welcome Guest! You Are Here: DENVER, Feb. 09, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HOSTING, a leader in cloud computing and database services since 1997, has completed the rigorous third-party validation required to achieve the elite HITRUST CSF Certification attesting to its compliance with demanding healthcare data security and privacy standards. Developed in collaboration with healthcare and information security professionals, the HITRUST CSF leverages nationally and internationally accepted standards, including ISO, NIST, PCI and HIPAA to ensure a comprehensive set of baseline security controls. Achieving the HITRUST CSF certification is rare in the hosting industry, and the bigger players in healthcare are starting to demand it, said Trent Baker, Compliance Manager at Denver-based HOSTING. We felt this certification was essential to demonstrating to our clients how serious we are about maintaining the absolute strictest standards of privacy and security. The examination that led to compliance with HITRUST CSF data security certification was administered by the professional IT compliance and audit staff at 360 Advanced, a national HITRUST CSF, Qualified Security Assessor and Certified Public Accountant firm based in St. Petersburg, FL. It is really about customer service. HITRUST is not a necessity. You dont have to have it, and it was a challenging process that required a lot of hours. But by getting it, we show that we really care about our customers, want to do the right thing, and will go above and beyond for them, commented Johan Hybinette, Chief Information Security Officer at HOSTING. Normally a six-month process, Hybinette said HOSTING achieved full HITRUST CSF compliance in four months. ABOUT HOSTING With more than 30,000 customers, HOSTING is among the top 10 cloud providers in the nation. HOSTING delivers secure, compliant, always-on cloud solutions that empower companies to increase their revenues, reduce their expenses and manage their risk. Headquartered in Denver, HOSTING owns and operates six geographically-dispersed data centers under an ITIL-based control environment validated for compliance against HIPAA, PCI DSS and SOC (formerly SAS 70) frameworks. For more information, please visit HOSTING. ABOUT 360 ADVANCED Services provided by 360 Advanced include HITRUST CSF, SOC 1 (SSAE 18), SOC 2, SOC 3, PCI DSS, HIPAA Security/HITECH, Microsoft Vendor Policy and other security and compliance services for a variety of industries and business verticals nationwide. ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Feb. 09, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On February 4th, in recognition of the United Nations World Interfaith Harmony Week (February 1 7), Scientologists, Christians, and members of the Nation of Islam held a Peace Walk and distribution of The Way to Happiness common sense moral guide through the Childs Park Neighborhood of St. Petersburg. The 40 members of the coalition were organized by the Way to Happiness Association of Tampa Bay, Brother John Muhammad of the Childs Park Neighborhood Association and Sister Nayyirah Muhammad of the Nation of Islam. Walking door-to-door, they distributed some 900 booklets in the troubled neighborhood of Childs Park. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/55f5a574-ded8-47c6-8acc-1370b83bd070 Brother John Muhammad was spurred into action when in 2014 violent crime spiked by 30%, a five-time increase that one year. Several youth have been murdered in Childs Park, and Brother John organized vigils and lectures, trying to educate his neighbors so they can educate their youth. Kelly Yaegermann, the President of the Way to Happiness Association of Tampa Bay, said, The Way to Happiness of Tampa Bay joined Brother Johns effort because, Our youth need a moral compass. The Way to Happiness is non-religious and delineates a straight path that can be followed by any person of any background, culture or creed. If we can walk together as one even though we are from different religious backgrounds, we set an example for our youth of how people can harmonize and bring peace." The Way to Happiness The Way to Happiness, written by L. Ron Hubbard, is available in 112 languages, with some 115 million copies distributed in 186 nations. The campaign to distribute the book has been embraced by more than 257,000 groups and individuals. It holds the Guinness World Record as the single most-translated nonreligious book and fills the moral vacuum in an increasingly materialistic society. GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., Feb. 09, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Meritage Hospitality Group Inc. (OTCQX:MHGU), one of the nations premier restaurant operators, today announced it has entered into three independent definitive asset purchase agreements to acquire a total of 69 Wendys restaurants located in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic states. The transactions are subject to customary due diligence and standard approvals. The three transactions are scheduled to be completed during the first and second quarters of 2017. Chief Executive Officer Robert Schermer, Jr., stated, We are inspired by the opportunity to expand our Wendys footprint into these new market areas. The consummation of these three transactions will represent the completion of nineteen Wendys acquisitions in the past eight years and are consistent with our stated investment strategy of 'profitable growth' within the Wendys franchise system. We intend to systematically integrate each of these Wendys restaurants into our unique web-based operating & accounting platform, followed by a long-term remodeling program designed to modernize the Wendys restaurants and enhance the guest experience. We look forward to welcoming the addition of 2,100 new employees to Meritage this spring, added Schermer. The Company expects the 69 restaurants to add approximately $90 million in annual sales and be accretive to earnings. Company 2017 Outlook: Robust Sales & Earnings Growth Ahead The Companys initial 2017 financial targets will be updated at the end of the second quarter to reflect the impact of the acquisitions, which we anticipate will be accretive to sales and earnings growth going forward. Meritage Hospitality Group is one of the nations premier restaurant operators, with 181 restaurants in operation located in Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma and Virginia. Meritage is headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan, operating with a workforce of approximately 6,200 employees. The Company has approximately 5.9 million (basic) common shares outstanding. The Companys public filings can be viewed at www.otcqx.com, under the stock symbol MHGU, or the Companys website www.meritagehospitality.com. SAFE HARBOR STATEMENT Certain information in this news release, particularly information regarding future economic performance and finances, and plans, expectations and objectives of management, constitutes forward-looking statements. Factors set forth in our Safe Harbor Statement, in addition to other possible factors not listed, could affect the Companys actual results and cause such results to differ materially from those expressed in forward-looking statements. Please review the Companys Safe Harbor Statement at http://www.meritagehospitality.com. Welcome Guest! You Are Here: Home Regional News East News World news ACER Finds Progress in the Voluntary Cooperation Towards the Single EU Gas Market The allocation of cross-border capacity between Greece and Bulgaria and the coordination of the balancing interim measures between the two countries have proceeded only slowly AUTHOR: publics.bg ACER ACER published on February 8 the latest edition of its gas Regional Initiatives Status Review Report informing on the voluntary progress made towards the regional gas markets integration. The Report brings to light accomplishments such as the approval of a coordinated mechanism to manage congestion between France, Portugal and Spain (South region) and the completion of fact-finding surveys and studies in the South South-East region. Beyond the achievement in the field of Congestion Management Procedures, in 2016 the South region took promising steps towards a coherent implementation of the Network Code for Gas Balancing. Moreover, National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) and Transmission System Operators (TSOs) cooperated in revising the existing Interconnection Agreements at their virtual cross-border interconnection points, to ensure compliance with the Network Code for Interoperability and Data Exchange. Portugal and Spain took an important step towards regional market integration through the creation of the common trading platform MIBGAS. In the South-South East region, NRAs completed surveys on the functioning of the Virtual Trading Points and on the implementation state of the Third Energy Package provisions, and studies on gas quality and data transparency. The latter studies were promoted by the Energy Community and saw active participation of the Energy Community Contracting Parties. The ROHUAT project (developed jointly by Romania, Hungary and Austria), aimed at offering incremental capacity through the route from the Black Sea to the Austrian hub, has entered the open season design phase. The allocation of cross-border capacity between Greece and Bulgaria and the coordination of the balancing interim measures between the two countries have proceeded only slowly. The same can be observed about the project aimed at minimising the burden associated with wholesale trading licensing and the respective reporting obligations. See ACER report here. The Taipei International Book Fair (TIBE) is here again. Now in its 25th year, the six-day event once more dedicates a separate pavilion (in Hall 3) to childrens books, indicating the importance and size of the segment in the islands book market. Childrens titles remain one of the two growing segments (alongside humanities and social science), where translations may take up half (or more) of a publishers catalogue. Running from February 813, with closing hours extended to 9 p.m. (and 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday), the fair hosts 621 exhibitors from 59 countries and provides more than 450 events including forums and workshops. The childrens pavilion has 60 exhibitors, all local companies, with major publishing players such as Hsin Yi Foundation and Global Kids Books claiming prime space. Parents and kids crowd into the hall, checking out new titles and having fun in the so-called Reading Forest areascomplete with cardboard huts and tree-painted walls. For overseas exhibitors looking to tap into Taiwans childrens book market, the signs are encouraging. The big namesBonnier, Clavis, DK, Flammarion, Gallimard, National Geographic, Scholastic (represented by Bookman), and Thames and Hudsonare all there in the International Zone in Hall 1, sharing the floor with old timers and new faces. Over at the France Pavilion, Editions Auzou was back for its sixth TIBE, and rights manager Giulia Scandone was thrilled to have many more activity titles to show potential clients. Card games, which did not work last year or previously, are now getting more attention and a warmer reception. Expensive titles, such as our big format touch-and-feel board books or the My Animated Picture Book series, are selling here, much to my surprise, said Scandone, who has sold Papertoys to local publisher Global Kids Books. Some people that I know are leaving to set up their own independent publishing houses or bookstores. To me, that is a positive sign that there are still opportunities and space to grow in the Taiwanese book market. For us at Auzou, Taiwan remains an important market even though it goes up and down from one year to the next, which is not all that unusual in any given market. Down the aisle, publisher Philippe Werck of Belgium-based Clavis has been exhibiting at TIBE for four consecutive years. For him, there is no point in appearing one year and disappearing the next. The book and rights business is essentially a people business, and constancy builds the relationship. Title-wise, some Taiwanese publishers, Werck said, are focused on a single author, consistently buying up new titles from well-known names such as Guido van Genechten, for instance. Our sales to Taiwan have not shown any signs of slowing down. In fact, we signed a seven-title deal on the first day of this fair, which was a bit unusual as Taiwanese publishers tend not to buy in bulk like their mainland Chinese counterparts. In general, Taiwanese publishers are more selective, and once they have selected their titles, you know they will pay a lot of attention to the translation, printing and presentation qualitysomething that Clavis holds dear. Foreign rights manager Lucy Gibbs of U.K.-based Quarto Group, attending the fair for the first time, was enthusiastic about sales to Taiwan over the years. We have been doing co-editions here since 2008, and in the last three years, with better market understanding and networking, our sales have gone up, said Gibbs, who had nearly 20 scheduled meetings at the fair (with her colleague having 30 lined up). What is interesting is that while there are many Korean, Japanese, and other Asian publishers here, all my meetings are with Taiwanese publishers. Among her most popular titles at the fair is the educational and fun-based Academy series by Steve Martin (published by Ivy Kids) with stickers, pull-out posters, game cards, and other add-ons. Another first-timer is Capstone, which is the only American publisher at the fair. For London-based rights sales manager Anna Thylin, this visit is very much an effort to replicate some of the successes that we have in China, where almost all our titles have been sold. What I have seen so far is a demand for more modern and artistic illustrationsdarker and not Technicolorand somewhat more European in taste. Jennie Pohs Herbies Big Adventure, Katy Hudsons Too Many Carrots, and Suz Hughess The Night the Stars Went Out get a lot of attention here. The local publishers, she added, are more focused on titles for the 3-to-7 age groups, with an emphasis on the story and not on cute illustrations or characters. London-based Laurence King Publishing, also a first-time TIBE exhibitor, is seeing plenty of attention given to its activity kits. Titles that have kids painting, drawing, folding papers, or doing something creative are in demand, said head of rights Barney Duly, citing Aleksandra Artymowskas Amazed (available in seven language editions but not yet in Traditional Chinese and Anne Lavals Story Box as examples. It is possible to sell as many copies here as in China, where the population size is easily 50 times bigger. On record, we have titles selling 8,000 copies in Taiwan but only 3,000 to 5,000 copies across the Straits. So, this market has a lot of potential. Still, there is no ignoring the fact that the Taiwanese book market has suffered a drop of about 25% in total book sales in the past year, a situation many larger publishers have blamed on the closures of around 600 bookstores, mostly small and independent, around the island. But for those in the childrens segment, rights buying and translated titles are coming along just fine. Take Global Kids Books, an imprint under the Commonwealth Publishing Group. Translations make up nearly 70% of its list, with authors such as Roald Dahl, Jeff Kinney, Mary Pope Osborne, and Aleksandra and Daniel Mizielinska (Maps) headlining its catalogue. Sales of childrens books in Taiwan actually grew 10% last year, and so we are seeing many publishers jumping into the childrens segment in recent months, said editor-in-chief Tang Lee, whose team has just launched the 11th title in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. Its version of Osbornes Magic Tree House series, with new illustrations in full-color, has sold upwards of 1.5 million sets. A small island like Taiwan has a limited pool of illustrators and authors, Lee said. Given the longer developmental stage in bringing out original works, we have to import and translate from other parts of the world in order to enrich our program and to provide kids with the widest selection possible. So we look at what kids need in this modern society, and we publish accordingly. Her company has brought in unique titles such as Oldrich Ruickas How Things Are Made and William Grills Shackletons Journey as well as Newbery and Caldecott winners. Such acceptance and consumption of foreign titles is a hallmark of the Taiwanese publishing industry, which has what Duly of Laurence King noted as a mature and sophisticated book market, with very selective and refined taste of what works for its readers. As for the fair itself, Thylin of Capstone summed it up well: It is bigger, better, and more organized than expected, and the fairground itself is easily accessible. Harvard Bookstore chides Kellyanne Conway; HC promoting indies on Facebook; Boston's Trident encourages activism; and more. Harvard Bookstore Mocks Kellyanne Conway's Terrorist Flub: The bookstore has posted a photo on Instagram promoting titles to help you understand the "Bowling Green Massacre," including Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, The Anatomy of Fascism, and The Plot Against America. HarperCollins to Promote 50 Indie Bookstore on Facebook: The publisher is featuring a Facebook Live feed from a different independent bookstore each week for 50 weeks in 2017. Boston's Trident Bookstore Hosts Activist Event: The bookseller drew some 200 people to an event dubbed "Write Your Reps" which encouraged customers to become more politically engaged. Book Passage Expands to Sausalito: The California retailer, with locations in San Francisco and Corte Madera, has expanded further by opening an new, 1,800-sq.-ft. store. Canadian Bookstore Opens to Serve Immigrant Communities: Family & Bookland, a bookstore in Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island, is intended as a gathering place for Chinese, immigrant and local communities to come together. London Book Fair Announces Three Finalists for Bookseller of the Year: Time Out Bookstore in Auckland, NZ, Shakespeare & Co. in Paris and South African chain Exclusive Books are in the running to win the prize sponsored by Gardners Books Ltd. and given at the London Book Fair. Eighteen Books Vie for Waterstones Children's Book Prize: "Perhaps unsurprisingly in a year that has so far been overshadowed by sometimes troubling global events, our shortlist is particularly abundant in struggle and hope," said the U.K. bookstore chain in a press release for the annual award. Controversial Hong Kong Bookseller Makes Appearance at Taipei Book Fair: Lam Wing-kee, a former owner and manger of independent Hong Kong bookstore Causeway Bay Books, who says he was abducted and jailed last year for selling books critical of China, denies that he's seeking asylum or plans to open a bookstore in Taiwan. CLEARWATER, Fla., Feb. 09, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On February 22nd, a coalition of religious leaders and members of various faiths will meet in the Church of Scientologys Fort Harrison in downtown Clearwater for a luncheon at which they will discuss issues regarding religious freedom. Rev. Pat Harney, the Public Relations Director for the Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization announced the luncheon with the statement, Now more than ever, with millions of people leaving their homelands due to religious persecution and refugees and potential immigrants faced with barriers because of their religion, religious people need to stand in unison to restore stability and peace. The luncheon will feature a local imam speaking on the Muslim faith and a panel discussion on what people of religious faith can do to ensure religious freedom is not compromised in this country. For more information on the luncheon, contact Pat Harney 727-467-6860. The Fort Harrison Religious Retreat: Since its construction in 1927, the Fort Harrison has been the home for many community events and charitable organizations. The Fort Harrison's current owner, the Church of Scientology, has hosted over 500 community events there since a top-to-bottom restoration in 2009. The Scientology religion was founded by humanitarian and philosopher, L. Ron Hubbard, and incorporated in 1954. To learn more, visit www.scientology.org. When the Association of Writers and Writing Programs decided to hold its 2017 conference in Washington D.C., the planners could not have imagined the firestorm of political activity scheduled around this years conference. But thats what happens when more than 10,000 free-speech-loving writers descend on a capital city newly occupied by an administration that has made consistent claims against the truthfulness of the media and disputed the nature of facts themselves, not to mention enacted a controversial travel ban barring entry into the U.S. from seven predominantly Muslim countries. President Trump will likely be the de-facto theme of this years conference. In addition to panels whose conversations will veer toward the Trump administration, the travel ban, and what are viewed as Trumps ongoing challenges to free speech, there are several major protests activities planned, unaffiliated with AWP itself. Writers Resist Trump (unaffiliated with PENs Writers Resist events) is an action planned for Friday, February 10. It was loosely organized in the weeks leading up to the conference by Robert Marshall, a New York City-based writer who teaches part time at the International Center for Photography. Marshall told PW, I looked and didnt see anything about people going to congress, and I thought that was a little weird." Marshall began talking to like-minded friends and then started a Facebook group to plan and gather participants. Writers have been posting to the group page for weeks, with Marshall helping to organize groups of writers by state and congressional district and encouraging them to write and collect letters and other materials pertaining to the new administration and then make appointments with representatives to deliver and discuss them. I thought there were a lot of people who use words and language and understand what is at stake here, and that it would be a really powerful thing, to get them speaking directly to people who have power, Marshall said. The action will be followed by a rally at 4:30 outside the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress. As of this writing, almost 1,500 people had joined the Facebook group The poet D.A. Powell, with the help of Erin Belieu, VIDA cofounder and organizer of the national Writers Resist group (now called Write Our Democracy) that sponsored dozens of protests in January, has organized a march that will begin at the Washington Marriott Marquis at 1:30 on Friday, and continue on to the Capitol, where the organizers have obtained a permit to hold a rally. In a statement sent to writers a week ago, Powell said "We've got about a thousand folks signed onand a working motto that I think subtly pokes fun at Trump's anger-management style and also celebrates writing and its power to shape culture: 'Use Your Words.'" Belieu told PW that, "over the course of the campaign season and with this horrible outcome, its been really meaningful and beautiful to watch all of these people emerge as writer-activists who might not have been moved at other times to action. Our writer community seems extremely lively and engaged and focused. So AWP seems like a perfect opportunity for writers to come together and voice their descent against this racist, misogynist, fascist administration." Additionally, the Washington.-based poets activism organization Split This Rock is holding a candlelight vigil in front of the White House on Saturday, February 11 at 6:30 p.m. The conference takes place at the Washington Convention Center and the Washington Marriott Marquis from February 8-11. The conference was last held in Washington in 2012. PW will be covering the conference throughout. Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Feb. 09, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Anago Cleaning Systems (Anago), a leading commercial cleaning franchise with Masters throughout the U.S. and internationally, today announced its recognition in Franchise Business Review's 2017 Franchise Satisfaction Awards (FBR) for the tenth consecutive year and has been named to FBRs Hall of Fame. We believe this list is the one of the best indicators for todays top franchise opportunities given this years market and industry trends, says Adam Povlitz, President of Anago Cleaning Systems. So, to be recognized as one of the best in owner satisfaction for over a decade is a true testament to Anagos motto Our Mission: Our Franchisees. Their Success. This years list incorporated over 1,000 of todays leading franchise brands. Franchise Business Review utilizes its Franchise Satisfaction Index (FSI), a tool that assesses and tracks areas such as franchise engagement and operational performance. The FSI can also predict future franchise success. Brands are evaluated and rated based on their FSI Benchmark. Anago scored over 10 points above FBRs benchmark which included over 27,000 respondents. Since its inception in 1989, Anago has assisted individuals in realizing their dream of business ownership. Today, the company has grown to 35 Master Franchise locations, with over 1,400 Unit Franchisees nationwide. As further verification to its success over the past year, Anago was recently ranked in the Top 100 on Entrepreneur Magazines 2017 Franchise 500 list. As the brand continues to expand its global footprint, Anago is aggressively seeking entrepreneurs with a vast portfolio of sales and marketing experience to join its recession-resistant concept. Anagos Master Franchise model offers executives the opportunity to be the CEO of their own franchising company by securing commercial cleaning contracts and selling unit franchises to service those contracts. In addition, Master Franchise Owners are equipped with an award-winning corporate support system and proprietary technology that helps drive more sales and offers them the opportunity to build an empire in their exclusive territory. To learn more about Master Franchise opportunities with Anago, contact Judy Walker, Vice President of Marketing for Anago, at 800-213-5857 or judy@anagocleaning.com or visit www.AnagoMasters.com. ABOUT ANAGO CLEANING SYSTEMS Anago Cleaning Systems is a commercial cleaning franchise system supporting over 35 Master Franchises and 1,400 Unit Franchisees in the U.S. and internationally. After years of refining procedures and creating duplicable systems created in his large commercial cleaning service, David Povlitz founded Anago in 1989 to help other entrepreneurs open their cleaning businesses. Today, its program sets the standard worldwide in commercial cleaning. Anago was ranked in the Top 100 on the Franchise 500 list by Entrepreneur Magazine in 2017. Additionally, Anago was ranked the #1 Janitorial Franchise by FranchiseRankings.com and ranked by Franchise Business Review as one of the best franchises in franchisee satisfaction for 10 consecutive years. Inc. Magazine has also listed Anago as one of the top privately-held companies in the U.S. For further information, visit its website or www.AnagoMasters.com. ### Newsflash If you think ballet can't be hip, modern and sexy, think again. Ballet Quad Cities is celebrating its 20th birthday this weekend with very non-traditional stories it loves. No classical ballet is part of the Friday and Saturday performances at Moline's Scottish Rite Cathedral, in six pieces representing some of the best BQC choreography in the past two decades. "It's just sometimes fun for us to present the dancers in different lights," artistic director (and former dancer) Courtney Lyon said this week of "Love Stories." "This will be appealing for people who didn't know dance could be beyond the tutus and pointe shoes." "We tried to pick pieces we've gotten really good audience responses from," she said at the professional company's Rock Island studio. "We picked a range. It's interesting to see, 20 years ago the company looked really different and you can see it in the choreography." Compared to '97, "The essence of the company is the same, in terms of really great performers, with a wide range," said Ms. Lyon, who joined in 2000 and became artistic director in '09. "The desire to bring really good dance to the community is still there. I think what has happened is, the audiences have grown because we've been able to provide such a range." "I think it brings in a larger audience, to do this," dancer Alex Kingma, 24, said of the program. "For some people, they may hear 'ballet' and be turned off by it, just because there's a whole tradition behind it. There may be some pre-conceived notions, so I think it's really good for a professional ballet company to do rep like this because it makes it more accessible for the general population." In his first season, he said dancing contemporary pieces offers "more opportunities to define a character for yourself," he said. "You get to challenge yourself as an actor more in pieces like this." A frequent choreographer, Ms. Lyon is represented this weekend with Maurice Ravel's famous "Bolero," in five dancers creating a human sculpture with four chairs. Premiered in 2015 for a Moline fundraiser (then accompanied by two pianists), it was done at last year's "Love Stories," and is on the cathedral floor, not the stage. "It builds and builds. It's really cool," Ms. Lyon said. "It's two phrases of movement, like there are two phrases of music. Ravel adds pieces of the orchestra until it turns wild at the end." "It's really unique. It was created to be viewed in the round," she said. Two years ago, she had one week to put it together, inspired by the fact there wasn't much room in the space it premiered (at CityView Celebrations). Other dances this weekend are: "Chairished," premiered in 2000, and choreographed by Johanne Jakhelln, BQC's first artistic director. With music by Peter Tchaikovsky, it was requested by local celebrity Don Wooten, Ms. Lyon said. It features nine dancers, also with chairs this time works of art themselves, painted by Regan Hatfield. "It's clever, it's light, it's fun," Ms. Lyon said. "It's really easy for people to enjoy " "Unknown Love," premiered in 2010, choreographed by Lovar Davis Kidd, with Latin and hip-hop music. Dancers are people going out to a nightclub. "I think that's really appealing to some audience members who might be a little turned off by 'Swan Lake,'" Ms. Lyon said. "At a celebration of your birthday party, you want fun, music and energy and colors." "Newsflash," premiered in 2012, with score and choreography by Deanna Carter, the company former resident choreographer. It features '50s-era big-band music and commercials, echoing newspapers and tabloids. "It's a throwback to the days of old, before there was Twitter and Facebook, social media, where people got their information from print," Ms. Lyon said. Of Ms. Carter, she said: "She's just amazing she's taken snippets of familiar things and woven a 17-minute score out of it, with sound effects. It's really fun. It's light." "Ash to Glass," premiered in February 2010, also choreographed by Ms. Carter, and done later that year at Ballet Builders in New York City, at the Ailey Citigroup Theater. It hasn't been done since, Ms. Lyon said. Music is Gary Eistler Quintet for Glass and Strings and Ezio Bosso, including an instrument called an armonica (a crystal organ), made up of 52 tuned glass rods played with wet fingers. "Delicatessen," premiered in 2011, with choreography by Lynn Bowman (a BQC alumna) and music by Carlos DAlessia. The most modern piece on the program, it's a love story that chronicles the sweetness, bliss, and mundane-ness of love, Ms. Lyon said. It reflects the food preparation and energy of a deli, she noted. In addition to beloved classic ballets like "The Nutcracker," "Sleeping Beauty" and "Romeo and Juliet," the repertory offers a lot of variety for the 12 dancers. "That's appealing," Ms. Lyon said. "Artists want a chance to spread their wings and be challenged." "We try to bring a broader range of styles for our audiences and dancers," she said, looking forward in April to Aaron Copland's "Rodeo" and "Billy the Kid," neither danced often anywhere. That will feature live music by Orchestra Iowa, performed at the Adler. "I love working here," said dancer Dominique Jenssen, 23, also in her BQC first season. "We are very supportive of each other. Because there's a small group of us, we're given a lot of opportunities. I felt like I've been able to grow much more. That's really fun. "And we're involved more with the community than other companies, with outreach programs," she said. "That's really cool." This weekend, patrons can partake of a birthday dessert buffet at intermission, for a donation to educational programs. It will feature an assortment of gourmet cakes compliments of Jumer's Casino and Hotel. SMITHFIELD, Va., Feb. 09, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Smithfield Foods, Inc. announced today a $3 million donation to Isle of Wight County Schools, which will fund an innovative and multifaceted educational program known as the Smithfield Foods Legacy Project. This gift fulfills the districts capital campaign for an educational plan benefiting both Smithfield High School and Windsor High School. Were incredibly grateful for Smithfields donation and the capital improvements it will provide to our area schools, said Dr. Jim Thornton, superintendent of Isle of Wight County Schools. This project will help us better train our students to think critically and collaborate effectively during their education and throughout their careers, and would not have been possible without this generous support from Smithfield Foods. At Smithfield High School, the donation will fund a program with on-campus facilities with resources to prepare students for their college and professional careers, and to serve as active members in their community including: MakerSpace, a state-of-the-art facility that gives students the opportunity to conduct research as well as design and develop products. The space will be fitted with three-dimensional printers and other emerging technologies to offer a collaborative, hands-on learning environment for students to prepare for college. Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) fieldhouse for Smithfield High Schools award-winning JROTC program. The new facility provides ample classroom space and equipment storage as well as room for drill and competition practice. The new facility offers JROTC participants with the resources they need to prepare for a military career. Multipurpose Pavilion for hosting academic ceremonies and joint school-community events. Students will be able to use the space for presentations, exhibitions and gatherings that foster community engagement. Whether students are continuing their education or entering the workforce, we are committed to helping them prepare for the future and make that next step a successful transition, said Kenneth M. Sullivan, president and CEO of Smithfield Foods. We are confident that this innovative project will lead to a life-changing experience for students as we have seen how nurturing new ideas big and small continues to transform Smithfield into a leading global food company. Innovation is a guiding principle that drives Smithfield in fulfilling its mission to produce good food the right way. The Smithfield Foods Legacy Project reflects this value as well as Smithfields commitment to helping communities where its employees live and work. Smithfield Foods has been a strong, longtime supporter of our school, said Casey Roberts, principal of Smithfield High School. Smithfields extraordinary gift brings a one-of-a-kind project to life that will help us better prepare our communitys youth for their next chapter. For more information about Smithfields commitment to its local communities, please visit smithfieldfoods.com/responsible-operations/helping-communities. 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, John Morrell, Cook's, Kretschmar, Gwaltney, Curly's, Margherita, Carando, Healthy Ones, Krakus, Morliny and Berlinki. 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. SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) When it comes to the complex, politically prickly topic of overhauling public school funding in Illinois, lawmakers and Gov. Bruce Rauner's office can't even agree on who should take the first step. Democrats who run the Senate Education Committee told Rauner's education adviser Thursday that the Republican governor should draft legislation to reflect recommendations from a school funding report released last week. The adviser, Beth Purvis, countered that the plan should come from the Legislature. The two sides agree that the formula for financing public education should be changed to ensure poorer districts receive more financial support from the state. The recommendations, which come from a commission created by the governor, said that Illinois must assess how it supports schools on a district-by-district basis but didn't indicate how legislators could accomplish this. Sen. Andy Manar, a Bunker Hill Democrat and commission member, suggested the governor's office should translate the findings into legislation. "How do we make sure that this report doesn't just get plopped on the heaping pile of reports that are somewhere in the basement of this building?" he said. Purvis responded that writing legislation is "usually the job of the General Assembly" and explained Rauner would use the commission's report to assess any education funding proposals that cross his desk. But Manar remained concerned about how long it could take for the report's recommendations to make an impact on schools without input from everyone involved. He pointed to one poorly funded school district the commission reviewed where each student could expect just $280 in additional funds under the initial funding increase the committee assumed. "A student in that district who enrolls in kindergarten will be out of college before that district is adequately funded," he said. Sen. Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant of Shorewood, the committee's Democratic chairwoman, agreed with Manar and pointed out to Purvis that anyone can write legislation. It just has to be introduced by a lawmaker. "If we have a framework designed through the governor's office, we may be able to come to a quicker consensus," Bertino-Tarrant said. BOSTON (AP) The biggest storm to hit the Northeast this winter dumped a foot or more of snow along the New York-to-Boston corridor Thursday, turning roads treacherous, grounding flights and giving millions of people weather whiplash a day after temperatures soared into the 50s and 60s. Scores of accidents were reported as drivers confronted windblown snow and slick highways, with southbound Interstate 95 at the Rhode Island-Connecticut line closed in the afternoon because several tractor-trailers got stuck on an incline. More than 3,500 flights were canceled across the region and all planes bound for New York's Kennedy Airport were ordered held on the ground for hours while crews cleared the runways. Schools closed in cities big and small, including New York City, Philadelphia and Boston, and government offices told non-essential workers to stay home. A doorman in New York City died after falling down a set of stairs and crashing through a plate-glass window while shoveling snow, police said. He suffered cuts on his neck and face. "It's pretty nuts here," Felecia White said as she and friends hunkered down in a restaurant in Newport, Rhode Island, waiting for the weather to improve enough for them to venture back out. "Even with four-wheel drive, you can't do anything. You can't see across the street." The National Weather Service said up to 11 inches fell in New York's Hudson Valley by noon, while areas around New York City and Long Island received 6 to 9 inches. West Hartford, Connecticut, had more than 13 inches, and Ludlow, Massachusetts, 16. A blizzard warning was posted for a swath of the New England coast, with forecasters saying Boston and Providence, Rhode Island, could get up to a foot and a half by evening. Farther north, Manchester, New Hampshire, had received at least 11 inches by midafternoon and Berwick, Maine, about a foot. A group of women wearing their pajamas on a New York City sidewalk because it was "Pajama Day" at ABC's "The Chew" show were undeterred by the snow. Elaine Higgins, a retired educator from Blackwood, New Jersey, was among those waiting in the freezing cold to get into ABC's studios. "It's fun. And it's an experience. Yesterday was 65 degrees, and today, a snowstorm," she said. "What's life without adventure?" The storm came midway through a largely snow-free winter in the Northeast and a day after much of the region enjoyed a brief taste of spring, with record-breaking highs in some places. Temperatures then crashed more than 30 degrees as the storm rolled in. "We were waiting for a good one all year," said Morgan Crum, a manager at Katz Ace Hardware in Glastonbury, Connecticut, where more than 50 people stopped in to buy shovels, ice melt, gas cans and other storm provisions. "We live in New England. This is what we expect." The Philadelphia area was largely spared after being told to expect up to 8 inches in the morning. Some suburbs received 5 inches, but by the afternoon, there was almost no trace of snow downtown, and the sun came out. Wearing a T-shirt, Alicia Jones tossed salt on the sidewalk outside the Philadelphia restaurant where she works as a server. She said her daughter had the day off from school, and Jones had been looking forward to playing in the snow. "By the time we woke up, it was all over," she said. Rhode Islanders reported seeing and hearing "thundersnow," with the rumble of thunder accompanying the near white-out conditions. "It's pretty rare. I've been plowing snow for 20 years now. Every snowstorm, I'm out. I've only seen it three times in my life," said Jared Nunes, a state lawmaker from Coventry who runs a construction company that does plowing in the winter. JERUSALEM (AP) A Palestinian opened fire and stabbed shoppers with a screwdriver near a busy open air market in central Israel on Thursday, wounding at least six people, police said. Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said police confirmed it was a "terror attack" and that the 18-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank was arrested soon after the shooting in Petah Tikva. Israeli media reported that the Palestinian attacker fired at a bus and toward shoppers buying groceries at the market ahead of the Jewish Sabbath, before running down the street. He continued shooting as civilians gave chase. The Ynet news site said he fled into a repair shop for sewing machines, where passers-by tackled him. They threw a sewing machine and chairs at the attacker and subdued him before police detained him. The site published a photo of a blood- stained sewing machine from the scene. The Palestinian stabbed an Israeli in the neck with a screwdriver in the struggle. Israel's ambulance service said a man and a woman in their 50s and a woman in her 30s were treated for bullet wounds to their lower bodies. A 40-year-old man was stabbed in his upper body, it said. At least six people were wounded, said police spokesman Ami Ben David. Since 2015, Palestinian attackers have carried out numerous stabbings, shootings and assaults using cars, killing 41 Israelis and two visiting Americans. During the same period, Israeli forces have killed 235 Palestinians. Israel says most of the Palestinians killed were attackers while others died in clashes with Israeli forces. Israel says the bloodshed is fueled by a Palestinian campaign of incitement, compounded by social media sites glorifying attackers and encouraging violence. Palestinians say it stems from frustration over decades of Israeli rule in territory they claim for a state. Israel's U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon called on U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to condemn the "terror attack" and urged the Security Council to convene a special session "on Palestinian incitement to violence." "An eighteen-year-old Palestinian filled with hatred attacked innocent Israelis today," Danon said in a statement. "This terror attack is a direct result of ongoing incitement from the Palestinian leadership. The international community must take immediate and decisive action against this incitement before it leads to any further bloodshed." Earlier on Thursday, an explosion killed two Palestinians along the Gaza border with Egypt in what appeared to be a strike on cross-border smuggling tunnels. Palestinian officials said the blast was caused by an Israeli airstrike, but the Israeli military denied any involvement. Residents said the explosion was on the Egyptian side of the border, raising the possibility of an Egyptian strike. Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Kidra said the pre-dawn explosion killed two men and wounded five others. Palestinian civil defense workers recovered the bodies and the wounded and transferred them to hospitals in the southern Gaza Strip. Mohammed Zorob, who lives in the border town of Rafah, said the blast took place on the Egyptian side. Hamas has been working to improve relations with Cairo in recent months, and recently announced the deployment of additional forces along the border. The Islamic militant group ruling Gaza says the border is more secure and that underground smuggling has ceased. The Israeli military, which has not struck the Gaza tunnels since the 2014 war, denied it was involved in the blast. On Wednesday, the military said its missile defense system intercepted several rockets fired by militants in Egypt toward the southern Israeli city of Eilat a relatively rare occurrence. Islamic State militants in the Sinai Peninsula claimed responsibility for the rocket attack. Earlier this week, Israel carried out several strikes on Hamas targets after a rocket landed in Israel. Israel holds Hamas responsible for any fire originating from Gaza. HAMILTON, Ontario, Feb. 09, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As a leading Canadian authority on the study of aging, McMaster University created the highly acclaimed McMaster Optimal Aging Portal in 2014 as a unique online health resource that supports the healthy aging goals of Canadas growing senior population. The research team behind the Portal is now announcing the launch of French version of the Portal which can be found at www.mcmastervieillissementoptimal.org. The French language version of the portal is called the Portail sur le Vieillissement Optimal de McMaster. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/02432b57-88dd-45de-80fa-89b76db6a0bd Weve seen great success with the McMaster Optimal Aging Portal thus far, including an expanding global audience as well as powerful endorsements from government officials and healthcare professionals who are encouraging older adults and their caregivers to visit this useful resource, says Parminder Raina, scientific director of the McMaster Institute for Research on Aging. We are proud to bring this invaluable health content to Francophone audiences in Canada and beyond. Provincial Minister of Seniors Affairs Dipika Damerla notes: The French-language version of the Optimal Aging Portal is an invaluable health resource for Francophones in Ontario and across the country. Congratulations to McMaster University for your thought leadership in connecting aging research with the critical health concerns of Canadian seniors. Elizabeth Allard, President of the The Ontario Federation of Francophone Seniors and Retirees (known as Federation des aines et des retraites francophones de l'Ontario (FARFO) in French) adds: We congratulate and thank McMaster University for its research on optimal aging and for creating a Portal on this theme. The French version of the Portal is appreciated two-fold, as Francophones will be able to make informed decisions about their health and will also be made aware of the various social aspects of aging. As the Internet is overflowing with health-related websites, what sets the Portal apart is its emphasis on providing the best available research evidence in a relatable way, so visitors can make informed health decisions and important lifestyle changes that influence optimal aging. The Portal content includes Blog Posts, which are short articles written by trusted experts to support healthy aging; Web Resource Ratings, which evaluate free online health resources based on a five-star rating scale; and Evidence Summaries which summarize in plain language the key messages from recent high-quality scientific evidence. The Portal also features a weekly Hitting the Headlines column that connects aging news headlines with related research evidence. Three world-class McMaster research databases and consultations with aging experts from across the country inform all of the Portals health content. In 2017, the Portal will be expanding the topic coverage beyond health considerations to include additional evidence-based content about the social aspects of aging. With the continual growth in the number of older adults in Canada, one of our most pressing health and social policy issues is the support and care of our aging population, says Raina. Our goal with the Portal is to reach as many people as possible. He said the Portal team would like to thank the Quebec Network for Research on Aging, a thematic Network funded by the Fonds de Recherche du Quebec Sante for French translation support, as well as the CHUM (Centre Hospitalier de l'Universite de Montreal) where the networks director, Pierette Gaudreau is based. Visit the French Portal at: https://www.mcmastervieillissementoptimal.org/ | Like us on Facebook Christopher Martin Bio Lean Muda at the Market So many sale tags, so little time Rss Send Article (Must Login Author Archive Recently, during one of my many adventures across the internet, I stumbled across a photo that struck me. It depicts an aisle of a U.S. drugstore, where nearly every single product facing has a tag on it announcing a price and a limited-time promotion. The entire row is covered with bright yellow tags, begging anybody passing to see what the fuss is about. However, my only thought (and others, too, judging by the top comments on the post this picture was featured in), was, I would hate to have been the one to put all those tags up. Its a common sight. Many drugstores, grocery stores, and big box chains use this tactic to communicate not only new sales, but also everyday prices that they claim are lower than the competition. I reached out to a friend who, once upon a time, worked at one of these grocery stores, where his responsibilities included adjusting pricing displays. Like what you're reading? Log in or create FREE account to continue Enter your Quality Digest username OR email address. Enter your Quality Digest password. By logging in you agree to receive communication from Quality Digest. Privacy Policy Remember me Create a FREE account Forgot My Password Quality Digest does not charge readers for its content. We believe that industry news is important for you to do your job, and Quality Digest supports businesses of all types. However, someone has to pay for this content. And thats where advertising comes in. Most people consider ads a nuisance, but they do serve a useful function besides allowing media companies to stay afloat. They keep you aware of new products and services relevant to your industry. All ads in Quality Digest apply directly to products and services that most of our readers need. You wont see automobile or health supplement ads. Our PROMISE: Quality Digest only displays static ads that never overlay or cover up content. They never get in your way. They are there for you to read, or not. So please consider turning off your ad blocker for our site. Thanks, Quality Digest Discuss About The Author Christopher Martin Christopher Martin is an account manager at Quality Digest and a freelance journalist in his nonexistent spare time. With roots in covering the entertainment industry, he has expanded his reporting to include the ever-growing and ever-important role of quality management in everyday life. NORTHVALE, N.J., Feb. 09, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Elite Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ("Elite" or the Company") (OTCBB:ELTP), announced results for the quarter ended December 31, 2016, the third quarter of its 2017 fiscal year. Consolidated revenues for the third quarter of Fiscal 2017 were $2.3 million, a 6% increase on a year-on-year basis. Continued growth of Elites niche generic product lines drove the revenue increase. In addition, Elites product development activities continued, with $1.5 million being spent on the development of Elites pipeline of products during the quarter. This was an important quarter for Elites pipeline, commented Nasrat Hakim, President and CEO of Elite. We had a positive meeting with the FDA on SequestOx that provides Elite a path to resubmission of the NDA. We followed the filing of a Percocet generic the previous quarter with a filing of a Norco generic this quarter. We have made tremendous progress on the SunGen co-development products and are on track to file two of these products in about 12 months from now. We also had a solid quarter for our financials. About Elites Abuse Deterrent Technology Elites proprietary abuse deterrent technology, ART, is a multi-particulate capsule which contains an opioid agonist in addition to naltrexone, an opioid antagonist used primarily in the management of alcohol dependence and opioid dependence. When this product is taken as intended, the naltrexone is designed to pass through the body unreleased while the opioid agonist releases as intended providing therapeutic pain relief for which it is prescribed. If the multi-particulate beads are crushed or dissolved, the opioid antagonist is designed to release and so block the effects of active opioid agonist. The absorption of the naltrexone is intended to block the euphoria by preferentially binding to the same receptors in the brain as the opioid agonist and thereby reducing the incentive for abuse or misuse by recreational drug abusers. Elites pharmacological approach to abuse-deterrence can be applied to a wide range of opioids used today in pain management. Conference Call Information Elite's management will host a conference call to discuss the results of operations and provide an update on recent business developments. Company executives will conduct a question and answer session following their remarks. Date: Monday, February 13, 2017 Time: 11:30 AM EST Dial-in numbers: 1-800-346-7359 (domestic) 1-973-528-0008 (international) Conference number: 98840 Questions: dianne@elitepharma.com by 12 Noon EST on Friday, February 10, 2017 Audio Replay: http://ir.elitepharma.com/events_presentations The financial statements can be viewed in Elites Third Quarter Report on Form 10-Q here. About Elite Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Elite Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a specialty pharmaceutical company which is developing a pipeline of proprietary pharmacological abuse-deterrent opioid products as well as niche generic products. Elite specializes in oral sustained and controlled release drug products which have high barriers to entry. Elite owns generic and OTC products which have been licensed to TAGI Pharma, Epic Pharma and Valeant Pharmaceuticals International. Elite currently has eight commercial products being sold, additional approved products pending manufacturing site transfer and the NDA for SequestOx, for which it received the CRL from the FDA. Elites lead pipeline products include abuse-deterrent opioids which utilize the Companys patented proprietary technology and a once-daily opioid. These products include sustained release oral formulations of opioids for the treatment of chronic pain. These formulations are intended to address two major limitations of existing oral opioids: the provision of consistent relief of baseline pain levels and deterrence of potential opioid abuse. Elite also provides contract manufacturing for Ascend Laboratories (a subsidiary of Alkem Laboratories Ltd.). Elite operates a GMP and DEA registered facility for research, development, and manufacturing located in Northvale, NJ. Learn more at www.elitepharma.com. This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Including those related to the effects, if any, on future results, performance or other expectations that may have some correlation to the subject matter of this press release, readers are cautioned that such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties including, without limitation, Elites ability to obtain FDA approval of the transfers of the ANDAs or the timing of such approval process, delays, uncertainties, inability to obtain necessary ingredients and other factors not under the control of Elite, which may cause actual results, performance or achievements of Elite to be materially different from the results, performance or other expectations that may be implied by these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements may include statements regarding the expected timing of approval, if at all, of SequestOx by the FDA, the steps Elite may take as a result of the CRL, and the actions the FDA require of Elite in order to obtain approval of the NDA. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future action or performance. These risks and other factors, including, without limitation, Elites ability to obtain sufficient funding under the LPC Agreement or from other sources, the timing or results of pending and future clinical trials, regulatory reviews and approvals by the Food and Drug Administration and other regulatory authorities and intellectual property protections and defenses, are discussed in Elite's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its reports on forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K. Elite is under no obligation to update or alter its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. The 12-year contract begins in December 2020, coinciding with the completion of the electrification of the Munich - Lindau line, and calls for the operation of around 2.7 million train-km per year, including 700,000 train-km in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg. The tender prescribes the use of new-build rolling stock and the winning bidder will be responsible for procuring the train fleet. However, BEG says it is willing to support financing of the trains, a measure which has been included with the aim of fostering competition in rolling stock offers. The deadline for submission of bids is March 6. Rail traffic through the Rockies in Northern Montana on Thursday was blocked by an avalanche, just days after freight and passenger trains resumed operations following a similar event. On Thursday, BNSF spokesman Ross Lane informed Railway Age, Earlier this morning, an avalanche occurred above the rail grade near railroad milepost 1162, which is near Essex, Mont. Out of safety, we have suspended all rail traffic through the corridor. We do not yet have an estimated time to reopen the line. Dangerous avalanche conditions exist due to warming temperatures and rainfall on top of the heavy snow received earlier in the week. These conditions are creating unstable layers in the snowpack. We will continue to follow the protocols outlined in our Avalanche Safety Program and will continue to evaluate snowpack conditions throughout the day. In a separate announcement, the Flathead Avalanche Center said, BNSF Avalanche Safety Team reported natural avalanche activity in their program area. One large magnitude avalanche deposited 6-8 feet of debris that was 150 feet wide on the rail grade and it also reached the highway. The powder blast from the avalanche was evident 25 feet up a power pole. Amtraks Empire Builder service, which was suspended for several days earlier this week due to previous avalanches on Marias Pass, has two trains approaching the pass today. Train No.8 was eastbound between Libby and Whitefish as of 11:30 a.m. Mountain Time, while No.7 was near Wolf Point. Its not yet known how long passengers will be delayed or whether they will be bussed around the affected area. Bruce Kelly contributed to this story. BIRMINGHAM, Mich., Feb. 09, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Birmingham Wellness Center announces their February events and specials. These are focused on Valentine's Day, which is the month's biggest holiday. Included in the specials are massage gift certificate specials and a complimentary couples yoga class. This makes February a great month to visit the Center and check out all of its offerings. Massages are often associated with relaxation and intimacy, so the Birmingham Wellness Center believes that February is the perfect time to offer a massage certificate special. In this special, one massage certificate is $60, while two are only $100. This makes it so that people who buy two certificates save $50. Their massage gift certification special is available for purchase through Valentines Day. The next special takes place on Wednesday, the day after Valentine's Day. For a unique outing, people can go to the center's free yoga class. This class is being marketed to couples, but Birmingham Wellness Center notes that it's also open to friends, families, and newly formed acquaintances. "Our guided yoga sequences will assist in building a deeper connection between yoga partners and will help them both relieve pent up stress and stiffness. The class may also inspire participants in fun ways. Those who would rather just lay back and relax haven't been forgotten, though. February is a great time to get massage certificates, and what better way to celebrate Valentine's Day than by redeeming them for a healing and connecting massage session," said chiropractor Dr. Jennifer Turnbull Bonde of Birmingham Wellness Center. In addition to offering massage therapy and wellness events, Birmingham Wellness Center specializes in providing chiropractic and muscular, nutritional, and multidisciplinary wellness treatments to patients. These all work together to heal injuries and increase general wellness. "We know that to get healthy, patients need more than one type of treatment. Nutritional counseling is standard at our clinic. The importance of this aspect of health is something we emphasize. We also use techniques that go beyond the typical. For example, Applied Kinesiology is one of the things we offer. This focuses on the strength and functionality of the muscles," Dr. Bonde explained. The Center also acknowledges that people need to have fun and enjoyment as well as problem-specific healing treatments. This is why they offer healthy and fun activities such as relaxation massage and yoga. Such activities help people relieve stress and anxiety in ways that don't feel like work. About Birmingham Wellness Center Birmingham Wellness Center offers a variety of natural methods for improving health. They have been in operation since 1998 and were founded by owner Dr. Jennifer Turnbull Bonde. Additional information on their hours and services can be found on their website at http://birminghamwellness.com/. Birmingham Wellness Center 219 Elm Street Birmingham, MI 48009 (248) 645-6070 As he promised on the campaign trail, President Donald Trump has moved quickly against the Islamic State, directing the Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop an aggressive plan to defeat the group and temporarily banning citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. Critics of the ban believe it will actually weaken domestic counterterrorism efforts and bolster Islamic State propaganda and recruitment. But there is another glaring hole in this strategy as it is currently comprised: it fails to address another half-dozen or so other terrorist groups throughout the world that threaten American security and global order. The Islamic State is certainly a worthy candidate for eradication, but failing to similarly also target its franchises, al-Qaida splinters, and other non-aligned groups in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia could allow other threats to metastasize. This could lead to a situation similar to one that happened in the mid-2000s, when the Bush administration diverted military and intelligence resources to Iraq, enabling the Taliban to reassert itself in Afghanistan. Although Western policymakers and the news media tend to focus on the core of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, the group has dispersed to various failed states and ungoverned spaces where they have gained traction with local militant groups. In 2016 alone, it directed or inspired a spate of attacks worldwide, from Brussels to Nice, Dhaka, Istanbul, and beyond. The Christmas market attack in Berlin was recently traced to Islamic State external operations planners in Libya.... The remainder of this commentary is available on defenseone.com. Colin P. Clarke and Chad C. Serena are political scientists at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation. This commentary originally appeared on Defense One on February 9, 2017. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis. Negotiations between FOX and AT&T for in Spanish-speaking Latin America have frozen and their previous distribution agreements in Brazil have been broken. This has lead to the entire FOX portfolio going dark in SKY Brazil, as both groups have been unable to reach a new commercial deal in the country after months of negotiations, with FOX channels losing a potential audience of 5.25 million households in the country.The situation is the same in the Latin American Spanish-speaking countries in which DirecTV delivers satellite pay-TV. FOX was set to pull the plug on DirecTV across LATAM by the end of January, but both companies have decided to extend negotiations.No more information has been given to subscribers, although FOX networks is still airing for DirecTVs seven million homes in LATAM, and both companies have stated there is still room for a final agreement to be reached.Fox manages 19 pay-TV channels in the region, including some of the leading networks such as Fox, Fx, Film Zone, Nat Geo, Fox Sport, Fox Sport 2, Fox Sport 3, Cinecanal, Fox Life and Fox Movie. Probe opened into alleged embezzlement at Gazprom Neft - report MOSCOW, February 9 (RAPSI) Investigation has been opened into the alleged embezzlement of 2 billion rubles ($33.6 million) from Gazprom Neft oil company, Kommersant newspaper reported Thursday. A criminal case has been launched against unidentified managers and employees of Service-Terminal company, the newspaper writes. The firm was engaged in payment of Gazprom Neft customs duties, in accordance with a contract signed in January 2003. Investigators believe that in 2011 Service-Terminal received over 58 billion rubles ($975 million) from Gazprom Neft as part of a long-term customs broker agency agreement. However, brokers failed to report the total amount received in full. They gave an account of spending 46.8 billion rubles ($786.4 million). Certain employees of Service-Terminal allegedly transferred about 2 billion rubles of the remaining sum to accounts of offshore companies. Another 10 billion rubles ($168 million) of upfront payments became a matter of dispute in a commercial court where Gazprom Neft applied in the summer of 2016. The oil company accused Service-Terminal of unjust enrichment, according to Kommersant. Before turning to court, Gazprom Neft notified customs broker about termination of the contract and return of transferred funds. Service-Terminal in turn filed a petition with the Commercial Court of the Yaroslavl Region seeking its own bankruptcy in August 2016. Gazprom Neft is a vertically integrated oil company engaged primarily in oil and gas exploration, production, and refining, as well as the production and sale of petroleum products, the companys website reads. Russian ex-construction official charged with fraud put under house arrest MOSCOW, February 9 (RAPSI, Lyudmila Klenko) The Khamovnichesky District Court of Moscow has changed detention measure against ex-deputy head of the Federal Agency for Special Construction (Spetsstroy) Alexander Buryakov who is charged with large-scale fraud and put him under house arrest, RAPSI learnt from the courts press-service on Thursday. Buryakov is to stay under house arrest until April 2. In July, various media reported that Buryakov was arrested by officers of the Interior Ministrys Economic Security and Anti-Corruption Department. Businessman Kadyr Karakhanov and former deputy director of Spetstroy Alexander Zagorulko were also detained in relation to this case. Investigators believe that Buryakov has conspired with unidentified persons to conclude contracts with subcontractors on construction and reconstruction of nine facilities for the Defense Ministry of Russia. According to preliminary data, the accused embezzled around 450 million rubles ($7 million). In 2013-2015 Buryakov was a deputy head of Central production and administrative management. Later, he was appointed as a deputy for the whole organizations head. Zagurolko worked in Spetsstroy since 2013. He was appointed as the first deputy for the organizations head in August 2014. In the spring of 2016, Zagorulko resigned. Victims seek compensation from alleged organizer of 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis MOSCOW, February 9 (RAPSI) Victims have filed five claims seeking in total 5 million rubles ($84,000) in damages from Khasan Zakayev, an alleged mastermind of the hostage taking at the Dubrovka theater in southeast Moscow in 2002 that left 130 dead, RIA Novosti reported Thursday citing lawyer Igor Zuber. The lawsuits were accepted by the Moscow District Military Court. There are 912 injured persons in the case. More claims for compensation may be filed; amount in dispute may therefore reach 1 billion rubles ($16.8 million), the agency quoted Zuber as having said. Earlier, Zakayev pleaded guilty to transfer of weapons in 2001 and 2002. He received about $4,000 and a mobile phone for weapon delivery. However, he noted that he did not know what he was supplying and for what purposes. Zakayev also denied his complicity in terrorist attacks, killings, and taking hostages. Investigators claim that Zakayev was a member of a criminal gang headed by Chechen separatist leader Shamil Basayev and assisted in organizing the terrorist attack and taking of hostages at the theater. In 2002, he allegedly organized transportation of weapon and homemade explosive devices to Moscow for terrorists. A group of terrorists led by Movsar Barayev took hostage the audience and participants of the Nord-Ost musical on October 23, 2002. 40 attackers were killed. Zakayev is the only one who was arrested, victims lawyer Igor Trunov said earlier. The majority of hostages were released in an operation planned by Russian security services. Shamil Basayev who was reportedly killed in 2006 and Gerikhan Dudayev who is still at large are among the organizers of the attack, according to investigators. Russian court upholds house arrest for imam accused of justifying terrorism MOSCOW, February 9 (RAPSI, Evgeniya Sokolova) The Moscow City Court has upheld a lower courts ruling to extend the house arrest of Moscow imam Makhmud Velitov, who is charged with justifying terrorism, RAPSI learned from the courts press-service on Thursday. The court has dismissed an appeal filed by Velitovs lawyer Dagir Khasavov. Velitov to remain under house arrest until February 27. On September 23, 2013, Velitov, being a council chair and imam of a religious organization, made a public speech justifying activity of one of Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami terrorist organizations members during a prayer in a Moscow mosque, according to the Investigative Committee. This organization has been banned by Russias Supreme Court. As follows from the conclusion of a forensic examination, the imams speech contained a set of psychological and linguistic features of justifying terrorist activities, the investigators statement reads. According to defense, Velitov performed a religious ritual allowed by canons of Islam regarding a deceased Muslim. 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. 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Search Real Estate By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 02/09/2017 ADVERTISEMENT Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade. , We're sorry, this article is not currently available Anachrobellum has released a limited run of Modern Budo hoodies. The Oklahoma-based apparel company takes warrior archetypes from history (samurai, vikings, colonial scouts of the Rogers' Rangers era, etc.) and jocks them up in modern gear. That's how you get a samurai in traditional kabuto with GPNVG-18s and a suppressed SCAR, or a Roman centurion with mags and frags hanging on his phalerae harness. According to the company, this design has consistently been their most popular modernized warrior exemplar. This is possibly due to its historical significance, but likely also because of Marc Lee's badass artwork. (Read more in this article on OFFGRID.) You can see some imagery of the t-shirts below and patches below. You can find the Modern Budo Hoodie online here if you are so inclined. It's available in any color you want as long as that's black. Anachrobellum is on Facebook, /Anachrobellum/, and on Instagram, @anachrobellum. We're not sure what this is, but we like it. Needs moar armor. Here's what we know. Tulsa, OK based Anachrobellum Apparel has released a limited run of black Gildan 8oz hoodies featuring a SOF-equipped Modern Budo samurai. The samurai, in full traditional armor, has been further armed with an EOTech-topped Mk17, a breaching shottie, NODs, S&S Precision Manta strobe and numerous other pieces of contemporary doorkicker kit. Among those who've worn these hoodies*: 1. Maeda Keiji 2. Taira no Kiyomori 3. Shimazu Yoshihisa 4. Date Masamune Wut? 5. Uesugi Kenshin 6, Nakano Takeko 7. 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Posts on RECOILweb.com labeled as Industry News are advisory notifications only. Information contained therein is likely provided by the individual manufacturer (or service provider), provided to RW and passed along to our readers as a notification only. Such articles do not represent our tacit approval, nor (unless labeled SPONSORED) were they paid for. RECOIL publishes not just for a fraction of the gun-owning community, but all of it. Individual editorial staff member opinions are not the sole arbiter of what news we present. What one person derides, another will extol. One of RECOIL's responsibilities is to inform readers of new products or services from manufacturers, training organizations, and the like. RECOIL readers have made it very clear this is something they want to see, and frequently. Some of those products will be chosen for further coverage or evaluation. Some will not. Some may have great promise or potential. Others will do nothing but prove the old adage, A fool and his money are soon parted. Readers should form their own conclusions, if appropriate. Rest assured if a member of the RECOIL staff is providing an opinion, you will know about it. If you are aware of a new technology, product, or service you think is worth us passing along, reach out to [email protected] with details. In about the same short amount of time it took the Heartbeat Bill to pass through the Georgia House of Representatives, a protest was organized primarily by University of Georgia women to oppose its official passage. Chocolate drips before running through a conveyor belt at Condor Chocolates in Athens, Ga., on Friday, February 3, 2017. (Photo by Cory A. Cole) Students climb the stairs at the MLC on the first day of class, Aug. 11, 2016 in Athens, Ga. Photo/ Landon Trust Venture capitalists are leveraging their experience to build something new. Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com. Alok Mittal, Rohini Chakravarthy, Ashish Mohapatra, Anshoo Sharma, Raul Rai, Subramanya S V, Manoj Gupta and Abhishek Goyal -- all venture capitalists not so long ago -- have taken the plunge to become entrepreneurs. While the challenge of setting up a venture has spurred some of them, others have used their skills acquired as venture capitalists to kick-start their entities. Alok Mittal was partner at Canaan Partners before he co-founded Indifi Technologies, a marketplace for loans to small and medium enterprises. I wanted to get hands-on and build another company. I was in the investment business for 10 years and was itching to get back to building a company, he said. Mittal had earlier built and exited jobsahead.com. Entrepreneurship to venture capital were equally exciting for me. Its just that at different points in life, you want to do different things, he said. Every start-up is challenging. At present, he is enjoying the challenges, building a team and a business. VCs develop a great nose for identifying new opportunities, and at some point of time, the brave ones get the itch to build themselves, said Rohini Chakravarthy, a former partner at private equity (PE) firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA) in the US. She returned to India to promote Inksedge -- a start-up trying to disrupt the event communication space with customised event stationary. Being an entrepreneur is about building from first principles, but having seen the genesis of hundreds of businesses from the VC perch is a huge leg-up for execution, she said. The second advantage of having been a VC is access to a wide network. Inksedge has been able to recruit the best talent and tap into the wisdom of advisors and entrepreneurs who have built global companies. Bala Deshpande, senior managing director, NEA India, said, VCs are best placed to become entrepreneurs as we see both the risks and the opportunities very clearly. Its not the same as being an entrepreneur, but it is a good thing if you understand valuation. If the outlook is not good and as a VC you are not closing deals, it can get a little boring. Its not easy for an entrepreneur or a VC, especially at the partner level, to enter and exit. As an entrepreneur, you need to dig in your heels in for at least 3-4 years, especially if you have raised external money, said Deshpande. Similarly, a fund manager invests for 3-4 years and then waits for 5-7 years to make exits. A VC makes a commitment to stay the course. If we leave, the investors will suffer a value loss, she said, explaining why it is difficult to enter and exit the VC business. For Subramanya S V, who was a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP), it was a question of if not now, never. He had worked for eight years at a global VC firm, investing and serving on the boards of Snapdeal, Taxi4Sure and Bharat Matrimony. Last year, when he quit BVP to start personal finance management app Fishdom, he was 35. Age is not a barrier. But the older you get, it does get harder due to many reasons such as family constraints. So if I didnt start up at 35, probably I would never, said Subramanya, known more widely as Subu. With rising internet penetration in the country, it seemed like the right time and place to go into business, given the disruption it could bring to consumption of products and services. For Asish Mohapatra, who moved from VC firm Matrix Partners to start Ofbusiness, a marketplace for SMEs, the so-called keeda (bug) was always there and 2015 seemed like a good time to start. Investor interest in SMEs peaked, with several deals across fintech, logistics, and consumables. In my mid-30s, I knew it was now or never. I had to jump, said the co-founder and sales manager of Ofbusiness. Anshoo Sharma was driving investments at VC firm Lightspeed India before he teamed up with investor-turned-entrepreneur friend Brij Bhushan to co-found Magicpin, a hyperlocal discovery platform. He has seen the rate of disruption in China; in India, it is just getting started. Theres a great opportunity to go out and build value, said Sharma. Having seen companies such as Limeroad and Oyo incubated at Lightspeed, companies that have grown and created large value, it gave Sharma the confidence and motivation to go out and build similar value. Raul Rai, a former managing director at General Atlantic and Fidelity Private Equity, is now founder and chief executive officer of Nicobar, a lifestyle venture by Eicher Group. He is married to Simran Lal, CEO of Eicher Good Earth. I left private equity to create not a company but a culture, a workspace that is energising. I defined our culture before drafting the business plan, said Rai. He said Nicobar exists to shape culture -- to create a way of life that is distinctly Indian yet globally relevant, introducing design for everyday life. At Nicobar, were creating a modern Indian way of living, dressing and looking at the world, he said. Rai feels business families play a key role in fostering start-ups that are subject to the same rigour as others. There were early movers, as well. Manoj Gupta was a principal at Nexus Venture Partners before he founded Craftsvilla in 2010. Abhishek Goyal and Neha Singh quit Accel Partners and Sequoia, respectively, to start data analytics firm Traxn. Gupta always wanted to be an entrepreneur and had made three attempts earlier. Hence, it was easy for him to shift. I always wanted to make an impact. You can always be a VC. I thought it is better to create something big. It has a lot more credibility and learning, which you can use to guide other entrepreneurs, said Gupta. The key word is scale. While Gupta had tried his hand at three ventures before, none of them were significant from an exit perspective for him. The longing was always there. As an entrepreneur you can create a story, said Gupta. Craftsvilla started with handicrafts, got into ethnic space and continues to experiment. Gupta travels a lot, meeting customers and sellers, which is another enriching experience. While VCs make good money -- salaries can be Rs 30 lakh (associate) to Rs 3-4 crore per annum (partner) -- entrepreneurships can be rewarding on exits. For Abhishek Goyal of Traxn, becoming entrepreneur was a personal career choice. I realised during my three years as an investor that I personally get a lot more sense of achievement by creating things. Also, I was too young at that time to not create things. This is a very individual viewpoint. I will go back to investing when I feel I am done with creating things on my own, he said. Being a VC can help you raise money and avoid common mistakes that many first-time entrepreneurs make. For four years at Nexus, I looked at multiple companies. So things like scalability, team, and defensibility were all on top of my mind. Having a lens of a VC was useful, said Gupta. As he knew many investors, raising money was a lot easier. One of the key things that you have to do as an entrepreneur is capital allocation. You learn both the dos and donts of it while being a VC as you see it being done at the VC firm and by many entrepreneurs doing it. Being a VC also makes you think big, said Mohapatra. The stint at Accel radically changed the way Goyal looked at size of opportunity and the way he designed his organisational structure and processes. I now design team structure and processes keeping a 5-year window in mind, he said. Another interesting reward of the investing experience is that it added a lot of humility to his character, as you see a large part of the future unfold in a way that was hard to imagine early. It teaches you that the future is full of so many surprises that the only way to survive is by staying humble and agile. No one is too big or too smart to fail, added Goyal. But having been a VC is no guarantee for success as an entrepreneur. At best, it improves the probability of success by 10 percentage points as one is able to avoid the common mistakes a first-time entrepreneur makes. A VC is a thinker than a doer. He is an ideas person but on the ground, what matters is execution, said Subramanya of Fishdom. VCs turning entrepreneurs and vice versa is common in the US. In India, its mostly the other way round -- entrepreneurs who made successful exits have turned investors -- Avnish Bajaj or a Ronnie Screwvala. Globally, investing eco-system is an exceptional breeding ground for entrepreneurs. I don't expect India to be very different from many other parts of world, said Goyal of Traxn. What are the factors that is aiding the cross-pollination (VCs turning entrepreneurs) now? In India, VCs are young. They come with a background in technology, investment banking and consulting firms. At a young age, they see several young entrepreneurs from up close and love the impact, passion and zeal they display. The mavericks (you would expect some to be that) among then would then move out, said Mohapatra. Venture investing is probably the best job in the world. The only role that beats it is that of a successful entrepreneur. VCs always look up to people who have created value. The only job I could think of is running my own company, said Subu. In terms of timing, 2014 to 2016 seemed so much a better time to start rather than 2005 or 2010. Many who are shifting had seen the power of the internet to disrupt ways of working. They thought if they could build a good product that leverages the internet, they could build a valuable company. And, of course, there is a lot more capital available today to back good teams and credible ideas. It is not easy, but it is available. Heading Crisil would have been the peak of most people's professional lives. But Roopa Kudva felt that was the right time to change tracks. She tells Anjuli Bhargava about how she embraced a whole new learning experience at the Omidyar Network. IMAGE: Roopa Kudva. Photograph: Kind courtesy Omidyar.com. At 50, Roopa Kudva decided it was time to change tracks. She had been the CEO of Crisil for eight years and had been with the organisation for 23 years (since 1992). She had earned more money than she could spend, had seen the ins and outs of corporate life and worked with some of the best minds in the country. If she continued at Crisil, where she had another 10 years to go before she retired, she would be CEO for 18 years. "Too long for any one person to be in the saddle," she says. She also felt that if she wanted her life to take a new direction, 50 was a good time to do it. When she was first approached by the Omidyar Network, the US-based philanthropic investment firm, she wasn't even fully aware what impact investing was. But it wasn't long before she understood that she could use her core skills -- strong understanding of companies -- to create positive social impact. It's been a whole new learning experience. Omidyar has an open office culture, unlike Crisil where, as CEO, she had a large office to herself. Crisil had 4,000 employees, while Omidyar has 22 in India and 120 globally. In Crisil, she mostly dealt with "companies that had arrived." Here, entrepreneurs are by and large still struggling. The company focuses a lot on technology, so she has to keep herself abreast of the latest developments in the tech sector. "Ever since I joined, I am learning something every day," says Kudva. A Maharashtrian-Konkani by birth, Kudva grew up in the Northeast since her father -- a bureaucrat -- was posted in Assam (she speaks better Assamese than Marathi). She had a simple upbringing, where one was always "very close to nature", and an "outstanding education" due to the Christian missionary influence in undivided Assam, of which Shillong was then the capital. Growing up in a matrilineal society, where "the social milieu was tilted in favour of women," she says she never perceived or felt any of the differences in the two sexes that she found later in life. By the time Kudva graduated, Assam was facing its own share of problems. She had cleared the entrance exam for the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad. But back home, her final exams were put off due to the anti-foreigner agitation in the state. Since she would not have her result in time, IIM-A refused to hold admit her. Undeterred, she appeared for the IIM-A entrance exam again the next year and had no trouble clearing it. During the year-long gap, she taught at a small nursery school in Guwahati. "I sometimes think I might have become a teacher as I enjoyed it so much," she says. But life had different plans for her. 'Sometimes when I see young children today, planning five years ahead, I can't understand how they can be so focused.' After graduating from IIM in 1986, she joined IDBI -- at the time a development bank -- where she spent six years and learnt the complexities of project finance across sectors. It gave her a sound understanding of companies and their financials. In 1986, Kudva had married a batchmate, a banker with a transferrable job. She had requested IDBI for two postings already and when in 1992, she asked for a third one to Bengaluru, the organisation sounded a bit iffy. Then one day, she chanced upon an article in BusinessWorld about how Pradip Shah was trying to bring the concept of credit rating into the country. In the interview, he had mentioned that it was opening an office in Bengaluru. "And I said, 'Aha, this sounds promising'," she recalls. A week later, while on a consortium meeting in Bengaluru, she walked into the Crisil office. She had no prior appointment, but Shah happened to be there and met her. For the next 45 minutes, he explained what it was attempting to do, and as she was leaving, she asked if he'd be interested in someone like her for the job. That was the beginning of Crisil for Kudva. "Completely unplanned and more by happenstance than anything else," she says. It was the beginning of a new era. Crisil at the time was a non-hierarchical, young organisation. "The most important decisions in the company, like rating, were made in an open forum," she says. Anyone could walk in and attend a rating meeting and "I found that so empowering." She was 29 when she joined. At 43, in 2007, she became the CEO of the company. Crisil grew and diversified: it went global, research centres were set up in Argentina, Poland and China; it introduced an affordable rating for small and medium businesses. It was also the first rating agency in the world to launch an IPO in 1993. 'People flit from job to job the moment the prospects seem brighter, but to my mind, companies still value and reward loyalty.' Her career took the shape it did more by chance than anything else. "Sometimes when I see young children today, planning five years ahead, I can't understand how they can be so focused," she says. But then, she adds, her generation (those who made their careers in the 1980s and early 1990s) was the most fortunate. "I think no other generation saw this kind of uplift in its economic trajectory and, to my mind, probably no other generation in the future will see it either." Children today have far more opportunity, but the delta from the starting point to the end of their careers might not be what we have seen, she says. To her mind, people grossly underestimate the luck factor. Of course, you have to be smart and work hard, but a lot of it is "being at the right place at the right time." She says Crisil grew and everyone who was there "grew with it." She argues that payoffs of sticking to your job and putting in a long service are also underestimated today. "People flit from job to job the moment the prospects seem brighter, but to my mind, companies still value and reward loyalty." Kudva also says she couldn't have reached where she did without the support of her equally successful husband, who heads some of Franklin Templeton's businesses. She says despite the fact that she often asked for transfers to follow his postings, the couple managed to draw a good balance between her and his career. Not having children has been a conscious choice, but not one she seems to regret. "I often say in a lighter vein that I am still learning to take care of myself," says Kudva. 'Are we seeing the beginning of the communalising of one of the most iconic film industries in the world?' asks Vanita Kohli-Khandekar. In the late eighties Shah Rukh Khan, a boy from a modest Delhi family, tried his hand at theatre, TV and then films. He was noticed in Deewana (1992) and Baazigar (1993). But he really burst onto the national consciousness with Yash Chopra's Darr (1993). Khan has gone on to become one of India's biggest superstars after Amitabh Bachchan and Rajinikanth. His fans span the developed world in the US, Germany, the UK and Poland, to countries in South America, Southeast Asia and Central Asia. Over the last 20 years his films have brought in an average of 50% to 60% of the revenues Indian films make overseas. Much like Bachchan, Khan comes from an educated family, is erudite and witty. He is routinely invited to speak to students at Yale, the IIMs and other places. His speeches, popular on YouTube, are insightful and self-deprecating -- they make India proud. Chopra did not choose Khan because he is Muslim. Nor did the audience. His hits such as Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge or his flops like Ram Jaane did not happen because he is a Muslim. His religious identity is irrelevant -- he is an Indian superstar, period. There are indications the India in which Khan came to be is changing. Filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali was attacked on the sets of his film Padmavati in Rajasthan. The provocation -- the film contained 'objectionable' scenes between a mythical Indian queen and a Muslim monarch. In 2016 the release of Karan Johar's Ae Dil Hai Mushkil was held up for having a Pakistani actor. Many such instances are now used to tar Indian cinema. There has been -- especially in the vicious, rumour-laden world of social media -- a steady, acidic, communalising and dehumanising of Hindi cinema through mutilated quotes, innuendo and photoshopped pictures. On WhatsApp groups and Facebook people exhort each other not to watch films starring Muslims in lead roles. There are several non-resident and resident Indians -- within this reporter's circle of friends -- who did not watch Dangal. It starred Aamir Khan who had spoken against intolerance. How did we reach here? Till about three, four years back, it was rare for most Indians to think of their film heroes as Hindu or Muslim. Bachchan, a Hindu, is an icon for all Indians. There has never been a campaign from non-Hindus to not watch his films. Ditto for Dilip Kumar (Yusuf Khan), Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand, Rajendra Kumar, Rajesh Khanna -- all the superstars of yore had a following among Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Parsis and other Indians. They played characters from different communities. Bachchan's Iqbal in Coolie (1983) and Aamir's Bhuvan in Lagaan (2001) was loved by all Indians. Are we seeing the beginning of the communalising of one of the most iconic film industries in the world? India's cinema is a proud hallmark of its soft power -- eliciting both admiration and anxiety. Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge, The Great Gatsby) among other film-makers are inspired by its narrative style. Gangs of Wasseypur, The Lunchbox and Masaan are among the dozens of Indian films feted at international films festivals. The success of 3 Idiots (2009) in China created internal discussions within that country on how it could improve its 'soft power' quotient. India is among a handful of countries that has a vibrant, commercially dominant local film industry that is not swamped by Hollywood. This is because it is inclusive, meritocratic and has a completely local creative idiom. It is, arguably, one of the few professional spaces where Indians don't face any caste, class or religious discrimination. As an outsider the only thing you really need is talent and grit. Ask Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Vishal Bhardwaj, Deepika Padukone or Kangana Ranaut. There are two arguments against the worry on creeping communalism. One, these incidents are outbursts by the fringe and film-makers should really learn to stand up for their creative convictions when attacked. Two, Indians vote for their films with their hearts and wallets, not their religious identities. That is why this industry survived over 100 years of State neglect to become a clean, studio-led, institutionally financed, creatively vibrant business. And that is why in spite of an online slander campaign Dangal is on course to make Rs 600 crore in box-office collections across the world. Don't miss reading the FEATURES in the RELATED LINKS below! 'South Asian Americans stand to lose greatly.' 'Now is not the time to be spectators to injustice, narrowly believing that these events that currently affect part of our community won't affect us all.' 'The reality of racial and religious profiling in America is that it is simply enough to be perceived as Muslim to be treated as one.' Civil rights activist Lakshmi Sridaran highlights why South Asians must stand on the right side of history and resist the Trump administration's 'systematic attack' on the entire spectrum of America's immigration system. IMAGE: During a protest in New York City against President Donald Trump's 'Muslim ban'. SAALT's most recent report Power, Pain, Potential documents the uptick in violence and xenophobic political rhetoric aimed at South Asian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Middle Eastern, and Arab American communities during the 2016 election cycle. An astounding 95 per cent of the incidents SAALT indexed were motivated by anti-Muslim sentiment. Photograph: Stephanie Keith/Reuters 'First they came for the Muslims... And we said not today!' This has become a rallying cry against the anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant policies that have defined the first two weeks of Donald Trump's presidency. Wasting little time, President Trump has issued nearly 10 executive orders that roll back the progress President Obama took eight years to build. It began with gutting the Affordable Healthcare Act, then speeding up environmental review processes for infrastructure projects such as the Dakota Access Pipeline. Then came the one-two punch of immigration executive orders that in total included building a wall along the US-Mexico border, increasing the number of Customs and Border Patrol agents, threatening sanctuary cities that ensure immigrants are not interrogated about their documentation status when interacting with local police, banning refugees from Syria indefinitely along with immigrants from seven-Muslim majority countries, even a proposal to recreate an entry-exit registration system much like NSEERS or 'special registration' after 9/11. Most recently were the series of executive orders decreasing financial regulations and essentially stripping the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Financial Protection Act put in place to regulate big banks after the 2008 financial crisis. The amount of destruction these actions have already caused and the long-term impact they will continue to have feels at once both immense and immeasurable. And South Asians must care. Currently, none of the seven Muslim majority countries listed in the 'Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry' executive order -- also known as the 'Muslim Ban' -- are in South Asia. However, there have been calls from members of our own community to add Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia to this list. Just last week, the Republican Hindu Coalition released a statement showing unfettered support for the 'Muslim Ban' and demanding the addition of these countries to the list. The Hindus for Justice Coalition swiftly responded with a counter press release in unequivocal solidarity with Muslim communities, refugees, and immigrants and condemned the RHC for supporting the rapid installment of racist and xenophobic policies by the Trump Administration. While non-Muslim South Asians may feel like this does not impact them, the climate of fear that Trump's rhetoric and policies have instilled in our communities goes beyond religion. An Indian-American woman, Aravinda Pillalamarri, was stopped by police in her Maryland neighbourhood of over 30 years, questioned about her legal status, detained, and told she was under criminal investigation until she was finally let go. The reality of racial and religious profiling in this country is that it is simply enough to be perceived as Muslim to be treated as one. In SAALT's most recent report Power, Pain, Potential released last month (external link), we document the uptick in violence and xenophobic political rhetoric aimed at South Asian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Middle Eastern, and Arab American communities during the 2016 election cycle. An astounding 95 per cent of the 207 incidents we indexed were motivated by anti-Muslim sentiment. Trump has capitalised on anti-Muslim rhetoric as a candidate and now as president by exploiting the divisions in our communities to win over non-Muslim South Asians. This is a trap we cannot afford to fall into during this critical time. South Asian activists, attorneys, and community leaders around the country mobilised in the moments after the 'Muslim ban' executive order to ensure that individuals and families detained at airports after the announcement could be released, helped lead the litigation efforts around the country to temporarily halt the ban, and served on the frontlines ensuring communities were safe from raids and deportations. These are the actions we must continue taking and supporting as a community. Ironically, next on Trump's agenda will be a concerted effort to go after documented or 'legal\' immigrants. A leaked executive order from last week shows that Trump will be cracking down on H-1B and L1 visas, which many Indian tech companies rely on, accounting for upwards of 350,000 H-1B visas alone. The order would also raise the minimum salary for H-1B applicants from $60,000 to $130,000 in an effort to prioritise American-born workers. Even before the Muslim ban, Indian workers on H-1B visas have been facing lengthy delays to return home from visits to India due to 'administrative processing,' some taking several months. For the first time, we are seeing a systematic attack on the entire spectrum of our immigration system, and this means we must unite as a community to push back. Just this week Senator Tom Cotton (Republican, Arizona) introduced a bill called the Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment (RAISE) Act, which aims to ambush legal immigration. It would significantly reduce the number of immigrants who can obtain green cards and other visas and would cut the number of legal immigrants allowed in the United States by 40 per cent in the first year and by 50 per cent over a decade. Rather than acknowledging the demand for immigrant labour that US economic policy has created, this bill is part of a coordinated effort to vilify immigrants. IMAGE: After a white supremacist attacked the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin on August 5, 2012, killing six people. President Obama had established the Countering Violent Extremism programme to include white supremacists and other non-Muslim groups. Trump plans to alter the programme to focus only on Muslims. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images In less popular news, the Trump administration is reportedly planning to shift the Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programme to focus exclusively on Muslim communities by renaming it Countering Violent Islamic Extremism. The CVE programme was established under the Obama administration as an attempt to encourage community leaders to identify early signs of radicalisation in individuals and report them to the government. While the Obama administration attempted to include white supremacists and other non-Muslim groups in this programme, the Trump administration will focus singularly on Muslim communities. The programme itself can trace its origins back to the Counter Intelligence Programme deployed first in the 1950s to target the Communist Party and later to sabotage other movements for justice, most notably the Black liberation movement. This was done through FBI surveillance, infiltration, and disruption. The same structures of white supremacy that have historically underpinned our nation's policies are being utilised against Muslims, immigrants, and communities of colour today. The convergence of political rhetoric, legislative change, and executive action under the Trump administration is one that cannot and should not be underestimated. South Asian Americans stand to lose greatly, and now is not the time to be spectators to injustice, narrowly believing that these events that currently affect part of our community will not affect us all. We must be on the right side of history and resist every attempt by this administration to denigrate us, all immigrants, and other communities of colour. It is time to leverage the resources and political capital in our communities to stand against the coordinated attack on Muslims right now. 'When they came for the Muslims,' it must be our willful responsibility at this crucial hour to affirm as a South Asian community, 'not today!' Lakshmi Sridaran is the director of National Policy and Advocacy, South Asian Americans Leading Together -- a nonpartisan, non-profit civil rights organisation that elevates the voices of South Asians in the US. Don't miss: Desis in Trump's America Syed Firdaus Ashraf reveals dual encounters when he regretted dealing in cash. In the last three months I have fallen in love with cashless transactions. The payment procedure is so easy, it takes just three simple steps. Swipe your credit card. Enter the password. Check SMS. And you are done. I have forgotten what cash means to me. Last month, I withdrew Rs 20,000 from my bank account, which I got in Rs 2,000 notes. Being in a hurry, I didn't check each and every note before stepping out of the bank. A week later, I went to the post office and handed over one of the Rs 2,000 notes which I had withdrawn. The gent at the counter said he would not accept the currency note. Why, I asked. He showed me the note which had something written on it. The Reserve Bank of India's rules forbids currency notes with handwriting on it, he said. "But where is the RBI notice? I haven't see any such notice or read about it," I said in dismay. Another clerk at the counter told me the notice had appeared in the newspapers, and asked me sternly: "Don't you read the newspapers?" I told him I read newspapers every day, it is part of my job, but I had not seen any such notice. The postal clerks were unmoved and I left the post office with the Rs 2,000 note. Next, I went to a chemist's store. "Will you accept this note?" I asked the chemist. "Don't you know this note is useless?" he asked before giving me the same gyan. Everyone, it seemed, knew about this RBI rule, but me. I went to the bank nearby and asked at the counter: "Madam, will you accept this note?" The teller scrutinised the note before giving me the same answer. "So what do I do now? Will I never be able to exchange this note?" I asked her. "Go to the RBI and your problem will be solved," she said. "Where did you get the note from?" she asked "From my bank," I replied. She asked me to go to my bank and request them to change the note. Maybe they will, she added. The next day I went to my bank and told the staffer that I had received the currency note from the bank, that no one was willing to touch it, forget accepting it, so she would have to exchange it. The staffer admitted that even she did know about the RBI rule banning such notes. Ah! So I was not the only one ignorant of this rule, even a bank staffer didn't know about it. She told me I should take it in writing from those who refused to accept such notes. "I can't argue with them, but you tell me whether you will accept this note or not," I told her impatiently. Taking the note from me, she said, "I will take down your phone number. If there is any problem, I will call you." "Done," I said in relief. I then exchanged the scribbled currency note with another Rs 2,000 note, after ensuring that the new note was clean and had nothing written on it. This week I ordered something from an e-commerce company. When the delivery boy gave me the parcel, I paid him the amount in Rs 100 notes. He refused to take one note which he said was illegal. 'Again?' I asked myself. 'But there is nothing written on it!' The reason this time was different. The Rs 100 which I had given him, the delivery boy said, was an old currency note, which is not in circulation anymore. "How?" I asked. "Sir, the whole world knows about it," the boy said. "Which world are you living in?" "But how do you know that this note is illegal?" I asked. He took out a Rs 100 note from his wallet and said every currency note in circulation has the year mentioned on it, in fine print. "If the year is not mentioned on the currency note, it means it is illegal," he enlightened me. He refused to accept the note and I had to give him another Rs 100 note with the year mentioned on it. I thought long and hard about where I had got this Rs 100 note from. Try as I could, I couldn't remember how this note came into my possession. I tried following the same route I had used earlier. I went to the chemist who was aware of this rule and did not accept the note. I strutted over to my bank and asked the executive, waving the Rs 100 note in the air, "Is this note illegal?" This time, even she knew about this rule. "What do I do now? I don't know how this landed in my hands." She once again came to my rescue and asked me to deposit the Rs 100 note in my account. "We will accept this, but if there is some inquiry, then we will call you," she said. "Is it a criminal offence to hold such currency?" I asked. "No," she said. I have not received a call from my bank so far. So, apart from all being well, there are also lessons learnt. From that day on, I have been checking every currency note while withdrawing money from the bank or ATM or accepting cash from anyone. More and more, I use digital payments as using cash can be risky these days in more ways than one. 'If the interim chief minister lodges a criminal complaint against Sasikala for grabbing power through coercion, she has to face one more case.' K M Vijayan, lawyer and Constitutional expert, discussed with Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier the options before Tamil Nadu Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao. Some people say the governor has the discretionary power to decide whether to swear Sasikala in as the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, or not. Do you think so? Yes. A governor has to consult the council of ministers after they were installed. But before their installation, it is within the discretion of the governor to appoint the chief minister and other ministers. Of course, the discretion has to be followed procedurally like in the S R Bommai case; he has to see whether the claimant has the majority support or not. But as far as Sasikala is concerned, she has a bar to approach under Article 164-4, that is, without becoming an MLA, she cannot claim to be the chief minister. It is not a problem for anyone who is an MLA. She is not an MLA and there is a criminal case pending in the Supreme Court and the judgment is awaited. The criticism against the governor was that he did not swear in Sasikala as the chief minister... Let me go back a little. Then governor Fatima Beevi was questioned by the Supreme Court for swearing in Jayalalithaa as the chief minister in 2001. Jayalalithaa used the opportunity to swear in to get over a hurdle. In Sasikala's case, whether it is true or not, she has forcibly removed Paneerselvam from the post of chief minister. So, the governor has to see whether she has any ill motive behind forcibly removing Paneerselvam from the post. She also cannot call herself the leader of the legislature party because to be the leader of the legislature party, she has to be a member. As per the 10th Schedule of the Constitution, legislature party means a house consisting of its members whether it is the legislative assembly or Parliament which she is not. How does the Constitution look at calling a person who is not a member of the legislative assembly? There is only one exception, that is 154-4, but it cannot be used as a fully enabling provision. When you are using an exception, you have to see whether the person has an extraordinary reason to claim so. In Sasikala's case, she has got so many cases against her. So, it is not necessary that the exception should be exercised all the time. So, by not swearing her in till now, the governor has not done anything wrong Constitutionally? Yes. Some people also say that when there is so much public anger against the person, the governor should take this also into consideration before taking a decision. Is it true? It is a very subjective matter. When Fatima Beevi invited Jayalalithaa, it was said that she had the public support behind her and that was cited as the reason behind calling her to be the chief minister. But it was ruled that public support is immaterial to the Constitution. The Constitution has nothing to do with public sentiments. It has some value only when there is a very big movement like what we saw for jallikattu. It was also said that nobody should use this exception to gain a back-door entry. Do you think from the Constitutional point of view, what Sasikala is trying is a back door entry? Absolutely. The governor should not call Sasikala for two reasons. Under 193 of the Constitution, the MLAs have a right to sit in the assembly only if they take oath under 188. Even if somebody is elected an MLA, if s/he doesn't take the oath, s/he cannot sit in the assembly. In the case of Sasikala, if she becomes the chief minister, how can she sit in the assembly? This aspect has not been taken forward by anyone. You cannot have a situation where she cannot enter the assembly until she is elected. In the case of Jayalalithaa also, it was challenged when she was made the chief minister by Fatima Beevi, and the case was Kapoor vs Jayalalitha in 2001. What are the Constitutionally right options in front of the governor now? The first option in front of the governor is to call Paneerselvam and ask him to prove his majority. The majority need not be from within the party; it can be outside support too. There is no provision for Paneeselvam to withdraw his resignation as it has been accepted and he is the interim chief minister now. Second option is anyone other than Sasikala from her faction can stake claim because of the pending Supreme Court verdict. Is there any Constitutional crisis to call for President's rule in the state? Not at the moment. Only if none of them are able to prove a majority that a Constitutional crisis arises and Article 356 will be used. But all attempts will be made before it is used, like asking Paneerselvam first and then any other member from the party. Does that mean calling Sasikala cannot be an option at all? Yes, Sasikala cannot be an option at all. If it is done, it can be challenged in court because an exception cannot be used by someone to grab power. What she is doing is grabbing power. If the interim chief minister lodges a criminal complaint against Sasikala for grabbing power through coercion, she has to face one more case. I don't know whether he will do it or not. If I was his advisor, I would advise him to chargesheet Sasikala Natarajan first. So, the governor can use the impending Supreme Court verdict as a reason not to call her? Yes. The criticism against the governor is that he is in Mumbai when there is a Constitutional crisis in Tamil Nadu. Is it a valid criticism? No. He is the governor for both states (Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu) and there is no Constitutional crisis in Tamil Nadu. It is not a state without a ministry. After Jayalalithaa's death, a ministry has been sworn in. Now also, he has made interim arrangements. It is not that there is no council of ministers. The Election Commission has questioned Sasikala's elevation as the AIADMK general secretary, saying the party cadres also have to elect the general secretary. Yes, she is not elected as per the bylaws of the party. There is no such post as the interim general secretary. What the bylaw says is there should be a team of executives to perform the role of general secretary until a person gets elected. MUST READ features on the Tamil Nadu political drama in the RELATED LINKS below... 'He was doing so well as the CM, which some vested interests didn't like.' 'They didn't like his stature growing day by day.' Ever since O Panneerselvam decided to stand up against Sasikala Natarajan's plans to become Tamil Nadu chief minister, Sathyan Rajan, former IT wing joint secretary, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, and his friend Aspire Swaminthan, the AIADMK's former IT wing secretary, have been trying to garner support for OPS on social media. Sathyan Rajan moved from the corporate world because of his adulation for 'Amma', as former chief minister J Jayalalithaa was known. Now that Amma is no more, he says his support is for Amma's "son", OPS 'Anna' (elder brother). The moment Sathyan Rajan found that OPS had decided to carve a path for himself, he shared the phone numbers of all 132 AIADMK MLAs along with the names of their constituencies on his Facebook page so that people could call them and air their opinion. Sathyan Rajan, left, explains to Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier why he is working for OPS and what his mission is right now. Our job is to ensure that the MLAs hear the voices of the people. After that, it is up to the conscience of the MLAs to act. You have been trying to garner support for OPS through your Facebook page... OPS Anna has been an Amma loyalist. There were several instances where Amma took time off to praise Anna for his loyalty to the party. On occasions when Amma could not function as the chief minister, she entrusted the job to him. Everybody in the party knows that he was Amma's trusted lieutenant. Anna is Amma's natural successor. When did you get the hint that Sasikala would take over the party and the government? There were indications that the Mannargudi family (Sasikala and her family are from Mannargudi, Tamil Nadu) would try to take over the party. The first open indication was their presence around Amma's body (on December 6, 2016). Sasikala being there with Amma at Apollo hospital did not surprise anyone as she was the person who was taking care of Amma, but when nobody was allowed to see Amma, speculation started. People grew suspicious and a lot of stories started floating around. Then, like Anna said on Wednesday, Dinakaran told him that he wanted his sister to be the CM. It was a surprise to all of us because there was no urgency to take over the government. We have the majority to rule for another five years. Why this hurry to take over when Anna was doing well? We don't know. He is Amma's true successor as she herself had chosen him as one several times. He was identified by Amma as his successor. Why was it that nobody including OPS spoke till that day? OPS was the person who put forward her name for the post of general secretary and also the chief minister. Preparations for the swearing-in ceremony had also taken place on that day. Why did he choose to open up on the day he did? He only had the interests of the party till then. He has been with the party from 1977. He has seen the party grow from 25 lakh members to 1.5 crore. He didn't want to do anything that would be detrimental to the party's image. But when he was pushed against the wall, he had to retaliate, again for the party. What was the trigger point that made him go to Jayalalithaa's samadhi? He was doing so well as the CM, which some vested interests didn't like. They didn't like his stature growing day by day. Why did you decide to support OPS and not Sasikala? I would describe OPS Anna as Amma's son. He is Amma's true successor as she herself had chosen him as one several times. He was identified by Amma as his successor. Did she identify anybody else? There is nobody more loyal than him in the party and that was why Amma chose him. How are you using social media to garner support for OPS among the youth of the state? What happened was none of the MLAs was accessible to the people for the last couple of days. Anna said the MLAs should talk to the people of their constituencies and take a decision. He said he would abide by whatever people say. That's when I decided to share the numbers of all MLAs with the names of their constituencies on my Facebook page. You won't believe, in three hours' time, it crossed five-and-a-half lakhs hits. Let the judgment come from the people who elected these MLAs. After this, so many people have started calling their MLAs. We have the majority to rule for another five years. Why this hurry to take over when Anna was doing well? We also have publicised a toll-free number (92892 22028) to which anyone who wants to support OPS Anna can call. We also have a WhatsApp group for 50 districts connecting people with the leaders. Now, the cadres also have started expressing their views. Our phones are continuously ringing ever since we started our campaign. We know people are behind Anna. Yesterday (Wednesday), 3,000 students came to Anna's residence to pledge their support to him. There is a huge amount of public support for Anna. There is a youth uprising in the state after the jallikattu incident and the youth of the state is fully behind him. Our job is to ensure that the MLAs hear the voices of the people. After that, it is up to the conscience of the MLAs to act. Our mission is to see that OPS Anna forms the government. Do you think OPS got the courage to stand up because of the support he gets from the Centre? I don't think so. The Centre has nothing to do with his action. It is the media that is talking about the Centre's role. See, what you need is the support of the people and not the Centre. The Centre cannot ask the MLAs and people to support him. And he is one person who doesn't get carried away by power. He is only voicing the opinion of the people. More MUST READ features on Tamil Nadu's political drama in the RELATED LINKS below. Enraged by his raincoat jibe against Manmohan Singh, the Congress on Thursday announced that it will boycott Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Parliament during the entire budget session and will try to bring on board other opposition parties too. We will boycott the prime minister. We will not listen to him, but we will not assault the dignity of the office of the prime minister. At the same time, we will continue to protest, we know that he is an obdurate person. It is sad that we have an arrogant person who occupies the chair of the PM. He has demeaned his office repeatedly by his choice of words and language, Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma told reporters. The Congress this morning held a strategy meet of opposition parties including the Janata Dal-United, the Left, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Samajwadi Party over the issue. Sharma claimed that the other parties too will join them. Asked if the boycott will be for this Session alone, he said this is a long session and the opposition parties will meet in the inter-session period. Now we have gone into recess and we will be coordinating our position very closely. Do not worry, let us meet again on March 9 in Parliament. This story which the Prime Minister has scripted, we will be concluding. That final chapter will be written by us and the prime minister must note that. I am making it very clear. He has started the first chapter, we will write the last chapter on this subject, Sharma said, giving out a virtual threat to the ruling dispensation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had yesterday mocked his predecessor Manmohan Singh while replying to a debate on the Motion of Thanks on the Presidents Address in Rajya Sabha, saying one should learn the art of bathing with a raincoat on from him as there was not a single taint on him despite so many scams taking place during his regime. Congress had yesterday taken strong exception to the raincoat jibe and staged a walkout and demanded an apology from him. The Congress also disrupted the proceedings in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday and protested in the Lok Sabha. The Congress leader said the Prime Minister is intolerant to criticism. He lives in denial. He is also arrogant. He has lowered the dignity of office repeatedly and has used language which is unacceptable in political debates. He has dragged the political debates to unacceptable depths. We have been urging the PM to desist from doing this. But, he relishes using foul languages and insulting the Opposition, he said. The Congress party consciously took this decision because we could not be sitting there as he was abusing our leaders, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh without any provocation from him, and insulted the memory of Indira Gandhi, who was martyred, he said. Sharma said Modi violated the rules of business and ethics of the House and breached the privileges of members, as Manmohan Singh is a sitting member and the prime minister could not have said anything against him without informing him and bringing a substantive motion. This, he said, has been pointed out on Thursday. This must be understood. We know what the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) is saying that we have disrespected the PM. The prime minister has insulted Indian democracy in Parliament and we cannot accept what he has done, he said. Speaking in the Rajya Sabha, Congress leader P Chidambaram said United States President Donald Trump had said some of the most outrageous things in his campaign. But the day he was sworn in as President, how did he begin his speech? He said, My fellow Americans, President Obama, President Clinton, President Carter, President Bush and millions of people who have gathered here. That is the respect you have to show, he said. Chidambaram noted that every prime minister would, one day, become an ex-prime minister and that is the law of nature. I think, the prime minister owes it to this House to say -- at least, he should say that he did not mean any disrespect to Dr Manmohan Singh, and that if it is construed as derogatory language, he unhesitatingly withdraws those words that he has said, and then he could go on talking about policies and programmes and, criticism of our various decisions. That is perfectly legitimate, he said. Party MP Shashi Tharoor said Modi should apologise and said such remarks are unheard of in Indian parliamentary democracy. We are very, very disappointed by what the PM said yesterday (on Wednesday). I do not think in the history of Indian parliamentary democracy, we have ever heard the PM insulting his predecessor in such a manner using bathroom analogy. This is simply not heard of (before), he said outside Parliament. Seeking withdrawal of the statement, he said, In politics, there can be differences but you will never find this kind of statement in our parliamentary debate. PM should withdraw such remarks. There are political differences in our country. In election campaign, people say rude things to each other. But in the House, certain decorum must be maintained. We feel strongly that it should not have happened. We have asked for an apology because he has not withdrawn it so far. If he withdraws it, then the matter will end. But if he does not withdraw, then apology is the only way in which he can make up for the hurt he has caused unnecessarily, the former Union minister said. Sharma accused Modi of deliberately provoking the opposition by using such language that was unbecoming of a prime minister. The manner in which the PM has conducted his own speeches, the kind of language that he has used and the fact that he has deliberately provoked and targeted the Opposition. It is unbecoming of the prime minister when he calls the opposition parties SCAM. Giving an impression that he alone and his party alone represent the correct values and integrity required in Indian democracy. We condemn it, he said. Sharma said the Congress in Rajya Sabha was conscious of the office of the prime minister, not the person occupying that position, and chose to walk out rather than prevent him from speaking on Wednesday. The BJP in the past prevented Dr Manmohan Singh from speaking. We did not prevent the prime minister from speaking as he was engaged in vitriolic abuse and misleading the people, he said. Sharma alleged that Modi has injected bitterness in the political narrative. He has used language which is unacceptable in political debates. He has also dragged political debate to unacceptable low depths. We have been repeatedly urging the Prime Minister to desist from doing this but it is very clear that he actually relishes using foul language, insulting and berating the political opposition, he said. Sharma said the prime minister does not have humility and has not indicated that he will reflect and correct the course by either withdrawing his words insulting Indira Gandhi based upon a fabricated report. There are many books written on Narendra Modi which are available...but we have not quoted from the book. He is lying to defend himself, he said, adding that his party respects parliamentary tradition and that shows the difference between the Congress and the BJP. It is now for the people to judge where the country is heading with this kind of mindset and the kind of lies being peddled. I am not comfortable using this word but I am constrained to do so...I cannot even say that they are moving away from truth, what is lie is a lie and prime minister does so with aplomb, he said. On the question of any Privilege Motion against the Union finance minister for his remarks that there was no shortage of cash for a single day, Sharma said already some members have taken it up. Either he has to correct his statement which ministers are allowed and I hope that the finance minister who understands the parliamentary rules and privileges will correct that wrong statement of his," he said. Sharma also alleged that the finance ministers intervention in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday was necessitated as the prime minister despite conveying to the chairman that he will come at 4.30 pm, did not appear. He sent a message that he will only start from his office after the deputy leader of Congress sits down. It is very clear because he is uncomfortable with criticism.... If there is disrespect and insult, it is coming from his side not from us, he said. Exiled ex-Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed on Thursday declared that he would return to his country and run for presidency in elections next year, as he asserted that India will be "mindful of assisting democracy". "We have decided that the MDP (Maldivian Democratic Party) will produce a candidate, I am hopeful to be that candidate," Nasheed told media persons in Colombo after talks with party leaders. The 49-year-old leader, who faces jail in the Maldives for his 2015 conviction on terror-related charges, said the MDP would hold primaries to select the presidential candidate. Asked about the possibility of being barred from the polls, Nasheed said if the MDP is not allowed to field their choice of candidate they will look for an alternative common candidate to challenge incumbent Abdulla Yameen. "In 2008 and 2013 they thought I will not be able to contest but I did," said Nasheed, the country's first democratically elected president who was toppled in 2012. The former President said he met his MDP officials here to work out the future political strategies. He said the international community was working behind the scenes to guarantee the democratic freedoms in the Maldives and "those efforts will bear fruit". Nasheed said the international partners should ensure an all inclusive election. Nasheed was granted political asylum in the UK last May after he was authorised by the Maldivian government to travel for medical treatment while serving a 13-year sentence for a terror-related offence. Yameen's administration wants to jail him for breaking the terms of his release to go abroad for medical treatment. Despite the threat, Nasheed said he wants to return to his country. He alleged that Yameen's government would jail anyone who would express desire to contest the next presidential election. Nasheed said the Indian attention on the Maldives was important. "India will be mindful of what is happening currently," Nasheed said, adding that MDP's contacts with India were ongoing. "We always meet Indian officials and we are in conversation with the Indian government. I believe India will be mindful of assisting democracy," he said. Nasheed was sentenced to jail in March, 2015, after he was convicted on a terror-related charge, inviting widespread international condemnation. Yameen narrowly beat Nasheed in a controversial run off election in 2013. A 73-year-old woman has separated from her husband of over 20 years after he voiced support for Donald Trump in the run-up to the United States presidential polls. Gayle McCormick, a retired California prison guard, said that she was shocked last year when her husband Bill McCormick, 77, mentioned during a lunch with friends that he planned to vote for Trump. "I was in shock. It was the breaking point. The Trump issue was the catalyst," she told the People magazine. It was the toughest decision Gayle, who is now living in her own apartment in Washington, said she has ever had to make. "It took us many, many months to make this decision. We went to counselling and saw a priest. This wasn't a snap decision," she said. Gayle, who describes herself as a Democrat leaning toward socialist, met Bill in 1980 while they were both working at the same prison. She said that she felt like she had no voice in the relationship. "When things are 51 per cent good and 49 per cent bad, you just stay. I was tired and older and I didn't want to argue and neither of us was going to change," Gayle said. When politics would come up, she would usually walk away, she said. It was only when Trump came up that she knew she could not stay silent. "I just couldn't. I was surprised Bill could agree with Donald Trump on anything," she said. Although Bill ended up not voting for Trump in the election, Gayle knew they still had to separate. "We are just too different. It had more to do with the fact that I had not been true to myself for so long and that I had not stood up for myself for so long. I need to recapture myself," Gayle said. "It's hard and not an easy thing. I love him and I want him to be happy," she said. The news about their separation comes amid stark political divide in the country over President Trump's ban on refugees and visa holders entering the country from seven Muslim-majority countries. Several hundred people have protested against President Trump's immigration order. Photographs: Tim Exton/ReutersTV/Reuters IMAGE: AIADMK general secretary V K Sasikala hands over a letter presumably containing the names of MLAs who elected her as the legislature party leader to Tamil Nadu Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao at Raj Bhawan in Chennai on Thursday. Photograph: @AIADMKOfficial/ Twitter All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary V K Sasikala on Thursday staked claim to form the government during a 40-minute meeting with Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao, who arrived in Chennai in the afternoon. Couple of hours after caretaker Chief Minister O Panneerselvam visited Rao, Sasikala called on the governor and gave him a letter presumably containing the names of MLAs who elected her as the AIADMK legislature party leader, and requested him to invite her to form the government. However, the governors response is not immediately known. Sasikala arrived at 7.25 pm at the Raj Bhavan and left after a meeting that lasted about 40 minutes. Before meeting the governor, she visited the memorial of the late Jayalalithaa at the Marina Beach in Chennai. IMAGE: Sasikala pays tribute to the late Jayalalithaa at her memorial at Chennai's Marina Beach. Photograph: R Senthil Kumar/PTI Photo Attired in her signature green saree, Sasikala was accompanied by hundreds of supporters, including some senior ministers, to Jayas memorial. A teary-eyed Sasikala placed before the memorial a big closed envelope believed to be the list of MLAs who have endorsed her candidature for the top post. She offered rose petals and kneeled at the memorial. IMAGE: The AIADMK chief's supporters also joined her in prayers with folded hands. Photograph: R Senthil Kumar/PTI Photo Her supporters also joined Sasikala in prayers with folded hands. On Sunday, Sasikala was elected the Legislature Party Leader, paving her way for her elevation as the chief minister. The AIADMK had claimed that 131 MLAs had attended a meeting called by her on Wednesday in the wake of a rebellion by Chief Minister O Panneerselvam. The O Panneerselvam camp on Thursday received a major boost with the AIADMK Presidium Chairman E Madusudanan switching over to the chief minister's side, saying he wanted to "safeguard" the party. "To protect AIADMK, everybody should join hands with OPS (Panneerselvam)," Madusudanan said, adding that he did not want the party to get into the hands of a single family. He was flanked by Panneerselvam and party Rajya Sabha MP Dr V Maithreyan, amid a celebratory mood in the rival camp. "We welcome him with gratitude," a jubilant Pannerselvam said and hailed Madusudanan as a tall leader who had worked for the party since the founding days of AIADMK alongside its founder MG Ramachandran. Panneerselvam slammed Sasikala as a "traitor enacting dramas" who had "betrayed" late Jayalalithaa. He said that it was Sasikala who had said in 2011 that she did not aspire for any post or position while "pleading" with Jayalalithaa to reinduct her in the AIADMK after being expelled from the party. A very senior office-bearer in the party hierarchy, Madusudanan, along with other top functionaries like KA Sengottaiyan, had urged Sasikala to to take over the reins of the party, soon after the Jayalalithaa's demise in December last year. Several other leaders, including Maithreyan, former Electricity Minister Natham Viswanathan and former Local Administration Minister KP Munusamy were among those who welcomed Madusudanan when he arrived at Panneerselvam's residence in Chennai. The catchy one liner UP ko ye saath pasand hai dotting the Uttar Pradesh skyline does not seem to be reflected on the ground as fledgling alliance partners -- the Samajwadi Party and the Congress -- are crossing swords in over a dozen assembly seats. "Yes, there are some seats on which candidates of both the parties are challenging each other. The issue will be resolved," SP chief spokesman Rajendra Chowdhury said. Even UP Congress chief Raj Babbar said the matter would be sorted out in a couple of days. "Leaders of both parties will campaign in support of candidates declared by the alliance on the seats where nominees of both sides have filed their papers," he said. But, political observers say that with only a day left for the polling for the first phase on February 11 the damage seems to have been done already with candidates of both parties already on the ground. "The alliance is set to witness some unfriendly contest in these seats," they said. The situation is worse in the Gandhi family pocket borough -- Amethi and Raebareli -- represented by Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi in the Lok Sabha. There are 10 assembly seats in Amethi and Raebareli. In Raebareli's Sareni seat Ashok Singh (Congress) and Devendra Pratap Singh (SP) are challenging each other. Likewise, in Unchahar Ajay Pal Singh (Congress) is facing cabinet minister Manoj Kumar Pandey (SP). In Amethi, sitting MLA and Mulayam Singh Yadav loyalist Gayatri Prasad Prajapati is in the fray on SP ticket, while the Congress has decided to field Amita Singh there. In Gauriganj seat too, confusion prevails with Congress candidate Mohd Naeem challenging Rakesh Pratap Singh (SP). The UP Pradesh Congress Committee chief, however, made light of the issue saying, SP candidates had filed their nomination papers when it appeared that the alliance will not come through. "At some places they wanted to withdraw, they could not do so due to uncertainty," he said. A defiant Naeem, however, refused to withdraw his candidature despite the seat-sharing pact between the SP and the Congress. He had unsuccessfully contested the last assembly polls from Gauriganj on a Congress ticket. Ameeta Singh, the present wife of Congress leader Sanjay Singh, too is all set to file her nomination as a Congress nominee from Amethi seat from where Sanjays estranged first wife Garima Singh is contesting on a Bharatiya Janata Party ticket. In state capital Lucknow, the SP has already announced the name of senior minister and sitting MLA Ravidas Mehrotra for Lucknow (Central). After the alliance, Maroof Khan of Congress also filed his nomination from the seat on the pretext of the high commands order. Both Mehrotra and Khan are on campaigning spree and not ready to withdraw and the face off might help the Bahujan Samaj Party turncoat Brijesh Pathak, who is contesting on a BJP ticket. From Zaidpur seat in Barabanki, the Congress has fielded Tanuj Punia, son of former bureaucrat and Congress Rajya Sabha member P L Punia. Tanuj is facing SPs Ram Gopal Rawat, who was expelled from the party after refusing to withdraw. In Kanpur, though Pramod Jaiswal, younger brother of former Union minister and senior Congress leader Sri Prakash Jaiswal, opted out from Arya Nagar (Kanpur) in favour of the SPs Amitabh Bajpai but could not withdraw his papers and technically remains a candidate. In Muzaffarnagar, the Election Commission has allotted party symbols to the candidates of both the Congress and the Samajwadi Party from Purkazi assembly constituency, the seat which was given to the Congress. In other seats like Baldev (Mathura), Gangoh (Saharanpur), Kol (Aligarh), Purkaji (Muzaffarnagar), Chandpur (Bijnor), Mahrajpur (Kanpur), Kanpur Cant and Bhognipur (Kanpur dehat) Congress and SP candidates are facing each other. Both the allies are also facing strong rebellion from those within the cadre who were aspiring for tickets but have been left high and dry under the seat sharing formula. The SP is facing a bigger challenge from its rebels, who are either fighting as Independents or from other parties in over 100 seats across the state. When his attention was drawn to over ten seats where candidates of both the SP and the Congress have filed their papers despite forming an alliance, All India Congress Committee general secretary and in-charge of UP Ghulam Nabi Azad said SP candidates had filed their papers when they felt that the alliance will not take place. Then there some places where they wanted to withdraw but could not due to uncertainty, he explained. With the state in the midst of hectic electioneering, voters would be confused as to whom to elect and could cost both the alliance partners dearly, said analysts. They said joint posters of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav might not send a message of unity unless ground realities were rectified. Out of the 403 assembly seats, the SP will contest 298 and the Congress the rest 105. Photograph: Akhilesh Yadav/Facebook The contest in Noida is being seen as a battle of prestige for the Bharatiya Janata Party which has fielded Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh's son Pankaj Singh who is making his electoral debut in this crucial assembly election in Uttar Pradesh. Pankaj, 38, an MBA from Amity University, has been active in politics since 2002 and had been in ticket contention since 2007 assembly election when he was almost set to make his debut from Chandauli, the home town of Rajnath. The BJP decided to field Pankaj this time in place of sitting MLA Vimla Batham, who had won the 2014 bypolls. The election in this seat is also important for Union minister and local MP Mahesh Sharma who has considerable influence the area with his chain of hospitals and NGOs. In the 2012 assembly election, Sharma had won the seat polling 77,319 votes and defeated the Bahujan Samaj Party candidate by a margin of 27,676 votes. SP's Sunil Choudhary got 42,031 while Congress' V S Chauhan had polled 25,482 votes and came fourth. When Sharma vacated the seat, Batham won the by-election by polling 1,00,433 votes, defeating the SP candidate by 58,952 votes. Rajinder Awana of the Congress had polled just 17,212 votes. The BSP did not contest. The victory was credited to Sharma at that time. But it may not be such a smooth going for the BJP this time following the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance and the high-pitch campaign by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav with his slogan kaam bolta hai as a leader who delivers. The SP has again fielded Sunil Choudhary, who had lost in 2012, and is hoping to wrest the seat by citing the development works in the area, including flyovers and Metro. Several Union ministers have come to campaign for Pankaj, who is also going door-to-door with his wife to reach out to voters. A section of the BJP unit feels that Noida was considered a safe seat and that is why the ticket was given to Pankaj, who is also state party general secretary. It has, however, given fodder to the BJP's detractors who have alleged that the party which had been vocal against dynastic politics has been forced to give tickets to kin of its prominent leaders. Visiting the residential welfare associations, Pankaj is seen handing out his cards and promising to resolve all their problems even as he takes pains to dismiss the 'outsider' tag. He also claims that the Akhilesh government has been taking credit for the works facilitated by the Centre and promises that a BJP government in the state will punish the corrupt. Noida, which is contiguous to Delhi, has an electorate of 4,28,259. In 2012 the voting percentage was 49.98 per cent. Observers say that while the SP-Congress alliance may change the equation, it has to be seen if Congress votes will go in the kitty of SP. Also, the BSP has been stronger than these two parties in the area. There are over a dozen candidates in the fray including Brijesh of the Rashtriya Lok Dal and Jayaram Bansal of the Shiv Sena. IMAGE: BJP state general secretary and candidate for Noida assembly seat Pankaj Singh during the campaign. Photograph: @pksbjp/Twitter With heavyweight turncoats on its side against an emaciated Congress line-up, Bharatiya Janata Party may appear to have an advantage in Uttarakhand which goes to polls on February 15 but absence of a chief ministerial candidate may prove to be a stumbling block. While Congress is going to the polls with a definite face in Harish Rawat, BJP has left people guessing about who would get the top office if the latter is voted to power, the presence of too many strong turncoats on its side only adding to the confusion. Non projection of a CM candidate despite going to the polls with an anti-corruption plank has confused voters who cannot decide who they should vote for if not for Harish Rawat. Political observers feel projecting someone with a clean image as the BJPs CM candidate and an alternative to Rawat would have done the party a world of good as it would have been easier for people to make a choice. Presence of a galaxy of ambitious leaders in the party including about a dozen who switched over to it from the Congress has only deepened the voters dilemma rather than ameliorating it. This uncertainty in the voters mind may prove expensive for the BJP and work in favour of Harish Rawat and his party, they maintain. They feel it is this awareness on part of BJP that has made the party throw all its might into buttressing its chances with most party heavyweights including Amit Shah busy campaigning in different parts of the state. While Shah, Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari and Shahnawaz Hussain have already toured the state to drum up support for the party the next few days will see Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing as many as four rallies to brighten its prospects. However, BJP downplays non projection of a CM candidate saying it is not a problem for the party. We have a galaxy of leaders deserving of the post. Once the party is elected to power, the partys parliamentary board will take a call on the issue, Shahnawaz Hussain said at a press conference on Wednesday. He said BJP won Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand without projecting a CM candidate in these states. Image: BJP president Amit Shah addressing voters in Uttarakhand. Photograph: PTI Photo 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. Security Council, UN mission condemn attack near Afghanistan's Supreme Court Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 8 February 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Security Council, UN mission condemn attack near Afghanistan's Supreme Court, 8 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/589c687240e.html [accessed 6 November 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. 8 February 2017 - The Security Council and the United Nations political mission in Afghanistan have joined Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in condemning the deadly attack outside of the Supreme Court in Kabul. This attack is nothing short of an atrocity. Those responsible for planning and carrying out this horrendous act must be brought to justice, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Afghanistan, Tadamichi Yamamoto, said in a statement issued earlier today. Mr. Yamamoto, who is the head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), noted that the attack fits a pattern of violence against judicial authorities in recent years. Since 2015, UNAMA documented at least 74 attacks, which killed 89 people and injured 214 others. The Mission reminds all parties that judges and staff of civilian courts including the Supreme Court are civilians, the statement said. Attacks intentionally targeting civilians are tantamount to war crimes. At least 20 civilians, mostly female employees of the Supreme Court, were killed yesterday when a suicide attacker detonated a device outside the Court. No person or group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. Calling the killings heinous and cowardly, the Council members late last night reiterated their serious concern at the threats posed by groups such as the Taliban, Al-Qaida, and the Islamic State (ISIL), on the local population, National Defence and Security Forces and the international presence in Afghanistan. They also stressed that no violent or terrorist acts can reverse the Afghan-led process along the path towards peace, democracy and stability in Afghanistan, which is supported by the people and the Government of Afghanistan and by the international community. Yemen: UN, partners seek $2.1 billion to stave off famine in 2017 Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 8 February 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Yemen: UN, partners seek $2.1 billion to stave off famine in 2017, 8 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/589c68da40c.html [accessed 6 November 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. 8 February 2017 - The United Nations and humanitarian partners today launched an international appeal for $2.1 billion to provide life-saving assistance to 12 million people in Yemen in 2017 the largest-ever humanitarian response plan for the war-torn country. Two years of war have devastated Yemen Without international support, they may face the threat of famine in the course of 2017 and I urge donors to sustain and increase their support to our collective response, said UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O'Brien in a press release on the launch of the Humanitarian Response Plan for Yemen in Geneva. Humanitarian partners are ready to respond. But they need timely, unimpeded access, and adequate resources, to meet the humanitarian needs wherever they arise, said Mr. O'Brien, who is also the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs. Without international support, they may face the threat of famine in the course of 2017 He noted that since March 2015, violent conflict and disregard by all parties to the conflict for their responsibility to protect civilians have created a vast protection crisis in Yemen and millions of people face threats to their safety and basic human rights every day. In addition, deliberate war tactics are accelerating the collapse of key institutions and the economy, thereby exacerbating pre-existing vulnerabilities. VIDEO: UN Humanitarian Coordinator Jamie McGoldrick warns against imminent threat of famine in Yemen. Credit: UN News AUDIO: According to Jamie McGoldrick, the Humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen, mass starvation for millions across the country is likely without a massive emergency aid package. Credit: UN News This has left an alarming 18.8 million people more than two thirds of the population in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which also estimates that 10.3 million people are acutely affected and nearly 3.3 million people including 2.1 million children are acutely malnourished. We remain committed to the principle that our plans must be grounded both in evidence and actual capacity, and I ask donors today to help Yemen in its moment of great need, said the Humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen, Jamie McGoldrick. In 2016, 120 national and international partners including UN agencies and non-governmental organisations working out of humanitarian hubs in Aden, Al Hudaydah, Ibb, Sana'a, and Sa'ada assisted more than 5.6 million people with direct humanitarian aid. Source: OCHA 2017 Humanitarian Response Plan for Yemen Libyans must make 2017 the 'year of decisions,' UN envoy tells Security Council Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 8 February 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Libyans must make 2017 the 'year of decisions,' UN envoy tells Security Council, 8 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/589c68fc40c.html [accessed 6 November 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. 8 February 2017 - Still seeking to implement a political accord signed more than a year ago, Libyans must make 2017 "the year of decisions" and political breakthrough, the United Nations envoy for the North African country urged today. "We are beginning to see an emerging consensus among parties. 2017 must be a year of decisions and political breakthrough," Martin Kobler, the Secretary-General Special Representative and head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), told the UN Security Council. He noted that 2016 was spent seeking to implement the agreement and begin the re-establishment of State authority across the country. Despite some gains, "Libyans are not in a position to address the root causes of divisions," he cautioned, stressing that some important decisions must be taken, including on possible amendments to the political agreement, on ways to form a strong army and police force, and on how best to utilize the revenues from oil and gas exports for the benefit of all Libyans and end the dire humanitarian situation in the country. Mr. Kobler said many meetings have taken place to discuss amendments to the agreement, including the question of the Supreme Commandership of the army and the future composition and role of the Presidency Council. On the security front, he said that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da'esh) terrorist group, which one year ago was expanding its territory in Libya, now controls none. However, it still poses a threat and the fight against terrorism is far from over, he added. "The country's borders remain porous. Terrorists, human and weapons traffickers and criminal gangs continue to exploit the security vacuum," he warned, welcoming the initiative of the neighbouring States to form a panel of experts to develop recommendations on how to improve regional border security. The on-going formation of the Presidential Guard is a step in the right direction but is a transitional measure until a unified Libyan army is formed. Turning to the economy and finance, he said that despite its wealth and abundant natural resources, the country saw living conditions and public services deteriorate over the past years. However, oil production has increased to over 700,000 barrels per day, and the 2017 budget has been agreed at 37.5 billion Libyan dinars (about $26 billion). "This is an opportunity to address much-needed service delivery," in particular in the area of health, he said. Mr. Kobler also voiced concerns about the human rights abuses against migrants, especially those in detention centres. In January, a workshop was held in Malta with Libyan experts and activists, to establish a roadmap for national reconciliation. "A process is needed to heal the wounds of years of conflict and oppression," he said. "I am hopeful that with bold decisions and actions we will witness a political breakthrough that can place Libya on the path of peace, prosperity and stability," he concluded. AUDIO: Martin Kobler, the head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), told the Security Council that 2017 "must be a year of decisions" where political deadlock in Libya is broken in order to restore basic services to the people. Cote d'Ivoire could be 'success story' if peacekeeping gains fully backed, Security Council told Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 8 February 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Cote d'Ivoire could be 'success story' if peacekeeping gains fully backed, Security Council told, 8 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/589c692640c.html [accessed 6 November 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. 8 February 2017 - Cote d'Ivoire is on the path to durable stability, the United Nations envoy for the country today told the Security Council, but warned that authorities need to invest more in national reconciliation and transitional justice, and to improve the economic, social and cultural rights of Ivoirians. "With a new Constitution and an inclusive legislature, Cote d'Ivoire is presented with the opportunity and momentum to fully consolidate the country's achievements towards long-term stability," Aichatou Mindaoudou, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Cote d'Ivoire said presenting the latest Secretary-General's report on developments in the country. She noted that the people of Cote d'Ivoire must more fully enjoy "the dividends of the thriving economy that has remarkably recovered since the post-election crisis of 2010/2011." The country is on track to becoming Africa's fastest-growing economy, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This is a remarkable change from 2010, when the Security Council, at the request of the Government, agreed to keep the UN peacekeeping mission that Ms. Mindaoudou heads, known by the French acronym ONUCI, on the ground to protect civilians, protect good offices and support the Ivorian Government in disarmament, among other responsibilities. All peacekeepers are now due to leave the country in four months, as agreed by the Council and the Government in resolution 2284 (2016), with the majority of the Mission's uniformed personnel to depart by 15 February. Special Representative for Cote d'Ivoire Aichatou Mindaoudou addresses the Security Council. UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe Addressing the Security Council for one of the last times before the Mission winds down in April, said the work of the UN in Cote d'Ivoire could be "a real success story" if the authorities finance activities to consolidate the peacekeeping gains ONUCI made over the past 14 years. "In all of these, our combined support - the Security Council, Member States, international and regional partners, and the UN system in Cote d'Ivoire - remains essential to ensure that Cote d'Ivoire is definitely heading towards sustainable peace and stability," she stressed. She also highlighted the need to investigate and prosecute crimes committed during the post-2010 election crisis, particularly those related to sexual and gender-based crimes. "The timely and expeditious adjudication of such cases is critical to ensuring the safety and security of the most vulnerable of societies - women and children," said Ms. Mindaoudou. The Special Representative also called for greater efforts to enhance the standard of living of soldiers and to organize a professional army. She said it was "essential" that authorities prioritize the institutional reforms of the military, gendarmerie and police, as well as reinstate ex-combatants. The comments come as ONUCI peacekeepers reported that they were monitoring sporadic arms fire by disgruntled soldiers of the Ivorian Special Forces who say they were not paid the bonuses that the Government promised them. Colombia: UN chief Guterres welcomes start of peace talks with ELN Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 8 February 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Colombia: UN chief Guterres welcomes start of peace talks with ELN, 8 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/589c694540c.html [accessed 6 November 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. 8 February 2017 - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has welcomed yesterday's launch of formal peace talks between the Government of Colombia and the National Liberation Army (ELN) in Ecuador's capital, Quito, his spokesperson said today in a statement. In the talks with the second-largest opposition group, the Government seeks an agreement similar to the one reached last year with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), to end a five decade-long conflict. "Resolving this conflict is essential to achieving a comprehensive peace in Colombia, to saving lives and to advancing sustainable development across the whole country," said the statement. "The Secretary-General takes note of the commitment of the parties to listen to the voices of the communities affected by the conflict," it stated, adding that the UN chief commended Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, Norway and Venezuela for their commitment as guarantors, as well as the other accompanying and supporting countries. Somalia: UN mission pledges support as new President will face 'daunting challenges' Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 8 February 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Somalia: UN mission pledges support as new President will face 'daunting challenges', 8 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/589c697240c.html [accessed 6 November 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. 8 February 2017 - Congratulating former Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi 'Farmajo' on his election as Somalia's new President, the United Nations Assistance Mission in the country (UNSOM) said the UN and the wider international community are ready to assist him in addressing the myriad challenges that await his Government. "We [] look forward to working with him and his Government in tackling the many economic, political, security and humanitarian challenges facing Somalia," UNSOM Spokesperson Joseph Contreras told UN News after the presidential polling, which followed a nearly 18 month exercise that included an extended parliamentary electoral process. "It's an historic milestone in the country's emergence from years of chaos and civil war. We feel the process, though flawed in some respects by allegations of corruption and manipulation of some of the parliamentary voting, overall, produced some very positive results," he said, noting that the new Federal Parliament that was elected is the most representative and legitimate national legislature in the history of the country. The new president, known as 'Farmajo,' was declared the winner after two rounds of voting by the Somali Parliament in the capital, Mogadishu. The runner-up, the incumbent, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, chose to withdraw from a third and final round of voting and congratulated the former Prime Minister on his victory. Mr. Contreras said that the voting today, held under "very, very tight security," was conducted in a peaceful, orderly and transparent manner according to the rules stipulated by Somalia's provisional Federal Constitution. "Voting was held at the airport and there had been some questions raised about security, but I take it everything went smoothly," he said, stressing that had been no attempted attacks on the venue whatsoever. He went on to say that the Mission also thanked the outgoing President and his government for the achievements they registered over the past four years "and for the very good working relationship that we enjoyed as the United Nations with President Hassan Sheikh and his team." Looking ahead, Mr. Contreras said that what is next for Somalia first of all is for the new Federal President to name a prime minister. The prime minister then in turn will appoint a cabinet. "And then they will get down to business. The new President [] faces a daunting list of challenges in the coming months and years. There is of course the ongoing drought crisis in many parts of the country where over six million people are facing varying degrees of food insecurity," he explained. Furthermore, Mr. Contreras continued, there is a presumption of the constitutional review process that needs to take place, and that process needs to be completed this year. "Also, the new Federal President will need to promote reconciliation among various communities across Somalia who have disputes over resources, land and other matters." In all this, the international community, led by the UN, stands ready to work closely with the new Government and help it promote the State-building process and consolidate the peace and promote the development of the country, he stated. Israeli legislation on settlements violates international law, says UN chief Guterres Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 7 February 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Israeli legislation on settlements violates international law, says UN chief Guterres, 7 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/589c69f5195.html [accessed 6 November 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. 7 February 2017 - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres today deeply regretted the adoption by Israel's legislative body, the Knesset, of the so called "Regularisation bill," saying the measure contravenes international law and will have "far-reaching legal consequences" for the country. A statement from the UN spokesperson noted that the bill, adopted yesterday, reportedly provides immunity to settlements and outposts in the occupied West Bank that were built on privately-owned Palestinian land. "The Secretary-General insists on the need to avoid any actions that would derail the two-state solution," the statement said, adding that all core issues should be resolved between the parties through direct negotiations on the basis of relevant Security Council resolutions and mutual agreements. "The United Nations stands ready to support this process," it concluded. VIDEO: UN chief Antonio Guterres says he "deeply regrets" adoption of "Regularisation Bill" by Israeli legislators. Credit: UN News Bangladesh: Reject Rohingya Refugee Relocation Plan Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 8 February 2017 Cite as Human Rights Watch, Bangladesh: Reject Rohingya Refugee Relocation Plan, 8 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/589c6b3a4.html [accessed 6 November 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 Bangladeshi government should immediately drop its plan to transfer Rohingya refugees to an uninhabited, undeveloped coastal island, Human Rights Watch said today. Relocating the refugees from the Cox's Bazar area to Thengar Char island would deprive them of their rights to freedom of movement, livelihood, food and education, in violation of Bangladesh's obligations under international human rights law. Between 300,000 and 500,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees, most of them unregistered by the authorities, are in Bangladesh after fleeing persecution in Burma dating back to the 1990s. Since October 2016, nearly 69,000 Rohingya from Rakhine State in Burma have entered Bangladesh to escape attacks by Burmese security forces, including unlawful killings, sexual violence and wholesale destruction of villages. "The Bangladesh government is making the ridiculous claim that relocating Rohingya refugees to an island with absolutely no facilities that is deluged at high tide and submerged during the monsoon season will improve their living conditions," said Brad Adams, Asia director. "This proposal is both cruel and unworkable and should be abandoned." The plan to move long-term refugees to Thengar Char was first suggested in 2015, but was shelved after widespread condemnation. A 2015 letter from the Bangladeshi government on the appropriate location to relocate the refugees stated that it must "minimize conflicts between Bangladeshis and Rohingya." Thengar Chor was apparently chosen because of its distance from inhabited areas it is 30 kilometers from the populated Hatiya island and a long journey from existing Rohingya camps. The government revived the plan in early February 2017 following the new influx of Rohingya refugees. Officials contended that the new arrivals pose a law and order and a public health problem, but have produced no evidence to support this claim. In addition, the government has issued warnings against new arrivals mixing with the general population and established committees to increase security around the camps to prevent refugees from exiting the camps or "intermingling" with Bangladeshi citizens. A cabinet order, passed on January 26, 2017, is unclear as to whether all Rohingya in Bangladesh would be transferred or only new arrivals. However, State Minister for Foreign Affairs Mohammad Shahriar Alom has said that, "The Rohingya will live [in Thengar Char] temporarily and our desire is that the Myanmar [Burma] government will take them back as soon as possible." Journalists who have visited Thengar Char island, which emerged from river silt deposited in the Bay of Bengal just a decade ago, describe it as empty and featureless, subject to cyclones and flooding. During monsoon season, the island is submerged; anyone living on the island will have to be evacuated, and any infrastructure would be damaged. The government announced that it will build embankments around the island to stave off the constant flooding, but similar islands along the coast have long faced flooding and frequent evacuations despite government interventions. One government official from the area, speaking anonymously to the BBC, said that sending people to live there was "a terrible idea," noting that the island is "only accessible during winter and is a haven for pirates." Aid agencies, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which administers the refugee camps, expressed alarm over the revival of this plan, and said that any relocation of the refugees to Thengar Char must be voluntary, and be done through a consultative process after a feasibility study has been completed. Human Rights Watch regards Rohingya people who flee from Burma to Bangladesh to be prima facie refugees for four reasons. First, the Burmese government has effectively denied its Rohingya minority citizenship, failing to protect them and itself perpetrating rampant and systemic violation of their human rights, including restrictions on movement; limitations on access to health care, livelihood, shelter, and education; arbitrary arrests and detention; and forced labor. Second, because of Burma's discriminatory citizenship policies, it also refuses to cooperate in the repatriation of Rohingya, itself a denial of the human right of any person to return to their country, and the basis for a sur place claim to refugee status. Third, Bangladesh is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, and has neither registered Rohingya as refugees since the early 1990s, nor allowed them to lodge asylum claims, thereby abdicating its responsibility to determine their status. Finally, a person does not become a refugee because of recognition, but is recognized because they meet the refugee definition, so refugees in Bangladesh do not forfeit their rights as refugees simply because the authorities have not recognized their status. "The Bangladeshi government needs to treat the persecuted Rohingya humanely, but they shouldn't have to go it alone," Adams said. "Instead of dumping Rohingya on a flooded island, the government should be seeking immediate donor support to improve existing conditions for the refugees." Copyright notice: Copyright, Human Rights Watch Kenya: Historic ruling blocks closure of Dadaab refugee camp Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 9 February 2017 Cite as Amnesty International, Kenya: Historic ruling blocks closure of Dadaab refugee camp, 9 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/589c6bf94.html [accessed 6 November 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. In response to today's court ruling blocking the Kenyan government's unilateral decision to shut Dadaab refugee camp, Muthoni Wanyeki, Amnesty International's Regional Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes, said: "Today is a historic day for more than a quarter of a million refugees who were at risk of being forcefully returned to Somalia, where they would have been at serious risk of human rights abuses. This ruling reaffirms Kenya's constitutional and international legal obligation to protect people who seek safety from harm and persecution. "Stopping the imminent closure of Dadaab refugee camp is an essential first step in respecting and protecting refugee rights in Kenya. Now Kenya and the international community must work towards finding alternative solutions for refugees including local integration options." Background In his ruling, Justice JM Mativo said the government's orders were discriminatory and amounted to collective punishment. He also described the orders as excessive, arbitrary and disproportionate. The High Court ruling came in response to a petition by two Kenyan human rights organizations, Kenya National Commission on Human Rights and Kituo Cha Sheria, supported by Amnesty International, which challenged the constitutionality of the government's directive to shut down Dadaab, the world's largest refugee camp, and the Department of Refugee Affairs. The camp was initially due to be closed on 30 November 2016, but the government announced a six-month delay on 'humanitarian grounds'. Dadaab's closure would effectively have left more than 260,000 Somali refugees with nowhere else to go. Most of those who spoke to Amnesty International for a report published in November 2016 accused Kenyan government officials of coercing them to return to Somalia against their will. Copyright notice: Copyright Amnesty International Yemen: Call for independent probe into journalist's poisoning Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 9 February 2017 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Yemen: Call for independent probe into journalist's poisoning, 9 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/589c6dca4.html [accessed 6 November 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. In the wake of autopsy results indicating that investigative journalist Mohamed Al-Absi was poisoned, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls for an independent and impartial investigation to establish all the circumstances of his death and to bring those responsible to justice. Mohamed Al-Absi, 35, died in a hospital on 20 December after dining with a close relative in the Yemeni capital Sanaa. His burial was delayed at his family's request to allow for an autopsy. The results of analyses carried out in Jordan were finally published on 5 February by a committee consisting of the family, the Yemeni Journalists' Syndicate, and various research centres and NGOs. They show that he was killed by a toxic gas. Some of the circumstances surrounding his death nonetheless remain unclear. According to local and regional media, Al-Absi had been investigating a sensitive story linked to oil companies owned by Houthi leaders shortly before his death. "We deplore this journalist's death in what appears to have been a horrible murder," said Alexandra El Khazen, the head of RSF's Middle East desk. "We request an impartial and independent international investigation, one removed from local political pressure, to establish the exact circumstances of this death, so that his family can eventually obtain justice." Al-Absi was known for his investigative coverage of corruption, the black market and the war economy. He worked for the pro-government newspaper Al-Thawra until Houthi rebels seized the capital in September 2014. He also used to work for the newspapers Al-Sharea and Al-Oula until they were forced to close, in addition to maintaining a personal blog. According to RSF's sources, he knew he was in danger but, for personal reasons, refused to leave Yemen. Ever since the start of the war in Yemen and the Saudi-led Arab coalition's intervention in March 2015, journalists have been caught between the various parties to the conflict. They include the Arab coalition-backed supporters of President Hadi, Houthi rebels backed by former President Saleh's forces, and armed groups in the south of the country such Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Five journalists were killed in 2016 while around 17 journalists and media workers are currently held by the Houthis and Al-Qaeda. Yemen is ranked 170th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2016 World Press Freedom Index. Estimados amigos, Les doy cordialmente la bienvenida a este Blog informativo con articulos, analisis y comentarios de publicaciones especializadas y especialmente seleccionadas, principalmente sobre temas economicos, financieros y politicos de actualidad, que esperamos y deseamos, sean de su maximo interes, utilidad y conveniencia. Pensamos que solo comprendiendo cabalmente el presente, es que podemos proyectarnos acertadamente hacia el futuro. Las convicciones son mas peligrosos enemigos de la verdad que las mentiras. There are decades when nothing happens and there are weeks when decades happen. You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out. No soy alguien que sabe, sino alguien que busca. Only Gold is money. Everything else is debt. Las grandes almas tienen voluntades; las debiles tan solo deseos. Quien no lo ha dado todo no ha dado nada. History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. If you know the other and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share.This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity. The Islamic Revolution has seen a succession of leaders during the past 38 years but the persecution of journalists has never stopped. Only the methods used to silence them have evolved. The revolution's first ten years were marked by massive arrests and the execution of several journalists who supported the Shah's regime, including Ali Asgar Amirani, Simon Farzami and Nasrollah Arman. The deaths of left-wing journalists Said Soltanpour and Rahman Hatefi-Monfared followed. After the official executions of the "dark years," extra-judicial executions were used to eliminate journalists. Late 1998 saw a series of murders. Journalist and editor Ebtekar Ebrahim Zalzadeh's body was found with 15 stab wounds. Potassium was used to murder Majid Charif, a journalist with the magazine Iran-e-Farda. Journalists and writers Mohammad Mokhtari and Mohamad Jafar Pouyandeh were strangled to death. No one ever found the body of Pirouz Pirouz Davani, a newspaper editor who had been abducted in 1997. Letting journalists die slowly The revolution has adopted a different strategy during the past 15 years, one that is less visible but no less effective in throttling freedom of information. By holding journalists for years in prison, where they are subjected to torture, mistreatment and denial of medical care, the regime lets them die slowly. The blogger Sattar Beheshti was tortured to death at the headquarters of the FTA (Iran's cyber-police) in 2012 for daring to criticize the regime on Facebook. The photojournalist Zahra Kazemi and the young blogger Omidreza Mirsayafi also died as a result of being mistreated while in detention. Detained journalists have often put their lives at risk by going on hunger strike in protest again prison conditions or the deaths of fellow journalists in detention. They include Hoda Saber, an Iran-e-Farda writer who died in detention in 2011. Arbitrary arrests The run-up to the revolution's anniversary brought no relief for journalists this year. In fact, the persecution has clearly intensified because of the presidential election due to be held in May. The past two months have been marked by another series of arbitrary arrests under procedures that deny journalists the right to due process, have no basis in Iranian law and constitute a flagrant violation of the Universal Declaration of Human rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The blogger Baran Mehdi Khazali was arrested for the eighth time since 2009 on 5 February, after openly criticizing the regime in interviews for Voice of America and DorTV. He was one of the first to question the official reason for former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's death and to suggest he might have been murdered by drowning. Now held in Tehran's Evin prison, Khazali was given a 14-year jail sentence in 2011. Zeniab Karimian, a woman journalist who hosts a programme on Iran's 3rd TV channel, and Saleh Deldam, a young filmmaker, were arrested at their home on 23 January by plainclothesmen and were taken to an unknown location. Since then, their families have been told nothing of their fate. Borna News social affairs editor Tahereh Riahi was arrested at her workplace on 27 December and was placed in solitary confinement in Section 209 of Evin prison. According to the information obtained by RSF, she is now in very poor physical and psychological health. Prison or flogging Prison is not the only method used to silence journalists. Under the Islamic penal code, corporal punishment can often be applied. The various penalties available to judges include flogging in addition ot stoning, torture and death. Under articles 609 and 698, criticizing government officials or publishing false news is punishable by 74 lashes. Although inhuman, degrading and primitive, this punishment has often been used during the past ten years. Five journalists were sentenced to be flogged from 2000 to 2005. And since 2009 (and the protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's controversial reelection in June of that year), no fewer than 40 journalists and citizen-journalists have been sentenced to a total of 2,000 lashes. The tendency to use this cruel and humiliating punishment has increased of late. In 2016, journalist and documentary filmmaker Kaivan Karimi was sentenced to 223 lashes, the journalist Mohammad Reza Fathi was sentenced to 459 lashes and Shahrood News website editor Mostafa Sharif was sentenced to 40 lashes. Gilan Novin and Gilan Noo news website editors Mostafa Brari and Arash Shoa Shargh were sentenced at the end of last month to 114 lashes and 40 lashes respectively. In their case, the sentences have yet to be carried out. But Najafabad News website journalist Hossein Movahedi was administered 40 lashes on 4 January his sentence for allegedly publishing false information. Iran is ranked 169th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2016 World Press Freedom Index. Kenya: Court strikes down criminal defamation laws Publisher Article 19 Publication Date 6 February 2017 Cite as Article 19, Kenya: Court strikes down criminal defamation laws, 6 February 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/589c800c4.html [accessed 6 November 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. ARTICLE 19 welcomes the decision today by Kenyas High Court declaring Section 194 of the Penal Code, which creates the offence of criminal defamation, unconstitutional. ARTICLE 19, alongside Jaqueline Okuta and Jackson Njeru, petitioned the High Court in Nairobi that the provision was a disproportionate and unjustifiable limitation of freedom of expression. Jaqueline and Jackson had been charged under the section for publishing posts about a prominent Kenyan lawyer on a consumer protection Facebook page called Buyer Beware. Jackson is an administrator of the page. Justice JM Mativo declared that Section 194 of the Penal Code is indeed incompatible with the Kenya Constitution, on the grounds that criminal libel is an unjustifiable limitation of freedom of expression. The court found that the prospect of criminal proceedings and a jail term of up to 2 years for defamation was unnecessary, excessive and unjustifiable in an open and democratic society, and the law creates a disproportionate limit on freedom of expression. This judgement is a huge win for freedom of expression in Kenya, and an encouraging step towards respect for human rights. ARTICLE 19 is pleased to see that the threat to freedom of expression presented by criminal defamation laws has been recognised by the courts, in line with the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights, said Henry Maina, Director of ARTICLE 19 Eastern Africa. Section 194 of the Penal Code, regarding Criminal Defamation, has been increasingly used by state officials to target those criticising injustice and impunity online and offline. Todays Judgment is in line with Principle 4 of ARTICLE 19s Defamation Principles Defining Defamation: Principles on Freedom of Expression and Protection of Reputation, which calls for all criminal defamation laws to be abolished without delay, even if they are seldom or never applied, and to be replaced with civil defamation laws. The Principles state that jail terms or excessive fines should never be available as sanctions for such offences. ARTICLE 19 welcomes todays decision, and agrees with Justice JM Mativos statement that the Kenyan government should seek to immediately review similar laws that unjustifiably limit the right of Kenyans to seek, receive and impart information as enshrined in the Constitution of Kenya (2010). Section 194 - Any person who, by print, writing, painting or effigy, or by any means otherwise than solely by gestures, spoken words or other sounds, unlawfully publishes any defamatory matter concerning another person, with intent to defame that other person, is guilty of the misdemeanour termed libel. Copyright notice: Copyright ARTICLE 19 Under mounting pressure from transit advocates, the MTA has agreed to test out a new reduced-fare option for commuters living in Brooklyn and Southeast Queens, according to the Brooklyn borough president's office. The so-called "Freedom Ticket" pilot will temporarily instate a flat fee option for bus, subway and commuter rail travel within city limits. For one rate, a Freedom Ticket holder would travel from point A to B with unlimited free transfers. The pilot, if successful, could be a boon for daily commuters living in so-called transit deserts, who are disproportionately low-income and often rely on lengthy commutes with multiple transfers. While the average New Yorker spends six hours and 18 minutes in transit each week, a recent study by the New York City Transit Riders Council found that residents in Southeast Queens spend, on average, more than twice thatapproximately 15 hours. According to City data, two thirds of New Yorkers who commute more than an hour in each direction make less than $35,000 per year. "The MTA Board has been told we'd see the outline of the Freedom Ticket pilot in the spring, with expected implementation sometime this fall," said Andrew Albert, head of NYCTRC and a non-voting MTA board member. "There is wonderful rail infrastructure running through Brooklyn and southeast Queens, but unfortunately, it is priced beyond the reach of many residents." While the cost of a single-ride freedom ticket has yet to be confirmed, a spokesman for Borough President Eric Adams, whose office issued a celebratory press release Wednesday, said the ticket would represent savings for commuters who would otherwise purchase separate tickets for the subway and commuter rails. Daily, weekly, and monthly options would likely exceed MetroCard rates. NYCTRC estimated in late 2015 that a one-way Freedom Ticket might cost $6.50. That's more expensive than a local bus or subway commute, but nearly half the price of the LIRR-to-subway transferthe most efficient commute option from Southeast Queens to Penn Station, clocking in under 40 minutes. LIRR stations participating in the pilot would likely include Atlantic Terminal, East New York, and Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn, and Laurelton, Locust Manor, Rosedale, and St. Albans in Queens, according to Albert. "Cross-Brooklyn travel is going to get massive hits with the M-train viaduct closures, and then in 2019 with the L train shutdown," Albert told Gothamist. He envisions regular L train riders taking the LIRR two stops from East New York to Barclays Center, a major subway transfer point. LIRR spokesman Aaron Donovan said he could not confirm the Freedom Ticket pilot timeframe. "This is a field study, for select LIRR stations in Brooklyn and Queens," he said. "We haven't yet announced the timeline for when it would take place." But Albert stood by the fall rollout. "That's what we've been told unofficially," he said. According to his organization's 2015 report, just shy of 20,000 LIRR seats are empty on an average peak trip from Jamaica to Penn Station. Therefore, Albert argues, there's room on the commuter rail to accommodate significant switchover. Filling empty seats could potentially help the MTA recoup losses from offering a discounted fare. We rely on your support to make local news available to all Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2022. Donate today News, analysis, and archives on the grassroots in Haiti. Nouvel, analiz, ak achiv sou baz yo an AYITI. Noticias, analisis y archivos sobre el pueblo de Haiti. A look back on all of our reporting of the Delphi murders since 2017 The Facebook pages of Prime Minister Hun Sen and opposition party leader Sam Rainsy are shown in these screenshots, Feb, 2 2016. An appellate court on Thursday upheld opposition party leader Sam Rainsys defamation conviction for claiming Prime Minister Hun Sens media team pumped up the Cambodian leaders Facebook presence with fake supporters. Appellate Court Judge Samrith Sophal agreed with the trial court in a hastily announced decision that was attended only by the government official who oversees Hun Sens Facebook page. Neither Sam Rainsy, who is barred from entering the country, nor his attorney Som Sokong, was present for the decision. This decision was rendered in absentia, yet is regarded by the court as being rendered in the presence of the parties to the proceedings, Som Sokong told RFAs Khmer Service. We are going to appeal this decision in due course. Som Soeun, who is the website administrator for the ruling Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP) in addition to being an official in the Ministry of Culture, said the court had delivered justice. As the CPPs Facebook Working Group leader I am very satisfied with the decisions by the courts that found Sam Rainsy guilty of defaming me publicly, he told RFA. In November, Sam Rainsy was convicted in absentia of defamation by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court municipal court, and he was fined 10 million riel ($2,500) and ordered to pay Som Soeun 15 million riel ($3,750). 'Click farms' Sam Rainsy had accused Hun Sens media team of buying likes on Facebook from click farms abroad to increase the appearance of support for the prime minister. Sam Rainsy told RFAs Khmer Service during a live interview in November that it is Hun Sen who should be liable for compensating the Cambodian people for all his lies and purchasing likes for his Facebook [page]. American companies and Facebook can confirm that Hun Sens Facebook is full of fake likes, he said. He is again a coward for fabricating his popularity and asking his petty people to sue me in his stead. He went on to say that it was hilarious that Hun Sens Facebook page, which is available only in the Khmer language, had received almost a million likes from people in foreign countries such as India where Khmer is not spoken. How could about a million Indians know and support Hun Sen when they dont even speak the language on his Facebook posts? asked Sam Rainsy So, the bottom line is millions of his likes have been purchased. Few from Cambodia Reporters at The Phnom Penh Post in March analyzed the countries of origin for likes on Hun Sens Facebook page after he had surpassed 3 million fans and found that only 20 percent of them originated in Cambodia. Their analysis showed that in the previous month more than half the likes were from abroadmostly from India and the Philippinescalling into question their legitimacy. Sam Rainsy has been living in France since 2015 to avoid arrest for a defamation case brought by former Foreign Minister Hor Namhong in 2008. He has been convicted in several court cases brought by members of the CPP. In October, Hun Sen ordered police, immigration, and aviation authorities to "use all ways and means" to prevent the opposition leader from returning to the country, as Sam Rainsy has pledged to do before the countrys elections. Reported by Moniroth Morm for RFA's Khmer Service. Translated by Nareth Muong. Written in English by Brooks Boliek. Fears are mounting once more over the mental health of Liu Xia, artist and activist wife of jailed Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, after she made an unusual and disturbing phone call to a close friend, defying her strict house arrest at the couple's Beijing home. Liu managed to dial out from her home, where she is confined for most of the time and cut off from contact with the outside world, on Wednesday night, Beijing-based Tibetan author Tsering Woeser said via social media. I am so shocked; I just got a call from Liu Xia, the first in many years," Woeser said via Twitter late on Wednesday. "I asked her how she's doing, and she said not good, and that she'd just tried dialing out on the off-chance to see if it would work," Woeser wrote. "Her voice was trembling all over the place." She said the call was cut off on two occasions, and she only managed a brief exchange with Liu, who she said sounded "far away" and had been drinking. Guangdong-based rights activist Ye Du, a close friend of the family, said on Thursday that Liu Xia is feeling the effects of long-term, solitary house arrest, and experiences mood swings. "I have just spoken to Liu Xia by phone," Ye said. "There has been no relaxation of the surveillance measures from the authorities." "Over Chinese New Year, when everyone else is getting together, she was all alone and under police surveillance," he said. "Her mood was pretty low, and she had a bit to drink and tried to call Wang Lixiong for a chat. Woeser, who is Wang Lixiong's wife, took the call," Ye added. Limited contact Liu Xia was placed under house arrest as soon as Liu Xiaobo's Nobel Peace Prize was announced in October 2010, and has been unable to move around freely or pursue paid work. Friends and family say their contact with Liu Xia has been severely limited since her brother Liu Hui, jailed for 11 years for "bribery" charges in 2013, was released on bailwith strict conditions attached. Liu Xia has been warned that her brother could go back to jail if she has any contact with the outside world, including fellow rights activists, foreign diplomats, or journalists. Ye said Wednesday's phone call was a rare event, as Liu Xia is being controlled by the authorities with constant threats. "The government is controlling Liu Xia by preventing her from speaking to the outside world by phone, by threatening [to deny] her visits with Liu Xiaobo," he said. "When I spoke to her just now, she sounded very frail, as if she has no vitality left in her," Ye said. Severe depression Liu Xia's lawyer Shang Baojun said she is suffering from severe depression as a direct result of being under house arrest. "All of the various pressures have had a huge impact on her," he said. And Beijing-based rights activist Hu Jia said the authorities also control exactly which of her friends she can talk to, when this is allowed. "She's allowed to call some friends who aren't considered very political sensitive," Hu said. "They are mostly Liu Xiaobo's friends, and they include Woeser and commentator Mo Zhixu. She can't call sensitive individuals, including me, on her phone, nor even Liu Xiaobo's lawyer Mo Shaoping." "It's a pretty small list [that she can call]," he said. Hu said Liu Xia has no real freedom at all. "Here [in China], Liu Xia will never know true freedom, unless there is systemic change here, or political reform," he said. "The only way she can be free is if we have universal suffrage." 'Really on edge' Hong Kong activist Yeung Hung, who was once detained for trying to visit Liu Xia at her Beijing apartment, said he was very anxious about her. "I am really on edge after hearing this news, because it doesn't seem that the authorities have relaxed the restrictions on her at all," Yeung told RFA. "She's just confined within those four walls, but there's no such thing as a self-sufficient person. She was always going to try to break through her confinement one day," he said. "A lot of her friends have tried to visit her, but not one has succeeded so far," he said. More than six years after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Liu Xiaobo looks unlikely to be given the chance to seek medical treatment overseas, as high-profile dissidents have done before him. Liu, 60, is unlikely to qualify for parole, because he has never admitted to committing any crime, and friends say he is highly unlikely to accept any deals offered to him by the ruling Chinese Communist Party. Reported by Ding Wenqi for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Wong Lok-to for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. North Korean leader Kim Jong Uns uncle Jang Song Thaek has been executed for trying to overthrow the government, state media announced Thursday, calling the country's once second most powerful figure "a traitor" and "worse than a dog." The official Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) said Jang was executed on Thursday shortly after a special military trial. The United States said the execution demonstrated "the extreme brutality of the North Korean regime." The official Rodong Sinmun newspaper carried a photograph of a handcuffed Jang being held by uniformed guards as he stood trial, Reuters news agency reported. KCNA accused the 67-year-old Jang of a "hideous crime [of] attempting to overthrow the state" and harboring "a wild ambition to grab the supreme power" of the reclusive and nuclear-armed state. "The accused Jang brought together undesirable forces and formed a faction as the boss of a modern day factional group for a long time," KCNA said in an English-language report headlined "Traitor Jang Song Thaek Executed." "From long ago, Jang had a dirty political ambition," the report said. "He dared not raise his head when Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il were alive," KCNA said. Kim Jong Un's father Kim Jong Il died of a heart attack in 2011 while his grandfather Kim Il Sung died in 1994. At the military court hearing on Thursday, Jang said he had attempted to stage a coup d'etat by mobilizing his associates in the military, according to KCNA. The execution came after Jang was stripped of all posts, expelled from the ruling Workers' Party, and accused of mismanagement of the state financial system, womanizing, and alcohol abuse. Photographs released by North Koreas state TV broadcaster this week showed Jang, once seen as the young Kims mentor, being forcibly removed from a meeting in an auditorium by two uniformed men. It was the first time in about four decades that such humiliating pictures of a purged official were made public, underscoring the young Kims ruthless rule, according to experts cited in reports. U.S. following developments The United States said it has no reason to doubt the KCNA report. While we cannot independently verify this development, we have no reason to doubt the official KCNA report that Jang Song Thaek has been executed," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a statement. "If confirmed, this is another example of the extreme brutality of the North Korean regime," she said. "We are following developments in North Korea closely and consulting with our allies and partners in the region. South Korea held a security ministers' meeting to discuss the situation in North Korea, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported. The meeting was chaired by presidential national security chief Kim Jang-soo. South Korean President Park Geun-hye earlier this week said Kim Jong Un had resorted to extreme violence to cement his leadership. "North Korea is now engaged in a reign of terror while carrying out a massive purge to consolidate the power of Kim Jong Un," she told a cabinet meeting, according to her office. Jang is the husband of Kim Kyong Hui, who is the sister of Kim Jong Uns father Kim Jong Il. Jang and Kim Kyong Hui were once seen as the ultimate power couple in Pyongyang, but over the last year she has been less visible, with some reports saying she was seriously ill. North Korea has been under iron clad rule by the Kim family for the past six decades. Those showing any sign of opposition are executed or sent to prison camps. Reported by RFA's Korean Service. Written in English by Parameswaran Ponnudurai. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un started the new year with a provocation aimed at the United States and the incoming administration of President Donald Trump, saying the country could launch an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting the U.S. at any time. Trump retorted with a tweet saying It won't happen!" But now that Trump is in office it remains to be seen how he will handle such threats from Pyongyang. RFAs Roseanne Gerin asked North Korea expert Andrei Lankov of Kookmin University in Seoul about the Trump administrations stance towards North Korea, Pyongyangs approach to the new U.S. administration, the future of the Kaesong joint industrial complex, defections by high-level officials, and North Koreas response to the disarray in South Korean politics. What follows is an edited version of their conversation. RFA: What policy should the Trump administration pursue in East Asia to contain North Korea? Lankov: Im not going to suggest a more aggressive policy because I already think its way too aggressive. The ideal policy, which is not going to be implemented anyway, is a policy of basically sunshine, as they say in South Korea, or detente as they used to say in Europe in the 1970s; that is, negotiations with North Korea, lifting all nonmilitary sanctions, although the sanctions targeting nuclear missile development should remain in place, and as many exchanges as possible. Why? If North Korea feels a bit less threatened and much more exposed to the outside world, then the North Korean government will find itself under pressure to change. The current policy of sanctions is actually helping Kim Jong Un to remain in control. As a common rule, sanctions have been a complete failure. Once sanctions were introduced in 2006, the North Koreans began to recover from the grave crisis of the 1990s, and now it is growing pretty fast. However, I understand that what I have said is not going to sell with the American public because sanctions are popular. I think we are indeed likely to see something more aggressive, and I dont like it because it might end up badly. But more likely it will be just a waste of time and resources. But its likely to happen. Im sort of a pessimist. RFA: What direction do you believe the Trump administration will actually take regarding North Korea? Lankov: There is a probability that the Trump Administration will indeed start negotiations. However, once negotiations begin very soon, President Trump and his advisors will learn that North Koreans are not going to negotiate about denuclearization. This is the bottom line for the American leadership, because what North Koreans are going to talk about is not disarmament, but arms control; that is, some agreement that would recognize them as a de facto nuclear power. If theyre satisfied, they will probably be more careful and not do nuclear tests or launch missiles. But its not acceptable to the United States for the time being, though more and more American diplomats are beginning to say privately that at the end of the day this is the only realistic solution, because everything else is worse. Anyway, it looks like Trump probably will try to do negotiations, but hell realize that the only realistic solution is not exactly to his liking. And then there is another threat. North Koreans are working very hard to develop and deploy an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the continental United States. Judging by the speed of their technological advancement in the last few years, they are likely to reach this goal within about five years. It means that in the world there will be another country capable of hitting the United States with a nuclear warhead. There are so far only two such countriesRussia and China. There will be a third country which basically has a pretty bad public image. So the question is whether Donald Trump and his advisors will quietly accept it or whether they will try to use what is called kinetic actionthat is, a preemptive strike against North Korean military facilities. Temptations are high, but the consequences may be quite disastrous because the North Koreans are likely to deliver a counterstrike to Seoul, and the result may be the Second Korean War. RFA: Will North Korea likely change its approach to the U.S., especially considering Secretary of Defense James Mattis recent warning to Pyongyang that any attack on the United States or use of nuclear weapons will lead to retaliation that is both effective and overwhelming? Lankov: North Korea is not going to use nuclear weapons first, at least now, and it is not going to attack the United States; therefore, these warnings dont change anything. Even if North Koreans want to do something, they are not going to do it anyway. But will that attitude change? My feeling is that the North Koreans are sort of terrified now. We know about the preemptive strike talk. Technical details are secret or top secret, but the general line of thought in Washington is widely known. And I know that the North Koreans know that these issues are seriously discussed here, and they are sort of disoriented because for many years they were playing the madman. They were behaving irrationally, or they wanted to be seen as irrational, and they benefitted much from that, because when your neighbors believe you can start shooting at you at any time, they are always going to be careful with you. Now the North Koreans have the same attitude toward the current situation in Washington. Sometimes its even kind of joyful to see how the tables have been turned and how North Koreans are really terrified by uncertainty, because for decades they were masters of creating uncertainties and terrifying everybody else. RFA: What about the future of the shuttered Kaesong joint industrial complex? Any chance that North Korea will try to woo back the South Koreas to reopen it? Or will North Korea try to woo another country to reopen the facility? Lankov: If they have a choice, of course, North Korea would prefer another country. The only country that could conceivably do it is China. But why would China do it? Its not a good idea in many ways. Logistics are a nightmare, and conditions are not as good as most people believe. For China, its not a convenient way to do business. The Chinese have a very long history of being cheated by the North Koreans, of being burned by the North Koreans. The common assumption in China is that unless you have government guarantees or unless you plan your business in a quiet sophisticated way, you will likely be cheated of your money if you start making money when working with North Koreans. Therefore, I think China is not the slightest bit interested. But if the progressive liberals win the next presidential elections in South Korea in May or June, they will likely start a kind of soft-landing policy towards North Korea, and once they do it Kaesong will likely be reopened. Essentially the decision will have to be made by the South Koreans, not the North Koreans. The North Koreans cannot woo South Korea because they have almost nothing to offer. And Kaesong was and will be not particularly profitable, perhaps even a money-losing enterprise given all the peculiar features of North Koreas economy. If the left indeed wins the coming electionsand this seems to be pretty certainthere is a very high probability that the Keasong industrial zone will restart. RFA: Can you give us your estimate for the number and trend line for recent high-level DPRK defections, and what impact the outspoken diplomat Thae Yong Ho may have on the situation? Lankov: If you are living in a dictatorship, as a rule of thumb your best policy is to keep as far from the center of power as possible, but this was not the case in North Korea for decades. High-level officials could be arrested and sent to prison for a few years, but most likely they would be returned and basically restored to something similar to their earlier positions. But North Korea under Kim Jong Un is different. He is kind of explosive, he feels offended by other peoples very minor remarks, and he is trigger happy when it comes to people around him. Of course, once some high-level officials are killed or disappear without a trace, people who are just one or two levels below them will run away, not because they dont like the system, but because they realize if they dont run away they are almost certainly dead. Thus we have a large number of defections which is a result of these purges. Everybody who is related to purged people who can travel overseas basically takes a one-way ticket. Thae Yong Ho is a different issue. For the first time ever we have somebody who can claim a role, who can reasonably successfully execute the role of a leader of the North Korean opposition. There were some high-level defectors before, but none of them was even remotely as smart, realistic, outspoken, and educated, as Thae Yong Ho, who comes from the top North Korean aristocracy. There are about 100 such families in the country, and they all by definition are eligible for the best jobs. He speaks good English, which is vital because it is the language of the world, but inside North Korea pretty much nobody speaks English. All things combined, weve probably got a leader of the North Korean opposition. Im not saying hes going to become a Vaclav Havel or an Andrei Sakharov of North Korea, but at least we have a figure who is going to speak his own mind, and maybe if necessary challenge the South Korean establishment, argue with other political forces, and create a serious support base. Hes a very remarkable personage. RFA: Do you expect North Korea to take advantage of the political disarray in South Korea? What forms will Pyongyangs actions take? Lankov: I would expect them to take advantage of it were they not faced with exaggerated disarray in Washington. Right now the North Korean government has its tail between its legs. They are really afraid of triggering some kind of American reaction. In the past, they probably would have done a lot to influence the outcome of the South Korean elections, using everything from military provocations to bribing some politicians with secret funds. But its not going to happen on a large scale now because they are avoiding any wrong move that would cause Americans to start to shoot. Its almost a kind of comical relief to see that they are behaving exactly in a way that for decades has made everybody around behave. Sirinya Sitdhichai, secretary-general of the Thai Office of the Narcotics Control Board, answers questions during a press conference, Feb. 9, 2017. Lao and Thai authorities have launched a manhunt for five people believed to be part of a major drug gang that operated in the Mekong River region, according to Thai authorities. The authorities say they captured four people who are suspected of being members of a drug-dealing operation controlled by Xaysana Keopimpha, but five more people are believed to be on the run in Laos. [We] sent information to the Lao side to investigate, and the Lao Drug National Control and Suppression Department is the lead agency, said Sirinya Sitdhichai, secretary-general of the Thai Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) at todays press conference. Sitdhichai said they got a break in the case after police in Laos recently arrested a suspected drug dealer there. That suspect was not named. The authorities also announced that they had seized Xaysanas assets in the Lao provinces of Khammuan and Vientiane. Xaysana, 41, was arrested on Jan. 19 at Thailands Suvarnabhumi Airport after arriving from Phuket after a five-year long investigation by Thai and Lao authorities. Authorities say Xaysana was supplying caffeine-laced meth tablets known as "yaba" produced in Myanmar throughout the region. Known as Mr. X, Xaysana led a lavish lifestyle that included contacts with high-society figures in the region, a fleet of exotic cars, at least five houses, a 200 hectare rubber plantation, and several bank accounts. The arrest also led the daughter-in-law of former Lao Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong to distance herself on Jan. 24 from rumored ties to Xaysana, Sommaly Thammavong told RFAs Lao Service last month that a photo showing her and Thammavongs son together with crime boss Xaysana was taken by accident." The photo, which has circulated widely on Facebook pages following Xaysanas arrest, shows only a casual social connection among the three, Sommaly Thammavong told RFAs Lao Service. We have not done any business with him, and we didnt know what he was involved in, Thammavong said. Reported and translated by RFA's Lao Service. Written in English by Brooks Boliek. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has discussed security matters in the region in a phone conversation with U.S. President Donald Trump. The Afghan Presidential Office said on February 9 that Ghani and Trump exchanged views on fighting the threat of terrorism in Afghanistan and surrounding countries. It added that Trump said he will meet soon with his Afghan counterpart, without providing details. The United States has some 8,400 troops in Afghanistan on a mission to support and train Afghan security forces. More than 2,200 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion to overthrow the Taliban government. With reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan WASHINGTON -- A top U.S. commander says the war against Taliban fighters in Afghanistan has ground to a stalemate. General John Nicholson also told the Senate Armed Services Committee on February 9 that Russia had significantly increased covert and overt support for the Taliban, with a goal of undermining the United States and NATO." The assessment by Nicholson, the commander of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, was one of the most candid admissions by U.S. officials that the fight there faces problems. There are some 8,400 U.S. troops remaining in Afghanistan since most NATO forces withdrew in 2014. Since then, however, Afghan forces have struggled to fend off the Taliban, which has gained control of more territory than at any time since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Nicholson said Afghan forces had suffered significant casualties, impeding their ability to reach full strength. He said he would need several thousand more troops -- U.S. and other countries' forces -- in order to break the stalemate. The Afghan forces remained hamstrung by corruption and leadership problems, stemming from an entrenched patronage system, he said. Fighting has been particularly difficult in the southern Helmand Province, where Taliban fighters have seized a sizable amount of territory. Local officials estimate the Taliban now controls 85 percent of the poppy-growing province, up from just 20 percent a year ago. Last month, U.S. officials announced that 300 Marines would be deploying to help train and advise local security forces. It is the first Marine deployment to Helmand since the U.S. drawdown in 2014 when the United States announced the end of its combat role in Afghanistan. Moscow -- which fears instability in the Central Asian nations located between Russia and Afghanistan -- has been a lukewarm ally of U.S. coalition efforts there, allowing its territory to be used to transport personnel and materiel. Since 2016, however, Russias role has shifted, Nicholson said, to giving support to the Taliban, though he declined to answer senators questions about the scope of that support. He also said Moscow was giving the Taliban legitimacy by saying its militants are fighting Islamic terrorists while the Afghan government is not. He said that is a "false narrative." He said Russia recently invited members of the Taliban to Moscow for meetings about Afghanistans future but didn't include representatives from the Afghan government. Representatives from Pakistan, China, and other regional countries also were invited, he said. Iran and Pakistan, which has long had intelligence ties to the Taliban, had also significantly complicated the fight waged by the Afghan military, Nicholson said. Nicholson said that the Haqqani network still has safe havens in Pakistan and that Washington should review its relationship with Islamabad. Over the past five years, Iranian officials and state media have touted the "indigenous" ingenuity in the Islamic republic's mass-produced Mohajer-6 combat drone, which Russia has deployed in its war against Ukraine. But a new investigation by Schemes, the investigative unit of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, has found that electronic components underpinning Tehran's production of the Mohajer-6 are far from homegrown. The Mohajer-6 drones contain components produced by companies from the United States and the European Union, both of which have sanctions restricting the export to Iran of such technology that can be used for both civilian and military purposes dual-use technology. The presence of these components in the Mohajer-6 does not mean their producers are in violation of U.S. or EU sanctions, and RFE/RL does not have evidence that this is the case. The investigation also found Mohajer-6 components produced in China, including a real-time mini-camera made by a Hong Kong firm that said it was "very sorry" that its products were being used in war. At least one major foreign-produced component of the Mohajer-6 has previously been identified by reporters in a Mohajer-6 recovered from the battlefield by the Ukrainian military: an engine made by the Austrian manufacturer BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co KG, a subsidiary of the Canadian company Bombardier Recreational Products. But Ukrainian intelligence assesses that the Iranian combat drone contains components from nearly three dozen different technology companies based in North America, the EU, Japan, and Taiwan, the Schemes investigation has found. A majority of these companies are based in the United States. A Schemes reporter who personally inspected the foreign-made drone parts identified components produced by at least 15 of these manufacturers. These include parts made by the U.S. technology firm Texas Instruments, which said in a statement that it does not sell into Russia or Iran and complies with applicable laws and regulations. To identify these components, Schemes reporters examined parts of the Mohajer-6 drone that the Ukrainian military shot down over the Black Sea near the Mykolayiv region coastal town of Ochakiv. They also reviewed Ukrainian intelligence records on the sources of these components. The drone also contains a microchip bearing the logo of a California technology company and a thermal-imaging camera that Ukrainian intelligence says may have been produced by a firm based in Oregon or China. Both Western officials and experts on illicit technology transfers say Iran has built a broad, global procurement network using front companies and other proxies in third countries to obtain dual-use technology from the United States and the EU. "Exporters will look at the request coming from the [United Arab Emirates] or another third country, and they'll think that they're selling to an end user based there, when really the end user is in Iran," Daniel Salisbury, a senior research fellow with the Department of War Studies at King's College London, told RFE/RL. In September, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions specifically targeting Iranian companies that Washington links to the production and transfer of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to Russia for deployment in its war on Ukraine. Fighting rages with no sign of an end more than eight months after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an unprovoked invasion on February 24. "Non-Iranian, non-Russian entities should also exercise great caution to avoid supporting either the development of Iranian UAVs or their transfer, or sale of any military equipment to Russia for use against Ukraine," U.S. Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson said in a statement announcing the sanctions. Chinese Cameras, California Chips Development of the Mohajer-6, the latest model in a series of drones Tehran has used since the 1980s Iran-Iraq War, began in 2017, while mass production began the following year. During a ceremony commemorating the Islamic Revolution, then-Iranian Defense Minister Amir Hatami said that the new tactical drone could perform surveillance, reconnaissance, as well as help destroy targets. Hatami extolled what he described as the drones domestic design, a portrayal echoed in later reports by Iranian media. "The homegrown drone was made through cooperation among the army, Defense Ministry, and Quds Aviation Industries," the English-language Tehran Times quoted an Iranian military official as saying in July 2019. The dismantling of the Mohajer-6 drone recovered by the Ukrainian military shows that the UAV is packed with foreign components. One of these parts is a bright-orange real-time mini-camera produced by the Hong Kong-based company RunCam Technology. Documents seen by Schemes show that Ukrainian intelligence has also identified RunCam as the producer of the camera, which likely assists in remote guidance of the drone. Founded in 2013, RunCam is involved in the development and production of so-called "first-person-view" real-time cameras. "Our users are our friends," the company's website states. The site says that RunCam has two authorized Iranian dealers. Reached by Schemes for comment about the use of its camera in the Iranian drone deployed by Russia in its war on Ukraine, RunCam said in an e-mailed response: "We are very sorry to know that RunCam's products were used in warfare. RunCam is specialized in producing products for model aircraft hobby. We never contact any customer related to military." The provenance of the Mohajer-6 drone-s thermal-imaging camera is more difficult to determine. A Ukrainian intelligence assessment reviewed by Schemes indicates it could be the Ventus Hot model produced by Sierra-Olympic Technologies, based in the U.S. state of Oregon, but that it also resembles a cheaper analog available for sale by the Chinese company Qingdao Thundsea Marine Technology. Qingdao Thundsea Marine Technology said in an e-mailed statement that the company did not "have any business with Iran," because "it will affect our business." The company said it specializes in marine services and is not involved in manufacturing. It also said that it did not have a single successful order for its online advertisement of the thermal-imaging camera resembling the one recovered from the Iranian drone. Sierra-Olympic Technologies did not respond to a request for comment on the possible use of its thermal-imaging cameras in Iranian combat drones in time for publication. Microchips recovered from the drone also featured the logos of the California-based company Linear Technology Corporation and its parent company, the Massachusetts-based semiconductor company Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI). ADI did not respond to an e-mailed request for comment on the possible use of its technology in the Iranian combat drone. Schemes reporters also observed among the components of the Iranian drone a voltage step-down converter produced by Texas Instruments. The company said in an e-mailed statement that it "does not sell into Russia, Belarus, or Iran." "TI complies with applicable laws and regulations in the countries where we operate, and does not support or condone the use of our products in applications they weren't designed for," Texas Instruments said. Schemes reporters also saw several components produced by the California-based technology manufacturer Xilinx, whose parent company is the multinational semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), also based in California. According to Ukrainian intelligence, one of these Xilinx components was integrated into a video data-link module located in the wing of the Mohajer-6 that helped carry out attack missions. "This module transmits information from the board to the missile head. That is, guidance for the missile. With the help of this module, it was possible to guide the missile to the target," a Ukrainian military intelligence representative told Schemes. AMD did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication. 'No Authorization' Previous media reports about the components of the Mohajer-6 drone, including by CNN, have shown evidence that its engine was produced by the Austrian manufacturer BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co KG, whose parent company is the Quebec-based Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP). The Canadian company responded to the reports on October 21, saying in a statement that it "has not authorized and has not given any authorization to its distributors to supply military UAV manufacturers in Iran or Russia." "As soon as we were made aware of this situation, we started an investigation to determine the source of the engines," BRP said. . But Schemes reporters found that the authorized Rotax distributor listed on the Austrian manufacturer's website advertised itself as a Rotax aircraft engines distributor for Iran as recently as December 2020. The distributor, the Italian company Luciano Sorlini S.p.a., has posted multiple magazine advertisements on its websites in which it describes itself as a Rotax distributor for numerous countries. Prior to January 2021, Iran was listed among these countries. The Rotax website also lists a Tehran-based company -- MahtaWing -- as an official service center for its engines. The company, known in Persian as Mahtabal, conducts repairs of Rotax engines, including the Rotax 912 iS, the engine that was found in the Mohajer-6 combat drone recovered in Ukraine. BRP said in an e-mailed statement on November 4 that while Luciano Sorlini S.p.a. is the appointed distributor of Rotax aircraft engines in Iran, "since 2019, no Rotax engines have been sold in Iran, and we will not sell any engines to Iran moving forward." The Canadian company said it had "internal controls" that "significantly" restrict the sale of its products for military purposes. "For example, the sale of any BRP product to operators with any military activity in Iran, Turkey, and Russia is strictly prohibited," BRP said. "We conduct our business in compliance with all EU, Canadian, and U.S. applicable regulations." BRP described the Iranian company MahtaWing as a "local service center" that "offers maintenance services for previously sold aircraft engines." Shahriar Siami of RFE/RL's Radio Farda contributed to this report. Croatia is reportedly planning to bring back a "light" form of the military draft in 2019. According to Croatian Defense Minister Damir Krsticevic, the scheme under consideration would amount to three or four weeks of mandatory basic training for draftees. Compulsory military service existed in the former Yugoslavia, and Croatia continued the practice until 2008. "Our intention is not to reinstate national service in its previous form, but to teach basic military skills to young people," Krsticevic told Croatian TV channel HRT last week. Defense officials suggested the short training program being discussed would actually appeal to most Croats. "We do not want to militarize our society. The point is to teach preparedness for natural disasters," Krsticevic said. In an interview with the Croatian weekly Globus, Krsticevic, a former general, dismissed speculation that the move was related to any renewed sense that neighboring Serbia represented a danger. "As a responsible nation," he said, "we must ensure that our armed forces are up to date, and our people secure." On the question of whether perceived Russian influence in Republika Srpska in neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina -- including a possible military presence -- would present a security challenge to Croatia, Krsticevic said, "I do not see [Russians in Republika Srpska] as a threat, but as a reality." In a region where manmade catastrophes can seem as likely as any natural disaster, the idea of mandatory military service was not necessarily well-received by everyone. Igor Dragovan, a Croatian opposition politician, said he thought the proposal is a knee-jerk response to worsening relations with Serbia. Dragovan blamed the media for creating the perception that Croatia is on the brink of war. Talking to RFE/RL in Zagreb, Dragovan rejected the argument that reports hinting at Serbian efforts to rearm are justification for reintroducing military conscription. Croatian-based military analyst Igor Tabak says he feels the danger is being exaggerated. "I understand that a lot of people in Croatia are seeing images on TV of Serbia unveiling new armaments purchased in Moscow and Minsk. They also remember 1991" -- a reference to the Croatian war of independence, fought against the Serbian-dominated Yugoslav Army -- "and they foresee a conflict that is not going to take place," Tabak says. For its part, Serbia, seemingly buoyed by the prospect of arms shipments from Russia and Belarus, has also eyed bringing back compulsory military service. The proposal, which came from the Serbian Defense Ministry, has been shelved for the time being by Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic as too expensive. "I was almost glad that we are a poor country and don't have the money to pay for bringing back the draft," journalist Veselin Simonovic wrote in Blic. Tabak suggests the driving force behind the push to revamp national armies was not a rising foreign threat but rather issues closer to home. "The arms race between Croatia and Serbia should be understood in the context of domestic politics and, in particular, the forthcoming elections," Tabak says of the presidential election in Serbia slated for April. "There is also the undeniable fact that both countries need to modernize their armaments. To give just one example, both Croatia and Serbia currently have fighter jets that are older than their pilots, which is an indication of the desperate need for an overhaul." Commentators in Serbia have meanwhile pointed to the fact that Croatia is a NATO member and that any war would mean taking on that Western military alliance. Some have also suggested that increasing regional cooperation in military matters might be more beneficial and possibly cheaper. In his Blic column, Simonovic deferred to military analyst and former military pilot Blagoje Grahovac, who claims that neither Serbia, Croatia, nor Albania has the means to police its own airspace effectively and that coordinating their efforts would make sense for all involved. Politicians might prefer the kind of chest-pounding and rattling of sabers that Serbia's Vucic exhibited when he boasted in his yearend press conference that "we finally have an air force that will keep our skies free." But, for now at least, it seems that the loftiest nationalist ambitions -- and talk of a regional arms race -- might be kept in check by Balkan countries' financial limitations. The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect the views of RFE/RL Ministers from 15 European countries have agreed to come up with new measures to ensure that the so-called Western Balkans route to the European Union remains shut for migrants. Austrian officials said on February 8 that the 15 countries will draw up plans by April to close remaining gaps on their mostly closed borders to seal the blockade of the route, which attracted millions of migrants in 2015 but has been largely shut since early 2016. Agreeing to new measures were interior and defense ministers from Austria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Greece. The Balkan countries became transit points for migrants who flooded into Europe in 2015 and early 2016, and thousands remain stuck in Serbia and elsewhere, unable to reach the EU. Austria, which hosted the latest strategy session in Vienna, was instrumental in coordinating last year's shutdown of the route. Also on February 8, Albanian prosecutors announced that they have arrested 18 people since September for illegally smuggling refugees through Greece, Kosovo, and Serbia to Austria and Germany. Each migrant paid 900 to 1,250 euros for the illegal transport, prosecutors said. Based on reporting by AP, dpa, and AFP A French court has held a hearing on Serbias request to extradite former Kosovar Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj. Haradinaj said after the hearing concluded on February 9 that a decision is to be delivered by the court on March 2. The appeals court in the city of Colmar released Haradinaj from custody on January 12, saying he can remain under judicial supervision on bail while the case is being considered. Haradinaj, 48, was detained on January 4 and is wanted in Serbia on suspicion of committing war crimes, including kidnappings and torture, when he was a guerrilla fighter during Kosovos 1998-99 independence war. He has been tried twice and acquitted of war crimes at the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague. He was elected prime minister of Kosovo in 2004 but resigned after 100 days in order to face trial in The Hague. Kosovar Prime Minister Isa Mustafa said on January 11 that Serbias warrants for Haradinaj were "completely illegal and unjust" and are "damaging the European [integration] process in the region." A Ukrainian lawmaker who admitted he defaced a remnant of the Berlin Wall on the grounds of the German Embassy in Kyiv has drawn a rebuke from Berlin. Oleksiy Honcharenko, a member of President Petro Poroshenko's party, said his act of vandalism was a protest over comments from the German ambassador about potential elections in parts of eastern Ukraine held by Russia-backed separatists. Honcharenko sprayed "Nein" -- German for "No" -- in red paint on a fragment of the Berlin Wall on February 8. The lawmaker, who enjoys immunity from prosecution, posted images on Facebook and wrote that the wall was a "clear symbol of recent Russian occupation of Europe." The German ambassador, Ernst Reichel, faced criticism in Ukraine after he said in an interview that that the separatist-held areas in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions might not have to be entirely free of Russian soldiers in order for elections to be held. Elections and the withdrawal of all "foreign armed formations" and mercenaries are among the steps required under a deal known as Minsk 2, which was meant to end the fighting in eastern Ukraine and resolve the conflict between Kyiv and the Russia-backed separatists. The timing and details of those steps are among the sticking points in negotiations to end the war, which has killed more than 9,750 people since April 2014. Russia has repeatedly denied involvement in the conflict, despite large amounts of evidence that it stirred up separatism in eastern Ukraine early in 2014 and has sent military forces and weapons into Ukraine to fight against government forces. Some Ukrainian lawmakers called on Berlin to replace Reichel in the wake of his remarks, but Germany has stood behind him. 'Wholly Inappropriate Behavior' On the incident of vandalism, German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer said employees at the Kyiv embassy tried to stop Honcharenko from spray-painting the wall relic but were thwarted when he claimed legislative immunity. Schaefer called the lawmaker's actions "wholly inappropriate behavior." Schaefer said that Germany considers Ukraine a "close partner" and was the first country to establish diplomatic relations with Kyiv as the country gained independence in the collapse of the Soviet Union 25 years ago. He said that Germany, which along with France is sponsoring negotiations between Ukraine and Russia on the conflict in eastern Ukraine, is working to host another negotiating session next week. With reporting by AP, Radio Svoboda, and dpa Kazakhstan is using "increasingly elaborate and aggressive methods to stamp out" dissenting voices on the Internet and social media, Amnesty International warns. Kazakh authorities are using increased powers provided by recent legislation to "to shut down or block access to particular websites," the London-based group said in a report issued on February 9. It said President Nursultan Nazarbaev's government is also using court rulings in criminal and administrative cases to target people "for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly." The report cited the cases of human rights defenders Maks Bokaev and Talgat Ayan, who were detained in May 2016 after posting information about antigovernment protests against changes to the Central Asian country's Land Code. The two were sentenced to five years in prison each after being found guilty of inciting social discord, spreading knowingly false information, and violating the law regulating public assemblies. Amnesty International considers both men to be prisoners of conscience. Nazarbaev has ruled Kazakhstan since before it gained independence in the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia has reiterated its opposition to the use of sanctions in international affairs, saying they are "rather destructive and harmful to both sides." Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov made the comment on February 9, after a group of U.S. senators introduced legislation that would make it harder for President Donald Trump to lift sanctions imposed on Russia for its actions in Ukraine if he seeks to do so. The bipartisan bill was introduced on February 8 amid mounting concerns in Congress about the Trump administration's policy intentions toward Russia. U.S.-Russia ties have sunk to lows unseen since the Cold War amid rancor over Moscow's seizure of Ukraines Crimean Peninsula in 2014, its backing of separatists in eastern Ukraine, its involvement in the Syrian conflict, and other issues. Trump has repeatedly signaled he wants better ties with Russia and closer cooperation in combating terrorism. Peskov also rejected suggestions that the Kremlin and the U.S. administration may try to negotiate a deal over the conflict in eastern Ukraine, saying it "can hardly be a subject for some kind of deal." He said Russia wants the United States to pressure Ukraine to fulfill the terms of a 2015 deal aimed at ending the fighting between Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed separatists, which has killed more than 9,750 people since April 2014. Ukraine says Russia is not fulfilling its obligations under the agreement. Based on reporting by TASS, Interfax, and AP Macedonia has angrily rejected a U.S. lawmaker's assertion that it "is not a country" and should be divided among Kosovo, Bulgaria, and possibly other neighbors. "My inclination is, Macedonia's not a country. I'm sorry, it's not a country," Dana Rohrabacher (Republican-California), chairman of the Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats in the U.S. House of Representatives, told Albanian TV channel Vizion Plus in an interview broadcast on February 7. "The Kosovars...and the Albanians in Macedonia should become part of Kosovo," while the rest of Macedonia should become part of Bulgaria or other countries, Rohrabacher said. A State Department spokesperson told RFE/RL on February 9 that the United States recognizes and supports "the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Macedonia." Rohrabacher argued that Macedonia's creation in the 1990s during the breakup of Yugoslavia was a mistake because the nation is divided into ethnic camps that are unable to live together peaceably. Macedonia's Foreign Ministry angrily rejected Rohrabacher's comments, saying they "generated immense anxiety" and "inflamed nationalist rhetoric" in the region, "taking us back into the past." In a statement on February 7, the ministry said it believed the U.S. State Department would "dispel any dilemma" over Rohrabacher's remarks and make clear they did not reflect U.S. policy. Asked whether the U.S. administration would pursue his ideas on the subject, Rohrabacher suggested that would depend on his level of involvement and said that he has "some influence on policymakers" in the United States. He said that at future hearings of the subcommittee he chairs, "One of the things that will be discussed...is altering borders to make sense and bring peace to the Balkans." With reporting by RFE/RL's Balkan Service, Balkan Insight, and The Independent Moldovan Prime Minister Pavel Filip has urged the Foreign Ministry to accelerate the opening of a NATO liaison office in Chisinau after President Igor Dodon had earlier called on alliance officials not to rush in establishing the office. Filip said at a government meeting on February 8 that "we have signed an agreement on opening this bureau" and urged the ministry to "avoid the dragging on of the process and any red tape." In Brussels one day previously, Dodon said he had a "request not to hurry the opening of the NATO office" and that Moldovans do not "welcome" it being established. Dodon added after talks with NATO Deputy Secretary-General Rose Gottemoeller that the NATO liaison bureau would "create impediments in regard to negotiations on the Transdniester issue." "We respect all countries' sovereignty and their right of not being allies to anyone," said Gottemoeller. "So we respect Moldovas neutrality...[but] neutrality does not mean isolation; NATO collaborates with other neutral countries, such as Switzerland or Austria." Gottermoeller described her talks with Dodon as "intensive positive discussions," but insisted that NATO will proceed with plans to open its liaison office in Chisinau later this year and added it will be staffed only by civilians, not by military personnel. "This is not a military base, but a small diplomatic mission staffed only by civilians," Gottemoeller said. "There will be no NATO troops in Moldova." The Moldovan government is made up of officials from pro-Western parties while the Dodon is the head of the pro-Russian Socialist Party, which does not favor integration with European institutions but rather closer ties to Moscow. The Moldovan presidency is largely a symbolic position. The Moldovan government signed an agreement with NATO on the opening of the civilian-staffed liaison bureau in November, before Dodon assumed office. Moldovan Deputy Foreign Minister Lilian Darii told Filip at the government meeting that the Foreign Ministry hopes to open the NATO office in April. With reporting by Interfax and actmedia.ru Choe Myong Bok has lived in Russia since 1999, has carved out a living working odd jobs, and resides in St. Petersburg with his partner and their two young children. But the North Korean defector's life in Russia has been one on the lam. While he arrived in the country legally with a group of laborers to work in a logging camp in Russia's Far East, he has been without documents since escaping from the camp and making his way to the northern capital. Now Choe faces imminent deportation back to his homeland -- a fate his lawyer fears could mean torture or even death -- despite a ruling from the European Court Of Human Rights (ECHR) ordering Russia not to send him back until further review. His situation stems from a year-old agreement between Russia and North Korea under which they agreed to repatriate citizens living illegally in each other's countries. Choe's detention in January left him at the mercy of the Vsevolozhsky district court, which ruled that the 54-year-old should be sent back to North Korea, effective February 10. The ECHR -- to which Russia is a signatory -- ordered the Russian authorities on February 6 not to deport Choe until his case could be reviewed. But his lawyer, Olga Tseytlina of the Memorial human rights organization, has expressed concerns that her client could be deported within days, and fears that he may have signed off on such a fate. Tseytlina was quoted by the daily Kommersant media as saying that Federal Security Service (FSB) officers visited Choe's home on February 1 and asked him to sign some documents. The lawyer suggests that Choe, whose knowledge of Russian is limited, might have signed a request to send him back to his home country. Choe lives in St Petersburg with his Russian partner Yelena Kogai and their two young children. Kogai told Kommersant that Choe's passport was confiscated in 1999 when he arrived in Russia to work at the logging camp run by North Korean authorities in Amur Province, in Russia's Far East. Choe reportedly escaped the camp in 2002 and moved to St. Petersburg, where he has since lived illegally without documents. Kogai told the Russian daily that she met Choe in 2010, and that he worked on construction sites for churches and took other odd jobs to make a living. Deadly Deportation The deportation agreement worked out between Moscow and Pyongyang would most likely affect North Korean defectors living in Russia, as there are no known cases of Russian citizens living illegally in North Korea. The United Nations criticized the treaty at the time, saying that sending defectors back to North Korea puts them at risk of serious harm in their home country. A 2014 UN report stated that defectors forcibly sent back home face detention, torture, or execution in North Korea. It's unclear whether Choe has ever officially applied for asylum in Russia. However, Russian authorities reportedly often reject asylum requests by North Koreans. According to the Civic Assistance human rights group in Russia, only two North Korean applicants out of 211 were granted refugee status in Russia between 2004 and 2014. Ninety others out of 170 applicants were granted so-called temporary refuge, which lasts for only one year. In 2008, Russian authorities deported North Korean defector Ryu En Nam, who sought asylum in Russia. Civic Assistance claims Ryu was killed by North Korean authorities who tied him to the back of a train after his forcible return home. Choe's lawyer warns that he might face a similar fate if sent back. With reporting by RFE/RL's Russian Service and Kommersant A Russian Foreign Ministry official says Moscow views Romania as a NATO outpost and a "clear threat" because it hosts part of a U.S. missile shield in Europe. "Romania's stance and the stance of its leadership, which has turned the country into an outpost, is a clear threat for us," Aleksandr Botsan-Kharchenko told the Interfax news agency in remarks published on February 9. In May 2016, the U.S. military activated a missile-interceptor site in Romania -- a key element of the missile shield, which is due to be fully operational in 2018. The United States says the shield will protect NATO members against short- and medium-range missiles, particularly from rogue states in the Middle East, and poses no threat to Russia. Russia dismisses this and claims the true aim is to weaken its nuclear deterrent, upsetting the balance of power. "All these decisions...are in the first instance aimed against Russia," said Botsan-Kharchenko, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry department responsible for ties with Romania and several of its neighbors. Botsan-Kharchenko also accused Romanian authorities of reveling in anti-Russian rhetoric, and said Russia had made clear to Bucharest that it was unhappy with Romania's stance. Moscow's comments come as NATO deploys thousands of soldiers and heavy weaponry to Poland, the Baltic states, and southeastern Europe in its biggest buildup since the Cold War. U.S. and NATO officials say the move is needed to provide extra security and reassurance to European countries after Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea, but Russia says it is part of an aggressive strategy on its borders. Based on reporting by Reuters and Interfax Olga Linkova is desperate and angry. Her husband, Maksim Khakhlev, is serving a four-year sentence in a Siberian prison. He was found guilty in October of beating soldiers, a conviction on charges the couple says were completely fabricated and upheld by a sham trial. "The prosecutors didn't bring a single victim to court," Linkova tells RFE/RL's Russian Service. "There were a lot of procedural violations at the trial," she says. "One of the most glaring was that he was given a court-appointed lawyer even though he had his own attorney; the judges purposely scheduled a hearing for a day when the [defendant's chosen] attorney couldn't show up, and when he wasn't there, they replaced him." The court-appointed lawyer, Linkova says, spent all of her time trying to get Khakhlev to sign a confession. Although desperate, Linkova is not alone. She is one of around 1,000 relatives of convicts from Siberia and the Russian Far East who have banded together with Moscow prisoner-rights advocates to draw attention to what they say are outrageous abuses of the legal system. "Some group that we didn't know, about 50 people, wrote to us about how they had come together around [Criminal Code] Article 228 -- narcotics," Olga Romanova, director of the Moscow nongovernmental organization Russia in Prison (Rus Sidyashchaya), says. "A lot of people are put into prison under that article, and it is very easy to do so. We were amazed that people had come together in this way and were sharing experiences with one another and helping each other." By the time Romanova could travel to the Siberian city of Novosibirsk to meet with the fledgling activists, their ranks had grown to 1,000. And every one of them has a story of tragedy. "These are people who have lost something very precious in life -- often, the most precious thing: their children, their spouse, or parents," Romanova says. "Many have lost their income, their faith in justice or mercy or the law. It is very hard to frighten such people. It is very hard to take anything from them." As an example, Romanova tells of a woman she identifies only by first name, Tatyana. Her daughter, Nastya, has spent the last two years in Novosibirsk's remand prison (CIZO) No. 1 on drug charges. About six months ago, Nastya suffered a stroke and was partially paralyzed. When Tatyana goes to visit her, jail officials wheel her into the meeting room on a stretcher. She hasn't seen a doctor since the stroke. Grassroots movements like the one emerging in Siberia are rare in Russia under President Vladimir Putin. But the appalling conditions in Russian prisons and rampant allegations of torture, extortion, and other abuse by prison officials are increasingly becoming a focus for activism around the country. The Wild East Romanova says such problems are magnified in Siberia and the Far East, where sentences and conditions are often harsher than in the European part of the country. "Of course such things happen across Russia," Romanova says, "but the concentration of misery per square meter, the extent of the unbearable injustice and official indifference in Siberia is definitely elevated." In central Russia, she says, the average prison sentence for offenses under Article 228, the possession or manufacture of psychotropic substances or narcotics, is nine to 10 years. In Siberia, the average is 13-15 years. In addition to those in prison on drug charges, many of the prisoners represented in Romanova's group are serving time for financial convictions -- cases that activists say are often trumped up. "Lately they have been going after business owners under economic articles, usually Article 159 [on] swindling," says Dmitry Petrov, a former prisoner who is also part of Romanova's group. "As a rule, the cases are fabricated by those who want to take over the business -- often law enforcement figures. It is a widespread practice to go after a person either in order to take over the business or to destroy the business of a competitor." One such case involved 40-year-old Roman Drozdov. He died in Novosibirsk's notorious CIZO-1 in November 2015 after spending four days in his cell spitting up blood. His widow is fighting for justice. "This young woman has been left a widow with an infant daughter," Romanova says. "She is going to fight. She is going to fight for her husband's name. After all, he wasn't convicted of anything; his trial hadn't even started yet. She is going to fight to make sure that someone is held accountable for his death." Former prisoner Petrov knows CIZO-1 well. He spent almost three years there while a swindling case against him was investigated and tried. "Its history goes back to Stalin's times," Petrov says. "And not much has changed since then. The so-called Old Building was built in 1932. It is supposed to hold 2,300 people but often has as many as 3,000. When I was there, it was normal to have 12 or 15 prisoners in a cell designed for eight. People had to take turns sleeping." He says that three prisoners died at CIZO-1 in the month of November alone, including prison-reform activist Pavel Podyachev. He was facing charges of cheating a city councilor of 3 million rubles ($50,000). "This is just one example of the high mortality rate," Petrov says, "and it is connected to the fact that there is almost no medical help there." Making Your Name In Novosibirsk Romanova has a theory about why Novosibirsk looks to some like the epicenter of injustice in Russia. "Novosibirsk is the third-largest city in Russia after Moscow and St. Petersburg," she says. "It is home to the academies of the Interior Ministry and the Federal Security Service. There are numerous institutes connected with the military and law enforcement. Young men and women from across Siberia study there. And they quickly understand that it would be good to stay there or to be assigned to some other major city. But how? How can they stand out? By finding three cases of stolen sausages? You'll spend your whole life in some isolated village making a few hundred rubles a month. No one wants that." "But if you find four criminal gangs and manage to get 20-year sentences for them," she adds, "that's the ticket. You'll be a colonel for sure." In 2016, activist Petrov says, about 15,000 verdicts were delivered in Novosibirsk, only 12 of which were "not guilty." Of those, 10 were overturned on appeal by prosecutors. Moreover, the harsh conditions in Siberia's prisons and pretrial detention centers are the result of their origins in the GULAG system of dictator Josef Stalin, Romanova says. "The last prison reform was conducted by [secret police head Lavrenty] Beria in 1953," she says. "No further reforms touched this area." But even a hammer-and-tongs reform of the prison system, she says, is only "a half-measure." The real problem is the judicial system as a whole, she adds. "And reforming the judicial system is a matter of pure politics," she says. "The judicial system now defends the current political situation. It is focused on defending our elections, defending the authorities in all possible ways. And this defense is what gives it the right to treat the people so criminally. For many reasons -- orders from the government, money, bribes, a banal desire not to do any work, fatigue, a lack of professionalism, whatever. And all of that is overlooked and allowed in exchange for it maintaining political stability, political succession, and the political class." Robert Coalson contributed to this report The Turkish military says three of its soldiers were accidentally killed and 11 others wounded by a Russian air strike in northern Syria. The Kremlin said in a statement on February 9 that Russian President Vladimir Putin had expressed his condolences via phone to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan "in connection with the tragic incident" involving Turkish soldiers killed near the city of Al-Bab. The soldiers were in a building that was hit by an air strike from a Russian warplane, a Turkish military statement said. The Kremlin said the two leaders agreed during their phone call to "increase coordination along military lines during the operation in Syria against fighters from [the Islamic State group] and other extremist organizations." The Russian Defense Ministry said that along with stepping up cooperation in conducting military operations in Syria, the two countries would also share information. Russia supports troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who are battling IS militants and other armed groups who want to oust Assad. Turkey is also fighting extremist Islamic groups in Syria but supports the moderate opposition groups trying to overthrow the Syrian government. Based on reporting by AP, dpa, and Reuters Pirates have kidnapped seven Russians and one Ukrainian after attacking a cargo ship off the Nigerian coast. The Russian Embassy in Nigeria and the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said on February 8 that they are working with Nigerian officials to try and locate the hostages who were taken from the BBC Caribbean cargo ship. "The armed pirates approached [the vessel] in a boat, captured the crew, and left on the boat" toward Nigerian shores, said Pavel Fedulov, the director of Briese Schiffahrts, the St. Petersburg-based company that manages the ship. Security experts say the seas off the coast of Western Africa are some of the world's most dangerous, with pirate ships often seizing oil tankers and holding sailors for ransom, Reuters reported. The Nigerian Navy said on February 8 that it had rescued an oil tanker and its 21 crew members from a separate pirate attack off its shores. It had no immediate comment about the kidnapping of the crew of the BBC Caribbean. Based on reporting by Reuters, RBC, and Ukrinform Russian and Ukrainian forces exchanged heavy artillery fire in multiple locations, officials in both countries said, as Russian-appointed officials continued evacuating people from the west bank of the Dnieper River amid a mounting Ukrainian counteroffensive. 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, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here. Ukraine's national grid operator, meanwhile, said on November 5 that it would increase rolling blackouts in Kyiv and seven other regions as the countrys national grid remained severely damaged by weeks of Russian air strikes. Electricity consumption is rising across Ukraine as the weather turns colder, and energy providers have raced to do repairs, ordering planned power cuts to avoid overloads. Ukraines General Staff said that its troops thwarted Russian attacks a day earlier in the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions. The military also claimed that Ukrainian air defenses shot down multiple Russian and Iranian drones and two Kalibr cruise missiles. The claim could not be immediately verified. The head of the Vynnytsya region, Serhiy Borzov, said the central region was hit overnight by Russian kamikaze drones. Russian troops have been actively using Iranian drones in recent weeks to attack critical civilian and infrastructure objectives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the fiercest fighting over the last week had taken place around Bakhmut and Soledar in Donetsk and that Ukrainian forces are holding their positions there and elsewhere. He also spoke of "good gains" in the south, praising infantry and artillery brigades for destroying enemy equipment, Russian manpower. The claims of battlefield success could not be independently verified. Ukrainian forces have been mounting a slow, incremental counteroffensive in the southern Kherson region for weeks now, moving closer to directly threatening the Dnieper River port of Kherson, which was captured early after Russias February invasion. In response, Russian authorities have been evacuating civilians and military troops to the opposite bank of the Dnieper. Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russia-installed administration in the Kherson region, announced a 24-hour curfew on November 4, saying it was necessary to defend it from an expected Ukrainian attack. The Russian military said "more than 5,000 civilians" were being evacuated daily to the east bank of the river. And Russian President Vladimir Putin on November 4 called for civilians to be moved out from Kherson. Those who live in Kherson must now be removed from the zone of the most dangerous hostilities, Putin said in remarks broadcast on state television. The civilian population should not suffer from shelling, from the offensive, counteroffensive, and other measures related to military operations. Russias Defense Ministry said on November 5 that troops had repelled Ukrainian attacks in in the Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kherson regions. In the Kherson region, which the Kremlin last month declared had been annexed, authorities reported the heaviest artillery fire in days. Ukrainian officials have likened the departures of Kherson residents to Soviet-style deportations, though its unclear to what extent the departures are forced or voluntary. Russian officials said people were being moved to safety from the path of the Ukrainian advance. Ukraines counteroffensives in Kherson and the northern Kharkiv region have been powered in large part by powerful Western weaponry. On November 4, the U.S. Defense Department announced another $400 million shipment of weapons and other equipment, including refurbished tanks, surface-to-air missiles, new coastal defense boats, and other items. The announcement came around the same time that the U.S. national-security adviser, Jake Sullivan, made an unannounced visit to Kyiv to meet with top Ukrainian officials. At a news conference later, Sullivan sought again to calm Ukrainian jitters about whether U.S. weapons would continue after the upcoming midterm U.S. congressional elections. Polls show that Republicans are poised to take control of one, or possibly both, chambers of Congress, and a small but vocal number of Republicans have voiced misgivings about the amount and duration of U.S. aid for Ukraine. There will be no wavering, Sullivan said at a news conference. Im confident U.S. support for Ukraine will be unwavering and unflinching. Asked about the prospect of peace talks with Russia, Sullivan repeated what U.S. officials have said in the past: "Nothing is discussed about Ukraine without Ukraine." "For me, the main question about these negotiations is what a just peace looks like and how it can be achieved, Sullivan said. If you look at Russian accusations, Russian actions, in particular regarding the annexation of [Ukrainian] territories, it does not really encourage negotiations. With reporting by RFE/RLs Ukrainian Service, Reuters, dpa, and AP WASHINGTON -- A top U.S. senator has suggested lawmakers should empower officials in Donald Trumps administration whose views on Russia diverge sharply from those voiced by the president. The statement by Bob Corker (Republican-Tennessee) during a February 9 hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he chairs, comes amid mounting bipartisan concern in Congress that Trump could soften Washingtons approach toward Moscow and President Vladimir Putin. Corker's remarks came after Senator Chris Murphy (Democrat-Connecticut) criticized what he called "conflicting messages" about Russia from the administration. Murphy pointed to Trumps recent interview with Fox News in which he expressed skepticism about Russian support for separatists in eastern Ukraine. "In spite of the unfortunate statements that end up being made, I think there are folks within the administration that have a very, very different point of view, and I think us working with them to empower them to create policies that we would support is something that we can play a role in doing," Corker said. Corker did not specify which officials or statements he was talking about. His spokesman, Chuck Harper, told RFE/RL that the remark "was general in nature." Earlier in the hearing, which was devoted to Russia, Corker said he had "spent some time" with Trumps secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, and "understanding the route he is planning to take to ratchet back what Russia is doing." "I want to spend a little time making sure that what we do to strengthen his hand is appropriate, and I think you're going to see a very different type of activity towards Russia," Corker said. In his confirmation hearing last month, Tillerson said Russia was backing separatists in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, which has killed more than 9,750 people since April 2014. Russia denies it is providing such support, despite substantial evidence of its role in the conflict. Corker also joined the committees ranking Democrat, Ben Cardin of Maryland, in criticizing comments made by Trump in the same Fox News interview after host Bill O'Reilly called Putin "a killer." "There are a lot of killers. We've got a lot of killers. What do you think? Our country's so innocent?" Trump said in the interview, broadcast February 5. Corker told the hearing that he sees "no moral equivalence, none, between ourselves and the actions that Russia has taken" and that Trumps comments do not reflect the views of "most members of the U.S. Senate." The hearing was held one day after a bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced legislation that would make it harder for Trump to lift sanctions against Russia that were imposed by his predecessor, Barack Obama. Those sanctions aimed to punish Russia for its actions in Ukraine and its alleged meddling in the American presidential election last year. Trump, a Republican, has repeatedly said he wants to improve ties with Moscow, which have been badly strained over Russias 2014 annexation of Ukraines Crimean territory, its backing of separatists in eastern Ukraine, and military activities in Syria. Those comments have put him at odds with many lawmakers in his own party, who are largely hawkish on Russia. But prominent members of Trumps cabinet have said sanctions against Russia over its actions in Ukraine should stay in place. On February 2, Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, expressed "strong condemnation of Russia's actions" in eastern Ukraine and said Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Moscow hands control of the Black Sea peninsula back to Ukraine. White House spokesman Sean Spicer on February 8 referred to Haleys comments when asked about the administrations position. Tillerson said in his confirmation hearing that the Ukraine-related sanctions should remain, suggesting they could be used as leverage in dealing with Moscow. Tillerson, who publicly questioned the wisdom of the sanctions in his previous job as the CEO of ExxonMobil, dealt extensively with the Russian government during his tenure at the multinational oil giant. During the February 9 hearing, Murphy expressed concern about the differences between Haleys comments on Russia and Trump's to Fox News. "One of the things that worry us is that were hearing conflicting messages from this administration about Russia," he said. The hearing featured testimony from U.S. General Philip Breedlove, a former NATO supreme commander in Europe, and Julianne Smith, a former national security adviser to Obamas vice president, Joe Biden. Committee members delivered harsh criticism of Russia and Putin on issues ranging from Ukraine to hacking to human rights. CHRISTIANSBURG A man who set up a hidden camera to record men in a Blacksburg gym's changing area will pay $1,000 and perform 75 hours of community service, a judge ordered Thursday. Terry Wade Underwood, 48, of Christiansburg, pleaded guilty in Montgomery County General District Court to filming a nude person without their consent. Another 11 counts of the same charge were dropped according to a plea agreement. Judge Gino Williams imposed the sentence recommended by the agreement: community service; a $2,500 fine, of which $1,500 was suspended; and a 30-day jail sentence suspended for 12 months. No details of the case were presented during Thursday's short hearing, but a search warrant filed in November explained that a camera had been found the previous month in the men's changing area at the Anytime Fitness 24-hour gym on Blacksburg's South Main Street. The device "was located just above the shower and overlooked the toilet and entry into the shower," the search warrant said. A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind. RICHMOND A bill that would restrict the funds available to Planned Parenthood clinics operating in Virginia has passed a Senate committee. House Bill 2264, sponsored by Del. Ben Cline, R-Rockbridge, does not mention Planned Parenthood by name, but proposes to restrict the states Department of Health from providing any funds to a Virginia clinic that provides abortions that are not covered by the states Medicaid program. Medicaid only covers abortions in cases in which the mothers life is in jeopardy. But the bill also targets the clinics that provide those non-Medicaid covered abortions, such as Planned Parenthood, which would prevent them from receiving any state grants or funds. This bill does not affect Medicaid funding, Cline told the Senate Education and Health Committee Thursday. It ensures the money our taxpayers send us is used as efficiently as possible and directed to health clinics to meet the needs of those populations that they serve. Last year, Gov. Terry McAuliffe vetoed an identical bill. Supporters including Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant, R-Henrico pointed out that the bill would not entirely defund Planned Parenthood. I just really want to establish that this does not interfere with Planned Parenthood providing routine gynecologic services for women because its funded through Medicaid, Dunnanvant said during Thursdays meeting. Paulette McElwain, CEO of the Virginia League for Planned Parenthood, said it would permanently restrict Planned Parenthood from contracting with the state. We get $20,000 a year for free STD testing for low-income women in Virginia, and all of that funding would get lost if this bill were to pass, McElwain said. Chris Freund of the Family Foundation said various other clinics provide the same health care for women that Planned Parenthood does. There are over 140 community health centers around Virginia in urban and rural areas particularly in Southwest and [southern] Virginia, where Planned Parenthood doesnt exist, Freund said. Proponents insisted that the bill would not limit low-income womens access to reproductive health services. Those against the bill were adamant that it would. Above all, if the ultimate intention here is to decrease the abortion rate, then the best way to do that is by decreasing unintended pregnancies, and as Im sure you know, the best way to do that is to increase access to contraception, which Planned Parenthood provides to over 16,000 women annually in Virginia, said Dr. Wendy Klein, a Richmond physician who sits on the states Board of Health. Sen. Mamie Locke, D-Hampton, questioned Cline when he began to speak, and again just before the committee voted 8 to 7 to send the bill to the Senate floor. I dont think the issue here is a dispute in numbers. I think the issue is to have men stay out of womens reproductive health care, she said. RICHMOND Del. Kathy Byron cant wait to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. Toward that end, Byron, R-Bedford , introduced legislation that would require Virginia law to automatically revert to pre-ACA insurance regulations if the Republican-controlled Congress and President Donald Trump repeal former President Barack Obamas signature healthcare initiative . Byrons HB 2411 passed the House of Delegates on a party-line 64-33 vote Tuesday and will now be considered by the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee. It would take us back as if were just turning the clock back to an earlier time, Byron, chairwoman of Virginias Health Insurance Reform Commission, said on Wednesday. After the ACA became federal law, state legislators enacted statutes to meet its requirements. If that act is repealed before the 2018 General Assembly and HB 2411 passes, legislators would not have to return to Richmond for a special session to re-regulate insurance plans, Byron said. If they dont repeal anything, it doesnt repeal anything in the commonwealth. If it does, it gives us the flexibility to react quickly and to offer changes within our plan, Byron said in a floor speech Monday. If they keep some things in place, those things will still stay within our code. If only part of the ACA is repealed, only corresponding state legislation would be reverted, Byron said. Democrats challenged Byron on the floor Monday, saying Virginia would be best served by waiting for action from Washington as to whether the ACA will be repealed, replaced or repaired. This bill makes no more sense than a bill to expand Medicaid at this time, said Del. Patrick Hope, D-Arlington, referring to a multi-year partisan argument in which Democrats tried to expand Medicaid in Virginia under the ACA. Weve got to find out what Washingtons going to do before we go down this road. Hope is a member of the Joint Commission on Health Care, a bipartisan commission that makes recommendations to the General Assembly regarding healthcare. Minority Leader David Toscano, D-Charlottesville, said on Monday such an elaborate reconstruction should come from a special work group or commission. A full regulatory rewrite would be eventually necessary, but legislators should move now, Byron said. Every member of the House of Delegates is up for reelection in November. If you want to go back during your campaign time, instead of debating your opponent, and work on rewriting this, then we can certainly do that, Byron said. Problems with Virginias voter registration system prompted howls of outrage from Republican legislators last fall, but almost $4 million proposed by Gov. Terry McAuliffe to address their concerns disappeared from the budget adopted by the Republican-controlled Senate Finance Committee last weekend. The $3.9 million proposed by McAuliffe to upgrade the VERIS registration system and replace dwindling federal funding of Virginias election system was cut from the budget by a Finance subcommittee led by Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel, R-Fauquier, a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor. Vogel said the decision was driven by the overriding budget priority to restore raises for state employees, and promised to revisit the issue of elections funding in the impending budget conference committee with the House of Delegates, which left the money alone. As the Senate and House prepare to adopt their versions of the budget Thursday, Vogel acknowledged the issue is especially important for her. As chairwoman of the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee, she called a joint committee meeting with the House in October to voice concerns shared by general registrars about the reliability of the VERIS system. The online voter registration system crashed during a surge of activity ahead of the pre-election deadline, prompting a federal judge to order Virginia to briefly reopen the registration period. Chesterfield County Registrar Lawrence Haake said he was bemused by the Senates action, which stripped $1 million to enhance the VERIS system, $2 million to pay for election programs now financed through a 15-year-old federal election law, and more than $800,000 in one-time funding initiatives proposed by the governor. Im not sure the General Assembly understands the importance of what theyre doing, said Haake. The General Assembly is not supporting elections in the commonwealth by taking that money. House Appropriations Chairman Chris Jones, R-Suffolk, said, Theres nothing more essential than the conduct of our elections. Its our responsibility. Its a fundamental function of government. McAuliffe spokesman Brian Coy said the governor had heard the concerns voiced by Republicans last fall and addressed them in his budget. He hopes they will see the wisdom of giving the Department of Elections the resources it needs to run smooth elections, he said. Jeff Ryer, a spokesman for Senate Republicans, said the omission reflects the way Senate Finance tasks its subcommittees with meeting a funding target, in this case with the overriding priority of employee compensation. Considering the assignment that Jills [subcommittee] had, they had to prioritize, he said. However, the Senate budget includes a $14.5 million unappropriated balance, as well as a $40 million reserve fund it created with additional revenue expected from a tax amnesty program proposed by McAuliffe and supported by legislators. The House budget has a $1.9 million unappropriated balance and does not include additional revenue from the amnesty. Its better not to count our eggs before the chickens lay them, Appropriations Director Robert Vaughn said in a House budget briefing Tuesday. Manchester by the Sea At the Myrna Loy (R) Grade: A One common reaction to grief is to withdraw and to lash out if someone tries to coax us out of our shell. Thats the life janitor Lee Chandler is living -- working by day, bar fights by night. Hes an unhappy loner haunted by painful memories. Lee is the last person anyone would ever nominate as a foster parent, but thats exactly what unfolds. When Lees brother Joe dies, Joe leaves a note asking Lee take care of his nephew Patrick, Joes 16-year-old son. Lee was once close to his nephew, but Lee knows hes psychologically unsuited for this job. But since Lee loved his big brother, he decides to try to help Patrick. Lee and Patrick form a poignant odd couple -- a depressed uncle and angry teen -- trying to honor Joes wishes. While there are elements of dark humor here, much of what unfolds is bittersweet. The Hollywood formula tells us this will end happily, but this honest script rejects the easy answers, choosing instead to allow these lives to unfold naturally with no assurances. Lee is depressed and angry. Patrick is grieving and full of hormones. Both are too needy to be mentors to one another. They grow fond of each other and frustrated by each other in equal proportions. Much of Manchester by the Sea is achingly painful, but the journey is so authentic we begin to care for both Lee and Patrick, while worrying about them, too. Casey Affleck will likely win the Oscar as a grieving janitor whose depression and anger issues keep everyone at bay. He needs a friend badly, but hes incapable of friendship. It wasnt always that way. There was once a time when Lee and his brother Joe would take the family boat out fishing, with Patrick along for the fun. The flashbacks tell us Lee could once laugh and smile. We wonder what turned him so dark. We find out slowly. A marriage. A death. A divorce. Deep guilt and pain. Manchester by the Sea is a marvelous film that is deservedly nominated for Best Film. But I have heard many devoted moviegoers say they found Manchester too slow and too boring. Nothing happened, said one moviegoer, critically. True, not much happens on the outside, because everything happens on the inside. Manchester is a classic interior drama about grief and recovery which refuses to oversimplify that hard journey. I found that slow pace exhilarating because it resisted all the temptations to succumb to commercial pressures. Happy endings be damned. The ending is elegantly oblique, leaving us to worry and wonder as we leave. Theres a touch of Bergman in this character study which could easily have been filmed in black and white. The raves Affleck is receiving all stem from his interior work, capturing psychological nuances inside a troubled man. Theres a submerged spiritual side here, too. In his darkest hours, Lee receives a gift that looks a lot like a curse: Stop being angry and care for a young boy. Lee discovers that by reaching out to another his own heart begins to warm. We never know for sure what a blessing looks like until our life plays out. Prayers are sometimes answered with silence or with an unwelcome surprise. We dont say thank you at the time -- only later. Fish and Wildlife Commission to meet The Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission will hold a regular meeting Friday, Feb. 10 at 10:30 a.m. at the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Headquarters in Helena. The commission will look at a variety of issues and make final decisions on Future Fisheries Projects, a rule allowing lighted nocks on arrows, and 2017 spring turkey license quotas. Also on the agenda for a final decision from the commission are the approval of waters for commercial bait seining annual rule and the wildlife management area biennial public use rule. The commission will also hear proposals on a recreation access agreement on The Nature Conservancy lands in FWP Region 2 and 2017 migratory bird regulations. Several other projects will come before the commission for its endorsement. FWP ensures its meetings are fully accessible to those with special needs. To request arrangements, call FWP at 444-3186. For the full agenda and background on the scheduled topics for the Commission meeting, go to the FWP website at http://fwp.mt.gov/; under Quick Links click Commission Meeting & Agendas. *** Snowshoe classes for women planned The Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks' Becoming an Outdoors-Woman program is sponsoring snowshoe classes on Feb. 11 and 12 near Helena. "If you can walk, you can snowshoe," said Liz Lodman, FWP's Becoming an Outdoors Woman coordinator. Classes are offered for beginning or intermediate snowshoe enthusiasts who want to learn the basics or improve their skills. The class fee is $5 and snowshoes are available to borrow if needed. The classes are co-hosted by the Montana Discovery Foundation. For more information and to register, call Liz Lodman at 406-444-9940; or email Liz Lodman at llodman@mt.gov. Registration forms are available at the Helena FWP office or on the FWP website at fwp.mt.gov under BOW Workshops. *** Youth Citizen Scientist programs at Montana WILD Do you like the outdoors and wild animals? The staff at Montana WILD will teach you about wildlife, wildlife management and outdoor recreation opportunities during a series of fun programs that include live animals and hands-on activities. Feb. 13 Reptiles and Amphibians Feb. 22 All About Owls March 1 Making Your Own Fishing Lures March 13 Science Behind Wildlife Management The hour-long programs begin at 6:30 p.m. at the Montana WILD Education Center. Participants must be at least 10 years old and pre-registration is required. To pre-register, visit Montana WILD or call 444-9944. *** For the Love of Wildlife at Montana WILD Montana WILD is offering a fun afternoon of activities for youth and adults with disabilities from 1-3:30 p.m. on Feb. 14. Activities being offered include, ice fishing, snow shoeing, seeing live animals, bear awareness, and exploring the exhibit hall. Participants do not need to stay the entire time, but pre-registration is required. Call 444-9945 to register or for more information. Montana WILD is located at 2668 Broadwater Ave. Ice fishing and snow shoeing participants are strongly encouraged to dress warmly, including snow boots, pants and jackets. *** Veracruz River of Raptors program The Last Chance Audubon Society is sponsoring a program by Steve Hoffman, who will present an overview of the Veracruz River of Raptors Project (VRR) located near the Gulf Coast in eastern Mexico, at 7 p.m. on Feb. 14 at Montana WILD, 2668 Broadwater Ave. This project is designed to monitor the largest raptor migration on Earth. Four to six million raptors of more than 20 species are tallied each autumn. As co-founder, Hoffman will describe how VRR was launched and key findings of this unique 25-year raptor population monitoring effort. Steve will also highlight his upcoming fall 2017 birding tour to Veracruz (through his Merlin Birding & Nature Tours), which includes opportunities to view this raptor migration spectacle and diverse birding experiences in Veracruz. Recently retired as executive director of Montana Audubon, Hoffman served in this capacity for more than a decade. He has devoted his entire 38-year career to wildlife conservation. *** New bow and arrow license requirements This year, hunters will be required to purchase a Montana bow and arrow license prior to applying for any archery only permit. To purchase a bow and arrow license an individual must meet one of the following requirements: Show completion of a bowhunter education course Show proof of purchase of a previous year's bow and arrow license from Montana or another state Sign an affidavit that they have previously purchased a bow and arrow license in Montana or another state First time archers needed to have planned ahead to have the prerequisite bowhunter education certificate in order to apply for 2017 archery-only drawings. The first drawing deadline is March 15. Montana FWP Bowhunter education classes are offered around the state. Please visit: http://fwp.mt.gov/education/hunter to register for a bowhunter education course. *** Helena Ducks Unlimited banquet Tickets are available for the Helena Ducks Unlimited banquet to be held on Friday, March 3. Dinner will be catered by Chili OBriens. Tickets are $60 for a single and $75 for a couple. Additional prices are available for kids and corporate tables seating eight. This years event will include raffles and games with a chance to win guns and other prizes. Auctions will feature a 2017 Montana moose super tag, a South Dakota pheasant hunt and other items. Call 442-8375 for tickets. Tickets will be limited after Feb. 27. Passions ran high at Tuesday nights nearly six-hour hearing by the Helena/Lewis and Clark County Heritage Tourism Council on a Central School demolition permit. It drew a crowd of more than 80 people, with 19 testifying in favor of the demolition permit and 15 opposing it. At 11:10 p.m. the HTC recommended denying the demolition permit by a 5 to 0 vote, with one recusal. The recommendation, which is advisory only, was forwarded to the Helena City Commission, which holds a public hearing at 6 p.m. Feb. 27, and is expected to vote on whether to grant the permit. HTC member Richard Alberts moved to reject the demolition application as incomplete because no site plan was included and it lacked information on the impact Centrals demolition would have on the historic Central neighborhood. Heritage Preservation Officer Pam Attardo, told the HTC that city staff deemed the application complete and had not required a site plan. This was also reiterated by interim school superintendent Jack Copps in comments following the hearing. He said the districts application was stamped approved. However, in Attardos opening remarks at the hearing she objected to the lack of a site plan, saying that all previous demolition applications they had reviewed had submitted them. She recommended that HTC deny the application on these grounds and the applicants failure to enumerate Centrals deficiencies. Historic background and concerns Central School was built in 1914 and was designed by prominent architect George H. Carsley, she said, pointing out some of the buildings prized architectural features such as its ornate and detailed brickwork and Collegiate Gothic Style architecture. The schools association with Carsley gives it great significance and heightens the communitys responsibility to ensure the School be repaired if economically feasible, Attardo wrote in her report. She noted the school has been on the site for 100 years and has survived two significant earthquakes. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. In an interview prior to the hearing, Attardo said the HTCs purpose is to oversee and preserve the historical assets of the city and county so these exist for generations to come. Central School neighborhood member Bobbi Uecker echoed Attardos concerns. We dont know what school is to be built or what shape it is, she said after reviewing the application, and added even a line drawing would be helpful. Although the application states that the district intends to incorporate architectural features most prominent in the existing facility wherever practical, she questioned what that means. My confidence level isnt really high, she said, asking what the district means by wherever practical. A number of new schools arent of the same standard or quality as historic Central School, she said. HTC members also questioned whether a new school would be one-story or multi-level, expressing concerns that a one-story building neither fit the site nor the prominent location in the downtown neighborhood. Advocating for the demolition permit was Helena School Board of Trustees chair Aidan Myhre, who told the group, The choice to construct a new school, instead of renovating and preserving the existing building, was not a hasty decision. The board concluded, A new education building would best serve a generational investment in 21st-century education. She said the Central School building is past its prime and sits boarded up, dilapidated and is no longer able to meet the needs of students and teachers, adding it has serious safety issues. She said the school districts mission is to educate our communitys children in a facility that is safe and meets the evolving educational needs of all children. A few of the buildings problems include: It was built as two disconnected halves The east half of the building has no water It sits on backfill which is problematic in a seismic event Porous clay tiles were used on interior walls and are not attached to the exterior walls, which could cause the ceiling to pancake in a seismic event Historic Central weighs an estimated 7 million pounds, while a newer building would weigh around 600,000 pounds. Safety has been and continues to be a major consideration, she said. A safety renovation would impact the number of classrooms available and their size, she said. The school district did not have funding to provide architectural drawings of a new school with its application, she said. But it is committed to identifying existing features of Central and incorporating them in a new design. Engineer Alan Stanbery of Morrison Maierle, who had done a 2005 seismic study of Central, indicated some new information came to light since his earlier report. At the time he wrote it, it was believed Central School stood on bedrock, but it is now known that it sits on clay fill, which can be worse in a seismic event. He also pointed out that Helena and Bozeman have different seismic risk factors than those in other Montana communities, such as Billings, which has recently renovated two historic schools. We did exploratory surgery looking into the walls at Central, he said, which also revealed the structure was different than the building plans theyd reviewed. Speaking in favor of renovating Central, Montana Preservation Alliance architect Dustin Kalanick told the commission that a renovated Central School would have to meet the same building code and safety requirements of a new school. To support historic preservation is not speaking against education or the bond issue, he said. A renovated Central can meet 21st-century learning goals, he said. A renovation could offer the same size classrooms and features as new construction. Both he and preservation architect Pete Brown said that the renovated building would include all new electrical wiring, plumbing, heating and ventilation systems, while addressing all the needs of modern education. Kalanick also provided an extensive list of schools and public buildings in Montana that are successful renovations. There has been extensive analysis of this building in numerous architectural and engineering reports, he said, and not a single one of the reports has recommended demolition. Supporting the bond and demolition Parent Jennifer McKee advocated moving forward with supporting the school boards bond decision, saying its not unreasonable to replace Central. Its a completely defensible position. Since the emergency closure of Central because of seismic concerns and moving to Central-Linc in 2013, the school has lost 66 percent of its kids and two-thirds of its original teachers, she said. The situation has become an open-ended evacuation. She asked the council not to dig in its heels. If our community cannot unite behind a bond, we will sit with an abandoned school. Several speakers supported demolition to allow a new, more flexible building design and to have more freedom in the best use of the existing campus. Dan Sullivan spoke in support of building new schools, saying that young families arent staying in the Helena School District but moving to Montana City. Retired Central teacher Elly Driggers said that the 250 students at Central need the best learning environment that can be offered. The decision has been made by the school board, she said. Continuing the debate means the longer our students wait and the longer we delay services to all children. Please move forward on this demolition permit. Tata Steel, Aldwarke UNION leaders and MPs have welcomed the news Rotherhams Tata steel plant has been saved from closure in a 100 million deal. It was announced yesterday that Tata Steel has signed an agreement to sell its South Yorkshire specialty steels operation, including plants at Aldwarke, Brinsworth and Stocksbridge, to London-based Liberty House Group. Wentworth and Dearne MP John Healey said: It's great news to get the thumbs up from the Tata board for this sale. It should be a big step in securing steel-making in South Yorkshire for the long-term. 2016 was an awful year of job cuts and uncertainty in Tata but the sale agreement means steel-workers and their families can start to see light at the end of the tunnel during 2017. Roy Rickhuss, general secretary of Community, the steelworkers union, said: Today's news is a welcome step forward in securing the future of the Speciality Steels business. However, this is not the end of the process and there is still work to do before the sale is completed. We are continuing to ballot our members in Speciality Steels over the future of the British Steel Pension Scheme and proposed alternative pension arrangements, which, should our members vote to accept the proposals, would transfer over as part of their terms and conditions once a sale is completed." The procession approaches St Leonard's Church MORE than 400 people turned out to pay their respects to murder victim Leonne Weeks as she was given a moving send-off today. Family and friends followed the 16-year-olds funeral procession, led by Leonnes father Darran, as it passed through Dinnington before a funeral service at St Leonards Church. Her pink coffin was carried on a hearse led by two black horses and followed by a lorry bearing dozens of floral tributes, including teddies and a rainbow arrangement. Leonne's dad Darran leads the procession. Leonnes family paid tribute to the Dinnington High School student in a statement before the funeral, saying: Today, we are laying our beautiful daughter Leonne to rest and celebrating her life with family and friends. She is loved and sadly missed by all her family. Leonne was a twin and close to all of her brothers and sisters. We are grateful for the ongoing support shown by the community and other groups which have links to the family. Leonne was found stabbed to death on a pathway off Lordens Hill in Dinnington on Monday, January 16. Shea Peter Heeley (18), of Doe Quarry Lane, Dinnington, will appear at Sheffield Crown Court next week, charged with her murder. Artist's impression of the McLaren composites development SPORTS car giant McLaren Automotive announced a 50 million development set to create 200 jobs at Rotherhams Advanced Manufacturing Park. The supercar producer will open a composites technology facility to develop advanced carbon fibre chassis for its vehicles, it was announced today. Construction is expected to begin early this year with the first chassis produced before the end of 2017 and full production to start in 2020. Prof Keith Ridgway, founder of the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre at the industrial park near Catcliffe, said: This is a tremendous piece of news for the Sheffield City Region and a boost for its future as the UKs centre for advanced manufacturing. McLaren Automotive will be in good company on the AMID, alongside the AMRC, Rolls-Royce, British Steel, Siemens, Forgemasters and others. We will be working with McLaren Automotive on the construction of the carbon fibre chassis and further research, and we are talking with the supply chain. It is our ambition that supply chain companies will start to build factories here to supply the chassis plant. The new centre will bring 10 million a year to the local economy, it has been predicted and future expansion has already been mentioned. The AMRC Training Centre will start training McLaren apprentices immediately and the University of Sheffield will deliver a two-year research and development project. Prof Sir Keith Burnett, university president and vice-chancellor, said: This investment, and the innovation, jobs, training and opportunities it offers, is hugely significant for our region, the North of England and the UKs global, industrial ambitions. McLaren chief executive Mike Flewitt said: In 1981, McLaren was the first company to recognise the exceptional properties of carbon fibre. We have designed the highly-technical material to be at the heart of every McLaren road and racing car ever since. The now-iconic McLaren F1 was the worlds first road car to be built with a carbon fibre chassis and every car built more recently by McLaren Automotive has the same. Creating a facility where we can manufacture our own carbon fibre chassis structures is therefore a logical next step. Cllr Leigh Bramall, deputy leader of Sheffield City Council, added: We offer something unique here in Sheffield and Rotherham, a cutting-edge manufacturing base that links our two universities and leading businesses to create jobs and investment across the Sheffield City Region. Sheffield and Rotherham have led the charge to create a place that draws in and develops world-class people and a place where the worlds leading companies come to explore new technologies and operating methods and deliver research and technology into the UK's supply and value chains. Sir Nigel Knowles, chairman of Sheffield City Region Local Enterprise Partnership, said: As McLaren have made clear, the chance to be part of the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District was compelling not least because of the opportunity to access some of the worlds finest composites and materials research capabilities. The announcement today is the culmination of a tremendous amount of partnership working across the public and private sectors and shows that our super-connected city region is a place that lives up to its enviable reputation as a place that is straightforward, practical and business focused. McLaren Automotive will be in good company on the AMID, alongside the AMRC, Rolls-Royce, British Steel, Siemens, Forgemasters and others. Dominion Diamond Corporation announced that its participating interest in the Buffer Zone Joint Venture at the Ekati Diamond Mine has increased from 65.3% to 72.0%, effective as of February 1, 2017, in accordance with the joint venture agreement relating to the Buffer Zone. The increase in ownership results from the decision of the minority partner not to participate in the full fiscal year 2017 capital program for the Buffer Zone Joint Venture. The Company has funded those elements of the program that were not funded by the minority partner. The Buffer Zone Joint Venture contains 106 mining leases covering 89,184 ha, and includes the Jay and Lynx kimberlite pipes. On July 6, 2016, the Company released the results of a positive feasibility study on the Jay project. The Ekati mine consists of two joint ventures, the Core Zone Joint Venture and the Buffer Zone Joint Venture, in which the Company has an interest of 88.9% and 72.0%, respectively. All of the production in fiscal year 2017 was sourced from the Core Zone. Alex Shishlo, Editor of the Rough&Polished European Bureau in Brussels A replica of the Great Imperial Crown of the Russian Empire will be exhibited from Feb. 13 to Feb. 14, 2017 at the sixth International Diamond Week in Israel.The crown, which was used in the coronations of all Russian monarchs since Catherine the Great, is being brought to Israel with the cooperation of diamond mining giant ALROSA.It contains 11,352 polished diamonds, with a total weight of 1,180 cts. All of the polished diamonds are made from ALROSA rough. Its value has been estimated at $20 million. The replica of the Crown was created by Smolensk-based Kristall, Russias leading diamond manufacturer in honor of the 250th anniversary of this Crown.In addition, during IDWI, ALROSA will also display especially large and unusual polished and rough diamonds weighing between 10 and 199 carats, some of which will be included in its tender.ALROSA President Andrey Zharkov will be a guest of honor of IDWI, and will open the new International Tender Center in the Israel Diamond Exchange.The Crown replica, which has been displayed in various venues throughout Russia, has been the central attraction of an exhibit dedicated to Catherine the Great at the Hermitage Museum in Amsterdam from June 2016 January 2017. It has been viewed by 400,000 people since its creation in 2012. A top South African government official has said that the country will next month publish its revised Mining Charter, a move aimed at redressing racial economic inequality. The Mining Charter was introduced in 2002 to increase black ownership of the mining industry and revised in 2010 as part of a consultative approach to regulations. It requires companies to provide housing and other amenities in mining communities, however, mining companies were unsettled by the new Charter as they had been battling with poor commodity prices. The mining Charter will be completed in Marchwe have consulted extensively with stakeholders," said Minister of Mineral Resources Mosebenzi Zwane in a speech at the Investing in African Mining Indaba in Cape Town. "We call upon investors to come to South Africa and engage us frankly as we move towards transformation of our economy." The countrys Chamber of Mines had since taken the government to court over ownership interpretations in the latest draft, which requires companies to keep black ownership at 26 percent even if black shareholders dispose of their stakes. Meanwhile, Africa Mining Leader for Deloitte, Andrew Lane said the mining fraternity was patiently waiting to see whether the Charter will actually reflect their input. He also said although the minister said government was committed to beneficiation, there was a need for Pretoria to articulate that they know it was not a challenge that can be addressed by the mining sector alone, but rather a joint effort by a wider set of stakeholders. Mining accounts for about 7 percent of South Africa's economic output. Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) produced 13.5 million carats in 2016 compared with 15.8 million carats, a year earlier. Data presented by the countrys Centre for Expertise, Appraisal and Certificate (CEEC) at the ongoing Investing in African Mining Indaba in Cape Town, showed that last years output was the lowest since 2007, the year it was readmitted to the Kimberley Process. The highest output was in 2007 when the country produced 28.2 million carats followed by 21.3 million carats in 2008 despite the global economic downturn that affected the diamond industry. CEEC data also revealed that DRCs diamonds raked in $212.5 million in 2016 compared with $230 million, a year earlier. DRC was the worlds third biggest diamond producer by volume and responsible for about 13 percent of global output, including industrial diamonds. However, the quality of the countrys diamonds was very poor as mining had been dominated by small scale miners. It was also believed that some 700,000 artisanal miners operate in the DRC, encouraged to some extent by a law passed in 1981 that forced Miniere de Bakwange (MIBA), a state-owned diamond mining company, to open up the majority of its fields to artisanal diggers. Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished The WFDB will be creating a financial taskforce to follow up on the issues discussed at the Finance Seminar held during the 2017 Presidents Meeting in Mumbai, President Ernie Blom told a press conference at the end of the event on Wednesday at the Bharat Diamond Bourse (BDB). Ernie Blom, President, WFDB said: "We had a set of very frank and productive discussions which covered a great deal of ground. We are determined to show the banks that the idea of the diamond industry as a high-risk sector is a misperception. We intend to be in complete compliance with anti-money laundering regulations; and promote the Know Your Customer concept so that industry members and the banks understand what is required from each side." BDB President Anoop Mehta said, We continue to help our members become up to date with the regulations that are required. We do not allow cash transactions. BDB has appointed chartered accountants to provide free advice to all our members to help them become more organised and in line with banking regulations. The key word is transparency and we are doing everything to comply. Aruna Gaitonde, Editor-in-Chief of Asian Bureau, Rough & Polished Buzz! Nepal Deathfest, a 4-year-old extreme metal festival gets more brutal with intense line-up and growing numbers of fans Brutal Pokharas Zivong Gurung and Vishal Rai of Extreme Underground Metal Society of Nepal started Nepal Deathfest 4 years ago with the sole intent of connecting extreme metal fans together under one roof over two days of mayhem. In the past, the festival has managed to bring in bands like Creature of Judgement and Homicide (Bangladesh), Fragarak (India), Defiled (Japan), Malapateka (Malaysia), Smallpox Aroma (Thailand), Meat Train (England), Nervo Chaos (Brazil), Sete Star Sept (Japan) and Fleshcrawl (Germany). Approximately 500 plus numbers of hardcore fans attend this festival. This year Nepal Deathfest is scheduled to happen on March 10th and 11th and has announced the new line-up of domestic bands including Rog, Aakrosh, Error, Discord, Strangle, Scutter and Desperate Mile. The list of headliners is yet to be announced. If you are planning to visit Nepal anytime soon, this is a perfect opportunity for connecting with extreme metal music in the region. To stay updated with further announcements, join their official facebook page here. Landowners might think twice about slapping a locked gate on a county road if fines for doing so are substantially increased, a Great Falls legislator told a committee Thursday. Democratic Rep. Tom Jacobson brought House Bill 295 before the House Judiciary Committee. The bill offers two changes to the law. The first allows counties to issue a permit, excluding a locked gate, for an encroachment upon a county road right-of-way, as may occur in the case of a structure. Secondly, HB295 increases the fine for failing to remove an encroachment from $10 per day to up to $500 per day. What the bill aims to alleviate are cases where the public is locked out of using county roads, Jacobson said, and it gives judges discretion to fine offenders based upon the egregiousness of the offense. The bill drew support from pro-access groups and the Montana Association of Counties. Sometimes its local landowners, but it tends to be people from out of state with lots of money, and the first thing they want to do is keep us off, said Chris Marchion with the Anaconda Sportsmen Association. More rural counties often struggle with the resources to fight illegal road closures, he said, adding, This would actually give us some leverage to prevent this from happening. Former Anaconda-Deer Lodge County Commissioner Mark Sweeney said he agreed HB295 will strengthen the law. In my opinion, this is how well lose our access to public lands, he said of illegally gated roads. MACO Executive Director Harold Blattie said the bill is taking the right approach by allowing a measured view to addressing disputes. Nick Gevock with the Montana Wildlife Federation pointed to his organizations annual report on illegally blocked roads and examples in recent years where access has been restored after legal fights. HB295 addresses public access and county authority, and it gives landowners clarity on receiving a permit when needed. Speaking against the bill, Abby St. Lawrence with the Rocky Mountain Stockgrowers Association blasted the notion that HB295 is a consensus bill. St. Lawrence said raising fines from $10 per day to up to $500 per day is an enormous hammer over landowners with questions or concerns about the status of roads. St. Lawrence testified that as an attorney litigating road cases, the status is seldom cut and dry. She also took issue with the characterization of the bill targeting rich, out-of-state landowners, saying that often the disputes arise on family ranches and are brought by sportsmen groups. Chuck Denowh, representing United Property Owners of Montana, argued that HB295 gives an unfair advantage to those trying to force access when road status has yet to be determined. What this bill is asking to do is throw out adjudication and tip the scales of justice to one side in these disputes, he said. In our experience, these lawsuits dont target wealthy out-of-staters, they target ranchers that are land-rich and cash-poor. Gevock responded to the opponents, saying they were trying to confuse the issue between road disputes outside of the bill and those dealing with established country roads. What constitutes a country road, how the law would be enforced and whether the bill would fuel access advocates to pursue more battles with landowners pushed much of the committees questioning. Blattie clarified that HB295 only pertains to county roads with an established right-of-way. Other public roads, such as Forest Service roads, would not be impacted. Blattie further testified that the processes for record-keeping vary widely across counties, and under his interpretation, fines could only be levied once the county established its easement. Rep. Bill Harris, R-Winnett, asked whether the bill was an effort to bully landowners into giving up access to avoid legal fights. Jacobson replied that he saw a landowner putting the screws to the country as bullying. He further responded that granting judges the discretion to fine from $10 to $500 allowed them to enact different punishments for honest mistakes and egregious efforts to block the public from well-established county roads. I think a lot of this comes down to local control and whether the county has the ability to open roads that have been encroached upon, Jacobson said in closing. This is about giving the counties more authority and ability for what happens on their roads, which are in effect our roads. CTA The Chicago Transit Board has awarded a $42.9 million contract to Clark Construction Group to upgrade three substations that provide power to the Chicago Transit Authoritys (CTA) eight rail lines. Work to modernize the East Lake, Milwaukee and Illinois substations will be completed to enhance reliability and service for customers. Officials say upgrades will be made to the traction power equipment that helps transport trains throughout the CTA system. This investment will improve service reliability for rail customers by upgrading three substations that are decades old, said CTA President Dorval Carter. These investments in aging infrastructure are critical to our goal of a 21st century transit system. Officials say the three substations Clark Construction Group will renovate date back as far as 1910. The upgrades are considered critical to ensure the transit authoritys railways are supplied with traction. With 64 substations throughout the system, CTA works diligently to ensure these structures are properly maintained to keep trains running properly, representatives said. The investment is funded by bonds from the Regional Transportation Authority and is expected to be complete in spring 2020. Smart TV manufacturer Vizio has agreed to pay $2.2 million to settle Federal Trade Commission's charges that the company installed a software on 11 million televisions to spy on its customers. According to a complaint filed by the US Federal Trade Commission, smart TVs from Vizio captured second-by-second information about video displayed, including video from consumer cable, broadband, set-top box, DVD, over-the-air broadcasts, and streaming devices. Vizio sold this data to third parties, who used it for various purposes, including targeting advertising to consumers across devices. According to the complaint, VIZIO touted its "Smart Interactivity" feature that "enables program offers and suggestions" but failed to inform consumers that the settings also enabled the collection of consumers' viewing data. The $2.2 million payment by VIZIO includes a payment of $1.5 million to the FTC and $1 million to the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs, with $300,000 of that amount suspended. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News U.S. President Donald Trump took to Twitter to express his chagrin on Nordstrom Inc.'s (JWN) decision to drop his daughter Ivanka's clothing line, raising concerns whether the new president will mix his family's businesses and his White House power. "My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!" Trump wrote on twitter. Nordstrom said in a statement Wednesday that the decision announced last week to drop the line was strictly . "To reiterate what we've already shared when asked, we made this decision based on performance," Nordstrom said. "Over the past year, and particularly in the last half of 2016, sales of the brand have steadily declined to the point where it didn't make good business sense for us to continue with the line for now." Last week, department store chain Nordstrom announced that it will discontinue selling Ivanka Trump clothing and accessories, due to poor sales performance. "We've said all along we make buying decisions based on performance," Nordstrom had said in a statement. The move comes amid the ongoing campaign called #GrabYourWallet campaign that encourages shoppers to boycott products that has ties with President Trump or his family. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News Editors Pick Duke Energy Corp. reported on Friday that profit for the third quarter edged up from last year, driven by strong volumes in Electric Utilities and Infrastructure. Adjusted earnings per share missed analysts' expectations, while quarterly revenues topped it. The company also slashed it adjusted earnings outlook for the full-year 2022. French Financial services major Societe Generale reported Friday weak profit in its third quarter, despite higher revenues amid increasingly complex geopolitical and economic environment. In Paris, the shares were gaining around 5 percent. Frederic Oudea, the Chief Executive Officer, said, "The third quarter is marked by increasing revenues, continued control of operating expenses..." Health and hygiene products maker Reckitt is recalling its certain AirWick Fresh New Day aerosol air fresheners due to injury and laceration risks, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said. The recall involves about 67,000 units of aerosol air fresheners in Fresh Linen and Fresh Water scents. Sting and Wayne Shorter have been named Polar Music Prize Laureates for 2017. The pair will both travel to Sweden where they will receive the prize from His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden at the Stockholm Concert Hall on June 15. Both have released statements on the honor with Shorter first noting: "I first traveled there in 1959 with Art Blakely's Jazz Messengers. My first impression was that it was like being in a storybook. We played concert halls in Stockholm and Gothenburg and then the tour continued in Norway, France and Germany." Sting added: "I still maintain a childlike curiosity about music, along with a sense that I constantly need to work at it," said the British musician. "So to be recognized in this way is truly meaningful. I am looking forward to coming to Sweden in June for this special evening." For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Entertainment News Infineon Technologies AG (IFNNY) announced that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) informed proposed acquisition of Wolfspeed Power & RF and the related substrate from Cree Inc. (CREE) poses a risk to the national security of the United States. Infineon noted that CFIUS had not identified any mitigation measures that it believed would adequately mitigate the particular national security risks posed by the transaction. Therefore, Infineon said it is of the opinion, that there is a considerable risk that the transaction, is not going to close. Cree also issued a statement that the transaction in its current form is not likely to be approved by CFIUS and that the likelihood or timing of closing the transaction is uncertain. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News A King County judge has ordered the makers of 5-hour Energy to pay about $4.3 million in penalties, attorneys' fees and costs for multiple violations of the state Consumer Protection Act. The attorney general for Washington had filed a lawsuit in 2014 against the makers of 5-hour Energy drink accusing them of deceptive advertising claims. He alleged that the ads misled consumers into believing that doctors recommend the product, and that the combination of ingredients provides some sort of benefit that is superior to just drinking coffee. 5-hour Energy is a flavored energy shot sold in 1.93 oz. containers. The companies that produce it are Living Essentials, LLC and Innovation Ventures, LLC. Last September, Judge Beth Andrus ruled in the state's favor, finding that claims in the companies' advertising were deceptive, and therefore violated the Consumer Protection Act. "The makers of 5-hour Energy broke the law in pursuit of profit, and now they are paying for it," said Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson. Judge Andrus has ordered the companies to pay nearly $2.1 million in costs and fees to Ferguson's office and nearly $2.2 million in civil penalties for violations of the Consumer Protection Act. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News Foreign trade data from Germany is due on Thursday, headlining a light day for the European economic news. At 1.45 am ET, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs is scheduled to issue Swiss unemployment data. The jobless rate is forecast to remain unchanged at seasonally adjusted 3.3 percent in January. At 2.00 am ET, Destatis publishes Germany's foreign trade data for December. Economists forecast exports to fall 1.3 percent on month and imports to drop 1.1 percent. At 3.00 am ET, Hungary's Central Statistical Office is slated to release foreign trade data for December. The trade surplus is expected to fall to EUR 575 million from EUR 878 million in November. At 5.00 am ET, Greece unemployment data is due for December. The jobless rate was 23 percent in November. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Economic News What parts of the world are seeing the best (and worst) economic performances lately? Click here to check out our Econ Scorecard and find out! See up-to-the-moment rankings for the best and worst performers in GDP, unemployment rate, inflation and much more. Switzerland's State Secretariat for Economic Affairs is scheduled to release its unemployment data for January in the pre-European session on Thursday at 1:45 am ET. The unemployment rate is expected to remain unchanged at seasonally adjusted 3.3 percent in January. Ahead of the data, the Swiss franc showed mixed trading against its major rivals. While the franc fell against the U.S. dollar and the pound, it rose against the euro. Against the yen, the Swiss franc held steady As of 1:40 am ET, the Swiss franc was trading at 1.0639 against the euro, 1.2463 against the pound, 0.9966 against the U.S. dollar and 112.61 against the yen. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Forex News While reporting its fourth-quarter financial results today, Telus Corp. (TU) provided its financial outlook for fiscal 2017. For fiscal 2017, Telus projects consolidated annual revenue growth of between 2.5 and 3.5 per cent, and basic earnings per share to increase by 2.0 to 8.0 per cent, driven primarily by EBITDA growth. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News As our nation goes through the transition process from President Obama to President Trump, and the vetting process for numerous political appointments escalate -- including our own Congressman Zinke, who, when confirmed, will be the first Montanan ever in a Presidential cabinet position -- perhaps none will receive more scrutiny than nominations to the United State Supreme Court. Why is this? Justices serve during good behavior. Article 3, Section 1, United States Constitution. In practice, this means for life, or until they are so old they can barely function. The average age for Justices when they are appointed is 53, and, since 1970, the average service for a Justice has been 26 years. Thus, the one or more Justices President Trump appoints could serve through four to seven Presidents. In addition to the Supreme Court opening, there are currently 84 vacancies for Federal District Court judges and 14 vacancies for Federal Circuit Court judges. In total, there are 890 full-time federal judgeships, thus over 10 percent are unfilled today. Overall, President Obama appointed 329 federal judges; President George W. Bush appointed 326; President Reagan appointed 384; and President Clinton appointed 379. President Reagan also appointed three Supreme Court Justices, while Presidents Obama, Bush and Clinton each appointed two to the Supreme Court. The legacy of any President is significantly tied to their federal judge appointments, particularly the Supreme Court. Journalists, insiders, and think-tanks have been looking very hard at the people President Trump listed as potential Supreme Court nominees. The U.S. Senate has the important task of scrutinizing and vetting the eventual nominee. This vetting is necessary because once appointed, getting someone off the federal court is nearly impossible. What to look for and what is disqualifying is subjective and will vary with each Senator. Supreme Court nominees have been rejected for various reasons, and, of course, nominees have been approved despite some issue(s) in their past, including questionable business dealings, sexual harassment allegations, and even perceived racist views. Allow me to illustrate with an example from my own background. When I started this column I promised to be authentic, and, while uncomfortable to recall, it illustrates the point. In 1984, I wrote onto the Montana Law Review while in law school, something I was proud of. While then writing a case note (a summary of a case), I did not use quotation marks properly around the authors writing. The transgression was a small part of the article, but technically I plagiarized. I was not trying to conceal anything, as evidenced by the fact I cited the case and page number. But, I made a mistake. I decided the right thing to do was resign from law review, which I did. In the end, I learned some valuable life lessons. One, be more attentive when writing. Two, when you make a mistake, admit it, take your lumps, and move on. And three, give a little grace sometimes everyone makes mistakes. Since that time 33 years ago, I have gone on to a rewarding career as a lawyer, legislator, and judge, including handling over 25,000 cases and writing thousands of orders and opinions. Obviously, the President is not going to nominate me for the Supreme Court, but if he did, the President, the Senate, and the American people would have the right to know about things like this before I served on the Court. I do not think this long ago mistake would be disqualifying, but it would have to be considered by the Senate, along with what I have done since then. So, thats why vetting and the scrutiny court nominees face is so important, and takes place in such a public, and politicized, environment. When the press and Senators dig deep into every facet of a Supreme Court nominees past, it is part of a process that helps us know who we are getting before we give them essentially a life term on the highest court in the land. Judge Russell Fagg has been a State District Court Judge for nearly 22 years, and has handled over 25,000 cases during his tenure. Fagg is past President of the Montana Judges Association and served two terms in the Montana Legislature. Latvia's foreign trade deficit increased in December from a year ago, as imports grew faster than exports, figures from the Central Statistical Bureau showed Thursday. The trade deficit rose to EUR 240.1 million in December from EUR 187.8 million in the corresponding month last year. In November, the shortfall was EUR 240.1 million. Exports grew 7.6 percent year-over-year in December and imports surged by 11.4 percent. On a monthly basis, exports fell 8.8 percent in December, while imports went up by 2.9 percent. At the end of the year, the main export partners in trade with EU countries were Lithuania, Estonia, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Imports largely came from Lithuania, Germany, Poland and Estonia. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Economic News What parts of the world are seeing the best (and worst) economic performances lately? Click here to check out our Econ Scorecard and find out! See up-to-the-moment rankings for the best and worst performers in GDP, unemployment rate, inflation and much more. The Senate has confirmed Jeff Sessions as United States Attorney General. One of Trump's most controversial nominees, Sessions was confirmed as head of the Justice Department with a 52 to 47 vote. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia was the only Democrat to vote to confirm the Alabama Republican Senator. Sessions is only the eighth member of the Trump Cabinet to be confirmed. The others are the secretaries of State, Defense, Homeland Security, Education and Transportation, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, and CIA Director Mike Pompeo. The heads of several other Departments still await Senate confirmation. Democrats had raised concerns about Sessions' level of independence from President Donald Trump as well as his record on issues such as immigration, civil rights, women's , and voting rights. During the debate, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren was forced to stop reading a letter written by the widow of Martin Luther King Jr. on Tuesday after Senate Republicans voted to formally silence her for impugning a peer. Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel attacked the Democrats for their effort to block Session's nomination. "His long and lauded career proves Sen. Sessions is exactly the type of leader we need at the Department of Justice, and I am glad he will finally be able to take his place at the helm," McDaniel said in a statement congratulating Sessions on his confirmation. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Political News Crude oil futures rebounded Thursday morning despite yesterday's report showing a stunning build in U.S. oil inventories. U.S. crude stockpiles surged up 13.5 million barrels last week, adding to the global supply glut. OPEC members have achieved 91% compliance with their planned supply quotas, but Algeria and Libya are reportedly resisting the deal. WTI light sweet crude oil was up 57 cents to $52.90 an ounce, having bounced back and forth near $53 for the past month. The Energy Information Administration or EIA's natural gas report for the week is expected at 10.30 am ET. The level of natural gas stocks in underground storage for the U.S. declined 87 bcf last week. U.S. weekly jobless claims declined 12,000 to 234,000, the Labor Department said this morning. The monthly average of U.S. claims is the lowest since November 1973. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Market Analysis President Donald Trump lashed out at Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., in a series of posts to Twitter on Thursday after the Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman suggested a recent military raid in Yemen was not a success because of the death of a Navy SEAL. "Sen. McCain should not be talking about the success or failure of a mission to the media," Trump said on Twitter. "Only emboldens the enemy!" The president added, "He's been losing so long he doesn't know how to win anymore, just look at the mess our country is in - bogged down in conflict all over the place." Trump's criticism of McCain comes after the Senator initially called the mission a "failure" but later softened his language to say it was not "a success." "Every military operation has objectives. And while many of the objectives of the recent raid in Yemen were met, I would not describe any operation that results in the loss of American life as a success," McCain said in a statement. He added, "Going forward, I am confident that our military will act on lessons learned from this operation to strengthen our fight against our terrorist enemies." The raid resulted in the death of Chief Special Warfare Operator William "Ryan" Owens as well as an undisclosed number of Yemeni civilians. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer argued that anyone who undermines the success of the raid owes an apology and does a disservice to the life of Owens. "Our hero Ryan died on a winning mission (according to General Mattis), not a 'failure,'" Trump said on Twitter. "Time for the U.S. to get smart and start winning again!" Following Trump's criticism, a McCain spokeswoman said he would continue to execute his oversight duties as Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman and support the brave men and women serving the nation in uniform. During the presidential campaign, Trump suggested McCain was not a war hero because he was captured while serving in Vietnam. McCain was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for more than five years. (Photo: Frank Plitt) For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News After several delays, a hearing on fast food executive Andrew Puzder's nomination as Labor Secretary has been scheduled for Thursday, February 16th. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will finally hold the hearing after previously postponing four scheduled hearings to give Puzder time to submit required paperwork. A Senate aide told USA Today the committee has now received Puzder's paperwork from the Office of Government Ethics. However, the announcement of the new hearing date comes amid calls from Democrats and labor groups for Puzder to withdraw his nomination. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called it "disgraceful to put Secretary of Labor and Puzder in the same sentence given his views." "They ought to withdraw Mr. Puzder before he further embarrasses this administration and further exposes the hypocrisy of President Trump, who says one thing to the American worker and does another," Schumer said at a news conference on Thursday. Schumer argued Trump could not have picked a worse nominee to uphold his campaign promises to the working class, claiming everything in Puzder's career is antithetical to the goals of the Labor Department. Democrats have been critical of Puzder's opposition to the Obama administration's proposal to expand overtime pay as well as his views on raising the minimum wage. Puzder, who currently serves as CEO of CKE Restaurants, Inc., the parent of Carl's Jr. and Hardee's, has also come under pressure amid revelations he once employed an undocumented immigrant as a housekeeper. While Puzder said he immediately ended the woman's employment after learning of her status and paid back taxes, similar revelations have derailed other Cabinet nominations. Meanwhile, Puzder spokesman George Thompson struck back at Democrats, calling their attacks on the Labor Secretary nominee "fake news." "The fact is, Andy is exactly what America's workers and businesses need: a proven job creator," Thompson said. "He's from a working class familythe first Puzder to earn a college degreeand he knows that success is achieved through hard work." He added, "To address his qualifications for the job, Andy Puzder understands how the right policies can spur economic growth and bring more opportunity for all Americans." For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Political News After trending higher over the past several sessions, treasuries gave back some ground over the course of the trading day on Thursday. Bond prices moved steadily lower throughout much of the session before closing firmly negative. As a result, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, rose by 4.4 basis points to 2.395 percent. The pullback by treasuries came amid a rally on Wall Street, as the major averages all climbed to new record intraday highs. Stocks benefited from comments by President Donald Trump, who pledged to announce a plan to lower the tax burden on American in the next few weeks. "That's coming along very well. We're way ahead of schedule, I believe," Trump said at a meeting with airline executives. "We're going to announce something I would say over the next two or three weeks that will be phenomenal in terms of tax." Trump has previously proposed reducing the corporate income tax rate to 15 or 20 percent from the current rate of 35 percent. Treasuries saw continued weakness following the release of the results of the Treasury Department's auction of $15 billion worth of thirty-year bonds, which attracted slightly below average demand. The thirty-year bond auction drew a high yield of 3.005 percent and a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.25, while the ten previous thirty-year bond auctions had an average bid-to-cover ratio of 2.31. The bid-to-cover ratio is a measure of demand that indicates the amount of bids for each dollar worth of securities being sold. Today's thirty-year bond auction came after the Treasury sold $24 billion worth of three-year notes on Tuesday and $23 billion worth of ten-year notes on Wednesday. On the U.S. economic front, the Labor Department released a report showing an unexpected decrease in initial jobless claims in the week ended February 4th. The report said initial jobless claims dropped to 234,000, a decrease of 12,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 246,000. Economists had expected jobless claims to edge up to 250,000. With the unexpected decrease, jobless claims fell to their lowest level since hitting a more than forty-year low of 233,000 in the week ended November 12th. A separate report from the Commerce Department showed that wholesale inventories increased in line with estimates in December amid a jump in petroleum inventories. Following several relatively quiet days on the U.S. economic front, trading on Friday may be impacted by reaction to reports in import and export prices and consumer sentiment. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Market Analysis Sylwester Bednarek, photo by PhotoRun.net Derek Drouin, photo by PhotoRun.net A tie for Bednarek and Drouin with 233 WL BANSKA BYSTRICA (SVK, Feb 8): Two athletes cleared 233 in second attempt and tried at 235. That was the higlight of 23rd High Jump meeting with music in central Slovakia. PolandAs 2009 World medalist Sylwester Bednarek (overall PB for him) and Olympic winner Derek Drouin cleared 233 World lead but not the 235. In the jump-off they both tried once again at 235 and then agreed for a tie. I was tired and after a personal best I was so happy, said Bednarek. Drouin was also satisfied: It was my first competition of the year and I managed well so all is ok. It happened for first time in the meet that there was a tie for first place. Third Belarus Pavel Seliverstau improved his PB to 231 and veteran Donald Thomas also went over 231 as fourth. Thomas was brave after two fouls at 233 tried once at 235 with support of the enthusiastic public of 900 people. Another top moment was the improvement of Slovak Lukas Beer to 228 and good tries at 231 as he ended fifth in most probably best line-up of the indoor season in men high jump. Mexican Edgar Rivera as 6th, US Erik Kynard as 7th and Bulgarian Tihomir Ivanov as 8th (indoor PB) also managed 228 in great depth of the competition. Surprise women winner was Iryna Herashchenko from Ukraine with second attempt clearance at 193. In total 8 other jumpers failed at 193 after they went over 189. Best by count back was another Ukrainian Yulia Levchenko with Olympic winner Ruth Beitia third, both 189. Fourth in a tie Canadian Alyx Treasure indoor PB 189 and SwedenAs Sofie Skoog season best 189. NRC Secretary General warns of famine spreading in Yemen NRC Secretary General warns of famine spreading in Yemen SANA'A, Feb. 08 (Saba) Secretary-General of Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), Jan Egeland, on Wednesday warned of famine spreading in Yemen, unless the conflict is ended and the deep economic crisis and aid shortage is reversed. In Yemen, if bombs dont kill you, a slow and painful death by starvation is now an increasing threat, said Egeland in a statement issued by the council in conjunction with the start of a donor conference for Yemen. The statement pointed out that the NCR, over the last years, managed to respond rapidly to needs on the ground, but unless the financial commitments match the response, it will not be able to reach the most vulnerable. "Last years appeal was only 58 per cent funded, limiting our overall response substantially," the statement said. The statement appealed to international donors to step up the funding, and also to apply all the pressure possible on the involved parties to secure peace and a revival of Yemens economy. "Two years since the conflict escalated in Yemen, more than 17 million Yemenis do not know if they will be able to put food on the table to feed their families", the NCR warned in its statement, adding that a total of 462,000 children are at immediate risk of death from severe malnutrition. The statement stated that nearly 2.2 million displaced Yemenis face a number of hardships, including lack of access to water, healthcare, shelter, education and a basic income. It noted that 75 per cent of the displaced identify food as their top priority among all these aid, illustrating the immediate and desperate need, a daily struggle for survival. It is crucial that all restrictions on aid are lifted so that we are able to deliver life-saving services throughout Yemen," Egeland said, urging all parties to the conflict in Yemen to allow free and clear access to humanitarian agencies, as is required under International Humanitarian Law. The statement pointed out that the de-facto blockade on imports, imposed by the Saudi-led coalition, has had a devastating impact on the Yemeni economy, and public sector health workers and teachers do not get their salaries, while the private sector is collapsing in a country dependent on imports for 90 per cent of its food. The blockade, the violence and restrictions to humanitarian access on the ground, as well as the continued destruction of civilian infrastructure in violation of humanitarian law, is turning Yemen into a country where an entire population soon will be dependent on assistance, according to the statement. BA Saba Facebook Facebook Twitter Twitter Whatsapp Whatsapp Telegram Telegram Email Email Print Print [08/February/2017] A Helena teacher whose pleas to be able to see a therapist were denied by a doctor that never met her spoke in support of a bill to require insurance companies to cover mental health the same as physical health. Sharla Crawford, of Helena, spoke in support of House Bill 142, carried by Rep. Laurie Bishop, D-Livingston, on Wednesday. What I compare it to is you wouldn't give a diabetic insulin but not cover the needles, Crawford said. Bishop told the House Human Services Committee that while there are already state and federal parity laws, not all plans are included and federal law could change under a new administration in Washington, D.C. Her bill would expand parity to self-funded plans, like the state's coverage for employees and what's offered to workers at the university system. The health care benefits you receive through your insurance company for your mental health should be no less favorable than the benefits you receive for your physical health, Bishop said. You can see it at this moment in time as an important statement of our values. About a dozen people spoke in support of the bill, saying they know friends, co-workers or patients who had struggled to get their health insurance to cover their mental health needs. No one opposed it. Crawford said she hasnt been able to see a therapist for a year to get treatment for her bipolar disorder, even though it was recommended by her psychiatrist. Her request was denied by a doctor who never met her. Shes now covered under her wifes insurance, at an extra $400 a month, and will be able to see a therapist. The committee took no action Wednesday. Child survivors of sexual abuse and their parents urged legislators to support a bill that would encourage schools to provide sexual abuse awareness education in elementary schools. House Bill 298 would require the Office of Public Instruction, in coordination with the Department of Public Health and Human Services as well as experts on childhood trauma, to develop sample policies, education plans and related materials that school districts could use to teach kids about safe touch and let them know it is safe to tell teachers or other staff about abuse. The program also would include training for school employees about the signs of sexual abuse and about what their responsibilities are as mandatory reporters under state law. The bill has been called Taras Law, recognizing a Hamilton abuse survivor who has rallied support for the proposal. It has been known as Erins Law or Jennas Law in at least 26 other states where similar legislation passed. Kirsten Schmitt of Emmas House in Hamilton said it is common for children not to be sure who to talk to about their abuse or even how to speak about it. As a result, she pointed to national studies that show 1-in-10 victims never talk about their experience and only 30 percent of cases are ultimately reported. When children are not educated about keeping their own bodies safe, they have no means to communicate what happened to them, she said. We teach them about fire safety, active shooter safety, drug safety, but we dont talk about personal boundaries. Schmitt said the handful of Childrens Advocacy Centers in Montana interviewed 704 children about reported abuse in the first half of 2016, 40 percent of whom were boys. She noted that 98 percent of them knew their offender, who was a member of their family about half the time. More than 1,200 kids were served in 2015 and 865 in 2014. Among the survivors to testify was a Helena sixth-grader. I was secretly abused by my father, she said, reading from handwritten notes on ruled paper. It wouldve been nice to know I couldve talked to my really good teacher about what was going on at home Kids would be less scared to tell the truth if they know theyd be heard. Her mother said the programs emphasis on training for teachers and administrators is just as important, not only to better identify potential victims sooner, but to make sure they are not unintentionally triggering memories of the trauma. She described an incident in which one of her daughters teachers, in a humorous attempt to punish kids for not cleaning desks, told her to get on her knees" and then bow. She said he became upset when she refused. Other children described being bullied by their peers when details of their abuse became public. They said they ultimately had to move to another town because school administrators told their parents they had no authority to address the situation or talk to kids about sexual abuse. Another parent, holding the hand of her young daughter as she testified, said they were lucky to be in a district where teachers and staff worked with them to manage the anger issues that are the result of the abuse. She noted, however, that not all schools have had the same training and might instead punish victims because they do not understand the reasons they are acting out, as they did, too, before learning what had happened. Rep. Edward Greef, R-Florence, said his bill is an important first step in providing protections for kids and forcing a more open community dialogue about an issue most would rather not have to talk about. This bill is a great starting point, he said. The intent of the bill is to create policy for awareness, prevention, response and reporting. This bill will do that. The Legislative Fiscal Division estimated it would take about $190,000 a year over four years to develop the program and distribute materials to all of the states 306 elementary districts, assuming they all choose to participate. No action was taken on the bill Wednesday. By SA Commercial Prop News Nicolway Bryanston new shopping centre set to open on 26 April 2012 One of SAs doyens of interior decorating, Phil OMahony will open Phil OMahony Interiors at Nicolway Bryanston when this chic new shopping centre launches on 26 April 2012. He will head an impressive line-up of furniture, decor and interior retailers to create one of the most stylish home-decor attractions in the region. The R500-million Nicolway Bryanston is being developed by The Rodrigues Group together with development managers Flanagan & Gerard Property Development and Investment who are also responsible for the leasing of Nicolway Bryanston. The 23,000sqm Nicolway Bryanston, with excellent direct access and visibility from William Nicol Drive, is designed to maximise its superb situation. It will create an upmarket, essential shopping experience for the affluent consumers in the area. OMahony believes the exceptional furniture and decor offering at Nicolway Bryanston, complemented by the prevalence of home and interior retail in the area, makes it the home-decor shopping hot spot for Joburgs most stylish residents. Customers want to browse and compare when it comes to decor and furniture, whether they are professional designers or looking for a special piece to add distinctive style to a room, says OMahony. With over 10 fabulous home-decor and gift stores at Nicolway Bryanston, shoppers will be delighted with variety and choice. Retailers will include Simply French, Le Creuset, Willowbrook Cotton Company, @Home, Livin, Rugs Original, MBW Art, Country Living, Loads of Living, Oil and Vinegar, and Teal. Its all about good living, says Nicolway Bryanston owner Martin Rodrigues of The Rodrigues Group. From the specialist home-decor zone to our powerful mix of anchor tenants and our unique retailers, Nicolway Bryanston is designed to be the centre of conveniently stylish shopping. Working with top London decorators while earning his qualification, OMahony gained experience on projects ranging from the ultra conservative to the startlingly modern. His own signature style settled on classic English furnishings with stand-out quality. While classic, OMahonys range rejects all that is bland and generic. Adventurous patterns and a delight of colours create a fresh-take on fine furnishing that works to equal effect in an ultra-modern urban penthouse apartment, a cosy country setting and a favourite SA suburban family lounge. OMahony is among the few SA decorators who choose to work from a shop. He sees his retail address as essential to provide customers with complete sensory experience. Often clients only gain a cursory notion of what to expect when working with decorators, says OMahony. The shop is an ideal way to show off our unique range of furniture. Its more a home than a showroom. This means our customers can fully experience fabrics, textures, colours and the total effect in a room setting. OMahony has ensured that his new showcase at Nicolway Bryanston exudes an authentic comfortable home environment. The trend in retail is for soaring high ceilings, contrary to ceiling heights in most houses. Our showroom creates an intimate setting, with ceilings at a level found in most homes. This makes it easier to understand the effect of decor in a home setting, says OMahony. Like OMahonys fine English furniture, his new store works perfectly in a stylish fresh setting. The focal point of Nicolway Bryanstons interior is the stand-out home-decor zone in the heart of the lower-level - a unique, stylish shopping node within Nicolway Bryanston, creating a spectacular showcase. Phil OMahony Interiors features OMahonys signature ranges, giving a glimpse into the diversity of his complete decorating service, from furniture and art to curtains and decorative pieces. He creates style for every room in the home, including the nursery and even those dreaded teen-caves. Im fortunate to be decorating rooms for the third generation of some SA families, says OMahony. It gives me great joy to see young couples pick out their first piece, and grow their collection as their home and family grow. Also, classic style never goes out of fashion. It can be reinvented with flair, in fresh settings and new ways. That is why quality is essential, says OMahony. A piece of furniture which is eternally stylish should be crafted to last a lifetime, says OMahony. Nicolway Bryanston will feature some 90 shops with a unique tenant mix. Its exceptional leading national food retailers include a 3,200sqm new Woolworths Supermarket concept store, a 3,400sqm Checkers and a 2,500sqm Food Lovers Market. Nicolway Bryanston is set out to create an exceptional shopping experience. It has attracted an unparalleled tenant mix because of its unique concept, easy access, superb visibility and the stylish, well-off market it will serve, says Patrick Flanagan of Flanagan & Gerard. The home-decor zone in particular is expected to be a powerful drawcard and shopper favourite at Nicolway Bryanston. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said over 700 Maoists surrendered after the November 8 demonetisation and that it was the biggest such decision taken anywhere in the world. He said these Maoists had surrendered in November and December last year and the process was continuing. Replying to the debate on Motion of Thanks to the President's address in the Rajya Sabha, Modi referred to Pakistan as "enemy country" and said it was shown on news channels that a dealer in counterfeit currency from that country had committed suicide after demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes by India. Modi, who spoke at length on demonetisation, said the decision had caused a vertical divide in which people were on one side and leaders of the opposition on the other. "It led to a vertical divide. The people's mood on one side and that of leaders (of oppsition) on the other. They are so cut-off from the people. The government and the people are together," Modi said to the thumping of treasury benches. He said poor people suffered the most due to parallel economy and steps such as demonetisation were aimed at benefiting the honest. "Such a big and comprehensive decision has never been taken in the world. Economists do not have a yardstick to map its impact. It was a big decision by India and aroused people's power," Modi said. He said social scientists will also study its impact. Modi referred to a book by former bureaucrat Madhav Godbole in which he said that the suggestion on demonetisation was not accepted by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. As Congress members objected to his remarks, Modi said they should have raised their concerns when the book was published. Modi said demonetisation had helped neutralise counterfeit currency. "It was shown on TV that an operator of counterfeit currency in an enemy country committed suicide," Modi said. Referring to allegations by the Congress that demonetisation had not achieved its objective of curbing terror financing and new currency notes had been found on some slain miltants, Modi said there had been attempts to loot banks in Jammu and Kashmir following demonetisation. "The notes were found on terrorists killed following bank lootings," he said. Dozens of nurses have emailed the chairman of a committee that tabled a bill making it a felony to assault health care workers and first responders, asking him to revive the legislation. I am a nurse that has been attacked on the job multiple times. Nothing was done because the police state that the charges won't stick, wrote Ryan Carroll, a registered nurse. I feel that I should not have to worry about being hurt by my patients and they can get away with it. If you were attacked on your job, it would be a different story. House Bill 268, carried by James OHara, R-Fort Benton, was tabled in the House Judiciary Committee on Feb. 1 after a motion by Rep. Theresa Manzella, R-Hamilton, passed on a 12-7 vote. When the bill was first heard by the committee, more than 100 nurses came to the Capitol to support it, filling the hearing room and an overflow room. Nurses again gathered Wednesday for Montana Nurses Association Legislative Day and to lobby lawmakers to bring the bill out of committee. On Feb. 1 Manzella told the committee that Montana already has laws against assault, but nurses arent using those avenues. She cited testimony provided at the bill hearing that in one year there were 2,155 workers' compensation claims paid to nurses hurt on the job but no coinciding police reports. I really think that nurses need to provide us with the necessary information we need to expose the holes in the system, should there be holes, she said. We may have a problem we need to address, but theyre not giving us what we need to address it. At the bill hearing, two nurses testified they were assaulted by patients and reported it to police, but the assailant only received a citation. Other nurses said they did not report assaults because they felt nothing would happen as a result. Rep. Dale Mortensen, R-Billings, said before voting to table the bill that a felony conviction on a persons record could destroy their life. As a former police officer, Mortensen was covered under state laws that make it a felony to assault law enforcement. If I changed every person that shoved me or spit on me or anything like that while I was making an arrest for a misdemeanor offense and I charged them with a felony, I guarantee you half of my jurisdiction where I used to work would probably still be in prison, he said. Dozens of nurses who wrote letters to Rep. Alan Doane, R-Bloomfield, the committee chair, requesting him to revive the bill, said it was necessary to protect their safety. They shared stories of those who were attacked while working. Doane on Thursday said a member of the committee could bring a motion to untable the bill; the motion would require a majority vote by the committee to pass. I have filed charges against these individuals, and nothing happens, wrote nurse Jaala Wickman. When they return, they know they can continue to be violent, to assault myself and others. I was once attacked by a patient who punched me in the head twice before another nurse could pull the patient off me. Nothing happened to that patient." Vicky Byrd, executive director of the Montana Nurses Association, said her group will work to encourage nurses to report more assaults, but also said fault shouldn't be placed with them. "You can't blame the nurse," Byrd said. "She's traumatized. You can't blame the victim. We have to get away from that way of thinking." The Union Cabinet was apprised on Wednesday of the signing of agreement between India and France to ensure exchange of best practices and technology. The Cabinet meeting was chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. According to a release, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) of Cooperation will be signed between Technology Development Board (TDB), India, and Bpifrance, a public investment bank of France. "The agreement will ensure exchange of best practices and setting up of coordinated measures to foster technological exchanges in the field of science, technology and innovation through collaboration between companies, organisations and institutions of France and India," read a release. TDB, which comes under the Department of Science & Technology, has been constituted to promote development and commercialisation of indigenous technology and adaptation of imported technology for wider application. As per the release, this agreement is aimed carrying out activities related to exchange of best practices in the field of science & technology through the TDB and Bpifrance. Launching a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his remarks on former PM Manmohan Singh, Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said the Modi demeaned his position and himself more than anyone else. "When a Prime Minister reduces himself to ridiculing his predecessor-years his senior, he hurts the dignity of the parliament and the nation," Gandhi tweeted on his official Twitter account. "He demeans his position and himself more than anyone else. Today's events were saddening and frankly they were shameful," he added. Modi on Wednesday launched a surprise attack on Mammohan Singh, saying that politicians should learn from Singh how to maintain a clean image even after 35 long years of public life dotted with scams under his stewardship. Replying to a debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President's address to the two Houses of Parliament, Modi also chose to attack another former Prime Minister of the Congress -- Indira Gandhi. Modi first cast aspersions on the scholarship of Manmohan Singh, a former RBI governor and an eminent economist, saying he (Modi) recently came across a book purportedly written by Singh, but found out that only the foreword was by "Doctor sahib" (Manmohan Singh). "Looks like, even the speech Doctor Sahib delivered in the last session...," Modi said, just stopping short of saying anything further, but implying that Singh's speech lambasting the note ban was not his own. The Prime Minister continued amid aloud protests by the Congress members: "For around 35 years, he (Manmohan) has had a say or a role in India's economic policy and decisions. In these 35 years, we heard of many a scam, but he has remained free of any blemish." "There is a lot for us politicians to learn... so much happened he did not get even a taint. Only Doctor Sahab (Manmohan Singh) knows the art of bathing wearing a rain coat," he said in a jibe, resulting to a huge uproar from Congress benches. The Congress MPs walked out at this point, though Manmohan Singh himself did not budge from his seat. A few senior Congress members including P. Chidmabaram, A.K. Antony and Karan Singh asked the former Prime Minister to come along and walk out, which he did. Hitting out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his remarks on former PM Manmohan Singh, CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury on Wednesday said Modi had no answers to opposition's questions and "personal insults to senior leaders" was his only response to serious issues. He also called the government most "bereham" and "callous" since Independence. "Rudeness is the weak person's imitation of strength," Yechury wrote on his Twitter account. He also wrote on his Facebook page saying: "The PM has no answers. He drives fellow parliamentarians away by insult, invective and abuse." "What should have been a reply to a rich debate on the motion of thanks for the President's address was reduced to a farcical street-corner speech. "Personal insults to senior opposition leaders, including a respected former Prime Minister, is the only response Modi has to serious issues raised by us in the House," he added. Yechury further said: "This is the most 'bereham', callous government we have seen since independence." He also wrote, "more than a hundred people have died standing in bank queues in the wake of demonetisation, apart from millions of livelihoods destroyed. Yet there is not even an acknowledgement from Modi, leave alone a condolence resolution for those who died." Talking about farmers' suicides, Yechury said the numbers have risen exponentially under Modi's watch. "The Indian economy is tanking, pushed further into the ground by his Tughlaqi firman of notebandi. Bereft of any plan of action to alleviate the suffering of Indians, he takes recourse to cheap theatrics not befitting a parliamentarian, let alone a PM," said Yechury. "Modi and his government's hollowness and 'ahankar' are brought to the fore every single day by its agenda of deception, diversion and disruption. We will continue to expose this government's diabolical agenda inside and outside parliament," he added. Modi on Wednesday launched a surprise attack on Mammohan Singh, saying that politicians should learn from Singh how to maintain a clean image even after 35 long years of public life dotted with scams under his stewardship. "There is a lot for us politicians to learn... so much happened he did not get even a taint. Only Doctor Sahab (Manmohan Singh) knows the art of bathing wearing a rain coat," he said in a jibe, resulting to a huge uproar from Congress benches. Mamata Banerjee ' title='West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee '>West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday claimed that the agitation in West Bengal's Bhangar was based on "a false campaign" and denied that two villagers who died during the movement had fallen to police bullets. "A false campaign was going on... And that led to the situation," Banerjee said while addressing the state assembly. "The state government is in no way involved in the matter," she said about the killing of the two persons in South 24 Parganas district's Bhangar. While emphasising the advantages of a power grid to improve power supply in the area, Banerjee categorically said nothing will be done against the wishes of people. "On the day the incident occurred we announced compensation of Rs 2 lakh for families of each of the dead. If the family members want to work, we will provide jobs also," she said. Asserting that the bullets were not fired by police, Banerjee said the killing of the two villagers was being investigated. "The matter is under investigation. The family members of the victims have themselves said that police did not open fire," she retorted. Bhangar was on the boil for days recently over the "forcible land acquisition" for a Power Grid Corporation of India project. The agitators blocked roads and fell tree trunks protesting against the "forced" acquisition of 16 acres of farmland -- spread over the villages of Khamarait, Machhi Bhanga, Tona and Padmapukur -- by the state government for the project. Banerjee claimed arms were smuggled in there while the state government was busy organising the Gangasagar Mela. The Trinamool supremo also said when land was acquired in 2012-13, there were no disputes. Touching upon other instances of violence in the state like Dhulagarh and Ausgram, she said the administration has taken action in each of these incidents. She described Dhulagarh as a "small incident" something which the BJP has taken advantage of. The BJP on Thursday rallied behind Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his "raincoat" remark against his predecessor Manmohan Singh, saying there was nothing wrong in the remark as the Congress too had insulted former premiers. Slamming the Congress for attacking Modi, senior BJP leader and Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said Manmohan Singh had allowed scams from the "space to beneath the Earth" during his decade-long prime ministership. "Fun, pun, repartee, sarcasm, hot exchange of words are part of a healthy democracy. Why so much fuss about this," said Prasad, reacting to Congress creating uproar in Parliament over Modi's remark. "What wrong did Modi say? Entire Manmohan Singh regime witnessed a new low of corruption where we had scams in the space -- the Antrix-Devas, on air -- the 2G spectrum. On land, there was the Commonwealth Games scam, on water there was the submarine scam and beneath the earth -- the coal scam," said Prasad. "The so-called credibility of Manmohan Singh was abused by the dynasty to promote corruption and rank crony capitalism. Manmohan Singh, are you not accountable for these scams?" he asked. Ridiculing the Congress for its "dynasty politics", Prasad questioned the treatment the party meted out to several Prime Ministers, including P.V. Narasimha Rao. "Had Nararsimha Rao not given him the political power, Manmohan Singh would not have been what he is today. And what did the Congress do to Rao, they did not even allow his dead body to be taken to the Congress headquarters," said Prasad. "It's not just Rao, but former prime ministers from Lal bahadur Shatri to Charan Singh, from V.P. Singh to I.K. Gujaral, the Congress has insulted all of them just because they did not belong from the family," he said. " Congress has two categories of leaders, one who belong to the (Gandhi) family and are beyond criticism, can't commit mistakes and are almost divine. The second category is one who are not party of the family and are to be discarded after being politically utilised by the family," added Prasad. After Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi's attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his 'raincoat' barb on former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, veteran actor Anupam Kher ' title=' Anupam Kher '>Anupam Kher reminded him of how he insulted Singh. "Sorry but nobody has insulted the Prime Minister more than you. Remember tearing the ordinance in a press conference. Unless you think you are royalty," Anupam, whose wife Kirron Kher is a BJP MP from Chandigarh, tweeted on Thursday. The actor, who has himself been a supporter of the BJP and Modi, reacted to Gandhi's tweet that Modi demeaned his position and himself more than anyone else by launching a surprise attack on Mammohan Singh. Gandhi's tweet read: "When a Prime Minister reduces himself to ridiculing his predecessor -- years his senior, he hurts the dignity of the parliament and the nation." This came in reponse to Modi's Wednesday jibe at Singh, saying: "Only Doctor Sahab (Manmohan Singh) knows the art of bathing wearing a rain coat." "For around 35 years, he (Manmohan) has had a say or a role in India's economic policy and decisions. In these 35 years, we heard of many a scam, but he has remained free of any blemish." "There is a lot for us politicians to learn... so much happened he did not get even a taint. Only Doctor Sahab (Manmohan Singh) knows the art of bathing wearing a rain coat," Modi said, resulting in a huge uproar and walkout in the Rajya Sabha from Congress members. The family of BSF trooper Tej Bahadur Yadav, whose social media video clip on "substandard food" dished out to the men in the force triggered an uproar, on Thursday filed a habeas corpus petition in the Delhi High Court. Yadav's family said in their plea that they have no idea of his whereabouts. The plea is likely to be mentioned by the family's lawyer before the court on Friday for an early hearing. "We have filed a habeas corpus petition in the High Court. His wife talked to him last on February 7. We have been calling him on his mobile number but it goes unanswered. When we contact on his official phone number, nobody tells us about his location or they keep our phone calls on hold," Yadav's brother-in-law Vijay told media. He said the family also sent two letters to the Border Security Force Director General to know Yadav's whereabouts but got no response. The family earlier alleged that the trooper was being "threatened and tortured mentally". Last month, Yadav posted a video clip on a social media website, complaining about the quality of food served to security personnel and accused unnamed officers of illegally selling food supplies meant for troopers. After the video went viral, the Prime Minister's Office and the Home Ministry sought detailed reports on the incident from the BSF. The trooper now faces an inquiry over various charges, including indiscipline. His plea for voluntary retirement has since been rejected by the authorities. The Bombay High Court on Thursday declined a plea for setting up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the death of Bollywood actress Jiah Khan. The plea was filed by Jiah's mother, Rabia Khan, a British national, who had sought formation of an SIT to probe the causes leading to the death of her daughter on June 3, 2013. Claiming that her US citizen daughter was murdered, Khan has also contested the investigators' version that Jiah allegedly committed suicide by hanging at her home in Sagar Sangeet Apartments in the posh Juhu area that evening. A division bench comprising Justice Ranjit More and Justice Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi ruled that since the matter is already being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) there was no need to interfere. Dismissing Khan's plea, the judges also disallowed an intervention application filed by actor Sooraj Pancholi seeking that he be heard as the trial court is yet to frame charges on the basis of the CBI chargesheet. Initially, Mumbai Police had investigated the sensational case of the celebrity which was later transferred to the CBI. Jiah, 25, left behind a note allegedly pointing a finger at Pancholi, her then boyfriend and son of actor-couple Aditya Pancholi and Zarina Wahab. Later, Mumbai police had arrested Sooraj Pancholi on charges of 'abetment to (Jiah's) suicide' and he was later granted bail. The CBI had concurred with Mumbai police that Jiah's death was a suicide and not a murder. Khan had earlier moved the Supreme Court with a similar plea (seeking an SIT) alleging Pancholi was behind Jiah's death, but she was directed to approach the Bombay High Court. At a previous hearing, Khan's counsel had submitted pictures of Jiah's body, the autopsy report and another report by experts in Britain who had stated the nature of injuries on the victim's body suggested the possibility of homicide. Thursday's high court order is likely to pave the way for the trial to start in the lower court on the basis of the CBI chargesheet. In one of the biggest heists in Gurugram, more than 30 kg of gold was looted from a gold finance company by over half-a-dozen robbers on Thursday, police said. The criminals stabbed two security guards when they offered resistance. Seven to eight robbers struck at the Money Gold Rathnam firm. "Two masked men entered it and sprayed some paint on the CCTV cameras," a police officer told IANS. Minutes later, five to six armed men with their faces covered barged in, cut off the wires of telephones and CCTV cameras and took the employees hostage. They escaped with over 30 kg gold. Police put up barricades in the city in a bid to catch the criminals. It's been a colourful campaign in thi s high-profile seat abutting Delhi with BJP's Pankaj Singh, son of union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, locked in a triangular contest with candidates of the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party. The election is vital for Pankaj Singh, 38, as he is making his debut in an assembly poll. The outcome and its margin are likely to have political ramifications for his father who has been a Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. BJP's victory in the previous two assembly polls in Noida has given some momentum to Pankaj Singh's campaign, but residents here say that BSP's entry has made the contest tight for him. The BSP has fielded a new candidate Ravikant Mishra, a Brahmin, while Samajwadi Party's Sunil Choudhary had contested an earlier election. The three contenders campaigned extensively on Thursday, the last day of electioneering for the first phase elections across 73 constituencies in Western Uttar Pradesh. Noida is a relatively new assembly seat, carved out as a separate constituency from Dadri in 2012. Enthusiasm among voters was evident with many shops and houses sporting party flags. While posters were placed tactically near major roundabouts, auto drivers were also flying party flags on their vehicles. BJP's Mahesh Sharma, who is Union Minister of Tourism and Culture (Independent Charge), won the seat in 2012. After Sharma was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2014, the seat was won by BJP's Vimla Batham in the by-election. Batham acknowledged that she was initially "deeply pained" over being denied the ticket but later came to terms with it when she was promised "bigger responsibility" by the party, she told IANS. She has been campaigning for Pankaj Singh. According to locals, the BJP's election margin was less in 2012 when the BSP contested and more in the 2014 by-election when the Mayawati-led party did not put up a candidate. "BSP's presence has made it tougher for Pankaj Singh as the party has a committed support base. The BJP got more votes in 2014 compared to 2012. The BJP is strong in the urban sectors, while BSP is strong in rural areas," Baljit Singh, a resident of Morna village here, told IANS. "Gurjar votes are getting divided in three everywhere. Most of the Gurjars will give their vote to BJP, some to SP and a few to BSP," he added. Mahesh Sharma polled 77,319 votes in 2012 while BSP's Omdutt Sharma got 49,643 votes and finished second. Samajwadi Party's Sunil Choudhary got 42,071 votes. In 2014, when the BSP did not contest and the SP replaced Choudhary with Kajal Sharma, the BJP got 61 per cent (1,00,433) votes. Sharma polled 41,481 votes. The BJP's rivals are also banking on a possible split in its votes as Batham was denied ticket. Batham's supporters, who were earlier upset, have now reconciled and accepted Pankaj Singh as the candidate. The SP and BSP have termed Pankaj Singh as an "outsider." "Replacing the sitting MLA will also have an impact in the elections. They (BJP) have brought an outsider, while I belong to Noida. People will vote against them," Choudhary told IANS during his tour of Morna village in Noida. BSP's Mishra said he will get votes from all sections as party leader Mayawati has the reputation of being a strong leader who is harsh on anti-social elements. "They (the people) want Noida to be free of crime and Behenji (Mayawati) had worked towards this during her rule. My contest is with the son of the country's Home Minister. I belong to a humble family and my father is a retired bank employee. We will get votes from all caste and communities and from rural and urban areas," the BSP candidate said, adding that his agenda was development. Pankaj Singh, who has been touring both urban and rural areas, said the BJP was putting up a united fight and "all were together". "The campaigning has been going good. It looks very positive," Singh told IANS. Asked about Vimla Batham, Singh said he has her support. "We go for campaigning together. We are all together," Pankaj Singh, who was active in the youth of the BJP since 2002, added. Noida has about 5.2 lakh voters, nearly four lakh of whom are urban. Gurjar, Jat and Dalits are among major communities here and it also has a substantial migrant population. Kishan Kumar, a businessman in Atta Market, said that demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes does not appear to be going against the BJP at least in the urban areas. "Demonetisation was a good decision. There were some difficulties but that did not make such a difference," he said. Kumar added that the BJP was more strong in urban parts of the constituency while the BSP and SP have their pockets of strength in the rural areas. Uttar Pradesh goes for seven-phased election for its 403 assembly seats from February 11 to March 8. _ _SHOW_MID_AD__ After tabling several bills intended to reform the Office of the State Public Defender, Montana lawmakers have amended a remaining bill to accomplish similar results at a lower cost. Seven bills were introduced this legislative session to streamline the process for OPD, address budget shortfalls and stabilize the office, which has simultaneously experienced high rates of staff turnover and an increasing caseload. But the overhaul is happening at a time when the Legislature is making deep cuts across the board to balance the budget. Although the first few bills that included a fiscal note were tabled, their sponsors said they were prepared to modify surviving bills to reform the agency with existing resources. We knew going into this process its during a lean budget time, said Rep. Kimberly Dudik, D-Missoula, who sponsored four of the bills. The agencies need to learn how to work efficiently. House Bill 77, which would establish an agency director, has been amended to revive those tabled bills at no cost. After the House Judiciary Committee tabled House Bill 58, which would have appropriated $150,000 to perform an independent workload assessment, HB77 was amended to say the new director will perform an internal workload assessment with agency resources. After lawmakers tabled House Bill 57, which would require the Department of Public Health and Human Services to take over the process of determining whether a person is eligible for OPD services, HB77 was amended to say OPD's central services division will review applications and determine whether applicants are eligible based on presumptive eligibility, income and assets, and substantial hardships. Before passing out of committee on Thursday, an additional amendment to HB77 will require the director of the Department of Administration instead of the governor to hire the OPD director. Another amendment to the bill, which would already make the Public Defender Commission advisory, would dissolve the commission in 2019. The last change to HB77 would transfer any ending balance from the OPD account to the state general fund. In a fiscal note, Rep. Randy Brodehl, R-Kalispell, said the efficiencies in HB77 will allow the agency to absorb the cost of a director salary aligned with other state agencies. Several other OPD bills are also still in play. After OPD was unable to collect court fees from defendants for their representation costs, House Bill 62 aimed to make that process easier and more cost effective. The bill says the office of the court administrator will prepare a monthly report for each court assessing costs and provide the report to OPD, which will notify the Department of Revenue of unpaid costs and work with the department to collect the costs. Any collected fees will be deposited into the state general fund. The three involved offices will collaborate to develop a report format and procedures for collecting fees. Another reform bill, House Bill 59, was passed unanimously by both chambers. The bill will relieve OPD of the requirement to provide representation for an assumed father who doesnt attend the hearing or an unknown father who doesnt know a hearing exists. The court would have the final decision on whether to provide representation. Dudik, the bill's sponsor, said unknown fathers are represented in approximately 25 percent of OPD cases. If passed, the bill is expected to save the agency $1.2 million by the end of the 2017 fiscal year. House Bill 65, which clarifies that the three divisions of OPD are to keep their budgets separate, also passed both chambers unanimously. House Bill 89 will establish a holistic defense program to keep people from returning to the system. The original fiscal note appropriated approximately $760,000 over the next biennium to establish four pilot projects and said OPD would need four full-time administrative staff positions, two additional social workers and one paralegal. If OPD only set up one pilot project, it would cost approximately $138,000 over the biennium. Now, the fiscal note has been updated and requires OPD to establish at least one pilot project with existing resources. Dudik said the pilot project primarily is a structural change that won't need additional staff. While it appears the agency is being asked to do more, Dudik said some of the tasks are things an efficient agency should already be doing. The director is expected to make sure new responsibilities and procedures are implemented. Bill Hooks, chief public defender, said he thinks his office will be able to implement the pilot program with existing resources. Well do everything we can to comply with everything that comes out of the Legislature, he said. Amid the uproar over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'raincoat' barb at his predecessor Manmohan Singh, BJP President Amit Shah on Thursday told Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi to recall what his mother called Modi in the past. Amid the uproar over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'raincoat' barb at his predecessor Manmohan Singh, BJP President Amit Shah on Thursday told Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi to recall what his mother called Modi in the past. Addressing an election rally here, Shah said Rahul Gandhi had no grounds to attack Modi since he himself had humiliated Manmohan Singh by shooting down a cabinet decision when the Congress-led UPA was in power. Shah's reference was apparently to Congress President Sonia Gandhi's description of Modi, when he was the Gujarat Chief Minister, as "maut ke saudagar" (merchant of death). Urging the people to vote out what he called a corrupt and inefficient Congress government of Chief Minister Harish Rawat, Shah said the people of the hill state should vote to change the fate of Uttarakhand. "Vote for the BJP and give us a majority," he told the gathering. Taking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his "bathing with raincoat" jibe, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi ' title=' Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi '>Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi said the remarks directed at former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh were an insult to the whole nation. Addressing a rally here in the poll-bound state, Gandhi said Modi has a penchant for grabbing headlines and indulged in "laughter shows" inside and outside Parliament. "Our Prime Minister Modi has this weakness of grabbing headlines. The day he isn't in the news, he doesn't get proper sleep. To get into headlines, be it inside Parliament or outside, he creates this laughter show of sorts," said Gandhi. Modi on Wednesday said Manmohan Singh knew the "art of bathing wearing a raincoat", creating an uproar in Parliament with protests continuing on Thursday. Taking strong umbrage the Congress has demanded an apology from the Prime Minister. "Modi is the first Prime Minister who can't speak with respect to his predecessors. "Manmohan Singh worked as the Prime Minister for a decade. Modi's remarks are not a personal insult rather an insult to the entire nation because it was the people of this country who elected Manmohan Singh as their Prime Minister," said Gandhi. The Congress leader also flayed Modi over demonetisation. "Ninety four percent of the black money is in real estate, bullion and in foreign banks. Modi, instead chose to attack cash. The cash attacked is not of the rich corporates and business houses, but of the masses, farmers, daily wagers. "In the name of fighting corruption he put the people in bank queues," added Gandhi. A recently discovered Earth-sized planet, dubbed Proxima b, which orbits within the "habitable zone" of the red dwarf Proxima Centauri, may not actually harbour life, new NASA research suggests. The search for life beyond Earth starts in habitable zones, the regions around stars where conditions could potentially allow liquid water -- which is essential for life as we know it -- to pool on a planet's surface. And the discovery of Proxima b raised hope of finding life beyond our home planet. But some of these zones might not actually be able to support life due to frequent stellar eruptions from young red dwarf stars which can threaten an exoplanet's atmosphere with oxygen loss , said the study published in the journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters. It is quite unlikely Proxima b is habitable, the scientists concluded. "If we want to find an exoplanet that can develop and sustain life, we must figure out which stars make the best parents," said Vladimir Airapetian, lead author of the paper and a solar scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "We're coming closer to understanding what kind of parent stars we need," Airapetian noted. The team of NASA scientists wanted to expand how habitable zones are defined, taking into account the impact of stellar activity. To determine a star's habitable zone, scientists have traditionally considered how much heat and light the star emits. Stars more massive than our sun produce more heat and light, so the habitable zone must be farther out. Smaller, cooler stars yield close-in habitable zones. But along with heat and visible light, stars emit X-ray and ultraviolet radiation, and produce stellar eruptions such as flares and coronal mass ejections -- collectively called space weather. One possible effect of this radiation is atmospheric erosion, in which high-energy particles drag atmospheric molecules -- such as hydrogen and oxygen, the two ingredients for water out into space. Airapetian and his team's new model for habitable zones now takes this effect into account. Another important habitability factor is a star's age, said the scientists, based on observations they have gathered from NASA's Kepler mission. Considering the host star's age and the planet's proximity to its host star, the scientists expect that Proxima b is subjected to torrents of X-ray and extreme ultraviolet radiation from superflares occurring roughly every two hours. They estimated oxygen would escape Proxima b's atmosphere in 10 million years. Additionally, intense magnetic activity and stellar wind -- the continuous flow of charged particles from a star -- would exacerbate already harsh space weather conditions, the study said. A Pentagon spokesman on Wednesday said that it was interested in leasing a "limited" amount of space at the Trump Tower in Manhattan to the Department of Defence. The 68-story skyscraper, where President Donald Trump resides when he's not in the White House, boasts luxury amenities and sweeping views of the New York City skyline. "The space is necessary for the personnel and equipment who will support the POTUS at his residence in the building," NBCnews quoted Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. JB Brindle as saying. He said the Defence Department would work through "appropriate channels and in accordance with all applicable legal requirements" during the leasing process. There is already a large contingent of Secret Service personnel who maintain a round-the-clock presence at the address, which accommodates both residential and commercial tenants, the report added. Available commercial space there runs $80 to $100 per square foot - and a full floor can pull $1.2 million to $1.5 million a year, said Jared Horowitz, of the real estate firm Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, which leases commercial space at the building. Any Pentagon rental is sure to raise questions of conflict as the federal government would be sending tax dollars to the Trump Organisation, which is run by the Trump family and owns the building. US kills, Bin Laden ally, in Syria, Pentagon, Washington, U.S. Killed 11 al-Qaeda, Fighters in Syria, Including Osama Bin Laden Ally, US forces killed, 11 Al Qaeda operatives, longtime ally of Osama bin Laden, two airstrikes, last week in Syria, Abu Hani al-Masri, killed, second drone strike, near Idlib, latest news, news in english, Top news in english, english top news, saharasamay news, Abu Hani al-Masri was killed in the second drone strike near Idlib on Saturday, a US senior defence official told CNN on Wednesday. He was "a legacy Al Qaeda terrorist with ties to the group's senior leaders, including Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden", said Eric Pahon, a Department of Defense spokesman. "These strikes disrupt Al Qaeda's ability to plot and direct external attacks targeting the US and our interests worldwide," Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a spokesman for the Pentagon, said. He said 10 Al Qaeda operatives were killed in the first strike near Idlib last week. Like Zawahiri, Masri was an Egyptian national who is reported to have fought along with Al Qaeda during the group's earliest days, reported CNN. Masri oversaw the creation and operation of many Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s where he recruited and trained "thousands of terrorists who subsequently spread throughout the region and the world", according to a statement issued by the Defense Department. Disclosure Living in the Midwest, most people immediately think of farm animals. What many dont realize is our part of the Mississippi River is known as a haven for Bald Eagles. One of the local businesses has offered an eagles nest livestream for years and it can be quite relaxing to watch such majestic creatures. Its breathtaking seeing them in the air or swooping over the Mississippi River in search of food. During river excursions, weve learned several facts such as the fact they return to the same nest each year (with a starting size around 5 FEET wide) and have infant mortality issues (it is not uncommon for the older to kill a younger/weaker one.) A couple years ago we attended Bald Eagle Days, a local convention celebrating this majestic bird, and were able to learn more about them and see them up close and personal. Ive seen them in the air, perched in a tree or standing on the frozen Mississippi many, many times. Whenever we visit a zoo, I seek them out. But nothing could prepare me for how huge these creatures are up close. Not only did we see a Bald Eagle up close, but other birds, including a Golden Eagle, were on display as well. I think thats why Sonys movie The Eagle Huntress was of such interest to us. The Eagle Huntress is a documentary chronicling the life of a 13 year old Mongolian nomad girl and her quest to follow a path previously only expected of boys and men. Narrated by Daisy Ridley (whom you may recognize as Rey from Star Wars) with executive producer Morgan Spurlock, its the story filled with messages of encouragement. Without the negativity that often comes with pieces on female empowerment, this young girl simply wants to do something she loves and doesnt let tradition stand in her way. Here in the United States, people dont recognize just how good we have it. Even with political and social disagreement, our lives in general are safe, comfortable and modern. When the girls and I sat down to watch The Eagle Huntress, the semi-nomadic lifestyle is the first thing they asked me about. Aisholpans home in the hills of Mongolia was simple with no modern conveniences. They took care of the livestock, cooked and cleaned when they were home. During the week, Aisholpan and her siblings would leave their home each week and stay five days in a dormitory with other children in order to attend school. They didnt get to return home at the end of each school day. They didnt get the peace, quiet and solitude of their own rooms. And the older siblings were responsible for caring for the younger. This realization by my girls was the first of several life lessons and points for discussion that The Eagle Huntress would provide for us. As a nature-based documentary, I expected to learn more about eagles and how they played an impact in this particular societys lifestyle. In reality, it is completely about Aisholpans journey. A journey that is not easy physically, but even more difficult culturally and traditionally. For years, my employment was rooted in male-dominated industries and I had to constantly prove my worth. It was difficult, but women in the industry wasnt unheard of, just uncommon. Aisholpan was not only entering an arena (both literally and figuratively) dominated by men, but she was the FIRST female to do that. Eagle hunting was a tradition passed from father to son to son to son for generations. Aisholpans father knows at least 12 generations of men who preceded him. While he recognized her talent and was willing to teach and train her, the elders disagreed stating that women belong inside preparing tea and water. One said women are supposed to stay indoors and quarrel for gifts and parties, while men are meant for the outdoors, and we quarrel for the catch. Rather than acknowledging her successes, they explained away her interest stating that eagles demand courage and respect and that holding an eagle does not make you an eagle hunter. But she never approached it as a challenge to the traditions; she did it because she loved it. She displayed nothing but positivity as she attempted to capture her own eagle, learned to train and hunt, competed in the eagle festival and set out into the cold of winter to actually hunt. It felt good to show my girls that achieving success doesnt need to highlight someone elses failure nor does it need to feel like a battle even when it truly is. In conjunction with The Eagle Huntress, Sony has prepared a study guide to assist teachers and homeschool families with incorporating this motivational and educational piece into their curriculum. I went over it with the girls and we discussed the overall topics of personal empowerment, stereotyping and building identities. I asked Kennedy what she thought and she said, What I liked about the movie is It is about womens rights and how girls can do anything if they put their mind to it. This movie was interesting because the elder men said women cant do things men do. Madison said, I couldnt bear the fact that everyone was so negative about her. I hated the people whose comments were so sex-based and wouldnt believe she succeeded. But overall, the movie was fantastic. Ive said many times that communication with our children is important and finding ways to open the door to the conversation is key. The Eagle Huntress is filled with possibilities for spurring conversation. Whether you are a teacher and want to use it in your classroom, a parent who is looking for a story with an inspirational message or someone interested in history, culture and enjoys documentaries, this is worth watching. Its currently available on BluRay and DVD or digitally on Amazon video. Visit The Eagle Huntress on Facebook to get more behind the scenes information. Have you ever seen an eagle up close? Here are 5 takeaways from Kansas' 37-16 win against Oklahoma State The Jayhawks are bowl eligible for the first time since 2008. Kansas just topped Oklahoma State for that pivotal sixth win. BILLINGS Montana U.S. Steve Daines gaveled down Democratic superstar Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday night, cutting off the senator from Massachusetts in mid-debate and ordering her to take her seat. The censure has become a cause celebre on social media, and Daines, a little-known freshman senator from Montana, drew attention for silencing Warren, a likely Democratic presidential candidate in 2020. Daines was chairing a debate about attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions, an Alabama senator with a civil rights record that Democrats have objected to for decades. Daines told The Gazette it just happened to be his turn chairing proceedings and wasn't aware Warren would be testifying during that time. Warren began reading from a 1986 letter from civil rights icon Coretta Scott King, in which she discouraged the U.S. Senate from appointing Sessions to the U.S. District Court. When Warren cited Kings concerns about Sessions' record on voting rights, Daines shut her down. You stated that a sitting senator is a disgrace to the Department of Justice, Daines said. He then carefully repeated the language of Rule 19, read to him by Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth McDonald. She was clearly in violation of what they call Rule 19, Daines told Lee Montana newspapers Wednesday. Rule 19 is a standing rule of the Senate and the intent is to place some boundaries around what is appropriate to say and what is not appropriate to say as it relates to personal attacks on standing U.S. senators, Daines said. The rule includes referencing quotes, articles and other materials, Daines said. Warren continued until Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell shut her down again. Im surprised that the words of Mrs. King are not suitable for debate in the United States Senate, Warren said. Then, Daines shut Warren down for good. The senator will take her seat, Daines said. Later, the Senate took a vote not only to uphold the rule, but to ban Warren from the floor for the rest of the session. Not backing down from the decision, Daines posted on his twitter account a video of him gaveling down Warren. He wrote in the post The Senator Will Take Her Seat. Montanans were watching. The rule is very selectively enforced in the Senate, said Caitlin Borgmann of the Montana American Civil Liberties Union. If theres any place free speech should be protected it is on the floors of Congress. I think its fair to assume Jeannette Rankin is probably turning in her grave. Rankin, a Montana Republican, was the first women elected to Congress. She helped passed the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. Kings 1986 letter opposing Sessions addressed the rights of black voters. The passage Warren read was Mr. Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens he now seeks to serve as a federal judge. It was the passage Daines cited in shutting down Warren. Warren exited the Senate chamber and read Kings letter on Facebook Live. The post went viral. She vowed on Twitter to not be silent about a nominee for AG who has made derogatory and racist comments that have no place in our justice system. Several senators went on to read from Kings letter on the Senate floor. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., wasnt among them. Tester testified that he could not endorse Sessions because the senator from Alabama had not supported the Violence Against Women Act, a key component in funding domestic abuse programs nationally. Sessions also supported The Patriot Act, legislation Tester said infringes on privacy rights. "Mr. Sessions has proven that he will not protect our individual freedoms and he won't stand up for those who can't speak for themselves. I am proud to stand with thousands of Montanans who value their right to privacy and protections for women and children, Tester said. When contacted by Lee Montana newspapers, Tester chose not to comment on Daines gaveling down Warren. Right now Jon is focused on protecting Montanans right to privacy and standing up for victims of domestic violence, not playing political games, said Tester spokesperson Marnee Banks. Senate panel includes casinos in AMLA to fortify law By Office of Senator Escudero December 1, 2016 PASAY CITY The Senate is giving more teeth to the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) by amending its current provisions to include the casino industry under the scrutiny of the law. Senator Chiz Escudero, chairman of the Committee on Banks, Financial Institutions and Currencies which is sponsoring the measure, said a panel report to further amend Republic Act No. 9160 or AMLA of 2001 has already been filed and is due for sponsorship on Monday next week. The inclusion of casinos in the AMLA coverage is one of the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism watchdog, to avoid the potential blacklisting of the Philippines. Senate Committee Report No. 13, however, has now expanded its coverage to include casinos as part of the reporting bodies to the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC), which was left out in the amendments made in 2012. Escudero said the country is rushing to comply with prescribed global legal and regulatory framework on anti-money laundering before FATFs assessment of the country in June next year. The Philippines was last assessed three years ago by the international body, which noted strong concerns on the exclusion of the casino sector from the law. In the amended act, the cash threshold for any covered transactions is now anything exceeding P500,000.00 or US$10,000.00 or other equivalent monetary instrument. Also covered by the expanded law are money services business or money transfer companies, dealers of precious stones, jewels and metals, dealers of high-value items or goods and real estate developers, brokers and sales agents. We are talking of dealers or those entities, like lawyers and accountants acting in behalf of clients whenever they receive cash for profit or gains, exceeding P500, 000.00. So if they dont want to be covered by the AMLA law, then they should transact or act in behalf of their clients with checks, not cash. Then again, checks are already covered by the reportorial requirements of banks under AMLA, Escudero said. Considered high-value items under the measure are the following goods or items which value exceeds one million pesos (P1,000,000.00): motor vehicles, including land, air and water vehicles; art and antiques; and other luxury items such as jewelry, watches and bags. We put a generic and catch all terms. In the original act, it simply states jewelry, with 50 percent of its value coming from the precious stone used. But this is ambiguous and evasive, what if you are paying for the luxury brand itself and not the stones? Then thats already left out. There are strong calls to include luxury car dealers, but those who deal choppers and planes and yachts will also be left out, so we phrased the inclusion as high-value goods to cover all, the senator pointed out. C.R. No. 13 also strengthens the power of AMLC to investigate motu propio or upon the request of appropriate departments or agencies transactions deemed suspicious for possible money laundering-activities. It is already being empowered to file, directly through the Office of the Solicitor General, before the Court of Appeals petition for a freeze order against any monetary instrument or property deemed laundered. The AMLC can also already subpoena any person and compel his/her attendance to produce information for verification and investigation in compliance with AMLA. Escudero scored the importance of complying with the countrys commitments to the FATF action plans and to earn its approval after its review next year as millions of our overseas workers will be the front liners to receive the impact of a positive or negative review. Cayetano: PH's AIIB membership crucial to sustaining economic growth By Office of Senator Alan Peter S. Cayetano December 6, 2016 PASAY CITY Senate foreign relations committee chair Senator Alan Peter S. Cayetano thanked his colleagues in the Senate for supporting the treaty that would make the Philippines a founding member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). The Senate on Monday (December 5) passed on third and final reading Senate Resolution No. 241, or the Articles of Agreement of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which formally ratifies the countrys AIIB entry documents. The measure got 20 affirmative votes, one negative vote, and no abstention. Cayetanos Foreign Relations Committee submitted last November 22 Committee Report No. 11 recommending the approval of the resolution of concurrence. Cayetano said the Senates concurrence with the treaty formalizing the countrys membership into the China-led multilateral institution will allow the Philippines access to funds for major infrastructure projects to sustain the momentum of economic growth that was started by the Duterte government. Any institution that will promote human development, accelerate economic and social progress, and further good relations with neighboring nations should be embraced and supported, said Cayetano. He expressed his gratitude to the Department of Finance led by Sec. Carlos Dominguez III and their counterparts in the Chinese government for their assistance, stressing how the treaty could foster a stronger relationship between the two countries. He also thanked Senator Loren Legarda, sponsor of the resolution, for making possible the passage of the measure. Cayetano explained that, like the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank (WB), the AIIB is a multilateral funding agency owned by sovereign member-countries, which specifically aims to promote economic development and strengthen regional cooperation and partnership in the Asian region. Our economy has been cited recently as the fastest growing in the Asian region. We posted a robust 7.1% growth in the third quarter are on target to achieving a 7-percent full-year GDP growth this year, he said. The administration earlier expressed its plan to raise the governments share in infrastructure spending to the gross domestic product (GDP) to 7 percent before President Rodrigo Duterte's term ends. Following the Senates concurrence, the executive branch now has the chance to access US$500 million annually from the Bank to finance infrastructure projects in the country. This, he said, is apart from over $20 billion that China is prepared to extend to the Philippines after the President's historic visit to China. AIIBs role as a major player in infrastructure development in Asia in the future is inevitable, and the timing of our membership in AIIB cannot be more perfect as the Philippines is at the point of development where increasing our infrastructure capacity can no longer be set aside, Cayetano said. Hunters in Montana could end up breaking the law if they douse themselves in urine that comes from one of the states where a neurological disease that is fatal to deer, moose and elk is present, under a bill heard Thursday. That measure, plus another bill that would ban certain animal carcasses and parts from those same states, are being proposed to stiffen Montana's efforts to keep its wildlife from being infected by chronic wasting disease. With the disease already present in three bordering states and two Canadian provinces that border Montana, trying to prevent its entry may be futile, wildlife officials and advocates said. "It's not a matter of if it comes here, it's a matter of when." said Joe Cohenour, a chapter chairman for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Cohenour's wife, Sen. Jill Cohenour, D-East Helena, is sponsoring the two bills. The first would make it illegal for hunters to use deer or elk urine to mask their own odor if the urine came from one of the 23 states or two provinces with chronic wasting disease. A violation would be a misdemeanor crime punishable by a $500 fine or six months in jail or both. Jill Cohenour said the state should do what it can to keep the disease at bay. If a case is found, the entire area will be closed off and all the animals there will be killed for testing, she said. "I find it abhorrent that there's a possibility that our hunting heritage could be affected by something as devastating as this," she said. Montana had nine cases of chronic wasting disease found on a game farm in Phillipsburg in the late 1990s. Livestock officials killed all 89 elk there and the farm was burned, according to news reports at the time. No cases of the disease have been found in the state since then. Alaska, Virginia, Vermont, Arizona and Arkansas already have similar urine bans. Montana's Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks supports imposing one in Montana, too. The degenerative disease affects the nervous systems of deer, elk and moose, said FWP wildlife administrator Ken McDonald. It's caused by an abnormal protein that infects other proteins and leads to fatal nerve and brain damage. The disease doesn't infect other big game species or livestock, and there is no evidence that it affects humans, McDonald said. The disease is likely spread by ingesting urine, feces, saliva and blood, he said. Mitch King, the government relations director of the Archery Trade Association, said his organization opposes a urine ban. The association has been working for the past four years with commercial producers to ensure the deer urine they sell doesn't come from animals with the disease. "We would prefer to try to address this without regulation," King said. Cohenour said she may offer an amendment to exempt urine sold with the Archery Trade Association program's label. A senior lawyer representing a pastor of the E.F.K.S Church who has taken the Churchs Elders Committee to Court has questioned the handling of the matter by the Chief Justice, His HonourPatu Tiavaasue Falefatu Sapolu. Leuluaialii Olinda Woodroffe has argued that His HonourPatu should never have presided in the hearing of Reverend Kerita Reupenas claim against the Elders given his connection to the church. The lawyer made the point when the matter was back before Chief Justice Patu. Leuluaialii and Rev. Kerita are appealing the decision by His Honour Patu to rule against the claim, dismissing it last year. According to Leuluaialii, her client did not receive a fair hearing because the C.J. is a member of the E.F.K.S. But His Honour objected. When did you or the appellant become aware that I am a member of the Congregational Christian Church, the lawyer was asked. Counsel was aware that you go to church but I wasnt aware that you were actually one of this is the instruction from my client that you are involved as a respective member of the church in Malua, Leuluaialii responded. The Chief Justice was not satisfied. I just want to be sure and made clear from you of when did you become aware that I am a member of the Congregational Christian church? he asked. I have always known your honor that you are a part of the church at Vaiala, the lawyer responded. Since when? Since I was a little girl at Faatoia and you were around. I am a member also of the Faatoia E.F.K.S. At that point, the Chief Justice asked the lawyer why she had not objected to him presiding over the matter earlier. Then why didnt you object on that basis before I presided in the hearing of the strike out motion and amendment of the substantive ruling if all along you have known that I am a member of the Congregational Christian church? In response, Leuluaialii said she was hundred percent confident in his judgement. I have trust and confident in your Honours in decisions in the past. I read your decisions and I did not have any good reason to say at the time that you were biased etc. It wasnt until the actual hearing, the process and the procedure.It wasnt until the actual debt was shown and it wasnt until I received your affidavit and then I questioned whether that is appropriate for you to be the witness in the matter that you were sitting on. So I hope that answers your question.Its an honest answer. Still the Chief Justice insisted. The strike out motion by the defendant was heard.You have known for many years that I am a member of the Congregational Church but you did not object? The motion to strike out was dismissed you acknowledged it. Now that the substantive hearing is done and completed and your client did not win or succeed you now say oh well being a member of the church the case you appeared in is biased, is that what you are saying? LeuluaialiI responded that she believes the trial was not done fairly. I am saying respectfully with discussion of that and in my honest opinion the trial was not fairly done. The Chief Justice went on to clarify that he is not involved with matters of the church. But Leuluaialii said its the perception of a conflict of interest when people look into the matter. Im sure your honor is right but its the perception of other people looking in thinking, when they know your involvement. The lawyer representing the Elders, Semi Leung Wai,said the matter would be better off in the Court of Appeal. In addressing Mr. Leung Wai, the Chief Justice said: You heard Mrs. Woodroffe that I should not have presided in the matter because I am a member of the Congregational Christian church. Secondly because my wife allegedly has a debt which again I say that I have made an affidavit that I was not aware of this. Mr. Leung Wai responded that the allegations are very serious. If thatsthe ground the appellant is submitting that the Judge has to be disqualified because he is a member of such denomination, that means all judges in Samoa would be handicapped from the proceeding because all of them are members of a certain denomination, said Mr. Leung wai. In submission of biased your honor these are very serious allegations. We are going round and round and when we look at the submissions we also agree that the matter should be referred to the Court of Appeal. Let the matter go to the Court of Appeal for a decision. I am having difficulties with the motion from my friend to call.First she makes an allegations that your honor is biased and then she said that she wants you to rehear the same judgment. To me I wont let this contradictive carry on and that is why I say let the matter go to Court of Appeal. The matter has been referred to the Court of Appeal. Last year, Reverend KeritaReupena challenged the Elders Committees decision to remove him from a key position of leadership in the Church. The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints has generously donated to the health sector once more. The church presented a container of 218 wheelchairs, 40 walkers, 102 pairs of crutches, 25 canes, walking aids and wheelchairs on Wednesday. The donation is valued at $129,802. It was just one year ago that my wife and I arrived in Samoa and the first thing we did we came to a hand over ceremony for another container of wheelchairs so we are grateful we have the opportunity to be able to help the people of Samoa with these wheelchairs, Elder Valenga said. But what we really want to do is help the people not to need the wheelchairs. We would like to be able to work closely with the Ministry of Health to be able to find a way that we can do that and resolve this. Minister of Health Tuitama Dr. Leao Tuitama accepted the donation. This gift of wheelchairs provide accessible transportation which is crucial to our people who need them as it not only offers people with disabilities a great freedom and independence but also encourages their participation and full integration into society, he said. These wheelchairs will allow more people with physical disabilities to be mobile. It allows for easy and safe transportation of patience within the hospital and in so many ways change the lives of those who have lost mobility or unable to physical illness to be mobile. The Minister of Health added that this is not the first time the L.D.S has donated to the National Health Services. The L.D.S Church Charities have generously donated 760 wheel chairs and walking aids to the NHS bringing the total number of mobility devices secured to date to 2,019, he said. This is the 3rd container 40ft long of devices since 2014 donated from L.D.S Church Charities is worth $51,921USD equivalent to about $129,802SAT. Devices donated are 218 wheelchairs, 40 walkers, 102 pairs of crutches, 25 canes, walking aids and wheelchairs services commence in November 2014 and the diabetic foot clinic commence in July 2015. The prosthetic and orthotic service commenced in January 2017. Since this service began 1, 156 wheel chairs, walking aids or orthotic devices have been provided to 842 Samoan women, men, boys and girls by trained mobility devices services personnel of 13 local staff trained as mobility device assessors and Australia Volunteer Prosthetic/Orthotics. Samoa is just a step away from becoming the hub of the Pacific in terms of fast, reliable and accessible internet services. This follows the groundbreaking to begin the civil construction of the Tui-Samoa Submarine cable landing station at Vaivase-Tai. Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Afamasaga Rico Tupai, said this is just the beginning of exciting things for Samoa, in terms of I.C.T. And the landing station at Vaivase-Tai will be the center of everything once the project is completed. But what exactly is a landing station? So the technical part of this is that the cable comes from the sea, and then goes into whats called a manhole and it comes and lands here, explained Afamasaga. From here, it will then (the connection starts) distributing all throughout the country. This is going to be the center, not only to connect to the local network but we will also build a data center here and our eGovernment. We are going to have our own cloud, and we are going to control everything for Samoa, here from this station. You know with the launch of our Cyber Security last week, we are looking at having our own Cloud so that we can control, and that we are able to have our own securities in our own hands. But coming from the sea to this part of the cable, they are all high-powered. And from here, it will start going out to the local networks and the national highway. Afamasaga went on to say that the station should be ready by July this year. The latest will be August, he said. Everything is built from overseas; it cant be built locally, so its a pre-fabrication system. So we just have to prepare the ground, so that once the system is ready and brought to Samoa, we will just have to connect it and ready for work. Afamasaga said they are also negotiating with other sub-marine cables within the region to connect to. This year we have the Tui Samoa happening and we hope to land it, he said. But we are also talking with other cables because we cant just rely on Tui Samoa. We cant just rely on the route coming from Fiji because the question is what happens if something cuts off from that cable? What happens when all of a sudden something accidentally drops on the cable and then cuts the connectivity? We need a restoration cable. So we are talking with Tahiti, Cook Islands and the government of New Zealand because they play a part in that Pacific Cable Project (P.C.P.) Samoa wants to be a part of that too. We will talk to the Tahitians and all the stakeholders of their cable so we can be part of it because we need a plan in terms of connectivity and communication. The Tui-Samoa cable is an 8 terabyte system which will connect Samoa (Upolu and Savaii), the Territories of Wallis & Fatuna and Vanua Levu to Suva on the Fiji mainland. The Government of Samoa through the Samoa Submarine Cable Company (S.S.C.C.) formally announced its commencement of commercial negotiations to host a spur off the 12,500km Trans-Pacific Southern Cross Next connecting Australia & New Zealand (and also Samoa) to the Los Angeles in California, U.S.A. Taking the shortcut saves a lot of time. Thats one of the many reasons why members of the public cut through the road in between the S.N.P.F Plaza and the former Agriculture Store building. The issue was the subject of a story titled Civil Disobedience or stupidity at its worst published in the Samoa Observer on Tuesday this week. The following day, the Samoa Observer spent some time at the crossing site talking to the public about this issue. Wesley Seufale said there should be a pedestrian crossing there. Since the plaza is right opposite this road, I can easily cross through here because its closer to where I want to go to, he said. The other reason is, the crossings that they expect us to use are far from the Plaza and who in the world, every day, has all the time to walk here and there just to get on the other side? I cross here because its faster and it saves my time. James Fui from Vaivase agrees with the call to set up a pedestrian crossing there. Its a lot of work for the government, but as people, we are already used to crossing here and most of the time we just forget that we are not allowed to, even when the police are there, he said. A lot of us have been told off by the police or L.T.A. Its embarrassing. Maota Finau told the Samoa Observer that he knows how dangerous this part of the road is but people prefer to take the fastest route to where they want to go. I see this situation as Samoan people being disobedient of the law, he said. You know in NZ, this is not how they do things. People are forced to take pedestrian crossings but for Samoa, people are thickheaded and too stubborn to follow any rules. I know the police and L.T.A. are just looking out for the safety of the public but people like me, from the rural areas, we are used to free crossing from any side of the road so the only way to help them make their work easier is for the government to set a pedestrian crossing right here. Earlier this week, Tavita Lui suggested that the government should consider a couple of options. The first thing is to set up a pedestrian crossing at that very area, he said. I think people are just so used to crossing there that in their minds they cross without thinking. The other option is to start introducing fines for people who disobey the rule and cross there. It sounds harsh but it might save someones life. Attempts to get a comment from the Land Transport Authority were unsuccessful. Paving the way for future women Members of Parliament in Samoa is the theme of a seminar currently being convened by the Women in Leadership Advocacy (WinLA) group. The seminar commenced at the Samoa Tradition Resort. WinLA is a network of women leaders advocating for womens political and economic empowerment and is chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mataafa. Its members include women Parliamentarians, women chief executive officers and Public Service Commissioners. The Australian Government through its Pacific Leadership Program supports the WinLA, Participants at the two day seminar include women who contested the 2016 elections, National University of Samoa (N.U.S.) and Office of the Electoral Commissioner and WinLA members. Panel discussions and presentations will provide participants with opportunities to discuss the lessons learnt by women in the 2016 elections and plan initiatives on working with partners to educate and prepare potential women candidates for the 2021 elections. A highlight of the seminar is the presentation of recent findings from a research project - titled Women and Political Participation: The 2016 Election in Samoa. The report authored by Ruta Fiti-Sinclair, Dr. Penelope Schoeffel and Leasiolagi Dr. Malama Meleisea is a result of interviews with 24 women who contested the elections in 12 electorates. The research was to identify support for potential candidates beyond promoting womens participation in parliamentary democracy. It builds on prior work in 2013-15, which found that that women have very little voice in the governance of villages, which are the foundation stones of the national political system. The research was funded by the Pacific Leadership Programme through the Samoa National Leadership Development Forum and was undertaken by the National University of Samoas Centre for Samoan Studies. Cancers relentless progression and ability to develop drug resistance are some of its most feared characteristics. While treatments succeed at first against certain cancers, the disease can keep recurring tougher than ever each time until the patient dies. Oncogenes genes with cancer-promoting variations drive this remorseless process. And despite increasingly powerful tools to study cancer genetics and treat chemotherapy resistance, some cancers keep outpacing researchers best efforts. Advertisement On Wednesday, a team led by San Diego researchers said it has found out how this happens: Many of these oncogenes arent on chromosomes, where scientists normally search for them. These oncogenes live on circular pieces of extrachromosomal DNA that are usually overlooked. Using this knowledge, the researchers said cancer diagnosis and treatment could be improved. Using new technology to detect this ecDNA, the scientists discovered that it plays a major role in nearly half of all cancer types. The process is fundamentally different than the classic picture of cancer cells mostly multiplying as clones, exact copies of each other, according to a study the team published Wednesday. Differences among cancer cells, or heterogeneity, are built into the disease. When cells divide, these oncogene-containing fragments on ecDNA can be passed to daughter cells in a random fashion, enabling tumors to increase oncogene copy numbers far more rapidly than chromosomal DNA, said one of the lead researchers, Paul Mischel of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research at UC San Diego. The number of copies can thus vary greatly from cell to cell. Moreover, each fragment can contain multiple oncogenes, amplifying their effect. Under pressure of chemotherapy, tumor cells that have just the right number of oncogene copies to resist the drug survive, enabling tumors to rapidly become drug-resistant. Commonly performed genetic searches on chromosomes cant determine whether these oncogenes are amplified on chromosomes or the ecDNA, Mischel said. This means amplification of especially dangerous oncones on ecDNA can escape notice. Because heterogeneity is baked into cancer progression, these cancers with extrachromosomal oncogenes diversify more rapidly than traditional chromosomal-based models of mutations. This increases the likelihood that by random chance some variants will turn out to be drug-resistant. Its Darwinian evolution, inside the cancer patients own body. The study was published in the journal Nature; visit j.mp/econgo to read it. The senior authors were Mischel and UC San Diegos Vineet Bafna. The first authors were Kristen Turner, also of the Ludwig Institutes UC San Diego branch; along with Viraj Deshpande and Doruk Beyter of the universitys Department of Computer Science and Engineering. On Wednesday, a team led by San Diego researchers said theyve found out how this happens Other prominent San Diego researchers on the study included Geoffrey Wahl of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and Robert Wechler-Reya of the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute. We have to think very carefully, not only about the (number) of genes and the sequence of genes in cancer, but the location of genes in cancer as well, Mischel said. As new genetic tools become available to more precisely detect suspicious genetic abnormalities, researchers will need to incorporate this information into diagnosis and devising treatment strategies. The study explains a great deal about why cancer resistance is so hard to overcome, said Jorge Nieva, an oncologist at the University of Southern Californias Keck School of Medicine. Youre missing the understanding of heterogeneity, without taking the circular DNA into account, said Nieva, who was not involved in the study. We need to start thinking about tumors having various cell populations, and begin to think about the various subclones that might exist. The use of DNA-damaging chemotherapy agents could even increase the genetic diversity of tumors, Nieva said, if it encouraged proliferation of these DNA fragments. Mischel said he first became aware of the role of ecDNA in cancer a few years ago. He led a study published in 2014 that found a deadly brain cancer called glioblastoma becomes resistant with the help of extrachromosomal DNA. When the cancer is dosed with chemotherapy drugs targeting the oncogene, cells survive by losing the ecDNA. After therapy stops, descendant cells recover that DNA. Mischel and colleagues then investigated whether extrachromosomal DNA could play a more widespread role in cancer. Once they began to look for it in a variety of cancer types, they found it was widespread. Moreover, all of the most commonly amplified oncogenes are found either entirely on ecDNA, or on ecDNA and abnormal locations on chromosomes. This indicated that the oncogenes had jumped from the ecDNA onto chromosomes in the wrong place. Further, Mischels colleague Bafna developed a computer model of the consequences of amplifying an oncogene on ecDNA relative to chromosomes, based on the random distribution of ecDNA to daughter cells. The model predicted that extrachromosomal DNA amplification would rapidly produce elevated numbers of oncogenes. It would also increase the heterogeneity of tumors. This model was validated by observations of tumor samples. Nieva said the study underscores the need to examine whole cells for cancer. Searching blood plasma for cell-free DNA can miss these ecDNAs, he said. Science Playlist On Now In a first, scientists rid human embryos of a potentially fatal gene mutation by editing their DNA On Now Space station flyovers visible from San Diego this week 0:55 On Now UCSD's 'ghost drivers' begin testing people's reaction seemingly empty cars 1:29 On Now 10 interesting facts about Mars On Now Kids can add years to your life On Now LA 90: SpaceX launches recycled rocket On Now Big passions, big giving: Malin Burnham 2:30 On Now Big passions, big giving: Darlene Shiley 2:40 On Now Big passions, big giving: Joan and Irwin Jacobs 2:45 On Now Ocean temperatures warming at rapid rate, study finds bradley.fikes@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1020 As automation spreads, the next workers to be replaced may be winged, six-legged critters with a sting and a talent for making honey. Their possible replacements: drones. Advertisement Yes, the increasingly ubiquitous flying robots have been turned into artificial pollinators. In a study released Thursday, a team of researchers in Japan has successfully demonstrated that miniature drones can pollinate lilies. The drones, less then two inches long, were adapted to their role by being coated on their undersides with a gel and horse hairs. This design was meant to mimic the physical properties of the hair-like structures on bees that pick up pollen in one flower and then release it inside another flower. In particular, it should lead to the development of robotic pollinators and help counter the problems caused by the declining honeybee populations, the researchers said in a paper describing their research. We believe that robotic pollinators will be able to move smartly and learn the optimal pollination path by using GPS and artificial intelligence. The scientists said while they hope honeybees will endure, its necessary to think of alternatives. Honeybees, the most widely used pollinators in agriculture, face a range of threats enumerated in various studies from certain pesticides to a fungal disease to a parasitic mite. The research paper describing the pollinating drones was published Thursday in the journal Chem; it can be found at j.mp/dronepol. The first author was Svetlana Chechetka and the senior author was Eijiro Miyako, both from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tsukuba, Japan. This study demonstrates the unique physico-chemical properties of (ionic liquid gels) for pollination with the use of different biological species and an artificial robot, the scientists wrote. The findings described here suggest that the proposed technology could find wide use in various applications in different research fields, including agriculture, biomimetic science and robotics. One benefit of the pollinating drones wasnt discussed in the paper: Presumably, these drones dont have stingers. Science Playlist On Now In a first, scientists rid human embryos of a potentially fatal gene mutation by editing their DNA On Now Space station flyovers visible from San Diego this week 0:55 On Now UCSD's 'ghost drivers' begin testing people's reaction seemingly empty cars 1:29 On Now 10 interesting facts about Mars On Now Kids can add years to your life On Now LA 90: SpaceX launches recycled rocket On Now Big passions, big giving: Malin Burnham 2:30 On Now Big passions, big giving: Darlene Shiley 2:40 On Now Big passions, big giving: Joan and Irwin Jacobs 2:45 On Now Ocean temperatures warming at rapid rate, study finds bradley.fikes@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1020 San Diego County home prices dipped slightly in September, continuing a modest decline since June, CoreLogic reported Monday. The median home price was $460,000, down 1 percent from last month, but $15,000 more than this time last year. The change reflects the typical drop in sales between August and September in the robust sellers market. On average since 2000, sales between those two months have dropped 0.5 percent and it is usually attributed to buyers wanting to get in a home before school starts. Advertisement There were 3,633 home sales in September with the majority 2,238 coming from home resales. A lack of newly built homes has increased rental prices as buyers go for older homes typically used for rentals, experts say. The highest median home prices were in Rancho Santa Fe at $2.3 million, Coronado at $1.4 million, Del Mar at $1.3 million and Cardiff at $1.15 million. The biggest year-over-year increase took place in El Cajon in the 92020 ZIP code where the median home price rose 57 percent from $315,500 last September to $495,000 this year. El Cajon Realtor Nancy Dennison said the area was popular with house flippers and it includes the pricier Fletcher Hills area. However, she said the number of distressed properties has been greatly reduced, prompting fewer investors to buy homes. At this point, it is mostly single families (buying), she said. A lot of the investors arent necessarily jumping on things the way they were a year or two ago. The cheapest place to own a home in the county is Palomar Mountain with a $132,500 home price where just one home was available for purchase. The lowest-priced areas with at least 10 sales were Logan Heights, $289,000; City Heights, $300,000; Golden Hill, $321,000; and National City, $323,000. New construction has led to the sale of considerably more condos from last year. There were 1,158 resales of condos in September, up from 978 last year. Without a doubt, its an indication of a lot of people who would like to buy a single-family detached house who cant afford it and are turning to condos, said Andrew LePage, an analyst for CoreLogic. San Diego County home prices increased 3.4 percent year-over-year, the least of all Southern California counties, but the county continues to be in the middle of the pack as far as value. San Diego Countys median home price was less than Orange County, which reached $615,000; Ventura County, $499,000; and Los Angeles County, $490,000. It was more than Riverside ($315,000) and San Bernardino ($268,000) counties. At the sub-regional level: The Central San Diego overall median was $450,000 on 1,121 sales. That was 3.2 percent less than a year ago. East County was up 8.2 percent to $410,000 on 513 sales, and South County was up 10.8 percent to $410,000 on 376 sales. North County coastal homes overall median increased 1.2 percent to $589,750 on 687 sales. Inland sales dropped 1.5 percent to $470,000 on 913 sales. With more technology companies speaking out against the Trump administrations controversial executive order barring citizens from seven countries from entering the U.S., San Diegos largest tech employer has taken a low key stance on the issue. Wireless chip giant Qualcomm did not join tech heavyweights Facebook, Google, Apple, Intel and 124 others in opposing the executive order in a court filing before the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals this week. Advertisement A three judge panel of the Ninth Circuit is considering the administrations request to overturn a temporary restraining order halting the executive order. In the filing, the tech firms contend the executive order violates immigration law and is unconstitutional. In the past, Qualcomm has lobbied for immigration policies that allow it to hire the most highly skilled engineers possible no matter their nationality. It has particularly fought against restrictions that would make it harder for foreign-born graduates of U.S. universities to work in this country. In a statement Wednesday, a Qualcomm spokesperson said the companys first priority is to provide direct support to any of our employees or their families who have been impacted by this executive order. We recognize that inclusion and diversity are paramount to fostering innovation at Qualcomm, and we will continue to be a proponent of positive immigration policy, the company said. The spokesperson declined to elaborate. On Feb. 3, a federal judge in Seattle halted enforcement of the immigration ban from seven countries with ties to terrorism. Washingtons state attorney general brought the lawsuit with support from Amazon, Microsoft and Expedia. The panel from the Ninth Circuit heard arguments on Tuesday. It has yet to make a ruling. In their court filing opposing the ban, tech firms said that immigrants or their children founded more than 200 companies on the Fortune 500 list, including Apple, Kraft, Ford, General Electric, AT&T, Google, McDonalds, Boeing and Disney. Other industries are also speaking out. More than 160 biotechnology companies nationwide, including 14 from San Diego, signed a letter published in an affiliate of the journal Nature opposing the executive order. Though the ban from the Trump administration is aimed at seven countries, our global employees interpret the underlying message as, America is no longer welcoming of any immigrants, whatsoever, the letter said. They fear similar orders could be issued for other countries at a moments notice. San Diego companies that signed the letter include Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Salus Discovery, Regulus Therapeutics, FSG Biotech, Metacrine, ViaCyte, Dauntless Pharmaceuticals, aTyr Pharma, Verity BioConsulting, Neurocrine Biosciences, Cidara Therapeutics, Crinetics Pharmaceuticals, Cerus and Orexigen Therapeutics. Business mike.freeman@sduniontribune.com; Twitter:@TechDiego 760-529-4973 A new study suggests what city cheerleaders have been preaching for months: San Diego tech workers get more bang for their buck than their Bay Area counterparts. In 2016, the average salary for software engineers in San Diego was $112,000, while Bay Area workers earned, on average, $134,000 for the same positions, according to data compiled by online job-matching company Hired. Advertisement However, when adjusted for the cost of living in San Francisco, the average software engineering salary in San Diego jumps to a comparable value of $179,000 in spending power, the firm found. When you look at raw salary numbers, (San Diego is) lower than San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York, said Jessica Kirkpatrick, the data scientist at Hired who authored the report. When you consider that San Diego is a lot cheaper place to live, it becomes the fourth highest-paid location where we place candidates. Only Austin, Denver and Seattle ranked higher on the adjusted scale. Hired analyzed more than 280,000 interview requests and job offers made through its service during 2016 for its second annual State of Global Tech Salaries report, released Thursday. Cost of living was calculated using a site called Numbeo, which has developed its own index that considers local factors such as taxes and how much users self-report spending on things like groceries, rent, clothing and transportation. Numbeo was chosen because the tool incorporates the most varied data sources, Kirkpatrick said. The tech salary report arrives amid a concerted push among local officials including Mayor Kevin Faulconer and area tech leaders to elevate San Diegos startup profile. Through a number of initiatives, including a Feb. 1 job fair in Mountain View, local advocates aim to convince Bay Area businesses and engineers, that despite the regions venture capital shortcomings, they should relocate here. While a Silicon Valley exodus seems unlikely, Hired has observed, among its audience of 45,000 job seekers, a trend of workers relocating from the Bay Area to other markets, Kirkpatrick said. For all tech positions in San Diego offered through Hired, 18 percent of offers in 2016 went to candidates from San Francisco, according to the company. Though Hireds findings may echo the San-Diego-is-better narrative, the regions cost-of-living savings could get pinched if current market trends continue. Last year, for instance, home prices in the county increased 4.2 percent during a 12 month period. Also, as of September, San Diego rents had increased nearly 9 percent in the prior 12 months. Also: San Diego going after Silicon Valley cash with office up north Hey Silicon Valley, San Diego wants to poach your best engineers Reality check: San Diego is no Silicon Valley RELATED Youre a smart engineer, and youre here? Thats the question a consortium of San Diego technologists, brought together by the San Diego Venture Group, will pose by way of digital billboard this January to their Bay Area equivalents stuck in traff Business jennifer.vangrove@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1840 Twitter: @jbruin DEL MAR Author to speak on children, families in digital era Advertisement Del Mar Hills Academy PTA will host clinical psychologist Catherine Steiner-Adair, author of The Big Disconnect: Protecting Childhood and Family Relationships in the Digital Age, at a free lecture at 6 p.m. Feb. 16 in the Performing Arts Center at 14085 Mango Drive. Steiner-Adair examines how technology and media can change the ways children learn and grow, and shows parents and educators how to use technology while reducing the risks it poses to children. The community is welcome to attend this free event. ENCINITAS Back to school night, seminars scheduled at SDA San Dieguito Academy will host a second-term Back to School Night at 6 p.m. Wednesday, preceded by several parent seminars from 5 to 5:45 p.m.: Course Selection and Naviance as a Pathway to College and Career Readiness (Media Center); AP Parent Information (gym); and MiraCosta College Options and Programs (Liggett Theater). The seminars will be offered in Spanish from 6 to 7:10 p.m. Call (760) 753-1121. Grauer School presents Man Who Came to Dinner The Grauer Schools Theatre Department invites the community to its presentation of the comedy The Man Who Came To Dinner, by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, at 7 tonight, Friday and Saturday. The play will be performed on campus at 1500 S. El Camino Real. Tickets cost $7 at the door. Visit www.grauerschool.com or call (760) 944-6777. OTL Youth Council to meet at library The Outside The Lens Youth Council will meet from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday at the Encinitas Library, 540 Cornish Drive. In this monthly digital-media focused college and career readiness program, middle- and high school students work together to develop leadership, photography and photojournalism skills, participate in community service projects and make a difference. Register at https://bit.ly/2jT5fmg; email iggy@outsidethelens.org. ESCONDIDO Open house upcoming at Escondido Christian School Escondido Christian School invites the community to its annual Open House Night from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Feb. 16 at the campus, 923 Idaho Ave. Families can meet teachers, parents and students, see student projects and visit classrooms. The school has been in Escondido since 1948 and serves more than 400 students. Call (760) 745-2071; visit ecslions.org. Community input meetings coming to district The Escondido Union School District is hosting community meetings to gather input from parents and residents on priorities under the states Local Control Funding Formula. The free meetings will begin at 6 p.m. Monday at Pioneer Elementary School, 980 N. Ash St., and Wednesday at L.R. Green Elementary School, 3115 Las Palmas Ave. Translation and child care will be provided. NORTH COUNTY Schools celebrate Great Kindness Challenge Several North County school districts recently celebrated the Great Kindness Challenge. The challenge was created by Kids for Peace to provide schools nationwide with a tool to create a positive environment, reinforcing the idea that kindness matters. In 2016, more than 5 million students took part. In North County, Carlsbad students held a rally at Tamarack State Beach for the challenge that was featured on Good Morning America. Students at Capri Elementary in Encinitas held a food drive. At Bobier Elementary in Vista, the staff, school superintendent, and members of the Vista Fire Department, Sheriffs Department, Rotary Clubs, Chamber of Commerce, City Council and school board surprised students with a tunnel of kindness. Bobier students and staff also collected Kind Coins for Pakistan during the event, raising $2,114.01 to help build a school in Pakistan. Visit www.greatkindnesschallenge.org. Local students graduate Lindsay Simpson of San Diego earned a Doctorate of Philosophy in education from Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. Kaitlyn Nicole Egan of Carlsbad graduated from Baylor University in Waco, Texas, with a Master of Science degree in clinical psychology. Juan Mejia of Carlsbad graduated from Baylor University in Waco, Texas, with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in finance and supply chain management. Local students achieve fall semester deans list Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa: Sonia Elizondo of Poway. Maryville University in St. Louis: Julie McCardell of Ramona. Marquette University in Milwaukee: Roselee Ledesma of Oceanside and Ryan Fazio of Solana Beach. Aurora University in Aurora, Ill.: Tyler Lombardi of Poway and Julia Dages of Vista. Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa: William Cresap Shoemaker of Valley Center. Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kan.: Jovana Canales of Oceanside and Richard Smith of San Marcos. Ottawa University in Ottawa, Kan.: Claudia A. Moreno and Diana Moreno, both of Escondido. College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va.: Timothy Patrick Bovenizer and Cosmo Peyton Cothran-Bray, both of Carlsbad. County student is regional winner for writing contest Anne Kelley of Oceanside, a fifth-grader at Harbor Springs Homeschool, was named one of 46 regional winners for Talk to Some Grapes, her short story about California agriculture in the 2016 Imagine This ... Story Writing Contest. The contest is part of a program by the California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom. The contest was open to all California students in grades 3-8. Need-based scholarships offered for seniors San Diego County Citizens Scholarship Foundation grants scholarships to San Diego County high school seniors who demonstrate financial need and plan to attend a San Diego County college full-time in fall 2017 and spring 2018. In 2015-16, SDCCSFs average scholarship recipient had an annual family income of $21,377 for a family of four, and an average GPA of 3.4. No minimum GPA is required for this scholarship. Applications are due March 2. To apply, visit https://sdccsf.org. POWAY Preschool registration, transfer period open Preschool registration requests for the Poway Unified School Districts 2017-18 school year are being accepted through March 1. Find the form at www.powayusd.com/preschool. A lottery may be required if requests for a class exceed openings. Children must be age 3 before Sept. 1 to enroll in preschool. Also, intradistrict transfer requests are now available for the 2017-2018 school year. Visit www.powayusd.com and click on Transfer Requests, then find the link to the intradistrict transfer form under Student Transfer Requests on the left. Submit the form electronically, or download a hard copy and mail to the Student Attendance and Discipline Office, 15250 Avenue of Science, San Diego, CA 92128. PUSD will take requests through April 1 for priority placement. SAN MARCOS Academy presents play about St. Bernadette St. Joseph Academy High School Drama presents The Smallest of All, a three-act play that chronicles the life of St. Bernadette and her encounters with the Blessed Virgin Mary at Lourdes, France, in 1858. Shows are at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Avo Playhouse in Vista. Adults $10, seniors $8, students $3. Buy tickets at https://www.vistixonline.com; click on all events then select the month link to display the shows for February. SOLANA BEACH Blanket, jacket drive ongoing at school Solana Pacific Elementary is holding a Blanket and Jacket Drive through Feb. 17. The goal is to collect 100 items, gently used or new, to donate to charity. Items may be dropped off at the school or at its Child Development Center, 3901 Townsgate Drive, San Diego, or at any CDC site in the district. Call (858) 794-4500. VISTA Guajome Park Academy offers Hard Rock Cafe Guajome Park Academys Choir and Orchestra students invite you to Hard Rock Cafe, a night of classic rock and desserts. The show will be at 6 p.m. Friday in the GPA Gym. Cost is $15 per person. For tickets, contact Jolene Riley at rileyjo@guajome.net. The school is at 2000 N. Santa Fe Ave. Call (760) 631-8500. Please send notices to laura.groch@sduniontribune.com at least 10 days before the event. laura.groch@sduniontribune.com Couples looking for romance this Valentines Day can head to the beach (for a long walk, naturally) or to the bedroom (they dont call it get a room for nothing). Or, they can snag a reservation at one of San Diegos most romantic restaurants and become those people. You know, those people seated at the most romantic table in the house, lost in their own little world, locked in each others eyes, utterly infatuated/in love/in lust. Well, consider us your personal romance concierge. Advertisement In honor of Feb. 14, our team of culinary cupids have found the 14 snuggliest of corners, coziest of booths and most dazzling of views. Helping us play cupid were restaurant maitre ds and managers who shared the exact table numbers you can ask for when reserving your rendezvous. So lose yourselves in your own little world and let the romance begin. Just dont forget to eat. A.R. Valentien At this elegant Craftsman-style dining room, request table 31, where you can nestle into the plush booth while enjoying the sensory pleasures of chef Jeff Jacksons tasteful tasting menu. At The Lodge at Torrey Pines, 11480 N. Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla. (858) 777-6635 or arvalentien.com Bice Skip the table and grab two seats at this snazzy contemporary Italian spots intimate cheese bar, where sitting side-by-side opens up a whole world of (discreet) romantic possibilities. And if theres anything more luscious than the sweet tomato jam on your cheeseboard, we havent tasted it yet. 425 Island Ave., Gaslamp Quarter. (619) 239-2423 or bicesandiego.com Bo-beau Lamour (as well as escargot and boeuf Bourguignon) is on le menu at this adorable French farmhouse-style bistro. Opt for a fireside patio table a deux or slip into a cozy corner in the stone-walled Bohemian Room. Finish with the Goodnight Kiss mini dessert martini. 4996 W. Point Loma Blvd., Ocean Beach. (619) 224-2884 or bobeaukitchen.com Cusp A meal of sultry oysters, creamy lobster gnocchi and sticky Smores chocolate ice cream cake have all the makings of a romantic repast. But do you really need any more enticement than the made-for-two tables positioned right before the expansive ocean-view windows? Hotel La Jolla, 7955 La Jolla Shores Drive, La Jolla. (858) 551-3620 or cusprestaurant.com Eddie Vs Get your grownup on at this sexy downtown supper club. High-walled, sapphire-blue velvet booths, at tables 112 or 122, form a protective cocoon for you and your sweetie, while smooth-as-silk live jazz from the lounge drowns out the rest of the world. The Headquarters, 789 W. Harbor Drive, downtown San Diego. (619) 615-0281 or eddiev.com Whats on the menu at Georges TBL3? It changes every night, which is part of the thrill of sitting there. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) Georges California Modern Does the idea of having a personal chef in this case, flavor-whisperer Trey Foshee create a meal just for you, and enjoying at the the best seat in the house at one of the best restaurants in town sound special? We thought so. Reserve TBLE3 for the experience. 1250 Prospect St., La Jolla. (858) 454-4244 or georgesatthecove.com/california-modern A wall closes off Herbs Table from the boisterous scene at Herb & Wood. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) Herb & Wood This might be Little Italys see-and-be-seen hotspot, but a seductive night out for two calls for a reservation at Herbs Table. Cloistered in this semi-private cushy corner, with views of the kitchen and the full dining room, youll only have eyes for each other. (But check out the photo of Herb hanging over the table: Thats chef Brian Malarkeys grandfather, Herb. Awww.) 2210 Kettner Blvd., Little Italy. (619) 955-8495 or herbandwood.com Mr. As Is it a coincidence that celebrating marriage proposals, wedding anniversaries and Valentines Day in this swoon-inducing setting is practically the law in San Diego? If you have to ask, youve never sat at tables 50 or 52, where your view of the city skyline and landing planes makes you feel up in the clouds. Vow to do so. 2550 Fifth Ave., Bankers Hill. (619) 239-1377 or asrestaurant.com Oceana Coastal Kitchen Be transported to a tropical beach getaway at this California classic. The booth at table 31 surrounds you with water youll be right under a soothing blue aquarium and have the best views in the house of the swaying palms outside on Mission Bay. Catamaran Resort, Hotel and Spa, 3999 Mission Blvd., Mission Bay. (858) 539-8635 or catamaranresort.com Pacifica Del Mar Heres a place that gets romance right. Tables for two right in front of the stunning, picture-postcard ocean view? Check. Tables that are specifically built and angled in such a way that you can gaze at the sea without ever having to unlock your eyes from each other? Double check. 1555 Camino Del Mar, Del Mar. (858) 792-0476 or pacificadelmar.com Ponsatys Chef Patrick Ponsatys will tempt you with his menu (Oscetra Petrossian caviar, lacquered Maine lobster, cote de boeuf for two) and youll be seriously seduced at table 3, an ultra-elegant private space with its own magical chandelier. 6106 Paseo Delicias, Rancho Santa Fe. (858) 771-1871 or ponsatys.com A table for two on the Prados patio gives you all the romance Balboa Park. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) The Prado Nothing could be more enchanting than a table under the twinkling night-time lights of the patio at The Prado, surrounded by the dreamy beauty of Balboa Park. And who resist an apres-dinner smooch by the fountain in the enclosed courtyard? 1549 El Prado, Balboa Park. (619) 557-9441 or dinecrg.com Starlight Don your most fetching LBD and Zegna to dine at this visually-alluring, retro-chic restaurant and lounge. Corner tables 22 and 27, on the luxe, tufted black leather booths, are the most popular date night destinations, with vantage points of the entire stylish scene. 3175 India St., Mission Hills. (619) 358-9766 or starlitesandiego.com Solare The whole world melts away when youre seated at the private table ensconced in your own little wine room. Lusty Italian dishes from chef Accursio Lota, like the Rotondi al Cioccolato e Guance (handmade cocoa ravioli with braised Angus beef cheeks), guarantee a night of amore. Liberty Station, 2820 Roosevelt Road, Point Loma, (619) 270-9670 or solarelounge.com Food & Wine Videos Twitter: @sdeditgirl michele.parente@sduniontribune.com La Jolla Playhouse has just announced the fifth production in its 2017-18 season, and its a piece that not only has local in its title but is local in its origins. The play is Kill Local, and its writer is Mat Smart, an alumnus of the University of California San Diegos graduate playwriting program. The play was developed through, and received a public reading in, the most recent edition of the theaters DNA New Work Series late last year. Advertisement Its full world-premiere production will go up in the Playhouses Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre this August. (Exact dates are pending.) It will be the second new piece by a UC San Diego playwriting MFA grad to join a Playhouse season in two years, following the 2016 premiere of Jeff Augustins The Last Tiger in Haiti. Heres how the theater describes Smarts play: Sheila and her sister Abigail work for their mothers small family business. Sheilas job used to be a source of joy and exhilaration; now shes questioning everything. But when youre an assassin, being uninspired means getting sloppy, and getting sloppy means getting killed. Kill Local is a pitch-black comedy about blood ties, revenge and trying to get unstuck especially when your life is dedicated to ending others. Jackson Gay, who was last at the Playhouse in 2014 with Sheri Wilners world-premiere play Kingdom City, will direct Kill Local. Smart won the 2015 Equity Jeff Award for best new work in Chicago for The Royal Society of Antarctica. His other plays (staged at such prominent companies as Williamstown Theatre Festival, Steppenwolf and the Huntington Theatre) include Naperville, Tinker to Evers to Chance, Samuel J. and K., The Hopper Collection and The 13th of Paris. Playhouse artistic director Christopher Ashley said in the announcement that during the DNA reading of Smarts play, I witnessed how this savage and savagely funny play electrified the crowd, and was determined to share it with a larger audience as part of our 2017-2018 season. The production, Ashley adds, will be a golden opportunity for us to reintroduce San Diego to his singular voice. San Diego Theater On Now Video: Bruce Springsteen's solo trip to Broadway On Now Video: Inside the rehearsal room of SDMT's Damn Yankees! 2:22 On Now Video: La Jolla Playhouse-bred shows earn key Tony nominations 3:05 On Now Video: Broadway moment has arrived for La Jolla Playhouse's 'Come From Away 0:33 On Now Video: Lamb's Players Presents "An American Christmas" 2016 1:21 On Now Old Globe's 'Grinch' ready to rumble again 0:52 On Now Little Miss Sunshine at La Jolla Playhouse On Now Working the Magic On Now San Diego Repertory Theatre presents "Federal Jazz Project" On Now An American Christmas Twitter: @jimhebert jim.hebert@sduniontribune.com As a provider of housing and comprehensive services for homeless veterans for 36 years, the volunteers, staff and supporters of Veterans Village of San Diego are motivated by a singular purpose: Ending homelessness for every veteran we serve. It is with great concern that we watch the numbers of homeless San Diegans grow and suspect the results of this years Point In Time count will quantify further increase. We applaud the efforts of Mayor Kevin Faulconer as outlined in his State of the City address, and there is much more that we must do. Advertisement Homelessness has many causes with a variety of solutions. The citys Housing Our Heroes initiative recognizes that veterans are uniquely vulnerable because of the wounds of war. Estimates indicate approximately 19 percent of current combat veterans who have received U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs care have been diagnosed with substance abuse or dependence. A recent study in Boston and cited by the U.S. Interagency on the Homeless this year found that drug overdoses are the leading cause of death among individuals experiencing homelessness in the city. Half of the Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans report symptoms of a mental illness, and 30 percent report symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. As the mayor acknowledged, addressing homelessness is complicated, in part due to the relationship that substance abuse and mental illness have with homelessness. The recently released Surgeon Generals report, Facing Addiction in America, confirms that prevention, treatment and recovery works and calls on America to dramatically reduce the drug abuse epidemic we are suffering through. In fact, the report points to research on programs like drug courts, which incentivize access to treatment options. One such option is the mayors SMART program, which allows repeat non-violent offenders to avoid jail time if they accept placement in subsidized housing with comprehensive drug treatment and counseling. Similar programs are showing high rates of success with reduced rates of recidivism and incarceration. Locally, VVSD pioneered whats known as homeless courts at the annual Veteran Stand Down, and they have been successful in resolving low-level crimes by steering individuals to services and treatment. The Surgeon Generals report revealed that treatment in longer-term programs was often effective. Key elements of successful treatment programs recommended by the Surgeon General include prescribed medication and planned participation in program reunions for post-discharge support. The report also indicates harm reduction, usually associated with a Housing First approach -- where services and treatment are not a program requirement -- can also be an effective interim treatment for those not yet ready to face their addiction. Comprehensive assessments done in one place and across the continuum must result in a service plan that is tailored to meet the needs of the individual with an outcome focused on self-sufficiency, health and a quality of life. One of the biggest hurdles to reducing homelessness is our affordable housing crisis. Reducing costs and barriers for permitting and construction, incentivizing developers to produce more affordable units and establishing a source of funding for permanent supportive housing are part of the mayors plan -- and are sorely needed. We recognize creating more permanent supportive housing will be a critical factor in reducing homelessness. But, it is not the only solution. One of the indicators communities use to assess their progress in reducing homelessness is the percentage of individuals and families living on the street or in canyons as opposed to shelters and other temporary quarters. Sadly, in 2016, 57 percent of our homeless neighbors were living on the street rather than in temporary housing. This represents an increase of nearly 20 percent over the previous year. This years count will likely indicate this unacceptable condition will only worsen, again. The end to homelessness will not occur until we have increased the availability of affordable housing and the provision of ongoing services for those who need it. We look forward to this becoming a reality. In the interim, we must maximize the use of existing housing stock: permanent, temporary, treatment-focused and otherwise. And as the mayor repeated in his address, the solution will require collective, coordinated and compassionate action. VVSD is a mission-driven organization committed to bringing veterans home not a home viewed through the haze of active addiction or the fog of untreated mental illness, but a home shared with family, health, quality of life and hope for the future. There is not just one path to bring veterans and other homeless San Diegans all the way home. The mayor knows that and he said so. Phil Landis, a Vietnam-era Army veteran, is chief executive of the nonprofit group Veterans Village of San Diego. For more information on the organization, go to vvsd.net. As President Trumps new Pentagon chief, Jim Mattis has a long list of tasks ahead, including devising a more aggressive campaign to combat the Islamic State and restoring military readiness after years of budget cuts. But a few weeks into his tenure, the retired generals most visible role has been of a different sort: soothing Americans and allies unnerved by the president and some of his top advisers. Mattis, wrapping up a visit to Japan and South Korean last week, carried a message of constancy and restraint on many of the foreign policy issues whose fate has generated anxiety since Trumps election. Advertisement In Seoul, Mattis told South Korean leaders that the United States will maintain a tough stance on North Koreas nuclear and missile programs, predicting a lasting partnership despite Trumps repeated questioning of the two countries military alliance. In Tokyo, he said the United States will stick to a mutual defense treaty, allaying Japanese officials concerns about whether the United States will continue its backing in a territorial dispute with China. He also acted to stanch speculation that the United States, as White House officials suggested, might act precipitously against perceived threats from China and Iran, saying that military steps were not required. This week, Mattis spoke with Mexican defense leaders, highlighting cooperation in the wake of Trumps high-profile feud with President Enrqiue Pena Nieto. Derek Chollet, who was a senior Pentagon official under President Barack Obama, said that allies were monitoring Mattiss statements for clues about whether the new administration would follow a course set by Trumps campaign statements, or stay broadly within the borders of established U.S. foreign policy. Trump may tweet up a storm, but if there is little or no connectivity to what happens on the ground, they may start discounting it, he said. While he has been held up by Trump critics as a bulwark against the presidents whims and praised by supporters for his military record, its not yet clear as the rest of Trumps Cabinet moves into place what sway Mattis will ultimately hold in shaping major decisions. In addition, the role of quiet diplomat is an unlikely one for a longtime combat commander whose brash commentary has occasionally generated controversy. But Mattis, who has already shown himself willing to disagree with the presidents preferences, now occupies a key position in the Cabinet of a man with little foreign policy experience. Unlike Trump and some of his White House advisers, including Stephen K. Bannon and son-in-law Jared Kushner, Mattis has worked within the U.S. military and security establishment for virtually his entire career. Although he appears to share the alarm that senior White House officials see in potential threats from Irans missile program and North Koreas nuclear ambitions, his path has been shaped by different forces. His affinity for working with allies is a product of his experience in the NATO mission in Afghanistan and the first Gulf War. As head of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), he conferred closely with Arab nations about terrorism and Irans actions in the region, and oversaw the U.S. militarys exit from Iraq in 2011. His views on Iran were shaped by the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon. Mattiss hawkish approach to Tehran eventually alienated him from some in the Obama White House before he left CENTCOM in 2013. Trump, who has surrounded himself by former generals, has already shown that he is willing to defer to Mattis on issues such as whether the United States should employ waterboarding on detainees. In his confirmation hearing, he suggested a less friendly attitude toward Russia than the president has espoused and stressed the importance of NATO, despite Trumps questions about the alliances relevance. Secretary Mattis has found a way to reaffirm alliances without disagreeing explicitly with his commander in chief, said Michael OHanlon, a scholar at the Brookings Institution. That is enormously important. The presidents apparent support for Mattiss military judgment may enhance the new secretarys standing in internal discussions or with allies, potentially putting the Pentagon boss in a position similar to that of former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who wielded significant influence in policy debates under Obama, sometimes to the frustration of the White House, Chollet said. His power could be enhanced if he and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson develop a relationship allowing them to jointly advocate policy positions, like Gates frequently did with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But already Mattis, like other senior officials, has appeared to have been on the outside of some White House decision-making in the administrations first weeks. He was widely reported to have received little notice that Trump, in his first visit to the Pentagon, on Jan. 27, would sign an executive order barring the entry of migrants from certain majority-Muslim nations, including Iraq. Pentagon officials subsequently pushed to clarify that Iraqis who obtained special visas after working with the U.S. government would be admitted. In other areas, Mattis has used his access to the president to secure approval for actions put forward by the military, notably the deadly Special Operations raid in Yemen that occurred a week after Trump took office. JV Venable, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said that Trump is likely to give Mattis strategic direction and then allow him greater rein, despite potential disagreement about particular decisions, than recent defense secretaries to manage military matters. I dont think he hired mice, Venable said. He hired people with bold backgrounds who arent afraid to stand up to him. Ryan writes for The Washington Post. Five authors who have written about war and its aftermath from a variety of perspectives combatant, wife, mother, son will participate in a public panel discussion Wednesday night at the Point Loma Hervey Branch library. The free event is called Crossing the Civilian-Military Divide: Stories and Conversation and is scheduled to run from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Advertisement Military veterans Michelle Kerouac, Derrick Woodford and Adam Stone will read from their contributions to Incoming, a project that records the experiences of men and women as they transition back to civilian life. Incoming is run by So Say We All, a San Diego-based non-profit literary and performing arts group. Also participating are Sue Diaz of Encinitas, whose 2010 book, Minefields of the Heart, chronicles her Army sons two deployments to Iraq and their impact on her family, and Elizabeth Marro of San Diego, whose 2016 debut novel, Casualties, is about a successful military contractor dealing with the death of her son, a Marine veteran. Dean Nelson, director of the journalism program at Point Loma Nazarene University, will moderate the panel. We understand how stories, both fiction and non-fiction, can help us all feel what its like to be someone else for a little while, said Christine Gonzalez, manager of the Hervey library. They can open the door for conversations we want to have but sometimes might find difficult. In a San Diego Union-Tribune interview last year, Marro talked about how moving to San Diego in 2001 inspired her to write Casualties, even though she, like most people, has no personal connection to the military or the recent wars. How could I stand on one side, especially once I moved here and it all became so visible to me? Families saying goodbye, waiting for people to come home. Neighbors who served in the Navy and have then gone into the defense industry, Marro said. Its everywhere in this community, and yet that divide can still be there. I felt called in my own small way to cross that divide and recognize that were not others. We both have responsibilities to each other. The Point Loma library is at 3701 Voltaire St. john.wilkens@sduniontribune.com Southern California Gas Co. will pay $8.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by air quality regulators over the Aliso Canyon gas leak and will fund a study of community health effects. The settlement with the South Coast Air Quality Management District, announced Wednesday, resolves a dispute over the months-long leak of methane from the gas companys Aliso Canyon storage facility above the Porter Ranch neighborhood of Los Angeles. The facility has been shut down since a well blowout in late October 2015 resulted in the worst methane leak in U.S. history. The invisible gas spewed for nearly four months, causing 8,000 residents to flee their homes, many complaining of headaches, nosebleeds and nausea. Advertisement The agreement dedicates $1 million to an air district-sponsored health study, far less than the $5 million air regulators sought a year ago from the utility. Community leaders, activists and local politicians were quick Wednesday to call the funding insufficient for a comprehensive study of what chemicals residents were exposed to in the gas leak and how it has affected their health. Issam Najm, president of the Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council, accused the air district of throwing in the towel with the settlement and said the result will be a meaningless study, if any. A true toxicological health study that answers the questions that have been asked since the beginning of this disaster costs a lot more than this and AQMD knew that, Najm added. The South Coast air district filed suit in January 2016, alleging the gas company violated air quality rules and sought up to $250,000 in penalties for each day the leak continued. Under the settlement, the utility will also pay $5.65 million in emissions-related fees, $1 million of which must be invested in a renewable natural gas demonstration project by Kore Infrastructure, an El Segundo company that produces fuel from wastewater. The deal also requires the utility to pay $1.6 million to reimburse the agency for air-monitoring costs and $250,000 for its legal fees. Alexandra Nagy, an organizer with Food & Water Watch, called the deal an insult to the thousands of families in the area and urged the air district to give millions of dollars of the emissions fees back to the community for a real long-term health study. The ruptured well was sealed in mid-February 2016, but not before releasing 109,000 metric tons of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. While health officials have blamed symptoms reported by residents on odorants added to the gas, pollution monitoring also detected the carcinogen benzene and other toxic pollutants in the communitys air during the leak. According to the district, the study will include a detailed assessment of pollution concentrations in the community, a survey of residents short-term, long-term and carcinogenic effects and an analysis of potential associations between reported health effects and exposure to air pollutants. We are pleased to have worked with AQMD to settle this and other matters, Chris Gilbride, a spokesman for the utility, said in a statement. The health study, agreed to last year by the gas company and required under an administrative order obtained by the air district, had been in limbo as the gas company and the agency wrangled over the cost. The abatement order the gas company agreed to in January 2016 required the utility to commit in writing to pay for reasonable costs of the health study. The air district then told the company that a meaningful health study would cost up to $5 million, including a $900,000 contract with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to establish an independent advisory committee to oversee the effort, records show. The gas company initially said it was willing to pay only $250,000, records show, and in May 2016 the utility committed to pay up to $400,000, according to the settlement agreement signed this week. The air district did not pursue a contract with the National Academies because of the price, a spokesman said, and has not yet decided who will oversee the study. Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger criticized the air district for the deal, saying it ignores recommendations of an advisory panel and health authorities, who called for a comprehensive, long-term health assessment. This short-sighted settlement does nothing to address the very real health concerns the community has Barger said, adding that the assessment outlined in the agreement is not a health study and does not allow for a full accounting of the health impacts of the gas leak and the facility. The gas company has faced numerous lawsuits from government agencies and residents and has disclosed spending hundreds of millions of dollars on relocation costs and other expenses related to the leak. Last fall, the utility agreed to pay $4 million to settle criminal charges over the leak from the Los Angeles County district attorneys office. The deal comes a few weeks after state regulators announced the underground storage facility was safe to open at a diminished capacity. The gas company has pushed to resume operations at Aliso Canyon, calling it essential for the regions energy supply. Porter Ranch residents and some elected officials are fighting any additional gas injections at the facility until state investigators determine the cause of the leak, and many want the facility closed for good. tony.barboza@latimes.com @tonybarboza ALSO Driver arrested after wild police chase through South L.A. Heres why California wont lift drought restrictions despite epic rain and snow Police searching for suspect in Long Beach robbery, sexual assault cases with elderly victims UPDATES: 6:50 p.m. This article has been updated with additional details throughout and reaction from community leaders and politicians. This article was originally published at 2:30 p.m. The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to speed up the approval of new community plans, documents that spell out where apartments, shopping centers and other new buildings should be allowed. On a 12-0 vote, the council decided to draft an ordinance that would require updates of those 35 plans every six years, a move thats expected to cost $10 million annually and bring each document up to date by 2024. Councilman Jose Huizar, who proposed the ordinance, said the move will ensure that city planning documents reflect changing real estate and transportation patterns. That, in turn, will help address complaints made by backers of Measure S, which would impose new restrictions on real estate development, he said. Advertisement Having updated plans will result in fewer requests from developers for zone changes and other deviations from planning rules the type being targeted by Measure S, Huizar said. It will certainly alleviate the concerns about why Measure S came about, he added. Supporters of Measure S, which is on the March 7 ballot, contend city leaders too frequently make changes to planning rules for individual development projects such as granting increased height or allowing fewer parking spaces than the rules require. All but six of those citys community plans are more than 15 years old. Since Measure S was proposed, Mayor Eric Garcetti and the City Council have hired dozens of new staffers to help tackle the backlog of work at the Department of City Planning. Asked about Wednesdays vote, Yes on S campaign spokeswoman Ileana Wachtel said city leaders have had years to address their outdated planning documents. It proves Measure S is pushing them to do the right thing. But its too little too late, Wachtel said. Now that people are demanding that the City Council do their job, she added, were getting some reaction. Measure S would impose a two-year moratorium on certain planning decisions, such as zoning changes. It also would make it harder for real estate interests to obtain amendments to the general plan, the citywide blueprint for development. Foes of Measure S say it will restrict the supply of new housing, causing rents to skyrocket. They contend homeless Angelenos will be hit particularly hard because many affordable-housing projects require deviations from planning and zoning rules. Councilman Mike Bonin said the proposal to update the neighborhood plans will help address L.A.s culture of speculation, where real estate interests buy properties in the hope that they will be able to get city leaders to change the zoning rules for those locations. Those developers then wind up in competition with homeowners who have put their life savings into their properties, Bonin said. The result, he said, is a series of battles for the souls of our neighborhoods. Its unhealthy, and it results in bad planning, he added. It breeds mistrust and a lack of faith in the system, and in us. Times staff writer Emily Alpert Reyes contributed to this report. david.zahniser@latimes.com Twitter: @DavidZahniser As a supporter of President Obama and Hillary Clinton, I'd like to respond to those saying, "let it go, you lost." First, I remember a number of protests even signs with pictures of my President with a bone in his nose, I remember a Congressman standing up yelling "you lie," I could go on. But more importantly, you elected a man who spent the last eight years not disagreeing politically with my President Obama, but disrespecting him personally. Maybe you didn't notice, but this man Trump was all over the TV for much of the last eight years pushing nasty, unproven conspiracy theories suggesting President Obama was not born in U.S. and therefore not legitimate. He also spread other nasty conspiracy theories questioning his religion, his education, his re-election, and claiming he was hiding something. Similar to the nasty conspiracy theory he spread about Ted Cruz's father being involved in JFK's assassination. This isn't politics, this isn't disagreeing, this is ridiculous nastiness. So you chose to elect such a man who spent the last eight years acting in this disrespectful, hateful way and expect me and other supporters of President Obama to respect him? Seriously? Respect is not coming from me, ever, live with it. You chose him. The majority of Americans did not. Sue Barnhart, Decatur A recent University of San Diego School of Law graduate and Donald Trump supporter has filed a malicious defamation lawsuit against an unknown person who she said created a fake Twitter account under her name displaying pro-Nazi viewpoints. Tiffany Dehen of Pacific Beach filed the lawsuit in San Diego federal court on Feb. 1, within a day of finding out about the fake account, the lawsuit states. She is seeking $100 million in damages. Advertisement The Twitter account uses her real name but with the following disclaimer in the description: Parody account. Fiction and political satire about Republican white women. Posts include pro-Trump sentiment along with support of Adolf Hitler and other racist views. In one post, it shows a photo of Dehen and says she is excited for her TV audition for BRAVOs The Real Housewives of NaziOccupied Russian Territory Formerly Known as America *twirls* if hes not Aryan, were not marryin! Another comment asks for fashion advice for a job interview from fashion queens Melania Trump and Kellyanne Conway. Dehens real Twitter account, @tiffanysundevil, shows her in a Make America Great Again red Christmas sweater and includes in the description #trumptrain2016baby #choochoo among other Trump-related posts. She said the account creator took great pains to plan the impersonation by trying to friend her on Facebook and gain more personal information so he could make a Facebook account. The defendant also stole and in some cases altered her photos to put on the Twitter account, the lawsuit states. Dehen said the account is particularly harmful because she is applying for admittance to the California bar and looking for jobs. The lawsuit does not name the mystery perpetrator, calling him John Doe, although she said she suspects he is a current or former USD student. Because of that, she is asking for the university to be included as a defendant, as well as Twitter, which she said had been slow to take the fake account offline. (It has now been taken down.) The process Twitter adheres to is absolutely ridiculous and should be looked at as well and Plaintiff claims the process Twitter has in place to review defamation is unconstitutional, the lawsuit states. The lawsuit was filed by Dehen without an attorney although she indicates she is working on retaining one. kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @kristinadavis Despite blankets of snow and rain that have covered California this winter, the states top water cops voted Wednesday to maintain emergency drought rules that have been in place in one form or another during the past 19 months. Regional water managers, including those in San Diego County, traveled to Sacramento to plead with the State Water Resources Control Board to end the emergency regulations. They repeatedly told the board that not doing so would erode credibility with residents and make it harder to convince people to adopt strict conservation efforts in the future. Advertisement We just encourage the state to go ahead and let the word emergency mean something, mean something serious, so that we can use it again, Dave Bolland, director of state regulatory relations for the Association of California Water Agencies, said at the meeting. The five-person water board was not persuaded by such arguments but agreed to revisit the issue on May 17. The statewide water-use mandate requires monthly reporting from retail water suppliers, as well as compliance with so-called stress tests to ensure districts have at least enough inventory to meet demand for three years of continued drought. The logical decision point for this is definitely at the end of the rainy season when we could be very thoughtful and be able to tie things up in more of a bow, Felicia Marcus, chair of the water board, said at the session. The newly adopted extension did remove reporting requirements for small water districts, as well as prohibit local governments and homeowners associations from penalizing people for letting their lawns go brown or taking other conservation measures. Californias snowpack is now 184 percent of normal for this time of year, and 127 percent of the normal level on April 1, a key monitoring date for regulators. Its been 22 years since the Sierras have accumulated this much white powder. Meanwhile, nine of the states dozen largest reservoirs are filled up above their historical average. The U.S. Drought Monitor reports that about 50 percent of the state remains in moderate to extreme drought, down from about 95 percent a year ago. Most notably, a swath of Southern California from Santa Barbara County to Kern County continues to struggle with dry conditions. At the same time, groundwater levels in parts of the Central Valley remain dramatically overdrawn. Experts have been debating to what extent this decades-long issue should be linked to the past five-plus years of drought. California doesnt have an official definition for statewide drought, leaving it to Gov. Jerry Brown to decide when to lift this designation. Under direction from Brown, the water board is designing permanent conservation rules that will continue even after the emergency drought regulations end. Those long-term conservation standards will including permanent caps on indoor and outdoor water use, and will likely be phased in starting in early 2018. Officials with the water board have said in some instances, the new protocols will likely require the Legislature to pass new laws. Environmental groups backed continuation of the emergency rules Wednesday, pointing to groundwater issues as well as their desire to establish a permanent conservation ethic throughout the state. Rain or shine, California needs to make conservation a way of life, said Sean Bothwell, policy director of the California Coastkeeper Alliance. It does us no good to stop the momentum that weve already created by letting the emergency regulations cease, and it does us no good to stop the messaging that all Californians need to do their part to conserve water. It doesnt help us at all to stop the reporting and the data collection thats really been invaluable throughout this drought, he said. The emergency rules first went into effect in June 2015, after Brown called for a statewide average cut of 25 percent in urban water use in a month-over-month comparison to the baseline year of 2013. Each of the states 411 water suppliers were assigned an individual target based largely on its per person water use, between 4 percent to 36 percent. For months, water districts from San Diego to Ventura to San Jose lobbied the board to remove or relax the targets. Then after California received moderate rainfall last winter, the water board significantly overhauled the drought rules, enabling districts to ditch the caps on water usage if they passed the states stress test. In San Diego County, water officials have for years rejected the idea that their region was ever in a drought. They have rather pointed to the areas stable of water supplies that are largely independent of the states hydrological conditions, including water transfers from the Colorado River and the Poseidon desalination plant in Carlsbad, which came online in December 2015. Wed like to be transparent and honest with our customers, and here in San Diego County, were not experiencing drought conditions along with many other parts of the state, said Dana Friehauf, water resources manager for the San Diego County Water Authority. So its unfortunate that the state has chosen to keep the regulations in place. The states mandatory conservation standards have caused some districts to lose considerable revenue because of their customers reduced water use. That can be frustrating for agencies because it can lead to unpopular rate hikes to cover fixed costs associated with capital projects and infrastructure expenses. (Water districts) had to raise rates as a result of the regulations, Friehauf said. In recent years, she said, We would have cut back to some extent, but not to the extent (in some areas) of 36 percent. Urban water users up and down California have cut their water use by an average of 22.5 percent below 2013 levels since June 2015 saving a total of 793 billion gallons, according to the water board. Thats enough to provide nearly one in three people in the state enough water for a year. Twitter: @jemersmith Phone: (619) 293-2234 Email: joshua.smith@sduniontribune.com Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly is visiting the U.S. border with Mexico this week, including a stop Friday in San Diego. Kelly, who was confirmed late last month, will meet with federal, state and local law enforcement officials at the San Ysidro Port of Entry on Friday. He will tour security operations and meet with Department of Homeland Security employees. Advertisement Labor unions representing Border Patrol agents and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers endorsed Donald Trump for president last year. An executive order Trump signed Jan. 28 calls for adding 5,000 Border Patrol agents and 10,000 ICE officers. Morale among ICE officers has been low. During the final years of Barack Obamas presidency, the ICE officers complained about policies they say prohibited them from aggressively enforcing immigration laws. They also said upper management had poor relations with employees. In San Diego, the ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations office, which arrests and deports immigrants in the country illegally, took its complaints with the Obama administration public. In 2015, for example, union employees demonstrated outside the federal building in downtown San Diego as a protest against management. Union head Felix Luciano said 23 Equal Employment Opportunity complaints alleging discrimination have been filed in the San Diego office since 2014. Some of the complaints said employees were subjected to harassment or verbal abuse. Others say they were targets of gender, race or age discrimination. In October, leaders of labor union locals representing ICE workers from around the country submitted a three-page letter describing the low morale and met in Washington, D.C., with top agency officials to discuss the concerns. Kelly could hear those employee complaints at his border meetings this week. He was in Arizona on Thursday at the Nogales Border Patrol Station to meet with Gov. Doug Ducey and law enforcement. Kelly also spoke with Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations Luis Videgaray Caso on Wednesday. According to the Homeland Security Department, they discussed the strong partnership and shared values between the United States and Mexico and the importance of preserving the joint social and economic interests of the two countries. Since taking office, Trump has signed an executive order to build a wall along the entire U.S. border with Mexico. He also has said he wants to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, a deal involving the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Twitter: @jptstewart joshua.stewart@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1841 Five years after cities across California lost redevelopment agencies as a crucial tool for economic growth, San Diego is taking advantage of the states partial revival of the concept. The City Council this week unanimously approved creating one of Californias first enhanced infrastructure financing districts in Otay Mesa, a largely undeveloped area along the international border with an estimated 2,000 open acres of land. Advertisement The district would yield nearly $800 million in estimated property tax increment over the next 45 years for badly needed infrastructure projects that are expected to accelerate economic development and job growth in Otay. The projects would be primarily freeway onramps, road widenings and other transportation upgrades, but would also include fire stations, parks and municipal swimming pools. Calling Otay a test case, city officials said similar special financing districts could be created elsewhere in the city. But they said the economic boost in those areas would be significantly smaller because of Otays vast potential for growth. Council members said they also plan to lobby county officials to reverse a recent decision not to participate in the new district, which could double the amount of infrastructure funding available in Otay. Similar to redevelopment agencies, enhanced infrastructure financing districts allow a defined geographical area to keep increases in property tax called tax increment that take place during the decades after the district is formed. But while redevelopment agencies allowed the defined area to keep all of the increment, the new districts prohibit taking property taxes away from schools and require a county governments consent to take the money away. So in Otay Mesa, only the citys share of the increase in property tax revenue will be funneled into the new district. But city officials said they are still optimistic the district will dramatically boost economic growth, primarily because of Otays enormous potential. The community is envisioned as a major employment center and an area with an important regional economic role because of its border crossing and industrial businesses focused on transportation logistics, warehousing and manufacturing. The Otay Mesa community is dynamic and rapidly growing, said City Councilman David Alvarez, whose council district includes the area. This district will ensure that the new city tax revenue generated by Otay Mesa will stay in Otay Mesa and be invested for continued growth. And the city plans to jump-start the process with an immediate influx of capital generated by selling bonds that would be paid back with the tax increment expected in the future. While that approach will require millions in interest payments, city officials said it will more than pay for itself by spurring development that will more quickly increase the tax increment used to pay the bonds back. The law allowing the new district, which the state approved in 2015 and refined in 2016, requires 55 percent approval from voters within the district for such a bond sale. The citys plan was praised by local business groups, including the Otay Mesa Chamber of Commerce and the South County Economic Development Council. We applaud the city for your innovative approach to providing infrastructure in Otay Mesa, said Cindy Gompper-Graves of the economic development council. Your vision of Otay Mesa as a future employment hub for the region and your planning efforts are appreciated. The money will help cover Otay Mesas estimated $510 million gap in long-term infrastructure financing. The community needs $1.2 billion in upgrades, but is projected to receive only $690 million in impact fees paid by developers and other revenue sources. The new district would provide $771 million $155 million from bond sales and $616 in ongoing increment after that. But expressed in 2017 dollars, that amount shrinks to $202 million -- $83 million from bond sales and $119 million in ongoing increment which is about 40 percent of the money needed. Thats one reason council members vowed to lobby county officials to participate in the new district. Councilman Mark Kersey said the county is being shortsighted. This is something that they really should be interested in because it really is a rising-tide-lifts-all-boats scenario, he said. My concern is that the county is going to benefit by the investment of our tax increment in this area by their tax increment going up by contributing exactly zero dollars toward that. I have trouble understanding why they think the city should do all the heavy lifting on this. The district would encompass the entire 9,300-acre Otay Mesa Planning Area, which is bounded by the Mexican border on the south, Interstate 805 on the west, county land on the east and Chula Vista and the Otay River Valley on the north. The council voted unanimously to announce their intent to form the district on Monday, but they must also approve creation of a Public Financing Authority to operate the district in April. No California cities have formed enhanced infrastructure financing districts under the new legislation, so San Diego would be among the first. City officials said Los Angeles, Yucaipa and West Sacramento are also close to forming such districts. david.garrick@sduniontribune.com (619) 269-8906 Twitter:@UTDavidGarrick A gunman robbed a cellphone store in the College Area Wednesday, and police said the holdup was linked to seven others across San Diego County in the past two weeks. Most of the robberies five occurred in San Diego. All targeted Metro PCS stores. The latest occurred about 5:20 p.m. when a man demanded cellphones from an employee at the Metro PCS store on El Cajon Boulevard near Montezuma Road. The thief, armed with a black semi-automatic handgun, took phones and money from the employee, then told the worker and a customer to go to the back of the store, police Officer Robert Heims said. Advertisement The robber left in an unknown direction. He was described as Latino, in his late 20s, 125 to 140 pounds, with dark skin and an accent. He was wearing a green jacket, red shoes and a red scarf over his face. Detectives said the crime is connected to the robbery spree that hit six other Metro PCS stores: Tuesday on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard west of Interstate 805 in Clairemont Monday on Poway Road near Pomerado Road in Poway Feb. 1 on Coronado Avenue near 19th Street in Egger Highlands Jan. 30 on Adams Avenue near John Adams Elementary School in Normal Heights Jan. 27 on El Cajon Boulevard near 42nd Street in Kensington Jan. 25 on Jamacha Road near Sweetwater Road in Spring Valley Police have said two men are behind the four robberies and that they may be assisted by a getaway driver. One of the thieves in the series was described as black or Latino, in his 30s, 5 feet 7 inches to 5 feet 9 inches tall, with a medium to heavy build. The other was described as black or Latino, 25 to 30 years old, about 6 feet tall, with a thin to medium build. Breaking News Email: david.hernandez@sduniontribune.com Phone: (619) 293-1876 Twitter: @D4VIDHernandez UPDATES: 4:25 p.m. Feb. 9: This article was updated with additional details. This article was originally published at 7:20 p.m. Feb. 8. 10 p.m. Feb. 8: This article was updated with additional details. This article was originally published at 7:20 p.m. Feb. 8. Authorities have not been able to identify the intruder who was fatally shot by a resident during a home invasion in Lemon Grove early Tuesday, a sheriffs official said. Two men broke into the home on Edding Drive, a cul-de-sac off Mount Vernon Street, about 2 a.m. and held the homeowner and his son at gunpoint. During a struggle over a gun, the 22-year-old son was shot once in the torso, sheriffs homicide Lt. Kenn Nelson said. The son, Francisco Suarez Jr., was recovering at a hospital, his grandmother said Tuesday. Advertisement The homeowner, Francisco Suarez Sr., 44, shot one of the intruders, killing him, Nelson said. An autopsy revealed the man died of a gunshot wound to the torso, Nelson said Wednesday. He said investigators have been unable to identify the decedent, who is believed to be 18 to 25 years old. The Sheriffs Department plans to release descriptions or photographs of the young mans clothing and personal items that were in his possession to appeal for help from the public. The second intruder escaped. PREVIOUS: Father kills intruder who shot son in Lemon Grove Breaking News Email: david.hernandez@sduniontribune.com Phone: (619) 293-1876 Twitter: @D4VIDHernandez Masked armed robbers took cash and cigarettes from a Miramar gas station and a Grantville convenience store early Thursday, San Diego police said. Both businesses are located about a block from Interstate 15 with easy access to freeway on-ramps. Advertisement Investigators are trying to determine if the same two men are responsible for both holdups. They were wearing black skull masks when they went into a Shell gas station on Miramar Road, west of I-15, about 2:25 a.m., police Officer Robert Heims said. Heims said one robber carried a shotgun, the other a handgun. They pointed the guns at employees and demanded money, which they stuffed into a black bag. They also took cigarettes. Workers described the robbers as Latino, about 5 feet 8 inches tall and 160 pounds, wearing black pants, hoodies, gloves and masks. About 25 minutes later, police got a report that two men of similar description had just robbed a 7-Eleven store on San Diego Mission Road in Grantville, about a block east of the freeway. Both men carried shotguns and put the stolen cash in a black bag. They grabbed cigarettes and lottery tickets before they left, Heims said. DECATUR Daiquan Cline, one of four teens charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of 21-year-old Cesley Taylor in 2015, entered a guilty plea Wednesday morning in Macon County Circuit Court. According to the terms of his plea agreement, Cline will receive 20 years in prison, to be served at 100 percent, if he testifies truthfully at any trials that may be held for the other three defendants. Cline, who has been held without bond in the adult jail since he turned 18 on Jan. 27, had been in juvenile custody since his arrest on Sept. 8, 2015, the day following the slaying of Taylor during an armed robbery. All of the defendants were 16 years old the day they allegedly went to Taylor's northside apartment, 1450 E. Wellington Way, to rob her and her roommate, Britney N. Wilson, then 20 years old. Britney Wilson suffered multiple gunshot wounds, to her head, abdomen and legs. If no other trials are scheduled, Cline would still receive the benefit of the plea bargain. If convicted at a trial, the penalty three of the teens are facing is 20 to 60 years in prison, plus a firearm enhancement of 15 years to life. Darion L. Evans, who reportedly confessed to police that he was the shooter, is facing the same base sentence, but his firearm enhancement is 25 years to life, for personally discharging a firearm. He told police he shot Taylor one or two times after she cursed at him during the robbery, then shot Wilson an unknown number of times. About 15 family members and supporters of Taylor sat in the courtroom as Cline heard the factual basis of the case against him and responded yes, sir as Circuit Judge Thomas E. Griffith asked him a series of routine questions as to whether he understood his rights and details of the agreement. He is scheduled to return to court April 4 for his sentencing to be finalized, a date which may be changed to coordinate with the completion of the cases of the other defendants. Cline pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree murder. The original count included the allegation that Cline shot Cesley Taylor with a gun, thereby causing her death. But Cline's attorney, Edwin Piraino of Champaign, successfully argued for the gun passage to be deleted. Piraino acknowledged that it was correct according to the accountability legal theory for his client to be charged with murder, by participating in a felony connected to the shooting death. But he argued for consideration for Cline, so that he would not be excluded from programs in prison because of his conviction for a gun crime. Assistant State's Attorney Kate Kurtz, presenting the factual basis of the case, said Cline was among several masked intruders who went to Taylor's apartment about 9:15 p.m. Sept. 7. When police arrived, they found her unresponsive. She was pronounced dead in her home. Police detectives subsequently arrested Shaitan Cook, Cline, Evans and Ryan O'Neal. During a videotaped police interview, Cline said he and the three other males agreed to rob the women. He told police they forced their way in, Kurtz said. Evans had a gun that caused injuries to Britney Wilson and Cesley Taylor. All four of the defendants are being tried in adult court because murder is one of the charges mandated under Illinois law for automatic transfers for juveniles who are 16 or 17 years old. O'Neal and Evans, both of whom turned 18 this year, are also being held without bond in the Macon County Jail. Cook is being held in the Peoria County Juvenile Detention Center, pending his July 2 birthday. Evans has a hearing scheduled at 10:30 a.m. today in his case. Cook and O'Neal have pretrial hearings scheduled on Feb. 16 and 23, respectively. The parents of two people who were killed by a mentally ill man in an attack included in a list of terror incidents Donald Trump claimed were ignored by the media are lashing out at the president. Mia Ayliffe-Chung, 21, and acquaintance Tom Jackson, 30, were stabbed to death in Queensland, Australia in August. The suspect, Smail Ayad from France, had shouted Allahu akbar during the attack. Officials said that Ayad was mentally disturbed, schizophrenic and possibly had a romantic obsession with Ayliffe-Chung. During the attack, which happened in front of dozens of people at a hostel, Ayad also stabbed a dog to death and mumbled incoherently, the Guardian reported at the time. Advertisement Police said at the onset that the assault was not terrorist-related. That, however, did not stop the Trump administration from including the deaths on the list released this week of 78 alleged attacks carried out or inspired by ISIS that were not reported by the dishonest media for supposed reasons he never made clear. My daughters death will not be used to further this insane persecution of innocent people, wrote Rosie Ayliffe in an open letter to Trump. She went on to say that any connection between her daughters killing and Islamic fundamentalism was a myth. This vilification of whole nation states and their people based on religion is a terrifying reminder of the horror that can ensue when we allow ourselves to be led by ignorant people into darkness and hatred, wrote Ayliffe. .@realDonaldTrump An open letter regarding the deaths of the heroic Tom Jackson and my daughter, Mia Ayliffe-Chung: pic.twitter.com/e4oK5eey0H Rosie Ayliffe (@RosieAyliffe) February 7, 2017 The parents of Tom Jackson also wrote to the president to say that the cause of their sons death could have been easily researched, according to The Washington Post. Im pretty sure he and his advisors know full well or could very easily verify that Tom and Mia died not as the result of an act of terror but rather through the actions of a disturbed individual, Les Jackson wrote on Facebook. Of course, that doesnt suit his agenda. Sandra Jackson made her disapproval public in a tweet. @realDonaldTrump wake up this morning to see you've used my Son murder to further your campaign of hate, how dare you. You are a disgrace. Sandra Jackson (@sandrajackson11) February 7, 2017 The White House has not responded to the criticism. 619-293-1710 debbi.baker@sduniontribune.com twitter.com/Debbi_Baker Related Symbolism important in fighting legacy of injustice The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University was named after a great American president, and this institution should continue to bear his name even though some of his words and deeds were not as racially progressive as we might expect from our leaders today. Woodrow Wilson In his argument that all peoples deserved self-determination, through admission to the community of nations, Wilson was ahead of his times. In his domestic policies, which extended the powers of the Food and Drug Administration to include pharmaceuticals rather than merely food, he sought to improve public health. In helping to create the Federal Reserve system and pushing for social reform, he extended the progressive legacy of predecessors Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, bettering the lives of Americans. His choice to deliver his State of the Union addresses to Congress personally set a precedent and created the modern public presidency. His decision to bring America into the Great War probably shortened that conflict and certainly brought a quicker peace. In his program of food relief for Europe at the end of World War I, he saved millions from starvation. Had the U.S. joined his League of Nations, it is at least plausible that World War II might have been prevented or at least rendered less ruinous for humanity. Those seeking to remove Wilsons name from Princeton, a school at which he both taught and led, are anachronistic in their application of current standards to people from the past. Unless we judge people within the context of their times, everyone may seem racist or sexist to future generations. There are two kinds of historical revisionism. The first kind is to change history so that we read it in a new way, often so that it can teach a polemical lesson our ideology favors. The second, equally troubling type of revisionism is to read current standards into the past so that an action or verbal statement people would clearly regard as racist today would have been just as obviously problematic in the era when it occurred. This kind of revisionism would reinterpret Abraham Lincoln as a racist, for example, disregarding the fact that he argued that African-Americans were human beings and had Lockean property rights, meaning they could not actually be property themselves. This claim was truly forward-looking and controversial when he publicly made it in the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Yet there are people inside and outside academia who read Lincoln as the Great Slavemaster rather than the Great Emancipator using this kind of warped historical revisionism. In order to understand Wilson and his legacy, we have to understand his times. It is ultimately foolish to apply current standards to his life, and pretend his accomplishments do not meet the standards we should now regard as meritorious, reinterpreting him in the history books as an obviously racist leader. Wilson was an imperfect human being like the rest of us, and was not immune to the racial views of his world. Surely all of us will seem backward and unenlightened to our descendants. Some of the diverse views people hold today will be regarded in future as not only antiquated but as proof that we were guilty of some ism or another racism, sexism, heterosexism or another ism against categories of humans we have not even begun to consider as victims of discrimination. For evidence, we need only review examples from fairly recent popular culture. While the Robin Williams movie Mrs. Doubtfire was actually progressive for its time, arguing we should not make assumptions about people based on their sex and gender, it seems antiquated. The scenes where we see Williams with his brother (played by Harvey Fierstein) would likely not be made today, as they would be perceived as homophobic. Consider how a fairly recent TV series like Will and Grace seems problematic in the way it uses the stereotypically flamboyant character of Jack as comic relief. Rather than remembering that these films depicted LGBT persons positively in a period when that was uncommon, we could instead claim that those who produced these representations knew they were bigoted and decided to do them anyway to pander to the prejudices of their audience. Clearly, we should not stereotype people of various groups today because we know better, but that is not the same as retroactively applying present standards to denounce our countrys past. The historical revisionists who would excise the Wilson name from Princeton would eventually have to tear down Mount Rushmore because Washington and Jefferson were slaveholders, Lincoln did not regard African-Americans as socially equal to whites, and Theodore Roosevelt acted in a racist manner in handling the Brownsville Affair. We will next have to erase Franklin Roosevelt from the dime due to his authorship of Executive Order 9066 interning Japanese-Americans in camps for the duration of World War II. Ultimately, we will have to eradicate every statue, rename every legacy institution and smash every monument because no one will meet our present standards of prejudice- and bigotry-free leadership. All of us should get ready for our memory to be impugned by our posterity! Editors note: Two factual errors in this editorial were corrected on March 22. The discovery in drinking water of lead, copper and bacterial contamination due to aging plumbing at La Mirada Elementary School in the San Ysidro School District should be a wake-up call for all local and state districts with older schools. San Ysidro officials are so worried about the possibility of water contamination at two other campuses with older buildings, Smythe Elementary School and San Ysidro Middle School, that they are distributing bottled water at all three schools until its clear that water from their fixtures is safe to drink. Advertisement Lead-contaminated water is a bigger issue than many Americans realize and goes well beyond the much-publicized crisis in Flint, Michigan. A study published by Reuters in December cited government data showing thousands of communities around the United States in which tests showed children had as much or more lead in their blood than the kids in Flint. In California, the study found at least 13 ZIP codes with high levels of lead, mostly in the central part of the state. This is troubling because high levels of lead in the blood are associated with cognitive problems. California school districts should take advantage of free water-quality tests offered by the state government. Many scrimped on basic maintenance when budgets were tight after the states revenue recession began in 2008. This means there is a scary possibility that La Mirada Elementary School is far from the only school where students may have been exposed to lead. Other districts should find out if this is the case as soon as possible. Twitter: @sdutIdeas Facebook: UTOpinion Donald Trump vs Sen. John McCain round 12? 15? Have you lost track, too? The feud between Trump and McCain, R-Arizona, that peaked during Trumps presidential campaign with an attack on McCains history as a prisoner of war resurfaced Thursday when the president responded on Twitter to the senators criticism of a U.S. military raid in Yemen that left one Navy SEAL and 30 others dead late last month. McCain had called the raid a failure earlier this week and White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer had countered Wednesday that the mission was absolutely a success. McCain told NBC News that he believed the loss of a $75 million airplane and an American life, Chief Petty Officer William "Ryan" Owens, in the raid shouldnt be called a success. In a series of tweets on Thursday, Trump said McCains criticism only emboldens the enemy and that he doesnt know how to win anymore. Sen. McCain should not be talking about the success or failure of a mission to the media, Trump tweeted. To that, McCains office responded: Senator McCain will continue to execute his oversight duties as Chairman of the Armed Services Committee and support the brave men and women serving our nation in uniform. On CNN, former Navy SEAL Carl Higbie took a shot at McCain by saying it was dishonorable of the Senator to criticize the mission. Those remarks landed him in hot water with McCains daughter, Meghan McCain, who took to Twitter to blast Higbie, a Trump supporter. One San Diego veteran also responded to the criticism and stood by McCains side. The rift between Trump and the veteran senator and former Republican presidential nominee is nothing new. The feud dates back to 2015 when Trumps first presidential campaign remarks about Mexican immigrants irked the senator. June 30, 2015: "I just disagree with his comments about the, quote, Mexicans," McCain said about the campaign speech in which Trump suggested Mexican immigrants bring drugs and crime into the U.S. and that some of them are rapists. July 16, 2015: Less than three weeks later, at a campaign rally in Arizona, Trump called out McCain for being weak as the candidate began honing a get-tough message on immigration. We have incompetent politicians, not only the president, Trump told the crowd. I mean, right here, in your own state, you have John McCain. In response, McCain told The New Yorker that what Trump did at his rally had fired up the crazies. Then, Trump responded via Twitter: The thousands of people that showed up for me in Phoenix were amazing Americans. @SenJohnMcCain called them crazies--must apologize! July 18, 2015: By mid-July, the feud was at a boiling point after Trump criticized McCains status as a Vietnam War veteran who had been captured and held as a prisoner. Hes not a war hero, Trump told a crowd at a campaign stop in Iowa. Hes a war hero because he was captured. I like people that werent captured. At the time, other presidential candidates slammed Trumps comments against Americas prisoners of war. December 22, 2015: In a radio interview, McCain expressed concern over Trumps praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin after Trump called Putin a real leader and a brilliant and talented person, per BuzzFeed. The thing that is so concerning about Mr. Trumps compliments of Vladimir Putin is Vladimir Putin has slaughtered his own, murdered his own people, including people I knew, McCain said. He has, his equipment has shot down an airliner and killed a couple hundred people. April 19, 2016: During the political primaries, as tensions grew between establishment Republicans and Trump and some started to distance themselves from him, McCain announced in April that he would not attend the Republican National Convention where Trump would be officially named the partys presidential nominee. May 11, 2016 As some veterans mounted pressure on Trump to apologize for the critical remarks he had made about McCains record as a prisoner of war, the candidate walked them back during a radio interview where he was asked whether he would apologize to veterans. Well Ive actually done that, Don, Trump told radio host Don Imus. You know frankly, I like John McCain, and John McCain is a hero. Also, heroes are people that are, you know, whether they get caught or dont get caught theyre all heroes as far as Im concerned. And thats the way it should be. August 1, 2016: Following the Democratic National Convention in late July, Trump drew outrage once again when he criticized the Gold Star parents of a fallen U.S. Army captain. Republicans, including McCain, spoke out in defense of the Gold Star parents, Khizr and Ghazala Khan, who are Muslim. "In recent days, Donald Trump disparaged a fallen soldiers parents. He has suggested that the likes of their son should not be allowed in the United States to say nothing of entering its service, McCain said in a statement. I cannot emphasize enough how deeply I disagree with Mr. Trumps statement. I hope Americans understand that the remarks do not represent the views of our Republican Party, its officers, or candidates. In an apparent sign of retaliation, Trump initially said he would not endorse McCain during the primaries. But that changed days later when he issued a formal endorsement. I hold in the highest esteem Sen. John McCain for his service to our country in uniform and in public office, and I fully support and endorse his reelection. Very important, Trump said. For a while, things seemed to be going in a better direction. Oct. 8, 2016: Then came the release of a tape showing Trump making vulgar and misogynistic comments about women in 2005. It caused a national uproar one month before Election Day, and prompted many Republicans to distance themselves from the nominee. Among those who rescinded their support for Trump was McCain, who in a statement said he and his wife would not vote for Trump. "I have wanted to support the candidate our party nominated. He was not my choice, but as a past nominee, I thought it important I respect the fact that Donald Trump won a majority of the delegates by the rules our party set, McCains statement read. But Donald Trump's behavior this week, concluding with the disclosure of his demeaning comments about women and his boasts about sexual assaults, make it impossible to continue to offer even conditional support for his candidacy. Cindy and I will not vote for Donald Trump. I have never voted for a Democratic presidential candidate and we will not vote for Hillary Clinton. We will write in the name of some good conservative Republican who is qualified to be president, McCain added. This war of words between the two calmed down after the election. Until now. Have some thoughts to share? Join me in a conversation: Shoot me a private email with your thoughts or ideas on a different approach to this story. As always, you can also send us a tweet. Email: luis.gomez@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @RunGomez It appears that the San Diego Association of Governments misled county voters on the question of how much revenue the proposed Measure A would have generated had it been approved in November. The regional governmental agency, overseen by a board of local city and county officials, insisted during last falls Measure A campaign that the half-cent sales tax increase would have brought in $18 billion over 40 years. The money would have been used for a variety of transportation projects, primarily mass transit improvements in the southern portion of the county. Measure A needed a two-thirds voter approval but gained only 58.4 percent support. However, the Voice of San Diego disclosed this week that some SANDAG staffers knew for months prior to the election that the tax increase would likely bring in much less than the $18 billion. Apparently there had been internal discussions over how best to forecast future revenues and the initial estimate overstated how wealthy San Diego County residents will become over the next 40 years and how much they would spend on taxable items. At no point were SANDAG directors, or the countys voters, advised that the $18 billion might not be a realistic figure. The lower projection was an estimate, not a real number, so I didnt have any reason to go to the board and say lets change anything, Executive Director Gary Gallegos said. Meanwhile, the agency is looking for a way to obtain an addition $17.5 billion in state and federal funding to pay for transportation projects, including upgrades to Interstate 15, authorized under a voter-approved 2004 sales-tax extension. Reportedly, there is talk of making another effort at getting a sales tax hike approved by voters. SANDAG now faces both transparency and credibility issues that will need to be resolved before having the slightest chance of winning voters over at some future date. Clearly, it will have a very tough road to hoe. Email: editor@pomeradonews.com Election of the Ramona Community Planning Groups 2017 officers almost had to be postponed another month with just 10 of the 15 members attending the Feb. 2 meeting. After a nominees withdrawal and a second vote, Dan Scherer was elected chair. That was followed by the election of Torry Brean as vice chair. Both Scherer, the groups 2016 vice chair, and Brean, a decade-long member, had been nominated for the top post at the planners January meeting, but the 14 members attending that meeting were evenly split between the two. Scherer has been serving as acting chair since last years chair, Jim Piva, did not seek re-election in November. At last Thursdays meeting, Jim Cooper nominated Scherer, seconded by Kristi Mansolf, while Paul Stykel nominated Brean, seconded by Donna Myers. Mansolf noted that a nominee would need an eight-vote majority. The tally resulted in six for Scherer and four for Brean. Instead of waiting until next month, Brean offered to withdraw his nomination. Cooper then nominated Scherer, who received just enough votes in the 8-2 tally with Myers and Richard Tomlinson dissenting. Coopers nomination of Brean for vice chair received unanimous support. Absent from the meeting were David Ross, Rick Terrazas, Frank Lucio, Chris Holloway, and Elio Noyas. Mansolf was elected secretary in January. Subcommittee chairs were also elected: A looming $124 million deficit to the San Diego Unified School Districts $1.3 billion budget is stirring anxiety among parents and teachers over what programs and jobs are headed for the chopping block. Superintendent Cindy Marten has promised to protect school stability and class size, but has issued few details on how the district will balance the 2017-18 budget. Marten confirmed Wednesday that several vice principal positions at elementary, middle and high schools across the district will be recommended for elimination, along with other administrative jobs, after parents protested the cuts announced by some schools. Advertisement I am solving a $124 million deficit the solution to the deficit is not around vice principals. It is one of many solutions we are looking at, Marten said. Administrative positions we have funded in the past we are no longer funding. A group of parents from Miramar Ranch Elementary School urged the district to keep vice principals at elementary schools at Tuesdays school board meeting, arguing that they are crucial to a schools climate. This would put schools and students in danger and push our teachers and principals to the limit, said Jennifer Leader, a parent volunteer from Miramar Ranch. Not every school with a vice principal would lose the position. Marten said cuts would be made with equity in mind. San Diego Unified announced in January that the projected deficit to the 2017-18 budget had gone from about $117 million to $124.4 million. The district is expected to present a menu of potential cost-cutting measures to the school board on Feb. 21 as it prepares to balance its budget by June 30. The superintendent has vowed to protect current class size in core grades 24 students through third-grade, less than 36 students in grades four and five, and no more than 36 students in middle and high schools. Marten posted a brief budget update on Facebook and Twitter this week in an effort to reassure families. The social media post said, we will cut from the top first before asking schools to do more. Students will still have access to International Baccalaureate, dual-language, arts and other programs that develop them as compete individuals, she said without indicating whether they will be scaled back or preserved at the expense of other initiatives. Any vice principal whose position is cut would have an opportunity to take a teaching position, Martin said. With regard to any necessary layoffs, the superintendent said the district would work to make their transition smooth. Lindsay Burningham, who represents some 6,000 teachers as president of the San Diego Education Association, said teacher layoffs are not necessary. She said union leaders are meeting with district administrators Thursday to discuss a golden handshake retirement incentive to nudge the most senior and well-paid educators off the payroll. We will be pushing back against any layoffs, Burningham said. There are other ways to control the deficit a retirement incentive and attrition. We are just now starting to have those conversations, about what should be on the table. Under state law, school districts have until March 15 to notify certificated employees including teachers, librarians and counselors that they may be laid off. The San Diego Unified administration recommended in December, when the deficit was projected at $117 million, cuts in the following areas: $44 million in cuts to the central office, $21 million in cuts to campus support services, including maintenance and custodial; and $52 million in last-ditch cuts to schools. Im trying to create stability and meet our goals of closing the achievement gap and providing access to a broad and challenging curriculum, Marten said Wednesday. Even before the deficit grew to $124 million, the San Diego County Office of Education sent a letter to the district expressing doubts about whether enough cuts could be made to meet the required 2 percent budget reserve. Meanwhile, 4 percent raises authorized for teachers and other employees will account for $28 million of the deficit next year. Both Marten and Burningham say the raises are necessary for the district to compete for top teaching candidates amid a looming statewide teacher shortage. Rising health care costs and declining enrollment (and the attendance funds that accompany students) have also contributed to the districts budget problems. Whats more, fewer students have applied for and received subsidized meals, which means the district has seen a drop in state funds intended to help low-income students. The increasing amount San Diego Unified contributes to employee pensions, which it has not control over, has also put the district in the red. maureen.magee@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @MaureenMagee The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Thursday he needs a few thousand more troops to better accomplish an integral part of the mission, and he complained that Russian meddling is complicating the counterterrorism fight. Gen. John Nicholson didnt provide the Senate Armed Services Committee with an exact number of additional forces, but said they could come from the United States or other countries in the American-led coalition in Afghanistan, where the war is now in its 16th year. He said they are necessary to properly train and advise the Afghan military and perform work now handled at greater cost by contractors. Advertisement There are currently about 8,400 U.S. troops conducting counterterrorism operations against insurgents and training the Afghan army. Nicholson said he had discussed troop levels with Defense Secretary James Mattis and Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Nicholson said he believes the Trump administration will be open to a level based on requirements, rather than a predetermined figure. Republicans criticized President Barack Obama for trying, in their view, to cut the number too sharply before he left office Jan. 20. But the idea of sending more Americans to the war zone may not go over well with a public frustrated by the length and cost of the conflict. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., citing figures from the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, said the war is costing U.S. taxpayers $13 million a day. Nicholson also disclosed that a U.S. special forces soldier was severely wounded in fighting Thursday in Sangin, the Taliban heartland in southern Afghanistan. He gave an example of how additional forces would be used. Nicholson said that because of troop level limits, the aviation brigade that deployed to Afghanistan was able to bring its helicopters, pilots and staff, but had to leave its mechanics behind at Fort Riley in Kansas. Contractors were hired instead at a cost of tens of millions of dollars, forcing the soldier mechanics to sit at home, he said, and affecting the Army units readiness. Nicholson said there is a 2-1 ratio of contractors to troops in Afghanistan. In response to a question from Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., Nicholson said he doesnt have enough troops to provide proper oversight of all those contractors. Nicholson contended that Russia has been publicly legitimizing the Taliban by claiming that the militants are fighting Islamic terrorists while the Afghan government is not. He called that a false narrative and argued that Moscows goal is to undermine the United States and NATO in Afghanistan. Afghan security forces have reduced by one-half the number of IS fighters and by two-thirds the amount of territory the extremists hold, according to the commander. He said declined to say in the open hearing whether Russia is providing support for the Taliban and in what way. Afterward, Nicholson told The Associated Press he was referring to classified intelligence. He would not discuss the matter further. The Russians recently invited representatives from the Taliban, China, Pakistan and other countries in the region to Moscow for meetings about Afghanistans future, but did not include officials from the Kabul government, Nicholson said. A peace and reconciliation process should be Afghan-led, the general said. Despite Moscows overtures, Nicholson said many Afghans dont view Russia favorably, dating to the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. Several Republican senators on Thursday urged President Donald Trump to pursue a tough-minded and principled policy toward Russia. They want Trump to maintain current U.S. sanctions against Russia, rebuke Moscow for its continued aggression in Ukraine, and not enter into any military or diplomatic agreement with Russia on Syrias future until Moscow ends its support for the murderous regime of President Bashar Assad. Nicholson described the security situation in Afghanistan as a stalemate. Can we win? asked Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. Yes, Nicholson said. He described victory as a stable, centralized Afghan government and destruction of al-Qaida and IS. Leaving before then means its just a matter of time before terrorists launch another attack on the United States from safe havens in Afghanistan, he said. Lardner writes for The Associated Press. BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) An official in the former government of President Cristina Fernandez was arrested on Tuesday as he allegedly tried to hide millions in dollars and other currencies at an Argentine monastery. A neighbor of the monastery called authorities after seeing a man throwing bags onto the property near Buenos Aires early Tuesday. Officers arrived and arrested a man who turned out to be former Public Works Secretary Jose Lopez. Police initially detained him for possession of a .22 caliber rifle. They then discovered wads of cash as well as the watches in more than 160 packages inside the bags. Other money had been taken to the monastery kitchen and some was found in the trunk of a car. Advertisement Security Minister Cristian Ritondo of Buenos Aires Province told a news conference that Lopez was in a state of shock when he was arrested and alleged that he tried to bribe police. He later told the nuns that police had tried to steal the money that he was trying to donate, Ritondo said. There are dollars, yen, euros and a currency from Qatar ... Its a lot of money. He did not give an exact amount because the money was still being counted. Dario Kubar, the areas mayor, told reporters earlier Tuesday that authorities had found more than $7 million at the monastery that is home to nuns devoted to Our Lady of the Rosary of Fatima, which is about 35 miles (55 kilometers) west of the capital, Buenos Aires. The news became a trending topic on Twitter in Argentina. Local TV stations showed images of the piles of cash, and later of Lopez being escorted by police to another precinct wearing a helmet and a bulletproof vest. Its almost out of a movie, said Marcos Pena, President Mauricio Macris Cabinet chief. Were shocked because its not a minor official ... He led public works, which were so questioned, where we saw so much daily corruption. Its shameful, Macri said during a public event on Tuesday. We are all surprised. We are clearly changing and its good that we shed light on the types of practices that we want to eradicate in Argentina. Since Fernandez ended her term in December, Macris administration has promised to root out corruption that has plagued Argentina. Analysts say that has emboldened judges who are now freer to pursue sensitive cases against the former leader and her friends without fear of retribution. Fernandez has been included in investigations involving allegations of money laundering and possible illegal enrichment. Lazaro Baez, a once seemingly untouchable friend of Fernandez and her husband and predecessor, Nestor Kirchner, was arrested earlier this year. The millionaire businessman, who got public works contracts under both presidents, is accused of embezzling and laundering about $5 million. Prosecutors began looking into Baez after a 2013 journalistic investigation named him as Kirchners figurehead in an elaborate scheme. Prosecutors have also said they are looking into the financial transactions at several hotels owned by the Kirchner family in the southern province of Santa Cruz, where Fernandez has lived since leaving office. Our most energetic condemnation against the shameful actions of Jose Lopez, opposition lawmaker Juan Manuel Abal Medina, who served as Cabinet chief under Fernandez, said on Twitter. Corruption is stealing from all, especially those who have the least. __ Associated Press writers Peter Prengaman and Luis Andres Henao contributed to this report. A woman who fell to her death at Horton Plaza has been identified as Colleen Marian Conaway, 46, of Park Rapids, Minn., the county Medical Examiners Office said Monday. Advertisement Witnesses told authorities they saw Conaway jump from the third-floor balcony at 1:40 p.m. Saturday. She landed on a sidewalk near the movie theaters in the downtown mall, San Diego police said. Authorities are investigating the death as a suicide. Conaways cousin, Christie Hobscheidt, said Conaway, who worked in a dental office, was in San Diego attending a seminar. Its no secret that one of Central Illinois many strengths is its industries and workforce. With industrial leaders like Archer Daniels Midland, Kraft, Tate and Lyle, GSI and Amazon, as well as plentiful coal reserves and thousands of acres of farmland, Central Illinois products and commodities are coveted around the world. However, without a strong transportation system, none of these products make it to market and none of the tens of thousands of jobs that come from them are created. Our workers and industries are second to none. It's crucial that we continue to support our regions economy by investing in roads, rail, airports and river infrastructure to connect our products to the international marketplace. Our infrastructure, however, faces significant challenges. Forecasts show that the movement of freight is expected to increase by 40 percent over the next 30 years. By 2030, air travel demand is expected to increase from 750 million passengers annually to close to a billion. This does not even account for the projections that show the U.S. population will increase from 319 million in 2014 to 400 million by 2051. As a member of House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Im proud to be working with my colleagues on a 21st century infrastructure plan. Our committee has been meeting with companies from across the country to learn how we can leverage infrastructure investments to maximize job creation. Building a 21st century infrastructure means advancing fiscally-responsible legislation that allows our people, products, and crops to reach their destination more efficiently and at a lesser cost. For Central Illinois, it means encouraging projects like ADMs intermodal rail facility, updating the Macon County Beltway, rail improvement like the 10th Street rail corridor in Springfield, widening Route 67 throughout southwestern Illinois, and reconstructing the I-57/I-74 interchange in Champaign County. It means eliminating delays and waste at our airports that has hampered federal efforts to upgrade air traffic control technology. It means fixing our outdated lock and dam system so our manufacturers and farmers can release their product to the world market. It means investing in our roads, bridges and railroad system to meet the demands of a growing population and the need to move our goods more efficiently. It means collaborating with leaders from the Research Park at the University of Illinois and other public-private partners to promote technological solutions and innovations to unleash transportation technologies of the future. Most importantly, it means eliminating needless red tape and bureaucracy that stand in the way of these projects and therefore, job growth. We need to implement flexible policies that allow our infrastructure to grow at the rate we would like our economy to grow. As your member of Congress, Im proud to be working toward policies that will help support and create jobs in Central Illinois. This president campaigned on the promise of "making America great again" and I believe that must include responsible investments in infrastructure. I look forward to working with my colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, in Congress and the administration to make strong investments in infrastructure. A Fallbrook woman who is accused, along with two others, of killing a Marine wife is fighting a second legal battle over custody of her 15-month-old daughter. Dorothy Maraglino, 38, was pregnant when she was jailed in May 2012 and charged with murder in the death of Brittany Killgore, whose nude body was found in a remote area northeast of Temecula on April 17, four days after she went missing. Authorities believe Killgore was strangled at a Fallbrook home where Maraglino and two other defendants practiced bondage and sadomasochism. Advertisement Authorities do not believe Killgore, 22, was a willing participant in the lifestyle. Three days before she disappeared, she filed for divorce from her Marine husband, who was in Afghanistan, and was packing up to move out of state. Maraglino, Louis Ray Perez, 47, and Jessica Lopez, 26, are charged with murder, conspiracy, kidnapping, torture and attempted sexual battery. All have pleaded not guilty. In telephone calls, letters and an interview at the Las Colinas jail in Santee, Maraglino talked to U-T San Diego about the custody battle over her daughter, who was born in July 2012. Perez, who is in the Vista jail, is the father of the girl. He did not respond to an email sent through the jail for a comment on the custody case. According to Maraglino, she and Perez had been trying to have a baby for two years. He was a Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton when Killgore was killed. They met Killgore after she came to their home with a friend who was interested in buying a fertility monitor Maraglino had put up for sale after she conceived, according to testimony at their preliminary hearing. When the baby was born, Maraglino said, she asked authorities to place the child with Becky Zagha, 38. Maraglino said she did not know Zagha well but Perez had asked her to place the baby with the woman. She said the problem arose when Zagha reneged on promises to live in San Diego County and bring the baby by for weekly jail visits. Instead, she moved to Central California not long after the baby was born, Maraglino said. Jail records indicate Zagha frequently visited Maraglino and Perez in jail before the baby was born. Visits dropped off significantly after she took custody of the girl. Reached by phone on Friday, Zagha said, I dont have to justify anything that was said or not said. This was all dealt with in court. Maraglino lost a bid last month in a Fresno family court to remove the child from Zagha and place her with Maraglinos sister in South Carolina. Maraglino said officials at the Las Colinas jail were not told by the court of the Oct. 21 hearing and did not allow her to call the court to participate in the proceedings by phone. She also said the Fresno court investigator handling the matter never contacted her. Zagha said the custody battle is a private matter. Nothing that happens between this child and us have anything to do with your readers. So nothing that was said between me and anybody else matters, Zagha said. Maraglino, who is representing herself in the custody dispute, has appealed the Fresno courts decision. SPRINGFIELD (AP) Democratic lawmakers from Chicago have proposed legislation to make former President Barack Obama's birthday a state holiday. Three bills have been introduced that would all make Obama's birthday, Aug. 4, an official holiday. The two bills in the House, proposed by Democratic Reps. Andre Thapedi and Sonya Harper, would make Aug. 4 a "legal holiday," during which state government offices would shut down, and schools and businesses would have the option of closing. Under a Senate bill co-sponsored by Democratic Sen. Jacqueline Collins, "Barack Obama Day" would be commemorative. Thapedi tried making Obama's birthday a state holiday last year, but the bill stalled in a House committee. "This bill is even stronger this year now that Obama is no longer in the White House," Thapedi said. "Last year, there were some concerns, honoring a sitting president. Now that he's no longer a sitting president, it's even more appropriate." When Thapedi's bill was being considered last year, Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner's administration filed papers saying the bill would cost the state $3.2 million in salary for workers to have the day off. The administration also argued that Illinois would "lose $16 million in productivity from state workers having a paid, non-working holiday." Thapedi said those numbers are overstated. Collins said she hopes Republicans can appreciate Obama's achievements. "I hope we don't descend to what we see at the federal level," Collins said. "As a Democrat, I have no problem honoring President Lincoln. There should be reciprocity between parties, Obama belongs to Illinois, and Illinois belongs to all people, Republicans and Democrats." Country United States of America US Virgin Islands United States Minor Outlying Islands Canada Mexico, United Mexican States Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Cuba, Republic of Dominican Republic Haiti, Republic of Jamaica Afghanistan Albania, People's Socialist Republic of Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People's Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People's Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria, People's Republic of Burkina Faso Burundi, Republic of 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United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe Armenia exported US$1.783 billion worth of goods and services in 2016, up 20% over the previous year. Armenia imported $3.292 billion worth of goods and services in 2016, up 1.6% over 2015. If we look at Armenias trade volume starting in 2012, we see the following picture: 2012: Imports $4.261b Exports - $1.38b 2013: Imports - $4.386b Exports - $1.479b 2014: Imports - $4.424b Exports - $1.547b 2015: Imports - $3.329b Exports - $1.485 2016: Imports -$3.292 Exports - $1.783b 23.1% of Armenias exports in 2016 went to CIS countries, mostly to Russia. 26.9% of Armenias exports went to EU nations. The remaining 50.1% went to the rest of the world. The top ten importers of Armenian goods and services are: Russia (20.8%), Bulgaria (8.5%), Georgia (8.2%), Germany (7.8%), Canada (7.8%), Iraq (7.7%), China (5.4%), Iran (4.2%), Switzerland (4.2%) and the UAE (3.6%). The U.S.A. imported a mere 2.2% of goods and services exported from Armenia. Exports to Russia rose 51.5% and to Bulgaria by 93.1% in 2016. Exports to the UAE grew seven-fold. Exports to China decreased by 41.7% last year. Exports from Armenia, as expected, arent that diversified. 80% of exports are restricted to just four sectors mineral ores (26.4%), prepared foodstuffs (23.4%, precious and semi-precious stones/metals and items derived from them (18.9%), non-precious metals and items derived from them (12.4%). Top photo: kalizea.com Rochester, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/09/2017 -- Stephen Hopkins was from Hampshire, England. He married his first wife, Mary, and resided in the parish of Hursley, Hampshire. They had three (3) children: Elizabeth, Constance, and Giles; all baptized there. It has long been claimed that the Hopkins family was from Wortley, Gloucester, but this was disproven in 1998 with the discovery of his true origins in Hursley. http://mayflowerhistory.com/hopkins-stephen/ Stephen Hopkins went with the ship Sea Venture on a voyage to Jamestown, Virginia in 1609 as a minister's clerk, but the ship wrecked in the "Isle of Devils" (Bermuda). Stranded on an island for ten months, the passengers and crew survived on turtles, birds, and wild pigs. Six months into the castaway, Stephen Hopkins and several others organized a mutiny against the current governor. The mutiny was discovered and Stephen was sentenced to death. However, he pleaded with sorrow and tears. "So penitent he was, and made so much moan, alleging the ruin of his wife and children in this his trespass, as it wrought in the hearts of all the better sorts of the company." He managed to get his sentence commuted. Eventually the castaways built a small ship and sailed themselves to Jamestown. How long Stephen remained in Jamestown is not known. However, while he was gone, his wife Mary died. She was buried in Hursley on 9 May 1613, and left behind a probate estate which mentions her children Elizabeth, Constance and Giles. Stephen was back in England by 1617, when he married Elizabeth Fisher, but apparently had every intention of bringing his family back to Virginia. Their first child, Damaris, was born about 1618. In 1620, Stephen Hopkins brought his wife and children Constance, Giles, and Damaris on the Mayflower (child Elizabeth apparently had died). Stephen was a fairly active member of the Pilgrim group shortly after arrival, perhaps a result of his being one of the few individuals who had been to Virginia previously. He was a part of all the early exploring missions, and was used as an "expert" on Native Americans for the first few contacts. While out exploring, Stephen recognized and identified an Indian deer trap. And when Samoset walked into Plymouth and welcomed the English, he was housed in Stephen Hopkins' house for the night. Stephen was also sent on several of the ambassadorial missions to meet with the various Indian groups in the region. Stephen was an assistant to the governor through 1636, and volunteered for the Pequot War of 1637 but was never called to serve. By the late 1630s, however, Stephen began to occasionally run afoul of the Plymouth authorities, as he apparently opened up a shop and served alcohol. In 1636 he got into a fight with John Tisdale and seriously wounded him. In 1637, he was fined for allowing drinking and shuffleboard playing on Sunday. Early the next year he was fined for allowing people to drink excessively in his house: guest William Reynolds was fined, but the others were acquitted. In 1638 he was twice fined for selling beer at twice the actual value, and in 1639 he was fined for selling a looking glass for twice what it would cost if bought in the Bay Colony. Also in 1638, Stephen Hopkins' maidservant got pregnant from Arthur Peach, who was subsequently executed for murdering an Indian. The Plymouth Court ruled he was financially responsible for her and her child for the next two years (the amount remaining on her term of service). Stephen, in contempt of court, threw Dorothy out of his household and refused to provide for her, so the court committed him to custody. John Holmes stepped in and purchased Dorothy's remaining two years of service from him: agreeing to support her and child. Stephen died in 1644, and made out a will, asking to be buried near his wife, and naming his surviving children. BAPTISM: 30 April 1581 at Upper Clatford, Hampshire, England, son of John and Elizabeth (Williams) Hopkins. FIRST MARRIAGE: Mary, possibly the daughter of Robert and Joan (Machell) Kent of Hursley, co. Hampshire, prior to 1604. SECOND MARRIAGE: Elizabeth Fisher on 19 February 1617/8 at St. Mary Matfellon, Whitechapel, co. Middlesex, England. CHILDREN (by Mary): Elizabeth, Constance, and Giles. CHILDREN (by Elizabeth): Damaris, Oceanus, Caleb, Deborah, Damaris, Ruth, and Elizabeth. DNA HAPLOGROUP: R1b-M269 The Mayflower was hired in London, and sailed from London to Southampton in July 1620 to begin loading food and supplies for the voyage--much of which was purchased at Southampton. The Pilgrims were mostly still living in the city of Leiden, in the Netherlands. They hired a ship called the Speedwell to take them from Delfshaven, the Netherlands, to Southampton, England, to meet up with the Mayflower. The two ships planned to sail together to Northern Virginia. The Speedwell departed Delfthaven on July 22, and arrived at Southampton, where they found the Mayflower waiting for them. The Speedwell had been leaking on her voyage from the Netherlands to England, though, so they spent the next week patching her up. On August 5, the two ships finally set sail for America. But the Speedwell began leaking again, so they pulled into the town of Dartmouth for repairs, arriving there about August 12. The Speedwell was patched up again, and the two ships again set sail for America about August 21. After the two ships had sailed about 300 miles out to sea, the Speedwell again began to leak. Frustrated with the enormous amount of time lost, and their inability to fix the Speedwell so that it could be sea-worthy, they returned to Plymouth, England, and made the decision to leave the Speedwell behind. The Mayflower would go to America alone. The cargo on the Speedwell was transferred over to the Mayflower; some of the passengers were so tired and disappointed with all the problems that they quit and went home. Others crammed themselves onto the already very crowded Mayflower. Finally, on September 6, the Mayflower departed from Plymouth, England, and headed for America. By the time the Pilgrims had left England, they had already been living onboard the ships for nearly a month and a half. The voyage itself across the Atlantic Ocean took 66 days, from their departure on September 6, until Cape Cod was sighted on 9 November 1620. The first half of the voyage went fairly smoothly, the only major problem was sea-sickness. But by October, they began encountering a number of Atlantic storms that made the voyage treacherous. Several times, the wind was so strong they had to just drift where the weather took them; it was not safe to use the ship's sails. The Pilgrims intended to land in Northern Virginia, which at the time included the region as far north as the Hudson River in the modern State of New York. The Hudson River, in fact, was their originally intended destination. They had received good reports on this region while in the Netherlands. All things considered, the Mayflower was almost right on target, missing the Hudson River by just a few degrees. As the Mayflower approached land, the crew spotted Cape Cod just as the sun rose on November 9. The Pilgrims decided to head south, to the mouth of the Hudson River in New York, where they intended to make their plantation. However, as the Mayflower headed south, it encountered some very rough seas, and nearly shipwrecked. The Pilgrims then decided, rather than risk another attempt to go south they would just stay and explore Cape Cod. They turned back north, rounded the tip, and anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor. The Pilgrims would spend the next month and a half exploring Cape Cod, trying to decide where they would build their plantation. On December 25, 1620, they had finally decided upon Plymouth, and began construction of their first buildings. The End of the Mayflower: "Mayflower's End," by Mike Haywood. The Mayflower returned to England from Plymouth Colony, arriving back on 9 May 1621. Christopher Jones took the ship out on a trading voyage to Rochelle, France, in October 1621, returning with a cargo of Bay salt. Christopher Jones, master and quarter-owner of the Mayflower, died and was buried at Rotherhithe, co. Surrey, England, on 5 March 1621/2. No further record of the Mayflower is found until May 1624, when it was appraised for the purposes of probate and was described as being in ruins. The ship was almost certainly sold off as scrap. The claim, first originating from J. Rendel Harris' book The Finding of the Mayflower (1920), that the Mayflower ended up as a barn in Jordans, England, is now widely discredited as being a figment of an overzealous imagination on the tercentenary anniversary of the Mayflower's voyage, combined with a tainted oral history. None of the evidence has withstood subsequent investigation. Regardless of the lack of evidence for its authenticity, it has been featured in National Geographic on several occasions and is a tourist destination. It is important to realize that in 1624, when the ship was scrapped, it was not at all famous, and nobody would have thought twice about letting it rot away. Rochester, New York General Society of Mayflower Descendant, Adam Paul Green (Ancestor Stephen Hopkins / Gen.No. 86,723) Reveals New Geneology Resource Website for Local Enthusiasts http://www.xocohealth.goodchocolateblog.com/ Women of Early Plymouth: Governor William Bradford reported that the Pilgrims were worried that the "weak bodies of women" would not be able to withstand the rigors of a trans-Atlantic voyage and the construction of a colony. Prior to the Mayflower, very few English women had made the voyage across the ocean. Sir Walter Raleigh's Roanoke colony arrived in Virginia in 1587, and amongst those 120 colonists there were 17 women: a baby girl, Virginia Dare, was born after arrival. When re-supply ships came from England, they could not relocate the people. The colony had mysteriously disappeared, and was never seen again. The Jamestown Colony was founded in 1607, but relatively few women had yet made the voyage and taken up residence there. The Pilgrim husband, as head of the household, had an important and difficult decision to make. Building a colony would be hard on a woman's "weaker body." It might be safer and healthier to leave her behind, and have her come later once the houses were built, and the general safety and successfulness of the colony were better established. But that could be several years. Could he live several years without his wife? How strong was his wife anyway, could she really handle it? Was it right to put your wife's life in danger in this manner? As the Mayflower left England for America, there were 18 adult women on-board. Three of them, Elizabeth Hopkins, Susanna White, and Mary Allerton, were actually in their last trimester of a pregnancy. All the adult women on the Mayflower were married; there were no single women--although there were a few teenage girls nearing marriageable age. While no women would die during the Mayflower's voyage, life after arrival proved extremely difficult. In fact, 78% of the women would die the first winter, a far higher percentage than for men or children. Dorothy Bradford was the first woman to die, and the only woman who died in the month of December. While many of the men, including her husband, were out exploring on Cape Cod, she accidentally fell off the Mayflower into the bitter cold waters of Provincetown Harbor. Most of the women's death dates were not recorded, but we do know that Rose Standish died on January 29, Mary Allerton died on February 25, and Elizabeth Winslow died on March 24. Most of the women died in February and March. The extremely high mortality rate among women is probably explainable by the fact the men were out in the fresh air, felling trees, building structures and drinking fresh New England water; while the women were confined to the damp, filthy and crowded quarters offered by the Mayflower, where disease would have spread much more quickly. The two-month voyage was long enough; the women, however, remained living on the ship for an additional four months while the men built storehouses and living quarters on shore. Many of the sick were no doubt cared for on-board the ship by the women, increasing their exposure to colds and pneumonias. William Mullins died on February 21, apparently on-board the Mayflower since his will was witnessed by the ship's captain and ship's surgeon. His wife Alice and son Joseph had not yet died, but it wasn't too long before they did, orphaning their teenage daughter Priscilla in the New World. Only five women survived the first winter. One of the five survivors, Mrs. Katherine Carver, died in May of a "broken heart," her husband John having died of sunstroke a month earlier. Weak bodies or not, by the time of the famous "Thanksgiving," there were only four women left to care for the Colony's fifty surviving men and children. The four women were Eleanor Billington, Elizabeth Hopkins, Mary Brewster, and Susanna (White) Winslow. http://mayflowerhistory.com/women Adam's hard work and creativity helped him land this job of a lifetime. He obtained incredible business experience there and spent years innovating, improving processes and setting sales records. Although this dream job in Traditional Corporate America was a fun challenge for him, and something he truly enjoyed mastering, Adam's natural entrepreneurial spirit kept nudging him to do something more significant with his time and talents. http://www.MyChocolatePod.com http://www.Facebook.com/AdamPaulGreen Since 2001, Adam has been involved in the Health and Wellness Industry as a successful Entrepreneur, Broker, Product Developer and Manufacturer of Cosmeceutical products. During his career, he has worked with some of the most recognizable Fortune 500 businesses along with many top international Network Marketing companies. Adam has consistently proven his unique ability to help his clients achieve their goals through creative Distribution-Channel Placement, innovative Product Development and custom Manufacturing. Adam currently owns three profitable businesses. http://www.ImAdamGreen.com About MayflowerHistory.com MayflowerHistory.com, the Internet's most complete and accurate website dealing with the Mayflower passengers and the history of the Pilgrims and early Plymouth Colony. The website was first created back in 1994 (when the web was still mostly text!) as a simple, but complete, passenger list of the Mayflower. It has grown over the past twenty years as the author, historian Caleb Johnson, has researched and compiled material. http://mayflowerhistory.com Brooklyn, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/09/2017 -- The market intelligence report provides reliable data and analysis of the Saudi Arabia Food and Drink market. With this report, the reader will be able to explore in detail the overall market and its affiliated industries. It serves as an executive-level blueprint of the Saudi Arabia Food and Drink market. It also studies the latest development in the market and how the recently adopted government policies are impacting the trajectory of the market during the forecast horizon. The report provides a basic overview of the Saudi Arabia Food and Drink industry including its crucial growth parameters, classifications, demands, market shares and industry revenue structure. The Food and Drink market analysis is provided for the Saudi Arabia markets including development trends, competitive landscape analysis, and key regions development status. This research report on the Saudi Arabia Food and Drink market additionally includes mata data: Qualitative and quantitative analysis of the key trends and future developments across the globe and different regions in the Food and Drink market Essential insights into the market growth and industry performance Industry data including exports, imports, production data, suppliers, industry buyers, cost structure, and profitability Attractiveness index that gauges market performance in both challenging and stable economic conditions Analysis of bargaining power of suppliers to the industry Analysis of bargaining power of buyers from the industry Get a Free Sample Copy of this Research Report @ http://www.qyresearchreports.com/sample/sample.php?rep_id=307424&type=E This research report also provides crucial answers to all technical and difficult questions pertaining to Saudi Arabia Food and Drink Industry, which are as follows :- What is the revenue generation of the Saudi Arabia Food and Drink market? What is the cost structure in the Saudi Arabia Food and Drink market? How profitable is the Saudi Arabia Food and Drink market? Who are the key consumers in the Saudi Arabia Food and Drink market? Who are the prominent players in the Saudi Arabia Food and Drink market? Is the market fragmented or consolidated? What is the extent of threat from new players and substitutes in the Saudi Arabia Food and Drink market? Which region is likely to remain lucrative throughout the forecast period? What are the leading product and technology segments in the Saudi Arabia Food and Drink market? The report focuses on Saudi Arabia major leading industry players providing information such as company profiles, product picture and specification, capacity, production, price, cost, revenue and contact information. With 149 tables and figures the report provides key statistics on the state of the Saudi Arabia Food and Drink industry and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the Saudi Arabia Food and Drink market. Browse Complete Report with TOC @ http://www.qyresearchreports.com/report/saudi-arabia-food-and-drink-industry-2015-market-research-report.htm Table of Contents Chapter One Industry Overview 1.1 Definition and Specifications of Food and Drink 1.2 Classification of Food and Drink 1.3 Applications of Food and Drink 1.4 Industry Chain Structure of Food and Drink 1.5 Industry Overview of Food and Drink 1.6 Industry Policy Analysis of Food and Drink 1.7 Industry News Analysis of Food and Drink Chapter Two Production Analysis of Food and Drink by Regions, Technology, and Applications 2.1 Saudi Arabia Production of Food and Drink by Regions (Key Provinces) 2010-2015 2.2 Saudi Arabia Production of Food and Drink by Product Types 2010-2015 2.3 Saudi Arabia Sales of Food and Drink by Applications 2010-2015 2.4 Price Analysis of Saudi Arabia Food and Drink Key Manufacturers in 2015 2.5 Saudi Arabia Capacity, Production, Import, Export, Sales, Price, Cost and Revenue of Food and Drink 2010-2015 Chapter Three Sales and Revenue Analysis of Food and Drink by Regions 3.1 Saudi Arabia Sales of Food and Drink by Regions 2010-2015 3.2 Saudi Arabia Revenue of Food and Drink by Regions 2010-2015 3.3 Saudi Arabia Price Analysis of Food and Drink Sales by Regions 2010-2015 3.4 Saudi Arabia Price, Cost and Gross of Food and Drink 2010-2015 Chapter Four Analysis of Food and Drink Production, Supply, Sales and Market Status 2010-2015 4.1 Capacity Production Sales Revenue of Food and Drink 2010-2015 4.2 Production Sales Market Share Analysis of Food and Drink 2014-2015 4.3 Import, Export and Consumption of Food and Drink 2010-2015 4.4 Supply, Consumption and Shortage of Food and Drink 2010-2015 4.5 Import, Export and Consumption of Food and Drink 2010-2015 Explore Latest Market Research Press & News @ http://www.qyresearchreports.com/press-releases.htm St. Louis, MO -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/09/2017 -- Stephen Hopkins was from Hampshire, England. He married his first wife, Mary, and resided in the parish of Hursley, Hampshire. They had three (3) children: Elizabeth, Constance, and Giles; all baptized there. It has long been claimed that the Hopkins family was from Wortley, Gloucester, but this was disproven in 1998 with the discovery of his true origins in Hursley. http://mayflowerhistory.com/hopkins-stephen/ Stephen Hopkins went with the ship Sea Venture on a voyage to Jamestown, Virginia in 1609 as a minister's clerk, but the ship wrecked in the "Isle of Devils" (Bermuda). Stranded on an island for ten months, the passengers and crew survived on turtles, birds, and wild pigs. Six months into the castaway, Stephen Hopkins and several others organized a mutiny against the current governor. The mutiny was discovered and Stephen was sentenced to death. However, he pleaded with sorrow and tears. "So penitent he was, and made so much moan, alleging the ruin of his wife and children in this his trespass, as it wrought in the hearts of all the better sorts of the company." He managed to get his sentence commuted. Eventually the castaways built a small ship and sailed themselves to Jamestown. How long Stephen remained in Jamestown is not known. However, while he was gone, his wife Mary died. She was buried in Hursley on 9 May 1613, and left behind a probate estate which mentions her children Elizabeth, Constance and Giles. Stephen was back in England by 1617, when he married Elizabeth Fisher, but apparently had every intention of bringing his family back to Virginia. Their first child, Damaris, was born about 1618. In 1620, Stephen Hopkins brought his wife and children Constance, Giles, and Damaris on the Mayflower (child Elizabeth apparently had died). Stephen was a fairly active member of the Pilgrim group shortly after arrival, perhaps a result of his being one of the few individuals who had been to Virginia previously. He was a part of all the early exploring missions, and was used as an "expert" on Native Americans for the first few contacts. While out exploring, Stephen recognized and identified an Indian deer trap. And when Samoset walked into Plymouth and welcomed the English, he was housed in Stephen Hopkins' house for the night. Stephen was also sent on several of the ambassadorial missions to meet with the various Indian groups in the region. Stephen was an assistant to the governor through 1636, and volunteered for the Pequot War of 1637 but was never called to serve. By the late 1630s, however, Stephen began to occasionally run afoul of the Plymouth authorities, as he apparently opened up a shop and served alcohol. In 1636 he got into a fight with John Tisdale and seriously wounded him. In 1637, he was fined for allowing drinking and shuffleboard playing on Sunday. Early the next year he was fined for allowing people to drink excessively in his house: guest William Reynolds was fined, but the others were acquitted. In 1638 he was twice fined for selling beer at twice the actual value, and in 1639 he was fined for selling a looking glass for twice what it would cost if bought in the Bay Colony. Also in 1638, Stephen Hopkins' maidservant got pregnant from Arthur Peach, who was subsequently executed for murdering an Indian. The Plymouth Court ruled he was financially responsible for her and her child for the next two years (the amount remaining on her term of service). Stephen, in contempt of court, threw Dorothy out of his household and refused to provide for her, so the court committed him to custody. John Holmes stepped in and purchased Dorothy's remaining two years of service from him: agreeing to support her and child. Stephen died in 1644, and made out a will, asking to be buried near his wife, and naming his surviving children. BAPTISM: 30 April 1581 at Upper Clatford, Hampshire, England, son of John and Elizabeth (Williams) Hopkins. FIRST MARRIAGE: Mary, possibly the daughter of Robert and Joan (Machell) Kent of Hursley, co. Hampshire, prior to 1604. SECOND MARRIAGE: Elizabeth Fisher on 19 February 1617/8 at St. Mary Matfellon, Whitechapel, co. Middlesex, England. CHILDREN (by Mary): Elizabeth, Constance, and Giles. CHILDREN (by Elizabeth): Damaris, Oceanus, Caleb, Deborah, Damaris, Ruth, and Elizabeth. DNA HAPLOGROUP: R1b-M269 Contact Adam Green! c: 801-809-7766 e: g3president@comcast.net St. Louis, Missouri General Society of Mayflower Descendant, Adam Paul Green (Ancestor Stephen Hopkins / Gen.No. 86,723) Announces New Geneology Resource Website for Local Enthusiasts http://www.ImAdamGreen.com The Mayflower was hired in London, and sailed from London to Southampton in July 1620 to begin loading food and supplies for the voyage--much of which was purchased at Southampton. The Pilgrims were mostly still living in the city of Leiden, in the Netherlands. They hired a ship called the Speedwell to take them from Delfshaven, the Netherlands, to Southampton, England, to meet up with the Mayflower. The two ships planned to sail together to Northern Virginia. The Speedwell departed Delfthaven on July 22, and arrived at Southampton, where they found the Mayflower waiting for them. The Speedwell had been leaking on her voyage from the Netherlands to England, though, so they spent the next week patching her up. On August 5, the two ships finally set sail for America. But the Speedwell began leaking again, so they pulled into the town of Dartmouth for repairs, arriving there about August 12. The Speedwell was patched up again, and the two ships again set sail for America about August 21. After the two ships had sailed about 300 miles out to sea, the Speedwell again began to leak. Frustrated with the enormous amount of time lost, and their inability to fix the Speedwell so that it could be sea-worthy, they returned to Plymouth, England, and made the decision to leave the Speedwell behind. The Mayflower would go to America alone. The cargo on the Speedwell was transferred over to the Mayflower; some of the passengers were so tired and disappointed with all the problems that they quit and went home. Others crammed themselves onto the already very crowded Mayflower. Finally, on September 6, the Mayflower departed from Plymouth, England, and headed for America. By the time the Pilgrims had left England, they had already been living onboard the ships for nearly a month and a half. The voyage itself across the Atlantic Ocean took 66 days, from their departure on September 6, until Cape Cod was sighted on 9 November 1620. The first half of the voyage went fairly smoothly, the only major problem was sea-sickness. But by October, they began encountering a number of Atlantic storms that made the voyage treacherous. Several times, the wind was so strong they had to just drift where the weather took them; it was not safe to use the ship's sails. The Pilgrims intended to land in Northern Virginia, which at the time included the region as far north as the Hudson River in the modern State of New York. The Hudson River, in fact, was their originally intended destination. They had received good reports on this region while in the Netherlands. All things considered, the Mayflower was almost right on target, missing the Hudson River by just a few degrees. As the Mayflower approached land, the crew spotted Cape Cod just as the sun rose on November 9. The Pilgrims decided to head south, to the mouth of the Hudson River in New York, where they intended to make their plantation. However, as the Mayflower headed south, it encountered some very rough seas, and nearly shipwrecked. The Pilgrims then decided, rather than risk another attempt to go south they would just stay and explore Cape Cod. They turned back north, rounded the tip, and anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor. The Pilgrims would spend the next month and a half exploring Cape Cod, trying to decide where they would build their plantation. On December 25, 1620, they had finally decided upon Plymouth, and began construction of their first buildings. The End of the Mayflower: "Mayflower's End," by Mike Haywood. The Mayflower returned to England from Plymouth Colony, arriving back on 9 May 1621. Christopher Jones took the ship out on a trading voyage to Rochelle, France, in October 1621, returning with a cargo of Bay salt. Christopher Jones, master and quarter-owner of the Mayflower, died and was buried at Rotherhithe, co. Surrey, England, on 5 March 1621/2. No further record of the Mayflower is found until May 1624, when it was appraised for the purposes of probate and was described as being in ruins. The ship was almost certainly sold off as scrap. The claim, first originating from J. Rendel Harris' book The Finding of the Mayflower (1920), that the Mayflower ended up as a barn in Jordans, England, is now widely discredited as being a figment of an overzealous imagination on the tercentenary anniversary of the Mayflower's voyage, combined with a tainted oral history. None of the evidence has withstood subsequent investigation. Regardless of the lack of evidence for its authenticity, it has been featured in National Geographic on several occasions and is a tourist destination. It is important to realize that in 1624, when the ship was scrapped, it was not at all famous, and nobody would have thought twice about letting it rot away. Admittedly, Adam was not initially a fan of Network Marketing. He did not understand the business model because it was new to him. However, once he learned that the REAL focus of Direct Sales is to help average people get a taste of entrepreneurialism --- with minimal risk and at a low cost --- Adam was absolutely convinced of the potential with Multi-Level Marketing. http://www.Xocai.com http://www.MXICorp.com http://www.HealthyChocolate.com http://www.JeanetteBrooks.net Since joining MXI Corp (Xocai) as one of the original 11 founding distributors, Adam has discovered that many of his life-goals truly do align perfectly with Network Marketing. Adam enjoys helping others find significance. Adam is most grateful for the complete time-freedom he has with his fantastic wife and five children. It's my pleasure to introduce you to Adam Paul Green, MXI Corp Ambassador and Multi-Millionaire Earner. http://www.mxicorp.com/fab/index.php?dist=winnerscircle http://www.Youtube.com/AdamPaulGreen http://www.mxicorp.com/multimillionaires/ http://www.ImAdamGreen.com Women of Early Plymouth: Governor William Bradford reported that the Pilgrims were worried that the "weak bodies of women" would not be able to withstand the rigors of a trans-Atlantic voyage and the construction of a colony. Prior to the Mayflower, very few English women had made the voyage across the ocean. Sir Walter Raleigh's Roanoke colony arrived in Virginia in 1587, and amongst those 120 colonists there were 17 women: a baby girl, Virginia Dare, was born after arrival. When re-supply ships came from England, they could not relocate the people. The colony had mysteriously disappeared, and was never seen again. The Jamestown Colony was founded in 1607, but relatively few women had yet made the voyage and taken up residence there. The Pilgrim husband, as head of the household, had an important and difficult decision to make. Building a colony would be hard on a woman's "weaker body." It might be safer and healthier to leave her behind, and have her come later once the houses were built, and the general safety and successfulness of the colony were better established. But that could be several years. Could he live several years without his wife? How strong was his wife anyway, could she really handle it? Was it right to put your wife's life in danger in this manner? As the Mayflower left England for America, there were 18 adult women on-board. Three of them, Elizabeth Hopkins, Susanna White, and Mary Allerton, were actually in their last trimester of a pregnancy. All the adult women on the Mayflower were married; there were no single women--although there were a few teenage girls nearing marriageable age. While no women would die during the Mayflower's voyage, life after arrival proved extremely difficult. In fact, 78% of the women would die the first winter, a far higher percentage than for men or children. Dorothy Bradford was the first woman to die, and the only woman who died in the month of December. While many of the men, including her husband, were out exploring on Cape Cod, she accidentally fell off the Mayflower into the bitter cold waters of Provincetown Harbor. Most of the women's death dates were not recorded, but we do know that Rose Standish died on January 29, Mary Allerton died on February 25, and Elizabeth Winslow died on March 24. Most of the women died in February and March. The extremely high mortality rate among women is probably explainable by the fact the men were out in the fresh air, felling trees, building structures and drinking fresh New England water; while the women were confined to the damp, filthy and crowded quarters offered by the Mayflower, where disease would have spread much more quickly. The two-month voyage was long enough; the women, however, remained living on the ship for an additional four months while the men built storehouses and living quarters on shore. Many of the sick were no doubt cared for on-board the ship by the women, increasing their exposure to colds and pneumonias. William Mullins died on February 21, apparently on-board the Mayflower since his will was witnessed by the ship's captain and ship's surgeon. His wife Alice and son Joseph had not yet died, but it wasn't too long before they did, orphaning their teenage daughter Priscilla in the New World. Only five women survived the first winter. One of the five survivors, Mrs. Katherine Carver, died in May of a "broken heart," her husband John having died of sunstroke a month earlier. Weak bodies or not, by the time of the famous "Thanksgiving," there were only four women left to care for the Colony's fifty surviving men and children. The four women were Eleanor Billington, Elizabeth Hopkins, Mary Brewster, and Susanna (White) Winslow. http://mayflowerhistory.com/women About MayflowerHistory.com MayflowerHistory.com, the Internet's most complete and accurate website dealing with the Mayflower passengers and the history of the Pilgrims and early Plymouth Colony. The website was first created back in 1994 (when the web was still mostly text!) as a simple, but complete, passenger list of the Mayflower. It has grown over the past twenty years as the author, historian Caleb Johnson, has researched and compiled material. http://mayflowerhistory.com Virginia Beach, VA -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/09/2017 -- Stephen Hopkins was from Hampshire, England. He married his first wife, Mary, and resided in the parish of Hursley, Hampshire. They had three (3) children: Elizabeth, Constance, and Giles; all baptized there. It has long been claimed that the Hopkins family was from Wortley, Gloucester, but this was disproven in 1998 with the discovery of his true origins in Hursley. http://mayflowerhistory.com/hopkins-stephen/ Stephen Hopkins went with the ship Sea Venture on a voyage to Jamestown, Virginia in 1609 as a minister's clerk, but the ship wrecked in the "Isle of Devils" (Bermuda). Stranded on an island for ten months, the passengers and crew survived on turtles, birds, and wild pigs. Six months into the castaway, Stephen Hopkins and several others organized a mutiny against the current governor. The mutiny was discovered and Stephen was sentenced to death. However, he pleaded with sorrow and tears. "So penitent he was, and made so much moan, alleging the ruin of his wife and children in this his trespass, as it wrought in the hearts of all the better sorts of the company." He managed to get his sentence commuted. Eventually the castaways built a small ship and sailed themselves to Jamestown. How long Stephen remained in Jamestown is not known. However, while he was gone, his wife Mary died. She was buried in Hursley on 9 May 1613, and left behind a probate estate which mentions her children Elizabeth, Constance and Giles. Stephen was back in England by 1617, when he married Elizabeth Fisher, but apparently had every intention of bringing his family back to Virginia. Their first child, Damaris, was born about 1618. In 1620, Stephen Hopkins brought his wife and children Constance, Giles, and Damaris on the Mayflower (child Elizabeth apparently had died). Stephen was a fairly active member of the Pilgrim group shortly after arrival, perhaps a result of his being one of the few individuals who had been to Virginia previously. He was a part of all the early exploring missions, and was used as an "expert" on Native Americans for the first few contacts. While out exploring, Stephen recognized and identified an Indian deer trap. And when Samoset walked into Plymouth and welcomed the English, he was housed in Stephen Hopkins' house for the night. Stephen was also sent on several of the ambassadorial missions to meet with the various Indian groups in the region. Stephen was an assistant to the governor through 1636, and volunteered for the Pequot War of 1637 but was never called to serve. By the late 1630s, however, Stephen began to occasionally run afoul of the Plymouth authorities, as he apparently opened up a shop and served alcohol. In 1636 he got into a fight with John Tisdale and seriously wounded him. In 1637, he was fined for allowing drinking and shuffleboard playing on Sunday. Early the next year he was fined for allowing people to drink excessively in his house: guest William Reynolds was fined, but the others were acquitted. In 1638 he was twice fined for selling beer at twice the actual value, and in 1639 he was fined for selling a looking glass for twice what it would cost if bought in the Bay Colony. Also in 1638, Stephen Hopkins' maidservant got pregnant from Arthur Peach, who was subsequently executed for murdering an Indian. The Plymouth Court ruled he was financially responsible for her and her child for the next two years (the amount remaining on her term of service). Stephen, in contempt of court, threw Dorothy out of his household and refused to provide for her, so the court committed him to custody. John Holmes stepped in and purchased Dorothy's remaining two years of service from him: agreeing to support her and child. Stephen died in 1644, and made out a will, asking to be buried near his wife, and naming his surviving children. BAPTISM: 30 April 1581 at Upper Clatford, Hampshire, England, son of John and Elizabeth (Williams) Hopkins. FIRST MARRIAGE: Mary, possibly the daughter of Robert and Joan (Machell) Kent of Hursley, co. Hampshire, prior to 1604. SECOND MARRIAGE: Elizabeth Fisher on 19 February 1617/8 at St. Mary Matfellon, Whitechapel, co. Middlesex, England. CHILDREN (by Mary): Elizabeth, Constance, and Giles. CHILDREN (by Elizabeth): Damaris, Oceanus, Caleb, Deborah, Damaris, Ruth, and Elizabeth. DNA HAPLOGROUP: R1b-M269 Contact Adam Green! c: 801-809-7766 e: g3president@comcast.net The Pilgrims did not leave behind any lists of the items they brought with them on the Mayflower, but historians have used a provision list put together by Captain John Smith (of Pocahontas fame) to take an educated guess. However, in 2012, Caleb Johnson, Simon Neal, and Jeremy Bangs started transcribing and studying a rare manuscript (a page of which is here illustrated) in the possession of the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, that was written by one of the investors in the Pilgrims' joint-stock company. This manuscript actually contains several lists of suggested provisions the colonists should bring with them. It is the closest thing we can get to a list of what the Pilgrims would have actually brought. A summary of some of the key items on the provision lists: http://mayflowerhistory.com/pilgrim-history/ -Food and Drink: Biscuit, beer, salt, (dried) beef, salt pork, oats, peas, wheat, butter, sweet oil, mustard seed, ling or cod fish, "good cheese", vinegar, aqua-vitae, rice, bacon, cider. -Clothing: Monmouth cap, falling bands, shirts, waistcoat, suit of canvas, suit of cloth, Irish stockings, 4 pairs of shoes, garters. Slippers, plain shoes, little shoes, French soles, sewing needles. -Bedding: Canvas sheets, bolster "filled with good straw", rug and blankets. -Arms: Light armor (complete), fowling piece, snaphance, sword, belt, bandoleer, powder horn, 20 pounds of powder, 60 pounds of shot. -Household: Iron pot, kettle, frying pan, gridiron, two skillets, spit, platters, dishes, spoons of wood, napkins, towels, soap, hand mill, mortar and pestle. -Tools: Broad hoes, narrow hoes, broad axe, felling axe, steel handsaw, whipsaw, hammers, shovels, spades, augers, chisels, gimlets, hatchets, grinding stone, nails, locks for doors. The End of the Mayflower: "Mayflower's End," by Mike Haywood. The Mayflower returned to England from Plymouth Colony, arriving back on 9 May 1621. Christopher Jones took the ship out on a trading voyage to Rochelle, France, in October 1621, returning with a cargo of Bay salt. Christopher Jones, master and quarter-owner of the Mayflower, died and was buried at Rotherhithe, co. Surrey, England, on 5 March 1621/2. No further record of the Mayflower is found until May 1624, when it was appraised for the purposes of probate and was described as being in ruins. The ship was almost certainly sold off as scrap. The claim, first originating from J. Rendel Harris' book The Finding of the Mayflower (1920), that the Mayflower ended up as a barn in Jordans, England, is now widely discredited as being a figment of an overzealous imagination on the tercentenary anniversary of the Mayflower's voyage, combined with a tainted oral history. None of the evidence has withstood subsequent investigation. Regardless of the lack of evidence for its authenticity, it has been featured in National Geographic on several occasions and is a tourist destination. It is important to realize that in 1624, when the ship was scrapped, it was not at all famous, and nobody would have thought twice about letting it rot away. Virginia Beach, Virginia General Society of Mayflower Descendant, Adam Paul Green (Ancestor Stephen Hopkins / Gen.No. 86,723) Announces New Geneology Support Website for Local Enthusiasts http://www.AdamPaulGreen.com Adam Paul Green was born to a multi-talented beauty queen Mother and a Father who, in addition to being a US Army Spy and a Counter-Intelligence Special Agent, was also a highly accomplished entrepreneur. Adam was taught at a young age that, in both life and business, loyalty is a requirement for success. He's had the honor of working directly with his father in several of the family businesses. In fact, this is where he learned crucial entrepreneurial skills and honed his talents with international business strategies and venture capitalism. http://www.MarketingChocolateInternational.com, http://www.AdamPaulGreen.com, http://www.ImAdamGreen.com Adam earned his Bachelors of Science Degree in International Business and Marketing from the University of Utah. He was hand-picked by the President of the University's renowned School of Business to compete with dozens of other ambitious nationwide-graduates for the opportunity to secure a lucrative job within a prestigious Fortune 100 company. http://www.mxicorp.com/fab/, http://www.Twitter.com/AdamPaulGreen http://www.ImAdamGreen.com About MayflowerHistory.com MayflowerHistory.com, the Internet's most complete and accurate website dealing with the Mayflower passengers and the history of the Pilgrims and early Plymouth Colony. The website was first created back in 1994 (when the web was still mostly text!) as a simple, but complete, passenger list of the Mayflower. It has grown over the past twenty years as the author, historian Caleb Johnson, has researched and compiled material. http://mayflowerhistory.com New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/09/2017 -- The powerplant determination takes the vertical take-off and landing business flying machine a stage nearer to its certification in 2023. The world has never seen such a startup. Crowd funding is usually associated with consumer products, such as smart phones or watches. But the company XTI Aircraft from Denver, Colorado, United States, decided to go ahead and not to waste its talents on trifles. Someone should solve the problem of traffic jams in metropolitan areas. The draft of a hybrid aircraft with the helicopter received the name of TRIFAN 600. A fully certified high-speed commercial aircraft with long-range vertical takeoff and landing. The company that is designing this aircraft, which combines the vertical lift capability of a helicopter with the speed of a plane, is ready to launch its fund-raising campaign according to the new rules approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission TriFan 600 The project has been developed for two years. TRIFAN 600 is planned to be build of composite materials, with fixed wings and five seats plus one seat for a pilot. This is a project for businessmen and it is ready to offer a solution of the traffic problem in the crowded city with a speed of 400 miles per hour or 644 kilometer per hour. However, it can easily fly between cities (and countries). The maximum operation celling of the hybrid aircraft is about 30000 feet (9000 meters). Two turboshaft engine allow you to fly from 800 to 1200 miles per one fuel filling (or from 1300 to 1900 km), depending on the method of taking-off and payload. A vertical take-off is provided by three channeled fan built into the chassis and used with sliding hatches. If necessary, they can be installed outside. The concept involves several variants of design. The plane itself is presented as a project that allows to deliver passengers "from door to door". And it doesn't matter if it is the door at the airport, the roof of a skyscraper marked "H" or the backyard of your country cottage. TRIFAN 600 does not need any special sites for taking-off and landing, and can land on any flat surface. The company XTI is planning to offer its aircraft for the business customers at a price ranging from $10 million to $12 million USD as a convenient mean of transport with hybrid features. Inside the plane, you can equip everything to your liking. The company says that TRIFAN 600 has a choice of several types of interior layouts, ranging from a luxury business interior and finishing with a configuration for medical emergency evacuation services. The aircraft can also be used by EMERCOM, special forces, transport corporations and all those, who are willing to become a potential customer. For more information, please, visit https://jetspectre.com or call us +1-(341)-5048189. Contact: Valery Andrew Company: Jetspectre Avaition Company Address: 315 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Phone: +1-(341)-5048189 Email: info@jetspectre.com [NAIROBI] Harnessing smart and sustainable approaches including planting crop varieties suitable for the right soil types and using emerging technologies could boost food production in Sub-Saharan Africa, a meeting has heard. Experts who spoke at the Yara East Africa Annual Distributors Event held in Kenya last month (20 January) agreed that there are various impediments affecting the agricultural sector in the region and it is time to find workable solutions. James Craske, Yara East Africa country manager, says that African countries could create better yields through better knowledge, providing crop nutrition solutions programmes to farmers while maintaining soil quality and environmental values. Innovation and training will enable smallholder farmers have access to worlds best technologies to achieve food security in Sub-Saharan Africa. Johnston Irungu, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Kenya Vitalis Wafula, regional agronomist at Yara, an organisation that helps farmers increase yields and sustain the environment, points out that for a long time farmers have not been accessing correct information, right input and modern technologies, which would improve harvests. Wafula explains that capacity building and training are needed for agricultural extension officers to deliver correct services and information to farmers. For example, they should advise farmers on the type of fertilisers [to use], how to apply fertilsers on their farms and which crops they should plant depending on the type of soil and climate, Wafula says. He is urging farmers not to depend on the rain alone but dig boreholes to get water for irrigation where water is scarce and try to harvest and store rainwater for future use. According to Wafula, African governments should create proper policies and infrastructure that will make movement of products easy for farmers, and tackle counterfeit products including fertilisers. Johnston Irungu, director of crops, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries in Kenya, says that the agricultural sector is key to the overall economic growth and development because it contributes about 25 per cent of the countrysgross domestic products and 75 per cent of industrial raw materials. Innovation and training will enable smallholder farmers have access to worlds best technologies to achieve food security in Sub-Saharan Africa, Irungu tells SciDev.Net. He notes that most smallholders depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, adding that encouraging them to apply best farming practices could help them increase their yields, incomes and eradicate poverty.Irungu is calling for African governments to promote investments and private-public partnerships in agriculture to boost farming This piece was produced by SciDev.Nets Sub-Saharan Africa English desk. SpaceX just had another out of this world record! Its engineers were able to successfully test-fire a used SpaceX booster, an orbit class rocket, last week in McGregor, Texas. According to an article written by Physics, SpaceX engineers were researching for a reuse mission of SpaceX's Falcon 9's first stage booster. The said booster was initially launched into space in April 2016 and is planned to have a relaunch as early as next month. Space enthusiasts are looking forward to this endeavor of SpaceX as this will be the first ever reuse mission that will ever happen. In this interest to have a reuse mission, SpaceX engineers studied the anatomy of the CRS-8 Falcon 9 that they've recovered 8 minutes after the said rocket had a propulsive soft landing. The said mission was actually for a signed project between SpaceX and Luxembourg-based telecommunications company SES. In earlier news, the Falcon 9 reuse mission was supposed to be done before 2016 ended. However, due to an accident in September last year, the said Falcon 9 exploded and caused major damages to the facilities at the Space Launch Complex-40 located at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. After the test fire, SpaceX is planning to have the reuse mission in the historical pad 39A. The mission of SpaceX's Falcon 9 was supposed to be done in pad 40, however, it is still under reconstruction. A lot of historical events happened in the pad 39A which includes the launches of several NASA missions such as the Apollo. Earlier this year, SpaceX already kicked off with a launch of another Falcon 9 into space to set up 10 satellites, according to CNN. The said project was in partnership with the data company Iridium. SpaceX is definitely having a jam-packed 2017 with its Falcon 9 projects. There have been reports from SpaceX about a Falcon Heavy project this year and just stay tuned here in Science Times for more updates. The International Space Station (ISS) will soon get its first commercially funded airlock that will enable more small satellites to be utilized from the orbiting laboratory. NanoRacks, a Houston based company, is in agreement with American space agency NASA to build the airlock, and its launch is being targeted for 2019. "We want to utilize the space station to expose the commercial sector to new and novel uses of space, ultimately creating a new economy in low-Earth orbit for technology development, scientific research, and human and cargo transportation," said Sam Scimemi, director of NASA's ISS division. "We hope this new airlock will allow a diverse community to experiment and develop opportunities in space for the commercial sector." In the past, NanoRacks has already deployed a number of tiny cubesats from ISS' Japanese Kibo module. Now the company will collaborate with aerospace giant Boeing to build the new airlock, and the two recently signed an independent partnership for the same. The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), which looks after the U.S. national laboratory on the space station, will coordinate and evaluate the payloads being deployed into space through the new airlock. Incidentally, another tranquility port on the space station hosts the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), a model inflatable space habitat that was attached last year. According to a Space.com report, NASA has issued a request for information last year asking private companies how they can utilize resources on the space laboratory, like docking ports. BEAM and NanoRacks Airlock are two huge examples of how NASA is making a noticeable effort to maximize the orbiting lab's use and promote commercial activity in space. Subsequently, the American space agency will be able to concentrate on its deep space exploration goals, which include sending manned missions beyond the Moon and to Mars. General John Hyten, leader of the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM), has recently said the U.S. must be prepared for any aggression in space by China. Hyten made the statement at the Stanford University while giving a speech on Jan. 24. According to the general, China tested its capability to destroy a low-Earth orbit satellite in 2007, and it continues to test that ability today at numerous orbital regimes. "In the not-too-distant future, they will be able to use that capability to threaten every spacecraft we have in space," Hyten said, according to a Defense Department press release. "We have to prevent that, and the best way to prevent war is to be prepared for war. So the United States is going to do that, and we are going to make sure that everybody knows we are prepared for war." Defending and protecting the space environment is one of his two jobs as leader of STRATCOM, Hyten said, the other being defending the American people against any threats. The general has also said that given the number of critical systems like communications, missile warnings and GPS that the U.S. depends upon, it has become more important than ever to deter aggression in space. According to a Space.com report, Hyten also mentioned about the need to defend the nation against any threat to the geosynchronous orbit. Furthermore, the general also added that to keep space safe and to deter a war will also need cooperation from the Air Force. "A lot of people in the military think it does not pertain to us," Hyten said. "But it creates an economic environment that the United States military will have to defend at some point, and it creates an opportunity for us to take advantage of a commercial sector" that can provide remote sensing, launch and other services. Hetq inteviews Bruno Balvanera, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Director for Caucasus, Moldova & Belarus, on the topic of cooperation with the Armenian government and evaluating corruption and energy security. In Armenia, for some time now, weve had a special government council to combat corruption. But weve yet to see any practical results. What are your insights as to howone can successfully combat corruption especially when government officials are themselves culpable? First, I would say that we are very encouraged by the Armenias new prime minister Karen Karapetyan and his new ideas, and especially because he comes from the private sector. During our recent visit to Armenia, we had constructive meetings with him, as well as with his key ministers; the ministers of transport, finance, economic development and investment, and the deputy prime minister You are talking about problems that have existed for a long time and will take time to solve. I think that the first step to solve this is to break the existing monopolies, especially those that are closely associated with some public officials. It is very important to try and break-down these monopolies that are making products expensive for the Armenian population. This first step will be a significant start to try to tackle corruption. it will be an excellent precedent, and then we will take it from there. This will take some time and lots of effort, but what you need is a strong political will. But we are confident, since we see that the new government has this very strong political will. Have you achieved any progress with your contacts in the Armenian government, or it is yet on the level of promises? Well, the government is newly elected, so we cannot see the results just yet. But what we see is the right attitude. And I can tell you, when you speak with the government, you see a different attitude compared to the past. So, we are hopeful. I cannot say there are results, but we are hearing messages that weve wanted to hear for a long time. The April parliamentary election is upon us, which means this government will soon change. What are your expectations for the future in terms of structural and personnel change? There is no certainty as to what will happen after the election. It may be that after the election in April, the current government will remain in place. Obviously, for us, it will be a disappointment if we do not see a progressive government in place after April, whether this one or another one. This is not a question of names. This is about principles and about the right direction. We have been very outspoken about our views on the government. We support and will continue to support the development of the country. We are engaging in a number of areas, and we hope that this will continue after the elections. Could you please specify these areas? 2016 was a good year for EBRD investments in Armenia. We invested 60 m in new investments through 12 projects. EBRD total commitments by the end of December 2016 total 1.12 billion, primarily in the private sector. The ratio of private sector projects in the portfolio currently stands at around 88%. Armenia is one of the countries where the ERBDs Local Currency and Capital Markets Development (LC2) Initiative has delivered its best and most visible results, setting the stage for further development of local capital markets. For example, towards the end of 2016,the EBRD signed two deals in support of the development of female entrepreneurship in Armenia by extending a local currency loan, equivalent to 12.3 m, to Ameriabank and ACBA bank for on-lending to women-led small and medium-sized businesses. The loans come under the expansion of the Banks Women in Business program to include the Eastern Partnership countries Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. As of December 2016, the Bank had issued the equivalent of 44.1 m in AMD of local currency bonds, including 38.6 m worth of Eurobonds, as well as four domestic transactions for 14.8 m AMD over the local exchange. The Bank has been active in municipal and environmental infrastructure. The EBRD financed an energy efficient street lighting and city street rehabilitation programin Yerevan and Gyumri. In 2016, the Central Bank of Armenia, the Ministry of Finance, and EBRD signed an updated Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Local Currency and Capital Market Development. In the agribusiness sector, the EBRD is supporting the development of innovation and the knowledge economy in the dairy sector of Armenia. A forum entitled Innovation and Knowledge Sharing in the Dairy Sectorwas organized by the EBRD with the support of the Armenian Ministry of Agriculture in the summer of 2016. This year, the EBRD will also be working actively with the Armenian government to prepare new legislation on the Public Private Partnership (PPP), which will lay the foundation forfuture infrastructure development in Armenia. Concerning the energy security, which is the baseline for Armenias economic security in light of the possibility that the Metsamor Nuclear station, which produces more than 40% of energy for Armenia? What is your view regarding renewable energy source development? Armenia is at the forefront for solar renewable energy. I am impressed by the strong determination of the energy minister and his deputy to develop a solar economy. Many people in the country announced that they want to put solar panels in their houses. This is something we do not see, for example, in Georgia or other countries. I think the dependence on the Metsamor power plantwill continue for some time because there is no other capacity to replace it now. We are also exploring some possibilities regarding hydro power plants, although the capacities are not big. But there is some potential. We need to explore the potential of renewable energy produced from wind power plants as well. And, of course, there is a big dependency on gas that is imported from Russia through Georgia. I think the sustainable energy sector is extremely important for Armenia. Therefore, the EBRD will help develop alternative sources of energy such as hydro and solar. What about biogas? The Bank, for a number of years, has not been active in this sector. Biogas, at one time, caused a significant increase in the price of food in the world without lowering emissions. Therefore,biogas is not something that we would support. In specific cases we may consider it, but in general we are much more about supporting the development of renewable energy generated from solar, hydro and wind resources. To my knowledge, our plants are not sufficiently equipped to work with renewable sources, and they will need a great deal of investment for the changeover. Yes, and we are happy to support that. We are happy to support investments; we are ready. When we finance, we compliment the participation of the private sector. So, we need to find investors that would invest equity, and we will be supporting further with our financing and expertise. I know that this will also be a priority for other international financial institutions like the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, etc. And this is a part of our strong development agenda with the government of Armenia, especially in solar renewable energy. This is medium to long-term investment, and needs massive investments and strong commitment. Interview conducted by Oksana Musaelyan High blood pressure can sometimes lead to death. Thus, a team of family physicians warned that a lot of Americans are currently struggling with high blood pressure. The president of the American Academy of Family Physicians or AAFP shared that high blood pressure plays a major role in heart failure and heart attack. Meanwhile, the month of February is National Heart Month. As per Meigs, now would be a great time for the people to have their blood pressure under control and be treated, for them to avoid heart disease. Medical Xpress reported that a 2016 survey by the AAFP and a data from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that 29 percent of the Americans, which around 75 million people, have high blood pressure. However, only 54 percent of them have it under control. Thus, in a news release by the AAFP, Meigs added that, "This finding is concerning because we know that high blood pressure and heart attacks or chronic heart failure are so closely related." He added that 7 out 10 people who underwent first heart attack have high blood pressure. Also, 7 out of 10 people who developed a chronic heart failure have high blood pressure. Thus, it is important that people are aware what their blood pressure is, report and work hand in hand with their family physicians to treat it, according to Consumer Health Day. Dr. Meigs also advised that people should get their blood pressure checked. If one has high blood pressure, work with a doctor to treat it so the that the risk for another disease will lower. Not only that, he also said that the same advice is applicable for the blood cholesterol levels. Meigs further added that people can work with their family physicians "to prevent or reduce the risk factors that lead to heart disease. Learn about heart health and what you can do in your everyday life to stay healthy." In 1962, Harvard psychiatrist Walter Pahnke administered a dose of psychedelic mushrooms to a group of theology students and professors while waiting for the Good Friday services at Boston University's Marsh Chapel. As most subjects, including historian Huston Smith, believed to have experienced a powerful spiritual encounter while they were on psychedelics, a new study replicates the experiment among spiritual leaders -- this time from various major world religions. "The experience was powerful for me, and it left a permanent mark on my experienced worldview," recalled the late historian Smith who wrote about "God-revealing chemicals" in his book Cleansing the Doors of Perception. "I had believed in God... but until the Good Friday experiment, I had no personal encounter with God of the sort that bhakti yogis, Pentecostals and born-again Christians describe." The Huffington Post reported that psychologists at Johns Hopkins and New York University studied the effects of psilocybin, the active component in magic mushrooms, to a Zen Buddhist roshi, an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, as well as members of the Presbyterian, Episcopal and Eastern Orthodox clergies in an experiment titled NYU Psilocybin Religious Leaders Project. According to project director Dr. Anthony Bossis, this array of subjects will help them map out the immediate "mystical experience" induced by chemicals that would often take years of prayer and meditation for some people as per previous studies. "One of things I was struck by, doing this research, was the experience of love that they spoke of," Bossis told The Huffington Post. "It's quite striking to witness... people speak about this overwhelming experience of love - loving-kindness to self, love towards others, and what the Greeks called agape, this kind of universal, cosmic love that they say permeates everything, and which recalibrates how they live." Bossis added that they are still looking for Muslim imams along with Catholic and Hindu priests to participate in this psychedelic study. On the other hand, the Greeks' word for "the use of drugs" is "pharmakeia," which means magic, sorcery or enchantment. According to the Bible, God has prohibited such practice among His people in books Galatians and Deuteronomy. Having a "mystical experience" may be a powerful moment but it comes through the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit when people pray, worship and meditate, not in a form of "God-revealing chemicals" that an individual could genuinely encounter God. A newly introduced legislation will require the American space agency, NASA, to create a detailed analysis about how it would go about achieving the long-term goal of human missions to Mars. The Mapping a New and Innovative Focus on our Exploration Strategy (MANIFEST) for Human Spaceflight Act was introduced on Jan. 24 by Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). "By requiring a strategic plan from NASA, this bill will help focus existing resources towards achieving our long-term goal of landing a human on Mars," John Cornyn said, according to KTSA. A varied range of issues will be covered by the report envisioned by the bill, including studies of crew health and safety, partnerships with private industry or other countries, use of the International Space Station (ISS) to achieve exploration goals, descriptions and assessments of mission architectures using the Space Launch System and Orion. Incidentally, the bill does not directly mention what should be the intermediate missions before going to the Red Planet, or talk about manned missions to the lunar surface. However, it requires the report to analyze such destinations. According to a Space.com report, the bill stipulates one of the features of the report to be an examination of the "utility of an expanded human presence in cis-lunar space toward enabling missions to various lunar orbits, the lunar surface, asteroids, Mars, the moons of Red Planet, and other destinations of interest." Additionally, the bill also mandates the report to provide a detailed plan to prioritize and phase the intermediate destinations. With the bill in effect as law, NASA has to submit an interim report to the National Academies 90 days after its enactment, subsequently, the National Academies' final version of the report is due a year after the bill becomes law. The bill specifies that the process has to be repeated every five years. Expedition 50 and Expedition 51 flight engineer Thomas Pesquet witnessed the stunning aurora from the International Space Station (ISS) for the first time after staying in space for two months. Space.com reported that French astronaut Thomas Pesquet from the European Space Agency captured the bright green and red aurora lights from the ISS on Jan. 18. Pesquet posted his snap on his Flickr account, displaying the space station's solar panels on the foreground. "After two months in space, I saw my first aurora," he wrote. "Magical green lights in the distance. Hard picture to take but I'll get better: there's always something to look forward to on the International Space Station." The ESA astronaut added a little bit of information about the spectacle: "Aurora occur when strong radiation from the Sun hits our atmosphere and light up, it is literally a visual representation of the Earth's magnetic field protecting all living beings from space radiation." Thomas Pesquet was launched to the ISS in November 2016. He will return to Earth in May 2017. In April 2016, NASA released an ultra-high definition video of the aurora from the International Space Station. The 4-minute and 36-second film displays the dancing green, purple, blue and red lights on the Earth's upper atmosphere from an incredible perspective. According to Exploratorium, the different colors of aurora light called "spectrum" are produced by the collision of electrically charged particles from the Sun with different ions and atoms at different heights in the Earth's atmosphere. The rare red aurora occurs at higher levels of the ionosphere where charged particles collide with oxygen at above 300 km. The common yellow and green lights are products of collisions with oxygen at lower altitudes, particularly between 100 km and 300 km. Meanwhile, the blue and purple hues are products of collisions with gases like hydrogen and helium at below 120 km. FLORENCE, S.C. The phrase "Local since forever" has taken on a whole new meaning for the local Piggly Wigglys. On the heels of the news that stock in Piggly Wiggly Carolinas no longer has any worth, representatives of the Pig on Cherokee Road and the location on West Palmetto Street at Florence Mall said they wont be affected. Were independently owned, assistant manager Larry Davis said at the Florence Mall location late Wednesday morning. It doesnt affect us. Davis said the McLeod family in Sumter owns both Florence locations and wont be closing. Messages left with the Piggly Wiggly in Sumter were not returned. According to the Post and Courier of Charleston, the employee-owned parent company of Piggly Wiggly Carolinas said the grocery store chain is now essentially worthless. The paper reported that former employees have been told theyll receive no stock payments this year. Greenbax Enterprises President David Schools wrote in a letter to the employee-owned stock ownership plan that the company has no positive value. We heard it has negative value, Davis said, referring to the stock. At the Cherokee Road Piggly Wiggly, co-operator Tony Townsend said the value of the stock was what people were getting toward their retirement, but again, his store wouldnt be affected as its owned by the McLeods. Grocery store competition has heated up in Florence in the past couple years as Harris Teeter, Food Lion, KJs, IGA, BiLo and Piggly Wiggly have seen the arrival of a second Aldi that was added in August 2016 and are bracing for a Lidl US. Meanwhile, Piggly Wiggly has been selling assets and closing stores since 2013. The Post and Courier reports that the letter to shareholders comes about a year after a group of former employees filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking millions in lost retirement money as poor decision making preceded the downward spiral of Piggy Wiggly Carolinas. The value of the stock dropped from $88.7 million in 2008 to $9 million in 2015 and the letter now puts the value at just under $457,000 for the annual period that ended March 31, 2016. Last year Greenbax sold 14 shopping center in South Carolina and Georgia to a Virginia real estate company for $71 million. Artur Sargsyan, who was arrested last August and released in December for taking food to members of the armed Sasna Dzrer group holed up in a Yerevan police station after seizing it in July, has been detained and taken to the office of the Special Investigative Service (SIS). Artur Sargsyan told Hetq that nine SIS officers visited his home in the Armavir Province village of Byuravan, telling him that he was being arrested. Artur Sargsyan has been nicknamed the bringer of bread for driving his car through a police cordon on July 26 to take food to members of the Sasna Dzrer group. Sargsyans brother Arsen said they took Artur away without handcuffs. Tigran Yegoryan, Sargsyans lawyer, told Hetq that he couldnt say if his client had been arrested or merely taken into custody. Yegoryan said hed be able to say more after visiting the SIS office. Arsen Sargsyan told Hetq that police visited their house several days ago, questioning him about his brother. UPDATE: After visiting the SIS offices, this reporter was told that Artur Sargsyan has indeed been arrested on the charge of not showing up after being summoned to a case hearing. Sargsyan's lawyer, Tigran Yegoryan, says his client never received such a summons. Yegoryan says his client, now on bail awaiting trial on his own recognizance, may be placed in pre-trial detention. No decision in this regard has yet been taken. Here is the text of a talk I gave to a meeting of the Kipling Society in London last night. All the poems mentioned can, I think, be easily located on the internet. The thing that makes Kipling great, I think, is his knowledge of evil and his realisation that there is a great deal of stark horror in the world, not very far away. I have seldom, for instance, read a better description of Hell than the Village of the Dead in The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes. All that is wrong with it is that Jukes actually escapes from the awful place (where I for one can never make up my mind if the inhabitants are living or dead). But you can see why the author might slip an escape in at the end, or the story might not easily find a buyer. The idea of eating barbecued crow forever on a stinking beach surrounded by people you hate and mistrust (and once fancied were your inferiors) is enough to drive you mad. He knows what happens when the law and the rules go. He suspected what would happen when the Empire went (and no doubt worried greatly that it would go, and deserve to do so). He knows that we make not-very-honourable bargains with each other without admitting it. He knows that everything that seems permanent is temporary. And he understands how to keep hold of what we have, and how to lose it. He is also acquainted with grief. You might think the little, tripping verse Merrow Down, in The Just So Stories is ordinarily sentimental and a little mawkish until without warning it turns savage like a purring cat on your lap suddenly twisting and baring its teeth, seeking to bite First: For far- oh very far behind, so far she cannot call to him and then the awful, much too personal last line: The daughter that was all to him .wallops you in the solar plexus with real loss and sorrow. After meeting that for the first time as an adult, I searched among the facetious jests of the stories for some sort of relief to take the thing out of my mind. But it has been there ever since. It makes me want to howl. And so it is again and again, the sense of someone who knows that the shadow may conceal a worse substance, that the noise in the night may really be something to worry about; someone who has gone at midnight down the stinking alley and seen the seething slum, who has sat at the press desk in the courtroom listening to evidence in too many murder trials, watched the cholera victims carted away to the riverbank in piles, and who is in the end far too intelligent and informed about reality to believe what he wants to believe. Theres always something underneath, and it is always disturbing. In The Land (as in Norman and Saxon and The Way Through the Woods) we learn that the earth we think we own belongs to others and will in time forget us. In The Islanders we see that our relaxed and wealthy peace was bought by others in the past and can be claimed back from us without warning. Again, hear just once the line the low red glare to the southward as the raided coast towns burn, and I doubt you will forget it. It establishes itself permanently in the mind as an image. I suspect this is because Kipling, when at his angriest, instinctively tries never to use words of more than two syllables, the surest way to conjure power from the language. For me the whole poem revolves around the words the low red glare to the souythward. I have thought since I first read it This will happen. I may see it, and though my rational response to it has varied over many years I still think so. As for the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I envision them as small, wizened figures, wearing leering, smirking or snarling masks like African witch-doctors, assembled in a dingy brown lecture theatre of the old sort as they chalk their bitter maxims on a flaking blackboard, to a chattering, half-interested assembly. Are these cynical gods sniggering behind those masks? Very possibly. Or it may just be wheezing. It takes many readings to notice that, though they promise There are only four things certain since social progress began there are in fact just three of them : That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, and the burnt Fools bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the fire. I cannot be sure if this is a jest in itself, but, given that two and two make four occurs just three lines earlier, I think it must be. There is, from time to time, an irritating facetiousness in this poem, which weakens the force of the stark lines such as the lights had gone out in Rome or the truly prophetic till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith. Beside these fierce, austere lines, I could always have managed without They denied that the Moon was Stilton. They denied she was even Dutch, though the first Feminian sandstones is (I suspect) quite a good joke There are no jokes in the Harp Song of the Dane Women, just the bafflement of millions of abandoned wives down all the centuries, who know but hate the fact that they would not want any man who did not, at some moment at least, sicken for the life beyond hearth and acre. Its not just women, of course. The French say that there is always one who kisses and one who turns the cheek, and anyone who has been deserted, however good the reason, knows very well the sound of your oar-blades, falling hollow or the other noises of departure from the taxi at the door to (if we are old enough to remember the lost age of platform tickets and telegrams, as I am) , the train whistle as it goes round the curve under the bridge, strangely dead on the ear before it fades altogether. And maybe beyond these noises, a suspicion of happy shouts, or relieved sighs as the departed one, back among less demanding companions, casts off the politely sad posture and expressions of farewell, and sinks back into an unencumbered life of adolescent self-indulgence. Yes, there is always the one who longs to be out where the storm-clouds swallow, and would push away the hands and the arms and the kisses of those who would hold him (or her) back, and who perhaps secretly prefers a bloody death and a fiery pyre to a quiet, wrinkled, doddery end near the hearth, and a tended grave on the home acre. It must be so, or it would never happen. But like so many things in Kipling, this goes on all the time, over and over again. And so we come to what I think is the crown of all these verses, Recessional, confirming Kipling as a prophet as well as a poet. Nineveh (near present-day Mosul, as it happens) and Tyre take us straight to the Bible because of their geography, though it is their secular history of hubris and humiliation that concerns Kipling. Did something alarm or disgust him about the celebration of imperial power at Queen Victorias Jubilee, the gold-braided, marching soldiers and the yelling sergeant-majors , the review of the fleet, the drunken scenes ( drunk with sight of power?) after the parade went by? The words seem familiar already, as if quarried from Jeremiah or Job, but my own searches find only flickers of the disturbing, inescapably haunting Coverdale Psalms everyone used to hear, and everyone used to chant all the time in church. Some of you may remember how headlines about King Zog of Albania uncover George Bowlings memories in George Orwells novel Coming up For Air, reminding him of Og the King of Bashan in the 135th and 136th Psalms and setting off a complete train of memory and most of the rest of the book . And all from one admittedly very odd word - Zog. Phrases from Coverdale form a huge chunk of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, but nowadays almost nobody knows them at all, yet another example of common knowledge become esoteric in a couple of generations. A humble and a contrite heart is almost, but not quite the same as a broken and contrite heart, O God, shalt thou not despise, from the 51st Psalm, the Miserere. It must be conscious, as must be the restrained substitution of humble for the more frightening broken. As for Lest we forget, it is astonishing to find that, as far as I can discover, it is Kiplings own coinage. It sounds as if it comes from many centuries further down, but if it does, I do not know where. Is it the Bible again? I suspect so. But only indirectly. The most striking warning against forgetfulness that I know is in the beautiful, savage 137th Psalm (By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept) and its potent vows and curses If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, yea , if I prefer not Jerusalem in my mirth. The end is so raw and cruel that modern psalters put the words in brackets and most cathedral choirs nowadays leave it out when it comes round in the calendar. That isnt often these days, most of them having abandoned the ancient cycle of six psalms a day, every day. But there was no such sensitivity or laziness in Kiplings churchgoing childhood. He would have heard (and chanted) O daughter of Babylon, wasted with misery, happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Blessed shall he be that taketh thy children and throweth them against the stones. Anglican congregations of the Victorian and Edwardian age would of course never have thought of doing such a thing. But Kipling had met people who might, if the circumstances had been right. And so he knew that we could do it too, if our world turned upside down. This, he might have thought, is the sort of thing that happens when people forget. And when we think of the final furious violence of the British Empire, as it struggled and failed to retain its lost greatness 70 years ago, by hurling bombs at German civilians, we see what he means by tongues that have not Thee in awe. Whatever would Kipling have said about Arthur Harris and Operation Gomorrah? The name itself might have caught his interest. But I dont think he would have been surprised at the way things turned out. Nor would he have shut his mind to it, as we do. That is why we need him still. I am person who is uncompromisingly black and unapologetically gay. Deal with it. I am person who is uncompromisingly black and unapologetically gay. Deal with it. Alvin McEwen [image: 652208 origin 1]Published by BANG Showbiz English Jimmy Kimmel has lost half [his] fanbase over his jibes at Donald Trump. The 54-year-old star t... The cannon of Black horror films is limited. The cannon of horror films featuring Black queer characters, even more so. It's a sobering reality that Black ... Michael Luciano @ Mediaite: Kari Lake Says If She Were Governor, Arizona Police Would Arrest FBI Agents Enforcing a Policy That Doesnt Even Exist. Zacha... If the opportunity presents itself, run, don't walk, to taste these standout queer chefs' creations. [image: Cincinnati Pride] Power! Pride! Pro Wrestling! | Cincinnati Pride Cincinnati Pride is getting into the LGBTQ wrestling spirit. One of the LGBTQ p... The Chairperson of the Republicans House Crackpot Caucus, Marjorie Taylor Greene, is demonstrating again how critical she is to the Loony Fringe contingen... Deadline reports: A few hours after a story emerged that indicated theres little love for him among Twitter workers past and present, the services form... The contract carries a total value for the joint venture of approximately $118m, according to a statement by both companies. In the coming months, studies will be undertaken and the design of the navigation channels and berths of the port will be reviewed. Subsequent dredging operations are expected to commence later this year with the deployment of various trailing suction hopper dredgers and a backhoe dredger. The dredging activities are expected to be completed in 2018. The Bangkok-headquartered handy specialist reported a full year loss for 2016 of $75.61m compared to a loss of $69.41m in 2015, however, in a positive sign Precious' Q4 2016 loss reduced to $3.34m compared to $42.16m in the corresponding period a year earlier. The results came against a year Precious md Khalid Hashim described as the worst ever for dry bulk shipping with the truly unthinkable happening in the sector with BDI plunging to 290 points in February 2016. Other unthinkable events highlighted by Hashim included Brexit, the bankruptcy of Hanjin Shipping, the Ballast Water Management (BWM) Convention being ratified and the election of Donald Trump as US President. To put our annual loss for 2016 of $75.61m into perspective, please keep in mind that the average BDI for this year at 673 was the lowest in history, he said. Looking ahead Precious sees the demand side of the equation in 2017 as being characterized by extreme volatility. Downside risks included China's slowing economy, slowing imports of iron ore and coal into China, rising protectionism and shipyard overcapacity. But it is not all gloom and doom. The upside potential for 2017 consists of, amongst others, the One-Belt-One-Road that China proposes to build linking some 65 countries from Asia/China to Europe at an expected cost between $1.4 to $21trn, Hashim said. On the supply side the level of scrapping is a key variable with 20.3% (160.16m dwt) of the existing world fleet that would be over 15 years of age during 2017 through to end of 2020. Current low freight markets and costly new regulations such as BWM convention should push these older ships to the scrapyard. If markets are bad, scrapping will be reasonably good in 2017. If that happens and forced scrapping takes off due to the regulatory impact in 2018, we could have a few very interesting years ahead! Hashim commented. Comic book, graphic novel, and zine fans have even more reason to visit downtown east Dearborn with the announcement of two comic book-themed talks and interactive experiences. Each event takes place at the Arab American National Museum, where the exhibition Drawing in the Diaspora: Comic Art & Graphic Novels by Leila Abdelrazaq is currently on display.The first event is the Design in Comics Talk with Aya Krisht, which takes place at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 25. The event is free, though an online RSVP is required Aya Krisht is the media designer at the Arab American National Museum and a graphic designer and illustrator. She will be presenting how design conveys mood, meaning, and message in comic books and graphic novels."Hopefully attendees can come away from this talk with a deeper understanding of how design elements like style, color, composition and typography come together in comics to tell a story and be inspired to explore the endless possibilities through comics of their own," says Krisht.The second event is the Comic and Zine-making Workshop with Leila Abdelrazaq, which takes place from 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, March 4. Like the first, the event is free, though an online RSVP is required Leila Abdelrazaq is the artist responsible for the current Drawing in the Diaspora exhibition at the museum. The artist will host a conversational walk through her exhibit. Following the tour, attendees will be invited to make their own comics and zines with Abdelrazaq providing prompts, guides, and tips."Creating zines has long been a method of subverting traditional or mainstream media sources," says Abdelrazaq. "This workshop will give young people the tools to create their own zines and self-published short comics, driving home the fact that you dont need to wait for someone else to publish your work or validate your ideas--you can go ahead and do it yourself!" Check out our profile of Dearborn-based Green Brain Comics to learn more about the Dearborn comic book community.The Arab American National Museum is located at 13624 Michigan Ave. in Dearborn.Got a development news story to share? Email MJ Galbraith here or send him a tweet @mikegalbraith This is part two of a two-article series looking at the legacy of Appalachian culture in Detroit. You can read part one, "In search of the Hillbilly Highway," here I'm not from Kentucky, but at points during a recent Kentuckians of Michigan' bluegrass concert and dinner, one of many shows and parties the organization holds in its Romulus-area event hall, I felt very much at home. Actually, I felt very much at my grandmother's home: The women of the Kentuckians insisted on sending me home with an old whipped topping container full of soup beans, the same vessel my grandmother would use to store her beans. Founded in 1960, the Kentuckians of Michigan is perhaps metro Detroit's most visible symbol of the mid-century Appalachian migration. For decades, it's gathered people from all over Kentucky and broader Appalachia, including West Virginia, Virginia, and Ohio. Its members throw Christmas, Halloween, and St. Patrick's Day parties, knit blankets and hats for local hospitals and soldiers serving overseas, and host bluegrass and country musicians from around the country. The biggest event is the annual summer picnic, which used to draw thousands. "Appalachian Odyssey," I went to the hall to learn more about contemporary Appalachian culture in metro Detroit, and who's maintaining what's left from the mass migration along the hillbilly highway. A good way to tell you're among Appalachians is a discussion of beans. We take our beanscheap, filling, nutritious sustenance that we've grown in our backyards for generationsseriously. When I found the modern-day remains of the Appalachian migration north that I wrote about in my last piece, I was not surprised to find that they included pans of cornbread and chafing dishes of beans. Earlier that evening, I'd heard a man tell Carlotta Lowe, a native of Pikeville, Kentucky, that the night's buffetham, fried cabbage, mashed potatoes, beans, cornbread, salad and sliced white breadwas the first serving of soup beans he'd had since the group wrapped up its previous season in early 2016. Kentuckians of Michigan enjoy the music "Oh, honey," Lowe said. But then she clarified: "Next week we'll have soup beans. These are great Northern beans." She was referring to pinto beans, which are brown, but the man said that, in his family, white great Northern beans were soup beans. In mine, soup beans were also white beansnavy beans, to be exactso the night's offering felt right enough to me. As did the buttery scent of fried cabbage that filled my car as I drove home with the leftovers, which I accepted as dutifully as a relative leaving Christmas dinner. Lowe has no plans to return south. How could she when she gets to pick up her granddaughter from school every day. "I'm very fortunate. I have to two places I can call home," she said. "Kentucky is my birth home, and Michigan is my adopted home, and I like both of them." There is a familiar thread to members' stories of arriving in Michigan. Most migrated for work, either their own or their spouses', or were brought as children by parents seeking work. Jobs were much more plentiful up north than in Appalachia, but I hadn't understood quite how plentifulI heard several tales of migrants getting jobs the day they got to town. Those who already had family in town tended to settle near them, in places like Ypsilanti, Warren, and Taylor (which locals often call Taylortucky). There is also a notable Appalachian population in the Springwells neighborhood. On the porch of the Kentuckians hall before dinnerthere is an actual dinner bellI asked about people's arrival stories, including the discrimination I'd read about in my research. No one had any experience with it. Betty Long, a Virginia native who's lived here for 50 years, joked that people often said they couldn't understand her accent. "I'd say, 'Well, I'll write you a note, and if you can't read that, you're out of luck,'" she said with a laugh. As we were talking, Powell Conley joined us. Conley's father moved the family from Salyersville, Kentucky to Ypsilanti in 1951 when Powell was eight. They lived in Willow Run Village, originally built to house workers in the Willow Run manufacturing complex, where World War II aircraft was built. "Unfortunately, the questions haven't changed since the '40s and '50s," Conley told me. "Writers are not the most what's the word, Burl?" Burl working the sound system Burl Stevens, a Wyandotte native whose parents came north from eastern Kentucky, laughed. "Don't ask me." "Nearly all of us that came up here could read and write," he said. I told him I assumed as much. "Well, many don't. 'Buncha dumb hillbillies.'" Appalachians were just doing "what people did for years and years before," he said. "They went where the work was. It's no different now." Conley met people here from all over the country, and yet, he said, writers could only ever find Kentuckians and West Virginians. I asked what questions I should be askingwhat the flip side of that story is. "The flip side is the humanity of it," he said. "Those of us who came here weren't any different than the ones that were already here. We might have talked a little different, we might eat a little different"he paused"we did teach 'em how to eat up here." He laughed and told me about a neighbor woman who used to come by at suppertime and eat so much cornbread that his mother started baking her a separate batch. Kentucky memorabilia And, soon enough, Conley was telling more stories. Stevens too. Conley's father worked at the Dodge Main plant. When they went on strike, his dad went back to Kentucky to put the crops in. Stevens remembered the occasions when his father would end up with four-day weekends: His mother would have the car packed, and they'd head back to Kentucky as soon as his shift was over. Like Stevens, many children of Appalachian parents were born and raised in Michigan and grew up exposed to Appalachian traditions like food and music (Stevens was playing dobro onstage that night). Mary Pike, 71, a Kentuckians member whose parents came from eastern Kentucky, has such a twang that when her old workplace had a bet about where she was from, nobody wonnot one person guessed Michigan. Families traveled back home often, though a common refrain I heard that night was that home is not the same now that their parents and other relations have passed away; many don't go back as often or at all. After I left the Kentuckians that night, I kept thinking about Conleys commentabout the way Appalachians were represented in all the old media I came across, the broad brushstrokes and easy caricatures. I sympathize with the suspicion Conley felt because I still experience what he described. The national understanding of my home is not exactly nuanced. That can includes Detroit: The year I moved here, a Detroit Free Press reporter tweeted an incest joke about West Virginia. From the "Beverly Hillbillies" to the most recent season of "American Horror Story," casual discrimination against rural people has been normalized practice for decades. It is assumed that we must be poor, dirty, dumb. All that was on my mind as I sat down to write, and as I revisited a section on the Kentuckians of Michigan in "Appalachian Odyssey." The book noted that the group was often called upon to answer questions about the life of Appalachians in southeastern Michigan, and I felt the weight of that too. As a writer, of course, I saw what a wealth of information the Kentuckians represented, all those stories in one room. But, as an Appalachian, I felt the fatigue of having to account for everything people think they know about you, for some experience that is expected to be homogenous, having to disassemble your way of life for their inspection and spend your time disproving instead of just being. All photos by It was natural that the members of the Kentuckians would continue their traditions wherever they settled; many people do. I understood where Bobbie Sue Williams, a now-deceased officer of the Kentuckians, was coming from when she told two of the book's authors, "I really don't know what they expect from us."All photos by Nick Hagen a multidisciplinary academic study of the migration, reports that 10,000 people attended in 1963. Last year, it was closer to 300.The younger generations don't seem to be as interested, and membership is thinning out. Some folks pass away, others retire and move back down south.Conley settled on "dependable." Although it's hardly unique among the states, Michigan's government has a representation problem. According to the Reflective Democracy Campaign's 2015 In light of that issue, and the greater national discussions of racism that have arisen around Donald Trump's candidacy and presidency, Each installment will focus on a different group of government officials beginning with state representatives in this installment. Abdullah Hammoud: "As American a name as any other" When Abdullah Hammoud sent out his first campaign mailing, someone mailed a shredded copy of it back to him with no return address and a note reading: "No more Arab-Americans. No more Muslims. Go back to your country." Hammoud says he frequently encountered hateful reactions to his race and religion throughout his campaign to represent the 15th district (covering Dearborn) in Michigan's House of Representatives. And the Democrat notes that the bigotry wasn't concentrated on one side of the political aisle. His campaign focused on likely Democratic voters. Hammoud suspects that his run might have been easier had he run under a nickname that was less easily identified as Arabic, as some of his supporters encouraged him to do early on. "I refused," he says. "I said that at the end of the day I think Abdullah is as American a name as any other name ... I wanted to set a precedent that it's okay to run regardless of your identity. You run on your skills, you run on your accomplishments, and you run on what you bring to the table. And it paid off." Hammoud handily defeated opponent Terrance Gerin in November, taking 61.8 percent of the vote and becoming the first Arab-American Muslim to represent his district. Having taken office, the former professional health advisor's main priority is making healthcare more accessible and affordable for Michiganders a task he admits will be no easy feat if President Trump succeeds in repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA). However, Hammoud expresses hope that Michigan might forge ahead with "an ACA-like model" of its own, and is prepared to work within that framework. "If it comes down to state control, we're going to need to appropriate funds to support families purchasing and paying for these premiums," Hammoud says. Hammoud expresses concern that people of color, already underrepresented in government, will be made to feel even less a part of the system under the new Trump presidency. He says the onus is on people of color to follow in his footsteps and pursue roles in government. "A vote goes a long way, but at the same time the vote is the preschool of becoming civically engaged," he says. "It's the first step. November 8 isn't when the hard work ends. November 9 is when it begins." Stephanie Chang: November's small victories Stephanie Chang didn't set out to be a role model to people of color or women seeking more civically engaged roles, but she's pleasantly surprised to have become one. Over her two terms representing Michigan's sixth district (covering southwest Detroit, Ecorse, and River Rouge), Chang, who is Taiwanese-American, says she's been repeatedly approached by people who tell her she's inspired them to become more engaged in their communities or to run for office. She says she's realized that an important part of her job is to support those people and to continue to make them proud. "This year there's not a lot of positives I see that came out of the election in November, except for that there's some really wonderful women of color ... that won and are progressive and strong, bold leaders," she says. "We need more people like that to run, but it's going to take people encouraging them to do that and supporting them." In addition to her role as exemplar to the next generation of public officials, Chang proudly cites her advocacy for issues of environmental justice, education, and criminal justice reform during her time in office so far. Most recently she sponsored a bill to provide reentry services for wrongfully convicted prisoners, which has since been "As a state government we should be doing the best that we can to make sure every person has access to services," Chang says. "Some departments are really making an effort and probably others could be improved." Chang hasn't faced the sort of blatant and pervasive racism that Hammoud has, although she has regularly encountered the "perpetual foreigner" stereotype when people assume she's not American-born simply because of her appearance. She recalls political opponents who would call out the fact that she was born in Canton, rather than the district she now represents, insinuating a broader concept of foreignness. Given the small Asian-American population in her primarily African-American and Latino district, Chang says she initially worried that her race might hinder a run for the House. But in the end, the election results were reassuring. "I think that ultimately what we found, even just in my first election, is that people really want someone they know is going to work really hard and that they can trust and that shares their values," she says. Yousef Rabhi: "I want to take action" Yousef Rabhi's critics have derided him as an Arab and a Muslim. He's not offended by those characterizations, but they're both incorrect. The American-born Rabhi is of Algerian heritage, and while much of his father's side of the family is Muslim, he is not. Over his five years as a Washtenaw County commissioner, Rabhi was more shaken by members of the public who suggested that he might sympathize with Islamic terrorism, that he wasn't born in America, or that he didn't understand how America works. But as he begins his first term representing Michigan's 53rd district (covering the city of Ann Arbor and the townships of Ann Arbor, Scio, and Pittsfield) in the state house this year, Rabhi has moved past the negativity. "I think people in the community know me a little bit better and I think I've also learned to tune out the haters a little better too," he says. As Rabhi gets to work in Lansing, he says his most immediate focus is on participating in Michigan's redistricting process, "making sure citizens have the opportunity to choose their representatives, because right now we have representatives who are choosing their constituents." He'll also be focusing on the "four 'E's" he highlighted in his campaign: education, equity, the economy, and the environment. But an even larger concern for Rabhi at the moment is the issue of transparency in Michigan's government. Rabhi wants to prioritize improving access to the democratic process and expanding Michigan's Freedom of Information Act to apply to the governor's office and legislature. "We're not going to make much progress ... if we continue to live in a state where we're Although Rabhi has moved beyond some of the prejudice he faced earlier in his career, he expresses a renewed commitment to reaching out to those who misunderstand him particularly in the context of the racist rhetoric surrounding Trump's candidacy and presidency. While he knows it's not necessarily his responsibility to do so, he says, "at the end of the day it's something I can do and I want to take action." "Not everybody's receptive," he says. "But for those that are receptive, you can build that relationship. And even if it's not much at first, I think it can build over time if that door is open." Next week in the second installment of this series, we'll check in with three local city councilmembers of color. There may be snow on the ground, but it's time to start planning for summer interns. Businesses with 500 or fewer employees that need Western Michigan University students to work in science, technology, engineering, and math--STEM--disciplines can apply for funding to help them hire interns. The Small Company Internship Award Program will provide up to $3,500 in matching funds for a company to hire an intern for summer 2016. WMU has $35,000 to disperse this year, Garcia says, enough to support about 12 to 14 internships at the recommended rate of at least $12 per hour. Funding applications for this summer are due Friday, March 11. Companies may apply for funding for up to two interns from either one or two schools in the Michigan Corporate Relations Network. However, the maximum award for a company is $3,500 from each school providing an intern. The matching money is being provided through the Michigan Corporate Relations Network. WMU and five other Michigan schools are members of the network, which connects industry to critical university talent in ways that will help the state's economy grow and prosper. The program is targeted towards companies in Allegan, Berrien, Branch, Calhoun, Cass, Kalamazoo, St. Joseph and Van Buren counties that would like to hire a WMU intern. Preference will be given to small companies that focus on innovative work in the STEM fields, provide an internship where STEM skills are employed and have yet to receive an award through the program. To apply for funding, download the 2016 application here wmich.edu/businessconnection/hire and email the completed form by March 11 to Lisa Garcia at lisa.garcia@wmich.edu. For more information about the Small Company Internship Award Program, contact Garcia at lisa.garcia@wmich.edu or call (269) 387-6004. Source: Western Michigan University Nathan Dannison Prior to the November presidential election, the City of Kalamazoo and Kalamazoo County voted to be known as Welcoming Communities communities that have made commitments to be welcoming to immigrants and refugees. The City of Kalamazoo reaffirmed that status at the city commissions Feb. 6 meeting in a discussion of what it means for police and those undocumented individuals they might encounter.Given President Trump's refugee and immigration ban and related actions, local advocates are saying they are committed to their efforts to make Kalamazoo a Sanctuary City, with specific municipal ordinances that go beyond the current Welcoming Community proclamation that is not binding.President Trump's executive order has affected some 90,000 people, according to The Washington Post . Making good on his promise to address immigration in his first week in office, Trump signed a number of orders, which included beginning the immediate construction of a border fence along the Mexico border and beefing up border patrol, tripling resources for immigration enforcement, targeting Sanctuary Cities by stripping them of federal funds, banning all incoming refugees for four months, and banning immigrants from seven majority Muslim countries for three months.Angela Fortin serves on the leadership task force of the Kalamazoo Refugee Council . She says that the most recent executive order and anticipated policies to follow are devastating for the families her group currently works with, some of whom were expecting family members to join them."They may now be separated, with hope of reunification slipping away," Fortin says. Many parents are also worried their children will be taken from them. They have been struggling, emotionally, since the election. It is taking a toll on them, as well as the volunteers helping them.Even before the new bans and restrictions, the obstacles for refugee families were numerous. Fortin says that parents work low wage jobs, find it difficult to pay bills, and are raising kids in another culture, against a backdrop of loss and trauma."They have lost family members, homes, and businesses. They have escaped war and lived in refugee camps, often for years," says Fortin.The Kalamazoo Refugee Council is a platform where stakeholders come together, network, problem-solve, and partner in pursuit of a stronger and more welcoming community. The Refugee Council supports service-providing agencies and works to make sure that refugees and immigrants are both celebrated and believed to be critical to Southwest Michigans economic and cultural vibrancy.The Council takes in and distributes donations (clothing, furniture, home goods), supports sponsoring congregations and groups, arranges transportation for refugees, and provides English tutoring. The Council partners with the resettlement agencies Bethany Christian Services and Samaritas to create a bridge between the family's caseworker and a community support network.Fortin says that the biggest need right now is for more churches and organized groups to support families. Sponsors help with figuring out transportation, finding employment opportunities, reading and responding to mail, learning English, and attending medical appointments. Basically, sponsors stand in for extended family and friends, welcoming refugees and helping to set them up to succeed in the United States.Isaac Turner, an English professor at KVCC, recalls having dinner with his partner, Malanie, also an English professor, and their preschool and middle-school aged children last year. "It was a day of some awful, unimaginable thing happening in Syria, and we talked about trying to be a foster home or something for refugees. We agreed it would be the right thing to do, but had a hard time connecting with the sponsoring organization."Then the election results came in something he refers to as, "the actual worst happened." That next Saturday he just showed up at a local mosque to do whatever was needed. He's been involved ever since.Turner is sponsoring a refugee family of nine, giving them rides to ESL classes three or four times a week, and anything else they may need on a day-to-day basis. "We work on English in their home, have them over to our place, generally hang out. Lately it's been filling out a lot of paperwork for various reasons," he says.In addition to the family they sponsor, Turner also co-signed on a house for a newly settled family of eight, something he admits he maybe should have taken more time to think about but, he says, he just dove in and is hoping for the best.Turner says this volunteer work means the world to him. "I've done so much awful stuff in my life that I'm paying back my dues now!" he says. And Turner is quick to point out that refugees are normal folks."All of the foibles, the humorous parts, the quirks, the insecurities, the prejudices, they're all there. They are intensely normal people who've been through intensely abnormal circumstances," Turner says, pointing out that were the roles reversed, he has no doubt he'd have "folded like a cheap suit."He is in genuine awe and admiration of the perseverance shown by refugees through untenable situations.Turner considers this work something he calls "an active part of the resistance." And he says it's pretty cool that he gets new friends out of the deal, too.From protests and actions to lawsuits to commitments from government officials to not participate in orders, resisting is taking on myriad forms these days. Rev. Nathan Dannison, Senior Pastor of First Congregational Church in Kalamazoo, sees his faith as the catalyst behind his resistance efforts in offering sanctuary not just personally and in his church community but in pushing for those efforts in the greater Kalamazoo Community.After the election, Dannison began organizing around efforts to urge city officials to make Kalamazoo a Sanctuary City. A Sanctuary City offers safe harbor for undocumented immigrants who might otherwise be deported by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents."All American cities provide sanctuary to a lesser or greater degree. It troubles me that we have reached a point in our history where individual cities are denoted as providing sanctuary," Dannison says.Trump's administration has already promised that Sanctuary Cities will not receive Federal Funding until they agree to cooperate with immigration officers. But, federal repercussions aren't the only potential thing blocking the path of Sanctuary Cities. The Michigan Legislature is considering a bill HB 4105 that, if passed, would order cities to comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and remove state funding from communities who do not.With the new promises from the Trump administration to withhold federal dollars from Sanctuary Cities, and the potential of the state also withholding funding, how likely would a proposal to make Kalamazoo a Sanctuary City be? Dannison says this is yet to be seen."My hope is that our municipal leaders will show forth courage in the face of fiscal threats and big-government posturing from Washington D.C.," he says. Dannison says that the orders banning refugees and immigrants from seven majority Muslim countries have only emboldened his efforts and those of the organizations he networks with.He calls the bans "unconstitutional and un-American" and says, "Immigration is the fuel that drives American innovation.""Those of us who are called to be Christian and have found, by accident of birth, that we are also Americans, have a serious responsibility to welcome the refugee, the immigrant, and the sojourner to table," Dannison says, reiterating his faith-based commitment to the issue.Turner, who says he is an atheist, says he has "no horse in that (religious) race whatsoever." He says people who aren't religious can be involved, too."I've spent more time in a mosque in the past two months that I have in a church in the last 25 years, or whenever I got confirmed. That's proven to be much easier than I thought it would," Turner says. "It's incredibly easy to compartmentalize that area of your life when you see kids and adults who need help learning how to say the days of the week, and who are asking questions like, "Why do they think we're all extremists?"Kathi Valeii is a freelance writer, living in Kalamazoo. You can find her at her website, kathivaleii.com A French man is suing Uber for 45 million euros ($48m) claiming that a glitch in the app allowed his wife to discover his infidelity, which ultimately led her to file for divorce. The man says that the app sent notifications of his pick-up and drop-off locations, as well as times of travel, to his wife's phone, reported French newspaper Le Figaro. He concedes that he had logged into Uber on his wife's phone once before but says he subsequently logged out, so the notifications should have stopped. The notifications confirmed his wife's suspicions that he was having an affair. Soon after, she demanded a divorce. When contacted by Le Figaro for comment, an Uber spokesperson responded, "Uber does not publicly comment on individual cases, including the case of divorce proceedings between spouses." Le Figaro was able to recreate the error by logging into and then out of an Uber account on an iPhone. Afterwards, the phone was still receiving notifications for the Uber account that had been logged out. It's unclear exactly why the app malfunctioned but Le Figaro suggests it may be due to an issue with running it on iPhone iOS software older than December 2015. RELATED: Uber Rolls Out Its First Driverless Cars Android users and iPhone users with newer versions of iOS are likely safe from the glitch, but it's not yet known how many of Uber's 40 million monthly users have experienced the problem. Digital evidence has become increasingly common in divorce cases as technology and social media are further integrated in our daily lives. Suspicious husbands and wives today are less reliant on physical evidence to prove infidelity and better equipped to do their own sleuthing. Connecticut divorce lawyer, Debbie Grover, recently described this progression of evidence to the CT Law Review. "Thirty-five years ago it consisted of found love letters, random condoms in briefcases, and private detectives tailing a spouse," she said. Today, she added, "private detectives are mostly gone. Computer techs are the new experts." Whether the French man has any chance of winning his case against Uber is difficult to predict, but there is a possibility that his wife won't be able to use his ride-share snafu as evidence in their divorce proceedings, as digital evidence is not always accepted as proof of a spouse's infidelity in France. WATCH: Robot Taxis and the Future of Cab Drivers Scientists studying Australia's Great Barrier Reef have discovered an ancient undersea landslide which dumped an estimated 8 cubic miles of rock and debris on the ocean floor and could have triggered a tsunami of up to 30 feet high. Researchers said Wednesday the slip and vast debris field of large blocks, or knolls, at its edge reveals a far more complex reef landscape than was previously known. "In an area of the Queensland Trough that was supposed to be relatively flat were eight knolls, appearing like hills with some over 100 [feet] high and [nearly 3 miles] long," Dr. Robin Beaman, from James Cook University, said. Remnants of the slip, known as the Gloria Knolls Slide, were first found in 2007 while scientists were carrying out three-dimensional mapping of the Queensland Trough, a deep basin that runs adjacent to the reef. After finding the knolls poking up from the sea floor, scientists spent years mapping the area to find the landslide that caused the underwater hills, which are located about 47 miles offshore at a depth of between 4,000 to 4,600 feet. A sediment sample from the largest knoll, taken at a depth of about 4,000 feet, revealed the presence of a cold-water coral community which allowed researchers to date the event. "The oldest fossil corals recovered off the top of the knoll were 302,000 years old - which means the landslide event that caused these knolls must be older," lead researcher Dr. Angel Puga-Bernabeu, a former postdoctoral researcher from the University of Sydney who is now with the University of Granada, said in a statement. RELATED: Australian Scientists Who Faced Censorship Have Advice for Dealing With Trump The landslide was a "catastrophic collapse" that pushed debris about 20 miles from the base of the slip, Beaman said. Modeling also showed a potential tsunami wave of up to 30 feet high. However, the wave's impact would likely have been dampened by the vast coral reef system, researchers said. The findings, published in the journal Marine Geology, shed new light on the deepest reaches of the Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest coral reef ecosystem. "Prior to 2007 we just didn't know what the deep Great Barrier Reef landscape looked like," Beaman said. "This is building up a far more detailed picture of how complex it is down there." Already the team of international researchers have been surprised by the marine life they have found in the deep-sea conditions where temperatures can drop to 39 degrees Fahrenheit and it is pitch black. "There was lot of marine life. We found both living and dead cold water corals," Beaman said. "They are very different to the shallow water cousins and don't rely on sun light at all." The U.S. Senate confirmed on Tuesday President Trump's nomination of Betsy DeVos to head the Department of Education, but only after Vice President Mike Pence stepped in to break a tie vote over her controversial appointment. It was the first time in U.S. history that a vice president, who also serves as President of the Senate, cast a deciding vote in a Cabinet nomination. DeVos has been widely criticized for her lack of experience, support for school vouchers and ties to conservative religious groups. Her public record indicates that she does not back a clear separation of church and state - which has science educators worried that her appointment might fuel anti-science sentiment in public schools and legislative chambers around the country. They fear people like South Dakota state Senator Jeff Monroe. Monroe, a Republican, hopes 2017 might be the year the state finally passes his bill on science education. The bill reads: No teacher may be prohibited from helping students understand, analyze, critique, or review in an objective scientific manner the strengths and weaknesses of scientific information presented in courses being taught which are aligned with the content standards established pursuant to 13-3-48. Glenn Branch, deputy director of the National Center for Science Education, fears that dissident teachers might use the bill to open debates in the classroom on issues that the majority of the scientific community has agreed are no longer contested, such as evolution or climate change. "Science books say there is no scientific evidence for the intellectual inferiority of any ethnic group, for example, but suppose you have a teacher who wants to help their class understand the strengths and weaknesses of this argument," said Branch. "This [legislation] could empower a racist teacher to bring such material into the classroom, and authorities would be powerless against it." RELATED: Australian Scientists Who Faced Censorship Have Advice for Dealing With Trump The NCSE, National Association of Biology Teachers, the National Association of Geoscience Teachers, the National Science Teachers Association, and the American Institute of Biological Sciences have denounced Monroe's bill. Local opposition to the legislation includes the South Dakota Department of Education, South Dakota Education Association, the School Administrators of South Dakota and the Associated School Boards of South Dakota. Mark Sweeney, a professor of earth sciences at the University of South Dakota, wrote an op-ed in the Argus Leader of Sioux Falls, warning that the bill would "dumb down science education." "Spreading the false idea that evolution or climate change is scientifically controversial does not reflect the reality among scientists," Sweeney wrote, "and teaching the supposed 'controversy' does no one any good other than to breed unnecessary and ill-informed skepticism." Monroe has introduced a version of his bill in four previous years. The state Senate passed the latest version on January 25 on a 23-12 vote. It is slated for debate in the House on February 13. Senator Monroe said in an email statement that he disagrees that his bill is anti-science or intended to embolden a religious agenda in the classroom. He said, "The misinformation is rampant." RELATED: These Are the Most and Least Educated States in the US Legislatures in Indiana, Oklahoma, and Texas are considering similar bills. Louisiana passed a version in 2008 and Tennessee became the second state to do so in 2012. Seventy such bills have been introduced in the last 13 years, according to NCSE. While, state legislatures and departments of education make decisions on school curriculums, not the federal government, science educators worry that the Trump administration could serve to embolden those who want to question science that doesn't align with their views. While courts have ruled that the teaching of creationism - or "intelligent design" - in public schools violates the First Amendment, vaguely worded "academic freedom" might open the door to religious theories that cast doubt on scientific consensus. In her confirmation hearing earlier this month, DeVos said she supported teaching that "allows students to exercise critical thinking," which Branch described as a "catchphrase beloved by creationists and climate change deniers." "DeVos moves in circles where we find a lot of evolution and climate change denial," he said. "The worry is that with science-denial being so prominent, science deniers will be emboldened to act locally, having new confidence to push new legislation and bad policies at the local level." WATCH: Which Countries Have the Best Sex Education? The search for a secret chamber in the tomb of King Tutankhamun will resume later this year when a team of Italian researchers begin the most in-depth investigation ever of the boy king's burial site. A team from the Polytechnic University of Turin will scan the tomb and its surroundings with advanced radar technology. "It will be a rigorous scientific work and will last several days, if not weeks," Franco Porcelli, the project's director and a professor of physics at the department of applied science and technology of the Polytechnic University in Turin, told Seeker. "Three radar systems will be used and frequencies from 200 Mhz to 2 GHz will be covered." The investigation of King Tut's tomb is part of a wider long-term project to conduct a complete geophysical mapping of the Valley of the Kings, the main burial site of Egypt's pharaohs, which is also being led by the group from the Polytechnic University of Turin. Ground-penetrating radar, together with instruments based on electric resistance tomography and magnetic induction, will scan depths of up to 32 feet to provide information on existing underground structures. "Who knows what we might find as we scan the ground," Porcelli remarked. The researchers plan to carry out the first preliminary survey of King Tut's tomb by the end of this month. RELATED: King Tut's Blade Made of Meteorite Porcelli's probe into the 3,300-year-old burial will be the third carried out in the past two years. The search began in 2015 following a claim by Nicholas Reeves, a British Egyptologist at the University of Arizona. Reeves believes there is a hidden chamber in King Tut's tomb that contain the remains, and possibly the intact grave goods, of Queen Nefertiti, wife of the "heretic" monotheistic pharaoh Akhenaten, Tutankhamun's father. Reeves speculated that the tomb of King Tut was not ready when the pharaoh died unexpectedly at age 19 in 1323 B.C. Consequently, he was buried in a rush in what was originally the tomb of Nefertiti, who had died 10 years earlier. Radar scans carried out in 2015 by Japanese radar specialist Hirokatsu Watanabu were greeted with enthusiasm by Mamdouh Eldamaty, Egypt's former minister of antiquity. He revealed that analysis of Watanabu' scans pointed to a "90 percent chance" that King Tut's tomb concealed two chambers, on the north and eastern walls. The announcement sent shock waves through the world of archaeology. "This could be the discovery of the century," Eldamaty said. RELATED: Who Else May Be in King Tut's Tomb? But a follow-up radar scan carried out by the National Geographical Society (NGS) cooled down expectations as it failed to replicate Watanabu's compelling results. The theory that King Tut's tomb contains secret chambers was greeted with great skepticism last year at an international conference in Cairo dedicated to the boy king. "The project wasn't done scientifically at all," former Antiquities Minister Zahi Hawass said at the conference. Growing doubts about Reeves' tomb theory prompted the current Egyptian antiquities minister Khaled El-Enany to reassure that no invasive exploration inside the tomb would be done. And he admitted that no conclusive result has emerged so far. "It is essential to perform more scans using other devices and more technical and scientific methods," El-Enany said. Porcelli explained to Seeker that his probe will tell once and for all if King Tut's tomb hides a secret burial chamber. "This will be the final investigation," Porcelli said. "We will provide an answer which is 99 percent definitive." WATCH: How Science Reveals The Hidden Secrets in Art Yet another opponent of Russian president Vladimir Putin lies in a Moscow hospital this week, recovering from strange symptoms that his wife believes to be an assassination attempt by poison. It's the latest in a long line of suspected poisonings that Russian secret services are suspected of carrying out over the past few decades, a legacy that stretches back to the 19th century, experts say. Vladimir Kara-Murza, 35, fell ill last week during a tour of Russia to promote a film about the life and death of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov in 2015. Kara-Murza had been poisoned once before in 2015, falling ill with a kidney ailment that required months of recovery. Kara-Murza is in critical but stable condition after being put into an induced coma, according to news reports. His wife, who lives in Centreville, Va., said Tuesday that she believes his illness is the result of poisoning for his outspoken views against Russia's leader. RELATED: Putin's Unusual Walk Shaped by KGB Kara-Murza has been working for the Open Russia Foundation of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former oil tycoon who served a decade in jail after openly opposing President Vladimir Putin. Why do Russian agents use poison against critics? "It's a fear weapon in that it can strike silently," said Matthew Rojansky, an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and the director of the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "If you shoot someone on a bridge in front of the Kremlin, it makes them a martyr. If you poison someone, and they don't even die and the illness recurs and who knows what the cause is, it's a little more plausibly deniable." Kara-Murza is the latest Russian opposition figure to fall ill with strange symptoms. In 2012, Russian businessman Alexander Perepilichny collapsed and died outside his London mansion, even though he was in good health . He had been given asylum in the UK after exposing Russian officials in a tax scam. A forensic investigation found traces of a Chinese poison flower in his stomach. RELATED: Intelligence Officials Testify on Russia Hacking the US Election In 2006, Andrei Litvinenko was killed with radioactive Polonium-210 put in his tea during a meeting with two Moscow agents, one of whom is now a member of the State Duma. A British judge's investigation found that Putin was likely responsible for the killing. Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushenko fell ill in 2004 during the so-called "Orange Revolution," breaking out in strange lumps on his face. It was later found to be dioxin, a highly toxic byproduct of industrial activity. Figuring out what poison is responsible can be tricky, according to Bruce Goldberger, a forensic toxicologist at the University of Florida College of Medicine. "Most well-suited laboratories can conduct test for a wide range of drugs and other poisons," said Goldberger, who often consults in high-profile poisoning deaths. "But they have a difficult time assessing exposure to heavy metals as well as radioactive substances." Kara-Murza's toxicology tests were sent to labs in Israel and France and results are pending. For most of these lethal poisons, there's not much that doctors and nurses can do except to support the patient in the hospital, and hope that the patient's internal organs, heart and cardiovascular system can handle the toxic onslaught. As for the motive behind the Kremlin's latest poisoning, that will be take some time to figure out, Rojansky said. "If they wanted him dead, he would be dead," he said. "So it is a bit of a mystery at this point." WATCH:The Assassination of a KGB Agent Explained Artifacts revealing 8,000 years of human history in London are going on show on Friday after being unearthed during the city's giant underground railway project. The Elizabeth Line, Europe's biggest infrastructure project, has allowed archaeologists to examine a cross-section of London life along its east-west route beneath the British capital. Now some 500 objects from the tens of thousands excavated since 2009 in building the line, also known as Crossrail, are being revealed to the public. "We've managed to take a slice down through London but also across London," said Jackie Keily, the curator of "Tunnel: the Archaeology of Crossrail" at the Museum of London Docklands. The skeletons of plague victims, humorous Victorian chamber pots, Roman horseshoes, medieval bone ice skates and even 1940s railway company teacups are among the relics on display. A rare medallion of Roman emperor Philip I from the year 245, only the second example ever found in Europe, is also on show in the free exhibition running until September 3. The train tunnels were bored up to 40 meters (131 feet) underground, but the construction of new surface stations also gave archaeologists the chance to explore shallower layers where human activity has left its mark. RELATED: Bacteria Behind London's Great Plague ID'd While the central section of the Elizabeth Line runs through the Roman heart of the city, the suburban sections reveal shards of flint from tool-making 8,000 years ago. Crossrail excavations also turned up 68,000-year-old reindeer antlers and bison bones, plus a fragment of a woolly mammoth jaw. The exhibition also tells the story of the tunneling project. It contains a statue of Saint Barbara, the patron saint of miners, which was placed at tunnel entrances. As per tradition, the eight tunnel boring machines were given women's names, in this case Ada, Elizabeth, Ellie, Jessica, Mary, Phyllis, Sophia and Victoria. Crossrail will link London's center to suburbs to the east and west, plus Heathrow Airport, along 118 kilometres (73.3 miles) of track. The project is costing 14.7 billion ($18.4 billion, 17.2 billion euros) and employing up to 10,000 people at a time. It should carry 200 million passengers per year, providing an extra 10 percent of capacity on London's creaking transport network. The museum exhibition is situated in the Canary Wharf financial district in east London's former Docklands. Some 28 meters below the murky Thames water, engineers are putting the finishing touches the Canary Wharf Crossrail station. Covered in scaffolding and boarding, the platforms, 240 meters long and 30 metres wide, are in place, and works trains are already rumbling through the tunnels. "Crossrail is about 80 percent complete," Camilla Barrow, the deputy project manager for rail systems, told AFP in the westbound tunnel. The central London tunnel section opens in May 2019 before the full Elizabeth Line service starts in December that year. Top Photo: A skeleton and victim of the Black Death, unearthed during London Crossrail excavations. Credit: Getty Images/Jack Taylor. WATCH VIDEO: Should We Worry About the Bubonic Plague? Press Release February 8, 2017 De Lima urges lawmakers to cross partylines on death penalty bill Sen. Leila M. de Lima today urged her colleagues in the two Houses of Congress to cross partylines as they deliberate on a measure calling for the immediate re-imposition of the death penalty for heinous crimes. De Lima made her appeal as the House leadership has called the members of the so-called supermajority for a party stand on the death penalty measure whose immediate passage into law is reportedly being rushed by the present administration. "The issue of possible re-imposition of death penalty is addressed more to the conscience of the members of both houses of Congress," she told Senate reporters. "Lawmakers should transcend political affiliations in this particular issue, especially with the points raised by some members of the Senate that treaty commitment cannot be taken for granted," she added. House Speaker Alvarez earlier threatened House members, particularly those holding key positions or chairmanships in his chamber, to strip them from their posts if they do not vote in favor of the administration-sponsored death penalty measure. The Senator from Bicol said she believes that unlike the House of Representatives, the Senate will deliberate on the measure based on the cogency and the soundness of the arguments and would not succumb to any type of coercion or arm-twisting. "I won't be surprised anymore if iyan ang tactic nila palagi. But that is something that they cannot do, hopefully, here in the Senate. That's why mas mahihirapan sila dito sa Senado," she said. The Senate panel earlier decided to suspend public hearing to review the implications of the country's commitment to treaties and international agreements which prohibit executions and compel member states to abolish death penalty. Bam finds inconsistency in Al Argosino's statements Sen. Bam Aquino found a major inconsistency in former Bureau of Immigration (BI) deputy commissioner Al Argosino's statement during the Senate Blue Ribbon committee hearing on the P50-million bribery scandal involving two dismissed BI deputy commissioners. Initially, Argosino testified that he only informed Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre about the P50-million bribe money on Dec. 13. Upon questioning by Sen. Bam, it was discovered that Argosino already discussed the bribery incident with Aguirre on Dec. 9 but he didn't mention the amount and that the money was in his possession. "On December 9, you had discussed with Sec. Aguirre what had happened. Nabanggit na may pera pero hindi mo sinabi kung magkano? Sen. Bam asked Argosino, to which the latter replied "along that line, your honor". Argosino admitted that it was only on December 13 when he informed Aguirre about the P50 million he received from Lam. Aguirre confirmed Argosino's statement, saying that on the night of December 9, they were not talking about money but only about the supposed bribery. Earlier, Argosino admitted to Sen. Bam that he waited 17 days before informing Immigration commissioner Jaime Morente that he accepted P50 million from Lam. Argosino told Sen. Bam that he only informed Morente of the bribe money when they filed charges against Lam, Wally Sombero and former BI intelligence chief Charles Calima on December 13. "At what point niyo po sinabi sa inyong direct superior si Commissioner Morente na may perang lumipat sa yo? Hindi mo siya sinabihan?" Sen. Bam asked Argosino. "December 13, your Honor," replied Argosino. "Ilang araw iyon? More than two weeks. 17 days. Hindi mo sinabihan yung boss mo na may ganung kalaki na pera na na sa iyo. Why not? Bakit di mo siya sinabihan?" Sen. Bam said. De Lima seeks to cite Sombero for contempt Sen. Leila M. De Lima today urged the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee to cite Retired Police Superintendent Wenceslao "Wally" Sombero Jr. for contempt due to his repeated failure to attend its probe into an alleged bribery scandal involving officials of the Bureau of Immigration (BI). At the resumption of the Senate hearing, De Lima refused to believe Sombero's excuse for not appearing in the Senate investigation, citing medical check-up he is purportedly undergoing in an undisclosed hospital in Canada. "I don't buy the story of Mr. Sombero. This is the third hearing that he was invited. This is the third time that he has not appeared," she said. Sombero, is accused of allegedly bribing BI associate commissioners Al Argosino and Michael Robles in exchange for the release of over 1,300 Chinese workers at the online casino of his alleged boss, gambling tycoon Jack Lam. De Lima, a former justice secretary, also questioned Immigration Chief Jaime Morente why Sombero was allowed to leave the country last month despite a look-out bulletin order the government has slapped against him. "Given all of these new revelations about being able to leave easily even if under Immigration Lookout Bulletin Order (ILBO), even if technically, legally, ILBO does not serve to prevent the departure of the subject of the ILBO," she added. "Bakit po nakalusot si Mr. Sombero? This is a big issue. Kailangan alamin din po natin iyong paglalagay ng pangalan na Wally lang, Wally Sombero, when his full name is supposed to be Wenceslao Sombero," she said. Lawyer Ted Contacto, Sombero's counsel, said the former policeman failed to attend the hearing after he was denied to board his flight from Vancouver, Canada last Feb. 6 due to an increase in his sugar levels. In a letter read during the Senate hearing, Contacto claimed Sombero was advised to seek clearance from a cardiologist before taking a flight back to the country. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The daughter of a Milpitas city councilman was found safe Tuesday night less than an hour after she was reported missing, and told police she managed to escape from two assailants who abducted her from her house, officials said. Councilman Garry Barbadillo told the Milpitas Post two assailants took his daughter from her home, although law enforcement would not confirm or deny the victims identity. My daughter was kidnapped and forcefully taken from our house. Police recovered her after an hour, Barbadillo wrote in a email to Milpitas Post. No she did not know them, two hooded animals took her. They cut her arm. Capt. Daryl Sequeira, spokesman for the Milpitas Police Department, said a 13-year-old girl was reported missing from a home on Edsel Drive at 8:23 p.m. By 9:04 p.m., the victim called her family to report she was kidnapped, but had escaped and was nearby at South Park Victoria Drive and Yellowstone Avenue, roughly a mile away, Sequeira said. Authorities would not release low long the victim had been missing before the caller contracted police, whether there were signs of a break-in at the home, and what the captors motives were in the attack. Im getting a lot of questions of whether this is a hoax, said Sequeira, who would not confirm if the alleged victim is Barbadillos daughter. Until we prove otherwise we treat this really seriously. The victim told police that two males, one in a black hooded sweatshirt and cargo pants and another in a gray hooded sweatshirt and cargo pants, took her from her home and forced her to walk down the street while the car slowly followed her, Sequeira said. After roughly a mile, they picked her up at Piedmont Road and Landess Avenue, near the border of San Jose, Sequeira said. They began to drive her around and she was able to escape from the car, said police, declining to disclose how she fled. The victim may have suffered minor injuries. Her father made a comment that she had a scratch on one of her arms. Its true, he said, but police did not know what caused the injury. Police were seeking surveillance video as they investigate the incident. The suspect car was described as a light-colored sedan with a bumper sticker for Mystery Spot, a tourist attraction in Santa Cruz. Jenna Lyons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jlyons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JennaJourno Political events this week in Bay Area Facebook Live town hall: Hosted by Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, from 7 to 8 p.m. Speier will take questions from users who comment on the stream. Information on travel ban: Attorneys from the Council on American-Islamic Relations and Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus will answer questions on President Trumps executive order temporarily barring immigrants from seven mostly Muslim nations, along with all refugees. The event is from 8 to 9 p.m. at Yaseen Foundation, 621 Masonic Way, Belmont. Friday Health care town hall: Hosted by Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, 2 p.m., 333 Amador Drive, Vallejo. Saturday Protest Planned Parenthood: A series of protests outside Planned Parenthood clinics in the Bay Area as part of a nationwide call to defund the organization. In San Francisco, noon, outside San Francisco Health Center, 1650 Valencia St. In Redwood City, 9:30 a.m., outside Redwood City Health Center, 2907 El Camino Real. In Fairfield, 10 a.m., outside Fairfield Health Center, 1325 Travis Blvd. In Napa, noon, outside Napa Health Center, 1735 Jefferson St. In Santa Cruz, 10:30 a.m., outside Westside Health Cente, Cedar and Lincoln streets. Protests in Support of Planned Parenthood: In response to the anti-Planned Parenthood protests, a solidarity event is being held from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. outside Redwood City Health Center, 2907 El Camino Real, Redwood City. A Stand With Planned Parenthood, event is at 10 a.m., outside San Jose Health Center, 1691 The Alameda, San Jose. Trump Must Go Now: A family friendly rally at Ocean Beach, where people will form a human chain that reads, Resist. The event is from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., south of the Cliff House at 1090 Point Lobos Ave. in San Francisco. Town hall: Hosted by Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Carol Channing Auditorium, Lowell High School, 1101 Eucalyptus Drive, San Francisco. Sunday Together We Can: Post-Inauguration Resource Fair: Organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Council on American-Islamic Relations will hold an event for people to get involved in the political process, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Oakland Peace Center, 111 Fairmount Ave., Oakland. Sarah Ravani, sravani@sfchronicle.com A water-logged pine tree toppled across a hillside in Mill Valley on Thursday morning, smashing through the roof of a garage, knocking out power, blocking a roadway and forcing neighbors to park their cars and hike to their homes. The tree plummeted across the narrow street and crushed the garage, which is detached from the multilevel home at 387 Morning Sun Avenue. Firefighters blocked the road with yellow tape. Neighbor Robin McKee parked her car and walked a quarter mile to her house. I saw the PG&E trucks and I said uh-oh, she said. Its just part of living up here. All of our trees have already fallen over. Jesse Roselin, who lives nearby, said he had paid $20,000 not long ago to remove trees on his property to prevent them from falling over. When his neighbors tree fell Thursday, he said, it sounded like a big smash. With years of drought, its hard to know if the trees are going to fall, he said. No one was injured in the mishap and the homeowner was not immediately available. Tree surgeon Andew Owsten, hired to secure the fallen tree and prevent it from causing further damage, said the rains have been good for the tree surgeon business. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. There have been more fallen trees than I have ever seen, he said. Its a combination of drought, saturated soil and high winds. Our crews are out all over. We have too much to do, he said. Heavy rains also flooded and forced police to shut Miller Avenue, a major thoroughfare in Mill Valley. Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Paul Chinn/The Chronicle A woman stuck under a BART train Thursday morning stopped service between the South Hayward and Bay Fair stations, and caused delays for riders from Fremont, officials said. All stations reopened and train service was being restored by 11:15 a.m., officials said. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 2 1 of 2 Justin Sullivan / Getty Images 2015 Show More Show Less 2 of 2 Michael Macor / The Chronicle Show More Show Less A storm battering the Bay Area Thursday caused over 100 flight cancellations at San Francisco International Airport, and flights were being delayed an average of 60 minutes as of 11 am, officials said. Because of the bad weather, there is currently a traffic management program in effect at SFO that is contributing to the delays, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The second major rainstorm in three days rolled through the Bay Area on Thursday, packing heavy downpours, flooding creeks, uprooting trees and sending soaked citizens scrambling to once more fill their trusty sandbags. The rain was bad news for some homeowners but good news for drought watchers, as the latest in a string of deluges has filled reservoirs, heightened the snowpack and caused state water watchdogs to downgrade the severity of drought classifications throughout California. The weather was indirectly responsible for the death of a highway worker who was struck by a dump truck while clearing a mudslide that had partially shut down Highway 17 in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The worker, whose name was not immediately released, was struck and killed around noon near Scotts Valley in an incident that left a second worker with major injuries. The rainfall, which turned heavy at times, soaked some parts of the North Bay with up to 5 inches of precipitation, according to the National Weather Service. In a 24-hour period from Wednesday afternoon to Thursday afternoon, San Francisco received a little over a half-inch of rain, while Oakland got a half-inch to three-quarters of an inch. The most rain fell in the North Bay. In Marin County, Novato received 5.1 inches, Kentfield got 2.4 inches and San Rafael received 2.01 inches. Downtown Napa got 1.23 inches. Farther north, Santa Rosa received 1.73 inches. On Friday, there is a chance of light showers in the afternoon and evening, otherwise skies should begin to clear. Weekend skies should be blue. We have a high confidence of sunny skies for the weekend, said Weather Service meteorologist Ryan Walbrun. There should be some really nice weather. Clear skies will continue for the beginning of the week, but another series of heavy storms is heading for the Bay Area in the latter part of the week, Walbrun said. Dozens of schools throughout Marin County were closed for the day to avoid the looming floods. Forty-one public and 19 private schools were shut down, according to the Marin County Office of Education. A wind advisory was also in effect through the afternoon. Gusts of up to 50 mph were recorded at higher elevations in the region and across the Golden Gate Bridge, the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge and other exposed locations, Weather Service forecaster Steve Anderson said. The rain that fell in sheets in the North Bay persuaded residents and shop owners to pile up sandbags and set up wooden flood barriers. In Mill Valley, a large tree toppled over, causing major damage to a garage on the 300 block of South Morning Sun Avenue. No one was injured in the incident. A fallen tree also blocked Highway 92 in Half Moon Bay. In downtown San Anselmo, city crews and businesses were watching the towns notorious creek rise steadily. This is a bad year, said Patrice Lewandowski, who co-owns Bridge Street Salon, which sits directly over San Anselmo Creek. Weve had flood warnings four times, so we have a system now. That system consists of grabbing all the beauty products, electrical items and tools of the trade and throwing it all in a truck. Everything else goes up high on counters. You have to roll with the punches, the shops other owner, Rita Woodfin, said. It goes back and forth: drought, flood, drought, flood. A small pile of sandbags stood at the ready as customers started rolling in on Thursday morning. The women were watching the creek level online, but the best meter was to walk outside and watch the fast-moving brown water inch closer to the creeks banks. The sandbags, they conceded, would offer little help when the stream floods. When that happens, water seeps up from under the floor. While most shops were either closed or heavily barricaded from possible flooding, Alejandro Pierra, 52, at the Tenzing Tibetan Gift Shop was going about business as usual. He set up the shops outside displays and opened the doors, beckoning any would-be customers to come in out of the rain. I think the rain will stop, he said. But I have some sandbags just in case. Every few minutes, Pierra would go behind the shop to check on the creek in case his prediction proved wrong. Well be OK, he said. But if something happens, well close up and go home. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. Meanwhile, travelers attempting to depart from San Francisco International Airport were facing an average of a three-hour delay at the height of Thursdays storm, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Thursdays storm wont be the end of the wet weather. Showers are expected on and off Friday and wont end until sometime overnight, Anderson said. But a reprieve is in store for residents who have been actively working to mop up in between storms. The weekend will be dry and sunny throughout the Bay Area, Anderson said, just maybe not warm. Officials at the National Drought Mitigation Center in Nebraska, which monitors water scarcity throughout the United States, had everything to be optimistic about. In California, the cumulative effect of several months of abundant precipitation has significantly improved drought conditions across the state. Nearly all of Californias major reservoirs are currently above historical average levels, said David Simeral, a water expert with the center. The states two largest reservoirs, Oroville and Shasta, are at 125 percent of normal. Extreme drought conditions remained in only 1 percent of California, largely in the Santa Barbara area, where rainfall has lagged. The drought watchers said continued moderate-to-heavy rainfall predicted for the coming week will further ease drought conditions that have been in place in California since 2013. Meteorologists also had one eye on the coming El Nino condition, in which warmer - than - average ocean temperatures lead to increased rainfall. Some forecasts were expecting an onset of El Nino as early as next month, while other forecasts said there would be little effect until the second half of 2017, according to the National Centers for Environmental Prediction. Chronicle staff writer Jenna Lyons contributed to this report. Evan Sernoffsky, Sarah Ravani and Steve Rubenstein are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com, sravani@sfchronicle.com and srubenstein@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky and @SarRavani Its the court conservatives love to hate. And the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals impending decision on whether to reinstate President Trumps ban on entry to the United States by anyone from seven mostly Muslim countries may give the right a new reason not just to detest the nations largest appellate court, but to try to break it up. The San Francisco-based, nine-state circuit has been a Republican target for decades, ever since an influx of Jimmy Carter appointees in the late 1970s transformed it from a relatively conservative court to a liberal tribunal that was regularly overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court. One decision the high court struck down was the Ninth Circuits ruling in 2002 that it was unconstitutional to require children to recite one nation under God in the Pledge of Allegiance. Other overturned rulings from the court would have given terminally ill patients a constitutional right to die and allowed people to use marijuana for medicinal purposes without violating federal law. The case heard Tuesday by a three-judge panel could also prove incendiary. Lawyers for Trump are challenging a federal judges ruling Friday that blocked the presidents executive order halting all U.S. travel for 90 days by anyone from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, and all U.S. admission of refugees for 120 days. Refugees from Syria would be banned indefinitely. If the court rules against Trump and leaves Seattle U.S. District Judge James Robarts restraining order in place a likely outcome, based on judges comments at the hearing it could add partisan fuel to newly introduced legislation to split the Ninth Circuit. The more controversial rulings that come out of the Ninth, the stronger (supporters of a breakup) think they can make their argument, said Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor. Its hard to think there can be something more controversial than this. Trump seemed to be anticipating a judicial rebuff. After deriding Robart, an appointee of President George W. Bush, as a so-called judge in a Twitter post, Trump took aim at the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday. If these judges wanted to in my opinion help the court in terms of respect for the court, theyd do what they should be doing, Trump told the National Sheriffs Association. I mean, its so sad. On Twitter, the president wrote, If the U.S. does not win this case as it so obviously should, we can never have the security and safety to which we are entitled. Politics! Trumpss campaign appeared to be testing the patience even of some of his allies. His Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, described the presidents attacks on the judiciary as demoralizing and disheartening, a spokesman for the confirmation team told reporters. Still, if the Ninth Circuit panel rules against Trumps order, its decision will be greeted in conservative circles with groans of there they go again, said Arthur Hellman, a University of Pittsburgh law professor and a longtime authority on the Ninth Circuit, whose central legal staff he once headed. However, many conservatives favored solution to the perceived problem splitting up the court has been proposed and failed in the past. Legal commentators said the latest such measure faces an uphill battle, despite Republicans political gains. Breaking up the Ninth Circuit has got to be pretty low on the priority list of what Republican majorities in Congress and the president want to accomplish in the next couple of years, said Scott Dodson, a law professor and associate dean at UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. I cant see it going anywhere. The new legislation by Sens. Jeff Flake and John McCain, both Arizona Republicans, would place Arizona, Nevada, Montana, Idaho, Washington and Alaska in a new 12th Circuit Court of Appeals, leaving California, Oregon and Hawaii in a trimmed-down Ninth Circuit. Flake, whose break-up legislation last year got nowhere, says hes motivated by judicial efficiency, not politics. The Ninth Circuit, which hears about one-fifth of the nations federal appeals, also has the longest waiting times, taking an average of just over 14 months from hearing to decision. The oversized and overburdened Ninth Circuit has Arizonans waiting too long for justice, Flake said in a statement. Establishing a new circuit with stronger local, regional and cultural ties will ease the burden across the West. It would also put Arizona and five other states in a new circuit that, over time, would probably become more conservative. The judges would initially come from the current Ninth Circuit, but Trump would fill any vacancies that arose, and the Senate Judiciary Committee has given home-state senators veto power over court nominees. In the six states that would make up the new appeals court, most of the senators are Republicans. Hellman said two smaller courts probably wouldnt handle cases any faster than one large one. The Flake-McCain bill would transfer 10 of the Ninth Circuits 29 judicial positions to the new court, which roughly corresponds to the states share of the current caseloads. But speedups would require more judges, said Hellman, who noted that the much smaller circuits based in Washington, D.C., and Boston have waiting times nearly as long as the San Francisco court. One reason federal appeals courts were designed to cross state lines, Hellman said, was that different legal traditions made the circuit much stronger. With few exceptions, the courts judges have preferred to keep the circuit intact. Court-splitting legislation in 2005 that cleared the House but died in the Senate drew strong opposition from jurists led by Chief Judge Mary Schroeder, a Carter appointee, and Alex Kozinski, a Ronald Reagan appointee who succeeded Schroeder as chief judge in 2007. Opponents have also included Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, now the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. If a circuit-splitting bill reached the Senate floor, Democrats could mount a filibuster, which would require 60 votes including at least eight Democrats to defeat. And although a ruling against Trumps travel ban could energize the circuit-splitting movement, Tobias, the University of Richmond law professor, said the effect might be short-lived. The Trump administration would appeal any such ruling to the Supreme Court, which with only eight members since the death of Antonin Scalia last February would most likely split down the middle, letting the ruling stand, Tobias said. That should throw a wet blanket on the claim of a biased Ninth Circuit, he said. Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko SACRAMENTO A federal judge Wednesday rejected Anthem Inc.s bid to buy rival health insurer Cigna Corp., saying the merger would be likely to lead to higher costs, less competition and diminished innovation. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said the merger would significantly reduce competition in the already concentrated insurance market, particularly for large national employers. Cigna and Anthem are two of just four insurers selling to companies with 5,000 employees spread across multiple states, and they compete aggressively for business, the judge wrote. Twelve people excitedly removed their shoes and sanitized their hands. Just past a clear glass door, 11 cats and a screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark awaited the guests of KitTea Cat Cafes weekly Mewvie Movie Night. One woman called her friend to the window. Come here! she hissed. Youre missing this cats face. The KitTea Cat Cafe is a tea lounge, cat-themed gift shop and home to resident cats that snuggle and play with paying guests in an adjoining cat lounge. The Gough Street storefront is run by owner and Chief Feline Officer Courtney Hatt, a gorgeous, dimpled 30-year-old former Method actress and tech worker. I wanted to have a space thats tranquil and zen for both cats and people, said Hatt, who suffers from anxiety. Theres a lot of serotonin in this space. Before the screening, I sat with Hatt along the bar of the tea room and looked through the window into the cat lounge. Steam bloomed from a low-lit air purifier, several guests posed for subdued selfies with the cafes collection of friendly cats, and the scent of green tea wafted through the birch-hued space. The energy within the KitTea Cat Cafe did indeed feel like a smooth hit of Zen and Prozac. The cafe is bright, clean and slightly foreign, like one of those staged multipurpose room examples at Ikea. Usually guests pay $15 to $25 an hour (depending on days and times) to hang out in the lounge and bask among the cats. Unlimited green tea from a fancy tea farm in Kyoto, Japan, is included in the hour. Because of health department rules, the cafe is separate from the cat lounge. Tea, coffee and a variety of sandwiches and snacks are delivered through the small shop in the foyer. Thursday nights, however, are special. Only 12 people are allowed for Mewvie Movie Night. Each person pays $26, which includes unlimited green tea and a small dessert treat. Hatt and her team set up a projector and portable screen as guests arrive. By the 7:30 p.m. start time, a line had formed at the entrance to the cat lounge. Few seemed to care about Raiders of the Lost Ark. Everyone was at Mewvie Movie Night to play and snuggle with the cats. Some people brought their own bottle of wine, which is allowed as long as the guests are 21 or older. Others purchased cat treats in the shop and were quickly surrounded by the popular felines. All 12 humans sat patiently along the wall-mounted wooden bench in the dark, pretending to watch the movie but really waiting for the cats to do something cute. Then it happened. One young cat playfully tackled another one in the center of the room. Ive never seen 12 people more collectively thrilled. For a stressed-out cat lover, the KitTea Cat Cafe is sheer bliss. Originally from an island near Seattle, Hatt moved to Los Angeles to study very serious acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. Along the way, she started a vegan dog biscuit company and then a dog-walking business. In 2010, Hatt quit acting and headed to San Francisco, eventually falling into a tech job. Throughout her journey, none of Hatts endeavors gave her the peace that shes found with her cat lounge. My friends thought I was nuts in the beginning because its never been done in the United States before, said Hatt of the cat lounges popular in Japan and Taiwan. Eventually they started to understand my vision. That vision is simple. All Hatt wants is to create a space where people can let go of their anxieties for the day. It used to be a bit more complicated, though. When it officially opened in 2015, the KitTea Cat Cafe worked to get homeless cats adopted. The shop put 166 cats in homes, but eventually that formula stopped working. New cats coming in and out all the time made keeping every cat healthy nearly impossible. These days, a couple of foster cats are available to adopt, but 11 cats live in the lounge full time. They won the cat lottery, Hatt said with a smile. The next big events in the cat lounge include speed dating, Cats on Mats yoga class, and Caturday Morning Cartoons, complete with a breakfast cereal bar and late 1980s animation. We do pretty well. Our goal is to be sustainable, said Hatt. She blushed and confessed, Were also in the works for a reality show. Beth Spotswoods column appears Thursdays in Datebook. Email: datebook@sfchronicle.com WASHINGTON When Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ordered Sen. Elizabeth Warren to take a seat and stop talking late Tuesday night, he did more than cause Warrens argument to be broadcast far beyond the empty chamber she was addressing. He also managed to infuriate Senate newcomer Kamala Harris of California, who jumped to Warrens defense and made her first big splash on the national stage. Harris was among the first to take the floor after the incident, demanding a vote on a motion to allow Warren to continue to speak against President Trumps nominee for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. The vote failed on party lines, but the spectacle of a male Republican ordering a female colleague to sit and be quiet erupted in a Harris tweet storm under the hashtags #LetHerSpeak and #ShePersisted, followed by national newspaper headlines and nonstop cable TV coverage. Wednesday night, the Senate voted to confirm Sessions. Cliff Owen/Associated Press The letter Warren was reciting when McConnell rebuked her was a condemnation of Sessions from the late Coretta Scott King. By Wednesday, it had been reprinted, widely distributed and was being read aloud by Democrats on the Senate floor, with no pushback from Republicans. For a U.S. senator to be shut down while shes quoting one of the greatest Americans whos lived, Coretta Scott King, who was speaking about injustice, who was speaking about civil rights, to be shut down for a recital of those words ... is outrageous, Harris said outside the Senate chamber Wednesday after speaking against the Sessions nomination herself. Later in the day, the Republican National Committee responded to the uproar by accusing Warren of using the incident to launch a tour for her new book, and to raise funds. It appears Elizabeth Warrens biggest priority is promoting Elizabeth Warren, the committee declared. Kings 1986 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee helped kill Sessions nomination to a federal judgeship. King wrote that as a prosecutor in Alabama, Sessions used the awesome powers of his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters and should not be rewarded with a federal judgeship for doing with a federal prosecution what the local sheriffs accomplished twenty years ago with clubs and cattle prods. McConnell, a Kentucky Republican who is a master of Senate rules, invoked rarely used Rule 19 against Warren. The rule, intended to preserve comity in the chamber, prohibits a senator from maligning a colleague by alleging any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a senator. The rule was established in 1902 after two South Carolina senators got into a fist fight on the Senate floor. Before Tuesday, the last time the rule was invoked was in 1951, vastly elevating the significance of its use now in an instance freighted with gender and racial overtones. McConnell said he invoked the rule after Warren was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted. Harris and other Democrats have seized on that line as a rallying cry, using it as a Twitter hashtag #ShePersisted emblazoned over photos of Harriet Tubman, King and other female civil rights leaders, including Warren herself. The truth is uncomfortable, but just because it makes you uncomfortable doesnt mean it shouldnt be spoken, Harris said. I cant suppose to read the mind and thoughts of Sen. McConnell, but I will say we have a history in our country that is a fact, and because it is an ugly fact some people would like to forget it and not be reminded of it. McConnells action appears to be a rare tactical error, providing Warren with a megaphone to further galvanize the left and aid a potential presidential bid in 2020 while broadcasting Kings scathing critique of Sessions, which had been buried for decades but now has been read by millions. And it raised the profile of a freshman California Democrat. Im new to the Senate, and Im not going to pretend to be an expert on the strategic use of these various rules, Harris said. But given the power and responsibility of the attorney general to apply the law, including civil rights laws, she added, Anyone and everyone who is up for that position should be prepared to be critically evaluated in terms of their history on these issues. Former East Bay Rep. Ellen Tauscher, a Democrat who often presided over House floor debates, said the implications of invoking such a rare rule against a female colleague evoked the worst stereotypes of gender discrimination. Its obvious if you think about it for five minutes, Tauscher said. This is a Southern white guy telling an uppity woman to shut up because shes calling out the bad behavior of another Southern white guy. Impugning other members happens on the Senate floor all the time, she said. But when a girl does something, boom. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., cited several recent examples of harsh personal language being used by senators against their colleagues, including Arkansas Republican Tom Cotton last year criticizing the cancerous leadership of former Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. In 2015, Texas Republican Ted Cruz accused McConnell of lying but was not formally rebuked. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., called it indefensible for Republicans to shut down Warren for reading Kings letter. That action, Feinstein said, is even more offensive because they allowed her male colleagues to read the exact same passages without batting an eye. Carolyn Lochhead is The San Francisco Chronicle Washington correspondent. Email: clochhead@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @carolynlochhead OK, lets review. Theres a scary clown running the White House. (That would be Steve Bannon and his sidekick seems nearly as unhinged.) Wealthy tech titans and New York bankers the guys who are supposed to bet on the future are frantically planning their escape havens in New Zealand and renovating old nuclear war bunkers in the vast, empty Great Plains. Black bloc anarchists are running wild in the streets. And the white nationalist crowd is stockpiling guns and ammo for the revolution or counterrevolution to come. America, America, God shed his grace on thee. Meanwhile, Washington and Hollywood liberals the types who are always celebrating our enlightened and exceptional democratic system are freaking out, floating the possibility of a military coup to remove President Trump from office and restore sanity in the land. WAKE UP & JOIN THE RESISTANCE. ONCE THE MILITARY IS W US FASCISTS GET OVERTHROWN. MAD KING & HIS HANDLERS GO BYE BYE, tweeted comedian Sarah Silverman last week. What is it about Twitter that makes people go all upper-case bonkers? The next morning, a chastened (and/or sober) Silverman admitted she had kind of lost it: FEAR can motivate even peacenik snowflakes 2 violence & last night I felt it hard. But the coup meme continued to spread in left-wing circles. Rosa Brooks, a human rights counselor in the Clinton State Department and Obama Defense Department, published an article in Foreign Policy asking point blank, Are we truly stuck with Donald Trump? a man, she wrote, who is turning out to be as crazy as everyone feared. One solution to the Trump crisis, she observed, might be a military coup, or at least a refusal by military leaders to obey certain orders. The prospect of American military leaders responding to a presidential order with open defiance is frightening but so, too, is the prospect of military obedience to an insane order, wrote Brooks, who is married to an Army Special Forces officer. For the first time in my life, I can imagine plausible scenarios in which senior military officials might simply tell the president, No, sir. Were not doing that, to thunderous applause from the New York Times editorial board. All hell predictably broke loose in the Breitbart and Alex Jones world, and Brooks was barraged with death threats and the usual sexist and anti-Semitic sludge. Brooks, the daughter of noted socialist journalist Barbara Ehrenreich, felt compelled to explain that she was not calling for a coup, but simply speculating on what would happen if Donald Trump truly and dangerously lost his marbles. Trumps first weeks in office have triggered lots of such speculation, with articles in the mainstream press openly wondering whether the deep state i.e., Wall Street, the oil industry, national security agencies, corporate media and other unelected centers of hidden power will take steps to terminate his erratic presidency. Be careful what you wish for, journalist Glenn Greenwald cautioned his fellow progressives. A deep-state seizure of the government would only push us from the frying pan into the fire. Were seeing a proxy war in the intelligence community between FBI factions aligned with Trump and the CIA, which is largely opposed to him, Greenwald told Fox News Tucker Carlson. (The fact that Greenwald is a welcome guest on Fox these days underlines the strangeness of the times.) Its really quite dangerous if we think about submitting to rule by these unelected, dark, deep-state overlords its the antithesis of democracy. For some additional sanity, I consulted with retired UC Berkeley scholar Peter Dale Scott, the godfather of dark power research, whose book The American Deep State will be rereleased in the spring. Scott has been accused of fomenting conspiratorial thinking about power and authority in the U.S. But he takes a refreshingly level-headed view of our current turmoil. The American state is a very complicated organism its very hard for one man to upend it. I think the judicial resistance to Trumps Muslim ban is a harbinger of whats to come. The system itself is bigger than any one man. The founders were very concerned about the rise of a tyrant, and we can thank them for installing a variety of protective measures in the system against such a specter. The deep state is very fragmented over Trump, observed Scott, with Wall Street, for instance, cheering his efforts to gut banking regulations but fretting over his antiglobalist policies. Hopefully, this darker level of power wont be called on to intervene against Trump, said Scott. A coup would mean civil war, because the large chunks of this country that support Trump are heavily armed and have been preparing for this kind of showdown. Scott thinks progressives need to take a deep breath. Maybe Im more sanguine because Im Canadian and I tend to see these American upheavals with the perspective of an outsider. People are reacting now with anger, fear, hatred and despair and these are not emotions that we should be adding to the American mix these days. Even a smart commentator like (Truthdig columnist) Chris Hedges, for whom I have great respect, is saying were about to lose all of our civil rights. This is so overstated. We need to stay cool and keep calmly building a resistance movement. For the record, I too respect Hedges, with whom I collaborated on a recent book, but I agree that Trump has driven him a bit mad lately. This country survived Nixon and Reagan and George W. Bush absolutely appalling leaders, said Scott. And even worse, they were all re-elected. But, afterwards, the country came out better than ever before. Trump is so bad that hes not dangerous. As the anti-Trump protests grow and people get organized, I think Americas democratic values will emerge even stronger. There you go, America. Thats your moment of Zen for the day. San Francisco Chronicle columnist David Talbot appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Email: dtalbot@sfchronicle.com Regarding A social promotion (Editorial, Feb. 8): The confirmation of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education may have only been a social promotion, but it is a demotion for our nations schoolchildren. It is mind-boggling that DeVos, who has no experience running public schools, is now the head of a department that makes policy and enforces laws regarding them. This wealthy Republican donors advocacy of for-profit charter schools and taxpayer-funded vouchers for private religious schools will decimate federal funding for public education. For those who appreciate gallows humor, theres this small comfort to take from DeVoss new status: At least she will keep our children safe from grizzly bear attacks by allowing our schools to have guns. Barbara Sandstrom, San Francisco Keep the court When California secedes, can we please keep the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals? Mark Saleby, Windsor Trumps animus Regarding Judges challenge lawyer on travel ban (Feb. 8): Thank you to Washington state lawyer Noah Purcell who, in arguing against President Trumps travel ban against seven Muslim-majority nations, told the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that this executive order is motivated by unconstitutional religious discrimination. Trump has never hidden his animus toward Muslims, and even called for banning Muslim immigration before his inauguration. If this administration truly wanted to protect our country from radical Islamic terrorism, why didnt it also include Saudi Arabia a country from which a majority of the 9/11 attackers had origins in its travel ban? All that Trump has succeeded in doing through his arbitrary action is to create confusion and fear inside our nation, while severely diminishing our stature in the international community. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ought to affirm a lower court injunction against this ban. Walter Burroughs, San Francisco Return the spaces Regarding Supervisor parking perk becomes a touchy topic (Feb. 8): It doesnt take much power to corrupt, as illustrated by Supervisor Ahsha Safai, who thinks the privilege of parking a few steps away from his place of work should be free. The reality is that the parking spaces reserved for supervisors are an abuse of power, regardless of whether they are free or not. This long-standing abuse has been justified by the notion that the supervisors might be called upon during an emergency and they must have their cars at the ready at a moments notice. Right. Not only is this supervisors suggestion arrogant, it also insults the thousands of good parents who manage to get their kids to school and themselves to work on Muni or by other means. The San Francisco City Hall permit-reserved parking spaces should be returned to normal metered spaces to be used by citizens. Roger Drosd, San Francisco Bad nominations Betsy DeVos is uniquely unqualified to be secretary of education. However, two additional Trump nominees, Sen. Jeff Sessions for attorney general and Andrew Puzder for secretary of labor, are also frightfully unqualified and a threat to our country. Sessions racists comments in the past disqualified him for a judgeship in the 1980s and his comments regarding atheists in his confirmation hearings disqualify him now. Puzders record of labor violations and disregard for workers most basic rights of a minimum wage, work breaks and ability to organize disqualify him. Please contact our senators to fight against these nominations. Tandra Ericson, Orinda Violent nations Regarding Focused on ego (Letters, Jan. 27): Before everyone gets hysterical about the fact that President Trump may have actually said something truthful, let us remember Americas actions in the last 60 years, and compare how many deaths America has caused versus how many Russia has caused. Indeed, America has a lot of killers if you want to use that word. It cannot be ascribed to Russian President Vladimir Putin alone. Of course, America is not innocent. Nor is Russia, nor many other countries. We are in no position to play holier-than-thou and to throw up our hands in shock that someone dared to say so. Trump pretty much has me in the depths of despair, but when he says something true, it has to be given credit. Russia has been no more aggressive in fact, much less, than we have been notably in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have violated international law time and time again. That does not excuse what any other country, including Russia, has done, but it must be acknowledged before we start naming villains. Is it no longer allowable to speak the truth? Julie Rufo, Oakland Truth silenced It is outrageous and frightening that Sen. Mitch McConnell and the Republicans silenced Sen. Elizabeth Warren in the Senate. She was reading a letter from Coretta Scott King about Sen. Jeff Sessions record, a letter considered by a Senate Committee when the Senate rejected him for a federal judgeship. Most worrying, she was silenced only because the letter made negative statements about Sessions not because they were untrue. The Republicans are so afraid of truth they couldnt allow it onto the Senate floor. Miriam Mueller, San Francisco Bear watch Heads up, teachers in the states of Alaska, Idaho, Montana and Washington! You may soon be issued guns so you can shoot grizzly bears in your classrooms. Diana DiPietro, Pleasant Hill Shadow Cabinet The idea of a shadow Cabinet is compelling. It will provide a rational way to monitor the government. What would make sense is to begin the selection by having a transparent list of minimum qualifications for each position something sorely missing in the current climate but a no-brainer for most human resource transactions. Julie Freestone, Richmond Special needs Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos advocacy of vouchers for private schools could severely impact public schools ability to educate special needs students. Vouchers would allow students to attend a private school using funds which would have been appropriated to public schools. As able-bodied students leave the public school system, the public schools would have trouble funding the same level of education to special needs students. Some might argue that vouchers would also help special needs students attend private schools; however, most private schools do not service special needs students, and the schools that do service special needs students cost way more than what the vouchers would cover. Around 13 percent of public school students need special needs services, and we need to make sure that they receive the education they deserve. Katherine Ho, San Jose Editors note: The road to Uvas Canyon County Park, Croy Road, was closed Thursday when it crumbled after losing under support, reported the Santa Clara County Department of Parks. Several redwood trees, with roots beneath the road, fell into the canyon on the downslope side of the road, and in turn, the road collapsed in the vacuum, said Laura Carlson, the owner of Sveadal, which is located along the road just outside the park entrance. There is no date for reopening. A Bay Area park flush with waterfalls is the first in the state to require advance reservations for parking and day-use on weekends. Uvas Canyon County Park, located in the foothills west of Morgan Hill in Santa Clara County, started a reservation system with a quota for day-use last weekend after heavy rains in January turned a 1-mile walk into a waterfall spectacle. We were getting 650 cars at once with space for 70, said John Heenan, the longtime ranger at Uvas. With all the parking spots taken, hundreds of disappointed drivers were forced to turn around without seeing the waterfalls, Heenan said. On their way out, they often drove at unsafe speeds. That created a flashpoint near the park entrance, where the road is one lane with a 5-mph speed limit and routed through Sveadal, a private camp and recreation site. The new program requires weekend visitors to reserve a day-use parking spot for $6. No reservations are required for visits on weekdays, and the new program also does not affect the operation of the parks campground. On my visit, visitors had universal acceptance of the program on its first weekend. Weve been coming here for 25 years, said Russ Rinfret, who had stopped at the bridge to take in Granuja Falls, of the five named waterfalls in the park. I love this place. Two years ago, everything was dry. Now youve got all this water. We used to come here with our yellow Lab and weve seen the park in every condition. The one thing that has changed the past few years is all the people that are here now. Solution for other parks? In recent years, the high-tech industry in Santa Clara Valley has brought thousands of new residents to the area, Heenan said, and in turn, they are discovering the Bay Areas vast park system. On weekends, when about 90 percent of park visitation occurs, parking lots at staging areas can be jammed full in the morning. Many visitors can find themselves turned away. Other park districts throughout the Bay Area, as well several metropolitan areas across the nation, are watching the results of the concept of requiring reservations for weekend day-use at parks with quotas based on the number of parking spots available. On good-weather weekends, it is common for parking areas to fill quickly near Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, at trailheads for the Marin Watershed and adjacent Mount Tamalpais State Park, at staging areas for undeveloped parks in the East Bay Regional Park District, and on the Peninsula at trailheads for the Midpeninsula Open Space District. Outside the Bay Area, a similar movie every parking spot filled by midmorning can unfold every summer day in Yosemite Valley, and weekends at D.L. Bliss State Park near South Lake Tahoe, Bunny Flat at Mount Shasta and other marquee sites. In January at Uvas, the road conflicts at Sveadal near the park entrance reached a flashpoint and the county closed the park until it could reach a resolution. For the first weekend at least, it was working. When I called the reservation line last week, the attendant was kind and helpful. When we drove in there, the park had posted signs, starting 5 miles away, on entrance roads that read: Uvas Canyon County Park, Reservations Only For Day Use, Saturday Sunday and Holidays. The intent was to keep people without permits from driving in there. On the gorgeous country two-laner that leads to the park, we encountered only one fast driver. At the parking lot, everyone was upbeat and excited at the waterfall phenomenon that awaited up the trail. Waterfalls galore At the parking lot, the first thing you notice is the sound of rushing water in the background. Nearby Swanson Creek is a torrent. I havent seen this much water here since 2006. The trail to see four waterfalls and a series of smaller cataracts is short, but steep. Most hike up a service road, then take the short spurs for the best views. From the parking lot, its about a five-minute walk up to the trailhead, signed Waterfall Loop. A small rock staircase leads up to a bridge that overlooks the first waterfall, Granuja Falls. This waterfall is series of stepped curtains, small but gorgeous. In about 10 minutes (at 0.35 mile), you will reach the cutoff spur on your right for Black Rock Falls. It takes a minute or two, where you round the bend and arrive for a full frontal. Its about 40 feet high, top-to-bottom, with one shelf, where a flush stream of silver tassels pour across black rock. Back on the main route, its another 10th of a mile up the hill, with Swanson Creek on your left, to the cutoff spur on your right to Basin Falls. In five minutes, the spur leads to the outlet of the falls, where the best view is if you cross the creek. From here, you can see how the waterfall has hollowed out the first plunge pool like a big tub and then is carried in a cascade and into a chute. You again return to the main trail, where just upstream on your left is Upper Falls. This is the parks crown jewel, about 50 to 60 feet from top to bottom, with two wide cascades separated and connected by a flat step. In most years, the lower cascade does not even exist and most photograph it from the middle step. Now flush, those who are nimble will find a better scope by rock-hopping to the far side of the creek. This is the type of place where you can fall in love. With the new reservation program, the park district has guaranteed it wont be loved to death. Tom Stienstra is the outdoors writer for The San Francisco Chronicle. His Outdoor Report can be heard at 7:35 a.m., 9:35 a.m. and 12:35 p.m. Saturdays on KCBS (740 and 106.9). Email: tstienstra@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @StienstraTom If you want to go Where: Uvas Canyon County Park Location: In the foothills west of Morgan Hill in Santa Clara County Cost: $6 per vehicle. For weekend dates, reserve and pay for day-use permit in advance at (408) 355-2201; computer reservations planned to be available at www.gooutsideandplay.org. Dogs: Leashed dogs OK on trails; dogs allowed in campground and must be leashed, attended and quiet. Map/brochure: Available at entrance; PDF at website. Facilities: Restroom with flush toilets available near the parking lot; another is available near the campground. Camping: 25 sites for tents or small, self-contained RVs, with drinking water, flush toilets and showers; $30 per night, discounts available through February. Reserve at www.GoOutsideAndPlay.org. Gate locked at sunset. Contacts: Uvas Canyon County Park, (408) 779-9232; Santa Clara County Parks, (408) 355-2200 (general information), www.parkhere.org (portal to Santa Clara County government site). How to get there GPS: 8515 Croy Road, Morgan Hill. From San Francisco: Take U.S. 101 south for 60 miles to Coyote and the exit for Bailey Avenue. Take that exit, turn right on Bailey Avenue and drive 3.2 miles to McKean Road. Turn left on McKean Road and drive 6.1 miles (at 2.4 miles, it becomes Uvas Road) to Croy Road. Turn right on Croy Road and drive 4.4 miles (go slow, 5-mph speed limit through Sveadal) to park entrance. Note: Just before reaching the park, you will drive through Sveadal, a private camp and recreation site. The road is one lane and bordered by cabins and recreation facilities, 5-mph speed limit. Do not drive faster. Distances: 24 miles from San Jose; 44 miles from Palo Alto, 54 miles from Hayward, 56 miles from Dublin, 75 miles from San Francisco; 82 miles from Sausalito. Three weeks into Donald Trumps presidency, analysts say he and his family are crossing unprecedented ethical boundaries, as it appears they are trying to enrich themselves by leveraging the power of the White House. The latest potential ethical breach occurred Wednesday when President Trump ripped department store chain Nordstrom for dropping his daughter Ivankas clothing line. My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom Trump tweeted Wednesday morning to the 24.2 million people who follow his personal account. She is a great person always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible! The message was later retweeted to the 15.1 million people who follow Trumps official White House @POTUS Twitter account. Nordstrom stock dipped briefly after the tweet, then recovered and posted a 4 percent gain for the day. Trumps tweet comes two days after his wife, Melania, filed a lawsuit against Londons Daily Mail for claiming she had been a high-priced sex escort. The suit claimed the story tarnished her potential to tap into once-in-a-lifetime major business opportunities that were otherwise available to her while she is one of the most photographed women in the world. The tweet and lawsuit alarmed ethics experts and government watchdogs, and political analysts said they could hurt Trumps support among the blue-collar, swing-state voters who carried him to victory. This is a misuse of public office for private gains, Richard Painter, the chief ethics lawyer in Republican President George W. Bushs White House, told The Chronicle Wednesday. And it is abuse of power, because the official message is clear: Nordstrom is persona non grata with the administration. Painter said even in an official context, such as the 2008 banking crisis, past presidents have been careful about mentioning specific companies by name. I have never seen a senior administration official lash out at a particular company based upon a strictly personal grudge, Painter said. Absolutely unacceptable. Nordstrom said its decision to drop Ivanka Trumps products was based on business, not politics. Particularly in the last half of 2016, sales of the brand had steadily declined to the point where it didnt make good business sense for us to continue with the line for now, the company said in a statement that it issued Wednesday after the presidents tweet. Nordstrom isnt alone in canceling Ivanka Trumps brand of shoes and other accessories. Marshalls, Neiman Marcus and North Carolina-based retailer Belk have also recently dropped her. The Nordstrom move was significant for followers of the 4-month-old #GrabYourWallet Trump-boycott campaign, which charts companies that sell Trump-related products. I think what were seeing is a very important direct check to the most corrupt administration we have ever seen coming from the hands of American consumers, said Shannon Coulter, a Bay Area communications professional who started the boycott. White House spokesman Sean Spicer defended Trumps tweet, saying for people to take out their concerns about his actions or his executive orders on members of his family, he has every right to stand up for his family and applaud their business activities, their success. But Trumps tweets may make it harder for any retailer to want to affiliate with a Trump-related brand in the future for fear of being called out by him. All of these department stores are struggling. They dont want any negative news, said Chicago retail consultant Brian Kelly, a former executive at Sears. And (Ivanka Trump) isnt that much of a draw to make it worth it for them. And its hard to laugh off Trumps comments as just a proud papa defending his daughter, much like former President Harry Truman did a half century ago. Truman sent a note from the Oval Office to a Washington Post music critic who mocked a singing performance by his daughter, Margaret. Wrote Truman: Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens youll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below! But Trumans rebuttal only affected his daughter. Trumps comments have larger, market-moving implications. Plus, Trumps actions Wednesday played into a larger narrative of how furtive the wealthy businessman has been about his finances. He is the only major presidential candidate in more than 40 years not to reveal his tax returns. Even though Trump promised last month to disassociate himself from his family business, he has not sold his assets in the company nor put them into a blind trust. Instead, he turned over the daily operation of his business to his oldest sons, Donald Jr. and Eric. Promised the president: Theyre not going to discuss it with me. Ethicists and watchdogs have found that promise dubious at best. He still holds full ownership in them. He still knows what business theyre engaged in, said Jordan Libowitz, a spokesman for the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. He seems to be thinking of how we can make the most for us, the Trumps. Even though Ivanka Trump has no formal role in the administration, her husband, Jared Kushner, is a top adviser to the president. And she has been included in high-level meetings with foreign leaders and others. This reflects what seems to be the entire driving mission of the Trump family: to pursue their business efforts, not their public service, said Craig Holman, the government affairs lobbyist for the watchdog Public Citizen organization who helped draft the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act signed by President George W. Bush and enacted in 2007. Politically, Trump is treading on dangerous ground. If those blue-collar, swing voters who carried him to victory in blue states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania start to see him not as a president trying to correct a rigged system but as another politician trying to enrich himself, they may turn on him. Many voters will judge Trump by whether they have affordable health care and more money in their pockets as his term matures. An issue like this will sway swing voters if it is coupled with something else that affects them personally. Its probably too soon to tell if this issue has affected those voters, said Michael Traugott, a professor at the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan. Well have to see how the rollout of (Trumps) various policies take place. But Painter, the former Bush administration lawyer who is now a professor at the University of Minnesota, sounded more ominous. They may not care now, but they will when the government is tied up in unnecessary lawsuits and the president appears to be just furthering his own interests instead of looking after them. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera sued five gun suppliers Thursday, alleging they broke a state law banning the sale of high-capacity magazines by selling them in pieces and falsely marketing them as repair kits. The suit appears to be the opening of what could be a protracted legal fight over California gun-control measures, which are among the most restrictive in the country. The National Rifle Association and the California Rifle & Pistol Association are expected to file a lawsuit next week challenging the laws. Herreras lawsuit alleges that the repair kits are a blatant attempt to circumvent the states gun control laws those already in effect and those that will take effect over the next couple of years. These kits are not individual magazine parts to replace, say, a worn-out spring or a cracked baseplate in a lawfully possessed magazine, the lawsuit says. Purchasers can readily assemble the parts into brand-new, fully functional large-capacity magazines. Filed in San Francisco Superior Court, the lawsuit alleges the companies specifically target their sales to California residents, directly violating Californias ban on these kits and aiding and abetting the illegal purchase, importation and manufacture of these kits by California consumers. The defendants are Badger Mountain Supply of Washington state, 7.62 Precision of Alaska, Shooters Plus of Mississippi, LAK Supply of Wyoming and BuyMilsurp.com of Florida. The companies, which are all privately owned, arent among the major gun suppliers in the United States. None of the companies could be reached for comment. Either their phone numbers didnt work or the voice mail system was full. Emails to the companies went unanswered. Large-capacity magazines, which hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition, allow shooters to fire many bullets without having to reload. They have been used in some of the biggest mass shootings in recent history: the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, the 2015 Charleston, S.C., church shooting, the 2012 Aurora, Colo., movie theater massacre and the 2012 Newtown, Conn., elementary school shooting. California law has banned the sale of such magazines since 2000. In 2013, the state Legislature clarified that high-capacity magazines could not be sold in disassembled pieces. Herreras suit is based on those laws. John Cote, spokesman for the city attorney, said the lawsuit was filed in anticipation of a state law that takes effect July 1 and bans people from possessing high-capacity magazines. Owners of such magazines will be required to turn them in to police or store them out of state under Proposition 63, the November ballot initiative sponsored by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom that passed with 63 percent of the vote. A prohibition on possession has existed in San Francisco since 2014. Were being proactive, Cote said. Studies have shown in the past that when people anticipate new gun laws taking effect, there is an uptick in purchasing. We wanted to get out ahead of people buying these items, which are already illegal to purchase, and limit the supply making its way into our state. But Long Beach attorney C.D. Michel, who specializes in firearms laws and has challenged gun restrictions before, including in San Francisco, dismissed the lawsuit as a ploy to harass businesses that sell accessories to law-abiding gun owners. Most of these parts are interchangeable, Michel said. You could have a part for a perfectly innocent purpose that if you use it a different way it could covert a rifle into an assault weapon. Herrera is assuming these guys selling these parts know some people are using them to assemble or reconfigure a magazine so it holds over 10 rounds, he said. And there is no way for him to know that or for them to know that. The city attorneys lawsuit alleges that the defendants made no secret of their efforts to circumvent state law banning the sale of high-capacity magazines. Badger Mountain Supply advertised that it would send the rebuild kits in two separate shipments, and that packaging them this way enabled customers to legally buy them in California. Shooters Plus instructs customers to identify what magazine they want, and then click on a box that shows how to covert it into a rebuild kit. LAK Supplys website says All hi cap magazine orders from ban states will automatically be converted into kits. BuyMilsurp.com sells 30-round magazines advertised as completely disassembled. Herrera asks the court to prohibit the companies from marketing or selling the repair kits or disassembled magazines in California and for the companies to state in any advertising that such kits cannot be legally purchased in California. He also asks the court to fine the companies $2,500 for every sale and advertisement of the repair kits. Michel said his law firm planned to file lawsuits beginning next week on behalf of the National Rifle Association and the California Rifle & Pistol Association seeking to overturn the aggressive gun control measures passed in 2016 by the state Legislature and voters through Prop. 63. First on that list: a Second Amendment constitutional challenge of the ban on possessing high-capacity magazines. The lawsuit came down to one core issue, said Lawrence Rosenthal, a professor at Chapman University School of Law in Orange who has written extensively about gun control. Is there a right to be irresponsible or a right to help people break the law? My own view is that at the end of the day, the notion that you have the right to be irresponsible is going to be firmly rejected. Emily Green is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: egreen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @emilytgreen At the entrance of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, a flashing sign alerts all visitors: POOR AIR QUALITY. Kilauea the most continuously active volcano in the world is erupting, and its fumes can be harmful. Less than a mile away, though, along the parks Sulfur Vents trail, a colorful poster offers a different view: Breathe the Breath of Pele. This seeming contradiction soon becomes familiar. It summarizes two worlds that coexist, sometimes warily, on the island of Hawaii. While volcanologists set up scientific instruments to study seismic activity and lava chemistry, indigenous Hawaiians see the volcanoes, dry lava flows and glowing rivers of fire as spiritual aspects of Pele, the hot-blooded goddess who permeates this land. Both are fascinating viewpoints and both demand respect. There is no bad time to visit Hawaii, but there is a good time. My trip was inspired by an urgent need to escape postelection angst and lose myself in a world where larger much larger forces are at play. And nothing provides a sense of perspective like watching our planet evolve, a process that humans either watch in wonder or flee in terror. Pele, and volcanoes, possess a dual nature, says Warren Costa of Native Guide Hawaii, leading me along the edge of Kilaueas wide caldera. At its center, an inner crater Halemaumau, Peles home emits a roiling plume, generated by the lava lake within. On the one hand, shes destructive; lava flows have buried many parts of this island. On the other hand, shes creative. Every flow creates new land, the newest land on Earth. Legends say that Pele searched the entire chain of Hawaiian islands, looking for a place to call home. Beneath the other isles lay the sea, already occupied by her sister. But the island of Hawaii issues directly from a hot spot, glowing below the ocean floor. And so here she settled. Warren Costas arms and legs are etched with bold black tattoos, inspired by the Polynesian heritage shared by native Hawaiians. At one point he stops, bends down and picks up a gossamer thread of golden glass: Peles hair, formed when ejected globs of lava pull apart. Id love to take it home but one does not steal from Peles domain. As Costa guides me through the area, he shares a story about how, even today, Pele inspires deep respect among locals. Some years ago a prominent local elder was told to evacuate, as her house was in the path of an oncoming lava flow (sometimes lava moves very slowly, only a few inches an hour). Jeff Greenwald/Special to The Chronicle And so the woman summoned her whole extended family. They thought they were there to help their grandmother pack her belongings but she put them to work cleaning the house. Pele is coming to my home, the woman said, and this is what you do when an honored guest arrives. The Hawaiian islands are being created as the Pacific tectonic plate moves over a deep hot spot, where magma rises through the Earths crust and builds one island after another. The island of Hawaii is still active, and its mega-volcano, Mauna Loa, is the most massive mountain (measured from the sea floor) on Earth. Every stone and cinder, every lava-hollowed tree stump, is part of Peles body, explains Costa. Not only that, even the plants have Pele-inspired stories. Ohia lehua, for example (a member of the myrtle family), is one of the pioneer plants whose tiny seeds sprout in the forbidding black lava beds. Ohia, according to legend, was the handsome son of a chief. He was in the forest, innocently playing his nose flute, when Pele, disguised as a gorgeous woman, tried to seduce him. Sorry, Ohia declared. My heart belongs to my true love, Lehua. Pele was incredulous. Do you know who I am? Of course, Ohia bowed. There is no one, Pele, as beautiful as you. But I am faithful to my beloved Lehua. Pele turned the youth into a twisted, gnarled shrub. When Lehua entered the forest, she saw what had happened. She angrily lobbied the other gods, who finally asked Pele to pity the young lovers. Pele agreed and transformed Lehua into the ohia plants brilliant red blossom. When the two are separated, my guide warned, there will be tears so dont pick the Lehua off the Ohia unless you are trying to bring the rain. Jeff Greenwald/Special to The Chronicle I was taken aback when I first met Ehulani Stephany: With her glossy black hair and wide-rimmed sunglasses, Stephany might have been the fashion editor of a Hawaiian magazine. In fact, she is a kumu hula alii kahuna nui: a high priestess of hula kahiko, Hawaiis indigenous dance, song and ritual. Born on Oahu, she settled on the Big Island in her 20s and began her initiation into the practice about 10 years later. Our culture had been dying for many years, Stephany says. The Hawaiian language was not taught in our schools, and we didnt know about the rituals. All of that changed in the 1980s, when indigenous culture began its renaissance. So my timing was perfect, she says. Im very grateful to Pele for bringing me here. We drive to a picnic site near the lip of Kilaueas 2-mile-wide caldera. Stephany opens her straw satchel and pulls out four sacred ti leaves and several baggies of colorful powder. She weaves two of the large leaves together into a lei, which she drapes over her shoulders. Then she instructs me how to prepare my own personal offering to Pele. There can be nothing artificial, she explains, as this is a gift to the Earth itself. Stephany lays one of the flat leaves in front of me, shiny side down. We sprinkle pinches of each offering onto its surface: orange Hawaiian sea salt, for an ocean-like cleansing; yellow turmeric, for spiritual cleansing; and powdered awa (kava), a mild intoxicant deeply valued by the gods. Stephany asks me to envision my aumakua, an ancestor who protects me at all times. I choose my late brother Jordan, keeping his image in my mind as I fold the leaf over to create under Stephanys guidance a little square packet tied neatly with the leafs own stem. Stephany ducks away to prepare herself and returns, moments later, in full regalia. Its a profound transformation. Wearing a leafy headdress, a shell necklace and a flowing robe, she is every inch the priestess. Carrying an ohepu (bamboo tube) and ipuheke (a double-gourd instrument), she leads me to Kilaueas cliff. We are joined by Uilani Pihana, a student of Stephanys for more than 20 years. She will perform a sacred hula to accompany our ceremony. Stephany spreads a grass mat on the ground. She sings prayers to three of the four Hawaiian gods (all but the god of war), then a beautiful, hypnotic melody to Pele herself. Blowing the ohepu to the four directions, she chants prayers as Pihana glides through a strong-limbed dance that seems completely appropriate to a fire goddess. Then Stephany walks slowly and deliberately to the calderas edge, and throws her offering into the crater. I go next, stepping forward with my little leaf packet (and a slice of papaya sacrificed from my breakfast). Intoning a prayer of my own, I present these offerings to the goddess. Stephany sings a concluding song, and our ritual is complete. With this, I am ready: Its time to meet Pele face to face. Jeff Greenwald/Special to The Chronicle Outside the Foodland in Keaau, a Salvation Army soldier sits beside her collection bucket, playing Christmas songs on a ukulele. Cheryl Gansecki pulls up in her Xterra and greets me warmly. The Friends of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park connected us through their guide service, and I am excited to visit the lava flow with a real live volcanologist. We drive south on Highway 130. Gansecki takes a slight detour through Pahoa to show me where the 2014 lava flow swallowed the road. While it may have been possible to divert the flow, some locals objected: You dont mess with Peles power. From there we continue to Kalapana, where a 4-mile path bulldozed through a previous lava flow will take us to the ocean vents: the ever-changing openings where lava from Puu Oo a cone of Kilauea is flowing into the sea. Before getting her doctorate, Gansecki had been an intern at the Hawaii Volcano Observatory at Kilauea, where she fell in love with the volcano. Today, her work focuses on lava viscosity, the science of how it flows. We park by a sign and begin walking, the ocean to our left. The area reminds me of the weird, biomorphic sets in Alien. Lava covered the entire area in 1990. Its black and barren, save a few ohia sprigs. A dozen isolated houses, occupied by optimistic daredevils, dot the Dali-esque landscape. I know there are two kinds of lava, I say, surveying the wrinkled waves of dried magma. But I can never remember which is which. This is pahoehoe, the smooth kind, Gansecki says. The rough, sharp-as-glass lava is called aa easy to remember, cause thats what you yell when you try to walk on it. A mild rotten egg scent fills the air. Gansecki sniffs cautiously. Were in the plume. I recall what Mark Twain said, of his 1866 visit to Hawaii: The smell of sulfur is strong, he quipped, but not unpleasant to a sinner. We reach a guard rope (meant to keep visitors out of the danger zone) and sit on round black boulders overlooking the lava delta, the highly unstable area where new land is being built. And there is Pele, right below us: a neon red waterfall, cascading into the sea. The river of lava is about 2,000 degrees, and, as it hits the water, it roars and convulses. Glowing globs explode upward like sparks from Thors hammer, surrounded by clouds of incandescent steam. Down on the thin delta, orange streaks appear through cracks and fissures: lava flowing beneath. The darker it gets, the more we see. Its like watching the stars coming out. Were witnessing the mighty business of creation, a 4 billion-year-old process that we honor with silence, reflection and sheer awe. After dark, over mahi mahi at a popular Pahoa restaurant, I ask Gansecki to tell me one surprising thing shes learned about lava. Every time I encounter lava, she says reverently, Im amazed by how hot it is. The radiant heat can be so intense that even when youre collecting a tiny sample you have to shield your face. Whenever Im close to it, it boggles my mind. And the greatest mystery about lava? We really dont understand why Hawaii is here, Gansecki says. We have this hot spot but why? Hot spots are oddballs; theres no obvious reason why they exist. Ninety-six percent of the Earths volcanoes, she tells me, occur along the edges of tectonic plates. But Hawaii is in the middle of the Pacific Plate. This hot spot has a very deep source, and its been fixed for about 80 million years, Gansecki says. It could be a way of releasing heat from the inner core of the planet no one knows. We finish our meal with Molten Lava Cake, the favorite dessert of volcanologists. Gansecki pokes it with her spoon. Chocolate fudge is actually a good allegory for pahoehoe lava, she observes. But if you stir it up too much while youre making it, it turns into aa. Im surprised, I remark, thinking about Eskimos and snow, that the Hawaiians dont have more words for lava. Gansecki shrugs. They have twice as many as anyone else. Pele is unpredictable, and often dangerous. Days after our December visit, on New Years Eve, the shelf of dried lava upon which Gansecki and I had sat a 26-acre section fell into the sea. Park rangers had just chased away some visitors who had ducked under the guard rope for a closer look. Fifteen minutes later, and they would have perished. No matter your perspective, the forces that create and occupy this land scientific and spiritual are best taken seriously. Personally, Im glad Id paid my respects with Stephany. But this is the most exciting thing about the island of Hawaii: Anything can happen, at any time. Mauna Loa itself, which occupies 70 percent of the islands mass and has been quiet since 1984, is about 24 years overdue for an eruption. During my visit, the lava fountains within the Halemaumau crater abruptly rose, while Puu Oo continued to pump lava into the sea. And with its tireless hot spot still seething, and the Pacific Plate still in motion, volcanologists predict the birth of a ninth Hawaiian island, Loihi, within 100,000 years. About a million years later, the Big Island itself will go extinct. When that occurs, Pele may choose to relocate. But this chain of islands will always be her home and we mortals her reverent guests. Jeff Greenwald is an Oakland freelance writer and author of travel books including Shopping for Buddhas and Snake Lake. Email: travel@sfchronicle.com If you go There are two sides to the Big Island the dry Kona side and the wetter Hilo side. The most dramatic volcanic activity is on the Hilo side, a 90-minute drive from Kona. Where to stay Volcano Village Lodge: www.volcanovillagelodge.com. Individual cabins that sleep up to four with all amenities. Rates start about $280 per night and include warm-it-yourself breakfast. The Kilauea Lodge: www.kilauealodge.com. Built as a YMCA camp in 1938 and still offers community ambience and a great restaurant. From $200 per night. Kalani: www.kalani.com. Extraordinary retreat center, not far from the ocean lava vents, offers yoga, hot tubs and guest speakers. From $95 per night with shared bath, including meals. Seeing the Lava Hawaii Volcanoes National Park offers many self-guided walking and driving tours. The lookout at the Jagger Museum provides the best views of Kilauea. I took a hike in the Park with Native Guide Hawaii (www.nativeguidehawaii.com). The ocean vents can be accessed by hiking (two hours each way) from the National Park, or by hiking or biking (rentals are plentiful) from Kalapana. Book a guide through the Friends of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park (www.fhvnp.org), or join Lava Ocean Tours (www.lavaocean.com) for an up-close look. An Afghan refugee who risked his life as a translator for the U.S. troops fighting the Taliban stepped onto American soil Wednesday, hugging the former Army Ranger who helped him overcome years of bureaucratic inertia so he could come to the Bay Area. For the first time in years, Qismat Amin felt safe. Amin, 25, had waited more than three years for the special immigrant visa that he assumed would come his way after he took the job working with U.S. forces in his homeland. He spent much of that time in hiding, his life threatened by Islamic State fighters as well as the Taliban for having collaborated with the Americans even as he waited for the Americans to come to his rescue. I was so scared, Amin said minutes after stepping through the customs door at San Francisco International Airport. I feel relieved and relaxed being out of the oppression and the risks. He beamed as he called the United States the safest country on the planet. Amin was granted his visa just as President Trump signed an executive order Jan. 27 temporarily banning travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries. Although Afghanistan wasnt among them, Trumps move put a hold on all new refugees, until a federal judge in Seattle temporarily halted the orders enforcement nationwide. Those who held a special immigrant visa like Amin were exempt from Trumps ban. But those waiting for him in the United States, including former Army Capt. Matt Ball, were concerned that Amins right to enter the U.S. was far from guaranteed if he didnt act quickly once he obtained permission to come here. When the visa came through, which grants him permanent residency, Ball told Amin to get on a plane right away and come to the U.S. As an Army Ranger deployed with the 101st Airborne Division, Ball worked side by side with Amin during his year-long deployment in the strife-torn Tora Bora region of Afghanistan. Afghan interpreters were crucial to the U.S. mission, Ball said helping troops communicate with village leaders and defuse dangerous situations. Ball, who came home in 2011 and enrolled at Stanford Law School, said he felt a responsibility to make sure his friend did not pay for his loyalty to U.S. troops with his life. We spent every day together, Ball said. Theres not like a single moment when Qismat jumped out in front of a bullet for me, but I couldnt have done the job without him. As Amins visa application went into limbo, Ball and his law school classmates got busy, writing letters to members of Congress and publicizing the plight of Afghans who put their lives on the line to work with Americans. Amin is among the few translators who have obtained a special immigrant visa. Thousands of other interpreters are still in Afghanistan and Iraq, their status held up by bureaucracy and calls in the U.S. for greater scrutiny and vetting of refugees. The number of special immigrant visas for refugees like Amin has been capped by Congress, and only about 3,100 remain. There are 13,000 applicants from Iraq and Afghanistan hoping to get one. Those who took the risk to work with the U.S. military believed they would be protected, said Samson Schatz, a law school classmate of Balls who helped push for Amins visa. If youre a lawyer counseling a client whether to take that risk, the answer is no, Schatz said. The U.S. does not uphold its promise. Amin took the job with the Rangers because he believed in the fight, Ball said. He wasnt fighting alongside us because he wanted a ticket here, Ball said. I dont think theres better vetting than being alongside American soldiers for five years. Ball and his wife have converted an office to accommodate Amin until he can get settled in his new country, something that could take a while. Amin had never been on an airplane before he left to live in America, had never crossed a time zone. He walked off the plane beaming as about 20 well-wishers greeted him with signs made by students from Ohlone Elementary School in Palo Alto. Thank you for helping the US, said one. Welcome home, read another. Amin said it was hard to leave his family, knowing he might never see them again. His uncle, he said, was kidnapped by Islamic State fighters two days before Amin got on the plane Tuesday. The uncle had warned him to stay away from his hometown because it was too dangerous. As Amin stared at the welcome posters, he smiled. He was not afraid anymore. Im so excited, Amin said. Im missing words. He thought hed be able to find those words after some much-needed sleep, but first, he wanted to eat. And then, he said, hed like to see the ocean. Im going to go outside and see America, Amin said. The most important thing is, Im going to have a safe life. Im going to be able to live like other people live. Jill Tucker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jtucker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jilltucker This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Two years after the Board of Supervisors cleared a memorial to honor the comfort women sex slaves of World War II, the San Francisco Arts Commission has signed off on its plaque. The term refers to an estimated 200,000 women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese army. The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve the memorial in 2015, a decision that drew hours of debate and emotional public comment. But there has been push back, with some people from Japan telling the city it fuels anti-Japanese sentiment. Opponents have also said it would expose an open wound for Japanese Americans. Japanese prime ministers have acknowledged and apologized for the wartime sexual enslavement. In 2015, Japan and South Korea agreed that Japan would set up an $8.3 million fund to support the surviving comfort women. The majority of the women were from Korea and China. Last month, the San Francisco Arts Commission approved the statues conceptual design. The $205,000 statue will go in St. Marys Square on the edge of the Financial District. The 10-foot metal statue is entitled Womens Column of Strength and features three women holding hands on a pillar, with another gazing up at the three. Another statue dedicated to the comfort women is located in Glendale in Los Angeles County. I just want to emphasize that this was a decision made by the Board of Supervisors, said commission spokeswoman Kate Patterson-Murphy. We are merely executing their directive. The project will come before the board at a later date, when the commission gives a final approval to the statue, a gift to the city from the Comfort Women Justice Coalition. This memorial is dedicated to the memory of these women and to eradicating sexual violence and sex trafficking throughout the world, the plaques inscription reads. Lizzie Johnson is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: ljohnson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @LizzieJohnsonnn This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Aiming to get drivers to hit the brakes, San Francisco Assemblyman David Chiu introduced legislation Wednesday that would allow San Francisco and San Jose to install cameras that detect when someone is speeding and ensure that a ticket is issued. Chiu made the announcement at a news conference in the lobby of San Francisco General Hospital, where five victims of car collisions are treated daily. Speeding is the leading cause of pedestrian fatalities in the two cities, supporters said, and slowing traffic saves lives. While cameras at controlled intersections that detect red-light runners are legal in California, cameras that nab speeders are not. If San Francisco had automated speed enforcement, the driver might not have been going so fast and my mother might not have been so seriously injured, said Jenny Yu, whose mother, Judy Szeto Yuen Man Yu, was struck by a car in the Richmond District. She suffered broken bones as well as brain damage that left her with multiple personalities and in need of constant care. This crash took away moms ability to live a normal life. said Jenny Yu, who attended Chius news conference. Also attending were other families of people killed or severely injured when they were hit by cars, Mayors Ed Lee of San Francisco and Sam Liccardo of San Jose, and transportation and health officials along with San Francisco Police Chief William Scott. The legislation calls for a five-year trial. It would authorize the use of automated devices that measure speeds and trigger cameras that capture images of speeding cars and their license plates. Owners of cars found exceeding the speed limit by at least 10 miles per hour would then be mailed citations of no more than $100, including court fees. Cameras would be placed on posts along some of the cities deadliest streets, focusing on areas where speeding is common. In San Francisco, those streets include stretches of Market Street and Geary Boulevard, said Paul Rose, a spokesman for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. Traffic signs would be put in place warning drivers that speed cameras lurk ahead, and for the first 30 days after cameras are installed, drivers would be mailed warning tickets that do not include a fine. Scott said the speed cameras are not an attempt to raise money, a complaint critics are sure to voice. Lets be clear: Our goal is to save lives not write tickets, the police chief said. But what will drivers think? Those interviewed at a South of Market gas station had a variety of thoughts. Eeeeeew. I dont think thats good, said Jermaine Scott, 38, a San Francisco delivery driver who lives in Richmond. Thats real sneaky. But it could save lots of lives around here. This place has become a danger zone for pedestrians. Proponents say automated speed enforcement has slowed drivers and deaths from traffic collisions by impressive amounts: a 53 percent reduction in deaths in Portland, Ore., a 31 percent decline in speeding in Chicago, and a 13.4 percent decrease in injury accidents near cameras in New York. Some motorists, however, worried that cameras wont give drivers the benefit of the doubt and wont understand that they might have accelerated to avoid an erratic driver or a double-parked truck, or in advance of a hill. Speed enforcement is a human job, Taj Turner, 36, a San Francisco salesman who lives in Oakland, said. I think its a horrible idea, especially in a city where a lot of people dont drive. Theyd be hurting Uber and Lyft and taxis, people who are just trying to make a living. The legislation is sure to face opposition in Sacramento. Past efforts have stalled in the Legislature after criticism from the American Automobile Association and the trucking industry. Chiu said he hopes to persuade those groups to at least stay neutral. Michael Cabanatuan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate A 19-year-old college student from Oregon was suing Barack Obama in hopes of saving the world. Now that Obama is out of office, shes turning her lawyers loose on Donald Trump. Trump, said Tia Hatton, is scary. Hes terrifying. On Thursday, the young people asked their lawyers to go to court and substitute Trump for Obama as the defendant in their 2-year-old lawsuit, which could come to trial in federal court in Oregon this year. In November, a federal judge denied a U.S. Justice Department motion to have the case dismissed. Hatton came to San Francisco to explain the suit as the guest of the prestigious Commonwealth Club. The government just isnt doing its job, Hatton said in an interview. The government knows about climate change. They knew about the science. Theyre infringing on everyones rights. On the campaign trail, Trump called climate change a hoax. The presidents willful dismissal of scientific consensus is worth battling in court, Hatton said. She and the other plaintiffs, ages 9 to 20, say fouling up Earth violates nothing less than their constitutional rights. The future is in such jeopardy, Hatton said, that she isnt sure she wants to have a family. Im fearful of bringing children into the world, she said. Im not sure. Im scared. Many courtroom showdowns have been called the Trial of the Century, but Hatton and her lawyers, who include Philip Gregory of the firm Cotchett, Pitre and McCarthy in Burlingame, say that with the fate of the planet hanging in the balance, this one may live up to the hype. Gregory said he is basing his case on the Boy Scout principle. When youre a Boy Scout, he said, youre supposed to leave your campsite cleaner than you found it. Hatton and her fellow plaintiffs hope the court forces the government to impose limits on fossil fuels and to develop alternative energy sources, in much the same way as courts ordered the government to integrate schools more than half a century ago. They want the court to order reductions on greenhouse gas emissions, halt new oil drilling and end the reliance on nonrenewable energy sources. The case relies on the legal notions of public trust doctrine and substantive due process. The first means that the government must preserve public resources. The second means that the government cant deprive people of life, liberty or property without due process. Were a citizen to drown when rising waters flooded his home, he would be deprived of all three at once, the lawyers say. Hatton acknowledged that the world may not be ready to drop fossil fuels cold turkey just yet. On Wednesday, she acknowledged, she flew from Oregon to San Francisco International Airport and rode in a car from the airport to San Francisco. Both vehicles burned fossil fuels. We cant lead zero-emission lives yet, she said. Were all still part of the system. Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SteveRubeSF To outsiders, the craft brewing industry can seem at odds with itself. As a whole, it's contradictory; some companies aim to expand quickly, while others refuse to; and some breweries prefer unfettered, unadorned styles, just as others will brett or barrel-age just about anything. In this increasingly norm-free space, there's only one thing all these local breweries have in common: they're all beginning to face a stiffening competition with each other. Things are getting strange and unwieldy out here, and as the San Francisco Brewers Guild's Joanne Marino puts it, "Everyone's got their own personality" not that that's a bad thing. In its seven years, the Guild has witnessed breweries' ontological shifts towards progressing the Bay Area craft, and it's now making a point to leverage Northern California's crafty and inventive modus operandi to build the area's reputation. San Francisco's brewing creativity, as Beer Week should prove, is akin to Silicon Valley's scrappy ingenuity, but without any of the latter's notorious navel-gazing. But as with any growing industry, there are complications; for independent companies like these facing growing rivals and a local economy where it's increasingly difficult to both be successful and experimental (let alone to break even doing it), a collective self-congratulations feels deserved. This year, that comes in the form of the annual massive joint project between all the Guild's members, a collaboration beer called "New Frontier." Right now, there are 32 breweries in the San Francisco Brewers Guild. That's a lot of voices at any given Guild meeting, and they sometimes do drown out that of Marino, its executive director and chief wrangler. At the brainstorming meeting in October 2016, where Guild members gathered to decide on which ingredients to use for the San Francisco Beer Week collaboration brew, Marino attempted to guide the debate as members discussed the best and most market-friendly styles and adjuncts. Colorful options included Sriracha yeast, local honey, and peppercorn. Brewers at Fort Point, where New Frontier was due to be produced and packaged, were apprehensive of overwhelming flavors and risky ingredients. "My biggest reservation is getting too weird with it," brewery co-founder Justin Catalana told the 20 or so brewery representatives present. But what won the popular vote was pretty weird anyway: a German and American-hopped kolsch-style ale brewed with Japanese satsuma fruit and Douglas evergreen fir tips, the latter adjuncts provided in part by Whole Foods and Oakland's Juniper Ridge. Dubbed New Frontier as a lead-up to the Guild's 10th annual Beer Week in 2018, the beer invokes the theme of "innovation," which is fitting for the first time, the beer is being canned with custom wrapping and sold in stores. "Kolsch was a good style for the area, as a lot of good ones are made here Magnolia, Barebottle, Calicraft, Harmonic, Standard Deviant and it kinda fits in with the beer attitudes of people in the Bay Area," says Fort Point's head brewer Mike Schnebeck, who hosted dozens of Guild brewers on New Frontier's brew day one rainy morning in January. "It has a sense of place to it." Working together, as Bay Area brewers have found, leads to innovation in a region known for pushing the envelope, but that's not without caveats. The brewing industry is a rare place where workers can "share their trade secrets," notes The Bruery in Anaheim's Jeremy Grinkey, who was previously employed with Bay Area wineries and will be headed back up north for Beer Week. The benefit of breweries working together, he says, is that they progress together. "Beer collaboration is huge right now," he says. "Every time Cellarmaker makes a beer with someone, everybody knows about it. The collaboration effort that goes along with breweries, it's really about getting to know each other, and learning their process, sharing with them yours." The months-long process of drafting the recipe and ingredients for New Frontier was a long conversation 50 emails and messages between Guild members but next week the beer's release will serve as a representation of the Guild's symbiosis and the creative approaches to craft brewing its members are known to embrace. "For a long time, San Diego was where the innovation was," City Beer Store's Craig Wathen recently told the San Francisco Chronicle. "Now, especially the last two years, it's here." But innovation breeds competitiveness, and particularly so in the Bay Area. As the Chronicle writes, 22 of the city's 35 breweries only opened in the last five years, and there's more than 200 in Northern California alone. When the Guild was first formed in 2010, only seven breweries were involved; today its members number more than 30. A representation of growth is perhaps most visible when looking at how many official Beer Week events have been scheduled each year. At the first festival in 2009, organizers aimed to plan around 150 events. This year's go-round will include nearly 900 beer-themed parties and tappings across the Bay Area. For now though, despite the numbers, brewers say they're only feeling a friendly rivalry. Marino notes that "everyone wants to impress their peers," and for Schnebeck and others in the field, it's "a good motivator" for crafters to try new styles and techniques. "There's a lot of demand, thankfully, for beers that are not necessarily super traditional, and people here are pretty adventurous when it comes to beer drinking," Schnebeck adds. "Brewers can feel comfortable doing weird stuff because there's an audience for it. People will drink it." Below: A brewer at Fort Point steeps fir tips into what will become the New Frontier collaboration beer. New Frontier is proof of that, with attendees agreeing at the October 2016 ingredient meeting that to make what's nearly a session beer (meaning a six pack of it is a consumer-friendly buy) that's unique enough to catch the interest of a curious beer fan. Whole Foods' Taylor Cathala, who will help oversee selling the beer after it debuts at the Beer Week Opening Gala on February 10, says that he believes beer shoppers will want to try "adventurous" recipes with "eccentric and unique flavor profiles" like New Frontier. But he also acknowledges that creativity can be both a pro and a con for breweries. "No doubt brewers are having to seriously think outside the box to keep up," he says. But though the general edge of competition and one-upsmanship may be felt more sharply in the Bay Area than perhaps anywhere else, it's something that brewers themselves don't have to worry too much about. "It's getting more competitive, but I think there's a separation between the production side of things the brewers and the business side of it," he adds. "[We] are all in it for the beer and we can have a good time and learn stuff and make better beer. But people that own those breweries, I'm sure they're a little concerned." As Bay Area craft beer drinkers continue to proliferate, develop their palates, and seek higher quality beer, it means there's less room for mediocrity. As Marino says, "it has become more challenging." Meanwhile, those of us drinkers outside the brewhouse get to benefit from the Bay Area beer industry's competitiveness and enjoy the rewards of its innovation, because as local breweries evolve, their product's collective quality does, too that is, as long as everyone's focused on their priorities. "Quality beer is the most important thing," Schnebeck says. "That's what's going to keep people coming back. Balancing the risk, experimentation and consistency is important." And as for how healthy rivalries and new techniques make San Francisco's beer scene look to the rest of the brewing world? "It stands up. We should definitely be proud of what's coming out." San Francisco Beer Week begins February 10. The New Frontier collaboration beer will be available in Whole Foods stores and on draft at various bars and restaurants after the first day's Opening Gala. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate A Tesla employee has gone public with concerns about safety conditions at the electric-car makers Fremont factory, and called for the companys workers to unionize in an online post Thursday, a move that Tesla said is an effort by unions to organize the plant. Jose Moran, a production worker at the plant, claimed in a post on the Medium website that long hours and a constant push to work faster to meet production goals have resulted in preventable injuries, and that the company has underestimated the value of listening to employees. Morans protest points to the tensions Tesla faces as it seeks to ramp up production of electric vehicles at an unprecedented rate. The Palo Alto company sometimes acts like a high-tech startup, where secrecy reigns amid worries rivals will copy its best ideas, but it is also a high-volume car manufacturer, where rank-and-file workers may be more concerned with their wages and working conditions than Teslas technological advancement. Morans post offered no examples of specific injuries, but suggested that complaints about difficult and dangerous working conditions are widespread among Teslas factory workers. Gregor Lesnik, a contract worker at the plant, settled a lawsuit over workers compensation and wages in 2016 for $550,000 after he was injured in a three-story fall from the roof of a building at the complex. Worst of all, I hear coworkers quietly say that they are hurting but they are too afraid to report it for fear of being labeled as a complainer or bad worker by management, Moran wrote. He also complained that Tesla production workers make less than the average wages in the rest of the auto industry. A Tesla spokesman characterized Morans post as part of an effort to unionize the plant. As Californias largest manufacturing employer and a company that has created thousands of quality jobs here in the Bay Area, this is not the first time we have been the target of a professional union organizing effort such as this, the company said. The safety and job satisfaction of our employees here at Tesla has always been extremely important to us. We have a long history of engaging directly with our employees on the issues that matter to them, and we will continue to do so because its the right thing to do. A line in Morans Medium post about building a fair future for all who work at Tesla closely mirrors the name of a pro-unionization Facebook page, A Fair Future at Tesla. Moran confirmed that he and other Tesla workers were speaking with the United Auto Workers, and said that forming a union was the best route toward improving conditions at the factory. I dont think Teslas going to do it for us, he said in an interview. I dont think they have our interests in mind. Tesla has been cited for more than 30 health and safety violations in California during the last five years, according to state Division of Occupational Safety and Health data. That includes 10 serious infractions a category for workplace hazards that could cause an accident that would most likely result in death or serious harm. A Cal/OSHA citation issued in September 2015 found that Tesla failed to implement an effective injury prevention program at its Fremont auto plant, which resulted in an employee being injured by a forklift. A May 2015 citation noted eight health and safety violations, one of which resulted in an electrical explosion that seriously injured an employee. The most severe infraction was a 2013 accident at the plant which left three employees severely burned after they were sprayed by molten aluminum. A state investigation found that Tesla failed to maintain the machinery that caused the accident, and the company was fined $71,000. Shortly after the incident, a Tesla spokeswoman said that the accident rate at our Fremont factory is nearly twice as good as the automotive industry average. Moran also cited a confidentiality pledge that Tesla workers were asked to sign in November that threatens consequences if employees speak out about wages and working conditions. Bergen Kenny, a consultant to the UAW who works for Storefront Political Media, provided The Chronicle with a copy of the pledge. Unless otherwise allowed by law or you have received written approval you must not, for example, discuss confidential information with anyone outside of Tesla, the document says. Last month, five members of the Assembly wrote a letter to Tesla CEO Elon Musk expressing concerns that the breadth of the agreement impermissibly violates protected employee activity under state and federal law, including the right to communicate to each other and the public about wages, working conditions and other issues. The members asked Tesla to revise the policy. In a letter, Tesla General Counsel Todd Maron responded, The rights of employees under the National Labor Relations Act and the California Labor Code clearly fit the otherwise allowed by law category. Maron also said the agreement is designed to protect Teslas trade secrets and is not intended to discourage communications about wages or working conditions between workers or with third parties. After reviewing Teslas confidentiality pledge, several employment-law attorneys echoed the members concerns. Eleanor Morton, an attorney at the firm Leonard Carder in San Francisco, said that the National Labor Relations Board, the agency that enforces federal labor laws, would find the pledge overbroad and unlawful on its face. If a worker wants to contact some kind of private worker-safety watchdog group, this policy, arguably, could be read to prohibit that. And thats against the law, said Morton, who represents employees and unions. The pledge would have been less problematic, attorneys said, if Tesla had also told its workers what sorts of communications they are allowed to engage in. The focus on prohibited topics could illegally discourage employees from communicating with each other and with third parties. This is broadly written, and it could be viewed as trying to preclude employees from talking about being dissatisfied with the terms and conditions of their employment said Maggie Grover, an attorney at the firm Wendel Rosen Black & Dean who advises employers. Musk weighed in Thursday afternoon, calling Morans credibility into question in remarks he sent via Twitter to technology blog Gizmodo. Our understanding is that this guy was paid by the UAW to join Tesla and agitate for a union, Musk wrote. He doesnt really work for us, he works for the UAW. Moran, who says hes worked at Tesla for more than four years, rebuffed the notion that he was being paid by the UAW to form a union. Musks comment, he said, goes to show what kind of respect they have to their loyal workers, who go above and beyond for this company. Dominic Fracassa and Joaquin Palomino are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com, jpalomino@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @DominicFracassa, @joaquinpalomino A 42-year-old man was injured in a shooting Thursday morning near San Franciscos Dolores Park, police said. Officers responded to a shooting about 1:50 a.m. on Church Street between 18th and 19th streets, according to the San Francisco Police Department. The victim, whose name was not released, was talking to someone when he was approached by two unknown male suspects who asked him a question, police said. When the man didnt respond, one of questioners pulled a gun and shot him, police said. The victim was transported to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. The gunman and his accomplice ran away on Church Street. No arrests were made. Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani The boyfriend who police suspect killed his 61-year-old girlfriend he lived with in Novato turned up dead more than 100 miles away in El Dorado County, police said Wednesday. The victim was identified as Teresa Jaye Distel by the Novato Police Department. A Vallejo man convicted of raping a 13-year-old girl is entitled to another trial because of new evidence that the girl may have lied at her mothers direction, a state appeals court has ruled. Johnny Tatum faced a sentence of more than 20 years in prison but had not yet been sentenced when his trial lawyer discovered the new evidence and challenged the conviction, said attorney Patrick McKenna, who represents Tatum on appeal. Tatum, who had been the mothers boyfriend, was convicted in 2013 of forcible rape, with the use of a gun. The girl, who had been living with Tatum and her mother, testified that Tatum had driven her to a dead-end street near the Vallejo waterfront and raped her at gunpoint. Tatum has been in jail since 2012, unable to make bail, while awaiting a final ruling, McKenna said. The new evidence, the court said, consisted of text messages between the girls mother, who by then had broken up with Tatum, and Tatums wife a month after his trial. In one message, quoted by the appeals court, Tatums wife asked the girls mother why she had told her daughter to lie. The mother replied, So he didnt rape her she lied SO WHAT im sure he did SOMETHING. The mother added that she was free and that Tatum would think about me EVERYDAY for the rest of his life. Solano County Superior Court Judge Dwight Ely overturned Tatums conviction in January 2014 and ruled that he was entitled to a retrial, finding that the text messages showed the mother had told the girl to lie. Prosecutors appealed, arguing that the evidence was unreliable, but the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco ruled against them Wednesday. The prosecutions case was fragile, Justice Timothy Reardon said in the 3-0 ruling. It was based almost exclusively on (the girls) testimony, which had hardly any corroboration. And contrary to prosecutors arguments, Reardon said, the texts had clearly come from the girls mother and raised serious questions about Tatums conviction. McKenna, Tatums lawyer, said, Based on this evidence, I have little doubt as to his innocence, and I hope the charges will be dismissed. A representative of the district attorneys office was not immediately available for comment. Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate This city may boast a high cost of living, but if you can manage the hefty rents, you might just find a man worthy of marriage. According to a new study by real estate site Trulia, San Francisco is the number one city for marriageable men. The study analyzed U.S. census data by taking into account the ratio of single men to single women, the age range of singles, how many hours they typically work in a week, their level of education and whether they were previously married. The study only looked at individuals who self-identified as heterosexual because "government data isn't quite as good when it comes to same-sex statistics," according to Trulia. Interestingly, if you're a man seeking a woman, you'll have to head east for favorable odds of meeting "the one." Silver Spring, Maryland and Atlanta, Georgia took the top spots for single females "suitable" for marriage. San Francisco received highest honors thanks to its ratio of single male to single females (.972), which is the second-highest in the nation. In total, 52-percent of men in this city are single and, presumably, ready to mingle. Of this pool, 19.8-percent are in their 30s and 55.7-percent work at least 40 hours a week. What's the point of having a husband if you have to see them all the time? Trulia knows that living in the Bay Area can take a toll on the wallet, especially when single (all those pricey cocktails!). That's why they advise thriftier singles to head south, to Bakersfield specifically. In this charming town far from the hoopla of the Bay, single men outnumber single women by a 1.021 ratio. With Valentine's Day just five days away, never fear; if this study proves true, there are plenty of single men floating around the city your mother will certainly approve of. Click through the above gallery for the top 10 cities for marriage-worthy men and women in the U.S. Read Michelle Robertsons latest stories and send her news tips at mrobertson@sfchronicle.com. DES MOINES, Iowa Former chicken farmers in five states have filed a federal lawsuit accusing a handful of giant poultry processing companies that dominate the industry of treating farmers who raise the chickens like indentured servants and colluding to fix prices paid to them. The farmers located in Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Texas allege that the contract grower system created by Tyson Foods, Pilgrims Pride, Perdue Farms, Koch Foods, and Sanderson Farms pushed them deep into debt to build and maintain chicken barns to meet company demands. They say the companies colluded to fix farmer compensation at low levels to boost corporate profits, making it difficult for the farmers to survive financially. They are seeking class-action status for the suit filed in federal court in Muskogee, Okla. The scheme keeps farmers in a state of indebted servitude living like modern-day sharecroppers on the ragged edge of bankruptcy, the lawsuit filed on Jan. 27 says, quoting from the 2014 Christopher Leonard book The Meat Racket: The Secret Takeover of Americas Food Business. Under the contract system, farmers provide the barns and labor to raise the chickens and the company provides chicks, feed and expertise to raise birds to slaughter weight. The companies named havent yet responded to the lawsuit in court, but one denied the allegations. We want our contract farmers to succeed and dont consult competitors about how our farmers are paid. These are false claims, said Gary Michelson, a spokesman for Tyson. The five farmers who filed the lawsuit have quit raising chickens, and some say they are tens of thousands of dollars in debt. David Pitt is an Associated Press writer. A federal appeals court said a ruling will come Thursday on a judges order that blocked President Trumps ban on travel to the United States from seven predominantly Muslim nations. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco didnt say when Thursdays decision would be released. 1 Kennedy office run: Chris Kennedy, son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, said Wednesday that he will run for Illinois governor in 2018, bringing the instant name recognition of his familys political legacy to whats expected to be a sharply contested race to unseat Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner. Kennedy, 53, is the eighth of 11 children of Ethel Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, a former U.S. attorney general who represented New York in the Senate and was assassinated in 1968 while seeking the Democratic nomination for president. Chris Kennedy founded Top Box Foods, a nonprofit organization that provides affordable, healthy food to Chicago neighborhoods. 2 Transgender scout: A New Jersey boy has become the first openly transgender member of the Boy Scouts one week after the Boy Scouts of America changed its policy to allow transgender children to join the organization. I am accepted, Joe Maldonado said Tuesday night following the organizations decision to allow transgender Scouts. Maldonado, 9, was banned from a Cub Scout group in Secaucus. The Boy Scouts changed its policy of referring to the gender on birth certificates to determine eligibility last week after Maldonados story gained national attention. Previously, the Boy Scouts overturned bans against gay Scouts and Scouting leaders. WASHINGTON California Sen. Kamala Harris will introduce her first bill in the Senate on Thursday to guarantee legal counsel for refugees and other travelers blocked at U.S. ports of entry, a bill intended to address the chaos that engulfed people trying to enter the country in the face of President Trumps travel ban. Trumps Jan. 27 executive order banned U.S. entry for 90 days for anyone from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria or Yemen. It also placed a 120-day ban on all U.S. admission of refugees who are fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries and indefinitely suspended admission of refugees from Syria. SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images WASHINGTON Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama was confirmed on Wednesday as President Trumps attorney general, capping a bitter and racially charged nomination battle that crested with the procedural silencing of a leading Democrat, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who had criticized the Alabama senator from the Senate floor. Sessions survived a near-party-line vote, 52-47, the latest sign of the extreme partisanship at play as Trump strains to install his cabinet. No Republicans broke ranks in their support of a colleague who will become the nations top law enforcement official after two decades in the Senate. Sessions won the support of just one Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia. WASHINGTON President Trump lashed out at Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on Thursday, saying that the senators negative assessment of a deadly raid in Yemen last month emboldens the enemy! He also criticized Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn, who publicly shared that Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch had told him he found Trumps attacks on the federal judiciary disheartening and demoralizing. McCain initially referred to the raid as a failure but later dialed back his criticism, saying in a statement Tuesday that some objectives were fulfilled in the mission but that he would not describe any operation that results in the loss of American life as a success. The Jan. 28 raid on al Qaeda billed as an intelligence-gathering operation turned into an hour-long gunfight as Navy SEALs and troops from the United Arab Emirates clashed with well-entrenched al Qaeda fighters. One of the SEALs, Chief Petty Officer William Ryan Owens, was killed. Five other service members were wounded by hostile fire and a hard landing after a Marine transport aircraft crashed near the raid site. Sen. McCain should not be talking about the success or failure of a mission to the media, Trump said in a series of tweets Thursday morning. Only emboldens the enemy! Hes been losing so long he doesnt know how to win anymore. Our hero Ryan died on a winning mission ... not a failure, Trump tweeted. The presidents attack on McCain, a fellow Republican and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, came a day after White House press secretary Sean Spicer repeatedly said during a news briefing that the raid was a huge success and that questioning it does a disservice to Owens. Last week, Spicer stopped short of calling the raid an unqualified success, telling reporters: I think its hard to ever say something was successful when you lose a life. On Wednesday, Blumenthal relayed to reporters comments he said were made by Gorsuch during a private meeting. The account was confirmed by Ron Bonjean, a member of the group guiding the judge through his confirmation process on behalf of Trumps administration. Trump did not elaborate as to how he thought Gorsuchs comments had been misrepresented. The White House did not immediately respond to a request to explain the presidents assertion on Twitter. But in a tweet, Trump wrote: Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie), now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him? John Wagner is a Washington Post writer. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate A federal appeals court refused Thursday to reinstate President Trumps order banning travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries and blocking U.S. admission of all refugees, and sent a message to the White House that it must follow the law even on national security issues. The unanimous ruling, by a panel of two Democratic appointees and one Republican, also suggested that the administrations version of its action a nondiscriminatory step essential to the battle against foreign terrorism will be greeted with typical judicial skepticism as the case proceeds. In the meantime, unless the Supreme Court intervenes, travelers will be as free to come and go as they were before Trump issued his order, until its legal status is resolved. That may not be until sometime next year. Trumps Jan. 27 executive order was blocked last Friday by a federal judge in a lawsuit by the states of Washington and Minnesota, the first court order halting enforcement nationwide. Government lawyers promptly appealed, arguing that the order was a national security decision that courts lacked both the knowledge and the authority to review. The three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco the first appeals court to take up the issue emphatically disagreed. There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy, the court said. Within our system, it is the role of the judiciary to interpret the law. The court also said the states were likely to show that Trumps order, issued without warning, violated the constitutional rights of their residents to be notified and heard before their ability to travel freely was restricted, and also abridged the rights of refugees seeking to enter the United States. Additionally, the court said, the states additionally raised serious allegations that the executive order discriminated against Muslims. While all Americans have a powerful interest in national security and in the presidents ability to carry out his policies, the court said, the public also has an interest in free flow of travel, in avoiding separation of families, and in freedom from discrimination. Less than a half hour after the ruling, Trump responded with a tweet: SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE! Later, speaking to reporters at the White House, he said, Its a decision that well win, in my opinion, very easily. The executive order banned U.S. entry for 90 days for anyone from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria or Yemen. It also placed a 120-day ban on all U.S. admission of refugees who are fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries and indefinitely suspended admission of refugees from Syria. The Trump administration is expected to file an immediate appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court. But prospects of persuading five justices to revive the presidents order seem remote because the court, shorthanded since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia last February, is divided 4-4 along ideological lines. And some conservative jurists have been leery of broad claims of presidential power. The case could return to the high court at a later stage, after further review by the appeals court of the legality of the order. By then, the court could have a ninth justice, Neil Gorsuch, a federal appeals court judge who was nominated by Trump on Jan. 30 and awaits Senate confirmation. At that point, the high court may have to decide how to balance the general broad immigration powers of presidents against the adverse impacts of the executive order on U.S. citizens and companies, said Stephen Yale-Loehr, a Cornell University law professor who has written widely on immigration law. The appeals court panel consisted of Judges William Canby, appointed by President Jimmy Carter; Richard Clifton, appointed by President George W. Bush; and Michelle Friedland, appointed by President Barack Obama. Bob Ferguson, Washingtons attorney general, called the ruling a complete victory. We are a nation of laws that apply to everyone, and that includes the president, he said. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who joined counterparts in 17 other states in a filing supporting the lawsuit, said the court had upheld their contention that Trumps administration violated the Constitution when it blocked tens of thousands of law-abiding people who have already been vetted and received permission to enter from traveling to the United States. The executive order left U.S.-bound travelers stranded at airports abroad, forced others onto flights back to their homeland, and disrupted plans of migrants and refugees who had spent years, in some cases, gaining U.S. approval to enter the country. Trump said at first that only 109 would-be entrants had been detained and held for questioning. But a Justice Department lawyer later estimated that 100,000 previously valid visas had been revoked, while a State Department official put the number at 60,000. The ban, by its wording, also appeared to apply to legal U.S. residents with green cards that allow them to work, but the administration later said green card holders were not covered by the executive order. In Thursdays ruling, however, the court said it couldnt rely on the administrations claim that the order would no longer apply to noncitizen legal residents from the seven targeted nations a critical point, since those residents have well-established rights to leave and re-enter the U.S. In light of the governments shifting interpretations of the executive order, we cannot say that the current interpretation by White House counsel, even if authoritative and binding, will persist past the immediate stage of these proceedings, the panel said. And even if legal residents were no longer covered by the travel restrictions, the court said, the states were home to others affected by the order visa holders who have traveled abroad or wish to do so, family members of citizens and legal residents, and refugees who have won approval to enter the country. Government lawyers also argued that the states were not directly affected by the travel ban and thus had no legal right to challenge it. But the court said the states had offered evidence that their universities would be harmed because students and teachers from the seven nations could not travel abroad, for research or personal reasons, and that some had been stranded outside the United States. With the ban in effect, the universities likewise could not consider people from those nations as potential students or teachers, the court said, adding the states also are entitled to assert the rights of the students, scholars and faculty affected by the executive order. Government lawyers also noted that the seven nations targeted by the executive order had been singled out by Congress and Obama last year in a law requiring their residents to obtain visas before entering the United States. But the court said the government had failed to explain how visa requirements, which include screening of applicants, showed an urgent need to reinstate a ban on travel from those nations. The judges also said there was no evidence that anyone from the seven countries has perpetrated a terrorist attack in the United States. In claiming religious discrimination, the states and their allies cited a provision of the executive order that said the U.S. would give priority to admission of refugees who were religious minorities in their homelands once the 120-day refugee ban expired. That provision was worded neutrally, but Trump told a Christian Broadcasting Network interviewer that his intent was to protect Christians in majority-Muslim countries. The court stopped short of saying Trumps order was discriminatory, commenting instead that the states had raised serious allegations and ... significant constitutional questions that could be considered at a later stage of the case. But the judges said the states had presented evidence of numerous statements by the president about his intent to implement a Muslim ban. Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko Online: To read the ruling, go to http://bit.ly/2kNrHMz. This alternative fact doesn't fly. Comcast can no longer claim it "delivers the fastest Internet in America" and the "fastest in-home Wi-Fi," deemed the National Advertising Review Board on Wednesday. NARB, the industry's self-regulating body, found that Comcast's claims that it "offers the fastest internet, without clearly communicating what 'fastest' means, can be subject to a number of reasonable interpretations by consumers." The Rev. Jesse Jackson, speaking in San Francisco on Wednesday, blasted Republican leaders for silencing Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren on the Senate floor when she tried to use the words of Martin Luther King Jr.s wife to oppose President Trumps pick for U.S. Attorney General. Jackson appearing at a Black History Month forum at the University of San Francisco with the Rev. Kings former lawyer and adviser, Clarence B. Jones Sr. accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., of exercising a crude act of raw power to hush Warren Tuesday night. Coretta Scott King speaks to us from the grave, and just as Mitch McConnell tried to stop hearing her, Jeff Sessions tried to stop hearing the voice of her husband, calling the 1965 Voting Rights Act an intrusion, Jackson said. Mitch McConnell and Jeff Sessions are in lockstep. Dr. King and Mrs. King are in lockstep, too, and theyre on the right side of history, he continued. Warren was reading from a letter written in 1986 by the late Coretta Scott King, who was opposing Sen. Jeff Sessions nomination to a federal judgeship. After Warren finished the letter and continued her speech against Sessions confirmation, McConnell interrupted her to claim that she had violated Senate rules by repeating Kings criticism of Sessions. McConnell said Warren had impugned the motives and conduct of Sessions by quoting Kings letter, and the Republican-controlled chamber then voted to affirm that she had violated Senate rules, forbidding her from speaking again on the Sessions nomination. Sessions was confirmed as attorney general by a Senate vote late Wednesday. Jackson, whose establishment-challenging bids for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 were viewed by some as something of a spiritual predecessor to the Bernie Sanders campaign, also championed the importance of nonviolent protest Wednesday. Some young people, theyre questioning the current efficacy of nonviolence, [theyre saying] it worked then but it doesnt work now, theres a new kind of circumstances, Jones said. We need to be not huffing and puffinguse what works, Jackson replied. Massive nonviolent resistance works. More than once, Jackson returned to the importance of voting, arguing that recent strict voter ID laws in states like North Carolina amounted to a form of voter hacking, not by [Russian President Vladimir] Putin but by Republicans. But he also urged listeners to stand firm and refuse to be deterred from voting. If you didnt vote, just put a Trump picture on your wall, Jackson said. Filipa A. Ioannou is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: fioannou@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @obioannoukenobi [Sponsored by Hearst Bay Area - Open For Canna-Business] TOP NEWS Sen. Jeff Sessions was confirmed in a split 52-47 vote yesterday. ... Here's what I think you can count on: Jeff Sessions is going to do his worst. But, if history is any guide, it will matter little. ... Sessions has a bb gun, and he is shooting at a glacier. This former DEA agent understands. It's a resources game. Sessions has 5,500 DEA agents, and a couple billion dollars in budget. But only a fraction of that can go to cannabis. Meanwhile, 21 percent of the U.S. population is in a legalization state; about 76 million people; the industry employs 122,000 people; and is worth maybe $50 billion per year in total retail sales alone. Remember -- President Obama spent hundreds of millions of dollars interfering in state-legal medical cannabis systems. His DOJ attacked the best, brightest, most state-legal actors, in order to make the point that no one was safe from federal law. And what happened? The California crackdown of 2011 engendered a backlash that drew in unprecedented new allies. Cannabis will have even more this time. Mark my words -- there will be raids, forfeiture threats, regulatory intimidation, propaganda, new sentencing, everything that happened under President Obama. And if the People are more upset about it than ever -- then the people will win, again. More on that thread: John J. Hudak of the Brooking Institute, last weekend at the Virginia Cannabis Conference, explained how 'youre insane' if you think the marijuana industry is too big and popular to be a target of Republican wrath. Meanwhile, the MPP is cautiously optimistic. The NCIA said We look forward to Attorney General Sessions maintaining ...[the status quo]... TheDCMJ is hopeful. ... NORML said we will never stop fighting. ... And theDPA said attacking pot will leave Trump and Co. even less popular than they are now. OTHER BIG NEWS Yup, pot helps treat brain cancer. ... GW Pharma is almost done bottling it up. Nevada is set to kick California's butt in the race to implement recreational. ... They're going to do temporary regulations by July. There might be almost 300 pot-related patents already on the books. The L.A. Times endorses Measure M to catch the city up to where San Francisco was in 2005 -- you know, actually regulating dispensaries. Weed app data shows the gender gap closing, and cannabis replacing alcohol. JUST A BILL ON CAPITOL HILL Congressional bill HR 715 would legalize CBD. Another bill would shield state-legal pot activity from federal drug laws. HIGHLY DUBIOUS There is something deeply wrong in the Personnel Review Board of Orange County, CA. MEDICINE A pot for PTSD trial gets underway, via Army Times. SURPRISING DISCOVERIES Style brands Vanderpop and Tokyo Smoke merge. Moxies Meds makes it into Cosmo Mag. High Times out-Cosmos Cosmo with How To Make Weed Lube for V-Day. The inventor of Ganga Yoga is throwing an Easter retreat to Yosemite. And Puff, Pass, and Paint comes to San Francisco. best wishes for a productive Thursday, dd [art via Lola Lola] ABOUT THE GREEN STATE DAILY BRIEFING (beta) The Green State Daily Briefing is the cannabis world's essential daily newsletter. It's created by David Downs, cannabis editor at the San Francisco Chronicle. Green State is the Chronicle's new cannabis initiative. Subscribe to the Daily Briefing. Follow Green State on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Story update: Rain started tapering off on Thursday afternoon. Corte Madera Creek in San Anselmo was below flood stage as of 1 p.m. *** Marin County is preparing for flood conditions amid an incessant drumbeat of rain. An especially high King Tide combined with the rain runoff pouring into rising creeks is expected to inundate low-lying areas with water. "We're not seeing the brunt of the storm quite yet," said Brent Ainsworth, a Marin County public information specialist. "We've had increased rain in the past couple hours, especially in Ross Valley. High tide is on its way." Ainsworth added: "When you have the high tide coming in from the Bay and pushing the creeks back, this is kind of a train wreck." RELATED GALLERY: Storm impact on Marin County, Feb. 7 to 9, 2017 Marin County was hammered with a storm on Tuesday that led creeks to rise quickly and caused flooding. Fairfax, Sleepy Hollow, San Anselmo and Corte Madera Creeks all reached flood stage. Downtown San Anselmo was evacuated and several roads including a section of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard were closed. The creeks are currently rising in Marin but weren't at flood stage as of 10:30 a.m. Thursday. "Too early to tell," Ainsworth said. "The water rose on Tuesday really fast and we're not seeing the water rise as quickly right now but that could change." In preparation, the county opened its emergency operations center at 6 a.m. Thursday. Several Marin County schools closed in anticipation of potential flooding from Thursday's storm. Some parents stopped by San Anselmo Creek with their children Thursday morning to observe the rising water. As of 10 a.m. the river appeared well below levels seen Tuesday afternoon. "I'll probably come back later and check it out," said Dave Whaley, a teacher who lives in San Rafael. According to KPIX 5, a mother and her toddler barely escaped when a mudslide tore into their house in Fairfax this week. The mudslide "broke our front door in half," Zach Laurie told KPIX. Several roads are currently closed including Highway 37 in Novato, San Geronimo Valley Drive in Woodacre, Miller Avenue in Mill Valley and the Northbound Highway 101 off-ramp at Shoreline Highway, near the Buckeye Restaurant, in Mill Valley. The rain is expected to decrease by early to late afternoon. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate HAMILTON, Ohio (AP) A man charged with arson based partly on data collected from his pacemaker pleaded not guilty Tuesday to setting his Ohio home on fire. Authorities have said gasoline was found on Ross Compton's clothing and that the fire started in multiple places, but Lt. Jimmy Cunningham told WLWT-TV the medical data represented some of "the key pieces of evidence" in the case. Compton's home telephone number is disconnected, and his attorney didn't immediately return a call seeking comment Tuesday. But Compton previously told WLWT that the investigation had "gone way out of control" and that he had "no motive whatsoever to burn down my house." Compton told authorities that when he saw the fire Sept. 19 inside his Middletown home, he packed some belongings in a suitcase and bags, broke a window with his cane and threw the items through the window before carrying them to his car, according to police. He also said he had a cardiac pacemaker, authorities said. Court records show that police got a search warrant to retrieve electronic data stored on the heart device. The data included Compton's heart rate, pacer demand and cardiac rhythms before, during and after the fire, police said. A pacemaker monitors the heart and helps control irregular heart rhythms. The information is recorded and can be retrieved for analysis. A cardiologist determined that it was "highly improbable," due to his medical conditions, that Compton could do all the collecting, packing and removal of items from his house and then carry them in the short period of time he indicated, according to court records. Police have said statements they received from Compton were "inconsistent" with the evidence they gathered. They also have said that he gave statements conflicting with what he had told a dispatcher, the Hamilton-Middletown Journal-News reported . Compton, 59, pleaded not guilty Tuesday in Butler County Common Pleas Court to aggravated arson and insurance fraud charges. The case has raised privacy concerns from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit organization that focuses on defending civil liberties in the digital world. Stephanie Lacambra, a criminal defense staff attorney with the San Francisco-based foundation, said in an email Tuesday that Americans shouldn't have to make a choice between health and privacy. "We as a society value our rights to maintain privacy over personal and medical information, and compelling citizens to turn over protected health data to law enforcement erodes those rights," Lacambra said. Fire officials have said the blaze at Compton's home caused about $400,000 damage. His next hearing is set for Feb. 21 in Butler County Common Pleas Court. School board candidates (l-r) Cris Carusi, Ali Muldrow, Kate Toews, Matt Andrzejewski, Ed Hughes and Nicki Vander Meulen gathered at Christ Presbyterian Church in Madison on Feb. 7 for a candidate forum. The event was organized by Grandparents United for Madison Public Schools. 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. You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close A Madison police officer records names of witnesses who were in the Culver's along the Beltline frontage road as they are released from the scene of a shooting Feb. 2. One man was shot in the parking lot near Steinhafels, but police say his injuries were not life-threatening. Pope Francis delivers the Urbi et Orbi (Latin for "to the city and to the world") Christmas Day blessing from the main balcony of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican last Dec. 25. JUNEAU A 45-year-old Mayville man is being held on a $10,000 cash bond after investigators discovered 10 images containing child pornography on his computer. Marlon Kegel is facing 10 counts of felony possession of child pornography. If convicted of all charges he faces up to 250 years in prison and $1 million in fines. Kegel made his initial appearance on Wednesday before Judge Steven Bauer. Bauer set Kegels bond with the condition that he may not use the internet except for employment. According to the criminal complaint, the Wisconsin Department of Justice obtained a search warrant to search a residence on Donald Street in Mayville. When the warrant was executed Feb. 7, officers made contact with Kegel as well as a woman and a 9-year-old girl who all lived at the residence. Officers confiscated multiple USB drives, external hard drives, multiple laptops, a Playstation 3, assorted cell phones and a digital camera. The items were reviewed by the Wisconsin Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation where 10 images containing child pornography were discovered. According to the criminal complaint, when Kegel was questioned by officers he said that he may have downloaded something but that the images he downloaded were mislabeled. Kegel allegedly told officers he did not like viewing child pornography and would delete the files within two hours of downloading them. Kegel later allegedly admitted to officers that he would intentionally search for child pornography and had been viewing it for three to five years. Kegel allegedly said he viewed the images out of curiosity and was interested in images specifically depicting females from the ages of 10 to 13. When questioned by officers Kegel allegedly denied assaulting the girl who lived at the residence. Kegel will appear in court on Feb. 16 at 8:30 a.m. for a preliminary hearing. A state panel that handles thousands of disputes between employers and employees each year and whose roots date back more than a century would be abolished under a provision of Gov. Scott Walkers proposed state budget. The two-year spending plan calls for eliminating the Labor and Industry Review Commission and its 26 full-time-equivalent positions. The commission, whose three members are appointed to six-year terms by the governor, is an independent agency that provides a quasi-judicial forum to resolve disputes involving unemployment insurance, workers compensation and equal rights. In 2015, the panel issued 2,143 decisions. Only 102 of the decisions, or 4.75 percent, were appealed to circuit court. I think its an agency that has worked well, commission chairwoman Laurie McCallum said. I think the state will lose some positive things that the agency has accomplished ... including over 100 years of development of the law. Stephanie Bloomingdale, Wisconsin AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer, agreed. Its disappointing but not surprising that Gov. Walker is eliminating an important check-and-balance for workers and their cases, Bloomingdale said. The Labor and Industry Review Commission was created in 1977 to hear appeals of decisions by administrative law judges or hearing examiners from the state agency now known as the Department of Workforce Development. Its genesis, though, goes as far back as 1911, when the State Industrial Commission was created to administer Wisconsins workers compensation law. Commissioners McCallum and Dave Falstad were appointed by Gov. Walker, as was Bill Jordahl, who left the panel in January after being named executive assistant to the state Public Service Commission chairwoman. McCallum, whose husband, Scott McCallum, was governor from 2001-2003, has been on the Labor and Industry Review Commission since 2011. She also has served in a variety of state government positions, including chairwoman of the Wisconsin Personnel Commission and chairwoman of the Governors Pardon Advisory Council. Falstad was a commissioner from 1995 to 2007, and chairman from 1998 to 2004; he was reappointed in 2013. Falstad was senior vice president, secretary and general counsel for Case-IH now part of CNH Industrial and served as a Waukesha County supervisor. The 2017-19 budget proposal says scrapping the panel will streamline review of the cases. McCallum said, though, it will not do much to save money. She said much of the funding comes from the federal government with only a very tiny percentage from state tax dollars. Chris Drosner Chris Drosner writes the Beer Baron column for the Wisconsin State Journal. Follow Chris Drosner 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 This month Chicagos Half Acre Beer Co. landed in Wisconsin for good. Here are four things you need to know about this newest kid on the block. 1. Chicago born. Half Acre debuted in Chicago in 2007, which makes it a forerunner of the Windy Citys booming beer scene after, of course the granddad of the whole thing, the 29-year-old Goose Island. (At the start Half Acre made its beer in Wisconsin, at Sand Creek Brewing in Black River Falls, before opening its own brewery in 2008.) For such an enormous market, Chicago was criminally underserved in the craft beer domain. Half Acre was the first spark in whats grown to an inferno, with several heavy hitters and dozens of smaller breweries, and its arguably still the standard bearer for Chicago craft beer in 2017. One of the other big Chicago players, Revolution Brewing, began shipping to Wisconsin last summer. 2. Here, now. Half Acres Wisconsin launch is part of growth related to stop me if youve heard this one before a new production facility. In late 2015 it fired up a 30-barrel brewhouse on the north side, about a mile and a half from its original brewery and outstanding tap room on Lincoln Avenue. That brewery had been maxed out for three years, and the new capacity from the 60,000-square-foot facility allowed Half Acre to expand distribution to southern Illinois about a year ago. As of mid-year, Half Acre was on pace to make about 36,000 barrels of beer last year, just short of twice what local favorite Ale Asylum made in 2016. Nearby and beer-thirsty Wisconsin is an obvious next step. Weve had a handful of opportunities to hoist our beer in our neighbor state and its always felt like a good place for it, Half Acre said in its Wisconsin launch announcement. 3. Cans as art. As I was purchasing my first cache of Half Acre, the (had to be) teenage girl who scanned the first four-pack of tallboys remarked to the bagger an even younger girl on how pretty the can was. The next one was even cooler. Then another. Oooh, this one has daisies on it! That Half Acres cans are awesome is by design. Half Acre co-founder Gabriel Magliaro came to Chicago from Philadelphia for art school and described himself to Good Beer Hunting as an imagery nerd. Half Acre has a full-time artist, Phineas X. Jones, on staff who designs the labels for the brewerys signature cans and handful of limited-release bombers. I struggle to pin down the unifying theme of Half Acres aesthetic Ill stick to describing the beer but theres undoubtedly one, and attitude comes through loud and clear with every label. Plus, there are owls. 4. Great beer. All of this is great, but the beer has to be good, right? Its that and more. Half Acres portfolio is contemporary and relentlessly hop-forward. Its opening Wisconsin with three year-round beers and two seasonals, every one of them with a characteristic hop profile and dryness. Theyre also all well-served by the fresh date codes that can be found on the bottom of the can; these will bear watching as Half Acres newness here passes. Daisy Cutter Pale Ale: This is Half Acres flagship, or at least the beer that made its name outside Chicago. And Daisy Cutter, with its West Coast IPA profile in a smaller pale ale package, is worthy of that reputation. Its aroma is pine-citrus harmony, while the moderately bitter flavor leans more toward the pine and a biscuity-bready malt. But perhaps Daisy Cutters most notable attribute is an assertive dryness that lasts long into the finish. 5.2 percent ABV Pony Pilsner: Another year-round crusher, Pony is a really well-done pils. Need I say more? Well, OK. Its on the German side of the pilsner family tree, crackling with moderate bitterness and spicy-earthy-herbal-floral hops. (Yeah, theyre all in there.) Pony finishes with another resoundingly dry flourish. 5.5 percent ABV Navaja Double India Pale Ale: This year-rounder swims in pineapple/sweet-citrus character, cut by a touch of dank resin. Navaja has a full, round mouthfeel, and both the alcohol character and bitterness are more modest than you might expect from such a big IPA. 10 percent ABV GoneAway India Pale Ale: A bright, citrusy aroma is the first impression of this seasonal IPA, but with just a little more time GoneAway reveals its true identity as a resin bomb. The spruce-like, resinous notes are front and center, with a modest orange-grapefruit and muted malt character deep in the background. Theme warning: It also is assertively dry. 7 percent ABV. Available from September to March, GoneAway alternates with the spring-summer Vallejo IPA (6.5 percent ABV). Lead Feather Black Ale: A change of pace! The aroma speaks of chocolatey malt with a gentle roast character. But with a sip, hops again jump to the front, moderately bitter and again with what seems to be that signature resinous profile. Black Feathers body is soft but it still drinks quite dry, something like a cross between a black IPA and an Irish dry stout. 6.5 percent ABV. Also out from September to March, Lead Feather is replaced in spring and summer by Akari Shogun American Wheat (5 percent ABV). This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Steph Curry doesn't like talking politics. However, when Kevin Plank, CEO for Under Armour (a company Curry endorses) voiced his support for President Donald Trump on CNBC this week, Curry felt it a good time to express concern. Referencing Plank's statement that Trump is an "asset" to American businesses, Curry gave the Mercury News a bit of a surprise by delivering a sick burn. "I agree with that description," Curry said, "if you remove the -et." Curry went on to say that he "spent all day yesterday on the phone" with many different Under Armour people trying to assess "where everybody stood on the issue." Plank reportedly told him that his sentiments were exclusively related to Trump's business policies and not an endorsement of all of his beliefs, which seemed to assuage the situation. Then on Wednesday, after facing backlash for Plank's comments, Under Armour released a statement saying the company focuses on "policy, not politics," and believes in "advocating for fair trade, an inclusive immigration policy that welcomes the best and the brightest and those seeking opportunity in the great tradition of our country, and tax reform that drives hiring to help create new jobs." For now, Curry is sticking by the brand, saying if Under Armour or any company was "not in line" with his beliefs, he'd sever ties. "If there is a situation where I can look at myself in the mirror and say they don't have my best intentions, they don't have the right attitude about taking care of people," Curry said. "If I can say the leadership is not in line with my core values, then there is no amount of money, there is no platform I wouldn't jump off if it wasn't in line with who I am." TEHRAN Burning American flags and homemade effigies of U.S. presidents is a cherished tradition among Iranian hard-liners, but as the country prepares for the anniversary Friday of the 1979 revolution that established the Islamic republic, others want to thank Americans instead. President Trumps executive order barring travelers from Iran and six other largely Muslim countries has prompted a backlash in the United States, including challenges in federal court, and Iranians have taken notice. We thank Americans who stood up for the seven countries blocked from entering the U.S. by the new travel ban, stated one popular Iranian Twitter account, with the hashtag #LoveBeyondFlags. The Twitter user added that the theme of #LoveBeyondFlags resonated from the Azadi Tower, a landmark at the western entrance of Tehran, to the Statue of Liberty in New York. The towers name can be translated as freedom. Other social media users shared images of Iranian and American wrestlers clasped in embrace, and of protesters who have thronged airports to welcome citizens of Iran and the other six countries Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen who had managed to enter the United States. (Twitter and Facebook are blocked by Iranian state censors, but users have installed special software that helps bypass the block.) Trumps tirades against Iran he said on Twitter on Tuesday that the country was #1 in terror have infuriated many Iranians, and many fear a return of sanctions and even military strikes. Still, others seem to appreciate that he is remarkably unpopular at home. Irans National Day celebration often features homemade versions of the American and Israeli flags going up in flames, as masses of Iranians gather in rallies that are a sign of ideological strength. It is also a day out for families and young people, who are as interested in the Chinese products being sold in stalls along the demonstration routes as they are in political sloganeering. Criticizing actions by hard-liners is dangerous in Iran, where the judiciary and the police are focusing increasingly on online dissent. In recent months in several Iranian provinces, social media users were arrested after they posted undesirable content or spoke out against the Islamic republics policies. Many hard-liners responded online by criticizing those who had urged an end to flag-burning. One user posted images of American and Israeli flags on fire and a picture of an Iran Air commercial jetliner. We dont burn flags without reason, he wrote on Twitter, referring to the downing of an Iranian plane in 1988 by a missile from a U.S. Navy ship, killing 290 people. We will burn flags again. One political analyst, Nader Karimi Joni, considered close to the government, said he supported those protesting the flag-burning. Look at the kindness Iranians received at U.S. airports by those protesting Trump. We insult those people when we burn their flag, he said. Thomas Erdbrink is a New York Times writer. WASHINGTON The Trump White House is nearing completion of an order that would direct the Pentagon to bring future Islamic State detainees to the Guantanamo Bay prison, despite warnings from national security officials and legal scholars that doing so risks undermining the effort to combat the group, according to administration officials and a draft executive order obtained by the New York Times. White House officials have spelled out their thinking about a new detainee policy in an evolving series of drafts of an executive order being circulated among national security officials for comment. While previous versions have shown that the draft has undergone many changes including dropping language about reviving CIA prisons, the plan to add Islamic State detainees to the Guantanamo population has remained constant. NAIROBI, Kenya A Kenyan court ruled Thursday that the government must not close the worlds largest refugee camp and send more than 200,000 people back to war-torn Somalia, a decision that eases pressure on Somalis who feared the camp would close by the end of May. Kenyas internal security minister abused his power by ordering the closure of Dadaab camp, Judge John Mativo said, adding that the minister and other officials had acted in excess and in abuse of their power, in violation of the rule of law and in contravention of their oaths of office. Rights groups Amnesty International, Kituo cha Sheria and the Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights had challenged the governments order to close the camp, which has operated for more than a quarter-century. Kenyas government quickly said it will appeal the ruling. Being a government whose cardinal responsibility is first to Kenyans, we feel this decision should be revoked, spokesman Eric Kiraithe said. The judge called the order discriminatory, saying it goes against the Kenyan Constitution as well as international treaties that protect refugees against being returned to a conflict zone. President Uhuru Kenyattas government has not proved Somalia is safe for the refugees to return, the judge said, also calling the orders to shut down the governments refugee department null and void. Somalia remains under threat of attacks from homegrown extremist group al-Shabab. Some Kenyan officials have argued that the sprawling refugee camp near the border with Somalia has been used as a recruiting ground for al-Shabab and a base for launching attacks inside Kenya. But Kenyan officials have not provided conclusive proof of that. President Trumps temporary ban on travel from seven majority Muslim countries, including Somalia, had put added pressure on the Dadaab refugees. Last weekend, about 140 of the Somali refugees who had been on the brink of resettling in the United States were sent back to Dadaab instead. The U.N. refugee agency called the court ruling a positive development and said it would watch closely what happens next. Refugee returns to country of origin should be voluntarily, in safety and dignity and when conditions are conducive, spokesman Babar Baloch said. Al-Shabab has carried out several attacks on Kenya, which sent troops to Somalia in 2011 to fight the militants. Tom Odula is an Associated Press writer. MIAMI Yoandri Pavot applied just in time for a visa under a recently scrapped U.S. policy that had long welcomed doctors from Cuba who defected while on assignment in third countries. Pavot and other Cuban doctors arriving this week in Miami under the now canceled policy called the Cuban Medical Professionals Parole said theyre relieved to be arriving despite uncertain times for immigrants under the Trump administration. But theyre anxious about colleagues left behind. I still cant believe it. Pinch me. Pinch me. I cant believe I am here, Pavot, 35, said after arriving Monday at Miami International Airport holding a small American flag. I wish they would give the ones left behind a chance, because they are also fighting for freedom. The program begun in 2006 by then President George W. Bush allowed Cuban doctors, nurses and other medical professionals to defect to the U.S. while on their governments mandatory assignments abroad. Pavot said he had applied after the Cuban government dispatched him to a crime-ridden area of Venezuela, where many co-workers were attacked. The waning administration of President Barack Obama canceled the doctors policy Jan. 12. It also eliminated the better-known wet foot, dry foot policy that gave any Cuban who makes it to U.S. soil a path to become a legal resident. The moves lined up with Obamas push for a more normalized relationship with communist Cuba. But doctors who already applied for visas before Jan. 12 are being allowed in, and the final wave of those accepted are arriving on flights to Miami this week, said Julio Cesar Alfonso, director of a nonprofit that helps Cuban doctors resettle in the U.S. On Monday, a few walked through glass doors past customs to loud cheers and hugs from close and distant relatives carrying flowers and balloons. They cried and took photos. Alfonso said 20 professionals arrived Monday and more are expected on flights this week. Some critics of the doctors policy have said it amounted to a more than decade-long brain drain for Cuba. But proponents said the doctors were forced by the Cuban government to toil overseas under often-grueling conditions and deserved to be liberated. The repeal of the wet foot, dry foot policy was welcomed by many in the Cuban exile community who accused certain recent arrivals of abusing privileges by claiming federal benefits and then traveling back to Cuba. But many of the same criticized the cancellation of the medical defectors program; theyre urging the Trump administration to restore it. Under the policy, qualifying medical professionals could immediately apply for work permission and apply for residency after one year. Adriana Gomez Licon is an Associated Press writer. KABUL Six employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross were killed and two others were missing after an attack in northern Afghanistan on Wednesday that officials attributed to local affiliates of the Islamic State. This is a despicable act. Nothing can justify the murder of our colleagues and dear friends, said the head of the Red Cross delegation in Afghanistan, Monica Zanarelli. At this point, its premature for us to determine the impact of this appalling incident on our operations in Afghanistan. CANBERRA, Australia U.S. officials stopped screening refugees held on Nauru for potential resettlement in the United States this week but will return to the Pacific atoll to continue working toward a deal that President Trump has condemned as dumb, an Australian minister said Thursday. Immigration Minister Peter Dutton would not say when U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials would return to Nauru to conduct what Trump describes as extreme vetting. Trump made enhanced screening a condition for agreeing to honor an Obama administration deal to accept up to 1,250 refugees refused entry into Australia. Australia pays Nauru and Papua New Guinea to keep more than 2,000 asylum seekers mostly from Iran, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka in conditions condemned by rights groups. The process of extreme vetting has yet to be explained. U.S. officials were sent to Nauru within days of the deals announcement in November after the U.S. presidential election. But they left this week with arrangements under a cloud. I dont have any comment to make in relation to when U.S. officials will be on Nauru next, Dutton told reporters. There have been officials there who have left ... in the last couple of days and we would expect other officials to be there in due course. Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul said most of the refugees on Nauru who had been accepted by the United States as candidates for resettlement had initial interviews with U.S. officials in what they had been told was a two-step process. But there have been no second interviews so far, Rintoul said. Australia has determined that there are 1,600 genuine refugees among 2,077 asylum seekers on Papua New Guinea and Nauru. Rod McGuirk is an Associated Press writer. CAIRO Yemens foreign minister on Wednesday said his nation has asked for a reassessment of a U.S. raid last month that killed several women and children, but denied reports that his government has requested a suspension of American ground operations. On Tuesday, U.S. officials told reporters that Yemen had withdrawn permission for the United States to run Special Operations ground missions against suspected terror groups in the country. Grisly photographs of children apparently killed in the crossfire of a 50-minute firefight during the raid caused outrage in Yemen. A member of the Navys SEAL Team 6, Chief Petty Officer William Owens, was also killed in the operation. The raid, in which just about everything went wrong, was an early test of President Trumps national security decision-making and his willingness to rely on the assurances of his military advisers. His aides say that even though the decision was made over a dinner, it had been fully vetted, and had the requisite legal approvals. On Wednesday, Foreign Minister Abdul-Malik al-Mekhlafi said Yemen continues to cooperate with the United States and continues to abide by all the agreements. He added that the government is involved in talks with the U.S. administration on the latest raid. He said reports that Yemen has demanded a halt to U.S. special operations are not true. The Pentagon has said that the main objective of the raid was to recover laptop computers, cell phones and other information that could help fill gaps in its understanding of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, whose leaders have attempted at least three attacks on the United States. But it is unclear whether the information the commandos recovered will prove valuable. Also Wednesday, the U.N.s humanitarian aid agency is seeking $2.1 billion this year to help people in Yemen, a record-high appeal for the Arab worlds poorest country, where thousands have died since violence in an ongoing civil war swelled nearly two years ago. Roughly 18.8 million people, or more than two-thirds of Yemens population, need some form of assistance, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. The New York Times contributed to this report. Will a college student pay $8 to $11 for a wrap? Salads UP is betting they will, and maybe some who live in the upscale Hub apartment complex above the restaurant can. And at least one of Salad UPs wraps, the Robbs Cobb ($11), is worth the money. Its a winning combination of romaine, chicken, turkey bacon, feta, cherry tomatoes and hard-boiled egg. The ingredients are combined, chopped by an employee with a double-bladed mezzaluna, tossed with a fantastic shallot balsamic vinaigrette, and rolled into a big flour tortilla. The result looks like a giant burrito and its a filling enough meal on its own to serve as dinner. Customers can have their wraps grilled on a panini press, which browns the tortilla without really managing to heat the contents. The cobb was my big success story at Salads UP. Other items didnt fare as well. The cafe has seven cutely named salads that can become wraps for a dollar or two less. The cheapest option is a customizable mix it up wrap ($6). Customers pick a lettuce base (romaine, kale, spring mix, spinach or arugula) and four ingredients from a list of 25. A mix-it-up salad is $7. The Yia Yia ($9) costs less than most of the other signature salads because it doesnt include meat. The salad has spinach, chickpeas, feta, olives, red onion, cucumber, grape tomatoes and croutons, if you want them. Quinoa is sprinkled in, but just serves as window dressing. The actual dressing, a lemon-herb vinaigrette, was tossed perfectly. The ingredients worked well together, but I ate it wishing I had made a different selection. The Fresh Prince wrap ($8.50), another vegetarian offering, left me unfulfilled as well, and thinking Salads UP meals work better with meat. The wrap had romaine and arugula plus apple, avocado, carrots, dried cranberries, edamame and a carrot ginger dressing that barely revealed itself. Salads UP offers a trio of thinner, already-made, grab-and-go breakfast wraps ($7). The carnivore one can be satisfying at any time of day with egg, sausage, turkey bacon, cheese, potatoes, and a light application of BBQ Russian dressing. A white chicken chili ($5), meanwhile, was weak and watery, but full of ground chicken and white navy beans. The portion was big and by the time I finished it, I had grown to like it. The two soup choices change monthly. I was more ambivalent about a Greek yogurt parfait ($6.50) that was topped with pineapple, sliced strawberries and shredded coconut. A honey drizzle described on the online menu was AWOL, and couldve helped. More fruit would have been an improvement, too. Salads UP serves a number of baked goods from Madison Sourdough, including its unrivaled croissants ($3) for a 75-cent mark-up. An employee warned us to avoid the smoothies ($6), instead recommending the wide selection of cold-pressed juices in a refrigerated area. I still was curious about the Earthling smoothie and went ahead and ordered the spinach-pineapple-kale-broccoli-banana blended drink. It didnt taste like there was any banana, which could have given it the creaminess it lacked. Two juices ($5) were slightly better, but thats not saying much. The Morning Max was somewhat interesting with carrot, orange, pineapple and coconut milk; the Purple Rain less so with blueberries, pineapple and orange. Salads UP sits next to Colectivo, just off State Street on Frances Street. Designers made the most of the narrow and unusually-shaped space, using lots of bright colors, predominantly green, and communal tables and counters. Broccoli and carrot art is spunky, as is the sign, grab life by the balsamic. The pop music late one night was too loud, but at the right volume on a lunch visit when the cafe was busier. Madisons Salads UP opened in October as the second location for two recent University of Michigan grads, Max Steir and Robby Mayer, who opened the first one in Ann Arbor in January 2015. Steir and Mayer are looking into other college markets including Evanston, Illinois, and Columbus, Ohio. For two young guys with a vision of healthy fast food, I applaud them for seizing on a trend. That an enormous, burrito-looking wrap costs $11 is a function of high-quality ingredients and high campus rents. Hopefully, it wont put people off. Whole Foods Reportedly Plans to Close St. Francis Store The feel-good grocer with the amazing produce section and the infuriating parking lot has fallen upon hard timesat least by Wall St. standards. Despite record sales, same-store profits are down this quarter. The company said yesterday it will close nine stores, and a list sent to this news outlet includes the smaller store on St. Francis known locally as "Half Foods." The closure could come within a matter of days. Good News If You Just Got Called For Jury Duty You're gonna get paid. Not "paaaiiid" paid, but you'll at least get a check. The state Board of Finance for the fund that, yes, pays jurors. And by paying jurors, it assures the constitutionally guaranteed right to a trial in front of one's peers. As mentioned yesterday, it's been . Auditor Says PED Special-Ed Deal With Feds Doesn't Exist A few years ago, the federal government stung Gov. Martinez' administration by withdrawing millions in funding for the state's 50,000 special education students. The Public Education Department, the feds said, wasn't spending enough state money on the students to be able to leverage the federal money. The state has since insisted there's a deal in place, but State Auditor Tim Keller yesterday that says the deal doesn't exist. The PED argues it's in the works. Final Say State Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn says he'd like to see any new development on the recently acquired land that is now occupied by Garrett's Desert Inn comply with city design standards, but that if in its demands, he'll just approve the dang thing anyway. has at times been rather exacting in its guardianship of the city's historic character. Wilson's Links to Lockheed Former New Mexico congresswoman Heather Wilson's ties to massive Air Force contractor Lockheed Martin are in a national profile examining her consulting work for the company, which has run Sandia National Labs for two decades (a Honeywell subsidiary won the new management contract). President Trump nominated Wilson to be Secretary of the Air Force, for which Lockheed Martin holds more than $7 billion in contracts. Navajo Nation President Vetoes Disaster-Relief Money Saying the quarter-million dollar allotment didn't comply with reserve cash requirements, Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye this week. Begaye also said some of the 33 chapters affected hadn't declared an emergency, though other Navajo Nation leaders claim the president himself signed off on a disaster declaration last month. Coal-Fired Power Station Faces Shutdown Vote The owners of the Navajo Generating Station will next Monday to decide whether to shutter the plant earlier than its 2019 lease expiration suggests. Power plants that rely on natural gas are far more economical these daysand environmental concerns aboundbut the plant and the coal it burns provides badly needed money for the Navajo and Hopi tribes. It also provides power to pump water to the Central Arizona Project. Red-Headed Estranger No on Saturday night. Willie Nelson his concert at the Route 66 Casino due to illness. No word on a make-up date. Get well soon, Willie. Thanks for reading! The Word wonders when cream cheese spread on a bagel became "schmear." Has it always been thus? Subscribe to the Morning Word at sfreporter.com/signup . And don't forget to nominate your favorites in this year's Best of Santa Fe poll! Do it now. Santa Fe Reporter Whole Foods Market plans to close the smaller of its two Santa Fe storesthe one on St. Francis Drivein early April. Roughly 50 employees will be impacted by the closure, though the company hopes to place all of them at the larger location just around the corner on Cerrillos Road. A spokeswoman tells SFR that workers can also transfer to other stores across the country, if they choose. The location's year-over-year sales had been falling for some time and yesterday, the publicly held company announced in an earnings phone call that it planned to close nine stores in the next quarter, even as Whole Foods continues expansion plans elsewhere. The St. Francis store will lock its doors on April 9. During yesterday's phone call, the Austin-based company backed off what had been an aggressive expansion plan. While Whole Foods posted record sales and was still profitable last quarter, the company's earnings fell short of expectations. Year-over-year sales are expected to drop again over the next three months. The location on St. Francis Drive was a Wild Oats grocery store before that natural foods chain merged with Whole Foods Market in 2007. The location across from the South Capitol government complex seemed advantageous for Whole Foods' prepared-foods business, and the store was re-branded and kept open. The closure leaves New Mexico with three Whole Foods stores, one in Santa Fe and two in Albuquerque. The company has no further expansion plans in the state. Santa Fe Reporter The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade is keeping a 24-hour watch on the Trump administration while it works towards a bilateral free-trade deal, even while a Trans-Pacific Partnership deal excluding the US remains on the table. At the ministry's annual review this morning before the foreign affairs, defence and trade select committee, chief negotiator David Walker said it hadn't been a surprise that President Donald Trump pulled the US out of TPP, but it had been a disappointment. New Zealand still stands to gain about two-thirds of the estimated value of the trade deal without the US involved, he said. "It was a major achievement for us. It was the first free-trade agreement we had with a number of the players around the table," Walker said. "The US is a significant loss, but it still has considerable economic value to us and we understand that other members feel the same. We intend to talk with the 11 other signatories to discuss how we might all want to move forward." The ministry is also working on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), an agreement being negotiated between 16 nations in Asia and the Pacific, with a meeting due to be held which will be the first test of how different countries negotiating the agreement want to approach the situation now, Walker said. Many of the countries negotiating RCEP were also intending to sign the TPP, although RCEP also includes China, which was excluded from the TPP. "Regional agreements provide added value over a series of bilateral agreements," Walker said. "We didn't have all our eggs in the TPP basket." New Zealand has long been interested in a free-trade deal with the US but negotiations would likely involve pushback on areas the country pushed back on during TPP negotiations - intellectual property and pharmaceuticals, Walker said. MFAT has set up a 24-hour taskforce to monitor the Trump administration "as things unfold, what's happening and whether our interests might be affected," chief executive Brook Barrington said. "We won't be going back to BAU (business as usual) until we have a clearer sense of the lie of the land." Barrington said there was a long way to go for the super-structure underneath Trump to be completed, with the last report he had seen showing there have been just 32 nominations for positions in the new administration while 1,220 positions need to be confirmed by the US Senate. New Zealand has some significant areas of longstanding cooperation with the US, including Antarctica, the East Asia Summit and APEC, which Barrington said he would expect to continue. "We have never hesitated to disagree with the US on issues which matter to us, and I don't expect that to change," he said. " We have systems, processes, and people in place to make sure New Zealand interests aren't compromised." A free-trade deal with the EU is another goal for the ministry, although New Zealand's high exports of products like sheep meat and butter doesn't help its case with EU members, Barrington said. "At the strategic political level, there's definitely support to conclude an FTA and a suggestion we might be able to do so quite quickly by European standards - two or three years," Barrington said. "But I would certainly not be ruling out the reality that interest groups on the ground will continue to make this a challenging process and our negotiators will have to be absolutely on their game." Walker said the EU has seen the trade agreements New Zealand has developed with other countries, particularly in the fast-growing Asian region, and those links make the country a more attractive prospect. "The interest now is genuine two-way interest to advance negotiation, and as the discussions recently with the prime minister and minister of trade indicated, we intend to try to launch the negotiations some time this year," Walker said. Labour's David Parker said he felt misled by Barrington over the Saudi sheep deal at last year's annual review of the ministry. The Opposition MP said he had obtained a copy of the briefing Barrington was given before that hearing, which advised the ministry's chief executive how to deflect questions "so as not to concede that you never got any legal advice as to whether there was a real legal threat from the al-Khalaf group." Barrington said the ministry holds the view that legal advice, and the existence of legal advice, is privileged information, and on that basis it would have been inappropriate for him to discuss the issue with the committee. Parker also criticised what he saw as a shift in MFAT's policy with trade deals stopping New Zealand from banning foreigners from buying land. New Zealand's free-trade deal with South Korea, which allows that country to stop New Zealanders from buying houses in South Korea but includes a provision stopping New Zealand from adding new categories of screened or banned investment, arguably stops New Zealand banning South Koreans from buying homes here, Parker said, while the 'most favoured nation' clause in the free-trade deal with China means those conditions could also be claimed by China. The TPP also conceded New Zealand's right to ban foreign land buyers from participant countries in future. "The ministry has moved in its principles that it seeks to achieve in respect of trade agreements in respect to an issue which is very important to the Labour Party," Parker said. "Given we try to maintain a bipartisan approach to trade, I wonder whether our concerns have been heard. It seems pretty obvious that we would've been able to protect that right given South Korea maintained that right for themselves and gave it away to Australia." Walker said he would have to come back with a detailed response, but in general, each trade negotiation had different dynamics. BusinessDesk.co.nz Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: SKC - ADDITIONAL US PRIVATE PLACEMENT FUNDING SECURED Spark New Zealand Limited's Annual Meeting Results 2022 Fonterra Australia settles class action proceedings PFI - Q3 Dividend, Development and Divestment Update November 4th Morning Report FPH to announce half year results on 29 November 2022 ATM - FDA approval to supply infant milk formula to United States Steel & Tube - Adopts ESG World Platform BGP - 3rd Quarter Sales to 30 October 2022 GEO - Quarterly Operating Update Housing New Zealand plans to build 4,900 state houses over the next three years, although the number of new state houses will increase by just 722 in that time as it replaces its worn-out housing stock. The new Auckland Unitary Plan allows for an additional 30,000 homes to be built on Housing New Zealand land over the next 30 to 50 years, a tenfold increase from the previous plans, chief executive Andrew McKenzie told the select committee at the agency's annual review this morning. A large proportion of those won't be state housing but will be private or affordable supply, which HNZ will use to provide funding for its redevelopment programme. Some of the 4,900 houses HNZ plans to build nationwide will replace existing stock and some will be sold, with a net gain of 722 houses expected, McKenzie said. In Auckland, HNZ plans to build 3,900 houses, for a net gain of 1,400. "We're at a phase where we need to create capacity to utilise the land better - to move our tenants into the new homes, free up land. The numbers obviously accelerate after that - I think the following year the target is around 1,200 new homes net," McKenzie said. "Our stock has come to the end of its life, we're going to have to replace a large amount of it over the next 20 years." Phil Twyford, Labour's housing spokesperson, questioned whether that 4,900 goal was realistic as the agency hadn't met its building targets over the past couple of years. HNZ's chair Adrienne Young-Cooper said the agency had met its performance requirement for the year under review and had been undergoing a significant capacity build over the past 18 months along with the Hobsonville Land Company. Including the homes built for the private market the agency built 871 houses in the year, ahead of its target of 845, she said. At the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment's annual review immediately following HNZ, the ministry said that as yet, no new affordable houses have been built on Crown land in Auckland. Overall, the government's building programme delivered 653 completed dwellings in the year, with about 50 percent of those likely to have been affordable housing, MBIE's acting deputy CEO of building, resources and markets Chris Bunny said. That was expected to ramp up in following years with over 1,000 properties in the pipeline, he said. Labour's Twyford asked MBIE CEO David Smol whether the ministry was doing any work on policy solutions to the high cost of building materials in New Zealand, saying locals pay between 20 and 30 percent more than Australian consumers for the same building materials and the Commerce Commission is of the view that it doesn't have the legal powers to intervene. In the building supplies market, practices like rebates, discounts and vertical integration have an anti-competitive effect overall, Twyford said. Smol said he had confidence in the commission as a regulator, and competition law in New Zealand is "fairly in line with good practice internationally", although an MBIE study of the building sector which proposed changes to anti-dumping and tariff legislation had proven contentious. The ministry has provided advice to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs on the Commerce Act exploring the benefits of changing to an effects-based approach to competition, with Cabinet yet to make a decision on that, he said. "The challenge we face as a country - and we face this in many markets - is we're a small domestic market so the extent of competition, particularly where there are economies of scale, tends to be limited," Smol said. "We've got to promote competition wherever we can, but the fundamentals are challenging." The ministry has considered whether government procurement can be used as a lever to promote a more competitive sector, and attempted to do that in the plasterboard market following the Christchurch earthquakes, but wasn't successful. "To attract a new entrant of scale, the new entrant needs to see a viable forward programme of work that justifies the upfront investment of that initial market entry," Smol said. "Using government scale where we can, and without compromising other outcomes too much, that's the conceptual opportunity. As you've said, in practice it's not easy." BusinessDesk.co.nz Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: SKC - ADDITIONAL US PRIVATE PLACEMENT FUNDING SECURED Spark New Zealand Limited's Annual Meeting Results 2022 Fonterra Australia settles class action proceedings PFI - Q3 Dividend, Development and Divestment Update November 4th Morning Report FPH to announce half year results on 29 November 2022 ATM - FDA approval to supply infant milk formula to United States Steel & Tube - Adopts ESG World Platform BGP - 3rd Quarter Sales to 30 October 2022 GEO - Quarterly Operating Update Madison firefighters answered a strange call Wednesday after a light pole fell onto a vehicle on the city's Southwest Side, but the pole was knocked over by a different vehicle that fled the scene. The incident happened at about 10:25 a.m. at Verona Road and Atticus Way, the Madison Fire Department said. The light pole was lying across the windshield and hood of the vehicle. The driver was not injured. "The driver told responders he was driving along when the vehicle in front of him struck the light pole and drove away, with the pole falling on his vehicle," said spokeswoman Cynthia Schuster. The light pole shattered the rear window of the vehicle but the windshield stayed intact, and there was no intrusion by the pole into the passenger compartment. The vehicle that struck the light pole was not located. A suspected drug user went unconscious behind the wheel Thursday morning and crashed his car into a body shop, damaging a vintage car in the front window but not injuring anybody. The crash happened at about 7:55 a.m. at Body Shop Supply, 1212 Greenway Cross, Madison police said. The unidentified driver, a 21-year-old Fitchburg man, was taken to a local hospital but was not believed to be seriously injured. Police spokesman Joel DeSpain said the man would be identified when charges are brought against him. According to police: The car was on Greenway Cross when it jumped the curb, hit several road signs and a fire hydrant, went over a snowbank and into the front corner of the business. "The collision damaged a vintage car in the showroom and bent one of the building's structural beams," DeSpain said. A police sergeant at the scene said it appeared the driver "Put the pedal to the medal," meaning when he lost consciousness he accelerated and didn't know it. Police found drug paraphernalia in the car. Unlocked vehicles in Verona are easy targets for burglars, who've hit the West Side of the city the past few days. Verona police said the break-ins have been reported in the West Verona Avenue and Westridge Parkway area. "Multiple reports have been taken by police regarding the theft of property from unlocked vehicles which are parked on the street, in driveways or in garages where the garage door has been left open," the police report said. Police advise residents to keep their vehicles locked and to close garage doors. "These are crimes of opportunity and they can be difficult to successfully prosecute," the report said. "The best way to deal with this type of crime is to prevent it from happening in the first place." Harald S. Naess, an affable, accessible UW-Madison professor who for many years was Wisconsins go-to guy for answers to all questions about Norway, died Sunday in Kristiansand, Norway, where he grew up. He was 91. A polite and engaged storyteller, Naess taught from 1959 to 1991 in the Department of Scandinavian Studies, the first in the United States. He was chairman for several years in the 1960s, during the departments greatest expansion. His specialty was on Norwegian author and Nobel Prize winner Knut Hamsun who in his youth lived a penurious existence in Elroy but he taught many courses over his 30-plus years in the department. He also delighted in answering questions about Norwegian culture and myths, especially in a state where those myths die hard, and where many residents claim a status as descendants from Scandinavian immigrants. Asked in 1989 about lutefisk and lefse suppers, which are still popular in Wisconsin churches, Naess said, first of all, in Norway the people dont socialize in churches, few of which have the basements that usually host those activities here. And second, Norwegians have electric freezers today. They dont need to have dried cod. Norwegians arent big on hugs, either, he added: Norwegians dont touch. This embracing all this Have a nice day is unknown to Norwegians. Naess himself was far from taciturn. His was a welcoming figure, constantly traveling the state to talk about Norway, Norwegians and the immigrant experience, often with a summer school course that visited Wisconsins Norwegian settlements. Early days teaching could be rough. Once, teaching in the 1960s at the University of Minnesota, which rotated hosting summer school courses with UW, one of the students wondered why I always wore the same tie. He did not know that we lived, wife, husband and three kids, in a tent in a Minnesota park. Their permanent home for many years was a farm in the town of Springdale, outside of Mount Horeb, that they called Maridal. The couple moved back to Norway in the mid-1990s. He loved to build things, out on that farm and in the department, too, said Kim Nilsson, a longtime colleague and also a retired Scandinavian studies professor. Another colleague, Richard Vowles, wrote of a peculiarly Naessian ritual, which was to host a secret fish boil at Picnic Point on Christmas Eve. Vowles described Naess essence as equal parts accessibility, modesty and geniality with the ability to translate lifes indignities into a comic scenario. Naess kept his research going long after retirement, editing six volumes of Hamsuns letters and a 350-page explanation of Latin and Greek plant names. The student fees Gov. Scott Walker would make optional pay for passes that give UW-Madison students unlimited rides on Metro Transit buses and a student government that has called for administrators to declare the university a sanctuary campus for undocumented immigrants. The fees also support UW-Madisons campus radio station, a contract with the Dane County Rape Crisis Center and an array of student organizations, including one that distributes condoms, another that provides free tutoring and one made up of Catholic students. At a time when political divisions seem to be widening between students who help make the university a bastion of Wisconsins left and lawmakers in the conservative state Legislature, Walkers proposal could pull funding from a campus government and organizations with a history of liberal activism, as well as several non-political initiatives and groups. He wants to give students the option of paying what are known as allocable fees. Walker has included the provision in his 2017-19 spending plan. Members of UW-Madisons student government say allocable fees represent a small slice of annual fees and pay for valuable services that support students and enrich their time on campus. Associated Students of Madison chairwoman Carmen Gosey also said she was concerned the opt-out provision would threaten funding for the campus government, which she describes as an activist organization that pushes for causes affecting students. This is a way to take power away from students and sort of suppress that voice, Gosey said. But many conservative students take a different view. Alex Walker, a UW-Madison student, chairman of the College Republican Federation of Wisconsin and son of Scott Walker, said the budget proposal gives students the ability to choose whether they want to spend money to support organizations that they might not agree with. Conservative students definitely dont feel like theyre represented by ASM, Alex Walker said of the student government. It is frustrating to see political activism funded by students segregated fees. Tom Evenson, a spokesman for the governor, similarly said students should be able to decide if they want to pay for campus organizations. At a time when we want to make college more affordable, we should not be forcing all students to pay for things such as Sex Out Loud, Evenson said. He was referring to a UW-Madison group that gives away condoms and leads workshops on sexual health and pleasure. Sex Out Loud received $103,398 in funding from student fees this school year. Where students and their families are asked to pay for optional activities, the governors budget provides the freedom to choose, Evenson said. A portion of fees Allocable segregated fees represent $177.96 of the $1,215.12 UW-Madison students paid in fees for this school year. Most of the money from allocable fees pays for Metro Transit bus passes available to every student; funding for campus government and organizations accounts for $67 per year. Many of the organizations funded by the fee have no political agenda, such as the campus radio station, WSUM, and the Greater University Tutoring Service, which organizes peer tutoring and other programs. Gosey argued cutting allocable fees would worsen students experiences on campus without saving them much money. Walkers budget would not allow students to opt out of paying non-allocable fees, the category that funds University Health Services, the Wisconsin Union and other costs for $1,037.16 per year. Alex Walker said non-allocable fees fund essential services, while relatively few students are involved in organizations that receive funding. The amount paid for allocable fees is less, but over a four-year span it adds up, Walker said. ASM plans to lobby legislators and fellow students who Gosey acknowledged might like the idea of reducing their annual fees against the governors proposal, Gosey said. She noted the fees also fund grants that ASM distributes to hundreds of campus organizations to help them host events, print fliers and send members to conferences. Grants and other funding from student fees is distributed regardless of political affiliation, Gosey said, pointing to both Sex Out Loud and the religious organization Badger Catholic as groups that receive funding from allocable fees. UW-Madisons College Republicans received a $3,000 grant in 2016 to attend the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. All students have access to this, regardless of their mission, she said. Gov. Scott Walker proposed higher state parks admission and camping fees for the states most popular parks Wednesday as part of his first budget after withdrawing tax support and raising fees two years ago. The 2017-19 budget proposal covers an array of items bearing on the states controversial management of natural resources and protection of air and water quality. But it doesnt call for breaking up the Department of Natural Resources. The volunteer group that supports state park and recreation facilities has asked for restoration of tax funding and restraint in additional fee increases as the state tries to fill a $1.4 million annual budget hole. Walkers budget would add $700,000 in new fees starting in 2018, but it doesnt spell out how much more park users or campers would pay. The governor isnt seeking higher fees for fishing or hunting licenses despite a DNR report saying $5 million was needed to avoid cuts in programs protecting wildlife habitat. Walker is also proposing: Study of a potentially major change in efforts to prevent agricultural pollution that has contributed to tainted drinking water and to weed and algae growth that has impaired use of hundreds of lakes and streams. The state would study the feasibility of removing DNR authority to enforce limits on pollution from millions of gallons of manure generated by animal feedlots. Instead, the state agriculture department would handle the job. An audit last year found that serious problems in pollution regulation stemmed from state budget cuts and relaxed enforcement practices. Tressi Kamp of Midwest Environmental Advocates said it wont matter where programs are housed unless the state assigns sufficient staff and is willing to enforce the law. Moving 56 DNR forestry headquarters employees out of Madison and closer to the northern areas where most logging takes place despite criticism about the expected cost of up to $17 million over 20 years. The division already has 235 regional employees in northern Wisconsin, but Walker and the Legislature mandated a study of the move two years ago. Given how financially strapped the DNR is, members of the departments policy board have said they were puzzled that the move was being considered. The DNR estimated first-year costs of $1.1 million to $6 million to lease or buy a new headquarters in Wausau for 45 headquarters employees, with additional building-related expenses of between $9.4 million and $10.8 million over the next two decades. Changes in programs addressing hazardous drinking water and air pollution. Details werent immediately available on how much impact could be expected. Elimination of the DNRs Natural Resources Magazine, which is self-supporting through subscriptions. Two employees would lose their jobs, and readers who subscribe by purchasing a conservation patron license would save $375,000 during the two-year budget period, the governors office said. WASHINGTON: India and the U.S. agreed to maintain the pace and momentum of their partnership, particularly their defence ties, after Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis spoke on the phone with his Indian counterpart Manohar Parrikar, a Pentagon spokesman said. Spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said it was the "first conversation" between Mattis and Parrikar. "Secretary Mattis committed to build upon the tremendous progress in bilateral defense cooperation made in recent years, underscoring the strategic importance of the US-India relationship and India's role in advancing global peace and security," Davis said. Mattis and Parrikar, he said, also "affirmed their commitment to sustain the momentum on key bilateral defense efforts to include the Defense Technology and Trade Initiative". Read Also: EU Programme For Climate, Energy To Expand To India India To Host Meet On Combating Nuclear Terrorism India Yet To Achieve Global Goals In Healthcare: Murthy Indian Bizmen Have Ability To Reinvent To Challenges: Tata BHIM App Users Have Spent 361 Cr So Far: Govt Eduardo Morales faces up to 25 years to life in prison if convicted of killing a man sitting in a parked minivan in South Beach two years ago. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- To the defense, the prosecution's murder case against Eduardo Morales pivots on one witness - and that witness is a liar. In his closing argument Wednesday at Morales' trial in state Supreme Court, St. George, defense lawyer Manuel Ortega told jurors the witness, Jesus Aguilar, dissembled when cops picked him up on the day after Marco Aguirre was slain on Jan. 20, 2015, while sitting in a minivan parked on a South Beach street. Aguilar, who had his own problems with the law for repeatedly driving a cab without a valid license, told investigators several different stories before saying he picked up a gun-toting Morales in his Honda CRV near the murder scene and drove him to Brooklyn, said Ortega. "The People are relying solely on the testimony of Jesus Aguilar. Nothing else corroborates Jesus Aguilar," said Ortega. "He admitted to lying to police on several occasions. Who's to say he's not lying here. ... Everything else is a smokescreen to get you to believe Eduardo Morales is the shooter." But special prosecutor Jennifer Tubridy called the victim's death an "assassination" and maintained the evidence against Morales, a Brooklyn resident, is "overwhelming." Specifically, a witness who passed a man with a gun on the street moments before the 10:10 p.m. killing gave police a physical description of that man which matched the defendant "to a T" she said in her summation. Three days after the slaying, cops picked up Morales in Jackson Heights, Queens. In his possession was a .380-caliber Bersa handgun, which, ballistics tests showed, had fired bullets and shell casings found at the murder scene on Sand Lane near Cedar Avenue, said Tubridy. "Unfortunately, for him, he didn't get rid of the murder weapon in time, because he got caught with it by police," she said. As for Aguilar, the witness testified he had initially lied to police, because he wasn't sure why they were questioning him and was afraid of getting himself and Morales in trouble, she said. But Aguilar told the truth once he realized he was being quizzed about the South Beach murder, said Tubridy. The witness told police the defendant, who he knew as "El Rubio," had phoned him a short time before the killing and asked him to pick him up at Sand Lane and Cedar Avenue. He then drove Morales into Brooklyn and was paid $50 for tolls and gas, said Tubridy. "He didn't want to pay for something he didn't do," she said, adding cops had tracked down Aguilar through the license plate on his Honda. Authorities originally identified the victim as Marcos Huallpa, 46, of Queens; however, he has since been identified in court papers as Marco Huallpa Aguirre. Neither Tubridy in her summation, nor her colleague, special prosecutor James Evangelou in his opening statement last week provided a motive for the slaying. They are not required to. However, the sources familiar with the case previously told the Advance Morales, 25, was believed to be an enforcer for a rival prostitution crew, and he killed the victim over a territory dispute. Aguirre a had dropped off a female prostitute before he was slain, investigators have said. Tubridy replayed jurors a surveillance videotape Wednesday in which a man can be seen standing in the shadows of a building on Sand Lane a short time before the victim pulls his minivan into a parking space up the street. A woman walks down toward the man by the building and they speak. She then turns and walks back to the minivan, and he follows. The woman, whom prosecutors identified as "Flor," then runs up to the van and gets inside while the man also runs behind her. The man goes up to the front passenger-side door, leans in and there are two quick flashes, the tape shows. Prosecutors said Morales is the man seen in the video, and the flashes show the gun firing. Even so, the shooter's face could not be identified on the tape, said Ortega, the defense lawyer, and no witness testified they saw Morales pull the trigger. "We didn't hear anyone say Eduardo Morales is the one who shot Marcos Aguirre," said Ortega. And the fact that cops found the murder weapon on Morales three days after the slaying didn't prove the defendant had shot the victim, Ortega contended. "It's undisputed that Eduardo Morales possessed a weapon on Jan. 23, 2015 in Jackson Heights," said Ortega. "What's in dispute is who possessed the gun on Jan. 20, 2015. We're not disputing that gun killed the victim, we're disputing that Eduardo Morales fired that gun." Morales didn't testify. Ortega also questioned why Flor, the woman who prosecutors allege Morales followed to the victim's minivan, wasn't produced at trial. Tubridy said cops had looked for her, but couldn't find her. But Tubridy maintained prosecutors didn't need Flor to make their case. The videotape; ballistics tests; forensic evidence, to include the defendant's fingerprint found on the outside of Aguilar's Honda, and testimony of other witnesses all pointed to Morales, she said. "For you to believe this defendant did not commit the murder, you'd have to believe that someone else who fits this defendant's description to a T, that that person committed the murder and that his defendant was blamed by a person who is friendly to him," she said. "You'd have to believe that this defendant is the unluckiest man in the world." The case resumes Friday when Justice William E. Garnett will charge jurors on the law. Deliberations will follow. Morales is charged with second-degree murder and second-degree criminal weapon possession. Mike Cerasani of Eltingville and castmate Shannon Duffy in MTV's "Are You The One?" (Courtesy of MTV Networks) STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- How's our friend Mike Cerasani of Eltingville doing on MTV's "Are You The One?" I'm glad you asked. After two weeks of stagnated match-up ceremonies, the house is ready to shake things up -- again. This week's challenge, titled "Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire," pins the guys against the gals in a competition of who can be the most honest. The housemates go head to head as host Ryan Delvin asks the contestants questions while they are hooked up to a lie detector test. The team that is the most truthful wins the getaway date. As the weeks go on, Cerasani is becoming more comfortable voicing his opinions about other contestants -- this week's shade landed on housemate Tyler. For the first time ever, Cerasani was chosen for a getaway date. Housemate Kari says she chose Mike because she believes there is more to him than the "drunken party guy" he portrays himself to be. The pair enjoyed an up-river boat cruise in the Dominican's rainforest. CERASANI'S GETAWAY DATE Cerasani pulled back the layers of his womanizing reputation in the house to show that he's a down-to-Earth, or in his words "normal" guy. "You just make stupid decisions sometimes," Kari admits to him on their date. Cerasani responded that he needs a woman who will change him and "not just let him walk all over her." Not everyone in the house is Cerasani's biggest fan, though. Housemate Michael -- yes, there's another "Mikey" in the house -- warns Kari to "be extremely cautious" with choosing Cerasani as her next love interest. As much as Kari tried to defend him, Michael says a change in Cerasani's "bad boy" attitude is not in the foreseeable future. THE TRUTH RESULTS Although Cerasani and Kari got closer on their getaway date, the duo were no competition for the couple that accompanied them on the getaway date, Edward and Kam. For the first time in this competition, the house confirmed a perfect match through the truth booth. The house left the match-up ceremony with four beams, including the confirmed "perfect match" of Edward and Kam, for the third week in a row. ABOUT THE SHOW With the usual total of contestants being 20, "Are You The One?" is bigger, and arguably better, than ever. The hit dating show, set in the Dominican Republic, puts 22 singles together to fall in love and win the cash prize of a million bucks. "I wanted to find my match and see how it feels to have a conversation with someone that was chosen for me by a professional," said Cerasani. "Some people would make jokes about how I'm a 'guido' and all that. I don't care, though. I was being me, I was owning it." Throughout the show, the singles will compete with one another for the chance to go on dates and get alone time with those they feel the strongest connection with. The rest of the house have to vote for one couple a week to head into the "Truth Booth" that determines if the couple selected is a "perfect match." It all comes down to the matching ceremony. At the end of each episode, the singles come together, choose who they think their "perfect match" is and host Ryan Devlin reveals how many couples are right using beams of light. Tune in to MTV at 9 p.m. Wednesdays to follow S.I.'s Mike Cerasani on his reality TV journey to find "true love." Full episodes are up on MTV.com. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Advocates for the intellectual and developmentally disabled (I/DD) community recently gained bipartisan support in the Legislature and are now hoping to gain the support of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who they feel has put their needs on the back burner. The Assembly Minority Task Force on Protecting the Rights of People with Developmental Disabilities recently introduced the C.A.R.E.S. -- Championing Aid, Rights, Equality and Services - Plan to the Assembly after hearing testimony from advocates, family, providers and individuals at town hall meeting held throughout the state. Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-East Shore/Brooklyn) and Assemblyman Ron Castorina (R-South Shore), who are both on the Task Force, heard from Staten Islanders at a town hall as I.S. 24 last summer. HOUSING The report outlines the most critical issues concerning housing: Length of time an individual spends on the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities' (OPWDD) Residential Request List (RRL) and the inability to get placement when it is needed. The C.A.R.E.S Plan states the average age of an individual on the RRL is 34 years old and the average length of time waiting is seven years. "The overarching goals for OPWDD as stated in the RRL report were to ensure that there is a sufficient amount of certified residential opportunities and invest in new certified residential opportunities as needed; increase the number of non-certified residential options for those who can live in their own apartments, and increase the availability of respite services, day habilitation services, and crisis services to help family caregivers with their family members living at home," the C.A.R.E.S. Plan stated. The task force made three recommendations for housing: Repurpose closed developmental centers as apartment-style housing for those who are able to live on their own, and create smaller group home housing for those who require daily services. Create a housing dashboard, similar to the Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS) Availability Dashboard, showing where beds and services are available throughout the state, hoping to cut down the amount of time on the RRL. Require OPWDD to post on a map where individuals requesting housing for a family member are located, giving the legislature the ability to see the need throughout the state. STAFFING Adequate staffing of non-profit organizations has been a growing concern for providers, as well as the individuals who rely on staff and Direct Service Professionals for day-to-day care. Low wages and diminishing state funding has created an annual staff turnover rate of 30 percent and disappearing resources. "Despite the widespread acknowledgement by all stakeholders that proper staffing is an essential component of protecting the rights of individuals with developmental disabilities, staffing difficulties continue to dominate and threaten the existence of many non-profit service providers," according to the C.A.R.E.S. Plan. Parents also expressed concern during town halls that the low pay of staff could create situations where "care was being provided by individuals who were poorly educated and temperamentally unsuited to perform the required work." The task force made three recommendations for staffing: Fully fund the increase in minimum wage for direct care workers employed by non-profit service providers. Create a commission to study and report what wage levels would be needed for retention and recruitment of direct care workers. Ensure that savings from cuts to direct care workforce are reinvested in the non-profit direct care workforce. Other suggestions included creating a family navigator to assist families with various agencies, organizations and requirements and "requiring the Commissioner of Education to set tuition rates for Special Act Public School Districts and 853 Schools based on the same annual percentage rate increase provided for general support for public schools." NOW IT'S UP TO THE GOVERNOR "This is a comprehensive report; blood, sweat and tears went into it and it deserves to be read [by Gov. Cuomo] and should be examined in great detail," Castorina said about the C.A.R.E.S. Plan. Castorina said the crisis the I/DD community is facing is "extremely disconcerting" because New York is considered to have comprehensive disability services. The report comes at a crucial time for the governor. The deadline is quickly approaching for Cuomo's amended 2017-2018 budget proposal, as a number of the recommendations outlined in the Plan require state funding to be allocated to specific agencies. "From these hearings across the state, we have learned that there are serious issues when it comes to the effectiveness of current transition plans, shortfalls in community-based care programs, lack of housing and insufficient levels of reimbursement for our non-profits and special act schools," Malliotakis said. "This report reflects the concerns of these individuals with special needs, their family members and direct care givers and gives recommendations to address a wide spectrum of issues," she said. Malliotakis said the C.A.R.E.S. Plan will be sent to the governor in the coming days. "What it's going to come down to is whether [Cuomo] is going to embrace this or just look over it and do nothing," Castorina said. "That's when legislation will become key." Malliotakis and Castorina said that the Task Force is already working will bill drafters and plan on introducing accompanying legislation over the next few weeks. Dignity in Danger is the Advance's depth report on the crisis of care facing Staten Island's developmentally disabled. View the full package. Gov. Scott Walkers proposed budget offers a series of initiatives to address homelessness in the state, with advocates applauding the moves and calling on the state to do more. Among other things, the budget would help homeless individuals prepare for jobs; test a program to use housing vouchers for the chronically homeless; expand a program to help mentally ill inmates after theyre released from prison; allow the use of state grants to support homelessness prevention and immediate, permanent housing followed by a tailored set of assistance known as rapid rehousing; and create a homeless services coordinator to seek a federal waiver allowing the state to use Medicaid for case management services and housing transition. Were very pleased, said Joseph Volk, executive director of the Wisconsin Coalition Against Homelessness. This is the first time in 25 years theres been anything in the state budget regarding homelessness and increased resources. This is a huge step forward. Hopes for increased attention to homelessness rose through 2016 as Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch made the issue a priority and the coalition offered specific policy and budget recommendations. The recommendations echoed problems raised by the Wisconsin State Journal in a four-part series on homelessness last year. The governors budget includes many of the coalitions recommendations. However, it does not include creating a stronger interagency council led by the governor or lieutenant governor and including department heads, or more funds for prevention, Volk said. Obviously, wed like to see more, he said. Specifically, Walkers initiatives would: Provide 10 $50,000 grants to homeless shelters annually to deliver intensive, employment-based case management for homeless families. Case management would focus on financial management, counseling, continued school enrollment for children, connecting parents to jobs and enrolling unemployed or underemployed parents in W-2 or Food Share Employment and Training. The initiative would get a total $1 million over the biennium. Deliver a matching grant for a municipality to initiate a pilot modeled on the Better Way initiative in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which deploys a van to pick up homeless people and pay them to clean up public places. The state would provide a total $150,000 over two years, with a $50,000 matching requirement, to the municipality to participate in the pilot program, which has a goal of transitioning homeless participants into permanent jobs. Authorize the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority to pilot a prioritization of federal housing vouchers to chronically homeless people on the voucher waiting list and provide case management to those who get the vouchers. Provide $660,800 in each year of the biennium to expand a program to five more counties that serves mentally ill inmates being released from prison. The program helps those at risk of homelessness secure housing and other services. Amend the states transitional housing statute to create flexibility for grant funds to support homelessness prevention and rapid rehousing. Create a homeless services coordinator position to work with agencies and municipalities to develop a waiver based on a Louisiana model to use Medicaid funds for intensive case management to achieve transition to housing. Volk said funds for case management at shelters, the Medicaid waiver and focusing housing vouchers on the chronically homeless will have a major impact. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- FDNY marshals are investigating the cause of the three-alarm fire that left one dead and 14 others injured after it ripped through a Port Richmond home Thursday morning, officials said. The unidentified man who was killed was found on the first floor and pronounced dead by EMS at the scene, police said. His identity has not been released, pending family notification. The deceased man's brother, 69, suffered burns to his body and was transported in critical condition to the burn unit at Staten Island University Hospital in Ocean Breeze, according to a statement from the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner for Public Information. "Unfortunately, we did lose a gentleman and that gentleman's brother is in critical condition," FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro told the Advance. Four other patients, including a 12-year-old female, a 43-year-old male, a 26-year-old male and an 11-year-old male, were transported to Richmond University Medical Center, West Brighton, in stable condition, police said. They were treated for smoke inhalation as well as scrapes and bruises, police said. The fire started around 7 a.m. at the two-and-a-half story dwelling at 1028 Post Avenue, and reached a third alarm before being brought under control at 8:59 a.m., an FDNY spokesman said. About 33 units and 138 firefighters responded. There were 15 patients, including eight civilians and seven FDNY members. Six firefighters and one EMS worker suffered minor injuries, the FDNY spokesman said. The snowstorm made battling Thursday's fatal fire in Port Richmond more difficult, according to Nigro. "It can take a little longer to stretch hose lines in the snow and get ladders in position, so we did put extra firefighters on duty to cover for that," Nigro said at a storm briefing. But the commissioner said that the storm didn't affect the response to the fire. "Absolutely not. Unfortunately, we did lose a gentleman and that gentleman's brother is in critical condition," Nigro told the Advance. "The response time to that fire was less than three minutes. The firehouse is quite close to the location, and it was a second-alarm on arrival. There was a great deal of fire that met the firefighters when they got there." The fire produced copious amounts of smoke that seemed to be fanned by the snowstorm's high winds. Flames shot through the roof of the attic atop the two-story frame house, according to witnesses. At least a dozen local residents stood outside watching the emergency response in the swirling snow. White powder was piling up on firefighters' helmets and equipment due to the near-blizzard conditions. Witnesses said it was difficult to see between the smoke and the high winds blowing snow all around the emergency responders. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A Port Richmond man is a serial tool thief, cops allege. Orlando Marrero, 53, of the 100 block of Heberton Avenue, broke into five different trucks or vans in his community and in Elm Park and swiped thousands of dollars of tools and equipment, said a criminal complaint. The heists occurred between Dec. 17 and Jan. 31 on the 400 block of Morningstar Road, the 100 block of Innis Street, the 100 block of Faber Street and on Trantor Place and Harrison Avenue, the complaint said. Last week, police asked for the public's help in identifying a man wanted for questioning in connection with six vehicle break-ins in Port Richmond and Elm Park between Nov. 20 and Jan. 13. Marrero has been charged in four of those incidents, as well as one other, according to the complaint. The defendant was busted Monday night on the 1800 block of Victory Boulevard, Meiers Corners, the complaint said. Officers found codeine in the center console of Marrero's 2003 Honda van, said the complaint. Marrero was charged with five felony counts each of burglary and grand larceny. He's also accused of a misdemeanor count of criminal possession of a controlled substance. He was arraigned Tuesday in Criminal Court and is being held in lieu of $10,000 bail, online state court records show. The burglary charges, which are the top counts against Marrero, each carry a maximum penalty of 28 months to seven years in prison on a trial conviction. His next court date is Feb. 21. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- It's all gone sour for two Brooklyn men accused of mugging a Chinese-food deliveryman in Great Kills last summer. Giovanni DeStefano, 24, and Elvis Tahirovic, 20, each face jail time after pleading guilty to attempted second-degree robbery stemming from the Aug. 25 incident. Police said the defendants accosted the victim on Katan Avenue near Greaves Avenue at about 9:20 p.m. Tahirovic demanded the victim's wallet and money and punched him in the face, a criminal complaint said. Tahirovic snatched $130 from the man, while DeStefano grabbed a bag of Chinese food from the victim's car, said the complaint. In exchange for his plea, DeStefano will be sentenced Feb. 24 in state Supreme Court, St. George, to a year in jail. Tahirovic will be sentenced March 22 to six months behind bars and five years' probation. Gregory C. Clarke represents DeStefano; Matthew Blum is Tahirovic's lawyer. Assistant District Attorney Natalie Barros is prosecuting the case. Page Content During Minister Lee's visit to the Bahamas, Minister Lee met with representatives from Bahamas to discuss their plans to roll out a new National Insurance. "Just like in the Bahamas, Developing Universal Health coverage for our people is one of the goals that has been set out by government. It is our goal to ensure that our people have access to affordable, quality health care close to home.", stated Minister Lee. Minister Lee met with Dr. Delon Brennen from NHI Bahamas and Permanent Secretary. "As part of our effort to research and develop a sustainable model for St Maarten's NHI, we have been speaking to as many of our other partners in the Caribbean to see how they are developing their models for NHI. We believe that it makes sense to learn from the successes and failures from others that have already developed or rolled out NHI. The presentation from Dr. Brennen was very informative and contained many points of concern for us to consider and many recommendations for St Maarten to take into account as we develop our NHI program. Developing a sustainable NHI program on a small island is not a unique challenge and we welcome the opportunity to learn from our neighbors, said Minister Lee. Gov. Scott Walker is seeking more staff for the states troubled youth prison in his 2017-19 state budget proposal. Though Democrats and Milwaukee government officials have called for the closure of the Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls, Walker is instead proposing to hire eight new staff members to push the Irma detention center toward compliance with the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act. The facility needs about 50 more staff members to be compliant. Walker also proposes about three new staff to expand mental health services for female inmates at the facility, and nine new nurses to help dispense medication. The budget proposal also expands the number of inmates that may be housed in a Racine correctional facility for youth inmates and requires offenders under the age of 18 be sentenced to a juvenile facility, rather than adult prison. The budget proposal for the Northwoods juvenile facility comes amid a two-year criminal investigation now headed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation targeting a number of potential crimes ranging from inmate abuse to official misconduct, and after nearly every Department of Corrections official involved in juvenile corrections, at both the facility and the state level, had been replaced or had resigned. The ACLU also recently filed a lawsuit on behalf of current and former inmates seeking to force large-scale changes in practice including eliminating the current use of solitary confinement for juvenile offenders altogether. Other provisions in Walkers Department of Corrections budget include: By clicking Agree, you consent to Slates Terms of Service and Privacy Policy and the use of technologies such as cookies by Slate and our partners to deliver relevant advertising on our iOS app to personalize content and perform site analytics. Please see our Privacy Policy for more information about our use of data, your rights, and how to withdraw consent. Agree At least a handful of school districts outside of Madison would not be eligible for additional state funding under a proposal from Gov. Scott Walker requiring school district employees to pay at least 12 percent of their health insurance costs as a condition to receive extra money. Walkers office said Wednesday it had not done an exhaustive review but it was aware of only one district the Madison School District that would be affected by the insurance requirement. But the Wisconsin State Journal identified at least four others. The Beloit, Monona Grove, Oconomowoc and Verona districts also could be affected because all currently require a smaller percentage from their employees paychecks to pay health insurance premiums. Janesville school employees also pay a smaller percentage, but likely will reach the 12 percent threshold next year, according to the district superintendent. Walker has proposed $649 million in new spending on schools for the 2017-19 budget but has made it contingent on school districts meeting the insurance requirement. Its unclear how many of the 422 districts statewide would be affected.Representatives from the Wisconsin School Boards Association, the Wisconsin Association of School Business Officials and the state Department of Administration said they werent sure how many districts the proposal could affect, either. Walkers office has characterized the proposal as requiring school districts to be compliant with Act 10, the 2011 law that shifted more pension and health insurance costs onto most public employees and essentially eliminated collective bargaining. Act 10 required local governments who offer a state health insurance plan to their employees to pay no more than 88 percent of the average premiums. Walkers budget proposal applies a similar requirement to all school districts, regardless of which health insurance plans they offer. Switch saved money Monona Grove School District superintendent Daniel Olson said his school district had been offering the state health insurance plan, and requiring its employees to pay 12.6 percent of the costs, but switched just last month to a new plan that requires employees to pay 5 percent. Olson said the switch resulted in substantial savings for the district. So even though the district now pays 95 percent of the premiums, the districts cost is substantially less than when we were paying 87.4 percent of the premiums under the state plan, said Olson. Olson said if lawmakers approve Walkers proposal, the potential loss of the funding would have an extremely negative impact on academic programs for students. We would, of course, need to learn much more about the details and have discussion by the Board of Education, but I dont think we would have much choice, said Olson. Verona School District superintendent Dean Gorrell said employees pay 11 percent currently and that it would be premature to comment on whether the district would shift its policies if lawmakers approve Walkers proposal. Rep. Chris Taylor, D-Madison, characterized Walkers proposal as pitting money for children against teachers in an effort to revive his role in the conservative spotlight after unsuccessfully running for president. To hold our kids ransom to score political points is the lowest of the low, she said in a statement. Walkers spokesman Tom Evenson said the governors priority is to help students succeed and get dollars into the classroom, not reward a very small number of districts that have stood against reform. Donna Braun, a nursing assistant at Shorewood Elementary School in Madison, said in a Thursday letter to Walker that she forwarded to the State Journal that her pay has decreased $400 per month after her work hours were cut and health insurance and pension contributions increased. I cannot afford to have my take-home pay cut any further, she wrote. At odds since Act 10 The Madison School District and Walker have been at odds in regard to Act 10 since it was first proposed. Its teachers union, Madison Teachers Inc., was the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit that unsuccessfully challenged the law. MTI executive director Doug Keillor said Walker appears to be focused on settling old political scores. We would appreciate it if the governor would focus his attention on state government and not micromanaging the personnel policies of the Madison Metropolitan School District, said Keillor. We have a locally elected school board better equipped to handle that. But Rep. Joel Kleefisch, R-Oconomowoc, said the proposal is simply an incentive for school districts to comply with the spirit of the law, which is to keep school district spending focused on students. Walkers budget also would require the money be spent in school buildings. The governors proposal is not the only one floating around the state Capitol aimed at ensuring school districts are operating in accordance to the terms of Act 10. Rep. Tom Weatherson, R-Caledonia, also is circulating a bill that would reduce school funding for districts that are not complying with the laws terms. The Group Insurance Board on Wednesday approved a plan to change the way Wisconsin pays for health insurance for nearly 210,000 state workers, retirees and dependents, many of whom live in Dane County. The move to self-insure the $1.5 billion program also covers nearly 40,000 workers and dependents from local governments that have joined the program. They include the city of Madisons 7,000 workers and dependents. Gov. Scott Walker said the change will save the state $60 million over the next two years, which will go to public education. Here are answers to some frequently asked questions about the planned change. Q: What is self-insurance? A: Its when employers pay for medical benefits directly, through third-party administrators, instead of paying premiums to insurance companies. Employers, instead of insurers, accept the risk for unexpectedly high claims. Sometimes employers buy stop-gap coverage to protect against the risk. Q: How common is self- insurance? A: Among large employers like the state, its common. Twenty states self-insure all state employees and 26 others self-insure some state workers, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Wisconsins program already self-insures dental and pharmacy benefits, and less than 5 percent of workers are in a self-insured medical plan. The shift would self-insure the whole program. The Alliance is a Madison-based group of 245 employers, including Lands End, Stoughton Trailers, Trek and Woodmans Markets, that self-insure. Nationwide, 82 percent of covered workers at employers with 200 workers or more are in health plans that are partially or completely self-insured, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Q: Why is the state making this change? A: The insurance board and the state Department of Employee Trust Funds (ETF) said they want to contain costs while maintaining provider access, benefit levels and quality of care. Self-insurance would also give the state more control over data on how workers use health benefits, which could improve wellness and disease management efforts, state officials said. Q: Will it really save money? A: The insurance board said it will save at least $60 million over two years, with an additional $30 million in savings from avoiding Affordable Care Act taxes. In 2015, Segal Consulting said the shift could save $42 million a year, largely by avoiding $18 million in Affordable Care Act fees, cutting $11 million in administrative costs and eliminating $11 million in insurance company profits. Earlier, Segal said the move would save $50 million to $70 million a year. Deloitte, the states previous consultant, said self-insurance could save $20 million a year but might cost $100 million a year. One reason for the different estimates is that its unclear how rates health care providers charge would change under self- insurance. Q: Will my premium go up? A: For people in the state program, its not clear. Premiums could go up under self-insurance or under the current structure, known as fully insured. The state wont release premium rates for 2018 until the fall, when open enrollment takes place. If anything, this might help hold (premiums) down in the short term if the savings estimates turn out to be correct, said Justin Sydnor, an associate professor of risk and insurance at UW-Madisons School of Business. The state worker program makes up nearly 15 percent of Wisconsins fully insured health insurance market. Removing that business could trigger consolidation that might drive up insurance costs for others, some say. Over time there is some risk that this move could make our entire system a little bit less competitive, Sydnor said. That could end up raising costs for everyone. Q: Will my benefits change? A: In the motion adopted Wednesday, the insurance board said it aims to maintain employee benefits as they currently exist. An ETF memo uses slightly different language, saying the board would like to minimize benefit changes for next year. Benefits, like premiums, could change whether the state becomes self-insured or remains fully insured, though it could be somewhat easier for the state to make changes under self-insurance. Under the current system, the state doubled the main out-of-pocket costs for medical services in 2016, though premiums went down slightly. Q: Will I have to switch doctors or clinics? A: For most people, probably not, according to ETF. Some 98 percent of providers in the current program are expected to remain. Lists of doctors and clinics covered under self-insurance wont be available until fall. Q: If premiums, benefits and providers might not change, why is this such a big deal? A: In addition to the potential disruption for employees, the move could disrupt the states competitive health insurance market, especially in Dane County, according to the Wisconsin Association of Health Plans. Wisconsin is unusual in having many insurance companies around the state that are owned by regional health systems. This is a proposal that is making potentially quite large and dramatic changes to a system that seems to be functioning fairly well, Sydnor said. You worry that we might create a problem where one doesnt fundamentally exist. In Dane County, four provider-owned HMOs cover most people in the state program: Dean Health Plan, part of SSM Health; Group Health Cooperative of South Central Wisconsin; Physicians Plus, part of UnityPoint Health; and Unity Health Insurance, part of UW Health. The state selected Dean and Unity through an affiliate called Quartz that also includes La Crosse-based Gundersen Health Plan to administer the self-insured program in southern and southwestern counties. Physicians Plus is merging with Unity. Group Health would be a provider through Quartz, allowing 15,000 of Group Healths 75,000 members who are insured through the state program to keep going to its clinics, said Dr. Mark Huth, Group Healths CEO. WEA Trust, based in Madison, has 82,000 members, 22,000 of whom are in the state program, outside of Dane County. It was not selected. Q: What happened when other states switched to self-insurance? A: Minnesota shifted from a competitive HMO model to self-insurance for its state workers in 2000. Unions and state officials liked the change, the State Journal reported in 2013. However, Minnesota had just three companies in its HMO model before one dropped out, prompting the shift to self-insurance. That is very different from Wisconsins system. Q: What happens next in Wisconsin? A: ETF will negotiate contracts with the vendors that were announced this week and submit its plan, likely in April, to the state Legislatures Joint Finance Committee. The budget committee will hold a hearing before deciding whether to approve the plan, said state Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, co-chairman. Nygren and state Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, co-chairwoman of the committee, along with other Republicans and Democrats, have expressed skepticism about self-insurance and concern about its impact on the statewide health care market. Q: What is the Group Insurance Board? A: Its an 11-member board that oversees state worker benefits and includes the governor, the attorney general and three state administrators, or their designees, plus six members appointed by the governor. Current members include Michael Heifetz, state Medicaid director; Ted Neitzke, former superintendent of the West Bend School District; and J.P. Wieske, deputy insurance commissioner. [Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect that Group Health would be a provider under the state's proposed self-insurance program through Quartz.] Netanyahu is being pressed by the powerful settler movement, which holds that the land was promised to them by God, to declare that the two-state solution is dead and to tell Trump he should forget about achieving the deal of the century, an Arab-Israeli peace accord that awards the Palestinians their own new state. Blunder down under; The temperature was still above 40C when the rolling blackouts began at 6.33pm to conserve power supplies as homeowners used airconditioners for relief from the heat. SA's power reliability will again be under scrutiny given a series of major blackouts, including a statewide failure in September. An SA Power Networks spokesman said they were acting on instructions from AEMO in response to insufficient generation supply in SA. "We don't generate," he said. "This is not an SA Power Networks issue -- we are the muggins in the middle between the customer and generation supply." SA Liberal frontbencher Simon Birmingham said it was "yet another example that the South Australian Government can't keep the lights on". "It's a chronic failing that can only hurt investment confidence in the state," Mr Birmingham said. "It's a demonstration that ad hoc state-based renewable energy targets have gone too far -- when reliability can't be maintained on a day the likes of which SA faces numerous times every single summer." Federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said the blackout "is yet another example of Jay Weatherill's failed experiment". You needn't look further than the finalists in satirical portrait competition the Bald Archy Prize each year to pinpoint the Australian politician who caused the biggest stir and ruffled the most feathers. This time around, it's Pauline Hanson. Some of the artworks in the 2017 Bald Archy Prize exhibition at the Watson Arts Centre. Credit:Jay Cronan "Always each year we can usually predict who the most popular [personality's] going to be. We've had Tony Abbott, Jacqui Lambie, and Clive Palmer," said Bald Archy's founder Peter Batey. "Years ago when Pauline Hanson first emerged we had something like 27 Pauline Hansons entered. She's the prime one this year again." A new national park is being considered for the popular Mount Ainslie and Mount Majura area, but details are scarce on what environmental protection might be offered. The ACT government announced a feasibility study this week, honouring the 2016 parliamentary agreement between Labor and the Greens. Roxy the goanna shifted her egg chamber on Mount Ainslie after being disturbed by dogs or people. Credit:Matthew Higgins It follows a National Parks Association election pitch to consolidate the "nationally significant" lowland grassy woodlands, including the two peaks and Mulligans Flat. Rod Griffiths from the association said there was no intent to prohibit existing recreational activities. A little over a decade after it lost hundreds of millions of dollars on poor risk management with an ill-judged foray into New Zealand, energy utility AGL is again planning to expand abroad, although it is tight-lipped on details. On Thursday, the company outlined a push into the gas retail market in Western Australia, as it confronts the reality of limits to growth in the local market, with more detail on its move offshore to be clarified by year end. AGL planning to venture abroad - again. Credit:Rob Homer "One of the challenges we have is finding domestic opportunities for growth," AGL's chief executive Andy Vesey said. "Given our current size, it is very difficult to do anything more than grow organically." AGL is entering the West Australian market this year, with an investment of up to $100 million as it targets 100,000 retail customers, while warning investors it will lose money on the foray, at least initially. Coles will test out a 12-item limit on self-service checkouts as the supermarket giant battles self-scanning theft. The company announced on Thursday that it would trial the limit at a small number of stores. "We have found customers with small baskets can generally complete their shopping faster by using self-scanning checkouts, where there is always a team member on hand to assist," a Coles spokesman said. Shoppers with more than 12 items will be directed to traditional belted checkouts. No matter what President Trump says or does, this century belongs to Asia. It will be 50 per cent of the world's economy in no time with half of the world's middle-class customers. The middle class has driven the growth of Europe for more than 300 years. And in America, when Henry Ford doubled his workers' salaries so they could afford a motor car, he created the consumer momentum that made the US the economic force of the 20th century with 5 per cent of the world's population controlling 25 per cent of the world's economy. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Credit:AP But there are other places now where the catalytic forces of immigration and innovation, which established the US, are creating new opportunities. One of them is Israel, where I have been this week. Its 8 million people are crammed into an area about a third the size of Tasmania with no natural resources. The owner of iconic Knightsbridge department store Harrods has set its sights on Australia's embattled retail sector after making a $135 million bid for the owner of shopping centre chains Katies, Millers and Rivers. Al Alfia, an investment company controlled by Qatar Royal Family, who are best known as the owner of London icon Harrods, has made a 70-a -share bid for Specialty Fashion Group, an offer that values the business at about $135 million. The bid represents a premium of more than 30 per cent to the Specialty Fashion Group's 52 closing price on Tuesday, before news of the bid landed and has surprised a number of local investors, who ran the ruler over the group's stable of budget fashion chains in the past year. One potential buyer said the price tag on Specialty Fashion Group was too big to pique its interest but it's understood Al Alfia's interest in the mid-market apparel brands is more about geographical diversification than opportunism. It's been a bloody few weeks for Australia's apparel sector as retail's killing season claimed its annual bounty of weak and weary brands. Four national apparel chains have collapsed in just two weeks and insolvency specialists claim the combination of rising costs and weak or falling sales have pushed a number of other, prominent fashion chains onto the endangered list. Smart Sydney suit-maker Herringbone and stablemate Rhodes & Becket collapsed this week pushing retail sector job losses up towards the 3000-mark since December. The carnage of the last fortnight follows the collapse of kids clothing chain Pumpkin Patch as well as Payless Shoes at the end of last year. It's sharpened the focus on Australia's mid-market fashion chains and the immense challenges facing this broad swathe of the retail market. Australia's largest construction union has been ordered to pay almost $100,000 for blockading a major Port of Melbourne expansion project, and threatening to bring "20,000 workers" to join the fight. The powerful Victorian branch of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union was hit with the heavy penalties on Wednesday in the Federal Court, where a judge blasted the union's leadership for "doing nothing" to ensure its staff complied with the law. An illegal union blockade stopped work at the 2015 Webb Dock expansion project. Credit:Joe Armao "Indeed, the inference that the CFMEU will always prefer its own interests ... to compliance with the law is a compelling one," Justice Christopher Jessup said. The union and two officials, Joe Myles and Adam Hall, were found to have illegally coerced construction companies McConnell Dowell and Coastal Steel Fixing in an attempt to force them to cede to union demands. As researchers who study children and families, we asked 300 second- and third-graders how much they worry. The results were eye-opening. We found that Hispanic children worry a lot more than their non-Hispanic peers. Some told us they feared their parents would be taken from them and sent away, a fear that was never mentioned by non-Hispanic children in our study. And this was before President Donald Trumps executive order that closed the nations borders to refugees and people from predominantly Muslim countries. His message was clear: We dont want you here. Though that order resonated with many segments of the electorate, our research shows that such messages can be harmful to children and families and costly to our communities. In January, we published related research in the Journal of Family Issues that looks at Mexican immigrant families and how connected parents feel to Latino and American cultures. We found that fathers of young and pre-adolescent children who reported feeling connected to both cultures were less stressed. They were warmer, less withdrawn and less harsh with their children than fathers who felt isolated from American culture and identified with Latino culture only. We found that mothers also displayed more positive parenting behaviors when fathers felt more connected to both cultures. In short, parents and families work as a system, and when even one parent felt welcomed and connected to American culture without losing ties to their Latino heritage, both parents had more positive engagement with their child during critical periods of their childs development. Given that more than one in four U.S. children live in a family with at least one immigrant parent, we should work toward helping parents and their children feel integrated into U.S. society rather than isolated. Trying to navigate a new culture is stressful enough. Presented with a one-size-fits-all approach to rejecting newcomers, immigrant families already in the United States will find it difficult if not impossible to feel connected to American culture while also maintaining their connection to their native culture, creating social isolation and increasing parental stress. Not only is this connection important to children and families, its important to Americas bottom line. There is no easy answer to the cost of immigration. In our study of North Carolina families, we did not ask about parents immigration status, but nearly all of the fathers were contributing to U.S. society by working in jobs such as construction, landscaping and food preparation. And nearly half of mothers were working, too. What we do know is the impact of stress on childrens lives. When families are stressed, children have more behavior problems and delinquency, are more likely to get in trouble in school and have lower grades. This leads to greater financial strains for our society on our schools, social services, law enforcement and health care systems. Because positive interactions with parents at home are one of the key ways to support positive child development, encouraging connection with immigrants rather than instilling fear could prevent some of those societal costs. In the days leading up to his inauguration, Trump said his plans on immigration would have a lot of heart. We understand that our nations immigration policies are not perfect, but we urge the president to rescind the executive order and follow through on his promise to show heart for those here now and the generations to come. When posting comments about your workplace on social media, you should avoid saying anything you would not be willing to shout out in the middle of the office. That is the advice from Peter Holland from Monash University business school and Macquarie University academics Alison Barnes and Nikola Balnave who will on Friday present a paper to a University of NSW workplace relations conference in Canberra. The academic paper says organisations including IBM and HP have embraced social media including Facebook and Twitter as part of their internal communications. But some organisations are more wary about the use of social media in providing an outlet for potentially negative commentary about the workplace. Can Donald Trump's tax plan save Apple from paying a 13 billion ($18.2 billion) tax bill to Ireland? Probably not, but the US President could still put his hand up for a share of the pie. Recall that in August Apple was ordered by repay 13 billion in taxes and interest after European Commission found the software giant's Irish tax structure was "illegal under EU state aid rules". This week Margrethe Vestager, a Danish politician, who is currently serving as the European Commissioner for Competition and took on the Apple case last year, said that regardless of what Trump does ("whatever US tax reform they may pass is, of course, for them") the ruling stands. Road safety signs come in all shapes and sizes, including one we sighted on the outskirts of a very small town in New Zealand recently, writes Col Shephard of Yamba. 'Drive safely. We have 0 doctors, 0 hospitals and 1 cemetery'." Gerry Wagemans wondered whether there was a longer waiting time compared to his one-hour phone-call wait to the superfund agency. There is. it's called the Ahmed Fahour Express which almost guarantees the expeditious flow of your postage payment to its coffers is inversely proportionate to speed of your mail delivery. Tony Moo, North Sydney. The boss of Australia Post gets $5.6 million and an Order of Australia. We get our parcels and letters eventually but not always. The PM is right it's too much, on both counts. Stephanie Edwards, Wollstonecraft. "Certainly Gerry, if you seek longer expected wait time, try Telstra. In the NBN changeover we listened to the 'your call is important' and infernal piped music. Expect 1.5 to 2.5 hours." Richard Stewart, Pearl Beach. "I sympathise with Laurie Powell (C8). No one told me about the change in dating notation, either. I hope there's advice in C8 on Friday or Saturday Monday may be too late." Meri Will, DY. The escape of 15 offenders from the Malmsbury youth detention centre in Victoria last month is the most recent, and perhaps the most serious, failure in a long series of related problems in that state. In the 24 hours after their escape, all the offenders were recaptured in small groups at various locations throughout Victoria. Melbourne's Age newspaper devoted its front page and three other pages to the details of the escapes and the offences committed by the young people while they were on the run. The police described the offences as a "mini-crime spree". About two weeks earlier, a riot at Malmsbury had caused a significant loss of usable accommodation and, about two months before that, 50 beds were lost at the Parkville youth detention centre, the largest institution for young offenders in Victoria. Some of the offenders are now temporarily at the Barwon maximum security prison near Geelong because there was no other accommodation available. The Victorian government has responded by announcing it will build a new secure institution to accommodate 224 young offenders at Werribee. This will cost just over $1 million for each detainee. It also plans to change the law to allow Corrections Victoria's specialist anti-riot squad to respond to incidents inside youth justice centres. Members of this squad are trained to quell prison riots and they can use dogs, tear gas, batons and, if needed, firearms. Needless to say, this move will be highly controversial. In the three weeks since Gladys Berejiklian was sworn in as NSW Premier she has hit the ground running in at least a couple of respects. She has announced some priorities local infrastructure, housing affordability and a strong economy and is contemplating repairing the damage caused by unpopular and failing policies such as forced council mergers. But there are a few issues you are unlikely to hear the new Premier talking about with any relish. They include hangovers from her time as a minister, challenges her predecessor Mike Baird either ducked or ran out of time to tackle and reforms in the area of government transparency it seems no one has been willing to fix. Nick Xenophon now has an entire NXT bloc in the upper house. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Few other states rhapsodise over their former premiers the way that South Australia does about Don Dunstan, but it's not mere parochialism. The things he created during his tenure (1967-68, 1970-79), most notably in the arts, are constant reminders of the great things that can be done when a politician gets truly passionate about their job and doesn't treat being premier of the state as being a nice little something for the CV en route to finally getting a top lobbying gig for the racing industry. 2. Government policies have immediate, tangible effects Look, everyone likes to pretend that size isn't important, but Adelaide is a small city and the public service is one of the biggest employers - which is true of Australia generally, to be fair. However, when there is talk of governments showing responsible fiscal rectitude by trimming expenditure - ie: sacking a bunch of people - it's felt acutely in SA, not least because no one ever announces that they're shutting down their Sydney and Melbourne offices to consolidate their new mega-department in Klemzig. Furthermore, the biggest industries have historically been heavily subsidised - the Whyalla steelworks, for example, and the car manufacturers in the southern and northern suburbs - and as those benefits were removed, the industries collapsed along with the districts surrounding them. And, of course, there's the fact that if the government's management of the Murray River failed, Adelaide would basically dry up in a week. Which does genuinely appear to be Barnaby Joyce's plan. 3. You grow up drinking surprisingly excellent wine, which prepares you for a life of political meetings in restaurants That the wine is excellent isn't the surprising bit - South Australia has the Barossa Valley, the Clare Valley and McLaren Vale wine districts, which basically makes it the planet's tipsy El Dorado - but there's a spinoff that doesn't seem obvious until you're a student whose booze budget consists of whatever change is in the sock drawer. Every season the state's premier winemakers flog off their excess production cheaply in cleanskins which are then sold for next to nothing on the lower shelves of the less scrupulous bottleshops. The upshot is that even South Australia's most budget-conscious student politicians develop an early taste for excellent wine - and, being students, for arguing endlessly while drinking it. That's basically the entire process of preselection, right there. 4. Getting a senate seat is far, far easier than the other states There's a reason why most of the people referenced in articles that begin "independent maverick senator" come from South Australia or Tasmania: they're the places one needs the lowest number of actual votes to get elected. As you know, every state gets 12 senators. Six are elected for a six-year term at each normal election. The idea is that this provides some consistency across parliaments, and that all the states can have a voice without just being railroaded by the superior population size of NSW and Victoria. On a practical level it means that the number of supporters needed for a senate seat is a hell of a lot smaller. To win a quota outright in NSW in a normal election you'd typically need the support of about 700,000 votes of the five million-odd voters spread all over the state; to win in South Australia you'd need a bit over 160,000, and almost all of them are in Adelaide. There's the added benefit of local media: South Australia contains 11 of Australia's 150 electorates (and might be shrinking to 10 before too long), and only four could be reasonably considered marginal. The chances of South Australia ever deciding an election is effectively nil. By contrast NSW has 47 seats, 18 of which are marginal. That's enough to decide an election on its own. Thus east coast media, very reasonably, tends to focus on the race for the lower house seats that will determine which party wins government and the senate candidates struggle to get prime time coverage. South Australia's media, however, has less to work with and therefore have more airtime available for senate candidates - and they tend to be pretty colourful because 5. Only the most passionate-slash-crazy stay there I used to make the joke that South Australia's two largest exports were cars and ambitious people, until the collapse of the motor industry made it too cruel to bear. However, the fact remains that rising to the top in Adelaide is influenced to some extent by simply waiting for your competitors to get impatient and move to Melbourne. That's not to suggest that everyone in South Australian politics is merely the dregs of the local party machine - whatever your political affiliation, no one could accuse the likes of Christopher Pyne or Penny Wong of being ineffectual representatives of their parties - but it does mean that politicians which would be considered cranks if they were attempting to challenge in the east can still find themselves in the red seats in Canberra purely by virtue of their own self-belief and lack of viable alternatives. An outspoken MP from a centre-right party in the ruling coalition leaves after years on the back benches and frequent clashes with his colleagues about policy, especially concerning Islam. While many observers presume he will fade into insignificance, the sharp-suited crusader creates his own radical right populist party that goes on to become one of the biggest in the country. So has been the career of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands since 2004. And so, he may hope, will be the career of Wilders' great admirer in Australia, Cory Bernardi. But can Bernardi emulate his firebrand Dutch counterpart? At first glance, the prospects seem slim. Wilders went solo when a space opened up in the electoral market. Before him, there had been another charismatic right-wing populist leader, Pim Fortuyn, who had founded his own party, the Pim Fortuyn List in early 2002. With its anti-Islam and anti-establishment message, it quickly tapped into a vein of discontent in Dutch society. Fortuyn was assassinated nine days before the general election that year, but his party took 17 per cent of the vote and entered coalition government with the centre-right. However, without its leader, the party quickly declined in support amidst infighting and amateurism. Wilders, already at loggerheads with many in his centre-right party, saw the gap and went for it. The rest is an often-controversial, but very successful history. Beijing: China has ordered an investigation after online images showed officials holding a lavish banquet of meat from the endangered pangolin, the most trafficked mammal on earth. The meat of the elusive creature - which is often likened to a tiny dinosaur - is seen as a delicacy by some in China, and feasts are considered an extravagant show of hospitality. A pangolin carries its baby at a Bali zoo. Credit:AP But Beijing banned the trade in the insect-eating mammals more than 10 years ago amid fears they were being hunted to extinction. The alleged feast in the southern province of Guangxi became a hot topic in China this week after an online post went viral from a businessman from Hong Kong who was present. A Coalition senator is threatening to oppose his own government's plan to axe the notorious Life Gold Pass - which gives former MPs free business-class travel on the taxpayer - saying it's time someone stood up for politicians. Queensland backbencher Ian Macdonald says politicians work extremely hard and don't get paid particularly well for their efforts. In a speech to the Senate on Thursday, Senator Macdonald said it was time someone fought back against the notion politicians were freeloaders."It's about time our leaders started just emphasising how much work politicians do, how much commitment most of the people who sit in this Parliament have," Senator Macdonald told the chamber during a debate on an unrelated bill. "They don't get particularly well paid. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has told China that she doesn't take seriously the Trump administration's threat to tear up its trade agreement with Australia. China's foreign affairs minister, Wang Yi, asked Ms Bishop over dinner on Tuesday night about the Trump White House's stated intention to renegotiate US trade agreements with 11 countries, including Australia. "I can't believe it", she replied, according to one official present, and "I don't take it credibly", according to another. It made no sense because the trade balance favoured the US, the Australian minister said. And, since the Australia-US free trade agreement took effect in 2005, the balance had moved increasingly in America's favour. 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. The United Nations refugee agency has expressed alarm at reports that Papua New Guinea has begun forced deportations from Australia's offshore detention centre on Manus Island. An attempt to remove two Nepalese asylum seekers from the island was made early on Thursday morning. It is understood one of the men was awaiting deportation, while the other managed to escape and has now disappeared. While the claims for refugee status by both men had been rejected, the UNHCR has repeatedly advised immigration authorities in PNG and Australia that a number of decisions to refuse protection may have been erroneous. "UNHCR has particularly voiced its concerns that asylum-seekers may not have been able to engage in this process for a range of valid reasons, and particularly given serious mental health concerns," Catherine Stubberfield, the agency's regional external relations officer said. Independent inspections at youth prisons or immigration detention centres will be permitted after the Turnbull government pledged to ratify a United Nations treaty in a bid to stamp out torture. The decision comes just two years after then prime minister Tony Abbott complained "Australians are sick of being lectured to by the United Nations" when the government was found in breach of an anti-torture convention. The treaty - which Attorney-General George Brandis said should be ratified by December - will allow "unrestricted access" for international UN inspectors to enter any prison or place in Australia "where people are deprived of their liberty". The move quickly kicked off legal debate over whether this will extend to Australia's offshore detention camps in the Pacific. Actor George and human rights lawyer Amal Clooney are expecting twins, it has been reported. The news was broken by US daytime show The Talk, when host Julie Chen said the show had "confirmed" the rumours. "Beyonce is not the only superstar expecting twins," Chen said. "Congratulations are in order for George and Amal Clooney. The Talk has confirmed that the 55-year-old superstar and his highly accomplished 39-year-old attorney wife are expecting twins." Nearly $5 million worth of drugs, loaded handguns and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash have been seized at homes in Sydney's inner west during a police investigation into Assyrian organised crime networks in the area. A 30-year-old man will face court on Friday charged over the drugs and weapons cache at the homes on Mullens Street and Pine Street in Rozelle this week. Police established Operation Condor to investigate the ongoing supply of drugs and firearms by Assyrian organised crime networks in Sydney's inner west, and on Wednesday executed a search warrant at a home on Mullens Street. Inside the home, officers allegedly discovered 2.7 kilograms of cocaine, about 15,500 ecstasy tablets, four handguns and ammunition. Two of the handguns were loaded, police say. At 10.45am on Thursday, police arrested a 30-year-old man on Mullens Street and took him to Surry Hills Police Station for questioning. As one door closes, another opens. Three weeks after Mike Baird quit as NSW Premier he was paying a visit to his former employer Deutsche Bank on Thursday. In dark glasses and sporting a grey suit, purple tie and with a briefcase slung over his shoulder, Mr Baird looked every inch the banker as he emerged from the firm's Hunter Street offices after an hour. But he insisted to Fairfax Media he had not taken a job, nor was he looking for one at Deutsche Bank. Rather he explained he was catching up with a bank employee who was an adviser to the NSW government's multibillion-dollar electricity "poles and wires" privatisations, overseen by Mr Baird. Ratepayers in Sydney's south-west will be slugged half a million dollars because of the state government's failure to implement its own laws. Campbelltown City Council residents will next month go to the polls to elect a new councillor, following the death of popular local independent Fred Borg before Christmas. The cost of the by-election, expected to be around $500,000, will be borne by the council. But this cost could have been avoided had the State Government taken steps to implement its own reforms that would allow new councillors in such situations to be selected on a "countback" of votes from previous elections. The RSPCA is desperately searching southern Brisbane for an injured cat, which was shot through the body with an arrow. The distressed ginger cat, with an arrow still protruding from its side, was spotted by a Calamvale resident on Thursday afternoon. The injured cat was last seen at Lange Court, Calamvale. Credit:RSPCA Queensland RSPCA Queensland metro inspector Yorick Walburgh Schmidt said capturing the injured feline was proving a difficult task. "It's still very agile, so that's the very difficult part," he said. It could be considered the job nobody would want, but within the next 24 hours, Queensland's new transport minister will be sworn in at Government House. Stirling Hinchliffe resigned as transport and Commonwealth Games minister on Monday as the Strachan report into failings at Queensland Rail was made public. Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk will on Thursday night decide how to reshuffle her cabinet. Credit:Andrew Meares Mr Hinchliffe had fended off calls to resign for months over the driver shortage at QR, and fell on his sword despite the inquiry revealing neither the LNP nor Labor were to blame. Member for Ferny Grove Mark Furner won a vote against whip Linus Power on Wednesday night in Labor's Right faction, and is set to join cabinet, ahead of Parliament resuming on Valentine's Day. Sunshine Coast ratepayers will keep ownership of the new Sunshine Coast Airport and their council will receive $605 million in payments as they lease it for 99 years to the airport's new commercial operators. The Sunshine Coast Airport at Maroochydore will remain majority owned by the Sunshine Coast Council, which will receive a 5 per cent of gross revenue of airport earnings as rent. A new runway is planned for the Sunshine Coast Airport expansion. Palisade Investment Partners owners of Darwin, Alice Springs and Tennant Creek airports is from Thursday the new commercial operator of the Sunshine Coast Airport. The company recently invested in the second stage of the Gold Coast's light rail project from Southport to Helensvale. In the next two weeks, a Sydney man will board a flight to Vanuatu with a suitcase that could change millions of lives and lead to thousands of jobs for Australia. But maybe not. The jobs could go to China. "It's an open question" says Ian Scrivener, on whose desk in Sydney's Chinatown the contents of the suitcase are being "manufactured". David Thodey, chairman of Jobs for NSW, says job opportunities could accelerate if more start-ups and SMEs were ready to "go global" with an export focus from day one. Credit:Louie Douvis Mr Scrivener wrote his ticket as a start-up entrepreneur in the early 1990s with one of Australia's pioneering web service companies, boasting big clients such as Toyota and Microsoft. In his non-profit start-up venture cleverHeart he plans to "make Australian technology that can positively impact hundreds of millions of peoples' lives with clean energy". As the enterprise scales up, he'd like to make its products in Australia. "There will be thousands or tens of thousands of jobs to fill the market we are talking about." But whether the jobs stay in Australia depends on a "deep commitment from government" to address macroeconomic issues, such as the "logistics and paperwork and the taxation side" that help make our export prices for electronic components up to 20 times higher than China's, Mr Scrivener says. The former wife of murdered gangland boss Carl Williams has been excused from completing community work for old criminal offending because of ill health. Roberta Williams fronted Melbourne Magistrates Court on Thursday to plead guilty to breaching a community corrections order for not paying her fines in time and not completing the unpaid community work required of her. Defence counsel Emma Turnbull said Williams had been unable to complete the hours because of recent ill health and hospital visits, and asked that magistrate Joanne Metcalf close the court so Williams could give "intimate" evidence about her medical problems. Williams coughed several times through the hearing as her lawyer addressed the court. The question of giving up a seat on public transport to an elderly person or a pregnant woman has generated quite a few responses today. Earlier today I posted a letter in The Age criticising how many people would not relinquish a seat on a train to someone in need. Reader Emily B writes that people are often oblivious to fellow passengers in need of a seat, but will generally give up their spot when asked. "I've had two pregnancies in two years and caught trams to work regularly," she writes. "At first, I would be holding back tears whilst standing on the tram upset that no one was offering me a seat." "Sometimes I was offered other seats if a passenger noticed that I was pregnant, sometimes priority seats. I tried to wear the tightest clothes possible to work to emphasize the size of my pregnancy so people would clearly notice. I think it helped a bit but didn't really solve the problem." "I found that people just don't look up to notice if there's a special needs passenger nearby, more so than taking the seat for selfish reasons. Most people are looking at phones or out the window and naturally don't look at other passengers." "A simple 'may I have this seat' solved the problem and 10/10 times when I politely asked, I was given a seat. Once I figured this out, my commute was far less stressful and I was less critical of other passengers." Meanwhile, Marie R writes that her fellow commuters were very considerate after she sustained an injury last year. "Last year I injured my shoulder and had to wear a sling for 6 weeks. I was always offered a seat on the tram by young and not so young, male and female and people would offer to top on my miki. A very heartening experience overall. In my experience the very elderly are generally offered a seat." Washington: In his first call as president with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump denounced a treaty that caps US and Russian deployment of nuclear warheads as a bad deal for the United States, according to two US officials and one former US official with knowledge of the call. When Putin raised the possibility of extending the 2010 treaty, known as New START, Trump paused to ask his aides in an aside what the treaty was, these sources said. Trump then told Putin the treaty was one of several bad deals negotiated by the Obama administration, saying that New START favoured Russia. Trump also talked about his own popularity, the sources said. "The president's conversation with President Putin is a private call between the two of them, and I'm going to leave it at that," White House spokesman Sean Spicer said when asked about the accounts of the call. Pope Francis has issued a stinging rebuke of Myanmar over mass atrocities against Rohingya Muslims, including the slaughter of babies, in what the United Nations says "very likely" amount to crimes against humanity. "They have been suffering, they are being tortured and killed, simply because they uphold their Muslim faith," Francis said in his weekly audience at the Vatican. The rebuke comes as UN officials dealing with almost 70,000 Rohingya who have fled to Bangladesh refugee camps expressed concern the outside world has not fully grasped the severity of the crisis unfolding in Myanmar's western Rakhine State, home to almost one million Rohingya, who are denied basic rights, including citizenship in the country where they have lived for generations. "The talk until now has been of hundreds of deaths. This is probably an underestimation we could be looking at thousands," a UN official told Reuters. People queue to enter Southwark Crown Court for the Rolf Harris trial in London in January. Credit:AP Here was a man already convicted of indecent assault against four girls, one just eight years old. A man famously disgraced and jailed, his reputation and credibility destroyed. Rolf "the octopus" Harris (so dubbed from the evidence of an Australian make-up artist who claimed he had groped her, too) was a national embarrassment in Australia and Britain. And here were seven women who claimed he had groped them. Five of the seven had been under 18 when he was said to have indecently assaulted them, some in their early teens, in incidents dating from 1971 to 2004. Rolf Harris arriving at Southwark Crown Court in 2014. Credit:Getty The defence had no rabbit to pull out of the hat, nothing to prove Harris' innocence. Their client could only say that he didn't remember the women, only had a vague recollection of being in just one of the places they mentioned and denied ever assaulting them. The prosecution case had to be dismantled brick by brick, through a slow accumulation of evidence and erosion of credibility. Rolf Harris at the Aria Hall of Fame at Melbourne Town Hall in 2008. Credit:Michael Clayton Jones Harris himself never took the stand, a decision variously attributed to age (he is 87 next month), health (he is on a long list of medications including pills for hypertension and diabetes), and lack of memory of the events in question, but probably mostly due to his self-destructive performance at his first trial. Judge Alistair McCreath told the jury they were entitled to conclude that he had "no answers that would stand up to cross-examination". Rolf Harris was painted over and replaced by Stuart Wagstaff (centre) in the mural by Jamie Cooper in the food hall of the Queen Victoria Market, Melbourne, in 2015. Credit:Penny Stephens McCreath was an active part of the trial, his last before retirement. He occasionally intervened on the prosecution's behalf, nudging witnesses to shore up their evidence, trying Vullo's patience. In contrast, prosecutor Jonathan Rees QC was a mild, bespectacled man who bent over backwards to appear fair to the defendant - at one point his scrupulous reserve prompted Vullo to gratefully dub him "one of finest prosecutors of his generation". Rolf Harris in 1998. Rees' detached mien was a strategy, not a failure. "The judge thinks I've got no balls," he commented quietly to his opponent outside the court, smiling. He left it to the judge to pick up the defence's occasional overreach - probably reckoning that this would have more impact on the jury than a combative prosecutor. But Vullo did a masterful job teasing out inconsistencies in the evidence of Harris' alleged victims wherever he could find them. There were plenty to find. One complainant got the place of her alleged assault wrong. Another got the time of day wrong. They were after money, Vullo said, asking why otherwise did they never go to police until the news came out that Harris would pay compensation to his victims? They were after fame, he suggested, saying one woman (a journalist) had been "setting herself up as an advocate for Mr Harris' victims the go-to person for the BBC for comment". He spent a lot of time trying to undermine two of the convictions in the first trial, in the hope that the jury would be less sure that Harris was a habitual groper. It's impossible to say what the jury thought of all that effort - the fruits of an extraordinary multi-year investigation by a team of private investigators hired by Harris, supplemented by free help offered by his supporters. Given the jury's verdict, they may well have accepted that Harris had not after all groped an eight-year-old girl in a community centre near Portsmouth in 1969 - a crime he was found guilty of and jailed for in 2014, and for which he was refused an appeal. Since then, Harris' private investigators have dug up a long line of regular visitors to the centre who said they never saw Harris there and would have remembered if such a big star had been in town. Several were police officers from a station just across the road, who had morning tea at the centre every day. They made good witnesses. The jury may also have believed that an Australian woman, whom Harris was convicted of groping in a pub in London in 1986 when she was 15, had lied. She sold her story to a magazine for $48,000 and lied to police about it - that much the first jury knew. But the second jury also heard a message left on her voicemail by an abusive ex, accusing her of lying about Harris. It was a private message between people with "perfect knowledge", Vullo said. It was therefore very likely the ex's accusation was true, he argued. Whatever the jury thought of Harris' old crimes, in the end it doesn't matter. The convictions, and the sentence, stand. But the jury weren't sure of the new crimes. They were confronted by so many lapses of memory, inconsistencies and obviously "embroidered" evidence that there was room to doubt each one. Notably, in each of the cases of a not-guilty verdict, there was no reliable evidence of the women telling anyone of their alleged assaults before Harris went on trial in 2014 and the possibility of winning compensation was concrete. They could not be sure he put his hand in the knickers of a 13-year-old outside a radio station in the late 1970s. They were unpersuaded by the passionate evidence of a blind, disabled woman who said he molested her for 10 minutes in a London hospital, just metres from a man who was somehow unaware of, or completely forgot, the whole incident. This was the weakest accusation. The prosecution said the jury might conclude she had "embroidered" her story - but the jury might still decide they could "rely on the essential account". "If one is going to grope someone when others are around it's going to be done surreptitiously," Rees told the jury. "Mr Harris seems to have been adept at groping girls and women right under the noses of others." But Vullo was dismissive of the woman's evidence, which he said had "descended into farce". "The truth just came out all over the place in her evidence and we were able to just sit back and watch it happen," he said. Passionate evidence didn't mean truthful evidence, he pointed out - it could just indicate a determination to be believed. The jury also reached majority not-guilty verdicts in the case of a woman who claimed Harris grabbed her breasts as an adult at a BBC studio in 2004, after Harris' agent gave evidence that she had never left Harris' side on that day and so the attack simply could not have happened. The jury was more divided on the other four charges, unable even to reach a majority decision one way or another. In other words, at least three jurors were sure of his guilt, while the rest were not. Into this category fell the case of a 14-year-old musician at a youth concert in 1971, who said Harris groped her as she sought an autograph. Though no one else witnessed the attack, someone had a memory of him pulling the girl onto his lap, and another remembered her being distressed afterwards. Vullo had also successfully sowed doubt - in some, but not all jurors' minds - on the "sophisticated" evidence of a journalist who claimed Harris groped her in a taxi when she was 16 and taking part in a game show in Cambridge. She had said it happened in the afternoon, on the way to a swimming pool. But Vullo presented evidence that the pool games had been in the morning. It was another telling error. The jury could not reach a verdict in the case of a woman who claimed Harris groped her breast when she was 13 at a BBC show recording in 1983. She said he had groped her and said "do you often get molested on a Saturday morning?". There was some evidence she had told others of the incident soon after - and her husband years later - but her sister wasn't sure she had described an assault rather than just a creepy moment. Vullo highlighted inconsistencies in her evidence, suggesting she had exaggerated an encounter into a crime. It seems some of the jury agreed and others didn't. The jury were also split on whether an 18-year-old woman, whose bare back he stroked, had exaggerated or misremembered the 2002 encounter or had tacitly or reluctantly consented. Harris' second trial lacked much of the fireworks of the first. It was half the length - one month instead of two. The first jury deliberated for almost two weeks, this time for one. His immediate family were notable by their absence. In 2014 he went in and out of court each day smiling, with wife Alwyn on one arm and daughter Bindi on the other. This time he spent most of the trial on video link from Stafford prison, then when he came to court in a prison van he had one niece to wave to from the dock - his wife was absent (she is said to be in poor health) and his daughter nowhere to be seen. And the result was a let-down. It was not the emphatic vindication that his family and supporters craved, leaving more questions than answers. At the end of his summing-up, Vullo commented that the evidence on each count fell short of proving guilt, "sometimes by a million miles". Geneva: The United Nations said on Wednesday that 12 million people in Yemen faced the threat of famine brought on by two years of civil war and the situation was rapidly deteriorating. It appealed for $US2.1 billion ($2.7 billion) to provide food and other life-saving aid, saying that Yemen's economy and institutions are collapsing and its infrastructure has been devastated. "If there is no immediate action, and despite the ongoing humanitarian efforts, famine is now a real possibility for 2017. Malnutrition is rife and rising at an alarming rate," UN emergency relief coordinator Stephen O'Brien said. "A staggering 7.3 million people do not know where their next meal is coming from," he said. For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Here are the instructions how to enable JavaScript in your web browser Fa Si Oen cannot practice as a surgeon unless he can provide a valid registration from Belgium or positive evaluation from the competent authorities in the Netherlands. WILLEMSTAD/PHILIPSBURG:--- The Inspectorate and St. Elizabeth Hospital (SEHOS) in Curacao did what is necessary as laid down in the law to guarantee the quality of care and patient safety to those who receive treatment at SEHOS by issuing an instruction to Dr. Patrick Fa Si Oen on Wednesday, February 8th, 2017. The stop order clearly states that Fa Si Oen is not authorized to practice as a surgeon on Curacao. The instruction is effective immediately. Besides the instruction given by the Inspectorate, the Board of Directors of the (SEHOS) also informed Fa Si Oen on February 3rd, 2017 that he is not allowed to practice within the SEHOS unless he could provide a valid registration as a surgeon. SEHOS also indicated that their liability insurance from Medirisk does not accept liabilities for an unregistered surgeon. According to information, SMN News received Fa Si Oen could not provide the Inspectorate and SEHOS with the required documents to prove that he received the necessary training in Belgium to practice as a surgeon even though he was trained in that country. Fa Si Oens efforts to get registered in Belgium and the Netherlands were both denied. While Fa Si Oen performs oncological surgery while practicing at SEHOS he continues to mislead the deadbeat media outlets in Curacao and the people of Curacao about his medical education. SMN News has learned that the Minister of Health has taken the decision to have all doctors working in Curacao be re-screened in order to prevent what transpired in the Fa Si Oen case since the Ministry of Health in Curacao had registered Fa Si Oen as a surgeon without conducting proper screening. The Minister of Health will be making a statement to the people of Curacao and the surrounding islands within the coming days. This is a case the Minister of Health of St. Maarten should monitor closely since the Inspectorate on St. Maarten have to constantly defend their decisions in court when they take the necessary measures to ensure that the St. Maarten Medical Center (SMMC) adheres to the law and provide adequate and safe healthcare to its patients. Right now the Inspectorate has a number of court cases that SMMC initiated. At the moment SMMC has refused to even cooperate and work with the Inspectorate to improve healthcare on St. Maarten. Instead they are focusing on protecting quacks that are working at SMMC most of which are not registered in the Kingdom but managed to get registered on St. Maarten. PHILIPSBURG:--- Based on information of illegal firearm possession and the good working cooperation between the RST and the police force (KPSM), another man with initials R.B. (36) was arrested at is home located at Fort Willem on Wednesday, February 8th at approximately 03.00 p.m. after it was searched by law officials. During this search, a handgun was found by the investigating officers and confiscated for further investigation. The suspect was taken to police headquarters in Philipsburg where he remains in custody pending further questioning. The police department continues to receive calls from members in the community regarding crime and criminal activities taking place on the island. These cases are all taken very seriously and being investigated thoroughly. After sufficient information is gathered the situation is dealt with immediately. The police department thanks, those persons in the community for sharing this information with them and encourages them to continue calling in. As a result of the information shared many cases under investigation continue to progress positively. Crime is not only a police problem but a community problem. It is time that the community says enough is enough. They should pick up the phone and dial 54-22222 ext 213 214, the police anonymous tip line # 9300 or the emergency line 911. KPSM Press Release PHILIPSBURG:--- The Sint Maarten Hospitality and Trade Association (SHTA) will intensify its activity regarding the Caribbean Hospitality and Tourism Association Education Fund over 2017. That was one of the various opportunities the SHTA delegation will be taking advantage of through the Caribbean Society of Hospitality Association Executives (CSHAE) meeting, traditionally preceding the largest marketing event for the Caribbean, Caribbean Travel Marketplace. Together with its Education board member Francio Guadeloupe of the University of St Maarten (USM) the SHTA team will look into how more young Sint Maarten promising hospitality professionals can apply for study financing grants at regional universities, especially for those who need it most. The Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association Education Foundation (CHTAEF) offers scholarships and special assistance for the education of Caribbean tourism industry personnel and students pursuing tourism & hospitality careers. Since its inception in 1987, the fund contributed over $ 2 million in scholarships. Last year Ms. Caroline Nolasco from St. Maarten was granted a scholarship to attend The University of St. Martin for Hospitality Management. The initiative aligns with the increasing ties of SHTA with Sint Maarten educational institutions to create a perfect match of Sint Maarten hospitality talent and job opportunities that the local hospitality sector can provide. This January, SHTA and NIPA signed an agreement to the same end, as did longstanding Crystal Pineapple Award Gala partner Milton Peters College / Sundial School seal its cooperation by joining the ranks of SHTA. The initiative is an outcome of last weeks CSHAE meeting at the Bahamas, the CSHAE meetings traditionally precede the annual Caribbean Marketplace conference. SHTA represents Sint Maarten in the society of 32 Caribbean member state association executives. The two day meeting allows Executive Directors of national hospitality and trade associations to exchange experiences and ideas for a stronger regional tourism product and provides various trainings to further strengthen and improve the various national associations. Over 2016, the Education Foundation provided for 28 scholarships to talents from across the Caribbean totaling to over US$130,000.00. 2016 applicants spent their scholarships were the University of the West Indies, Monroe College and Johnson & Wales University in the United States, amongst others. The Education Fund contributions come from corporate sponsorship as well as a silent auction of hotel stays offered at the annual New York Times Travel Show adding over US$100,000.00 to the fund. PHILIPSBURG:--- During Minister Lee's visit to the Bahamas, Minister Lee met with representatives from the Bahamas to discuss their plans to roll out a new National Insurance. "Just like in the Bahamas, Developing Universal Health coverage for our people is one of the goals that has been set out by the government. It is our goal to ensure that our people have access to affordable, quality health care close to home.", stated Minister Lee. Minister Lee met with Dr. Delon Brennen from NHI Bahamas and Permanent Secretary. "As part of our effort to research and develop a sustainable model for St Maarten's NHI, we have been speaking to as many of our other partners in the Caribbean to see how they are developing their models for NHI. We believe that it makes sense to learn from the successes and failures from others that have already developed or rolled out NHI. The presentation from Dr. Brennen was very informative and contained many points of concern for us to consider and many recommendations for St Maarten to take into account as we develop our NHI program. Developing a sustainable NHI program on a small island is not a unique challenge and we welcome the opportunity to learn from our neighbors, said Minister Lee. Precise Analysis of Global Optical Adapter Market Reveals Future Growth Aspects during 2017-2021 Albany, New York, February 9, 2017: The latest report focusing on the global market of optical adapters has been published to the online repository of Market Research Hub (MRH). The main highlight of the study titled Global Optical Adapter Market Research Report 2017 is to provide an in-depth analysis of the market trends and also the industry growth rate in the coming years. To provide better and accurate results, the report majorly focuses on some of the prime regions including Europe, North America, Korea, Taiwan, China and Japan. Request for Sample Report: http://www.marketresearchhub.com/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=933988 Through the regional analysis, the report aims to provide major information like production, revenue, consumption, export/import, growth rate and market share of the optical adapter in each regional segment. Also, within the forecast period of 2011 to 2021, the report analyzes the potential applications, competitive analysis of key players, market drivers and opportunities; all for the emerging markets and countries. In the initial section, the report briefly introduces the optical adapter overview and its scope. Later, market segmentation is clearly presented. The optical connector is one of the essential components for optical communication. Unlike other cabling values, the optical audio system uses fiber optic cables and laser light to send out digital audio signals between devices. These can be also defined as fiber adapters which are the connecting parts of optic fiber active connectors. Moreover, the market has been segmented on the basis of its type and applications. Adapters are designed for multimode or single mode cables. A single optical fiber adapter can hold a dozen of cables, on the other hand, if both single and multiple adapters fix together, it can even make hundreds or thousands of connection. The report includes some of the major types of optical adapters available in the market, such as: FC LC SC ST MT-RJ and others These products are broadly used in aspects like optical distribution frame (ODF) and fiber optic communications equipment. Additionally, FC connector is generally used in telecommunication networks. As the life rapidity is getting more faster, there is an increasing need for high-speed information transmission. The report also further analyzed that fiber optic adapters have the merits of low insertion loss, good interchangeability, and good reproducibility. Browse Full Report with TOC: http://www.marketresearchhub.com/report/global-optical-adapter-market-research-report-2017-report.html Moving further, the report profiles leading players operating in the market with their major information. These are as follows: MONTWILL Navitar MEN MikroElektronik Optical Cable Corporation Resolve Optics Princetel ILX Lightwave Lumen Dynamics Senko In the end, the report also includes sections which provide details like market effect factors, manufacturing cost analysis; and marketing strategy analysis. Qualia Media Customers Experience Greater ROI with Identity Graph Analysis SAN MATEO, CA (Marketwired) 02/09/17 Neo Technology, creator of the worlds leading graph database , announced today that it has enhanced Qualia Medias existing product with the worlds largest consumer identity graph, providing Qualia Medias customers with the ability to track consumers across multiple devices, greatly increasing ROI. provides companies with a holistic picture of potential customers in order to glean powerful consumer insights. When the company was founded in 2011, it analyzed public declarations of location on social media. As the company grew, that analysis expanded to other forms of declarative data beyond social media. As time went on, people were not only using more devices, they were performing different actions on each. Qualia Medias original product wasnt optimized for recognizing a consumer across all devices. As a company that defines and sells audiences to large companies across several industries, Qualia Media needed to find a way to provide cross-device insights, fast. We needed to understand consumer behavior across devices in order to capture a complete picture, said Niels Meersschaert, chief technology officer, Qualia Media. Conceptually we could have done this in a relational database, but the multiple JOINS would have made it much too complicated. Qualia Media started its search by evaluating a number of big data and graph technologies, including Hadoop and Titan, but found certain challenges with each. After the Qualia Media team ran performance testing across a variety of scenarios, Neo4j quickly rose to the top. It performed extraordinarily well, said Meersschaert. Qualia Media relies on a huge amount of graph data 1.2 terabytes of data with nearly three billion nodes and nine billion relationships to aid in combining customer behaviors across devices. And only Neo4j has the flexibility and bandwidth to effectively query relationships in such a large volume of data. Neo4js native graph clustering architecture is ideally suited to deliver real-time query performance at scale, across massive customer graphs, said Philip Rathle, vice president of products at Neo Technology. We are very excited to help the Qualia Media team to offer their customers an improved consumer experience across multiple devices by serving as the database behind their next-generation customer experience management solution. With the addition of Neo4j to its technology stack, Qualia Media was able to enhance its existing product with a consumer identity graph and provide companies with the ability to track consumers across multiple devices, greatly increasing their sales and conversions. To download the full case study, please visit: Neo Technology is the creator of Neo4j, worlds leading graph database. Neo4j is a highly scalable native graph database that leverages data relationships as first-class entities to help companies build intelligent applications that meet todays evolving connected data challenges including fraud detection, real-time recommendations, master data management, network security and IT operations. Global enterprises like Walmart, UBS, Cisco, HP, adidas Group and Lufthansa and hot startups like Medium, Qualia and Glowbl rely on Neo4j to harness the connections in their data. Neo Technology is privately held and funded by Eight Roads Ventures, Sunstone Capital, Conor Venture Partners, Creandum, Dawn Capital and now Greenbridge Investment Partners. Headquartered in San Mateo, California, Neo Technology also has regional offices in Sweden, Germany and the UK. For more information, please visit and . Qualia, a leader in cloud-based intent targeting and cross-screen audience association, empowers marketers with the ability to target and respond to real-time expressions of consumer intent as well as optimize and attribute performance across all devices. The Intent Quality Decision Engine creates a composite of multiple intent signals from a consumer and overlays targeting capabilities to reach a marketers most qualified audience. The technology identifies and associates consumers across all of their devices (mobile, tablet, laptop, desktop) and platforms (web, app). Used by leading brands, agencies and solution providers, Qualias cross-screen marketing solution follows a consumers path of purchase from intent signal to conversion, giving marketers a definitive solution to find the best prospects, accurately optimize spend across devices and maximize ROI. The company is headquartered in NYC and has offices in Chicago, Los Angeles, Irvine, San Francisco, Detroit and Boston. For additional information, visit . Neo Technology Dan OMahony and Alivia Snyder InkHouse for Neo Technology Inc. (415) 299-6600 Utimaco SecurityServer 4.10, a New Generation of Hardware Security Modules Optimized for Cloud Applications AACHEN, GERMANY (Marketwired) 02/09/17 Utimaco enables partners to secure private and public cloud applications through HSM as a Service Helps business partners create a reliable and trustworthy cloud HSM as a Service for end-customers looking to move business-critical data to the cloud is giving cloud applications a much-needed security boost with the latest version of its SecurityServer line of hardware security modules (HSMs). The Utimaco SecurityServer 4.10 is a new generation of HSMs optimized for cloud applications providing unrivaled flexibility and security. The new offering helps business partners create a reliable and trustworthy cloud HSM as a Service for end-customers looking to move business-critical data to the cloud. The main benefit of a cloud HSM is its accessibility from any application and any location, on premises or at a cloud hosting partner. With a handful of large cloud service providers (CSP) dominating the market, many smaller CSPs or other relevant service providers (managed service providers or cloud security providers) struggle to remain competitive. There is tremendous opportunity for these businesses to benefit from Utimacos flexible product functionality and experience in cyber security, and to provide a highly secure solution for their customers. The growth and sophistication of cloud applications has enticed businesses to move data to the cloud, but security and compliance concerns are a major challenge when it comes to moving business-critical data, applications and activities into the cloud, said Utimaco CEO Malte Pollmann. Utimacos new SecurityServer enables cloud service providers to provide their customers with a more flexible and secure cloud HSM as a Service, solving what was once a major hurdle for adoption. The Utimaco SecurityServer 4.10 gives cloud providers and trusted service providers the ability to offer a more robust HSM as a Service to existing customers, or to create an entirely new business offering. Many HSM as a Service offerings only provide FIPS 140-2 Level 2 security, and have complex and costly pricing structures. They are often not compatible with cyber security architecture plans for enterprise and business customers, because both the cryptographic keys and master backup keys are stored in the same place as the data itself making the data and master keys more vulnerable. Utimaco SecurityServer 4.10 offers FIPS 140-2 Level 3 and Level 4 security in a flexible package with a secure cryptographic processing environment, multitenancy and comprehensive key management. A CSP can also take advantage of the new Tenant Backup Key (TBK) so only the respective tenant can handle key backups. This ensures neither the host CSP, nor another external party can access or use cryptographic keys from any backup. Besides the traditional functions of an HSM to provide crypto processing and key management functions, Utimaco HSMs can host secure software applications and APIs, giving customers the ability to securely host a companys most valuable software. The new Utimaco SecurityServer 4.10 will feature an attractive pricing structure and products that are easy to administer and scalable to a virtually unlimited number of tenants. Utimaco will highlight the new SecurityServer 4.10 at booth #S246 at the from February 13-17 in San Francisco. Utimaco is a leading manufacturer of hardware security modules (HSMs) that provide the Root of Trust to the IoT. We keep cryptographic keys and digital identities safe to protect critical digital infrastructures and high value data assets. Our products enable innovations and support the creation of new business by helping to secure critical business data and transactions. Founded in 1983, Utimaco HSMs today are deployed across more than 80 countries in more than 1,000 installations. Utimaco employs a total of 170 people, with sales offices in Germany, the US, the UK and Singapore. Alexandra Guennewig Director of Global Marketing Germanusstrae 4 52080 Aachen Phone: +49 241 1696-210 E-Mail: Meghana Shendrikar/Maryam Nabi OneChocolate for Utimaco Phone: +1 415 989 9803 E-Mail: Solar Novus Today Has Been Integrated With Novus Light Technologies Today Visit Novus Light Technologies Today to see all the cutting-edge stories and products that you have come to enjoy on Solar Novus Today. In addition, you will find more information on related light-based technologies. Get the latest solar and renewable energy news delivered right to your inbox. Sign up for the Green Technologies newsletter CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR GREEN TECHNOLOGIES NEWSLETTER When photography was invented in France in the 1820s, some artists predicted even feared that it would in time take the place of painting. That didnt happen, but photographers around the world consistently have recorded images that reveal... Everything you need to know about the Irish vs. No. 5 Clemson at Notre Dame Stadium Saturday night football Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism. Welcome to SwanseaOnline - your home for the best news, sports and what's on coverage of the city. Never miss a Swansea story with our daily newsletter Sign up to comment on our stories here Follow us on Facebook and Twitter | Swansea City news | Ospreys news | InYourArea The Standard Missile-3 Block IIA interceptor launches from the USS John Paul Jones during a successful launch test on Feb. 3 local time (Feb. 4 EST). WASHINGTON The U.S. and Japan successfully tested the latest ballistic- missile interceptor Feb. 4, a system military leaders say they hope will be the future of missile defense. "Today's test demonstrates a critical milestone in the cooperative development of the [Standard Missile]-3 Block 2A missile," said Vice Adm. Jim Syring, the director of the Missile Defense Agency, in a statement. "The missile, developed jointly by a Japanese and U.S. government and industry team, is vitally important to both our nations and will ultimately improve our ability to defend against increasing ballistic missile threats around the world," Syring continued. [Video: Watch the Missile Defense Test Launch] The U.S., Japan, and European allies are eyeing the system as an integral part of defense against any missiles launched by North Korea and Iran. The Raytheon-built SM-3 Block 2A interceptor is part of the U.S. Navy's Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system. The U.S. and Japan built the system to stop medium- and intermediate-range missile threats, according to an MDA press release. The test took place at the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Kauai, Hawaii, Feb. 3 local time. The U.S. Navy launches a Standard Missile-3 Block 2A missile as part of a U.S.-Japan ballistic missile defense test at the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Kauai, Hawaii, Feb. 3 local time. (Image credit: U.S. Missile Defense Agency) The SM-3 Block 2A interceptor is a bigger and more capable version of the Raytheon-built SM-3 Block 1A and 1B interceptors. It was the first intercept test for the Block 2A interceptor, and the first time it was fired from an Aegis-equipped ship, in this case the USS John Paul Jones. Raytheon said the test helped to evaluate many aspects of the system's performance, including divert and attitude control systems, nosecone performance, steering control, and separation of second and third stage rockets. "The SM-3 Block 2A program continues to reflect MDA's commitment to maturing this regional ballistic missile defense capability for the defense of our nation, its deployed forces and our allies abroad," said Taylor Lawrence, Raytheon's Missile Systems president, in a press release. "This test success keeps the program on track for deployment at sea and ashore in the 2018 timeframe, building on Raytheon's unequalled fifteen-year history of exo-atmospheric intercepts." Riki Ellison, the chairman of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, said the Block 2A system has more than twice the range of Block 1A and 1B, "thereby enabling U.S. and Japanese ships to stand off coast lines at great distances near threat regions." The Standard Missile-3 Block IIA interceptor launches from the USS John Paul Jones during a successful launch test on Feb. 3 local time (Feb. 4 EST). (Image credit: Raytheon) "This capability enables defense of more area with less ships by having earlier shot opportunities due to the increased speed and range of the interceptor there by enabling the Navy to defend more area worldwide," Ellison said. The interceptor's first stage is powered by an Aerojet Rocketdyne MK 72 booster, while the warhead is maneuvered using the company's Throttling Divert and Attitude Control System, or TDACS. "The SM-3 Block 2A TDACS is the next evolution of the extremely successful SM-3 Block 1B TDACS," said CEO and President Eileen Drake, adding that the new system "allows a significantly greater area to be defended and is more producible." This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry. An artist's illustration of the surface of Proxima b, a roughly Earth-size world that orbits the nearby red dwarf star Proxima Centauri. The nearby alien planet Proxima b is not a great candidate to host life as we know it, a new study suggests. Immensely powerful flares from Proxima b's parent star likely stripped some of life's key building blocks from the Earth-size alien world's atmosphere long ago, according to the study, which investigated the life-hosting potential of planets circling the small, dim stars known as red dwarfs. Red dwarfs are the most common stars in the Milky Way, making up about 75 percent of the galaxy's 1 trillion or so stellar inhabitants. Whereas red dwarfs are substantially cooler than sun-like stars, they tend to be more active, blasting out potent "superflares" more frequently, especially when red dwarfs are young. [Proxima b: Closest Earth-Like Planet Discovery in Pictures] The new study took such characteristics into account, developing a new model of red dwarf "habitable zones" the range of distances from a star at which liquid water should be stable on a world's surface that considers more than just a parent star's heat. "By the classical definition, the habitable zone around red dwarfs must be 10 to 20 times closer in than Earth is to the sun," study lead author Vladimir Airapetian, a solar scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a statement. "Now we know these red dwarf stars generate a lot of X-ray and extreme ultraviolet emissions at the habitable zones of exoplanets through frequent flares and stellar storms." This is bad news from a habitability perspective. The team's modeling results suggest that such radiation can strip the electrons off molecules in orbiting planets' atmospheres. These electrons escape into space easily, and they drag the newly created, positively charged ions with them as they go. Light elements, such as hydrogen, are lost fairly easily via this process. And superflare radiation can kick the "atmospheric erosion" up a notch, driving off oxygen and nitrogen key building blocks of life as well, the new study found. "Considering oxygen escape alone, the model estimates a young red dwarf could render a close-in exoplanet uninhabitable within a few tens [of millions] to a hundred million years," NASA officials wrote in the same statement. "The loss of both atmospheric hydrogen and oxygen would reduce and eliminate the planets water supply before life would have a chance to develop." The team's work suggests that this fate has likely befallen the recently discovered Proxima b, which orbits within the "traditional" habitable zone of the red dwarf Proxima Centauri. (This star is the sun's nearest neighbor, lying just 4.22 light-years from Earth.) "We have pessimistic results for planets around young red dwarfs in this study, but we also have a better understanding of which stars have good prospects for habitability," Airapetian said. "As we learn more about what we need from a host star, it seems more and more that our sun is just one of those perfect parent stars to have supported life on Earth." The new study was published this week in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com. The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2016 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement Optimization Are you frustrated with a slow pc or a hard disk not performing as it should? Try SLOW-PCfighter to speed up boot time on a slow PC, or try a free scan of FULL-DISKfighter to recover space on a full disk. The latest offering is DRIVERfighter to update your driver updater. Get complete PC optimization and extend the life of your PC with these must-have software tools. Division of Labor The two sister parties have long been able to cope quite well with a certain amount of dissent. Indeed, the different roles they play in German political life have allowed them to find support from a broad spectrum of voters. The CSU has a history of appealing to the far-right fringe, meaning that ultra-conservative voters, even outside of Bavaria, could be confident that their interests would be represented in a conservative-led government. Merkel's more liberal profile, meanwhile, has meant greater support in the country's urban centers -- and greater support for the CSU in Bavarian cities. But this division of labor is no longer working. The conflict over refugee policy has hurt the conservatives. An advisor close to Merkel says it has become a "heavy burden," while sources in the Chancellery say that the ongoing disagreement with the CSU is the conservatives' "Achilles heel" in the campaign and that the SPD can reignite the battle at any time. The conservatives, of course, are doing all they can to present a united front. That was the point of the meeting of senior CSU and CDU members on Sunday and Monday and that is the message being repeated frequently by senior conservatives. "Unity will follow from clear positions, and with unity comes success," says Jens Spahn, a member of the CDU executive committee. Senior CDU politician Norbert Rottgen, head of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the German parliament, likewise rejects the division-of-labor concept. "What is necessary is clarity. We must confront our adversaries with energy and determination." Until Martin Schulz's return to the German political stage, conservatives had thought that their primary opponent during the election campaign would be the right-wing populist AfD . The SPD, most figured, would run an unmotivated campaign behind the leadership of erstwhile party leader Sigmar Gabriel. Suddenly, though, with Gabriel having stepped down to make way for Schulz, Merkel is facing an SPD candidate who is both popular and eager to take advantage of the conservative split. "The divisions between the CDU and CSU have simply become too great," Schulz told SPIEGEL in a recent interview . Conservatives have become unsettled by the sudden hype surrounding Schulz's candidacy. Compounding the uncertainty is the fact that many aren't particularly familiar with Schulz, since he has spent much of his political career in Brussels. Manfred Weber, a CSU member of European Parliament, was even asked to brief CSU leadership recently about Schulz and what he stands for. Hangover The CDU and CSU are now hoping that the excitement over Schulz will quickly subside as soon as he begins taking concrete stances on the most important campaign issues. Having only announced his candidacy at the end of January, he hasn't thus far presented German conservatives with any open flanks that could be attacked, says CDU General Secretary Peter Tauber. "Candidate Schulz hasn't yet said anything concrete at all," his CSU ally Andreas Scheuer agrees. "When he is forced to be more specific, a sobering hangover will quickly follow on the heels of the current intoxication." For conservatives, however, the hangover has already set it. When Seehofer announced his party's support for Merkel's re-election campaign -- something he had been threatening for months to withhold -- CSU voters flooded his Facebook page with furious comments. Some supporters even called CSU headquarters to complain about the party head's "capitulation." "On the issue of refugee policy, we riled people up to a certain extent," admitted one member of the CSU executive council. Now, he continued, the party will have to somehow reel them back in. Furthermore, it isn't entirely clear that a few days of joint meetings will be enough to heal the personal rift that has driven Seehofer and Merkel apart in recent months. During the height of their bickering, Seehofer discontinued a long-standing tradition and decided not to invite Merkel to his party's annual convention. There was also rampant speculation that the CSU might ultimately decide to present its own candidate for chancellor in opposition to Merkel, which would have essentially marked the end of the parties' postwar alliance. And now, even if the number of refugees arriving in Germany has sunk dramatically, a new pressure point has developed: Donald Trump. Merkel and Seehofer have developed contrasting strategies when it comes to both the tone and content of their statements regarding the new American president. Madrid, February 09, 2017 (SPS) - Spanish associations with the Saharawi people are currently working to collect humanitarian aid that will be sent to the Sahrawi refugee camps. In the province of Andalusia, associations of solidarity with the Saharawi people met recently at the "Machado Antonio de Baeza" University to develop a "plan to encourage and support" the settlement of the conflict in Western Sahara. Participants also highlighted the importance of aid programs, notably the "Vacation in peace" program to welcome dozens of Saharawi children during the summer and the caravan of peace which allows each year this Spanish province, to send hundreds of foodstuffs to the camps of the Sahrawi refugees, "in the absence of concrete initiatives of the international community to resolve this conflict", they deplored. SPS 125/090/TRA HARTFORD Gov. Dannel P. Malloys budget creates more losers than winners when it comes to state education aid, but at least on the surface Bridgeport, Danbury, Norwalk and Stamford schools seem to come out ahead. Unveiled Wednesday, the plan shifts the bulk of the aid to distressed cities and towns that are less able to make up the difference through property taxes. It also carves out special education funding from the rest of the aid the state supplies cities and towns, which altogether serve 542,000 school children. Malloy called the new formula fair and honest, predictable and sustainable, in his budget address Wednesday to the General Assembly. A recent court decision deemed our school funding formula to be irrational and unfair, Malloy said. I agree. Representatives from the group that brought the school funding lawsuit against the state said Malloys plan makes things worse, not better. "It appears overall state support for K-12 public education would be reduced by close to $400 million when taking into account cuts to the ECS grant, new municipal payments to the Teacher Retirement System, and despite an increase in Special Education reimbursements," said James J. Finley, a principal consultant to the Connecticut Coalition of Justice in Education Funding case. The result: Bridgeport would seem to gain $13 million, Milford would lose $6 million. Greenwich would get nothing, Ansonia would pick up $5.1 million. Looking at the governors budget proposals, it looks like a punch to the gut for us, said Mayor Benjamin Blake of Milford. More Information Gov's proposed changes to education Increases special education aid by $10 million More seats for charter schools and magnet schools and increases the per pupil for charter schools to $11,482. Cuts higher education block grants 4.5 percent Redistributes ECS grant, giving 38 municipalities more and the rest, less. Consolidates the state Office of Higher Education into the state Department of Education. Calls for fewer mandates in the area of instruction, training and the hiring and retention of superintendents. Provides incentives for school districts that regionalize. See More Collapse Others say the numbers are not all that solvent. The new formula seems to leave out altogether the excess cost municipalities got for their most costly special education students. And beyond that, there is the issue of teacher pension costs: Malloy wants municipalities to start picking up one third of the cost of teacher pension costs. It is unclear, if that shift sticks, who would pick up the tab municipalities or school districts. It is going to take us a few days to figure it out, Av Harris, a spokesman for Bridgeport Mayor Joseph Ganim said. If the school district has to cover the shifted pension cost it would wipe out Bridgeports $13 million gain entirely. It would be break even in that case, Harris said. Several members of the Bridgeport delegation are also looking into the new school funding formula itself, to figure out how Hartford seems to gain so much more than Bridgeport. In Fairfield, First Selectman Michael Tetreau said the net lost in aid to his community would be $7 million in the next fiscal year. Mark Waxenberg, executive director of the Connecticut Education Association, the states largest teachers union, said it is hard to tell, bottom line, how much more any municipality would get. It appears the governor is trying to help poor districts but he is doing it not by adding additional money but by recalibrating the formula, Waxenberg said. He is raising the boat for poor districts by poking holes in the boats of middle class communities which is troublesome. The new proposal is bound to be changed once the legislature gets its hands on it. It was nothing Blake, from Milford, said he could have expected in his wildest nightmares. Along with other cuts the state hopes to levy, Blake said Milford will be down in excess of $10 million. He vowed to lay down on the tracks to stop Malloys train. The new education funding formula is said to be based on actual student enrollment, something absent from the school funding equation for more than a decade and counts poverty in a different way. Instead of basing need on the number of school children qualifying for school lunch subsidies, it looks to the number who qualify for HUSKY, the states medical insurance assistance program. Community wealth is also now measured by using the equalized net grand list. Because lets be honest, Malloy continued in a noontime speech before the General Assembly, if a city has a mil rate over 40, not only is that city failing its residents, but Connecticut is failing that city. The budget cuts block grants to higher education by 4.5 percent and would force the states technical high school systems to consolidate business offices. The cut to the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities in the 2018 biennium budget represents a decrease of about $25 million to the total allocation that includes fringe benefits. CSCU President Mark Ojakian said responding year after year by cutting costs and services is not viable. We must do our part to develop a long-term plan for our system that is realistic, predictable and sustainable in the future and provides our students the opportunities they need and deserve, Ojakian said. lclambeck@ctpost.com; @lclambeck Multinational companies have been around for a long time. And that's a good thing because, if they're managed effectively, these entities can contribute greatly to economic globalization. Related: 6 Secrets to Navigating Cross-Cultural Differences The technology needed for just such effective management has improved, too, making it simpler to manage an international team. With all the 24-hour means of instant communication available, businesses of all sizes are able to outsource tasks or run parts of their business on the opposite side of the world, with ease. However, while the international workforce that's arisen in these organizations is great for connecting with a wider range of customers, managing these employees from completely different backgrounds and cultures is by no means easy. It takes a strong effort to run a smooth operation with thousands of miles of separation. Fortunately, there are a great deal of resources available to help. Here are three tips to help manage a multinational workforce. 1. Embrace diversity. A diverse workforce presents challenges in terms of region, customs and communication. In these situations, it is important to not just accept differences, but fully embrace them across your entire business. It can be an extremely humbling experience to open your operations to differing cultures and lifestyles. Embracing those differences and leveraging a shared vision is crucial in making your business successful. You need to map out a sense of what those differences mean in terms of how people conduct themselves in the workplace and what their sensitivities and motivations may be so you can create an environment that enables all people to contribute and be effective, Louise Langridge, joint managing director of recruitment at Morgan McKinley, told the Seek Australias blog. Promoting diversity in the workplace requires efforts by everyone. Developing and implementing a diversity training program throughout your company is a great step. Wells Fargo has detailed how it promotes an inclusive approach to diversity within its workplace as well as its community. The company claims to live by the philosophy that by promoting and embracing cultures within its company, it is better equipped to anticipate the needs of customers from all backgrounds. Creating opportunities for your employees to learn about their coworkers perspectives and ways of life is essential if you want to build a healthy work environment and open-mindedness about contributions to the big picture. Related: 5 Ways to Overcome Cultural Barriers at Work 2. Promote open communication. When managing employees from different parts of the world, successful companies realize that good communication is everything. In fact, 86 percent of employees participating in a Fierce Inc. survey cited ineffective communication as the root cause for workplace failures. For multinational companies, the level of communications in place may determine a business's life or death. For instance, if you have branches in the United States and Philippines, you will need a good system in place to communicate tasks and progress due merely to the fact that when one workday ends, the other begins. Situations like this can have a lot of roadblocks and miscommunications, especially when a language barrier exists. When businesses run into problems like these, tasks do not get completed efficiently. Luckily, technology has come a long way and a lot of phenomenal tools exist to help combat linguistic issues among employees. For those who are not fluent in multiple languages -- and that's most of us -- Qtok is a highly-developed app, with over 546 live interpreters to provide full translations within seconds. The interpreters are from a wide range of backgrounds in medicine, tourism, law, accounting and other fields. Embracing this technology is great for businesses to make sure communication flows smoothly between international branches. Of the 800 million people who speak English, over half learned it as a second language. Therefore, promoting open communication throughout all business practices must be a top priority. 3. Foster strong relationships among workers. Team-building is often an overlooked part of the business world. Building meaningful relationships among employees is important, to keep everyone engaged in their work and performing group tasks efficiently. You can get to know someone only so well over text or email. Multinational companies are at a disadvantage because they can't host events like monthly happy hours or in-person team-building events. If you are in this predicament, there are strategies you can take to compensate. Start by setting up weekly face-to-face calls for employees to go over their progress and catch up. For team-building, try some of the innovative games available online. An awesome one to consider for some office-wide friendly competition is Ozoneplay. Available on iTunes, this app provides a unique mobile gaming experience where players host competitions among friends and compete for cash prizes. Video games are becoming another increasingly popular tool for team-building. Experiment with weekly gaming sessions to build camaraderie and boost interoffice rapport. The reason? Forging international relationships in the workplace is a win for everyone in an increasingly multinational business world. Related: How to Avoid Cultural Missteps When Doing Business With Other Countries From a philosophical perspective, bringing people together from completely different backgrounds to work toward the same goal is what makes humans grow as a collective race. The key to navigating these waters lies in promoting meaningful communication and the ability to seamlessly integrate cultures, to see the big picture. Related: Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Snow has stopped falling, and road crews are making steady progress in clearing the roads. Snow dissipated later this afternoon, and temperatures dropped. That could flash freeze any snow or ice that melted. As a result, most schools are delaying the start of classes by two hours for Friday, and some are canceling all together (see the growing list, below). Snowfall totals across southwest Connecticut exceeded a foot with many towns averaging around 12 inches, according to the National Weather Service. Soon after the snow started falling at 5 a.m., road conditions rapidly deteriorated. Keeping the roads cleared will be a challenge despite about nearly 900 DOT and contractor trucks deployed to battle the heaviest snowfall this winter. We will update this story with reports from the greater Greenwich, Stamford, Norwalk, Danbury and Bridgeport regions throughout the day. 9:50 PM Social media posts from fire and police professionals in towns without a dedicated after-hours Public Information officer are starting to pop up on Facebook and Twitter. Two examples out of Fairfield: a police officer who shoveled an elderly mans driveway, and a 75-foot pine tree that smashed into a Fairfield kitchen (no one was hurt). 9:22 PM Add Fairfield Public Schools to the growing list of Friday classes disrupted by the Thursday snowstorm (see below). Two-hour delayed start on Friday, according to the Fairfield Police Department. Stamford Public Schools: Two-hour delay . New Haven Schools: Closed all day. 8:32 PM Traffic is getting rough as ice forms on roads. Thats likely to be the case Friday morning, which is one reason why schools are announcing closures this evening. A number of schools not only closed on Thursday, but will keep their doors shut Friday for some or all of the day. Heres whats confirmed so far. Stratford Schools: Closed all day, according to a robocall and email sent to parents. Trumbull Schools (public and private): Two-hour delayed start, according to a robocall and email sent to parents. Preschools closed all day. Danbury Public Schools: Two-hour delay, according to a tweet from Mayor Mark Boughton. BRIDGEPORTSnowplows, both private and city-owned, have been reported striking parked vehicles. Park off the street if you can. 5:22 PM Fresh snowfall totals have been updated here: http://bit.ly/2lwl7db. No jury duty Friday, according to Gov. Dan Malloy, who tweeted All jurors scheduled to appear on Friday, Feb. 10 are (canceled) and should not report. State Police have reported more than 105 crashes and 553 spun-out vehicles in just 12 hours. Some tractor trailers are still stuck, but the few drivers who have ventured out on the highways are finding passable roads. The downed tree in Easton has been cleared, opening up CT-136. 3:49 PM EASTONRoute 136 was closed starting around 3 p.m. due to a fallen tree. Motorists should seek an alternate route if traveling between Newtown and Westport. ~ Power outages in southwestern Connecticut remain minor, with only a few dozen outages reported: 64 for United Illuminating, 90 for Eversouce 2:36 PM BRIDGEPORTGreater Bridgeport Transit has suspended all buses service in the Bridgeport region this afternoon because of the snowstorm. The service will remain suspected until Friday morning officials said. We should be up and running with a normal weekday schedule tomorrow, said GBT General Manager/CEO, Doug Holcomb. The last bus out of the bus station was at 11:50 a.m. and all buses were out of service by by 1:30 pm. Staff writer John Burgeson reporting. 1:15 PM The Greenwich Police Department has reported only one accident on Thursday. A car slid into another vehicle on the snowy roads Thursday morning. No one was injured. Interstate 95 has had seven, including a tractor trailer jackknife, in Greenwich, but there were no injuries, said Dispatcher Dwight Spraub. Neither Greenwich Fire Department nor Emergency Medical Services were dispatched for these accidents. Several other cars have slid off roadways in Greenwich but with no injuries, according to Spraub. Two cars were towed because they obstructed snow plow routes. Spraub reminded the public that emergency snow routes are still in effect. Tree limbs came down Thursday morning on Glenville Road and North Street, temporarily blocking the roads. The towns tree crews removed the branches and the roads are now open. No power lines were impacted. As of now, Greenwich has experienced no power outages, according to Eversource, Greenwichs electricity provider. 1:04 PM FAIRFIELD - Tractor Trailer Accident (Jackknifed) on I-95 Southbound between Exits 20 and 19. The right and center lanes are closed. 12:48 PM Gov. Dannel Malloy gave an update on the winter storm at 12:30 p.m. Here are the highlights: As of noon, State Police responded to 68 accidents, four with injuries, but no fatalities. Malloy thanked people for staying off the roads. Service was suspended on CT Transit buses earlier today. Officials hope to restore service later this afternoon or evening. Thats a goal, not a guarantee, Malloy said. Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks is temporary closed for snow cleanup. Those whose driver license or car registration that expires Thursday have until next Wednesday to renew. At 12:45 p.m. he said he expects the snow to end in Litchfield County in about an hour. He anticipates that state offices will be open on Friday. 12:42 PM Metro-North Waterbury branch customers are currently experiencing 45 minute delays due to an earlier late connection. 12:34 PM Norwalk police said call volume has not increased as a result of road conditions. Rather, Lt. Terrence Blake said traffic has been minimal and the department continues to encourage the community to stay off the roads. "The roads remain hazardous and snow continues the blanket Norwalk," Blake said. Blake said there has only been one parking issue that involved a car blocking a side street. The Norwalk Fire Department has asked the community to "adopt a fire hydrant" and clear snow around hydrants near their homes so firefighters will have easy access in the event of an emergency. 12:06 PM The National Weather Service has issued a blizzard warning for southeastern Connecticut including southern New Haven County. A winter storm warning continues for the rest of Connecticut including Fairfield and Litchfield counties. The NWS says, At 1130 a.m., widespread heavy snow combined with north winds of 25 to 35 mph will reduce visibilities to around 1/4 mile or less making any outdoor activities extremely hazardous. Maximum hourly snowfall rates will range from 1 to just over 3 inches, causing snow to rapidly accumulate as temperatures fall through the 20s. Isolated rumbles of thunder will accompany the heavy snowfall rates. Travel remains extremely dangerous. 11:54 AM In Bridgeport, Deputy Dept. of Public Works Director Joseph Tiago said that 50 plows and bucket loaders are busy in the city, including some units from private vendors. That includes eight Payloaders, which are needed in some of the more congested neighborhoods where theres simply no place to put the snow, he said. But our first priority is to keep the streets open as best we can. The snow is falling at a rate of two to three inches an hour. He said that all of the cars parked illegally is making the effort more difficult. Its a battle, but were getting great help from the Police Department, he said. Because a snow emergency has been declared, residents must move their cars off posted snow emergency streets. Alternate side of the street parking rules are now in effect for all other streets throughout the city. Alternate side parking will be in effect until further notice, officials said. 11:34 AM Due to worsening weather conditions CTtransit and CTfastrak Local & Express bus service will be suspended beginning at Noon today. 11:20 AM No widespread power outages are being reported at this time. There are however, some who have lost electricity. United Illuminating says 40 customers in Stratford are without power. Eversource reports 389 outages across the state including Seymour and Ridgefield. 11:09 AM Snow plow crews in Danbury are working on clearing at least one lane on all major roadways after more than eight inches of snow has already fallen on the city, according to Public Works Director Antonio Iadarola. The plow drivers are having some issues, particularly in the downtown area, with cars that are parked on the roadway that is making plowing difficult. The police are working with us to try and have these cars removed from the roads, Iadarola said, adding that police attempt to contact the owner and have them move their cars. The last resort would be towing the vehicle. 10:58 AM Disabled tractor trailer on I-95 southbound, between Exits 10 and 9 in Darien. The left lane is closed. 10:40 AM At Riverside shopping plaza in Greenwich. few cars dotted the snowy parking. A few bundled people bustled in and out of CVS. One man in Carhatt jacket walked on the dry sidewalk under the plaza's overhang with his pug Chaz while his wife shopped inside. Chaz doesn't like to get his feet, the man said, as the pooch sniffed around his feet. Several business owners like Maria Dimare of Dimare's Pastry shop kept their businesses open on Thursday. Dimare said she had some customers who need to pick up birthday cakes and her staff needed to prepare baked goods for the upcoming weekend. She said she had 7 customers so far on Thursday, mostly people who worked in the plaza looking for coffee and a pastry. "No snow day for us," she said. A few shops down Best Cellars: Wine and Spirits waited open but empty. Owner Rick Modi said he had three customers so far on Thursday. He said most were people who lived within walking distance of the plaza. At Starbucks in Riverside, a trickle of people wandered in and out of the coffee Mecca. Snow plower Dougie Docimo sat inside looking out the window. "I got bored and wanted to get out of the house," he said. Docimo, who grew up in Riverside, has been doing snow removal in Greenwich for almost 25 years. In Starbucks, he was waiting for his call to start plowing. He said he anticipated he will plow and shovel from noon to about 2 AM today. Most driveways and walks will require two visits from Docimo to keep clear today, he said. 10:35 AM Derby City Hall is closed Thursday, but Mayor Anita Dugatto said shes in her office. I dont have an excuse, she said. I only live a block away. Dugatto said that every available Dept. of Public Works plow is on the job. Were concentrating on the main roads, first, she said. The snow is expected to end around 4 p.m., so we should be able to get back to normal operations tomorrow. She said that residents can help snow-removal operations by staying home today and by parking their cars off the street, if possible. 10:35 AM Authorities tell the Associated Press that nearly 1,700 flights have been canceled at New York City's three major airports because of the powerful winter storm hitting the region. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says Newark International has the most cancellations with 607 as of 6:30 a.m. Thursday, followed by 572 at LaGuardia and 508 at JFK for a total of 1,687 flights. The agency says that's roughly 50 percent of the daily flights at the three airports. Flight cancellations in the New York metro area and other northeastern states began Wednesday as the storm approached the region. The storm is expected to dump more than a foot of snow on some parts of the New York City area by the end of the day. 10:33 AM Numerous reports of thunder snow reported in Stratford, Milford and Oxford. 10:31 AM With the amount of snow expected Thursday, a main concern of the Norwalk Fire Department is keeping the 600 plus fire hydrants in the city cleared. Winter storms can often hide fire hydrants under a mountain of snow making them impossible to find quickly. In the event of a fire, firefighters have to first locate and shovel out buried fire hydrants before hooking up to them. Precious time is lost and lives may be impacted. The City is asking that residents please assist us with keeping the fire hydrant closest to their residence or business clear of snow. By adopting a hydrant, participants will be helping to protect themselves, their family, and their neighbors. Residents and business owners are asked to Clear a path from the hydrant to the street, Clear a 3-foot perimeter around the hydrant and Remove ice and snow. All assistance is appreciated. This is a great volunteer project for youth groups at our many Houses of Worship as well as Scout Troop and community service groups. 10:56 AM 9 inches: Newtown amd Brookfield. 8.5 inches: Bethel. 8 inches: Danbury and Fairfield. 7.3 inches: Seymour and Milford. 7 inches: Sikorsky Memorial Airport, Stratford. For the full list, click HERE. 10:16 AM Due to the storm and treacherous driving conditions, GBT will be suspending all buses service in the Bridgeport region this afternoon. The last pulse out of the bus station will be at 11:50 am with buses going out of service for the remainder of the day by 1:30 pm. Riders should make their return trip as soon as possible. 10:11 AM All non-emergency town offices will be closed in Wilton on Thursday, Feb. 9, a letter from the First Selectmans Office said, due to a blizzard expected to drop as much as 14 inches of snow. This includes Parks and Recreation and the Transfer Station. Police and road crews will be out throughout the day. Emergency personnel will also be on hand. If you experience a power loss, please call Eversource at 800-286-2000. If necessary, Emergency Managements messages will be scrolled across the top of the town's homepage. Otherwise stay warm, stay safe and try to enjoy this classic New England storm, read the letter. 10:06 AM Metro-North New Haven Lines service continues to experiencing delays of up to 25 minutes due to a switch problem in the vicinity of Harrison. 10:01 AM All of the Valley city halls are closed Thursday as whiteout conditions make it almost impossible to drive. "No one should be out on the roads," said Mike D'Alessio, superintendent of public works in Ansonia. "You can't see 10 feet in front of you. You'll driving on what you think is the road and you'll end up in someone's driveway." D'Alessio said he has 10 trucks out plowing but "it's like we're going around in circles. Right now this snow is as bad as you can get." D'Alessio said his crews expect to make headway late this afternoon. Both he and Mayor David Cassetti are expected to be out plowing. "I'm going to be going out around 11 a.m. and doing the North End," said Cassetti, who previously operated heavy equipment for his construction company. Cassetti said he had police ticket cars that were parked on the wrong side of the road last night. Cars are allowed to park on the even numbered side of the street. The mayor also opened up parking lots on East Main, West Main and Nolan Field for people to park. He said crews are working side-by-side in tandem to clear up streets on the Hilltop. "You can do that on the Hilltop because the people up there park in their driveways," he said. "That's not the case in the lower wards." Both D'Alessio and Cassetti believe the streets will be cleared for Friday morning. 9:58 AM State Department of Transportation spokesman Kevin Nursick said that the DOT engaged in a full roll-out of all available trucks - 881 in all - at about 5 a.m. Thursday. We essentially started at a full roll-out because we werent going to take any chances, he said. We wanted everyone in place for this storm. We brought everybody in. He said that storm went from nothing to aggressive accumulation at the flick of a switch. One factor that has helped, he said, is the fact that a majority of commuters in the state have decided to say home. Were not dealing with crash after crash after crash at least, he said. That was one of the critical factors helping us stay on top of this storm - not having to deal with multiple lanes of highway shut down because of accidents. Nursick said that the DOT is confident that it can deal with Thursdays storm. We have the right assets, equipment and material and the right men and women to handle the situation. One factor working against crews, he said, is that its expected to get colder as day turns to night, and Friday will remain cold and cloudy, too. That means that the salt wont work as well as we might like, and we dont see much help coming from the sun, he said. Often, it gets warmer and sunny after a snowstorm, but not with this one, so with tomorrow mornings commute, some of the roads will likely still have some snow on the asphalt. He also said that heavy equipment has been mobilized for eastern Connecticut, where snowfall totals are expected to approach 20 inches or more. We also need this equipment, including truck-mounted snow blowers, in urban settings, where theres no snow storage -- really no place to put it, he said. These industrial snow blowers, he said, can move 1,500 tons of snow per hour, and they can blow the snow into a waiting line of dump trucks if needed. So how much does a storm like this cost? About $100,000 an hour for a full roll-out like this one, he said. 9:50 AM Heres an update from Gov. Dannel P, Malloy: We have 700 @CTNationalGuard members ready to respond to the winter storm if needed. Roads will remain open. All 634 state plow trucks, in addition to contractors are out on the roads to help clear surfaces. Drivers, please give plow trucks plenty of room to do their work. Just stay off roads if you can. People are urged to stay indoors and don't get into your car unless you absolutely have to. Winds/snow are expected to drift off around 5 p.m.. At that time, we'll activate state severe cold weather protocol when it can safely be done. From the Emergency Operations Center: Public Transportation is running, but is subject to change based on conditions. At Bradley International Airport, some flights are impacted due to today's snow storm. Please check the status of your flight with your airline before you had to the airport. 9:40 AM For a list of warming centers that have been opened throughout the State go to uwc.211ct.org/get-help/warmi. 9:39 AM Latest snowfall totals from the NWS: 6.4 inches: Danbury and Newtown. 6 inches: New Fairfield 5.5 inches: Milford 5 inches: Brookfield 4.5 inches: Wilton. 4 inches: Stamford, New Canaan. For more totals, click HERE. 9:25 AM Greenwich officials report low visibility and heavy snowfall across town. Currently were basically in white-out conditions with the amount of snow that is around, said Superintendent of the Greenwich Highway Division Joseph Roberto. Roberto said his snow removal crews are working nonstop to keep the roads usable in Greenwich. All the roads are currently snow covered, said Roberto. Were just trying to keep up with the accumulation, but as fast we get it cleared, it is covered up. Roberto said there are no road blockages - such as fallen trees or powerlines - or road closures at this time. I think were been lucky, he said. 9:23 AM More snowfall total updates. According to a meteorologist with the Danbury-based Connecticut Weather Center, the city has already received more than 6.5 inches of snow this morning, with much more on the way. Snow is falling at rates in excess of 2 inches per hour, with 2.3 inches having fallen in the last hour alone over the city. That rate could continue for several more hours. Most of the main roads in Bethel and Danbury are deserted as most people have elected to stay home during the storm. Near blizzard conditions is making driving extremely difficult. Reporter Ken Dixon says 4 inches on the ground in Shelton. 9:13 AM In Greenwich, the left northbound lane is closed because of that tractor-trailer accident. Traffic is getting by, but its a rough ride. Also in Greenwich, town officials announced Thursday morning that Greenwich Town Hall is closed. All meetings are cancelled. Please stay safe during this storm by staying home and allowing Town Public Works and Parks & Recreation crews to do their storm cleanup work, Barbara Heins, executive assistant to the first selectman, said. As a reminder, the Town's snow emergency remains in effect until further notice. Heins reminded With the heavy, wet snow please be careful with shoveling, do not over exert yourself. She asked Greenwich residents to help elderly neighbors who may be shut-ins and to clear snow from neighborhood fire hydrants. 9:09 AM With the fluffy stuff accumulating up to three inches every hour, the Norwalk Department of Public Works is struggling to keep up, officials said. Chris Torre, superintendent of operations for the Department of Public Works, said a fleet of 35 plow trucks have been on the roads since Snowstorm Chris began early this morning. We are keeping the main roads open as best we can, salting where needed and its supposed to get a little heavier as the morning moves forward, Torre said. Were just trying to keep up as best we can. Its extremely difficult. We have 625 lane miles of road to keep clear so it can be overwhelming when its snowing like this. 9:01 AM Tractor Trailer Accident (Jackknifed) on I-95 Northbound in Greenwich between Exits 4 and 5. The left lane is closed. 8:58 AM New Haven Lines Service is currently experiencing delays of up to 25 minutes due to a switch problem in the vicinity of Harrison, N.Y. 8:56 AM From Milford Mayor Ben Blake: Due to weather conditions, all meetings and recreation events are cancelled and all City buildings, except for the Warming Center, will be closed to the public Thursday, February 9, 2017. The Milford Librarys Program Room, 57 New Haven Ave, will remain open until 5 p.m. as a Warming Center. All City buildings will reopen to the public Friday, February 10, 2017 as regularly scheduled. Alternate side of the street parking remains in effect until noon on Friday. Vehicles parked on city roads should be parked on the Odd Number Side of the street today until 8 a.m.. Friday. On Friday, vehicles should be moved to the Even Number Side of the street Garbage pickup for Friday, February 10th will take place as regularly scheduled, however, residents are asked to not place their garbage or recycling containers at the curb until after the plows have had an opportunity to clear the streets. All City Departments have been taking action to guard and protect the citizens of Milford against the impact of the storm, but the help of all residents is needed throughout this event. If you live near elderly or infirmed neighbors, please check in on them as often as it safe to do so. 8:49 AM Snowfall amounts exceed these most recent totals from the National Weather Service as of 7:36 a.m. 2 inches in New Canaan, Sikorsky Memorial Airport, Milford and Bethel. For the list, click HERE. 8:36 AM State Police report numerous accidents with some lane closures. Near whiteout conditions on major highways. Plows having difficulty keeping up with the snow. Troopers tweeted: Do you have to travel? Assess the risk. Drive in vehicle tracks/traveled lanes. Slow down. Avoid distractions. Increase your following distance. Clear snow off vehicle. 8:22 AM. In Greenwich, roads are quiet around town. "We have had no accidents in the last two hours, said Sergeant William Larkin of the Greenwich Police Department. Larkin reported that Greenwich has no road closures, road blockages or power outages at this time. Terry Pieczko, an administrative assistant with the town's highway division, said all of the town's snow removal crews are out on the roads. They will be continuously plowing and salting through out the day, she said. Pieczko offered her own advice to drivers: "People should really stay home because this is going to be a very bad storm. She said if one must take to the roads, drive slowly. Earlier posts: Snowfall and timing The snow has picked intensity and will continue into mid to late afternoon. Snowfall rates could be between 2 to 4 inches an hour. Wind will be blowing from the north at 15 to 25 mph with gusts 30 to 35 mph. Temperatures will fall into the 20s. Overnight lows may fall into the teens. For the latest weather updates, click HERE. Road conditions Those who had to drive to work had a slow commute with a number of accidents on the Merritt Parkway in Greenwich and Stamford. Another accident involving a vehicle into a utility pole was reported northbound near Exit 9 in Darien. A one-vehicle accident shut down the left lane between Exits 16 and 15 in Southbury. By 7:45 a.m., there were whiteout conditions along I-95 corridor with visibilities to one quarter mile or less at times. An accident near Exit 41 on I-95 north in Orange shut down two lanes. For latest traffic incidents, click HERE. Metro-North At 6 a.m., Metro-North was reporting good service on the New Haven and its branch lines. For updates http://www.mta.info/mnr But ... Delays, cancellations and train combinations may occur depending upon the severity of the storm and its impact on our service territory. Metro-North riders tweeted that are our much fewer passengers than a normal day and trains were running on or close to schedule. Power outages With heavy snow and a blustery wind 14 to 21 mph, with gusts as high as 36 mph, power outages are possible. Eversource reports only a handful of outages, including a dozen in Bridgewater. United Illuminating reported no outages. Buses GBT is operating bus service in the Bridgeport region with some cancellations and delays. Suburban routes 14, 20, 22 and 23 are canceled for Thursday. Remaining routes will operate as long as it is safe. or updates visit gogbt.com. Riders should expect delays due to the storm and watch for the possible suspension of service later in the day. Staff writers Emilie Munson, Nelson Oliveira, Liz Skalka, Dirk Perrefort, Kaitlyn Krasselt. Michael Mayko, Robert Koch and John Burgeson contributed to this story. B HP Billiton took a big bet on the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday as it committed $2.2 billion (1.8 billion) to developing the next stage of BPs Mad Dog oilfield despite sluggish oil prices. The miner, which earns around a quarter of profits from its oil and gas arm, owns a 23.9% stake in one of the biggest oilfields in the Gulf. The extension of the field includes a new floating rig with the capacity to produce up to 140,000 barrels a day when production begins in 2022. The field, one of the biggest in the Gulf, was discovered in May 1998 by BP, which owns a 60.5% stake. The decision from BHP comes despite an oil price still around half its 2014 peak above $110 a barrel and a $7 billion write-off last year on its shale oil and gas businesses in the United States. Shale production costs are higher, leaving them more vulnerable to falling oil prices. But BHP and BP, which committed to the second stage last year, have been boosted by the much lower cost of developing the field as falling crude hammers project managers and engineers who are focused on the sector. That has driven the cost down to around $9 billion from $20 billion. The expansion has been on the cards since drilling in the field during 2009 and 2011 doubled its estimated resources to more than four billion barrels of oil, spurring the need for another platform. Elsewhere, there were headaches for BHP at the worlds biggest copper mine, Chiles Escondida, as workers downed tools today after a month-long dispute over wages. Output from the mine, which produced one million tonnes of the metal last year, is likely to be completely halted for the first 15 days of the strike. G ermany gave more fuel to its US critics in the administration of Donald Trump as the eurozones biggest economy produced a record trade surplus last year. The nation a major exporter with a significant trade surplus in the US has raised the hackles of the US Presidents top trade adviser Peter Navarro, which accuses it of exploiting other European Union countries and the US through a grossly undervalued euro. Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected the charge, stressing the independence of the European Central Bank. But official figures showed that Germanys 2016 trade surplus jumped to 252.9 billion (215.4 billion) surpassing the previous years high of 244.3 billion. The record surplus will continue to fuel the conflict with the USA and within the EU, German economist Marcel Fratzscher, head of the DIW economic institute, said. Merkel has warned that the EU would press ahead on trade deals with other countries if it does not reach an agreement with Trumps administration. P olitical shockwaves triggered an exodus of cash from Henderson last year as bewildered investors shunned international fund picks for home-grown investments. Henderson, which is due to merge with Janus Capital, bowed out with its final full year results as a London listed company with underwhelming figures showing 4.6 billion of retail cash walked out the door last year. Lower demand for European funds after Brexit, plus shrinking American appetite for non-US funds in the wake of Presidents Donald Trumps election, spurred the outflows. Chief executive Andrew Formica said last years extraordinary political turbulence had caused a shift from international to domestic. We saw a switch towards the captive players away from the independent players. In the US prior to the Trump vote you saw a strong move back towards domestic products away from international products and theres been an acceleration of that since the election. Higher redemptions, particularly from its 4 billion property fund, which closed temporarily after Brexit, drove the shrinking retail investor base. About 1 billion was pulled from UK funds, 2.6 billion from European funds and 1.1 billion from US funds. Fuelling the outflows was poorer performance from Hendersons funds, with 50% falling short of their targets. Formica said clients dont rely much on one-year short-term performance and maintained 77% of Henderson funds were ahead of their target over three years. Stronger demand from big institutional customers and booming stock markets cushioned the retail outflows, leading assets under management overall up 10% to 101 billion. Hendersons Janus merger is on track to finish in May. Janus Henderson Global Investors, will relist in New York, ending 33 years on the London market. Formica and Janus chief executive Dick Weil, who is moving from Janus Denver HQ, will be based side by side in London. Emerging markets fund manager Ashmore cheered investors by doubling half-year pre-tax profits to 121.5 million due to weaker sterling and strong fund performance. T homas Cooks battering on the stock market today tells us a lot, but not about Thomas Cook. The tour operator reported results in line with expectations. It updated the market on its successful shift of millions of holidays from its traditional heartlands of Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia after the tragic shootings of British tourists at Sousse. It told of how early summer bookings, particularly to Greece, are progressing nicely. Yet its shares crashed 10%. Whats going on? Little more than that the stock market has spent the past few weeks getting totally carried away with itself, marking the shares up sharply in Cooks and Tui with no apparent reason. So, when the results came out this morning with no upgrade in managements profit forecasts, the shares came tumbling back down to where they were. The only actual negative in the statement was chief executive Peter Fankhauser saying he was cautious about 2017. One suspects Fankhauser, with his robotic Swiss monotone, would be cautious if he won the lottery. But with Brexit, terror risks and the election cycle on the continent, where two thirds of Cooks revenues come from, who wouldnt be? The madness of crowds that runs stock-market sentiment is to blame for the share price tumble, not him. Fankhauser deserves praise for his work, his chairman Frank Meysman less so. The man who misread the mood following the carbon monoxide deaths of little Bobby and Christi Shepherd in Corfu has blundered again in the matter of Fankhausers pay. His board wants discretion to create new, as yet unknown, bonus incentives in case circumstances change in the market. In principle, this might not be such a bad idea, given the dramatic events of recent years. But Meysman has clearly not communicated well with investors. The bloody nose in todays AGM follows a 25% vote against the remuneration report last year. Its looking like a nasty habit. No room for the Inn Enterprise Inns chief executive Simon Townsend is rightly diversifying the giant pubco away from the tenanted estate he inherited. New rules giving tenants extra rights to buy themselves out of the beer tie make the model less attractive by the minute. His new-look Enterprise will be a mixture of pubs managed in-house, tenanted boozers and sites let out for commercial use. Normally Id grumble at the name-change today. But at least he hasnt chosen some Latin nonsense. Besides, founder Ted Tuppens use of the archaic inns, meaning a pub with a bed for the night, was never strictly accurate in the first place. So, cheers, Simon. S o the Commons has approved Brexit. The European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill was passed by 494 votes to 122 last night, and now moves to the House of Lords. There it will be vigorously debated but it is, or should be, inconceivable that peers will thwart the will of the Commons or the will of the people as expressed in the referendum. Once it becomes law, the Government can trigger Article 50, the formal mechanism to begin Brexit. Then the real business begins: the painstaking and laborious negotiations that will decide our future relationship with the EU. And however much of a say Parliament will demand and have in the conduct of those negotiations the final deal will be a matter for 27 other states as well as us. We should not, therefore, become too obsessed with the mechanism for triggering Brexit; this is the start, not the end of, divorce proceedings. Nonetheless, this Bill has emphasised the divisive effects of the issue on politics. Last night, 52 Labour MPs voted against the Bill; Clive Lewis, the shadow business secretary, resigned because he was unable to support the party line. Jeremy Corbyn has put a brave face on his departure, although it has only added to the speculation about his leadership. But he is right that Labour has no choice but to support the Bill. My argument is it was a national vote, it was a national referendum, and Parliament has to respect that, he says. Thats true but it leaves a great deal of scope for the party to make clear what its own take on Brexit is. For instance, Labour will argue against any attempt to dilute employment rights guaranteed by the EU to make Britain more attractive to investors. It now remains for the Lords to debate the Bill. They should pass it unamended. There will be plenty of opportunity to raise their concerns in the couple of years it will take to put Brexit into effect. Whitehall mandarins? Tens of thousands civil servants are to move out of Whitehall. Government buildings may be reduced to the Treasury, Foreign Office, Downing Street, the Cabinet Office and Ministry of Defence. Some may move elsewhere in London, others around the country. The aim according to the Cabinet Office is to modernise working patterns in departments with excessively hierarchical ... structures with sub-optimal technology. Already, hundreds of buildings have been sold off, raising nearly 1 billion in the last year, including Admiralty Arch and the old War Office, which will be developed into luxury hotels and apartments. The sell-offs are part of plans to reduce the number of government buildings by 75 per cent in 10 years to save 2.2 billion in running costs. In theory this sounds plausible. In practice it is a move that cannot easily be rescinded and deserves very careful reflection. There is a reason for Whitehall being close to Westminster: Government departments and their ministers can be closely aligned with Parliament. Further, working in Westminster is one of the attractions of the civil service: would we retain the brightest and best in, say, Croydon? Once the buildings are gone, theyre gone. This far-reaching move needs more thorough debate. Bells of St Pauls Its not just Big Ben that needs conservation. The bells of St Pauls Cathedral need repairs too, at a cost of 360,000. Without them, one of the bells could tumble from its bearings. It is easy to underestimate the importance of bell-ringing to our soundscape but without familiar chimes the city would be a very different place. Lets back the St Pauls bid to keep the bells a-pealing. O n Wednesday, the UN warned of an impending food crisis in Yemen. I have just returned from there, where I was based in Medecins Sans Frontieress hospital in Al Houban, Taiz, and it is time the world paid attention to what is happening. Taiz has seen some of the heaviest fighting since the conflict began. Schools, markets, hospitals and homes are all being hit by shelling and by airstrikes you just never know what will happen next. Each month in the hospital we help around 400 mothers safely to deliver their babies. One of these mothers told our team she fed her newborn babies sheeps milk because she was so malnourished she wasnt producing enough milk herself to provide for them. She had only had bread and porridge to eat since giving birth. People there need the most basic things: food, medical care, water and shelter. The situation is dire and if nothing is done, it will get a lot worse. Christopher McAleer, MSF logistician in Taiz J amie Oliver is worth an estimated 320 million and oversees more than 50 restaurants around the world, but he says he still doesnt consider himself a businessman. The celebrity chef confessed: People call me a businessman but I dont consider myself one. I have got a bit better over the years, but Ive definitely been defined by the things I got wrong. Last month he announced plans to close six branches of his Jamies Italian chain, citing Brexit as a factor. Read all the latest restaurant news, reviews and chef interviews Oliver, 41, voiced his concern about challenges to the restaurant industry, and outlined his plans to support up-and-coming chefs through rough patches. The restaurant industry is hard. Its never been so competitive and rates and rents have never been higher. Now on top of that there are worries over Brexit, he said. Theres an amount of resilience that I have because of all the other things I do, so when I get a hiding I can get up, wipe myself off and crack on again. For a lot of young talented chefs out there it is not like that; they make a 20,000 mistake and theyre done. Over the next few years Id like to start working with these chefs and helping to mentor that talent. Jamie Oliver talks about his new restaurant Barbecoa Oliver, who opened his first restaurant in Shoreditch in 2006, was speaking before the launch of his latest venue Barbecoa near Piccadilly Circus. It is the second branch of the steakhouse and BBQ restaurant. The first is in St Pauls and a third is due to open in Victoria next year. Michelin starred restaurants in London: The capitals one, two and three star restaurants mapped This latest branch features a seafood-heavy raw bar and serves afternoon tea, alongside its meat-focussed main menu. Oliver is also preparing to launch a new restaurant called The Diner at Gatwick airport, which he said might not sound glamorous but is going to be amazing. 30 must-try dishes in London restaurants 1 /41 30 must-try dishes in London restaurants Bone marrow on toast with parsley salad at St John Not only has this dish kicked off countless wonderful meals over the course of St Johns 25 years, but it also gets credit for putting British cooking back on the global culinary map. Roasted bone marrow, coaxed out onto toast, cut perfectly with salad of parsley, shallots and capers. A nose-to-tail revolution, and utterly divine. Whole turbot at Brat Tomos Parrys talents with a turbot first came to feverish acclaim at Mayfair restaurant Kitty Fishers, but they are now the star attraction at his Michelin-starred solo spot. This whole fish grilled Basque-style, over hot coals and in a specially designed cage softens as if it has melted, and is basted at the table in an emulsion made with its own juices. Benjamin McMahon Marinara at 50 Kalo di Ciro Salvo Superlatives should be used in moderation but heck it, this might just be Londons best pizza. This under-the-radar London iteration of a Naples pizzeria serves an unrivalled marinara: just tomato sauce, oil, garlic and oregano. No need for any more with a sauce this good and a base so fine and perfectly charred, you can stop mourning your cancelled Italian holiday at first bite. Luciano Furia Clay pot baked pork and crab glass noodles at Kiln When we say Kiln is one of the hottest spots in town, we mean it hang over the counter at the Thai barbecue and youre not far out of range for the odd flame. Baking in the heart of the swirling heat is this must order: shimmering glass noodles, coated with a silky sauce enriched with fatty slicks of Tamworth pork belly and improbably unctuous crab meat. Lamb chops, Melabes Perhaps because its quietly tucked in among its unassuming neighbours down on the wrong end of High Street Kensington, Melabes is often overlooked by Londons food lovers. An unwarranted shame, as this partly Middle Eastern, partly Mediterranean set-up is really very good; it is somewhere to pick and choose from bits and pieces, and put a meal together yourself. The lamb chops, which come all smokey and burnished from the grill, are perfect; pink as a Vegas sign inside, but the fat all soft and dripping and delicious. A must, whatever the order. Steak tartare imperial at Bob Bob Ricard Theres Press For Champagne buttons, lobster in your mac and cheese and anything that stays still long enough gets gilded there is no point in going small at Bob Bob Ricard. Steak tartare is a luxurious pick at the best of times, but the Imperial upgrade here comes with a dollop of caviar even without the finishing touch, the tartare itself is one of the best in the capital. Bacon naan at Dishoom Londoners spent decades believing bacon in a bap with some ketchup (or brown sauce, but lets not have that argument now) couldnt be beaten and then Dishoom came along. This breakfast sandwich fills a fresh naan with bacon, a slathering of cream cheese, a luxurious tomato and chilli chutney, coriander and an oozing fried egg if you feel so inclined. Hangover be gone. Cacio e pepe at Padella Five years ago, you would have thought anyone queuing for pasta in London to have lost their minds this dish changed that. The starlet of Padellas much coveted is this plate of pici hand-rolled fat worms of eggless pasta with a mirror-shine sauce of parmesan cheese and pasta. Simple but unrivalled and itll set you back just 6. Jamon croquetas at Barrafina A dish like this should be elusive it is far too easy to eat seven portions of croquetas in a single sitting, which is why we presume Barrafina makes you queue. Very sensible. As the crunchy coating gives way to the oozing centre, enriched with the flavour of Spanish jamon (the best ham in the business), were already planning our next visit. Biang biang noodles at Xi'an Biang Biang Noodles There are oodles of noodles in the capital, but Guirong Weis triumphant take is one of the finest. First finding followers at her north London restaurant Xian Impression (soon to reopen for dine-in, but not yet), the dish of has inspired a whole spin-off restaurant in Spitalfields. Thick, hand-pulled, chewy noodles soak up all the spice and zing of the special sauce they swim in very special indeed. Souffle Suissesse, Le Gavroche Le Gavroche the street urchin is perhaps not for everyone. It is a Mayfair time machine, a reminder of how things were done once upon a time. Fortunately, it happens that how things were once done was very well indeed, and lunch or supper here is a masterclass in traditional French luxury (and often, happily, includes very large glasses of wine). Staff make the place, anyone who has been gently teased by the twins pretending to be each other will know. A tendency towards the old ways does mean the cooking offers little in the way of evolution or revolution, but new, after all, isnt always better. Michel Roux Jrs cheese souffle, baked on double cream, stuns, so overwhelmingly tasty, utter decadence that clings to the taste buds. Buttermilk Jamaican Jerk Chicken, Around the Cluck / 12:51 James Cochran found his signature dish early on, but its good it should stay with him for the rest of his career. While he has chops, and can do more beyond, theres something special in the way he works with his chicken; hotly spiced, gorgeously crispy, beautifully soft on the inside. A long-standing favourite and, though 12:51 cant operate as it did before, there are tables at his new project Around the Cluck, which is operating out of the same site. Breakfast at Hawksmoor Guildhall Your Full English is not full in comparison to the Hawksmoor breakfast at the steak connoisseurs Guildhall restaurant. The mind-boggling two-person spread swaps bacon rashers for an entire smoked chop, serves its bubble and squeak with short rib, puts trotter meat into its baked beans, and adds grilled bone marrow to all the usual trimmings. Cauliflower shawarma at Berber & Q Its not often that the main event at a barbecue restaurant is the veg, but Berber & Q have achieved just that. The cauliflower shawarma here is cooked on their flaming grill until softened and charred, before being doused liberally in tahini, pomegranate molasses, coriander, pomegranate seeds and a scattering of dried rose petals. BBQ Butter Chicken Wings at Brigadiers Brigadiers is a bold, boisterous sort of place: a labyrinthine City dining room, packed to the rafters with beer and Indian food that is indisputably gutsy. But arguably its finest moment comes in one of its smallest packages these chicken wings may be diminutive, but are mightily spiced, deftly charred and dripping with ghee-fuelled succulence. Beef brisket bun at Smokestak David Carters Shoreditch restaurant occupies itself by giving the entirety of Kansas City a run for its money on a daily basis. The star turn at this lauded barbecue restaurant is its beef brisket bun the meat is soft and juicy, riddled with its fats in the centre, while charred and treacle-like on the outside, paired perfectly with pickled chillies. To remember it is to salivate, we assure you. Snails, LEscargot LEscargot is one of Sohos old aristocrats and in its grand, beret red dining room there is always a mischievous sense of fun perhaps because it is still such a smart, suited, chandeliered place, and people are often drinking themselves rather silly. The clue to good eating is in the name; the snails come still clinging to their shells and submerged in their butter and parsley sauce. Dive in; you will emerge stinking gloriously of garlic. It wont matter a jot; roll on the red wine and settle in for a long, comforting night. Confit potatoes at Quality Chop House Yes, there are some high quality chops on offer at this 150-year-old Clerkenwell restaurant but blimey, leave room for the chips. Fine slices of potato are stacked into architecturally sound wedges, and confited until shatteringly crispy on the outside and devastatingly soft in the centre. They have been much imitated in recent years, but never bettered. Smoked eel sandwich at Quo Vadis Jeremy Lee cooks many things to a legendary level at Quo Vadis his pies could so easily have also made this list but he gets the nod here for his unrivalled take on the fancy sandwich. Smoked eel, horseradish cream and Dijon mustard, served with red onion pickle a combination so popular Lee says he nearly ran out of eel on post-lockdown reopening. Classic bao at Bao London has buns in abundance, but we still bow down to the fluffy superiority of Bao. The Taiwanese restaurant has become a cross-town favourite, thanks to its pleasingly pert rice buns (they are genuinely very pert, no crassness intended) and carefully considered fillings. The classic order comes filled with braised pork, fermented veg, coriander and a dusting of peanut powder. Carol Sachs Potato and roe, Core by Clare Smyth Clare Smyth has a knack that must infuriate other chefs; she is able to take the simplest of ingredients say, a single carrot and a smattering of lamb mince do something devilish with it and charge rather a lot for it; so good are the results, though, that few mind. Smyths sorcery is perhaps best witnessed with her signature, the potato and roe. It is simply a potato on a plate in a little sauce, but then it is also perhaps the best potato dish in the world; it has this wonderful salty richness, a certain seaside intenseness. It is glorious; so too is the smoked chicken that tends to come as an amuse bouche. Youll be treated here. Omelette Arnold Bennett Dont worry, no Arnolds were harmed in the making of this dish. Alongside impeccable service and an arguably perfect dining room, you could add another highlight to your breakfast at The Wolseley by ordering this creamy, haddock-filled dish, named for the writer who inspired its creation while staying at the Savoy. Fish pie, J Sheekey Long an actors favourite, J Sheekeys glamour has never lost its lustre. Its kept its regulars and charmed newcomers with a menu that plays the greatest hits of fine dining favourites. Seafood is Sheekeys thing; simply done sole is beautiful here, crab comes three ways, brill brushed in butter has a meatiness thats beyond satisfying. The fish pie is famous though, and rightly so; beneath the flaking pastry is a sea of cream, mustard and white wine, in it bobbing cod, haddock and salmon. It is simple but never fails; it does on its own for lunch, but is a failsafe at supper, too. John Carey The Ari Gold at Patty & Bun Theres a cheeseburger on every high street in the capital but not all of them are created equal. Patty & Bun has got the classic combination down to a tee with its curiously named Ari Gold burger: a fat, 35-day aged patty is served medium rare, and topped with gooey American cheese, smokey house mayo and tangy pickled red onions. Xiao long bao at Din Tai Fung Few dishes in the capital have been known to cause queues of four hours. Thats exactly what the world-famous xiao long bao dumplings did when top Taiwanese restaurant group Din Tai Fung first opened in Covent Garden. An intricately folded out layer (made by chefs trained for at least 18 months) gives way to succulent meat and a broth you could take on by the bowlful. Pig's trotter, the French House Upstairs in the Soho local, Neil Borthwick is quietly running one of the areas best kitchens. He orders in particularly good oysters, does brilliant things with brill and with his pigs trotter, has a dish that is rich and fatty, but with a beautiful salty cut that makes it madly moreish. The menu tends to change often upstairs in the French, but have this if its on. That little dining room is somewhere to go in early for lunch and stay until late, eventually spilling down into the pub below, to drink pints they do pints now, not just halfs all while merrily reliving the joys upstairs. Peter Clark Dover sole with crab butter at Bentley's Oyster Bar and Grill There are so many delights at Bentleys, its tricky to pick a single one. This could so easily have been a plate of rigorously sourced oysters, the fish pie, the decadent Royal seafood platter (pictured). It is however, the Dover sole that wins. A sublime piece of fish always, expertly cooked without fail choose it either filleted with beautiful crab butter, or grilled and whole for a simple pleasure. Over in the City, Corrigan does similarly brilliant things with lobster at Daffodil Mulligan. Ragu, Lina Stores Sohos Lina Stores the pasta bar, not the longstanding Italian deli it comes from is the sort of restaurant one longs for; small, fun, friendly, not too pricey. They do small plates of near perfect pasta; their ragu, whether lamb or veal, is a gem. A good ragu is hard to find too often theres too little meat, or meat not cooked for long enough but here, they spend the time over it, cooking slowly, carefully. No restaurant can compare with a Nonna, but Lina gets gratifyingly close. Porterhouse steak, the Guinea Grill London is not short of steakhouses, but the Guinea does not number among them. A pub a proper one it is tucked down a Mayfair sidestreet, away from everything and yet still perpetually busy. Besides the small bar is a dining room that looks much as it must have done when the likes of Sinatra was in (or Bette Midler, or Kylie, or Regan, or, or, or), where theyve served prime Aberdeen Angus cooked on a smoking hot grill. The Guinea is all about having a good time pints, red wine, brandies, the lot but they cook beautifully, and their handling of a good piece of beef is second to none. Puree de pommes de terre, Le Comptoir Robuchon The late Joel Robuchon may have been the most decorated chef of his and perhaps any other era, but his signature stayed humble mashed potato. Until youve had it, it is hard to believe it could be quite so good; mash, after all, is mash. No matter the scepticism, it will always surprise; it is almost silly that so little could taste of so much. A side, it will match almost everything on the menu; of which, the lamb with aubergine on the menu of classics is extraordinarily good. Visit standard.co.uk/restaurants for the latest news and reviews from Londons food scene. Follow Ben Norum on Twitter @BenNorum Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout With its complex, multi-layered structure, Hame is an impressive achievement by Annalena McAfee. The novel tells the story of Mhairi McPhail, a historian whose domestic set-up in New York has fallen apart and who takes up an offer to write a new biography of recently deceased Scots poet Grigor McWatt, and to curate a new museum dedicated to his life and work. The museum, naturally enough, is to be sited on the Scottish island which was the celebrated McWatts home, Fascaray. McPhail, herself of Scottish stock, arrives with her delightful nine-year-old daughter Agnes in tow and her diary entries record her attempts to piece together McWatts mysterious back-story. Interspersed between the pages of McPhails journal we see the biography she has been commissioned to write unfold too, complete with academic footnotes and references. And if that wasnt enough, the novels narrative also takes in McWatts local newspaper columns over several decades, pages from his Fascaray Compendium describing island life through the years, and the reimagined verse which was central to his legacy. These poems, existing classics rendered in Scots, are if you like that kind of thing quite striking (They fuck yer heid, yer maw an paw), although they tend to break the novels flow somewhat. Nonetheless, they serve to ram home the paradox of McWatts life: he was most proud of his poems yet his fame was built on a hastily written song, Hame Tae Fascaray, which became an anthem for Scottish nationalists. This is just one of many contradictions with which McPhail is faced as she seeks the secrets of McWatts early life. As she struggles to find her own sense of purpose or place on Fascaray, she sees something of her subject in herself not least a yearning to break free from past shackles while at the same time returning to her roots. Ultimately, Hame is a novel about identity; both with specific regard to Scottish character and nationalism and to broader questions of how we attach ourselves to people over place, or vice versa, and of how we construct our personal life stories. Its not revolutionary stuff but its nicely told. Moreover, while McWatt and Fascaray are literary creations, they are set in an accurate historical context. Hame thus shines a light on an artistic scene which produced some of Scotlands greatest poets of the last century: Hugh MacDiarmid, Sydney Goodsir Smith and George Mackay Brown. There are clear echoes of the latter in McWatt, while the great love of McWatts life, Lillias Hogg, is a version of the muse of Rose Street, Stella Cartwright. The only trouble is that, to the uninitiated, it can at times be hard to unpick the facts from the fiction. More book reviews 1 /24 More book reviews Recovery by Russell Brand Will Russells brand of self-help prove quite so addictive? By Nicholas Lezard. Read review A Life in Questions by Jeremy Paxman Paxo refuses to answer all the really good questions, says David Sexton. Read review Politics: Between: The Extremes by Nick Clegg The basis of this book makes it impossible not to warm to Clegg, says Melanie McDonagh. Read review Serious Sweet by A L Kennedy Thank heavens for London in this tale of self-obsessed lovers. Read review The Last Royal Rebel: The Life and Death of James, Duke of Monmouth by Anna Keay Born a kings b****** and destined for a traitors death. Read review Man Up: Boys, Men and Breaking the Male Rules by Rebecca Asher Getting to the bottom of why boys will be boys. Read review The Course of Love by Alain de Botton A philosophical novel that does run smooth, says Johanna Thomas-Corr. Read review The Tree Climbers Guide: Adventures in the Urban Canopy by Jack Cooke How I gave this book a proper test and ended up with a broken ankle. Read review Reader, I Married Him: Stories Inspired by Jane Eyre Brontes classic tale in the imaginations of other writers, says Claire Harman. Read review Moranifesto by Caitlin Moran Caitlin comes clean about politics the world according to our funniest feminist. By Rosamund Urwin. Read review Spark Joy An Illustrated Guide to the Japanese Art of Tidying by Marie Kondo Theres no messing wih Marie, says Katie Law. Read review Cockfosters Stories by Helen Simpson After 50, a womans life gets better not worse. By Katie Law. Read review Stalins Englishman: The Lives of Guy Burgess by Andrew Lownie Joker in the spying pack. By Richard Bassett. Read review Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin The darkness that lies at the heart of the novel is offset by a lightness of touch, says Mark Sanderson. Read review Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello Elvis proves not quite so lyrical on the page, says Nick Curtis. Read review The Importance of Elsewhere: Philip Larkins Photographs by Richard Bradford His poetry paints better pictures than any camera, says David Sexton. Read review Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith Morality wins out over macabre murders, says Melanie McDonagh. Read review The Grownup by Gillian Flynn Calling all Flynnies: the con girl whos like gone girl. Read review Even if Hame never quite captures the ruggedness of Scotlands remotest spots, it nonetheless offers a glimpse of a different way of living for Londoners tired of the daily grind. And if its denouement is a little neat, surely our desire for a reasonably happy ending is as universal as the search for self which lies at the novels heart. I n the early Fifties US politics was stirred by a public debate about who lost China, after the horse backed by the US, the nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, was defeated by Maos Communists. The same question has occurred to many observers of post-Communist Russia, notably in 2010 the Russian scholar Lilia Shevtsova. It is a very good question, which journalist Peter Conradi reconceives in an elegantly written, informed and unflashy book which provides many valuable insights into our times. Conradi deftly weaves together the external collapse of the Soviet Union half of the population, including 20 million ethnic Russians, found themselves in 14 new successor states with the domestic economic turmoil that ordinary Russians experienced in these Weimar years. Western leaders lacked the vision to either provide Russia with the equivalent of the Marshall Plan, or to fold both Nato and the Warsaw Pact into a new neutral security structure, perhaps based on the 35-nation Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Instead, in the name of privatisation, Russias economy was plundered by pirate oligarchs while Nato was extended into Russias backyard. It did not help that Russias president was the genial dipsomaniac Boris Yeltsin, who Clinton once discovered wandering outside the White House in his underpants trying to find a pizza. Whatever informal assurances were given to Gorbachev and his successor Yeltsin were broken because of the lobbying of Eastern European leaders and the US arms industry, which wanted to re-equip those nations with western equipment. Worse, during the Nineties, western power was unleashed in Bosnia and Kosovo, which had no great-power protector after the Soviet Union was gone. With ol Boris retired, as Bubba Bill patronisingly called him, Russias new President Putin helped George W Bush with intelligence on the Taliban and facilitated US bases in former Soviet states in the aftermath of 9/11. The 2003 invasion of Iraq confirmed Russias worst fears about rampant western hegemonism as the high-tech US military demolished Saddams forces. US meddling in adjacent Georgia and Ukraine further alarmed Putin. Conradi is one of the few non-Russian authors to explore the murky activities of pro-democracy NGOs and the US Aid Agency for International Development. It did not help either that a former CIA director headed the pro-democracy NGO Freedom House. In response, Putin interfered too (militarily in Georgia in 2008 to crushing effect) and elaborated doctrines of spheres of influence over his near-abroad into a more menacing vision of an indeterminate Eurasian space based on spiritual commonalities. More book reviews 1 /24 More book reviews Recovery by Russell Brand Will Russells brand of self-help prove quite so addictive? By Nicholas Lezard. Read review A Life in Questions by Jeremy Paxman Paxo refuses to answer all the really good questions, says David Sexton. Read review Politics: Between: The Extremes by Nick Clegg The basis of this book makes it impossible not to warm to Clegg, says Melanie McDonagh. Read review Serious Sweet by A L Kennedy Thank heavens for London in this tale of self-obsessed lovers. Read review The Last Royal Rebel: The Life and Death of James, Duke of Monmouth by Anna Keay Born a kings b****** and destined for a traitors death. Read review Man Up: Boys, Men and Breaking the Male Rules by Rebecca Asher Getting to the bottom of why boys will be boys. Read review The Course of Love by Alain de Botton A philosophical novel that does run smooth, says Johanna Thomas-Corr. Read review The Tree Climbers Guide: Adventures in the Urban Canopy by Jack Cooke How I gave this book a proper test and ended up with a broken ankle. Read review Reader, I Married Him: Stories Inspired by Jane Eyre Brontes classic tale in the imaginations of other writers, says Claire Harman. Read review Moranifesto by Caitlin Moran Caitlin comes clean about politics the world according to our funniest feminist. By Rosamund Urwin. Read review Spark Joy An Illustrated Guide to the Japanese Art of Tidying by Marie Kondo Theres no messing wih Marie, says Katie Law. Read review Cockfosters Stories by Helen Simpson After 50, a womans life gets better not worse. By Katie Law. Read review Stalins Englishman: The Lives of Guy Burgess by Andrew Lownie Joker in the spying pack. By Richard Bassett. Read review Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin The darkness that lies at the heart of the novel is offset by a lightness of touch, says Mark Sanderson. Read review Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello Elvis proves not quite so lyrical on the page, says Nick Curtis. Read review The Importance of Elsewhere: Philip Larkins Photographs by Richard Bradford His poetry paints better pictures than any camera, says David Sexton. Read review Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith Morality wins out over macabre murders, says Melanie McDonagh. Read review The Grownup by Gillian Flynn Calling all Flynnies: the con girl whos like gone girl. Read review Attempts to reset relations with Russia failed. The professorial Obama allowed his disdain for Putin to be too evident, dismissing him as the surly pupil at the back of the class. This became crucial as the crises in Crimea and Ukraine developed. The EU joined the US in meddling in Ukrainian politics. Its democratically-elected kleptocratic President Victor Yanukovich was put in the vice of choosing between a Russian-dominated customs union and a vague trade association with the EU. Since Ukraine was divided between pro-EU liberals and extreme nationalists in the west, and pro-Russians in the east, civil war erupted and Yanukovich fled. Interference by the warmonger Senator John McCain and a US special envoy who told her ambassador F*** the EU in a call the Russians tapped, did not help. Nor did the appearance of green clad polite people: Russian spetsnaz and holidaying soldiers. An era of western sanctions and Russian counter-sanctions ensued and Russia took Crimea. Russia was truly lost, though another reset will soon happen under Donald Trump. Z etter Townhouse, EC1 Warning: the cosy, plush, softly lit interior of Clerkenwells Zetter Townhouse is sickeningly romantic. But book with two mates on 14 February and youll be boozily rewarded for your refusal to couple up. Staff are offering each table-of-three one complimentary cocktail from the Menage a Trois menu. Choose between a Fig Leaf Collins, Oak-Infused Kir or the cutesy, yet potent, Rose Petal Gimlet. (thezettertownhouse.com) Nordic Bar, W1 This gloriously trashy drinking den in Fitzrovia is every student union bar rolled into one. Happy-hour deals and shots of Day-Glo alcohol rule. Its hosting a Love Stinks, Lets Drink night for single drinkers looking to suppress a sense of dread on the 14th and if you arrive in a group of six, you get free jelly shots. Because obviously the best way to prove youre a mature adult capable of a loving relationship is to mainline vodka-infused jelly. (nordicbar.com) Pop Brixton, SW9 Avoid the restaurants full of gooey-eyed, oyster-slurping couples, and instead drown your sorrows in plastic pints of Brixton Port Authority craft beer and New Zealand Cellars most niche pinot noir at this street-food market. Theyre actively encouraging the dateless to console each other on the communal tables. And if you do meet the love of your life across the picnic benches, you could head over to Pop trader Don Luigis oh-so-intimate six-course dinner with free Prosecco. (popbrixton.org) Follow us on Twitter and Instagram A little more than six years ago, Jemima Kirke gamely agreed to take part in the pilot episode for a new television show that her best friend from high school was writing, directing and starring in. Not only was Kirke, then 24, determinedly a painter, not an actress (though she had already appeared, for free, in said friends first and award-winning indie feature film, Tiny Furniture), but she had also given birth to her first child, her daughter Rafaella, just six weeks before. The friend, of course, was Lena Dunham, and the television show, Girls, has gone on to become the definitive portrait of post-recession life for a certain section of the millennial generation. The process turned the self-confessed reluctant actress Kirke, along with her co-stars Dunham, Zosia Mamet, Allison Williams and Adam Driver, from unknown newcomers into bona fide global stars. And now, the darkly comedic Girls is coming to an end; the sixth and final season airs on Sky Atlantic beginning next week. I am not at all sentimental, and on the last day of filming, I was like: Oh God, do I have to hug everyone? Kirke rolls her blue eyes and affects an expression of bored contempt. But after my very last scene I went back to my dressing room and I was like: Oh s***, I think Im going to cry. She whipped out her phone and posted her teary selfie on Facebook as proof. Because it actually did mean something to me that it was over my life has changed so much because of it. There has been change for the good: London-born, New York-based Kirke, now 31, can no longer nonchalantly eschew the title of actress, with two feature films due out later this year. But there has, too, been change that has proven more painful. Last month, Kirke separated from her husband of seven years, Michael Mosberg, 40, the father of her two children: Rafaella, now six, and their son, Memphis, four. I got divorced, and I attribute that to acting, she says, with characteristic candour. And just asking myslef, Is this really me? So much of my life has been about reaction, just following the flow rather than making a strong choice, she explains. In acting you are always asking yourself why you do things, why you make the choices you make. Everything means something. And so then you start looking at your own life in that way. Ive learnt a lot more about myself and started to figure out what I really want. It wasnt tumultuous and it wasnt a big, dramatic split-up; it was a slow one, as they are sometimes, but its sad. Were settled in a quiet corner of the NoMad Hotel, a genteel spot in Manhattans old Garment District, having coffee at a table beside the fireplace. Kirke, now dressed down in jeans and a stripy sweater, make-up free, has spent most of the day in front of the camera for our shoot at a nearby studio, wandering about between shots in sometimes just a pair of knickers. Like Lena, I think I was always quite comfortable being nude, she nods. That doesnt mean I wasnt without my insecurities. When I was younger, I would pretend to be really confident when I wasnt necessarily, but then, I think, real confidence did follow from that. SIES MARJAN jumper, 474, at mytheresa.com. DIOR pants, 590, 160-162 New Bond Street (dior.com / Jody Rogac It has certainly served her well in Girls, which has become renowned for its unvarnished displays of sexuality and nudity, this swansong season being no exception. Ive never been so nude anywhere, I dont think, Kirke says of one particular upcoming scene involving her character, the acerbic, strong-willed Jessa, eating yoghurt from the tub, naked on the sofa before strolling around the room slapping her own arse. I was naked for hours and hours and hours. She has said in the past that she has felt obligated as an artist, as a mother to a daughter to show [her] body. I just dont want her to see the sex scenes any time soon, thats all, she says. But I hope that she is going to understand that I have a job to do, as an artist, in whatever medium I am working in, not to exclude things for the sake of modesty thats not the mum that she has. Though she has hacked off her formerly waist-length blonde hair into a chic, grown-up, shoulder-length bob, Kirke still emanates bohemian glamour. Her arms and hands are covered with a web of tattoos, many self-drawn including a sun covering her entire right palm and an enormous tiger on the inside of her left forearm. The daughter of Simon Kirke, the former drummer of the rock bands Bad Company and Free, and Lorraine, an interior designer who also owned Geminola, a celebrated vintage boutique in New York, she is also the grand-daughter of the late British billionaire Black Jack Dellal (so named for his love of gambling), the banker turned property dealer who made his fortune controversially flipping properties, including Londons Bush House, in the 1980s. The model Alice, shoe designer Charlotte and art-gallery owner Alex Dellal are her cousins. Alice is one of my oldest friends, not just my cousin I speak to her every few days on Facetime, says Kirke. Her parents swapped Barnes for Manhattan when she was 11. Her older sister, Domino, was 13, her younger sister, Lola, six. Her brother, Gregory, then 16, remained at boarding school in the UK. Initially, Kirke who still speaks with a British accent found it hard to settle in New York. There were huge cultural differences after coming from a posh English school [The Harrodian School in Barnes] to the Red School House off MacDougal Street, where cool artists would send their kids, she recalls. As a teenager, she rebelled, having what she has said were a bunch of profound and negative drug experiences. At high school the liberal St Anns in Brooklyn Heights, she met Dunham, going on to win a place to study fine art at the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design. But I went to college thinking that I could do whatever the f*** I wanted, she has said. And I got thrown out. Twice. I was an entitled little privileged brat. Jemima Kirke: in pictures 1 /10 Jemima Kirke: in pictures DIOR dress, 5,800, 160-162 New Bond Street (dior.com). Pants, as before Kirke in Girls with Lena Dunham With Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, cousin Alice Dellal and sister Domino With Michael Mosberg PRINGLE OF SCOTLAND dress, 395, 94 Mount Street, W1 (pringlescotland.com) 3.1 PHILIP LIM bra, 175 (31philliplim.com). A.W.A.K.E. trousers, from a selection, at avenue32.com SIES MARJAN jumper, 474, at mytheresa.com. DIOR pants, 590, 160-162 New Bond Street (dior.com) MOLLY GODDARD dress, POA (mollygoddard.com). All jewellery, Kirkes own She first went to rehab at 19 for everything. Shed been partying hard, taking drugs including cocaine and drinking heavily for several years. The final straw was a three-day bender, at the end of which, she has said, she felt like she wanted to kill myself. Kirke has strong views on the concept of addiction: When you are in rehab, and afterwards, you think you are an addict. I didnt actually feel like the label fit, but I went through with it because I gave it credit for giving me a life and I was scared that if I abandoned it, I would go back to right where I was. She believes there is a tendency to label people too young. Theyre not fully formed yet, so diagnosing them is premature. I think there is such a thing as a circumstantial problem, and I think thats what I had and I think you can change. Kirke has been drinking again the past three years carefully. At first, I would try to leave a little bit, so it didnt look like I needed the whole drink. Or I would just have the one when I really would have liked two, because you feel that people are taking an inventory, she says. You are very conscious of the checklist. Am I drinking every day? Am I drinking at every social event? It was during her second spell in rehab, aged 23, that she met Mosberg, a lawyer who, still drug-free and strictly sober himself, has recently set up his own rehab centre in Brooklyn. A year later, already pregnant with Rafaella, they got married. I just wanted to keep it f***ing simple: yes, I choose you, lets do this. Well live together and well raise the baby as a family. You just want to do whatever is best for the child. At just 24, she also became stepmother to Mosbergs two older children from a previous relationship, his son and daughter, who are now aged 12 and nine. Getting pregnant does influence your choice, and thats why I think a lot of couples end up getting divorced later, because the kids are fine, theyre in school, theyve got their life set up and then you finally ask: am I happy? Mosberg now lives 15 blocks from the Brooklyn brownstone they formally shared. Im going to miss being a unit, admits Kirke. Thats something that I think is taught to us societally, that a family is a mum and a dad, or two dads or two mums or whatever, but it stays together and its one house. And you do get really sad when you fail at that. Shes channelling that sadness. Ive been making lots of paintings about marriage, she says. Ive started a painting of Allison [Williams, her co-star in Girls] in her wedding dress. While she is bidding farewell to the troubled, wayward Jessa, Kirkes first, paid lead film role doesnt sound a million miles away. In Untogether, written and directed by the author and journalist Emma Forrest, she plays Andrea, a recovering heroin addict and former writing prodigy with long-term creative block and a habit of self-harming. The film, which has yet to receive a release date, also stars Kirkes own sister Lola playing Andreas sister, along with Ben Mendelsohn, and Jamie Dornan as the object of Andreas obsessive lust. The Little Hours, which was just screened at the Sundance Film Festival, is a change of pace though, a comedy set in a 14th-century convent with Dave Franco, Aubrey Plaza and Molly Shannon. And though her film career may be burgeoning, Kirke still steadfastly refuses to play the fame game. She recently panned the Oscar favourite La La Land on Twitter, sparking a stream of backlash and abuse. It is important, I think, that people allow themselves to have opinions and to not be so f***ing likeable. Everyone is so precious and so safe with the things they say; everyones so scared of being slammed and judged. Im just not. She already has some experience of the trolls. While at art school, she had an abortion without anaesthetic because she could not afford the extra expense, and told her story two years ago in a video for the Centre for Reproductive Rights. People were calling me a baby killer, asking if my kids know that I murdered their sibling, she says. But it doesnt offend me. You could never make me feel bad about my abortion you just cant. One of Donald Trumps oft-stated intentions is to deny funding to Planned Parenthood, the US health organisation that provides contraception and abortion services, and where Kirke turned for confidential, (relatively) affordable help. I just hope by the time my daughter is sexually active that its up and running again, which will be, lets say at worst, eight years. She counts on her fingers. Eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13 shes not going to be having sex at 14, so no, I think well be all right. My daughter knows that Trumps evil, she continues, grinning impishly. I put little notes in her lunch box every morning and cover them in stickers, but one morning I just couldnt think of anything to say, so I just wrote, Trump sucks. And when she got home, I said: Im really sorry that hes our President, but youre a big strong girl and Im your mum and were going to do all we can to help, arent we? At the moment, her priority is teaching her children kindness. Its a tough lesson for young children to learn. A stranger screamed at Kirke in the street the other day when she crossed the road with her children as the lights were changing. My daughter asked: Why do people not like you? she smiles. I said: I dont think so many people dont like me, but I really dont mind if some people dont not everyones going to like me, and thats absolutely fine. Girls series 6 premieres on 13 February at 10pm on Sky Atlantic & NOW TV A 62-year-old carer was beaten and stamped to death in Londons Hyde Park by an illegal immigrant who had just been released on bail for shoplifting, a court heard. Homeless Hani Khalaf, 22, allegedly kicked, punched and stamped on Jairo Medina, from Chelsea, west London, near Speakers' Corner on the evening of August 11 last year, leaving him for dead. He pocketed the victim's cash and stole his mobile phone which he tried to sell on hours later, the Old Bailey was told. Mr Medina's bruised and broken body was discovered early on August 12 by a groundsman on his way to work. Prosecutor Oliver Glasgow QC said: "Jairo Medina had sustained severe injuries, with numerous bruises and broken bones all over his body. Police presence: Cordons were set up in Hyde Park / Alex Lentati "His nose, his eye sockets, the bones in his voice box and two of his ribs had all been fractured. "The injuries to his head and face were devastating and had caused traumatic brain injury. "He died as a result of the blunt force injuries that he had suffered when he had been punched, kicked and stamped on - in short, he had been beaten to death." Mr Glasgow told jurors that the motive was greed as the victim's belongings were strewn around the park, his rucksack searched and his wallet emptied. The defendant changed his clothes and took the victim's mobile phone to a shop in Kilburn High Road, where he tried to sell it, the court heard. Investigators found CCTV of Khalaf with his victim at 11pm on the night of the killing at a supermarket near Marble Arch although Mr Glasgow said there was no obvious link between them. The body was found near Speaker's Corner / Alex Lentati Mr Medina was originally from Colombia and was a single gay man with a preference for young dark-skinned men, the court heard. He was described by his former partner as "a carefree and very generous person" who would go to Quebec gay bar in Marble Arch and would sometimes pay male prostitutes for sex, jurors heard. Mr Glasgow told jurors that Khalaf and Mr Medina had either had a "chance encounter" or had arranged to meet on the evening of August 11 last year. Investigators found Khalaf's DNA on Mr Medina's rucksack and he was arrested within days, on August 18. Mr Glasgow told jurors that Khalaf came to Britain in August 2014 when he was found hiding in the back of a lorry. Police and forensic officers in Hyde Park / Alex Lentati He told immigration officers he was 18-year-old Ali Nagieb Abu Mahir from Syria. The prosecutor said he was in the country illegally, "liable for deportation" and that very little was known about him. The day before he met Mr Medina, Khalaf was arrested for shoplifting at the Superdry clothes shop in Regent Street and gave police the same name he told immigration. He appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court and was bailed hours before the killing. He was arrested on August 16 for fare evasion and told police he was Hanni Hassan and later gave the name Khalaf, Mr Glasgow said. Then on August 18 he was arrested again for shoplifting and taken to Charing Cross police station, where he was also detained on suspicion of murder. The victim had only told his brother he was going out for the evening before leaving his Chelsea flat and catching the bus to Hyde Park. Khalaf, of no fixed address, denies murder. The trial was adjourned until Friday. Additional reporting by Press Association A courier stole a 2,000 guitar signed by the Red Hot Chili Peppers he was meant to deliver for an auction for Prince Charless charity. Peter Brown, 35, was tasked with dropping off the Fender Squier Stratocaster to the Princes Trust offices in central London. He had only been working for courier firm Destinations Green for six weeks when he swiped the instrument, which was in a Perspex case. CCTV caught Brown pulling up outside the charitys offices near Liverpool Street station, getting out and signing his handheld computer before driving away. Thief: Peter Brown stole the guitar / National News When confronted, he claimed he had given the package to a man smoking around the corner who claimed to know the person the package was addressed to. But at Highbury Corner magistrates court on Wednesday he was found guilty of theft after a two-hour trial. Stolen: The 2,000 guitar / National News Jasmine Turner of Timebased Events, which organised the charity auction, said the guitar from the US rock group was signed by several band members and in a clear Perspex case. The theft was discovered the next day and the courier firm sent a scan of a signature which suggested the parcel had been signed for and delivered. Brown, of Fulham, denied one charge of theft in January last year. He claimed he had not been signing his device but had been checking on the job details, then moved his van as it was on double- yellow line. A black man who was chasing up the delivery called and they met around the corner, Brown asserted. But Deputy District Judge Samantha Mace said she found his evidence lacking in consistency and credibility ... I am quite satisfied there was no black male. I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that you took the guitar and I find you guilty. Brown, who said he was sacked from the courier firm and now works as a bus driver, was ordered to do 200 hours of unpaid work and pay 2,000 compensation plus a 115 government surcharge. D onald Trumps State visit to Britain will take place in June and cost Scotland Yard millions of pounds to police because of the potential scale of public protests, the Met Commissioner revealed today. Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said that the Met had some concerns already about the extent of the demonstrations that might be staged against the US president. He said that police would be mounting quite a big operation involving a lot of officers and that the bill was likely to be the odd million. He added that he would not dispute a suggestion that the cost could match the 7.5 million cost of policing the G20 summit in 2009. Sir Bernards comments, during an interview on LBC radio, are the first time that the likely date of President Trumps State visit announced by Prime Minister Theresa May during her trip to Washington has been disclosed. The potential size of the policing bill, which will fall on London taxpayers unless special government funding is provided, will add to the controversy about the visit. Warning: Bernard Hogan-Howe / Metropolitan Police It has already prompted angry criticism from politicians and some sections of the public. Asked today about policing the visit, Sir Bernard said the Met was used to coping with such challenges, but was already preparing for a large scale operation. I think President Trump is coming around June I think thats the plan, he said, adding: At the moment, people are concerned there might be lots of protests. We cant definitely say that theres going to be huge amounts of problems, but I think it is fair to say that we have got some concerns already. No doubt we will put a lot of officers out there and keep people safe and make sure that everything goes well. If its a few thousand officers then obviously it will cost quite a bit of money. Sir Bernard said that he could not give a precise figure for the likely bill, but added: The only thing I could say is that, Ill give you an example, when we police Notting Hill we put about 7,000 officers out on the bank holiday and that costs a few million. So I would think its going to be the odd million. Its clearly going to be quite a big operation. One suggestion mooted has been that much of the trip could be hosted at Balmoral to reduce the potential security challenges. A nurse who killed a patient by giving him the wrong blood type has been spared jail. Lea Ledesma made a series of mistakes which led to the death of Ali Huseyin, 76, at London Heart Hospital on May 7, 2014. The grandfather was recovering from a successful heart bypass when she gave him type AB blood instead of group O. He died the same day. Ledesma, 49, tried to pin her fatal mistake on a colleague in the intensive care unit. There were jubilant scenes from the former nurse and her supporters at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday as she was spared jail. The public gallery was packed with dozens of her family, friends and former hospital colleagues, many of whom had written letters of support for her. Ledesma, of Stevenage in Hertfordshire, wept and hugged relatives after being given an 18-month suspended sentence and a community work order. They formed a prayer circle in the courtroom and could be heard praising God and thanking Jesus. The court usher eventually asked them to leave after they continued chanting and celebrating for several minutes. The group then posed for pictures inside the building before being stopped by court staff. Ledesma denied unlawful manslaughter by gross negligence but was convicted by a jury after a trial last year. Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith said Mr Huseyin was a "much-loved husband, father and grandfather - a kind, considerate family man whose death has devastated his family, particularly his wife, who feels so alone without him after all these years". A number of errors led to Ledesma choosing the wrong blood from a vending-style machine, before incorrectly checking it against the computer records. She initially tried to pass off the error as being a colleague's mistake and only when questioned further did she admit to being distracted and flustered when checking the patient's details. "It's still a mystery to me as to how and why you came to behave in the way that you did, and you remain certain that the details of the other Mr Hussain were shown on the deceased's monitor and I cannot exclude that as a contributory factor," the judge said. He continued: "You were committed to that unit, everybody talks about how reliable you were, how committed. You were described as the mother of the unit and always prepared to go the extra mile for your patients." Additional reporting by Press Association. P olice officers swooped on a man brandishing a butchers knife outside a busy commuter station in west London on Wednesday evening. Frightened witnesses said a man was wielding a massive knife outside Ealing Broadway station at around 8pm. Police officers rushed to the station following a call and managed to restrain the man on the floor. Dramatic footage from the scene posted on social media showed police cars lighting up the street with flashing lights as a team of officers arrested the man. One witness, Gemma Pollard, posted on Twitter: Seven police cars and undercover (police) outside Ealing Broadway NatWest. "Man with massive knife. She told the Mirror: "I was by NatWest Ealing Broadway when two police cars arrived. "There were already undercover officers with a man detained, a further five police cars arrived and we realised the man had a butchers knife on him. "He carried on being searched before (he was) taken off with his legs restrained, on Uxbridge Road." The Met Police said a man was arrested on suspicion of possession of an offensive weapon and taken into custody at a west London police station. A spokesman said: Police were called at around 8.05pm on 8 February following a report of a man in Ealing Broadway believed to be in possession of a knife. Enquiries by Ealing borough officers continue. A man stabbed in front of horrified Tube commuters was ambushed by a gang of up to four thugs, police said. Detectives investigating the attack at Queensbury station in north-west London said up to four men assaulted the 26-year-old victim as he walked towards a Jubilee line platform. The man was rushed to hospital with stab wounds after he was attacked at 12.45pm on Wednesday but his injuries were not life threatening. He has since been discharged. The station was shut for five hours as forensic investigators combed the scene for evidence. Police investigation: A man was stabbed near a Jubilee line platform / Dipz Patel/Facebook On Thursday, police said witnesses reported that a fight broke out on a staircase as the victim walked towards the platform with a group of friends. Investigating officer Detective Sergeant Dean Percival, said: We are in the early stages of this investigation and we continue to make extensive enquiries to establish exactly what happened. What we know is that as the victim was walking towards the platform with his friends when he was subjected to an assault by up four men. Thankfully, the victims injuries were not serious and he has been discharged. I am very keen to hear from anyone who was in the station at the time or who witnessed a group of men running away from Queensbury station just before 1pm. Please get in touch as your information could be vital to our investigation. Violent assaults such as this are thankfully uncommon, but when they do occur we will use all available evidence to find those responsible and bring them before the courts. Anyone with any information is asked to text BTP on 61016 or call 0800 40 50 40 quoting reference 261 of 08/02/2017. Or, call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 R oads in south London have been taped off after police chased a suspect through south London on Thursday afternoon. A wanted suspect who was driving a stolen vehicle rammed into a police car before making off through the streets of Clapham. Police have cordoned off Elms Crescent and Hambalt Road, near to Abbeville Road and Clapham Common station, while they hunt for the stolen car. The driver fled the scene in the car and is still at large. Officers were in Park Hill in Clapham at just after 3.20pm when they spotted a vehicle which had been reported stolen in a burglary. Police gave chase through Elms Crescent when the driver of the stolen car reversed and crashed into the police car. The stolen vehicle was last seen in Atkins Way, the Met told the Standard. Passers-by shared photos taken from the busy Abbeville Road, showing a police cordon next to the Co-op at the corner of Hambalt Road. A spokeswoman added: Police have closed Hambalt Road and Elms Crescent while they carry out enquiries. The vehicle remains outstanding." T wo radicalised west Londoners are facing jail for posting a string of terror messages on Twitter. Mohammed Mayow, 23, tweeted internet links to material related to Islamic State as well as a message which read: "I can't wait for the day we fight AmeriC***S". His co-defendant, Mohanned Jasim, 22, is also facing prison after sharing tweets encouraging terrorism in October last year. The duo, both from Hayes, will be sentenced at Londons Old Bailey on Friday. Defence barrister Imran Khan told the court Mayow was reckless and added sending messages on Twitter was so instantaneous that one does not think about it". The two men will be sentenced at the Old Bailey on Friday. / John Linwood/Creative Commons licence CC BY-ND 2.0 He said: "These were instinctive reactions to tell the world what was happening - not encouraging." Judge Rebecca Poulet said her decision on what sentence to give Mayow will depend on how radicalised I find him to be based on all the material". Mayow came to Britain as a child refugee at the age of 14 having been forced to leave first Iraq and then Syria. The defendant, who had never been in trouble with police before, developed "an interest in what is happening in the Middle East and foolishly involved himself with individuals connected with this type of offending", his lawyer said. Mayow pleaded guilty to six charges of dissemination of a terrorist publication while Jasim admitted two counts of encouragement of terrorism. A woman was forced out of a Porsche before being kicked in the face and left on the side of the road in south London, police say. The victim, aged in her 30s, was allegedly kicked all over her body at an unknown location in Bermondsey between 6pm and 7pm on Saturday. Police say the driver forced her out of the black Porsche Cayenne the attacked her before driving off and leaving the woman alone on the street. A passer-by came to help her and called a taxi which took the woman to her home in Streatham. Police said they were only made aware of the incident after an ambulance was called to the womans address in the early hours of Sunday morning. The woman initially refused treatment and police were called, arriving at her home at 8am. Another ambulance was called and the woman was taken to hospital for treatment to injuries to her head, face, shoulders, arms, legs and right hand. She was discharged later that day. Police are appealing for witnesses and want to speak to the taxi driver who took the injured woman home on Saturday evening. A man was arrested on Sunday and has been charged with ABH. Detectives from the Lambeth Community Safety Unit are investigating and continue to work to identify the specific location where the assault took place. Anyone with information is asked to call Lambeth Community Safety Unit on 020 8649 2191 or contact the police non-emergency line on 101. Alternatively, call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. A n IT expert lay undiscovered for up to seven hours after falling down stairs to his death at a Tube station. Bernard Ovu, 35, is believed to have become trapped in an emergency stairwell at Canning Town station after mistakenly entering a staff-only door which slammed shut behind him. According to initial reports provided to his family, he spent up to an hour trying to find a way out before falling and hitting his head on a concrete step. It was not until around seven hours later, just before 9.30am on January 22, that British Transport Police were called after the discovery of his body. A joint investigation is now under way involving the BTP, alongside Transport for London and the Governments Office of Road and Rail. The Standard has learned that the inquiry is focused on whether the emergency door alarm sounded and why staff overseeing the stations 24-hour Jubilee line Night Tube service did not discover his body sooner. Mr Ovus family today told the Standard they are desperate for answers, saying: Bernard should not have been allowed to die like that. The IT systems support worker, who worked for the Bar Council, was heading home after being at a wedding earlier in the day. IT expert: Bernard Ovu was found dead at Canning Town Tube station He took a Jubilee line service to Canning Town alone after saying goodbye to a friend at Canada Water station. He is thought to have entered a door leading off the first-floor Jubilee line platform into a secure stairwell leading down to the main station concourse. Born in Aberdeen to Nigerian parents, Mr Ovu grew up in Nigeria before moving to London in 2001 to live with his aunt and uncle. Speaking today from their home in Ashford, Middlesex, Joseph and Christina Ogun said they had treated their nephew like a son. Mr Ogun, 61, said: We dont have the full story of what happened to Bernard, which is very painful for us. Without those answers, the grieving process is so much more difficult. He was full of life, and he had a bright future. We want to know what happened. He was a loving person, always willing to help people, always there for you. Since he passed, our lives have not been the same. The incident happened at Canning Town station Investigators have told Mr Ovus family that an alarm sounded when he entered the emergency stairwell, said Mr Ogun. He added: If you go through an emergency exit and an alarm goes off, surely someone should find out what is happening? They had a responsibility for health and safety of their passengers. We want justice to be done for the way Bernard died. We were expecting him to walk through the door that evening, but instead it was the police to tell us he was gone. The eldest of three brothers, Mr Ovu had been headhunted to work for barristers regulator the Bar Standards Council after impressing colleagues at the National Portrait Gallery. Stephen Crowne, chief executive of the Bar Council, said: Bernard managed to make a huge impression on all of us with his charismatic personality, good nature, always helpful attitude and a smile on his face. He will be greatly missed. Mr Ovus brother Steven, 32, said: Everything is a mystery to me, nothing makes sense. Im in shock. Im still in denial. I play videos of him, I listen to his voice on my phone. He added: Ive seen my parents disintegrate and I lack words to comfort them. The thought that he will never speak to me again or embrace me again is paralysing. An inquest into Mr Ovus death was opened at Walthamstow Coroners Court yesterday. Coroners officer Rod Quilter told the court that the 35-year-old had died from a head injury sustained in a fall down a flight of concrete stairs at the station, adding that there was CCTV footage of the incident. He said that foul play has now been ruled out. The court heard that results of toxicology tests were not yet available and the coroner adjourned the inquest to a date yet to be fixed. Steve Griffiths, chief operating officer for London Underground, said: Following the tragic death of Mr Ovu at Canning Town station on Sunday 22 January our thoughts are with his family and friends. "An investigation is now under way by the British Transport Police and we are offering them every assistance." A motorcyclist has been seriously injured following a horror crash in south London, police said. The man was rushed to a south London hospital just before 3pm on Thursday after he was involved in a collision with a car outside a parade of shops in Camberwell Road. Police said the severity of the injuries were not known at this stage but they are not thought to be life threatening. A Met spokesman said officers and paramedics raced to the scene at around 2.48pm. A dramatic image captured at the scene showed debris scattered across the main road with bystanders tending to someone on the ground. A London Ambulance Service spokesperson said: "We were called at 2:48pm today to reports of a road traffic collision at Camberwell Road. "We sent an ambulance crew, a single responder in a car and an incident response officer to the scene. The first of our medics arrived at the scene in under eight minutes. "We treated a man at the scene for an arm injury and took him as a priority to a major trauma centre." The road was shut between Bowyer Place and Medlar Street. T his was the dramatic scene after a car ploughed into a tree and a lamppost in east London. The driver was cut from the mangled wreckage of his vehicle following the crash in Mile End Road, Bow, on Thursday afternoon. Firefighters freed the man from the car which police said struck a lamppost and ploughed into a tree during the crash shortly before 5pm. He was taken to an east London hospital with a head injury by London Ambulance Service paramedics. His injuries were not thought to be life-threatening or life-changing, police said. A Met Police spokesman said: Police were called at 4.55pm on Thursday, February 9, to reports to a collision on Mile End Road, E3. Officers attended and established that a vehicle had been in collision with a tree and a lamppost. The London Fire Brigade and the London Ambulance Service were also in attendance. The male driver was taken to an east London hospital with a head injury where he remains with injuries not thought to be life threatening or life changing. Enquires continue." A Tube announcer has been called a total legend for making thousands of London commuters smile with his amusing train announcements. The upbeat London Underground worker has been filmed delivering a hilarious fast-paced announcement as a train pulls into the platform at Victoria station. Armed with a loudspeaker, the Tube worker, called Carl, tells passengers: Service update, everything cool. He then says: The Underground train driver, you cool. Why dont you show the people some loving. He adds: Bless up the massive, bless them up, show them so love. Stand clear. The announcement finishes as he bids the train farewell with the words: Respect, respect, rub a dub style. 'Bless up the massive', Tube announcer Carl tells passengers as they board the train. / Christian English - Bespoke The video was posted online by style consultant Leon Brown and has since been watched more than 58,000 times. Mr Brown told the Standard: "We all know what travelling on the underground can be like no one smiles! 'Total legend': The TfL worker has been hailed as a hero for his announcements at Victoria Station. / Christian English - Bespoke "We just wanna get where were going as quickly as possible so it was great to see Carl being true to himself and his heritage, and bringing a smile to all our faces whilst doing it!" Mr Brown, who lives in north east London, added on Facebook: "We crossed paths for five minutes and it was filled with laughter and fun! Great guy. The upbeat Tube announcer, called Carl, brightening up commuters' journeys on the northbound Victoria Line platform. / Christian English - Bespoke Its just so nice to see someone putting a genuine smile on peoples faces. I watched three trains go by and saw more smiles in five minutes than youd usually see in a week. Many Tube users have remarked on Carls unique announcements and said he regularly brightens up their dreary Tube journeys. Brilliant, said Michael Cuschieri. They should have someone like him at every station. "Love it and what a difference it probably made to people on a Monday morning going back to work! Stephanie Smith said: Ive heard him before! Hes amazing in the mornings, makes everyone smile. Total legend. Another Facebook user called Rae Charles said: He has been doing this for years, he is amazing, he makes everyone on the carriage/platform smile. Sandy Gardner added: I would definitely miss my train because I would be more interested in watching him really entertaining! A 1 billion plan to turn Whitehalls Old War Office into a five-star hotel and apartments is set to be approved despite concerns that the Edwardian masterpiece will be mutilated. The vast former headquarters of the British Empires military, where Winston Churchill had an office, was sold by the Ministry of Defence for 350 million last year because it was ruled surplus to requirements. The Hinduja Group, which bought the Grade II* listed building with Spanish group OHL Developments, has applied to add a double-height basement and three floors on top of the 580,000 sq ft property, whose 1,100 existing rooms are linked by more than two miles of corridors. The developers want to add restaurants, boutique shops, bars, a spa, a gym and a 25m pool alongside 88 one- to five-bedroom flats. Architects say the design will unlock the secret corridors to the public for the first time, describing the project as a once in a generation opportunity. An internal quadrangle accessed from Horse Guards Avenue will have a red carpet, turning circle for Bentleys and Lamborghinis and alfresco dining. "Scandal: the Old War Office, above, where Winston Churchill worked / Alamy But more than 30 official objections have been submitted to Westminster council raising concerns about parking, access, loss of privacy, late-night noise and disruption caused by the estimated three years of works as well as the impact on the fabric of the building. One neighbouring resident said: This building is a masterpiece of Edwardian architecture and a monument of significance in British history. Its external features should not be modified. It would be a scandal. Another said: The concept of mutilating it for commercial gain by adding floors and removing features such as bottle balustrades is unacceptable. The owners of the neighbouring Corinthia Hotel complained that proposed road changes would route traffic past its front door, so the street becomes part of a major construction site. A resident of 22 years said the view from St Jamess Park towards the building was one of the most beautiful in London. Historic: Winston Churchill worked in the building / PA He said: This is one of the most selected filming locations. Adding floors will destroy the vista forever. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, who has lived in a block behind for 26 years, said the application should be refused, adding: These floors will overshadow the flats in Whitehall Courts west side. This is out of place for a listed building. Westminster council officers recommended the scheme be approved when it goes before councillors next Tuesday. There has been no formal objection from conservation body Historic England. Council officers suggested the developers should make a 10 million contribution to affordable housing and 302,000 to its carbon off-set fund. The developers declined to comment but the Standard understands that they are hopeful of having the application approved after a year of negotiations with residents and other groups. U rgent repairs are needed to stop the bells of St Pauls Cathedral falling silent or even plummeting from the supports that keep them in place. Church leaders have launched an appeal to raise 360,000 to restore the 12 bells. They weigh up to three tons each and were the heaviest in the world when installed in 1878. They are rung three times every Sunday and on national occasions, such as the Queens 90th birthday. The bells have only been silenced in wartime. But surveyors say the condition of the bells has deteriorated and urgent action is required to keep them ringing. In a worst-case scenario they could drop from their supports. According to a report by the City of London Corporation, one of the bodies approached as part of the fundraising efforts: After nearly 140 years of constant use, there is a risk that ongoing deterioration will result in the bells falling silent and, more drastically, that one of the bells could fall from its bearings, causing serious damage to itself and the installation. The cost of the work has been estimated at 30,000 per bell. When the repairs are complete, sponsors will have their names inscribed on a donor board to be installed in the ringing room in the north-west tower. So far, the cathedral has received commitments totalling 268,000. The City of London Corporation is set to make a 30,000 contribution to repair the heaviest bell, which it donated in 1878. Appeal: Bellringer Paul Carless inspects the 12 bells of St Paul's Cathedral / Alex Lentati Nick Bodger, the Corporations head of cultural and visitor development, said: St Pauls Cathedral is an iconic symbol of the Citys skyline, and plays a pivotal role in positioning the City as a strategically important location within London and the UK. Its bells are integral to this positioning. Without them, the Citys standing as a place of celebration and commemoration, and as a world city with international resonance, may be diminished. He recommended that the authoritys policy and resources committee approve the donation when it meets next Thursday. The request of 30,000 towards the restoration of these bells is considered justified by officers who have cited the positive PR sponsorship may generate and the traditional role of the bells in national occasions, he said. To decline this request may result in negative perceptions about the City corporation and its support of such a loved and iconic landmark. The bells will be cleaned and restored at the foundry in Loughborough where they were originally cast. The smallest will be re-hung on modern metal headstocks and the bells will be returned to the cathedral tower for a re-dedication ceremony next year. A spokesman for St Paul's said: "St Pauls Cathedral and its energetic and committed band of professional ringers are embarking on a major project involving diligent care for an internationally celebrated ring which is now nearly 150 years old. The re-hang will refurbish and equip the great St Pauls Cathedral ring for the next 100 years. "If this work is not carried out, some safety critical components such as the bearings which support the immensely heavy bells, will continue to deteriorate and, in time, the bells would have to fall silent. Completing this major overhaul will ensure the bells will continue to ring out over London." T he Archbishop of Canterbury today told of his shock that only 350 vulnerable children will be given safe haven in Britain under a special scheme - and urged the Government to reconsider the limit. Justin Welby joined a chorus of outrage at the restriction on the Dubs programme announced yesterday by Home Secretary Amber Rudd. I was saddened and shocked to read that only 350 children will be received under the regulations in the Dubs Amendment, he said. Refugees, like all people, are treasured human beings made in the image of God who deserve safety, freedom and the opportunity to flourish. Jesus commands us to care for the most vulnerable among us. He added that he feared that the Governments decision did not meet the spirit of the commitment that was given during the passage of the Immigration Act last year. We believed that the Government was committed to welcoming up to 3,000 children under this scheme, he explained. To end the scheme now, when such a small proportion have actually entered the country, is regrettable. In an apparent swipe at US president Donald Trump, he added: We must resist and turn back the worrying trends we are seeing around the world, towards seeing the movement of desperate people as more of a threat to identity and security than an opportunity to do our duty. We cannot withdraw from our long and proud history of helping the most vulnerable. He called for town halls to be given resources needed to meet the cost of the resettlement of the 3,000 young people. Downing Street stressed that the Dubs programme was not open-ended but that thousands of vulnerable children were being given sanctuary in the UK under different schemes. Speaking at a press conference in Downing Street following talks with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, Theresa May said the Dubs scheme was only one of a number of routes by which vulnerable children can find sanctuary in the UK. The Prime Minister said: We have been seeing quite a number of children and families being resettled here in the United Kingdom. I think what we are doing in terms of refugees is absolutely right, on top of course of the significant financial support and humanitarian aid we are giving to refugees in the region of Syria - a commitment of 2.3 billion, the second biggest bilateral donor. She added that 20,000 people, many of the childen, would be brought to Britain by 2020 under the Syrian vulnerable persons resettlement scheme. No10 added that the 350 limit was based on places identified by local authorities. However, Lewisham said it had places for the scheme that had not been taken up. N ew York-born Boris Johnson has officially given up his American citizenship. The Foreign Secretary announced he planned to hand back his US passport while he was London mayor and began the process more than a year ago. US government documents listing people who have given up their citizenship rights confirmed he no longer had the status. During a trade mission to America in 2015, Mr Johnson described his dual nationality as "an accident of birth" and said he planned to change, but it was a "laborious business". US laws mean that American citizens are liable to pay some taxes even if they are not resident in the country. Mr Johnson was forced to settle an "outrageous" capital gains tax bill following the sale of a house in London ahead of his US mayoral tour. The previous year he had insisted he would not settle up, saying: "Why should I? "I haven't lived in the United States for, you know, well, since I was five years old." D iane Abbott launched a four-letter volley at Brexit Secretary David Davis in an extraordinary confrontation when he tried to kiss her in a bar at the Commons, it was claimed today. Labours shadow home secretary told him to f*** off when he leaned in for a jovial embrace in the Strangers Bar hours after the crunch Brexit vote, according to witnesses. Mr Davis, who was accused by one MP of being drunk on Brexit smugness, strode up to Ms Abbott to thank her after she reluctantly voted with the Government for the triggering of moves to leave the European Union. Ms Abbott, who has endured days of ridicule for missing a vote and claiming she had a migraine, recoiled and told him where to go. Brexit: David Davis forgets EU departure dates There was no denial from either side about the incident which was being gossiped about in the Commons Tea Room this morning. 'Drunk on smugness': Brexit Minister David Davis Ms Abbott was in the bar with shadow attorney general Baroness Chakrabarti when Mr Davis entered the bar in triumph. He reportedly marched over to the women and tried to plant a kiss on Ms Abbott. After she rebuffed him, he is said to have walked off laughing. Jess Phillips, chair of the womens Parliamentary Labour Party, called the incident unsurprising, saying Mr Davis was probably drunk on Brexit smugness and would have been feeling powerful and important. She added: He wouldnt do it to David Cameron or George Osborne, so he shouldnt do it to Diane. Its unacceptable. Who is David Davis and what are his plans for Brexit? "Women in Parliament have to put up with all sorts of paternalistic rubbish. If he wouldnt do it to a bloke, he shouldnt have done it to Diane. Allies of Mr Davis agreed he briefly greeted a group Ms Abbott was with as he passed which included Baroness Chakrabarti, whom he knew well after campaigning with her on civil liberties. An ally suggested he perhaps sought to embrace Ms Abbott but added: I dont think its right he tried to plant a kiss and it was perfectly jovial. There was no comment or denial from Ms Abbott this morning, despite attempts to contact her. She was in no mood for banter in recent days after criticism by colleagues for claiming to have been too ill to take part in a key vote that two MPs suffering from cancer managed to attend. After obeying last nights three-line whip, the Hackney North & Stoke Newington MP broke her silence with a statement describing herself as a loyal supporter of Jeremy Corbyn. But her colleague Clive Lewis quit as shadow business secretary rather than vote for Brexit, and was expected to position himself as a Left-wing candidate for the Labour leadership. Brexit Bill backed: Theresa May allowed to start EU exit negotiations Mr Corbyn this morning dismissed the departure of Mr Lewis as not a disaster. He scorned as fake news and absolute nonsense suggestions that he was considering his own future as Labour leader. Loading.... In another development, a government source said the unelected House of Lords could be abolished if it tried to block or amend the Brexit Bill that was passed by MPs by 494 votes to 122 in the elected Commons last night. Today No 10 distanced itself from the threat. However, one minister told the Standard that many Tory MPs were in favour of reforming the Lords, including a plan for sunset peerages that would expire after 10 years. What has stopped reform in the past was the idea of elections to the Upper House, which would make it a rival for the Commons, said the minister. But appointing peers for a 10-year period would keep the Lords constantly refreshed as a repository of knowledge and experience without clogging it up. The idea is a direct threat to hundreds of existing peers who have jobs for life in the Upper House under current rules, with generous expenses and access to Lords facilities. But the Lib Dems who have 102 peers say they are now gearing up for a battle over the Brexit Bill despite the threat. A Tory MP has tabled a motion of no confidence in John Bercow after he said he would block an invitation for Donald Trump to address Parliament because of his "racism and sexism". James Duddridge, MP for Rochford and Southend East, said the Commons Speakers remarks about the US President were wholly inappropriate. The former minister tabled the motion of no confidence and told Sky News Mr Bercow had "overstepped the mark". It comes after the Speaker faced calls to consider his position after he said Mr Trump should not be allowed to address Parliament on his state visit to Britain later this year. On Tuesday, Mr Bercow had said an invitation to give a speech at Westminster Hall was an earned honour for a foreign leader and not an automatic right. Speaker of the House John Bercow / PA He said he was strongly opposed to the idea of an address even before the new US president imposed his controversial travel ban and that he had since become "even more strongly" against it. His extraordinary intervention was applauded by MPs on the opposition benches as he said he believed Parliament must stand up to "racism and sexism". Mr Bercow is one of three people that would have to approve an invitation for Mr Trump to address MPs at Westminster Hall. Mr Duddridge wrote to Theresa May earlier this week requesting that ministers are given a free vote in any potential vote designed to topple Mr Bercow. Hand of friendship: Theresa May and Donald Trump walk along The Colonnade at the White house (Getty Images) / Christopher Furlong/Getty Images Mr Bercow's move irritated several Tories and also caused a clash with Lord Speaker Lord Fowler, who vowed to keep an "open mind" about Mr Trump addressing Parliament. But the Speaker received support from Labour in the Commons earlier, with the Opposition urging ministers to reject calls for a vote of no confidence. Shadow Commons leader Valerie Vaz urged her opposite number to "confirm that the Government will not support any attempts to act on the letter to the Prime Minister about comments made on a point of order in this chamber". Commons Leader David Lidington did not respond to the question about the Speaker but said the Government had to deal with the US president as he was democratically elected, despite strong feelings on the matter. He said: "Whatever view any of us as individuals might have on any particular leader of another country, the reality is that governments have to deal with other governments in the world as they exist and particularly with elected governments who are able to claim a mandate from their own people." Mr Lidington told MPs there was no challenge to the legitimacy of the US election, despite the "bitterness" of the campaign. T ens of thousands of civil servants and public sector workers are to leave Whitehall in a huge government shake-up in London. Civil servants from central London are to be consolidated into between 18 and 22 hub locations around Britain. They will be based in shared centres as part of moves to improve cross-department working. Eight thousand civil servants and public sector workers will start to move to new centres in Canary Wharf and Croydon this year and next. They will be from Revenue and Customs, the Department of Work and Pensions and energy watchdog Ofgem. The Government Digital Service will also relocate from Aviation House, off The Strand, to Aldgate in July, so that it is closer to Londons tech clusters, with the aim of attracting more talent and skills from the private sector. Thousands more civil servants are likely to move out of Whitehall which could see government buildings there reduced to the Treasury, Foreign Office, Downing Street, Cabinet Office and Ministry of Defence. Cabinet Office minister Ben Gummer said: I want to see a revolution in the way we deliver public services, so that people up and down our country feel that government is at their service at every single stage in the journey. Only by transforming the relationship between the citizen and the state so that the latter serves the former will we deliver the Prime Ministers commitment to build a country that works for everyone. The reforms aim to modernise antiquated working patterns in departments with excessively hierarchical organisation structures and with sub-optimal technology. The Environment Department is moving from Smith Square to Marsham Street. The size of the government estate has already fallen by a quarter since 2010. Hundreds of buildings have been sold off, raising nearly 1 billion in the past year, including London landmarks such as Admiralty Arch, which will be developed into a luxury hotel and apartments. The sell-offs are part of plans to reduce the number of government office buildings by 75 per cent across the country during the next decade and save 2.2 billion in running costs. Councils are being encouraged to sell property and land to build tens of thousands more homes. R AF jets have been scrambled to monitor a pair of Russian bombers flying close to British airspace. The two Russian Blackjack bombers had been flying over Europe when they entered a UK "area of interest". Typhoon aircraft from RAF Lossiemouth and RAF Coningsby were sent to check on the Russian planes, which did not enter UK airspace at any point. A RAF spokesman told the Standard: We can confirm that quick reaction alert Typhoon aircraft from RAF Lossiemouth and RAF Coningsby scrambled to monitor two Blackjack bombers while they were in the UK area of interest. At no point did the Russian aircraft enter UK territorial airspace. Scrambled: RAF jets were sent to 'monitor' the Russian aircraft / MOD Crown Copyright 2017 The Russian bombers are believed to have flown between the Shetland and Faroe Islands, then down the west coast of Ireland, according to the Independent. It is the latest incident in which RAF jets have been scrambled in response to Russian military manouvres. Russian warships were tracked as they passed through the English Channel on their way to Syria last year. A n explosion at a nuclear plant in north-west France caused panic on Thursday. A blast was reported around 10am local time (9am GMT) at the power station in Flamanville, Normandy, according to Ouest France. The blast reportedly happened in the engine room of the plant. Officials said there was no nuclear risk. Emergency services rushed to the power station situated on the outskirts of town. According to initial reports there were thought to be several injured and five people left "moderately intoxicated". But EDF later issued a statement saying there were no casualties. The fire brigade told local media there was a blast and fire in the compound but that the explosion happened outside the nuclear zone. Local police chief, Olivier Marmion, said the fire was succesfully brought under control at 12.10 local time (11.10 GMT). Mr Marmion said: "It's a significant technical incident but it's not a nuclear accident." He added that five people had been"moderately intoxicated" but they are not thought to be among the injured. Mr Marmion said one of two working reactors had been switched off as a precaution. Loading.... The Flamanville nuclear power plant, located on the Cotentin Peninsula in La Manche department, houses two pressurised water reactors built in the 1980s. A third reactor is currently under construction. It is one of France's flagship nuclear projects but has faced years of delays and cost overruns. The Financial Times reported last year that concerns over the steel used in its reactors had further delayed construction. The reactor was initially expected to begin operating in 2012 but is currently slated for a 2018 start. A spokesman for EDF, which runs the plant, said: "At 9.40 this morning, a fire resulting in a minor explosion broke out in the turbine hall on the non-nuclear part of unit 1 at the Flamanville nuclear power plant. "The fire was immediately brought under control by the plants response team. As per normal procedure, the fire brigade went to the affected location and confirmed that the fire had been extinguished. "Unit 1 was disconnected from the grid. There were no casualties. There were no consequences for safety at the plant or for environmental safety." A udrey Hepburns eldest son is being sued by a childrens charity set up in his mothers name in a dispute over the exhibition of the Oscar-winners dresses. The Audrey Hepburn Childrens Fund is taking action against Sean Ferrer at Los Angeles superior court, claiming he has interfered with its plans to put the Breakfast At Tiffanys stars dresses on show in South Korea and China. Exhibitions are the primary source of income for the charity, which supports childrens centres at hospitals in Los Angeles, New Orleans and in New Jersey. Mr Ferrer and his half-brother Luca Dotti set up the fund after their mothers death aged 63 in 1993, along with her long-time companion, Dutch actor Robert Wolders. The siblings are embroiled in a separate court dispute over jewellery, property and other items left to them by their mother, who won an Academy Award in 1954 for Roman Holiday. The LA lawsuit says that while only one brother has to give permission to display the items, Mr Ferrer has threatened litigation over the planned display of some of Hepburns Givenchy dresses in South Korea and China and also restricted the charitys access to its website. It claims Mr Ferrers actions may force it to stop operations and could irreparably damage the sterling reputation of the late Audrey Hepburn. Its lawyer, Steven Young, said: The fund is seeking to continue to raise funds in the same way it has done for more than two decades. A group of teenagers found guilty of painting racist graffiti on an old school building have been ordered to expand their cultural horizons by reading books. The boys, from Virginia, US, were told to develop their worldviews by reading literary classics including Harper Lees To Kill a Mockingbird and Chinua Achebes Things Fall Apart. The unusual sentence was delivered by Judge Avelina Jacob of the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court where the youngsters were found guilty of destruction of private property. They had plastered swastikas, obscenities and the phrase white power on a school set up for African-American children in 1892, according to CNN. Classic: Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird (Picture: Press) Under the sentence, they must read one book per month for a year and then write a report about that book. Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Alex Rueda said the boys, all aged 16 or 17, could also choose from a list of films including Schindlers List and 12 Years a Slave. Judge Jacobs ordered the boys to visit the United States Holocaust and the American History Museums, as well as writing an essay on the message their vandalism sent to the African-American community. She said: They need to open their eyes to what awful things people have done in the world in the names of gender, race and religion. Books are the best way to combat that. A "sobering" poll shows more than half of Europeans back an immigration ban from Muslim majority countries. New research has been published in the wake of Donald Trumps controversial travel ban which sparked a furious backlash from world leaders. An average 55 per cent of people across 10 European countries said they supported a ban, according to a poll by international think tank Chatham House. The survey, described as striking and sobering by the think tank, asked more than 10,000 people if they agreed or disagreed that further migration from mainly Muslim countries should be stopped. Just 20 per cent disputed the statement while the rest offered no opinion. Respondents were asked their opinions before President Trump signed an executive order halting immigration from seven Muslim majority nations into the United States. Findings also revealed how opposition to Muslim immigration is especially intense among retired citizens with people below 30 notably less opposed. And of those with secondary school qualifications, 59 per cent opposed further Muslim immigration, compared to less than hlaf of those educated to degree level In Poland, 71 per cent of people wanted a halt of immigration, 65 per cent in Austria, 53 per cent in Germany and 51 per cent in Italy. Over in Britain, 47 cent of people agreed with a ban. Loading.... In none of the 10 countries did the percentage of those who disagreed surpass 32 per cent. A Chatham House spokesperson said: Our results are striking and sobering. They suggest that public opposition to any further migration from predominantly Muslim states is by no means confined to Trumps electorate in the US but is fairly widespread. The Chatham House Europe Programme, with Kantar Public, surveyed 10,195 adults in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Spain and the UK over a month ending in January. D onald Trump has come under fire from his own Supreme Court nominee over the presidents vitriolic attack on the judiciary. Judge Neil Gorsuch said Mr Trumps repeated criticisms of one of the pillars of democratic government, mostly delivered on Twitter, was demolarising and disheartening. In recent days Mr Trump has lambasted the judiciary since a court suspended his controversial temporary travel ban on people from seven mainly Muslim countries, sparking a bitter and unresolved legal battle. His comments include singling out a so-called judges who blocked his executive order and calling the ruling as ridiculous. Neil Gorsuch: Donald Trump's nominee for Supreme Court / Michael Reynolds/EPA He also accused an appeal court considering his immigration and refugee ban order of being so political. Judge Gorsuchs comments yesterday were made at the end of his first full week of meetings in the Senate, which is considering his nomination. Trump: The President has been tweeting about the ruling / REUTERS Before the judges meeting on Capitol Hill, Mr Trump slammed the court that is deliberating his immigration and refugee executive order, telling a group of police chiefs that the immigration order was done for the security of our nation. He quoted from the portion of the immigration law that he said gave him the power to enact the ban, calling it beautifully written and saying a bad high school student would understand this. Courts seem to be so political and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do whats right, he said. And that has to do with the security of our country, which is so important. Mr Trumps order banned travel to the US for people from Syria, Sudan, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Yemen and Libya and also suspended the countrys refugee global programme. The nominee said Trump's comments are demoralising / Carolyn Kaster/AP The judges comments came on the same day as another judicial nominee - Mr Trumps pick for attorney general - was confirmed by a bitterly-divided US Senate. Republican Senator Jeff Sessions, 70, who has served two decades in the Senate from Alabama, was confirmed by a 52-47 vote largely along party lines after Democrats raised concerns over his record on civil rights and immigration. In a post-vote valedictory speech, Mr Sessions alluded to the bitter partisanship and called for unity. Denigrating people who disagree with us, I think, is not a healthy trend for our body, he said. E mma Watson believes the criticism she has faced over her feminist activism has made her tougher. The actress, 26, made her name as Hermione in the Harry Potter films and is now one of Hollywoods leading stars, as well as a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador. But she faced a backlash last year over her #HeForShe campaign when she claimed: Some of the best feminists I have encountered are men. In an interview with ELLE UK, she said: It really toughened me up There is a level of criticism that comes with being an actress and a public figure, which I expect, but once you take a stance on something like feminism, thats a completely different ball game. Tough star: Emma Watson in this month's Elle / ELLE UK/Kerry Hallihan When Watson, who will receive woman of the year honour at the Elle Style Awards on Monday night, was asked if she was considering writing a book, she replied: I need to see and do a bit more first ... Im no expert, and when people push me into a corner of, Heres Emma Watson to lecture you on feminism, its uncomfortable because I am aware I have a long way to go. I am not sure I deserve all the respect I get yet, but Im working on it. Watson, who attended last months Womens March in Washington DC, took the past year off to concentrate on activism. It wasnt about me necessarily proving anything, she said. I was just thinking that I have this year to myself, so lets see what we can do to move the needle and make a difference. Read the full interveiw with Emma Watson in this month's Elle / ELLE UK/Kerry Hallihan Her latest role is Belle in Disneys live-action remake of Beauty And The Beast, which is out next month. She said: For me, Beauty was the perfect, most joyful thing to do. There was something connected about Hermione and Belle, and it was good to be reminded that I am an actress; this is what I do. The film is pure escapism. Beauty And The Beast - Trailer 3 Yesterday her former co-star Daniel Radcliffe suggested he would not rule out reprising his role as the wizard if stage play Harry Potter And The Cursed Child was turned into a film. Radcliffe, 27, who begins a run in Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead at the Old Vic this month, said: I think thats all highly theoretical talk. If it was ever to become more than theoretical, I would of course think about it. The full interview with Watson is in the March issue of ELLE UK, out next Tuesday R adiohead have announced plans to play a concert in Israel despite a recent open letter calling on artists to boycott the country. The British rockers confirmed that they will be performing at the Park Hayarkon in Tel Aviv on July 9 in a tweet on Wednesday evening. The move comes just a few months after Pink Floyds Roger Waters wrote an open letter urging The Chemical Brothers to pull out of their show at the Convention Centre in Tel Aviv in protest of Israels occupation of Palestinian land. Artists and writers including Maxine Peake, Sigmatron, Caryl Churchill, Jenny Morgan and Kareen Samara all signed the letter, which read: Tel Avivs hipster vibe is a bubble on the surface of a very deep security state that drove out half the indigenous Palestinian population in 1948 and has no intention of letting their descendants back in. If you go to Tel Aviv, your presence will be used by the Israeli authorities to reassure their citizens that alls right with the world and nobody really cares that the Palestinians are suffering Please dont go. Waters recently told The Independent: My industry has been particularly recalcitrant in even raising a voice [against Israel]. Theres me and Elvis Costello, Brian Eno, Manic Street Preachers, one or two others, but theres nobody in the United States where I live. Ive talked to a lot of them, and they are scared s***less. The musician, whose new album is being produced by Radioheads Nigel Godrich, is yet to speak out about the band's announcement. Radiohead are set to perform a number of dates across the world this summer, including shows in the UK and the US. S tep aside, everyone Danny Dyer has thrown his hat into the ring to be the next Doctor Who. The British actor has said hes interested in taking over from Peter Capaldi at the end of the next series. With rumours that Dyers contract on BBC soap EastEnders is up for renewal, some are theorising that he could be available to step into the TARDIS. Id be interested in [Doctor Who]. I could see myself in the scarf and all that, Dyer told the Daily Star. 10 actors who could realistically be the new Doctor Who 1 /13 10 actors who could realistically be the new Doctor Who Russell Tovey If the BBC want to go for a younger but still well-known actor, 35 year-old Russell Tovey could be the one. Despite making a move to the US for HBO drama Looking, hes also starred in The Night Manager and Sherlock in recent years. Oh, and hes been in Doctor Who before in David Tennants final episode, The End of Time BBC Daniel Kaluuya The multi-talented Daniel Kaluuya got his break starring in and writing for Skins, and starred in David Tennant-era Who story Planet of the Dead. Hed be a fresh new face for the show although his schedule is getting busy with a role in Marvels forthcoming Black Panther BBC Phoebe Waller-Bridge BBC Three comedy-drama Fleabag is universally beloved by everyone whos seen it and she could be a strong choice as the first female Doctor. She starred in the second series of Broadchurch, so shes certainly on showrunner Chris Chibnalls radar ITV Jonathan Bailey If Chibnall continues in the typical Doctor Who mould, Jonathan Bailey is a strong bet. Not only has he made a brief appearance on the show before in Peter Capaldi episode Time Heist, but hes had a recurring role in Broadchurch too ITV Michaela Coel The genius behind Chewing Gum would bring a perfect off-kilter, high-energy, alien vibe that the Time Lord really needs and recent appearances in Black Mirror and London Spy showed off her range. Coel would be a bold new face for Doctor Who Rebecca Reid Chris Addison Another bigger-name actor who might take on the role is The Thick of Its Chris Addison. He had a role in Capaldis first Doctor Who series, and would fit the typical nerdy vibe associated with the show Channel 4 Hayley Atwell Word is that Hayley Atwell, aka the Marvel Cinematic Universes Peggy Carter, is keen to play the Doctor and a big fanbase would be thrilled to see that happen. She can do action-packed sci-fi roles, and is looking for something new after her US legal drama Conviction was sadly cancelled ABC Zawe Ashton Having made a name for herself in Fresh Meat and Not Safe for Work, Zawe Ashton would make a great headstrong female Doctor. She also put in a great turn in Doctor Who as a rebel soldier in one of Capaldis first episodes Ruby Films Joivan Wade Hes probably still a bit too young, but having made a great impression as Rigsy in Series 8 and 9, Joivan Wade is well versed in the world of Doctor Who. Maybe once his time on EastEnders is up, he could be ready to be a Time Lord himself Tristan Fewings/Getty Images Olivia Colman With The Night Manager pushing her firmly into national treasure territory, Olivia Colman is likely too big for Doctor Who but if anyone could persuade her it might be Chris Chibnall. She previously starred in Matt Smiths first Doctor Who episode as a sharp-toothed shape-shifting monster BBC I think I could do it easy. Id keep my accent too. Capaldi announced that he will be leaving the sci-fi show at the end of Series 10 as showrunner Steven Moffat moves on. This will be the end for me, the Scottish actor said. I feel sad, I love Doctor Who, it is a fantastic programme to work on. Its been a huge pleasure to work with that family. I can't praise the people I work with more highly, but I have always been someone that did a lot of different things. Top five contenders for the next Doctor Who Ive never done one job for three years. This is the first time Ive done this and I feel its time for me to move on to different challenges. Some fans are calling for new showrunner Chris Chibnall the creator of Broadchurch to cast the first female Doctor, with Olivia Colman, Lara Pulver, and Hayley Atwell all rumoured. Its been a long few weeks of debate. The Legislatures focus has remained with the rules governing it and the States budget deficit. After a long debate over the last couple weeks on LB22, also known as the deficit bill, and the Appropriation Committees adjustments to that bill under AM13, the Legislature has advanced the bill to Final Reading, which is the last round of debate before advancing to the Governor for passage into law. LB22 is part of the Governors recommendations to close the States nearly $900 million budget deficit, which was brought to the Appropriations Committee of which I was elected Chair earlier this year. There was a lot of debate and passion contributing to the discussion, with many Senators analyzing line item by line item to raise their concerns over the Governors recommendations. The Governors recommendations included a net decrease of $151 million in deficit appropriations, or cuts. The Committee adjusted this number to a net decrease of $137 million in cuts, which the Legislature advanced by a vote of 45-4. Only thirty percent of state agencies will be affected by these cuts. Since the budgeting process is very thorough, Id like to explain the process so that citizens of District 48 may be informed in their decision making. You will often hear the Legislature refer to the fiscal year, or FY for short. In governmental accounting, the ledger does not correspond neatly with the calendar year of which most of us are familiar. The fiscal year for Nebraska will look something like this: FY2016-17, which runs from July 1st of each year to June 30th. While it may seem cumbersome, the States accounting method corresponds with the legislative session, where decisions on the state budget are made. This accounting method ensures that the Legislature has ample time to balance the budget. The budget is enacted in two-year bienniums and looks something like this: FY2017-18 and FY2018-19. The next biennium begins on July 1st, 2017 and ends on June 30th, 2019. The mainline budget, which deals with operations and state aid, is enacted in odd-numbered years. While the deficit bill has produced much discussion, the mainline budget is likely to be the main focus this session. In most years we would start with the mainline budget and other accompanying budget bills. But this is not a normal year. Since we are facing a significant budget shortfall, the deficit bill is the first step in the process towards balancing our budget. It should be noted, however, that not all deficit appropriations are decreases in spending. To ensure the continuance of some of Nebraskas most critical services, the Governor proposed $20 million in deficit appropriation increases, which was adjusted to $23 million by the Appropriations Committee. Some of these increases included $8.5 million to fulfill some of the States obligations to Medicare, $7.8 million to sustain the Department of Health and Human Services Child Welfare program, and $4.6 million to Developmental Disability aid. The Appropriations Committee is now working to complete what is called the preliminary report, which will be used during the next stage of the budgeting process. A lot of work goes into the development of this report. The Committee reviews each agencys budget request, line item by line item. Starting next week, the Committee begins public hearings on agencies budget requests, which will occur through mid-March. Also included during these hearings will be appropriations bills, or A bills. Any substantive bill introduced to the legislature which has a direct fiscal impact on the state budget must be accompanied by an A bill. Each A bill is treated separately. It will receive a public hearing by the Appropriations Committee and require the legislative bodys approval, just like any other bill. After public hearings have been heard, the Committee will again review the requests based on the information obtained during public hearing. The Committee will consult with the Legislative Fiscal Office to determine how the States budget will be formulated and will finalize its recommendation before advancing to the legislative body for debate. The Appropriations Committee has until the 70th day of session to advance its budget bills to General File, which will fall on April 24th of this year. If the Committee does not make this deadline then the Governors recommendations must be considered. This two-part process is a safeguard designed to ensure that the body upholds its constitutional duty to balance and pass the budget. The budget can be divided into numerous bills including the mainline budget, deficit, constitutional officers (i.e. other elected officials and judges) salary, legislators salary, capital construction projects, and fund transfers bills. Other types of budget bills may be offered as needed. By May the Legislature should finish debate and be ready to pass Nebraskas comprehensive budget. I hope the description provided here informs you as a citizen of District 48 and of all Nebraska on the budgeting process. As the representative of District 48 and Chair of the Appropriations Committee, it is my honor to serve the State to the best of my abilities. I hope this information proves useful as you carry out your civic duties. As always, I remain open to your feedback on how I may address the issues that mean most to you. Please do not hesitate to contact my office with any questions you may have. Thank you to those who have taken the time to express their views on various issues. My contact information is: Senator John P. Stinner, District 48 State Capitol, PO Box 94604, Lincoln NE 68209-4604; telephone: 402-471-2802; email: jstinner@leg.ne.gov. With one hand holding a bottle of champagne and the other an oversized certificate declaring him the winner of $1 million from Publishers Clearing House, Bruce Saunders stood on the front porch of his western Davie County Monday and rattled off a list of things he plans spend his spend money on medical bills, fixing his lawnmower and helping family members. We are gathering information for the 2022 general election. On desktop, click "election information" on the right side of this pag... A teenager from Stony Point pleaded guilty to arson after she set her home on fire over an argument about a missing cell phone and money almost a year-and-a-half ago. Alyssa Hope Jude, 18, pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree arson on Jan. 19 in Iredell County Superior Court. She received a suspended sentence of 25 to 42 months. Superior Court Judge Julia Gullett also required Jude to complete 60 months of supervised probation for the crime, which occurred in August 2015, when Jude was 16 years old. On Aug. 8, Iredell County deputies responded to a suspicious fire at Fence Post Lane, according to reports at the time. The evidence indicated the fire was intentionally started inside the master bedrooms linen closet. The investigation revealed that the blaze was sparked by a partially smoked cigarette thrown into a plastic trash can, reports said. Jude told detectives she intended to produce just smoke, but instead damaged the attic area and burned through the side and back walls near the master bedroom, reports said. The fire was started after Jude was accused of stealing. The two adults inside the home when the fire occurred escaped without injury. Here are other cases heard in Iredell County Superior Court by Judge Gullett, Jan. 16 through 27: Michael Wayne Proffitt, two counts financial card theft, six to 17 months suspended, 30 months supervised probation each. Tracy Paulson, possession of cocaine, six to 17 months suspended, 30 months supervised probation. Mark Goodman, larceny by removing inventory control device, 12 to 24 months. Jared Lance Corder, assault physical injury law enforcement/probation/parole officer, five to 15 months suspended, 24 months supervised probation. Christopher Ray Baker, assault inflicting serious bodily injury, 25 to 39 months. Leonard Everett Bruce III, possession of a firearm by felon, 17 to 30 months. Keisha L. Burton, breaking and entering, 45 days suspended, 18 months supervised probation. Gracie J. Christopher, driving while impaired, 12 months suspended, 30 months supervised probation; misdemeanor death by vehicle, 75 days suspended, and 30 months supervised probation. George Dwayne Clark, two counts selling methamphetamine, 17 to 30 months suspended, 30 months supervised probation each. Zackery Adam Elledge, disclosure of private images, eight to 19 months suspended, 12 months supervised probation. Stephen James, possession of a firearm by felon, 19 to 32 months. Wesley Oneal Summers, discharging a weapon into an occupied dwelling/moving vehicle, dismissed; assault with a deadly weapon, 75 days suspended, and 24 months supervised probation. Mary Lea Sweet, criminal contempt, 48 hours. Jeremiah Nathaniel White, possession with intent to sell or deliver marijuana consolidated for judgment with selling marijuana, eight to 19 months suspended, 30 months supervised probation; selling cocaine, 14 to 26 months. Lonnell J. Williams, breaking and entering, 10 to 21 months suspended, 36 months supervised probation; larceny after breaking and entering, 10 to 21 months suspended, and 36 months supervised probation. Brandon Diaz, common law robbery, nine to 20 months. Tevan Jade Woodall, common law robbery, nine to 20 months suspended, 30 months supervised probation. 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Deputy Ana Birchall was born on August 30, 1973 in Mizil, Prahova county. Graduate in Law Studies, University of Bucharest, the Faculty of Law (1996), according to her own website, www.anabirchall.ro; the Law and International Relations Faculty "Nicolae Titulescu" (annual scholarship, graduate with honors 1991-1996); master's degree at Yale Law School, USA (1999-2000), PhD in law at Yale Law School, USA (2000-2002), with the thesis "The Law of Bankruptcy Applied to Banking Systems in Central and South European countries". Head of Legal Office, S.C Omniasig S.A. (1996-1998). She worked as attorney for "White & Casse" LLP International Law Firm in New York (2002-2003), she worked for Biris Goran as head of the Group of practice in the Financial Restructuring and Insolvency domain (2010-2012); Of Counsel, Musat and Associates - Restructuring & Insolvency (2012), adviser to Foreign Affairs Minister (2003-2004), adviser within the Foreign Policy Commission of Romania's Senate (2005-2006), the Prime Minister's adviser (July-December 2012). High Representative of the Prime Minister for European Affairs and Partnership with the United States of America (pro-bono job, 2014-present), according to the cdep.ro website. Deputy on behalf of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), Constituency no.5 Vaslui (2012-present), she acted as member in the Budget, Finance and Banks Commission, member in the Special Commission of the two Chambers for Romania's accession to Schengen Area, head of the Commission for European Affairs of the Chamber of Deputies (Febr 2015 - present) and head of the Friendship Parliamentary Group Romania-India. On December 11, 2016 she won a second deputy mandate of Vaslui on behalf of PSD. Starting with 2013 she has been ambassador of the prestigious ONG Vital Voices, established by Hillary Clinton within the Global Ambassadors Programme; and member in the Global Advisory Council WeConnect International, starting with 2014 - member of the Executive Committee of Yale Law School Association, Yale Law School, SUA. She is an Assistant professor at "Dimitrie Cantemir" University in Bucharest (2005-present). Member of PSD starting with 2015. Head of PSD Education and Research Department (2007-2009), executive secretary with the Equal Opportunities for Young people Subcommittee (2005-2007). At present, she is foreign policy adviser of the PSD leader and executive secretary on International Relations. Deputy Secretary General (International Relations) of PSD, vice-president of the Vaslui County PSD Organisation. She is head of the Social Democratic Progressive Forum and vice-president/spokesperson of the Social Democratic Parliamentary Association. Member of the Bucharest Bar, member of Policy Network, UK, and Terra Nova, France. Agerpres Minister-delegate for European Affairs Ana Birchall was proposed as interim minister at the Justice Ministry, a release of the Government sent to Agerpres reveals. Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu sent to President Klaus Iohannis on Thursday the proposal for the Justice Minister. "Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu sent today to Romania's President, Klaus Werner Iohannis, the nomination proposal of Minister-delegate for European Affairs Ana Birchall as interim Minister of Justice," the release mentions. According to the quoted source, the proposal was made according to the provisions of the article 106 and the article 107, the paragraphs (3) and (4) of the Constitution of Romania, republished, as well as in accordance with the article 9 of the Law No.90/2001 regarding the organization and functioning of the Government and ministries, with subsequent amendments and additions. The PM made this nomination in the context in which Florin Iordache tendered his resignation as Justice Minister. Iordache announced on Thursday, in a press briefing, at the Victoria Palace, that he decided to leave the Justice Ministry. "Since I have come to the Justice Ministry, I planned and carried out all legal demarches to fix a series of existing and quite sensitive problems. All assumed initiatives are legal and constitutional. The drafts proposed were submitted to public debate organised by the Justice Ministry, and now they are under parliamentary debate. In spite of all these, for the public opinion it wasn't enough, therefore I have decided to tender my resignation as Justice Minister," Iordache stated. The Government decided on Thursday to adopt a memorandum on establishing the Sovereign Development and Investment Fund (FSDI), the Economy Minister Alexandru Petrescu announced. "Today, we have adopted a memorandum, according to the 2017-2020 governance programme, taking into account the founding of new public investments, the establishment of the Sovereign Development and Investment Fund being an economy stimulation measure, an investment funding instrument in competitive, profitable and sustainable sectors, with a multiplication effect in economy, going to attract capital and financial market sources," Alexandru Petrescu stated, in a briefing at the Victoria Palace. According to the Economy Minister, the FSDI will represent "a partner" for international investors, such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB), the World Bank (WB), investment funds and other private investors. "Through this document we only mark the initiative and the demarche of this process. We further formalized the founding of some inter-ministerial committees, with representatives of the Economy Ministry, the Finance Ministry, the Competition Council, the Financial Supervisory Authority (ASF). (...) This is the day we formalize the demarche, starting tomorrow these committees will gather formally, (...) issuing points of view," Alexandru Petrescu stated. According to Petrescu, discussions were also carried out with the main players of the national, regional investment arena, so that the fund launching process be "accompanied" by "their general opinion and consent." Furthermore, the Economy Minister mentioned that a normative act is to be adopted regarding the actual functioning of this fund. "The next step will be another normative act, with the constitutive act in the center, where we will have the exact functioning and structure mechanism of the fund," Petrescu also stated. The FDSI will contribute both to Romania's efforts to gain the statute of an emergent market for the domestic capital market, by growing liquidities on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB), as well as to the growth of the absorption level of non-refundable European funds by ensuring the co-funding financial sources of the investment projects, the Government release points out. According to the quoted source, the Romanian state, through the Economy Ministry, will be the sole shareholder throughout the functioning period of the FSDI. Agerpres The searches underway in Bucharest and nearby Ilfov County at the seat of a lawyers' firm, an insolvency firm and the home of an insolvency firm's representative are connected to the reorganisation of the Dinamo Bucharest Club. "On 9 February 2017, prosecutors with the Bucharest Court of Appeal's Prosecutors' Office alongside police staff of the Romanian Police (IGPR) - DICE (Directorate for Economic Crime Investigation) are conducting three searches, two in Bucharest and one in nearby Ilfov County, at lawyers and insolvency firms, in a file over suspicions of simple and fraudulent bankruptcy," informs the CAB Prosecutor's Office. According to the source, searches revealed that during the insolvency procedure operated at the Dinamo 1948 SA company, when drafting the reorganisation, inventory and evaluation of patrimonial assets, a part of the assets under insolvency calculated at the net book value of over 18,498,000 lei (over EUR 4 million) were stashed with the purpose of defrauding the company's creditors. agerpres. NEW YORK The U.S. ethanol industry is poised to export record volumes of the biofuel in 2017, said Green Plains Inc. on Thursday, as the company forecast a year of demand growth and flagged plans to expand in food ingredients. Green Plains sees the total industry on track to export 1.1 billion or more gallons of the biofuel in 2017, even with China absent as a buyer, the company's President and Chief Executive Officer Todd Becker said on a conference call with investors. Becker forecast a year of strong domestic demand as well. That will help to scoop up the 15.3 to 15.7 billion gallons U.S. ethanol makers are likely to pump out this year, the company said. Green Plains is still actively seeking investments in food ingredient businesses, Becker said. The company agreed to buy Fleischmanns Vinegar Company in late 2016 in a bid to move into higher margin products with lower volatility. VALENCIA, Spain Most members of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and staff are traveling alone within the group for the SLSO's tour of Spain. Some brought spouses. A couple brought the family. Principal clarinet Scott Andrews and his wife, pianist Nina Ferrigno, made the trip into a family affair, bringing along their daughter Ava, 13, and son Zach, 11. Zach slept in on Wednesday morning, but his parents and sister were downstairs early for the Valencia Palace Hotel's breakfast buffet. Most of the orchestra departed Feb. 5. The Andrews family of Webster Groves made a longer trip of it, leaving Feb. 3 and heading first to Barcelona for a few days of sightseeing. They joined the SLSO in Valencia on the 6th. Ferrigno performs frequently with the SLSO, but she's a civilian on this trip. She and the children will be attending Wednesday night's concert as members of the audience. A knitter, she joined several members of the orchestra in a quest for Italian wool ("It's cheaper here") and found some deals. Both Ava and Zach, who are students at Hixson Middle School, study violin. Ava and her father brought their instruments along as carry-ons, and, she said, "we both cracked them once" for practice. The Andrews offspring will have just eight days of school this month. Four days after returning from Spain, the family will leave to take part in a chamber music festival in North Carolina. (Says Ava, "My friends are so angry with me.") VALENCIA, Spain On Tuesday, most of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra composed, while on this tour, of 132 players, staff, family members, other guests and one reporter, yours truly enjoyed a free day to recover after a solid day of travel from St. Louis to this city on the shores of the Mediterranean. Valencia, in southeastern Spain, is the first stop on the SLSO's brief three-city, four-concert tour. Founded by the Romans in 138 B.C., it's the third-largest metropolitan area in Spain, a city filled with beautiful buildings, where orange trees loaded with fruit line the boulevards and geraniums bloom outdoors in February. The musicians had a free day on Tuesday, giving them a chance to recover from jet lag before Wednesday night's concert in the Palau de la Musica hall. Most of them took the chance to explore the city's attractions, which include one of Europe's largest historic old towns, along with an aquarium, planetarium and beaches. One member of the group who didn't have the day off was Anna Kuwabara, the SLSO's vice president for orchestra operations and facilities. Kuwabara's in charge of the day-to-day workings of the orchestra, the production end of things, and facilities. "The job heats up when we're on tour," she says, "especially an international tour," when it consumes 30 to 40 percent of her time. Working with her are director of operations Maggie Bailey and director of orchestra personnel Beth Paine. They're dealing with plenty of other things at the same time, particularly next weekend's Black History Month and Ben Folds concerts, as well as the upcoming trip to Carnegie Hall and planning next season's California tour. Asked about the toughest part of her job, Kuwabara replies, "The cargo has been very difficult." That's an understatement. Instruments are often made of rare woods and ivory. They can't be taken out of the country until it's certain that they can be brought back in, in compliance with the Convention on International Trade and Endangered Species, or CITES. "It's a tremendous amount of work." The musicians who play those instruments, whether stringed or woodwinds, had to bring them in for an appraiser to inspect. The appraiser listed all the materials the instruments contained. "Right in midstream, they added another wood to the list," she says, adding gratefully, "Fish and Wildlife has been very helpful" in the process. Then came the complicated logistics of getting the instruments to Europe. A few players, mostly violinists, were able to bring their instruments as carry-ons. Most of them had to ship them in the orchestra's specially designed trunks. Those were trucked to Chicago and loaded on a cargo plane. "You'd think we could just fly it into Madrid," Kuwabara says, "but Madrid is not a major cargo hub." The trunks would have to go into the holds of passenger jets, which have notoriously bad climate control. Instead, they were flown to Luxembourg and trucked to Valencia. On the way home, they'll be trucked to Frankfurt, Germany, and then flown back to Chicago. The logistics Kuwabara has a three-page cargo schedule mean that the scheduling has been challenging. "For about a day last week, I thought our cargo plane had been canceled." The plane was coming from China, where all work stops during Chinese New Year. Happily for all, the jet made it to Chicago and then to Luxembourg. The trucks made it to the outskirts of Valencia on Tuesday night, and the instruments were to be available at 11 a.m. The SLSO brought four stagehands on the tour, and they'll work with several local stagehands at each venue. They don't have much time at any of them. "One of the things that's interesting on this tour is that we have to work around other orchestras' schedules. One reason the second Madrid concert is at 10:30 p.m. is that there's another concert there that night at 7:30." Along with the travel of both people and instruments, Kuwabara, Paine and Bailey are working on other tour projects, including a couple of events in Madrid on Friday for the trombone section. "It's one of the little things that just pop up," she says. Register for more free articles. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. Stay up-to-date on what's happening Receive the latest in local entertainment news in your inbox weekly! Sign up! Already a Subscriber? Already a Subscriber? Sign in Terms of Service Privacy Policy Directors Damien Chazelle (La La Land) and Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) have received a ton of attention for their films this year, but theres another director who has had an equally newsworthy movie season but has flown under many moviegoers radars. In fact, Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larrain has two movies in theaters right now: the austere and striking Jackie about Jackie Kennedy, and now the equally impressive Neruda, a character study of the renowned poet/political activist from Larrains home country. While much of Larrains work is based on historical fact, he never aims for straight-ahead docudrama or biopic. His Oscar-nominated 2012 film No, based on a Chilean political advertising campaign during the strongman rule of Pinochet in the 80s, was shot with 40-year-old technology so that it would look like it was indeed a TV commercial from that era. He used some of that retro approach on Jackie, an exploration of the former first ladys emotional state in the hours and days following JFKs assassination. With Neruda, he offers a stylized riff on the 40s melodrama and gumshoe-detective story, casting Gael Garcia Bernal as Oscar Peluchonneau, a fedora-sporting investigator chasing Neruda (Luis Gnecco) a Communist Party member of the senate in the late 40s who has run afoul of the ruling government and now is up for arrest across Santiago and into the Chilean wilderness. In essence, Larrain tells two stories entwined as one: The first is of the aging poet and political firebrand, the other of a young lackey of the state (and the storys narrator) whose happiness (and certainly career advancement) hinges on locking Neruda inside a prison camp in the merciless Chilean desert. While Nerudas poetry is heard, Larrain doesnt get involved in showing its creation, though he does show its powerful, cathartic effect on many ordinary Chileans. But all of that takes a backseat to Larrains larger themes of freedom versus tyranny, expression versus repression. There is a streak of dark humor that runs through Neruda, especially with the grasping Peluchonneau, and in the way Larrain has chosen to shoot the film. The passing backgrounds in moving cars look noticeably fake, just as they would in films from the storys time period. Anyone wanting the basic life bullet points on Pablo Neruda is better off looking at Wikipedia. Instead, Larrain has served us another ambitious and artful slice of historical artifice. Though perceptions were shaped by his work as an activist following the shooting death of Fergusons Michael Brown, rapper Tef Poe isnt the artist many people think. On his new album Black Julian, Tef Poe says he wants to show people that, more than anything, hes an artist. I understand what type of artist I want to be what I want to represent to people, says Tef Poe, born Kareem Jackson. After 2015s War Machine III, which dealt with paranoia and edgy emotions, he says he wanted to step away from that brand. People were starting to categorize me and the type of music I do based on what was on that project, he says. I always like to showcase the diversity in my music-making, Tef Poe says, adding that people are quick to label him as a conscious rapper who focuses on political, social or philosophical issues. I want to challenge the public perception of what that should sound like, he says. The title of Black Julian, out Tuesday on major digital platforms with physical copies coming later, is a reference to Julian Assange, editor in chief of WikiLeaks; Tef Poe met him in London in 2015 and was moved by their conversation. Black Julian also displays more live instrumentation and a relaxed feel. This record is about me giving people something to vibe to. Im being a little bit more groove-heavy with the beats that I pick. Its conscious elevator music on a certain level, but its still very much Tef Poe music. There are spots of aggression. He remade the album four or five times before it was completed. He initially planned to release it a year ago, but he had to make sure it was right that it was something I could take everywhere. After making appearances around the world after Browns death, Tef Poe realized hes more than a local artist. Im not doing this to get another S.LU.M. Fest Award. Thats not my focus. Its about finding new plateaus, trailblazing new paths, putting ourselves in the class of elite artists on the national underground. He points out that he comes from the same place as Miles Davis, Redd Foxx, Tina Turner and Chuck Berry, and its his job to determine where does a Tef Poe fit in the scheme of a Chuck Berry? Im not thinking about the rappers. Im thinking about the broader stuff. The city has too much of a musical history to trip off of the silly stuff. Tef Poe says he didnt focus this time on the usual things in his lyrics, taking himself less seriously. That doesnt mean there isnt political content; it just isnt as heavy. I wrote a lot of these songs in the booth in five minutes or less, he says. I just write lyrics in my iPhone and take it from there. A lot of rappers take themselves way too seriously. Thats the beauty of creating music. Everything doesnt have to be said on every record. The new album, he says, looks at the big picture rather than the small nuances. He talks about God, the future, smoking weed, being black in America and more. The intro on Black Julian is God in the City, which Tef Poe says is akin to his dropping bombs on fools. Its kind of just me reminding myself I was a champion. I had to shock-therapy myself back to life. His brother-in-law was shot the day he recorded the song. His sister kept calling while he was recording. He repeatedly sent her to voicemail until he realized something was up. On that record I had to drop people knee-deep into whatever universe of insanity I was in, Tef Poe says. A lot of (stuff) had occurred. Im gonna talk about some of it, but theres no way to understand all the things that went down. After she called, it changed the tone of the record and the necessity of it. It originally wasnt the intro, but after the shooting, the album had to shift. Also on the album is Dont Judge Her, which he credits with having an Outkast/UGK feel. The song speaks to his love and appreciation of the power of feminine energy. Die High casts him in the isolated headspace he was in after the events in Ferguson. UFA, Russia Flowers and butterflies are what a Russian tattoo artist gives to victims of domestic violence to help hide the physical scars from abusive relationships they want to put in the past. Yevgeniya Zakhar posted an ad on her social media page last year offering to ink abused women for free after she heard about a Brazilian tattoo artist already offering the service. Soon, she was flooded with requests and got so stressed hearing her clients stories of beatings and burnings that she had to limit the number of women she sees to one day a week. I didnt expect to be inundated with visits, said Zakhar, 33, who works in Ufa, a city about 745 miles east of Moscow. I had to work on two to four clients a day. Its really scary, scary to look at this problem and hear what people are saying. President Vladimir Putin signed into law this montha controversial bill decriminalizing some forms of domestic violence in Russia. The measure makes battery on a family member punishable by a fine or a 15-day arrest, if there is no bodily harm. Domestic violence is a long-standing problem in Russia. Police estimate that about 40 percent of all violent crimes take place within families. In a survey last month by the state-run Russian Public Opinion Research Center, 19 percent of respondents said it can be acceptable to hit ones wife, husband or child in certain circumstances. Supporters of the new law insist it does not encourage or sanction violence, but instead gives families a chance to reconcile after what the bills co-author, Olga Batalina, described as an emotional conflict, without malice, without grave consequences. Zakhars clients usually pick butterflies or floral designs to cover the visible signs of abuse. The clients confide in the artist, sharing the horrors of relationships that went from bad to violent to vicious. Turning the scars into something of their own choosing boosts the womens self-esteem and helps them gain new perspectives on the trauma, Zakhar said. Girls are willing to talk, often because it will be the last time they speak about the scars, she said. They dont talk about it later because they will be talking about their beautiful tattoo, not a scar. Katarina Golovkova underwent eight hours of surgery to save her arm after her boyfriend threw her against a window five years ago. She thought about getting a tattoo to cover the scars but didnt have the courage to visit a tattoo artist before she spotted Zakhars ad. People saw it and asked, What is this scar about? Golovkova, 29, recalled. It was a constant reminder. You see this arm every day, its there. At least now I can freely open it up, and people say, How cool! Golovkova, who was stalked by her boyfriend for weeks after she finally left him, hadnt heard about Russias new domestic violence law, but she does not like the idea. Its wrong. It all starts with one slap, she said. You forgive them once, and it gets worse. You cant forgive such things. They will happen again. Zakhar said she had tattooed more than 1,000 abused women at no cost since last year. She said not one had reported receiving help from police. The girls say, Whats the point? Why go to the police if they are not helping? Passengers on an American Airlines flight to Phoenix endured two delays Thursday an emergency diversion to St. Louis and an unrelated mechanical problem while waiting to resume the flight. American Flight 534, bound from Columbus, Ohio, to Phoenix, made an unscheduled landing in St. Louis at 8:14 a.m. for a security check. The FBI, airport police and firefighters responded. Bomb-sniffing dogs searched the plane and luggage and found nothing suspicious. Authorities refused to say what the threat was. The incident was deemed noncredible by law enforcement, American Airlines said in a statement. The Airbus A319 with five crew members and 113 passengers was cleared to resume its flight to Phoenix, but the airplane developed a mechanical issue, said Ross Feinstein, an American spokesman. He said the passengers were put on another airplane. That plane finally lifted off from Lambert about 2:50 p.m., almost six hours after it was scheduled to land in Phoenix. It was expected to reach its destination about 6 p.m. St. Louis time. Flight 534 left John Glenn Columbus International Airport at 6:48 a.m. St. Louis time. The airline requested to land and have a security check of the aircraft, said Jeff Lea, a spokesman for Lambert-St. Louis International Airport. No one was detained. Lea refused to say what the security issue was; he referred questions to the airline. A news release from the airline said, Out of an abundance of caution, STL authorities are conducting a security check of the aircraft. We hope to have our passengers on their way soon. Passengers were safely evacuated. They appeared calm as they walked down a set of mobile stairs and boarded shuttle buses. At least one police dog was led onto the plane. Workers began removing luggage from the plane and placing the bags in rows on the tarmac. A dog weaved in and out among the bags, sniffing each. By about 11 a.m., some crew members had returned to the plane, the mobile stairs were removed and the plane was moved. Then the unrelated mechanical trouble developed. ST. CHARLES COUNTY Lawyers for Pamela Hupp, charged with murdering a 33-year-old disabled man last year, filed a 300-plus page motion Wednesday night seeking a judges order to use jurors from outside St. Charles County for her trial. Because of intense and sustained media coverage, county residents are either prejudiced against her or prosecutors have undue influence over them, the motion says. It complains that she would not be able to get a fair and impartial jury. The motion includes roughly 200 printed pages of newspaper, TV, magazine, radio and online news stories concerning Hupp, and more than 100 pages of reader comments posted on Post-Dispatch stories from STLtoday.com. It says TV stations even promoted Hupp stories in tease ads during the Super Bowl. The motion cites one comment posted on an online story the day after Louis Gumpenbergers death that purportedly says, Shes a known liar. Theres two murders under her belt. Will she face justice this time? The documents also fault some news coverage as inaccurate or incomplete. Included are affidavits from three St. Charles County residents who say that they believe that Hupp is guilty based on media reports. They say they could not set that aside if called as jurors. A spokesman for St. Charles County prosecutors declined to comment. The motion says the coverage of Hupp dates back more than four years, beginning when she was a witness in a Lincoln County murder trial concerning the violent stabbing death of her friend, Elizabeth Betsy Faria, outside Troy, Mo., in 2011. Russell Faria was convicted of his wifes murder after defense lawyers were prevented by a judge from fully providing the jury with evidence pointing to Hupp as an alternate suspect. That was a major reason why the case was reversed on appeal. Faria was later acquitted in a bench trial by a different judge, who also criticized the original investigation. The Faria murder was the subject of a joint Post-Dispatch-KTVI Fox 2 investigation in 2014 and has also been featured multiple times on NBCs Dateline. The motion also mentions stories about the death of Hupps mother, Shirley Neumann, 77, who was found dead after an apparent fall from the balcony of her apartment, near Fenton, in 2013. Officials called it an accident, but police said that they were taking another look after Hupp was charged with murder in Gumpenbergers death. Police and prosecutors allege that Hupp shot Gumpenberger, a stranger, in her home in OFallon, Mo., on Aug. 16 as part of a complicated plot to deflect suspicion from herself in a reinvestigation of Betsy Farias death. Prosecutors speculate that Hupp posed as a Dateline producer in soliciting Gumpenberger to go with her to re-enact a 911 call. Two other people have identified Hupp as the woman who previously tried to enlist them using that ruse. The new defense motion suggests that bringing in jurors from elsewhere would be preferable to moving the trial because many of the witnesses are in or near St. Charles County. The trial, subject to change, is set to begin Oct. 3. One of Hupps lawyers, Nicholas Williams, said last week that Hupp was concerned that her not guilty plea was being overshadowed by the media attention. JERSEYVILLE Police are looking for a missing elderly woman who was last seen here Wednesday morning. Betty A. Short, 85, of Carrollton, Ill., was last seen about 8:45 a.m driving her car eastbound on Route 16 in Jerseyville, according to the Greene County Sheriff's office. Carrollton is about 14 miles north of Jerseyville. Tuesday night, Short pulled into a home on Panhandle Road in rural Jersey County and told the person living there that she was lost, police said. She told the resident that she was trying to find someone. Short's car is a white 2008 Chevrolet Impala sedan with Illinois license plate number RS2302. Authorities ask anyone with information to call 911 or the Greene County Sheriff's office at 217-942-6901. ST. CHARLES COUNTY A man from St. Charles shot and killed his uncle during a fight Saturday at the mans farm, then burned his body in a nearby field, police say. Nicholas G. Preli, 25, was charged Wednesday with second-degree murder in the death of Paul B. Fischer, 59, on Fischers property at 4195 North Highway 94. Preli is Fischers nephew, according to Fischers obituary. Fischers remains were found in a burning pile of wood and brush Monday afternoon in the field, which is off Highway 94 between Blase Station Road and Highway H. Preli, of the 3300 block of Principia Avenue, also faces charges of armed criminal action and evidence tampering. He was in the St. Charles County Jail with cash bail set at $500,000. According to a court record, Preli has admitted to the crime. The court record said Preli shot Fischer with a pistol that Preli carries while on the farm. The court record said the chain of events began late Saturday afternoon when Preli arrived at Fischers residence and Fischer complained that Preli had made ruts in the gravel driveway with his ATV. What began as an argument then escalated with the two taking hold of each others arms, the court record said. Preli told authorities that Fischer had a hammer in his hand but was unable to strike Preli because Preli was holding his arms. Preli said he believed Fischer lost his grip on the hammer and dropped it, then turned away to either pick up the hammer or a screwdriver behind him. Preli told police he began shooting Fischer as Fischer turned back toward him. Police said Preli shot Fischer two or three times before the older man fell to the ground. Preli told police he then fired the remaining rounds in order to be humane, like putting down an animal, according to the court record. Authorities said Preli then concealed the body between two farm implements and left the scene. The court record said he returned about 4 a.m. Sunday and put Fischers body in his pickup, concealing the blood stains on the ground by covering them with gravel. He then took the body to an area used to burn debris just across Highway 94 from the farm. Preli described dousing Fischers remains with gasoline, then igniting a fire and fleeing the scene again, the court record said. Preli told detectives he hid the murder weapon at his familys camper in Callaway County in central Missouri. Police found the weapon there. Fischer was retired from more than 30 years working for the St. Charles Street Department and was the fifth-generation caretaker of the Fischer Family Farm. Fischer was a hard worker who was always there to help others, his friend Alma Gayle said. Gayle attended Orchard Farm High School with Fischer and was close friends with his girlfriend, Cindy Risney. Fischer would work for the city during the day and then work all night tending to the farm and taking care of his elderly parents, she said. His parents died a few years ago. He pretty much ran the farm all by himself, she said. He was very proud of it. Fischer and Risney recently help Gayle and her son move into a new house. Gayle said Preli would come to the farm to shoot guns, hunt or drive a four-wheeler. Its just tragic, she said. Tragic that this happened, and then tragic that it was a family member who did it. Nassim Benchaabane of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report. COLUMBIA, Mo. When Mun Choi takes over as University of Missouri System president March 1, he could have to fill more than the Mizzou chancellor post. After almost five years at the helm of the Missouri University of Science and Technology, chancellor Cheryl Schrader could soon be moving on. Schrader is one of three finalists for president at Wright State University in Ohio. The details became public after she visited campus this week for open forums with the Wright State community. During one of the forums, she talked about hoping to help bring the public, research university to the next level, offering Missouri S&T as a model. Specifically, she touted how well the Missouri engineering school does when it comes to receiving industry grants. The fit was right and the future was bright, Schrader told a crowd. Prior to Rolla, she worked as the chief research administrator at Boise State University. Schrader is also an electrical engineering professor and researcher. She is one of three finalists for the position, competing against University of Wisconsin-Platteville chancellor Dennis Shields and University of Wisconsin-Parkside chancellor Deborah Ford. S&T spokesman Andrew Careaga said Schrader leaving would be a great loss for the school, but that hes not surprised another university is considering bringing her on board. According to the Dayton Daily News, the plan is to select a new president during April. This story was updated at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday with details of the Department of Revenue's budget proposal. JEFFERSON CITY The cost of implementing Missouri's new voter ID law remained in question after two days of budget hearings, despite Republican assurances that officials would get the money they need for a proper rollout. The law, pushed by Republican legislators and approved by voters last year, requires Missourians to show a photo ID before voting or sign a legal document swearing they are who they say they are. In response to heavy Democratic criticism that it would prevent the elderly, disabled and poor from voting, Republicans also required the state to pay for IDs for those who can't afford them. Gov. Eric Greitens offered $300,000 for implementation in his budget plan released last week: $100,000 each for advertising the changes, paying for free IDs and covering the cost of getting personal records for those IDs. But Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, who is tasked with letting voters know about the law, estimated Tuesday it would take between $1.1 million and $1.5 million to do so before August elections. That's a far cry from the roughly $5.2 million former secretary Jason Kander, a Democrat, requested over two years. Ashcroft said he could trim millions from Kander's proposal by cutting TV ads and mailers about the changes to every registered voter in the state, instead relying on partnerships with community organizations and face-to-face interactions with potential voters. But he doubted he could slash enough to reach the governor's target. "We would suggest that we would need more to do the best job we can," Ashcroft said. The Department of Revenue would bear the cost of producing the free photo identification cards. An agency representative didnt venture a guess at how much giving out the free IDs would cost them Wednesday. The department will wait and see how many requests it gets for free licenses before asking for money later this year. An analysis of the law last year estimated it would cost the department $457,303 to make and mail non-driver licenses for more than 200,000 potential applicants for free IDs next year. If the state doesn't shell out enough to cover the cost of the IDs, the photo ID requirements won't go into effect. Republican leaders have been quick to shrug off concerns, saying they'll work with Ashcroft and the Department of Revenue to find an affordable solution. "Its my feeling that voting is important enough that we fund whatever the requirements are to make sure people are able to get to the polls, Rep. Scott Fitzpatrick, a Shell Knob Republican who chairs the House budget committee, said Friday. But Rep. Justin Alferman, R-Hermann, decried the estimates, calling them the handiwork of a hostile former Secretary of State hellbent on killing the law. Kander spoke out against voter ID in a final speech to the House last month and on Tuesday announced the launch of an organization fighting such measures across the country. I cried up and down last year to the previous secretary that the entire fiscal note was using old data," Alferman said. "These numbers are a farce at best." Kander's report said nearly 225,000 registered voters didn't have photo IDs on file with the Department of Revenue as of 2014, but Alferman was skeptical. "I'm still yet to find all these individuals that don't IDs in two years of hearing testimony on this bill," he said. "And those that do, I hope they're are screaming about it so we can help them get one." Critics, on the other hand, found plenty to worry about with the governor's recommendations and Ashcroft's cuts to voter education. Rep. Peter Merideth, D-St. Louis, said they showed Republicans weren't trying to prevent voter fraud as they claimed. "They just wanted to scare people away from voting," he said. Kathleen Farrell, co-president of the League of Women Voters of St. Louis, said she couldn't understand spending on voter ID when the state faces difficult choices elsewhere to close a $500 million budget hole. "This is a totally unnecessary thing in a state thats strapped," she said. "When were cutting poor people off Medicaid, not funding our schools and our roads crumbling, why are we spending money on this?" When he wanted to dispute a Democratic Senator over his Supreme Court nominee, Trump went after the senator's misstatements about serving in Vietnam. And as he defends the first military mission he approved, Trump, who did not himself serve in the military or Vietnam, is again tangling with fellow Republican John McCain, a decorated Vietnam veteran and former POW. The decision to take on veterans could put Trump on shaky ground: The President never served in the military and received student and health deferments that kept him out of serving in the war. In a string of tweets on Thursday morning, Trump took on McCain for suggesting his first military action -- a raid in Yemen that netted intelligence against ISIS, but cost the lives Navy SEAL Chief Petty Officer William "Ryan" Owens and a number of Yemeni civilians -- was not a success. Trump also lashed out against Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who told reporters on Wednesday that Richard Gorsuch, Trump's Supreme Court pick, told him that he felt Trump's comments about the judiciary branch were "demoralizing" and "disheartening." Trump's tweets appear to be an attempt to quiet dissent, even from those within his party. McCain, who was shot down over Hanoi in 1967 and was held as a prisoner of war until 1973, questioned Trump's raid earlier this week, suggesting that the White House should not have called in a "success" because Chief Petty Officer William "Ryan" Owens was killed. "While many of the objectives of the recent raid in Yemen were met, I would not describe any operation that results in the loss of American life as a success," McCain said in a statement. That drew the ire of Sean Spicer, Trump's press secretary, who said Wednesday that "anyone who would suggest it's not a success does a disservice to the life of Chief Ryan Owens." Spicer went on to say those questioning the raid should apologize. Trump, who once dismissed McCain's time as a POW, saying "I like people who weren't captured", hit McCain on Twitter over the Yemen raid. There is another problem for Trump suggesting that questioning the success of a military raid is out of bounds: He routinely questioned the wisdom of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan during the 2016 campaign, despite once saying he was in favor of going into Iraq. "I came out strongly against the war with Iraq, because it was going to destabilize the Middle East," Trump said during a debate in August 2015. "And I'm the only one on this stage that knew that and had the vision to say it. And that's exactly what happened." Trump, however, said in 2002 on a radio show that he was in favor of invading Iraq. Trump's comments about McCain came after Blumenthal told reporters that Gorsuch said during a meeting that Trump's tweets about the judiciary were "demoralizing" and "disheartening." Ron Bonjean, who is leading communications for Gorsuch during the confirmation process, later confirmed the comments happened. All of this clearly irked Trump, who on Thursday morning laid into Blumenthal not over Gorsuch, but rather over an old controversy surrounding Blumenthal's accounts of his own military service. Blumenthal admitted in a 2010 New York Time story to misrepresenting his military service after saying that it had been "in" Vietnam. Blumenthal served Marine Reserves in Washington, not actually in Vietnam. "I have misspoken about my service, and I regret that, and I take full responsibility," Blumenthal said in 2010. Despite his own deferments, Trump remained unrepentant, refusing to apologize for his jibe against McCain in 2015. Spicer, then a top strategist at the Republican National Committee, knocked Trump for suggesting McCain was not a hero. As a teenager, Trump attended the private New York Military Academy, but he moved on to a business career afterward. The New York Times reported last year, sought and received five military draft deferments during the Vietnam War, including one medical deferment after was diagnosed with bone spurs in his foot. While Trump said in interviews at the time that he "regretted not serving in many ways," he has also made light of service. "It is a dangerous world out there it's scary, like Vietnam," Trump said about contracting sexually transmitted diseases during a 1997 interview with Howard Stern. "Sort of like the Vietnam era. It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier." This story has been updated to reflect new reporting. A sign is displayed in the reception of Goldman Sachs in Sydney, Australia, May 18, 2016. REUTERS/David Gray/File Photo By Maiya Keidan and Olivia Oran NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Investment Partners (GSIP), which opened in 2008 with one of the biggest launches in hedge fund history, is folding its London operations into the United States and shifting staff members to New York, four sources told Reuters. About eight staff members who made up the London team were recently told to move to the Battery Park City headquarters of Goldman Sach Group Inc (NYSE: GS) in lower Manhattan or find a new job internally, the sources said. A Goldman spokesman confirmed the move but not the details, adding that the reasons for the staff shift were not related to Brexit. "This is a discrete decision for reasons specific to GSIP, one investment team within Goldman Sachs, and shouldnt be construed as anything but that," he said. The move was triggered by managing director Nick Advani, who led the hedge fund's London operations, the sources said. He said in June he would be stepping down from his role, they said, requesting anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media. Advani, now an advisory director at Goldman, did not respond to requests for comment. Advani is expected to leave the firm later this year, the sources said. Managing director Raluca Ragab, who had been formally leading the London-based team since Advani's departure, will also leave Goldman once the move is complete, one of the sources said. Ragab's departure is for personal reasons, one of the sources added. Multi-strategy hedge fund GSIP launched in November 2008 with $7 billion in assets, one of the largest hedge fund launches at the time. GSIP, run globally by co-heads Raanan Agus and Kenneth Eberts, sits within Goldman's asset management division. But a focus on value investing with around 20 positions mainly in equities became more challenging in recent years, a former employee told Reuters. GSIP's Global Long Short Partners Offshore fund posted losses of 8.2 percent in the year to end-September in 2016 after small gains of 1.5 percent in 2015, according to an investor letter reviewed by Reuters. Last September, three of the fund's top five credit positions were in the Europe Middle East and Africa region, according to the letter. GSIP's assets fell in 2014 after Goldman pulled out $2.8 billion in response to the U.S. Dodd-Frank financial reform law and the Volcker rule, which restricted banks' proprietary trading. The fund now manages around $3.5 billion. Separately, Goldman may move up to 1,000 staff out of London in response to Britain's vote to leave the European Union, it was reported last month. (Reporting by Maiya Keidan in London and Olivia Oran ia New York, additional reporting by Carolyn Cohn and Simon Jessop; Editing by Tom Brown and David Gregorio) Williams Partners L.P. (NYSE: WPZ) today announced that it has entered into an agreement with Western Gas Partners, LP (NYSE: WES) (Western Gas), and certain of its affiliates pursuant to which Williams Partners will increase its ownership stake in two Marcellus Shale natural gas gathering systems already operated by Williams Partners. In exchange, Western Gas and its affiliates will receive Williams Partners 50 percent ownership stake in Delaware Basin JV Gathering LLC (DBJV) that is operated by Western Gas. Under the terms of the transaction, Williams Partners will receive Western Gas 33.75 percent ownership stake in both the Rome and Liberty natural gas gathering systems in northern Pennsylvania, and a cash payment of $155 million. When closed, the transaction will increase Williams Partners ownership interest to 67.5 percent (subject to customary joint venture partners rights) in both the Rome and Liberty gathering systems that are operated by Williams Partners and included in its Bradford Supply Hub in the Northeast G&P segment. Current throughput on the Rome and Liberty gathering systems is approximately 1.6 billion cubic feet per day. In addition, Williams Partners has entered into a separate agreement with Anadarko Petroleum Corporation (NYSE: APC) (Anadarko) to sell Williams Partners 33.33 percent interest in the Ranch Westex gas processing plant in the Delaware Basin for $45 million in cash. This transaction allows Williams Partners to increase its ownership in the Bradford Supply Hub, our largest gathering franchise in the Marcellus, contributing free cash flow today while exiting non-operated partial-ownership positions that were expected to require significant cash contributions, said Alan Armstrong, chief executive officer of Williams Partners general partner. The Marcellus area hit a record-gathering volume for us in January and furthermore stands to benefit from the increased takeaway capacity from our Atlantic Sunrise Project. Williams Partners will continue its presence in the Delaware Basin, serving its gathering and processing customers there through its Williams Partners-operated gathering systems. The partnership expects to use the aggregate cash consideration that is part of both transactions for general partnership purposes including funding growth capital. The two transactions are expected to close in late first-quarter or early second-quarter 2017. The agreements are subject to customary closing conditions, including expiration of the waiting period under the HSR Act. Sales approach $6 billion Earnings from operations up 34.6% Net earnings before patronage dividends up 63.1% Patronage dividends up 50% to $60.1 million LONGUEUIL, QC, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Agropur Cooperative held its 78th Annual General Meeting today and announced excellent financial results. Revenues for the fiscal year ended November 1, 2016 amounted to nearly $6 billion. Earnings from operations* grew by $105.7 million or 34.6% to $411.7 million. Net earnings before patronage dividends increased 63.1% to $154 million. The Cooperative therefore declared patronage dividends of $60.1 million, a 50% increase. The US component of revenues continued to grow, increasing to 44.3%. The Annual General Meeting was Serge Riendeau's last as President of Agropur, closing a 15-year tenure(2002-2017). "I am proud of the work we have all done to support our Cooperative's development, always with a view to securing its future," said Mr. Riendeau. "Agropur's performance is the result of the sum of all the initiatives we have taken in recent years: our mergers and acquisitions, our cost-cutting programs, our major investments in our brands and in our facilities in both Canada and the US. We are prouder than ever of our business model, which helps spread the wealth and develop local communities. I leave the presidency of Agropur confident that our Cooperative rests on solid foundations that will undergird its future development." "We are very pleased to be reporting substantially improved earnings in 2016," said Robert Coallier, CEO of Agropur. "The encouraging numbers reflect the wide-ranging improvement efforts and successes of our 8,000 employees in a still-uncertain market environment. Our sustainability depends on our growth. Having risen to the ranks of the world's top 20 dairy processors and established a clear development strategy, we intend to continue our expansion in order to remain a major player in a fast-consolidating industry. Our actions of the past few years have positioned us to face the future with confidence." Most trusted brandFor the second year in a row, Agropur was Canada's most trusted dairy brand on the Gustavson Brand Trust Index. In addition, Natrel topped the rankings in the fine filtered, lactose free and organic categories, while OKA has grown its volume by 75% since its repositioning 2013. Olympic and iogo posted the strongest growth in the fresh dairy products category with 10% and 6% increases respectively, compared with a 3% average. 100% Canadian milkAgropur took a major step during the year by announcing that all made-in-Canada products sold under its own brands would henceforth contain 100% Canadian milk and dairy ingredients, and bear the Dairy Farmers of Canada "Quality Milk" certification logo. Agropur products displaying the logo will make their appearance on grocery store shelves in the coming weeks. The move is responsive to consumers who want to know where the products they consume come from and who would like to support local producers. Inno AgropurFollowing up on a sustained effort over the past several years to develop a structure and culture of innovation within the organization, Agropur created Inno Agropur in 2016 to help it exceed consumers' expectations and power its development.Agropur also launched Inno Challenge, an open innovation initiative aimed at reinventing dairy. It is a Canadian first in agrifood innovation. More than 60 participants submitted projects and three concepts have been selected for co-development in the coming weeks. Integration of acquisitionsand capital expendituresIn 2016 the focus was on integrating the numerous acquisitions of recent years. Nevertheless, Agropur made substantial investments totalling $150 million in its manufacturing facilities in Canada and the US. Among other things, Feta production capacity at the Weyauwega plant was increased in order to strengthen Agropur's leading position and keep it number one in Feta production in the US. The recent acquisition of Scotsburn's assets will expand Agropur's footprint in the ice cream and novelties market and position it to better serve its customers and consumers. Headquartered in QuebecDuring the year, Agropur opened its new head office in Longueuil, Quebec, now home to more than 850 employees. The new home base keeps Agropur's decision-making centre in Quebec for the long term. About AgropurAgropur Cooperative is a North American dairy industry leader founded in 1938. With sales of nearly $6.0 billion in 2016, the Cooperative is a source of pride to its 3,345 members and 8,000 employees. Agropur processes more than 5.9 billion litres of milk per year at its 39 plants across North America and boasts an impressive roster of brands and products including Natrel, Quebon, OKA, Farmers, Agropur Signature, Agropur Grand Cheddar, Island Farms, BiPro, and the Ultima Foods joint venture's iogo and Olympic brands. * Prior-year earnings from operations have been adjusted to make them comparable. SOURCE Agropur RESTON, Va., Feb. 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- comScore (OTC: SCOR) today announced that its Board of Directors has adopted and entered into a Tax Asset Protection Rights Agreement, dated February 8, 2017 (the "Plan"), between the Company and American Stock Transfer & Trust Company, LLC, as Rights Agent, designed to preserve the Company's ability to utilize without limitation its net operating loss ("NOL") carryforwards and other significant tax attributes to offset future taxable income. The Plan contains a provision requiring an independent committee of the Board of Directors to review annually whether maintaining the Plan continues to be in the best interests of the stockholders. The Company intends to seek stockholder approval of the Plan, as well as stockholder approval of an amendment to the Company's certificate of incorporation that would implement stock transfer restrictions, at its 2017 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. Management estimates that the Company has approximately $290 million in NOL carryforwards as of December 31, 2016. The NOL carryforwards will expire at various times from 2022 to 2035. The Company's ability to utilize its tax benefits to offset future taxable income may be significantly limited if the Company experiences an "ownership change" within the meaning of Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the "Code"). In general, an "ownership change" will occur when the percentage of the Company's ownership by one or more "5-percent shareholders" (as defined in the Code) has increased by more than 50 percent over the lowest percentage owned by such stockholders at any time during the prior three years. The Plan, which is similar to tax benefit protection plans adopted by other public companies, is designed to preserve the Company's tax benefits by deterring transfers of the Company's common stock that could result in an "ownership change." In connection with the Plan, the Company's Board of Directors has declared a dividend to Company stockholders of record as of the close of business on February 18, 2017 (the "Record Date"), for each outstanding share of the Company's common stock, of one right (a "Right") to purchase one one-hundredth of a share of the Company's preferred stock. Pursuant to the Plan, if any person or group acquires 4.99% or more of the outstanding shares of the Company's common stock, or if a person or group that already owns 4.99% or more of the Company's common stock acquires additional shares of the Company's common stock, then, subject to certain exceptions, there would be a triggering event under the Plan. The Rights would then become exercisable and entitle stockholders (other than the acquiring person or group) to purchase additional shares of the Company at a significant discount and result in significant dilution in the economic interest and voting power of the acquiring person or group. The issuance of the Rights will not affect the Company's reported earnings per share and is not taxable to the Company or its stockholders. The Company may pursue other ways to preserve its substantial tax assets in addition to its adoption of the Plan. In its discretion, the Board of Directors may exempt certain transactions from the provisions of the Plan, including if it determines that the transaction will not jeopardize the NOLs or other tax benefits, or the transaction will otherwise serve the Company's best interests. The Plan is not intended to be an anti-takeover measure or to deter offers that are fair and otherwise in the best interests of the Company's stockholders, but is instead intended to preserve the value, for the Company and all its stockholders, of the NOLs and other tax assets without being subject to the limitations that could result from certain changes in ownership of the Company. The Plan and the rights issued under the Plan will expire on February 7, 2020, or on an earlier date if certain events occur, as described more fully in the Plan. As previously noted, the Plan is designed to discourage, but does not prevent, an "ownership change." Therefore, in order to more effectively protect the Company's tax benefits for long-term stockholder value, the Company also intends to seek stockholder approval of an amendment to its certificate of incorporation that would implement transfer restrictions. Similar to the Plan, if adopted, such transfer restrictions would expire on February 7, 2020, or on an earlier date upon certain determinations by the Board of Directors. Additional information regarding the Plan will be contained in a Current Report on Form 8-K and in a Registration Statement on Form 8-A that the Company is filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. About comScorecomScore, Inc. (OTC: SCOR) is a leading cross-platform measurement company that precisely measures audiences, brands and consumer behavior everywhere. comScore completed its merger with Rentrak Corporation in January 2016, to create the new model for a dynamic, cross-platform world. Built on precision and innovation, our unmatched data footprint combines proprietary digital, TV and movie intelligence with vast demographic details to quantify consumers' multiscreen behavior at massive scale. This approach helps media companies monetize their complete audiences and allows marketers to reach these audiences more effectively. With more than 3,200 clients and global footprint in more than 75 countries, comScore is delivering the future of measurement. For more information on comScore, please visit comscore.com. Cautionary StatementThis press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the "Exchange Act"). These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations of future events and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially and adversely from those set forth in or implied by forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the difficulty of determining all of the facts relative to Section 382 of the Code, unreported buying and selling activity by stockholders and unanticipated interpretations of the Code and regulations, as well as those risk factors contained in comScore's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2014 and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the three months ended September 30, 2015 and other filings comScore makes from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), which are available on the SEC's Web site ( http://www.sec.gov ). Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date such statements are made. comScore does not undertake any obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements to reflect events, circumstances or new information after the date of this press release, or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/comscore-adopts-tax-asset-protection-rights-agreement-for-stockholder-approval-at-its-2017-annual-meeting-of-stockholders-300404692.html SOURCE comScore TORONTO, ONTARIO and AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND -- (Marketwired) -- 02/08/17 -- 8 February 2017 (Toronto Time)/9 February 2017 (New Zealand Time) Highlights: -- All cash offer of $1.17 per Tower share, for an aggregate acquisition cost of $197 million (approximately US$144 million at current exchange rates), represents a premium of 48% to Tower's closing share price on 8 February 2017 and a 47% premium to Tower's three-month volume weighted average price (VWAP) -- Shareholders holding over 18% of Tower shares have entered into firm voting agreements to vote in favour of the transaction -- Offer unanimously supported by the Tower board, in the absence of a superior proposal Tower Limited ("Tower") (NZSE: TWR) (ASX: TWR) and Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited ("Fairfax") (TSX: FFH)(TSX: FFH.U) are pleased to announce that they have entered into a Scheme Implementation Agreement. Under this agreement, Fairfax will acquire 100% of Tower shares at $1.17 per share for an aggregate purchase price of $197 million (approximately US$144 million at current exchange rates) (the "Fairfax Proposal"). The transaction has been unanimously approved by the Tower board of directors. In addition, two of Tower's major shareholders, Salt Funds Management and ACC (who collectively hold 18.1% of Tower shares), have entered into firm voting agreements under which they have committed to vote in favour of the Fairfax Proposal. The price of $1.17 per share represents a premium of 48% to Tower's closing share price on 8 February 2017 and a 47% premium to Tower's three-month volume weighted average price (VWAP). Since announcing on 29 November 2016 its intention to create RunOff Co, Tower has progressed planning for separation which was designed to provide a path to unlock unrealised value for shareholders. In the course of this work, the Board had been approached by Fairfax. Tower Chairman Michael Stiassny said, "Given the substantial premium to Tower's share price, the certainty provided by the Fairfax Proposal and the support it has received from Salt Funds Management and ACC, the Board determined to unanimously recommend the Fairfax Proposal to all shareholders, in the absence of a superior proposal. Tower's separation strategy will be pursued in the event that the Fairfax Proposal is not successful." "Tower is one of the largest insurers in New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, with a long-standing history, good brand recognition and a strong market position," said Prem Watsa, Chairman and CEO of Fairfax. "The acquisition of Tower will provide us with an immediate significant presence, with a strong management team, which will continue to be led by Richard Harding, in a market where Fairfax currently has limited exposure." "The key factors in Fairfax's ability to present an attractive proposal to Tower were the speed at which the transaction could be conducted, the reputation of Fairfax for closing transactions and treating stakeholders fairly," said Prem Watsa. The Fairfax Proposal is subject to customary conditions, including approvals from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, the New Zealand Overseas Investment Office, Pacific Islands regulatory authorities, and Tower shareholders. Tower will call a special meeting of shareholders to obtain shareholder approval. This meeting is expected to be held in April 2017. Approval at that meeting must be by at least 75% of votes cast, representing more than 50% of the total voting rights of the company. In the absence of a superior proposal, each Tower director has undertaken to vote all Tower shares in his control in favour of the Fairfax Proposal at that meeting. Tower shareholders do not yet need to take any action in response to the Fairfax Proposal. In due course, shareholders will receive detailed documentation from Tower outlining the proposed transaction and instructions for voting. The Tower board also confirms that the Fairfax Proposal does not impact Tower insurance policies and the rights of policy holders. All policies and rights will remain with Tower Insurance Limited (or relevant Pacific Islands subsidiaries) in the event of a change in ownership of Tower Limited. Further information about the Fairfax Proposal will be made available from www.tower.co.nz/investor-centre. Tower Limited is a holding company for Tower Insurance. Tower Insurance is a leading general insurer in New Zealand and the Pacific Islands offering car, house, contents, business, travel and other personal insurance lines. Listed on the NZX and ASX, Tower is the third largest insurance group in New Zealand, with around 265,000 customers. Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited is a Toronto, Canada based holding company, listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, which, through its subsidiaries, is engaged in property and casualty insurance and reinsurance and investment management. EDITOR'S NOTES: INDICATIVE TIMETABLE ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Event Indicative timing ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9 February 2017 Announcement of proposed transaction ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- March 2017 Notice of Meeting and shareholder vote materials expected to be made available Anticipated receipt of RBNZ approval ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- April 2017 Shareholder meeting and vote ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mid-May 2017 Anticipated receipt of Overseas Investment Act (business acquisition) approval Anticipated receipt of final High Court approval ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 30 June 2017 Implementation and closing of transaction ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note: Timetable is indicative only and subject to change. Contacts: TOWER Michael Stiassny Chairman Tower Limited ARBN 088 481 234 Incorporated in New Zealand FAIRFAX John Varnell Vice President, Corporate Development Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited 1-(416) 367-4941 To arrange media interviews, please contact in the first instance: Nicholas Meseldzija, Tower Limited Head of Corporate Communications Mobile: +64 21 581 869 [email protected] Source: Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited and Tower Limited MARLTON, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Liberty Bell Bank (OTC: LBBB) today announced that it has been notified by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance that the Consent Orders to which the Bank voluntarily consented in November 2013 with each of such regulators have been terminated. Benjamin F. Watts, President and Chief Executive Officer, noted, "The lifting of the Consent Orders is a testament to the progress we have made in strengthening our operations. He continued, "We thank our regulatory partners for their guidance through this process and commend our team, whose commitment to moving our bank forward has enabled us to reach this important milestone." About Liberty Bell Bank Liberty Bell Bank is a full-service, state-chartered commercial bank, whose deposits are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The Bank provides diversified financial products through two locations in Burlington County, New Jersey and one location in Camden County, New Jersey. The Bank may from time to time make written or oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in this release. Such statements are not historical facts and include expressions about management's confidence and strategies and management's current views and expectations about new and existing programs and products, relationships, opportunities, taxation, technology and market conditions. Actual results may differ materially from such forward-looking statements, and no undue reliance should be placed on any forward-looking statement. All such statements are made in good faith by the Bank pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170209006235/en/ Liberty Bell Bank Benjamin F. Watts, 856-830-1135 Source: Liberty Bell Bank DALLAS, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) announced yesterday it will share $586 million through its ProfitSharing Plan with its Employees for 2016equaling approximately 13.2 percent of each eligible Employee's eligible compensation, or the equivalent of six weeks' pay. This is Southwest Airlines' 43rd consecutive ProfitSharing award. For the 2016 plan year, Southwest announced a new funding structure that will pay part of the ProfitSharing award to the retirement plan and part in cash. Most employees will receive 10 percent of eligible compensation as a contribution to the ProfitSharing Plan and the remainderapproximately 3.2 percentin cash, both of which will be paid on April 20, 2017. Some employees will receive the entire ProfitSharing award in the retirement plan as specified in their collective bargaining agreement. "Our People-first approach, which has guided our Company since it was founded, means when our Company does well, our People do really, really well," said Gary Kelly, Chairman and CEO of Southwest Airlines. "Our People work incredibly hard and deserve to share in Southwest's success." This $586 million award is equivalent to more than $1.6 million a day and will be funded on April 20, 2017. When this ProfitSharing award is added to the Company's $351 million in Company contributions to Southwest's 401(k) plans for 2016, Southwest will have rewarded Employees with approximately $937 million, $852 million of retirement benefits PLUS a cash payment of $85 million. Southwest Airlines also invested approximately $746 million in its Employees' other benefits during 2016, including healthcare coverage, and other welfare and wellness programs. In total, that's nearly $1.7 billion dedicated to the wealth and wellbeing of Southwest Employees for 2016 alone, on top of base salaries. Southwest was the first in the industry to offer a ProfitSharing Plan. Through the ProfitSharing Plan, Southwest Employees currently own more than four percent of the Company's outstanding shares. ABOUT SOUTHWEST AIRLINES CO. In its 46th year of service, Dallas-based Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) continues to differentiate itself from other air carriers with exemplary Customer Service delivered by more than 53,000 Employees to more than 100 million Customers annually. Southwest proudly operates a network of 101 destinations in the United States and eight additional countries with more than 3,900 departures a day during peak travel season. Subject to requisite governmental approvals, service to Grand Cayman begins June 4, 2017, the same date service is scheduled to begin from Cincinnati. Based on the U.S. Department of Transportation's most recent data, Southwest Airlines is the nation's largest carrier in terms of originating domestic passengers boarded. The Company operates the largest fleet of Boeing aircraft in the world, the majority of which are equipped with satellite-based WiFi providing gate-to-gate connectivity. That connectivity enables Customers to use their personal devices to view video on-demand movies and television shows, as well as nearly 20 channels of free, live TV compliments of our valued Partners. Southwest created Transfarency, a philosophy which treats Customers honestly and fairly, and in which low fares actually stay low. Southwest is the only major U.S. airline to offer bags fly free to everyone (first and second checked pieces of luggage, size and weight limits apply, some airlines may allow free checked bags on select routes or for qualified circumstances), and there are no change fees, though fare differences might apply. The airline proudly unveiled a bold new look: Heart. A new logo, aircraft livery, interior design featuring a new seat and Flight Attendant galley, Employee-designed uniforms, and an updated airport experience all showcase the dedication of Southwest Employees who connect Customers with what's important in their lives. From its first flights on June 18, 1971, Southwest Airlines launched an era of unprecedented affordability in air travel described by the U.S. Department of Transportation as "The Southwest Effect," a lowering of fares and increase in passenger traffic whenever the carrier enters new markets. With 44 consecutive years of profitability, Southwest is one of the most honored airlines in the world, known for a triple bottom line approach that contributes to the carrier's performance and productivity, the importance of its People and the communities they serve, and an overall commitment to efficiency and the planet. The 2015 Southwest Airlines One Report can be found at SouthwestOneReport.com. Book Southwest Airlines' low fares online at Southwest.com or by phone at 800-I-FLY-SWA. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/southwest-airlines-employees-earn-586-million-in-2016-profitsharing-300404794.html SOURCE Southwest Airlines Co. AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- Smart technology recruitment firm StartMonday Technology Corp. (CSE: JOB) (FRANKFURT: JOB) (XETRA: JOB) (the "Company" or "StartMonday") today announced it has been engaged by Baxi Heating UK Ltd. to introduce its mobile application and 15-second video platform solution as part of Baxi Heating's 2017 graduate programme. Baxi Heating has a portfolio of some of the best known high efficiency heating and hot water brands in the UK and Ireland. Each year, Baxi Heating looks to bring on board new talent and Sarah Bailey, HR Director at Baxi Heating UK and Ireland, recently met with StartMonday on February 1st when the Company presented an overview of its innovative job hiring solution at the HRD Summit, an event considered the most senior gathering of HR Directors in Europe. The challenge for the Baxi Heating HR team stems from their desire to stand out from the crowd and attract the very best 2017 graduate candidates. StartMonday was invited to meet with the team on February 6th and upon discussing the challenges, the concept of offering candidates the opportunity to showcase their personality, motivation, and creativity through 15-second video presentations proved highly appealing and resulted in a rapid decision to use the StartMonday platform for their upcoming hiring campaign. StartMonday co-founder and CEO, Ray Gibson notes, "The team at Baxi Heating are looking to bring several high-calibre graduates into their business this year. We are extremely grateful to aid that process, and expect it will be as much fun and exciting as it will be fruitful to their goals. I want to thank our newly expanded sales team who were instrumental in securing this agreement. It's a testament to their enthusiasm and dedication and complements our recent successes in the hospitality sector. We look forward to moving ahead and showing the suitability and demonstrable power of our solution to HR teams across a growing number of commercial sectors. We continue to deliver consistent results with extremely positive approval ratings and we really want to thank the folks at Baxi Heating for introducing us to their significant industry audience." ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD "Ray Gibson" CEO & Director About Baxi Heating UK Ltd. Baxi Heating has a portfolio of some the UK and Ireland's most well-known high efficiency heating and hot water brands and provides integrated solutions for domestic and commercial heating and hot water including boilers, electric water heating, solar thermal, combined heat and power, controls and digital applications. Baxi Heating is part of BDR Thermea, a world-leading manufacturer and distributor of sustainable and smart climate and sanitary hot water solutions and services. BDR Thermea operates in more than 70 countries worldwide, employing around 6,000 people. Find out more at www.baxiheating.co.uk. About StartMonday (CSE: JOB) (XETRA: JOB) StartMonday helps employers select better candidates, faster, with the power of 15-second video introductions. StartMonday's video-led mobile and web applications deliver a better impression of personality and customer skills, ultimately helping employers decide which candidates they should talk to first -- making the process much more efficient. StartMonday is focused on becoming recognized as an innovative and trusted brand for job recruitment. The Company is dedicated to building powerful tools for the Mobile Generation. The mission is to make recruiting, and work itself, an amazing experience for everyone. For more information please visit www.startmonday.com. CAUTIONARY DISCLAIMER STATEMENT: The Canadian Securities Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the content of this news release. This news release contains forward-looking statements relating to the completion of the listing of the Company's shares on the Canadian Securities Exchange 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 include the failure to satisfy the conditions of the Canadian Securities Exchange and other 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. 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 update or revise publicly any of the included forward-looking statements as expressly required by applicable law. Contact: Walter Spagnuolo Invictus Investor Relations Office: +1.604.343.8661 Toll Free from North America: +1.800.274.8143 Toll free from Germany: +0800.180.6687 Toll Free From UK: + 0.800.014.8387 Email: [email protected] Website: www.startmonday.com Source: StartMonday Technology Corp. LONDON, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- 2nd annual Industrial Control Cybersecurity Nuclear Summit to take place in Birchwood Warrington is set to host the second annual Industrial Control Cybersecurity Nuclear Summit on 22nd - 24th May 2017. Taking place at The Centre, Birchwood Park, the two-day conference will cover pressing cyber security challenges in the nuclear industry, including managing supply chains, preparing for the Internet of Things (IoT) and what public/private partnerships could mean for the sector. The event, which is aimed at an international audience, will be structured around presentations and debate from some of the world's leading cyber security experts and authorities in nuclear security. Past presenters have included the IAEA, ONR, NDA, BEIS, Engie, Lockheed Martin, Airbus, Horizon Nuclear, EDF and Honeywell. Discussing the conference, event organiser James Nesbitt, Founder of the Cyber Senate said: "The security landscape is changing and the way we protect the safety, reliability and stability of our critical nuclear infrastructure must change with it. "This event will address several key areas such as how to reduce vulnerability, detect threats and how IT and operational technology can work in synergy to defend nuclear assets. It will also cover wider issues in the industry, such as the growing skills gap. We've brought together an impressive range of world experts on these topics who will be sharing best practice and providing insight as to what the future may hold for this sector." "Warrington is home to a number of organisations in the nuclear industry, including Sellafield Ltd, AMEC Nuclear, NNL and Rolls Royce Nuclear, so holding the conference here felt like a natural step. These are big issues that affect not just the security of businesses, but of whole nations and events like these are an important way to share best practice and plan for the future." For more information, visit: https://www.industrialcontrolsecuritynuclear.com/ http://www.cybersenate.com Contact: James Nesbitt Founder Cyber Senate +44-(0)207-096-1754 [email protected] SOURCE The Cyber Senate Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte gestures while delivering a speech during the 115th founding anniversary of the Bureau of Customs in metro Manila, Phillippines February 8, 2017. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco By Martin Petty MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte made a vigorous defense of his war on drugs on Wednesday, rejecting not only allegations of extrajudicial killings, but the advice of a former Colombian leader who urged him not to repeat his mistakes. The ex-prosecutor promised to stand behind those on the front lines of his war and called Cesar Gaviria an "idiot" for a newspaper article in which the former Colombian president warned Duterte that a security-centerd approach "do more harm than good". Duterte last week suspended police from anti-narcotics operations after a South Korean businessman was murdered by rogue drugs squad police. He has put the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in charge, and plans to deploy troops as reinforcements. Duterte said his campaign was about destroying the apparatus of the drugs trade, not killing, and only he would be accountable if law enforcers were accused of wrongful killings during raids and sting operations. "Those done in the line of duty I take full responsibility," he said in a speech. "If someone should go to jail, it's not police, not military, not the PDEA - It's me." Duterte's war on drugs has attracted global attention due to its high death toll in his first seven months in office and the shock factor of images in media of bloodied corpses lying in streets and slums. As at Jan. 31, some 2,555 Filipinos were killed in what police said were shootouts during anti-drugs operations. More than 7,700 deaths have been recorded overall, and the cause of many of those are much in dispute. 'BIG FISH' The Catholic Church used sermons at the weekend to speak out about the drugs war, saying killings were not the solution and the poor were being worst hit. A Feb. 1 report by Amnesty International said the same, and concluded that police had behaved like the criminal underworld they were supposed to suppress, taking payments for killings. The report said many killings were "systematic, planned and organized" by authorities. Duterte rubbished those claims and said it was necessary to provide undercover police with cash to buy drugs in sting operations, referred to as "buy-busts", otherwise prosecuting dealers would be difficult. He denied his campaign was focusing on small-time users and pushers only, and he had proved local politicians were on his radar. "There is always a contention Duterte is killing the poor," he said. "So where is the big fish? We started with the mayors, they were killed along the way, so there's the big fish," he said. In Tuesday's New York Times, Gaviria, who was Colombia's president from 1990-1994, appealed to Duterte to use alternative strategies to fight drugs and explained why his country's crackdowns on cocaine cartels had failed. He hoped Duterte would avoid a heavy-handed approach and "not fall into the same trap". "Trust me, I learned the hard way," he wrote. Duterte said Gaviria was "lecturing" and the Philippine case was different to Colombia, because "shabu", or methamphetamine, was damaging to the brain whereas the behavioral impact of cocaine was less severe. (Editing by Nick Macfie) A migrant carrying a child falls after being tripped over by TV camerawoman Petra Laszlo (R) while trying to escape from a collection point in Roszke village, Hungary, September 8, 2015. REUTERS/Marko Djurica/File Photo BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungary plans to detain migrants while their asylum requests are assessed, a ruling party lawmaker said on Wednesday, a proposal that human rights campaigners said could be illegal. The plan will be part of the spring legislative agenda of the Fidesz party of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose popular hardline stance on immigration may help him retain power at an election early next year. Under the plan, migrants whose asylum applications are not immediately rejected would no longer be allowed to move freely while their requests are processed, Fidesz parliamentary group leader Lajos Kosa told a news conference. "Now there will be two options. If they meet certain criteria, then they could be detained. If not, we will create a hot spot where they will need to wait for authorities to process their asylum requests," Kosa said. Migrants would be detained close to the border, he said, but did not explain whether the government would set up new camps or what the "hot spots" would look like. The Hungarian Helsinki Committee human rights group said the measure could violate international law if migrants are detained en masse. "Neither European Union law nor the European Convention on Human Rights nor Hungarian legislation allow the mass detention of asylum seekers without individual examination and justification," it said on its website. "If an asylum seeker is suspected of being a terrorist, then they can and should be taken into custody during the asylum request procedure," it said. "However, all asylum seekers or even their majority ... cannot be locked up on this basis." Hungary has been a focal point of the migration crisis, with hundreds of thousands passing through in 2015 in often chaotic scenes on the frontier with Serbia - the external border of the EU's passport-free Schengen area - and a Budapest rail terminus. A new steel fence along Hungary's southern frontier and tightened checks have reduced the number of migrants let through at each southern checkpoint to just 10 people a day, creating a bottleneck in Serbia. (Reporting by Gergely Szakacs; Editing by Robin Pomeroy) By David Lawder WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund tried to be "ruthless truth tellers" in its assessment that Greece needs to pursue further reforms to its pension and tax systems, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said on Wednesday. Speaking at an Atlantic Council event in Washington on transparency, Lagarde said that the fund would not back down from its views on Greece's economic prospects despite protests from the Greek government that they were too pessimistic. The IMF said in its first annual audit of Greece's economy in nearly four years that Greece's debt was still unsustainable even after years of grinding austerity. It recommended that Greece's pension system be refocused on supporting the poor, the tax base be broadened and tax rates lowered to help jumpstart economic growth. In Athens, a government spokesman said the government would not yield to "illogical demands" by the IMF for "precautionary" austerity measures in a European bailout program that no longer includes IMF money. Greece's central bank also disputed the IMF's prescription that an additional $10 billion in bank capital buffers was needed. "We tried, in full honesty, to be those ruthless truth-tellers," Lagarde said of the IMF's report. "Yes, we are criticized occasionally and I'm sure that the Greek authorities didn't like some of the things that we said." Lagarde said the IMF acknowledged the pain suffered by the Greek people who have borne the brunt of austerity measures enacted since the first of three Greek bailouts was launched in 2010. But she said too few people, mainly wage earners, were bearing the burden of taxation, while the pension system needed to be made sustainable and better support the poor. "Reforms are absolutely needed. Somebody can ask me the questions three times over, I will still say the same thing," Lagarde said. Greece also needs to further improve its own data transparency, Lagarde said, noting that there were frequent and significant revisions of economic data. Asked whether data transparency issues were causing divisions among IMF board members over Greece's debt sustainability and surplus targets, she said such differences were more likely a result of "an assessment of the potential for reforms and the potential for actual economic output from those reforms." Asked about the Fund's view of policy proposals coming from the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, she said the IMF would evaluate the impact of actual policies that are enacted, not "slogans" or reports about them. "We need to operate in a reliable, scientific way, in order to shed light on the consequences of decisions made, not decisions that are talked about," she said. Lagarde also revealed that new IMF research shows that emerging market countries that improve data transparency see fairly quick reductions in their borrowing costs. (Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Andrea Ricci) Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a news conference following the talks with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Budapest, Hungary, February 2, 2017. REUTERS/Laszlo Balogh MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to China in May for a summit and also plans to hold talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, RIA news agency cited Russia's ambassador to China as saying. (Reporting by Alexander Winning; Editing by Christian Lowe) The office building of health insurer Anthem is seen in Los Angeles, California February 5, 2015. REUTERS/Gus Ruelas By Diane Bartz and Caroline Humer (Reuters) - A federal judge on Wednesday ruled against U.S. health insurer Anthem Inc's (NYSE: ANTM) proposed $54 billion merger with smaller rival Cigna Corp (NYSE: CI), derailing an unprecedented effort to consolidate the country's health insurance industry. The U.S. Justice Department sued in July to stop Anthem's purchase of Cigna, a deal that would have created the largest U.S. health insurer by membership, and Aetna Inc's (NYSE: AET) planned $33 billion acquisition of Humana (NYSE: HUM). The merger would have worsened an already highly concentrated market and is likely to raise prices, Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said while issuing the ruling against Anthem's deal. Last month, a different U.S. judge ruled against Aetna's proposed deal for Humana. Government antitrust officials argued that both deals would lead to less competition and higher prices for Americans. The acquisitions would have reduced the number of large national U.S. insurers from five to three. Jackson had separated the Justice Department's case into two trials. Her ruling focused only on the first one in which the Justice Department argued that the tie-up would hurt the ability of large national employers to get competitive rates for the health coverage they provide workers. The second trial considered overlaps in the two insurers' business selling health benefits to individuals, and administering Medicare Advantage coverage to the elderly. Anthem argued that there was enough competition because large companies with more than 5,000 employees often used multiple smaller players in the national market, but the judge disagreed. "Regional firms and new specialized 'niche' companies that lack a national network are not viable options for the vast majority of national accounts, and they will not ameliorate the anticompetitive effects of this merger," Jackson wrote. Cigna intends to carefully review the opinion and evaluate its options in accordance with the merger agreement, it said in a statement. Anthem said on Thursday that it intends to promptly file a notice of appeal and request an expedited hearing of its appeal to reverse the court's decision. PROTECTING CONSUMERS Acting Assistant Attorney General Brent Snyder of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division said the ruling had prevented American consumers from facing higher health insurance premiums and less innovation. Bill Baer, who was head of the Justice Department's antitrust division when it decided to sue to block both the insurance deals but has since left the agency, also hailed the decision. "Together with the decision on Aetna and Humana, this preserves five large national providers of critically important health insurance products," he said. The fifth player, UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE: UNH) was not involved in the deals. Some Wall Street analysts expect all four of the companies to now move on, although Aetna and Humana have not committed to doing so. Their deal expires Feb. 15. "The likelihood of success in an appeal would be very low," said Matthew L. Cantor, a partner in the law firm of Constantine Cannon in New York. He noted points in the judge's order about the concentrated national market, the high barrier to entry for competitors, and the companies' roles as direct competitors. The deals were announced at a time when former President Barack Obama's national healthcare reform law was fully in place and the four insurers were growing in the individual insurance market it established. The insurers said new costs, from higher taxes to investments in new Obamacare products, were driving their need for scale. That landscape is less certain now. Aetna and Humana have cut back Obamacare enrollment for 2017 after losses, and President Donald Trump and fellow Republicans are weighing a "repeal and replace" path for Obamacare. More deals may be in the offing, JPMorgan analyst Gary Taylor said in a research note. "Given Anthem and Cigna's pursuit of Humana in 2015, we think new potential combinations could emerge." He does not expect shares in either Anthem or Cigna to move given that investors had expected this ruling. Cigna is entitled to receive from Anthem a $1.85 billion break-up fee if the deal fails to win regulatory approval, according to the merger agreement. The agreement also requires Cigna to have put forth its best effort on that front. But Anthem and Cigna disagreed about the deal in court, Jackson wrote in her order, with Cigna refusing to sign off on Anthem's interpretation of how the companies could garner savings. Anthem is the largest member of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and operates BCBS plans in 14 states. It and said it could apply its discounts to Cigna members while Cigna said its collaborations with doctors would save money. Pre-merger integration was stalled and incomplete, the judge said. (Additional reporting by Akankshita Mukhopadhyay and Dipika Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Bernard Orr, Leslie Adler, Gopakumar Warrier) UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION Washington, D.C. 20549 SCHEDULE 13G/A Under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Amendment No. 4) Bio-Key International, Inc. (Name of Issuer) Common (Title of Class of Securities) 09060C200 (CUSIP Number) December 31, 2016 (Date of Event Which Requires Filing of this Statement) Check the appropriate box to designate the rule pursuant to which this Schedule is filed: |X| Rule 13d-1(b) | | Rule 13d-1(c) | | Rule 13d-1(d) * The remainder of this cover page shall be filled out for a reporting person's initial filing on this form with respect to the subject class of securities, and for any subsequent amendment containing information which would alter the disclosures provided in a prior cover page. The information required in 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 ("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). CUSIP No. 09060C200 Schedule 13G/A Page 2 of 5 ___________________________________________________________________________ 1.Names of Reporting Persons. I.R.S. Identification Nos. of above persons (entities only). Perkins Capital Managment, Inc. 41-1501962 ___________________________________________________________________________ 2.Check the Appropriate Box if a Member of a Group (See Instructions) (a) / / (b) / / ___________________________________________________________________________ 3.SEC Use Only ___________________________________________________________________________ 4.Citizenship or Place of Organization A Minnesota Corporation ___________________________________________________________________________ Number of 5.Sole Voting Power Shares Bene- 116,567 _________________________________________________________ ficially owned 6.Shared Voting Power 0 by Each _________________________________________________________ 7.Sole Dispositive Power 274,900 Reporting _________________________________________________________ 8.Shared Dispositive Power Person With: 0 ___________________________________________________________________________ 9.Aggregate Amount Beneficially Owned by Each Reporting Person 274,900 ____________________________________________________________________________ 10.Check if the Aggregate Amount in Row (9) Excludes Certain Shares (See Instructions) ____________________________________________________________________________ 11.Percent of Class Represented by Amount in Row 9 4.4% ____________________________________________________________________________ 12.Type of Reporting Person (See Instructions) IA ____________________________________________________________________________ Item 1. (a)Name of Issuer: Bio-Key International, Inc. (b)Address of Issuer's Principal Executive Offices 3349 Highway 138 Building A, Suite E Wall, NJ 07719 Item 2. (a)Name of Person Filing Perkins Capital Management, Inc. (b)Address of Principal Business Office or, if none, Residence 730 Lake St E Wayzata, MN 55391 (c)Citizenship A Minnesota Corporation (d)Title of Class of Securities Common (e)CUSIP Number 09060C200 Item 3. If this statement is filed pursuant to ss240.13d-1(b) or 240.13d-2(b) or (c), check whether the person filing is a: (a) | | Broker or dealer registered under section 15 of the Act (15 U.S.C. 78o). (b) | | Bank as defined in section 3(s)(6) of the Act (15 U.S.C. 78c). (c) | | Insurance Company as defined in section 3(a)(19) of the Act (15 U.S.C. 78c). (d) | | Investment Company registered under section 8 of the Investment Company Act of 1940 (15 U.S.C. 80a-8). (e) |X| An investment adviser in accordance with s240.13d-1(b)(1)(ii)(E); (f) | | An employee benefit plan or endowment fund in accordance with s240.13d-1(b)(1)(ii)(F); (g) | | A parent holding company or control person in accordance with s240.13d-1(b)(ii)(G); (h) | | A savings associations as defined in Section 3(b) of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (12 U.S.C. 1813); (i) | | A church plan that is excluded from the definition of an investment company under section 3c(14) of the Investment Company Act of 1940 (15 U.S.C. 80a-3); (j) | | Group, in accordance with s240.13d-1(b)(1)(ii)(J). Item 4. Ownership Provide the following information regarding the aggregate number and percentage of the class of securities of the issuer identified in Item 1. (a) Amount Beneficially Owned: 274,900 (includes 124,900 common equivalents and 150,000 warrants exercisable within 60 days) (b) Percent of Class: 4.4% (c) Number of shares as to which such person has: (i) Sole power to vote or to direct the vote: 116,567 (ii) Shared power to vote or to direct the vote: 0 (iii) Sole power to dispose or to direct the disposition of: 274,900 (includes 124,900 common equivalents and 150,000 warrants exercisable within 60 days) (iv) Shared power to dispose or to direct the disposition of: 0 Instruction: For computations regarding securities which represent a right to acquire an underlying security see s240.13d(1). Item 5. Ownership of Five Percent or Less of a Class If this statement is being filed to report the fact that as of the date hereof the reporting person has ceased to be the beneficial owner of more than five percent of the class of securities, check the following /X/. Item 6. Ownership of More than Five Percent on Behalf of Another Person. Item 7. Identification and Classification of the Subsidiary Which Acquired the Security Being Reported on By the Parent Holding Company Item 8. Identification and Classification of Members of the Group Item 9. Notice of Dissolution of Group Item 10. Certification. By signing below I certify that, to the best of my knowledge and belief,the securities referred to above were not acquired and are not held for the purpose of and do not have the effect of changing or influencing the control of the issuer of such securities and were not acquired and are not held in connection with or as a participant in any transaction having such purpose or effect. 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. February 7, 2017 ______________________________ (Date) /s/ Richard C. Perkins ______________________________ (Signature) Richard C. Perkins Executive VP/Portfolio Manager ______________________________ (Name/Title) US President Donald Trump on Wednesday lashed out at the federal judges mulling whether to reinstate his controversial travel ban, calling them "so political" and saying even a "bad high school student" would see the law was on his side. "I think our security is at risk today," Trump told a meeting of sheriffs from around the nation, as he defended his executive order, which was blocked nationwide by the federal courts a week after it went into effect. Trumps executive order barred entry to all refugees for 120 days, and Syrian refugees are blocked indefinitely. Travelers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen are barred from entry for 90 days. "I dont ever want to call a court biased, so I wont call it biased and we havent had a decision yet," Trump said. "But courts seem to be so political, and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do whats right." The Republican president, now in his third week in office, said even "a bad high school student" would think he was right about his reading of the law -- which he read out loud -- with comments interspersed. "If these judges wanted to, in my opinion, help the court in terms of respect for the court, theyd do what they should be doing. Its so sad," said Trump, who noted he had listened to the hour-long appeals court hearing on Tuesday. Read more: In court, Trump administration argues for travel ban The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to rule by weeks end on whether or not to reinstate the travel ban, which created chaos at airports both in the US and abroad, and prompted large protests. The measure was suspended last Friday in a lower federal court, re-opening US borders to the thousands of refugees and travelers who had been suddenly barred from the country. The Justice Department has argued that the federal court in Seattle overstepped by suspending the measure, and that national security is at stake -- a position hammered home by Trump. But the three-judge appeals court panel often appeared skeptical during Tuesdays hearing, with Judge Richard Clifton at one point calling the governments argument "pretty abstract." The White House insists the decree is in the interest of national security, giving the new administration time to beef up vetting procedures to keep potential terrorists out of the country. Its detractors claim it violates the constitution by discriminating against people on the basis of their religion. At least 40 members of the Daesh terrorist group have been killed in separate operations by the Iraqi Air Force in the countrys northern province of Nineveh. The Iraqi Defense Ministry said in a statement on Saturday that 25 Daesh terrorists were killed as Iraqi military aircraft launched precision strikes against a number of terrorists hideouts in al-Jamaliyah region northwest of Mosul and the village of Tal Abra near Tal Afar city, Arabic-language al-Sumaria satellite television network reported. Additionally, 17 Daesh terrorists were killed when Iraqi fighter jets carried out attacks against their positions in Badush village northwest of Mosul. Iraqi warplanes also struck and destroyed the terrorist groups caches of Composition C-4 plastic explosive and trinitrotoluene in Ayn al-Wakhmah al-Karablah village of the western province of Anbar. Elsewhere in the al-Mosana district of eastern Mosul, Iraqi forces discovered a considerable amount of rockets and military hardware belonging to Daesh extremists. Meanwhile, soldiers from the 15th battalion of the Iraqi army have established full control over al-Jamaliyah and Sheikh Mohammad villages west of Mosul. Iraqi pro-government fighters from the Popular Mobilization Units -- commonly known by the Arabic name Hashd al-Shaabi -- freed tens of civilians who had been taken hostage by Daesh extremists in the two areas. Iraqi army soldiers, supported by Hashd al-Shaabi fighters and Kurdish Peshmerga forces, launched a joint operation on October 17, 2016 to retake Mosul from Daesh terrorists. On Thursday, the UN special envoy for Iraq, Jan Kubis, expressed hope for full liberation of the crisis-hit Arab country from the Daesh terrorists in near future, saying that the days of Daesh are numbered. He noted that Baghdads steady progress in recapturing the eastern part of Mosul should not conceal that fighting has been and will be a massive challenge, in particular inside the old city in western Mosul. Clayton Mitchell New Zealand First MP Finding solutions to short-term housing problems is being thwarted by the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015. After discussions with local agencies and community groups on homelessness, one creative idea weve been working on is the creation of a smartphone app to connect people who might have a house or flat or spare room with people looking for a place to stay. We know there are people ready and wanting to help, and we believed an app might be a way to put people together. Unfortunately, in trying to iron out the bugs, we have come up against the brick wall of government bureaucracy. We are stopped from moving forward confidently because of real and serious concerns over who would have oversight responsibility and legal culpability should problems arise between those offering housing and those being housed. As a person conducting a business or undertaking known as a PCBU whoever takes this app further, and even those who have accommodation to offer, could find themselves exposed to the law. We dont want generous New Zealanders to be put at risk by signing up to offer housing, so we sadly find ourselves forced into leaving the app idea unfinished, and going back to the drawing board again. Good intentions from the public are being thwarted by overzealous legislation, and real Kiwis are suffering. We, at New Zealand First, have been asking for this legislation to come back to the House, for further debate to iron out the bugs. But we also keep coming up against a brick wall. This legislation needs to be fixed now, to get out of the way of Kiwis who want to help Kiwis. Im really proud of the successes weve had, getting people into homes. We will keep looking for creative solutions, but its a real shame this one has been derailed by over-the-top government bureaucracy. UPDATED 10.53AM: The litle piggy who wondered off from a Welcome Bay school is now home. The Tauranga Waldorf School contacted SunLive earlier this week after the after the piglet went missing. Tauranga Waldorf School administrator Cathy Donnelly says the children were disappointed when they heard the news of the missing piglet. However, the piglet returned to the school overnight, returning a smile to the children of the school in the process. EARLIER: The children of Tauranga Waldorf School need your help to track down their wee little piglet, whos done a runner. The male saddleback piglet had only just arrived at the Welcome Bay school over the Waitangi long weekend, but had somehow managed to escape his enclosure on Monday afternoon. Weve got lots of disappointed children who are anxious to get this wee fella back home, says Tauranga Waldorf School administrator Cathy Donnelly. Were getting lots of spottings of the piglet around Welcome Bay, hes been seen in Ballintoy Park and Utopia Heights, and on Wednesday we had someone call saying theyd seen him on Estates Terrace. The small rural school with a roll of 200 pupils and 17 kindergarten children runs a little farm on its grounds which has cows, chickens, and usually, two pigs. Cathy says the older generation of pigs on their farm recently produced a piglet, so the school brought in another the wee little fella whos done a runner so they could breed the two. I dont know exactly how old he is, but it looks like hes not used to human contact. Our other piglet loves the children and will roll over and happily be scratched. But this one hasnt had time to build that relationship with us yet. Cathy says the small piglet is pretty fast so if you do manage to catch him then thats brilliant. But if you cant, could you please report any sightings of the piglet to the school. Hes obviously doing a little tiki-tour of the area, but we just cant seem to nab him. For his great escape efforts weve taken to calling him the Great Hamdini. If you spot Tauranga Waldorf Schools saddleback piglet please call 544-2452 or 027-513-3304. Concerned residents on Waiariki Street have had enough of fires and vandalism in the dunes at the end of their road. On Saturday night, worried neighbours called the police six times, as a fire on the beach was getting out of hand. The fire service was sent, as there is a total fire ban in place at the moment along the beach. An estimated 60-80 drunk and disorderly young people were causing a disturbance, according to resident Richard Parrott. The police came at 11.08pm. The report stated that the lone police officer stayed in his car, with the pack surrounding his car and taking selfies! A police spokesperson confirms the fire service attended to put the bonfire out, while the police presence moved the crowd along. Neighbour Ian Armstrong says since moving into the area in September 2016, there have been five incidents where it has been necessary for him or neighbours to call police or the fire service due to out-of-control, alcohol-fuelled youths. Richard says theyve had trouble before down their street. When we first came here 15 years ago, there was drug dealing down the bottom of the street. I dont think that happens anymore, now we have streetlights and a decent carpark. So thats probably vanished. But now these young people come down here and get drunk and light fires on the beach. He says residents are concerned for their homes if the fires ever spread along the dunes, and believe something urgently needs to be done. Ian has written to the council on behalf of the residents requesting a security camera be installed at the beach access point, as well as an extension of the liquor ban. Saturdays incident follows an earlier fire in the area after New Years, which damaged the dunes. The Government will introduce a new scheme to address historical convictions for homosexual offences, Justice Minister Amy Adams has announced. While the Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986 decriminalised consensual sex between men aged 16 and over, convictions for those offences remain on record and can appear in criminal history checks, says Justice Minister Amy Adams. Although we can never fully undo the impact on the lives of those affected, this new scheme will provide a pathway for their convictions to be expunged. "It means people will be treated as if they had never been convicted, and removes the ongoing stigma and prejudice that can arise from convictions for homosexual offences. I acknowledge the pain that these New Zealanders have lived with and hope that this will go some way toward addressing that. People with convictions for specific offences relating to consensual sexual activity between men 16 years and over will be eligible to apply to the Secretary of Justice to have the conviction expunged, an approach consistent with other overseas jurisdictions, such as Australia. If a persons application is approved, government records will be amended so the conviction does not appear in criminal history checks and they will be entitled to declare they have no such conviction. The application process will be free for applicants. Decisions will be made by the Secretary of Justice, without the need for formal court hearings or for applicants to appear in person. As there may be instances where the offending involved conduct that is still unlawful today, we cant apply a broad brush approach to wiping convictions. The scheme will involve a case-by-case approach." Amy says the Government intends to introduce legislation to implement the scheme in the coming months. Western Bay of Plenty health professionals have been given a pat on the back for helping more than 26,000 Bay of Plenty smokers try to quit the habit during the past 15 months. The Ministry of Health wants to see 90 per cent of all smokers enrolled in primary health organisations (PHOs) offered help to quit. The Bay of Plenty District Health Board has achieved that target for the first time since it was set in 2015. The DHB congratulates the three PHOs and their general practices for achieving the target for the first time and recognises the additional efforts they have put in over recent months, says health equity/public health portfolio manager Brian Pointon. The target is that smokers are offered advice and support on quitting and many will have accepted that offer and are now living a smoke free life. Phil Back from the Western Bay of Plenty Primary Health Organisation also congratulated its general practices. We are pleased to have now reached this target for the last two quarters and acknowledge the hard work undertaken within our general practices to achieve a lift in performance of over 31 per cent in the past 12 months. If smokers in the Bay of Plenty want to quit they should contact their GP or nurse, or the BOP Stop Smoking programme Hapainga by calling 0800 HAPAINGA (427246) for a free service. They are not legal tender, but they arrived on the scene with the idea of making society fairer and, although there are no official figures, it seems there are about 200 of them all over the country. They are the local or social currencies, an alternative payment method to the euro or even a complementary one. This week the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, announced that she plans to fulfil her election pledge to introduce one in the city. After a pilot scheme, it will be implemented definitively in 2019. So far, it is not known whether this will be a virtual or physical currency, what it will be called or how it will be used, although the mayor has indicated that it could be used to pay grants or micro-loans, part of civil servants salaries or pay suppliers invoices. Her objective, however, is clear: To support local business and ensure that wealth and employment stay in the city. Another town in Catalonia, Santa Coloma de Gramenet, is already preparing a similar currency which will come into circulation next year to channel public spending. Again, the objective is to boost local business and develop a more social society. To involve local people, the council has started a campaign to name the currency: the winner will receive a cheque equivalent to 500 euros to spend in businesses which are taking part in the project. What is unusual is that this town has received a grant of just over 130,000 euros from the EU to set up this complementary payment system. The small and medium business association of Catalonia, Pimec, is sceptical about these projects. Were not against them, because anything that helps local business is good, but we dont see them as anything wonderful, explains Alex Goni, the president of Pimec Comercio. He is also concerned about the legality of civil servants having to receive part of their salary in this form. In fact, dozens of local currencies are being used in Spain, although with less administrative support than in these two cases. Usually, they are not physical money; they function in the form of books in which the income and expenditure is noted. The oldest is the zoquito, which has been used in Jerez de la Frontera for nearly a decade. It was the idea of a young Japanese woman who lived in the city and knew of similar schemes in her own country. It began in 2007 but wasnt due to the crisis. It has an ideological value which can help to improve society, says Javier Saborido, the coordinator of the national conference on local money which will take place in Jerez next year. At present this virtual money has about 80 to 90 users, although as many as 200 people have used it. It is equal to one euro, but those behind the scheme prefer to say it is equivalent to a cup of coffee. The res and the turuta The most popular local money is to be found in Catalonia, in Gerona, where the res, which was created nearly 20 years ago in Belgium, began to be used in 2012. It is currently used by more than 500 shops and around 1,000 users. In the town of Vilanova i la Geltru, another initiative is used by 350 people and 35 shops. It is called the turuta, and began in 2010 at the request of a group of local residents. The henar, the money which began in Alcala de Henares last year, already has an app and 200 users, and in the Basque Country, there are local currencies such as the ekhi and txantxi. Elsewhere in Spain, it is possible to find arquitos, oliva, chavico, el camaleon, espronceda, salero, mora, and canicarana. They are initiatives on a smaller scale, but are proving increasingly popular. That the people of Smyth County remain down-home people who care about one another was cause for celebration Monday evening as the annual February focus on black history was brought to the forefront locally. William Fields, a volunteer helping coordinate the transformation of the historic Mt. Pleasant church in Marion into a museum of local African-American history, spoke during the Marion Town Council meeting. He reflected that its a blessing to live in this area when so much division exists in the country. This countrys people have advanced so far in terms of technology, but, Fields said, in terms of human relations the country seems much farther away from where it once was. Fields spoke of the richness of looking back, but also drew the audiences attention to what people are accomplishing today. They are creating the history of tomorrow, he said. He asked for continuing support of the Mt. Pleasant project, noting that it was the vision of longtime Marion educator, historian and community advocate Evelyn Lawrence Thompson. Weve come a little closer to bringing her vision to reality, he said. The council officially designated February as Black History Month in Marion by unanimously adopting a resolution Monday. That documents first statement read: Black history reflects a determined spirit of perseverance and cultural pride in its struggle to equally share in the opportunities of a nation founded upon the principles of freedom and liberty for all people. The resolution went on to note that black citizens have contributed to every American effort to secure, protect, and advance the cause of freedom and civil rights. It acknowledged the work of Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson, a NASA mathematician, who was critical to advancing the space race. Johnson began her career as a teacher at Marions black school, Carnegie. Mrs. Johnsons story, and those told and untold of numerous African-American citizens of our community, our Commonwealth, and our nation, act as an inspiration to all citizens. They tell of the triumph of the human spirit; they are stories of everyday people rising above their circumstances and the prejudice of others to build lives of dignity. The resolution encouraged citizens to take every opportunity to understand the common humanity underlying all people. Last month, the council adopted a resolution honoring Johnson and would like for Marion representatives to present it to her in eastern Virginia near her home. Marion Mayor David Helms said Monday that efforts are under way to coordinate that presentation with staff at NASAs Langley offices. A NASA spokesperson told the mayor that since the release of Hidden Figures, a movie telling the story of Johnson and other black women at NASA, requests for contact with Johnson have come from around the world. However, the NASA spokesperson acknowledged that Johnsons family is rightly protective of the 98-year-old celebrity. ELBRIDGE, N.Y. -- A man who was stopped on the Thruway is accused of having thousands of untaxed Seneca cigarettes, the New York State Police said. Kevin V. Small Kevin V. Small, 45, of Syracuse, was charged with violating the New York State Tax Law, a felony. State police said Small was arrested following an investigation that began after he was pulled over on the New York State Thruway in the town of Elbridge. He is accused of having and transporting 53 cartons, or 10,800 individual cigarettes. State police said those cigarettes were not stamped and had not been taxed. In New York state a pack of cigarettes has a $4.35 state tax. New York City adds an additional tax on cigarettes sold there. Small was arraigned in Elbridge Town Court and ordered held at the Onondaga County jail in lieu of $5,000 bail or $10,000 bond. SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A thief broke into the car of Iraq war veteran Kyle Schwemmer in Syracuse the day after Veterans Day and stole his military memorabilia. Among the stolen items was a combat patch Schwemmer earned for his second tour in the Iraq war, in 2010 and 2011. It was one of nine times over eight months that strangers either stole property from outside Schwemmer's home on West Seneca Turnpike or were seen on video walking onto the property, appearing to be casing the place. "It's just the idea of breaking in on Veterans Day weekend and stealing a veteran's memorabilia," Schwemmer said. He can buy a new combat patch, but it won't have the same sentimental value, he said. Kyle and Angella Schwemmer in their backyard on West Seneca Turnpike in Syracuse, where strangers have stolen items or were caught on video appearing to be casing the property nine times over the past eight months. Schwemmer and his wife, Angella, said their three daughters are afraid to go outside because of the frequent intruders. The girls, ages 7, 9 and 13, won't even go in the kitchen without one of their parents because it leads to the back yard where the thefts happened, the Schwemmers said. "I just want to feel safe in our own yard," Angella Schwemmer said. "People are traipsing onto our property and we're able to see it on the video. The kids see it and feel violated." The Schwemmers called Syracuse police four times. But the officers said there wasn't much they could do beyond keeping an eye on the Schwemmers' property when they could, the Schwemmers said. When police were called to the home in December, an officer viewed the video footage, downloaded it onto a flash drive and wrote a report, Sgt. Julie Shulsky said. Police are using the video to try to identify a possible suspect, Shulsky said. "Territory cars are aware of the issues at this residence and are doing what they can to curb any further problems," Shulsky said in an email to Syracuse.com. She did not respond to an emailed question about why police didn't make the surveillance video available to the media, in the hope of catching the thieves. Police confirm they got reports of at least four incidents at the Schwemmers' property. The Schwemmers shared four of their surveillance videos with Syracuse.com Kyle Schwemmer is a captain in the Army Reserves. He served in Iraq in 2005 and again five years later. The thief or thieves also stole his military static compass and a nametape with "U.S. Army" on it that was going to go on his uniform, he said. Thieves twice stole bicycles from the yard. In one of the surveillance videos, a man calmly gets out of a green pickup truck, walks around a fence and carries off a bike. It was at 5:30 p.m., while the Schwemmers were home but unaware he was in their yard, they said. If that thief could be so blatant in broad daylight, it seems likely the Schwemmers aren't the only victims in the neighborhood, Kyle Schwemmer said. "He just walked around and grabbed it," he said. "He wasn't even looking around. It was like someone told him to come pick it up." In one of the break-ins, a thief stole Angella Schwemmer's wallet out of her van, she said. In another, thieves stole Kyle's wireless headphones, a one-year daily devotional, and a deck of cards with verses from a bible study group, he said. The Schwemmers said they've been battling with their landlord for months to make the property more secure. Contact John O'Brien anytime by email, Twitter, or at 315-470-2187. 2016-02-20-dl-chili6.JPG Will Minney (left), owner of Wild Will's Saloon in Hanover Square, serves samples at the Hanover Square Chili Fest in 2016. (David Lassman) SYRACUSE, NY -- In 2016, bars and restaurants in downtown's Hanover Square scrambled to put on alternative events after the Syracuse Winterfest abruptly cancelled its signature chili and chowder cook-offs. The cook-offs had been held in Hanover Square for 30 years, bringing large crowds to the area. Marco Pocyntyluk of Camillus and Noreen Szkolnik of Liverpool sample chili from The Evergreen at the 2016 Hanover Square Chili Fest. This year, the alternative Hanover Square events will continue, but for a different reason: Winterfest has pulled out of Hanover Square altogether. Winterfest is bringing the cook-offs back for 2017, but organizer Bill Cooper is relocating them across Salina Street to Clinton Square. Cooper said consolidating events in Clinton Square cuts the fest's costs for police protection and fees related to street closings and blocking access to parking meters. So merchants in and around Hanover Square say they'll bring back their own events on Chili Cook-off day, Feb. 25, the second Winterfest Saturday. They'll host the Hanover Square Chili Walk starting at noon to coincide with the Winterfest event. That will be followed by the Hanover Square Snowball Pub Crawl starting at 4 p.m. They're also teaming up with radio station 95X and 1911 Spirits for a pub crawl on the first Winterfest Saturday, Feb. 18. Those events are sponsored by the Hanover Square Association, not Winterfest. "To be honest, when we did this on our own last year, we had the best day (biggest crowds) I've seen in 17 years," said Will Minney, owner of Wild Will's Saloon. "So if they (Winterfest) are leaving the square, we'll do our own thing." Minney believes the Winterfest relocation is fall out from what happened last year. "The cook-offs have been such a long tradition here, it's really unfortunate this happened," he said. "That's a lot of tradition to be abandoned. I'm not real happy about it." Rob Podfigurny, co-owner of Hanover Square's The Evergreen pub, puts a positive spin on it. "I don't think it's competition," Podfigurny said. "People can enjoy both events. We got a lot of positive feedback for the events we held last year. I think it gives people more reason to stroll through the neighborhood and stop in the businesses." The Hanover Square events are: * The 1911 Polar Pub Crawl, 5 to 9 p.m. Feb. 18. This event starts and ends at Maxwell's in Hanover Square, and also includes stops at Wild Will's, The Evergreen, JRyan's Pub and Wolff's Biergarten. It will include samples of 1911 (Beak & Skiff Orchards) hard ciders, plus prizes and more. At the end of the crawl, there will be a drawing for a 1911 Kegerator (a small fridge that holds a keg). * The Hanover Square Chili Walk and Snowball Pub Crawl, noon to 11 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25. The chili event starts at noon. Participating outlets are Wild Will's, The Evergreen, Maxwell's, JRyan's, Wolff's Biergarten and Soup 'r Salads (near the square at 308 S. Warren St.), which will be serving free chili samples inside. The pub crawl starts at 4 p.m., and includes Wild Will's, The Evergreen, Maxwell's, JRyans, Wolff's Biergarten and World Martini Bar. It's passport-style event with prizes. The 2017 Syracuse Winterfest, meanwhile, runs from Feb. 16 to 26, with most of its major events on the two weekends, Feb. 18 and 19 and 25 and 26. It features the annual Medallion treasure hunt, and plenty of food and drink events, like the Wing Walk; Culinary Cruise; Martini, Cosmopolitan and other drink "mix-offs," and more. See the full Winterfest calendar. Don Cazentre writes about food, beverages, restaurants and bars for syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Contact him by email, on Twitter, at Google+ or via Facebook. cord blood bank.JPG The Upstate Cord Blood Bank on Upstate University Hospital's Community campus. (James T. Mulder) SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A long-awaited cord blood bank that will transform medical waste into life-saving treatments was officially opened today by Upstate University Hospital. Cord blood in a container ready to be frozen The $15 million facility on Upstate's Community campus on Onondaga Hill is the second cord blood bank in the state and one of 32 nationwide. Blood that's left behind in a newborn's umbilical cord after it has been cut is rich in stem cells that can be used to treat leukemia, bone marrow cancer, sickle cell anemia and other diseases. It's also being investigated as a potential treatment for cerebral palsy and other conditions. Unless it is banked, this blood is thrown away. An umbilical cord contains about one-fifth of a cup of blood. The cord blood bank is seeking donations from mothers who give birth at Community hospital. It eventually plans to seek donors from all Central New York hospitals. Blood from donors is screened for HIV and other diseases. Acceptable donations are processed, stored in small containers not much bigger than a credit card, frozen in liquid nitrogen at 320 degrees below zero and stored. The cord blood bank's first donor Nicole Moore, right, with her husband Mark and their son, Jackson, who was born last week. Nicole Moore, of Auburn, who had a baby at Community last week, was the cord blood bank's first donor. She said donating her baby's cord blood was a simple, risk-free process. "I am proud our first act as a family was being able to give back," she said. The cord blood bank was first proposed in 2006, but state funding for the project was delayed when the economy soured in 2008. The project also was delayed when Upstate decided to make design changes in the facility. Sen. John DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse, played a key role in lining up state money for the project. "There were some down days when I thought this would never happen," DeFrancisco said. Upstate plans to eventually offer private blood banking at the facility for donor families who want the blood to be used exclusively for their children or close relatives. Those families will pay a fee. Public donors are not charged a fee and their cord blood is available to transplant centers in the U.S. and around the globe for patients needing life-saving transplants. Contact James T. Mulder anytime: | | 315-470-2245 Michelle-Travers2.jpg Michelle L. Travers (Seneca County Sheriff's Office) Lodi, N.Y. -- Sheriff's deputies found five children living in "deplorable" conditions after their mother was arrested during a drug raid at their home Tuesday, the Seneca County Sheriff's Office said. Seneca County's Child Protective Services removed the children, who range in age from 5 to 10 years old, from their home at 8455 N. Maple St., in the village of Lodi, following the raid there, police said. Deputies called the conditions in the home where the children were living "deplorable." The residence, which is also home to two dogs, was filthy and had feces and trash throughout it, deputies said. Deputies accused the children's mother, Michelle L. Travers, 30, of 8455 N. Maple St., Lodi, with criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree, a felony. She was also accused of misdemeanors: second-degree criminally using drug paraphernalia, five counts of first-degree unlawfully dealing with a child and five counts of endangering the welfare of a child. Chad A. Cornish, 36, of the same address, was also accused of the five counts each of first-degree unlawfully dealing with a child and endangering the welfare of a child, all misdemeanors. Cornish is not the children's father, deputies said. Chad A. Cornish Deputies allege that Travers and Cornish allowed the five children to live in a home where heroin was being used and sold. Deputies from the sheriff office's narcotics unit executed a search warrant at the home at noon Tuesday following an investigation into the sale and distribution of heroin there. Heroin, materials commonly used to package illicit drugs and cash was found during the search, deputies said. Members of the Seneca County Child Protective Services are working with family members to take custody of the children, deputies said. The New York State Police also assisted in the investigation. Cornish was released on appearance tickets and is to appear in the Lodi Town Court at a later date. Travers was arraigned at the Town of Fayette Court where she was sent to the Seneca County jail in lieu of $5,000 cash or $10,000 bail. She is scheduled to appear in the Town of Fayette Court at 11 a.m. on Feb. 13. Contact Charley Hannagan anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-2161. Oswego, N.Y. --Safe Haven Holocaust Refugee Shelter Museum is dedicated to keeping alive the stories of 982 World War II refugees, most of them Jews fleeing Hitler, were allowed into the United States in 1944. The museum last week initially joined 15 Jewish organizations in Central New York expressing "great concern" about the President Trump's executive order banning refugees traveling to the United States from seven Muslim countries. A statement by the organizations urged the country not to close its doors to refugees. Shortly after the statement was released, museum officials asked that its name be removed from the statement. The board of the museum, which is seeking National Park status, wanted to stay out of the political fray over the ban, said Kevin Hill, president of the museum's board of directors. "It's a very political issue and we're trying to stay out of politics," he said. Board members expressed concern that it would be better for the museum that "we remain as apolitical as possible," Hill said. CNY Jewish leaders on refugee ban: 'We must not close our doors' The museum, at 2 E. 7th St., Oswego, highlights the refugees' journey from war-torn Europe to Oswego, their life at the shelter, and the choice many of them made to remain in the United States after the war. The refugees were housed at Fort Ontario in Oswego from August 1944 to February 1946. Rep. John Katko, R-Camillus, is seeking national park status for the 262-year-old fort and Safe Haven museum. Each year the museum hosts an open house on World Refugee Day, June 20, honoring "the spirit and courage of the millions of refugees around the world," according to Safe Haven's website. It also presents two Ralph M. Faust Humanitarian Awards honoring those who have historically assisted, and who are currently assisting, refugees. The museum will continue to host those events, Hill said. "We are entirely sympathetic to refugee causes," he said. Contact Charley Hannagan anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-2161. CICERO, N.Y. -- Cereal and snack food giant Kellogg will shutter its distribution center in Cicero as part of a restructuring that will result in nearly 40 similar facilities closing. Kris Charles, a Kellogg spokeswoman, said in an email that 39 distribution centers, including in Cicero, were expected to close before the end of 2017. The company will stop delivering directly to stores and is shifting to a warehouse system. Kellogg will still deliver to wholesalers, but stores will be responsible for their own ordering and delivery. Kellogg already uses the warehouse system for its Pringles, Frozen Foods and Morning Foods brands. Kellogg has said the move reflects changing shopping habits and its effort to reduce complexity and save hundreds of millions of dollars through job cuts and production optimization. "While this is the right move for the company to achieve our long-term objectives, it was a difficult decision because of its impact on employees," Charles said. The company did not say how many people would lose their jobs at the Cicero facility, which is off Northern Boulevard and just south of Interstate 481. Charles said that on average each distribution center has about 30 full-time employees. As distribution shifts to retailers, Kellogg said it was working with some of its large retail customers who have expressed interest in hiring some of the people currently working in the distribution centers. And because the workers affects are spread out across the country, Charles said, the closings would not leave any single community dealing with large job losses. The company is reportedly providing severance and benefits to affected employees. Welcome, DISH customer! Please note that we cannot save your viewing history due to an arrangement with DISH. Watchlist and resume progress features have been disabled. ACCEPT Docker on Wednesday announced that it will spin out containerd, a key component of its Docker Engine, for open source use. Containerd will provide an open, stable and extensible base for building non-Docker products and container solutions, the company said. Some of the top cloud providers, including Alibaba Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Google, IBM and Microsoft, have committed to making contributions to the project, according to Docker, giving it instant credibility within the community. Containerd enables low-level local storage, container execution and supervision, and the transferring of container images and network interfaces across Linux and Windows. It fully leverages the Open Container Initiatives runtime, image format specifications and OCI reference implementation, said the company, and it will pursue OCI certification. Docker will donate containerd to an independent foundation, which will oversee its governance, trademark and trademark enforcement, by first quarter 2017. Innovation Unleashed Containerd will unlock a new phase of innovation and growth across the entire ecosystem, said Docker CTO Solomon Hykes. The company has a history of making key components available to the open source community, starting in 2014 with libcontainer. If you look at Dockers history of open sourcing key components over the last two years, containerd is a natural progression of that effort, noted Patrick Chanezon, chief developer advocate at Docker. We have been working on containerd since Docker 1.11, and finally felt the project was at the point where more community involvement was needed, he told LinuxInsider. The decision was made to expand the project after speaking with several leaders in the open source community over the last several months, Chanezon added,so the community then could reap the benefits and provide input. Critics Acknowledged Dockers decision is responsive to a couple of specific criticisms, said Jay Lyman, principal analyst for cloud management and containers at 451 Research. First, the company has come under fire for broadening its commercial and technical scope far beyond container runtime, which was the companys original function, he told LinuxInsider. Docker is also serving two audiences enterprise developers, and organizations that do want a more complete package of not only container runtime, but supporting software as well, Lyman noted. The other audience includes more advanced operators and platform builders who want to assemble their own platform, either to use internally or to sell, he said. Docker is already a complete operating environment, observed Paul Teich, principal analyst at Tirias Research, so the challenge is that its very tough to carve out just the parts of Docker needed to run its containers in an established public cloud, like AWS, Baidu or Azure. Docker essentially is donating the core bits of its container code to an open foundation, he told LinuxInsider. The foundations role is to build a public cloud neutral Docker container subsystem called containerd,' Teich said. The public clouds will slide their own compute, storage and network plumbing below containerd, and they will use their own orchestration schemes above containerd. Application developers wont see any of that, he pointed out, and will write to the same Docker APIs used in Dockers product and across all containerd deployments used in contributing public clouds. A summit on containerd is scheduled for February 2017 in San Francisco. Remember the old song, You Dont Mess Around With Jim? The chorus goes like this: You dont tug on supermans cape, You dont spit into the wind, You dont pull the mask off that old lone ranger, And you dont mess around with Jim. One of the lessons we learned last year is that what goes for Jim likely also goes for Peter Thiel, who put Gawker out of business and is one of President-elect Donald Trumps leading supporters. BuzzFeed, which is well known for click baiting, decided to publish a controversial dossier about Trump that includes some disgusting material. It wasnt published before because none of the other news services or any of the intelligence services could validate it. Without validation, it is a poster child for both libel and retaliation. So, in exchange for some impressive Web traffic, BuzzFeed got on both Thiels and Trumps radar as a problem to be fixed. Recall when WikiLeaks pissed off the Obama administration? The head of that organization had to take up residence in an embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden where he might face jail time on what he claims are trumped-up sexual assault charges as well as possible extradition to the United States. And Julian Assange never published the kind of thing about Obama that BuzzFeed just did about Trump. It may not be a question of whether BuzzFeed is going to go out of business but when. Clearly, there is some irony here, given Trumps own prior focus on the birther issue, but going from questioning a birth certificate to claiming a known germaphobe (Trump wont even push elevator buttons) likes engaging in so-called water sports is, to put it mildly, a huge jump. This is an example of putting tactics before strategy something that can, and often does, end companies. Ill close with my product of the week: Teforia, an automated tea maker that is wicked expensive but will make the best tea youve ever tasted. Chasing Clicks One of the big problems that occurred when we moved from print and TV news to Internet news was the need to chase eyeballs. Revenue shifted from subscriptions and classified ads to ads on Web pages, and became linked to the number of people who read an article like this one. That shift led the folks who were successful at making the transition to focus on ever-more-controversial topics, write specifically for defined groups (like Democrats or Republicans), and engage in some pretty unethical practices like link baiting and click baiting, not to mention publishing fake news. Publishing fake news has gotten so profitable that a city in southeastern Europe Veles, Macedonia (no, I hadnt heard of it before either)apparently is getting rich from the practice. However, publishing fake news and tricking people into clicking on things that are false is highly tactical and eventually suicidal, because it destroys trust. It is likely to result first in pressure on sites to police it, and eventually in legislation that will force its elimination. Eradicating fake news would be a great first step toward putting in place ever-more-rigorous censorship, because determining what is actually fake often is hard and if a government entity is in charge, it likely would eliminate anything the party in power did not believe. By no stretch of the imagination would that be a good thing. So, in exchange for some additional ad revenue, organizations that publish fake news are slowly killing off our freedoms, because the only way to address this behavior is to curtail it, and there is no absolutely accurate way to do that. The Gawker Story Gawkers experience should have been a bigger wakeup call than it was. Gawker effectively decided to attack Peter Thiel, based on his sexual orientation. If there were a list of seriously stupid things to do in this decade, it would be to launch an attack based on someones gender, color, religion or sexual orientation. This should be as obvious as saying that if you have a gun, you shouldnt make it a practice to shoot people. Individuals who launch personal attacks have the equivalent of a gun, but news organizations have the equivalent of a cannon. The movie Absence of Malice addressed this issue well, and anyone who writes for the media likely could learn something from it. The film speaks to one of the defenses against libel and defamation, and it showcases the kind of damage that can be done just to drive ad revenue in this case, before the Internet. By attacking someone as powerful, wealthy and creative as Thiel, Gawker inadvertently got into a war it couldnt win. Its behavior eventually would cross a line and when it did, the result was devastating, and its parent company, Gawker Media, was done. Spread of Questionable Practices There have been a lot of questionable practices of late. Take the leak of the Trump audio tape, for instance. Trump maintained that the conversation was private and that he wasnt aware the microphone he was wearing was turned on. NBC apparently couldnt decide what to do with the tape, so someone leaked the thing to The Washington Post, which published it minutes before NBC released it. Its arguable that the tape effectively ended the career of the reporter involved but did little or no lasting damage to Donald Trump, who was the actual target. So, the act was ineffective, didnt do much for NBC, killed a reporters career, and likely made a lot of folks NBC has interviewed in the past and would like to engage in the future very distrusting of that organization. Two acts of very bad judgment by Trump and NBC dont wipe each other out. Yes, it reflected badly on Trump but his actions could be viewed as immature, while NBCs actions possibly were illegal. How can you report honestly about bad behavior when your own company is guilty of worse? Wrapping Up: The Death of BuzzFeed and Trusted Reporting This soon after watching Gawker go under, the idea of attacking someone closely connected to Peter Thiel, the guy who took Gawker out, seems foolhardy particularly given that the information released has not been validated, and many believe it to be false. Even Buzzfeeds own coverage suggests it doesnt believe it. Given how much the press and Trump arent getting along, it might be far easier to prove malice than defend the lack of it. In short, for an impressive number of clicks, Buzzfeed may have sacrificed its future. To me, that is a very bad bet. I think this showcases a worrisome trend in media: the willingness to forget the long-term implications and the social and moral impact of an act in exchange for enhanced ad revenues. If news services continue to make these personal attacks, dont be surprised if their privileges get removed. That outcome, in the long term, would not benefit any of us. There is already a ton of impressive irony with the Trump presidency. Lets hope that organizations trying to ensure freedom of the press dont kill it by focusing too much on ad revenue and what they have the power to do, rather than what they should be covering. Finally, and this is a major point, this kind of behavior continues to showcase an excessive focus on short-term revenues while ignoring strategic risks. This isnt likely to be limited to killing news companies. I expect it will be the most common reason for companies to fail this decade. So, Gawker and BuzzFeed could, in hindsight, be the canaries in an increasingly deadly coal mine. My wife actually found this, and at US$1,400, Teforia is no Nespresso for Tea. This is an expensive date. However, if you like tea and I like tea but you dont like the paper taste or bitterness associated with many teas, Teforia is pretty amazing. Teforia Tea Infuser It is kind of a pain to use, as the product design appears focused more on kitchen art than ease of use, and it currently works far better with iOS than Android (which means my wife is using it more than I am). You can use Teforia tea and just scan the packet with the device, or you can use the app to define the type of tea you have and then let it auto-configure how to brew the best tea youve likely ever tasted. It brews two cups at once, and the process takes about 5-6 minutes. I advise using an insulated cup, because the result is too good to waste and tepid tea is no fun. We have a very modern kitchen, and the Teforia isnt just one of my favorite appliances but arguably the coolest thing in the kitchen, and thus my product of the week. Silicon Valley is in an uproar over a proposed new executive order that would overhaul the existing policy on foreign worker visas. The goal apparently is to prioritize the hiring of American workers first and make other changes in the way U.S. companies can recruit skilled professionals from other countries. The Trump administration wants to revise existing policies on how American companies hire foreign workers in a way that would force them to consider U.S. citizens first and foremost, Bloomberg reported, based on a copy of a draft of the order it obtained. The order would be part of the administrations effort to overhaul existing immigration policy. It also would apply pressure on domestic firms to hire local talent, and to prioritize investments in the U.S. over emerging markets in Asia, where wages and costs are lower and regulations are less restrictive. The language in the draft order includes references to protecting the civil rights of American workers and current lawful residents, Bloomberg reported. Policy should prioritize the protection of American workers our forgotten working people and the jobs they hold, it reportedly states. Growing Turmoil The proposed order follows fierce political and legal confrontations over the weekend after Trump issued an executive order to halt temporarily all immigration from seven predominantly Muslim nations: Iraq, Syria, Iran, Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Somalia. The order cites concerns that unvetted refugees or others from those countries could pose a threat to the U.S. The H-1B visa program is part of a larger immigration reform effort that the president will continue to talk about through executive order and through working with Congress, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said in response to a question raised during the daily presidential briefing. Staffing Shortfall Within the tech industry, there is widespread fear that the proposed order could threaten the ability of Silicon Valley companies to recruit and retain a specialized workforce. Many engineers, programmers and other skilled workers come to the U.S. to fill highly sophisticated positions that otherwise would be difficult to fill due to the shortage of qualified STEM professionals in the U.S. The success of the United States technology sector comes from attracting the best and the brightest in the world, said Gary Shapiro, CEO of the Consumer Technology Association. The U.S. likely will face a shortfall of more than 223,000 workers in STEM fields by 2018, meaning 30 percent of STEM jobs will go unfilled, he told the E-Commerce Times. We can either enable companies to find the best and brightest talent available, or those talented workers will find countries where companies can hire them. Immigrants founded more than half of U.S. startup firms valued at more than US$1 billion, noted Shapiro. Immigrants or their children founded 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies. Further, every foreign-born worker in the U.S. with a STEM degree creates 2.62 jobs for a U.S. born worker, he added. The administration and Congress should work to support H-1B reforms that encourage foreign-born entrepreneurs and U.S.-educated immigrants to remain in the U.S. to build businesses and create domestic jobs, Shapiro maintained. The very future of our tech economy is at stake. The Long View IBM received 1,919 new H-1B visa approvals in 2015, compared with 1,058 for Amazon, 961 for Microsoft, 833 for Google, 532 for Apple and 408 for Facebook, according to a study the National Foundation for American Policy published last summer. The revisions to the H-1B visa program could reduce the number of tech workers that can come into the U.S., said Kevin Krewell, principal analyst at Tirias Research, and depending on the final version, it could reduce the ability of companies to outsource some jobs. The proposed changes could hurt companies that depend on workers with specific skills, which would slow down development for those firms in the U.S, he told the E-Commerce Times. In the short term, it might create more jobs for U.S. citizens, but long term, it can hinder our ability to attract the best and brightest from throughout the world, Krewell said. President Trump is exploiting economic insecurity to divide our communities, said Derecka Mehrens, cofounder of Silicon Valley Rising. To resist these attacks, we call on the tech sector to stand up for all immigrant workers, she told the E-Commerce Times, from H-1B visa holders to service workers like janitors and cafeteria workers and to take on Silicon Valleys extreme inequality by raising up its low-wage subcontracted workforce. Have you ever received a phone call from a tech support scammer? If so, you'll know that these criminals have no moral objections when it comes to tricking people into installing malware on their computers or handing over credit card/bank details. So it's always nice to hear about members of the public fighting back. After a telemarketer used some unpleasant language toward his young son, Roger Anderson, a telecom consultant and owner of The Jolly Roger Telephone Company, decided to build an army of phone bots that he now sells to businesses and consumers. Whenever telemarketers call, people can secretly transfer them to the human-sounded bots, who will chat until the person on the other end realizes what's going on. The bot gives generic responses such as "yes" or "uh-huh" or "I'm listening," along with stuff like "Oh geez, hang on, there's a bee on my arm. You keep talking. I'm just going to stay quiet because of this bee." Another pre-recorded track involves a woman getting into a fight with her daughter. Check out the company's YouTube channel for more examples. After Anderson received a support scam message from a "certified Windows Support agent" - this time via a popup on his PC, rather than a phone call - he decided to unleash his bot army against the scammers. "I ended up getting a popup saying my computer was infected. I felt invaded. I thought, 'screw that.' Of all the people on the planet, I'm probably the only guy that has the tech to make blast phone calls. And I have robots that sound like people convincingly enough to waste time," he told Business Insider. Anderson stressed that he has never used his bots to make outbound calls for malicious purposes before, but he made an exception for the scammers. First, he called the number on the screen to make sure it was an actual scam call center. He then used one of his bots to make a call - it convinced a scammer that they were talking to a real person for over five minutes. At this point, Anderson hit them with the full force of his automated bots. "I called 100 times on 20 simultaneous channels. They answered, talked to my bots. Then they started to put my bots on hold. Then they started swearing, shouting to each other, about what is going on, I could hear in the background. Then I made 500 calls on 20 simultaneous channels to the number. After 300 phone, they disconnected the number," he said. Within just 15-20 minutes, Anderson had finished off the company. The number on the popup is now reportedly out of service, thanks to his actions. "I completely annihilated them," he said. Anderson now wants people to report similar phone scam line numbers to him, so they too can experience the same treatment. Just drop his company an email at roger@jollyrogertelephone.com if you know a scam number you think should be targeted. "I guarantee I have more [telephone] ports in my system then they have in theirs. Even if they hang up on a robot, I can congest their call center so their potential victims can't call in," he said. Anderson is asking for donations to cover the costs, as making so many calls to mostly offshore numbers isn't cheap, obviously. Coincidentally, I received a scam call while writing this article from someone claiming to be from my ISP, insisting that a "virus is making its way down my router." Maybe I'll ask Anderson to set his bots on them. NASA recently marked the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 1 tragedy, where the module of the spacecraft caught fire and killed astronauts Ed White, Gus Grissom, and Roger Chaffee. The three crewmen were working on a launch pad test inside the space capsule at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Jan. 27, 1967 when disaster hit and changed the face of U.S. spaceflight and research forever. What was supposed to be a routine rehearsal and run-through of emergency procedures became a fatal tragedy. Fire Out Of Nowhere In an interview at NASA Langley Research Center, space historian and author Andrew Chaikin said that the fire in the capsule came out of nowhere. Chaikin, the author of several books and articles, recently spoke before employees of NASA Langley. A weird odor emerged from the three astronauts oxygen store, and there was a continuing communications problem between the crew in the command module and NASA experts in the nearby block house. In audio recordings, Grissom was heard saying that there was a fire in the capsule. About 15 seconds afterward, another voice this time Chaffees called it a bad fire. What followed was an unintelligible call for help until the radio finally went silent, recalled Chaikin in a Daily Press report. It only took seconds for the flash fire to suffocate the crew and rage into a full-blown tragedy that nearly doomed the U.S. space program. What saved the program, according to Chaikin, were the nations Cold War with the Soviet Union, as well as the late President John F. Kennedys desire to land an American on the moon by the decades end. [T]he recovery is one of the most incredible episodes in the history of space exploration and in the history of human endeavor, said the historian, citing that disagreements still did occur within NASA and its contractors, but that they kept their eyes on the prize. Lessons From The Half-Century-Old Tragedy The fires root cause was almost a no-brainer: a spark that took place inside a sealed module that is filled with highly flammable, very pressured, pure oxygen. Underneath the obvious, however, was what Chaikin dubbed a stovepipe mindset in the space agency, where some individuals either ignored or dismissed dissenting opinions from others. He said such stovepipes should be torn down, and that NASA personnel should think like a walker on the high wire. "If you were physically on the high wire, you'd never lose your edge, because you know, 'One false move and I'm dead,' Chaikin said, warning against complacency and the lack of self-doubt in such extraordinary missions. He added that this very mindset also factored in the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters, where contrasting voices on the dangers of failing O-rings and dislodged pieces of foam insulation were left unheard. Chaikin believes that the thinking over at NASA has changed since those unfortunate events, but fear that people could be falling back into bad habits. There were 19 full years nearly to the day of the Apollo 1 fire when the Challenger tragedy happened, and then the Columbia accident occurred 17 years afterward. Its about listening to those with a different opinion and ensuring nothing is taken for granted, Chaikin said. NASA Langley has debuted a traveling exhibit to mark the research centers 100th anniversary. The exhibit features an interactive look through the centers century of science, aeronautics, and space feats, interesting pieces of history housed in a specially designed 18-wheeler. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Breast milk is best for babies. There's no doubt about that. Breast-feeding also brings a mother a sense of fulfillment. But if she's doing it to another woman's baby without the mother's permission, that only means trouble. Day Care Worker Breast-fed Another Woman's Baby A North Carolina mother is both mad and disgusted that a day care worker breast-fed her 3-month-old son without her knowledge. Kaycee Oxendine had a security footage showing a woman she barely knew cradling her son and adjusting her blouse to breast-feed him. Upon learning that the child was suffering from constipation that day, the woman offered to breast-feed him as a natural remedy, but Oxendine said she firmly told her no twice. "She said that she had a son and did I want her to put my child to her breast and breast-feed? And I said no, that's nasty. We don't do things like that," Oxendine recalled. Despite her refusal, the day care worker was seen in the surveillance video picking up Oxendine's baby and breast-feeding him, stopping only when a co-worker stood up to leave. Both women work for the Carrboro Early School and have children enrolled there as well. Day care Director Daron Council announced that the day care worker has already been fired. He said the unnamed employee was licensed and had been working in child care for more than 10 years. Mother: Breast Milk Made My Lactose-Intolerant Baby Sick On the evening of Friday, Feb. 3, Oxendine said her son went ill and started throwing up, prompting her to rush him to the UNC Hospital in Chapel Hill. According to reports, Oxendine's son is a premature baby and is lactose-intolerant. Unable to produce a sufficient amount of lactase, lactose-intolerant babies will have difficulty digesting breast milk or infant formula from cow's milk. Symptoms of lactose intolerance in babies usually involve diarrhea, irritability, and passing gas. The Controversy of Cross Nursing Or Wet Nursing In 2009, Salma Hayek hit the front page of newspapers when she was caught on camera breast-feeding another woman's baby during a goodwill trip to Africa. Hayek was breast-feeding her then 1-year-old daughter, Valentina, when she thought of sharing her milk with a starving infant from Sierra Leone, a nation that has the highest infant mortality rate in the world partly because of malnutrition. Although frowned upon in modern America, wet-nursing (constant breast-feeding of another mother's infant) and cross-nursing (occasional breast-feeding of another infant while also nursing one's own child) are common practices in some cultures. The La Leche League International, a breast-feeding advocacy organization, stresses the importance of thorough screening should a mother wish to try cross-nursing. The nursing mother should be generally healthy, not taking prescription drugs, and not drinking alcohol or drugs. She and her child should also be free from any infectious disease (such as tuberculosis, syphilis, hepatitis-associated antigen, cytomegalovirus, or herpes virus). 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. First it was the Galaxy Note 7, and now the battery saga continues for the iPhone 6s. Apple is recalling iPhone 6s units sold in the United Arab Emirates over battery issues. But unlike Samsung's recall, although iPhone's battery is to blame, it's not because it is exploding. Instead, a problem with the battery causes the iPhone to unexpectedly power down. Apple previously addressed the problem of some iPhone 6s models unexpectedly shutting down back in November. The company said that "a very small number" of iPhone 6s devices were affected, specifically those manufactured in China between September and October 2015. And while Apple has had a free iPhone 6s repair program in place in the U.S., according to the UAE publication Khaleej Times, Apple is now moving ahead with the decision to recall the popular smartphones in the country. Dr Hashim Al Nuaimi, the director of the Consumer Protection Department at the UAE Ministry of Economy, confirmed Apple's recall, citing the cause is not related to safety concerns, but rather is part of regular campaigns that include testing the product. Apple later confirmed the recall in the UAE, also reiterating that it is not because of a safety issue. Saying that it only "affects devices within a limited serial number range that were manufactured between September and October 2015," the recall includes a total of 88,700 units. It will cost the company 289 Arab Emirates Dirhams, or $79 USD for each battery replacement. This means the recall could cost Apple $7 million. And that's just in the UAE. While this seems like a lot of money, it's chump change to the tech giant since it reported $78.35 billion in revenue for Q4. Samsung's recall, on the other hand, cost the company $17 billion. Apple's iPhone 6s replacement program allows customers to have their smartphone's battery replaced. Customers can go to Apple's Support Page to enter in their device's serial number to see if their phone is part of the recall. Apple will replace the battery for free, as long as there is no other damage to the phone such as a cracked screen. Repairs will have to do done first before the battery can be replaced. This program is worldwide, and covers iPhone 6 batteries for three years after its retail sale date. Photo: Karlis Dambrans | Flickr 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Samsung released the official results of its investigation into the exploding batteries of the discontinued Galaxy Note 7 last month, revealing the reasons for the issue that plagued the smartphone since it was launched in August 2016. However, it seems that the ghost of the Galaxy Note 7 continues to haunt Samsung, as a minor fire broke out in a factory owned by the company's battery production affiliate. Fire Breaks Out At Samsung SDI Factory A minor fire has been reported to have broken out at a factory in China owned by Samsung SDI, the Samsung affiliate that created the defective batteries for the Galaxy Note 7, which led to the first recall for the smartphone. The fire broke out in a part of the factory that was used to store waste products, including faulty batteries, and not on the production line itself, according to Samsung SDI spokesperson Shin Yong-Doo. On the official Sina Weibo account of the Wuqing branch of the Tianjin Fire Department, it was specified that the items that caught fire in the factory were lithium batteries inside the workshops, including half-finished products that were stored there. The branch added that it sent out a total of 110 firefighters and 19 trucks to extinguish the fire, which hints that the supposed "minor fire" might be larger than what is being reported. The factory is now running normally after the fire was extinguished, with the fire having no significant impact on the operations of the facility and causing no casualties or injuries. It is unclear if the waste products that caught fire are related to the batteries of the recalled Galaxy Note 7, and hopefully, the half-finished products involved in the incident are not the batteries that will be used for the Galaxy S8, as it has been rumored that Samsung SDI batteries will be used for the upcoming smartphone despite the affiliate's faults with the batteries of the Galaxy Note 7. Lithium-Ion Batteries Still On The Hot Seat This latest incident in a Samsung SDI factory further damages the reputation of lithium-ion batteries, which are being used to power the current generation's mobile devices. Samsung initially used two kinds of lithium-ion batteries for the Galaxy Note 7, produced by suppliers Samsung SDI and Amperex. In the results of Samsung's official investigation into the Galaxy Note 7 explosions, the company found that the first batch of batteries that were manufactured by Samsung SDI had defects related to the negative electrode, which increased the chances of short circuiting that caused the explosions. After the company recalled the Galaxy Note 7, it tapped Amperex to manufacture more batteries as replacements for the faulty ones made by Samsung SDI. However, the increased production rate led to issues in the manufacturing process, specifically the presence of traces of melted copper near the negative electrode, which also heightened the chances of explosions. While the Galaxy Note 7 debacle apparently continues for Samsung, the fiasco might actually lead to good things for the industry, including increased awareness on the dangers of lithium-ion batteries, a chance for industry standards to become stricter, and more stringent testing processes for Samsung and other companies. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A source familiar with Apple's plans claims that the special 10th anniversary edition of the iPhone could have a price tag of higher than $1,000, as reported by Fast Company. The report comes amid the many rumors that have already started swirling regarding the upcoming iPhone, including a supposed earlier-than-usual launch date and the so-called iPhone X. Apple To Launch A $1,000 iPhone? A $1,000 iPhone could not be considered too surprising, given the fact that the 256 GB model of the iPhone 7 Plus already carries a price tag of $969. With the next iPhone said to be coming with many new features, including a new OLED display that will cover the entire face of the device according to Fast Company's source, the price will likely breach the four-figure mark. OLED displays are about twice as expensive as the LCDs used in the current-generation iPhones, and as the new iPhone will likely also receive an upgrade in memory, that will be an added cost. According to several sources, Apple has been grabbing much of the available manufacturing capacity among suppliers for OLED displays. Only rival Samsung and a couple of smaller Asian upstarts produce OLED displays, and apparently, only those made by Samsung meet the quality requirements of Apple. With Apple said to be creating a new groundbreaking device for the next iPhone, it is understandable that the added components and features will push the device's price further up. iPhone X Rumored Details Fast Company also reveals tidbits about the rumored iPhone X, which was previously reported to be named as such so that Apple will be able to stay ahead of rival Samsung in the smartphone industry. If Apple continues with its naming convention, by the time Samsung releases the Galaxy S9 and Note 9, these devices will go up against the iPhone 8. The lower number might make customers think that the iPhone 8 is an inferior device to the Galaxy S9 and Note 9, following the same reasoning on why Samsung skipped the Galaxy Note 6 name and named the Galaxy Note 5 successor the Galaxy Note 7. Additionally, the iPhone X name may also be referencing the fact that Apple will be celebrating the iPhone's 10th anniversary this year, and the X could refer to the Roman numeral for 10. According to Fast Company, the iPhone X will have a screen that measures 5.8 inches and will launch alongside a 4.7-inch model that is likely to be named the iPhone 7s and a 5.5-inch model that is likely to be named the iPhone 7s Plus. The iPhone X will be the only model with an OLED display and will look like "a smooth black monolith" with only a few visual interruptions on its design. Fast Company's source added that Apple has been looking to remove the iPhone's physical Home button, instead placing the button under the surface of the screen to become a button that will be touched, not pressed. There is also the chance that the physical buttons at the side of the iPhone X will be replaced by touch-sensitive inlays. Another interesting rumor in the Fast Company report is the partnership between Apple and Lumentum, with the latter's 3D-sensing technology said to be incorporated into the next iPhone in some manner, though it is unclear how. Earlier Launch For Next iPhone Debunked There were reports that the launch of the next iPhone will be sooner than expected due to production said to have started earlier. Fast Company's source, however, debunks these reports, as there is no evidence among suppliers for such a claim. As such, the next iPhones should be expected to be announced in the fall, with sales to start shortly afterward. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. UPDATE: Verizon has balked at some of OpenSignal's findings, noting that its data is not consistent with the data the company "see from our customers on our network." Karen Schulz, business continuity manager at Verizon Wireless, noted that some third-party surveys have also ranked Verizon ahead than other carriers such as RootMetrics, J.D. Power, and Nielsen. ORIGINAL STORY: In case you missed them, news stories have not been kind to Verizon lately. Fresh information has now added to the carrier's trouble as reports revealed that it has just lost its only advantage over T-Mobile: speed. Best Data Service Provider According to OpenSignal through its latest State of Mobile Network's USA report, T-Mobile is already tied with Verizon in terms of 4G download speeds and overall data download rate. For 4G LTE data, Verizon and T-Mobile averaged 16.9 Mbps and 16.7 Mbps, respectively. That sliver of point advantage is not exactly something to crow about because it is practically negligible. Things further turned sour for Verizon after both carriers now post the same 14.6 Mbps average for overall download speed. T-Mobile also took the cake when it came to 3G download speed and 3G latency. Overall, the carrier has gone toe to toe with Verizon in terms of awards earned: four to the Big Red's four. Verizon still edged T-Mobile in the areas of 4G latency and 4G availability. If you are wondering about AT&T and Sprint, they were left holding the bag with no OpenSignal award earned whatsoever. OpenSignal's report is based on a scientific study that measured the data offered by the four major U.S. telecoms. A total of 169,683 iOS and Android devices have been monitored. These yielded a massive 4.6 million data points, which were then examined to gain insights on various areas of performance. Verizon vs. T-Mobile Its findings have critical implications for Verizon and T-Mobile, which have been at each other's throats in the past several days. Essentially, they resolve some key talking points that Verizon have been using in its spat with the self-proclaimed uncarrier for the distinction of the best data provider. For example, bristling with the latest T-Mobile attack on the quality of its products, Verizon smugly claimed at Twitter that its subscribers enjoy devastating speed and massive capacity. "The word for the day is 'logic' ... No matter how you spin it, our six-year lead in providing 4G LTE is a huge advantage to consumers, and strengthening our network with LTE-Advanced in 450 cities pulled Verizon further ahead," a Verizon representative also admonished T-Mobile via CNET. "You remain a discount network by investing in cute ads rather than improving your spotty network." Well, it seems that the carrier could no longer rely on these taunts in its spat with T-Mobile unless, of course, it rolls out its 5G technology, which is not expected to happen anytime soon. It is important to note that aside from speed, T-Mobile is already soundly trouncing Verizon on customer satisfaction. Recent surveys have revealed that Verizon has more unhappy customers while T-Mobile's approval rating has been soaring. Subscribers of the former have been smarting over the decision to replace its unlimited data plan with a 200 GB data cap. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. As the Samsung Galaxy S8 nears its widely anticipated launch, those in the market for a cheaper alternative can rejoice. Samsung is now starting to clear its inventory, which means that more Galaxy S7 and S7 edge deals will be heading our way. Spring Cleaning Samsung itself is heading the latest push to sell its 2016 flagship. The company through its website is offering a 256 GB EVO+ microSD card for free if you purchase the Galaxy S7 or the S7 edge. That is a great deal especially when you consider the fact that the microSD is being sold at Samsung website for $250. You can also expect the prices of the Galaxy flagships to begin plummeting. An international version of the Galaxy S7 edge, for example, has been offered at Amazon for $585, which is 20 percent less than its $739 original asking price. The item was initially listed as part of a one-day deal at the end of January. If you check its Amazon page, however, you will find that the device is still sporting the same discounted price. Galaxy Deals Elsewhere Retailers have also begun following Samsung's lead and started bundling add-ons such as tech items. Best Buy has just announced that it is offering a free Samsung Smart HDTV if you buy an S7 or S7 edge. T-Mobile has also concluded a promotional campaign that lumped a one-year free Netflix subscription for each S7 or S7 edge purchase. The same happened with the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge. When the new generation flagships finally hit stores, for instance, they have been doled out free by some carriers. Some have been offered for ridiculously low prices in addition to freebies like unlimited texts and massive data bundles. U.S. consumers were able to save from $150 to $315 rebates or savings when the S7 range began rolling out. Why Buy S7 Now? You can harp about the Galaxy S7 or the S7 edge being old and all but the fact is that they still remain two of the best smartphones available in the market today. This is true despite the release of new competitors such as the Google Pixel, iPhone 7 and OnePlus 3T, among others. You can update the S7 or the S7 edge with the latest Touch Wiz build based on the Android 7.0 Nougat or whatever version the Galaxy S8 will ship with later on and they could offer roughly similar experiences. Once software parity is obtained, you can expect the older flagships to rock some of the new features outfitted in the Galaxy S8. To put this another way, the S7 and S7 edge could serve as excellent alternative if you are in the market for a mid-ranger this 2017. The Samsung Galaxy S8 is expected to be launched on March 29 in a New York City event. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Windows 10 is about to gain one of the best features of Android and iOS: a picture-in-picture mode. Microsoft's stashing it in as part of the Creators Update due for rollout in April. Compact Overlay The picture-in-picture mode, or "Compact Overlay," as Microsoft calls it, will be available to all app developers creating apps from the company's Universal Windows Platform. Stock apps such as Movies & TV or Skype will soon also integrate Compact Overlay via future updates, allowing users to continue watching a show or continue participating in a Skype video conference as they hack away at another app altogether. Compact Overlay is currently in its testing period as part of the most recent Windows 10 build 15031, which Microsoft just made available for fast ring insiders Wednesday, Feb. 8. While it's essentially a picture-in-picture mode, the feature isn't limited to video. It appears that it'll allow users to run actual programs in a small window above underlying applications but less intrusive than other windows. The good thing is that Compact Overlay windows "work just like normal windows in all other ways," so adapting preexisting apps to support the feature should be a piece of cake for developers. Microsoft has a few things to clear up about it, though, such as the possibility of Compact Overlay windows being resized, used with Snap, and others. Of course, Microsoft isn't the first one to tinker with the picture-in-picture concept: Apple last year introduced a similar one on its for macOS, although its compatibility is very limited. Judging by how Microsoft is describing Compact Overlay, however, it's a totally integrated minimizing ecosystem for apps instead of just a nifty video overlay option, making it more compelling. The new build also adds Game Bar support for more than 50 titles and Dynamic Lock, which allows users to pair a Bluetooth-enabled phone to command trigger Windows to lock when said phone is off proximity. Creators Update Complete Microsoft also confirmed that the Windows 10 Creators Update is feature-complete, meaning all the features included in the update are set for its April release. Now, Microsoft is simply determining what bugs still roam around the build, promptly squashing them upon discovery. Those who have long been anticipating the Creators Update can expect a clean, feature-rich, and smoother Windows 10 experience by the time it lands. The new Windows 10 Build, apart from the slew of features, also comes with a number of bug fixes, although issues such as a stuck download progress bar and audio loss persist, along with a handful of others. The lengthy blog post makes clear of all known issues alongside fixes, so it's best to give that a once-over before going ahead an trying out the newest build. Microsoft is set to push out the Windows 10 Creators Update to all existing PCs. As always, the Insider builds are intended to lift out bugs that may be crawling under the software, and users may participate by enrolling in Microsoft's Windows Insider Program. Let us know if you're testing the most recent build and if you've tried the new Compact Overlay feature. Feel free to sound off in the comments section below! 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. An internal document currently circulating at Telus is purportedly declaring that the Nexus 6P has reached the end of its life and will, therefore, get phased out. It joins three other big smartphones that received similar fate: Blackberry Priv and Leap as well as the Motorola Nexus 6. The Nexus 6P's inclusion in the devices to be retired at Telus is particularly notable because it is just more than a year old. In comparison, the rest of the aforementioned devices save for the Priv are practically ancient. Take the case of the Nexus 6. It has been around since 2014. Nexus 6P's End Of Life So if the Nexus 6P indeed reached the end of the line, what will it mean for owners and subscribers in the Telus network? First of all, when supply finally ran out, the device will no longer get replenished. It is not yet clear if Telus is actively pulling each device out from its stores. Second, there is the case of support. An end of life means that Telus is already withdrawing any form of assistance it has committed itself to do. These include the delivery of updates and patches, which are critical in ensuring that the Nexus 6P and the three other affected devices remain secured and free from bugs and glitches. OEM Support The responsibility of updating software will be passed to OEMs until such time that these stop support as well. Google, for example, is now going to provide the software updates for the Nexus 6P. The Nexus 6, however, is a different story. Google is said to have abandoned this device. Blackberry Priv and Leap have far more uncertain future. Their maker, one should note, has already given up manufacturing its own hardware. However, last time we heard, it is still developing software, having committed itself to providing over-the-air updates to Priv when AT&T finally dropped the handset from its supported devices. Nexus 6P And Google OTA Updates Telus Nexus 6P subscriber can, of course, bank on Google to provide timely OTA update directly. For instance, Google's next big update will purportedly introduce the Google Assistant into the device, a feature that originally shipped with the Google Pixel smartphones. Google is also known for posting OTA images of its stock Android builds for those users who want to update their devices themselves. At this point, it is not yet clear if Telus users will be required to install a stock Android build or if their current system will merely get updated automatically so that it is compatible with Google's Android releases. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Comcast may be achieving new goals in the context of providing proficient services in home digital Internet services, but the company is in troubled waters after misleading people through some of its advertisements. The cable company has been asked by National Advertising Review Board (NARB) to stop advertising the fact that it provides the fastest Internet services in America or the "fastest in-home Wi-Fi" This ruling comes after Verizon raised questions about Comcast's assertions in 2016 in front of the he National Advertising Division (NAD). Verizon claimed that Comcast was spreading incorrect information about its services. This happened after the Verizon FiOS got undermined in the market when compared to Comcast's Xfinity, which had received a superior status. NARB noted in its decision that Comcast and Verizon offer different tiers of services to the customers which are based on maximum Internet download and upload facilities. The pricing and value of the services gradually increases with the increase in the download and upload speed. This is not the first time Comcast is facing such allegations as reported earlier, it faced accusations from the Washington State and was sued for $100 million. The company was charged with misinforming clients about its Service Protection Plans (SPP), as well charging improper service call fees. The NARB Findings During its surveillance, the panel found that an ISP had claimed to offer fastest Internet services without mentioning much about what it meant by the term "fastest." Since a word has several meanings it can be interpreted by customers in a different manner. The chances of misleading the customer increases, which could be considered a strategic marketing technique. The authorities found that Comcast claimed of offering "America's fastest internet" i.e. overall Internet speed superiority in all its three tiers of the services. So the misnomer was that the company was claiming something it was not providing. Through advertisements Comcast was in some way deceiving customers and luring them to take up its home Internet service plan. The NARB asserted that Comcast's claims were on the basis of data that was crowdsourced from speed test provider Ookla from Jan. 1, 2015 to June 30, 2015. These tests were only representative of 10 percent of Xfinity customers who chanced to test the speed of their Internet. The watchdog shared that Ookla's data's accuracy was not in question, but it was in agreement with the NAD that this information was not sufficient for Comcast to stake claims that it offers the quickest Internet in the country. For future adverts, Comcast has agreed to adhere to the recommendations made by NARD. However, the cable company added that is expects that both NARB and NAD "will hold all advertisers to the same standards when making similar claims." Photo: Mike Mozart | Flickr 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The South Korean government has placed the country on highest alert as a second strain of foot-and-mouth disease was confirmed three days after a first outbreak was reported, officials said Thursday. Travel Ban on Livestock The A-type strain of foot-and-mouth disease was discovered at a Yeoncheon dairy farm, some 50 miles north of the capital Seoul, where at least 10 cows were found to have contracted the strain, according to food industry policy deputy minister Kim Kyeong-kyu. After the O-type of the strain was detected southeast of the country, the Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs ministry raised the country's alert status one level to the maximum. The ministry has since then issued a travel ban for all livestock in South Korea, while ordering tougher quarantine and sterilization protocols. As of Wednesday, Feb. 8, at least 826 cattle have been culled, the minister said. About 86 live-stock markets in South Korea will be shut down while the travel ban is in place. Officials could not tell when the new ban will be lifted. The ministry said this is the first time that two different strains of the same virus were reported in the country at the same time. Since 2000, seven out of eight cases of foot-and-mouth disease in South Korea were of the O-type strain. In 2010, the government last raised the foot-and-mouth disease alert level at maximum, when the country grappled its worst-ever outbreak. Emergency Measures Seven types of viruses are known to cause foot-and-mouth disease, which mostly affects cloven-hoofed wildlife and livestock. The country has taken all emergency measures against the disease, including a nationwide vaccination and a movement control order to contain the spread of the virus. The ministry is currently conducting an epidemiological survey on all routes taken by workers and livestock infected by the new strain. Researchers will send analyses of both type O and A strains to the World Health Organization (WHO) for Animal Health for detailed inspections. All cattle in South Korea have been re-vaccinated against the O-type of the strain, and the livestock would need to be vaccinated again against the A-type virus. South Korea regularly vaccinates its 3.4 million cattle and 10 million hogs against foot-and-mouth disease. Meanwhile, Kyung-gyu said the government is looking to import more supplies of vaccine from a French institution. Last year South Korea had to kill more than 33 million farm birds as it tried to contain the outbreak of bird flu. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Arce stressed that "this table has a vital importance to continue giving certainties and solutions, above the whims, subway agreements and political calculations". | Read More Advertising awards body the British Arrows is combining its Craft and Awards shows into one show called The British Arrows. Chairman of the British Arrows board Charlie Crompton said, Traditionally the British Arrows has always had two shows one celebrating the best ideas of the year, the other celebrating the best craft. However, as everyone knows, any great piece of work is a magical combination of idea and craft, so it seemed perfectly natural for us to combine our two shows. We want to put on the best night of the year, gathering ad agencies along with our top production companies, post houses and film craftsmen and women. It will be an evening to celebrate the best our entire industry has to offer. Weve also streamlined the categories, so our Golds, Silvers and Bronzes mean as much as they always have. The purity of the judging process underpins that, so we will now have a split jury with two Chairs. Were delighted to announce that the Chair of the Jury for the campaign entries is David Kolbusz, CCO at Droga5, and the craft entries will be chaired by Lee Pavey, ETCs Co-Founder. The British Arrows show will be held on 24 May at Battersea Evolution. The categories and definitions for campaigns and craft, together with the rules of entry will be released on 13 March. Share this story Harry Potter producer David Heymans TV indie Heyday Television has unveiled its first drama project. Heyday, which is backed by NBCUniversal International Studios, has acquired the rights to Karen Blixens drama, Out of Africa. Susanne Bier (The Night Manager) is attached to direct and executive produce the series. Blixens book was adapted into a hit 1985 film, starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. Out of Africa recounts the seventeen years that Blixen spent in the Ngong Hills of Kenya during the last decades of the British Empire. Heyman is producing the series. He commented: "I had a farm in Africa is Blixens most famous line: she was a survivor, unpredictable and nonconformist, and a determined explorer. We are beyond delighted that Susanne Bier has such a passionate attachment to Karens story: with such critically acclaimed work in both film and television, she is the ideal director to transport us to Africa through the eyes of Denmarks most celebrated writer. And of course, the long form series offers us the chance to explore not only Karens world, but also the perspective of the Kenyans she encounters. Bier said: Karen Blixen defied the male-dominated world at every turn. Despite heavy resistance, she single-handedly ran her farm in Africa. She felt a greater kinship with the indigenous Kenyan population than any of her class peers. She both found and lost the love for which she had always longed. She has always fascinated me. This opportunity to engage with her enduring legacy is a great challenge and even greater privilege. Heyman formed Heyday Television in 2015 as a joint venture with NBCUniversal International Studios. Best known for producing the Harry Potter franchise and Gravity, under his Heyday Films banner, Heyman has also produced the hit Paddington franchise, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. NBCUniversal International Studios production labels include Carnival Films (Downton Abbey, The Last Kingdom), Monkey (Question Jury, Bravos Newlyweds), Chocolate Media (Resorting Britains Landmarks, Driving School of Mum and Dad), Lucky Giant, producers of upcoming BBC Two scripted comedy, Quacks; and Australian-based Matchbox Pictures (The Nowhere Boys, Glitch). David Heyman and Nancy Cotton will also serve as executive producers under their Heyday Television banner. Bier is repped by CAA and Brillstein, while Heyday TV is repped by UTA, Bloom Hergott, and Wiggin. Share this story The February issue of Televisual is out this week. The magazine features our annual report on the top 10 camera models for hire in the UK, with Canons C300 and Sonys FS7 battling it out for the top spot this year. Find out which one has taken the coveted number one place in 2017. Theres also a report on the ongoing film production boom in the UK. Recent BFI figures showed UK film production hit 1.6bn in 2016, thanks to inward investment shoots like Rogue One, The Jungle Book and Fantastic Beasts. Can this production surge be sustained though, with Brexit round the corner and a protectionist President Trump in the White House? Elsewhere, we find out how post houses are coping with the huge amounts of data now swirling around their facilities, thanks to a rise in 4K shoots. Theres also advice on aerial shooting, as well as a look behind the scenes at the making of E4 comedy drama Gap Year which had an extraordinary and challenging international production schedule, filming in China, Malaysia, Thailand, Nepal and Vietnam. We also preview this months BVE, the top production kit show in the UK. And there is a host of other articles and commentary, as well as showcases of the best of British production. For details on subscribing to Televisual or on how to receive back issues, click here. Share this story Aardmans Peter Lord and David Sproxton have hired Sarah Cox as executive creative director to help develop a new slate. Cox will oversee the development of a new raft of Aardman intellectual properties aimed at kids and family audiences across all platforms including digital and broadcast. The projects will focus on the companys signature humorous character-driven stories with global brand recognition in "a variety of visual styles." Cox will also be charged with bringing on new creative talent. Peter Lord, Co-founder and Creative Director at Aardman said; "Im simply delighted that Sarah is joining Aardman at this very exciting time. With her flair for developing and mentoring creative people, shes the perfect person to drive some terrific new projects. At Aardman, we love creating characters, telling stories, and delivering them with wit and irreverent humour, and Im thrilled to have Sarah along for the adventure." Sarah Cox said: I am delighted to be offered this unique opportunity to help develop the creative concepts that will ultimately shape the future content of such an inspirational studio as Aardman. We have been given a bold and exciting remit to find new characters, innovative concepts and creative talent that will continue to produce the top quality humour filled content that the studio is known and loved for. I am a long-time admirer of the collaborative spirit and ethos of Aardman and I am really looking forward to becoming part of that team. Prior to joining Aardman, Cox was the owner and Creative Director of animation company ArthurCox, which she launched in 2002 alongside Sally Arthur. During this time, she workedwith Aardman as a commercials and short film director. She directed the award winning film, The Itch of the Golden Nit in 2011, which was created under the Tate Movie Project, with the participation of 34,000 children across the UK. She also co-directed the road safety mini-series The Peculiar Adventures of Hector, which won a British Animation Award and the environmental stop-motion short film Dont Let It All Unravel, which won multiple awards and played at numerous festivals, Including the Grand Prize at Tricky Women in Vienna 2008. Most recently, Cox created and directed the animation pre-school series Nina Needs to Go! for Disney Junior and the educational online series Search It Up Azoomee. Before establishing ArthurCox, Cox was at Picasso Pictures from 1994-2002, where she directed several commercials for major brands including Virgin Megastores, Sanatogen and Boots No7. Share this story 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... A Baton Rouge man serving a life prison term in a fatal 2011 shooting in Spanish Town was granted a new trial this week by a state appellate court that said the jury's guilty verdicts were not irrational but the man was denied his right to the lawyers of his choice. The 1st Circuit Court of Appeal reversed Cardale Green's second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder convictions Tuesday, threw out his sentences -- life plus 30 years -- and sent the case back to the 19th Judicial District Court for a second trial. East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore III said Wednesday his office will ask the Louisiana Supreme Court to review and reverse the appeals court's right to counsel ruling. Green, 30, was found guilty in 2015 in the drug-related slaying of Derrick Casey, 28, on Gracie Street. He also was convicted of wounding Casey's acquaintance. Jury convicts Baton Rouge man in 2011 drug deal shooting, a verdict that left the defense attorney in absolute shock A little more than two years after his co-defendant was acquitted, Cardale Green was found g Green's co-defendant, Mark David Young, 41, of Baton Rouge, was acquitted of the same murder and attempted murder charges in 2013. Young was represented by lawyers Joel Porter and Tiffany Foxworth, whom he hired. A defendant is not entitled to a specific lawyer when the lawyer is appointed. Green was initially represented by court-appointed lawyers before he announced he was hiring Porter and Foxworth, who filed a motion to enroll as his attorneys. Prosecutors objected, saying it would be a conflict of interest for Porter and Foxworth to represent both men. Porter argued there were no antagonistic defenses or conflicts because Young's case was not tried simultaneously with Green's, and because Young had been found not guilty. State District Judge Don Johnson, who was presiding over the case at that time, allowed Porter and Foxworth to enroll as Green's attorneys. The state appealed that ruling and also filed complaints against Porter and Foxworth with the Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board. Porter and Foxworth then filed a motion to withdraw as Green's attorneys, to which Green objected. After the 1st Circuit and state Supreme Court affirmed Johnson's ruling allowing Porter and Foxworth to enroll, Johnson granted their motion to withdraw. But Porter immediately asked the judge orally to reconsider that ruling, but he refused. Johnson later denied a written motion from Porter, Foxworth and Elton Heron to re-enroll as Green's attorneys. Green's trial attorney was Robert Tucker, who was appointed by the court. The 1st Circuit on Tuesday agreed with Green that he was denied his right to be represented by his lawyers of choice. "We acknowledge the significance of that right, but we stand by our position that the right to counsel cannot be manipulated," Moore, the district attorney, said Wednesday. Moore said the right to counsel must be exercised at a reasonable time, in a reasonable manner and at an appropriate stage of the case. In its ruling Tuesday, the 1st Circuit said "nothing in the record suggests that Porter or Foxworth were attempting to manipulate the proceedings." Porter predicted Wednesday that Moore's office will lose its appeal. "A defendant has a right to a lawyer of his choosing if he's paying for it," Porter said. Porter said he intends to sit down with Green's family before he decides whether to represent him. State District Judge Beau Higginbotham, who presided over Green's 2015 jury trial, still presides over the case. The East Baton Rouge Parish school system wants to hear from companies in the custodial, maintenance, grounds-keeping or building management business, or all of the above. Almost 13 years since hiring Aramark to run school maintenance and other support work, the school system is opening the work up to new businesses and organizations, big and small. The process starts with a mandatory pre-proposal conference Friday at 10 a.m. in the board room at the School Board Office at 1050 S. Foster Drive. You can just show up, said Adonica Duggan, spokeswoman for the school system. Time to 'sharpen their pencils': EBR school system seeking proposals from maintenance companies rather than automatically renegotiating Aramark contract For the first time since privatizing school maintenance and other support work in 2004 to Ar Duggan said the conference is crucial because companies that miss it will be excluded from submitting proposals later. They must be present at the start of the conference and stay for the whole thing to be considered later, she said. Aramark oversees all custodial, plant operations and maintenance, grounds and facility management work now. The company plans to submit its own proposal to retain the work, for which it receives more than $27 million a year. Superintendent Warren Drake, who took over in June 2015, immediately found fault with the condition of many school buildings he inherited and has demanded more from the Philadelphia-based corporation. Excitement builds at historical McKinley High School as it prepares for Obama visit Since Americas first black president announced Monday he would speak at McKinley High, a le The school system is reserving the right to award all of the work to just one vendor as it did with Aramark, or break it up into pieces and award contracts to multiple vendors. Copies of the request for proposals are available at the School Board Office or online at bidexpress.com, and 20 companies as of Wednesday afternoon had requested copies. Those with questions should pose them via email to Gary Reese, chief of student support services, at greese@ebrschools.org. After learning that LSU was looking into policy violations, the national office of Kappa Sigma purged members from the campus chapter in what Iranians told fellow students at an LSU rally Thursday that theyre unable to visit their families because of President Donald Trumps ban on allowing nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries to enter the United States. Classes started at LSU before the executive order was signed, so with the exception of a new student from Iran coming to study for a graduate degree in comparative literature, LSU students already had entered the country. But at other universities around the country returning students were stopped at airports or forbidden from boarding flights to the U.S. But that doesnt mean the order hasnt impacted international students on a personal level, Hossein Saberi told students attending Free Speech at LSU, a weekly event that quickly became a rally against Trumps travel ban. Listen to your fellow students. Let them tell you their stories, Saberi said, pointing to a sign that read: I have not seen my family in 1,100 days. Trumps order applies to students from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The Board of Regents counted 180 students from those countries 145 from Iran alone who had enrolled in Louisiana colleges during the fall term. (Numbers for the Spring term, which began a little less than month ago, have not yet been compiled.) LSUs Baton Rouge campus has the largest number of international students, by far, of any Louisiana college or university. The 108 students from the Islamic Republic of Iran is the third largest population of international students on campus after the Peoples Republic of China and the Republic of India. LSU also enrolled eight students from the other countries listed on the travel ban. Trump said the ban is needed for at least 90 days to protect American citizens from possible terrorism. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals halted Trump's controversial travel ban late Thursday. The U.S. Supreme Court could now hear arguments seeking to reinstate the president executive order that had stopped admission for refugees along with those on immigrant and non-immigrant visas. B.H. Hasheminezhad, a graduate electrical engineering student, said she had bought tickets for a visit to her family in Iran. But fearful that she would not be allowed to return to her studies, Hasheminezhad said she put her trip on hold. That was a wise move, said Lauren Aronson, a professor at the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center who has been advising some foreign students. Theres a good likelihood those students, if they left the country, would be stopped at the border upon their return to their studies under the terms of the executive order, she added. Nationwide, Aronson said, 23,000 undergraduates have student visas and are affected by the order. Those students contribute about $700 million to the nations economy. About 250 LSU faculty members signed a petition asking LSU President F. King Alexander to issue a strong statement in support of the international students and to detail what help the university could provided students stranded in the U.S. because of the order. Louisiana university leaders 'firmly committed to supporting' their international students Louisiana university leaders Monday tried to calm fears of their international students in t Alexander issued a statement three days after Trumps executive order that praised the foreign students, but didnt go far enough, said Brendan Karch, an assistant professor in the Department of History. Karch said the order, if left in place, would mean that many of the affected students wouldnt be able to leave the country over the summer. Instead they would have to scramble for housing and find a way to supplement their income. Foreign students arent allowed to work off campus. Maybe the university could offer unused campus housing and open some of the on-campus jobs, to students stranded by the executive order, Karch said. He accompanied faculty organizers last week to deliver the petition to Alexander and met with Jason Droddy, Interim Vice President of Strategic Communications. Droddy said Alexander would make no further statement about the issue. But, he added, that the university already helps with housing and on-campus employment for foreign students who have to stay in America when school is not in session. The numbers may be increased, but LSU already has those programs in place. LSU reached out to every international student after Trump's order. "A lot of students are fearful that this will upset their plans to return home," Droddy said. At least Louisiana legislators can say they are more popular than Congress. The University of New Orleans Survey Research Center on Thursday released the results of its latest "robo-poll" of Louisiana voters that put the state Legislature's approval rating at 23 percent. Half of the voters surveyed said they disapprove of the state's legislative body, while 27 percent said they were not sure. Congress's approval rating made headlines earlier this week when it hit its highest level since 2009: 19 percent. Congress recently has rated lower than lice and colonoscopies, among other unpleasant things. The Survey Research Center conducted the interactive voice response telephone survey of 919 respondents on Feb. 7. It has a 3.5 percent margin of error. "Interactive voice response" polls use automated recorded questions and ask respondents to punch keys on their phones to respond, rather than live interviewers. Gov. John Bel Edwards' approval rating among those surveyed was 49 percent. He got his highest marks in the 2nd and 6th Congressional districts. But 57 percent of Republicans surveyed disapprove of the job the Democratic governor has done since taking office a year ago. That's significantly down from a December poll, conducted with in-person calls by Southern Media & Opinion Research, found Edwards with a more comfortable 62.8 percent approval rating. The survey also tested how respondents feel about the state budget and the special session that Edwards has called to begin at 6:30 p.m. Monday to address a $304 million mid-year deficit. Seventy-five percent of those surveyed said they believe the state is facing a budget crisis, while 15 percent said they don't think the state's finances are bad. Republicans (73 percent) and Democrats (75 percent) were in agreement on that. Those who identified as independent voters were slightly more inclined than the two major parties to say the state's facing financial problems at 79 percent. A majority of respondents blame former Gov. Bobby Jindal for the state's budget crisis, at 60 percent. Thirteen percent blame Edwards, and 23 percent say that budget problems are the fault of the state Legislature. Voters surveyed also overwhelmingly agree with Edwards that the upcoming special session is needed. Some Republicans had questioned whether it would be worth the time and cost if cuts could be made by the governor and the Joint Budget Committee. But 68 percent of those surveyed said there is a need for a special session to address the budget situation, while 18 percent said they found a special session unnecessary. Then-state Rep. John Bel Edwards complained year after year that Gov. Bobby Jindal wasnt serious about solving the states budget problems because he repeatedly relied on gimmicks and one-time money to close funding gaps. So its ironic that the Louisiana Houses budget chairman a conservative who issued the same complaints against Jindal says Gov. Edwards is resorting to similar tactics, with his plan to fill a budget shortfall during a special session that begins on Monday. Edwards is proposing to balance a $304 million deficit by cutting $63 million from state agencies, using $44 million in higher-than-expected tobacco tax revenue and taking the other $197 million from various reserve funds or by delaying spending projects money that likely wont be available next year. Hes following a plan similar to what he criticized so heavily before, said state Rep. Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, who chairs the Appropriations Committee. A lot of us served with him and expected something different as it relates to his handling of the budget, instead of something that mirrors so closely what the previous administration did. Edwards, a Democrat, is calling lawmakers into session because last year they approved $304 million more in spending than the state is on track to collect by June 30, the end of the current fiscal year. State law requires the state to balance the budget. Jay Dardenne, a prominent Republican who serves as Edwards top budget officer, said in an interview that administration officials have had no alternative to relying on short-term solutions now because the lateness in the fiscal year gives them little room to maneuver without cutting spending for public colleges and universities which have suffered 16 separate cuts over the past nine years K-12 schools and programs that help families with developmentally disabled children get through the day. The time to curtail spending is when the budget is approved, Dardenne said, noting that the Edwards administration is attempting to protect programs that lawmakers sought when they approved the current budget last year. Dardenne also noted that for all the conservatives complaints about spending, they have offered few specific spending reductions. We say to them: Tell us where you want to cut. State Rep. Lance Harris of Alexandria, who chairs the House Republican Caucus, said they might release a specific plan in the coming days. Henrys criticism of the governors plan, which Harris shares, centers on Edwards proposal to take $119 million from the states rainy day to cover about 40 percent of the $304 million deficit and to shift money from other accounts and delay payments to cover a good portion of the rest. The complaints by Henry and Harris are likely to carry weight with their moderate Republican colleagues, who will decide whether Edwards secures the 70 votes that he needs in the House to tap into the rainy day fund. The House has 35-45 moderate Republicans. Theres still a wall against using the rainy day fund, said state Rep. Mark Abraham, R-Lake Charles. Well see if that wall stands. Abraham said he would support using the rainy day money as a last resort and hopes that the governor wont need the full $119 million. The Budget Stabilization Fund for rainy financial days is money from a variety of state sources that is aside each year in an account for use when the economy is down. The rainy day fund is expected to receive $25 million this fiscal year. Edwards will need a good portion of the House Republican moderates since Republicans have a majority. He can count on 40 of the 41 House Democrats who have said they will support using the $119 million in rainy day money, said state Rep. Gene Reynolds of Minden, the House Democrats leader. (Reynolds declined to identify the one uncommitted member.) The focus is on the House because Senate President John Alario, R-Westwego, has said Edwards will win the 26 votes he needs in the 39-member Senate to use the $119 million. Edwards needs a two-thirds vote in both chambers to tap into the rainy day fund, in what appears to be the major issue to resolve during the 10-day special session. Republicans and Democrats in the House are planning to caucus separately Monday to firm up their positions on the governors spending plans, just before the special session begins at 6:30 p.m. State Sen. Eric LaFleur, D-Ville Platte, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, said his panel will take up the rainy day plan on Tuesday morning. It would need to win approval in both the Senate and House. Meanwhile, Henry said his committee will tackle spending cuts that same morning cuts that would ultimately have to win approval in both chambers. The $119 million that Edwards wants to pull from the rainy day fund is one-third of the current amount, the maximum allowed. The current total of $360 million is down from a peak of $853 million in 2009. Jindal and the previous Legislature raided it four times to avoid raising taxes or cut spending further, and Edwards and lawmakers dipped into it again last year. With the release of their plan Monday, administration staffers are calling House Republicans to win them over. Some moderate Republicans support the using the $119 million. State Rep. Chris Broadwater, R-Hammond, said the budget is so uncertain going forward Dardenne said lawmakers are facing an estimated $200 million shortfall when they go into the regular session in April to write next years budget and a $1.5 billion gap the following year that they need to use the rainy day money now. State Rep. Charles Bubba Chaney, R-Rayville, favors using the rainy day money to prevent cuts to five rural health clinics in his district, as well as Delta Community College, the University of Louisiana at Monroe and the big public hospital in Monroe. Im in favor of whatever we can do to diminish the impact of the cuts, Chaney said, in a comment echoed by state Rep. Rob Shadoin, R-Ruston. Many Republicans remain deeply skeptical, including state Rep. Kirk Talbot, R-River Ridge. This is just a Band-Aid, and its not even a good Band-Aid, Talbot said. The governors office is trying hard to win the support of state Rep. Chris Leopold, R-Belle Chasse, but he said he is leaning against the proposal. Theres no can left to kick, Leopold said. We need to stop looking at short-term solutions, added Rep. Blake Miguez, R-Erath. The smooth agreement between the police union and new Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome shows that change is possible. As a practical political reality, the impressions of reform are probably about as much as she could reasonably expect from her first weeks in office. After that, things get harder. Characteristically, Broome a longtime legislator in the State Capitol looked for grounds for agreement and found them, on paper. The Baton Rouge Union of Police backed two of her opponents last fall and has been very cool to her calls for a new chief. That's not unreasonable, as many community leaders believe Chief Carl Dabadie has done a good job. Broome's predecessor, 12-year incumbent Kip Holden, had stressed support for law enforcement, even through the tumult of last summer. That's when Alton Sterling died during a struggle with police outside a Baton Rouge convenience store, prompting a federal probe. But that turmoil is a real issue for Broome, who is a relative outsider at city hall. As a candidate, she pushed change. The new agreement shows how she is aiming at consensus wherever she can find it. The new use-of-force policies announced by Broome codify what have been training principles and according to police union head C. Bryan Taylor established practice by officers in the field. Taylor told The Advocate's Andrea Gallo that he was trained in each of them when he went through the police academy in 1995; he added that he is happy to see them written into policy if they make the public more comfortable. Dabadie had earlier said that some increased civilian oversight of policing in the urban neighborhoods should be considered. This is progress? Well, it's a lot better than nothing, for a new mayor seeking to give the appearance of change. What it underlines, though, is that with a new African-American mayor, the divides over how police work is done within the larger community are a huge issue and one that Broome's cautious approach in these early days might not be enough to bridge. The community group Together Baton Rouge released its analysis of drug possession arrests, and on the surface, it seems quite supportive of Broome's approach. But it challenges her to do more. There is a high correlation of race and class to the level of low-level drug possession arrests, not much of a surprise. The data as TBR spokesman Broderick Bagert emphasized is suggestive of a disparate impact in the north Baton Rouge neighborhoods, but hardly prescriptive of what needs to happen on the ground there. As Bagert told the Press Club of Baton Rouge, the parishioners of TBR's north Baton Rouge member congregations are among those in the forefront of calling the police for help. Effective policing is vital to the social and economic recovery of the northside. Dabadie's work in the BRAVE crime-fighting initiative, for which he would have been properly remembered but for the police shootings of last year, was based on a combination of community relations in targeted neighborhoods and aggressive policing of bad actors, those responsible for most violent crimes. As we sing "Kumbaya" around the BRUP campfire, with hopefully a respectful transition from Dabadie to a new chief, improving the underlying fundamentals of public safety is still the bottom line for a mayor. That involves new mental-health initiatives, of the sort that narrowly failed being funded in a December vote. A police pay raise, also a big-ticket item requiring a public vote and a big selling job from Broome, probably should be considered this year. But there also should be a recognition that perceptions in white and black communities are different. That means residents often approach the same problems, even the same data, from different directions. Email Lanny Keller at lkeller@theadvocate.com. Atchafalaya Basinkeeper Dean Wilson points out relatively young growth on a spoil bank along the side of an existing-pipeline canal, the same corridor that would be used for the proposed Bayou Bridge Pipeline, Thursday, January 26, 2017, in the Atchafalaya Basin. Washington, D.C. There's a sign on the observation deck overlooking the Library of Congress's famed reading room asking for "quiet please." Fat chance. As a couple of hundred movers and shakers from Louisiana mingled beneath the breathtaking building's tributes to great literature, a live classic rock band echoed so loudly that guests had to raise their voices to be heard over the strains of "Proud Mary" and "Sweet Home Alabama." I guess that's what happens when Louisiana comes to town. On top of high spirits, there's something else that the state brings to the annual Washington Mardi Gras celebration, which runs through Saturday and culminates with an indoor parade and fancy dress ball: a welcome dose of camaraderie across party lines. Indeed, with tension over President Donald Trump's early moves running sky high and with politics in Louisiana inching in that direction as well Washington Mardi Gras may be the only corner in the entire capital where Democrats and Republicans are still able to enjoy one another's company. Even as a bitterly divided Senate gathered across the street to confirm Jeff Sessions as Trump's attorney general, Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, fresh off a meeting with the state's mostly GOP delegation to strategize ways to seek further flood relief, warmly recognized House Republican Whip Steve Scalise from the event's stage. Smiling broadly, the two then posed with an oversized $100,000 check from the party's host, LNG giant Cheniere Energy, to help students at Louisiana's community and technical colleges make up the budget-driven shortfall in TOPS scholarship awards. The company also donated $80,000 to public schools in Cameron Parish, where it has a facility and where the money should go a long way in a system that educates fewer than 1,500 students, and $25,000 to help victims of Monday's tornadoes. Meanwhile, the room buzzed with news of a reported handshake between Edwards and his Baton Rouge foil, Republican Attorney General Jeff Landry. Edwards spokesman Richard Carbo confirmed that the handshake had indeed taken place. It's been this way for years now. Back in 2005, after Democratic U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu campaigned against Republican hopeful David Vitter by accusing him of being President George W. Bush's puppet, a newly victorious Vitter showed up at Landrieu's annual Washington Mardi Gras karaoke party with a marionette likeness of himself and joined with Landrieu on a friendly rendition of Kool and the Gang's "Celebration." The two quickly returned to their warring ways, but it was a nice break, anyway. Inevitably, a little partisanship has trickled into the atmosphere in recent years. Landry's predecessor (and amateur Elvis impersonator) Buddy Caldwell was a regular at Landrieu's party, even after he switched from D to R. As Landry was preparing to take him on in 2015, an opposition researcher filmed Caldwell cavorting with the Democrats, and the clip wound up used in the campaign. Still, as Washington continues to divide, the we're-all-in-this-together vibe is a little something worth importing from back home. Hey, if Edwards and Landry can lay down their swords for a night, maybe there's still hope for Congress. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., talks with reporters as he arrives at Trump Tower, Monday, Nov. 14, 2016, in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) ORG XMIT: NYEV118 This is admittedly a drastic solution, flying in the face of principles and policies that have shaped Louisiana society for generations. Prosecutors in Raising Cane's manager murder want to limit defense access to grisly crime scene footage Prosecutors in Taylor Friloux murder case want to limit defense access to grisly crime scene photos, fearing they could end up online Don't be alarmed if you notice a loud, black and white helicopter hovering above your backyard this February. With more than 2500km of powerlines to patrol, ActewAGL has put choppers in the air to keep the grid free of branches and debris. Clinton McAlister of ActewAGL explains how they are keeping the lights on using helicopter patrols. Credit:Karleen Minney Works delivery manager Clinton McAlister said surveying the powerlines from above made the mammoth job more manageable. "In Canberra we have an overhead network and an underground network," he said. The network that supplied his top-rating shows for almost three decades may have launched a direct assault on his TV company's flagship program, but WIN Corporation owner Bruce Gordon has a news flash for Nine: WIN News is not going anywhere. The Bermuda-based billionaire granted a rare interview this week to Fairfax Media's Illawarra Mercury, the daily newspaper in WIN's home town of Wollongong. Local pride: Billionaire owner of WIN Bruce Gordon at his regional network's Wollongong HQ this week. Credit:Sylvia Liber As well as signalling that he'd be willing to invest in an A-League expansion team in Wollongong and a convention centre in the city, Mr Gordon insisted that WIN remained committed to providing local TV news in regional areas despite new competition for viewers. "We have an obligation to supply a service to the public," he told the Mercury. Australia Post chairman John Stanhope has been asked to justify the high salaries at Australia Post to a Senate estimates committee in two weeks' time. It comes two days after the Communications and Environment Committee released details on Tuesday about executive remuneration at the government-owned business, which showed its Australia Post boss Ahmed Fahour received a package worth $5.6 million in 2015-16. Five other executives received salaries ranging from $1.3 million to $1.8 million. And departing chief operating officer Ewan Stafford received a $380,000 retirement benefit. The committee was particularly angry that Australia Post had been trying to withhold this information from public scrutiny. We all like to indulge our egos. There really is nothing as good as applause, people saying you're amazing or thanking you for doing something simple. It's what politicians are doing when they talk about spending money to create jobs with industries like manufacturing. Both major WA parties have made commitments to job creation through questionable policies. Credit:Rob Homer What sounds like a good idea is almost always doing us a disservice. Importing cars, buses and smaller goods like mobile phones to Western Australia is usually cheaper than if we made them here. Is President Trump in the process of imploding? Some see reason to think so. Given the major fallout over his travel ban, ranging from the spontaneous protests that have broken out worldwide to a federal judge ruling that the ban needed to be stopped, it seems as though Trump is struggling. Over the past few days, many commentators have pointed to the president's abysmally low approval ratings, with 53 percent of Americans unhappy with the way that he has handled the job, as evidence that his power may be vastly limited by his unpopularity. With Trump madly (and impotently) tweeting about "so-called" judges, the weekend has offered a real sense that this president can be stopped. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in 1981. Credit:AP/File Yet his opponents probably should not start uncorking the champagne bottles just yet. Ronald Reagan, whose approval ratings fell from 51 percent in his first year as president to a meager 34 percent by 1982, was also the focus of international and domestic fury. Reagan triggered an international uproar when he insisted on the deployment of 572 intermediate-range nuclear force missiles in Western Europe, fulfilling a NATO agreement that had been finalised in 1979. When Reagan moved this plan forward, there was an outcry from New York to the streets of Paris. Pauline Hanson's admiration for Vladimir Putin remains undiminished, with the Senator shrugging off criticism of Russia's alleged role in the death of 38 Australians on Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 by commenting that "everyone has done something". Doubling down on her praise of the Russian president from earlier in the week, Senator Hanson also appeared to draw a moral equivalence between the actions of Australian leaders and those of Mr Putin, whose administration has been linked to the deaths of journalists and political opponents. Under questioning from bewildered Labor senator Sam Dastyari, who had appeared as a guest on One Nation's 'weekly catch up' Facebook broadcast, Senator Hanson said she liked Mr Putin "as a person who stands up for his country and he fights for his countryas a strong leader for his country." "[On MH17] You are picking out something, do you think that everything that our prime ministers have done has been in the best interests? Armed thieves have stolen a pet pug dog named Egg as his owner was walking him on a lead through Sydney Olympic Park in the city's west overnight, police say. The dog's owner is said to be distraught after he told police three men held him at knife-point and stole his dog, as well as his wallet and backpack, about 10.30pm on Thursday. Police said they held serious concerns for the animal's welfare, given the scorching conditions forecast across Sydney. Temperatures are expected to hit 44 degrees in Sydney's west on Friday and 45 degrees on Saturday. "We just want [Egg] returned unharmed," the police spokesman said, urging the offenders to leave the dog at the nearest police station. A desperate determination to see his wife and children again has been credited with helping to sustain a man as he was trapped for hours in a dam on the NSW Mid North Coast this week, with just his nose and the top of his head poking out of the dirty water. Daniel Miller, 45, remains in John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle in a stable condition following his incredible ordeal at the property in Charlotte Bay, about 25 kilometres south of Forster, on Tuesday. Mr Miller was driving a three-tonne mini excavator when the banks of the small dam gave way and the machine toppled into the water. His family says he was trapped beneath the excavator's roll bar for five hours, as his feet slowly sank in the mud. Just how he managed to arch his back and keep his nose above the waterline, while sporadically yelling out for help, left his family and emergency service workers stunned. One firefighter said the weight of the excavator pushing on Mr Miller's back meant he was virtually doing a push-up for hours. A man has been charged with attempted murder after a drinking session in an inner-north Brisbane apartment turned almost fatal. A 29-year-old man was rushed to hospital with serious stab wounds after police believed he asked some men drinking at his house to leave. A 25-year-old Ipswich man was charged with attempted murder, to appear in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on Thursday. EARLIER The jury hearing the trial of a man accused of killing his neighbour during a dispute over loud music has retired to consider it verdict. Phillip Pama, 30, is on trial in the Brisbane Supreme Court after pleading not guilty to the manslaughter of 55-year-old Leon Yeaman in April 2015. The court had heard Pama punched Mr Yeaman in the side of the head after he went round to the older man's house to tell him to turn his radio down. AAP A man has died in a freak accident north-west of Melbourne, after a tree fell onto his car and then he drove into another tree. The crash happened in Bullengarook, near Gisborne, about 2pm on Thursday. Bacchus Marsh and William roads, near Gisborne. Credit:Google Maps Police investigating the crash believe the car was travelling north on Bacchus Marsh Road, near the corner of William Road, when a tree fell onto the car. "The driver has then left the road and crashed into another tree," a police spokeswoman said. Detectives have appealed for the person who revealed Dimitrious "James" Gargasoulas movements on the day before the Bourke Street massacre to come forward to help with the investigation. A witness sent an image from Mr Gargasoulas' Facebook page to police that outlined details about what he did on January 19, the day before the tragedy, Assistant Commissioner Steve Fontana said on Thursday. Six people died and 31 more were hospitalised after Mr Gargasoulas allegedly mowed them down while driving a stolen car through Melbourne's CBD. Three people remain in hospital, including one in a critical condition. Emergency authorities have urged Victorians to stay alert to the risk of fires over coming days and to the health risks from extreme heat, as temperatures remain at dangerous levels in northern Victoria but ease in Melbourne. CFA chief officer Steve Warrington said that with extreme temperatures over coming days, fire authorities would be on "high alert", with a major focus on high risk areas. "Our focus will continue to be the western part of Melbourne, where the grass is significant, the potential for grassfires is significant," he said. "And of course over the weekend along the Murray, where we have had a number of fires caused by campfires that haven't been properly extinguished." Six people have been infected with Ross River virus in Melbourne amid a state-wide outbreak, sparking a warning from authorities. The infections were detected in Frankston and Casey and none of those diagnosed had travelled to areas where mosquitoes carrying the virus are usually found. There have been 857 infections in Victoria since January 1, a period during which the state would usually expect to see 20 to 50, said Victoria's chief health officer Charles Guest. Richard Cornish, a Good Food writer for Fairfax Media, found himself in bed with a fever, shaking, aching and hallucinating soon after returning from a camping trip near Anglesea just after Christmas. Boris Johnson, a long-running and high-profile figure in London's media and political circles who is serving as foreign minister, has always seemed like the most British of British politicians. However, the former London mayor has a more international pedigree than you might expect: The pro-Brexit campaigner was educated in Brussels, and his ancestry ties him to Turkey and Russia. In fact, Britain's foreign minister has long been a dual national. Johnson was not only a British citizen, but also, thanks to being born in New York City, a natural-born US citizen, too. Until recently, at least. As the Wall Street Journal first reported, Johnson's name was included on a list of 5,411 people who renounced their US citizenship during 2016. The British foreign minister is included on the document, put out by the US Treasury Department on Wednesday, under the name "Alexander Boris Johnson," an abbreviated form of his full birth name, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. New York: Ivanka Trump served for several years as a trustee for a fortune set aside for the daughters of media baron Rupert Murdoch, people familiar with the arrangement said. Her role highlights the close ties between US President Donald Trump's family and the family that controls Fox News Channel, The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets. Ruper Murdoch and his then wife Wendi at the baptism of their daughters Grace and Chloe in Jordan in 2010. Credit:Hello Magazine Ivanka Trump, the President's daughter, stepped down in December as a Murdoch trustee, a relationship reported on Wednesday by The Financial Times. The trust for the Murdoch daughters holds some $US300 million ($393 million) in stock in News Corp and 21st Century Fox: companies that Murdoch, 85, leads, and in which he and his family hold controlling interests. Washington: Senator Jeff Sessions was confirmed Wednesday as President Donald Trump's attorney general, capping a bitter and racially charged nomination battle that crested with the procedural silencing of a leading Democrat, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who had criticised the Alabama senator from the Senate floor. Sessions survived a near-party-line vote, 52-47, the latest sign of the extreme partisanship at play as Trump strains to install his Cabinet. No Republicans broke ranks in their support of a colleague who will become the nation's top law enforcement official after two decades in the Senate. But the confirmation process -- ferocious even by the slumping standards of decorum that have defined the body's recent years -- laid bare the Senate's deep divisions at the outset of the Trump presidency. At the same time, the latest star turn for Warren rekindled the gender-infused politics that animated the presidential election and the women's march protesting Trump the day after his inauguration last month. Democrats spent the hours before the vote on Wednesday seething over the treatment of Warren, who had been barred from speaking on the floor the previous night. Late Tuesday, Republicans voted to formally silence Warren after the senator read from a 1986 letter by Coretta Scott King that criticised Sessions for using "the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens" while serving as a federal prosecutor in Alabama. Paris: A man who attacked soldiers with machetes at the Louvre museum in Paris has told police he identifies with the beliefs of Islamic State but says he didn't carry out the attack on orders from the militant group, a judicial source says. Egyptian Abdullah Reda al-Hamahmy, 29, was shot and seriously wounded when he launched himself at a group of soldiers last week, crying out "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest) in what French President Francois Hollande described as a terrorist attack. Abdullah Reda al-Hamamy, the man identified as the Louvre attacker. Hamahmy, who was carrying spray paints in his backpack, has told police he wanted to damage paintings at the museum to "avenge the Syrian people", a source said. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced in the conflict in Syria. A man has died after a gas canister exploded on an Australian cruise ship which was docked at Dunedin on New Zealand's South Island. The man, a crew member on the Emerald Princess, was doing maintenance work when the canister exploded about 4.45pm. He could not be revived. A police officer inspects a damaged canister on the Emerald Princess cruise ship on Thursday. Credit:Hamish McNeilly In a statement, Carnival Australia communications manager David Jones said initial reports suggested the incident happened during technical work on the hydraulic launching system on a tender vessel. Ian Henderson from St John Ambulance said the Fire Service responded first, then called paramedics. Wellington: Gay men in New Zealand who were convicted of homosexuality more than three decades ago when it was considered a crime will soon be able to have their records cleared. Justice Minister Amy Adams has announced a scheme to wipe clean the criminal records of people convicted of indecency, sodomy or providing a place for homosexual acts. Two Lego men decorate the top of Paul McCarthy and Trent Kandler's wedding cake. The Australian couple was flown to Wellington by Tourism New Zealand in a promotion to highlight to Australians that same-sex marriage is legal in New Zealand. Credit:Getty Images But she said they would not receive any compensation. The scheme is broadly supported by lawmakers and is expected to be approved by the Parliament. Adams estimates about 1,000 gay men will be eligible to have their convictions quashed. The World Raises a Glass of its Favourite Whisky to International Scotch Day LONDON - February 9, 2017: In honour of Scotland's gift to the world, to the spirit that has long drawn people in through its status and style, this Friday February 10th 2017 the inaugural International Scotch Day will be celebrated worldwide. The day invites people everywhere to raise a glass of Scotch to celebrate a drink that's made to be enjoyed with good company, wherever and whenever. Ronan Beirne, Global Marketing Director from Diageo commented, "Scotch is the world's favourite whisky. No other spirit can offer the same range of tastes, textures and flavours; made the same way for over five hundred years in distilleries small and large, the length and breadth of Scotland. The introduction of International Scotch Day shows our confidence in the vibrancy of Scotch. We are proud of the heritage, authenticity and quality of the category but we are also continuing the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship by adding a new cultural moment and occasion to the calendar to continue to drive and evolve the future of Scotch whisky." Official International Scotch Day celebrations are taking place all over the world, and fronting the proceedings is world renowned supermodel Coco Rocha and actress Freida Pinto. To mark the launch Coco Rocha pulled her famous poses against a backdrop of casks in Scotland to capture a series of stunning photographs. "I loved this photo shoot as it playfully partners the swagger and style of Scotch with the craft and artisanship behind the whisky," reflected Coco Rocha. On International Scotch Day Coco Rocha will be enjoying a Scotch cocktail in some of Mexico City's most vibrant bars and clubs. Across the globe Freida Pinto has already kicked off celebrations in the heart of Manila, having played host to a glamorous event alongside other notable names and faces, and on the day itself she will front celebrations in Mumbai. Scotch is the very pinnacle of cool - loved in every corner of the globe. It's made to be enjoyed any way you like it. In China, Scotch is often mixed with iced green tea; in the Caribbean it's served with coconut water; and in India they like it straight. "Personally, my favourite way to drink Scotch is a Johnnie Walker with ginger ale," said Coco Rocha, "but I'll mix it up depending on my mood or what I am doing. If I'm going to drink, I like a nicely made quality drink, versus drinking too many." People can join the movement and get involved by using #LoveScotch and #InternationalScotchDay. For more information visit facebook.com/LoveofScotch Drink responsibly and legally. Toyota and Suzuki Conclude Memorandum toward Business Partnership Two Sides to Explore Possibility of Cooperation in Areas Including Environment and Safety, IT and Mutual Supply of Products and Components TOKYO, Feb, 06 2017; Toyota Motor Corporation and Suzuki Motor Corporation, with an aim to jointly contribute to resolution of social issues and achievement of sound and sustainable development of an automobile-based society, concluded a memorandum today on beginning concrete examinations for business partnership. Toyota and Suzuki have agreed to start exploring ideas directed toward business partnership, as announced on October 12, 2016. Since then, the companies, have shared with each other their challenges and have been discussing areas of collaboration in a manner that ensures fair and free competition. The companies agreed today to begin concrete examinations toward the realization of business partnership in areas including environmental technologies, safety technologies, information technologies, and mutual supply of products and components. Toyota and Suzuki have agreed to work toward the early realization of business partnership. To that end, the two companies are to immediately establish an implementation framework aimed at bringing to realization the points agreed on today. Toyota President Akio Toyoda said: "The words of Chairman Osamu Suzuki at our joint press conference in October last year-'If you are running a company, you have to continue to take on challenges. You are running your company for the benefit of society, and this remains unchanged.'-deeply resonated within me. This, I felt, was indeed the spirit of (the local expression) "Let's do it". Both of our companies, which trace their roots to Enshu (the western part of Shizuoka Prefecture), intend to apply to the fullest the spirit of "Let's do it", and we want to cooperate toward enabling all people throughout the world to truly experience the joy of mobility and to achieving a society of future mobility full of smiles. I am truly thankful for having been given this opportunity to work together with a company such as Suzuki, which overflows with the spirit of challenge. Toyota looks forward to learning much." Suzuki Chairman Osamu Suzuki said: "Under the leadership of President Akio Toyoda, Toyota was enthusiastic throughout our discussions regarding partnership, even though such was sought by Suzuki, which was concerned about the development of advanced technologies. I want to express my heartfelt appreciation. In response to Toyota's display of enthusiasm, Suzuki also intensively engaged in the discussions, and we now stand at the starting point for building a concrete cooperative relationship. I want to give this effort our fullest and to aim at producing results that will lead Toyota to conclude that it was the right thing for Toyota to have decided to work together with Suzuki." About Toyota Supported by people around the world, Toyota Motor Corporation , 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. MARKHAM, ON, Feb. 9, 2017 ;Hyundai Auto Canada Corp. will host the world premiere of the All-new 2018 Accent subcompact on February 16, at the Canadian International Auto Show. Ahead of the show, Hyundai Auto Canada released teaser images and video of its feature vehicle, suggesting a fresh, confident interpretation of the brand's signature design language. The new car features the cascading grille, a visual signature that is integral to Hyundai Motor's identity. It also hints at a slim and modern rear bumper, a sweeping roofline, and a sharp character line running the length of the car where it meets slim and sporty rear combination lamps. The teaser video can be viewed at: www.YouTube.com/HyundaiCanada. Further details about the all-new vehicle will be revealed during the Hyundai press conference scheduled for 9:35 am (ET) on February 16, in the North building of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. The company will also broadcast the debut live on its Facebook page: www.Facebook.com/HyundaiCanada. if the people of Biafra want Republic of Biafra, it will be a reality during my administration. ----Donald Trump Donald Trump I wi... Monday 05 September, 2016 Reliable information reaching Biafra writers desk has it that the life of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indi... City of Columbias Pet of the Week Meleas is a five-month-old pit bull puppy who is looking for a home to call her own. Meleas is happy to hang around with her humans, sunbath, snooze on a... For Dogs, its Trick and Treat Its almost Halloween, a great time to teach your dog a trick and give him a treat. Most trainers are fans of trick training. Its not as silly as it... With his repertoire of sullen facial expressions as he confronts the latest whopper emanating from Donald Trumps White House, its not hard to guess what Jake Tapper is thinking. Im trying to keep my face as neutral as possible, the CNN anchor protested on Wednesday, the morning after his epic, 25-minute televised clash with presidential counselor Kellyanne Conwayin which the usually feisty Conway wilted under fire as Tapper repeatedly called out her boss for what he politely referred to as falsehoods. Sometimes Ill have a reaction to something thats said because sometimes people say things that are legitimately surprising, Tapper told The Daily Beast, explaining his spritzed-by-cold-water responsean eye-blink, followed by a head-shake, the universal signifier of WTFwhen Conway tried to defend a White House list of supposedly under-reported terrorist attacks that CNN and other media outlets had actually covered extensively. At the climactic momentafter Tapper scorched the Trump White House for having such little regard, day in, day out, for facts, for truthhe demanded that Conway account for a bogus allegation that the then-president-elect unleashed during a Jan. 11 press conference, when he refused to take a question from CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta. Are we fake news, Kellyanneis CNN fake news? No, I dont think CNN is fake news, Conway conceded, an answer that put her in direct conflict with her boss and much of the messaging from the Trump White House. Indeed, the Washington-insider Axios news site reported on Wednesday that as a result of his dustup with Conway, Republican operatives were urging at least one conservative-friendly website to write Jake Tapper hit pieces Tapper, an even more active Twitter user than the president, has responded to this rather alarming report with humorretweeting fake opposition research (When I worked @cnn I often saw @jaketapper steal @JohnKingCNN red pens, claimed comedian Pete Dominick) under the hashtag #TapperDirtFiles. The Washington Post, for one, couldnt resist publishing a GIF, under the headline Your Magic Eight Ball for 2017: Jake Tapper Disapproves, showing the anchor mugging in distaste. I am not aware of it, Tapper insisted concerning his grim on-camera visage. I understand that people are meme-ing it. Thats amusing to me, but its not intentional. The 47-year-old Tapperwho hosts both CNNs weekday afternoon program The Lead and the networks Washington Sunday show State of the Unio nis a bona fide pop culture phenomenon, a frequent celebrity guest on late-night talk shows (including his scheduled appearance on Wednesdays Late Show with Stephen Colbert) and a recurring object of satire on Saturday Night Liveusually portrayed tangling with Kate McKinnons Conway. He emerged during the 2016 campaign as perhaps cable televisions toughest and most persistent interrogator; at one point last summer he pressed the future president 23 times about whether it was racist to claim that a federal judge in Indiana, Gonzalo Curiel, couldnt be fair to him in a lawsuit against Trump University because the judges parents happened to be born in Mexico. Trump repeatedly refused to respond, dodging and weaving until Tapper finally demanded, If you are saying he cannot do his job because of his race, is that not the definition of racism? No, I dont think so at all, the candidatetrappedat long last answered. Not that Tapper has been a particular favorite of Democrats. In one of the hacked emails released by WikiLeaks, Hillary Clintons campaign chairman, John Podesta, mused: Why is Jake Tapper such a dick? And years ago, when Tapper was ABC Newss White House correspondent and bumped into then-Secretary of State Clinton, he breezily asked her which of her many titles over the years she liked best. I prefer any of them to what we call you when youre not around, she quipped, according to The Washington Post. Im an Independent, Tapper told The Daily Beast, when asked how hes registered to vote in Washington, D.C., where he lives with his wife and two children. Ive long been an Independent. And I am an independent by thought also. Tapper said his politics have evolved since he was an aide a quarter century ago to Democratic Rep. Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky (now Marjorie Margolies), Chelsea Clintons mother-in-law, and a family friend from his hometown of Philadelphia. He was also a public relations advocate for a gun control group. When I was younger, I had political views, but Im almost 50 and youre reaching back to when I was less than half that age, Tapper said. The longer I have spent in Washington, D.C., the more Ive realized that no party owns a premium in ideas or ethical behavior, and I dont look at either party and think that it represents my views. As for John Podestas moniker for him, I would say probably there were people who were my high school teachers and can relate to that accusation about me, he said. But in general, the way I am to authority figures is not necessarily how I am in real life. If Tapper were to join any party, it would no doubt be what President Trump and his chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon have dubbed the Opposition Partyone of their many insults for the Fourth Estate. Tapperwho responded on the air to Bannons recent demand that journalists keep their mouth shut with a simple No!said the Trump White Houses anti-press antagonism, along with a deep aversion to facts, is all but unprecedented. Politicians say things that are not true all the time, Tapper said. Sometimes its out of ignorance, sometimes its purposeful deception, sometimes theyre selling something and they hope what theyre saying is true, but it turns out not to be true. This didnt start with Donald Trump. However, Tapper argued, this president has taken things to a new level of aggression. There sure seems to be an effort by the president and the White House to discredit all media except for supportive outlets. And the effort is to say everything we report that they dont like, or they dont find flattering, is fake news. And to further bolster their argument, they are very clearly stating things that are demonstrably falseand saying we, the media, are not reporting on them, and citing our refusal to report things that are not true as an example of how we are fake news. The bogus list of allegedly ignored terrorist attacks is a recent example, although Trump on Wednesday afternoon tweeted a report on a new poll suggesting that his White House is more widely believed than the nations news media. The reason why it matters is because this is a campaign to discredit people who are trying to hold an administration accountablewhich is our job, Tapper said. This is not to say that media in the last three months have not made any mistakes But to focus on everything thats ever been reported about him as fake news has a debasing effect and corrosive effect on what journalists do. And its unhealthy for democracy. Tapper said he wont be deterred from pointing out Trumps prevarications. I said to Kellyanneand I meant itthat I would much rather be covering President Trumps polices. I would much rather be focused on his actions to change the nation in the way he and his supporters see fit. But it becomes difficult to cover when one has to point out that the president is telling falsehoods. Its not fun, but I wouldnt call it exhausting. Its certainly challenging. Tapper doesnt seem to be letting up in his critical coverage of the administration. On Wednesdays installment of The Lead, in a segment titled Conflict of Interest Watch, he highlighted Trumps tweet attacking Nordstrom department stores for so unfairly dropping his daughter Ivankas clothing line due to slow sales. The president of the United States has now spent more time dressing down a clothing retailer than he has Vladimir Putin, Tapper told viewers. The story of our lives is often cruel and unfair. Bill Buckner, a great baseball player, is mostly remembered for allowing a ground ball to roll between his legs in game six of the 1986 World Series. On rare occasions, people can flip the script and write their own redemption song. When the United States Senate voted Wednesday evening to confirm our new attorney general in the wake of a nasty confirmation battle, the story to me was this: Jeff Sessions defied the odds, came back from what could have been a career-ending blow, and emerged as perhaps the most unlikely U.S. attorney general in recent history. Sessionss road from Alabama to the Department of Justice was long and winding. There was a time when the distinguished Senator from Alabama was known simply as Buddy, said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in a statement. The product of a small town called Hybart. The son of a country-store owner. The inheritor of modest beginnings. Many people come from humble beginnings. A more likely scenario is that Sessions might have achieved moderate success, only to have gone down in history as a footnote: a dire warning that the worst days of our lives often define us. In 1986, Sessions was a 39-year-old U.S. attorney in Alabama when he was nominated to serve as a federal judge. However, two of his colleagues testified that Sessions allegedly said racially insensitive thingsaccusations that cost him the approval by the U.S. Senate required for the position. Some of the things he allegedly said are unverifiable hearsay; others (if they occurred) were likely bad jokes. Sessions does concede that he might have said the NAACP was un-American or Communist. Either way, its fair to say that this was not helpful to someone with national career aspirations in politics in the late 20th and early 21st century. There are few things in life that are as disqualifying as being labeled a racist. A 39-year old Jeff Sessions might well have soberly looked at this situation and concluded that a future in public service was a fools errandthat he had become a caricature of a Southern politician. Its impossible to know what really happened 30 years ago, but what we do know is thatno matter what you think of Sessionss brand of populist conservative politicshe went on to become a generally well-liked, affable, and surprisingly bipartisan member of the U.S. Senate. We have 30 years of his subsequent behavior since to examine, and to judge him on. A year ago, he and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker teamed up to award the Congressional Gold Medal to Selma marchers. Booker changed his tune this year and decided to break precedent and testify against his Senate colleague. But a year ago, he had nothing but praise for the man. Liberals may not like his record, but nothing that he has said or done that suggests their thesis: That he was just an Alabama redneck, says Ken Cuccinelli, the former attorney general of Virginia. Its not like this was some devious and elaborate plan hatched by Jeff Sessions: Bide your time, Jeffrey. Climb the slippery pole of politics. Get elected to the Senate, and avoid saying or doing anything remotely racist for 31, or so, years. And then, having accomplished that, all you have to do is manage to get a thrice-married casino magnate from New York City elected president, and youre in! One of the consequences of electing an unlikely president is that you get an unlikely team of advisers and Cabinet picks. To be sure, some of Trumps Cabinet-level picks have been surprisingly mainstream and conventional. However, the odds of any mainstream Republican president selecting Sessions as attorney general are astronomical. This story might be many things, but it is at least partially a story of resilience, perseverance, and overcoming extraordinary odds. It is just the sort of heroic and inspirational story that might be touted were Sessions a social justice warrior about to join a liberal presidential administration. But it is not the narrative likely to emerge about a guy with the middle name of Beauregardwho has dedicated much of the last few years to fighting immigration reform efforts in the U.S. Senate. America is a land of reinvention, second chances. Its a place where a small-town boy can grow up to become the attorney general of the United States. No matter what you might think about Sessionss politics (and I havent always been a big fan), thats a story worth telling. New York Fashion Week may be beginning with the promise of protests over Donald Trumps presidency, and even a fashion-related feud, started on Twitter by President Trump, against Nordstrom department stores who arent stocking his daughter Ivankas brand any more. But all was quiet and controversy-free at one of the first shows Wednesday. In a knitwear market bursting at the seams with oversized, chunky sweaters, PH5 has carved out a singular niche with their light yet durable pieces that are more girly than grandma. After debuting their line in New York last season, the young knitwear label has returned with an impressive sophomore collection inspired by British artist Martin Creeds famous balloon room installation. Designer Mijia Zhang said the line is meant to evoke the playfulness of Creeds work: a rainbow-striped jumpsuit riffs on the primary colors children frequently associate with balloons, while whimsical mohair sweaters came with extra-long sleeves that extended beyond models fingertips. Another highlight was an offbeat, colorblocked sweater-and-skirt combo. This piece is very artsy, said Wei Lin, Zhangs partner and former roommate (the two met while Lin was in business school in Manhattan and Zhang was studying at Parsons). The top can be worn off-the-shoulder or as a regular cardigan, and we tried to play with the placement of the skirt, she said, pointing to a curved slit at the front of the garment, which would look equally flattering shifted to the side. And because functionality is the labels M.O., 90 percent of the pieces are both reversible and machine washable, made from synthetic fibers that dont shrink. I think I really learned how to do more commercial pieces this season, because the clothes need to be sellable on top of being artsy, said Zhang. Indeed, with contemporary price points ranging from $200$400, PH5 is poised to become a cult labeland their technically sophisticated knits are worth investing in. On Wednesday evening, Sen. Michael Bennet took to the Senate floor as Sen. Tim Scottthe chambers only African American Republicanfinished speaking in support of Sen. Jeff Sessions nomination as attorney general. Scotts Republican colleagues offered him back-slaps and handshakes as they all left the floor. Then Bennet addressed a few dozen tourists in the gallery and a handful of staffers on the floor. Not many people may have been listening to Sen. Bennet, but he had been hearing from thousands23,000, to be exact. That was how many emails and phone calls he said he got from constituents opposing Sessions confirmation. Many of them I cannot read on the floor for fear of violating Senate rules, Bennet said flatly, his voice tense. His constituents, he continued, were angryin large part because of Sessions views on immigration. Its an issue that made Sessions a star in Tea Party circles, a darling of conservative media, a favorite of restrictionist think tanks, and a top confidante of President Donald Trump. Its also an issue where Session and Bennet squared offand Bennet lost. Its how Sessions beat him that continued to anger the senior senator from Colorado. Bennet was one of the eight authors of a 2013 comprehensive immigration overhaul bill which passed the Senate with bipartisan support but never got a vote in the House. That was due in part to Sessions fervent opposition. Bennet was used to his Senate colleagues saying things he disagreed with or thought were incorrect, he said. But it was nothing like what he heard from Sessions about his bill. That was the first time I had ever heard that relentlessness saying things that just werent right, Bennet said. Then he paused: Im being careful with my language. About two hours after Bennet spoke, the Senate confirmed Sessions as the next attorney general, with 52 members in favor and 47 opposed. The vote fell largely along party lines: Every Republican supported the Alabaman, and every Democrat except Sen. Joe Manchin, of West Virginia, opposed him. Sessions is best known for his views on immigration and policing: that legal immigration levels should be lower, and that federal oversight of police departments is often counterproductive. The Alabaman and one of his top Senate aides, Stephen Miller, basically became a two-man think tank for Donald Trumps presidential bid. Sessions was the first Senator to endorse Trump, and stood by him through a historically ugly campaign cycle. Miller, meanwhile, gave eyebrow-raising soliloquies to Trump rally crowds and is now one of the presidents top advisors. Both men spent years pushing for Trump-style policies on refugees and Muslim immigration; when Trumps presidential bid was still just the subject of furious eye-rolling, Miller and Sessions were sinking Congressional immigration reform efforts and tearing up talk radio. It is an unpleasant but unavoidable fact that bringing in a large unassimilated flow of migrants from the Muslim world creates the conditions possible for radicalization and extremism to take hold, Sessions said on Nov. 19, 2015. Just a few weeks later, Trump called for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our countrys representatives can figure out what is going on. Sessions will take that single-mindedness to the Justice Department, where he will likely be Trumps most trusted and powerful cabinet secretary. As attorney general, he will oversee the countrys massively backlogged immigration court system, where judges decide which undocumented immigrants will face deportation. And hes expected to make significant changes to the priorities of the departments Civil Rights Division. Under Obama, the division investigated police departments that faced accusations of systemic racial bias. Under Sessions, those investigations will likely be a much lower priority. But for Sessions, the biggest change may be one that generated comparatively little rancor during his contentious confirmation process: his responsibility on counterterror issues. Sessions is going to go from having relative freedom of movement to being guarded 24/7, guards outside his house, security with him all the time, said Mark Corallo, who was director of public affairs for the Justice Department under former Attorney General John Ashcroft. That alone makes a persons eyes open, and you feel that weight of the seriousness of your position. Everybody notices how a president ages during his time in office: Just the weight of the responsibility tends to age the person, Corallo added. Its the same for the attorney general. Sessions will take on the new job acutely aware of the critics scrutinizing how he handles that responsibility. In his final Senate floor speech, accepting the nomination to head the Justice Department, he acknowledged the controversy that his nomination generated. Ive always tried to keep my disagreements from being personal, Ive always tried to be courteous to my colleagues, he said slowly in his thick Southern drawl. Still, tension is built in the system. It is there. So, we have an new tweet, CNNs Alisyn Camerota said on New Day this morning. She and guest David Gregory chuckled about the ridiculousness of that statement, but co-host Chris Cuomo wasnt laughing. Well it matters because its about me, Cuomo said, before reading President Trumps comments on him personally earlier this morning. The tweet accused the anchor of neglecting to raise credibility issues with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who told Cuomo in an interview that Trumps Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch called the presidents recent attack on the court system demoralizing. To Trump the fact that Cuomo never asked him about his long-term lie about his brave service in Vietnam meant the whole interview was FAKE NEWS! But Cuomo had a surprise for the president: the tape. In reality, Cuomo brought up that exact issue with Blumenthal, asking, What is your response to the president of the United States, who says you should not be believed because you misrepresented your military record in the past? The president, with all due respect, is once again off on the facts, Cuomo asserted after playing that clip. Blumenthal may have ducked his question regarding the time he misspoke about his time in the military during the Vietnam era. But you cannot say that Cuomo never asked. Fake news is the worst thing that you can call a journalist, Cuomo said, comparing the term to ethnic disparagement perhaps a bit hyperbolically. He just keeps doubling down when the facts dont favor his position. It turns out Jake Tappers not the only CNN anchor capable of calling out Trump administration lies. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Evan Rachel Wood is saving lives. The 29-year-old Westworld star and increasingly outspoken bisexual advocate delivered a moving address at a Human Rights Campaign gala in North Carolina last weekend, where she was being honored with an HRC Visibility Award. The speech has since spread widely online for good reason: Wood was powerfully honest about the bisexual communitys underreported struggles with shame, depression, fear, and suicideand about how she can use her celebrity status to help fight those battles. I choose to use my voice because it would feel selfish to have acquired the platform to represent the underrepresented and to not use it, she said near the end of her speech. Wood, who said she grew up a tomboy in North Carolina, struggled to understand her own attraction to both men and women as a teenager. But when she heard an actress say the word bisexual, a light bulb went off. Having a recognizable term for her feelings, she said, made [her] feel less crazy. An actress just said a word but it made a world of difference in my life and in my identity, Wood recalled. So who knows how many bisexual peoplethe vast majority of whom are not yet out to most of the important people in their life, according to Pewwill have their own lives altered by hearing a popular young actress like Wood not just utter the word bisexual, but speak openly about her identity? Granted, there is no shortage of bisexual celebritiesand that shouldnt be a surprise seeing as bisexual people comprise more than half of the U.S. LGBT community. In the 70s and 80s, superstar David Bowie was a beacon of gender and sexual fluidity but ultimately defied labeling and categorizationa gesture that, as The Daily Beasts Tim Teeman wrote, proved to be liberating. But there can also be a certain galvanizing power in embracing labels, too, and celebrities like Alan Cumming, Lady Gaga, Margaret Cho, Megan Fox, Amber Heard, and more have all since claimed the term bisexual more explicitly. Still, as Wood herself recognized in an interview with The Daily Beast last summer, there is a need for public figures like herequally at home both on HBO and at the HRCwho are willing to be outspoken about bisexual identity for a rising generation. [Ellen Page] has been so inspiring for me on every level, Wood told The Daily Beast, referring to the Juno stars dramatic 2014 coming out speech. And I did think, there isnt really a bisexual Ellen Pageyou know what I mean? It did inspire me to want to speak out and also show that it doesnt matter who you are, youre affected by the way we perceive certain people in the world and the messages that we send out to society. There are bisexual celebrities who dont want to talk about their orientation, as is their prerogative. And there are others who find the medias relentless focus on their bisexuality to be wearying at times. Good Wife star and celebrated LGBT humanitarian Alan Cumming, for example, told The Huffington Post last year that hes getting a little tired of being asked to rehash his sexuality over and over againand of being labeled a bi actor rather than just an actor. Which is why theres a need now more than ever for a young star whos willing to call herself the bisexual Ellen Page and carry the banner for those who cantand those who prefer not to. The HRC gala wasnt the first time that Wood, who came out on Twitter in 2012, has been open about her sexual orientation. Shes discussed it in interviewsincluding with The Daily Beastand last year, she posted a 20-minute confessional video about being openly bisexual. In that video, released just days before the Pulse nightclub shooting, Wood rattled off disheartening statistics about bisexual peopleparticularly bisexual womenand located her own experiences within them. Bisexual people are at an increased risk of suicide attempts; Wood said she attempted suicide when she was younger. Bisexual women are more likely to experience intimate partner abuse; Wood said that she had been in abusive relationship in which her bisexuality likely played a subconscious role. (She would later describe her experiences of rape and sexual assault in more detail.) Bisexual people face discrimination inside the LGBT community as well as without; Wood said that she has been told both that she is not gay enough and not straight enough. As Wood observed the HRC gala, scrolling through those statistics was like reading an autobiography. And part of why Wood suspects her own story was so tumultuous was because she had no role model in her life. No one I knew was talking about it, she said in her HRC speech. I wasnt exposed. So the only thing that I knew was fear, and confusion, and loneliness. How can you be who you are when you dont understand what youre feeling? Thats not just armchair theorizing, either. One 2012 public health study found that LGBT youth whose loved ones arent willing to act as LGBT-affirming role models showed increased psychological distress compared to those with positive role models in their immediate circles. Those youth may end up being forced to choose less accessible role models such as entertainers or public figures encountered largely through the media instead. Entertainers, as the study noted, might not be able to provide emotional support firsthand but they can be important in the development of the youths identity as an LGBT individual.LGBT celebrities cant directly save kids from school bullying, for instancetheyve got award-winning shows about android cowboys to shootbut, like Ellen DeGeneres, they can fan the flames of cultural change and help their fans make breakthroughs about their own identities. That was certainly true in Woods own childhood story of being mystified by her own sexuality until she heard the word bisexual not from a family member or a classmatebut from an actress. And until LGBT identities are no longer marginalized, it looks like shes going to repay that good deed by flying the bi flag for anyone to see. I think we should live in a world where labels arent really a thing and we can all be one, she said in her 2016 video. Thats a great fucking idea. [But] were not there yet, unfortunately. And until were there, I felt a duty to be a flareespecially for bisexuals. By Gary Ferguson, Douglas Huntly Gordon Distinguished Professor of French, University of Virginia In the late 16th century, the famous French essayist Michel de Montaigne wrote about two marriages between people of the same sex. The first involved women in eastern France, the second a group of men in Rome. At the time, same-sex marriages were not recognized by religious or civil law, and sodomya term that included a wide range of sexual actswas a crime. As a result, when those involved were discovered they were usually brought to trial and punished, sometimes by death. These episodes, along with many others, reveal that even in Renaissance Europe, marriage was a highly contested issue. Marriage between two men or two women might seem like a concept that has emerged only in recent decades. For centuries, however, same-sex couples have appropriated marriage in their own ways. I investigate a particularly notable example of thisthe second of the two cases recounted by Montaignein my recent book Same-Sex Marriage in Renaissance Rome: Sexuality, Identity and Community in Early Modern Europe. An evolving institution Throughout the Middle Ages, marriage involved not only two individuals but also their relatives, local communities, and secular and religious authorities. Each of these had differentsometimes conflictingideas, priorities, and goals. From the 12th century on, the Catholic Church considered matrimony a sacrament that required only the free consent of the spouses, in the form of an exchange of vows. As a social institution, however, marriage was usually based on a legal contract for the transfer of property (the brides dowry), which was signed in front of a notary. The 16th century was a watershed period that saw sweeping changes and the introduction of stringent new requirements designed to prevent clandestine (or secret) unions that heads of families opposed. In countries converted to one of the new Reformed or Protestant faiths, marriage ceased to be a sacrament, and laws were passed strengthening parents control over their dependent children. In response to pressure from secular governments, the Catholic Church also modified its position considerably in 1563, when the Council of Trent decreed that a wedding must henceforth be performed in a parish church, by an authorized priest, in the presence of witnesses, and following the proclamation of banns (the public announcement of the ceremony). Changes in legislation did not always translate immediately into changes in practice, however. Situations of doubt or dispute were common and frequently ended up in court. On the margins of the papal city This is the volatile background against which the marriages between men in Rome were set. After piecing together information from several sourcesdiplomatic dispatches, newsletters, fragments of a trial transcript, and brief willsa much fuller, if incomplete, picture of what took place emerges. On a Sunday afternoon in July 1578, a sizable group of men gathered at Saint John at the Latin Gate, a beautiful but remote church on the outer edge of Rome. Many of them were friends who had met there on previous occasions. They were mostly poor immigrants from Spain and Portugal but included several priests and friars. They ate and drank in an atmosphere that was festive, yet strangely subdued. It turned suddenly to confusion and fear with the arrival of the police, who arrested 11 of those present. The rest fled. The Roman authorities had been tipped off about the groups plans to celebrate a marriage, perhaps not for the first time, between two of its members. In the end, the wedding between Gasparo and Gioseffe hadnt taken place: The latterreportedly illfailed to appear. But Gasparo was among those taken prisoner, and, following a trial that lasted three weeks, executed. The exact nature and purpose of the intended ceremony remain uncertain. Some sources describe a marriage celebrated after Mass. Others refer to the giving of rings, a hermit who officiated, or adolescents taking part under constraint or even disguised as women. What we know for sure is that the afternoon was to culminate, like most weddings at the time, in a celebratory feast and the consummation of the unionthat is, in the couple (and, in this instance, perhaps others) having sex. Like husband and wife? Although the same was not true of all the groups members, Gasparo and Gioseffe conformed to established gender norms when having intercourse: According to evidence from the trial, the latter took a male (penetrative) role, the former a female (receptive) one. In other respects, however, their relationship didnt resemble that of traditional spouses. Most importantly, Gioseffe was a friar, prevented from marrying in the eyes of the church. Gioseffes attachment to a convent also means that its unlikely the pair planned on living together. This distinguishes them not only from men and women who married but also from the female married couples we know about from the period, wholike the women described by Montaigneoften did establish a common household, with one cross-dressing and living as a man. In light of the groups generally promiscuous behavior, it seems equally unlikely that Gasparo and Gioseffe intended to embark on a sexually exclusive relationship and thus that they believed the sacrament would remove the sinfulness that the church attached to all extramarital sex. Finally, the purpose of the feast following the planned wedding was not personal or religious but communal. Despite the fact that it greatly increased the chances that the men would be caught, it was clearly important to them as a way to express and build a sense of community. The socially marginalized friends at the Latin Gate had, in fact, developed several of the characteristics of a sexual subculture, like those that would later be found in large European cities in the 18th century. In a number of ways, they anticipated the networks of mollies in London and Paris gens de la manchette (men of the cuff), with their regular meeting places, social activities, and a shared slang. The evidence, then, points to a handful of motivations behind the Roman weddings. Since the friends took the ceremony seriously enough to put themselves at considerable risk, it very likely served to recognize and sanction Gasparo and Gioseffes relationship, claiming that such a union should be possible. At the same time, it may also have had a playful element, parodying and subtly criticizing elements of a traditional wedding. An argument for marriage equality? In one sense, the context for extending marriage rights to same-sex couples today is very different from the 16th century, when most marriages werent based primarily on love and didnt establish legal equality between the spouses. It was after the changes effected by the womens rights movement in the second half of the 20th century to make the institution more equitable that gay and lesbian activists adopted marriage equality as their major goal. Nevertheless, the stories from the 16th century show that marriage has never been a universal and fixed phenomenon. It has a contested history, one that both excludes and includes same-sex couples, who have claimed marriage on their own terms. When viewed through this lens, the ceremony planned that summer afternoon in Rome overturns the narrative that recent political victories were only the culmination of a modern, 20th-century campaign. The friends who met at the Latin Gate offer a striking example of how same-sex couples have long claimed the right to marry and, at the same time, challenged some of marriages traditional norms. This story was originally published on The Conversation. Read it here. This report was originally published by The Combatting Terrorism Center at West Point. By Don Rassler, Muhammad al-Ubaydi, Vera Mirnova Much has been made of the Islamic State drone threat ever since the group killed two Kurdish soldiers in October 2016 with a bomb hidden within one of its drones that Kurdish forces downed in Iraq. The Islamic State was able to achieve this feat through an act of deception, as the two Kurdish soldiers were killed by the bomb after they had taken the drone back to their base to inspect it. Since this type of attack had not been conducted before, the drone was an unassuming place for the Islamic State to hide an improvised explosive device. But that trick only works occasionally, and it likely has a limited shelf life. Creativity and innovation, however, dont appear to be problems for the Islamic State. Several days ago, on January 24, 2017, the groups media office for Ninawa province released a video entitled The Knights of the Dawawin, which highlighted a new Islamic State drone capability: dropping small bomb-like munitions on its enemies from the air.2 The capability displayed was not a one-off achievement as in scene after scene the video shows the group dropping small bombs from remotely controlled drones and doing so with some level of relative accuracy. This included the Islamic State being able to successfully drop munitions onto crowds and to hit stationary vehicles and tanks while its drone loitered and filmed the incidents. Besides the surprise factor observed from those being targeted by the Islamic States drones, the video also showed that the groups new capability packed enough punch to wound and/or kill those near where the munition landed. And on January 30, the Wilayat al-Furat media office released a video entitled Roar of the Lions in which the Islamic State featured its military operations in the Anbar Province of Iraq. At the end of the video, the group showed a brief teaser for its next release, which contained a video clip of the drone bomb drop capability (this time with what appeared to be a round grenade) being used in Anbar. Despite these achievements, it is also important to remember that the videos released by the Islamic State are edited pieces of propaganda, which likely have been carefully crafted to make the groupand its capabilitieslook impressive. What isnt being shown are all of the times U.S. and Iraqi forces have downed the Islamic States quad-copters or instances when the Islamic States new drone bomb drop tool were less accurate. The recent discovery of a small batch of internal Islamic State documents, which were recovered in Iraq and provided to the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC), provides an inside look into how the group has sought to cobble together, develop, and enhance its drone capabilities as well as manage its drone program. The paragraphs below provide a description of the documents and an overview of their significance in light of what is already known about the Islamic States use of drones. The Documents: Background and Caveats The documents reviewed for this analysis were provided to the CTC by Vera Mironova, a research fellow at the Belfer Center at Harvard University. Ms. Mironova personally obtained hard copies of the documents while she was conducting field research in Iraq, embedded with an Iraqi military unit. The documents were discovered in a facility formerly under the control of the Islamic State located in the Muhandeseen neighborhood of Mosul, near Mosul University. While confirming authenticity of these types of documents is always a challenge, the authors believe they are real given the location and circumstances of their acquisition, the nature of the documents, and the CTCs experience working with a wide array of captured battlefield material. All of the documents appear to be from the 2015 time period, and the collection includes a mix of official Islamic State forms and handwritten notes. The 21 documents themselves can be broken down into four main categories: drone use reports, equipment lists/purchase requests, receipts or purchase forms, and permission documents. Given the small number of documents, it is not clear how representative this collection is of the full range of internal Islamic State documentation about the groups drone program. It is very likely that these documents represent only a very small fraction of internal Islamic State material on this topic. Researchers should read the analysis below with these particular caveats in mind. Key Takeaways There are a number of important takeaways that can be gleaned from the documents. They include: The Islamic State is Bureaucratic about its Drones, Too The discovery and capture of internal documents produced by the Islamic State and its predecessor organizations have demonstrated that the group is fairly detail-oriented and bureaucratic when it comes to its operations. Indeed, analyses of previous caches of Islamic State material related to its foreign fighters, media activity, and weapons development have all pointed to an organization that has sought to institutionalize the capture of data through the use of administrative documents and related procedures. The Islamic States drone activity appears to be no exception, as two of the forms found within the collection were standardized drone use reports that had been filled out by Islamic State drone operators after they had completed their missions. According to this set of documents, the Islamic State drone unit conducting these missions falls underneath the Al-Bara bin Malik Brigade, as both formsfilled out based on incidents that occurred in different provincescarried this header. This Brigade is subordinate to the Islamic States Committee of Military Manufacturing and Development. Other documents in the collection were produced by the Aviation Sector of this committee. The standardized four-page form that Islamic State drone operators needed to fill out contained four main sections. On the first page, drone operators were asked to provide the following details about their mission: type of mission (out of six pre-set options that they could select, two indicated weaponized drone missions: Bombing and Explosive Plane), group members who were involved, location of the mission, and waypoint coordinates for the flight. (The two drone use forms in the collection were both for training missions.) The second page of the form consisted of a checklist that appears to have been designed to help the drone operators conduct pre- and/or post-mission confirmation of the functionality of their systems and equipment (to include Bomb Ignition sys and Bomb ignitor RC). The third page is a checklist of tools and devices in the operators Tool Case. The last page of the form asked the operators to note whether their mission had succeeded or failed. It also provided space for the operators to write notes, perhaps to document lessons learned from failed missions or interesting events that occurred during successful ones. One of the documents suggests that the drone program was given a certain level of priority. A document signed by the wali of Wilayat al-Jazira requested on October 4, 2015, that the Committee of Military Manufacturing and Development provide the brothers in the Aviation Brigade of our wilaya with whatever they need from you. The Islamic State Has an Institutionalized Drone Program, Not a Series of One-Off Incidents, and Planned for Weaponization as Early as 2015 The documents in the collection confirm and add color to findings the CTC made in October 2016 about the nature of the Islamic States drone activity. At that time, the CTC identified the Islamic State as being one of four terrorist organizations to have a bona fide drone program. Public records indicate the Islamic States interest in drones dates back to at least 2013, and a number of documents in the collection demonstrate 1) how the Islamic State had a formal, institutionalized, and resourced drone unit as early as 2015, if not before; 2) how this same unit was collecting paperwork from different Iraqi governorates (e.g. Ninevah and Saladin), demonstrating broader geographic management of Islamic State drone activity; and 3) that in 2015 the Islamic State already had plans to use its drones as attack weapons, based on the presence of weapons-related checkboxes on the drone use report documents. Supply lists in the collection also confirm how the Islamic State has been acquiring hardware and other tools to modify and enhance the performance of commercially available drones and to build its own based on existing airframes. None of these points are tremendously surprising as the level of focusand obsession with details and standardizationmirrors the approach the Islamic State has taken with other programs, like the development of rockets and mortars. Acquisition and Purchase Lists Reveal that Islamic State Drones are Not That Sophisticated, but Those Same Lists Also Show How the Group is Resourceful, DIY-Minded, and Solution-Seeking A preliminary review of the equipment and purchase list items, which all appear to be readily available online, tells a mixed story. On one hand, the lists show the Islamic States efforts to acquire predictable items like a GoPro camera, memory cards, GPS units, digital video recorders, and extra propeller blades. Yet, on the other hand, the lists also speak to the groups efforts to secure, modify, and enhance the range and performance of its drones, whether commercially procured or otherwise. For example, to protect the transmission of their drone video feeds, members of the group wanted to acquire encrypted video transmitters and receivers. A long-range radio control relay system produced by Foxtech was also included on a number of acquisition lists (so the group could extend the range of its drones), as were various types of servo motors. While servo motors can be used for a variety of drone-related tasks, they can also be used to facilitate a release mechanism like the release of a munition from an Islamic State drone, a tactic with which the group appears to have become quite proficient. The inclusion of these types of items demonstrates how even though the drone material being requested by the Islamic State is something that a sophisticated high schooler could put together and develop plans for, some of these items can be used for more sinister purposes that can maim or kill. The documents do not reveal how the Islamic State actually acquires the material found on the lists. Given the specific price information provided on forms that appear to be either receipts or purchase forms, it is possible that the Islamic State is acquiring some of this equipment directly onlinelikely through third parties in countries outside the region, to potentially include popular online retailers. Who Does What: Is There a Bangladeshi Foreign Fighter and Islamic State Drone Program Connection? Although it is difficult to judge based on the small number of documents in the collection, the files suggest that fighters from certain countries and/or backgrounds could be playing a disproportionate role in the Islamic States drone operations. For example, while fighters from various countries like Turkey and Saudi Arabia show up in the Islamic States drone documents, the only foreign country with two fighters represented in the collection was Bangladesh. This data point is odd, and noteworthy, as the CTCs analysis of over 4,500 Islamic State foreign fighter records found only three fighters from that country. The potentially disproportionate level of Bangladeshis in the Islamic States drone unit could be due to the skills of those individuals, dynamics related to their own personal networks (i.e. they are friends or know similar people), or the result of a particular placement strategy used by the Islamic State to staff select units. It could also be coincidental. Future Islamic State Drone Use The documents provide few insights into the Islamic States future drone plans. In the short-term, we should expect the Islamic State to refine its drone bomb-drop capability. It is likely that the Islamic States use of this tactic will not only become more frequent, but more lethal as well. One surprising omission from the acquisition lists, which could be telling, were requests for quad-copter-style drones. When requests for drones were featured in the documents, they were for fixed-wing airplane bodies. While fixed-wing drones cannot hover and stay in place, they offer certain advantages such as being able to fly much farther from their controller than quad-copter variants. Indeed, one of the Islamic State drone use reports found in the collection lists the Farthest Point Distance from Launch Point of a fixed-wing SkyHunter drone as approximately eight kilometers. This, and the showcasing of an X8 Skywalker drone (one of the fixed-wing bodies that was requested by the Islamic State in the documents) in its recent video, suggests that the Islamic State might be eyeing the use of fixed-wing drone platforms for other operational purposes, including using them to penetrate facilities and/or conduct longer-range surveillance or attack missions. The discovery of an abandoned Islamic State drone workshop in Ramadi in February 2016 by Conflict Armament Research field investigators, which was being used by the terror group to produce homemade fixed-wing drones, lends some additional credence to this line of thinking. So too does the discovery of a disassembled man-portable air defense system, including the missiles steering unit and warhead section, at that same facility. (The Islamic States experimentation with and use of chemicals as weapons, and its interest in producing biological agents, may also provide additional pathways for future, weaponized drone use.) Islamic State supporters on online forums have dropped similar hints that this might be what the group has in store. For example, in July 2016, one of the active members of al-Minbar al-I`lami al-Jihadi forums named al-Fajr claimed that an Islamic State member had told him that the group was developing an attack drone that can carry rockets and explosive materials. This past December, that same forum member posted a similar message: Your brothers have developed airplanes bigger than those they had before, and theyre developing matching rockets that can be carried by these airplanes and controlled from the ground also, information was leaked to me that an engineer who used to work in airplanes manufacturing in one of the countries advanced in that field has joined the Islamic State. Even if al-Fajrs claims prove false, the Islamic States latest videos and these newly obtained documents demonstrate that the Islamic States drone program should be taken seriously. Don Rassler is Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. His research is focused on terrorist innovation and the changing dynamics of Afghanistans and Pakistans militant landscapes. Muhammad al-`Ubaydi is a research associate at the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and monitors Arabic jihadist websites. Vera Mironova is an international security fellow at the Harvard Kennedy Schools Belfer Center. The views presented are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or U.S. Government. As India Today Group concluded the 2022 Mumbai edition of its premier thought event -- the Conclave, Group Vice Chairperson Kalli Purie thanked the city of Mumbai and its people for playing host to two days of engrossing discussions and debates. "It is so good to be back in Mumbai after three years. Since our last conclave we've all had the best of times and worst of times so it's even more important that we are all here together discussing contentious issues that affect us all," Kalli Purie said. Talking about the two days of Conclave Mumbai and the sessions witnessed, she said that the event's eclectic line-up of speakers and personalities was a reflection of the city and its people. A Republican lawmaker in Ohio wants to make it a felony for her colleagues to protect sanctuary citiesand is using dubious or debunked facts to make her case. Ohio Rep. Candice Keller, a freshman legislator, has proposed a bill that would crack down on so-called sanctuary cities that protect immigrants from federal authorities. Early versions of the bill, which is expected to be introduced this week, would make it a felony for officials to pass laws that shield undocumented immigrantsand allow people to sue individual lawmakers for millions over these immigrants crimes. Speaking in defense of the bill this week, Keller alleged thousands of crimes were committed by undocumented immigrants in sanctuary cities. There are 8,000 unauthorized immigrants with criminal records that have been treated by sanctuary cities despite the fact that federal authorities have been requested that they be turned over for deportations, Keller told reporters earlier this week, according to Ohio Public Radio. And so in eight months time, 7,500 new charges [were] placed on many of those people, including child sex abuse. A lot of the culture and a lot of what we are seeing come in includes not only terrorism and crime but sexual assault, sexually transmitted diseases, child marriage, child rape and prostitution. Six states have already reported rape and sexual assault. Refugees many times say this is sanctioned in their culture and religion and that they simply dont wish to assimilate into our culture. Keller did not return multiple requests for comment on Wednesday. Ohio Rep. Dan Ramos, who is planning opposing legislation that would protect the states sanctuary cities, said the figures dont match the numbers he knows. I dont know where she got that information, Ramos told The Daily Beast. Its something Ive never seen. While Keller did not cite her sources, she appeared to be drawing from a single disputed report from the Center for Immigration Studies, a self-described low-immigration think tank with a history of making outlandish claims on immigrants crimes. Though CIS bills itself as nonpartisan, the group has been slammed by civil rights groups like the SPLC, which accused it of presenting misleading data in order to serve its mission of stemming immigration. To make its case seem as strong as possible, CIS often manipulates data, relying on shaky statistics or faulty logic to come to the preordained conclusion that immigration is bad for this country, the SPLC wrote in 2010, citing three CIS reports that variously implied that immigrants constitute a disproportionate share of welfare beneficiaries (they dont), that increased border patrol efforts were slowing immigration (unverified), and that fraudulent green card marriages could make the U.S. vulnerable to terrorist attacks (speculation, by CISs own admission). The numbers Keller cites appear to come from a 2015 CIS study based on a Department of Homeland Security report. The report only covered eight months in 2014 and in municipalities that have policies that restrict city interaction with immigration officials. The CIS report claims that sanctuary cities caused the release of more than 8,000 criminal alien offenders sought by ICE [Immigrations and Customs Enforcement] for deportation, and that nearly 7,500 of these immigrants reoffended after the city allowed their release. But other immigration experts say the report is misleading because it is based on ICE detainers, which are notices sent to local law enforcement to request custody of an immigrant, or information on when an immigrant will be released from incarceration. When CIS refers to criminal aliens that are released in sanctuary cities, the organization is referring to instances in which cities rejected ICE detainers. Cities are not legally required to comply with ICE detainers, an expert with the American Immigration Council, an immigrant-rights think tank, told The Daily Beast. And a rejected detainer does not mean an immigrant avoided arrest. A city might have detained the immigrant in jail and declined to turn them over to ICE, or ICE might have arrested the immigrant without the citys help. Even Kellers claim that sanctuary cities sheltered 8,000 unauthorized immigrants with criminal records is not necessarily supported by the DHS report on which the CIS study is based. The DHS report addresses detainers for individuals who were previously charged or convicted of a crime or presented some other public safety concern. The immigrants might have been charged of a crime but were found innocent, or might have been flagged without any charges at all. And those convicted of crimes might have been booked for illegally entering and reentering the country, the AIC spokesperson noted. Keller suggested undocumented immigrants made cities vulnerable to not only terrorism and crime but sexual assault, sexually transmitted diseases, child marriage, child rape and prostitution. But even when an immigrant avoided arrest by ICE and went on to commit a crime, their offenses were minor, seldom the garish attacks Keller described. The top criminal arresting charges after a declined detainer are dangerous drugs (10 percent of all charges), driving under the influence of liquor (7 percent), traffic offense (6 percent), stolen vehicle (5 percent), and arson (5 percent), the DHS report said. Of the thousands of undocumented immigrants not detained by ICE, the agency identified six who had committed particularly high-profile crimes against person(s) and/or property. And the vast majority of undocumented immigrants do not commit crimes while in the country; in fact, studies suggest, immigrants are less likely than U.S. natives to commit a crime. This idea that not only are these folks undocumented but theyre committing all these other crimes, every piece of evidence I find says the opposite is true: that undocumented folks tend to commit less crime than native-born people, Ramos said, citing an AIC study that found that 1.6 percent of immigrant men aged 18-39 were incarcerated, as opposed to 3.3 percent of U.S.-born men in the same age group. But under Kellers proposed legislation, legislators who helped protect undocumented immigrants could become criminals themselves. The proposed bills current text would make it a fourth-degree felony for an official to pass laws restricting cooperation with federal immigrations officials. Offending lawmakers could face up to 18 months in jail and $5,000 fine, the Associated Press reports. Under the proposed legislation, people injured by undocumented immigrants could sue lawmakers for up to $1 million, or up to $3 million if more than two people were injured. That is one of the more frankly ridiculous portions of this proposed legislation, Ramos said. We dont lock people up for crimes they didnt commit in the United States of America, and thats what this is proposing to do. Even if this were to pass who do you lock up? The gentleman who proposed the law? The people who voted for it? The people later on who didnt repeal it? The central contradiction in Donald Trumps foreign policy, so far as a policy can be divined, has been reconciling his love and hatred for two American enemies. The love, of course, is for Vladimir Putin; a killer, sure, but then again, who isnt? His hatred is for the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was quite rightly described by Defense Secretary James Mattis the other day as the the single biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, albeit one still enjoying close Russian air and tactical support and intelligence-sharing in Syria, as well as a healthy and growing arms trade with Moscow. But not to worry. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that a budding Trumpist strategy is to try and cleave Putin away from the ayatollahs. If theres a wedge to be driven between Russia and Iran, were willing to explore that, one unnamed administration official told the newspaper, which also relied on a number of unnamed European and Arab officials who confirmed that this was indeed the long view coming into focus in a White House where the new tenants still sometimes confer in the dark because they havent yet found all the light switches. One well-known Russian foreign policy analyst, who asked to be quoted anonymously for this story, laughed at the idea that Moscow and Tehran could be broken up, least of all by this commander in chief. I think Trump and Pence are out of their depth on Russia and Iran, he told The Daily Beast. Moscow will milk them for everything theyre worth. Putin, no surprise, is likely to welcome such an overture from Trump and even subtly encourage it. Not that hes interested in a good-faith negotiation about swapping allies in his own peculiar war on terror. Its just that hes always fond of buying time, extracting concessions and undercutting American interests. So quixotic American efforts to get him to stop are welcome. (Proof of concept: the so-called reset in bilateral relations during the first Obama term, which Republicans excoriated as a mugs deal before, it seems, forgetting their assessment of the mugger eight years later.) Additionally, Putin and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also have a common objective in seeing NATO destroyed and the European Union broken up. But they dont even need to bargain with Trump for those goals; his many statements and actions show he shares them already. Any substantive deal winning Putin away from his Persian embrace would almost certainly entail the lifting of all U.S. sanctions on Russia for the invasion and occupation of Ukraine, plus formally recognizing Crimea as sovereign Russian territory. Such a diplomatic volte-face would put Washington in violation of international law and make it a pariah among Western liberal democracies, or whats left of them. Moreover, Iran is the primary ground force in Syria, meaning that whether the Kremlin likes it or not, its military bases and intelligence assets are all at the mercy of Irans janissaries. We are toast without Hezbollah, the analyst said matter-of-factly, noting that the Russians are currently trying to train and equip two Moscow-controlled Syrian Coastal Divisions. Even assuming these were to come into some semblance of professional existence, they would still be woefully insufficient to hold all the strategic ground retaken from Syrian rebels in the last two years. Other Russian military analysts acidly agree that Assads army is barely a paper kitten at this point. The extent to which Putin and Khameneis facts on the ground have grown codependent has been outlined in detailed by Paul Bucala, an Iran expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute (PDF). He, too, concludes that any U.S. appeasement effort to persuade Russia to abandon Iran in Syria will ultimately be unsuccessful. His evidence is arrayed on the Syrian battlefield. In the recent campaign to recapture rebel-held east Aleppo, he found, Iran deployed thousands of soldiers from across its military branches over a 15-month operation, including from its conventional military, or Artesh, its Basij paramilitary force, and its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Ground Forces and Quds Force, the latter being the foreign expeditionary arm headed by the hardest working man in show business, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani. The Quds Force is currently a U.S.-designated terrorist entity; Trump is strongly considering that designation for the IRGC as writ large. Perhaps its best non-Persian subsidiary is Lebanese Hezbollah, another U.S.-designated terror group, which, along with the IRGC, has been training and arming various Afghan and Pakistani and Iraqi Shia militias in northern Syria, which have now been joined by a smaller contingent of Russian Special Forces. This veritable Benetton advertisement for foreign fighters was intended to compensate for the shortfall in combat-ready Syrian regime soldiers. That it did. The retaking of Aleppo was credited by IRGC Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, the senior military adviser to the supreme leader, as the spadework of the Iran-Russia-Syria-Hezbollah coalition. Safavi wasnt posturing in his prioritization of the two stars in that constellation. The least remarked-upon aspect of Russias intervention in the Syrian war, which began in September 2015 under the pretext of fighting ISIS (in reality, most of the bombs dropped have been on civilians or anti-ISIS rebels) has been its tutorial role. Iran fights much better now, thanks to Russia. High-ranking IRGC Ground Forces officers served as senior advisers in Irans military involvement in Syria since at least the middle of 2012, but their involvement was limited to a senior Train, Advise, and Assist (TAA) capacity, Bucala writes. Their casualties spiked after Russia entered the fray, but only because Iran took that opportunity to send in forces whose remit wasnt limited to training, advising, and assisting but to engaged in active combat duty. This is likely because state-of-the-art, Russian-manned Sukhois and MiGs, they felt, were felt to be a safer canopy than Syrian-piloted Soviet clunkers. When Putins jets took off from Irans Shahid Nojeh Air Base in Hamedan province, Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Deghan assailed the Kremlins publicity of the event as showing off, adding to belief prevalent among diplomats that there is daylight between Moscow and Tehran. Lesser noticed, however, was how gratified one Iranian major general at Shahid Nojeh was that his pilots were now able to observe at close range how these aircraft were operated. Better integrating ground and air combat a la russe is something of an Iranian fixation, according to Bucala and Genevieve Casagrande, a Russia expert at the Institute for the Study of War. The IRGC Ground Forces, they write, created a new air assault unit in late February 2016, possibly influenced by observing Russian Special Forces operations around Aleppo earlier that year. Now Iran wants Russias warplanes, too, specifically a fleet of Sukhoi-30 fighter-bombers, which, Bucala and Casagrande note, would significantly reduce Tehrans reliance on Russian (and, in Iraq, American) fixed-wing aviation to support its ground operations. Putin is also making Khameneis hold on power stronger at home. Russias delivery last fall of the S-300 anti-aircraft system to Iranafter years of on-again-off-again promises, lawsuits and recommitments pegged to U.S. pressure and now-lifted UN sanctiongave Iran a domestic air defense capability similar to what Russia has built up in Syria. In either theater, these missiles are meant primarily to deter one nation. Guess which one. OK, but lets say Trump did actively pick a fight with Iran, or simply responded in kind to another Iranian provocation of the sort Barack Obama used to downplay or ignore. If the U.S. and Iran did find themselves in a state of war in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, or elsewhere, where American forces could be targeted by the IRGC and vice versa, what would Russia do? First it would deny that Iran was responsible for any wrongdoing, particularly if American soldiers were shot, bombed, or shelled in multidimensional conflict zones. Itd blame al Qaeda or ISIS. If the fighting were less plausibly deniable, say between flagged vessels in the Persian Gulf, Russia would gladly play its traditional role of peacemaker. It stepped up its military footprint and influence-peddling in the Middle East not to further the prospect of having America come calling but to replace America as the linchpin power for the conduct of all major regional business. By risking a showdown with the mullahs, Trump is only bound to play further into Putins hands. Or, as the aforementioned Russian foreign policy analyst put it, We would love to see the U.S. getting bogged down in a messy little conflict with Iran. 1 Report: Trump Told Putin Obama-Era Nukes Deal Was Bad ONLY THE BEST DEALS The Dalit student's opinions on demonetisation, politics and government policy were of outstanding nature that may even shame the best of analysts. By India Today Web Desk: Archit Kumar goes to school at SBRL Academy, around 4-5 km from Mainpuri, in the heart of Uttar Pradesh. India Today's Lallan Top team met Archit along with his classmates at his school. Archit turned out to be an exceptionally bright student in 11th standard. He's among the toppers of his class. The discussion was on demonetisation, or notebandi, and whether it was a success or a failure. Archit's opinions on demonetisation, politics and government policy were of outstanding nature that may even shame the best of analysts. advertisement "My friends here have brought out the many advantages of demonetisation, including the fact that black money has been exposed. But on corruption, let me ask you, if there was any black money recovered from a political leader. All the hardships were faced by the common man. If black money has been exposed, then please show us the data of all the black money recovered. Obviously, the decision was taken in a hurry. It would have been an astounding success if some thought was given to it, perhaps after meeting with the experts," said Archit. Archit belongs to a Dalit family in Mainpuri, Akhilesh Yadav' home turf, and Mayawati is his favourite political leader. The reason he supports Mayawati is because of her efforts aimed towards the upliftment of the oppressed classes - especially towards the Dalits. Mayawati, according to him, is a leader who not only does her best to make the world a fairer place for the lower castes, but also tries to provide welfare to all. "Mayawati represents the Dalits and wants the betterment of not only the backward classes but everybody," said Archit. Archit offers his humble gratitude when complimented on his sharp political acumen which he says comes from reading news and the atmosphere in his family. Also Read: || Ann-shunned: Upper caste students reject food cooked by Dalit woman || Arvind Kejriwal is another politician whom Archit respects because of his educational qualifications and efforts to bring transparency and development in governance. According to him, it is only an educated leader who can bring about true development. WATCH | This 11-year-old Dalit boy rips apart demonetisation like no other --- ENDS --- A significant share of acid attack victims are men but their cases generally go unreported, because most victims are women and there is a gross underestimation of the numbers. By Arpan Rai: Acid attacks are most often seen as a crime against women. The majority of victims are young women who face the ire of jilted lovers and even law commissions have reported that it is a gender-based violence. But increasingly, a significant share of acid attack victims are men. Their cases generally go unreported, simply because most of the victims are women and there is a gross underestimation of the numbers. advertisement But there are many like Aditya, a toddler who was left to die on roadside after his mother's jilted lover poured acid on his face and body or Firoz (42), who was watching TV casually when an altercation between his brother and neighbour turned ugly. Meet the men acid attack survivors of Delhi. NEIGHBOURHOOD SCUFFLE SCARRED FIROZ KHAN FOR LIFE Firoz Khan, now 42, was 27-year-old when a neighbourhood scuffle scarred him for life. While the physical pain continues to hurt, the mental agony is perhaps even worse as he makes rounds of the court to prove that he was in fact the victim and not the attacker. Khan, speaking to Mail Today, said that he was watching TV inside his house on a cold January winter evening in 2002 when an altercation intensified between neighbours and his younger brother. "I ran outside as it did not sound like just another neighbourhood scuffle. I saw my brother arguing with our neighbour and naturally came to his rescue. I asked him to go inside and within a second, the neighbour fetched a bucket full of acid and with a mug, started to throw it on us." Firoz saved himself from grave injuries by rushing towards a community hand pump. But the damage was already done. "I sat under running water but it did not stop the fumes rising from my body. My skin melted and started peeling off within seconds," Firoz said. 15 years later, despite being the victim, he is being made to go to for hearings at the Tis Hazari court every month as the accused, one Kaushal Kishor, filed a complaint against him."I have spent money for fifteen years now on my medication. I could not lie down for a year on my back infected with pus. Now I have to to prove my innocence." "We have decided to move to High Court now but it will easily take five to six years for the verdict," said Manoj Bhandari, Firoz's lawyer. DELHI'S YOUNGEST ACID ATTACK SURVIVOR- ADITYA RAJ Two and a half-year-old Aditya Raj is Delhi's youngest acid-attack survivor. The toddler was kidnapped by his mother's jilted lover on December 13, when he was playing right outside his house. advertisement "I went inside to get money to buy him corn but when I came back, Aditya was missing. I ran to check with every neighbour but we could not spot him until the next morning." Aditya was found by police next morning with burnt skin, which had almost turned black. But he was in a conscious when cops spotted him near a drain. From that day till now, we have visited four hospitals for his treatment and we don't know how many more visits are in store for us, said Jamuna Prasad, Aditya's father. "He will undergo another surgery next month which will rectify his air passage from the left nostril," the father said. Soni, Aditya's mother, rued how the incident changed this toddler, who does not come near his mother anymore. "If he sees a stranger now, his first instinct is to run inside the house or simply break down. He grows inconsolable," said Soni. As parents, the couple has given up their hopes to let him go outside the house, let alone send him to school. "His left eye doesn't shut anymore. He sleeps with his left eye open," Soni told Mail Today. advertisement UPENDRA KUMAR FELL PREY TO NEIGHBOURHOOD RIVALRY Upendra Kumar, who is just 14 years old, fell prey to a neighbourhood rivalry born out of a petty fight where a family opposed their kids friendship with him. One day, when he was coming home after playing with them, two unidentified men poured acid in Upendra's eyes, leaving him blinded and both corneas damaged. "My son's education has come to a halt for two years now. I am struggling everyday after work to teach him braille so that he can pick up studies but there is no help extended from the government so far for his education," said Upendra's father Rajveer Singh. ALSO READ | Bengaluru: Jilted lover throws acid at boyfriend for refusing to marry her, slashes face with surgical knife Tale of an acid attack survivor who now deals with crime complaints in DCW --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Feb 9 (PTI) Aviation regulator DGCA has said the Brand Licencing Agreement (BLA) of AirAsia India does not violate the "substantial ownership and effective control" norms. The Directorate General of Civil Aviations (DGCA) conclusion comes after a detailed review of the BLA that was directed by the Delhi High Court in November 2016. The report has been submitted to the court. advertisement AirAsia India, a joint venture between the Tatas and Malaysias AirAsia Berhad, commenced operations in June 2014. While Tata Sons holds 49 per cent, its two directors -- S Ramadorai and R Venkataramanan -- have 0.5 per cent and 1.5 per cent shareholding, respectively, in the airline. The remaining 49 per cent is with AirAsia Investment Ltd. The BLA is between AirAsia Berhad (licensor) and AirAsia India (licensee). Under the pact, AirAsia India has been permitted to the operate scheduled air services under the trade name and livery of the licensor. "Based on the review of BLA along with provisions of Aircraft Rules, 1937 and... definition of control as provided in the FDI policy, I do not find that the terms and conditions laid down in BLA dilute the substantial ownership and effective control of AirAsia India being vested with the Indian nationals," the regulator said. "Further, status on issuance of AOP to AirAsia India does not change," DGCA Director General B S Bhullar said in the report submitted to the Court. The regulator has put up the report on its website. There have been concerns expressed in certain quarters about the control at the budget carrier. Following the Delhi High Court order, DGCA reviewed the BLA to check about the control of AirAsia India in the context of Aircraft Rules and FDI norms. DGCA also said the BLA itself provides for compliance with applicable laws of India and also mandates the parties that substantial ownership and effective control of the licensee remains, at all times, with Indian residents. While sharing the report of DGCA -- which reviewed the BLA -- submitted to the Delhi High Court, AirAsia India said it remains committed to the Indian aviation industry. "As an Low Cost Carrier (LCC) operating in India, we are supportive of the government and aviation industrys initiatives and policies and will continue to expand our network in regional India. "Our expansion is on track, demonstrated through triple digit revenue for the first time since inception in December 2016...," the airline said in a release today. advertisement AirAsia India, which currently has eight planes, is expected to have a fleet of 20 aircraft by mid 2018. PTI RAM IAS ABI --- ENDS --- On the 29th January 2017, three leading animal welfare campaigners from the UK made a mercy mission to Romania. Anneka Svenska, 43, Wildlife TV Presenter and Conservationist who had previously rescued 300 dogs from Romania and dog meat trade. Anneka is the founder of Green World TV; an online TV channel she created solely to support animal welfare and conservation. She is also director of Angels for the Innocent Foundation. (AFI) Nicky Stevens, 41, Founder of charity International Aid for the Protection and Welfare of Animals (IAPWA). Nicky has previously received a British Citizen Award for international achievement for her work in Borneo and won the Ceva 'Charity of the Year' Award in 2015. Amanda Leask 46, animal rescuer and author from Scotland. Known for the famous "Miracle" the dog who refused to die', saved from the illegal dog meat trade in Thailand. Amanda is trustee for IAPWA with ambition to make change for animals on an international scale. The reason for the trip was to film the plight of the Romanian street dogs and to bring their terrible suffering to a wider global audience. What they witnessed shocked everyone in the team and heightened the urgency of why the country desperately needs support and new legislation to protect its animals. In Romania today there are around 64,000 feral dogs in Bucharest alone. The dog population arose as a result of systematization, a policy imposed during the Communist regime that ruled Romania for decades. Systematization forced people to move into apartment blocks and abandon their dogs. On the second day, the campaigners visited a charitable vet practice Dog Rescue Romania headed up by husband and wife vets Garofita and Rudi Hofman. It was clear that the couple devoted their life to providing free vet care for as many of the Bucharest street dogs as possible. They stand by their word that no dog is ever released back onto the streets and if it cannot be treated and adopted, it would be cared for in their own sanctuary. During the visit, the campaigners witnessed dogs with heart-breaking injuries, paralysis and medical conditions. Two men burst in with a dog who had been tragically run over and the vets fought for over an hour to save the dog before he died on their table. But nothing was to prepare them for what was to come next and shortly after a female German Shepherd was rushed into the practice with some of the worst injuries ever seen - a victim of the most harrowing and extreme torture. The gentle old street dog had been beaten, partially dismembered and sexually abused with a knife. Even her teeth had been cruelly extracted. The vets fought hard and did everything they could to treat her and to pull her out of her critical condition. The lady who found the dog, passed through every day to feed the strays and told Anneka on film that she had found three dead puppies in the same place as the mutilated shepherd that week, one cut in half, another's with its skull caved in and the third disembowelled. When she fell upon the German Shepherd, which she felt had been carefully placed', as if left their for her to find, she immediately took it as a sign that someone was trying to signal to her to stop feeding the street dogs. When questioned to whether she felt the police would intervene, she said that she was not hopeful as in Romania there are no animal welfare laws upheld to protect stray dogs. Despite the evidently dangerous attacker and the risk he could pose to children and women, she still felt that the Romanian police were unable to act. The dog has been named Spirit' and is on her way to a complete recovery thanks to vets Dog Rescue Romania. The dog will travel to the UK later in the year and be rehomed. Call to Action Having returned to the UK, the campaigners are taking immediate action to prevent more dogs having to suffer horrendous torture and are planning to create a petition to ask for changes in legislation, alongside Romanian lobbying organisations and charities in order to improve the welfare of street dogs and the prosecution of individual engaged in abuse and cruelty. They will be calling for: The cover story for why TISA is being negotiated is that it would uphold the right to hire the accountant or engineer of your choice, but in reality is intended to enable the financial industry and Internet companies to run roughshod over countries around the world. And while 'liberalization' of professional services is being promoted, the definition of 'services' is being expanded in order to stretch the category to encompass manufacturing. Deborah James of the Center for Economy and Policy Research laid out the breathtaking scope of this proposal: "Corporations no longer consider setting up a plant and producing goods to be simply 'manufacturing goods.' This activity is now is broken down into research and development services, design services, legal services, real estate services, architecture services, engineering services, construction services, energy services, employment contracting services, consulting services, manufacturing services, adult education services, payroll services, maintenance services, refuse disposal services, warehousing services, data management services, telecommunications services, audiovisual services, banking services, accounting services, insurance services, transportation services, distribution services, marketing services, retail services, postal and expedited delivery services, and after-sales servicing, to name a few. "Going further, a shoe or watch that measures steps or sleep could be a fitness monitoring service, not a good. A driverless car could be a transport service, not an automobile. Google and Facebook could be information services and communication services, respectively." Why are we kept in the dark? Before we get to the details of the text itself, let's take a quick look at how the world's governments, on behalf of multi-national capital, are letting their citizens know what they are up to. Or, to be more accurate, what they are not telling you. Many governments have not bothered to update their official pages extolling TISA in months. The European Union is negotiating TISA on behalf of its 28 member countries, along with, among others, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Norway, Switzerland, Pakistan and Turkey. In the United States, the new Trump administration has yet to say a word about it. The Office of the US Trade Representative web site's page on TISA still says "TiSA is part of the Obama Administration's ongoing effort to create economic opportunity for U.S. workers and businesses by expanding trade opportunities." Uh-huh. President Donald Trump is not against 'free trade' deals; he simply claims he can do it better. The Trump administration has issued blustery calls for "fair deals" and braggadocio puffing up Donald Trump's supposed negotiating prowess. A typical White House passage reads, "To carry out his strategy, the President is appointing the toughest and smartest to his trade team, ensuring that Americans have the best negotiators possible. For too long, trade deals have been negotiated by, and for, members of the Washington establishment." More typical of the TISA negotiators is the latest report from the European Commission, which summarized the latest round, held last November, this way: "Parties made good progress in working towards an agreed text and finding pathways towards solving the most controversial outstanding issues at both Chief Negotiators and Heads of Delegation levels." The Canadian government's last update is from last June and declares "Parties conducted a stocktaking session to assess the level of progress on all issues." Traveling across the Pacific brings no more useful information. Australia's government offers this information-free update: "Parties agreed to a comprehensive stocktake of the negotiations, identifying progress made and areas which require ongoing technical work." New Zealand's government can't even be bothered to provide updates, instead offering only discredited, boilerplate public-relations puffery similar to other trade offices. TISA may be in trouble - but we can't afford to relax The one hint that TISA negotiations are experiencing difficulty that could be found through an extensive online search is this passage in a US Congressional Research Service report dated January 3, 2017: "Recognizing that outstanding issues remain and the U.S. position under a new administration is unclear, the parties canceled the planned December 2016 meeting but are meeting to determine how best to move forward in 2017." Given that the new administration is moving as fast as possible to eliminate the tepid Dodd-Frank Act financial-industry reforms, it would seem TISA's provisions to dismantle financial regulation globally would not be a problem at all. But that these talks are not progressing at the present time does not mean the world can relax. It took years of cross-border organizing and popular education to stop the TPP, and this effort will have to replicated if TISA is to be halted. The details are the devils already known Commentary accompanying Bilaterals.org's publication of several TISA chapters stresses that the Trans-Pacific Partnership, despite its apparent defeat, is nonetheless being used as the model for the Trade In Services Agreement. Thus we are at risk of the TPP becoming the 'new norm': "Several proposed texts from the failed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement have been transferred to TiSA - including state-owned enterprises; rights to hold data offshore (including financial data); e-commerce; and prohibitions on performance requirements for foreign investors. "While these texts originated with the United States, they appear to be supported by other parties to the TPP, even though those governments were reluctant to agree to them in the TPP and will no longer be bound by that agreement. That suggests the TPP may become the new norm even though it has only been ratified in two of the 12 countries, and that was done on the basis of U.S. participation that no longer applies. "TPP cannot be allowed to become the new 'default' position for these flawed agreements." Some of the most extreme measures have been dropped (at least for now) and much of the text is not agreed. Nonetheless, there is nothing to cheer about, Bilaterals.org reports. "The effectiveness of opposition to TiSA has led governments to conclude that they cannot sell some of the more extreme proposals, which have thus been dropped from previous leaked texts. But the fetters on the rights and responsibilities of governments to regulate in the interests of their citizens from what remains would still go further than any single other agreement. "There are no improvements on the inadequate protections for health, environment, privacy, workers, human rights, or economic development. And there is nothing to prevent developing countries becoming even more vulnerable and dependent in an already unequal and unfair global economy." De-development in the poorest countries Hypocritically, TISA would prohibit developing countries from adopting measures that countries like the United States used to facilitate its industrial development when it was an emerging country in the 19th century. In an analysis for WikiLeaks, Sanya Reid Smith of the Third World Network, an international coalition specializing in development issues, wrote: "[T]he proposals in this text restrict the ability of developing countries to use the development paths taken by many of the developed TISA countries. Some experts call this developed countries 'kicking away the ladder' after they have climbed up, to prevent developing countries from developing the same way ... "In TISA, the USA is proposing restrictions on host countries being able to require senior managers be citizens of the host country. Yet when it was a capital importer, the USA had the opposite law: its 1885 contract labour law prohibited the import of foreign workers, i.e. the USA required senior managers (and all other staff) be Americans, which increased the chances of skills being passed to locals." Letting banks decide what's good for you These proposals are more extreme than language in existing bilateral trade agreements. Many of TISA's provisions are lifted from TPP, but some go beyond the latter's already extreme proposals. For example, not even the TPP contemplated the entire elimination of regulations of any kind against the financial industry. Article 14 of TISA's annex on financial services, which had contained the most explicit language prohibiting regulation, has been removed, but Article 9 still contains language requiring no limitations beyond those applying to domestic financial firms. In other words, a smaller country would be required to allow a giant bank from a bigger country to take over its entire banking system. Incredibly, regulations against financial derivatives yet to be invented would be illegal. A Public Citizen analysis states: "TISA would require governments to allow any new financial products and services - including ones not yet invented - to be sold within their territories. The TISA Annex on Financial Services clearly states that TISA governments 'shall permit' foreign-owned firms to introduce any new financial product or service, so long as it does not require a new law or a change to an existing law." As another example, the financial-services annex (in article 21) would require that any government that offers financial products through its postal service lessen the quality of its products so that those are no better than what private corporations offer. Article 1 of the financial-services annex states that "activities forming part of a statutory system of social security or public retirement plans" are specifically covered by TISA, as are "activities conducted by a central bank or monetary authority or by any other public entity in pursuit of monetary or exchange-rate policies." That social security or other public retirement systems are covered is cause for much alarm because they could be judged to be 'illegally competing' with private financial enterprises. It is conceivable that central banks could be constrained from actions intended to shore up economies during a future financial crisis if banks decide such measures 'constrain' their massive profiteering off the crisis. Freedom of information - strictly for the corporations Article 10 of the annex continues to explicitly ban restrictions on the transfer of information in "electronic or other form" of any "financial service supplier". In other words, EU laws guarding privacy that stop US-based Internet companies from taking data outside the EU to circumvent those privacy laws would be null and void. Laws instituting privacy protections would be verboten before they could be enacted. These rules, if enacted, could also provide a boon to companies like Uber whose modus operandi is to circumvent local laws. The Bilaterals.org analysis accompanying the leaks notes: "The main thrust of TiSA comes through the e-commerce, telecommunications, financial services and localisation rules and countries' commitments to allow unfettered cross-border supply of services. "Together they would empower the global platforms who hold big data, like Google, without effective privacy protections, and tech companies like Uber, who have become notorious for evading national regulation, paying minimal tax and exploiting so-called self-employed workers. Given the backlash against global deals for global corporations TiSA will simply add fuel to the bonfire." Who interprets the rule is crucial The language of TISA, like all 'free trade' agreements, is dry and legalistic. How these rules are interpreted is what ultimately matters. TISA contains standard language requiring arbitration by judges possessing "requisite knowledge". That language means that the usual lineup of corporate lawyers who represent corporations in these tribunals will switch hats to sit in judgment. The tribunals used to settle these 'investor-state disputes' are held in secret with no accountability and no appeal. The intention of 'free trade' agreements is to elevate corporations to the level of governments. In reality, they raise corporations above the level of governments because only 'investors' can sue; governments and people can't. 'Investors' can sue governments to overturn any law or regulation that they claim will hurt profits or even potential future profits. On top of this, a government ordinarily has to pay millions of dollars in costs even in the rare instances when they win one of these cases. Each 'free trade' agreement has a key provision elevating corporations above governments that codifies the 'equal treatment' of business interests in accordance with international law and enables corporations to sue over any regulation or other government act that violates 'investor rights', which means any regulation or law that might prevent the corporation from extracting the maximum possible profit. Under these provisions, taxation and regulation constitute 'indirect expropriation' mandating compensation - a reduction in the value of an asset is sufficient to establish expropriation rather than a physical taking of property as required under customary law. Tribunal decisions become precedents for further expansions of investor 'rights' and thus constitute the 'evolving standard of investor rights' required under 'free trade' agreements. TISA contains the usual passages requiring 'equal treatment'. What it's really all about: deregulation and corporate empowerment At bottom, 'free trade' deals have little to do with trade and much to do with imposing corporate wish lists through undemocratic means, including the elimination of any meaningful regulations for labor, safety, health or the environment. TISA is another route to imposing more of this agenda. And the TPP itself isn't necessarily dead - both Chile and New Zealand are holding discussions with other TPP countries to salvage some of the deal. Chile has invited TPP countries, plus China, to a March summit and the New Zealand trade minister is visiting Australia, Japan, Mexico and Singapore. Working people around the world scored a major victory in stopping the TPP, at least in its current form. The activists who achieved this deserve much credit. But there is far more to do. Capital never rests; nor can we. Here we have class warfare in naked fashion, and there is no doubt on which side the capitalist world's governments lie. Pete Dolack is an activist, writer, poet and photographer, and writes on Systemic Disorder. His book 'It's Not Over: Lessons from the Socialist Experiment', a study of attempts to create societies on a basis other than capitalism, was recently published by Zero Books. This article was originally published on Systemic Disorder. Describe it as a personal chemistry between the 43-year-old Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and the 46-year-old Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, or explain it as the geometric progression of the pre-poll Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance. But the truth is the alliance between the two parties is rapidly reducing the advantage the Bharatiya Janata Party enjoyed till recently, buoyed by the public response to the surgical strike across the LoC and demonetisation being sold as a pro-poor initiative. As UP heads to vote, the india today-Axis pre-poll survey reveals that what started as a three-cornered contest-between the BJP, BSP and SP-Congress alliance-is ending up as a fiercely competitive bipolar fight between the BJP, as the single largest party, and the surging SP-Congress alliance. The survey shows that the edge held by the BJP in the surveys in October and December 2016 has begun to give way. In the January 2017 survey, the seats projected for the BJP have reduced to a range of 180-191 (out of 403) from 206-216 in December. This despite the party's popular vote share increasing by 1.6 per cent, from 33.2 per cent in December to 34.8 per cent now. Since opinion polls usually have a margin of error of up to 3 per cent, the BJP's marginal lead in India's bellwether state could turn either way in a closely contested election. The SP-Congress alliance is projected to get 168 to 179 seats, compared to just 92 to 97 seats for the SP and 5 to 7 for the Congress in December. advertisement The implications of this late surge by the alliance will surely change political equations in Lucknow after March 11, the vote-count day. With a slender lead, the BJP is likely to end up as the single largest party, prevented by the SP-Congress alliance from forming a government on its own. Or else, the alliance, with 33.2 per cent popular vote, will not only close the 1.6 percentage point gap with the BJP but snatch the number one position from it. The potential of the alliance crossing the finishing line is also indicated by the choice of chief minister among the respondents, 45 per cent of who consider development as the main electoral issue. Incumbent CM Akhilesh Yadav, who has announced a slew of development projects in the state, enjoys 35 per cent popularity as the next CM. His nearest rival, BJP veteran Rajnath Singh, is way behind at 21 per cent. While it is practically neck-and-neck between the BJP and SP-Congress alliance, the Bahujan Samaj Party is a distant third with 20 per cent popular vote share but projected seats as few as 39-43. Surveys frequently underestimate the BSP, despite the silent support it enjoys among the masses. The question is whether the BSP's apparent losses will translate into gains for the BJP or the SP-Congress alliance. The answer partly lies in how far the alliance is able to paper over the contradictions in seat arrangements on the ground during the next six weeks of the campaign and how much the Narendra Modi-led NDA government is able to sell Budget 2017 to the voters in India's most populous and politically significant state. Photo: Qamar Sibtan Photo: Qamar Sibtan In Punjab's triangular contest, the survey shows the Congress continuing to ride a strong anti-incumbency wave against the 10-year-old Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP government. With a 37 per cent popular vote share and seats projected in the range of 60 to 65 (out of 117), the Congress looks to be in a position to form the government. However, the Aam Aadmi Party is poised to make big gains and finish a close runner-up, with only a 3 percentage point gap with the Congress and a projection of as many as 41-44 seats. The SAD-BJP alliance is hopelessly behind, with 24 per cent voter support and just 11-15 seats. advertisement In both Goa and Uttarakhand, says the survey, the BJP appears to enjoy an edge over its challengers. The BJP's advantage in the 70-seat Uttarakhand is because of the strong anti-incumbency against the Congress. In contrast, the BJP, as the incumbent in Goa, is benefitting from the split in the opposition vote between the Congress and new player AAP. The survey projects the BJP's seats in Goa in the range of 22-25 out of 40 and the Congress's at 12-14. In Uttarakhand, there is a yawning gap between the popular vote shares of the BJP (44 per cent) and the Congress (35 per cent). The BJP could bag 40-44 seats, restricting the Congress to 23-27. The fierce battle for the throne in UP is the result of a bipolar sociological divide across communities. According to the survey, while the BJP has 68 per cent support among the upper castes and 56 per cent across the backward castes, barring the Yadavs, the SP-Congress alliance draws 82 per cent support from Yadavs and 74 per cent from Muslims. The BSP gets 60 per cent support from the Dalits. Despite 99 tickets distributed among Muslims, the party has only secured 12 per cent support from the community, down from 20 per cent in 2012. In Punjab, the Congress is more popular among the backward castes and Dalits among Hindus. The AAP draws greater support from the backward castes and Dalits among Sikhs. The Congress is more popular among the urban voters while the AAP finds greater appeal in the countryside. advertisement Victories in UP, Uttarakhand and Goa are likely to give the BJP a boost countrywide. But a Congress win in Punjab and the possibility of the SP-Congress alliance in UP beating the BJP could turn the tide. After defeats in the politically significant Delhi and Bihar assembly polls, potential losses in major states like Punjab and UP could dent PM Modi's image as the main vote-getter for the BJP. An advantage for the SP-Congress alliance in UP could definitely change the fortunes of Akhilesh and Rahul for a bigger national role in 2019. advertisement --- ENDS --- 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 ... The NIA has filed a chargesheet in the missing Ashfaq Majeed case, where it reveals all missing youth from Kerala were talking to each other on a Whatsapp group. By Vidya : National Investigating agency (NIA) filed a 4000-page chargesheet on Thursday in the missing Ashfaq Majeed case. Majeed was indrocnitaed into extreme jihadi ideology, along with others, by a group of like-minded people from the Kasargod district of Kerala. Some members of the Islamic Research Foundation were also responsible for motivating and radicalising Ashfaq and his associates to join ISIS. advertisement The NIA chargesheet has filed its chargesheet under sections 13, 18, 38, 39 of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and section 120 B of the Indian Penal Code. The chargesheet was filed in the case registered by Ashfaq's father Abdul Majid Abdul Kader at Nagpada Police Station after the crime branch passed its investigation on top the NIA. NIA was already investigating case in Kerala. WHO WAS ASHFAQ? Ashfaq was a BCom at Mithibai College between 2010 and 2012, and he looked after his father's hotel business alongside. During this time he came in touch with Arshi Qureshi, the guest manager with preacher Zakir Naik's IRF, who told him about people in Kasargod who "help lead people in true ways of Islam". Ashfaq and some of his associates began meeting Arshi at his office and at his Navi Mumbai house between 2014 and 2015. Soon after their interactions, Ashfaq's father began noticing changes in him -- he became more conservative and started following the Orthodox Islam way of living. He decided he did not want to work in Mumbai as he could not practice Islam in its purest form and learn Quran there. THE ACCUSED According to NIA, Arshi was using his official position at the IRF to influence people and convert them to Islam. He used pick a few things from other religions and compare them to Islam and further tell people it was upon everyone to eradicate no believers by either killing or converting them NIA investigation shows Arshi Qureshi was involved in unlawful activities and in spreading hatred against India. He is also accused of furthering ISIS activities. The NIA has also filed a chargesheet against 30-year-old Abdul Rashid Abdulla alias Rashi -- a resident Al Noor, opposite Juma Masjid in Kasaragod. Abdulla was allegedly the main conspirator behind motivating Ashfaq, along with a number of other youths from Kasargod and Pallakkad districts of Kerala to join ISIS. He professed and furthered the activities of ISIS, by showing youngsters videos of the terror group and also gave them lectures on violent Jihad. advertisement He also financed the travel and stay of some of the missing youths. According to NIA, it was Abdulla used to speak against democracy and justified the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris. He taught gullible youths to farm on a piece of land in Kerala so they could practice the pure Islam life. The accused also created a Whatsapp group named Tazkiyan, meaning purification of the soul. Discussions on Islam used to take place in this group and Maulana Haneef himself used to send voice mesaages about Islamic teachings in the group. The other members of the group were all the missing youths from Kerala. NIA Investigation revealed one missing youth -- Bestin alias Ahiya was actually from a Catholic family from Kerala and his wife Marin Jacob alias Mariam used to work at an IBM call centre in Mumbai after completing her BA in 2014. Around this time both came in touch with Arshi and began visiting the IRF office in Dongri. It was due to Arshi's influence that both converted to Islam at Jama Masjid in Mumbai. Another accused Rizwan Khan came into the picture, then, when he signed as Mariam's guardian for the couple's marriage and also helped in their conversion to Islam. advertisement WHAT NEXT? NIA says efforts are on to locate and apprehend Abdulla, who holds an Indian passport from Kozikode and further investigation under section 173 (8) will continue. According to NIA, Abdulla used to set up camps of prospective ISIS recruits. Videos of ISIS of mass killings were shown at these camps, followed by discussions on how ISIS is on the right path. The group inculcated in themselves that India was a land of kafirs and it was best to migrate to Darul Islam. NIA has perused about 100 documents to prove their case against the accused. The investigation in the entire case though was set in motion when on July 10 last year Kasargod resident Abdul Rashid Abdul Rehman filed a missing complaint about his daughter, her husband Ashfaq and their toddler daughter Ayesha. Rehman had said in his complaint that the family had informed them about traveling to Sri Lanka and of returning by Eid, however there had been no contact with them. Around the same time families of other youth also filed missing complaints with police stations in Kasargod and Pallakad. Investigations revealed that all the missing people had been in touch with each other and had headed to IS controlled territories in Afghanistan, where they wanted to live according to true Islamic ways. advertisement The group had travelled to Sri Lanka for Islamic studies and after returning planned travel to Tehran via Dubai. NIA has not chargesheeted the other two accused in the case -- Maulana Haneef and Rizwan Khan -- however, the agency has not asked for the two to be discharged either. The agency wants to investigate the case further against them. After the filing of chargesheet, Judge VV Patil of the special NIA court asked both the accused to file bail applications considering there was evidence against them before the agency. --- ENDS --- Leistikow: Hawkeyes uncover much-needed star in Kaleb Johnson After a 200-yard day, Johnson seems as surprised as anybody that he has a starring role for the Hawkeyes down the stretch. The Amethi MP will cover 10 assemblies on the last day of campaigning in Uttarakhand. He will start his 75-km road journey in Haridwar from Bhagawanpur and end the same at Har Ki Pauri. By Supriya Bhardwaj: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi is likely to visit Har Ki Pauri in Haridwar on February 12. The Amethi MP will cover 10 assemblies on the last day of campaigning in Uttarakhand. He will start his 75-km road journey in Haridwar from Bhagawanpur and end the same at Har Ki Pauri. Criss-crossing from Bhagawanpur, Jhaberda, Roorkee and Haridwar city, Rahul will hold a two-kilometre-long roadshow in Haridwar city, starting from the Haridwar Railway station to Har Ki Pauri. advertisement RAHUL HAS ALSO SPOKEN IN RISHIKESH, ALMORA The Congress vice-president has already spoken at a few rallies in Rishikesh and Almora. Uttarakhand will go to election on February 15, where the Harish Rawat government is facing a stiff challenge from the BJP. Also read | Uttarakhand Assembly election: 14 per cent candidates have criminal cases against them, says ADR report Congress' campaign in Uttarakhand is focussed around Rawat. --- ENDS --- Matia told the parliament that US agency National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) has given the numbers for the codes of three genome sequences. The minister made the statement in a thanksgiving motion on the president's address to Parliament. She also informed that the outcome of the Bangladeshi scientists' research was published in the Nature Plants journal on January 30. Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina has always encouraged jute research which led to the groundbreaking success. Late professor Dr Maqsudul Alam and his team discovered the genome sequence of 'Tosha' jute in June 2010. The premier announced the news in the Parliament on June 16, 2010. In August 2013, Sheikh Hasina, in the presence of Dr Maqsudul, announced that the team has sequenced the DNA of the traditional variety of jute known as 'Tosha'. Their conquest continued as the team sequenced the DNA make-up of a fungus (Macrophomina Phaseolina) which reduces yield time of more than 500 species of crops including jute, tobacco, cotton, maize, soybean and sunflower in the following years. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all its genes which is responsible for the characteristics of an organism. Each genome contains all the information needed to build and maintain that organism. The decoding allowed Bangladesh to own all the genetic documents of this natural fibre. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate NORWALK The Norwalk Department of Public Works has inherited the public infrastructure improvements needed for the reconstruction of Washington Village. Trinity Financial, the Boston-based real-estate development chosen to rebuild the public-housing complex, was supposed to lead the $9 million project, which will relocate utilities and raise the intersection of Day and Raymond streets. While city and federal dollars remain in place for the work, how the project will proceed has changed as members of the Common Councils Public Works Committee recently learned. Lisa Burns, principal engineer at the public works department, said it was contemplated that Trinity Financial would lead the project with funding advanced through the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency. Redevelopment would release the funds to Trinity as the project progressed, Burns said. It was like Nov. 28, Trinity came to our offices and said, Were not doing the project anymore, so now the Department of Public Works is running the project. Burns indicated that the cost of the infrastructure work was behind the companys decision. She said Trinity Financial cited an astronomically high number, as high as $10.5 million. Joint decision Eva Erlich, vice president of development at Trinity Financial, said in a statement Thursday that the company is thrilled to have built a collaborative working relationship with the City of Norwalk over the past 5 years. We look forward to continuing to do so as we work together on the revitalization of Washington Village, Erlich said. We made the joint decision with the City of Norwalk for the City to manage the public infrastructure work planned for Day Street and Raymond Street. Were excited for the opportunity to create a project that the entire Norwalk community can be proud of. The Washington Village Transformation Plan calls for razing Washington Village and its 136 apartments and building 273 new apartments in five new buildings. Work on the first phase 80 apartments at 13 Day St. and 20 Day St. is under way. Relocating utilities and raising the intersection of Day and Raymond streets by six feet to provide an egress in the event of flooding is critical element of the project. Built in the 1940s in a flood plain, Washington Village has been subject to recurrent flooding, including during Hurricane Sandy in October 2012. The transformation plan calls for building apartments above and parking below. Councilman Richard J. Bonenfant, an at-large Republican on the Public Works Committee, asked if the cost of the infrastructure improvements might climb. Do you see a lot of more surprises? Bonenfant asked. Somebody else was going to take care of the building of the road and now were going to take care of the building of the road. Dollars in place Officials stress that the funding mechanism for the infrastructure work hasnt changed: $4 million in Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery funds, $1.55 million in Norwalk capital budget money and a $3.45 million special capital appropriation approved by the Common Council last November. But the city will now oversee the project with help from a construction management company. Its going to be our project, said Director of Public Works Bruce J. Chimento. These people will be answering to us and we can control the project because its our roads and our infrastructure. The Public Works Committee on Wednesday evening recommended hiring CDM Smith, Inc. to perform construction management, engineering and inspection services related to the project for a cost not to exceed $744,320. The recommended contract is headed to the full council for consideration. Officials have yet to determine whether the contract would be with the city or the Redevelopment Agency. Burns said she would to speak to the citys law department about that. Councilwoman Phaedrel L. Bowman, a District B Democrat on the Public Works Committee, asked for assurances that Washington Village residents be kept abreast of the infrastructure work and how it might affect them. rkoch@hearstmediact.com Were seeing an increase in data breaches affecting businesses both large and small. And, given the fact that many executives at the C-suite level are removed from the security incident response process, this situation needs to change. Breaches can be financially debilitating and have a lasting impact on client relationships and a companys overall reputation. That's why everyone up to the highest echelons of a company has to be involved. Related: 10 Data Security Mistakes Startups Can't Afford to Make The reasons are clear, and they're financial: According to the Pomenon Institute, the average consolidated cost of a data breach is $4 million. That's why business leaders must acknowledge their responsibility for setting security standards to ensure companywide security. Here are four actions to take right now to better position your company for a more secure future. 1. Get involved. According to recent survey data described in Experians Data Breach Response Guide, only 39 percent of boards, chairmen (and women) and CEOs surveyed said they were involved in data-breach preparedness at a high level. If you're not part of that 39 percent, you need to start putting together your own internal-breach response team. The Experian guide suggested that such a team include an incident lead, to manage and coordinate the companys overall response efforts, and an executive leader to maintain a line of communication to the board of directors and other stakeholders. The guide also suggested including representatives from human resources, information technology and public relations, as well as an outward-facing customer-care group and internal legal, privacy and compliance experts. While not all businesses have all these different departments, the important point is the C-suite's involvement with the selection process, and regular communication among all parties. 2. Engage external partners. Determining and securing external partners before an issue occurs will help prevent damage to your relationships and your companys reputation. Such partners can review your incident-response plans and ensure that those plans follow best practices and reflect knowledge of the latest threats to your particular industry. Related: 11 Tips to Secure Mobile Devices and Client Data In this regard, Experian has identified five important traits to look for in an external partner; and while the right match will vary, based on your organizations individual needs, these are great general criteria for whom to partner with in your breach-response team: An understanding of security and privacy -- No matter what your business does, any partner should have a background that supports a wide variety of data breaches and knowledge of the entire breach lifecycle. No matter what your business does, any partner should have a background that supports a wide variety of data breaches and knowledge of the entire breach lifecycle. Strategic insights -- A partner should be able to handle a number of what if scenarios before and during an incident. -- A partner should be able to handle a number of what if scenarios before and during an incident. Ability to scale -- A breach may seem small at first but end up being much more extensive. Youll want a partner who can scale to the organizations size and potential needs during any type of incident. A breach may seem small at first but end up being much more extensive. Youll want a partner who can scale to the organizations size and potential needs during any type of incident. A relationship with regulators -- Organizations with a collaborative relationship with government stakeholders and regulators will likely have the support of those key groups during a data breach. Organizations with a collaborative relationship with government stakeholders and regulators will likely have the support of those key groups during a data breach. Global considerations -- If your business operates internationally, consider a partner with a knowledge of breach laws in different countries. This partner should also be able to operate multilingual call centers. 3. Conduct response exercises regularly. Once youve developed your response team and finalized your response plan, put the plan into action. Practice and test your preparedness plan at least twice a year and perform regular reviews to ensure youre prepared. Make sure everyone understands his or her specific duties, both individually and as part of any specific department. Some activities that the U.S. Small Business Administration recommends in this regard include establishing security practices and policies in order to protect sensitive information. Also on the list: requiring employees to use strong passwords, creating and updating data security and mobile device policies and establishing limits on the types of data employees can access based on their job level. Mobile devices, in particular, pose additional risks, as more businesses adopt bring your own device (BYOD) policies. Additionally, business leaders should update and re-evaluate their security measures often, and conduct annual trainings. 4. Develop a simulation exercise. Some companies do have a response plan in place, though a recent CSID study found that more than half of small business owners participating weren't allocating any budget at all to risk mitigation. Whats more, only about a third of respondents in a recent Experian survey said they put a priority on employees understanding how a data breach affects them and the company. You never know how people will respond in a high-stress situation, so a breach-simulation exercise can put your plan into action and allow your entire team to run through the different stages of a breach. Ways to do this? Schedule at least a half-day for any simulation exercise. Have someone outside the organization serve as moderator, and include every team member who will be involved in responding to a data breach. Also, think of as many what if scenarios as possible. Consider what might take place before, during and after a data breach. At the conclusion of the session, have the team debrief, review the lessons learned and determine where improvements can be made. Related: 4 Reasons You Need Developers With Cybersecurity Skills in All Tech Teams Taking these actions now will benefit your organization in the short term and, in the long term, empower your employees to be a part of driving security companywide. Related: Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved NORWALK Due to inclement weather, several offices are closed at Norwalk Hospital. All Western Connecticut Medical Group Ambulatory Offices Special Events Saturday, Feb. 11 New Perspectives Film Series The Loving Story, 7:30-9:30 p.m. In commemoration of Black History Month, please join the library for a screening of The Loving Story, directed by Nancy Buirski. Set during the Civil Rights Era, this documentary about Mildred and Richard Loving juxtaposes a love story and a racially charged criminal trial. A feature film of this story is currently running in theaters. Suggested donation of $5. Refreshments served. The New Perspectives Documentary series is programmed and moderated by filmmaker, Megan Smith-Harris. Former television executive and documentary producer Bill Harris will lead the Q&A following the screening. Registration highly recommended. Register online or call 203-762-6334. Sunday, Feb. 12 Connecticut's Own Concert: The Madera Winds All American, 4-5 p.m. The Madera Winds, formed in 2012, is a blend of Connecticut musicians who have performed over the last thirty years in other chamber music groups in Wilton as well as throughout Fairfield County. Ralph Kirmser (oboe) of Wilton and Janet Atherton (clarinet) of Norwalk had been founding members of the Prevailing Winds Quintet since the 1980s. Rosemary Dellinger has been the bassoonist for the Connecticut Little Symphony and teaches Spanish at Cider Mill School in Wilton. Dr. Kerry Walker is professor of flute at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury. Zachary Glavan, horn, has performed with the Madera Winds for several years in Connecticut and currently resides in New York City. The Madera Winds will present a program of American composers. No charge. Registration strongly suggested. Pre-registrants should arrive by 3:50 to be guaranteed seating; wait-listed and walk-in registrants will be admitted after 3:50 if space is available. Register online or call 203-762-6334. Wednesday, Feb. 15 Wilton Domestic Violence Task Force: Don't Be Prey, Be Empowered, 7-8:30 p.m. In recognition of Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Month, the Wilton Domestic Violence Task Force, in conjunction with Team PeaceWorks, the Wilton High School PTA, Wilton Library, and The Wilton Youth Council, present Dont Be Prey, Be Empowered. The program will include a screening of parts of The Hunting Ground, a documentary film about the incidence of sexual assault on college campuses in the United States. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with local experts regarding consent, reporting and resources. Supplemental information and pamphlets will be available before and after the event. Registration highly recommended. Register online or call 203-762-6334. Calendar Monday, Feb. 13, 27, March 6, 13, 20 Sign, Say and Play, 11-11:45 a.m. The Baby Signs Program teaches caregivers and children from 6 months of age to the toddler stage signs for everyday activities so they can communicate before the child can speak fluently. There are five remaining workshops (no session on Feb. 20). Please register for each session separately. Registration required; no fee. Register online or call 203-762-6336. More Information 137 Old Ridgefield Road 203-762-3950 www.wiltonlibrary.org See More Collapse Monday, Feb. 13 The Village Movement: Improving the Experience of Aging, 4:30-6:30 p.m. Are you looking for more choices as you or your parents age? In 1999, this was the inspiration of a group of friends in the Boston area resulting in what is now known nationwide as The Village Movement. Stay at Home in Wilton, a member of the national Village to Village Network, began in 2010 has grown to almost 100 members. This is a live-streamed national simulcast of Dr. Atul Gawande, renowned surgeon and bestselling author of Being Mortal, who will speak about the value of community and opportunities as we grow older. A reception with drinks and hors d'oeuvres will follow for this special celebration. Co-sponsored by Stay at Home Wilton and Wilton Library. Registration is highly recommended. Doors open at 4:30 p.m.; broadcast is from 5-6 p.m. Register online or call 203-762-6334. Tuesday, Feb. 14 Technology ClassesBasic Microsoft PowerPoint 2010, 2-3 p.m. or 6:30-7:30 p.m. Michael Bellacosa shows how to create and format a basic presentation in Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 in this free class. Basic computer skills including mouse proficiency required. Advance registration required. Class limited to 16 students. No charge. Register online or call 203-762-6334. Wednesday, Feb. 15 Wilton Chamber of Commerce / Wilton Library Program: Cyber Security Living in a Connected World, 8-10 a.m. Wilton Chamber of Commerce and Wilton Library will host a free cyber security seminar for local businesses and Chamber members. The presentation is by local author and businessman Al Alper, president of Wilton IT security firm Absolute Logic. He will discuss the state of threats today and where it is headed, the economics that drive its growth, the risks it presents to business, and simple steps business owners can take to minimize their exposure. Al is an expert in technology, compliance and security, and is a frequent speaker at healthcare, legal and insurance industry events. Check-in is at 8 a.m. with the presentation beginning promptly at 8:30 a.m. Light breakfast will be available. Registration recommended. No charge. Register online or call 203-762-6334. Wednesday, Feb. 15 & 22 Build-a-Story, 2-2:30 p.m. Can't come to story time because you have a morning napper? No problem. Join us on Wednesday afternoons for a story followed by a chance to build and play with Duplo Legos. Adding 'build and play' to story time helps develop early literacy skills and encourages creativity. For ages 2-5. Caregivers must remain with children. No registration required. Now through Feb. 24 Perspectives: The Work of Four Female Artists Art Exhibition Four local artists feature their works in this diverse exhibition at Wilton Library. The artists are Pam Ackley (New Canaan), Sarah Phillips (Wilton), Skye Riss (Wilton) and Dara Tomeo (Fairfield). Works are available for purchase with a portion of the proceeds benefiting Wilton Library. Classes in Innovation Station this week Sunday, Feb. 12: Valentine's Day Crafts, 1-4:30 p.m.; Sunday, Feb. 12: Embroider a Valentine's Gift, 2-3:30 p.m.; Monday, Feb. 13: Create Valentine's Day Cards, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Monday, Feb. 13: Stitch Time for Knitters and Crocheters, 1-2:30 p.m.; Tuesday, Feb. 14: Embroider an Apron, 6-7:30 p.m.; Wednesday, Feb. 15: Embroider a Tea Towel, 10 a.m. to noon; Wednesday, Feb. 15: 3D Printing for Beginners, 6-7:30 p.m.; Thursday, Feb. 16: Make Fun Buttons, 2-4 p.m. Childrens programs this week Saturday, Feb. 11: Minecraft Club, 10 a.m. to noon; Monday, Feb. 13, 27, March 6 & 13: Ready Readers, 4:15-5 p.m.; Tuesday, Feb. 14: Terrific Tales for Twos and Threes, 10:15-10:45 a.m.; Wednesday, Feb. 15: Books for Babies, 10:15-10:45 a.m.; Wednesday, Feb. 15: Wonderful Ones and Twos, 11-11:30 a.m.; Friday, Feb. 17 & 24: Movement and Dance for Little Ones, 11-11:30 a.m. Frequently bullied by friends in his childhood, Udayan Das committed the murder after drawing inspiration by watching an American movie 'Devil's Knot' . By Anil Giri: Bhopal resident Udayan Das, who was arrested for the murder of his parents and live-in partner Akanksha, was frequently bullied by friends in his childhood. This, an interrogator believes, could have contributed in his evolving into a psychopath. Udayan committed the murder after drawing inspiration by watching an American movie 'Devil's Knot' . Udayan, who hails from Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, was brought to Bankura town by Bankura police under tight security on Monday night. The police had sought 8-day remand for the psycho killer. advertisement HERE'S ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW The 32-year-old killer had no friends even as a child and was bullied by other children. Everyone mocked at him for his dark complexion. Angered by such behaviour, Udayan took to the act of taking revenge from his friends and started off by hacking a friend's Orkut account. According to the police, Udayan had no true friends and had only virtual friends, people he met on the social networking site. Udayan handled 110 Facebook accounts with different names, claims the Bankura police, which is investigating the case. According to police, Udayan committed the murder and entombed Akanksha's body after drawing inspiration by watching an American crime film 'Devil's Knot' . Police have recovered at least 2,500 Hollywood movies from Udayan's collection. Udayan had earlier claimed that he is a ex-IITan however, he was a weak student and after failing to clear examinations in his college, he was shown the door. Police have found some letters from Akanksha hidden on the wall's of Udayan's house. Bankura police is investigating further to learn if the letters were written by Akanksha or someone else. ALSO READ | Bhopal man arrested for murder of live-in-partner, confesses to killing parents West Bengal: Police seek 8 day remand for psycho killer Udayan Das --- ENDS --- This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate WILTON If Gov. Dannel P. Malloys biennial budget proposal remains intact, Wilton could be short $2.4 million next year. On Wednesday, Malloy called for lawmakers to enlist in a regional effort to help the states troubled city schools, giving them more state funding at the expense of wealthier towns. But in the partisan atmosphere in a General Assembly dominated by lawmakers from suburbs and rural areas, Malloys proposed revamping of municipal aid, with added local responsibilities, could meet stiff opposition. While leaders of the major cities welcomed additional support, lawmakers from the suburbs criticized the two-year, $40.5 billion package. The truth is that for too long, weve allowed certain communities to be disproportionately impacted by the states fiscal challenges, Malloy said during a 27-minute budget address to a joint session of the House and Senate. Disparities have persisted and grown over the years, creating large pockets of concentrated poverty where communities sometimes sacrifice education for services. For Wilton, this is a far cry from the nearly $1.5 million that received from the state during the 2017 fiscal year. The difference between the two years can largely be attributed to Malloys proposal to push a third of teacher pension costs back on to municipalities, which would cost Wilton more than $8 million over the next two fiscal years, according the OPMs latest projections. More Information Winners and losers under Malloy budget Bridgeport - plus $19 million Danbury - plus $11.6 million Norwalk - plus $8.3 million Stamford - plus $6.4 million Derby - plus $4.9 million Ansonia - plus $4.8 million Stratford - plus $835,000 Seymour - minus $49,000 Easton - minus $908,520 Redding - minus $1.25 million Weston - minus 2.25 million Brookfield - minus $2.4 million Bethel - minus $3.3 million New Canaan - minus $3.5 million Oxford - minus $4 million New Fairfield - minus $4.3 million Ridgefield - minus $4.4 million Darien - minus $4.5 million Shelton - minus $4.6 million Newtown - minus $4.9 million Wesport - minus $5.4 million Trumbull - minus $5.7 million Monroe - minus $6.5 million New Milford - minus $6.6 million Greenwich - minus 6.6 million Fairfield - minus $7.7 million Milford - minus 11.1 million BUDGET HIGHLIGHTS Total spending Fiscal year July 1, 2017$20.09B Second-year spending total$20.55B If approved by the General Assembly General Fund spending would increase by 0.8 percent in the first year and 1.8 percent in the second year. Current $5.05B in state aid to towns and cities decreases slightly First year$5B Second year$5.01B $12.36B in state spending cuts Shift on teacher pensions to towns and cities$400M Projected union concessions, under threat of 4,200 potential layoffs$700M Other changes$250M $320 million in new revenue New taxes$200M Tax-collection initiative by Department of Revenue Services$120M Raising the cigarette tax$4.35 per pack Other new tobacco taxes $60M/year Other tobacco products would see tax rises equivalent to surrounding states. Hospitals Grants to state hospitals to cover a projected $212 million in local property tax assessments $250M Malloy believes only Stamford Hospital would lose under reimbursement plan. See More Collapse Though it is still too early to tell what the final budget will look like, Jeffrey Rutishauser, chairman of Wiltons Board of Finance, said that the board had gone into this years budget process expecting little to nothing from the state. After last years surprise [cuts], I think we have to assume that were not going to get much help from Hartford going forward, said Rutishauser. In all, about $400 million in teachers retirement payments would be shifted from the state to towns and cities annually. For the first time, municipalities would be allowed to levy local real estate taxes on hospitals, with the state reimbursing the facilities. Under these projections, Wilton would also have the remaining $462,941 of their education cost sharing aid erased from their budgets. As a consolation, the state will allocate nearly that much ($431,204) toward the towns special education costs. While the proposal seeks to include fairer and more transparent funding, the new education cost sharing formula fails to address the root problems that are hurting education in our cities every day, said state Sen. Toni Boucher, R-Wilton. Money alone does not equal educational opportunity, said Boucher, co-chairperson of the General Assemblys Education Committee. We must find out why the money currently going to our cities isnt getting to our children. State Rep. Gail Lavielle, R-Wilton, agreed, condemning the overall proposed cuts and shifting of funds as undue burden to municipalities and taxpayers. No town can swallow this much proportionally of a cut, said Lavielle. I've said this before: Its a de facto tax increase for most people. And it's certainly wrong to say that it's not. So this is a major hit to everybody, and particularly if you're not Hartford, Bridgeport or New Haven. Malloys proposal would also dissolve grants for municipal projects around the board, which would cost Wilton more than $300,000 that they received during the last fiscal year. On the other hand, Wilton would also see a local capital improvement grant, which stood to be entirely eliminated, restored to the sum of $206,974 next year. Additionally, the town would see an increase of over $160,000 to their municipal revenue sharing grant. The budget would also hike per-pack cigarette taxes to $4.35, equal to New York State. It would reduce the amount awarded to low-income residents under the Earned Income Tax Credit and cut current state spending by $1.36 billion in the first year. Thirty-one of the states 169 towns and cities would gain net increases in state aid, including Bridgeport, Danbury, Norwalk, Stamford, Derby, Ansonia and Stratford. Milford would be among the biggest losers, with a projected reduction of more than $11 million. Fairfield would lose $7.7 million; and Greenwich and New Milford would lose $6.6 million under the proposal. During Malloys noontime budget speech, he singled out the affluent town of Greenwich, in particular. In the current fiscal year, the state is spending $24 million to cover pension costs of teachers and administrators in our most-affluent community, Greenwich, a school district that enrolls 8,800 students, Malloy said. Under the budget proposal, which goes to the General Assembly for vetting, public hearings and compromise, towns and cities would pick up one-third of teacher retirement costs: $400 million. A popular $200 property tax credit on state income taxes would also end, under Malloys plan. Lets have the courage to collectively tackle the challenge of inequity in town aid, Malloy said in the historic House of Representatives. Over the last two weeks Malloy unveiled several major proposals, including a massive realignment of educational funding, as well as a plan to force towns and cities to pay for one third of the contributions to the teachers retirement fund, a liability municipalities have never had to bear. Malloy also wants $700 million in union concessions, under the threatened layoff of 10 percent of the state workforce: 4,200 employees. That plan drew the ire of union leaders including Lori Pelletier, president of the state AFL-CIO. What would happen if we had a company that said they were going to lay off 4,200 workers? Pelletier asked. The state would be coming in like the cavalry. Theres a double standard between private employees and public sector employees. Facing a first-year deficit of between $1.5 billion and $1.7 billion, Malloys budget will next go through the legislative committee process for collaboration and consensus before the session expires at 12:01 a.m. on June 8. LINCOLN A bill that would allow teachers to use physical force to control violent students drew support Tuesday from the Nebraska State Education Association. Our members have told us in no uncertain terms that they need strong support and additional resources to maintain control of their classrooms, said Jay Sears, speaking for the teachers union. Legislative Bill 595 had no other friends among the dozen or so people who spoke at a public hearing before the Education Committee. Opponents said the bill could open the door for abuse, lead to injuries, even death, and be used disproportionately against students with disabilities and minority students. The proposal is bad for teachers, bad for schools and bad for kids, said Karen Haase, an attorney who specializes in school law. But State Sen. Mike Groene of North Platte, committee chairman and introducer of LB 595, said the bill is intended to make it possible for teachers to do their jobs. He said he has heard from several teachers, including some in his own family, about increasing numbers of violent, unruly students. Discipline in the classroom is of utmost importance in order to allow students to focus and learn and teachers to effectively communicate to the entire class, he said. Groene said LB 595 would allow teachers or administrators to control their classrooms without fear of legal action or administrative discipline, as long as their actions are reasonable. The bill would permit the use of physical force or physical restraint to subdue violent students and physical restraint on students who are damaging school property. Neither action would be considered corporal punishment under the bill. Current state law prohibits corporal punishment in Nebraska schools. LB 595 also would let teachers remove students from their classroom for being repeatedly or seriously unruly, disruptive or abusive and give teachers the final word about whether those students could return. On Tuesday, Groene offered an amendment saying that students could return to a teachers classroom if required under federal laws concerning special education students. Classroom violence and student discipline are major concerns for Nebraska teachers, Sears said, pointing to the more than 7,000 responses to an NSEA survey on the issue. He said 80 percent of those responding said violence has increased in their schools and 60 percent listed unruly, disruptive students as their biggest problem. In addition, the survey found that a majority of teachers dont realize state law already allows some physical contact with students to preserve order in the classroom. But Sears reported that many teachers said they dont want to be involved in physical altercations with students because they know violence begets violence. They want to learn more about how to de-escalate situations and how to get help for students. He said there may be better solutions and urged the committee to explore the issue more in an interim study. Wood River resident Lynn Redding, who opposed the bill, also urged more time to study the situation. As a person with a disability who has been subjected to restraints, she said she fears that LB 595 would represent a step backward for Nebraska. She said the bill does not require that teachers be trained on restraint techniques or provide for parent involvement. There is a line that needs to be drawn to protect a child, even one that is disruptive, Redding said. Jane Byers, speaking for the Nebraska Association of Special Education Supervisors, said LB 595 brought attention to the growing mental health needs of Nebraska students. She said many disruptive children have special education needs. She and others pointed to efforts to expand resources for treating those children as a better option. Spike Eickholt, a lobbyist for the ACLU of Nebraska, called the bill breathtakingly broad in what it would allow school employees to do without legal repercussions and in its lack of definitions for key terms. It would give license for some school employees to physically attack students for a wide range of student behavior, he said. By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Feb 8 (PTI) Hitting out at the "totalitarian" government in China for "immoral" curbs on free speech and the press, the Dalai Lama today said people of the Communist nation will be able to tell right from wrong once they are aware of the "reality". The Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader, however, batted for closer Sino-India ties at the people-to-people level and went on to invoke the spirit of "Hindi-Cheeni, Bhai-bhai". advertisement Asked about the perception of growing intolerance in India, he said a few individuals and politicians do not represent the entire population of the country and that India was the "most stable" country in the region. He also advised against associating Islam with terrorism and stressed on the need to reach out even to the hardline elements. Speaking at an event organised by the Vivekananda International Foundation here, he reaffirmed that Tibet was not seeking independence from China but freedom mainly in the sphere of culture and language. "The (Chinese) government is unfortunately totalitarian ...no freedom of speech, freedom of religion. Once Chinese people know the reality they will able to judge what is wrong and what is right. Censorship is immoral," he said. Acknowledging that things were "changing" in China, he said the country should must open up in its own interest. Power of truth was stronger than the power of gun, he said, alluding to allegations of Chinese repression in Tibet. "India should invite (from China) people from areas such as medicine and education...in areas where it has an advantage," the Dalai Lama said, stressing on the need for enhanced people to people contact. Responding to a question on radical Islam, he said the very term "Muslim terrorist" was wrong and anyone practising Islam and indulging in terror ceases to be a genuine Muslim. "Some Muslim countries are isolated, without any contact with the outside world. There comes the concept of one religion and one truth," he said, stressing on the need to reach out to even hardline elements of Islam. He said the use of force by the United States post September 11, 2001 attacks "hardened" many. Reaching out to Osama Bin Laden would have made the west safer, he said. The Dalai Lama said secularism and non-violence, the highlights of the ancient Indian tradition, were "very relevant" in contemporary times, and lauded the countrys religious harmony. "Occasional trouble are understandabale. But India is the only country in the world where all the major religious traditions are present," he said. The Dalai Lama, who has made India his home after fleeing Tibet in 1959, also praised Indias tradition of respecting all religions as well as non-believers as part of its secular values. PTI SBR SK --- ENDS --- advertisement HS Football: North Penn upsets Pennsbury in instant playoff classic With the game on the line, North Penn coach Dick Beck opted to go for the win with a two-point conversion attempt against Pennsbury. By Press Trust of India: ASKPC Jammu, Feb 9 (PTI) Criticising the Centre on the issue of separate colonies for displaced Kashmiri Pandits, the ASKPC today alleged that the central government has adopted an "ambiguous" approach towards resettlement of the community in in Jammu and Kashmir. "The central government has an ambiguous approach towards the resettlement of the displaced community in their place of birth," All State Kashmiri Pandit Conference (ASKPC) president Ravinder Raina said in a statement here. advertisement Kashmiri Pandits would only be safe in the Valley if separate colonies were established, he claimed. PTI AB DK ANB --- ENDS --- A collection of historical facts, like famed black history figures W.E.B. DuBois and Ida B. Wells coming to East St. Louis after the 1917 Race Riots, were presented Tuesday, Feb. 7 as part of the weeklong grand opening activities of the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville East St. Louis Learning Resource Center. "Our open house began on Monday, and we have many interesting and educational events planned throughout the week to celebrate the reopening of the library and Black History Month, said Lara Jennings, director of the Learning Resource Center. Its important that the Resource Center is open, said James Young, freshman at the SIUE East St. Louis Charter High School (CHS). My English instructor (Colin Neumeyer) requires us to read a book each quarter, and with the library open, it will really expand our choices. When I read that the library was opening again, I had to come out, said Bettye Brown, who was the reference librarian from 1972-1997 at the same location when the library was operated by State Community College. The library is extremely important to the community, but a lot of people come to use the computers and study. I think its a very good idea for the Resource Center to offer computer training and other services. During the open house on Tuesday, Reginald Petty, historian, civil rights activist and former Peace Corps director, along with Tiffany Lee, SIUE alum and communications instructor at St. Louis Community College at Forest Park, talked with a group of CHS students and others about black history and their native hometown of East St. Louis. Petty and Lee co-wrote the book, Legendary East St. Louisans: An African American Series. Lees company, TiffanyRose Publishing, published the book in June 2016. Theres so much to tell about the history of East St. Louis and its people, said Petty. Did you know that the current Second Chance Shelter at Sixth Street and St. Louis Avenue was once the first black public school in East St. Louis? It was news to everyone in the small group who had gathered around the 81-year-old. Lee sat at a table with CHS students and queried them about their interest in the City of East St. Louis, which was founded April 1, 1861, and about black history in general. Petty, a commissioner of the East St. Louis 1917 Centennial Commission & Cultural Initiative, and Lee, who serves on the Commissions Educational Committee, spoke in detail about the East St. Louis 1917 Race Riots. They also handed out material and documentation about the East St. Louis Riots, including first-hand accounts written by Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Some of the history is hard to hear, like the race riots and slavery, said CHS freshman Jessie Body, but black history is important to learn, because it tells us how we got to where we are and why we have to do the things we do to get to a better place. The grand opening included a poetry and essay contest submitted by area students. Kimbriel Williams, a CHS junior, wrote the following I Am Black History poem: I am BLACK. I am YOUNG. A gift from God to an unholy earth. I have done some wrongs and some rights. I have won and lost some fights. I am FREE. Black History is important to me, Because it resembles our history today. Why should we only celebrate Black History for one month, instead of in Our everyday lives? I AM BLACK HISTORY. I make history. I dont let it make me. Grand opening activities continue today at 8:30 a.m. The featured speaker at 1:30 p.m. is Dr. Eugene B. Redmond, SIUE emeritus professor of English and poet laureate of East St. Louis. Lewis and Clark Community College has a variety of events planned in February to honor Black History Month. The Black History Month Committee at Lewis and Clark believes the college has prepared something for everybody for the month of February, said Black Student Association Adviser Jared Hennings. Feb. 11 African Dance Workshop and Performance A variety of dance techniques from various African countries, including Katherine Dunham style and Hip Hop, will be taught to youth ages 6-teens. Workshops will run from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 11, and a $10 fee, along with advance registration, is required. A performance, which is free and open to the public, will follow at 1 p.m. Im very excited about this being the second year of the dance workshop, because last year the local dance students really came out and enjoyed the experience, Hennings said. Feb. 15 East St. Louis Community Performance Ensemble Performance The East St. Louis Community Performance Ensemble will lead an interactive dance performance at noon Wednesday, Feb. 15, in Reid Cafe. The performance will feature traditional West African drumming, artifacts and performances. Students will be encouraged to participate as they learn various techniques. Feb. 16 Underground Railroad Bus Tour Back for the fifth consecutive year, the Underground Railroad Bus Tour will depart at 1 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 16, from the parking lot next to security building near the north entrance of the Godfrey campus. Participants will explore some of the various locations throughout the Riverbend area where slaves sought refuge as they escaped the South. Tour guide J. E. Robinson will provide the history and perspective of these noteworthy sites. Although the tour is free, reservations are required. Feb. 21 D.C. Cooper, Speaker Communications expert D.C. Cooper will highlight the value of becoming more proficient in public speaking at 12:15 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 21, in Reid Memorial Library. Attendees will learn to develop skills and become more confident and competent when speaking in formal and informal settings. Feb. 22 SIUE Black Theater Workshop Performance Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Black Theatre Workshop is a performance troupe that celebrates the voices and visions of SIUE's diverse student population. This year's production will pay tribute to famed playwright August Wilson. Born in 1945 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he wrote his first play, Jitney, in 1979. Fences earned him a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award in 1987. Wilson won another Pulitzer Prize in 1990, for The Piano Lesson. In 1996, Seven Guitars premiered on the Broadway stage, followed by King Hedley II in 2001 and Gem of the Ocean in 2004. The tribute performance will take place at 11 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 22, in the Benjamin Godfrey Memorial Chapel. Those wanting more information about L&Cs Black History Month Calendar or to register for an event can contact Hennings at (618) 468-6400 or jhenning@lc.edu. By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Feb 9 (PTI) Congress and BJP were today locked in fiery exchanges inside and outside Parliament over Prime Minister Narendra Modis "raincoat" jibe at his predecessor Manmohan Singh with the main opposition party joined by others pressing him to apologise for the "insulting" remark. BJP on its part said Congress had no moral right to preach or give sermons to others and instead demanded it apologise to Parliament and the prime minister for calling him names. BJP President Amit Shah also reminded Rahul Gandhi of the kind of term his mother had used against Modi, an apparent reference to Maut ke saudagar(merchant of death) remark made by Sonia Gandhi when he was Gujarat Chief Minister. Congress and other opposition parties forced adjournment of Rajya Sabha twice demanding an apology from Modi over his remarks "insulting" his precedessors even as its Vice-President Rahul Gandhi told a poll rally that the prime minister had lowered the dignity of his office. Congress, CPI(M) and JD(U) raised the remarks made by Modi in his speech in the Rajya Sabha during the debate on the Motion of Thanks to Presidents address yesterday, saying the prime minister was "abusive" and used "insulting" language. Modi had said that one should learn the art of "bathing with a raincoat on" from Manmohan Singh as there was not a single taint on him despite so many scams having taken place during his regime. "He has dragged political debate to new low... he was abusive... we will oppose him," Anand Sharma(Congress) said. Deputy Chairman P J Kurien said the issue regarding Modis remarks was a closed chapter as far as the Chair is concerned. "I cannot reopen a discussion which is concluded... there are so many other ways of raising (your concerns)," he said. Digvijay Singh (Congress) raised strong objections to Modis remarks against Manmohan Singh and another former prime minister Indira Gandhi and demanded they be expunged. Congress members were seen protesting in the aisle, raising "shame, shame" slogans. Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram while initiating the discussion on the 2017-18 General Budget in Rajya Sabha criticised Modi over the words he chose to attack his predecessor, saying he should remember that the Chair he sat on was used by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and even Atal Bihari Vajpayee and hence he should use right language. "The Prime Ministers office is not an ordinary one. Great honour is associated with it. So by targeting his predecessor in that manner the prime minister has lowered the dignity of his office," Rahul said addressing an election rally in Almora in poll-bound Uttarakhand. Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu hit out at Congress for obstructing proceedings in both Houses, and said the opposition party had no moral right to preach or give sermons to others and demanded that it apologise to Parliament and the prime minister for calling him names. Naidu told reporters that the opposition, particularly Congress, should tender an apology for obstructing Parliament and for making uncharitable remarks against the prime minister, "not only now, but also earlier". advertisement He said the Congress leaders called Modi names umpteen number of times, using all "absurd and cheap words". "Let them not teach or preach pravachan (sermons) to others," he said. "They (Opposition) called him (the PM) Hitler, Mussolini, Gaddafi. They made all sort of meaningless remarks against the Prime Minister. It is a shame. They are not able to understand the reality, creating issue out of non issues, why should the Prime Minister apologise?" Naidu asked. BJP also fielded Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to launch a sharp attack on Congress, especially its top leaders Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, saying it is no longer a conventional political party representing certain ideology but a "conglomeration believing in divinity and devotion to a family". Defending Modis dig, Prasad said "fun, pun and repartee" are part of parliamentary debate and suggested that Congress was using Singh as an "useful expendable" outsider like many top leaders outside the Gandhi family. "We are very very disappointed by what the PM said yesterday. I do not think in the history of Indian parliamentary democracy, we have ever heard the PM insulting his predecessor in such a manner using bathroom analogy. This is simply not heard of (before)," Congress MP Sashi Tharoor said outside Parliament. PTI ENM ANZ SKC ARU KR ALM GSN GSN --- ENDS --- Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Warief Djajanto Basorie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9, 2017 Media leaders gathering in Ambon on Thursday may spend more time talking about fake stories than the fishing business. The capital of marine resourcerich Maluku is hosting Indonesias 2017 National Press Day on Feb. 9. The event is themed The Press and the People of Maluku Rise from the Sea. Promoting this far-flung archipelago in eastern Indonesia with its coral reefs and copious tuna is on the agenda. However, the hot topics on the table are hoaxes, fake information and by extension hate speech. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Tangguh Chairil (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9, 2017 The end of 2016 marked another controversy in our defense procurement. The Air Force revived a plan to buy Italian-made AW101 helicopters despite the fact that state aircraft maker PT Dirgantara Indonesia (PTDI) can produce helicopters with equal capabilities. Law No. 16/2012 on the defense industry obliges the Indonesian Military (TNI) to prioritize the domestic defense industry for products, maintenance and repair of defense equipment. But then Air Force chief of staff Air Marshal Agus Supriatna said the foreign-made helicopters were chosen because he deemed PTDI unreliable, claiming PT DI failed to deliver helicopter orders to the Air Force on time in 2012 and in 1998. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Straits Times/Asia News Network) Washington Thu, February 9, 2017 09:51 2095 9b519824cb3263083aedb70a0bf06c5a 2 Lifestyle Nordstorm,IvankaTrump,Ivanka-Trump,DonaldTrump,Donald-Trump,fashion Free US President Donald Trump has criticized Nordstrom for dropping his daughter Ivanka's brand from the department-store chain, drawing a new company into his ongoing skirmishes with corporate America. "My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly," Trump said on his personal Twitter account on Wednesday (Feb 8). "She is a great person - always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!" My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2017 The tweet was later - controversially - retweeted by the President's official @POTUS account. Did you just use an official platform of the President of the United States to RT about your daughter's personal business venture? #Crook https://t.co/NvOBFwKQ1v Ava DuVernay (@ava) February 8, 2017 Nordstrom said last week that it would stop selling Ivanka Trump's brand this season, citing poor sales. Read also: Nordstrom says its cutting Ivanka Trump brand due to poor sales The retailer had come under fire from the Grab Your Wallet campaign, a critic of the administration, which is asking shoppers to boycott retailers that carry Ivanka Trump or Donald Trump goods. Trump's tweet renewed questions about whether he's using the presidential pulpit to sway business interests for himself or his family. In addition to starting a lifestyle brand, Ivanka Trump has worked for the Trump Organization, and husband Jared Kushner serves as a presidential adviser. Ivanka Trump said last month that she was handing day-to-day operations of her brand to lieutenant Abigail Klem. "It's never great to have these questions about dual allegiance," said Jordan Libowitz, communications director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonpartisan watchdog group. "But certainly we've never seen before a president using the power of the presidency to pressure businesses for the obvious benefit of his family." Sean Spicer, Trumps press secretary, defended Trumps tweet to reporters during a briefing on Wednesday, saying He has every right to stand up for his family and applaud their business activities, their success. Spicer also said, This is a direct attack on his policies and her name. Ivanka Trump's brand didn't have an immediate comment. Shares of Nordstrom dipped after Wednesday's tweet was posted, though they quickly recovered. As of 11.43am in New York, the stock was up 0.1 per cent at US$42.84. Once again, a company was engulfed in a political controversy with a single tweet from the President. Trump's personal account has 24 million followers, and he has frequently used it to browbeat companies - often without warning. Lockheed Martin was a target last year, when then President-elect Trump said the costs of the F-35 fighter jet were out of control. The comment sent the stock down 2.5 per cent and erased almost US$2 billion in market value. He's also used his account to praise companies, such as LL Bean. In January, he urged people to buy products from the catalogue retailer after the founder's granddaughter sparked controversy by donating to a political action committee that supported his campaign. Since becoming president on Jan 20, Trump has also used the official presidential account @POTUS. The Nordstrom tweet was not sent from that account initially, but it was retweeted from it. Nordstrom had been an early supporter of Ivanka Trump's brand after it launched in 2011. It was one of the first retailers to offer wares, which include shoes, apparel and accessories. But recently her products began to disappear from its inventory, raising questions about the relationship. That's when the chain confirmed that it decided not to reorder the brand's merchandise. "Based on the brand's performance, we've decided not to buy it for this season," the company said last week. Topics : This article appeared on The Straits Times newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9, 2017 12:53 2095 9b519824cb3263083aedb70a0bf0f14f 1 Science & Tech YouTube,#YouTube,live-streaming,#LiveStreaming,Super-Chat Free In a move against Facebooks streaming service Facebook Live, YouTube has rolled out the ability to live-stream from mobile devices for creators with 10,000 or more subscribers. In a blog post, the company stated that the service would be easily accessible from the YouTube app, adding that its features had been tested by hundreds of creators to refine the mobile streaming experience. Based on their feedback, live chats were slowed and streaming quality was boosted. The feature will also allow creators to monetize their live streams, starting with Super Chat. This would allow viewers and fans to highlight and pin their messages in live chats for a fee, with the hope that it would catch creators attention. "Super Chat is like paying for that front-row seat in the digital age," YouTube said. Read also: Live-streaming viewers exposed to malware, data theft: Study YouTube has supported live streaming since 2011 and hosted the most watched political live-streams of all time, the 2016 US presidential debates. But the site had previously not supported mobile streams, unlike Facebooks Facebook Live and Twitters Periscope, as reported by Reuters. According to YouTube, the live streams will share the same features as YouTubes regular videos. They can be searched for, found via recommendations or playlists, and protected from unauthorized use. (sul/kes) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Qraved (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9, 2017 13:35 2095 9b519824cb3263083aedb70a0bf1276f 3 Food steamed-bun,bakpao,qraved,#Qraved,food,#food,pork,pork-bakpao Free Originating in China, bakpao (steamed bun) is known not only for its soft and silky texture but also for its rich fillings. From chicken to chocolate, bakpao fillings know almost no bounds. One of the most popular fillings is pork, and you can find some of the best ones in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta. Bakpao A-Satu A photo posted by BUNCIT FOODIES | Jakarta|TNG (@buncitfoodies) on Feb 3, 2016 at 6:38pm PST Bakpao A-Satu is not only popular because of the taste but also for its generous fillings. From soy pork with salted egg to BBQ pork and minced pork, this place offers plenty of unique flavored pork options. Bakpao Lompobattang A photo posted by #FEEDTHEGODZILLA (@godzillatummy) on Oct 9, 2016 at 8:53pm PDT Bakpao Lompobattang is legendary in Makassar, South Sulawesi. When the brand traveled to Kelapa Gading, it easily gained popularity as a street food outlet that offers affordable prices. Kwang Koan A photo posted by Suplier Humanhair (@bertha_wilhelminahumanhairclip) on Jul 16, 2016 at 11:57pm PDT If the idea of getting a sandwich or a pancake with your morning coffee sounds dull, you havent visited Kwang Koan in Kelapa Gading and should make your way there. Not only does it serve a good pork bakpao but it also offers a traditional, unique style of serving coffee that can be quite entertaining. Read also: Nine must-try authentic Japanese restaurants in Jakarta Canton Paradise A photo posted by Sally Tjoea (@sally_tjoea) on Aug 2, 2014 at 1:14am PDT Looking for a decent light meal in the vicinity of Mall Kelapa Gading? Canton Paradise serves a good pan-fried Shanghai pork bun that is a crisp and savory delight to appease your appetite. Imperial Lamian A photo posted by Pine Josephina (@pinejosephina) on Dec 4, 2016 at 2:13am PST Although there is a variety of options here, the pork bakpao is recommended by the chef. The moistness of the steamed bun covers the filling perfectly, creating melt-in-your-mouth enjoyment. Read also: Must-try local foods served with cheese Teck Kee Tang Lin Pau A photo posted by Daisy & Kato #FOODESCAPE (@foodescape_id) on Oct 23, 2016 at 9:09am PDT Established in 1948 in Singapore, Teck Kee Tang Lin Pau has gained popularity among fans of bakpao in Jakarta. Teck Kee Tang Lin Pau has craftily created this favorite in traditional bakpao style. Ikkudo Ichi A photo posted by #THEFOODMUNCHER (@thefoodmuncher) on Feb 2, 2017 at 5:18am PST A lot of foodies suggest Ikkudo Ichi is one of the best ramen restaurants in Jakarta. What you might not know is that its pork bakpao can be delectably satisfying, and perhaps leave no room for dessert. (kes) Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Hans David Tampubolon (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9, 2017 16:02 2095 9b519824cb3263083aedb70a0bf1d06b 4 Art & Culture unpublished,PhotoExhibition,photography,photojournalist,Kompas-Gramedia Free Newsroom editorial meetings often reject photographs for publication due to their lack of quality. However, there are rare moments when photographs are rejected not because of their quality, but because they violate existing ethical values. These photographs often depict images of events that speak so loud that the newsroom team considers them too strong for the public to handle at a certain time. These unpublished photographs record important historical events but, unfortunately, they remain hidden inside the photographers drawers and hard disks for years or even decades. The editorial meeting of Kompas, the largest daily newspaper in Indonesia, has rejected millions of photographs during its 52 years of existence. To celebrate Kompas anniversary this year, the newspaper has decided to select the best 100 rejected photographs for an exhibition called Unpublished at the Bentara Budaya Jakarta cultural institution in Jakarta from Feb. 6 to Feb. 12. This is not the first such move for Kompas. In 2014, the newspaper launched a book called Unpublished, which featured 560 hitherto unpublished photographs. The photographs at the exhibition are a selection from that book, involving big names like director Jay Subiakto and senior photographer John Suryaatmadja as its curators for this project. Read also: Appreciation of restricted images: 'Unpublished' photo exhibition One of the most striking photographs in the exhibition is Eddy Hasbys work showing the bloodied corpse of university student Bernadito Gutteres, who was shot dead in front of the Santo Paulus monastery in Dili due to his support for the independence of East Timor (now Timor-Leste). In the photo, presented in black and white, Eddy shows Bernaditos blood flowing in a stream on a quiet road in front of the monastery. Eddys photograph was probably rejected because of its graphic content. Nevertheless, the sharp image quality and his choice of using a tilted angle on the photos main object produce a slightly melodramatic feel despite the brutal situation it depicts. Because regulations didnt allow newspaper publications to publish pictures with blood, a foreign photographer became famous for a similar image, instead of Eddy, Jay said, commenting on Eddys photo. When subjects become objects: Kompas editor-in-chief Budiman Tanuredjo with (left to right) Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti, Public Works and Public Housing Minister Basuki Hadimuljono and Communication and Information Minister Rudiantara aim cameras in front of the audience during the opening of the exhibition.(JP/Dhoni Setiawan) Not all the rejected photographs are about corpses, blood and brutality. Many photographs at the exhibition also display high quality work but they unfortunately ended up on the chopping block of the newsroom editorial meeting. Read also: Artwork on 1965 wins journalistic award One attention-grabbing photograph is from Arbain Rambey. The photo takes a bird-eye view angle of a sky diver from thousands of feet above the Semanggi intersection in South Jakarta. The fact that this photograph was taken in 1991 makes it even more amazing, considering the fact that cameras back then were heavy. Thus, it is mind-blowing how Arbain could take such a photo from a very high altitude. What makes Arbains photo even more special is the way the skydiver tilted her body to look at the camera while smiling and clamping her left fist. It is a superbly dramatic photograph, basically, with a very dynamic composition that contrasts two main objects the skydiver and the Semanggi intersection as the focal point. Walk to the past: A man looks at the photo at the Unpublished exhibition at the Bentara Budaya Jakarta cultural institution in Palmerah, South Jakarta. The exhibition features 100 previously unpublished photos.(JP/Dhoni Setiawan) In addition to the 100 selected photos, the exhibition also exhibits 40 unpublished photos taken by Kompas photographers in 1965, considered one of the darkest moments in Indonesias history, when millions of people were killed due to their connection with the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). The government under late president Soeharto banned any publication or discussions related to the era. Apart from the photo exhibition, the organizer also hosts numerous events for photography communities. At least 10 photography communities, such as Jakarta Photo Club, Kumpul Buku Foto Indonesia, Panorama Jakarta, Photographer and Model Community, Candra Naya, FotoKita-National Geographic Indonesia and Komunitas Lubang Jarum Indonesia, have decided to participate in the Unpublished event to conduct discussions and photography workshops covering various aspects and themes. On Saturday, the organizer will host an open discussion about how the Kompas photo desk works. This discussion will feature Jay, John and Kompas photography desk chief editor Danu Kusworo as speakers. Between images: A visitor takes a photo with a background of hanging photos at the exhibition.(JP/Dhoni Setiawan) As part of the event, the organizer dedicates two special corners in Bentara Budaya to exhibit the works of legendary Kompas photographers Kartono Ryadi and Julian Sihombing. Kartono and Julian are not just important figures in Kompas and the Indonesian photography scene but also in the world. Kartono won World Press Photo awards in 1974 and 1980 for his works, while Julians photos of the student movement during the 1998 reformation period have become iconic images. There is also a photography competition during the exhibition. This competition will commence on Sunday and is limited to 50 participants. The total prize money for this competition is Rp 15 million (US$1124.7). Unpublished exhibition and festival organizing committee head Wisnu Widiantoro said he hoped the event would satisfy the hunger of Indonesian photographers everywhere for a great chance to mingle, network and talk about everything related to their line of work. Kompas sees that as of now, there has never been a comprehensive event that gathers all photography stakeholders and practitioners, Wisnu said. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Masajeng Rahmiasri (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9, 2017 16:37 2095 9b519824cb3263083aedb70a0bf22295 1 People ernest-prakasa,cek-toko-sebelah,stand-up-comedy,Movie,film,#film Free Although it seems like he has strayed away from the limelight of the stand-up comedy stage, Ernest Prakasa has soared in his acting and directing career. He debuted as a director in the movie Ngenest: Kadang Hidup Perlu Ditertawakan (2015), originally having wanted to just write the script. I wanted to write [the script] for it, but Chand Parwez Servia convinced me that I should try directing it myself, he said. Ernest ended up acting in the movie, and despite a release date that collided with Raditya Dikas film Single and Hollywood blockbuster Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Ngenest managed to garner approximately 550 thousand viewers in just 12 days after its release. Since its premiere last December, Ernests newest feature film Cek Toko Sebelah (Check the Store Next Door, abbreviated as CTS) has shown its own success by garnering more than 2.5 million viewers, landing it on the 10th spot of the most watched Indonesian films of all-time. Read also: Cek Toko Sebelah has a lot in store In addressing his absence from the local stand-up scene, Ernest likened Indonesia to Hollywood. When the stand-up scene got bigger, the comics drew movie producers interests. Nothing weird, really. Its just like in Hollywood, he told The Jakarta Post via email. Ernest, who directed and starred in CTS, said the movie was not really based on his personal experiences, with the exception of the shop. My mom has run a similar shop since 1985, he said. As an up-and-coming public figure of Chinese descent in Indonesia, amid racial issues that have been brewing in society, Ernest said he was living a normal life without too much racial harassment, Nowadays, not really. I'm living quite a normal life in terms of racial discrimination, compared to how it was in the 90s. Unlike other artists who are seeking to expand their careers to the global stage, Ernest was not in a hurry to leave the country. I still have many plans in Indonesia. Next, you will see me trying hard to cultivate new writers. We are in dire need for more good writers [in film], he stated. (asw) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Jon Afrizal (The Jakarta Post) Jambi Thu, February 9, 2017 The Sarolangun General Elections Commission (KPU Sarolangun) in Jambi has dismissed five election officials after indications were found that they favored one of the candidates running in the Feb.15 regental election. The dismissals are aimed at maintaining government neutrality in the regional election, KPU Sarolangun commissioner Asriadi said on Thursday. The five dismissed officials served on polling committees (PPS) or were local poll administrators (KPPS) in their respective areas. Asriadi promised that the commission would continue to monitor and accept information and complaints from both residents and campaign teams. Any indication of election organizers involvement in candidate campaign activities should be reported to the KPU, he added. In every event to introduce our election guidelines, we have called on all PPS officers and KPPS to be fair. If they want to support a particular candidate, they should resign from their positions, said Asriadi. He further said the KPU had asked KPPS to work according to their main functions and duties. He hoped they could work in accordance with prevailing rules and avoid acts that could either harm or benefit any candidate. Sarolangun has recruited 474 PPS officers and 4,102 KPPS for the upcoming election. Two candidate pairs, M.Madel-Musharsyah and Cek Endra-Hilalatil Badri, will contest the Sarolangun election. (ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Nurul Fitri Ramadhani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9, 2017 The Cakung Elections Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu Cakung) demanded on Thursday that Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama cancel his impromptu visit in Kalimalang, Cakung, East Jakarta, on Thursday, saying the latter had no permit to campaign in the area. There was no schedule for him to visit the area. So we instructed him to stop his activity. Several campaign team members around him resisted instead. It would have been OK if he had a permit, said a Panwaslu officer who identified himself only as Tomi. He further said that Panwaslu Cakung received information about Ahoks visit from the Cakung Police. We will report his activity to the Panwaslu headquarters. We will investigate the finding, said Tomi. (Read also: Major celebrations to end Jakarta election campaign period) Ahoks campaign team claimed that the governor was in Kalimalang not to campaign but to visit residents, despite the fact that he and his entourage wore campaign attributes, such as plaid shirts, and distributed notebooks with pictures of Ahok and his running mate, Djarot Saiful Hidayat, on the cover. It is not the first time that Ahok has been accused of unauthorized campaigning, with Panwaslu officers in North Jakarta and South Jakarta previously accusing him of similar infractions. In responding to the complaints, Ahok insisted he had not campaigned on the occasions as he had not ask people to vote for him. He argued that he was working as usual as a non-active governor to listen to peoples aspirations and complaints about problems in the city. He promised to solve the problems once his campaign leave was over and he returned to work on Feb.12. (ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Indra Budiari (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9, 2017 Only a week before voting day in the Jakarta gubernatorial election, gubernatorial candidate Anies Baswedan visited fishermen in Pasar Ikan, North Jakarta, on Wednesday, promising to terminate the citys controversial reclamation projects if elected governor. The former culture and education minister said the project had cost fishermen their livelihoods and only delivered commercial benefits to businesspeople. Of the several islets that have already been built, Anies said he planned to open them up to the public. Jakarta residents have the right to get new beaches, and you, the fishermen, could catch more fish in your nets if there are more beaches here, he told the fishermen. The reclamation of 17 artificial islets along the northern Jakarta coast, initiated in 1995, has been halted for quite some time. Former governor Fauzi Bowo issued permits for islets C, D and E, while Ahok issued permits for islets G, F, I, K and H. (Read also: Sandiaga Uno launches running shoes line) Fishermen and activists have filed lawsuits against the city administration on the grounds that the projects damage the environment. Anies also called on the fishermen to vote for him, emphasizing that he was the only one of the three candidate tickets who had always stood firmly against reclamation. I have consistently fought for your interests. However, my fight for you will have been a waste if you dont cast your votes for me, he said. (bbs) By Press Trust of India: Kolkata, Feb 9 (PTI) Protesting against the alleged assault on the Leader of Opposition Abdul Mannan, Congress and Left MLAs will boycott the Budget and hold a mock session tomorrow, even as they jointly protested outside the Assembly premises today. "We have boycotted the house today and will continue with our boycott tomorrow. We along with Left MLAs will place our own budget tomorrow," Congress MLA Manoj Chakraborty said. advertisement During the day, Congress activists staged protest rallies in various parts of the state. A road blockade was held and protest rally taken out by youth Congress activists in Kolkatas Esplande area. The Left Front organised a protest rally in Esplande area in central Kolkata to protest against the alleged assault on Mannan. Leader of Opposition in West Bengal Assembly Abdul Mannan was yesterday hospitalised after he had taken ill while being evicted by the marshall from the House which witnessed noisy scenes and a scuffle between Congress MLAs and the security staff. Mannan was suspended by Speaker Biman Banerjee as he continued his protest with placards against the government for bringing West Bengal Maintenance of Public Order (Amendment) Bill, 2017 and termed it as "black law" while refusing to heed to the Speaker who asked him to wait for discussions on it. The Speaker then asked Mannan, the Congress MLA from Champdani, to withdraw for the day but he remained defiant and was suspended. As soon as he was suspended, Mannan sat in the Well of the House and the marshalls tried to forcibly evict him, leading to a scuffle between them and Congress members. The Congress leader fell sick during the scuffle and was taken to a hospital in an ambulance. PTI PNT PR BSA --- ENDS --- Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Asila Jalil and Tama Salim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9 2017 ASEAN is united in solving problems that state members face and working on plans to change the lives of the people for the better. We have round tables and regional work plans to improve the lives of our people and we need them to know that we are constantly working for them, The Philippines Permanent Representative to ASEAN Elizabeth Buensuceso told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday. The Philippines holds the 2017 chairpersonship for ASEAN. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Nethy Dharma Somba (The Jakarta Post) Jayapura Thu, February 9, 2017 Security authorities in Papua are on alert in four out of 11 regencies and municipalities set to hold elections on Feb. 15. They comprise Lanny Jaya, Nduga, Puncak Jaya and Tolikara. With the presence of armed groups, security forces are working to ensure the elections in the four regencies run peacefully. Close attention is being paid to these four areas because the security vulnerability level there is very high. Armed civilian groups, which possess around 200 firearms, are present in those areas. Their existence could be used by candidates for election-related purposes, said Military Command (Kodam) XVII/Cendrawasih chief Maj. Gen. Hinsa Siburian. He was speaking at a meeting with members of House of Representatives Commission II on regional affairs during their recent visit to Papua to monitor election preparations. Siburian further explained that Lanny Jaya and Tolikara had dark experiences five years ago when a dispute during a regional election erupted into a tribal war that led to deaths. In Lanny Jaya and Tolikara, candidates who suffered losses in the regional elections five years ago are running again and competing against incumbent candidates who won the election back then. There are worries that the tense situation five years ago will be repeated and so security precautions must be heightened, he said. As many as 2,500 Kodam XVII/ Cendrawasih personnel will be on standby during the elections. They are ready to be deployed to back up the police in securing the regional elections, said Siburian. Meanwhile, Papua Police chief Insp.Gen. Paulus Waterpauw said the police had identified areas prone to conflict and prepared 2,774 police personnel, including National Police Mobile Brigade (Brimob) members from Jakarta, to be deployed to the areas. In principle, the Papua Police are ready to secure regional elections in this province and will support decisions by the General Elections Commission as the organizer of the elections, he said. Brimob personnel also will be deployed to secure elections in Central Sulawesi and Jakarta. Hundreds of Brimob personnel from the Central Java Police will be dispatched to help secure the Jakarta gubernatorial election. They will be joined by personnel from other provincial police commands, who will be deployed to the capital, one of three areas considered most prone to security threats during the elections. They comprise 400 personnel or four company-level units [SSK]. They will be at the service of the Jakarta Police, Central Java Police Insp. Gen. Condro Kirono said in Semarang on Wednesday. Meanwhile, two Brimob companies have been deployed to secure the regental election in Buol, Central Sulawesi. One Brimob company from the Central Java Police has arrived in Buol while one company from Brimob headquarters in Kelapa Dua will arrive on Feb. 11, said Buol Police chief Adj.Sr.Comr. Mujianto on Wednesday. He said the deployment of hundreds of Brimob personnel would guarantee the security of Buol residents so they could exercise their right to vote safely and peacefully. Papua Governor Lukas Enembe reminded all relevant parties to act independently and avoid bias toward any candidate. I hope regional elections in Papua can run normally according to prevailing rules. I remind the KPU as the election organizer and police personnel to remain neutral. Their siding with any candidates could ruin the elections in Papua, said Lukas. Four regencies in Papua considered most prone to conflict 2,500 military personnel prepared to safeguard elections. Ruslan Sangadji and Suherdjoko contributed to this story from Buol and Semarang Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Nethy Dharma Somba, Ruslan Sangadji and Suherdjoko (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9, 2017 09:11 2095 9b519824cb3263083aedb70a0bf047e8 4 Politics Papua,Papua-elections,#RegionalElection2017,regional-election,2017RegionalElections,conflict,security Free Authorities have beefed up security in Papua one week before voters go to the polls to elect new leaders, with armed civilian groups expected to top the security agenda. Security authorities in Papua are on alert in four out of 11 regencies and municipalities set to hold elections on Feb. 15. They comprise Lanny Jaya, Nduga, Puncak Jaya and Tolikara. With the presence of armed groups, security forces are working to ensure the elections in the four regencies run peacefully. Close attention is being paid to these four areas because the security vulnerability level there is very high. Armed civilian groups, which possess around 200 firearms, are present in those areas. Their existence could be used by candidates for election-related purposes, said Military Command (Kodam) XVII/Cendrawasih chief Maj. Gen. Hinsa Siburian. He was speaking at a meeting with members of House of Representatives Commission II on regional affairs during their recent visit to Papua to monitor election preparations. (Read also: Disabled voters in Papua fight for access to polling stations) Siburian further explained that Lanny Jaya and Tolikara had dark experiences five years ago when a dispute during a regional election erupted into a tribal war that led to deaths. In Lanny Jaya and Tolikara, candidates who suffered losses in the regional elections five years ago are running again and competing against incumbent candidates who won the election back then. There are worries that the tense situation five years ago will be repeated and so security precautions must be heightened, he said. As many as 2,500 Kodam XVII/ Cendrawasih personnel will be on standby during the elections. They are ready to be deployed to back up the police in securing the regional elections, said Siburian. Meanwhile, Papua Police chief Insp.Gen. Paulus Waterpauw said the police had identified areas prone to conflict and prepared 2,774 police personnel, including National Police Mobile Brigade (Brimob) members from Jakarta, to be deployed to the areas. In principle, the Papua Police are ready to secure regional elections in this province and will support decisions by the General Elections Commission as the organizer of the elections, he said. (Read also: Six issues to watch ahead of election day) Brimob personnel also will be deployed to secure elections in Central Sulawesi and Jakarta. Hundreds of Brimob personnel from the Central Java Police will be dispatched to help secure the Jakarta gubernatorial election. They will be joined by personnel from other provincial police commands, who will be deployed to the capital, one of three areas considered most prone to security threats during the elections. They comprise 400 personnel or four company-level units [SSK]. They will be at the service of the Jakarta Police, Central Java Police Insp. Gen. Condro Kirono said in Semarang on Wednesday. Meanwhile, two Brimob companies have been deployed to secure the regental election in Buol, Central Sulawesi. One Brimob company from the Central Java Police has arrived in Buol while one company from Brimob headquarters in Kelapa Dua will arrive on Feb. 11, said Buol Police chief Adj.Sr.Comr. Mujianto on Wednesday. He said the deployment of hundreds of Brimob personnel would guarantee the security of Buol residents so they could exercise their right to vote safely and peacefully. Papua Governor Lukas Enembe reminded all relevant parties to act independently and avoid bias toward any candidate. I hope regional elections in Papua can run normally according to prevailing rules. I remind the KPU as the election organizer and police personnel to remain neutral. Their siding with any candidates could ruin the elections in Papua, said Lukas. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Eva Aruperes (The Jakarta Post) Manado Thu, February 9 2017 Workers at the Anoa Breeding Center (ABC), a government-run conservation facility for the animal native to Sulawesi, cheerfully welcomed the birth of a baby anoa on Tuesday. The male baby, weighing 5.2 kilograms and measuring 40 centimeters, was born at 5:20 p.m., local time, at the facility located in Paniki, Manado, North Sulawesi. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9, 2017 The Jakarta General Elections Commission (KPU Jakarta) has reminded the campaign teams of all gubernatorial candidates to submit their campaign fund reports by the Feb.12 deadline. The reports shall be submitted no later than 6 p.m. on Feb.12. We wont tolerate late submissions, KPU Jakarta commissioner Dahlia Umar said during a press conference on Thursday. KPU Jakarta will dismiss any candidate whose team fails to submit their report on time, she further said. Dahlia said KPU Jakarta would submit on Feb. 13 all campaign fund reports to appointed auditors, who would then assess the reports from Feb.14 to Feb.28. During their assessment, the auditors will check the validity of bank accounts of candidates and their donors data and expenses reports. If a campaign team claims to have received donations from 1,000 people, it should be able to prove it by attaching forms filled by 1,000 donors in the report. Auditors will also check whether their spending is balanced with their income, Dahlia said. According to prevailing laws, the maximum amount of contributions allowed for a gubernatorial candidate is Rp 75 million (US$ 5,643.34) from individuals and Rp 750 million from private companies. Donors should also submit data such as a copy of their ID and taxpayer cards. Each candidate pair is allowed to spend a maximum Rp 203 billion on campaign activities. From March 1 to March 3, KPU Jakarta will post the audit results on its official website, Dahlia said. (ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ina Parlina (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9 2017 In 2007, Denpasar-based free-lance journalist Anton Muhajir created the website balebengong.net to encourage the residents of Bali to get involved in citizen journalism. However, Balis citizen journalists have yet to receive recognition from the government or Press Council. Today, his website has more than 500 contributors, most of whom are ordinary people. About 10 percent of them, he said, were active citizen journalists. While mainstream journalists often call them amateurs, citizen journalists, Anton said, worked according to the same ethics and standards expected of professional journalists. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Viriya P. Singgih (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9 2017 The saga surrounding Freeport Indonesia has risen to a new level as the subsidiary of the American mining giant Freeport McMoRan has begun preparing to reduce production, which could be followed by job cuts, in a move that indirectly pushes the government to grant the company an export permit. PT Smelting Gresik, which operates the only copper smelter in the country, stated that Freeport Indonesia issued a notice on Wednesday morning on reducing its mining activities in stages, as reported by Reuters. Delays in exports of copper concentrates will force Freeport Indonesia to take action in the near future to reduce production to match the available domestic capacity at PT Smelting, Freeport Indonesia spokesman Riza Pratama told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday regarding the matter. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Liza Yosephine (The Jakarta Post) Depok Thu, February 9 2017 Opposition to genetically modified crops could do more harm than good, as Nobel laureate Sir Richard J. Roberts argues scientific research provides strong proof of their beneficial qualities. In a world that must keep up with a growing population and arguably shrinking nutritional value in foods, Roberts said genetic modification (GM) methods were a safe solution to face the challenges. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Fedina Sundaryani and Farida Susanty (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9, 2017 As the state budget is unlikely to be able to completely cover light rail transit (LRT) projects, the government is considering a number of options to finance the two transportation projects in Palembang, South Sumatra, and Greater Jakarta. The package may use a government guarantee mechanism or it will come from state funds through public service obligations, State-Owned Enterprises Minister Rini Soemarno said in Jakarta on Wednesday as reported by tempo.co. The government is studying several financial structures, including the issuance of sukuk [Islamic bonds]. State-owned companies will issue sukuk with a guarantee from the government so the interest will be lower, she added. (Read also: Government turns to LRT contractor for funding) Meanwhile, the Transportation Ministry has proposed that the project use a multiyear allocation for 10 years with a scheme in which the developer is responsible for seeking financial resources. The other option is to seek loans from state-owned lenders. Rini said the preferred option, particularly for the Jakarta project, would be chosen within days. The two LRT projects are set to cost more than Rp 30 trillion (US$2.25 billion). The state budget, however, cannot cover all costs for the projects. Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan said financial problems would not affect the project in Palembang, where the LRT was expected to operate by August 2018. The Greater Jakarta LRT, he added, would be operational in the first half of 2019 as the government was still discussing financial resources. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Farida Susanty (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9, 2017 The Transportation Ministrys director general for air transportation, Suprasetyo, has said that the government is revising a presidential regulation on subsidized cargo so that it will also apply to airfreight. The regulation currently only applies to scheduled sea transportation. The effort is related to the government's so-called air highway initiative for aircraft to carry staple goods to remote places, like the Papuan cities of Puncak and Ilaga. "We will decide on the kind of goods that we will transport and the form of subsidy and other things," Suprasetyo said on Thursday, adding that the subsidy would likely go toward the freight cost. (Read also: Maritime highway officially has new route) The ministry reiterated that the airfreight operation would commence this year. Previously, Indonesian National Air Carriers Association (INACA) secretary general Tengku Burhanuddin said the association saw promising potential in the air highway program. If the government helps with the cost, it is interesting for INACA, he said. (bbn) By Press Trust of India: New Tehri (Ukhand), Feb 9 (PTI) Promising to bring development in Uttarakhand if voted to power, BJP president Amit Shah today alleged that corruption has reached its peak in the state under the Congress government as Harish Rawat "was the only chief minister" purportedly seen negotiating a "bribery deal in a sting operation". "Rawat is the only chief minister in the country who was seen negotiating a bribery deal in a CD. Ministers are looting the state in the league of the liquor mafia and corruption under him has reached its peak," he said at a rally here in the poll-bound state. advertisement The BJP leader was referring to the alleged sting operation on April 29 purportedly showing Rawat offering bribes to rebel Congress lawmakers to support him during a floor test in the Assembly. Accusing Rawat of "always complaining" about Uttarakhands lack of resources and difficult terrain rather than doing something for its development, Shah said the Chief Minister "lacks the determination" to take the state on the path of progress. Charging the Chief Minister with always "looking for avenues to mint money", Shah said, "Harish Bhai where there is a will there is a way! You cannot do it because your attention lies somewhere else, perhaps on ways to make money." Asking Rawat to "give up as he has run out of ideas", he said the BJP will develop Uttarakhand into a model state by setting up IT parks in the hills on the lines of New York and New Jersey. Besides, the states huge wealth of medicinal plants will be tapped to meet international demand, Shah said. The BJP president also slammed Rawat for being "ungrateful" to the Prime Minister who had "gifted" 900 km all-weather chardham roads to the state. Claiming that the people of the state had made up their mind on uprooting a "corrupt" government, Shah said March 11 (counting day) will herald a new era of development in the history of Uttarakhand. PTI CORR ALM ANB --- ENDS --- Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Hans Nicholas Jong (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9, 2017 08:55 2095 9b519824cb3263083aedb70a0bf037bf 4 National forest-conservation,forest-fires,palm-oil,deforestation,legal-battle Free Ministry wins another case in court against firm responsible for forest burning Court orders fine of US$35 million for Waringin Agro Jaya In the fight against deforestation and forest fires, the Environment and Forestry Ministry is on a winning streak, with the courts ruling in favor of the government in cases against companies. Still, the enforcing of penalties remains weak. In its latest victory, the South Jakarta District Court found palm oil company PT Waringin Agro Jaya (WAJ) guilty on Tuesday of illegally starting a forest fire to clear land in Ogan Komering Ilir, South Sumatra. The court ordered the company to pay Rp 466.5 billion (US$35 million), Rp 173.5 billion of which will serve as compensation for the burning of 1,626 hectares of land in its land concession and another Rp 293 billion to cover the rehabilitation cost for the burned land. The fine was lower than the ministrys demand of Rp 754 billion. (Read also: Riau steps up vigilance on fires) The ministry welcomed the decision by the judges, who showed support for the environment, said Bambang Hero Saharjo, forest fire expert from the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) who also served as an expert witness for the government in the case. He also commended the court for holding the company liable. WAJ attorney M. Sidik Latuconsina said the companys legal team would file an appeal. The ruling adds to the list of government victories in cases pertaining to forest fires. The Supreme Court ruled in November PT Merbau Pelalawan Lestari (MPL) guilty of illegally clearing forests in Pelalawan regency, Riau, from 2004 to 2006. It was a landmark court ruling as the pulp and paper company was ordered to pay Rp 16 trillion in fines, the highest in any case of environmental destruction in the nations history. (Read also: Indonesian government remains vigilant on forest fires) PT National Sago Prima (NSP) was found guilty in August 2016 of illegally starting forest fires in its concession area in Meranti Islands regency, Riau, and ordered to pay Rp 1.07 trillion in fines. In the same month, the Palembang High Court in South Sumatra found pulpwood firm PT Bumi Mekar Hijau (BMH) guilty of illegally starting fires in its concession in 2014. The high court had ordered the firm to pay Rp 78.5 billion in damages, a fraction of the Rp 7.8 trillion fine sought by the ministry when it first filed the civil suit against BMH in 2015. However, none of the companies have paid the fines or compensation. The ministrys law enforcement director general, Rasio Ridho Sani, acknowledged that it was a challenge for the ministry to enforce verdicts. It takes time for verdicts to be enforced because the ministry has to wait for the official record of the verdict to be available, which can take months to more than a year. Moreover, there is no standard operating procedure for the enforcement of forest-related rulings. The ministry is pushing for the Supreme Court to issue a regulation on its judges to help with the enforcement of penalties. Were still fighting [to get the companies to pay the fines], he said, adding that the ministry was also aiming to enforce a verdict against palm oil company PT Kallista Alam, which was implicated in a case that reached a final and binding verdict in September 2015 at the Supreme Court. Kallista Alam had been ordered to pay a Rp 366 billion fine for illegally burning large swathes of Tripa forest in Aceh. After more than one year since the Supreme Court ruling, the company has yet to pay the fine. It has also been nearly three years since mining company PT Selat Nasik Indokwarsa was found guilty of environment damage on Belitung Island. The company was ordered to pay Rp 31.5 billion in fines, but also has yet to pay the government. The company asked to make payments over 15 years. But we cant allow that, the ministrys environmental dispute settlement director, Jasmin Ragil Utomo said. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9 2017 About 250 victims of a fire on Jl. Kramat 3, Kwitang, Senen, Central Jakarta, have received instant food, blankets and mattresses from the Jakarta Social Agency, an official said in a release on Wednesday. We have built shelters and distributed food to the victims. There will be more assistance to come, the agency head, Susana Budi Susilowati, said. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Prima Wirayani and Grace D. Amianti (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9 2017 Despite huge opportunity in the countrys healthcare business, Indonesia has found difficulties in attracting significant investment for the sector, a condition business players mainly attribute to the countrys lack of research culture and limited human resources. The governments decision to liberalize the pharmaceutical industry in March last year, for example, has not attracted significant foreign investment, as business players have pointed out the countrys lack of competitiveness in providing a supportive environment for research and innovation, which serve as the core of the industry. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Tama Salim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9, 2017 Indonesia returned to Mozambique after a lengthy absence and came away with a long list of items to pursue in an effort to reinvigorate a sluggish bilateral partnership across various sectors. Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi ended her first tour of the African continent this year by flying into the Mozambique capital of Maputo on Tuesday, local time, for business match-making and bilateral talks with some of the countrys high-ranking officials. The meetings focused mostly on strengthening trade and investment with one of Indonesias biggest partners in Africa. Economic cooperation between Indonesia and Mozambique isnt indicative of the potential that both countries possess, she said after talks with Mozambique Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosario and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Oldemiro JM Baloi. During meetings with both the prime minister and the foreign minister, Retno offered a concrete list of economic priorities that both countries should focus on moving forward. Retno asked Mozambique to provide wider market access to Indonesian investors who are keen to explore projects in the country. After a 13-year absence, Retno visited the country with an entourage of business players from the private and public sectors, including representatives from the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin), the Indonesia Eximbank and shipbuilder PT PAL. She hoped that the presence of Eximbank and Kadin would help provide concrete solutions to one of the biggest stumbling blocks in Indonesian-African trade relations: trade cooperation financing. Indonesian investors include energy players from diversified conglomerates Besmindo Group and Bakrie Group, as well as state-owned train manufacturer PT Industri Kereta Api (Inka), which recently exported its first shipment of passenger trains to Bangladesh. Inka is eyeing Mozambique as its next target, said Daniel Tumpal Simandjuntak, the ministrys director for African affairs. During a separate business forum event in Maputo, Retno underlined the importance for both Indonesian and Mozambican businesses to take advantage of all available opportunities in order to revitalize weakening trade and investment ties. Two-way trade between the countries reached almost US$34 million between January and October last year, continuing a downward trend from $119.46 million in 2015, according to data from the Trade Ministry. Retno also met with Mozambique President Filipe Jacinto Nyusi to officially invite him to participate in the upcoming Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) Leaders Summit in Jakarta next month. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9, 2017 The Jakarta Cooperatives, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and Trade (KUKMP) Agency plans to build 20 street vendor centers in a bid to accommodate and better manage sellers in the city. In 2017, the administration will build 20 street vendor centers in locations across the city using corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds, Jakarta KUKMP head Irwandi said. He added that the administration would also build two traditional markets in Kamal Muara, West Jakarta, and at the Islamic Center in North Jakarta, which aimed to host 200 vegetable vendors and 150 Muslim clothing vendors, respectively. The construction of the two markets would be funded by the city budget, he added. The move, he said, was expected to regulate unruly street vendors, who were considered a disrubtion to public order. "We hope this will help better manage street vendors in Jakarta, so that we wont hear about forceful evictions of those selling on the streets anymore. We plan to use CSR funds to build more markets in future, he said. (fac) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9, 2017 How can we distinguish between original identity cards (KTP) and fake ones without card-reading equipment? That question may pop into the heads of officers at Jakarta polling stations when serving unregistered voters on election day. Verification may be a tough job because based on Jakarta General Elections Commission (KPU) data, of almost 7 million eligible voters, around 24,000 Jakarta residents are still unregistered for the upcoming election on Feb. 15. Those people may exercise their voting rights by using electronic ID cards or (recommendation letters) issued by the Directorate General for Population and Civil Registration (Dukcapil) to prove they are Jakarta residents. The KPU Jakarta said previously that it did not have particular methods or equipment to help suket local poll administrators (KPPS) detect fake documents. However, thanks to technology, measures to prevent election fraud involving the use of fake e-ID cards for voting will be easier and cheaper with the WhatsApp messenger service. The national KPU and Home Affairs Ministry have devised a method to verify the validity of residents e-IDs. This system might be the answer to increasing concerns in the past week about fake IDs. During the election, if officers doubt the validity of a residents e-ID, they can take a picture of the suspicious card and send it to a WhatsApp group that includes Dukcapil officers and KPPS in their respective area. The Dukcapil officer will then check the Population Administration Information System (SIAK) to see whether the data on the card is valid. The KPU Jakarta has welcomed the idea as it has yet to find a way to verify voters documents, a commissioner said. We will inform KPPS about this verification [method] soon. We hope each officer has a smartphone so we can implement this idea, KPU Jakarta commissioner M. Sidik said on Tuesday. Sidik said the commission would formulate steps for the verification process including whether it would provide smartphones or internet access to officers without WhatsApp. Separately, the Home Affairs Ministrys Population and Civil Registration Director General Zudan Arif Fakrulloh expressed his readiness to implement the system. Although election day has been declared a national holiday, Zudan has ordered all Dukcapil employees to work to assist polling station officers in verifying voters data. Not only verifying e-KTPs, Dukcapil Agency officers can also help KPPS officers to verify the validity of suket because the letters basically contain data on residents, just like identity cards, Zudan told The Jakarta Post. Meanwhile, KPU commissioner Hadar Nafis Gumay suggested that KPPS officers should be careful when verifying suket. If they are unsure about the validity of the suket, they can request that voters show other identity documents like a drivers license or student card. The officers should check whether the name, address and photo in the letter are the same as their identity cards, Hadar said. In addition, Sidik said the commission would prioritize serving Jakartans whose names were on the final voter list (DPT) before serving unregistered voters. After serving all registered voters, he added, officials would move to serving unregistered residents, starting from 12 p.m., an hour before voting closes. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9, 2017 The spread of fake news has taken place not only in Indonesia but also other countries and is an impact of the new era of global openness that Indonesians must deal with, the President has said. With the growing use of social media, mainstream media platforms should play more active roles in combating the influence of fake news in society by educating people with truthful news coverage, he advised. President Joko Jokowi Widodo said the presence of social media had allowed everyone to create and spread news. Although educational content could be found on social media, fake news was also spread through it. The President said Indonesians would become smarter in responding to the plague of fake news on social media. I believe that this problem will make us more mature and more resilient. So there is no need to complain too much if you get information [that turns out to be untruthful] on social media because this is a phenomenon in all countries, said Jokowi during the celebration of National Press Day in Ambon, Maluku, on Thursday. (Read also: Fighting fake news isn't just up to Facebook and Google) Jokowi acknowledged that in many countries it had been difficult for conventional media to survive amid the growing amount of online information. He expressed confidence that the phenomenon would not happen in Indonesia. Im certain that despite the extensive spread of information online, mainstream media will not disappear. They can both exist. Online information will be superior because of its fastness while mainstream media will remain excellent because of its accuracy and in-depth information. (ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Tama Salim and Asila Jalil (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9, 2017 The question of whether countries should invest in scientific research comes down to political will, although history has shown that basic science drives technological progress, a Nobel Prize winner has argued. During a rare appearance at Binus University in Jakarta, American particle physicist Sheldon Lee Glashow challenged developing countries like Indonesia to decide whether they wanted to be on the side of progress. Its a question of the givers and the takers; there are some countries that accept the fruits of science but do not contribute to them, and there are other countries that produce the fruits of science and export them to the rest of the world, the Nobel laureate said on Wednesday. [But] the question for your country is: What kind of country do you want to be? A giver or a taker? And thats a political decision. During his keynote speech, Glashow, who shared the 1979 Nobel Prize for Physics with fellow scientists Steven Weinberg and Abdus Salam, listed numerous examples of how scientific discoveries were important for human progress, regardless of whether they were incidental or accidental. Sometimes technological progress is made because man has found an urgent need for it, as was the case with solar panels, he said, adding that it took scientists 115 years to make use of the photovoltaic process. Glashow, the Higgins professor of physics (emeritus) at Harvard University, made the same case for nuclear power, weighing up its positive and negative aspects. Nuclear bombs are a threat, yes. [...] There is always a danger that some irresponsible political leader will set off a nuclear catastrophe, and that would be a very bad thing, he posited. But on the other hand, nuclear power is a possible way maybe the only possible way in which we can avert the disaster of climate change. Glashows argument raised the question of whether Indonesia should do more to combat climate change by committing additional resources to scientific research and development. In terms of climate change, Indonesia has made efforts to address the issue in recent years. It has, for instance, adopted the Paris Agreement on climate change, which carries an obligation to limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The adoption was followed by several action plans to combat climate change, such as the National Action Plan on Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions (RAN GRK) and the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC). Meanwhile, local media reports have criticized state funding for research as meager, standing at around 0.2 percent (Rp 17 trillion) of gross domestic product (GDP). The allocation is the lowest in ASEAN, according to World Bank figures. Glashow is among Nobel laureates visiting the region as part of the 6th ASEAN event series titled Bridges Dialogues Towards a Culture of Peace hosted by the International Peace Foundation. From January to March, a string of Bridges events are being held in Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, involving Nobel laureates for peace, physics, chemistry, medicine and economics. Jose Manuel Barroso, who received a Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the European Union, delivered a keynote speech on global governance in Jakarta on Jan. 25. The next speaker is Nobel laureate for economics, Robert F. Engle III, who will deliver speeches in Surabaya on Feb. 20 and in Jakarta on Feb. 22. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9, 2017 The National Police have instructed conservative Muslim groups that plan to rally on Feb. 11 to stage the event within the confines of Istiqlal Grand Mosque. Because what they want to do is to conducts prayers, its fitting for them to do it in Istiqlal, said National Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Martinus Sitompul on Wednesday. Martinus was quoted by tribunnews.com as saying that the police would not deploy extra personnel to secure the Feb. 11 rally as priority was being given to safeguarding the Feb.15 gubernatorial election. The General Elections Commission has declared Feb. 12 to 14 a cooling-off period before voting day, but some conservative Muslim groups intend to rally to remind Muslims about Verse 51 of the Surah Al-Maidah in the Quran, which prohibits Muslims from voting for a non-Muslim. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Tangguh Chairil (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9 2017 The end of 2016 marked another controversy in our defense procurement. The Air Force revived a plan to buy Italian-made AW101 helicopters despite the fact that state aircraft maker PT Dirgantara Indonesia (PTDI) can produce helicopters with equal capabilities. Law No. 16/2012 on the defense industry obliges the Indonesian Military (TNI) to prioritize the domestic defense industry for products, maintenance and repair of defense equipment. But then Air Force chief of staff Air Marshal Agus Supriatna said the foreign-made helicopters were chosen because he deemed PTDI unreliable, claiming PT DI failed to deliver helicopter orders to the Air Force on time in 2012 and in 1998. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login By Press Trust of India: Amaravati, Feb 9 (PTI) Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama arrived today on a two-day visit to Andhra Pradesh capital region Amaravati. AP Assembly Speaker Kodela Sivaprasada Rao and Ministers P R Reddy and D Umamaheswara Rao received him at the Vijayawada airport in Gannavaram. "This is my second visit to Amaravati and I am happy to be here," Dalai Lama said, recalling his trip in 2006 to attend the Buddhist conclave Kalachakra. advertisement Tomorrow, he will be attending the inaugural session of National Womens Parliament being organised by the AP Legislative Assembly at Pavitra Sangamam on the outskirts of Vijayawada. "Making Amaravati the capital of new Andhra Pradesh is a welcome move and I wish it develops well on all fronts. This heritage city has undergone a lot of change over the years," Dalai Lama said. "The economy would flourish where there is peace," he added. The Buddhist spiritual guru later visited the historic Amaravati village and conducted some religious rituals. He also inspected the Dhyana Buddha project developed by the state government. PTI DBV GK GK JMF --- ENDS --- Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9, 2017 Two days before conservative Muslim groups are set to stage a mass prayer within the confines of Istiqlal Mosque on Feb. 11, a senior minister has held a friendly meeting with the event's initiators, including firebrand Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) patron Rizieq Shihab. Coordinating Political, Legal, and Security Affairs Minister Wiranto welcomed Rizieq and the members of National Movement to Safeguard the Indonesian Ulema Councils Fatwa (GNPF-MUI)--the group behind two large-scale rallies against Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama last year--at his official residence in South Jakarta. "These are my old friends, especially Rizieq whom I have known since well before 2000. We had fought together as we shared the same concerns with our country's condition before the reform era," Wiranto explained during a press conference on Thursday. (Read also: COMMENTARY: Thanks to Rizieq, Gen. Tito's political career to skyrocket) The minister, who served as both defense minister and military commander during Indonesia's transition in 1998 to 1999, told the journalists that the GNPF-MUI and FPI shared the same commitment of preserving the country's unity. The GNPF-MUI and FPI have been in the spotlight for being the loudest advocates pushing for blasphemy charges against Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama, a Christian of Chinese descent who currently is seeking re-election in the Feb. 15 Jakarta gubernatorial election . The General Elections Commission has declared Feb. 12 to 14 a cooling-off period before voting day, but some conservative Muslim groups intend to rally to remind Muslims of Verse 51 of the Surah Al-Maidah in the Quran, which prohibits Muslims from voting for a non-Muslim. (dan) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Corry Elyda and Nurul Fitri Ramadhani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9 2017 Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama will return to City Hall on Sunday as a defendant in a blasphemy case. Yet, Ahoks status does not seem to bother his subordinates. Jakarta Environment Agency head Isnawa Adji said he did not have any interest in commenting on Ahoks defendant status. I dont want to comment on the legal matters of our superior, Isnawa said. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ganug Nugroho Adi (The Jakarta Post) Surakarta Thu, February 9, 2017 The Surakarta administration has begun a project to turn 1.8 million metric tons of trash into electricity at Putri Cempo dump in Central Java. The Trash Power Plant (PLTS) Putri Cempo will process 450 tons of garbage per day to produce 12 megawatts of electricity per hour. The PLTS project executor, PT Solo Citra Metro Plasma Powers president director, Elan Syuherlan, said recently the PLTS plan had entered the detailed engineering design stage, which was expected to be completed in September. Elan said the company had also been addressing other requirements, such as the environmental impact analysis. Construction of the PLTS will begin next year, he said, and the facility was expected to be operational by the end of 2019. The PLTS project in Surakarta will be run by a consortium comprising PT Citra Metrojaya Putra and state-owned enterprise PT Pembangunan Perusahaan. The consortium will work in cooperation with Austrian-based General Electric. The power plant will use plasma gasification technology. With the technology, solid waste will be put into a large tub and heated to between 1,200 and 5,000 degrees Celsius. The plant will process 450 tons of trash per day, with 200 tons being new trash and 250 tons being old trash piling up at Putri Cempo. Surakarta Environmental Agency head Hasta Gunawan said the project was urgent considering the amount of trash piling up at Putri Cempo dump. It has been over capacity for 10 years, he said. (evi) An Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) staff member tells election officers about an IT-based polling station monitoring system at the agencys office in North Jakarta on Wednesday. Bawaslu requires each of its election supervisors to create and upload a video as a strategy to maximize monitoring of the gubernatorial election scheduled for Feb. 15.(JP/Seto Wardhana)(Bawaslu) staff member tells election officers about an IT-based polling station monitoring system at the agencys office in North Jakarta on Wednesday. Bawaslu requires each of its election supervisors to create and upload a video as a strategy to maximize monitoring of the gubernatorial election scheduled for Feb. 15.(JP/Seto Wardhana) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Farida Susanty (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9, 2017 09:01 2095 9b519824cb3263083aedb70a0bf04477 4 Business tourism,tourist-destination,tana-toraja,World-Bank,development-fund,foreign-tourists Free Designation of Toraja as prioritized tourism destination to help improve accessibility, spurs development World Bank may become engaged in development of Toraja Some tourist destinations have made a name for themselves long before the authorities granted them the special attention they deserve. For many foreigners, Tana Toraja rings a bell because of its widely distributed coffee as well as its cultural heritage sites exposed in international publications and at global tourism trade fairs. However, it was only recently that the government decided to designate Tana Toraja, the pride of South Sulawesi, as one of its emerging tourist destinations to be developed as a matter of priority, along with 10 others appointed earlier. A special team comprising members of various ministries and agencies had been set up to speed up the development of Tana Toraja, said Deputy Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Safri Burhanuddin. Tana Toraja itself is already part of the national strategic tourism area, so we will only need to carry out an integrated study to develop Toraja further, said Safri, who oversees human resources, knowledge and technology as well as maritime culture at the Office of the Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister. (Read also: Toraja to be next top-priority tourist destination) The teams main tasks will include improving access to the area, particularly by expanding Pongtiku Airport and completing the construction of Buntu Kunik Airport. At present, tourists typically embark on a nine-hour car ride from the provincial capital of Makassar to reach Tana Toraja. Safri said the aim was to promote Tana Toraja as Indonesias main cultural destination. Home to thousands of indigenous Torajan people, the area is widely known for its unique traditional funeral ceremonies, beautiful housing architecture and buffalo fighting, among other things. Tana Toraja welcomed 296,136 domestic and 34,865 foreign tourists in 2015, according to Tourism Ministry data. In the same year, North Toraja hosted 286,669 domestic and 32,763 foreign tourists. The government hopes to double arrivals by 2019. A recent visit by Vice President Jusuf Kalla, himself a South Sulawesi native, had played a significant role in the areas designation as the 11th emerging tourist destination, Safri said. The government has declared tourism one of the countrys main sectors to develop and expects to garner US$20 billion in foreign exchange revenue in 2019, double the figure of 2013. To achieve this goal, it eyes 15 million foreign tourists this year and 20 million next year. (Read also: Respecting the dead in Toraja) From January to November last year, foreign tourist arrivals stood at 10.4 million, according to Central Statistics Agency (BPS) data, with 12 million targeted for the full year. The prioritized development of 10 destinations, such as Mandalika, West Nusa Tenggara and Tanjung Kelayang, Bangka Belitung, is expected to contribute half of the 20 million target. The designation of Tana Toraja as the 11th destination on the list has yet to be backed up by any legal basis, but the government is in talks with the World Bank and other parties to help develop the area. The World Bank is set to pour $300 million into the construction of infrastructure at Lake Toba, Borobudur and Mandalika. Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association (PHRI) South Sulawesi chapter secretary Nasrullah welcomed the decision to put Toraja on the emerging destination list, saying this would support the areas accessibility and development. In terms of accommodation, we are pretty much ready. We have 1,500 rooms at star-rated hotels in Toraja. Just the accessibility is still a hindrance, he said. Nasrullah added that the new status would likely spur investment in accommodation in the area once the accessibility issue was solved. Indonesian Tour and Travel Agencies Association (Asita) chairman Asnawi Bahar also supported the designation, as, he claimed, Toraja had already been ahead of other emerging destinations. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9, 2017 South Tangerang Police are tracking down a group of teenagers who allegedly vandalized an internet cafe and robbed its visitors on Jl. Ki Hajar Dewantara No. 100 in Ciputat. "The perpetrators came on motorbikes. Most of them are teenagers," South Tangerang Police crime unit head Adj. Comr. Alexander was quoted as saying by tribunnews.com on Wednesday evening. CCTV footage reportedly shows the youngsters armed with machetes and sickles and snatching wallets and cell phones from visitors. "Fortunately, no one was injured during the rampage," Alexander said. (agn/dmr) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Stefani Ribka (The Jakarta Post) Cibitung Thu, February 9, 2017 PT Toyota Motor Manufacturing (TMMIN), the local arm of the Japanese carmaker, is sourcing polypropylene impact (PP) copolymer from the local market to produce plastic components for Vios and Yaris cars. The resin is produced by PT Chandra Asri Petrochemical (TPIA), the largest petrochemical maker in the country. "This is a breakthrough for the petrochemical industry in Indonesia to further penetrate the automotive component sector, products for which it previously sourced from other countries," said Chandra Asri director Suryandi during the launch of the resin partnership at the PT Sugity Creatives premises on Thursday. (Read also: Toyotas trade heat from trump toughens test of U.S. demand) The deal between Toyota and Chandra Asri will also benefit the local compounding and molding industry, said Suryandi PT Hexa Indonesia will benefit as it supplies powder additives and color for the resin as well as PT Sugity Creatives, which molds resin into auto components, ranging from dashboards, door handles, rear-view mirror casings and other car interior parts made from plastic. Chandra Asri plans to supply resin for other Toyota brands, namely Fortuner and Inova. Previously, it supplied Daihatsu for its low-cost green cars and Honda cars and motorcycles. The petrochemical giant plans to produce PP impact copolymer resin for 500,000 cars per year or 25,000 tons of resin, which equals 50 kg for each car. Chandra Asri currently produces 480,000 tons of PP impact copolymer resin for various industries. It plans to increase it to 580,000 tons in the near future. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Thu, February 9 2017 We used to look over our shoulders while cautiously expressing what could be considered dissent or, worse, treason. In this free era, hopefully we will not see anything worse than the current and unexpected virtual freedom to lie and make up information. Worries about fake news and low media literacy shroud todays commemoration of National Press Day. As in the US, it is election fever, particularly ahead of the divisive Jakarta gubernatorial election, that has heavily contributed to the torrent of controversial news rapidly making the rounds of social media. Amid the need for clicks, ratings and hopefully revenue, regular news outlets are also often driven to seek clarification over the most ridiculous news items. Witness the recent news on communists holding daily evening meetings at the State Palace, as a lecturer claimed, leading to police complaints and legal warnings from the individuals he named. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Police detained four Islamic State suspects who were allegedly planning to carry out a "sensational" attack in Turkey and seized 24 suicide attack belts, officials said Thursday. The latest detentions came as CIA chief Mike Pompeo arrived in Turkey to discuss the fight against the extremist group in Syria and Iraq, making his first overseas trip since taking office. The suspects were put under custody in an anti-terror operation in Gaziantep, near the border with Syria, according to Gaziantep provincial governor's office. Police found the suicide belts made with 150 kilograms of explosives and fortified with metal pieces as well as two automatic rifles, 14 kilograms (31 pounds) of TNT and other materials during the operation, it said. There were no details on the suspects' nationalities, who were allegedly taking orders from high-level IS members in Syria. One suspect was wanted for membership in a terror organization, according to the governor's office. Last year, Turkey suffered a series of deadly attacks carried out by IS or Kurdish militants and has stepped up anti-terrorism operations across the country. Some 750 people with alleged IS links were detained in a major police sweep in 29 Turkish provinces last week. A Turkish official said Pompeo was to meet with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, as well as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim in Ankara. The talks will include plans for a possible operation to retake the Islamic State group stronghold of Raqqa, said the security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government regulations. Pompeo's visit follows a phone call between US President Donald Trump and Erdogan. Turkey is hoping for a reset in relations with the United States that were strained under the Obama administration over Turkish demands for the extradition of a US-based cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who Turkey has accused of orchestrating a failed coup. Turkey was also angered by US backing for Syrian Kurdish fighters, since it considers them terrorists because of their links to outlawed Kurdish rebels in Turkey. Turkey, whose troops are currently trying to liberate the town of IS-held town of al Bab in Syria, is pressing for a joint operation with the US to re-capture Raqqa without the Syrian Kurdish group's involvement. The security official said during talks with Pompeo, Turkey would also seek greater US cooperation in Turkey's struggle against the Gulen's movement and the Kurdish rebels. (**) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Dylan Amirio (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, February 10 2017 The local unit of Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia is planning to further expand its flight network to focus on bringing in leisure visitors to the country from overseas, with the goal of opening three significant new routes from the resort island of Bali this year. AirAsia Group CEO for Indonesia Dendy Kurniawan said the airline would launch flights connecting Denpasar and South Korea, Japan and India sometime this year, and all would be flown by the airlines long-haul service Indonesia AirAsia X. He noted that Japan was a specifically popular destination for Indonesians as the passenger traffic to the country is consistently high. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login A Nigerian man who tried to smuggle 90 capsules of cocaine, which he had swallowed, to India was detained from the Indhira Gandhi International Airport on Monday. By Himanshu Mishra: Delhi zonal unit of Narcotics Control Bureau intercepted a Nigerian man, who had swallowed 90 capsules of cocaine, weighing around 1.3 kg. In the last month, this is the fourth seizure of cocaine and third case of an individual carrying cocaine in his system. On February 6, a team of NCB intercepted the man on the basis of passenger profiling. He arrived at the Indhira Gandhi International Airport that morning. During the course of interrogation, the man feigned ignorance about the presence of drugs and told the team that he visited India for business purposes. advertisement The fellow was taken to Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital where doctors confirmed the presence of foreign bodies in his stomach. He was kept in the hospital for two days during which he excreted 90 Capsules containing 1.3 kg cocaine. The man accepted that he ingested drug capsules from Lagos Nigeria and that it took him good three hours to do it. He then took a flight for Lome to Adis Ababa andthen flew down to Delhi. He was to deliver the drugs to some Nigerian in New Delhi and was supposed to get in touch after activating a local SIM card. The investigation is ongoing and the agency is now on the lookout for people involved in cocaine distribution in India, especially in the capital city. --- ENDS --- Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Banten Fri, February 10 2017 Eradicating corruption in Banten will be a tough job for the incoming governor, as the province is struggling to eliminate a corruption culture inherited by its previous governors Djoko Mundandar and Ratu Atut Chosiyah both of whom were dismissed from their posts for their involvement in graft cases. The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) reported last year Banten as one of six regions in the country with high corruption potential alongside Aceh, North Sumatra, Papua, Riau and West Papua. Bordering Jakarta, Banten is more than a noisy neighbor as the province serves as a pivotal regional gateway. The largest international commercial airport of the country, SoekarnoHatta International Airport, is in Banten. The province has one of the nations busiest ferry terminals in Merak Port, which connects Sumatra, as well as a major highway connecting Jakarta and Merak Port along the northern coast. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, February 10 2017 Moodys Investors Service has revised the outlook on its ratings of Indonesian government debt to positive from stable. In a statement issued on Wednesday, the credit rating agency also said it had affirmed Indonesias Baa3 issuer rating, Baa3 senior unsecured bond ratings, and (P)Baa3 senior unsecured medium term note (MTN) program rating. It attributed the improved outlook mainly to emerging signs of a reduction in structural constraints on Indonesias rating, including its level of external vulnerability and the strength of its institutions. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Haeril Halim, Syofiardi Bachyul Jb and Andi Hajramurni (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta/Padang/Makassar Fri, February 10 2017 Almost a year and a half after two of the worst disasters in haj history, Saudi Arabia has yet to fulfill its commitment to victims of the tragedies, including Indonesians killed and injured in the collapse of a crane at the Al-Haram Grand Mosque in Mecca. Twelve citizens of Indonesia, the country with the worlds largest Muslim population, were killed and 49 injured when the crane collapsed on Sept. 11, 2015, days before the haj officially started. The kingdom had pledged to the Indonesian government that it would provide 1 million riyals (US$266,607) in compensation for every dead or permanently disabled victim and 500,000 riyals for the less badly injured, but nothing has been received by the victims as of today. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Aichiro Suryo Prabowo (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, February 10 2017 Zumi Zola, Governor of Jambi province, put on quite a show recently when he paid an impromptu visit to the Raden Mattaher regional hospital in Jambi. He reportedly arrived at 1 a.m. with a group of men carrying cameras, only to see that the reception desk was deserted. The governor proceeded to the next room, which revealed night shift workers trying to unwind. He was enraged. After lining up the tired-eyed workers, he lectured them on how he had received too many complaints about the hospitals poor service and therefore pledged disciplinary actions. This was all caught on camera. Governor Zumi is not the only elected official having exercised power in such a way. Governor Ganjar Pranowo of Central Java was also captured angry on camera after exposing weight station officers being bribed by truck drivers in exchange for allowing overloaded trucks to pass. Manpower Minister Hanif Dhakiri, on a different occasion, was filmed having an outburst when he caught a group of undocumented foreign workers in a mining camp in South Kalimantan. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Fedina S. Sundaryani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, February 10 2017 As the government remains firm in closing the door to negotiations on permit status changes and share divestments for mining companies that wish to obtain mineral export permits, giant miners have banded together and accepted an invitation from the House of Representatives to discuss their situation. It took four hours and a little brawl behind tightly closed doors for the miners and smelting firms to push their interests with House of Representatives Commission VII overseeing energy. Three giants led the effort, namely Freeport Indonesia, Amman Mineral Nusa Tenggara and Vale Indonesia. This is the first time the companies have banded together and pushed for legislative action against the fourth revision to Government Regulation No. 23/2010 on the management of mineral and coal businesses. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Liza Yosephine (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, February 10 2017 Relations between Australia and Indonesia remain intact despite the latest military stumble that has resulted in an ongoing suspension of defense cooperation, observers have said. Institute for Defense, Security and Peace Studies executive director Mufti Makarim underlined that major calls on international military cooperation could only be made by executive decision. Indonesian Military (TNI) chief Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo only suspended a small part of a cooperative partnership on education and training with the TNIs Australian counterpart, he said, questioning Gatots capacity to make the decision. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Associated Press) Kuala Lumpur Thu, February 9, 2017 Malaysian authorities have seized thousands of paint brushes suspected of containing pig bristles after consumers in this Muslim-majority nation demanded a crackdown, officials said Wednesday. Pigs and dogs are considered unclean by many Muslims, who make up some 60 percent of Malaysia's 30 million people. It is illegal in the country to sell products made from any part of a pig or a dog, unless the goods are labeled and kept separately. Zarif Anwar, an enforcement official with the domestic trade and consumer ministry, said that since Tuesday, officials nationwide have been inspecting shops selling paint brushes for art and commercial use. He said the brushes seized were not labeled and found to have a different texture from other brushes and frayed ends, signs that they could be made from pig bristles. In some cases, the brushes had a "halal" certification that had expired, he said. The halal tag is issued by an Islamic government body to certify products safe to be used by Muslims. The seized brushes will be sent to a lab to be examined, Zarif said. "We want to protect consumers and we want traders to be aware of the religious sensitivity involved. This is a big offense," Zarif told The Associated Press. He warned that traders who flout the rule face up to three years in jail, a fine of 100,000 ringgit ($22,522) or both. Conservative attitudes have been on the rise in Malaysia. A wide range of products have been certified halal, from mineral water to a newly launched internet browser, to appeal to Muslims. The Muslim Consumers Association of Malaysia called for stricter enforcement not just for paint brushes, but for other products as well. An official from the group, Nadzim Johan, said the association also received complaints that culinary brushes used in eateries may also contain pig bristles. "The key issue here is about labeling," he said. "We want Muslim consumers to be forewarned. It's not fair to deceive them." Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, February 9, 2017 17:33 2095 9b519824cb3263083aedb70a0bf25177 4 News bandung,tourism,Tourist,Skywalk,pedestrian,pedestrian-bridges,ridwan-kamil,Teras-Cihampelas,Cihampelas,shopping,#tourism,#Bandung Free A new skywalk in Cihampelas shopping destination was officially opened in Bandung, West Java, on Saturday. Kompas.com reported that the 450-meter Teras Cihampelas (Cihampelas Terrace) was expected to become a new tourist attraction, as well as to manage the large number of street vendors in the area. Following its opening, Teras Cihampelas now hosts 192 street vendors offering a wide array of goods, such as foods, souvenirs and accessories. These vendors had previously flooded the long street and often caused traffic congestion in the area. The skywalk also has an elevator, making it disabled-friendly. (Read also: New museum opens in Bandung) Teras Cihampelas sudah dibuka. Silakan ramaikan produk2 dan kuliner PKL di sana. keren-keren. Nuhun. A photo posted by Ridwan Kamil (@ridwankamil) on Feb 2, 2017 at 3:51am PST During the opening ceremony, Bandung Mayor Ridwan Kamil said that Teras Cihampelas was part of the solution to develop a city where the land price was no longer affordable. The concept allowed pedestrians to conveniently stroll the tourist destination. One day, developed countries [will use a similar concept]. A skywalk here means a pedestrian walkway over the road. The bigger plan is to create a pedestrian skywalk above the railway, from the west to the eastern parts of Bandung, added Ridwan. (jes/kes) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Nikki Ekstein (Bloomberg) Thu, February 9, 2017 17:57 2095 9b519824cb3263083aedb70a0bf2bc70 2 News fancy-hotel,hospitality,hospitality-industry,hotels,#hotel,#hotels Free What do you get when youre paying upward of $1,000 for a hotel room? That answer can vary wildly, depending on where you are. Even the standard amenities at these types of hotels and resortspersonal butlers, private pools, complimentary use of a house car and driverare enough to make you feel like royalty. But head into the upper echelons of hospitality and youll find thoughtful details you would have never known you wanted. Here are some of our favorites. Free vintage couture at the Berkeley, London The fashion trunk at the Berkeley in London.(The Berkeley/File) Stay in one of the specialty suites at this Knightsbridge icon and youll get access to the hotels secret weapon: an 11-drawer fashion trunk, filled with big-label statement pieces that date back as far as the 1950s. Think Hermes Kelly bags or a mini Baignoire Cartier watch. The pieces mainly consist of jewelry, scarves, and handbags, and you can borrow as many as you wanteven buy the ones you love. Paparazzi police and personalized fireworks displays at Rosewood Las Ventanas, Los Cabos, Mexico If you think privacy is the ultimate luxury, head to Rosewoods Cabo stunner, Las Ventanas. The hotel has been known to summon a brigade of staffers equipped with reflective screens to ride out on jet skis when a guest sees paparazzi show up in front of the ocean-front villa. (The screens shine light at the photographers, ruining their shots to shoo them.) Perhaps even more extravagant is Las Ventanas latest offering: custom fireworks displays, which you can design on an iPad-based fireworks menu. They cost $1,700per minute. Custom-designed bedding at Plaza Athenee, Paris Its one thing to have a pillow menu with a few weight and material options. (And nobody will complain about that.) But Dorchester Collections grand dame on Avenue Montaigne goes a few steps farther. First, it has pillows designed to remedy different ailments: a millet-stuffed pillow for stress-relief and a horsehair pillow for those who need extra support, for instance. And then there are interchangeable fiber or foam mattress toppers, plus linens you can request to be mixed and matched ahead of your stay. The only thing you cant tailor to your liking is the bed frame. (Read also: Mandapa in Ubud named Asia's best hotel) Personal monograms at Peninsula Beverly Hills, Raffles Istanbul, L'Horizon Paris Peninsula maintains a closet with thousands of monogrammed pillowcases. Any time repeat guests check in, their initials will appear, emblazoned on the bedding in their room. (Travelers can choose to keep the pillowcases as souvenirs, or leave them behind to be laundered and reused.) Similar touches exist at a handful of other hotels and are always impressive: Raffles Istanbul does monogrammed bathrobes, and LHorizon in Palm Springs, Calif., puts personalized brass nameplates on room doors to make guests feel at home. The most thoughtful turndown at Twin Farms, Vermont A handmade wood puzzle, Twin Farms' turndown amenity.(Twin Farms/File) This farm-to-table-focused Relais & Chateaux property puts a fun twist on locally sourced turndown treats. Rather than leave you with sweets after your multi-course tasting dinner, the staff commissions handmade wooden puzzles by local craftsman Steve Richardson, whose jigsaws ordinarily start at $200 and sell for more than $10,000. This strikes just the right balance between quaint and luxe that Twin Farms strives for. Lego butler service and custom bedtime stories at Ashford Castle, Ireland Hospitality doesnt discriminate, and age is no exception. Thats why Ashford Castle delivers Legos on silver trays as part of its room service. Even more thoughtful is the bedtime story program: Customized tales weave young guests into narratives as the main characters, and the readings are served up with a side of homemade cookies. (For another great kid amenity, check out the Waldorf Astoria Orlando: It will build a fort in your room for slumber party-themed nights.) A slumber party at the Waldorf Astoria Orlando.(Waldorf Astoria Orlando/File) Hansraj College principal, Dr. Rama, has been ordered to deposit Rs 90,000 for felling three trees of Sheesham and Guler in July 2016. By Baishali Adak: Delhi University's Hansraj College has been asked to pay a big fine for indiscriminate felling of trees in its premises. Its Principal, Dr. Rama, has been ordered to deposit Rs 90,000 for felling three trees of Sheesham and Guler in July 2016. An order to this effect has been brought out by the 'Delhi Forest and Wildlife Department' on February 2, asking her to comply within 15 days. advertisement College authorities said that this was for the purpose of setting up a very large porta cabin, which now accommodates roughly 12 staff rooms, department rooms and administrative offices. Incidentally now, this has a first floor also. The order, signed by Deputy Conservator of Forests (North), Anamika, says: "After several hearings were held in the case in year 2016?an offence under the Delhi Tree Preservation Act (1994) as committed by Dr. Rama has been admitted by her that the said trees were cut and she is ready for compounding of the offence." 'Under Section 21 of the Act, she is hereby directed to deposit `90,000 through DD within 15 days of the receipt of this order. She shall ensure that no tree is cut by her in future without obtaining permission from Tree Officers as required under DTP Act.' Dr. Rama told Mail Today, "We have not cut any trees and this case is still ongoing." The complainant, Sonya Ghosh, said, "These were very big and old trees of Sheeshum and Guler and should have been accommodated in the structures and not sacrificed." Felling and pruning of trees anywhere in Delhi, without seeking explicit permission from the government, is illegal. ALSO READ | Delhi government hikes security deposit for felling trees Capital greens reduced to ashes, trees cut and sent to crematoriums --- ENDS --- By India Today Web Desk: As Sasikala-Panneerselvam face-off intensifies, DMK calls for fresh election in Tamil Nadu Sensing that President's rule could be imposed in case both Sasikala and Panneerselvam were not able to prove their majority during the floor test, DMK has already started sending out signals that fresh election should be held. Masood Azhar: China editorial admits 'regional stability' more important than terror advertisement In an editorial in the Global Times, published by the official People's Daily, the party's mouthpiece, said China was "caught in the middle" between India and Pakistan. Fawad Khan in a tell-all interview: 10 quotes that make a LOT of sense Fawad Khan has been away from the limelight for several months now. Unless you've been living under a rock, you'd be aware of the entire brouhaha that played out before the release of his last Bollywood film, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. Now, the Pakistani actor has bared his heart in a tell-all interview. Virat Kohli slams ninth hundred as India captain Virat Kohli scored his fourth hundred of the home season and 16th of his career as India dominated Bangladesh on the first day of the one-off Test. --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: Los Angeles, Feb 9 (PTI) Scientists have used decades-old radioactive glass, found blanketing the ground after the first nuclear test bomb explosion, to examine theories about the Moons formation about 4.5 billion years ago. Researchers from University of California San Diego in the US examined the chemical composition of zinc and other volatile elements contained in the green-coloured glass, called trinitite, which were radioactive materials formed under the extreme temperatures that resulted from the 1945 plutonium bomb explosion. advertisement The test samples analysed were collected between 10 meters and 250 meters from ground zero at the Trinity test site in New Mexico. When compared with samples collected farther away, the glass closest to the detonation site was depleted in volatile elements such as zinc. The zinc that was present was enriched in the heavier and less-reactive isotopes, which are forms of these elements with different atomic mass but the same chemical properties. Zinc and other volatile elements, which vaporise under high temperature, were "dried out" close to the explosion than those further away from the blast. "The results show that evaporation at high temperatures, similar to those at the beginning of planet formation, leads to the loss of volatile elements and to enrichment in heavy isotopes in the left over materials from the event," said Professor James Day, from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California. "This has been conventional wisdom, but now we have experimental evidence to show it," said Day. Scientists have long suggested that similar chemical reactions took place when a collision between Earth and a Mars-sized planetary body produced debris that ultimately formed the Moon. The analysis by Day and colleagues found similarities between the trinitite and lunar rocks in that they are both highly depleted in volatile elements and contain little to no water. Days study provides new evidence to support the "giant impact theory" of the Moons formation. The thin sheet of trinitite at the New Mexico desert test site, which extended roughly 350 meters out from ground zero, formed from the heat, as the nuclear reactions took place. The studys findings showed that volatile elements undergo the same chemical reactions during extreme temperature and pressure events whether taking place on Earth or in outer space. "We used what was a history-changing event to scientific benefit, obtaining new and important scientific information from an event over 70 years ago that changed human history forever," said Day. The findings were published in the journal Science Advances. PTI SAR SAR --- ENDS --- Since 2011 nearly 5m people have fled Syria, creating one of the biggest refugee exoduses in recent history and the number continues to grow. Globally, millions more have been forced to flee their homes due to war, conflict and persecution latest figures indicate that there are an estimated 65m displaced people across the world. A displaced person is someone who has been forced to leave their home or place of habitual residence a phenomenon known as forced migration. And for these people, the first line of assistance from their hosts and the international community will always be the real basics: food, water, shelter and health-care. But education and, in particular, higher education often lags behind. Displacement can affect a wide range of people, but whatever your position it almost always leaves you poorer and less able to access education. In Syria, the Institute of International Education estimates that more than a quarter of Syrias young people men and women were participating in education before the conflict. Among the Syrian refugee population alone it is estimated that there are 2,000 university professionals and 100,000 students qualified to go to university. Failing to provide an opportunity for lecturers to continue to teach, and students to continue to learn, not only represents a huge waste of talent, it is also devastating for those who see their careers terminated or their aspirations in tatters. One suggestion is that universities use their capacity to translate teaching materials into Arabic to offer courses that can be taught locally in refugee camps in Lebanon or Jordan by displaced refugee academics. But this has not been easy, and is still yet to really come to fruition. SOAS students have also been regular visitors to the camps in Calais, bringing both support and cultural activities. Of course, these are all small steps. The demand for higher education among refugees remains large and the response of the higher education sector in the UK is still inadequate. Yet even small steps are important if we are to address the climate of intolerance and indifference towards migrants and refugees. The sanctuary of education As an undergraduate student, I volunteered in my third week at university to organise a Brown Rice Week to raise money for refugee students. That was in the mid-1980s and the refugees were mostly in Africa. The money we raised through forgoing meals for a week for a bowl of brown rice a day, provided enough money for more than a dozen refugee scholarships for students from around the world. Refugee studies then a nascent subject area at Oxford became my professional area of work for around 20 years. So when a return to 1980s levels of forced displacement emerged in 2015, I understandably wanted to do something. This is why a number of UK universities have recently launched Sanctuary Scholarship schemes . These scholarships are available to displaced people from anywhere in the world who are living without the relative security of refugee status. These are people who are in the often long process of seeking asylum, or have some other form of temporary leave to remain in the UK. These are the real people in need. These are the people unable to apply to attend UK universities because they dont qualify for home fees unlike those with refugee status in the UK. They also dont qualify for a student loan and potentially other means-tested support again unlike recognised refugees. And were working with these people because we want our scheme to make a real difference. Student support Our student community, particularly those involved with the Solidarity with Refugees and Displaced People Society, have played an absolutely crucial role in setting this up. They pushed for the scheme, but their involvement did not just stop there. They have remained actively engaged and they have influenced how it has developed in a very positive way highlighting design issues, raising awareness of the scheme, and networking with supportive partners. We hope to work with our students and the wider academic community to build this scheme into something really significant. We want universities to be a place of sanctuary for students and scholars who have fled conflict and human rights abuses. This is surely also an area for wider collaboration between UK universities. Each university acting separately inevitably only takes small steps and each initiative risks making the same mistakes. Working together, we can play a much bigger part part in making our institutions truly open to those who want to pursue their dreams. Pinch yourself! Go on do it! Have you woken up?No, me neither. Theres always the hope that this reality is just a bad dream inspired by binge-watching Brass Eye and Black Mirror and eating the really mouldy cheese! But nah, this is real and everything. With this weeks run of new tunes it was another thing to make me hope for this being a dream. I mean if my mind can come up with music this good, I must subconsciously be a genius! Click play and see if it is all real.... Arcade Fire feat. Mavis Staples I Give You Power Arcade Fire morph into a dark techno force, taking the fight to the Trump administrations trampling of civil rights in league with gospel and soul legend Mavis Staples providing powerful vocals on I Give You Power. All proceeds from the track go to the American Civil Liberties Union. Rarely does political activism make you want to dance this much! Unqualified Nurse Band Death Surf A52 A band for little more than a year weve already had an EP and an album out of UNB, with another on the way. If thats not enough theyre dropping a new single through the Too Pure Singles Club. Packed with crushing riffs and swirling noise, psyche-swirls and melodies also seep into the tracks cracks its both violent and serene. Yasmine Hamdan La Baden La Baden is a collision of worlds, a merging of cultures. Arab world underground icon Yasmine Hamdan has joined forces with Sonic Youths Steve Shelley and UK producers Luke Smith and Leo Abrahams for new album Al Jamilat (The Beautiful Ones). The tune connects Arabic musical traditions with elements of western pop, electronic and folk music to create a ambient-pop wonder that belongs nowhere but everywhere. Youll Never Get to Heaven To Be Fair Float into a perpetual dream world with the new cut from Youll Never Get to Heaven. The Canadian ambient-pop duo sculpt magnificent monuments of sound and To Be Fair is the perfect introduction to what looks set to be a special new record. Rainbrother Juggler Rainbrothers cinematic, widescreen psych-folk could soundtrack the road-movie in your mind. Latest single Juggler taken from new album Tales From The Drought adds quirk to the polish of their downbeat alt-Americana sound. Vodun Bloodstones This London lot are heavy! Bloodstones takes crushing hard rock riffs and powerful soul vocals to drive home the songs themes of oppression and slavery hard! H. Grimace Land/Body New London four-piece echo the best of 80s post-punk and indie with kinetic rhythms and duelling guitars that at times break into explosions of noise. Debut album Self Architect is coming in April. Vandana - Vicious Fusing elements of trip-hop, alternative pop and electronica Vandana, is the new gothic, pop princess taking electronic pop into deep, dark, cerebral realms. Spacious synths and clattered beats mesh with assured vocals to create Vicious a tune that will embed itself in your subconscious. Lucky Shivers Human By Night The first release from Lucky Shivers is a definite ear-worm. Bridging the gap between American and UK indie Human By Night is cute without being twee, pop without being disposable and indie without being inaccessible. Its just how indie-pop should sound. E Pa Nu Mata is another dancefloor gem from Minajs run of kuduro and afro-house stylings. A slowburner built on a syncopated West African rhythm is a unique take on the house music template. The Black Angels Currency Currency is a surging, psychedelic earworm and the first single from the Austin noise-mongers forthcoming album Death Song due in April. Shamanic vibes emanate from the centre of tribal rhythms and bursts of guitar noise. Nargiz OoW No More A stylish flip of Rhiannas Woo this new cut from Nargiz loops the originals guitar riff on top of clattering percussion and Travi$ Scotts harmonies. Brimming with sub bass it adds new depth to the original. The European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill to pave the way for the formal Brexit process to begin under Article 50 of the EU treaties has cleared the House of Commons without being amended. So what happens next? House of Lords The Brexit Bill will now be passed to the House of Lords where the stages second reading, committee (when substantive amendments can be made) and third reading are repeated. The Government could find life more tricky in the upper chamber, where the Bill will be introduced on February 20, because it does not have a majority. Labour in the Lords has already said while it will examine the Governments Brexit plans, it will not attempt to block them although there are some individuals likely to oppose. The Liberal Democrats, on the other hand, are determined to guarantee a fresh referendum on the final deal, protect single market membership and guarantee the rights of EU citizens in the UK. The party has 102 peers, compared with 253 Tories, out of a total 805. (Nick Ansell/PA) Ping-pong If no amendments are made, the Bill should complete its passage through the Lords by March 7, though if peers have requested amendments be made, it will head back to the Commons where MPs will debate to keep the changes or not. This procedure, known as ping-pong, would see the Bill repeatedly move between the Commons and the Lords until an agreement is reached on the final text. Ping-pong seems the most likely stage for the Bill to be held up, as peers could become emboldened with time running out for the Government to hit its timetable of triggering Article 50 by April. But members in both Houses will be acutely aware that appearing to frustrate the progress of the Bill would risk accusations that they are going against the will of the people expressed in last years referendum. Meet Hope a new app for your smart phone that allows you to check if your friends are in or out, safely. Originally from Lancashire, now in San Francisco. Victoria Haynes, creator of the new app, is trusting us with a more secure and informative app than Find My Friends. But is technology dominating us, by cautiously giving us the ability to constantly find out where anyone is at any time? Kim Kardashian snapchatting before being held at gunpoint was a suggestion that sharing location via social media can be highly dangerous. I had a chat with Victoria to ask her about the purpose of Hope, which allows you to know if your friends or family are home safe or still out, if their battery or phone is dead, and why it will reduce worry and not invade your private life. Hope is a virtual BFF, a personal concierge and the social glue between millennial females," Victoria says. "Basically, its a thicker based messaging app that automatically shows when your friends get home. Victorias forthright attitude about the app made me curious, and so I downloaded the app to see for myself. The key difference to some of the share your location apps, like Find My Friends for example, shares your location on a map the whole time. Hope shows if you are in or out as well. Its evident that the app has been carefully thought out. However, having a location-based app can be an invasion of privacy; Victoria's friends were already not so keen on being checked up on all the time on other location-based apps. I think some people are okay with that level of privacy, and some people arent," Victoria says. "So my friends in particular werent okay with that, we said we love each other and everything; but dont need to know exactly where we are all the time. If we dont always need to share our location, then why was Hope created? Victoria explains how the idea came about. It got me thinking after a night out - I was worried about one of my friends getting home, and I was calling her and texting her but there was no response. I thought shed be okay, but I was worrying for no reason. "The way the app works is that you set certain places in your app, and as you come and go from those places the app automatically updates. In the situation of my friend, as soon as she would have got home, it would have shown that she was in one of her places and her profile would have gone green to indicate that. Are we taking technology too far by being able to find out where our friends or family are all the time? Does this not cross the boundary of social activity with privacy? One of the reasons I built the app was to take a step back from some of the technology thats out there. For example, being able to see where you are all the time. So for me, this is a way of using technology that doesnt get super intrusive. Victoria continues: If you say to a friend youre somewhere when youre actually in a different place, it can start causing a little contention. What Im trying to do with this is take a step back, and give people a piece of mind that were using technology comfortably. All youll ever see is whether youre in or out, and thats it. As students at university, there are times when we find purselves walking home alone at an unfriendly hour. Victoria considered developing the app to cover safety aspects too. It shows if youre in or out and how long youve been out for," she says. "Thinking about the What if situations, we could build in more of an alert system if youre not feeling safe. If youre walking home alone and feeling a little on-edge, there could be an alert-mode that you go into that would send your live location. Its definitely something that were open to. A question that played on my mind for a while was, why is it called Hope? Victoria answers with a tone of excitement. I was looking for a girls name, because the app has a virtual friend in there that can help you book an Uber and shop and other things, so letting you know your friends get home is just one slice of it. "But I was looking for a female name that wasnt common and I found Trust, and thought this is perfect! And then I looked at another called Hope and thought, okay, this is fate because my Mum always told me to stick together and make sure my friends and I get home okay, so I think thats always been distilled in me. Although the app has a feminine feel, Victoria assures me that it is a unisex app - but within the context of women's safety, its been built with females in mind. The way I think about it, its for females and those who care about her (sic). For example, I have my brother, friends, and my fiancee on there. Its anyone who cares that youre okay. Victoria has detected the acceptable level between socialising, mixed with the appropriate level of privacy, to ensure we worry less and relax more: Its more about removing the worry. Hope is available on IOS. Only eight weeks after Netflix debuted its first series, The OA has been renewed for a second season. The Netflix original series was launched with very little prior advertising, relying on its mysterious qualities to entice viewers into bingewatching. Brit Marling, who also wrote and produced the show alongside Zal Batmanglij, plays the protagonist Prairie Johnson, who suddenly returns home after being missing for seven years and likes to call herself The OA. She has somehow regained her sight after being previously blinded as a child, and refuses to tell her story to the police, instead confiding in four teenage boys and their very cool teacher whom she then recruits for a strange mission. Over the course of eight episodes we learn all about Prairies past, from being blinded and later adopted as a child, to her abduction and the weird experiments performed on her in captivity, as well as her purpose back in her hometown. It's all quite confusing, and ends up delving into interdimensional travel. The series ended on a sort-of cliffhanger; although ambiguous, it could have ended comfortably there. Since we now already know everything about Prairies past, the second season will have to focus on an entirely new storyline and its unclear where theyll go with it - it could even take place in another dimension, since were not 100% sure where Prairie ended up last season... Either way, now that we know the result of her story, theres less room for mystery and, if the ending is anything to go by, it will likely be more science-fiction based than season one. 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A case has been booked. advertisement The said flight had earlier arrived from Muscat to Delhi and further travelled to Mumbai and then to Bhuvaneshvar. In the second case, based on profiling, AIU officers on Thursday early morning, intercepted one passenger Mohammed Abdul Shukoor Poovatham Poyil holding Indian passport on his arrival from Kuwait by Jet Airways Flight. During the search of his baggage, 02 gold pieces weighing 498 gms and 497 gms each totally weighing 995 gms specially moulded as 'pole piece' and valued at Rs 26,40,650 were recovered. The passenger had coated the said two gold pieces with silver colour and cleverly fitted the same as one of the parts of the speaker. The same was recovered and seized under the provisions of the Customs Act, 1962 and a case has been booked. The passenger was arrested. AIADMK crisis: Sasikala stakes claim to form government, Panneerselvam exudes confidence --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Feb 9 (PTI) Government is considering a proposal to rename airports, a move that could ruffle feathers politically as many of the aerodromes are named after political leaders and known personalities. "There is a proposal to rename airports... Cabinet is considering it," Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha said today. advertisement "Lets see what decision is taken going forward," he said in response to a query on whether there are plans to rename airports. There are around 75 operational airports in the country and many of them are named after personalities, including political leaders. State-owned Airports Authority of India (AAI) manages 125 airports, including 18 international and 78 domestic aerodromes. Besides, there are 26 civil enclaves at defence airfields and seven customs airports. While Indian aviation sector is poised for dramatic growth, Sinha said there are challenges of land and financing, among others, for expansion of airport capacity. "We have to triple our airport capacity and by some estimates that would require, leaving aside the land, somewhere between Rs 2.5 to 3 lakh crore," he noted. About Air India, the minister said transformation is underway at the airline. There is a need to improve customer services, restructure the balance sheet, strengthen corporate governance and professional management as well as optimise the routes, he added. According to him, it should also be looked at how the carriers non-core assets can be utilised optimally. Speaking at an event of industry body Assocham, Sinha also expressed confidence that Air India would report operating profit in the current financial year. PTI RAM ABM --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Feb 9 (PTI) The Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) Bill, which seeks to provide to these 20 prestigious institutes powers to grant degrees, was introduced in the Lok Sabha by HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar today. As per the Bill, IIMs would be declared "institutions of national importance". The government has been advocating more autonomy to the institutes which excel in their fields and in line with this policy, the IIM Bill, 2017 proposes that the Board of Governors will be the principal executive body of each IIM. advertisement The Director of each institute will also be appointed by the Board of Governors out of a panel of names recommended by a search-cum-selection committee, which too would be constituted by the Board. An earlier draft of the Bill had the provision of the President being the Visitor and choosing the Director, but the HRD Ministry had removed the provision to grant more autonomy to the institutes. IIMs till now had been registered as societies and unable to grant degrees, including PhD, to their students. In the statement of objects and reasons, Javadekar said that while Post Graduate Diploma in Management Programme (equivalent to MBA) was relatively unaffected, the Fellow Programme in Management (equivalent to PhD), without the formal degree nomenclature, has not been able to attract enough students required to develop a strong research base in the country. In the statement, he said that reservation in admissions will be provided as per Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006. The Board of each institute shall consist of a chairperson, one nominee each of the Centre and the state government, four eminent persons (including a woman) distinguished in the field of education, industry, commerce, social service or public administration. Two faculty members, one member from SC or ST sections and up to five persons co-opted from the alumni or who are members of the society of the existing institute would also be members of the Board. There would be at least three women members in the Board. The Governing Board of IIMs will evaluate and review the performance of the institute within first three years of establishment and thereafter at least once in every three years. These institutes will maintain proper accounts and records which would be audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). The Bill also lays down that there would be a Coordination Forum, with an eminent person as its chairman. This forum would discuss issues which are of common interest to all the IIMs. PTI ADS SMN --- ENDS --- advertisement Chiang Rai woman, 47, found dead in alleged Phuket suicide PHUKET: A 47-year-old woman from Chiang Rai was found dead in a rented room in Patong yesterday. A letter found in the room, believed to have been written by the woman led police to suspect the death was caused by suicide. deathpatongsuicide By Eakkapop Thongtub Thursday 9 February 2017, 10:52AM Doctors from Patong Hospital insdide the room where the body was discovered. Photo: Patong Police At 3:45pm yesterday (Feb8), Capt Yingyong Chauygit of the Patong Police was informed that the body of a Thai woman had been found in a room at the Boontham Apartments on Pisitkoranee Rd in Patong. Police arrived at the scene with Dr Arthit Surawisankun from Patong Hospital and were led to the room where the body of Ms Chantraporn Martphanna, 47, from Chiang Rai was discovered. Capt Yingyong said that the womans body had been discovered by the owner of the apartment block, Mr Sahat Jarungglin. Mr Sahat told us that Ms Chantraporn had lived alone in the apartment since 2012. However, for the past three months she was unable to pay her rent as she was unemployed. She hadnt left her room for two days so Mr Sahat decided to called her but received no answer. The door of her room was locked so he broke the door to get inside and found her hanging from a rail in the wardrobe by a wire, Capt Yingyong said. There were no signs of a struggle inside the room or on her body, but we did find a letter inside the room that told us that she had a friend here in Phuket named Ms Natcha Tatchai who was also from Chiang Rai. We managed to find Ms Natcha and she told us that Ms Chantraporn doesnt have any relatives and was unemployed. She didnt have any money and she wouldnt ask other people to help her. She also told us that she had health issues. We believed that all the problems she was experiencing led her to commit suicide, Capt Yingyong added. Ms Chantraporns body was taken to Patong Hospital. If you or anyone you know is in need of mental health services, please contact the Samaritans of Thailand at their 24-hour hotline 02-713-6791 (English), 02713-6793 (Thai) or Thai Mental Health Hotline at 1323 (Thai). Phuket flyovers to stay, says national Ombudsman PHUKET: Construction of two u-turn flyovers on Phukets main artery, Thepkrasattri Rd, will go ahead, a national Ombudsman confirmed yesterday (Feb 8). transportconstructioneconomicsenvironmenttourism By The Phuket News Thursday 9 February 2017, 12:54PM Boon Tapanadul, Ombudsman from the national Office of the Ombudsman of Thailand, said the two flyovers would go ahead despite concerns from local residents. Photo: PR Dept Boon Tapanadul, Ombudsman from the national Office of the Ombudsman of Thailand and a former Criminal Court Chief Judge, made the announcement in person in Phuket yesterday. The construction will go ahead as the flyovers require smaller budgets and will take a shorter time to complete. They will also be more effective in resolving traffic jams, Mr Boon said. The Ombudsmans Office of Thailand launched a review of the plans to build the two flyovers after complaints from local residents. (See story here.) The two flyers, together costing about B200 million, will both be mid-air U-turns, allowing traffic heading northbound to return southbound unimpeded, and without causing delays to other motorists. One flyover will be located near the Jeeteng mansion on Thepkrasattri Rd in Koh Kaew, about 1.38km south of the Heroines Monument. The other will be at the Nai Yang turn-off on Thepkrasattri Rd, about 3.3km north of the main intersection in Thalang Town. (See story here.) Raksagecha Chaechai, Secretary-General of Office of the Ombudsman of Thailand, explained that the residents called for the national Ombudsmans office to review the plans. They asked for us to review and compare the construction plans, and asked to change the flyovers into tunnels or normal u-turns, he said. Mr Boon explained his decision to allow the flyovers to go ahead. Normal u-turns need more space so cars can turn around, which means the plans will need to widen the area occupied by the road, and the budget will double, Mr Boon said. Construction of an underpass at each site would need more than seven times the budget and they would take longer to build, he added. However, Mr Boon added, We will keep an eye on this. Officials need to listen to people who are affected by the construction. Also, officials need to better inform of construction projects so the people have a clear understanding of what is happening and why. Phuket immigration confirms server issue with 90-day online reporting PHUKET: An official from the Phuket Immigration Office has confirmed that expats wanting to carry out their 90-day reporting online are currently unable to do so due to server issues in Bangkok. technologyimmigration By Tanyaluk Sakoot Thursday 9 February 2017, 12:03PM Access to the 90-day reporting webpage is currently under construction. Photo: Screengrab via immigration.go.th The problem means that all expats needing to do their 90-day reporting must do so at one of the islands immigration offices. The Phuket News attempted to access the 90-day reporting webpage this morning (Feb 9) to find a message stating that the website is currently undergoing maintenance. The Phuket Immigration official, who declined to be named, said The website is another option for those people who need to do 90-day reporting. Unfortunately, as the website is currently not working they will need to report to the immigration office in Phuket Town or in Patong. I dont know how long the website has been like this or how long it will take to fix the problem, the official said. All I can confirm is that the problem is due to a server issue in Bangkok, it is not a problem caused here in Phuket, he added. However, the official also confirmed that a further option for those who cannot visit either of the immigration offices is to do the report by post. If foreigners are unable to visit our offices then they can still use the mail option, he said. In addition, the official also said that should anyone have any problems they are still able to contact the Phuket Immigration Office via their telephone number 076 221 905. If that number is busy then people can always try the 1178 hotline, he said. A reporter from The Phuket News attempted to call the immigration number several times this morning with no success. Phuket jet-ski death: Victims family show strong support as devastated boyfriend charged PHUKET: Australian tourist Thomas Keating was formally charged with reckless driving causing death at Karon Police Station this morning (Feb 9). tourismdeathtransportaccidentspolice By The Phuket News Thursday 9 February 2017, 05:40PM In a strong show of support for Mr Keating, members of both families and Mr Keating all held hands as they entered the police station. Photo: Premkamon Ketsara The charges are for the fatal jet-ski collision last Sunday (Feb 5) that resulted in the death of his girlfriend of two years, Emily Jayne Collie, a 20-year-old student from Victoria, Australia. Mr Keating, 22, and Ms Collie were riding jet-skis near Kata Beach at 4:45pm when they collided in the water at high speed, leaving Ms Collie with severe injuries to her neck and shoulders. Mr Keating said strong sunlight reflected off the sea and made it impossible to see the jet-ski of Ms Collie, leading to the crash. Despite efforts by rescue workers on the beach, Ms Collie was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital. Mr Keating arrived at Karon Police Station today at about 10:30am, accompanied by Ms Collies family. His father arrived a few moments later. In a strong show of support for Mr Keating, members of both families and Mr Keating all held hands as they entered the police station. Members of the press were not permitted to attend the formal reading of the charge. Both families were still in deep sadness, Karon Police Chief Col Sanya Thongsawad later today confirmed to The Phuket News, We did not allow any media or reporters to come inside the inquiry room while police investigator talked with Mr Keating, he added. Col Sanya confirmed that Mr Keating was still being questioned by police at 5:20pm today. Ms Collies body was flown back to her home town in Australia last night (Feb 8), he noted. To make clear the familys support for Mr Keating, who has posted online comments relating the devastating emotional impact Ms Collies death has had on him, Ms Collies family issued a statement to the media, provided by the Australian Governments Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). The statement reads: We are in the midst of grieving through the sudden loss of our precious daughter Emily. This was a tragic accident. We do not believe anybody was at fault. In particular, we do not place any blame on Tom Keating, who we care about very much and who we know loved Emily deeply. We are all heartbroken beyond words, and at this extremely sad time, we wish to be together with our family, with Tom, and with other loved ones to grieve and celebrate Emily's life. We do not wish to speak with the press at this very painful time, and ask that those wishes be respected. Ian and Sally Collie Additional reporting by JP Mestanza and Premkamon Ketsara Phuket pier rubbish piles are no more PHUKET: A representative from the Phuket Provincial Administrative Organisation (PPAO) (OrBorJor) has confirmed to The Phuket News today that the large piles of rubbish building up at Chalong Pier have now been removed and that a meeting has been scheduled for February 14 to discuss the issue further. environmenttransportmarine By The Phuket News Thursday 9 February 2017, 05:38PM Piles of rubbish have now been removed from the far end of Chalong Pier. Photo: Prasit Yotharak Acting Chief PPAO Chief Prasit Yotharak told The Phuket News today (Feb 9), Chalong Pier is the responsibility of the PPAO and therefore it was our responsibility to remove the rubbish dumped there. We have now had a thorough clean up of the area following news on this issue being released, he said. There are some areas around Chalong Pier which are not permitted for boat mooring but some boat owners still moor their boats there. We believe it is also the people on these boats that have been responsible for dumping rubbish on the pier. To help us rectify this matter, a meeting will be held on Feb 14 at 1:30pm at the Yacht Control Centre on Chalong Pier where we will discuss this issue further, Mr Prasit added. Phuket police confirm alcohol ban for Makha Bucha holiday PHUKET: The commander of the Phuket Provincial Police, Maj Gen Teeraphol Thipjaroen, has called for all vendors of alcohol across the island to observe the ban on the sale of alcohol for the Buddhist holiday Makha Bucha on Saturday (Feb 11). alcoholcrimepoliceculturereligiontourism By The Phuket News Thursday 9 February 2017, 01:25PM The alcohol ban will be in effect from midnight Friday night through to midnight Saturday night. The ban, instituted by law, will be in effect from midnight Friday night through to midnight Saturday night, Gen Teeraphol confirmed. Please note that the ban will not be in effect on the substitution day public holiday on Monday (Feb 13) . The sale of alcohol on that day can proceed as usual, Gen Teeraphol told The Phuket News. However, he warned against the sale of alcohol during the ban on Saturday. Under Section 39 of the Alcohol Control Act, the penalty is up to six months in prison, a fine of up to B10,000, or both, he said. Anyone wanting to report breaches of the act can call the police hotline 191, or the Tourist Police hotline 1599. Both numbers are monitored 24 hours a day, Gen Teeraphol said. The Prime Ministers Office on January 22, 2015 announced that the sale of alcohol is banned by law on five religious days in Thailand: Makha Bucha, Asanha Bucha, Visakha Bucha, Khao Pansa and Wan Org Pansa days. The ban affects the sale of alcohol everywhere throughout the country, except duty free shops at international airports. Government offices such as the Immigration, District Offices and the local Department of Land Transportation office will all be closed, as will main branches of banks, but with some bank branches in shopping malls remaining open. The Class Act Media offices will be closed Saturday (Feb 11) as usual and on Monday (Feb 13) to mark the Makha Bucha public holiday but will re-open on Tuesday (Feb 14), in time for Valentines Day. Province finds land problems with Samui airport SURAT THANI: An investigation by provincial authorities has found irregularities in land acquisition for Samui airport and will propose changes. landtransport By Bangkok Post Thursday 9 February 2017, 08:47AM Samui airport in the southern province of Surat Thani. Photo: Bangkok Airways via Bangkok Post Surat Thani Governor Uaychai Innak said yesterday (Feb 8) that a committee found that part of the 250-rai compound of the airport had been acquired through a deed which had been issued for public land. The National Anti-Corruption Commission had the same finding in 2012 and the Land Department was examining the matter, he said. The provincial investigation committee also found that a 16-rai section of the airport' compound had been illegally declared as state property and rented to the airport operator, he said. The plot is used as a safety zone at one end of the airports runway. Aerial photos and witness testimony showed that the plot had been public land used for the public interest, Mr Uaychai said. The plot was declared as state property No.958 in tambon Bo Phut of Koh Samui district, he said. I will report the issuance of the title deed on public land to the Land Department and propose the Treasury Department revoke the state property plot No.958. Actions on the matter must comply with the law and facts, the Surat Thani governor said. Bangkok Airways, which owns and operates Samui airport, rented the 16-rai plot next to the runway, registered as state property, from the Treasury Department. The rented land is used as an air safety zone where construction of structures, buildings or tree planting around the airport are strictly controlled to prevent obstacles to air navigation as required by aviation law. Previously, a National Legislative Assembly committee on national administration investigated claims of land encroachment by the airport and found the land is part of a swamp forest serving as a water retention pond, which meant the land must be registered as public land, not state property land. Bangkok Airways earlier said it started renting the land from the Treasury Department in 1999. The land is not located on the airport area, but is about 100 metres away from the end of the runway strip. Read original story here. By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Feb 9 (PTI) BJP leader Subramanian Swamy today said that revenue mobilisation through income tax has become redundant and it needs to be "scrapped" as there are plenty of other sources to generate funds. On revenue sources available for the government, the BJP Rajya Sabha member said, "The Supreme Court order on spectrum auction has been a totally new area of resource mobilisation. I think there are many sources in our country for revenue, coal block auction is yet to take place." advertisement "In my opinion the income tax revenue has become redundant and it should be scrapped. Lot of people think it (income tax) is very progressive... I dont know any country which could do that (scrapping income tax)," Swami said at the Digital India Summit organised by IAMAI here today. On governments digital push, he said the Centre wants to make it for the people to be interactive and thus bring in transparency in governance. "It is to create a massive public access through digitisation including the Internet, and promotion of e-governance is to deliver the services through electronic system," he said. Swamy said all schools and universities must have wi-fi and all public places should have hotspots to get the information they want. Swamy said a strategy is needed to move from the archaic system to broadband-enabled access system. Though India is a soft information technology power, it is nowhere in terms of hardware, he added. He said the government has envisioned to cover 250 gram panchayats spread across 7 lakh kilometres with broadband in three years as also 4 lakh internet points have to be developed. He also stressed on the need to innovate and said after a point a countrys GDP grows not by mere more capital but through innovations and utilising resources differently. PTI KPM MKJ --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Feb 9 (PTI) India has filed a mercy petition with Qatar for two nationals who were awarded death penalty by the Supreme Court there for allegedly murdering a woman four years ago, External Affairs Ministry said today. Indian mission in Doha has filed a mercy petition yesterday with Qatar Foreign Ministry regarding the death penalty of Subramanian Alagappa and Chelladurai Perumal for further action, MEA Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said. advertisement The court in Qatar had recently rejected a plea by the Indian Embassy to overturn the death penalty awarded to the duo, both in their 40s, but commuted the life term awarded to the third accused, Sivakumar Arasan, to 15 years jail term. Subramanian hails from Villupuram. Perumal is a resident of Virudhunagar in Tamil Nadu. PTI PYK RT --- ENDS --- How many people have already voted absentee in South Dakota ahead of Election Day? elections India and the US agreed to maintain the pace and momentum of their partnership after Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis spoke on the phone with Manohar Parrikar. By Indo-Asian News Service: India and the US agreed to maintain the pace and momentum of their partnership, particularly their defence ties, after Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis spoke on the phone with his Indian counterpart Manohar Parrikar, a Pentagon spokesman said. Spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said it was the "first conversation" between Mattis and Parrikar. Also read: Donald Trump dials PM Modi: Here is what the two leaders discussed advertisement "Secretary Mattis committed to build upon the tremendous progress in bilateral defense cooperation made in recent years, underscoring the strategic importance of the US-India relationship and India's role in advancing global peace and security," Davis said. Mattis and Parrikar, he said, also "affirmed their commitment to sustain the momentum on key bilateral defense efforts to include the Defense Technology and Trade Initiative". Watch the video --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: From Youssra El-Sharkawy Cairo, Feb 9 (PTI) Seeking to enhance Indias trade ties with Egypt, a 17-member business delegation has arrived here to participate in a seminar to scout investment opportunities in the country. The Confederation Indian Industries (CII) delegation is led by Ajit Gupte, Joint Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India is in Egypt, at the invitation of Federation of Egyptian Industries (FEI). advertisement The delegation members are drawn from various sectors including agri-business, infrastructure, chemicals, power, food industry and business services. During their visit, the delegation will call on several Egyptian Ministers including Minister of Trade and Industry, Minister of Petroleum and Metallurgical Wealth, Minister of Electricity and Renewable Energy and Minister of Transport. The three-day visit of the CII delegation is a part of the efforts to boost the trade relations between the two countries, spanning across diverse sectors. They will also be meeting senior officials from General Authorities for Investment and Free Zones (GAFI) and Suez Canal Economic Zone Authority. The delegation will attend India-Egypt Business Seminar organised jointly by the Embassy of India in Cairo, Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and Federation of Egyptian Industries (FEI). The seminar will deliberate upon various trade and investment opportunities between India and Egypt. It will be attended by business persons from various Egyptian business chambers and government officials. India has a significant economic presence in Egypt with over 50 companies and joint ventures and an investment exceeding USD 3 billion. Indian entrepreneurs are optimistic about the long-term potential in Egypt and look forward to mutually beneficial win-win collaborations. India is the ninth largest trading partner for Egypt, with 12th largest source for import and seventh largest destination for exports. The government and business community in both the countries are working closely to promote and expand bilateral economic relations. PTI YES KJ AKJ KJ --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: in Egypt From Youssra El-Sharkawy Cairo, Feb 9 (PTI) Seeking to improve trade ties with Egypt, a 17-member business delegation from India today attended a seminar here to scout investment opportunities in the largest country in the Arab world. The seminar, organised jointly by the Embassy of India in Cairo, Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and Federation of Egyptian Industries (FEI), deliberated upon various trade and investment opportunities between the two countries. advertisement "We are here to have some very friendly interaction between Indian and Egyptian businessmen to take forward what was outlined during the visit of President Sisi to India in September (2016), and the decisions reached between Sisi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to put greater emphasis on business to business cooperation," Indias Ambassador to Egypt Sanjay Bhattacharyya said. He said India has witnessed an unprecedented development over the last few decades due to the introduction of reforms and liberalisation of economy. "Since we introduce the process of reforms and liberalisation in 1991, we have become the fastest growing economy in the world. This has happened because we created a favorable business environment," Bhattacharyya said. He said Indias business environment is competitive and efficient and carries the spirit of innovation. "I would really wish and invite Egyptian companies to come to India and become part of the great success that we are enjoying," the Ambassador said. He also asked Indian investors to invest in Egypt as the country was entering an exciting and new phase of reforms. "There are huge opportunities in Egypt. It has the most intelligent and skilled manpower. You are going to be working with the brightest and the best," Bhattacharyya said. (MORE) PTI YES KJ AQS AKJ AQS --- ENDS --- What happens you spot a striking resemblance between your real and reel character? Well, that's exactly what happened with Kangana Ranaut when she was offered the role of 'Jaanbaaz Julia' in Rangoon. The actor was taken by surprise to find out how similar her character Julia is to her when she read the script. The Tanu weds Manu actor found it quite interesting to learn that Indian women during the 1940s were as open-minded and liberal in their thinking as they are today. Kangana is essaying the character of a sultry actress who simultaneously falls in love with two men, Saif Ali Khan, who is a filmmaker and Shahid Kapoor, who plays the role of a soldier. The actress plays the role of a feisty and fearless diva who performs and entertains the Indian soldiers of the British Indian army in the film. Rangoon depicts an intense period drama set against the backdrop of World War II which revolves around love, war and deceit, and has been grabbing eyeballs and creating quite a stir ever since the trailer has released. Directed by Vishal Bhardwaj and produced by Sajid Nadiadwala, Rangoon is all set to hit the theatres on February 24, 2017. Actor Neil Nitin Mukesh is all set to tie the knot with fiancee Rukmini Sahay on February 9 at a lavish ceremony in Udaipur. The 'New York' actor exchanged rings with Rukmini in an intimate ceremony, which was followed by a cocktail party. The couple will take their wedding vows at a five-star hotel in the city of lakes. Neil's fiancee Rukmini doesn't belong to the film industry, she hails from an aviation industry. They were introduced to each other by their parents as the families have known each other for long. Neil agreed to settle for an arranged marriage as he feels he is old school when it comes to marriage, revealed his father Nitin Mukesh to a source close to him. The actor who has had a rather low profile journey in Bollywood wrapped up the shoot for Madhur Bhandarkar's 'Indu Sarkar' before heading for Udaipur. Neil was last seen in a negative role in 'Wazir' also starring Amitabh Bachchan and Farhan Akhtar. With an impressive list of renowned authors, the national capital is all set to host fifth Delhi Literature festival on February 10. The list of authors includes William Dalrymple, Ashok Vajpayee and Taslima Nasreen among others. One of the major attractions of the fest will be a session on topic Demonetisation: Intent, implementation and impact which will be conducted to explore the issue that has been receiving mixed responses from people all over India. The second day of the festival will witness sessions on Public institutions and their role in preserving and promoting oral knowledge and Making it big: The inspiring story of Nepal's first billionaire. The limelight will be on Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant, who is expected to address a session on Branding for Make in India. Dalrymple will be seen interacting with the audience on the last day of the festival. He will discuss his latest book on the Kohinoor. In a short visit to the fest, Taslima Nasreen will join Barkha Dutt to discuss her latest memoir Exile. Canadian writer Tarek Fatah will be seen exploring the subject Rise of nationalism, a global phenomenon. The festival will be held at Dilli Haat, INA Market, and will conclude on February 12. (With inputs from agencies) In a scathing attack on Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat, BJP president Amit Shah on Thursday accused him of ruining and neglecting the hill state while focusing on amassing wealth. Addressing a public rally in New Tehri ahead of February 15 Assembly polls, Shah said: If you have the will power, you can find ways to ensure development in the state but Harish bhai is only bothered about amassing wealth. PM Narendra Modi came to Uttarakhand to set up a Rs.12,000 crore project but Harish Ji didnt even thank him. Uttarakhand needs a government that can work in tandem with the PM, he added. Shah urged the gathering to give two-thirds majority to the BJP in the upcoming polls. Uttarakhand will develop only if BJP gets a majority here. The Congress has ruined the state in the last five years. This election is to change the destiny of Uttarakhand, he said. Tamil Nadu's acting Chief Minister O Panneerselvam on Thursday said he had briefed Governor C Vidyasagar Rao on the happenings in the state, and "justice will win". Speaking to reporters here after meeting Rao at 5 p.m. Panneerselvam said: "I met the Governor and briefed him about the happenings in the state." "Justice will win," he declared. AIADMK General Secretary V.K. Sasikala will meet Rao at 7.30 p.m. Tamil Nadu's caretaker Chief Minister O Panneerselvam's writing to the banks to not allow transactions without his authorisation may not have any practical impact on the AIADMK, said a senior party leader on Thursday. "Panneerselvam may be moving legally against his dismissal as treasurer, but it may not impact the operations of the AIADMK even if the banks in which the party has its accounts were to adopt wait and watch approach," he told IANS on conditions of anonymity. He said there were other authorised persons to carry out banking transactions in the party. According to reports, Panneerselvam has written to banks asking them not to allow any transactions without his authorisation as the party Treasurer. Panneerselvam's contention is that an interim General Secretary (in reference to V.K. Sasikala) does not have the power to remove him from the party post. Party officials have also agreed with Panneerselvam's contention. On Wednesday, the AIADMK removed Panneerselvam as the party's Treasurer with immediate effect. The dismissal came hours after Panneerselvam said on Tuesday he was coerced to resign as Chief Minister to pave the way for General Secretary V.K. Sasikala to occupy that position. According to the party leader, only during elections the operation of bank accounts for the party becomes crucial as there is a cap on the individual candidates on the electioneering expenses. "On other days the situation could be managed," he added. State Congress chief Arun Yadav alleged that one of the recently arrested persons is Jitendra who is the elder brother of the husband of sitting BJP corporator from ward number 58, Vandana Satish Yadav. By Hemender Sharma: Madhya Pradesh Congress has alleged that one of the 11 persons arrested by the state ATS as part of the ISI-run espionage module is associated with the ruling BJP. Talking to reporters in Bhopal on Thursday, State Congress chief Arun Yadav said, "One of the arrested is Jitendra and he is the elder brother of the husband of sitting BJP corporator from ward number 58 Vandana Satish Yadav. He is also closely associated with Union Minister Narendra Tomar and MP minister Maya Singh." advertisement The ruling BJP, however, has chosen to ignore the allegations labelled by the Congress. "Arun Yadav should exercise some restraint. The action has been taken by the MP ATS, which is an agency of the state government. The ATS should be congratulated for this operation," state BJP spokesman Deepak Vijaywargia said while talking to India Today. MP ATS chief Sanjeev Shami while talking about the operation revealed the name of only one of the accused who has been identified as Balram. Balram, a resident of Satna was operating several bank accounts and was getting money from several sources which was being distributed amongst the ISI network. Also read: Madhya Pradesh ATS busts ISI-backed espionage racket, 11 arrested Shami refused to disclose the names of the remaining accused without sighting any reason. On being asked if one of the accused was associated with the BJP, Shami shot back, "We don't work like this. It does not matter for us. Our concern is national security." The ATS has also unearthed a fake telephone exchange racket that was part of the ISI espionage module. The ISI handlers in Pakistan used these fake exchanges to get in touch with their agents on the ground and to transfer money to them. Also read: Bhopal murder: Inspired by an American crime film, killer entombed partner's body --- ENDS --- A million feelings. A thousand thoughts. A hundred memories. One person." The very depth of the word "memory" is beautifully encapsulated with this quote. So what is it about memories that impacts us so much? Some we just do not want to let go of; some we cannot let go of. At the India Art fair, 2017, the Memoir Bar just helped one let go, if one wanted to, and if one wished to hold on to that special, defining moment in life, it was preserved, till one decided elsewise. The Memoir Bar drew crowds in large numbers for the simple reason that it "interacted" with the audience, helping them capture a memory into an object or solidify an emotion forever, resulting in the formation of a "library" comprising various emotional hues ~ a work of art in its own right. Constructing a large sanctuary of compressed emotion, the abstract becomes concrete; a moment of emotional recall gets captured in a tactile form. Since the exhibition travels, it gauges the emotional reaction of different cities, leading to an interesting compilation and study. Presented by the Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA), this project is created by artist-duo Thukral and Tagra. Describing the initiative as inspirational for the continuing work in art education, FICA Director Vidya Shivadas added that such projects encourage one to think creatively, and about making connections and building involvement. Challenging art Building involvement and a feeling of belonging results from making connections, from reaching out. After all, human beings are social beings at the core. Woven Chronicle, an art project by Reena Saini Kallat depicted this primeval need and the challenges faced, beautifully, through her work. Treating electric wires as if they were yarn, Kallat created a woven map tracing the routes of contract workers, indentured labourers, asylum seekers, refugees and other migrants across the planet. From within the woven web resonates a mixture of high-voltage electric currents, deep-sea ambient noise, slow electric pulses, the hum of engaged phone tones, a mechanical drone, factory sirens, ship horns, and migratory bird calls. These sounds awaken the map, transforming the cartographic work into a dynamic entity. Though mobility is often associated with wealth and privilege, the scale of the current global refugee crisis forces us to consider the impacts of forced displacement on millions of individuals. The message is strong: The wires act as both conduits and barriers, simultaneously referring to global networks of communication and commerce as well as to barbed wires or fences. The work highlights the inherent contradiction in celebrating an increasingly connected world while stringent immigration laws, closed borders and prejudice face individuals seeking to transgress geographic boundaries. While the above hits the viewer with its subtle yet strong message, serving as long-term recall and food-for-thought, the challenge was in setting up this work, which took time, efforts and patience. "Each time, one is confronted by a new set of challenges," underlined Kallat. Understanding borders The mention of "boundaries" brings to mind the unique project by the name of No Man's Land, supported by Britto Arts Trust and Shelter Promotion Council. The never-dying spirit behind the project is proven by the fact that it took four years from its conception, till its execution became a reality between 22 and 27 March, 2014. This community-based art project was held at the borders of Meghalaya, with Bangladesh, in East Khasi hills, with the objective of understanding borders and people residing there and how this border is a physical object for them. Artists, from both sides of the border, participated in this project with locally available materials. Finally, on 27 March, 2014, artists from both countries met each other, without passport and visa, for about two hours at the No Man's Land, under the supervision of border security. Sayantan Maitra Boka, Shelter Promotion Council, recalls the deep emotions that surfaced during the meeting. The "open studio" of collaborative works was viewed by hundreds of villagers throughout the day. Maitra's next dream project is at the Indo-Burmese border. At the India Art Fair, 2017, the presentation of their documentation, sound, art and some other small objects drew a lot of interest, bringing their hard work to fruition with the message "beyond borders" Talking of "beyond borders", of freedom of interaction and bonding, the Artreach India project cannot be missed. Its motto "changing lives through art" emphasises its objective of bringing art and artists into the lives of children and young people from marginalised communities in India. Their journey is an interesting one. The first project, in 2010, was with the children of the New Delhi railway station, who come every day to a Salaam Baalak Trust "contact point" for food, medical attention and basic schooling. The aim was to give their space a face lift and to "catch their imaginations". What followed were 10 days of exuberant creative activity, and anyone was welcome to join in ~ teachers and social workers, passing police men. The final outcome was a rather magnificent tiger and a jungle of other animals; and the journey of never-ending discovery and re-discovering continues. At the India Art Fair, 2017, Artreach India created the first child-focused space within fair grounds. Pitched as a reflective and creative space, Khel Mel: Childrens Artspace recognised that children engage with art best through hands-on experiences ~ when they are invited and encouraged to give expression to the creative impulses that art viewing motivates. Through colourful play, over the three days of the Art Fair, this was an evolving collage space ~ a 32 feet blank canvas, where children reflected and portrayed what they saw. It provided a unique glimpse, into the mosaic, of ways in which children and young people see things, express themselves and interact with the world of culture. The objective of the project was not only expression, but a step beyond: addressing social barriers that exist in society by bringing diverse groups of children together in an environment of creative learning, through which social differences can be broken down. So what was the experience like, especially for the organizers? Deeksha Nath, Director, Artreach India summed it up simply as "heart-warming". She added. "There is a lot we learn from the children," ~ something one could not agree with more, for every exchange involves learning, unlearning and relearning. Besides this, what also caught the eye and the imagination was Meena Bazar, a vibrant piece of art, painted by eight women of the Urdu Park shelter, through extended conversations with artists from Revue. The creation is a map of their neighbourhood, with their passion being expressed soulfully through the dexterity of colours that define the crowded market. Artreach India also includes volunteer residencies, where artists and children join hands together to paint lively murals in their homes, schools and community spaces. Teaching Fellowship, on the other hand, provides a remarkable opportunity to young people, living in care homes, to explore their world through art and embark on a journey of being an artist. The journey through the India Art Fair was not only a riot of sights, sounds and colours, with the most sought-after, exclusive and intricate works in art and design on display, but also the travel through the journeys of artists, and the experiences made with, and from their own experiences. The human ability to think beyond the regular, to create out-of- the-box, is something that keeps the "never-say-die spirit" alive. The simplicity by which various target audiences are free to perceive works of art enables a wider and more open understanding of creativity, with an underlying message by Vincent Van Gogh being highlighted: "There is nothing more artistic than to love people." Mughalai food has surprisingly survived long after the end of the Mughal empire, started by Zahiruddin Babar in 1526. The British deposed Bahadur Shah Zafar after the "Mutiny" of 1857, seized the Jama Masjid and Fatehpuri Masjid but couldn't ban Mughlai food, though Masita Kababi, patronized by the likes of Mirza Ghalib lying temporarily closed, became the haunt of stray dogs, making the poet remark in a letter to a friend in Jaunpur, "Mian Masita ki dukan mei tau ab kutte lot the hai". But after that even a succession of British officials living in the Civil Lines began munching kababs with their evening drink brought by khansamas from Matia Mahal or the shops below the steps of the Jama Masjid. Later, when New Delhi came up, the same practice continued, with the sahibs feasting on shammi kababs at the parties hosted by the Chief Commissioner of Delhi, of whom Mr Evans was the last when the Raj ended. Mughlai food has a history of about 500 years of delicious dishes. When Babar came to India, he was fascinated by the country's cuisine and the large variety of spices available. Hitherto he was used to eating log-cooked chicken and meat, specially the "raan", or hind leg of the ram. In India he began to improvise dishes. His son Humayun did the same and Mughlai food began to the prepared in the royal kitchen. Akbar improvised further after his widespread conquests; more varieties were to the had because of the addition of goat's meat, hardly available in countries like Persia and Afghanistan. Akbar was a frugal eater and preferred to eat alone. But his son Jahangir was fond of eating and drinking. It was he, who coined the following couplet: Ek Luqum Kabab ho, Ek Pyala sharab ho, Sultanat-e-Noor-e-Jahani Abaad ho barbaad ho It means that a kebab and a glass of wine is all he needed and left governance to his wife. No wonder, Noor Jehan took command of the empire and decided on all important matters of state. The emperor seemed to enjoy it as he found more time for indulging in lavish feasts. More and more dishes were added to the Mughal Dastarkhuan or meal-spread. However, it was not as though Jahangir had taken leave of State matters and allowed the kingdom to be run only by the queen. The verse he coined in her honour was a bit of an exaggeration, though there is no doubt that he was a gourmad. Even so, he was quite concerned about governance and sometime would overrule his beloved consort too. What Jahangir did was bettered by Shah Jahan, the greatest of the Mughals in pomp and show. His menu was an enlargment on that devised by his father and grandfather. In this, he was aided by his daughters, Jahanara and Roshanara, after the death of his cheif queen, Mumtaz Mahal, who otherwise used to order the royal dishes to be served each day. Instructions would be given in the Agra Fort, (the Red Fort came up after her demise) to the Mir Bakawal and passed on to the Khansamah and further to the assistant Bawarchi or cook. The daughters later took her place, helped by the heir apparent Dara Shikoh. His brothers, Shah Shuja and Murad, were also great connoisseurs of food, but Aurangzeb was Spartan in his habits, which were also reflected in the meals he ate. He told a visiting hakim from Turkey that Mughal cuisine combined the pleasures of heaven and hell, since it was delicious and pungent at the same time. Though what passes off as Mughlai food these days is not really the stuff that the great Mughals ate, it nevertheless continues a tradition of several centuries, during which a large assortment of dishes have been added. It was during the reign of Jahandar Shah (1712) that Mughlai food went out of the confines of the Red Fort, for he had married a dancing girl of the Walled City, Lal Kuwar, whose relations and friends all came to know of Mughlai recipes. That was five years after the death of Aurangzeb, who had popularised Delhi non-vegetarian food in the Deccan. Mohammad Shah Rangila, the colourful emperor (1719-1748) was a great food connoisseur, who improvised cuisine probably more than all the earlier Mughals. Even his modest meals were fit for kings and princes. After Mohammad Shah, Ahmed Shah and then Shah Alam kept up the tradition but they were no great connoisseurs. Akbar Shah II, who succeded Shah Alam, did not have control over the whole country, which had come under the British, and his meals reflected his reduced status. His son, Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last of the Mughal emperors, was enamoured of deer meat as he had been fond of hunting in his younger days, but he also liked lighter food, particularly moong ki daal, which came to be known as Badshah Pasand, while Malka Masoor was later named after Queen Victoria. The Mughlai food eaten in the Red Fort was mostly roasted stuff. Tandoori Murgh (they did not like the hen) served as the main course. Murgh Mussalam for those in need of an elixir, roasted "raan", mince of several kinds, roghan josh, pasanda, kofta nargisi, liver, heart of lamb, memna or lamb's haunches, korma, kababs of many kinds, including the chappali kababs, bhuna gosht, full roasted ram, fish curries, fried river fish and exotic salads, all washed down with wines from Portugal and Spain, especially the wine of Oporto, in the case of those Mughals, who drank (not all did). A great delicacy was venison and the flesh of a number of birds like duck, partridge, pigeons and bater, chidi pulao from sparrow, kaaz kulang and other birds, including migratory ones, eaten with naan, sheermal and chappati (they didn't call it roomali roti). Desserts comprised fruit and sweets, halwa and kheer. The prince in charge of food distribution to the royal inmates was known as Mirza Chappati during the "Mutiny" days though his real name was Mirza Fakru. Now, besides the five-star hotels, Mughlai food has been popularised by Karim's and others, including such outlets as Al Kausar, which serves preparations with secret recipes left behind by Nabbu Mian of the late 19th century. Jama Masjid, Ballimaran, Mehrauli, Nizamuddin and Bara Hindu Rao are among the places with favourite food joints and so Mughlai food continues to tickle the taste buds even in the 21st century with chicken tikka, the craze even in posh new Delhi areas, where five-star hotels have started serving it. The saying that "food absorbs drinks" still holds good, for that was what some of the Mughals advocated too. One's own memories of Chicken Tikka Masala go back 60 years, when they were made by a Lucknawi cook at the wedding of Nawabzada Fazalur Rehman Khan. That was the time when the dancing girls of Ferozabad came to probably give one of the last such performances in the city of the Taj, for after that the dance form went out of fashion but not Mughlai food. International terrorism in all forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security. The United Nations has repeatedly condemned it in strongest terms and has taken a gamut of steps to curb this growing menace. Defining the term International Terrorism has been controversial. There has been a plethora of UN conventions dealing with certain aspects of terrorism, like the 1997 International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, 1999 International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, 2005 International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, 1979 International Convention against the Taking of Hostages, 1973 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Internationally Protected Persons, 1970 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft and 2010 Convention on the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Relating to International Civil Aviation. The International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (1999) provides a clear definition of terrorism, which includes the elements of (i) a criminal act (ii) intended to intimidate a population or compel an authority, and is limited to those crimes containing (iii) a transnational aspect. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon in Interlocutory Decision on the Applicable Law (2011) held that a customary rule of international law regarding the international crime of terrorism has already emerged. The tribunal after discussing UN treaties, resolutions, and the judicial practice of various States held that this customary rule has the following three requirements: (i) the perpetration of a criminal act (such as murder, kidnapping, hostage-taking, arson, and so on), or threatening such an act; (ii) the intent to spread fear among the population (which would generally entail the creation of public danger) or directly or indirectly coerce a national or international authority to take some action, or to refrain from taking it; (iii) when the act involves a transnational element. In coming to this conclusion, it noted certain judgments like Suresh v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration)(Supreme Court of Canada, 2002), Bouyahia Maher Ben Abdelaziz et al. (Italian Supreme Court of Cassation, 2007). Recently the United States of America has taken some legislative and executive steps to curb terrorism which have serious international ramifications. Primary among them are the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002, President Obamas Executive Order No. 13599, the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012 and the recently promulagated, but highly controversial, Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA). The Congress overrode Obamas veto to enact JASTA in September 2016 which further limited the scope of foreign sovereign immunity. JASTA allowed victims of the September 11 attacks and their relatives to sue the Saudi government for allegedly aiding the hijackers by waiving sovereign immunity protections for Saudi Arabia. JASTA declares that a foreign state shall not be immune from the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States in any case where money damages are sought against a foreign state for physical injury to person or property or death occurring in the United States and caused by (1) an act of international terrorism in the United States; and (2) a tortious act or acts of the foreign state, or of any official, employee, or agent of that foreign state while acting within the scope of his or her office, employment, or agency, regardless where the tortious act or acts of the foreign state occurred. It further allows a national of the United States to bring a claim against a foreign state if the foreign state loses its immunity under the Act. Even the United States Supreme Court in Bank Markazi, aka Central Bank of Iran v. Deborah Peterson, et al.(April, 2016) held that American nationals may seek money damages from state sponsors of terrorism in the courts of the United States thus effectively applying of the terrorism exception to sovereign immunity. The terrorism exception was introduced to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 by an amendment made in 1996, and later revised in 2008. On 17 January, the UK Supreme Court delivered three landmark judgments dealing with claims alleging wrongful acts by the UK while fighting international terrorism (Belhaj & Rahmatullah (No.1) v. Straw & Ors (2017) UKSC 3, Rahmatullah (No.2) & Mohammed v. Ministry of Defence and Anr. (2017) UKSC 1, Abd Ali Hameed Al-Waheed & Serdar Mohammed v. Ministry of Defence (2017) UKSC 2). In Belhaj & Rahmatullah No.1 judgment the Supreme Court held that the claim against the United Kingdom for its alleged complicity in torture and mistreatment of the claimants was not barred by rules of state immunity and the foreign act of state doctrine, but in Mohammed & Rahmatullah the Supreme Court held that the Government cannot be liable in tort for acts of an inherently governmental nature in the conduct of foreign military operations by the Government. Even regionally, there have been various conventions against terrorism like the Council Framework Decision on Combating Terrorism (Council of the European Union, 2002 & 2008), Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism (2005), the Additional Protocol to the Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism (2015), Treaty on Cooperation among the States Members of the Commonwealth of Independent States in Combating Terrorism (Commonwealth of Independent States, 1999), Convention of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf on Combating Terrorism (Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, 2004), Convention on the Prevention and Combating of Terrorism (Organization of African Unity, 1999), Arab Convention for the Suppression of Terrorism (League of Arab States, 1998), Shanghai Convention on Combating Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism (Shanghai Cooperation Organization, 2001) and Convention of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference on Combating International Terrorism (Organisation of the Islamic Conference,1999). The United Nations has branded every act of terrorism as criminal and unjustifiable regardless of the motivations. It has on numerous occasions resolved to tackle terrorism through various means. In the Declaration on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism, annexed to General Assembly resolution 49/60 of 9 December 1994, the Members of the United Nations reaffirmed their unequivocal condemnation of all acts, methods and practices of terrorism as criminal and unjustifiable, wherever and by whomever committed, including those which jeopardize the friendly relations among States and peoples and threaten the territorial integrity and security of States. The States were also encouraged to review urgently the scope of the existing international legal provisions on the prevention, repression and elimination of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, with the aim of ensuring that there is a comprehensive legal framework covering all aspects of the matter. A supplement to the 1994 Declaration, in 1996, further decided to establish an Ad Hoc Committee, open to all States Members of the United Nations or members of specialized agencies or of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to elaborate an international convention for the suppression of terrorist bombings and, subsequently, an international convention for the suppression of acts of nuclear terrorism, to supplement related existing international instruments, and thereafter to address means of further developing a comprehensive legal framework of conventions dealing with international terrorism. The Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC), comprising of all fifteen Security Council members, was established by Security Council resolution 1373 (2001) post the 9/11 attacks. The Security Council resolution 1373 (2001) called on States to prevent and suppress the financing of terrorism, inter alia, by criminalising the collection and provision of funds for terrorist purposes, and urged them to set up effective mechanisms to freeze funds and other financial assets of persons involved in or associated with terrorism, as well as to prevent those funds from being made available to terrorists. The Counter-Terrorism Committee is charged with the effective implementation of SCR 1373 which include taking steps such as deny all forms of financial support for terrorist groups, criminalize the financing of terrorism, freeze without delay any funds related to persons involved in acts of terrorism, suppress the provision of safe haven, sustenance or support for terrorists and criminalize active and passive assistance for terrorism in domestic law and bring violators to justice. Resolution 1624 (2005) has been another prominent step towards combating terrorism calling on UN Member States to prohibit incitement to commit acts of terrorism, by law and prevent such conduct and also to deny safe haven to anyone who is suspected of guilty of such conduct. Again on the growing threat posed by foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs), the Security Council in 2014 unanimously adopted the momentous resolution 2178. To counter the growing challenge of violent extremism, the UN Secretary General presented to the General Assembly, in 2016, a Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism (PVE). The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is another influential inter-governmental body whose objectives are to set standards and promote effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures for combating terrorist financing, money laundering and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system. It has also developed detailed recommendations on countering terrorism financing. The United Nations Charter specifically mandates that all Members will refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with its purposes (Article 2(4)). The use of force by any country outside its territories against terrorism is a vexed issue. Only the Security Council can determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and can make recommendations, or decide what measures are be taken to maintain or restore international peace and security. Article 42 of the United Nations Charter empowers the Security Council to take action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security and it can include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of the member states. Though Article 51 of the Charter states that nothing in the Charter will impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security, yet this right has its own limitations. In the Case Concerning the Military and Paramilitary Activities in and Against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. USA) (1986) the International Court of Justice (ICJ) observed that the right of self defence is pre-existing customary international law and armed attack included the sending by or on behalf of a State of armed bands, groups, irregulars or even mercenaries. The limitations of using this right include the force used to be necessary as well as proportionate. The ICJ in Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (2004) and in the Case concerning Oil Platforms (Islamic Republic of Iran v. USA) (2003) has applied a restrictive approach to this right. But recently the United States and certain other states has used force in other countries against terrorism relying on this right of self defence. Operation Enduring Freedom by the United States in Afghanistan is an instance. pre-emptive self defence is now being sought to be used in certain situations which has received acceptance from international community too. Even large-scale attacks by non-State actors (terrorists) can qualify as armed attacks within the meaning of Article 51 thus triggering the use of force. Thus the war against international terrorism is being fought through various means and the United Nations, through its instrumentalities, has been proactively dealing with this peril. The writers are Mumbai-based advocates and legal consultants. Articles 29 and 30 of our Constitution have granted a very important and valuable right, known as educational and cultural right. The object of inserting such a right in the Constitution is to safeguard the interests of minorities. As S L Sikri observes,Our constitution, makes special provision for protecting the interests of the minorities as regards their language, script and culture. In a multi-lingual country like India, such a fundamental right is eminently necessary, because the majority community has an inherent tendency to impose its own language, script and culture upon the rest of the society. Dr M V Pylee has aptly remarked that these provisions are unique in their thoroughness. If these provisions are carefully read along with other fundamental rights as enshrined in Chapter III of the Constitution it will be crystal clear that the Founding Fathers intended to create a society based upon liberty, equality and justice. In fact, these two provisions are closely related to the religious right as guaranteed by Articles 25, 26, 27 and 28. Significantly, the term minority has been given a special meaning. As Dr B R Ambedkar, the chief architect of the Constitution, observed, it is used not merely to indicate the minority in the technical sense of the word, it is also used to cover minorities which are not minorities in the technical sense but which are nonetheless minorities in cultural and linguistic sense. For instance, if a group of people come from Tamil Nadu and settle in West Bengal for certain purposes, they may not be minority in the technical sense, but they are a cultural and linguistic minority in West Bengal. Articles 29 and 30 legally seek to protect their inherent interests in a pluralistic country. Of course, some members of the Constituent Assembly pointed out that such a right should be very carefully worded. In their view, the Muslims in West Bengal did not differ from the Hindus in language and script, but they had a different culture of their own. So they argued that the Constitution must safeguard their linguistic and cultural existence. They cited another example as well. The Andhras of Orissa had their own language and script, but they shared a common culture with the majority-community. In such case, they argued, the Constitution must deal with the problem with due care and consideration. So Dr Ambedkar substituted the words script or culture for script and culture. It was surely an improvement upon the original draft-provision. It is also to be noted that the Advisory Committee had initially used the term minority in Article 29. But it was finally deleted at the initiative of Sardar Patel. In its place, the words any section of citizens, were inserted. The change thus absolutely fitted in with the actual intention of the makers. In fact, at the behest of Thakurdas Bhargava, the phrase any section of the citizens was inserted in the Constitutional provision. Thus, Article 29 (i) emphasises that any section of citizens residing in India with a distinct language, script or culture of its own shall have the right to conserve the same. In this way, such minorities have the legal right to preserve these precious things in their own way. Clause (2) of this Article has also mentioned that no citizen shall be denied admission into an educational institution maintained by the state or receiving aid out of state funds on grounds only of religion race, caste, language or any of them. But Article 30 (i) has expressly inserted the word minorities in it. It has declared that all minorities, whether based on religion or language, shall have the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their own choice. And Article 30 (2) has enjoined that the state shall not in granting aid, discriminate against any educational institution on the ground that it is under the management or control of a minority, whether based upon religion or language. According to the Bombay High Court, these two Articles have sufficiently guaranteed two privileges. An individual has a right to choose any educational institution for admission and moreover, the guardian has the due opportunity to control the education of his children (D V College v. Punjab, 1971). Moreover, the Apex Court ruled that everybody with requisite qualification shall have the right to be admitted into any educational institution and that he could not be denied such opportunity for his religion or language. So, Articles 29 and 30 are closely related to each other. In other words, they are two sides of the same coin. Any religious denomination can establish and administer its educational institution and this right is very wide (Sidradbhai v. Gujarat, 1963). Unless there is a gross mismanagement or chaos in the administration of such institution, no governmental interference is consequently possible. Moreover, the state can by no means discriminate against such an institution in granting aid on the ground that it is under the control or management of a particular minority, based upon religion or language. It is also held by our Apex Court that such right cannot by any means be taken away by a University (St Xaviers College v. Gujarat, 1974, Provost v. Bihar, 1969). However, the critics have found some loopholes in the arrangement. According to them, words like culture and language mentioned in Article 29 (i) have not been defined. In fact, they are kept delightfully vague, as argued by Dr. H H Das. Secondly, it is alleged that such provision may create a sense of separation which may go against the idea of national integrity and oneness. Thirdly, Dr M M Singh thinks that such right may in effect, be the unending palladium of special privilege. Then, it has also been argued that such right is not available to all. As it is meant for some groups of people, it is not at all consistent with a Constitution which has pledged to establish equality to all. Fifthly, it may grossly prevent the formulation of a national educational policy for the citizens of India. Above all, as the word minority has not been defined, some groups within the majority-community, may unduly claim to be minority in order to secure a special treatment. Yet it can be emphatically claimed that in a pluralistic society like ours, the cultural and linguistic minorities badly require such a right. According to D D Basu, the purpose of these Articles is to safeguard the basic interests of these people and, in that sense, they have immense value. From that point of view, the makers of the Constitution have rendered a signal service to the nation by recognising these privilege. In the view of G N Joshi, such recognition is unparalled in the Constitutions of the world. Due to the existence of Articles 29 and 30 the Supreme Court found a proper reason to set aside clause (5) of the Kerala Education Bill in 1959 which seriously affected such rights in an unprecedented way. The writer is a Griffith Prizeman and former Reader, New Alipore College. Ahead of the first phase of Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday sacked Minister of State for Higher Education Sharda Prasad Shukla for contesting on an RLD ticket. Considered close to his father Mulayam Singh Yadav, the minister was denied ticket by the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP), after which he chose to contest on a Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) ticket from Sarojininagar constituency in the state capital. As Akhilesh Yadav recommended his sacking, Governor Ram Naik accepted the decision and Shukla was immediately relieved of his charge. India has handed over a request for the extradition of liquor baron Vijay Mallya to the British High Commission here, the Ministry of External Affairs on Thursday said. "We have today handed over the request for extradition of Vijay Mallya as received from the CBI to the UK High Commission in New Delhi. We have requested the UK side to extradite him to face trial in India," said Vikas Swarup, the official spokesperson of the ministry. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces the oppositions wrath for insulting former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, BJP chief Amit Shah on Thursday retorted that it was Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi who had insulted Singh by tearing an ordinance approved by him back in 2013. Rahul ji, have you forgotten when the Manmohan Singh was the Prime Minister and you had torn off an ordinance approved by him. Who had insulted the PM then? It was not us, it was you, Shah said at a public rally in New Tehri, Uttarakhand. The Congress Vice President had on September 27, 2013 dropped a political bombshell, saying that the UPA governments ordinance to protect convicted lawmakers from disqualification was "wrong", should be "torn up and thrown away" and it was time to stop "this nonsense". In what came as a major embarassment for the then Manmohan Singh government, especially when the prime minister was away in the US, Gandhi trashed the ordinance in an unexpected appearance at the Press Club of India where Congress spokesman Ajay Maken was painstakingly defending it. Shah further attacked Rahul Gandhi for his controversial comments after the Indian security forces conducted surgiucal strikes across the Line of Control (LoC) in September 2016. You said Modi ji aap khoon ki dalali karte ho, do you remember that, said Shah. Congress and other opposition parties on Thursday forced adjournment of Rajya Sabha twice demanding an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his remarks "insulting" his precedessors. Rahul Gandhi, addressing a public rally in Someshwar said that PM modi should learn to respect his predecessors. You should learn something from Manmohan Singh, Atal Behari Vajpayee to respect other PMs. To become Prime Minister is no ordinary thing. The country heard the Prime Minister speaking, which he did for media publicity. Such words does not suit a PM, he said. Politics in the South is no different from that of the North. The personality cult dominates in both. People go mad over leaders they prefer and even go to the extent of self-immolating themselves in frenzy. VK Sasikala in Tamil Nadu has become such a figure having been a close aide of former chief minister J. Jayalalithaa. Today, she is the general secretary of the AIADMK and the party has elected her as the leader of its legislative wing. The outgoing chief minister O. Panneerselvam was asked to put in his resignation. He was not even present where the decision was taken. But the sudden turn of events in Tamil Nadu has sent everyone into a tizzy. Panneerselvam, close confidant of deceased chief minister J Jayalalitha, has come out strongly against Sasikala, accusing her of trying to usurp power. The swearing-in ceremony, which was to be held on Tuesday, seems to have been put off for the moment as the governor, apparently at the instance of the Union Home Ministry, is dragging his feet. Even otherwise, this is not the opportune moment for a change of guard in the state as a verdict in the disproportionate assets case against Sasikala and her mentor Jayalalithaa is awaited. The apex court has already indicated that judgment will be delivered within a week. Whether she wins or loses, her stock is already waning. As for Sasikala, she had been a long-standing friend of the former chief minister and by virtue of being close to Jayalalitha she wielded enormous power. But she was never nominated by her as successor. Sasikalas claim to fame can be attributed to the proximity with Jayalalitha. There were occasions when even the former chief minister was so annoyed with her friend that she choose to keep her away. Considered part of the Mannargudi mafia, Sasikala rubbed people on the wrong side which had on occasions embarrassed Jayalalitha. M. Natarajan, Sasikalas husband, was seen to be behind what she did and ultimately he was sidelined not only by Jayalalitha but also Sasikala. It is an open secret how Sasikala rose to accumulate so much wealth and was convicted, along with the former chief minister by the special court. Whenever Jayalalitha was either in jail or during her brief period of wilderness owing to cases in the court, it was Panneerselvam on whom she depended and even foisted him on the chief ministers gaddi. And, as a loyal party worker, he had kept the seat warm all the time and vacated it when she returned. Not only that, Pannerselvam revered Jayalalitha so much that he would never sit on the chair which she occupied and instead would have another chair to sit. He had her photo in his chamber apart from the one he always carried in his pocket to express his blind loyalty to her. He became so dependable that every time there was a problem, Jayalalitha chose him as the caretaker chief minister. Indeed, Jayalalitha was so tall that nobody else came anywhere near her. This was like Jawaharlal Nehru who, like a banyan tree, did not allow any other plant to grow. She singlehandedly carried the party and her government despite a strong opponent like the DMK with patriarch M. Karunanidhi still in the party chair. The ruling BJP at the Centre has very little following of its own in Tamil Nadu because it is considered a party of the North. In the last Lok Sabha election, the BJP won only one seat as compared to 37 by AIADMK. The current turmoil in the state is an ideal situation for the BJP to make inroads but the 37 AIADMK Lok Sabha members are crucial for it to get a bill or motion passed. Prime Minister Narendra Modis strategy seems to be of keeping a close watch. Maybe, the Supreme Court verdict against Sasikala would end the speculation one way or the other. However, it will be the BJP's endeavour to register its presence in the state. Sasikalas husband, Natarajan being in confabulations with Congress leaders may also have triggered BJP president Amit Shah to take stock of the situation. He is said to be in favour of Panneerselvam, an affable man. The party hopes to ride on his shoulders to make a future presence in Tamil Nadu. What seems to be going in favour of Panneerselvam is the public mood against Sasikala who was blamed for not allowing Jayalalithas niece to visit her ailing aunt. The niece has already formed a party and has threatened to divulge several secrets soon. People, however, resent all this because of Sasikalas antics to rise to the place where she is today. All this is familiar in politics of the North. Nehru wanted his daughter Indira Gandhi to be his successor. But Lal Bahadur Shastri was too popular to be ignored. Therefore, then Congress president K. Kamaraj settled the matter when he announced that it would be Shastri first and Indira Gandhi later. Morarji Desai never accepted that and was the first to throw his hat in the ring after Nehrus death. Indira Gandhi preferred to split the party than to accept Desai. She even sidelined Kamaraj after he had put her in the gaddi. Learning from the experience, she combined the posts of Prime Ministership and party president. In the same way, the split in the AIADMK ranks seems imminent even though it is stage managed. The legislature members want Sasikala to be both party general secretary and the chief minister. How this entire drama would unfold is difficult to say. But one thing certain is that Sasikala is a force to reckon with. So is Panneerselvam. Fortunately for the latter, the public is behind him. At least that is what it looks like at this juncture. However, the fate of Sasikala hinges on the court verdict. Sasikala is no Jayalalitha and DMK is waiting in the wings. The writer is noted journalist, columnist and commentator. The return of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, perhaps, the most notorious Afghan warlord, may significantly influence power dynamics in war-torn Afghanistan, initiating a new alignment of political forces and provoking old rivalries. Once declared a global terrorist, the insurgent leader was pardoned by the Afghan government as part of a peace deal formalised last September. The UN last week lifted the sanctions on him paving the way for his return to public life. While the government of President Ashraf Ghani has described the peace deal as a major breakthrough in the effort to find a political solution to the Afghan crisis, some analysts believe that Hekhmatyars return could complicate the situation even more. The amnesty has further divided the fractious ruling coalition in the country and provoked protests from human rights groups. Once dubbed the butcher of Kabul for bringing death to thousands of people in the relentless bombing of the capital by his fighters during the Afghan civil war in the mid-1990s, Hekmatyar remains one of the most hated warlords. The civil war is reported to have resulted in the deaths of around 50,000 civilians in Kabul alone. Ironically, all those warlords responsible for the mass murder are now part of the new order. Hekmatyars re-emergence is likely to intensify the power struggle in the country that is facing a rising Taliban threat. His inclusion in the fold may further prove a disincentive for the Afghan Talibans coming to the negotiating table. Despite their common cause against the American occupation, the two insurgent groups have been extremely suspicious of each other. It was once the most powerful force fighting the former Soviet occupation forces, but the influence of the Hezb-i-Islami has been reduced to a few provinces in recent years. The group had been dormant for quite sometime with little to show for its success on the battlefield. Hekmatyar himself kept moving between Afghanistan and Pakistan where he had some support particularly among the Afghan refugees living in the Shamshatu camp on the outskirts of Peshawar. The ISIs blue-eyed boy during the anti-Soviet Afghan jihad, Hekmatyar lost the support of the Pakistani military establishment after the rise of the Taliban to power in Kabul. Earlier, he was made prime minister in the transition government comprising various mujahideen groups after the fall of the Najibullah government in 1992. But he never took charge and, instead, kept bombing Kabul from his headquarters in Sarobi. He moved to Iran after his fighters were routed by the Taliban where he aligned himself with the same mujahideen commanders he had been fighting against for years. That devastated Afghanistan and paved the way for the emergence of the Taliban. He returned to Pakistan after being expelled from Tehran in 2002 and declared war against the US occupation forces. In 2003, the State Department designated Hezb as a terrorist group and froze all its assets for the groups alleged links to Al Qaeda. In an interview in 2006, he boasted that his group helped Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri get out of the caves and led them to a safe place, though he later denied having any Al Qaeda links. Hekmatyars relations with the Pakistani military establishment during that period remained ambiguous though he was reported to have spent most of his time in Pakistan. His links with some of his old allies among Pakistani religious groups like the Jamaat-i-Islami, however, remained intact, providing his group logistic and material support. Over the years, a number of prominent Hezb leaders deserted the party and joined the government; some of them even held senior positions in former president Hamid Karzais administration. The split is believed to be one of the reasons why Hekmatyar opted for reconciliation. The agreement was reached after protracted negotiations that led to the release of many Hezb fighters from Afghan prisons. Under the agreement, Hekmatyar has agreed to cease hostilities, cut ties to extremist groups and respect the Afghan constitution in exchange for government recognition of his group. Hekmatyar has also been promised an honorary post in the government, but it is not clear whether he will accept the offer. This reconciliation, however, remains rocky because of the strong opposition within the ruling coalition. Many of the Hezb commanders were reportedly arrested on their return. For sure, reconciliation would help reunify the party and allow it to regain political space. Some observers believe that the former prime minister could even emerge as one of the strongest forces in the fractious political landscape. Being a Pakhtun may also help him get the support of some tribes in eastern and central Afghanistan that are the main centres of the insurgency. But it is highly unlikely that Hezb would be able to make inroads into Taliban strongholds. A shrewd political operator Hekmatyar will be looking to forge alliances with other warlords and former mujahideen commanders whom he fought during the civil war. Everything is possible in the shifting sands of Afghan politics. But his return could also revive old rivalries and bitter animosities. Dawn/ANN President Donald Trumps controversial executive order on the immigration ban from seven Muslim-majority countries (Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and Libya) for the next 90 days and the suspension of refugee-entry for the next 120 days, has expectedly shocked and riled the world and drawn accusations of a Muslim ban. As global leaders from Canada, UK and Germany weighed in, expressing their concern over the brazenness and the implied religio-specificity of the order, leaders from the influential Gulf Sheikdoms were conspicuous by their pusillanimous and vacuous stand on the US order. Even though the worlds largest body of Islamic nations, the 57-nation Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) spoke of grave concern and warned that such selective and discriminatory acts will only serve to embolden the radical narratives of extremists and will provide further fuel to the advocates of violence and terrorism, the muted acquiescence and understanding showed by Saudi Arabia and UAE are reflective of the subservience of the Gulf monarchs to the US. Even though Trump spoke to the Saudi King, Salman bin Aziz Al Saud, after the executive order was issued, accounts from neither side suggested that the immigration subject was even broached, whereas the UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan defended the US order as a sovereign decision and added, Some of these countries that were on this list are countries that face structural problems. The other influential voice in the region, Qatar, was equally considerate towards the US move and hoped that it would do the right thing regarding immigration. Kuwait went one-up and enforced its own ban from five Muslim countries ~ Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. On the contrary, Iran which surprisingly finds itself in the list of seven countries to be subjected to the US ban, was unequivocally forthright in slamming the move with its Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif stating that the move will be recorded in history as a great gift to extremists and their supporters. The Saudi Arabian regime posits its moral supremacy and the accompanying national narrative owing to the historical and geographical relevance of the Kingdom to the birthplace of Islam. This has afforded the Saudi monarch the singular honour of attaching the symbolically revered title, Custodian of the two holy mosques. This religious sanctification along with oil-generated affluence (Saudi Arabian reserves are about one-fifth of the worlds total conventional oil reserves), has ensured that the Saudis are the leading voice in the Islamic world. Historically, it has been in the forefront of shaping the Arab multilateral forums like Arab League, Gulf Cooperation Council, Muslim World League, Organisation of Islamic Countries and supporting the envisaged Arab Customs Union and Arab Common Market. Often the cheque-book diplomacy of the Saudi Arabian regime ensured that the less affluent Islamic countries were given financial largesse ~ over $70 billion has been doled out by Saudi Arabia since the 70s under overseas development aid. UAE, Qatar and Kuwait with similar bounties of nature and stacked treasuries of affluence have been net donors to various Islamic causes like Palestine, Bosnia, Chechnya, etc. However, politically and militarily, the Gulf Sheikhdoms are in a complex situation, wherein, they remain indebted and physically sustained by the invaluable security cover provided by the US. The contradictions within the region are exemplified by the US arming, protecting and guaranteeing the sovereign integrity of the various Gulf nations, along with the parallel arming and supporting of the historical nemesis of the Arabs, Israel (both sides have F-15s, F-16s, AH-64 Apache Attack Helicopters, Stinger Missiles, etc.). This eerie silence and tolerance by the Gulf Sheikhdoms is attributable to three principal threats to these regimes. First, the unleashed strains of utra-religosity that come in the form of organisations like ISIS, Al Qaida, Muslim Brotherhood, etc., who are intrinsically anti-monarchists and active in the rebellion against the existing governance systems. The US and the Western powers aid the fight-back and suppression of such entities, as these militant organisations also have an inherently anti-West agenda and routinely threaten Western interests and assets in the region. The second threat to the Gulf Sheikhdoms comes from the sectarian angularity of the emergence and assertion of Iran and its proxies like the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, etc. In the fight to contain the spectre of a rising Shia-crescent in the Gulf Peninsula, the US with its own anti-Iran agenda and posture is aligned to the sensibilities of the Gulf Sheikhdoms (even more stridently under President Trumps watch). The third threat to the Gulf monarchies is the implosive restlessness and internal tendencies that recently accompanied the Arab Spring. These popular uprisings later petered out with the subsequent mayhem and lack of alternative solutions that they generated. Given these factors, the US and the Sheikhdoms converge, agree and are aligned on the ostensible commonality of their respective threat perceptions, hence give the long rope of patience to each other. With the US already over-committed across the globe (from containing China, Russia, North Korea, Afghanistan, etc.) and simultaneously tackling the economic pressures overall, it can ill afford escalating further economic and military chaos with potential disruption to its energy supplies from this oil-rich area. This had propelled the US to defend Kuwaitis in Operation Desert Shield, in the First Gulf War. The US has since stationed troops on Saudi soil, besides having the US Navys Fifth Fleet based out of Bahrain, and maintaining large air installations in Qatar, UAE and Oman. Even though the presence and footprint of the US soldiers in the region has fueled radical militancy, and has been essentially counterproductive, immediate withdrawal of US troops would severely jeopardise the ability of the Sheikhdoms to sustain themselves. So, regime-survival instincts, a possible sectarian angle, as all the Shia-ruled nations like Iran, Iraq and Syria are among the banned nations, along with the plausible theory of protecting commercial interests of the Trump corporate empire in the Gulf Sheikhdoms, has ensured a convenient quid pro quo, wherein maintaining ostensible normalcy and acceptance is in the mutual interest of both the US and the Gulf Sheikdoms. Thus, invaluable US support to these repressive, undemocratic and authoritarian regimes of the Gulf Sheikhdoms, with the required leniency and legitimacy that is critical for their internal and external survival, buys reciprocal silence on matters like the immigration ban, which unquestionably irks the common man on the streets of the Gulf Sheikhdoms. The writer is Lt Gen PVSM, AVSM (Retd), former Lt Governor of Andaman and Nicober Island and Puducherry. By Press Trust of India: Mumbai, Feb 9 (PTI) The Bombay High Court today dismissed a petition filed by Rabia Khan, mother of late Jiah Khan, challenging CBIs charge sheet terming the actresss death as suicide and not homicide, thus paving way for trial to commence against actor Sooraj Pancholi in the case. Sooraj is charged with abetment of Jiahs suicide. advertisement A division bench of justices R V More and Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi while dismissing Rabias petition observed that the CBI has investigated properly all aspects of the case and that there is no fresh material submitted by her to direct further probe in the case. Sooraj had last year filed an intervening application seeking for stay on the trial to be vacated saying he has every right to face a "free, fair and expeditious trial". The court while dismissing Rabias petition today said, "The intervening application filed (by Sooraj) also stands dismissed as it is now infructuous." Rabia, in her petition, had sought formation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) and monitoring of the investigation by high court. According to Rabia, Jiah was murdered by her then boyfriend-actor Sooraj. Rabia alleged that CBI has not probed the case properly and ignored several evidences and material that clearly suggest that Jiah was murdered. The court, however, noted that the investigation appears to be complete from all aspects and that it does not find any deficiency in the investigation. "Now after over three years of the incident, nothing fruitful will come out by directing further probe, and by constituting a Special Investigation Team. Not only the police but also the CBI has probed into the angle of homicidal death and on the basis of experts opinion, both the investigating agencies have arrived at the same conclusion that it is a case of suicide," the high court said. "Merely because CBI has arrived at the same conclusion as that of the police does not mean further probe needs to be directed. Needless to state that there would be no end to such exercise until the petitioner (Rabia) gets the result of her choice," the judges observed. The high courts dismissal of Rabias petition paves way for trial to commence against Sooraj before a lower court. The high court had earlier stayed the trial pending hearing of Rabias petition. advertisement Jiah had committed suicide on June 3, 2013. Sooraj was arrested for abetting Jiahs suicide on June 10, 2013, but released on July 2 the same year after the high court granted him bail. (MORE) PTI SP GK ZMN --- ENDS --- The United States of America has been responsible for the most number of refugee resettlements since World War II. An executive order signed into effect by newly elected President Donald J. Trump on 27 January 2017 seeks to reverse that history. The Executive Order titled Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States lays a 120-day freeze on immigration for refugees from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen and an indefinite ban on immigration for refugees from Syria. All these nations have a predominantly Muslim population and this immigration ban is being interpreted as Trumps repugnance towards Muslim immigrants in general. As a result, nearly 60,000 visitors and immigrants with valid visas present in the United States now find themselves in an uncertain situation. With the executive order highlighting the need to protect the United States from foreign threats, this regressive step is sure to have foreign policy ramifications for the United States and indeed, across the world. Political commentators and media have lashed out at this development with outrage and dissent. Legal scholar Laurence Tribe called the ban a barely disguised religious discrimination against Muslims. Others see it as a violation of freedom of religion or the free exercise thereof, contrary to the First Amendment of the US Constitution; or a violation of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. Implicit in due process is the equal protection of the laws. This executive order joins a wave of nationalist sentiment across the world. Whether it is Putins apathy towards globalization or neo-liberalism or the British referendum to leave the EU and look inward instead, or even Indias Prime Minister Modi urging his people to bring manufacturing back to Indian businesses, we are in the midst of an anti-globalisation wave. However, none of these perspectives take away from the crisis that this ban on immigration creates, and the horrors in US foreign policy that may yet come. America was, as they say, built on the backs of immigrants. Until January 2017, the US was the beacon of liberty and freedom for people across the world. It was a nation that welcomed immigrants seeking a new and possibly better life, students who sought the very best that higher education had to offer and refugees seeking asylum from persecution. Each immigrant brought a little bit of his own beliefs, culture and morality that contributed to what America is today. That position is now in severe threat. As the US is a world leader in foreign policy, we may expect to see other countries follow suit. However, the attitudes towards refugees of some nations such as Canada and Germany still encourage optimism. Considerably more optimistic is the widespread dissenting reaction from within. With Hillary Clinton having won almost three million popular votes more than Trump, it is easy to see why the American public has rejected the notion that immigrants from particular countries are unwelcome. There have been widespread protests at airports, at government offices and on social media. Former acting US Attorney General Sally Yates refused to defend the legality of this executive order in court, citing that she wasnt convinced that the order was consistent with the ideals of justice. Technology companies heavily dependent on inflow of skilled workers have also expressed their dismay and outrage against this immigration ban. A Federal Judge in Seattle has already passed a nationwide order temporarily restraining the enforcement of the immigration ban, saying that it was unconstitutional and was causing immediate and irreparable injury. Other lawsuits dealing with this issue are pending before various courts around the United States. However, the Trump administration refuses to go back on the ban doing so would make the President appear weak. Yates was relieved of her position on the grounds that she had betrayed the administration. The US Department of Justice intends to file an emergency stay on the order from Seattle. It will not be long before the US Supreme Court will be seized of the matter in what may be heading towards a constitutional crisis. Such moves and countermoves by the presidents office, the judiciary, law enforcement officials, bureaucrats and the American public all indicate considerable civil unrest, even within the government. With factions of the executive and the judiciary openly defying or rejecting the immigration ban, it will be interesting to see the reaction of the presidents office in the future and the implied threat of autocratic steps and a dilution of liberal democracy. Perhaps what is most frightening is that Trump has used his presidential executive powers to discriminate against Muslims, both legitimately living in the United States as well as Muslims around the world. This flies in the face of the very ideals that the United States was founded upon, that all men are created equal and have inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Of course, the US Declaration of Independence also justifies the overthrow of a government that fails to uphold these rights.Immigrants made America great. Perhaps it is indeed time to make Americans great again. The writers teach law at the Jindal Global University, Sonipat. The parliamentary bill empowering the British government to begin the formal process of leaving the European Union completed its passage on Wednesday night in the House of Commons. Prime Minister Theresa May's government succeeded in crossing the final crucial hurdle with 494 votes to 122 a majority of 372, Xinhua news agency reported. May sat in the chamber alongside her Brexit ministers as the historic result was announced by deputy speaker Lindsay Hoyle. It now goes to the unelected House of Lords for further scrutiny before being sent to Queen Elizabeth for royal assent. Over the landslide victory, David Davis, the Brexit Minister said: "The decision on EU membership has been made by the people we serve. It is now time for everyone, whichever way they voted in the Referendum, to unite to make a success of the important task at hand for our country." Britain is set to trigger Article 50, the formal procedure by which an EU member state notifies the European Council that it intends to leave the block, by the end of March. Once triggered, Article 50 requires "divorce" negotiations to be completed within two years. Scottish Nationalist MP Alex Salmond criticised the process and accused the government of railroading the legislation through parliament in a "disgraceful fashion". He said this was the first time a bill of great constitutional importance had been passed in this day since the Defence of the Realm Bill prior to World War One in 1914. Having won on Wednesday night in the Commons, where a string of amendments were defeated, it almost guarantees that May will be on course to tell Brussels within weeks to start the EU exit process. May's government only introduced the briefly worded bill into parliament last week, determined to see it fast-tracked through the parliamentary process. It has meant Members of Parliament (MPs) sitting until midnight on some occasions to complete a series of debates. International human rights body, the Human Rights Watch has asked the Bangladeshi Government to scrap its plans to transfer Rohingya refugees to an uninhabited and underdeveloped coastal island. The report says that such a relocation of the refugees would deprive them of their rights to freedom of movement and livelihood under Bangladeshs international human rights law. The report also states that among the 300.000 to 500,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees, most of them unregistered by the authorities,are in Bangladesh after fleeing persecution in their country nearly two decades ago. Reportedly, since October 2016, nearly 69,000 Rohingyas from Rakhine State have fled. The plan to move long-term refugees to was earlier suggested in the year 2015, but was shelved amid widespread protest. China and the US should work towards building constructive relations, US President Donald Trump said in a letter to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. The Wednesday letter, Trump's first direct communication with Xi, follows the Chinese President's congratulatory note on the occasion of his inauguration on January 20, Efe news agency reported. In the letter, the US President offered belated wishes to China for the Lunar New Year and said "he looks forward to working with President Xi to develop a constructive relationship that benefits both the US and China", according to a White House statement. Trump is yet to speak to Xi over telephone, something he has already done with other world leaders. Pro-establishment Chinese experts have predicted turbulence in trade and security matters, especially over China's sovereignty claims in the South and East China Sea. remaining of Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. By Vidya : The Bombay High Court today dismissed a petition by Jiah Khan's mother Rabia Khan asking for an SIT investigation. The division bench, presided over by Justice Ranjit More and Justice Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi, did not give a detailed order but said, "The petition is dismissed." The writ petition had been filed by Rabia Khan, mother of deceased actress Jiah Khan, in which she had asked for the setting up of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the death of her daughter Jiah, who was found hanging in her house on June 3, 2013. Rabia has alleged that her daughter had been murdered and did not commit suicide. advertisement Rabia had moved a similar petition earlier as well when she was aggrieved with the investigation of the Juhu Police, and the Bombay High Court had transferred the case to the CBI. The CBI, like the Juhu Police, had concluded that Jiah's death was not homicidal, rather it was a suicide. The CBI had also filed a chargesheet in the case, but after Rabia had filed this petition, the trial was stayed in the lower court. However, the petition filed by Rabia did not come up for hearing in the Bombay High Court for a long time, after which accused actor Sooraj Pancholi filed an intervention application in the Bombay High Court saying that his right for a fair trial was being infringed upon since the trial had been stayed. ALSO READ: This is what Jiah Khan's letter to Sooraj Pancholi read ALSO READ: Sooraj Pancholi speaks about girlfriend Jiah Khan's death ALSO READ: The CBI chargesheet on Jiah Khan's death has disturbing details Bombay High Court immediately took up the case for hearing. Rabia, in her petition, has also sought liberty for the FBI to assist the SIT, as Jiah was a US national. When the matter came up for hearing on February 1, Rabia's advocate Dhairyasheel Patil had tendered the copy of reports of three private forensic science experts. He told the bench that out of the three, one expert is from a foreign country. Citing their opinions, Patil said, "The ligature marks on Jiah's neck, especially at the back side clearly indicate that it is not suicide as in suicide cases, the marks appear only in the front-side of the neck. (sic)" Sooraj Pancholi He also told the bench that all the opinions obtained by Rabia clearly indicate that Jiah died a homicidal death. On the other hand, additional solicitor general (ASG) Anil Singh, who appeared for CBI, told the bench that the agency has left no stone unturned and that it has probed the matter from all possible angles. Meanwhile, Rabia broke down before the bench and sought justice for her daughter. She told the bench that the CBI officer, who was investigating the case, had criminal antecedents. advertisement When the order was pronounced in the case, Rabia was in London, but spoke to India Today over the phone, "I will wait for the detailed copy of the order from HC, but I will be appealing against this rejection. I will not give up. God has bigger plans." Her lawyer Swapnil Ambure said that the lower court is yet to start the trial as it is still dealing with a few applications. Charges are yet to be framed in the case and before that "we will surely file an appeal in Supreme Court". ALSO WATCH: Not possible to extricate foetus in such gory manner, says Aditya Pancholi --- ENDS --- The arrests were made from Bhopal, Satna, Jabalpur and Gwalior. Those arrested were running a racket of exchange of SIM boxes from various parts of the country to conceal the identity of some ISI handlers who were in touch with their agents here. By Hemender Sharma: The Madhya Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) has busted an ISI-backed espionage ring and arrested 11 people from Bhopal, Satna, Jabalpur and Gwalior. These accused were running a racket of exchange of SIM boxes from various parts of the country to conceal the identity of some ISI handlers who were in touch with their agents here. According to Madhya Pradesh ATS chief Sanjeev Shami, the RS Pura police in Jammu had arrested two ISI agents in 2016 who were involved in sending strategic information to their handlers in Pakistan. On being arrested, these two revealed that they were getting money from a Satna-based man identified as Balram. advertisement MP's ATS CHIEF STATEMENT "We have arrested Balram and through him got to the remaining 10 accused, who were involved in exchanging simboxes in various parts of the country. Balram was managing several bank accounts and was receiving funds through hawala. This money was further supplied by Balram to the other members of the espionage racket," Shami said while addressing a press conference in Bhopal. Also read | 'Spies' in Delhi coaching centre arrested for passing information about Indian troops to ISI Among those who have been arrested one is from Satna, two are from Jabalpur, three from Bhopal and five from Gwalior. According to the Madhya Pradesh ATS, all the 11 people arrested were running a hawala racket and indulging in an online lottery scam. HOW EXCHANGE OF SIMs HELPED The exchange of SIM-boxes helped the ISI get in touch with their people and also its agents operating inside the country. "The operatives active in India had purchased several fake SIM cards and these numbers replaced the original numbers from which the calls were made", Shami said. According to the ATS, the operatives could not have operated without the assistance of Indian telecom operators. "We have information that employees of some Indian telecom operators were also in touch with them. We are trying to get to them and some more arrests are likely," Shami said. According to the MP ATS, central agencies and ATS are jointly investigating the case. --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: Bhubneswar, Feb 9 (PTI) Claiming that a dispute over the river Mahanadi water is being "created" for political reasons, Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh today said the issue could be resolved in just three minutes minus political consideration. "There can not be a water dispute over river Mahanadi. It (dispute) is being created for political reasons. If we (Raman and Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik) sit for one minute, solution will come out in three minutes....I do not think it proper to make Mahanadi water dispute an issue in the panchayat elections," Singh told a public meeting at Budra in Bolangir district. advertisement Odisha government has alleged that the neighbouring state had unilaterally constructed projects on the upstream of Mahanadi leading to slowing down of flow of water in the Hirakud reservoir. The state government has already moved the Centre protesting Chhattishgarhs action after Singh rejected Odisha governments proposal of stopping projects on the river. The ruling BJD has already made it an issue in the panchayat polls. Singh, who came to Odisha as a star campaigner for BJP candidates contesting the three-tier panchayat elections amid protests from all non-BJP parties in the state, clarified that the purpose of his visit is to clear the air of misunderstanding among the Odia people on the Mahanadi row. "I am here to tell the truth and dispel the air of misunderstanding. I have come here not as the chief minister of neighbouring Chhattisgarh but as a true neighbourer. It is my duty as a neighbour to inform the people what the truth is," he said. Singh said he was ready for a discussion to resolve the Mahanadi water issue for the benefit of both the states. "However, the matter should be resolved on the basis of facts and not on political consideration." Quoting the CWC (Central Water Commission) statistics, the Chhattisgarh chief minister claimed that 82 per cent of the Mahanadi river water drains into the sea. "While Odisha utilises 13 per cent of the Mahanadi water, Chhattisgarh gets only 4 per cent," Singh claimed adding that 87 per cent of Mahanadis catchment area falls in Chhattisgarh while Odisha has only 13 per cent. Hitting out at the Odishas BJD government, the Chhattisgarh Chief Minister said, "The volume of water that is flowing down to Hirakud dam can fill the reservoir five times. But, unfortunately major portion of the water is draining into the sea. The state government could not make any arrangement to utilise the water being wasted." "The Odisha government should think about the 82 per cent of water going down to the sea instead of raising their voice against only 4 per cent of water being utilised by us," Singh said. PTI AAM MM RCJ --- ENDS --- advertisement Organisation: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Position No.: 10013982 Vacancy Notice: 032/2017 Reports to: Head of Office Duty Station: Mbarara, Uganda Post Grade: GL4 About UNHCR: The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was established on December 14, 1950 by the United Nations General Assembly. UNHCRs mandate under the Statute of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is to lead and co-ordinate action for international protection to refugees; seek permanent solutions for the problems of refugees and safeguard refugee rights and well-being. UNHCR has an additional mandate concerning issues of statelessness, as it is given a designated role under Article 11 of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. Job Summary: The Secretary will provide secretarial and administrative support to the UNHCR Unit as a whole. The incumbent will receive regular guidance from his/her supervisor. As per specific instructions, the incumbent will require liaising with other internal or external entities, to ensure effective delivery of services and achievement of objectives. The assignments are mostly standard tasks including limited interpretation of subject matter and information exchange between staff in the office, at the duty station and external officials of other institutions to ensure mutual understanding. Responsibilities: Key Duties andResponsibilities: The incumbent will prepare correspondence for signature, checking enclosures and addresses, and draft correspondence on routine matters. Arrange appointments/meetings both internal and external, some involving high ranking officials. The jobholder will also receive visitors, place and screen telephone calls, respond to routine requests for information and take notes at meetings as and when required. Type a wide variety of material from drafts and printed texts using a word processor. Proof-read for correctness and maintain office records and reference files on various subjects. Offer support in making travel arrangements. Receive, review, sort and distribute all incoming and outgoing material, highlight priority items and attach necessary background information. May be required to maintain/update confidential files. Perform other relevant duties as required. Key Performance Indicators: The UNHCR Office has sufficient secretarial and administrative support thus better able to meet its objectives. TheUNHCR Office has sufficient secretarial and administrative support thus betterable to meet its objectives. Experience: Qualifications, Skills andExperience: The ideal candidate for the United Nations UNHCR Secretary career opportunity should have completed Secondary education or equivalent technical or commercial school with Secretarial training and/or certificate. At least three years of previous job experience relevant to the function. Computer skills (MS office and People soft applications). Fluency in English and working knowledge of another relevant UN language. Excellent knowledge of local language is an added advantage. How to Apply: All interested Ugandan nationals who wish to join the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the aforementioned capacity are encouraged to click on the link below and follow the application instructions after reviewing the job details. Deadline: 18th December 2017 Still Standing: Four the Moments legacy honoured at Nova Scotia Music Week When a quartet of Halifax women began singing together a cappella in the name of social justice in 1982, there was little in the way of a music industry at play in Atlantic Canada. And even if there had been, its likely that Four the Moment would ... But the tribe has a long way to go The National Investigation Agency has made substantial progress in its probe into the missing case of Kerala youths who were allegedly indoctrinated to join the Islamic State terror group. The agency has filed a chargesheet against Islamic Research Foundation employee Arshi Qureshi alias Asif Qureshi and absconding accused Abdul Rashid Abdullah for not only providing support to the ISIS, but also indoctrinating the youth by showing them videos of the outfit and giving lectures on violent jihad. The case relates to the alleged indoctrination of one Ashfak Majeed, a native of Kerala, who used to frequently visit Mumbai where a few of his relatives are living in. The NIA filed its chargesheet before a special court in Mumbai under various sections of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and Indian Penal Code where the duo have been charged for "their involvement in unlawful activities and in spreading hatred against India and providing support to the proscribed terrorist organisation, ISIS, by furthering its activities." The NIA sources said there was mounting evidence which showed that the IRF under controversial televangelist Zakir Naik had been involved in radicalising youth. Some of them hailing from Kerala had been indoctrinated by Arshi. According to the chargesheet, Qureshi who hails from Thane in Mumbai and Abdul Rashid from Kasargod in Kerala along with some other like-minded persons from Kasargod and other members of the IRF had motivated and radicalised Ashfak Majeed and his associates to join the terror group. The NIA probe has revealed that Abdul Rashid was the main conspirator behind the offence of motivating Ashfak and a number of other youths from Kasargod and Pallakkad districts of Kerala to join the outfit. "He professed and furthered the activities of the proscribed terrorist organisation, ISIS, by showing them videos of the ISIS and also gave them lectures on violent jihad. He also financed the travel and stay of some of the missing youths," says the agency. Sources in the NIA said the agency would soon summon Zakir Naik for questioning based on the evidence it had gathered about the involvement of Qureshi and the confessions of a number of radicalised youth arrested for links with the Islamic State. In a first in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the National Womens Parliament at Pavitra Sangamam in the capital region of Amaravati in Andhra Pradesh. Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, along with a host of leaders from India and abroad, will attend the inaugural session of the three-day event to be held between February 10 and 12. The theme of the conclave is Empowering Women-Strengthening Democracy." The idea behind this parliament is essentially to generate new ideas to empower women from all classes of society. The event is hosted by the state government and has the support from various organisations including the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and Inter-Parliamentary Union. The parliament will come out with an Amaravati Declaration on women empowerment at the end of the three-day deliberations. By Press Trust of India: Colombo, Feb 9 (PTI) Exiled ex-Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed today declared that he would return to his country and run for presidency in elections next year, as he asserted that India will be "mindful of assisting democracy". "We have decided that the MDP (Maldivian Democratic Party) will produce a candidate, I am hopeful to be that candidate," Nasheed told reporters here after talks with party leaders. advertisement The 49-year-old leader, who faces jail in the Maldives for his 2015 conviction on terror-related charges, said the MDP would hold primaries to select the presidential candidate. Asked about the possibility of being barred from the polls, Nasheed said if the MDP is not allowed to field their choice of candidate they will look for an alternative common candidate to challenge incumbent Abdulla Yameen. "In 2008 and 2013 they thought I will not be able to contest but I did," said Nasheed, the countrys first democratically elected president who was toppled in 2012. The former President said he met his MDP officials here to work out the future political strategies. He said the international community was working behind the scenes to guarantee the democratic freedoms in the Maldives and "those efforts will bear fruit". Nasheed said the international partners should ensure an all inclusive election. Nasheed was granted political asylum in the UK last May after he was authorised by the Maldivian government to travel for medical treatment while serving a 13-year sentence for a terror-related offence. Yameens administration wants to jail him for breaking the terms of his release to go abroad for medical treatment. Despite the threat, Nasheed said he wants to return to his country. He alleged that Yameens government would jail anyone who would express desire to contest the next presidential election. Nasheed said the Indian attention on the Maldives was important. "India will be mindful of what is happening currently," Nasheed said, adding that MDPs contacts with India were ongoing. "We always meet Indian officials and we are in conversation with the Indian government. I believe India will be mindful of assisting democracy," he said. Nasheed was sentenced to jail in March, 2015, after he was convicted on a terror-related charge, inviting widespread international condemnation. Yameen narrowly beat Nasheed in a controversial run off election in 2013. PTI CORR ASK AKJ ASK --- ENDS --- Launching a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his remarks on former PM Manmohan Singh, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said PM Modi demeaned his position and himself more than anyone else. "When a prime minister reduces himself to ridiculing his predecessor...he hurts the dignity of the parliament and the nation," Gandhi tweeted on his official Twitter account. "He demeans his position and himself more than anyone else. Today's events were saddening and frankly they were shameful," he added. Modi on Wednesday launched a surprise attack on Mammohan Singh, saying that politicians should learn from Singh how to maintain a clean image even after 35 long years of public life dotted with scams under his stewardship. Replying to a debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President's address to the two Houses of Parliament, Modi also chose to attack another former prime minister Indira Gandhi. Modi first cast aspersions on the scholarship of Manmohan Singh, a former RBI governor and an eminent economist, saying he (Modi) recently came across a book purportedly written by Singh, but found out that only the foreword was by "doctor sahib" (Manmohan Singh). "Looks like, even the speech doctor sahib delivered in the last session...," Modi said, just stopping short of saying anything further, but implying that Singh's speech lambasting the note ban was not his own. The PM continued amid aloud protests by the Congress members: "For around 35 years, he (Singh) has had a say or a role in India's economic policy and decisions. In these 35 years, we heard of many a scam, but he has remained free of any blemish." "There is a lot for us politicians to learn... so much happened he did not get even a taint. Only doctor sahab (Singh) knows the art of bathing wearing a rain coat," he said in a jibe, resulting to a huge uproar from Congress benches. The Congress MPs walked out at this point, though Manmohan Singh himself did not budge from his seat. A few senior Congress members including P. Chidmabaram, A.K. Antony and Karan Singh asked the former prime minister to come along and walk out, which he did. The world got a first-hand experience of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's personal interest in disease and medical research when he, along with his wife Priscilla Chan, pledged to give away 99 per cent of their shares in Facebook to advance human potential, and began the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI). The Zuckerberg family continues to stay committed to this mission, and on Wednesday announced an amount of $50 million to fund 'first class of investigators'. The fund will be dispensed through the Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub, a non-profit medical research organisation, part of the CZI. This programme will provide five years of funding to some of the most innovative researchers in the Bay Area, especially focused on young scientists early in their careers, he wrote on a Facebook post. The first class of 'investigators' being funded through the initiative comprises 47 scientists from Stanford, UCSF and Berkeley. These investigative scientists are working across a spectrum of researches such as analysing massive quantities of genomic data, spreading of malaria and designing tools to better understand human biology, including a miniature foldable microscope. This is a diverse group, with almost 50 per cent women and 15 per cent underrepresented minorities, Zuckerberg's post says. Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub was formed with the primary objective of enabling doctors to cure, prevent, or manage all diseases during our childrens lifetime. Unlike most of the other research organisations that focuses on one disease research, Biohub looks to create a bigger impact by undertaking and partnering with various types of researches. The initiative focuses on long-term researches that might take up to decades to be completed. In September 2016, CZI had set aside $3 billion to fund researches aimed at curing all diseases in this century. The goal isn't for no one to ever get sick, but it would mean a drastic reduction in the frequency and severity of global disease, Chan had explained, according to a report by Business Insider. In lines with its strategy in advanced technology, CZI made its first acquisition in January this year. It acquired Meta, an AI-powered research search engine start-up, which helps scientists to search, read and tie together more than 26 million science research papers. West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, while speaking in the Assembly yesterday, said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will face defeat in the Assmebly elections of 2017 because of the demonetisation drive. By Romita Datta Sengupta: The UP election is far from over, but West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has already predicted that BJP will lose. Not only that, she has gone on to predict that the party will lose in the upcoming Punjab and Gujarat Assmebly elections as well. Banerjee became a soothsayer on the floor of the Assembly yesterday. She said that the party will face the heat of demonetisation in the election results in UP, Punjab and Goa. advertisement Referring to a comment made by the state BJP President, Dilip Ghosh at a recent rally, West Bengal CM said that the fact that Ghosh could roam around flexing his muscles was because the state government was providing him with security and not the BJP government at the Centre. Ghosh had earlier said that if the BJP government wanted, it could have taught the Trinamool Congress MPs, who were protesting against demonetisation, a lesson by tying them up with the street lights. Also read: Three months over, for how long will poor suffer due to demonetisation, asks Mamata The chief minister was furious. She gave vent to her anger by singling out Ghosh and warned that the state was keeping an eye on the BJP leaders and who was doing what. Earlier, she had also said that BJP leaders, who were fanning communal passion, would not be spared and it wouldn't take long to arrest some of them, who were meddling with the secular atmosphere of the state. Also read: State advocate general quits over differences with Mamata government A few weeks after Sudip Bandyopadhyay was arrested by the CBI in connection with the Rose Valley scam, which Banerjee construed as a move of vendetta politics, the Trinamool Congress government arrested BJP Vice President Jayprakash Majumdar on the basis of an eight-month-old FIR. Even though Mamata Banerjee is reluctant to let go off the past, the Modi government has let bygones be bygones. The Centre has approved grant under Prime Minister Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY) to three medical colleges in West Bengal out of 13 medical institutions of 11 states and that too in the first phase itself. The three medical colleges are in Burdawan, Bankura and Maldah districts. Such grants are being provided for 72 medical colleges and medical institutes and will be spread over four phases. According to a health department official, the fund for such hospitals will be used for upgradation and infrastructure. Also read: Mamata Banerjee tears into Arun Jaitley's budget, call it clueless, useless --- ENDS --- The decision also includes the enhancement of combined financial power of the Defence and Finance Minister which has been increased from Rs 1,000 crore to Rs 3,000 crore. By Manjeet Negi: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar's financial powers have been enhanced by PM Narendra Modi from Rs 500 crore to Rs 2000 crore to buy weapon systems.The financial power was earlier Rs 500 crore and now he can buy systems at his own level to that tune. The decision also includes the enhancement of combined financial power of the Defence and Finance Minister which has been increased from Rs 1,000 crore to Rs 3,000 crore. The decision to enhance the financial power of the key acquisition related ministers has been taken at the apex level by the Prime minister.The enhanced amount will enable services to carry out low valued essential purchases without waiting to get clearance from the Defence Ministry. It had been a long pending demand of the services as one of the measures to speed up acquisitions. advertisement The service vice chiefs are entitled to clear purchases up to Rs. 150 crore while the Defence Secretary has financial powers to sanction acquisition of Rs. 300 crore. Till now, for amounts beyond Rs 500 crore, sanction from the Defence Minister was require while for contracts with value above Rs. 1,000 crore and above, approval of the Cabinet Committee on Security was mandatory. --- ENDS --- Germany has joined Jordan, Turkey, Britain and France in condemning the Knesset passage of the Regulation Law which intends to legalize over 4,000 buildings throughout Yehuda and Shomron. A spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry stated on Wednesday that many are disappointed by the move, adding Our trust in the Israeli governments commitment to the two-state solution has been fundamentally shaken. In Israel, the right-wings euphoria over the passage of the bill is waning rapidly as it is now clear Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit will not defend the coalitions position in a response to the High Court of Justice. Mandelblit has always been against the bill, which he feels is on shaky legal ground, adding he is most concerned that passing it will compromise Israels standing in the international community. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) A century after the UK declared its support for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Israel, Jewish leaders from around the world and some 700 Russian-speaking Jews from 18 European countries gathered in Windsor last weekend for the first-ever Limmud FSU (former Soviet Union) Europe regional conference in the UK. The Limmud FSU Europe conference featured a special centennial celebration of the Balfour Declaration. The declaration, dated Nov. 2, 1917, was sent from UK Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur James Balfour to Baron Lionel Walter Rothschild, and expressed the UKs support for the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people in Israel. Limmud FSU Europe marked the first time in its decade-long history that Limmud FSU was not geared toward Russian-speaking Jews of a specific city or country. More than 250,000 Russian-speaking Jews currently reside in Europe, making it one of the worlds largest Russian-speaking Jewish communities. The U.K. conference featured more than 100 lectures, workshops, presentations and discussions by leading figures including British members of Parliament; Israeli members of Knesset; former Ambassador of Israel to the UN Ron Prosor; Chief Rabbi of Russia Berel Lazar; Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations Executive Vice Chairman Malcolm Hoenlein; Genesis Philanthropy Group President and CEO Ilia Salita; American businessman and philanthropist Matthew Bronfman, who is chairman of Limmud FSUs international steering committee; and Limmud FSU President Aaron Frenkel. This unprecedented continental gathering brought together major Jewish leaders and the Russian-speaking Jewish communities of Europe to celebrate the Balfour Declaration, which paved the way for the formation of the modern State of Israel, said Limmud FSU Founder Chaim Chesler and Co-Founder Sandy Cahn. Our first extra-territorial Limmud FSU was also our first nomadic conference, convening Russian-speaking Jews from across Europe in the continents informal capital. Limmud FSU Europe was held in partnership with the Genesis Philanthropy Group (GPG), a private foundation with the mission of developing and enhancing a sense of Jewish identity among Russian-speaking Jews around the world. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) The operator of an electric mobility scooter was killed in a vehicular crash near the entrance to Kfar Chabad earlier Wednesday morning 12 Shevat. Magen David Adom reports the call came in at 5:20AM for an electric scooter that was struck by a vehicle on Route 44 near the entrance to Kfar Chabad. Paramedics had no alternative but to pronounce the victim, a man in his 70s, dead on the scene. Paramedic Shoham Gelbstein explained The approximately 70-year-old male was on the left side of the roadway near the electric cart. He was unconscious from the accident and had sustained multisystem trauma. He was in traumatic arrest. A few tests were performed to determine our course of action and due to the extent of his injures, we had no alternative but to pronounce him dead. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem / Photo Credit: ) Israel Police representatives taking part in Safe Internet Week are concentrating efforts in Jerusalem in Arab areas of the city. One of our goals during Safe Internet Week is to reach schools in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods and to explain to children and youths of the importance of this in their language a police official told the media. Police earlier this week visited Bet Haninah and Issawiya schools and spoke to students about safety when surfing the internet. They also spoke with students one-on-one to determine if they understand what is and what is not permitted on the internet. Police add they will remain in contact with schools during the course of the year as part of this ongoing program. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) In a sign of improving ties, Turkish officials said Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and responded positively on two key Turkish demands that had soured Ankaras relations with the Obama administration. Following the 45-minute telephone conversation late Tuesday, officials from Erdogans office also announced that CIA Director Mike Pompeo would be making his first overseas visit to Turkey on Thursday. The decision showed the importance the new administration attaches to Turkey, a country on the frontline of the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq. Ties between Turkey and the U.S., which are NATO allies, were strained under the Obama administration. Turkey expressed frustrations over what it perceived as U.S. reluctance to extradite the cleric Fethullah Gulen, who Turkey accused of orchestrating the countrys failed military coup. It was also angered by Washingtons support of Syrian Kurdish fighters. While Turkeys government considers the fighters terrorists because of their affiliation with outlawed Kurdish rebels in Turkey, the Obama administration regarded them as the most effective group in the war against the Islamic State group in Syria. It had also asked Turkey to allow the judiciary process for Gulens return to take its course. The Turkish government has pinned hopes for improved ties on Trumps presidency, and the call was being closely watched in Turkey for signs of a recovery. Officials from Erdogans office, who briefed journalists on condition of anonymity in line with government regulations, said Tuesdays phone conversation was positive and conducted in a sincere atmosphere. Both leaders stressed their strong alliance and need for close cooperation, and agreed to meet at the shortest time possible, they said. Erdogan requested that Washington stand with Turkey in its struggle against the Gulen movement and stop supporting Syrian Kurdish fighters, the officials said. Erdogans spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, told Turkeys NTV news channel that the Turkish leader not only asked Trump not to back the Syrian Kurds but also presented a plan in which allies could re-take Raqqa, the main IS-held city in Syria, without the Kurdish fighters. Trumps general reactions were positive, Kalin said. Kalin said Erdogan told Trump that there were a series of measures Washington could take while awaiting for the courts to decide on Gulens extradition, in apparent reference to Turkish demands that the cleric be taken into custody and prevented from running his movement. Trump and his security adviser responded by saying they would start work to examine the issue, Kalin said. Trump and Erdogan also discussed a long-standing Turkish call for the creation of safe zones in Syria, the refugee crisis and the fight against extremist groups, the officials said, without elaborating. Officials said Pompeo would discuss Gulen and the U.S. backing of Syrian Kurdish fighters during his visit. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, speaking at a joint news conference with his Saudi counterpart in Ankara, sounded optimistic about future cooperation with the Trump administration. On the issue of fighting Daesh, we that is Turkey and Saudi Arabia will be cooperating with the United States, Cavusoglu said. We believe that the fight from now on will be more effective and that we will be able to clear both Syria and Iraq of Daesh. He was using an Arabic acronym for the IS group. The Turkish officials didnt say whether Trumps ban on travelers from seven predominantly Muslim nations was raised during their talk. Last year, Erdogan criticized Trump then a Republican presidential candidate over his comments about barring Muslims from entering the United States and called for his name to be removed from the Trump Towers in Istanbul. However, the normally outspoken Erdogan has not yet commented in public on the travel ban, which is being reviewed by a federal appeals court. (AP) The following is an OnlySimchas.com Exclusive: The more we hear about compassion, charity and kindness that billionaire New England Patriots owner, Robert Kraft does, the more we are impressed. Kraft is a true Mentch and his latest act of kindness is just another example of big heart. Ezra Schwarzs aunt, Rachel Deri, reached out to OS News with this amazing message of Hakoras Hatov. This is not the first time that Robert Kraft has shown his compassion for the Schwartz family. On 19 November 2015, a Palestinian terrorist opened fire at Gush Etzion Junction where he killed 3 people, including Ezra. At the time, Jews from all the world were questioning why President Obama did not mention anything about this, no flags were lowered to half-mast as they are with other American terror victims. In stepped Patriots owner Robert Kraft who paid special tribute to Ezra when he issued a READ MORE: ONLYSIMCHAS.COM In an editorial in the Global Times, published by the official People's Daily, the party's mouthpiece, said China was "caught in the middle" between India and Pakistan. By Ananth Krishnan: China would place greater priority on maintaining "regional stability" between India and Pakistan than taking any steps to curb terrorism that may pressure its close ally, an editorial in a leading Communist Party-run newspaper suggested on Thursday. Days after China once again stymied moves at the United Nations Security Council to sanction the Pakistani terrorist Masood Azhar, the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Wednesday defended the "technical hold" it placed saying there were still "different views" within the UNSC's sanctions committee. advertisement A more candid view was expressed Thursday in an editorial in the Global Times, a widely read tabloid known for its hawkish views published by the official People's Daily, the party's mouthpiece, which said China was "caught in the middle" between India and Pakistan. "India has its own reasons to have Azhar listed as a terrorist. However, observers are also worried that under the defense of the counter-terrorism crusade, India can increase its military pressure on Pakistan, thus risking escalating tensions between the two countries," the editorial said. "In the future, China will enhance anti-terror cooperation with India," the newspaper added, "but regional peace and stability will always be a priority." Also read: China defends latest hold on Masood Azhar listing WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY Chinese strategic experts say that part of what China sees as "regional stability" in South Asia is trying to maintain parity between India and Pakistan - in part to tie Delhi down in its neighbourhood, which Beijing has done for decades through both military and diplomatic support to its close ally. The editorial hinted China would continue that approach of maintaining regional balance. "As a responsible doer China must help maintain regional order. Any India Pakistan confrontation may bring other players into the region, which would complicate the situation." The paper claimed "China supports India's efforts at curbing terrorism" but then added that "India can work more to bring all parties to reach a consensus over the issue instead of only blaming China for its failed attempts". "Chinese analysts said they believe India did not provide enough evidence to support its proposals as evidence is required not only because of the need to maintain the UN's authority but also because of the complexities of the region," the paper claimed. Also read: China blocks India's UN proposal to declare Pathankot mastermind Masood Azhar a terrorist India, however, has pointed out that the same UNSC committee deemed evidence sufficient to proscribe Masood Azhar's organization, the Jaish-e-Mohammad, even as China continues to cite "evidence" as the reason for its holds. "CHINA CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE" The paper acknowledged China was "caught in the middle". "The India Pakistan feud has been a thorny issue in South Asia for a long time and China is caught in the middle, given geographic and geopolitical proximities to the two. Any action the UN takes should assist the peace process rather than escalate tension between the two." advertisement As for terrorist attacks from Pakistan that have targeted India and thus escalated tensions, the editorial did not offer a comment. Also read: US move for a UN ban on Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar blocked again by China Watch the video --- ENDS --- A man was sentenced to 30 years in prison Wednesday on charges that he provided support to the Islamic State group by helping two followers carry through on an attempted attack on an anti-Islam event in Texas that resulted in a deadly shootout with police. Prosecutors were seeking a life sentence for Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem, an American-born Muslim convert who became the second person in the U.S. to be convicted of charges of supporting Islamic State. He was convicted of conspiring to support a foreign terrorist organization, interstate transportation of firearms and other charges. His friends, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, were killed in a police shootout outside a Prophet Muhammad contest in Garland, Texas, two years ago. A security guard was wounded, but no one else was injured. The contest featured cartoons that are offensive to Muslims. Authorities have said Kareem watched videos depicting violence by jihadists with the two friends, encouraged them to launch violent attack to support the terrorist group and researched travel to the Middle East to join Islamic State fighters. Kareem kept his head down as Judge Susan Bolton handed down the sentence, calling it an extraordinarily serious set of crimes. He earlier told the judge he had nothing to do with this crime. Prosecutor Kristen Brook said Kareem played an active role in assisting in an attempted mass murder. That just doesnt make him an outside participant or fringe guy, Brook said. Authorities also said Kareem inquired about explosives to blow up the Arizona stadium where the 2015 Super Bowl was held but later set his sights on the cartoon contest after that plan fell through. Kareem testified that he didnt know his friends were going to attack the contest and didnt find out about the shooting until after Simpson and Soofi were killed. Kareem told jurors at his trial last year that he strongly disapproved of Simpson using Kareems laptop to watch al-Qaida promotional materials. A(P) Two Portuguese teenagers who wrote their names on a gate of the former Nazi German death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau were fined and handed one-year suspended prison terms by a Polish court on Wednesday. The Polish lawyer for the 17- and 18-year-old says they regret and have apologized for putting their names and the date on the red brick gate of Birkenau, part of the Auschwitz complex, in southern Poland. The teens were there on July 28, while attending a world youths meeting with Pope Francis in Poland. Under Polish law any damage to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial is a crime. One of the teens used a pen to inscribe his name, the other a stone. They were caught by a guard at the site. Defense lawyer Marcin Surowiec, who represented the teenagers before the regional court in Oswiecim, where the former camp is located, told The Associated Press he plans to appeal the sentences because his clients did not damage the gate. From 1940-45, some 1.1 million Jews and others were killed in Auschwitz-Birkenau, which German Nazis operated in occupied Poland. (AP) President Donald Trumps extended criticism of the judiciary prompted a rebuke Wednesday from his nominee for the Supreme Court, who told a senator that the presidents comments were demoralizing and disheartening. Judge Neil Gorsuch, who was nominated by Trump to the nations high court last week, made the comments after Trump accused an appellate court considering his immigration and refugee executive order of being so political. During the weekend, the president labeled a judge who ruled on his executive order a so-called judge and referred to the ruling as ridiculous. Gorsuchs comments came at the end of his first full week of meetings in the Senate, which is considering his nomination. His response may have been aimed at drawing a line of separation from the new president, who has been politically polarizing figure among Democrats in a highly charged partisan fight over the court. Prior to the judges meeting on Capitol Hill, Trump slammed the court that is deliberating his immigration and refugee executive order, telling a group of police chiefs that his immigration order was done for the security of our nation. He quoted from the portion of the immigration law that he said gave him the power to enact the ban, calling it beautifully written and saying a bad high school student would understand this. Courts seem to be so political and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do whats right, he added. And that has to do with the security of our country, which is so important. Trumps comments came as the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is weighing the appeal of his executive order on immigration, including a temporary travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries. In a hearing Tuesday, judges on the appeals court challenged the administrations claim that the ban was motivated by terrorism fears, but also questioned an attorneys argument that it unconstitutionally targeted Muslims. Since a lower-court judge blocked the order last week, Trump has assailed the decision, leading legal experts, Democrats and some Republicans to question whether the presidents remarks might jeopardize the independence of the judiciary. Others have expressed fears he may be attempting to use political influence to sway the courts. Gorsuch joined the criticism in a meeting with Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. Blumenthal, a former state attorney general, said Gorsuch described the presidents comments about the judiciary as demoralizing and disheartening. Gorsuchs confirmation team confirmed the judges comments. Blumenthal told reporters that he had told the judge he would need to condemn Trumps attacks on judicial independence publicly. It needs to be a strong condemnation and that kind of public condemnation is important to establish his independence, Blumenthal said. Otherwise, the American public will conclude that he is more likely to be a rubber stamp. In his speech, Trump sought to link his comments about the court battle over his executive order to the law enforcement community in attendance. We have to allow you to do your job, he said. And we have to give you the weapons that you need, and this is a weapon that you need and theyre trying to take it away from you. The president has repeatedly said people are pouring in since the ban was put on hold and suggested that blocking the order would be dangerous for U.S. citizens. On Wednesday morning he tweeted, Big increase in traffic into our country from certain areas, while our people are far more vulnerable, as we wait for what should be EASY D! The administration has not provided any information to support his claims. Customs and Border Protection, the agency in charge of screening people who arrive at U.S. ports, including airports, has not responded to multiple requests to detail how many visa holders from the seven designated countries have been allowed into the United States since a federal judge temporarily blocked the government from implementing the travel ban. The State Department previously said fewer than 60,000 visas were provisionally revoked after the order was signed and those people would now be allowed to travel to the U.S. Trumps order banned travel to the U.S. for people from Syria, Sudan, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Yemen and Libya. It also suspended the countrys refugee global program. As of Wednesday afternoon 641 refugees from 13 countries, including five whose citizens were barred from the U.S. under the travel ban, had arrived since a federal judge in Washington ruled against the government. During his meeting with police leaders, Trump also continued his promises to reduce violence in Chicago, saying that no one in America should be punished because of their birthplace. He pledged to provide resources to police departments and promised zero tolerance for violence against law enforcement. Trump also promised to work on combating drug abuse and said there should be resources to deal with a mental health crisis. Hundreds of members of the Major Cities Chiefs Association and Major County Sheriffs Association were in the standing room crowd, some in uniform but the majority in plain clothes. They snapped photos with their phones as the president spoke, but clapped sparingly when he asked whether they were in agreement with his views on the immigration ban. His comments about combatting drug abuse and the targeting of police officers drew a more unanimous response from the crowd. (AP) Republicans are ready to overpower Democrats and push another of President Donald Trumps Cabinet nominees through the Senate, the man who will help lead the GOP drive to erase and replace the health care law. The Senate voted 51-48 Wednesday to short-circuit Democratic delaying tactics against Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., Trumps choice for health secretary. Final approval of Price seemed certain, a vote that would elevate the long-time proponent of dismantling President Barack Obamas health care law and reshaping and curbing Medicare and Medicaid. Those goals, for many Republicans, are high on the GOP agenda. The debate over Price was coming in a week that has so far seen Democrats, eager to show liberal constituents that they are taking a stand against Trump, ferociously but unsuccessfully opposing two nominees for top administration jobs. Over solid Democratic opposition and two GOP defections, it took a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Mike Pence for the Senate to approve wealthy GOP donor Betsy DeVos on Tuesday to head the Education Department. Under the Constitution, one of the duties of a vice president is to break tie votes in the 100-member Senate. On Wednesday, the chamber confirmed Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., to be attorney general. That debate was bitter, fueled by Democratic accusations that Sessions lacked a devotion to civil rights laws and wouldnt stand up to Trump. The Sessions battle also saw a rare Senate wrist-slap against one of its own as Republicans late Tuesday pushed through a rebuke of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., for violating the chambers rule against impugning a colleague. That came after Warren read on the Senate floor a 1986 letter from Coretta Scott King, Dr. Martin Luther Kings widow, criticizing Sessions during his rejected judicial nomination 31 years ago. Price is a conservative seven-term House member from Atlantas suburbs who until recently chaired that chambers budget committee. Republicans have talked longingly of confirming Price because one pillar of their strategy to gut Obamas law is for the Department of Health and Human Services, which he would run, to issue regulations weakening it. Those might include letting states experiment with how they use federal Medicaid funds and restricting access to free birth control for women who work for religious-affiliated nonprofits. Hes going to be the guy ultimately whos responsible for implementing a GOP replacement plan, said No. 3. Senate Republican leader John Thune of South Dakota. Republicans have yet to craft their proposal. At Senate hearings on Prices nomination, Democrats have focused on the former orthopedic surgeons considerable stock holdings, especially in health care industry companies. Theyve accused him of conflicts of interest by acquiring those shares, pushing legislation that could benefit those companies and making investments using insider information. One nominee in this swamp Cabinet stands out, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said of Price, mocking Trumps drain the swamp campaign rhetoric. He added later, If I were a prosecutor, Id say this case has real potential. Price has said hes done nothing wrong. It is against the law for members of Congress to engage in insider trading. Democrats have focused on Prices purchase last year of around 400,000 shares in Innate Immunotherapeutics Ltd., an Australian biotech firm. Price has said he learned of the firm from a colleague, Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., the companys largest shareholder, and Price testified to Congress that the shares he bought were available to any investor. The company has said Price received a special offer to buy shares at a discount. Price has conceded he understated the value of those stocks in financial disclosure forms he filed. Price also purchased stock last year in Zimmer Biomet, a manufacturer of medical implant devices, around the same time he introduced legislation that would have suspended Medicare rules seen as problematic for such companies. Price has said the purchase was done by his stockbroker. (AP) "When a Prime Minister reduces himself to ridiculing his predecessor-years his senior, he hurts the dignity of the parliament & the nation. He demeans his position and himself more than anyone else. Today's events were saddening and frankly, they were shameful," Rahul tweeted. By Press Trust of India: Hitting back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his 'raincoat' jibe at his predecessor Dr Manmohan Singh, Congress vice-president called the event "saddening and shameful". In saying so, Modi has only demeaned his position and himself more than anyone else, Rahul said. "When a Prime Minister reduces himself to ridiculing his predecessor-years his senior, he hurts the dignity of the parliament & the nation. He demeans his position and himself more than anyone else. Today's events were saddening and frankly, they were shameful," Rahul tweeted. He demeans his position and himself more than anyone else. Today's events were saddening and frankly; they were shameful:Rahul Gandhi advertisement Rahul's remark came after Narendra Modi on Wednesday launched a surprise attack on Manmohan Singh, saying that politicians should learn from the latter on how to maintain a clean image even after 35 long years of public life dotted with scams under his leadership. Also read | Narendra Modi targets Manmohan Singh: So many scams, not one stain, he knows how to shower with raincoat on WHAT DID MODI SAY Modi had said, "So many scams occurred... We politicians have a lot to learn from Dr (Manmohan Singh) Sahab. So much happened, there is not a single blot on him. Dr Sahab is the only person who knows the art of bathing in a bathroom with a raincoat on." The Prime Minister also took potshots at the scholarship of Manmohan Singh, former RBI governor and an eminent economist, saying he (Modi) recently came across a book purportedly written by the latter, but found out that only the foreword was by "Doctor sahib" (Manmohan Singh). "Looks like, even the speech Doctor Sahib delivered in the last session...," Modi said, just stopping short of saying anything further. But the implication was not difficult to understand that Singh's speech lambasting the note ban was not his own. This prompted the Congress to stage a walkout. Also read | PM Modi in Rajya Sabha: 5 issues on which he adopted an offensive position to defend self Replying to a debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President's address to the two Houses of Parliament, Modi also attacked another former Prime Minister of the Congress -- Indira Gandhi. (WITH INPUTS FROM AGENCIES) WATCH VIDEO --- ENDS --- FAST JOBS Supercar maker McLaren is creating 200 jobs in the UK by shifting production of its carbon fibre chassis from Austria to a new 50million factory in Sheffield its first UK base outside Woking. SALES BOOST Renault-Nissan is close to joining the ranks of the three biggest automakers by sales. The alliance, which includes Nissan Motor, Renault and Mitsubishi Motors, delivered a combined 9.96m vehicles last year just 4,000 short of General Motors' deliveries in 2016. Volkswagen is the industry leader. RECORD YEAR Shareholders at packaging company Smurfit Kappa will get a dividend boost after it reported record earnings for 2016. FILM FEAST Blockbusters including Harry Potter spin-off Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them drove a bumper year for Time Warner. The US media giant posted revenue of 6.3billion, up 2.2 per cent on the previous year. LEAVING LIDL The chief executive of Lidl, Sven Seidel, has resigned, forcing it to replace its boss for the second time in less than three years. RSA DEAL Insurer RSA has clinched a deal to sell 834million of UK legacy insurance liabilities to Enstar Group. BT SWOOP BT's vehicle management business BT Fleet has snapped up a maintenance and servicing firm for an undisclosed sum. It will add SEV Automotive and Plant to its own network of 64 garages. AMAZON MOVE Amazon is ramping up its fledgling grocery business by expanding its fresh food offer into parts of the Home Counties. FASHION BOOM Silk, ready-to-wear and leather helped French luxury fashion group Hermes to a 6.6 per cent boost in sales to 4.4billion. BANKS SHUT TSB is shutting 29 branches to save cash. The bank said there would be no job losses. PROFITS UP Swedish lender Handelsbanken has boosted UK profits by 6 per cent to 181.2million as its British operation continues to grow. FCA CRACKDOWN Property funds overwhelmed by an investor panic after the Brexit vote are facing a crackdown from the City watchdog. The Financial Conduct Authority is set to tighten the rules. TULLOW LOSS Tullow Oil posted its third straight annual loss, 602million in 2016, from 873million the year before. OIL CHARGES Shell is facing corruption charges in Italy over drilling in Nigeria. Prosecutors are also seeking to try Italian oil firm Eni, along with its boss Claudio Descalzi and ten other individuals. Patent expired: Asthma treatment Advair is one of GSK's most profitable medicines The looming threat of cheap generic copies of one of its major drugs cast a shadow over GlaxoSmithKline's full-year results. The company posted profits and sales that beat expectations but warned that earnings, stripping out currencies, could slip in 2017 if copies of its leading asthma medicine were to arrive in the United States. Asthma treatment Advair is one of GSK's most profitable medicines with sales of more than $1billion (800m) annually since 2001, but its patent protection has expired. Cheap versions are available in Europe and countries such as South Korea and Mexico, but there is no generic equivalent in the US. The US Food and Drug Administration decides whether to approve a first Advair generic in March, while a rival has an approval decision date in May. Chief executive Sir Andrew Witty, 52, said that if a generic alternative was to arrive, he would expect around 70pc erosion in the first few months. He said: 'We don't know whether or not there is going to be a generic this year. It is obviously possible. 'So what we have aimed to do here is to give people a range. At the upper end of the range there is no generic and we have guided that we would continue to expect to see a good strong earnings growth momentum in the range of 5 per cent-7 per cent. 'If there were an introduction of a generic in the middle of the year and it was a pretty fundamental generic scenario so 70 per cent erosion in the first few months of the arrival then we would expect to be around flat to maybe slightly down.' GSK posted full-year revenue of 27.9billion for 2016 and its core earnings per share grew 12 per cent to 102.4p, at the top end of the company's 11 per cent-12 per cent target. New product sales more than doubled to 4.5billion, driven by HIV and respiratory treatment and meningitis vaccines. Witty, who is to be replaced by Emma Walmsley, 47, said he was confident keeping the firm as a conglomerate was the right move. It has been plagued by rumours its three businesses pharmaceuticals, vaccines and consumer healthcare could be broken up after he leaves. No deal: Shares at publisher St Ives crashed 14% yesterday Shares at St Ives crashed 14 per cent yesterday after the marketing group revealed its deal to supply books for Harper Collins would not be renewed. St Ives failed to reach an agreement with the publisher over the volume and price of printing monochrome books, so the contract ends on June 30. Harper Collins represents about 3 per cent of St Ives' sales and the firm said non-renewal would not materially affect its performance in the current financial year. Instead, the group will cut costs in its books division to mitigate the impact. Following the contract loss the group said it expects a reduction of approximately 11million in sales and 3.5million in earnings before interest and taxes in the financial year to August 2018. It also expects there to be a 3million non-cash impairment charge in the current financial year. Matt Armitage, chief executive, said: 'Although we have recently seen some increase in demand for book production overall, the market remains competitive and we are not prepared to chase volume at uneconomic prices. 'We will be taking decisive action to ensure that the cost base of our books business reflects the future level of volumes we now expect.' Rents are set to rise by a hefty 25 per cent over the next five years, according to a survey of property experts. When it comes to house prices, chartered surveyors revealed they anticipate less of an increase of just under 20 per cent. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said the lift in rates would be triggered by landlords decreasing their portfolios, leaving tenants to compete over a smaller pool of properties. On the up: Rents are set to rise by a hefty 25 per cent over the next five years, according to a new survey Recent stamp duty hike for landlords and other tax changes have started to diminish the attractiveness of buy-to-lets as potential investments. In the poll, 28 per cent more surveyors said they felt landlords are more likely to decrease rather than increase their portfolios over the next 12 months. Meanwhile, over the next three years a balance of 26 per cent said they expected landlords to scale back their portfolios. The survey was conducted in the run up to the release of the Government's white paper. The report contained plans to boost the rental sector, including making it easier for developers to offer affordable private rental homes and offering renters more long-term 'family friendly' tenancies. Jeremy Blackburn, Rics head of policy, said ministers had listened to Rics' views on giving the private rental sector more priority alongside owner-occupation. He said supply in the market needs a 'turbo boost'. Rics' survey also found that house prices continued to edge up across the UK in January, with a balance of 25 per cent of surveyors reporting prices rising rather than falling. House prices are expected to continue rising across most parts of the UK over the next 12 months, with the exception of London, where expectations have turned slightly negative, the survey found. Property values in central London have been generally falling for several months, but most other parts of the UK have continued to see prices rise, with the North West and the South West of England and Northern Ireland seeing particularly strong growth, according to the survey. Rics said the number of properties for sale across the country remains close to historic lows. Meanwhile, a net balance of 5 per cent of surveyors reported an increase in demand from home buyers rather than a fall. Simon Rubinsohn, chief economist at Rics, concluded: 'The scale of the challenge the Government faces as it announces its new approach to housing is clearly demonstrated in the results from our latest survey.' The stars of cult movie This Is Spinal Tap have staged a comeback to sue a film studio for 320million. Rob Reiner, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and comedian Harry Shearer say they are owed the money for creating the hit mockumentary. Reiner, Guest and McKean have joined a lawsuit filed last year by Shearer (pictured left in the film) against French company Vivendi and its subsidiary Studio Canal. Turning it up to 320m: Spinal Tap members David St Hubbins (Michael McKean), Nigel Tuffnel (Christopher Guest) and Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) They claim profits from the film, its music and its merchandise have been withheld, and that the company engaged in anti-competitive and unfair business practices, as well as fraudulent accounting. Reiner directed and narrated the 1984 spoof documentary about the British rock band. The stars are seeking 320million in compensatory and punitive damages from Vivendi, up from the 100million originally claimed by Shearer. The lawsuit says the creators have been told that global music sales from the soundtrack album total just 78 and they are only entitled to share 65 between them from global merchandising sales. Reiner, who also directed The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally and A Few Good Men, said: 'Such anti-competitive practices need to be exposed. I am hoping this lawsuit goes to 11.' Vivendi failed to comment. Jadhav has been booked for outraging modesty of a woman and sending gestures intended to insult her under sections 354 and 509 of IPC. By Divyesh Singh: The Dadar Police on Thursday arrested a sitting corporator of the BMC from the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) for sending obscene messages to a woman. The accused identified as Sudhir Jadhav is corporator from ward number 184. Jadhav has been booked for outraging modesty of a woman and sending gestures intended to insult her under sections 354 and 509 of IPC, last Friday. advertisement Case against Jadhav: 1. The complaint was registered by a 41-year-old woman who alleged that Jadhav had come to her residence on January 28 while campaigning for his wife Snehal, who is contesting from the same ward after it was reserved for women. 2. Jadhav reportedly did not meet the complainant but her daughter as she was busy in the kitchen. The same night, the complainant started receiving obscene messages from a mobile number which she found belonged to Jadhav. 3. Jadhav sent multiple messages between 9 pm and 5 am that day. Jadhav also made voice and video calls to the complainant which she didn't answer. 4. On the next day, a Jadhav supporter approached the complainant and asked her to delete the messages that were sent by Jadhav on her mobile claiming that he had sent the messages in an inebriated state. When the complainant refused to delete the messages, Jadhav's supporters offered bribe and despite that when the woman didn't budge, she was threatened. Also read: Mumbai: After nomination issues for BMC polls, candidates fight it out in court 5. Finally, the complainant approached the Dadar Police and filed a complaint against Jadhav, last Friday. Police carried out investigations and found that Jadhav was the one who sent messages to the complainant and based on the findings, Jadhav was arrested today. 6. "We have arrested Jadhav under sections 509 and 354 of IPC and he has been produced in court at Bhoiwada judicial magistrate court," said DCP Paramjeet Singh Dahia from Zone V of Mumbai Police. Also read: Mumbai: Fake IAS officer felicitated by BJP, Shiv Sena nabbed --- ENDS --- The Goldman Sachs Investment Partners fund will now be run from New York Goldman Sachs is moving a hedge fund's staff out of London in a shake-up following a manager's retirement. The Goldman Sachs Investment Partners fund will now be run from New York rather than being split between the US and UK, but bosses insisted the decision was not connected to Brexit. The fund was launched in 2008 with 5.6billion, including 1.6billion of the lender's own money, but it has had a rocky time and Goldman had to pull cash out following tight-er Wall Street regulations. Goldman has previously said it could shift some of its 6,000 London staff abroad due to Brexit, although the lender has been quiet on the topic since the vote. Sources dismissed speculation in Germany last month that it might halve its British presence as 'nonsense'. A fridge too far: Marco Nardone enjoyed a party lifestyle while his Fling app flopped The playboy founder of a photo messaging app burned through 17million of investors' cash before his company went bust without making a penny. Marco Nardone, the son of a millionaire wine importer, was the chief executive of London-based Fling a mobile phone app which let users send photos to strangers who could then reply. It raised cash through a former Goldman Sachs banker, and at its height it claimed to have 4m users who sent 50billion messages. Yet it never made any revenue and was slammed as a playground for men to harass women with nude photos. A report by Sam Shead in Business Insider magazine alleged that as the company died, Nardone, 28, splashed out on holidays to Ibiza, dined in Michelin-starred restaurants and lived in a riverside penthouse in London. He is also claimed to have at one point hurled a baguette when his 81-year-old father stepped in to stop an argument with an employee. The app closed last year and has since collapsed into administration, leaving a mountain of debt. As well as investors being left out of pocket, it owes other creditors 880,997, including 120,268 to Twitter, more than 45,000 to Google and 95,000 to the taxman. Fling's failure had all the ingredients of an overvalued technology firm with an inexperienced founder. While Fling was haemorrhaging cash, Nardone is claimed to have been dining in exclusive London restaurants such as Nobu and flying first class. He is described as ambitious, with the ability to charm investors. Former employees told Business Insider that Nardone appeared topless in the firm's river-view office in Hammersmith, and held wild party weekends. He also failed to employ a finance director or keep an eye on cash flows. One former employee said: 'He controlled everything financially. It was a black hole. No one had sight of what was in the accounts. He would just spend how he felt like he was going to spend. He had no idea what a budget was.' Another left a comment on company review website Glassdoor which branded Nardone 'amateurish, immature, chaotic, rude, disrespectful and petty'. They added: 'He is everything a successful entrepreneur should not be. He would come to the office around 4pm and make the management team stay until the early hours or overnight without a particular reason, just queuing to have a meeting with him.' Tantrum: Nardone with his 81-year-old father who he is said to have hurled a baguette at in a fit of rage Nardone claimed to be a successful tech entrepreneur. He was a public schoolboy backed by his family and just 23 when he was handed 1.5million by his tycoon father Remo the owner of Enotria Winecellars to develop the app which Nardone had dreamed up while on a flight. It followed an education at 37,000-a-year Charterhouse school before a degree in physics at Imperial College London. After a year as a trader at Credit Suisse following university, Nardone decided to launch his own business. He saw himself as a rival to Evan Spiegel, the US founder of photo-messaging app Snapchat. Equipping himself with expensive offices in London's Hammersmith was part of this. Nardone furnished his own office with two iMac computers, luxurious rugs and customised wood flooring. Millions of pounds were raised for the business by ex-Goldman Sachs banker Raffaele Costa. Nardone claimed Fling was an app which 'breaks the social graph', allowing strangers to connect with people outside their social circle. The idea was that users would 'fling' a picture message of themselves to users. But it was quickly overrun with users who sent nudes and Nardone hired a team in the Philippines to vet photos. However, workers said it was biased, and kicked off men while allowing women to post explicit pictures. A spokesman for Nardone claims that the workers failed to moderate photos properly. One former employee said: 'They couldn't even have a photograph with their shirt off. Unless it was him. He would then boost himself to everybody on the database. 'Guys were getting booted off the app as soon as they approached it while girls were getting absolutely trolled as soon as they were on it. It was just a spiral.' Happy days: As the company died and investors' cash drained away , Nardone, 28, splashed out on holidays to Ibiza Apple, which offered the app in its store, caught on and Fling was flung out with no warning. It left Nardone furious and demanding the 50 staff work through the night to fix the problem. One employee said: 'He came into the office around midnight, with two girls I'd never met before in my life. And he basically frolicked, for want of a better word, with these girls in that room, sending out Flings of the two girls kissing.' Nardone denies these claims. Staff are said to have worked for 19 days to build a new version of the app. It is claimed he even tried to put tents up in the office so they could work longer hours. A spokesman for Nardone said that highly paid employees were asked to have constant attendance to resolve specific issues. Staff accused him of treating them badly and that's when his father stepped in, prompting the sandwich-throwing incident. 'Marco was going crazy at the board meeting and his dad chipped in and told him to calm down,' a source said. 'Marco just threw the baguette. It collided with the window and slid down, leaving a massive smear.' Shortly after, workers started to leave. His chief operating officer Emerson Osmond left in August 2015 and others followed. Customers were also deserting the app. After it cleaned up its act, Fling struggled to keep users. Most people downloaded the app for about 30 days before deleting it. Nardone was desperately trying to hold on to users by pumping thousands of pounds a day into Facebook advertising and Twitter. But as the cash dwindled, Nardone scrapped the moderators in the Philippines and users began posting explicit messages again. The app then quietly shut down. Nardone denied he had treated staff badly and blamed Apple for his firm's failure. He didn't respond to other allegations. A spokesman for Nardone said: 'The idea that he had no idea about money is laughable. He studied finance and previously worked in the financial sector.' By Press Trust of India: Varanasi, Feb 9 (PTI) Miffed over its alliance partner BJP deciding to contest on seats allotted to it, the Anupriya Patel led Apna Dal (Sonelal) has fielded candidates on four assembly seats in eastern Uttar Pradesh against the saffron party. Inspite of contesting the Uttar Pradesh polls in alliance, the junior ally is contesting from Rohaniya, Chunar, Sevapuri and Marihan assembly seats. advertisement The party led by Patel, who is a Union minister in the NDA government at the Centre, had contested the 2014 Lok Sabha polls in alliance with BJP. Party national spokesperson Brijendra Pratap Singh yesterday released a list of four candidates. According to which it fielded two candidates ? Uday Singh Patel from Rohaniya and Neelratan Patel from Sevapuri assembly seats, which falls under Varanasi, the Lok Sabha constituency from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an MP. It also fielded Shiv Kumar Singh from Marihan and Anil Singh from Chunar assembly seats which are in neighbouring Mirzapur district. Under the seat sharing pact with Patel-led Apna Dal, BJP had earlier anounced Surendra Narain Audhey as candidate from Rohaniya seat, Rama Shankar Patel from Marihan and Anurag Singh from Chunar assembly seats. Irked over BJP state president Keshav Prasad Maurya fielding Surendra Chaudhary from Soraon (SC) assembly seat despite the seat being allotted to the Apna Dal faction, the party decided to field Jamuna Prasad Saroj from there, Singh said. The Apna Dal demanded Maurya to withdraw his candidate but when it was not done, the party decided to field its candidates on the four seats where it has a chance to win. Patel-led Apna Dal was allotted 12 seats though it is demanding to increase its seat share, the Spokesperson said. PTI CORR DIP SMJ DIP --- ENDS --- GOBHOLO A public transport vehicle overturned with 13 people who included women and children at Gobholo, Mbabane yesterday. Gobholo residents watched in horror when the Toyota Quantum failed to drive up the steep hill and reversed into a ditch, hitting a stationary car in the process. The Quantum was coming from the direction of Nsukumbili going towards town when the accident happened. No fatalities were reported but at least 10 people escaped with minor injuries. One child was reported to have been rushed to the hospital. Dozens of people were found at the accident scene watching as paramedics administered first aid treatment to survivors. Three ambulances, two Swaziland National Fire and Emergency Service (SNFES) vehicles, and a police car, were found at the scene. Mathokoza Matsebula, who was one of the passengers in the Quantum, said he was sitting on the left side of the back seat. Matsebula said they were following a car which suddenly stopped before reaching the top of the hill. Reversing He said the car started reversing and so did their Quantum. He said the public transport vehicle gradually reversed until it gained momentum moving downhill in reverse. The Quantum slammed into a huge rock with its rear right side then changed direction to the left side, slamming and dragging another motor vehicle that was parked next to the road. The parked motor vehicle was a white Uno. It was slammed at high speed such that it was dragged by the Quantum for a distance of about 10 metres before it went into a ditch. MBABANE Mnere Suzan Matsebula, the retired head teacher who was promised a job in a non-existent royal school and as a result suffered a loss of E252 000, was conned by a large team. Three of the six suspects who are accused of defrauding Matsebula of her gratuity amounting to E252 000 in a space of four days have appeared in court charged with theft by false pretence. They are Nhlanhla Maphanga Dlamini (31) of Moneni, Maqhawe Dlamini (34) of Mbhuleni and Sizwe Skanayi Mbuyisa (42) of Malangeni. When informed about their rights to legal representation, the trio elected to instruct attorneys. Crown Counsel Mbutfo Mbingo applied that they be remanded in custody until February 16 pending finalisation of the investigations. Mbingo informed the court that the Crown intends to oppose bail applications of the trio, stating that the Crown may suffer prejudice if they were to be released on bail. He said the State was yet to amend the charge sheet since three of the accused persons who were allegedly part of the crime were still at large. Mbingo informed the court that if they were released on bail, they may interfere with the wanted suspects. May they be remanded in custody pending setting of the trial date because some of the counts were committed outside the jurisdiction of the Hhohho region, Mbingo said. The trio is inclusive of the two men who were arrested with a woman who allegedly posed as a journalist during the commission of the crime at the Industrial Sites in Mbabane on Monday. MBABANE The three former Swaziland MTN Limited managers who won their case against the company in the Industrial Court are appealing the judgment. In the judgment, the court ordered the mobile telephone company to compensate the trio a joint sum of E900 000 on grounds of redundancy. In their appeal, the former managers argued that the Industrial Court erred in law and misdirected itself by failing to enforce an undertaking by Swaziland MTN to reinstate them whether their positions were available or not. The Industrial Court erred in law by refusing to order the respondent to reinstate the appellants (three former managers) and relying upon the lapse of a period of close to five years as reason for not doing so, reads part of the grounds of appeal. They now want the Industrial Court of Appeal to set aside the judgmnt delivered by Judge Nkosinathi Nkonyane with costs. Thandi Kunene, Makhosandile Vilakati and David Mdlovu had their services terminated on June 30, 2011, after their positions were deemed redundant as a result of a restructuring exercise that was carried out by their former employer. In its judgment, the Industrial Court held that the dismissals were substantively unfair since there was no evidence that Swazi MTN offered the trio lower level positions and that they rejected same. Their dismissal was also found to be procedurally unfair because they were dismissed before their appeals were considered despite being given the platform to lodge them. Kunene and Mdlovu were paid their statutory packages. Judge Nkonyane presided over the matter. By Press Trust of India: From Shirish B Pradhan Kathmandu, Feb 9 (PTI) Nepal today extended by a year the tenure of two transitional justice commissions, set up to probe war crimes in the countrys decade-long civil conflict, as they failed to complete the tasks within the given timeframe. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the Commission of Investigation of Enforced Disappeared Persons (CIEDP) were formed to facilitate transitional justice as part of the ongoing peace process after the conclusion of decade-long civil conflict in 2006. advertisement A Cabinet meeting made the decision to extend the tenure of two transitional justice commissions, according to official sources. The tenure of both the commissions had ended yesterday. The government extended the tenure as the commissions failed to complete the tasks within the given timeframe. On Feruary 6, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International had urged the United Nations and donors, who played a major role in post-conflict peacemaking and rights protections, to request the Nepal government for the amendment in line with international norms and extend their mandates. According to officials, the two commissions have registered over 60,000 complaints of conflict victims on which they plan to start comprehensive investigation. More than 16,000 people were killed during the decade- long armed conflict that ended after the government signed a peace deal with the rebels in 2006. Former Maoist rebels and security forces have both been accused of carrying out torture, killings, rape and "forced disappearances" during the civil war. PTI SBP KJ AKJ KJ --- ENDS --- The new AIADMK display picture (DP) seeks to garner support for Sasikala's bid for the chief minister's post. Hashtagged #NewProfilePic, it says, "Chinnamma for CM". By India Today Web Desk: In the ongoing parallel war between Tamil Nadu's caretaker Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and Chief Minister-elect VK Sasikala, the display picture of AIADMK's Twitter handle changed today. The new AIADMK display picture (DP) seeks to garner support for Sasikala's bid for the chief minister's post. Hashtagged #NewProfilePic, it says, "Chinnamma for CM". While former chief minister J Jayalalithaa, who died on December 5, was fondly called 'Amma' (mother), there are attempts to christen Sasikala as 'Chinnamma' (mother's younger sister). advertisement Like the old display picture, which existed till today evening, the new one too has Jayalalithaa in the lead with Sasikala's picture behind her. However, the background colour of the display picture has changed from predominantly green to pink. The official Twitter handle of AIADMK is evidently controlled by Sasikala's supporters. On the other hand, the Twitter handle of Tamil Nadu chief minister is being run by Panneerselvam loyalist, though it is an unverified account. On Wednesday, Sasikala had sacked AIADMK's IT Cell secretary Singai G Ramachandran and replaced him with her loyalist VVR Raj Sathyan. The action followed after Ramachandran was seen with Panneerselvam in the latter's press conference and a number of tweets were posted from the handle of @CMOTamilNadu against her. WATCH: Panneerselvam accuses Sasikala of betraying Jaya, gets AIADMK No. 2's backing ALSO READ: OPS vs Sasikala: A war also on Twitter, Facebook away from streets, power galleries Sasikala vs Panneerselvam: 4 options before Tamil Nadu Governor C Vidyasagar Rao --- ENDS --- Ever since the demonitisation move, your government is stumbling, bumbling and scrambling. I don't know what goal you want to achieve through the Budget? If your overarching goal is employment you are completely wrong. It is a failure and you will realise it next year. Jallikattu protest a symbol: Everyone converged in Marina Bay over Jallikattu. They had a different kind of anxiety. They had different concerns. The fact is many of them did not even know what Jallikattu is. They have not seen it. Their biggest fear is about jobs. Where are the jobs? You created only one to two crore jobs and not 1,50,000 jobs. Jobs were destroyed during demonetisation. MSMEs destroyed: You are free not to trust me but you should believe your Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh. Come with me to the cities Agra, Moradabad, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad. About 75 per cent of the small and medium industries have closed down. So what came out? This is the pain that got people to Marina Bay.Somebody is concerned about caste, somebody is concerned about the division, the bad language and intolerance. Ban the books and ban the authors. That concerns the people's future.Somebody is concerned about caste, somebody is concerned about the division, the bad language and intolerance. Ban the books and ban the authors. That concerns the people's future. Agriculture does not offer any assurance to farmers but debt. Why did you not assure the farmer of a better price. There is not a word of assurance to the farmer. Doubling the income is arithmetically impossible.What is Fasal Bima Yojana? The farmer gets it only after crop is destroyed. What are you doing to ensure that they get good seeds, good fertiliser, electricity, water and a good price for their produce?When the farmers will ask you how I will live, you say I give you a decent debt. Is this the way to treat farmers in the country? RBI gave vote of no confidence on your Budget. Even a blind economist will tell you there is going to be no growth. RBI gave a vote of no confidence on your Budget eight days after it was presented. There is no faith in your numbers. On taxes, what you have done is a drop in the ocean. Why didn't you cut the indirect taxes? Instead of cutting indirect taxes you did the exact opposite. You cut the direct taxes of 1.98 crore people. You could have cut indirect taxes across the board. It would have helped. What you have done is a drop in the ocean. You have thrown a stone in the big ocean. It won't even create a ripple. Even the US President Donald Trump has maintained dignity of post. We did not the stop the PM speech yesterday. We could have disrupted his speech but that is the chair where former prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru has sat, Atal Bihari Vajpayee has sat. We didn't want to dishonour it. We respect the chair. Kindly tell your prime minister to use language which is moderate and to respect others. We all know Trump. But when he became President, in his speech he said fellowmen President Obama, President Carter and President Bush. Every Prime Minister will become a former prime minister. That's the law of nature. I think the prime minister, who is the leader of the house, should say he did not mean any disrespect to Manmohan Singh. If it was construed as derogatory language then I take it back. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Bill Parry The leader of the Queens Democratic machine is taking umbrage with one lawmakers defection to the renegade Independent Democratic Conference. State Sen. Jose Peralta (D-East Elmhurst) announced he was joining the IDC Jan. 25, bringing its membership to eight in the state Senate where the group is allied with Republicans to form a majority coalition. Senator Peraltas constituents elected him to support our Democratic principles in Albany and his decision to undermine our party and empower the Republican caucus betrays that trust, U.S. Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-Jackson Heights), the chairman of the Queens Democratic Party, said Tuesday. As Democrats were deeply disappointed because the people of western Queens deserve better. The blowback from Peraltas constituents in District 13, which is made up of dominantly Democratic neighborhoods such as Jackson Heights, Corona, Elmhurst, East Elmhurst and parts of Astoria, where he won re-election with nearly 87 percent of the vote in November, has been fierce. Social media was ablaze for days after the announcement with Peralta trying to explain his decision to many who posted on his Facebook page. The phones in his office rang non-stop so Peralta scheduled a town hall meeting at the Jackson Heights Jewish Center last Friday night but issued no official notice from his office. A standing room crowd of more than 200 turned out by word of mouth and the meeting turned combative at times with supporters on one side of the room and the opposition on the other. Peralta was greeted with chants of traitor and he was shouted down and booed often. You are empowering the Republicans and everyone in this room knows it, Jackson Heights resident Jennifer Dabnau said. Your constituents are angry. We are probably going to vote you out. When things would quiet down inside the hall, you could hear chanting from an overflow crowd standing behind police lines on 77th Street. Over the last few months Ive been doing a lot of soul-searching about where we are going to go as a party, where we are going to go as a community, Peralta explained to the crowd inside. Many of us became frustrated with the way things were going in the state Senate. Then came the Trump administration, and as we know, we cannot sit on the sidelines when it comes to this administration. In a separate interview with TimesLedger Newspapers, Peralta further explained that in his district, which he calls the United Nations of Senate Districts because it is where 167 languages are spoken within a mile of Roosevelt Avenue, people are worried about what is going to happen to them and their families under the Trump administration with its anti-immigrant policies that can be enacted with the signing of an executive order. Its about calming the waters, he said. I want to be able to have that seat at the table, have that voice to say slow down Republicans. During the town hall meeting, Peralta denied a New York Post report that he joined the IDC to receive larger stipends to cover his debts. He called the story very fabricated based on outdated financial materials that failed to mention his wifes salary. Peralta enjoyed support from several outspoken supporters, including one longtime Jackson Heights resident who called the opposition rude and childish. IDC state Sens. Diane Savino (D-Staten Island) and Jesse Hamilton (D-Brooklyn) were there in solidarity with Peralta, but state Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside) was not and his office did not reply to a request for comment. At the end of the town hall meeting, Peralta left through a side door to avoid the crowd on the sidewalk. On his way to a waiting car a woman approached him but was escorted away by a police officer. I decided to hold a town hall meeting because I wanted to explain my decision to join the Independent Democratic Conference to the people of my district, Peralta said Tuesday. I wanted to let my constituents know about the failures of the minority Democratic Conference, a conference I left because I disagree with their objectives of bad mouthing and cannibalizing other Democrats that did not agree with them. I stand by my decision more than ever. The minority Democratic Conference does not have a legislative plan, does not have a plan to regain the majority. On the contrary, the IDC has a vision, a plan that includes leading the charge on raise the age (for Rikers), on providing farm workers with labor protection, on fighting the homelessness crisis in the city. We are on the front lines of Trumpism, protecting our immigrants, our immigrant communities. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Patrick Donachie The scourge of three-quarter houses used for New Yorkers recovering from substance abuse or returning to society from jail must be addressed, City Councilman Donovan Richards (D-Arverne) said this week. He was one of several council members sponsoring legislation to regulate the locations passed by the City Council Feb. 1. Preying on our most vulnerable New Yorkers for a check is not the way to do business, Richards said. Three-quarter houses are one- or two-family homes, or larger apartment buildings that rent beds to single adults, purporting to offer rehabilitation programs to the residents, but they do not provide in-house services and are not officially regulated by any government agency. The buildings are often in dismal condition, according to Richards, who said the largest contingent of homes were located in central Brooklyn. Tanya Kessler, an attorney with MFY Legal Services who has worked on three-quarter housing issues for the organization, said there were also such houses in Jamaica and Far Rockaway. It is very hard to ascertain exactly how many there are. We continue to get many calls from people in three-quarter housing, and it continues to thrive, she said, saying landlords taking advantage of tenants are looking for people who are vulnerable and in a difficult position and in a desperate need for housing. They recruit from substance abuse programs and in prisons and jails. MFY Legal Services helped to form the Three-Quarter House Tenant Organizing Project to advocate for the rights of three-quarter tenants and also contribute to the first in-depth policy paper on three-quarter housing, issued by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in 2013. The analysis found three-quarter houses are almost entirely funded by public dollars, fixing their rents to tenants benefit amounts, such as the $215 per month offered by the citys Human Resource Administrations monthly shelter allowance for individuals. State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman recently indicted the heads of two Medicaid-enrolled drug treatment programs in Brooklyn and several landlords of three-quarter houses. Schneiderman accused the landlords of forcing residents in their three-quarter homes to attend treatment at the programs regardless of whether or not they required substance abuse treatment. The programs would pocket the Medicaid funding and kicked back more than $900,000 to the landlords. Kessler said such a story was not uncommon among three-quarter housing residents. What these prosecutions have alleged is the programs are paying a kickback to the landlord, she said. Up until now, theres been very little a tenant could do to resist that kind of arrangement than wait for prosecutors to build a case and take action. Kessler said some of the legislation would curtail landlords from profiting from such a scheme. Richards was the primary sponsor for Intro. 1166, which will enable a task force previously established by the city to monitor three-quarter housing to issue public reports and establish oversight over the citys efforts to curb use of these illegal dwellings. Richards said one way to find three-quarter housing is to examine Department of Building violations, as three-quarter houses often suffer from disrepair. He said if the DOB issued an order to stop checks from the city to that location, it could indicate public funding was going straight to the landlord. This could suggest the possibility a three-quarter house was run out of that location Our bill really starts to get at the core of the issue, and thats knowing where these houses are, Richards said. Its a major step in the right direction. Kessler said the affordability crunch overtaking rental units throughout New York City, coupled with the lack of decent housing options available for people coming out of substance abuse treatment, made three-quarter housing one of their only options, and the 2013 report found that many three-quarter housing residents preferred such houses to the street or a shelter. The city set up a task force and has stepped up enforcement and made housing vouchers available to folks whose buildings are vacated, but wed like to see action by the state to address the housing needs of people who are coming out of state substance abuse programs, she said. Most substance abuse programs are licensed by the state, and people are coming out of state correctional facilities. There needs to be a commitment to fund housing for people who are doing their best to rebuild their lives but are in very unsafe and unstable situations. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Patrick Donachie Mayor Bill de Blasio applauded the vigilance of the tight-knit Howard Beach community in helping to track down the Brooklyn man charged with killing Karina Vetrano, who was strangled during a jog on a remote park trail in August 2016. And you saw how the people in the Vetrano case, the people of Howard Beach and the whole city cared so deeply and felt so much for the family they came forward with every piece of information they had, he said at a news conference earlier this week. Police arrested Chanel Lewis, 20, who lives in East New York Saturday. As Lewis awaits trial for the murder of the 30-year-old Howard Beach woman, Vetranos father Philip wrote that the suspect will pay for his crime. On a GoFundMe fund-raising page he started to raise money for a reward for information on the killer, he said the nearly $300,000 collected could go to assisting charities his daughter would support. I want to thank all of you who have supported us so long, he wrote on the page. Now we can use all this money that you very generous people have donated. Vetrano, 30, was attacked and sexually assaulted Aug. 2 as she jogged through a remote area of Queens known as Spring Creek Park, which straddles the Brooklyn/Queens border, police officials said. The subsequent six-month investigation was exhaustive, according to NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce, who said Monday that police took more than 600 DNA samples and filed about 1,700 investigative reports in the course of the case. Boyce said the investigation turned its focus toward Lewis during the 10 days preceding his arrest. Boyce credited NYPD Lieutenant John Russo, who lives in the Howard Beach area, for recalling a 911 call from the spring of 2016 about a suspicious person in the area. A deep dive into the call led them to Lewis name, and they learned he had been issued several summonses in the park area in previous years. On Feb. 2, investigators questioned Lewis at his home on Essex Street in East New York where he lives with his mother. Boyce said Lewis voluntarily gave a DNA sample, which on Saturday matched evidence found on Vetranos body and cell phone. Lewis was taken into custody at the 106th Precinct Saturday night and was arraigned Sunday in a Queens criminal court charged with murder in the second degree, according to the criminal complaint. The complaint said Lewis punched Vetrano repeatedly and strangled her. If convicted, he faces up to 25 years to life in prison, according to DA Richard Brown. At this time he is being charged with intentional murder in the second degree, although the investigation is continuing and a grand jury may consider additional criminal charges when the case is presented to them, Brown said in a statement. The New York Post reported, citing unnamed sources, that Lewis confessed to the murder during NYPD questioning and the statements he made led detectives to believe the attack could possibly have been racially motivated, with Lewis saying he did not like the people in Howard Beach. The neighborhood, a mostly white, middle-class area, was the site of the 1986 death of a black man who was chased into highway traffic by a group of white teenagers, which increased tensions in the city. The Post also reported Lewis had made several threatening statements when he was enrolled in high school. Boyce said police do not believe Lewis knew Vetrano and it appeared to be a chance encounter. He also said Lewis had offered incriminating statements during questioning, but he did not go into detail. Local elected officials, including state Assemblywoman Stacy Pheffer Amato (D-Rockaway Beach), state Sen. Joseph Addabbo (D-Howard Beach) and city Councilman Eric Ulrich (R-Ozone Park) expressed support for the Vetrano family and thanked the NYPD for their efforts. We are glad to hear that the Vetrano family may finally get some semblance of justice, Amato said. Its been six long months, but the NYPD worked incredibly hard and should be commended for the caring, relentless and creative pursuit that led them to arrest a suspect. The Vetrano family and local elected officials have previously advocated for the use of familial DNA testing, which would allow authorities to search DNA databases for potential relatives of a recovered DNA sample. Amato pledged she would continue her support for the practice at a meeting of the New York State Commission on Forensic Science slated for Friday. Strong defense, pair of goals from Shaye Bailey hands Freedom WPIAL Class 1A championship A shutdown defense and a pair of second-half goals from junior Shaye Bailey led the Freedom Bulldogs to a convincing 3-0 win over Springdale Friday. By Press Trust of India: From Sajjad Hussain Islamabad, Feb 8 (PTI) A mutually beneficial relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan is "critical" to promote peace and stability in South Asia and the broader region, Pakistans advisor on foreign affairs Sartaj Aziz said today. "Despite various challenges, the relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan has continued to grow through people to people contacts and trade for decades. A partnership cultivated on the basis of socio economic development is the way forward," he said, addressing a ceremony here, organised to award scholarships to Afghan students. advertisement He said Islamabad is fully committed to take necessary steps to ensure that Afghanistan comes out of the challenges and emerge on international stage as a progressive and peaceful nation. "That is why we are looking forward to an all-encompassing relationship, from people-to-people contacts to government-to -government relations," he said. He said the relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan in the field of education date back to late 1970s when Pakistan whole heartedly welcomed millions of Afghan refugees. He said in the past four decades, hundreds of thousands of these refugee students have been receiving their education in Pakistani schools and Universities. Aziz said that Pakistan hosts the largest number of Afghan students studying abroad and more than 48,000 Afghan graduates from Pakistani educational institutions are serving in various Afghan institutions in the public and private sectors. "We are proud of this contribution to Afghanistans progress. These Afghans are an asset for Pakistan and our ambassadors in their home country," he said.PTI SH SUA AKJ SUA --- ENDS --- This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The Empire Center is out with its latest database of public school retirements, which found the average teacher or administrator who retired last year collected a $68,334 pension. The data base is at http://seethroughny.net/pensions/34736253 Moreover, the number of public school personnel eligible for six-figure pensions has more than doubled to 3,010, up from 1,255 in 2010, according to the Empire Center, which collects and organizes public sector payroll information. The averages are for schools outside of New York City, which has a separate payroll and pension system. They represent full-time educators who put in at least 30 years. And when counting part-time employees, the 5,436 people who retired in the 2015-16 school year got an average pension of $46,727. The definition of part time wasn't clear most full time teachers take summers off and generally work six- or seven-hour contractual work days, which typically end at around 3 p.m. The majority of six-figure pensions are for downstate districts in places like Westchester or Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island. In the list of top recipients, though, are a handful of State University of New York retirees as well. Atop the statewide list for the most recent year was James A. Feltman, who retired from the Commack Union district in 2010 and had a pension of $326,394 last year. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter. Details about taxpayer financed public school employee pensions wasn't always available. The state Teachers Retirement System tried to keep the information sealed. But the state Court of Appeals, following a Freedom of Information lawsuit, ruled that such information is public. The Empire Center, along with briefs from several news organizations including the Times Union, successfully argued for release of the data. ALBANY - Comptrollers and pension managers across the nation may be blinded by nostalgia, but the funds they oversee arent. With the high-interest days of the 1990s having long passed, pension fund managers have generally failed to adjust expectations, instead steering taxpayer-funded investments and their states future fiscal health into riskier global markets. The risk taking has increased substantially, said Donald Boyd, director of fiscal studies at the Rockefeller Institute. In a new report, Boyd and others note a growing trend of pension managers chasing volatile investment returns that, if ill-fated, are shouldered by taxpayers. Theres a much better chance that things could go wrong, he told the Times Union. And the money has to come from somewhere. That leaves many states with two options: Cut services or increase taxes. New York, meanwhile, has mostly managed to buck those trends. Funded at about 90 percent, and with a funding gap that hovers around $20 billion, the state Common Retirement Fund is considered one of the healthiest pensions in the nation. (Americas worst-off funds, in Illinois and New Jersey, faced $119 billion and $135 billion shortfalls in 2015, respectively, according to Bloomberg). The office of State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, who oversees New Yorks 1.1 million-member system, attributed the funds health to a move in the last decade away from many of the volatile investments cited in the Rockefeller report. DiNapoli, who has decreased the funds assumed rate from 8 to 7 percent since taking over in 2007, has maintained a conservative, long-term approach to investments, his office said in an email Thursday. The pension doesn't have the problems and funding liabilities that some others do, who may feel pressure to chase higher returns through greater risk. Still, New Yorks fund is not without detractors. Last year, DiNapoli came under fire from the state Department of Financial Services, which said his decision to invest with hedge funds cost the fund $3.8 billion. DiNapoli's office defended his hedge fund strategy, noting New York's exposure is much lower than many other states. The same year, and as so-called Brexit and instability in China roiled international markets, New Yorks fund returns lagged assumptions by 6.98 percent. . Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter. The fund appears to be recovering through the third quarter of fiscal year 2017, topping $186 billion for the first time. Still and as evinced by the New York fund's $46 billion swing in the wake of the 2008 recession even healthier funds using lower return rates are not immune to market chaos. Pension system investments "are all in danger of veering off the road, just at different speeds," the Empire Centers E.J. McMahon said in October. RDownen@timesunion.com - 518-454-5018 - Follow @RobertDownenTU This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Schenectady The proposed sale of a chain of seven privately held nursing homes, including one in Schenectady and another in Troy, will be approved or rejected by a state advisory panel on Thursday. Schenectady-based Capital Living and Rehabilitation Centres plans to sell their nursing home operations for a total of $26.4 million. Plans call for property and buildings to be sold separately to a real-estate holding company for an additional $58.3 million. The largest of the facilities is the 240-bed flagship Capital Living Nursing and Rehabilitation Centre in Schenectady, which replaced two other nursing homes in 2013 at a cost of $39 million. The sale being considered by state reviewers is for $6.7 million for the nursing home operation, plus $35.3 million for the real estate. More Information Facilities to be sold Nursing home beds Operations price* Property price* Capital Living, Schenectady240$6,675,000$35,275,000 The Stanton, Glens Falls120$4,434,067$7,991,963 Carthage90$3,063,050$2,424,727 The Orchard, Granville88$3,306,649$3,321,463 The Crossings, Minoa82$3,062,446$3,054,015 The Springs, Troy80$3,081,045$2,873,095 Mountain View, New Paltz79$2,802,844$3,354,904 *Subject to state approval Source: NYS Department of Health See More Collapse Amir Abramchik and Hillel Weinberger are seeking to operate the nursing homes. Weinberger, a retired financial planner, is also part of the group looking to purchase the real estate. Abramchik is the chief operating officer of Centers Health Care, which runs a chain of health-based residences and services in New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island, including 23 nursing homes in New York. The state Health Department documents list Abramchik as part owner of four of Centers Health Care's New York facilities. In a review of those nursing homes' inspections, Health Department analysts found violations were addressed and administrators "took steps which a reasonably prudent operator would take to prevent the recurrence of the violation." Patient advocate Richard Mollot of the New York City-based Long-Term Care Community Coalition, however, reviewed the operating history and deemed it "less than stellar." Abramchik's largest ownership stake in a New York nursing home is a 95 percent share in the 98-bed Ontario Center for Rehabilitation and Healthcare. At its last inspection, in April, the Canandaigua nursing home was cited for 13 deficiencies, more than twice the state average. The deficiencies were all rated a "2" on a scale from 1 to 4, indicating "minimal harm or potential for harm." The seven nursing homes are up for sale from a partnership that took ownership of the chain in 2003, when the former Hallmark Nursing Centre sold them for $4.2 million. (It could not be determined Wednesday whether this was the price for operations only, exclusive of property.) At the time, Hallmark owners James Durante and Joseph Nichols had been banned from operating nursing homes in New York following charges by the state attorney general related to inadequate staffing that harmed at least 20 residents at the Schenectady nursing home. The partnership that bought the nursing homes then and continues to own them includes Durante's and Nichols' six adult children and Patrick Martone, who was Hallmark's chief executive officer and remains Capital Living and Rehabilitation Centres' CEO. chughes@timesunion.com 518-454-5417 @hughesclaire Two large Capital Region doctors' groups plan to join forces. Community Care Physicians and CapitalCare Medical Group intend to consolidate, creating a practice that covers more than 30 specialties. The groups are withholding details about their plans until a press conference on Friday. Doctors' groups, as well as health systems, have generally been growing in response to changes in the way they are paid. Emerging payment systems require them to treat a range of care for a set fee per patient per month. The arrangement encourages doctors to treat patients early, when treatments are less expensive. But it only works if health providers have a large base of patients, so that payments for healthier patients offset those for sicker ones. Community Care employs 1,200 people, including 250 doctors and other medical providers, across 37 practices in five Capital Region counties. CapitalCare has more than 30 offices with 230 medical professionals and a total staff of more than 600. Area hospitals, such as Albany Medical Center and St. Peter's Health Partners, also have large doctors' groups. chughes@timesunion.com 518-454-5417 @hughesclaire This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Troy A Nassau man faces up to 25 years in prison after a Rensselaer County Court jury convicted him of vehicular homicide for the drunken driving crash that killed his passenger. Edward Ferguson stood silently Thursday as the jury forewoman declared him guilty on all 12 counts the jury considered at his two-week trial. Judge Debra Young revoked Ferguson's $25,000 bail and sent him to the county jail to await sentencing on March 2. He faces 8 to 25 years in prison. Ferguson, 28, was found guilty in the July 27, 2015, death of Christopher Sharpley, 28, of West Sand Lake, who was celebrating his birthday that night. Ferguson was eastbound on Route 20 when he turned left onto Route 66 in Nassau and failed to yield to a westbound car driven by Terry Metcalf, 47, of Scotia, troopers said. Ferguson had a fractured spine and Metcalf was injured. Sharpley's family was in court for the verdict. His father, Rod Sharpley, said the family was satisfied with the verdict. "It's been very trying," he said. "He's finally going to pay for his crime," said Sharon Wicks Urbanowicz, Christopher's mother. Joshua Sharpley said he was glad Ferguson was held responsible for his brother's death. Ferguson was convicted of two counts of aggravated vehicular homicide, vehicular manslaughter, aggravated vehicular assault, vehicular assault, manslaughter, assault, reckless endangerment, two counts of driving while intoxicated, failure to yield and moving from a lane unsafely. kcrowe@timesunion.com 518-454-5084 @KennethCrowe Troy A Rensselaer County Court jury went home Wednesday night after starting deliberations in a Nassau man's vehicular homicide trial. Edward Ferguson, 28, was indicted by a county grand jury for allegedly driving while drunk into the path of an oncoming car at Routes 66 and 20 in Nassau in 2015, killing his passenger, Christopher Sharley of West Sand Lake on his birthday. Judge Debra Young told the jury to return to the courthouse at 9 a.m. Thursday to resume deliberations. The trial is in its second week. The 19-count indictment included six counts of aggravated vehicular homicide, two DWI counts and one count each of first-degree vehicular manslaughter, aggravated vehicular assault, first-degree vehicular assault, second-degree manslaughter, third-degree assault and reckless driving, driving while impaired and other charges. Terry Metcalf, 47, of Scotia, the driver of the other vehicle, was injured. Ferguson was hospitalized with a fractured spine and cuts, troopers said. Stalin alleged that AIADMK MLAs were transported through a tourist bus to a resort and were being kept away from public view and that doing so was against democracy. By Pramod Madhav: DMK leader MK Stalin has claimed that the political situation in Tamil Nadu is very unstable and the acting governor visiting today should immediately react to it. Stalin alleged that AIADMK MLAs were transported through a tourist bus to a resort and were being kept away from public view. "The chosen representatives of the people being held as hostage is against democracy", he claimed. "After MLA Shanmuganathan escaped from AIADMK camp to extend support to O Panneerselvam, it has become doubtful as to whom these MLAs want to side with," Stalin said. advertisement Stalin, in light of the aforementioned developments and quoting a case of Supreme Court's verdict on SR Bommai's plea, has requested the governor to take appropriate action. ANSWER OPS' QUESTIONS: STALIN TO SASIKALA Earlier, lashing out at Sasikala in a statement, Stalin asked her to prove her guts by answering the questions raised by Panneerselvam. Also read | Sasikala-Panneerselvam war: AIADMK chief likely to meet Governor at 5 pm and other top 10 updates Outraged at being blamed for the infighting in the AIADMK ranks, he expressed his discontent over AIADMK's allegations. "With Sasikala's response for OPS' action being me, the opposition leader having a conversation with a smile is a useless excuse just the way she called herself not a 'binami' in the disproportionate assets case", Stalin said. LEARN ABOUT TAMIL NADU POLITICS: STALIN The DMK leader said, "Sasikala should learn about Tamil Nadu politics if she wants to understand the comedy circus that is occurring within the AIADMK and stop blaming the DMK for everything." Stalin added, "It is half-baked politics for Sasikala to blame DMK after threatening OPS for two hours and making him resign." Stalin has urged the governor to take constitutional action to maintain a stable government in the state. Also read | Jayalalithaa's Poes Garden house to be made a memorial? OPS now plans to make Sasikala homeless WATCH VIDEO --- ENDS --- TROY An Albany man's expected guilty plea in a real estate scheme was postponed when judge canceled his docket Thursday. It was not immediately clear why state Supreme Court Justice Andrew Ceresia canceled his calendar but snow was falling at a heavy rate. Zarak O. Ali was expected to enter a guilty plea in Rensselaer County Court Thursday to charges that he forged deeds, the district attorney's office said Wednesday. Ali was indicted in October on 20 counts charging that he forged deeds for properties around the county. He was charged with second-degree forgery and criminal possession of a forged instrument and first-degree falsifying business records and offering a false instrument for filing. "Zarak Ali will be in County Court to plead guilty to charges stemming from stealing of homes from owners by filing fraudulent deed and then selling or renting the properties," according to District Attorney Joel Abelove's office. The charges are related to paperwork filed with the Rensselaer County Clerk's Office for 141 Maple Ave. and 63 Collins St. in Troy; 226 East St. and 406 Broadway in Rensselaer; and 37 South Road in Brunswick. The paperwork for the deeds listed the Trump Building in New York City as a business address. State Police said in April their investigation uncovered evidence of forged deeds for foreclosed homes in seven Capital Region and Hudson Valley counties that date back 18 months. The case was listed n Ceresia's calendar for a conference and plea. Bennington, Vt. More than a dozen Vermont residents were unsettled this week when a sheriff's deputy served them with a court summons notifying them they are being sued by Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics as part of the company's ongoing litigation with a state regulatory agency. Roughly 17 people received the summonses, which said "You are being sued. The plaintiff has started a lawsuit against you." The residents were targeted because they provided written comments on a new state regulation setting a drinking water health advisory level of 20 parts per trillion for a toxic manufacturing chemical, perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, according to Vermont officials. The lawsuit centers on Saint-Gobain's challenge of Vermont's advisory level, which the company alleges is unenforceable and not based on science. Vermont began investigating the levels of PFOA in its public and private water supplies two years ago after the chemical was discovered in water supplies in nearby Hoosick Falls at levels above federal health advisories. The state's focus in Bennington has been private wells near a former Chemfab manufacturing plant that operated in North Bennington that Saint-Gobain purchased in 2000. The plant closed in 2002. Peter Walke, deputy secretary for Vermont's Agency of Natural Resources, said the company's decision to serve summonses on private residents was an "abnormal step." For the residents, it was "a little scary to be sued by the company that had polluted their drinking water," he added. Walke said the state agency contacted the residents and assured them that the state of Vermont is the only defendant in the case. The agency also reached out to Saint-Gobain to "let them know we were displeased" the summonses were served on the residents, Walke said. Many of the residents who were served with the summonses made comments in support of the tighter regulation or critical of the manufacturers blamed for polluting their water supplies. Dina Silver Pokedoff, a spokesperson for Saint-Gobain, said the company issued the summonses because it believes the state of Vermont required it to serve the court papers to "all interested parties." "Saint-Gobain has apparently used a summons to notify you of its suit filed against the State, serving a copy of this complaint as a courtesy to interested persons who commented on the PFOA related changes to the Vermont Hazardous Waste and Groundwater Protection Rules. Mark S. Cheffo, a New York City attorney for Saint-Gobain in the case, said the company was notified last month by the state of Vermont that it was required to serve a copy of the notice of appeal on the "interested parties." That request was outlined in a Jan. 27 letter to Saint-Gobain from the state Department of Environmental Conservation, which also listed the names and addresses of the residents who had submitted public comments on the state's PFOA regulation. "The state told us here's the people you need to provide service to in order to properly effect your appellate rights," Cheffo said, adding that the summonses served in the case, which included the "you are being sued" statement, are standardized forms in the state of Vermont. Cheffo conceded the company could have included a cover letter on the summonses explaining to the residents that they are not, in fact, being sued. On Tuesday, the day the summonses were delivered to residents, the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation sent an email to those who had received the summonses apologizing for "Saint-Gobain has apparently used a summons to notify you of its suit filed against the State, serving a copy of this complaint as a courtesy to interested persons who commented on the PFOA related changes to the Vermont Hazardous Waste and Groundwater Protection Rules," the email states, according to a copy provided to the Times Union by Saint-Gobain. "We want to express our sincerest apologies for any confusion and distress that this may have caused." On the company's challenge of the state's 20 ppt health advisory, Pokedoff said "it's critical for all involved to participate in the fair rulemaking process and understand the specific science the state has evaluated and vetted that led to setting the limit at this level. ... We respect Vermont's right to set its own PFOA limits in a fair manner and based on sound science, but it's important that the state adopt a standard that is reasonably appropriate, protective, and realistic from a public health standpoint." Many states are strengthening regulations on perfluorinated chemicals and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last year set a health advisory of 70 ppt. New York has not enacted a standard for PFOA but said it will use the EPA's recommendation as guidance. Longterm PFOA exposure has been linked to certain forms of cancer and other serious diseases. blyons@timesunion.com 518-454-5547 @brendan_lyonstu Washington Republicans seized her microphone. And gave her a megaphone. Silenced on the Senate floor for condemning a peer, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., emerged Wednesday in an elevated role: the avatar of liberal resistance in the age of Trump. Late Tuesday, Senate Republicans voted to halt the remarks of Warren, after she criticized a colleague, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., the nominee for attorney general, by reading a letter from Coretta Scott King. The decision led by Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader, who invoked a rarely enforced rule prohibiting senators from impugning the motives and conduct of a peer amplified Warren's message and further inflamed the angry Senate debate over Sessions' nomination. Some of her peers from the Democratic caucus, including Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico, have read King's letter without facing any objection, prompting some activists to raise charges of sexism. For her supporters it was the latest and most visceral example of a woman silenced by men who do not want to listen. The subsequent explanation from McConnell about why he muzzled Warren "She was warned, she was given an explanation, nevertheless, she persisted" seemed made for a future Warren campaign ad. McConnell's coda has already been repurposed as a sort of rallying cry. Across social media, Warren's allies and supporters posted "ShePersisted," calling to mind some Democrats' embrace of the term "nasty woman" after Trump deployed it to describe Hillary Clinton during a debate. Warren has long displayed an instinct for capitalizing on highly visible fights. After she was barred from speaking on the Senate floor late Tuesday, she began reading the 1986 letter from King on Facebook. By Wednesday afternoon, the video had attracted more than 7 million views. In the letter, King, the widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., took aim at Sessions' record on civil rights as a federal prosecutor in Alabama, saying he had used "the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens." On Wednesday morning in a conference room in the Capitol Warren addressed civil rights leaders, recounting her long night. "What hit me the hardest was, it is about silence," she said. "It's about trying to shut people up. It's about saying, 'No, no, no, just go ahead and vote.'" She went on. "This is going to be hard," she said. "We don't have the tools. There's going to be a lot that we will lose. But I guarantee, the one thing we will not lose, we will not lose our voices." On Wednesday, Republicans betrayed no regret, accusing Warren of thinking of a 2020 presidential run and ignoring repeated warnings to avoid violating the Senate rule. "You don't insult whether it be from a letter, or from a message from God, or on golden tablets," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. "That's the rules of the Senate. They want to complain about it, complain about it." As snowpocalypse 2017 blankets New Yorkers on Thursday, state Sen. Tony Avella, D-Queens, is re-proposing this morning legislation aimed at cutting down on hazards created by snow and projectile-missile-like ice that flies off vehicles driven by owners who couldn't bother to clear them off before hitting the streets. The Avella legislation isn't new. It has been proposed for the past two sessions, but it hasn't gained traction in either the Senate and Assembly, where it has been carried by Long Island Democrat Charles Lavine. The bill does not have an Assembly sponsor yet this year. THE ISSUE: New Yorkers are in store for a hike in electricity bills to subsidize four nuclear plants. THE STAKES: Is this the best way to provide clean energy and jobs? More Information To comment: tuletters@timesunion.com or at http://blog.timesunion.com/opinion See More Collapse --- By its own account, 2016 was a "monumental year" for Exelon, for good reason. It's not every year that a company gets a $7.6 billion boost courtesy of New Yorkers. Exelon is slated to reap that windfall over the next 12 years through a fee on just about anyone who gets an electric bill in New York, all to support its nuclear power plants in the state. That's an energy tax by any other name, but as a fee levied by a state commission, it has drawn far less attention than, say, an income tax increase of that scale would receive. Lawmakers, however, will have a chance to take a closer look at this huge corporate subsidy for a company with an annual net income of more than $2 billion. They'll also have a chance to look more closely at how this new tax came about in yet another example of New York's shadow government at work. The money will be raised in the form of Zero Emissions Credits, which, simply put, translate into a fee on electric utility bills in the state. It will go to Exelon as part of a deal to keep open its two Nine Mile Nuclear Station plants and its James A. Fitzpatrick Nuclear Power Plant in Scriba, and its R.E. Ginna Plant near Rochester, for a dozen more years. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter. The state argues that nuclear power is an important part of its plan to have half of New York's electricity come from clean renewable sources by 2030. Many environmentalists disagree with classifying nuclear power as clean energy. While it generates no carbon emissions, it produces toxic waste for which no plan exists to provide the necessary centuries of safe storage. Nuclear accidents, while rare, are devastating and can threaten populations in large areas, a point Gov. Andrew Cuomo has acknowledged in calling for the closure of the Indian Point close to New York City. Mr. Cuomo, however, has a different calculation upstate, where the plants are valued for the jobs they provide, and political leaders are less wary of nuclear energy. One might be tempted to say, fine, let communities make up their own minds about nuclear power, except for this: The entire state will have to foot the bill for a $7.6 billion economic development program to pay for 2,100 jobs for just a dozen more years and directly enrich one of the nation's wealthiest power companies. All this was decided by the governor and three members of the Public Service Commission (which will shortly be down to only two). Hardly taxation with representation. With the fee due to take effect in April, and the Legislature next week scheduled to review the energy and environment portions of the governor's budget, it's a good time for lawmakers to consider if this is the best route to a clean energy future, the best way to help upstate communities, and the best use of the public's money. They may agree this is a reasonable short-term strategy. Or they may conclude there are far better investments the state could make in these areas and in clean energy, at far less cost to hard-working New Yorkers. Employees at the new First Data Centre in Nenagh look set to enjoy the perks of Google style offices as more details of the IDA backed development were revealed this week. The US tech firms new R&D facility, the first of its kind for the company in Ireland, will be the first IDA supported operation to come to the area in over 30 years and already interest is buzzing about roles on offer at the Stereame site. At a recruitment drive held for LIT Thurles and Clonmel students, members of First Data's senior staff and HR team provided information for student internships, graduate programmes and work placements, saying they were eager to create links with the college. Additionally students were also told of the office blocks silicon valley inspired design with plans to include moveable walls, nap pods and Bean Bags replicating Google's unique office environment. The payments processing company, which works with the likes of Amazon and Stripe, is set to provide over 300 jobs at the Nenagh R&D facility with up to 50 employed at the centre by year end. The company say they will then carry out a phased employment system and expect to have an additional 250 working at the Stereame site by 2018. The centre was originally scheduled to open its doors this summer however due to construction delays it is now expected that the facility will be up and running by the end of the year. Among the jobs on offer will be roles in application/ software development, application analysis, business analysis, technical project management, systems consulting, and enterprise architecture. All roles will be advertised on the First Data website (www.firstdata.com) as well as Irishjobs.ie with roles expected to come on stream in the next six to eight weeks. A recruitment office for the company in the town is also in the pipeline for the coming weeks. However speaking at the recruitment drive at the Thurles campus VP and general manager of eCommerce EMEA at First Data Peter O'Halloran said the company will be looking at applicants as a whole, adding that a strong Linkden presence and good social media portfolio is seen as highly beneficial. Be well prepared when coming for an interview. If you say you have an interest in cyber security be able to talk about it. Do your research on the company. Skill sets speak for themselves and all staff are given the opportunity to up skill but you need to be prepared and have your research done, he added. Sensing that President's rule could be imposed in case both Sasikala and Panneerselvam were not able to prove their majority during the floor test, DMK has already started sending out signals that fresh election should be held. By Supriya Bhardwaj: As the face-off between Sasikala and O Panneerselvam intensifies, DMK has maintained that Tamil Nadu should go for fresh election. Sensing that President's rule could be imposed in case both Sasikala and Panneerselvam were not able to prove their majority during the floor test, DMK has already started sending out signals that fresh election should be held. DMK leader Kanimozhi, "I will never support Presidential rule in Tamil Nadu. Governor should resolve the matter." advertisement LET PEOPLE DECIDE WHO MUST BE CM: DMK Picking from where Kanimozhi left, DMK MP RS Bharathi said, "In the interest of the state, if they want to continue or want to become Chief Minister, they (Sasikala and Panneerselvam) should go to the people. People should elect them. That is the only way out." He added that whoever gets the mandate should enjoy the power. "Mandate was given to Jayalalitha and the difference of vote between AIADMK and DMK was only Rs 5 lakh", Bharathi added. Also read | Jayalalithaa's Poes Garden house to be made a memorial? OPS now plans to make Sasikala homeless --- ENDS --- Nenagh man Dermot Ryan has been appointed to the position of Head of External Affairs with Amnesty International Australia. He will have overall responsibility for the organisation's communications and media; lobbying and advocacy, and the organisation's governance. Dermot is a son of John and the late Susan Ryan, formerly of the Half Door Restaurant on Summerhill Educated at St Joseph's CBS in Nenagh, he has worked in campaigning roles over 20 years, including previous stints in Ireland with the Labour Party, and Adi Roches Chernobyl Childrens Project before founding his own public relations and lobbying company DHR Communications which he co-owned for eight years. Almost six years ago, Dermot and his partner moved to Sydney Australia where he took up a senior role in the Australian trade union movement. He worked as chief-of-staff at the Transport Workers Union (Australias equivalent to SIPTU), where he had overall responsibility for implementation of the organizations strategy and operations. Over the past six years he led the TWU through a Royal Commission, with the Union coming through with a commendation for its governance and culture. He also led the lobbying and campaign strategy to pass world first legislation in Australia, which aims to hold large retail companies responsible for road safety in Australia by ensuring safe working practices in their supply chains. Truck driving is among Australias most dangerous occupations. Most people will be familiar with Amnesty's longstanding role campaigning on human rights, and in the Australian context, the issues of indigenous justice and refugees are particularly relevant. In Australia, if you are an indigenous child, you are 24 times more likely to be imprisoned than your non-indigenous classmates. With regard to refugees, there is a particularly toxic debate in Australia, and those seeking refuge are effectively sent to open air prisons on islands in the region, in a policy known as off-shore processing. Amnesty is a leading organisation in the debate seeking a more humane approach. Speaking to the Tipperary Star, Dermot said he was delighted to be taking up the challenge. Human rights campaigning has always been central to my work, be it in politics, not-for-profits or the trade union movement. I am thrilled to be taking up this role with Amnesty, which is among the worlds leading human rights organisations. These are hugely challenging times worldwide, and I feel honoured to have been given the opportunity to make a contribution. Ask any songwriter to draw up a list of fantasies and more than likely an endorsement from a musical hero would feature pretty high up the list. Case in point is Cork's Jack O'Rourke who was given the ultimate seal of approval by Tom Waits and Bill Withers last year when his song 'Silence' was picked out as a winner at the prestigious International Songwriting Competition in Nashville. It was a great honour, especially having Tom Waits on the judging panel, says the lyricist who has made a name for himself through his honest lyrics and hook laden choruses. Indeed 2016 was one hectic year for the 31 year old who released his critically acclaimed debut album 'Dream Catcher' (it reached number five in the Irish charts), perform sold out shows at Whelans, play alongside Cillian Murphy on the Frank and Walters latest album as well as stints on RTE's Other Voices and New Year's Eve special. Not bad for a full time secondary school teacher who is still not signed to a record label. Growing up in a musical household, O'Rourke was surrounded by the record collections of his parents with everything from Leonard Cohen, trad, opera and Rory Gallagher blaring in the kitchen. So far so good, and a fact which O'Rourke agrees with describing his musical upbringing as a good education. At four he began learning the piano and played in various bands throughout his teens catching the songwriting bug at 16 before going on to study music at college and earning his teaching degree. However in 2015, the aforementioned 'Silence' was selected by Amnesty International as its campaign anthem in the marriage equality referendum helping to push O'Rourke into the mainstream media and onto the airwaves. Since then the self proclaimed introvert has barely stopped and is currently embarking on another mini tour of Ireland appearing at Brewery Lane Theatre in this Friday. A show not to be missed. The Tearoom Sessions - Jack O'Rourke & Band -Friday 10th February 8:15pm. Tickets 20. For more information or to book - please contact Paul on 087 404 7803 Titusville native Jessica Cosentino and her husband, Richard Cosentino, president of Lander University, in Greenwood, S.C., are joined by Lander students in a photo that was published recently in the Lander alumni magazine. [February 08, 2017] Acceliant Awarded WHO Drug Medical Coding Certification - Joins Select League of Clinical Trial Solutions Providers BANGALORE, NOIDA and HYDERABAD, India, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Acceliant, the global leader in clinical trial management solutions, has announced that it has received the prestigious World Health Organization (WHO) Drug Dictionaries Medical Coding certification. The WHO Drug Dictionary is an international classification of medicines used by pharmaceutical companies, clinical trial organizations and drug regulatory authorities to identify drug names, active ingredients and their therapeutic use in spontaneous ADR reporting and in clinical trials. The WHODrug-B2E certification makes Acceliant one of the few clinical trial solutions that meets the WHO criteria in providing accurate data through their coding engine. The certification further boosts Acceliant's eClinical Suite by enabling its clients to augment efficiency and productivity in the broad areas of clinical trials and new drug discoveries. The drug dictionary created by WHO Program for international drg monitoring is managed by the Uppsala Monitoring Centre, an independent foundation for scientific research based in Sweden. The center is authorized by the WHO to maintain the WHO Drug Medical Dictionaries. Vivek Gupta, Worldwide Vice President at Acceliant, said, "We are extremely pleased to receive the WHO Drug Medical Coding certificate for Acceliant clinical trials platform. Our medical coding module is well accepted and received greater appreciation from our clients because of its ability to accurately 'auto encode terms' and its flexibility to allow users to set threshold limits. The module supports different medical coding dictionaries. The WHO certification will tremendously expand Acceliant's credibility at the market place." Besides WHO Drug Dictionary, Acceliant also provides integrated coding mechanism, allowing users to code terms using MedDRA. About Acceliant Acceliant provides real-time, integrated clinical trial solutions for life sciences, CROs and pharma tools and expertise to take intelligent and smarter decisions. Its eClinical Suite allows users to build studies, design electronic case report forms (eCRFs), capture data through multiple sources (EDC), capture data directly from patients (ePRO), and manage other clinical data management functions. For more information, visit http://www.acceliant.com Media Contact: Prashant Bhavaraju CMO, Acceliant [email protected] +91-40-4664-0000 [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [February 09, 2017] CRS Texas becomes PAR PixelPoint POS Software Reseller ParTech, Inc. (PAR), a leading global provider of point-of-sale (POS) and workforce efficiency solutions to the restaurant and retail industries, today announced that CRS Texas, a full service POS company since 1972, has become a reseller of PAR PixelPoint POS Software for the QSR, Fast Casual, Fine Dining, and Retail industries throughout the U.S. CRS Texas has ten offices in six states with plans to expand further in the first quarter of 2017. ParTech, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE: PAR). CRS Texas was seeking an ISV partner that could provide a stable, well-developed POS software solution that could support QSR and full service dining. PixelPoint, being one of the most flexible hospitality POS software solutions in the world and powering over 30,000 POS devices in over 50 countries, was a great fit for their needs. "PixelPoint can bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table. Customers can be comfortable in knowing that there is a long track record of proven success with the PixelPoint product," said Brian Smith, President, CRS Texas. "We are excited about working with a company that is forward thinking and preparing for the future today, not waiting until tomorrow." "We are pleased to be partnering with CRS Texas, one of the largest POS software Value Added Resellers in the U.S. CRS' strong reputation and success in the POS Solutions industry is what attracted us to develop a partnership," said Lee Crook, Senior Director, POS Product Management, ParTech, Inc. "With newly hired PixelPoint certified technicians on staff, and the training program that is currently taking place within their sales and service teams, we are confident CRS Texas customers will be extremely satisfied with the secure and flexible solutions that can be created with PAR's PixelPoint POS." ABOUT CRS TEXAS CRS is known as a leader in the POS industry. With installation ranging from single restaurants to multi-chain restaurants. Our larger installations include dog tracks, horse tracks and casinos. The multi-chain restaurants we manage span throughout the United States and overseas. Custom development by CRS on peripherals and other software modules has expanded our competitiveness to include marketing to other re-sellers of POS. With sales in the millions CRS can demand more from our industry suppliers, passing the savings and benefits onto our customers. For more information visit www.crstexas.com. ABOUT PAR TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION PAR Technology Corporation's stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol PAR. PAR's Hospitality segment has been a leading provider of restaurant and retail technology for more than 30 years. PAR offers technology solutions for the full spectrum of restaurant operations, from large chain and independent table service restaurants to international quick service chains. Products from PAR also can be found in retailers, cinemas, cruise lines, stadiums and food service companies. PAR's Government Business is a leader in providing computer-based system design, engineering and technical services to the Department of Defense and various federal agencies. For more information, visit https://www.partech.com/ or connect with PAR on Facebook and Twitter. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170209005291/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [February 09, 2017] Deluxe Corporation Names Five Finalists for $500,000 Revitalization in Season Two of "Small Business Revolution - Main Street" Series Deluxe Corporation today named the five finalists in a nationwide search for a remarkable small town to be featured in season two of its series "Small Business Revolution (News - Alert) - Main Street." Chosen from nearly 14,000 nominations, the public will now decide the winner, which will receive a $500,000 revitalization for its small businesses and downtown area and be featured in an eight-episode series that will stream on SmallBusinessRevolution.org. Small business owners in the winning town will benefit from marketing support and business advice delivered by a team of small business marketing experts from Deluxe, led by Deluxe's chief brand and communications officer Amanda Brinkman. She will be joined by Shark Tank's Robert Herjavec. Deluxe kicked off a nationwide call for nominations in Fall 2016, in conjunction with the premiere of season one of "Small Business Revolution - Main Street." Deluxe narrowed the nearly 14,000 nominations received from all 50 states to a short list of eight towns. Deluxe visited each of the towns and identified five finalists: Bristol, Pennsylvania Georgetown, South Carolina Kingsburg, California North Adams, Massachusetts Red Wing, Minnesota From Feb. 9 to 16, the public can visit mallBusinessRevolution.org to watch a mini-documentary about each finalist and vote for their favorite. Once the winner is chosen, Brinkman, Herjavec and the Deluxe Small Business Marketing team will begin work, and the town's story will be told in season two of "Small Business Revolution - Main Street" in the fall of 2017. The winner will be announced on Feb. 22. "When we watched the vote totals for season one reach nearly 200,000, we knew immediately we needed to do this again. The people who live in these towns have such an incredible passion for their communities and their work, and it is so rewarding for us to support them," Brinkman said. "After visiting each of these five towns this winter, I cannot wait to see which one will win. Our team is really looking forward to spending time in the town, working with its small business owners, and showing the world what makes small towns and small businesses great." Deluxe debuted the Small Business Revolution in 2015 to celebrate a century of providing marketing and other services to small businesses and financial institutions. The campaign started by telling 100 stories of small businesses across the country. In doing so, Deluxe found a need to support and celebrate small towns, which inspired the "Small Business Revolution - Main Street" and its $500,000 boost. "Working with the people of Wabash, Indiana, last year was so inspiring. When you are helping a small business owner, you can very quickly notice the impact of the work - both for the business owners and the broader community - and the difference can be huge," Herjavec said. "'Small Business Revolution - Main Street' is such a remarkable project, and it just keeps getting better!" About Deluxe Corporation Deluxe is a growth engine for small businesses and financial institutions. 4.4 million small business customers utilize Deluxe's service and product solutions, including website development and hosting, email marketing, social media, search engine optimization and logo design, in addition to our industry-leading checks and forms offerings. Deluxe serves approximately 5,600 financial institutions with a diverse portfolio of financial technology solutions that enable them to grow revenue and manage their customers' throughout their lifecycle, including our best-in-class check program solutions. Deluxe is also a leading provider of checks and accessories sold directly to consumers. For more information, visit us at www.deluxe.com, www.facebook.com/deluxecorp or www.twitter.com/deluxecorp. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170209005173/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [February 09, 2017] Dorsey Opens Dallas Office International law firm Dorsey & Whitney LLP announced today that it has opened an office in Dallas, Texas, to bring on a team of Dallas-based lawyers who are pre-eminent practitioners in mezzanine finance, private equity and a broad range of other corporate finance, M&A and securities work. With more than 530 lawyers worldwide, Dorsey now has 14 offices strategically located across the United States, three in China, two in Canada and one in London. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170209005917/en/ Larry Makel: Dorsey & Whitney LLP announced today that it has opened an office in Dallas, Texas. The lawyers establishing Dorsey's Dallas office include Larry Makel, Stan Mayo, Gina Betts, Jason DuVall and Jamie Whatley. (Photo: Dorsey & Whitney LLP) The lawyers establishing Dorsey's Dallas office include Larry Makel, Stan Mayo, Gina Betts, Jason DuVall and Jamie Whatley, all of whom most recently practiced in the Dallas office of the Schiff Hardin law firm. All of them join Dorsey as partners. There is an expectation that other lawyers from the Schiff Hardin Dallas office will also be joining Dorsey. Larry Makel is a nationally recognized authority in the area of mezzanine finance and an experienced provider of legal and other business counsel to mezzanine and equity firms, as well as other financial institutions. Larry concentrates his practice in the structured finance, venture capital and financial services areas, as well as in the formation of small businesses, investment corporations and private investment funds. He is adept at planning and structuring all aspects of a financing, from preparing documentation and agreements to meeting the complex compliance challenges associated with raising capital to finance corporate expansion. Stan Mayo is a nationally regarded authority in mezzanine finance and junior capital with almost 30 years of experience closing more than 100 such transactions, including mezzanine, second lien, unitranche, preferred stock, equity co-investments and warrants. His clients include institutional investment funds, SBICs, BDCs and bank subsidiaries. He also represents tradiional senior lenders. He has extensive experience in intercreditor issues, secured creditor rights, restructurings, workouts and bankruptcies. Stan has particular experience in the energy, health care, services, manufacturing and technology industries. He represents fund sponsors, advising them on formation and structuring issues, tax and regulatory matters, and acquisition and disposition of investments. Gina Betts has extensive experience in corporate and securities law. She represents issuers, underwriters and purchasers in public and private offerings of debt and equity securities, and assists public companies in the preparation of SEC (News - Alert) periodic reports and proxy statements. Gina also represents parties in leveraged buyouts (LBOs) and management buyouts (MBOs); M&A, including stock and asset transactions, exchange offers and tender offers; roll-ups; portfolio company acquisitions and dispositions; and fund formations. She also represents companies in connection with the negotiation and structuring of joint ventures, partnerships, and other general business arrangements. Jason DuVall advises a broad array of corporate finance clients on corporate and commercial financial transactions, including financial institutions, private equity funds, mezzanine funds, agent banks, and other institutional investors. His broad experience includes senior and subordinated debt, second lien financings, unitranche financings, acquisition financings, asset-based lending, equipment and project financings, secured and unsecured lending, structured financings, health care financings, and other forms of debt and equity financing. Jason also regularly advises borrowers on their financing transactions, and private equity funds on their acquisition financings of portfolio companies. Jamie Grammer Whatley represents a variety of corporate finance clients, including financial institutions, private equity funds, mezzanine funds, agent banks, institutional investors, startup companies, Fortune 500 companies and individuals in connection with commercial lending, private equity investments, M&A, corporate formation, corporate governance and commercial contracts. Her experience includes both senior and subordinated debt transactions, acquisition, asset-based, equipment, project, structured, health care and real estate financings. Jamie has handled corporate transaction matters across a wide range of industries, including energy, service, financial, manufacturing, telecommunications, technology, health care, construction, restaurant and hospitality. "The practices of these five fine attorneys dovetail perfectly with Dorsey's global presence in M&A, its strong private equity and capital markets practices and its tremendous depth in the banking and financial services sectors," noted Bob Rosenbaum, a Partner in Dorsey's M&A Practice Group and Partner-in-Charge of the Firm's Corporate Group. "Dorsey is a great firm with a tremendous reputation," said new Dorsey Dallas Partner Larry Makel. "The Dorsey platform is not only ideal to serve the clients we have served in the past (including especially our Twin (News - Alert) Cities-based client contacts), it also opens up the possibility of serving Dorsey clients with whom we are not currently working. Having on-the-ground coverage in the Texas business community will be a big plus to a number of existing Dorsey clients." New Dallas Partner Gina Betts added, "Dorsey provides a great fit for us. It has tier one national practices in corporate, securities and capital markets work, a vibrant M&A presence and a strong private equity practice across the United States and in Europe. We are proud to be part of Dorsey and look forward to helping grow the Firm's practice and its reputation in Dallas and in Texas." "This great team in Dallas presented a special opportunity for us," noted Ken Cutler, Managing Partner of Dorsey & Whitney. "Building a strong presence in Texas has been a strategic goal for Dorsey. The Firm's focus on key industries, including banking, energy, food and agribusiness, health care, mining and natural resources and public-private project development, makes Texas a natural fit. Opening this office is a great start, and we look forward to building and expanding our presence in the state to meet the needs of clients in Texas, nationally and globally." About Dorsey & Whitney LLP Clients have relied on Dorsey since 1912 as a valued business partner. With locations across the United States and in Canada, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, Dorsey provides an integrated, proactive approach to its clients' legal and business needs. Dorsey represents a number of the world's most successful companies from a wide range of industries, including leaders in the banking, energy, food and agribusiness, health care, mining and natural resources, and public-private project development sectors, as well as major non-profit and government entities. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170209005917/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [February 09, 2017] Ingenu Expands Presence in Arizona with Opening of Scottsdale Office Ingenu Inc., the pioneer in delivering connectivity exclusively to machines, today announced it has expanded its presence in Arizona with the opening of a new office location in Scottsdale. The 12,763 square foot facility will accommodate the company's rapidly growing Machine Network organization as well as its general and administrative functions. Ingenu's headquarters in San Diego will continue to support engineering, procurement, operations, global licensing and other business functions. Ingenu's move brings another technology innovator to the Scottsdale area. Joining the likes of companies such as Apriva and GoDaddy. The greater Phoenix market provides a strong commercial environment which includes entrepreneurial companies, a robust venture funding network, and high-tech talent. According to Forbes.com, Arizona's job and economic growth forecasts over the next five years are among the best in the U.S., and population growth through 2020 is expected to be the third-fastest in the country. In August 2016, Ingenu announced the expansion of its Machine Network to the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, which includes coverage throughout Scottsdale. The company's technology presence in Scottsdale will facilitate the development of IoT (Internet of Things) applications in the region. "Ingenu is pleased to join the Scottsdale business community as we grow our organization and expand the reach of our innovative RPMA technology throughout the globe," said John Horn (News - Alert), chief executive officer, Ingenu. "We look forward to exploring the many IoT business opportunities that the region will provide." Ingenu will be hosting a grand opening ribbon-cutting ceremony on February 16, 2017 at 11:00 AM, at its new office location at 8900 E. Bahia Drive, Scottsdale, Ariz. If you would like to attend the event in person, please follow this link to R.S.V.P. About Ingenu Inc. Ingenu is building the Machine Network, the world's largest IoT network dedicated to LPWA (low-power, wide-area) connectivity for machines. Operating on universal spectrum, the company's RPMA technology is a proven standard for connecting Internet of Things (IoT) devices around the world, with 38 private networks deployed. The Machine Network will have further reach, global range and longer lasting battery life than any existing network. Ingenu is led by a highly experienced team, including veterans from Verizon (News - Alert), T-Mobile, and Qualcomm. Information about Ingenu can be found at www.ingenu.com, or follow us on Twitter (News - Alert) @ingenunetworks. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170209005478/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [February 08, 2017] International Arbitration Tribunal Orders Ecuador to Pay ConocoPhillips $380 Million for Unlawfully Expropriating the Company's Oil Investments ConocoPhillips' (NYSE: COP) wholly owned subsidiary, Burlington Resources Inc., received an arbitration award of $380 million from an international arbitration tribunal, constituted under the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), for Ecuador's unlawful expropriation of Burlington's significant investment in breach of the U.S.-Ecuador bilateral investment treaty. "The Tribunal's decision on damages sends a clear message that governments cannot expropriate investments without fair compensation," said Janet Carrig, senior vice president, Legal and General Counsel. "ConocoPhillips sought to protect its interests to the fullest degree and the Tribunal acknowledged our legal rights and the unlawful nature of Ecuador's actions." The decision is subject to potential annulment proceedings, but the company believes any application seeking to annul the award would be meritless and ConocoPhillips would strongly defend against it. The timing and manner of collection remain to be determined. The Tribunal also issued a separate decision finding that Ecuador was entitled to $42 million for limited environmental and infrastructure impacts associated with the operations of the Consortium (comprising Burlington and Perenco). The Tribunal noted that "while Ecuador also prevailed on part of its counterclaims, the amount awarded to Ecuador is an extremely small percentage of the amount claimed." --- # # # --- About ConocoPhillips ConocoPhillips is the world's largest independent E&P company based on production and proved reserves. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, ConocoPhillips had operations and activities in 7 countries, $90 billion of total assets, and approximately 13,300 employees as of Dec. 31, 2016. Production excluding Libya averaged 1,567 MBOED in 2016, and preliminary proved reserves were 6.4 billion BOE as of Dec. 31, 2016. For more information, go to www.conocophillips.com. CAUTIONARY STATEMENT FOR THE PURPOSES OF THE "SAFE HARBOR" PROVISIONS OF THE PRIVATE SECURITIES LITIGATION REFORM ACT OF 1995 This news release contains forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements relate to future events and anticipated results of operations, business strategies, and other aspects of our operations or operating results. In many cases you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as "anticipate," "estimate," "believe," "continue," "could," "intend," "may," "plan," "potential," "predict," "should," "will," "expect," "objective," "projection," "forecast," "goal," "guidance," "outlook," "effort," "target" and other similar words. However, the absence of these words does not mean that the statements are not forward-looking. Where, in any forward-looking statement, the company expresses an expectation or belief as to future results, such expectation or belief is expressed in good faith and believed to have a reasonable basis. However, there can be no assurance that such expectation or belief will result or be achieved. The actual results of operations can and will be affected by a variety of risks and other matters including, but not limited to, changes in commodity prices; changes in expected levels of oil and gas reserves or production; operating hazards, drilling risks, unsuccessful exploratory activities; difficulties in developing new products and manufacturing processes; unexpected cost increases; international monetary conditions; potential liability for remedial actions under existing or future environmental regulations; potential liability resulting from pending or future litigation; limited access to capital or significantly higher cost of capital related to illiquidity or uncertainty in the domestic or international financial markets; and general domestic and international economic and political conditions; as well as changes in tax, environmental and other laws applicable to our business. Other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements include other economic, business, competitive and/or regulatory factors affecting our business generally as set forth in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Unless legally required, ConocoPhillips undertakes no obligation to update publicly 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/20170208006282/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [February 08, 2017] Joseph Federico of NJ MET Inc. Announces Its Ninth Year of Assistance Efforts for Sri Lankan Refugees Joseph Federico, of NJ MET, Inc. in Clifton NJ, announced the company's ninth year of relief efforts to aid orphans in Sri Lanka. Over the past nine years, Wayne, NJ resident Joseph Federico has led a campaign at NJ MET, Inc., headquartered in Clifton, NJ, to send clothes, candy, toys, and toiletries to needy families and orphans housed in churches, temples and schools throughout Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka was devastated by a tsunami in 2004 and many of its citizens have been displaced by nearly 25 years of war. Federico made a connection to an orphanage in Sri Lanka through his local church and NJ MET, its staff and customers have been donating supplies ever since. Mr. Federico explained that there are many charities that have been setup to benefit Sri Lankan children who have been orphaned or thrust into abject poverty by the tsunami in 2001 or by the conflict that ended in 2009. Among those are the Rainbow Centre, which was founded by a British woman who survived the tsunami when she was in Sri Lanka on vacation in 2001 and the SOS Children's Vilages in Sri Lanka, which is part of SOS (News - Alert) Children's Villages International. The first shipment of clothing, candy, refreshments, and toiletries has already been collected and shipped out from NJ MET's Clifton office, according to Joseph Federico, VP and Director. "Our efforts for the new year will continue with our fourth annual candy drive in the upcoming April Easter/Passover holiday season," said Joseph Federico from NJ MET's headquarters. "Anyone interested in participating in the drive can contact us at NJ MET's office to make a donation." For nearly 40 years, NJMET Inc. has been a pioneer in the Commercial, Military, Aerospace, Industrial, Automotive and Medical fields providing worldwide quality electronic component procurement, screening and qualification testing of electronic component products. NJMET, Inc. is AS9100 Rev. C / ISO9001:2008 certified and recently successfully completed of The Defense Logistic Agency's (DLA) laboratory suitability assessment and are now qualified to test federal stock classes (FSC) 5961 (Semiconductor Devices) and FSC 5962 (Microcircuits) to DLA's QTSL test requirements. NJMET, Inc. is also registered with GIDEP, SAE International, ERAI, ASTM, ITAR, IEEE (News - Alert), and ANSI/ESD20.20. Their employees have hands on training in the Counterfeit Components Avoidance Workshop by The Components Technology Institute, Inc. and just celebrated 38 years of Laboratory Procurement and Testing Services. NJ MET, Inc. has an outstanding A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau. For more information on the laboratory total quality system and ASTM participation, please call Joseph Federico at NJ MET Clifton, NJ (973) 546-5393. Please visit NJ MET at http://www.njmetmtl.com. To learn more about NJ MET and its international charity efforts visit the "In the News" section of their website: http://www.njmetmtl.com/news.aspx. To learn more about NJ MET Director Joseph Federico's volunteer efforts, visit: http://josephfedericonj.biz/njmet-charity.htm View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170208006302/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Feb 9 (PTI) Congress today stuck to its demand for an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his remarks against his predecessor Manmohan Singh in the Rajya Sabha, describing his jibe as "unheard of in Indian parliamentary democracy". "We are very very disappointed by what the PM said yesterday. I do not think in the history of Indian parliamentary democracy, we have ever heard the PM insulting his predecessor in such a manner using bathroom analogy. This is simply not heard of (before)," Congress MP Sashi Tharoor said outside Parliament. advertisement Seeking withdrawal of the statement, he said, "In politics, there can be differences but you will never find this kind of statement in our parliamentary debate. PM should withdraw such remarks. There are political differences in our country. In election campaign, people say rude things to each other. But in the House, certain decorum must be maintained. We feel strongly that it should not have happened." "We have asked for an apology because he has not withdrawn it so far. If he withdraws it, then the matter will end. But if he does not withdraw, then apology is the only way in which he can make up for the hurt he has caused unnecessarily," the former Union minister said. Replying to a debate on the Motion of Thanks to the Presidents Address in the Rajya Sabha yesterday, Modi had attacked Congress and taken on Singh who had described demonetisation as "organised loot" and "legalised plunder", saying "the art of bathing in a bathroom with a raincoat on" is known only to the former Prime Minister as there is "no blot on him" despite "all the scams". This provoked an angry reaction from Congress members who staged a walkout in the midst of the reply by the Prime Minister. PTI ARU SMN --- ENDS --- Toshiba Starts Construction of Fab 6 and Memory R&D Center at Yokkaichi, Japan Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO:6502) today announced that it has started construction of a new state-of-the-art semiconductor fabrication facility, Fab 6, and a new R&D center, the Memory R&D Center, at Yokkaichi Operations in Mie prefecture, Japan, the company's main memory production base. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170208006381/en/ Artist's impression of Fab 6, Yokkaichi Operations (Grphic: Business Wire) Fab 6 will be dedicated to production of BiCS FLASH, Toshiba's (News - Alert) innovative 3D Flash memory1. Like Fab 5, construction will take place in two phases, allowing the pace of investment to be optimized against market trends, with completion of Phase 1 scheduled for summer 2018. Toshiba will determine installed capacity and output targets and schedules by closely monitoring the market. Toshiba will also construct a Memory R&D Center adjacent to the new fab, with completion targeting December 2017. The facility will advance development of BiCS FLASH and new memories. Toshiba is determined to enhance its competitiveness in the memory business by timely expansion of BiCS FLASH production in line with market trends, and to retain leadership in innovation in the memory business. * BiCS FLASH is a trademark of Toshiba Corporation 1 A structure that stacks Flash memory cells on a silicon substrate. It realizes significant density improvements over planar NAND Flash memory, where cells are formed on the substrate. About Toshiba Founded in Tokyo in 1875, Toshiba Corporation is a Fortune Global 500 company that contributes to a better world and better lives with innovative technologies in Energy, Infrastructure and Storage. Guided by the philosophy of "Committed to People, Committed to the Future," Toshiba promotes operations through a global network of 551 consolidated companies employing 188,000 people, with annual sales surpassing 5.6 trillion yen (US$50 billion; March 31, 2016). Find out more about Toshiba at www.toshiba.co.jp/index.htm View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170208006381/en/ Corporate Online Language Learning Market in Europe - Drivers and Forecast from Technavio Technavio analysts forecast the corporate online language learning market in Europe to grow at a CAGR of more than 9% during the forecast period, according to their latest report. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170208005897/en/ Technavio has published a new report on the corporate online language learning market in Europe from 2017-2021. (Graphic: Business Wire) The research study covers the present scenario and growth prospects of the corporate online language learning market in Europe for 2017-2021. To determine the market size, the study considers revenue generated from the sales of online language learning products and services provided by language learning institutions. The research report by Technavio on the corporate online language learning market in Europe provides an analysis on the key leading countries (France, Germany, and the UK) and segmentation based on deployment (on-premise deployment and cloud-based deployment). On-premise deployment is the more popular segment of the corporate online language learning market in Europe. These solutions can be easily installed and customized, and most of the corporate sector has already adopted the on-premise deployment solutions. Request a sample report: http://www.technavio.com/request-a-sample?report=56327 Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report including the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more. Technavio analysts highlight the following three factors that are contributing to the growth of the corporate online language learning market in Europe: Changes in workforce structure Increased trade with emerging economies Growing implementation of language cloud ervices "Companies in Europe are focusing on improving the collaboration between project and task management teams both locally and globally. With increasing globalization, companies have a global presence, which necessitates investments in language learning programs to ease the learning process for employees from varied backgrounds," says Jhansi Mary, one of the lead analysts at Technavio for education technology research. Online language learning aids corporations to achieve business development, improve customer service, and accelerate sales. Additionally, this platform also helps companies to collaborate with foreign clients while fostering stronger relationships, especially with large corporations. Training modules are available online, creating greater demand for online language learning. Increased trade with emerging economies The EU is building strong trade relationships with emerging economies to strengthen their economy by 2020. This will lead to a higher movement of the workforce and stronger communication requirements with these countries. Effective communication between these regions will be imperative for a business to flourish, which highlights the requirement in the region for online language learning platforms. Many companies are opting for this model to improve the language skills of employees as it is cost-effective and provides a flexible learning environment to employees. Growing implementation of language cloud services "Cloud-based learning environments has established itself as a smooth and effective knowledge delivery platform. This is causing a shift in the entire education ecosystem of storing, managing, and accessing information databases towards the cloud, which is playing an important role in boosting the growth of the online language learning market," says Jhansi. The swiftness of implementation and decreased necessity of capital expenses are the key benefits of implementing software-as-a-service (SaaS (News - Alert))-based solutions. Most organizations are shifting to SaaS-based learning management systems to impart language education, thereby driving market growth. Browse Related Reports: Become a Technavio Insights member and access all three of these reports for a fraction of their original cost. As a Technavio Insights member, you will have immediate access to new reports as they're published in addition to all 6,000+ existing reports covering segments like K12 and higher education and school and college essentials. This subscription nets you thousands in savings, while staying connected to Technavio's constant transforming research library, helping you make informed business decisions more efficiently. 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, resellers, and end-users. If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at [email protected]. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170208005897/en/ [February 08, 2017] Affygility Solutions Opens New Regional Office in Dubai Affygility Solutions (Affygility), a leading provider of occupational health, toxicology, and industrial hygiene services for the life science industry, announced today the launch of its regional branch office in Dubai, United Arab Emirates to serve the IMEA region. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170208006250/en/ Affygility Solutions Opens New Regional Office in Dubai (Photo: Business Wire) The regional branch office, in this rapidly growing area of the world, will be locaed in the Dubai Science Park in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The Dubai Science Park is home to over 280 international life science companies. The regional branch office will serve as a hub for the India, Middle East and North Africa (IMEA) region, thus allowing for Affygility to serve their customers in the region more effectively and faster than ever before. "All the team members at Affygility Solutions are thrilled to establish a new regional office in Dubai. Our presence in the region will help further expand Affygility Solutions' operations so we can better support our customers' requirements and solve their most difficult occupational health, safety and toxicology challenges," says Dean M. Calhoun, CIH, President and CEO of Affygility Solutions. ABOUT AFFYGILITY Since 2002, Affygility Solutions has provided occupational health, safety, and toxicology services to the life science industry. Our services include the Affytrac EH&S management tool, potent compound safety and categorization, occupational exposure limits and permitted daily exposure limits (PDE) for active pharmaceutical ingredients, genotoxic impurity evaluations and more. Affygility Solutions has provided these services to small, mid-size and large life science companies in over 42 different countries. For more information, go to: http://affygility.ae View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170208006250/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [February 08, 2017] Robbins Arroyo LLP: Banc of California, Inc. (BANC) Misled Shareholders According to a Recently Filed Class Action Shareholder rights law firm, Robbins Arroyo LLP, announces that a class action complaint was filed against Banc of California, Inc. (NYSE: BANC) in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The complaint is brought on behalf of all purchasers of Banc of California securities between August 7, 2015 and January 23, 2017, for alleged violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 by Banc of California's officers and directors. Banc of California operates as the bank holding company for Banc of California, a National Association that provides banking products and services in the United States. View this information on the firm's Shareholder Rights Blog: www.robbinsarroyo.com/shareholders-rights-blog/banc-of-california-inc-feb-2017 Banc of California Accused of Subjecting the Company to Significant Regulatory Risk According to the complaint, Banc of California submitted a series of filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC (News - Alert)") assuring shareholders of he adequacy and effectiveness of the company's internal controls. On February 18, 2016, Banc of California filed with the SEC its annual report for the year ended December 31, 2015 in which it confirmed the company's and its executives' adherence to the company's Code of Conduct. However, the complaint alleges that Banc of California officials failed to disclose facts concerning the risk of non-approval of the listing of its shares with the New York Stock Exchange ("NYSE"), that the company was issuing unregistered shares to complete its transactions, and that there was a substantial likelihood that the NYSE would not approve the listing of unregistered shares. On October 18, 2016, Seeking Alpha published a report alleging that Banc of California and certain of its executives may have undisclosed ties to Jason Galanis, who was previously indicted for banking fraud. Among other ties, the article alleged that: (1) Galanis controlled COR Capital, Banc of California's founding shareholder; (2) Banc of California's lead "independent" director had strong ties to Galanis; and (3) that an off-balance sheet lender controlled by some of Banc of California's senior executives financed Galanis. The next day, Banc of California disclosed in an earnings call that it had been internally investigating ties to Galanis for over a year. On January 23, 2017, Banc of California revealed that on October 27, 2016, KPMG authored a letter raising concerns about "inappropriate relationships with third parties," and that on January 12, 2017, the SEC issued a formal order of investigation and issued a subpoena seeking certain documents relating to the alleged third-party relationships. Lastly, the company disclosed that its Chief Executive Officer was resigning. On this news, Banc of California's stock fell $1.50 per share, or nearly 10%, to close at $14.65 per share on January 23, 2017. Banc of California Shareholders Have Legal Options Concerned shareholders who would like more information about their rights and potential remedies can contact attorney Darnell R. Donahue at (800) 350-6003, [email protected], or via the shareholder information form on the firm's website. Robbins Arroyo LLP is a nationally recognized leader in shareholder rights law. The firm represents individual and institutional investors in shareholder derivative and securities class action lawsuits, and has helped its clients realize more than $1 billion of value for themselves and the companies in which they have invested. Attorney Advertising. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170208006331/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [February 08, 2017] Mira Hashmall, Partner of Miller Barondess, LLP, Wins Decisive $2.5 Million Jury Verdict Against University of California for Retaliatory Termination for Reporting Gender Discrimination On February 7, 2017, Michele Coyle, former Chief Campus Counsel of UC Riverside, was awarded $2.5 million by a jury in Riverside Superior Court, against the University of California. The jury found that Ms. Coyle was retaliated against in violation of the California Fair Employment and Housing Act for reporting gender discrimination at UC Riverside. The jury also found that UC General Counsel Charles Robinson (who reports to the UC Regents) and Tim White (former UC Riverside Chancellor, and current Chancellor of the California State University system) retaliated against Ms. Coyle in violation of Labor Code section 1102.5. Ms. Coyle was terminated on the eve of a federal audit to determine whether UC Riverside complied with its obligations under state and federal law to prohibit discrimination, retaliation, and harassment on the campus, in an effort to conceal information from the auditors. This Smrt News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170208006341/en/ Mira Hashmall, Partner of Miller Barondess, LLP (Photo: Business Wire) Mira Hashmall, lead trial counsel, said: "After a seven-week trial, the jury found the University of California failed to live up to its duty to protect individuals from gender discrimination and retaliation. The UC system has an obligation to protect civil rights, and this behavior will not be tolerated. This was a hard-fought victory, and moving forward sends a message to Universities nationwide that retaliatory termination and gender discrimination is wrong. My colleague Casey Pearlman and I are very proud of the work the jury did to reach its findings." Miller Barondess managing Partner Skip Miller commented, "Mira is a terrific lawyer and has a great jury presence -- the whole package. I'm very proud of her for a job well done for Ms. Coyle." View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170208006341/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [February 08, 2017] Matt Finegood Launches Indiegogo Crowdsourcing Campaign for HOLLYWeeD T-Shirts HOLLYWOOD, Calif., Feb. 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Those in Los Angeles woke up to an amusing, eye-popping change to their skyline on New Year's Day. The Hollywood sign was altered with black and white sheets to read "HOLLYWeeD" -- in honor of California's pot legalization and movement towards legalization on the Federal level. The first time it happened was in 1976, when an art student named Danny Finegood went up to the sign with a few friends and altered its appearance to read "HOLLYWeeD." As it turns out, Finegood used the feat as a project submission for an art course at Cal State Northridge and he received an "A" for the daring project. He and his friends altered the sign three other times. That same year on Easter Sunday, he was responsible for changing the sign to read "HOLYWOOD." In 1987, Finegood changed it to read "OLLYWOOD" in light of Oliver North and the Iran-Contra Affair. Then in 1992, he altered the sign to read "OIL WAR" during the Persian Gulf War. Finegood, who snapped a photo of his work that morning, owned the copyright to the original iconic image. Daniel's son Matthew has since started a crowd funding campaign on Indiegogo to kick-start the distribution of merchandise featuring the original vintage photo of the alteration. The line of t-shirts, much like the latest alteration on ew Year's Day, is a homage to the late Danny Finegood's original creative work on the iconic sign. Donors who contribute $25 will be sent a poster of the original "HOLLYWeeD" sign, and any $50 contributors will receive the new "HOLLYWeeD" T-shirt. Finegood has laid out several key objectives for his kickstarter fund-- to build and inventory of shirts printed with the photo his father took of the "HOLLYWeeD" sign on New Year's Day 41 years ago. Next would be to build an online storefront in which fans and connoisseurs from around the world can "make a statement" on the persisting movement towards marijuana decriminalization. The vision for the eCommerce site consists of a T-shirt customization tool. "Fans can customize the Hollywood sign to say whatever they wish. From 'MATTWOOD' to 'I LOVE DONUTS,' the famous hillside monument is yours on a T-shirt," said Finegood. "I hope to give everyone an opportunity to make their own statement." Finegood plans on donating a percentage of the proceeds to a charity of a buyers choice, or to the ACLU or The Institute of Multiple Myeloma -- a group that researches cures for the disease that the elder Finegood passed away from in 2007. For press inquiries, please e-mail [email protected]. Related Images image1.png image2.png image3.jpg image4.jpg Related Links HOLLYWeeD Crowd Funding Page Related Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY4zatENiac 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/matt-finegood-launches-indiegogo-crowdsourcing-campaign-for-hollyweed-t-shirts-300404705.html SOURCE Matthew Finegood [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [February 08, 2017] INNITEL Unveils New Version of the Atomic Omni-Channel Contact Center Solution at ITEXPO Florida FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Feb. 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- INNITEL, a Jerusalem based global provider of cloud unified communications solutions today announced at ITEXPO, the release of its much-awaited version 4 update to Atomic, the most effective and powerful Contact Center platform on the market. In addition to smart voice capabilities, contact centers can now engage their customers and leads via social channels like Facebook and Twitter along with more conventional channels like SMS, Fax and E-mail all from a single intuitive browser based interface. "INNITEL continuously innovates in the contact center space by creating affordable cloud based solutions that provides a consistent omni-channel experience. Atomic V4 empowers agents to personalize their customer interactions, through any channel in a seamless, cloud based, extendable platform," said CTO Dan Leubitz. V4 of the Atomic platform includes 24 new and result driven features including: Upgraded Unified Communications Agent webRTC, enabling a cloud based rich omni-channel experience from within a single browser window with zero configuration or setup. The intuitive 'FUN' interface gives agents a unified method to communicate through multiple channels. INNITEL's voice call center feature set with automatic and manual messaging tools such as SMS, email and social channels, provides agents' with a tool to boost closure by quickly obtaining client social and historical information, as well as, engaging customers on their preferred method of commnication. Advanced Reporting INNITEL has extended its advanced reporting to give contact center managers quantitative strategic information of the performance of previous campaigns, and predict the best time to initiate contact for a particular upcoming campaign. One step Integration Touch-less deployment, gives INNITEL the ability to deploy a contact center in 15 minutes, rapidly integrate with the customers CRM through highly engineered set of API's without any need to touch the customers endpoints, and all wrapped in a newly designed user friendly UI. "There has always been a desire to listen to customers, and integrate innovative fresh and exciting technology into our products that enriches the quality of our customers' engagements. Version 4 incorporates so many amazing updates that increases customer profitability and aids the ever evolution of traditional call centers into contact centers," said CEO, Elie Rubin. Atomic V4 is offered as a pay-as-you-go platform with unlimited seat capabilities. The low monthly cost includes strategic consultations, initial planning, deployment, comprehensive implementation and integration, training and ongoing support. About INNITEL Telecom INNITEL is a global provider of cloud unified communications solutions. Founded in 2010, INNITEL empowers businesses and contact centers by offering a fully featured contact center environment that integrates with top shelf help desk and CRM platforms. INNITEL provides a single interface for agents to engage their customers in Voice, SMS, and Fax. INNITEL was named Israel's 9th fastest growing company by Delloitte in 2016. INNITEL is headquartered in Jerusalem, Israel. Learn more about INNITEL and its line of CloudPBX and Engagement Software at www.Innitel.com. INNITEL, DeskForce, and the INNITEL logo are trademarks of INNITEL Apollo LTD. Contact Irena Spivak Public Relations +44 203 695 3434 [email protected] Source: Innitel Telecom, LTD. Related Links Website 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/innitel-unveils-new-version-of-the-atomic-omni-channel-contact-center-solution-at-itexpo-florida-300404637.html SOURCE INNITEL [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [February 08, 2017] Increased Usage of the Internet and Smartphone Drives Changes in Consumption of Traditional Media in Thailand HONG KONG, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- PR Newswire releases 2017 edition of the Thailand media landscape white paper in conjunction with Infoquest, its strategic news partner in Thailand. This is the third edition of the Thailand media landscape white paper since it was first launched in 2015. The aim of such media landscape white paper is to provide useful insights and information for navigating through the myriad of local media channels. The paper covers the latest trends on Thais media consumption habits and new updates on local medium channels such as print, broadcasting, news agency, online, social media, and search engines. The white paper is now available for free download. Some of the key findings in the paper include the followings: Transitioning from published hard copy to online sources The changes in lifestyle, the arrival of social media and other online media, and economic status were factors that contribute to changes in reading habits in Thailand . Online networking and social media have provided more reading sources for the Thai people. . Online networking and social media have provided more reading sources for the Thai people. The value of newspaper advertising has declined significantly while spending on internet advertising is on the rise. Editorial headcounts and new hiring wer put to a halt for many small newspapers publishers, while others including the well-established publishers ceased operations. The digital age has modernized the production of magazines - from traditional print edition sold on magazine racks to digital e-magazines News agencies play a vital role as producers and distributors of news content More Thai people are accessing the social media of news websites and getting news via news apps. However, news from mainstream media receives the highest rating for trustworthiness. Online news from official news agencies is the most trusted source, follow by online news shared by friends. News agencies are relying on technology and providing more in-depth analysis and investigative content to stand out from their competition. Room for growth for broadcasting media Although traditional radio is easy to access, growing numbers of people have shifted to online radio as 4G technology has made listening to online radio easier, more convenient and smoother than before. Radio compared favorably with other above-the-line media like analog and digital TV, which saw advertising spending decline. Viewership and ratings for digital TV are rising, however advertising revenue is still lagging behind analog TV. The Internet remains the most popular medium in Thailand The majority of Thais access the internet via mobile phones for an average of six hours per day and the most popular activity is communicating via social media. YouTube, Facebook and LINE are the top three most used social media platforms by Gen Y/Gen Z Thais. LINE is most popular among Baby Boomers and Gen X. Thai online shoppers lead the world in direct purchase via social media channels, ahead of India and China . and . Google has a monopoly in Thailand's search engine market and more investments were put into running search engines advertising in 2016, as compared to previous years when most businesses paid little attention to it. For more information about the white paper, please contact: Asia Pacific Marketing Team Tel: +852-2572-8228 Email: [email protected] About PR Newswire PR Newswire, a Cision company, is the premier global provider of multimedia platforms and distribution that marketers, corporate communicators, sustainability officers, public affairs and investor relations officers leverage to engage key audiences. Having pioneered the commercial news distribution industry over 60 years ago, PR Newswire today provides end-to-end solutions to produce, optimize and target content -- and then distribute and measure results. Combining the world's largest multi-channel, multi-cultural content distribution and optimization network with comprehensive workflow tools and platforms, PR Newswire powers the stories of organizations around the world. PR Newswire serves tens of thousands of clients from offices in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific regions. Cision is a leading global media intelligence company, serving the complete workflow of today's communication professionals. Photo - http://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20170209/8521700757 Logo - http://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20160617/8521603993LOGO-d [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [February 09, 2017] Tourico Holidays Joins Hotelbeds Group NEW DELHI, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- - Hotelbeds Group and Tourico Holidays Combine Forces to Drive Innovation in the B2B Bedbank Space - The Deal Will Combine Companies With Complementary Geographic Footprints Hotelbeds Group, a global bedbank and business-to-business provider of services to the travel industry, has announced today plans for Tourico Holidays to merge with its Bedbank business unit. Commenting on the news, Joan Vila, Executive Chairman of Hotelbeds Group said: "With the backing of Cinven and CPPIB, we are entering the next phase of our development since becoming an independent company back in September. Therefore it gives me great pleasure to announce that Tourico Holidays will join Hotelbeds Group. Tourico Holidays has a well-deserved reputation for excellence and innovation that I have respected for many years. I look forward to working with its experienced leadership team. The proposed deal will enable us to enhance our footprint, especially in Tourico Holidays' home market of North America whilst they will benefit from belonging to Hotelbeds Group's global network. Together we will combine our best-in-class technology and distribution expertise for the benefit of both our hotel partners and clients. For the time being, both businesses will continue as usual, focusing on our top priority: providing the best possible service to our hotel partners and clients." Tourico Holidays' CEO, Uri Argov added:"We're very excited about what this deal can mean to the B2B travel industry. Tourico Holidays' management team looks forward to bringing together these two great businesses in order to better serve our combined supplier and client base. At a cultural level, this deal is strong because our two organisations are entrepreneurial, dynamic and highly energetic - and just like Hotelbeds Group, we're passionate about what we do and focus hard on execution." Tourico Holidays will continue to operate as an independent business while a long-term strategy is developed to find the most appropriate way to combine the businesses. The transaction is subject to customary regulatory and anti-trust approvals. This includes the top holding company of the Tourico Group and indirectly all its entities, including its holding subsidiaries, Tourico Holidays, Inc., Travel Holdings, Inc. and Tourico Holidays Spain, S.L., and the technology development Israeli subsidiary, T.G.S. Israel Development Ltd. The deal will be legally structured via the merger of the top holding company of Tourico Group ('Travel Holdings Parent Corporation') and Hotelbeds US Holdco, Inc., Hotelbeds Group Holding's legal entity in the United States. The merged entity will be 100% owned by Hotelbeds Group. About Hotelbeds Group: Hotelbeds Group is the world's number one bedbank and a business-to-business provider of services to the global travel industry. Operating mainly under the Hotelbeds and Bedsonline brands, the company connects, 35,000 travel intermediaries across more than 120 source markets globally with travel providers in over 180 countries representing more than 120,000 hotels, 20,000 transfer routes and 12,000 activities. In September 2016 the company became independent under the ownership of Cinven and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB). The company is headquartered in Palma, Spain and has 6,150 employees working across 150 offices globally. In the financial calendar year of 2014/15 Hotelbeds Group sold around 26 million room nights and achieved a Total Transaction Value (TTV) of 3.8 billion. About Tourico Holidays: Tourico Holidays is a leading global travel distribution company that contracts directly with travel providers, such as hotels, flights, cruise lines, attractions, car rentals, vacation homes and more. The company works on a high volume, wholesale model to broker this inventory to over 4,900 clients in 100 countries using proprietary technology. Media Contacts: Roman Townsend Head of Media Communications, Social Media & Corporate Affairs [email protected] Tel: +34-619-988-580 [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [February 09, 2017] NTT Resonant Releases "goo Shuo!", Smartphone App for Chinese (Traditional Characters) Q&A Community of "Oshiete! goo" TOKYO, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- NTT Resonant, Inc. is proud to announce that starting on February 9, "goo Shuo!", the smartphone app for Oshiete!goo's Chinese language (traditional characters) Q&A community for international tourists traveling to Japan, is available for download. Traditional Chinese: https://tw.oshiete.goo.ne.jp/ Simplified Chinese: https://cn.oshiete.goo.ne.jp/ In the number of international tourists visiting Japan, tourists from Taiwan rank third after mainland China and South Korea, with a recorded 3.67 million visitors (*1). Additionally, approximately 80% of tourists to Japan from Taiwan are repeat visitors (*2). The majority of these tourists come to Japan after getting tourism information from television programs and travel company websites. The need for detailed tourism information on lodging facilities, sightseeing manners, changing transportation information, etc. is rising, but traditional media like television are not able to meet this demand. On goo Shuo!, a web service started in March of 2016, users can easily exchange information in a question-and-answer format, allowing them to gather neessary and detailed tourism information on Japan. Now with this Chinese (traditional characters) smartphone app, tourists from Taiwan can use goo Shuo! even at their Japanese destination and readily ask questions on their minds and easily obtain any necessary tourism information. 1. Service Overview A. Questions that come up while in Japan can be answered quickly: Tourists from Taiwan can easily use the application to ask questions even in Japan, and via information exchange among users, can quickly find the answers to their queries. Image1: Home Screen http://prw.kyodonews.jp/prwfile/release/M101547/201702088615/_prw_PI1fl_v031hMLm.png Image2: Question Page http://prw.kyodonews.jp/prwfile/release/M101547/201702088615/_prw_PI2fl_Zdo4Y8X6.png B. Articles that interest users can be accessed at any time from their My Page: Users can push the heart button on the feature article pages to pick a favorite article and save that article. They can then access it anytime via their My Page. Image3: Feature Article http://prw.kyodonews.jp/prwfile/release/M101547/201702088615/_prw_PI3fl_XXgaPcvM.png Image4: My Page http://prw.kyodonews.jp/prwfile/release/M101547/201702088615/_prw_PI4fl_D40Gf3JQ.png 2. How to Get It You can download the app from Google Play. URL: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.ne.gooshuo.app As of February, 2017, this app is only available on Android. An iOS version is planned to be released later on. 3. Future Development We plan to expand our services so that we can provide local Q&A communities to meet the needs of users from these countries and more. (*1) April, 2016 Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) Research (*2) April, 2016 Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) Research Note: "Android" and "Google Play" are trademarks/registered trademarks of Google Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Thakur, who turned heads by leading the guard of honour for former US president Barack Obama in January 2015, was served a notice to vacate her government accommodation in southwest Delhi. By Ajit Kumar Dubey: Once the poster girl for rising woman power in the Indian Armed Forces, Wing Commander Pooja Thakur has been struggling to hold on to her government accommodation even while her battle for permanent commission into Indian Air Force carries on simultaneously. Thakur, who turned heads by leading the guard of honour for former US president Barack Obama in January 2015, was served a notice to vacate her government accommodation in southwest Delhi but managed to secure a stay order on the eviction last Monday. advertisement "The eviction proceedings taken against the officer shall be kept in abeyance and she should be allowed to continue in her present accommodation on usual terms till the disposal of her case (seeking reinstatement into services)," an Armed Forces Tribunal bench headed by Justice Babu Mathew said. IAF officials, who did not wish to be named, said the force had no role in the eviction notice as Thakur's accommodation came under central government pool. The officials said as per the rule, IAF officers are supposed to vacate their houses after retirement and due process must have been followed by the authorities concerned at the ministry of defence. ALSO READ | Obama gets Guard of Honour, woman officer her moment in the sun The military court has asked defence ministry's joint secretary (training) and chief administrative officer for taking necessary action and implementing its order. Defence ministry officials declined comment, saying they were not aware of the details of the case. While Thakur and her counsel declined to speak to Mail today in relation to the judgment or eviction notice as the matter is sub-judice, sources in the IAF said the officer was allotted a government accommodation from the Air Force quota in New Delhi's Dwarka residential cluster. In September, 2016, soon after her short service commission tenure ended, Thakur was served an eviction notice. The officer approached the tribunal, where her counsel Major SS Pandey contended that she be allowed to retain her house till her case for getting reinstated into the force was decided. The military court ruled in her favour and ordered the government to stay the eviction process. Thakur, arguably the most widely known face in the Air Force due to the famous 2015 event, is engaged in a legal battle with IAF since July 2016 against denial of a permanent commission like her other counterparts. ALSO READ | Air Force denies permanent commission to Wing Commander Pooja Thakur Permanent commission allows a woman officer get an opportunity to rise to the rank of lieutenant general and retire at 60 with full benefits that the men officers get. advertisement The officer in her petition stated that the IAF decision was "biased, discriminatory, arbitrary and unreasonable". Over a month after filing the case, Thakur's tenure came to an end and she retired with her case still pending for final decision. The IAF stand in the court was that Thakur had rejected to be absorbed earlier and cannot be given a choice again. This has been challenged by her counsel, who said, "At that time, her personal situation was such that she could not decide and that is why she requested the Air Force to change her option. They denied it to her and that is why we have filed a petition." Stressing that Thakur was entitled to a permanent commission, her counsel submitted: "The Air Force has on the basis of a policy stated that she is not entitled for permanent commission. The policy is their own local policy as the government did not give any decision about it. They did not offer her permanent commission in 2006 which they should have, but when the High Court passed the order in 2010 they offered her the same." Thakur was the first woman officer to lead an Inter-Service Guard of Honour when Obama visited India as the chief guest for the 2015 Republic Day parade.ALSO READ|Wing Commander Pooja Thakur who led Obama's Guard of Honour say first we are officers then women --- ENDS --- advertisement [February 09, 2017] Cigna Comments on District Court Decision to Enjoin the Proposed Transaction with Anthem On February 8, 2017, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued an order enjoining the proposed merger between Cigna Corporation (NYSE:CI) and Anthem, Inc. (NYSE:ANTM). Cigna intends to carefully review the opinion and evaluate its options in accordance with the merger agreement. Cigna remains focused on helping to improve health care by delivering value to our customers and clients and expanding our business around the world. About Cigna Cigna Corporation (NYSE:CI) is a global health service company dedicated to helping people improve their health, well-being and sense of security. All products and services are provided exclusively by or through operating subsidiaries of Cigna Corporation, including Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, Cigna Health and Life Insurance Company, Life Insurance Company of North America and Cigna Life Insurance Company of New York. Such products and services include an integrated suite of health services, such as medical, dental, behavioral health, pharmacy, vision, supplemental benefits, and other related products including group life, accident and disability insurance. Cigna maintains sales capability in 30 countries and jurisdictions, and has more than 90 million customer relationships throughout the world. To learn more about Cigna, including links to follow us on Facebook or Twitter (News - Alert), visit www.cigna.com. IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR INVESTORS AND SHAREHOLDERS NO OFFER OR SOLICITATION This communication is neither an offer to buy, nor a solicitation of an offer to sell, subscribe for or buy any securities or the solicitation of any vote or approval in any jurisdiction pursuant to or in connection with the proposed transactions or otherwise, nor shall there be any sale, issuance or transfer of securities in any jurisdiction in contravention of applicable law. No offer of securities shall be made except by means of a prospectus meeting the requirements of Section 10 of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and otherwise in accordance with applicable law. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND WHERE TO FIND IT In connection with the proposed transaction, Anthem has filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC (News - Alert)") a registration statement on Form S-4, including Amendment No. 1 thereto, containing a preliminary joint proxy statement of Anthem and Cigna that also constitutes a preliminary prospectus of Anthem. The registration statement was declared effective by the SEC on October 26, 2015. Each of Anthem and Cigna commenced mailing a definitive joint proxy statement/prospectus to its shareholders on or about October 28, 2015. This communication is not a substitute for the registration statement, definitive joint proxy statement/prospectus or any other document that Anthem and/or Cigna have filed or may file with the SEC in connection with the proposedtransaction. SECURITY HOLDERS ARE URGED TO READ ALL RELEVANT DOCUMENTS FILED OR THAT WILL BE FILED WITH THE SEC, INCLUDING THE REGISTRATION STATEMENT ON (News - Alert) FORM S-4 AND THE DEFINITIVE JOINT PROXY STATEMENT/PROSPECTUS, CAREFULLY BECAUSE THEY CONTAIN OR WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION. The registration statement, the definitive joint proxy statement/prospectus and other relevant materials and any other documents filed or furnished by Cigna or Anthem with the SEC may be obtained free of charge at the SEC's web site at www.sec.gov. In addition, security holders may obtain free copies of the registration statement and the definitive joint proxy statement/prospectus from Cigna by going to its investor relations page on its corporate web site at www.cigna.com or by contacting Cigna's investor relations department at 215-761-4198 and from Anthem by going to its investor relations page on its corporate web site at www.antheminc.com or by contacting Anthem's investor relations department at 317-488-6181. CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS Statements in this document regarding the merger agreement and the transactions related thereto, future growth, business strategy, strategic or operational initiatives, and any other statements about the Company's future expectations, beliefs, goals, plans or prospects constitute forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You may identify forward-looking statements by the use of words such as "believe," "expect," "plan," "intend," "anticipate," "estimate," "predict," "potential," "may," "should," "will" or other words or expressions of similar meaning, although not all forward-looking statements contain such terms. There are a number of important factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those indicated by such forward looking statements, including: ongoing litigation with respect to the ruling, including any action by Anthem to appeal the ruling; potential adverse reactions or changes to business or employee relationships, including those resulting from the announcement of the ruling; competitive responses to the ruling; the inability to retain key personnel; the timing and likelihood of completion of the proposed merger, including the timing, receipt and terms and conditions of any required governmental and regulatory approvals for the proposed merger that could reduce anticipated benefits or cause the parties to abandon the transaction; the possibility that the proposed merger does not close, including due to the failure to satisfy the closing conditions; the risk that unexpected costs will be incurred; our ability to achieve our financial, strategic and operational plans or initiatives; our ability to predict and manage medical costs and price effectively and develop and maintain good relationships with physicians, hospitals and other health care providers; the impact of modifications to our operations and processes, including those in our disability business; our ability to identify potential strategic acquisitions or transactions and realize the expected benefits of such transactions; the substantial level of government regulation over our business and the potential effects of new laws or regulations, or changes in existing laws or regulations; the outcome of litigation, regulatory audits, including the CMS review and sanctions, investigations and actions and/or guaranty fund assessments; uncertainties surrounding participation in government-sponsored programs such as Medicare; the effectiveness and security of our information technology and other business systems; and unfavorable industry, economic or political conditions, including foreign currency movements; any changes in general economic and/or industry specific conditions, as well as more specific risks and uncertainties. Such other risks and uncertainties are discussed in our most recent report on Form 10-K and subsequent reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K available on the Investor Relations section of www.cigna.com as well as on Anthem's most recent report on Form 10-K and subsequent reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K available on the Investor Relations section of www.antheminc.com. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made, are not guarantees of future performance or results, and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict or quantify. Cigna undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required by law. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170208006391/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [February 09, 2017] WISeKey to Establish IoT Blockchain Center of Excellence in New York in Q3 2017 to Serve the United States Market WISeKey International Holding Ltd (WIHN.SW), a leading Swiss cybersecurity and IoT company announced today its intention to establish an IoT Blockchain Centre of Excellence ('Center') in the United States aiming to deploy a Trusted Blockchain as a Service platform. The WISeKey U.S. Centre will be located in New York and it will be operational in Q3 2017. The Center will offer a Blockchain Platform to US based enterprises, facilitating the rapid adaptation of on-board Blockchain based solutions and services. In 2016, WISeKey announced several strategic partnerships with global enterprises including SAP, MasterCard, Microsoft (News - Alert) and Centurylink and is working with experts in industry, government, and academia to address the most relevant Blockchain developments with practical, standards-based solutions using available Blockchain technologies. In that regard, the New York based Center will conduct research, rapid pilot prototyping, co-creation of use cases and IP creation on Blockchain technology and platforms. Carlos Moreira, WISeKey's CEO, noted, "The urgent need to secure IoT in the U.S. and globally, became more imminent following the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack in October 2016, which was the largest of its kind in history. This massive assault on the US and European internet structure, affected millions of internet addresses and temporarily crippled the servers of popular services such as Twitter, Netflix, and PayPal (News - Alert). Additionally, what made this attack more dangerous was the primary source of the malicious traffic attack, was a malware called Mirai botnet, a simple malware program readily available online. While experts agree that IoT remains unsecure, this attack should serve as a wake-up call to quickly improve security. Thus far, a lot has been done to improve corporations' ability to improve response once attacked, but there has been no real strategy to find a solution to prevent such attacks in the first place. WISeKey's technology provides just that... a much needed solution to secure IoT and user identities and minimize risks." At the Center, WISeKey will be cooperating with U.S. based participating companies, on building points of view, proof of concepts, policies, educational materials including addressing all the distributed ledger capabilities across different Blockchain schemes (public, consortium and private), with industry verticalization and domain specialization (IoT, transactions, messaging, etc.), underpinned by the best underlying technologies from startups, our key partners and from the community. For more information visit https://www.wisekey.com/iot/. WISeKey will be localizing in the U.S. its IoT BlockChain which is constantly growing as new blocks are added to it with a new set of recordings. Each WISeID node gets a copy of the WISeID Blockchain and gets downloaded automatically upon joining the WISeID network. Through the WISeID Blockchain app users are always in control of their digital identity stored on their mobile, IoT sensor and or computer and it is only the user who determines which identification attributes are shared with social media, credit cards, merchant sites etc., never disclosing the Personal Identifiable Information (PII) if not required or necessary. WISeID uses Blockchain as a public, immutable ledger that allows third parties to validate that the original Identity or Attribute certifications provided by a Third Trusted Party has not been changed or misrepresented. Keeping control of Digital Identity is key to protecting user's personal data. WISeID technology is also provided as a software development kit (SDK) to third parties wanting to use this method of identification for their identities requirements. At the heart of this platform is the OISTE-WISeKey Cryptographic Root of Trust which has been actively used since 1999 by over 2.6 billion desktops, browsers, mobile devices, SSL certificates and Internet of Things' devices. The OISTE WISeKey Cryptographic Root of Trust is ubiquitous and universal, and a pioneer in the creation of Digital Identities. About WISeKey WISeKey (SIX:WIHN) is a leading global digital security and CyberSecurity company. Working at the forefront of information cybersecurity, identity management, and mobile security, WISeKey's mission is to facilitate the global growth of secure electronic transactions by providing individuals, businesses, cities, citizens, objects, and governments with advanced technology and services that authenticate and protect digital identity across the full spectrum of personal, business and administrative transactions online. At the heart of this 4th Industrial Revolution (News - Alert) strategy is the OISTE-WISeKey Cryptographic Root of Trust which has been actively used since 1999 by over 2.6 billion desktops, browsers, mobile devices, SSL certificates and Internet of Things' devices. The OISTE WISeKey Cryptographic Root of Trust is ubiquitous and universal, and a pioneer in the identification of objects. More articles can be found at https://www.wisekey.com/. To receive WISeKey's latest news, subscribe to our Newsletter or visit the WISeKey Investors Corner. Disclaimer: This communication expressly or implicitly contains certain forward-looking statements concerning WISeKey International Holding Ltd and its business. Such statements involve certain known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which could cause the actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements of WISeKey International Holding Ltd to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. WISeKey International Holding Ltd is providing this communication as of this date and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities, and it does not constitute an offering prospectus within the meaning of article 652a or article 1156 of the Swiss Code of Obligations or a listing prospectus within the meaning of the listing rules of the SIX Swiss Exchange. Investors must rely on their own evaluation of WISeKey and its securities, including the merits and risks involved. Nothing contained herein is, or shall be relied on as, a promise or representation as to the future performance of WISeKey. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170208006109/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Yamaha Motor Establishes Highly Profitable Business Structure Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. (TOKYO:7272) (ISIN:JP3942800008) announced today that in its fiscal 2016 year, which finished on December 31, net income increased 5.2 percent to 63.2 billion yen thanks to business expansion in emerging markets and improved profitability in various business sectors. Net sales decreased 7.9 percent to 1,502.8 billion yen and ordinary income fell 18.5 percent to 102.1 billion yen. In motorcycles, unit sales and operating income were strong in emerging markets such as India, Vietnam and the Philippines, thanks to increased sales of higher-priced products and cost reductions. Global net sales decreased due to foreign exchange effects. In developed markets, continued progress was achieved with initiatives to reduce inventories, improve financial positions and carry out structural reforms. In the marine sector, outboard motor unit sales increased, particularly large models in North America and Europe. Sales and income overall decreased due to oreign exchange effects, but profitability remained high and the operating income ratio was at 19 percent. Initiatives to establish a system-supplier business model achieved progress. In the new fiscal year, markets and business conditions are forecast to progress as before generally. Yamaha (News - Alert) Motor expects to grow income and profits, assuming that foreign exchange rates do not change significantly. The company forecasts fiscal 2017 net sales rising 6.5 percent to 1,600.0 billion yen and net income climbing 18.8 percent to 75.0 billion yen. Operating income and ordinary income are expected to increase 10.5 percent and 17.6 percent, respectively. For more on Yamaha Motor's results, visit: http://bit.ly/2iDSCN8 About Yamaha Motor Yamaha Motor (TOKYO:7272) is a world-leading producer of motorcycles, marine products, power products and intelligent machinery. The company's diverse business and wide variety of products are built around its proprietary technologies focused on small engines, chassis & hull and electronic control. Yamaha Motor conducts global development, production and marketing operations through 140 subsidiaries and equity-method affiliates in 30 countries. About 90% of consolidated net sales are generated in more than 200 countries outside of Japan. The company is steadily restructuring its global engineering, manufacturing and marketing capabilities for sustainable long-term growth. Please visit https://global.yamaha-motor.com/ir/report/. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170209005550/en/ [February 09, 2017] Netskope to Lead Discussion on Maturation of Cloud Ransomware Market at Cloud Security Alliance Summit LOS ALTOS, Calif., Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Netskope, the leader in cloud security, today announced that its co-founder and chief scientist Krishna Narayanaswamy and Director of Netskope Threat Research Labs Ravi Balupari, will lead a discussion on "cloud-first" ransomware at the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) Summit at RSA Conference 2017. The talk will be a technical look at how malicious actors now design ransomware to make best use of popular cloud services to hide in plain sight, and do more damage in less time. CSA Summit Talk Details: SESSION: "Cloud-First" Ransomware: A Technical Analysis DATES: 1:30-1:50 p.m. PT LOCATION: Marriott Marquis Yerba Buena 5, San Francisco SPEAKERS: Krishna Narayanaswamy - Chief Scientist, Netskope Ravi Balupari - Director of Netskope Threat Research Labs, Netskope OVERVIEW: Cloud services have emerged as the preferred attack vector of some of the most dangerous and innovative cloud malware exploits of the past six months. Why? Because many organizations don't inspect their cloud SSL traffic for a malware and the same functionalities of the cloud dramatically increase productivity (sync, share, collaborate, etc) also provide ransomware developers with a perfect medium for faster delivery of malware payloads to more targets. The talk will detail the most recent malware campaign discoveries from The Netskope Threat Research Lab. Krishna and Ravi will provide technical analyses on the following: Virlock ransomware, which encrypts files and also infects them, making it a polymorphic file infector CloudFanta which uses the SugarSync cloud storage app to deliver malware capable of stealing user credentials and monitoring online banking activities CloudSquirrel which takes advantage of multiple cloud apps throughout the ransomware kill chain with the intent to steal and exfiltrate user data The Zepto variant of Locky ransomware now distributed both by popular cloud storage apps and via DLL. This will be the first formal talk from the Netskope Threat Research Labs, launched in early 2016. Staffed by the industry's foremost cloud threat and malware researchers, the Netskope Threat Research Labs discovers and analyzes the latest cloud threats affecting enterprises. With original research and in-depth analysis on cloud malware, new strains of ransomware, and other cloud-related threats, the Labs helps protect Netskope customers from malicious actors and contributes to the global security community with research, advice, and best practices. Led by renowned security researchers, distinguished engineers, and principal architects with experience founding and leading companies in Silicon Valley and around the world, the Netskope Threat Research Labs is based in Los Altos, Calif. with satellite locations in Canada and India. About Netskope Netskope is the leader in cloud security. Using patented technology, Netskope's cloud-scale security platform provides context-aware governance of all cloud usage in the enterprise in real-time, whether accessed from the corporate network, remote, or from a mobile device. This means that security professionals can understand risky activities, protect sensitive data, stop online threats, and respond to incidents in a way that fits how people work today. With granular security policies, the most advanced cloud DLP, and unmatched breadth of workflows, Netskope is trusted by the largest companies in the world. Netskope - cloud with confidence. To learn more, visit our website Media Contact: Matt Coolidge Bateman Group for Netskope [email protected] 347-410-7974 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/netskope-to-lead-discussion-on-maturation-of-cloud-ransomware-market-at-cloud-security-alliance-summit-300404801.html SOURCE Netskope [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [February 09, 2017] Metastatic Uveal Melanoma - Pipeline Review, H2 2016 - Key Players are Bellicum Pharmaceuticals, Celldex Therapeutics, Eli Lilly and Company, Novartis & Spectrum Pharmaceuticals - Research and Markets Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Metastatic Uveal Melanoma - Pipeline Review, H2 2016" report to their offering. Metastatic uveal melanoma is a cancer that has spread from the eye (uveal) to other parts of the body. The most common site of metastasis for uveal melanoma is the liver. Other common sites of metastasis include the lung, bones and just beneath the skin (subcutaneous). Symptoms include jaundice, itchy skin or rash, abnormally high enzymes in the liver, abdominal pain, appetite loss, nausea, and vomiting. Treatment includes surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy. This report provides comprehensive information on the therapeutic development for Metastatic Uveal Melanoma, 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 he therapeutic development for Metastatic Uveal Melanoma 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. Key Topics Covered: Introduction Metastatic Uveal Melanoma Overview Therapeutics Development Pipeline Products for Metastatic Uveal Melanoma - Overview Pipeline Products for Metastatic Uveal Melanoma - Comparative Analysis Metastatic Uveal Melanoma - Therapeutics under Development by Companies Metastatic Uveal Melanoma - Therapeutics under Investigation by Universities/Institutes Metastatic Uveal Melanoma - Pipeline Products Glance Late Stage Products Clinical Stage Products Early Stage Products Metastatic Uveal Melanoma - Products under Development by Companies Metastatic Uveal Melanoma - Products under Investigation by Universities/Institutes Metastatic Uveal Melanoma - Companies Involved in Therapeutics Development Companies Mentioned: Bellicum Pharmaceuticals Inc Celldex Therapeutics Inc Eli Lilly and Company Novartis AG Spectrum (News - Alert) Pharmaceuticals Inc For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/347q8l/metastatic_uveal View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170209005767/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [February 09, 2017] New from Hobart: CLeN Conveyor Dishwasher Launches at 2017 NAFEM Show TROY, Ohio, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Hobart will be launching the new CLeN-series dishwashers at the NAFEM Show in Orlando, Florida, February 9-11, 2017. Show attendees will be able to learn about the CLeN firsthand from product experts in booth #1459. The CLeN will also be featured in NAFEM's WHAT'S HOT! WHAT'S COOL! product gallery. "Our mission is to help customers experience greater efficiency, reliability and cost savings with their dishwashing equipment," said Tim Peters, product line manager for Hobart. "As demand grows for 'green' benefits, increased cost savings, and simplified labor practices, the CLeN helps customers achieve those requirements through superior product innovation and performance." Hobart's CLeN Warewasher turns dishwashing into a science, using industry-leading technology to clean dishes and kitchen ware in less time and at a lower cost of operation. The CLeN Base, CLeN Energy Recovery and CLeN Advansys models offer a powerful new value to an already established performer in the market. The CLeN series delivers the following new features and benefits: Drain Water Energy Recovery (DWER) models provide up to 20 percent energy savings over the CLe series. DWER models capture the heat from exiting drain water and use it to heat the incoming cold water prior to being heated by the booster. Tis allows the machine to run on cold water, reducing hot water usage up to 90 percent. DWER models also temper the drain without the need for additional cold water, ensuring compliance with plumbing codes at a reduced cost. models provide up to 20 percent energy savings over the CLe series. DWER models capture the heat from exiting drain water and use it to heat the incoming cold water prior to being heated by the booster. Tis allows the machine to run on cold water, reducing hot water usage up to 90 percent. DWER models also temper the drain without the need for additional cold water, ensuring compliance with plumbing codes at a reduced cost. Automatic Soil Removal (ASR) , available on CLeN Advansys models, actively pumps out food soil that was missed during pre-scrapping to an external basket. This keeps the wash water cleaner and for longer periods of time by reducing tank fills, saving money on chemicals, water and energy. , available on CLeN Advansys models, actively pumps out food soil that was missed during pre-scrapping to an external basket. This keeps the wash water cleaner and for longer periods of time by reducing tank fills, saving money on chemicals, water and energy. NSF rated "intelligent" configurable Pot & Pan Mode extends wash times for hard to clean ware at the push of a button, reducing or eliminating the need for pre-soaking. extends wash times for hard to clean ware at the push of a button, reducing or eliminating the need for pre-soaking. Programmable De-Lime Alert, based on the customer's water hardness, reduces unnecessary de-liming, saving money on chemicals and extending the life and durability of your machine. www.hobartcorp.com. About Hobart At Hobart, it is our mission to provide premium commercial dishwashers that foodservice and food retail professionals can trust to work hard and deliver quality, consistent results day in and day out, empowering them to focus on what they love mostcreating great food for great people. Achieve a better clean for lessless time, energy and cost. From sparkling glasses to freshly washed dishware and totes, Hobart commercial dishwashers deliver a level of clean that staff and customers will appreciate. Backed by our nationwide network of 1,500 factory-trained service technicians, we're always nearby to install, maintain and service your equipment, no matter the make or model. Hobart is part of ITW Food Equipment Group (a division of Illinois Tool Works) and is proud to be an ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year since 2008. Explore Hobart by visiting www.hobartcorp.com, connecting with us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/hobartcorp or by contacting your local Hobart representative at 888-4HOBART. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-from-hobart-clen-conveyor-dishwasher-launches-at-2017-nafem-show-300405029.html SOURCE Hobart [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [February 09, 2017] BSM Technologies Inc. Reports Fiscal 2017 First Quarter Results TORONTO, Feb. 9, 2017 /CNW/ - BSM Technologies Inc. ("BSM" or the "Company") (TSX: GPS), a leading provider of remote monitoring, fleet management and fleet diagnostics, today announced its financial and operating results for the three months ended December 31, 2016 (the "Quarter"). All amounts are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated. First Quarter of Fiscal 2017 Highlights Recurring Revenue (i) of $11.6 million , an increase of 17% compared to $9.9 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2016 ("Q1 F2016"). of , an increase of 17% compared to in the first quarter of fiscal 2016 ("Q1 F2016"). Hardware and service revenue of $6.8 million , an increase of 17% compared to $5.8 million in Q1 F2016. , an increase of 17% compared to in Q1 F2016. Total revenue of $18.4 million , an increase of 17% compared to $15.7 million in Q1 F2016. , an increase of 17% compared to in Q1 F2016. Adjusted EBITDA (i) of $2.8 million , an increase of 33% compared to $2.1 million in Q1 F2016. of , an increase of 33% compared to in Q1 F2016. On October 3, 2016 , BSM acquired substantially all of the assets of Mobi Corp. ("Mobi"), enhancing BSM's commercial fleet management solutions to include planning, scheduling, route optimization and fleet analytics for consideration of US$8.0 million and up to US$17.0 million in potential earn-out payments. , BSM acquired substantially all of the assets of Mobi Corp. ("Mobi"), enhancing BSM's commercial fleet management solutions to include planning, scheduling, route optimization and fleet analytics for consideration of and up to in potential earn-out payments. Experienced Subscriber (ii) Gross Additions (ii) of 4,300 and Subscriber Churn (ii) of 3,100 in the Quarter. Additionally, BSM acquired 15,100 Subscribers (ii) as a result of the acquisition of the assets of Mobi, bringing the total number of Subscribers (ii) to 168,400 as of the end of the Quarter. Gross Additions of 4,300 and Subscriber Churn of 3,100 in the Quarter. Additionally, BSM acquired 15,100 Subscribers as a result of the acquisition of the assets of Mobi, bringing the total number of Subscribers to 168,400 as of the end of the Quarter. On December 19, 2016 , BSM received approval to commence a normal course issuer bid (the "Bid"). Under the terms of the Bid, BSM may acquire up to 7,027,655 common shares, representing approximately 10% of the total public float of common shares, as defined by the Toronto Stock Exchange. As at December 31, 2016 , BSM had repurchased and cancelled nil common shares pursuant to the Bid. Management Commentary: "Strong revenue growth, in combination with robust gross margins and net Subscriber additions saw us deliver record results for BSM this quarter," said Aly Rahemtulla, BSM's President and CEO. "Our fiscal 2017 first quarter was highlighted by closing our acquisition of the Mobi assets and the fulfillment of previously announced large-scale hardware deployments. As we integrate the Mobi product offering with our technology, we believe that our enhanced end-to-end enterprise solution will better serve our customers, deepen our client relationships and enable additional commercial growth across our verticals." Mr. Rahemtulla continued: "Growing our pipeline, delivering exceptional customer service and executing on organic growth opportunities will be our focus this fiscal year. Further, and as announced previously, we plan to continue to invest in the business with the goal of achieving best-in-class sales and marketing, customer experience and technology. Overall, we are excited about our first quarter results and the fiscal year ahead and we look forward to continuing to build a bigger and better BSM." Second Generation (2G)/CDMA Wireless Network Shutdown Certain wireless carrier partners of BSM have announced that they will shutdown their 2G/CDMA wireless networks in an effort to transition users towards next generation cellular network technology. As a part of these network shutdowns, they have announced that they plan on taking their 2G/CDMA towers offline. This 2G/CDMA network shutdown will affect some BSM Subscribers that continue to rely on this technology to operate their fleet management devices. Although many of its customers have already transitioned to newer network platforms, BSM believes that approximately 10,000 of its Subscribers will be impacted in the first quarter of calendar 2017. Mr. Rahemtulla added: "We are mindful of the impact that this event will have on our customers. We are diligently working to convince them to upgrade their fleet management devices and benefit from enhanced technology and greater functionality, however, we expect a significant portion of these customers to unsubscribe." Financial Highlights for the First Quarter of Fiscal 2017: ($ thousands except gross margin % and per share data) Three months ended December 31 2016 2015 Total revenue $ 18,363 $ 15,701 Recurring revenue(i) 11,561 9,875 Hardware and service revenue 6,802 5,826 Gross profit 10,912 8,672 Gross margin % 59% 55% Net income (loss) (465) (505) Basic income (loss) per share (0.006) (0.006) Diluted income (loss) per share (0.006) (0.006) EBITDA(i) 2,344 1,698 Adjusted EBITDA(i) $ 2,818 $ 2,114 Notes: (i) Recurring Revenue, EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA are non-GAAP financial measures and do not have any standardized meaning prescribed by the Company's GAAP and are therefore unlikely to be comparable to similar measures presented by other issuers. See "Non-GAAP Disclosures" below for additional information. (ii) Subscriber, Subscriber Gross Additions and Subscriber Churn are key performance indicators of the Company and are therefore unlikely to be comparable to similar measures presented by other issuers. Refer to the "Non-GAAP Financial Measures and KPIs" section in the Company's management's discussion and analysis for the three months ended December 31, 2016 (the "Q1 FY2017 MD&A"), available at www.sedar.com, for further information on these definitions. The Company's condensed interim consolidated financial statements for the three months ended December 31, 2016, together with its corresponding management's discussion and analysis can be found under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on the Company's website at www.bsmwireless.com. Conference call details: DATE: Friday, February 10, 2017 TIME: 8:30 a.m. ET DIAL-IN NUMBER: 647-427-7450 or 1-888-231-8191 CONFERENCE ID: 59679232 TAPED REPLAY: 416-849-0833 or 1-855-859-2056 Reference number 59679232 Available until Friday, February 17, 2017 at midnight LIVE WEBCAST: http://bit.ly/2jbbrSZ Webcast will be archived for 90 days About BSM Technologies Inc. (bsmwireless.com) BSM Technologies Inc., through its subsidiaries, is a global top 20 commercial fleet telematics provider for automatic vehicle location (AVL) solutions that improve efficiency, accountability and reduce costs for fleet operators. BSM's end-to-end solutions automate record keeping and regulatory compliance, reduce fuel burn and idling, mitigate risk, and keep drivers safe. BSM provides solutions for commercial and government units who manage and operate diverse assets and large fleets that utilize its integrated fleet tracking, fleet maintenance, and intelligent business engine which provides real time, web-based tracking of mobile and fixed assets. For more information, please visit http://www.bsmwireless.com Non-GAAP Disclosures This news release includes the measures "Recurring Revenue", "EBITDA" and "Adjusted EBITDA", which are deemed "non-GAAP financial measures" under applicable laws. Non-GAAP financial measures do not have any standardized meaning under the Company's GAAP and therefore may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other issuers. Readers are cautioned that that the disclosure of these items are meant to add to, and not replace, the discussion of financial results or cash flows from operations as determined by GAAP. BSM believes that investors use these non-GAAP financial measures as indicators to assess telematics companies. Refer to the "Non-GAAP Financial Measures and KPIs" section in the Q1 FY2017 MD&A, available at www.sedar.com, for further information on the definition, calculation and reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures. "Recurring Revenue" includes monthly application service provider fees, monthly monitoring fees, and resale of cellular and satellite data. Recurring Revenue is derived from the service revenue category within the segmented information note of the Company's financial statements. BSM believes that Recurring revenue provides useful information to BSM's investors because it shows the long term nature of service revenue. "EBITDA" and "Adjusted EBITDA" are measures of BSM's operating profitability. BSM believes that EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA provide useful information to its investors because they exclude transactions not related to the core cash operating business activities, allowing meaningful analysis of the performance of BSM's core cash operations. EBITDA is an indicator of the financial results generated by BSM's business activities excluding: the impact of any financing activities; amortization of property, equipment and intangible assets; and taxes with respect to various jurisdictions. Adjusted EBITDA is a further refinement of EBITDA to remove the effect of: acquisition, integration and restructuring related costs; share-based compensation expense; write-off of goodwill or other impairments to any financial and non-financial assets; fair value adjustments on contingent consideration; and costs related to certain legal actions. As such, Adjusted EBITDA provides more meaningful continuity with respect to the comparison of BSM's operating results over time. EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA are derived from the consolidated statements of operations and comprehensive income and statement of cash flows. BSM believes that using these metrics enhances an overall understanding of the Company's results and BSM presents them for that purpose. Refer to the "Non-GAAP Financial Measures and KPIs" section in the Q1 FY2017 MD&A, available under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com, for further information on the calculation and reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This news release includes certain forward-looking statements or information under applicable Canadian, U.S. and other securities laws. Such forward-looking information and statements are often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "seek", "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "estimate", "expect" and "intend" and statements that an event or result "may", "will", "should", "could", or "might" occur or be achieved and any other similar expressions. Such forward-looking information includes but is not limited to, statements with respect to enhancing the Company's enterprise solution in order to better serve the Company's customers and achieve greater commercial growth, the future financial or operating performance of the Company, the resources and financial flexibility of the Company, plans to continue to invest in the Company's sales and marketing, customer experience and technology, the impact of the 2G/CDMA network shutdown on the Company and its customers and the ability of the Company to capitalize on future opportunities. These forward-looking statements, and any assumptions upon which they are based, are made in good faith and reflect our current judgment regarding the direction of our business and include, but are not limited to, successfully completing a hardware and software consolidation and developing an enhanced enterprise solution, current and future customers reacting positively to the enhance enterprise solution leading to increased commercial growth, reducing Subscriber Churn through internal investments, the financial position of the Company and the impact of the 2G/CDMA network shutdown. Management believes that these assumptions are reasonable; however, some risks include, but are not limited to, the failure to efficiently or successfully complete hardware and software consolidation, the failure to develop an enhance enterprise solution, the failure to judge the impact of the 2G/CDMA network shutdown, the failure to capitalize on future opportunities, and the failure to reduce Subscriber Churn through internal investments. Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking information. Some of these risks, uncertainties and other factors are described under the heading "Risk Factors" in BSM's most recent annual information form available at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking statements or information are based on estimates and opinions of management at the date the statements are made. Except as required by applicable law, BSM does not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking information. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. SOURCE BSM Technologies Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] 2017 PMI Mile Hi Project Management Symposium to Offer "Flawless Execution" and "The Art of Vision in Project Management,"-Coming Friday, April 14, 2017, Denver, CO Afterburner Consultants, Inc., former US fighter pilots who bring the successful processes of military aviation to complex business challenges, will present their popular "Flawless Execution" model as the morning keynote at PMI Mile Hi's 19th Annual Rocky Mountain Project Management Symposium, Friday, April 14, 2017, Colorado Convention Center. Born in the high reliability world of military aviation, Afterburner's Flawless Execution is a simple, scalable approach to performance improvement. Since 1996, more than 1.5 million professionals have experienced the power of Afterburner's combat-proven techniques for increased success in today's increasingly complex world of business. Erik Wahl, internationally recognized American graffiti artist, speed-painter, motivational speaker & author of "Unthink," will present the closing address on "The Art of Vision in Project Management." Wahl's presentation will re-ignite creativity, bringing innovative thinking, business, vision and project management together. Workshops, breakouts and panels will be featured on topics including project management tools & techniques, Agile (News - Alert)/Lean/Six Sigma, leadrship, communication and teams. Expanded networking times are being offered. The full day conference also offers Continental breakfast, hot lunch buffet, social hour and PDUs. More than 1,500 individuals typically attend the event. It is the largest annual gathering of the project leadership community of the Rocky Mountain West. "There is an art and a science to excellence in project management," noted Karen Dickinson, PMP, Symposium Director. "With Afterburner starting the morning with science and Erik Wahl closing with creativity, we are offering dynamic insights and useable takeaways for improving project execution." Symposium core team members are Karen Dickinson, PMP, Symposium Director; Robert Calkins, PMP, Technology; Nancy Cassell, PMP & Lisa VanderHeyden, PMP, Registration; Gary Dagenhart, PMP, Sponsors & Exhibitors; Jim Escue, PMP, Speakers; Laurie Haberthier, PMP, PMI Mile Hi President & Symposium Sponsor; Susan Kober, PMP, Volunteers; Patricia McLaughlin, McLaughlin Marketing & Public Relations; Laila Saether, PMP, Event Logistics; and Kimberly Wendelin, PMP, Administration. For sponsor & exhibitor information, contact Gary Dagenhart, PMP, [email protected] for Registration & Group Discounts, Lisa VanderHeyden, PMP, [email protected], and for information, Karen Dickinson, PMP, [email protected]. Register at www.PmiMileHiSym.org. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170209006304/en/ A look back on all of our reporting of the Delphi murders since 2017 crime By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Feb 9 (PTI) WTO chief Roberto Azevedo today asked the member countries to "redouble efforts" to meet the deadline for finding the permanent solution for the food security purposes, a key area of interest for India. He said WTO has a clear mandated deadline for finding solution by the forthcoming ministerial meeting, which is scheduled in December in Argentina. advertisement "So, we must redouble our efforts to meet the deadline," he said, adding the issue is important as this decision protects developing countries from legal challenges at the WTO in connection with governmental support for stock piling of staple food at guaranteed prices. The Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) said it was particularly important for India but "there is a lot of work to do". "So, now what we are trying to do is whether by December, we can come up with a permanent solution for that," Azevedo told reporters here. He also said the G-33 group of countries, which includes India, has submitted a proposal in this regard with the Geneva-based body. However, he said, that proposal has not evolved over time and "I am not sure whether convergence can be found on the basis of that proposal without further revisions". For a permanent solution, India had proposed either amending the formula to calculate the food subsidy cap of 10 per cent, which is based on the reference price of 1986-88, or allowing such schemes outside the purview of subsidy caps. Finding a solution is important for India as it would help in smooth implementation of its food security law. Further commenting on Indias economy, he said India is the fastest growing G20 economy and there are strong signals that would continue on this path. "India is carrying out a wide range of reforms to improve and strengthen institutions. The demonetisation initiative to help formalise the economy is not just the example of the effort....," he added. He also said that tax reforms and ease of doing business would help in attracting foreign investments. "I would like to commend Indias courage in pursuing all these reforms. They are not easy and these efforts are being recognised around the world," he said. MORE PTI RR BAL --- ENDS --- Council approves rules to limit self-storage growth Future self-storage facilities in the city of Thousand Oaks will be excluded from prime commercial areas, according to a new ordinance adopted by the City Council this month. In a... Dealership does Distinguished thing SPECIAL TRIPChildren from Boys & Girls clubs in Camarillo, Simi Valley and Moorpark, and Oxnard and Port Hueneme attended Misty Copelands Oct. 18 appearance in the Distinguished Speaker Series at... Stagecoach Inn honors veterans The Stagecoach Inn Museum is honoring those who served with a Veterans Day exhibit featuring museum volunteers who have served in the military as well as family members who have... By Press Trust of India: Earlier, replying to a question in Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh said the government has consistently highlighted to China the threat of cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan and affecting the region, including India. "Specifically, we have emphasised forcefully that while Pakistan-based JeM has been proscribed by the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee established under UNSC Resolutions 1267/1989/2253, as far back as 2001, for its well-known terror activities and links to the al Qaeda. advertisement "The designation of JeMs main leader, financer and motivator Masood Azhar has been repeatedly put on a technical hold. China decided to block the proposal to list Azhar as a designated terrorist in end December 2016," Singh said. He said similarly on earlier occasions, India had sought action in 1267 UN Sanctions Committee against known terrorists, including LeT leaders Zakiur Rehman Lakhavi and Hafiz Saeed, and Hizbul Mujahideen leader Syed Salahuddin. India had requested China, in accordance with its "professed position of zero tolerance for terrorism and its desire for strengthening counter-terrorism cooperation with India", to support its request, the minister said. "However, China did not support Indias request and placed technical hold and blocked action by 1267 Committee," Singh said. He said China has stated its "resolute opposition to terrorism" in all forms and has agreed that there is no justification for terrorism. "The government continues to push forward with resolute determination through the use of all available options to bring perpetrators of terrorist violence to justice," Singh said. Responding to a question, M J Akbar, MoS in MEA, said India has not had any structured dialogue with China on Baluchistan issue, but has expressed concern, including at multilateral fora, about human rights violations in the insurgency-hit province of Pakistan, where it has made significant investment. In response to another question, Akbar said at the UN level, India has consistently highlighted that terrorism poses one of the foremost threats to international peace and security. "In this context (India) has underlined the importance of ensuring coherence and transparency in the functioning of various bodies inside the UN that deal with the issue. "In July 2016, member countries of the UN General Assembly (UNGA), including India, requested the Secretary General to submit a report to the UNGA by April 2018 on the implementation of UNs Global Counter Terrorism Strategy to be discussed in June 2018 during the 72nd session of the UNGA," Akbar said. PTI PR NSD SC NSD --- ENDS --- About 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims live in apartheid-like conditions in northwestern Myanmar, where they are denied citizenship. Many in Buddhist-majority Myanmar regard them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. A banner is tied to barbed-wire outside the Myanmar embassy during a protest against what organisers say is the crackdown on ethnic Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, in Jakarta, Indonesia November 25, 2016. By Reuters: More than 1,000 Rohingya Muslims may have been killed in a Myanmar army crackdown, according to two senior United Nations officials dealing with refugees fleeing the violence, suggesting the death toll has been a far greater than previously reported. The officials, from two separate U.N. agencies working in Bangladesh, where nearly 70,000 Rohingya have fled in recent months, said they were concerned the outside world had not fully grasped the severity of the crisis unfolding in Myanmar's Rakhine State. advertisement "The talk until now has been of hundreds of deaths. This is probably an underestimation - we could be looking at thousands," said one of the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity. Both officials, in separate interviews, cited the weight of testimony gathered by their agencies from refugees over the past four months for concluding the death toll likely exceeded 1,000.Also Read: Muslim man beheaded after interview by media in Myanmar Myanmar's presidential spokesman, Zaw Htay, said the latest reports from military commanders were that fewer than 100 people have been killed in a counterinsurgency operation against Rohingya militants who attacked police border posts in October. Asked about the UN officials' comments that the dead could number more than 1,000, he said: "Their number is much greater than our figure. We have to check on the ground." About 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims live in apartheid-like conditions in northwestern Myanmar, where they are denied citizenship. Many in Buddhist-majority Myanmar regard them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. In addition to the information the two UN officials gave Reuters, a report released by the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Friday gave accounts of mass killings and gang rapes by troops in northwestern Myanmar in recent months, which it said probably constituted crimes against humanity. The government led by Aung San Suu Kyi said last week it would investigate the allegations in the report. It has previously denied almost all accusations of killings, rapes and arson. But mounting evidence of atrocities by the army puts Suu Kyi, who has no control over the armed forces under a constitution written by the previous military government, in a difficult position, Myanmar-based diplomats say. The Nobel peace prize winner has been criticised in the West for her silence on the issue, undermining the goodwill she built up as a democracy champion under years of junta rule and threatening international support. Challenging the generals, however, could put Myanmar's democratic transition at risk. COUNTING THE DEAD Independent verification of what has been happening in Myanmar is extremely difficult as the military has cut off access to northwestern Rakhine. advertisement The OHCHR report cited supporting evidence including bullet and knife wounds sustained by refugees and satellite imagery showing destruction of villages. A second senior U.N. official, from a different agency in Bangladesh, told Reuters that the report only described "the tip of the iceberg". The OHCHR report was based on interviews with 220 people, the majority of whom said they knew of people who had been killed or disappeared. Reuters also has reviewed a separate, internal U.N. analysis using a much larger sample size. In this unpublished report, based on interviews with families comprising more than 1,750 refugees, there were 182 reports of killings of people just in the interviewee's home village, and 186 reports of people from their village disappearing, more than 10 percent in both cases. The document acknowledges the actual number in both categories was likely lower as interviewees from the same village may have separately described the same incidents. The U.N. says 69,000 people have crossed the border since October, so if the proportion reporting people killed or missing among all the refugees was consistent with those in the report the total number would run into the thousands.HARROWING ACCOUNTS advertisement According to refugees' accounts provided to Reuters in camps in Bangladesh over the past two weeks, the army intensified its offensive in northern Rakhine in mid-November, unleashing what the OHCHR report described as a "calculated policy of terror" after an incident in which several hundred Rohingya attacked an outnumbered group of soldiers, killing an officer. The OHCHR report details deaths in random firings, including from helicopters and grenades; targeted killings of imams and teachers, slitting of throats with knives and locking people inside burning houses. Reuters reporters have heard similar accounts from refugees in the camps in Bangladesh. Khatun Hazera, a 35-year-old woman from the village of Kya Guang Taung, told Reuters that soldiers shot her husband, a teacher at the village madrassa, as he was returning from school with his students. "They shot him and then turned the body upside down, dragged it, put a sword inside it and took pictures," she said. Her elderly parents-in-law, interviewed separately, gave similar accounts. Reuters could not independently confirm these accounts. Presidential spokesman Zaw Htay said the authorities "will try to verify" such reports, adding: "If it's true we need to find out the reason and the background data about the incident."WHERE ARE THE MEN? advertisement The OHCHR report says that the vast majority of the new Rohingya refugees were women and children, raising questions about the fate of the men left behind, U.N. officials said. "Boys and men between the age of 17 and 45 were particularly targeted, as they are considered to be strong and seen as a potential threat to the army and authorities," it said, adding that many accounts describe men of that age being rounded up and taken away with their hands tied behind their backs or heads. Zaw Htay said the police and army were doing their jobs in making arrests. Myanmar authorities have given little information about how many may have been detained, although prison officials told a U.N. human rights envoy last month that they were holding about 450 people. "If you look at the new arrivals - the majority are women - so many of them talk about a killed husband, a slaughtered uncle or a missing brother. Where are all the men?" said the first U.N. official. --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Feb 9 (PTI) The wife of a BSF jawan, who went public through the social media alleging poor quality food being served to soldiers, today filed a habeas corpus plea in the Delhi High Court claiming that her husband is untraceable and the family has been unable to contact him for last three days. advertisement BSF jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav had on January 9 posted a video on Facebook which showed a meal box comprising a watery soup-like dal, which he said had only turmeric and salt and a burnt chapatti. He had said this is what jawans were served at mealtime on duty at places including the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan and that jawans often went to bed on empty stomach. Pursuant to the video going viral on the social media, the Prime Ministers Office had sought a detailed factual report on it from the Union Home Ministry and BSF. A PIL was also filed in the Delhi High Court seeking a direction to the government to depute higher officers to supervise cooking of proper healthy food and its distribution. It sought a status report regarding the quality of food served to soldiers along the LoC. The high court had issued notice on the petition to various paramilitary forces, including the Border Security Force (BSF), seeking their stand on the allegation of poor quality food being served to the troops. It had also directed BSF to produce before it the investigation report and the steps taken with regard to the allegations levelled by the BSF jawan. Now less than a month after the PIL was filed, Yadavs wife, Sharmila, and his family are claiming that the soldier is untraceable and that they have not been able to reach him. She has sought a high-level enquiry into his disappearance as well as the recent rejection of his plea for voluntary retirement. When contacted, Ex-paramilitary Personnel Welfare Association general secretary Ranbir Singh said that he, along with Sharmila and her elder brother, had met the BSF director general who had assured them that a "fair inquiry as per procedure" will be conducted in the case. Singh also said that the BSF DG told them that the jawan was hospitalised. Earlier, BSF had said that Yadavs plea under the Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) was cancelled as a Court of Inquiry (CoI) was pending against him. PTI PPS HMP SJK SC --- ENDS --- advertisement Back in the mid-to-late 2000s, the mash-up DJ was the king of the dancefloor, deftly weaving Lil Jon together with a classic rock riff to build a Frankensteins banger. If you long for the days of being able to hear Ludacris and Modest Mouse at the exact same time, well, this is your lucky day. The Magic iPod is a very clever site that allows you to drag and drop an assortment of your favourite rap verses from the likes of Kanye, 50 Cent or Nelly onto the guitar backing of your choosing, with everyone from Vanessa Carlton to Franz Ferdinand accounted for. The site will then smoosh the two together for you seamlessly, allowing for endless tinkering and nostalgic longing in equal measure. There are around 20 tracks of each variety to pick from, although theyre not all compatible with each other, so while Missy Elliot may play nicely with The White Stripes, you wont be able to throw her together with Blink 182. Still, its a pretty well-curated selection of your favourite noughties jams, and has already kept us toying around with it for far too long. In a nice touch, the site has foregone monetisation and is instead just doing its best to raise money for the American Civil Liberties Union its nice to see Soulja Boys Crank That used for good rather than evil. Aspiring mashup DJs can give it a try here. One of the latest killer guitar bands to spring out of the verdant Perth soil, former Unearthed winners Tired Lion are marching towards the release of their debut album, and have today announced that theyll be getting a little bit of help from none other than Violent Sohos Luke Boerdam. The four-piece are wading into the studio this week to start putting their anticipated full-length debut together, and theyve enlisted Luke for production duties to help make sure they put their best foot forward. Tired Lion of course joined The Bronx and Luca Brasi in supporting Soho on their 2016 tour, and made fast friends, now convincing Luke to produce for another band for the first time. For his part, he seems excited about his production debut. Landed in Perth and stoked to start making a record with these legends!!! he says. The new songs are sounding sick!! Its got the guitar smarts of The Breeders, pulled back a little like Splendora, with some solid Basement style riffage I cant wait for people to hear it! The two parties formed a bond last year when Tired Lion supported Violent Soho on their national Australian tour, alongside The Bronx and Luca Brasi. It will be the first time in his career that Boerdam has taken the reins as the producer for another band. 2016 had already seen Tired Lion jump onto a lot of radars (not to mention the lineups of everything from Falls and Splendour to the UKs Glastonbury), and working with Luke is a sure-fire bet to keep that momentum rolling, as he and his band seem to know a thing or two about how to make a rock record. We were already eagerly awaiting this one, but needless to say expectations have just shot through the roof. We dont know what the combo will bring just yet though, so for now give Tired Lions Soho cover on triple j Like A Version a spin, and dream. Indivisible KC: creating a community of Kansas Citians united against the Trump agenda through organized, grassroots efforts inspired by the Indivisible Guide WILL THIS HIGHLY ORGANIZED AND NATIONALLY CONNECTED KANSAS CITY PROTEST HELP TO STOP THE PREZ TRUMP AGENDA IN KANSAS CITY?!?! A lot of recent Kansas City protests against Prez Trump are anything but "grassroots" and insteadthey'rethe work of meticulous planning an nationwide organization.Some. . . But it's always pointless to try and guess people's motives in much the same way that Former Prez Nixon once blamed the commies for everything from the weather to a bad episode of Laugh-In.But I digress . . .The point here is that "Indivisible KC" aren't just a bunch of palookas with nothing to do during the day . . . They're an organized movement with a very clear set of objectives. There's a tea party comparison for local media to regurgitate but these folks aren't really advocating for any real reform inside the Democratic Party.Their mission statement:Again, getting hung-up on a conspiracy is unproductive . . . Instead, it's more important to look at expediency.To wit . . .There have been good times and fun signs but so far there doesn't look to be much stopping flyover country politicos on the winning team . . . Not even protesters reinforcing themselves on local street corners and social media.You decide . . . Professor Emeritus of the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki Cartography Department Evangelos Livieratos revealed that ancient Greeks living off the coast of Ionia - known nowadays as Asia Minor - from the city of Melitus were the first to use stars and their relationship with the earths surface like a GPS system to aid them in navigating around the Earth. According to the professor's presentation at the Gerovasili Museum, these ancient Ionian Greeks were essentially the first to adopt a form of GPS system in global history during the 7th Century BC since they utilized the position of the stars as satellites through their relationship to the earths surface. Mr. Livieratos explained that the first known depiction of a map dates back to 30,000 BC and was discovered in northern Italy as a rock inscription. "The rock inscriptions possibly portray some shacks, a curve which might be a natural barrier (mountain, forest or river) and on the other side of the curve animals, the professor noted adding that. "Before the satellites, for thousands of years people were doing roughly the same thing as satellites do today, using the stars. They not only used the stars, but their relationship with the earths surface, much like satellites do today. He also underlined that a couple of centuries after the Ionian Greeks used this method to navigate, ancient people described and understood the sphere. "A physical 3-dimensional sphere with meridians and parallels was invented around the era of Hipparhcus in the 2nd Century BC" according to the professor who also related that "Ptolemy, the Greek mathematician, astronomer and geographer was the first to compile a detailed map/book of the 7,000 known places of his time and that is why he is considered the father of Geography. 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 Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright: Fyodor Bronnikov License: CC-BY-SA Greek Alternate Foreign Minister raised the issue of the special visa for Turkish tourists during a meeting with European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans in Brussels Greek Alternate Foreign Minister George Katrougalos raised the issue of the special visa for Turkish tourists travelling to the islands of the eastern Aegean during a meeting with European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans in Brussels on Wednesday. The pilot visa program, which started in 2012 and expired on October 30, 2016, had been approved by the European Commission and was crucial for the islands which rely on tourism to counter the effects of the refugee crisis. It constituted an exception from the Schengen rules. Katrougalos also thanked Timmermans for his stable position and solidarity concerning migration and according to the minister the two sides converged on the issues of the Common European Asylum System and the revision of the Dublin Regulation. The minister also briefed Greek MEPs on the countrys priorities during the first half of the year and mainly the future of Europe and migration. Read more here. 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 Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called for the implementation of the Minsk Agreement in Ukraine Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called for the implementation of the Minsk Agreement in Ukraine during a joint press conference with Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Groysman in Kiev on Wednesday. Concerning regional developments, we watch with concern the resurgence of tensions. Greece always supports the need for peace in Ukraine," he told journalists. We are at a new transitional phase for global developments and our countries must strengthen dialog to ensure peace in the wider region. The Minsk Agreement for peace in Ukraine must be implemented, he added. The two leaders discussed at a private meeting earlier bilateral relations and international developments, as well as economic cooperation. I want to note that Greece has a particular interest on the wider Black Sea area, with which it is connected through ties [] More than 100,000 Ukrainian citizens of Greek origin live in Ukraine and speak the Greek language, he said. Concerning economic cooperation, Tsipras said the two sides decided to hold an interministerial meeting in the near future. On his side, Groysman thanked the Greek premier for his first visit to Ukraine saying the two countries have a wide range for cooperation. There is ample room for economic cooperation. We discussed security issues and bilateral relations for the cooperation between the two countries, he said. Read more here. 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 The head of the EuroGroup, Jeroen Dijsselbloem warned that the Netherlands would withdraw from the Greek bailout program if the IMF departed. Only a day after he dubbed the IMF Executive Directors statement on the Greek matter outdated, Mr. Dijsselbloem stressed that the Dutch parliemnt was quite clear on the matter, according to newspaper Telegraph. Addressing Dutch MPs he underlined that the Netherlands would not remain on board the program in the event the Fund withdrew its funding, adding that Germany would do the same. It should be noted that only 24 hours ago, the Dutch politician was highly critical on the IMFs report on Greece, labeling it outdated and claiming it was especially harsh on the course of the Greek economy. Read more here. 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 A five-member Criminal Appeals Court on Wednesday again rejected a request filed by jailed former Greek minister Akis Tsohatzopoulos for his release from prison A five-member Criminal Appeals Court on Wednesday again rejected a request filed by jailed former Greek minister Akis Tsohatzopoulos for his release from prison. This is the fourth time that a petition requesting Tsohatzopoulos' release and a suspension of his 20-year prison sentence has been declined. Tsohatzopoulos is currently in Attiko Hospital in Athens, where he was admitted on Monday suffering from what his doctor described as dangerous venous ulcer requiring immediate surgery. In spite of this, the court found that the minister's stay in prison was not prejudicial to his health and would not cause "irreparable harm," since he could promptly be taken to hospital if necessary. The former minister was jailed for receiving kickbacks from contracts for the purchase of submarines and TORM1 missiles when he was head of the defence ministry. Read more here. 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 By India Today Web Desk: A huge political crisis has broken out in Tamil Nadu after O Panneerselvam's surprising rebellion against AIADMK General-Secretary Sasikala Natarajan, just a day before she was to replace him as chief minister. It's clear neither of these two leaders of two factions can fill the vacuum left by the charismatic Jayalalithaa. While O Panneerselvam has handled many crises that came one after the other, he doesn't seem to have control over a majority of Tamil Nadu MLAs. Sasikala, whose ascension to power has been paused, is not an undisputed leader like Jayalalithaa was. Tamil Nadu is witnessing the worst constitutional crisis after the hospitalisation of then chief minister MG Ramachandran back in 1984. advertisement ALSO READ: Sasikala vs Panneerselvam- 5 film roles Chinnamma will fit perfectly in ALSO READ: SS Rajamouli's Mahabharata to feature Rajinikanth, Mohanlal, Aamir Khan? Both MGR and Jayalalithaa were big filmstars and that added to their charisma off screen as well. While there is always rumours of Tamil film stars joining politics, never has been the need so prominent now. Kamal Haasan has spoken out in favour of O Panneerselvam and condemned the lust of power some have without having the necessary experience, though he did not name Sasikala. But other big names have been silent. No silence has been louder than that of Ajith Kumar, who was rumoured to be Jayalalithaa's successor. While that needed a pinch of salt, that Jayalalithaa was very fond of him is a fact no one denies. In fact, in Ajith Kumar's own words, Jayalalithaa treated him as her own son. "She showered her love as if I was her own son," is how Kolly Insider quoted him. When Jayalalithaa was hospitalised in September last year, Ajith Kumar was the among of the first celebrities to pay a visit. Rumours were rife that Ajith was anointed as her successor and that O Panneerselvam, who served as the chief minister of Tamil Nadu from 2001 to 2002 and again from 2014 to 2015, will guide Ajith Kumar when he takes charge as the chief minister. Jayalalithaa and Ajith Kumar locked horns with the DMK: Dravidian politics is known for its infamous fight between the AIADMK and DMK. It is worth mentioning that Ajith Kumar spoke against DMK supremo Kalaignar Karunanidhi at an award function. He requested the Dravidian stalwart to not infuse politics with cinema. Interestingly, superstar Rajinikanth gave a standing ovation for his speech. Jayalalithaa was the reason behind Ajith Kumar's six-packs: According to a report in Behindwoods, it was Ajith Kumar's meeting with late Puratchi Thalaivi Jayalalithaa that motivated Thala to hit the gym. When Vedalam hit the screens in 2015, Ajith Kumar reportedly met Jayalalithaa at her residence in Chennai. During the course of their meeting, Jaya quizzed about Ajith's beefed up body, which supposedly triggered the latter. advertisement Veteran actor Kamal Haasan, who is known raising his voice for the matters concerning politics and artistic liberties, came out strongly against Sasikala. Unlike Ajith Kumar, Kamal Haasan has had locked horns with the AIADMK several times, be it during the release of Vishwaroopam or Chennai floods. However, Ulaganayagan, in an interview to India Today, said, "If I don't raise my voice now, then I'm not an honest man." Ajith Kumar, who has maintained a cordial relationship with Jayalalithaa and someone who has a prominent voice in Tamil Nadu can smoothen things up, only if he chose to mince words. What's happening in TN is not a political crisis, but complete shutdown of democracy itself. Noted Tamil actors including Madhavan, Khushubu Sundar and Siddharth came out in public and voiced their opinions. As an intense situation prevails over Tamil Nadu, people want someone like Ajith, who they have adored for years to join them in this time of grief, to empathise with them. ALSO WATCH: Kamal Haasan backs O Panneerselvam, says he has proved his mettle till now --- ENDS --- The carnival of Xanthi is expected to attract over 5,000 Turkish tourists who are expected to visit the region at the last weekend of February The carnival of Xanthi is expected to attract over 5,000 Turkish tourists who are expected to visit the region at the last weekend of February. A lot of tourists from Greece and the Balkans flock to Xanthi these days. "In order to serve the accommodation needs, hotels from Orestiada to Drama, Serres and Thessaloniki are full," Stefanos Hatzimanolis, vice president of the Greek-Turkish Chamber of Commerce of Northern Greece, said to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency. "People from Bursa, Istanbul, East Thrace, Dardanelles, even from Smyrna come to Xanthi," Hatzimanolis said and explained that the carnival attracts a lot of people because it offers something different and is well organised. Read more here. 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 Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright: Pitichinaccio License: CC-BY-SA Omans industrial estates had attracted investment to the tune of RO6 billion ($15.5 billion) till the first half of 2016, the chief executive officer of Public Establishment for Industrial Estates (PEIE) was quoted in a report. The number of projects in various industrial estates has touched 1,688, of which 277 projects are under construction, and 349 projects have been allotted land, Hilal bin Hamad Al Hasani was quoted in the Times of Oman report. It is expected that a large portion of these projects will initiate their operational processes in the near future. PEIE attracted investments of RO228 million in various industrial estates during the first half of 2016,he said, adding that by the end of the first half of 2016, it had provided more than 46,000 job opportunities, of which 17,000 were for locals. The leased area in the various industrial estates pertaining to the PEIE had touched 33.2 million sq m during the first half of 2016, he noted. The PEIEs tender regulations have been published in the official gazette in the beginning of this year. This will give PEIE the flexibility in providing services in its industrial estates in accordance with the best management practices, Al Hasani said. A master plan has been prepared for the Sohar Industrial Estate, taking into account the current seven phases and the surrounding developments. The master plan covers both, basic infrastructure and social welfare, such as housing, recreational and commercial facilities which are required to support the industrial activities, Al Hasani added. The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and Malaysia's Bukhary International Ventures (BIV) have signed an agreement to conduct studies over Iran's Golshan and Ferdowsi fields, a report said. BIV is expected to submit the result of its studies to NIOC within a period of seven months, reported Iran Daily, citing Shana. The two fields hold gas and oil but the recovery of gas and its transfer to onshore facilities will be studied by BIV, Gholamreza Manouchehri, NIOC's deputy of development and engineering, was quoted as saying in the report. TripAdvisor, the internets largest travel site, has ranked nine Movenpick Hotels & Resorts properties among the worlds top 1 per cent in its 15th TripAdvisor Travellers Choice Awards. Based on reviews and opinions of millions of travellers, the awards are the highest honour the site gives to hotels. The awards also recognise hotels in specific categories such as destination, family, service and romance. Movenpicks nine featured hotels located in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan and the UAE received 21 awards across different categories. A TripAdvisor Travellers Choice Award provides a fascinating insight into the views and perspectives of millions of travellers, said Paul Mulcahy, senior vice president commercial, Movenpick Hotels & Resorts. By taking the time to share their experiences, guests are partners in helping us maintain consistent quality, realise the details that are appreciated and allow us to see our properties through their eyes. In Saudi Arabia, Movenpick Hotel Al Khobar and Movenpick Hotel & Residences Hajar Tower Makkah claimed spots in the categories for top hotels, luxury and service. The Makkah hotel was also voted the number one hotel for families in the country, as well as being one of the Middle East winners. Both Movenpick Resort & Residences Aqaba and Movenpick Resort & Spa Tala Bay Aqaba are included in Jordans 10 best luxury hotels. The former was also part of Jordans overall list of best hotels, while Tala Bay was commended for being one of the best family resorts across the Middle East. Amidst a very competitive field, Movenpick Hotel Ibn Battuta Gate Dubai was voted one of the top hotels in the UAE, as well as one of the countrys best hotels for service. Movenpick Resort El Sokhna made it into the Top 10 family hotels of both Egypt and the Middle East, while Movenpick Resort El Quseir was included in the list of Egypts best hotels for romance. Elsewhere in North Africa, Movenpick Resort & Marine Spa Sousse is highlighted as one of Tunisias overall top hotels and one of the best for service. It also gained a spot in Tunisias Top 10 Luxury Hotels, while Movenpick Hotel Gammarth Tunis rounded up the best 20. - TradeArabia News Service Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain recently marked her 65th year as the longest reigning queen ever to have served in the history of the English monarchy.The queen plans to celebrate in private while commemoration across London will be marked by gun salutes. Here are some facts and numbers in history during the queen's colorful reign. Queen Elizabeth II has become the first British monarch to reach their Sapphire Jubilee. The Queen serves as the Head of State of 16 of the Commonwealth nations, a group of 52 nations spread across 6 continents, reports Time. The Royal Family's Official Twitter account has 2.75 million followers. The Queen has a parody Twitter account with 1.38 million followers. The Queen has four children: Charles, Anne, Edward and Andrew. Her grandchildren are Peter, Zara, William, Harry, Beatrice, Eugenie, Louise and James. She has 2 Corgis and 2 Dorgis for pets. Over the years, 13 UK Prime Ministers have held office since the start of the Queen's reign. The first was Winston Churchill (1951-55), the latest is Theresa May. The Queen has met with over 12 U.S. presidents. In 1981, a teenager was arrested for firing blank bullets at the Queen as she was on horseback before the Trooping the Colour ceremony. The Queen was 21 when she married Prince Philip on Nov. 20, 1947. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip have been married for 70 years. She was 25 when she acceded to the throne in 1952. The Queen is the 40th monarch since William the Conqueror gained the crown of England, according to Travel + Leisure The Queen has toured a total of 117 countries on official tours - despite allegedly not owning a passport. The Buckingham Palace, the Queen's official London residence was built in the 17th century. It was originally designed to be the country home of the Conservative Party politician and poet John Sheffield. See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 Ethiopian Airlines is still booming even with the recent travel ban issued by US President Donald Trump. The state-owned airline is not even fazed in the slightest even though its neighbouring countries are the primary target of President Trump's travel ban. According to Africa News, the travel ban posed no serious threats that can make problems to the airline's overall operations. Ethiopian Airline Chief Executive, Tewolde Gebremariam claimed that the only visible effect of the ban was the confusion for some of its passengers. Among the seven countries that were affected by President Trump's travel ban are Somalia, Sudan and Libya. However, these countries proved to be of little importance to Ethiopian Airline's continued success. CEO Tewolde even claimed that the airline's revenue rose up to a 10.3 percent to 54.5 billion birr or $2.43 billion in fiscal year 2015-2016. Their passenger numbers also jumped 18 percent to 7.6 million which resulted for a 70 percent increase in the airline's net profit. They are currently expanding globally with a target to become a global player in the aerial transportation industry. The national flag carrier has been highly praised for its amazing monetary feat as well as their technological advancement and modernized fuel efficient aircrafts. The airline was even awarded as Africa's best airline for five consecutive years by the African Airlines Association. This recognition only proved that Ethiopia is ready for globalization and expanding their destinations to other parts of the planet. When asked about the plans for the airline's expansion, Tewolde answered that they are eyeing Asia as their primary focus as reported by Yahoo. They are planning to add Chinese aircrafts, Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners and Airbus A350 to make up their expansion fleet. They are also adding routes not only in China but also in Jakarta, Indonesia and Singapore. The carrier is setting its goal to reach a $10 billion revenue by the year 2025 and expanding its fleet into 140 aircraft from the 90 vehicles that they have at the present. With the pace that the airline is going, there is no doubt that they will be able to achieve their goal. See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 By Press Trust of India: From Lalit K Jha Washington, Feb 9 (PTI) Jeff Sessions was today narrowly confirmed as the Attorney General of President Donald Trump by a bitterly divided US Senate with the Democrats attempting to derail his nomination over his record on civil rights and immigration. 70-year-old Sessions, who was the Senator from Alabama since 1997, was confirmed as Americas powerful law enforcement officer by surviving a near-party-line vote by 52 to 47. advertisement The final vote for Sessions came after 30 hours of debate from Democrats and a stunning fight between liberal Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senate Republicans which ended in her being forced to sit down after she was accused of impugning Sessions. Sessions, considered as one of the most conservative lawmakers, resigned as the Alabama Senator later in the night after being confirmed as the 84th Attorney General. One of the first task on his plate is the win the legal battle for the Trump Administration to get the stay lifted on executive order temporarily blocking all refugee arrivals and immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries to the US. Sessions was one of the first few top Republican Senators to have endorsed Trump in his race to the White House in the Republican primary. In the past, Sessions has positioned himself as an opponent of H-1B visas, as he believes that this work visa, popular among Indian IT professionals, displaces American workers. "It was a special night," Sessions told reporters after his confirmation. "I appreciate the friendship from my colleagues -- even those who, many of them who didnt feel able to vote for me. They were cordial, and so we continue to have good relations and will continue to do the best I can." The fight over Sessions nomination spurred some of the most jarring, and at times personal attacks, rooted in allegations that Sessions was a racist -- claims the Alabama senator and his supporters have fiercely denied. Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic lawmaker from California attacked Sessions and questioned his credentials. "How will this nominee handle an investigation and prosecution into an unprecedented and major foreign intrusion into the election of the president of the United States? Can he be independent of the White House? I do not believe he can," said Feinstein. "We are disappointed that the Senate chose to turn a blind eye to Jeff Sessions long record of hostility to civil rights. We intend to be relentless in holdingthis Justice Department accountable," said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. advertisement "The attorney general has an obligation and duty to protect the civil rights of all Americans. We will not allow the Justice Department to abandon this importantwork now," Clarke said. PTI LKJ AMS AKJ AKJ --- ENDS --- Since time immemorial, eating is one of the basic instincts of every living thing in the world. Through the ages, eating evolved from not only being a necessity to survive, but it also becomes a hobby for many food enthusiasts. People travel all around the word searching for rare flavours. One of the hot topics in the food industry today is Iceland especially its capital city Reykjavik which is now currently experiencing its food renaissance. Kaloportid Flea Market. Being an island, Iceland is rich in food products harvested from the seas around it. Where would you find a better place to get the freshest sea food other than places near the port? Kaloportid Flea Market is just steps away from the port of Reykjavik where you can find a huge array of traditional Icelandic foods and ingredients. Fermented sharks and lamb testicles are available as well as other 'normal' selections like pastries and cheese. Food vendors offer free tastes promos for their products and the best thing is you can ask discounts. The Roadhouse. When you're not the adventurous type for the exotic tastes of the Icelanders, you can always go with the classic burger and fries. The Roadhouse is just a few blocks away from the Reykjavik downtown where you can find the best burger menus in the city. They not only serve burgers but their menu also boasts beer on tap, ribs, fries and shakes. According to Food Republic, one of their feature burger is the Cadillac which includes pickled red onions, arugula and blue cheese. Another is The Doughnut which by the name itself is a doughnut bun burger with smoked pork and egg. Icelandic Fish and Chips. If you're a British and visiting Iceland for the first time you can always find the comfort food that all the Brits love in this family-owned restaurant. The best fish and chips maker of the city serves freshly caught fish where the selection will based from the day's catch. The mouth -watering fish was deep fried in an airy spelt and barley batter served with thick-cut dill-flecked fries. They also serve delicacies from a huge variety of flavours like vegetable and fresh salads and skyr dipping sauses - a Nordic dairy product that is thick and creamy like Greek yogurt. DILL Restaurant. For those seeking fine dining and exquisite flavours, DILL Restaurant is just the place for you. The food paradise is located on the edge of Vatnsmyri, the urban wetland and bird reserve of Reykjavik. The restaurant brags their food that features traditional food cultures and ingredients with a twist and elevated to a restaurant worthy dish. The place is lead by Chef Gunnar Karl Gislason and sommelier Olafur Orn Olafsson as per The Culture Trip. Some of DILLS's best sellers are the baked rutabaga with cheese foam and celeriac and herb cream with lojrom caviar, cress and goats cheese. Gallery Restaurant. When you're not up for roaming the city in search of foods, you can always stay Hotel Holt which houses the Gallery Restaurant. The fine dining restaurant has made a name for itself and won the Best Restaurant in Iceland last 2012 awarded by the Nordic Prize. The good food is not the only charm of the place but also the Icelandic paintings that decorates its wall hence the name 'Gallery'. Gallery housed Chef Fridgeir Ingi Eiriksson who is popularly known for his Icelandic fare such as reindeer with fresh cep and truffle honey and Hlidarberg duck with honey glazed melon. See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 President Trump is set to meet with the chief executive officers of American, Delta and United airlines. For years now, the big three U.S.-based airlines have accused three chief rivals from the Middle East of being subsidized by their respective governments, running faultily of the Open Skies Agreements. The meeting is set on Thursday. The three CEO's are Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian, United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz, and American CEO Doug Parker. Parker won't be able to attend the meeting because of a previously set conference in Dallas. The three believe that there exists an unfair trade agreement in which Etihad, Emirates and Qatar airlines are cheating the system by accepting more than $50 billion in government subsidies for the past several years.. The subsidies allow the Gulf carriers to operate without concern for turning a profit, unlike U.S. airlines, and therefore focus entirely on stripping market share and driving out competition," the CEOs wrote, reports Travel Pulse." The subsidy-enabled capacity dumping by the Gulf carriers has nearly removed all U.S. carrier service to the Middle East and India. They also said that if left unmonitored, they will continue to see the Gulf carriers grab the U.S. market, further depriving hard-working Americans For every long-haul route lost or foregone as a result of subsidized Gulf carrier competition, thousands of American jobs are lost, they said. The three Gulf carriers presently have a combined 29 routes to the U.S. from the Middle East, growing at a fast rate and further angering their American counterparts with their choice of routes. Last year, Qatar Airways created a route between Atlanta-Delta's main hub-and Doha. Emirates made such similar moves in another route. With President Trump, they have a president who has stated his stand on unbalanced trade agreements and keeping American jobs a priority. The Open Skies Agreement between the United States and 120 countries allows for airlines to travel freely back and forth between any destination without government intervention. However, some U.S. carriers are against the stand of the Big 3, including JetBlue and Hawaiian, which also provides connections to the Middle East carriers, and FedEx and Atlas Air, which provides cargo service to the region. "The demands of the legacy carriers would reduce competition, undermine Open Skies, and harm the American economy," group spokesman Andrea McCarthy said in statement, according to USA Today. " She also expressed that rather than giving in to these demands, they should support Open Skies agreements, which she believes favor more Americans. See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 Dubai, one of the jewels of United Arab Emirates, is one of the richest cities in the world. The location of the planet's most expensive and luxurious hotels, just walking along its streets will give you the idea of elegance the city has. It's also a popular tourist destination, but many are intimidated by the city's affordability. Looking where to eat, of course, is a challenge to anyone opting for budget-friendly spots and not extremely expensive restaurants. Cheer up, there are still a lot to choose from. Here are some of the best affordable dining spots in Dubai that wouldn't hurt your wallet: Betawi Restaurant. Venture in the streets of Karama and you'll see Betawi restaurant right next to Yalla Momos. This resto specializes in Southeast Asian cuisine, mostly Indonesian- and you'll sigh with contentment with the generous portion of each serving of their food. For under $20 per person, this is a very good deal. Calicut Paragon. Have you ever tried Keralan cuisine? If not, then Calicut Paragon is the best place to try it out. Do not be daunted on the unfamiliar food choices in their menu, you can ask the waiter what their specialties are and chances are you won't regret it. The savory, flavorful dishes they have makes this place such a hit in Dubai, and most usually you'll see a queue outside Paragon's doors-a testament to their quality. Al Dimyati & Iskandaron. You would be surprised that for an Arabic food spot, their meat dishes are to die for. Their lamb chops are what makes customers come back, as well other dishes in their menu too. The place looks like a cafeteria, but hey, once you try their food you'll feel like you're in a top-class restaurant. Just bring 8-15 dollars and you're good to go. The Chalet. Jumeirah Beach Road in Dubai is a fantastic place to hang out, and if you're looking for a laid-back restaurant to eat dinner with your friends with quality food and great affordability, then visit The Chalet. The diversity of their menu is impressive, with the biryani being their specialty. Relax and have a good time with an awesome view, only in The Chalet. Special Ostadi. Located in Al Mussall Road, Khalid Bin Al Waleed, Bur Dubai, you don't actually need a map to find this place. It's a popular dining spot among locals because of the excellent dining experience Special Ostadi always makes for every one of their guests. They specialize in Persian and Arabic cuisine, and with the quality of their food you'll thank the heavens for their affordability. See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 Italy's Vagli di Sotto in the Tuscan hills is willing to spend $85,000 on crafting a statue of Donald Trump to bring in more tourists to the mountains. The marbled-Trump figure will be erected in the Park of Honor and Dishonor together with other famous marbled personalities. Though on which side the controversial president will be built, tourists can only speculate. Meanwhile, Mayor Mario Puglia told The Local Italy, "I'm not going to enter in discussion over whether his actions are right or wrong. But at the moment Trump is the only politician who is following through on his promises, doing what he said on the campaign trail." Donations came pouring in from English, American and Italian businesspeople who would like to see the statue realized. Puglia, though wanting to have Trump visiting the town, said he might not come but would have the American Ambassador take his place. Last year, Vagli di Sotto received more than 250,000 visitors and was confident that it would be more by the end of 2017 because of their Trump statute. The mayor also boasted their marble statues are one of the most beautifully made one in the world. Whether people would have those words, people can't help but wonder where does Trump stand in? Will he be beside the heroic French police dog in the Paris terrorist attacks in 2015 or by the notorious captain of the Costa Concordia cruise sinking ship in 2012? The town, though only has 1,000 citizens living it, would also want to know the mayor's plan on where to place Trump. However, they would be enjoying a marble statue of David Bowie first in the next few days before jumping with fear and amazement over their Trump figure. What makes Trump worth $85,000 and David Bowie only $70,000 only has people and businessmen excited for their big project. See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 A certain London Brewery would hand out free beer every time it rains and if people would live tweet it pouring down for proof. Fullers Brewery wants everybody to tweet @London_Pride to get a nice pint of drink at their place. Upon tweeting, the user will receive a personal code from the Fuller's for them to show at any of their pubs and claim their free beer. The team behind the initiative even invited London's pride Michael Fish, celebrity weatherman to spread out the good news. Fish told the Metro UK that, "February can often be one of the dreariest months of the year, with the short days and wet weather, so a free pint of London Pride will certainly brighten up peoples' days." He continued commenting that "I am excited to be part of this campaign, I've seen some very rare atmospheric phenomena, but even in all my years as a weatherman, I've never seen it rain beer." Probably some people will be drunk to know that storms and rain will bring in heavy pours in the month of February according to Accuweather. The site revealed that Western Europe is taking its chance for travel as the inclement weather continues to batter London. While it might be bad news for some people, Fullers Brewery would love to see it as an opportunity for people to hang around their pub. And what about snow? Will that count too? Ice melts to water, and a winter flurry will ravage the city due to the arctic blast. Will people still have their free beer? One can have the convenience of asking Fullers as they over 400 pubs, inns and hotels across Europe. Meanwhile, with a significant chance of snow and rain in London this February, people will get to enjoy ounces of beer to gulp to when the weather behaves rather badly. See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 In terms of choosing Morocco as a vacation destination, many people around the world would immediately name the capital city of Rabat or the tourist hub of Marrakech. However, one should bear in mind that there are other wonderful cities to visit for those who plan to travel to Morocco. Among the places in Morocco worth mentioning are Tangiers and Fez. Selecting either of the two in the general itinerary depends on what kind of experience outsiders are expecting. There are a number of reasons why tourists would visit Tangiers. These are the following features this Moroccan city has: Caves of Hercules One of the key attractions people will find when they visit Tangiers is the Cave of Hercules. This cavern is famous for having a seaward chasm that resembles the shape of the African continent. In ancient times, this awesome limestone tunnel was inhabited by the Phoenicians. The Sons of the Strait Another fascinating attraction visitors would love in Tangiers is the local traditional band called The Sons of the Strait. They have been playing traditional Berber music for over 40 years. They usually frequent at the Les Fils du Detroit clubhouse located within the 'kasbah.' Classy Nightlife If there is one compelling reason to visit Tangiers, it is for a great nightlife experience. This coastal city is replete with open-air cafes that provide a scenic view of the Atlantic Ocean. One of the best nightlife locations is the El Morocco Club - famed for its reminiscent American Prohibition Era interior layout. As opposed to Tangiers, these are the number of reasons why travelers would visit Fez: UNESCO World Heritage Farm The Volubilis is a partly excavated metropolis that thrived during the Ancient Roman period. Designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site 20 years ago, this vast scenic countryside takes visitors back in time. Cafe Clock Anyone interested in learning traditional Moroccan recipes should take cooking workshops in Cafe Clock. This cozy bistro is one of the country's ideal restaurants that serve exotic meals such as camel burger. Festive Daytime Medina If there is any compelling reason to visit Fez, it is for its lively daytime atmosphere. The city 'medina' is crowded during the daytime. Farm beasts contribute to the confusion and traffic made by people milling about in the pedestrian plazas. See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018 Shahid Kapoor has revealed that he and his wife Mira Rajput, who just welcomed daughter Misha, are planning to have a second child soon. By India Today Web Desk: Shahid Kapoor and Mira Rajput are gifting their daughter Misha a sibling pretty soon, it seems. The new parents are way too excited about parenthood, and want to experience double the joy with another child. It was just yesterday that Shahid Kapoor shared the first proper photo of Misha with her mother Mira, and his fandom lost their heart to the little one. Now, they need to make way for Misha's younger sibling soon. advertisement Speaking to GQ magazine, Shahid opened up on his and Mira's family plans. "Mira, who is just 22, would prefer to have a second kid soon as well. She wants to flip the norm, get the kids to a certain age and then be free to do what she likes." ALSO SEE: Shahid Kapoor shares photo with daughter Misha Shahid also revealed that his child Misha wasn't planned, but wifey Mira was happy and ready about it. He said, "It wasn't planned actually, but I think we were ready for it. I was impatient to get married and have a family. My job is a lonely one I was lonely for three or four years." Shahid Kapoor and Mira Rajput tied the knot in 2015. Mira, who was pursuing her graduation when she met Shahid, wants to have another child now. The Rangoon actor also shared, "I have changed diapers many times. See, the problem is that you are inexperienced. So the relevant part is not whether I have changed diapers, but whether I have changed diapers with poop in them. And yes, obviously I have done all of it." Shahid and Mira welcomed their first child in August this year. ALSO WATCH: Shahid Kapoor and Mira Rajput get hitched --- ENDS --- Waterville Valley Resort announces the premiere of the 50th Anniversary Documentary 50 Years of Firsts Waterville Valley by Degan Media. The Documentary recaps the legendary past of Waterville Valley Resort and unites the many milestones the Resort reached within the snowsports industry. The Movie Premiere Event will take place on Saturday, February 11, 2017 at 6:30pm at the Flying Monkey Movie House and Performance Center in Plymouth, NH. (TRAVPR.COM) USA - February 9th, 2017 - Waterville Valley, February 7, 2017 Waterville Valley Resort announces the premiere of the 50th Anniversary Documentary 50 Years of Firsts Waterville Valley by Degan Media. The Documentary recaps the legendary past of Waterville Valley Resort and unites the many milestones the Resort reached within the snowsports industry. The Movie Premiere Event will take place on Saturday, February 11, 2017 at 6:30pm at the Flying Monkey Movie House and Performance Center in Plymouth, NH. 50 Years of Firsts is a narrative which celebrates all the Resorts great achievements and continuous progress. The movie features video clips from the Waterville Valley archives, as well as some footage which has never been seen by the public. The story is told through the eyes of the many characters that helped shape one of the true family resorts in New England and the legends of Waterville Valley: Wayne Wong, Nick Preston, Suzi Preston, Mike Bettera, and Bill Enos to name a few. Along with an encompassing historical overview, the movie captures the beauty of Waterville Valley Resort and looks forward to the expansion of the new Green Peak and beyond. For the 50th Anniversary Movie Premiere, Waterville Valley Resort will open an exhibition where guests may browse archive pictures, learn about the Resorts history and future, and take a picture with friends in an interactive selfie station. Commemorative 50th Anniversary Books will be presented by author and graphic designer Will Zimicki, and will be available for purchase. The event is supported by 603 Brewery Waterville Valley Wheat. The Premiere starts a series of special showings in different locations around New Hampshire. Additional information will be provided. Flying Monkey Movie House & Performance Center 39 S. Main St, Plymouth, NH 03264 Doors open 6:30pm, Presentation is at 7:30pm. ### Tamil Rockers, a piracy website has announced an open challenge to the makers of Suriya's Singam 3, claiming that it would live stream the film online. By India Today Web Desk: After postponing the film thrice, Suriya's action drama film Singam 3, which is the third instalment from the Singam franchise is finally releasing today. Earlier to this, Tamil Rockers, a torrent website, threatened the makers of the film and announced that it would live-stream Singam 3. ALSO READ: Vishwaroopam turns 4- Kamal Haasan says people's love won against tyranny advertisement ALSO READ: Sasikala vs Panneerselvam: 5 film roles Chinnamma will fit perfectly in Speaking about the threat, Suriya was quoted by Firstpost as saying, "I will be happy if the youth of my state/country come together and say 'NO' to watching films online for free. Because every time you watch a new film online, that site gets paid from advertisements and thus they rake in all the moolah and the poor producer is left wondering where his share from the film went." Shruti Haasan, who plays a pivotal role in the film, took to Twitter and asked fans not to encourage piracy. So excited for the release of S3 today ! Requesting everyone not to take photographs of the movie in the theatres please #saynotopiracy shruti haasan (@shrutihaasan) February 9, 2017 Interestingly, Singam 3 has already raked in Rs 100 crore even before its release, according to producer Gnanavel Raja. Directed by Hari, Singam 3 is Suriya's fifth successful collaboration with the director. The film will see Suriya as a fierce police officer Duraisingam. Also starring Anushka Shetty, Shruti Haasan and Thakur Anoop Singh, the film has music by Harris Jayaraj. Meanwhile, Suriya is currently shooting for his upcoming film director Vignesh Shivan for Thaana Serndha Koottam. --- ENDS --- As Western Canada and North Western United States saw record-setting temperaturessome of which were shattering previous records by as much as 8.3 degrees Fahrenheit (4.6 degrees Celsius)it caused even some seasoned climate watchers to freak out. These types of anomalies are at the extreme end of what has been projected, and scientists and activists are rightly sounding the alarm for urgent climate action. If anecdotal experience is anything to go by, a growing number of people are listening. In fact, in the past few days, Ive had several conversations with folks who were well aware of the threat of climate change before, but are now beginning to see it as a crisis. From one friend in British Columbia who is making a wildfire evacuation plan for the very first time to another who works in insurance and is beginning to grasp the possibility of entire regions becoming uninsurable, there was a palpable sense of urgency. And this has ignited an age-old debate about what we, as individual citizens, should actually do about it. On the one hand, CNN pushed out yet another story, on another report, suggesting people cut their meat consumption and reduce how much they fly. On the other hand, a number of people pushed back on these suggestionsarguing that it is only systems-level, political and economic interventions that can ever get us where we need to be: The truth is that neither of these extremes is particularly helpful. Ive spent the last couple of years writing a book about the role of individuals within the climate crisis. And the conclusion that Ive come to is this: Its bloody complicated. Most of us are never going to slash our carbon footprints to a sustainable level. Thats partially because were forced to interact with systems that, through employment opportunities and tax codes, planning laws, and investment priorities, make high emissions lifestyles the default. And its partially because we are human, and we are subject to the same flaws, impulses, and consumer-driven desires that our neighbors and friends are subject to as well. (Families, by the way, can complicate this further.) Yet just because we cant (or wont!) slash our footprints to zero, it doesnt necessarily follow that reducing our footprints doesnt matter. After all, reducing and/or eliminating how much we fly is a strategic intervention that helps promote alternatives. Cutting back on meat consumptionwhether through going vegan or tweaking menushelps shift patterns in both demand and production, and also sends a signal out to policymakers. Too many people have taken a very astute observationI am unlikely to achieve a perfect carbon footprintand they have extrapolated that to a very unhelpful conclusion: I am therefore going to not even try. Renewable energy expert Ketan Joshi took to Twitter to sum up the problem: The counter-swing against the fossil industry's 'personal responsibility' narratives has now swung so far in the opposite direction that it's doing the same type of disempowerment. We aren't *responsible*, but through our actions we are *powerful*, and can cause change. I couldnt agree more. We dont have to accept the false choice of either going all-in for personal sacrifice or alternatively carrying on as if nothing needs to change. Instead, we can each identify where in our own liveswe have power, influence, leverage, or agencyideally a combination of all fourand then we can focus our efforts there. If youd like to read more about how to thread this needle, "Were All Climate Hypocrites Now" is available for pre-order, and it will be printed on recycled paper. But also, for heavens sake, please dont forget to vote. When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. A beleaguered wild bee species has become the first in the continental United States to be declared endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). The rusty patched bumblebee (Bombus affinis) was formally listed as endangered on March 21, 2017, after the Trump administration lifted a hold it had placed on federal protections proposed by the Obama administration in 2016. The rusty patched bumblebee was once abundant across a wide swath of North America that included 28 U.S. states and two provinces in Canada. But the past couple of decades have been rough for these buzzing critters they've suffered an 87 percent decline in population since the mid-1990s due to a combination of climate change, pesticide exposure, habitat loss, population fragmentation and transmitted diseases from infected commercial domesticated honeybees. Today, rusty patched bumblebees exist only in tiny populations across the Midwest and mid-Atlantic, and they're considered by the IUCN to be critically endangered. They were almost listed as extinct in the state of Virginia until a single specimen was found buzzing just outside of Washington, D.C., in Sky Meadows State Park in 2014. While this surprising discovery offered hope the species might still have a future along the Eastern Seaboard, the situation remains bleak. It's unfortunate because, like many other wild bee species, the rusty patched bumblebee plays an important role in pollinating plants and wildflowers which in turn provide habitats and sustenance for other wildlife. Wild bees are also a vital force in ensuring the success of commercial agriculture. "Bumblebees are able to fly in cooler temperatures and lower light levels than many other bees, such as honeybees, making them excellent pollinators for crops like tomatoes, peppers and cranberries," according to a press release by the FWS. "Even where crops can be self-pollinated, the plant produces more and bigger fruits when pollinated by bumblebees." The rusty patched bumblebee is among a group of pollinators including the monarch experiencing serious declines across the country, FWS Midwest Regional Director Tom Melius said. Why is this important? Pollinators are small but mighty parts of the natural mechanism that sustains us and our world. Without them, our forests, parks, meadows and shrublands, and the abundant, vibrant life they support, cannot survive, and our crops require laborious, costly pollination by hand. Improving the conservation outlook for these charming pollinators will require efforts to protect and restore existing habitats as well as creating long-term research studies involving captive rearing. Wondering what you can do as a concerned citizen to help the plight of rusty patched bumblebees? The FWS has a few suggestions: "For populations located in urban areas, citizens can plant native flowers that bloom throughout the growing season and leave flowers on the stem as long as possible, especially in fall. This provides bees with needed resources for making it through the winter and for producing new colonies in the spring. For populations on or near agricultural lands, landowners can refrain from haying in early fall and follow best management practices for pesticide use." By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Feb 9 (PTI) Japans SoftBank Corp has booked an investment loss of 39.28 billion yen (USD 350 million) on its investments in India, including those in cab-hailing firm Ola and e-commerce company Snapdeal. In the earning statement for nine months ended December, SoftBank wrote off 39.28 billion yen in the value of shares in its Indian investments, which include Ola and Snapdeal. "Gain or loss arising from financial instruments at FVTPL comprises mainly of changes in fair value of preferred stock investment including embedded derivatives, such as ANI Technologies and Jasper Infotech in India, designated as financial assets at FVTPL (Fair Value Through Profit or Loss)," SoftBank said in the earnings statement. advertisement The new set of numbers are lower than the loss recorded by SoftBank in November last year. It had booked an investment loss of 58.14 billion yen (USD 560 million) for the six-month period ending September 30, impacted by appreciation of Japans Yen against the local currency. SoftBank had led a USD 210-million investment in Ola and USD 627 million in Snapdeal in October 2014. It made follow-on investments in both firms. The Japanese firm has so far invested close to USD 2 billion in India and earlier this year it stated that it is looking to scale up investments to USD 10 billion in next 5-10 years. PTI SR MR --- ENDS --- Two scientists teamed up with a Grammy-winning vocalist to create The Happy Song for infants. This song is sure to make your babies laugh. Picture for representational purpose. Picture courtesy: Pinterest/stocksy.com By India Today Web Desk: If there's one thing that every parent wants for their infant, it's a song to make them stop crying. And every parent around the world also knows that this is more easily wished for than achieved. Really, which new parent or relative hasn't tried every trick in the book (or out of it, for that matter) to stop a baby crying? From swinging and cradling, to blowing raspberries and non-stop clapping, everything has been given a try. Some of these tricks work, some don't. advertisement But what if there was a specially-designed song that could definitely make your kid laugh? That would be the end of your woes, and that's just what two scientists claim to have achieved. Also read: Feel stressed out? This song will reduce your anxiety by 65 per cent Caspar Addyman, an expert in child development, and Lauren Stewart, a musical psychologist, have cracked this code together. A British baby food manufacturing company, Cow & Gate, asked them to come up with a pop-hit that would make every baby laugh. After extensive research--and teaming up with Imogen Heap, a Grammy-winning composer and vocalist--the duo came up with The Happy Song. Their research had suggested that babies respond best to an upbeat melody in a major key, with simple and repetitive lyrics. And that's just what this song delivers. Check out The Happy Song, here: --- ENDS --- Tribune News Service New Delhi, February 9 In the investigation of the breach of 32 lakh debit cards last year, Hitachi Payment Services today said it suffered a breach due to a sophisticated malware attack. Hitachi provides the ATM payments network for several banks. SISA Information Security has completed its final assessment report on the reported breach of security protocols which led to the potential compromise of debit cards. The report pointed out to a sophisticated injection of malware (a piece of malicious software code) in the Hitachi Payment Services systems, which was able to compromise the details of these debit cards. In a statement, Hitachi Payments said the malware, being sophisticated in its design, had been able to work undetected and had concealed its tracks during the compromise period. However, the extent of the data breach is not known. While the behaviour of the malware and the penetration into the network has been deciphered, the amount of data exfiltrated during the above compromise period is unascertainable due to secure deletion by the malware, it said. Loney Antony, Managing Director, Hitachi Payment Services said, Despite following adequate security measures and adopting the standards of internationally accepted best practices in the business, we confirm that our security systems had a breach during mid-2016. As soon as the breach was discovered, we followed due process and immediately informed the RBI, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), banks and card schemes. We also partnered with banks to ensure the safety of their customers sensitive data. As a result, the extent of compromise was limited and we have not seen any further misuse due to the containment measures deployed by Hitachi Payment Services, he added. Hitachi Payment Services said it regrets the inconvenience caused to banks and its customers due to this lapse in its security infrastructure. Sanjeev Sharma Tribune News Service New Delhi, February 9 Industry body, Ficci and e-commerce majors Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon have protested against the discriminatory nature of the Tax Collection at Source within the ambit of Model GST Law, which they said presents an existential challenge for the e-commerce marketplaces. The Tax Collection at Source (TCS Section 56) clause under the GST draft model law, mandates e-commerce marketplaces, to deduct 2% of the transaction value and submit it to the government. According to Ficci, as an estimate, this clause would lead to locking up about Rs 400 crore of capital per annum for the e-commerce sector. In addition, it would result in a loss of an estimated 1.8 lakh jobs, putting a halt to the growth and investments in the sector. Ficci said there is a need to find out alternatives which could be employed to ensure that regular information on tax is made available to the government, without jeopardising the business model and future growth prospects of the nascent e-commerce sector. Didar Singh, secretary general, Ficci, said subjecting the sector to a major compliance at such an early stage will not only result in slowing it down but also deter the benefits that e- commerce fosters in terms of employment creation and giving a boost to both the manufacturing and services space by providing an apt platform. Moreover, this clause is discriminatory towards online sellers as it does not exist in the offline retail segment, he said. Kunal Bahl, co-founder and CEO, Snapdeal, said the proposal of tax collection at source, directed only at e-commerce marketplaces, in the Draft Model GST Law, will hurt lakhs of small sellers by making online sales expensive and cumbersome for them. He said the proposal, while adding needless complexity for the sellers, provides no benefit to the tax authorities and will lead to duplication of information followed by the need for its reconciliation. Sachin Bansal, co-founder and executive chairman, Flipkart, said the TCS clause would lead to blockage of around Rs 400 crore of working capital into the system, and will discourage sellers to come online. Bansal said the government needs to set a level-playing field as the clause was not pertinent to the offline retail segment. The Central and the state governments need to find out alternative ways to address the situation and the e-commerce platforms may give a self-declaration about the taxes being reimbursed by the sellers. Some of the states namely Kerala, Rajasthan and Delhi are already doing the same. Im sure the clause will be removed in the greater benefit of the Indian digital space as a whole, Bansal said. Amit Agarwal, Country Head, Amazon India, said: However, we remain concerned about the TCS provision, which we believe, will negatively impact the growth of marketplaces at a stage when the industry is still in its infancy. New Delhi, February 9 Japans SoftBank Corp has booked an investment loss of 39.28 billion yen ($350 million) on its investments in India, including those in cab-hailing firm Ola and e-commerce company Snapdeal. In the earning statement for nine months ended December, SoftBank wrote off 39.28 billion yen in the value of shares in its Indian investments, which include Ola and Snapdeal. Gain or loss arising from financial instruments at FVTPL comprises mainly of changes in fair value of preferred stock investment including embedded derivatives, such as ANI Technologies and Jasper Infotech in India, designated as financial assets at FVTPL (Fair Value Through Profit or Loss), SoftBank said in the earnings statement. The new set of numbers is lower than the loss recorded by SoftBank in November last year. It had booked an investment loss of 58.14 billion yen ($560 million) for the six-month period ending September 30, impacted by appreciation of Japans Yen against the local currency. SoftBank had led a $210-million investment in Ola and $627 million in Snapdeal in October 2014. PTI Tribune News Service Mohali, February 9 In a broad daylight incident, three car-borne miscreants allegedly snatched Rs 49,500 from a private employee at the Phase I market here. The victim, Arjun, sustained injuries while trying to resist the snatching attempt. The miscreants allegedly tried to kidnap him in their Indica car. The victim was dragged by the miscreants for some distance and then dumped near the Phase I barrier, said eyewitnesses. They said a motorcyclist chased the car and noted down its registration number. The Mohali police, however, denied any kidnapping attempt, claiming that it was a snatching incident. The victim was not taken along by the miscreants. They snatched around Rs 40,000 from him and sped away in their Indica car, claimed DSP Alam Vijay Singh. The CCTV footage, which the police got from the State Bank of India branch outside which the incident occurred, shows the faces of the miscreants. The car bore a registration number of Ludhiana. Police parties have been sent to Ludhiana, said the police. According to sources, Arjun, a resident of Madanpura village, who works at Punjab Bakery at the Phase I market, went to deposit Rs 80,000, which he took from his brother-in-law Nand Lal, at the State Bank of India, located in the market. According to the victim, the bank employees refused to deposit more than Rs 25,000. While Arjun was coming out of the bank, he was approached by two persons, who requested him to exchange his Rs 2,000 notes with their Rs 500 notes. Arjun said initially he refused, but on persistent insistence, he sat in their car to exchange the currency notes. The victim was given a wad of Rs 500 notes. The victim claimed that inside the wad, the miscreants had pinned blank papers. When the victim resisted, the miscreants tried to snatch his money. After taking away a bundle of notes from him, they tried to throw him out of the car, but when he caught hold of one of the car doors, he was dragged for a long distance, said the sources. The victim managed to save the remaining amount, around Rs 30,000, which was lying in his other pocket. Arjun sustained injuries on his head, face and other parts of the body. He was shifted to the Mohali Civil Hospital at Phase VI here. Investigations are on after registering a case under Sections 323, 379-B and 34 of the IPC in this regard at the Phase I police station, said the DSP. Filmmaker SS Rajamouli is planning to approach superstars Rajinikanth, Aamir Khan and Mohanlal to star in his ambitious project based on the epic Mahabharata. By India Today Web Desk: SS Rajamouli, who currently awaits the release of his much-anticipated film Baahubali: The Conclusion, went on the record saying that he would love to make a film on Mahabharat. Speaking at India Today Conclave South 2017, Rajamouli said, "My dream has always been to do Mahabharata on a scale not attempted ever." ALSO READ: After piracy threat, Suriya asks fans to watch Singam 3 in theatres advertisement ALSO READ: Sasikala vs Panneerselvam: 5 film roles Chinnamma will fit perfectly in Now, an interesting update about the film has cropped up. According to reports, Rajamouli is planning to approach Rajinikanth, Mohanlal and Aamir Khan to star in the mega-budgeted film. A source was quoted by Bollywood Life as saying, "Rajamouli is currently busy with Baahubali 2, but he is thrilled about Mahabharat. He wants to take Aamir Khan, Rajinikanth and Mohanlal on board for this project. He is yet to decide on the characters these stars will portray." Interestingly, Aamir Khan himself expressed his desire to work with Rajamouli during the promotions of Dangal. He said, "I am a huge fan of Rajamouli's work and if he ever plans to make Mahabharata, I'd love to play Krishna or Karna. I might actually go with Krishna." However, we await an official confirmation regarding the same. Meanwhile, Baahubali 2 is gearing up for a grand release on April 28. As per reports, the film has already raked in Rs 500 crore worldwide ever before its release. ALSO WATCH: SS Rajamouli says Baahubali 2 will be bigger and better than Baahubali --- ENDS --- Tribune News Service Mohali, February 9 Two motorcycle-borne snatchers targeted a middle-aged woman and took away her gold chain, weighing 25 gm, here this evening. The incident occurred at Phase VII around 4 pm when the victim, Ravinder Kaur (46), along with her sister-in-law, was going to the market near her house. The victim said the miscreants were standing on a turn in the locality. When we crossed them, one of them came towards us from behind while the other started the motorcycle. The snatcher pushed me and took away my gold chain, said Ravinder Kaur. The victim said after snatching the chain, the miscreants sped away. We tried to chase them, but in vain, said Ravinder Kaur, adding that they could not note down the registration number of the motorcycle. The police have lodged a daily diary report in this regard at the Mataur police station, said Gurnam Singh, the victims husband. This is the second crime incident in the locality in the past three days. Some thieves had taken away cash and jewellery of a Delhi-based couple from their Duster vehicle after breaking its windowpane. The couple had come to attend a marriage here. Harish Khare DEOBAND is home to a great seminary, Darul Uloom, a global centre of Islamic learning. It is also what in the reporters short-hand is called a Muslim-dominated town in Saharanpur district of western Uttar Pradesh. This part of UP goes to the polls tomorrow, in what is seen as a defining electoral battle, whose outcome would per force recast the Narendra Modi regimes political priorities and preferences. This is also part of the state which was host to a violent standoff between the dominant, aggressive Jats and the Muslims, who have a sizeable presence, in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. That conflict infected the mood in the entire state; a grand polarisation got effortlessly instigated and it garnered unprecedented electoral dividends for the BJP. The rest is history; but the narrative over the Muzaffarnagar violence who did what to whom and why continues to provide the backdrop to the 2017 assembly polls. It is highly pertinent to note that the BJP has not been able to find a single Muslim face to field out of a total of 400-odd candidates. And, this contest forces, willy-nilly, a revisit to one of the fundamental, but unsettled, issues the terms of coexistence between the majority and the minorities. The relationship between the majority and the minorities is an indicator of the health of a polity as well as the robustness of its state order. No nation can possibly hope to achieve its national greatness without a healthy majority-minority equation. It is no longer possible both for the Muslims and others to talk openly and without rancour about this relationship. Conversations in Deoband with a cross-section from the Muslim community offer a few propositions, a few disquieting insights, and, a few sobering thoughts. Most of us do not wish to be reminded of December 6, 1992. Yet we owe it to ourselves to keep in mind that the Babri Masjid demolition had put the Hindu-Muslim equation on a new basis. Whatever historic assurances the Muslims in India might have felt had been given to them, and whatever the protection the Constitution had provided, the largest minority in the land lost its sense of equanimity on that day. That equanimity has not yet been recovered; nor has the polity made any effort to restore that feeling; and, perhaps more to the point, no one feels the need to restore that old sense of equanimity and elan. Yet it is a measure of the Indian democratic resilience, that most Muslim voices in Deoband assert that they do not feel scared of the BJP or Narendra Modi. This point got made repeatedly, not in a tone of defiance but perhaps out of a basic belief in the Indian constitutional orders structured fairness. There is no sense of siege nor of hopelessness. A rather subtle theme emerges from this un-afraidness. The Muslims do not think they have the extra burden of defeating the BJP in each and every election. Rather there is an acute realisation that there will be an electoral contest every now and then, and this democratic rite should not be allowed to accentuate the differences and polarisation. Nor is there any feeling that defence of the secular values and arrangements is their particular burden. Secularism is a collective undertaking and commitment. This is or, rather should be a chastening thought for all those politicians and political outfits who strut around as high priests of Indian secularism. Still, another unsentimental strand of clarity emerges. Contrary to whatever the BJP and the RSS may assert, the Muslims certainly do not think of themselves as a vote bank. The Muslim voters, activists and leaders have happily divided themselves among the three principal non-BJP political outfits the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress, besides many other smaller entities. If anything, the lament among the Muslim voices is that it is the BJP which has shut its doors on them. The BJP, in this view, chooses to remain indifferent to their grievances and un-accommodative of their ambitions and aspirations. It perhaps helps the BJP to keep hammering on the Muslim vote bank in order to induce and deepen doubts and insecurities in the majority community. The 2013-2014 tension between the Jats and the Muslims has definitely lost its prickly edge but the polarisation between the Hindus and the Muslims remains, dormant, barely just below the surface. And, the political timidity that this polarisation has produced continues to rankle. It is pointed out that no Hindu leader irrespective of the party has the courage or the conviction to talk from a public platform about the Muslims backwardness, and societys obligation to obviate their grievances. This is not a recent phenomenon. The Rajinder Sachar Committee report comes up repeatedly in conversations. That committee, set up during the UPA days, had brought out the startling fact that the Muslimss lot remained far worse than that of the Dalits. And, it is underlined that no government has had the courage to table the report in Parliament. The BJPs preferred mode is to invoke rashtriyavaad in a monopolistic manner. Yet the Muslims remain unfazed. There is a confident assertion that they have no reason to feel apologetic about their loyalties and allegiances because they do not feel a fig about Saudi Arabia, the UAE or Pakistan. It is the BJP, in this view, that remains unsentimentally committed to a grammar of polarisation. Having said that, the Muslims say they are not prepared to divest themselves of their identity or ideology in order to make themselves amenable to the BJP. Like any other section of the Indian society, they are entitled to a sense of sunvai, a sense of assurance that the sarkar will not be indifferent to their grievances and that hukumat will ensure that no injustice is done to any one section of society. This is the simple but vital context to the electoral battle being fought in this western part of Uttar Pradesh-notwithstanding all the highfalutin invocation of vikas. Yogi Adiyanath and his merry-band of divisiveness-mongers are unleashed all over the state. The Samajwadi-Congress alliance, on the other hand, is promising a modernistic agenda. In her own way, Behn Mayawati of the Bahujan Samaj Party is challenging the BJPs polarising agenda. Whatever be the outcome on March 11, one thing appears certain: the minorities are not going to turn their back on the idea of a secular India. Amen. Shelley Walia EVEN as the most developed countries take welfare steps to enhance the lives of the poorest citizens, we are experiencing a fascist movement towards rising demagoguery and populist nationalism. This promotes the restoration of a polity based on perceived assumptions of the superiority of race, ethnicity and culture resulting in hate-mongering. Broadly, the move towards a closed, inward-looking nationalist political mindset visible in the construction of the wall on the Mexican frontier and the ban on Muslims has sent shock waves through the international system. The common assessment of Trump's executive orders suspending travel to the US by citizens of seven nations is that they are misguided and deeply flawed. Any law divorced from justice is not a law; it is an instrument of tyranny, and in this case of the white supremacists persecuting in the name of origins or nationality. However, it is also possible to consider a more sinister theory: Trump and his coterie of radical right wingers like Steve Bannon, the member of the National Security Council, whose agenda sets out to rock the very foundations of the polity, appealing to their base and further solidifying the us-vs- them narrative. In such a dismal scenario,Trump, the all-powerful bully firmly ensconced in the Oval Office, can dismiss the attorney general for insubordination, and take on the role of the messiah to the White masses in the inevitable clash of civilisations. The Press, which is the voice of reason and can speak truth to power, has been gradually and purposefully delegitimised in a post-truth world. Thus, in the absence of a powerful counterpoint in the Republican-controlled Legislature, even though the emperor has no clothes, what emanates from Trump is now the word of God. The executive order speaks volumes of his nativism and bellicosity, a style of governing by a man who won his race to the White House more as a populist that as a Republican. We are unquestionably at the cusp of the most shockingly despotic Presidency the US has ever seen. People on the margins who have always been an asset to the American economy now find themselves to be outsiders. Those who helped America to fight her wars against terrorism find themselves in an indeterminate state. The Silicon Valley has slammed the decision. As the history of the last few decades tells us, the 9/11 terrorists had origins in Egypt, Lebanon, UAE and Saudi Arabia, while the killings in Orlando, San Barnardino or Charleston were committed by either US citizens or white supremacists. Not a single American has been killed by terrorists from these seven nations (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia and Sudan) in the last four decades, while 2,369 American citizens have been killed by terrorists from Saudi Arabia, 314 from UAE and 162 from Egypt. Moreover, Iran or Iraq who stood up against the terrorist organisations should not have been banned.The most notable omission is perhaps Pakistan, the locus of a number of terrorist groups. Apparently, there is no rational basis for this provocative policy which in reality would further stimulate Islamophobia, a provocative western discourse that is a substantiation of the core narrative of the clash of civilisations and thus a victory for the terrorist agencies.It has been seen that the key ways in which power operates in societies is by setting up groups and versions of the other who can be both excluded from the opportunities of support and well-being that society may offer and scapegoated as the cause of social and political problems. The Western liberal discourse constructs the idea of the orthodox or superstitious East or a rabidly fundamental Islam, ignoring the overwhelming contributions of marginalised groups who over time establish themselves as integral components of a civil society. Donald J. Trump's ban on immigrants is easily the most divisive, racist and authoritarian move, bitterly reviled by the liberals and ardently praised by the conservatives. His slogan to Make America Great Again is largely to take back America from the hands of the vile immigrants, who contaminate the White race with their peculiar identities, language and culture. Mexicans are rapists, Muslims are terrorists, and Blacks are self-destructing in a maelstrom of drugs and violence. Never mind the foundation of American democracy built on a non-discriminatory political system that permits millions to journey to its shores to seek a better life. Immigration, and with it, the healthy blend of diversity and multiethnic racial, religious and cultural identities is the cornerstone of any democracy. The eruption of protests against the desultory attitude of the state indicates the extent to which a multicultural society can be deemed to be morally and culturally pluralistic. Reactions from Paris, London and Berlin have come fast and furious. President Trudeau's invitation to refugees to alternatively settle in Canada or the German Chancellor Angela Merkel's elaboration of the essence of the Geneva Convention are open rebukes to Trump's anti-liberal embargo. We see increasing disgust and despair as the public protests against the rise of ethnic nationalism and xenophobia. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has supported the protest against the ban on the grounds that it violates due process of law, the equal protection clauses of the constitution, the federal statutes, the Immigrant Nationality Act, and more than anything the 1st Amendment which prohibits discrimination on ethnic or religious grounds. The judicial review of the ban would hopefully work as a bulwark against unconstitutional acts of the state. In keeping with the exploitation of fear-mongering that underpins Trump's entire political career, he has chosen to punish innocent people fleeing persecution and hardships. At the moment 60,000 refugees seeking asylum have undergone the tedious process of passing the rigorous immigration tests, including biometrics, but are now in a limbo.The ban is indeed an attack on the basic American values and its national policy of unequivocally allowing refugees into the country a compelling testament of American democracy with its inherent vouchsafing of human rights and diversity. The robust backlash against the flurry of Trump's injunctions signifies an act of resistance. It gives the people an opportunity to enter the field of hard politics and helps bolster the legitimacy of their stand. Behind the debate lies the hope for a meaningful change in racial attitudes, through an enraged fervour seen in progressive movements expressing existential anxieties and political responsibilities when a psycho-social distress overwhelms the land. Trump's actions have indeed, generated an environment of overwhelming power and rancour threatening any meaningful dialogue between diverse religious and ethnic groups. Faith in reason seems to be at stake. The writer is a Professor, Department of English and Cultural Studies, Panjab University. Regardless of who becomes the next Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu in the ongoing political tussle, the Governor has been accused of playing a partisan role. His absence at a crucial moment is questionable. At a meeting on Sunday the AIADMK legislators chose VK Sasikala as their leader and in the normal course she should have been sworn in as Chief Minister. However, the Governor, C Vidyasagar Rao, decided to make himself unavailable for carrying out the constitutional obligation. He reportedly went to attend the reception of a Union ministers son in Delhi and also met the Home Minister. He was then sighted at a convocation function in Maharashtra. As the subsequent political developments have revealed, the Governors disappearing act was not without a motive. Once the party with a majority in the assembly decides on its leader, the Governor has no option but to appoint that leader as Chief Minister. In his defence it is argued that the Governor was busy seeking legal opinion in view of the soon-to-be-delivered Supreme Court judgment in the disproportionate asset case against J Jayalalithaa in which Sasikala is also a party. The Governor, it is said, does not want a replay of the 2001 situation when Jayalalithaa had to quit because of corruption charges soon after being sworn in as Chief Minister. The defence does not carry weight, as a Constitution expert has put it, Whether the Supreme Court delivers a verdict is not the Governors business. If the verdict goes against Sasikala, then she will have to resign. Seizing the moment, caretaker Chief Minister O Panneerselvam has decided to withdraw his resignation. He may have demonstrative popular support, but as long as the majority of the MLAs are with Sasikala, he cannot resume the post and be allowed a floor test. Apparently, the Governors deliberate dithering served to give Sasikalas opponents enough time to regroup and stake claim to the CMs gaddi. It helps the BJP to have a supportive CM in Tamil Nadu since it needs AIADMK help in the Rajya Sabha as well as the Presidential election. US President Donald Trump is yet to unroll the America First doctrine. But worryingly for India, Democrats are competing with him in imposing restrictions on low-cost foreign IT workers. The US House of Representatives has taken up a Bill for reforming H1B visas. Indians account for one lakh such visas every year, besides another 1.25 lakh that are renewed. The sponsor of the Bill is a veteran Democrat representing the Silicon Valley, indicating that the notion of Indian cyber-coolies is widespread. Officially, the Indian Government has withheld comment because similar Bills in the past have sunk into oblivion. But deep inside there must be considerable concern. The failure to create jobs inside India is being compounded by the inability to defend jobs for Indians abroad. Currently, the US President is beyond the call of reason. In due course, he will appreciate that trade in services with India is not a one-way street. If India raked in $19 billion from the US last year, the corresponding figure was $12 billion. This is set to increase because of $28 billion US investment in this sector. Trump will also not be unaware that Indias $25 billion annual trade surplus in goods with the US may shrink. His predecessor has set the stage for increased US involvement in Indias infrastructure sector and energy supplies, both fossil and solar based. If those are not enough reasons to go slow on clamping down on H1B visas, three of Trumps Cabinet picks were CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, the very section that has benefited the most from low-cost IT labour from India. Would they not be counselling their President against such a move? On the world stage, the US needs India because of its tensions with Pakistan and China and close ties with Japan, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia and Australia. The Obama days will not return anytime soon when Indias trade surplus and work visas had doubled. While fighting to retain the quota of H1B visas, India will also have to take a call on how long its corporates will make money on the back of modestly paid techies? Deepender Deswal Tribune News Service Hisar, February 9 The recent violent clash between two groups of youths has led to a spurt in the demand for arms licences by Dalit residents of Mirchpur village. Around 20 persons belonging to the Dalit community of the village have applied for gun licences. Over 40 Dalit men here have arms licences, which were issued after the 2010 violence. Ajmer Singh, a Dalit resident, said, Many of us feel the need to have arms in the wake of the fresh clash. This was among the main demands we had taken up with state minister Krishan Kumar Bedi recently. He had assured us that licences would be issued, he said. District officials, however, are unsure about the genuineness of the demand. Superintendent of Police Rajender Kumar Meena said licence would be issued after establishing whether the applicant had any threat or not. A social panchayat of the village, which met earlier this week in the village, objected to the demand for arms licences, stating it would vitiate the atmosphere in the village. Satyawan Singh, village sarpanch, however, said they had no objection to the demand, as the main objective of the applicants was to get job as security personnel. There is no insecurity or tension in the village, but if somebody wants the licence, why should anybody object? he said. Ajmer Singh also admitted that following the 2010 violence, over 10 Dalit youths were employed as guards with various agencies. Four Dalit youths had suffered injuries when a group of upper caste youths assaulted them on January 30 on the outskirts of the village. The incident led to tension, as Dalit families threatened to migrate from the village alleging threat. A police official said 11 accused had been arrested in connection with the clash. The accused belonged to the Jat, Brahmin and Jangra communities, he added. Tribune News Service Rohtak, February 9 Former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hoodas brother, Inder Singh, attended the Jat Nyay dharna being staged at Jassia village in this district today. Apart from extending support to the agitators, Inder Singh also donated Rs 1.50 lakh for the agitation. Talking to reporters at the dharna site, Congress MLA from Meham Anand Singh Dangi maintained that the BJP would have to pay a heavy price in the UP elections for delaying reservation to the Jat community. Ashok Balhara, general secretary of the AIJASS, said they were waiting for the invitation for talks from the committee formed by the state government. Lalit Mohan Tribune News Service Dharamsala, February 9 The police have arrested one more person in the case in which two leopard hides were confiscated from two poachers yesterday. Sources here said that police conducted raids in remote villages of Chamba district in which the arrested poachers were operating yesterday late in the night and arrested one more poacher Chain Singh. The police recovered body parts of some wild animals. The Kangra SP, Sanjeev Gandhi, while talking to The Tribune, said the police were seeking remand of those arrested in the case for further investigation. The way leopard skins were being taken outside the state for sale, it seems to be a well-knit racket. We will try to tie all ends in the case. Veterinary experts have been called to identify the body parts as jaws and heads of animals recovered from the poachers, he said. In a significant breakthrough yesterday the Kangra police arrested two poachers who were trying to smuggle out two leopard skins out of state. The arrested poachers were Sanjay Kumar, a resident of Morthu village in Bhatiyat area of Chamba district and Raj Kumar, a resident of Bhatiyat village in Chamba district. The accused were arrested during search of their vehicle at a naka put up by police near Kotla on the Kangra-Pathankot road. During search of the vehicle two leopard hides were recovered. The vehicle in which hides were being carried was seized. A case under the Wildlife Act has been registered against the accused. Keeping of leopard hides is illegal under the Wildlife Act in India. There is hardly any market for leopard hides in India. The hides and other remains of wild animals like leopards, including their claws, bones and other parts of body, have market in China or other South East Asian Countries. These body parts are used in Chinese medicine. The poachers from the state sell the hides and other parts of killed leopards of wildlife article smugglers who further ship them out of country. Due to winters and low temperatures wild animals migrate from snow-bound areas of Dhauladhar wildlife sanctuary to lower hills. However, this migration has increased poaching of wild animals. While in the forests around Dharamsala wild goat was being poached in lower hills wild boar, sambar and barking dear are being poached. All these animals are protected under various schedules of the Wildlife Protection Act. Gunshots can be heard on the outskirts of Dharamsala at periodic intervals which indicate poaching activities. In lower areas of the districts as Nurpur and Dehra poaching was going on with various methods. Besides licensed guns, traps are being laid to poach wild animals. In rural areas of the district the poachers lay crude traps made of clutch wire of two wheelers. The wire traps are laid in such a manner that once an animal is trapped in it, the more it struggles to free itself tighter it becomes. The traps lead to permanent injures of wild or stray animal caught in these traps. Ehsan Fazili Tribune News Service Srinagar, February 9 A complete shutdown was observed in the Kashmir valley today to observe the fourth death anniversary of the Parliament attack convict, Afzal Guru, as security was tightened to prevent protest demonstrations and any law and order situation. Restrictions were imposed in the areas falling under six police stations in Srinagar Nowhatta, Khanyar, Rainawari, Safakadal, Maharaj Gunj and Maisuma. Heavy deployment of police and CRPF men was also made in other areas of Srinagar to maintain law and order. Concertina wire coils were laid to prevent the movement of vehicles at different places in the city, including Clock Tower area in Central Lal Chowk. Pedestrian and vehicular movement was also restricted from Lal Chowk through Amirakadal Bridge to Hari Singh High Street. Normal life was paralysed across the Valley in response to the general strike called jointly by the separatist leaders, Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik, to observe Afzal Gurus fourth death anniversary. All the shops and business establishments were closed and passenger traffic was off the roads, though private vehicles and auto-rickshaws plied in some areas of the city and Valley. Meanwhile, the train services on the 119-km-long line between Baramulla in north Kashmir and Banihal in the Jammu region were also suspended today in view of the general strike and preventive measures. Guru was hanged and buried in Delhis Tihar Jail on February 9, 2013, for the Parliament attack in 2001 in which at least 14 persons were killed. The separatist leaders have also called for a general strike on February 11 to mark the 33rd death anniversary of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front leader, Mohammad Maqbool Bhatt, hanged in Tihar jail in 1984. They have reiterated the call for march to the UN office after the Friday prayers tomorrow to submit a memorandum at the office of the United Nations Military Observers Group in India and Pakistan for the return of the mortal remains of Maqbool Bhatt and Afzal Guru. Reiterating his demand for the return of the mortal remains of Mohammad Maqbool Bhat and Mohamad Afzal Guru, All Parties Hurriyat Conference Chairman Syed Ali Geelani said although it was purely a human issue, India was reluctant to this demand thereby violating all the principles of ethics and human values. He strongly criticised the state administration for clamping curfew-like restrictions, curbs and crackdown against its leaders. New Delhi, February 9 After cooking gas LPG, the government on Thursday made Aadhaar mandatory for availing subsidised foodgrains from the ration shops with a view to better target Rs 1.4 lakh crore subsidy under the food security law. The government has given time to those not having the biometric-based unique identification number to apply for Aadhaar by June 30. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) The government issued a notification to this effect but did stop short of saying that subsidised foodgrains will not be sold to anyone not having Aadhaar after June 30. Under the National Food Security Law (NFSA), which has been completely rolled out across the country in November last year, the government provides 5 kg of foodgrains per person every month at Rs 1-3/kg to over 80 crore people. "...the Department of Food and Consumer Affairs has issued a Notification under Aadhaar Act on February 8 which requires individual beneficiaries having ration cards under NFSA to furnish proof of possession of Aadhaar number or undergo Aadhaar authentication to receive subsidies under NFSA (i.e. subsidised food grains or cash Transfer of Food Subsidy under NFSA)," an official statement said. The notification would come into effect from February 8 in all states and UTs except Assam, Meghalaya and Jammu and Kashmir. This will also be applicable to all the new beneficiaries. Beneficiaries under NFSA who do not possess the Aadhaar number or are not yet enrolled for Aadhaar, but are desirous of availing subsidies under NFSA are required to make application for Aadhaar enrolment by June 30, 2017 and may visit any Aadhaar enrolment centre to get enrolled for Aadhaar," the statement said. The notification has been issued since subsidised foodgrains under PDS and cash transfer of food subsidy under NFSA involves recurring expenditure from the Consolidated Fund of India, it added. Any of 8 documents for Aadhaar enrolment Till Aadhaar is assigned to the beneficiaries, the government said foodgrains would be provided on production of ration card and either Aadhaar enrolment ID slip or copy of his/her request made to state government for Aadhaar enrolment along with any of the 8 documents. These are Voter ID Card, PAN, Passport, Driving Licence, Certificate of Identity with photo issued by Gazetted Officer/ Tehsildar on official letter head, address card having name and photo issued by Department of Posts, Kisan Photo Passbook and any other document as specified by state/UT governments. The beneficiaries can make request for Aadhaar enrolment by giving their name, address, mobile number with ration card number and other details with their fair price shop owners or through the web portal provided for the purpose by state/UT governments. A senior food ministry official said a notification has been issued as the states were slow in linking Aadhaar card with ration cards despite giving several extension to expedite the process. The official said digitisation is essential to curb leakages and corruption in PDS and better targetting of food subsidy. So far, 72 per cent of ration cards have been seeded with Aadhaar Cards. There are 23 crore ration cards, of which about 16.62 crore have been linked, while there are 5.27 lakh ration shops across the country. The Centre has asked the states to link Aadhaar number of beneficiary with the ration card or with bank account for cash transfer of food subsidy within 30 days after receiving the same, the statement said. The government provides direct cash transfer of food subsidy to the beneficiaries in Chandigarh, Puducherry and Dadra & Nagar Haveli. A provision has been made that any member of eligible household listed in the ration card would be entitled to get the entire quota of subsidised foodgrains or cash transfer of food subsidy, if any one member of the household in the ration card fulfils the identification conditions in case Aadhaar is not yet assigned to all such members of the household. The government said the use of Aadhaar as identity document for delivery of services or benefits or subsidies simplifies the delivery processes, brings in transparency and efficiency and enables beneficiaries to get their entitlements directly in a convenient and seamless manner. That apart, it said Aadhaar obviates the need for producing multiple documents to prove one's identity. "Aadhaar Act, inter-alia, provides that the central/state government while making expenditure from Consolidated fund of India for any subsidy, may require such individual to furnish proof of possession of Aadhaar number or undergo authentication," the statement said. The Food Department of all the states and UTs should make wide publicity through media and individual notices through the district food supply office or fair price shops etc to make the beneficiaries aware of the requirement of Aadhaar under the scheme. The states have been asked to advise beneficiaries to get themselves enrolled at the nearest enrolment centres available in their areas by June and a list of locally available enrolment centres should be made available to them. States have been told to offer enrolment facilities for the beneficiaries. In case there is no Aadhaar enrolment centre located in the respective block or taluka or tehsil, states are required to provide enrolment facilities at convenient locations in coordination with the UIDAI or the existing Registrars of UIDAI or by becoming UIDAI registrar themselves. In the Budget for 2017-18, the government has earmarked Rs 1,45,338.60 crore for food subsidy in the next fiscal against Rs 1,35,172.96 crore in the revised estimate of this fiscal. PTI 10,000 constables, allocated from other districts, and 5,000, posted in the district, will maintain law and order under the guidance of senior police officials in Ghaziabad. By Press Trust of India: Around 15,000 paramilitary, police and home guard personnel have been deployed in Ghaziabad to ensure free, fair and peaceful voting in the first phase of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections on February 11, a senior police official said today. District Police chief held a meeting with other senior officials and chalked out a detailed plan at Police Lines on Thursday, assistant superintendent of police Aashish Srivastav said. advertisement Addressing the officials, senior superintendent of police Deepak Kumar said 36 companies (100 personnel in each company) of central military forces, 800 sub-inspectors, 3,000 constables and 5,000 home guards jawans from different districts of Uttar Pradesh have reached here. A total of around 15,000 personnel will be deployed at polling stations and booths in the district. 10,000 constables, allocated from other districts, and 5,000, posted in the district, will maintain law and order under the guidance of senior police officials, the SSP said. ALSO READ | Uttar Pradesh Assembly election: BJP faces stiff opposition in western belt Uttar Pradesh Assembly election: Mood in Lucknow favours Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance Ahead of Assembly election, UP police beefs up security at special booths --- ENDS --- New Delhi, February 9 After cooking gas LPG, the government today made Aadhaar mandatory for availing subsidised foodgrains from ration shops with a view to better target the Rs 1.4 lakh crore subsidy under the food security law. The government has given time to those not having the biometric-based unique identification number to apply for Aadhaar by June 30. The government issued a notification to this effect but did stop short of saying that subsidised foodgrains will not be sold to anyone not having Aadhaar after June 30. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) Under the National Food Security Law, completely rolled out across the country in November last year, the government provides 5 kg of foodgrains per person every month at Rs 1-3 per kg to over 80 crore people. The notification came into effect from February 8 across India except in Assam, Meghalaya and J&K. Till Aadhaar is assigned to beneficiaries, foodgrains would be provided on production of ration card and either Aadhaar enrolment slip or a copy of the request for it along with any of the eight documents. PTI Vibha Sharma Tribune News Service New Delhi, February 9 Even as the Congress clamoured for an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi for, what it called ugly and unacceptable, raincoat dig at his predecessor Manmohan Singh, the BJP escalated attack, asking the Opposition party to express regret for conduct in the Rajya Sabha yesterday and absurd and cheap language used by its leaders against the PM in the past. The Congress, they said, was angry and upset because the Prime Minister had shown it the mirror. Also as per BJP leaders, the Opposition had no moral right to preach about Parliamentary etiquette given the absurd and cheap words used by its top leaders inside and outside the Parliament against the Prime Minister. In the same Parliament they (Opposition) called him (the Prime Minister) Hitler, Mussolini, Gaddafi. The references were removed at our insistence. They have used meaningless phrases like khoon ki dalali and maut ka saudagar to describe him. It is a shame, they are giving pravachan (sermons) to others now. They are not able to understand the reality and are thus creating problems. Why should the Prime Minister apologise, questioned Union Ministers M Venkaiah Naidu, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Ananth Kumar. On the contrary, as per BJP leaders, they should not just apologise to them but the entire country. We have shown them the mirror, unmasked the Congress and they are now upset. The Prime Minister of India is an institution, respected not only in India, but worldwide, they said. Moreover, as per Prasad pun, fun and repartee was very much a part of the Parliamentary democracy. Mild exchange of words is all part of healthy democracy. So why is the Congress worried, he wondered while responding to the Congress anger. Reminding Singh that he was the Prime Minister when scams worth 12 lakh crore had taken place, Prasad said he did not believe that words used by Singh to describe the demonetisation scheme organised loot and legalised plunder actually belonged to him. We have observed him in Parliament in past 10 years. These are not his words. Rather, I feel sorry for him. He could not do anything to save the honour of his mentor (former PM Narsimha Rao), whose body was not even allowed to enter the AICC precincts, Prasad said. Shiv Kumar Tribune News Service Mumbai, February 9 The cast and crew of a television show have been arrested for using a live cobra for the programme in violation of wildlife laws. According to the office of the Chief Conservator of Forests here, the producers of the mythological serial Nagarjuna, Utkarsh Bali and Nitin Solanki and actors Shruti Ulfat and Pearl Puri were arrested after some animal rights organisations filed a complaint against them. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) Among the evidence produced by these organisations include images of Shruti Ulfat posing with the live snake which were posted on social media. The images were posted last October and the serial itself has been discontinued, according to reports. The four of them were arrested on Wednesday and produced before the magistrate's court today. Reports say all of them have been sent to judicial custody till February 16. All four will be charged under provision of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, forest officials said. Though the actors told the authorities that snake used in the images were not real and only graphics were employed, the forest officials cited evidence from the Forensic Laboratory at Kalina here to proceed against them, sources say. Animal rights activists have alleged that live animals caught from the wild are regularly used for shooting at Mumbai's Film City despite a ban. Often the animals used for film shooting have their claws removed and their mouths stitched to prevent injuries to the cast and crew on the sets. Snakes are also mutilated in order to prevent them from biting anyone though the reptiles died shortly afterwards, activists say. New Delhi, February 9 India on Thursday handed over to the UK an extradition request for absconding businessman Vijay Mallya who is facing cases of loan default and other financial irregularities. Today, we handed over the request for extradition of Vijay Vittal Mallya which we received from the CBI to the UK High Commission here. We have requested the UK side to extradite him to face trial in India, External Affairs Ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) Asserting that India has a legitimate case against Mallya, he said if an extradition request is honoured, it shows their sensitivity towards our concerns. We have made the extradition request in prescribed format and it is for the UK to deliberate on the request and take further action, he added. Swarup also said India is yet to make an extradition request for former IPL chairman Lalit Modi. Last month, a CBI court had issued a non-bailable warrant against Mallya in the Rs 720-crore IDBI Bank loan default case. Mallya, whose now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines owes more than Rs 9,000 crore to various banks, had left India on March 2. PTI New Delhi, February 9 India today said it had forwarded an extradition request as regards Vijay Mallya to the UK High Commission here. India has an extradition treaty with the UK and there is a legitimate case against Mallya, according to the Ministry of External Affairs. We today handed over a request for the extradition of Vijay Mallya, as received from the CBI, to the UK High Commission in New Delhi. We have requested the UK to extradite him to face a trial in India, MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup said at a press briefing. Liquor baron Mallya is accused of financial irregularities to the tune of Rs 9,000 crore through his company Kingfisher Airlines. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) Mallya took to Twitter recently to slam the CBI, which, he said, took great pains to build a case against former Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran and his brother, who had been cleared of the charges by courts. Mallya continues to reside in the UK and his lifestyle has invited allegations of the government being soft in pursuing his extradition. TNS New Delhi, February 9 The Supreme Court verdict of one-year sentence on real estate baron Gopal Ansal has come as a "big disappointment", members of the Association of Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT) said on Thursday, adding they have "lost hope" in the judiciary system of the country. "We are very disappointed, justice is not done. We didn't expect just one year punishment by Supreme Court. We have been fighting for long and now we have lost hope in the judiciary system of our country," Neelam Krishnamoorthy, head AVUT, told IANS. Family members of the 59 people who died have been fighting for justice for 20 years now, seeking punishment of the Ansal brothers, Gopal and Sushil, co-owners of the Uphaar Cinema Hall. "It is even more surprising to see the court allowing Sushil Ansal walk free for the reason of being 75-year-old, while a few days ago the SC announced punishment to a 93-year-old man. Punishment cannot be excused on the basis of age," Naveen Sawhney, member of AVUT, said. On June 13, 1997, a huge fire broke out in the Uphaar cinema hall which is located in Green Park. Trapped inside, 59 people died of asphyxia while over 100 were injured in a stampede. While Neelam and Shekhar Krishnamoorthy lost both their children, Naveen Sawhney lost his daughter in the incident. "Today's verdict proved that justice is not meant for the common citizen. It proved people with money have the privilege to get a verdict in their favour. Sushil Ansal can travel abroad, but cannot be punished because he is old," Krishnamoorthy lamented. "The review petition said the accused need to serve two years of jail, then why the one-year verdict now? There should be no relaxation for criminals on any basis. We will have a joint decision on whether to go for a curative petition," Sawhney pointed out. The Ansals were held guilty of "criminal negligence" but had earlier escaped jail terms beyond a few months. On Thursday, Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Kurian Joseph by a 2:1 majority verdict partially modified an earlier order that said the Ansals would be let off by paying Rs 30 crore each, with the jail sentence already served. The court pronounced the verdict on pleas seeking a review of its 2015 order. IANS Yash Goyal Jaipur, February 9 The Sri Rajput Karni Sena (SKS), who shot to limelight recently for assaulting film director Sanjay Leela Bhansali and vandalising Padmavati sets at Jaigarh Fort, on Thursday demanded that reservation to all categories should be reviewed after 70 years of Independence. After what it considered a victory in the Padmavati controversy last month, SKS extended its support to top ideologists of Rashtriya Swyam Sevak Sangh (RSS) who raised the issue at various platforms recently. RSS top ideologists, including Mohan Bhagwat, Manmohan Vaidya and Dattatreya Hosabale, had suggested at various platforms that reservation being extended to all categories since Independence could be reviewed. SKS is ready to discuss and make a plan nationwide by mobilising people of all castes, creed, and religions, its patron Lokendra Singh Kalvi told a press conference here. I should clarify that our movement if it comes along with like-minded people would only be for reviewing the existing reservation system being run for the last 70 years and not to stop it, Kalvi said. For this we need a leader like Hardik Patel of Gujarat, he said and when he was reminded that Hardik will be Shiv Senas face in Gujarat, Kalvi said, Nothing is final at Shiv Sena-Patel level. We expect such a leader for quota review. I will soon meet RSS chief Bhagwat to talk on this very issue and make an action plan to redefine quota system, Kalvi said. In Rajasthan, out of 238 castes, only nine were left without any quota benefit, and this could not rise further as per the High Court ruling in which Special Backward Classes Act was struck down last year, Kalvi said. At Jaipur Lit Fest-2017, RSS publicity chief Manmohan Vaidya had kicked up a storm when he had made remarks favouring a review of the reservation policy. Similarly during Bihar Assembly elections, Bhagwat had stated that reservation policy in the country must be reviewed, Kalvi said. Bihar gaya hai, Aarakashan nahin (BJP lost Bihar Assembly poll but quota is still there), quoting another RSS leader, Kalvi said. Harping on the groups success for successfully stalling the shooting of the film at Jaigarh Fort, Kalvi claimed that Bollywoods Director and Producer Guild have written to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to ensure pre-censorship of movies if taking up historical content to avoid distortion. Ajay Banerjee Tribune News Service New Delhi, February 9 Even as the Donald Trump-led US administration settles in and its long-standing allies read the implications, US Defence Secretary James Mattis called up Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar to commit to growth of military ties between the two nations. Both discussed measures to take forward the implementation of the US decision to anoint India as its major defence partner (MDP). In December during the tenure of Barack Obama the US Congress had approved the status that is unique to India. It institutionalises the path of progress made to facilitate defence trade and technology sharing with India to a level on a par with that of the US closest allies and partners. It creates a presumption of approval for transactions with India and removes the need to have Congressional sanction for each fresh case. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) Mattis committed to building upon bilateral defence cooperation, underscoring the strategic importance of the US-India relationship, said Pentagon spokesperson Capt Jeff Davis. MoD spokesperson Nitin Wakankar said they resolved to work together to further consolidate and expand this partnership in the future. Sources in India said two keys points discussed were the implementation of the MDP and taking forward for the Defence Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI), which will be integral and enduring component of India-US security cooperation. The Indian side said it was the first defence-related contact since Trump assumed office on January 20. New Delhi, February 9 The navy on Thursday downplayed apprehensions over an international naval exercise being organised by Pakistan in the Arabian Sea this week, terming it as a normal maritime activity every nation is entitled to. This is an exercise hosted by Pakistanis once in two years. And 16 nations are taking part in it. It is a normal maritime activity any nation is entitled to, Sunil Lanba, Chief of Naval Staff, told reporters at the sidelines of a conference organised by the National Maritime Foundation (NMF). Pakistan is organising Aman-17 from February 10-14. Navies from Australia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Maldives, Russia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States are participating in the joint exercise. A day after the IL 38 Long Range Maritime Reconnaissance aircraft (LRMRA) carried out a successful Anti-Ship Missile firing on a target ship in the Arabian Sea, Lanba said all LRMRAs with the Indian Navy would now have the ability to take on any ship. The LRMRAs are used for surveillances, especially to keep a track on hostile submarines. The P-8I Boeing aircraft with the navy also had similar capabilities, the official said. Speaking at the conference titled The Blue Economy, Lanba emphasised on the need for a suitable policy and a legal framework for national and international level to address different aspects of the blue economy. Identify the differences between the existing national and international laws and policies which should be amended or modified to include tenets of blue economy. For instance, suitable safeguards (are necessary) for fisheries management so that the practise conforms to the tenets of the blue economy. Science-based approach is also necessary for development of blue economy, he said, adding that high international cooperation was imperative if the concept of blue economy had to take root. Blue economy refers to the use of the sea and its resources for sustainable economic development. India has also been cooperating closely with a number of countries such as Mauritius, Seychelles, Bangladesh and Australia to implement and harness the concept of blue economy, the Navy Chief said. PTI Shahira Naim Tribune News Service Lucknow, February 9 With barely a few days of campaigning and having to give an account of poll expenses to the Election Commission, a major shift is being witnessed in the way elections are being fought in Uttar Pradesh this time. Instead of constituency-wise publicity material, the focus of political parties is now on the big picture and state-of the art centralised communication cells. In the BJP, it is called the War Room, while the SP prefers calling it the Socialist Communication Centre. While little is known about who is running the BSPs high-profile social media campaign, in the Congress it is personality-based, rather than providing support to the party across board. In BJP, the focus is on keeping the election day machinery satisfactorily oiled. Its slogan of one booth 20 youth describes the intricate pyramid-like structure of the partys information technology setup that leaves nothing to chance. Those manning the BJP call centre have a booth-wise list of voters. They keep in touch with booth-level volunteers to make sure that they effectively carry out their assigned duties. SPs communication cell in charge Aashish Yadav earlier worked with the BBC. BJPs IT department head Sanjay Rai says data shows UP has 1.5 crore Facebook users, while 4.5 crore use WhatsApp. The SPs communication research cell is headed by Harvard graduate and Fulbright scholar Anshuman Sharma. Operating from a room having dozens of TV screens, the BJP media monitoring cell is headed by Danish, a former ABVP leader from DU. KitKats that look like sushi are on offer in Tokyo. Photo: Reuters By India Today Web Desk: With Valentine's Day just around the corner, restaurants and brands are gearing up to serve some of the most chocolicious delicacies out there. From chocolate desserts to special deals for the day, the industry never really misses out on the opportunities that this day celebrating love has to offer. If you think this means there will be quite a few innovations to look forward to, you're quite right. And you shouldn't be at all surprised when we say that it's Japan that's taken the lead in this regard. With what, you ask? Sushi-shaped KitKats! A Nestle Japan chef assembles the sushi KitKats. Photo: Reuters advertisement Yes, that's what Nestle Japan has to offer people this Valentine's Day--and it's quite the mind-bender. Also read: Love Sushi? You can make these two recipes easily at home These KitKats look like tuna and sea urchin sushis. Photo: Reuters According to a Reuters report, this creative variation of the very popular chocolate biscuit bars are making the right waves in the market. The three-piece set of sushi-shaped KitKats resemble tuna, sea urchin and omelette sushis. But the flavours are actually of raspberry, mascarpone cheese, pumpkin pudding, and sugar-coated puffed rice. The KitKats are served on sugar-coated puffed rice. Photo: Reuters But there's a little twist. These sushi KitKats are not for sale as such. They will be given as a gift to people who spend more than 3,000 Yen in Nestle's KitKat store in Tokyo's Ginza district. The store also has other exotic flavours of KitKat on offer, including sake rice wine, baked potato, and soy sauce. The three-piece sets of sushi KitKats are a Valentine's Day novelty. Photo: Reuters The three-piece sets of sushi KitKats are a Valentine's Day novelty. Photo: Reuters This limited-edition novelty is a must-have for people who want to experience something different this Valentine's Day. --- ENDS --- Simran Sodhi & Mukesh Ranjan Tribune News Service New Delhi, February 9 The Rajya Sabha today saw repeated adjournments and was unable to function as the Opposition raised objections to Prime Minister Narendra Modis remarks made a day earlier. In the Lok Sabha too, the Congress today staged a walkout during Zero Hour in protest against the chairs ruling of not allowing its floor leader Mallikarjun Kharge from raising the partys objection to Modis raincoat remark against his predecessor Manmohan Singh. In the Rajya Sabha, the Opposition parties were particularly agitated over the remarks the PM made with reference to former Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Indira Gandhi, alleging Modi used abusive and insulting language. The members demanded an apology from the PM over his remarks. The House was first adjourned till noon and then till 2 pm. Congress Anand Sharma said Rule 238 disallowed use of offensive expression during a debate. Prime Minister yesterday insulted the memory of Indira Gandhi. He has dragged political debate to a new low he was abusive we will oppose him, he said. CPM leader Sitaram Yechury gave a notice under Rule 267 over the Prime Ministers reference to late Communist leader Jyotirmoy Basu during his speech of Wednesday but the Chair rejected it. The Congress was joined in by the CPM and JD(U) saying they were not given an opportunity to seek clarifications during the debate yesterday despite Chairman Hamid Ansari citing precedence and tradition of the House that gave members the right to seek such response after Prime Minister or a ministers statement. But it was not just the Congress members who were agitated but AIADMK counterparts also entered the well of the House demanding that Tamil Nadu Governor Vidyasagar Rao should discharge his Constitutional duty by swearing in VK Sasikala as Chief Minister without wasting any further time. In the Lok Sabha, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan ruled that the matter relating to the other House could not be raised amid noisy scene created by members of the treasury benches. Congress members first trooped into the Well raising slogans Prime Minister mafi mango (PM should apologise) and Prime Minister shame, shame... and then walked out of the House. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar was also heard saying the issue could not be raised in the Lok Sabha. However, Kharge, before being cut by the Speaker, said, whatever Mr Modi has said about Dr Singh is not good for parliamentary democracy. He also noted that what the Prime Minister had said was an insult to the country. Taking a dig at Manmohan, Modi had said he knew the art of taking bath wearing a raincoat as there were many scams during his government, but he remained untainted. Earlier, the ongoing power struggle in Tamil Nadu was also played out in the Lok Sabha with AIADMK members disrupting proceedings by raising slogans apparently supporting VK Sasikala as the next Chief Minister. The Speaker asked them to raise the issue during Zero Hour and later adjourned the proceedings for nearly 20 minutes till 11.30 am. 74 missing defence men in Pak custody Seventy-four missing defence personnel are believed to be in Pakistan's custody but whose presence has not been acknowledged so far by that country, the government said. Minister of State for External Affairs VK Singh said the government has raised the matter with the Pakistan Government on numerous occasions, including at high levels. AI to get 4 more dreamliners this year Air India is scheduled to take delivery of the four remaining dreamliners Boeing 787-8 planes this year with the last one to be delivered in October. The airline has acquired 23 dreamliners from September 2012 to January 9, 2017, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha told the Lok Sabha, acknowledging the aircraft have experienced technical reliability issues since induction. Terminals at 4 ports for cruise tourism To boost cruise tourism, the government has developed terminals at four major ports Mumbai, Mormugao, New Mangalore and Cochin and also allowed foreign vessels to call without licence from the Director General of Shipping, Parliament was informed on Thursday. Also, a new cruise terminal is under development at Chennai Port and scheduled to be completed by February. PCI got 600 paid news complaints The Press Council of India (PCI) received 600 complaints of 'paid news' against different newspapers, which were forwarded to it by the Election Commission and others, during the 2014 Lok Sabha election. This information was given in the Rajya Sabha by Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore in written reply to a member's question. Beijing, February 9 India can increase its military pressure on Pakistan using the alibi of counterterrorism crusade that may bring other players in the region, Chinas official media warned on Thursday, justifying Beijings latest block on a proposed UN ban on JeM chief Massood Azhar. India has its own reasons to have listed Azhar as terrorist. However, observers are also worried that under the defence of counterterrorism crusade, India can increase its military pressure on Pakistan, thus risking escalating tensions between the two countries, state-run Global Times said in an editorial. It comes just a day after China defended its decision to block the US proposal in the UN for designating Pathankot attack mastermind and JeM chief Azhar as a global terrorist, saying the conditions have not yet been met for Beijing to back the move. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) The India-Pakistan has been a thorny issue in South Asia for long and China is caught in the middle, given geographic and geopolitical proximity to the two, it said without mentioning Chinas all-weather ties with Pakistan. The failure to bring the two on the path to peace underscores their different domestic and diplomatic trajectories. Any action the UN takes should assist the peace process rather than escalating tensions between the two countries, the editorial said. Interestingly, the editorial can be read only in the print edition as the internet link to it was blocked. Projecting an enlarged role for Beijing in the tensions between India and Pakistan, it said as a responsible power China must help maintain regional order. It said China is aware that terrorism is a burning issue. China has also set up anti-terror mechanism with India but regional peace and stability will always be a priority, it said. Any India-Pakistan confrontation may bring other players into the region, which would complicate the situation, it said without naming other players. Significantly for China, the resolution to ban Azhar in the Al-Qaeda related 1267 Committee of the UN Security Council was moved this time by the US and backed by other UNSC permanent members like the UK and France unlike last year when India moved the application which was backed by all members except China. However, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang on Wednesday, while defending Chinas technical hold, played down the US move to directly move the resolution for the ban on Azhar. Whoever submitted the request we believe all the members of the committee will act in line with regulations of the Security Council and its affiliations, he told the media. He said the move had not met the conditions for a ban and needed consensus for approval. In its editorial on Thursday, the Global Times, the ruling Communist Party of Chinas (CPC) tabloid, known for striking nationalistic postures, said India had not produced enough evidence to back its case about Azhars involvement in the Pathankot airbase attack, which incidentally scuttled India-Pakistan peace process. Unlike Indian medias criticism of Chinas veto, Pakistan media reported that people in the country welcomed the news, which reflects deep divisions among the people in the two countries, it said. What is troublesome is some Indian media view China with prejudice and overtly interpret Chinas moves, especially after China and Pakistan hastened the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, it said. But at the same time it said China supported Indias efforts to curb terrorism. India can work more to bring all the parties to reach consensus over the issue, instead of only blaming others for its failed attempts. PTI Tribune News Service Lucknow, February 9 Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik on Thursday removed Minister of State Sharda Pratap Shukla, who is contesting Assembly polls on a RLD ticket, with immediate effect. Shukla was denied a ticket by the Samajwadi Party. Shukla was also sacked by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav. Minister of State for Higher Education (Independent charge), Sharda Pratap Shukla, has been sacked by Governor Ram Naik on recommendations of the Chief Minister, a Raj Bhawan officer said. Shukla, a sitting MLA from Sarojni Nagar seat in the state capital, was denied SP ticket after which he filed nomination on RLD ticket. The SP has given ticket to Mulayams nephew Anurag Yadav from this seat. Samajwadi Party chief spokesman Rajendra Chowdhury, when contacted, said Shukla has also been expelled from the party for indulging in anti-party activities. With agencies Satya Prakash Tribune News Service New Delhi, February 9 The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered Gopal Ansal (68) to surrender in four weeks to serve the one-year sentence imposed on him in the 1997 Uphaar fire tragedy case that claimed 59 lives. A three-judge bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi, however, refused to review its order regarding Sushil Ansal (77), who was let off without any prison term after payment of Rs 30 crore fine in view of his old age and health condition. By a 2-1 verdict, the bench said the principle of parity could not be applied to Gopal as he didnt have that kind of health problems. Both brothers--owners of Uphaar cinema in South Delhi--have already paid Rs 30 crore each as fine which has to be used for building a trauma centre in Delhi. The period of four months and 20 days for which Gopal remained in jail during the trial is likely to be deducted from the one-year prison term. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) Justice Gogoi and Justice Kurian Joseph partially reviewed the top courts earlier order and decided to send Gopal to jail while Justice AK Goyal declined the review. Reacting to the verdict, Association for Victims of Uphaar Tragedys Neelam Krishnamurty, who lost both her children in the fire, said: l should not have come to the court. I have already lost faith in the judiciary. Fifty-nine people had died and many more injured after a fire broke out at Uphaar cinema during the screening of Hindi film Border on June 13, 1997. Most of the victims died due to asphyxia. The top court had earlier held the Ansal brothers guilty of criminal negligence and fined them Rs 30 crore each but didnt sentence them to further jail term, beyond the period already spent by them in Tihar during the trial. The CBI and the victims had sought review of the order. The CBI said the court did not give it time to put forth its views leading to miscarriage of justice. A Delhi trial court had in 2007 sentenced the Ansal brothers to two years in jail. A year later, the Delhi High Court had reduced the sentence by half, forcing the CBI and victims to approach the top court. Satya Prakash Tribune News Service New Delhi, February 9 The Supreme Court today ordered Gopal Ansal (68) to surrender in four weeks after it sentenced him to one year in jail for the 1997 Uphaar fire tragedy that claimed 59 lives. A three-Judge Bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi, however, refused to review its order regarding Sushil Ansal (77), who was let off after paying a fine of Rs 30 crore in view of his old age and poor health. The top court had earlier held the Ansal brothers guilty of criminal negligence and fined them Rs 30 crore each but did not sentence them to a jail term beyond the period already spent in Tihar during the trial. In view of his old age and poor health, the court said Sushil would not be sent to jail. It gave the same relief to Gopal on the ground of parity. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) By a 2:1 verdict, the Bench today said the principle of parity could not be applied to Gopal as he didnt have that kind of health problems. Both brothers, owners of Uphaar Cinema in South Delhi, have already paid Rs 30 crore each as fine which is to be used for building a trauma centre. The period of four months and 20 days for which Gopal remained in jail during the trial is likely to be deducted from the one-year prison term. Justices Gogoi and Kurian Joseph partially reviewed the earlier order and decided to send Gopal to jail while Justice AK Goyal declined the review. Association for Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT) representative Neelam Krishnamurty, who lost both her children, said: l should not have come to court. I have already lost faith in the judiciary. The convict and AVUT have the option of filing a curative petition, the last legal remedy. Ajay Banerjee Tribune News Service New Delhi, Feb 9 Even as long-standing allies of the US struggle to understand the strategic implications of Donald Trumps policies, US Defence Secretary James Mattis called up Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and committed to build on the tremendous progress in bilateral defence cooperation. The Pentagon US Defence Ministry headquarters provided details of the telephonic conversation on Thursday morning. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) In their first conversation, Secretary Mattis committed to build upon the tremendous progress in bilateral defense cooperation made in recent years, underscoring the strategic importance of the US-India relationship and Indias role in advancing global peace and security, the Pentagon spokes person Capt Jeff Davis said. Secretary Mattis and Minister Parrikar affirmed their commitment to sustain the momentum on key bilateral defense efforts to include the Defense Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI). The DTTI is a programme that allows the two countries to work together on key technologies, including one on sea-borne aircraft carriers and engines of jet fighters. The Indian side said this was the first contact since Trump assumed office on January 20. Tribune News Service Malerkotla, Feb 9 Residents of Jitwal Kalan village today blocked the Sangrur-Malerkotla road in front of the police complex in the town, alleging that village youth Bikramjit Singh Bobby, 24, had been murdered in cold blood by the police late last night. The blockade caused a massive traffic jam. The Sangrur SSP, however, claimed Bobby had been shot during cross-firing between the police and criminals in Jitwal Kalan. He claimed Bobby was accompanying the criminals. Raghuvir Singh, father of the deceased, called it a lie. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) He said after dinner at 9 pm, his son left for the village gurdwara to make preparations for the Bhagat Ravidass Jayanti. The police killed my son and took his body to Malerkotla. We learnt about the incident this morning, he said, adding they had mistaken the sound of gunshots for crackers. The cops must be booked for killing my innocent son who had no links whatsoever with any criminal. Nor did he have a criminal record, said a wailing Manjinder Kaur. The trouble began after gangsters Gahia Khan and Faraz Ahmad fired at a shopkeeper last night and fled. The latter suffered bullet injuries in the left leg. A case was filed and the SHOs of surrounding areas were told to trace the criminals. Past midnight, a police party cordoned Jitwal Kalan village after it received a tip-off that Khan and Ahmad were hiding there. As the police party raided the village, the criminals opened fire. In the retaliatory fire, Bobby, who was with the criminals, was shot, claimed Inderbir Singh, SSP, Sangrur. A case has been filed against the deceased, Khan, Ahmad and their accomplices Jagpal Singh and Jagdip Singh. The villagers, demanding justice, had not lifted the blockade till the filing of the report. Tribune News Service Chandigarh, February 9 Re-polling at 48 polling stations of the Amritsar Lok Sabha constituency and the five Assembly segments went peacefully on Thursday with no untoward incident being reported. Brisk voting was witnessed in the re-poll which was ordered following malfunctioning in VVPATs and EVMs during the February 4 elections. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) Most of the polling stations where the re-poll was held registered a healthy turnout. However, at some polling booths in Majitha Assembly the re-poll percentage registered a slight drop, varying between 2-10 percentage points. The combined average of the re-polling booths in Amritsar district stood at over 76 per cent. Muktsar (nearly 90 per cent), Sangrur (85.68 per cent), Sardulgarh (over 90 per cent) and Moga (81.26 per cent) registered healthy voting percentage. In Mukstar district, 89.4 per cent voting was recorded at all the nine booths. Maximum voting at 95.06 per cent was recorded at Khappianwali village where 962 of total 1012 votes are polled. On February 4, total 921 votes were polled at this booth. After todays re-polling, the polling percentage at Sangrur has improved to 83.88 percent and it has crossed Faridkot and Fazilka districts and improved its tally in the state from fifth position to third. In Sardulgarh 1149 votes were polled out of 1272 votes. SAD candidate Bikram Singh Majithia, after he cast his vote at booth no 35 in the Majitha Assembly constituency, said the re-polling would not affect the prospects of the Akalis in Punjab, and he welcomed the EC's decision. Taking a jibe at AAP MP Bhagwant Mann, he said: It must have been for the first time in seven decades that someone was compelled to point out in full House about Mann's drinking habit. I ask Kejriwal to set an example by taking an action against his MP (Mann) who represents over 11 lakh people. The AAP has been exposed. On the allegations levelled by the Congress candidate about the SAD supporters bribing voters and enjoying immunity from police at his behest, Bikram said there was no complainant in that case. It is a concocted story enacted by Lalli Majithia who filmed the clipping and propagated it, he said. Meanwhile, Congress candidate for the Amritsar Lok Sabha bypoll, Gurjeet Singh Aujla, and Assembly candidate Lalli Majithia alleged that the police were working under the influence of Bikram Majithia to terrorise the Congress workers. They alleged that Bikram was trying to implicate the Congress workers in wrong police cases". They alleged that the SAD workers were bribing the voters. However, Lalli said that he was satisfied by the EC's security arrangements at the polling booths, and that the re-polling would benefit the Congress. AAP candidate Himmat Singh Shergill alleged that the Congress and SAD had been exposed for adopting unfair means of alluring voters by offering cash and liquor to them. He said the EC should take note of it, and demanded that the candidature of both the Congress and SAD should be held nullified. He said: Enough proof is there to prove how both the parties have violated the EC guidelines for vested political interests. People have now realised the ideology and sanctity of the AAP and I am hopeful of getting a good support. The EC had ordered repolling at 12 polling stations of Majitha Assembly seat, nine each of Muktsar and Sangrur, one each of Moga and Sardulgarh and 16 polling stations of Amritsar parliamentary constituency. The central paramilitary force has been deployed at each polling station and no outsider will be allowed to stay. Tribune News Service Chandigarh, February 9 The High Court today directed the Election Commission of India to ensure complete security of the electronic voting machines (EVMs). Acting on a petition filed by the Aam Aadmi Partys Punjab unit through senior advocate RS Cheema and Navkiran Singh, the Division Bench of Justice Mahesh Grover and Justice Sneh Prashar made it clear that the concerns raised by the petitioner about EVMs safety and security would form an inherent part of the statutory functions of the Election Commission of India. The Bench added even though verifiable instances of security breach did not manifest themselves in the petition, the direction to ensure complete security was mandate of the statute, which empowered the Commission to ascertain absolute protection and also obligated it to do so. It was also essential to uphold the sanctity of the electoral process. The Bench added the direction was also propelled by concerns of all, including the High Court, to instil confidence; and to sustain and enhance the credibility of the electoral process so inherent to a democracy. Disposing of the petition, the Bench asserted that the Election Commission may take note of some suggestions by the petitioner to ensure security of the EVMs and take appropriate steps, which we are sure must already be in place. The Bench went on to add that the suggestions were more or less in conformity with the standards operating procedures. If some of them supplement and strengthen the same, they may be accepted, particularly, if they sub serve the purpose of securing the EVMs. By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Feb 9 (PTI) The commerce ministry will soon despatch a team of officials to Geneva to speed up talks at WTO with an aim to find a permanent solution on food security. Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also said the team will make sure Indias proposal for trade facilitation agreement (TFA) in services gathers momentum. advertisement The issues figured in the discussions during a meeting between Sitharaman and WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo here today. "The team which will be going to Geneva will also see that TFA in services is taken at various stages so that it becomes part of the Argentina ministerial meeting," she told reporters here. The official team, she said, will ensure "we take up both the issues". She said India wants the procedure of finding a permanent solution on food security to be completed on time and that too before the ministerial level meet in Argentina in December. During the meeting, Sitharaman pressed for regular meetings to discuss this important issue. "This year, I want to see discussions happening in Geneva on this. We have already done enough groundwork on this. We can not start discussions from scratch," she added. The issue will come up for discussion at the WTOs committee on agriculture in Geneva. The deadline to find a solution is December-end. The minister also raised Indias concerns related to e-commerce, special safeguard mechanism, fisheries and investments. India is making a case for TFA in services in line with a similar pact in goods signed by WTO in 2014. It aims at expediting movement, release and clearance of goods as well as co-operation on Customs compliance. On e-commerce, she said the issue should not become part of the ministerial meeting unless there is a consensus. On investment pact, she clearly said: "I do not want investment to be part of the multi-lateral system... we want it to be part of the bilateral scheme of things." PTI RR ARD --- ENDS --- Gurdeep Singh Mann Tribune News Service Bathinda, February 9 Following an approval by the Election Commission, the state government today okayed compensation for Maur car blast victims. The office of Deputy Commissioner, Bathinda, has received a communique in this regard. The family members of the deceased will get Rs 5 lakh and the injured will get Rs 50,000. Ghanshyam Thori, Deputy Commissioner, Bathinda, had sent a letter in this regard to the Election Commission of India. The amount for the compensation would be released in the next 2-3 days, states the communique. It is likely to be disbursed by next week. The Maur blast on January 31 had claimed six lives. Three injured persons are still stated to be critical and are undergoing treatment at CMC Hospital, Ludhiana. As many as 10 others are undergoing treatment at various private hospitals in Bathinda. Meanwhile, the Bathinda police are learnt to have scanned footage from various CCTV cameras installed at the roads leading to the blast site. A team of the Bathinda police has also been dispatched to Delhi after identifying a group of men found leaving in a car in the footage. Police officials said that the car used for the blast had stickers and the flag of a political party. The other car in which the suspects left the place also had similar posters and the flag of a political party to misguide the policemen deployed at various checkpoints on January 31. Jupinderjit Singh Tribune News Service Chandigarh, February 8 The Punjab Prisons Department has segregated gangsters from other criminals by housing them in special high-security zones in jails. Of the 250 gangsters lodged in various prisons across the state, 35 are listed as hardcore criminals. This is being seen as a major policy shift from the earlier practice of lodging gangsters in separate barracks, where most of them lorded over other inmates. After chairing a meeting of jail heads today, ADGP (Prisons) Rohit Choudhary said the latest move would prevent gangsters from mingling with other criminals and terrorists, as happened in the Nabha security jailbreak incident where gangsters escaped with Khalistan Commando Force head Harminder Singh Mintoo. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) High-security zones have been created in all nine Central prisons (Patiala, Ludhiana, Kapurthala, Hoshiarpur, Ferozepur, Faridkot, Bathinda, Amritsar and Gurdaspur) and the Nabha high-security prison, he said. Members of various gangs would be kept in separate zones so they do not interact or clash with members of others groups. These zones will have electronic surveillance facility and metal detectors, he added. In the first phase, construction and installation of barbed fences has been undertaken at 10 jails for creating high-security zones. These zones would have signal jammers that could block even 4G-enabled phones. Ajay Ramola Tribune News Service New Tehri, February 9 BJP president Amit Shah, at an election rally in support of BJP candidate Dhan Singh Negi, today promised to bring development in Uttarakhand if the party is voted to power. Negi is contesting the Assembly elections from the Tehri seat. Rawat is the only Chief Minister in the country who was seen negotiating a bribery deal in a CD. Ministers are in the league with the liquor mafia and corruption under him has reached its peak, he said at a rally here. The BJP leader was referring to the alleged sting operation on April 29 purportedly showing Rawat offering bribes to rebel Congress lawmakers to support him during a floor test in the Assembly. He accused Rawat of always complaining about Uttarakhands lack of resources and difficult terrain rather than working for its development. Shah said the Chief Minister lacked determination to take the state on the path of progress. He asked Rawat to give up saying the BJP would develop Uttarakhand as a model state by setting up IT parks in hills on the lines of New York and New Jersey. Besides, the states huge wealth of medicinal plants would be tapped to meet international demand. Shah slammed Rawat for being ungrateful to the Prime Minister who had gifted 900 km of all-weather Char Dham roads to the state. He added March 11 (counting day) would herald a new era of development in Uttarakhand. He also flayed the Congress over the issue of Narendra Modis raincoat barb at his predecessor Manmohan Singh. He said Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi should recall what his mother called Modi in the past. Shahs reference was apparently to Congress president Sonia Gandhis description of Modi when he was the Gujarat Chief Minister, as maut ke saudagar (merchant of death). Narendra Modi is speaking the truth that Manmohan Singh didnt take responsibility of any scam. But he can neither run away from various irregularities that took place during the UPA regime, Shah said. He said Rahul Gandhi had no ground to attack Modi since he himself had humiliated Manmohan Singh by shooting down a Cabinet decision when the UPA was in power at the Centre. He criticised Rahul for questioning Modis two-year rule and asked him to give account of the Congress work in its 60-year rule. (With input from agencies) Miami, February 9 The man who says he was the mastermind of the September 11 terrorist attack seeks to justify the plot as a "natural reaction" to US foreign policy in a blistering letter sent to then President Barack Obama from the Guantanamo prison. Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, one of five Guantanamo prisoners facing trial by military commission for their alleged roles in the hijacking plot, also writes in the letter released on Wednesday that it does not matter to him if he receives a life sentence or the death penalty from the tribunal. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) "If your court sentences me to life in prison, I will be very happy to be alone in my cell to worship Allah the rest of my life and repent to him all my sins and misdeeds," Mohammad wrote. "And if your court sentences me to death, I will be even happier to meet Allah and the prophets and see my best friends whom you killed unjustly all around the world and to see Sheikh Osama Bin Laden." Mohammad sought to send the letter in 2015, but was prevented by prison authorities and later by the military judge presiding over his case at the request of prosecutors, who labelled it propaganda. After litigating the issue, the tribunal allowed the letter to go through last month just as Obama was leaving the presidency. The letter also condemns Obama, saying the former president's hands are "still wet with the blood of our brothers and sisters," a reference to the deaths of Palestinian civilians in Gaza at the hands of Israeli forces as well as those killed by US drone strikes in Yemen and elsewhere. "The two blessed attacks in Washington and New York adhered to all universal laws and were a natural reaction to your destructive policies towards the Islamic world," Mohammad wrote. The contents of the letter were first published by The Miami Herald. A copy was provided to The Associated Press by lawyers for the prisoner. They expressed doubt Obama saw it since it reached the White House only days before the end of his administration. Marine Corps Maj Derek Poteet, a military lawyer appointed to represent Mohammad, said his client started the letter in 2014, prompted by civilian deaths in Gaza and said it echoes arguments he has made throughout his time in confinement. "It appears to be a continuation of a consistent theme that he believes Americans do not count the casualties experienced by others around the world, perhaps especially Muslims, as being valuable," Poteet said. Mohammad and his co-defendants face charges that include hijacking, terrorism and nearly 3,000 counts of murder in violation of the laws of war in a case that remains in the pretrial stage. AP New York, February 9 US President Donald Trumps daughter Ivanka has reportedly stepped down as a trustee for a fortune set aside for the daughters of Rupert Murdoch, the American media mogul, a media report said. Ivanka Trump served for several years as a trustee before stepping down in December, sources close to the matter said on Wednesday. Her role highlighted the close ties between Trumps family and the family that controls Fox News Channel, The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets, The New York Times reported. The trust for the Murdoch daughters holds some $300 million in stock in News Corporation and 21st Century Fox, companies that Murdoch, 85, leads, and in which he and his family hold controlling interests. Murdoch has two daughters, ages 15 and 13, with his former wife, Wendi, 48. It was Wendi Murdoch who chose Ivanka Trump as a trustee, according to the sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The two women have long been close, and their friendship has continued since the Murdochs 2013 divorce. Trumps husband, Jared Kushner, served as a conduit between the Trump campaign and Murdoch. IANS London, February 9 British Parliament overwhelmingly supported a Bill today empowering Prime Minister Theresa May to start crucial negotiations by March 31 on leaving the European Union, bringing Brexit a step closer. May said she would trigger formal divorce talks by March-end. The draft legislation of the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill was approved by 494 votes to 122 by the House of Commons after its final debate. The Bill allows Prime Minister May to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to begin a two-year period of negotiations for the UKs new deal as a non-member of the European Union (EU) by 2019. Now that the Bill had passed the Commons, it will be debated in the House of Lords after it returns from recess on February 20, where it is expected to be given the final nod. Earlier, the Commons debated the last set of amendments to the Bill, including on key principles for the negotiation process, before the Bill went on to its third and final reading for the vote. Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn had instructed his MPs to vote in favour of the Bill whether any amendments are made or not. However, he faced a second round of rebellion after over 49 MPs had defied the whip at the last vote earlier this month. Some 52 Labour MPs rebelled in vote today, including Shadow business secretary Clive Lewis who resigned shortly beforehand. Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott, who missed last weeks initial vote on the Bill, backed it this time. She told the BBC she had a lot of misgivings about the idea of a Tory Brexit and predicted the UK would come to regret it, but added: Im a loyal member of the shadow cabinet and Im loyal to Jeremy Corbyn. May herself faced a rebellion of her MPs, but she managed to minimise the Tory rebellion by promising a Commons vote on Brexit before it is finalised. No need for 2nd independence referendum, UK tells Scotland Britain sees no need for a second Scottish independence referendum and the devolved Scottish government should focus on improving the economy and tacking domestic issues rather than flirting with secession, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said. An opinion poll published on Wednesday showed support for Scottish independence rose after Prime Minister Theresa May proposed making a clean break with the European Union, stoking speculation that Scotland could demand another secession vote. Agencies Washington, February 9 Donald Trumps Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, on Wednesday described as demoralising and disheartening the US Presidents Twitter attacks on a judge who suspended Trumps travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries, a spokesman for Gorsuch said. Gorsuchs comments came as a federal appeals court in San Francisco was expected to decide in coming days on the narrow question of whether US District Judge James Robart acted properly in temporarily halting enforcement of Trumps ban. A Republican strategist hired by the White House to help guide Gorsuchs nomination through the U.S. Senate said that Gorsuch, himself an appeals court judge, used those words when he met with Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal. Trump, who took office on Jan. 20, took to Twitter over the weekend to condemn the Friday night order by Robart that placed on hold the presidents Jan. 27 temporary travel ban on people from the seven countries and all refugees. Trump called Robart a so-called judge whose ridiculous opinion essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country. Trumps administration appealed Robarts ruling to a three-judge federal appeals panel, which heard oral arguments on Tuesday. Presidents are usually hesitant to weigh in on judicial matters out of respect for the U.S. Constitution, which ensures a separation of powers among the presidents executive branch, Congress and the judiciary. The Republican-led Senate on Wednesday confirmed immigration hardliner Republican Senator Jeff Sessions to be the next attorney general despite strong Democratic opposition. Trump says his executive order aims to head off attacks by Islamist militants. The order, the most divisive act of Trumps young presidency, sparked protests and chaos at U.S. and overseas airports. Critics said the ban unfairly targeted people for their religion. I dont ever want to call a court biased, Trump told hundreds of police chiefs and sheriffs from major cities at a meeting in a Washington hotel on Wednesday. So I wont call it biased. And we havent had a decision yet. But courts seem to be so political. Trump nominated Gorsuch on Jan. 31 to succeed conservative Justice Antonin Scalia on the nine-member Supreme Court. Scalia died a year ago this month. Blumenthal, a member of the Judiciary Committee that will hold a confirmation hearing on Gorsuch, said the nominee had a responsibility to reassure Americans that he would be an open-minded and independent jurist by going public with his concerns about Trump. Presidential powers The appeals court decision on whether to reinstate the ban, will be just a first step in a fast-moving case. The courts will ultimately have to address questions about the extent of the presidents power on matters of immigration and national security. Traditionally, judges have been extremely cautious about stepping on the executive branchs authority in such matters, legal experts say, although some note that the implementation of Trumps order presents unique issues. Trumps order barred travelers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering for 90 days and all refugees for 120 days, except those from civil war-torn Syria, who are subject to an indefinite ban. Also at issue is whether the order violates a provision of the U.S. Constitution that prohibits laws favoring one religion over another, along with relevant discrimination laws. Presidential directives Trump, a Republican, has made extensive use of presidential directives that bypass Congress and has appeared to be taken aback by legal challenges to his travel order. He praised a federal judge in Boston who earlier ruled in his favor on the travel ban as a highly respected jurist whose findings were perfect. Last year, Trump accused Indiana-born US District Judge Gonzalo Curiel of bias in overseeing a lawsuit against one of Trumps businesses, Trump University, because of his Mexican heritage. Democrats and other critics have called Trumps comments toward the judiciary an attack on a core principle of American democracy: that the courts are independent and uphold the rule of law. At the meeting with law enforcement officials, Trump read from the law he cited to justify the travel ban, quoting it in fragments and sprinkling in bits of interpretation. He said the law clearly allowed a president to suspend entry of any class of people if he determined them to be a detriment to national security. The matter is likely to go to the US Supreme Court, which is ideologically split with four liberal justices and four conservatives pending Senate action on Trumps nomination of Gorsuch, a conservative jurist. US State Department figures showed that 480 refugees had been admitted to the United States since Robarts order went into effect, including 168 on Wednesday. Of those admitted, 198 were from war-torn Syria. Reuters Gaza City, February 9 Two Palestinians were killed and five wounded overnight, the Islamist movement Hamas said on Thursday in Gaza, following a spike in tensions near the Egypt-Israel border. The Gaza Health Ministry blamed an Israeli air strike. The incident comes after several rockets were fired Wednesday evening from Egypts Sinai, which borders the Gaza Strip, at the Israeli Red Sea resort of Eilat. The Israeli military, however, had not confirmed by today that it had carried out retaliatory strikes. AFP By Shibani Bawa: "Where would you go to have hygienic street food?" asked my NRI friend who was visiting Delhi. There was a time when I would have blindly recommended Haldiram's or Bikanerwala. But now there are some upmarket restaurants that also serve various types of chaats as part of their modern Indian menus. However, the choice of street food at these establishments is rather limited. Hence, I suggest to her a new place that serves an array of street specialities from different corners of India--The Masala Trail. From Old Delhi's bedmi aloo subji and Agra ke paraanthe to Banarasi tamaatar ki chaat, Gujarati panki, Kerala-style appam and stew and thukpa from the North-East--the choice is vast. You can choose how you'd like to traverse this menu: stick to one region at a time, opt for a range of dishes that showcase culinary traditions of different parts of India or simply order a regional thali. advertisement On the Friday evening when we share the table with Osama Jalali, the owner of The Masala Trail (TMT), he orders for us some bestsellers as well as a few dishes that one may not easily find in Delhi. We start with the 'tower chaat', a Kanpur special that is served like an ice cream sundae and comprises matra tikki, aloo tikki, dahi bhalla, ram laddoo, khajoor chutney and green chutney. Dal baati choorma at The Masala Trail Next up is a piping hot tamaatar ki chaat, followed with dabeli (a kind of Gujarati vada pav in which the vada is replaced with a spicy-sweet mixture between the pav, topped with masala peanuts and sev), kachori with aloo subzi, litti chokha (probably the most famous dish of Bihar), chalukya dosa from Mysore and panki (very thin Gujarati style pancakes steamed between banana leaves made with rice-flour batter). A former food writer, during the course of his journalistic pursuits Osama Jalali also spent many arduous hours collecting authentic regional Indian recipes. And in the past couple of years, he along with his mother and wife curated food festivals in some of the finest five-star hotels in the country, showcasing Mughlai cuisine as it is cooked in his home in Shahjahanabad (Old Delhi), Rampur (from where his mother hails) and so on. Needless to say, most of these festivals featured plenty of succulent non-vegetarian fare. But for his first restaurant, Jalali decided to go with an all-vegetarian menu. Amritsari chhole-kulche at The Masala Trail. "A majority of regional street food staples are vegetarian," he states. Thus he decided to serve dishes that best represent the state from which they hail like Bihari lithi chokha, Rajasthani dal baati choorma, Gujrati panki and dabeli, Amritsari chhole kulche, Karnataka akki roti, Andhra's pulihora, Mysore's dosa and so on. And as a restaurant that celebrates street food, there is a range of chaats and kachoris, tikkis and tikkas and even specials from iconic street food brands such as Haji Ali fruit cream. Anyone who enjoys experimenting with local fare while travelling will certainly enjoy a meal at The Masala Trail for the sheer choice of dishes that one can enjoy under one roof in the heart of Delhi. This restaurant is ideally located in the touristy area of Janpath, attracting foreigners and Indians alike to enjoy a culinary journey of India. The second outpost of TMT has also opened in Select CityWalk and a third slated to open soon in Noida. In order to give a real feel of street food, TMT food trucks will also start serving part of this menu shortly. Restaurant: The Masala Trail by Osama Jalali, 52, Janpath, New Delhi. Timings: 10 am to 11pm advertisement Meal for two: Rs 800 (approx) --- ENDS --- Trucker Tools, provider of the Load Track platform, announced an integration with the cloud-based transportation management system, Efreightsolutions. The integration offers users of Efreightsolutions real-time freight tracking, driver messaging and electronic proof-of-delivery through an embedded feature set. Our partnership with Trucker Tools offers freight brokers and 3PLs that use our transportation management system seamless access to real-time shipment visibility, said Walter Mitchell, chief technology officer of Efreightsolutions. Our clients can easily use the integrated Load Track feature for any or all of their shipments to operate more efficiently and improve customer service. When Efreightsolutions users click on a truckload or LTL shipments, they see a detailed shipment profile that now includes a Start Load Track option. By selecting this option, a form opens to enter the cell phone number of the driver assigned to the shipment. The form also has icons to optionally send the driver an instant message and request a signed by name and images of POD documents upon delivery. Once the form is completed, the TMS receives GPS updates from Load Track through the Trucker Tools app on the drivers smartphone. The updates are displayed in the TMS as color-coded pins on a Google Map in the shipment profile. Pricing for the integrated Load Track feature starts at $1.05 per load for freight brokers with high volumes. Location updates are continuous and in near real time, with no limitations on the number of days and stop events from pickup to final delivery. ELD Mandate Exemptions: What You Need to Know The ELD Mandate affecting millions of commercial drivers will be enforced beginning this December, 2017. If you are currently required to complete a Record of Duty Status (ROD), either occasionally or daily, then its likely the ELD Mandate will affect you. So, what should you do? First, determine whether or not the ELD Mandate applies to you and your operation. Depending on the type and scope of fleet operation you operate, you may qualify to take advantage of one of the following four federal ELD exemptions. Learn about them now in this informative white paper. By Telogis, A Verizon Company The 2017 Nissan Titan King Cab offers available 6-person seating, wide-opening rear doors and a rear seat delete option for commercial use with its flat floor and secure in-cab storage space. Photo courtesy of Nissan. Nissan will offer King Cab versions of its 2017 Titan and Titan XD pickups, which allows Nissan to offer three cab options to buyers, along with the previously announced Single Cab and Crew Cab TItan models. The King Cab Titan and Titan XD debuted during a media event at the Chicago Auto Show, which runs from Feb. 11 to 20. Nissan also brought a specially built Nissan NV Cargo X and two specially modified Titan PRO-4X models. The King Cab arrives with two traditional doors and two wide-opening rear latching doors. It offers available six-person seating and an available rear seat delete option for commercial use with its flat floor and secure in-cab storage space. The seat delete option also removes the rear heater duct and rear roof-mounted assist grips and adds a flat rear load floor and rear wall finisher with tie-down hooks. The new King Cab body features a roomy cab with a choice of front split bench seat or front bucket seats (standard on PRO-4X, optional on SV grade). A 60/40-split fold-down rear seat is also standard. Heated front seats are available with PRO-4X and SV grade, along with optional heated and cooled front seats on PRO-4X. The Titan King Cab will be offered in 4x4 and rear-wheel drive and three grade levels S, SV, and PRO-4X with a standard 390-hp 5.6L Endurance V-8 engine and 7-speed automatic transmission. Titan King Cab offers an available maximum towing capacity of 9,420 pounds and maximum payload capacity of 1,640 pounds when properly equipped. The Titan XD King Cab will be available in 4x4 and rear-wheel drive and three grade levels S, SV, and PRO-4X. Titan XD King Cab can be powered by the 390-hp 5.6L Endurance V-8 engine with 7-speed automatic or Cummins 5.0L V-8 Turbo Diesel rated at 310 hp and 555 lb.-ft. of torque matched with a heavy-duty 6-speed Aisin A466ND automatic transmission. Titan XD King Cab offers an available maximum towing capacity of 12,510 pounds (diesel engine) and maximum payload capacity of 2,710 pounds (gasoline engine) when properly equipped. As part of the American Titan lineup, the new King Cab was developed with core Nissan planning, design, engineering and manufacturing teams contributing from Tennessee, California, Michigan, Arizona, and Mississippi. The Titan and Titan XD King Cabs are assembled in Canton, Miss., with its V-8 engines assembled in Decherd, Tenn., and Cummins diesel engines assembled in Columbus, Ind. All 2017 Titan and Titan XD models are covered by Nissan's "America's Best Truck Warranty" featuring bumper-to-bumper coverage of five-years/100,000-miles, whichever comes first. Vehicles covered by the new warranty, which includes basic and powertrain coverage, include all V-8 gasoline and diesel powered models. Originally posted on Automotive Fleet By Press Trust of India: From Aditi Khanna London, Feb 9 (PTI) British Parliament overwhelmingly supported a bill today empowering Prime Minister Theresa May to start crucial negotiations by March 31 on leaving the European Union, bringing Brexit a step closer. The draft legislation of the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill was approved by 494 votes to 122 by the House of Commons after its final debate. advertisement The bill allows Prime Minister May to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to begin a two-year period of negotiations for the UKs new deal as a non-member of the European Union (EU) by 2019. Now that the bill had passed the Commons, it will be debated in the House of Lords after it returns from recess on February 20, where it is expected to be given the final nod. Earlier, the Commons debated the last set of amendments to the Bill, including on key principles for the negotiation process, before the bill went on to its third and final reading for the vote. Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn had instructed his MPs to vote in favour of the bill whether any amendments are made or not. However, he faced a second round of rebellion after over 49 MPs had defied the whip at the last vote earlier this month. Some 52 Labour MPs rebelled in vote today, including Shadow business secretary Clive Lewis who resigned shortly beforehand. Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott, who missed last weeks initial vote on the bill, backed it this time. She told the BBC she had "a lot of misgivings about the idea of a Tory Brexit" and predicted the UK would "come to regret it", but added: "Im a loyal member of the shadow cabinet and Im loyal to Jeremy Corbyn." Mayherself faced a rebellion of up to a dozen of her Conservative MPs, but she managed to minimise the Tory rebellion on Tuesday by promising a Commons vote on the Brexit agreement before it is finalised. MORE PTI AK ARK ZH AKJ ZH --- ENDS --- In an 18-page letter cited in the Miami Herald, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is on trial for his life at Guantanamo Bay, addressed Obama as "the head of the snake" and blamed America for policies that led to the death of innocents around the world. By Praveen Shekhar: Barack Obama, during his final days in the White House, received a letter from the self-proclaimed mastermind, Khalid Shaikh Mohammad of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City. In an 18-page letter cited in the Miami Herald, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is on trial for his life at Guantanamo Bay, addressed Obama as "the head of the snake" and blamed America for policies that led to the death of innocents around the world. advertisement "It was not we who started the war against you in 9/11," he reportedly wrote. "It was you and your dictators in our land." Defense attorney David Nevin provided a copy of the letter, which has not yet been posted on the US military's website for Guantanamo proceedings. The letter is dated January 8, 2015, but reached the White House only two years later in the last days of Obama's presidency, according to news reports, after a military judge ordered the Guantanamo prison camp where Mohammed is held to deliver it. He says God was on the side of the hijackers on that fateful day when airplanes were guided into the Twin Towers in New York, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. "Allah aided us in conducting 9/11, destroying the capitalist economy, catching you with your pants down, and exposing all the hypocrisy of your long-held claim to democracy and freedom," Mohammed wrote. Listing many grievances over America's "brutal and savage massacres" from Vietnam to the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Mohammed focused his rage on the plight of Palestinians and US support for Israel and the "occupier Jews." "Your hands are still wet with the blood of our brothers and sisters and children who were killed in Gaza," he wrote in the opening paragraph. Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003 and held at a secret CIA prison site overseas. In the letter, he explained that "if your court sentences me to life in prison, I will be very happy to be alone in my cell to worship Allah the rest of my life and repent to Him all my sins and misdeeds." "And if your court sentences me to death, I will be even happier to meet Allah and the prophets and see my best friends whom you killed unjustly all around the world and to see Sheikh Osama Bin Laden," he added, referring to the late Al-Qaeda leader killed in a US raid in 2011 in Pakistan. Also read Noida twin towers dispute: SC wants report from top government building authority 9/11: The day which cannot be forgotten --- ENDS --- advertisement OKLAHOMA CITY House and Senate panels passed measures on Wednesday to bring the state into compliance with the federal Real ID Act. The Senate Appropriations Committee passed Senate Bill 791 by Senate President Pro Tem Mike Schulz, R-Altus, and Sen. David Holt, R-Oklahoma City. The measure now moves to the Senate floor for consideration. Later Wednesday, the House Rules Committee approved its version of the legislation, House Bill 1845, by Rep. Leslie Osborn. Solving Oklahomas Real ID problems is an economic issue and a national security issue, said Schulz. Senate Bill 791 ensures the thousands of Oklahomans who work on federal military installations can continue to do their job in supporting the armed forces who protect and defend our country. It also ensures Oklahomans will be able to board airplanes with their state-issued drivers licenses. Getting Oklahoma compliant with the federal Real ID program is a top priority, and were one step closer with committee passage of SB 791. The federal Real ID Act was passed in 2005 after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, in which it was determined that the perpetrators used fake identification to board the airliners they used in the attacks. The law was designed to create minimum standards for identification documents. The act established minimum security standards for state-issued drivers licenses and identification cards and prohibits federal agencies from accepting for official purposes licenses and identification cards from states that do not meet these standards, the Department of Homeland Security notes on its website. In 2007, the Oklahoma Legislature passed a bill to opt out of the federal act because of concerns that compliance would violate individuals privacy rights. The state has been granted several time extensions to bring itself into compliance. Failure to comply would mean residents would have to use an alternative form of identification, such as a passport, rather than a drivers license to board a commercial aircraft. Efforts to bring the state into compliance last session failed, but legislative leaders in both chambers have said bringing the state into compliance with the federal law is now one of their top priorities. Holt, who presented the bill before the Senate Appropriations Committee, said it is a work in progress. We are still trying to solve this problem, he said. There have been really good discussions between the House, the Senate and the Governors Office. Officials are still trying to determine the cost of bringing the state into compliance with the Real ID Act, Holt said. He said the measure will allow for the creation of identification documents that comply with the act. Oklahomans who do not wish to participate would not be forced to have a license that is compliant, he said. Holt said he is confident that the measure will pass the Senate. Speaker (Charles) McCall (R-Atoka) has stated throughout the interim that this is one of his top one, two or three priorities, Holt said. I think we are going to get it done. I am not going to give up until it is sitting on the governors desk. Filming is now underway on the six-part series of Ronny Chieng: International Student, for ABC in Australia and Comedy Central in the US. The series was greenlit to series following its Comedy Showroom pilot last year. Chieng is taking time away from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah to return to Melbourne. Im very excited about getting the chance to relive my misspent youth at University and righting all my wrongs. Like in Quantum Leap or Atonement. But with Asians, he said. Sticky Pictures CEO and Producer of the series, Donna Andrews, said, We are very excited to be going into series production on Ronny Chieng: International Student. ABC audiences loved the first (pilot) episode, and we look forward to sharing more of Ronnys unique comedy style, with stories inspired by his real-life experiences as an international student. ABCs Head of Comedy Rick Kalowski, said Ronny Chieng: International Students full series is even better than its hilarious pilot: its right on point for Australia today, richly diverse both onscreen and off, and, above all, furiously funny. If you love Ronny Chieng, youll adore this. The series will hit screens on ABC and iview in mid-2017, with its Comedy Central premiere to follow. In the series (as in real life), Ronny Chieng is a Malaysian student whos come to Australia to study law. Though smart, driven and competitive, hes also blunt, barbed, and not afraid to cut through B.S. so its not long before Ronny is at odds with most people on campus. Adding to Ronnys rollercoaster is his strong relationship with his Malaysia-based mum, which veers between affection and agitation, often in the space of a single conversation, and a friendship with all-Australian classmate Asher (Molly Daniels) that could mean something more if Ronny can ever work up the courage. Mike Cowap, Investment Manager for Multiplatform, Screen Australia, said When Ronny Chieng joined forces with go-to comedy producers Sticky Pictures to create this satirical take on the Aussie student experience, we werent surprised to see it become a highlight in the Comedy Showroom showcase. We are delighted to be supporting this into a full season where it will again bring to the screen its distinct international flavour alongside a diverse cast and hilarious script. Film Victorias CEO, Jenni Tosi said, Victoria is renowned for comedic talent and were delighted to be supporting Ronny Chieng: International Student which will shoot at Melbourne University and other locations around Melbourne. Production Credits: A Sticky Pictures production, with funding from ABC TV, Screen Australia, Film Victoria and Comedy Central. Produced by Donna Andrews. Co-Producer Naomi Just. Executive Producers Donna Andrews and Stu Connolly. ABC Executive Producers Rick Kalowski and Andrew Gregory. Directed by Jonathan Brough. Written by Ronny Chieng, Declan Fay and Greg Larsen. Created by Ronny Chieng and Declan Fay. The third season of Catastrophe is due to begin in the UK in late February. The final episode includes emotionally powerful scenes, which were among the last she ever shot. Fisher suffered a medical emergency during a transatlantic flight from London to Los Angeles, following a book tour. Writer / star Sharon Horgan explained Fishers schedule meant We didnt have her for very long, adding: We wanted to know her better. For series three we wrote a bigger part for her character and we got to spend a lot more time with her. She was funny all the time. She was an incredibly witty person and liked saying arseholey things to everyone but also a really kind, lovely, supportive person. Even the second series we didnt have her for very long, Horgan continued. She flew over and did her bit for a day or two and of course we wanted to get to know her better, we idolised her, But we didnt really have a chance. Then in series three we wrote this bigger, chunkier part for her in episode 6 and got to spend time with her and she became part of the gang. We feel very privileged and honoured. Horgan and Rob Delaney have yet to work out how to address her death in the comedy, in a fourth season. Its hard to know think about what to do, Horgan said at a press screening. Hopefully, time will pass and well have a fitting finish to that story. Source: Chortle Actor Jonathan LaPaglia will not appear in Season 4 of Love Child. Last October the actor who played Dr Patrick McNaughton in three seasons told TV Tonight I havent heard any more about it. I dont know what Channel Nines up to. Im not sure how it rated last season and I havent heard anything more. Normally I would have heard by now. So who knows? But Nine recently confirmed returning cast members: Jessica Marais, Mandy McElhinney, Miranda Tapsell, Sophie Hensser, Andy Ryan and Harriet Dyer. The good news for LaPaglia is he is returning to TEN as host of Australian Survivor. Also absent from Nines list is Matthew Le Nevez, who joined for Seasons 2 and 3. Its now 1972, the year of Gough Whitlams election, free education and immigration. With new faces, a cover-up and a shocking death, the men and women of Love Child will face their greatest challenges yet. Love Child is produced by Playmaker Media and returning later this year. The fourth and final season of Black Sails gets underway on Showcase this Sunday. Black Sails features Aussie actors Luke Arnold and Toby Schmitz. This premiered in the US in late January. Hundreds of British soldiers lie dead in a forest the Royal Navy sails back to England in retreat the West Indies are now a war zone, and the shores of New Providence Island have never been bloodier. With the help of Eleanor Guthrie, Woodes Rogers transforms Nassau into a fortress without walls, as Captain Flint amasses a fleet of unprecedented strength, hoping to strike the final blow against civilization and reshape the world forever. Meanwhile, from within the island an insurgency builds, fuelled by the legend of its exiled leader, whose name keeps grown men awake at night the one they call Long Live John Silver. But as Flint, Silver and their allies are about to learn, the closer civilization comes to defeat, the more desperately and destructively it will fight back. Oaths will be shattered, fortunes will change hands, and amidst the chaos, only one thing remains certain: it has never been more dangerous to be a pirate. Sundays from February 12 at 9.30pm on Showcase. Shannan Ponton steps in for Dr. Chris Brown on The Living Room, while he is in South Africa. But the show still manages to meet with Julia Morris, tonight on TEN. Renovation Rescue with Barry Du Bois How do you turn a bare and tiny yard thats not much bigger than a car space into a beautiful courtyard custom-built for a young inner-city couple and their dog? It is easy if you follow some of Barrys basic design principles. While owners Kylie and Sean have done a great job renovating the inside of their townhouse, they do not have a clue where to start on the outside so Barry shows them how to get the job done. Travel with Shannan Ponton Shannan Ponton is stepping in for Dr. Chris while he is in Africa and his first assignment is to prove that you do not have to travel long distances or spend hundreds of dollars to have an adventure. Tapping into local knowledge, Shannan calls on former Bachelorettes Georgia Love and Laurina Fleure, and comedian Lehmo to point him in the right direction. From rappelling face first down a building to kayaking on the Yarra River and glamping under the stars, Shannan finds there is adventure aplenty just 15 minutes from Flinders Street. Food with Miguel Maestre Miguel catches up with Sam, owner of Holbrook Paddock Eggs, whose free-range hens are free to roam the paddocks. Even though Sam produces some of the most delicious and freshest eggs, certain members of his family dont like them so Miguel uses some of his produce to make the perfect pavlova topped with custard and Riverina fruit to get them to change their minds. Celebrity with Amanda Keller and Julia Morris Prior to heading off to the jungle for Im A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, Julia Morris visits Amanda at home to swap secrets about Chris Brown and their favorite recipes. First of all, as the two women in Chris life, Amanda and Julia sit down to debate who knows Chris best. Afterwards, they head into the kitchen to cook up a few of their best dishes. Ice Cream soup anyone? 7:30pm Friday on TEN. By Press Trust of India: Beijing, Feb 9 (PTI) Two people wereinjured in a boiler explosion at a chemical plant in Tongling city of east Chinas Anhui Province. The two suffered minor cuts from glass fragments and were sent to hospital for treatment. The accident occurred last night in a suburb area, Tonglings fire department, said. The fire has been brought under control. advertisement Video footage on microblog Sina Weibo showed huge fire and heavy smoke billowing into the sky. Preliminary investigation showed that the explosion caused by fuel oil burning and no dangerous chemical products were involved, state run Xinhua news agency quoted Zou He, director of the public security bureau of Tongling as saying. PTI KJV ARK --- ENDS --- Hi, my name is Scott C. Waring and I wrote a few books and am currently a ESL School Owner in Taiwan. I have had my own UFO sighting up close and personal, but that's how it works right? A non believer becomes a believer when they experience their first sighting. You witnessed it, your perceptual field changes, so now you need to share it. I created this site to help the UFO community get a little bit organized. I noticed that there was a lot of chaos when searching for UFO sighting reports, so I hope this site helps. I wanted to support those eyewitnesses who have tried to tell others about what they have seen, yet were laughed at by even closest of friends. More and more each day the governments of the world leak bits and pieces of UFO information to the public. They have a trickle down theory in hopes of slowly getting citizens use to the idea that we are not alone in universe and never have been. The truth is being leaked drop by drop until one day we look around and find ourselves neck high in it. The discovery of alien species in existence is the most monumental scientific event in human history, suppression of that information is a crime against humanity. About me: I live in Taiwan. I OWN MY OWN ENGLISH SCHOOL, AND ONCE HAD 5 SCHOOLS. Am Former USAF at SAC base (flight line). Age: 42 Educ: BA in Elem ed. Masters in Counseling ed. I had two UFO sightings, (30+bus size orbs) in military and in 2012 personally saw the UFO over Taipei 101 building on New Years Day (and recored it). 7 November 2022 Join this BILT Bridging Event to discuss trends in green and digital qualifications and competencies in Africa, with a focus on the hospitality and tourism sector. Day 1 (7 November) will be a fully in-person event. Day 2 and 3 of the event (8 and 9 November) will be streamed on an online conference platform. Haytham* and his family in their tent at UNHCR's Hasansham camp. UNHCR/Ivor Prickett KHAZER CAMP, Iraq After sundown at the end of January, Haytham,* 44, hurried to the banks of the Tigris River where he set about breaking the lock on a small fishing boat. He was fleeing hardship and danger in extremist-held west Mosul, knowing that if he were caught he would be killed. Breaking the chain, Haytham scrambled into the boat and then told his wife and children to lie down to avoid being shot at as he rowed them, crouched over, across the broad, flat river under the cover of darkness. As they passed the halfway point, armed groups began shooting at them. Suddenly, incoming rounds pierced the boat and it began to take on water. Haytham rowed as hard as he could and somehow managed to reach the shore before the boat sank. I thought we were going to die, he said. Iraqi forces on the east bank initially raised their weapons, but then rushed to protect them when they saw it was a family. The family sheltered in eastern Mosul, but came under mortar fire there too. When Haythams son was scratched by a piece of flying debris, they decided to find shelter in Hasansham camp, run by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. I thought we were going to die." I am so happy I could cry, he said, speaking to UNHCR in his tent after arriving at the camp. Putting their ordeal behind them, the family was given a tent vacated by another internally displaced family who had returned to their original homes in the government-held east of the city. UNHCR is supporting camps containing most of the 153,714 people displaced since the battle to retake Mosul a city of more than one million people began on October 17. UNHCR has assisted almost 9,000 families with emergency items inside the newly-accessible areas of the city. It is estimated there are more than 750,000 people still trapped in densely-populated western Mosul, where the next phase of the battle will focus. UNHCR is coordinating plans, together with other agencies and partners, to respond to an anticipated wave of fresh displacement. While many families from eastern Mosul are returning to newly-accessible areas, we are bracing for a potential large exodus coming out from the west, said UNHCRs Representative in Iraq, Bruno Geddo. Dealing simultaneously with newly displaced families and returnees will test our ability to respond to the limit. The Tigris River acts as the dividing line between the west and east side of Mosul. UNHCR/Ivor Prickett Haytham* and his son collect household items during a distribution at Hasansham camp. UNHCR/Ivor Prickett The family load relief items from the distribution into their new home. UNHCR/Ivor Prickett Haytham and his family crossed the Tigris River at night in a small wooden boat. UNHCR/Ivor Prickett Mohammed*, 42, fled his home with his wife and three young daughters. UNHCR/Ivor Prickett At the same time, we remain seriously concerned about the ability of civilians in the west to access safety and assistance once the next phase in the offensive gets underway, he added. West Mosul is almost completely sealed off by an array of forces, and civilians in the densely packed old city are running out of food supplies. One kilo of onions now costs more than US$10; a kilo of sugar is US$18; a single egg costs US$1; and 20 liters of cooking gas costs US$80, according to multiple residents contacted in extremist held areas. These prices depend on availability. Many shops are empty and families have no money to pay. Families are burning their furniture as firewood due to the lack of cooking gas and they are mostly eating potatoes, which can be grown locally and are still relatively cheap, at less than US$1 per kilo. There is only one hospital still operating on the west side of the city, said residents living there, and airstrikes are increasing as the offensive to recapture that side of the city is expected imminently. We want the planes to hit us because we cant continue living this miserable life, said one woman who lives in west Mosul with her two grandchildren. We want the planes to hit us because we cant continue living this miserable life." It was just after midnight when Mohammed,* 42, crept out of the bushes and clambered aboard a small wooden fishing boat with his wife and three daughters. He had spent the last two-and-a-half years hiding from the extremists because of his work with the Iraqi security forces. I took the risk of crossing the river because of my family. For me, I didn't care anymore. I knew they would find and kill me eventually, he said. The current on the Tigris River was strong on the freezing January night they made their escape, and Mohammed struggled to prevent the small boat from being swept downstream. It only took around 10 minutes to reach the other side but it felt like a year. I was so afraid, he said, speaking in the government-run Khazer M1 camp in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, where he has finally found sanctuary. Mohammed and his family hid on the east side until daybreak and then moved quickly to his sisters house. Soon after he heard the sounds of fighting and large vehicles outside the Iraqi security forces had arrived. *Names changed for protection reasons By Press Trust of India: media From K J M Varma Beijing, Feb 9 (PTI) India can increase its "military pressure" on Pakistan using the alibi of "counterterrorism crusade" that may bring "other players" in the region, Chinas official media warned today, justifying Beijings latest block on a proposed UN ban on JeM chief Massood Azhar. "India has its own reasons to have listed Azhar as terrorist. However, observers are also worried that under the defence of counterterrorism crusade, India can increase its military pressure on Pakistan, thus risking escalating tensions between the two countries," state-run Global Times said in an editorial. advertisement It comes just a day after China defended its decision to block the US proposal in the UN for designating Pathankot attack mastermind and JeM chief Azhar as a global terrorist, saying the "conditions" have not yet been met for Beijing to back the move. "The India-Pakistan has been a thorny issue in South Asia for a long time and China is caught in the middle, given geographic and geopolitical proximity to the two," it said without mentioning Chinas all weather ties with Pakistan. "The failure to bring the two on the path to peace underscores their different domestic and diplomatic trajectories. Any action the UN takes should assist the peace process rather than escalating tensions between the two countries," the editorial said. Interestingly, the editorial can only be read in the print edition as internet link to it was blocked. Projecting an enlarged role for Beijing in the tensions between India and Pakistan, it said "as a responsible power China must help maintain regional order". It said China is aware that terrorism is a burning issue. "China has also set up anti-terror mechanism with India but regional peace and stability will always be a priority," it said. "Any India-Pakistan confrontation may bring other players into the region, which would complicate the situation," it said without naming "other players". Significantly for China, the resolution to ban Azhar in the Al-Qaeda related 1267 Committee of the UN Security Council was moved this time by the US and backed by other UNSC permanent members like UK and France unlike last year when India moved the application which was backed by all members except China. However, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang yesterday while defending Chinas technical hold, played down US move to directly moving the resolution for the ban on Azhar. PTI KJV SUA AKJ SUA --- ENDS --- It is highly evident how higher education is increasingly becoming a global endeavor and American colleges and universities are welcoming more international students than ever before. In fact, according to The Atlantic, a 2015 report states that nearly 1 million international students were educated in the United States, and they come here with the means to pay and spend for college in full. The number of these foreign students just keeps on surging year by year. However, due to President Donald Trump's recent executive order that bans students from seven Muslim countries from entering the US, it could pose a significant implication on the enrollment in US schools. The influx of international students is vital for US universities and colleges and these foreign students now make up 5.2 percent of all the college students in the country. Here are some of the countries that send the most number of students to US colleges and universities according to Business Insider. China China is the country with the highest population in the world with over 1.4 billion people. More than 300,000 Chinese students went to college in the United States. India India is the second largest country when it comes to population with around 1.3 billion people. 165,918 for their students went to America for college. Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, with a population of about 29 million, has sent more than 61,000 of their students to the United States. South Korea South Korea has a population of close to 50 million and 61,007 of their students went to the states for college. Canada Canada is just a neighbor to the United States, which is why it wasn't very far from home for their 26,973 to attend a US college. Vietnam Vietnam's population is close to 90 million and 21,403 students went to study in America. San Francisco, one of the country's most expensive cities to live in, will be the first to offer tuition-free community college to all its residents, Mayor Ed Lee announced on Tuesday. The city decided to do this to ease the financial burden of education for students and also to narrow wealth inequality in the city. According to Business Insider, they announced that the tuition for all the residents attending the City College of San Francisco will be free for at least the next two years. Lee said that the $5.4 million plan will include $500 grants to low income students of the said community college which are intended for books, transportation, school supplies, as well as health care, according to Fortune. Poor part-time students will also be receiving grants of $200. Lee said that San Francisco has once again united around their values at this time when the less fortunate are being punished; they have taken a national lead on this issue of equality. The plan will be taking effect in the fall and the city will be giving the college an amount of $500,000 for the implementation. It was San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim who spearheaded the initiative. Kim said during a press conference that the step to make the city college free aims to provide greater opportunities for more San Franciscans to enter the middle class and also stay in the middle class, if they already are. The funds that are going to be used will come from a transfer tax placed on San Francisco homes and commercial properties selling for $5 million or more. This was already approved by voters under a ballot measure last November. During a press conference, the mayor said that he hopes that this step will increase enrollment and increase federal funding. By Press Trust of India: Washington, Feb 9 (PTI) Foreign travellers visiting the US may have to hand over their social media passwords for background check, a move which could come as part of the effort to toughen vetting of visitors, US Homeland Security Secretary has said. "Were looking at some enhanced or some additional screening," John Kelly told a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee. advertisement "We may want to get on their social media, with passwords," he said. "Its very hard to truly vet these people in these countries, the seven countries... But if they come in, we want to say, what websites do they visit, and give us your passwords. So we can see what they do on the internet," Kelly said on Tuesday. "If they dont want to cooperate, then they dont come in" to the United States, he said. Kelly told Congress that the measure was one of several being considered to vet refugees and visa applicants from seven Muslim-majority countries, the NBC News reported. His comments came the same day judges heard arguments over President Donald Trumps executive order temporarily barring entry to most refugees and travelers from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Libya and Yemen. Kelly, President Donald Trump appointee, stressed that asking for peoples passwords was just one of "the things that were thinking about" and that none of the suggestions were concrete. Under the existing vetting process, according to Kelly, officials "dont have a lot to work with," relying on the applicants documentation and asking them questions about their background. "When someone says, Im from this town and this was my occupation, [officials] essentially have to take the word of the individual," he said. "I frankly dont think thats enough, certainly President Trump doesnt think thats enough. So weve got to maybe add some additional layers. As well as asking people for their passwords," Kelly said he was looking at trying to obtain peoples financial records. "We can follow the money, so to speak. How are you living, whos sending you money?" he said. "It applies under certain circumstances, to individuals who may be involved in on the payroll of terrorist organisations," Kelly said. PTI KJ AKJ KJ --- ENDS --- America continues to struggle with the rising cost of higher education. As the cost of college and university fees and tuition grows, the number of homeless students also grows. But according to reports, homelessness is still an invisible problem to many. In Boston, the Bunker Hill Community College is just one of the 25 food assistance programs in Massachusetts public college campuses. There are homeless students who come to Bunker Hill every year. Some students lived in a shelter but after deciding to enroll in classes, they want to feel safe which means food and a proper and safer shelter, as reported by MPR News. Now, America is slowly seeing homeless college students. Bit by bit the veil of invisibility lifts. According to researchers at the University of Wisconsin, 20 percent of 4,000 undergraduates who are enrolled in community colleges in America are hungry and 13 percent are homeless. Sara Goldrick-Rab, a researcher from the university, says that they do not only work while studying, they also borrow and yet they still fall short. The basic needs of a human being such as eating and sleeping are not being met. Secondary expenses for a college student would include transportation, tuition, school fees and books. In the University of California, 1 in 10 students are homeless and 1 in 5 are hungry, as reported by WBUR. These college students are not only worrying about where they are going to sleep and what they are going to eat. They are also worried about their future, if they can even make it to graduation. The states can help with the awareness and funding on homelessness. And slowly the doors are opening. At Bridgewater State University, the school is offering a $10,000 scholarship to two students to cover most tuition and living expenses. Community colleges like Bunker Hill continue to help feed homeless college students. They, and many more, hope that these students will soon stop asking where they are going to sleep tonight. Watch the ABC News clip below about Bianca Jeannot held down four jobs and cared for her family all while working on her degree: Musician Steven Van Zandt is recently revealed to be Rutgers University's 2017 commencement address speaker. During this year's graduation ceremony, he is going to follow the footsteps of so many celebrities and notable personalities who had spoken before him. Last year's 2016 commencement address speaker was former United States President Barack Obama. After receiving various nominations, Van Zandt is the number one choice. According to Rutgers University President Robert Barchi, he is the student's choice as well as the committee's choice. He expects that the student body will receive him positively. But he is not going to speak for free. Rutgers is set to pay him $35,000 as a speaking fee. But Karen Smith, the university's spokeswoman, says the fee will not be paid from Rutger's state funding, as reported by NJ.com. In Rutger's official website, Van Zandt is not only going to deliver this year's graduation rites but will also receive an honorary degree as a Doctor of Fine Arts, along with LGBTQ and HIV health care advocate, Harvey J. Makadon. Makadon will also receive an honorary Doctor of Science degree. The graduation is happening on May 14 at the High Point Solutions Stadium in Piscataway. Steven Van Zandt may be known for being a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band and for his role as Silvio Dante in HBO's "The Soprano's." He uses his voice to address multiple causes and established organizations in the name of music such as the Rock and Roll Forever Foundation which helps raise awareness and provide materials and resources for middle and high school teachers. Aside from Steven Van Zandt and Makadon, Carla Hayden, the first woman to serve as U.S. Librarian of Congress, is set to deliver the keynote address at Rutgers University, as reported by the Killeen Daily Herald News. Check out the clip below of Van Zandt nervously directing Bruce Springsteen: The European Space Agency (ESA) has confirmed that it will be helping NASA for the manned Orion mission planned for 2021. The space agency has already sent other supplies for the unmanned flight of NASA's Orion spacecraft. NDTV reported that the European Space Agency will be contributing key components for the Orion mission. The manned mission will be taking humans around the moon for the first time since 1972, when NASA stopped its Apollo program. ESA and Airbus, an aerospace company, have already provided a propulsion and supply module for an unmanned flight of NASA's new Orion spacecraft. The unmanned mission is scheduled for next year. On Wednesday, it was confirmed that ESA and Airbus have agreed with NASA to create a module for a second, manned mission. This is expected to go around the moon in as early as 2021. This would coincide with NASA's plans to study the early Solar System by the 2020s. The space agency confirmed that it has chosen two missions with the potential to help scientists better understand the earliest periods of our solar system. The missions named Lucy and Psyche will be launched in 2021 and 2023, respectively. According to the Daily Mail, the mission will include up to four astronauts. Crew size and composition will be confirmed closer to launch. With the mission, Orion will follow three progressively elongated orbits to reach past the moon and return to Earth. This is believed to be faster than the speed by which any manned spacecraft has reentered the atmosphere ever. ESA's Director of Human Spaceflight, Dave Parker, said that they are ex cited for the mission and appreciate NASA's trust in them in extending "humanity's exploration farther afield into our Solar System." The European Service Module is developed by a team of companies from 11 countries led by Airbus Space & Defence. The first Orion spacecraft with the service module will be launched late next year on NASA's new Space Launch System. It will go on a month-long mission to orbit the moon before returning to Earth. This will test the spacecraft and rocket before it can carry the crew to space. Colleges at the northeastern part of the nation have announced that they will be closed due to winter storm Niko. Boston, New York and other East Coast cities are expected to be hit with high levels of snow on Thursday. USA Today College reported that Niko may be the biggest storm for the area this winter. Several universities and school systems in the northeastern part of the country have opted to cancel classes to prepare for the snow. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio took to Twitter to announce that all NYC schools will be closed for Feb. 9. Connecticut Governor Dannell Malloy has also confirmed that the state's colleges will be closed on Thursday. According to CNN, an estimated 1 million students attend New York's 1,800 public schools. It is expected that the storm will arrive by daybreak in New York and Philadelphia. The publication's meteorologist Dave Hennen said that it will bring with it 30-mph winds that will create whiteout conditions at times. Several universities took to social media platform, Twitter, to announce that they will be closed because of Niko. Neumann University, Hudson County Community College, Drew University, Boston University, Suffolk University, Rider University, Berkeley College's campuses in New York and New Jersey, Essex County College, St. Joseph's College, Montclair State University, Delaware Valley University and Pace University. Other schools such as Bridgewater State University, Cambridge College, Providence College, Emerson College, Endicott College, St. John's University, Harcum College, Amherst College, The City University of New York, Middlesex County College, Mercer County Community College, DuCret School of Art, Lehman College, Bentley University, Monmouth University, Boston University, La Salle University and the University of Victoria, among others, have announced that they are closed on Thursday as well. Classes are expected to resume by Friday, Feb. 10. The Weather Channel named the winter storm Niko. It has also warned several areas that the storm will bring with it 6 to 12 inches of snow in the northeastern parts of the country. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, physician Priscilla Chan, recently created a biomedical research initiative named the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub in partnership with Stanford University as well as the University of California's Berkeley and San Francisco campuses. This time, they announced that they have awarded a $50 million grant for the "riskiest ideas" of forty-seven investigators. Nature reported that the program has awarded its first grants to scientists for their study on various topics including genomics of obscure microbes as well as a memory-retrieval device. Forty-seven investigators will receive about $1.5 million each in the next five years, totaling over $50 million as budget. Biohub co-leader Stephen Quake, a bioengineer at Stanford, said that they told researchers to give them their "riskiest ideas." Over 750 investigators from the three universities submitted proposals that aim to study fundamental biological processes to develop disease-related technologies. Quake admitted that he and the other grant reviewers checked the researchers' track records. They also favored those who had bold ideas that lacked preliminary evidence. He revealed that they wanted to "harvest" the "creative anarchy" in Silicon Valley. According to BuzzFeed News, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan expects the Biohub to be used by scientists to work with other researchers on interdisciplinary projects and develop research tools together. Speaking to the publication, Biohub co-president Joseph DeRisi described the couple as "avid consumers of science" who "enjoy learning new things and knowing what the cutting edge of research is all about." The complete list of researchers in the Investigator Program is found in Biohub's official website. It includes UC Berkeley researchers Aaron Streets, who develops tools to accurately analyze single cells, and Jill Banfield, who focuses on the study of environmental microorganisms. Manu Prakash, from Stanford University, is also part of the program. He is known for creating a folding paper telescope that costs $1 only. Recently, Prakash has created "an ultra-low-cost, human-powered centrifuge." It can separate blood into its individual components in just a minute and a half. The device is created from 20 cents of paper, twine and plastic. Deemed as a "paperfuge," it can spin at speeds of 125,000 rpm and can exert centrifugal forces of 30,000 Gs. University of California - Riverside sedimentary geologist Andrey Bekker along with his colleagues investigated how oxygen content rose in our home planet. They conducted new dating of ancient volcanic rock in southern Africa. According to Science News, previous studies suggested that the first instance of abundant oxygen in Earth's atmosphere, which is known as the Great Oxidation Event (GOE), happened about 2.3 billion years ago. However, new dating of ancient volcanic rocks claimed that oxygen levels had an upsurge between 2,460 billion and 2,426 billion years ago. The study, entitled "Timing and Tempo of the Great Oxidation Event," was published in the journal "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences." It was conducted by, Ashley Gumsley, a geologist of Lund University in Sweden, Bekker, from UC - Riverside, as well as their colleagues: Kevin R. Chamberlain, Wouter Bleeker, Ulf Soderlund, Michiel O. de Kock and Emilie R. Larsson. Bekker explained that the time difference is a "big deal." The new date has shaken up previous understanding of the environmental conditions that led to the GOE, which resulted to the evolution of oxygen-dependent life-forms named eukaryotes. At the time, massive volcanic eruptions sent fresh rock over a supercontinent near the equator. This resulted to a dip in the planet's temperature, leading to a frigid period known as a Snowball Earth. The same series of geologic events about 700 million years ago matched with a second rise of oxygen to near-modern levels. Some eukaryotes were claimed to have evolved into the first animals during that period. Bekker noted that both oxygen surges led to complex life and, eventually, to the development of humans. In a report by Science Daily, the study found that the emergence of oxygen happened when most of the Earth's landmasses were grouped in a single supercontinent named Kenorland. This continent was said to have extended at the equator and was mostly covered by volcanic lava rocks. It was also noted that the increase in oxygen was not a steady process but, rather, featured significant fluctuations. Researchers believe that this was linked to a very unstable climate, which may have been a result of the volcanic activity on the large supercontinent. Samsung is now ready to flaunt its technologies come Feb. 27 to March 2 at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona. One of it is its 5G wireless broadband that according to Samsung could deliver seamless experience and ubiquitous connectivity. In its official website, Samsung pointed out that during the congress they will be exhibiting devices and technologies that can efficiently operate a busy LTE network to a full span of 5G technologies. Samsung hopes to become the forerunner in designing and constructing future networks. Samsung claimed that its 5G technology will address problems of internet providers specifically on aspects of physical infrastructures, labor intensive installations, and cost of deployment to deliver broadband from homes and offices. It will have an affordable fiber technology that will eradicate high speed access limitation to homes and businesses. It can be recalled that Samsung has already succeeded its 5G prototype trial in conjunction with China Mobile Research Institute. Key technologies like spatial modulation and FBMC (Filter Bank Multicarrier) are validated, the performance of throughput, and outband emission are also tested. Aside from the 5G technology that Samsung will be highlighting in the congress is also the rumored foldable and bendable devices. Reports claimed that Samsung will be introducing a foldable smartphone prototype but it will only be presented alongside a folder panel in a private exhibition room that could only be accessed by select individuals and clients, Phone Arena has learned. Reports added that the private exhibition of these devices will allow Samsung to see the potential market response to such products, and could also serve as a way for the firm to entice other device manufacturers into placing orders for the new screens though its subsidiary Samsung Display. Recent reports also claimed that Samsung fans will be able to peek other bendable tech gadgets from Samsung. The MWC's show floor will display both inward-and-outward-folding products available for inspection by every attendee. Samsung may have disappointed some fans due to skipping the announcement of its next Galaxy S flagship in MWC but these foldable and bendable devices will be enough to put back the excitement to Samsung fans out there. Google has successfully refined their neural networks as they introduce their new artificial intelligence system which is able to restore lost images by enhancing the resolution 16 times more than the usual. That means they can increase the resolution of a blurred or pixelated image and make it more recognizable. In a paper titled, "Pixel Recursive Super Resolution," the Google researchers described how they used a two-pronged approach to achieve the new system's capability. First, they trained the system by feeding it with countless images so that it would become familiar with different facial features including the nuances. The second part of the process was teaching the neural system to compare 8X8 pixel images with all possible versions of its 32X32 pixel images. Then these two neural networks work seamlessly and harmoniously with each other to make the best guess of what the original image should look like. This is a significant improvement from the previous system which only identifies the red block in the middle of a face and increases its size 16 times than the original. On the other hand, Google's new AI system can identify which facial feature it is and draw it accordingly by comparing high-resolution images with the low-resolution one. The researchers explained in the paper that if the source image lacks some details, the neural network generates new image details that make sense to a person observing it. It does so by scaling both images until they are both the same size. That's because it is easier for Google's new AI system to identify the differences between both images with the same size. Aside from image manipulation, the new system can also be used to compress images. It can be remembered that Google announced last January that it will be using a machine learning-based compression tool. If this is put into effect, users can save lot of bandwidth as they send less more information. An alert gangman informed rail authorities about an attempt by miscreants to cut tracks between Chandausi-Bahjoi. Police and GRP have launched a probe into the incident. Miscreants tried to cut rail track between Chandausi and Bahjoi in Uttar Pradesh By India Today Web Desk: A major rail disaster was averted in Uttar Pradesh today after a gangman alerted the authorities of an attempt by miscreants to cut the track. The incident took place between Chandausi and Bahjoi. "At 06:45 am, keyman Soomveer of Gate No 1 reported attempt to cut rail by miscreants at km 72/4-5 in block section Chandausi-Bahjoi," a railway official said. advertisement Soon after the information, local police and GRP rushed to the spot and recovered tools used in the attempted sabotage. Dog squad and a forensic team were also rushed to the spot. Alert gangmen reported attempt to cut rail by miscreants in block Sec Chandausi-Bahjoi:Tools found at site Blade,Blade Frame,rod,hammer pic.twitter.com/AwG5dzeiEG Ministry of Railways (@RailMinIndia) February 9, 2017 The police have initiated an investigation to nab the culprits behind the train derailment attempt. The incident comes just a couple of days after a key suspect in the Kanpur train derailment was arrested from Kathmandu after being deported from Dubai. A special team of Nepal police arrested ISI agent Samshul Hoda along with three others at the Tribhuvan International Airport on February 7. Over 140 people were killed and dozens other injured when Indore-Patna Express derailed near Kanput on November 20, 2016. A month later, fifteen bogies of Sealdah-Ajmer Express derailed near Rura in Kanpur injuring over 40. The recent rail accidents in Uttar Pradesh, which is scheduled to vote for Assembly election in seven phases starting February 11, have the security agencies working over time to safeguard tracks and other important rail installations. Investigations have pointed towards involvement of foreign terror groups. ALSO READ : Kanpur train derailment: Prime suspect ISI agent Samshul Hoda arrested from Kathmandu Pakistan's link unearthed in Kanpur train accident that killed more than 140 passengers, 3 arrested --- ENDS --- For information only - not an official document UNIS/MA/161 30 January 2017 MEDIA ADVISORY Media representatives are invited to a UNOOSA-ESA panel discussion on space technology and climate change and presentation of the book "Fragility and Beauty: My Planet from Space" 6 February 2017, 1.00pm - 2.00pm Boardroom D, C Building, Vienna International Centre VIENNA, 30 January (United Nations Information Service) - The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) will host a panel discussion on the value of space technology for monitoring and combatting climate change and other environmental challenges on Monday, 6 February 2017 from 1.00pm to 2.00pm in the Vienna International Centre (VIC), C Building, Boardroom D. The discussion will include the presentation of the book created from the exhibition "Fragility and Beauty: My Planet from Space" - a collaboration between UNOOSA and ESA - which was displayed at the United Nations Headquarters in New York in 2015. The book comprises images taken from space highlighting the beauty and vulnerability of our planet, the challenges posed by climate change and how space-based technology such as satellite Earth observation can help us address these challenges. Speakers include: - Simonetta Di Pippo, Director, UNOOSA - Josef Aschbacher, Director of Earth Observation, ESA - Luca Parmitano, ESA Astronaut - Mylswamy Annadurai, Director, Indian Space Research Organisation Satellite Centre - Sandy Magnus, Executive Director, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics - Moderated by Martin Nesirky, Director, United Nations Information Service, Vienna The panel discussion will be followed by light refreshments. This event will take place on the sidelines of the annual session of the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, which is convening in Vienna from 30 January to 10 February. The discussion will be streamed at www.unoosa.org. * *** * Media representatives who wish to attend the event, and who are not accredited to the VIC, should write to press[at]unvienna.org. Access to the C-building is via Gate One of the Vienna International Centre. * *** * For more information about UNOOSA, please contact: Daria Brankin United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs Telephone: (+43 1) 26060 8718 Email: daria.brankin[at]unoosa.org For more information about ESA, please contact: Robert Meisner Communication Programme Officer for Earth Observation, ESA Telephone: (+39) 06941 80874 Email: Robert.Mesiner[at]esa.int February 9 2017 The UK government is looking to seed commercial spaceflight companies with the award of a number of grants totaling 10m designed to encourage development of satellite launch facilities.The cash will be made available to consortia developing spaceport infrastructure and launch vehicle technologyAirfields at Prestwick Campbeltown and Stornoway are amongst those vying to play host to a new breed of rocket planes and other launch systems capable of hauling satellites into low Earth orbit.Science minister Jo Johnson commented: "Spaceflight offers the UK the opportunity to build on our strengths in science, research and innovation.It provides opportunities to expand into new markets, creating highly-skilled jobs and boosting local economies across the country. That is why it is one of the key pillars of our Industrial Strategy."We want to see the UK space sector flourish, that is why we are laying the groundwork needed for business to be able to access this lucrative global market."To facilitate these ambitions a Spaceflight Bill containing the necessary regulatory and licensing framework is expected to be tabled by the end of the month. Jama Masjid Shahi Imam Syed Ahmed Bukhari accused the Samajwadi Party and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav of neglecting Muslims in the state while doing everything for Yadavs. By Shiv Pujan Jha: Just hours after the campaigning for the first phase of Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh ended today, Jama Masjid Shahi Imam Syed Ahmed Bukhari surprised many by announcing support for Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). Bukhari accused the Samajwadi Party and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav of neglecting Muslims in the state while doing everything for Yadavs. advertisement Assembly Elections 2017: Full Coverage Blaming the Samajwadi Party for Muzaffarnagar and Dadri incidents, the Shahi Imam said that the state witnessed over 400 communal cofrontations during Akhilesh's rule. "I met Mulayam several times on the issue of reservation to Muslims and Netaji brought the same to the notice of Akhilesh Yadav but he did nothing. Akhilesh didn't listen to his father. How can you rely on a person who has ill treated his father," Bukhari said. While praising previous BSP regime under Mayawati, he said the Samajwadi Party failed miserably in controlling law and order situation in the state. "The BSP should be given a chance," the top religious leader added. Bukhari also asserted that the Muslims were indispensable and they should unite and not rely on Congress and Samajwadi Party. Voting in the first phase of Assembly election on 73 constituencies is scheduled to be held on February 11. ALSO READ: Uttar Pradesh Assembly election: Sonia Gandhi to campaign in Rae Bareli soon Lalu claims he is a freelance politician, can go anywhere to root out BJP, RSS --- ENDS --- The government said there is a legitimate case against Mallya based on which it has approached the British government with a request to extradite the liquor baron, who has been living in London since sneaking out of India in March 2016. Vijay Mallya has been living in London since last March. By India Today Web Desk: The noose in tightening on Vijay Mallya, boss of the now defunct Kingfisher Airlines, as the government today officially requested Britain to extradite him. Mallya, who has been living in London since sneaking out of India last March, is wanted in India in loan default case of over Rs 9000 crore. The government said there is a legitimate case against Mallya based on which it has approached the British government with a request to extradite the liquor baron. advertisement MUST READ: The flight and fall of Mallya "We've today handed over the request for extradition of Vijay Mallya as received from the CBI to the UK High Commission in New Delhi. We have extradition treaty with Britain and legitimate case against Mallya. We made request, now, it's for British authorities to take further action," Minister of External Affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup told reporters in New Delhi. Swarup also said India is yet to make an extradition request for former IPL Chairman Lalit Modi. Last month, a CBI court had issued a non-bailable warrant against Mallya in the Rs 720-crore IDBI Bank loan default case. Mallya, whose now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines owes more than Rs 9,000 crore to various banks, had left India on March 2, 2016. WATCH: E-mail expose: Who forced bankers to bail out Vijay Mallya? ALSO READ: Ex-PM Manmohan Singh helped Vijay Mallya's sinking Kingfisher Airlines get bank loans, alleges BJP How Vijay Mallya flew to London via Delhi --- ENDS --- UW Entrepreneurship Summit Features Speaker, Presentations April 20 Anat Baron With efforts throughout the state to increase economic diversity, the College of Business will host the first University of Wyoming Entrepreneurship Summit Thursday, April 20. The program will feature a keynote speaker and UW student teams pitching their business plans in the annual John P. Ellbogen $30K Entrepreneurship Competition. The days events begin at 8 a.m. in the Marian H. Rochelle Gateway Center and will conclude at 8 p.m. As UWs College of Business, we feel a sense of responsibility and pride in our ability to directly impact the states economy. The resources we can, and will continue to provide to entrepreneurs, will hopefully play a key role in keeping our students in Wyoming after they graduate through business ownership and job creation, says Steve Russell, College of Business marketing and external relations director. The event is free and open to those who RSVP on the colleges website at www.uwyo.edu/business/ellbogen-30k/. The days activities will include opening remarks from UW President Laurie Nichols; the 10 UW student teams pitching their new business ventures; a series of state entities representatives discussing resources available to entrepreneurs around the state; an entrepreneurship panel; and a keynote speaker. The keynote speaker is Anat Baron, former executive of Mikes Hard Lemonade and an entrepreneur. Her talk will focus on innovation, entrepreneurship and intrepreneurship, which pertains to pre-existing business ventures. This years John P. Ellbogen $30K Entrepreneurship Competition attracted a record-breaking 76 student-led teams, which is the most entrants in the programs 15-year history. Those teams represent each college at UW. The 10 finalists are now working with mentors through the final pitch competition. The first-place business proposal will win $15,000, with half awarded after the competition and the balance given after submitting a satisfactory progress report. Second-prize funds are $7,500, and third place will receive $5,000. Second- and third-place winners will receive half their prize winnings after the competition and the remaining after submitting progress reports. Additional prizes will be given following the final competition. For more information about the Entrepreneurship Summit, call Russell at (307) 766-4112 or email srusse18@uwyo.edu. UW Webinar Explores What Intellectual Property Knowledge Startups Need to Know If you currently own a business or have a future business venture in mind, you need to understand how to protect inventions, brands, software and product designs. A webinar, titled What Every Startup Needs to Know About Intellectual Property, will be presented by the Wyoming Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Thursday, March 2, 2-3 p.m. The SBDC is a partnership among the University of Wyoming, the Wyoming Business Council and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). The SBDC focuses on educating small-business owners and potential owners on how to successfully start and operate small businesses. The SBDCs main office is located at UW. Intellectual property can be defined as a work or invention that is the result of creativity -- such as a manuscript, log or invention -- to which one has rights and for which one may apply for a patent, copyright, trademark, etc. Even your companys trade name and website domain name are important parts of your intellectual property strategy. Not only will protecting what you create deter competitors, but intellectual property protection also will make your company more attractive to capital investment. Toni Tease, a registered patent attorney, will host the webinar. Her presentation will provide startup businesses with valuable information about various types of intellectual property protection, including patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets. Tease practices intellectual property and technology law. Prior to forming her own law firm in 2003, Tease was general counsel for Rocky Mountain Technology Group Inc., a software development company with worldwide headquarters in Billings, Mont. Previously, she was associated with several large law firms. The registration fee is $15, and attendees can register at www.wyomingsbdc.org. Reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities will be made, if requested at least two weeks in advance. For more information or to pay by check, call Peggy Baker at 1-800-348-5194. The Wyoming SBDC Network is a business advising group of the Wyoming SBDC, Procurement Technical Assistance Center, Market Research Center and SBIR/STTR Initiative. The networks mission is to help Wyoming entrepreneurs succeed. Advising and most market research activities are free of charge to Wyoming residents. The SBDC is funded, in part, through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. SBA. Additional support is provided by the Wyoming Business Council and UW. For more information, go to www.wyomingsbdc.org. With the political crisis in the state worsening with each passing day, the Governor may also decide to impose President's Rule. By Kumar Shakti Shekhar: In the ever-deepening political crisis in Tamil Nadu, AIADMK Legislature Party leader Sasikala Natarajan is likely to meet Governor C Vidyasagar Rao on his return to Chennai today. She may be accompanied by most of the 131 MLAs who have pledged their support to her. In the meeting, Sasikala, who is also AIADMK's "interim" General Secretary, is likely to stake claim to form government in the state. On the other hand, Panneerselvam may also call upon the Governor and apprise him of the political situation in the state and claim majority support. advertisement In such a situation, the Governor has the following choices: 1. SASIKALA IS ASKED TO WAIT The Supreme Court is likely to deliver its judgment in the Rs 66.65 crore disproportionate assets case involving former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, Sasikala and two of the latter's relatives. Their acquittal by the Karnataka High Court on May 11, 2015 had been challenged in the apex court. If the Supreme Court convicts Sasikala and hands out a jail sentence for more than two years, she would be disqualified to contest elections. By that logic, she would also be disqualified from taking over as Tamil Nadu chief minister. ALSO READ: Panneerselvam vs Sasikala: How it's deja vu moment in Tamil Nadu politics With just a few days to go for the Supreme Court verdict, Governor C Vidyasagar Rao may ask Sasikala to wait till then. Panneerselvam will continue to be the interim chief minister till the Supreme Court verdict comes next week. 2. SASIKALA IS ASKED TO FORM GOVERNMENT Sasikala held a meeting of her supporters on Wednesday. Subsequently, she claimed the support of 131 of the 134 AIADMK MLAs in the 234-seat Tamil Nadu Assembly. She may parade these MLAs before the Governor and may, at the least, produce their letters of support for her. With Sasikala claiming the backing of such an overwhelming majority, the Governor may decide to invite her to form government. He may also ask her prove her majority on the floor of the House. 3. PANNERSELVAM IS INVITED TO FORM GOVERNMENT If Panneerselvam also stakes claim to form government, Governor Rao is likely to also consider his assertion. Going by discretion, the Governor may ask him to form government and subsequently prove majority. However, this is possible after Panneerselvam is permitted to withdraw his resignation. The Governor may accept Panneerselvam's contention that he was forced by Sasikala to tender resignation and allow him to withdraw it. The Governor would take this step at the risk of inviting wrath of the other faction and criticism from Constitutional experts and several other political parties. 4. PRESIDENT'S RULE With the political crisis in the state worsening with each passing day, the Governor may also decide to impose President's Rule. This would give him ample time to arrive at a decision after this fluid situation settles down. He may wait for the Supreme Court judgment in the disproportionate assets case against Sasikala. In the mean time, he may obtain legal opinion and also wait for a clear picture to emerge. advertisement WATCH: India will fight for Tamil Nadu in 'civil war of ahimsa': Kamal Haasan ALSO READ: Jayalalithaa's Poes Garden house to be made a memorial? OPS now plans to make Sasikala homeless Jayalalithaa's acupuncturist: She would have been alive in my care. Probe her death --- ENDS --- The plus-size model is seen posing with Gigi Hadid, Kendall Jenner, and other super models from the US. By India Today Web Desk: One wouldn't have thought that a plus-size model could feature in advertisements, let alone the cover page of leading fashion magazines, even a decade back. But that's just the kind of progress we have made over time. Fashion, today, is about celebrating all body types with utter confidence and oomph. So it doesn't come as a surprise that plus-size supermodel Ashley Graham would feature in the upcoming edition of Vogue. The March 2017 issue of the magazine is celebrating beauty in all its forms. advertisement Also read: This hot plus-size model finally has a Barbie in her name With the cover page tag of 'Women Rule! Fashion's Fearless Female', the issue features Ashley Graham, Gigi Hadid, Kendall Jenner, Adwoa Aboah, Liu Wen, Vittoria Ceretti, and Imaan Hammam--all of them in black turtleneck tops, and multi-coloured, high-waist beach shorts. Vogue claims that this issue is revolutionary, and as their cover announces, 'No norm is the new norm'. The models are in black turtleneck tops and high-waist beach shorts. Picture courtesy: Instagram/theashleygraham And while we quite believe that, some online critics have criticised Ashley's appearance on the cover. According to them the model, who openly celebrates her size and cellulite, had been posed in a certain way to hide her plus-sized body. Some have even accused the magazine of digitally altering the image to make Ashley look thinner. Ashley, countering these remarks, commented on her Instagram that 'I chose to pose like that...no one told me to do anything'. Despite this sort of criticism, the Vogue cover actually does make quite an impact. These women hailing from all over the world--from China to the Netherlands--and with different body types, have one thing in common. They all look equally stunning. --- ENDS --- By Press Trust of India: From Lalit K Jha Washington, Feb 9 (PTI) US President Donald Trump has told his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in a letter that he looks forward to developing a "constructive relationship" that benefits both countries, days after his remarks questioning the decades-old One China policy riled Beijing. Trump wrote the letter to President Xi who had written a congratulatory letter to him after he was sworn in as US President on January 20. advertisement "President Donald J Trump today provided a letter to President Xi Jinping of China, thanking President Xi for his congratulatory letter on the occasion of President Trumps inauguration and wishing the Chinese people a happy Lantern Festival and prosperous Year of the Rooster," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said. "President Trump stated that he looks forward to working with President Xi to develop a constructive relationship that benefits both the United States and China," Spicer said in a statement. After becoming the US President, Trump has spoken with nearly two dozen world leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi. British Prime Minister Theresa May was the first world leader to have met him in the Oval Office. Later this week, Trump would be hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the White House. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also scheduled to meet him at the White House. Trump, after his election, had stated that the One-China policy on Taiwan is up for negotiation and that he is not fully committed to it. China had hit back saying one-China policy which stipulates that Taiwan is part of Chinese mainland is "non-negotiable". China regards Taiwan as a breakaway province and insist all countries having bilateral ties with it to abide by the One-China policy. PTI LKJ ASK ASK --- ENDS --- The House of Commons is expected to grant its approval for Prime Minister Theresa May to trigger Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty AFP/Daniel LEAL-OLIVAS Seven months after the historic referendum vote to leave the 28-nation bloc, the House of Commons is expected to grant its approval for May to trigger Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty. The bill must now still pass through the House of Lords, where there may be more opposition from unelected peers less concerned about defying the majority of voters who backed Brexit. But if, as expected, the bill passes its Commons stage in a vote late Wednesday, May will be significantly closer to her goal of starting the two-year exit talks by the end of March. Under pressure from MPs, the government was forced to concede on Tuesday that parliament would have a vote on the final Brexit deal before it is signed off. The move helped fend off a rebellion by pro-European members of May's Conservative party, who had threatened to back an opposition amendment to the two-clause bill. But ministers stressed that if lawmakers rejected the final deal, the alternative was not to return to negotiations but to leave the EU without an agreement. "This will be a meaningful vote. It will be a choice between leaving the European Union with a negotiated deal or not," Brexit minister David Jones said. "NIGHTMARE SCENARIO" More than two-thirds of MPs campaigned against Brexit in the June referendum, but after 52 percent of Britons voted to leave the EU, most have reluctantly accepted that they must uphold the result. When May introduced her Brexit bill last month, following a Supreme Court ruling that she must seek parliament's approval to start the process, the opposition Labour party promised not to block it. Some 47 Labour MPs rebelled to vote against the legislation, backed by the Scottish National Party (SNP) and the smaller Liberal Democrats party, and more could defy their party leadership on Wednesday. In a symbolic move on Tuesday, the SNP-dominated Scottish Parliament voted overwhelmingly against the bill passing through Westminster. But there are not enough critics to thwart the bill, and efforts to amend it to tie the government's hands in negotiations have so far failed. Many MPs are opposed to May's decision to prioritising controlling EU migration into Britain in the talks, at the cost of losing membership of Europe's single market. Brexit minister Jones said the "final draft agreement" on leaving the EU would be put to MPs and peers before it was put to the European Parliament for ratification. A number of lawmakers are sceptical that both the exit terms and a new trade deal can be agreed within two years of talks. But Jones said he was confident of getting agreement on both areas, but said that if there was no deal, Britain would fall back on World Trade Organization rules to determine its trade with the EU. Labour MP Chris Leslie warned: "On the nightmare scenario, that we could leave the EU with no deal at all, and face damaging barriers to trade with Europe, it seems parliament could have no say whatsoever." Intimex has recently commenced construction on six-star hotel Four Seasons Hanoi at 22-32 Le Thai To Street, Hoan Kiem District, the former site of Intimex supermarket. The first Four Seasons hotel in the city is designed with 100 guest rooms. Four Seasons is the worlds leading hotel group, which is 47.5% owned by Bill Gates and manages 102 hotels in 43 nations. At the groundbreaking ceremony of the Four Seasons Hanoi last month, Hanoi chairman Nguyen Duc Chung said the city was running short of high-end hotels. At 146 Giang Vo Street, about three kilometers from the Four Seasons Hanoi, the two-decade-old three-star Dong Do Hotel has recently been demolished to pave the way for construction of a five-star hotel, also called Dong Do. The VND350 billion project is scheduled for completion within this year. Some three kilometers from the landmark Hoan Kiem (Sword) Lake, another five-star hotel is under construction on Yen Phu Street as part of the hotel, commercial center and apartment complex Aqua Central Hanoi. Developed by Hanoi Water Tower JSC, the project is expected to go into operation in the second quarter of 2018. Do Thu Hang, head of research at Savills Vietnam in Hanoi, said the city would have an additional 33 hotels of 3 to 5 stars. Two projects will start service this year, including a four-star hotel with 200 rooms, and five others will become operational in 2018. Hanoi is looking to promote tourism development. City chairman Chung said the city would build an extra 20,000 hotel rooms in the next five years. At prime sites in the city a number of office and luxury apartment buildings will be converted into top-notch hotels in the future. Hang of Savills attributed growing hotel investment activity in Hanoi to the citys new resolution on tourism development. The capital city will strive to attract 30 million visitors, with 5.7 million of them from abroad, and achieve average hotel room occupancy of 60-65% by 2020. There is a lot of favorable information that may boost the demand for hotel rooms in the city in the future, Hang noted. For example, travel website TripAdvisor voted Hanoi as one of the 20 cheapest destinations for a short tour in the summer of 2016. In addition, along with HCM City, Hanoi is recognized as one of the 20 most-visited destinations in the world. According to data of CBRE Vietnam, Vietnam is becoming an attractive tourist destination in Southeast Asia. This is evident in high room occupancy, which reached 75% in Hanoi in June 2016, the highest in five years. Experts believe high guest room occupancy, rising room rates and a pickup in tourist arrivals are behind investors decisions to build hotels in Hanoi. International tourist arrivals to Vietnam reached eight million in 2015 and surged to 10 million last year. Tuncay Bockin, former general manager of Crowne Plaza West Hanoi Hotel, noted Vietnam even had greater tourism development potential than Thailand, which lures about 20 million international visitors a year. With more international hotel management corporations arriving in the country, Bockin predicted this market would become more competitive. A Y-shape flyover will be constructed at a cost of VND242 billion (US$10.7 million) at the junction of Truong Son-Tan Son Nhat-Binh Loi-outside belt road in Tan Binh district, with one branch running to Tan Son Nhat airports international terminal and the other to the domestic terminal. Truong Son Street as well as streets to the airport will be upgraded with renewed light systems. The other flyover, with an investment of VND504 billion (US$22.2 million), is expected to help tackle traffic jams at the Nguyen Thai Son-Nguyen Kiem junction in Go Vap district. The steel N-shape bridge has three arms, with a 367m arm connecting Hoang Minh Giam and Nguyen Thai Son streets, the other 367 section arm turning north from Hoang Minh Giam street to Nguyen Kiem street, and the final 367m turning south from Nguyen Thai Son street into Nguyen Kiem. The two projects are expected to be finished in six months. Addressing the launching ceremony, Le Van Khoa, Vice Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Peoples Committee, urged agencies to shorten the implementation time for the projects by one third, but with high quality and labour safety. He asked the Tan Binh district Peoples Committee and Transportation Department to focus on the projects to deal with traffic congestion at Tan Son Nhat airport. According to the municipal Transportation Department, this year, the city will also speed up and start various major traffic projects, including a road connecting Rach Chiec bridge and Binh Thai in District 9, the Belt Road 3 Tan Van-Nhon Trach and the expansion of Highway 22 from An Suong intersection to Tay Ninh province. The Ho Chi Minh City-Long Thanh-Day Day Expressway project will also be sped up, along with the building of a bridge in Binh Tien street and a road connecting Tran Quoc Hon and Cong Hoa street. Lan Ha Bay Although not many people know about it, Lan Ha is one Vietnams most beautiful bays. Autumn is the best time to visit Lan Ha Bay because the weather at this time is extremely beautiful with pleasant sunshine, cool breezes, and blue sky and ocean. Linking Ha Long Bay of Quang Ninh province with Cat Ba archipelago, Lan Ha Bay is like a silk ribbon made from green mountains, blue sea and diverse fauna and flora. It is a tranquil, curved body of water featuring about 400 islands. Unlike Ha Long Bay, all 400 islets in Lan Ha are covered with vegetation with unique values, especially landscape values. Lan Ha Bay spreads more than 7,000 hectares, including 5,400 hectares under the management of Cat Ba National Park. Aside from beautiful beaches, its attractiveness also lies in limestone mountain ranges that divide the sea into smaller bays, lagoons and caves, many of which are unexplored. There are hundreds of limestone mountains in the shape of things such as clogs or bats which also give the islets their names. Stalactite caves and caverns can also be seen in Lan Ha. Some outstanding ones are Ham Rong Cave, Do Cung Cave and Ca Cave. Lan Ha Bay boasts 139 small and quiet sandbanks, many of which are located between two rocky mountains a feature bringing peace and ripples, making these sandbanks ideal bathing beaches. Under the clean and blue water are colourful coral reefs such as Van Boi and Van Ha reefs, good for diving. Calm sea areas like those off Sen Island, Cu Island and Khi Island are also places vacationers can swim and dive to see coral. Some rocky islets with favourable natural conditions have also been used to develop leisure tourism activities. To fully enjoy the beauties of limestone islets as well as the landscapes of Lan Ha Bay, tourists should travel by kayak. By the means of transport, they can explore new experiences that cannot be felt on cruise ships. Snaking through islets and small caves, kayaks can access the foot of rocky mountains, giving tourists a view of the world under the blue water. Visitors will be astonished at the nature in Lan Ha Bay and feel at peace while being here. Cat Dua Island, also known as Khi (Money) Island, is a must-visit destination in Lan Ha Bay. Many leisure tourism activities have been offered on this island, luring many foreign holidaymakers in recent years. The waters around Cat Dua harbour pearl farms are also interesting places to see. A typical tourism product in Lan Ha Bay is small fishing villages and those that farm local specialties such as Asian green mussel, clam, cobia, crab, abalone and grouper. Many of such aquaculture farms supply fresh seafood for tourists when they set foot in the bay. Two places of interest many travel companies introduce to visitors are Van Gia fishing village, which is more than 100 years old, and Viet Hai fishing village, which is almost entirely isolated from modern life. Bay ecotourism recently is focused on investment. Only taking 5 minutes to travel from Beo wharf toward the north to reach Cat Dua Island with many tourism services are being exploited. This tourism form is attracting a lot of foreign tourists to arrive for resting. Thanks to those advantages, tourism activities are flourishing in Lan Ha Bay, satisfying domestic and foreign visitors growing demand to discover the bay in the north of Vietnam. illustration photo Staff from the Trade Promotion Agencys Export Support Centre went to Mother Temple in the northern province of Hung Yen on February 7. The group were uncovered during an interview by VTV television with a man working in the temple who helped to complete worship procedures for the group. The man even showed a notebook which is used to write down all names of delegations which had attended at the temple, including people from the centre. Both the contact and address of the centre were also noted on the notebook. VTV reporters called all numbers of the centre, but no one picked up the phone. Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh requested the Trade Promotion Agency to provide an explanation today, February 8, before giving punishments to violators. On February 7, local media also reported a number of staff from the Hanoi Peoples Committee had gone to pagodas using state-owned vehicles during working hours. However, the committee has yet to comment. Earlier, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc issued a document requesting ministries and localities to work seriously and avoid post-Tet indulgences after the holiday. Under the PMs instruction, public servants are not allowed to go to festivals or pagodas during working hours or use public cars for that activity, except when performing their duties, the PM said. They are also banned from holding parties in their work time. Solemn: People put fish on a boat carried on a dragon-carved throne at yesterdays ceremony. VNA/VNS Photo Nguyen Lanh Solemn: People put fish on a boat carried on a dragon-carved throne at yesterdays ceremony. VNA/VNS Photo Nguyen Lanh The ceremonies aim to honour ancestors of the Tran dynasty (1226-1400), who earned their livings from fishing. The ceremonies also remind locals of famed fish breeds dating back hundreds of years in Tuc Mac Village, in todays Loc Vuong Ward. The village was also the residential area of the Tran family in Nam inh Province. The ceremonies, which pray for good weather, had been lost for years until they were reborn in 2014 based on the memories of local elders. Early yesterday morning, local elders gathered at Co Trach Temple to pray before setting off to take water from a nearby ancient well. A procession of 200 people carrying flags, including dragon dance teams and drum players carried a sedan chair to the well. Fishermen with traditional costumes and fishing tools also joined the procession. After fetching the water, the procession stopped to join a fishing ritual at a half-moon-shaped pond near the well. Ten snakehead and carp fish were caught and stored in a boat carried on a dragon-carved palaquin. The procession moved to Thien Truong Temple for a worship ceremony. The fish were then set free in the Hong (Red) River, aiming to bring a prosperous year for local fishermen. Up to Sunday (February 12), there will be other activities like dragon dances, folk singing, human chess and folk wrestling. On Saturday (February 11, or the 15th day of the first lunar month), a worship ceremony and symbolic royal seal distribution ceremony will be held. We have prepared enough symbolic royal seals to give to locals and tourists as lucky cards for the new year, said Cao Xuan Hoat, an organising committee member. Pham Thi Oanh, deputy chair of Nam inh Peoples Committee, said the organisers had tightened management to ensure the festivals security. The Tran Temple Festival in Nam inh, which is held every year between 13th and 18th day of the first lunar year, was recognised as national intangible heritage in 2014. The historical complex of the Tran Kings shrines and tombs received special national relic status in 2015. The neighbouring Thai Binh Province is considered the birthplace of the Tran Kings, while Nam inh was their first residential area. The festival is also held at the Tran Temple complex in Thai Binh during the first lunar month every year. Vietnam Airlines to open non-stop route between Ha Noi and Sydney next month.-File Photo In a press release on Thursday, the carrier said this was its third route from Viet Nam to Australia. The two other routes connect Viet Nam with Sydney and Melbourne. According to the airline's statement, there will be three flights per week on the new generation Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. The flight duration is nine hours and 30 minutes. In addition, Vietnam Airlines also launched a promotion programme for passengers departing from March 28 to April 28, 2017. The tickets are priced at VND14.69 million (US$650) and will be sold from now to February 28. The price does not include taxes and fees. illustration photo Toyota Motor Thailand (TMT)'s car exports to Vietnam rose by 15 per cent last year, despite a 15 per cent drop in its total car exports, said the company at a recent press conference. Vietnam is among TMT's biggest customers, importing 58,700 cars from the company last year, making up about 20 per cent of its total car exports. In comparison, the company sold 13,600 cars to Laos (down 18 per cent on-year), 1,600 cars to Cambodia (up 19 per cent), and 1,100 cars to Myanmar (up by a sharp 159 per cent). Experts are of the opinion that car imports to Vietnam will continue to increase as regional trade agreements come into effect. From January 1, 2017, Vietnam cut the import tariff on completely built car units from ASEAN members from 40 to 30 per cent to meet its commitments under the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement, which aims to reduce trade barriers and expand markets among member states. As per the agreement, from 2018 Vietnam will be required to reduce this tariff to zero. This change is shifting the business strategies of car companies in Vietnam. Toyota's new Fortuner 2017 cars that were introduced to the Vietnamese market in January are imported as completely built units and not assembled locally. Tran Xuan Thuy, deputy director of sales and marketing at Toyota Vietnam, told Lao Dong newspaper in an interview in early January that Toyota Vietnam has no plans to move production of the new Fortuner line back to Vietnam, even though its domestically built cars generate solid sales. Replacing locally built units with imported ones is also the plan for the company's Innova and Camry lines, but the Vios line will continue to be assembled in Vietnam. Thuy told Lao Dong newspaper that once the import tariff is removed, the cost of making a car in Vietnam will be much higher than in other countries in the region and importing will be more cost-effective than making, especially if companies have to make initial investments in new manufacturing technology. He also said the change would not reduce the company's workforce in Vietnam, as production of other car lines will increase and total output will stay the same. Lao Dong newspaper also quoted other industry insiders as saying that auto companies will not fully scrap their domestic production lines. They said Vietnam still has huge potential and investing in new factories would take at least five years. By owning factories, companies stay ready to bring back production to the country when the market and policies become favourable. In April 2016, Truong Hai Auto Corporation, the biggest Vietnamese car manufacturer, broke ground for the expansion project of its automotive engineering complex Chu Lai-Truong Hai in the central province of Quang Nam, which can make up to 100,000 passenger cars and thousands of trucks and buses annually. As previously reported by VIR, the number of cars in Vietnam is poised to increase. The car market has been producing double-digit growth, but as of last year, only 10 per cent of Vietnamese households owned a car, compared to the 53 per cent in the Philippines, the 54 per cent in Indonesia, and the 93 per cent in Malaysia. Toyota Vietnam last year accounted for 25.5 per cent of the domestic car market. The company's profit quintupled over the four years between 2012 and 2015, from VND1 trillion to VND5 trillion ($224.2 million). A human rights worker and an activist accused of violence against security forces appeared in court on Wednesday despite international pressure for the cases to be dropped. Am Sam Ath, monitoring manager at local rights group Licadho, and Boeung Kak Lake activist Chan Puthisak, were handed the charges for allegedly attacking district security guards at a demonstration in October last year. Sam Ath was badly beaten during the World Habitat day protest. Both men have denied the charges and say they were the subject of an unprovoked attack by the same security force that is the plaintiff in the case against them. I said that I didnt commit anything as accused by these people [security guards] and I also didnt know their faces. I clarified that I didnt want to take revenge or commit any violence, Sam Ath said after Wednesdays hearing. Puthisak said the court had so far produced no evidence of their guilt. I requested the court to not charge me because I am a victim and I requested the court to provide justice to me, he said. A joint statement issued by international rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said the case was politically motivated and intended to intimidate rights workers in the country. The investigation of Sam Ath and Puthisak by the Cambodian authorities is a typically absurd and undisguised case of judicial harassment, said Champa Patel, Southeast Asia and Pacific director at Amnesty International. As usual, unnecessary and excessive use of force by the para-police goes unpunished, and those who work to promote and protect human rights find themselves subject to criminal proceedings. But Ly Sophanna, Municipal Court spokesman, said: The prosecutor has decided to continue working on the case by reviewing all related documents, evidence, and listening to relevant individuals. A video of the incident posted on Facebook appears to show Sam Ath at the receiving end of a barrage of blows from the security forces. Licadho said in a statement that Puthisak was attacked by the guards and they turned on Sam Ath when he tried to intervene to deescalate the situation. Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday threatened to have politicians arrested on the spot if they promised to cancel voters debts upon winning the general election in 2018. The premier said that debts incurred to private micro-finance institutions could not be canceled by the state and ordered officials to detain anyone caught making such claims. If it is considered to be an obvious crime, well tie both their hands behind their backs right there and send them to the court, because they cheat. Please do a legal review of whether it could be solved or not. It's an encouragement for people to take more credit and it's like a way to kill people in exchange for votes, he said While not mentioning names, Hun Sen compared the promises to those made by the Khmer Rouge, a comparison he has often made regarding the actions of the opposition. In 2016, Prince Norodom Ranariddh of the royalist Funcinpec party pledged to eliminate debt if his party, which currently holds no seats in parliament, won the election. Spokesmen for the countrys main opposition, the Cambodia National Rescue Party, and Funcinpec, could not be reached. Ou Virak, president and founder of the Future Forum think-tank, said Hun Sens order was undemocratic, despite the promises themselves being unrealistic. If the Prime Minister threatens to handcuff [them] like that, it will cause fears among politicians. Even if they talk or make promises about other things, sometimes rational, they will still have fears. So, I do not support him to use the criminal law against [such activities], but I support the idea of explaining [the situation to people] to prevent citizens from having blind faith. Hun Sen added that he would take a stronger line with micro-finance institutions found to be misselling loans to people. [Editors Note: Tang Siew Mun is the head of the Asean Studies Center a the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. He was interviewed by VOA Khmer reporter Sok Khemara by email recently about the legacy of the Asean Sunnylands Summit, held one year ago, and the legacy of former President Barack Obamas policy of engagement with Asean.] VOA: What are the impacts of US-Asean relations one year on from the US-Asean summit? TSM: The Sunnylands Summit stands as the high water mark of US-Asean relations, and now serves as a point of comparison and reflection on the future of this important bilateral relationship under the Trump Administration. Trumps moves and policies towards Asean will inevitably draw close comparison with those of the Obama Administration. What did the US and Asean achieve with the first ever summit in Sunnylands? The Summit reaffirms the long standing partnership between the two parties, and was the first ever US-Asean summit in the US. But the fact that the Sunnylands meeting was only the fourth summit is telling about the state of the bilateral ties. That all of the four summits took place under Obamas watch is also noteworthy and worrisome. Why were there no summits held prior to the Obama Administration? If Asean is considered as part of Obamas legacy, then the bilateral relation may be relegated to the back burner under the Trump administration. What were the major takeaways from the meeting? The Sunnylands Summit will be remembered for introducing a new concept into Asean diplomacy with the inclusion of respect for legal and diplomatic processes in the joint statement. Can Asean maintain the relationship with the US under Trump? What is going to happen to the US Asia pivot policy? Asean will continue to welcome and work towards sustaining the momentum of the US-ASEAN partnership. How far and what direction this partnership will take pretty much depends on Trumps priorities and actions. The ball is literally in Washingtons hands. Will Chinas relationship to Asean improve if the US does not prioritize Asean relations? Aseans relations with China will continue to grow naturally notwithstanding US actions (or inaction). The critical question for US policy-makers is whether Washington is willing to bear the cost of engaging Asean to retain its primacy in the region, and to avoid ceding strategic space to China. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. The fate of President Donald Trump's controversial executive order on immigration is in the hands of the U.S. federal court system and may eventually be headed to the Supreme Court. Trump critics and defenders both see the legal battle as a key test of the president's executive authority and the rights of the judicial branch to hold the president accountable to the rule of law. VOA's Jim Malone reports. The International Committee of the Red Cross, ICRC, says it has temporarily halted humanitarian operations in Afghanistan after Wednesdays deadly attack on its convoy. Suspected Islamist militants killed six ICRC aid workers and abducted two others after ambushing their convoy in the northern province of Jowzjan, according to the ICRC and Afghan provincial officials. Security forces are conducting search operations in hopes of freeing the hostages and capturing the suspects, but provincial authorities have not reported a breakthrough. The victims were on their way to deliver livestock food to needy families in Jowzjan. The ICRC has put its operations on hold in Afghanistan for the time being, to allow a deeper comprehension of this terrible incident, the charity told VOA Thursday. It added the ICRC needs time to analyze and understand what happened, to pursue its contacts with authorities and to assess the overall security situation before deciding how it can continue its operations in Afghanistan. IS has not yet commented on the incident while the Taliban insurgency said it was not involved in the attack and promised to find and punish the perpetrators. If confirmed, it would be the first assault by loyalists of the Middle East-based terrorist group against an international organization in Afghanistan. IS affiliates have stepped up attacks against Afghan security forces and civilians, particularly the Shi'ite Muslim community, in a bid to establish a foothold in the war-ravaged country. The terrorist organization claimed responsibility for Tuesdays deadly suicide bombing in Kabul, targeting mostly employees of the Afghan Supreme Court. That attack killed at least 21 people and wounded more than 40 others, including female judges and prosecutors. Separately, Afghan officials say that overnight American drone strikes against IS positions in the eastern Nangarhar province killed at least 11 militants, including two senior commanders. We can confirm that the U.S. did conduct counterterrorism strikes in Nangarhar on February 8, U.S. military spokesman Bill Salvin told VOA, without adding further details. U.S. officials have stopped screening refugees for potential resettlement in the United States but will return to the Pacific atoll of Nauru to continue working toward a deal that President Donald Trump has condemned as dumb, an Australian minister said Thursday. Immigration Minister Peter Dutton would not say when U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials would return to Nauru to conduct what Trump describes as extreme vetting. Trump made enhanced screening a condition for agreeing to honor an Obama administration deal to accept up to 1,250 refugees refused entry into Australia. Australia pays Nauru and Papua New Guinea to keep more than 2,000 asylum seekers, mostly from Iran, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, in conditions condemned by rights groups. The process of extreme vetting has yet to be explained. US leaves under a cloud U.S. officials were sent to Nauru within days of the deals announcement in November after the U.S. presidential election. But they left this week with arrangements under a cloud. I dont have any comment to make in relation to when U.S. officials will be on Nauru next, Dutton told reporters. There have been officials there who have left ... in the last couple of days and we would expect other officials to be there in due course. But there is a lot of work being done at an officials level with people from my department and the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State in the U.S., but its not something that I have anything to comment on, he said. 1,600 refugees Australia has determined that there are 1,600 genuine refugees among 2,077 asylum seekers on Papua New Guinea and Nauru. There could also be refugees among the 370 asylum seekers who came to Australia for medical treatment then took court action to prevent their return to the island camps. About 1,240 asylum seekers live in the camps while the rest of those on the island live in communities outside the fences. Dutton could not say whether the 1,600 refugees would pass the new U.S. vetting regime. Its an issue for the United States under the agreement as to who they take and the way in which they conduct their vetting, so I dont have any comment in relation to the U.S. process, Dutton said. Our desire is to get people off Nauru and Manus as quickly as possible, he added, referring to Papua New Guineas Manus Island. Most vulnerable given priority As of last week, Nauru held 1,132 asylum seekers including women and children. The Manus facility houses only men. Australia has said the most vulnerable refugees on Nauru would be given priority for U.S. resettlement. After committing to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull that he would honor the agreement, Trump tweeted that it was a dumb deal. Asked last week whether the deal would continue, Trump said: Well see what happens. A bipartisan group of 34 U.S. lawmakers has sent a letter to President Donald Trump urging him to step up pressure on Venezuela's government by immediately sanctioning officials responsible for corruption and human rights abuses, The Associated Press has learned. The letter was partly prompted by an AP investigation, which it cites, that found corruption in Venezuela's food imports. It also calls for a thorough probe into alleged drug trafficking and support for Middle Eastern terror groups by the country's new vice president, Tareck El Aissami. El Aissami has been the target of U.S. law enforcement since his days as interior minister almost a decade ago, and has been tied to bribes paid to officials by the nation's top convicted drug trafficker. He has denied any wrongdoing. Relations between the U.S. and its staunchest critic in Latin America have been tense for years the two countries haven't exchanged ambassadors since 2010. And at Congress' insistence, President Barack Obama sanctioned several top Venezuelan officials for cracking down on opponents or helping smuggle cocaine to the U.S. But Trump mentioned the country only briefly during the campaign. And Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's comments during his confirmation gave little sign of whether he will depart from the Obama administration's relative restraint and call for dialogue between socialist President Nicolas Maduro and his opponents. Venezuela is mired in political gridlock, even as its economy is falling apart. Amid such uncertainty, Maduro has taken a softer tack. After blasting Trump as a bandit and mental patient during the campaign, he's remained silent since, even in the face of the Republican's promise to build a wall with Mexico and freeze immigration from close Venezuelan allies such as Iran and Syria. He won't be worse than Obama, that's the only thing I dare to say, Maduro said last month in an appeal to supporters to withhold judgment on the new U.S. leader. Accusations in letter The letter, co-written by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Florida, the former chair of the house Committee on Foreign Affairs, and Sen. Robert Menendez, D-New Jersey, the ranking member of the foreign relations subcommittee that oversees Latin America, appears intended to force the administration's hand. Decisive, principled action in response to unfolding developments in Venezuela as one of the first foreign policy actions of your administration would send a powerful message to the Maduro regime and the Venezuelan people, according to the letter, which was signed by an equal number of Democrats and Republicans. Specifically, the lawmakers call on Trump to sanction officials responsible for profiting from the dire humanitarian situation. That includes officials in the Venezuelan military who have been put in charge of distributing food, but the AP found that are instead making money from hunger. An extensive investigative report by the Associated Press in December 2016 exposed what many assumed to be true, that corrupt Venezuelan officials are in fact profiting from the humanitarian struggle in the country, the letter says. It mentions the AP investigation's findings that two generals, food minister Rodolfo Marco Torres and his predecessor Carlos Osorio, are among military officials trafficking in hard-to-find food for personal profit. Neither official responded to requests for comment, but in the past, both have dismissed charges of corruption as empty accusations propagated by political opponents. The letter also calls on the Treasury Department to issue clarifying regulations to ensure that U.S. companies don't inadvertently fuel graft and benefit from the overpayment of food contracts in violation of the foreign corrupt practices act. Finally, lawmakers are seeking increased U.S. funding for pro-democracy and civil society work in the country. Sharp criticism Lawmakers reserved their most-stinging criticism for El Aissami, a hardliner socialist who would take over from Maduro should the president step down or be removed, as his opponents are seeking. El Aissami has been targeted by U.S. law enforcement since almost a decade ago, when dozens of fraudulent Venezuelan passports ended up in the hands of people from the Middle East, including alleged members of Hezbollah. He was also accused in 2011 by one of the nation's top drug traffickers of taking bribes through his brother to allow huge shipments of cocaine to leave from the country's main port. Given these reports, the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the country, and his prominence in the regime, we urge the appropriate agencies to thoroughly investigate Tareck El Aissami's conduct and activities, the letter said. Venezuela's government has not yet responded to the letter and El Aissami didn't comment when the AP contacted him through his office. El Aissami earlier has denied any wrongdoing and called those who speak ill of him traitors who seek to harm Venezuela. British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson has given up his U.S. citizenship, according to a list from the U.S. Treasury Department. Johnson was born 52 years ago in New York, when his father was attending graduate school at Columbia University. Johnson was a dual citizen until last year when he renounced his U.S. citizenship. It isnt known exactly when Johnson gave up his citizenship because the list is published quarterly, and he hasnt yet publicly mentioned his decision. Johnson has run into trouble with U.S. tax authorities in the past, and in 2015 he was forced to pay a tax bill on the sale of his London home, which he called absolutely outrageous since he hadnt lived in the U.S. since he was five years old. U.S. tax law, which differs from most other countries, forces U.S. citizens to pay taxes on income regardless of where they live or where the money is earned. The conservative Johnson became the British foreign secretary last year after the country voted to break ties with the European Union. Prior to serving as foreign secretary, Johnson was mayor of London. British lawmakers voted Wednesday to allow Prime Minister Theresa May to go ahead with proceedings for withdrawing Britain from the European Union. The vote in Britain's House of Commons means attempts by Brexit opponents to soften the terms of the withdrawal were thwarted. They had tried to attach conditions to the bill that would delay the start of Brexit talks, planned by March 31. Watch: Brexit Bill Support Overwhelming from British Lawmakers The vote Wednesday evening was 494-122. The bill now goes to the House of Lords, a non-elected body of lawmakers that is expected to pass the bill although, it, too, could try to add conditions that would force a delay. Any conditions attached would have to be approved by the House of Commons, which means they are unlikely to succeed. A number of Labor Party members, who are currently in the opposition to the majority, voted against the advice of their leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who said they should support the bill. Several members of Corbyn's policy team resigned before the vote, saying they could not support his position. Activists have launched a court action to try to stop the British government from selling arms to Saudi Arabia. Critics accuse the Saudi-led coalition of violating international law through its bombing of civilian areas as it battles Houthi rebels in Yemen. In October last year, 13-year-old Zuhair and his family were attending the funeral of a local sheikh in Sanaa. More than 1,000 people were packed in the community hall when warplanes fired two missiles at the building. More than 140 people were killed and 500 injured. Zuhair recalls the moments after the explosions. "My uncle carried me away," he said. "I was burnt, my face, hands and my feet were very burnt. Then we took a taxi home. My clothes were burnt, all of me was burnt." Zuhair's family was unable to pay for treatment and he did not receive any medical attention for two weeks, until workers from the charity Save the Children took him to a local hospital. Today, bright pink scars that have only recently healed cover much of Zuhairs body. Human Rights Watch says forensic evidence from the bomb site shows the missiles came from Saudi jets, though Riyadh has denied responsibility. Systematic targeting of civilians The Saudi-led military intervention, supported by the United States and Britain, is aimed at countering Iranian-backed Houthi fighters who control the capital Sana'a. But critics say one in three airstrikes have hit civilian sites, killing thousands of people. The London-based Campaign Against the Arms Trade says Britain has sold Saudi Arabia weapons worth $4.1 billion since the Yemen conflict began in March 2015. This week, the group brought a legal case against the British government. Spokesperson Kat Hobbs says the arms are being used in Yemen. "We have seen the U.N. panel of experts say that it looks like there is widespread and systematic targeting of civilians by the Royal Saudi Air Force in the attacks on Yemen," Hobbs said. Now, if U.K. export control legislation means anything, then the U.K. government must call an immediate halt to arms sales to Saudi." Export controls, denials The British government says it is continually reviewing its arms sales to Saudi Arabia, maintaining that it operates a "robust export control system." However, it has refused comment on the court action. According to Save the Children's Fergus Drake, the conflict has caused one of the world's worst humanitarian catastrophes. "There are 10 million children in need of humanitarian assistance, and half a million children have severe acute malnutrition," Drake said. "So there have obviously been breaches of international law on all sides. But Saudi Arabia is a key ally of Britain, Britain is selling arms to Saudi Arabia, and the Saudi-led coalition is killing children in Yemen." Saudi Arabia denies deliberately targeting civilians. The British High Court is expected to make its ruling on arms exports in the next few weeks. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen pledged on Wednesday to intensify a campaign against drugs after the arrest of more than 2,400 people for drug-related offenses in a month. The campaign since January in the Southeast Asian country has drawn parallels with the drug crackdown in the Philippines under President Rodrigo Duterte, but Hun Sen said that in Cambodia it would not lead to bloodshed. Philippines faces drug war More than 7,000 people have been killed in the Philippines in the seven-month-old drug war under Duterte. In the Philippines and other countries, they ordered for the killings of people right on the spot, Hun Sen told a ceremony at a pagoda. Cambodia won't allow this to happen. Over the past month, 2,428 people have been arrested in Cambodia for drug-related offenses, with 1,243 arrested for using drugs, according to official data. In the whole of last year, 9,800 people were arrested in drug cases. Official appeals for help Hun Sen appealed to the public for help with the campaign, saying that parents with children who are addicted to drugs should keep them at home. The issue here is whether you must have your children in prison or educate them not to use drugs, Hun Sen said. The good choice is that parents must control their children well. Police in the Philippines have suspended anti-narcotics operations, saying they must first root out police corruption after the kidnap and killing of a South Korean businessman by drug squad officers. Canada opposes the idea of the United States imposing new border tariffs and would respond to any such move, the countrys foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, said Wednesday after her first meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Tillersons meeting with Freeland, and a separate meeting with Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray, at the State Department touched on the trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement, which President Donald Trump wants to renegotiate. Speaking to reporters afterward, Freeland said she made clear in the meeting with Tillerson that Canada would oppose the idea of border tariffs on Canadian goods in upcoming NAFTA talks. If such an idea were ever to come into being, Canada would respond appropriately, she told reporters on a conference call, stressing that Ottawa did not yet know what the U.S. opening position would be. Most exports go to U.S. Both Canada and Mexico send the bulk of their exports to the United States and could be crippled by major changes to NAFTA, which Trump has called a disaster. Mexicos Foreign Ministry said that Videgaray discussed migration and security issues in his meetings with Tillerson and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly. Both Tillerson and Videgaray said they would keep working on solutions to their public differences, it added. Videgaray also told Kelly that the human rights of Mexicans in the United States was important, the statement said. After their hour-long meeting, Videgaray told reporters that Tillerson had said he would visit Mexico in the coming weeks, according to a Mexican Foreign Ministry official. The State Department did not provide a readout of either of the meetings, which occurred in Tillersons first full week in his new post. Trade deals a priority Trump made free trade deals a major target during his campaign for the presidency. He says NAFTA, formally signed in 1994, has harmed American workers. The pact was aimed at removing tariff barriers between Canada, Mexico and the United States. Canada is trying to persuade the new administration and senior politicians that its especially close ties with the United States mean the country should be spared protectionist measures. In making the case for how balanced and mutually beneficial our economic relationship was, I really felt I was pushing on an open door with everyone I spoke to, Freeland said. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is to have his first meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday. A statement from the prime minister's office on Thursday said the leaders "look forward to discussing the unique relationship between Canada and the United States of America and how they will continue to work hard for middle-class Canadians and Americans, together.'' The White House said the leaders will discuss "strengthening the relationship'' between their countries. Trump has said he wants to discuss his plan to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement, which involves the United States, Canada and Mexico. Trump has said NAFTA puts U.S. workers at a disadvantage. The meeting is crucial for Canada as the country is heavily reliant on the U.S. for trade. More than 75 percent of Canada's exports go to the U.S. Of the 50 U.S. states, 35 count Canada as their leading export market. There are fears Canada could unintentionally be sideswiped as Trump negotiates with Mexico. Trump's refugee and immigration ban may also come up in the discussions with Trudeau. After Trump signed the executive order pausing entries to the U.S. from seven Muslim-majority nations, Trudeau tweeted that Canada welcomed people fleeing persecution, terrorism and war. Trudeau said "diversity is our strength." Trudeau's top spokeswoman said then the prime minister was looking forward discussing Canada's immigration and refugee policy with Trump. Three of Trudeau's top cabinet ministers already have been meeting with U.S. officials in Washington. Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau said from Washington on Thursday that there's always an opportunity to improve on NAFTA. "Those who are here understand that this is a key relationship we have with the United States and the figures are there to back that up," Morneau said. Canada's foreign minister warned the Trump administration on Wednesday that her country will retaliate if the U.S. applies new tariffs. Chrystia Freeland visited U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday after meeting with House Speaker Paul Ryan and Sens. John McCain and Bob Corker on Tuesday. Canadian Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan met with U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis on Monday. Ankara rolled out the red carpet Thursday for U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo, who met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan. Pompeo's visit follows Tuesday's telephone conversation between the U.S. and Turkish presidents, which both sides described as productive. The fact that Pompeo chose Turkey as the first country to visit after his appointment, according to analysts, should be appreciated by Ankara, which is still smarting over what it perceives as persistently being snubbed by the Obama administration. It is important, the visit, and it's not being taken lightly in Ankara at all, observes political columnist Semih Idiz of Al Monitor website. It does give the impression, whatever strains there are, that both sides are going to try to see what commonality they can find in their approaches to the various issues of importance to the two countries. Split over Syrian Kurdish militia Washington's ongoing support of the Syrian Kurdish militia (YPG) in its fight against Islamic State reportedly was one of the main themes of the CIA director's talks. Ankara is calling for an end to that support, accusing the YPG of being an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is fighting the Turkish state and is designated as a terrorist organization by both the United States and European Union. Erdogan repeatedly has said Turkish forces could replace the YPG. Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Wednesday suggested a breakthrough ahead of Pompeo's visit. On the issue of fighting Daesh [Islamic State], we that is Turkey and Saudi Arabia will be cooperating with the United States, Cavusoglu said. We believe that the fight from now on will be more effective and that we will be able to clear both Syria and Iraq of Daesh." Analysts point out that many in Washington, and especially in the Pentagon, are unlikely to be ready to abandon the YPG. They continue to see the Kurdish militia as the most effective force in fighting Islamic State. The militia, working closely with U.S. special forces, currently are marching on the Syrian City of Raqqa, the jihadist's self-declared capital. Turkish forces supporting elements of the Free Syrian Army remain bogged down in fighting to capture from Islamic State the Syrian town of al-Bab. Despite repeated promises of its imminent fall by President Erdogan, the jihadists continue to hold out. Al-Bab proved to be a far harder nut to crack than anticipated, said international relations expert Soli Ozel of Istanbul's Kadir Has University. Friendly fire claims three soldiers Turkish efforts received another blow Thursday when three soldiers were killed and 11 others wounded in so-called friendly fire by Russian airstrikes near al-Bab. Russian President Vladimir Putin offered his condolences to Erdogan in a telephone call, and both sides reportedly committed themselves to improving coordination in the fight for al-Bab. Experts suggest Pompeo may have sought to find a compromise over the YPG. Trump during his campaign said he was going to try to get the Kurds and Turks to work together, suggested columnist Idiz. It's not easy because the Kurdish issue has domestic implications in Turkey. It's not only Syria. There is the question over Kurdish terrorism because we've had atrocities committed by the PKK here in Turkey. The situation is further complicated with an expected referendum in April to extend Erdogan's presidential powers. The Turkish president is campaigning on a platform of fighting terrorism. Experts suggest any softening of Ankara's stance is unlikely until after the vote. What about Gulen? The fate of the U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, also is reported to have been raised during Pompeo's visit. Ankara is demanding the extradition of Gulen, who Erdogan blames for last July's failed coup. The failure of Washington to extradite Gulen has somewhat soured relations between the two countries. Experts point out, though, that Trump like his predecessor Obama has little room for maneuver since extradition ultimately is a legal, rather than a political, matter. But analysts suggest the CIA chief's visit will raise Ankara's expectations of a gesture from Washington to help ease tensions. There is also a belief the new administration is ready to do more, noted columnist Idiz, that their might be a middle ground like [Gulens] house arrest or surveillance that will mollify the Turks. The failed coup, and Gulen's presence in the U.S., remain a point of tension between Washington and Ankara. Senior Turkish ministers, along with much of the pro-government media, repeatedly have alleged Washington's involvement, a charge that has been consistently and strenuously denied. The perceived slow response to condemn the coup, however, and tweets by some U.S. politicians who offered little support remains an open wound. One of most contentious and oft-reported was by Pompeo himself on the night of the coup, calling Turkey a totalitarian Islamist dictatorship. The tweet subsequently was deleted. The largest refugee camp in the world will remain open, according to Kenyan high court justice John Mativo who ruled Thursday the governments orders to close the camp were discriminatory and indignifying. That the government decision, specifically targeting Somali refugees, is an act of group persecution, illegal, discriminatory, and therefore, unconstitutional, said Mativo, who also announced that the disbanded Department of Refugee Affairs should be reinstated. In May 2016, the government announced it would be closing Dadaab, a massive refugee camp sheltering about 258,000 Somali refugees, by November. That order was then delayed for an additional six months. Twenty-four year old Mohamed Abdullahi Jimale is one of those who would have been affected by the camps closure. Really, that is the best ever news I have ever heard of, Jimale said. Because someone like me, who was born and raised in the camps, who has never seen Somalia and does not know anything about Somalia, and we really appreciate the rulings of the court. Watch related video report from VOA's Zlatica Hoke: But not everyone is happy with the verdict. Kenya Ministry of the Interior spokesperson Mwenda Njoka says the government plans to appeal the ruling because its original motivation for closing the camp remains. The main reason was security, the fact that the camps have lost their humanitarian character and they became places where terrorists would come, al-Shabab and their sympathizers would go and plan their attacks on Kenya. So that has not changed, said Njoka. And the fact also that the Republic of Somalia has also stabilized its country. They just elected a new president yesterday. Disproportionate burden acknowledged Deputy regional director for Amnesty International, Michelle Kagari, is pleased with the ruling, but acknowledges that Kenya has "borne a disproportionate burden" when it comes to hosting refugees. And this is an opportunity, really, for Kenya to demonstrate leadership, to ensure durable solutions, to the refugee population, including pushing for rich governments, Western governments, to step up to the plate and take up their responsibilities and share the burden with regards to hosting refugees, said Kagari. According to UNHCR Kenya spokesperson Yvonne Ndege, Kenya has always been a hospitable country where people could seek protection and assistance. And so this perhaps is a sign or a reinforcement of the kind of culture, an attitude, that Kenyans have towards their neighboring countries, and the people of those countries, who for one reason or another, have had to flee here, said Ndege. But regardless of the results of the appeal, Njoka says the Kenyan government will comply. We operate within the confines of the law, said Njoka. So if we were to lose, we would definitely have to work with that. We cannot defy a court order. In addition to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Doctors Without Borders also released statements expressing their approval of the courts decision. Since mid-May 2016, when the Kenyan government announced its closure decision, almost 34,000 refugees have gone to Somalia through the U.N. refugee agencys return assistance program. U.S. President Donald Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch, has called the president's sharp criticism of the judiciary "demoralizing" and "disheartening." Gorsuch made his comments while meeting privately Wednesday with Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal. Gorsuch's remarks were conveyed publicly by Senator Blumenthal. The essence of Gorsuch's remarks were confirmed by the Supreme Court nominee's office. The essence of Gorsuch's remarks were confirmed by the Supreme Court nominee's spokesman, Ron Bojean. Citing a statement from Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte, who is assisting Gorsuch as he meets with Senators, Bojean told VOA Gorsuch's remarks were in response to any criticism of the judiciary, and not the president's specific remarks. "Judge Gorsuch has made it very clear in all of his discussions with senators, including Senator Blumenthal, that he could not comment on any specific cases and that judicial ethics prevent him from commenting on political matters," Ayotte wrote. "He has also emphasized the importance of an independent judiciary, and while he made clear that he was not referring to any specific case, he said that he finds any criticism of a judge's integrity and independence disheartening and demoralizing," Ayotte added. President Trump reacted to Gorsuch's remarks Thursday on Twitter by apparently questioning the integrity of Senator Blumenthal. Trump's attack on Senator Blumenthal apparently suggested the lawmaker distorted his conversation with Gorsuch and compared it to misstatements made in his past. During his 2010 Senate race, Blumenthal held a news conference to clarify he did not serve in Vietnam but, instead, served domestically during the war while serving six years in the Marine Corps Reserves. Gorsuch was asked to react to Trump's Twitter message calling District Judge James Robart, who on Friday put a hold on Trump's executive order temporarily banning travel from seven Muslim-majority countries, a "so-called judge." Trump told the American people to blame Robart and the court system if "something happens," alluding to a terrorist attack on the United States. The president also criticized the three-judge panel of the appeals court in San Francisco that is considering whether Robart had the legal grounds to suspend the executive order from being enforced while legal challenges to it continue. "I don't ever want to call a court biased, so I won't call it biased," Trump said. "The courts seem to be so political and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do what's right." An independent judiciary is spelled out in the U.S. Constitution, and such harsh criticism from a president about the federal court system is rare. Earlier Wednesday, Trump told a gathering of law enforcement officials in Washington that he acted solely to protect the country when he temporarily banned entry to people from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan. WATCH: Trump Defends Travel Ban "Believe me, I've learned a lot in the last two weeks, and terrorism is a far greater threat than the people of our country understand," he said. He even said a "bad high school student" would be able to understand that he had the authority to take the executive action. Tuesday hearing The appeals court in San Francisco heard arguments both for and against Robarts ruling, and said it will make its decision as soon as possible. The Department of Justice, in arguing in favor of keeping the ban in place, took the position that Trump has the authority to determine who is allowed in the country. States challenging the ban Washington and Minnesota said it separated families, stranded students overseas, and left people in doubt about whether they should travel because of the uncertainty of whether they could come back. All sides expect the issue to wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court. Why those seven countries Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said last week the countries listed in the ban lack the kind of law enforcement and record keeping necessary to convincingly describe the backgrounds of their citizens, and that the U.S. will be working with them and other nations to tighten up on their procedures. Leon Fresco, the former deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Departments Office of Immigration Litigation under President Barack Obama, said there is some merit to concerns about countries not sharing all of their criminal data. I think it is always worthwhile to keep pushing, pushing, pushing countries to give us more information on their citizenry so that we can decide if they are people who are dangerous, but it is not worth it to have an outright ban, Fresco told VOA. He also expressed support for the existing vetting process, which under the Obama administration took a refugee an average of two years to complete. Fresco said no process is foolproof because it cannot predict a persons future mindset. If a person comes here and then gets radicalized because of the course of time, thats something very difficult to predict, but its not something that you would ban the entire world from coming for the chance that they could one day become radicalized because its so few people who end up becoming radicalized, he said. On her first day on the job, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos plunged into her initial assignment: mending fences with her opponents following a bruising confirmation battle. Parents across the country looked for clues as to whether she will fulfill their hopes or reinforce their fears. Addressing several hundred Education Department staff members, DeVos, a wealthy Republican donor and school choice champion, vowed to work with everyone in ensuring the best education in the nations schools. I am committed to working with everyone and anyone, from every corner of the country, from every walk of life, from every background and with those who supported my nomination and those who did not, to protect, strengthen and create new world-class education opportunities for Americas students, DeVos said. DeVos secured confirmation in the Senate on Tuesday by the slimmest possible margin. Vice President Mike Pence had to cast a historic tie-breaking vote after two Republican senators opposed her, concerned that she would not support traditional public schools. DeVos views on LBGT rights, students special needs and sexual assault have also fueled opposition. Many remain to be convinced Jessica Helton, a mother of three young children from the Cincinnati suburb of Mariemont, said she worries that there will be reduced support for and access to services like the specialized reading help her daughter gets in kindergarten and the weekly speech therapy provided at a public school for her 4-year-old son. My fear is that schools who are no longer forced to provide these services wont, and either they wont have the funding to pay for it or theyll decide to use the funds for other projects or for other needs, she said. Others are more optimistic Rabbi A.D. Motzen, a school-choice advocate and the Cincinnati-based national director of state relations for the Orthodox Jewish group Agudath Israel of America, said he has known DeVos for a decade and worked with her organizations. Whatever the policies that come out of the Department of Education, shes going to have a fresh perspective, and I guarantee you it will be focused on parents and children, and less about where they attend school and where they live, he said by phone. Opinions still differ on exactly how DeVos might go about trying to transform American schools. After an unusually divisive confirmation process, in which DeVos opponents jammed congressional phone lines, some education specialists say both the panic of her detractors and the joy of her supporters may be exaggerated. As secretary DeVos has limited authority to drastically overhaul what goes on in classrooms. Financial influence small With the federal government accounting for about 10 percent of education spending and with most federal budget decisions requiring congressional approval, DeVos will have little financial influence. She will however, be able to shape policy discussion, initiate and promote various innovations and affect civil rights matters. Its likely not as big as the hysteria alludes, said Mike Hansen, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution. The champions and detractors of secretary DeVos are likely overstating the influence that the position will likely have in practice. Martin West, associate professor of education at Harvard University, agrees. Her supporters and her critics during the nomination debate seem to have an exaggerated sense of the ability of the secretary of education to affect change unilaterally without the support of Congress, West said. Some parents worried Still, Andrea Jackson, a college adviser in her sons high school in Detroit, disagrees and says she was in tears following the DeVos confirmation. Im super frustrated. Im afraid, Jackson told the AP Wednesday. I think its not going to take us in the direction we need to go. At the top of Jacksons list of complaints is that DeVos is not a product of a public schools system and has never worked in one. But Kaleigh Lemaster, executive director of School Choice Ohio, says she is excited to have a top national education leader who takes the approach that education isnt one-size-fits-all. The fact that she understands the importance of empowering families to choose the best educational environment for their childrens learning needs is great, and we couldnt be happier, Lemaster said. The European Space Agency says it will contribute key components for a future NASA mission to take humans around the moon within the next few years. Astronauts haven't gone beyond a low orbit around Earth since 1972, when NASA ended its Apollo program. The European Space Agency and aerospace company Airbus have already delivered a propulsion and supply module for an unmanned flight of NASA's new Orion spacecraft next year. The agency said Wednesday that it and Airbus have now agreed with NASA to build a module for a second, manned mission that will fly around the moon as early as 2021. Orion is eventually intended to expand human exploration to deep-space destinations such as Mars or asteroids. The European Union's enlargement commissioner on Thursday urged Macedonia's political parties to agree quickly on the formation of a new government and end the Balkan country's long-running political crisis. The turmoil, triggered by a surveillance scandal in 2015, has threatened to destabilize a country that hopes to join NATO and is among several candidates to join the EU. Neither the conservative VMRO-DPMNE party nor the Social Democrats emerged from a December election with a big enough majority to form a government without the support of ethnic Albanians. In late January, coalition talks between the VMRO-DPMNE, which won the largest share of votes in the election, and the ethnic Albanian DUI party collapsed. The Social Democrats say they should now be given a chance. "The earlier there is a government in place, the better it is," Johannes Hahn, EU commissioner for European neighborhood policy and enlargement negotiations, told reporters in the Macedonian capital, Skopje. "There is no further time to waste." Hahn said it was "important that the new government is built on a solid basis." The commissioner was due to meet leaders of the main political parties later Thursday. The crisis is Macedonia's worst since Western diplomacy hauled the country from the brink of civil war during an ethnic Albanian insurgency in 2001, promising it a path to membership in the EU and NATO. Both have stalled because of a dispute with neighboring Greece over Macedonia's name. In their negotiations with the VMRO-DPMNE, the DUI party sought the recognition of Albanian as Macedonia's second official language. They also demanded an extension to the mandate of a special prosecutor investigating allegations of government corruption, vote rigging and abuse of power during the VMRO-DPMNE's 2006-16 tenure in power. Last week, the VMRO-DPMNE called for fresh elections. The case: President Donald Trump issued an executive order issued January 27 that barred citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries - Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen - from entering the U.S. for 90 days, all refugees for 120 days and indefinitely halted refugees from Syria. On February 3, the state of Washington and state of Minnesota (plaintiffs) filed a motion challenging the presidents executive order, maintaining that the travel ban is unconstitutional. The plaintiffs sought a nationwide temporary restraining order (TRO) asking the court to immediately halt the implementation of the travel ban while the courts hear arguments and decide on the constitutional issue -- a process that could take weeks and eventually require a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. U.S. District Court Judge James Robart had to decide whether the executive order was in the publics best interest, whether people could suffer irreparable harm with the continuation of the ban, and whether the plaintiffs had a strong chance of winning on the constitutional issue. He decided in favor of the two states and granted a temporary restraining order, forcing the government to resume processing visitors as it did before the travel ban while the larger issues are decided. The Department of Justice filed a notice to appeal Robarts TRO. Officials brought the case to the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. The DOJ argued that the judges decision improperly "second-guesses the presidents national security judgment. The appeals court denied DOJs request to immediately restore the travel ban, pending full consideration of the motion. The court said it would weigh in soon on whether to lift Robarts TRO after receiving additional briefs from the administration and plaintiffs. What is the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals trying to decide? Those briefs have now been delivered, followed by oral arguments which were presented Tuesday. The matter in front of the appeals court is not whether the travel ban is constitutional, but whether it will remain suspended while the constitutional case makes its way through the courts. The options available to the three-judge panel on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals are upholding the lower court's stay of the travel ban, striking it down, or sending the case back to the lower court. What could happen after the appeals courts decision? If the restraining order is upheld by the appeals court, the Trump administration can appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. It is uncertain, however, if the higher court will agree to review a hearing stay on a TRO case. If Judge Robart's restraining order is lifted, travelers from the seven Muslim-majority countries will again be banned from entering the country. But the Trump administration has said it will make exceptions for green card holders and at least some individuals with dual nationality. That decision could also be appealed to the Supreme Court. Keep in mind, there is still litigation pending in the lower district court. Judge Robart is currently accepting filings for the original case that would help him determine whether to issue a preliminary injunction which would continue the TRO until the case is litigated in court. More than any other president in Somalia's troubled history, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed enters office on a wave of support, goodwill and optimism. Thousands of cheering people took to the streets of Mogadishu late Wednesday after Mohamed best known by his nickname, Farmajo was elected by the Somali parliament in a near-landslide. Dodging roadblocks and celebratory gunfire, supporters chanted Farmajo's name and honked car horns to welcome the new president. Similar celebrations erupted in cities across Somalia, as well as the Kenyan towns of Garissa and Eastleigh, both of which have Somali-majority populations. By all indications, the celebrations were a reflection of genuine popular support for Farmajo, 55, a dual U.S.-Somali citizen who previously served eight months as Somalia's prime minister in 2010 and 2011. Ahmed Abdullahi Sheikh Ahmed was one of the people cheering in Mogadishu. This has not happened before; Farmajo is supported by the youth and mothers, we are happy, he told VOA's Somali service. We were happy with his work during the short time he was here, said Idey Sharif Hassan, who celebrated in the Wadajir district of Mogadishu. He was silenced then, but now he is back in our hands as president. Farmajo will need Somalis' support as he tries to stabilize a country that has not known internal peace since the 1980s and is dealing with two ongoing crises a severe drought that has shrunk food supplies, and a revitalized insurgency from the al-Qaida-linked militant group al-Shabab, which is fighting to turn Somalia into a strict Islamic state. In late January, 28 people were killed when a Shabab suicide bomber attacked the Dayah hotel in Mogadishu. The group said it also killed more than 50 soldiers when it assaulted a Kenyan military base in southern Somalia. Kenya acknowledged the attack but denied reports of a high death toll. International Crisis Group Horn of Africa analyst Rashid Abdi is optimistic about Farmajo's election. "There are feelings that if there is anyone who can do something about security, then it must be him because of his very good relationship with the security services," he told VOA. "We saw how immediately, [when] the news came through that he had won, how the security forces joined local people to welcome that victory, and that support is probably also quite critical for him to succeed in stabilizing Somalia." 'Humble and effective' Farmajo first won popular backing six and a half years ago, during his stint as prime minister under former president Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. Before being tapped for that role, Farmajo was an obscure, distant figure in Somali politics. He was born and raised in Mogadishu, in a family that was involved with Somalia's liberation movement in the 1950s. But he has spent much of his adult life in the United States, where he first went as a Somali embassy officer in the mid-1980s. After the collapse of the Somali government in 1991, Farmajo studied at the University of Buffalo and settled in that northern U.S. city, where he raised a family and worked for the New York state government. He maintained contacts among Somali politicians, though, and was Ahmed's surprise pick as prime minister in October 2010. Farmajo lasted in the job only eight months, forced out by political friction. During that time, however, he earned a reputation for being competent, patriotic and not corrupt qualities that many Somalis see as rare in their political sphere. He named a small cabinet of only 18 ministers, reorganized the military, and made sure that soldiers and government workers got paid on time. During his stay in office, al-Shabab lost significant ground in Mogadishu after controlling most of the city for the prior two years. Husein Abdikarm Ginidish, a Somali political analyst in North Carolina who knows Farmajo, said Somalis like him because he is open to people's opinions. "He is a moderate politician, humble and effective," Ginidish said. "And the fact that this is a guy who listens both to his critics and his friends' advice; I think that made him popular among the grassroots." Campaigning for president this year, Farmajo won renewed support by advocating that police, intelligence and soldiers fighting al-Shabab get their salaries on a regular basis. Somali media reports say soldiers have not been paid for six months, sapping their morale. He also promised to fight against corruption in the aid-dependent nation and pledged that the government's meager revenue from taxes collected at the Mogadishu airport and seaport would not be spent on extravagant or unnecessary trips abroad. Abundant support Unlike 2010, Farmajo enters office as a known quantity, and he has the backing of established Somali politicians. In round two of Wednesday's presidential election, he won 184 votes, more than outgoing President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and former president Ahmed combined. Mohamud conceded defeat and urged Somalis to strongly support the new president. Farmajo was immediately sworn into office, marking the second consecutive election that Somalia has experienced a peaceful transfer of power. Addressing the nation through state media Wednesday night, the new president said he plans to create a government that depends on public cooperation. "My plan is to create a government that connects the ordinary people to their leaders," he said. "A civil government that works with the collaboration of its people on all sides, including security and the economy." For protection, the government remains partially reliant on AMISOM, the African Union peacekeeping force comprised of troops from Uganda, Burundi, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti. The new president has said he favors building up the national army so it will be ready to fight al-Shabab when AMISOM's mandate expires next year. Analyst Abdi said analysts fear a push to assert Somalia's autonomy could create tensions with Ethiopia and Kenya, in particular. "If I were to advise him, I will tell him to go slow in relation with these two neighboring countries and to build new bridges. I think they ultimately have collective interest, strategic interest, working together to stabilize Somalia," said Abdi. Mohamed Olad Hassan and Harun Maruf contributed reporting from Washington. Mohamed Yusuf and staffers with VOA's Swahili service contributed reporting from Nairobi In a nondescript reception room within a mall in Kelapa Gading, a North Jakarta neighborhood largely populated by Chinese Indonesians, a congregation gathers to worship. The sermon: "Love your God and love your neighbor." The preacher: an evangelical Protestant refugee who fled Iran six years ago to avoid state persecution. Welcome to the Persian Refugee Service, an evangelical Christian church by and largely for Iranian refugees in Jakarta. Mohamed Rasool Bagherian, the preacher, left Iran with his family because they were Christian, but a number of the congregation actually converted to Christianity during their years-long purgatory in Indonesia, where refugees and asylum seekers are not allowed to work or go to school. A few of the regular attendees aren't even Christians, just refugees who enjoy the company of fellow Iranians and a hot meal. Why Iranians become Christians Against all odds, Christianity has exploded in popularity in Iran in recent years, even though apostasy, or leaving the Islamic faith, is punishable by death in the theocratic state. Beyond Armenian and Assyrian ethnic Christians, who have lived in Iran for centuries, there are growing numbers of Shia Muslims who convert to evangelical Christianity. Watchdog groups estimate that there are between 300,000 and 500,000 Christians in Iran, from a population of 75 million. Evangelical Christianity proliferates in private "house churches," since preachers can be arrested. Bagherian and his wife converted to Christianity in 2005. It was discouraged, but not dangerous, to become Christian in Tehran, where they lived at the time, he said. He himself maintained a house church for several years. "But then [former Iranian president Mahmoud] Ahmedinajad started to ramp up the pressure against Christians, shortly after his election. I was arrested twice, in 2007 and 2010, and after that, we were basically forced to leave the country," he told VOA News. "We had a young child and feared for his life." Their son, Ahura, is now eight years old and has only known life in Indonesia. A community church If Jakarta is an unnatural environment for this family, it doesn't show at their church. Bagherian is a charismatic preacher who slips between Farsi and English, punctuating his 90-minute sermon with droll PowerPoint slides. He speaks from a clear Lucite altar flanked by artificial purple flowers and electric candles. The service starts with a long musical segment where everyone sings along to English and Farsi praise rock. Then, on a recent Sunday, Bagherian expounded on the parable of the alabaster jar, in which a poor woman anoints the feet of Jesus with her most expensive perfume. "If you do something for God, it cannot have a price," Bagherian told the assembled crowd of about 30. I asked him later if he viewed his family's laborious transit for religious freedom through that lens. "Well," he said, "that's one way to look at it." The Persian Refugee Service gets its meeting room from Abbalove Ministries, a 2,000-person Chinese Indonesian church that convenes in an adjacent hall, also on Sunday afternoons. Abbalove also provides boxed lunches and other services for the small congregation. "Abbalove members are a great blessing," said Bagherian. "They even help my family rent a guesthouse in Kelapa Gading while we wait for updates on our refugee status." The Bagherians used to worship in an Anglican church in Jakarta, but three years ago, their Australian pastor, Jeff Hammond, suggested they start a standalone Farsi service for the sizable refugee community. "My daughter and I found this community when we came to Jakarta and we felt like we saw the light," said one middle-aged Iranian woman who was baptized last year in Jakarta. "You can't understand how terrible sharia was for us. Especially how it oppressed women. No, I haven't looked back after converting." Tough cases for resettlement Unlike Afghan refugees, who constitute about half of all refugees and asylum seekers in Indonesia, Iranian refugees make up only three percent, and tend to be educated, white-collar professionals who bristled under their home country's theocracy. That makes it difficult for them to even obtain refugee cards from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), let alone advance in its waitlists. Whereas Afghan Hazara refugees have a broadly recognized claim to deadly persecution, Iran has a stable, albeit authoritarian, government. That moves Iranians lower in priority for resettlement. And in fact, every year a small number of Iranian refugees, frustrated by the rejection of their refugee or asylum claims, opt for something called "voluntary repatriation" in which they turn themselves over to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which books them a free flight back to Iran. Nearly every refugee at the Sunday service expressed despair that President Donald Trump's recent travel ban, which includes Iran, and his suspension of refugee resettlement would eliminate the United States as a possible end destination for their journey. Still, for each of the refugees who attended the service, it was no light decision to flee their home. "I was arrested for playing music," said Reza, a young man who now plays the keyboard at the Sunday service. "Can you imagine? Music is haram in my country. I went to jail for that. I had to leave." Abbalove is not the only social institution that serves Iranian refugees. The nondenominational Jakarta International Christian Fellowship also includes several refugees, and it has a dedicated Farsi service. Twelve Iranian children attend Roshan Learning Center, a school for refugees and asylum seekers in South Jakarta, and two young adults are teachers there. Even if Indonesia is just a point of transit, many Iranians said they felt immensely relieved to be there. "Here it's also an Islamic nation, but it's democratic," said Arash Ehteshamfar, who left Iran in 2011 to avoid religious persecution. "It's like night and day. And of course, we have this church this is our home in this country." A pair of Israeli rights groups on Wednesday asked the country's Supreme Court to overturn a new law legalizing dozens of settler outposts in the West Bank, opening what is expected to be a lengthy legal battle over the contentious legislation. The legal challenges added new uncertainty to the law, which has drawn fierce international condemnations and been questioned by Israel's own attorney general. The law, backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's nationalist coalition, retroactively legalized thousands of homes found to have been built on private Palestinian land. While its backers claim these homes were built in good faith, critics say the law amounts to legalized land theft. Israel has 30 days to respond In the first lawsuit against the measure, the Arab rights group Adalah and the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center asked the high court to block implementation of the law. It was the first in what is expected to be a series of legal challenges. This sweeping and dangerous law permits the expropriation of vast tracts of private Palestinian land, giving absolute preference to the political interests of Israel, said Suhad Bishara, an attorney for Adalah. She said the court gave Israel 30 days to respond. She added that Adalah had requested the court freeze the law's implementation until its final ruling. In the meantime, the state can begin implementing the law. Experts say the legalization process will take years as authorities identify properties, confiscate lands and work out compensation with the original Palestinian owners. Palestinians will be compensated for land The West Bank is home to some 120 settlements recognized as legal by Israel, as well as about 100 unauthorized outposts that the government has tacitly accepted. The new law sets out a process to legalize about half of those outposts, as well as about 3,000 additional homes built illegally in recognized settlements. Palestinian landowners can receive financial compensation or alternative land. The Palestinians seek the West Bank and east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, as parts of a future independent state. Most of the international community considers all Israeli settlements illegal and counterproductive to peace by gobbling up the territory sought by the Palestinians. Some 600,000 Israelis now live in the two areas. Israeli government emboldened After years of conflict with President Barack Obama over settlements, Netanyahu's hard-line government has grown emboldened by the election of President Donald Trump. The new president has signaled he will take a much softer approach to the settlements. Since Trump took office, Israel has approved plans to build more than 6,000 new homes in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. Peace Now, an anti-settlement watchdog group, said that one of the newly approved projects is connected to a Jewish seminary in the Beit El settlement. Trump's proposed ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, has been a top fund-raiser for the same seminary. New Israeli law condemned The Israeli building announcements, coupled with passage of the new law late Monday, have drawn condemnations from many of Israel's closest allies. The European Union, as well as Britain, Germany and France, have all spoken out against the law. The U.N. has also condemned the measure. Trump, however, has remained largely silent. Last week, the White House said that new settlement construction may not be helpful to promoting peace. White House spokesman Sean Spicer has said the new Israeli law will be discussed next week when Netanyahu meets Trump in Washington. Trump's departure from the policies of previous Republican and Democratic administrations has alarmed the Palestinians. We do not know what is going on between Netanyahu and President Trump's administration, but at the end of the day we say that whoever wants to achieve a just and historical peace in the region between the Israelis and the Palestinians cannot be silent on settlement activity, Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said on Palestinian radio. It's time for President Trump to tell Netanyahu, Enough. Attorney general won't defend new law The new law, meanwhile, faces an unclear future. Israel's attorney general, Avichai Mandelblit, has said he will not defend it in court, saying the law allows for the expropriation of private property in violation of Israeli and international law. It also is problematic because it applies Israeli law to occupied land that is not sovereign Israeli territory. In contrast to the settlers, the West Bank's more than 2 million Palestinians are not Israeli citizens and do not have the right to vote in Israel. Even Netanyahu has expressed misgivings about the bill, reportedly saying it could drag Israel into international legal prosecution. In the end, however, he agreed to support it after coming under heavy pressure from within his governing coalition. Israel to use private lawyer Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, whose Jewish Home party spearheaded the legislation, has said the state plans to hire a private lawyer to represent it. Amichai Cohen, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, a think tank, said it is rare, but not unprecedented, for an attorney general to refuse to defend the state. In perhaps the most infamous case, Israel's then-attorney general launched a criminal investigation, over government objections, into a cover-up by Israel's domestic security agency of the killing of two Palestinian militants who had hijacked an Israeli bus in 1984. The attorney general was forced to resign. Cohen said it was not unprecedented for Israel to hire a private lawyer and that because the case involves the Knesset, its legal adviser can defend the law in court. The foreign ministers of Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala will meet in Mexico next week to discuss immigration policy responses to Donald Trump's U.S. presidency, the Honduran ambassador to Mexico said on Wednesday. Central American ministers want to open lines of communication with Mexico's Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray to discuss problems with migration and the flow of Central Americans, Alden Rivera said in an interview. It's a first point of contact ... we don't expect to have an answer, Rivera said. Mexico reaction will set tone The meeting between Videgaray and the three Central Americans will take place in Mexico City, Rivera said. Mexicos foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Rivera said his main concern was a change in U.S. immigration policy and how Mexico reacts to that, which would have an impact on Central America. Trump has vowed to deport millions of undocumented U.S. immigrants and build a wall along the Mexican border. No country is ready for a mass deportation. It would be a big risk. We could fall into a humanitarian crisis, he said. In November, Reuters reported that Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala had agreed to join forces to seek support from Mexico to forge a group response to Trump's government. The foreign ministers of Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala will meet in Mexico next week to discuss immigration policy responses to Donald Trump's U.S. presidency, the Honduran ambassador to Mexico said on Wednesday. Central American ministers want to open lines of communication with Mexico's Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray to discuss problems with migration and the flow of Central Americans, Alden Rivera said in an interview. "It's a first point of contact ... we don't expect to have an answer," Rivera said. The meeting between Videgaray and the three Central Americans will take place in Mexico City, Rivera said. Mexico's foreign ministry said that there was no meeting officially in the calendar yet. Rivera said his main concern was a change in U.S. immigration policy and how Mexico reacts to that, which would have an impact on Central America. Trump has vowed to deport millions of undocumented U.S. immigrants and build a wall along the Mexican border. "No country is ready for a mass deportation. It would be a big risk. We could fall into a humanitarian crisis," he said. In November, Reuters reported that Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala had agreed to join forces to seek support from Mexico to forge a group response to Trump's government. In a signal that France is still facing a threat of terror, Paris is planning to build a barrier around the Eiffel Tower. Jean-Francois Martins, a city official, said the barrier, which will reportedly be a 2.5 meter-high bullet proof glass wall, will be permanent and aesthetic. The city has made $21.3 million available to evaluate proposals, taking into account the aesthetics. The Eiffel Tower has already seen barriers installed around it, but they have mostly been unsightly, temporary fences. Installing a the permanent barrier is part of a larger $320 million modernization plan at the tower over the next 15 years. Sadly, the risk of terrorism hasnt gone away, Martins said. The Parisian icon is visited by an estimated seven million people annually. In 2015, 130 people were killed in a coordinated attack by Islamist terrorists at several locations throughout the city, including 89 at the Bataclan theater. Earlier that year, terrorists gunned down 12 staff members at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Russia views the deployment of NATO troops and military hardware to the Baltic states, Poland and Germany as a threat and has no information about how and when the deployment will end, the RIA news agency reported Thursday. RIA cited Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Meshkov as saying Moscow was watching closely and would ensure that its own security was guaranteed. This deployment is of course a threat for us, RIA cited Meshkov as saying. And who said that it will end with this? We do not have such information. For the first time since World War Two we see German soldiers along our borders. Meshkovs comments follow the United States deploying thousands of soldiers and heavy weaponry to Poland, the Baltic states and southeastern Europe in its biggest build-up since the Cold War. German troops and armor are also set to reinforce Lithuania this month as part of NATOs plans, which are designed to reassure European countries after Russias 2014 annexation of Ukraines Crimea. Earlier Thursday, Russia said it viewed Romania as a NATO outpost and as a threat because it hosts elements of a U.S. anti-missile shield. The leader of a Native American tribe attempting to block the Dakota Access oil pipeline said on Wednesday the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe may have exhausted legal options to stop the project after the company building it won federal permission to tunnel under the Missouri River. Legal experts agreed the tribe faces long odds in convincing any court to halt the $3.8 billion project led by Energy Transfer Partners LP, which could now begin operation as soon as June. The U.S. Army said on Wednesday it had granted the final permit for the pipeline after an order from President Donald Trump to expedite the project. The Army owns the land through its Corps of Engineers. We're running out of options, but that doesn't mean that it's over, David Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, told Reuters in a telephone interview. We're still going to continue to look at all legal options available to us. A major setback Tuesday's announcement dealt a major setback to Native American tribes and climate activists who have vowed to fight the pipeline, fearing it will desecrate sacred sites and endanger drinking water. Supporters say the pipeline is safer than rail or trucks to transport the oil. The 1,170-mile (1,885-km) line will move crude from the shale oilfields of North Dakota to Illinois en route to the Gulf of Mexico, where many U.S. refineries are located. Public opposition to the pipeline has drawn thousands of people to the North Dakota plains, including high-profile political and celebrity supporters. Large protest camps popped up near the site, leading to several violent clashes, including one incident where protesters burned vehicles, and another when police fired water cannons on activists in sub-freezing temperatures. Over the last several months, more than 600 people have been arrested. The opposition sensed victory last year when the administration of former President Barack Obama, a Democrat, delayed completion of the pipeline pending a review of tribal concerns and in December ordered an environmental study. But those fortunes were reversed after Republican Trump took office on Jan. 20. Trump issued an order on Jan. 24 to expedite both the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) and to revive another multi-billion-dollar oil artery: Keystone XL. Obama's administration blocked that project in 2015. On Wednesday, some 350 people converged in lower Manhattan, hoisting signs such as "Water is Life," "Dump Trump" and "Respect Native Sovereignty." "This isn't just a Native American problem, this isn't just an issue over race, this goes way beyond that," said Matene Strikefirst, who said he is a member of the tribe of Ojibwe and Dakota. "We need to get over our dependence on fossil fuels, we need to ensure drinking water for everyone." Another 100 gathered near the White House, denouncing Trump. Big hurdle In a court filing on Tuesday, the Army said it would allow the final section of the DAPL to tunnel under Lake Oahe, part of the Missouri River system. The permit was the last bureaucratic hurdle to the pipeline's completion. With liberal activists marching in the streets to protest Trump on issues such as immigration and women's rights, the victory for Trump and the pipeline will present a significant challenge to opponents who have lined up against the new president. The tribe said on Wednesday it would attempt to use a legal battle and temporary restraining order to shut down pipeline operations. But Wayne D'Angelo, an energy and environmental lawyer with Kelley Drye & Warren in Washington, said he believed the Trump administration was on pretty solid legal ground. The basis for this decision is well-established, D'Angelo said. The basis for the Obama administration's decision to reverse its position with respect to that easement is not well-established. The tribe would have to prove a very difficult standard: that approval for the pipeline was arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion or inconsistent with the record before the agency, D'Angelo said. Few remain in protest camps The protest camps dwindled after the Obama administration ordered the environmental review in December as the tribe urged people to leave due to concerns about trash buildup in a flood plain. But a few holdouts have remained, including some who braved temperatures of minus 9 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23 C) on Wednesday. Two men gathered around a wood stove said they were discouraged by the setback but hoped demonstrations in other parts of the country would galvanize the opposition. People are a little discouraged right now because we are being attacked by DAPL, said Shadrick, 22, who declined to give his last name for fear of police reprisals. We're being attacked by the military and the police. We're being attacked by the tribe. We're really on our own here. A powerful, fast-moving storm swept into the Northeast on Thursday with the potential for more than a foot of snow along the heavily populated Philadelphia-to-Boston corridor, making for a slippery commute and giving millions of people weather whiplash a day after temperatures soared into the 50s and 60s. Commuters faced windblown snow and slick highways. Forecasters said Thursday's weather had the potential to be the most powerful storm that some areas have seen in a mostly snow-free winter. Schools were closed in Albany, New York City, Philadelphia and Boston, numerous accidents were reported and more than 3,000 flights were canceled. The National Weather Service predicted that the Boston area and eastern Maine could get 12 to 18 inches of snow, and a blizzard warning has been issued for all of Long Island until 6 p.m. New York City could see 8 to 12 inches and the Philadelphia area 4 to 8 inches. Near whiteout conditions were possible, with the snow expected to fall at a clip of 2 to 4 inches per hour at its peak. Officials also warned of high winds, coastal flooding and possible power outages. Massachusetts activated its emergency management bunker in Framingham, where Gov. Charlie Baker urged people to stay off the roads to allow plows and sanders to do their work. Eastern Long Island braced for up to 16 inches of snow, with a potential for power outages. "The roads are in bad shape ... covered and icy," Suffolk County Police Commissioner Tim Sini said. He said snow was falling at up to 2 inches per hour and was expected to intensify. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said people should stay home. "If you need to go out, please, don't use your car," de Blasio said on NY1 television. In Manhattan, intrepid, bundled-up commuters carefully navigated snow-covered sidewalks and blowing snow stung any exposed skin. Sam Lopresti, of Jersey City, New Jersey, warm and dry in his workplace, said he'd been pleasantly surprised that his early-morning train trip to Manhattan had gone smoothly. "I fully expected the MTA and PATH to curl into a ball and say, 'Don't hurt me!'" joked Lopresti, an actor and barista. Lopresti said weather forecasts had escalated from "a run of the mill snowstorm to an apocalyptic deal." New Jersey's emergency management office reported about 50 accidents before midmorning, and that number was expected to grow. State offices in New Jersey were closed, as were the courts in Massachusetts. Government offices in the Delaware, Bucks, Chester and Montgomery counties surrounding Philadelphia were also shuttered. The storm comes a day after much of the Northeast enjoyed a brief glimpse of spring, with temperatures hitting 60 degrees in some places. Thursday's storm was expected to last 6 to 10 hours, said Carl Erickson, a senior meteorologist with AccuWeather in State College, Pennsylvania. The snow was expected taper off by the early afternoon in the Philadelphia and New York City areas, but New Englanders were bracing for snowfall through the evening commute. A top Hollywood talent agency has scrapped plans for a party celebrating the Oscar awards and is instead planning a rally to benefit the American Civil Liberties Union and the International Rescue Committee. United Talent Agency announced the move Wednesday, saying it will give $250,000 to the groups that promote civil rights and aid refugees. Its charitable arm has also organized an online crowd-funding effort to allow people to add their donations. The IRC thanked UTA for its support in a Twitter message. The February 24 rally will be in Los Angeles two days before the Oscar awards. UTA said the United Voices rally welcomes anyone who wants to express support for artistic freedom and their concern with growing anti-immigrant sentiment in our country and its potential chilling effect around the world. This is a moment that demands our generosity, awareness and restlessness, said Jeremy Zimmer, the chief executive of UTA, in a memo to his staff. Our world is a better place for the free exchange of artists, ideas and creative expression. If our nation ceases to be the place where artists the world over can come to express themselves freely, then we cease, in my opinion, to be America. One of the agencys clients is Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi, who is nominated in the Best Foreign Language category for his film The Salesman. He won a 2012 Oscar in the same category, but will not be attending this years awards. Iran is one of the seven countries listed in an executive order by U.S. President Donald Trump banning entry for 90 days. I hereby express my condemnation of the unjust conditions forced upon some of my compatriots and the citizens of the other six countries trying to legally enter the United States of America and hope that the current situation will not give rise to further divide between nations, Farhadi said in a statement. He further criticized hardliners, including those in Iran, who he said work to foster an us and them mentality. For years on both sides of the ocean, groups of hardliners have tried to present to their people unrealistic and fearful images of various nations and cultures in order to turn their differences into disagreements, their disagreements into enmities and their enmities into fears, he said. Instilling fear in the people is an important tool used to justify extremist and fanatic behavior by narrow-minded individuals. UTA said Farhadi felt honored and in tears when he heard about the agencys announcement. Iranian actress Taraneh Alidoosti, who stars in The Salesman, has also said she will not attend the awards ceremony in protest of the executive order. Trumps visa ban for Iranians is racist, she said on Twitter. Trump says the ban is necessary to uphold his duty to protect American citizens. During his campaign for president, he frequently cited the need to better investigate those who come to the U.S. to ensure they do not post a terrorist threat. The administration of President Barack Obama defended the existing policies as extensive, and said refugees seeking to come to the U.S. often needed two years to make it through the screening process. Another top talent agency, WME-IMG also announced plans this week to form a Political Action Committee, which raises money to support or oppose political candidates, ballot measures or legislation. This companys greatest asset is the diversity of our backgrounds and beliefs, the agencys heads said in an email to their staff. Please know that we will do everything in our power to support and protect this diversity now and in the months and years ahead. WME-IMGs co-CEO is Ari Emanuel, who formerly represented Trump. He is also the brother of Rahm Emanuel, the current Democratic mayor of Chicago and Obamas first White House chief of staff. Pakistan is warning rival Indias rapid expansion of its nuclear weaponry and construction of a secret nuclear city to produce a thermonuclear arsenal pose a direct threat to Islamabad and the region at large. [India] has a stockpile of fissile material for producing the nuclear weapons outside the IAEA safeguards. It is also building a secret nuclear city in south India, Foreign Ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria said Thursday at a weekly news conference. He referred to a report by Washington-based Foreign Policy magazine, in which New Delhi was accused of building the nuclear facility in Karnataka. India promptly rejected Pakistan's allegations as unfounded, saying New Delhi has always been in compliance with its international obligations. "These are completely baseless allegations. The so-called secret nuclear city is a figment of Pakistan's imagination," said Vikas Swarup, Indian ministry of external affairs spokesman. The magazine reported the project is expected to be completed this year and would be the subcontinents largest military-run complex of nuclear centrifuges, atomic research laboratories, and weapons-and aircraft-testing facilities. With conventional weapons balance already disturbed, Indias nuclear weapons build-up has dangerous proportions to tip the strategic balance and endanger the peace of the region and beyond, asserted Zakaria. Pakistan is also accused of possessing the worlds fastest growing nuclear weapons program and has recently tested ballistic missiles, including one capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads to as far as 2,000 kilometers. Tensions have heightened between India and Pakistan over the disputed Kashmir region, preventing the rival nations from resuming their wide-ranging peace dialogue to normalize bilateral ties. The South Asia rival nations have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir and engaged in a limited conflict in 1999 over the divided Himalayan region. New Delhi and Islamabad accuse each other of sponsoring terrorist activities on their respective soils, the main cause of latest tensions between the two. Pakistan has outlawed child marriage and toughened penalties for those guilty of the crime in an effort to crack down on the practice which is estimated to affect one in five girls in the country. The legislation passed by the National Assembly, or lower house of parliament, on Monday, also bans forced marriage involving women from minority groups. Under the new law, offenders will face a minimum of five years in prison and may serve up to 10 years. They also face a fine of up to 1 million rupees ($9,547). Before the change in law, offenders faced a minimum of three years in prison and a fine of 500,000 rupees. The punishment has been made harsher in the law ... in order to completely curb the social maladies which have risen because of the less stringent punishment and fines, Federal Law and Human Rights Minister Zahid Hamid told Thomson Reuters Foundation by telephone. 'Large-scale awareness' the key According to the U.N. children's agency UNICEF, around 21 percent of girls in Pakistan are married before the age of 18. Nearly 4 percent of Pakistan's population of 202 million people are not Muslim, according to the CIA Factbook. Social and gender inequality, a desire to control women's sexuality and protect family honor as well as poverty are some of the factors driving child marriage in Pakistan, according to advocacy group Girls Not Brides. Large-scale awareness about the crucial law and now about its amendments is key to make the law a success, said Mahpara Shakil Ghauri, a senior official at Aurat Foundation, a charity promoting women's rights. Local advocacy group, the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC), estimates that almost 58 percent of girls are child brides in rural areas. No change to age limit SPARC's chair Humera Malik said it was a concern that civil society organizations demand to increase the age of marriage to 18 from 16 had been ignored in the new law. "Raising the age of the girl to 18, the same as that of a boy was long-standing demand of the child and women rights organization in the country. But it's really disappointing the age issue have been left untouched, Malik told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The Pentagon says a U.S. strike has killed a core al-Qaida leader with ties to Ayman al-Zawahiri and deceased al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Abu Hani al-Masri was killed in a drone strike on February 4 while riding in a vehicle near Idlib, Syria, a defense official told VOA Wednesday. He is the fourth al-Qaida leader killed in Syria this year, according to the official. Al-Masri, who also went by the name Hani Jasarevic, was a founding member of Egyptian Islamic Jihadist (EIJ), the first Sunni group to use suicide bombers in their terror attacks. The Pentagon says EIJ has attempted multiple attacks against American and allied facilities, including a 1998 attempt to blow up the U.S. embassy in Albania. Al-Masri also oversaw the creation and operation of al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan in the 1980s and '90s, where the Pentagon said he recruited, indoctrinated, trained and equipped thousands of terrorists. An earlier U.S. strike on February 3 killed 10 al-Qaida terrorists in a building that was being used as an al-Qaida meeting place, according to the Pentagon. These strikes disrupt al-Qaida's ability to plot and direct external attacks targeting the U.S. and our interests worldwide, Pentagon spokesman Navy Captain Jeff Davis said. Poland's foreign minister said Thursday that it is a priority for the country to strengthen the cooperation of Americans and Europeans in the area of security and that he is concerned about the aggressive policies of Russia in Eastern Europe. Witold Waszczykowski made his remarks during a traditional yearly address to parliament. Among those in the audience were President Andrzej Duda and foreign diplomats. He said despite Russian polices he still sees a role for dialogue. Waszczykowski also said Poland's ties are changing with Belarus, the authoritarian state on Poland's eastern border, noting that there have been more visits and meetings with Belarusian officials. It marks a shift in Poland's foreign policy under the conservative government, which believes that the earlier policy of shunning Belarusian leaders while supporting democratic opposition groups was ineffective. He also touched on Brexit, saying his government is making it a priority to protect the rights acquired by Polish citizens living in the U.K. and to put Polish interests on the agenda in discussions on the shape of the EU post-Brexit. He said that Poland would play a constructive role in those discussions. The priority of the government is to repair the European Union, not to dismantle it, he said. Police made several arrests as protesters blocked enforcement vans from leaving a U.S. immigration office in Phoenix late Wednesday, fearing that a mother of two was on board and possibly headed for deportation. Media reports said the protest surged at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility after Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos was taken into custody during a routine check-in with the agency. Fearing her deportation, dozens of immigration activists blocked the gates surrounding the office near central Phoenix in what the Arizona Republic says was an effort to stop several vans and a bus from leaving. The paper said that Garcia de Rayos apparently was in one of the vehicles, which are used to transport people in ICE custody to detention centers, or to Arizona's border with Mexico for deportation. After 9 p.m., the paper said police officers amassed at the facility as protesters continued to block access, chanting Justice! and Power to the people, no one is illegal! Police posted on Twitter that they arrested about seven protesters, but they added that most of the protesters were peaceful. Besides the few people engaged in criminal acts, most people out here are peaceful and exercising their rights properly, police said. Everyone remains safe so far. Hoping for continued cooperation and no more criminal conduct. The activists said it was an attempt by President Donald Trump's administration to deport undocumented immigrants who had previously not been a priority for deportation under the Obama administration. Her arrest came just days after the Trump administration broadened regulations under which some people will be deported. We're living in a new era now, an era of war on immigrants, Ms. Rayos's lawyer, Ray A. Ybarra Maldonado, told the New York Times after leaving the building that houses the federal immigration agency. The protests carried on late into the night and included several people who bound themselves to one of the vans while others sat in front of a closed gate, blocking anyone from leaving. Puente Arizona, an immigrant advocacy group, said Garcia de Rayos came to the U.S. as a 14-year-old and now has two children. She was arrested on Wednesday while reporting to ICE, an annual requirement after she was arrested nine years ago. Nine Republican senators have signed a letter calling on President Donald Trump to take a tough stance when dealing with Russia, though they did encourage the president to seek common ground. The letter, spearheaded by Senator Corey Gardner and signed by several other high-profile Republicans, including John Cornyn and Lindsey Graham, said it is important to cooperate with Russia when necessary, but also stresses the need to confront Moscow on issues like cyber hacking and its aggressive actions in Ukraine. The letter which was made public Thursday says although the senators believe the United States "should seek common ground with Russia in the areas of mutual interest, [but] never pursue cooperation with Russia at the expense of our fundamental interests of defending our allies and promoting our values." The senators said they would like to see Trump impose new sanctions on Russia, if necessary, to stop Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine. The senators also said there should be no commitment made with Russia to end the violence in Syria until Russia gives up its support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Trump statements on Russia Trump, during the opening weeks of his presidency, has repeatedly expressed interest in rebuilding relations between the United States and Russia. In a recent interview he said that while he respects Russian President Vladimir Putin, he doesnt know how well the two will get along. "I say its better to get along with Russia than not. And if Russia helps us in the fight against ISIS [Islamic State], which is a major fight, and Islamic terrorism all over the world, thats a good thing," Trump told Fox News in an interview aired Sunday. "Will I get along with him? I have no idea," he added. Reuters reports that during his first call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on January 28, Trump criticized several deals made by the Obama administration, including the New Start treaty, which limits the number of nuclear warheads that can be deployed by either country. Putin brought up the idea of extending the treaty for another five years, according to the Reuters report. If the two sides do not agree to extend or renegotiate the deal, it would allow both sides to deploy an unlimited number of warheads. Turkey says a Russian airstrike has accidentally killed three Turkish soldiers in northern Syria. A military statement said the Russian military was carrying out an operation targeting Islamic State at the time of the incident. It said Russian President Vladimir Putin has called his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan to offer his condolences. The Kremlin said the both sides have agreed to step up their military coordination in Syria. Russia and Turkey had been on opposing sides of the nearly six-year Syrian conflict, with Moscow backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad while Ankara supported the rebels. But the two countries have worked together in recent months and helped broker Syria peace talks last month in Kazakhstan. Russia and Turkey, along with Iran, agreed on a plan to monitor a partial Syrian cease-fire and support efforts to find a political solution to the conflict. Senator Jeff Sessions has been sworn in as the next U.S. attorney general during a ceremony Thursday at the White House. The U.S. Senate confirmed Sessions on Wednesday, after more than a day of heated debate and a dramatic confrontation that led to the suspension of a prominent Democrat from floor deliberations. WATCH: Trump's remarks at Sessions swearing-in ceremony The 52-47 vote made Sessions, a long-serving Republican senator from Alabama, Americas top law enforcement officer and the sixth Cabinet pick approved in the fledgling administration of President Donald Trump. This is a special honor, Sessions told his colleagues in a farewell speech after the vote. I hope and pray I can be worthy of the trust youve given me. Ill do my best to do that. We all know him to be a man of deep integrity, a man of his word, and a man committed to fairness, to justice, and most importantly to the rule of law, said the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa. An early and ardent Trump supporter during last years tumultuous campaign, Sessions pledged to put the law above politics as attorney general. You simply have to help the president do things that he might desire in a lawful way, and have to be able to say no [to the president], the nominee said at his confirmation hearing last month. Ahead of Wednesdays vote, Democrats said they were unconvinced. We have a president who wants to bring back torture, said Senator Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. And we have a nominee for attorney general who is anything but independent. He was part and parcel of the Trump campaign apparatus. Theres attack after attack after attack [by Trump] on minorities, on immigrants, on Muslims, on women, on his critics, on judges, on the press, and even on truth itself, Feinstein added. Now more than ever, it is important that the Department of Justice be independent from the president. Republicans noted that Trump is hardly the first president to name backers and close confidants to his administration. This idea that Senator Sessions was close to President Trump during the campaign and thats somehow a disqualifier makes absolutely zero sense to me, said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Thats exactly the kind of people youd expect a president to pick: someone who has been on their team, someone they know. Sessions served in the Senate for 20 years and also was attorney general for the state of Alabama as well as a federal prosecutor. In 1986, then-President Ronald Reagan tapped him to be a federal judge, but the Senate voted down his nomination amid allegations of racial bias in his past. Echoes of that debate more than 30 years ago reverberated Tuesday, when Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts read a letter from the late wife of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. opposing Sessions for the federal bench. Mr. Sessions ignored allegations of similar behavior by whites, choosing instead to chill the exercise of the franchise by blacks, Warren said, reading the letter word-for-word. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, interrupted her remarks moments later. The senator has impugned the motives and conduct of our colleague from Alabama, McConnell said. Objection is heard, the senator [Warren] will take her seat, said the presiding officer, Republican Senator Steve Daines of Montana. Warren challenged the finding, forcing a vote on the dispute by the full Senate. A unified Republican caucus voted that Warren broke Senate rules on decorum and therefore was barred from speaking further on the nominee. We have rules around here, and the rules are very clear that you dont impugn another senator, said Idaho Republican James Risch. Democrats fumed. Let us not go down this path, said Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont. Its not good for democracy. And it sure as heck is not good for free speech. Republicans stood their ground, saying America benefits when congressional debate is free of personal attacks. Turn on the news and watch these parliaments around the world where people throw chairs at each other, and punches, said Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. And ask yourself: how does that make you feel about those countries? Donald Trump promised to be a law-and-order president. His new attorney general made clear during his confirmation hearing that he remains a hardliner on thorny topics like illegal immigration. If you continually go through a cycle of amnesty [for the undocumented], that you undermine the respect for the law and encourage more illegal immigration into America, Sessions said. More than 30 years after the Senate turned him down for a judgeship, the same body confirmed him for a far weightier post. He takes over at the helm of the Justice Department that defended numerous initiatives Trump has pledged to undo. Senator Jeff Sessions was sworn in as the next U.S. attorney general Thursday at the White House, where he stressed that the U.S. needs a "lawful system of immigration" that serves the interest of the American people. President Donald Trump lauded Sessions with praise as he congratulated him on being sworn in, calling the new attorney general "a man of total, utter resolve." He has devoted his life to the cause of justice and believes deeply that all people are equals in the eyes of the law. And very importantly for Jeff and for so many of us also in the eyes of God, Trump said. WATCH: Trump remarks at swearing-in ceremony The U.S. Senate confirmed Sessions on Wednesday, after more than a day of heated debate and a dramatic confrontation that led to the suspension of a prominent Democrat from floor deliberations. The 52-47 vote made Sessions, a long-serving Republican senator from Alabama, Americas top law enforcement officer and the sixth Cabinet pick approved in the Trump administration. During the swearing in ceremony, Sessions said he never imagined he would have this great honor of becoming attorney general and he cares deeply about the agencys traditions and its heritage. I had 15 years in that great department, Sessions said. And the honor to lead it now is something I do not have words to express effectively. WATCH: Sessions swearing-in ceremony Immigration On the subject of immigration, Sessions vowed to uphold laws that he said were largely unenforced during the Obama administration. "Thats not wrong, thats not immoral, and thats not indecent We need to end this lawlessness that threatens the publics safety, pulls down wages of working Americans, he said. If you continually go through a cycle of amnesty [for the undocumented], that you undermine the respect for the law and encourage more illegal immigration into America. An early and ardent Trump supporter during last years tumultuous campaign, Sessions pledged to put the law above politics as attorney general. You simply have to help the president do things that he might desire in a lawful way, and have to be able to say no [to the president], the nominee said at his confirmation hearing last month. Ahead of Wednesdays vote, Democrats said they were unconvinced. We have a president who wants to bring back torture, said Senator Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. And we have a nominee for attorney general who is anything but independent. He was part and parcel of the Trump campaign apparatus. Republicans noted that Trump is hardly the first president to name backers and close confidants to his administration. This idea that Senator Sessions was close to President Trump during the campaign and thats somehow a disqualifier makes absolutely zero sense to me, said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Thats exactly the kind of people youd expect a president to pick: someone who has been on their team, someone they know. Senate tenure Sessions served in the Senate for 20 years and also was attorney general for the state of Alabama as well as a federal prosecutor. In 1986, then-President Ronald Reagan tapped him to be a federal judge, but the Senate voted down his nomination amid allegations of racial bias in his past. Echoes of that debate more than 30 years ago reverberated Tuesday, when Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts read a letter the late wife of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. had written opposing Sessions for the federal bench. Mr. Sessions ignored allegations of similar behavior by whites, choosing instead to chill the exercise of the franchise by blacks, Warren said, reading the letter word-for-word. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, interrupted her remarks moments later. The senator has impugned the motives and conduct of our colleague from Alabama, McConnell said. Objection is heard, the senator [Warren] will take her seat, said the presiding officer, Republican Senator Steve Daines of Montana. Warren challenged the finding, forcing a vote on the dispute by the full Senate. A unified Republican caucus voted that Warren broke Senate rules on decorum and therefore was barred from speaking further on the nominee. Police made several arrests as protesters blocked enforcement vans from leaving a U.S. immigration office in Phoenix late Wednesday, fearing that a mother of two was headed for deportation. The protest surged at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility after Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos was taken into custody during a routine check-in with the agency, according to media reports. The activists said it was an attempt by President Donald Trump's administration to deport immigrants living in the country illegally who had previously not been a priority for deportation under the Obama administration. Fearing the 36-year-old woman's return to Mexico, dozens of immigration activists blocked the gates surrounding the office near central Phoenix in what the Arizona Republic said was an effort to stop several vans and a bus from leaving. The protesters said Garcia de Rayos was in one of the vehicles, which were used to transport people in ICE custody to detention centers, or to Arizona's border with Mexico for deportation. A Republic photo identified a woman looking through one of the vehicle windows covered by security screening as Garcia de Rayos. Police, meanwhile, took positions around the building and confronted some of the demonstrators, many who chanted "Justice!'' Police posted on Twitter that they arrested about seven protesters, but added that the demonstration was mainly peaceful. "Besides the few people engaged in criminal acts, most people out here are peaceful and exercising their rights properly,'' police said. "Everyone remains safe so far. Hoping for continued cooperation and no more criminal conduct.'' By 1:00 a.m. Thursday, less than two dozen protesters stood in the dark outside the building talking quietly, with just a handful of police looking on. The protesters said they initially succeeded in stopping the vehicles from leaving, but said they later left the grounds by another exit. They didn't know if Garcia de Rayos had still been aboard. Her arrest came just days after the Trump administration broadened regulations under which some people will be deported. "We're living in a new era now, an era of war on immigrants,'' Rayos' lawyer, Ray A. Ybarra Maldonado, told the New York Times after leaving the immigration building. Puente Arizona, an immigrant advocacy group, said Garcia de Rayos came to the U.S. as a 14-year-old and now has two children. She was arrested on Wednesday while reporting to ICE, an annual requirement. Her status with the agency wasn't immediately clear late Wednesday. The Republic carried a statement from ICE officials, which said only that she was detained because of her prior conviction. Phoenix station KTAR reported that she was arrested in 2008 during a workplace raid and was later convicted of identity theft for possessing false papers. Despite her conviction, she was allowed to live in Arizona and checked in with ICE officials every six months. South African analysts predicted high drama during this year's state-of-the-nation address. President Jacob Zuma is facing low approval ratings as the nation's economy drags, and his popularity appears to have bottomed out. Drama, they got, and then some in the form of a brawl, as rowdy, red-uniformed opposition members fought burly, white-shirted security guards Thursday after more than an hour of bitter haranguing, obscenities and vitriol. Outside the parliament building in Cape Town, police fired stun grenades and tear gas at protesters. Zuma has drawn the ire of the opposition and much of the electorate after a string of corruption scandals, including his use of more than $20 million in government funds to upgrade his private rural home. His unpopularity, some analysts say, was the driving force behind the ruling African National Congress' loss of several key municipalities in last year's local elections. He also has faced a vote of no confidence, which failed, late last year. Economic woes Furthermore, unemployment has risen since he took office in 2009, to 26 percent from 24 percent. South Africa's currency, worth 8 rand to one U.S. dollar when he became president, now hovers around 13 to the dollar. Its instability has been in sync with Zuma's unpopular political moves, like his sudden decision to go through three finance ministers in a week in late 2015. The anger against Zuma was palpable both inside parliament and among protesters who gathered in the streets of Cape Town ahead of the annual speech Thursday. Sensing this, the presidency summoned 441 soldiers to parliament, in a move the office said was necessary for safety and security. That didn't deter the anger inside the chamber. "Please leave!" yelled far-left politician Mbuyiseni Ndlozi of the Economic Freedom Fighters as Zuma sat calmly and waited for the speaker of the house to try to restore order. "You don't belong here. You're a constitutional delinquent." "This entire gathering is unconstitutional," intoned EFF MP and Hollywood actor Fana Mokoena. "For the first place, it should not be addressed by someone who has flouted his own oath of office!" Tear gas, stun grenades Both men were ejected from the chambers. Outside, police sprayed tear gas and lobbed stun grenades at the restless crowd. When the dust and gas had settled nearly 90 minutes after he was scheduled to begin Zuma calmly rose, laughed, coughed, made a joke about feeling the effects of the tear gas, and said one word: "Finally." He then launched into a speech that, despite its lack of oratorical flourishes, was in many ways startling. The ANC has vowed to embark on "radical economic transformation" a plan that Zuma said could fundamentally shift who owns property in the nation. "We mean fundamental change in the structure, systems, institutions and patterns of ownership, management and control of the economy in favor of all South Africans, especially the poor, the majority of whom are African and female," he said. "We are saying that we should move beyond words to practical programs," he said. "The state will play a role in the economy to drive that transformation." As he spoke and members of his party clapped politely, local news stations changed to a split-screen view of the scene outside parliament as opposition leaders spoke angrily to TV crews and riot police hovered nearby underscoring the fact that the real political action in South African politics is no longer in the halls of parliament. It's on the streets. The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson told the Armed Services Committee he believes the U.S.-backed Afghan forces are in a stalemate in the 15 year-old war. He said to break that stalemate he needs a few thousand more soldiers to accompany the 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Nicholson faced questions Thursday from senators about the Trump administrations plans for handling the long-running war in Afghanistan. WATCH: Nicholson on Afghanistan Nicholson said offensive capability is key to breaking the stalemate and while the additional U.S. troops would be involved in train, advice and assist missions, the Afghan Special Forces and Air force would be vital to success. According to Nicholson, the Afghan forces operated independently 80 percent of the time last year, though they faced a higher number of casualties than in years past. More than 6,700 Afghan soldiers were killed last year through November 12, according to a quarterly report published last month by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. That is more than the 6,600 soldiers killed in all of 2015. Nicholson said he is very concerned about the level of losses. And while he said current recruiting levels allow the Afghan forces to replace soldiers who are killed, the military is not able to operate at its peak capability. The report also noted the Afghan government is steadily losing control of areas within the country. According to the report, the government lost control of about 15 percent of the countrys districts between November 2015 and November 2016. Nicholson said 20 of 98 designated terrorist groups operate in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, giving it the highest concentration of terror groups anywhere in the world. Senator John McCain suggested that Russia is playing a significant role in Afghanistan and Nicholson agreed, saying that Russian meddling this year has become more difficult. Nicholson said Russia has tried to publicly legitimize the Taliban by saying the extremist group is helping in the fight against IS, but he called this idea a false narrative. According to Nicholson, Afghan security forces have eliminated about half of the IS groups fighters and reduced the territory they hold by two-thirds. Nicholson said he feared this public support could allow Taliban power to spill out of Afghanistan and into other countries as the group continues to gain territory. In December, Nicholson said the Taliban controls about 10 percent of the population, while the Afghan government controls about two-thirds. The rest are contested. Top U.S. officials are reassuring Afghanistan of continuing American support amid questions about President Donald Trumps commitment to the country. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said National Security Adviser Michal Flynn reaffirmed our continued support for Afghanistan and for our strategic partnership to his Afghan counterpart Tuesday. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis also called Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to discuss the enduring U.S.-Afghan strategic relationship, according to a Pentagon statement, adding that both leaders look forward to engaging again in the near future. Hamdullah Mohib, Afghanistan's ambassador in Washington, also put a positive spin on the contacts, saying: Our relationship with the new administration is off to a very strong start. He said he was confident that the new White House recognizes the enormous value of its partnership with Afghanistan and the critical importance of having a strong ally in the fight against terrorism and in our volatile region of the world. In terms of what Afghanistan wants from the new administration, Mohib identified "a U.S. commitment to the fight against terrorism based on strategic goals and help developing Afghanistan's economic potential, citing the country's rich natural resources, particularly the mining sector that is just beginning to develop. However, some critics of the Trump administrations foreign policy question the strength of the relationship. Barnett Rubin, head of the Center on International Cooperation at New York University and writer of several books on Afghanistan said hes convinced that Trump does not believe in the mission but will keep U.S. troops there "begrudgingly" for a while to keep the government from collapsing. Trump policies in the U.S. and around the world will make the U.S. less and less welcome in Afghanistan, Rubin said in an interview with VOA. He cited Trumps confrontational statements about China and possible sanctions on Iran, saying they will make it impossible for Afghanistan to reduce dependence on Pakistan. Afghanistans trade with Pakistan has plunged over the last year while rising with Iran. The Afghan government sees Pakistan as a major player in restoring peace in Afghanistan, but Rubin says Afghans who think he [Trump] will be tough on Pakistan to support the Afghan government are deceiving themselves. Rubin said the U.S. president may try to cooperate with Russia on its regional initiative, but then he has to cooperate with Iran and China too, and maybe with the Taliban. Russia, which had its own long intervention in Afghanistan, says it will soon host Afghan peace talks involving China, Pakistan, India, Iran and Afghanistan, but the invitation has not included the United States. Some experts say the Taliban has to be a player in the peace process to avoid failure. Afghanistans strategic location in the heart of Asia is important because its the only country in the region that is friendly towards the United States and is willing to host U.S. forces, said Sherjan Ahmadzai, director of the Afghanistan Study Center at the University of Nebraska. That would allow the U.S. to address any potential threat emanating from that region to which it cannot respond from offshore bases or ships in Indian Ocean or in Turkey, Ahmadzai said. With Senate confirmation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, President Donald Trump filled another important post in his new government. Only 685 to go. In his third week in office, Trump's young government remains a work in progress, with hundreds of empty desks in agency offices across Washington. While the president has criticized Democrats for the delays, he also shares at least part of the blame for moving more slowly than his predecessor to submit vetting information and paperwork for his nominations. A tally of appointments and unfilled posts illustrates the daunting challenge facing any new president. Through Wednesday, Trump's team has nominated 35 people to fill 693 high-level positions that require Senate confirmation, according to data maintained by the Partnership for Public Service. At this stage in 2009, then-President Barack Obama's administration had nominated 38 officials in all. Sessions was the eighth member of Trump's administration to be confirmed; at this point eight years ago Obama had 23 officials confirmed, including department heads and deputies. In total, there are 1,200 positions that require Senate confirmation and about 4,100 appointed positions, according to the partnership. Many of the positions are still vacant, leaving the federal government in the hands of acting leaders and career employees who often stay in their jobs regardless of political affiliation. It's not as if the government stops because these appointees are not in place. There are acting people in these jobs, said Max Stier, the partnership's president and CEO. ``But they're acting. They don't have the imprimatur of the president. They're not thinking about the long-term.'' Awkward situations The delays have forced Trump's administration to be reliant upon a number of holdovers who played prominent roles in the Obama administration, leading to suspicions of the federal bureaucracy. In the most prominent example, Trump fired acting attorney general Sally Yates, a career prosecutor and Democratic appointee, after she publicly questioned the constitutionality of his refugee and immigration ban and refused to defend it in court. Other holdovers are awkward, too. Among the 50 Obama officials asked to stay on to help with continuity was Brett McGurk, the U.S. special envoy to the anti-Islamic State coalition. Trump spent his campaign blasting the strategy that McGurk helped devise and publicly defend. Also on the list was Adam Szubin, whose confirmation as Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence was stalled by Republicans for more than a year. Szubin served in an acting capacity, he was never confirmed, until he was named acting Treasury secretary by Trump. Trump's choice for Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, is expected to get a vote in the Senate later this week. The White House has complained about the slow pace of the confirmation process, blaming Senate Democrats for slow-walking their picks. The president tweeted Wednesday morning that it was a disgrace that my full Cabinet is still not in place, the longest such delay in the history of our country, charging, Obstruction by Democrats! Trump's claims about the historic nature of the delays are not accurate - at least not yet. Obama's Cabinet wasn't completely confirmed until late April 2009 and President Bill Clinton's didn't have his full Cabinet in place until mid-March 1993. Vetting issues Democrats contend the administration has failed to fully vet the nominees, many of whom are wealthy and have extensive business ties, and have been lackadaisical in providing financial records and ethics filings. Democrats boycotted a Senate Finance Committee meeting last week called to vote on Representative Tom Price, a Republican from Georgia, Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, and Mnuchin, who has clashed with Democrats over the foreclosures of thousands of homeowners when he headed OneWest bank. Democrats have said that both nominees have been misleading in their disclosure of their financial backgrounds. Trump's pick for Labor Secretary, Andrew Puzder, only submitted his required government ethics paperwork this week. Beyond the Cabinet positions, however, many key agency roles remain unfilled, from deputy secretaries, general counsels and undersecretaries who often play a lead role in managing each department. There are critical positions around the secretary that allows the secretary to function, said Clay Johnson, who served as deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget under President George W. Bush. The secretary is way less of a secretary without those people. Johnson said typically about 225 Senate-confirmed positions are filled by the annual congressional recess in August. It still seems like they're playing catch-up, he said. Many of the earliest picks have been focused on the military, national security and law enforcement. Trump won an early confirmation of Gen. John Kelly to lead the Department of Homeland Security and has nominated Elaine Duke, who served in the department during the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, to serve as deputy secretary. But many positions in the department remain unfilled as the ongoing legal fight over his executive order on immigration consumes time and resources. The president has yet to select heads of the Transportation Security Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which responds to natural disasters. On the diplomatic front, Trump has nominated only three U.S. ambassadors to foreign countries - Iowa Governor Terry Branstad to China, New York Jets owner Woody Johnson to the United Kingdom and attorney David Friedman to Israel. And while Trump recently tapped Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the vacancy left by the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, he has yet to name his choice to serve as Solicitor General, who is responsible for arguing the federal government's cases before the Supreme Court. The White House is rushing to the defense of Ivanka Trump's company _ the latest sign the president can't seem to separate the presidency from his family's businesses. President Donald Trump added to a string of presidential firsts on Wednesday, and drew fire from ethics lawyers, with a Twitter attack on Nordstrom. The Seattle-based retailer stoked Trump's rage by dropping his daughter Ivanka's clothing and accessory line. The implication, intended or not: Hurt my daughter's business, and the Oval Office will come after you. "My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom,'' the president tweeted. "She is a great person - always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!'' The government-led cheerleading for Ivanka Trump's private enterprise didn't end there. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, in an interview Thursday with Fox News from the White House briefing room, encouraged people to "go buy Ivanka's stuff.'' She boasted that she was giving the brand "a free commercial here.'' While Trump himself is not subject to the standards of ethical conduct for federal employees, Conway is. Among the rules: An employee shall not use his or her office "for the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise.'' Ivanka Trump does not have a specific role in the White House but moved to Washington with her husband, who is one of Trump's closest advisers. She followed her father's approach on business ties by handing over operating control of her fashion company but retaining ownership of it. Though Trump has tweeted about companies such as Boeing, Carrier and General Motors, ethics experts say this time was different. It involved his daughter's business, which raises conflict-of-interest concerns. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump was responding to an "attack on his daughter'' when he posted the tweet and that "he has every right to stand up for his family and applaud their business activities, their success.'' WATCH: Spicer on Trump's Nordstrom tweet The Ivanka Trump flare-up follows revelations that first lady Melania Trump expected to develop "multi-million dollar business relationships'' tied to her presence in the White House, according to a lawsuit she filed on Monday. Ethics experts have criticized Trump's plan to separate himself from his sprawling real estate business by handing managerial control to his two adult sons. The experts want him to sell his company. Most modern presidents have sold their financial holdings and put the cash raised in a blind trust whose investments remained unknown to them. Kathleen Clark, a government ethics expert, said the Nordstrom tweet is problematic because other retailers may think twice now about dropping the Ivanka Trump brand for fear of getting criticized publicly by the president. She said it was especially disturbing that Trump retweeted his message on the official White House account. "The implicit threat was that he will use whatever authority he has to retaliate against Nordstrom, or anyone who crosses his interest,'' said Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Clark defended the president's right to use his personal Twitter account to express his views, however. She noted that government workers recently set up alt-EPA accounts to criticize the president's policies. "A government employee, even a president, is allowed to tweet in his personal capacity," she said. One of the president's fiercest ethics critics, Norman Eisen, described the tweet differently - a "bullying'' tactic beneath the dignity of the president's office. "This is a shot across the bow to everybody who is doing business with Trump or his family,'' said Eisen, who was President Barack Obama's chief ethics counselor. "It's warning them: Don't withdraw their business.'' Eisen joined with other legal scholars and lawyers to sue the president last month for allegedly violating a clause in the Constitution that prohibits government officials from accepting gifts or payments from foreign governments. Though other legal scholars disagree, Eisen said such payments include foreign diplomats staying at Trump's new Washington D.C. hotel and holding events there and at the other Trump venues. Trump and his top aides have repeatedly said that Americans do not care about what Eisen and other ethics critics say. "Prior to the election it was well known that I have interests in properties all over the world,'' Trump wrote on Twitter Nov. 21. Two surveys released in January show that's not entirely the case. A Quinnipiac University poll found that about 60 percent of registered voters were at least somewhat concerned that the president would "veto a law that would be good for the country because it would hurt his business interests.'' And a Pew Research Center poll found that 57 percent of American adults were at least somewhat concerned that Trump's businesses could "conflict with his ability to serve the country's best interests.'' Yet Trump seems to have calculated that his base of supporters forgives - and maybe even encourages - his protective bluster about his family businesses. Nordstrom reiterated Wednesday that its decision was based on the brand's performance, not politics. The company said sales of Ivanka Trump items had steadily declined over the past year, particularly in the last half of 2016, "to the point where it didn't make good business sense for us to continue with the line for now.'' Retailers drop brands all the time because of poor performance, said brand consultant Allen Adamson. But given a highly charged political environment, perception is reality for loyal Trump fans. "It is clearly hard for Nordstrom to tell the story that it is dropping [the brand] for business reasons,'' said Adamson, founder of the firm Brand Simple. Turkish authorities have seized 150 kilograms of explosives and arrested four suspected Islamic State militants outside Gaziantep, near the Syrian border, the Dogan news agency is reporting. The police also recovered suicide attack belts, remote control detonators and several guns from the Islamists, whom authorities believe were planning to carry out a major terror attack. Video of the seizure Thursday shows sniffer dogs being used to uncover the weapons and explosives, which were buried in the ground in an open area. Police in Turkey have stepped up their anti-terror operations since a New Year attack on an Istanbul nightclub killed 39 people, mostly foreigners. That attack was claimed by IS. Last week, Turkish authorities detained 750 people with suspected ties to the terrorist group in a giant operation that spanned 29 provinces. The police operation came at the same time CIA Director Mike Pompeo is in Turkey to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and Turkeys spy chief, Hakan Fidan. As Islamic State fighters make a last stand against Turkish-backed troops in a key strategic city in northern Syria, IS appears to have few options as to where it can retreat. As of Thursday morning, anti-IS forces were in control of the northern part of the town of al-Bab amid fierce clashes with the remaining IS fighters. Local reports said fighting also was taking place in the center of the town. There are nearly 1,000 IS fighters left in al-Bab and 800 others on the outskirts, according to Abu Eyad, a rebel fighter who is involved in the Turkish-backed operation. "These fighters are mostly foreigners and they are likely to fight in al-Bab until they die," Eyad said. IS has suffered blows from ground troops on several sides around al-Bab, including on the southern front where Syrian troops have closed in and are only three kilometers away from the town. U.S. airstrikes in support of Turkish forces and Syrian rebels also have been key in the recent advances in al-Bab. IS loss inevitable IS fighters "are putting up a tough fight in and around al-Bab," said Ahed al-Hendi, a Syrian affairs analyst in Washington. But, he said, IS knows "that its loss there is inevitable, so they will fight until the end." At least 10 Turkish soldiers have been killed by IS since clashes intensified Wednesday morning. Similar to previous battles where it lost territory, IS "will carry suicide bombing attacks on [Turkish] soldiers and use civilians as shields," said Metehan Demir, a Turkish military affairs analyst in Ankara. Under siege in Iraq, and also in its de facto Syrian capital in Raqqa, IS is becoming hemmed in on several fronts, analysts say. IS fighters who survive in al-Bab have one safe haven left in Syria. "They will need additional fighters to be in Raqqa as the Kurdish-led forces are advancing very rapidly from the north and west," analyst al-Hendi said. "So any retreating force from al-Bab will be deployed to Raqqa." Looking toward Raqqa U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces have made new advances against IS fighters this week after launching a third phase of their ongoing offensive to retake Raqqa, some 200 kilometers east of al-Bab. U.S. military officials say it is a matter of weeks before Raqqa is besieged. "What we would expect is that within the next few weeks, is that the city would be nearly completely isolated and then there will be a decision point to move in," said Colonel John Dorrian, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition against IS. In anticipation of an imminent attack on Raqqa, analysts said, IS will continue to build its defensive lines there. "If the remaining IS fighters in al-Bab stay alive, they will go to defend Raqqa," Turkish analyst Demir said. The United Nations is considering removing military personnel from its peacekeeping mission in Haiti, a U.N. official said Thursday, indicating a possible scaling back of one of the body's longest-running and widely-criticized missions. The U.N. mission in Haiti, often locally called by its French acronym MINUSTAH, has been in the country since 2004, when a rebellion led to the ouster and exile of then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. It is the only U.N. peacekeeping mission in the Americas. Haiti suffered a two-year political crisis until the recent election and inauguration of President Jovenel Moise. It has suffered major natural disasters, including an earthquake in 2010 and Hurricane Matthew last year. But the impoverished country has not had an armed conflict in years. Herve Ladsous, a U.N. deputy secretary-general, said the institution was encouraged by the recent successful completion of the elections, the inauguration of the president, and the development and building up of the police force. "The security situation throughout the country cannot be compared with that of 10 years ago," Ladsous said. "But I say to all who would be tempted to take advantage of this temporary period to return to illegality, commit crimes, violations of human rights, I say no, we will not accept that." He said there would be a U.N. assessment mission to determine a "reconfiguration" of MINUSTAH, although he cautioned that the picture was not unequivocally rosy. "If the military component is erased ... there is still a lot of work left to do on the police, on the law ... on human rights, on the status of women," Ladsous told journalists. The mission has been criticized for sexual abuse allegations and its role in Haiti's cholera epidemic, which was started by U.N. peacekeepers after the earthquake. "Re-evaluation is especially appropriate in light of MINUSTAH's slow, expensive and limited progress in its primary mission," said Brian Concannon, the head of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, a charity that has worked with cholera victims. Concannon cited the introduction of cholera and sexual exploitation as areas of concern. Last October, the U.N. Security Council, which approves the mandates of the various peacekeeping missions, renewed MINUSTAH for six months rather than the usual year, a signal to observers of possible changes for the mission. The secretary-general will weigh in on any change by March 15, and the Security Council is expected to make its decision in April. The U.N. envoy to Libya says Libyans must make 2017 the "year of decisions and political breakthrough." Martin Kobler told the Security Council on Wednesday that those decisions should involve forming a strong army and police force, determining the best way to use oil and gas revenues, and amending the political deal that put a Western-backed government back in Tripoli. Kobler said that Islamic State no longer controlled any Libyan territory but was still a threat, and that the country was still at risk for terrorism. "The country's borders remain porous," he said. "Terrorists, human and weapons traffickers, and criminal gangs continue to exploit the security vacuum." Libya has been in political turmoil since longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi was overthrown and killed in 2011. The U.N.-backed government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj is in power in Tripoli and is struggling to assert its authority, while a rival administration led by General Khalifa Haftar is in charge in the eastern city of Tobruk and is vying for power. Haftar refuses to recognize the Tripoli government. While the South Sudan government prepares for a national dialogue early next month, one high-ranking United Nations official said the talks could be undermined by the ongoing violence in the country. Adama Dieng, the U.N. Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, told VOA's South Sudan in Focus that the Kiir administration should concentrate on creating meaningful dialogue that includes the opposition, as well as a path to justice. "I should remind President Kiir and his government so to acknowledge that peace is not made among friends, it is made among enemies," said Dieng, who added that South Sudanese should begin to look at themselves as brothers and sisters. Dieng added that a national dialogue, which Kiir said would begin early next month, should include "credible political alternatives" for the opposition leaders, not unlike former First Vice President Riek Machar, who Dieng said are currently excluded from the dialogue. Machar has been living in exile in South Africa since September. The rebel leader fled from the capital Juba across the border to Sudan in July, when a surge in fighting occurred between forces loyal to Kiir and those who supported Machar. Skepticism remains Kiir told citizens in the troubled town of Yei this week that the national dialogue would be an open forum where issues affecting all South Sudanese would be addressed. He had traveled to Yei in the newly-created Yei River State to try to calm the fears of residents traumatized by weeks of deadly fighting between unidentified armed groups and government forces. Princeton Lyman, the former U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan and South Sudan, told VOA that he is skeptical that a meaningful dialogue can take place when "there is no freedom of movement or freedom of expression." "It would be hard to put together under these conditions an effective national dialogue," Lyman said. "Nevertheless, they have called upon two credible civil society groups to work with them, and if those groups can lay out the conditions necessary for a national dialogue, maybe there is some hope there." Tensions continue to rise in parts of South Sudan, including in Central Equatoria State's Kajo Keji, where the United Nations reported in recent weeks that civilians are fleeing in fear of more violence. The U.N. also said earlier this week that its peacekeepers were blocked from accessing the area by armed men in uniforms. More attacks deemed likely Dieng said that the risk of more atrocities being committed in South Sudan remains high. "We see the SPLA reinforcing its position throughout the country and launching military operations on the rebels when attacks occur, including reprisal and punishment against civilian communities believed to be their supporters," said Dieng, using the acronym for the military, known as the Sudan People's Liberation Army. After the U.N. Security Council failed to pass a resolution last year that would have enacted an arms embargo on South Sudan and increased sanctions on certain individuals, Dieng said arms continue to flow into the country, further undermining the peace process. "That is why I have been calling for a genuine dialogue to make sure that the political process really reaches a situation where everybody will be around the table," Dieng said. The U.N. official said it is also of the utmost importance that the dialogue includes representatives of the South Sudanese diaspora. Kiir said at a public rally in Yei this week that holding a national dialogue is the only way to end the ongoing conflict in South Sudan. The Air Force says an unarmed Minuteman 3 missile has been launched from California's central coast in the latest test of the intercontinental system. The missile blasted off at 11:39 p.m. PDT Wednesday from Vandenberg Air Force Base northwest of Los Angeles. The Air Force says the missile carried test re-entry vehicles that headed for a target area 4,200 miles away to the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean. The Air Force routinely uses Vandenberg to test Minuteman missiles from bases around the country. This test involved personnel from Vandenberg's 576th Flight Test Squadron and the 91st Missile Wing, Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota. A group of conservative thinkers led by leaders from the Reagan and Bush administrations have proposed what they are calling a "Conservative Answer to Climate Change." The group, including two former U.S. secretaries of state - James Baker and George Shultz - held a press conference Wednesday in Washington to unveil its plan. Confronting the threat The plan, available online, opens with a simple admission: "the risks associated with future warmings are so severe that they should be hedged." Team members were also willing to openly call out their Republican colleagues for refusing to confront the issue. "For too long," the group says, "many Republicans have looked the other way, forfeiting the policy initiative to those who favor growth-inhibiting command-and-control regulations, and fostering a needless climate divide between the GOP and the scientific, business, military, religious, civic and international mainstream." Looking to regain that initiative, the team unveiled its plan which centers around four pillars. The first pillar is an old idea made new again: a carbon tax. It's just what it says it is - a tax on planet warming emissions from oil, coal and natural gas. In this case, the team is suggesting a tax on carbon starting at $40 for roughly every metric ton of emissions. The second pillar demands that any money made off of that tax be sent directly to U.S. consumers. And they do mean directly, by way of "dividend checks, direct deposits or contributions to their individual retirement accounts." The third pillar sets out the way we deal with the world. It looks to punish polluters by that same carbon tax on countries that are big polluters. Any money made from that tariff would go directly to American citizens. And once the plan is in place, the fourth pillar kicks in: An end to "the Environmental Protection Agencys regulatory authority over carbon dioxide emissions ... including an outright repeal of the Clean Power Plan." Devil in the details It sounds simple. But it is also a tax. The Trump administration and the Republican majorities in the House and the Senate are looking to cut taxes, not raise them. So far, there has been little reaction from Capitol Hill or the White House. Press Secretary Sean Spicer was asked about the plan and would only say: we have nothing to announce on that. And some environmental groups, while backing a carbon tax in general, are less excited about the prospect of abandoning the progress made during the last administration. The Natural Resources Defense Council put out a statement that a carbon tax alone won't solve the problem. But whether it succeeds or not, one of the real goals is to give conservatives a chance to get beyond what many see as their history of climate change denial. "...this is an opportunity to demonstrate the power of the conservative canon by offering a more effective, equitable and popular climate policy based on free markets, smaller government and dividends for all Americans." A mother of two children, both U.S. citizens, was deported to Mexico early Thursday, her lawyer said, showing a change in U.S. policy toward undocumented immigrants. Ray Ybarra Maldonado said the undocumented woman was taken into custody Wednesday in Phoenix, Arizona, when she stopped in for a routine check at a U.S. immigration office. "I was informed by the Mexican Consulate that my client was deported from the country," Maldonado said. Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, 36, had checked in with U.S. immigration authorities every year since 2008, when she was stopped for using a fake Social Security number during a raid on a water park where she worked. In past visits, she answered questions that were put to her and went home. But when Rayos went in for her meeting Wednesday, she was arrested and deportation proceedings were begun. She had lived in the U.S. for more than 22 years. During a news conference, Maldonado said he had filed a stay of deportation on Wednesday. "Yesterday at 5:30 [p.m.], I was told the decision would come shortly. And here it is this morning, and those cowards have yet to even return my call, even send me an email, to give me any information about why they denied our stay," he added. A statement from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the deportation was "based on a removal order issued by the Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review which became final in May 2013. Relevant databases indicate Ms. Garcia de Rayos has a prior felony conviction dating from March 2009 for criminal impersonation." "ICE will remove illegal aliens convicted of felony offenses as ordered by an immigration judge," the agency said in series of tweets after the media reported the deportation. 'The first ones' Maldonado said Garcia de Rayos' deportation was an attempt by President Donald Trump's administration to deport immigrants living in the country illegally who had previously not been a priority for deportation under the administration of former President Barack Obama. "I think it just fell on her bad luck, the bad timing, of her last check-in being yesterday. There's no facts in their case that are any different from the last times that she checked in the only difference being the executive order and a new president," Maldonado said. "We are the first ones. Our family was the first one," Garcia de Rayos' son Angel, 16, said. "My sister needs my mom. Me, too, [but] my sister is only 14. She is growing up; she needs her advice. My mother is everything to me. ... We are going through a lot of pain." When Garcia de Rayos came to the U.S., she was the same age as her daughter Jacqueline is now. "Her heart is so big. She treats everyone as if they were her own family," an emotional Jacqueline said. Protests Dozens of immigration activists blocked the gates surrounding the immigration office near central Phoenix Wednesday night to try to prevent enforcement vans from leaving. Protesters said Garcia de Rayos was in one of the vehicles, which were used to transport people in ICE custody to detention centers, or to Arizona's border with Mexico for deportation. A photo by The Arizona Republic newspaper identified a woman looking through one of the vehicle windows covered by security screening as Garcia de Rayos. Police posted on Twitter that they had arrested about seven protesters, but added that the demonstration was mainly peaceful. As of midday Thursday, Maldonado said six were still being held on civic disobedience charges. A member of a new U.S. coalition of prominent American Jews and Muslims says President Donald Trumps administration has expressed a strong commitment to fight hate crimes against religious minorities, a pledge that earned the president rare praise from leaders of the two minority groups. Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council (MJAC) member Robert Silverman, who is Jewish, told VOA Persians NewsHour show that his group received assurances of the civil rights commitment from a very senior member of the new U.S. administration at a meeting in Washington February 1. The 38-member MJAC, formed last November, aims to coordinate a strategy to fight anti-Muslim bigotry and anti-Semitism in the United States and to protect the rights of the countrys other religious minorities. The body comprises 19 American Muslim and 19 American Jewish community and religious leaders, business executives and former U.S. lawmakers. The council members held their closed-door meeting with the Trump administration official as part of their first Washington advocacy day, which also included talks with current members of Congress from both the Republican and Democratic parties. The councils main priority was to seek federal action to reverse an increase in U.S. hate crimes against Jews and Muslims action that it says should include federal prosecutions of such crimes. FBI measures rise in hate crimes The latest Federal Bureau of Investigation data on U.S. hate crimes, released in November, showed that anti-Muslim crimes rose 67 percent, to 257 incidents, from 2014 to 2015; anti-Jewish crimes rose 9 percent to 664 incidents during the same period. In a follow-up telephone interview with VOA Persian, Silverman, who also serves as director of Muslim-Jewish Relations for the American Jewish Committee, said he was extremely reassured by the councils recent meeting with the Trump appointee. It was an important signal by the new administration of a commitment to work with religious minority groups like MJAC, and a commitment to enforce U.S. civil rights laws, he said. We welcomed it, and [the official] got a complete round of applause from the Muslim and Jewish council members. The councils Muslim co-chair Farooq Kathwari, CEO of American furniture manufacturer and retailer Ethan Allen, echoed that sentiment in remarks to The Jerusalem Post. It went very well, Kathwari said of the talks with the Trump administration. They said that their objective is to make sure people are treated fairly, and that they wouldnt do anything based on religion. So it was promising. Muslim-Jewish group stands apart The MJAC members praise for the new U.S. administration contrasts with major Jewish and Muslim-American organizations criticism and condemnation of the White House in recent weeks, in particular for the presidents January 27 executive order to suspend the entry of refugees into America and pause immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations considered sources of terrorism. A U.S. federal judge lifted the travel ban temporarily February 3, in response to legal challenges from critics, who called it unconstitutional. An appellate court is reviewing the issue. Those critics include the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has denounced Trumps executive order as a Muslim ban. Leaders of the Reform and Conservative American Jewish movements have issued similar denunciations of the presidential order. The White House has denied targeting Muslims and pointed to dozens of Muslim-majority nations whose citizens were not affected by the measure. MJAC has expressed support for Trumps critics, saying in an open letter to Congress that it shares their concern with any bar on refugee or other immigration to the United States based on ones religion. However, the council has declined to publicly express opposition to the travel ban. We work together, Americans of good will We are not a protest group, said Silverman, whose fellow council members include Republicans and Democrats. We have concerns [with the Trump administration], but we have ways to address them without standing on our heads and turning purple. He also said MJAC is not operating on an assumption that its relations with the new U.S. administration will go badly. I think thats a partisan approach. Rather, we are going to work together, Americans of good will, to live up to our common ideals. MJACs outreach drew criticism from the Center for Islamic Pluralism (CIP), a U.S.-based research group that challenges Islamist interpretations of Islam. In an interview with VOA Persian, CIP executive director Stephen Suleyman Schwartz said MJAC has to take a clear position on the travel ban, which he opposes. In the middle of a gigantic uproar over the direction of Trump administration policy, the council has to decide whether it will respond to Trump [critically], or play an ameliorative public relations role [on behalf of Trump] that will not go anywhere, said Schwartz, who also is a columnist for conservative news site The Weekly Standard. We cant keep waking up every day asking ourselves how we defend every weird thing the Trump administration has done, if we are going to address radical Islam and help moderate American Muslims get their house in order. Silverman appealed to other groups to give the Trump administration a chance to work with the American Jewish and Muslim communities. Lets not start by alienating allies lets start by working together with the new government, he said. I think people are going to be surprised. Silverman said the councils next goal is to start cooperating with state governments whose data collection of hate crimes MJAC wants to help improve. Parisa Farhadi of VOA's Persian Service contributed to this report. U.S. President Donald Trump targeted Republican Senator John McCain on Twitter Thursday, saying McCain's criticism of a U.S. military raid in Yemen in which a Navy Seal was killed only "emboldens the enemy." McCain on Wednesday described last week's raid, which claimed the life of Chief Special Warfare Operator William "Ryan" Owens, as a "failure." McCain said the raid, which also resulted in the deaths of civilians, including several children and women, and the loss of a $75 million airplane, "cannot be labeled a success." White House spokesman Sean Spicer defended the raid Wednesday, saying it resulted in the deaths of around 14 suspected al-Qaida operatives. "It's absolutely a success and anyone who suggests it's not does a disservice to Ryan Owens," Spicer said. The raid was the first major counterterror operation of the new Trump administration. It prompted the Yemeni government to say on Wednesday it had requested a "reassessment" of the raid and denied reports it had asked for a suspension of counterterrorisim initiatives with the U.S. "Yemen continues to cooperate with the United States and continues to abide by all the agreements," said Yemen's Foreign Minister Abdul-Malik al-Makhlafi in Cairo. He also said a Yemeni call for a halt to U.S. special operations is "not true." McCain, a frequent critic of the president, is a Vietnam veteran and a former prisoner of war. After losing the 2008 presidential election to Barack Obama, McCain won re-election to his senate seat in the southwestern state of Arizona. Yemen said on Wednesday it had not suspended counterterrorism operations with the U.S. government, despite controversy over a U.S. commando raid on al-Qaida militants in which several civilians were also killed. The raid in al-Bayda province, approved by new U.S. President Donald Trump, resulted in a gun battle that left one Navy SEAL dead and an American aircraft a charred wreck. Local medics said several women and children were killed. Yemeni officials told Reuters that Sanaa had not withdrawn its permission for the United States to carry out special operations ground missions but had made clear their "reservations" about the last operation. A statement by the Yemeni embassy in Washington said the government "stresses that it has not suspended any programs with regards to counterterrorism operations in Yemen with the United States Government." The Yemeni government "reiterates its firm position that any counterterrorism operations carried out in Yemen should continue to be in consultation with Yemeni authorities and have precautionary measures to prevent civilian casualties." Yemeni President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi has met with the U.S. ambassador to Yemen and "made clear his reservations about the problems with the last operation," a senior Yemeni official told Reuters. U.S. defense officials said they were investigating the reports of civilian casualties in the raid. U.S. Senator John McCain criticized the operation, telling NBC news on Tuesday: "When you lose a $75 million airplane and, more importantly, an American life is lost, I don't believe you can call it a success." But White House spokesman Sean Spicer defended the operation on Wednesday, calling it "absolutely a success." "I think anybody who undermines the success of that raid, owes an apology and disservice to the life of Chief Owens," Spicer said, referring to the Navy SEAL who died. The Yemeni government has supported a U.S. campaign against the country's powerful al-Qaida branch for more than a decade. US to work with Hadi The State Department said the United States would continue working with Hadi "and his representatives to ensure that this important partnership remains solid in order to ultimately eradicate" al-Qaida and Islamic State from Yemen. The January 29 commando raid was only the second publicly acknowledged ground attack by U.S. forces in Yemen. U.S. military officials told Reuters last week that the recent operation went ahead without sufficient intelligence, ground support or adequate backup preparations. As a result, three officials said, the attacking SEAL team found itself dropping onto a reinforced al-Qaida base defended by landmines, snipers, and a larger than expected contingent of heavily armed Islamist extremists. But the U.S. military's Central Command said last week that it only asks for operations it believes have a good chance of success based on its planning. A White House official has said the operation was thoroughly vetted by the previous administration and that the previous defense secretary had signed off on it in January. The situation in Yemen is complicated by a civil war pitting the Saudi-backed government against the Houthi movement aligned with Iran. Although the government is recognized internationally, the Houthis control many of Yemen's main population centers including the capital Sanaa. The U.S. operation may also have created a headache for the government not just by killing innocent people but also a local al-Qaida commander, Abdulraoof al-Dhahab, who was an ally of pro-government tribes fighting the Houthis. The deaths could alienate those armed tribes fighting for the government cause and aid al-Qaida recruitment. "It was wrong to kill him and the children ... he fought the Houthis and did not have any thought of launching attacks abroad. If the government allowed this to happen, it was a mistake," one tribal leader from al-Bayda said. More than a dozen al-Qaida members were also killed, the Pentagon said. The makers of Oscar-nominated "The White Helmets," a film about Syria's rescue workers, said the documentary's subjects had been directly affected by U.S. President Donald Trump's travel ban and that their absence at the Oscars would be a "lost opportunity." "The White Helmets," nominated in the Oscars short subject documentary category, gives a glimpse of the daily lives of the Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, civilians who volunteer as rescue workers in the war-ravaged country. The founder of the White Helmets, Raed Saleh, and a young Syrian rescue worker who shot scenes for the documentary are unable to attend the February 26 Oscars ceremony because of Trump's executive order that bars entry to the United States for citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days. "We feel even more responsibility and pressure to make sure that the White Helmets' message is shared with the world if they cannot be here to share it," the film's producer, Joanna Natasegara, told Reuters at a luncheon for Oscar nominees in Beverly Hills this week. The documentary, available on Netflix, aims to convey the "hope, inspiration and collaboration" of the White Helmets amid the years-long civil war, Natasegara said. The absence of the two White Helmets volunteers at the Oscars prevents them from being recognized and celebrated, director Orlando von Einsiedel said. "In this particular moment, the voices of Syrians and people from the Middle East are so important to be heard in order to break down misunderstandings and stereotypes," he said. Divisive issue Trump's temporary travel ban has been a deeply divisive issue across the nation. The president defended the measure as necessary for national security, while critics have challenged the ban as discriminatory against Muslims. On Tuesday, a federal appeals court heard arguments about whether a federal judge was wrong to suspend the temporary travel ban. The head of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, organizers of the Oscars, noted the "empty chairs" in the room during the luncheon, adding that the United States should not put barriers in the way of artists from around the world. Iranian director Asghar Farhadi and actress Taraneh Alidoosti, who stars in his foreign-language-nominated film "The Salesman," said last week that they would boycott the Academy Awards to protest Trump's travel restrictions. The "White Helmets" filmmakers are already planning a scripted feature-length movie on the Syrian rescue workers, with Oscar-winning actor George Clooney developing the project. Kellyanne Conway, a top adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, was counseled by White House staff after she encouraged people to buy products from Ivanka Trump's clothing line during an American television interview. Conway's comments Thursday aroused immediate ethics concerns by members of Congress and government watchdog groups who say Conway's endorsement clearly violated ethics rules. Asked about the incident later in the day by White House reporters, spokesman Sean Spicer said: "She's been counseled, and that's all we're going to go with. she has been counseled, and ... that's it." Conway was commenting on news reports that a large U.S. clothing-store group, Norstrom Inc., was no longer carrying products marketed by a company controlled by the president's daughter, Ivanka. During a live news interview ("Fox & Friends"), Conway declared Ivanka Trump's company was "wonderful," and said she wanted to give it a "free commercial" while speaking from the White House briefing room. "I own some of it [clothing]. I fully, I'm gonna just going to give a free commercial here. Go buy it today, everybody. You can find it online," Conway said. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) sent a letter to the Office of Government Ethics to complain about Conway's comments, and asked for an investigation. The progressive group said the senior Trump adviser's remarks violated federal law. "As the law makes clear, public officials should not use their offices for either their own private gain or the private gain of others. Government resources should be used for public purposes, not to promote any private party's products," the CREW letter said. The ethics law in question applies to government employees. It says, in part: "An employee shall not use his public office for his own private gain, for the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise, or for the private gain of friends, relatives, or persons with whom the employee is affiliated in a nongovernmental capacity." The top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Congressman Elijah Cummings, sent a letter to the committee's chairman, Congressman Jason Chaffetz, requesting an investigation and suggested disciplinary action could be taken against Conway. Chaffetz is reported to have characterized Conway's comments as "wholly unacceptable," but Capitol Hill veterans said it was unlikely that any action would be taken against her, since she is an employee of the executive branch of government, reporting to the president. Authorities in Zimbabwe Thursday released a pastor facing a charge of trying to subvert President Robert Mugabes government, a day after the countrys High Court had granted him release on $300 bail. Upon pastor Evan Mawarires release, journalists outside Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison were begging him to get out of the vehicle he was in and talk to them. Mawarire refused, saying he feared for the prison officials security. Later, he had this to say before driving off. It has been nine days - I have not gotten home. I would like to see my family. I would like to rest and think about a few things. But its something I appreciate, my lawyers have worked hard get us to this stage. I just want to appreciate that. But I am glad to be back home and glad to be a free man, at last. So that we can, I can enjoy Zimbabwe." When asked whether he was demoralized, he said No. Not at all. My spirits are up. Mawarire was arrested at Harare International Airport last week on arrival from the United States, where he had been in a six-month-long self-imposed exile. Last week, a lower court said the charge against him of trying to topple a constitutionally elected government was a Third Schedule Offense. That led to his lawyer, Harrison Nkomo, to file a bail application at the High Court. The application was granted on Wednesday, but Mawarire could not be released then as paperwork involved could not be completed in time. Political persecution Mawarires arrest drew worldwide condemnation, including from the U.S. government and human rights groups. Muleya Mwananyanda, Amnesty Internationals deputy director for southern Africa, said bail in the case against the clergyman was not something to celebrate. Pastor Evan Mawarire is being subjected to political persecution through the courts for exercising his freedom of expression. His continued persecution has a chilling effect on peaceful activism in Zimbabwe. The release of Pastor Evan Mawarire on bail is not enough; the politically motivated charges against him must be completely withdrawn. The state cannot continue to harass and intimidate him simply for standing up for human rights ... The actions of the state go against the principles of justice, and demonstrate a systematic targeting of those who dare to hold the government to account, Mwananyanda said. Mawarire rose to prominence last April when he posted a Facebook video of himself wrapped in a Zimbabwean flag, criticizing the state of the country. The video sparked the #ThisFlag protest movement against the government. Mawarire backed a general strike last July, calling for the Mugabe government to respect human rights and to save Zimbabwes ailing economy. Besides the charge of subversion, which carries a 20-year sentence, Mawarire faces another charge of insulting the national flag of Zimbabwe for using it in his videos. Initially, he was charged with inciting violence, but a court ruled police had violated his rights and released him by changing the charge. He fled the country soon after. A Zimbabwean pastor who was arrested for organizing protests against the government of President Robert Mugabe should be freed on bail, a judge ruled Wednesday. Evan Mawarire, who launched a protest movement on social media called #ThisFlag, has been detained since Friday at a maximum-security prison in the capital, Harare, on charges of subverting a constitutionally elected government. He faces 20 years in prison if convicted. He was arrested when he returned from the United States, where he had gone following his arrest and release in July. While in the United States, he organized protests against Zimbabwe's government at U.N. headquarters in New York. Mawarire should be released on $300 bail, surrender his passport and report twice a week to police, Judge Clement Phiri ruled. Prosecutor Edmore Nyazamba had argued that Mawarire was a flight risk and should be kept in custody pending trial. "He has established contacts outside the country, especially in the United States. If granted bail he will certainly abscond," said Nyazamba, who described the pastor as a "terrorist." But the judge agreed with Harrison Nkomo, a lawyer for Mawarire, who told the court that charges against his client were weak and that there was no chance of fleeing. "The applicant is not the kind of person to abscond," the judge said. Mugabe, 92, in power since independence in 1980, faces a brewing succession battle within the ruling ZANU-PF party amid economic turmoil that has caused massive cash shortages. Last year, police cracked down on the street protests, and Mugabe said people unhappy with the situation in Zimbabwe should leave. Zimbabweans and other nationals can breathe much easier after the Botswana government moved to look into the slow processing and arbitrary rejection of work and residence permits. In a statement, Botswana Labour Minister Edwin Batshu said he wants to see applications dealt with timeously. He said there is a backlog of pending applications and promised that the board responsible for processing applications will sit twice a week if need be to clear it. There has been an outcry that the processing of permits takes unnecessarily long and authorities reject applications without valid reasons. Botswanas finance minister, Kenneth Matambo, presenting the 2017/2018 budget in Gaborone on Monday said the government continues to create an enabling environment for investors. He promised that the issue of work permits, among others, is being looked into. The leader of the opposition, Duma Boko, in his response to the speech, hit out at the government for claiming it was creating an enabling environment when there is arbitrary rejection of permits. The number of permit holders is significantly down, with Zimbabwean remaining in the majority of holders at nearly 3,000, a drop from 7,000 in 2009. A former tourism minister of the Seychelles, Alain St. Ange, recently entered the race for the post of secretary general of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) despite affirmative endorsement of the Zimbabwean candidate, Tourism Minister Walter Mzembi, by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and African Union (AU). St. Ange says he was persuaded by some member states of the United Nations to contest the post, which is the most powerful position of the UNWTO. This is something that came up a year and half ago, and different member states of the UN approached me, and said you would be good, we have seen you participating in all the conferences of the UN for tourism and you would be an ideal candidate to put your name forward. They even went to the press and pushed my name forward about a year ago then I looked at it and more recently when I looked at the candidates putting their names forward, I said to myself it is the time to do it. I feel I am a good candidate, I feel the experience I come with and the passion I have for tourism, it is an ideal time to replace the very big shoes that Taleb Rifai (current secretary general) will leave behind. St. Ange wish Zimbabwes Mzembi well in contesting for the post saying the best candidate will land the post. He said Mzembis endorsement by SADC and AU does not mean that he is the only candidate from nations represented by these two nations. When President Mugabe was head of the African Union, we found a way that Walter Mzembi became the candidate It is his right to be candidate, but you cant buy all the peoples rights to be candidates in a democratic state today to put forward your candidature. He praised Mzembi for his accomplishments saying he is a deserving UNWTO candidate. However, he was skeptical about claims submitted by Mzembi on his length of service as a basis for him to contest the UNWTO secretary generals post as not substantial. Being the longest serving minister or knowing the longest serving president is not a credential to run with. Furthermore he dismissed as misleading remarks linked to Zimbabwean authorities claiming that St. Ange was being sponsored by the West to sabotage Mzembi. ... Democracy and democratic rights are a must for Africa to move forward. I am saddened if Zimbabwe talks this way because I praise the minister of Zimbabwe, I praise him for the work he has done. I think it is more to do with how the world sees you and how the world respects you as a person, as a country working in tourism, as a country which depends on tourism fully. I am saddened by the way Zimbabwe would find a way to try and discredit me using colonial attacks of the past. We do not have two tourism industries we have one tourism (industry) and it is so important we rally the committee of nations together and this will be one of the objectives. I try to bring the world together so there is one tourism state Mzembi declined to comment. St. Ange said he has clearly laid out plans. I have submitted a long list of changes I want to implement. They have to be on the agenda as an important point for tackling. He spoke sturdily in regard to Seychelles and its participation in the Africa Union. We respect it and we are part of it. I dont get involved into dirty or petty politics of who can win and cannot win. It is the right for everyone to put their name forward and may the best man (or woman) win And it is this big wide world that will vote for the next secretary general and you cant limit them by what the president or group wants. He also noted that his country has strong links with many nations, including America. Seychelles has good relations with the United States of America, and it is the intention of the contending candidate once secretary general we have a port that is used by the US, navy ships and military ships because its a safe port, as we have the same conditions of friendships, respect and other countries. He said Seychelles is a key player in the tourism industry as it draws millions of international visitors annually. Together we make the Seychelles people and live in total harmony, a blend of people that make us an example to the world that people can live in harmony and in peace. I am proud and Seychelles as small as it is , is able today, to stand side by side with much bigger countries and tell the world, we are here, to serve you, we are offering our services. To serve you as real professionals in the field of tourism. Senator Jeff Sessions has been sworn in as the next U.S. attorney general during a ceremony Thursday at the White House. The U.S. Senate confirmed Sessions on Wednesday, after more than a day of heated debate and a dramatic confrontation that led to the suspension of a prominent Democrat from floor deliberations. The 52-47 vote made Sessions, a long-serving Republican senator from Alabama, Americas top law enforcement officer and the sixth Cabinet pick approved in the fledgling administration of President Donald Trump. This is a special honor, Sessions told his colleagues in a farewell speech after the vote. I hope and pray I can be worthy of the trust youve given me. Ill do my best to do that. Watch: Senate Confirms Sessions as US Attorney General We all know him to be a man of deep integrity, a man of his word, and a man committed to fairness, to justice, and most importantly to the rule of law, said the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa. An early and ardent Trump supporter during last years tumultuous campaign, Sessions pledged to put the law above politics as attorney general. You simply have to help the president do things that he might desire in a lawful way, and have to be able to say no [to the president], the nominee said at his confirmation hearing last month. Ahead of Wednesdays vote, Democrats said they were unconvinced. We have a president who wants to bring back torture, said Senator Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. And we have a nominee for attorney general who is anything but independent. He was part and parcel of the Trump campaign apparatus. Theres attack after attack after attack [by Trump] on minorities, on immigrants, on Muslims, on women, on his critics, on judges, on the press, and even on truth itself, Feinstein added. Now more than ever, it is important that the Department of Justice be independent from the president. Republicans noted that Trump is hardly the first president to name backers and close confidants to his administration. This idea that Senator Sessions was close to President Trump during the campaign and thats somehow a disqualifier makes absolutely zero sense to me, said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Thats exactly the kind of people youd expect a president to pick: someone who has been on their team, someone they know. Sessions served in the Senate for 20 years and also was attorney general for the state of Alabama as well as a federal prosecutor. In 1986, then-President Ronald Reagan tapped him to be a federal judge, but the Senate voted down his nomination amid allegations of racial bias in his past. Echoes of that debate more than 30 years ago reverberated Tuesday, when Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts read a letter from the late wife of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. opposing Sessions for the federal bench. Mr. Sessions ignored allegations of similar behavior by whites, choosing instead to chill the exercise of the franchise by blacks, Warren said, reading the letter word-for-word. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, interrupted her remarks moments later. The senator has impugned the motives and conduct of our colleague from Alabama, McConnell said. Objection is heard, the senator [Warren] will take her seat, said the presiding officer, Republican Senator Steve Daines of Montana. Warren challenged the finding, forcing a vote on the dispute by the full Senate. A unified Republican caucus voted that Warren broke Senate rules on decorum and therefore was barred from speaking further on the nominee. We have rules around here, and the rules are very clear that you dont impugn another senator, said Idaho Republican James Risch. Democrats fumed. Let us not go down this path, said Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont. Its not good for democracy. And it sure as heck is not good for free speech. Republicans stood their ground, saying America benefits when congressional debate is free of personal attacks. Turn on the news and watch these parliaments around the world where people throw chairs at each other, and punches, said Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. And ask yourself: how does that make you feel about those countries? Donald Trump promised to be a law-and-order president. His new attorney general made clear during his confirmation hearing that he remains a hardliner on thorny topics like illegal immigration. If you continually go through a cycle of amnesty [for the undocumented], that you undermine the respect for the law and encourage more illegal immigration into America, Sessions said. More than 30 years after the Senate turned him down for a judgeship, the same body confirmed him for a far weightier post. He takes over at the helm of the Justice Department that defended numerous initiatives Trump has pledged to undo. CAMP RIPLEY, Minn. The Minnesota National Guard will host over 100 members of the Norwegian Home Guard as part of a reciprocal troop exchange at Camp Ripley Feb. 9 -23, 2017. The origin of the exchange began with a handshake between two veterans of the Second World War - Norwegian Major General Herluf Nygaard and Chief of National Guard, Major General Francis S. Greenlief, agreeing that a troop exchange would strengthen the bond between their two allied countries. This program which began in 1974 was the initiation of the longest allied exchange, to date, in the Department of Defense. 2017 marks the 44th anniversary of this Partners for Peace exchange program which has had over 9,000 Soldiers, Airmen and Home Guard personnel participate. Through the middle of February the exchange, at Camp Ripley, will introduce the Norwegian Soldiers to cooperative training experiences with American military and inter-agency partners focusing on domestic operations with law enforcement and homeland security. The Minnesota National Guard supporting the Federal Mission Overseas Its another busy year for the 1st ABCT! Weve got not just one, but two major international training exercises coming up. Since 2010, the U.S. Army Europe command has led an annual cooperative training exercise known as Saber Strike. Spanning across the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, thousands of troops from over a dozen countries participate each year. This year, Moorheads own 2nd Combined Arms Battalion, 136th Infantry will be sent in support of the mission. -Others will be headed to Camp Atterbury for Talisman Saber, a biennial cooperative training exercise between the U.S. Military and the Australian Defence Force. -Both of these missions will help reinforce the joint interoperability of the U.S. Military and our ability to support multinational operations. -Exercises like this require a lot, not only of the troops involved in the process, but also of their families, employers and communities. On approximately 1 April 2017, Charlie Battery 1st of the 194th Field Artillery will activate and be stationed in the Alexandria, MN Training and Community Center comply with 2020 Force Structure Guidance. 1. The Minnesota National Guard is following guidance in accordance with the 2020 Army Force restructuring of Brigade Combat Teams. 2. Soldiers assigned to units that are affected by this guidance have been given opportunities to transfer to units that have the military occupational specialty in which theyre qualified or to stay with their current unit and reclassify to the military occupational specialty of the new unit. The Minnesota National Guard will accomplish the restructure of these units with minimal turbulence to operations and personnel. Staff Sgt. Anthony Housey will be on the air (KXRA 1490am / 100.3fm) on Friday morning, February 10th on KXRA's Openline program at 9:05am. Poor Jerz. Photo: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images At long last, Linda Belcher is getting her own show sort of. John Roberts, the voice behind the eccentric Belcher matriarch, is set to star in an HBO comedy executive produced by none other than Amy Poehler. Edison, which is described as a dark musical, will be based on Robertss quaint former life in Edison, New Jersey, and follow a guy with big New York City real-estate-broker dreams who, like many a New Jerseyan before him, just cant quite make the permanent move across the Hudson. For that, Tony Soprano would like to give a warm HBO welcome to Edison. And because nothing can keep Linda and Bob apart, Bobs Burgers H. Jon Benjamin (voice of Bob) will co-write the show with Roberts. All riiiiight! Photo-Illustration: Getty Images, BBC America Last month, Peter Capaldi announced that he would step down as Doctor Whos gritty Twelfth Doctor at the end of this upcoming season. I feel its time to move on, he said, prompting fans of the beloved British franchise to begin one of the most enjoyable Who traditions guessing his potential replacement. So, who will be the Thirteenth Doctor? Will Doctor Who stick with a white actor, as it has for five-plus decades? Will a woman or person of color finally get a chance to assume the iconic role? After consulting two of the most prominent British bookmakers William Hill and Ladbrokes as well as the general chatter among fan sites, Vulture has compiled a list of the nine actors most likely claim the Time Lord title. Browse through our picks at your leisure, and dont forget to leave your own suggestions in the comments. Illustration: David Perezcassar Buddy Cole doesnt care about what you think of him. Played by actor-comedian Scott Thompson, Buddys one of the most famous characters to come out of the Canadian sketch-comedy troupe the Kids in the Hall, and hes provocation made manifest. Buddy is a world-weary gay man, utterly unafraid to offer his dry takes on the most incendiary topics. For about 30 years, Thompson has been creating and performing monologues as Buddy for stage and screen appearances, and though the characters effeminate mannerisms and cultural interests are influenced by generations of gay performers like Paul Lynde and Liberace, Buddy was something unique: He was explicitly sexual. Thompson felt that those queer forebears in comedy history had been, as he puts it, castrated they could be cheeky and suggestive, but they werent allowed to actually be textually gay, and god forbid they should actually talk about having sex with men. Thompson wanted to build a figure who stepped over that line, much as he himself had done by being openly gay on television many years before Ellen DeGeneress famed coming-out. Buddy became a staple for Thompson not only on the show but in the Kids periodic reunion tours, a mock autobiography, a brief correspondent gig on The Colbert Report, and a series of video blogs. Thompsons had a rocky few years in the recent past, having battled lymphoma, as well as seeing his most recent high-profile role, as CSI Jimmy Price on Hannibal, cut short when the show was abruptly canceled. Nevertheless, hes pressing on and contemplating a return to his most iconic character. Vulture included Buddys Kids in the Hall monologue about racism and stereotypes in our new list of 100 jokes that changed comedy, and we caught up with Thompson to talk about why the monologue only works if a gay man is delivering it, how he feels that hes never developed a gay following, and the subtext of Buddys experiences with AIDS. Lets talk about the racism monologue. That one was a big one for me. Why did you do it? It was during a very polarized time and it was around a very hot discussion of race, it was around the time of the Jean-Philippe Rushton controversy [about the intelligence of different racial groups]. I remember the monologue came quickly to me, like it was dictated. I wanted to play with the idea of stereotypes and then undercut them as they went along. Mark McKinney helped me with it. It was a controversial one. It really freaked people out. How so? What kinds of responses did you get? All kinds of responses. But I mean, you cant really argue with funny. There has to be something to it, if people laugh. I really like comedy that makes you uncomfortable. It was definitely hotly debated within the group. What were those debates like? I mean, we were always fighting over everything, and there were some members of the group that thought it might be a little too dicey. But I stood my ground, and we had an unwritten rule in the group that if someone really, really believed in something, then we had to let them do it. At the time, I guess I wasnt very cautious about anything. I was very much like, Dive in. Its an exciting piece to perform because youre dancing on the edge of a knife, and I find that very exhilarating. Its difficult for white people to talk about race. Especially white liberals. They dont think they have a right to talk about race. But were all racists! We all have a right to talk about race, thats my belief. Racism is human nature. I dont believe remotely that its a white thing that, to me, is another very racist idea, that whites are the only racist people. Its probably the most racist idea weve ever come up with. I mean, you travel into the world and you realize very quickly that racism is everywhere and that all human beings assign different qualities to other people as the other, and human beings are always trying to find ways to make it look like their group is better. Thats just human nature, and its got nothing to do with Caucasians. And I dont think that monologue would ever have worked if it wasnt done by an effeminate homosexual. Why does it matter that an effeminate gay man is doing the monologue? Because its a minority speaking. A straight guy doing that monologue, the audience would not hear it. The way Buddy speaks, that accent, whatever you want to call it, it makes the audience listen because they hear it and they immediately understand in maybe a subconscious way that a person like that has experience with prejudice. It therefore gives the speaker more of a right. And human beings are very conditioned to hear that voice and not take it seriously, too, and to think of it as a figure of fun and silliness. So Buddy Cole uses that as a weapon that faggy accent makes people go, Oh, this person is silly, all they care about is hair and makeup and clothing and silly things. Right? And then Buddy delivers very deep things and hard truths and difficult concepts. Buddy Cole is a stereotype doing a monologue about stereotypes not just about racial stereotypes, but all kinds of stereotypes. The idea that there arent men like that is ridiculous, and gay men have a delusional view about the way they present to the world. A lot of gay men think they dont read gay, but they do. So Buddys accepting of all of it hes accepting of who he is, where he stands in the world. Its interesting that you mention the voice, because Id argue that the key line of the whole monologue is when Buddy briefly turns it toward himself and says, People make fun of me because I lisp. Really! Such a lot of fuss over a few extra ss! Thats because human beings cant handle ambiguity. We want things to be black and white, we want men to be this way, we want women to be this way. Buddy rejects all that. The politics of the gay community at the time were very much about rejecting that and going, No! Men arent necessarily super-masculine, and sometimes women are super-masculine. Also, for me, it was a personally powerful because I had a lisp growing up. I had speech therapy for years. Doing Buddy was, subconsciously, me becoming my lisp. When I first started speaking as Buddy, it was difficult for me. Id always seen actors have their different voices, and back then, they all had their gay voice, and I would do never what I considered a stereotypical gay voice. I felt like if I did, Oh my god, it would take control of me and Id never speak I know this sounds awful I would never speak straight again! But I think that joke is basically that there are differences between people, but theyre minor and they dont matter, really. Its about, like, What the hells wrong with you? Why do people hate the effeminate male? I dont quite understand it. And I honestly believe its still that way. We may have found ways to pretend that its not, but I do believe, deep down, it makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Thats the most egregious type of homophobia and its the truest form of homophobia. The prejudice towards masculine women is not even comparable. Its about faggots. Buddy knows that, everywhere he goes, everybody knows what he is. He has to have an armor, because he understands that, once you get outside your liberal bubble, its a very different planet. Thats one of the reasons it was so fitting that you brought the character back to do foreign-correspondent work at the Sochi Olympics for The Colbert Report. Buddys showing that the fear of effeminate men is everywhere, even on the other side of the planet. Why didnt that feature continue on the show? Oh, I would have loved it! Maybe if the gay community had noticed it, it might have. But theyve never noticed me. Really? I have no gay following. Youd be shocked. Its a heartbreak for me, but Ive made peace with it. My whole career has been ignored by the gay establishment. Im not even being bitter. Oh, I was bitter. Im now being matter of fact about it. It just speaks to the incredible self-loathing of gay men. How does one make peace with something like that? Age. The last few years, Ive had a lot of things happen to me that were really ugly and really earth-shattering. I just had to go, I gotta make peace because I cant continue to be angry at the gay community for not acknowledging me. I mean, Ive never been mentioned by GLAAD, ever. My entire career. Never. Buddy Cole, my stand-up career, my book, my graphic novel, Larry Sanders, nothing. Coming out on television, youd think, maybe. But nothing. Well, Hannibal fans love you for your role on that show. Yeah, but no one cares. Back in the day, early in my career, there was a brief flurry of press, but then people realized, Oh, hes a real comedian, not just an activist making us feel good. Then I was written out and that was the end of me. So my whole thing now is, I like people that love comedy. Comedians are my people. Thats my tribe. Thats the only tribe I want to identify with. Im pretty proud of being Canadian, but thats about it. [Laughs.] I feel like identity politics has hit at a wall. Its nonsense. Weve got to keep stop slicing ourselves into thinner and thinner slices. Its getting us nowhere. How do you feel about Buddy now? Have you been working on new Buddy material? No, because I embraced stand-up the last six or seven years. I wanted to get good at that. Buddy Cole, in many ways, was my stand-up voice in a time when I could not be myself. But there was a tipping point when I realized, Oh, I dont have to be Buddy Cole. I can be myself. So thats what Ive been doing. But there are some topics that I think Im going to write for Buddy. Theres certain topics that are so incendiary that I feel like, maybe the only person that can handle this is Buddy. Society always has taboos, on the left and the right, and Buddy Cole ignores all those things. He doesnt see left or right. He just goes, Its all nonsense. Were all the same. We all screw up. Whats also remarkable about Buddy is how hes a counterweight to the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy vision of homosexuality. Please, dont ugh. Those depictions have historically communicated that being gay means a million different stereotypical things having to do with fashion and decorating and lisps and all that bullshit. But, in reality, the only definitional aspect of being gay is attraction to men. In an infuriating irony, that sexual impulse is the one thing those kinds of characters arent allowed to talk about. Totally. And it castrates us. Queer Eye for the Straight Guy was part of the castration of gay males in the last 20, 30 years. In order for us to be accepted, we had to give up our dicks. You can dress it up all you like, but deep down, thats what being gay is about: fucking. Even our move towards gay marriage is a weird trade-off. When people said, Love wins! its like, no sex wins. Love did not win. Fucking won. Youve always been allowed to love whoever you want. You have not been allowed to fuck who you want. Im going to get in trouble for saying that, but thats the truth. Right, and that gets at the most important subtext of Buddy, which is the legacy of the AIDS plague. Male-on-male sex was stigmatized for gay men of Buddys generation because of this societal narrative that it was an act that literally killed people. Buddy lived through that plague. Hes seen more death than his audience can imagine. As a result of that, hes somewhat fearless. Absolutely. Buddy was forged in a very, very tough time. As you said, death was everywhere. I believe that my generation of gay men went through a war. Went through a war in a society that was at peace. Society ignored our war. They did the wrong thing. So Buddy, and thats me by extension, there was kind of a crust. Like a war vet, people give him latitude because they go, That guys seen shit. I think of my generation of gay men as PTSDivas. What a term! [Laughs.] Its a good one, isnt it? Ive never said it before, but I like it. But yes, gay men between 40 and 60, I dont believe were ever gonna be truly whole. I see Buddy as a warrior. Hes first through the gate. There are many ways to be brave in this world, and hes my bravest character. Hes smarter than me, braver than me. Hes better than me. Ghost in the Shell. Photo: Karen Brill/Paramount Pictures From the get-go, Scarlett Johanssons casting in Ghost in the Shell, a live-action take on the classic Japanese manga and anime franchise centered around a Major Kusanagi, fueled accusations of whitewashing. Multiple micro-controversies and one name change to the Major later, Scarlett Johansson is downplaying the firestorm, telling Marie Claire, I certainly would never presume to play another race of a person. Diversity is important in Hollywood, and I would never want to feel like I was playing a character that was offensive. Johansson also attempts to pivot the conversation away from an unflattering one about race and toward a laudatory one about gender, explaining that having a franchise with a female protagonist driving it is such a rare opportunity. Certainly, I feel the enormous pressure of that the weight of such a big property on my shoulders. Johanssons redirection is the latest defense that the Ghost in the Shell creative team has launched to stem backlash. First, producer Steven Paul argued that Ghost in the Shell was more of an international story than a Japanese one. Director Rupert Sanders then followed, claiming that casting Johansson afforded the film the necessary star power for an otherwise very international cast. May no one think to email Margaret Cho next. Photo: David Perezcassar A block away from Hollywood Boulevard, at 1751 Vine Street, sits a peculiar star on the Walk of Fame in Los Angeles, a reminder of a period of history that many in the film industry might prefer to forget. It honors one Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry, better known as Stepin Fetchit a comedian from Alabama (by way of the Bahamas) who was the first black actor to earn a million dollars, thanks to a demeaning, racist character type. In the history of American black comedy, the specter of minstrel shows, blackface, and crude stereotype is ever-present. Success in Hollywood for minorities often comes with compromise: playing the buffoonish comic relief, the drug dealer, the welfare queen, the victim. There are many stories like Stepin Fetchits financial success in exchange for years of shucking, jiving, and coonery. Fetchit alone starred in 28 films from 1925 to 1934, successfully transitioning to Hollywoods sound era, where he played only slight variations on the character he honed in a two-man Chitlin circuit act. He rose from working in carnivals to as high as one could go as a black man in show business. But as influential as his work was in opening doors for black people in comedy, it is forever linked to the bigoted stereotype it popularized. His complicated legacy offers insights into a tension that still exists for black comedians today: how to remain defiantly black and proud in a system that was not built for you, and not be forced to choose between popular recognition and your basic human dignity. Fetchit entertained audiences with one recurring shtick: a mumble-mouthed aversion to work. This character type reflected the attitudes of white America toward black Americans at the time, as Mel Watkins describes in his book, On the Real Side: A History of African-American Comedy. Watkins cites racist jokes in magazines, like Life and College Humor, that reinforce the image of the shiftless coon figure Fetchit was simultaneously popularizing onscreen mentally deficient, averse to hard labor, and constantly begging for handouts. Perhaps no film demonstrates this better than John Fords 1934 film, Judge Priest a paean to the institutionally racist post-Reconstruction South in which Fetchit stars, with his comic persona on full display. He gives a languorous performance as the shiftless best friend to a Civil War veteran judge played by Will Rogers. Fetchits character, Jeff Poindexter, serves little purpose in the narrative other than to portray the titular judges Depression-era version of tolerance. He pals around with Poindexter, inasmuch as he finds his laziness amusing. Fetchit as Poindexter isnt quite loyal to Judge Priest more opportunistic and happy to take advantage of his largess. In one scene, he tries to scam drinks meant to quench Priests thirst before a pivotal croquet match. To a segment of the African-American critical community, Fetchit was subversive for the time. It was called putting on old massa break the tools, break the hoe, do anything to postpone the work that was to be done, Watkins told NPR. But the intent of a joke does not always overlap with the reception it receives. To see the issue with this interpretation of the Stepin Fetchit character, you need look no further than the way white audiences perceived the character. The New York Times review of Judge Priest called Fetchits portrayal of Poindexter a cloudy streak of greased lightning and riotous. Theres nary a hint that his performance was seen as anything but a light comic trifle, funny for what it was on the surface, not for any social critique it offered. There are echoes of this in how modern comics are received. Take Tyler Perrys Madea character, or Martin Lawrence, who starred in the 2001 film Black Knight a movie with the comic conceit that a stereotypical black person yelling through the Middle Ages is hilarious. Then theres Dave Chappelle and Chappelles Show. As hes a byproduct of growing up watching Richard Pryor, Redd Foxx, Dick Gregory, and other black comedians who pushed the art form through pointed racial critique, it was not surprising that Chappelle would use his basic cable platform to pick at the scabs of Americas institutionally racist history. Eventually, Chappelle hit his limit and chose to push no more, after becoming uncomfortable by the way a white audience member laughed at a sketch about a pixie in blackface convincing people to act in stereotypical ways. The scab was off. That black-pixie sketch was, in a sense, a callback to the legacy of Stepin Fetchit, a reminder of the boxes white America put black performers into, and, inadvertently, a warning that we might not have come all that far in the century since. As African-Americans, we always have to wonder if theyre laughing with us or at us. What black audiences might see as satire or parody, white audiences could interpret as the confirmation of long-held, dangerous beliefs. From the shiftless coonery of Stepin Fetchit to the fast-talking con-man figures made popular by Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, and now, Kevin Hart, the comic representations of black people in comedy sometimes act as stand-ins for real interactions with actual African-Americans. Such is the burden of the black comic to not only give audiences the characters and situations that will make you a star, but also to represent a positive image for an entire community of people. Stepin Fetchit really only had the choice of serving the former. Chappelle chose to walk away before he lost sight of the latter. We shouldnt have to choose. For more of our weeklong jokes series, listen to the Vulture TV Podcast: When Senate Democrats tried to block the confirmation of Senator Jeff Sessions for attorney general, Senator Elizabeth Warren was ready to ether the nominee with the words of Coretta Scott King. Mr. Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens in the district he now seeks to serve as a federal judge, civil-rights activist Coretta Scott King wrote in a 1986 letter. But when Warren tried to read those words, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell really stuck it to the lady, Trevor Noah jokes, and Republicans barred Warren from speaking about the nominee. The Massachusetts senator talked about the incident via satellite with The Daily Show, urging voters to read Kings letter themselves. Do you think Mitch McConnell realized in that moment what a solid hes done you? This has helped you. Noah said. What its done is helped us have a better democratic conversation, Warren replied. Photo: Randy Holmes/ABC via Getty Images Great artists have great themes, and James Browns was self-determination. Vigorously and repeatedly, his lyrics stress the importance of having something of ones own, being in command of oneself, doing what one says one will do, and the music he evolved to accompany these lyrics didnt reflect these themes so much as it amplified them, made them concrete. It had the force of necessity and a simplicity befitting self-knowledge, self-declaration, and self-love, but the grandeur was something particular to Brown himself, his voice. The more he boiled things down to self, the greater he became: When, during a song, he repeated the word I four times in a row, he sounded each time as if he had just discovered the words meaning and magnitude. Titled Super Bad, the song was released in 1970 into a frenzied world. The nations campuses were wracked with protests, and some of the protesters were shot and killed by the National Guard. The protests were directed at many policies and institutions, but their immediate cause was President Nixons extension of the Vietnam War into Cambodia, a poor nation whose roads, villages, forests, and natives the American air force incinerated in a fruitless attempt to stall the Viet Cong. The specter of a race war was no less prominent at home than abroad. In the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King by white supremacists, the liberatory initiative that animated the civil-rights movement shifted more toward organizations preaching black power, black schools, and black separatism, chief among them the Black Panthers. Whether he wanted it to or not, Browns message of individual self-empowerment coincided with the Panthers calls for education and collective action. He couldnt speak just for himself: His musics revolutionary aesthetic necessarily accompanied a movement toward social liberation (as well as, its often left unsaid, economic self-sufficiency). The alliance between art and politics was based in pride: The shared desire to feel positively justified in ones identity and the shared difficulty in gratifying that desire. In the case of black Americans, accepting oneself and taking pride in it was anything but facile. Individually or collectively, selves are constructed in dialogue with the world beyond them, and the outer world, for the minority of Americans who were black, had very little positive and next to nothing accurate to say about them. This was, of course, intentional, a matter of material and moral economy. Then and now, the fact and fantasy of white wealth is predicated on the fantasy and fact of black poverty, while the inviolability of white innocence and goodness defines itself in contrast with a blackness presumed to be inherently guilty and bad. Under such adverse conditions, merely insisting on ones goodness was of no avail. The only way forward was to take into account what the white majority believed about one and turn it, through art, to ones advantage. Believing in oneself meant accepting ones badness. Through the alchemy of culture, an inferior social status imposed from without became a mark of honor when conferred upon oneself by oneself: I got soul / And Im super bad, Brown sings, his voice thick with stress and joy, sounding for all the world as if goodness was not the antithesis of badness, but a uniquely self-aware form of it. Even the name of his music accentuated the moral inversion implicit in its lyrics. Moral hierarchies gain oppressive social power through the enforcement of ritual taboos regulating purity and pollution, yet what Brown celebrated, unrelentingly, was the antithesis of Puritan cleanliness: It was funk, the heat-spawned redolence of Southern climates and bodies. For the curious listener, fair could seem foul, while foul could seem unfamiliar, strangely sweet. But in any case, what couldnt be denied about funk was its power, its depth and range. Brown had his limits. He succumbed to the drugs whose temptations and ravages he warned against in his songs and fired his musicians for taking. Once a pacesetter, he ended up chasing trends. The business empire he had purchased with the proceeds of his record sales crumbled under the pressure of IRS audits. He invariably married light-skinned, full-figured women, beat them, divorced them, and then remarried another. All the same, his vitality exceeded him; his legacy endured. The dozens of singles that made his name feel as timely as ever, and his influence only grows more colossal with each passing year. Few corners of black and popular music were left untouched by his example. In the 70s, George Clinton would pick up where Brown left off, often literally: The ranks of Parliament included no small contingent of former Brown band members, among them Bootsy Collins, the man who shaped the plump yet angular bass line of Super Bad, whom Brown had fired for playing a show on LSD. In the 80s, Michael Jackson, who all future pop and R&B artists would end up emulating, was himself an emulator of Browns attitude and drive; so, too, was Prince, a genre unto himself. Yet his influence on the dominant popular genre from the 90s on was somehow even more profound. Artists, producers, and critics alike have witnessed how, by centering songs around vocals more spoken than sung and emphasizing percussion over melody, Brown laid the foundations for American hip-hop music, and quite often literally. No small proportion of the instrumentals in early hip-hop were directly based on James Brown rhythms and grooves. Even today, he remains the most-sampled artist ever. As the story is often told, hip-hops center of gravity ping-ponged between an East Coast centered on New York and a West Coast centered on Los Angeles, before settling in a South centered on Atlanta. But taking into account hip-hops roots in Browns music and the origins of Browns funk in the South, the ascension of Southern rap during the past two decades could easily be viewed as a renaissance. Gucci Mane is the primary source of the current Atlanta scene, but in spirit and in style, James Brown could be said to be its ultimate origin. The mantra-like repetition of short phrases and the high concentration of ad-libs that are hallmarks of todays Atlanta house style have as much, if not more, in common with the Godfather of Soul as they do with present-day rap beyond the South. Consider the Migos, the north Atlanta triad whose second studio album Culture, recently released, topped the Billboard charts in its first week. Fittingly, Quavo, Takeoff, and Offset inscribed themselves in hip-hop culture in three major ways. Their breakout 2013 mixtape Y.R.N. tripled down on mantras to a distinctive and alarming degree (Versace, Hannah Montana, China Town) and was largely responsible for shifting the prosodic balance of rap nationwide from meters which stress every second or fourth syllable toward those which stress every third syllable; in subsequent years they would promote dabbing (the tipping point probably being 2015s Look at My Dab), a physical motion which soon became ubiquitous to the point where one could see white kids in the audience of Counter-Strike tournaments tucking their head into an arrow with a bent elbow for its tip and an extended arm for its tail. The parallels between James Brown, who repeated words and phrases (the aforementioned I, please, the funky drummer, among many others) with an intensity verging on abstraction, who single-handedly shifted the rhythmic emphasis in black music from drumbeats stressing the second and fourth beats to ones stressing the first and third, and whose dance moves were taken up worldwide through the King of Pop, and the Migos are as far-reaching and deep as comparisons between the Migos and Beatles are instigative and facetious. The stylistic bonds between the artist of Super Bad and the artists of Bad and Boujee (Cultures currently ubiquitous lead single) are complemented by linguistic ties. Sonically, Bad and Boujee isnt very funky produced by Metro Boomin, the track tends toward more of a lounge-y, even louche vibe. Yet in terms of tone it hews closely to the logic of Super Bad. Bad and Boujee is the latest entry in a lineage of iconic deployments of badness that runs from Super Bad (1970) through Melvin Van Peebless seminal blaxploitation film Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song (1971, required viewing for Black Panther members), the hard-core punk pioneers Bad Brains (founded 1977), Michael Jacksons Bad and Bad (1987), Samuel L. Jacksons bad motherfucker wallet in Pulp Fiction (1994), and the line of self-proclaimed bad bitches in rap from Lil Kim and Trina up to Nicki Minaj. These last are, unsurprisingly, the most pertinent to the Migos. When Offset mentions, during the songs uncharacteristically long hook, that My bitch is bad, its clearly a statement of pride in a woman as beautiful as she is demanding, tenacious, and grounded. Of course, theres an extra term that wasnt there before, one which highlights how things have changed in the four decades since Super Bad. An alternative spelling of bougie, boujee derives from the French word bourgeois, which itself derives from bourg, meaning town; bourg springs from the same medieval root, and means more or less the same thing, as the -burg in Hamburg, the -burgh in Pittsburgh, and the five boroughs of New York. Populated in large part by escaped and liberated serfs, the towns of Europe served as incubators for a middle class of tradesmen, merchants, and bankers, one posed precariously between peasant and aristocrat yet distinct from both. Many centuries later, in the wake of several revolutions (English, French, industrial, scientific), that class had risen to become the dominant political and economic class on the continent; simultaneously, through the savagery of imperial wars, the displacement and plunder of colonization, and the coercive imposition of imbalanced trade relations, it had become the dominant class on the planet. It was then, during the 19th century, when the power of their mode of capitalism was at its most naked, that the bourgeois as a class were analyzed by Karl Marx so extensively that the word became inseparable from Marxism, a philosophy of action that aimed to overthrow it. Its unclear at what point the phrase entered into popular circulation among black Americans, but the likeliest periods are the 1930s and 1940s, when the Soviet-directed American Communist Party made inroads among both the black and white industrial working class in Northern cities, or, more likely, during the late 1960s and 1970s, when the Maoist-influenced Black Panthers were at their most popular and most active. What is clear, though, is that bougie took on a life of its own. It retained the pejorative tone and class critique of its origins, but it acquired a cultural valence specific to black American conditions in the post-60s era. Like any strong word, the meaning of bougie is uncommonly flexible, but it was and is often mockingly deployed by black people against other black people, predominantly college-educated, whose affectations of respectability the former viewed as insincere or preposterous. Like hipster, bougie was virtually never a word one willingly applied to oneself; like hipster, bougie was an electrifying phrase because it simultaneously tapped into multiple reserves of guilt related to money, social origins and aspirations, personal authenticity, and cultural self-presentation. Unlike hipster, though, bougie wasnt centered on quirkiness, but on propriety. The hipster strives to divest himself of the blandness of whiteness while retaining its privileges; the bougie seeks refuge from the exceptional (for better and worse) status of blackness by aspiring to a fixed ideal the classic man. In both cases, style is the vehicle through which the striving expresses itself, but the styles emerging from each could hardly be more diametrically opposed. Hipster style is anarchic, provisional, masochistic; bougie style is neoclassical, stolid, anesthetic. Perhaps the keenest reader of the vagaries and motives of bougie culture was Kanye West, whose early albums send up bougie premises about the worth of proper schooling while folding bougie ambitions back into a broader narrative of black aspiration. The College Dropouts Get Em High is particularly ambivalent in its observation of what Talib Kweli, during his verse, calls bougie behavior: the song serves as a directory of bougie tastes (Common, Talib Kweli) and platforms (the social network BlackPlanet, the website Okayplayer) circa 2004, but it also points toward the instability of bougie identity. The black coed Kanye aims to bed (at NYU but she hail from Kansas) may prefer Talib Kwelis album, but her friend Candace worships Biggie Smalls, and its not as if her respectability precludes her emailing him seductive images of herself and Candace together. Though it doesnt mention the term bougie outright, Fancy from Drakes debut album Thank Me Later is clearly operating in a similar orbit: Splitting the difference as he tends to do, Drake states that he likes college-educated, style-conscious, independently wealthy women who are book and street-smart not quite My bitch is bad and boujee, but its certainly getting close. In Migos hands though, the term boujee, while still maintaining an aesthetic valence, seems to have returned to the economic meaning it originally possessed in the 19th century: As in Marxs day, it once again means something very close to nouveau riche. Im young and rich and plus Im boujee, Offset declares, off-handedly. It reinforces his assertion in the intro that We aint never had no old money, but we sure got a lot of new money and in the hook that We came from nothing to something. The best application of the word, though, goes to Quavos ludicrous, revealing proclamation that his Draco automatic rifle is bad and boujee: The money and culture peel away for a moment, exposing the violent threats that underwrite them. As with the Migos themselves, the meaning of boujee is threefold: newly rich, displaying new riches through style, and candid about the (bad) means by which the riches were attained. Bougie was antithetical to gangster rap, but boujee is synonymous with it, albeit in a chintzier tone: As with every memorable Migos song, Bad and Boujee is wonderful because its stylish and chintzy at the same time, and powerful because it doesnt bothering hiding either fact. With them, cultural pretensions no longer swell in the presence of money, but fade. For bourgeois Americans of all colors, desperate not to be bad, this is all but impossible. Quavo, Takeoff, and Offset seem to grasp intuitively that, in the modern world, no elegance is possible without vulgarity. And if, in Balzacs words, behind every great fortune lies a crime, why even bother lying about it? Just as James Brown claimed to have Chinese ancestry and the Black Panthers carried around Maos little red book, the Migos, at least in the mythical world conjured by their lyrics, have their own Chinese connection. Whatever the personal truth of the verses in China Town (Young rich nigga, I got plugs out in China Town) its true that no small portion of the drugs dealt in America, especially powerful opiates like fentanyl, are of Chinese origin, filtered through Mexican cartels. For all the concordances between James Brown and hip-hop and James Brown and the Migos, theres a marked difference so far as drugs are concerned. Brown warned his audience about drugs in King Heroin and Public Enemy Number One, describing them as thieves of ones virility and inner freedom, but rap music, especially its most prevalent, least bougie variants, has based its own gospel of self-determination around their sale and distribution. Quavo, Takeoff, and Offset are musically innovative and fun in a non-sadistic way, and thats more than enough to ask from them. They dont have to be revolutionaries, or even cultural revolutionaries. But at times their choice of words does point out, in its way, what the obstacles to social transformation are within those who would seek it. Society is structured on an economic basis, but there are more economies than just the material: Goodness is itself a scarce good, and its distribution is inextricably tied to notions of purity. Doesnt it follow that to alter this state of affairs one must first accept ones own bad nature, ones own bougie pretensions, ones funk as a matter of fact? If Twitter is any indication, the worst world of all may well be a world where everyone believes they are innocent. In any case, its evident that the culture in which the Migos play such a prominent role continues to be the best thing available in a bad world not bad meaning good, but bad meaning bad. Several years ago when I started writing my book on the National Endowment for the Arts, I wanted to examine the political history of its founding and give serious attention to the early arguments against it. To be honest, when I began the project I was skeptical of the NEA and of government funding of the arts in general. But by the time I reached the past few chapters my attitude began to shift, particularly as I began to see that the endowment was serving a much broader constituency than I had previously understood. When I closed the cover, I was a supporter. Now come rumors that the current administration intends to cut the NEA out of the budget entirely. In mid-January, just before the inauguration, a Washington newspaper reported that Trumps budget team was working from a report by the Heritage Foundation, a group that has long kept a catalog of ways in which government spending should be brought under control and ending the NEA is part of those plans. Numerous times in the past the agency has faced attempts to slash its budget or do away with it entirely, but this time the free-wheeling nature of the president seems to make the threat particularly unnerving to supporters. There was an immediate eruption of worry and protest from artists, actors and nonprofit organizations who support the arts endowment, but over the course of the past two weeks that feeling of utter panic seems to have lessened somewhat. Actor Tim Daly, president of the arts advocacy group The Creative Coalition, told Variety magazine that there are still a lot of politicians on both sides of the aisle who understand the importance of what we do. I think were going to be OK, but were going to have a fight. Thats surely true and arts backers are once again going to have to justify the endowment. One of the typical responses to threats to the agency is to point out that in the face of total government spending, the annual appropriation for the NEA is so small ($146 million in fiscal year 2015) that discontinuing it wouldnt even make a dent in the budget deficit. That is no doubt true, but its not a good argument for defending the endowments existence. If the NEA doesnt serve a legitimate interest of the people, it cant be justified as a program no matter how small its budget is. On the other hand, if it is justified, then one can make a better case for keeping its budget intact. Its legitimacy comes in the way it contributes to a greater exposure to the arts for people all across the United States, in every state and literally down to every congressional district. Since the agency stopped giving grants to individual artists back in the mid-1990s, groups like local symphonies and arts festivals, along with state arts agencies that have their fingers on the pulse of the arts in their own states have been the main beneficiary of endowment spending. Now the NEA functions more like the National Gallery of Art, but on a truly national scale. Similar to the way the NGA puts the best art ever created on public display for those who can make it to Washington, the NEAs mission is to carry the experience of art far afield. The National Endowment for the Arts is a community good whose benefits are designed not for inscrutable individualists who seek to shock or offend, but for the general population. Thats what makes it worthwhile. Thats how it should be defended. Butterflies in the stomach. Sweaty palms. Accelerated heart rate. Dry mouth. Tightness in swallowing. Difficulty in focusing. Cold hands and feet. Its time to perform. Millions of musicians, actors, public speakers or anyone doing something in front of an audience, no matter how small know the above symptoms well: Theyre signs of performance anxiety, also called stage fright, and can be debilitating, even for a professional performer. National surveys of what makes Americans fearful consistently show public speaking at the top of the list. For Boston filmmaker John Beder, performance anxiety drove him out of a career as a professional percussionist and into producing a documentary about how professional musicians and others cope with it. That 78-minute documentary, Composed, will be screened for the public at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Baylor University, courtesy of Baylors School of Music. The subject and the need to address it for young performers made School of Music Dean Gary Mortenson more than amenable to hosting a public screening of the movie, followed by a panel discussion on the subject with Beder on the panel. All of us deal with performance anxiety with no exceptions, said Mortenson, who has a background in trumpet performance in addition to his administrative experience. I feel an obligation to Baylor and the greater public to bring information on something thats pretty much universal. Music training often emphasizes theory, instrumental technique and repertory, while subjects such as performance anxiety arent addressed overtly or, as Mortenson noted, admitted openly. For Beder, the psychological tension that built before performing often caused his hands to twitch and eventually led him from his studies at Boston University into another field. I just left music. This feeling of watching my hand shake while I was playing a snare drum. . . . he said. Though stage fright is often associated with performers at the front of a stage, soloists or actors, percussionists have an equally strong fear of a public mistake, Beder said: a missed beat that throws off an ensemble, for instance, or a cymbal crash at the wrong time. The film that became Composed started initially as Beders exploration of musicians who used the beta blocker propranolol, a prescription medicine for heart disease, to control the physical symptoms of stress. What he found was even more interesting: how performance anxiety affects even veteran musicians performers with such elite groups as the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra and how constrained they felt in talking about it. It shocked me the number of people who said, Yes, I get nervous . . . and how they wished they could be more open about it, said Beder, presently on a national tour with his wife to support the movie. I hope this movie is empowering, to let (people with performance anxiety) know theyre not alone. Composed interviews professional musicians, students, therapists, doctors and more to reveal how universal performance anxiety is and the varied approaches to coping with it. For Beder and some performers, stage fright raises an existential question: What happens if you prepare for a life as a performer, but cant get past a crippling anxiety about doing that, whether in front of an audience of thousands or an audition before a handful? Baylor University professor of acting Steven Pounders, an Equity actor who often performs in Dallas- and Austin-area productions, says performance anxiety is a crucial subject for an actor and noted pioneering Russian actor and teacher Constantin Stanislavski addresses it overtly and by implication throughout his textbook An Actor Prepares. Though many think that the major effect of stage fright is forgetting ones lines in a play, it can have a less visible, but equally damaging result on a performance. Worry about your performance takes away your concentration . . . actors who lose their concentration ultimately lose their honesty (in performance) and that results in cliched acting, Time spent in learning ones lines and role goes far to build a confidence that minimizes the effect of stage fright, but so does training in narrowing ones focus from a watching audience to the action and dialogue at hand. Pounders finds that when stage fright hits and makes his knees weaken, he focuses on whats onstage in front of him: the actors sharing the stage and the scene thats being played. The musicians interviewed in Composed share their tips on coping with performance anxiety, from meditation to medication. One common strategy is what untold music teachers and acting directors have preached for centuries: practice, practice, practice. The number one strategy is preparation . . . Failure often comes with a lack of preparation, said Mortenson. Practicing or preparing in front of someone else, such as a friend helping with an actors lines or a teacher listening to an exercise, is important to build toward a big performance. If your first recital is at Carnegie Hall, youve made a mistake, Mortenson said. (Some of Baylors most talented student musicians, incidentally, are shooting for a bid at New Yorks Carnegie Hall this Sunday with the final public round of the Semper Pro Musica competition scheduled from 1 to 7:30 p.m. at Jones Concert Hall.) By tackling the question of stage fright head-on, talking about it openly and developing , performers both professional and amateur have tools at hand to keep it in check. If you have butterflies, teach them to fly in formation, said Mortenson. Three former University High School administrators played key roles in academic wrongdoings at UHS during the 2015-16 school year, despite initially denying the claims, documents and emails obtained by the Tribune-Herald reveal. A 20-page factual summary report and comments found in a haystack of 1,100 emails directly tie former principal Kendra Strange, former dean of instruction Ronald Massey and former senior counselor Mindy Place to awarding course credit to some 2016 graduates who did not properly earn the credits. The administrators also failed to follow proper procedures for credit-recovery programs and for end-of-course retesting, according to findings in an external investigation report released in October and turned over to the Texas Education Agency for review. Investigators discovered soon after starting work in summer 2016 that the schools senior class did not have a 100 percent graduation rate, as the school reported at the time. The TEA was still reviewing those findings as of Wednesday, TEA spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson said, adding she could not estimate how much longer the review would last. In addition to the three UHS administrators, at least three mid- to upper-level Waco Independent School District administrators had knowledge of academic reporting issues on the campus, the emails and factual summary report show. Assistant Superintendent Robin McDurham; Kim Ellis, the districts assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction; and Tiffany Sommerfeld, the districts public education management system and counseling director, were aware of reporting issues, according to the documents. Sommerfeld discovered the initial inconsistencies with University High graduation information. The documents were obtained through an open records request made by the Tribune-Herald and help outline who knew what leading up to graduation day on June 4, 2016. Emails between May 23 and May 25, 2016, showed Strange, Massey and Place were all aware of fatal errors showing up within the states computerized grading and attendance reporting system or Public Education Information Management system and were working with Sommerfeld to correct the grade-reporting issues, specifically how students were coded within the system. Those fatal errors were ultimately what nailed down the wrongdoings found late in the 2015-16 school year. Campus administrators were the immediate authority on following procedures and guidelines, read a statement from the district released Feb. 1. The scope of the issues uncovered by the investigators was greater than the pieces of which any high-level administrators were aware. They are being held accountable, but the district doesnt comment on internal employee matters. Though nothing in the emails indicates Strange, Massey and Place intentionally made decisions to commit academic wrongdoings, the emails support details found in the factual summary report indicating they were aware of the problems prior to graduation. The emails span eight days leading up to graduation in June 2016. The number of students impacted by the academic wrongdoings isnt clear, but state law dictates no student formally certified as a graduate during commencement ceremonies will lose his or her diploma or status as a graduate. Graduation projects The TEA allows students who have failed end-of-course exams for no more than two classes to graduate if they participate in an individual graduation committee process to demonstrate proficiency in the subject(s). Students graduating through the committee process also must complete a project related to the subject area or prepare a portfolio of work samples in the subject area of the course, demonstrating course proficiency, according to state law. When the initial findings came out in October, external investigators reported English I and English II individual graduation committees did not have UHSs department chair on the committee as required by law, and the person who led the committee did not have a secondary English teaching certificate. At least three students who failed or did not take three end-of-course exams or one more than state law allows graduated through the committee process. And at least eight students under the age of 18 did not have a parent or guardian participate in the committee, as also required by law, and virtually none of the U.S. History individual graduation committees had an individual teacher assigned, as the law requires. The factual summary report stated Massey and McDurham had direct involvement with the individual graduation committees, but conflicting comments from witnesses make it difficult to determine how and who exactly appointed Joy Morris to English individual graduation committees, the report stated. Morris was a content area specialist at the district level who resigned at the end of the 2016 school year, Superintendent Bonny Cain said. The report stated Morris indicated Academic Advising Coordinator Isabel Lozano requested her to participate in the committees, and that employee alleged Massey assigned personnel to the committees. Mr. Massey denied he picked the teachers who would serve on the English IGCs, the summary report stated. Mr. Massey stated he would wholeheartedly disagree with Ms. Lozanos assertion he picked the teachers for the English IGCs, and stated he couldnt even name who the teachers were. Strange told investigators McDurham instructed Strange to have Morris sit on the committee, but McDurham responded to the allegation by telling investigators she wasnt sure how people were assigned to the committees. McDurham also told investigators that Strange told Cain that Morris was serving on the committee, according to the summary report. But Cain denied having any knowledge of Morris serving on the committee and was relying on her subordinates to know if that was appropriate or not, the summary report stated. Another incident, related to a complaint made through the districts anonymous Lighthouse reporting system on April 21, 2016, stated committee projects didnt properly reflect course content for English I and English II. It also raised concerns about the amount of time given to students for the projects, alleging Massey and Morris were involved. The factual summary report stated the complaint was forwarded by Cain to Strange and McDurham. The report goes on to state Ellis gave Cain information about timelines for the projects, indicating Massey and Lozano were in charge of identifying students eligible for project completion, review attendance, credits, end-of-course remediation/growth. Because the administrators and district officials signed settlement agreements that stated all parties involved are clear of any allegations of wrongdoing, Cain and Waco ISD board President Pat Atkins previously said they could not go into specifics about any accusations. But Massey has since been vocal about denying wrongdoing. He didnt have any idea mistakes were being made, and frankly Im not very impressed with the report that was being done, as Ive told the lawyers that did it, Masseys attorney, Jay Brim, said in November. Brim stated in an email Sunday that Massey did not want to comment further, and a receptionist for Places attorney said the firm did not want to comment on the situation. Attempts to reach the attorney representing Strange were unsuccessful by Wednesday. Changing standards The external investigation also revealed that three students who plagiarized work were allowed to redo portions of their English projects and received the necessary grades to graduate. Standards for passing the English projects connected to the individual graduation committees also were lowered and 11 projects then were regraded, allowing those students to graduate, according to external investigation documents. But the factual summary report stated it is unclear who authorized students to redo portions of the plagiarized projects. Strange and McDurham were aware that students engaged in plagiarism but didnt object to allowing students to redo their projects, the summary stated. Morris told investigators she brought up the plagiarism issues to Massey and Lozano. She said it was determined during that discussion students could have another opportunity to fix the issues and that Massey asked her to have two particular students write statements about what happened, the report states. Morris then said she informed Strange of the matter, but the summary says Massey stated he had only heard of one plagiarism issue, didnt have any idea how the situation was resolved and was not involved in any discussions about how to resolve the issue. Strange, meanwhile, said she found the issue to be significant, but she didnt follow up on it because she trusted the plan they came up with was a viable plan, and that she was OK with the decision to allow students to redo plagiarized projects, the summary states. McDurham also acknowledged in the report she was aware of at least one UHS student committing plagiarism, but the decision had already been made to allow the student to redo the project. The summary then goes on to say evidence including witness statements and documents gathered by investigators confirm that standards for projects were changed multiple times, and students who didnt meet the required lowered standards were allowed to redo their projects as well. The summary says Ellis, McDurham and Strange all indicated they were aware the standards had been lowered. By decision of the IGC (individual graduation committee), the score was legally changed to align with the stated average of the passing rate score and the exemplary rate score on the stated end-of-course writing exams, Ellis wrote in a statement released through Waco ISD spokesman Bruce Gietzen Feb. 1. I concurred once I confirmed those stated numbers. The project initially created by the content specialist was more difficult than the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness end-of-course exams, McDurham also wrote in a statement coinciding with Ellis statement. After feedback from teachers, she adjusted the project scoring to align with stated passing standards for the STAAR, and I agreed, McDurham wrote. Morris told investigators the original decision was made between her, Massey and another person, but Massey denied he was involved in the decision, according to the summary report. End-of-course testing External investigators discovered students required by law to have opportunities to retest on end-of-course exams were told they did not need to take the test and could complete an individual graduation committee project instead, though the TEA requires them to re-test. Some students present on campus also were coded as absent on their testing instruments, despite being coded as present in the district attendance system, indicating they did not re-test as required by the TEA and specifically directed by Cain, the superintendent, according to initial information released from the investigation. External investigators said they were unable to determine if there was a concerted effort not to re-test students. In an email sent June 2, 2016, from Cain to Strange, Cain stated she was aware of the attendance coding issue, and that it dated back to when students could have retested in December. She ordered Strange to have an attendance clerk gather records and scan records to Sommerfeld to determine which students actually were present versus absent. We need to resolve those discrepancies to the TEA, as they get rather upset when they pay for student attendance and we send conflicting attendance data, Cain wrote. Strange responded by sending an email to Massey and another employee June 3, 2016, asking for the records to be pulled. (Cains) email was sent because the campus administration was stating there were attendance-taking issues during the times of actual testing. However, there were no issues in the attendance-taking process, Sommerfeld wrote. This was a way of diverting attention from the important facts. She wrote that students who were supposed to be taking end-of-course exams were not assigned to a testing room because administrators told students they didnt have to retake the tests. This meant students who needed to retest were in other classrooms, the gym or participating in extracurricular activities. Since those students werent in their testing rooms, they were reported absent when tests were submitted to the state, she wrote. The factual summary report confirms that. Credit recovery Texas schools typically offer credit-recovery programs for students who miss too many days and for students who dont meet academic requirements. Initial details released by external investigators found questionable practices in UHSs programs and that the campus attendance review committee failed in several ways, including possibly reviewing students circumstances as individuals instead of in committee form. The investigation revealed campus employees didnt distinguish between students who attended more than 75 percent of the days of a certain class and students who attended less than 75 percent of the days, as required by state law and district policy. Documentation regarding attendance-based credit appeals was disorganized and inadequate, external investigators stated. For example, the summary report stated Strange didnt recognize the term Principals Plan. Under state law, all principals are responsible for creating their own plan for attendance recovery within district and state guidelines, Sommerfeld said. It is intended to specify what is needed for students to regain credits lost because of excessive absences, she wrote. The TEA allows students who attend between 75 and 90 percent of their classes and have a passing grade to regain those course credits, Sommerfeld wrote. Other than the districts board policy and the student handbook, there appeared to be no guidance provided by the district to instruct campuses on attendance-based credit recovery or credit appeals, the factual summary report stated. However, in an email dated May 25, 2016, Place, the UHS senior counselor, sent an email to Massey, the UHS dean of instruction, after it was forwarded by Sommerfeld with the subject line Attendance appeals. Sommerfelds email included four attachments: the attendance appeal procedure, elementary and secondary appeal forms, and an attendance appeal document for 12th-grade students. Her email read, Just in case you misplaced them . . . See the part about 12th grade :-) Places email stated. Massey responded to the email, stating, A bit late for this information to come out . . . Are we aligned with what they want? Place responded, It came out a while ago, I sent it to you then as well . . . Im not sure, I havent gone through it all. That exchange occurred only 10 days before the June 4 graduation. Starting as early as October 2015, teachers reported through the districts Lighthouse reporting system that they had no clear direction from administrators on how to handle excessive absences. While district officials investigated each Lighthouse report and the issues were addressed directly, Cain said in December she wished she would have stepped back sooner to see the potentially larger problem at hand. At one point, external investigators asked Strange if she was familiar with the states 90 percent rule, which states students must attend 90 percent of each class in order to pass. Strange, who had previous experience as a principal in Texas, stated she remembered hearing about the rule but couldnt speak intelligently about it without going back to familiarize herself first. Dr. Strange had experience as a principal in Texas, interviewed well and had positive references, a statement from the district read Feb. 1. The district had no reason to think she would not have known the 90 percent rule. The summary report states Strange admitted to not knowing what the campus had been doing to help students regain course credit during fall 2015, and she and other witnesses asserted Massey was in charge of credit appeals. Witnesses alleged the campuss approach was to wait until the student lost credit before credit appeal or recovery efforts could begin, the summary stated. Based on this approach, seniors who were slated to lose credit for excessive absences in the second semester of their senior year had one week to make up the lost time, which became chaotic for the campus due to the large number of students and high percentage of the senior class that needed to make up time, the summary report states. Top Lab courses Students even went from a failing grade to passing after only a few hours of work in Top Lab credit recovery, external investigators stated, which would not be nearly enough time to successfully complete the task, according to Sommerfeld. Top Lab courses are computer-based and are used with the same Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards as face-to-face courses, Sommerfeld wrote in an email to the Tribune-Herald sent via Gietzen, the spokesman. Each course has several different components that must be completed before a student can receive credit, she wrote. On average, it takes approximately 30-60 hours to complete a semester course, with previous instruction, Sommerfeld wrote. Completion of the course must be done prior to graduation, allowing the teacher of record to review the course completion, the counselor time to fill out the paperwork gaining the credit, the administrator time to review and sign off for accuracy and the registrar time to enter the information onto the transcript. Its unrealistic to expect a student to complete that work on Top Lab in just minutes or a few hours. Keep in mind Top Lab is primarily used by our district to make up academic credit, not absences. McDurham added there wasnt a cutoff time for students to complete Top Lab courses before graduation day, but Massey sent an email dated June 1, 2016, to Strange and two other employees, with the subject line final senior push. I have a targeted senior list we need to call first thing in the morning. We will need to get the students into Top Lab on Thursday and Friday (if needed) to get them cleared for graduation, the email stated. We must document the parent/guardian we contact. 100 percent must be contacted. . . . Lets touch base in the morning for this final intervention. Thanks! The factual summary found Place, the counselor, was responsible for reviewing students credit deficiencies and assigning time in Top Lab. Students even participated in a blended Top Lab recovery process using pencil and paper when they werent able to meet the rigor required for standard Top Lab courses, despite the fact that no district guidance exists to address a blended process, the summary report states. Massey was aware of and supported the blended process, according to the report. Some students work in the Top Lab program was manually overridden and units not assigned were crossed out, which conflicts with how a traditional process would go, the report states. There was also no secure or formal method used to track students credit deficiencies. Place and Massey used a Google document, and whenever a student purportedly earned credit, they removed the students name from the list of students lacking sufficient credits, the summary report notes. An email sent by Massey to Strange, Place and another employee on May 25, 2016, included only an attached Senior Intervention Plan 2016. The plan included a schedule of seven Top Lab sessions between May 28 and June 3 at about four hours each well short of the amount of time Sommerfeld indicated would be needed for successful completion and were planned around graduation rehearsal. Investigators were unable to determine how many students participated, saying they would have to review each UHS seniors transcript to do so. Another email on June 1, 2016, from Massey to Place, Strange and three other employees indicates administrators were trying to perform a mass transcripting process. Massey at that point indicated he was in charge of any changes made to transcripts. Mass transcripting populates student transcripts with attendance and grades based on information from students report cards, Sommerfeld wrote in her email to the Tribune-Herald. It is done to determine students class ranking and grade-point average. No individual record may be changed from a Y to an N without my prior approval. This will minimize unnecessary corrections. If you have questions, please see me. This process allows us to push senior grades before 9-11 grades for clearing graduates, Masseys June 1 email stated. Gietzen said the Y and N do not apply to changing a failing grade to passing, and he is unsure of what the change applies to. Massey also sent two emails on June 1, 2016, thanking two educators for helping seniors reach graduation requirements through Top Lab and senior interventions. Strange was copied on both emails. Systematic fixes Though the investigations factual summary report and emails and documents obtained by the Tribune-Herald reveal no motive behind the academic wrongdoing, or clear evidence showing wrongdoing was done intentionally, the district has since put in place systematic measures to ensure instances like this dont happen again. In a statement released Feb. 1, the district said officials have since created an individual graduation committee guidebook, and staff has participated in two training session on policies and procedures. Officials also have created an administrative guideline pertaining to academic credit recovery, and Principal Plans are being updated. Other recommendations by external investigators were reviewed and many were already implemented, the statement read. The district recently hired a new principal for the UHS campus. No stranger to Waco ISD or University High, Abbott ISD Superintendent Ricky Edison said he looks forward to returning to the district in which he started his education career. Im very excited about this new endeavor and Im very thankful for this opportunity, Edison said at a school board meeting Jan. 26, at which time his start date had not yet been determined. Specifics Breakdown of academic wrongdoing discovered through an external investigation about University Highs 2015-2016 school year, according to Waco ISD officials and investigation documents: 1. Irregularities in the individual graduation committee process - English I and English II individual graduation committees did not have the University High Schools department chair on the committee, and the person who led the committee did not have a secondary English teaching certificate. - The standards for passing the English projects connected to the committees were lowered, and projects were then re-graded. - At least three students who failed or did not take three End-of-Course exams participated and graduated through the committee process. The maximum the state allows is two. - Three students who engaged in plagiarism were allowed to re-do portions of their English projects and received the necessary grades to graduate. 2. Irregularities in the end-of-course testing opportunities - Students required by law to have the opportunities to retest were told they did not need to take the test or could complete an individual graduation committee project instead. - Students present on campus were coded as absent on their testing instruments and coded as present in the district attendance system, indicating they did not retest as required by the Texas Education Agency and specifically directed by the superintendent. 3. Credit recovery for excessive absences - An assistant principal said she was told by an administrator that no student would fail to graduate due to attendance. - University Highs attendance committee did not address seniors spring attendance issues until May 27, 2016, eight days before graduation. -Documentation regarding attendance-based credit appeals was disorganized and inadequate. -Students went from a failing grade to passing after only a few hours of work in Top Lab credit recovery. 4. Credit recovery for previously failed course work - Students went from failing a grade to passing a grade after only a few hours of work in the online credit recovery curriculum offered at the campus. Emails between former University High Principal Kendra Strange, Superintendent Bonny Cain and assistant superintendent Robin McDurham show Strange made an effort to address allegations of administrative bullying that created a closed-campus atmosphere and leadership issues. Emails from October 2015 highlight a summary of a meeting between Strange and McDurham, Stranges direct supervisor at the time, about how Strange planned to resolve communication issues troubling the campus. The emails also outline how Strange planned to address almost 20 complaints filed by September 2015 to Waco Independent School Districts Lighthouse reporting system. The system is a risk-free way for employees to anonymously report unethical or illegal behavior, and the Tribune-Herald received the emails through a public records request. Strange resigned in October as administrators reported academic wrongdoing by University administrators in the 2015-16 school year. University employees filed 44 Lighthouse reports directly related to Strange and two other University administrators who resigned at the same time. Administrative bullying at University contributed to school officials awarding course credit to 2016 graduates who did not properly earn the credits, Cain said in November, days before announcing her retirement. Administrators at the school also failed to follow proper procedures for credit recovery programs and for state end-of-course retesting, according to an external investigation report the district released in October and turned over to the Texas Education Agency. Based on the fact that Dr. Strange has received copies of the Lighthouse responses, I have conferenced with her, and she has addressed each of the issues and appears to be stabilizing the campus climate and culture, McDurham wrote to Cain on Oct. 12, 2015. I have requested the documentation serve as note to file for the time being. Should failure to follow policy and procedures or poor communication practices persist, the documentation will be used, and the specific incident memorandums to follow will be considered as a second tier of documentation. Despite the improvements administrators noted in their meeting with Strange, including Strange making herself more available to teachers, the Lighthouse reports continued well into the second semester, stating similar, reoccurring issues. An email chain dated Feb. 17-18, 2016, between McDurham and Strange shows signs of strife among teachers and continued leadership struggles for Strange. The email refers to an incident involving a University High teacher and other district administrators, including the human resources department, although the exact details of the incident are unspecified. Cain and the director of human resources were copied on the email. I feel not being able to address teachers myself (with another administrator present as always) when there is a concern, undermines my authority with my staff, Strange wrote in part of her email Feb. 17 about the incident. I feel like I shouldve been with (the assistant principal) to tell her to report to HR. I look forward to working closely with each of you as I seek necessary support and direction when I need to address teacher performance issues. Strange goes on in the email to say the cycle of complaints, student comments and Lighthouse reports contributed to her leadership becoming ineffective and encourage[s] teachers to feel empowered to be disrespectful and ignore directives. She pleaded for district-level support as she continued to address the issues. McDurham responded by explaining the decision-making process behind handling the incident and Stranges involvement. She stated giving Strange the support she needed to do her job was one of her top priorities. You have experienced a great deal of pushback in requiring employees to follow campus and district policies and procedures. Pushing the staff to reconsider ineffective teaching practices has caused discomfort and rebellion in some instances, McDurham said. Your direct approach to addressing problems has been perceived as yelling/bullying resulting in staff complaints and Lighthouse reports. The recent involvement of students in disparaging dialogue about you and the administration is something we both believe requires immediate action. McDurham then described a plan to tackle negative perceptions, highlighting Stranges efforts to move the campus forward. I am here to support you in this effort, McDurham wrote. You are a tireless advocate for University High School, and I am thankful for the talent and skills you bring to Waco ISD. Strange denied any and all allegations of academic wrongdoing in her resignation agreement with the district, and attempts to reach her attorney about the allegations were not successful by Wednesday. The Texas Christian Academy complex at New Road and Sanger Avenue, near Valley Mills Drive, has hit the market with a price tag of $895,000. Prospects already are inquiring about the six buildings spread over 4 acres that the school will vacate in about six months, listing agent Brad Harrell said Wednesday. We actually are getting a little interest, Harrell said. He said he thinks a church, school or something similar in nature would have the most use for the site that served for 17 years as the home of Texas Christian Academy, a private Christian-based sixth- through 12th-grade school. The school announced in January it would close the facility, which stretches from 816-916 N. New Road near Sanger Avenue and Valley Mills Drive. Though Texas Christian Academy and Eagle Christian Academy are not merging, Texas Christians announcement coincided with Eagle Christian announcing it would offer high school classes. The schools are about a five-minute drive from each other, with Eagle operating at 6125 Bosque Blvd. Harrell said he does not see potential for a commercial or retail development at the Texas Christian Academy site. The buildings there were kind of specifically built for its current use, and I do not see anybody removing the buildings at this time, Harrell said. Josh Carter, a commercial specialist with Coldwell Banker Jim Stewart Realtors, said he would agree a church or school represents the highest and best use. But if the market doesnt show that, I think an alternative would be redevelopment as a multifamily or office complex, Carter said. The market is increasingly being saturated with commercial development, and I dont think this site quite has the Valley Mills Drive exposure it would need to be a successful retail project. The main building of the complex occupies 20,336 square feet and was built in 1977. This structure contains most of the classrooms, the faculty offices, a receptionist and office area, auditorium, sanctuary, library, cafeteria, kitchen and various other rooms. The five other buildings range in size from 1,400 square feet to 2,930 square feet. They were constructed for additional classrooms, meeting rooms and specialty centers, according to promotional material provided by Harrell & Associates. All buildings are heated and air-conditioned and fully equipped with utilities, and the 1.3-acre parking lot accommodates 100 vehicles, according to the promotional material. Sales volume locally during the holiday shopping season was not spectacular but did produce a more than $4 million sales tax rebate for the city of Waco that was fractionally larger than the rebate it received in February of last year, the State Comptrollers Office reported Wednesday. Rebates received in February reflect sales in December that are reported to State Comptroller Glenn Hegar in January. Wacos check totaled $4.09 million, up 0.7 percent from the $4.06 million it collected in February last year. So far this calendar year, Wacos rebates have totaled almost $7.07 million, a 2.3 percent increase from the $6.91 million during January and February of 2016. Sales tax rebates go into the citys general fund. Statewide, Hegar sent rebates totaling $859 million to cities, counties, transit systems and special-purpose taxing districts, which represents a dip of 1 percent from last year. The cities of Houston, Midland and San Antonio saw noticeable decreases in sales tax allocations, Hegar said in a press release. The cities of Round Rock, Frisco and Irving saw noticeable increases in sales tax allocations. Despite the slip, Houstons February rebate totaled $64.05 million, easily the largest in the state over San Antonios second-place total of $35.02 million. For the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the city of Waco received rebates totaling $36.8 million, which was $1.4 million more than it received during the previous fiscal year, according to Waco budget director Laura Chiota, who has conservatively budgeted rebates totaling $34.2 million for the current fiscal year. Hewitt continues to receive healthy rebates even before the communitys new 156,000-square-foot Wal-Mart supercenter makes its presence felt. Its February rebate of $196,850 represented a 5.5 percent jump from the $186,580 it collected in February of last year. Officials are hoping the Wal-Mart that opened Jan. 25 at Sun Valley Boulevard and the Interstate 35 frontage road will come close to doubling the citys annual haul. They will get a preview in March, when they receive a check from the State Comptrollers Office that reflects the stores initial impact, albeit for less than a week. We are estimating Wal-Mart will generate $80,000 to $100,000 in sales tax revenue monthly, which obviously is significant, Hewitt City Manager Adam Miles said. Of course, thats going to be seasonal, and there are many factors at play. Some months well probably see less, some months more. Miles said residential development continues in and near Hewitt, with Sunflower Ridge at Old Temple Road and Spring Valley Road projected to add 72 single-family homes to the community. A $30 million upscale development called The Icon at Hewitt is also in the works at Ritchie Road and Patriot Court and will include 264 one- and two-bedroom apartments. Everyone Ive talked with said sales are strong at Wal-Mart. The store is generating a constant flow of traffic, said Chris Gutierrez, a Texas Commercial & Industrial Real Estate Services agent who helped broker the sale of land to Wal-Mart in Commerce Park. Retailers and restaurants partial to locating near Wal-Mart sites already are showing interest in 44 acres nearby, Gutierrez said. Oh, yeah, we have prospects but no one I can identify as this point, Gutierrez said. Karr Ingham, an Amarillo-based economist who prepares a monthly snapshot of trends in Greater Waco, released a report showing that taxable spending dipped 2 percent to $251 million in December from the $256 million in December the previous year. But spending was up 3.3 percent for the final quarter of 2016 and 1.7 percent for the year. The report from Hegar on Wednesday shows that in addition to Waco and Hewitt, the communities of Bellmead, Beverly Hills, Lacy Lakeview, West and Woodway received rebates larger than those a year earlier, while Lorena, Robinson and McGregor received smaller rebates. McGregors was down almost 29 percent. For all of 2016, the metropolitan area that includes Waco and its neighbors enjoyed retail sales totaling $3.39 billion, according to Inghams report. ----- February sales tax rebates Percentage increase or decrease from last year is in parentheses. Bellmead: $355,977 (3.5) Beverly Hills: $59,054 (17.1) Hewitt: $196,850 (5.5) Lacy Lakeview: $111,316 (6.5) Lorena: $36,396 (-0.69) McGregor: $100,810 (-28.6) Robinson: $130,455 (-5.8) Waco: $4.09 million (0.7) West: $56,195 (17.7) Woodway: $259,975 (4.5) Source: State Comptrollers Office A retired Texas Department of Transportation employee was sentenced to 120 years in prison Thursday for sexually abusing a young girl beginning when she was 6 years old. Jurors in Wacos 54th State District Court recommended three 60-year prison terms, two 20-year prison terms and a total of $25,000 in fines on the five counts for which they found Marvin Ray Shilling guilty. Judge Matt Johnson ordered Shilling to serve the first two 60-year terms consecutively, for a total of 120 years. Shilling will serve the remaining three counts concurrently. Because the sentences were stacked, he cannot seek parole for at least 60 years, meaning the 60-year-old Shilling will likely spend the rest of his life in prison, barring successful appeal. The jury deliberated about two hours Wednesday before convicting Shilling, a Hewitt resident, on three first-degree felony counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and two second-degree felony counts of indecency with a child by contact. Shilling, 60, did not testify during the four-day trial. However, in a videotaped police interview with Hewitt detectives played for the jury, Shilling denied the charges and said he could not think of a reason why the girl would make up the accusations against him. Shilling formerly lived with the girls mother, but the girl did not report the abuse until four years after Shilling and the girls mother broke up. The girl first told her father that Shilling sexually assaulted her over a three-year period starting in 2006, when Shilling told her she couldnt go to a Batman movie with her mother and brother and sexually abused her while they were gone. The girl, who is now 17, told the jury that Shilling also showed her pornographic images on his computer and his cellphone. He warned her not to tell anyone about the abuse because he said he would go to jail, she said. In punishment-phase testimony, defense attorneys Russ Hunt and Michelle Tuegel called to the stand five of Shillings former TxDOT co-workers and his ex-wife, who all said they disagreed with the guilty verdicts but respected the jurys findings. All said Shilling is hard-working, honest, kind-hearted and dependable. Ex-wifes testimony Ive spent most of my life with him, said Linda Clemmons, who divorced Shilling in 2006 after an extended separation. Hes been around my family, my sister, my wonderful nieces and nephews. He was the greatest Uncle Marvin ever, and in my heart, I believe he would never harm a child, ever. Tuegel asked jurors in summations to show mercy on Shilling, who has no previous convictions, and to recommend a probated sentence. Prosecutors Hilary LaBorde and Christi Hunting Horse told jurors Thursday in punishment-phase summations that a life prison term was the only appropriate sentence because of the toll that Shillings abuse will have on the girl for the rest of her life. Mercy? What mercy did he show her? Hunting Horse asked. This defendant committed a number of acts. We cant even give you a number other than to say it happened over and over during the course of three years. And he didnt stop on his own. He only stopped after he broke up with her mom and the child was not available to him anymore. This weeks vote confirming school-voucher advocate Betsy DeVos as President Trumps secretary of education is historic for several reasons. For one, historians say its the first time a vice president has had to step in and cast the deciding vote on an embattled Cabinet nominee. The 50-50 U.S. Senate tie greeting her nomination reflects an impressive national movement to derail DeVos, a truly dubious selection. Those who lament DeVos razor-thin victory should remember that public education is really a matter of state and local control and should be. If Texans have reservations about school vouchers funneling money from struggling public schools, the real battle should be to win the hearts, minds and votes of state legislators now faced with a bill that would allow for education savings accounts. Parents could use taxpayer money for private and parochial school tuition plus other education costs. No less than U.S. Sen. John Cornyn the generally thoughtful Texas Republican who massive anti-DeVos forces throughout our state at one point believed might bow to their wishes stressed this very point during a teleconference with the press Wednesday. While he voted for DeVos and touted her as someone who would shake up public education he stressed that school choice really boils down to governing agents such as the Texas Legislature, local school boards and parents. Hes right on the latter point. Our education system fortunately is mostly involved at the state level, he said. In K-12 education, 90 percent of the money comes from the state [rather than the federal government] and, as you know, Texas is currently engaged in an important debate about school choice. But I dont think the outcomes weve seen in our public education system and how we compare around the world should give us any confidence that were operating at peak efficiency and at the highest level. Cornyn acknowledged waves of protest against DeVos: They effectively crashed our voice-mail system and threatened to bring down our website and the like. But I think this is part of the angry response that President Trump won, and Mrs. DeVos seemed to be the focal point of a lot of those efforts because I think she is a game-changer when it comes to public education in the country. Legislative efforts to siphon money from taxpayer coffers for parents to use in private schools may run aground in the Texas House, where legislators are far more in tune with their rural constituents who understandably have doubts about the limited private-school options available to their kids and may take a dim view of anything that cheats their schools (and communities) of state funds. Concerns also remain about equal regulation and obligations of public and private schools. If the battle over school choice is won or lost, it will be at the state level not in the U.S. Department of Education. Lighting a path The Greater Waco Interfaith Conference shares the concerns of many Americans regarding the recent travel ban. We stand with our Muslim neighbors here in the U.S. and abroad. We condemn religious discrimination and support the fundamental value of religious freedom, a founding and enduring principle of our nation. At this crucial moment in our history, every American must take a moment to ask, What are the values for which I stand? In a nation where 98 percent of us are immigrants and the children of immigrants, we are saddened and troubled by the prejudice directed by a few Americans toward our Islamic neighbors and toward immigrants and refugees who come to our shores as workers, tourists, students, family members and more. Americans are 200 percent more likely to be killed by a speeding bus than by Muslim terrorists. Turning away others based on their religion is not only unconstitutional, it is nonsensical, in terms of keeping Americans safe from terrorism. The GWIC will not let our decision-making be driven by fear. Our nation, like many others, has struggled to understand and live by the principles of freedom. To love this nation is to engage these principles fully and with discernment. When we act out of anxiety and ignorance, we create terrible circumstances in which extremism flourishes. A door locked in the face of the unknown is a victory for fear and bigotry. In closing such doors, we recommit the error of Pandora, who set free all the terrors and sorrows of the world, only to slam the lid on hope: the only possible salvation from such terrors. The Greater Waco Interfaith Conference seeks to build bridges, not walls. We challenge ourselves and our neighbors to reach across faith lines to increase understanding, tolerance and compassion for those of many spiritual and religious truths. We are Christians, Muslims and Jews; we are Bahai, Buddhist, Jain, Hindu, Unitarian Universalist, humanist and more. As Americans, we believe in this country and its people. At its best, the United States has long served as a light illuminating many paths to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. May it continue to be so. Pastor Kris Cervantes, president, Greater Waco Interfaith Conference Lets just fix it! I am dismayed to see that Republicans have moved to repeal the Affordable Care Act without a replacement. This shows a lack of foresight in the name of purely partisan politics. Some 20 million people are now covered by health insurance, which, admittedly, is part of an imperfect system. It seems more prudent to work with the existing model and make changes to those parts that could be made better rather than trashing the entire program. Such extreme moves seem to characterize Trumps immature reasoning across the board. Beth Ullman, Waco WAHOO A new phone scam recently crept into the area, only needing the word yes from victims. If you get a call from a stranger asking, Can you hear me? hang up the phone. Thats what the Better Business Bureau is advising consumers who might become victims of the latest scam it says is circulating the country. As a general rule, youre going to answer that question. But dont volunteer anyting, said Saunders County Sheriff Kevin Stukenholtz. Jim Hegarty, president of the BBB serving Nebraska, South Dakota, the Kansas Plains and southwest Iowa, said the region has already received hundreds of reports about the scam. Stukenholtz said hes received reports of the scam in Saunders County as well. The con aims to get victims to say the word yes so scammers can record it. The affirmative response is then used to authorize unwanted charges whether its to a credit card, a cable or phone account or subscriptions. Many times, as with other phone scams, the perpetrators try and get local phone numbers to increase the likelihood of someone answering, Stukenholtz said. Theyre coming up with something all the time, he said. Stukenholtz said he would advise people not to answer the phone at all if the number calling is not recognized. But its difficult to avoid. Heres how it works: You might receive a call from someone recent reports say the scammers are claiming theyre from a home security agency, a cruise line or associated with Social Security. After the introduction, the recording will ask if you can hear the caller clearly. If you answer yes, theres a possibility the scam artist has recorded you and will use the response to sign you up for a product or service and then demand payment. If you refuse to pay, the caller may use your recorded yes to confirm your purchase agreement. In many cases, the scammers already have the persons phone number, which can be used to authorize third-party charges; or they may have a victims credit card number or cable bill as the result of a data breach. When the victim disputes any charges to an account, the scammer can counter that they have your consent on a recorded line. Stukenholtz said the scam can be avoided if ones guard is up. He said he recently received a call with a Denver, Co. area code that asked if he was Kevin Stukenholtz. He said he responded with who is this? The innocuous conversation started off on the wrong foot, but Stukenholtz said a good strategy is to make the people on the other end of the phone commit to something. Other tips: If you receive a call that sounds similar or asks questions seeking affirmation, avoid responding with yes, sure or OK. If you are asked a similar question on the phone or are asked to press a button to be placed on the Do Not Call registry, just hang up. Saying anything may help the scam artist identify that you have an active phone number. No government agency will ever solicit for the Do Not Call registry. Write down the phone number of callers with this behavior and file a scam report with the BBB Scam Tracker at bbb.org/scamtracker/us or by calling 800-649-6814. Check your credit card, phone and cable statements carefully for any unfamiliar charges. If you suspect you have been victimized, call the billing company and dispute anything you did not authorize. The earlier you identify the unauthorized charges on your account, the easier it will be to recover any lost money. Stukenholtz said the scammers can come across as nice people, but theyre not stupid and will work to manipulate the conversation. Law enforcement efforts can be difficult, but if caught, they turn them into the attorney generals office, Stukenholtz said. Theyve made some arrests, but many times the calls originate from out of the country. It takes quite a bit to make that happen, Stukenholtz said. (BH News Service contributed to this article.) On Saturday February 18, 2017 former U.S. Air Force pilot Bob Heath will explain the history of the U-2 Blackbird ultra-high altitude program and his experience in flying the Dragon Lady. Heath is the Maintenance Officer of the Commemorative Air Force Dixie Wing, currently serving as the Wings Maintenance Officer. This is the first of a monthly series, Aviation Living History, presented at Dixie Wing headquarters, 1200 Echo Ct. Peachtree City, Ga., adjacent to the Atlanta Regional Airport Falcon Field. Admission is $10, and military retirees will be admitted free. A product of Kelly Johnsons legendary Skunk Works at Lockheed Aviation, the U-2 is one of the few aircraft that have seen more than 50 years of service in the U.S. Air Force. The aircraft has provided high-altitude 70,000 foot all-weather intelligence gathering, electronic sensor research, satellite calibration, and communications. Heath will discuss the unique aspects of the U-2, made famous in 1960 when Gary Powers was shot down high over Russia. Another U-2, piloted by Major Rudolf Anderson, Jr., was lost in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Early versions of the U-2 were involved in several events through the Cold War, flown over the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, and Cuba. The newest models entered service in the 1980s. The current model, the U-2S, received its most recent technical upgrade in 2012. They have taken part in conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and supported several multi-national NATO operations. This is the second year for our Aviation Living History Days program, which we designed to fulfill our mission of aviation education, said Dixie Wing Leader Jay Bess. We are grateful that so many of our members and other aviation experts are willing to share their experiences and knowledge about WWII and beyond. Also, the public is invited to visit our museum and hangar on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., or by special appointment. For more information about Aviation Living History Days or the CAF Dixie Wing, please go to www.dixiewing.org. About the Commemorative Air Force The Commemorative Air Force is a non-profit organization dedicated to flying and restoring World War II aircraft. Based in Dallas, Texas, the organization has more than 13,000 members and operates a fleet of more than 166 aircraft. These aircraft compose the worlds largest flying museum, and are operated for the education of present and future generations. www.commemorativeairforce.org. About the CAF Dixie Wing The CAF Dixie Wing, based in Peachtree City, Ga., was approved as the 83rd CAF unit on Feb. 28, 1987, and has since displayed its collection of vintage World War II aircraft in numerous air shows throughout the United States. The wing is a non-profit, tax-exempt flying museum that relies on contributions of time and funds to carry out its mission.Flying the U-2 Kicks Off the CAF Dixie Wing Living History Series Waterford is set for a summer like no other on several fronts after two years of Covid-19 restrictions. With the countys hurlers triumphing in the... Seven jobs at a Waterford charity look set to be lost after it was announced that it is to be wound down. The U-Casadh... RENTS in Waterford are now spiralling out of control, with costs 16.2% higher than they were in the same period last year and... Waterford Fine Gael Senator John Cummins has described the progress which has been made on the purchase of the former Waterford Crystal site for... ITS hard to believe the much-loved Waterford Greenway has been open just five years, as many locals feel they have been living with the... Australia Post's board will "have a discussion" about how much it should pay its chief executive Ahmed Fahour, but has stopped short of launching a formal review into his previously secret $5.6 million package. Mr Fahour's remuneration consisting of $4.4 million in salary and bonuses and $1.2 million in superannuation came to light this week after a Senate committee dismissed the company's request to keep it under wraps. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has since said the package was "too high" and called the government-owned company's chairman John Stanhope to voice his concerns. Mr Stanhope has told The Australian Financial Review that Australia Post would "have a discussion" about Mr Fahour's remuneration, but warned that cutting it severely would mean "the guy that you have got, who is good, walks out". Suncorp, Australia's second-largest general insurer by market share, said on Thursday it was considering "strategic alternatives" for its life insurance division after reporting a 1.3 per cent rise in half-yearly net profit. The options for the life insurance division could include a sale or partnership arrangement, but no process has been started, a Suncorp spokeswoman said. Suncorp Group CEO Michael Cameron. Credit:Nick Moir Suncorp reported a net profit after tax of $537 million for the six months ended December 31, up from $530 million a year earlier, after top-line growth of 4.3 per cent. It forecast margins would grow in the second half and raised its fully-franked interim dividend by 10 per cent to $0.33 a share. The Brisbane-based company said earnings from its life insurance division, which has around a 5 per cent share of the Australian market, fell 52 per cent to $11 million in the first half. That infamous phone call between Donald Trump and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull notwithstanding, shareholders in Australian banks should be grateful for the US president's appreciation of their dividend checks. Even before Trump signed the executive order to review the Dodd-Frank banking regulations that were put into effect after the GFC, expectations that big financial institutions worldwide would be given a longer regulatory leash were gaining ground. "A diluted, deferred" Basel IV regulatory regime is on the cards, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Tomasz Noetzel noted in early January, after the world's top regulators postponed a meeting to finalise the next set of rules on minimum capital requirements for banks. The powwow is superfluous now. With the president seeking more relaxed norms for US banks, it's doubtful that struggling European institutions and their harried supervisors will be in any mood to adopt harsher standards for themselves. President Donald Trump's ability to move stocks and markets with his Twitter posts is well known, but now he may be having an impact on Twitter itself. Trump's use of the 140-character messaging service at all hours of the day to bypass the traditional media is giving people a reason to learn how to use the platform, creating "a second chance to attract and retain users," investment firm BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield wrote on Wednesday in a research note to clients. At the same time, the focus on Trump's tweets has turned the media into "a giant marketing vehicle" for the company, he wrote. Greenfield, who upgraded Twitter's stock to buy from neutral, wrote that there has been a "meaningful uptick" in downloads of the Twitter app on iOS devices in the US this year and cited a CivicScience survey that shows an increase in daily usage. So keen has Malcolm Turnbull become to appease his party's right wing that he is actually governing badly. It's not what he promised. And at the start, it's not what he delivered. His early decisions were based on evidence. He examined the payoff from increasing the goods and services tax, then dropped the idea (to the consternation of some in his party) because the payoff wasn't there. He examined the tax treatment of superannuation, found it was an outrage, and (again to the consternation of many of his supporters) toughened it. Not these days. The issue that set Cory Bernardi off was what appeared to be his brief embrace of an emissions intensity scheme. Late last, year the man Turnbull appointed as Chief Scientist identified an intensity scheme as the lowest-cost way for Australia to meet its emissions reduction targets. Dr Alan Finkel reported that the Climate Change Authority (whose chair and the majority of its board the Turnbull government appointed) and the Australian Energy Market Commission and the Australian Energy Market Operator had all found that, of the available options, allowing electricity producers to trade in intensity would do the least economic damage and cause the least disruption. What they proposed is completely unlike Labor's emissions trading scheme and was always provided for in the so called direct action legislation introduced by the Coalition's Greg Hunt under Prime Minister Abbott. Delight among Coalition MPs over Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's question time attack on Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has led to a second day of insults, with Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce accusing Mr Shorten of confected outrage and creating class warfare. Mr Joyce said he had the best seat in the house for the spirited speech in Parliament on Wednesday, which has buoyed the spirits of the government's backbench and left Labor on the backfoot on Thursday. The Nationals leader said Mr Shorten knew what he was doing in attacking Mr Turnbull's wealth, "creating this class warfare, calling Mr Turnbull 'Mr Harbourside Mansion' ", an insult coined by Tony Abbott confidant Peta Credlin. He said he'd rather have leaders with money and success running the country than someone "with the arse out of their pants who has never made a buck". For her entire adult life, Indigenous activist June Oscar has believed the biggest change can come from the smallest acts. Born in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, the Bunuba woman has been a leading force on a range of social and economic causes for Australia's first people. Incoming Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner June Oscar. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Her career has included pushing for restrictions on alcohol in remote communities, preservation of ancient languages and working to combat the scourge of fetal alcohol disorders. Fighting for vulnerable people has seen Ms Oscar named as the new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has doubled down on his character assassination of Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, labelling him a "fake" who "doesn't have a fair dinkum bone in him". It follows an extraordinary tirade in Parliament on Wednesday in which Mr Turnbull attacked his counterpart as "a social-climbing sycophant" and a "parasite" who cosied up to billionaires. Mr Shorten has in the past week taken to calling the Prime Minister "Mr Harbourside Mansion", a reference to his lavish Point Piper home and a term coined by Tony Abbott's former chief-of-staff Peta Credlin. "Shorten is complete hypocrite," Mr Turnbull said at a press conference on Thursday. "He wants to play the politics of envy and yet he's been a sycophant to the billionaires of Melbourne for years and years - everyone knows that." Immigration Minister Peter Dutton is seeking what the Labor opposition calls "Trump-like" powers to target foreign nationals and require them to revalidate their visas. The proposed Migration Act amendments would allow Mr Dutton to compel entire groups of visa-holders to pass a revalidation check, based on their nationality, place of residence or travel history. Elements of the bill have been criticised by numerous legal experts for being "too broad" and handing "excessive discretion" to Mr Dutton without parliamentary checks. Labor had originally signalled its intent to support the bill - to be debated on Wednesday - but has now decided to oppose it unless the offending elements are removed. Victoria and NSW have been warned they could follow South Australia in being hit by electricity blackouts in years ahead unless Canberra comes up with a bipartisan national plan to deal with energy and climate change. The Turnbull government leapt on the latest in a string of South Australian blackouts, which hit about 40,000 properties for 45 minutes during extreme heat early Wednesday night, to accuse the state Labor government of relying too heavily on renewable energy. The attack dominated parliamentary question time, with Treasurer Scott Morrison brandishing a lump of coal a sign of his party's support for more generation from the high-emissions fossil fuel, which he contrasted with federal Labor's 50 per cent renewable energy target. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Labor's ideological approach to renewable energy was turning off the lights in Adelaide. "They have failed to deliver the security of energy that Australians need," he said. The Germans call it fremdschamen - that feeling which invades the stomach when you witness someone embarrassing themselves and realise they have neither the wit nor acuity to feel it themselves. After Thursday's antics inside Parliament House, the Turnbull government just calls it Ian Macdonald. There is a certain macabre irony in a politician whose most recent contributions to the public discourse have involved shushing others and wrestling with a noisy iPad timer, complaining MPs don't get paid enough. But when it comes just a day after his own Prime Minister deploys wealth as a weapon of personal destruction against his chief political opponent - at the same time his party attempts to position itself as anti-establishment and justify cuts to some of society's most vulnerable - it only serves to reinforce every negative cliche ascribed to politicians. Okay, end of the day, end of the week. What happened? Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has doubled down on his personal attacks on Opposition Leader Bill Shorten ; has doubled down on his ; the opposition spent question time focussing on who would lose out under the g overnment's welfare changes ; spent focussing on who would lose out under the g ; but the government was more interested in criticising the opposition's energy policy ; was more interested in ; part of this involved Treasurer Scott Morrison bringing a lump of coal into the chamber; bringing a into the chamber; Mr Turnbull also introduced legislation to tighten up politicians' entitlements ; but also introduced legislation to ; but government senator Ian Macdonald is opposing one of the reforms - the axing of the gold class travel pass. My eternal gratitude to Alex Ellinghausen and Andrew Meares who are always so wonderful and to you for reading and commenting. You can follow me on Facebook. Alex, Andrew and I will be back next week. Until then - stay cool. New York: "She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted." It was the fairly mundane explanation of an unusual turn of events in the US Senate on Tuesday night that has been transformed into a new feminist rallying cry and meme for the Trump era, and one that shows how quickly and effectively simple moments in politics can explode in a highly polarised online environment. On Tuesday night, Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren, a firebrand progressive from Massachusetts who is as beloved on the left of American politics as she is derided on the right, attempted to read a letter from Martin Luther King Jr.'s late widow, Coretta Scott King, on the Senate floor. Senator Warren was speaking about President Donald Trump's controversial nominee for Attorney General, Senator Jeff Sessions. King had objected to Sessions being appointed a federal judge back in 1986 due to his record on race and voting rights, stating in a letter that Sessions had "used the awesome powers of his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters". A fire broke out at a Samsung SDI factory in China this week when faulty, discarded batteries ignited, setting trash and other items ablaze. The fire at the Samsung Electronics affiliate's factory in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin has been extinguished, a Samsung spokesman said, adding that there were no casualties or significant impact to the plant's operations. According to the spokesman the fire broke out not on the production line itself but in a part of the facility used for waste, including faulty batteries. He added that most of the factory was running as normal. The local fire department, however, said on social media that the fire was caused by batteries inside the facility. Now, the rebuttal has been released to the public, to detail the facts and add insight into what the Iranian opposition believes to be the crux of the matter. Shahin Gobadi, press spokesman of The Peoples Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) stated, The AP story, Trump Cabinet pick paid by cult-like Iranian exile group of February 5, is a rehashing of old and long-debunked allegations aimed at disparaging the principal Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) and its bipartisan supporters. The religious dictatorship ruling Iran and its lobby abroad have tried for years to discredit the Iranian opposition in an effort to proffer the appeasement of the ruling mullahs as a viable policy. AP reporter Jon Gambrell ignored facts regarding the conduct and history of the Iranian resistance. Instead of reporting the views of a large (number of) bi-partisan lawmakers in both chambers of the U.S. Congress, and the decisions by the highest U.S. and European Courts,he has chosen to rely heavily on only two individuals, both of whom have been proponents of the appeasing (of) the murderous mullahs of Iran, added Gobadi. Gambrells sources have been proven to have little to no experience in the region, and have no up-to-date writings or reports about the issues facing Iran and the Middle East. Updated reports, books, and studies about the history, accusations and current conduct of the MEK, have published by many independent scholars and experts, but none of these sources were cited in the AP article. Information Gambrell presented about the day to day life at Camp Ashraf was not verified by the military officers, who have testified before Congress that allegations against the MEK were propaganda concocted by the Iranian regimes intelligence services. The rebuttal also called the opening paragraph an example of editorializing that makes one wonder whether ulterior political motives by the echo chamber crowd tasked to sell the Iran nuclear deal to (the) U.S. Congress and American public was at work here. 23 bi-partisan signatories hand delivered a letter to President Trump, in which the officials wrote about the discredited allegations, noting that Irans Ministry of Intelligence and Security has for many years impaired the exiled opposition by covertly spreading false and distorted claims through third parties in the West. Other governmentsclosely monitor Irans influence operations on their soil; a thorough counter-intelligence investigation by the U.S. is clearly needed and long overdue. The U.S., UK and France all have proven findings, showing that there is no evidence the group was ever involved in terrorism. As far as the deaths referred to in the article, these have not been credited to the MEK, as reports from independent sources, as well as from the U.S. State Department, and from well-respected Iran experts. None of these sources were mentioned in the article, as noted the rebuttal. The New York Times reported in 2004, that a 16-month investigation by seven different U.S. agencies, including the Departments of States, Defense, Treasury, Justice, the FBI, the CIA and the DEI found no basis to charge any member of the group with the violation of American law. Furthermore, U.S. military commanders have testified before Congress that MEK members never engaged the U.S. forces during the invasion of Iraq. The local cease fire agreement of mutual understanding and coordination signed between the U.S. military and the MEK in 2003, makes it clear that the MEK had not fired a single bullet against U.S. forces in Iraq. Bi-partisan majorities in the U.S. House of Representatives and a very large group of bi-partisan Senators have lent their unequivocal support to the MEK for the past three decades, describing it as a legitimate resistance movement, despite being fully aware of these illegitimate accusations. Most importantly, the AP story didnt reference what the MEK has done to expose the Iranian regimes terrorism and reveal their major nuclear sites, which triggered the International Atomic Energy Agencys (IAEA) inspections of the uranium enrichment facility in Natanz for the first time. Since then, the majority of the visits by the IAEA inspection teams have been to the sites first uncovered by the MEK. Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA) told a House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing that, We all owe a debt of gratitude to the MEK for bringing this information to the world, and causing the United States and the world to focus on the problem. In former Secretary of State John Kerrys farewell speech, he stated, And one of the things that I am very proud of is the effort we made I remember going to hearing after hearing, and you remember all those folks youd see up there in those yellow jackets representing the Mujahedin-e Khalqu MEK as weve known them and we got 3,000 of them out of Camp Liberty and to places where they are safe and their lives are saved from being attacked regularly, as they were. Why would the U.S. Secretary of State and his Department undertake such a massive effort to save the lives of members of a cult-like group that has been engaged in terrorism and killing Americans in the first place, if they believed such allegations were true? asked Gobadi. More about the Peoples Mojahdin Organization of Iran (PMOI/ MEK) The Peoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran (Also known as MEK, or Mujahedin-e-Khalq / Mujahedeen-e-Khalq), was founded on September 6, 1965, by Mohammad Hanifnejad, Saeed Mohsen, and Ali-Asghar Badizadgan. All engineers, they had earlier been members of the Freedom Movement (also known as the Liberation Movement), created by Medhi Bazargan in May 1961.1 The MEKs quest culminated in a true interpretation of Islam, which is inherently tolerant and democratic, and fully compatible with the values of modern-day civilization. It took six years for the MEK to formulate its view of Islam and develop a strategy to replace Irans dictatorial monarchy with a democratic government. MEKs interpretation of Islam The theocratic mullah regime in Iran believe interpreting Islam is their exclusive domain. The MEK reject this view and the clerics reactionary vision of Islam. The MEKs comprehensive interpretation of Islam proved to be more persuasive and appealing to the Iranian youth. MEKs founders and new members studied the various schools of thought, the Iranian history and those of other countries, enabling them to analyze other philosophies and ideologies with considerable knowledge and to present their own ideology, based on Islam, as the answer to Irans problems. MEKs leaderships arrest during the 70s. The Shahs notorious secret police, SAVAK, arrested all MEK leaders and most of its members in1971. On May 1972, the founders of the MEK, Mohammad Hanifnejad , Saeed Mohsen and Ali Asghar Badizadegan, along with two members of the MEK leadership, Mahmoud Askarizadeh and Rasoul Meshkinfam, were put before death squads and were executed after long months of imprisonment and torture. They were the true vanguards, who stood against the dictatorial regime of Shah. However, they are also recognized for their opposition to what is today known as Islamic fundamentalism. The death sentence of Massoud Rajavi, a member of MEKs central committee, was commuted to life imprisonment as a result of an international campaign by his Geneva based brother, Dr. Kazem Rajavi (assassinated in April 1990 in Geneva by mullahs agents) and the personal intervention of the French President Georges Pompidou and Francois Mitterrand. He was the only survivor of the MEK original leadership. Massoud Rajavis critical role in characterizing religious extremism From 1975 to 1979, while incarcerated in different prisons, Massoud Rajavi led the MEKs struggle while constantly under torture for his leading position. Massoud Rajavi stressed the need to continue the struggle against the shahs dictatorship. At the same time, he characterized religious fanaticism as the primary internal threat to the popular opposition, and warned against the emergence and growth of religious fanaticism and autocracy. He also played a crucial role when some splinter used the vacuum in the MEK leadership who were all executed or imprisoned at the time, to claim a change of ideology and policy. Massoud Rajavi as the MEK leader condemn these individuals misuse of MEKs name while continuing to stress the struggle against dictatorship. His efforts while still in prison forced these individuals to no longer operating under the name of MEK and adopting a different name for their group. These positions remained the MEKs manifesto until the overthrow of the shahs regime. Release of Political Prisoners on the last days of the Shah A month before the 1979 revolution in Iran, the Shah was forced to flee Iran, never to return. All democratic opposition leaders had by then either been executed by the Shahs SAVAK or imprisoned, and could exert little influence on the trend of events. Khomeini and his network of mullahs across the country, who had by and large been spared the wrath of SAVAK, were the only force that remained unharmed and could take advantage of the political vacuum. In France, Khomeini received maximum exposure to the world media. With the aid of his clerical followers, he hijacked a revolution that began with calls for democracy and freedom and diverted it towards his fundamentalist goals. Through an exceptional combination of historical events, Shiite clerics assumed power in Iran. Khomeinis gradual crackdown on MEK in fear of their popular support In internal discourses, Rajavi the remaining leader of the MEK, argued that Khomeini represented the reactionary sector of society and preached religious fascism. Later, in the early days after the 1979 revolution, the mullahs, specifically Rafsanjani, pointed to these statements in inciting the hezbollahi club-wielders to attack the MEK. Following the revolution, the MEK became Irans largest organized political party. It had hundreds of thousands of members who operated from MEK offices all over the country. MEK publication, Mojahed was circulated in 500,000 copies. Khomeini set up an Assembly of Experts comprised of sixty of his closest mullahs and loyalists to ratify the principle of velayat-e faqih (absolute supremacy of clerical rule) as a pillar of the Constitution. The MEK launched a nationwide campaign in opposition to this move, which enjoyed enormous popular support. Subsequently, the MEK refused to approve the new constitution based on the concept of velayat-e faqih, while stressing its observance of the law of the country to deny the mullahs any excuse for further suppression of MEK supporters who were regularly targeted by the regimes official and unofficial thugs. Khomeini sanctioned the occupation of the United States embassy in 1979 in order to create an anti-American frenzy, which facilitated the holding of a referendum to approve his Constitution, which the MEK rejected. MEKs endeavors to participate in the political process avoiding an unwanted conflict with government repressive forces The MEK actively participated in the political process, fielding candidates for the parliamentary and presidential elections. The MEK also entered avidly into the national debate on the structure of the new Islamic regime, though was unsuccessful in seeking an elected constituent assembly to draft a constitution. The MEK similarly made an attempt at political participation when [then] Massoud Rajavi ran for the presidency in January 1980. MEKs leader was forced to withdraw when Khomeini ruled that only candidates who had supported the constitution in the December referendum which the MEK had boycotted- were eligible. Rajavis withdrawal statement emphasized the MEKs efforts to conform to election regulations and reiterated the MEKs intention to advance its political aims within the new legal system. (Unclassified report on the Peoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran(PMOI/ MEK) by the Department of State to the United States House of Representatives, December 1984.) However, the MEK soon found itself in a direct struggle against the forces of the regimes Supreme leader. The MEKs differences with Khomeini dated back to the 1970s, and stem from its opposition to what is known today as Islamic extremism. Angry at the position taken by the MEK against his regime and worried about the MEKs growing popularity, Khomeini ordered a brutal crackdown against the MEK and its supporters. Between 1979 and 1981, some 70 MEK members and sympathizers were killed and several thousand more were imprisoned by the Iranian regime. June 20, 1981- Khomeinis order to open fire on peaceful demonstration of half-a-million supporters of MEK The turning point came on 20th June 1981, when the MEK called a demonstration to protest at the regimes crackdown, and to call for political freedom which half-a-million supporters participated at. Khomeini ordered the Revolutionary Guards to open fire on the swelling crowd, fearing that without absolute repression the democratic opposition (MEK) would force him to engage in serious reforms an anathema as far as he was concerned; he ordered the mass and summary executions of those arrested. Since then, MEK activists have been the prime victims of human rights violations in Iran. Over 120,000 of its members and supporters have been executed by the Iranian regime, 30,000 of which, were executed in a few months in the summer of 1988, on a direct fatwa by Khomeini, which stated any prisoners who remain loyal to the MEK must be executed. Having been denied its fundamental rights and having come under extensive attack at the time that millions of its members, supporters and sympathizers had no protection against the brutal onslaught of the Iranian regime, the MEK had no choice but to resist against the mullahs reign of terror. Towards the end of 1981, many of the members of the MEK and supporters went into exile. Their principal refuge was in France. But in 1986, after negotiations between the French and the Iranian authorities, the French government effectively treated them as undesirable aliens, and the leadership of the MEK with several thousand followers relocated to Iraq. (Judgment of the Proscribed Organizations Appeal Commission, November 30, 2007.) MEK Today The MEK today is the oldest and largest anti-fundamentalist Muslim group in the Middle East. It has been active for more than a half century, battling two dictatorships and a wide range of issues. The MEK supports: Universal suffrage as the sole criterion for legitimacy Pluralistic system of governance Respect for individual freedoms Ban on the death penalty Separation of religion and state Full gender equality Equal participation of women in political leadership. MEK is actually led by its central committee consist of 1000 women. Modern judicial system that emphasizes the principle of innocence, a right to a defense, and due process Free markets Relations with all countries in the world Commitment to a non-nuclear Iran The MEK remains a strong and cohesive organization, with a broad reach both worldwide and deep within Iran. MEK is the leading voice for democracy in Iran, supported by its interpretation of Islam that discredits the fundamentalist mullahs regime. Your Ultimate Investing Toolkit Sign up for MarketBeat All Access to gain access to MarketBeat's full suite of research tools: Portfolio Monitoring Top Stock Lists Premium Reports Stock Screeners Live News Feed Premium Support Free for your first month. The following companies are subsidiares of Ingersoll Rand: 13125882 Canada Inc., 211 E. Russell Road LLC, 4458664 Canada Inc., ACCUDYNE INDUSTRIES ASIA PTE. 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It operates through three segments: North American Operations, Australian Operations, and U.K./European Operations. The company transports various commodities, including agricultural products, autos and auto parts, chemicals and plastics, coal and coke, food and kindred products, lumber and forest products, metallic ores, metals, minerals and stone, petroleum products, pulp and paper, waste, and other commodities. It owns or leases 122 freight railroads, including 105 short line railroads and 2 regional freight railroads located in the United States, 8 short line railroads located in Canada, 3 railroads located in Australia, 1 railroad located in the United Kingdom, 1 railroad in Poland and Germany, and 2 railroads in the Netherlands with a total of approximately 16,200 miles of track. The company also operates 6,200 additional miles of track that is owned or leased by others. In addition, it operates deep sea maritime containers and provides bulk haulage, including coal, aggregates, cement, and infrastructure services. Further, the company provides rail service at approximately 40 ports; rail-ferry service in North America, Australia, and Europe; and contract coal loading and railcar switching for industrial customers. Genesee & Wyoming Inc. was founded in 1899 and is headquartered in Darien, Connecticut. According to Ottolenghi and Zilberman, anti-tank missile components, reportedly the AT-4 Spigot, destined for Iran were seized by the Ukrainian State Border Guard on January 19. These weapons were concealed in the cargo hold of a UM Airlines flight from Kiev to Tehran. While Ukraine captured this illicit cargo, Kiev continues to allow Iran to evade a U.N.- implemented sanctioned international arms embargo and Western sanctions. Iranian carriers like Caspian Airlines and Mahan Air are banned, but close cooperation with Ukrainian airlines, and Kievs failure to enforce U.S. sanctions against Iran, lets them continue to benefit, and should become an important part of the Trump administrations review of its foreign policy options toward Ukraine. The Iranian aviation sectors reliance on Kiev is not new. Publicly available data from commercial flight trackers show that Dart Airlines is currently leasing aircraft to Irans privately owned Kish Air. Darts fleet is also frequently chartered for Iran and Lebanon routes by unknown operators. Iran Air Tours, ATA Airlines and Zagros Airlines, among others, also lease aircraft from Ukrainian operators, write Ottolenghi and Zilberman. These private companies are not under U.S. sanctions, but Ukraines fleet caters to sanctioned entities. One of Air Khorss aircraft is currently leased to the Iraqi Al-Naser Airlines, which the U.S. Treasury sanctioned in May 2015 when the company fronted for Mahan Air, data shows. Air Khors leased a Boeing 737 to Naft Airlines, which is being operated by U.S. sanctioned Caspian Airlines. Treasury has also slapped sanctions on two other Ukrainian airlines for assisting Mahan Air, Bukovyna Airlines, as well as UM Airlines, which was carrying the missile parts seized last week. Lebanese businessman Rodrigue Merhej, UM airlines chairman, is also under U.S. Treasury sanctions since 2013 for their support of Mahan Air. The January 19 flight was a scheduled flight. Ottolenghi and Silberman say that, Since last year, there are daily flights between Kiev and Tehran, including a weekly Mahan flight that commenced last March, when Mahan and UM announced an expanded partnership. Their cooperation connects Kiev to Mahans Asian destinations through Tehran, giving Ukrainian passengers a convenient connecting hub to Asia. They add, It also enables Mahan to officially enter the Ukrainian market. This partnership, that Washington has sanctioned since 2013, was announced by Kiev and Tehran, with the inaugural Mahan flight to Kiev welcomed by former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, and senior member of the Ukrainian parliament and ally of current President Petro Poroshenko, Oleh Barna. Eugene Dykhne, acting head of Kievs Boryspil International Airport; the Iranian ambassador to Kiev; and Mahan Airs managing director for international relations, also attended. The lack of U.S. sanctions enforcement under the Obama administration undermined U.S. credibility and deterrence. Although the current government is requesting more U.S. military assistance and a tougher Western stance in its current struggle against Russia in Eastern Ukraine, it sees no contradiction between its desire for Western support and its partnership with Irans sanctioned aviation sector. This past summer, Merhej boasted about the popularity of the Kiev-Tehran route. He said, The occupancy is increasing every day. We have about 75 passengers per flight today. Two months ago, it was 55 passengers. I am confident that we will reach 100 passengers by the end of June. What Merhej failed to address is that UM Airlines, via its support of Mahan Airlines, has been involved in moving illicit cargo for the Syrian regime and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps external arm, the Qods Force. The U.S. Treasury confirmed in 2013 that UM Airlines has trained Mahan Air pilots and engineers, and transferred airplanes to Mahan Air. UM has now been caught transferring weapons as well, write Ottolenghi and Zilberman. The seizure of weapons last week shows that UM Airlines has not stopped its illicit activity with Mahan Airlines, and that this activity has increased since the initial designations by Treasury. This is a major red flag. Was last weeks weapons seizure was just the tip of the iceberg in illicit activity facilitated by UM and Mahan Airlines? Ottolenghi and Zilberman say that since conflict erupted in 2014, Ukraine has become a supermarket for the illicit arms trade, one that Iran can easily exploit through its direct air connection to Kiev. Authorities in Ukraine should be commended for seizing the weapons shipment, but when Kiev asks the United States for economic and military assistance, the least it can do is prevent sanctioned entities such as UM and Mahan Airlines to operate from its soil, conclude Ottolenghi and Zilberman. Brent Symonette Nassau Guardian photo EDITOR, Re: Tribune editorial of Feb 2, 2017: Its Time For The Opposition To Get Its Act Together, which references and quotes the thrust of an excellent editorial letter by Luther McDonald published on January 24th. I am in hearty agreement with everything that Mr McDonald espouses, as the attributes of a Bahamian leader like Brent Symonette, except perhaps, his conclusion that most people would have, that the Bahamian people would never support him because he is white. I have it on very good authority that Mr Symonettes birth certificate states that his race is MIXED. Certainly the Symonette name originated in Europe and very likely is of French origin. And somewhere between the first Symonette landing in Eleuthera and Sir Roland being born, there was an inter-racial relationship between a pure European Symonette and a pure African spouse or partner. But the question that begs asking is why would a mixed race Symonette, and a clearly mixed race Christie, be any different politically? Wikipedia provides a couple of origins of Clan Christie one of which being: Christie is a shortened form of Christian and possibly also of Christopher, which is established in Fife and Stirlingshire1 According to Scots Kith and Kin, Clan Christie was in the area of Fife in the 15th Century. Said to be a sept of the Clan Farquharson. So, that being said, one of the Scottish Christies must have had an inter-racial relationship, with a pure or mixed race African. So, if our acceptable Parliamentarians, and or Prime Ministers, can only be based on the degree of BLACKNESS then we are really in trouble in this country. Philip Davis is probably the only qualified MP. Just look at the Parliamentarians of today, including senators, and decide if any of these are black enough to meet this test. Perry Christie himself, speaking of pure white Spanish Wells Ryan Pinder, expressed the belief that he was a Bahamian who could be the Prime Minister of a Black Majority Country. So, what is the real criteria here. Is it only some mixed race people that are acceptable to the Bahamian people? I dont think so! And, if the current state of our nation, and its finances, and the state of almost every other Ministry of Government being in shambles, does not tell us that the colour of a Bahamians skin is not a sensible bar to preventing someone who can engender and re-establish international respect for this country, then we are really and truly a people beyond all hope. So, yes, I think that Brent Symonette is the one person who could lead a Unified Opposition against the PLP and by so doing bring the FNM, DNA, XYZ, and ABC, parties together under one banner to defeat the PLP and form a Government, to be run on sound financial and business principles. Such an alliance would require that all groups withdraw their constituency nominees, so that a selection of the best and most likely successful candidates can be re-nominated. It also supposes that the three or four contenders for Alt Prime Minister stand back, and take a secondary position. I have been told this could work, and it would be the cornerstone of any such venture. Urban Dictionary defines a Come to Jesus Moment as: An epiphany in which one realises the truth of a matter; a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something; coming .. I think that now is your Come to Jesus Moment Gentlemen and Lady . . BRUCE G. RAINE Nassau, February 6, 2017. The views expressed are those of the author, and not necessarily those of WeblogBahamas (which has no corporate view), or its Advisers or Directors. The following is a Feb. 8 news release from the I-14 Gulf Coast Strategic Highway Coalition: AUSTIN, TEXAS -- While development of Interstate 14 across Texas will take decades, momentum for improvement projects in the corridor is building and has support from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). Representatives of two dozen communities that make up the Gulf Coast Strategic Highway Coalition gathered in Austin this week to hear about current and future highway transportation needs including the fact that improved highways add military value to bases in Texas and Louisiana. The first 25-mile segment of US 190 is now part of the Interstate Highway System. It runs from Interstate 35 in Belton to Copperas Cove and provides direct access to the main gate at Fort Hood in Killeen. A celebration is being planned in the coming months to unveil the first I-14 signs. For more than a decade the Gulf Coast Strategic Highway Coalition has been advocating for improved highway connections between U.S. Army facilities at Fort Hood, Fort Bliss and Fort Polk and the strategic military deployment ports at Beaumont and Corpus Christi. Such improvements increase the military value of those installations as they perform their assigned mission. Since the Interstate Highway System was designated initially as a defense highway system, it only makes sense that with a military installation like Fort Hood we would want to make sure that it is tied and connected directly to our interstate system, TxDOT Deputy Executive Director Marc Williams told the group during the Coalitions annual meeting. In 2015 the Congress created the Central Texas Corridor generally along the US 190 route and designated it as future I-14. The Coalition and members of Congress are currently supporting additional legislation to adjust the corridor in West Texas so that it will serve San Angelo and Midland-Odessa. Williams noted that it took only a year to go from congressional action to final decision on the first segment of I-14. He warned that it is going to take a long time and concerted effort to continue the progress. The important thing is that you all have some momentum, you are organized, you are promoting the importance of that corridor, and TxDOT wants to do our part as well. We are working within our Transportation Planning and Programming Division to understand and begin to look at the feasibility of incremental improvements to that corridor, Williams said. He noted that the Texas Transportation Commission includes members who are strong supporters of highway projects that provide connectivity between regions and centers of commerce and production. He said Commission Chairman Tryon Lewis of Odessa certainly appreciates the significance of making investments to ensure that all of Texas is connected to key transportation corridors. In a video message sent to the group, Congressman Brian Babin of East Texas said he believes I-14 can be an example to the nation of Congress getting something right when it comes to transportation. Congressman Babin is a member of the U.S. House Transportation Committee and was the House sponsor of the I-14 designation language. Speakers during the annual meeting stressed the need for improved connectivity, particularly between the key Permian Basin oil and gas production region and seaports on the Texas Coast. That included James Beauchamp, president of the Midland-Odessa Transportation Alliance, who explained that the Permian Basin is responsible for more than 50% of the oil produced in Texas and that the Texas Railroad Commission estimates there are roughly 500 years of recoverable oil and gas resources in the region. Our region is growing but we are isolated. That is why these highway connections are so important to us, he said. He pointed to the value of improved highway connections between the Permian Basin and the frac sand mines in McCulloch County and the oil refineries and export terminals at the Port of Corpus Christi. Roland Pena, economic development director for the City of San Angelo, also pointed to long-term energy development in West Texas and the importance of transportation in serving energy industry growth. The Coalition also heard updates on transportation needs from Charlie Zahn, chairman of the Port of Corpus Christi Authority, Clayton Henderson of the Port of Beaumont, Major Gen. Kendall Cox who heads the Heart of Texas Defense Alliance, Malcolm Morris who represents communities supporting Fort Polk in Louisiana, McCulloch County Judge Danny Neal who talked about the expansion of frac sand mines in his county and Jasper County Judge Mark Allen who talked about the need for improvements in East Texas. John Thompson, former county judge of Polk County and board chairman of the Gulf Coast Strategic Highway Coalition, said these updates helped Coalition members better understand how improvements to the I-14 Corridor and its connector spurs will help Texas take advantage of energy industry growth and provide new economic development opportunities across a wide area of the state. The Central Texas Corridor begins in West Texas and runs through Killeen, Bryan/College Station, Huntsville, Livingston, the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe Reservation, Woodville and Jasper before crossing into Louisiana at the Sabine River near Fort Polk. Thompson said upgrading this corridor to interstate standard will mean improved safety and traffic mobility while creating new growth opportunities for the communities in the regions served by the future interstate highway. DERIDDER -- An explosion killed three people Wednesday and injured at least seven others at Packaging Corporation of America (PCA) on U.S. 190 West, between DeRidder and Merryville. Beauregard Parish Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy Joe Toler told the West Central News Center that the call came in at 11:10 a.m. Wednesday. Victims, injuries The Sheriff's Office on Thursday morning released the names of the deceased: 32-year-old William Rolls Jr.; 42-year-old Sedrick Stallworth; and 40-year-old Jody L. Gooch. PCA, in a statement late Wednesday, confirmed they were contractors. Randall Mann, public relations for Acadian Ambulance, told the News Center that two helicopters, six ground ambulances and a supervisor vehicle responded. Seven patients were transported in all, Mann said, two by air and the other five by ground. The injured were taken to various hospitals in the region. Six injuries were described as "minor" and the other as "moderate." Beauregard Memorial Hospital, in DeRidder, received three patients, all of whom were treated and released. Kelli C. Broocks, Director of Public Relations, Human Resources, Physician Recruitment for BMH, told the News Center that the hospital was notified of the incident by LERN (Louisiana Emergency Response Network). Broocks said the Emergency Department Director immediately notified administration and the hospital emergency disaster plan was put into action. "The hospital staff was very well prepared and ready to serve the emergency needs of the community," she said. One person had been unaccounted for Wednesday morning, yet by late the afternoon hours, that person had been accounted for with his condition unknown, Toler reported. Investigation Sgt. James Anderson, Louisiana State Police, Troop D, told media Wednesday afternoon that one tank exploded, a 25-foot tall tank in the pulp mill section of the plant. State Police, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) officials and the Beauregard Parish Sheriff's Office are investigating. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board on Thursday morning indicated on social media that representatives have deployed to PCA in DeRidder. The CSB is "an independent federal agency charged with investigating serious chemical accidents," according to the agency's page. More HERE. .@chemsafetyboard deploying to site of fatal hot work incident at PCA DeRidder, Louisiana, paper mill CSB (@chemsafetyboard) February 9, 2017 PCA Statement The DeRidder plant is a containerboard mill. Late Wednesday evening, PCA released the following statement: "At approximately 11:10 am CST, Wednesday, February 8th, there was an explosion at our DeRidder, LA paper mill. The incident involved annual repair work being performed on piping in the pulp mill area and resulted in three contractor fatalities. The cause of the incident is under investigation. Our primary concern is for the safety and well-being of the people working on our site. The top priorities at this time are the notification of families of the deceased contractors and investigation of the incident with authorities. At the time of the incident, the D1 machine was down for its annual outage and the D3 machine was running and continues to operate. The current assessment indicates that the annual outage work is expected to be delayed by up to one week and the mill will then resume full operation. Further information will be provided, as appropriate, when it becomes available." Community, state response There has been an outpouring of care and concern for DeRidder and PCA employees by local, state officials, groups and individuals on social media. Below are some of those statements and posts: From the Southern Loggers Cooperative: "Our thoughts and prayers are with the families that lost loved ones and the injured in the accident at the PCA Paper Mill in Deridder, Louisiana. Our Deridder Station is at the entrance of this mill. From the information that we have been given, there will be no wood flow in to the mill until further notice. Please keep these families, the City of Deridder, and the PCA family in your prayers." Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry: "Please join Sharon and me in prayer for the lives lost and those injured in Beauregard Parish during today's devastating plant explosion." Congressman Mike Johnson: "I am deeply saddened to receive the briefing on the explosion in DeRidder this afternoon at the Beauregard Packing Corporation of America. My sincerest thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families, the first responders and the community as a whole. I will continue to closely monitor the situation and send updates as they come." Senator John Kennedy: "Tragic news from DeRidder today. My thoughts and prayers are with the workers and their families." My Heart Bleeds for the employees of Deridder paper mill#Deridder #wenttoworknevercamehome Scott Crosby (@ScottCrosby1) February 8, 2017 Out thoughts r w/all re #deridder explosion C.P.P.L. (@cppllibrary) February 8, 2017 So worried for all of my friends in deridder who have family members employed at PCA. Praying they all remained safe in the explosion Ashley Snapp (@ashdsnapp_) February 8, 2017 Hold your loved ones close tonight & pray for the families affected by the explosion that happened in Deridder today. Can't believe this. Malorie (@MalorieDawn) February 8, 2017 Everyone say a prayer for PCA company out of Deridder. There was an explosion this morning. I'm so glad daddy was home. Sarah Elizabeth. (@_sarah_gordon_) February 8, 2017 Sending prayers to the PCA plant in DeRidder KJohnson (@keenajj) February 8, 2017 DeRidder Praying for everyone in DeRidder. L. Walker Browning (@LaloLafleur) February 8, 2017 prayers going out to the families of the people killed today at PCA plant in DeRidder, Louisiana.. Connor Eston (@StayDvpper) February 8, 2017 Via my mom my dad is okay and accounted for. Continue to pray for everyone at PCA in DeRidder today. Alayna Thibodeaux (@alaynakate) February 8, 2017 Please pray for everyone at PCA in DeRidder Alyson Kaye (@alykayethib) February 8, 2017 Sending prayers for all involved in the PCA explosion this morning in my hometown #DeRidder Valerie Kattz (@ValerieKattz) February 8, 2017 The video clarified that potential further conflicts with Iran or North Korea would presumably be undertaken deliberately by the president, even if in response to clear aggression from one of those adversaries. Any crisis involving Russia and China, by contrast, would probably be the result of an unsought and unanticipated clash that escalates on its own. Nevertheless, the Wall Street Journal names China right alongside Iran as a major enemy of the Trump administration. And this situation was underscored by the USA Today in an article that reported on showy and provocative military drills that had been undertaken by both Iran and China in the wake of Trumps early foreign policy gestures. In the past, the two nations had carried out some joint naval maneuvers in the Persian Gulf, in a testament to their burgeoning alliance, which also involves contributions from Russia. In the present case, the Iranian and Chinese activities are separate from each other, but were arguably initiated in response to the same foreign policy circumstances vis-a-vis the United States. While the Chinese tested a new missile, the Iranians followed up on an earlier ballistic missile test by conducting public military exercises and presenting what the regime claimed to be new advanced weaponry. Irans activities were underscored by belligerent statements regarding the countrys prospective response to provocations by the enemy, a term that regime hardliners frequently use to refer to the US. Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force said, If the enemy makes a mistake our roaring missiles will hit their targets. Mojtaba Zonour, a member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of the Iranian parliament, used very similar language, saying that a variety of potential targets liked to the US or its allies, including the Bahrain-based US Navy 5th Fleet, were within the range of Irans missile systems and would be razed to the ground if the enemy makes a mistake. These statements and the associated demonstrations coincided closely with other, goading public statements from Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The nations absolute clerical authority issued a sarcastic message of thanks to President Trump, crediting him with exposing the real face of the United States. The Washington Post notes that Khamenei referenced a falsely-identified photograph purporting to show a five-year-old child handcuffed by authorities in the wake of Trumps travel ban targeting Iran and six other Muslim majority countries, which led to some green card holders being barred admittance to the US before the order was suspended by a federal court. But although the particular photograph was not relevant to the case, some commentators worried that the travel ban would play into the hands of the Iranian leadership. And Khameneis statement, which attempted to portray the US as a violator of human rights, shows that the leadership is indeed trying to leverage it for that purpose. But the apparent flip-side of the travel ban is that it is one indicator of a commitment on the part of the Trump administration to a more assertive foreign policy, and one that actively confronts perceived threats to American security interests, including those seen as coming from Iran. That commitment was underscored by the administrations own statements last week putting Iran on notice over its provocative regional behaviors. The initial statement by National Security Advisor Michael Flynn came a few days after the Revolutionary Guards carried out a new test of a medium-range ballistic missile. The administration followed up shortly thereafter by imposing new economic sanctions on 25 individuals and firms linked to the missile program. On one hand, the statements by Khamenei, the IRGC, and the Iranian parliament seem to reject the pressure that those sanctions seek to impose. But on the other hand, those statements are only words and it is not yet clear whether those words will align with the regimes actual behavior. The uncertainty was amplified on Tuesday when Fox News reported that satellite imagery had shown the launch pad for the January 29 ballistic missile test being cleared off and readied for a new launch, only for the unused missile to be removed from the pad in what Fox described as a surprising about-face. Fox News acknowledges that the reasons for this move are unknown, but until more information is revealed, it is quite possible that the Iranians stepped back from planned escalations, as a response to the new sanctions or the larger contextual threat. This possibility is reinforced by Irans apparent efforts to downplay the significance of the recent ballistic missile test, which the leadership now says was not intended as a message to the new US president. This supposed clarification was detailed by Reuters. And while it was couched in terms that were still notably aggressive toward the US and the West, it also attempted to argue that the diplomatic situation had not changed on the Iranian side, and that any actions taken in the near future by the Trump administration would be the result of commitments he had made before even taking office. It is not yet clear what impact these sorts of statements might have on international perceptions of the status of Iranian-US relations. But the Trump administration may stand to accrue greater benefits if those Iranian clarifications are read against the clear threats coming out of the supreme leaders office and the IRGC. In the meantime, however, the Trump administration may face an uphill battle to convince traditional US allies of the value of joining him in a more assertive approach to Iran policy. At least, this was the message of Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, whom Agence-France Presse quoted as commenting on the probability that the Trump administration will look for a way to renegotiate the Iran nuclear deal that had been spearheaded by President Obama, and that the Trump campaign repeatedly referred to as one of the worst deals ever negotiated. Zarif said that such renegotiation was off the table, and he appears to be correct in concluding that every other participant in the seven-party agreement except for the US is in agreement with Irans view that the deal is final and immutable. In spite of this, Zarif apparently recognized the Trump administrations passion for this issue when he said that he foresaw difficult days ahead for Irans relations with the US. And even though the world community is for now on the side of defending the nuclear deal in its current form, there are numerous commentators throughout the US and Europe who were thoroughly frustrated by the Obama administrations Iran policy and are now looking for drastic and assertive change under the leadership of President Trump. This was the apparent message of one Fox News article that urged the new administration to reveal the contents of so-called secret side-deals to the nuclear agreement. The continued absence of this kind of transparency may be grounds for some Iran-policy watchers to question whether the Trump administration truly plans to follow through on its commitments to confronting and constraining the Islamic Republic. Although the aforementioned Fox News report tentatively gives the administration credit for halting or delaying a planned Iranian missile launch, this one says that the newest sanctions on the ballistic missile program are only an extension of the same strategies utilized by the Obama administration. The Obama White House did indeed impose new sanctions on one ballistic missile launch that took place soon after the conclusion of nuclear negotiations. But several other tests were carried out in subsequent months, and apparently met with little to no consequence. Both before and after the transition to the Trump administration, political groups like the National Council of Resistance of Iran have urgently pushed the US government to re-apply sanctions-based leverage on the Islamic Republic, especially by focusing attention on powerful hardline entities like the Revolutionary Guards. On one hand, it has been suggested that the Trump administration might be more receptive than any of its predecessors to the positions of the Iranian Resistance that is led by the NCRI. But on the other hand, uncertainty will no doubt persist until it is clear what actions the administration will take beyond these initial sanctions. In fact, the Washington Free Beacon provided still more reason for uncertainty when it reported that the Republican Congress had put forth a tax plan that would provide tens of millions of dollars worth of savings for the Seattle-based aircraft manufacturer Boeing, despite its controversial deal to sell dozens of commercial jets to the Islamic Republic. That deal had been opposed by some Republicans and by other opponents of the Iranian regime, in large part because of the IRGCs long history of using the Iranian commercial fleet as a cover for the smuggling of weapons and fighters into foreign combat zones and regions controlled by terrorist proxies. The Free Beacon declared that this tax plan runs counter to declarations by the Trump administration, which has vowed to get tough on Iran and stop its illicit procurement of weapons and missile technology. But it is also worth noting that the president has neither signed nor weighed in on the plan as of this writing. And until he does, the plan cannot be construed as evidence against Trumps intentions to follow through on tough talk, although it does remain as a notable question mark. Still, the president will surely continue to face a great deal of pressure from opponents of the Iranian regime as he charts his way forward on Iran policy. These opponents include Saudi Arabia, whose head of state Trump spoke with on Sunday, and Israel, whose prime minister will be meeting with Trump in the days ahead. As well as keeping pressure on Trump for a hardline Iran policy, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently spoke out on a visit to the UK, according to CNN, urging all responsible nations to elaborate upon the initial sanctions measures that were implemented by the Trump administration. While collaborating with these and other critics of Iran, the Trump administration will almost certainly continue to be emboldened by Irans own provocations, if the statements by Khamenei and the IRGC are any indicator. However, recent developments also suggest the possibility that those provocations may remain limited to bombastic statements as the regime questions whether further missile tests will in fact spur assertive American reprisals. Email To : Multiple e-mail addresses must be separated with a comma character(maximum 200 characters) Email To is required. Your Full Name: (optional) Your Email Address: Your Email Address is required. Fall back tonight -- for the last time? By West Kentucky Star Staff Feb. 09, 2017 | 12:54 PM | GRAVES COUNTY, KY Two Graves County residents were arrested Thursday on heroin and other drug charges. Graves County Sheriff Dewayne Redmon said drug detectives received information about illegal drug activity taking place at a home on State Route 384, west of Mayfield. Sheriff's detectives, along with Probation and Parole officers and the Mayfield Police Department K-9 searched the home and found heroin, methamphetamine and other prescription medication. Police arrested the homeowners, 42-year-old Michael Brett Pierce and 42-year-old Katie Bryant Winters. They were charged with trafficking heroin, trafficking methamphetamine, possession of controlled substance (drug unspecified), possession of drug paraphernalia and prescription not in the proper container. They were lodged in the Graves County Jail. By The Associated Press By The Associated Press Feb. 09, 2017 | 02:47 PM | FRANKFORT, KY The Senate Education Committee has approved legislation that would ban tobacco products on public school property in Kentucky and at school-sponsored activities. The measure's chief sponsor is Republican Sen. Ralph Alvarado, who is a medical doctor. The bill aimed at reducing Kentucky's youth smoking rates sailed through committee on Thursday. Alvarado says that cutting youth smoking would save lives, make students healthier and reduce costs to treat smoking-related illnesses. The bill would prohibit use of tobacco products by students, school employees and visitors in schools and school vehicles and at school-sponsored activities. Alvarado says school boards would be expected to act within a year with policies to prohibit tobacco products in buildings and on campuses. The ban also would apply to e-cigarette products. The Iranian dissident group known as the Peoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran has cited its own intelligence-gathering alongside that of Western intelligence agencies in order to repeatedly emphasize the connections between Tehran and the North Korean nuclear weapons program. Other critics of the Iranian regime and other advocates for a more assertive US foreign policy have done the same. Collectively, this advocacy has served to raise awareness of what the Washington Free Beacon describes as the potential threat of a direct attack on the United States. The PMOI and its political allies have urged more assertive US policies not just on the Iranian missile program, but also on the entire issue of Irans nuclear research and development. In the view of some policymakers these two issues are separate, and they were treated as such under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which was finalized in July 2015. Unable to come to an agreement about how tightly the Iranian missile program would be constrained under the nuclear deal, the US and Iran resolved to simply leave the issue out of the final agreement, addressing it instead via supplementary deals and documents. The United Nations Security Council resolution that oversaw the implementation of the JCPOA called upon the Islamic Republic to avoid further work on and testing of weapons designed to be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. This actually softened the language of a previous Security Council resolution, which made it clearer that compliance was obligatory, as well as referring to ballistic missiles only as being capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, regardless of the supposed intentions behind their design. The change has given the Islamic Republic some standing to argue that none of its post-JCPOA ballistic missile tests were violations of existing agreements, both because the missile restrictions are non-binding and because the international community cannot prove that the Iranian missiles are intended for nuclear warheads. Naturally, though, many critics of the Iranian regime are skeptical of Irans intentions or even fully convinced that the leadership still intends to eventually obtain usable nuclear weapons. Olli Heinonen, a former deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has frequently pointed out that every other country that has developed intercontinental ballistic missiles has armed them with nuclear warheads. This point about the essential identity of such weapons was reiterated in a new policy statement that Heinonen has written for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which retains him as a senior advisor on science and non-proliferation. In that article, the former nuclear official elaborated upon other recent calls for the Trump administration to lift the veil of secrecy that has been held over from the Obama White House with regard to the so-called secret side deals to the nuclear agreement. While some of these details have already been revealed, Heinonen points out that one thing that remains unknown is how Iranian and American negotiators mutually defined the key phrases in the ballistic missile resolution. Clarification on this point could help to determine how the Trump administration can move forward to hold Iran accountable for ballistic and cruise missile tests. But in any event, Heinonen argues that this is an issue that must be addressed. Developments on Tehrans missile program therefore cannot be dealt with in isolation from its nuclear efforts, he writes in his list of recommendations. Heinonen goes on to say that if it turns out the existing language of the resolution is too weak to justify enforcement, then the UN Security Council should move to make sure that more explicit and long-lasting restrictions are in place before such time as the Islamic Republic is in a position to sprint toward the levels and quantities of nuclear enrichment that would allow it to produce a nuclear weapon. Heinonens statement reiterates that this sprint could be completed in as little as a few weeks. In theory, the JCPOA will prevent Iran from reaching sufficient levels of enrichment for a period of at least several years. But even if inspections succeed in keeping Iran from enriching uranium significantly beyond the levels defined under the agreement, there are other sources of significant concern for critics of the deal. Among these is the notion that the regime is actually being permitted to expand its access to raw uranium, thus giving it abundant resources with which to undertake the theoretical nuclear sprint. This was the focus of several reports this week describing the conclusion of a large-scale uranium sale from Russia to Iran, which was approved by the Obama administration in its final weeks. The Iranian Students News Agency gave the total figure for this purchase as 149 tons of yellow cake uranium, and the report also boasted that this was equivalent to 10 years worth of domestic production. It raises the total quantity of post-JCPOA uranium importation to 360 tons, most of it coming from Russia. News outlets that are critical of the Iranian regime have emphasized that this results in Iran having approximately 60 percent more uranium than prior to the nuclear deal. The multiple import deals with Iran also underscore the still-developing relationship between the two countries something that has the potential to be a source of frustration as the Trump administration attempts to impose a more assertive Iran policy on the world and build consensus for it. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi left Iran on Wednesday for a one-day visit to Moscow, where he was set to discuss bilateral and international issues, according to 24 India News and Irans Tasnim News Agency. The visit comes shortly after Foreign Minister Javad Zarif made a public statement predicting difficult days ahead for the nuclear agreement, not just because of the Trump administrations interest in renegotiating it but also because of the rejection of this prospect by the other six parties to the agreement, especially Tehran and its reliable backers in Moscow and Beijing. However, Trumps former promises regarding the nuclear deal have virtually fallen silent since he took office last month, and the Daily Mail suggested on Wednesday that his team may be shifting its focus in order to punish Iran over objectionable non-nuclear behaviors, without undermining the JCPOA directly. The Washington Free Beacons report on the prospective missile defense system may highlight one aspect of this strategy. But there are others that are still coming clear as the administrations approach to Iran policy continues to take shape. The Daily Mail report focuses on the possibility that Trump may have the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps placed on the US State Departments list of foreign terrorist organizations. Currently, the foreign special operations wing of the IRGC, known as the Quds Force, occupies a spot on the list. But harsh critics of the regime, including many of Trumps advisors as well as the PMOI, have long been urging a formal expansion in the recognition and punishment of Irans record as the worlds leading state sponsor of terrorism. The IRGCs role in this terrorism is one of the justifications for criticism of the JCPOA, since the hardline paramilitary organization has controlling interests in a very wide range of Iranian economic institutions and industries. The Daily Mail article points out that the fine print of current sanctions laws allow for Western firms to do business with the IRGC indirectly, even though its acknowledged business interests are on blacklists. Many other such interests are unacknowledged, but are widely understood to be hidden behind shell corporations and collectives of minority ownership. The designation of the IRGC as a terrorist group is reportedly in one of several executive orders that President Trump is expected to sign in the days ahead. The Daily Mail explains that the explicit intention behind this move is to discourage Western businesses from dealing with the IRGC, even directly. It is possible that for many of those businesses, this will mean effectively ending their plans to explore economic opportunities in the Islamic Republic. In other words, it may serve to partly reverse the situation created by the JCPOA, thereby undermining in the name of taking a tougher stance on terrorism. Whatever the precise plans may be for the Trump administrations Iran policy, Voice of America News suggested on Tuesday that that administration is largely of one mind about the way forward. In confirmation hearings, Defense Secretary James Mattis readily described Iran as the most destabilizing force in the Middle East today. And in the wake of Irans most recent ballistic missile test, National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was quick to publicly put Iran on notice, while President Trump himself emphasized that all options were on the table for the sake of dealing with Irans malign behaviors. In public statements, the Iranian leadership has apparently been dismissive of Trumps aggressive tone, but Voice of America quoted Press Secretary Sean Spicer as saying that Tehran is kidding itself if it does not take the change in administration seriously. Nevertheless, the free exchange of rhetoric appears to be continuing, with Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei insisting, according to Bloomberg, that the regimes domestic supporters would come forward on Friday, the 38th anniversary of the Islamic revolution, to defy Trumps hardline tone. On the other hand, in an interview with Fox News, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies executive director, Mark Dubowitz argued that the Iranian leaderships resurgence in rhetoric may conceal some deep-seated fears about what the United States is willing to do under the leadership of an administration that already agrees to a very great extent about its need to confront Iran over missile development, support for terrorism, and the misappropriation of Western capital. Loading... Several productions at West Yorkshire Playhouse have recently been "re-imaginings" of familiar texts and identified as such. Pygmalion, a joint production with Headlong and Nuffield Southampton Theatres, is also re-imagined, but billed as "Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw", leading, no doubt, to some very confused audience members. There are two main strands to the deconstruction. Before the start, mutterings are heard in which the sentence, "So you'll read the flower girl" comes across. So nobody is really playing the character; the actors are playing people who are reading the parts at least that's how I interpret it. If we should be under any illusions, the opening scene dispels them, characters lined up against a blank wall, spotlit individually, reciting lines which are also surtitled, while the sound engineers play merry games with distorting or speeding up speech or replacing the character's speech with a different voice. The perverseness that characterises the whole production surfaces in a similar way in the optional embassy scene, with the small talk of the reception played on a sound loop, with many references to "the hairy Hungarian" that is, bearded voiced by a woman. And that is the second strand in the deconstruction. This is a production about making sound and doing odd things with it. Eliza's first appearance at Higgins' apartment and the preceding conversation between Higgins and Pickering are punctuated by sound games. When Doolittle arrives, he has to resort to a mike to address the audience like a political rally during that splendidly confiding "undeserving poor" speech. It is rather sad that the first laughs in a production of a very funny play come in a little sketch unrelated to the text, Eliza and Higgins throwing pronunciations and mispronunciations at each other, with a good gag on Keighley. The first laughs that relate to Shaw come in the following scene where Liza Sadovy is unaccountably allowed to play Mrs Higgins as Mrs Higgins and does it rather well. She does it even better in the final act where Ian Burfield also has the chance to pace his Alfred Doolittle and is excellent. Raphael Sowole plays a likeable Pickering although Alex Beckett offers sloppy speech as Henry Higgins and emphasises the character's selfishness at the expense of his charm. There is much more clever stuff in Sam Pritchard's production, film inserts, for instance, but it's a relief when he allows Higgins and Eliza (a sympathetic Natalie Gavin) to just talk to each other. Pygmalion runs at West Yorkshire Playhouse until 25 February, before touring the UK. Loading... Three years ago, I was sitting on a bench by the river Thames in front of the Houses of Parliament. Beside me sat Vicky Araico Casas, a Mexican writer and actress and a longstanding collaborator of mine. Vicky told me about an idea she had for a new play where an orphan girl named Milagros from one of the most deprived neighbourhoods in Mexico fights her way out of poverty. Just as she starts climbing up the social ladder she is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Milagros then decides to spend the rest of her time on earth killing the people she holds responsible for the circumstances of her life in an act of revenge. Vicky told me how in Mexico due to the complete and utter desperation of people living with such dysfunctional and corrupt systems, you would commonly hear the infamous phrase: "If I had a terminal illness and I had nothing more to lose, I'd grab a gun and shoot some politicians". I looked at the Houses of Parliament and for a second, in my mind's eye I saw it in flames In the play we were protesting the Mexican government when the night before we were protesting outside Downing Street This conversation became the starting point of a creative process spanning three years that led to our show, Bucket List, which premiered at Edinburgh Fringe last year. In it, Milagros' mother is killed protesting government corruption and injustice, and Milagros decides to take revenge. We were delighted with the reaction it received from audiences and critics alike. In her review for WhatsOnStage Sarah Crompton gave the show five stars referring to it as a 'magical theatrical force'. It felt good to be highlighting the trade agreements that force those living on the border in Mexico into inhumane conditions, the subtleties of corruption that means they can't help themselves and those in power that ignore them. All I could think of was how many other protests I had taken part in and how the thing I was protesting still continued Last week, I found myself by the Houses of Parliament again, this time joining thousands of other demonstrators protesting against Trump's potential visit to the UK. I was chanting and waving my banner with the huge crowd but all I could think of was how many other protests I had taken part in and how often the horrible thing I was protesting against - occupation, cuts to public funding for the disabled, privatisation of social care, worker's rights, war - still continued. Yes, shouting anti-Trump slogans made me feel like I was doing something to change what I thought was wrong but is protesting enough? Will it actually stop him visiting the UK? Will it stop May aligning our country with what looks likely to become a fascist regime? Back in the rehearsal room, ahead of the London premiere, Bucket List felt even more vivid than it had in Edinburgh. Here we were acting out a scene protesting against the Mexican government when just the night before we were protesting outside Downing Street. In Bucket List the workers are protesting against Nafta (North American Free Trade Agreement) as it makes their life into a rights-less living hell. When we performed the show in Edinburgh, most of the audience hadn't heard of Nafta. Now, many more people have, but hardly in a way we would have wanted. Bucket List runs at BAC from 13 February to 4 March and then tours the UK. Loading... As a young girl growing up in LA, sunny as her surroundings, Viveca takes on two things in particular: the shooting of four black children in an Alabama church, splashed over the front pages, and the whiteness of her favourite doll, Chitty Chatty. Bad things, she assumes, come with blackness. "I've decided I'm going to be white." First seen off-Broadway way back in 2000, Kirsten Childs' semi-autobiographical musical tumbles through the second half of the 20th century, but it only skims the surface of history. Most of us do. History rubs off on us. We're shaped in cultural currents. Viveca more than most. She's an impressionable soul who dreams of being a dancer, and Childs details a lifelong struggle with herself: how black to be and how to be black. All her life, she bumps into white cultural norms, standards of beauty and social etiquette. At high school she's dismissed as an oreo' - white on the inside - but when she tries to take ownership of her race and roots, it feels all the more artificial. Karis Jack, a fine physical comedian, squirms though a party as she plays it cool. Her politics and her tastes, she picks up from others, protesting with hippies, then diving headfirst into the disco scene. If the times are a-changing, so's Viveca - and so's what it is to be black. Her hair straightens and curls through the years. One moment cuts to the quick. Walking home, her date's stopped by police and held, on his knees, at gunpoint. "Wrong one," says the cop and, in that moment, there's no ignoring how much appearances matter when you're judged by your skin tone. The dilemma is that of assimilation: how to succeed as a black woman when success is defined by white standards. It's not just that her light-skinned dance classmate gets cast in the lead, it's that ballet wasn't built for black bodies. "Tuck that butt in," her childhood teacher tuts. The same problems recur later in life and Viveca, now played by Sophia Mackay, finds herself sidelined to sassy sidekick' roles. At auditions in New York, she performs her blackness, conforming to cliche. Overdoing it somewhat, Mackay drops into a knock-kneed, lickspittin' cartoon an adopted minstrelsy, really. She gets the job. Childs makes her point formally. Her musical is so relentlessly bubbly it very nearly bursts. She keeps it light at all costs, pushing history to one side, as if trying to wrestle romance into focus, not race relations. It's just as restless as she is, churning through song styles as she tries on new looks; most of them peppy, poppy and white. Only at the end do both find their voice. Viveca stops smiling and speaks out. Mackay plays it beautifully: her shoulders drop, her face relaxes and she seems to breathe properly for the first time. Josette Bushell-Mingo's production never really delivers through. It's intent on easy laughs, stuffed with cheap gags and gurns, but she never sours that laughter. Instead, everything's so eager to please both strange and a shame, given that that's precisely what Childs critiques. Rosa Maggiora's plasticky design is pure Nickelodeon, and many of the supporting performances go out of their way for laughs. Only Trevor A Toussaint and Sharon Wattis hold back as Viveca's parents, but Childs encourages comic exaggerations and one leaves with the sense that, at the time of writing, she still wasn't being true to herself. The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin runs at the Theatre Royal Stratford East until 11 March, and at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry from 5 to 15 April. Loading... Hester Brook is in her sixties and she's dying of cancer. She has no friends, no family, no religion and, in her words, she is a "prime candidate for a one-way trip to Switzerland." But rather than seeking help to ensure a dignified end to her shortened life, she opts to spend her final days in solitude, killing time. Zoe Mills' debut play sees her mother, the magnificent Brigit Forsyth, take centre stage as Hester. Sharp tongued and potty-mouthed, her former life as a professional cellist, playing to packed-out concert halls, has given way to afternoons watching Jeremy Kyle and drowning in rioja. Fed up with the melancholy and morbidity that must often come with a cancer diagnosis, she's cut herself off from those around her, preferring her own company - or so she'd like us to believe. It's a tour-de-force from Forsyth, her Mrs B a cross between Maggie Smith's Dowager Countess from Downton Abbey and Gordon Ramsay, effing and blinding her way through life's final concerto. Unlike the archetypal image of the terminally ill, frail and despondent, Hester wants to do things her own way, pissed as a fart and struggling to stay on her feet. It may look tragic to an outsider, but if she is going to die, then it's going to be on her terms. That is until her obnoxious carer Sara (Mills) comes calling. She's more than a little wet behind the ears, but she's determined to help whether it's desired or not. Her youthful naivety initially hides a deeper understanding of Hester's predicament, as we soon learn she carries her own burdens and harbours a desire to help older people end their lives, perhaps her penance for not helping her own father when he needed it. But instead of helping Mrs B end her life, Sara helps her realise its potential. Paul Colwell's cardboard box set speaks of a life packed away, possessions ready for the charity shop, memories ready for the bonfire. A revolve - a rare sight in a 90-seater studio theatre - spins into action as time passes, underscored by the cello composition "HeartTime", composed and played live by Forsyth. The problem with having a lot of time on your hands is often the conundrum of choice. In these modern times we can, within reason, do anything, go anywhere, see anyone at the click of a button, but do we? Usually not, we scroll through Netflix, unable to choose which boxset to commit to. At points Killing Time falls foul of this, its main theme is legacy and this is explored well, but the taut 90 minutes doesn't allow enough time to truly consider many of the aspects raised, from unfulfilled potential to the digital footprint we leave behind in cyberspace, how women often become "less about their talent, and more about who they've fucked" to the moralities of euthanasia. It's perhaps just a little too much to consider but nevertheless it's a promising start from Mills and a welcome return for Forsyth. Killing Time runs at the Park Theatre until 4 March. Several U.S. government agencies were consulted about this proposal. Its implementation will impose additional measures to those the United States has already imposed on individuals and entities linked to the IRGC, the officials said. Irans most powerful security entity, the IRGC also has control over large portions of Irans economy and great influence on its political system. Reuters didnt see a copy of the proposal, which may come in the form of an executive order directing the State Department to consider designating the IRGC as a terrorist group. Whether Trump would sign such an order is unclear. The White House hasnt responded to a request for comment. Iran denies its involvement in terrorism. Draft orders on several other topics have circulated among U.S. agencies, but were rejected or postponed by the Trump administration. Last week Reuters reported that officials were debating whether to declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, but the decision about that seems to have been indefinitely postponed. Trumps more hardline advisors have been urging him to increase sanctions on Iran since his administration began. Calling the tightening of sanctions against Iran last week in response to a ballistic missile test, an initial step, White House officials said U.S. Gulf allies have long favored a tougher U.S. stance against Iran, whom they blame for regional interference. Dozens of entities and people for affiliations with the IRGC have already been blacklisted by the United States. The U.S. Treasury designated the IRGCs Quds Force, the unit in charge of its operations abroad in 2007, for its support of terrorism, and has said it is Irans primary arm for executing its policy of supporting terrorist and insurgent groups. Designating the entire IRGC as a terrorist group would have much broader implications, as it would include the 2015 Nuclear Deal between Iran, the United States, and other major world powers. Its already been criticized by Trump and Republicans in Congress for giving Iran too much and not placing tight enough restrictions on the country. Reuters reported last week that the IRGC designation is among the proposals being considered as part of an Iran policy review in the Trump administration in an effort to dissuade foreign investment in Irans economy, due to the IRGCs involvement in major sectors including transportation and oil. That involvement is, in many cases, hidden behind layers of opaque ownership. The new administration regards Iran as the clearest danger to U.S. interests, and theyve been looking for ways to turn up the heat, said a senior U.S. official who has been involved in what he called a broad review of Iran policy. Rather than tearing up the nuclear agreement, a step he said even Israel and Saudi Arabia oppose, the official said that the White House might instead punish Iran for its support for Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and some Shiite forces in Iraq, as well as covert support for Shiites who oppose the Sunni regime in Bahrain, and cyber attacks on Saudi and other Gulf Arab targets. U.S. sanctions presently include penalties for foreign companies who knowingly conducting significant transactions with the Revolutionary Guards, or other sanctioned Iranian entities. Still, the Revolutionary Guards have an interest in, or own, many companies that are not blacklisted, and have been able to sign foreign deals. The fine print of existing U.S. sanctions allows foreign companies to continue to deal with some IRGC-held firms indirectly, sanctions lawyers say. The Friends of Wisconsin State Parks presented Merrick State Park with a Gold Seal Award on Nov. 5, 2016 in Stevens Point, Wis. Merrick State Park received a Gold Seal Award for the best park to offer naturalist programs for campers and visitors. Visit Winona was honored with a Marketing Excellence Award at the 2017 Explore Minnesota Tourism Conference in St. Paul recently, for its short film series Why Everyone Loves Winona. Competing against convention and visitor bureaus many times its size, Visit Winona received the award from Explore Minnesota Tourism the states official tourism marketing organization for creating the films to help the community rebrand itself as not just a beautiful city, but also an arts and recreation hub in the Midwest. Visit Winona partnered with Emmy-Award-winning filmmaker Chris Newberry of Free Country Media for the project, which features five two-minute films using man-on-the-street-style interviews to illuminate various reasons why people love Winona. Arts and Recreation, Family Fun and Girlfriend Getaways were the three films judges reviewed for the awards competition. The last two films in the series, Architecture and History and Dining and Nightlife, are set to be released by Visit Winona in March. For more information about Winona or to view the films, visit www.VisitWinona.com. In Winona County, tourism is a $104 million industry employing 2,300 people and pumping $7 million into the states tax coffers. The mission of Visit Winona, which is funded by a nominal lodging tax levied at local hotels, is to promote Winona as a tourism destination. The Winona Recovery House is expected to open in early March to area men addicted to drugs and to alcohol a sorely needed establishment in a place where addicts too often bounce in and out of jail, project leaders say. Speaking at an open house Wednesday, representatives from Common Ground, an organization that runs substance abuse treatment centers in southeast Minnesota, said the new halfway house is intended to help recovering addicts by giving them support at times when its critical they receive it. Were seeing people go from jail, to residential, (and back to jail). said Eric Spagenski, clinical director for Common Ground. Especially in Winona, he said, addicts lack the resources they need to settle into society after stints in jail or other treatment facilities. There werent services for a continuum of care, he said. Located at 730 W. Broadway, the new halfway house is Common Grounds first inpatient facility. The organization, which has centers in Rochester, Red Wing and Winona, had previously been providing substance abuse treatment to inmates at Winona County Jail. That work will continue, Spagenski said, when the halfway house opens. (The group is in the early stages of planning a similar house for area women.) The white, three-story building was purchased by Common Ground in October 2015, and underwent extensive renovations beginning last spring. It has room for 16 clients and will be run by nine staff members, at least one of whom will be on-site and awake at all times. Clients will spend an average of 90 days at the house, attending group therapy and individual counseling, and finding jobs that will make them self-supportive once their 90 days are up. The goal, according to Common Ground counselor Steve Coddington, is to release clients and turn them over to less stringent recovery programs. Its entirely possible, depending on the progress they make, that they could use support systems that are community-based Alcoholics Anonymous, spiritual advisers, that kind of thing, he said. In the meantime, he added, the house will be a supportive, safe and sober place where they can establish employment, gain monetary security, and support themselves as they return to the community. Drug and alcohol addiction is a disease, he said, that is best treated when addicts acknowledge their problem and commit to understanding what causes it. When addicts participate in the recurring therapy and counseling of a three-month program, Coddington said, they are far less likely fall back into drugs and alcohol. Mattea Schmitz, Common Ground CEO, said some people in west Winona expressed a not-in-my-backyard sentiment when they heard a halfway house was moving in. But the house will pose no threats or inconveniences to Winonans, she said and some of their concerns were cleared up during a community forum last summer. Clients will be held to a strict set of rules, she said, and for the first several weeks of their stay, will only be allowed to leave the premises for work or treatment. Men who have committed sex offenses, she said, will not be allowed to join the program. And on-street parking is not likely to become more difficult, she said, as most candidates for the program do not have a drivers license or do not have a vehicle of their own. As a business strategy, the success of keeping it in the family may well be dependent upon the depth of the gene pool. Throughout its 145 years, three families have had custody of the Watkins company through its rise and fall and resurrection. It was just three years after the end of the Civil War that 28-year-old Joseph R. Watkins mixed up a concoction of camphor, oil of spruce, extract of capsicum and other ingredients according to a recipe hed purchased from a Cincinnati physician, bottled it, loaded it in his buggy and set off to the hinterlands to peddle Dr. Wards Liniment good for man and beast. Surprisingly enough, in an era where snake-oil and quackery were the rule, Watkins first product lived up to its claim a claim backed by the first money-back guarantee. Sore muscled men and sore muscled mules provided a ready market and in 1888, taking advantage of a good labor supply and ready road, river and rail access to customers and suppliers, the J.R. Watkins company opened its first manufacturing plant in Winona and J.R. Watkins was well on his way to becoming a very rich man and patriarch of a wealthy and powerful family. 1904 would be a year of personal joy and sorrow for the Watkins family. That year Grace Watkins, J.R. and Mary Ellen Watkins only surviving child, would marry Ernest Leroy (E.L.) King. It was also the year that Mary Ellen would die. J.R. would live a widower until 1911, when he wed Martha King, mother of E.L. King turning his daughter and son-in-law into step-siblings as well as man and wife. Three months later, while vacationing in Jamaica, J.R. Watkins was dead. J.R. Watkins had brought his nephew, Paul Watkins, into the company, and at J.R.s death he took the reins of the family enterprise. It was a time of expansion. The company product line expanded and a line of cosmetics and toiletries was introduced. By 1915, the company was the largest direct-sales company in the world, a status that was further boosted in 1919 when the city sale department was established, breaking the company free of its rural roots and introducing it to a burgeoning urban market. Times were good for the companys owners as well. Between art-buying jaunts to Europe, Paul oversaw the construction and decoration of the Tudor-style manor house on Wabasha Street in Winona. Not to be outdone, E.L. and Grace King contracted with architect George Maher to build a 10,000-square-foot Prairie School-style home along the Mississippi just south of Winona. The Kings supplemented a lavish social life with African safaris and other travel. In 1931, Paul Watkins died and E.L. King took over leadership of the company. Despite the depressed economy, the company remained profitable its sales based on household necessities and continued to expand, entering the international market in 1935. By Kings retirement in 1944, there were 15,000 Watkins men in the field. Kings son, E.L. Bud King took his place in the presidents chair. But the end of the war also marked the end of an era as changing consumer tastes and habits proved incompatible with Watkins approach to sales and marketing. By the end of the 1950s, Watkins sales had stagnated, and King faced a challenge from his sister Mariel and her first husband, Ralph Boalt, backed by Grace Watkins King, all pushing for the sale of the company. The sale was blocked by Bud King, but by 1964, he was maneuvered out of the presidents office in favor of the first non-family president in the companys history, James Doyle. Doyles tenure was marked by continued decline, including a disastrous attempt to refocus the companys product line on direct-sale cosmetics. By 1973, Bud King had regained a controlling interest in the company, deposed Doyle and installed his son, David King, as president. In November 1977, despite repeated infusions of cash from Bud Kings personal accounts, Watkins filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in federal court, an audit showing company assets of $7.08 million, debts of $6.5 million and 1977 losses totaling $2.05 million. For 13 months, the fate of one of Winonas largest employers rested in a St. Paul courtroom, until on Dec. 27, 1978, Twin Cities businessman Irwin Jacobs laid down a $2 million cashiers check that secured ownership of Watkins for Jacobs Industries for a total investment of between $4.5 and $4.6 million. For Winona, the news was somewhat unsettling. Jacobs reputation as Irv the Liquidator had preceded him his propensity for purchasing troubled firms and selling them off piecemeal was well known. But Jacobs pledged his intention to continue and expand Watkins operations. Proving good as his word, Jacobs stuck with the firm, returning the company to profitability, revamping the product line and revitalizing its sales force and marketing approach. The Watkins brand was so strong even 30 years of mismanagement couldnt kill it, Jacobs said in a 1992 interview. In 1997, a second generation of the Jacobs family took the helm. Mark Jacobs, then 33, was appointed president after 16 months with the company. Seeing the need to raise the companys profile as a key to increasing market share, for the first time Watkins products began to appear on retailers shelves creating a brand awareness that can be capitalized upon by the companys 80,000-strong direct sales force. And yes, the original concoction of camphor, oil of spruce, extract of capsicum and other ingredients is still available ... catalogue No. 02317. Im not Jewish, but if I were, Id be pretty angry about the liberal use of Hitler as an accusation against our president. When I went to the protest at the airport last week, something of which I am still proud and for which I will not apologize even though Ive lost friends over it, the thing that troubled me almost as much as Trumps legally suspect order suspending immigration was the posters depicting him with a tiny black mustache, the signs with the s in Steve Bannons name drawn like a swastika and the litany of comments about the racists in the Oval Office. This will likely come as a surprise to the people who, on Facebook, have posted hundreds of comments telling me I dont know a damn thing about the Constitution, about immigration law, about executive action, about the separation of powers, and about terrorism. All of those people are, by the way, my conservative friends (and I use both terms rather loosely). They seem to think that I agree with the wack jobs who are trying to pass themselves off as legitimate protesters. I do not agree with the wack jobs, in case you were wondering. I almost went up to the woman with the frizzy hair and the stupid pink pussy hat on her head with the sign reading Deport the Racist and told her that she was exactly the sort of person Id love to deport if I were queen of the world. I feel this way because, well, because going over the top like that makes my job and my life a lot harder. Donald Trump did a stupid thing, and he is now answering for it. I frankly dont care if my conservative friends strip me of my membership card and the Mickey Mouse ears and the super-secret-password, but I will not concede that the substance or the rollout of that ridiculous and extremely hurtful executive order suspending immigration and banning nationals of certain randomly chosen countries was legitimate. Im in some good company with that, too, including a few federal judges. But all of that being said, and understanding that Trump and his assistants have looked extremely amateurish and tragically clueless (Kellyanne Conway, I truly love you, but your comments about the Bowling Green Massacre were not alternative facts, they were standup comedy), there is absolutely no justification for playing the Hitler card. Im sick of people I used to respect casually throwing out the word as if it makes them look cool, hip and so tuned in to the resistant zeitgeist. Maybe Im so damned angry about the rhetoric because I do asylum law and I know, deep in my bones, what the Hitlers of the world have done and are continuing to do. Believe me, folks, Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spicer do not wear white sheets for ceremonial photo-ops, nor are they fluent in German. And the fact that Trumps highly regarded son-in-law is a Jew has nothing to do with saving the POTUS from allegations of genocidal intent. Because that is what the yahoos who carry signs depicting our president as a Nazi are doing, trying to create an indelible image in the minds of the average American that they are living in the Fourth Reich. They, and we, are not. Im out here on the front lines fighting against what Trump is doing with his assembly-line executive orders. I am confident that the federal courts will scale them back to such an extent that he will be taught a lesson to think before he writes (or tweets). If someone on his old Apprentice show had produced such an inferior work product as that which he produced last week, they would be, yes, indeedy, fired. On Monday, I was at the asylum office trying to convince an officer that my client deserves protection from the drug lords and the people who want to keep him from worshiping in his home parish. But I did not try to win that case by accusing the president and his Cabinet of being Hitler. I did it by accusing real despots, who do a lot more than just tweet idiotic, insulting and moronic things. If we really lived in the Fourth Reich, those wack jobs at the airport last week, the ones with the signs that made me cringe, would have been rounded up and thrown in jail. Im sure that right now, they are sitting happily in their homes patting themselves on the back about how clever their conduct was. Im tired of journalists engaging in lazy thinking and writing the first incendiary thoughts that come to mind, because they are angry. Im angry, too, but when we start calling everything Hitler, the word and the concept lose meaning. If I were a Jew, Id be angry. Hell, Im a person who has dealt with the victims of more recent holocausts and genocides, and Im livid. Lay off the Hitler imagery. The vision Trump has given us this week is bad enough. A trial for a West Allis man charged with homicides in Sauk and Milwaukee counties has been postponed. Zachary Tyler Hays, 21, was scheduled to stand trial Jan. 30 in Milwaukee County, where he was accused of shooting his neighbor to death May 1. Greenfield West Allis Now reports that the Milwaukee County trial has been postponed so that Hays can undergo further psychological evaluation. It has been rescheduled to begin May 15. Authorities say Hays traveled to Sauk County after he carried out the Milwaukee County shooting and randomly shot into a vehicle along Interstate 90/94. That shooting resulted in the death of 44-year-old Tracy Czaczkowski, who was traveling back to Illinois with her family after vacationing in Wisconsin Dells. Hays has been charged with first-degree reckless homicide and endangering safety in Milwaukee County case. In Sauk County, he faces charges of first-degree reckless homicide and three counts of first-degree reckless endangerment. Hays has pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect to the charges, and has undergone mental evaluations by psychiatrists appointed by the defense and prosecution in the Milwaukee County case. The trial has been postponed so that a third psychiatrist appointed in the Sauk County case can complete his evaluation. The results of that evaluation are expected to be considered during a Feb. 27 pre-trial conference in Milwaukee County, Greenfield West Allis Now reports. One psychiatrist found that Hays could be diagnosed with schizophrenia or other psychotic spectrum disorder but was capable of understanding court proceedings, the Associated Press has reported. The report said Hays reported the onset of paranoia several days before the shooting, and believed it could have been caused by marijuana laced with something like PCP. The psychiatrist said it was not clear whether Hays had an existing mental illness, or whether his symptoms were triggered by substances. But he said symptoms were improving with treatment. The psychiatrist appointed in the Sauk County case, Dr. Kenneth Robbins, wrote a letter to the judge in October in which he said he needed to review medical records and meet with Hays one more time before he completed his work. No upcoming court dates have been set in the Sauk County case. Let senators know they work for you As a voter in Wisconsin I want my employees in government to do what I ask them to do. I have spent two minutes every day calling my senators to tell them how I would like them to vote. They are my employees, right? I watched the hearings for Betsy DeVos and I learned that she donated almost $49,000 to Senator Ron Johnsons campaign. So I called all three of his offices every day since Mrs. Devos hearing and most days was confronted with a full voicemail system. On the days I got a live person or was able to leave a response, I asked Mr. Johnson to please recuse himself from the vote. Why? Because to me $49,000 is a nice paycheck for a yes vote. Mr. Johnson just proved to this voter he is a pay to play politician. I will continue to call Mr. Johnson and Sen. Tammy Baldwin to let them know how I would like them to vote. You should too. Mr. Johnsons D.C. number is 202-224-5323, Oshkosh is 920-230-7250, Milwaukee is 414-276-7282. Put him in your contacts and call every day. Senator Baldwins D.C. number is 202-224-5653. Remember they work for us. Donnette Wieterman, Randolph It might be the middle of winter, but the Columbus City Council is already gearing up for summer. At a meeting Tuesday night, the council approved a contract with Mid America Pool Renovation to resurface the aging pool at the Columbus Area Aquatic Center and to replace the deteriorating kiddie slide. The pool, which opened in 2001, is showing its age. Rec Director Amy Jo Meyers said the Department of Public Works found a few leaks in the structure last summer and fall which were fixed, but it is time for a makeover now. There is a fine balance that goes into place with the exact water chemistry with chemicals and water flow that has to take place each day, Meyers explained in an email. There was a time in the past that those balances were not met, meaning the chlorine would erode at the surface making it more porous. When the pH and total alkalinity are out of balance, your chlorine, bromine or other sanitizer dont work as efficiently as they should. When the sanitizer doesnt work efficiently, bacteria you dont want to find in your pool starts to become present. This has started to show over the past two years so it was due. Meyers said resurfacing, which will cost the city $186,060, will be done in three steps, and the first step prepping the surface by hydroblasting to remove any residue and paint could begin as early as March if temperatures get up to 45 degrees. The second step will be to fill in any hollow spots down to the rebar and repair any cracks. The final step will be to hand trowel on a robins egg blue Inter-Glass liner. The Inter-Glass liner is expected to give the pool a smoother surface, reduce the amount of chemicals that will have to be used (by up to 50 percent) and prevent water from reaching reinforcing steel underneath. The goal is to have the resurfacing done in time for the pool to open on Memorial Day weekend. The new kiddie slide, meanwhile, will cost $12,475. Meyers said the old slide was repaired last year, and the city might have been able to get another year of use out of it, but council members liked the idea of replacing it now, when construction is being done on the pool, as opposed to waiting and then possibly damaging the new surface during installation. The new slide will be in the shape of a pelican. Meyers said the top of the pelican is 7 feet high, but the actual slide is only about 4 1/2 feet tall. During the month of February, people who purchase 2017 CAAC memberships will receive a $10 concession card. Anyone interested in buying a membership can call the Rec Department at 920-623-5936 or purchase online at:https://apm.activecommunities.com/columbusrecwi/Home. On todays date, at 4:33 a.m., the Sheriffs Office received a report of a suspicious vehicle on Cty Hwy G near Sandstone Drive in Germantown Township. Responding officers located a female near a Cub Cadet UTV. Follow-up investigation revealed the UTV was stolen. The female, identified as Melissa Falster - age 19 of Spring Grove, IL, was arrested. Two male subjects located in the area took off on foot. One male subject was located and arrested shortly thereafter. New Lisbon Police Department responded with their K-9 Unit to assist in locating the third subject. The subject was located and taken into custody. Initial investigation revealed at least five properties in the area that were burglarized or had thefts. Falster and the two male subjects, identified as Jacob Caso age 20 of McHenry, Illinois, and Patrick Falster age 24 of Wonder Lake, Illinois, were transported to the Juneau County Jail. All three subjects are tentatively charged with theft, burglary and criminal damage to property. Caso also has an extraditable warrant out of the State of Illinois for a probation violation. The Sheriffs Office was assisted by the Mauston and New Lisbon Police Departments and the Wisconsin State Patrol. [February 08, 2017] WebJoint's Cannabis Software Smoked the Competition in Readying Businesses and Growers for 2018 California Compliance LOS ANGELES, Feb. 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- PyroTree Inc., a California-based cannabis software company, is gaining momentum with their WebJoint platform as it is the only cannabis compliance software that includes a front-end e-commerce website builder/management tool (sometimes referred to as the "WordPress for cannabis") has the tools in place to help cannabis business owners comply with California's Medical Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act (Act), which goes into effect early next year. In addition, WebJoint will be launching new cultivation software to California growers in the second quarter of 2017. Beta testing is going on now; interested cultivators can contact WebJoint.com for a free beta account. One of the highlights of Act is called "Track and Trace," meaning all medical cannabis and medical cannabis products must be tracked through the product's life cycle, from the original plant to the final retail site. The WebJoint software platform is already designed to comply with Act, and the new cultivation software will go a step further by tracking facilities, rooms, plants, assets and packages, as well as giving growers useful data on their current, past and future grows. "The marijuana industry is constantly evolving and it's getting harder for people to manage everything manually," said Webjoint's CEO and founder, Christopher Dell'Olio. "More and more businesses are struggling with compliance because of all the new regulations being put into place. It's frustrating when a business gets shut down over a simple mistake, like properly tracking inventory and patients. They also have to keep track of every aspect of their business including taxes, licenses, employees, patients, websites, and any orders being placed." WebJoint.com, founded in 2014 by now 22-year-old Dell'Olio (who started the company as a teenager from his bedroom), recently surpassed 100 retail customers in California alone, not only because it offers compliance-ready solutions, but also because it has a reputation for delivering fast, customized websites that increase productivity and foster business growth through gaining online exposure. "In today's e-commerce world, it is critical to have a website, blog, or e-commerce site that increases your exposure and provides tools to make business management easier and less costly," said Dell'Olio. "What WebJoint provides makes it the 'new WordPress' in the website world. Most sites online are powered by WordPress. At WebJoint, our specialty is providing an eCommerce site specifically for the cannabis and tech industry." WebJoint Services Website Builder: WebJoint allows cannabis businesses to make their own ".com" websites with all the accessories. Businesses can add their logo, first-time patient offers, social networks, contact information, operating hours, coupons, reviews, blog and menu. Online Ordering/Store: Cannabis businesses can place their menu items on their easy to use website. When patients visit a WebJoint business' website, they can sign up, get verified, and place orders online with cash or credit card payments. Patient Verification: WebJoint allows cannabis businesses to pre-register patients into their online collective databases, and verify each automatically. Patients that pre-register online can skip the paper registration. WebJoint also sends patient reminders via email and SMS as their recommendation is scheduled to expire. Point of Sale: When patients are verified and checked in, cannabis businesses can ring them up with WebJoint's Point of Sale (POS) System. The POS keeps track of inventory coming in and going out; when an order is placed, it subtracts that quantity from the business' total inventoy. The POS also keeps track of sales and expenses, creates an order history for patients, and prints receipts on the spot. Inventory Management: Cannabis businesses can stay on top of inventory by knowing exactly how much is left. WebJoint's inventory manager allows businesses to create a menu that will display on their websites and in their POS. Customers & Loyalty: WebJoint allows cannabis businesses to create stronger bonds with their patients by never losing touch with them. Businesses can build their patient bases by keeping track of every profile, sending emails, coupons and more. In addition, patients can earn digital loyalty points every time they visit the site. Delivery Management: Once cannabis businesses have created their own .com websites with WebJoint, their patients can place orders for delivery online. Businesses can add a delivery fee if needed, or a minimum order amount. WebJoint makes it easy; patients won't even need to pick up the phone to place orders. Once an order is placed, the business gets a notification to make the delivery. Business also can assign the order to specific drivers, have a route mapped out and see the delivery happening live. Dispensary or Delivery Service Website: What makes the WebJoint software truly unique is the custom website building capabilities. Cannabis businesses can create a website for their dispensary or delivery in less than 15 minutes. Therefore, WebJoint is often dubbed the "WordPress of cannabis." Analytics & Reports: WebJoint makes traceability easy by running everything in the backend. Every time a patient signs up, every time an order gets placed, and every time a donation is made, WebJoint keeps track of the numbers. Cannabis businesses have access to daily, weekly and monthly reports. Staff Management: Having multiple employees can quickly become a headache when the time comes for payroll, keeping track of hours worked, and taking care of taxes. With WebJoint, employees of cannabis businesses can clock in when their day starts and keep track of their hours automatically. The WebJoint Story Christopher Dell'Olio was just out of high school when he launched his first tech business, a gaming company called BattlePerks.com. He sold that company in 2013 and began working for Delta Groove Music as a developer and managing their websites and IT, while simultaneously working as an SEO specialist at a consulting firm. After a chance meeting with a former high school friend, Hilart Abrahamian, Dell'Olio and Abrahamian decided to team up to develop a general web development company, targeting personal clients and local businesses as potential leads. One of Dell'Olio's former clients just so happened to be one of the biggest dispensaries in southern California. "One night, as I was working on some designs for this client, I realized there was a huge void in the cannabis industry. Dispensaries needed designers, but not only that, they also wanted easy-to-edit websites to help manage patients, inventory, and integrate with point of sale. That's when I knew we needed to laser-focus on the cannabis industry," said Dell'Olio. "We registered the domain name CodeKush.com, made a one-page website and started contacting potential dispensary clients. We quickly realized our service was in high demand. To keep up with demand, we had to find an efficient and cost-effective way to create custom, scalable websites that would also keep clients updated for various compliance purposes. Shortly thereafter, we developed a SaaS software that would be the ecosystem for every client utilizing our service this software is WebJoint.com." Working closely with its first client, Dell'Olio and Abrahamian gained deep and valuable insight into the cannabis industry. Then, by listening carefully and partnering with each additional client, WebJoint continued to fine-tune its software, slowly melding it into an all-in-one cannabis software platform. From its beginnings in Dell'Olio's bedroom, the company has grown into its current office in West Los Angeles. And while the team is still small and nimble, it competes (and wins) against much larger companies. Dell'Olio says that's due to the company's restless work ethic and passion for developing and delivering revolutionary solutions as well as dependable, fast and friendly service. "It's simple. At the end of the day, we love what we do," said Dell'Olio. Cannabis businesses interested in complying with California's Act along with automating their business processes to increase productivity and profitability can contact WebJoint at www.WebJoint.com for a free 14-day trial or to schedule a demo. (WebJoint works with out-of-state cannabis businesses as well, however state compliance laws vary.) In addition, California-based cannabis businesses interested in WebJoint's new cultivation software can contact WebJoint.com for a free beta account today. About Webjoint.com WebJoint.com, founded in 2014, is an offering of Pyrotree Inc., which builds custom websites and productivity software for up-and-coming industries. WebJoint.com is an all-in-one software that helps cannabis business owners manage their patients, finances, employees, inventory, and website. WebJoint.com tools save cannabis businesses time by increasing productivity, while also helping them gain exposure online. In 2016, Ackrell Capital named WebJoint in the top 100 private cannabis companies, and its founders are regular speakers at 420 College Business Seminars. For more information, visit www.webjoint.com. CONTACT: Joey Landon - PyroTree, Inc. - Phone: 800-870-7976 - Email: [email protected] Related Images image1.jpg image2.jpg image3.jpg Related Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NA88skcWeY 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/webjoints-cannabis-software-smoked-the-competition-in-readying-businesses-and-growers-for-2018-california-compliance-300404421.html SOURCE PyroTree Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] The following companies are subsidiares of Abbott Laboratories: 3A Nutrition (Vietnam) Company Limited, ABON Biopharm (Hangzhou) Co. Ltd., AGA Medical Belgium, AGA Medical Corporation, AGA Medical Holdings Inc., ALR Holdings, AML Medical LLC, APK Advanced Medical Technologies LLC, ATS Bermuda Holdings Limited, ATS Laboratories Inc., Abbott, Abbott (Jiaxing) Nutrition Co. Ltd., Abbott (UK) Finance Limited, Abbott (UK) Holdings Limited, Abbott AG, Abbott Asia Holdings Limited, Abbott Asia Investments Limited, Abbott Australasia Holdings Limited, Abbott Australasia Pty Ltd, Abbott B.V., Abbott Bahamas Overseas Businesses Corporation, Abbott Belgian Investments, Abbott Bermuda Holding Ltd., Abbott Biologicals B.V., Abbott Biologicals LLC, Abbott Bulgaria Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Capital India Limited, Abbott Cardiovascular Inc., Abbott Cardiovascular Systems Inc., Abbott Delaware LLC, Abbott Diabetes Care Inc., Abbott Diabetes Care Limited, Abbott Diabetes Care Sales Corporation, Abbott Diagnostics GmbH, Abbott Diagnostics International Ltd., Abbott Diagnostics Technologies AS, Abbott Doral Investments S.L., Abbott Equity Holdings Unlimited, Abbott Equity Investments LLC, Abbott Established Products Holdings (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Finance Company SA, Abbott Financial Holdings SRL, Abbott France S.A.S., Abbott Fund Tanzania Limited, Abbott Gesellschaft m.b.H., Abbott GmbH & Co. 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Ltd, Abbott Vascular Limitada, Abbott Vascular Netherlands B.V., Abbott Vascular Solutions Inc., Abbott Ventures Inc., Abbott West Indies Limited, Abbott drustvo sa ogranicenom odgovornoscu za trgovinu i usluge, Advanced Neuromodulation Systems Inc., Alere, Alere (Shanghai) Diagnostics Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Healthcare Management Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Medical Sales Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Technology Co. Ltd., Alere A/S, Alere AB, Alere AS, Alere AS Holdings Limited, Alere BBI Holdings Limited, Alere Bangladesh Limited, Alere China Co. 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Ltd., Alere Medical Pakistan (Private) Limited, Alere Medical Private Limited, Alere North America LLC, Alere Oy Ab, Alere Philippines Inc., Alere Phoenix ACQ Inc., Alere Pte Ltd, Alere S.A., Alere S.r.l., Alere S/A, Alere SAS, Alere San Diego Inc., Alere Scarborough Inc., Alere Spain S.L., Alere Switzerland GmbH, Alere Technologies GmbH, Alere Technologies Holdings Limited, Alere Technologies Limited, Alere Toxicology AB, Alere Toxicology Inc., Alere Toxicology S.r.l., Alere Toxicology Services Inc., Alere Toxicology plc, Alere UK Holdings Limited, Alere UK Subco Limited, Alere ULC, Alere US Holdings LLC, Alere s.r.o., Alisoc Investment & Co, Amedica Biotech Inc., Ameditech Inc., American Generics S.A.S., American Medical Supplies Inc., American Pharmacist Inc., Antares S.A., Apica Cardiovascular Limited, Aquagestion Capacitacion S.A., Aquagestion S.A., Arriva Medical LLC, Arriva Medical Philippines Inc., Arvis Investments Limited, Atlas Farmaceutica S.A., Avee Laboratories Inc., Axis-Shield AD III AS, Axis-Shield AD IV AS, Axis-Shield AS, Axis-Shield Diagnostics Limited, Axis-Shield Ltd., BBI Animal Health Limited, BBI Diagnostics Group 2 Public Limited Company, Banco de Vida S.A., Bioabsorbable Vascular Solutions Inc., Bioalgae S.A., Biohealth LLC, Biosite Incorporated, Bosque Bonito S.A., Branan Medical Corporation, Brandex Europe C.V., British Colloids Limited, CFR Chile S.A., CFR Interamericas EL Salvador Sociedad Anonima de Capital Variable, CFR Interamericas Nicaragua Sociedad Anonima, CFR Interamericas Panama S.A., CFR Pharmaceuticals, California Property Holdings III LLC, CardioMEMS LLC, Caripharm Inc., Cephea Valve Technologies, Cephea Valve Technologies Inc., Colibri Medical Aktiebolag, Comercializadora y Distribuidora CFR Interamericas Honduras S.A., Concateno South Limited, Concateno UK Limited, Consorcio Tecnologico en Biomedicina Clinico-Molecular S.A., Continuum Services LLC, Cozart Limited, Dextech S.A., Diagnostik Nord GmbH, Distribuciones Uquifa S.A.S., Domesco Medical Import-Export Joint-Stock Corporation, Duphar International Research B.V., Endocardial Solutions, Epocal (US) Inc, Esprit de Vie S.A., European Chemicals & Co, European Drug Testing Service EDTS AB, European Services S.A., Evalve Inc., Evalve International Inc., FARMINDUSTRIA S.A., Fada Pharma Paraguay Sociedad Anonima, Fadapharma del Ecuador S.A., Farmaceutica Mont Blanc S.L., Farmacologia Em Aquicultura Veterinaria Ltda., Farmacologia en Aquacultura Veterinaria FAV Ecuador S.A., Farmacologia en Aquacultura Veterinaria FAV S.A., Fernwood Investment S.A., First Check Diagnostics LLC, Focus Pharmaceutical S.A.S., Forensics Limited, Forestcreek Overseas S.A., Fournier Pharma Corp., Fournier Pharma GmbH, Fournier Pharmaceuticals Limited, Framed B.V., Gabmed GmbH, Garden Hills LLC, Global Analytical Development LLC, Globapharm & CO LP, Glomed Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Golnorth Investments S.A., Gynocare Limited, Gynopharm Sociedad Anonima, Gynopharm de Centroamerica S.A., Gynopharm de Venezuela C.A., Hi-Tronics Designs Inc., IDEV Technologies Inc., IG Innovations Limited, IMTC Finance B.V., IMTC Holdings B.V., IMTC Technologies Inc., Ibis Biosciences LLC, Igloo Zone Chile S.A., Igloo Zone S.L., Inmobiliaria Naknek S.A.C., Innovacon Inc., Instant Tech Subsidiary Acquisition Inc., Instant Technologies Inc., Instituto de Criopreservacion de Chile S.A., Integrated Vascular Systems Inc., Inverness Canadian Acquisition Corporation, Inverness Medical (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Inverness Medical Innovations Australia Pty Ltd., Inverness Medical Innovations Hong Kong Limited, Inverness Medical Innovations SK LLC, Inverness Medical Investments LLC, Inverness Medical LLC, Inverness Medical Shimla Private Limited, Inversiones K2 SpA, Inversiones Komodo S.R.L., Ionian Technologies LLC, Irvine Biomedical Inc., Kalila Medical, Kangshenyunga S.A., Knoll UK Investments Unlimited, LLC VeroInPharm, Laboratoires Fournier S.A.S., Laboratorio Franco Colombiano Lafrancol S.A.S., Laboratorio Franco Colombiano del Ecuador S.A., Laboratorio Internacional Argentino S.A., Laboratorio Synthesis S.A.S., Laboratorios Lafi Limitada, Laboratorios Naturmedik S.A.S., Laboratorios Pauly Pharmaceutical S.A.S., Laboratorios Recalcine S.A., Laboratorios Transpharm S.A., Laboratory Specialists of America Inc., Lafrancol Dominicana S.A.S., Lafrancol Guatemala S.A. 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C.V., NeuroTherm LLC, Normann Pharma-Handels GmbH, North Shore Properties Inc., Novamedi S.A., Novasalud.com S.A., Nutravida S.A., OJSC Voronezhkhimpharm, Omnilab Iberia Sociedad Limitada, OptiMedica, Orgenics France SAS, Orgenics International Holdings B.V., Orgenics Ltd., PBM-Selfcare LLC, PDD II LLC, PDD LLC, PT Alere Health, PT. Abbott Indonesia, PT. 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Ltd., Shanghai Si Fa Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Sinensix & Co., Spinal Modulation LLC, St. Jude Medical, St. Jude Medical AB, St. Jude Medical ATG Inc., St. Jude Medical Argentina S.A., St. Jude Medical Asia Pacific Holdings GK, St. Jude Medical Atrial Fibrillation Division Inc., St. Jude Medical Brasil Ltda., St. Jude Medical Business Services Inc., St. Jude Medical Cardiology Division Inc., St. Jude Medical Colombia Ltda., St. Jude Medical Coordination Center, St. Jude Medical Costa Rica Limitada, St. Jude Medical Europe Inc., St. Jude Medical Export Ges.m.b.H., St. Jude Medical GVA Sarl, St. Jude Medical Holdings B.V., St. Jude Medical India Private Limited, St. Jude Medical International Holding, St. Jude Medical LLC, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings II, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings NT, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings SMI S.a r.l., St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings TC S.a r.l., St. Jude Medical Mexico Business Services S. de R.L. de C.V., St. Jude Medical Middle East DMCC, St. Jude Medical Operations (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., St. Jude Medical Puerto Rico LLC, St. Jude Medical S.C. Inc., St. Jude Medical Systems AB, St. Jude Medical Turkey Medikal Urunler Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Standard Diagnostics Inc., Standing Stone LLC, Swan-Myers Incorporated, TC1 LLC, Tendyne Holdings Inc., Tendyne Medical Inc., Thoratec Delaware LLC, Thoratec Europe Limited, Thoratec LLC, Thoratec Switzerland GmbH, Tobal Products Incorporated, Topera GmbH in Liquidation, Topera Inc., Tremora S.A., Tuenir S.A., TwistDx, UAB Abbott Laboratories, UAB Abbott Medical Lithuania, Union-Madison Realty Company Inc., Unipath Limited (dba Alere International/aka Cranfield), Unipath Management Limited, Unipath Pension Trustee Limited, Veropharm, Veropharm Limited Liability Partnership, Vida Cell Inversiones S.A., Vida Cell S.A., Vivalsol, W&R Pharma Handels GmbH, Western Pharmaceuticals S.A., X Technologies Inc., Yissum Holding Limited, ZonePerfect Nutrition Company, eScreen Canada ULC, eScreen Inc., ( ), and Abbott Laboratories Baltics. Read More Enbridge Inc. operates as an energy infrastructure company. The company operates through five segments: Liquids Pipelines, Gas Transmission and Midstream, Gas Distribution and Storage, Renewable Power Generation, and Energy Services. The Liquids Pipelines segment operates pipelines and related terminals to transport various grades of crude oil and other liquid hydrocarbons in Canada and the United States. The Gas Transmission and Midstream segment invests in natural gas pipelines, and gathering and processing facilities in Canada and the United States. The Gas Distribution and Storage segment is involved in natural gas utility operations serving residential, commercial, and industrial customers in Ontario, as well as natural gas distribution and energy transportation activities in Quebec. The Renewable Power Generation segment operates power generating assets, such as wind, solar, geothermal, and waste heat recovery facilities; and transmission assets in North America and Europe. The Energy Services segment provides energy marketing services to refiners, producers, and other customers; and physical commodity marketing and logistical services in Canada and the United States. The company was formerly known as IPL Energy Inc. and changed its name to Enbridge Inc. in October 1998. Enbridge Inc. was founded in 1949 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada. Juniper Networks, Inc. designs, develops, and sells network products and services worldwide. The company offers routing products, such as ACX series universal access routers to deploy high-bandwidth services; MX series Ethernet routers that function as a universal edge platform; PTX series packet transport routers; wide-area network SDN controllers; and session smart routers. It also provides switching products, including EX series Ethernet switches to address the access, aggregation, and core layer switching requirements of micro branch, branch office, and campus environments; QFX series of core, spine, and top-of-rack data center switches; and juniper access points, which provide Wi-Fi access and performance. In addition, the company offers security products comprising SRX series services gateways for the data center; Branch SRX family provides an integrated and next-generation firewall; virtual firewall that delivers various features of physical firewalls; and advanced malware protection, a cloud-based service and Juniper ATP. Further, it offers Junos OS, a network operating system; Contrail networking, which provides an open-source and standards-based platform for SDN; Mist AI-driven Wired, Wireless, and WAN assurance solutions to set and measure key metrics; Mist AI-driven Marvis Virtual Network Assistant, which identifies the root cause of issues; Juniper Paragon Automation, a modular portfolio of cloud-native software applications; and Juniper Apstra to automate the network lifecycle in a single system. Additionally, the company provides software-as-a-service, technical support, maintenance, and professional services, as well as education and training programs. It sells its products through direct sales, distributors, value-added resellers, and original equipment manufacturers to end-users in the cloud, service provider, and enterprise markets. The company was incorporated in 1996 and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. [February 09, 2017] Thycotic Confirms Need for Security Delivered in the Cloud with More Than 500 Customers Adopting its New Privileged Password Cloud Solution WASHINGTON, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Thycotic, a provider of privileged account management (PAM) solutions for more than 7,500 organizations worldwide, today announced that since the release of Secret Server Cloud, a newer version of its cloud based platform re-architected on the Microsoft Azure platform, the company has seen a tremendous level of adoption on this newer platform. Secret Server Cloud has reached 500 customers in just under four months, proving that PAM cloud technology is a necessity and an area where more money will be spent in the years to come. Thycotic has seen tremendous growth in the Privileged Account Management space, previously dominated by only a few companies, by innovating solutions that are easy to deploy and very simple to manage. Since its launch in 2016, Secret Server Cloud has been recognized by the 2017 Big Innovations Award, for its ability to solve real world problems. According to Forrester, "80 percent of all cyberattacks involve a weak or stolen privilege account password." 1 The University of San Diego has taken matters into their own hands to ensure they do not become part of this statistic and has moved their privileged accounts to the cloud to make sure the University's most valuable assets are protected and looked to the cloud as a part of its bigger initiative. "The IT department at the University of San Diego believes in a cloud-first mentality," said Mike Somerville, manager of Systems Support and chief cloud evangelist at University of San Diego. "Privileged access of our students' data is going to be safe in Thycotic's cloud and that needed to be transparent for our team. USD has been with Thycotic and the Secret Server product for the last seven years. From a business perspective, Secret Server Cloud allowed everyone to log in to the same single point of success that they already trusted for their passwords." Analyst firm 451 Research released a report on the launch of Thycotic's Secret Server Cloud platform, stating, "Launching a SaaS version of Secret Server strikes us as a logical move, particularly for reaching resource-constrained small and midsize enterprises, for which a traditional heavyweight PM product is beyond reach. With the ability to quickly spin up a new instance, Secret Server Cloud bolsters Thycotic's reputation for ease of use and rapid deployment that resonates with many customers, particularly in the midmarket, but also for larger organizations." 2 "It just works," said James Legg, CEO at Thycotic. "It's been our mission to provide customers with the freedom to choose the best on premise or cloud based privilege account management solutions to protect their businesses from cyberattacks. We could not be happier with the number of Managed Service Providers (MSP) that have selected Secret Server Cloud for their end customers." Thycotic continues to add additional functionalities to their Cloud platform. Since January, customers are now able to add on the ability to discover and protect service accounts, create custom reports and add additional workflows to Secrets (like Request Access). The rest of 2017 will see additional features added to the solution, with a focus on integrations such as Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML). Their newest cloud based platform is not the end of the road of innovation for Thycotic. Early in 2017, Thycotic is releasing its new Privileged Behavior Analytics tool, delivered from the cloud to help organizations detect serious data breaches before they happen. For more information on protecting your privileged accounts visit, www.thycotic.com. 1. Forrester, The Forrester Wave: Privileged Identity Management, Q3 2016, Andras Cser. 2016 2. https://thycotic.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Thycotic_451-Report.pdf About Thycotic Thycotic prevents cyberattacks by securing passwords, protecting endpoints and controlling application access. Thycotic is one of the world's fastest growing IT security companies because we provide customers with the freedom to choose cloud or on premise software solutions that are the easiest to implement and use in the industry. Thycotic has grown to serve more than 7,500 customers. Contacts Steve Kahan Jacqueline Velasco Thycotic Lumina Communications T: 202-802-9399 T: 408-680-0564 E: [email protected] E: [email protected] To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/thycotic-confirms-need-for-security-delivered-in-the-cloud-with-more-than-500-customers-adopting-its-new-privileged-password-cloud-solution-300402829.html SOURCE Thycotic [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] United Parcel Service, Inc. provides letter and package delivery, transportation, logistics, and related services. It operates through two segments, U.S. Domestic Package and International Package. The U.S. Domestic Package segment offers time-definite delivery of letters, documents, small packages, and palletized freight through air and ground services in the United States. The International Package segment provides guaranteed day and time-definite international shipping services in Europe, the Asia Pacific, Canada and Latin America, the Indian sub-continent, the Middle East, and Africa. This segment offers guaranteed time-definite express options. The company also provides international air and ocean freight forwarding, customs brokerage, distribution and post-sales, and mail and consulting services in approximately 200 countries and territories. In addition, it offers truckload brokerage services; supply chain solutions to the healthcare and life sciences industry; shipping, visibility, and billing technologies; and financial and insurance services. The company operates a fleet of approximately 121,000 package cars, vans, tractors, and motorcycles; and owns 59,000 containers that are used to transport cargo in its aircraft. United Parcel Service, Inc. was founded in 1907 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. AstraZeneca PLC, a biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the discovery, development, manufacturing, and commercialization of prescription medicines. Its marketed products include Calquence, Enhertu, Faslodex, Imfinzi, Iressa, Koselugo, Lumoxiti, Lynparza, Orpathys, Tagrisso, and Zoladex for oncology; Brilinta/Brilique, Bydureon/Byetta, BCise, Byetta, Crestor, Evrenzo, Farxiga/Forxiga, Komboglyze/Kombiglyze XR, Lokelma, Onglyza, Qtern, and Xigduo/Xigduo XR for cardiovascular, renal, and metabolism diseases; Bevespi Aerosphere, Breztri Aerosphere, Daliresp/Daxas, Duaklir Genuair, Fasenra, Pulmicort, Saphnelo, Symbicort, and Tudorza/Eklira/Bretaris for respiratory and immunology; and Andexxa/Ondexxya, Kanuma, Soliris, Strensiq, and Ultomiris for rare diseases. The company's marketed products also comprise Synagis for respiratory syncytial virus; Fluenz Tetra/FluMist Quadrivalent for Influenza; Seroquel IR/Seroquel XR for schizophrenia bipolar disease; Nexium, and Losec/Prilosec for gastroenterology; and Vaxzevria and Evusheld for covid-19. The company serves primary care and specialty care physicians through distributors and local representative offices in the United Kingdom, rest of Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Australasia. It has a collaboration agreement with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. to research, develop, and commercialize small molecule medicines for obesity; Neurimmune AG to develop and commercialize NI006; Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. to develop eplontersen, a liver-targeted antisense therapy in Phase III development for the treatment of transthyretin amyloidosis; Proteros Biostructures GmbH to jointly discover novel small molecules for the treatment of hematological cancers; Sierra Oncology, Inc. to develop and commercialize AZD5153. The company was formerly known as Zeneca Group PLC and changed its name to AstraZeneca PLC in April 1999. AstraZeneca PLC was incorporated in 1992 and is headquartered in Cambridge, the United Kingdom. The following companies are subsidiares of Ashland: 565 Corporation, ASH GP INC., ASHLAND SPECIALTY CHEMICAL (SINGAPORE) PTE. LTD., ASHLAND SPECIALTY CHEMICALS (MALAYSIA) SDN.BHD, Adams Drive Totowa L.L.C., Alera Property Holdings LLC, Alera Technologies Inc., Alix Technologies LLC, Aloe Vemera S.P.R de R.L. de C.V., Ash B5 Limited, Ash GH One Inc., Ash GH Switzerland GmbH, Ash Global Holding Three GmbH, Ash Global Holdings Two B.V., Ash Junior Global Holding One LLC, Ash Junior Global Holding Two LLC, Ash Swiss Holding Two GmbH, Ashland (Australasia) Pty. Limited, Ashland (China) Holdings Co. Ltd., Ashland (Gibraltar) One Holding Inc., Ashland (Thailand) Co. Ltd, Ashland Argentina S.R.L., Ashland CZ s.r.o., Ashland Canada Corp./Corporation Ashland Canada, Ashland Canada Holdings B. V., Ashland Chemco Inc., Ashland Chemical De Mexico S.A. De C.V., Ashland Chemical Trading (Shanghai) Company Limited, Ashland Chemicals (Nanjing) Company Limited, Ashland Colombia S.A.S., Ashland Comercio de Especialidades Quimicas do Brasil Ltda., Ashland Eastern Markets LLC, Ashland Ethanol Inc., Ashland Finance Limited, Ashland Global Holdings Inc., Ashland India Private Limited, Ashland Industria de Ingredientes do Brasil Ltda., Ashland Industries Deutschland GmbH, Ashland Industries Europe GmbH, Ashland Industries Italia S.r.l., Ashland Industries Nederland B.V., Ashland Ingredients Poland Sp. z o.o., Ashland Italia S.r.l., Ashland Japan Ltd., Ashland LLC, Ashland Licensing and Intellectual Property LLC, Ashland Mexico Holdings One LLC, Ashland Mexico Holdings Two LLC, Ashland Nigeria Exploration Unlimited, Ashland Oil (Nigeria) Company Unlimited, Ashland Oil Inc., Ashland Pacific Pty. Ltd., Ashland Pharmachem International Holdings LLC, Ashland Services B. V., Ashland Services Mexico S.A. de C.V., Ashland Singapore Pte. Ltd., Ashland Spain Real Estate Holdings S.L., Ashland Specialties Austria GmbH, Ashland Specialties Belgium BVBA, Ashland Specialties France S.a.r.l., Ashland Specialties Hispania S.L., Ashland Specialties Ireland Limited, Ashland Specialties Sverige AB, Ashland Specialties UK Limited, Ashland Specialty Chemical Korea Co. Ltd., Ashland Specialty Ingredients G.P., Ashland-Alaskan Limited, Ashland-Plasticos De Portugal Lda., Ashmont Insurance Company Inc., Ashprop Two LLC, Avoca LLC, Avoele S.A. de C.V., Belleville Realty Corp., Blazer Properties LLC, Bluegrass Insurance Company Limited, CLTA LLC, CVG Capital III LLC, Carol Clifton Inc., Curtis Bay Insurance Co. Ltd, East Bay Realty Services Inc., Fospur, Hercofina, Hercules, Hercules Holding BV BVBA, Hercules Hydrocarbon Holdings Inc., Hercules International Limited LLC, Hercules Investment ApS, Hercules Investments Netherlands B.V., Hercules Islands Corporation, Hercules LLC, Hercules Paper Holdings Inc., Hercules Trading (Shanghai) Company Limited, ISP (Belgium) International N. V., ISP Alginates Inc., ISP Canada Corp., ISP Capital LLC, ISP Chemco LLC, ISP Chemical Products LLC, ISP Chemicals LLC, ISP Environmental Services Inc., ISP France Holding SARL, ISP France Marketing SARL, ISP Freetown Fine Chemicals Inc., ISP Freight Services N. V., ISP Global Operations (Barbados) Inc., ISP Global Technologies Deutschland Unterstutzungskasse GmbH, ISP Global Technologies Inc., ISP Global Technologies LLC, ISP HC Limited, ISP Holdings (U.K.) Ltd., ISP Hungary Holdings Limited Liability Company, ISP International Corp., ISP Investments LLC, ISP Lima LLC, ISP Luxembourg Canada S.a.r.l., ISP Management Company Inc., ISP Marl Holdings GmbH, ISP Microcaps (U.K.) Limited, ISP Pharma Systems LLC, ISP Real Estate Company Inc., ISP Singapore Holding LLC, ISP Technologies LLC, International Specialty Holdings LLC, International Specialty Products, International Specialty Products (India) Private Limited, International Specialty Products Funding Corporation, International Specialty Products Inc., Jiangmen Ashland Chemicals Company Limited, Nanjing Clear Environment Protection, Northwest Coatings, Oil Can Henrys, PT Ashland Asia, PT. Ashland Specialty Chemicals Indonesia, Pakistan Gum Industries (Private) Limited, Pharmachem Laboratories, Pharmachem Laboratories LLC, Pharmachem Laboratories Utah LLC, Prince Street Paterson LLC, Progiven S.A.S., Proprietary Nutritionals LLC, Ralop S. de R.L. de C.V., Schulke & Mayr - Personal Care Business, Shanghai Ashland Chemical Technology Development Co. Ltd., St Croix Petrochemical Corp, Taiwan Ashland Co. Ltd., Techwax Limited, Vemera S. de R.L. de C.V., Vornia, and WSP LLC. Read More [February 09, 2017] MyHeritage Appoints Prominent DNA Expert Dr. Yaniv Erlich as Chief Science Officer MyHeritage, the leading international family history and DNA company, announced today the appointment of Dr. Yaniv Erlich as its Chief Science Officer. Dr. Erlich, a DNA scientist of world renown, will lead scientific development and strategy for MyHeritage DNA, the company's newly established DNA service for family history and ethnicity, and ensure that its products are built on a solid scientific foundation. Dr. Erlich, nicknamed the Genome Hacker by Nature journal, brings to MyHeritage unparalleled experience in the field of genomics as Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Computational Biology at Columbia University and as a Core Member at the New York Genome Center. He is also the former principal investigator and a Whitehead Fellow at MIT's (News - Alert) Whitehead Institute, founder of DNA.LAND and the principal investigator of the Erlich DNA lab. Dr. Erlich completed his Ph.D. at the Watson School of Biological Sciences at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 2010, and has won numerous awards as a cutting-edge scientist, including the Burroughs Wellcome Career Award (2013) the Harold M. Weintraub Award (2010) and the IEEE (News - Alert)/ACM-CS High Performance Computing Award (2008). Dr. Erlich has a B.Sc. degree cum laude in Neuroscience from Tel Aviv University. Dr. Erlich's research interests are diverse and cover many facets of computational human genetics, including population studies, DNA privacy, DNA storage and genetic research in crowd-sourced family trees. "We're delighted to welcome Yaniv to our management team. Yaniv's expertise in computational genetics and its synergy with family history will provide the solid scientific foundation that is fundamental for setting apart our fast-growing DNA service from the others" said MyHeritage Founder and CEO Gilad Japhet. "We are committed to providing our users with the most accurate DNA results, and helping them understand more about themselves. Yaniv will lead a dedicated team of world-class scientists to help us achieve this." "I'm excited to join the talented team at MyHeritage and put my scientific experience to use by the millions of users on the MyHeritage platform," said Dr. Erlich. "I've collaborated with MyHeritage since 2012 and have known them to be forward thinkers about building tools and platforms that enable massive scale scientific studies. I look forward to opening new horizons in consumer genetics in my new role, and further empowering our users with useful and creative tools that harness the latest scientific discoveries". MyHeritage DNA was launched in November 2016, offering simple DNA home-testing kits for determining users' ethnic origins and discovering new relatives. The service is offered in more than 190 countries worldwide, in 42 languages. About MyHeritage MyHeritage is the leading global destination for family history and DNA. As technology thought leaders, MyHeritage has transformed family history into an activity that is accessible and instantly rewarding. Its global user community enjoys access to a massive library of historical records, the most internationally diverse collection of family trees and groundbreaking search and matching technologies. Through MyHeritage DNA, the company offers technologically advanced, affordable DNA tests that reveal users' ethnic origins and previously unknown relatives. Trusted by millions of families, MyHeritage provides an easy way to find new family members, discover ethnic origins, and to share family stories, past and present, and to treasure them for generations to come. MyHeritage is available in 42 languages. www.myheritage.com View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170209005512/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] The Travelers Companies, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides a range of commercial and personal property, and casualty insurance products and services to businesses, government units, associations, and individuals in the United states and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Business Insurance, Bond & Specialty Insurance, and Personal Insurance. The Business Insurance segment offers workers' compensation, commercial automobile and property, general liability, commercial multi-peril, employers' liability, public and product liability, professional indemnity, marine, aviation, onshore and offshore energy, construction, terrorism, personal accident, and kidnap and ransom insurance products. This segment operates through select accounts, which serve small businesses; commercial accounts that serve mid-sized businesses; national accounts, which serve large companies; and national property and other that serve large and mid-sized customers, commercial trucking industry, and agricultural businesses, as well as markets and distributes its products through brokers, wholesale agents, and program managers. The Bond & Specialty Insurance segment provides surety, fidelity, management and professional liability, and other property and casualty coverages and related risk management services through independent agencies and brokers. The Personal Insurance segment offers property and casualty insurance covering personal risks, primarily automobile and homeowners insurance to individuals through independent agencies and brokers. The Travelers Companies, Inc. was founded in 1853 and is based in New York, New York. Royal Bank of Canada operates as a diversified financial service company worldwide. The company's Personal & Commercial Banking segment offers checking and savings accounts, home equity financing, personal lending, private banking, indirect lending, including auto financing, mutual funds and self-directed brokerage accounts, guaranteed investment certificates, credit cards, and payment products and solutions; and lending, leasing, deposit, investment, foreign exchange, cash management, auto dealer financing, trade products, and services to small and medium-sized commercial businesses. This segment offers financial products and services through branches, automated teller machines, and mobile sales network. Its Wealth Management segment provides a suite of advice-based solutions and strategies to high net worth and ultra-high net worth individuals, and institutional clients. The company's Insurance segment offers life, health, home, auto, travel, wealth, annuities, and reinsurance advice and solutions; and business insurance services to individual, business, and group clients through its advice centers, RBC insurance stores, and mobile advisors; digital, mobile, and social platforms; independent brokers; and travel partners. Its Investor & Treasury Services segment provides asset servicing, custody, payments, and treasury services to financial and other investors; and fund and investment administration, shareholder, private capital, performance measurement and compliance monitoring, distribution, transaction banking, cash and liquidity management, foreign exchange, and global securities finance services. The company's Capital Markets segment offers corporate and investment banking, as well as equity and debt origination, distribution, advisory services, sale, and trading services for corporations, institutional investors, asset managers, private equity firms, and governments. The company was founded in 1864 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. With the ITEXPO event in full swing, Telinta offered up some powerful new options for its hosted private branch exchange (PBX) system, a white-label operation that opens up the floor to an array of other users. With these new features, meanwhile, users will get a lot more out of the hosted PBX, and make Telinta a much more likely pick for future development. Telinta's new features include a variety of features spread out across a couple of different categories. The big winner features-wise is call-related features, which include some new dialing rules as well as better hunt group operations and pickup groups. Also added are new call forwarding options, simplified access to voice mail, parked call monitoring, an improved interface for call pickup options, and more beyond. Better yet, there are also new options for billing and customer management functions, including the ability to alter billing periods, download multiple invoices at once, and make setup for new customers easier by being able to clone currently-existing subscription plans. There are even new options for security and cost savings, including being able to limit the number of calls happening at once on a customer account. Telinta's CEO, Alex Ferdman, noted, Hosted PBX is a major priority at Telinta. We understand that ITSPs and their resellers rely on innovative new features which help them to better compete and win in the marketplace. Those interested in checking out Telinta's capabilities further need only go to ITEXPO, running through Friday at the Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale. There, users will proceed to booth 627, where Telinta is waiting to show off its impressive slate of options. This addition serves an important purpose; Telinta has made its line of hosted PBX options that much more attractive, which will likely serve it well in the market. Adding features is often a good way to achieve not only distinctiveness in the market but as an attracting agent to customers. It doesn't always work that way, of course; sometimes the additions are too complex or hard to use, and that can be counterproductive. Extra features that work in the background or are simple to work with can have the best effect. Telinta's additions, meanwhile, shouldn't be too hard to work with, and should add quite a bit of value. That should in turn improve Telinta's fortunes in the market, at least until the competition does some augmenting of its own. Checking Telinta out at ITEXPO will also add some benefits for potential customers, as said customers will get exposure to a full range of new options and networking opportunities along with these options. Share this Page Edited by Alicia Young This Account has been suspended. China News on Women Sorry, the page you requested was not found. If you're having trouble locating a destination on Womenofchina.cn, try visiting the Womenofchina Home page Canada is not known for being a country filled with danger. On the contrary, it is among the safest countries in the world. Some of the most dangerous places on earth experience homicide rates of 90.4 for every 100,000 people. However, Canada experiences average homicide rates of only 1.6 for every 100,000 people. These rates are among the lowest worldwide. Nonetheless, there are cities in Canada that are, by these standards, more dangerous than others and they are mainly found in the prairie provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. The province in the country with the lowest crime rates is Ontario followed by Quebec. Crime rates in Canada have continued to fall in the past several years. The US, with nearly ten times the population of Canada, had 2,771% more homicides compared to Canada. Though there are cities named dangerous or the murder capitals of Canada, there are by far more safe compared to other cities around the world. Most Dangerous Cities In Canada Regina The city of Regina has been the most violent city in Canada earning the title of the murder capital of Canada. In 2013, the city of Regina experienced ten homicides which were equivalent to a rate of 4.3 per 100,000 people, the highest in Canada. In 2014, there were 516 homicides in the whole of Canada and 24 in Saskatchewan. The same year of 2014, there were five homicides in Regina, and all were male. In 2015 there were nine homicides in Regina, seven involving male victims. Over the last 20 years of homicides, 11 cases have remained unsolved and under investigation, whereas the only female homicide victim that is still under investigation was Maw Maw Htoo in 2010. Winnipeg Winnipeg is the largest and capital city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. The city is named after the nearby Lake Winnipeg. The region was a trading center for the aboriginal people before the Europeans arrived who built the first fort in1738. The city of Winnipeg is the second most violent city in Canada and experienced homicide rates of 3.4 per 100,000 people in 2013. Between 1981 and 2012, Winnipeg has earned the title of murder capital of Canada a total of 16 times. The homicides rates in 2011 were at an all-time high which was four times more than the countrys average rate of 1.7 per 100,000 people. Thunder Bay Thunder Bay is the third most dangerous city in Canada and 2013 had homicide rates of 2.5 per 100,000 people. Thunder Bay in Ontario had an increase in homicide in 2014 of 11 cases when all other regions in the country had a decrease in homicide rates. Other Cities With Higher Crime Rates In Canada Edmonton was another urban center with high homicides of 2.1 per 100,000 people, while cities like Calgary, Saskatoon, Vancouver, and Gatineau are other major cities with homicides of more than 1.5 but less than 2.0 per 100,000 people. All other cities in the country had homicides rates lower than 1.5 for every 100,000 people. The concept of air travel was conceived by many outstanding inventors including Leonardo da Vinci and his dream of flight which paved the way for the establishment of modern aerodynamics. Centuries later after many attempts the Wright Brothers built the first working aircraft known as Wright Flyer and helped in the progression of aeronautical engineering. Since the invention of the first flight by the Wright Brothers, the world has seen many airlines come and go. The first commercial passenger airline traces its roots back to 1913 but the majority of the oldest airlines in the world were established between the 1920's and 1930's in some countries across the world. Although some of these airlines have closed, there are a few still surviving that have more than 90 years of flying history. The World's Oldest Operating Airlines KLM The Royal Dutch Airlines legally known as Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij or KLM is the national airline of the Netherlands. KLM was established in 1919 making it the world's oldest operating airline. The airline still operates under its original name scheduling passengers and cargo services to about 130 destinations. The headquarters of KLM is in the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. As of 2013, the airline had 32, 505 employees. The first KLM flight took off on May 17th, 1920. Jerry Shaw was the first KLM flying pilot from the Croydon Airport in London to Amsterdam. Avianca Avianca whose acronym is Spanish for Aerovias del Continente Americano has been the national airline of Colombia since December 5th, 1919, when it was founded under the name SCADTA. Avianca is one of the largest and most prestigious airlines in South America, and its headquarters are based in Bogota, DC and its central hub at Eldorado International Airport. Avianca is the second oldest airline in the world after KLM and the oldest operating airline in the Americas. Qantas Qantas Airways is the national airline of Australia and the largest by international flights, fleet size, and international destinations. Qantas was founded in Winton, Queensland on November 16th, 1920, making it the world's third oldest airline after KLM and Avianca. Qantas is an acronym for Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services and is also known as The Flying Kangaroo which is a reference to its logo. The airline whose headquarters is based in the Sydney Airport commenced international passenger flights in May 1935. Qantas is also the oldest continuously operating airline in the world after KLM suspended their services during World War II. Delta Airlines Delta Airlines is a preeminent American Airline whose headquarters and biggest hub is located at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia. Delta airline was founded in 1924 as crop dusting operating in Macon-Georgia making it the sixth-oldest operating airline in the world by founding date and also the oldest operating airline in the United States. Delta Airlines started passenger services on June 17th, 1920, and is currently operating more than 5,400 flights a day to 319 destinations in six continents and 54 countries. Egypt Air Egypt Air is the national airline of Egypt whose headquarters and the main hub are based at the Cairo International Airport. The airline was founded on June 7th, 1932, but commenced its operations in July 1933 and currently schedules passenger and cargo services to more than 75 destinations in Africa, Asia, Europe, Middle East, and the Americas. As of December 2014, Egypt Air had approximately 9,000 employees. Modern Passenger Planes Since the Wright brothers made the first flight, the aviation industry has evolved to develop huge and highly sophisticated aircraft that move at astonishing speeds. For instance, the Airbus A380 is among the largest passenger planes with cabin floor of 5,920 square feet and can carry 525 passengers in a three-class configuration or unto 853 passengers in all economy classes and can cruise at speeds of up to 560 miles per hour. Woman knocking on door (illustration) By: William Martin WorldWideWeirdNews.com A woman who routinely knocked on doors and rang door bells for no reason, was ordered to never knock on a door or ring another door bell, according to police in the United Kingdom. Claire Bowden of Shifnal, was warned numerous times to stop harassing her neighbors. The neighbors called police to report that Bowden was knocking on their doors and would not leave. She also rang door bells for no reason. A judge issued an order to stop harassing her neighbors, and when she breached the order, Bowden was arrested. The Telford County Court has sentenced the woman to serve two months in prison. The prison term was later suspended on the condition that the woman refrain from disturbing her neighbors. A young man wanted to make a point about racism in the United States, but his plan backfired when he was exposed for a liar by police. 20-year-old Khalil Cavil of Texas was working at the Saltgrass Steak House in Odessa when he claimed he was discriminated against because of his Muslim name. Cavil took Techniquest Glyndwr Celebrates Record Breaking Year After Doubling Visitor Numbers This article is old - Published: Thursday, Feb 9th, 2017 Wrexhams very own science discovery centre is celebrating a record-breaking year after doubling its visitor numbers. Techniquest Glyndwr welcomed more than 80,000 people through its doors in 2016, with plans to further increase that figure over the next 12 months. Five years ago, around 40,000 a year were attending sessions at the attraction, which is based at the Wrexham Glyndwr University campus. The rise includes an influx of youngsters from primary and secondary schools across North Wales and beyond, engaging in interactive demonstrations and workshops covering all aspects of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) curriculum, as well as games, puzzles and fun exhibits. Iwan Thomas, Chair of the Board of Trustees to the charitable company North Wales Science, which operates Techniquest Glyndwr, said steps were being taken to further enhance the popular venues profile and strengthen its business model after Welsh Government funding cuts. Techniquest Glyndwr is one of the hidden gems of North Wales, there is so much we can do to further improve its standing, both nationally and in the community, he said. To have doubled visitor numbers especially the number of school groups is a fabulous achievement. He added: We are now asking the business community and people in Wrexham to get behind us as we look to grow even further. We do have limited resources and funding cuts mean weve had to review operations and the way we do things. This is a worthwhile and valuable organisation with considerable strengths and we would like to thank the many people whove visited Techniquest Glyndwr over the years for their continued support. More live events such as the gathering which took place at the centre to celebrate the launch of UK Astronaut Tim Peake to the International Space Station are planned over the coming months, as well as new and interactive sessions with school groups of all ages. The popular science shows, special events, Astronomy Club, TechZone (a computer programming club) and specialist toddler days will all continue to run. We will be working hard over the next few months and years to make sure that not only will the organisation survive but it will become a centre of excellence for the region in informal STEM education, said Iwan. Our relationship with the University will grow ever closer and we will all be working together to educate the next generation of scientists, engineers and mathematicians, and making sure they have plenty of fun along the way Scot Owen, Education Manager at Techniquest Glyndwr, added: Over the past five years we have grown considerably as an organisation and have assembled a great team who are experts in their field and passionate about what they do. Our mission, to communicate science and technology in exciting and innovative ways to all people regardless of age, ability or background is at the forefront of everything we do. We are committed to raising the skill levels and aspirations of young people and promoting the public understanding of science and technology so that people are better informed when faced with contemporary science issues. I believe that the increase in engagement figures is testament to our contribution to a vibrant local and regional economy and community and the development of the next generation of the labour market in the region. Techniquest Glyndwr is particularly keen to work with technology and engineering companies to help bring classrooms alive by linking real-world situations which demonstrate scientific principles to the curriculum delivered. Links can be through sponsorship of outreach visits to schools, the offer of on-site visits to industrial operations, or collaboration in the development of additional interactive exhibits/workshops to augment the programme of activities available to the regions schools and colleges. For further information visit the Techniquest Glyndwr website alternatively you can follow @myTQG on Twitter. The UK House of Commons on Wednesday voted by a huge majority494 to 122in favour of Britain beginning the process of leaving the European Union (EU). The Withdrawal from the European Union (Article 50) Bill 2016-17 now goes before the House of Lords and is expected to become law in time for the Conservative government to trigger EU withdrawal by the end of March. Just 5 more rebel MPs and a total of 52 (22 percent) of the opposition Labour Partywhich officially supports remaining in the EUvoted against the bill, in contrast to the 47 who opposed triggering Article 50 last week. The most significant of these was Clive Lewis, who then resigned as shadow business secretary. Lewis was forced to appear loyal until the last moment as he is positioning himself to be a leadership challenger who can eat into Labour leader Jeremy Corbyns core support. Prior to the third and final reading, Corbyn ordered his MPs to support the governments bill whether his partys amendments were accepted or not. With the vote, the Conservative government has easily overcome the setback it received last month, when the Supreme Court ruled that parliament had to have the final say on triggering Article 50 and not the prime minister via Royal Prerogative powers. Following what was described as the most serious constitutional crisis since the Second World Warwith the majority of the ruling elite opposed to leaving the EUthe legislation sailed through without a hitch. The parliamentary debate on the triggering of Article 50 of the EUs Lisbon Treaty lasted just three days this week and took on a farcical character, given that Labour, with 229 MPsthe vast majority of whom campaigned for remaining in the EU in last Junes referendumwas pledged to support Article 50. The Tories were in the end universally in favour. The Article 50 Bill is only 137 words long, stating merely that the government intends to begin the process of leaving the EU, but the list of clauses and amendments added to it ran to 146 pages. These clauses were added by Labour, Liberal Democrat and Scottish National Party MPs, who either supported the UK remaining in the EUor demand that continued access to the EUs Single Market be maintained in any deal. To debate them over three days, the amendments were put into groups with a lead clause. If the lead clause was defeated then the rest fell. As the debate began, Mark Harper, the parliamentary secretary to the treasury, stated, To agree to amendments would be to reveal our negotiating hand and make the Bill too specific and subject to loads of legal challenges. On Monday, all four amendments were overwhelmingly lost, making a mockery of earlier claims by pro-EU Labourite Hilary Bennwho chairs the Commons Brexit committeethat MPs were growing more confident in their demands for a role in leaving the EU. We [Parliament] are not going to sit on the sidelines of Brexit talks, he said. The main Monday resolution put forward by Labour was a plea for some sort of parliamentary scrutiny of the Brexit process by parliament. It called on Prime Minister Theresa May, before triggering Article 50, to give an undertaking to lay before each House of Parliament periodic reports, at intervals of no more than two months on the progress of the negotiations. That fell, along with 30 tacked-on clauses, with just one Tory MP voting for it. In the 333-284 vote, 4 pro-Brexit Labourites voted with the government. On Tuesday, May headed off whatever rebellion remained among MPs by promising a vote on the final draft of any EU exit agreement. Keir Starmer, Labours shadow Brexit minister, claimed this was a huge concession, but such claims rapidly went down in flames as the government made clear that MPs would have to take or leave the final deal reached. If parliament opposed a final deal, the UK would simply leave the EU with no deal at all and move to vastly worse World Trade Organisation tariff-based trade rules. Nevertheless, Starmer withdrew Labours main official Tuesday amendment, requiring the government to seek the approval of Parliament of a withdrawal agreement before it is agreed with the EU. The amendment Labour put in its place required the government to seek approval of Parliament before a new treaty is made with the EU. This was defeated by 326 to 293. This time 7 Conservatives voted for the amendment, but this was evened out by 6 pro-Brexit Labour MPs voting against. With the capitulation of Labour to the governments agenda, the anti-Brexit Scottish National Party (54 MPs) and Liberal Democrats (9 MPs)who are committed to holding a second referendum on Brexitwere unable to mount any serious challenge in parliament. The vote reveals the scale of the crisis facing the ruling elite and its political institutions. The Tories have in reality secured only a pyrrhic victory, given that the Remain camp within parliament have proved incapable of mounting an effective opposition. The pro-EU forces are seeking to maintain an orientation to Europe under conditions in which it is breaking apart. The move by then-Prime Minister David Cameron to call the referendum on EU membership, however it was conceived of as a clever manoeuvre, only came about due to the explosive national antagonisms between the European powers and the irreconcilable differences this had produced with the dominant pro-Brexit wing of the Tory party. In Brexits aftermath, these national tensions and the underlying economic crisis of the EU are such that not only Greece but even Italy can be forced to leave. These tensions are indicated by upcoming elections to be held in the Netherlands (March 15) and France (April 23-May 7) where far-right, anti-EU candidates Geert Wilderss Party for Freedom and Marine Le Pens National Front are expected to score highly or even win outright. As for the pro-Brexit Tories, they based their post-Brexit strategy on securing trade agreements with the US, China, India and other markets to compensate for any loss suffered in Europe. Moreover, following the election of Donald Trump to the White House, May has pinned her hopes not only on a US trade deal but on his support forcing the EU to strike a favourable deal, too. This is a strategy just as bankrupt as that of their pro-EU opponents. Trump is actively committed to the break-up of the EU as an economic rival of the US, which is why he was so enthusiastic for Brexit. But his America First agenda finds its opposite in a growing assertion of European interests against the US that leaves Mays efforts to bridge the two markets unmoored. At the EU summit last week, May was treated as a pariah as Trump was denounced by leading figures. The dilemma facing the May government was epitomised when Parliaments Speakerformer Tory MP John Bercowmade an extraordinary intervention on behalf of the pro-Remain faction, in which he declared that he was strongly opposed to Donald Trump addressing the House of Commons during his scheduled State Visit later this year. Far from the UK being poised to enter a new golden age based on a strategy of out of Europe and into the world, in the real world beyond Parliament, a rendezvous with disaster awaits. British Airways (BA) cabin crew struck today at Heathrow airport in their ongoing struggle in defence of pay and working conditions, which have become unbearable for mixed fleet workers. Cabin crew struck for three days from Sunday, with todays strike the first day of another three-day stoppage. The last strike by BA cabin crew was on January 19 and 20. This came after a previous three-day action starting January 10. This weeks strikes went ahead despite the best efforts of the Unite trade union bureaucracy to sabotage the struggle. On December 20, Unite announced that a strike over pay by 1,500 of its membersemployed by the baggage-handling firm Swissport at 18 airportshad been called off, with the union recommending the workers accept a new pay offer. Prior to Christmas, the Heathrow cabin crew were also set to strike, but soon after its Swissport intervention, Unite connived with the company to call off the strike. General Secretary Len McCluskey personally intervened in the negotiations, and the union recommended a pay offer that was subsequently rejected by the cabin crew membership by a margin of seven to one. Mixed fleet crew currently earn 11,000-12,000 a year, plus a 3-per-working-hour allowance for expenses and maintenance between two flightsusually abroad. This amounts in practice to earnings of 16,000-17,000 a year. By way of comparison, for 2017, BAs projected profits amount to 2.3 billion, with its chief executive, Willie Walsh, pulling in a nominal yearly salary of 8.8 million. BA management have punished the striking workers by withdrawing a company benefit called Staff Travel. The same punishment was meted out back in 2010, when BA crews based in Manchester went on strike. Staff Travel provides workers who live either abroad or in the UK with the right to commute to their base airport to pick up work, without having to purchase a flight ticket. Staff Travel was not taken away from pilots and co-pilots at BA, as this would scuttle the airlines operations. Heathrow is located between the boroughs of Harlington to its north perimeter and Bedfont and Feltham to its southern perimeter. These boroughs rely on the airport for jobs and livelihoods. Unite built a headquarters in Bedfont, which hosts the local Heathrow membership. This was built in order to contain the anger of BA workers. As of last month, the branch had 3,000 members, mostly from mixed fleet cabin crew workers. Cabin crew fall under three groups: London Heathrow mixed fleet, London Gatwick fleet and London City fleet. As with any dispute in which Unite is unable to prevent strikes breaking out, the union ensures that no other workers in the same sector are mobilised in support, let alone among its wider 1.4 million membership. Instead, Unite is dragooning cabin crew behind a dead-end campaign centred on sowing illusions in the Labour Party and MPs from other parties. On Tuesday, Unite stated it would be holding a photo opportunity outside the Houses of Parliament on College Green, Westminster with a giant BA low pay no way banner, with 100 striking cabin crew lobbying parliament to seek MPs support in their on-going battle against poverty pay at the airline. This is the same parliament that recently debated strengthening anti-strike laws, which, if passed, would render industrial action in the transport sector all but illegal. In January, Labours shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, came to speak to strikers. McDonnellthe closest ally of Labour leader Jeremy Corbynwas introduced by Unite Regional Secretary for London and Eastern Pete Kavanagh. Congratulations for building this branch, which is nudging 3,000 strong now, Kavanagh said. Congratulations for building the confidence of the workforce to a point where you have been able to deliver a fantastically successful strike. McDonnell, who is the local constituency MP for the borough of Hayes and Harlington, said, Those who are taking strike action today, you are the heroes and heroines of our movement. He added, What you are doing today is heroic, is the right thing to do and it will force them [management] back to the negotiating table. We have to be confident about that. ... What you are showing today is three factors, courage, determinationwe are going absolutely to win this; and above all solidarity: solidarity with one another. Despite such brave talk, Unite has not mobilised the other 9,000 BA cabin crew organised in another Unite branch, resulting in the strike only disrupting a mere 1 percent of BA flights. Nor has Unite sought to mobilise the 60,000 employees of the International Airlines Group (IAG), which incorporates BA. Matt Smith, Unite regional organiser for BA Mixed Fleet, took the stage and said, Willie Walsh [IAG CEO] is using you as some sort of sick contestant in his version of The Hunger Games. ... You have a year of being able to manage and after that you are exhausted and on low pay. Andrew Stanley-Ward, Unite union representative for BA Mixed Fleet, explained, It all feeds back into the business plan. They want these people to join what seems a prestigious airline, a big British brand, do the job and after a year or two they realise physically they cannot do it, financially they cannot do it and they are out of the door and they have a new wave coming in. He added, Now I am earning less money than I was in 1997. My first wage slip of November 1997 when I started flying was higher than my wage slip of January 2017. Unite is admitting that over the years it has allowed BA to employ working-poor as cabin crew that can easily be fired and replaced due to high youth unemployment in the UK since the 2008 financial crisis and imposed austerity. The current IAG business plan could have not been rolled out without the collaboration of the trade unions. As a result of the BA unions sabotaging the struggles of workers in 2010 and 2011, BA management were able to introduce the mixed fleet system while at the same time shrinking all its UK airport bases to just twoLondon Heathrow and London Gatwickand three fleets. In 2010, the Unite union agreed with BA to allow the company to use scab personnel to break up future strikes by workers. BA became a subsidiary of a new financial holding, IAG, from January 2011an expression of the financialisation of the transport industry across Europe and the world. Financial holdings directly control airlines and aircraft leasing, as opposed to airlines being formally separate from banks and hedge funds, as was the norm up to the 1990s. Today, IAG encompasses BA; Iberia, the Spanish airline flag carrier; Aer Lingus, the Irish flag carrier; Eurofleet; EasyJet; baggage handling; ground check-in services; engineering; CityFleet (from London City Airport); and others such as the Barcelona-based, low-cost local Spanish carrier, Vueling. From the start, IAG was represented on both the Madrid Stock Exchange IBEX35 and of the London FTSE-100 Stock Exchange. It is the sixth largest airline group in the world, with revenue of 18.27 billion in 2015. On November 4, IAG agreed to acquire British Midland International (BMI) from Lufthansa, thus making IAG the majority holder of slots at Heathrowup from 45 percent to 54 percent. BMI workers were then employed by BA on the lower BMI wages. In 2012, IAG merged all the cargo operations of BMI, BA and Iberia into one business unitIAG Cargo, with 2,400 workers. In 2015, IAG acquired Aer Lingus. In May 2016, financial group Qatar Airways increased its holding in IAG shares to 15.01 percent. Today, BA airline workers are the working poor of the global transport industry in Europe. The latest mixed fleet contract is the worst, with complete flexibility, poverty wages and the longest flying hours a month, 900, as compared to the standard BA flying hours of 610 a year for older fleets. Back in 2012, BA Eurofleet cabin crew workers were away from their base airport at the most four days a month, with a total three days of flying time through a maximum of six sectors. The author also recommends: Strikes in transport and other sectors to hit the UK [9 January 2017] With the full support of Canadas ruling elite, the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau has responded to the coming to power of Donald Trump, at the helm of the most right-wing administration in US history, by signaling its eagerness to maintain and deepen Ottawas military-strategic partnership with Washington. Two events over the past week have underscored the reactionary character of the Trudeau-Trump alliancean alliance which will be founded on an aggressive assertion of the predatory interests of Canadian and US imperialism through trade war, militarism, and war. Last week, Canadas Chief of Defence Staff, General Jonathan Vance, delivered a speech to a meeting in Vancouver in which he enthused over the future of the Canada-US relationship. We are on the verge, I think, of great things together with the new administration, he boasted. Then on Monday, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan travelled to Washington. There he met with Secretary of Defence James Mad Dog Mattis, who led US forces in invading Afghanistan, then oversaw the US militarys scorched-earth assault on the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004. The mutual backslapping and compliments exchanged by the two former military officers (Sajjan served as an intelligence operative in the Canadian army in Afghanistan) was all the more ominous in that it took place immediately after Mattis return from a trip to South Korea and Japan, where he continued the Trump administrations bellicose denunciations of China. As part of the Obama administrations anti- China pivot to Asia, Ottawa and Washington concluded a secret military agreement in 2013 governing joint operations in the Asia-Pacific region Mattis applauded the role played by Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, where they spearheaded the neo-colonial counter-insurgency war in the countrys south for more than five years (2005-11). The Princess Patricias Light Infantry were the first troops that came in to reinforce us at Kandahar, and they were a welcome sight, said Mattis. There was dont ask, dont tell in those days, but I was hugging and kissing every one of your guys coming out of the plane. Sajjan responded by emphasizing Ottawas ongoing commitment to its joint missions with the US military in Iraq and Ukraine. He also stressed the importance of the North American Aerospace Defence (NORAD) alliance, a Cold War partnership which was expanded in 2006 to incorporate joint maritime defence. That Sajjan made a point of praising NORAD is significant. Canadas defence policy review, which is soon to issue its conclusions, is expected to recommend Ottawa join the US ballistic missile defence shield. This would take place under the auspices of NORAD and would be aimed, its name notwithstanding, at giving Washington the capability to fight and win a nuclear conflict with Russia and other great-power rivals of the Canadian and US bourgeoisies. In contrast to the ruling elites of Europe, whose main reaction to Trump has been consternation and a push to assert their interests more independently of and even in opposition to the United States, Canadas is clinging ever more tenaciously to the coat-tails of US imperialism. This is because Canadian big business is determined to retain privileged access to the US market and its role as Washingtons closest ally. The Canada-US partnership has served, since the Second World War, as the cornerstone of the Canadian elites foreign policythe foundation from which it has asserted its imperialist ambitions around the globe. To secure and strengthen that partnership, Canadian governments have deployed troops in virtually every US-led war and major military intervention over the past quarter century, including the 1991 Gulf War, the 1999 NATO war on Yugoslavia, the 2004 regime change operation in Haiti, the Afghan War, and the 2011 war on Libya. Canada is also deeply involved in the Washingtons major military-strategic offensives in the oil-rich Middle East and against Russia and China. Canadian troops are in the process of deploying to lead one of four, new forward-deployed NATO battalions in Eastern Europe that are aimed at menacing Russia. Canadian Special Forces are training Kurdish forces in Iraq in a so-called advise and assist role that has repeatedly seen them active on the front line. Ottawa has also deployed 200 military trainers to the Ukraine, where they are preparing troops loyal to the ultra-right wing government in Kiev to, in the words of Trudeau, liberate eastern portions of the country from pro-Russian separatists. So as to underscore the importance it attaches to coordinating Canadas military-security initiatives with Washington, the Trudeau government has delayed a planned deployment of 600 troops to Africa to wage counter-insurgency war under the United Nations blue. peacekeeping banner. This decision has reportedly angered Germany and France, which have been looking for Canadian help in pacifying West and Central Africa. But as Trudeau government officials have bluntly explained to the media, before proceeding they want to make sure they have the necessary military resources to meet any asks from the Trump administration. Senior figures in the Liberal government have emphasized that war is an enduring bond between Washington and Ottawa. Following his meeting with Mattis, Sajjan remarked that the Canada-US alliance had been forged on the battlefield. Voicing confidence that the Trudeau government will be able to establish a productive relationship with a Trump-led America, Andrew Leslie, the parliamentary secretary to Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, declared, Weve established a reputation earned in blood of being there when the chips are down, and being tough and determined, and getting the job done. A retired lieutenant-general and ex-commander of Canadas forces in Afghanistan, Leslie has been given a point-man role in managing Canada-US relations, because of his close ties to Mattis, Trumps National Security Adviser, General Michael Flynn, and other militarists in key administration positions. The Trump administrations unprecedented reliance on ex-military officers and promotion of the military, as exemplified by the unexplained appearance of ten military officers behind the President during his inaugural address, has provoked little, if any concern, in Canadas ruling elite. Nor is it put off by Trumps patently anti-democratic actions, such as his ban on all entries to the US of people from seven Muslim countries. An anonymous senior government source told the Globe and Mail, Actually, were getting along quite well with these guys, before adding, They are saying very nice things to us. They are saying they love Canada. Canadas corporate media and military-strategic think-tanks have seized on Trumps pledges to strengthen the US military and his criticisms of NATO states for not carrying their weight to step up their longstanding campaign for Canada to rapidly move toward meeting the NATO target of spending 2 percent of GDP on Defence. This would require doubling Canadas military spending to $40 billion per year. On his return from Washington, Sajjan indicated that the Liberal government will be hiking Canadas defence budget beyond the ten-year schedule of increases announced in the Conservatives 2015 budget. We are committed to investing in our defence, he told a press conference Tuesday. Any increase in military spending will be paid for through new austerity measures directed against the working class. With Canada expected to run a budget deficit of $25 billion this year, the National Posts John Ivison recently noted that Ottawa has already cut all the low-hanging fruit and any savings will require taking unpopular decisions. He cited Brian Lee Crowley, head of the right-wing McDonald Laurier Institute, who remarked, Pretty much all the choices available are politically hard and/or economically damaging. This is the first part of a two-part series on the British pseudo-lefts support for immigration controls. Britains pseudo-left groups have all condemned US President Donald Trump for his anti-Muslim travel ban, denouncing the assault as reactionary, discriminatory, divisive and racist. Yet, when it comes to the issue of the free movement of labour, there is little to distinguish between the far-right oligarch in the White House and the supposedly liberal or socialist left in Britain. From the Labour Party and the trade unions to the Socialist Party, the Stalinist Morning Star and others, all are united in their demand to reinforce border controls in the UK. Support for restricting immigration exists irrespective of these organisations standpoint on Britain exiting the European Union. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who campaigned for a Remain vote in the referendum last June and who supports continued access to the European Single Market, has accepted restrictions on free movement, supposedly out of respect for the Leave vote. Labour is not wedded to freedom of movement for EU citizens as a point of principle, he has said. His stance was welcomed by leading Remain campaigner Paul Mason. Free movement is not a principle of socialism, he argued in the Guardian. It has undermined social justice and must be modified, he added, calling for a temporary suspension of free movement within the EU for 10 years. Labour must recognise that what drives opposition to free movement among progressive, left-minded people is that, in addition to suppressing wage growth at the low end, it says to people with strong cultural traditions, a strong sense of place and community (sometimes all they have left from the industrial era) that your past does not matter. Mason elaborated on the theme that immigration restrictions are necessary to foster respect for culture, community and traditions. This is an argument that could have come straight out of Trumps mouth, proving that fake-left opportunists who denounce the US president for their own ends today will not have to travel far to align themselves with an overtly right-wing programme tomorrow. As for the pro-Brexit pseudo-left, in the referendum they sought to provide socialist window dressing for a Leave campaign spearheaded by neo-Thatcherites from the Conservative Party and the UK Independence Party (UKIP). The Socialist Equality Party warned at the time that behind their efforts to give nationalism a left twist, [T]hey are subordinating the working class to an initiative aimed at shifting political life even further along a nationalist trajectory, thereby strengthening and emboldening the far right in the UK and across Europe while weakening the political defences of the working class. Having helped release the genie of British nationalism, they are politically responsible for its consequences. Their unpardonable toying with left populism as a supposed antidote to the right has now hardened into outright support for anti-migrant restrictions. Former Labour MP George Galloway notoriously joined platforms with Nigel Farage in the Brexit referendum. He praised the then-UKIP leader as his ally and authored the slogan Left, Right, Left, Right, forward march to victory Farage is now the favourite Briton of Trump, who describes his own America First agenda as Brexit plus, plus, plus. Nowadays, Galloway spends his time attacking the idea that, in a capitalist society, its some kind of principle that we should allow as many workers to join the queue for a declining number of jobs, or baiting the pro-Remain Scottish National Party for believing we have more in common with Bulgaria and Romania than with Britain. The Stalinist Communist Party of Britain provides the political hymn sheet from which the left nationalists attempt a pose of theoretical legitimacy. The Morning Star has run a series of articles on free movement, mostly berating the left and young people, in particular, for defending it. Typical was an article by columnist Julian Jones, who wrote, By being so positive towards EU free movement, sectors of the left are naively, or willingly, falling into a trap of their own making Defence of free movement is not, and should not be, the position of the organised left, he continued, complaining of the young, in particular who have been duped into thinking that free movement of people is a near-socialist principle. Jones cynically uses the fact that many young migrants working in the UK have effectively been forced out of their countries by EU austerity to claim that border controls are in their own best interests, as well as that of low-skilled workers in the UK. The Unite unions general secretary, Len McCluskey, in an op-ed on December 16 made a feint of opposing impractical demands to pull up the drawbridge on migrants. But his bottom line was that we are well past the point where the issue of free movement can be ignored. Lets have no doubt: the free movement of labour is a class question, McCluskey wrote. He continued: Karl Marx identified that fact a long time ago. A study of the struggle waged by the British working class, he wrote in 1867, reveals that in order to oppose their workers, the employers either bring in workers from abroad or else transfer manufacture to countries where there is a cheap labour force. McCluskeys article is typical of the rank dishonesty that characterises the pseudo-lefts attack on free movement. His citation of Marx is taken from an 1867 statement of the International Workingmans Association, under the heading On the Lausanne Congress. McCluskey omits what comes immediately after his citation, where Marx states, Given this state of affairs, if the working class wishes to continue its struggle with some chance of success, the national organisations must become international. The distortion of Marxs position is not accidental. McCluskey writes that of course, all socialists must ultimately look forward to a day when people can move freely across the world and live or work where they will. He goes on: But that is a utopia removed from the world of today, and would require international economic planning and public ownership to make a reality. McCluskey is an opponent of the working class as well as the class struggle and socialism. He has no intention of attaining a world where people can live or work where they will. His sole concern is to justify the existing capitalist reality, which means recognising the exigencies of labour supply and demand. What is required, he argues, is a straightforward trade union response to the issue of immigration such as Unite has proposed, whereby any employer wishing to recruit labour abroad can only do so if they are either covered by a proper trade union agreement, or by sectoral collective bargaining. The same line is taken by the Socialist Party, formerly Militant. Welcoming the Leave vote as a working class revolt, their Socialism Today argued: The socialist and trade union movement from its earliest days has never supported the free movement of goods, services and capital-- or labour--as a point of principle, but instead has always striven for the greatest possible degree of workers control, the highest form of which, of course, would be a democratic socialist society with a planned economy. Taking trade union cretinism to extremes, they compare support for immigration controls to the trade unions previous support for the closed shop, whereby only union members can be employed in a particular workplace, a very concrete form of border control not supported by the capitalists. Like McCluskey, the SPs reference to a future socialism is window dressing for their accommodation to the requirements of capital in the here and now. They insist that it is impermissible to defend the right to free movement because it would alienate the vast majority of the working class, including many more long-standing immigrants, who would see it as a threat to jobs, wages and living conditions. It was on this basis that they notoriously backed protests at the Lindsey oil refinery in 2009 demanding British jobs for British workers. Karl Marx and socialist internationalism These efforts to transform Marx and the socialist movement into border guards--trade union members, of course--cannot be allowed to stand. These organisations have nothing in common with the founder of scientific socialism. Their support for immigration controls is the outcome of their perspective of national economic regulation under capitalism, which is diametrically opposed to the perspective of revolutionary socialist internationalism. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and his collaborator Friedrich Engels explained the revolutionary character of capitalist production which, in its drive to constantly expand the market for its products, chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. Through the creation and exploitation of a world market, they explained, the bourgeoisie has given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. In words that could have been directed against McCluskey et al, the great revolutionaries continued: To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature The truly revolutionising character of capitalist production was expressed in its creation of the international working class--the gravedigger of the bourgeoisie. The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family relations; modern industrial labour, modern subjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as in Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national character. Law, morality, religion are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests. The working class has nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of, individual property The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority. The watchword of the socialist workers movement for Marx and Engels was, Workers of all Lands, Unite! This perspective flowed from the scientific analysis of capitalism that was developed by Marx on the basis of historical materialism. The pseudo-left cite Marxs analysis of the industrial reserve army or relative surplus population to justify their support for border controls. But once again, they distort this analysis beyond all recognition. For Marx, this phenomenon was not a temporary aberration, but intrinsic to capitalist accumulation. This is because capitalist industry consists of two parts--machinery and workers--the ratio between which is called the organic composition of capital. The number of workers in employment is variable. It is dependent on whether or not it is profitable for the capitalist to employ workers to run the machinery, the constant capital. And this, in turn, is affected by the growth of technology, which requires a smaller number of workers to produce greater quantities of goods, as well as the state of competition within an industry. [For detailed analysis, see Capital Volume 1, Chapter 25]. Marx wrote, The labouring population therefore produces, along with the accumulation of capital produced by it, the means by which it itself is made relatively superfluous, is turned into a relative surplus population; and it does this to an always increasing extent. This is a law of population peculiar to the capitalist mode of production. For Marx, Every labourer belonged to the surplus/reserve army of labour during the time when he is only partially employed or wholly unemployed. In a devastating critique of modern-day calls for immigration controls, Marx insisted that this problem was not to be solved by the folly now patent of the economic wisdom that preaches to the labourers the accommodation of their number to the requirements of capital. In fact, The greater the social wealth, the functioning capital, the extent and energy of its growth, and, therefore, all the absolute mass of the proletariat and the productiveness of its labour, the greater is the industrial reserve army. The solution, Marx insisted, was cooperation between workers to protect their common class interests in combination against the bourgeoisie. In the inaugural address of the International Working Mens Association (the First International) in 1864, Marx concluded, Past experience has shown how disregard of that bond of brotherhood which ought to exist between the workmen of different countries, and incites them to stand firmly by each other in all their struggles for emancipation, will be chastised by the common discomfiture of their incoherent efforts. Praising the struggle by the Lancashire cotton textile workers who, against their own bosses and the British Empire, and on pain of starvation, agitated in support of the North in the American Civil War and for the abolition of slavery, he continued, If the emancipation of the working classes requires their fraternal concurrence, how are they to fulfil that great mission with a foreign policy in pursuit of criminal designs, playing upon national prejudices, and squandering in piratical wars the peoples blood and treasure? It was the duty of the working classes to master themselves the mysteries of international politics; to watch the diplomatic acts of their respective governments; to counteract them, if necessary, by all means in their power; when unable to prevent, to combine in simultaneous denunciations, and to vindicate the simple laws or morals and justice which ought to govern the relations of private individuals, as the rules paramount of the intercourse of nations. The fight for such a foreign policy forms part of the general struggle for the emancipation of the working classes. Proletarians of all countries, unite! To be continued On Friday, February 3, a US Federal Court in Philadelphia ruled that Google is required to turn over emails stored outside the country as part of an FBI search warrant. Google has since announced that it will appeal the courts decision. The FBI initially obtained the warrant in order to gather information for two separate domestic criminal investigations. The courts ruling conflicts with a recent legal precedent that allows corporations to withhold data related to criminal investigations as long as it is stored abroad and expands the legal framework for domestic government spying. Despite the courts decision, Google has so far refused to provide information to the FBI, citing a July 14, 2016 decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. In July the court ruled that Microsoft did not have to provide emails, which were stored on servers in Ireland, to US law enforcement which wished to use them for a narcotics case. As part of his 29-page ruling on Friday, US magistrate judge Thomas Rueter voiced his disagreement with the earlier ruling, stating, In contrast to the decision in Microsoft, this court holds that the disclosure by Google of the electronic data relevant to the warrants at issue here constitutes neither a seizure nor a search of the targets data in a foreign country. Rueter also insisted that the decision in the Microsoft case could not be applied to Google because the latter company frequently moves data. While the warrant would force Google to change its practices by making the company round up data within the US, he claimed it was not a seizure become it did not interfere with the customers access or possessory interest in the user data. The argument basically redefines the legal mean of the word seizure to not include electronic data, regardless of where it is kept. Rueter further crafted a bizarre legal justification for the transfer of data to the United States claiming it only created the potential for an invasion of privacy, but that the actual infringement of privacy occurs at the time of disclosure in the United States. Both the case with Microsoft and Google involved warrants issued under the Stored Communications Act, which was passed in 1986. Many US-based corporations are concerned that the law is outdated and will negatively impact their relationship with the European Union, which is one of the largest markets for technology firms. As whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed, the National Security Agency (NSA) routinely collaborates with major US corporations for mass surveillance programs such as PRISM, which collected the emails, phone calls, text and video chats from Microsoft and Google, as well as Facebook, Yahoo, Apple and other leading tech companies. Google, according to Rueters ruling, receives more than 25,000 requests a year for user data from US authorities, and the company routinely complied with US warrants even when data was stored on servers outside the country. Whether or not the tech giant decides to go through with an appeal of the latest ruling, it is undoubtable that the close collaboration between the company and US law enforcement will continue. Similarly, Rueters ruling marks a continuation of the attacks against any limitations on mass surveillance that were initiated under the Obama administration. On January 24, after the Second Appeals Court voted not to revisit the Microsoft case, four dissenting judges called for the case to be brought to the Supreme Court or Congress in order to reverse the decision. Similarly, the Justice Department stated it was considering our options about taking on the case. Ten days before the appeal courts decision, on January 14, and just days before Donald Trumps inauguration, the Obama administration announced new rules that vastly expand American spying capabilities, including allowing the NSA to share bulk data of private communications with the other 16 intelligence agencies. As part of this change the FBI could gain access to emails from individuals under investigationas well as people that have been deemed innocentregardless of where a company stores their data. The Obama administrations massive attack on democratic rights has worked to grant the new Trump administration seemingly unlimited powers to gather information and prepare for crackdowns against political opponents, including masses of workers and young people opposed to Trumps fascistic policies. The recent court decision is a stark warning that working people cannot rely on any section of the political establishment to defend even the most basic democratic rights. The Tamil Peoples Council (TPC), a Tamil nationalist organisation, has called an Ezhuga Thamizh (Rise up Tamils) protest on February 10 in Batticaloa in Sri Lankas Eastern Province. The TPC held a similar demonstration in Jaffna last September. The purpose of the protest is to divert the growing social tensions among Tamil workers and the poor along communal lines and divide them from their class brothers and sisters in the countrys south. The TPC was established in 2015 by a section of the parliamentary opposition Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) and various university academics and civil society formations. The TPC is headed by C.V. Wigneswaran, a leading member of the TNA and the Northern Provincial Councils chief minister. While senior TNA officials, such as R. Sambandan and M. A. Sumanthiran, have distanced themselves from the TPC campaign, Wigneswaran claims that the protests are strengthening the TNA. TPC co-leader T. Vasantharajah told the media the group believes that the political aspirations of people in North and East can be strongly conveyed to the government of this country and to the international, especially to the UNHRC [UN Human Rights Council] via the Ezhuga Thamizh. The TPCs demands include greater powers for the North and East provinces, an international war crimes probe and the release of Tamil political prisoners. It is also calling for a ban on new Sinhalese settlements and the spread of Buddhist influence in the North and East, withdrawal of the Sri Lankan military from these provinces, and the return of civilian land seized by the military. Claims that the TPC represents the aspirations of people in the North and East of Sri Lanka are a lie. The organisation speaks, not for oppressed Tamil and Muslim workers and poor, but for the Tamil bourgeoisie and sections of the upper-middle class. Its demand for a federal solution seeks a power-sharing arrangement between Colombo and the Tamil elites in the North and East for the joint exploitation of the Tamil working class. The TPCs calls for the withdrawal of military from the North and East and the release of political prisoners are to exploit the anger of Tamil masses and divert it into appeals for support from imperialist countries, such as the US and India, the major regional power. As the name Ezhuga Thamizh implies, the TPC protests are a communalist response to anti-Tamil provocations by Sinhala chauvinist groups in the countrys south. Sinhala extremists headed by former President Mahinda Rajapakse claim that the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which was militarily crushed in May 2009, is being revived. Rajapakse hopes to topple the government and return to power through this reactionary campaign. During the January 2015 presidential election, the TNA and other Tamil parties and groups, including those now in the TPC, backed the US-orchestrated regime-change operation to replace Rajapakse with Maithripala Sirisena. Washington wanted Rajapakse to cut his governments close political and economic relations with Beijing and for Sri Lanka to be integrated into the US war preparations against China. The TNA leadership, and figures such as R. Sambandan and M.A Sumanthiran, were fully involved in this campaign. The TPCs claim that the US, India and other international powers, as well as the UNHRC would help Tamil people, is false to the core. These powers backed the communal war by successive Colombo governments against the LTTE because it suited their geo-strategic interests. The UNHRC is a tool of imperialism, particularly the US. In 2015, it agreed that the newly-appointed government of Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe could conduct its own war crimes probe, in other words, suppress the truth about Sri Lankas civil war. The TNA supported this move. The TNA and other Tamil groups campaigned for Sirisenas election, insisting that he would end the anti-democratic methods of the Rajapakse government and end catastrophic living conditions produced by the war. Two years on, Tamil, Muslim and Sinhala people throughout Sri Lanka face ongoing attacks on their democratic rights and living conditions as the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government imposes the social austerity demands of the International Monetary Fund. Parallel to the growing struggles and strikes in the south, municipal cleaning workers, health workers, voluntary teachers and graduates in the north have regularly demonstrated for permanent appointments and jobs. Rehabilitated, former LTTE soldiers have protested at the civil security office demanding jobs while Jaffna University students are campaigning against the governments education cuts. Protest hunger strikes in Vavuniya by the relatives of persons who disappeared during the war have also won considerable support among workers, students and the poor. A group of people is maintaining a sit-down protest at Keppapilavu near Kilinochchi, demanding that the military return agricultural land that belongs to the villagers. Neither the TPC nor TNA has supported these struggles. The TNA is politically discredited in the eyes of thousands of Tamil workers and the poor for backing every social attack of the pro-US government in Colombo and defending it. TPC leader Vasantharajah, in fact, recently warned the government and the TNA that people [in the north and east] are now trying to take their own decisions and act, ignoring the leaders. Similarly, an editorial in Virakesari, the Colombo-based Tamil daily, noted that the governments inability to find a solution for the daily and basic problems of people, has created a deep discontent among Tamils. Because of this, a situation is growing that the Tamil people, who feel ignored, are mobilising against the leadership of TNA which supports the governments activities. All sections of the ruling eliteTamil and Sinhala alikeare acutely nervous about the development of a unified struggle of the working class across ethnic lines. The working class must reject the TPCs communal campaign. The TPC and TNA defend the interests of the capitalist class and serve the imperialist powers. Most of the TNA leadership hoped that US Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton would win the US presidential election, claiming this would provide an opportunity to solve problems of Tamils. After Republican Donald Trump won the election, the TNA leadership said they would appeal for his help. Tamil, Sinhala and Muslim workers must reject all factions of the Sri Lankan capitalist class and fight for their basic democratic rights and living standards on the basis of an international socialist perspective. This is the program advanced by the Socialist Equality Party (SEP), which has a long and principled record fighting against Colombos communalist war, consistently demanding the withdrawal of the military from the North and East and defending the democratic rights of the Tamil people. The SEP fights for a workers and peasants government in the form of a Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and Eelam, as part of the broader struggle for a United Socialist States of South Asia and internationally. Hundreds of students from several New York City high schools walked out of their schools Tuesday to protest against President Donald Trump. Though the marches were called against Trumps anti-immigrant measures, they were partly spurred by the Senates confirmation of billionaire Betsy DeVos as secretary of education. Five hundred students had gathered in the rain by 1:00 pm and more trickled into the park throughout the afternoon. Foley Square in lower Manhattan is surrounded by court houses and government buildings and often a site of protests. The growing participation of high school students in the anti-Trump protests is a sign of the depth of the popular social anger over his right-wing policies. The presence of hundreds of high school students in the streets is a sign that a younger generation, which has grown up entirely in the shadow of the Bush, Obama and now Trump administrations, is becoming politically radicalized. The demonstration had been announced only a week before by students on Facebook. It was originally organized by Hebh Jamal, a 17-year-old high school student from the Bronx, and fellow students, according to Seventeen magazine, whose call for a demonstration received an outpouring of support from students at other schools throughout the city. Many of the students made their own signs, with generally democratic sentiments such as Silence=Violence, America is for everyone, Not My President, or Grizzlies for DeVos (in reference to the absurd remark by DeVos that guns should be allowed in schools to protect students from grizzly bears). Students chanted You build the wall, we tear it down and pro-immigrant slogans, sometimes while jumping in unison. The World Socialist Web Site spoke with several students attending the rally. Natahlie, who came with a group of students from Brooklyn Prospect Charter school, said, We are learning about protests in history. Now a lot of changes need to be made. Specifically for this protest we are here looking to get the end of the ban on immigrants. Hillary won the popular vote. Some here, including me, wanted Hillary to become president. Some wanted Bernie. But practically, from the protest, we want New York State to be open to diversity. After the WSWS reporter explained the SEP position on how the Democrats and Republicans both acted in the interests of the ruling elite and the need for socialism internationally, Natahlie responded, I would support socialism. Capitalism divides with racism. Four students from Beacon High School had arrived with a smaller group early and cheered when another group of about 50 more students from their high school marched into the rally. One of them, Eibhilin said, We are against Donald Trump and his recent attacks on immigrants. His friend Phoebe added, He and his whole administration are ignorant of America and the reality of the people. Ben, another Beacon student, agreed: We are here to show that we are against the attack on our Constitution. It is necessary to show that not all America wants Trump. Phoebe added, We are especially showing we are willing to walk out of school. We are risking our education, added Lucca, another Beacon student. Henna and Yolldooz were at the demonstration from Young Womens Leadership School of Astoria. Henna described her reason for being there: To fight for all people in America. What Trump is doing is really bad and affecting everyones lives. Most of the students in my school walked out. Everyone is coming together to be one. Yolldooz commented, Everyone here is either a Muslim who wants their rights or they are other religions that are against the new presidents racism. I dont know if this rally will do something but it is our effort that counts. A college student on leave from Stanford University, Anna, stated about the political situation, The Democrats cater to a small minority and pretend to act for a larger public. But we are in a two-party system that has no alternatives. We are screwed. If we do not have the Democrats, we end up with Trump. Obama deported more people than Bush. No president has their hands clean. The working class has been divided so long along color lines, they dont see each other as allies. The WSWS reporter responded that that divisions are deliberately promoted by the Democrats and their pseudo-left allies and that young people, as the rally showed, as well as workers, will respond to a call for a united struggle. Three extraordinary developments over the past several days have exposed the breakdown of democratic forms of rule in the United States. On Monday, Trump delivered a political speech at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida in which he attacked the press and implied that it was aiding the enemy by not reporting terrorist attacks. They have their reasons and you understand that, Trump told the military, appealing for its support. Defending his anti-Muslim travel ban, he said, We need strong programs to keep out people that want to destroy us and destroy our country. Two days later, on Wednesday, Trump gave a speech before a police organization, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, bitterly attacking the judiciary. The appearance came on the eve of a decision by a three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals on his travel ban. We need security in our country, Trump told the police. And we have to give you the weapons that you need. And this [the order on immigration] is a weapon that you need. And they [the courts] are trying to take it away from you, maybe because of politics or maybe because of political views. We cant let that happen. This was nothing less than a call from the US president for the police to oppose or defy an unfavorable court ruling. He underscored the point by adding, One of the reasons I was elected was because of law and order and security And theyre taking away our weapons one by one, thats what theyre doing. In between these two speeches, on Tuesday night, Republicans in the US Senate took the extraordinary step of halting a speech by Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren against the nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions for attorney general, the nations chief law enforcement official. Warren was reading from a letter sent by Coretta Scott King, the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1986 opposing the nomination of Sessions for a federal judgeship. Republican Senators interrupted Warren, invoking an obscure rule barring senators from imputing to other senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a senator. Warren was ordered to stop talking and return to her seat. The invocation of this gag rule recalls in its own way the pre-Civil War rule established in Congress to prevent members of either house from talking about slavery on the floor of the legislative chambers. The ban on discussion of slavery was imposed because the issue was so explosive. Each one of these events is an indication of a violent break with the most basic forms of bourgeois democracy. The first targeted the press, which is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution; the second was an attack on the judiciary, one of the three coequal, according to the Constitution, branches of government; the third was an attempt to muzzle debate in Congress. Within this context, the response of the Democratic Party is significant. When Warren was told to sit down, she complied, and no Democrat took any serious action to block the gag order. The debate continued throughout the day Wednesday, culminating in a 5247 vote to confirm Sessions as the next attorney general. As for Trumps speeches before the military and police, they have been downplayed or ignored and their ominous implications covered up. There are significant political divisions within the ruling class, but these are centered on issues of foreign policy. While Democrats, including Warren, have engaged in empty posturing over Trumps various far-right cabinet appointments, they have done nothing to prevent the nominations from going through. What they have relentlessly pursued, however, is a campaign to demonize Russia and denounce Trump for being too close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. This has been their main point of attack against the new president. They speak for those factions of the military-intelligence apparatus that backed the Hillary Clinton campaign in large part out of concern that Trump will shift away from an aggressive anti-Russia policy. The new administration is for the present focusing its war-mongering on China and Iran. While the immediate object of Trumps vitriol is his critics within the establishment, the more fundamental target is the working class, and the methods being prepared against working-class opposition are far more violent. His speech on Wednesday was a pledge to eliminate all restraints on the use of force by the police. My message today is that you have a true, true friend in the White House, he proclaimed. I support our police. I support our sheriffs. And we support the men and women of law enforcement. The Trump administration expresses the dictatorship of the American oligarchy in its most ruthless form. His administration, packed with billionaires and generals, is determined to massively expand the military in preparation for a major war while escalating the social counterrevolution within the United States. This includes the slashing of health care, the destruction of public education and the elimination of all restraints on corporate profits. To implement this policy, the most basic democratic forms must be cast aside. The Trump administration is not an aberration in an otherwise healthy society. It is the culmination of a longstanding crisis of American democracy. In 2000, when the Supreme Court intervened in the election to halt the recount of ballots in Florida and hand the presidency to George W. Bush, the World Socialist Web Site noted that the decision of the court and the absence of any serious opposition from the Democratic Party demonstrated the absence of any significant constituency for democratic rights within the ruling class. The past sixteen years have confirmed this analysis. Under Bush, the attacks of September 11, 2001 were used to proclaim a war on terror and justify unending war abroad and the most far-reaching attacks on democratic rights within the United States. Far from reversing these processes, Obama extended them, including the assertion of the right of the president to order the extra-judicial assassination of US citizens. Now, with the rise to power of Trump, openly dictatorial measures are being prepared. Every revolutionary situation arises from a violent breakdown in traditional forms of rule. It is no longer possible for the ruling class to rule in the old way, and it is no longer possible for the working class to live in the old way. Both conditions are not only present, they are far advanced. The central strategic question is the building of an independent revolutionary leadership in the working class, opposed to all of the political representatives of the ruling class, which connects the defense of democratic rights to the fight against war, inequality and the capitalist system. Tuesdays split by right-wing Senator Cory Bernardi from the Liberal-National government to form a new party, the Australian Conservatives, has exacerbated the tensions wracking the ruling coalition. While Bernardis defection in the Senate is not, by itself, an immediate threat to the governments one-seat majority in the lower house of parliament, it points to broader processes tearing apart the government. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbulls government is caught up in the escalating geo-political tensions in Asia and internationally. The installation of the new Trump administration and its threats against China have only exacerbated differences over how to balance between China, Australias largest trading partner, and the US, its longstanding strategic ally. At the same time, the government is under huge pressure from big business to impose further deep inroads into living standards. Parliament resumed this week for 2017, with the government seeking to push through draconian welfare cuts that have been blocked in parliament since 2014 in the face of intense public hostility to them. There is nervous speculation in the corporate media about the break-up of the ruling Coalition under conditions of an accelerating collapse of popular support for the government and the entire political establishment. The Australians editor-at large Paul Kelly warned yesterday of a convulsive sea change rocking our politics in the wake of Trumps election, in which the conservative side of Australian politics is now devouring itself. In his resignation statement, Bernardi referred to the level of public disenchantment with the major parties. He is alarmed by the prospect of mass anger and alienation producing a left-wing, anti-capitalist movement within the working class and among young people. He regards his split as a catalyst for the development of a Trump-style drive to divert the immense discontent behind nationalism, anti-immigrant witch-hunting and right-wing economic populism. The governments fragility was underscored yesterday when one of Bernardis closest associates, Liberal National Party MP George Christensen, who sits in the lower house, said he would cross the parliamentary floor and vote next month against the government on a bill calling for an inquiry into the banking industry. Such a vote would not bring the government down, but it does highlight how quickly the Coalition could lose its majority. Christensen has not joined Bernardis party but makes similar pitches to climate change denial, anti-Muslim xenophobia and Christian fundamentalist opposition to same sex marriage. Christensen also resorts to populist agitation about the predatory operations of the banks against small businesses and farmers. Stories are swirling in the media about likely challengers to Turnbulls leadership, mostly referring to Treasurer Scott Morrison, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton or Tony Abbott, who was deposed by Turnbull in September 2015. Turnbull yesterday made a desperate effort to stave off moves against him within his Liberal Party by demagogically denouncing Labor Party opposition leader Bill Shorten as a social climbing sycophant who sucks up to billionaires. At the same time, the multi-millionaire prime minister sought to satisfy the demands of the financial elite for a far faster and deeper assault on the conditions and basic rights of the working class to reduce the burgeoning budget deficit. The government yesterday unveiled another omnibus bill to slash billions from social spending over the next four years. Except for a plan to lift the retirement pension age to 70, the bill contains all the cuts stalled since 2014. Working class families, elderly pensioners and unemployed youth will be hit the hardest. The measures feature family tax benefits cuts of $5.1 billion and $933 million in cuts to welfare payments for all new recipients. All income support for jobless workers would be abolished until they turn 25, except for a below-poverty-line youth allowance, saving government $431 million. Young people will also have to wait a month before they can apply for benefits. While slashing welfare, the government is proceeding with legislation to cut the company tax rate from 30 to 25 percenthanding new windfalls to the wealthy elitesin a bid to match the corporate tax cuts promised by Trump. The revived push for these cuts will further fuel public opposition to the government. Discontent is rising in the face of the ongoing destruction of thousands of jobs in manufacturing and mining, soaring house prices in major cities, and the ever-worsening level of social inequality. A survey of 30 countries this week reported that Millennial Australiansthose born between 1982 and 1999are the most pessimistic globally about the prospects for their future, largely because of financial stress and housing unaffordability. Accounting firm Deloitte reported that just 8 percent of Millennials in Australia believe they will be financially better off than their parents, and only 4 percent believe they will be happier than them. The political turmoil is being intensified by the rift between the Turnbull government and Trump administration in the US, particularly over the latters repudiation of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). A key aspect of Australias military and political support for the US pivot to Asia against China was Washingtons pledge that the TPP would ensure that the US and its allies wrote the rules of trade in the Asia-Pacific and compel China to open its markets even further to international investment and competition. Instead, under Trump, what looms is a US-initiated trade war that would severely impact on Australias massive commodity and service exports to China, which totaled some $85 billion last year. The extraordinary leaks about the bitter phone call that took place last week between Trump and Turnbull over a refugee deal underscore the tense state of relations. Last month, Turnbull floated the possibility that the countries that intended to form the TPP could proceed without US involvement and invite China to enter into the trade bloc. Concerns in US ruling circles would only have been heightened this week when Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop reiterated Turnbulls TPP invitation to China during a meeting with her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, who visited Canberra. Wang was reportedly unenthusiastic because Beijing opposes the terms contained in the TPP and instead wants negotiations to be finalised on the Chinese-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which includes Australia, Japan, India and Southeast Asian countries. Nevertheless, Bishop told reporters she had told Wang that amid uncertainty around the world Australia was a reliable partner and that we will continue to place a strong trade and economic relationship as one of our highest priorities. Bishop announced that Chinese Premier Li Keqiang will travel to Australia for talks with Turnbull on March 24. She spoke of mutual efforts to deepen and broaden Australia-China ties. Any boosting of Australias relations with China would be anathema to the Trump administration, which lambasted Obamas pivot as too weak to halt Chinas rise and has already threatened a military confrontation in the South China Sea. The intense pressure being applied by Washington for Australia to support its foreign policy will feed into the political in-fighting in Canberra and the crisis of the Turnbull government. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi declared on Tuesday in Canberra that a war between the United States and China was unthinkable because of the disastrous losses that conflict would bring to both sides. However, the very fact that Wang was questioned about the Trump administrations belligerent stance toward Beijing is another indication of the growing fears of conflict between the two nuclear-armed powers. Speaking at a joint press conference with his Australian counterpart Julie Bishop, Wang was asked by an Australian journalist for his reaction to statements by the new US administration signalling a stronger and even more aggressive posture towards China on a range of issues How concerned are you really by the possibility of war between the US and China? The journalist specifically highlighted the comments of Trumps top adviser Steve Bannon, predicting war between the US and China in five to ten years over the South China Sea. Bannon, who was speaking last March on the extreme right-wing web site Breibart, said: There is no doubt about that. Theyre taking their sandbars and making basically stationary aircraft carriers and putting missiles on those. Wang was at pains to play down the danger of war, declaring that despite tough or sometimes even irrational failings on China-US relations over the past four decades, the relationship had defied all kinds of difficulties and has been moving forward continuously. Taking a shot at Bannon, Wang declared: Any sober-minded politician, they clearly recognise that there cannot be conflict between China and the United States because both will lose, and both sides cannot afford that. However, while continuing the confrontational stance of the previous Obama administrations pivot to Asia against China, the Trump administration represents a fundamental shift toward a no-holds barred assertion of the interests of American imperialism. Trumps America First demagogy, which has been directed in particular against China, signifies a ruthless determination to halt the historic decline of the US in a struggle against rivals and allies alike through all, including military, means. Moreover, while Yang is dismissive of Bannon, Trump has placed the fascistic, former editor of Breitbart News on the top tier of his National Security Councilthat is, the body tasked with responding to emergencies and crises, as well as preparing and overseeing provocations, military interventions and wars. It is no accident that Bannon focused on the South China Sea, which the Obama administration transformed into a dangerous international flash point through its destabilising interventions into Chinas territorial disputes with its neighbours. Using Chinas land reclamation activities on a handful of islets, Obama gave the green light for three freedom of navigation operationsthat is, the dispatch of US navy destroyers within territorial waters claimed by China. Trump and his advisers have been critical of the Obama administrations actions for not being forceful enough in confronting Beijing over the South China Sea. In his confirmation hearing, Rex Tillerson, now US Secretary of State, said the Trump administration would send China a clear signal that, first, the island-building stops and, second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed. Sending US destroyers within the 12-nautical-mile limits around Chinese islets was a reckless and provocative course that risked a military clash. Tillersons threat to block Chinese access in its South China Sea could be implemented only by imposing a naval blockade in the disputed watersa flagrant act of war. Foreign Minister Wang suggested that the Trump administration in office was already moderating its hard-line, anti-China stance. He pointed out that James Mattis, the new US Defence Secretary, stressed the importance of diplomacy in relation to the South China Sea disputes. Mattis, who visited South Korea and Japan in his first overseas trip, had already raised tensions with China by concluding an agreement with Seoul to deploy an anti-ballistic missile system in South Korea and threatening North Korea with overwhelming force if it attacked the US and its allies. In Japan, Mattis affirmed that the US would back Japan in any war with China over disputed islets in the East China Sea. Having provoked angry reactions from Beijing on these two volatile flash-points, Mattisss comments on the South China Sea were relatively low-key. He declared that Chinas land reclamation activities had shredded the trust of nations in the region but the US would exhaust diplomatic efforts to resolve the issues. At this time, we do not see any need for dramatic military moves, he added. While publicly calling at this time for diplomacy before conflict, privately, according to several news sources, Mattis spoke of far more aggressive military measures to top Japanese officials. The Nikkei Asian Review reported: Mattis said America would no longer be that tolerant of Chinas behaviour in the South China Sea. He pledged to take an active role in protecting freedom of navigation Specifically, the US is set to increase the frequency of patrols within 12 nautical miles of man-made islands China has constructed in the sea. The newspaper also noted comments by the US defence secretary likening Chinas expansion today to an effort to re-create the tributary system of the Ming Dynasty In Mattiss telling, Beijing could be trying to use its military and economic might to re-create a similar set-up today, though such efforts will not be tolerated in the modern world. Confronted with a bellicose US administration and the threat of war, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) veers between trying to appease Washington and engaging in an arms race that only heightens the danger of conflict. A senior official with Chinas Central Military Commission, Liu Guoshun, warned last month that a war within the [US] presidents term, war breaking out tonight, are not just slogans but the reality. The Chinese regime, which represents the interests of a tiny ultra-rich elite, is organically incapable of making any appeal to the only social force capable of halting the drive to warthe working class in China, the United States and internationally. The threats by the Trump administration to implement trade war measures against China, to tear up alliances and multilateral arrangements if they are not in the immediate interests of American imperialism and, above all, to expand and use the US military to enforce American dominance are destabilising the entire region. The disputes in the South China Sea are just one of the triggers that could precipitate a catastrophic war. CHARLESTON -- Police saw a jump in the more high-profile crimes last year, largely because of the thefts reports filed, according to last years crime numbers. There were 477 index crimes reported in 2016. Index crimes include more high-profile crimes such as murder, sexual assault, robbery, battery, burglary, home invasion, theft, motor vehicle theft and arson. This total went up from the 443, a difference of 34, from the previous year. However, crime fluctuates even in Charleston, and the total amount of crimes reported are still in line with past decade, said Brian Baker, Charleston Police Department Chief. In 2014, Charleston saw 489 index crimes reported, which is the record high for the past decade. While there were fluctuations in the types of crimes seen last year in comparison to previous years, reported thefts made up a substantial reason for the spike. According to Charleston police stats, the city saw 61 more reported thefts than the year before, from 211 to 272 reported thefts. This was the most sizable increase in a particular type of crime in 2016. Baker said theft along with other crimes are largely committed by a very small population of the community and is not a good representation of the general Charleston population. Burglaries and thefts, burglaries, in particular, Id say, are generally committed by a very, very small percentage in the community, Baker said. There are a handful of people who are prone to breaking into houses and businesses. If you made five arrests, maybe you solved every one of (the reported thefts and burglaries). Historically, heroin is often a contributing factor in cases of theft, Baker said. Heroin abuse and heroin problems have gone hand in hand with burglaries and thefts, Baker said. Charleston saw jumps in other reported crimes, albeit more modest increases. According to last years numbers, aggravated assault and battery, home invasion and robbery went up. Notably, the reported armed bank robbery at Prairie State Bank & Trust, 1820 18th St., in late August was one of several contributing incidents to robbery total. On the other hand, Charleston saw a 10-year record low in burglaries in 2016, which Baker said was a welcomed surprise. There were 108 reported burglaries, a stark difference from the 10-year record high of 261 in 2009. Motor vehicle theft, burglaries and sexual assaults also saw dips last year. While not included in the index crimes reported domestic batteries have gone up as well, staying consistent with a noticeable trend, at least within the last decade. Last year, reported domestic batteries topped at 179. Baker said any number of reasons could be attributed to the gradual incline, however, it might stem from less tolerance for domestic violence and more interest to report these crimes when they occur. It is really talked about, Baker said. People don't tolerate it, so maybe it is getting reported more. Maybe there is no increase in domestic battery, we are just told about it more. Like with the Charleston Fire Department, the calls for service have been on a consistent track up last year since 2013. This year officers responded to 14,838 calls, roughly 800 more than the year before. PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) - Police say they arrested a Florida high school student who says he took a gun from a friend who planned to commit suicide and then brought it back to school a few days later. A Pensacola police report says that a Washington High School student told authorities that a classmate said he was planning to kill himself during lunch last week. She said a 16-year-old student then took the gun away from the teen. The Pensacola News Journal reports the 16-year-old told police he took the gun and brought it back to school to return to the student on Tuesday. Police found the gun and arrested him for possession of a gun on school property. The student who brought the gun was taken to a hospital for a mental health evaluation. ___ Information from: Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal, http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com (Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.) TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - The Florida Extension Office is offering to help out people with their taxes... and it's all for free. With a new grant of $12,500 from the IRS, the office is helping more rural mid to low income Floridians do their taxes for free through the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program. 10 offices across the state will serve as intake sites for the program. Participants work with a certified tax preparation volunteer in person or over Skype to complete their tax returns. Intake sites are in Leon, Madison, Bradford, Gadsden, and Hamilton counties. For a completed list of sites and more information on the program you can call 352-294-3307. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Last week, our "Building Tallahassee" series featured Care Point Health and Wellness Center as a development project well on its way to completion. But Wednesday, one local lawmaker calls for a closer look, based on environmental concerns. Leon County Commissioner Bill Proctor was joined today by several residents, who say the development is harmful to the community in more ways than one. Residents held signs across from the construction site on Monroe and Magnolia streets, claiming there are toxic chemicals that haven't been cleaned up. Commissioner Proctor says he's called on State Attorney Jack Campbell to investigate whether or not state law has been violated in allegedly failing to decontaminate the site. Proctor also claims the State Department of Environmental Protection has given Big Bend Cares a 60-day window to clarify concerns about its development across the street. The commissioner is referring to development built on top of a pollution site in New York state. However, Big Bend Cares says it's complied with all requests and welcomes any questions about Care Point, which is independent from the organization. Care Point is meant to be a one-stop shop for medical needs in the Southside. The facility is expected to open this fall. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Parents and education advocates in Leon County say they're upset with the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as U.S. Secretary of Education. The U.S. Senate was deadlocked yesterday, forcing Vice President Mike Pence to make a historic tie-breaking vote. "She has never taught in a public school. She never went to public school. Her kids never to public school," said Beth Overholt, a Leon County parent. "How can she know about public schools?" It's a question these women are asking. And despite nationwide opposition, Betsy DeVos is the nation's top education leader. Overholt said, "There were many, many parents who called and spoke out about this and called our senators and said, 'Do not vote for Betsy DeVos. We had legitimate concerns as parents against her." For this group, it's not about politics, but more about education and what DeVos will do with funding. "I'm concerned that our public money will be spread out too thinly to support voucher programs, shore up private schools," said Marie-Claire Leman, another local parent. "We're hoping that she will do the right thing," said Catherine Baer, an education advocate,"and we will continue to be involved and be active." Most parents in America have their kids in public schools, but in recent years, more and more are pulling them out of that system. concerned about what legislators are doing for their children. "I really did it more for control for my family," said Meredith Mears, who is homeschooling her children. Meredith Mears has been homeschooling her two daughters for the past four years. She says DeVos represents why she left public education. "I have watched and listened to many parents -- a lot of moms -- crying over her nomination and since her appointment, because what she had done to Michigan's public schools was basically destroy them," explained Mears. "Kind of like when your daughter gets married to someone that you don't want -- and they're married, so what are you going to do?" said Baer. "You're going to accept, and you're going to move on from there." The women are working on legislation to eliminate "common core" and excessive testing in local schools. They say they hope DeVos will publicly oppose "common core" during her tenure. CHARLESTON (JG-TC) -- Icy road conditions were blamed for a two-vehicle accident in eastern Coles County that sent both drivers to a hospital Wednesday. The accident took place at the intersection of Illinois Route 49 and County Road 800N at 5:50 p.m., a news release from the Coles County Sheriff's Office said. The release stated the road conditions caused the vehicles driven by Brittany J. Luster, 20, of Kansas and Luana E. Jones, 34, of Westfield to collide at the intersection. It said both drivers were taken to Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana after the accident. Jones was listed in fair condition there on Thursday but no information on Luster's condition was available, according to a Carle representative. You are the owner of this article. Israel is striking massively in the Gaza Strip because it can. Not to mention the fact that these strikes serve what is called in military lingo preserving deterrence. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The new barrier is being built intensively on the border, and dozens of heavy tools and hundreds of people are hanging around the fence every daya target for any worthless person or villain who might want to harm them and sabotage the work. So Israel is using every opportunity it has to explain to Hamas that its job is to maintain the calm and not to get in its way, especially as these strikes are a chance to examine abilities and destroy targets. But all this would not be happening so intensely if Israeli officials were not confident that the level of response vis-a-vis Hamas could be raised without the situation getting out of control. Any move that may drag Israel into another round of violence in the strip would only disrupt Hamas building of power (Photo: Reuters) Hamas political and military conduct indicates that the Palestinian organization has been in a standby position for several months now and is pondering the right strategy for implementing its goals. The Arab Spring, and mainly Operation Protective Edge, made it clear to Hamas that the military abilities it has demonstrated so far are not enough to shock Israel and make it accept dictations which would serve the Palestinian interest, primarily that of the Islamic stream. At the same time, the cold shoulder the organization is receiving from the Arab world places it at a crossroads: Military moderation and a diplomatic initiative, or the opposite. For now, Hamas is choosing a diplomatic initiativesee its estrangement from the Islamic State in Sinai and its building up of a relationship with Egypt. Contrary to what people in Israel think, Hamas see Protective Edge as a military failure on every possible parameter. They fired, for example, more than 20 anti-tank missiles at Israeli tanks, which were all neutralized by the Trophy active protection systems. Not a single suicide bomber or roadside explosive charge managed to stop the IDFs movement into the strip. Not a single surface-to-air missile hit an Israeli helicopter. The organizations naval commando unit had no accomplishments. The tunnels provided a very partial result. Israels anxiety over the tunnels totally contradicts the frustration among members of Hamas military wing in light of the limited use of them: Not a single Israeli community was infiltrated, and not a single soldier or Israeli civilian was kidnapped through the tunnels. These insights likely led Hamas to the conclusion that at the current stage it had better stop, build up its defensive capabilities and preparemilitarily and politicallyfor a future in which it would be able to present force which would surprise Israel. Any move that may drag Israel into another round of violence in the strip would only disrupt this building of power. Today, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad conduct rocket tests once a weekincluding heavier and longer-range missilesfrom familiar sites like Deir al-Balah and the former settlement of Dugit, undisturbed. The Iranians, after the nuclear agreement and the renewed flow of money, have become more generous too. This year, they granted Hamass military wing $150 milliondouble the amount given in the past. The current waiting period is good for Hamas for internal reasons too, as it is preparing for elections in its institutions, which will take at least three months, until the election of a new leadership that will likely be headed by Ismail Haniyeh. Members of Hamass military wing believe Israel is planning to take advantage of the organizations temporary weakness in the interim period and attack Gaza at any given moment. Their guess is that Israel is interested in dragging Hamas into a comprehensive conflict through a military provocation, and they are therefore making every effort to oppress any attempt by opposition groups to deteriorate the situation. Israel can therefore continue to respond powerfully to occasional rocket fire from the strip and rely on the Qatari mediator to relay messages. But it wont last forever. At what point will Hamas reach the conclusion that a certain strike is part of an Israeli plan to invade Gaza? That is Israels gamble. Gaza ministry of health has stated that two Palestinians were killed and five more were injured in an Israeli attack Wednesday night at the Gaza border with Egypt. The ministry, which is under Hamas control, claimed that the attack was in retaliation for the rockets fired towards the city of Eilat just hours before. In response to reports, Israel Defense Forces have denied carrying out the attack. ISIS (Islamic State) terror group claimed responsibility Thursday afternoon for the four rockets that were fired into Eilat from the Sinai Peninsula on Wednesday night. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The organization issued a statement saying: A number of rockets were launched at Jewish centers in Eilat, known as Umm Rashrash. The Jews and Crusaders should know that the war of the apostles will not save them in any way. In the early hours of the morning, Hamas originally claimed that two Palestinians were killed, and another five were injured, during an overnight strike by the IDF in Rafah in southern Gaza launched just two hours after three rockets were intercepted by Iron dome, and another one landed in open space. While Hamas immediately attributed the attack to the Israel Air Force, the Israeli military suggested that it may have been carried out by the Egyptians, claiming that it was unaware of any such attack being carried out. Two ISIS terroists killed in Gaza tunnel attack allegedly carried out by Egypt Israels suggestion came a number of hours after Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's army announced that in the course of the last months, it has exposed and obliterated six tunnels stretching between the Gaza Strip into Egyptian territory. Picture show tunnels equipped with, inter alia, fans and other electrical appliances. These tunnels were said to have been destroyed between January 17 and February 2. Two night ago, an Egyptian military spokesman said that the army had managed to kill three ISIS members in the northern Sinai. Rocket intercepted in Eilat (: , ) X A source with close ties to Hamas in Gaza said that the target was a tunnel on the Gaza-Egypt border and that injuries were caused as a result. However, a Palestinian security official later told Ynet that while the tunnel that was attacked was indeed used for smuggling weapons, the explosion took place, most likely, as a result of an Egyptian attack or an internal explosion while weapons were being transferred through it. Furthermore he pointed out that Egypt is currently at the zenith of its efforts to destroy the tunnels, manoy of which are controlled by ISIS in the the Sinai. The source also highlighted the fact that the tunnel that was hit was located east of the Rafah crossing and that an ISIS branch in the Sinai is operating in territory in precisely this area where their weapons depot is located. Also indicating that the explosion was the result of an Egyptian attack was the fact ISIS controls military tunnels in Gaza. Rockets fired into Eilat The first reports of the attack in Gaza were published at 1:30am overnight Wednesday. By early Thursday morning, Hamass ministry of health had reported that two had been killed and five more wounded. One of the people killed is said to be a 24 year old from Rafah while the second is said to be 38 years old. Shell following interception lands in a hotel swimming pool Last night, shortly before 11:00pm, a Code Red alert was sounded in Israels southern holiday resort of Eilat when four rockets were blasted into the area, three of which were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile-defense system. One of the rockets landed in open space. Fragments from the intercepted rockets were discovered in a swimming pool in the city. No injuries or damage were caused. However, Yoseftal Medical Center in the area said that four were being treated for shock. Earlier Wednesday evening, a mortar shell fired from a tank in Syria exploded in open territory in the Golan Heights along Israel's northern border, prompting the IDF to attack a Syrian army post in retaliation. Archive picture from northern Israel (Photo: Avihu Shapira) Tensions have been heating up particularly on the Gaza border, with Hamas rockets being fired into Israel and IDF retaliations becoming increasingly commonplace. On Monday, IDF tanks and aircraft destroyed several Hamas positions throughout the day after a rocket was fired toward the Hof Ashkelon area the same morning and Hamas forces opened fire on an IDF force working near the Gaza border fence in the southern Gaza Strip in the evening. Belgian Ambassador to Israel Olivier Belle was reprimanded Thursday morning at the Foreign Ministry on the instructions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after learning of a meeting that took place between the Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel and representatives of far-left wing groups Breaking the Silence and B'Tselem. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The meeting with the representatives of the NGOs occurred during Michel's three-day visit to Israel. The Foreign Ministry only confirmed that the meeting took place, but did not elaborate on the details of the meeting. However, it was said that the envoy promised to convey Israel's objections to the meeting to Brussels. Netanyahu with Belgian PM (Photo: Amos Ben Gershom/GPO) Adding insult to injury, Michel's meeting with the groups was held on Wednesday, just one day after his meeting with Netanyahu, during which the latter requested that Belgium stop funding them. Netanyahu issued the same request to British Prime Minister Theresa May when the two met in London on Sunday. Olivier Belle (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky) Michel was joined by members of his parliament, who notified the Israeli embassy of their intention to meet with representatives of Breaking the Silence. However, they failed to disclose the fact that their prime minister also intends to join them for the meeting. The talks were held with the founder of Breaking the Silence Yehuda Shaul and B'Tselem Executive Director Hagai El-Ad. Belgian PM meeting with Hagai El-Ad (L) and Yehuda Shaul "Israel views with utmost gravity Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel's meeting today with the leaders of Breaking the Silence and B'Tselem, during his visit to Israel. The Belgian government needs to decide whether it wants to change direction or continue with an anti-Israel line," the Prime Minister's Office said, adding that "Initiatives are still underway by the Belgian state prosecutor to try senior Israelis including Tzipi Livni and IDF officers." "Prime Minister Netanyahu has directed that legislation be advanced to prevent financing by foreign governments for NGOs that harm IDF soldiers," the PMO statement continued. President Rivlinn with Belgian PM (Photo: AP) Breaking the Silence, which is made up of former IDF soldiers and officers, receives funding from European governments such as Belgium. Part of its declared mission statement is to "expose the Israeli public to the reality of everyday life in" the West Bank. In Michel's meeting with Shaul and El-Ad he requested to be briefed on the situation in the West Bank. Therafter, he set off for a visit to Jericho and Ramallaha trip that was coordinated ahead of time with the Israeli government. President Donald Trump's extended criticism of the judiciary has prompted a rebuke from his nominee for the Supreme Court, who told a senator the president's comments were "demoralizing and disheartening." Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Judge Neil Gorsuch, who was nominated by Trump to the nation's high court last week, made the comments Wednesday after Trump accused an appellate court considering his immigration and refugee executive order of being "so political." During the weekend, the president labeled a judge who ruled on his executive order a "so-called judge" and referred to the ruling as "ridiculous." President Trump and Judge Neil Gorsuch (Photo: EPA) Gorsuch's comments came at the end of his first full week of meetings in the Senate, which is considering his nomination. His response may have been aimed at drawing a line of separation from the new president, who has been a politically polarizing figure among Democrats in a highly charged partisan fight over the court. Prior to the judge's meeting on Capitol Hill, Trump slammed the court that is deliberating his immigration and refugee executive order, telling a group of police chiefs that his immigration order was "done for the security of our nation." He quoted from the portion of the immigration law that he said gave him the power to enact the ban, calling it "beautifully written" and saying "a bad high school student would understand this." "Courts seem to be so political and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do what's right," he added. "And that has to do with the security of our country, which is so important." Trump's comments came as the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals is weighing the appeal of his executive order on immigration, including a temporary travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries. In a hearing Tuesday, judges on the appeals court challenged the administration's claim that the ban was motivated by terrorism fears, but also questioned an attorney's argument that it unconstitutionally targeted Muslims. Since a lower-court judge blocked the order last week, Trump has assailed the decision, leading legal experts, Democrats and some Republicans to question whether the president's remarks might jeopardize the independence of the judiciary. Others have expressed fears he may be attempting to use political influence to sway the courts. Gorsuch joined the criticism in a meeting with Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. Blumenthal, a former state attorney general, said Gorsuch described the president's comments about the judiciary as "demoralizing and disheartening." Gorsuch's confirmation team confirmed the judge's comments. Photo: AFP Blumenthal told reporters that he had told the judge he would need to condemn Trump's attacks on judicial independence publicly. "It needs to be a strong condemnation and that kind of public condemnation is important to establish his independence," Blumenthal said. "Otherwise, the American public will conclude that he is more likely to be a rubber stamp." In his speech, Trump sought to link his comments about the court battle over his executive order to the law enforcement community in attendance. "We have to allow you to do your job," he said. "And we have to give you the weapons that you need, and this is a weapon that you need and they're trying to take it away from you." The president has repeatedly said people are "pouring in" since the ban was put on hold and suggested that blocking the order would be dangerous for US citizens. On Wednesday morning he tweeted, "Big increase in traffic into our country from certain areas, while our people are far more vulnerable, as we wait for what should be EASY D!" The administration has not provided any information to support his claims. Customs and Border Protection, the agency in charge of screening people who arrive at US ports, including airports, has not responded to multiple requests to detail how many visa holders from the seven designated countries have been allowed into the United States since a federal judge temporarily blocked the government from implementing the travel ban. The State Department previously said fewer than 60,000 visas were provisionally revoked after the order was signed and those people would now be allowed to travel to the US Trump's order banned travel to the US for people from Syria, Sudan, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Yemen and Libya. It also suspended the country's refugee global program. As of Wednesday afternoon 641 refugees from 13 countries, including five whose citizens were barred from the US under the travel ban, had arrived since a federal judge in Washington ruled against the government. The alleged mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks in New York told former US President Barack Obama that the US brought the 2001 terrorist attack on itself, adding that he would be happy to meet Bin Laden if executed. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed wrote the chilling 18-page letter, dated January 2015, but it wasnt sent to the White House until a military judge ordered for it to be delivered just days before Obama left office last month. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Guantanamo Bay (Photo: AP) Officials at the prison at Guantanamo Bay, where Mohammed is a detainee, had refused to deliver the letter because it could be considered propaganda. The letter was addressed to Obama and described him as the head of the snake and president of the country of oppression and tyranny. It was not we who started the war against you in 9/11. It was you and your dictators in our land, Mohammed, 51, wrote in the missive. One section even asked: Why Did 9/11 Happen? And Why May it Happen Again?, before detailing the "crimes" since Israel's birth. The war crimes perpetrated in Palestine since 1948, and those taking place in Gaza today, are the clearest indication of why 9/11 happened, and why it may happen again in the future, he offered as an answer to the question. I will be happy to be alone in my cell to worship Allah for the rest of my life and repent to Him all my sins and misdeeds, the letter continued. And if your court sentences me to death, I will be even happier to meet Allah and the prophets and see my best friends whom you killed unjustly all around the world and to see Sheik Osama bin Laden. The letter also listed a number of US overseas interventions including in Hiroshima, Vietnam, Iran and Iraq to justify the 9/11 attacks, and condemned Obama for the operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. He called Obama a smart attorney, well acquainted with human rights and lamented the fact that he can kill his enemy without trial and throw his dead body into the sea instead of giving him to his family or respecting him enough as a human being to bury him." Daniel Pearl (L), who was allegedly murdered by Mohammed The content of Mohammed's letter to Obama were sent first to the Miami Herald newspaper and then to the Associated Press. It is doubtful Obama had the chance to read it since it arrived at the White House only days before he departed from the Oval Office. US Marine Corps Major Derek Poteet, lead military defense counsel for Mohammed, said that his client started writing the accusatory letter following the killings of Palestinians during the 2014 IsraelGaza conflict, also known as Operation Protective Edge. Mohammed has been held at the prison at Guantanamo Bay since 2006 after being captured in Pakistan in 2003. In March 2007, after four years in captivity, including six months of detention where he allegedly underwent waterboarding torture at Guantanamo Bay, Mohammed confessed to masterminding the September 11 attacks, the Richard Reid shoe bombing attempt to blow up an airliner over the Atlantic Ocean, the Bali nightclub bombing in Indonesia, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and various other foiled attacks. "I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z," Mohammed said in a statement read during a Combatant Status Review Tribunal at the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention camp. He also said that he personally decapitated the Jewish-American Journalist Daniel Pearl with his "blessed right hand", and in his first public showing in 2008 during a legal hearing he quoted passages from the Quaran and said he will happily become a martyr for his role in the September 11 attacks. A year later he released a statement where he called the attacks "A noble victory." Mohammed is currently awaiting his death-penalty trial at Guantanamo Bay. EDC is committed to diversity in the workplace. The USAID-funded Connecting the Mekong through Education and Training (USAID COMET) project will help universities and vocational centers to increase the number of skilled workers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, Accounting and Tourism (STEM+AT) fields in the Lower Mekong countries: Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam. USAID COMET seeks to bridge the gap between the private sector, universities and vocational centers in order to ensure the supply of skilled workers meets the demands from local businesses. The project will rely on mobile technology, online learning, and traditional in-person workshops to promote regional networking in ASEAN and to help people from rural and marginalized areas access educational services. Over the course of the five-year project, vocational centers and universities will be strengthened so that they can help future leaders develop the skills needed to catalyze job growth in high demand industries in the sub-region. This project will ultimately empower the Lower Mekong countries with a workforce that can bridge the development gap within ASEAN and take advantage of the benefits under the ASEAN Economic Community. Title: Partnerships Specialist Report to: Chief of Party Summary: The Partnerships Specialist will be responsible for supporting the development of the projects partnerships with the public and private sectors, and strengthening the linkages between the industry and post-secondary education institutions in the Lower Mekong region and greater ASEAN. The Partnerships Specialist will work closely with the Chief of Party, the Senior Partnerships Manager, and other technical advisors to enhance private sector engagement and public-private partnership activities on behalf of the USAID COMET project. S/he is expected to work as part of the USAID COMET team and collaborate effectively with partners and stakeholders in the Lower Mekong partner countries on all matters related to the project activities. Job Responsibilities: Support the Chief of Party and Senior Partnerships Manager in the identification of private sector partners and other potential partnership opportunities; Assist with the implementation of outreach strategies for the key industries (both in private and public sectors); Maintain close relationships and communications with the project partners and coordinate effectively with these partners on project activity implementation, monitoring and evaluation; Assist with the development, implementation and monitoring of work plans related to existing partnerships and potential partnership opportunities; Support and assist with the coordination of work-based learning activities (short term work exposures and experiences and internship programs) at the Mekong Learning Centers; Work closely with the Training Manager and other technical staff to support the Mekong Learning Centers in the application of the MekongSkills2Work Sourcebook Toolkits related to partnerships, work-based learning and linking curriculum to industry needs; Work closely with the Country Managers and Mekong Learning Centers management to improve relationships with local industry partners in order to increase the number and quality of internships; Support the process of identifying, selecting and generating contact and linkages with the private and public sectors within the Lower Mekong region as well as with USAID bilateral and regional projects; Contribute to project reports, particularly on partnerships initiatives and activities; Represent USAID COMET in partner meetings, program meetings and donor meetings as required. Other tasks as assigned. Essential Functions Reporting to Chief of Party, the Partnerships Specialist will provide ongoing support to the Senior Partnerships Manager, and take lead in coordinating work-based learning and partnership activities at Mekong Learning Centers (partner technical colleges and universities). The Partnerships Specialist will work with the Chief of Party the Senior Partnerships Manager, and technical advisors to strengthen USAID COMET partnerships with the private and public sectors within the Lower Mekong region. The Partnerships Specialist will work closely with the Country Managers and Mekong Learning Centers management to improve relationships with local industry partners in order to increase the number and quality of internships. S/he will coordinate effectively with the partners and/or stakeholders on project activity implementation, monitoring and evaluation. The Partnerships Specialist must be able to communicate clearly and courteously, develop and maintain positive relationships with partners, co-workers, field staff, and donor, and to work respectfully with USAID COMET colleagues. A Kenyan court has declared illegal a government order to close the world's largest refugee camp and send more than 200,000 people back to war-torn Somalia. Judge John Mativo said Thursday that Kenya's internal security minister had abused his power by ordering the closure in May of Dadaab refugee camp, near the border with Somalia. The judge said the decision is discriminatory and goes against the Kenyan constitution as well as international treaties that protect refugees against being returned to a conflict zone. Mativo said the Kenyan government had not proved Somalia is safe for the refugees to return. The Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah has launched a widespread campaign in recent days calling on member of the public to help finance its combatants and military activities. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Under the slogan of "Money for Jihad is a Must", that was hashtagged and publicized on social media, Hezbollah is leading a campaign that has been dubbed "The Initiative to Arm Jihadists." A picture of an AK 47 from the campaign, illustrating what the donation money can buy In a video circulated on the group's twitter account, one of its members can be seen equipping himself and attempting to encourage the public to donate money to the cause. Our Jihadists need clothing "Whoever arms a fighter is considered to have fought," the group said as per the Islamic tradition and even added phone numbers to be used for the donations. Hezbollah's campaign video X Another slogan from the video says: "You help; resist." The group's website states that "Jihadists who fight in the resistance need clothes and military equipment. This initiative allows you to help equip them" Readers are then given the option to donate money online, and are even given the choice of making payments in installments, for those wishing to give generous sums of money. Religious leaders also feature in the videos as the appeals are made. One of the news website based in the city of Tyre even added a form that can be used to donate. The appeals include detailed photos of the equipment that could be purchased with donation funds. The pictures were also uploaded to social networks. The donation form from the Tyre news website This is not the first time Hezbollah has launched a campaign of such sort. However, when compared with its last efforts, the present crowd-funding round is far more widespread and intensive. The extent of the campaign raises questions about the financial difficulties the group may be suffering flowing from the fighting in Syria against the rebels and other Jihadist groups which is draining them of precious military equipment. Excerpts of an interview of Hezbollah Deputy Secretary-General Naim Qassem that is expected to be released in full on Friday were published today in the Al-Binaa newspaper. In it, Qassem said that "Hezbollah is not concerned to calm Israel or relieve its fears. Our message is uniform and unchanging and it is that we are willing to pay the price of the conflict. Are you?" Qassem also added remarks belittling the reports that Turkey is demanding that Hezbollah retreat back to Lebanon as part of its arrangement with Syria, saying: "Hezbollah's retreat from Syria is not part of the equation of Syria's political solution." A member of the Haredi community, recently discharged from the IDF, was attacked by an ultra-Orthodox mob of yeshiva students Wednesday night when they surrounded him, subjected him to verbal abuse and threw garbage cans and even stones at him. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The incident, which took place at one of the flashpoints in Bnei Brak where violent protests against military conscription were staged on Tuesday night, was recorded by the victim. Haredim attack discharged IDF soldier X The soldier arrived at the spot wearing civilian clothing, but was recognized by the angry crowds, likely due to the publicizing of his photo by extremist elements within the community spearheading a shaming campaign designed to slander Haredim daring to enlist in the IDF. The soldier was pursued by the group before he managed to lock himself in a room inside a nearby building and call the police. Haredi victim takes cover and calls the police An eyewitness at the scene recalled the frightening episode. There were was a killer instinct in their eyes. They threw anything they could at him. They said youre a Nazi, even worse than Hitler. Youre a goy and wished him dead. The witness also described the immense fear that a Haredi soldier is forced to endure in Bnei Brak. The incident began, the witness added, when the soldier left a building and somebody pointed at him and said: Look, it is someone from the hunters pack, a derogatory term applied to Haredim who draft into the IDF. Then everyone attacked him and screamed burn in hell. Photo: Eli Mandelbaum Meanwhile, police are anticipating yet another giant demonstration in which Haredim are planning to block roads during Thursday afternoon rush hour traffic in protest against the continued detention of a yeshiva student who deserted the IDF and was imprisoned in a military prison. Tuesday's protests (Photo: Barak Packter) In an effort to forestall the blocking of Route 4 and other central roads in Bnei Brak, riot police will be deployed at key junctions and streets through the traffic-filled hours to ensure undisturbed access. Overnight, a threatening message was circulated in the extremist circles: On Thursday, at 3:30 in the afternoon , we will stage a huge protest and terrible protest, the likes of which of which are no longer seen, in Jerusalem, Bnei Brak, Modiin Illit, Beitar, Elad, Ashdod. Gods salvation. The radical Jerusalem faction of the Lithuanian Orthodox sect responsible for the demonstrations is a comparatively small faction in the Haredi sector. The central streams of the Haredi movement are opposed to the protest. The former citizens of Amona are now asking that the new settlement that was promised to them will be built in the Geulat Zion outpost in Shiloh, which is on Israeli lands. They are demanding that the state will hold up to its promise. The people of Amona are expected to erect a protest today near the Knesset in Jerusalem for the purpose of hastening the building of the new settlement. Police detained four Islamic State suspects who were allegedly planning to carry out a "sensational" attack in Turkey and seized 24 suicide attack belts, officials said Thursday. The latest detentions came as CIA chief Mike Pompeo arrived in Turkey to discuss the fight against the extremist group in Syria and Iraq, making his first overseas trip since taking office. The suspects were put under custody in an anti-terror operation in Gaziantep, near the border with Syria, according to Gaziantep provincial governor's office. Police found the suicide belts -- made with 150 kilograms of explosives and fortified with metal pieces -- as well as two automatic rifles, 14 kilograms (31 pounds) of TNT and other materials during the operation, it said. Seven-year-old A. sits in the isolation room at the Department of Pediatrics at the Ziv Medical Center in Safed. She is waiting for another surgery after undergoing quite a few treatments at the Israeli hospital. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter A. is not a regular patient. She arrived at the Pediatrics Department after being critically wounded by shrapnel in an explosion near her home in Syria. Her concerned mother is sitting next to her. They arrived together from their small village, which got caught in the middle of the civil war in the country. Two war refugees alone in an enemy state, and all they have is each other. The girl arrived at our trauma room last November on a Saturday morning, says Dr. Lili Hayari, a senior surgeon at Zivs Pediatrics Department. I was called in from home and found a critically wounded child, with injuries mostly to the abdominal cavity, where she suffered a direct hit. Her intestines were perforated. She was brought here after the hospital in Quneitra failed to stabilize her condition. We immediately sent her into a life-saving emergency operation, with two teams doing everything possible to save the girl. A surgical team stitched and patched up the abdominal cavity, and an orthopedic team operated on her right elbow, which was crushed by shrapnel that infiltrated the area and destroyed vital tissue. Seven-year-old A. and her mother (Photo: Efi Shrir) Since then, the girl has undergone another series of operations. Doctors believe her condition is improving and she is expected to recover and return to her village in Syria. A. is one of dozens of Syrian children who arrived at the Israeli border over the past two years and were rushed from there, with the IDFs help, to the Ziv Medical Center. Since arriving in Israel, the girl and her mother have been cut off from all their relatives. I dont know whats going on with my husband, with my parents and siblings, with our entire family and our neighbors. I know nothing, the mother says. I dont even know if our village still exists. It may have been destroyed. She only managed to get through the long period in which her daughter was hanging between life and death thanks to the support of other Syrian mothers who are in Israel with their own wounded children. The children come here with no referral, with no records, says Dr. Hayari. We dont even receive their blood type. Often, during our immediate life-saving efforts, we also have to learn the essence and severity of the injury. We have to start from scratch and hope that we can give them the best medical care possible. I can only pray that my children are alive Ten-year-old J., who arrived from a different Syrian village after accidentally touching an exposed high voltage line, is hospitalized in the adjacent room. Both his hands were burned and turned black. His tendons, bones and the internal structure of his hands suffered serious damage. He was rushed to a hospital in Damascus, but could not be treated due to the lack of medical equipment. He arrived at the Israeli border and was taken to the Ziv Medical Center. I was afraid to come to Israel, he admits, because I was afraid of the Jews, but now Im not afraid at all. When he was hospitalized more than two months ago, J. underwent immediate surgery to save his hands. Later, he was treated by a plastic surgery expert from the Hillel Yaffe Medical Center in Hadera, who specializes in skin transplants. His hands were plastered up to the elbows, and he had to rely on his mother and on the medical staff for every single action. Ten-year-old J. having his cast removed to learn his hands had recovered from their injury (Photo: Efi Shrir) The mother, who is 26 years old, left her husband and their three other childrenaged nine, eight and sixat their village. Of course I was afraid to come to Israel, she, smiling shyly. I was afraid of everything. Like the other mothers accompanying their wounded children, she doesnt know what happened to her family either. We dont have and were not allowed to have any contact with Syria, so I can only pray that my children are alive and that they have everything they need, she says. During my visit to the department, I got to witness a moment which J.s mother and doctors had been waiting for for months. Throughout his entire time at the hospital, they were unsure whether the hands placed in the cast could be recovered. When the doctor removed the cast from J.'s little hands, he discovered that the boy had recovered and that his hands would heal completely after a rehabilitation process. J.s mother doesnt know if they will have a home to go back to after the treatment that saved her sons life is done. In the meantime, she is focusing on his treatment. How was he chosen of all children? R., a six-year-old boy, is hospitalized in the same room. He arrived at the hospital with serious damage as a result of inborn cerebral palsy, which was not treated with the required medical measures. After studying the severity of his condition and stabilizing him, the medical team began focusing on R.s long rehabilitation process, which included learning how to walk with a walker while strapped with supported belts, prescribing eyeglasses by a child optometrist who came to his bedside, and other treatments. The treatment of the wounded Syrians is paid by the state, but only donations from different associations make it possible to fund crutches, wheelchairs, prostheses, toys, etc. A wounded Syrian child at the Ziv Medical Center (Photo: Efi Shrir) Like all the other mothers in the department, R.s mother is also afraid to speak. They dont share their experiences from the horror they fled with their wounded children, leaving everything they cared about behind. In some sense, the mothers are prisoners in the hospital. Their freedom of movement is limited to the department. When they want to go out for a breath of fresh air or to take a short walk in the sun, they are accompanied by a soldier or policeman who is responsible for their safety. Their entire world is reduced to their wounded child, and to the other mothers. The other person accompanying them is Fares Issa, a social worker who coordinates the treatment of all wounded Syrians and their parents. He is the contact who greets the wounded as soon as they arrive and accompanies the family from that moment until the child is discharged from the hospital. At any given moment, at least one wounded Syrian is hospitalized at the medical center, says Issa. Not only is he hurting and suffering, he is also terrified and embarrassed to be hospitalized in Israel. My job is to calm him and his escorting relative down, mediate from Arabic to Hebrew between him and the medical team, and make sure that all their basic medical needs are met on an immediate and regular basis. The Ziv Medical Center in Safed (Photo: Efi Shrir) The escorting relatives, who arrive hastily with nothing but the clothes on their bodies, receive a package of basic and vital products. We think about everything, says Isaa. From soap, underwear, clothing and nail clippers to toys and childrens books in Arabic. The escorting relative is often a minor brother or sister, the only survivors of a family that was killed in the bombings, and then they are in a state of post-traumatic stress and I refer them to a psychiatrist. But although Issa is one of the only people who can really help these victims of war, he is frustrated too. We provided a rolling walker at a cost of more than NIS 10,000 to a child suffering from cerebral palsy, we will equip him with medicine, clothes and all the instruments that will improve his life. We wont spare any effort to help him, but where will he actually go back to? Even something of his small village remains, he'll return to a destroyed place, without infrastructure, in which he will have no way of using the walker. Interior Minister Aryeh Deri announced recently that Israel would take in, for the first time, about 100 orphaned war refugees from the civil war in Syria, but the children recovering at the Ziv Medical Center are not included on the list of those who will receive a permanent home in Israel. Dr. Lili Hayari (Photo: Efi Shrir) Issa is not the only one finding it difficult to deal with the difference between the hospital and what is waiting for the patients once they are discharged. I have no choice but to internalize that at a given moment I am saving lives and treating the Syrian children as if they were our own children, says Dr. Hayari. Even more so, because in additional to the medical care, we provide all their additional needs. There is no HMO to help and complete the treatment. Nonetheless, I dont forget that after our extremely committed treatment, they go back to nothing. A thought that occasionally crosses my mind, as I look at these wounded children, is how lucky they are to be saved. Every time a Syrian child comes in, I ask myself again, how was he chosen of all children? Who decided that he would receive treatment and that another child would perhaps die? The treatment of the 900 Syrian adults and children is overseen by Dr. Salman Zarka, the hospital director. Zarka is an IDF colonel in reserves and co-founder of the military hospital in the Golan Heights. Dr. Salman Zarka (Photo: Efi Shrir) There is no sweeping order in the IDF to coordinate the treatment of the Syrian children here at Ziv, but thats the way it turned out, likely for reasons of convenience, he says. We give the children and all the Syrian patients medical care beyond the defined level of humanitarian aid, which is primarily defined as saving lives and providing immediate and basic needs. We also insist on improving the quality of life, and when a person arrives with a wounded leg, the medical team will fight to save it and avoid amputation. How do the patient-doctor relations work between Israelis and Syrians? As far as they are concerned, they are coming to an enemy state. They were told for years that we are as bad as Satan, while we were also raised on the verse 'Out of the north evil shall break forth,' so it has created a situation, emotionally complex and filled with two-sided barriers, that has to be solved. Its not easy and it creates natural initial fear. Thats why I am so proud to show them and the world our humanity. The Military Police's internal affairs unit is investigating a suspicion of forgery in appeal documents for the soldier Shlomo Mat, who was sentenced to 20 days in military prison after inciting to insubordination during the Amona evacuation. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Mat, an ultra-Orthodox soldier serving in a construction unit in the IDF's Judea and Samaria Division, was supposedly recorded in a video in which he allegedly encouraged insubordination in the Amona evacuation. The video was later spread via WhatsApp. The IDF first considered filing criminal charges against him for rebellion violations, but due to social sensitivities regarding his case, it was decided to settle on a disciplinary trial. Shlomo Mat Mat's commander, a lieutenant colonel in the Central Command, sentenced him to 20 days incarceration, which was appealed by Mat and his lawyer Menachem Shtauber and the Honenu organization. The appeal filed by Mat was not discussed as the army claimed it was overdueif the appeal is not discussed within 72 hours from the date of submission, the procedure is annulled. After Mat claimed that the date and additional details in the appeal were forged to his detriment, the military decided to take that into consideration and bring his plea in front of a colonel, but the appeal was denied. Mat claimed in his appeal that he did not record himself for the video and was not the one who distributed it, and so he believes that the punishment he received was not proportional. "At first glance, it appears the appeal document had been tampered with, since the date seems to have been crossed out and amended," admitted the IDF representatives in response to the simultaneous appeal submitted by the soldier to the High Court of Justice. The IDF had rejected Mat's claims in the appeal, and noted that the procedure was properly conducted and that he should serve his sentence in full. If the High Court of Justice orders Mat's release, this would be the second time in the last few months in which such an event has occurred. A soldier who handed out pamphlets in the IDF Induction Center calling for the release of Elor Azaria, was tried and sentenced but the sentence wasn't carried out since the appeal he filed was not discussed within 72 hours. The IDF Spokesperson stated in response that "the IDF takes such cases very seriously. On January 29 2017, the soldier was sentenced to 20 days of incarceration due to a video posted in which he calls for insubordination. The appeal filed by the soldier was rejected by a colonel. The state's response to the soldier's claims as part of an appeal to the High Court will be given to the court as is customary." Military officials added that "the soldier's forgery claims will be investigated. In any case, they have no implication upon the disciplinary proceedings conducted against him." Menachem Shtauber, the soldier's defense attorney, said in response that "beyond the legal flaws of the disciplinary proceeding, the forgery of the document by military authorities is a very serious step that should bother any individual." WASHINGTON - The top US commander in Afghanistan said on Thursday that there was a need for a "holistic review" of the relationship with Pakistan, adding that it was supporting the Taliban and undermining the Afghan government. "Our complex relationship with Pakistan is best assessed through a holistic review," Army General John Nicholson, who leads US and international forces in Afghanistan, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. The United States has cut both military and economic aid to Pakistan sharply in recent years, reflecting mounting frustration among a growing number of officials with the nuclear-armed country's support for the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan. BERLIN - Police in central Germany detained two men they described as known Islamic extremists on Thursday in an investigation of suspected plans for an attack. The men, a 27-year-old Algerian and a 23-year-old Nigerian whose names weren't released, were detained during early-morning searches in and near Goettingen. Both men live in the city and have long been part of the Salafist scene there, police said. Twelve properties were searched in the operation. Information about a possible attack plan had accumulated in recent days to the extent that officials decided to take quick action, Goettingen police chief Uwe Luehrig said. Investigators found two weapons, at least one of them a firearm that required no permit but had been altered to fire live ammunition, senior Goettingen police official Volker Warnecke told reporters. They also found ammunition, flags of the Islamic State group and a machete. TORONTO - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is to meet with US President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday. A statement from the prime minister's office on Thursday says the leaders "look forward to discussing the unique relationship between Canada and the United States of America and how they will continue to work hard for middle-class Canadians and Americans, together." More than 75 percent of Canada's exports go to the US. Of the 50 US states, 35 count Canada as their leading export market. Trump has vowed to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. Canada's foreign minister warned the Trump administration on Wednesday that his country will retaliate if the US applies new tariffs. With a vision to advance service quality, Lanith is a Centre of Excellence created to champion and lead education and training in the tourism and hospitality sector. To support its continuing development, Lanith with the support of Luxembourg Development Cooperation wishes to recruit two technical advisers: WASHINGTON - Russia's goal in Afghanistan is to undermine the United States and NATO as it looks to "legitimize and support" the Taliban, Army General John Nicholson, the top US military commander in Afghanistan, said on Thursday. In the past, Russian officials denied that they provided aid to the insurgents, who are contesting large swathes of territory and inflicting heavy casualties, and say their limited contacts are aimed at bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table. A Russian warplane "accidentally" hit a building on Thursday in northern Syria with Turkish soldiers inside, killing at least three troops and wounding 11, Turkey's military said. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter "During an operation by a Russia Federation warplane against Islamic State targets in the region of the Euphrates Shield operation in Syria, a bomb accidentally hit a building used by Turkish Army units," the Turkish military said in a statement. The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin had called Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan and expressed his condolences, blaming the misdirected strikes on poor coordination between Moscow and Ankara. Russian fighter jet bombing ISIS targets in Syria (Photo: EPA/File) The incident highlighted the risk of unintended clashes between the numerous outside powers involved in Syria's complex six-year-old war. Besides Russia and Turkey, they include Lebanon's Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed militias, and members of a US-led coalition fighting Islamic State. Russia is a key ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, while Turkey supports the rebels opposing him. In 2015, Turkey shot down a Russian air force jet that it said had crossed into Turkish airspace, though Moscow denied that happened. The two countries have since repaired relations, and Thursday's Kremlin statement said the two leaders had agreed to step up military coordination against Islamic State. Turkish-backed Syrian rebels meanwhile pursued a major offensive against the ISIS-held Syrian city of al-Bab, 30 km (20 miles) south of the border with Turkey. In other developments in Syria, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and the Red Cross said a suspected rebel mortar attack that hit a Red Crescent distribution center in the government-held city of Aleppo Wednesday killed a volunteer and two civilians. After years of heavy fighting, Syrian government forces drove the rebels out of eastern Aleppo in December, but the opposition still holds some areas on the city's outskirts. Fighting has continued around Aleppo and in other parts of Syria despite a Russia- and Turkey-sponsored cease-fire. BEIRUTSyria's fronts are on fire despite a cease-fire reached in December between rebels and the government. Though the two sides sat face-to-face in the Kazakh capital of Astana a month later, the government has pressed offensives against rebels around the capital, Damascus, and recently escalated its air campaigns in Homs and Idlib. The war's January tollsome 2,000 dead, about a third of them civilians, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring groupis the lowest it has been in four years. But that may be because the government wrapped up operations for Aleppo, the country's largest city, last year. A 23-year-old Rehovot resident was indicted on Thursday for attempting to cross the border into the Gaza Strip the previous day. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter According to the indictment, the young man was carrying a backpack with two kitchen knives, clothes and cash money. He made it to the fence near Moshav Netiv HaAsara, where he attempted to cross the border. Gaza border (Photo: EPA) An IDF force who identified him hurried toward him, fearing he would be captured by Hamas, and arrested him. The man was charged in an expedited process with unlawfully trying to leave the country and possessing a knife. "The defendant imposed a heavy, unnecessary burden on the security forces entrusted with the nation's protection," stated a request to keep him under arrest. The young man's remand was extended, and he was sent for psychiatric evaluation. The defendant's lawyer, Ofra Siboni, said, "My client does not belong under arrest behind bars. This is a man whose mental situation was severe and he wasn't trying, heavens forbid, to harm state security." Three Israelis have voluntarily entered Gaza over the past three years and are believe to be held by Hamas. Abera Mengistu, a young man from Ashkelon, entered the strip in 2014. Three months later, Hisham al-Sayed, a Bedouin man known to be mentally ill, also crossed the border. Then, last July, a third Israeli citizen crossed into Gaza: Jumaa Ibrahim Abu-Ghanima, also a Bedouin man. An official says the Palestinian intelligence chief has met with White House security officials in the first meetings between Palestinians and the new US administration. The official said on Thursday that Majed Faraj met with US security and intelligence officials in Washington over the past two days. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with protocol. The Palestinian leadership has tried unsuccessfully to reach out to President Donald Trump and feared the possibility of being sidelined as the administration is embracing Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who heads to the White House next week. An Israeli Arab was beaten by passersby who mistook him for a terrorist after he yelled in Arabic on the scene of the terror attack in Petah Tikva on Thursday. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Maed Amar, 35, from Kafr Qasim, was just finishing his shopping in the Petah Tikva market, when he heard gunshots. "I yelled in Arabic'watch out, take cover,' and then people started pummeling me, yelling 'there's another terrorist here.' I wanted to warn people, and they nearly killed me," he recounted. Maed Amar Amar suffered head and leg injuries and was evacuated to Beilinson Hospital at the Rabin Medical Center in the city, where he was hospitalized. His condition is considered light. A video filmed at the scene depicts Amar lying wounded on the ground, surrounded by security personnel. Passersby are heard shouting: "Kill him." "I was in the Petah Tikva market to buy some things," Amar told Ynet. "When I finished my shopping, I started heading toward the bus going to Kfar Qasim. That same moment I heard the shots being fired and so I started yelling in Arabic'watch out, watch out, take cover.' All of a sudden, several Jews approached me and said'there is another terrorist here.' They thought I was in cahoots with the shooter." Maed Amar beaten at the scene of the terror attack X "I tried explaining to them that I had nothing to do with the shooting, but unfortunately, they kept hitting me and wounded me," he continyed. "It was very scary. They nearly killed me. All I wanted was to warn the people in the area, to keep them safe, but instead of thanking me, that gave me a beating. After my attack, police officers arrived on scene and pushed the assailants away." Osama Amar, Maed's brother, added that his brother "is a quiet man, who would never hurt anyone. He always liked to help others. Now, he is shocked, and he still can't comprehend what happened to him. I hope this event doesn't recur." Another Kfar Qasim resident, who was also nearby, said that "Maed Amar didn't do anything. They attacked him simply because he is an Arab. He was unarmed and posed no threat to anyone, but there are racist people who attack Arabs because of hatred. It's good they didn't shoot him to death." Six people were wounded in the terror attack, while several others are considered shock victims. The terrorist, 19-year-old Sadiq Nasser Abu Mazen from Beita, was moderately hurt when civilians neutralized him, hitting him with a sewing machine. The month of February opened with one of my favorite traditions the first Nebraska Breakfast of 2017. Nearly every Wednesday morning when both the House and Senate are in session, Nebraskans visiting the nations capital are invited to join their full congressional delegation for an informal discussion. Started by Senator Hugh Butler in 1943, the Nebraska Breakfast is the longest-running event of its kind on Capitol Hill. It allows delegation members to visit with the many Nebraskans in town advocating for important causes or taking in our countrys history. If you are planning a trip to Washington, D.C. this year, I encourage you to visit my website at AdrianSmith.house.gov/NebraskaBreakfast to see the 2017 schedule. The busy start to the new Congress has provided many opportunities to welcome Nebraskans to Washington. On January 19, I hosted an open house in my office for constituents arriving to pick up tickets to the inauguration of President Donald Trump. While distributing more than 200 tickets, it was great fun to meet Nebraskans from Mitchell to Dakota City and share in their excitement about the historical events taking place. One week later, I visited with Nebraskans who traveled to D.C. to participate in the March for Life. The blustery January day did not deter them from peacefully marching on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves. I was honored to meet with them and discuss some of my recent efforts to defend the sanctity of life, such as voting to prevent taxpayer dollars from being used to fund abortions and cosponsoring the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act to prohibit abortions past twenty weeks of pregnancy. In recent days, I have also enjoyed meeting with many Nebraska agriculture groups, from the Farm Bureau to wheat growers to sorghum producers, during their trips to D.C. It is important to come together and discuss the challenges facing producers, as well as the best ways to ensure they can continue to help feed the world. Punxsutawney Phil may have seen his shadow on February 2, but we know spring is on its way and my office will soon be welcoming student groups to the nations capital. I always enjoy the opportunity to visit with young Nebraskans, talk about our countrys history, and hear their insights on the issues we are working on in Congress. If you are a Third District teacher or student coming to D.C. with a school or youth group, please let my office know so we can schedule a time to meet during your trip. Hearing directly from Nebraskans is invaluable to serving as your representative in Congress. In addition to these in-person meetings, my offices have already received nearly 4,000 calls and pieces of mail this year. I encourage you to continue reaching out to me by phone, email, mail, or in person with your thoughts, concerns, and questions. You can also visit my website at AdrianSmith.house.gov to schedule a meeting or let me know about an event in your community. We have an eventful year ahead, and I want to hear your ideas firsthand. Thank you for keeping in touch with me. Our Constitution gives U.S. senators the power of advice and consent on nominees to the Supreme Court. This is a great power, and the responsibility attached is no less so. The decisions of a Supreme Court justice affect the rights and freedoms of millions. Assessing a nominees fitness is no easy task. Nor should it be. There are certain qualities I seek in a judge, but first, let me identify the nonstarters: A judge cannot be a lawmaker. In America, Congress, the representatives of the people, author our laws. A judge cannot be a social advocate. That is not the function of an impartial judge, nor can it ever be. Lastly, a judge cannot be a trailblazer, quick to be creative with the foundational concepts and structures of our republic. Our Constitution and our nations laws must be respected. So what do I look for in a nominee to our nations highest court? First, the person must be a follower of the Constitution. A judge must follow the laws, as written. He or she must neutrally apply the laws of Congress and uphold the Constitution as envisioned by our founders. Under no circumstances should he or she impose a personal preference. Second, the nominee must possess the sharpest intellect and the highest academic qualifications. There must be no aspect of the law beyond a nominees mental reach. Third, the nominee must be a known quantity. There must be a reliable record for senators to carefully assess. In the Senate, this investigation is carried out through the hearing process. By it, my colleagues and I will determine if President Trumps nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch of Colorado, is fit to serve on the Supreme Court. His education, experience, and record certainly make a compelling case. Judge Gorsuch attended Columbia as an undergraduate before earning a law degree from Harvard and a doctorate from Oxford University. He clerked for two Supreme Court justices, worked ten years at a firm in Washington, D.C., and has served in a senior post in the Justice Department. Judge Gorsuch currently serves as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. He has held this position for ten years. As a result, we have ten years of his legal opinions available to review. They suggest an incredibly strong commitment to the rule of law. It is critical to note: Judge Gorsuch required Senate approval before he could take a seat on the circuit court. That approval was granted unanimously in 2006. Some very notable Democrats supported him, including Barack Obama and Joe Biden, both members of the Senate at the time. I am looking forward to a vigorous confirmation process in the weeks and months ahead. I hope my colleagues in the Senate demonstrate the statesmanship of which they are capable and consent to give the American people that process. Thank you for your participation in our democratic process. I look forward to visiting with you again next week. Capt. Robert Orallo, 26th Aerial Port Squadron ramp flight commander, hugs his daughter Iliana during a surprise homecoming Feb. 7, 2017 at Bulverde Creek Elementary School. Orallo, who recently returned from a six month deployment to Iraq, surprised his daughter in the school cafeteria as her class read a fairy tale story that was written by Capt. Orallo during his deployment. (U.S. Air Force photo by Benjamin Faske) The cafeteria at Bulverde Creek Elementary School was filled with first graders, parents, teachers, and local media waiting in anticipation of a big surprise. Capt. Robert Orallo, 26th Aerial Port Squadron ramp flight commander, recently returned from a six month deployment to Iraq and wanted to surprise his daughter Iliana upon his return."I'm here to surprise my little girl" said Orallo. "It was a long deployment and especially hard on her so I wanted to surprise her and it has blossomed into this."Throughout his deployment, Orallo wrote to his daughter about the tales of a fictional character, Sir Snorful of Hamelot. His daughter created other magical characters as well such as, King Waffle, Queen Syrup and the Lava Monster. These short stories served to broaden here imagination and remember her dad who was serving our country.Leslie Clay, a first grade teacher, began reading the story of "Sir Snorful and the Soldier's Surprise", to Iliana's classmates who had gathered in the school cafeteria for story time. As the story was being read, Orallo appeared from a room and moved into position at the back of the cafeteria unbeknownst to the children who were listening to the story.As Clay read from the story, "The Soldier walked on and after another day of travelling, he finally reached his town. He arrived home and ran in to see his little girl but she was gone! He searched and searched for his little girl, looking in her closet, under her bed, and in their backyard but she wasnt at home. Then the soldier decided he would try her school. As he walked into the library all the students were sitting down, even the Soldiers little girl, Iliana! The teacher was reading a story to them when suddenly the teacher looked up and saw the Soldier standing there and said to the little girl, Iliana, look behind you!Just as the story foretold, Iliana turned to see her father standing at the back of the cafeteria with flowers in hand. The two ran to meet each other with open arms. As they met Orallo wrapped his arms around his daughter and lifted her off her feet in a warm embrace, there wasn't a dry eye in sight as everyone cheered the two."It was really hard keeping this a secret because she is really good at figuring things out," said Mrs. Gabriela Orallo, the mastermind behind the surprise for their daughter. "I had to hold in my excitement when he came home because I just knew she would know." 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. Happy shootin' my friends! Buying Guides: Firearms Firearm Accessories Ammunition Gun Safes Scopes & Optics Hunting Air Rifles Best AR-15 Best AR 15 Scope Best Hunting Rifle Best Gun Safe Best AK 47 Best AR 10 Best Glock Triggers Best Glock Best Home Defense Shotgun As a homeowner, you probably already know that you should be working to maintain your home. But, chances are, you Read More Believe it or not, these are the places in Lincoln with the most lore for being haunted. Astept invierea mortilor Anul liturgic se apropie de sfarsit, si in acelasi timp chiar si anualul nostru itinerariu prin istoria Mantuirii se apropie de punctul de sosire. De aceea, nu este de mirare ca in aceste ultime duminici, atentia noastra se indrepta spre cele din urma lucruri ale omului. Cuvantul lui Dumnezeu ne invita la a aprofunda credinta [] Articolul Astept [citeste mai departe] The four Asian Small-clawed Otters born at Woodland Park Zoo received their first veterinary examination last week. The zoos animal health team assessed their overall health, measured and weighed the pups, and administered vaccinations. The wellness exam is a part of Woodland Park Zoos exemplary animal care program. The exam revealed the pups to be three males and one female. They currently weigh between 0.6 to 0.7 kilograms (1.3 to 1.5 pounds). Dr. Darin Collins, Woodland Park Zoos director of animal health, gave the pups a clean bill of health. Were pleased to report all four pups are robust and healthy. They have fully round bellies and are within normal growth range at this age, said Collins. All pups have healthy appetites, are gaining increased mobility and are socializing with their family members, all good signs theyre thriving. ZooBorns introduced readers to the quad of cuteness in a recent article (found here), and we are more than happy to provide updates on their progress. The pups were born December 9 at Woodland Park Zoo to 7-year-old mother Teratai and 11-year-old father Guntur. The birth represents the third litter for the parents. Photo credit: Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren/Woodland Park Zoo The new pups currently live off view in a maternity den with their parents and three older sisters. Raising Otter pups is a family affairthe whole family plays a role in raising the pups. Mom nurses the newborns, and dad and older siblings provide supportive care. Occasionally, the adults go outdoors for short periods in the public exhibit but primarily spend their time indoors to focus on caring for the pups. In 2010, Genenne Gibson Didier of Lincoln and family members had to hire an attorney to get an emergency protective order for her uncle. Another relative was withholding food and water from him, causing severe malnutrition. "We could not go in to help because he was in a private home," Didier said. When Didier heard about the Kasem Foundation and its work to pass bills across the country to help family members in her situation, she contacted Lincoln Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks. In January, Pansing Brooks introduced the Right to Visitation bill (LB122), which was to be heard before the Judiciary Committee Thursday. Kerri Kasem, daughter of Casey Kasem who hosted American Top 40 Countdown and voiced "Shaggy" on the Scooby-Doo cartoon, and Kelly Rooney, daughter of iconic film and Broadway actor Mickey Rooney, flew to Lincoln to join others to testify at the hearing on the bill they called a common-sense measure to ensure that family members aren't isolated from loved ones. LB122 would keep family members connected when a caregiver, whether related or not, arbitrarily denies visitation between an adult resident of a health care facility, home or residential dwelling and his or her family members. With the bill, a family member being denied visitation could petition a court in the county where the person lives to compel visitation. Visits would not be allowed if the court found that the resident, while having the capacity to evaluate and communicate decisions, had expressed a desire not to visit with the petitioner, or if it's determined the visit is not in the resident's best interest. An amendment to the bill would extend the right to aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins or domestic partners. "So many people think, 'Ah, this can never happen to me. My parents are safe.' Or if you're a parent yourself and you're aging, 'I'm safe, my kids will take care of me,'" Kasem said. But people who fall sick and become vulnerable can be taken advantage of, she said. That was the case with her father, who was isolated from his children and other close relatives by his wife. The Kasem Foundation, started three years ago, has gotten thousands of letters from across the country from people separated from their family members, she said, whether it's out of spite, because of money or other reasons. The isolator could be a caretaker, a husband or wife, another sibling or guardian, or someone with a power of attorney, she said. Rooney fell victim to elder abuse, as he testified in 2011 before a Senate Special Committee on Aging. "Over the course of time, my daily life became unbearable," he said. Kelly Rooney said her dad's time was stolen from her and her siblings. "We were lied to by secondary family members. He was taken before a judge and put into conservatorship," she said. The icing on the cake, she said, were criminal acts by the conservator. "Emotional abuse should be criminal, no matter who is causing the emotional abuse," she said. Rooney asked people to make sure they can watch after their family members by calling their senators about advancing the bill. "It's not just about famous, rich people. It runs a socioeconomic gamut," she said. A divided Legislature decided Wednesday to rein in minority filibuster rights, igniting a burst of outrage and sharp division that could impact the remainder of the legislative session. Senators voted 25-19 to adopt a proposed rules change that would make it somewhat more difficult for the minority to sustain a filibuster while easing the majority's ability to enact a cloture motion halting debate on a bill. Although the change is less dramatic than previous proposals that had been rejected by the Legislature, the revision conceivably could be the swing factor in determining the fate of some closely contested legislation during the remainder of the 90-day session. Still pending when the Legislature adjourned for the day was action to adopt permanent rules that would include the filibuster change. A sign of this year's sharp division among senators is that legislative rules still have not been adopted after the 25th day in session. The filibuster rule change would allow 30 of the 49 senators to call a halt to a filibuster unless 17 votes were cast in opposition to ending debate. The current rule requires the vote of 33 senators to end a filibuster; under that provision, 17 senators whether they voted no, were absent or did not vote could prevail in defeating a cloture vote. "It's still 17, but you have to go on the record" to succeed, Sen. Tyson Larson of O'Neill, sponsor of the rules change, noted. "It's not moving the bar that much," Sen. John Murante of Gretna suggested. "The burden should be on the majority (in order) to impose their will on the minority," Sen. Adam Morfeld of Lincoln argued in opposing the change. Sen. Matt Williams of Gothenburg cautioned new senators to consider that they will face "some very hard votes (ahead) with no maybe button" to push. "All of a sudden you're on the spot," he said, "with no ability to nuance an issue" that may not lend itself at the time to either a yes or no vote. "It's time for peace," Sen. Paul Schumacher of Columbus argued. "This process works" in its present form, he said. "We need to stand down on both sides." "I don't know what you're afraid of," Sen. Burke Harr of Omaha said. Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha and Morfeld said they are prepared to wage the battle over filibuster rights through the remainder of the session. Although the minority in the non-partisan Legislature that's most often impacted by a weakening of filibuster rights is composed of senators who are Democrats and either moderates, progressives or liberals, Schumacher suggested that a reduction in filibuster protections could "affect agricultural interests and rural interests more than anything else." Those interests are most often represented by senators who are Republicans and conservatives. Five senators who are Republicans joined 14 Democrats in voting against the rules change. The only other senator who is a Democrat, Sen. Justin Wayne of Omaha, was absent and excused for the morning session. The five Republicans were Sens. Roy Baker of Lincoln, Robert Hilkemann of Omaha, John McCollister of Omaha, Schumacher and Williams. Speaker of the Legislature Jim Scheer of Norfolk voted for the rules change. "I like keeping the (filibuster) figure at 17," he said. "That protects minority rights. "And I believe people were elected to vote. That's the burden we all have; we are expected to vote and we are held accountable for those votes." Budget bill advances Senators voted to advance a bill (LB22) to final reading that would adjust the budget for the 2016-17 fiscal year. The bill had two amendments related to restoring money to agencies not under the governor's control, and other funds, that were to be considered on second reading Wednesday. But the introducer of those amendments, Omaha Sen. Bob Krist, reportedly decided to withdraw them. Have we ever spared a thought to the chotu who hands over tea at numerous tea stalls? If not, it is about time we sit up and take stock of the situation of rampant child labour across the nation. Are they child labours or child workers as almost all of them hail from poor families with more mouths to feed than hands to earn? Are these children -- who are putting so much effort to feed their large family -- personified violation of human rights and a big slap in the face of our socio-political system? And mind it, it is not only at the tea stalls but these chotus can be found doing all sort of menial jobs, some of which are even life threatening. Our society today is firmly in the boa grip of child labour which, if not checked in time, will crush the very fabric of society and destroy the innocence of numerous children."Child labour" is, generally speaking, work for children that harms or exploits them in some way or another. It reflects the violation of child rights leading to exploitation and deprivations of all kinds. It also reflects the social inequity and insecurity, dearth of social safety networks, magnitude of poverty, paucity of opportunities for health and education, and of course the financial independence.According to International Labour Organisation estimates in 2001, "246 million child workers aged 5 and 17 were involved in child labour, of which 171 million were involved in work that by its nature is hazardous to their safety, physical or mental health, and moral development. Moreover, some 8.4 million children were engaged in so-called `unconditional` worst forms of child labour, which include forced and bonded labour, the use of children in armed conflict, trafficking in children and commercial sexual exploitation."The problem of child labour is widespread across the world, but it is the third world countries that have the majority of children workforce.And to realize this we only have to look around and the bitter truth hits us hard on face.Going by statistics, 61 percent of child force is seen in Asia, 32 percent in Africa, 7 percent in Latin America and 1 percent in US, Canada, Europe and other wealthy nations. In Asia, children form a whopping 22 percent of the total workforce while in Latin America it is 17 percent. In Africa, one in every three child works while in Latin America it is slightly higher with one little labourer in every five child. In both these continents, only a tiny proportion of child workers are involved in the formal sector and a majority of them work for their families either in homes, in fields or on streets. This giant little workforce is prevalent in every sector and industry, which in simpler terms is very dangerous for an otherwise normal child. While the boys work ranges from taking care of animals, planting and harvesting food, to many kinds of small manufacturing jobs (e.g. bricks and cement), auto repair, and making footwear and textiles, the girls mostly work as domestic maids.Being a maid in someones house can also be risky. Maids typically are cut off from friends and family, and can easily be physically or sexually abused by their employers.Beyond compassion, we must also consider that todays children are our coming future. Between today and the year 2020, the vast majority of new workers, citizens and new consumers whose skills and needs will build the worlds economy and society will come from developing countries. Over that 20-year period, some 730 million people will join the worlds workforce more than all the people employed in today`s most developed nations in 2000. More than 90 percent of these new workers will be from developing nations. Only future will tell how many of them will have to start working at an early age, losing their health and hampering their education.Poverty is widely considered the as the top reason why these children take up inappropriate jobs for their ages. The parents of child labourers are often unemployed or underemployed. A lot many times, the family expectations and traditions force the children into jobs. Other reasons for the systematic inclusion of this tiny little labour brigade include child abuse, lack of good education, public opinion that downplays the risk of early work for children and uncaring attitudes of employers. All the efforts geared to eradicate child labour are doomed to generate new social ills and add to the existing ones if they lack well-integrated solid commitment, foresightedness and vision. Just imagine what would happen if a "ban" is imposed on their legitimate labour? Where would they go? Would they be able to go to schools which could turn them into potential civil servants, doctors etc? And where they can relish full rights? Or should they go in search of any job anywhere on this not so gentle earth to feed their families? As a result the nefarious ways of life forces them to become sex workers, criminals, drug dealers and abusers the list never ends. Their vulnerable family members may meet the same fate. Who is going to be blamed for this? We could curse our shortsightedness or our gullibility in the face of foreign pressure.One by no means, is in favour of bonded work done by children. June 12 is being dedicated to Anti-Child Labour Day and catchy slogans such as "Say no to child labour" may echo loud these days. But has someone ever thought beyond raising the slogan? Has someone ever tried to help one of the many chotus escape from his dingy office?Expectations from those who stroll in the corridors of power, politics and policy-making is to adopt a humanistic and holistic approach towards this problem. Treat the patient, not the disease only. They should take into consideration all possible determinants of a particular problem while suggesting solutions. Raising a lot of hue and cry against child work alias child labour and threatening poor parents/guardians of possible punishment if they do not send their children to schools, do sound progressive but not problem-solving. We have to develop the skill of analyzing our own situation and then coming up with solutions. We as a nation have to develop the art and science of looking into the issues through our own lens rather than accepting the visions created elsewhere. Many developed countries have been successful in getting out of the grip of this vice. Lot many steps have been taken to curb child labour. One among them is to make the general public aware of its negative aspects. People have now started offering support to organizations that are raising awareness, and some of them have also come ahead and provided direct help to children. To rescue a child from the clutches of enforced slavery, the emphasis should be on economic development that raises family income and also its living standard.Education has been made compulsory, affordable and relevant. The anti-child labour laws were strongly enforced in these nations. They also tried to change the mindset of their citizens and their attitude towards working children. It is a myth that child labour will only disappear when poverty disappears. Hazardous labour can, and should be eliminated by even the poorest countries. And wave of this reform has to be adopted by developing countries as well so as to get rid of child labour forever.On this Anti-Child Labour Day, everyone should take a pledge to help at least one child worker around us. In reality, ours is a society where some people are more equal than the others. The vast majority of less equals belong to low socio-economic strata and include women and children. The need of the time is to offer enabling environment for education and economic opportunities for the disadvantaged communities. New Delhi: BJP today defended Prime Minister Narendra Modi's dig at Manmohan Singh saying "fun, pun and repartee" are part of parliamentary debate, and suggested that Congress was using Singh as a "useful, expendable" outsider likes many top leaders outside the Gandhi family. It fielded Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to launch a sharp attack on Congress, especially its top leaders Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, saying it is no longer a conventional political party representing certain ideology but a "conglomeration believing in divinity and devotion to a family".Shankar Prasad to launch a sharp attack on Congress, especially its top leaders Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, saying it is no longer a conventional political party representing certain ideology but a "conglomeration believing in divinity and devotion to a family". There was nothing wrong in Modi's barb in the Rajya Sabha that Singh knew the art of taking bath wearing raincoat as he remained untainted despite all the scams in his government, Prasad said, noting that the former Prime Minister had called demonetisation "organised loot and legalised plunder". Prasad alleged that Singh was likely to have read from the note written by some other Congress leaders as such strong expressions are alien to his vocabulary. "Now the Prime Minister is responding to it. Why are they (Congress) so troubled with this? Fun, pun, repartee and exchange of mild or strong words are a part of parliamentary convention. "Congress has two set of leaders. Ones who come from the family are beyond criticism. They cannot make a mistake. Second set of leaders are those who are used for political convenience and then discarded. Manmohan Singh also has his utility... Those outside the family are useful, expendable entities," he said. Prasad cited former prime ministers like Lal Bahadur Shastri, Charan Singh, V P Singh, Chandra Shekhar, P V Narasimha Rao and I K Gujral, all of whom were Congress leaders or served in the party for some time, besides likes of Bhim Rao Ambedkar and Maulana Azad, to argue that they were all treated harshly by it after their utility was served. "Manmohan Singh will be there as long as his utility remains... The so called credibility of Singh was abused by the dynasty to promote corruption and rank cronyism," he said. Congress leaders compared Modi with "abhorrent" rulers and showered abuses on him, he said and referred to remarks like 'Maut ke saudagar', made by Sonia Gandhi when Modi was Gujarat Chief Minister, and 'khoon ki dalali', Rahul Gandhi's barb at Modi following surgical strikes. Claiming that Modi set an "example in humility" by noting contributions of former prime ministers in his August 15 speech from the Red Fort, Prasad said he showed his "big heart" by never launching a witch-hunt despite the "conspiracies" hatched against him when he was Gujarat Chief Minister. Gov. Pete Ricketts kept his eye on cutting income taxes Wednesday amid a flurry of opposing viewpoints that arose at a legislative hearing on his plans. Foes assailed the proposal on economic, philosophical and even moral grounds, raising concerns about its potential impact on state government, property taxpayers and the poor. But Ricketts and the state's business groups defended their focus, saying the cuts would benefit Nebraska in the long run by keeping more of people's money in the economy and by boosting the state's appeal to businesses that consider moving elsewhere. "To be able to grow our state, we've got to be more competitive," the governor said. His proposal (LB337) would gradually lower the state's top individual income tax rate from 6.84 percent to 5.99 percent over a minimum of eight years, with a cut triggered any year the state faces a projected revenue increase of more than 3.5 percent over the prior year. The bill is coupled with a property tax-related measure (LB338), which would change how the state values agricultural land from a model based on the sale price of similar real estate to a model based on the land's earning capacity. About 100 people crowded into a Capitol hearing room at the start of Wednesday's Revenue Committee meeting, which covered both proposals and lasted more than six hours. Tempers flared after Sen. Jim Smith of Papillion, the committee chairman who also sponsored the income tax bill on the governor's behalf, limited opponent testimony on the measure to about 30 minutes while giving more time to supporters. Omaha Sen. Burke Harr interrupted Smith's closing statements to complain about the arrangement. "I think public hearings are one of the most important things we do in the Legislature, and I will stay here until midnight if I have to," Harr said. The hearing wrapped up shortly after 8 p.m. Supporters said the governor's plan would address a key consideration made by businesses as they consider where to locate. One example was local businessman Paul Zoz, who moved much of his information-technology company to Florida, a state with no income tax. His story was shared by Coby Mach, president of the Lincoln Independent Business Association. "He did it not for the sun, not for the beach," Mach said. "He moved to Florida because of the income tax." The argument met critical questions from some committee members, who wondered whether a 0.85 percent cut in income taxes would be enough to keep companies from choosing more green-friendly pastures or to add to their workforce. Sen. Paul Schumacher of Columbus noted a business owner earning $300,000 per year might save $2,500 with the cuts: "There's not enough there to create a job." Tax Commissioner Tony Fulton said businesses think long-term, not just about single-year savings, and called the cuts a "prudent, measured approach" that would send a message about Nebraska's commitment to cutting income taxes. Many opponents said reducing property taxes should be the state's primary focus, dismissing the governor's property tax-related bill as insufficient as the state grapples with record-high farmland taxes. LB338 would reduce statewide valuations by a net of about 2 percent in 2020. "That is like a puff of air in a Nebraska tornado," said Mary Lou Block, a fourth-generation farmer-rancher from the Gothenburg area. While Iowa is the only surrounding state with higher income taxes, Nebraska's property taxes are unrivaled among its neighbors and rank among the highest in the nation, said Mark Fahleson, chairman of the group Reform for Nebraska's Future. Some opposed the prospect of income tax cuts altogether. The Rev. Keith Nelson from Omaha's Augustana Lutheran Church called wealth a gift from God: "Jesus heaped scorn on those who failed to support the less fortunate." Others raised alarms about the potential impact that cutting income taxes could have on state funding for K-12 education and other services, particularly as the state grapples with a revenue crunch. "When I present to groups, they are shocked that we are even talking about tax cuts when we have a $1.2 billion shortfall," said Renee Fry, executive director of the OpenSky Policy Institute think tank. State aid to schools already hasn't grown at the rate once promised under the law, said Jason Hayes, lobbyist for the Nebraska State Education Association. Cutting income taxes would leave even less money in the pot. Sen. Mike Groene of North Platte worried that because the governor's bill uses each prior year as a baseline, it could trigger tax cut in years of moderate revenue growth even if the state is still recovering from a major downturn a year earlier. "I would like to see tax cuts, but I want it done right," Groene said. The Legislative Council's executive board on Wednesday rejected Sen. Burke Harr's proposal to form a task force to consider creation of a new state flag for Nebraska. A motion to advance the resolution (LR3) to the floor for consideration failed on a 4-5 vote. Also stuck in committee was Sen. Ernie Chambers' bill (LB445) prohibiting lobbyists from providing any meals or beverages to senators anywhere in the Capitol while the Legislature is in session. A motion to advance that bill also failed on a 4-5 vote. The executive board gave the green light to Speaker of the Legislature Jim Scheer's bill (LB376) to direct the Department of Administrative Services to donate unused land at the Norfolk Regional Center to Northeast Community College for development of a technology park. A motion to advance that bill was approved on a 9-0 vote. Harr told the executive board at an earlier public hearing that there is general agreement that Nebraska's cluttered state flag is unattractive and unidentifiable. Nebraska's sesquicentennial year would be an ideal time to consider adopting a well-designed, iconic flag, Nebraska Arts Council Executive Director Suzanne Wise told the committee. After several failed attempts to get rid of or modify mandatory minimum sentences and enhanced penalties for habitual criminals, two senators are taking another swing at it. Sens. Ernie Chambers and Paul Schumacher introduced bills this session to give that sentencing discretion back to judges. Chambers' bill (LB447) would eliminate mandatory minimum sentences, except for first-degree sexual assault and sexual assault of a child. Schumacher's bill (LB53) would make use of a three-judge panel to decide whether to allow or disregard use of the mandatory minimum sentence or enhanced habitual criminal penalties. To be a habitual criminal you must have been convicted of crimes two times and served at least a year in prison on each of those charges. The crimes do not have to be violent ones. During the 1980s and 1990s, mandatory sentences were seen as effective in combating crime, particularly drug crimes. But in recent years, the impacts of mandatory minimum sentences have been questioned, especially in light of prison crowding. When judges had discretion on sentencing, Schumacher said at a hearing on the bills, they came pretty close to hitting the nail on the head of what was fair. Mandatory minimums do not protect the public or deter crimes, Chambers said, because criminals do not stop and think much about penalties. They don't expect to get caught. Chambers said his bill would save money. The Department of Correctional Services estimated a savings of $182,685 to $259,605 in 2018-19 due to a lower prison population. Opponent Corey O'Brien, with the Nebraska Attorney General's office, said the bills could potentially alleviate some crowding, but it would be only a drop in the bucket, and would be offset by loss of protection to society. As of Wednesday, he said, there were only 211 of 5,118 prisoners serving time under the habitual criminal statute, according to the Department of Correctional Services. O'Brien questioned the need for Schumacher's bill, and objected to the idea that there is abuse of mandatory minimums and the habitual criminal statute to obtain pleas from potentially innocent defendants. Judges, he said, still have considerable amounts of discretion. Chambers asked O'Brien what difference it made to him what happened on the court side. "If you filed an appropriate charge, it goes to a jury trial or bench trial, that's all your responsibility is as a prosecutor," he said. O'Brien said it's his job to keep the accused from harming another person again. "That's up to the judiciary," Chambers said. "You don't determine what the sentence is that the court is going to hand out." There's a tendency for people to think that prosecutors are the harbingers of justice, said committee member Patty Pansing Brooks, and if not for them, judges would never be able to exact justice. "Clearly I trust our judiciary system," she said. Opponent Jim Masteller, representing the Nebraska County Attorneys Association, said Schumacher's bill would create two new types of judicial panels that don't now exist, and those different panels may end up examining the same case. There are also possible constitutional issues with the bill, he said. John Krejci, with Nebraskans for Peace, supported the bills, saying mandatory minimums overcrowd prisons and tie the hands of judges. But Schumacher's bill that calls for a three-judge panel for habitual criminal enhancements could be a bit cumbersome. Andy Pollock, lobbyist for Families Against Mandatory Minimums, said 30 states have recognized the challenges with mandatory minimums and reduced them or repealed them all together. Some of those states have reduced prison populations and saved millions of dollars. And some states have reduced crime rates. Fran Kaye, who has volunteered in prisons for many years, said mandatory minimums are just feel-good legislation. Those serving those longer sentences are much less likely to be successful at working their way back into society, she said. Chambers said many conservatives, including the Koch brothers, favor reform of mandatory minimum sentences. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. 89.000 people visited the Matenadaran scientific-research institute of ancient manuscripts after Mesrop Mashtots in 2016. Vahan Ter-Ghevondyan, acting director of Matenadaran, told Armenpress that this figure has been increased by 3000 people compared to 2015. The visitors are from various countries, the geography is being expanded year by year. Numerous tourists while in Armenia always want to visit Matenadaran, get acquainted with the manuscripts. Vahan Ter-Ghevondyan said large number of visitors come from Spain, Italy, Russia, as well as from Iran, France, Poland, the Balkan countries, Germany, China and etc. I would like to note that year by year the number of visitors to Matenadaran is increasing. Tourists arrive both by the initiative of tourism companies and independently, he said. Tour-guides are working in Matenadaran who specialize in 6-7 foreign languages. Currently a program is planned to be carried out according to which scholars with knowledge of other languages will work with tourists from time to time. We have somehow implemented this program. When Irans Vice-President visited, our employee, who is fluent in Persian, explained him in Persian. Now we want to put this program in more organized basis, Ter-Ghevondyan said, adding that the Matenadaran plans to cross the symbolic 100.000 figure of the visitors. He said the Matenadaran carried out active works aimed at organizing exhibitions. From this perspective the existence of a new building provides wide range of opportunities. Currently there are more than exhibition halls instead of 1-2. During the recent years a number of new exhibitions were held, for instance, exhibitions on manuscripts of Nor Jugha (New Julfa), Arabic manuscripts, as well as Persian manuscripts. We held a great exhibition dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. This year as well we are going to hold new exhibitions, in particular, exhibition devoted to the Armenian miniature art of Crimea. In addition, we plan to organize also Armenian-Polish exhibition. This year marks the 650th anniversary of the decree signed by Polish King Casimir. This decree, seemed, was the birth certificate of the Armenian community of Poland. Thats why, there will be an exhibition dedicated to this event, a book will be published, he said. In 2017 as well an exhibition dedicated to Lazaryans is expected. Valuable materials in connection with the heritage of Lazaryans will be presented. STEPANAKERT, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. Azerbaijani forces made over 40 ceasefire violations on February 8 and overnight February 9 in the Nagorno Karabakh-Azerbaijan line of contact. Azerbaijan fired more than 200 shots at Nagorno Karabakh positions, using 60mm mortars, various types of grenade launchers and machine guns. Intense violations occurred in the eastern and north-eastern directions of the frontline, where Azerbaijan fired a total of 15 shells from mortars and grenade launchers 9 from mortars and 6 from grenade launchers. The defense ministry of Nagorno Karabakh told ARMENPRESS the Defense Army remains in full control in the frontline and confidently continues their service. With opponents of a change in legislative minority protections urging a timeout in the ongoing battle that has consumed the Legislature for weeks, senators Thursday declined to change course on a proposal designed to rein in filibusters. Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha asked the Legislature to reconsider that decision, and his motion failed on a tight 22-25 vote at the end of a full morning of debate. The Legislature adjourned for the day with a decision on adoption of its rules still pending after its 26th day in session and with a backlog of bills awaiting action. Opponents of a change in filibuster protections informally aired a proposal to adopt temporary rules under which the Legislature currently is operating for another month or two so senators, especially freshman members, can see if the legislative body can perform efficiently under the current filibuster rule. That would give senators time to "establish a more positive working relationship," Sen. John McCollister of Omaha said. Sen. Paul Schumacher of Columbus suggested extending those rules for the rest of the session with an opportunity to revisit the filibuster issue in the next session based on how it plays out this year. Sen. Lynne Walz of Fremont, a newly elected senator, said freshman members in particular should have "an opportunity to experience how the process works" before changing the rules. That's better than having some new senators "just doing what they were told to do on the first day" when the Legislature elected its leadership, she said. Sen. Sue Crawford of Bellevue said she has appreciated the collegiality of senators with different priorities and philosophies during her time in the Legislature, but she said "it feels very different this year." Wednesday, senators voted 25-19 to adopt an amendment to the rules that would make it somewhat more difficult for the minority to sustain a filibuster while easing the majority's ability to enact a cloture motion halting debate on a bill. The filibuster change would allow 30 of the 49 senators to call a halt to a filibuster unless at least 17 votes were cast in opposition to ending debate. The current rule requires the vote of 33 senators to end a filibuster; under that provision, 17 senators whether they voted no, were absent or did not vote could prevail in defeating a cloture vote. Sen. Tyson Larson of O'Neill, sponsor of the rules change, said senators should cast a vote in order to help sustain a filibuster. Sen. Bob Krist of Omaha cautioned new senators that "this takes away your opportunity to decide not to vote" when your constituents are divided or you're undecided. Sen. Mark Kolterman of Seward, who has avoided taking sides, said opponents of the change should "know when to quit (and) when it's time to move on." Chambers suggested that the filibuster change represented "bullying" by the majority of senators. When Sen. Adam Morfeld of Lincoln asked Chambers whether he was ready to contest the filibuster rule with motions and debate for the rest of the legislative session, Chambers responded with song: "Until the 12th of Never and that's a long, long time." YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. The ministry of transportation, communication and IT says as of 09:30 foggy conditions are present in the highways of Armavir, Masis, Artashat, Akhuryan, Ashotsk, Noyemberyan and Tchambarak regions, with a visibility of 50-80 meters. The Berd-Tchambarak highway has been shut down because of an ongoing snowstorm. The ministry told ARMENPRESS clear ice has formed in parts of the Vardenyats Pass, where highway supervision agencies are carrying out clearing operations. All other highways and roads of republican and interstate significance are open for traffic. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. UK lawmakers passed the bill on February 8 on initiating Brexit UKs withdrawal from the European Union. 494 lawmakers voted in favor of the bill presented by the Cabinet, while 122 voted against. The bill was passed without any amendments. Now the bill will be presented to the Upper House of the Parliament the House of Lords. Lawmakers proposed over 300 amendments while debating the bill, however they were rejected. The United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union is widely known as Brexit, a portmanteau of "British" and "exit". Following a referendum held on 23 June 2016, in which 52% of votes cast were in favour of leaving the EU, the UK government intends to invoke Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union (the formal procedure for withdrawing) by the end of March 2017. This, within the treaty terms, would put the UK on a course to leave the EU by March 2019. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. A bitterly divided U.S. Senate confirmed Republican Senator Jeff Sessions on Wednesday as the next attorney general of the United States after strong pushback from Democrats concerned about his record on civil rights, Reuters reported. Sessions, 70, who has served two decades in the Senate from Alabama, was confirmed by a 52-47 vote largely along party lines after Democrats raised public opposition to his confirmation. "I want to thank those who after it all found sufficient confidence to confirm me as the next attorney general," Sessions said. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. Armenias State Commission for the Protection of Economic Competition requested written information from major economic entities and relevant state authorities over the reasons of the rise in prices of petrol. Gayane Sahakyan Adviser to the Commission President, told Armenpress that at the moment it is impossible to give a precise assessment to situation since the research is still underway. The Commission has launched a research the same day, by sending a written request to major businessmen importing and realizing petrol in Armenia, to understand what has changed in the pricing market. The Commission conducts the research mainly based on the information of the document, therefore, they will receive information both from the businessmen and the relevant state authorities. There are a number of factors affecting the price of petrol, such as exchange rates, international prices. Thus, the Commissions specialists are examining also the market of those countries from where the petrol is imported. By combining all information the specialists will be able to give a final assessment to the existing situation. Under the instruction of the Commission President, the research will be completed soon, taking into account the importance of the market. The research results, will be probably, announced next week. Ran-oil LLC Director Samvel Baghdasaryan told Armenpress that the prices are defined in international market, and the rise is a result of the increase in international prices, however, he couldnt provide details over the rise in prices since Ran-oil LLC is not importing. Starting from October, 2016, decrease in petrol price was registered in Armenia: the price for per liter reached to 330 from 380, with a gradual decrease. This price was maintained until January 28-29, which was followed by an increase of 10 AMD, and started from February 1, the price of per liter petrol is 360 AMD. Anna Grigoryan YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. Armenias Ombudsman Arman Tatoyan, who is currently on a working visit in Brussels, had a meeting on February 8 with over 30 international human rights organizations, the Ombudsmans Office told ARMENPRESS. The meeting had been organized in advance and the participants had been invited to have a meeting with the Ombudsman. The meeting was unprecedented in terms of the format. It was organized with assistance of the European Friends of Armenia. It included the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions, the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, the Open Society European Policy Institute and others. Representatives of the EU also took part in the meeting. Tatoyan briefed the participants on the new law on the Ombudsman in Armenia, stressed that it aims at raising the institutional role of the Ombudsman in Armenias legal system. In addition, human rights in Armenia were also discussed and the Ombudsmans activities. Tatoyan highlighted the work with NGOs and reporters. Issues related to the involvement of the Ombudsman of Nagorno Karabakh (NKR) and visits to Nagorno Karabakh were discussed in detail. Tatoyan presented the NKR Ombudsmans reports in detail, including the facts on Azerbaijani atrocities. Namely, one participant asked Tatoyans perspective on the so called Baku Platform. Tatoyan responded by saying the platform is not real and it cannot be acceptable, when the April War obvosly showed that the atrocities were committed only because people were Armenian. Hatred towards Armenians is so great in Azerbaijan that a real platform cannot exist, moreover in Baku. This stance has been substantiated with specific examples in the NKR Ombudsmans report. In response to another question, Tatoyan said he is ready to meet regarding questions on Armenia, but the principle stance is that the NKR Ombudsman must take part in matters concerning Nagorno Karabakh, because human rights issues have nothing to do with politics. In addition, Tatoyan highlighted the work of journalists in Nagorno Karabakh and mentioned that the work must be boosted in order to increase visits to Nagorno Karabakh. Once again the sides highlighted the principle that human rights dont have boundaries and the democratic institutions and the civil society of Nagorno Karabakh must be involved in all international meetings. The participants appreciated the meeting with Armenias Ombudsman, and expressed willingness to cooperate and continue similar meetings. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. The 4th session of the 4-day sitting has kicked off in the Parliament with 98 lawmakers present. The session will begin with voting of previously debated issues. During the February 8 session, MPs debated the Doha amendment of the Kyoto Protocol (2012 Dec. 8), which concerns cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Later the Parliament debated the agreement signed in Vienna on September 7, 2016, regarding the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization. The agreement was signed between the Government of Armenia and the Organization for works relating international monitoring structures for the Ban-Treaty. Vakhtang Mirumyan, deputy chairman of the State Revenue Committee presented to the Parliament the agreement presented by the President which was signed on July 7, 2014 in Buenos Aires on information exchange in tax affairs between Armenia and Argentina. Deputy Defense Minister Ara Nazaryan presented the 2015 September 15 Dushanbe agreement on cooperation between CSTO member states in the areas of transportation of military products, military formations and movable property. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. Armenias Government will propose the Parliament to hold extraordinary session on February 14, reports Armenpress. During the Government session on February 9, Minister-Chief of the Government Staff Davit Harutyunyan said it is proposed to include in the agenda the bills on making changes in the laws on electronic signature, agriculture machinery operation and activity of banks, as well as the bills on easing tax calculation from mining companies. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. The remittances in Armenia are gradually decreasing. According the data of the Central Bank of Armenia, the transfers to Armenia in 2016 comprised 1 billion 532 million 882 thousand USD, whereas this number of 2015 was 1 billion 631 million 659 thousand USD. In 2014 the transfers amounted to 2 billion 123 million 615 thousand USD, and in 2013 they comprised 2 billion 302 million 336 thousand USD. Moreover, the majority of transfers is sent from Russia, which as well is decreasing annually. The monetary funds sent from Russia in 2016 comprised 896 million 916 thousand USD, in 2015 they were 1 billion 8 million 635 thousand USD, and in 2014 the number was 1 billion 554 million 851 thousand USD, while in 2013 it again increased reaching to 1 billion 727 million 945 thousand USD. However, the transfers sent from US certainly increased: in 2016 they amounted to 176 million 569 thousand USD, in 2015 the number was 177 million 797 thousand USD, in 2014 155 million 685 thousand USD, and in 2013 it was 152 million 745 thousand USD. Armenpress talked to economist Vilen Khachatryan to clarify the reasons of decline. He said the major part of transfer flows to Armenia is connected with the Russian economy, and any negative phenomenon in Russias economy can also impact Armenias economy. If we compare 2016 and 2015, no significant difference was recorded in the Russian economy, however, the transfers continue decreasing. This speaks about the fact that there is an outflow of labor from Armenia, and those people, who must have sent transfers to their relatives, prefer to invite them for working with them. In other words, people living in Armenia have to migrate instead of receiving transfers from abroad and earn money there. From the other hand, those who send transfers also face problems, he said. Coming to the increase of transfer volume from US, the economist said the US economy has certain development trends, and we can say it runs a high dollar policy. Dollar appreciates in the global economy, and it becomes beneficial to transfer dollar to other country, the economist said. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. Denying yesterdays massacres means to let such massacres happen tomorrow, French President Francois Hollande said at the annual dinner of the Coordination Council of the Armenian Organizations of France, commenting on the French Constitution Council's recognition of provisions on criminalizing the denial of genocides in the law on Citizenship and equality as unconstitutional, Nouvelles d'Armenie reported. I welcome the quality of work carried out by Jean-Paul Costas who was the author of changes in the law on Citizenship and equality, the French President said. He said it is necessary to continue taking steps since the fight on this issue is not a one step, rather is a fight for truth. Hollande recalled that a mission has been created by the Co-Chairmanship of French Najat Vallaud-Belkacem and historian Vincent Duclert which aims to declare a single memorial day for all genocides, war crimes, including the Armenian Genocide. Talking about the Armenian-French relations, Hollande recalled that in 2017 marks the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Armenia and France. I have invited President Sargsyan to pay an official visit to Paris which will be held on March 8. This will be a chance to discuss economic, cultural relations, as well as university cooperation. We will also discuss the Nagorno Karabakh conflict since France has a special responsibility in this issue. This conflict solution is an urgent issue, the French President said. Hollande highly appreciated the role of the Armenian community of France. Here we are talking about the best part of France since you are the best of France. Even after May I will always be with you since I have always been. I will not have the same responsibility, instead I will have the same beliefs, he said. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. The three men who killed the ethnic Armenian 85 year old jeweler Hakob Demirji and robbed his house in Istanbuls Sisli district have been sentenced to life imprisonment, Hurriyet reports. The suspects, Aram Hovhannisyan, Arthur Ayvazyan and Sergey Mikayelyan, along with other 6 suspects were tried in the Istanbul Court. Responding to the Courts questions, Arthur Ayvazyan said through a translator that they didnt do any premeditated crime, they had entered the house only to make a robbery, and they didnt know the owner. Our goal wasnt to kill anyone. We didnt attack them, we didnt beat them. Our actions must be viewed as robbery, he said. The Court issued a life imprisonment verdict for Aram Hovhannisyan, Arthur Ayvazyan and Sergey Mikayelyan for the premeditated murder of Hakob Demirji. In addition, for battering Hakobs widow Seda, three others were sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for attempted murder, 10 years for armed robbery and 3 months for property damage. The other suspects were cleared of the charges. The attack on Hakob Demirji and his wife Sedas house occurred on February 6, 2016 in Istanbuls Sisli district. The assailants robbed the valuable items from the house, including 34 thousand USD. They had tied up the couple, 85 and 79, which resulted in Hakob Demirji suffocating. Seda Demirji was hospitalized. Joseph H. Mock, 79, of Lincoln, passed away on Wednesday, February 8, 2017. He was born in Chicago on September 11, 1937, to Bertha M. Sand and Joseph W. Mock. Joe enjoyed 56 years of marriage with the love of his life, Jane Mock (Jane E. Large). Joe gave up his first passion, a 1953 MG TD, to have funds to marry Jane. He sold his second MG TD to pay for Jane's final year of college before they spent time together restoring, showing and traveling in countless cars of which they completed nine ground up restorations. Together they raised two children and were grandparents to six. They built their dream home and enjoyed 20 years of retirement. They enjoyed winters in beautiful Arizona for 10 years. Joe started as an apprentice at Lincoln Journal Star, became a journey man and retired as the cleanest maintenance man at Quebecor. Somehow Joe found the time during his busy life to own his own TV repair business, become a master railroader, was the 230th member of the American Model Association, a founding parishioner of St. Joseph's Catholic Church, a founder of Lincoln Sky Nights along with countless others achievements. During this journey, Joe taught his family the love of his hobbies, his skills and knowledge, and most importantly unconditional love. Joe is preceded in death by his loving wife, Jane E. Mock (Large), mother Bertha M. Mock, father Joseph W. Mock and uncle Monsignor Fernando Mock. Joe is survived by his son Joseph R. Mock, daughter Christine E. Armitage, grandchildren Ben Armitage, Joseph Mock, Angie Malone, Ryan, Amy and Trevor Williams and eight great-grandchildren including a 5th generation Joseph Mock. Visitation will be noon to 9 p.m. with a 7 p.m. rosary Friday at Butherus, Maser & Love; and 9-10 Saturday at the church. Mass of Christian Burial, 10 a.m. Saturday, February 11, at Saint Joseph Catholic Church. Burial will be at Lincoln Memorial. Monsignor Liam Barr officiating. Memorials to Nebraska Alzheimer's Association or to the family for later designation. Condolences can be left at www.bmlfh.com YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. The extradition of Alexander Lapshin from Belarus to Azerbaijan is a challenge for the international community itself, Larisa Alaverdyan, executive director of the Against Legal Arbitrariness NGO told a press conference in ARMENPRESS. A rough violation and neglect towards long adopted and used international norms took place in the case of Lapshins extradition. It is a challenge, directed not as much at Armenians, but at the international community itself, at the societies of civilized countries. There is an informal agreement regarding the extradition case, a severe violation of international rights. We must understand, Belarus once again confirmed its being out of the civilization field, Alaverdyan said. She said Armenias state political bodies should use all platforms to reach specific terms regarding Azerbaijan, resolutions, why not sanctions. We cant tolerate the cases of Ramil Safarov [Azerbaijani soldier who killed an Armenian servicemen in Budapest while the latter was asleep], Kyaram Sloyan [ NKR soldier who was posthumously decapitated by Azerbaijani soldiers during the April War] and other cases. We must clearly convey the idea that Azerbaijan is acting like an outlawed terrorist group. Believe me, Courts definitely take into consideration the atmosphere which has been formed in the media field by bloggers and news agencies. The pressure of the international community must take place. Here, all our structures have a lot to do, Alaverdyan said Speaking about the actions of Belarus, Alaverdyan said we shouldnt consider that country to be an ally. Belarus never assumes responsibility for anything. Its become a trend to oppose Russia, at the same time blackmailing, Belarus is trying to get some dividends. By the way, there arent any political figures who wouldnt sell, the price is simply different. If in the case of Hungary [Ramil Safarov extradition] the price was 3 billion USD, then now its about 5 billion USD. Its a sickening situation, she said. Alexander Lapshin, the Russian-Israeli blogger who was extradited from Belarus to Azerbaijan on February 7, has been placed in the isolation cell in Azerbaijans state security service, Ria Novosti reported. Lapshin was flown to Baku from Minsk on a special flight, escorted by state security agents. A group of reporters were waiting for Lapshin in Bakus airport, but Lapshin didnt give any comment to them. A news correspondent reported from the airport that Lapshin is in a serious mental condition and he didnt respond to the questions of journalists. The Belarus Supreme Court denied Lapshins appeal on the extradition verdict issued by the General Prosecutor of Belarus. Lapshin faces up to 5 years imprisonment in Azerbaijan, under charges of public calls against the state, and unauthorized crossing of borders. Belarus police arrested Alexander Lapshin on December 15, 2016 in Minsk. Lapshin, a Russian and Israeli citizen, resides in Moscow and writes for the famous Russian Travel Blog. He is wanted by Azerbaijan for visiting Nagorno Karabakh in 2011, 2012 and 2016, and criticizing Azerbaijans policy in his blog. Baku demanded the extradition of Lapshin from Belarus. Earlier it was reported that the Deputy Prosecutor General of Belarus has made a decision to uphold the request of Azerbaijans General Prosecutor on extraditing Citizen of Russia and Israel Alexander Lapshin, who is wanted for violating Articles 281.2 and 318.2 of Azerbaijans Criminal Code. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said on February 3 : Belarus has no grounds to not extradite Lapshin to Azerbaijan. He said the issue will be solved based on law and international agreements. The Russian foreign ministry said it is inadmissible to extradite Russian citizens to third countries. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. RPA faction MP Ruben Hovsepyan will not take part in the upcoming parliamentary election in Armenia, reports Armenpress. He told reporters that he terminates to be engaged in legislative activity. But this doesnt mean that I leave politics. I will stay in the political field, he said, assuring that this is his personal decision rather than the RPA. MP Hovsepyan also ruled out the possibility to join other party. Dont ask me questions like this. I will not join any other party. I will remain a member of the Republican Party, he said. Armenias Parliamentary election will be held on April 2, 2017. The election campaign will launch on March 5. The parties and party alliances must submit applications for election participation to the Central Electoral Commission until February 16, and the regional and proportional lists from February 16 to 26. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. The proportional and regional lists of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) will be clarified after the Executive Bodys upcoming session on February 11, RPA faction MP, member of the RPA Executive Body Samvel Nikoyan told reporters at the Parliament, reports Armenpress. All issued will be clarified on Saturday at the Executive Bodys session. Both closed and open proportional lists are formed under the decision of the Executive Body, he said. Asked whether he wants to be in the Parliament in future, Nikoyan said he will talk about his wishes after the session. Armenias Parliamentary election will be held on April 2, 2017. The election campaign will launch on March 5. The parties and party alliances must submit applications for election participation to the Central Electoral Commission until February 16, and the regional and proportional lists from February 16 to 26. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. During the annual dinner of the Coordinating Council of Armenian Organizations of France, Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris, has expressed her support to all her friends of Armenia who are threatened worldwide. Nouvelles d'Armenie reported on this occasion the Mayor announced her intentions on awarding Garo Paylan, the ethnic Armenian lawmaker of Turkeys Parliament, with the Medal of City of Paris. In her speech Hidalgo also commented on her visit to Yerevan. Its very rare for me to have such a clear feeling of true identical culture in another city, she said. At the same time, she stressed she is stunned by the modernity of Yerevan, namely by her visit to TUMO center. Upon departing, I thought what can Paris give to Yerevan, upon returning I thought how can Yerevan convey its innovative ideas and dynamics to Paris, Hidalgo said. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. Armenias human rights advocates raise the issue that the extradition of Russian-Israeli blogger Alexander Lapshin from Belarus to Azerbaijan is not legitimate. The extradition was carried out with gross violations of international rights. Larisa Alaverdyan, executive director of the Against Legal Arbitrariness NGO told a press conference in Armenpress that the UN model contract has one norm which says such transfer is unacceptable and prohibited. It is written there that when there is a suspicion that the person will not be properly protected and can face tortures, he/she must not be extradited, Alaverdyan said, stating that the right to freedom of speech and freedom of expression is enshrined in the legislations of Belarus and Azerbaijan. This means, that both countries are not only ignoring the international norms, but also the articles of their own Constitutions. Simon Babayan Director of the School of Advocates, said Azerbaijan accuses Lapshin on two criminal acts. The first one are those statements that Azerbaijan views as against to its territorial integrity. The second one is that Azerbaijan considers Nagorno Karabakh as its part and considers entering this territory as illegal crossing of borders. We have two problems here: first of all, the Kishinev Convention defines a principle according to which the act, which Azerbaijan considers as criminal and demands that person from any country, must also be considered as criminal according to the legislation of that country, in this case, the act must be considered as criminal according to the Belarus legislation as well, Simon Babayan said. He said Nagorno Karabakh is not part of Azerbaijan, moreover, Lapshin visited Karabakh from Armenias border. Thus, his visit to Karabakh cannot be considered as criminal. If the international community doesnt take respective measures, this could be a bad precedent, he said, adding that it is necessary to present the Azerbaijani actions in the European Court of Human Rights. Alexander Lapshin, the Russian-Israeli blogger who was extradited from Belarus to Azerbaijan on February 7, has been placed in the isolation cell in Azerbaijans state security service, Ria Novosti reported. Lapshin was flown to Baku from Minsk on a special flight, escorted by state security agents. A group of reporters were waiting for Lapshin in Bakus airport, but Lapshin didnt give any comment to them. A news correspondent reported from the airport that Lapshin is in a serious mental condition and he didnt respond to the questions of journalists. The Belarus Supreme Court denied Lapshins appeal on the extradition verdict issued by the General Prosecutor of Belarus. Lapshin faces up to 5 years imprisonment in Azerbaijan, under charges of public calls against the state, and unauthorized crossing of borders. Belarus police arrested Alexander Lapshin on December 15, 2016 in Minsk. Lapshin, a Russian and Israeli citizen, resides in Moscow and writes for the famous Russian Travel Blog. He is wanted by Azerbaijan for visiting Nagorno Karabakh in 2011, 2012 and 2016, and criticizing Azerbaijans policy in his blog. Baku demanded the extradition of Lapshin from Belarus. Earlier it was reported that the Deputy Prosecutor General of Belarus has made a decision to uphold the request of Azerbaijans General Prosecutor on extraditing Citizen of Russia and Israel Alexander Lapshin, who is wanted for violating Articles 281.2 and 318.2 of Azerbaijans Criminal Code. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said on February 3 : Belarus has no grounds to not extradite Lapshin to Azerbaijan. He said the issue will be solved based on law and international agreements. The Russian foreign ministry said it is inadmissible to extradite Russian citizens to third countries. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, Chairman of the National Security Council (NSC), on February 8 held a consultation with the members of the National Security Council, press service of the Presidents Office told Armenpress. The NSC 2017 action plan created based on the proposals of the NSC members, as well as current issues were included in the discussion agenda. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. Citizens of India who have residence status in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Oman can receive entry visa to Armenia in Armenias border checkpoints as well. The decision was approved in the Cabinet meeting, which was presented by foreign minister Edward Nalbandian. The adoption of the bill is based on the necessity of boosting tourism flow to Armenia from the Persian Gulf region (except Saudi Arabia), Nalbandian said. Taking into consideration that the citizens of those countries can get entry visas to Armenia upon arrival, and that significant numbers of Indian citizens are residing in those countries, there is a necessity of facilitating the latters entry to Armenia, by providing the opportunity of receiving entry visas at border checkpoints in Armenia. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. The performance reviews of the Prime Ministers assignments to ministries and state agencies will be summarized in the end of February, PM Karapetyan said at the Cabinet meeting. The PM once again urged the Cabinet members to draw special attention to the task on effectively using the potential of the Armenian Diaspora. We have great potential in that field, which we arent using. We must be able to maximally use the existing potential in all fields, including attraction of investments, healthcare, agriculture and administration culture, he said. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. Russia continues following the fate of its citizen Alexander Lapshin, who was extradited to Azerbaijan from Belarus, Maria Zakharova, spokesperson of the Russian ministry of foreign affairs said at a briefing with reporters. She said she issue must be solved by working procedure. Of course any issue related to a citizen of Russia is a priority issue for us. As we said earlier in a statement of the ministry, we will continue to follow the fate of our citizen, Zakharova said. The Russian ministry of foreign affairs issued a statement on February 8 saying Russia is disappointed by the Belarus Supreme Court verdict on extraditing Alexander Lapshin to Azerbaijan. Russia is expressing deep disappointment over the decision, which doesnt comply the spirit of allied relations of Russia and Belarus. We intend to continue to take all measures to protect the rights and legal interests of the Russian citizen, with the goal of returning him to his family as soon as possible, the statement said. Alexander Lapshin, the Russian-Israeli blogger who was extradited from Belarus to Azerbaijan on February 7, has been placed in the isolation cell in Azerbaijans state security service, Ria Novosti reported. Lapshin was flown to Baku from Minsk on a special flight, escorted by state security agents. A group of reporters were waiting for Lapshin in Bakus airport, but Lapshin didnt give any comment to them. A news correspondent reported from the airport that Lapshin is in a serious mental condition and he didnt respond to the questions of journalists. The Belarus Supreme Court denied Lapshins appeal on the extradition verdict issued by the General Prosecutor of Belarus. Lapshin faces up to 5 years imprisonment in Azerbaijan, under charges of public calls against the state, and unauthorized crossing of borders. Belarus police arrested Alexander Lapshin on December 15, 2016 in Minsk. Lapshin, a Russian and Israeli citizen, resides in Moscow and writes for the famous Russian Travel Blog. He is wanted by Azerbaijan for visiting Nagorno Karabakh in 2011, 2012 and 2016, and criticizing Azerbaijans policy in his blog. Baku demanded the extradition of Lapshin from Belarus. Earlier it was reported that the Deputy Prosecutor General of Belarus has made a decision to uphold the request of Azerbaijans General Prosecutor on extraditing Citizen of Russia and Israel Alexander Lapshin, who is wanted for violating Articles 281.2 and 318.2 of Azerbaijans Criminal Code. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said on February 3 : Belarus has no grounds to not extradite Lapshin to Azerbaijan. He said the issue will be solved based on law and international agreements. The Russian foreign ministry said it is inadmissible to extradite Russian citizens to third countries. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. No final agreement has been reached yet over the meeting between Armenian, Azerbaijani and Russian FMs in Munich, Armenpress reports official representative of the Russian MFA Maria Zakharova told the reporters. We do not insist on holding meetings or consultations. We offer and try to get consent from respective sides. Agenda of Bonn and Munich meetings is still being developed, Zakharova said, adding that in case a final decision is reached, press will be informed about that. At the moment I can only tell that talks with the sides are underway, she said. Love is in the air this weekend, as families celebrate Valentines Day a few days early. Heres a rundown of the Valentines Day-related happenings: * Sewards T Party Place, 430 Seward St., hosts its fourth annual Doll & Me Valentine Tea from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Saturday. Select between "Cream Tea" (scones with sweet cream and strawberry jam) for $5 or "Full Tea" (tea sandwiches & little desserts) for $10. Both selections include tea or "blue tea." Dolls will be served at no additional cost. Reservations required, call 402-641-0226. * Both Lincoln Michaels stores host Kids Club Valentines Day Cookie and Make Events from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday. Open to ages 3 and older. Preregister at the website michaels.com. Cost is $2 per 30-minute session. Supplies included. * Barnes and Noble holds a Valentines Day storytime from 11 to 11:30 a.m. Saturday. Free. * Make and take your own Valentines cards and take part in a lovely scavenger hunt at the Be My Valentine Family Fun Day at the Nebraska History Museum, 131 Centennial Mall. The free event runs from 2-4 p.m. Saturday. * The Northeast YMCA, 2601 N. 70th St., hosts a Father/Daughter Dance from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Saturday. Dads and daughters are invited to put on their Sunday best and head on over for a snack, a flower, photos and dancing. Space is limited, registration is required. Cost is $15 ($7 for YMCA members). * The Corky Canvas, 3700 S. Ninth St., invites kids ages 6 and older to paint a Valentines Day heart for mom from 1 -3 p.m. Sunday. Cost is $25. Register online at corkycanvas.com/event/1005/kids-6-come-paint-this-for-mom-for-valentine-s-day-kids-adults-welcome. * Make Lincoln Kind Again hosts a Valentine Card Making Party, from 4-5:30 p.m. Sunday at Scooters Coffee, 2901 S. 84th St. Free. Card making supplies provided. Reserve a spot at facebook.com/events/200423907099367/. * On Tuesday -- actual Valentines Day -- the Ice Rink hosts a Valentines Day skate and watch featuring Father of the Bride I and II, from 6-9:30 p.m. in the Railyard, 350 Canopy St. Free. Skate rental rates apply. Also happening * The Mighty Magic Pants hosts an album release concert from 6:30-8 p.m. Saturday at The Space, 5900 S. 58th St. Admission is free. Prizes will be awarded to the best-dressed superheroes. For information email Michelle@MightyMagicPants.com or call 402-304-0537. * Veterinary science is the topic of the Investigate: Second Saturday Science Lab, 10 a.m. to noon Saturday at Morrill Hall. Activities free with regular museum admission. Coming up * Laser Safari, an ecological adventure exploring the African Serengeti and South Americas Amazon Rainforest, will be shown Feb. 17-19 at Morrill Hall - Mueller Planetarium, 645 N. 14th St. The show is 35 minutes long. Children must be at least 4 years old to be admitted. Showtimes are: 6 p.m. Feb. 17; 11 a.m., noon and 6 p.m. Feb. 18; and 2 p.m. Feb. 19. For information go to museum.unl.edu/ or call 402-472-2642. * The Great Backyard Bird Count will be 10-11:30 a.m. Feb. 17 and 18 at Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center, 11700 S.W. 100th St., Denton. Free. Binoculars available. All participants get in free to the Feb. 19 musical celebration For the Birds. Other family activities for the week of Feb. 10-16: Friday IndiExplore -- 10-11 a.m., Indigo Bridge Books, 701 P St. Expert on children's topics, hands-on activities and books. Free. Disney Enchanted Tales Film Series -- "Dumbo," 10 a.m., 12:30, 3, 5:30 p.m. Friday-Sunday, Lincoln Grand Theatre. Tickets: $5. Saturday Bilingual English-Spanish story time -- 10-11 a.m., Indigo Bridge Books, 701 P St. Investigate: Second Saturday Science Lab -- Veterinary Science, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., University of Nebraska State Museum, Morrill Hall. Regular museum admission. Library all ages storytime -- stories, 10:30 a.m.; crafts, 11 a.m., Walt Branch Library. Valentine's Day storytime -- 11 a.m., Barnes & Noble Booksellers, 5150 O St. and SouthPointe Pavilions locations. "The Secret Life of Squirrels: A Love Story" and "Valentine's Day Is Cool." Free. Maker Space event -- Meet the Bots, 1-3 p.m., Williams Branch Library. For families with children of all ages. Free. Free family fun day -- "Be My Valentine," 2-4 p.m., Nebraska History Museum, 131 Centennial Mall North. Make and take Valentine's card, join in a 'lovely' Scavenger hunt. Free drop-in event for entire family. "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" -- card making open house for kids and families, 2-5 p.m., Saint Paul United Methodist Church, 1144 M St. For children to express kindness and welcome for refugee and immigrant children. Art supplies provided. Free come-and-go event. Participants are welcome to bring baby and children's items that will be donated to the Good Neighbor Community Center. Waverly School #145 soup supper/concerts -- 4:30-8 p.m., 13401 Amberly Road, Waverly. Featuring fifth-ninth grade bands, varsity band and middle and high school jazz bands. Fundraiser for Waverly Band Boosters. Mighty Magic Pants album release concert -- 6:30-8 p.m., The Space, 5900 S. 58th St. Come dress as your favorite superhero. Prizes awarded for individuals and families for best costume. Free for entire family. Sunday Annual Abraham Lincoln Birthday Celebration -- Lincoln Southeast High School, 2930 S. 37th St. Activities, 1:30 p.m., commons area; "An American Patriotic Celebration!" featuring children's choir and storytellers, 3 p.m., Jennifer L. Dorsey-Hawley Performing Arts Center. Musician Chris Sayre performs from 1:30-3 p.m. in commons area. Before and after concert there will be kids crafts/games, historical displays and free birthday cake. Free, open to the public. Family storytime -- 1:30-2 p.m., Eiseley Branch Library; 4-4:30 p.m., Bennett Martin Public Library. Stories and crafts. Family Fun Event -- 3-6 p.m., Tabor Hall, 1402 Country Road I, south of Dorchester. Kids activities, raffle prizes, popcorn, hot cocoa and goodies. Please bring an appetizer or dessert to share. Tuesday Library storytimes -- Toddler: 10 a.m. and 10:35 a.m., Gere; 10:30 a.m., Bethany, Walt; 6:30 p.m., Gere. Preschool: 10:30 a.m., Anderson, Gere; 7 p.m., Eiseley. Morning children's story time -- 10-11 a.m., Indigo Bridge Books, 701 P St. Maker Space event -- My Art Belongs to You, 4-5:30 p.m., Williams Branch Library. Families with children of all ages experience art with a Far-Eastern flair, including calligraphy, Zentangle and crafts inspired by the Lunar New Year. Wednesday Library storytimes -- Toddler: 10:30 a.m., Walt; 10:35 a.m. Eiseley and Gere. Preschool: 10:30 a.m., Eiseley. Baby: 10 a.m., Gere. Thursday Library storytimes -- Toddler: 10 a.m., Gere; 10:35 a.m., Eiseley and Gere. Preschool: 10:30 a.m., Eiseley, Bethany, Gere. Baby: 10:30 a.m., Walt; 6:30 a.m., Gere. Morrill Hall free Thursday nights -- 4:30-8 p.m. Thursday nights in February, Nebraska State University Museum, 14th and Vine streets. Free for all ages. Shows and exhibits Planetarium astronomy shows -- "A Starry Tale," 11 a.m. Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays. "Super Volcanoes," noon Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Shows through Feb. 26. Children must be age 4 or older. University of Nebraska State Museum of Natural History, Mueller Planetarium, Morrill Hall, south of 14th and Vine streets. 402-472-2641. Hyde Observatory shows -- 7-10 p.m. Saturdays, Hyde Observatory, Holmes Lake. Free. Reservations available for Monday-Thursday nights. 402-441-7094. "The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs" -- 7 p.m. Feb. 10; 2, 5 p.m. Feb. 4, 11; 2 p.m. Feb. 12, The Rose Theater, 2001 Farnam St., Omaha. 402-345-4849. Coming up Disney Enchanted Tales Film Series -- "Aladdin," 10 a.m., 12:30, 3, 5:30 p.m. Feb. 17-20, Lincoln Grand Theatre. Tickets: $5. Lincoln Dodgers Grand Slam Pancake Feed -- 7:30 a.m.-noon Feb. 18, Sesotris Shrine Center, Highway 77 and Saltillo Road. Mighty, Mighty Construction Site Storytime -- 11 a.m. Feb. 18, Barnes & Noble Booksellers, 5150 O St. and SouthPointe Pavilions locations. Register Little Ladies Date Night -- 6-8 p.m. Feb. 24 or 25, Lincoln Children's Museum. Dads, grandpas, uncles, big brothers or any guys who have a special little lady to treat for a night. Members: $20/couple, $5/extra little lady. Non-members: $30/couple, $10/extra little lady. Space limited so register early. 402-477-4000 or lincolnchildrensmuseum.org. Maker Space event -- Robot Dance Off, 12:30 p.m. Feb. 25, Walt Branch Library. Kindergartners through sixth graders work in small teams using Ozoblockly coding software. Seating limited and registration required at 402-441-4460. Prairie Princess (and Prince) Party -- 1-4 p.m. Feb. 25, College Park, 3180 W. Highway 34 (across from Stuhr Museum), Grand Island. Tea room, "royal" hair and nail studio, games, dance lessons, storytelling, crafts and surprised. Theme: Wizard of Oz. Please dress up. $5/members, $8/non-members. 308-385-5316 or stuhrmuseum.org. "Gulliver's Travels" drama camp -- for kindergarten through sixth graders, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. March 13-18, Westminster Presbyterian Church, 2110 Sheridan Blvd. Produced in partnership with Missoula Children's Theatre. Space limited. Register at westminsterlincoln.org. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. France must support all initiatives of recognition of the Armenian Genocide, including also the initiatives in Turkey that must eventually move towards the direction of recognition, French President Francois Hollande said at the annual dinner of the Coordination Council of the Armenian Organizations of France, reports Armenpress. The French President also attached importance to the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the German Bundestag and highlighted the role of Bundestag President Norbert Lammert and MP with Turkish origin Cem Ozdemir on this issue. You have always put a difference between the Turkish state and the Turkish people on this issue, and you are right, Hollande said. He recalled the courage of Armenian lawmaker of Turkeys Parliament Garo Paylan on raising the Genocide issue in the Turkish Parliament. Commenting on the developments in Turkey, Hollande said this year marks the 10th anniversary of the murder of Hrant Dink, whose widow he met during his visit in Turkey. So what is our duty, the duty of France in this matter?. We must support all initiatives aimed at the Genocide recognition, no matter from where they come and whatever they are. And it is important that this issue must be raised in Turkey that must move towards the direction of recognition. A number of countries are together with us to promote this issue, Francois Hollande said. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. Foreign Ministers of Armenia and the Netherlands Edward Nalbandian and Bert Koenders have exchanged messages on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The Press service of the MFA Armenia informed ARMENPRESS that Minister Nalbandian noted in his message that the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries promoted the centuries-old relations of the two peoples to a state level. During the past 25 years the Kingdom of the Netherlands became one of the key supporters of economic and democratic reforms in Armenia. Armenias FM highly appreciates the cooperation with the Netherlands based on mutual respect and confidence covering numerous aspects, including partnership in international organizations, political dialogue, inter-parliamentary cooperation, cultural and academic exchange programs. Minister Bert Koenders highly appreciated the bilateral relations in his message, which have deepened during years and are evidenced by productive bilateral visits and political dialogue. The Foreign Minister of the Netherlands notes that the two countries collaborate in the sidelines of a number of international organizations and in many other spheres. Koenders salutes strengthening of Armenia-EU relations and expresses the support of the Netherlands to the current efforts aimed at further developing the cooperation between Armenia and the EU in the sidelines of the Eastern Partnership. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. President of France Francois Hollande plans to discuss Nagorno Karabakh conflict with his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sargsyan during the latters visit to Paris, French President Francois Hollande said at the annual dinner of the Coordination Council of the Armenian Organizations of France, reports Armenpress. France bears special responsibility for this issue as a Minsk Group Co-chair country together with the USA and Russia. We are in haste, and haste really exists, to find a solution to this issue since the dreadful incidents of April 2-4 of the last year reminded us that every day or nearly every day a death cases is recorded in Karabakh. Therefore, we have to act to prevent clashes, the French President said. Clashes are over, dialogue has started and ceasefire is reached but we cannot be satisfied by a ceasefire, since it is not a solution. We have to launch real talks aimed at the conflict resolution. It will be a huge mistake to think that the situation has stabilized. We have to refer to the elements necessary for the conflict settlement enshrined in the Madrid principles. We also know that when those principles are applied, they should be based on the right to self-determination of Nagorno Karabakh and for the purpose of taking this path France will organize a new meeting with Armenia and Azerbaijan, Francois Hollande stressed. Referring to Armenian-Turkish relations, the French President noted that the reconciliation process remains in a dead point. I assure France will do its best so as land border between Armenia and Turkey finally opens, Hollande said. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. Diaspora Armenians are involved in nearly 70% of SMEs of Armenia, Minister of Diaspora Hranush Hakobyan told during a round-table discussion with the participation of Diaspora Armenian investors. She noted that arriving in their fatherland Diaspora Armenians create new jobs and bring with them managerial skills and innovative solutions. We have invited here representatives of not only big business but also SMEs to introduce to them the components of the economic policy recently embraced by the Armenian Government, Armenpress reports Hranush Hakobyan saying. She noted Diaspora Armenians are ready to come and start a business in Armenia. Its clear for all of us that Armenias economic policy emphasizes assistance to investments and, why not, free economic zones are established in Armenia open for our compatriots, the Minister said. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. Bilateral trade between Armenia and Chine amounted to 454 million USD in 2016. As Armenpress was informed from the data release by the National Statistical Service of Armenia, Armenian-Chinese trade turnover decreased by 5%, while the decline is conditioned absolutely by the cut of Armenian exports to China. Armenian exports to China in 2016 amounted to 96.38 million USD in 2016, which is a decline of 40%, while Chinese imports to Armenia soared by 13% amounting to 357.65 million USD. According to the data, in the reporting year Chinese share in Armenias foreign trade amounted to 8.9%, placing it second after Russia. Chinas share in Armenias total exports amounted to 5.4% and 11% in total imports. The Government of Armenia approved the decision to establish a position of a trade attache in China during the February 2 Cabinet meeting. The decision is aimed at activating business initiatives between the two states and fostering trade and economic cooperation. Most read of the week YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. Alexander Lapshin, extradited from Belarus to Azerbaijan on February 7, has never been in Interpols list of wanted persons and has never been internationally wanted, Narek Malyan, advisor to Police Chief of Armenia posted a note on his Facebook page. To the request of Armenia Police, the Interpol General Secretariat responded that Alexander Lapshin has never been in Interpols list of wanted persons and has never been internationally wanted, Armenpress reports Malyan wrote. The Prosecution of Belarus had referred to Interpol as the grounds for extraditing Lapshin. The Belarus Supreme Court denied Lapshins appeal on the extradition verdict issued by the General Prosecutor of Belarus on February 7. On the same day Lapshin was flown to Baku from Minsk on a special flight, escorted by state security agents. A group of reporters were waiting for Lapshin in Bakus airport, but Lapshin didnt give any comment to them. The largest grant Nebraska Wesleyan University has received to date will create scholarships and provide academic support for students pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering or math. Using a $650,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, Nebraska Wesleyan will launch the STEM Scholars Program which will provide $7,000 a year to science-minded students in 2017 and 2018. Because were a private school and it can be expensive to come here, this program offers students with financial need the opportunity to attend a school like Nebraska Wesleyan, which has strong science programs, said Garry Duncan, a biology professor who will coordinate the STEM Scholars Program. Nearly half of the academic majors at Nebraska Wesleyan are STEM-related, President Fred Ohles said. He added: The sciences have been a hallmark of Nebraska Wesleyan for many decades. In addition to scholarships, the STEM Scholars Program will also provide funding for students to conduct research, explore career fields and provide other support geared toward helping them graduate with a degree in four years. Sarah Kelen, an English professor and dean of colleges at the liberal arts school, said the program will also put the cohort of students into a special housing unit that will allow them to create their own community. Wesleyan is aiming to induct seven students into the first cohort this fall. What we are trying to do is create bonding and a sense of family amongst those students and with our science faculty as well, Kelen said. For students from rural areas without many STEM-related jobs, the program will expose them to several possibilities, including biomedical research, pharmaceuticals and agriculture-related fields. We want them to take a broader view of what being a scientist means and allow them to envision themselves in a broad range of professional careers, Kelen said. Duncan said the experience will be tailored to allow students to experience the thrill of discovery or the challenges of research. What better way to get to know and understand science than to do science, Duncan said. What we hope is they will be stimulated to go into industry after their bachelors degree, or perhaps go to graduate school. To qualify, students must have a high school GPA of 3.25 or higher, as well as a composite ACT score of at least 23 with math and science sub-scores of at least 25. Students will also have to demonstrate financial need and write a 500-word essay on their academic and career goals. First year applications are due Feb. 24. Photo: James Alcock/Getty Images The telecommunications industry ombudsman has released the latest quarterly numbers for complaints and in terms of complaints per customer Telstra is now the industry leader. After many quarters at the top, Optus was pipped by Telstra in the October to December 2016 period. Telstra recorded 6.8 complaints per 10,000 services-in-operation (SIO), compared to 6.7 for Optus. A Telstra spokesperson said that the company was aware of the increase in customers choosing to escalate their concerns to the ombudsman. Also read: Cybercrime on the rise We believe this has been largely driven by technical faults experienced between October and December 2016 as well as the increasing number of customers transitioning to the NBN, the spokesperson said. We have a comprehensive plan in place to help us do a better job of meeting our customers expectations in the future. After a series of high-profile outages last year, Telstra vowed to invest in its network to improve its performance. However, last Thursday a fire at a northern Sydney exchange disrupted services nationally for several hours, while on the same night Perth residents also lost their mobile and landline after a third party dug into a cable. Complaints to the TIO per 10,000 services. (Source: TIO) Optus had been the telco with the highest number of complaints per 10,000 SIO in every quarter since at least July 2015. But its rate of ombudsman complaints have been on a downward trend since January last year. Also read: A lot of people will scratch their heads: Aus Posts extravagant salaries revealed An Optus spokesperson said that the improvement can be attributed to changes such as stricter lock downs on premium SMS and mobile content charges, giving call centre staff additional tools to help customers affected by mass outages, proactively migrating landline customers to the NBN as it arrives in their area, and actively monitoring and investing in its network. Vodafone, after seeing a spike last quarter, came back down to third on the table, with 5.0 complaints. Independent providers Amaysim and Pivotel brought up the rear, with just 1.0 complaints each, compared to the industry average of 6.4 per 10,000 services. This article originally appeared on Bloomberg. On Tuesday, the EU competition commission approved the bailout of Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS), which has been in deep trouble since the eurozone debt crisis The world's oldest bank, BMPS, which is due to be bailed out by the Italian state, on Thursday announced a net loss of 3.38 billion euros ($3.6 billion) for 2016, far worse than analysts had expected. Market forecasters had expected a loss of around two billion euros, according to a consensus of analysts compiled by Factset Estimates. As of December 31, BMPS had only seven billion euros in liquidities, a decline of 17 billion euros compared with a year earlier, the bank added. Founded in Siena in 1472, BMPS -- Monte dei Paschi di Siena -- is due to be temporarily taken over by the state to help forestall a crisis that could sweep through Italy's banking sector. The bank said the 2016 loss was due to a write-down in the value of its loan portfolio. Income in 2016 fell back 18.4 percent to 4.25 billion euros, against 4.4 billion euros expected by analysts. For 2015, BMPS had recorded a profit of 390 million euros, its first in five years. On December 29, the Italian central bank said the state would foot 6.6 billion of the 8.8 billion euros needed to recapitalise BMPS. The funding target had previously been set at five billion, but was hiked after an attempt to raise the money on the open market failed. Under the government's plan, BMPS will be saved by dipping into a debt-financed 20-billion-euro war chest. However, the rescue will add to the country's already massive debt burden and to borrowing costs. EU regulators have warned they will keep a close eye on the bailout, in line with new rules to ensure that taxpayers are not left permanently on the hook for saving banks. BMPS has been in trouble since 2007, when it made the disastrous purchase of Antonveneta bank at twice the estimated value. It then drifted into scandal when its management team was accused of fraud and misuse of funds. In 2016, the bank's roster of bad debts fell by around four billion euros, 2.2 billion of which occurred in the last quarter. However, its so-called CET1 ratio -- a benchmark of financial health that compares top-quality capital against risk-weighted assets -- also fell. At the end of 2016, its CET1 ratio was only eight percent, compared with a threshold of 10.75 percent set by the European Central Bank. Its CET1 ratio at the end of 2015 was 12 percent. Ivanka Trump, pictured on February 3, 2017, will have her clothing line removed from Nordstrom and President Trump believes she's been "treated so unfairly" Donald Trump on Wednesday lashed out at department store chain Nordstrom for dropping his daughter's clothing line, again spotlighting the intermingling of the US presidency with Trump family businesses. The public rebuke, which the White House later defended, called renewed attention to the potential tangle of business interests Trump brought with him on taking office last month. In a tweet posted moments after he wrapped up an address to US law enforcement, Trump hit out at the high-end retailer for announcing last week it had decided to discontinue sales of Ivanka Trump's fashion line due to poor sales. "My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by Nordstrom," Trump wrote. "She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!" Since his surprise victory in the November presidential election, Trump has used his Twitter feed to lambast individual companies -- from General Motors to Boeing -- be it for off-shoring jobs or allegedly overcharging the federal government for aircraft. - Family business - But the latest tweet was different in that it sought to defend part of Trump's family business empire, which critics have said could be a source of profound conflicts of interest for the White House. Trump made sure to give his message on Ivanka maximum reach by posting it both on his personal handle @realDonaldTrump and on the official account of the US presidency @POTUS. Since his November victory, Trump has touted an effort to remove himself from running his business empire, transferring corporate control to his sons. But he has resisted divesting, as a government ethics watchdog had called on him to do. Critics say the Trump businesses still pose a significant ethical quandary. Further playing into the running debate, Pentagon officials said Wednesday they were looking to rent space in Trump Tower, Trump's flagship Manhattan luxury building, to accommodate equipment and staff who accompany the president during his stays there. Story continues That came on the heels of a lawsuit filed by Melania Trump in New York, which claimed that damaging rumors reported by a British tabloid had interfered with her "unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to earn millions of dollars due to her raised profile as first lady. - Boycott calls - White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Wednesday defended Trump's Nordstrom tweet, saying the president was standing up for a family member. "There's clearly efforts to undermine that name based on her father's issues or particular policies," Spicer told reporters. "For someone to take out their concern of the policies against a family member of his is simply not acceptable and he has every right to speak out about it." Nordstrom responded on Wednesday, reiterating that its decision to drop the Ivanka Trump line was made purely on business grounds. "Over the past year, and particularly in the last half of 2016, sales of the brand have steadily declined to the point where it didn't make good business sense for us to continue with the line for now," the company said in a statement to AFP, adding that it had "a great relationship" with Ivanka Trump's business. Nordstrom is one of several US businesses that has faced boycott calls for its association with the Trump brand. It is among the firms targeted in a "Grab Your Wallet" campaign launched by anti-Trump activists in protest at the Republican billionaire's agenda. The campaign on Wednesday was still targeting other retailers such as Macy's, Bloomingdale's and Dillard's for carrying Ivanka Trump products. Sign of the fine line that firms are treading in the current political era, others such as PepsiCo and Budweiser have faced a backlash from the opposite camp after moves deemed critical of the Trump administration. - Ethical obligations - Richard Briffault, an expert in government ethics at Columbia Law School, told AFP that Trump's use of the presidential bully pulpit to defend his daughter's business "was inconsistent with any notion of the ethical obligations of a public official." "What this suggests is that he hasn't fully internalized the consequence of being the most important public official in the country," Briffault said. Since a 1989 executive order, federal officials have been barred from using public office for private gain, Briffault said, adding that any public criticism from a sitting president could be interpreted as an attempt to influence that company's business decisions. "It gives the appearance that he is using his position to promote the business interests of a close relative," said Briffault. Unlike other companies he has attacked on Twitter, including Lockheed, Boeing and Ford, which saw their share prices suffer following criticism from Trump, Nordstrom's stock finished up more than 4.0 percent on Wednesday. The news of Trump's remarks preceded a report from The New York Times on Wednesday, which said TJX Companies, the parent of clothing retailers TJ Maxx and Marshalls, had told employees to discard all Ivanka Trump promotional signs and not to display her clothing separately. Swedish carmaker Volvo Cars, owned by Chinese group Geely, said Wednesday it posted a healthy profit rise in 2016, boosted by record sales and stronger finances. Net profit soared by 90 percent to 5.94 billion kronor (633 million euros, $628 million), while sales climbed by 10 percent to 180.6 billion kronor, Volvo said in a statement. The brand sold more than 534,000 cars in 2016, six percent more than its 2015 record. "I foresee that 2017 will also be a record year in terms of sales," said chief executive Hakan Samuelsson. Volvo has made a remarkable comeback since 2010, when the loss-making carmaker was taken over by Chinese group Geely. In December, it succeeded in raising 5.0 billion kronor (529 million euros, $564 million) by selling preferential shares to three prudent Swedish investors: public pension funds AMF and AP1, and insurance group Folksam. On Tuesday, Swedish media revealed the company plans to hire up to 800 people at its plant in Gothenburg, Sweden's second city. The company is also expected to begin manufacturing cars in the US in 2018, where it is building a factory near Charleston, South Carolina. The carmaker is also leading the drive to develop self-driving cars. In January, it provided test cars to a number of families in Gothenburg, and it is expected to continue the test in London later this year. LOS ANGELESPornDoe Premium is celebrating Valentines Day with the launch of its newest line, xChimera.com, that will be available exclusively to its VIP membership on February 14. The creators unveiled a sneak peek trailer this week for the high-end, couples friendly site that features original hardcore content directed by Louis Moire in Prague, Czech Republic. To watch the trailer and more on PornDoePremium.com, click here; a VIP membership to PornDoe is $24.95 per month. An ambitious undertaking filmed in luxury locations with gorgeous European performers, xChimera is being created to give couples a rare window into the mysterious, privileged world of elites. The site follows these elites as they scout beautiful young girls and assist their transitions into glamorous sex goddesses, giving them the unique chance at a lavish lifestyle. In exchange, the girls play out their wildest fantasies, offering a unique voyeur experience. Some of the girls already showcased on xChimera include A-list models Sybil, Nancy A, Vanessa Decker, Blue Angel, Luna Corazon, Lauren Crist, Katy Rose, Naomi Bennet and Candice Luca. We are continuously pushing ourselves to offer our users some of the most innovative and enticing content, said Yannick Ferreri, head of business development for PornDoe. With xChimera we set our expectations to a new level and we are confident in saying that we truly believe we have achieved what we were aiming for. TEMPE, AZ Payment services platform leader and recently recognized 2017 iDate Best Payment System Award recipient, CCBill, has two new Integration Partners in SkaDate and WP Dating. CCBill merchants can now access these dating software modules and their various features directly through the Integration Partner Marketplace, allowing merchants to unite CCBills best-in-class Payments-as-a-Service solution with dating software platforms from premium providers. Established in 2005, SkaDate offers a combined web and mobile solution, as well as a mobile only version. SkaDate provides all the products and services needed to launch and run a successful and unique dating business, including web and graphic design, site optimization and usability, mobile app development, and online dating website marketing. "SkaDate has a long-term relationship with CCBill. Weve been supporting this integration for years, because CCBill is the default go-to payment provider for a specific type of our customers. Although theres no shortage of payment providers on the market, CCBill proved to be a reliable partner that knows well the specifics of risk management and fraud protection. Our customers find it highly invaluable," said Emil Sarnogoev, SkaDate Founder and CEO of Skalfa LLC. Also available through the CCBill Integration Partners program, WP Dating is a professional WordPress Dating plugin solution provider. The WP Dating plugin provides an SEO friendly WordPress platform and enables access to more than 80 Premium WordPress Themes. The challenges of establishing an online dating business presence remains complex, as it requires time, familiarity with design and coding, and access to the right tools and resources to get a dating website up and running, said Chris Pike, Channel Manager CCBill. Our Integration Partnerships with SkaDate and WP Dating bring sets of powerful features and services to CCBill Merchants, helping them run successful online dating business. With an ongoing goal to support the payment needs of an emerging internet dating market, and while working closely with many of the leading dating websites and white label providers, in 2017, CCBill was rewarded with back-to-back iDate Awards for the Best Payment System. Each year, the internet dating industry gathers business professionals from around the world to acknowledge and honor the greatest achievements in the market at the prestigious iDate Awards ceremony. This years iDate Awards ceremony took place during the iDate 2017 Dating Industry Conference, January 24 26, 2017 in Miami, FL. Being included in the iDate Awards ceremony again in 2017 is an amazing honor for CCBill, says Gary Jackson, Managing VP of Sales at CCBill. "The iDate Awards promote industry innovations, while inspiring collaboration between professionals in different fields of the online dating industry. We are so proud to have received the votes that earned us the Best Payment System award again in 2017, and we are delighted to continue our work with the online dating community to help expand their impact and potential. More information about CCBill Dating Payment-as-a Service package can be found here. For the full list of leading proprietary and open source tools and modules on Integration Partner Marketplace, click here. World's largest computer chip maker INTEL today said it will invest $7 billion to complete the construction of a factory in Arizona which they claim will create 3,000 new American jobs for Americans. Intel's CEO made the remarks earlier today after meeting with so-called President Donald Trump at the White House. Not the Only White People's Fancy House, which is in Florida, or Great White People's Tower, in New York. The White House. Thank you Brian Krzanich, CEO of @Intel. A great investment ($7 BILLION) in American INNOVATION and JOBS! #AmericaFirst?? pic.twitter.com/76lAiSSQ1l Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2017 From the New York Times, The completion of the factory, which will complement two other Intel semiconductor plants in Chandler, Ariz., had been under consideration for several years. Standing beside Mr. Trump in the Oval Office, Brian Krzanich, Intel's chief executive, said the company had decided to proceed now because of "the tax and regulatory policies we see the administration pushing forward." Mr. Trump said: "The people of Arizona will be very happy. It's a lot of jobs." He said Intel called the White House several weeks ago to coordinate the announcement. That outreach illustrates the tightrope that Silicon Valley companies are walking as they deal with a president most of them did not want to see in office. Intel was one of over 100 companies that recently signed a legal document to challenge Trump's Muslim travel ban, issued on January 27. That Trump executive order halted the entry into the United States of all refugees, immigrants, and green card holders from seven predominantly Muslim nations where the President does not have reported personal business interests. None of this is normal. None of this is okay. This is a crisis. Intel, you're not helping. From an analysis of the meticulously choreographed PR stunt, over at WIRED: The photo-op played into Trump's #AmericaFirst promise of more US manufacturing jobs, and the president didn't waste time exploiting the PR moment. But everything was not as it looked. Intel's plans have a lot less to do with Trump and a lot more to do with Intel trying to reinvent itself. If today's event looked eerily familiar, that's because Krzanich's predecessor, Paul Otellini, originally announced the Arizona factory, known as Fab42, alongside President Obama in February 2011. At the time, Intel estimated the plant would open in 2013. In early 2014, the company confirmed that construction was indefinitely delayed. Krzanich, a longtime Trump supporter, credited the resurrected plan to the new president. "It's really in support of the tax and regulatory policies that we see the president pushing forward that make it advantageous to do manufacturing in the US," Krzanich said during the press conference. Read the rest: Intel's 'New' Factory Isn't About TrumpIt's About Fixing Intel PHOTOS: U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Chief Executive Officer of Intel Brian Krzanich the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, U.S., February 8, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts Donald Trump may have packed up his tent, but Canada will join other signatories to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement when they meet next month in Chile to figure out how to proceed without the United States. International Trade Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne's office confirmed his attendance at the meeting, but told CBC News the date had not yet been fixed. Other reports say the talks will be held March 14 and 15. "We owe it to Canadian workers and to Canadian families to really be engaged with our partners, to look at what we can do to remain, to have access to, these very important markets," Champagne said on his way into question period Friday. "I think that's what Canadian expect of us," he said. "The world is looking at Canada today when it comes to open, progressive trade." The TPP was signed over a year ago at a ceremony in Auckland, New Zealand. Twelve Pacific Rim countries negotiated the deal: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam. Signatories had two years to ratify the deal for it to come into effect. While one or two smaller countries could drop out, countries comprising at least 85 per cent of the combined gross domestic product of the 12 signatories needed to meet the deadline. It could not proceed without both the U.S. and Japan. On Jan.23 Donald Trump signed an executive order signalling the Americans were out. 'Absolutely relevant' without U.S. The TPP text as originally negotiated is over 6,000 pages long. It goes far beyond tariff reductions and market access provisions to set common rules to govern trade and services across a broad range of things, including intellectual property rights, labour regulations and environmental standards. Trump's order leaves remaining partners in limbo: theoretically still agreeing to common principles reached, but in need of at least some new negotiations before proceeding with ratification now that the largest economy in the deal, the U.S., is out of the trading bloc. Story continues For example, some market access or tariff trade-offs may have been worth it in return for gains from the Americans. But without the U.S., countries may no longer be willing to make the same concessions the math has changed. Some TPP chapters may be transferrable to a future arrangement between the remaining countries. If the will to proceed exists, they may not need to re-invent everything. There's also the question of whether new countries most notably for Canada, China could join. On the day Trump signed his order last month, Chile's foreign minister, Heraldo Munoz, invited ministers from the 11 other TPP members, as well as China and South Korea, to the March summit to discuss how to proceed. While some TPP countries, including Mexico and Japan, moved to ratify TPP before knowing what the U.S. would do, Canada's Liberal government didn't go any farther than holding public consultations on the deal, which was negotiated by the previous Conservative government and completed during the 2015 election. Conservative critics have called out the Liberals for not putting any of their political capital into promoting the TPP while its future was uncertain. Champagne's office didn't immediately confirm his attendance when the March talks were announced last month. It's unclear if every country will attend, but Munoz said then he had received positive responses at a high level, according to a Reuters report last month. Australia's trade, tourism and investment minister Steven Ciobo said in a Bloomberg Television interview this week that the TPP text remains "absolutely" relevant without the U.S. "There were a lot of hard-fought gains that were achieved over intense negotiations over many years in relation to the TPP," Ciobo said. "I don't want, and I know a number of other countries don't want, those gains to slip through our fingers." Japan, Mexico key partners post-TPP Canada already has bilateral trade deals with some TPP partners, such as Chile. But the TPP was a way to overcome Canada's difficulty negotiating a bilateral trade agreement with Japan, a large and valuable market with a stated preference for wider-ranging trade deals, as opposed to negotiating with partners one at a time. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is in Washington Friday to meet with Trump, who wants to negotiate only bilateral deals from now on. Japan has been part of negotiations with China, the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Australia, India, New Zealand and South Korea towards a new deal called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP.) The Chinese market is the largest in RCEP, and the kind of deal it wants may not be as comprehensive or as progressive as the TPP ambitions were under the leadership of former U.S. president Barack Obama. Continuing to engage in post-TPP discussions would also continue Canada's trade dialogue with Mexico at a time when the threats and shifting priorities of the new Trump administration have cast doubt on the future of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA.) A future post-TPP deal could be a vehicle to enshrine Canada's free trade relationship with Mexico in another agreement. "This year is the year of trade," Champagne said Friday, pointing to the phrases in his new mandate letter tasking him with promoting Canada's trade with China, India and Japan specifically. "My counterparts are calling." A sign is displayed in the reception of Goldman Sachs in Sydney, Australia, May 18, 2016. REUTERS/David Gray/File Photo (Reuters) By Eveline Danubrata JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia will hold a court hearing on Tuesday into a billion-dollar dispute between Goldman Sachs and a local tycoon, who says the Wall Street giant's unit unlawfully sold shares he owned, in the latest test for the country's legal system. Goldman took the unusual step of counter-suing the tycoon - Benny Tjokrosaputro - for reputational damage. The hearing on Tuesday will give the retail-to-property businessman a chance to rebuff Goldman's assertion. The dispute comes at a time when Indonesia, Southeast Asia's largest economy, is embarking on its biggest drive for foreign investment in a decade. Legal experts say the outcome could give an indication on whether the country's civil court proceedings will protect the rights of foreigners. Indonesia's government has recently raised investor concerns by cutting business ties with JPMorgan over a negative research report and partially reversing a mining policy. Goldman's prospects at the hearing could be affected by a general lack of transparency in Indonesian court proceedings, said Bill Sullivan, senior foreign counsel at Indonesian law firm Christian Teo & Partners. "This lack of transparency can result in very surprising decisions, especially when you have a foreign party seeking recovery from a well-resourced and well-connected local party," Sullivan told Reuters in an email. Goldman's dispute with Tjokrosaputro, president director of property developer PT Hanson International Tbk , stems from an arcane area of the financial market in which individuals or firms pledge shares in return for short-term loans, according to court documents and people familiar with the matter. Tjokrosaputro had pledged 425 million Hanson shares to U.S. hedge fund Platinum Partners in return for a loan on the basis that he could get the shares back upon repayment - an arrangement known as a repurchase agreement or a repo. Story continues Goldman's unit, Goldman Sachs International, bought the Hanson shares from Platinum as a hedge for the derivatives it had entered into with the fund, a bank spokesman said. In late 2014, New York-based Platinum fell into financial difficulties and had trouble paying back a large number of investors, according to U.S. authorities who recently charged top executives of the fund with running a $1 billion fraud. Goldman started selling the Hanson shares last year, but was forced to stop after Tjokrosaputro filed a police complaint. He went on to sue Goldman in September for 15 trillion rupiah ($1.1 billion), alleging the transaction was conducted "unlawfully". Tjokrosaputro's lawyer told Reuters his client did not breach his contract with Platinum and that no-one other than Tjokrosaputro had the right to own or sell the shares. In response, Goldman countersued the tycoon last month for at least $1.1 billion claiming reputational damage. Goldman "lawfully" acquired the shares from Platinum through the negotiated board of the Indonesian Stock Exchange and the transactions were validly settled, the bank says in its claim documents. A bank spokesman told Reuters that Goldman Sachs International was not aware of Tjokrosaputro's dealings with Platinum, nor any restrictions on the shares it purchased. ($1 = 13,327.00 rupiah) (Reporting by Eveline Danubrata in Jakarta and Lawrence Delevingne in New York, additional reporting by Cindy Silviana in Jakarta; Editing by Michelle Price and Himani Sarkar) Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay: Washington State Mumps Outbreak Continues to Grow There have been 400 confirmed and probable cases of mumps in Washington state since October and the outbreak could continue to grow, according to CNN. The figure was arrived at through a county-by-county survey. The state reported 349 confirmed and probable cases as of Feb. 1. "It's been a continuous upwards track of new cases. However, until we reach a point where no more vulnerable people are exposed, it may continue to grow," Dave Johnson, a spokesman for the Washington State Department of Health, told CNN. The department is "assisting local health departments with the case investigations" and giving "clinical guidance to healthcare providers about diagnosing and testing for mumps," Johnson said. "We continue to supplying vaccine to local health departments to be sure there is enough for people who need it," he said. "The best way to control the mumps outbreak is to educate people about how to protect themselves and their families from mumps. The MMR vaccine is our first line of defense." When compared to other parts of the country, the outbreak in Washington state is proceeding in a typical manner, Kim Papich, spokeswoman for the Spokane Regional Health District,told CNN. Each year in the U.S., the number of mumps cases range from a couple hundred to a couple thousand, according to Dr. Manisha Patel, a medical officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Patel said 2016 was a "high" year, with 46 states and the District of Columbia reporting 5,311 total cases. but only a few states had above average numbers. Arkansas, Iowa, Oklahoma, New York and Illinois each confirmed more than 300 cases, CNN reported. Children should get their first dose of MMR vaccine at 12 to 15 months of age and the second dose at 4 to 6 years old, the CDC recommends. The vaccine protects against measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox. The vaccine is 88 percent effective with two doses, but less effective with just one dose, CNN reported. ----- Price's Confirmation as Health Secretary Seems Certain Final approval of President Donald Trump's choice for Health and Human Services secretary seems certain. Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., has long pushed for the dismantling of the Affordable Care Act -- President Barack Obama's health care law -- and major changes to Medicare and Medicaid, both of which are major features of the Republican agenda, the Associated Press reported. On Wednesday, the Senate voted 51-48 against Democratic delaying tactics against Price, opening the way for the former orthopedic surgeon and seven-term Congressman from Atlanta's suburbs to be confirmed as health secretary. Republicans believe that once in that position, Price will have the Department of Health and Human Services issue directives weakening the Affordable Care Act. Such actions might include restricting access to free birth control for women who work for religious-affiliated nonprofits, and allowing states to test different ways to use federal Medicaid funds, the AP reported. Price could also lead the way in implementing a still-undrafted Republican plan to replace the Affordable Care Act. At Senate hearings on Price's nomination, Democrats accused Price of conflicts of interest in acquiring shares in health care companies, supporting legislation that could benefit those companies, and using insider information to make investments, the AP reported. Price has said he's done nothing wrong and that the purchase was made by his stockbroker. ----- First-Born Children More Intelligent: Study First-born children tend to be more intelligent than their siblings, perhaps because they get extra parental attention in early life compared to siblings, a new study finds. Researchers examined data from 5,000 children who completed reading and picture vocabulary tests every two years until age 14 and found that first-borns had higher IQ test scores beginning as young as one year old, The Independent reported. The differences in test scores between first-borns and other children increased with age, according to the study in the Journal of Human Resources. While all children in the study received the same level of emotional support from parents, first-born youngsters were given more parental support with tasks that involved thinking, The Independent reported. Cuban artist Juan Abreu (second from far left) with European Parliament members Teresa Gimenez Barbat, Javier Nart and Fernando Maura during the opening of the exhibit, 1959, which features more than 100 portraits of those executed by the Castro regime. More than 100 portraits of Cubans executed by the Castro regime are on display at the European Parliament offices in Brussels thanks to the support of three parliament members from Spain and the Czech Republic. The three politicians are sensitive to Cuban issues and know that Cubans have the same right to live in freedom as any other human being, said Juan Abreu, the Cuban artist and writer who painted the striking series of portraits. I believe that Cubans who live in freedom should thank these Euro deputies for the opportunity to put the cause of a free Cuba before the parliament, he added. Because its not a show of my paintings. It is an event of great international significance. Titled 1959, the exhibit features portraits of 120 Cubans executed by the Castro regimes firing squads. The artist says it amounts to an indictment in the halls of the European Parliament of human rights abuses in Cuba since the late Fidel Castro seized power that year. I did not try to paint conventional portraits, but rather focus on the faces, often blurry because they come from old photographs, in a straightforward and quick manner, with the goal of creating a powerful and musical image, Abreu said during the shows opening Tuesday. I hope that together, they have a common language and function as one pictorial image. 1959 is one painting made up of dozens of paintings. The exhibit was sponsored by Euro Deputies Teresa Gimenez Barbat and Javier Nart of Spain and Dita Charanzova of the Czech Republic. I am very concerned about the situation in countries with totalitarian regimes, Gimenez Barbat said. I believe this had to be seen by parliament. Aside from the quality of Juan Abreus work, hes also very concerned about human liberties in his homeland and other countries. During the exhibits inauguration, Maria Werlau, the Cuban-American president of the nonprofit Cuba Archive and Free Society Project, outlined the violence and political repression that Cubans have suffered under the Castro regime. Obey or die Abreu said he decided to undertake the project because of his outrage, one of the main drivers of my work. He started painting some scenes of firing squad executions. Then I looked into this a little and I saw the faces of all these people, murdered. And I say murdered because theres never been independent justice in Cuba under Castro, so there was never a fair trial for these people. The Castros have used the death penalty from the start of the dictatorship as a dissuasive strategy, he added. All Cubans know they can be sent to the firing squads if the government considers it necessary for the good of the revolution. A priest consoles Jose Rodriguez, a soldier of the pre-Castro government, prior to execution in Matanzas, Jan. 15, 1959. Rodriguez was one of the first men to be executed by the new government of Cuba in 1959. His indictment, trial, sentence and execution happened all at once (less than 1 minute) as was the method of the day. (Photo: A. Lopez) He said that the Castro slogan, Motherland or death, has always meant Obey or die. He said that the Castro slogan, Motherland or death, has always meant Obey or die. The invitation to the exposition notes that in the first year of the Castro regime, nearly 1,000 people were executed by firing squads. The last known execution by firing squad was in 2003 following a swift and secret trial for three men who hijacked a ferry in a failed effort to reach the United States. The Cuban government issued a statement at the time saying the three men Lorenzo Enrique Copello Castillo, Barbaro Leodan Sevilla Garcia, and Jorge Luis Martinez Isaac had been convicted of very grave acts of terrorism. Although the exact total of Castro regime executions is unknown, it is estimated that the number of victims stand at 5,000, the invitation states. Pedro Corzo, a former political prisoner who saw other inmates taken away to their executions and now directs the Institute for the Historic Cuban Memory against Totalitarianism, praised Abreus work. The work hes doing deserves all our respect and admiration, Corzo said. It is important that the bloody record of the Castro regime be known in and out of Cuba. I wish other artists who are sensitive to the suffering of our nation would follow the example set by Juan. I am personally very proud of his project and the way in which hes carrying it out. Abreu left Cuba during the Mariel boatlift in 1980, lived several years in Miami and settled in Barcelona, Spain, where he continues to paint and write. He started the portraits in 2012 and now has painted 302, each roughly 10.5 inches by 14 inches, from photographs of the victims. He said that one of his biggest difficulties has been finding the photographs, even though Werlaus Cuba Archive has helped him, and former political prisoner Luis Gonzalez Infante has made available his collection of books and other materials on firing squads. Without them my work would not have been possible. Some relatives of the victims, when they learned about my project, sent me their photos. But very few, said Abreu, who stressed that each of the portraits was based on a photo. Although sometimes a very bad-quality photo, he added. Angel Cuadra, a poet who heads the ExClub, the association of former political prisoners, also welcomed Abreus work. This is a very smart effort. It makes history speak through the faces of those who sacrificed their lives for Cubas freedom, he said, adding that exhibiting the portraits at the European Parliament offices is also a great opportunity. They sealed those painful pages of sacrifice with their lives, and this exhibit is a way to rescue them and give them a new life, Cuadra said. Abreu puts a face on those valiant Cubans. For many of them, we have no photos, only their names and the history of their fight against Castro. Abreu said hes not stopped painting the portraits since he started. As soon as I finished the first, I could not stop. I knew it was a colossal task, impossible in some ways. But I never doubted that I have to do it, he said. I believe the Castro regime is vile, darkness and death. And my goal with this work is to counter-pose that vileness, that darkness and that death with a grand mural of faces full of life and color, the life and color that their murderers took from them. Finding photos of the victims proved difficult. Its not easy to find photos of the Cubans executed, which are known to be in the thousands. Its like an enormous black hole had swallowed that part of our history, he said. I believe that it was a Castro policy to erase the trail of blood it left along the more than 50 years of dictatorship. And it has done that well, we have to admit. Exhibiting the portraits at the European Parliament office has given him great satisfaction, Abreu added, because putting the faces of the victims of executions in that place is something of a victory, no matter how small, over the Castro regimes silence and lies. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE! Source: Miami Herald , Luis de la Paz, February 8, 2017 You might not have heard the name Kayode Ewumi or Roll Safe, but Im willing to bet you would recognize him from the meme of a main pointing to his head signifying his smartness. British/Nigerian actor Kayode Ewumi as Roll Safe. The meme is actually from a documentary British/Nigerian actor Kayode and his friend Tyrell Williams shot in 2015 titled #HoodDocumentary. According to Vice, the short film follows deluded, but strangely loveable aspiring grime MC Roll Safe as he guides the viewer through "the hood", AKA a small area of south London. READ ALSO: Instagram comedian shares a hilarious video of Yoruba people The film and its subsequent episodes have been viewed over 5 million times on YouTube catapulting 22 year old Kayode into a worldwide online star. Seeing that the Roll Safe character is fake, one has to ask how he came up with him. "It's based on a world that we've seen," Kayode told Vice. "Everyone knows someone like RS, no matter what context [it's in]. He's that guy in the hood convinced that he knows everyone and everything." He goes on to talk deeply about his plans for the character and why he stopped played him. Read more Here. READ ALSO: Fast rising comedian Sl komedy releases hilarious skit on Barack Obama Kayodes photo showing Roll Safe pointing to his head in an attempt to prove his smartness is probably the most famous meme on social media these days. Check out different variations of it below: PAY ATTENTION! Never miss a single gist! Download Legit.ng news app for android Source: Legit.ng After confirmation Tuesday of Betsy Devos as U.S. Secretary of Education, the die is cast; President Donald Trump is assembling one of the most peculiar administrations in American history. Devos did not attend public school. Her children did not attend public school. It is not true, as one critic falsely asserted, that she had never seen the inside of a classroom. In fact, Devos worked as in-school mentor for students in the Grand Rapids Public Schools. But still, her background in education is so sketchy that she would have been laughed out of any cabinet except the one being assembled by the Great Disruptor. Devos' sole claim to fame is that she is a fervent proponent of school choice and used the familys Amway fortune to set up charter schools in Michigan. Critics say the schools do a poor job, but, oddly, there is no system to hold them accountable even though they spend taxpayer dollars. A devout Christian, Devos is a product and an adherent of private religious schools. One lesson that can be drawn from the confirmation of Devos is that the bar for Republican support for Trumps nominees is incredibly low. Even a deluge of phone calls and emails failed to dissuade Sen. Deb Fischer from voting to confirm Devos. And, as Majority Leader Mitch McConnells decision to silence Sen. Elizabeth Warren on the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general revealed, actual debate over the merits of the appointees is itself a pale imitation of the real thing. Here is a roundup of other key Trump appointments. Neil Gorsuch. Post-election punditry predicted a bruising confirmation fight over Trumps replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. Surprisingly, there has been bipartisan praise for Gorsuch. Currently a federal judge, Gorsuch actually has experience in the job for which he was nominated. James Mad Dog Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general, is a solid choice for Secretary of Defense. Already confirmed, Mattis has the background and gravitas to offer wise counsel on how best to protect America if only Trump will listen. Stephen Bannon. One of the scariest figures in the administration, Bannon had an appalling record of encouraging racist fringe groups and disseminating their poison when he ran Breitbart News. And now he is on Trumps National Security Council. And he has Trumps ear. If the name Bannon doesnt already send a chill down your spine, it will soon enough. Sonny Perdue is not the worst candidate Trump could have picked for Secretary of Agriculture. At least Perdue has experience. He grew up on a farm, has a degree in veterinary medicine and ran a fertilizer-and-grain company. But if he cant get his boss to stop blowing up trade agreements that help farmers, dont expect him to be much help to Nebraskas economy. Scott Pruitt. Expect the new head of Environmental Protection to do everything he can to make sure the agency does not live up to its name. Almost 500 former EPA workers, both Republican and Democrat, have signed a letter critical of the appointment, saying that as Oklahoma Attorney General Pruitt, showed no interest in enforcing environmental laws." Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice in Wonderland declared. Before the next four years come to an end, many other quotes from Lewis Carrolls work will apply. Fornebu, Norway - February 9, 2017: REC Silicon ASA (REC Silicon) will release its Q4 2016 results on Thursday, February 16, 2017 at 07:00 a.m. Central European Time (CET). A presentation of the results will be held at 08:00 a.m. CET at Hyres Hus Konferansesenter, Stortingsgaten 20, Oslo, Norway. The presentation will be in English. A live webcast from the presentation can be accessed at www.recsilicon.com or with the following link: http://webtv.hegnar.no/presentation.php?webcastId=44471820 It will also be possible to listen to the presentation through a conference call. Please make sure to dial in 5-10 minutes prior to the scheduled start time on one of the following numbers: Norway (Toll Free): 800 51084 Norway (Local): +47 2100 2610 UK (Toll Free): 0800 358 6377 UK (Local): +44 (0)330 336 9411 USA (Toll Free): 888 349 9618 USA (Local): + 1 719 325 2202 Other international: +44 (0)330 336 9411 Please provide confirmation code 2502782 and state your name, company and country of residence. REC Silicon will host an analyst conference call later the same day at 3:00 p.m. CET. Please make sure to dial in at least 5-10 minutes ahead of time to complete your registration. Norway (Toll Free): 800 51084 Norway (Local): +47 2100 2610 UK (Toll Free): 0800 358 6377 UK (Local): +44 (0)330 336 9105 USA (Toll Free): 800 347 6311 USA (Local): +1 719 457 2086 Other international: +44 (0)330 336 9105 Please provide confirmation code 8985294 and state your name, company and country of residence. For further information, please contact: Christopher Bowes, Investor Relations REC Silicon ASA Phone: +1 509 793 8127 Email: chris.bowes@recsilicon.com Nils O. Kjerstad IR Contact Europe Phone: +47 9135 6659 Email: nils.kjerstad@crux.no About REC Silicon REC Silicon is a leading producer of advanced silicon materials, delivering high-purity polysilicon and silicon gas to the solar and electronics industries worldwide. We combine 30 years of experience and proprietary technology with the needs of our customers, and annual production capacity of more than 20,000 MT of polysilicon from our two US-based manufacturing plants. Listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange (ticker: REC), the company is headquartered in Fornebu, Norway. For more information, go to: www.recsilicon.com GUILFORD, Conn., Feb. 09, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The amount of energy consumed in the operations of higher education institutions in the U.S. has declined by 8 percent and related emissions per square foot are down 14 percent from a 2007 baseline, according to a new report released today by Sightlines and the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Sustainability Institute. We are pleased to see that the data shows continued progress by institutions of higher education in reducing the sectors contribution to climate change, said Nancy Targett, UNHs Provost. Leadership in sustainability has always been important to UNH, both in our practice and in helping other institutionsso were excited about the ways in which the reports findings can advance a vital conversation about how to rapidly accelerate that leadership to achieve greater sustainability across higher education. The report, State of Sustainability in Higher Education 2016, is the second annual study produced in collaboration by the two organizations. Sightlines is a Gordian company and leader in facilities intelligence and analysis for higher education institutions. The UNH Sustainability Institute integrates diverse perspectives, disciplines and knowledge to address sustainabilitys grand challenges. The study was based primarily on data from the 377 colleges and universities that provide information to Sightlines, the largest third-party verified database of higher education facilities data in North America. These institutions represent different Carnegie classes, representing all geographic regions of the U.S., and have a collective 1.5 billion gross square feet (GSF) of facilities assets. The database is comprised of 59% public institutions and 41% private institutions. Key findings from the study included: * Currently, campus carbon footprints may be under-reported by more than 30% Current international carbon reporting standards, to which campuses generally adhere, have traditionally given an incomplete and inconsistent representation of an institutions carbon emissions, by making the reporting of all upstream and downstream emissions voluntary. Most campuses currently report few if any emissions associated with purchased goods, construction, capital reinvestment or demolition. Data in the study suggests that this may lead to under-reporting of carbon emissions by as much as one-thirdwhich means significant lost opportunities for leadership and impact when targeting institutional greenhouse gas reductions. New tools and standards are evolving to encourage and support collection of this missing dataand the report argues that higher education is in a position to help lead a shift globally, across sectors, by engaging in this challenge. * Sustainability policies are lacking when it comes to entire building lifecycle Formal policies that promote sustainability and help minimize environmental impact are common for new construction projects, but the study found these policies are largely absent for other phases of the building lifecycle. For instance, 80 percent of Second Nature Carbon Commitment institutions have committed all new construction to a minimum of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver. Such formal policies, however, are not yet widely adopted for the daily operations, capital reinvestment or demolition of buildings. This represents a missed opportunity to control costs while adding value. * Opportunities abound for further gains in sustainability Sustainability performance has improved sector-wide, but the report notes that significant potential remains. For example, there is opportunity to pay greater attention to sustainability during capital reinvestment and demolition phases, as the need to invest into existing buildings is projected to increase substantially in the coming years. Moreover, limiting net space growth may be an important approach to managing the campus impact and increasing overall institutional sustainabilityfrom both environmental and financial perspectives. Over the past two decades, colleges and universities have embraced numerous programs to minimize their environmental impacts, and campus sustainability leaders have made great strides, said Mark Schiff, president of Sightlines. Our State of Sustainability report aims to quantify and celebrate the sectors progress, as well as outline specific and actionable opportunities for continuous improvement. To that end, this years report analyzes the available data concerning campus efforts to reduce environmental impact during each phase of the building lifecyclefrom construction to operation to capital reinvestment to demolition. Representatives from Sightlines and UNH will host a free webinar on February 21, 2017, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time. This webinar will give attendees the opportunity to hear from experts as they explore these issues in greater detail, provide an in-depth analysis of the trends that comprise the report, and answer audience questions. To register for the webinar, please click here. About Sightlines Founded in 2000, Sightlines, a Gordian company, gives colleges and universities the independent data and perspective they need to make critical decisions about their most valuable assetstheir facilities. Sightlines stewards the industrys most extensive verified database, allowing more than 450 institutions across the U.S. and Canada to benchmark an institutions facilities against universities and colleges across the nation. Sightlines flagship offering for members is ROPA+, a fully integrated solution for facilities intelligence that leads members through a comprehensive process of facilities benchmarking and analysis. Other Sightlines solutions provide higher ed executives with insights to assist with capital planning, space management and campus sustainability initiatives. For more information, please call 203.682.4952, go to http://www.sightlines.com or email insights@sightlines.com. About UNH Sustainability Institute The UNH Sustainability Institute facilitates integration of diverse perspectives, disciplines and knowledge to address sustainabilitys grand challenges. As a university-wide institute, it supports innovation across curriculum, operations, research and engagement. The institute acts as a cultivator and champion of sustainability on campus, in the state and region, and around the world, and is recognized for its unique, creative approach and thought leadership. Learn more at www.sustainableunh.unh.edu. CAVU wrote: ashman843 wrote: Applied in Round 1. Anyone else? Hey Ashman! Good to see some life on here, I applied on 10/3.But there's gotta be more of us on here...Admitted lurker here: I started my app a few months ago, but this is the first time I've posted on the CT threadFor the other R1 applicants out there, it'd be great to really get this thread going so we can help each other through the interview process and beyond.I'm definitely late to the party, but the party right now seems to be three people and a bowl of Ruffles. Now, this doesn't need to be a rager, but if we had a few more R1 applicants join in the festivities, we should at least be able to swing some Tostitos Scoops, a Costco 7-layer bean dip, a Pinata in the shape of a donkey, and a few 6-packs of Mr. Pibb...Whaddya say? nightwing79 wrote: Nobody knows exactly how many languages there are in the world, partly because of the difficulty of distinguishing between a language and the sub-languages or dialects within it, but those who have tried to count typically have found about five thousand. (A) and the sub-languages or dialects within it, but those who have tried to count typically have found (B) and the sub-languages or dialects within them, with those who have tried counting typically finding (C) and the sub-languages or dialects within it, but those who have tried counting it typically find (D) or the sub-languages or dialects within them, but those who tried to count them typically found (E) or the sub-languages or dialects within them, with those who have tried to count typically finding Meaning is crucial to solving this problem: Concepts tested here: Tenses + Meaning + Pronouns + Verb Forms A: Correct. B: and although C: D: E: and although Hence, A is the best answer choice. Dear Friends,Here is a detailed explanation to this question-Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended meaning of the crucial part of this sentence is that although it is difficult to distinguish between a language and the sub-languages or dialects within it, those who have tried to count have found about five thousand. The present perfect tense (marked by the use of the helping verb has/have) is used to describe events that concluded in the past but continue to affect the present. The simple present tense is used to indicate actions taking place in the current time frame, indicate habitual actions, state universal truths, and convey information that is permanent in nature. The simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past. The infinitive verb form (to + base form of verb) is preferred over the present participle (verb+ing) for referring to the purpose/intent of an action. distinguish A from B and distinguish between A and B are the only two correct usages of distinguish.This answer choice correctly refers to the singular noun language with the singular pronoun it. Further, Option A uses the phrase "but those who have tried to count", conveying the intended meaning - that although it is difficult to distinguish between a language and the sub-languages or dialects within it, those who have tried to count have found about five thousand. Additionally, Option A correctly uses the present perfect tense verbs "have tried" and "have found" to refer to actions that concluded in the past but continue to affect the present. Besides, Option A correctly uses the infinitive verb form (to + base form of verb to + count in this sentence) to refer to the intent behind the action tried. Moreover, Option A correctly uses the idiomatic construction distinguish between A (a language) and B (the sub-languages or dialects).This answer choice incorrectly refers to the singular noun language with the plural pronoun them. Further, Option B alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase with those who have tried ; the construction of this phrase incorrectly implies that it is difficult to distinguish between a language and the sub-languages or dialects within it,those who have tried to count have found about five thousand; the intended meaning is thatit is difficult to distinguish between a language and the sub-languages or dialects within it, those who have tried to count have found about five thousand.This answer choice incorrectly uses the simple present tense verb find to refer to an action that concluded in the past but continues to affect the present; please remember, the present perfect tense (marked by the use of the helping verb has/have) is used to describe events that concluded in the past but continue to affect the present, and the simple present tense is used to indicate actions taking place in the current time frame, indicate habitual actions, state universal truths, and convey information that is permanent in nature. Further, Option C uses the present participle (verb+ing counting in this sentence) to refer to the intent behind the action tried; please remember, the infinitive verb form (to + base form of verb) is preferred over the present participle (verb+ing counting in this sentence) for referring to the purpose/intent of an action.This answer choice incorrectly refers to the singular noun language with the plural pronoun them. Further, Option D incorrectly uses the simple past tense verb tried to refer to an action that concluded in the past but continues to affect the present; please remember, the present perfect tense (marked by the use of the helping verb has/have) is used to describe events that concluded in the past but continue to affect the present, and the simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past. Moreover, Option D incorrectly uses the simple present tense verb find to refer to an action that concluded in the past but continues to affect the present; please remember, the present perfect tense (marked by the use of the helping verb has/have) is used to describe events that concluded in the past but continue to affect the present, and the simple present tense is used to indicate actions taking place in the current time frame, indicate habitual actions, state universal truths, and convey information that is permanent in nature. Additionally, Option D incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction distinguish between A (a language) or B (the sub-languages or dialects); please remember, distinguish A from B and distinguish between A and B are the only two correct usages of distinguish.This answer choice incorrectly refers to the singular noun language with the plural pronoun them. Further, Option E alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase with those who have tried ; the construction of this phrase incorrectly implies that it is difficult to distinguish between a language and the sub-languages or dialects within it,those who have tried to count have found about five thousand; the intended meaning is thatit is difficult to distinguish between a language and the sub-languages or dialects within it, those who have tried to count have found about five thousand. Additionally, Option E incorrectly uses the present participle (verb+ing finding in this sentence) to refer to an action that concluded in the past but continues to affect the present; please remember, the present perfect tense (marked by the use of the helping verb has/have) is used to describe events that concluded in the past but continue to affect the present. Besides, Option E incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction distinguish between A (a language) or B (the sub-languages or dialects); please remember, distinguish A from B and distinguish between A and B are the only two correct usages of distinguish.To understand the concept of "Simple Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):To understand the concept of "Present Perfect Tense" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):To understand the concept of using "Infinitive Verb Forms" and "Present Participles" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):All the best!Team_________________ - 29 Kenyan women are in trouble after being arrested in a Saudi Arabian brothel run by Pakistani nationals. Police in Saudi Arabia are holding 29 Kenyan women found engaging in an illegal business in Riyadh city. 29 Kenyan women arrested in Saudi Arabia for engaging in prostitution The women were rounded up during a crack down on drinking dens when the police discovered an illegal brothel. According to Riyath police, the Kenyan women arrested alongside three Pakistani men were engaging in prostitution and are set to face charges. PAY ATTENTION: Get all the latest gossips on NAIJ Gossip App A section of Kenyans living and working in the Middle East have supported the arrests saying it served them right as prostitution was not what took them to the Gulf. Most of the arrested women are said to have ditched their jobs as house helps to assume commercial s*x which is more rewarding. Fellow countrymen have rebuked the women for shaming them leading to Saudi's branding Kenyans as 'sharmuta'- Arabic word for prostitute. It was also gathered that an illegal liquor factory was also discovered. "An initial search of the building in AlDar AlBaida neighborhood in southern Riyadh also revealed a makeshift factory for producing liquor." An illegal liquor factory was also discovered Na wa oo! Source: Legit.ng Just recently in Lagos, a 36-year-old woman Jane Okeke, was disgraced in public, as she was caught stealing some clothes at PEP Super Store, Isolo, Lagos. Woman stripped off her clothes for stealing at a PEP store P.M.EXPRESS disclosed that, the suspect went to an inner room provided to customers to test their selected clothes by the management before they make payment. However, Okeke reportedly selected 11 different wears and went inside the changing room with her handbag, pretended to be trying on those clothes before she could make payment. PAY ATTENTION: Get all the latest gossips on NAIJ Gossip App Unknown to the management, Okeke had another motive. She reportedly removed her old clothes she had kept in her bag, including the clothes she worn and changed them with some of the new clothes she selected from the store, wore some she pretended wanting to buy. However, as she made to exit the store, the security demanded to search her and it was during that exercise that the management discovered what she did. She was stripped of those clothes she had already worn and was immediately handed over to the police by the management. Read full story HERE. Source: Legit.ng One of the reasons I heard for supporting Trump was that he listened to the "little people" like farmers. Really? He must have decided after listening that they were idiots. Why else would you support a man who promised to take almost $400 million in business from you the day he was elected ("Farm groups fear trade war," Jan. 27)? Well, you got your wish. Between canceling the Trans Pacific Partnership and proposed Mexican tariffs, that is a huge market loss. Just please, when you can't sell your goods or must sell at a loss, products you raised with government supported loans and insurance, don't come whining to the taxpayers for bailout money. As I have also heard said, the government should not help people who simply make bad choices. News_release Kawasaki disease (KD) is the most common acquired heart disease in children. Untreated, roughly one-quarter of children with KD develop coronary artery aneurysms balloon-like bulges of heart vessels that may ultimately result in heart attacks, congestive heart failure or sudden death. The causative agent for KD remains unknown a windborne pathogen is suspected but equally mysterious is why and how some children are more susceptible. Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues at Rady Childrens Institute for Genomic Medicine and in London and Singapore, have conducted novel whole genome sequencing of a family in which two of four children were affected by KD. They have identified plausible gene variants that predispose some children to developing the disease. The findings were recently published in the PLOS ONE. This is the first successful analysis of whole genome sequence from a family that revealed a new gene implicated in KD susceptibility, said senior author Jane C. Burns, MD, professor and director of the Kawasaki Disease Research Center at UC San Diego School of Medicine and Rady Childrens Hospital-San Diego. The finding is intriguing because this gene, a member of the Toll-like receptor family, encodes for a protein that is expressed on the cell surface and uniquely binds to proteins outside the cell that come from fungi. This may be a clue that fungal antigens could be one environmental trigger for the disease. Prevalence rates of KD are increasing among children in Asia, the United States and Western Europe. In Japan, the country with the highest incidence: 306 out of every 100,000 children under the age of five, with more than 14,000 new cases annually. One in every 60 boys and one in every 75 girls in Japan will develop KD during childhood. Incidence rates in the United States are lower 9 to 19 per 100,000 children under age 5 but rising, at least in San Diego County. Predictive models estimate that by 2030, 1 in every 1,600 American adults will have been affected by the disease. KD has a clear genetic link. It is most common in the U.S. among persons of Asian or African descent, but its genetics is complex and researchers have struggled to identify which gene variants and combinations cause some children to develop the disease. Burns and colleagues employed analysis of whole genome sequence for the first time to examine a six-member African-American family in which two children had KD, but the parents and other siblings did not. Despite their apparent increased susceptibility, children of African-American descent have been excluded from previous KD genetic analysis, the authors wrote. Key among the tools used was whole genome sequencing, a process in which the complete DNA sequence of a persons genome is determined at a single time. The researchers also looked at genome-wide association studies, which search for genetic variation in large populations. The goal was to find, if possible, distinct gene variants that, in combination, might indicate predisposition to and higher likelihood of developing KD. The researchers identified a variation of the toll-like receptor 6 gene, which plays a fundamental role in the immune system, that may be linked to the pro-inflammatory state during the acute stage of KD. Previous research had not identified this gene as influencing susceptibility to KD. In addition, another variant in a gene called tumor-associated calcium signal transducer 2, which is involved in cellular calcium signaling, was highlighted. The authors said further investigation of TACSTD2 is needed. Burns said the study, with its analytic approach and use of whole genome sequencing, represents a new method for uncovering relevant gene variants in families affected by not just KD, but many other complex genetic diseases. The analysis of whole genome sequence to understand disease genetics is only recently becoming a tool that is affordable and manageable due to new developments in computer science. We are excited to be learning how to harness the power of this analysis to study our children, Burns said. Our next approach will be to compare the whole genome sequence from KD patients with severe heart damage to those with no damage despite no or delayed treatment. We hope this will lead us to the genetic pathways that result in damage to the coronary arteries, which in turn will suggest new therapies to target those pathways. Co-authors include: Jihoon Kim, Chisato Shimizu, Eric Levy, Andre M. Ribeiro do Santos, Hai Yang, Olivier Harismendy, and Lucila Ohno-Machado, UC San Diego; Stephen F. Kingsmore, and Narayanan Veeraraghavan, Rady Childrens Institute for Genomic Medicine; Jay Flatley, Illumina; Long Truong Hoang, Genome Institute of Singapore; Martin L. Hibberd, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; and Adriana H. Tremoulet, UC San Diego and Rady Childrens Hospital-San Diego. Funding for this research came, in part, from the National Institutes of Health (U54HL108460) and the Gordon and Marilyn Macklin Foundation. George Soros gave Ivanka's husband's business a $250 million credit line in 2015 per WSJ. Soros is also an investor in Jared's business. 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 On Jan. 24, I joined many Nebraskans over our lunch hour to deliver personal letters to Sen. Ben Sasses office in Lincoln, urging him to protect quality, affordable health care. As national conversation about coming changes in health care heighten, it was encouraging to see so many Nebraskans come together to follow up discussions with action. I had never gone to a senators office before, and it was heartening to see nearly 70 people show up to tell Sen. Sasse how important it will be to not repeal the Affordable Care Act without a sound replacement. Altogether, there were almost 150 letters delivered to Sen. Sasse, filled with personal stories of how health care impacts their lives. That day, I talked to a woman who said how the Childrens Health Insurance Program was essential in maintaining her sisters life for a year. It exemplifies just how important it was to come together and act on this issue and why it is necessary that our members of Congress not repeal the Affordable Care Act without a replacement. I definitely encourage you to reach out to your congressional representatives and express your hope that they protect health coverage for all Nebraskans. Maura Gray, Lincoln Since the election, I have tried to understand why 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump, a man twice divorced and a philanderer who brags about his sexual conquests and abuse of women. Is that what the so-called moral majority has come to? Politics over principle? To what end? All I can figure is that they want the 1950s back and Trump promises that. Their idealized view of that time may include a dominant white majority at the high point of church membership in our country's history. It seems like a safer and more secure time for white people. That began to change with the Civil Rights movement but other fears like the atom bomb, the McCarthy anti-Communism blacklists and general paranoia is part of my memory. The Rev. John Simmons, four houses down from ours, had a bomb thrown through his window in North Hollywood in 1962, which caused great damage and barely missed injuring or killing his daughter. The reason: He was speaking at a meeting in support of the United Nations that night. With Trump we may be getting that 1950s back in spades. David McCreary, Lincoln Sen. Deb Fischer said Thursday that it's up to President Donald Trump to decide whether to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, but the administration needs to "have good reason" to do so and be ready to explain that decision. Earlier in the day, Gen. John Nicholson Jr., commander of the international military force in Afghanistan, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he needs "a few thousand" more U.S. troops. Fischer, a member of the committee, said that's a judgment for the president to render in consultation with his military advisers. Some 8,400 U.S. troops are part of an international force of about 13,300 soldiers stationed in Afghanistan. Answering a flurry of questions during a telephone conference call from Washington, Fischer said the presence of controversial White House adviser Steve Bannon on the National Security Council is a decision the president can make. "I am hopeful that the president would continue to seek counsel and advice from advisers with facts and experience so they can help make sure he has all the information necessary," Nebraska's senior Republican senator said. Bannon, the former controversial chairman of Breitbart News who now is the president's chief strategist at the White House, was named by Trump as a principal member of the NSC in place of the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who no longer will be permanent members. Fischer said she planned to visit with U.S. Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch later in the day, asking about "his views on various constitutional matters" as well as his judicial philosophy. "I would also like to hear his views and perceptions about current and past justices," Fischer said. Asked about the president's characterization of U.S. District Judge James Robart as a "so-called judge" after his ruling temporarily blocking Trump's targeted refugee and immigrant travel ban, Fischer said: "I respect the president. I respect the judiciary. We are co-equal branches of government. We all have our responsibility and we all need to work together." The university said in a news release that Henning Brothers LLC is paying just over $800,000 for the 57-year-old, 108-unit complex and will take ownership June 1. Hennings Brothers plans to renovate the nine buildings for rental housing. The decision to sell University Heights, which sits northwest of the university's main campus, came after an analysis of the structure and the cost to renovate. It had been the option for married students and others who wanted to live off-campus. In October the university told the 43 students living there that University Heights will close this spring. Let me try to play matchmaker. Send me the date (immediately) and your name and contact info and I'll try to hook you up with a buyer by the end of the hour. Minibar is a special restaurant. Someone out there is sure to want your seats. Good morning, everyone. Earlier this morning, the James Beard Foundation announced its chef and restaurant award semifinalists. I'm thrilled to see so many DC-area names in the national categories, among then Fabio Trabocchi for Outsanding Chef; Ashok Bajaj for Outstanding Restaurateur; Columbia Room for Outstanding Bar; Mark Furstenberg for Outstanding Baker; Pineapple and Pearls and Sweet Home Cafe for Best New Restaurant; Rasika for Outstanding Restaurant -- and on. Here's the complete list, including the Mid-Atlantic semifinalists. Congrats to you all. Today's chat may end before noon. I'm racing to finish some deadlines before I leave for a week (Japan!) , but I didn't want to miss hosting today's chat, since I'll be away Feb. 22. Let's begin. What's on your mind? The United Nations and humanitarian partners Wednesday launched an international appeal for $2.1 billion to provide life-saving assistance to 12 million people in Yemen in 2017, a UN press release says, noting that this is the largest-ever humanitarian response plan for the war-torn country. Two years of war have devastated Yemen Without international support, they may face the threat of famine in the course of 2017 and I urge donors to sustain and increase their support to our collective response, said UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen OBrien in a press release on the launch of the Humanitarian Response Plan for Yemen in Geneva. Humanitarian partners are ready to respond. But they need timely, unimpeded access, and adequate resources, to meet the humanitarian needs wherever they arise, said OBrien, who is also the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs. He noted that since March 2015, violent conflict and disregard by all parties to the conflict for their responsibility to protect civilians have created a vast protection crisis in Yemen and millions of people face threats to their safety and basic human rights every day. In addition, deliberate war tactics are accelerating the collapse of key institutions and the economy, thereby exacerbating pre-existing vulnerabilities. This has left an alarming 18.8 million people more than two thirds of the population in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which also estimates that 10.3 million people are acutely affected and nearly 3.3 million people including 2.1 million children are acutely malnourished. In 2016, 120 national and international partners including UN agencies and NGOs working out of humanitarian hubs in Aden, Al Hudaydah, Ibb, Sanaa, and Saada assisted more than 5.6 million people with direct humanitarian aid, the press release says. Two investigational agents, Aurora A kinase inhibitor (alisertib) and HSV1716, a virus derived from HSV-1 and attenuated by the deletion of RL1, have shown some antitumor efficacy in early clinical trials as monotherapies. A new study published last week in Oncotarget, however, demonstrates that the combined usage of the agents results in significantly increased antitumor efficacy in models of malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor (MPNST) and neuroblastoma."We chose to investigate this combination in MPNST and neuroblastoma because these are two difficult-to-treat sarcomas that have shown susceptibility to these agents individually," explains Timothy Cripe, MD, PhD, division chief of Hematology/Oncology & BMT at Nationwide Children's Hospital and senior author on the study. "MPNST is a rare pediatric cancer, but for patients with neurofibromatosis 1, a genetic cancer predisposition disorder, it is the leading cause of death. More importantly, MPNST is resistant to chemotherapy." According to Dr. Cripe, who is also a principal investigator in the Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Diseases in The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's, many mechanisms likely worked synergistically to increase the antitumor effect in this study. Particularly, HSV1716 increased the sensitivity of uninfected cells to alisertib cytotoxicity. Second, alisertib increased peak virus production and slowed virus clearance from tumors. The team also found that alisertib inhibited virus-induced accumulation of intratumoral myeloid derived suppressor cells. "Our study shows that alisertib helps the infection phase of HSV1716 because innate immunity is impacted," says Dr. Cripe, also professor of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. "It's possible that it could inhibit the second phase, the downstream immunotherapeutic effects of the virotherapy, but based on data from other studies, we don't think that is the case." Moving forward, Dr. Cripe says that confirming the sustained immunotherapeutic benefits of HSV1716 in the presence of alisertib and building a clinical trial are important next steps in understanding how these agents work together and how they could impact care for patients. "Our results, in the context of early trials of both substances individually that have shown safety and efficacy, support the testing of this combination in children and young adults with neuroblastoma and MPNST," says Dr. Cripe. "As these agents continue to move through the development and approval processes, we look forward to studying them further." More information: Mark A. Currier et al, Aurora A kinase inhibition enhances oncolytic herpes virotherapy through cytotoxic synergy and innate cellular immune modulation, Oncotarget (2017). Journal information: Oncotarget Mark A. Currier et al, Aurora A kinase inhibition enhances oncolytic herpes virotherapy through cytotoxic synergy and innate cellular immune modulation,(2017). DOI: 10.18632/oncotarget.14885 There is healthy reasoning in installing bedside interpreter-phone systems in hospitals so that patients can be connected to professional interpreters around the clock. It helps bridge the language barrier that often exists between doctors and patients when all-important healthcare procedures have to be discussed and agreed to. This is according to the findings of a study led by Jonathan Lee and Leah Karliner of the University of California San Francisco in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, published by Springer. Doctors are ethically and legally obliged to get informed consent from their patients before any invasive healthcare procedure can be provided. Clear communication is therefore essential to ensure that the purpose, risk, benefits and alternatives of a procedure are clearly conveyed. Language barriers between doctors and their patients, however, become a problem in countries such as the US where over 25 million people do not speak English very well. Previous studies have shown that such breakdowns in communication lead to more cases of error (and subsequent malpractice litigation). People with limited English have a higher readmission rate back into the hospital, and are less likely to use walk-in healthcare services. The study took place six months before and after a fixed dual-handset telephone system was installed next to every bed in a large academic medical center in the US. The phones have programmed buttons that allow patients and doctors to connect with professional medical interpreters within a minute in more than 100 languages, 24 hours a day. The system was tested on 152 older Chinese- and Spanish-speaking patients with a very limited grasp of English, as well as 86 English-speaking patients who were all to undergo invasive cardiovascular or orthopedic procedures, or general surgery. It was compared to the prior state of usual care delivery, which included staff interpreters who were only available with advanced scheduling during office hours, and a mobile dual-handset, interpreter-phone system that is carted around to where there is a need. Once the bedside system was in place, 54 percent of patients with limited English were notably better able to understand the reasons for the procedures being considered, as well as the risks involved. It also gave them a better chance to get all their questions answered. This is compared to a much lower percent (29) of patients before the bedside system, and a much higher percent (74) of English speakers. "Implementation of a bedside interpreter-phone system to increase rapid access to professional interpreters should be considered for all hospitals seeking to improve quality and decrease disparities for patients with limited English proficiency," advises Lee. The continued difference in consent communication for patients with a language barrier and for English speakers may be in part due to use of ad-hoc family interpreters despite the availability of phone interpreters, demonstrating a need for educational campaigns and cultural shifts to make both doctors and patients aware of the value of using professional interpreters. More information: Jonathan S. Lee et al, Increased Access to Professional Interpreters in the Hospital Improves Informed Consent for Patients with Limited English Proficiency, Journal of General Internal Medicine (2017). Journal information: Journal of General Internal Medicine Jonathan S. Lee et al, Increased Access to Professional Interpreters in the Hospital Improves Informed Consent for Patients with Limited English Proficiency,(2017). DOI: 10.1007/s11606-017-3983-4 HPV replication inhibitors screening assay system. Credit: Karl Mumm, Icosagen Cell Factory Inc. Scientists have used genetic engineering techniques to develop a new system that could aid identification of potential drug targets and treatments for human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, according to a PLOS Pathogens study. HPVs include more than 200 subtypes and cause illnesses ranging from genital warts to throat and cervical cancer. Every year, six million people are diagnosed with new HPV infections in the U.S. alone. Doctors administer a wide variety of treatments for illnesses caused by HPVs, with varying success, but no specific cure for HPV infection yet exists. To aid development of a cure, Mart Toots and colleagues of the Icosagen Cell Factory Ltd. and University of Tartu, Estonia have created a new method that enables identification of potentially effective drugs and drug targets. Unlike previously developed systems, their method takes into account the full HPV genome, as well as all three stages of the viral life cycle that occur during HPV infection. To develop the new system, the researchers genetically engineered HPV genomes by adding "reporter genes" that code for bioluminescent proteins and allow for easy monitoring of viral growth at any life cycle stage. This enables the use of a method called high-throughput screening to quickly test the effects of many different chemicals on viral growth and identify potential drug candidates or drug targets. The scientists demonstrated the new system by using it to screen more than 1000 chemical compounds in HPVs grown in cells derived from human tissue. They identified several compounds that blocked the growth of some HPV subtypes. Some of these compounds inhibit specific human cellular proteins that HPVs hijack to replicate inside the body, suggesting that these proteins could serve as targets in the development of new anti-HPV drugs. "We are confident that the developed HPV drug screening assay system will allow to identify several different novel drug targets and small molecule drugs," the authors further explain. "These could be used effectively for elimination of cutaneous and mucosal low risk and high risk Human Papillomavirus infections, therefore addressing serious unmet medical need in society, like benign and malignant HPV positive epithelial tumours." More information: Toots M, Ustav M Jr, Mannik A, Mumm K, Tamm K, Tamm T, et al. (2017) Identification of several high-risk HPV inhibitors and drug targets with a novel high-throughput screening assay. PLoS Pathog 13(2): e1006168. Journal information: PLoS Pathogens Toots M, Ustav M Jr, Mannik A, Mumm K, Tamm K, Tamm T, et al. (2017) Identification of several high-risk HPV inhibitors and drug targets with a novel high-throughput screening assay.13(2): e1006168. DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1006168 Poor working conditions in a hot climate with regular dehydration and mineral deficiency is probably what causes the chronic kidney disease Mesoamerican nephropathy in Central American and Mexican agricultural workers, researchers at Karolinska Institutet and their colleagues in Nicaragua and El Salvador conclude. For their study, which is published in the scientific periodical the American Journal of Kidney Diseases, the researchers examined kidney tissue in people with this disease. Mesoamerican nephropathy (MeN) is a chronic kidney disease that affects many men in rural Central America engaged in physical labour in a hot climate. Over the past 20 years, several regions in Central America have seen a dramatic increase in chronic kidney disease that is unrelated to diabetes or high blood pressure. In some villages in El Salvador, up to 18 per cent of the working male population are affected. Chronic kidney disease was also the second most common cause of death amongst male nationals in 2009, most of whom were young plantation (mainly sugar) workers. "This is a serious health problem that deserves attention, research and preventative measures," says principal investigator Julia Wijkstrom, doctoral student at the Department of Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology. Ms Wijkstrom and her colleagues from Karolinska Institutet, Nicaragua and El Salvador have studied kidney biopsies and blood and urine samples from 19 sugar cane workers with MeN in Nicaragua. She also looked at the long-term impact of the disease on kidney function in MeN patients in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Her results show that people with MeN have unique tissue morphology in kidney biopsies with indications of anoxia in the glomeruli and chronic damage to the renal tissue but normal vessel structures. The patients often display a salt imbalance with low levels of sodium, potassium and magnesium. The findings corroborate earlier work by the group on a smaller group of plantation workers in El Salvador with kidney disease. Deterioration continues The study also shows that kidney function in the affected people generally continues to deteriorate even when they stop becoming dehydrated in this working environment. Measures of prevention and early detection are therefore important. "Scientists are gradually becoming aware of the disease, as are the local health authorities," says Ms Wijkstrom. "Hard physical labour in a hot climate has been identified as a strong risk factor in this disease, which is probably exacerbated by repeated dehydration and mineral deficiency. There are reports from other hot regions of the world of rising incidences of chronic kidney disease, and it's not unlikely that we're seeing a global epidemic propelled by global warming." More information: Julia Wijkstrom et al. Renal Morphology, Clinical Findings, and Progression Rate in Mesoamerican Nephropathy, American Journal of Kidney Diseases (2017). Journal information: American Journal of Kidney Diseases Julia Wijkstrom et al. Renal Morphology, Clinical Findings, and Progression Rate in Mesoamerican Nephropathy,(2017). DOI: 10.1053/j.ajkd.2016.10.036 Older adults who live in poor and violent urban neighborhoods are at greater risk for depression, a study by researchers from UC Davis, the University of Minnesota and other institutions published Jan. 23 in the journal Health & Place has found. The research specifically showed that older adults who lived in neighborhoods with more homicide and a higher poverty rate experienced more depressive symptoms. In fact, neighborhood homicide rates accounted for almost a third of the effect of neighborhood poverty on older adult depression. According to the World Health Organization, depression affects 120 million people worldwide. It is the third leading cause of global disease burden and it is projected that unipolar depressive disorders will become the leading cause of global disease burden by 2030. While depression is a major issue at any age, it is a particular concern for the elderly, increasing disability and mental decline and reducing quality of life. "Given the shift towards an aging population and the growing rates of depression among older adults, understanding the factors that contribute to depression is critical," said Spruha Joshi, a doctoral student in epidemiology at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and first author on the paper. Neighborhoods in which older adults live are an important factor influencing depression and overall mental health, she said. "We wanted to investigate the total effect poverty has on older adult depression, but also look at particular characteristics that might explain that relationship," said Magdalena Cerda, associate professor in the UC Davis Health Department of Emergency Medicine and senior author. "Specifically, what is it about poor neighborhoods that make people depressed? This study really highlights the role violence plays in affecting mental health." While previous studies revealed a link between poverty and depression, few have focused exclusively on older adults. In addition, previous efforts had not addressed the many conditions in poor neighborhoods that could contribute to older adult depression. "Older adults tend to be less mobile and more dependent on the amenities, services and sources of social support in the neighborhoods where they live," Joshi said. For the study, the researchers queried data from the New York City Neighborhood and Mental Health in the Elderly Study II (NYCNAMES II), a three-year study of elderly residents in the nation's most populous city. Depression was measured using the nine-question Patient Health Questionnaire. The team looked at several neighborhood factors that might contribute to depression, such as high homicide rates, poor perception of safety, pedestrian and bicyclist injuries, green space, social cohesion and walkability. The study sample was 61 percent female and 47 percent non-Hispanic white. In addition, 60 percent of respondents had incomes below $40,000. While many factors were examined, violence was the only neighborhood characteristic that substantially contributed to depression in older adults in impoverished, urban communities. "We found that about 30 percent of the relationship between neighborhood poverty and depression was explained by the higher homicide rate," Cerda said. These findings could help shape policy to improve quality of life for older adults in urban neighborhoods. "Violence in the pathway between poverty and depression is a critical finding," Joshi said. "Now we can look at neighborhoods that are not only poor but also have high levels of violence and possibly provide support for older adults in the area." The study highlights the key role that violence can play in shaping the mental health of local residents. By investing in violence prevention in high-poverty neighborhoods, it's possible to reduce violence and improve the mental health of vulnerable populations, Cerda added. More work will need to be done to tease out the relationships between neighborhood conditions and depression for older adults in impoverished neighborhoods. "There are still many pathways through which poor neighborhoods can shape mental health that we don't yet understand," Joshi said. "Identifying these pathways will be critical if we want to identify suitable ways to promote mental health in local residents." More information: Spruha Joshi et al, Pathways from neighborhood poverty to depression among older adults, Health & Place (2017). Journal information: Health & Place Spruha Joshi et al, Pathways from neighborhood poverty to depression among older adults,(2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2016.12.003 White-footed mouse, Peromyscus leucopus, with deer ticks in its ear. Despite their name, these tiny ticks prey mostly on mice, sometimes on deer, and occasionally on humans. They can pass blood-borne pathogens, such as the bacterium that causes Lyme disease, from one host to another. Credit: Jesse L. Brunner Just as we're getting used to knowing we have trillions of bacteria populating us, from our eyeballs to our intestines, comes word that we need to look beyond bacteria to even smaller squatters: the virome, a vast community of viruses that calls us home. Some of your viruses are just visiting and will be gone in a week. Most are permanent tenants. A few may even find their way into your DNA. In fact, wealong with most other mammalsowe our very existence to viruses that took up residence in the chromosomes of distant ancestors millions of years ago. Because of those embedded viral genes, animals evolved that make a placenta, the organ that supports the developing fetus during gestation. "Most mammals are characterized by the fact that we bear live young that were nourished by a placenta," says Penn State biologist Peter Hudson. "We would not be who we are if it wasn't for the fact that we have virus DNA within our DNA." The viruses most on Hudson's mind these days are not so helpful. They have names like Zika, Chikungunya, SARS, H5N1, and they have suddenly jumped from the animals they normally infectapes, birds, bats, miceto cause epidemics in human populations. "We're talking about diseases that we can't control, and diseases we did not know were a threat to humans," says Hudson. "Most of the emerging infectious diseases that arise come from wildlife reservoir hosts," says research associate Kurt Vandegrift, who did his doctoral work in Hudson's lab and now runs a research program of his own. "When we find a new one, there's always a scramble to find out where it came from. What species is the reservoir host? How did the virus get into humans? How does it spread? We never know this information, we don't have a vaccine, we don't have any of these things. We're really behind the 8-ball." Hudson and Vandegrift aren't virologists or medical doctors. They're wildlife biologists in the classical mold, trained to observe animals in their natural habitat. They think one key to fighting emerging diseases is finding out before they get into humans which pathogens we're mostly likely to encounterthe ones that are carried by the wild creatures we're most likely to touch, share space with, or be bitten by. For people who live in the eastern U.S., the list of "peri-domestic" species includes deer, rabbits, chipmunks, and the white-footed mouse, as well as the ticks and mosquitoes that feed on both our furry neighbors and ourselves. Aside from bug bites, we pick up viruses from these creatures through contactremoving a mouse from a trap, handling game during a hunting tripor by inhaling their dust and dander in cupboards, sheds, and other confined places. As Vandegrift memorably puts it, "We breathe their fecal by-products." In 2012 Vandegrift and Hudson launched a study of the community ecology of the white-footed mouse: How many are there, what makes their numbers go up and down, what's their social structure, what parasites do they have, and how do the parasites spread through the population? "We need to understand the dynamics of the mouse population," says Hudson. "As they increase, so the risk of infection to us increasesthere's more mice, there's more ticks, there's more disease transmission taking place." The implications of the study reach beyond mice and the diseases they carry, says Vandegrift. "We're using a wildlife system to learn how we can monitor and manipulate things, to then inform public health practices in humans. Or at least give us an idea about what we should look for." To catch a mouse Their target animal was easy to find. The white-footed mouse, Peromyscus leucopus (PAIR-oh-MIS-kus loo-KOH-pus), ranges throughout most of the eastern two-thirds of the U.S. and is abundant in and around Penn State's University Park campus. "They're everywhere," says Vandegrift. "They're so adaptable." They live in houses, barns, and sheds, under tent platforms and in woodpiles, in long-parked cars and lawnmowers. They also carry several pathogens that can infect humans, such as Borrelia, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease, and the hantavirus, which kills nearly 40 percent of the people it infects. "I don't touch any of these critters without wearing gloves," says Vandegrift. "The hantavirus seriously freaks me out. It's only in extreme cases that people get itbut we are an extreme case, seeking out these animals and spending eight hours a day around them." Three times a week, he and his team of graduate and undergraduate students set out live traps baited with oats in two dozen 100-meter-square grids on a wooded hillside southwest of town. Each caught mouse gets the equivalent of a thorough medical exam: The researchers weigh and measure it, estimate its age, check its overall condition, whether it has bred recently and how many fleas and ticks it carries, and gather blood and fecal samples for analysis in the lab. It also gets a tiny Passive Induced Transponder (PIT) tag inserted into the scruff to trace its movements and range. Like a pet's microchip, the tag provides a unique ID number that can be read by an electronic scanner. If a trapped mouse already has a tag, the team scans it and records the information from it before releasing the mouse to carry on with its life. "We can actually follow individuals through time," says Vandegrift. "We know who lives where and whose home ranges overlap or touch. We can check whether they have been exposed to a certain pathogen, and we can know when they got infected. Ideally, we should be able to watch parasites flow through the populations." An unusual corporate partnership Vandegrift found that Peromyscus numbers in his study area vary widely; sometimes a sampling grid yields one mouse per day, other times it catches 100. But he learned from colleagues doing similar trapping studies that the population highs and lows near State College do not match the highs and lows elsewhere in the region over the same period. That lack of synchrony makes it much harder to correlate population levels with disease transmission. Figuring out the population cycles of a wild species by doing a trapping study is incredibly laborious in one small location. To do it over the entire country, or even just the Northeast, is simply not feasible. Trying to come up with a way of estimating mouse population cycles, Vandegrift recalled the classic example of Canada lynx and snowshoe hares, a roughly 10-year wax-wane cycle between predator and prey. To discover that cycle experimentally would have meant catching and counting lynx and hares, year-round, for decades. As it happens, the lynx-hare cycle was not found by doing field work. It was discovered by studying the fur-trapping records of the Hudson's Bay Company from the 1820s into the early 1900s. Trappers turned in more hare and lynx pelts in years of abundance of each species, and fewer in years of scarcity. In that nearly century-long record, the 10-year cycles were clear. Vandegrift wondered whether comparable records were available that would be relevant to Peromyscus numbers. "We thought and we thought," says Vandegrift. "And we thought, maybe it's mousetrap sales, because people don't buy mousetraps unless they see a mouse in the house, and that happens primarily when the populations are elevated." He contacted Woodstream, Inc., the company that makes Victor mousetraps, and asked if they would share their sales figures with him. The Woodstream people sent records for the past 10 years broken down by postal code, by week, for all of the U.S., Puerto Rico, and Canada. "It's a huge filea HUGE filemore data than I've ever dealt with," says Vandegrift. His lab is now comparing that data with results of other trapping studies done in the same time frame across the US, to see if mousetrap sales are indeed a reliable indicator of mouse population numbers. If they are, Vandegrift can use the sales figures to construct long-term Peromyscus population maps for any area of concern. So far, it's looking good. Going viral Seed money from Hudson's Willaman Chair endowment enabled Vandegrift to start the field studies, but at the time, tests to identify viruses were prohibitively expensive. Without the means to catalog the entire community of viruses the mice carry, he checked the blood samples for a few viral infections for which tests were available. He also checked for gut worms, parasites large enough to be identified with a relatively low-cost, low-power microscope. He encountered one kind of worm he had to send to an expert for identification. It turned out to be a new species, which has since been named after himHeligmosomoides vandegrifti. "I told my mother that now I don't have to have children, because I've preserved the family name forever," he says. Then, as word of his fieldwork got around, a group of Columbia University scientists led by Amit Kapoor, now at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, got in touch with Vandegrift to ask if they could have blood samples from his mice. They wanted to test for a virus similar to Hepatitis C, in hopes that Peromyscus could serve as a model system for studying the disease. The deer tick (also known as black-legged tick), Ixodes scapularis. The tiny nymph stage, shown here on a human fingertip, is the most dangerous for transmitting Lyme disease to people. Credit: Thinkstock According to the Centers for Disease Control, close to 200 million people worldwide carry Hep C as a chronic infection, and about 20,000 Americans die from it each year. The Hep C virus has been notoriously hard to study because other than humans, it was known to infect only chimps and horses, neither of which anyone wanted to experiment on. Finding a version of Hep C in Peromyscus, which is easy to handle in a laboratory, could greatly improve the odds of developing treatments or possibly even a vaccine for the disease. Vandegrift agreed to his colleagues' request, and added one of his own. "Could you identify all the viruses in the samples? Because we have this data set on the population biology that nobody else has, and we could really make use of those," he recalls. "And they said OK." With powerful and less costly new "454" DNA-sequencing technology, the Columbia team compared all the potential viral DNA in the mouse samples with the DNA sequences in GenBank, a massive library compiled from thousands of species. The result was the first comprehensive study of the Peromyscus virome. The Peromyscus samples do not have any of the viruses typically seen in lab mice"They're a different species, so you shouldn't really expect that," he saysbut they do have at least eight that had never been identified before, including a form of Hepatitis C. Vandegrift and his lab are now studying the course of the disease in Peromyscus. Humans don't catch the mouse version of the virus, but if the illness it causes in Peromyscus is similar to what happens in people, the adaptable little mouse could become a great boon to those researching the human form of the disease. Keeping it real The Peromyscus virome project was so successful that Vandegrift, Hudson, Kapoor and other colleagues have gone on to survey the virome of the deer tick (Ixodes scapularis, also known as the black-legged tick). The project has the potential to spot viruses that don't currently pose a threat to humans but that could jump to us if they undergo a small genetic change that allows them to infect people or makes them more virulent. Like finding the relative of Hep C in mice, such a discovery would let us study how the virus works and how it is transmitted. "We could even create a vaccine for it pre-emptively, so if it does spill over into humans, we're finally not behind the 8-ball," says Vandegrift. The research team recently won a $2.35 million grant from the National Science Foundation to study the complex interactions between Peromyscus and its viruses, including how they relate to each other during an infection and over time. This goes far beyond an inventory of the viruses the mice carry. It's more like a detailed community history, and it could help solve one of the persistent mysteries of medicine: Why do some people get much sicker than others with the same illness? Genetics has something to do with it, but Hudson and Vandegrift think it has more to do with the fact that we are rarely, if ever, infected by just one germ at a timeand since pathogens change your immune system, how sick you get from a new pathogen doesn't depend only on the ones you're infected with now; it's a reflection of all the infectious diseases you've ever had, and even in what order you had them. "Your ability to be invaded depends on what's happened in your life," Hudson says. "It's going to be different for everybody, because everybody's life is different." He offers himselfa native of Great Britain who has worked with wildlife in Africa, Australia, and the Americasas an example. "I have had tuberculosis, I've had sleeping sickness. I was also infected with measles, chicken pox, rubella, German measles, all of those childhood diseases. Given that, what is my susceptibility to new infections? Am I less likely or more likely to get malaria or to get Chikungunya or to get Zika virus?" The new project, again working with the wild mice of central Pennsylvania, will help them understand those kinds of interactions in a way no lab study ever could. "We always consider parasites in isolation, but they almost never exist in isolation," says Vandegrift. "The dynamics of that pathogen may be totally different if the host has another infection. Studying it in a wild population gives us all of these biological realities that you don't have in a lab. "It's real science. Real complicated, though." (HealthDay)There are a number of ways parents can help give a boost to their child's immune system, a family doctor suggests. "The immune system helps us fight infections," said Dr. Palak Shroff, a family medicine specialist at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center. "Immunity develops over time, so the more someone gets exposed, the more the immune system develops," Shroff explained in a center news release. "Kids' whole environment is new, but over time, their immunity will develop and get better," she added. Shroff suggested eight keys to helping children minimize their risk of catching every cold and virus that comes their way: Breast-feeding is the first step. It is an important way to help your child develop a strong immune system. "During breast-feeding, the mother's immunity transfers to the child," Shroff said. It is an important way to help your child develop a strong immune system. "During breast-feeding, the mother's immunity transfers to the child," Shroff said. Vaccination is another crucial factor. Receiving all recommended vaccines prevents kids from catching potentially dangerous illnesses, such as whooping cough, measles, mumps, hepatitis and chicken pox. "All children over 6 months of age should get a flu shot. Sometimes small kids get the flu and that develops into pneumonia, then they struggle to get better for a long time," Shroff noted. Receiving all recommended vaccines prevents kids from catching potentially dangerous illnesses, such as whooping cough, measles, mumps, hepatitis and chicken pox. "All children over 6 months of age should get a flu shot. Sometimes small kids get the flu and that develops into pneumonia, then they struggle to get better for a long time," Shroff noted. Offer kids a healthy diet. Parents should make sure children receive balanced meals with lots of fruits and vegetables. These foods contain antioxidants, vitamins and minerals that are essential for the immune system. Parents should make sure children receive balanced meals with lots of fruits and vegetables. These foods contain antioxidants, vitamins and minerals that are essential for the immune system. Kids need sufficient sleep. If children aren't well-rested, their bodies lose their natural defense mechanisms and have a tougher time fighting off illness, Shroff said. If children aren't well-rested, their bodies lose their natural defense mechanisms and have a tougher time fighting off illness, Shroff said. Physical activity is also important. Getting plenty of exercise promotes better blood circulation. This helps the lungs and heart work better, which boosts immunity, she added. Getting plenty of exercise promotes better blood circulation. This helps the lungs and heart work better, which boosts immunity, she added. Teach children good hygiene. Remembering to wash their hands and cover their coughs are simple habits that even young children should be encouraged to develop. Remembering to wash their hands and cover their coughs are simple habits that even young children should be encouraged to develop. Protect kids from cigarette smoke. Like any allergen, secondhand smoke will harm a child's immunity. Kids who are exposed to cigarette smoke on a regular basis tend to develop respiratory infections. Like any allergen, secondhand smoke will harm a child's immunity. Kids who are exposed to cigarette smoke on a regular basis tend to develop respiratory infections. Avoid overuse of antibiotics. When these drugs are overused, bacteria can develop resistance to them. So when your child catches a bacterial illness that would normally be treated with an antibiotic, the treatment may not work. It's best to let most viral illnesses run their course, Shroff advised. More information: SOURCE: University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, news release, Feb. 3, 2017 SOURCE: University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, news release, Feb. 3, 2017 The American Academy of Pediatrics has more about healthy living for kids. Copyright 2017 HealthDay. All rights reserved. BMW M4 turned into a pickup truck Blinken calls on Israel and Palestine to urgently de-escalate tensions Romania signs deal with Norway for purchase of over 30 F-16 fighters Stoltenberg: The alliance has no plans to change nuclear positions and deployments Tagesschau: Nearly 200,000 people took part in strikes at industrial enterprises of Germany Teenagers hacks Uzbekistan senate website Artsakh Ombudsman: Azerbaijanis fired at tractor in Khramort village of Artsakh Rally participants' statement: Artsakh can't be a part of Azerbaijan Person accused of arson in Russia cafe confesses Fars: Iranian Foreign Ministry reported UAV deliveries to Russia a few months before the start of the UAS Bayramov: Azerbaijan, Armenia leaders next meeting will take place in Brussels this month Unity rally of participants start march in downtown Yerevan North Korea launches 4 ballistic missiles Council of Border Guard Troops commanders discusses situation at CIS external borders Armenia ex-President Kocharyan joins rally in downtown Yerevan Russia oil, natural gas companies plan to collaborate with Iraq Armenia army intelligence troops 30th anniversary is solemnly celebrated (PHOTOS) Rally of unity in support of Karabakh kicks off in downtown Yerevan Pentagon announces sending 8 NASAMS air defense systems to Ukraine Armenian Apostolic Church Supreme Spiritual Council meeting ends, Armenia and Artsakh security discussed Tropical Storm Nalgae death toll climbs to 155 in Philippines Artak Beglaryan is appointed advisor to Artsakh Minister of State (PHOTOS) US House committee extends deadline for Trump to produce documents on Capitol attack Over 200 elephants die in Kenya amid drought 13 dead in cafe fire in Russia Armenia Security Council chief to head for Poland, Netherlands, Lithuania Rishi Sunak: State cannot fix all problems Newspaper: To what extent Armenia adheres to sanctions on Russia? Biden accuses Twitter of spewing lies Newspaper: There are active political processes in Karabakh Qatar FM slams hypocrisy of calls to boycott World Cup France, Singapore and Switzerland begin joint testing of experimental digital currencies Oil war is Biden's biggest mistake Japan considers possible deployment of hypersonic missiles by 2030 Germany to install better air defense system over Defense Ministry buildings Erdogan and Stoltenberg discuss war in Ukraine Armenian MOD: Azerbaijani Armed Forces open fire in direction of Armenian positions True cost of Europe's rejection of Russian gas White House tries to explain Biden's statement about freeing Iran Former Pakistani Prime Minister: Either we will have a peaceful revolution or a bloody one Aramyan: Why are police officers' salaries increasing, while defense officers' are not? Pentagon and U.S. weapons manufacturers to discuss Russia, human resources and supply chain Ankara says U.S. may approve sale of F-16s to Turkey within few months IMF: Turkey should tighten monetary policy and give the Central Bank more independence Pope urges religious leaders to keep the world from brink of abyss Putin awards Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II with Order of Honor U.S. says G7 countries realize need for coordinated response to China Round-the-clock curfew is introduced in Kherson Borrell says they can't put China and Russia on same level Olaf Scholz calls on China to influence Russia G7 foreign ministers express 'unwavering commitment' to protecting Ukraine, criticized PRC and IRI Political technologist explains why Pashinyan was elected chairman of board of ruling party in Armenia Erdogan signs up for TikTok China's army is constantly preparing for war amid provocative U.S. actions Kalin: Armenia is constructive about normalization of relations Poland asks EU to suspend fines Putin: Situation in Ukraine was deadly for Russia Portugal to test a four-day workweek US embassy in Armenia issues statement ahead of November 5 protests in Yerevan Dollar, euro go up in Armenia Baku authorities once again refuse to allow PFPA to hold protest rally Iranians commemorate anniversary of US embassy seizure Richard Kauzlarich: Azerbaijan, Armenia FMs meeting in Washington 'will send message to Putin' Russia ratifies protocol on requirements for length of service of EEU bodies' employees for pensions Armenia deputy defense minister in Russia, discusses military cooperation Yerevan receives proposal to hold Russia-Armenia-Azerbaijan interparliamentary talks Health minister: We will work with fallen Armenia detainees relatives one more time after which bodies will be buried Putin allows mobilization of citizens with unexpunged criminal record for serious crimes Arnika, NESEHNUTI NGOs of Czech Rep. issue joint statement on plan to expand gold mine in Armenias Karaberd Putin urges to evacuate civilians living in Kherson from the war zone Iran parliament speaker to visit Armenia Ruling force MP: Canada is opening embassy in Armenia because we are one of worlds most democratic countries Girl with Armenian roots ends up in Vladimir orphanage Erdogan says he has agreed with Putin to supply grain to needy countries for free Armenia President, UK envoy agree to continue cooperation, close contacts Armenia FM receives EU Monitoring Capacity Spanish MPs don't approve agreement with Baku as a sign of solidarity with Armenia Japan says North Korea may go ahead with nuclear test Armenia government to allocate about $5M to Karabakh refugees support program Belarusian border service: Border guards intercepts Ukrainian training drone President appoints Ruben Vardanyan as Karabakh Minister of State US embassy expresses concern about human rights violation in Azerbaijan Azerbaijan continues muscle play on Iran border Ibrahim Kalin says Turkey will become an important gas center one way or another Biden: We're gonna free Iran Reuters: G7 countries and Australia agrees on fixed price for Russian oil World oil prices dropping Wizz Air to launch new flights between Venice, Yerevan EU assesses Armenia, Azerbaijan border commissions meeting in Brussels as constructive Artsakh President convenes enlarged working consultation Envoy: China supports Armenians Azerbaijan MOD disseminates disinformation, Armenia army did not fire Armenia ruling party recounts congress voting results Quake jolts Turkey Newspaper: Armenia PM once again manipulates topic of negotiations, Karabakh conflict Newspaper: Studies underway on Armenia MPs business involvement US wants to prevent Germany, other allies from working together with China Protests turn violent in Iran's Alborz Province Portugal is considering abandoning golden visa scheme Biden and Erdogan to meet at G-20 summit STEPANAKERT. The Azerbaijani side violated ceasefire along the line of contact between the Karabakh and Azerbaijani opposing forces more than 40 times, from late Wednesday night to early Thursday morning. During this time the Azerbaijani armed forces fired over 200 shots toward the Karabakh position-holders, the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR/Artsakh) Defense Army informed Armenian News-NEWS.am. The Azerbaijani armed forces fired from sniper rifles, 60 mm mortars and grenda lanchers. The Azerbaijani armed forces intensively fired especially in the eastern and north-eastern directions of the line of contact where 15 mortars were used. The NKR Defense Army vanguard units are in command of the operational and tactical situation, and they continue confidently carrying out their military watch. When trumpeter Russ Johnson joined the music faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside in 2010, he brought with him more than 20 years of experience working in New Yorks jazz community, as well as performances and teaching jobs that have taken him around the world. The Racine native, who graduated from Park High School in 1983, has numerous recordings, both as a leader and a sideman, and has worked with legendary jazz musicians including Lee Konitz, Steve Swallow, Kenny Wheeler, Brill Frisell and Joe Lovano, to name a few as well as some of the most prominent artists on the international jazz circuit. He also has performed with his own groups in clubs and at international jazz festivals from Chicago and the East Coast to France, Italy, Switzerland and beyond. And, on Sunday, Feb. 19, Johnson will bring all of that and more with him to the Bedford Concert Hall stage where he and three fellow, international jazz musicians will perform an afternoon concert at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, 900 Wood Road, Somers. The free concert one of a jazz series presented by the SE Wisconsin Hearing Center will feature Johnsons original jazz compositions (www.russjohnsonmusic.net). Masters of improv The other musicians sharing the stage with Johnson are pianist Aruan Ortiz, drummer Gerald Cleaver and bassist Michael Formanek. All three also have extensive touring and recording experience and are all masters of improvisation, Johnson said. Each of these guys can do anything, from straight down the middle jazz to the most complex and completely improvisational things, he said. Ortiz is a Cuban-born, Brooklyn-based musician and composer whose work incorporates influences from contemporary classical music, Cuban-Haitian rhythms and avant-garde improvisations. BET Jazz called him the latest Cuban wunderkind to arrive in the United States and among Ortizs other numerous accolades are the Doris Duke Impact Award (2014) and the Latin Jazz Corners Arranger of the Year award (2011). Go to www.aruan-ortiz.com for more. Cleaver is a product of Detroits rich music tradition, where the drummers early inspiration came from his father, drummer John Cleaver, and later influence from Detroit jazz masters Ali Muhammad Jackson, Lamont Hamilton, Earl Van Riper and Pancho Hagood. Gerald Cleaver moved to New York in 2002, following teaching positions at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, and has toured and recorded with artists including Henry Threadgill, Roscoe Mitchell, William Parker, Charles Gayle and many more (www.facebook.com/pages/Gerald-Cleaver/600006470020306). Formanek has played a pivotal role in New Yorks creative jazz scene, dating back to the 1990s when he led his own quintet and played in Tim Bernes barnstorming quartet, Bloodcount. The bassist and composer has led and played with various other bands and has performed with jazz greats including Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan and Freddie Hubbard. His latest group is the co-op Thumbscrew, with Brooklyn guitarist Mary Halvorson and drummer Tomas Fujiwara; and his principal recording and international touring vehicle is his acclaimed quartet with Tim Berne on alto sax, Craig Taborn on piano and Cleaver on drums (www.amibotheringyou.com). World-class artistry Johnson is excited to be able to bring such world-class artists to UW-Parkside and said he is indebted to the series founder, Dave Braun, for providing the opportunity for the community to hear this music. This series is an amazing thing hes doing, Johnson said. There is no admission fee to the 3 p.m. Feb. 19 concert; donations supporting a music scholarship fund at the university will be accepted. The Bedford Concert Hall is located in the universitys Rita Tallent Picken Regional Center for Arts and Humanities. In its second season, the SE Wisconsin Hearing Center Jazz series was created by center owner Dave Braun, who is also a jazz guitarist and graduate of UW-Parksides music program. The third concert in the 2016/17 series is planned for 3 p.m. Sunday, May 14, with performers yet to be announced, Braun said. Belarus faithfully fulfilled its international obligations on Lapshin's extradition to Azerbaijan, spokesperson for Belarus Foreign Ministry Dmitry Mironchik told reporters on Thursday. He noted that an extradition is a purely legal matter, adding that the agreements must be respected, BelTA reported. Earlier on Tuesday, the Supreme Court of Belarus upheld the decision of the Prosecutor General on extraditing Alexander Lapshin to Azerbaijan. After his visits to Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) in 2011 and 2012, Alexander Lapshin was blacklisted by Azerbaijan. In June 2016, however, he paid a visit to Azerbaijan, but with a Ukrainian passport. Subsequently, he issued several articles criticizing the Azerbaijani authorities. Afterward, the Azerbaijani authorities issued an international search for this famous blogger. And on December 15, 2016, he was detained in the Belarus capital city of Minsk, and based on this international search. On January 26, the Minsk city court dismissed the complaint of blogger Alexander Lapshin over the decision of the Belarusian prosecutors office to extradite him to Azerbaijan. The Supreme Court of Belarus on Tuesday dismissed the complaints filed in the case of blogger Alexander Lapshin. According to the experts and human rights defenders, Lapshins case may become a horrible precedent limiting the freedom of speech of foreigners and freedom of movement of Armenian citizens. On Tuesday evening Blogger Alexander Lapshin was brought to Baku. STURTEVANT A Racine man who police say was caught as he was attempting to burglarize a Sturtevant home on Wednesday is now facing charges connected to the incident and a resulting police chase. Juan Antonio Rodriguez, 44, of the 900 block of Wilson Street, was charged Thursday with felony counts of attempting to flee or elude a traffic officer, burglary with a person lawfully present in the enclosure, first-degree recklessly endangering safety, and bail jumping. He was also charged with a misdemeanor count of criminal damage to property. According to the criminal complaint: On Wednesday morning, the Sturtevant Police Department responded to a residence in the 9400 block of Chandler Avenue for a burglary in progress. The homeowner reportedly returned home to find the door to the home kicked in and saw a man running from the house. The homes front door had been forced open, causing damage to the door frame. The homeowner also observed a large flat-screen TV leaning against the couch, a small flat-screen TV on the bed in the master bedroom that had been removed from the wall and a small jewelry box on the bed that had been removed from the dresser. Upon checking the area, officers located the suspect, who was observed getting into a blue Honda SUV. The car then sped away. Officers pursued the fleeing vehicle, which they allege committed multiple traffic violations while the driver refused to stop for officers. After turning south on Highway 31 and striking the curb separating his lane from the opposite turn lane, the vehicle continued south on busy Highway 31, attempting to avoid traffic until the vehicle jumped the center median between Margery and Joanne Drives in Mount Pleasant, entering the oncoming northbound traffic before turning east on 21st Street, jumping the curb and ending up in the Chase Bank parking lot in Racine. The vehicle came to a rest after jumping the curb and resulted in property damage in the Chase Bank parking lot. Mount Pleasant Police assisted in the pursuit and apprehension of Rodriguez, who reportedly exited the vehicle with raised hands in surrender. Rodriguez remained in the Racine County Jail as of Thursday, according to jail records. YEREVAN. Azerbaijani authorities are ready for a meeting, but not willing to fulfill arrangements reached at the previos meetings. In an interview with RIA Novosti Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said Baku is ready to take part in the meeting of foreign ministers of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia on the Karabakh settlement. According to him, the idea was voiced at a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. It is a tripartite meeting, but the approximate dates of the meeting are not discussed. In response to Armenian News - NEWS.am inquiry, the Armenian Foreign Ministry recalled that at a recent press conference Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian voiced the position of the Armenian side regarding the proposal to meet in the sidelines of the forthcoming annual Munich Security Conference. The Minister noted that Armenia supports meetings and expressed his willingness to meet with the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs. Meeting with Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan will depend on the behavior of the Azerbaijani side. It is noteworthy that Baku, declaring readiness to participate in meetings, in fact, refuses to fulfill the arrangements reached during the previous ones. Arrangement on the introduction of investigation mechanisms and expansion of the mandate of the personal representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office remain unfulfilled so far because of Bakus refusal to implement them. Belarus stems from the fact that Armenia is a friendly country for it, the statements of the Armenian deputies made against the backdrop of Russian-Israeli blogger Alexander Lapshins extradition to Azerbaijan being merely emotions. Spokesperson for the Belarusian MFA, Dmitry Mironchik, told the aforementioned to RIA Novosti. Belarus and Armenia are friendly countries and partners in integration unions, including the CSTO. Thus, the statements, made in the Armenian parliamentif there were suchwere merely emotions, Mironchik said. He also added that he is unaware of facts on unbalanced orall the more so offensive assessments by Belarusian parliamentarians in connection with specific foreign policy steps of Armenia. Although there have been occasions for presenting a recriminatory bill, he said. Moreover, the Spokesperson stressed that Belarus is conducting multi-vector friendly policy, strictly following the international norms and implementing its legal obligations, as is the practice in all legitimate democratic states. After his visits to Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) in 2011 and 2012, Alexander Lapshin was blacklisted by Azerbaijan. In June 2016, however, he paid a visit to Azerbaijan, but with a Ukrainian passport. Subsequently, he issued several articles criticizing the Azerbaijani authorities. Afterward, the Azerbaijani authorities issued an international search for this famous blogger. And on December 15, 2016, he was detained in the Belarus capital city of Minsk, and based on this international search. On January 26, the Minsk city court dismissed the complaint of blogger Alexander Lapshin over the decision of the Belarusian prosecutors office to extradite him to Azerbaijan. The Supreme Court of Belarus on Tuesday dismissed the complaints filed in the case of blogger Alexander Lapshin. According to the experts and human rights defenders, Lapshins case may become a horrible precedent limiting the freedom of speech of foreigners and freedom of movement of Armenian citizens. Blogger Alexander Lapshin was brought to Baku Tuesday evening. An embattled Israeli-Russian blogger was trotted in front of Azerbaijani journalists on February 8 following his extradition from Belarus to Azerbaijan, where he is facing charges of illegal border-crossing and hostile activity, the article of Giorgi Lomsadze published on eurasianet.org reads. According to the author, Azerbaijan has long tried to coerce Karabakh back under Bakus control through international isolation by blacklisting foreign travelers visiting the territory. But this is the first time Azerbaijan had a foreign national arrested in a foreign country and then handed over to its control for such an offense, the article reads. In the authors words, the 40-year-old blogger may have become a victim of geopolitical circumstances: concern about an increasingly bossy Moscow united Belarusian and Azerbaijani presidents, who also share a dislike for critical media and a propinquity for a seemingly endless hold on power. Besides, Lukashenko has been taking an increasingly hostile line on Russia, banking on Azerbaijan as an alternative to Russian energy supplies. Such a confluence of events proved unfortunate for Lapshin, he writes. Ultimately, Lapshins biggest hope for leaving Azerbaijan may be Israel, a key Azerbaijani defense and energy ally. Last week, Belarus Lukashenko cryptically remarked that If Israel wants it, not a single hair will fall from this persons head, the article reads. Both Moscow and Jerusalem have voiced concern over the fate of Lapshin, but, as yet, to no obvious avail. YEREVAN. - Even the events in Nardaran are not the internal matter of Azerbaijan, the April events being an aggression against Nagorno-Karabakh. Spokesperson for the Armenian MFA, Tigran Balayan, said the aforementioned on Thursday, referring to the statement of the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev upon the request of Armenian News NEWS.am. According to Azerbaijani media outlets, at the meeting with the parents of the Azerbaijani serviceman Chingiz Gurbanov, who was killed during the diversionary infiltration attempt launched by Azerbaijan in the direction of Armenias Chinari village on 29 December 2016, Ilham Aliyev stated that the April military clashes, as well as the tension and clashes on the contact line are the internal matter of Azerbaijan. This statementalthough not addressed to third partiescan definitely be considered as a response to the statement made earlier by Russian FM Sergey Lavrov. The tragic events took place in Baku in November 2015 during the special operation by the police in Nardaran settlement of Baku known for its Shia religious conservatism and criticism over government policy. The operation turned into a violence and shooting of two policemen and seven peaceful residents. The lawsuit ended with guilty verdicts and lengthy imprisonment sentences. The international organizations repeatedly urged to investigate the events and stop the political persecutions. MADISON Racine-area legislators in both parties offered a mix of praise and concern following Gov. Scott Walkers budget address Wednesday afternoon. The good: Lawmakers generally favored Walkers plans to put more money into K-12 schools and cut tuition for the University of Wisconsin System, while cautioning they still are awaiting more details on those proposals. Republicans also liked plans to cut taxes by a reported $592.7 million. The bad: The budget leaves out money for major construction work on Interstate 94 in Racine County. The governor allocated just $31 million for I-94 work in Racine and Kenosha counties, far below the hundreds of millions of dollars needed for a full rebuild that had been planned. Its disappointing that Governor Walker has forgotten that a long-term solution for transportation is a priority, said Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester. More details will be released in the coming weeks as the Legislative Fiscal Bureau analyzes the proposal. The states budget committee will begin deliberations this spring. No local construction Vos called the budget a work in progress, while praising the proposal for funding schools, adding work requirements for public assistance programs and eliminating regulations. Walker, who will likely seek a third term in 2018, has proposed adding $649 million for K-12 schools, cutting UW System tuition by 5 percent and freezing tuition for technical colleges. Democratic state Sen. Bob Wirch, D-Somers, said he supports the education plan if the economics work out, but that its too early to say. Like Vos, he criticized Walker for what he said was a lack of a long-term plan for transportation. Theres been tremendous damage to our road system under this governor, and I didnt hear real good ideas to fix that damage, Wirch said. Walker said the budget includes more funding for local governments to fix roads funding for local transportation aids would increase 9.5 percent to about $459 million and $1.7 billion for state highway rehabilitation, which he said was the largest amount ever. The governor also made a point to mention in his address the budget gets all active major road projects back on track outside of southeastern Wisconsin, that is. That line did not go unnoticed by legislators representing Racine County. Im thinking, boy is that a slap, said state Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine. Wanggaard left open the possibility he would vote against the budget if it did not include funding for the I-94 north-south project, which extends from Milwaukee through Racine County to the Illinois state line. The $31 million to Racine and Kenosha counties would likely be enough to pay only for some maintenance work on the freeway. Walker redirected that money away from I-94 work in Milwaukee County. Tax cuts proposed State Rep. Thomas Weatherston, R-Caledonia, said that while legislators have yet to dive into the details, he liked what he heard Wednesday. More reduction of taxes, more money to schools than weve ever done before, he said. The tuition cut at UW Im sure thats going to ring well with people back home. On the surface, I really like what he said. The budget would eliminate the state portion of the property tax bill, include a sales tax holiday for back-to-school items and cut income taxes for a typical family by $130 per year, Walker said. Some Democrats argued Walkers proposed funding increases in areas like schools merely make up for cuts in previous years. The governor is putting forth budget proposals that are anemic attempts to address problems he has created, problems that have led to Wisconsinites feeling left behind by a rigged system and low approval ratings, state Rep. Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, said in a statement. Democrats will continue to push bold and creative ideas to revitalize our middle class, invest in local communities and public education, and ensure our roads and bridges are safe and reliable. YEREVAN. - Minister of Economic Development and Investments of Armenia, Suren Karayan, on Thursday received the delegation led by General Director of Irans Central Insurance (Bimeh Markazi), Abdolnaser Hemmati. The delegation also included the CEOs of three large Iranian insurance companies. Minister Suren Karayan welcomed the guests, noting that the development of the insurance institute and the cooperation of the Armenian-Iranian insurance companies can seriously impact the growth in the turnover of goods. Mr Hemmati, for his part, noted that the high-level political and economic relations of the two countries serve as a good ground for developing the cooperation in the insurance sphere. Executive Director of Armenias Export Insurance Agency, Vazgen Abgaryan, informed that the agency and Irans Export Guarantee Fund signed a memorandum of cooperation in 2015. Mr Abgarayan proposed to deepen the cooperation in the sphere of re-insurance. In response, the Iranian side proposed to sign a tripartite agreement between Armenias Export Insurance Agency, Irans Export Guarantee Fund and Central Insurance Service in order to lay down the directions of deepening the cooperation. Director of Iran-based Iran insurance company thanked the Armenian Minister for the meeting and cooperation, noting that the Iranian companies express their readiness for multi-sector cooperation. According to the Iranian side, thanks to the entry facilitation between the two countries there is a great potential for the insurance in the sphere of tourism. At the end of the meeting, agreement was reached to develop a specific development project and organize the visit of Armenias Export Insurance Agency representatives to Iran. YEREVAN. - Blogger Alexander Lapshin, who was extradited to Azerbaijan, has never been on Interpols wanted list. Advisor to the Chief of Armenian Police, Narek Malyan, wrote the aforementioned on his Facebook page. In response to the inquiry of the Republic of Armenia Police, the General Secretariat of Interpol today responded that Alexander Lapshin has neither ever been registered nor put on an international wanted list of Interpol, he noted. After his visits to Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) in 2011 and 2012, Alexander Lapshin was blacklisted by Azerbaijan. In June 2016, however, he paid a visit to Azerbaijan, but with a Ukrainian passport. Subsequently, he issued several articles criticizing the Azerbaijani authorities. Afterward, the Azerbaijani authorities issued an international search for this famous blogger. And on December 15, 2016, he was detained in the Belarus capital city of Minsk, and based on this international search. On January 26, the Minsk city court dismissed the complaint of blogger Alexander Lapshin over the decision of the Belarusian prosecutors office to extradite him to Azerbaijan. The Supreme Court of Belarus on Tuesday dismissed the complaints filed in the case of blogger Alexander Lapshin. According to the experts and human rights defenders, Lapshins case may become a horrible precedent limiting the freedom of speech of foreigners and freedom of movement of Armenian citizens. Blogger Alexander Lapshin was brought to Baku Tuesday evening. We are very concerned by the situation regarding the OSCE Office in Yerevan, Charge dAffaires of the U.S. Mission to the OSCE Kate Byrnes said at the session of the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna on Thursday. In her words, this office, like all OSCE field missions and institutions, is an important element of the work done by this organization to assist participating states with the implementation of their OSCE commitments. Should the Office in Yerevan be forced to close, this will reflect poorly on Azerbaijan and its governments commitment to the OSCE. We urge the government of Azerbaijan to constructively engage in finding a compromise solution as soon as possible that will allow the office in Yerevan to remain open, Ms Byrnes noted. Earlier, at the meeting of the Permanent Council, the Austrian chairmanship said that one country (meaning Azerbaijan) expressed concern that the OSCE Office in Yerevan was allegedly engaged in activities that are not in compliance with its mandate. This concerned the demining program. This is not really a demining program, but an educational project, a training rather than mine clearance. OSCE was forced to send a mission to the region, after which the report was submitted indicating that the statements do not correspond to reality. Despite this, Azerbaijan continued to persist, and went further, saying that the office should not be engaged in activities violating the interests of Azerbaijan. Everything was fine during 17 years, and suddenly there was a threat to their interests. That is, Azerbaijan has undertaken a demarche against OSCE, accusing them of security threats, the Minister explained. In his words, the attempts to restrict the activities of the OSCE Office in Yerevan led to the fact that Azerbaijan opposed itself to the organization and found itself in a very embarrassing situation. Motorola Solutions will supply the federal public safety organisations in Germany with cutting edge TETRA digital radio solutions for three more years. Contract includes the delivery of approximately 30,000 TETRA digital radio terminals, accessories, software and services. Motorola Solutions technology further optimises responsiveness and security of German federal public safety users in cases of emergency. Solutions and services delivered by Motorola Solutions TETRA Center of Excellence in Berlin, enabling Motorola Solutions to more closely collaborate with its German and European customers. COPENHAGEN, Denmark February 9, 2017 Motorola Solutions will continue to supply the Central Procurement Office of the German Federal Ministry of the Interior (Beschaffungsamt des Bundesministeriums des Innern BMI) with an estimated 30,000 TETRA digital two-way radios as well as suitable accessories, software and services. The technology will be used by German federal public safety users, which include the federal police (Bundespolizei), the federal criminal police (Bundeskriminalamt), the German federal agency for technical relief (Technisches Hilfswerk) and the German customs. This significant contract signature for Motorola Solutions continues to build the companys reputation as an important supplier for TETRA systems, solutions and terminals for mission-critical communications. The agreement includes the delivery of the MTP6750 TETRA portable two-way radio, which is easy-to-use, secure, and robust and delivers high receiver sensitivity, a high-quality audio and features for evidence capture and authentication. The TETRA handheld also provides features to comply with German public safety authority standards and requirements. Another key element of the framework contract is the supply of Motorola Solutions MTM800 TETRA mobile radio for enhanced and reliable communications in public safety vehicles. With its ease of operation, high audio quality, intuitive keypad and high-definition colour display, the MTM800 was developed for areas where rugged and versatile mobile radios are essential. Within the scope of the contract, Motorola Solutions will also supply software and services including training, engineering and repair. At Motorola Solutions, we are dedicated to further invest in our TETRA technology which will lead into the future of mission-critical communications, said Mark Schmidl, vice president of sales for Motorola Solutions in Europe, Middle East and Africa. With our future-oriented solutions and our international TETRA Center of Excellence in Berlin we continue to invest in the field of TETRA digital radio solutions and guarantee close collaboration with our German customers. Resources: Motorola Solutions Smart Public Safety Solutions Learn more about Motorola MTP6000 TETRA portable two-way radios Learn more about MTM800 TETRA mobile radio About Motorola Solutions Motorola Solutions (NYSE: MSI) creates innovative, mission-critical communication solutions and services that help public safety and commercial customers build safer cities and thriving communities. For ongoing news, visit www.motorolasolutions.com/newsroom . Find Motorola Solutions Public Safety on Twitter Find Motorola Solutions on LinkedIn RACINE After fires displaced two of its families, staff at Julian Thomas Elementary School is collecting cash, gift cards and new clothing for the six children affected by the blazes. Staff began reaching out to the entire school community after they learned that five of the six children displaced by the fires a Feb. 3 fire at 805 Jackson St. and a Monday morning blaze at a duplex at 1112-1114 N. Memorial Drive are students at Julian Thomas, 930 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive. It has kind of exploded now, school secretary Michelle Hinrichs said Wednesday. A couple of people have dropped off bags of clothes. SC Johnson Elementary School, they collected a couple of boxes of things. And, staff is collecting cash and gift cards. One of the students (displaced by the fires) came to school with this gigantic, oversized coat today, and we were able to get her a brand new coat and a hat and gloves, Hinrichs added. We have all these cute hats and gloves. Were so lucky. Since both families lost everything in the fires, the school is still seeking new clothes, cash and/or gift cards to stores such as Wal-Mart, Aldis and Save-A-Lot. The family displaced by the fire on North Memorial Drive has four children, ages 6, 7, 10 and 17. The family is seeking boys 14/16 clothes, boys 7/8 clothes, girls 7/8 clothes, 32-inch waistline adult mens pants, and medium mens shirts. School social worker Cheryl Holewinski said Wednesday that as far she was aware, neither of the families have found permanent or semipermanent housing of their own, but she believes at least one the families is staying with relatives. Holewinski urged people who want to help the families to donate new clothing or gift cards, rather than used clothing. Because the families lost everything, being able to shop for food, toiletries and clothing will help add a level of normalcy during a very uncertain time for the children and their families, Holewinski said. It will reduce the feelings of devastation, she said. All clothing, cash and gift card donations can be dropped off at the Julian Thomas school office. Anyone with questions or wanting to see what the families still need are encouraged to call the school at 262-664-8400. Founded in 1949, the NIH Record is the biweekly newsletter for employees of the National Institutes of Health. It is produced by the Editorial Operations Branch, Office of Communications and Public Liaison, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services. Published 25 times each year, the NIH Record comes out on payday Fridays. Alaska Agency Fines Contractor $280,000 in Fatality Case Contractor North Country Services and its owner, Mark Welty, failed to conduct the required engineering survey to determine the state of the wall and whether it could collapse during the work, the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development's investigators concluded, and Welty failed to make sure it was braced or stabilized "despite clear indications the wall was damaged." The Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development fined a contractor $280,000 this week in a case stemming from the death of a worker who was crushed by a falling retaining wall. The worker, Nicholson Tinker, 24, died Sept. 30, 2016, in the wall's collapse as he was preparing the wall for demolition, the agency reported Feb. 7. Contractor North Country Services and its owner, Mark Welty, failed to conduct the required engineering survey to determine the state of the wall and whether it could collapse during the work, the agency's investigators concluded, and Welty failed to make sure it was braced or stabilized "despite clear indications the wall was damaged." Welty also had misclassified his employees as independent contractors in order to evade responsibility for safety requirements and to avoid paying unemployment insurance, taxes, and workers' compensation premiums, the agency found. "This tragic case illustrates the toll that misclassification can take on workers," said Labor Commissioner Heidi Drygas. "If Nicholson Tinker had been afforded the protections he deserved as an employee, he would be alive today." The latest 3 dishes: Sala's Anthony Balistreri In this series, we ask chefs around the city to describe their restaurants in their own words and recommend three dishes that embody the best of what they offer. In this edition, we talk with Chef Anthony Balistreri of Sala Italian Restaurant. Since were only two months into 2017, we still have plenty of time to commit to some New Years resolutions. In addition to the old "get to the gym more often" and "maybe actually try to get seven hours of sleep each night" ones, why not try out some fashion and beauty resolutions? Whether youre looking to add exciting new pieces to your wardrobe or follow a healthy skincare routine, the most difficult part of any resolution is sticking with it. Here are five fashion and beauty resolutions youll actually enjoy committing to: 1. Create your own rules Use makeup to express your creativity. Local makeup artist Krystal Hardy explains, "My single, largest piece of advice is to let go of makeup rules. The beauty of makeup is in its ability to be a form of self expression. Each day I wake up in a different makeup mood. I embrace it, whether it's classic beauty or trend-based social media glamour." Images: Courtesy of Krystal Hardy, instagram.com/kdh_creative 2. Embrace what you love about yourself Sydney Deutsch, owner of Hyde Park Milwaukee, encourages everyone to find something that they love about themselves. She advises, "Forget being bashful and show it off. Off-the-shoulder tops are IN this upcoming spring and resort season." Sydney shows us how to wear this style with a beautifully embroidered top from Hyde Park. Image: Courtesy of Sydney Deutsch/Hyde Park Milwaukee 3. Make prevention the star of your skincare routine "Prevention is key," explains Reese Heather Weymier, a Licensed Esthetician, Certified Laser Technician and Spa Director at Antons Salon and M Spa. "Use products like mineral sunscreens, antioxidants and growth factors to prevent aging pigmentation and acne." Reese recommends the Skinbetter Science line, an industry game-changer available at Antons. Left image: Reese Heather Weymier, instagram.com/doubbleya Right image: Skinbetter Science Overnight Cream, skinbetter.com 4. Embrace confidence This year, Lizzi Weasler, owner of the award-winning Lizzibeth boutique, encourages us to "embrace a newfound sense of confidence." She says, "Step outside of your box and try new trends that you wouldnt normally wear." Lizzi shows us how to embrace our inner trendsetter with this choker sweater from Lizzibeth. Image: Courtesy of Lizzi Weasler/Lizzibeth 5. Combine thriftiness with high fashion Maggie Solveson and Sheila Teruty of Plume Boutique say, "Wearing vintage is a great way to achieve a high fashion look without the price tag. While some vintage styles are timeless, others are repeated for today's top trends." Maggie and Sheila are always hunting for stunning vintage clothing, seeking the thrill of finding the original inspiration. They suggest mixing in "a little modern" in order to "achieve a look that is unique and beautifully yours at a price that works with your budget." Living in Milwaukee, you hear about urban legends all the time. Every city has them -- rumors and gossip that seem just too good to be true. Fortunately, the Milwaukee experts at OnMilwaukee.com took the time to track down the scoop on a bunch of these tall tales, but the list is too long for just one article. Here's part one of a series on the real, fake and unconfirmed Milwaukee urban legends debunked. The Witch House: False The infamous "witch house" on Beach Drive in Fox Point has been a source of wicked curiosity for Milwaukeeans since the 1950s. Although our "witch," the late Mary Nohl, was really just a painter, sculptor and silversmith who chose to convert her yard into a gallery, the somewhat creepy concrete sculptures of people and animals she created lead many to view her as dark and sinister. The fact that she was an aging woman who lived alone and lined her yard with barbed wire didn't abate that reputation, but what else are you going to do when teenagers keep ripping off your life's work? The "legend" has it that Nohl's husband and son had drowned in Lake Michigan, making her a very sad and bitter woman who never wished to be bothered. The believers say that the sculptures in the yard were actually kids who were caught trespassing by the witch and subsequently turned to stone. The not-nearly-as-exciting truth is that Nohl never married, nor had children, thus obliterating even the most believable aspect of the myth. Nohl was many things, including prolific artist and teacher, but not a witch. Since her death at the age of 87 in 2001, the Kohler Foundation, Inc. has been preserving her work and her home, which was originally built by her parents in 1925. According to Nancy Moulton, preservation coordinator for the Foundation, Nohl's property is not yet open to the public. Pabst Brewery employees could drink on the job: True Back in the day, you could do almost anything you wanted at the old Pabst Brewery, according to a career brewery employee (who, for obvious reasons, didn't want us to use his name). The rumor about abundant drinking on the job is quite true, at least up until 1983, when management cracked down on this dicey practice. In addition to free beer in the lunchrooms, brewery employees used to take their cups to the cellars and literally tap the fresh kegs of Pabst. In the filter cellars, they even rigged holding tanks to bubblers in the hallways using plastic tubing. That's right, the bubblers at Pabst dispensed beer - at least until the foreman would catch them about a day later. According to our brewery source, who worked at Pabst from 1968 to 1997, and at Miller from 1999 to 2005, guys certainly got drunk at work and they certainly stole a lot of beer - he remembers watching a foreman loading 20 cases of beer into his trunk. But, he says, it rarely got too out of hand. If it sounds like working at Pabst was a big frat party, get this: Employees actually used to go under the building and shoot guns, as well as crossbows. The complex was enormous, with tunnels leading all over downtown, a church, restaurant and more inside this original "Pabst City." Homeless people used the caverns for shelter, and our source even walked in on a naked man named Ray, giving himself a sponge bath in the sink. Most of the time, management would never hear a peep. Other times, it wasn't so well concealed. This ex-employee says he even saw a co-worker testing out his new chainsaw in the lunch room, cutting a wooden bench in half. None of this goes on anymore at Miller, however, though he's heard crazy stories about how it used to be there, too. "You get caught drinking on the job, you get fired," he says. Ah, those were the days. Milwaukee has an underground clothing-optional spa: True For more than 25 years, the Riverwest neighborhood has housed a clothing-alternative spa known as "The Tubs." Sources would not disclose the exact location, but said the underground spa has roughly 100 members who pay monthly dues, and that the space includes a hot tub, sauna, cold water tank and sensory deprivation tank. Stringent rules, weekly cleaning sessions and a tight member selection process ensure that The Tubs are about relaxation and rejuvenation, and nothing else. "Even though most of the people hang out at The Tubs naked, there is absolutely nothing sexual about it," says a member who wished to remain anonymous. "This is not like the old bath houses." Milwaukee is the fattest city: False In an episode of "The Simpsons," the Duff Book of Records reveals that Springfield is now the fattest city in the U.S., to which Homer replies, "In your face, Milwaukee!" Who knows if that is where the myth started, or if it was assumed Milwaukee was chubbiest because of our large consumption of beer and cheese. Either way, Homer was wrong. Milwaukee is not the fattest city. Each year Men's Fitness magazine does a survey and ranks the top 25 fattest cities, along with the 25 fittest. The rankings are based on many different factors of each city such as healthy habits, risk factors, environment and urban attributes. This year, Milwaukee was actually the 15th fittest, up from last year's 21st fittest. Our fine city was not always fit and trim though. In 2003, we were ranked 21st fattest while in 2002, Milwaukee was ranked 22nd fattest. Not the fattest. Houston was branded fattest this year and in 2003; Detroit got the fat award last year. Brew City (not Chubby City) is shaping up nicely. Areas that still need improvement are alcohol consumption and nutritional habits. But being the top beer-drinking city, the first one may not change too much. Be proud, Milwaukeeans, as we are definitely not the fattest city! UWM students dissected corpses in the Kenilworth Building: False For a number of years during the 1980s rumors circulated at UW-Milwaukee that biology students dissected corpses for research in the university's Kenilworth Building, which is now being renovated into student housing and retail space. Art professor Leslie Vansen, who long had a studio space in the building doesn't remember hearing the rumors. "I've never heard of the human dissections done by students at the Kenilworth building," she told OnMilwaukee.com. " We did have a life drawing instructor who took her students to Lapham Hall's biology labs to study anatomy but that is as close as I can get to the Kenilworth legend. There was a grad student in the mid 1980s who built her installation structures in Kenilworth using skeletal remains from the meat packing companies in the industrial valley." Meanwhile, Andrew J. Petto, who arrived in the Department of Biological Sciences in August 2004, said that these kinds of rumors are not uncommon on campuses. "This sort of urban legend is pretty common around any university or research facility," he wrote in an e-mail. "I heard stories like it as long as 30 years ago in Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Alberta and so on --- in other words, wherever a university conducted research." As best as we can tell, this one's false. Sorry, folks. Dr. Cazzolla Gatti Credit: TSU If competition is the main evolutionary driver, why do so many species coexist within the same ecosystem? This a central question in ecology. Many ideas have been suggested in an attempt to explain this evolutionary paradox. Most of them are based on the importance of ecological niches for the maintenance of differentiated environments versus dominated environments. In 2011, Dr. Roberto Cazzolla Gatti, associate professor in Ecology and Biodiversity at the Tomsk State University (Russia) proposed the biodiversity-related niches differentiation theory (BNDT), arguing that species themselves are the architects of biodiversity by proportionally increasing the number of potentially available niches in a given ecosystem. Along similar lines, but independently, the idea of viewing economics, biology and ecology as emergent autocatalytic sets (self-sustaining networks of mutually "catalytic" entities) was suggested by Dr. Wim Hordjik, researcher at the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research, Klosterneuburg (Austria) and MacArthur Fellowship recipient Professor Stuart Kauffman from the Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle (USA). Now, in a paper published in Ecological Modelling titled "Biodiversity is autocatalytic," the three scientist merged their ideas in a new hypothesis to explain why and how a great number of species could live together in the same environment. The research paper suggests that one group of species creates niches for other species. This means, the authors say, that "biodiversity can, indeed, be considered a system of autocatalytic sets, and that this view offers a possible answer to the fundamental question of why so many species can coexist in the same ecosystem." Biodiversity refers to the variability among living organisms in terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems, and the ecological complexes of which they are a part. The central question about biological diversity on Earth is how so many species can coexist within the same ecosystem. However, the idea that interactions between species are important catalysts of the evolutionary processes that generate the remarkable diversity of life is gaining interest among ecologists. For instance, it has been shown that symbiosis between gall-inducing insects and fungi catalysed both the expansion in resource use (niche expansion) and diversification. Indeed, facilitation, a process that allows the colonization and presence of new species taking advantage of the presence of others by expanding the ecosystem hypervolume, plays a major role in species coexistence, strongly increasing the biodiversity of an area. A species emerges from this environment and is an expression of those interactions. In other words, species are expressed and maintained by a complex interacting ecological network. An autocatalytic set, a chemical process associated by Cazzolla Gatti and colleagues to biological systems, is a group of entities (e.g. molecules and the chemical reactions between them), each of which can be produced catalytically, i.e., triggered by other entities within the set, such that the entire set is able to sustain and reproduce itself from a basic food source. In other words, the set as a whole is self-sustaining and collectively autocatalytic. Autocatalytic sets were originally defined in the context of chemistry (in particular, polymer systems), but the authors of this research study showed that biodiversity can also be considered a system of autocatalytic sets. Dr. Cazzolla Gatti said, "Species themselves, creating favourable conditions for the colonization of other species, allow their concurrent presence, and the fundamental mechanism that supports the coexistence of species is the creation of diversity-related niches." A species must not only preserve itself, but also engage in autocatalytic feedback cycles (e.g. reward loops, function circles, autopoiesis, etc.) that contribute to the overall function of the local environment. The phenomenon of autocatalysis could, therefore, be considered a process of internal and external selection. These ideas open up many new and interesting research questions. For instance, we could ask if there is a limit to the growth of biodiversity, and if so, whether this limit coincides with the ecosystem carrying capacity. Another open question that derives from this theory is whether biodiversity is, indeed, autocatalytic, and follows a sigmoidal growth over time, as in autocatalytic reactions. Considering, for example, the trends of genera during the Phanerozoic, which followed an exponential growth curve, the authors argue that if the answer is positive, global biodiversity should in absence of catastrophic events eventually reach a plateau and show a sigmoidal trend, as predicted by the differential equation of the BNDT. Finally, a more practical and empirically interesting question, which could be answered by the autocatalytic biodiversity hypothesis, is whether we can estimate the number of species of a particular group from ecological variables (mainly influencing the autocatalysis of that group), such as biomass. For example, Prof. Kauffman in 1993 calculated the number of cell types as the square root of the number of genes of an organism. Similarly, the authors attempted to calculate the number of vascular plants by taking the square-root of the estimated total live plant biomass of 550 bTC (billion tonnes of carbon). Their result estimated a maximum number of 741,620 vascular plant species. Considering that an unknown number of plant species have yet to be discovered, and summing the number of accepted species to a mean number of unresolved names, the final sum is surprisingly close to authors' estimate. Is this result just a coincidence or is it truly a consequence of the theory? Dr. Cazzolla Gatti and colleagues hope that in the near future, we will be able to perform a similar calculation for animal groups and resolve this question. Contrary to Darwin's beliefs, biodiversity, according to Dr. Cazzolla Gatti, does not derive "from the war of nature, from famine and death," but from the power of life to enable other life; not from war, but from coexistence; not from competition but from the avoidance of it, e.g. from cooperation and facilitation, i.e., by autocatalysis. More information: Roberto Cazzolla Gatti et al. Biodiversity is autocatalytic, Ecological Modelling (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2016.12.003 RCSED design. Credit: Ivan Zolotukhin Astronomers at Lomonosov Moscow State University and collaborators have released "The Reference Catalog of galaxy SEDs" (RCSED), which contains value-added information about 800,000 galaxies. The catalog is accessible online, and the researchers have reported on their development in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement. Two co-authors are undergraduate students at the Faculty of Physics, Lomonosov Moscow State University. While still working on the catalog, the team has published a few research papers based on their data, including a recent study in Science. RCSED describes properties of 800,000 galaxies derived from elaborated data analysis. For every galaxy, it presents its stellar composition, brightness at ultraviolet, optical, and near-infrared wavelengths. From RCSED, researchers can also access galaxy spectra obtained by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, measurements of spectral lines, and properties determined from this data, such as the chemical composition of stars and gas. This makes RCSED the first catalog of its kind that contains detailed homogeneous analysis for such a large number of objects. Dr. Igor Chilingarian, an astronomer at Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, USA and a lead researcher at Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Lomonosov Moscow State University, says, "For every galaxy, we also provide a small cutout image from three sky surveys, which shows how the galaxy appears at different wavelengths. This provides us with the data for further investigations." Dr. Ivan Katkov, a Senior Researcher at Sternberg Astronomical Institute adds, "The analysis of emission line profiles presented in RCSED is substantially more detailed and accurate then the data published in other catalogs." RCSED is flexible and easy to use. By entering the object name or its coordinates in the search field, the website provides a single page of information referring to that object. Users can also access the catalog through Virtual Observatory applications such as TOPCAT. The RCSED website also provides tutorials including a technique that Igor Chilingarian and Ivan Zolotukhin exploited to discover new compact elliptical galaxies, they published in the research paper "Isolated compact elliptical galaxies: Stellar systems that ran away." Citizen scientists assisted in the development of the project website. Among them were high-level experts in software development and web design, who have daytime jobs in Russian tech companies. Dr. Ivan Katkov adds: "The RCSED catalog was possible thanks to the application of an interdisciplinary Big Data approach, as we had to apply very complex scientific algorithms to a large dataset in a massively parallel way. Eventually, the expertise and resources available at large IT companies would undoubtedly allow researchers to significantly increase the quality and the quantity of research results and to make many important discoveries in astrophysics." The fact that the RCSED catalog has attracted serious interest in the scientific community even during its assembly phase proves its great potential. During the last three years, several external researchers were given the access to the catalog on request and, using RCSED data, published over a dozen articles in peer-reviewed journals. The catalog is the world's largest homogeneous, value-added dataset for nearby galaxies, containing information collected with ground-based and space telescopes. The current release of the RCSED catalog could have comprised a larger number of galaxies or contained extra bits of information about the currently included objects, but the scientists decided to focus on well-characterized datasets, which are described in detail and have known advantages and disadvantages. However, taking into account the project's importance for extragalactic astronomy and observational cosmology, the RCSED team is going to move forward and expand the catalog in the near future. There are two principal directions of further RCSED development: the galaxy sample expansion and incorporating new data for existing objects. The team is considering including near- and mid-infrared data from the WISE satellite all-sky survey for the entire galaxy sample. However, this requires additional methodical work in order to homogenize the data for galaxies at different redshifts. Moreover, it is possible to expand the principal galaxy sample by including spectra from the latest data release of the SDSS-III survey. This will turn 800,000 to 1.5 million objects. Incorporating the publicly available spectral data from the Hectospec archive will add 300,000 to 400,000 objects at larger distances, whose spectra were collected with the 6.5-meter MMT telescope in Arizona. The current RCSED release comprises mostly nearby galaxies (by cosmological measures), whose redshifts are smaller than 0.4, because SDSS did not include faint objects. Therefore, the early universe is not represented in the catalog at all. The Hectospec archive will allow the team to move a little bit further along the cosmological distance scale until the redshift of 0.7. If they add several thousand galaxies from the DEEP2 survey conducted with the 10-meter Keck telescope in early 2000s, they could get insights into objects at redshift up-to 1.0, when the universe was less than half of its present age. Igor Chilingarian concludes, "We shall be able to see the global picture in about 10 years, when large surveys like DESI have collected 25 to 30 million galaxy spectra out to intermediate redshifts." More information: Igor V. Chilingarian et al, RCSEDA Value-added Reference Catalog of Spectral Energy Distributions of 800,299 Galaxies in 11 Ultraviolet, Optical, and Near-infrared Bands: Morphologies, Colors, Ionized Gas, and Stellar Population Properties, The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series (2017). DOI: 10.3847/1538-4365/228/2/14 Journal information: Science , Astrophysical Journal Supplement The African penguin is listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Credit: SANCCOB Endangered penguins are foraging for food in the wrong places due to fishing and climate change, research led by the University of Exeter and the University of Cape Town has revealed. Juvenile African penguins search large areas of ocean for certain signs which usually mean there is plenty of prey. But rapid shifts caused by climate change and fishing mean these signs can now lead them to places where food is scarce - a so-called "ecological trap". The research reveals the effect of a marine ecological trap for the first time, with low survival rates among juvenile penguins, and models suggesting breeding numbers about 50% lower than if the birds were able to escape the trap. "Environmental degradation can cause maladaptive habitat selection, meaning cues which used to work for a species now put them in danger," said first author Dr Richard Sherley, of the Environment and Sustainability Institute on the University of Exeter's Penryn Campus in Cornwall. "Juvenile African penguins look for areas of low sea temperatures and high chlorophyll-a, which indicates the presence of plankton and therefore the fish which feed on it. "These were once reliable cues for prey-rich waters, but climate change and industrial fishing have depleted forage fish stocks in this system." The African penguin is listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Credit: SANCCOB The University researchers teamed up with government scientists from South Africa and Namibia to deploy satellite trackers on 54 juvenile penguins from eight colonies covering the species' breeding distribution. Dr Sherley said overfishing off Namibia and the combined effect of commercial fishing and environmental changes off western South Africa had dramatically reduced populations of fish preyed on by penguins. He said small changes in the temperature and salinity of the waters in the area (known as the Benguela ecosystem) where fish such as sardines and anchovies used to aggregate had caused these species to move their distribution hundreds of kilometres to the east. He added: "Climate change and fisheries are transforming the oceans, but we don't have a complete understanding of their impact. "Our results support suspending fishing when prey biomass drops below certain levels, and suggest that mitigating marine ecological traps will require major conservation action." Dr Stephen Votier, also of the University of Exeter, said: "This ecological trap was only discovered when young penguins were tracked from multiple colonies. Dr. Richard Sherley is measuring a juvenile African penguin. Credit: Timothee Cook "This highlights the power of studying animal movements, particularly for long-lived marine species like penguins. "In fact, tracking is now a crucial tool in conservation biology." The paper, published in the journal Current Biology, is entitled "Metapopulation tracking juvenile penguins reveals an ecosystem-wide ecological trap". The African penguin, previously known as the jackass penguin, is listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which says the species is "undergoing a very rapid population decline" which shows "no sign of reversing". Fossils in the collections of the University of California Museum of Paleontology. Under today's rapid global change, information from the fossil record, such as these remnants of the animals that roamed California near the end of the last ice age, are essential to guiding the future of nature in both historical and novel ecosystems. Credit: Anthony Barnosky Conservationists need to adopt a critical shift in thinking to keep the Earth's ecosystems diverse and useful in an increasingly "unnatural" world. That was among the conclusions of conservationists from every continent but Antarctica who gathered at the University of California, Berkeley in September 2015 to discuss the future of conservation. The meeting included a diverse mix of countries and of specialists, including ecologists, conservation biologists, paleobiologists, geologists, lawyers, policymakers and writers. Their discussions, summarized and published in Science on Feb. 9, recommend a more vigorous application of information garnered from the fossil record to forward-thinking conservation efforts. Their thinking goes like this: If conservationists reach back in history far enough, the past will suggest not only how ecosystems were once composed, but how they could best function in the future. Those at the meeting also said that conservationists must take a wider view of nature than they may have in the past. This still means, in many cases, saving individual species or attempting to maintain some ecosystems much as they are, which is how conservation is generally perceived. But it also means accepting that not all human uses of the environment are inherently bad. "Changed landscapes aren't necessarily trashed landscapes," said Anthony Barnosky, executive director of Stanford's Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, professor emeritus of integrative biology at UC Berkeley and senior author of the Science paper. "These landscapes can actually be used to help in nature conservation. The question is, how do you best do that?" Integrating the fossil record Also among the Science co-authors is Alexis Mychajliw, a Stanford biology researcher who does fieldwork in the Dominican Republic and whose work exemplifies the new recommended approach to conservation. She explores the fossil record of the island nation to see what its ecosystems were like both before European settlers and before any human habitation. The comparisons between these previous states and the present day can be striking. Photo of Stanford University's Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, as seen through a dew drop. Credit: Dan Quinn "Where I work, you only see two living terrestrial mammal species," said Mychajliw, a graduate student in the laboratory of Stanford biology professor Elizabeth Hadly, who is also a co-author of the paper. "But if you dig, actually dig in the dirt, you'll find there were once 25 species of mammals native to this area." This is just one instance of how the fossil record can fill in blanks in natural history that conservationists may be unaware are even missing. Rather than rely on reports or conjecture about what the natural world was like 500 years ago, specialists can piece together what it was like during various periods stretching back millions of years. Given that some natural cycles work on these grand timescales, going back even further than centuries helps explain how cycles may overlap and interact now and in the future. In turn, that can reveal apparent shifts in the natural world that are worthy of concern. Having access to what an ecosystem looked like at different periods in the past also suggests options for creating, achieving and maintaining conservation goals. Recognizing novel ecosystems Already, about 47 percent of ice-free land in the world has been transformed into what ecologists call "novel ecosystems." These ecosystems are unique assemblages of species or systems that didn't exist in pre-industrial times and include cropland, pastureland and timber plantations. The Science paper ("Merging Paleobiology with Conservation Biology to Guide the Future of Terrestrial Ecosystems") points out that these novel ecosystems are unlikely to be restored to what they were before humans. That may not be a bad thing. Instead, the authors suggest that there may be cases where conservationists should embrace novelty to understand how to move forward while supporting both natural diversity and civilization. An example is Stanford's Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, says Hadly, who is the preserve's faculty director. Human impacts are now transforming landscapes even in remote places, as illustrated by the dead trees and habitat fragmentation in Tetlin Wildlife Refuge, Alaska caused by climate change and logging. With this unprecedented global change, the fossil record is becoming increasingly important in preserving nature for the future. Credit: Elizabeth A. Hadly "Here we have a landscape that humans have used heavily for centuries," she said. "The species that dominate have changed through time, some of them invasives, but it still preserves a remarkable slice of California biodiversity and offers a refuge of nature in the midst of Silicon Valley. Going into the future, we expect more change, but that doesn't lessen its conservation value." Whether an area is novel or historical, the paper argues that conservationists need to carefully consider the services provided by an ecosystem, including air and water purification, carbon sequestration, use of land for agriculture and tourism and the less tangible value of human interactions with the wild. "We rely on nature for almost everything: clean water, food, materials for construction and making computers and phones," said Allison Stegner, postdoctoral research associate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, former graduate student at UC Berkeley and co-author of the paper. "The pace of global change today is so fast that we stand to lose all of those things that we rely on. Coming up with new approaches to conservation is essential to maintaining human life." The authors say keeping nature diverse, healthy and useful will likely require both historical and novel habitats, efforts that focus on saving species and efforts that don't, input from people who use nature for different purposes and data from very long timescales, some of which can only be obtained through the fossil record. They also said that identifying stakes and stakeholders is a task that goes beyond the sciences. With that in mind, the workshop that led to the paper opened with words from non-scientists, including a senior policy adviser to California Gov. Jerry Brown and a fiction writer who is also the mother of one of the researchers. "They fostered a more humanist approach to our collaboration that lingers," said Hadly. More information: "Merging paleobiology with conservation biology to guide the future of terrestrial ecosystems," Science, science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi 1126/science.aah4787 Journal information: Science Biologists from the University of Tubingen have successfully demonstrated parental environmental effect and how this arises through evolution. Plants are capable of not only passing on genetic variations to their off-spring but also information on their environment. This phenomenon is known as the parental environmental effect and is influenced by climate conditions as well as population density which affects the degree of competition for resources. A new study by plant ecologists at the University of Tubingen has confirmed that this ability contributes to the adaptation of species to their environment. In greenhouse and field studies, scientists have shown for the first time that the parental environment effect can adapt through natural selection. The study also showed that the ability of plants to prepare offspring for environmental conditions can even vary between populations within a species. Parental environmental effects require that parent plants predict the environmental conditions of their offspring and prepare them accordingly. This is mainly beneficial in constantly changing environments such as desert regions with highly variable rainfall. The team of researchers from Tubingen and Hohenheim set out to answer to what extent the predictability of future environmental conditions influences the evolution of the parental environment effect in a year long study of plants in arid ecosystems. Many species can only survive in these conditions if they create a seed bank in the soil. "Some of the seeds remain dormant in the ground," says Dr. Christian Lampei, lead author of the study. "If the parent generation can determine the best time for germination this can minimize losses in a bad year." In a previous study, the working group of plant ecologist Katja Tielborger in Tubingen had already found that the parental environment effect causes many seeds to germinate after dry years and only a few seeds remain in seed banks. After rainy years, seeds germinate less, and more seeds remain in the soil. Scientists had concluded that the reason for this was the expected competition. After a rainy, productive year, a higher population density is to be expected which causes greater competition for resources. Increasing reserves in seed banks which will germinate later help plants to give their offspring favorable conditions by avoiding competition. The scientists were able to demonstrate this theoretical model of the parental environmental effect in the current study. The authors examined two annuals, a brassicaceae (Biscutella didyma) and a grass (Bromus fasciculatus), and compared the extent of the parental environment effect in four populations from northern to southern Israel, which are exposed to different climatic conditions. They grew plants under controlled conditions and with different irrigation levels to compare seed germination. In addition, they reviewed data on long-term rainfall, and monitored population density and average seed production: Based on this data they calculated how well the number of competing plants in a year could be predicted by rainfall and which effects the expected competition had on seed production. Their results demonstrated the parental environmental effect in one of the species studied, Biscutella didyma (Brassicaceae). The parental environmental effect grew steadily stronger from the most wet to the most dry population the dryer the climate, the greater parents prepared their offspring for environmental conditions. At the same time, the relationship grew between the amount of rainfall the previous year and the population density. The better the competition could be predicted for the coming year, the greater the parental environment effect was pronounced. In years with a high population density, plants produced fewer seeds on average this confirms the assumption that delaying germination by keeping reserves during such years is advantageous. Much to the surprise of the authors, the grass did not show the expected parental environmental effect. This again confirms the finding of previous studies that annuals use additional strategies to survive in variable ecosystems. "Bromus fasciculatus exhibited a high resistance to dry conditions. That could make a seed bank superfluous," suspects Lampei. While previous studies have shown that parental environmental effects of certain types are observed, the present study shows how the parental environmental effects varies within species between populations and that these differences did not occur by chance, but most likely by natural selection. More information: Christian Lampei et al. Clinal population divergence in an adaptive parental environmental effect that adjusts seed banking, New Phytologist (2017). DOI: 10.1111/nph.14436 Journal information: New Phytologist SOMERS Russ Johnsons trumpet playing has been praised by critics as being everything from lyrical and deeply melodic to hard-swinging and sophisticated. The Racine native, who spent 23 years as an important member of New York Citys jazz community, has performed with his own groups and many other prominent musicians throughout the United States and Europe, since earning both bachelors and masters degrees from the Manhattan School of Music. However, performance is just one facet of Johnsons musical talent. The 1983 Park High School graduate is also a composer and educator, currently serving as director of jazz studies at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. And, on Sunday, Feb. 19, he and three guest artists will perform some of his latest compositions in a free concert in UW-Parksides Bedford Concert Hall at 3 p.m. Johnson, who also has numerous recordings, said he is excited to be able to share his new music with the community. Composing is something he got into relatively late in his career, and he appreciates the opportunity it provides to express himself more personally. Risky business Much of his music is improvisational, and Johnson said he lives for the risk that improvisation brings. Living on that edge is the most exciting part of the music, he said. There are going to be times it doesnt work, but when it does, its magical. Johnson wants his music to be personal, but not just for himself. My hope is, when Im composing, that the feelings Im expressing are not unique to me, he said. Someone may not relate to everything in a song, but I hope there is at least a moment or two they connect with. Inspiration for both his compositions and his playing have come from a variety of people and experiences through the years. The biggest influence in his early musical life was Racines legendary brass teacher, Johnny Hemkes, who Johnson began studying with when he was in seventh grade. The late Hemkes taught countless brass players in this area during his 65-year career, and Johnson said he feels fortunate to have been able to work with him. He was not only a great teacher, but an amazing guy, he said. Camp camaraderie Johnsons passion for jazz was initially sparked by a few albums his older brother had, and really took hold at a summer jazz camp he attended. All of sudden, I realized there were other kids my age who were really interested in this kind of music, he said. My parents never had to ask me to practice after that. The young trumpeter also met a well-known drummer at camp, who told him that, as a horn player, You have to hear these four albums. When I listened to them, it became really clear that this is what I want to do, Johnson said. Later in life, when Johnson played a gig with that same drummer, he told him how much his advice had influenced him. I hope at some point, that I can pass on that spark to a student or two, he said. Open arms Today, Johnson lives in Shorewood with his wife and teenage daughter. When hes not teaching at the university you might find him performing at jazz clubs or festivals in Chicago, New York even as far away as Belgium and Switzerland (www.russjohnsonmusic.net). Parksides proximity to Chicagos jazz community was one of the things Johnson said drew him to the university job. And he enjoys the fact that his students often come to see him play. I love teaching, but I also need that creative outlet, he said. The creative community in Chicago is as strong as it is anywhere. And they have welcomed me with open arms. Credit: NASA A new study finds evidence that the last time Earth was as warm as it is today, cold freshwater from a melting Greenland ice sheet circulated in the Atlantic Ocean as far south as Bermuda, elevating sea levels and altering the ocean's climate and ecosystems. The research shows a large pulse of cold freshwater covered the North Atlantic for a brief period of time about 125,000 years ago. The freshwater likely came from meltwater from the Greenland ice sheet and severely disrupted Atlantic Ocean circulation, likely killing coral reefs, flooding North America and chilling northern Europe, according to the study. The study is published online in Paleoceanography, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. The lead author of the paper is University of Michigan climate scientist Ian Winkelstern, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. The study is believed to be the first to record ocean temperature changes during this melting event that occurred during the last interglacial period, the time between the last two ice ages. Large meltwater events like this one have occurred in Earth's past, but they usually happen when large continental ice sheets melt at the end of an ice age. But the new study shows melting of the Greenland ice sheet alone is enough to drive large changes in ocean circulation, according to the study's authors. Continued melting of Greenland in the coming decades could have similar effects, such as shutting down the Gulf Stream, decimating coral reefs in Bermuda and altering the climate of northern Europe, Winkelstern said. "If a big enough chunk of Greenland falls off, which has clearly happened in the past and has clearly caused these dramatic changes in the past, there's no reason to think it couldn't happen again," he said. "We're doing a pretty good job of melting it right now." During the last interglacial period, Earth's climate was about as warm as it is today. Winkelstern and his team set out to study Bermuda's climate during this period to better understand what might happen as the planet warms. Bermuda is in the North Atlantic but is bathed in water from the Gulf Stream, an ocean current carrying warm water northward from the Gulf of Mexico, making it a good place to study past ocean conditions. The researchers dug up fossilized shells of sea snails that lived during the last interglacial in two bays on Bermuda's southern coast. They used the proportion of heavy carbon and heavy oxygen in the snails' shells to calculate the temperature of the water at which the shells formed. The team compared the heavy carbon and oxygen ratios in the fossils to ratios in shells from live snails to compare water temperatures from the last interglacial to today. In one of the bays, the researchers found the fossil shells formed in water roughly the same temperature as Bermuda's water today. But surprisingly, at the other bay, they found the fossil shells formed in water about 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit) colder and slightly less salty than today's ocean water. The fossils from the two bays are at most only a few thousand years apart in age, meaning a large pulse of cold water must have briefly covered the North Atlantic during the last interglacial, according to Winkelstern. And the only place for that freshwater to come from during that time would be meltwater from the Greenland ice sheet, he said. The new research does not quantify how much water came from Greenland, but it was enough to disrupt ocean circulation, Winkelstern said. While this meltwater event is not unprecedented, it hasn't been picked up in geological records like ocean cores because it was too short to be detected by these methods, Winkelstern said. "In general, the last interglacial was warm throughout," he said. "But what we think we've captured here is this relatively brief, on the order of decades to centuries, event, where the North Atlantic was very cold and the Gulf Stream was not transporting much warm water at all." The results show dramatic climate shifts are possible with continued warming, including large-scale changes in ocean circulation, Winkelstern said. Increased meltwater from Greenland could possibly disrupt or shut down the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, the conveyor belt transporting warm ocean water from the tropics to the North Atlantic and cold water from the North Atlantic to the equator. "The cold conditions recorded by these shells are therefore most likely showing us what the effects of rapid melting of the Greenland ice sheet can be," Winkelstern said. "Since anthropogenic warming is currently melting the Greenland ice sheet at an accelerating pace, these results offer a potential glimpse into a future where sufficient melting has occurred to cause AMOC shutdown." This artist's concept shows a massive, comet-like object falling toward a white dwarf. New Hubble Space Telescope findings are evidence for a belt of comet-like bodies orbiting the white dwarf, similar to our solar system's Kuiper Belt. The findings also suggest the presence of one or more unseen surviving planets around the white dwarf, which may have perturbed the belt to hurl icy objects into the burned-out star. Credit: NASA, ESA, and Z. Levy (STScI) Many scientists believe the Earth was dry when it first formed, and that the building blocks for life on our planetcarbon, nitrogen and waterappeared only later as a result of collisions with other objects in our solar system that had those elements. Today, a UCLA-led team of scientists reports that it has discovered the existence of a white dwarf star whose atmosphere is rich in carbon and nitrogen, as well as in oxygen and hydrogen, the components of water. The white dwarf is approximately 200 light-years from Earth and is located in the constellation Bootes. Benjamin Zuckerman, a co-author of the research and a UCLA professor of astronomy, said the study presents evidence that the planetary system associated with the white dwarf contains materials that are the basic building blocks for life. And although the study focused on this particular starknown as WD 1425+540the fact that its planetary system shares characteristics with our solar system strongly suggests that other planetary systems would also. "The findings indicate that some of life's important preconditions are common in the universe," Zuckerman said. The scientists report that a minor planet in the planetary system was orbiting around the white dwarf, and its trajectory was somehow altered, perhaps by the gravitational pull of a planet in the same system. That change caused the minor planet to travel very close to the white dwarf, where the star's strong gravitational field ripped the minor planet apart into gas and dust. Those remnants went into orbit around the white dwarfmuch like the rings around Saturn, Zuckerman saidbefore eventually spiraling onto the star itself, bringing with them the building blocks for life. The researchers think these events occurred relatively recently, perhaps in the past 100,000 years or so, said Edward Young, another co-author of the study and a UCLA professor of geochemistry and cosmochemistry. They estimate that approximately 30 percent of the minor planet's mass was water and other ices, and approximately 70 percent was rocky material. The research suggests that the minor planet is the first of what are likely many such analogs to objects in our solar system's Kuiper belt. The Kuiper belt is an enormous cluster of small bodies like comets and minor planets located in the outer reaches of our solar system, beyond Neptune. Astronomers have long wondered whether other planetary systems have bodies with properties similar to those in the Kuiper belt, and the new study appears to confirm for the first time that one such body exists. White dwarf stars are dense, burned-out remnants of normal stars. Their strong gravitational pull causes elements like carbon, oxygen and nitrogen to sink out of their atmospheres and into their interiors, where they cannot be detected by telescopes. The research, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, describes how WD 1425+540 came to obtain carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen. This is the first time a white dwarf with nitrogen has been discovered, and one of only a few known examples of white dwarfs that have been impacted by a rocky body that was rich in water ice. "If there is water in Kuiper belt-like objects around other stars, as there now appears to be, then when rocky planets form they need not contain life's ingredients," said Siyi Xu, the study's lead author, a postdoctoral scholar at the European Southern Observatory in Germany who earned her doctorate at UCLA. "Now we're seeing in a planetary system outside our solar system that there are minor planets where water, nitrogen and carbon are present in abundance, as in our solar system's Kuiper belt," Xu said. "If Earth obtained its water, nitrogen and carbon from the impact of such objects, then rocky planets in other planetary systems could also obtain their water, nitrogen and carbon this way." A rocky planet that forms relatively close to its star would likely be dry, Young said. "We would like to know whether in other planetary systems Kuiper belts exist with large quantities of water that could be added to otherwise dry planets," he said. "Our research suggests this is likely." According to Zuckerman, the study doesn't settle the question of whether life in the universe is common. "First you need an Earth-like world in its size, mass and at the proper distance from a star like our Sun," he said, adding that astronomers still haven't found a planet that matches those criteria. The researchers observed WD 1425+540 with the Keck Telescope in 2008 and 2014, and with the Hubble Space Telescope in 2014. They analyzed the chemical composition of its atmosphere using an instrument called a spectrometer, which breaks light into wavelengths. Spectrometers can be tuned to the wavelengths at which scientists know a given element emits and absorbs light; scientists can then determine the element's presence by whether it emits or absorbs light of certain characteristic wavelengths. In the new study, the researchers saw the elements in the white dwarf's atmosphere because they absorbed some of the background light from the white dwarf. This July 3, 2014, file photo shows the Microsoft Corp. logo outside the Microsoft Visitor Center in Redmond, Wash. In a ruling released Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017, a federal judge declined to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Microsoft that claims a law that prohibits technology companies from telling customers when the government demands their electronic data is unconstitutional. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File) A judge refused the U.S. government's request to throw out a lawsuit from Microsoft that claims a federal law is unconstitutional because it prohibits technology companies from telling customers when the government demands their electronic data. U.S. District Judge James Robart, who temporarily blocked President Donald Trump's travel ban last week, agreed with Microsoft that the law violates the company's First Amendment right to speak to its customers when their private information is collected during criminal investigations. But Robart denied its claim that the law violates customers' rights against unreasonable searches and seizures, saying a third party like Microsoft can't assert constitutional rights for someone else. The case will now head to trial, where Microsoft will argue that "people need to get notice when the government comes knocking at the door to seize all that stuff that historically would have been stored in a file cabinet," Microsoft lawyer Stephen Rummage said during a recent hearing. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act compels companies to divulge data stored in "third-party computers," such as Microsoft's Cloud, and keep the move secret. Microsoft successfully argued that the law harms the company by eroding customer confidence in its cloud services, Robart said in the ruling published Thursday. "Government surveillance aided by service providers creates unique considerations because of the vast amount of data service providers have about their customers," Robart said. The service providers know the websites we visit, Google keeps records of our searches and Facebook keeps records of our friends and what we "like," he said. Several court cases have found that material deserves constitutional protection, he said. Microsoft President Brad Smith said the company is pleased with the order. "This ruling enables our case to move forward toward a reasonable solution that works for law enforcement and ensures secrecy is used only when necessary," Smith said. Nicole Navas, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said the agency is reviewing the decision and declined to comment. Microsoft sued last year saying the government has increasingly sought to obtain information from providers instead of customers. Federal courts have issued more than 3,250 secret orders for data over a 20-month period ending May 2016 and more than 450 of those orders had no end dates, the company said. One magistrate judge in southern Texas reported that the Electronic Privacy Act docket "handles tens of thousands of secret cases every year," Robart's order said. Companies including Apple, Twitter and Amazon as well as media outlets such as The Associated Press, the Seattle Times and Washington Post filed court briefs supporting Microsoft. The Justice Department filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the government has an interest in keeping criminal investigations confidential and customers often eventually learn about the data demands when charges are filed. 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. Over three months in 2017, the MMS spacecraft transitions from the dayside magnetopause, to a new, larger orbit on the nightside, as shown in this visualization. This image shows the four satellites' orientation on March 15, 2017. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Tom Bridgman, visualizer On Feb. 9, 2017, NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale mission, known as MMS, began a three-month long journey into a new orbit. MMS flies in a highly elliptical orbit around Earth and the new orbit will take MMS twice as far out as it has previously flown. In the new orbit, which begins the second phase of its mission, MMS will continue to map out the fundamental characteristics of space around Earth, helping us understand this key region through which our satellites and astronauts travel. MMS will fly directly through regionswhere giant explosions called magnetic reconnection occurnever before observed in high resolution. Launched in March 2015, MMS uses four identical spacecraft to map magnetic reconnectiona process that occurs when magnetic fields collide and re-align explosively into new positions. NASA scientists and engineers fly MMS in an unprecedentedly close formation that allows the mission to travel through regions where the sun's magnetic fields interact with Earth's magnetic fieldsbut keeping four spacecraft in formation is far from easy. "This is one of the most complicated missions Goddard has ever done in terms of flight dynamics and maneuvers," said Mark Woodard, MMS mission director at NASA's Goddard Flight Space Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "No one anywhere has done formation flying like this before." To form a three-dimensional picture of reconnection, the mission flies four individual satellites in a pyramid formation called a tetrahedron. While a previous joint ESA (European Space Agency)/NASA mission flew in a similar formation, MMS is the first to fly in such an extremely tight formation - only four miles apart on average. Maintaining this close separation allows for high-resolution mapping but adds an extra dimension of challenge to flying MMS, which is already a complex undertaking. Flying a spacecraft, as one would suspect, is nothing like driving a car. Instead of focusing on just two dimensionsleft and right, forward and backwards - you also must consider up and down. Add on to that, keeping the four MMS spacecraft in the specific tetrahedral formation necessary for three-dimensional mapping, and you've got quite a challenge. And don't forget to avoid any space debris and other spacecraft that might cross your path. Oh, and each spacecraft is spinning like a top, adding another layer to the dizzying complexity. "Typically, it takes about two weeks to go through the whole procedure of designing maneuvers," said Trevor Williams, MMS flight dynamics lead at NASA Goddard. Williams leads a team of about a dozen engineers to make sure MMS's orbit stays on track. During a normal week of operations, the maneuvers, which have been carefully crafted and calculated beforehand, are finalized in a meeting at the start of the week. To calculate its location, MMS uses GPS, just like a smart phone. The only difference is this GPS receiver is far above Earth, higher than the GPS satellites sending out the signals. "We're using GPS to do something it wasn't designed for, but it works," Woodard said. Since GPS was designed with Earth-bound users in mind, signals are broadcast downwards, making it difficult to use from above. Fortunately, signals from GPS satellites are sent widely to blanket the entire planet and consequentially some from the far side of the planet sneak around Earth and continue up into space, where MMS can observe them. Using a special receiver that can pick up weak signals, MMS is able to stay in constant GPS contact. The spacecraft uses the GPS signals to automatically compute their location, which they send down to the flight control headquarters at Goddard. The engineers then use that positioning to design the maneuvers for the spacecraft's orbits. Over three months, the MMS spacecraft transitions from the dayside magnetopause, to a new, larger orbit on the nightside, as shown in this visualization. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Tom Bridgman, visualizer While the orbit for each MMS spacecraft is almost identical, small adjustments need to be made to keep the spacecraft in a tight formation. The engineers also rely on reports from NASA's Conjunction Assessment Risk Analysis, which identifies the locations of space debris and provides notification when objects, like an old communications satellite, might cross MMS's path. While nothing yet has been at risk for colliding with MMS, the crew has a prepared backup plan - a dodge maneuver - should the need arise. On scheduled Wednesdays, one or two per month, the commands are sent up to the spacecraft to adjust the tetrahedral formation and make any necessary orbit adjustments. These commands tell MMS to fire its thrusters in short bursts, propelling the spacecraft to its intended location. Moving MMS is a slow process. Each spacecraft is equipped with thrusters that provide four pounds of thrust, but they also weigh nearly a ton each. The spacecraft all spin like tops, so the timing of each burst needs to be precisely synchronized to push the spacecraft in the right direction. The next day, once the spacecraft are in their proper locations, a second round of commands are given to fire the thrusters in the opposite direction, to fix the spacecraft in formation. Without this command, the spacecraft would overshoot their intended positions and drift apart with no resisting forces to stop them. Unlike airplanes, which constantly fire their engines to keep in motion, the spacecraft rely on their momentum to carry them around their orbit. Only short bursts from their thrusters, lasting just a few minutes, are required to maintain their formation and make minor adjustments to the orbit. "We spend 99.9 percent of the time coasting because we need to be sparing with the fuel," Williams said. Launched with 904 pounds of fuel, the spacecraft have only used about 140 pounds in their first two years of operation. However, sending MMS into a wider orbit for its second phase will consume about half the remaining fuel - and there are no gas stations in space for refueling. The operations crew carefully plan each maneuver to minimize fuel consumption. Typical maneuvers take less than half a pound of fuel and the crew hopes their fuel conservation efforts will save MMS enough fuel to allow extended studies past the end of the primary mission. The new elliptical orbit will take MMS to within 600 miles above the surface of Earth at its closest approach, and out to about 40 percent of the distance to the moon. Previously, the spacecraft went out only one-fifth (20 percent) of the distance to the moon. In the first phase of the mission, MMS investigated the sun-side of Earth's magnetosphere, where the sun's magnetic field lines connect to Earth's magnetic field lines, allowing material and energy from the sun to funnel into near-Earth space. In the second phase, MMS will pass through the night side, where reconnection is thought to trigger auroras. In addition to helping us understand our own space environment, learning about the causes of magnetic reconnection sheds light on how this phenomenon occurs throughout the universe, from auroras on Earth, to flares on the surface of the sun, and even to areas surrounding black holes. While MMS will not maintain its tetrahedral formation as it moves to its new orbit, it will continue taking data on the environments it flies through. The operations crew expects MMS to reach its new orbit on May 4, 2017, at which point it will be back in formation and ready to collect new 3-D science data, as its elliptical orbit carries it through specific areas thought to be sites for magnetic reconnection. When haze built up in the atmosphere of Archean Earth, the young planet might have looked like this artist's interpretation - a pale orange dot. A team led by Goddard scientists thinks the haze was self-limiting, cooling the surface by about 36 degrees Fahrenheit (20 Kelvins) not enough to cause runaway glaciation. The teams modeling suggests that atmospheric haze might be helpful for identifying earthlike exoplanets that could be habitable. Credit: NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center/Francis Reddy For astronomers trying to understand which distant planets might have habitable conditions, the role of atmospheric haze has been hazy. To help sort it out, a team of researchers has been looking to Earth specifically Earth during the Archean era, an epic 1-1/2-billion-year period early in our planet's history. Earth's atmosphere seems to have been quite different then, probably with little available oxygen but high levels of methane, ammonia and other organic chemicals. Geological evidence suggests that haze might have come and gone sporadically from the Archean atmosphere and researchers aren't quite sure why. The team reasoned that a better understanding of haze formation during the Archean era might help inform studies of hazy earthlike exoplanets. "We like to say that Archean Earth is the most alien planet we have geochemical data for," said Giada Arney of NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and a member of the NASA Astrobiology Institute's Virtual Planetary Laboratory based at the University of Washington, Seattle. Arney is the lead author of two related papers published by the team. In the best case, haze in a planet's atmosphere could serve up a smorgasbord of carbon-rich, or organic, molecules that could be transformed by chemical reactions into precursor molecules for life. Haze also might screen out much of the harmful UV radiation that can break down DNA. In the worst case, haze could become so thick that very little light gets through. In this situation, the surface might get so cold it freezes completely. If a very thick haze occurred on Archean Earth, it might have had a profound effect, because when the era began roughly four billion years ago, the sun was fainter, emitting perhaps 80 percent of the light that it does now. Arney and her colleagues put together sophisticated computer modeling to look at how haze affected the surface temperature of Archean Earth and, in turn, how the temperature influenced the chemistry in the atmosphere. The new modeling indicates that as the haze got thicker, less sunlight would have gotten through, inhibiting the types of sunlight-driven chemical reactions needed to form more haze. This would lead to the shutdown of haze-formation chemistry, preventing the planet from undergoing runaway glaciation due to a very thick haze. The team calls this self-limiting haze, and their work is the first to make the case that this is what occurred on Archean Earth a finding published in the November 2016 issue of the journal Astrobiology. The researchers concluded that self-limiting haze could have cooled Archean Earth by about 36 degrees Fahrenheit (20 Kelvins) enough to make a difference but not to freeze the surface completely. "Our modeling suggests that a planet like hazy Archean Earth orbiting a star like the young sun would be cold," said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, a Goddard scientist and a member of the Virtual Planetary Laboratory. "But we're saying it would be cold like the Yukon in winter, not cold like modern-day Mars." Such a planet might be considered habitable, even if the mean global temperature is below freezing, as long as there is some liquid water on the surface. In subsequent modeling, Arney and her colleagues looked at the effects of haze on planets that are like Archean Earth but orbiting several kinds of stars. "The parent star controls whether a haze is more likely to form, and that haze can have multiple impacts on a planet's habitability," said co-author Victoria Meadows, the principal investigator for the Virtual Planetary Laboratory and an astronomy professor at the University of Washington. It looks as if the Archean Earth hit a sweet spot where the haze served as a sunscreen layer for the planet. If the sun had been a bit warmer, as it is today, the modeling suggests the haze particles would have been larger a result of temperature feedbacks influencing the chemistry and would have formed more efficiently, but still would have offered some sun protection. The same wasn't true in all cases. The modeling showed that some stars produce so much UV radiation that haze cannot form. Haze did not cool planets orbiting all types of stars equally, either, according to the team's results. Dim stars, such as M dwarfs, emit most of their energy at wavelengths that pass right through atmospheric haze; in the simulations, these planets experience little cooling from haze, so they benefit from haze's UV shielding without a major drop in temperature. For the right kind of star, though, the presence of haze in a planet's atmosphere could help flag that world as a good candidate for closer study. The team's simulations indicated that, for some instruments planned for future space telescopes, the spectral signature of haze would appear stronger than the signatures for some atmospheric gases, such as methane. These findings are available in the Astrophysical Journal as of Feb. 8, 2017. "Haze may turn out to be very helpful as we try to narrow down which exoplanets are the most promising for habitability," said Arney. Provided by NASA Credit: Oleksiy Mark/Shutterstock.com New research shows that 89 per cent of the time audiences spend with national newspapers is still in print, with just 7 per cent via mobile devices and 4 per cent via PCs. The study, by Dr Neil Thurman (of City, University of London and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat in Munich), uses industry data from the UK National Readership Survey (NRS) for print statistics and from comScore for online figures. Published in the international peer-reviewed journal Journalism Studies, it is the first research to comprehensively account for the time spent reading newspapers via mobile devices. Although online editions have doubled or tripled the number of readers that national newspapers reach, Dr Thurman argues this increased exposure disguises huge differences in attention paid by print and online readers. He said: "My research shows that while print newspapers are read for an average of 40 minutes per day, online visitors to the websites and apps of those same newspapers spend an average of just 30 seconds per day. Scale those numbers up and you can see why newspapers still rely on print for the vast majority of the attention they receive." The study covers 11 UK national newspaper brands, using a full year's worth of data (from April 2015 to March 2016). The data almost exactly mirror the split in newspapers' print / digital revenues (88 per cent / 12 per cent) as reported in the recent NMA/Deloitte report. "It looks like revenues match audience attention closely," said Dr Thurman. "This would make sense after all, as Benjamin Franklin said, 'time is money'." The academic says time-based metrics are gaining credibility as the best way to measure newspapers' multiplatform audiences. For example, the Financial Times believes that time-based metrics value "real reader engagement", and the online publishing platform Medium uses "total time reading" as its "top-line metric". As well as shedding new light on newspapers' multiplatform performance, the research is the first to follow Ofcom's recommendation that market share be "calculated from time spent". Dr Thurman added: "My calculations show the UK national newspaper market is more concentrated than is commonly believed, with one title the Daily Mail having close to a 30 per cent market share." More information: Neil Thurman. Newspaper Consumption in the Mobile Age, Journalism Studies (2017). DOI: 10.1080/1461670X.2017.1279028 Solar system. Credit: NASA About 4.6 billion years ago, an enormous cloud of hydrogen gas and dust collapsed under its own weight, eventually flattening into a disk called the solar nebula. Most of this interstellar material contracted at the disk's center to form the sun, and part of the solar nebula's remaining gas and dust condensed to form the planets and the rest of our solar system. Now scientists from MIT and their colleagues have estimated the lifetime of the solar nebulaa key stage during which much of the solar system evolution took shape. This new estimate suggests that the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn must have formed within the first 4 million years of the solar system's formation. Furthermore, they must have completed gas-driven migration of their orbital positions by this time. "So much happens right at the beginning of the solar system's history," says Benjamin Weiss, professor of earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences at MIT. "Of course the planets evolve after that, but the large-scale structure of the solar system was essentially established in the first 4 million years." Weiss and MIT postdoc Huapei Wang, the first author of this study, report their results today in the journal Science. Their co-authors are Brynna Downey, Clement Suavet, and Roger Fu from MIT; Xue-Ning Bai of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Jun Wang and Jiajun Wang of Brookhaven National Laboratory; and Maria Zucolotto of the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro. Spectacular recorders By studying the magnetic orientations in pristine samples of ancient meteorites that formed 4.653 billion years ago, the team determined that the solar nebula lasted around 3 to 4 million years. This is a more precise figure than previous estimates, which placed the solar nebula's lifetime at somewhere between 1 and 10 million years. The team came to its conclusion after carefully analyzing angrites, which are some of the oldest and most pristine of planetary rocks. Angrites are igneous rocks, many of which are thought to have erupted onto the surface of asteroids very early in the solar system's history and then quickly cooled, freezing their original propertiesincluding their composition and paleomagnetic signalsin place. Scientists view angrites as exceptional recorders of the early solar system, particularly as the rocks also contain high amounts of uranium, which they can use to precisely determine their age. "Angrites are really spectacular," Weiss says. "Many of them look like what might be erupting on Hawaii, but they cooled on a very early planetesimal." Weiss and his colleagues analyzed four angrites that fell to Earth at different places and times. "One fell in Argentina, and was discovered when a farm worker was tilling his field," Weiss says. "It looked like an Indian artifact or bowl, and the landowner kept it by this house for about 20 years, until he finally decided to have it analyzed, and it turned out to be a really rare meteorite." The other three meteorites were discovered in Brazil, Antarctica, and the Sahara Desert. All four meteorites were remarkably well-preserved, having undergone no additional heating or major compositional changes since they originally formed. Measuring tiny compasses The team obtained samples from all four meteorites. By measuring the ratio of uranium to lead in each sample, previous studies had determined that the three oldest formed around 4.653 billion years ago. The researchers then measured the rocks' remnant magnetization using a precision magnetometer in the MIT Paleomagnetism Laboratory. "Electrons are little compass needles, and if you align a bunch of them in a rock, the rock becomes magnetized," Weiss explains. "Once they're aligned, which can happen when a rock cools in the presence of a magnetic field, then they stay that way. That's what we use as records of ancient magnetic fields." When they placed the angrites in the magnetometer, the researchers observed very little remnant magnetization, indicating there was very little magnetic field present when the angrites formed. The team went a step further and tried to reconstruct the magnetic field that would have produced the rocks' alignments, or lack thereof. To do so, they heated the samples up, then cooled them down again in a laboratory-controlled magnetic field. "We can keep lowering the lab field and can reproduce what's in the sample," Weiss says. "We find only very weak lab fields are allowed, given how little remnant magnetization is in these three angrites." Specifically, the team found that the angrites' remnant magnetization could have been produced by an extremely weak magnetic field of no more than 0.6 microteslas, 4.653 billion years ago, or, about 4 million years after the start of the solar system. In 2014, Weiss' group analyzed other ancient meteorites that formed within the solar system's first 2 to 3 million years, and found evidence of a magnetic field that was about 10-100 times strongerabout 5-50 microtesla. "It's predicted that once the magnetic field drops by a factor of 10-100 in the inner solar system, which we've now shown, the solar nebula goes away really quickly, within 100,000 years," Weiss says. "So even if the solar nebula hadn't disappeared by 4 million years, it was basically on its way out." The planets align The researchers' new estimate is much more precise than previous estimates, which were based on observations of faraway stars. "What's more, the angrites' paleomagnetism constrains the lifetime of our own solar nebula, while astronomical observations obviously measure other faraway solar systems," Wang adds. "Since the solar nebula lifetime critically affects the final positions of Jupiter and Saturn, it also affects the later formation of the Earth, our home, as well as the formation of other terrestrial planets." Now that the scientists have a better idea of how long the solar nebula persisted, they can also narrow in on how giant planets such as Jupiter and Saturn formed. Giant planets are mostly made of gas and ice, and there are two prevailing hypotheses for how all this material came together as a planet. One suggests that giant planets formed from the gravitational collapse of condensing gas, like the sun did. The other suggests they arose in a two-stage process called core accretion, in which bits of material smashed and fused together to form bigger rocky, icy bodies. Once these bodies were massive enough, they could have created a gravitational force that attracted huge amounts of gas to ultimately form a giant planet. According to previous predictions, giant planets that form through gravitational collapse of gas should complete their general formation within 100,000 years. Core accretion, in contrast, is typically thought to take much longer, on the order of 1 to several million years. Weiss says that if the solar nebula was around in the first 4 million years of solar system formation, this would give support to the core accretion scenario, which is generally favored among scientists. "The gas giants must have formed by 4 million years after the formation of the solar system," Weiss says. "Planets were moving all over the place, in and out over large distances, and all this motion is thought to have been driven by gravitational forces from the gas. We're saying all this happened in the first 4 million years." More information: "Lifetime of the solar nebula constrained by meteorite paleomagnetism" Science, science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi 1126/science.aaf5043 Journal information: Science Credit: Fauna & Flora International A survey led by the microbeads coalition has revealed that limitations of the U.K. government's proposed ban could let microplastics slip through loopholes. YouGov polling for the microbeads coalition has shown that a large proportion of people wash make-up and skincare products down the drain. Yet while some of these product types have been shown to contain microplastic ingredients, they could fall outside of the government's proposed microbeads ban. Defra's current proposal is restricted to "rinse-off" products, an ambiguous term which has caused confusion among industry and campaigners alike. But these findings suggest that products containing microplastics will continue to enter the ocean if the government excludes them from the microbeads ban. The survey found that: 42% of users wash off face make-up (e.g. foundation, blusher, concealer) down the drain 60% of people who don't use make-up, but do use skincare products like sun cream wash them down the drain A third of people using lip and eye products wash them down the drain (33% and 34% respectively) Across all three make-up types, 42% of people who wear make-up end up washing it down the drain The poll also found that the majority of people who wear any make-up (61%) rarely or never read product label information regarding removal methods for face, eye and lip make-up products. Below is a joint statement from the microbeads coalition, which consists of the Environmental Investigation Agency, Fauna & Flora International (FFI), Greenpeace UK and the Marine Conservation Society: 'Many countries around the world, from India to Korea to New Zealand, are now looking at banning microplastics in products that can end up in the sea, and they're looking to the UK to provide a model of how best to do that. By implementing a robust and comprehensive ban of microplastics in all products which can reach drainage, this government can have a truly global impact. 'We've already seen the problematic loopholes in the US legislation, which limited the ban to "rinse off" products that perform an "exfoliating" function and ended up allowing other types of products containing microplastics to keep pouring into our oceans. 'With trillions of microplastics already in the sea, this really is a global issue and the British Government must seize the opportunity to create a world-leading ban.' Specifically, we ask the government to follow the guidelines below recommended by the Environmental Audit Committee and developed by FFI: Any definition of 'microbeads' must include all solid plastic ingredients smaller than 5mm used for any purpose (not just for exfoliation). There should be no lower size limit included in the definition; The legislation should cover all products that are washed down the drain or are directly discharged into waterways or the marine environment. This includes a wide range of cosmetic and personal care products as well as cleaning products, make-up, and industrial products; Legislation should not allow so-called 'biodegradable' plastics to be used as alternatives, as these materials do not degrade in the marine environment and therefore are not a solution to the problem; There should be a clear and prompt timeline for phasing out these ingredients, and a date after which products containing microplastics must not be sold. This photo provided by American Water shows company President and CEO Susan N. Story. Just over 15 percent of all director seats at publicly traded U.S. companies are filled by women, according to a review of companies in the Russell 3000 index by Equilar. In the utility industry, where 80 percent of workers are men, American Water stands out, as most of its directors are women. (American Water via AP) The number of women sitting at the table in corporate boardrooms across the country is rising very slowly, but it's rising. Just over 15 percent of all director seats at publicly traded U.S. companies were held by women as of Dec. 31, according to a study by Equilar, a corporate research firm. That's up from 14 percent a year earlier and from 12 percent in 2013. So, the trend is toward more equal representation on boards, but parity won't happen until the end of 2055 unless the pace picks up, according to Equilar. That's nearly 40 years away, which may be about when girls born today begin sitting on corporate boards. Demonstrating how far remains to go toward gender parity, 738 companies still have no women on their boards. Last year, nearly 60 companies that had no female directors since at least 2011 added one or more women. Even so, it's still much easier to find a woman in the boardroom than in the corner office, according to a separate, global survey of 3,400 companies by Credit Suisse. While women occupied nearly 15 percent of board seats at the end of 2015, only about 4 percent of CEOs are women. Companies in other countries have gotten closer to gender parity than the United States, and government pressure has played a big role. Several European countries have set quotas and targets for how many corporate board members should be held by women. That's why women held 24 percent of European board seats at the end of 2015, the highest rate in the world. Investors are taking note. Companies with at least one female director tend to have higher stock returns and better corporate performance than those with all-male boards, Credit Suisse says. Of course, this may be a case of correlation rather than causation, and better-performing companies may be more welcoming to women rather than vice versa. Regardless, having women in the most senior leadership positions has other benefits, companies say. At American Water Works Co., the largest publicly traded U.S. water and wastewater utility, five of the nine board positions are held by women. And that's something that customers, regulators and employees, both current and potential future ones, see, says BJ Holdnak, senior vice president of human resources. "We want to look like the customers and the employees that we serve in our local markets," she says. "The board, starting in 2012, really began to focus on assuring that they were diverse and looked like and represented the company." American Water's majority-female board is an anomaly. Just 21 of the 3,525 companies in Equilar's survey have half or more of their board seats held by women. Equilar based its study on the Russell 3000 index, a broad measure of publicly traded U.S. companies. It also runs counter to the male-dominated utility industry. Nearly 80 percent of workers across the industry are men, according to Labor Department statistics. Like American Water, Connecticut Water is another utility that has a majority-female board. It also says it didn't start with the explicit intent of having more women than men on its board. Instead, it happened as the byproduct of looking for a more diverse group to represent its shareholders, customers and employees. Five of the company's eight director seats are held by women. "It's a bit of an arduous process, looking for someone that fulfills what we're driving for in our cultural focus," says Kristen Johnson, corporate secretary and vice president of human resources at Connecticut Water. "We've been super-lucky to find individuals that populate the board like that, and it just so happens that five of them are women." The Equilar survey data can be found by following this link . 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. Professor Yemi Osinbajo - the acting president of Nigeria, on Wednesday, February 8, met with Emir of Kano, Mohammed Sanusi II at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. Both of them met behind closed doors. BREAKING: Osinbajo in crucial close door meeting with Okorocha, Sanusi Vanguard reports that when approached by the State House Correspondent to speak on his mission to the Villa, Sanusi however declined saying simply you can just report that I came to the Villa. READ ALSO: Onnoghen finally on path of becoming chief justice as NJC extends his tenure, writes Osibanjo It will be recalled that Sanusi had been very critical of President Muhammadu Buharis policies one of which was the decision to borrow $30 billion from external sources. He had also consistently spoken out on the illiteracy of Northern Nigeria, asking the stakeholders to convert mosques to schools. Also, Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State was seen leaving the office of the Acting President. He also didnt speak with Reporters. In a similar vein, the Emir of Kano, yesterday, urged the elite to wake up to their leadership roles. He said there is failure in some sectors because of the inability of the leaders to set their priorities right. The Emir also said those in position of authority should focus on providing education, healthcare for the people instead of dreaming of owning runways and having mega cities. According to The Nation, the Emir spoke in Abuja yesterday when Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello was given an award by Inspector General of Police Ibrahim Idris as the Most Security-Conscious Governor in Nigeria. The emir said: My advice to His Excellency is to remind him that to whom much is given, much is expected. For all of us in positions of authority, whether governor, emir, police commissioner, the president, chairman of local government; we must remember that over 170 million Nigerians were created by God and when God chose us and put us in these positions, it is not because he does not love those not given the positions. If there is anything that has destroyed this country, it is people thinking that offices are for themselves and their families but it is not. We were given offices for those who are not in office; we were given office not to sleep so that they may sleep. We were given office so that you can go hungry so that they may eat. You were given office so that you stay awake fearful of what may happen to them so that they may sleep in peace. People who think that they are in office to enjoy, to have sound sleep, to have a comfortable life are the worst leaders ever. So, I say to the governor and myself and to all of us who have a responsibility, the prophet of Islam has one Hadith about leadership that is very frightening. He says, it is a trust and on the Day of Judgment, it is a source of humiliation and regret. Everyone must remember that there would be a day that we will account for these privileges. On that day, if you did not serve those people, you would regret and wish that you never had that office. The Emir also said there is need to address what he described as silent violence like poverty, hunger, lack of healthcare and other social amenities.. On security he said: How would you blow up mosques because you want to establish an Islamic system? In Southern Kaduna, we have people who lived together for decades and centuries killing each other because they have constructed fake identities settler and indigene and because of genuine lack of enforcement of the law. Every time there is crisis in Southern Kaduna, people die, there is a tribunal, there is a report, culprits are identified and nothing happens. So, these small instances utterly lead to conflagration and therefore, it is important to address them at every point in time. Source: Legit.ng When President Donald Trump set out to choose a Supreme Court nominee, one factor was critical: a proven record. On that front, Judge Neil Gorsuch, who has a long paper trail of judicial opinions from his time on the 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals, appears to be the perfect candidate for judicial conservatives. They are pleased with the opinions on the books, and they feel confident that on issues he has not directly considered, such as abortion and the gun rights he will be guided by his conservative values. Here's what we know about Gorsich on many of the hot-button issues of today's Supreme Court: Religious liberty and the contraceptive mandate Judicial conservatives believe that Gorsuch's commitment to religious liberty is solid. He joined an opinion siding with a closely held businesses that objected to the so-called contraceptive mandate in Obamacare. The case concerned Hobby Lobby, a craft store chain that objected to providing certain contraceptives in their health care plan under Obamacare. In his typically lucid prose, Gorsuch stressed why the Greens, the family that owns Hobby Lobby, had a legal right to be in court. "This isn't the case, say, of a wily businessman seeking to use an insincere claim of faith as cover to avoid a financially burdensome regulation," Gorsuch wrote. Instead, he said, the so-called contraceptive mandate required the family to violate their religious faith. "For some, religion provides an essential source of guidance both about what constitutes wrongful conduct and the degree to which those who assist others in committing wrongful conduct themselves bear moral culpability," he wrote. "The Green family members are among those who seek guidance from their faith on these questions. Understanding that is the key to understanding this case." In another opinion, Gorsuch ruled in favor of an inmate in Wyoming who sought to use a sweat lodge in the prison yard as a part of a Native American religious tradition. The state's prison policy barred him from doing so. "While those convicted of crime in our society lawfully forfeit a great many civil liberties, Congress has (repeatedly) instructed that the sincere exercise of religion should not be among them -- at least in the absence of a compelling reason," Gorsuch wrote. "In this record we can find no reason like that." Separation of powers, immigration, and the environment Gorsuch's views on the constitutional separation of powers issue could have an interesting short-term impact on the Trump administration and immigration. At issue is what might seem like a dry legal doctrine known as "Chevron deference."In the simplest terms, back in 1984, the Supreme Court held in Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council that when a law is ambiguous, courts must defer to the interpretation of a law adopted by the federal agency charged with enforcing that law, as long as the interpretation is reasonable. Liberals in recent years have tended to support Chevron because when there is congressional gridlock, Democratic presidents have interpreted older statutes having to do with issues such as the environment and labor to allow them to implement broader protections. President Barack Obama was especially active on that front. Gorsuch has been a strong critic of Chevron, arguing it gives agencies too much power to say what the law is, which is really the job of the courts. "Clarence Thomas is the only current justice who shares a similar deregulatory philosophy," said Michele Jawando of the liberal Center for American Progress. But Gorsuch's view could cause him to vote against Trump if there were ever a legal challenge to the President's executive order on immigration at the high court. "If Gorsuch had his way, the court might be less forgiving of the Trump administration's interpretation of immigration law," said Jeff Pojanowski of Notre Dame Law School. "Justice Scalia was a long-time defender of Chevron deference," Pojanowski said, "while Gorsuch is emerging as one of its sharpest critics." Abortion Gorsuch has never ruled directly on Roe v. Wade, the landmark opinion legalizing abortion. But conservatives take comfort from some of the language in a book he has penned on assisted suicide. "The idea that all human beings are intrinsically valuable and the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong," Gorsuch wrote in "The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia." They also point to his fidelity to originalism and believe it will lead him to what they believe is the right conclusion, which is that the Constitution does not protect a right to abortion. "Judge Gorsuch is a remarkably qualified nominee with a conservative judicial philosophy and a commitment to uphold the rule of law and the Constitution," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the conservative American Center for Law & Justice, in a statement. Meanwhile, supporters of abortion rights are concerned about Gorsuch's dissent in Planned Parenthood Association of Utah v. Herbert. After videos emerged allegedly showing Planned Parenthood officials negotiating the sale of fetal tissue, the governor of Utah announced that the conduct warranted the suspension of public funding of some programs run by the organization in the state. A three-judge panel of Gorsuch's court ruled in favor of Planned Parenthood. After a larger panel of judges on the court declined to review the decision, Gorsuch dissented. The case warranted rehearing, in part, because the panel relaxed Planned Parenthood's burden of proof and applied the wrong standard of review, he wrote. "Preliminary injunction disputes like this one recur regularly and ensuring certainty in the rules governing them, and demonstrating that we will apply those rules consistently to all matters that come before us, is of exceptional importance to the law, litigants, lower courts, and future panels alike," he wrote. Second Amendment Gorsuch has never ruled squarely on the Second Amendment. Gun rights advocates note that he shares Antonin Scalia's devotion to originalism, and it was Scalia who wrote a landmark opinion holding for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to own a handgun. Although Gorsuch's record on the Second Amendment is sparse, gun control advocates are concerned about one case where he opined that the government should meet a tougher standard before prosecuting felons for possession of firearms. Citing Scalia's opinion Gorsuch wrote: "the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to own firearms and may not be infringed lightly." "Although Gorsuch's exact views on the Second Amendment remain a mystery, several of his decisions made it harder to keep guns out of the hands of felons," said Adam Winkler, a professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. National Security As a federal appeals court judge, Gorsuch has not ruled extensively on national security issues. But before taking the bench, while he was serving at the Justice Department as the principal deputy attorney general from 2005-2006, he was charged with reviewing and editing legal briefs and developing case strategy on a number of national security cases. At the time, the George W. Bush administration was grappling with several post-9/11 cases and challenges to its detention policies and claims of executive power. The department has turned over to the Senate thousands of pages of documents and emails that offer a glimpse of Gorsuch's views on several issues, including detention policies and Guantanamo Bay. Gorsuch himself took a trip to Guantanamo Bay. Upon his return he wrote to colleagues, "If DC judges could see what we saw, I believe they would be more sympathetic to our litigating positions," he wrote in one email. He opined that some of the lawyers for the detainees had spoken about conditions at the detention facility "sometimes quite misleadingly." In a separate document, dated November 17, 2005, Gorsuch thanked Adm. James M. McGarrah for allowing him to visit Guantanamo Bay. "I was extraordinarily impressed," Gorsuch wrote. "You and your colleagues have developed standards and imposed a degree of professionalism that the nation can be proud of, and being able to see firsthand all that you have managed to accomplish with such a difficult and sensitive mission makes my job of helping explain and defend it before the courts all the easier," he wrote. In another document from December 2005, he praised the fact that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had kicked off a European tour to defend US actions and detention policies aimed at preventing terrorist attacks. Gorsuch wrote he was "pleased and proud" that Rice was traveling. "It is long overdue for the administration to get out publicly and defend our detention policies, trumpet their successes, while also admitting the inevitable and regrettable errors." The email hints at Gorsuch's broader view: "We've been in a defensive crouch telling the world to buzz off for a long time; we need more of this open and positive communication. Keep it up!" Big business Critics of Gorsuch believe he will continue a trend they see on the court in favoring big business. They point to a case concerning Alphonse Maddin, a driver who worked for TransAm Trucking. In 2009, the brakes on Maddin's trailer froze because of subzero temperatures. He waited for a repair but after several hours in freezing temperatures he was told by his bosses that he either had to drive away with the trailer or continue to stay on site. Instead, he unhitched his truck and drove away. He was later fired for abandoning the trailer. He filed a complaint asserting that the firing was in violation of a federal safety law. In a 2-1 decision the 10th Circuit ruled in Maddin's favor. Gorsuch dissented. "A trucker was stranded on the side of the road, late at night, in cold weather, and his trailer brakes were stuck," Gorsuch wrote and noted that the company "fired him for disobeying orders and abandoning its trailer and goods." "It might be fair to ask whether TransAm's decision was a wise or kind one," he wrote. "But it's not our job to answer questions like that. Our only task is to decide whether the decision was an illegal one." Gorsuch concluded it wasn't. "Whatever the case, it is our job and work enough for the day to apply the law Congress did pass, not to imagine and enforce one it might have but didn't," he said. Judith E. Schaeffer, the vice president at the progressive Constitutional Accountability Center, said Gorsuch's dissent in TransAm Trucking was "anything but a fair reading of a statute enacted to protect worker and public safety. In fact, this is one of the cases cited by members of the business community as evidence that if confirmed he will be another reliable vote for them on the pro-corporate Roberts court." But David C. Frederick, a lawyer and long-time friend of Gorsuch, says that those people who accuse Gorsuch as being too friendly to big business might be mistaken. "Anyone who sees Gorsuch as automatically pro-corporation should talk to the officers at Rockwell International and Dow Chemical, against whom he reinstated a $920 million jury verdict for environmental contamination at the Rocky Flats nuclear facility," he wrote. Law enforcement "For the heir to Justice Scalia, perhaps the biggest question is whether he will share the late justice's somewhat idiosyncratic approach to criminal cases, which typically led to rulings in favor of the government, but with some important and significant exceptions," said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor of law at the University of Texas School of Law. Gorsuch's record on the subject is mixed. In one unusual case, Gorsuch dissented from his colleagues when they ruled against a boy in seventh grade who had disrupted a gym class by launching a series of fake burps. The student was later arrested by a school law enforcement officer. "If a seventh grader starts trading fake burps for laughs in gym class, what's a teacher to do?" Gorsuch asked. "Order extra laps? Detention? A trip to the principal's office? Maybe. But then again, maybe that's too old school Maybe today you call a police officer." Gorsuch said he remained unpersuaded by his colleagues' majority opinion that ruled in favor of the school. "Arresting a now-compliant class clown for burping was going a step too far," he wrote. Emerging reports suggest that, if all things go as planned, then President Muhammadu Buhari would return to Nigeria from his vacation to the United Kingdom this Saturday, February 11 BREAKING: Buhari may return from vacation on Saturday According to Leadership, a source disclosed on Wednesday, February 8, that except there would be any last minute change, all is set for President Buharis return. The source, a senior official in the presidency, who spoke in confidence with newsmen, simply said: Barring any last minute change, we are expecting the president back this weekend, probably on Saturday. READ ALSO: UPDATED: Osinbajo in crucial close door meeting with Okorocha, Emir Sanusi It was also gathered that the president had on Tuesday this week cancelled an interview with a foreign media organisation, but may possibly grant an interview in London before the weekend. Another source in the presidency also said that President Buhari had already packed his bags to leave on Sunday but was advised by his doctors to wait and get results of some tests he conducted before leaving that country. I can confidently tell you that Mr. President might still be there (in London) because he has to succumb to the superior knowledge of physicians who conducted medical checks on him, but his mind is in Nigeria, he added. On rumours that he is incapacitated, the source who preferred not to be named in print because he is not in a position to officially speak on the matter said, What else do you expect from people? If it were to be other past presidents who go on vacation or medical checkup without official notification, there wouldnt have been room for such rumour. But this is a president who is determined to remain transparent in whatever he does in office. Dont forget that this is not the first time His Excellency is embarking on a vacation outside the shores of the country. Legit.ng had earlier reported that the special adviser on media and publicity to the president, Mr Femi Adesina, had on Tuesday said the president may return to Nigeria sooner than expected. President Buhari had on Sunday written to the National Assembly, informing lawmakers of his desire to extend his leave in order to complete and receive the results of a series of tests recommended by his doctors. Meanwhile, the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed observed yesterday that it was ridiculous for anyone to compare President Buharis health condition with that of the late President Umaru Musa YarAdua. Mohammed who spoke after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa was joined by the ministers of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola; Agriculture, Audu Ogbeh and Trade & Investment, Okechukwu Enemelah. His position came two days after Osinbajo had replied those insisting on knowing the health status of the president, that only the president could disclose the status of his health. Echoing the acting presidents position, the information minister insisted that the president was hale and hearty, just as he assured that Buhari was well and that he was absolutely in no danger. Asked if the presidents health came up at FEC yesterday, Mohammed said, I think I can say without any equivocation that he (Buhari) is well, he is hale and hearty; no question about that. You see, on a lighter note, do you think Mr President will be ill and we will be here and go about our businesses like this? The minister of power was in Anambra two to three days ago. I was in Ilorin on Monday; all our ministers are busy. But I want to assure you that Mr. President is well and he is absolutely in no danger. Noting that it was absurd to compare Buharis health with that of the late YarAdua, the minister said, I think it was one of the newspapers that said when I was the spokesman of APC I demanded for hourly bulletin of YarAduas health and that I ought to be giving hourly bulletin as minister of information on the health of the president. And I said you are comparing apple and oranges. Mr. President is not ill, he is not in hospital and there will be no need to give anybody hourly bulletin about his health pure and simple. Mr. President like I said elsewhere is a victim of his own transparency. He was going on leave, he did what the constitution said he should do; he transmitted a letter to the National Assembly and an acting president was put in place and he said, while I am on leave I am going to conduct some medical tests, which all of us do without announcing it. And of course, less than six hours after he got there he was pronounced dead by some people. Even those who saw him climb the aircraft in Abuja said he was flown by air ambulance. I can assure you that Mr. President is well, is hale and hearty and no cause for concern. The Acting President speaks to him every day and he told you so. Asked if it was ideal for the president to go on leave at this time of recession, Mohammed pointed out that the constitution guarantees that. Absolutely yes; our constitution guarantees that. Did Obama not go on leave; do other presidents not go on leave? Mr. President will go on vacation when he has to go on vacation. Do you know how many ministers have gone on vacation this year? To say Mr. President cannot go on vacation is ridiculous, he stated. I speak with my brother every day, says Buharis only sister The only surviving older sister of President Muhammad Buhari, Hajiya Rakiya, said since January when President Buhari departed to London, she has been speaking with him every day, and that he is in high spirits. She appealed to Nigerians to continue to pray for the well-being of the president, instead of spreading rumours about his health. In an interview with NAN in Daura, Katsina State, the 84-year-old woman said her brother needs the prayers of every Nigerian for him to succeed in the task of addressing the problems facing the nation. She said he as a human being, he is bound to fall ill or even die at any time his Creator wishes. I just returned from the lesser Hajj, and even while in Saudi Arabia, I was communicating with him every day, Rakiya popularly called Amadodo, told NAN. She said in Saudi Arabia, she communicated with him every ten hours. We were 28 from our mother late Hajiya Zulaihatu who died in 1992, but Buhari was her last born, she said. A cross-section of the people in the ancient city, who spoke with NAN, expressed displeasure over rumours about the presidents health. Abdulman Daura, north-west organising secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), described the false reports as baseless and unfounded. Daura said Buhari is in good health and is only conducting a routine medical checkup in the United Kingdom. He advised the presidents opponent to be always constructive and avoid campaign of hate and calumny. Similarly, Aminu Na-Dari, an ally of the president, said he has also been in constant touch with Buhari since his departure and their conversation did not in any way indicate that he is having any health challenge. A group of students from the School of Health Technology, Daura, described the rumour as unfortunate and asked the National Association of Nigerian Students to issue a statement condemning the rumour. Aminu Mohammed, spokesperson of the students, called on Nigerians to always think and act positive, saying Buhari has started the reform of correcting the ills of the nation, and corruption had started fighting back. He urged Nigerians to continue to pray for the nation and safe return of Mr President. Leave PDP Out Of PMBs Rumoured Death BoT Chairman The chairman, Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Walid Jibrin, yesterday blamed those he described as power seekers of being behind the rumour of President Muhammadu Buharis death. Jibrin, who exonerated the PDP from the spread of the rumour, however, advised them to revert to offering prayers of recovery for the president, warning those trying to involve the PDP in the rumour mongering to have a change of heart. He said, As a good opposition, we shall never engage in wishing President Buhari dead. Instead, we are engaged in special prayers for Mr. President and sincerely sympathise with his family and the Acting President of the country. Condemning the dangerous speculations on the state of President Buharis health, the PDP BoT Chairman said, The PDP will like to be completely spared out of the rumoured death and speculation of the state of President Muhammadu Buharis ill health being spread by some power seekers, who are eager to take over from him. The ill health does not deserve the speculation going on. PDP believes that it is God that brings and takes life. We equally believe that power belongs to God; he gives it to whom he wills and gives it to whom he likes. Instead of some power seekers engaging themselves in spreading rumour, they should revert to offering prayers for the President. All those trying to involve PDP in wishing the President dead should better stop, as PDP has a good name to maintain. In a similar vein, the national leadership of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Youths Renaissance has faulted the 74-hour ultimatum given to the Federal Government by the Save Nigeria Group to disclose the health status of President Muhammadu Buhari to Nigerians. The group claimed that after a review of the demand reached the by SNG, it concluded that President Buhari breached no law by not disclosing his ailment to the public. Source: Legit.ng News Microsoft Kicks Off Legal Indemnity Program for Azure Users Microsoft today initiated a new program that promises legal indemnification protections against intellectual property (IP) claims for organizations using Microsoft Azure services. The program, called "Microsoft Azure IP Advantage," takes effect today for Azure users. However, they need to meet certain qualifications to get some of the program's protection benefits. Three Protections There are three basic elements to the program. First, Microsoft is promising to include IP protections for its patented technologies, as well as open source technologies, used in Azure. Next, Microsoft is promising to keep a pool of patents for legal defensive purposes. Organizations can pick one patent to use for countersuing purposes. Lastly, Microsoft is promising that if it transfers Azure-associated patents to "nonpracticing entities," then the arrangement will be such that the holding company can't assert IP claims against Azure customers. This latter arrangement is called a "springing license" arrangement in legal lingo. One example of IP protections enabled by the program for open source software is the use of open source Hadoop technology, according to Microsoft's announcement. Hadoop is used in Microsoft's Azure HD Insight "Big Data" services, so the program affords indemnity protections for Azure HD Insight users. Microsoft is promising to keep a pool 10,000 patents out of its total holdings of 60,000 patents (as of Feb. 8, 2017) that organizations can use for legal defensive purposes. Initially, 7,500 patents will be available, but Microsoft plans to add 2,500 patents "in a few months" to the pool, according to its Azure IP Advantage Program FAQ. Organizations facing litigation over Azure use can select a patent for defensive purposes if they qualify for that benefit. In essence, they have to have paid at least $1,000 each month for Azure services use over the last three months, and they can't have brought litigation against other Azure workload users over the past two years. Organizations can't just pick any Microsoft patent for litigation purposes. It has to be "solely for defense of suits against their Azure workloads," Microsoft's FAQ explained. The customer actually owns the patent in such cases, but just pays for the patent administrative transfer costs, per the FAQ. Microsoft retains use rights, though. "After transferring, the customer owns the patent," a Microsoft spokesperson clarified via e-mail today. "Microsoft retains a license to use the technology." Microsoft also will provide legal advice and assistance to qualified Azure users facing a lawsuit. "In indemnification cases Microsoft's legal counsel will generally take over the engagement with the patent aggressor, applying resources legal, IP and engineering support as appropriate," the spokesperson clarified. The Microsoft Azure IP Advantage Program just applies to lawsuits initiating on or after Feb. 8, 2017. It doesn't apply to prior lawsuits. The program is not available in China. Nonpracticing Entity Threat Brad Smith, Microsoft's president and chief legal officer, suggested in a Microsoft video that cloud litigation has been growing, including the threat of baseless lawsuits. It's not just a problem for service providers such as Microsoft, but it's also a potential problem for customers, he suggested. Smith also suggested that nonpracticing entities, or companies that just hold patents without providing a product or service, were growing their holdings with respect to cloud technologies. He suggested that Microsoft's new program could offer protection in that respect. "As an engine of innovation, the cloud in our view is too important to be stifled in this way," Smith said, regarding NPE holdings. "That's why, as a company, we at Microsoft are committed to fostering a community and business environment that values and protects our customers and investments in the cloud. That's why we are introducing today a new program called Microsoft Azure IP Advantage." While Microsoft's announcement mentions that the program has IP protections for open source software used in Azure, that's not Microsoft main motivation. It mostly wants to thwart the IP claims of nonpracticing entities (NPEs). "The program was created to in response to customer feedback," the spokesperson explained. "The growth of cloud has created an attractive target for NPEs and Microsoft wants to protect customers and get ahead of this emerging trend." Microsoft lately has embraced open source technologies, especially with regard to Azure, which supports multiple Linux server distros on Azure virtual machines. Azure itself also uses some open source technologies. Microsoft's position on open source software has been evolving from a previous long-term hostility. On the IP side, Microsoft early on provided "IP peace of mind" by issuing certificates for Novell's SuSE Linux Enterprise server use in a controversial program that promised customers using that software that they would not be subject to IP claims from Microsoft. That program emerged from Microsoft's early legal claims that Linux and other open source software had violated 235 of Microsoft's patents. One instance where Microsoft pressed its claims, though, concerned the Android open source mobile operating system, fostered by Google. Microsoft typically collected in advance of litigation based on its many IP claims concerning Android use. And here's what you need to know about financial literacy. Singapore Airlines Ltd., Southeast Asias biggest carrier, extended some of its fuel-hedging contracts to as long as five years, betting on an upswing in crude oil prices amid OPEC production cuts and renewed tensions between the U.S. and Iran. The marquee airline, which reported a 36 percent drop in profit for the three months through December, said Tuesday that it has entered into longer-dated Brent hedges with maturity extending to 2022. Earlier, the company used to hedge only for a maximum period of 24 months, according to spokesman Nicholas Ionides. Read more here. With more than half of Singapore equities trading below their net worth, some investors are chasing profits by buying shares in companies that may be bought out or delisted by controlling shareholders or takeover firms. Investors are looking for takeover candidates because prices have come off significantly, said Justin Tang, a director of global special situations at Religare Capital Markets in Singapore. We may see an increase in delistings and takeovers this year because of this. Click here for the full story. These days, financial literacy is something that nobody can afford to take for granted. It is an essential life-skill that you need to be equipped with in order to make sound and informed financial decisions. And while many would associate financial literacy with only about basic money management such as making sure you dont spend more than you earn, its actually much more than that. Financial literacy also encompasses other important issues such as financial planning for retirement or old age, managing your investments and even ensuring you have sufficient insurance coverage. Go to this link to know more. More From Singapore Business Review A top Japanese company said Thursday it had dropped Mexico as a possible location for a new auto parts factory after Donald Trump rapped Toyota over a plant in the country -- and economists warned more firms could follow suit. The decision by Nikkei 225-listed Nisshinbo Holdings marked the first time a Japanese company has publicly abandoned a Mexican facility in response to the new US president's protectionist outbursts, the Nikkei business daily said Thursday. The announcement comes as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe heads to Washington Thursday for meetings with Trump aimed at cementing ties and underscoring Japan's commitment to investing in the US. Mexico was among the locations being considered for Nisshinbo's vehicle brake parts plant, reportedly worth up to 10 billion yen ($89 million). The firm is a leading maker of friction-reducing brake parts with about a 15 percent share of the global market. Nisshinbo, which also makes a range of other products including electronics and textiles, already has a US plant and is looking for a new facility to service the North American market. Nisshinbo's shares sank more than four percent to close at 1,040 yen ($9) Thursday. Company spokesman Kiyohiro Kida said Mexico had been at the top of the list for possible sites. "Mexico was the strongest candidate but we have taken a step back," he told AFP, confirming the decision was a response to Trump's trade policies. His comments came a day after Nisshinbo's executive managing officer Takayoshi Okugawa told an earnings briefing that the country was off the list. "Regarding Mexico, we've dropped it," he said. "We have to pick a site other than Mexico." - 'Similar moves' - The US is the most likely alternative for the plant, the Nikkei said, as Trump moves to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. More Japanese companies could follow Nisshinbo's example and avoid Mexico, said Takeshi Minami, chief economist at Norinchukin Research Institute in Tokyo. "It's likely that we could see similar moves" by other firms, he told AFP. Trump's policies "could affect both companies which already have plants (in Mexico) and those planning to invest there", he added. The tycoon has assailed Japan for allegedly devaluing the yen to boost exports, grouping it with other countries he says are taking "advantage" of the United States. Trump has targeted Toyota with strong criticism of its ongoing project to build a new factory in Mexico, threatening it with painful tariffs if its goes ahead. The Japanese auto giant has stuck to its Mexico plans, but said last month it intends to invest $600 million and create 400 jobs at one of its US plants.. Ford last month abruptly cancelled plans to build a new factory in Mexico. But Japan Inc.'s possible move away from Mexico would have "little impact" on the economy given its relatively small presence in the nation, said Takashi Shiono, an economist at Credit Suisse in Tokyo. Mexico has only about a 0.5 percent share of Japan's outstanding foreign direct investment, according to official data. Siri Venture is the second venture capital firm of its kind in Thailand, after Ananda Developments Ananda Urban Tech Thai property developer group Sansiri Pcl and the Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) launched new corporate venture capital fund Siri Venture, according to Dealstreet Asia. With focus on investing in property-related startups and R&D, Sansiri will own 90 per cent of Siri Venture while SCB owns the rest, with registered capital of THB100 million (US$2.8 million). Siri Venture Chief Executive Shakrit Chaurungsakul stated that the firm plans to invest between THB100 million (US$2.8 million) and THB500 million (US$14.2 million) to startups based in Thailand and Singapore. It will inject between THB500,000 (US$14,200) and THB10 million (US$285,000) in each startup, with the target of investing in 40 startups over the next three years. Also Read: VR Property platforms: Why is VR quality is not as good as its still renders? The firm is particularly looking for startups working on various home technologies, robotics, drones and artificial intelligence. It is also set to launch Thailands first property technology accelerator in the second quarter of 2017. The launch follows the launch of Ananda Urban Tech, a venture capital fund launched by fellow Thai property development Ananda Development in January, which invests in innovation to improve or solve urban living problems. Ananda Development became the first property developer group to branch out into startup investment in the country, which programmes include ecosystem support, fund of funds and corporate venture capital. Some property tech startups in Thailand include Hipflat and ZmyHome. Image Credit: andreahast / 123RF Stock Photo The post Sansiri, SCB join forces to launch Siri Venture for property tech startups in Thailand appeared first on e27. AFP News Zhang Yao recalls the moment he realised something had gone deeply wrong at the Chinese mega-factory where he and hundreds of thousands of other workers assembled iPhones and other high-end electronics. In early October, supervisors suddenly warned him that 3,000 colleagues had been taken into quarantine after someone tested positive for Covid-19 at the factory. "They told us not to take our masks off," Zhang, speaking under a pseudonym for fear of retaliation, told AFP by telephone. What followed was a weeks-long ordeal including food shortages and the ever-present fear of infection, before he finally escaped on Tuesday. Zhang's employer, Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn, has said it faces a "protracted battle" against infections and imposed a "closed loop" bubble around its sprawling campus in central China's Zhengzhou city. Local authorities locked down the area surrounding the major Apple supplier's factory on Wednesday, but not before reports emerged of employees fleeing on foot and a lack of adequate medical care at the plant. China is the last major economy committed to a zero-Covid strategy, persisting with snap lockdowns, mass testing and lengthy quarantines in a bid to stamp out emerging outbreaks. But new variants have tested officials' ability to snuff out flare-ups and dragged down economic activity with the threat of sudden disruptions. - Desperation - Multiple workers have recounted scenes of chaos and increasing disorganisation at Foxconn's complex of workshops and dormitories, which form a city-within-a-city near Zhengzhou's airport. Zhang told AFP that "positive tests and double lines (on antigen tests) had become a common sight" in his workshop before he left. "Of course we were scared, it was so close to us." "People with fevers are not guaranteed to receive medicine," another Foxconn worker, a 30-year-old man who also asked to remain anonymous, told AFP. "We are drowning," he said. Those who decided to stop working were not offered meals at their dormitories, Zhang said, adding that some were able to survive on personal stockpiles of instant noodles. Kai, a worker at in the complex who gave an interview to state-owned Sanlian Lifeweek, told the magazine Foxconn's "closed loop" involved cordoning off paths between dormitory compounds and the factory, and complained he was left to his own devices after being thrown in quarantine. TikTok videos geolocated by AFP showed mounds of uncollected rubbish outside buildings in late October, while employees in N95 masks squeezed onto packed shuttle buses taking them from dormitories to their work stations. A 27-year-old woman working at Foxconn, who asked not to be named, told AFP a roommate who tested positive for Covid was sent back to her dormitory on Thursday morning, crying, after she decided to hand in her notice while in quarantine. "Now the three of us are living in the same room: one a confirmed case and two of us testing positive on the rapid test, still waiting for our nucleic acid test results," the worker told AFP. Many became so desperate by the end of last month that they attempted to walk back to their hometowns to get around Covid transport curbs. As videos of people dragging their suitcases down motorways and struggling up hills spread on Chinese social media, the authorities rushed in to do damage control. The Zhengzhou city government on Sunday said it had arranged for special buses to take employees back to their hometowns. Surrounding Henan province has officially reported a spike of more than 600 Covid cases since the start of this week. - Distrust - When Zhang finally attempted to leave the Foxconn campus on Tuesday, he found the company had set up obstacle after obstacle. "There were people with loudspeakers advertising the latest Foxconn policy, saying that each day there would be a 400 yuan ($55) bonus," Zhang told AFP. A crowd of employees gathered at a pick-up point in front of empty buses but were not let on. People in hazmat suits, known colloquially as "big whites" in China, claimed they had been sent by the city government. "They tried to persuade people to stay in Zhengzhou... and avoid going home," Zhang said. "But when we asked to see their work ID, they had nothing to show us, so we suspected they were actually from Foxconn." Foxconn pointed to the local government's lockdown orders from Wednesday when asked by AFP if it attempted to stop employees from leaving, without giving any further response. The company had on Sunday said it was "providing employees with complimentary three meals a day" and cooperating with the government to provide transport home. Eventually, the crowd of unhappy workers who had gathered decided to take matters into their own hands and walked over seven kilometres on foot to the nearest highway entry ramp. There, more people claiming to be government officials pleaded with the employees to wait for the bus. The crowd had no choice as the road was blocked. Buses eventually arrived at five in the afternoon -- nearly nine hours after Zhang had begun his attempt to secure transport. "They were trying to grind us down," he said. Back in his hometown, Zhang is now waiting out the home quarantine period required by the local government. "All I feel is, I've finally left Zhengzhou," he told AFP. bur-tjx/oho/je/mca/cwl AFP News Former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan was recovering in hospital Friday after a gunman shot him in the leg, with his supporters vowing the assassination attempt will not derail his "long march" bid to return to power. The attack on his convoy, apparently by a lone gunman, killed one man and wounded at least 10, significantly raising the stakes in a political crisis that has gripped the South Asian nation since Khan's ousting in April. Khan "was stable and he was doing fine" at Shaukat Khanum hospital in the eastern city of Lahore, his doctor Faisal Sultan told AFP Friday. Seemi Bokhari, a lawmaker with Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, said after visiting Khan the former premier was in high spirits. "The doctors are allowing him to move ... He is feeling perfectly well and he will soon be discharged," she told AFP. The 70-year-old former international cricket star had been leading a campaign convoy of thousands since last week from Lahore to the capital Islamabad when he was attacked. Khan suffered at least one bullet wound to his right leg when a gunmen sprayed pistol fire at his modified container truck as it drove slowly through a thick crowd in Wazirabad, around 170 kilometres (105 miles) east of Islamabad. "Everyone who was standing in the very front row got hit," former information minister Fawad Chaudhry, who was standing behind Khan, told AFP. Senior aide Raoof Hasan said it was "an attempt to kill him, to assassinate him". Chaudhry said party officials would meet later Friday to discuss the immediate fate of Khan's campaign march. "The real freedom long march will continue and the movement for people's rights will remain until an announcement on the general elections," he tweeted. - Threats - Party officials also called for supporters to stage rallies and marches across the country after Friday afternoon prayers, the most important of the week. Protesters lit fires and blocked roads in several cities late Thursday as news of Khan's shooting spread. His campaign truck has become a crime scene for now, cordoned off and guarded by commandos as forensic experts comb the area. Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb said Thursday the attacker had been taken into custody. Officials shared an apparent confession video that was circulating online. "I did it because (Khan) was misleading the public," says a dishevelled man in the leaked video, shown with his hands tied behind his back in what appears to be a police station. He says he was angry with the procession for making a racket during the call to prayer that summons Muslims to the mosque five times a day. Pervaiz Elahi, the chief minister of Punjab, said officers who leaked the video would be disciplined. Pakistan has been grappling with Islamist militancy for decades, with right-wing religious groups having huge sway over the population. It has been no stranger to assassination attempts during decades of political instability, and the powerful military has led the country several times. Pakistan's first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, was shot dead at a rally in Rawalpindi in 1951. Another former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, was killed in 2007 when a huge bomb detonated near her vehicle as she greeted supporters in the city of Rawalpindi. - Kicked from power - Khan was booted from office in April by a no-confidence vote after defections by some of his coalition partners, but he retains huge support. He was voted into power in 2018 on an anti-corruption platform by an electorate tired of dynastic politics, but his mishandling of the economy -- and falling out with a military accused of helping his rise -- sealed his fate. Since then, he has railed against the establishment and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's government, which he says was imposed on Pakistan by a "conspiracy" involving the United States. Khan and Shehbaz have for months traded bitter accusations of corruption and incompetence, raising the political temperature in a nation that is frequently at boiling point. Khan has repeatedly told supporters he was prepared to die for the country, and aides have long warned of unspecified threats made on his life. The attack drew international condemnation including from the United States, which had uneasy relations with Khan when he was in power. "Violence has no place in politics, and we call on all parties to refrain from violence, harassment and intimidation," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. sjd/fox/ecl/pbt/dhc AFP News Pope Francis warned the world is on the edge of a "delicate precipice" and buffeted by "winds of war" as he held inter-faith talks with one of Sunni Islam's top leaders in Bahrain on Friday. The 85-year-old Argentine decried the "opposing blocs" of East and West, a veiled reference to the standoff over Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in a speech to religious leaders in the tiny Gulf state. "We continue to find ourselves on the brink of a delicate precipice and we do not want to fall," he told an audience including Bahrain's king and Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of Cairo's prestigious Al-Azhar mosque. "A few potentates are caught up in a resolute struggle for partisan interests, reviving obsolete rhetoric, redesigning spheres of influence and opposing blocs," he added. "We appear to be witnessing a dramatic and childlike scenario: in the garden of humanity, instead of cultivating our surroundings, we are playing instead with fire, missiles and bombs." The pope's visit, aimed at strengthening relations with Islam, comes with the Ukraine war in its ninth month, and as tensions grow on the Korean peninsula and in the Taiwan Strait. Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who met Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in September, told journalists that there had been "a few small signs" of progress in negotiations with Moscow, warning that peace initiatives should not be "exploited for other goals". Francis, who is on his second visit to the wealthy Gulf, later met privately with al-Tayeb, with whom he signed a Muslim-Christian manifesto for peace in the United Arab Emirates in 2019. "This meeting has great symbolic importance, both locally and internationally, for promoting peace and peaceful co-existence between different religions and civilisations," said Hala Ramzi Fayez, a Christian and member of Bahrain's parliament. - Sunni, Shiite talks? - Leader of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics, Francis has placed inter-faith dialogue at the heart of his papacy, visiting other Muslim-majority countries including Egypt, Turkey and Iraq. Al-Tayeb, who met with the pope on previous Middle East visits, also called on Friday for talks between Islam's two main branches, Sunni and Shiite, to settle sectarian differences. Later, the pope addressed 17 members of the Muslim Council of Elders, an international group of Islamic scholars and dignitaries, at the mosque of the Sakhir Royal Palace. He told them dialogue was "the oxygen of peaceful coexistence". "In a world that is increasingly wounded and divided, that beneath the surface of globalisation senses anxiety and fear, the great religious traditions must be the heart that unites the members of the body," he said. He also struck out at the arms trade, a "commerce of death" that he said was "turning our common home into one great arsenal". The pope, who is using a wheelchair and a walking stick due to long-standing knee problems, began the first papal visit to Bahrain on Thursday by hitting out at the death penalty and urging respect for human rights and better conditions for workers. Sheikh Salman bin Khalifa Al-Khalifa, Bahrain's minister of finance and national economy, insisted the country has "led the region" with its criminal justice reforms. "We have some of the most robust and wide-ranging human rights and criminal justice protections in the region," the minister told AFP on Friday. "There are very well-established channels through which any of these critics can go, well established institutions of accountability," he said, adding that the pope's comments on the death penalty did not single out Bahrain. "It is important to note that that reference... was a general reference to countries around the world," the minister said. Bahrain has executed six people since 2017, when it carried out its first execution in seven years. Some of the condemned were convicted following a 2011 uprising put down with military support from neighbouring Saudi Arabia. cmk-lar/par/ho/th/dwo By Rodrigo Campos NEW YORK (Reuters) - There is emerging consensus in Libya and the international community to support a change to the composition of the U.N.-backed government's leadership, the top United Nations official in Libya said on Wednesday. Western states say the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) provides the best chance of reversing Libya's slide into anarchy and warfare. However, the GNA has largely failed to exert its authority over a country that slid into lawlessness after the 2011 uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi. "There is I must say a growing consensus to adapt the composition of the Presidency Council," Martin Kobler, the special representative of the U.N. Secretary-General in Libya, told Reuters in an interview. "We opened the way for a limited amendment to the Libyan political agreement but it must be a Libyan-owned and a Libyan-steered process," said Kobler, who spoke after giving a Security Council briefing at U.N. headquarters in New York. The GNA's leadership, the Presidential Council, is made up of nine members who are meant to represent different geographical regions and political currents within Libya. The Council has been bitterly divided, with two of its number mostly boycotting proceedings, and different members regularly issuing contradictory statements. Khalifa Haftar, a prominent commander in eastern Libya who harbors national ambitions and once fought beside long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi, is a figurehead for factions in the country's east. He has shunned the GNA. "The single most important topic is the construction of a Libyan united army with a clear chain of command, where general Haftar must have a role," Kobler said. He said had met Haftar once but has not had another meeting since then. Haftar has had renewed engagement with Russia at a time when the GNA is in crisis. "I just came now from Moscow ... the Russians have a close relation(ship) to Haftar, so there is no lack of communication," Kobler said. Kobler said he has not yet had contact with the new U.S. administration. "If the Trump administration asks for a meeting I would love to meet (them). But I take it that it takes some time in order to get organized after the change of government." Kobler said the U.N. was actively working on reopening its office in Tripoli, following similar moves from the Italian and Turkish embassies there last month. "We are reinforcing the place, and building," said Kobler, adding the return will be "in the foreseeable future." (Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Lisa Shumaker) With the shift towards smaller board brands over the last few years do you think the small company model is sustainable in the long run? I think it just depends on which company youre talking about really. To tell you the truth I have no idea. To me it makes sense. I think a lot people are paying attention to those brands and theyre smaller now but if people keep paying attention to them theyre just going to make more money and then maybe they wont be such a small brand. Maybe theyll stick to that ideology of being small, I think that will probably help them, but who knows. Five years ago we wouldnt have known these small brands are doing so well so who knows what will happen in another five. Quasi is small but at the same time theyre not doing small numbers. There isnt that many people working there and I dont think they plan to have too many people working there anytime soon or moving anywhere or to a bigger facility. I dont really think it needs to grow too much more. How often do you get back to Ohio to see Chad and the other guys? Once or twice a year, probably, it just depends on what were working on. Chad also helps me with Vans apparel. Theres a collection out right now and then there will be another one after it. Chad is a good person to work with on things like that too because Ill give him an idea of something that is old, that I like, and he has a fresh take on those things like putting a couple of more details on it. Hes pretty good with that and thats usually what we work on. Ive always been really obsessive about shoes and clothes so its a dream come true for me to be able to design shoes and clothes. Is there anyone on Vans that has influenced you regarding the way you handle having a skateboarding career as much as the way you skate? Absolutely. AVE is the person I look up to a lot with things like that. He takes it seriously and at the same time he has fun with it too. Its fun to be on trips with him but I think he sets a pretty high standard. He works so hard and to get Skater of the Year when he did is just insane. I cant help but look up to him, even though I already did before I met him. Im sure youll get asked this no end of times over the next two days but can you run me through the details of your new shoe? (Laughs), yeah. The sole is an update version of the older one, its a new Wafflecup. The tread is different on that, on the sidewall and on the bottom. The last is a little bit narrower than the first one but not to say its a really narrow shoe or anything. The panels are different, the seams are different to me it just feels like an update. When you wear an old shoe for a super long time, no matter what it is, you eventually think, Now Im looking for a bit of a shorter toe or maybe a little bit more narrow. With this thing we brought the laces in a bit so the eyelets are a little bit closer and then the toe is a little bit shorter and definitely added a bunch of details that Im really into. It kind of gives it a modern, sporty skate shoe feel, which is what I wanted to make. Ill be honest, you come across as quite humble to the point where you wouldnt be too into talking about yourself in these sort of situations. Its a little weird for me but generally as long as its respectable and easy to do I dont have a problem with it at all. It freaks me out sometimes when I have to go these events and show face or whatever but as long as people are genuine, like yourself, its pretty easy. Sometimes people freak me out when theyre just weirdos and staring at me but I dont have any of that going on right now, which is good, (laughs). A few mellow ones to round this off favourite video part of all time? Probably [Anthony] Pappalardo in Mosaic [2003, Habitat Skateboards]. Everything about it its filmed really well, the music, good editing and thats the type of skating that I love. Hes doing lines with manuals and ledge tricks that are solid then hes also grinding double kinks too which I think is so sick. Hes skating a lot of different types of shit. All time favourite skateboarder? Shit, thats terribly hard Ill say AVE. Favourite skateboarder from Richmond? Ty Beall. Most of the guys Ive known for about the same time but him and I go back. He used to skip school and pick me up in someone elses truck that he stole from the school parking lot and we would go fishing. Weve been fucking around for a really long time. Are you and him kind of the hometown heroes as youre both pro and ride for the shop? Shit, I guess so. Theres another pro. Trent Hazelwood is another pro in Richmond, I might as well shout him out! He rides for Shipwreck Skateboards. Favourite Magnolia Electric Co. song? Fuck! Really hard one too. Let me look for a just a second. It always changes too anyway Do you listen to them much? Yeah, I actually got into them through Old Dominion, (laughs). Oh sick, thats awesome! Texas 71 Ill say that one. All time favourite board graphic? Damn, thats tough too! Probably some sort of Workshop board but I cant even think right now. Jake Johnsons first Workshop board? Actually that is absolutely what I would say! We used to have a running joke about that board that is still going on. Everyone where I live was obsessed with it when it came out. Everyone would buy them and all of sudden they were all gone and everyone just wanted to get a hold of them. People were saying they could skate better with his board; it was pretty funny, (laughs). Most influential figure to you outside of skateboarding? Damn, thats a tough one. Outside of skateboarding I would have to say Will Oldham. Ive read in some of his books how he talks about layering things and I think hes really good at keeping it sort of mysterious. I really admire the way he goes by different names and the way he has different sounds in his music. A lot of different imagery. Hes very versatile and almost enigmatic where theres so much mystery to it. You dont know everything about him, which is so cool in this day and age. Hes not on the internet, not on social media and shit. I think thats cool and I like that with skating too. I almost wish that I could do that more with skating where people just see your skating. How it used to be back in the day when people didnt know everything about professionals. You would see footage and be curious about everything. Why does he look like this? Why does he skate like this? Whats this music? Nowadays everything is so accessible that you cant really do that and I think that he does a really good job of keeping things interesting. I admire that a lot and hes so creative at the same time. END. The era of Big Data is upon us and small businesses are, at least inadvertently, collecting lots of it. Data is collected in just about every small business function. Customers relay their data to small businesses. Small business functions are delivering data within the company. Company employees are creating and processing data, too. Its everywhere. Now, what do small businesses do with that data? They definitely want to know what to do. And they appear to be seeking help in that area. Increase in AI and Machine Learning Jobs According to recent data from Indeed.coms jobs posting platform, small businesses are increasingly looking for help from artificial intelligence and machine learning experts. Per Indeeds data, the amount of such job postings at the site is on the rise. AI and Machine Learning have been identified as technologies with the second biggest impact on small businesses. Big Data is first, of course. While more small businesses appear to be focusing on collecting data, a growing number are trying to get data to work for them too. Were now seeing that companies have enough data and processing power to actually use deep learning. Were seeing that they can use big, complex neural networks with multiple layers, and were finally there, Indeed senior vice president of engineering Doug Gray tells Small Business Trends. Its pretty accessible no matter the size of your business, if you architect your systems well to emit data. More companies know how important it is to log every piece of data and customer interaction. And its now simple, with Amazon, to spin up a bunch of nodes and build a model that has predictive power and then shut it down again at a very low expense, Gray says. Not Hiring? Collect Data in the Meantime AI and Machine Learning are emerging technologies, especially for small businesses. Theyre accessible technologies, too. And they should become more widely accessible over time. Now may not be the time for your small business to hire here, though. It may never be but there is a takeaway for any small business. Collect all the data you can and keep it safe, of course. While these remain emerging technologies, the more accessible that AI and machine learning become, the easier it should be to use data to work effectively for your small business. Entrepreneur Daymond John turned a part-time hobby into a multi-million dollar clothing empire by focusing on an unmet need in the market. Born in Queens, New York and currently based in New York City, Daymond John is a well-known investor, television personality and motivational speaker. Hes 47 and has an 11-month daughter with his partner, Heather Taras. He also has two daughters from a previous marriage. Setting Up the FUBU Brand According to Investopedia, John has amassed a net worth of approximately $250 million. His phenomenal success didnt come easy. Johns best known clothing brand FUBU was launched in 1992. At that time, Johns mother had mortgaged her home to raise $100,000 to fund her sons business. John, on the other hand, was working full-time at Red Lobster, and working on the FUBU business in between shifts. John overcame considerable personal adversity along the way. Much later in his adult life, he was diagnosed with dyslexia. By then, he had scraped by in high school where he participated in a program that allowed him to work full-time while attending school. In the past, John has said that FUBU was initially a hobby that eventually became a more serious business. After my three friends joined the company, the business really started to take shape. With the extra hands, I was able to focus on growing the business at a much faster rate. What Can You Learn from Daymond John? FUBU started off as a small business, but soon turned into a big brand. That happened because John was able to spot an opportunity for success. In the 80s, wool hats with cut tops were extremely popular with rappers. But the big companies that sold them priced them quite high. John knew he could sell the same product for a much lower price. I had seen people wearing them, and they were selling for about $20 in stores. I thought I could make them and sell them for less, so I sold mine for $10, he told the Washington Post in an interview. The idea clicked and his hats started flying off the shelves. But John didnt stop there. He hooked up with rappers and artists who sported his shirts in their videos. His promotional strategy worked and soon stores were requesting more of his products. FUBU has proven that no idea is too small to be pursued. In this market needs example, John catered to an unmet demand that held immense potential for success. His promotional strategy also facilitated his brands growth. For a small business owner, it shows how a desirable and well marketed product can turn a brand into a big success. The Madison School District is at risk of missing out on its $16 million share of proposed new school spending Gov. Scott Walker has included in his two-year budget plan. Thats because Walker is attaching a major string to that $649 million: Districts must be in full compliance with the governors 2011 law shifting more pension and health insurance costs onto employees. The law, known as Act 10, required local governments who offer a state health insurance plan to their employees to pay no more than 88 percent of the average premiums. Walkers 2017-19 state budget will now require the same of all school districts, regardless of which health insurance plans they offer. That spells trouble for the Madison School District, which for years after Act 10 was enacted didnt require staff to pay any portion of their health insurance costs. The district does now require employees to pay something toward their monthly health insurance premiums, but the contributions do not reach the 12 percent threshold Walker proposed. The contribution levels in Madison range from 1.5 percent for lower-paid staff to 10 percent for school district administrators. While we have not done an exhaustive review, we are only aware of the Madison School District that did not capture the reform savings, said Walkers spokesman Jack Jablonski. If the Madison School Board does not make the change, the district could be left out of the funding increase of $200 per student in the first year of the biennium and $404 in the second year amounting to more than $16 million the district would not receive. Mike Barry, the Madison School Districts budget director, said district officials and school board members would need to discuss the governors proposal before considering next steps. We understand the idea of efficient use of taxpayer resources, said Barry. Weve come at it the Madison way and we think weve been successful. Barry said while the districts employee contributions do not meet the 12 percent level, the health insurance plan renewals with the districts three HMOs have had no financial impact on the district in the past two budgets. He emphasized the strategy has been considered successful for the district. Compliance with Act 10 Under Walkers budget, the district would get a $5.5 million increase in the first year and a $5.6 million increase in the second year, based on 2016 enrollment figures. If lawmakers agree, school districts will be required to certify compliance with Act 10 with the Department of Public Instruction before receiving the funds. The Madison School District and Walker have been at odds in regard to Act 10 since it was first proposed. Its teachers union, Madison Teachers Inc., was the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit that unsuccessfully challenged the law. Since the law was adopted, and after the districts collective bargaining contracts with its employees expired, school board members continued to keep employees from paying toward health insurance costs until last year, when teachers began to pay 3 percent of their premiums. Board member T.J. Mertz said the proposal undermines the boards ability to exercise local control. (Supporters) of Act 10 have touted the idea of districts being able to compete for teachers, and teachers being able to make choices, Mertz said. The combination of salary and benefits in the compensation package is one way districts can position themselves in this market. Longtime board member Ed Hughes said the boards approach to employee contributions to health care costs has been supported in the community. Im proud of the collaborative working relationship weve forged with our teachers thats delivered balanced budgets, kept a lid on health insurance costs and earned strong community support, said Hughes. Well persist and keep working together no matter what Gov. Walker throws at us. State Superintendent Tony Evers said he believes the Madison School District should be allowed to make decisions about how it spends its money. Madison School District might be making cuts in other areas in order to keep that insurance plan that they have, said Evers. Evers said he is not concerned about being put in charge of determining whether districts are compliant but is concerned about another piece of local control being taken away. Eighty-eight percent might be a magic number to some; Im not sure it is for every school district, Evers said. Rep. Chris Taylor, D-Madison, said the governor is forcing the Madison district to not adequately compensate our teachers; not adequately give them benefits. Hes basically forcing us to cut teachers salary to get more money for our public school kids here in Dane County, which is absolutely outrageous, she said. Republican lawmakers, however, were supportive of the proposal. I definitely support the idea of making sure that people are using the tools we gave them, said Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester. If were going to continue to invest more and more state resources, they have to at least find ways to help us share the burden by reducing costs, asking employees to pay a small amount for their pension, their health care. Repeals of mandates for districts: Walkers budget also recommends repealing the minimum hours of instruction for public schools, required monthly school board meetings and the requirement that school district administrators have contract terms of two years, among other mandates. Limits on raising revenue: The budget also eliminates one way school districts have raised property taxes despite state-imposed limits on overall revenue. Since 2009, school districts have been able to spend above their revenue caps without first going to voters if the money is being used for projects intended to improve energy efficiency in the district. But districts rarely took advantage until 2012, when Walker and Republican lawmakers tightened revenue limits. Walkers budget proposal said property levies associated with the revenue limit exemption grew 115 percent in the last three years and in 2016 alone, districts were authorized to spend $327 million above revenue caps. Teacher licensing changes: Wisconsin teachers also will no longer need to renew their licenses to teach in classrooms if lawmakers agree to Walkers proposal. Currently, teachers must renew their licenses every five years. Since paying more attention to my visual branding, Ive come to really love Instagram. Actually, thats an understatement. Im pretty much obsessed with Instagram. If youve been on the image-heavy social media platform lately, then you may have noticed some new Instagram features like live video streaming and short stories a la Snapchat. You now also have the option to make your profile a business page. Ive been experimenting with these new Instagram features and have found a few ways to use them in your marketing plan. Here are just some of the ways Ive been taking advantage of all the new stuff on IG. New Instagram Features Show Behind the Scenes Using IG Stories I was recently traveling for a client that hired me to create, teach and film a few business classes for them. Since I was traveling and working with some awesome people, I figured it would be a good idea to show my Instagram followers some of the behind the scenes of what its like to be a professional blogger and social media influencer. I used new Instagram features like Stories and Boomerang (technically not new but they added it to the IG app) to show things like camera setups, sets, a tour of my hotel room and the goofy stuff we did on breaks. Teach Something Using IG Live Video During our lunch break, I decided to use one of the new Instagram features to teach my audience something. More specifically, I used the live video feature to show them live footage of what was going on and introduce my followers to some of the people I was working with. For example, I was working with a local mastermind facilitator and yoga teacher who was interviewing me for my client. I got her on live video to talk about what we were doing and she even gave my followers some yogic hand stretches for the office. Market Your Products and Services Another thing I use the new Instagram features for is to market my products and services. For example, I created a few stories right before going on air for a radio show. This showed them the behind the scenes I already mentioned, plus I was able to share a tip about how bloggers and business owners can get free PR. From there, I directed them to an on-demand class I sell that teaches them how to get free PR for their businesses. I simply put the link to the sales page in my bio and let them know the class was available for them to purchase. Granted, its important to note that Im always sharing valuable content. I dont only use the new Instagram features to try to make sales. Thats simply one piece of the overall marketing pie. Show Them Youre Human Ill use Boomerang to make goofy videos and post them to my Stories. Im somewhat goofy by nature and it shows my followers a side of me thats different from my normal business-y stuff. People relate to people, so make sure youre using the new Instagram features to show people that youre real. Final Thoughts When used in the aforementioned ways, the new Instagram features can certainly be a real game changer for your marketing plan. Theres no longer a need to go on different apps for different features which makes things a whole lot easier. Republished by permission. Original here. Now it is searching for mail box designs. Font size: A - | A + One or more replicas of historical mail boxes may be installed in Bratislavas city centre. Bratislavas borough of Old Town has been playing with this idea for some time and now Old Town Mayor, Radoslav Stevcik believes that this year they could come closer to the realisation of this idea. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement We visited the Postal Museum in Budapest, but it holds only historical Ugrian mail boxes and these were huge, said Stevcik as cited by the TASR newswire. I dont know how people would react to Ugrian mail boxes. They have also found mail boxes from the time of the first Czechoslovak Republic (1918-1938). The plan is that the replica mail boxes would be functional. The state Slovenska Posta mail company is ready to take over operation of such mail boxes including all related costs. Slovenska Posta welcomes the plan of the Old Town, said Alexandra Cimermanova. We are interested extending the project with the city administrations in all eight regional towns of Slovakia. Slovenska Posta requires only that the construction of the replicas enables trouble-free and safe operation for both the mail company and their users, added Cimermanova. The cost of the replicas may be taken from finances allocated for the development and support of tourism in Bratislava and its regions. Also the smallest attraction can strengthen tourism, said Maros Plitko, spokesperson of the city tourist organisation, the Bratislava Tourist Board (BTB). The organisation promotes all the citys attractions and events at its website www.visitbratislava.com as well as on social networks. Danko calls out coalition crisis, will get to design new energy distribution policy. Font size: A - | A + "Tension that needs to be removed is the effect that the hike in energy prices has had on the ruling coalition in early February. While leaders of Smer and Most-Hid insisted there was no coalition crisis to talk about, the Slovak National Party (SNS) Chairman Andrej Danko insisted the situation around the surveillance authority was problematic and he has also had problems with communication with PM and Smer leader Robert Fico. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement The coalition has since met on February 8 and the partners seem to have resolved the tensions, practically yielding to the demands of the SNS to come up with a new model of energy distribution and pricing. The partners have agreed on more sophisticated forms of cooperation, as Fico put it. The partners will also discuss issues that fall under the ministries competencies, in order to be better informed. They were scheduled to meet again as early as February 14 to discuss the energy sector. We have learned, we need to meet more often, Danko told journalists following the meeting and added that he and his partners are too humans made of bones and I as a human am learning some things too. Utility tariffs cause backlash The controversy started with the Regulatory Office for Network Industries (URSO) revamping the composition of prices for electricity, natural gas and water in the final months of 2016. The changes came into effect at the beginning of 2017. In general, they increased fixed fees within the end prices for utilities and introduced new tariff rates for consumers. URSO defended the change as an effort to encourage consumers to move into tariff categories that better reflect their final consumption of electricity and the associated real costs. However, the change in the composition of the electricity for end users, which apart from the fees for electricity as a commodity also consists of a plethora of other fees, including a so-called circuit-breaker fee, have led to steep increases in payments for some consumers. In central Slovakia, for example, the distributor increased the monthly circuit-breaker fee in the lowest tariff rate from 2.00 to 4.59 for a one-phase circuit breaker, and to 11.37 for a three-phase circuit breaker. Holjencik out After consumers complained about steep increases, rather than the reductions in energy prices they had expected, PM Fico intervened to demand lower prices. By apparently complying, the regulator has put its own independence in doubt not for the first time. Read also: Read also: Changes in utility tariffs cause backlash Read more After a conflict, stemming from the allegedly arbitrary increase of electricity fees for end consumers by URSO became politicised, its head Jozef Holjencik announced his resignation on February 2 morning. He was invited to parliament to explain his decision on increasing prices for access to electricity and gas networks, effectively leading to a hike in end prices for final consumers as of January 1. But instead of reporting to parliament, the URSO head met with the prime minister to hand in his resignation. By that time, the coalition SNS and several opposition parties had also demanded Holjenciks resignation. Crisis? Most-Hid was satisfied with the fact that Holjencik quit as URSO head. Its leader Bela Bugar stated that there would have been a crisis if he had stayed. The announced resignation, however, did not satisfy SNS head Danko who complained on February 2 that he had not spoken with the prime minister for four days - due to the URSO controversy. He then uttered the word crisis. Now there is just one point, and that is point zero, but in politics one must shake things off, Danko told journalists later, on February 6, as quoted by the Sme daily, when asked about his relationship with Fico. Even Bugar admitted it was going to be tough to get the two talk together. I would talk about tension, and that tension needs to be removed, Bugar said on RTVS on February 5 as he assumed the role of mediator between his two coalition partners. All three partners were, however, satisfied with the outcome of the February 8 meeting and agreed to meet more - although they did not come up with concrete solutions, such as a replacement for Holjencik in the URSO top post. SNS gains Dankos statements are not totally clearly legible, political analyst Pavol Babos from the school of political science of Comenius University in Bratislava told The Slovak Spectator. While it is standard for coalition governments to try and prevent tensions, Danko seems to be doing the opposite. Probably he is convinced that it helps him and his party, Babos said. Observers agree SNS came out of the talks stronger - they are expected to draft a new model of pricing for the energy sector. Danko originally mentioned either the creation of an energy holding, or a special section at the Economy Ministry that would handle the shareholder rights and supervise the husbandry in energy companies. I have the information from my coalition partners that it will be no problem, Danko said, as quoted by Sme, adding that also the state should attend the negotiations on prices. The party also gave him a mandate to discuss the potential personnel changes at the February 8 coalition council meeting. The three SNS nominees decided to leave the supervisory boards in energy firms after a month in their functions, even though they took the posts after the prices had already been decided, Danko told the February 6 press conference. He also refused the claim that the nominees had received high bonuses. I respect financial groups, if they dont turn the state into dairy cows, Danko said, as quoted by the SITA newswire. SNS will push on EPH [Energeticky a Prumyslovy Holding ] to leave. Crisis as strategy? It is not the first time SNS and its leader have gained from a coalition dispute. In the past, Danko stood up against Culture Minister Marek Madaric when he proposed higher fees for radio and television - and succeeded at least in stopping the proposal of the minister, who for a while even threatened to quit if his plan did not come through. Read also: Read also: RTVS fees bring coalition discord Read more SNS also managed to get the post of the SIS head and the police vice president under its control. Danko has previously displayed ambitions to be the countrys next prime minister. So I do not exclude that his current behaviour is part of a strategy with the final aim of the prime ministerial post, Babos commented, but noted that his strategy is not 100 percent comprehensible for analysts. Read also: Read also: Poll: SNS chief Danko most popular politician Read more Fico: No reason for hikes Out of three regional distributors, the change in electricity prices caused the biggest uproar in central Slovakia. This area is covered by electricity distributor SSE-Distribucia, which is controlled by the Czech energy group EPH. Though the changes were first announced only for central Slovakia, the regulator prepared a new decree on price regulation which returns the fees to the 2016 levels across the whole territory and which is to be passed in a fast-track procedure. The decision followed the February 6 meeting with Fico, Economy Minister Peter Ziga, and representatives of power utilities. There is no reason for a rise in energy prices, said Fico, as quoted by the TASR newswire. As a consequence of the latest changes, the final electricity price should return to last years levels or even lower as the price of electricity as a commodity decreased on the market last year. People should now wait for new upfront invoices to be sent by electricity utilities. Also those households which have already paid the higher upfront invoices will not lose money as the utilities will reduce their later invoices. In the case of gas, URSO also performed a nationwide U-turn when it reversed its price decision for gas distributor SPP-Distribucia, which is also controlled by EPH. The changes will also concern water, whose prices will return to 2016 levels as well, TASR reported. Opposition seeks no-confidence motion The opposition, however, does not see the ironed relations among the coalition partners and the proposed changes in energy distribution as the desired resolution of the electricity prices controversy. MPs of Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) and Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OLaNO) on February 6 announced they were planning to initiate a no-confidence vote against the prime minister (and thus the whole government) in the parliament. They cite the confusion around the energy invoices as the reason for such a step. They called on Fico and Danko to have all their nominees in boards and supervisory boards of all energy companies resign by February 8, and along with them also Economy Minister Ziga. Never in history has Slovakia seen any such chaos and such premeditated attempt at fraud to suck the last drop out of the people, OLaNO leader Igor Matovic told the press, as quoted by TASR. It is quite unlikely that any opposition attempt to bring down the government could pass through the parliament. As for the coalition parties, numbers from recent polls do not suggest they would do well if elections were to take place any time soon and the current coalition trio would no longer have a majority in the parliament. SNS, for instance, dropped 3.6 percentage points to just over 10 percent in the latest Focus polling agency survey. I do not think that SNS would gain significantly more votes or put together the next government easily, Babos said. But that does not mean Danko or people around him may not think that. Read also: A business tycoon who was investigated though not convicted in a case of fraud concerning acquisition of a vineyard ten years ago will now rent a neighbouring vineyard for a symbolic euro per year. Font size: A - | A + Mayor of Bratislava Ivo Nesrovnal plans to rent a vineyard covering over 9,000 square meters to tycoon Alexander Rozin for 20 years. The price is a symbolical euro per year; but in return, Rozin is to provide the city 10 percent of his crops the so-called city wine used for symbolic events, the Sme daily wrote on February 9. The vineyard lies in the lucrative neighbourhood of Koliba, the hill over the city. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Nesrovnal prepared the contract without any competition, using a controversial exception defined in the law. Rozin is the CEO of the Incheba fair-ground and general consul of Thailand. Between 2005 and 2009, he was a regional deputy for the ruling Smer party. As he is currently 66 years old, the rental will expire when he is 86. Rozin argues he has been engaged in wine-making for 15 years but he acquired his vineyard, lying next to the one he is going to rent, being prosecuted for allegedly forging the transfer documents but never convicted. The prosecutor ultimately halted the investigation, Sme wrote. City councillors have yet to approve the contract. City Council, in which several mayors of Bratislava boroughs as well as city councillors sit, expressed its disagreement, with several of them demanding a competition to find a potential tenant. Nesrovnal, however, insists on his proposal. Within the recent effort to refine the behaviour and manners used there, two MPs of the far-right Kotleba-Peoples Party Our Slovakia (LSNS) received the highest possible fine for grossly insulting Islam in parliament. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled MPs Milan Mazurek and Stanislav Mizik should pay 1,000 each as a fine for stating in parliament that Islam is a cruel, disgusting and inhumane political system and the satanic and paedophile work of the devil, the parliamentary mandate and immunity committee decided on February 8. The fine still needs to be approved by the House, but I think that this wont be a problem, chairman of the committee, Richard Rasi of the ruling Smer party, said as quoted by the TASR newswire. Its the highest fine possible, he added. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement The committee earlier called on the two MPs to apologise in the plenary session but the committee did not accept their apologies: on the contrary, their remarks last week were viewed by the committee as repeated misuse of an MPs mandate, according to Rasi. He believes that the only solution is to exclude xenophobic and racist comments from MPs verbal immunity in parliament. Read also: Read also: Three MPs do not apologise for derogatory remarks Read more I think that theres no reason for lawmakers to have immunity vis-a-vis xenophobic and racist comments, because this isnt related in any way to the process of enacting laws for Slovakia, said Rasi, adding that such comments would thereby become crimes and would eventually lead to the MPs concerned being stripped of their mandates. As for now, there is MP immunity effective for all statements made in parliament. Rasi, together with the General Prosecutor, propose that statement immunity not include crimes of defamation of nation and race and promotion of fascism. The company whose carriages were unreliable in the past will supply them, again, to the state-owned railway company. Font size: A - | A + The firm ZOS Vrutky of former chairman of the Slovak National Party (SNS), Vitazoslav Moric, will supply diesel locomotives with wagons again to the state, after their products proved to be unreliable in the past. However, the flaws were allegedly caused by spare parts delivered by sub-contractors, and they were afterwards corrected, the Sme daily wrote. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement The state-run railway company Zeleznicna Spolocnost Slovensko (ZSSK) announced a train tender to purchase 21 diesel locomotives with carriages for 77 million back in 2015. At that time, Pavol Gabor was at the helm of ZSSK, nominated to the post by then- transport minister Jan Pociatek of Smer. Currently, the state railways fall under the remit of the SNS party, a coalition partner, which has been confirmed also by its chairman, Andrej Danko. The firm won the tender; the last phase, an electronic auction, was completed only by ZOS Vrutky. Though originally four companies competed in the tender, they were gradually excluded from it. Several criteria played into the hands of ZOS Vrutky; e.g. there were extra plus points for competing trains which would be compatible with those delivered by Moric and his ZOS Vrutky. The state carrier failed to reveal the price of the new train sets though the order originally amounted to 77 million. ZSSK announced it would inform on the conditions of the deal in March when the competition is ultimately concluded. There are still two weeks left to appeal but the only firm that could theoretically appeal is ZOS Vrutky; and it has no reason whatsoever to do so. In June 2017, roaming fees within the different countries of the EU will end for calling, sending short text messages and surfing on the internet. Font size: A - | A + Citizens of countries belonging to the European Union will be able to use all mobile services for the same prices as in their home country when anywhere else within the EU. The Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER) on February 8 ultimately confirmed the agreement of EU institutions cancelling roaming fees from June 15 on, the Sme daily wrote. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Slovakias Presidency of the EU Council was responsible for the lions share of this agreement, Deputy Representative of the Slovak Republic to EU Alexander Micovcin said, as quoted by the daily. Slovakias credit The negotiations among EU ministers for telecommunication were led by Slovak Transport Minister Arpad Ersek and it was Slovakia who found the compromise among all 28 EU members states during its presidency. Striking the deal was not easy, as each country as well as the telecoms companies pushed through different values depending on different prices, Ersek told the SITA newswire. The EU Presidency of Malta, which took over after Slovakia, concluded the negotiations with the European Parliament on February 8 and set the date for unification of fees. Limits for calls will decline from 5 euro-cents to 3.2 euro-cents per one minute, and SMS will be cheaper 1 euro-cent against the current 2 euro-cents. The most difficult to price was mobile data; in the ends prices were set at 7.7 per 1 Gigabyte from June 2017, to decline gradually to 2.5 per Gigabyte by 2022. The EP has still to confirm the deal, SITA wrote. After rumours of a coalition crisis caused by dispute over high energy prices spread around Slovakia, the PM rushed to assure that the coalition is fine and striving, but later he admitted that they need to communicate more effectively. Chairmen of the three coalition parties (L-R Andrej Danko of SNS, Robert Fico of Smer and Bela Bugar of Most-Hid) met on February 8 at the Coalition Council. (Source: TASR) Font size: A - | A + The ruling coalition has been living its normal inner life, said Prime Minister and Smer chairman Robert Fico said ahead of the Coalition Council meeting on February 8. These are three parties Smer, the Slovak National Party (SNS) and Most-Hid that have different opinions on many things but the coalition has been formed and is bound by the government manifesto, he added, as cited by the TASR newswire. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Fico admitted that he was also concerned about steps taken by the Office for the Regulation of Network Industries (URSO), so he is not surprised that someone else is concerned as well. Outgoing URSO head Jozef Holjencik was heavily criticised by the coalition party SNS. However, Fico stressed that the reaction to URSOs steps was rapid and resolute. It is my intention and in my interest that the government functions and meet its commitments stemming from the government manifesto, Fico said. Im not interested in anything else. SNS vice-chair Jaroslav Paska admitted that the energy sector has found itself in a difficult situation. Another SNS vice-chair, Anton Hrnko, said for TASR that there are issues of less and more importance in the coalition and that the aim is to discuss the more important ones. Read also: Read also: Energy prices hike tensions in coalition Read more The leaders of the coalition parties will meet and communicate with each other more often, Fico stated after the Coalition Council session. The three leaders Fico, SNS chairman Andrej Danko and Most-Hid chairman Bela Bugar took stock of the almost 12 months since the coalition came into being. We expressed respect for the existence of this coalition and for commitments arising from the government manifesto, the PM said. Were espousing loyalty to what we signed up to in 2016. Theres no other way for Slovakia, it needs political stability and standard political approaches. This can only be guaranteed by the joint work of Smer, SNS and Most-Hid, Fico concluded. Fico went on to point to an agreement between the three parties on more sophisticated forms of collaboration. Echoing this, Danko said that the parties will liaise with each other more closely, including at the expert level. "Weve learnt our lesson, we need to meet more often, Danko said, as cited by TASR. The meeting of the Coalition Council today [February 8] has pushed us forward, made a lot of things clearer. We want to carry on. Were people made of flesh and bone... I myself continue to learn, he concluded. In the energy sector, Danko stipulated several conditions, like the establishment of an energy holding or initiating a new law that would set a new model in the energy sector, the Sme daily wrote. Bugar weighed in by saying that the outcome of the meeting showed that there is no state of crisis within the coalition. Difficulties may arise every now and then, but what matters is to observe whats on paper, he pointed out. We held a very open discussion on how to continue to work together in a way that prevents imbalance. Expert Coalition Council sessions will be held to discuss expert issues, making sure that everybody gets detailed information. The Coalition Council has determined our way of working ahead together, Most-Hid chair summed up, according to TASR. The leaders of the coalition parties agreed on regular sessions of the Coalition Council; the next one is to take place on February 14, Sme wrote. Slovaks should know better than to trifle with religious freedoms, given their history of totalitarian regimes that have divided citizens into worse and better categories based on their religious beliefs. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a prank movement, had its moment in the Slovak parliament when MPs debated new rules for the official registration of churches (the catch-all term for religious movements in Slovakia). Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Slovak National Party (SNS) MP Tibor Bernatak reached for the Monster in his speech, to argue that the state needs to be stricter when recognising religious movements because, well, one never knows and after all, the pastafarians, as devotees are known, have been registered as a church in several European countries, including Poland. Read also: Read also: Registration of churches to become stricter Read more It was not this improbable arguments first airing. MP Boris Kollar in some ways the Donald Trump of Slovak politics, albeit with a less preposterous hairdo told parliament last year that if stricter rules were not imposed he himself would go ahead and register the pastafarians in Slovakia too. The good news for Kollar is that he will not now have to go to the trouble of avowing his pastafarian faith. The law he demanded is coming into force, after parliament in its February session broke the presidential veto and again approved the change. As of next month, any religious community seeking official registration in Slovakia will need 50,000 adult believers to sign a registration petition. Until now they needed only 20,000. This was still pretty strict compared to other European countries including Poland, where only 100 pastafarians needed to sign a petition to become an official church. But let us put aside the argument that if someone really wants to prank the Slovak authorities and they were previously determined to get 20,000 signatures, the new target of 50,000 represents merely a bigger challenge, and one they might still achieve. For serious religious communities, however, it is not so simple. Because whatever other justification the SNS might offer for their proposal, the fact is that they came up with it in the wake of the migration crisis, and an election campaign that both encouraged, and was nourished by, a fear of Islam. That same fear has remained present in Slovak society ever since, abused by public figures, and fuelled by the statements of fascist but also mainstream politicians in parliament, and by phenomena like the bewildering debate about a burqa ban floated by SNS leader Andrej Danko after the Berlin attacks in December even though there are literally zero Slovak citizens wearing burqas. Anton Hrnko of SNS says that the law will help to prevent Muslim ghettos from emerging in Slovakia, as he asserts they have in Brussels or Paris. He did not explain what connection he believes exists between ghettos and official church registration (or lack thereof). The Islamic Foundation in Slovakia estimates there are currently some 5,000 Muslims living in the country, so even with the current set-up they would be unlikely to obtain official registration. But they are aware that the law is aimed at them. It is highly unjust when we deprive one group of people of the same right that we grant to another one, the foundations Muhammad Safwan Hasna said, as quoted by the Sme daily. In fact, only four of the 18 currently registered churches would be able easily to satisfy the conditions set out by the new law. When President Andrej Kiska returned the law on registration of churches to parliament he noted that since 2007, when the number of signatures required was increased to 20,000, no church has been registered in Slovakia, but also argued that the proposal dances on the edge of violating freedom of confession. Slovaks should know better than to trifle with religious freedoms, given their history of totalitarian regimes that have divided citizens into worse and better categories based on their religious beliefs. That experience was fairly recent, and many of those who faced persecution because of their faith are still here to tell their stories. This law brings little actual change in practice, but its symbolism is strong. All those who voted for it gave a silent nod to the dark fears and dirty words about one religion: words of hate are now nothing rare in the Slovak parliament too. Police detained Magat in possession of revolver in December 2015. Font size: A - | A + Cadca district court found far-right extremist Marian Magat guilty of illegal gun possession and conditionally sentenced him for three years with supervisory probation. The verdict is not effective yet. Magat stated that he will file a complaint against it. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Police detained Magat for illegally possessing a revolver in December 2015 when his friend Michal H. was threatening a family in the town of Turzovka with another gun. Magat claimed that he found revolver and was taking time to decide what he would do with it, the SITA newswire reported. Read also: Read also: Police investigate far-right extremist Magat Read more Magat who was a far-right LSNS candidate in the March 2016 elections and came in 88th position is well-known for his open support of Adolf Hitler and Anti-Semitism. He also organised protests against Islam and the EU and co-founded the extremist paramilitary group, Vzdor Kysuce. Late in 2016 police accused him of Holocaust denial and the approval of crimes committed by a political regime. Magat has had several incidents with the police. Last summer, for example, he was invited to a hearing concerning an incident at one of the protests he organised, during which extremists tore the EU flag. Read also: Read also: Kotlebas candidate charged with illegal gun possession Read more The police have also dealt with him concerning his pre-election banner on which he was threatening asocial people and political thieves with labour camps. In addition, the Czech police accused Magat of inciting hatred against a certain group of people in the summer of 2015. He was detained during his anti-Semitic speech at the protest against immigrants that took place in Prague. TCEA 2017 Coverage Denton ISD Intros Custom Mobile Device Charging Stations Image Credit: LocknCharge. Denton Independent School District in Texas has designed a custom-made charging cabinet that can store, charge and deploy up to 20,000 devices in the district. The announcement was made at the TCEA conference in Austin, TX this week (Feb. 6-8). Denton ISD partnered with mobile deployment solutions provider LocknCharge to design a customized Carrier 15 Charging Station that is wall and desk mountable and can simultaneously charge 15 tablet or laptop devices. We are not a 1-to-1 district. When we looked to roll out new technology for our schools, we wanted to create collaborative learning environments, said Dwight Goodwin, director of instructional technology at Denton ISD, in a press release. LocknCharge made our Chromebook rollout a success. Teachers, technology personnel, students and parents all love how much the custom stations simplify our use of technology. LocknCharge is exhibiting this week at TCEA in booth 1935. To learn more about the Carrier 15 Charging Station, visit the LocknCharge site. is our best selling product in the shop. This perfectly proportioned blend of salt, pepper, rosemary and garlic is so well received it will become a family tradition in your household for pork roast, grilled chicken, venison, roasted potatoes, and even garlic bread. Mixed frequently in small batches, it's always a fresh blend for your kitchen. We have been making this blend for almost 40 years. Over the years, it has been mail ordered to all 50 states and 12 countries. Many of our customers can't live without Roastmary! Try some today Greece is under mounting pressure to embark on a new wave of economic reforms, as its international creditors demand extra efforts to drag the country out of its latest crisis. At the same time Germany is facing fresh demands from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to write off some of the money it loaned to Greece in the most recent 86bn (73bn) bailout. And the IMF has been forced to defend its dire predictions of permanent economic gloom as the Greek government rejects the IMFs assessment of its reforms, public finances and economic performance. On top of that, the IMF itself is split, with a minority of directors pushing for extra spending cuts and tax hikes in Greece to try to improve its public finances. The IMF tried to address its internal splits, stressing that it wants debt relief for Greece combined with economic reforms, not austerity. It does still demand serious action, though - unless the economy picks up and debts are slashed, it has warned Greeces debts are on an explosive path. Our strong preference is for a primary [Greek budget] surplus target of 1.5pc and that this should be accompanied by significant debt relief. Weve referred to this as the two legs of the programme that we think is required, said Gerry RIce, the IMFs spokesman. We think this target, the 1.5, can be obtained by the policies envisaged by the current European Stability Mechanism programme - in short, the IMF is not asking for any more austerity for Greece. That passes much of the pressure on to Germany and the other nations which have loaned Greece money, but are unwilling to write off the debt. Germany renewed the pressure on Greece to press ahead with more economic reforms. Its finance minister Wolfgang Schauble told a German TV station that the Lisbon Treaty prevents governments from writing off these debts. Instead, he argued, Greece must continue reforming to make its economy more competitive. Meanwhile Klaus Regling, the managing director of the European Stability Mechanism, argued that Greeces debt situation does not have to be cause for alarm. Story continues Writing in the Financial Times, he said that the IMF has failed to fully appreciate the amount of support on offer from other eurozone countries to Greece, largely in the form of very generous loans. It is hard to overestimate the significance of this pledge, made by the finance ministers of the eurozone. Solidarity with Greece will continue, he said. We would not have lent this amount if we did not think we would get our money back, he said, ruling out debt relief and backing more economic reforms. The University of North Georgia's (UNG) online programs in political science and nursing earned the first and sixth spots, respectively, in national 2017 rankings for value and affordability. "These rankings are a testament to how we strive to bring high-quality and affordable education options to students who cannot take traditional courses due to high demand in other areas of their lives," said Dr. Irene Kokkala, director of UNG's division of distance education and technology integration. UNG's Associate of Arts in core curriculum with a pathway to political science and Master of Arts in international affairs earned the university the number one spot on the 2017 Top Online Colleges: Best Value Political Science list from SR Education Group, which produces the Guide to Online Schools. "We are able to bring these effective and efficient programs directly to students wherever they are; we currently even have students outside the U.S.," said Dr. Craig Greathouse, associate head of UNG's Department of Political Science & International Affairs. "Those in our online programs have an opportunity to get a degree from a fully accredited university while learning from full-time faculty who also teach in-person classes. We have excellent economic value compared to other online programs, and our graduates leave very well prepared for their next venture, be it professional or academic." The Registered Nurse (RN) to Bachelor of Science in nursing (BSN) program was named sixth among the 20 Most Affordable Online BSN Degrees for 2017 by College Choice, an independent online college guide. Because the program is built to transition working RNs into a BSN degree, faculty face the challenge of offering personalized student advising to working adults returning to school. The three-semester online program helps graduates to quickly move forward in their professional fields. "The nursing department at UNG offers an affordable, ACEN accredited RN to BSN program for current registered nurses who desire to further their career with a BSN," wrote College Choice. "Graduates will be ready for professional nursing practice in primary, secondary and tertiary settings, and care for individuals, families and communities as clients. Unlike many RN to BSN programs, UNG's program allows students the option of either taking core courses along with required RN-BSN nursing courses or following completion of the nursing course work." Demand for online programs continues to grow. According to a 2014 study by the Babson Survey Research Group, which has tracked online learning trends in U.S. higher education since 2001, about 5.3 million students took at least one online course in fall 2013. In 2016, UNG was also named one of the Most Affordable Online Colleges in Georgia by OnlineColleges.net. UNG now offers 14 fully online programs: four master's degrees, one bachelor's degree, three associate programs, three teaching certificate endorsements, and three certificate programs. UNG's entire core curriculum can also be completed online through eCore, a statewide initiative that allows colleges and universities within the University System of Georgia to collaborate on in-demand courses and offer them in an accelerated online format to students at their respective institutions. UNG also provides other courses that are offered online or as hybrid options that combine some online coursework with a traditional classroom component. WASHINGTON Working to display a united front, the United States and key Asian countries will seek Thursday to put more pressure on North Korea as world leaders open a nuclear security summit in Washington. President Barack Obama, the summits host, will also seek to smooth over tensions with China over cybersecurity and maritime disputes as he and President Xi Jinping meet on the sidelines. The summit also offers Obama his last major chance to focus global attention on disparate nuclear security threats before his term ends early next year. Though nuclear terrorism and the Islamic State group top this years agenda, concerns about North Koreas nuclear weapons program are also commanding focus as the two-day summit gets under way. Those long-simmering concerns have escalated of late following the Norths recent nuclear test and rocket launch. Obama planned to have a joint meeting Thursday morning with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye, two U.S. treaty allies deeply concerned about North Korea. Its a reprise of a similar meeting the three countries held in 2014 during the last nuclear security summit in The Hague. Chinas influence over the North will be front and center later in the day when Obama sits down with Xi. The White House said that meeting was also an opportunity for Obama to press U.S. concerns about human rights and Chinas assertive territorial claims in waters far off its coast. Though frictions with China remain high, the U.S. was encouraged by Chinas role in passing stringent new U.N. sanctions on North Korea, its traditional ally. Now the U.S. is pressing Beijing to implement those sanctions dutifully. The international community must remain united in the face of North Koreas continued provocations, including its recent nuclear test and missile launches, Obama wrote in an op-ed appearing Thursday in The Washington Post. He added that the recent U.N. sanctions show that violations have consequences. The U.S. and South Korea have been discussing whether to deploy a U.S. missile defense system called THAAD, or the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, in South Korea to counter the threat from the North. China has resisted that step out of concern it would also give the U.S. radar coverage over Chinese territory, and Russia opposes it as well. Antony Blinken, the U.S. deputy secretary of state, said this week that China must engage with the U.S. directly on North Korea if it wants to avoid the U.S. and its partners taking steps that it wont like. In North Korea, meanwhile, the government has been churning out regular propaganda pieces condemning the U.S. and South Korea, while warning it could launch a pre-emptive strike against South Korea or even the U.S. mainland at any time. For years, pressing security crises in the Middle East have overshadowed Obamas goal of expanding U.S. influence and engagement in Asia, with the North Korean threat another unwanted distraction. Though the U.S. and China have struck sweeping agreements on climate change, theyve remained at odds on many economic issues. Obama has also been unable to get Congress to ratify the Asia-Pacific free trade deal his administration painstakingly negotiated. Obama also planned to meet Thursday with French President Francois Hollande, amid steep concerns about terrorism in Europe following Islamic State-linked attacks in Paris and Brussels. The summit continues on Friday with a special session focused on preventing IS and other extremists from obtaining nuclear materials and attacking urban areas. Some of the 2,000 metric tons of highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium being used in civilian or military programs worldwide could be turned into a nuclear bomb if stolen or diverted, the White House warned. Fewer than half of the countries participating in the summit have even agreed to secure sources of radiological material that could be used for a dirty bomb, though more countries are expected to announce commitments during the summit to tighten controls. ___ Associated Press writer Matthew Pennington contributed to this report. ___ Reach Josh Lederman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP AUSTIN, Texas Political dark money and the founder of an organization tied to President Donald Trumps accusations of voter fraud will be at the center of a Texas Supreme Court case Tuesday that could reshape campaign finance laws in the countrys second-largest state. Chief questions facing the nine Republican justices on Texas highest civil court include the legality of the states ban on corporate contributions and disclosure requirements for political action committees. Some believe the case ultimately could wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court and potentially reshape campaign finance regulations nationwide. Houston tea party group King Street Patriots, started by Catherine Engelbrecht, has been the focus of a longstanding lawsuit by the Texas Democratic Party accusing the organization of violating state campaign finance laws by engaging in political behavior when it dispatched poll watchers on behalf of the Texas Republican Party during the 2010 election. Democrats have used the case to press for disclosure of the groups donors. But the nonprofit, represented by attorney James Bopp Jr., architect of the landmark Citizens United case that opened the door for corporations and unions to make unlimited independent expenditures in U.S. elections has fired back with a counterclaim challenging numerous provisions of Texas campaign finance law. The case has played out for years in Texas courts on whether key components of the states campaign finance and disclosure system are constitutional. Twenty-two states currently prohibit corporations from contributing money to campaigns and candidates, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Texas has no limit on what individuals or political committees can donate to candidates, requiring all political spending to be disclosed. But corporations statewide are barred from giving money directly to a campaign, though they are allowed to contribute to a political committee set up for a ballot measure or to a state-level Super PAC, which is only allowed to make expenditures independent of candidates. With his win in the Citizens United case and lawsuits lodged nationwide, Bopp has become the most prolific anti-campaign finance litigator in U.S. history, and the Texas lawsuit could be a proxy for a future challenge at the U.S. Supreme Court, said Tara Malloy, deputy executive director of the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington-based group that has filed briefs in the case supporting Texas campaign finance laws. Malloy said a federal ban on corporate contributions to candidates remains in place. This Texas case could be a sleeper test for a much larger context, Malloy said. Bopp, a conservative Indiana lawyer, said current Texas laws infringe on the Houston groups free speech. He said an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to eliminate the corporate contribution ban and PAC disclosure requirements would be expected if they were to lose in state courts. Ive won a whole bunch of cases around the United States on several of these issues, Bopp said. Engelbrechts King Street Patriots drew national attention in 2010 for sending hundreds of observers to assist the state Republican party with poll watching efforts and sparking allegations of voter intimidation. She said the group exists only on paper now and an offshoot started about the same time called True the Vote has taken the lead on looking into voter rolls in numerous states. Trump has made widely debunked claims that the presidential election was marred by 3 million illegal voters while encouraging the work of True the Vote, which claims to be conducting a state-by-state voter roll analysis that Englenbrecht says could substantiate Trumps accusations. Tuesdays hearing comes amid debate in Texas and elsewhere over so-called dark money and when a politically active nonprofit should have to disclose its donors like a traditional political committee. Democrats have alleged in their lawsuit that the King Street Patriots, a nonprofit that is not required to disclose donors under federal and state campaign finance laws, made unlawful political contributions to the Texas GOP by training poll watchers in cooperation with the party and by holding candidate forums only for Republicans. Democrats have argued the nonprofit is a sham corporation that has acted more like an outside political group. Two state courts so far have upheld the Texas campaign finance laws at issue in the case. A lawyer for Texas Democrats said hed be shocked if even the states all-Republican Supreme Court didnt continue that trend. It would be among the most radical campaign finance rulings of any court in the nation, said Houston lawyer Chad Dunn. If you get rid of the disclosure rules in Texas you have no rules at all. BEIRUT Syrian President Bashar Assads government secretly executed between 5,000 and 13,000 people in just one prison as part of its campaign to eliminate opposition to his rule, a new report by the watchdog group Amnesty International has found. The killings took place over a four-year period between 2011 and 2015 in the notorious Sednaya facility outside Damascus, and the bodies were later disposed of in mass graves, according to the report released Monday by Amnesty. Human rights groups estimate that tens of thousands of political prisoners have disappeared in the Syrian prison system since the uprising against Assads rule erupted in 2011, and they suspect that many of those have been tortured to death or secretly killed. The accounts of these killings are in addition to the figure of 17,000 that Amnesty counted in an earlier report on the extrajudicial killings issued last August, compounding an emerging picture of what Amnesty referred to as a policy of extermination against opponents of the government. The majority of those executed at Sednaya were political prisoners, including many of the ordinary people who joined in the peaceful protests against Assad, the report says. Some were rebels who took up arms, and others were officers and soldiers who defected from government forces. But for the most part they were doctors, engineers, protesters, one former prison official is quoted as saying. They were somehow understood to be linked to the revolution. Sednaya is the place to finish the revolutionaries. Its the end for them. Syria rejected the report Wednesday as baseless and part of a campaign to discredit Assads government. A statement by Syrias Justice Ministry, carried by Syrias state-run news agency, said it denies and condemns in the strongest terms what was reported because it is not based on correct evidence but on personal emotions that aim to achieve well-known political goals. The Amnesty report describes in chilling detail how the prisoners were taken out of their cells in batches, of up to 50 at a time, twice a week and in the middle of the night, typically on Mondays and Wednesdays. They were given only cursory trials lasting one to three minutes at one of two military field courts that offered no semblance of judicial process, with sentences typically handed down on the basis of confessions extracted under torture. When the time came for their executions, the prisoners were handcuffed, blindfolded and led to a basement cell containing 10 stands and 10 nooses. A former judge from the military court described the executions, saying it would often take up to 10 to 15 minutes for the prisoners to die. Some didnt die because they are light. For the young ones, their weight wouldnt kill them. The officers assistants would pull them down and break their necks. Two officers assistants were in charge of this. Amnesty said it based its estimate of between 5,000 and 13,000 hangings conducted this way on testimony of 31 former prisoners, four prison officials and three judges familiar with specific instances of the executions and the frequency with which they appeared to occur. They are identified in the report only by their last names because of safety concerns. Amnesty said the executions amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity and were authorized at the highest levels of the Syrian government. The horrors depicted in this report reveal a hidden, monstrous campaign, authorized at the highest levels of the Syrian government, aimed at crushing any form of dissent within the Syrian population, said Lynn Maalouf, deputy director for research at Amnesty Internationals regional office in Beirut. The allegations come at a sensitive time for Assad, who is in the process of crushing the nearly six-year-old rebellion against his rule but still lacks international legitimacy. The findings of the report are expected to be on the agenda for the next round of Syrian peace talks, scheduled to be held in Geneva on Feb. 20, Amnesty said. It also called for an independent United Nations investigation into the atrocities. The report also contains details of what it calls the sadistic and dehumanizing conditions under which the prisoners are kept, including repeated torture and the systematic deprivation of food, water and medical care. Many more prisoners die from torture and neglect, Amnesty said. Many of the prisoners said they were raped or in some cases forced to rape other prisoners. Torture and beatings are used as a regular form of punishment and degradation, often leading to life-long damage, disability or even death, the report says. The cell floors are covered with blood and puss from prisoners wounds. The bodies of dead detainees are collected by the prison guards each morning, around 9 a.m. Human Rights Watch on Wednesday outlined how the Trump administration would be able to go after a broad array of Muslim civic organizations if it adds the Muslim Brotherhood to its list of designated foreign terrorist organizations, which administration officials have said privately they are weighing. Designating the Muslim Brotherhood has long been a cause of right-wing Republicans and U.S. allies Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, reintroduced a bill pushing for the groups foreign terrorist designation last month, which supporters believe will find traction under President Donald Trump. The initiatives proponents cite a widely discredited 1991 document as evidence that the brotherhood is plotting a secret Islamist takeover of America. Middle East experts say the brotherhood is an Egypt-based Islamist organization that renounced violence decades ago, remade itself as a pro-democracy political organization, and was the most successful political party in Egypt until its leaders were overthrown in a 2013 military coup and branded as terrorists. Members of its sister organizations and offshoots hold elected office in a scattering of other Mideast countries, including Turkey, where officials from the ruling party a close brotherhood affiliate are meeting with President Trumps CIA director (and a onetime co-sponsor of a bill to designate the brotherhood a terrorist organization) Mike Pompeo on Wednesday. Muslim advocacy groups and Middle East experts have warned that adding the brotherhood to a terrorist list would set a dangerous precedent by appearing to target a group for its ideology, rather than its actions and could easily be used to go after American Muslim organizations and individuals. How would that work? Laura Pitter, the senior national security counsel at Human Rights Watch, pointed Wednesday to a George W. Bush-era executive order that could be applied broadly to freeze the assets of anyone found to be supporting or associating with the organization. Or, in the words of the order: Financial sanctions may be appropriate for those foreign persons that support or otherwise associate with these foreign terrorists [as designated by the government]. If the U.S. government designates the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist group, then not only its members, but anyone either in the United States or abroad suspected of providing support or resources to the group would be at risk of removal from the U.S. if they are noncitizens and having their assets frozen, Human Rights Watch wrote in a news release. Pitter said the U.S. government would also, presumably, be able to freeze the assets of American citizens who are suspected of support or association, or charge them with material support to a foreign terrorist organization. As the law is applied now, Pitter said: They can freeze assets even when they suspect that you fall under the executive order. It can be exceedingly difficult to challenge, starting with the logistical difficulty of hiring a lawyer without having access to any cash. Supporters of the terrorist organization designation also make the claim that the Council on American-Islamic Relations and several other major Muslim civic and advocacy groups are brotherhood front organizations. Those groups, as well as experts on the Islamist movement, say there is no evidence to support that claim. But both supporters and opponents of the terrorist designation believe it would be wielded in an effort to shut those groups down. WASHINGTON President Donald Trumps escalating attacks on the federal judiciary drew denunciation Wednesday from his Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, who told a senator that the criticism was disheartening and demoralizing to independent federal courts. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said Gorsuch made the comments during their private meeting Wednesday, and the account was confirmed by Ron Bonjean, a member of the group guiding the judge through his confirmation process. Trump on Wednesday morning declared that an appeals courts hearing Tuesday night regarding his controversial immigration executive order was disgraceful, and that judges were more concerned about politics than following the law. The remarks followed earlier tweets from Trump disparaging the so-called judge who issued a nationwide stop to his plan and saying the ruling put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. Blumenthal said Gorsuch, whom Trump nominated to the Supreme Court just over a week ago, agreed with him that the presidents language was out of line. I told him how abhorrent Donald Trumps invective and insults are towards the judiciary. And he said to me that he found them disheartening and demoralizing his words, Blumenthal said in an interview. Gorsuch stated very emotionally and strongly his belief in his fellow judges integrity and the principle of judicial independence, he added. And I made clear to him that that belief requires him to be stronger and more explicit, more public in his views. The contretemps added another layer to the roiling nature of Trumps young presidency. Some historians wondered if Supreme Court nominees had ever separated themselves in such a way from the president who nominated them; others tried to recall if a president had ever given a nominee reason to do so. Less than three weeks after taking the oath of office, Trump already has a legal dispute that seems likely to arrive soon at the Supreme Court. His comments about the judiciary seem far beyond the more veiled criticism presidents usually lob at the branch, and Democrats have pointed to those comments in arguing for a close examination of Gorsuch, who has served for 10 years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. Within hours of Blumenthals revelation of Gorsuchs remarks, there were questions about how Trump, famously thin-skinned about criticism, would receive his nominees words. There was a competing theory that they were a calculated attempt by Gorsuch to assert his independence. Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director of the Judicial Crisis Network, a group promoting Gorsuchs nomination, said the judges remarks simply confirmed what those close to Gorsuch already knew. Hes always been a person independent of the president, and it was shown by his statement, she said. Those on the left, meanwhile, said Gorsuch would need to do more than that. Is Gorsuch distancing himself from Trump? As we say on the Internet: LOL, Drew Courtney of People for the American Way said in a statement. To be clear: Donald Trumps pattern of attacks on federal judges is more than demoralizing its a threat to the separation of powers and our constitutional system, and its hard to imagine a more tepid response than to call them disheartening. Trump has been on a days-long crusade against the judicial branch since U.S. District Judge James Robart of Seattle halted the administrations executive order temporarily halting the U.S. refugee program and barring entry to the United States from seven predominantly Muslim countries. A three-judge panel in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is deliberating whether Trumps executive order should be allowed to continue. Speaking Wednesday at the Major Cities Chiefs Association Winter Conference in Washington, Trump said he listened to the oral arguments at the appeals court and was disappointed at what he heard. I dont ever want to call a court biased, so I wont call it biased, Trump told the group. But courts seem to be so political, and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do whats right. Trump said the arguments were disgraceful because his executive order cant be written any plainer or better and for us to be going through this he paused to mention that a judge in Boston had ruled to allow the order to continue. Trump said the courts were standing in the way of what he was elected to do and that even a bad student in high school student would support his policies. We want security, he said. One of the reasons I was elected was because of law and order and security. Its one of the reasons I was elected . . . And theyre taking away our weapons, one by one. Thats what theyre doing. And you know it and I know it. The panel of 9th Circuit judges questioned whether the administration had any evidence of increased risk that would warrant the new restrictions, and whether the restrictions violated the law and the Constitutions protections against religious discrimination. Trumps comments were the latest escalation in a worsening dispute between the executive branch and the judiciary that the president has personally carried out on social media and in public remarks. While it is not new for a president to disagree with the actions of another branch of government, Trumps crusade against the federal judiciary comes before the legal process has fully played out and is unusual for its threatening tone and use of personal invective. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Wednesday that the president is expressing his frustration with a process that he believes should be subject to common sense. He respects the judiciary, Spicer said. Its hard for him and for a lot of people to understand how something so clear in the law can be so misinterpreted. He added that Trump, who has a long history of punching back against his opponents both political and personal, is also speaking directly to his supporters who are looking for him to aggressively deliver on his campaign promises. He likes to talk to his supporters, to be blunt, Spicer added. Part of it is that people wonder who helped elect him what is he doing to enact his agenda. Trumps handling of the incident recalled his attacks during the presidential campaign on an American judge of Mexican descent, Gonzalo Curiel, who Trump claimed could not fairly adjudicate a fraud case against now-defunct Trump University because of his ethnic heritage. In Trumps world theres a precedent where he believes a judge of Mexican heritage cant fairly judge his case, said longtime Republican strategist Rick Wilson, a frequent Trump critic. Its part of the overall pattern of the Trump White House: They want to always be on the attack. Its not enough to say their ideas are wrong their policies are wrong; youve got to nuke them. A coalition of Democratic members of the House introduced a resolution criticizing Trumps attacks, and Laura Brill, a California lawyer and former clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, sent the administrations top lawyers a letter on behalf of nearly 150 lawyers who practice in the federal courts denouncing Trumps comments. Lawyers across the political spectrum believe that the presidents personal attacks on individual judges and on the judicial branch are improper and destructive, Brill said in a statement. Because judges face ethical constraints in their ability to respond directly, the letter calls on the president to retract and end such personal attacks. Not everyone was deeply offended by Trumps words. Paul Cassell, a University of Utah law professor who served as a federal district judge from 2002 to 2007 and was nominated by President George W. Bush, said he believes Trump stepped over the line in his criticism of Robart. But I would characterize it as a misdemeanor traffic ticket, not a felony, Cassell said. Judges have thick-enough skins that they are used to being criticized. We live in a time in which strong language seems to be the order of the day. The president certainly has a right to criticize the court, Cassell said. He said he thought then-President Barack Obama went further in his 2010 State of the Union criticism of the Supreme Court, which had just decided the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case. Cassell said Obama used more elegant language, but also contends that Obamas analysis of the case was off-base. Besides, he added, The president can tweet all he wants, but the final decision will be made by the judiciary. WASHINGTON Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican who opposes the Districts new assisted-suicide law, says he will move forward with overturning the measure in his committee, setting up what could be a rare House floor vote to nullify a local District law. Chaffetzs announcement came Tuesday after he met with President Donald Trump. But the lawmaker said the topic did not come up during the Oval Office visit. The decision by the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee disappointed advocates for the law and D.C. leaders who consider it an affront to local home rule. Congress in 1973 granted the District the right to elect a mayor and legislature and to pass local laws, but retained the right to veto the citys legislation and spending decisions. I didnt ask for this bill, D.C. presented it to the Congress, so we have the option to deal with it, and in this particular case I am going to exercise that and put it up for a vote, Chaffetz said, adding that he opposes the law. I think Congress should vote on it. More people live in the nations capital than in Vermont or Wyoming, and they pay more in federal taxes than their counterparts in 22 states. But the federal district has no voting member of Congress. In recent weeks, Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill have introduced legislation that would roll back the citys gun laws and prevent it from using local tax dollars to subsidize abortion services for poor women. One lawmaker has threatened legislation that would end the citys legalization of marijuana. On Wednesday, DCVote, which urges voting rights for the District in Congress, sent a letter to the U.S. House of Representatives, calling on lawmakers to respect the will of the citys 670,000 residents. It was signed by 27 local and national organizations, including labor unions, organizations in favor of abortion rights, LGBT advocates and gun-control groups. These federal congressional actions would unjustly undermine important local decisions made by the people of the District of Columbia through their elected leaders, the letter said. As is the case with residents of your congressional districts and home states, the Districts residents should have the ability to enact local laws to address pressing local concerns. We urge you to respect local autonomy by opposing these efforts to thwart the will of the District of Columbias residents. Under the D.C. law, which was passed by the D.C. Council in November, the nations capital would become the seventh jurisdiction to provide a way for terminally ill patients to end their lives. The legislation was modeled after the nations first physician-assisted-suicide law, enacted in Oregon. It would allow doctors to prescribe fatal medication to patients believed to have less than six months to live. Patients would have to make two requests over two weeks and ingest the drugs themselves. The D.C. Council passed the measure in November. Assisted suicide is legal in California, Colorado, Montana, Oregon, Vermont and Washington state. Both the House and Senate would have to agree to overturn the D.C. law by Feb. 18 to prevent it from taking effect, according to lawyers for the D.C. Council. Republicans in the Senate have in recent years been reluctant to get bogged down in debate over D.C. laws. The Washington Posts Mike DeBonis contributed to this report. Carly Fiorina, the former GOP presidential candidate, is considering challenging Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., next year. Her comments on a Portsmouth-based radio show popular among party activists marks the first time that the Fairfax resident has spoken publicly about getting back into politics since the November election. Im certainly looking at that opportunity, she told host John Fredericks about a Senate bid on Tuesday. Its a little early to be making that decision. Fiorina and her husband moved to Lorton, Virginia, in Fairfax County in 2011 after a bruising loss in her bid to unseat Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. She ended her presidential campaign one year ago this month,and briefly jumped onto the ill-fated campaign of Sen. Ted Cruz, R, as his vice presidential pick. In the months since, Fiorina has been helping other Republicans, particularly in Virginia where she stumped for everyone from Rep. Barbara Comstock, R, to little-known candidates for state legislature. Kaine, who was Hillary Clintons runningmate on the Democratic presidential ticket, will be seeking a second term in the Senate in 2018. A former governor whose place on the Clinton ticket helped him build a national profile, Kaine has returned to the Capitol Hill as an outspoken critic of President Donald Trumps agenda. Virginia was the only southern state that Clinton carried in November and all five statewide officeholders are Democrats, something Fiorina referenced in her interview. We [Republicans] should be realistic that is going to be a very, very tough race, said the former Hewlett Packard chief executive. Virginia is a purple state. Virginia has two Democratic senators. The Democratic Party is going to throw everything they have at defending Tim Kaines seat. Other candidates are toying with running as well. Laura Ingraham, the conservative radio host who supported Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., in his 2014 ouster of then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, confirmed on Fox & Friends last month that she is considering jumping into the race. Contacted by The Washington Post, she declined to comment further. Although Brat stopped short of endorsing Ingraham, he said she would do well in the race and took himself out of contention. Shes got a huge personality, a huge following and the ability to lead the newscycle, he said last week. Republicans say Rep. Barbara Comstock would also be a top contender if she would risk giving up her northern Virginia seat, to run. Through a spokesman, she declined to comment on her plans. Former Gov. Jim Gilmore, who ran a failed presidential bid last year, and Del. Jimmie Massie, R-Richmond, are also expected to compete for the party nomination. The 2018 field has been slow to coalesce in part because national groups are likely to focus resources on 10 Republican takeover opportunities in states that Trump won. With a governors race immediately following the presidential contest, Virginia voters have historically chosen a governor of the opposite party. The 2013 win by Gov. Terry McAuliffe, D, after President Barack Obamas reelection was a rare exception. If the pattern holds and a Democrat Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam or former congressman Tom Perriello wins this year governors race, Kaine could enjoy a boost as well. I dont think Republicans are going to give Tim Kaine a free pass but Virginia has shown in recent federal races a trend toward Democrats, said Nathan Gonzales, a political anaylst at the nonpartisan Inside Elections. State GOP chairman John Whitbeck said the party is committed to ousting Kaine. Tim Kaine has shown that hes far outside the mainstream of Virginia, he said. Hes effectively taken his mask off. Hes nothing more than a cookie cutter left-wing liberal. University of New Mexico graduate student Juan Carlos Romero, who was found shot to death on the sidewalk across from the campus early Tuesday, was passionate about teaching and wanted to be a philosophy professor, his sister told the Journal on Wednesday. Victoria Sype said her brother lived near the university, and her family believes Romero, 26, had gone to get something to eat or drink when he was shot and killed on Stanford just south of Central around 3 a.m. Police have released few details on his death, including why he may have been killed. Officer Fred Duran, a spokesman for the Albuquerque Police Department, said police are still waiting for the autopsy to be completed, and he would not say if Romeros death is being considered a homicide. The circumstances leading up to his death are unknown at this time, Duran said Tuesday evening. He said there were no updates Wednesday. But Sype said detectives told her and her parents that Romero had been shot and killed. Romero graduated from St. Pius X High School in 2008 and studied economics, philosophy and fine art at UNM, receiving a bachelors degree. On Facebook, former classmates and friends posted tearful tributes throughout the day Wednesday after hearing about his death. Sype said her brother hoped to pursue a career in higher education and worked for a nonprofit in Santa Fe. He would substitute at charter schools and a few elementary schools covering various subjects, Sype said. His ultimate goal was to be a university professor teaching philosophy. Sype said her family is still in shock over her brothers death, and she has trouble talking about him without breaking down in tears. He was a scholar, a dreamer, a goofball, but overall a brilliant young man, she said. Our primary concern is to understand what happened. Dianne Anderson, a UNM spokeswoman, said the dean of students will reach out to the family and community to offer support and assistance in the wake of Romeros death. A couple of blocks west of where Romero was shot, a man threatened a student with a gun Wednesday after the student refused to buy an internet router from him, according to an alert sent by UNM. UNM police said there is no reason at this time to think the two incidents are connected. This is the ninth homicide investigation in Albuquerque this year. Last year there were a total of 61 homicides in the city, a 20-year high. U.S. Attorney Damon Martinez and numerous district attorneys, including Bernalillo County District Attorney Raul Torrez, are holding a news conference today to address what Martinez called in a news release a violent crime epidemic in New Mexico. By Wednesday afternoon, the crime scene tape on Stanford was gone and a steady stream of bike-riding commuters and students could be seen heading to and from class. Susam Sapkota, a freshman at UNM, lives on the street and was awakened early Tuesday by detectives asking if he heard anything. He said its frightening to know that something like that happened so close to home, and its made him think twice about going out late. I feel totally scared now, Sapkota said. Tips: Police ask anyone with information about Romero or his death to contact Crime Stoppers at 843-STOP SANTA FE A plan to create a new endowment fund for New Mexico early childhood programs by shifting control of millions of acres of federally owned mineral rights stalled in the Roundhouse on Wednesday, after being hit with a wave of opposition. In an unusual move, the bills sponsor, Senate President Pro Tem Mary Kay Papen, D-Las Cruces, asked members of a Senate committee to table the measure, which they did. Although the legislation, Senate Bill 182, could be brought back up later in this years 60-day legislative session, Papen said Wednesday that it needs significant fine-tuning. It needs a lot more work, Papen told the Journal. She also said Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn, the architect of the legislation, was in agreement with the decision. Kristin Haase, an assistant commissioner in the State Land Office, acknowledged the bill could be dead for the current session, which ends March 18. We believe it was an idea worth pursuing, and we will be considering other alternatives, she said after Wednesdays meeting of the Senate Education Committee. Under the terms of the proposal, up to 6.6 million acres of unleased federally owned mineral rights beneath private land would be shifted to the state. The State Land Office would lease them out for oil and gas drilling, for example with the revenue flowing into an Early Childhood Education Land Grant Permanent Fund. Although the fund would have to be created by the Legislature, the actual transfer of mineral rights would require the approval of Congress. Environmental groups and other critics of the measure, who expressed concern that the proposal could open the door to federal public land transfers, bombarded Papen and other senators with phone calls and messages in the days leading up to Wednesdays hearing. Our states budget crisis shows the problem with not diversifying our economy and relying too much on oil and gas, said Garrett VeneKlasen, executive director of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation. By attempting to frame this as a pro-education bill, the State Land Office neglected to acknowledge the detrimental impact increasing oil and gas (drilling) would have on our environment and the health of our children. The proposal is one of several measures filed this year at the state Capitol that are aimed at increasing funding for home visiting and other early childhood programs. However, the other plans generally call for more money being diverted from an existing state endowment fund, the $15 billion Land Grant Permanent Fund. NEW YORK The Department of Defense is planning to lease space in New Yorks Trump Tower, the 68-story building where President Donald Trump has his home and business headquarters, and ethics experts are not happy about it. We shouldnt be in a place where we have to put questions of conflict of interest against questions of national security, said Jordan Libowitz of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, a Washington-based watchdog. The leased space would be necessary for the personnel and equipment who will support the POTUS at his residence in the building, Defense Department spokesman J.B. Bridle said in a statement released Tuesday. It is not unprecedented for the U.S. government to lease space in order to provide support services for the president when he travels home; the Pentagon rented space at President Barack Obamas Chicago home. Trump Tower, however, happens to be an unusually expensive address where a floor with 13,000 to 15,000 square feet of space rents for about $1.5 million a year. The Secret Service and New York Police Department are already installed in the building to provide security for Trumps wife, Melania, and son, Barron, who have not yet moved to the White House, and for the president when he visits. According to public records filed Jan. 26, Trump transferred ownership of Trump Tower to the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust as part of a promise to turn over the business to his sons. Critics say he still benefits from the trust. Trust documents obtained by the nonprofit news outlet ProPublica state that the purpose of the Trust is to hold assets for the exclusive benefit of Donald J. Trump. 2017 Los Angeles Times Visit the Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. _____ SANTA FE Santa Fe city leaders are considering asking for a declaration in federal court that its immigrant-friendly policies are consistent with U.S. law and to consider options for possible litigation in the face of an executive order by President Donald Trump to cut off funding to so-called sanctuary cities. During Wednesdays City Council meeting, City Attorney Kelley Brennan asked the council for authorization to consult with outside attorneys on the citys long-standing stance against assisting in enforcement of federal immigration laws. In addition to getting a court ruling on the constitutionality of the citys policies, Brennan said she wanted to explore options and clarify legal considerations, including the possibility pursuing some kind of lawsuit. The city of San Francisco on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the president over his order to withhold funding from cities which do not cooperate with federal authorities on immigration matters, maintaining Trumps order was unconstitutional. Brennan suggested Santa Fe could join San Francisco in its efforts or bring its own lawsuit. Our claims might be somewhat different (than San Franciscos), she said. She said the best place to start, however, would be to get a determination from the courts on whether Santa Fes policies are consistent with federal law. The citys budget and federal grants that pass through the state could be affected by Trumps order, she said, and litigation regarding the order could drag on for some time. Rather than deal with that uncertainty for one or two years, we can seek a court ruling saying (the city) has been in compliance and question the validity of some of the items in the order, she said. While no vote was taken, the majority of city councilors expressed their support for Brennans request. So did Mayor Javier Gonzales, who said the ACLU has already offered legal assistance to the city. Gonzales said the city was looking for ways to preempt any federal action against the city. He noted that Jeff Sessions, who he said has a track record of hostility toward immigrants, was confirmed as U.S. Attorney General earlier on Wednesday. I think its important to recognize how important an action this is, he said of Trumps executive order, which Gonzales described as be unprecedented. In a dramatic finding, only 16 percent of New Mexico business leaders polled believe the state is headed in the right direction, according to a new survey to be released today. That figure is a drop from 24 percent last year and 39 percent in 2015. Thats dramatic, said Mike Petro, executive vice president of the Committee for Economic Development, which commissioned the poll. You know that when business people feel that way thats not good news for the overall economy. The annual survey also showed continued overwhelming support among business leaders for state campaign finance and ethics reforms. The Washington, D.C.-based Committee for Economic Development is a nonpartisan business-led policy group. Albuquerque-based Research & Polling Inc. conducted the poll of 251 people between Dec. 14 and Jan. 19. Brian Sanderoff, president of the polling company, called the results striking and said they mirror polls of the general public that show an increasing number of people who say the state is not on track. Obviously, New Mexico has been struggling in terms of our stagnant economy, our stagnant population growth and budget problems this year and next, he said. The survey also showed an overwhelming consensus and support among business leaders for more transparency and more government accountability, Sanderoff said. Adopting reforms to alleviate those concerns might make business leaders more confident about the direction in which the state is going, he said. For example, 92 percent of those polled either strongly support or somewhat support publicly disclosing all political contributions and expenditures from individuals, corporations, political action committees, nonprofits and unions. And creation of an independent ethics commission to write and oversee rules on ethical behavior among public officials got an 83 percent approval rating. Lawmakers are considering several different proposals for an ethics commission in this years session. Business believes that a government that is more open and forced to listen more is a better government, said Terri Cole, president and CEO of the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce. Cole said she was not at all surprised by the 16 percent rating business leaders gave the states direction. New Mexico continues to be challenged economically. There is no doubt about that reality, she said. Economic problems are largely because the state has been too dependent on the oil and gas industry, she said. At the same time, neighboring states are adding jobs and population. We are not keeping up even with our neighboring states, she said. We have been unable to replace the jobs we lost even prior to the recession. However, she said the state would be in much, much worse shape were it not for its economic development programs, including the Local Economic Development Act and the Job Training Incentive Program. The Legislature last month included a $4 million cut to the act as part of a budget-balancing measure, but Gov. Susana Martinez line-item vetoed the reduction. These programs are working, but it takes time and staying the course, and it doesnt happen overnight, Cole said. Other findings in the study: Consistent with last years study, 86 percent said big campaign donors have either a great deal of impact or some impact on state government corruption. 89 percent strongly or somewhat support limiting campaign contributions from individuals and PACs. 88 percent say the ethical behavior of state elected officials over the past 20 years has been either a somewhat or very serious issue. Tuesdays school board election drew one of the highest turnouts in recent years, though it still only hit 6.6 percent of eligible voters. According to unofficial results from the Bernalillo County Clerks Office, 18,333 people cast ballots in the Albuquerque Public Schools race, enough to create lines at some polling sites. By comparison, turnout was 3.7 percent for the 2015 school board race and 3.6 percent for 2013. Central New Mexico Community College also elected five new governing board members on Tuesday 15,589 people voted, a 4.1 percent turnout. We are glad to report everything ran smoothly, Bernalillo County Clerk Linda Stover said in a prepared statement. It was a higher turnout than the past two APS/CNM regular elections. We hope more voters will see the value of voting in their local school board election and that this trend will continue on for all types of future elections. This year, an unusually large field of candidates competed for APS board 19 people were up for four seats. Incumbents Lorenzo Garcia and Dave Peercy won re-election for District 3 and District 7, respectively. In District 5, Candy Patterson defeated three other candidates, while Elizabeth Armijo prevailed in the most packed race, District 6, beating five candidates. At CNM, incumbent Melissa Armijo lost to Annette Chavez y De La Cruz, former director of the CNMs South Valley campus, for District 4. Two incumbents prevailed Pauline J. Garcia for District 1, and Nancy Baca for District 5. Thomas Swisstack, former Rio Rancho mayor, was unopposed for District 3. Former CNM president Michael Glennon took District 7, replacing incumbent Michael DeWitte, who did not run again. Historically, New Mexico school board races attract few voters, partly because the elections are held separately from others, a quirk that dates back to the early 1900s. But as a result, a relatively small number of people can sway a board election. For instance, Patterson won District 5 by only about 500 votes. On Tuesday, Shannon Hudson said she went to the polls to make sure her voice was heard in city politics. Its really important to stay involved in local government, said Hudson, a former teacher, standing outside the Fiesta Del Norte shopping centers polling location on San Mateo Boulevard. This is where we get to make the most difference for our own community. WASHINGTON Rarely is the question asked: Is our Cabinet secretaries learning? And if we is being honest with ourself, we says: No, they is not. Todays lesson: the education of Betsy DeVos. DeVos, a major Republican donor, survived her ordeal to be confirmed as education secretary, and it has been a grizzly tale. Republicans, apparently recognizing the billionaires lack of familiarity with the rudiments of education policy, tried to shield DeVos from public view. They scheduled her testimony in the evening and limited questions. But this did not save the heiress from getting schooled. DeVos was confused by questions about the Individuals With Disabilities and Education Act and befuddled when asked about the raging debate about measuring student proficiency vs. growth. DeVoss solution to protect student aid from waste? Uh, leave it to the individuals with whom I work. But her finest moment was her argument for why we need guns in schools: to protect from potential grizzlies. It was too much to bear. Two Republican senators, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, said they couldnt give DeVos a passing grade. She was confirmed Tuesday on a 50-50 tie broken by Vice President Pence. Hour after hour on the Senate floor Monday, Democrats howled about the nominees woeful qualifications, and few Republicans countered them. But Democrats in the long run may thank the majority Republicans for confirming DeVos. In the fight against President Trumps agenda, the new administrations incompetence is their friend. Trumps choice of DeVos signals a dangerous desire to dismantle public schools. It would be more dangerous if he chose somebody who was up to the task. In this sense, Trumps Cabinet generally may be a gift to opponents of his agenda. At Housing and Urban Development there will be Ben Carson. Before Carsons nomination, his friend Armstrong Williams said that the retired neurosurgeon feels he has no government experience, hes never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency. At the Energy Department is Rick Perry, mocked by Trump himself during the presidential primaries. He should be forced to take an IQ test before being allowed to enter the GOP debate, Trump said, suggesting that Perry wears glasses so people think hes smart. Heading the National Security Council is Mike Flynn, reportedly drummed out as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency for poor management. Nikki Haley, the U.N. ambassador, has no foreign policy experience. One can already see future Cabinet meetings shaping up in the White House, as Trump goes around the table asking for updates: Carson: Pass. DeVos: Could you come back to me, please? Flynn: Sorry, what? Perry: Oops. No doubt there is some value in nominating people outside the establishment. But the value is diminished if your outsiders cant do the job. Competence questions arise daily. After years of Republican promises to repeal Obamacare, a secret recording of a meeting of congressional Republicans makes clear that the administration and its allies on Capitol Hill have no such plan. Trumps travel ban has been hung up in court largely because its legal underpinning is sloppy. Then theres Trumps executive order putting political adviser Stephen K. Bannon on the National Security Council; The New York Times reported that Trump signed that order without fully understanding it. Questions of competent management extend to the most important issues. During confirmation hearings, Haley and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reported that they had only cursory conversations with Trump about Russia. Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly acknowledged that he hadnt discussed immigration policy with Trump. Nominees were at odds with Trump on the Iran nuclear deal, torture, entitlement programs, climate change and the border wall. Then theres DeVos. After her rickety performance at her confirmation hearing, she returned a written questionnaire to senators last week and it was soon apparent that some of her answers were cribbed from a magazine, the Education Department website, and an Obama administration nominee. On the Senate floor, Democrats denounced DeVoss abilities. Uniquely unqualified, said Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.). Astonishing ignorance, said Chris Van Hollen (Md.). Embarrassingly unprepared, said Elizabeth Warren (Mass.). After three hours of unanswered charges, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) showed up and gave a lengthy endorsement of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. McConnell was followed by the No. 2 Republican, John Cornyn (Tex.), offering perfunctory support for DeVos. The president will get the Cabinet he nominated and deserves, Cornyn said. Yes, he will. CANNON BALL, N.D. Construction crews have resumed work on the final segment of the Dakota Access pipeline, and the developer of the long-delayed project said Thursday that the full system could be operational within three months. Meanwhile, an American Indian tribe filed a legal challenge to block the work and protect its water supply. The Army granted Energy Transfer Partners formal permission Wednesday to lay pipe under a North Dakota reservoir, clearing the way for completion of the 1,200-mile pipeline. Company spokeswoman Vicki Granado confirmed early Thursday that construction began immediately after receiving the easement. Workers had already drilled entry and exit holes for the segment, and oil had been put in the pipeline leading up to Lake Oahe in anticipation of finishing the project. The estimate is 60 days to complete the drill and another 23 days to fill the line to Patoka, Granado said, referring to the shipping point in Illinois that is the pipelines destination. Work was stalled for months due to opposition by the Standing Rock Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes. Both tribes argue that the pipeline threatens their water supply and cultural sites. In a statement, Cheyenne River Sioux Chairman Harold Frazier said the water is our life. It must be protected at all costs. The Cheyenne River reservation in South Dakota borders the Standing Rock reservation, which straddles the North Dakota-South Dakota border. The last piece of the pipeline is to pass under the lake on the Missouri River, which marks the eastern border of both reservations. A separate court battle unfolded between the developer and the Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees the federal land where the last segment is now being laid. President Donald Trump last month instructed the Corps to advance pipeline construction. The Cheyenne River Sioux on Thursday asked a federal judge to stop the work while a lawsuit filed earlier by the tribes proceeds. Attorney Nicole Ducheneaux said in court documents that the pipeline will desecrate the waters that the Cheyenne River Sioux rely on. Energy Transfer Partners, which maintains the pipeline is safe, did not immediately respond in court to the filing. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said he would hear arguments from attorneys on Monday. The tribes lawsuit, filed last summer, has been on hold while the dispute over the final pipeline segment played out. The Cheyenne River Sioux on Thursday told the judge that they also want to make a claim on freedom-of-religion grounds. The sanctity of these waters is a central tenet of their religion, and the placement of the pipeline itself, apart from any rupture and oil spill, is a desecration of these waters, Ducheneaux wrote. Standing Rock Sioux attorney Jan Hasselman has said that tribe will also try to block the construction in court, with likely arguments that further study is necessary to preserve tribal treaty rights. An assessment conducted last year determined that building the final segment of the pipeline would not have a significant effect on the environment. However, the Army decided in December that further study was warranted to address tribal concerns. The Corps launched an environmental study on Jan. 18, but Trump signed an executive action six days later telling the Corps to allow the company to proceed with construction. Legal experts have disagreed on whether the Army can change its mind simply because of the change in White House administrations. Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault said in a statement late Wednesday that the tribe is prepared to keep up the battle in the courts, to fight against an administration that seeks to dismiss not only our treaty rights and status as sovereign nations, but the safe drinking water of millions of Americans. An encampment near the construction drew thousands of protesters last year in support of the tribes, leading to occasional clashes with law enforcement and hundreds of arrests. Law enforcement officers who have maintained a presence in the area for months were on heightened alert Thursday for protests, though none was immediately reported. Officers and National Guard soldiers were stationed on the hills near the camp and at a blockaded bridge on a nearby highway. Energy Transfer Partners has its own security at the drilling area. In a statement Wednesday, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum urged cooperation and restraint from all parties and requested federal law enforcement assistance to keep the peace during construction. Protesters rallied in several U.S. cities Wednesday. Joye Braun and Payu Harris, two pipeline opponents who have been at the North Dakota protest encampment, said in an interview at a nearby casino that theres frustration but also resolve in the wake of the Armys decision. The goal is still prayerful, nonviolent direct action, Braun said. ___ Blake Nicholson reported from Bismarck, North Dakota. Follow him on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/NicholsonBlake . WASHINGTON The White House has counseled a top aide to President Donald Trump after she promoted Ivanka Trumps fashion line during a national cable television appearance from the White House. But House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz says thats not enough, calling what Kellyanne Conway did wrong, wrong, wrong, clearly over the line, unacceptable. The Utah Republican congressman and Democratic Oversight Leader Elijah Cummings jointly asked the Office of Government Ethics to review the matter. Chaffetz also said he will write a formal letter to the White House lodging his irritation. He said White House press secretary Sean Spicers remark Thursday that Conway has been counseled doesnt go far enough. It needs to be dealt with, he said in an interview with The Associated Press. Its the first time during the young administration that Chaffetz has questioned an ethical matter. Speaking later to Utah lawmakers, Chaffetz added: Of course Im going to call that out. My job is not to be a cheerleader for the president. The White House said later Thursday that Trump absolutely continues to support Conway. In response to questions from The Associated Press, the White House said Trump didnt see Conways interview on Fox News. But a spokeswoman said Trump understands she was merely sticking up for a wonderful woman who she has great respect for and felt was treated unfairly. In an interview later Thursday evening on Fox, Conway declined to discuss the case but said she had spoken with Trump and he supports me 100 percent. The ethics dustup began Wednesday with the president himself. Reacting to news that a department store had dropped his daughters line of clothing and accessories, Trump tweeted and retweeted from the official presidential account that Ivanka Trump had been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. Ivanka Trump does not have a specific role in the White House but moved to Washington with her husband, Jared Kushner, who is one of Trumps closest advisers. She followed her fathers approach on business ties by handing over operating control of her fashion company but retaining ownership of it. In a Thursday morning interview with Fox News from the White House briefing room, Conway urged people to go buy Ivankas stuff, boasting that she was giving the brand a free commercial here. While Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are not subject to ethical regulations and laws for federal employees, Conway, who is a counselor to the president, is. Among the rules: An employee shall not use his or her office for the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise. For whatever reason, the White House staff evidently believes that they are protected from the law the same way the president and vice president are, said Stuart Gilman, a former special assistant to the director of Office of Government Ethics. He called Conways comments unbelievable and said they risk wrecking the U.S.s reputation around the world as a model for government employee ethics. Midday Thursday, the Office of Government Ethics sent a series of tweets saying the office has seen an extraordinary response from people emailing, calling and submitting information online about recent events. The office advises federal employees on such issues but is not an enforcement agency; enforcement falls to Congress, the General Accounting Office, the FBI, various inspectors general and others, OGE noted on Twitter. Ultimately, it is up to Trump to punish employees for ethics infractions. Its been a rough week for Conway. Her reference to a non-existent Bowling Green massacre in an MSNBC appearance made her a punchline for comics and Internet pranksters. She explained that it was a slip of the tongue and that she was referring to the 2011 arrest of two Iraqi nationals in Kentucky in a failed plot to send weapons overseas to al-Qaida, but it was subsequently found that she had made that misstatement before. She also drew scrutiny from a tense interview with CNN. In addition to the House Oversight Committee, two liberal-funded government watchdog groups pounced on Conways comments, filing ethics violation complaints with the Office of Government Ethics. A third group, the Project on Government Oversight, asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions to open a Justice Department investigation into possible ethics violations. Spicer said Wednesday that Trump was responding to an attack on his daughter when he posted the tweet and that he has every right to stand up for his family and applaud their business activities, their success. Ethics lawyers had a different interpretation. The implication, intended or not: Hurt my daughters business and the Oval Office will come after you. This is a shot across the bow to everybody who is doing business with Trump or his family, said Norman Eisen, who was President Barack Obamas chief ethics counselor. Its warning them: Dont withdraw their business. Nordstrom reiterated Wednesday that its decision to drop Ivanka Trumps brand was based on its performance, not politics. The company said sales of her items had steadily declined over the past year, particularly in the last half of 2016, to the point where it didnt make good business sense for us to continue with the line for now. ___ Associated Press writers Michelle Price in Salt Lake City, Catherine Lucey and Chad Day in Washington and Anne DInnocenzio, Matthew Ott and David Bauder in New York contributed to this report. WASHINGTON President Donald Trump lashed out at Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on Thursday, saying that the senators negative assessment of a deadly raid in Yemen last month emboldens the enemy! McCain initially referred to the raid as a failure but later dialed back his criticism, saying in a statement Tuesday that some objectives were fulfilled in the mission but that he would not describe any operation that results in the loss of American life as a success. The Jan. 28 raid on al-Qaida billed as an intelligence-gathering operation turned into an hour-long gunfight as Navy SEALs and troops from the United Arab Emirates clashed with well-entrenched al-Qaida fighters. One of the SEALs, Chief Petty Officer William Ryan Owens, was killed. Five other service members were wounded by hostile fire and a hard landing after a Marine transport aircraft crashed near the raid site. Sen. McCain should not be talking about the success or failure of a mission to the media, Trump said in a series of tweets Thursday morning. Only emboldens the enemy! Hes been losing so long he doesnt know how to win anymore. Our hero Ryan died on a winning mission not a failure, Trump tweeted. The presidents attack on McCain, a fellow Republican and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, came a day after White House press secretary Sean Spicer repeatedly said during a news briefing that the raid was a huge success and that questioning it does a disservice to Owens. Asked about McCain at the Wednesday briefing, Spicer did not back down, saying his criticism applied to anybody. Last week, Spicer stopped short of calling the raid an unqualified success, telling reporters: I think its hard to ever say something was successful when you lose a life. McCain would not comment Thursday on Trumps tweets about him, telling reporters his responsibility and focus were on his committee. But other members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in both parties, had plenty to say to Trump in McCains defense. Thats a dangerous error, for President Trump to continue to trash John McCain, said Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Fla., adding that McCain is a guy who knows what hes talking about when it comes to the military. McCains closest friend in the Senate, Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., added that the Trump administration should be more careful about how he tries to cast the Yemen raid to the public. One thing I would advise the Trump administration is: Dont oversell success, Graham said, noting that he thought the Obama administration oversold the success of various missions, to its detriment. He also advised to focus on finding common ground with Congress instead of picking fights with members like McCain. I dont think President Trump will have a better ally in the United States Congress when it comes to rebuilding the military than John McCain, Graham said. Yemeni officials said the operation killed 15 women and children, including the 8-year-old daughter of the Yemeni American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in 2011 in a U.S. drone strike. Photos of the dead civilians were posted on social media after the raid. Although the Pentagon initially denied reports of civilian deaths, officials later acknowledged that some had been killed and said they were assessing reports on casualties. Trump and McCain have sparred regularly since Trump began his presidential campaign. While a candidate, Trump questioned McCains status as a war hero. The senator, a Vietnam veteran and Silver Star recipient, spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war after being captured when his bomber was shot down in North Vietnam. Thomas Gibbons-Neff contributed to this report. EL PASO, Texas A West Texas foster father must serve 35 years in prison after being convicted of what prosecutors say was the 2012 stomping death of a baby in his care. Antonio Lopez of El Paso was sentenced Wednesday in a plea deal in the penalty phase of his retrial. An El Paso County jury Tuesday convicted the 30-year-old Lopez of a lesser charge of murder in the death of 11-month-old Jayla Beckley. Lopez was originally charged with capital murder and faced an automatic life prison term if convicted. The plea agreement on punishment came just before the penalty phase was to begin Wednesday. Lopez could have been sentenced to 99 years. Lopez was originally tried last March in the babys death but jurors were unable to unanimously agree on a verdict. About 40 percent of American colleges enroll 1,000 or fewer students. Another 40 percent enroll 1,000 to 5,000 students. These campuses, clustered mostly in the Northeast and upper Midwest, are employment and cultural anchors in their communities, where other industries have fallen on hard times in recent decades. But now these schools are in trouble, too. Rarely does a week pass without one of the major bond-rating agencies issuing a warning about the finances of a small college. Whats significant about the guidance of these firms is that they tend to rate only schools with strong balance sheets to begin with. Just this week, Moodys Investors Service revised the outlook on Mount St. Marys University in Maryland to negative from stable. The rural Catholic college with 2,300 students near the Pennsylvania border made national news last year after its president compared struggling freshmen to bunnies that should be drowned or shot. The president later quit, but the firestorm he created seems to have impacted the universitys ability to recruit students. Freshman enrollment fell 17 percent last fall, Moodys said, and that means heightened financial risks for the tuition-dependent university on $38 million in rated debt. At the same time, Moodys affirmed Mount St. Marys Ba2 rating, which still places the debt in junk territory, because the university has made progress in stabilizing leadership and rebuilding its board. Like many small colleges, Mount St. Marys is competing for a shrinking number of students in its primary recruitment market. After decades of a fairly steady upward expansion in the number of high-school graduates across the United States, the nation is heading into a lengthy period of stagnation, according to projections released in December by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. The organization, which tracks graduates for the entire country, found that the South and to some extent the West will account for nearly all the growth in the number of high-school graduates over the next decade, while the Northeast and Midwest will show a continued and steady decline. Everywhere, the nations high-school graduates will become more diverse than ever before, with the number of Hispanic graduates expected to grow substantially. Although warnings about the changing demographics of college-age students were first issued earlier this decade by the commission, many small colleges ignored the predictions. And now their lack of a strategy to diversify the enrollment pipeline is putting financial strain on the bottom line, especially in a student market where tuition prices continue to increase year after year as family incomes lag. The answer for many small colleges has been to discount tuition prices. The average discount for first-year students has reached a staggering 47 percent thats nearly half off of the published sticker price of tuition, and up from around 40 percent just seven years ago. But there is evidence that even discounting tuition no longer works in attracting students. More 40 percent of small private colleges missed their goal for enrollment or tuition revenue last year, according to a recent survey by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Not all small colleges are struggling, however. A handful have deep pockets to maintain their small size and national reputations that generate plenty of qualified applicants. Even a few without a brand-name or a hefty endowment have forged a pathway to prosperity, some even by growing in size. Take the University of New England, for example. The school in Biddeford, Maine, just south of Portland, has seen its enrollment triple in the last decade to some 12,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students. Its the ninth-fastest-growing private college in the country. Whats more, the university is drawing more of its students from outside Maine. In 1998, half of the universitys incoming class came from Maine. In recent years, 70 percent of new students came from elsewhere, mostly Massachusetts and New Hampshire, but also New York and Connecticut. We saw the writing on the wall and knew the demographics werent in our favor, Scott Steinberg, the universitys dean of admissions, told me. So the university started to focus on recruiting at high schools throughout New England knowing 50 percent of students go to college within 250 miles of their home, Steinberg said. Simply racing to where large numbers of students live is not a strategy by itself. Everyone follows that playbook, so we needed to be unique in other ways, Steinberg said. For the University of New England that meant emphasizing a broad liberal-arts education combined with health professions programs, which tend to get students jobs. The university also focused on getting students to visit the campus because those who do are more likely to apply and eventually enroll. Earlier this month, Moodys, in rating new debt for the University of New England at a level of A3, characterized the schools outlook as stable. The university, Moodys noted, has strong student demand and its leaders have engaged in thoughtful planning and careful execution. Student enrollment is like an investment portfolio, Steinberg told me. You have to diversify, not only in geography, but academic majors, graduate programs and different ways of reaching students, such as online. No doubt many small colleges face demographic challenges. It will be tough going if you just do what you always did. You have to think differently. Selingo is the author of There Is Life After College, a book about how todays graduates launch into their careers, and the best-selling College (Un)Bound. NEW YORK Scarlett Johansson made a rare public appearance since news broke that she split with husband, Romain Dauriac. Johansson and fashion designer Donatella Versace were honored by amfAR on Wednesday in New York at their annual gala before New York Fashion Week. The AIDS research organization honored both women for their longstanding support in the fight against the deadly disease. Johansson posed for photographers, and walked past a line of television reporters as she rushed inside. She did speak briefly to The Associated Press about this evenings honor. Im deeply, deeply touched really deeply touched to be here, Johansson said. The actress also expressed the joy of learning she would be honored by the organization. When I heard about it, I thought that you know anything that I can do to bring awareness to amfAR. Its a wonderful organization and such an important cause with 37 million people today still living and struggling with HIV AIDS, and its important that we remember that and never forget, Johansson said. It was announced last month that Johansson and Dauriac had split. They were married for two years, and have a 2-year old daughter. The couple had not been in seen in public since last fall. It was announced they separated last summer. Others attending the gala included Paris Hilton, Adriana Lima, Kenneth Cole, Zac Posen, Iman, Heidi Klum and Jeremy Piven. Ellie Goulding performed. People need to know that it is still happening. Its very serious, you need to be careful, and we need to find a cure because people are dying every single day, and a lot of people cant find the right treatments. Thats why were all here tonight to raise money to stop it, Hilton said. Since 1985, amfAR has invested $450 million in its AIDS research, HIV prevention, and treatment programs, and has awarded more than 3,300 grants to research teams worldwide. ___ Follow John Carucci at http://www.twitter.com/jacarucci Officials at Central Michigan University are investigating an anti-Semitic Valentines Day card that was given to a pair of students by a member of a campus Republican group, which insists it was an unsanctioned mistake. The card was in a bag that was handed to the students Wednesday by a member of the College Republicans at the Mount Pleasant, Michigan, university, which immediately apologized while distancing itself from the incident. The card, which the group called very inappropriate, shows Adolf Hitler alongside the words my love 4 u burns like 6,000 jews, according to Central Michigan Life, a student newspaper. Kirsten Simmons, a spokeswoman for Central Michigan University, said campus leaders are deeply disappointed by the incident and are trying to determine how and why the card was handed out. Simmons said that this type of hurtful language is not something that represents who we are as a campus and as a community. In a statement, the College Republicans at Central Michigan University said they were not responsible for the anti-Semitic card. At tonights College Republican meeting, we had a Valentines Day party, in which each member decorated a bag and other members placed valentines inside of others bags, the statement reads. Unfortunately, a very inappropriate card was placed into a bag without other members knowledge. A bag was then given away to students sitting in Anspach [Hall], once again without members knowledge of its contents. The College Republicans as an organization did not distribute this valentine. We in no way condone this type of rhetoric or anti-Semitism. We apologize for any offense, and want students to know that we do not tolerate this sort of behavior. Central Michigans College Republicans president Mackenzie Flynn, told the campus newspaper that bags were supposed to be given to group members. Flynn said one of the members had printed out some Valentines Day memes one of which referenced the Holocaust and put them inside the bags. One of those bags, however, was given to two students who are not in the club. An image of the card was apparently shared on social media, igniting outrage across the campus, according to Central Michigan Life. (School administrators are investigating whether the photo is legitimate.) While still not appropriate, I want to clear up that they did not create it themselves, Flynn, the Republican groups president, told the student newspaper. Central Michigan University reported an enrollment of about 19,000 students last fall. Its unclear what percentage of the student population is Jewish. Representatives of Hillel at Central Michigan University, a Jewish student organization, were not immediately available for comment. Student activists from Central Michigan Action have scheduled an anti-hate speech rally for Thursday afternoon. Central Michigan Action is taking a stand and refusing to let this hate go unanswered, the organizers wrote on Facebook. We will reaffirm that CMU is a welcoming place for all with a peaceful demonstration and rally. Some people will be talking about their experiences with hate speech. Since Wednesdays incident, people have expressed concerns under a Facebook photo of the card. Holocaust Remembrance day was only a couple weeks ago, one commenter wrote. Not only is this in bad taste, but from a prominent political group on campus, I would expect they would have better judgement. Meme or not, this is over the line to distribute to someone. Another wrote: No matter what your political stance is (this is coming from a conservative), this is sick and unacceptable. I am disgusted at how a group that is supposed to be representing the same views I hold could say something so offensive and not see an issue with it. Absolutely ashamed. Hey I agree this is crude but dont group all republicans together based on this stupid person, one person added. This person obviously is on the far end of the spectrum. I dont find this to be funny and Im a republican. Thanks. Whether its offensive to you or not (which it should be but I guess thats not the point), it was stupid, another wrote. Plain and simple. They should realize their actions have consequences, and just because they didnt mean for it to be offensive doesnt make it cool. The storm blasting the Northeast with snow and blustery winds is wreaking havoc on air travel, canceling thousands of flights Thursday. More than 3,500 flights scheduled for Thursday have been canceled, according to FlightAware.com, which tracks cancellations and delays; as many as 150 have already been canceled for Friday. The Washington, D.C., regions three airports BWI International, Reagan National and Dulles International said operations are normal but some flights to snowy destinations are canceled. At major airports stretching from Philadelphia to Boston, hundreds of inbound and outbound flights were grounded Thursday and more cancellations were expected. The three New York area airports LaGuardia, John F. Kennedy and Newark Liberty saw hundreds of flights halted and delayed. Travelers are urged to check with their airlines. Airport officials in Washington also said high winds in the capital region could impact travel. The Federal Aviation Administration warned of possible runway and even airport closures in the areas where the snowstorm is triggering air traffic delays, from Philadelphia to Boston. Authorities are pleading with people to stay off the roads and warned of worsening conditions. In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) urged residents to take extra precaution and avoid unnecessary travel as more than a foot of snow is expected in parts of the state. The Washington Posts Capital Weather Gang forecasts Thursday morning predicted up to 11 inches of snow in parts of New York City and up to 14 inches in Boston. By Thursday morning, 9 inches of snow had fallen at La Guardia Airport, while parts of New Jersey had up to 6.5 inches of snow. The storm is so rapidly intensifying with winds gusting to 45 mph that it is making air travel difficult, if not impossible, the Capital Weather Gang reported. WASHINGTON President Donald Trump assailed the state of the nations infrastructure in a meeting with top U.S. airline executives Thursday, promising to roll back regulations and remake the countrys transportation system. We have an obsolete plane system, we have obsolete airports, we have obsolete trains, we have bad roads. Were going to change all of that, folks, so youre going to be so happy with Trump, the president said at the White House meeting before adding: I think you already are. I want to be able to do things for you, Trump said. Trump cited insights from his own pilot to offer a critique of government technology improvement efforts. My pilot, hes a smart guy, Trump said. The government is using the wrong equipment and instituting a massive, multibillion project, but theyre using the wrong type of equipment, so lets find out about that, he said. Some in Congress and the airline industry have been highly critical of long-running attempts to improve the air traffic control system, an effort dubbed NextGen, and have called for a massive privatization of air traffic controllers and other Federal Aviation Administration staff. Southwest chief executive Gary Kelly picked up that theme later in the meeting, noting that the airlines top priority would be to modernize the air traffic control system and arguing that money spent thus far has done little to help, according to a pool report from the meeting. I hear were spending billions and billions of dollars, its a system thats totally out of whack, Trump said of the air traffic system. Trump asked why airlines allowed the government to invest in a faulty system. Kelly said the airlines are not in control of those decisions. In his remarks, Trump also pointed to areas where he thinks the United States is lagging behind other nations. Somebody was saying yesterday to me, that you go to China, you go to Japan, they have fast trains all over the place. We dont have one, Trump said, before looking around the room at executives who make their living moving people by air and adding: I dont want to compete with your business! But we dont have one. After a bout of laughter subsided, Trump said its the same thing with our airports. Our airports used to be the best, now theyre at the bottom of the rung. He promised to cut regulations, though did not say which ones in the part of the meeting open to reporters. You people are regulated probably as much as almost anybody, although I can think of a couple of industries that are even worse, Trump said. Trump also said big changes to reduce the overall tax burden on businesses are coming fast. His administration ought to be announcing something, I would say over the next two or three weeks, that will be phenomenal in terms of tax, Trump said. Trump has promised a $1 trillion infrastructure push driven by tax breaks, an idea that has been challenged by outside economists. After Delta Chief Executive Ed Bastian introduced himself, Trump noted that the airline was doing well. When an executive from Los Angeles International Airport noted LAX was the seventh largest in the world, Trump said: Well make it number one, according a pool report describing early parts of the meeting. The president was told that Atlanta holds that title. Trump said he loves Georgia. The Washington Posts John Wagner contributed to this report. Blakes Lotaburger is continuing its march into Arizona. New Mexicos homegrown burger chain on Thursday announced it would be opening a third location in Tucson and a new store in Gilbert, its first in the Phoenix metro area. The chain also said it was moving its store near Gibson and Broadway to a location at Gibson and University. Lotaburger is celebrating its 65th anniversary this year, launching a new website, a 65th anniversary logo and a variety of promotions. Our 65th anniversary is a great opportunity for us to not only honor our strong heritage and see how far Blakes has come since our humble beginning, but to also look ahead with excitement to the future, says Lucy Rosen, director of marketing. This first wave of celebratory activities is only the beginning of an exciting year ahead, and were looking forward to continuing the celebration with our customers, employees and all those who have come to know and love Blakes throughout the past 65 years. Blakes Lotaburger was founded in 1952 in Albuquerque and now has 74 locations across New Mexico, Texas and Arizona. Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnells decision to silence Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., on the Senate floor earlier this week drew massive media attention and outrage among partisans of all stripes. By contrast, few people paid much attention to the speech Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, R, gave in the aftermath of the shushing of Warren. They should. Rubios speech was a plea for civility in the Senate, a warning that if civilized debate dies in the Senate, it will die in the broader society too. Its an important address and one well worth spending eight minutes of your life listening to. A few lines that really stood out to me: I dont know of a civilization in the history of the world thats been able to solve its problems when half the people in a country absolutely hate the other half of the people in that country. We are becoming a society incapable of having debate anymore. We are reaching a point in this republic where we are not going to be able to solve the simplest of issues because everyone is putting themselves in a corner where everyone hates everybody. Whats at stake here tonight. is not simply some rule but the ability of the most important nation on earth to debate in a productive and respectful way the pressing issues before it. Its easy, of course, to roll your eyes at Rubio. He, of course, is someone of considerable political ambition. And Rubio clearly believes it is in his long-term best interests to establish himself as a voice for civility and reasoned debate during his time in the Senate. But simply because Rubio is a politician doesnt mean that what he says should be dismissed out of hand. What Rubio is reacting to is something I hear time and time again when I talk to people about politics. When did reasonable people can disagree stop being something we believed in? Why cant genuine debate not descend into name-calling? Why is confrontation the only way the two parties and their leading politicians seem to interact these days? The answer is that confrontation is what energizes the bases of the two parties. And energizing those bases is what politicians spend most of their time focusing on these days. Unfortunately, the byproduct of all that confrontation is an increasing cynicism and disgust among the large swaths of people who arent part of either base. The election of Donald Trump seems to have proven that those people dont matter all that much, that the way to win is to relentlessly villainize the other side so that your people are mad enough at the other side to turn out to vote. Rubio is positioning himself as the counter-weight to that strategy, betting big on the idea that the Trump era wont last forever. Its a noble effort although one with a very uncertain future. Rubio speech: It seemed on Thursday that a shadow Congress was forming just an hour north of the real deal. But that official-looking U.S. House of Representatives seal hanging on the wall of the Baltimore County Council Chambers in Towson, Maryland, was purely fictional the House of Cards crew had taken over the meeting space for filming, a council spokeswoman confirmed. The dark Netflix political drama is wrapping up filming for its fifth season, which will debut May 30. No details about which actors were in on the shoot, which looked to be set in some kind of congressional hearing: The spokeswoman says, per an agreement with the show, they dont speak publicly about their operations. She did say, though, that its not the fist time the chambers have played TV setting for HoC and that the county is paid for allowing the crew to use its facilities. Which seems like the kind of discretion of which fictional president Frank Underwood would approve. Albuquerques next mayor will receive an annual salary of $125,000 and most city councilors will receive $30,000 a year once the new officeholders are sworn in Dec. 1, an independent commission said Thursday. Mayor Richard Berry is paid $103,854 a year, according to city records. Berry volunteered to take a 5 percent pay cut in 2011 and has not accepted a pay raise in the years since. Councilor Isaac Benton will receive $32,000 in his post as council president. Salaries for the mayor and council are set by the five-member Citizens Independent Salary Commission, which was approved by city voters in 2009. Those salaries will remain the same at least through November 2019, according to a commission report issued Thursday. John Carey, chairman of the Citizens Independent Salary Commission, said the board set those salary levels in 2015 and this year decided to leave them unchanged. In 2015, commissioners said a $125,000-a-year salary for the mayor is justified because the mayor serves a population of about 560,000 people, and oversees a budget of roughly $900 million and about 6,000 employees. The commission decided in 2015 to give city councilors a significant pay bump from the previous level of $17,500 a year. In its report this year, the commission cited sluggish conditions of New Mexicos economy among its reasons for leaving the 2015 salary levels unchanged. The commission is mindful of the economic conditions existing in the private and public sectors of New Mexico, the commission said in a report issued Thursday. A decision to maintain current salaries through the 2019 municipal election for the mayor and city councilors reflects that economic reality. The commission also said the existing salaries are in line with those paid to comparable officials in other cities similar in size to Albuquerque. LONDON A former child refugee, Alfred Dubs was elated in May when he helped force the British government to accept unaccompanied refugee children from other European countries. Less than a year later, the Czechoslovakia-born Dubs, a member of the opposition Labour Party, is trying to prevent the closure of the refugee program he helped spearhead. The British government announced quietly Wednesday that it would limit the number of lone child refugees brought in from Europe under the Dubs Amendment to 350 far fewer than the 3,000 that campaigners wanted. The rollback, however, reflects forces that resonate across the West as many countries tighten immigration policies, rethink the size of their welcome mat for refugees, fret over perceived threats to their culture and watch a landmark court battle play out in the United States over the Trump administrations travel ban on seven Muslim-majority nations. British Prime Minister Theresa May said at a news conference Thursday that President Donald Trumps travel ban was wrong and divisive and not something that Britain would do. She also insisted that Britains approach to child refugees is absolutely right and said that Britain is helping refugees from Syria. What we are doing in terms of refugees is absolutely right, on top, of course, of the significant financial support and humanitarian aid we are giving to refugees in the region of Syria a commitment of 2.3 billion pounds ($2.9 billion U.S.) , the second biggest bilateral donor, she said. Dubs, whose father was Jewish and who entered Britain at age 6 on one of the famed Kindertransports out of Nazi-occupied Europe, disagreed. They have no right to stop it at any point on any basis. Its going against the whole tenor of the parliamentary debate, Dubs, 84, said in an interview with The Washington Post. Britain is not the only country in Europe wrestling with its stance on immigration and refugees. In Germany, for instance, Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is facing an election this year, has recently taken a tougher position on deporting rejected asylum seekers. Germany deported 620 unaccompanied minors in 2016. Amber Rudd, Britains home secretary, defended the governments decision, telling Parliament on Thursday that the initiative risked encouraging traffickers and suggested that local councils did not have the capacity to accept more children. In a statement Wednesday, the British government said that 200 children had arrived from France, and that 150 more were expected next month. A spokesman for the Home Office said that a total of 350 children would be accepted under the Dubs program. Last year, Dubs sponsored an amendment to the governments immigration bill that required Britain to make arrangements for the safe passage of unaccompanied refugee children who arrived in the European Union before March 20, 2016. The government never agreed to a specific number, but Dubs originally proposed that it take 3,000 children. In a passionate address in the House of Commons on Thursday, Yvette Cooper, a Labour politician who chairs the Home Affairs Committee, urged the British government to reconsider. Where does it say that instead of the 3,000 that Parliament debated that we will only help one tenth of that number? she said. Britain can do better than this. Some have suggested that by limiting the number of refugees allowed in by this route, May is moving Britain in the direction of Trumps immigration policies. Mays treatment of refugee children is appalling, and shows how close she has moved to the policies of Trump, the Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said in a statement. But Rudd insisted that the United Kingdom was not turning its back on vulnerable children, and that it would focus on supporting those in Syria and the region. The U.K. has a strong reputation, in Europe and internationally, for looking after the most vulnerable that will continue, she said. We have a different approach to where the most vulnerable are. We believe that they are in the region. Thats why we have made a pledge to accept 3,000 children from the region and we are committed to delivering on that. They are the most vulnerable. Campaigners have indicated that the decision to end the Dubs scheme could face a legal challenge. HOUSTON A Jordanian teenager returned to his home near Houston on Wednesday after being detained for more than a week following President Donald Trumps executive order curbing immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries. Mohammad Abu Khadra, 16, flew into Houston and was picked up by his brother, Rami. The two live in Katy, where Mohammad attends school at Katy High. The teen was attempting to return to Houston on Jan. 28 when he was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Houston Chronicle reported (http://bit.ly/2k8tDx4 ). He was held there for two days before security officials decided to send him to an immigration detention facility for juveniles in Chicago. Mohammad learned Tuesday that he would be returned the next day to Houston. I have a 16-year-old myself at home, I couldnt imagine if something like that happened to my son, attorney Ali Zakaria, who is representing Mohammads family, told the newspaper. Its a happy day and we want to let it sink in so they can enjoy the moment now. Then well come up with legal strategy and address legal issues at that time. Mohammads case is pending in an immigration court. Jordan is not on the list of countries included in Trumps order. Zakaria previously said it appeared officials were tagging travelers from other Muslim-majority countries for secondary security screenings. Zakaria said Mohammad may have revealed shortly after he was first detained that he was enrolled at a public high school, which is a violation of his tourist visa. The teen was among dozens of visa holders and immigrants who were detained at U.S. airports after Trump signed the order prohibiting citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the United States for 90 days. The order also indefinitely barred all Syrian refugees from entering the United States and suspended all refugee admissions for 120 days. Three summers ago, Lee and Mike McGartland entered a horse named The Royal Dollar in the 74th annual Red Carpet Show of the South. A veterinary medical officer from the U.S. Department of Agriculture was there, too. The animal placed third in its class in the competition for Tennessee walking horses, which have a high-stepping gait that enthusiasts say comes from breeding and training. But it can also come from the application of caustic chemicals to a horses legs and other painful practices called soring. These are outlawed under the federal Horse Protection Act, and the Agriculture department is responsible for horse owners compliance. During a post-show inspection, the veterinary officer determined that The Royal Dollar was sore. The finding resulted in one of several official warnings between 2013 and 2016 that identified the McGartlands as violators warnings that appeared on a public USDA database and that now underpin a legal battle between the Texas couple and the department. The McGartlands sued, arguing that the enforcement program denies due process to those accused of violations and breaks privacy laws by publishing personal information. Their litigation is now being hailed by some Tennessee walking horse activists as the impetus for an abrupt USDA decision last week to pull from its public website all enforcement records related to horse soring and to animal welfare at dog breeding operations and other facilities. This move is a direct result of the lawsuit, reads a post on the Facebook page of TWH Facts, which is run by a prominent advocate. The records removal has prompted broad outcry from animal protection groups, some of which characterized it as an assault on transparency by the Trump administration. Industries regulated by the USDA, including groups representing zoos and research labs, have also been critical. So, too, have some prominent conservatives, such as Laura Ingraham. The agency has offered little explanation for its action, saying in statements that it is the result of a review, guided by court opinions, privacy laws and current litigation, that began last year. And though the decision was made under the Trump administration which named a longtime foe of the Humane Society of the United States to head the USDA transition the McGartlands lawsuit and interviews with former agency officials and animal protection advocates suggest that changes had partially begun several months before. Former Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack said Tuesday that his senior staff informed him toward the end of his term that the agency division responsible for enforcing the Horse Protection and Animal Welfare acts was recommending pulling the records from the website and instead making them available via Freedom of Information Act requests. He said one rationale was that doing so would reduce staff time spent on the documents. Litigation was also a factor, he added, though he could not recall a specific court case. But Vilsack did not sign off on the recommendation not because he disagreed with it but because he believed it had major implications that he didnt have time to consider fully, he said. There was not enough time for us to properly vet the recommendation, and I was concerned about transparency, he explained. Under the Trump administration, the USDA, which does not yet have a secretary, took less than three weeks to approve the removal of records that had been available for at least seven years. I think it was probably easier to make this wholesale shutdown under the new administration, said Delcianna Winders, a fellow at Harvard Universitys Animal Law & Policy Program who is deeply familiar with the database. Yet animal advocacy groups say access had already begun to be reduced last fall. The USDA last posted enforcement records in August, according to Eric Kleiman, a researcher at the Animal Welfare Institute who shared information about the lawsuit with The Washington Post. Other records were retroactively redacted, he said. Some involved SNBL, a Washington state-based company that imports primates for research. In September, the USDA filed a complaint accusing the company of violations associated with the deaths including by thirst and strangulation of 38 monkeys imported from Asia. Kleiman obtained the unredacted complaint through a FOIA request, and it was published on the websites of the Seattle Times and the Animal Welfare Institute. But in November, Kleiman noted, the USDA filed a motion to seal its own complaint. It sought to redact information about SNBLs nearly $10 million profit over two years, as well as the number of monkeys it imported and used annually the kind of information not covered under FOIA exemptions. The USDAs scrubbing of records from its website has not only angered animal protection groups and journalists, who have used the documents to report on violations at Harvard Universitys primate research facility, Santa Cruz Biotechnology and other places. The agencys decision has also been criticized by some of the regulated industries. Dan Ashe, the president and chief executive of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, said in an interview that the removal creates an impression that licensees by the Department of Agriculture have something to hide. The organization Speaking of Research, which defends the use of animals in research, said the change means researchers must devote even more resources to combating the public perception that they are not transparent. Joe Watson, the CEO of Petland, which sells puppies at about 80 stores nationwide, said his company requires commercial breeders to have two years of clean USDA inspection records and depended on the database. He said Petland will now have to ask breeders to supply the reports. Its always nice, I believe, to have more transparency than less, Watson said. The change just casts a shadow on the whole process. Walking horse advocates see the move as a partial victory over what they depict as overreach by a federal agency that is influenced by animal rights groups. While insisting their industry wants to comply with the Horse Protection Act, some argue that a shadow is also cast by public records that name violators who have not had an opportunity to defend themselves. The McGartlands lawsuit, now in mediation, contends that public disclosure of their warnings indict them by innuendo and are individualized and accusatory. The walking horse industry is a major target of animal-protection organizations, many of which say USDA enforcement is weak. The Obama administration sought in its final days to crack down on soring by finalizing a rule that strengthened the ban. Walking horse groups vigorously fought back, and the Trump administration has since put the rule on hold. This isnt an abundance of caution, Animal Welfare Institute president Cathy Liss said, using the USDAs own words for its decision last week on public records. It is capitulation to industry a long-standing pattern for this department. Mike McGartland did not respond to a request for comment, nor did the couples attorneys. Jeffrey Howard, the publisher of the Shelbyville, Tennessee-based Walking Horse Report, also declined to comment, citing his affiliation with SHOW Inc., a co-plaintiff in the lawsuit. But Howard told the Shelbyville Times-Gazette that the USDAs removal of the documents was proper. The USDA has been unfairly punishing people by listing them as violators of the HPA while never allowing those parties an opportunity for notice and a hearing, Howard told the newspaper. The violations statistics that the animal rights movement and [the Humane Society] have used to further their cause have been false and misleading statistics and are not violations. ANNAPOLIS, Md. Marylands Republican senators knew they didnt have the votes to block a resolution that would give Attorney General Brian Frosh, D, more power to sue the federal government. So they tried for a delay. When the motion failed, nine of the 14 Republicans stormed out in protest a rare sign of unrest in a majority Democratic chamber where longtime Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., D, emphasizes civility and decorum. Im done, said an exasperated Minority Leader J.B. Jennings, R. He and other Republicans said passage of the resolution, known as the Maryland Defense Act, was not urgent, and noted that requests for delays are typically granted as a matter of course. Millers refusal to do so, they said, is the latest sign the partisan rancor commonly found in Congress is creeping toward Annapolis as Democrats take steps to combat President Trump, R, on health care, immigration and the environment. They argue they hate Washington politics, but they wont give us a simple courtesy, Jennings said later. Its just like Washington. The Defense Act stems from a provision in the state constitution that requires the attorney general to obtain permission from either the General Assembly or the governor to file certain cases. It would essentially give Frosh blanket authority from the legislature to challenge the federal government on any legal issue. Miller said he wanted to deal with the bill quickly, in part because he knew it was divisive. He also said he wants Frosh to be ready to stand up to any attempt to undo regulations that could harm the Chesapeake Bay. Weve made great progress, Miller said. I want that progress not to be stymied or set back, and I want somebody to protect the rights of myself and the citizens who care about the environment in the federal courts. At the beginning of Thursdays legislative session, the Republican senators asked for a one-day delay. Sen. Richard Madaleno, D, argued the legislature needed to move swiftly because Froshs hands were tied to respond to actions that could be taken on the federal level. He said attorneys general in 41 other states already have the authority the resolution would give Frosh. Miller agreed to move the vote until the end of the days brief calendar, which meant it was back on the floor in less than 20 minutes. Jennings again asked for more time. His request was denied, and the resolution passed 28-18. The Senate will vote again on the measure Friday before it heads to the House of Delegates for consideration. The growing divide between Democratic and Republican lawmakers was also visible on the House side Tuesday, where Del. Pat McDonough, R, announced a bill that would allow Marylanders to sue elected officials in state courts to stop policies they believe provide safe havens for undocumented immigrants. Such policies, McDonough said, violate federal immigration law and harm legal residents by taking away jobs, increasing the cost of public benefits and creating public-safety risks. In this state, this is a Disneyland for illegal immigrants, McDonough, one of the states most conservative lawmakers, told reporters. All the politicians are pro-illegal immigrant. We have no recourse. We cant go to our elected officials. Theyre all against us. We have to go to court to prove theyre wrong. He was joined by Lewis Evans, who runs a staffing agency in Baltimore and accused construction contractors of favoring undocumented immigrants for low-skilled work over the U.S. citizens he employs. Evans said he plans to file a class-action lawsuit against the Baltimore city government, seeking to put an end to what he described as sanctuary policies in the city. McDonough acknowledged that his legislation has little chance of advancing in the Democratic-majority legislature. But he said the measure would still have an impact, particularly because it would align with efforts by Trump and the U.S. Justice Department to crack down on illegal immigration. AUSTIN, Texas Records show that one of the largest school districts in Texas used parent information forms for years that contained inaccurate information about the special education process. Harris Countys Klein Independent School District provided inaccurate forms to parents interested in getting a student evaluated for special education services, such as tutoring, counseling or therapy, the Houston Chronicle (http://bit.ly/2kxdRQ5 ) reported. The forms said students couldnt be evaluated until their teacher had tried all strategies, which led parents to believe their children had to wait weeks or months for an evaluation. Please note that federal guidelines mandate that we must exhaust and document all general education interventions prior to considering Special Education services, the form said. The newspaper said district officials changed the form after its inquiry but wont notify parents. The district officials have claimed that the mistake was involuntary and didnt harm any students, because it never made parents wait for evaluations. Many educators disagreed with the district. We couldnt just jump into referring children for special education, said Andrea Chouhan, who taught special education in Klein for several years. The newspaper previously reported that schools began denying special education services after the state imposed an 8.5 percent enrollment benchmark in 2004. The Texas Education Agency refuted stories by the Houston Chronicle that found the state quietly restricted special education services in the face of budget cuts. But last year, the U.S. Department of Education ordered the state agency to end the benchmark. The U.S. Department of Education is currently investigating the issue. ___ Information from: Houston Chronicle, http://www.houstonchronicle.com Gov. Susana Martinez and Democratic lawmakers are pointing fingers at each other over dismal survey results showing that only 16 percent of New Mexico business leaders approve of the direction in which the state is headed. The annual survey by the Committee for Economic Development, a non-partisan business policy group, showed the approval rating had dropped from 24 percent in 2016 and 39 percent in 2015. The governors office says Democratic lawmakers are to blame for the poll findings. Its no surprise they (business leaders) feel this way when you have Democrat lawmakers in Santa Fe right now pushing policies that will hurt businesses like trying to raise taxes, increase the minimum wage and gut our reforms that brought us companies like Facebook, the statement said. Senate President Mary Kay Papen, in a statement, said the governor should accept responsibility for the states lackluster economy and an unemployment rate that is second-highest in the nation. Instead of pointing fingers, Governor Martinez should take responsibility for the last six years of mismanagement of our states economy and New Mexicos place at the top of the charts for the highest unemployment in the nation, Papens statement said. We do not have time to play the blame game while hard working New Mexicans are struggling to find a job and provide for their families. Both sides said they were working to improve the states economy. Outgoing president of the University of New Mexico Bob Frank has withdrawn from Ohio Universitys presidential search. The Athens News in Ohio reported Thursday that Frank sent an email to the university announcing his decision, and Frank confirmed that action with the Journal. He was one of two remaining candidates to lead the college of about 18,000 undergraduates in Athens, Ohio. I withdrew because I recognized it was not an ideal fit for me or OU, Frank told the Journal in a statement. I have begun to build the new Center for Health and Education Innovation (program at UNMs Health Sciences Center) and I see many great opportunities for it. Frank is currently on sabbatical following a lengthy conflict with the Board of Regents. At one point, Frank had threatened to sue the regents and the university in connection to what his attorney called defamatory reports leaked to news media. His contract expires at the end of May, and he is set to take a tenured faculty position at the UNM Health Sciences Center at a salary of $190,000. Frank was one of four people named as finalists in the Ohio Universitys presidential search earlier this month. Chaouki Abdallah, who was the provost under Frank, is currently serving as UNMs acting president. Meanwhile, the Board of Regents is in the middle of a national search to find a new president. The three remaining nuns who lived in Belmead, a historic mansion on a former plantation in Powhatan, Va., have moved out. The windows have been boarded up. The doors are locked and the mansion sits empty, awaiting a decision by the leadership of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Native Americans and African Americans, which announced in May that it was putting Belmead, the 2,265-acre site on the banks of the James River, up for sale. The leadership of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, which is based in Philadelphia, also dissolved the board of FrancisEmma Inc., a nonprofit, which had run the property for more than 10 years and had completed major repairs and renovations on the site. Thousands of students had attended programs on the lands history and environmental legacy. The announcement of the sale of Belmead left community members, alumnae and descendants of the enslaved people who worked on this plantation stunned. Local residents say they fear that the land, which has a county-assessed value of more than $8 million, could be sold to developers. They are waging a desperate fight to save the property, which was a tobacco plantation and later the site of two Catholic boarding schools for black children one for boys and one for girls separated by a creek. St. Emma Military Academy for boys opened in 1895 and closed in 1972. St. Francis de Sales School for girls opened in 1895 and closed in 1970 after school desegregation. The boarding school for boys was demolished in the 1970s. The school for girls, a magnificent building with beautiful stained-glass windows and iron balconies, is still standing. After the order in Philadelphia announced the decision to sell, a non-profit called Belmead on the James Inc. was formed by residents and alumnae with the goal of raising enough community support to save the land and raise the money needed to purchase it. The non-profit has raised more than $111,000. The Virginia Conservation Legacy Fund has committed to help. The nonprofit was created with the idea of saving the mansion and the land as a spiritual, historical, ecological and environmental preserve. Belmead on the James submitted a proposal in December and asked for more time to raise money to buy the land. What we need to do is show we have the ability to make a multimillion offer to the sisters in Philadelphia, Demetrius Venable, a professor of physics at Howard University and president of Belmead on the James Inc., said in a December interview. We are looking for $100 donations from 4,000 people. It will show a broad-based effort to demonstrate our viability to allow us to take stewardship. In 2011, Belmead on the James was placed on the National Trust for Historic Preservations 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. Today, the mansion, an 1841 stone granary and the 1895 St. Francis de Sales building are the only major historical structures that remain on a site that once contained 40 buildings, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The decision by the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament leadership team in Philadelphia follows a trend among Catholic communities across the country that are selling churches, convents, schools and parishes as populations decline. Sister Sandra Schmidt, councilor on the leadership team of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, said the order is also selling its house in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, which is the site of the National Shrine of Katharine Drexel, who founded the order in 1891. Drexel was an heiress who took her religious vows in 1891. Four years later, in 1895, Katharine Drexel, her sister Louise Drexel Morrell and brother-in-law Edward Morrell established the two Catholic boarding schools on the property. The schools educated more than 15,000 black students, who traveled from across the county to attend. The schools produced many distinguished alumni. Katharine Drexel was named a saint in 2000. There are 100 members of the Blessed Sacrament, with sisters working on missions in Philadelphia, New Orleans, Arizona, Haiti and Jamaica. Fifty sisters live in Philadelphia, Schmidt said. At the orders peak, there were 600 sisters. The current median age of the sisters is 79. Looking at the pool of sisters, Schmidt said in an earlier interview, there is no one to follow us in leadership roles within the next ten years. Proceeds from the sale, she said, will also help with their missions and help to take care of elderly sisters. The big majority are very supportive of the decisions we are making, Schmidt said. All of us are sad. It is your family home. There are memories there. We are down in numbers. They see the vacant spaces. They know its time. There is a sadness for all of us. We have taken nothing lightly. There is a grieving process. SANTA FE Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero was once questioned by Border Patrol agents as she worked in her yard in El Paso. She shared the story Thursday as part of her pitch for a proposal that would prohibit local law enforcement agencies from enforcing federal immigration law. I obviously was being targeted and profiled, she told the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee. The committee voted along party lines with Democrats in the majority to recommend passage of the bill, which now heads to the Judiciary Committee, potentially its last stop before it hits the House floor. Roybal Caballero, D-Albuquerque, said she was targeted because of the color of her skin, though she told the officer she was born in El Paso and owned the home she lived in. The incident happened, she said, as she pulled weeds in the mid-1980s. Rep. Monica Youngblood an Albuquerque Republican who pointed out that she, too, has dark skin said Roybal Caballeros bill could put federal funding in jeopardy for police agencies in New Mexico. She noted that the state Attorney Generals Office had raised that concern. President Donald Trump, amid an immigration crackdown, has vowed to halt federal funding to sanctuary communities that try to protect immigrants who are in the country illegally. Theres no legal definition of what sanctuary means, though its often applied to cities that vow to protect immigrants or bar using local resources to enforce federal immigration laws. Can you guarantee New Mexicos local law enforcement agencies that they will not lose federal funding should your bill pass the Legislature? Youngblood asked. Roybal Caballero said she couldnt offer such a guarantee. The committees Democrats didnt find that objection persuasive. Rep. Deborah Armstrong, D-Albuquerque, said no one had identified any specific funding that would be at risk. The proposal, House Bill 116, advanced on a 3-2 vote. Rep. Angelica Rubio, D-Las Cruces, is a co-sponsor. If it makes it out of the House, the proposal would also have to win approval from the Senate and Republican Gov. Susana Martinez. The state Department of Public Safety part of the Martinez administration has raised a variety of technical concerns. The department, for example, said the bill doesnt address state and local officers who are assigned to federal task forces and cross-deputized as federal agents to enforce federal law. WASHINGTON If President Donald Trump hires Elliott Abrams as the No. 2 at the State Department, he will be sending several important signals on the administrations emerging foreign policy, especially regarding Israel, and on his own tolerance for dissenting views. Abrams is fiercely pro-Israel, and his inclusion at a high level in the State Department would be another sign that the Trump administration intends to remake U.S.-Israel policy after what Trump sees as the failures of the Obama years. It also suggests that Trump plans to quickly make good on his pledge to seek a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. Best known for his role in the Reagan-era Iran-contra scandal, Abrams interviewed for the deputy secretary of state job Tuesday at the White House. The nomination could come within days, ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus visit to the White House next week. If chosen, Abrams is expected to play a major role in the administrations effort to resume negotiations toward a peace settlement or smaller, interim agreements. That effort is likely to be headquartered at the White House under presidential adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner. While Kushner has no government experience, and other influential Trump advisers on Israel have little, Abrams would bring decades of experience and extensive contacts across the Middle East. Ghaith Al-Omari, a former Palestinian peace negotiator, praised what he called Abrams solid grounding in reality and learned understanding of the problem. As importantly, he was an effective counterpart to work with: He got things done, Omari said. Paula Dobriansky, who also served in both the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations, is another potential choice for deputy. The post often goes to an experienced bureaucrat or a career Foreign Service officer. Although recent secretaries of state have had two deputies, the Trump administration might fill only one slot, according to current and former officials. Abrams White House visit is the clearest sign yet that he has become the leading candidate, people familiar with the search said. Through an assistant, he declined to comment. A White House spokesman did not respond to a request for information about the meeting between Trump and Abrams. An appointment under Trump would be Abramss third stint in government, all for Republican presidents, and the most surprising. As a candidate, Trump pilloried the views of neoconservatives such as Abrams, especially in relation to their support for the Iraq War. He vowed to break free of constraints on U.S. actions abroad that he said were the false constructs of a Washington foreign policy establishment that Abrams undoubtedly represents. Abrams supported two of Trumps Republican rivals during the presidential campaign, Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida and declined to back the businessman once he became the GOP nominee. Trump and chief adviser Stephen Bannon prize loyalty, and the administration turned its back on Republicans who signed manifestos calling Trump unqualified on national security grounds. Abrams did not sign those letters but wrote last year that Republicans had chosen someone who could not win. Questions over his loyalty are a main reason for the long delay in announcing a nominee for the deputy job at State, people familiar with the process said. Abrams has no personal history with either Trump or Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who also attended the Tuesday meeting at the White House. But Abramss knowledge of Washington appealed to Tillerson, who has no government background, one official said. As Abrams stock rose as a potential deputy to Tillerson, current and former officials and others involved in Middle East peace issues were encouraged. James Carafano, head of foreign and defense policy analysts at the Heritage Foundation, said Abrams knows the State Department well and believes American diplomacy is important. Hes a tough, thick-skinned guy, Carafano said. Thats what you need as a deputy. Its not a job where you make a lot of friends. Hes a guy a lot of conservatives trust, he said of Abrams. I dont think hes intensely ideological. He makes each decision on its merits. Carafano said he expects Trump to brush off Abrams criticism of him during the campaign. He respects expertise and leadership, he said of Trump. I dont think he keeps score. If he thinks someone is good for the team and gives honest, straightforward advice, hell be fine. Within the State Department, Abrams developed a reputation as a manager who listened to alternative viewpoints before making a decision. His appointment would come as a welcome relief to employees who were dreading the prospects of another former diplomat whose name was floated as a deputy, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton. Hes not going to burn the building down, said a State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to comment on a personnel issue. David Makovsky, an adviser on the Middle East under President Barack Obama, witnessed the collapse of former secretary of state John F. Kerrys peace efforts. Adding Elliot would be a very important signal that someone who has experience in this issue will be very much at the center of administration policy, he said. I served in a Democratic administration, but I think it would be welcome across the board. The bipartisan praise is all the more noteworthy for the fact that Abramss conviction for withholding information from Congress is seldom mentioned. Abrams pleaded guilty in 1991 to concealing knowledge of the scheme to sell arms illegally to Iran and divert the profits to anticommunist rebels in Nicaragua. Abrams was pardoned by President George H.W. Bush. The Washington Posts Carol Morello contributed to this report. Marylands largest immigrant advocacy group plans to push for legislation in Montgomery and Prince Georges counties that affirms protections for undocumented immigrants, a measure similar to one that spawned a bitter debate and executive veto in Howard County this week. Gustavo Torres, executive director of CASA de Maryland, told a meeting of immigrant advocacy groups Wednesday that he wants county law to reflect longtime practices in the two liberal and ethnically diverse suburbs, which generally limit collaboration by police and corrections personnel with federal deportation authorities. New statutes are needed, he said, as President Donald Trump attempts to crack down on undocumented immigrants nationwide. We want to keep Montgomery as a welcoming county, said Torres, announcing that he planned to speak with County Council members next week. We want to clarify and send a very strong message that all agencies in Montgomery County are not going to collaborate with this administration. Torres plan represents a potentially significant escalation of state and local resistance to a Trump executive order that lays the groundwork for denying federal funding to sanctuary communities. CASA and other advocates are working with state lawmakers to pass the Trust Act, which is based on a California measure and would bar police and sheriffs departments, for example, from complying with federal requests to hold undocumented prisoners beyond their release date. But the outlook for the bill, sponsored by state Sen. Victor Ramirez, D-Prince Georges, is uncertain. It has yet to be filed in the House of Delegates, although Del. Marice Morales, D, District 19, has said she will sponsor the proposal. Gov. Larry Hogan, R, has signaled little interest in limiting the reach of federal immigration enforcement. Shortly after taking office in 2014, he reversed the policy of his Democratic predecessor, Martin OMalley, and agreed to notify U.S. authorities when an undocumented immigrant targeted for deportation was released from the state-run Baltimore city jail. Torres said the political environment at the state level makes it all the more important that similar legislation be pursued in local jurisdictions. We dont know if the governor is going to sign this, he said. He vowed that his group will put pressure on cities and counties with the strongest records of protecting immigrant populations from federal law enforcement. That strategy fell short this week in Howard. County Executive Allen Kittleman, R, on Thursday vetoed legislation approved 5 to 4 by the County Council that would have codified policies that bar police from asking about immigration status of criminal suspects, victims or witnesses. Despite amendments that softened the bills language excluding a declaration, for example, of Howard as a sanctuary jurisdiction, a legally vague but politically volatile term Kittleman called the legislation an empty gesture offering only a false sense of security to undocumented immigrants. He said the countys established police and corrections practices provide more than adequate protection. Officials in Montgomery and Prince Georges also express confidence that existing policies need not to be codified into law as well as concern that doing so could place them in the crosshairs of Trumps attempts to cut off federal funding. Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett, D, has repeatedly assured immigrant groups that they have nothing to fear from local law enforcement, and that what he calls the Montgomery way, a body of policies and practices emphasizing tolerance and understanding, will not falter. At a news conference outside the immigration meeting at the Silver Spring Civic Center, Leggett said he wasnt convinced of the need for a new law. I dont see the necessity at this point in time, he said. Im not saying we may not get to that point . . . but I dont think that were there yet. Montgomery police operate under a 2009 departmental directive that bars officers from indiscriminate questioning about citizenship or immigration status. Any arrest must be based on state or local charges. The directive permits Montgomery officers to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in cases involving drugs, money laundering, human trafficking or terrorism, but not violations of federal immigration law. Weve been at this for a very long time, Leggett said. Council member Nancy Navarro, D-Mid-County, 4th District, agreed with Leggett that, for the moment at least, no legislation is needed. We have a very strong track record in Montgomery. I feel comfortable where we are right now, Navarro said. But we have to evaluate as this progresses. In his comments to the group, Torres pointed to Council member Hans Riemer, D-At Large, as a potential sponsor of the type of legislation he was describing. Thank you very much, Hans, he said. Riemer said later that it was the first hed heard of the idea. But he said he would consider it. Some people are afraid to have us put our heads up, he said. I dont think you can avoid standing up. Scott Peterson, a spokesman for Prince Georges County Executive Rushern Baker III, D, directed questions Thursday to Bakers previous statements, which mirror Leggetts. County policy didnt change under President Obama and is not changing under President Trump, Baker said in Annapolis on Jan. 25. We believe the county is following the law, and were going to honor that. Torres said both counties can do better. Our job is to educate them, he said. Josh Hicks contributed to this report. A federal appeals panel has maintained the freeze on President Donald Trumps controversial immigration order, meaning previously barred refugees and citizens from seven majority-Muslim countries can continue entering the United States. In a unanimous 29-page opinion, three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit flatly rejected the governments argument that suspension of the order should be lifted immediately for national security reasons, and they forcefully asserted their ability to serve as a check on the presidents power. The judges wrote that any suggestion that they could not runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy. New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas, who had joined 14 other attorneys general in filing a brief opposing the executive order, responded to the action with the following statement: President Trumps travel ban is unconstitutional, immoral and un-American, and I applaud the Court for enforcing the rule of law. The judges did not declare outright that the ban was meant to disfavor Muslims essentially saying it was too early for them to render a judgment on that question. But their ruling is undeniably a blow to the government and means the travel ban will remain off for the foreseeable future. Trump reacted angrily on Twitter, posting just minutes after the ruling, SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE! He later said to reporters that the judges had made a political decision. We have a situation where the security of our country is a stake, and its a very, very serious situation, so we look forward, as I just said, to seeing them in court, he said. The Justice Department, which was defending the administrations position, said in a statement it was reviewing the decision and considering its options. Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who had sued over the ban, said, Bottom line, this is a complete victory for the state of Washington, and declared that the judges ruling effectively granted everything we sought. The Justice Department could now ask the Supreme Court which often defers to the president on matters of immigration and national security to intervene. The Supreme Court, though, remains one justice short, and many see it as ideologically split 4-to-4. A tie would keep in place whatever the appeals court decides. The Justice Department could also ask the full 9th Circuit to consider the matter. The appeals court opinion was written by Judge Michelle Friedland, who was appointed by President Barack Obama; Judge Richard Clifton, who was appointed by President George W. Bush; and Judge William Canby, who was appointed by President Jimmy Carter. It was detailed, but it does not represent a final judgment on Trumps immigration ban. Last Friday, U.S. District Judge James Robart granted the states of Washington and Minnesota a temporary restraining order on the ban, and the parties had been set to file briefs through Feb. 18 on the East Coast arguing for a more permanent, preliminary injunction. The appeals court judges noted their ruling was a preliminary one, and they were deciding only whether the government had made a strong showing of its likely success in getting the restraining order thrown out. Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, said on Fox News: This ruling does not affect the merits at all. It is an interim ruling, and were fully confident now that well get our day in court and have an opportunity to argue this on the merits, that well prevail. The ruling, though, is critically important as Trumps ban on refugees lasts only 120 days, and his ban on visitors from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen lasts only 90 days. The judges also said that while the states of Washington and Minnesota had made serious allegations and the impact of the order was immediate and widespread the government had not pointed to any substantive evidence to support its need for the ban. The Government has pointed to no evidence that any alien from any of the countries named in the Order has perpetrated a terrorist attack in the United States, the judges wrote. Rather than present evidence to explain the need for the Executive Order, the Government has taken the position that we must not review its decision at all. The states have alleged that the executive order harms their businesses and universities, preventing some students and faculty from traveling abroad for fear of being stranded and diminishing the sales tax revenue they receive. Legislators and others who had opposed the ban hailed the judges ruling and urged Trump to back down. President Trump ought to see the handwriting on the wall that his executive order is unconstitutional, said Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. He should abandon this proposal, roll up his sleeves and come up with a real, bipartisan plan to keep us safe. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said, If the President were serious about bringing our country together and keeping us safe, he would rescind this arbitrary and discriminatory order and recall what makes our country great. Hillary Clinton, who lost the presidency to Trump in November, posted on Twitter simply, 3-0. Federal immigration law undeniably gives the president broad authority to bar people from coming into the United States, stating that if the president finds the entry of any aliens would be detrimental to the countrys interests, he can impose restrictions. But lawsuits across the country have alleged that Trumps particular order ran afoul of the Constitution in that it intentionally discriminated against Muslims. At a hearing Tuesday, Justice Department lawyer August Flentje vigorously disputed that the measure was intended to target Muslims. In their ruling, the judges did not reveal their opinion on that question, although they noted Washington and Minnesota had offered evidence of numerous statements by the President about his intent to implement a Muslim ban as well as evidence they claim suggests that the Executive Order was intended to be that ban. Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani recently said publicly: So when [Trump] first announced it, he said, Muslim ban. He called me up. He said: Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally. On the campaign trail, Trump himself called for a complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the country. The appeals court judges had questioned both sides skeptically at Tuesdays hearing, seeming particularly interested in what evidence Trump relied upon in implementing his order and what limits the Justice Department saw on the presidents authority to set immigration policy. While Flentje urged them to restore the measure completely, he also at one point offered a fallback position. The judges, he suggested, could limit Robarts order so that it applied only to foreigners previously admitted to the country who were abroad now or those who wished to travel and return to the United States in the future. They declined to do even that, saying, as written, the presidents executive order could apply even to green-card holders which it once seemed to do, although the White House counsel later issued guidance saying it did not. The judges said the Justice Department had offered no authority establishing that the White House counsel is empowered to issue an amended order superseding the Executive Order, and in light of the Governments shifting interpretations of the Executive Order, they were not convinced that guidance would hold. Trump and his supporters have pressed the case that the short-term stoppage on refugees and immigrants from the seven countries is necessary for national security reasons, and they have leveled blunt criticism at the courts. Trump went so far as to suggest on Twitter that if an attack were to happen, the judiciary would be to blame. On Wednesday, he denounced arguments about his order as disgraceful and said a bad high school student would understand the broad authority the law gives him to impose immigration restrictions. A day earlier, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told Congress that he thought judges might be considering the issue from an academic perspective instead of the national security lens through which he views the world. Of course, in their courtrooms, theyre protected by people like me, Kelly said. Federal courts in New York, California and elsewhere already had blocked aspects of the ban from being implemented, although one federal judge in Massachusetts declared that he did not think that challengers had demonstrated that they had a high likelihood of success. The case before the 9th Circuit, though, was much broader than the others, because it stemmed from a federal judges outright halting of the ban. The Washington Posts Abby Phillip and John Wagner contributed to this report. Click to read the 9th Circuits opinion on the travel ban. ROCK HILL, S.C. The father of Houston Texans defensive end Jadeveon Clowney pleaded guilty in a shootout outside an adult club two years ago. David Morgan, Clowneys father, pleaded guilty to two counts of assault and possession of deadly weapon by a felon, according to York County Judicial records. He was originally charged with attempted murder after allegedly firing shots outside the club in August of 2015. Sentencing was deferred until a later date, according to records. Morgan was shot in the shoulder during the exchange of gunfire. No one else was hurt. Morgan, who was jailed for 12 years while Clowney was growing up, had been behind bars since the shooting. Clowney was picked for his first Pro Bowl this season with six sacks and 40 tackles. Clowney played at South Carolina. GroupM's Worldwide Media and Marketing Forecast predicts that in 2017 digital's share of ad investment in the faster-growth world will at last have caught up with the developed world, to around 33%. The new and old worlds have contributed an equal tonnage of new digital ad dollars since 2013. If we disregard print, which is negative, then in 2016 we think digital captured 72 cents of every new ad dollar, and TV 21 cents. In 2017 this becomes 77 to 17. We do not consider digital as big as traditional TV yet, with TV's ad share largely stable at 42% in 2016 and 41% in 2017. It rode a five-year 44% peak 2010-2014, and some of the share it appears to have shed since then is an artefact of poor measurement. 10 countries have already witnessed digital overtake TV, with a further five expected in 2017; France, Germany, Ireland, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Digital fuels its growth by recruiting long-tail advertisers and winning share from other media. To this it now adds a serious attempt to win TV's big-brand advertising, an endeavor which will turn as much on digital's quality as on its undoubted quantity. Each year GroupM publishes its overview of the state of digital marketing and its implications for advertisers. In 2017 it's challenging to discriminate digital marketing from all marketing. Consumers barely separate their digital and analog lives; little media is published in only analog form and enterprises infuse digital processes into every aspect of their organizations. A few years ago the agency noted that the digital ink is in the water, its proved permanent. Its probably true to say that marketing strategy and marketing services remain more siloed than consumer behavior and equally true that marketing and sales organizations remain more separated than they should be given the collapse of the purchase funnel. Last year we were cautious in our estimation of the rate of change and summarized progress as 'the same but more so.' This year we are less cautious and believe that we are seeing changes in underlying technologies in both hardware and software that are advancing us from the Information Age to the Intelligence Age. 2017 is the 10th anniversary of the iPhone and the beginning of a sequence of changes that will have equally profound implications for society and thus for marketers. Specifically we look at: the rising influence of artificial intelligence, developments in augmented and virtual reality, the competition for video advertising between television and other video providers, the impact of 'relevance' on the trading of media, developments in the application of data to television along with Over the Top solutions, the impact of streaming and on demand audio, the Google / Facebook duopoly, live video, e commerce, privacy, market place integrity and fake news. From all this we draw some broad conclusions. What is becoming clear, despite some new entrants, economic value is coalescing around a very small number of companies in respect of advertising. Perhaps six companies are global or nearly so, three are Chinese and a further handful exist in each of the major markets. Today's challenge is to win with the winners and to find ways of aggregating value from what's left particularly when the 'minor' participants are still valued by their audiences. The only threat to this new status quo is regulatory and 2017 may be a hugely significant one in terms of privacy regulation. Organically developed challengers will be exceptional and rare. It would be a mistake, however, to ignore the enduring value of television; audiences remain immense and its communication potential enormous. It would equally be an error to forget that even in 'traditional' media there has always been a dividend for creativity more people remember and relevance more people act. Descriptions of monopolies and duopolies in either advertising or ecommerce have to be tempered. It's true that Google, Facebook and Amazon are the biggest and most powerful players in their categories but opportunity still abounds for brand builders, direct to consumer and multi-channel retailers in partnership with a broad swathe of digital and analog inventory suppliers. This applies in all parts of the marketing funnel. The goal for marketers has always been to outperform their competitors at every touchpoint of communication and distribution. Nothing has changed except the exponential complexity of the platforms and enterprises and their multi-functional nature. You can sell goods from a magazine app, you can execute customer service on a social network, you can buy advertising inventory from a retailer. One a single platform you can advertise, sell, fulfill the order, and deliver customer service. A single piece of content, or more accurately, intellectual property, can be watched in linear form or on demand, as a show, a still, a clip or a multi-hour binge and multiply reconfigured for multiple platforms. The complexity is compounded by abundant, even excessive, data, complex measurement and attribution challenges and new creative challenges. Around a decade ago the industry was swept along by the apparently new idea of media that was paid, owned or earned. At a time of high visitation to brand/corporate web sites and then brand Facebook pages, the construct was legitimate. Two simple formulations prevailed. Build a web site or a YouTube channel (owned media) and drive traffic to it via banner advertising and paid / organic search with the expectation that deeper engagement would follow. Build a social media presence and buy likes or followers in the expectation that the same would happen, with the added benefit that your posts would reach those that liked you, and that their interactions with you would be shared with their own social connections. The earned media ambition. Now, of course, brand web sites are largely becalmed and the organic dividend of the Facebook 'like' has been diminished. Only the exceptional survive in any useful form and it's certainly true to say that exposure you earn is largely a function of the media you own. This means that advertisers have to deliver an exceptionally high degree of usefulness to their audience and in owned media that means telling them something they did not know (how to apply a great make up look or paint a window frame). It means building apps and digital destinations that allow the user to choose, find, buy or book. It means creating content with a clear understanding of the value it creates and the likelihood of it leading to a share or a recommendation. All of these are a function of some combination of expertise, well integrated systems, outstanding service and creativity. The objective of these efforts has changed also. Of course sales and lifetime value sit at the top of the hierarchy of marketing but close behind is the gathering of high quality data. High quality data is data that helps you acquire the customer you don't know and to better understand the customer you do know. To succeed advertisers need to understand and deploy a marketing tech stack which holds the data on the known customer and which enables the activation of that data to the greatest effect. As usual this creates a divide, the more direct the customer relationships, the more easily acquirable and applicable the data. Increased efficiency is relative and even the most 'data poor' advertisers have embraced programmatic delivery at scale to good effect. When used to target the right cohorts in the appropriate context the advertiser succeeds in reducing wastage while retaining the value of context. It's not always about the pursuit of the known effect of every impression but also about knowing that every impression has the potential to contribute to a positive business outcome. The creative challenge persists at four levels: Getting the attention of the consumer in a low attention world. As the buyer pushes the seller towards viewability, the consumer is pushing the brand to greater 'watchability.' Meeting the costs and measurement implications of the constant iterations of formats and functionality. Finding the balance of enough variation to meet the needs of ever finer segments without undermining the overall brand proposition. (The Marriott Hotel Bogota has 57 images on Expedia.com. Marriott / Starwood operates over 7000 properties. That's a lot of images.) The creation of new classes of content for e commerce environments. If owned media now require a higher threshold of usefulness so should advertising itself. The value exchange between the user and the advertiser has become increasingly explicit. Attention is a reward not a right. Useful advertising is a function of relevance which in turn is a function of time, place, cognitive targeting and creation, context and actionability. The creative brief as well as the media brief now needs to reflect this as well as understanding of the efficient frontier of variety; the point at which the cost of granularity exceeds its value. International Advertising Association (IAA) India Chapter brings back its annual property, the Olive Crown Awards in its 7th edition. IAA recently announced the call for entries, inviting applications across 20 categories from the marketing and advertising fraternity for the IAA Olive Crown Awards in 2017. The Awards, recognize creative excellence in communicating sustainability or "green" advertising, and have been embraced by the entire industry. Entries will be accepted till 15th February 2017. The awards will be presented across 20 different categories, which include the coveted title of the Green Crusader of the Year as well as Campaign of the Year, Green Advertiser of the Year, Green Agency of the Year and Young Green Writer of the Year among others. There is also one special Corporate Social Crusader Award for companies who believe that doing good, is good for business. An eminent jury has been invited to judge these awards. Neeraj Roy, President, IAA India Chapter said, The Olive Crown Awards are an initiative to recognize the best creative solutions in communicating the need for a sustainable environment. We are excited to be back and in our 7th edition we hope to replicate the success we have achieved over the years, while looking forward to receiving some thought provoking entries this year as well. Monica Tata, Chairperson, IAA Olive Crown Awards Committee said These awards are for those who believe in being not just custodians of their respective brands, but also custodians of Brand Earth. The Olive Crowns are run as a cause and there is no entry fee. Over the years the IAA Olive Crown Awards have grown in stature and are a unique way of celebrating excellence in creativity that encourages sustainability, and builds consciousness towards the environment. Salt Brand Solutions announced Neeraa Maini Srivastava & Rishi Chanana as their new Executive Creative Directors to strengthen their creative team. Neeraa is a post graduate in English Literature from Mumbai University. She began her career as a creative professional in advertising. In the past she has worked with Lowe, Saatchi and Saatchi, the Times Group, Percept and has also had international experience. Having pioneered the creative start-up cell there, she moved on to assume the role of Creative Head in a renowned film production house. She has won several awards for her creativity and is known for her strong diversity of creative expressions. Earning accolades and awards for her work, she continued to hone her creative talents and gain academic and practical knowledge in screenwriting and creative writing. Rishis past experience includes various agencies like O&M Delhi, TBWARaad, Dubai, TBWADelhi, O&M Mumbai and TBWAIndia. He is a winner of Golds, Silvers, and Bronzes in various international award shows like D&AD, Cannes, One Show, Art Directors Club, Spikes Asia, Asia-pac, Clios, London International, New York Festivals, and various prestigious national awards like KyooriusD&AD. He has also judged various Indian awards. Elaborating on her new role Neeraa says, I am delighted to be a part of this exciting venture, Salt Brand Solutions. I personally love a change story, be it a brand or an agency and I can safely say that my journey has largely been driven by such opportunities. The timing is right with a new wave of change to create the highest levels of collaboration and organizational agility across all brands. Commenting on this Rishi says, I am pleased to have been chosen by Salt Brand Solutions and I am looking forward to create a fresh culture at Salt and to bring about changes that can impact the industry. Mahesh Chauhan, founder, Salt Brand Solutions, says, "Its great to have Neeraa & Rishi onboard. They both have a rare combination of creative flair and maturity. Their track record of scaling businesses and brands speaks for itself. I look forward to them creating some truly memorable work, thus driving Salts agenda of being the best new age business partners to our clients. With India all set for accelerated digital growth, Sudarshan Banerjee, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Utopeia, writes about the steps the Government and the industry need to take to build an enabling ecosystem for the digital society. From a Government point of view, what this economy will need is a creation of bandwidth and penetration across the length and breadth of the country. Secondly, it will need education of a kind that our system doesnt deliver currently, education for adults who are asked to cope in an ecosystem they are not privy to. Thirdly, a layer of security that ensures every individuals personal data, hard-earned money is protected in a way they understand in the older, non-digital economy, so that they feel confident about welcoming the changes coming their way. In terms of the industry, it is a rapidly growing one, full of two kinds of players the new ones with their shiny new systems (think mobile wallets), and the old economy players being forced to get in line to operate in the new economy, wherein both their customers and their employees seem to be resisting this sudden change in their business models (think mobile payment gateways of PSU banks). The rules of business dont change with the new developments, consumers are still going to look for engagement, sincerity, trust, and customer-friendliness from them. Whoever manages to adapt the old economy orderliness to new economy convenience will keep winning. A good parallel would be to look at industries like mutual funds and private insurance players who had an almost similar task ahead of them a couple of decades ago. Sudarshan Banerjee is part of the esteemed Jury panel of industry thought leaders for the inaugural edition of DIGIXX Awards. DIGIXX 2017, brought by Adgully in association with ad:tech, will be held during the ad:tech conference in Delhi on March 9 and 10. Sundar Kondur, who had quit The Hindu Group in November 2016, has joined The Times of India as Senior Vice President Response. Kondur has confirmed the news to Adgully. This is his second stint with The Times of India. Kondur had joined The Hindu Group as Vice President - Advertising Sales in May 2015. Prior to joining The Hindu, he was with the Times Group, where he was Response Head, Bennett Coleman and Co Ltd. He had joined the Times Group in March 2007 as Head- Corporate and Brand and in June 2009, was appointed as Response Head. Kondur had also donned the roles of Publisher and General Manager at Mid Day and Regional Manager at India Today. He has over two decades of experience in Sales and Marketing. 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. Eventually, BMW offered a cradle, which is a kind of a case that holds the phone in place, charges it, and ensures the car is connected to the device when it is plugged in. BMWs systems were usually found in the armrest of its automobiles, while its cables and adaptors could also find space there.Mobile technology is advancing at a far more intense pace than motor vehicles, and people keep buying new phones, while their cars are not changed that often.Even if they were, the automobiles would still have a disadvantage because they were developed when other, older phones, were flagships, and those were almost obsolete when the vehicle that supported them perfectly reached the market.BMW wants to prevent that situation from happening in its vehicles that support particular connectivity features with smartphones. The solution found by the Germans is to offer firmware updates for their devices, but the users must do these themselves, and it is not like updating the apps on your phone.Fortunately, BMW has not made a large bundle of car adapters for smartphones, and those that exist are compatible between each other except for different plugs and sizes. The German company has made a firmware update for those devices to ensure that they maintain functionality and full security.We have decided to make a guide to explain how to update the firmware of the phone cradle in BMW models that feature it. It may work in a similar manner for MINI vehicles, because the same components are used in their underpinnings of the multimedia connection system.The first step of this method is to separate the cradle from the vehicle. As you can see in BMWs sketch, the snap-in adapter is removed in two easy steps. The adapter cable, another option for connecting a smartphone to a modern BMW or MINI, is removed through a straightforward process, because it just plugs into the car.If you have a snap-in adapter, you must use a micro-USB to USB connector to link it to your computer. BMW insists you make sure to introduce the plug correctly, and suggests it should be introduced into the device as straight as possible.Do not wiggle the connector, and do not force it into the adapter. You will have to use a cable from another device, because this was not supplied with the adapter at the time of delivery.The adapter cable, on the other hand, has a USB-A plug, so it fits into a computer that has this kind of connection. If your laptop does not feature the said connection, you will have to use a third-party dongle (most likely for devices that operate with USB-C). With the BMW-sourced device connected to the computer, you must then enter the BMW website. The German company suggests you use the following link: bmw.com/bluetooth . From there, you must select Update accessories. A tool will be downloaded. The process is different, as it depends on the operating system of your computer. It does not seem to work on any Linux distribution, and only Windows (XP, 7, 8), along with Mac OS 10.8 and newer are supported.Make sure your computer does not have any malware or viruses before making the connection and updating the devices. The update process seems to be straightforward from BMWs instructions, and all you have to do is press Extract, Connect, Ok, and then wait.Safely remove the USB device from your computer, and then place it in the car as it used to be installed. It should operate accordingly, and your phone should be able to connect to it without a hitch.Be sure to have your computer attached to a stable power source during the firmware update. It may take several minutes, and keep in mind that the component can be damaged if the power is cut during the upgrade.BMW does not mention any precautions of this extent, but it is best to be prepared with a stable source of energy instead of relying on your laptops battery, for example.If the procedure still seems complicated to you, theres also the option to perform the operation at a local BMW/ MINI dealer. We suggest calling first and asking if they are willing to do it, and ask how much they will charge you for it. Theres a chance it might be free, but you can do it yourself if you are technically and technologically inclined. In spite of adverse weather conditions, a thief in Abbotsford, British Columbia , decided it was a good idea to rob someones house in the middle of the night. Around 5 a.m., the perpetrator got in his van and attempted to flee the scene of the crime. He got stuck in the snow not far from the property he had just raided.Finding himself trapped in the snow, the burglar asked for the assistance of a man that was passing through the area. Unfortunately for him, the passerby was his victim, who had just finished watching security footage from his property. The man managed to apprehend the thief and called the police for assistance.According to Abbotsford police spokesperson, Constable Ian MacDonald, the burglar was quite well known to police. The incident was just the beginning of Tuesday morning for the police department, as they later apprehended another thief using the same method.In the case of the second thief, he was an opportunist that saw a Ford Focus idling to warm up, and he decided to steal it because it was unattended and unlocked. He managed to drive an entire block before getting stuck in the snow. Unlike the first thief, the joyrider decided to ditch the car and make a run for it.Unfortunately for him, he thought it would be a good idea to take the vehicles documents and key before ditching it. He did not even bother to hide them in his pockets, and just ran away with them in hand. Police officers were already searching for the stolen Ford, so it was easy to apprehend a man that was running for his life at about 7:15 a.m., according to the Vancouver Sun Police officers arrested him as well, as the papers and keys he had in his possession made this an open-and-shut case. The representatives of the Abbotsford police department have stated that both suspects are in their 30s, and they found it convenient to have two perpetrators apprehended in one day thanks to their cars getting stuck in the snow 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 Published On Feb 09, 2017 06:41 PM By Raunak for Skoda Octavia 2013-2021 Czech automaker Skoda has commenced production of the facelifted Octavia at its main production facility in Mlada Boleslav. The facelifted version, which has been criticised globally for its quirky new headlamps, was revealed last year in October. While its European deliveries are about to begin, it will be launched later this year in India. The Octavia is Skodas bestselling model, and recently in September 2016, the carmaker celebrated 20 years of the commencement of the series production of this nameplate. Since the production kick-started more than two decades ago, Skoda has retailed well over five million units of the Octavia worldwide. Besides the Octavias chief production hub (Mlada Boleslav), it is also manufactured in China, India, Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, and Algeria will join the league soon as it will manufacture the updated model. Since production of the facelifted model has started at Mlada Boleslav, this plant will soon start assisting the rest of the facilities, including India, for the production of the updated model. Speaking of the Czech automakers Indian operations, Skoda recently launched the thoroughly updated Rapid in the country. It will soon add a limited run edition of the Octavia in coming days as it has been teasing the same on its social media platform. Also, the automaker will launch the much-awaited Kodiaq later this year, which will take on the likes of the Ford Endeavour and the Toyota Fortuner. Recommended Read: Skoda Showcases Updated India-Bound Octavia RS Read More on : Octavia price Modified On Mar 29, 2017 01:31 PM By Rachit Shad for Tata Tigor 2017-2020 It is expected to launch in the first half of this year Watch our quick review to know about the Tigor in under 300 seconds. Scroll right down to the bottom for a more in-depth review. Update 29/3/2017: Tata Tigor Launched at Rs 4.70 Lakh Tata Motors had a good 2016, thanks, primarily, to the Tiago hatchback. The car was the first to carry Tata Motors new design language - Impact, and it has surely clicked well enough with customers in India. Soon after the launch of the Tiago, we heard stories about Tata Motors working on a Tiago-based compact sedan, a concept of which was showcased during the Auto Expo 2016. Since then, until now, we have known that work-in-progress as the Kite 5. The home-grown automaker has finally completed the christening process and the sedan will be called Tigor. Slated to become the next offering that boasts the companys Impact design language, the Tigor has surely become one of the most anticipated cars to be launched in 2017. The home-grown automaker has even taken the pain to tag the Tigor as a Styleback. The company says that once launched, which is expected in the first half of 2017, the Tigor Styleback will be a game changer, by essentially creating a new segment. To keep the production costs in check and to ensure that it undercuts all its competitors in the Indian market, the Tigor will share most of its underpinnings with the hatchback it is based on. That means, just like the Tiago, the Tigor will be offered with the 1.2-litre petrol engine, producing 85PS/114Nm, and 1.05-litre diesel mill that is tuned to generate 70PS/140Nm. Both the engines will come mated to a five-speed manual transmission and an AMT might just get into the mix as well. The Tiago set the benchmark for its segment with its rich feature-list and the Tigor is expected to do the same. We expect the price list to start at around Rs 4.5 lakh for the Tigor. Will this be the car that helps Tata Motors get a good grip on the Indian automotive market? Well, it surely sounds promising! Recommended Read: Tata Tigor: What To Expect The Charity Commission has defended its inquiry into the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Britain, following the Jehovahs Witness charity's fourth appeal against what it describes as an "unlawful investigation". The charity became subject to a Charity Commission statutory inquiry after revelations emerged that a man accused of child abuse was allowed to question his accusers as part of a disfellowship process to decide whether he should remain a member of the congregation. The statutory inquiry into the charitys safeguarding procedures has been the subject of a long-running legal case, with the Charity Commission attempting to access Watch Towers records since 2014 and the charity in turn accusing the regulator of conducting an unlawful investigation. Watch Tower has launched a total of four appeals since 2014, against decisions by the High Court and Charity Tribunal which ruled in favour of the Charity Commission. The charity is seeking permission to challenge the statutory inquiry, but following yesterdays hearing at the Court of Appeal, no decision was reached. Yesterday the regulator said it was committed to robustly investigating allegations that charities do not have adequate safeguarding policies and practices and continues to defend its statutory inquiry into Watch Tower. A spokesman for the Charity Commission told Civil Society News, that the regulator was arguing for the case to be heard by the Charity Tribunal instead of the High Court, to prevent costly legal wranglings for other charities in the future. If the Court rules otherwise, it may risk excluding less well-funded charities from accessing justice via the less costly Tribunal, the spokesman said. The Charities Act set up the Charity Tribunal to make access to justice cheaper, so that charities dont have to go to the High Court with expensive QCs. Watch Tower is appealing this investigation for the fourth time but if they are allowed to win and have the case heard at the High Court, it could be confusing at best for charities and at worst, it could be that charities feel they have to go to the High Court rather than the Charity Tribunal. That would defeat the whole object that the Charity Tibunal is cheaper for charities. A charity like the Jehovahs Witness can afford the high court but most charities cant. The Charity Commission is appealing for anyone affected by safeguarding in congregations of Jehovahs Witnesses in England and Wales to make contact with the inquiry lead investigator Jonathan Sanders. Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Britain told Civil Society News it would be premature to say anything at this point about the latest appeal. Once the Court has rendered its decision we shall be pleased to comment, a spokesman for the charity said. Comments have been disabled on this story. Fergus Burnett Trustees of the Politics and Economics Research Trust have asked for the return of charitable grants which were spent on producing reports in favour of leaving the EU, after the Charity Commission raised concerns. The regulator has published a case report into PERT, a public policy think tank, which has found that there was a lack of formal process and oversight at the charity, as trustees could not be certain that its funding was being used solely to further its objects. Concerns were first raised with the Charity Commission over charitys funding of the campaigning organisations Business for Britain and Taxpayers Alliance. Those raising concerns queried whether it was appropriate for a charity to support non-charitable organisations with political aims. In particular concerns were raised about the charitys funding of Business for Britain given its views on the UK and its relationship with the EU. The Commission has said that they discovered that the charity did not have formal grant agreements in place, and did not have processes to monitor research projects the charity had funded. This came about over the funding of a research report titled Change, or go - How Britain would gain influence and prosper outside an unreformed EU, which was produced by Business for Britain which formed the basis for Vote Leave - and funded by the charity. The Commission said that the report did not conform to what was agreed during the grant application stage. The case report states that it was only following the Commissions request to review the research reports funded by the charity that the trustees reviewed this report and asked for the funding to be returned to the charity. The money was later returned to the charity. According to PERTs most recent annual accounts, for the year ending in October 2016, 50,000 was repaid to the charity by Business for Britain in 2016. A further 100,000 was paid to the campaign group. The case report said that the lack of formal process and oversight was a regulatory concern, as the trustees could not be certain that its funding was being used solely to further its objects. Following the regulators involvement, trustees agreed an amended grant application form, which requires more detail about how the research being commissioned will further the charitys objects. It also agreed a grant agreement template, and an operational policy document, which sets out the charitys grant making policy and the procedures they will follow including how they will monitor the use of their funds. The charity has since appointed an administrator, and its website has been updated to better publicise the research reports funded by the charity. PERT has been contacted for comment on the case report. A coalition of nine charity infrastructure bodies has written to the Chancellor Philip Hammond calling for a range of measures to match tax concessions being giving to the private sector. One of these is increasing business rates relief to 100 per cent. The letter, which was coordinated by the Charity Finance Group (CFG) ahead of next month's Budget, says that businesses have benefited from a 6.7bn rates cut which will see some businesses paying no rates at all. This means that those businesses will effectively be subsidised by charities which do pay. The letter also calls for an increase in the amount of national insurance contributions that charities can claim back from the government from 3,000 per organisation per year to 7,000. It argues that while businesses have been given corporation tax cuts in order to offset the cost of the new national living wage, charities will have no such support. Elsewhere, the letter calls for a reduction in irrecoverable VAT, which currently costs the sector 1.5bn, and lowering the insurance premium tax for charities from 12 per cent to 6 per cent. It also calls for government funding such as that from Libor fines to be distributed strategically rather than in the form of individual charity giveaways, and for the Charity Commission to receive increased funding. Value to the economy The letter emphasises that civil society contributes 12.2bn gross value added per year to the economy, which is equivalent to the UKs agriculture sector. It also highlights that the sector employs 827,000 people, and raises 11bn in voluntary income which supplements and supports statutory activity. Speaking separately, CFGs chief executive Caron Bradshaw said: While government continues to believe that private business is the sole driver of economic growth and produces a tax system to match, it ignores the net contribution that charities make to UK PLC, which threatens the whole sector and especially small specialist and local charities that are the bedrock of our society. The letter is signed by leaders from CFG, Navca, Children England, Locality, the Association of Charitable Foundations, Voice4Change England, the Small Charities Coalition, Social Enterprise UK and the Institute of Fundraising. Michelle Emerson recalls Eureka!s journey to winning the Charity Award for Arts, Culture and Heritage in 2016. Over 25 years of delivering fantastic experiences for children and families at Eureka! The National Childrens Museum, there have been many projects which have helped us sustain our audience levels and maintain fantastic relationships with our visitors. One of these is Helping Hands. Initially a three-year project funded by the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, the aim was to achieve significant cultural and organisational change which resulted in embedded sustainable inclusivity throughout our organisation for families with a disabled child. The programme is now in its fifth year, and continues to improve access for disabled children. Subsequent to the completion of the three-year funded Helping Hands programme, our commitment to engaging with disabled children has continued under the title Access All Areas. Esmee Fairbairn and a number of additional funders have seen the value in the work we are undertaking and have supported its continuation. Throughout the programme, recognition from Visit England has been an ongoing source of support and encouragement; winning the Bronze 'Access for All' Award in 2013, the Silver in 2014 and the Gold Award in 2015 in recognition of the work we're doing within the cultural attractions sector for disabled children. In 2016 we were looking for a way to celebrate the achievements of the original programme and the subsequent expansion of the project, to thank our supporters and recognise the hard work of our staff and to continue to talk about the importance of improving access to cultural experiences for disabled children and their families. Then into my inbox dropped an email from the Charity Awards Eureka! had never submitted a project to the Charity Awards before, but the idea was met with huge enthusiasm internally. This was only dampened slightly when the application process was reviewed Putting together any kind of awards submission, funding application or partnership approach takes a significant amount of time and effort, and in an organisation where everyone is working to capacity, you have to be sure its the right thing to be spending your time on. It wasnt a decision we took lightly. Getting on to the shortlist was hugely exciting and, to be honest, if that is as far as wed got wed have been very happy. It is in itself a great achievement and something which would have helped us enormously for future fundraising and profile-raising. The shortlisted charities in our category were stiff competition, and in recognition of the fact that all three organisations were based in West Yorkshire, we reached out to each other via social media to produce joint press releases and wish each other the best of luck. More new relationships built! Our chief executive and I headed to London for the awards ceremony. We felt we were the long shot to win in the category of Arts, Culture and Heritage category, being up against fantastic programmes from Unlimited Theatre and Northern Ballet. So convinced were we that one of the other organisations would be called, we both wore completely inappropriate shoes for walking down the stairs! When we were announced as winners, we made it down the stairs (just), and the rest of the presentation kind of flashed by, to the point where we found ourselves asking later in the evening did that really just happen? It was such a brilliant evening after that the first thing we did was let everyone back at Eureka! know, and let Twitter and Facebook flood with congratulations which were lovely to read the following day on the train back home and over the subsequent weeks as the news was announced. We now proudly display the Charity Awards winner logo on our website, our email signatures, and everywhere we can, including within the museum so all our visitors can see it. As an immediate tangible result we were invited to put in an application to a funder who has not previously supported Eureka! (which we are nervously awaiting the outcome of). But perhaps the most significant outcome of the award has been the ability to show all our staff at Eureka! that what they do is brilliant, and recognised at the highest level. As I said at the beginning, we are proud of many things we do and we are proud of the people who work here who all help us achieve these things. Theres nothing better than being able to let them know that other people recognise their achievements and are proud of them too. Michelle Emerson is marketing & development director at Eureka! Civil Society Media's Charity Awards are the longest-running and most respected awards in the charity sector. They are open to any charity which can demonstrate best practice in their field. The awards are currently open to entry. For more information, or to make an application, click here. Yes, you can transfer your domain to any registrar or hosting company once you have purchased it. Since domain transfers are a manual process, it can take up to 5 days to transfer the domain. 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. For transfer instructions to GoDaddy, please click here. Apologies for the shouting but this is important. When answering a question please: Read the question carefully Understand that English isn't everyone's first language so be lenient of bad spelling and grammar If a question is poorly phrased then either ask for clarification, ignore it, or mark it down. Insults are not welcome If the question is inappropriate then click the 'vote to remove message' button Insults, slap-downs and sarcasm aren't welcome. Let's work to help developers, not make them feel stupid. cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP Currently I'm using c#, web forms and ms sql. I'm using ms sql as my search engine for searching for jobs and candidates. I ran across two issues. Recruiters need it to be simple and be able to search with regular basic boolean functions and sometimes they paste an entire job description and wonder why it takes for ever or crashes.. timeout. What products should be looking at to fix my issues? This needs to be an in-house hosted option. Greetings again dear experts, Back for more your great assistance. DateTime runDate = DateTime.Parse(rsRunDate.Text); When I run my app, I get the following: The string was not recognized as a valid DateTime. There is an unknown word starting at index 0. This error points to the line code I posted. I tried changing the code to the following: DateTime runDate = DateTime.ParseExact(srRunDate.Text, " dd/MM/yyyy" , null ); However, I still get same error. I tried the following: DateTime _runDate; string runDate = " " ; _runDate = DateTime.Parse(srRunDate.Text); runDate = _runDate.ToString( " dd/MMM/yyyy" ); But then, the following produces an error: if (runDate.Date > DateTime.Now.Date)... Now, I get the following error: The name ' runDate' does not exist in the current context I ran the code in debug mode, it shows runDate with the following value: {1/1/0001 12:00:00 AM} System.DateTime I am out of ideas. Any ideas how to fix this? modified 20-Oct-22 13:04pm. You should be looking at the content of srRunDate.Text . For example, trying to use Parse on an empty string will throw an exception. You should change your code to use TryParse instead. At least then, you'll get a return value of true or false denoting if the parse operation worked or not. Asking questions is a skill CodeProject Forum Guidelines Google: C# How to debug code Seriously, go read these articles. Dave Kreskowiak Seriously, go read these articles. "If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell. Bastard Programmer from Hell"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell. I am migrating the .Net Project to .Net core 3 . 1 and there are loads of dependencies in the project so I cannot create a new .Net core application. How can I add Program.Cs file in my existing .Net api project? I need this code in my existing .Net api project C# 
public class Program { public static void Main(string[] args) { CreateHostBuilder(args).Build().Run(); } public static IHostBuilder CreateHostBuilder(string[] args) => Host.CreateDefaultBuilder(args) .ConfigureWebHostDefaults(webBuilder => { webBuilder.UseStartup(); }) .UseSerilog((hostingContext, loggerConfiguration) => { var connectionString = hostingContext.Configuration.GetSection( " Serilog:WriteTo:0:Args:connectionString" ); connectionString.Value = connectionString.Value; loggerConfiguration.ReadFrom.Configuration(hostingContext.Configuration); }); }





.NET and .NET Core official support policy[ ^ ]:

End of Support: December 13, 2022

Currently, the "long-term support" (LTS) version is .NET 6.0, which is supported until at least November 12, 2024.



Also, you forgot to explain what the problem is with your code. There's nothing obviously wrong with it.





"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."

- Homer





I have a ASP .NET MVC project, inside controller, I call a simple WebAPI using WebClient e.g. WebClient client = new WebClient(); client.Headers.Add( " cache-control" , " no-cache" ); client.Headers.Add( " accept-encoding" , " gzip, deflate" ); client.Headers.Add( " Content-Type" , " application/x-www-form-urlencoded" ); client.Headers.Add( " Accept" , " application/json" ); client.Headers.Add( " Authorization" , " Basic xxxxxx" ); var respond = client.UploadString( new Uri( " https://xxxxxx/" ), " POST" , " xxxxxx" ); there is an exception when call UploadString immediately with error " The entry '*' has already been added." in webConfig. If remove the line " " from webConfig, the exception is gone. Same thing is also happen when using HttpClient and RestClient. WebConfig " ...    ..." Do anyone know why it happen? Why does WebClient attempt to add the entry to configuration during runtime and cause the error? BTW, I have fixed the problem by remove the line from WebConfig, and put it to program StartUp e.g. System.Net.ServicePointManager.DefaultConnectionLimit = 500 ;



* address. This could be in a config file from a parent application, or the machine-level config file.



The simplest option is to clear or remove the addresses before adding the new one:

XML < connectionManagement > < remove address =" *" / > < add address =" *" maxconnection =" 500" / > < /connectionManagement >





"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."

- Homer





I have dynamic data showing on a blazor page



@foreach ( var item in DisplayList.OrderBy(i => i.CompanyId)) {  @item.Company  @item.FunctionName  @item.Identifier  @item.SkillsSet   }



In my code I do a if..contains..replace on the part item.SkillsSet.

This is a string.



What I'm trying to do is: when this string contains a value I want that value to be surrounded with the "mark" tag so that part is highlighted.



Like: Jo | Lisa | Me | John



But the result is not what I expect. It shows the names and the tag. It doesn't highlight the text

It shows: Jo | Lisa | Me  | John



What to do?



Html.Raw helper method to indicate that the string should not be HTML-encoded:

Razor @Html .Raw(item.SkillsSet) NB: You'll need to make sure the rest of the string is properly HTML-encoded to ensure it displays correctly and to avoid the potential for a persisted cross-site scripting vulnerability.





"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."

- Homer





        private DataTable SortSheet( string FilePath, string SheetName, string SortColumnName, string RankColumn) { try { var fileName = FilePath; if (!File.Exists(FilePath)) { txtLogger.Text += FilePath + " File Not Found!!!" + Environment.NewLine; MessageBox.Show( " File Not Found!!!" ); new DataTable(); } #region Reading excel file var connectionString = " Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=" + fileName + " ;Extended Properties=\"Excel 12.0;IMEX=0;HDR=YES;TypeGuessRows=0;ImportMixedTypes=Text\"" ; ; DataSet ds = new DataSet(); using ( var conn = new OleDbConnection(connectionString)) { try { try { conn.Open(); } catch (Exception ex1) { txtLogger.Text += " exception : " + ex1.StackTrace + Environment.NewLine; MessageBox.Show( " File is Open, Please close to proceed!!!" ); new DataTable(); } var sheets = conn.GetOleDbSchemaTable(System.Data.OleDb.OleDbSchemaGuid.Tables, new object[] { null , null , null , " TABLE" }); DataRow[] dr = sheets.Select( " [Table_name]= '" + SheetName.ToString() + " $'" ); if (dr.Length == 0 ) { MessageBox.Show( " SheetName Not Found!!!" ); txtLogger.Text += SheetName.ToString() + " : SheetName Not Found!!!" + Environment.NewLine; new DataTable(); } using ( var cmd = conn.CreateCommand()) { cmd.CommandText = " SELECT * FROM [" + SheetName + " $] WHERE [ID] IS NOT NULL " ; var adapter = new OleDbDataAdapter(cmd); adapter.Fill(ds); } } catch (Exception ex) { txtLogger.Text += " exception : " + ex.StackTrace + Environment.NewLine; MessageBox.Show( " Error Occured ,Please check the log!!!" ); new DataTable(); } finally { conn.Close(); conn.Dispose(); } } #endregion #region Sorting based on SortColumnName DataTable dt = ds.Tables[0]; DataView view = dt.DefaultView; view.Sort = SortColumnName + " ASC" ; DataTable sortedData = view.ToTable(); if (sortedData.Columns.Contains(RankColumn)) { int rank = 1 ; foreach (DataRow row in sortedData.Rows) { row[RankColumn] = rank; rank++; } } txtLogger.Text += " Sort Completed : Sheet " + SheetName + Environment.NewLine; return sortedData; #endregion } catch (Exception) { throw ; } } private void InsertSheet( string FilePath, DataTable MapDatatable, string MapSheetName, List updatedColumns) { try { var fileName = FilePath; if (!File.Exists(FilePath)) { txtLogger.Text += FilePath + " File Not Found!!!" + Environment.NewLine; MessageBox.Show( " File Not Found!!!" ); return ; } var connectionString = " Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=" + fileName + " ;Extended Properties=\"Excel 12.0;IMEX=0;HDR=YES;TypeGuessRows=0;ImportMixedTypes=Text\"" ; ; #region Updating Excel using (OleDbConnection conn = new OleDbConnection(connectionString)) { try { conn.Open(); using ( var cmd = conn.CreateCommand()) { cmd.Connection = conn; var sheets = conn.GetOleDbSchemaTable(System.Data.OleDb.OleDbSchemaGuid.Tables, new object[] { null , null , null , " TABLE" }); int colcount = 0 ; System.Type type; foreach (DataRow row in MapDatatable.Rows) { colcount = 0 ; StringBuilder commandString = new StringBuilder(); commandString.Append( " UPDATE [" + MapSheetName.ToString() + " $" + " ] SET " ); foreach (DataColumn c in MapDatatable.Columns) { if (updatedColumns.Contains(c.ColumnName)) { commandString.Append(c.ColumnName); type = row.ItemArray[colcount].GetType(); if ((type == typeof ( string )) || (type == typeof (DateTime))) { commandString.Append( " = '" ).Append(row.ItemArray[colcount]).Append( " ' ," ); } else if (row.ItemArray[colcount].ToString().Trim() == string .Empty) { commandString.Append( " = ' " ).Append(row.ItemArray[colcount]).Append( " ' ," ); } else { commandString.Append( " = " ).Append(row.ItemArray[colcount]).Append( " ," ); } } colcount++; } commandString.Remove(commandString.Length - 1 , 1 ); commandString.Append( " where ID = " + row[ " ID" ].ToString() + " ;" ); cmd.CommandText = commandString.ToString(); cmd.ExecuteNonQuery(); } } } catch (Exception ex) { txtLogger.Text += " Update exception on Line : " + ex.StackTrace + " : Sheet " + MapSheetName+ Environment.NewLine; MessageBox.Show( " Error Occured ,Please check the log!!!" ); return ; } finally { conn.Close(); conn.Dispose(); } } #endregion } catch (Exception) { throw ; } } 
private void button1_Click( object sender, EventArgs e) { #region Full Event try { txtLogger.Text = string .Empty; string FilePath = System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings[ " FilePath" ]; string SheetName = System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings[ " SheetName" ]; string SortColumnName = System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings[ " SortColumnName" ]; string MapColumn = System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings[ " MapColumn" ]; string RankColumn = System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings[ " RankColumn" ]; string[] Sheets = SheetName.Split( ' |' ); string[] sortColumnName = SortColumnName.Split( ' |' ); string[] mapColumn = MapColumn.Split( ' |' ); string[] rankColumn = RankColumn.Split( ' |' ); int colcount = 0 ; List updatedColumns = new List(); foreach ( var item in mapColumn) { updatedColumns.Add(mapColumn[colcount].ToString()); colcount++; } if (DateTime.Now.Year== 2023 ) { MessageBox.Show( " error" ); return ; } DataTable Sheet1, Sheet2 , Sheet3; Sheet1 = SortSheet(FilePath, Sheets[0].ToString(), sortColumnName[0].ToString(),rankColumn[0].ToString()); Sheet2 = SortSheet(FilePath, Sheets[1].ToString(), sortColumnName[1].ToString(),rankColumn[1].ToString()); Sheet3 = SortSheet(FilePath, Sheets[2].ToString(), " ID" , rankColumn[1].ToString()); if ((Sheet1.Rows.Count>0)&&(Sheet2.Rows.Count > 0 )) { if (!Sheet1.Columns.Contains(mapColumn[0].ToString())) { Sheet1.Columns.Add(mapColumn[0].ToString(), typeof (System. String )); foreach (DataRow row in Sheet1.Rows) { row[mapColumn[1].ToString()] = string .Empty; } } if (!Sheet1.Columns.Contains(mapColumn[1].ToString())) { Sheet1.Columns.Add(mapColumn[1].ToString(), typeof (System. Int32 )); foreach (DataRow row in Sheet1.Rows) { row[mapColumn[1].ToString()] = 0 ; } } if (!Sheet1.Columns.Contains(mapColumn[2].ToString())) { Sheet1.Columns.Add(mapColumn[2].ToString(), typeof (System. Int32 )); foreach (DataRow row in Sheet1.Rows) { row[mapColumn[2].ToString()] = 0 ; } } } Sheet1.AsEnumerable() .Join(Sheet2.AsEnumerable(), dt1_Row => dt1_Row.ItemArray[0], dt2_Row => dt2_Row.ItemArray[0], (dt1_Row, dt2_Row) => new { dt1_Row, dt2_Row }) .ToList() .ForEach(o => o.dt1_Row.SetField( 7 , o.dt2_Row.ItemArray[6])); InsertSheet(FilePath, Sheet1, Sheets[2].ToString(),updatedColumns); MessageBox.Show( " Reschedule Completed!!!" ); return ; } catch (Exception ex) { txtLogger.Text += " exception : " + ex.StackTrace + Environment.NewLine; MessageBox.Show( " Error Occured ,Please check the log!!!" ); return ; } #endregion }





modified 4-Oct-22 17:41pm.









"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."

- Homer





So have I have a modal with a updatepanel and a repeater inside it. I have an open another modal on linkbutton click, I would like to update the 2nd modal with a checkboxlist, but the linkbutton click doesn't fire for me to update the 2nd modal data.









"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."

- Homer





bonjour avec le code ci-dessous je trouve que quelque champ de ma demande, n le graphique n ' affiche que les description de (AA,CC,SS,GG,...) pas de (BB,DD,FF,...) code source Me.Chart1.Series("Statistiques").Points.AddXY("AA", 95) Me.Chart1.Series("Statistiques").Points.AddXY("BB", 90) Me.Chart1.Series("Statistiques").Points.AddXY("CC", 85) Me.Chart1.Series("Statistiques").Points.AddXY("DD", 95) Me.Chart1.Series("Statistiques").Points.AddXY("SS", 93) Me.Chart1.Series("Statistiques").Points.AddXY("FF", 90) Me.Chart1.Series("Statistiques").Points.AddXY("GG", 95) Me.Chart1.Series("Statistiques").Points.AddXY("UU", 95) Me.Chart1.Series("Statistiques").Points.AddXY("II", 95) Me.Chart1.Series("Statistiques").Points.AddXY("QQ", 95) comment je peux afficher la description de reste des champs (BB, DD, ....) et merci d' avance



document.activeElement.id is not working in safari



Hence, you can change your event handler from : $( ' #modalLogout' ).on( ' hide.bs.modal' , function () { var activeElement = $(document.activeElement); to the delegated one: $( ' #modalLogout' ).on( ' click' , ' #LogoutOk' , function (e) { var activeElement = $(e.target);


Axon Enterprise, Inc. develops, manufactures, and sells conducted energy devices (CEDs) under the TASER brand in the United States and internationally. It operates through two segments, TASER, and Software and Sensors. The company also offers hardware and cloud-based software solutions that enable law enforcement to capture, securely store, manage, share, and analyze video and other digital evidence. Its products include TASER 7, TASER X26P, TASER X2, TASER Consumer devices, and related cartridges; on-officer body cameras, Axon Fleet in-car systems, and other devices; Axon Evidence digital evidence management software; Axon Signal enabled devices, as well as hardware extended warranties; and Axon docks, cartridges, and batteries. It sells its products through its direct sales force, distribution partners, online store, and third-party resellers. Axon Enterprise, Inc. has a strategic partnership with Fusus, Inc. to expand the capabilities of Axon Respond and the Fusus Real Time Crime Center in the Cloud solution to provide agencies real-time operations situational awareness, including streamlined investigative workflows. The company was formerly known as TASER International, Inc. and changed its name to Axon Enterprise, Inc. in April 2017. Axon Enterprise, Inc. was incorporated in 1993 and is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona.
CUNA published a white paper Thursday examining 3 policy decisions the NCUA will need to make concerning the wind-down of the agencys Corporate Resolution Program. CUNA, the leagues and member credit unions will analyze the issues over the coming months and provide recommendations to the NCUA.

The NCUA and Congress established the Temporary Corporate Credit Union Stabilization Fund (TCCUSIF) as interim funding after 5 corporate credit unions became insolvent during the financial crisis. The obligations of the 5 corporates were funded by borrowing against the legacy assets in the form of NCUA Guaranteed Notes (NGNs), borrowing from Treasury and collecting stabilization assessments from all federally insured credit unions.

The Treasury borrowing has been repaid, and the Stabilization Fund has built a positive net position.

The total cost of the resolution is now projected to be between $5.5 billion and $7 billion, less than half the original estimates. Assessments were suspended after 2013, having amounted to $4.8 billion.

With these assessments and $5.6 billion in depleted capital from the five corporates (a combined $10.4 billion), credit unions have overpaid the now projected final costs of the resolution by between $3.4 billion and $4.9 billion.

Current projections show that between half and two thirds of the $4.8 billion of assessments will be rebated through the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund, and between 15% and 30% of the $5.6 billion in depleted capital will be replenished.
A new analysis of an archeological site in the high mountains of Tibet suggests that permanent residents may have set up camp thousands of years sooner than previously thought. Previous analyses have estimated that the site's founding residents arrived about 5.2 thousand years ago, but now a more comprehensive analysis by Michael Meyer et al. suggests that it was inhabited, likely on a permanent basis, at least 7.4 thousand years ago, but perhaps as long as more than 12 thousand years ago. Upon leaving Africa, humans effectively spread out across most of Earth - yet when they endeavored to move into the highest mountains the world, along the Himalayan range, remains debated. Among some of the best preserved sites for scientists to study is Chusang, a village perched in the central plateau more than 4,000 meters above sea level. The site, discovered in 1998, consists of 19 human hand- and footprints along the surface of a fossil travertine. In attempts to better date the village, Meyer and colleagues used three different techniques, including thorium/uranium dating of samples taken from, and adjacent to, the prints; optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) to determine the date of quartz crystals; and radio carbon dating on microscopic plant remains at the site. Their new estimated range for settlement at Chusang, between 7.4 and 12.67 thousand years ago, is more in line with results from some genetic studies, the authors note. As well, they highlight how difficult travel from this base camp must have been, with roundtrip routes to other sites likely taking dozens of days and being impassable for most of the year; therefore they emphasize that is it very likely that Chusang represents a permanent settlement, before agriculture took hold in the area. Permanent pre-agricultural peopling of the plateau may have been enabled by a wetter climate that prevailed in the region at the time, Meyer and colleagues suggest.

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Article #11: "Permanent human occupation of the central Tibetan Plateau in the early Holocene," by M.C. Meyer; Z. Wang at University of Innsbruck in Innsbruck, Austria; M.S. Aldenderfer at University of California, Merced in Merced, CA; D.L. Hoffmann at Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany; J.A. Dahl at National Isotope Centre, GNS Science in Lower Hutt, New Zealand; D. Degering at ADD Ideas Degering and Degering in Mohorn, Germany; W.R. Haas at University of Wyoming in Laramie, WY; F. Schlutz at Lower Saxony Institute for Historical Coastal Research in Wilhelmshaven, Germany.
A new study suggests that roughly 65 million years ago, not just one plume of magma, but two, fueled the mass eruption along the Deccan Traps, an event that contributed to one of the greatest extinction events on Earth. The Deccan Traps, located in west-central India, are one of the largest volcanic features on the planet. Yet reconstructing their historic mass eruptions has been difficult, in part because the mantle structure as it was 65 million years ago in this region remains unknown. To compensate for this missing puzzle piece, Petar Glisovi? and Alessandro M. Forte used time-reversed convection modeling, which includes present-day data that captures the three-dimensional (3D) structure of the mantle, and then worked backwards in time to reconstruct changes in the mantle. Their analysis identified a currently active hotspot, Reunion, that was also active 65 million years ago. The researchers found a second upwelling that likely contributed to the ancient eruption that is now associated with the currently active Comores hotspot. The volume of melted mantle that was potentially accessible to the Reunion and Comores hotspots was roughly 40 and 35 million km3, respectively, beginning at around 68 million years, decreasing to near zero around 20 and 40 million years ago, respectively, the authors say.

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Is it time for a dedicated (hypothecated) tax to fund the NHS, asks The BMJ in a debate article today?

A dedicated tax is the only way that we can be sure the government is reflecting public wishes, argues Richard Layard, emeritus professor at the London School of Economics.

He points out that Britain currently spends less on health as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) than other countries at the same income level - and that nearly half of Britons say they are willing to pay for a better service and almost none want it cut.

"If, as in Germany, there were a dedicated source of funding for the healthcare sector, it would be much easier for public demand to be translated into action," he writes.

The alternative to hypothecation is to continue with alternating periods of famine and plenty, he adds. However, the Treasury has always objected to hypothecation "because it limits its flexibility to determine the overall pattern of public expenditure."

He proposes a revised system, where all National Insurance contributions go to health, based on an expenditure plan set out at the beginning of each parliament, bringing "welcome certainty" to the service. Higher contributions, partially offset by cuts in other forms of taxation, could be needed in order also to finance social care, he suggests.

"A reform of this kind would offer real hope to the healthcare sector. It would have its own source of income and the public could judge whether more or less income was justified.," he concludes.

But John Appleby, chief economist at the Nuffield Trust, argues that a dedicated tax would not protect funding from economic uncertainty.

Some argue that a hypothecated tax would fix the lack of transparency between the raising of taxes and spending by government, he writes. But he believes there are many simpler ways to fix the tax-spend transparency problem (through providing information for the public on how taxes are spent, for example) without a major overhaul in the tax system.

Another argument presented for hypothecation is that it overcomes a general resistance to paying tax when it comes to things we like governments to pay for, such as healthcare, he writes.

However, he points out that the 2015 British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey suggested that while 93% of those asked thought there was an NHS funding problem, only a quarter thought the solution was a dedicated NHS tax, with a further quarter supporting the view that the NHS should find ways of coping with its existing budget.

And although general views on increasing taxes to spend more on things like the NHS and education have in recent years increased, "they remain slightly lower than support to keep taxes and spending the same," he adds.

"Current ways of making tax and spend choices are not by any means perfect and could be improved with, for example, more debate (informed by evidence) about what we want to spend on health and the trade-offs involved with other things we also want to spend our limited resources on," he concludes. "But hypothecation only provides the illusion of an escape from such necessary argument and debate."

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New deposits with exceptionally well-preserved fossil communities are always exciting, but some are more interesting than others. Windows into particularly important times or environments can tell palaeontologists much more than narrow views into a time that is already well known. A window into the aftermath of the second-biggest mass extinction since the rise of animals is therefore very interesting indeed.

The end-Ordovician crisis, 445 million years ago, resulted in 85% of species dying out. It was the result of a sudden, intense ice age, followed by an equally rapid warming, and corresponding changes in ocean chemistry and circulation. The plankton started to recover quite quickly, but until now we have known little about life on the deeper parts of the sea floor. The only exceptional fossil deposit known from this interval before now is the peculiar glacial lagoon environment of South Africa's Soom Shale.

A joint team of researchers from China (Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, et al.) and Britain (National Museum Wales) have revealed a new fossil fauna preserving delicate skeletons and soft tissues, from the immediate aftermath of the Ordovician mass extinction. The Anji Biota was discovered in the bamboo forests of Zhejiang Province, China, in a narrow band of mudstone exposed at several sites up to 10 km apart. The fauna is extraordinarily diverse, with nearly 100 species found in the first phase of collecting. The surprise, though, is that this diversity is almost entirely composed of sponges.

The Anji Biota records an astonishing range of different sponge species, in many different major groups, with a total diversity exceeding that of equivalent modern faunas. Most post-extinction survivor ecosystems are made up of small, stunted species that managed to thrive and are found everywhere. In the Anji sponge fauna, the sponges are large and complex, and although some species formed forests on the sea floor, many others were very scarce or extremely localised. It doesn't look like a survival fauna at all; these simple animals were flourishing.

Sponges were not quite the only animals on the sea floor, however. Together with thousands of sponges, a few conical-shalled nautiloids were also recovered, and a single fossil sea scorpion complete with legs. The sea scorpions were a very rare group in the Ordovician, and well-preserved specimens are almost entirely limited to these sites of exceptional preservation.

Why was this post-extinction world so completely dominated by sponges? As lead author Joe Botting explains, "We think the sponges thrived because they can tolerate changes in temperature and low oxygen levels, while their food source (organic particles in the water) would have been increased enormously by the death and destruction all around them."

Sponges are known today as ecosystem engineers, encouraging biodiversity by stabilising sediment and providing habitats. In the case of the end-Ordovician crisis, such an abundance of sponges over wide areas might well have helped the ecosystem to recover. The team also notes that mass sponge remains have been recorded after other mass extinction events, suggesting that this is a common pattern after ecological collapse. There are lessons for the present, as well. If the past is anything to go by, then as marine ecosystems begin to collapse due to human activities, we should expect to see sponges rule the seas once again.

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Chemists have developed a powerful new method of selectively linking chemicals to proteins, a major advance in the manipulation of biomolecules that could transform the way drugs are developed, proteins are probed, and molecules are tracked and imaged.

The new technique, called redox activated chemical tagging (ReACT), is described in the Feb. 10 issue of the journal Science. Developed at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), it could fundamentally change the process of bioconjugation, the process by which chemicals and tags are attached to biomolecules, particularly proteins.

"We've essentially invented a new type of chemical Swiss army knife for proteins, the first that can be used for the essential and naturally occurring amino acid methionine," said study principal investigator Christopher Chang. "This ReACT method can be incorporated into a variety of different tools depending on what you need it to do. You can mix-and-match different reagents for a variety of applications."

Chang and fellow Berkeley Lab faculty scientist F. Dean Toste led this work as part of the Catalysis Program at Berkeley Lab's Chemical Sciences Division. Chang is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.

Hitching a ride onto a new protein

Toste compared the process of bioconjugation to hitching cargo onto the back of a pickup truck.

"That cargo can be used for many purposes," he said. "It can deliver drugs to cancerous cells, or it can be used as a tracking device to monitor the truck's movements. We can even modify the truck and change it to an ambulance. This change can be done in a number of ways, like rebuilding a truck or putting on a new hitch."

Bioconjugation traditionally relies upon the amino acid cysteine, which is highly reactive. Cysteine is often used as an attachment point for tags and chemical groups because it is one of two amino acids that contain sulfur, providing an anchor for acid-base chemistry and making it easy to modify.

But cysteine is often involved in the actual function of proteins, so "hitching cargo" to it creates instability and disrupts its natural function.

For this reason, people have been looking for ways to circumvent cysteine, and they naturally turned to methionine, the only other sulfur amino acid available. However, methionine has an extra carbon atom attached to its sulfur, which blocks most hitches. The researchers developed a new hitch using a process called oxidation-reduction chemistry that allows cargo to be attached to the methionine sulfur with this extra carbon still attached.

The potential of a chemical Swiss army knife

A key benefit to methionine is that it is a relatively rare amino acid, which allows researchers to selectively target it with fewer side effects and less impact on the biomolecule.

They put ReACT to the test by synthesizing an antibody-drug conjugate to highlight its applicability to biological therapeutics. They also identified the metabolic enzyme enolase as a potential therapeutic target for cancer, showing that the tool could help home in on new targets for drug discovery.

In the long term, the researchers say, this new bioconjugation tool could be used in:

Nanotechnology, where protein conjugation can help make nanomaterials compatible with air and water, reducing toxicity.

The creation of artificial enzymes that can be recycled, have better stability, and have improved activity and selectivity through chemical protein modification.

Synthetic biology, where it can be used to selectively make new proteins or augment the function of existing ones.

"This method could also add to the functionality of living organisms by directly modifying natural proteins to improve their stability and activity without making a genetically modified organism that relies on gene editing," said Chang. "It could have implications for the sustainable production of fuels, food, or medicines, as well as in bioremediation."

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Co-lead authors of the study are Shixian Lin and Xiaoyu Yang, postdoctoral researchers at UC Berkeley. Both Chang and Toste are also professors of chemistry at UC Berkeley.

This work was supported by DOE's Office of Science. The National Institutes of Health also supported some of the pilot protein labeling studies that contributed to this work.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addresses the world's most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab's scientific expertise has been recognized with 13 Nobel Prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. For more, visit http://www.lbl.gov

DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.
Research from the George Washington University and St. George's University of London found a mutation in the INPP5K gene, suggesting a new type of congenital muscular dystrophy

WASHINGTON (Feb. 9, 2017) -- A newly discovered mutation in the INPP5K gene, which leads to short stature, muscle weakness, intellectual disability, and cataracts, suggests a new type of congenital muscular dystrophy. The research was published in the American Journal of Human Genetics by researchers from the George Washington University (GW), St. George's University of London, and other institutions.

"The average pediatrician may only see one child with a rare disorder in his or her entire career. Even working with a team of specialists, it can sometimes take years for a child to be diagnosed with a specific rare disease," said Chiara Manzini, Ph.D., co-corresponding author for the study and assistant professor in the GW Institute for Neuroscience and in pharmacology & physiology at the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences. "With a correct diagnosis, families have access to the best care and what to expect as far as the progression of the disease. From a research standpoint, we can develop new, targeted therapies to help these patients."

The research team found five individuals from four families presenting with variable clinical features, including muscular dystrophy, short stature, intellectual disability, and cataracts. While these indicators overlap with related syndromes, dystroglycanopathies and Marinesco-Sjogren syndrome, sequencing revealed a unique mutation in the gene INPP5K in the affected members of each family. This is what led the researchers to believe these individuals are presenting a new type of congenital muscular dystrophy.

Congenital muscular dystrophy is a group of muscular dystrophies characterized by muscle weakness, with its onset at or near birth. The cause is genetic mutations in genes responsible for making the proteins necessary to build and maintain muscles, and sometimes to correctly develop the eyes and the brain. However, the INPP5K gene is unique in that it has a different function than other genes associated with congenital muscular dystrophy. Most genes involved in congenital muscular dystrophy are responsible for maintaining contacts between muscle fibers, while this gene has a function inside the cell and regulates both signaling in response to factors like insulin, and protein trafficking.

"Now that we've identified the genetic mutation, we want to know why the disruption in the gene causes this disorder," said Manzini. "The unique mechanism of this gene could help us develop therapies we have not thought about before, and may move research in a different direction."

"Mutations in the inositol phosphatase INPP5K cause a congenital muscular dystrophy syndrome overlapping the dystroglycanopathies and Marinesco-Sjogren Syndrome" was published in The American Journal of Human Genetics.

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This research was funded in part by the March of Dimes Foundation and by the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Media: To interview Dr. Manzini, please contact Lisa Anderson at lisama2@gwu.edu or 202-994-3121.

About the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences:

Founded in 1824, the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS) was the first medical school in the nation's capital and is the 11th oldest in the country. Working together in our nation's capital, with integrity and resolve, the GW SMHS is committed to improving the health and well-being of our local, national and global communities. smhs.gwu.edu
INDIANAPOLIS -- Two million of the five million Americans admitted to intensive care units annually have or develop acute respiratory failure, predisposing them to long-term cognitive, functional and psychological impairments collectively known as post-intensive care syndrome. A $3.2 million grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute funds the development and evaluation of the novel mobile Critical Care Recovery Program by the Indiana University Center for Aging Research.

"Although there are certainly some community resources and rehabilitation services available to ICU survivors, these are fragmented and difficult for the post-ICU patient and family to access, typically making a meaningful recovery unattainable," said IU Center for Aging Research and Regenstrief Institute investigator Babar A. Khan, MD, principal investigator on the new five-year study. "m-CCRP, our patient-centric mobile Critical Care Recovery Program, brings post-ICU care right to the ARF--acute respiratory failure -- patient in their home and works together with patients and caregivers to improve both quality of life and brain health, decreasing the likelihood of rehospitalization.

"When we talk about rehospitalization, we shouldn't forget how the patient and how the family feel about it. Decreasing the likelihood of rehospitalization is not just about health care costs, it's about people and their lives." Dr. Khan is a critical care medicine physician and an implementation scientist with the IU Center for Health Innovation and Implementation Science.

"We anticipate that the outcomes of this trial will be significant and foundational for the dissemination and implementation of m-CCRP across the US health care system."

The m-CCRP aims to improve the recovery of acute respiratory failure survivors utilizing a mobile care coordinator. The NIH-funded randomized controlled trial will evaluate the success of m-CCRP in improving the health-related quality of life as well as the cognitive, physical and psychological functioning of ARF survivors. Dr. Khan and colleagues will also determine if m-CCRP reduces future health care utilization by ICU survivors.

Each m-CCRP patient and family will be followed for 12 months, significantly longer than previous studies of ICU survivors, according to Dr. Khan. During that year the mobile care coordinator, who is available as needed, will visit ICU survivors biweekly and be supported by a multi-disciplinary team composed of an ICU physician, a geriatrician, a neuropsychologist, and an ICU symptom management nurse. This team will meet on a weekly basis to develop and continually revise a personalized recovery plan incorporating patient and caregiver goals.

m-CCRP builds upon Dr. Khan's experience in developing the successful Eskenazi Health Critical Care Recovery Center with support from the National Institute on Aging and Eskenazi Health. The innovative prototype outpatient clinic was the nation's first collaborative care concept focusing on the extensive cognitive, physical and psychological recovery needs of intensive care unit survivors who are seen in the center after hospital or rehabilitation facility discharge.

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Co-investigators of NHLBI grant R01HL131730-01A1 are Regenstrief Institute investigator Malaz Boustani, MD, MPH, founder of the IU Center for Health Innovation and Implementation Science and associate director of the IU Center for Aging Research; Frederick Unverzagt, PhD and Sujuan Gao, PhD, of the IU School of Medicine and Sue Lasiter, PhD, RN, formerly with the IU School of Nursing and now with the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Nursing and Health Studies.
Astronomers at Lomonosov Moscow State University in cooperation with their French colleagues and with the help of citizen scientists have released The Reference Catalog of galaxy SEDs (RCSED), which contains value-added information about 800,000 galaxies. The catalog is accessible on the web and its description has been published in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement (impact factor -- 11.257). Two co-authors of the research paper are undergraduate students at the Faculty of Physics, Lomonosov Moscow State University. While still working on the catalog, the team has published a few research papers based on the data from it, including a study published by the prestigious interdisciplinary journal Science.

What can one learn using RCSED and why is it unique?

RCSED describes properties of 800,000 galaxies derived from the elaborated data analysis. For every galaxy, it presents its stellar composition, brightness at ultraviolet, optical, and near-infrared wavelengths. From RCSED, one can also access galaxy spectra obtained by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, measurements of spectral lines, and properties determined from them, such as the chemical composition of stars and gas, contained in those galaxies. This makes RCSED the first catalog of its kind, which contains results of detailed homogeneous analysis for such large number of objects. Dr. Igor Chilingarian, an astronomer at Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, USA and a Lead Researcher at Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Lomonosov Moscow State University says: "For every galaxy we also provide a small cutout image from three sky surveys, which show how the galaxy looks at different wavelengths. This provides us with the data for further investigations." Dr. Ivan Katkov, a Senior Researcher at Sternberg Astronomical Institute adds: "The analysis of emission line profiles presented in RCSED is substantially more detailed and accurate then the data published in other catalogs".

RCSED is really flexible and very easy to use. By simply entering the object name or its coordinates in the search field, the web site will provide in a single page all the information referring to that object contained in the catalog. One can also use the catalog through Virtual Observatory applications such as TOPCAT. The RCSED web site also provides tutorials including the one, which describes a technique that Igor Chilingarian and Ivan Zolotukhin exploited to discover new compact elliptical galaxies, which were later published in the research paper Isolated compact elliptical galaxies: Stellar systems that ran away.

Another interesting detail about RCSED is that the team actively used the help of citizen scientists to develop the project web site. And among them there were high-level experts in software development and web design, who have daytime jobs in the largest Russian IT-companies. Dr. Ivan Zolotukhin, a Researcher at Sternberg Astronomical Institute, explains: "Programmers sometimes get burnt out by their routine work, and they would like to do something interesting and pleasant in their spare time, for instance, to help scientists. We are very grateful to them, they have become important members of our team and significantly strengthened our project. It's been always interesting for us to cooperate with IT specialists and we have a lot more projects where they can contribute. So if you use git, program in Python or know HTML/CSS, love stars, have a bit of spare time and are willing to help an international research team - please, contact us using the address published on the web page.

Dr. Ivan Katkov adds: "The RCSED catalog became possible thanks to the application of an interdisciplinary Big Data approach as we had to apply very complex scientific algorithms to a large dataset in a massively parallel way. Eventually, the expertise and resources available at large IT companies would undoubtedly allow researchers to significantly increase the quality and the quantity of research results and to make many important discoveries in astrophysics".

The fact that the RCSED catalog has attracted serious interest in the scientific community even during its assembly phase proves its great potential. During the last three years several external researchers were given the access to the catalog on request and, using RCSED data, published over a dozen of articles in professional peer-reviewed journals (Astrophysical Journal, Astronomy & Astrophysics, MNRAS). The catalog is the world largest homogeneous value-added dataset for nearby galaxies, containing information collected with ground-based and space telescopes. The unique research material for extragalactic astrophysics contained in RCSED will certainly help astrophysicists to achieve new interesting scientific results, some of which would probably qualify for publication in the interdisciplinary journals Science and Nature.

RCSED expansion prospects: one million galaxies will be there soon

The current release of the RCSED catalog could have comprised a larger number of galaxies or contained extra bits of information about the currently included objects, but at this moment the scientists have decided to focus on well-characterized datasets, which are described in detail and have known advantages and disadvantages. However, taking into account the project importance for extragalactic astronomy and observational cosmology, the RCSED team is going to move forward and expand the catalog in the near future.

There are two principal directions of further RCSED development: the galaxy sample expansion and incorporating new data for existing objects. The team considers a possibility to include near- and mid-infrared data from the WIS? satellite all-sky survey for the entire galaxy sample. However, this requires some additional methodical work in order to homogenize the data for galaxies at different redshifts.

Moreover, it is possible to expand the principal galaxy sample by including spectra from the latest data release of the SDSS-III survey. This will turn 800,000 to 1.5 million objects.

Incorporating the publicly available spectral data from the Hectospec archive (Igor Chilingarian has played a major role in the Hectospec archive project) will add 300-400 thousand objects at larger distances, whose spectra were collected with the 6.5-meter MMT telescope in Arizona. The current RCSED release comprises mostly nearby galaxies (by cosmological measures), whose redshifts are smaller than 0.4, because SDSS did not include faint objects. Therefore, the early Universe is not represented in the catalog at all. The Hectospec archive will allow the team to move a little bit further in the cosmological distance scale until the redshift of 0.7. If they add several thousand galaxies from the DEEP2 survey conducted with the 10-meter Keck telescope in early 2000s, they could get insights into objects at redshift up-to 1.0, when the Universe was less than half of its present age.

Igor Chilingarian concludes: "We shall be able to see the global picture in about ten years from now, when large surveys like DESI have collected 25-30 million galaxy spectra out to intermediate redshifts."

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The RCSED project has been supported by the collaborative grant, provided by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR) and The French National Center for Scientific Research (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CNRS). On earlier stages the project was supported by the grants from the Russian Science Foundation (RScF), the President of the Russian Federation, along with French resources, available in the framework of the VO-Paris Data Center at the Paris Observatory.
WOODS HOLE, Mass.--What did the last common ancestor of the vertebrate animals -- a very small, soft-bodied marine organism that lived about 600 million years ago -- look like? While the portrait is still emerging, a new study indicates that it had gills.

This week in Current Biology, J. Andrew Gillis of the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, and the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), Woods Hole, demonstrates that gills evolved once early in vertebrate evolution and were later inherited by both vertebrate lineages (jawless and jawed) when they branched.

"We can now pinpoint the origin of gills to around the time when animals were making the transition from passive filter-feeders to a more active, predatory type of existence," Gillis says. "This is the transition from early chordate animals that spent most of their time living in the sand, filtering particles out of the water, to animals that were swimming around and, given their shape and musculature in fossils, looked very fishlike."

In this study, Gillis and co-author Olivia R.A. Tidswell correct the long-held misunderstanding that the gills evolved separately and independently in the two vertebrate lineages, which had been based on incomplete embryological data. Through cell tracing experiments in little skate embryos in the MBL Whitman Center, Gillis showed that the gills in jawed vertebrates (sharks and skates, bony fishes, humans, etc.) arise from endoderm tissue (the skin lining the inside of the throat), and not from ectoderm tissue (the skin on the outside of the head) as previously thought. In jawless vertebrates (lamprey and hagfish), the gills also arise from the endoderm, supporting the idea that such gills were present in the last common ancestor of all vertebrates.

"There is a classical view of vertebrate evolution that you start with a very simple organism, with more and more features added to give rise to the complex fishes and land animals that exist now," Gillis says. "But this study indicates that last common ancestor of all vertebrates could already have been quite a sophisticated animal. It exhibited complex features, such as gills, that we see in living vertebrates today."

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Citation:

Gillis, J. Andrew and Tidswell, Olivia R.A. (2017) The Origin of Vertebrate Gills. Current Biology DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2017.01.022.

The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is dedicated to scientific discovery - exploring fundamental biology, understanding marine biodiversity and the environment, and informing the human condition through research and education. Founded in Woods Hole, Massachusetts in 1888, the MBL is a private, nonprofit institution and an affiliate of the University of Chicago.
AUGUSTA, Ga. (Feb. 9, 2017) - It's been known for decades that a bacterial infection can raise your blood pressure short term, but now scientists are putting together the pieces of how our own dying cells can fuel chronically high, destructive pressure.

Quite literally billions of our cells die daily and their remains are mostly taken up by garbage-eating immune cells like macrophages. But scientists have increasing evidence that when cell carnage increases because of high blood pressure, the mounting debris also gets the attention of our immune system, causing inflammation and blood vessel constriction that contributes to worsening hypertension.

"It's a circle," said Dr. R. Clinton Webb, chairman of the Department of Physiology at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, in which inflammation is a constant and, which isn't addressed in today's treatment regimens.

"The more blood pressure goes up, the more injury you have," said Webb, and he and his colleagues want to understand the signaling pathways that are driving this inflammation that further drives blood pressure.

Webb, a vascular expert, is principal investigator on a $9.4 million Program Project Grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, that will further parse how contents regularly spilt from a surplus of dying cells contribute to this unhealthy and seemingly vicious circle.

While the chicken or the egg question isn't answered, it's clear that higher blood pressure -- from causes like obesity to genetics to salt sensitivity -- increases cell death. Once outside the dying cell, typical contents like DNA as well as HMGB1, which helps stabilize the DNA, are categorized as damage associated molecular patterns, or DAMPs.

The scientists call DAMPs "alarm signals" because they look like bacterial or viral invaders to the immune system. That sets in motion likely well-intended inflammation to fight the invader but blood-vessel constriction and narrowing, kidney and other organ damage, and more cell death also follow.

The new grant is enabling Webb and his team to look at what happens when the increased cell carnage inside blood vessel walls increases the release of DNA from cell powerhouses called mitochondria -- DNA which actually is distinctly different from our own.

Project leaders Drs. Jennifer Sullivan and Paul O'Connor, respectively, are exploring how the different ways cells die in males and females impact the damage that follows the release of HMGB1, and how an onslaught of these and other DAMPs cripple the kidney's ability to help regulate blood pressure.

Dr. Adviye Ergul, vascular physiologist, is managing the bioinflammation core, and Dr. Michael Brands, cardiovascular-renal physiologist, is managing the animal use and instrumentation core for the five-year studies to ensure the consistency of results gathered and minimal animal usage.

Hypertension affects about one third of the adult population in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Webb thinks DAMPs are both the result of and initiators of hypertension in many.

"Cells are dying all over if you have hypertension," Sullivan said. Smooth muscle cells and endothelial cells that comprise the blood vessels are definite casualties. "There is no doubt there are more dead cells in the hypertensive blood vessel," Webb said.

All this internal debris has to go somewhere and some finds its way into nearby cells. There it can activate immune receptors that instead of just consuming it, mount a fight that further damages the form and function of blood vessels and organs, Webb said.

Like bacteria, DAMPs activate Toll-like receptors, or TLRs, that can be found inside many cells and outside others, although they are known to translocate. The nine different types of TLRs also have in common some degree of activation of MYD88, a downstream molecule, which in turn activates transcription factor NF-kB, which helps control gene expression as well as cell death and growth. In the case of activation by DAMPs, TLRs initiate inflammation, a good reaction when, for example, TLR4 responds as it should to a membrane component of bacteria.

But Webb's team is focusing on what happens inside blood vessels when excessive cell death leads to excessive release of the mitochondrial DNA. Even with its foreign DNA, as with other DAMPs, all is fine until mitochondrial DNA gets spilled. At that moment it can start to activate TLR9s inside immune, vascular smooth muscle or endothelial cells, Webb said. One of the many questions the researchers want to answer is whether TLR4 and TLR9 have some unfortunate inflammatory synergy through their activation of MYD88 in this scenario.

The long-term goal of Webb and his colleagues: identifying targets that could block some of the unintended results without putting people at risk for additional disease by generally suppressing their natural immune response.

"Imagine, for example, if you could figure out a drug that would actually block say the uptake of mitochondrial DNA," Webb said. Or, in the case of Sullivan, a pharmacologist and physiologist, a drug that reduces excessive activation of T-cells, the drivers of the immune response.

"There is this growing interest in the adaptive immune response and T cells being important in causing increases in hypertension," Sullivan said of a finding that has been shown in animal models and people. "There is evidence of T-cell activation, but what is causing it?" Knowing that answer could lead to treatment that selectively blocks excess activation, so the scientists are looking upstream for activators.

Like most things in the body, there are balances, in this case effector T cells that promote inflammation and Tregs that reduce it. Effector T cells are definitely a contributor to hypertension and DAMPs are likely one of their activators, particularly in males, Sullivan said.

High blood pressure tends to kill cells in males through necrosis, in which cells essentially burst open. At least before the age of menopause, females experience more apoptosis, or programmed cell death, a natural, cleaner approach to cell elimination that better contains their innards.

"The way a cell dies is important, and the males are releasing things to a greater degree," Sullivan said. On the other hand, apoptosis, in which the cell engulfs itself, is actually anti-inflammatory, and appears instead to attract calming Tregs. Sullivan and her team have watched this scenario play out in isolated kidney and heart cells.

"Both sexes are becoming hypertensive but it doesn't mean they are taking the same path to get there," she said. And, if they can learn more about the differences -- along with any common ground - they can devise more effective treatment for at least a segment of patients with hypertension.

The new grant also is enabling a further look at how cells die in males versus female hypertensive rats. Also, when scientists inhibit each cell death method, what that does to blood pressure regulation as well as which T cells get activated. While Sullivan isn't certain she could or would make the males apoptose, right now she wants to know more about which cells are dying in the kidneys, how they are dying and what immune response gets activated as a result in the males versus females. A future goal may instead be inhibiting necrosis in males.

One of the many things necrosis dumps, and the scientists are following, is the molecule HMGB1. Outside the cell, this DNA stabilizer gets the attention of the immune system, in this case, TLR4. Their theory and early evidence indicates more HMGB1 is dumped in the males than in their female counterparts.

O'Connor, a renal physiologist, is also focusing on the kidneys. He wants to test the hypothesis that high levels of DAMPs interfere with the critical work of the middle portion of the kidney. This renal medulla, which is directly linked to the tubules which collect urine, is critical to concentrating urine so you can still eliminate salt and other byproducts, particularly when you are not consuming enough liquid.

O'Connor likens the renal medulla to a sand pit for salt and the unique long, thin-walled U-shaped blood vessels help ensure that all salt -- which the kidneys use to help regulate fluid volume and blood pressure - is not lost.

However, the odd vascular configuration that O'Connor calls an "Achilles heel" also makes the blood vessels susceptible to clogging. "We think they are always susceptible to getting clogged up. The red blood cells have a tendency to get trapped in there," he said. There appears to be a sort of traffic circle to help keep things moving because these blood vessels are lined by tiny contractile cells called pericytes that O'Connor calls "24 plumbers on demand." He and his team are exploring whether DAMPs interfere with the pericytes' ability to contract, enabling a pileup that interferes with kidney function and further drives up blood pressure.

"We think DAMPs might hamper this contraction and allow red blood cells to get stuck. As that slowly happens, it changes the kidney function and contributes to high blood pressure," O'Connor said. They know this happens with the odd-shaped red blood cells of sickle cell disease. Their pursuits include exploring whether endothelial cells that line the unusual vasculature are stimulated by DAMPs to make more of the blood vessel dilator nitric oxide, which weakens the contractility of pericytes.

If the theory and early evidence hold, drugs that support the contractile cells could enable the kidneys to remain helpful in avoiding hypertension, rather than worsening it. The researchers note the vast capacity of the kidneys to support us, and that related problems typically do not become apparent until about 80 percent of function is lost.

"We are trying to identify whether DAMPs play a role in the hypertensive process. I think that is the fundamental question," Webb said of the extensive studies ahead.

In a related study recently added to the already long list, Webb is collaborating with Dr. Kebin Liu, cancer immunologist in the MCG Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the Georgia Cancer Center, to explore the fact that hypertension also is emerging as the most common comorbidity - which is collateral damage essentially - of chemotherapy.

Like high blood pressure, cancer drugs increase cell death and resulting cellular debris, including DAMPs, again appear to catch the attention of the immune system. Cancer patients may later find themselves with hypertension and other cardiovascular damage. So Webb and Liu are giving rats tumors, treating them with chemotherapy and then looking at what happens to their blood vessels to further clarify the association. They note that cancer and cardiovascular trouble such as hypertension share some risk factors like smoking and obesity.

Webb noted that a burned tongue from a hot cup of morning coffee that is mostly better by that afternoon illustrates normal cell death and typically rapid recovery. It's when diseases such as hypertension start killing off an excessive number of cells throughout the body, that normal compensatory mechanisms become overwhelmed. Age makes us less able to cope with increased debris from dying cells.

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Two investigational agents, Aurora A kinase inhibitor (alisertib) and HSV1716, a virus derived from HSV-1 and attenuated by the deletion of RL1, have shown some antitumor efficacy in early clinical trials as monotherapies. A new study published last week in Oncotarget, however, demonstrates that the combined usage of the agents results in significantly increased antitumor efficacy in models of malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor (MPNST) and neuroblastoma. "We chose to investigate this combination in MPNST and neuroblastoma because these are two difficult-to-treat sarcomas that have shown susceptibility to these agents individually," explains Timothy Cripe, MD, PhD, division chief of Hematology/Oncology & BMT at Nationwide Children's Hospital and senior author on the study. "MPNST is a rare pediatric cancer, but for patients with neurofibromatosis 1, a genetic cancer predisposition disorder, it is the leading cause of death. More importantly, MPNST is resistant to chemotherapy."

According to Dr. Cripe, who is also a principal investigator in the Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Diseases in The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's, many mechanisms likely worked synergistically to increase the antitumor effect in this study. Particularly, HSV1716 increased the sensitivity of uninfected cells to alisertib cytotoxicity. Second, alisertib increased peak virus production and slowed virus clearance from tumors. The team also found that alisertib inhibited virus-induced accumulation of intratumoral myeloid derived suppressor cells.

"Our study shows that alisertib helps the infection phase of HSV1716 because innate immunity is impacted," says Dr. Cripe, also professor of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. "It's possible that it could inhibit the second phase, the downstream immunotherapeutic effects of the virotherapy, but based on data from other studies, we don't think that is the case."

Moving forward, Dr. Cripe says that confirming the sustained immunotherapeutic benefits of HSV1716 in the presence of alisertib and building a clinical trial are important next steps in understanding how these agents work together and how they could impact care for patients.

"Our results, in the context of early trials of both substances individually that have shown safety and efficacy, support the testing of this combination in children and young adults with neuroblastoma and MPNST," says Dr. Cripe. "As these agents continue to move through the development and approval processes, we look forward to studying them further."

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The study was a collaboration among researchers from Nationwide Children's, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Takeda Pharmaceuticals International Co. and Virttu Biologics.

Reference:

Currier MA, Sprague L, Rizvi TA, Nartker B, Chen C-Y, Wang P-Y, Hutzen BJ, Franczek MR, Patel AV, Chaney KE, Streby KA, escedy JA, Conner J, Ratner N, Cripe TP. Aurora A kinase inhibition enhances oncolytic herpes virotherapy through cytotoxic synergy and innate cellular immune modulation. Oncotarget. 28 Jan 2017. [Epub ahead of print]
BETHESDA, MD - The National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) today announced that Michael N. Hall, Ph.D., Professor of Biochemistry, Biozentrum of the University of Basel, Switzerland, has been selected as the winner of the 2017 Szent-Gyorgyi Prize for Progress in Cancer Research.

In 1991, Hall discovered one of the most important cancer cell targets in the modern era of oncology, which he named "Target of Rapamycin" or TOR. He discovered that TOR - a conserved protein kinase - controls cell growth and a wide range of metabolic processes that when dysregulated cause disorders such as cancers, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity. TOR inhibitors are used today in treatments for kidney, breast, brain and pancreatic cancers, and numerous clinical trials are currently underway testing TOR inhibitors in the treatments of many types of cancer.

Michael N. Hall will be honored at a ceremony on May 1, 2017 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

"Michael N. Hall has contributed in a fundamental way to our understanding of critical life processes," said Mary-Claire King, Ph.D., Professor of Medical Genetics and Genome Sciences at the University of Washington and winner of the 2016 Szent-Gyorgyi Prize. Mary-Claire King, Chair of the 2017 Prize Selection Committee, emphasized that "his work is devoted to the discovery and characterization of the protein TOR, which controls many features of cell metabolism and behavior. Understanding how the pathways regulated by TOR work, and how they fail to work in cancer, has provided new strategies for the development of cancer therapies. Michael N. Hall's work is a lovely example of how basic science - experimental studies of proteins in yeast - can lead to discoveries of critical clinical importance."

"I am honored to have our cancer research recognized by the esteemed Szent-Gyorgyi Prize and to stand alongside the extraordinary scientists who have won it in previous years," said Hall, who was unanimously selected as the 2017 Szent-Gyorgyi Prize winner by the Prize Selection Committee. "I hope our work continues to pave the way for new scientific discoveries that lead to effective cancer treatments."

"Michael N. Hall's breakthrough discovery of TOR during a basic research phase has made possible many of today's advanced anti-cancer therapies - and this is a concrete example of how laboratory research at a fundamental stage can impact cancer treatment and patient care," said Sujuan Ba, Ph.D., Co-Chair of the 2017 Szent-Gyorgyi Prize Selection Committee and President of NFCR. "Michael N. Hall is most deserving of the 2017 Szent-Gyorgyi Prize and NFCR thanks him for his continued work in cancer research. We look forward to seeing more discoveries from him in the future."

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About Michael N. Hall, Ph.D.

Michael N. Hall was born in 1953 in Puerto Rico and grew up in South America. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and was a post-doctoral fellow at the Pasteur Institute and the University of California, San Francisco. He joined the Biozentrum of the University of Basel in 1987 where he is currently a Professor.

Hall is a pioneer in the fields of TOR signaling and cell growth control. In addition to discovering TOR, he demonstrated that TOR forms two functionally distinct complexes in yeast and humans: TORC1 acts as an essential sensor of nutrients (specifically amino acids) and with TORC2 plays a central role in controlling cell growth and metabolism. Hall's research shows that cell growth is not a spontaneous process that just happens when building blocks (nutrients) are available, but rather a highly regulated, plastic process controlled by TOR-dependent signaling pathways. As a central controller of cell growth and metabolism, TOR plays a key role in development and aging.

Hall is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and has received numerous awards, including the Cloetta Prize for Biomedical Research (2003), the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine (2009), the Marcel Benoist Prize for Sciences or Humanities (2012), the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences (2014) and the Canada Gairdner International Award for Biomedical Research (2015).

About the Szent-Gyorgyi Prize for Progress in Cancer Research

The Szent-Gyorgyi Prize for Progress in Cancer Research was established by the National Foundation for Cancer Research in 2006 in honor of its co-founder, Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, M.D., Ph.D., who received the 1937 Nobel Prize for his study of vitamin C and cell respiration. The annual prize honors scientists who have made an original discovery or breakthrough in scientific understanding that has had a lasting impact on the cancer field and a direct impact of saving people's lives. Moreover, the award serves to highlight the essential role basic research plays in understanding cancer.

The 2017 Szent-Gyorgyi Prize Selection Committee was chaired by Mary-Claire King, Ph.D., and co-chaired by NFCR President Sujuan Ba, Ph.D. Other leading cancer researchers are on the selection committee, including:

Frederick W. Alt, Ph.D., Boston Children's Hospital & Harvard Medical School;

Webster K. Cavenee, Ph.D., Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research;

Carlo M. Croce, M.D., The Ohio State University;

Uta Francke, M.D., Stanford University;

Margaret T. Fuller, Ph.D., Stanford University;

Alex Matter, M.D., Experimental Therapeutics Center & D3, *STAR, Singapore;

John C. Reed, M.D., Ph.D., Roche;

Philip Tsichlis, M.D., Tufts University School of Medicine;

Peter K. Vogt, Ph.D., The Scripps Research Institute;

Zena Werb, Ph.D., University of California, San Francisco;

Qimin Zhan, M.D., Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, China; and

General Secretary Yi Michael Wang, M.D., Ph.D., MBA, NFCR.

About the National Foundation for Cancer Research

The National Foundation for Cancer Research is a charity dedicated to funding innovative cancer research and public education relating to cancer prevention, earlier diagnosis, better treatments and, ultimately, cures for cancer. NFCR promotes and facilitates collaboration among scientists to accelerate the pace of discovery from bench to bedside.

Since 1973, NFCR has provided nearly $340 million in direct support of discovery-oriented cancer research focused on understanding how and why cells become cancerous, and on public education relating to cancer prevention, detection and treatment. NFCR scientists are discovering cancer's molecular mysteries and translating these discoveries into therapies that hold the hope for curing cancer. NFCR is about Research for a Cure--cures for all types of cancer.

For more information, please visit nfcr.org.
A regressive step

When the Gender Equality Act was passed a year ago, it finally put to rest the struggle for equal property rights for women.
For the first time, scientists using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have witnessed a massive object with the makeup of a comet being ripped apart and scattered in the atmosphere of a white dwarf, the burned-out remains of a compact star. The object has a chemical composition similar to Halley's Comet, but it is 100,000 times more massive and has a much higher amount of water. It is also rich in the elements essential for life, including nitrogen, carbon, oxygen, and sulfur.

These findings are evidence for a belt of comet-like bodies orbiting the white dwarf, similar to our solar system's Kuiper Belt. These icy bodies apparently survived the star's evolution as it became a bloated red giant and then collapsed to a small, dense white dwarf.

As many as 25 to 50 percent of white dwarfs are known to be polluted with infalling debris from rocky, asteroid-like objects, but this is the first time a body made of icy, comet-like material has been seen polluting a white dwarf's atmosphere.

The results also suggest the presence of unseen, surviving planets which may have perturbed the belt and worked as a "bucket brigade" to draw the icy objects into the white dwarf. The burned-out star also has a companion star, which may disturb the belt, causing objects from the belt to travel toward the burned-out star.

Siyi Xu of the European Southern Observatory in Garching, Germany, led the team that made the discovery. According to Xu, this was the first time that nitrogen was detected in the planetary debris that falls onto a white dwarf. "Nitrogen is a very important element for life as we know it," Xu explained. "This particular object is quite rich in nitrogen, more so than any object observed in our solar system."

Our own Kuiper Belt, which extends outward from Neptune's orbit, is home to many dwarf planets, comets, and other small bodies left over from the formation of the solar system. Comets from the Kuiper Belt may have been responsible for delivering water and the basic building blocks of life to Earth billions of years ago.

The new findings are observational evidence supporting the idea that icy bodies are also present in other planetary systems, and have survived throughout the history of the star's evolution.

To study the white dwarf's atmosphere, the team used both Hubble and the W. M. Keck Observatory. The measurements of nitrogen, carbon, oxygen, silicon, sulfur, iron, nickel, and hydrogen all come from Hubble, while Keck provides the calcium, magnesium, and hydrogen. The ultraviolet vision of Hubble's Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) allowed the team to make measurements that are very difficult to do from the ground.

This is the first object found outside our solar system that is akin to Halley's Comet in composition. The team used the famous comet for comparison because it has been so well studied.

The white dwarf is roughly 170 light-years from Earth in the constellation Bootes, the Herdsman. It was first recorded in 1974 and is part of a wide binary system, with a companion star separated by 2,000 times the distance that the Earth is from the sun.

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The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA Goddard manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C.

For images and more information about the exocomets and Hubble, visit:

http://hubblesite.org/news_release/news/2017-09

http://www.nasa.gov/hubble

For additional information, contact:

Ann Jenkins / Ray Villard

Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland

410-338-4488 / 410-338-4514

jenkins@stsci.edu / villard@stsci.edu

Siyi Xu

European Southern Observatory

011-49-89-3200-6298

sxu@eso.org
In nature, proteins are assembled into sophisticated and highly ordered structures, which enable them to execute numerous functions supporting different forms of life. The exquisite design of natural proteins prompted scientists to exploit it in synthetic biology to engineer molecules that can self-assemble into nanoparticles with desired structure and that may be used for various purposes such as gas storage, enzyme catalysis, intracellular drug delivery, etc.

Cytoplasmic polyhedrosis viruses (cypoviruses) infecting insects are embedded in protein crystals called polyhedra which shield the virus from damage. The structure of polyhedra crystals (PhCs) suggests that they can serve as robust containers which can incorporate and protect foreign molecules from degradation, ensuring their compositional and functional stability.

Overview of Research Achievement

Extreme stability of polyhedra under harsh conditions is provided by dense packing of polyhedrin monomers in crystals with solvent channels of very low porosity, which, however, limits the incorporation of foreign particles. Research group led by Satoshi Abe and Takafumi Ueno at Tokyo Institute of Technology hypothesized that if a porous framework inside PhCs is extended without compromising crystal stability, PhCs can be used for accumulation and storage of exogenous molecules in living cells. As in natural PhCs, polyhedrin monomers form a trimer, the scientists assumed that if amino acid residues at the contact interface of each trimer are deleted, the porosity of the resulting crystals would be increased. To achieve this goal, they genetically engineered polyhedrin monomers, which were then expressed and self-assembled in Spodoptera frugiperda IPLB-Sf21AE, the larva of an armyworm moth, infected with baculovirus. The mutant PhCs maintained crystal lattice of the wild-type PhC but had significantly extended porosity (Figure) due to the deletion of amino acid residues with the rearrangement of intra- and intermolecular hydrogen bonds. As a result, the engineered crystals could adsorb 2-4 times more exogenous molecules (fluorescent dyes) compared to the wild type PhC, with up to 5,000-fold condensation of the dyes from the 10 uM solution.

As a next step, the scientists examined the performance of the mutant crystals in living insect cells. PhCs showed high stability in the intracellular environment. Most importantly, the mutant crystals could accumulate and retain the dyes in live cells, while the natural crystals could not.

Rationale crystal design used by scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology provides a powerful tool for structural manipulation of self-assembled protein crystals to obtain porous nanomaterials with regulated adsorption properties. The engineered porous PhCs can be used as protein containers for in vivo crystal structure analysis of the cellular molecules and bioorthogonal chemistry in various types of living cells.

Structural analysis of microcrystals

Since tiny crystals with only a few microns size were obtained, the structure analyses were performed at beamlines BL32XU and BL41XU at SPring-8, a large synchrotron radiation facility which delivers the most powerful synchrotron radiation. The high-resolution structures were rapidly analyzed with the help of an automated data collection system developed in RIKEN.

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(New York, NY - February 3, 2017) --Researchers at Mount Sinai Health System have discovered a way to predict whether blood cancer patients who received a bone marrow transplant will develop graft-versus-host disease, a common and often lethal complication, according to a study published in JCI (The Journal of Clinical Investigation) Insight.

This international study at 11 cancer centers examined blood samples from almost 1,300 bone marrow transplant patients and found that two proteins present in blood drawn a week after a transplant can predict whether a patient will develop a lethal version of graft-versus-host disease, weeks before the disease's symptoms normally occur. Scientists at the Mount Sinai Acute GVHD International Consortium (MAGIC) created an algorithm, dubbed the "MAGIC algorithm," that determines a patient's risk of developing the disease by measuring concentrations of these proteins, ST2 and REG3a.

"The MAGIC algorithm gives doctors a roadmap to save many lives in the future. This simple blood test can determine which bone marrow transplant patients are at high risk for a lethal complication before it occurs," says James L.M. Ferrara, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, Oncological Sciences and Medicine, Hematology and Medical Oncology at The Tisch Cancer Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Co-director of MAGIC. "It will allow early intervention and potentially save many lives."

Doctors at Mount Sinai are now designing clinical trials to determine whether immunotherapy drugs, normally used during the onset of graft-versus-host disease, would benefit patients as soon as this new blood test determined they would be at high risk for severe onset of the disease. Researchers believe that if patients receive the drugs once the test is administered, which is well before symptoms develop, they would be spared the full force of the disease, and fewer of them would die.

"This test will make bone marrow transplant safer and more effective for patients because it will guide adjustment of medications to protect against graft-versus-host disease," says John Levine, MD, MS, Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine, Hematology and Medical Oncology at The Tisch Cancer Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Co-director of MAGIC. "If successful, the early use of the drugs would become a standard of care for bone marrow transplant patients."

Graft-versus-host disease occurs when the bone marrow donor's immune system sees the recipient's body as foreign and launches an immune response, attacking the recipient's tissue, primarily the skin, liver, and gastrointestinal tract. Between 40 and 60 percent of patients who receive bone marrow transplants later develop severe graft-versus-host disease, and about 40 percent of people who develop the disease die.

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The study was supported by grants P01 CA03942 and P30 CA106521 from the National Cancer Institute, an American Cancer Society Clinical Research Professorship (to Dr. Ferrara) and a Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Clinical Research Mentorship.

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 7,100 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 on the "Honor Roll" of best hospitals in America, ranked No. 15 nationally in the 2016-2017 "Best Hospitals" issue of U.S. News & World Report. The Mount Sinai Hospital is also ranked as one of the nation's top 20 hospitals in Geriatrics, Gastroenterology/GI Surgery, Cardiology/Heart Surgery, Diabetes/Endocrinology, Nephrology, Neurology/Neurosurgery, and Ear, Nose & Throat, and is in the top 50 in four other specialties. New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai is ranked No. 10 nationally for Ophthalmology, while Mount Sinai Beth Israel, Mount Sinai St. Luke's, and Mount Sinai West are ranked regionally. Mount Sinai's Kravis Children's Hospital is ranked in seven out of ten pediatric specialties by U.S. News & World Report in "Best Children's Hospitals."

For more information, visit http://www.mountsinai.org or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
The breakdown of methane hydrates due to warming climate is unlikely to lead to massive amounts of methane being released to the atmosphere, according to a recent interpretive review of scientific literature performed by the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Rochester.

Methane hydrate, which is also referred to as gas hydrate, is a naturally-occurring, ice-like form of methane and water that is stable within a narrow range of pressure and temperature conditions. These conditions are mostly found in undersea sediments at water depths greater than 1000 to 1650 ft and in and beneath permafrost (permanently frozen ground) at high latitudes. Methane hydrates are distinct from conventional natural gas, shale gas, and coalbed methane reservoirs and are not currently exploited for energy production, either in the United States or the rest of the world.

On a global scale, gas hydrate deposits store enormous amounts of methane at relatively shallow depths, making them particularly susceptible to the changes in temperature that accompany climate change. Methane itself is also a potent greenhouse gas, and some researchers have suggested that methane released by the breakdown of gas hydrate during past climate events may have exacerbated global warming.

The new review concludes that current warming of ocean waters is likely causing gas hydrate deposits to break down at some locations. However, not only are the annual emissions of methane to the ocean from degrading gas hydrates far smaller than greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere from human activities, but most of the methane released by gas hydrates never reaches the atmosphere. Instead, the methane often remains in the undersea sediments, dissolves in the ocean, or is converted to carbon dioxide by microbes in the sediments or water column.

The review pays particular attention to gas hydrates beneath the Arctic Ocean, where some studies have observed elevated rates of methane transfer between the ocean and the atmosphere. As noted by the authors, the methane being emitted to the atmosphere in the Arctic Ocean has not been directly traced to the breakdown of gas hydrate in response to recent climate change, nor as a consequence of longer-term warming since the end of the last Ice Age.

"Our review is the culmination of nearly a decade of original research by the USGS, my coauthor Professor John Kessler at the University of Rochester, and many other groups in the community," said USGS geophysicist Carolyn Ruppel, who is the paper's lead author and oversees the USGS Gas Hydrates Project. "After so many years spent determining where gas hydrates are breaking down and measuring methane flux at the sea-air interface, we suggest that conclusive evidence for release of hydrate-related methane to the atmosphere is lacking."

Professor Kessler explains that, "Even where we do see slightly elevated emissions of methane at the sea-air interface, our research shows that this methane is rarely attributable to gas hydrate degradation."

The review summarizes how much gas hydrate exists and where it occurs; identifies the technical challenges associated with determining whether atmospheric methane originates with gas hydrate breakdown; and examines the assumptions of the Intergovernmental Panels on Climate Change, which have typically attributed a small amount of annual atmospheric methane emissions to gas hydrate sources.

The review also systematically evaluates different environments to assess the susceptibility of gas hydrates at each location to warming climate and addresses the potential environmental impact of an accidental gas release associated with a hypothetical well producing methane from gas hydrate deposits.

Virginia Burkett, USGS Associate Director for Climate and Land Use Change, noted, "This review paper provides a truly comprehensive synthesis of the knowledge on the interaction of gas hydrates and climate during the contemporary period. The authors' sober, data-driven analyses and conclusions challenge the popular perception that warming climate will lead to a catastrophic release of methane to the atmosphere as a result of gas hydrate breakdown."

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The paper, "The Interaction of Climate Change and Methane Hydrates," by C. Ruppel and J. Kessler, is published in Reviews of Geophysics and is available here. The USGS and University of Rochester research that contributed to the review was largely supported by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.

More information about the University of Rochester's Dept. of Earth and Environmental Sciences is available here.

The USGS Gas Hydrates Project has been advancing understanding of U.S. and international gas hydrates science for over two decades. The Project focuses on natural gas hydrates and their potential as an energy resource, interaction with the climate system, and possible association with geohazards such as submarine landslides. In the last decade, the group has participated in energy resource studies on the Alaskan North Slope and in the Gulf of Mexico, Indian Ocean, and other locations. Studies of climate-hydrate interactions have been carried out in the Beaufort Sea, on the U.S. Atlantic margin, and at international sites.
Study under the aegis of the University of Bonn shows how immunocytes cooperate with each other

A few days after a viral infection, countless killer cells swarm out to track down and kill infected body cells. In this way, they are highly effective at preventing pathogens from being able to spread further. An international research team has now explained an important mechanism behind building this army. The work under the aegis of the University of Bonn is published in the journal Immunity.

Killer cells -- called cytotoxic T cells in the technical jargon -- are somewhat like a well-trained police dog: as long as they don't know that an infection is currently spreading somewhere in the body, they behave peacefully. They only become active and multiply when forensics rubs a "piece of property" of the pathogen under their nose. Only then do they head out to destroy the intruder.

The role of forensics is assumed by the dendritic cells. They patrol around the clock and keep a lookout for molecules that should not actually be inside the body. When they make a find, they present the foreign molecule on their surface. Then they wait for a killer cell, to which they can show their find.

However, there are a great many different killer cells in the body. Each of them specializes in a certain foreign substance and can only be activated by a specific one. It thus usually takes a little time until the right bloodhound comes across the dendritic cell. But then things happen quickly: the killer cell begins to divide rapidly. Within a couple of days, an army of special forces is thus created, which can advance towards the pathogen.

Cooperation at a cellular level

"We have investigated what has to happen so that the killer cells multiply as effectively as possible," explains Prof. Wolfgang Kastenmuller. The scientists at the Institute of Experimental Immunology at the University of Bonn led a study involving researchers from Japan, the USA, Italy and Germany. "Until now, it was thought that contact with the dendritic cell was sufficient here. However, we were able to show that the killer cell first forms a kind of team by ordering up other cell types in a targeted way.

Immediately after instruction by a dendritic cell, the killer cell thus triggers a kind of chemical help signal. Images from a special microscope show for the first time how specialized cells of the body's defenses then head towards it. Upon arrival, these helpers set various immune processes in motion. Only in this way is the killer cell fully activated.

This now begins to divide significantly. What's more, the arising army differentiates itself: some cells become particularly strong, but short-lived, killers. Others, meanwhile, become a kind of memory cell, which can be activated quickly in the event of another infection.

"The killer cell thus first creates a very specific microenvironment," emphasizes Kastenmuller. "This is essential for a coordinated and strong immune defense mechanism." The scientists hope that their fundamental work will open up new possibilities over the long term for further improving vaccinations against viruses or tumors.

###

Publication: A. Brewitz et al.: CD8+ T cells orchestrate pDC - XCR1+ dendritic cell spatial and functional cooperativity to optimize priming; Immunity; DOI: 10.1016/j.immuni.2017.01.003

Contact:

Prof. Wolfgang Kastenmuller

Institute of Experimental Immunology

University of Bonn

Tel. +49-0-228/28711040

E-mail: wkastenm@uni-bonn.de
Many scientists believe the Earth was dry when it first formed, and that the building blocks for life on our planet -- carbon, nitrogen and water -- appeared only later as a result of collisions with other objects in our solar system that had those elements.

Today, a UCLA-led team of scientists reports that it has discovered the existence of a white dwarf star whose atmosphere is rich in carbon and nitrogen, as well as in oxygen and hydrogen, the components of water. The white dwarf is approximately 200 light years from Earth and is located in the constellation Bootes.

Benjamin Zuckerman, a co-author of the research and a UCLA professor of astronomy, said the study presents evidence that the planetary system associated with the white dwarf contains materials that are the basic building blocks for life. And although the study focused on this particular star -- known as WD 1425+540 -- the fact that its planetary system shares characteristics with our solar system strongly suggests that other planetary systems would also.

"The findings indicate that some of life's important preconditions are common in the universe," Zuckerman said.

The scientists report that a minor planet in the planetary system was orbiting around the white dwarf, and its trajectory was somehow altered, perhaps by the gravitational pull of a planet in the same system. That change caused the minor planet to travel very close to the white dwarf, where the star's strong gravitational field ripped the minor planet apart into gas and dust. Those remnants went into orbit around the white dwarf -- much like the rings around Saturn, Zuckerman said -- before eventually spiraling onto the star itself, bringing with them the building blocks for life.

The researchers think these events occurred relatively recently, perhaps in the past 100,000 years or so, said Edward Young, another co-author of the study and a UCLA professor of geochemistry and cosmochemistry. They estimate that approximately 30 percent of the minor planet's mass was water and other ices, and approximately 70 percent was rocky material.

The research suggests that the minor planet is the first of what are likely many such analogs to objects in our solar system's Kuiper belt. The Kuiper belt is an enormous cluster of small bodies like comets and minor planets located in the outer reaches of our solar system, beyond Neptune. Astronomers have long wondered whether other planetary systems have bodies with properties similar to those in the Kuiper belt, and the new study appears to confirm for the first time that one such body exists.

White dwarf stars are dense, burned-out remnants of normal stars. Their strong gravitational pull causes elements like carbon, oxygen and nitrogen to sink out of their atmospheres and into their interiors, where they cannot be detected by telescopes.

The research, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, describes how WD 1425+540 came to obtain carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen. This is the first time a white dwarf with nitrogen has been discovered, and one of only a few known examples of white dwarfs that have been impacted by a rocky body that was rich in water ice.

"If there is water in Kuiper belt-like objects around other stars, as there now appears to be, then when rocky planets form they need not contain life's ingredients," said Siyi Xu, the study's lead author, a postdoctoral scholar at the European Southern Observatory in Germany who earned her doctorate at UCLA.

"Now we're seeing in a planetary system outside our solar system that there are minor planets where water, nitrogen and carbon are present in abundance, as in our solar system's Kuiper belt," Xu said. "If Earth obtained its water, nitrogen and carbon from the impact of such objects, then rocky planets in other planetary systems could also obtain their water, nitrogen and carbon this way."

A rocky planet that forms relatively close to its star would likely be dry, Young said.

"We would like to know whether in other planetary systems Kuiper belts exist with large quantities of water that could be added to otherwise dry planets," he said. "Our research suggests this is likely."

According to Zuckerman, the study doesn't settle the question of whether life in the universe is common.

"First you need an Earth-like world in its size, mass and at the proper distance from a star like our sun," he said, adding that astronomers still haven't found a planet that matches those criteria.

The researchers observed WD 1425+540 with the Keck Telescope in 2008 and 2014, and with the Hubble Space Telescope in 2014. They analyzed the chemical composition of its atmosphere using an instrument called a spectrometer, which breaks light into wavelengths. Spectrometers can be tuned to the wavelengths at which scientists know a given element emits and absorbs light; scientists can then determine the element's presence by whether it emits or absorbs light of certain characteristic wavelengths. In the new study, the researchers saw the elements in the white dwarf's atmosphere because they absorbed some of the background light from the white dwarf.

###

In addition to Xu, Young and Zuckerman, co-authors of the research are Michael Jura, a UCLA professor of astronomy who died in 2016; Beth Klein, a former graduate student of Jura's; and Patrick Dufour, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Montreal.
Scientists are joining lawyers, policymakers and writers to urge conservationists not only to save species, but also to preserve a diverse array of ecosystem structures and functions in the face of rising populations and changing climate. This could include allowing some species to disappear from some areas if that means a more resilient environment able to respond to warming temperatures and loss of habitat.

Key to assessing the health of today's rapidly changing ecosystems is understanding their history, which can only be read from the fossil record, or the paleobiology of the region, the scientists argue.

"In the past, conservation biology was about trying to hold everything static, to save everything just the way it is, like you have a museum collection of species," said senior author Anthony Barnosky, a professor emeritus of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, who is now executive director of Stanford University's Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve. "But we are changing the planet so much that we can't expect to hold to the old norms. Already there are new normals, and in the future there will be even more new normals. So the question is: How do we do conservation biology under that scenario of really rapid change?"

The answer is rethinking how to manage ecosystems, whether wilderness like Yellowstone National Park or a field of strawberries, to promote healthy change over time.

"We are advocating in this paper that we have to preserve the capacity to respond to changes in a way that keeps the ecosystem healthy, which will likely involve watching species come and go, watching assemblages of species change, and in any given place, what we regard as a normal ecosystem today will not be the same 20 to 30 years down the road," Barnosky said.

The ideas came from a workshop involving 41 scholars from around the world convened at UC Berkeley by an international group of collaborators in September 2015 to discuss the future of conservation. The group, which included ecologists, conservation biologists, paleobiologists, geologists, lawyers, policymakers and writers, is publishing its conclusions in a perspective paper appearing in the Feb. 10 issue of the journal Science.

"Having collaborators from developing parts of the world helped us ground our ideas," said Elizabeth Hadly, a professor of biology at Stanford University and co-author of the paper. "Our ideas are well-motivated in science, but must account for the realities people living in these landscapes experience each day."

Is conservation about preserving museum specimens?

Barnosky noted that conservation biologists have become split between those who want to focus on preserving ecosystems such as wilderness areas by excluding humans, and those wanting to manipulate what they refer to as "novel ecosystems" that result from human activities.

The workshop group's consensus was that both perspectives are needed. Historically intact ecosystems, like parts of the Amazon, could be managed to simultaneously maximize biodiversity, a balanced food web and ecosystem services such as storing carbon or cleansing water, all the while preserving a feeling of wildness.

Other ecosystems, like agricultural fields, could be managed to maximize producton without destroying the biodiversity surrounding them, as often happens with monocultures of corn, wheat or soybeans.

"We rely on nature for almost everything: clean water, food, materials for construction and making computers and phones," said co-author Allison Stegner, a former UC Berkeley graduate student who is now a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "The pace of global change today is so fast that we stand to lose all of those things that we rely on. Coming up with new approaches to conservation is essential to maintaining human life."

Whether dealing with historically intact or novel ecosystems - the 47 percent of Earth's ice-free land that has been altered by humans - scientists need to look at the paleobiology of the region, that is, what the ecosystem looked like before humans altered it, and seek to rebuild it to some degree toward that natural balance, Barnosky said.

In many cases, this may involve trying to preserve a member of the community that does a critical job, like a top carnivore, although the particular species that does the job may change through time.

"One of the things we are arguing is, let's decide what we are trying to preserve and then use the paleobiological record to tell you how to preserve it. The fossil record is becoming critical in guiding nature into the future," Barnosky said.

For novel ecosystems, the paleobiological record is essential because we may have to artificially rebuild a healthy ecosystem, which means knowing the jobs of each species there and making sure we have the right number of large mammals, for example, or the right balance of carnivores and herbivores.

"You have to know the pieces, the functional roles and how to put species together to make an ecosystem that is going to last and maintain itself and remain healthy," Barnosky said.

###

Other UC Berkeley co-authors of the paper are David Ackerly, Cindy Looy, Charles Marshall and Marvalee Wake of the Department of Integrative Biology; Justin Brashares of the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management; Holly Doremus and Eric Biber of Berkeley Law; former postdoc Emily Lindsey, now a curator at the Los Angeles County Museum; and visiting scholar Patrick Gonzalez, a climate change scientist with the National Park Service.

The 2015 workshop was funded by the Integrative Climate Change Biology Group of the International Union of Biological Sciences; the Museum of Paleontology, UC Berkeley's Initiative for Global Change Biology and Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research; the Conservation Paleobiology Group in Stanford's Department of Biology; and the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Center in Frankfurt, Germany.
(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) -- Older adults who live in poor and violent urban neighborhoods are at greater risk for depression, a study by researchers from UC Davis, the University of Minnesota and other institutions published Jan. 23 in the journal Health & Place has found.

The research specifically showed that older adults who lived in neighborhoods with more homicide and a higher poverty rate experienced more depressive symptoms. In fact, neighborhood homicide rates accounted for almost a third of the effect of neighborhood poverty on older adult depression.

According to the World Health Organization, depression affects 120 million people worldwide. It is the third leading cause of global disease burden and it is projected that unipolar depressive disorders will become the leading cause of global disease burden by 2030. While depression is a major issue at any age, it is a particular concern for the elderly, increasing disability and mental decline and reducing quality of life.

"Given the shift towards an aging population and the growing rates of depression among older adults, understanding the factors that contribute to depression is critical," said Spruha Joshi, a doctoral student in epidemiology at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and first author on the paper. Neighborhoods in which older adults live are an important factor influencing depression and overall mental health, she said.

"We wanted to investigate the total effect poverty has on older adult depression, but also look at particular characteristics that might explain that relationship," said Magdalena Cerda, associate professor in the UC Davis Health Department of Emergency Medicine and senior author. "Specifically, what is it about poor neighborhoods that make people depressed? This study really highlights the role violence plays in affecting mental health."

While previous studies revealed a link between poverty and depression, few have focused exclusively on older adults. In addition, previous efforts had not addressed the many conditions in poor neighborhoods that could contribute to older adult depression.

"Older adults tend to be less mobile and more dependent on the amenities, services and sources of social support in the neighborhoods where they live," Joshi said.

For the study, the researchers queried data from the New York City Neighborhood and Mental Health in the Elderly Study II (NYCNAMES II), a three-year study of elderly residents in the nation's most populous city. Depression was measured using the nine-question Patient Health Questionnaire.

The team looked at several neighborhood factors that might contribute to depression, such as high homicide rates, poor perception of safety, pedestrian and bicyclist injuries, green space, social cohesion and walkability. The study sample was 61 percent female and 47 percent non-Hispanic white. In addition, 60 percent of respondents had incomes below $40,000.

While many factors were examined, violence was the only neighborhood characteristic that substantially contributed to depression in older adults in impoverished, urban communities.

"We found that about 30 percent of the relationship between neighborhood poverty and depression was explained by the higher homicide rate," Cerda said.

These findings could help shape policy to improve quality of life for older adults in urban neighborhoods.

"Violence in the pathway between poverty and depression is a critical finding," Joshi said. "Now we can look at neighborhoods that are not only poor but also have high levels of violence and possibly provide support for older adults in the area."

The study highlights the key role that violence can play in shaping the mental health of local residents. By investing in violence prevention in high-poverty neighborhoods, it's possible to reduce violence and improve the mental health of vulnerable populations, Cerda added.

More work will need to be done to tease out the relationships between neighborhood conditions and depression for older adults in impoverished neighborhoods.

"There are still many pathways through which poor neighborhoods can shape mental health that we don't yet understand," Joshi said. "Identifying these pathways will be critical if we want to identify suitable ways to promote mental health in local residents."

###

The research article, entitled "Pathways from neighborhood poverty to depression among older adults," is available online.

Other researchers included Stephen J. Mooney, Andrew G. Rundle and James W. Quinn at Columbia University and John R. Beard at the University of Sydney.

This research was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health.

MEDIA CONTACT:

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Email: cfgan@ucdavis.edu

Public Affairs

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COLLEGE PARK, MD -- Researchers from the University of Maryland College Park (UMD) and Baltimore (UMB) campuses have developed a blood test that could help doctors more quickly diagnose schizophrenia and other disorders. Their study, "Redox Probing for Chemical Information of Oxidative Stress," was recently published in the journal Analytical Chemistry.

"We hope our new technique will allow a more rapid detection and intervention for schizophrenia, and ultimately lead to better outcomes," said Gregory Payne, one of the authors and a joint professor with UMD's Fischell Department of Bioengineering (BIOE) and the Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR).

Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe mental disorder that affects approximately one percent of the U.S. adult population and influences how a person thinks, feels, and behaves. The onset of symptoms usually begins between ages 16 and 30. Symptoms can range from visual and auditory hallucinations and movement disorders to difficulty beginning and sustaining activities.

Currently, diagnosing schizophrenia and similar disorders requires a thorough psychological evaluation and a comprehensive medical exam to rule out other conditions. A patient may be evaluated for six or more months before receiving a diagnosis and beginning treatment, particularly if he or she shows only early signs of the disorder.

Recent studies have indicated that patient outcomes could be improved if the time elapsed between the onset of symptoms and the initiation of treatment is much shorter. For this reason, researchers believe a chemical test that could detect oxidative stress in the blood -- a state commonly linked with schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders -- could be invaluable in helping to diagnose schizophrenia more quickly.

The UMD and UMB team, led by research associate Eunkyoung Kim, used a discovery-driven approach based on the assumptions that chemical biomarkers relating to oxidative stress could be found in blood, and that they could be measured by common electrochemical instruments.

Building on an understanding of how foods are tested for antioxidants, an iridium salt was used to probe blood serum samples for detectable optical and electrochemical signals that indicate oxidative stress in the body. The promising initial tests have shown various biological reductants can be detected, including glutathione, the most prominent antioxidant in the body.

The group worked with professor of psychiatry Deanna Kelly and her team at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, University of Maryland School of Medicine, to perform an initial clinical evaluation using serum samples from 10 clinical research study participants who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and a healthy control group. Using the new testing method, the research group was able to correctly differentiate the samples of those who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia from those who had no history of the disorder.

"Much emerging data suggests that schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders may be due, in part, to inflammation and oxidative stress abnormalities," Kelly said. "Current methods for measuring these potential biomarkers are not standardized and have many flaws. Our team is excited to work with our collaborators at the University of Maryland to help develop a technique that can more globally measure these outcomes. Being able to have a subjective marker for clinical response or aid in more prompt diagnosis could be revolutionary."

###

Researchers from the university's Fischell Department of Bioengineering (BIOE), Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR), Institute for Systems Research (ISR), Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), and MEMS Sensors and Actuators Laboratory (MSAL), as well as the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Psychiatric Research Center, contributed to the paper. The full list of authors is: Eunkyoung Kim (BIOE/IBBR), Thomas E. Winkler (BIOE/MSAL), Christopher Kitchen (Maryland Psychiatric Research Center), Mijeong Kang (BIOE/IBBR), George Banis (BIOE/MSAL), William Bentley (BIOE/IBBR), Deanna Kelly (Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, University of Maryland School of Medicine), Reza Ghodssi (ISR/ECE/MSAL/BIOE), and Gregory Payne (BIOE/IBBR).

This research is supported by the National Science Foundation, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, and the National Institutes of Health.

The A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland serves as the catalyst for high-quality research, innovation, and learning, delivering on a promise that all graduates will leave ready to impact the Grand Challenges (energy, environment, security, and human health) of the 21st century. The Clark School is dedicated to leading and transforming the engineering discipline and profession, to accelerating entrepreneurship, and to transforming research and learning activities into new innovations that benefit millions. Visit us online at http://www.eng.umd.edu and follow us on Twitter @ClarkSchool.
HOUSTON - Researchers have identified a gatekeeper protein that prevents pancreatic cancer cells from transitioning into a particularly aggressive cell type and also found therapies capable of thwarting those cells when the gatekeeper is depleted.

A team from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center describes this week in the journal Nature a series of preclinical experiments using patient-derived tumor xenografts (PDXs) and mouse models that point to potential treatments for patients with a rapidly-progressing and resistant subgroup of tumor cells.

"Pancreatic cancer cells are characterized by remarkable plasticity, cellular changes that make this malignancy so difficult to treat," said first author Giannicola Genovese, M.D., instructor in Genomic Medicine.

Genovese and colleagues found, in a subset of tumor cells, after the original oncogenic driver fades, depletion of a gene called SMARCB1 results in a cellular change to mesenchymal status, a mobile and invasive cell state.

The team also found a vulnerability for mesenchymal cells: they are overly reliant on accelerated protein production to meet increased metabolic needs.

"Inhibiting proteostasis in combination with standard of care chemotherapy was highly effective in killing these most aggressive subpopulations of pancreatic cancer," Genovese said.

Identify, understand tumor cells to kill them

This led the team to look at a drug called AUY922, an inhibitor of heat shock protein 90, which blocks proteostasis - the creation, folding, distribution and degrading of proteins. Both as a single agent and combined with the chemotherapy gemcitabine, AUY922 increased the response rate and lengthened survival of mice whose tumors faithfully recapitulated key features of human pancreatic cancers.

A key challenge in treating cancer stems from molecular and genomic variability of tumor cells, which causes functional differences across cells that can fuel resistance to treatment.

"We are working to dissect the cell populations within tumors to attempt to understand the functional vulnerabilities of each, then to plan for more rational combinatorial treatment approaches," said Giulio Draetta, M.D., Ph.D., professor of Genomic Medicine and director of MD Anderson's Institute for Applied Cancer Science.

Draetta, who is corresponding author of the paper, noted that identifying the subpopulation of aggressive cells and establishing their vulnerability to proteostasis inhibitors allows a match of treatment to specific cell type. "This is truly functionally defined, personalized medicine."

Path to mesenchymal status

To identify and study the impact of pancreatic cancer cell plasticity, the team established an experimental approach to isolate and characterize single cell clones called "escapers" that spontaneously acquire malignant features. They identified two major sub-populations, one preserving simpler epithelial differentiation, one displaying mesenchymal features.

Profiling the two types of escaper populations revealed that mesenchymal clones are characterized by the extinction of KRAS signaling, a common driver of pancreatic cancer, and the abnormal activation of epigenetic programs regulated by the chromatin remodeling factor SMARCB1.

Lower SMARCB1, shorter life

To explore the clinical relevance of these findings, the researchers analyzed surgically removed tumors from 134 patients and identified a subset of patients whose tumors displayed low levels of SMARCB1, independence from KRAS signaling and who had a dismal prognosis.

Subsequent experiments ablating the SMARCB1 gene in mouse models led to the rapid expansion of mesenchymal sub-populations with powerful growth and metastatic characteristics. Restoring SMARCB1 caused mesenchymal cells to revert to the less aggressive epithelial type, establishing SMARCB1 as a gatekeeper of epithelial identity.

The researchers also found that SMARCB1-deficient cells had increased protein synthesis rates and activation of a number of protein-related stress-response pathways. They also found that expression of the oncogene MYC is required to maintain the mesenchymal state in SMARCB1-deficient cells.

To test the stress-response connection, they ablated a crucial stress response gene, which resulted in tumor regression and prolonged survival in mice.

These findings led to the experiments with the HSP90 inhibitor AUY922, which caused tumor cell death and hindered growth in SMARCB1-deficient mice but had a limited impact on mice with intact SMARCB1. The combination with gemcitabine extended survival in mice transplanted with patient-derived xenografts.

Hunting mechanisms of cell change

"This work represents the first step of a major effort to understand the mechanisms allowing malignant cells to hijack specific gene programs to adapt to stress and survive," Genovese said. "Today we have a detailed map of the genetic landscape driving cancer initiation and progression, but our knowledge of the epigenetic, metabolic and molecular programs conferring on tumors cells the ability to change state are still elusive."

The team is developing novel technological tools to dissect those mechanisms in detail and also collaborates with the Institute for Applied Cancer Science to translate its findings by designing tailored clinical trials to exploit the vulnerabilities of those highly aggressive mesenchymal cells.

###

This research was funded by grants from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health (5 UO1 CA141508), the American Association for Cancer Research, the Sheikh Ahmed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research at MD Anderson; and the Fondazione Italiana per la Ricerca sul Cancro.

MD Anderson co-authors with Draetta and Genovese are Alessandro Carugo, James Tepper, Frederick Scott Robinson, Liren Li, Maria Svelto, Luigi Nezi, Denise Corti, Rosalba Minelli, Piergiorgio Pettazzoni, Tony Gutschner, Sahil Seth, Kadir Caner Akdemir, Samirkumar Amin, Andrea Viale and Lynda Chin, all of Genomic Medicine; Chia-Chin Wu, Elisabetta Leo, Virginia Giuliani, Jill Garvey, Jianhua Zhang and Carlo Toniatti of the Institute for Applied Cancer Science; Haoqiang Ying of Molecular and Cellular Oncology; Lawrence Kwong of Translational Molecular Pathology; Simona Colla and Koichi Takahashi of Leukemia; Papia Ghosh of the Office of Technology Commercialization; Florian Muller of the Cancer Systems Imaging; Prasenjit Dey, Shan Jiang and Ronald DePinho of Cancer Biology; Chang-Gong Liu of Experimental Therapeutics; Jason Fleming of Surgical Oncology; Anirban Maitra and Huamin Wang of Pathology; also Tim Heffernan of C4 Therapeutics, Cambridge Mass.; Abbas Agaimy of Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, University Hospital, Erlangen, Germany; Michael Goggins and Laura Wood of The Sol Goldman Pancreatic Cancer Research Center, Johns Hopkins University; Alessandro Sgambato of Policlinico "Agostino Gemelli", Universita' Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome; Charles Roberts of St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, Memphis.
Breaking the threshold

Just the other day, I happened to hear a radio discussion on the issue of introducing a threshold in parliamentary elections.
Thursday, February 9, 2017

If youve been avoiding the topic of pre-need funeral planning, you need to know about this weeks NPR investigative story focused on how difficult it can be to get a handle on funeral costs. The two-part series ran on All Things Considered and Morning Edition. Click here to access the stories through The Family Plot Blog.

Its not that funeral establishments dont want you to know what they charge for their services. My recent story, Eight Things Funeral Directors Want You to Know, featured great tips and was widely shared on the popular womens website, Sixty and Me. Many thanks to Amy Cunningham, Jodi Clock, Joe Pray, Jamie Sarche, and Syd Waldman for their insights.

The next Albuquerque Death Cafe is scheduled for Sunday, February 19 from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. Please let me know if youd like to attend.

Links to recent posts at The Family Plot Blog, upcoming events and a funny quote follow. Please call 505.265.7215 if I can be of assistance!

Gail Rubin, The Doyenne of Death

The Family Plot Blog Highlights

Click on the titles to read the blog post and see the associated videos. Review all posts on The Family Plot Blog or view just the Death Cartoons posted on the blog!

Celebrating the History of African-American Funeral Traditions In honor of Februarys Black History Month, enjoy part one of this fascinating background about African-American funeral service traditions and how they evolved.

Introducing the Dump-A-Drawer Way to Declutter Overwhelmed by clutter every time you open a drawer, a cabinet or a closet? Try Gail Rubins Dump-A-Drawer approach to decluttering!

Mary Tyler Moore Plans Chuckles Funeral Mary Tyler Moores recent death prompted an outpouring of loving tributes. Check out these scenes from the Emmy Award-winning episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Chuckles Bites the Dust. Available on Amazon.com, its an excellent way to get funeral planning conversations started with humor.

Why Include a Thanatologist in Your Circle of Life Experts? Gary Newman, a regular columnist in the Myrtle Beach Sun News (a.k.a. MyrtleBeachOnline.com), wrote this column that included a favorable mention of my latest book, KICKING THE BUCKET LIST: 100 Downsizing and Organizing Things to Do Before You Die.

Upcoming Events and a Funny Quote

See the Calendar page for a full listing of events.

Friday, February 10, 2017, 1:00 p.m.  Laughing and Learning: An End-of-Life Workshop at the University of New Mexico, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, Albuquerque, NM. Fee: $20. Register online for class 79681.

Sunday, February 19, 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Albuquerque Death Cafe at Gail Rubins home. RSVP for address or join the Meetup Group.

March 10-12, 2017  Frozen Dead Guy Days in Nederland, Colorado, featuring The Newly-Dead Game and continuous showings of the documentary, Grandpas in the TUFF Shed on Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday, March 18, 9:15 to 10:15 a.m.  Gail Rubin keynotes the Cancer Support Now conference in Albuquerque, NM. Her talk, titled A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Dont Plan to Die, is sponsored by Morris Hall, PLLC, a premier estate planning law firm. Register for the daylong conference at www.CancerSupportNow.org.

Wednesday, March 22, 2:30 p.m.  The University of New Mexico Retiree Association features Gail Rubin on Kicking the Bucket List: Downsizing and Organizing Things to Do Before You Die at the UNM Continuing Education Center North Building.

Thursday, March 23, noon  Congregation Albert Open Mind luncheon series features Gail Rubin speaking on Downsizing and Organizing. Location: The Board Room at Congregation Albert, 3800 Louisiana Blvd. NE, Albuquerque, NM.

I cheated on the final of my metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me.  Woody Allen

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Thursday, February 9, 2017

(NewsUSA) - We may all be one stomach bug away from an unexpected hospital visit. Accidents and illnesses can occur without warning, wreaking havoc on finances and negatively impacting everyday life, even with health insurance.

While many people have major medical insurance, rarely do they prepare for the additional financial impact of out-of-pocket costs even a short stay in the hospital can incur. The average length of a hospital stay is 4.6 days and costs $11,000, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

What would the average family have to give up to pay that type of medical bill -- eating out at restaurants for a year or more, weekly lawn service, maid service, pet grooming or family movie nights?

No one should have to stress about the impact hospital visits and related expenses could have on everyday life. That's why companies like Aflac have designed supplemental hospital indemnity insurance policies to help cover what major medical insurance may not. Hospital insurance provides additional coverage that can help protect individuals and families from potentially devastating medical expenses, allowing them to keep their lives on track.

When specific events associated with a hospital visit occur, policyholders receive cash benefits that can be used to help cover everything from treatment costs to expenses that health insurance doesn't typically cover, such as, rent, gas, groceries, utilities, child care and other necessities.

Unique Needs Require Unique Benefits

It is important to note that not all hospital plans are created equal and not all hospital visits are necessarily related to an accident or critical illness. Appendicitis, fever or even a child's repeated earache can lead to a hospital stay.

Keep an eye out for plans that include customizable benefits, such as telemedicine, diagnostic exams, acute care and psychologist visits, and that provide the coverage you and your family may need. The right combination of hospital benefits can enhance your existing coverage and help add protection from life's mishaps.

Be Prepared for The Unexpected

Even if your health changes, life doesn't have to. So help protect your lifestyle through benefits options tailored to your needs. Consider talking to your human resources representative about making supplemental hospital indemnity insurance available at your workplace.

To learn more about Aflac's hospital indemnity policies, visit www.aflac.com/hospital.

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Welsh assembly members have accused the government of 'refusing to engage' with the environment committee's inquiry into Brexit, with its chairman saying the no-show was a cause for 'great concern'.

Both Defra secretary Andrea Leadsom and farm minister George Eustice declined to appear before the inquiry with committee chairman saying he was 'extremely disappointed'.

Welsh environment committee chairman Mark Reckless said it brought into doubt the government's commitment to the spirit of co-operation and respect.

"Given the importance of agricultural and farming policy in Wales, it is vital that AMs and the people of Wales hear directly from Ministers in the UK Government," said Mr Reckless.

The Committee has sought to engage with UK Ministers throughout its inquiry into the future of agricultural and rural policies in Wales.

Addressing Mr Eustice, Mr Reckless said: "You agreed to attend a meeting of the Committee. However, you have now notified me, two days before the meeting is due to take place, that you will not attend.

"You will understand that the apparent refusal of UK Ministers to engage with the Assemblys lead Committee on agricultural policy is a matter of grave concern.

"The Committees recent experience in trying to engage with UK Ministers brings into doubt the UK Governments commitment to that spirit of cooperation and respect."

All parties 'will have to communicate'

Ms Leadsom, who visited south Wales earlier in February, did agree to meet Mr Reckless as the committee's chairman, but 'subsequently cancelled that meeting at short notice', the letter added.

She was joined by Secretary of State for Wales, Alun Cairns MP, for the visit to Abi Readers Goldsland Farm followed by meetings in Cardiff Bay.

But Mr Reckless now says he expects 'as a matter of courtesy and respect' that Mr Eustice attend a meeting of the committee on 15 February or 8 March, 'the only remaining sessions at which we can take evidence for this inquiry.'

John Mercer, director of farmers' union NFU Cymru - which did meet Ms Leadsom on her visit to Wales - said: "It is vital that all stakeholders and politicians work together to help achieve our common goal of delivering a thriving agricultural industry in Wales and the UK post-Brexit which can deliver for all of society."
Stricken bees struggling to get enough nectar to feed themselves are being given a 'sweet deal'.

A sugar collection scheme, run by Tesco, will collect sugar from split bags that are no longer fit for human consumption.

They will be collected by the supermarkets stores in the Cornwall and Devon area and sent to a local bee conservation charity.

Beekeepers then turn the sugar into syrup or fondant which is given to the bees as a replacement for nectar and honey.

Since 2007 the UKs bee population has dwindled by a third as a result of fewer wildflowers, pests and various diseases, all of which makes it harder for bees to produce enough honey to feed themselves throughout the winter.

Iconic pollinators

Lucy Hughes, Tescos Community Manager at Callington store in Cornwall said: Bees are not only central to the process of pollinating crops which later become our food but are an iconic part of the Great British countryside.

The programme, which is run in partnership with the Bee Improvement Programme for Cornwall (BIPCo) currently involves nearly 10 stores in the West Country.

Nick Bentham-Green, chairman of BIPCo said: Recent poor summers have also contributed to bees struggling to get enough stores into the hives to feed their colony throughout the winter.

Tesco is also helping bees in Cornwall and Devon through its Bags of Help initiative, which donates money raised from the sale of carrier bags to local community projects across the UK.

B4 (Bringing Back the Black Bees)  a sister group to BIPCo - won 10,000 worth of funding through the scheme and will be using it to construct a haven for native black honey bees at Mount Edgcumbe, a stately home/country park in SE Cornwall, just across the river from Plymouth.
Welsh rural affairs secretary Lesley Griffiths has announced over 18m worth of funding for sustainable land management scheme, Glastir Advanced.

The Welsh government will offer financial support to farmers to improve the environmental management of their land.

Glastir pays for the delivery of specific environmental goods and services aimed at combating climate change, improving water management and maintaining and enhancing biodiversity.

Glastir Advanced offers targeted financial interventions, aimed at helping farmers and landowners to achieve value for money and environmental improvements for habitats, species, soil and water.

The new round of funding for Glastir Advanced is worth 18.36m and is expected to deliver up to 340 Glastir Advanced contracts in 2018 (estimated at 54k per contract). The Expression of Interest window for Glastir Advanced 2018 will open on 28 February 2017 and will close at midnight on 31 March 2017.

The Cabinet Secretary made the announcement as she officially opened the new Farmers Union of Wales offices in Newtown: "I am very pleased to announce, here at these impressive new FUW offices in Newtown, the opening of a new round of Glastir Advanced funding worth over 18million.

"Glastir Advanced is very much at the forefront of delivering the Welsh Governments objectives for the rural environment. I encourage farmers and landowners across Wales to find out more information on whether they are eligible to apply for a Glastir Advanced contract and, if they are, to submit an expression of interest before 31st March."
Despite the current presidential administration's promise to "dismantle" the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, it's become clear that it neither intends to do so nor does it think that it could. This is why Donald Trump's principal economic advisor, Gary Cohn, is focused on changing out the personnel atop the regulatory entities, as the new appointees could then work within the current regulatory structure to ease the burden on banks.

But just because the Dodd-Frank Act will probably survive -- assuming the Republicans don't widen their majority in the Senate in the mid-term elections, that is -- doesn't mean Cohn's strategy won't have positive implications for investors in bank stocks. Far and away the biggest benefit is likely to be an increase in dividends and stock buybacks.

$100 billion windfall

Most companies are free to increase their dividends or buy back more stock at the discretion of their boards of directors. The same isn't true for banks, which are much more tightly constrained when it comes to allocating capital. As a part of the annual stress tests, the nation's largest banks, such as JPMorgan Chase (JPM 2.74%), Bank of America (BAC 2.51%), and Citigroup (C 2.40%) must request permission to return more capital to shareholders.

This has tripped a number of these banks up in the past. A review of Bank of America's stress-test history shows that it was either denied the opportunity to increase its dividend or didn't seek approval to do so in four out of the past six years. Citigroup has run into similar issues as well. And while JPMorgan Chase has been allowed to boost its dividend every year since the crisis, it seems reasonable to conclude that the New York-based bank would return even more capital to shareholders if the decision was entirely up to it.

All of the nation's biggest banks have thereby accumulated an enormous amount of capital on their balance sheets. They've collected so much, in fact, that a recent Wall Street Journal article concluded that the nation's six biggest banks could return an incredible "$100 billion in capital to investors over time through dividends and share buybacks if the Trump administration succeeds in a push to loosen bank regulation."

The biggest beneficiaries

The biggest beneficiaries are likely to be stockholders in Citigroup. According to veteran bank analyst Dick Bove, Citigroup has $30.3 billion worth of excess capital on its balance sheet above and beyond its regulatory minimum. JPMorgan Chase comes in second, with $26.6 billion, followed by Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America, respectively.

Bank Excess Capital Citigroup $30.3 billion JPMorgan Chase $26.6 billion Wells Fargo $23.1 billion Goldman Sachs $22.8 billion Morgan Stanley $22.3 billion Bank of America $21.2 billion

Before getting too excited, however, there are a couple of things to note. The first is that it remains to be seen whether the Federal Reserve would relinquish its veto authority over bank capital plans even if the White House changes out its personnel. After all, regulators are like other humans in that they don't tend to give up power once it's acquired.

The second thing to note is that the predicted windfall may not come at one time and is most likely to be channeled through stock buybacks as opposed to dramatically higher dividends. Bank of America and Citigroup may be exceptions, as they currently pay out the smallest share of their earnings to shareholders. But even these two banks are likely to focus more on stock buybacks, given that their shares trade for discounts to their respective book values.

Either way, while investors in bank stocks have probably gotten overly optimistic about the extent of an impending regulatory overhaul, this is certainly one area were meaningful changes may be both possible and probable.
Just as cars in Germany need to be inspected every two years to ensure they are safe, other safety-critical objects  turbines, generators or high-pressure containers, for example  have to be examined regularly as well. This is especially important when the materials and products used are pushed to their outermost performance limits in order to increase economic efficiency. To carry out these assessments, inspectors receive a printout map of the factory grounds to help them find their way. Once they locate the structure to be inspected  say, a high-pressure container  they inspect it with help from a sensor. The difficulty is that they have to inspect the entire surface. But which parts have they already evaluated with the sensor, and what still needs to be done? Inspectors also have to undergo a lengthy training process and need a great deal of experience in order to reliably gauge the condition of the various objects to be examined. It is hard to find experienced engineers for this.

Recording 100 percent of the data

Support is on the way: the Fraunhofer Institute for Nondestructive Testing IZFP has developed 3D SmartInspect for intelligent inspection and quality control. With it, inspectors know exactly what has already been measured as well as the results of those measurements. The system also automatically generates a digital protocol, explains Prof. Bernd Valeske, head of department at IZFP and head of the Fraunhofer Innovation Cluster Automotive Quality Saar AQS. Compared to existing processes, 3D SmartInspect is a quantum leap. Even relatively inexperienced inspectors could be employed in the future, and the training process could also be shortened significantly.



In day-to-day work, the process would look like this: inspectors wear augmented reality (AR) glasses, though the system works with a tablet PC or a smartphone too. They view the object to be examined  lets take the high-pressure container again  through the glasses. As the inspectors run the sensor over the object, the corresponding area on the glasses display changes to green while the rest of the container retains its original color. This assures inspectors that they have examined every inch of the object. At the same time, the system constantly verifies that the sensor data has been recorded correctly. Not only can inspectors be sure that they have collected 100 percent of the data, they also know that the measurements are valid, says Valeske.

A direct route to the digital age

Once all data has been acquired, inspectors can see the results immediately on their AR glasses. Areas with any kind of a defect  a cavity where it doesnt belong, or corrosion  appear red on the display. Inspectors can immediately indicate where the repair team needs to intervene, either by using chalk on the actual object or via digital means. Control center experts can also examine all the data as soon as it has been collected  how serious is the detected flaw? Does the repair team need to be called out at once, or can maintenance wait a few days?

Digital testing memory

Generating a test protocol will also be much simpler. Currently, inspectors have to laboriously document their work and then allocate the data to the object measured  a method prone to errors. With 3D-SmartInspect, data is automatically and clearly assigned to the object and writing a protocol is unnecessary. Using the smart assistant sensor systems, engineers can accurately collect the relevant data and capitalize on it in the digital product memory  at every stage of the product lifecycle. Until now, transferring data to the digital world was not a high priority. In the future, we will have a digital testing memory and can embed data automatically in digital systems. This is a very important step, particularly in the context of Industrie 4.0, explains Valeske. Digital approaches such as these offer enormous economic advantages because they significantly reduce  if not completely eliminate  downtimes.



An initial prototype of 3D SmartInspect has already been completed. Fraunhofer researchers will present it, currently using a tablet PC, at the Hannover Messe Preview on February 9 and at the Hannover Messe, April 2428, 2017 (Hall 2, Booth C22). For the next step, the researchers are working on transferring the system to AR glasses.




Haiti - Diplomacy : Mexico congratulates President Jovenel Moise





The Government of Mexico, through its Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE), "congratulates the new President of the Republic of Haiti, Jovenel Moise, who took office on Tuesday after a long electoral process in the country. It also wished success in his management.



Mexico recognizes the efforts of the Haitian people and government to strengthen democracy and institutions in the country and hopes that political actors will join to their development efforts.





The Government of Mexico reiterates its friendship with the people and the Government of Haiti and its willingness to continue to cooperate with the authorities for the benefit of the people of this Caribbean country."



HL/ iciHaoti






















Haiti - News : Zapping politics...





Tips from Cardinal Chibly Langlois

On Tuesday, at the Te Deum, the celebrant, Cardinal Chibly Langlois in his homily said he hoped that President Jovenel Moise would designate "safe, honest and well-prepared citizens, whatever their political affiliation" to sit on his side reminding "[...] Apart from God we will not be able to do anything. The purpose of all authority is to serve the common good. It is time to go beyond oneself, to consensus, to dialogue and to solidarity.



[...] More than ever, the moment is at work, action. is at work, Jovenel Moise , a docile and intelligent heart to lead the people. The family is the reference cell of society. We need peace in our families, our streets and our hearts.



[...] We assure you, Excellency, the President of the Republic, that in your efforts to serve our dear country loyally, you can count on the contribution of the Church, which accompanied the life of this nation from the beginning, and which today, renewed its commitment and its will to serve the great cause of the Haitian: the construction of a sovereign, prosperous and democratic Haiti... Well-Loved compatriots here and elsewhere ! [...]"



Investiture : words of 3 former candidates

Erick Jean Baptiste, Jean Herve Charles and Jean Henry Ceant were among the former presidential candidates who took part in the investiture ceremony. Jean-Baptiste said he was waiting to see the Head of State at work; Jean Herve Charles is ready to accompany the new team in order to improve the situation of the country, while Jean Henry Ceant believes he finds himself in the speech of the President, stressing that the next Prime Minister will have to be able to negotiate with the Parliament and to transcend Group interests.



Michel Martelly happy, but...

"Today marks the triumph of democracy over anarchy and demagogy. The Haitian people made a choice. I am happy to live this day and I pray for better days for our country," declared former President Michel Martelly. But he believes that Jovenel Moses will not be able to change everything alone, stressing the need for the population and the various powers of the State to accompany the new Head of State.



Floral Offering in memory of the Founding Fathers

The 58th President of the Republic, Jovenel Moise, accompanied by the First Lady of the Republic, Martine Moise, visited the Museum of the National Pantheon of Haiti (MUPANAH) for a Floral Offering in memory of the illustrious Founding Fathers of the Fatherland, followed by the signing of the Gold Book and a guided tour of the Museum on the path of our glorious history.



This official ceremony was attended by: President of the Senate, Youri Latortue, President of the Chamber of Deputies Cholzer Chancy, President of the Court of Cassation, Jules Cantave, High Commanders of the National Police of Haiti and the Director General of MUPANAH Michele G. Frisch.



Investiture, Senator pro-Lavalas absent

The four pro-Lavalas senators : Nenel Cassy, Evaliere Beauplan, Antonio Cheramy and Ricard Pierre have been absent at the inauguration ceremony of President Jovenel Moise.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Hendersonville police now carry drug overdose antidote

Related Stories

Hendersonville police officers are joining more than 130 law enforcement agencies across the state in partnership with the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition to carry naloxone, a drug overdose antidote.

Here is Chief Herbert Blake statements about the use of the naloxone, which has a brand name Narcan:

"We were prudent and deliberate in our research before deploying Narcan. We came to the conclusion that we can positively serve our community and potentially save lives by having our police officers equipped with naloxone. Our officers are at times, the first to arrive on the scene of an overdose. We owe it to our citizens to ensure our officers have the training and the necessary tools - naloxone, to make a difference when it matters the most. According to the NCHRC, as of last August service providers that have Narcan kits have successfully administered naloxone more than 3,750 times. The number of reversals for North Carolina responders have been responsible for is substantial  312 as of Dec. 1, 2016. So adding naloxone as an option is a positive step. This is a chance to save lives. Moreover, very recently there was a story about a life being saved by reversing an overdose because an upstate South Carolina police department had their officers equipped and trained to administer Narcan. All of this said, as of the release of this information, a concrete policy to include a detailed naloxone reporting form have been adopted by us. Hendersonville Police Officers have been duly trained to administer Narcan and are ready to execute if needed. I would like to thank Lieutenant Mike Vesely for taking the lead in this affirmative endeavor and assuming the task of Narcan Coordinator for our agency. Mike has made this implementation smooth and cost effective. I would also like to acknowledge the support and the encouragement we received from city leadership in regards to this endeavor. To end, we encourage our citizens to contact us if they have questions or concerns about the Hendersonville Police Departments narcan initiative.
Prithvi Man Shrestha is a political reporter for The Kathmandu Post, covering the governance-related issues including corruption and irregularities in the government machinery. Before joining The Kathmandu Post in 2009, he worked at nepalnews.com and Rising Nepal primarily covering the issues of political and economic affairs for three years.
Riyadh : More than 39,000 Pakistanis have been deported from Saudi Arabia in the past four months, the media reported on Tuesday.

Quoting security sources, the Saudi Gazette newspaper said the deportations were made for violating the rules of residence and work.

The report said the involvement of several Pakistanis in some terrorist actions orchestrated by the Islamic State as well as drug trafficking, thefts, forgery and physical assault prompted calls for thorough scrutiny of Pakistanis aspiring to work in Saudi Arabia.

Abdullah Al-Sadoun, Chairman of the Security Committee of the Shoura Council, called for thoroughly scrutinising the Pakistanis before they are recruited for work in the kingdom, the report said.

Citing the statistics provided by Saudi Interior Ministry, the report said 82 Pakistani suspects were held in intelligence prisons over charges of terror and other security related issues.

As many as 15 Pakistanis, including a woman, were nabbed following the recent terrorist operations in Al-Harazat and Al-Naseem districts in Jeddah.

Source : The Siasat Daily
ISLAMIC radicals from the Muslim Brotherhood are attempting to gain a monopoly over mosques in the German state of Saxony and impose Sharia law, a local security chief has claimed.

Gordian Meyer-Plath, president of the regional department of the German domestic security and anti-terrorist organisation claimed the Muslim Brotherhood have long been active in Saxony, although they were stealthy.

The BfV anti-terror leader posed the question that when a [large] number of Muslims have come to Germany, do they see a chance to expand their network beyond some central structures and become interesting for the new Muslims in Saxony?

Mr Meyer-Plath claimed that while the Muslim Brotherhood in Germany is beyond jihad  meaning it is not directly involved with terror attacks  he says the organisation poses a threat to western democratic systems.

Mr Meyer-Plath added: The Muslim Brothers still want to establish Sharia law in Germany.

The Muslim Brotherhood currently operates in 70 countries. The group is reportedly sponsoring the construction of mosques in Germany in Dresden, Leipzig, Meissen, Riesa, Pirna, Bautzen and Goerlitz.

The security expert urged residents not to be prejudiced to people choosing to pray in these places of worship as it does not mean that people who go there are necessarily being indoctrinated [into and becoming extremists].

He added Muslims who visit such mosques are often absolutely unaware about the nature of the facilities because the Salafist structures are cautious about what they are saying.

The Islamic Cultural Centre in Dresden, which is allegedly controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood, denied accusations of radicalism and added it supports non-political Islam, RT reported.

The Muslim Brotherhood itself claims to be a democratic organisation and condemns acts of violence however the group is considered a terrorist organisation in several Middle Eastern nations include Egypt, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Donald Trump is also facing calls from former Presidential hopeful Ted Cruz to label the group a terrorist organisation.

The head of the Muslims Brotherhood in Syria, Mohammed Hikmat Walid, claimed his group was a peaceful organisation.

Mr Walid said: The Muslim Brotherhood is an organisation that preaches moderate Islam in peaceful means.

We stand firmly against extremism and terrorism and we share common values such as democracy, freedom and pluralism with the rest of the free world. Also, [the bill] will enhance extremism throughout the Islamic world.

Source : Express
Beijing : China on Wednesday defended its move to block a move in the United Nations to designate Pathankot attack mastermind and Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist.

While justifying its decision, Beijing said, the conditions were not met to ban Azhar.

Replying to a spate of questions on China putting a technical hold for the third time on attempts to list Azhar as a global terrorist, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a media briefing here that Beijing resorted to this move to allow the relevant parties to reach a consensus.

Last year 1,267 Committee of the UN Security Council discussed the issue regarding listing Masood (Azhar) in the sanctions list. There were different views with no consensus reached, Lu said.

As for the submission once again by relevant countries to list him in the sanctions list, I would say the conditions are not yet met for the Committee to reach a decision, he said.

China has put the request on technical hold, to allow the relevant parties more time to consult with each other. This is also in line with rules of the relevant resolutions of the Security Council and the rules of the discussion of the Committee, he said.

Chinas reaction comes after, the US along with the UK and France moved the UN for banning the JeM chief.

According to senior government sources, the US, supported by two other permanent members of UN Security Council -the UK and France- moved a proposal at the UNs Sanctions Committee 1267 in the second-half of the last month to proscribe Azhar, adding India had no role in the proposal.

The proposal, which was finalised after consultations between Washington and New Delhi, said JeM is a designated terror outfit and so its leaders cannot go scot-free, sources said. It was submitted just a day before the inauguration of US President Donald Trump, according to officials.

However, China opposed the US move by putting a hold on the proposal, a source said, adding the Chinese action came just before the expiry of the 10-day deadline for any proposal to be adopted or blocked or to be put on hold.

Last year China blocked Indias bid to have Masood Azhar declared an international terrorist by the UN Security Councils 1267 Sanctions Committee.

China repeatedly put a technical hold on Indias resolution for a ban on Azhar in 2016. India says Azhar is the mastermind of the January 2016 terror attack on the Pathankot air base in Punjab.

Source : Zee News
A 12-year-old girl died after being drugged, raped and drowned in a canal, her family claim as they accuse police in Pakistan of failing to investigate her death.

Police ruled the child, named in reports as Tania, committed suicide, according to Christian news websites.

Reports from Pakistan say the youngster died on January 23, when her body was found in the Upper Chenab Canal in the east of the country.

Her family believe she was drugged and assaulted because her mouth was full of froth and her trousers were ripped.

They also dispute police claims that the youngster, who was a Christian, was suffering from depression.

Her father, Nadeem Gill, told the Pakistan Christian Post: Tania was young, happy and full of energy. There is absolutely no way she would take her own life.

Every day in the evening we would spend an hour talking on Skype she would tell me what she had done through the day and would ask me about my day.

She was a truly wonderful and loving daughter. I hated being so far away from her but had to feed my family, I earn more in Dubai then I could ever earn in Pakistan where Christians are hated so much.

Sadly the distance meant I could not be with my daughter when she most needed me.

Our corrupt police force is preventing justice for my daughter. But I will never give up till her murderer is found.

It is claimed before she died, Tania left school and got into a vehicle with someone inside who wasnt her mother.

Her family believe that identifying the person she went off with is key to finding her killer, and the family has called on authorities to exhume her body for further examination.

Source : Dailymail UK
The ultra-right mayor of a Hungarian village has banned Muslims from wearing traditional dress and issuing a call to prayer in what he describes as a war against Muslim culture.

In doing so, Laszlo Toroczkai said he hopes to attract other Christian Europeans who object to multiculturalism in their own countries to migrate to Asotthalom on the Hungarian border with Serbia.

We primarily welcome people from western Europe  people who wouldnt like to live in a multicultural society, Toroczkai told the BBC. We wouldnt like to attract Muslims to the village.

The village is in a remote location in the southern Hungarian plains, about two hours from capital Budapest.

Its very important for the village to preserve its traditions. If large numbers of Muslims arrived here, they would not be able to integrate into the Christian community.

We can see large Muslim communities in western Europe that havent been able to integrate  and we dont want to have the same experience here, he says. Id like Europe to belong to Europeans, Asia to belong to Asians and Africa to belong to Africans. Simple as that.

Recent migration has stoked anti-immigrant feeling in Hungary, and across eastern Europe.

At the height of the refugee crisis, as many as 10,000 people crossed the border from Serbia into Hungary every day  with the crossing point just minutes from Asotthalom.

Toroczkai previously hit the headlines when he issued a chilling video discouraging refugees from entering the country

In the intimidating film, the mayor begins by speaking directly into the camera with his warning message.

Action-movie style music is then played in the background as a simulated chase sequence filmed from the air  featuring a motorbike, a helicopter and two thick-set men on horseback  takes place.

Migrants are told they will be arrested and could face prison if they are caught trying to enter the country illegally.

The bizarre footage closes with Toroczkai standing in a field wearing Terminator-style shades, surrounded by burly border guards in camouflage as the music ends.

He then uses Google Maps to show how the land route from Serbia to Germany is longer through Hungary than Croatia and Slovenia.

He finishes by saying: Do not trust lying human traffickers. Hungary is a bad choice. Asotthalom is the worst.

Source : Dailymail UK
Handheld Tools for Guest Interaction, Streamlined Workflow for Higher Productivity, Tablet Enhancements for Personalized Service, and Direct Booking Flexibility Give Independents an Edge

Maestro PMS, the preferred hotel management system provider for leading independent resorts, hotels, condos, and multi-property groups, revealed its 2017 software development roadmap. Maestro will enhance its suite of 20+ integrated modules with advanced tools for handheld mobile guest interaction, tablet use, direct booking, and Spa system functionality. New solutions include:

Handheld on-property 2-way guest communication that personalizes guest interaction

Maestro Tablet wireless terminals will be enhanced with full-feature Maestro functionality

Maestros ResWave direct booking engine adds greater flexibility to drive higher revenue

ResWave gets an online payment portal for advanced deposits and member/owner/company payments

Browser-based Maestro gains new work-flow features for greater staff productivity

Maestro Spa adds an appointment schedule app for therapists, and a booking calendar

New interfaces for 3rd party solution providers.

Maestro PMS President Warren Dehan said, We listened to our independent and multi-property clients to guide the expansion of Maestros solution set. Our new hotel management software functionality reflects our drive to continually evolve Maestro by applying emerging technologies that achieve our users business and profitability goals.

Dehan said Maestros 2017 hotel management software development is centered on tools that strengthen guest interaction and staff productivity. Our Navicom acquisition last year and the post check-in guest survey is leading us to add 2-way property guest text communication to Maestro. This new personalized messaging lets guests request services with their mobile device and tightens their relationship with the property. Many of our users also want to follow the industrys trend toward an optional front desk. To support this we are enhancing our Tablet systems functionality.

Maestros ResWave direct booking reservation system benefits from a new payment portal that lets guests post advance deposits and partial payments. The new payment portal is within the scope of our PCI certification. All of Maestros credit card payment processes are in line with the standards created by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council to protect guest transactions, and we fully support tokenization, Dehan said.

To improve staff productivity, Maestros widely installed browser-based cloud and on-premise solutions continue to expand with the addition of new work flow processes that streamline operations and improve staff productivity. Maestro hotel management software is a feature-rich system with immense capabilities for storing and retrieving data for guest services; we are adding processes that streamline the system in 2017.

Dehan noted that Maestros Spa & Activities Management System will benefit from a new mobile app that enables spa therapists to monitor their appointment schedule from anywhere and keep them informed and on time. The Spa system will also feature a new booking calendar to simplify client reservations. Additionally, Maestros Spa system is integrated with ResWave online guest room booking to increase revenue by making it easier for guests to book spa appointments while they make their hotel reservations.

Our software development roadmap also involves many new interfaces that integrate with third-party property systems, Dehan said. Our Maestro API is in wide use by vendors whose systems communicate with Maestro, and we continue to support HTNG integrations. In 2017 we are expanding our interfaces to include more guest room keycard systems, revenue management companies, concierge systems, and other solutions our users requested.

Maestro is recognized for providing the industrys most responsive Diamond Plus Service that goes beyond conventional PMS to deliver revenue-generating tools and services to increase profitability, drive direct bookings, centralize operations, and provide personalized guest service to keep guests coming back. Click here for more information on how to reserve, engage and socialize with Maestro PMS.

About Maestro PMS

Maestro is the preferred cloud and on-premise PMS solution for independent hotels, resorts, conference centers, and multi-property groups. This PCI certified and EMV ready enterprise system offers 20+ integrated modules on a single database including web and mobile tools to increase profitability and enable operators to engage guests with a personalized experience. For over 35 years Maestro's Diamond Plus Service has provided unparalleled 24/7 North American based support and education services to keep hospitality groups operational and productive. Click here for more information on Maestro PMS.

Contact:

Maestro PMS

Macarena Lorenzini

8300 Woodbine Avenue, 5th Floor

Markham, ON L3R 9Y7

Canada

Phone: 905-940-1923

Toll Free: 1-888-667-8488

Email: info@maestropms.com

www.maestropms.com

Media Contact

Julie Keyser-Squires, APR

Softscribe Inc.

609 SW 8th Street, Ste 600

Bentonville, AR 72712

Phone: 404-256-5512

Email: Julie(at)softscribeinc.com

www.softscribeinc.com
HITEC Toronto

HFTP is bringing back its cut-throat pitch competition for technology startups to the worlds largest hospitality technology event

Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP), producers of Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition and Conference (HITEC), is now accepting applications to participate in the successful Entrepreneur 20X (E20X) event at HITEC Toronto. Hospitality technology startups who would like to apply for the exciting opportunity can do so by visiting the event website  past applicants and winners are welcome to come back as long as they are considered Series A or a startup. The competition will take place on Monday, June 26, 2017 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in Toronto, Ontario Canada.

HITEC Toronto E20X participants will compete for a grand prize of $5,000 USD. Similar to last year, there will be two E20X awards given  the Judge's Award and the People's Startup Award. The Judge's Award recipient will be determined by the expert panel of judges and also receives the grand prize. The People's Startup Award recipient will be determined by HITEC Toronto attendees and serve as the popular, or crowd favorite, vote. HITEC Toronto attendees will be able to watch the companies compete, visit with company representatives in a designated E20X pavilion in the exhibit hall and vote for their favorite competitor via the upcoming HITEC multi-event app.

"This will be the third year HFTP has produced Entrepreneur 20X, and the Toronto competition will be the second in 2017," said HFTP CEO Frank Wolfe, CAE. "E20X has received an overwhelming amount of positive feedback from both competitors and spectators, and we are excited to bring the program back at the largest HITEC event of the year  HITEC Toronto. The program features some of the most up-and-coming, innovative technology hospitality technology has to offer, and serves as an essential platform for startup companies."

HFTP's expanding E20X program features ambitious and innovative entrepreneurs presenting breakthrough business concepts to a panel of expert judges including hospitality CIOs, angel investors, serial entrepreneurs and industry insiders. The competition will be open to all HITEC Toronto registrants.

"We loved the HITEC E20X competition," said David Temple, from Hello Scout Inc., the winner of the Judge's Award at the HITEC New Orleans E20X competition on June 20, 2016. "It provided us with great exposure and let us get our story in front of lots of people that we wouldn't have otherwise been able to reach. That the judge's chose us as the winner was the icing on the cake."

Videos from last year's E20X competition at HITEC New Orleans are available on the HFTP/HITEC YouTube channel.

In addition to accepting participant applications for the HITEC Toronto E20X competition, HFTP is also accepting participant applicationsfor the first E20X competition in 2017 at the inaugural HITEC Amsterdam on March 28 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Applications must be submitted separately via each event's respective website, accessed directly from www.hitec.org.

HFTP's HITEC Toronto is the second, and largest, of three HITEC events planned for 2017, and will take place June 2629 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in Toronto, Ontario Canada. In addition to HITEC Toronto, in 2017 HFTP is producing two additional, inaugural HITEC events: HITEC Amsterdam and HITEC Dubai. HITEC Amsterdam will serve as the first HITEC event of the year, taking place from March 2830 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. HITEC Amsterdam will feature pre-conference programs on March 28 followed by the full event from March 2930 featuring two full days of education, an expo and networking party. HITEC Dubai will serve as the last HITEC event of 2017, and take place in the Fall in partnership with Naseba.

For more information about HITEC and HFTP's other global activities, contact the HFTP Meetings & Special Events Department at education@hftp.org or visit www.hftp.org and www.hftp.org/hitec.

Stay tuned to HFTP's main webpages: HFTP/HITEC; the world's first hospitality-specific search engine: PineappleSearch  mobile app available via iTunes App Store and Google Play; HFTP's official blog: HFTP Connect; HFTP's industry-specific, informational news sites: HITEC Bytes (technology), HFTP Club Bytes (club), HFTP Finance Bytes (finance) and HFTP News (association); and HFTP's social media sites: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter (@HFTP), Instagram (HFTP_HITEC), YouTube and Flickr for the latest updates.

About HFTP

Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP) is a global nonprofit hospitality association, headquartered in Austin, Texas, USA, that uniquely understands the industry's problems. HFTP has about 4,200 members and several thousand stakeholders across the globe. HFTP assists its members in finding solutions to industry problems more efficiently than any organization via its expert networks, research, conferences such as HITEC and certification programs. HFTP also owns the world's only hospitality specific search engine, PineappleSearch.com. HFTP is recognized as the spokes group for the finance and technology segment of the hospitality industry. For more information about HFTP, e-mail membership@hftp.org.
The Hidden Chasm: Why Your Bookings Keep Falling into the Abyss

This article originally appeared on Tambourine.

The guests road from your hotel marketing campaigns, to your website and finally to online booking is a delicate, razors edge journey filled with several opportunities for the customer to bounce, turn back, and never return.

However, many hoteliers assume a booking is guaranteed once a visitor is on the website and ready to buy. But, beware. There is a dangerous chasm between your hotel website and your booking engine, where potential guests can likely fall off if youre not cautious.

Here are the most common ways to lose potential guests transitioning from your Website to your booking engine:

1. Lack of Personalization

Personalization is a big industry buzz word right now. But cutting through all the hype, the one place where personalization can truly make an immediate impact is on your direct website.

How?

When your hotel website and booking engine are integrated by one provider, personalized web experiences can be created instantly and dynamically. You can show gated and loyalty rates to recognized members of any closed group your hotel wants to create.

Here are a few more examples:

 When a guest from Argentina visits your website and moves into the booking engine, your website can automatically pass the users location and localize room rates in the booking engine to the guests native currency.

 A past guest (Alex in this case) revisits your website after checking dates a week before. You can now present dynamic rate promos only available to loyal past guests. Check out this example from our client, Cassa Times Square NYC:

 Your website tracks user behavior and auto-configures the booking engine with images and messages relevant to that demographic (family vs business traveler).

2. A Slow Loading Booking Engine

It takes mere seconds to kill a booking. Research shows that 25% of consumers will leave a website if it takes more than four seconds to load. That figure jumps beyond 50% if your booking engine takes up to 10 seconds to load.

In a world of instant gratification and lightening-fast internet speed, guests expect every part of your hotels online experience to load immediately. Every moment of delay gives the customer more and more reason to abandon you in search of something better and faster.

Slow page loads and annoying delays are common when a customer plugs in their dates or a discount rate code into the booking engine. Dont lose a hard-earned booking because of something as simple as speed.

Test your load times on different browsers and from mobile devices, which is especially important since many guests are now relying on their own cellular connections (non high-speed wifi) to make online purchases.

3. Inconsistent Experiences Between Website to Booking Engine

The best booking engines are the ones that go unnoticed by the guest. Being transferred someplace that looks and feels different to complete a transaction can cause guests to feel uneasy. This is why user experience (UX) is vital for online transactions.

Even the smallest of changes, like different fonts or different colors, can be jarring to your guests and chip away at the delicate trust and reliability that you worked so hard to establish. So, keep guest confidence high with a seamless transition and a consistent appearance.

A continuous, seamless customer experience is one of the major benefits of using one company for both your website and your booking engine. Customers will move smoothly from examining your guestrooms, looking at property photos and reading up on your amenities, to taking out their credit card and making a reservation.

About Tambourine

Tambourine uses technology and creativity to increase revenue for hotels and destinations worldwide. The firm, now in its 33rd year, is located in New York City and Fort Lauderdale. Please visit: www.Tambourine.com
Profit per room at Doha hotels fell by 23.3% in 2016, representing a second consecutive year of significant profit decline for properties in the Qatar capital, according to the latest data from HotStats.

Profit per room at Doha hotels fell by 23.3% in 2016, representing a second consecutive year of significant profit decline for properties in the Qatar capital, according to the latest data from HotStats.

Despite successfully reducing Labour (-1.9%) and Overhead (-3.8%) costs on a per available room basis, the drop in revenue far exceeded any cost savings and profit per room plummeted in 2016, which was further to the 8.4% decline in profit per room at hotels in Doha in 2015.

2016 has been a particularly tough year of operation for Doha hotels, having achieved only one month of RevPAR (Revenue per Available Room) growth in July, when they recorded an increase of just 0.9%.

Overall, in addition to an 18.2% decline in RevPAR, hotels in Doha suffered declines in ancillary revenues, including Food and Beverage (-11.2%) and Conference and Banqueting (-14.6%). As a result, TrevPAR (Total Revenue per Available Room) fell by 13.5% in 2016, to $297.41.

In an attempt to recover profit, Doha hoteliers have slashed costs in Undistributed Operating Expenses, including Admin & General (-15.9%), Sales & Marketing (-11.7%) and Property & Maintenance (-18.2%). However, due to the ongoing decline in revenue, profit per room at hotels in Doha has now declined by approximately 30.0% in the 24 months to December 2016.

Signs of Recovery as Dubai Hotels Work Hard to Claw Back Profit

Despite the 6.8% decline in 2016, market data suggests that Dubai hoteliers worked hard to claw back profit levels in Q2 by reducing costs.

Hoteliers in Dubai have faced a number of issues which have negatively impacted top and bottom line performance in 2016, including significant additions to hotel supply, which included major projects, such as the 1,004- bedroom Westin Al Habtoor City and 828-bedroom Atana Tecom, as well as a migration to three-star hotel products and economic challenges led by the drop in oil prices.

In the first half of the year, hotels in Dubai were succumbing to these pressures, during which period profit per room fell by 13.2%, which was primarily as a result of declining RevPAR (-11.3%) levels.

However, by Q4 2016, hotels in Dubai had begun to claw back profit through costs savings, illustrated by the 0.7% increase in profit per room in the period from October to December 2016, which was achieved in spite of a 4.4% decline in RevPAR.

For 2016 overall, although hotels in Dubai suffered a year-on-year profit decline of 6.8%, they successfully reduced their cost base with savings in Labour (+1.7%) and Overheads (+2.8%).

Kuwait Relies Heavily on Volume to Minimise Profit Decline

With average room rate levels spiralling downwards, hotels in Kuwait have worked hard to maintain room occupancy in order to minimise profit declines in 2016.

Whilst hotels in Kuwait maintained achieved average room rate, but at the expense of a 3.7 percentage point decline in occupancy in the first half of 2016, the strategy of rate reduction in Q2 2016 enabled hotels in the city to recover much of the loss and record a 3.2 percentage point increase in occupancy, to 47.4%.

The commercial segment remains challenging in Kuwait, with rate declines recorded in the residential conference (-15.5%) and corporate (-11.9%) segments in 2016 and falling revenues noted in the Food and Beverage (- 35.9%) and Conference and Banqueting (-8.5%) departments. As a result, ancillary revenues now comprise 46.1% of total revenue, compared to 54.1% in 2015.

Despite profit per room at Kuwait hotels declining by 18.7% year-on-year in 2016, which is further to the movement in 2014 (+0.5%) and 2015 (-2.1%), there have been positive signs in 2016.

Click here ( Adobe Acrobat PDF file) to view full the report.

HotStats provides two reporting tools to hoteliers:

Our unique profit and loss benchmarking service which enables monthly comparison of hotels performance against their competitors. It is distinguished by the fact that it provides in excess of 100 performance metric comparisons covering 70 areas of hotel revenue, cost, profit and statistics providing far deeper insight into the hotel operation than any other tool.

Our latest innovation in daily revenue intelligence, MORSE. Amongst its reporting are daily and highly granular market segmentation metrics as well as distribution channel and source of booking analysis. It takes daily market intelligence to a whole new level.

For more information contact:

Enquiries

+44 (0) 20 7892 2241

enquiries@hotstats.com
Transitional Justice Act Amendment: Draft defines disappearance

Ten years after the end of the decade-long armed struggle during which nearly 1,500 citizens were disappearedand two years after the formation of a commission to look into cases of disappearancethere is finally some clarity on the horizon when it comes to defining the disappeared persons.
Located in the world's Prime Meridian, where royal legacy is combined with contemporary architecture, DoubleTree by Hilton London Greenwich paves the way as the first Hilton-branded property in the Royal Borough of Greenwich.

Guests can delve into the culture of Greenwich town, as the award-winning 1940's landmark building is ideally located just steps from the historic World Heritage Sites of the original Royal Residence of Queen Elisabeth 1st, Royal Observatory, The Royal Navy College and the famous Cutty Sark. Travellers can soak up the picturesque panoramic views of the River Thames and the City of London's skyline from the top of London's oldest Royal Park, Greenwich Park. DoubleTree by Hilton London Greenwich also enjoys close proximity to Central London, with the city's top attractions just a short train ride away.

"The Royal Borough of Greenwich is a unique location, offering an excellent homebase for guests traveling to explore the town's notable attractions or for those heading into the bustling city centre of London," said Dianna Vaughan, senior vice president and global head, DoubleTree by Hilton. "We are excited to be opening the newest addition to the DoubleTree by Hilton portfolio and providing guests with a memorable stay, beginning with our signature warm DoubleTree Cookie upon arrival."

The exquisitely-designed Oasis O1 restaurant presents Greenwich with a relaxed and unique setting to dine - day or night - and offers international cuisine and locally-sourced ingredients, which change with each season. After indulging in the restaurant's inviting menu, guests can cosy up at the O1 Bar, with some of the best wines, cocktails and champagnes in the area.

DoubleTree by Hilton London Greenwich also features two meeting rooms capable of hosting up to 70 people. Including a pre function area with a private bar, the hotel can provide great space for corporate events and social gatherings. Guests can also refresh with 24-hour access to the fitness centre, featuring top-of-the-range Precor equipment.

"We look forward to welcoming guests and providing the warm and caring DoubleTree service throughout their stay," said Rory O'Leary, general manager of DoubleTree by Hilton London Greenwich. "We are certain the hotel is going to meet the needs of all travellers, whether the guest is heading to a concert at the nearby O2 Arena, in town for an exhibit at the ExCel Conference & Event Centre, or visiting the financial centre in Canary Wharf, we are the perfect fit."
Powered by HVS MexHIC 2017 gives stakeholders a chance to hear from industry leaders and representatives of major hotel brands; network with developers, investors, lenders, and government officials; and engage the many challenges and opportunities of the Mexican and Central American lodging landscape.

Like emerging hospitality markets over the world, Mexico and Central America offer complex but rewarding opportunities for hotel and resort development. HVS is pleased to announce the seventh annual Mexico Hotel and Tourism Investment Conference, or MexHIC 2017, a forum for interaction between market participants focused on defining market drivers, and visualizing a path for sound industry growth.

Powered by HVS MexHIC 2017 gives stakeholders a chance to hear from industry leaders and representatives of major hotel brands; network with developers, investors, lenders, and government officials; and engage the many challenges and opportunities of the Mexican and Central American lodging landscape.

MexHIC 2017 follows in HVS' tradition of organizing leading hotel conferences around the world, including the NYU Hospitality Conference in New York, and annual conferences in China, India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and the Caribbean. Join us March 16, 2017 in Mexico City to cultivate strategies for your hotel and resort program.

mexhic.hvsconferences.com


The Ruling on the Travel Ban: A Lose-Lose Scenario for Business Travel and the Economy

New Data Reveals Dramatic Bottom Line Impact

On Tuesday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco heard arguments from the Department of Justice and opposing attorneys from the states of Washington and Minnesota before they decide the fate of President Trumps executive order banning travel to the United States from seven Muslim-majority countries.

They can ultimately choose to reinstate the travel ban or uphold the lower courts ruling on the temporary stay, which would likely result in an appeal to the Supreme Court. However, both scenarios result in a loss for the travel industry and the economy.

Last week GBTA polled both its U.S. and European members to assess the impact of President Trumps travel ban. In Europe, nearly half of travel professionals reported expectations for their company to reduce business travel over the next three months and 31 percent of U.S. respondents agreed.

Based on the most recent industry data available as of February 8, 2017, the following is the estimated impact:

USA system-wide business travel transaction levels month-over-month (January 2017 vs. December 2016) decreased by up to 8 percent depending on industry and sector

depending on industry and sector USA system-wide business travel transaction levels were increasing by +1.2 percent the week before the travel ban but decreased by -2.2 percent the week after the travel ban for a net negative industry impact of -3.4 percent in one week

In that week, approximately $185 million in business travel bookings were lost as the uncertainty surrounding travel in general had a rippling effect on traveler confidence

as the uncertainty surrounding travel in general had a rippling effect on traveler confidence In 2016, 87.3 percent of USA business travel was domestic travel, 12.7 percent was international travel. This action had a significant disproportionate impact on international travel

For every 1 percent impact on business travel spending annually, the United States gains or loses 71,000 jobs, nearly $5 billion in GDP, $3 billion in wages and $1.2 billion in tax collections

We say it time and again. Business travel drives lasting business growth and is a leading indicator for jobs and the economy at large.

Upholding the travel ban will clearly cause a rippling effect through the travel industry, ultimately hurting the economy. It also unleashes travel disruption like we saw when the order was first implemented. While the White Houses stated goal was acting in the interest of national security, it did not give the civil servants responsible for implementing the ban any chance to do so effectively. There was too much uncertainty and a lack of clarity around the executive order, leading to general confusion. The net effect was that business travel bookings were delayed or canceled.

There is no question that security is of the utmost importance. However, instead of closing our borders, the United States should continue to pursue and focus on expanding security programs like the Visa Waiver Program, which facilitates information-sharing among governments to ensure properly vetted travelers, making us all more safe and secure.

Upholding the lower courts ruling is also a losing situation for the business travel industry. The initial impact has already been felt and the uncertainty it will create as we await an appeal to the Supreme Court will continue to make its mark. Advanced bookings will likely slow as travel professionals cannot be sure if and when the ban will be reinstated. Meetings and events may be cancelled altogether.

The cloud of uncertainty could leave a lasting economic impact. Large corporations and small businesses alike will suffer. The biggest driver of our economic recovery of the past seven years from the most recent downturn was international outbound travel. U.S. businesses found top line growth and business opportunity from new markets all over the world.

We urge the Trump administration to pause this travel ban action, reassess its path forward with key stakeholders and preserve both our national security AND our economy for the future.



The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) is the worlds premier business travel and meetings trade organization headquartered in the Washington, D.C. area with operations on six continents. GBTAs 9,000-plus members manage more than $345 billion of global business travel and meetings expenditures annually. GBTA and the GBTA Foundation deliver world-class education, events, research, advocacy and media to a growing global network of more than 28,000 travel professionals and 125,000 active contacts. To learn how business travel drives lasting business growth, visit www.gbta.org.
About Webcast

There is unprecedented excitement about big data and data analyticseveryone is talking about it, everyone has a view on it, and most organizations we know are working on it. But what are we going to DO with all this data? How does it change the everyday decisions we make as HR and Business Leaders?



Within organizations, the finance, sales, marketing, and supply chain increasingly rely on data and analytics to enhance their effectiveness and drive robust decisions. Despite the vast advancement in tools, technologies, behavioral sciences, and statistics, HR is the last function to truly use data for robust decision making. Our perspective is that driving value though human capital analytics will be a strategic imperative for HR over the next few years.



The webinar will cover:

Four key principles on which organizations should focus as they adopt an analytics lifestyle

1. Focusing on Fact Based Talent Decisions/Investments

2. Quantifying Business Impacts / Telling Stories with Data

3. Preparing for the Next Evolution of HR Transformation

4. Expanding Technology Choices



Four key requirements for adopting an analytics life style

1. Start with the Business Issues and Right Questions

2. Focus on Data-Driven Narratives

3. Develop a Narrative-Building and Analytical Capability

4. Establish a Cadence



We will be co-presenting with our partner Visier, to talk about the importance of having the right technology in adopting an analytics lifestyle.



Join Usha Mirchandani, an expert in the areas of HR Strategy, Talent Management and Talent analytics for this exciting topic.



About the Speaker

Usha Mirchandani is a Partner in the Organization & HR Effectiveness Practice with Aon Hewitt and leader of the Talent Analytics practice. She has over 19 years of HR consulting experience and 10 years of experience with Aon Hewitt. Her key focus areas include HR Strategy and Transformation, Talent Management, Talent analytics and Leadership Development and Organization Design. She has extensive experience in the Talent Strategy and Talent Analytics space. She has led engagements in the area of designing talent strategies, workforce strategies, leadership development and succession planning processes for a range of organizations.



Usha has been a featured speaker on talent analytics at many HR Leadership and HR Analytics conferences across North America. Usha has experience consulting in Asia, Europe and North America.

By registering for this webcast you will receive email communications and notifications from the sponsor(s).
9 February 2017

Mobile payments. Thanks to Payconiq, theyve become perfectly normal for many Belgian consumers. Find out how an ING initiative is conquering the Belgian market, with competitors joining in.

Payconiq CEO Duke Prins, at the companys brand new head office in Amsterdam: Ultimately, theres only one deciding factor: the users. They determine whether were a success.

We are seeing the first generation to not carry wallets or purses. In China, paying by mobile phone has become an accepted way of life. Lots of young people no longer see the point of using cash or payment cards. In Europe too, mobiles are taking over from purses or wallets, with Belgium as one of the pioneers. At the end of last year, there was an acceleration in mobile payments among the Belgians thanks to Payconiq, an ING initiative launched in 2015.



The phone app can be used to pay in thousands of shops and to transfer money to family and friends if they have the app too. You can also collect loyalty points at shops. The Belgian SME market is embracing the initiative, with no fewer than 16,000 retailers signing up in a single quarter. And last but not least, various large Belgian banks including KBC and Belfius have joined the platform.

Play video Payconiq: this is how it works for customers [0:23].

What is Payconiqs strength?

Payconiqs strength lies in its simplicity, says CEO Duke Prins. Its what customers and consumers want: a simple and cheap way of paying digitally.



Its a simple solution: the app takes very little time to install. Theres no need for retailers to buy expensive hardware. They just need a laptop, smartphone or tablet. There are no onerous connection requirements either.



Prins sees the flexibility as a major advantage too. You can use the app at home to order and pay for a product. You can then collect your order directly from the retailer by showing your payment number.



Last summer, the Belgian bank KBC joined Payconiq. Programme Manager Piet Malfait of KBC says that Payconiq is not just a banking product. He praises the benefits for the retailer. In his view, the combination of the convenience of paying with your mobile phone with the loyalty programme is unique in Europe.



Retailers want to digitise their loyalty programmes, which they can do with the Joyn loyalty programme thats linked to Payconiq. They can also use it as a digital marketing platform by, for example, sending an e-mail automatically to a customer on their birthday.



Play video Payconiq: how to pay a friend [0:30].

For Prins, joining forces with other banks is essential for further growth: Partners such as ING, KBC and Belfius inspire confidence. With these partners on board, customers know that the product is secure and professional.

How did ING, KBC and Belfius find one other?

ING was behind the original idea for Payconiq. ING global Head of Transaction Services Mark Buitenhek explains how the bank arrived at the initiative.



We came to the conclusion back in 2014 that the Payment Services Directive 2 [a European Directive about payment services] would fundamentally change payment services. We thought: its better for us to invent something that will make our services redundant, otherwise somebody else will do it.



The aim of the European Directive, known as PSD2, is to make payment transactions easier and more accessible for third parties from 2018. This is expected to lead to a surge in new providers, also from outside the financial sector. ING had started a number of innovations related to this even before PSD2, including Payconiq. The first version went live back in 2015.



Buitenhek: The starting point was not our self-interest, but the wishes of customers. What would be the most useful and convenient product for users while being secure at the same time? We didnt know then whether the innovations would catch on. Twyp, for example, wasnt a success in the Netherlands, but was popular in Spain. The markets are different and thats something you need to learn from.



We thought, its better for us to invent something that will make our services redundant, otherwise somebody else will do it. - Mark Buitenhek, INGs global head of Transaction Services

ING saw Belgium as a great springboard for Payconiq. The Belgian market is transparent and is open to innovation. In addition, this was something new for Belgian retailers and consumers. Contactless payments with a bank card are still uncommon and Payconiq would immediately be two steps ahead. The first Payconiq payment was launched in shops in the Belgian city of Leuven.



By coincidence, the Belgian bank KBC had also recently launched a pilot of their CityLife loyalty programme in Leuven. ING and KBC employees in Leuven got together and the idea for collaboration was born. Shortly afterwards, Belfius was the third bank to join the alliance of competitors. To facilitate more of these partnerships, Payconiq will operate as an independent company with participating banks as minority shareholders.



Consumers and business operators dont want all kinds of different systems with complex hardware, high costs and different conditions, Buitenhek explains. He believes that existing online payment standards, such as Bancontact in Belgium and iDEAL in the Netherlands, are great examples of what can be achieved by working together.



According to Buitenhek, Payconiq can be just as successful.



It has features from iDEAL, but goes a lot further because companies can link all kinds of products to it, such as loyalty schemes, loans or insurance products. App builders like Joyn can link their own apps to Payconiq and develop them further.

How big can Payconiq get?

For Payconiq, growth is not a choice, but a necessity, explains Prins.



We need to grow very big very quickly. Only the large players will survive in this market, just like in the credit card market, where there is only room for a couple of names, such as Visa and MasterCard.



Buitenhek expects growth to take off once several banks and other players simultaneously turn up the heat when it comes to sales and marketing. He thinks it is also important for large retailers to come on board. Payconiq is currently working hard to be accepted by supermarkets and other large retail chains.



Buitenhek emphasises that critical mass is vital if Payconiq is to become the standard. He does not rule out expansion abroad either if Payconiq is a proven success in Belgium.

Duke Prins (centre) during a work meeting at Payconiq: We need to grow very big very quickly. Only the large players will survive.

Malfait says that making Payconiq the standard will demand self-discipline from shareholders and participating banks.



They need to support Payconiqs management to develop the product further. Payconiq shouldnt have to meet all kinds of demands from shareholders, but be able to fully commit to a product that is as user friendly as possible.

Payconiq shouldnt have to meet all kinds of demands from shareholders, but be able to fully commit to a product that is as user friendly as possible. - Piet Malfait, KBC programme manager

Prins is pulling out all the stops to maintain the focus. He believes that Payconiq has major advantages, such as the option to transfer money to friends. Users can see in their app whether their contacts also use Payconiq. This can have a snowball effect.



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There's some good news for staff and customers of KBC Bank.

The Belgian bank has announced it will retain its business here and is committed to "long term investment in Ireland".

It's also reported net profit of 227m after tax and impairment for the year, up from 75m in 2015.

Wim Verbraeken - CEO of KBC Bank Ireland - outlines the reasons for its decision to stay here: "We believe we have the people in Ireland with the right skills, the energy and determination to do this and we are ready to support them.

"In the medium and long-term this customer-centric approach will result in a sustainable future-proof business model and financial results for KBC Bank Ireland, to the benefit of its customers, staff and all other stakeholders.

The Finance Minister has welcomed the news that KBC Bank is to stay in Ireland.

Michael Noonan says the decision by the Belgian bank provides clarity for staff and customers after a period of uncertainty and is another strong sign of the recovery in Ireland.

Minister Noonan will meet with senior officials of the bank this afternoon.
A number of Irish celebrities will perform at a Gala Concert to fundraise for an Irish charity supporting communities in Haiti.

John McColgan is presenting a unique fundraising Gala Concert in aid of Haven at the Convention Centre Dublin on Saturday March 11. McColgan is the creative director of Riverdance and founding director of Tyrone Productions. He will be joined on the night by Riverdance, Mario Rosenstock, Brian Kennedy, Kila, Roisin O, Patrick Bergin, and a host of special guests.

Hosted by MCs Miriam OCallaghan and Brendan OConnor, the event aims to raise awareness and support for the people of Haiti, which remains one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere.

"Having travelled to different parts of the world affected by poverty and conflict - including Palestine - we wanted to visit Haiti to capture the stories of its people, explore reality on the ground, and document how the Haitian people are rebuilding their lives after the devastation of the third major natural disaster in just six years," said John McColgan.

"It was a truly eye-opening and thought-provoking experience to do so with Haven, and I am delighted to be able to share it with the people of Ireland at this Gala Concert. I wish to sincerely thank all the performers who are taking part: together, we can help the people of Haiti to restore their livelihoods and communities after this immensely challenging time."

As part of their trip to Haiti, the McColgans travelled to the island of Ile a Vache, and visited the communities of Figuier, Le Hatte, and Nan Roche to see the damage caused to Havens boat-building, agricultural and business development programmes.

"It was a privilege to welcome the McColgan family to Haiti and to show them our projects in Haiti, especially after the devastation of Hurricane Matthew," said Leslie Buckley, Chairman and Founder of Haven.

"During their time in Haiti, they not only witnessed the gravity of the situation there, but, by raising awareness of it, greatly helped our recovery efforts and development in the communities we work with every day. Through this concert, we aim to create further support, and appeal to the generous Irish public to join us on the night to help the people of Haiti in their recovery. On behalf of the Haven team, I wish to sincerely thank all the artists for so selflessly giving their time and commitment in this vital fundraising event."

Havens team is working on the remote island of Ile a Vache, which lay at the eye of Hurricane Matthew, the most powerful hurricane to hit Haiti in over 50 years. All funds raised at the Gala Concert will go towards this work.

Tickets for the concert start from 25 and are on sale now through Ticketmaster
Enabling business

Foreign direct investment (FDI) to Nepal has shown signs of healthy growth, with pledges registering around a 30 percent spike in the first half of the current fiscal year.
Britain will impose a hard border on the island of Ireland as it leaves the European Union regardless of its impact, a senior Sinn Fein MP has said.

Pat Doherty, former vice president of the party, told an Oireachtas committee there is no such thing as a soft border.

Ireland should not be "naive" about an imminent new frontier and needed to realise Britain had only permanent interests, not permanent friends, he said.

"There is no such thing as a soft border... just soft words," he told the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement.

"The road the British government is travelling on is going to lead to a hard border on the island of Ireland.

"We are in for a very, very difficult time."

The West Tyrone MP said it did not matter that every political party, north and south, bar one or two small factions, was opposed to a 310 mile hard border being reimposed between both parts of the island.

"We should not be naive about the intention of the British government," he said.

"They are going to have a hard border and they do not care in any meaningful way about its impact on Ireland."

Mr Doherty said Theresa May's Government cares only about the "Tory and Brexit vote, mostly in England" and Ireland has a huge job to convince Europe of the depth of the problem.

But he added Europe could "devise special circumstances" for Northern Ireland given that every citizen is entitled under the Good Friday Agreement to be an EU citizen.

Public Spending Minister Paschal Donohoe, who appeared before the committee hearing into the impact of Brexit on the peace deal, said the Irish government needed to look at trade and funding models between Sweden and Norway as well as France and Switzerland.

"We want the current trading relationship between the UK and Ireland to be as close to the current circumstances as possible," he said.

"That is the objective we will have entering negotiations."

Mr Donohoe said the British "have left space" in what relationship it will have with the EU's customs union in the future, which allowed an important area to negotiate a trading arrangement that best suits the needs of the Irish economy.

"Any time I visit any of the border counties I hear very clearly from citizens their concerns on economic stability and freedoms now and in the future," he said.

"I agree that we can not see a return to a hard border because of the destabilising effects it would have on the north and other parts of Ireland."
The company described the losses as a cost-saving measure and that it was seeking to invest in new market opportunities, such as 3D printing.

In line with our previously communicated strategy, HPs global print business is working to drive continuous efficiencies and cost savings that enable investment in new market opportunities and growth initiatives, such as 3D printing.

As a result, we have made the decision to close our global print business at the Leixlip site. It is likely that close to 500 HP employees will be impacted and leave the business over the next 12 months, a spokesperson for the firm said yesterday.

An employer to hundreds of people in the North Kildare and West Dublin area since 1995, the company acknowledged the impact its decision would have on employees.

The spokesperson said the move was not a reflection on the performance of their staff.

This decision is not a reflection on our Ireland employees or on the sites performance.

We are very aware of the impact this decision will have on our employees in Ireland and we are focusing all of our efforts on supporting them, on identifying opportunities for them and on providing a programme to help them prepare for the transition ahead, the HP spokesperson yesterday said.

Despite the closure of the global print business at the Leixlip site, HP will maintain the sale operations for their printing and personal systems business here, with approximately 2,100 people employed in locations such as Galway and Cork.

Aside from opening of the HP technology campus in Leixlip in 1995, its first sales office was opened in Ireland in 1976.

Fine Gael Minister for Jobs Mary Mitchell OConnor talking to the media about the job losses by HP Inc, Leixlip, Ireland.

Jobs Minister Mary Mitchell OConnor said the Industrial Development Authority (IDA) was working to sell the Leixlip plant as a going concern.

Id say the workers now want me to do my job, they want the IDA to do their job and to make sure that we are selling Leixlip and Kildare all over the world this evening and throughout the rest of the year to make sure that we win investment into Ireland, Ms Mitchell OConnor said.

Furthermore, Taoiseach Enda Kenny confirmed to the Dail that IDA staff did travel to California, but not the jobs minister, for discussions with the company. He had spoken by phone with the companys senior managers last week.

The Taoiseach also said he believed the multi-use facility could be sold.

This is a brilliant location, it is a fabulous building, it has multi uses, he said. It could be sold, indeed, as a going concern, and the IDA and the ministers efforts now will be to provide an alternative in what is a superb location.
Ivanov Named American Prize Conducting Finalist

Lev Ivanov

Feb. 8, 2017

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. Illinois Wesleyan Universitys Lev Ivanov is a finalist in The American Prize competition in the performing arts.

The conductor of the Illinois Wesleyan Symphony Orchestra, Ivanov is a finalist for The American Prize in Conducting  college/university orchestra division. Since 2010, The American Prizes panel of judges has provided evaluation, recognition and reward to Americas finest performing artists and composers. Chief Judge David Katz was recently honored by Musical America for creating and sustaining The American Prize national non-profit competitions in the performing arts.

Ivanov is visiting assistant professor of music. In his third year as music director of the Illinois Wesleyan Symphony Orchestra, Ivanov facilitates projects and collaborations with other forms of the arts including use of electronic music, visual aids and computer technology in an orchestral setting. His creative approach to programming provides for skillful execution of traditional repertoire alongside 21stcentury orchestral music. He also conducts the Illinois Wesleyan Wind Ensemble.

The art of conducting is exciting and complicated, said Ivanov. The conductor bears the responsibility of sharing his vision and inspiration with other musicians. I feel that responsibility every time I am on the podium, trying to inspire my students and help them reach higher levels of artistic excellence. I am honored to be recognized as a finalist among my esteemed colleagues and fellow conductors.

Ivanov was one of five to receive prizes and special recognition at the Jeunesses Musicales Bucharest International Conducting Competition 2013 where he conducted the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra. He was awarded the Special Mention prize by the jury presided over by Jorma Panula from among the 50 international contestants. Ivanov is also the recipient of the George and Geraldine Swensen Watkins Endowment for Excellence in the Arts and a prize-winner of the Vorzel and Guitaralia international ensemble competitions in Ukraine and Poland. He received degrees in music performance and conducting from Tchaikovsky National Academy of Music in Ukraine, Brigham Young University and Arizona State University.
White Rock, British Columbia (FSCwire) - Renaissance Gold Inc. (TSX.V: REN) (RenGold) is pleased to announce that they have signed a non-binding letter of intent (LOI) with Coeur Mining, Inc. (NYSE: CDE) (Coeur) wherein Coeur will provide RenGold with US$250,000/year for two years to conduct grass roots exploration in select areas of Nevada.

The LOI provides that Coeur will have a right of first refusal (ROFR) on all projects generated within defined exploration target areas. If Coeur decides to exercise their ROFR they will spend a minimum of US$250,000 the first year on the project and US$3 million within three years to vest an undivided 70% interest. In addition, RenGold will receive milestone payments based on defined project thresholds. If Coeur elects not to exercise their ROFR the project remains with RenGold with no continuing obligations to Coeur.

Ronald Parratt, President & CEO states We are very excited to have a growing relationship with such a strong company as Coeur. Not only are they funding exploration of our Arabia project but are now willing to also finance grassroots exploration. We look forward to working with Coeurs exploration team on all these activities and also appreciate the confidence they have in the RenGold exploration team.

The definitive agreement for the generative exploration program is expected to be signed by early to mid-March 2017.

About Renaissance Gold Inc.

Renaissance Gold Inc. is a gold/silver exploration company that has a large portfolio of exploration projects in Nevada and Utah. RenGolds objective is to place the projects in exploration earn-in agreements with industry partners who provide exploration funding. RenGold applies the extensive exploration experience and high-end technical skills of its founders and team members to search for and acquire new precious metal exploration projects that are then offered for joint venture.

About Coeur

Coeur Mining is a well-diversified, growing precious metals producer with five precious metals mines in the Americas employing approximately 2,000 people. Coeur produces from its wholly owned operations: the Palmarejo silver-gold complex in Mexico, the Rochester silver-gold mine in Nevada, the Kensington gold mine in Alaska, the Wharf gold mine in South Dakota, and the San Bartolome silver mine in Bolivia. Coeur also has a non-operating interest in the Endeavor mine in Australia. In addition, the Coeur owns the La Preciosa project in Mexico, a silver-gold exploration stage project. Coeur conducts ongoing exploration activities in Alaska, Nevada, South Dakota and Mexico.
THUNDER BAY, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Feb. 9, 2017) - Benton Resources Inc. (TSX VENTURE:BEX) ("Benton" or "the Company") and its joint venture partner Nordmin Engineering Ltd. ("Nordmin"), is pleased to release the results of an updated positive preliminary economic assessment ("PEA"). Included with this PEA update is the announcement on the advanced Environmental Assessment (EA) progress for its Cape Ray Gold Project, located approximately 20 kilometers northeast of Port aux Basques, Newfoundland.

The 2016 drilling program provided the team with numerous insights into the nature of this project. It allowed the team to revise the geologic and resource models to better represent the intrinsic nature of the mineral resource, and make a re-assessment to the overall approach and layout of the proposed mine design.

The updated results of the PEA include a pre-tax net present value at a 7 percent discount rate of $82.2 million with a pre-tax internal rate of return of 40 percent and a post-tax NPV at a 7 percent discount rate of $56.9 million with a post-tax IRR of 34 percent.

The PEA is based on the mineral resource estimate completed by Marc Jutras, P.Eng., M.A.Sc., outlined in the National Instrument 43-101 technical report update.

Highlights from the PEA, with the base-case gold price of $1,306 (U.S.) per ounce and an exchange rate of $1.26 CAD/USD, are as follows (all figures in Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated):

Pre-production Capital is $54.5 million with a contingency of 10% included within the initial capital. Pre-production is for a 2 year period.

Sustaining Capital $27 million for the Life of Mine.

Pre-tax NPV (7%) of $82.2 million and internal rate of return of 40%.

Post-tax NPV (7%) of $56.9 million and internal rate of return of 34%.

Pre-tax Net Revenue of $146.8 million over 9 year LOM.

Post-tax Net Revenue of $104.3 million over 9 year LOM.

Positive Cash-flow is realized in year 2.

2.8 million tonnes of mill feed averaging a combined 3.3 g/t gold and 9.7 g/t silver.

Mill operates at average tonnage of 1,000 tonnes per day.

Total production of 291,000 ounces of gold and 553,000 ounces of silver.

Gold recovery of 98% and Silver recovery 63%.

Chris Dougherty, P.Eng., President of Nordmin stated "the PEA Update is something we felt necessary given the extensive work we have completed in the last 6 months. The understanding developed through the completion of the 5000 metre drilling campaign in November has positively changed our overall knowledge and understanding of these zones".

All of the economics are completed on Indicated and Inferred categories of the resource model.

The table below compares the change in IRR and NPV from the 2016 PEA and the 2017 revision.

Pre-Tax Year 2017 2016 IRR 40% 29% Discount rate NPV ($ million) 0% 146.85 88.43 7% 82.19 48.43 10% 64.36 36.74 15% 42.66 22.07 After Tax IRR 34% 24% Discount rate NPV ($ million) 0% 104.26 63.43 7% 56.86 32.64 10% 43.72 23.64 15% 27.66 12.35

Mineral Resources - Effective date of February 1, 2017

51 ZONE + 04 ZONE + 41 ZONE+WGH - INDICATED MINERAL RESOURCES 1,2,3 Au Cut-Off

(g/t) Tonnage

(,000) Average Au

(g/t) Total Au oz.

(,000) Average Ag

(g/t) Total Ag oz.

(,000) 1.0 4,148 2.75 367 9.76 1,302 1.5 2,783 3.5 313 11.67 1,045 2.0 1,990 4.21 269 13.13 840 2.5 1,486 4.87 233 14.71 703 3.0 1,155 5.49 204 16.14 599 3.5 928 6.03 180 17.26 515 4.0 754 6.57 159 18.15 440 4.5 621 7.06 141 19.12 382 5.0 512 7.56 124 20.1 331

51 ZONE + 04 ZONE + 41 ZONE + WGH ZONE - INFERRED MINERAL RESOURCES 1,2,3 Au Cut-Off

(g/t) Tonnage

(,000) Average Au

(g/t) Total Au oz.

(,000) Average Ag

(g/t) Total Ag oz.

(,000) 1.0 2,770 1.77 158 6.57 585 1.5 1,199 2.54 98 9.22 355 2.0 725 3.07 72 10.46 244 2.5 357 3.99 46 13.22 152 3.0 204 4.95 32 15.7 103 3.5 144 5.65 26 15.32 71 4.0 105 6.38 21 15.83 53 4.5 96 6.59 20 16.06 49 5.0 77 7.03 18 16.34 41

Mineral Resources are not Mineral Reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. There is no certainty that all or any part of the Mineral Resources estimated will be converted into Mineral Reserves. The estimate of Mineral Resources may be materially affected by environmental, permitting, legal, title, taxation, socio-political, marketing, or other relevant issues. The CIM definitions were followed for the classification of Measured, Indicated, and Inferred mineral resources. The quantity and grade of reported Inferred Resources in this estimation are uncertain in nature and there has been insufficient exploration to define these Inferred Resources as an Indicated or Measured Mineral Resource and it is uncertain if further exploration will result in upgrading them to an Indicated or Measured Mineral Resource category.

"The receipt of a positive PEA demonstrating strong economics over the life of mine is a major milestone for Benton," stated Stephen Stares, President and CEO of Benton. "We see numerous opportunities to further enhance the economics through additional studies and exploration with a high probability for resource expansion and good potential for new discoveries across the property. We will now focus on advancing the Cape Ray project toward feasibility through additional exploration, environmental permitting and further studies". Benton recognizes that this is an undeveloped area of Newfoundland. As such, protecting the environment is of great importance. To facilitate the development of a sustainable project, Nordmin, the joint partner, has experts on staff to complete the necessary studies required concerning environmental monitoring, assessment and permitting matters.

The Company has initiated work towards firming up costs and preparing a prefeasibility study. Apart from further metallurgical studies, the work will include drilling and tailings characterization as well as environmental baseline studies, hydrology monitoring, flora and fauna studies. A NI 43-101 technical report for Cape Ray PEA will be filed on SEDAR (www.sedar.com) within 45 days.

The reader should be cautioned that the PEA is preliminary in nature. It contains 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. There is no certainty that the results of the PEA will be realized.

Cape Ray combined open-pit and underground mine

Key economic assumptions and results

Description Units Value Total mineralized rock mined Kt. 2,805 Gold grade g/t 3.29 Silver grade g/t 9.73 AuEq grade g/t 3.43 Gold recovery % 98 Silver recovery % 63 Gold price US$/oz. 1,306.15 Silver price US$/oz. 18.97 Exchange Rate $USD/$CAD 1.262 Payable gold metal oz. 291,341 Payable silver metal oz. 553,162 Total net revenue $ million 492.0 Total capital costs (Project and Sustaining) $ million 85.4 Overall Operating costs (total) $ million 259.7 Overall Operating cost (AuEq) US$/ozAuEq 664.6 (AISC) Overall cost (AuEq) US$/ozAuEq 883.0 Payback period years 2 Mine Life years 9 Pre-tax Cumulative net cash flow $ million 146.9 Post-tax Cumulative net cash flow $ million 104.3 Pre - tax NPV (7%) $ million 82.2 Pre - tax IRR % 40 Post - tax NPV (7%) $ million 56.9 Post - tax IRR % 34

Capital and operating costs

The Cape Ray Project has been envisioned as an open-pit mine with starter pits for all the zones and one underground mining operation for the 51 zone. Open-pit and underground mining are anticipated to be completed by contract mining companies. The equipment will be supplied by the contractor that is awarded the work.

Grid electrical power will provide the majority of the electrical power to the project over the life of the mine. The work force is expected to come from the Isle aux Morts area for the operation of the Mill. The rest of the workforce will be the responsibility of the contractor.

Total capital cost estimate

Capital Expenditures Contingency $ million Sustaining Capital Expenditures by Zone PIT 41 5% - PIT 51 5% - PIT 04 5% - Window Glass 5% 2.89 U.G. 51 5% 24.20 Permitting 10% 2.17 Road work (Quote from Adams Construction) 10% 3.53 Overburden Removal 10% 1.07 Surface Infrastructure - General 10% 2.84 Ore and Waste Pads (3) - Mine & Mill 10% 0.44 Surface Shop 10% 1.68 Land Costs 10% 0.91 Mill Capital 10% 33.34 Tailings 10% 3.82 Water Treatment Plants / Testing 10% 0.56 Power Distribution to Mill 10% 1.16 Working Capital 10% 0.84 Engineering for Capital 10% 1.17 OH & In-directs 10% 1.00 Mine Closure 0% 3.82 Total Capital Expenditures 85.44

Production and Processing

Operations for the Cape Ray project is planned to have both Open Pit and Underground Mining. Each zone will be campaigned separately with the use of contractors. The initial estimated mill feed will come from the 04 zone. Once the 04 pit is completed the 51 pit will commence to be mined followed by the 41 pit. The underground development for the 51 zone will start during the mining of the 41 pit. The start of the Window Glass pit will begin once the 41 pit is mined. The Window Glass pit and 51 underground zone will be mined simultaneously. All the zones will give a current mine life of 9 years combined at a milling through-put of 1,000 tonnes per day. The process plant includes conventional crushing, grinding, gravity, and whole ore cyanide leach. A gold and silver dore will be produced on site. Process reagents will be removed from the plant tailings prior to placement in a tailings management facility.

Mineral Resources Avg. Au

g/t Avg. Ag

g/t Tonnes

(,000) Pit 41 2.31 8.38 520 PIT 51 4.53 12.40 350 PIT 04 4.67 11.52 208 Window Glass 1.65 5.68 1,155 U.G. 51 and Stock Pile 6.27 16.87 573 Total 2,805

* The mill feed tonnes in the mine plan include Inferred Resources. The reader is cautioned that Inferred Resources are considered too speculative geologically to have economic considerations applied to them that would enable categorization as Mineral Reserves. There is no certainty that Inferred Resources will ever be upgraded to Reserves. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.

Going forward, the team will be working on laying out the next 5000 metre drilling program that will commence this summer, which will also include some geotechnical drilling to support the pit designs and other work on site and continue to work towards environmental milestones to progress the project to the next phase.

Qualified Persons and 43-101 Disclosure

Marc Jutras, P.Eng., M.A.Sc., Principal, Mineral Resources, at Ginto Consulting Inc. is an independent Qualified Person as per National Instrument 43-101, and is responsible for the estimation of Cape Ray's mineral resources. Mr. Jutras has reviewed and verified that the technical information contained herein is accurate and approves of the written disclosure of same.

About Benton Resources Inc. (TSX VENTURE:BEX)

Benton Resources Inc. is a well-funded Canadian-based junior with a diversified property portfolio in Gold-Silver, Nickel, Copper, and Platinum group elements.

Clinton Barr (P.Geo.), V.P. Exploration for Benton Resources Inc., is the qualified person responsible for this release has prepared, supervised the preparation or approved the scientific and technical disclosure in the news release.
VANCOUVER, Feb. 9, 2017 /CNW/ - Barsele Minerals Corp.  (TSX-V: BME) ("Barsele") is pleased to report a ninth operational progress update for the current exploration program within the Barsele Au-VMS Project area in Vasterbottens Lan, northern Sweden. The exploration program is being operated by joint venture partner Agnico Eagle Mines Limited  (TSX, NYSE: AEM) ("Agnico Eagle"). Ownership in the project is 55% Agnico Eagle and 45% Barsele.

During the month of December, four machines continued diamond drilling until the Christmas break, with two validation and four conversion holes completed within and along the trend of the Avan, Central and Skirasen zones. Highlight conversion hole SKI16013 yielded 26.00 meters core length (estimated 19.50 meters true thickness) grading 4.00 g/t gold uncut (1.65 g/t gold cut) at a midpoint depth of 120 meters below surface, plus 46.00 meters core length (estimated 35.00 meters true thickness) grading 1.96 g/t gold at a midpoint depth of 205 meters below surface. In addition, validation hole AVA16022 cut 2.50 meters core length (estimated 2.00 meters true thickness) containing polymetallic quartz veins grading 2.87 g/t gold, 286.00 g/t silver, 2.67% lead, 0.62% zinc.

During December, 3,045 meters were drilled, for a cumulative total of 39,111 meters in 85 holes, since October 2015. That month, there were 2,462 core samples sent for analysis, with 3,823 core assay results received.

Basal till sampling results have been received. There were 129 basal till samples and 135 top of outcrop samples submitted for analysis. The analytical results indicate that the gold mineralization most likely continues between the Central and Avan zones and there is a possibility for additional parallel gold zones to the southwest of Avan and Skirasen.

Barsele's President, Gary Cope states, "The basal till sampling results are very encouraging, and we look forward to future drill testing of these areas. We continue to be encouraged with the drilling results and we look forward to the upcoming Resource Estimate."

Highlight Results from the December 2016 Reporting Period Hole Category From (m) To (m) Core Length

(m) True Thickness

(m) Au (g/t) Top-Capped at 20 g/t Au (g/t) AVA16019 Validation 149.00 152.85 3.85 3.50 1.19 AVA16020 Validation Assays Pending AVA16021 Validation 42.00 51.00 9.00 5.00 3.52 136.00 140.00 4.00 2.50 2.08 AVA16022 Validation 66.80 83.00 16.20 11.50 2.81 91.50 94.00 2.50 2.00 2.87 100.00 109.00 9.00 6.50 3.28 177.00 221.00 44.00 32.50 0.56 254.00 272.00 18.00 13.50 1.08 CNT16016 Validation 7.00 19.00 12.00 9.00 1.22 72.00 113.00 41.00 30.80 2.50 151.00 175.00 24.00 18.00 1.06 CNT16018 Validation 5.80 42.00 36.20 27.20 2.45 65.00 74.00 9.00 6.80 2.22 94.00 113.00 19.00 14.30 1.38 135.00 140.00 5.00 3.80 10.59 9.17 CNT16027 Conversion 191.00 195.00 4.00 3.00 3.29 242.00 245.00 3.00 2.00 4.16 273.00 290.00 17.00 13.00 1.49 517.00 532.00 15.00 11.50 1.63 CNT16028 Conversion 325.00 338.00 13.00 7.50 1.36 350.00 364.00 14.00 8.00 1.07 395.00 404.00 9.00 5.00 2.08 429.00 443.00 14.00 8.00 1.03 524.00 535.00 11.00 22.00 1.41 CNT16030 Conversion Assays Pending SKI16013 Conversion 159.00 185.00 26.00 19.50 4.00 1.65 252.00 263.00 11.00 8.50 1.19 287.00 333.00 46.00 35.00 1.96

As project operator, Agnico Eagle has developed a community relations program to engage the various stakeholders in the project area. Basic environmental assessment and surface water characterization, species studies and hydrogeology studies are ongoing. Barsele expects that Agnico Eagle will release a new Inferred Mineral Resource estimate for the Avan, Central and Skirasen and Norra deposits this month.

About the Barsele Gold Project

The Barsele Project is located on the western end of the Proterozoic "Skellefte Trend", a prolific volcanogenic massive sulphide deposits belt, where it intersects with the "Gold Line" in Northern Sweden. Both polymetallic deposits and intrusive hosted orogenic gold deposits are present in this region and on the property. Current and past producers in the region include Boliden, Kristineberg, Bjorkdal, Svartliden and Storliden.

On September 25, 2015, mineral resource estimates by Barsele were released for the Barsele Project in four zones, the Central, Avan and Skirasen Gold Zones and the Norra VMS Zone. The resource estimate for the Central-Avan-Skirasen Zones states an Indicated Resource of 14.1 million tonnes grading 1.21 g/t gold for 547,000 contained ounces, plus an Inferred Resource of 20.2 million tonnes grading 0.97 g/t gold for 627,000 contained ounces. The polymetallic Norra Zone contains an Indicated Resource of 110,000 tonnes grading 3.13 g/t gold, 30.3 g/t silver, 0.53 % copper and 0.72 % zinc, plus an Inferred Resource of 310,000 tonnes grading 1.62 g/t gold, 12.7 g/t silver, 0.26 % copper and 0.42 % zinc. All zones were estimated at a gold cut-off grade of 0.6 g/t.

Art Freeze, P.Geo. is the Qualified Person as defined in NI 43-101 and takes responsibility for the technical disclosure contained within this news release.

About Barsele Minerals Corp.

Barsele is a Canadian-based junior exploration company comprised of highly qualified mining professionals. Barsele's main property is the Barsele Gold Project in Vasterbottens Lan, Sweden, a joint venture with Agnico Eagle Mines Limited.
VANCOUVER, Feb. 9, 2017 /CNW/ - Canasil Resources Inc. (TSX-V: CLZ, DB Frankfurt: 3CC, "Canasil") announces that the Company has received assay results for the first drill hole, ES-16-12, of the 2016-17 core drilling program at the La Esperanza silver-lead-zinc project in Durango and Zacatecas States, Mexico. This drill hole intersected an extended interval of banded quartz veins, veinlets and breccias hosted within fractured and brecciated volcanic rocks from 345 metres to 391 metres down-hole. The interval returned assay results indicating several narrower zones carrying anomalous gold (Au) and copper (Cu), low silver (Ag) and appreciable lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn) values. The widest zone at the bottom of the hole returned an intercept of 3.57 metres (true width 3.08 metres) grading 0.14 g/t Au, 21 g/t Ag, 0.82% Pb and 2.63% Zinc. The principal mineralized intervals are reported in the table below:

La Esperanza 2016-17 Drill Program  Hole ES-16-12 Interval - Metres Width  Metres Gold Silver Zinc Lead Copper From To Interval True Au g/t Ag g/t Zn % Pb % Cu % 347.36 348.94 1.58 1.36 0.08 23.0 1.98 1.31 0.04 Including 347.36 347.83 0.47 0.41 0.08 16.5 4.81 2.89 0.02 And 348.47 348.94 0.47 0.41 0.16 57.9 1.74 1.45 0.11 368.40 370.07 1.67 1.44 0.11 5.0 3.60 0.75 0.03 Including 369.45 370.07 0.62 0.54 0.27 8.9 9.64 2.00 0.00 387.16 390.73 3.57 3.08 0.14 21.0 2.63 0.82 0.08 Including 387.16 389.87 2.71 2.34 0.17 26.0 2.17 1.07 0.09 Including 387.71 388.71 1.00 0.86 0.10 35.0 2.63 0.78 0.14 Including 387.71 388.01 0.30 0.26 0.12 38.2 3.57 1.43 0.14 And 388.01 388.35 0.34 0.29 0.08 51.5 3.31 0.66 0.20 And 389.36 389.87 0.51 0.44 0.54 33.2 4.38 3.64 0.13

Drill hole ES-16-12 was targeted to intersect the main La Esperanza vein approximately 75 metres below ES-12-03, a 2012 drill hole that intersected a 10-metre structure at 266 metres down-hole which was well mineralized returning 189 g/t Ag, 5.20% Zn and 2.22% Pb over a true width of 3.24 metres, including 278 g/t Ag, 5.80% Zn and 2.80% Pb over a true width of 1.94 metres (reported in the news release dated February 22, 2012). Although the silver grades are relatively low in ES-16-12, the zone of mineralization has widened and follow-up holes are needed to bracket this level of the La Esperanza system since similar variations in widths and grades are common in epithermal vein systems. The La Esperanza vein system has now been traced by drilling to a depth of 375 metres below surface and over a strike length of 245 metres and remains open for further expansion. The textures of the multiple banded structures observed in ES-16-12 may be indicative of the higher levels of a strong mineralized system. This hole was halted at 394 metres due to difficult drilling conditions and it is not certain that the main La Esperanza vein was crossed - additional holes on adjacent sections are required to adequately test the entire structure at this depth.

A second drill hole, ES-17-13, is in progress as part of the 2016-17 drill program of 4 to 5 drill holes for a total of 1,500 to 2,000 metres. This step-out hole is designed to intersect the La Esperanza vein a further 90 metres along strike to the northwest, and will be followed by additional drill holes to continue testing this vein.

The drill program is being implemented by the Company's exploration team under the direction of Eng. Erme Enriquez (CPG), Director of Exploration and Development of Minera Canasil S.A. de C.V., the Company's wholly owned Mexican subsidiary. All core samples are processed at the Company's core processing and storage facility in Durango, Mexico. Samples are cut by diamond saw, and half is sent for assay and half secured for reference. Samples are sent to the ALS Laboratories in Zacatecas, Mexico for preparation and then on to ALS Laboratories in Vancouver for assay analysis for gold and silver by fire assay with an atomic absorption finish ("FA-AA") on a 30 gram split, and for silver, copper, lead and zinc by digestion of 0.50 gram sample in aqua regia and analysis by AA.

The technical information herein has been reviewed and approved by J. Blackwell (P. Geo.), a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Blackwell is a technical advisor to Canasil.

About La Esperanza

The La Esperanza silver-lead-zinc project covers 14,916 hectares, located 100 km SSE of the city of Durango on the border between Durango and Zacatecas States. The project site is easily accessible from Canasil's operating base in Durango with excellent infrastructure. The project location in southern Durango and northern Zacatecas States is on the well-recognized world class Fresnillo silver belt, hosting a number of prominent silver mines such as San Martin-Sabinas mines of Grupo Mexico and Penoles, the La Colorada mine of Pan American Silver and La Parrilla and Del Toro mines of First Majestic Silver and Fresnillo PLC's Fresnillo mine.

A series of silver-lead-zinc epithermal veins are observed over a northwest-southeast striking zone extending over approximately 20 kilometres hosted in the Lower Volcanic Group. Mineralization occurs in low to intermediate sulphidation veins, primarily striking northwest and dipping southwest. The main La Esperanza vein is a banded and cockade white to grey quartz breccia epithermal vein with silver, lead and zinc mineralization associated with argentiferous galena, silver sulfosalt minerals and sphalerite. Past drilling on this vein was focused along an approximate strike length of 250 metres and to a relatively shallow depth of approximately 250 metres and returned consistent high-grade silver-lead-zinc intercepts from the main La Esperanza vein and an associated Hanging Wall vein at the upper levels. The average true width of intercepts from 8 drill holes on the main La Esperanza vein was 4.21 metres returning 330 g/t silver, 0.93% zinc and 1.57% lead. The average true width of drill intercepts from 5 drill holes which intersected the Hanging Wall vein was 1.53 metres returning 324 g/t silver, 1.37% zinc and 1.80% lead (details listed under the La Esperanza project profile on the Company's website www.canasil.com, and previously reported in the news release dated November 6, 2006).

About Canasil:

Canasil is a Canadian mineral exploration company with a strong portfolio of 100% owned silver-gold-copper-lead-zinc projects in Durango and Zacatecas States, Mexico, and in British Columbia, Canada. The Company's directors and management include industry professionals with a track record of identifying and advancing successful mineral exploration projects through to discovery and further development. The Company is actively engaged in the exploration of its mineral properties, and maintains an operating subsidiary in Durango, Mexico, with full time geological and support staff for its operations in Mexico.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Feb. 8, 2017) - Mundoro Capital Inc. (TSX VENTURE:MUN) (www.mundoro.com) ("Mundoro" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that a drill has been mobilized to the Company's Borsko Jezero license ("Borsko") where drilling is expected to commence within a week. Borsko is one of the four licenses being sole funded by JOGMEC as part of the JOGMEC-Mundoro joint venture announced August 2016. Borsko is located in the central portion of the Timok Magmatic Complex ("Timok") and is directly west of the Serbian state-operated producing mines, RTB Group's Bor copper porphyry mine and the Veliki Krivelj copper-gold porphyry mine.

HIGHLIGHTS

This drill program at Borsko will focus on high priority targets generated by systematic exploration completed by Mundoro in 2016 and defined various copper-gold targets.

The current drill program will test the first of six targets with a 600 m drill hole designed to cut across an interpreted mineralised structure defined by a copper soil anomaly coincident with a mapped argillic altered andesite dyke at surface, a strong resistivity geophysical anomaly, and anomalous stream sediment and rock sampling.

Mundoro holds approximately $5 mln in cash as of December 31, 2016 and is debt free.

Teo Dechev, CEO & President of Mundoro commented, "The geophysics in the Borsko license clearly demonstrates the NNW trending structures that have been associated with the main mineralization in the Timok district. With our partner JOGMEC, we are looking forward to drill testing this target as well as the other various targets on the license in 2017. Mundoro is committed to executing on its strategy to complete a drill program each month in 2017, part of which will be funded by our partner JOGMEC and part of which will be funded by Mundoro's approved C$2 million budget for 2017."

Overview of Borsko Drill Program

The Borsko license is located in the Timok Magmatic Complex which is one of the most prolific metallogenic domains in the Tethyan Belt. The geological units in this licence area consist of Upper Cretaceous volcano-sedimentary successions, predominantly andesite and pyroclastics. Generally considered the most prospective geological units, the Phase 1 hornblende porphyry andesite occupies the easternmost boundaries of the Borsko license and dips moderately to southwest under the pyroclastic rocks of the second phase.

The current drill program will test the first of six targets generated by the 2016 field program (Figure 1 - Location of Borsko Drill Targets). In Q2-2016 Mundoro carried out a soil sampling program over the central portion of the license to follow up on high copper-gold stream sediment anomalies which could not be explained by previous prospecting and rock sampling. The soil sampling results returned significant copper-gold anomalies which remain open to the north and south. Follow-up field work revealed association of some of the soil anomalies with altered dike contacts, discrete quartz stockwork veinlets and fine grained sulphides related to fault-fracture zones.

The Company included the Borsko license into the JOGMEC-Mundoro option agreement in August 2016 and then conducted ground magnetic and CSAMT geophysics in the second half of the year. The Company also conducted limited trenching over some of the soil anomalies. The current drill program will test the first of six targets and will be collared on a copper soil anomaly coincident with an argillic altered andesite dyke mapped on surface and a strong resistivity geophysical anomaly. The projected depth of 600 m is designed to cut across the interpreted north-northwest trending mineralised structure which is also supported by the stream sediment and rock sampling.

Next Steps

The Company expects to complete the drilling on the first target in February 2017 and to release the results around the end of March 2017.

Mundoro is in the process of designing the work program with JOGMEC for the second year of work under the JOGMEC-Mundoro option agreement. This work program is anticipated to begin in April 2017.

About Mundoro Capital Inc.

Mundoro is a Canadian mineral exploration and development public company focused on building value for its shareholders through directly investing in mineral projects that have the ability to generate future returns for shareholders. The Company currently holds a diverse portfolio of projects in two European countries as well as an investment in a producing gold mine in Bulgaria and a feasibility stage gold project in China. The Company holds eight 100% owned projects in Serbia, the four Timok North Projects are in option to JOGMEC, and the four Timok South Projects are being advanced by Mundoro. Mundoro's common shares trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "MUN".

Qualified Person

Technical information contained in this Press Release has been reviewed and approved by Mr. G. Magaranov, P. Geo., Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Feb. 9, 2017) - Gold Standard Ventures Corp. (TSX VENTURE:GSV)(NYSE MKT:GSV) ("Gold Standard" or the "Company") today announced assay results from 8,056m of reverse-circulation (RC) and core drilling in 25 holes at the Pinion oxide gold deposit and at new prospects Sentinel and Irene on its 100%-owned/controlled Railroad-Pinion Project in Nevada's Carlin Trend.

Of 12 drill holes located to test Pinion, 11 reported continuous gold values above the cut-off grade of 0.14 g Au/t established in the NI 43-101 resource estimate announced on March 15, 2016 (see news release). Highlights included 49.7m of 0.96 g Au/t from the Pinion North Zone and 23.3m of 0.79 g Au/t from the Pinion Main Zone. This drill program also reported 22.9m of 0.42 g Au/t at Sentinel, indicating the potential for this new target to make a significant contribution to the greater Pinion resource.

The primary objectives of the 2016 program were to: (1) test for gold mineralization identified by surface rock chip channel samples at the new Sentinel target; (2) complete metallurgical core holes for column leach tests for the Pinion North and Main zones; (3) extend areas of known oxide mineralization outward from the Pinion resource along the South Fault Corridor, an important control on gold mineralization at Southwest Pinion; and (4) complete additional scout drill holes at the Irene prospect 2.0 km northwest of the Pinion resource.

Jonathan Awde, CEO and Director of Gold Standard, commented: "We are very satisfied with last year's progress at Pinion. The deposit is continuing to confirm its potential to support a low cost heap leach operation while the resource continues to grow. We are particularly excited by the new Sentinel deposit which appears to be compatible with Pinion and could be developed at the same time. Sentinel is yet another deposit type which opens up further exploration opportunities at Railroad and offers additional evidence of the size and strength of the project's mineralizing systems. This year, in addition to further drilling at Sentinel, we expect to release an updated resource estimate for Pinion early next quarter and complete advanced metallurgical testing as part of our de-risking of the deposit."

Key Pinion Highlights

At the new Sentinel Target, 10 reverse-circulation (RC) holes and one core hole were completed to follow-up on continuous rock chip channel samples that returned seven significant weight-averaged, composite intervals including 27.4m of 0.35 g Au/t and 12.2m of 0.46 g Au/t (see news release dated January 25, 2016). Nine of these 11 holes returned intercepts above the resource cut-off grade. Results were highlighted by 22.9m of 0.42 g Au/t and 7.6m of 0.42 g Au/t in drill hole PIN16-16 on the northwest margin of the drill pattern (Please click the following link to view plan and section maps: https://goldstandardv.com/lp/pinion-results-2017/). Gold mineralization is near surface, oxidized, and open to the north and west. The deposit is hosted in the Sentinel Mountain dolomite and the top of the underlying Oxyoke sandstone, new stratigraphic host units on the Railroad-Pinion Project with the potential for new resource opportunities. Mineralization occurs within the footwall of the district-scale, gold-controlling Bullion fault. Higher grades have been noted along this fault where crossing structures have focused the gold system. These cross structures will be targeted in the 2017 drill program planned for Sentinel.

In the Pinion North Zone, PQ size core holes PIN16-01 and -04 returned 43.6m of 0.50 g Au/t and 49.7m of 0.96 g Au/t, respectively. Both intercepts are near-surface and entirely oxidized. Material from these intercepts, along with core from two previously drilled holes at North Zone, is undergoing column leach testing at Kappes, Cassiday & Associates in Reno, NV.

In the Pinion Main Zone, PQ size core holes PIN16-05A and -07 returned 23.3m of 0.79 g Au/t and 27.7m of 0.42 g Au/t, respectively. Both intercepts are near-surface and entirely oxidized. PIN16-05A offset hole PIN16-05, which suffered from poor recovery through the mineralized zone. Material from these intercepts, along with core from two previously drilled holes at Main Zone, is undergoing column leach testing at Kappes, Cassiday & Associates in Reno, NV.

At Southwest Pinion, six RC holes (PIN16-02, -03, -06, -08 and -10) intersected multiple zones of altered, oxidized to variably reduced, multi-lithic collapse breccia and gold mineralization approximately 120 to 150m on projection from existing drill holes.

At Irene, two RC scout holes (PIN16-11 and -12) were completed 2.0 km northwest of the Pinion resource. These holes followed up on 2015 scout hole PIN15-24. The new holes were spaced approximately 700m apart and represented the first tests beneath an extensive soil anomaly containing gold and Carlin pathfinder elements. Two of the three holes intersected favorable host rocks but only weak alteration and low level geochemistry.

Pinion drill results are as follows:

Drill

Hole Type Azimuth Incl. TD

(m) Intercept

(m) Thickness

(m) Grade

(g Au/t) PIN16-01 Core -90 171.6 115.2 - 158.8 43.6 0.50 PIN16-02 RC 205 -88 397.9 291.2 - 292.7 1.5 0.15 295.7 - 324.7 29.0 0.43 PIN16-03 RC 274 -58 452.7 303.4 - 309.5 6.1 0.24 320.1 - 327.7 7.6 1.00 352.1 - 355.2 3.1 0.30 373.5 - 375.0 1.5 0.19 379.5 - 382.6 3.1 0.30 PIN16-04 Core -90 123.0 3.7 - 53.4 49.7 0.96 Including

Including 4.9 - 20.3 15.4 1.39 45.4 - 50.0 4.6 2.05 58.5 - 64.9 6.4 0.50 PIN16-05 Core -90 51.2 2.3 - 2.8 0.5 0.14 4.7 - 19.2 14.5 0.73 27.7 - 28.6 0.9 0.48 PIN16-05A Core -90 29.7 6.4 - 29.7 23.3 0.79 Including 15.8 - 23.4 7.6 1.15 PIN16-06 RC 259 -59 449.7 309.4 - 346.0 36.6 0.36 356.7 - 362.8 6.1 0.23 375.0 - 397.9 22.9 0.25 PIN16-07 Core -90 101.5 61.0 - 88.7 27.7 0.42 PIN16-08 RC -90 452.7 285.0 - 295.7 10.7 0.16 300.3 - 324.7 24.4 0.38 346.0 - 349.1 3.1 0.61 359.8 - 367.4 7.6 0.18 PIN16-09 RC 172 -60 458.8 no assays > 0.14 g Au/t PIN16-10 RC -90 402.4 289.6 - 307.9 18.3 0.37 315.5 - 326.2 10.7 0.24 PIN16-11 RC -90 714.9 no assays > 0.14 g Au/t PIN16-12 RC -90 638.7 0 - 6.1 6.1 0.16 PIN16-13 RC -90 461.9 3.0 - 21.3 18.3 0.21 48.8 - 50.3 1.5 0.16 PIN16-14 RC -90 428.4 1.5 - 6.1 4.6 0.15 16.8 - 35.1 18.3 0.20 42.7 - 57.9 15.2 0.22 91.5 - 93.0 1.5 0.15 187.5 - 192.1 4.6 0.16 239.3 - 240.8 1.5 0.16 PIN16-15 RC 320 -45 36.6 0 - 4.6 4.6 0.19 19.8 - 21.3 1.5 0.14 30.5 - 32.0 1.5 0.17 35.0 - 39.6 4.6 0.15 PIN15-15A RC 320 -45 19.8 4.5 - 7.6 3.1 0.17 16.7 - 19.8 3.1 0.15 PIN16-16 RC 325 -60 422.3 1.5 - 10.7 7.6 0.42 22.9 - 24.4 1.5 0.18 32.0 - 53.3 21.3 0.20 57.9 - 80.8 22.9 0.42 100.6 - 102.1 1.5 0.16 137.2 - 141.8 4.6 0.15 205.8 - 210.4 4.6 0.23 214.9 - 216.4 1.5 0.15 271.3 - 272.8 1.5 0.18 PIN16-17 RC 335 -60 274.4 19.8 - 28.9 9.1 0.27 47.3 - 65.6 18.3 0.23 86.9 - 88.4 1.5 0.28 PIN16-18 RC 275 -60 493.9 12.2 - 13.7 1.5 0.18 19.8 - 39.6 19.8 0.33 48.8 - 61.0 12.2 0.20 65.5 - 73.1 7.6 0.17 79.2 - 89.9 10.7 0.18 118.9 - 122.0 3.1 0.29 227.1 - 230.2 3.1 0.14 285.1 - 286.6 1.5 0.75 442.1 - 446.7 4.6 0.33 PIN16-19 RC 20 -50 522.9 no assays > 0.14 g Au/t PIN16-20 RC 285 -58 228.7 7.6 - 13.7 6.1 0.35 15.2 - 16.7 1.5 0.15 27.4 - 36.5 9.1 0.17 143.3 - 144.8 1.5 0.19 175.3 - 178.4 3.1 0.24 PIN16-21 RC 250 -45 129.6 41.2 - 47.3 6.1 0.14 50.3 - 51.8 1.5 0.15 61.0 - 68.6 7.6 0.31 PIN16-22 RC 240 -63 314.0 10.6 - 13.7 3.1 0.19 32.0 - 36.6 4.6 0.15 41.2 - 42.7 1.5 0.21 PIN16-23 Core 300 -60 275.3 15.1 - 31.0 15.9 0.23 158.4 - 160.8 2.4 0.20

* Gold intervals reported in this table were calculated using a 0.14 g Au/t cutoff. Weighted averaging has been used to calculate all reported intervals. True widths are estimated at 70-90% of drilled thicknesses.

Mac Jackson, Gold Standard's Vice President of Exploration stated, "We are encouraged by the widespread, shallow oxide mineralization within a new host horizon at Sentinel. The Sentinel gold zone occurs in the immediate footwall of the Bullion fault corridor, a very important, north-striking district scale control with the North Bullion and Pinion deposits also located in its immediate footwall. Sentinel is open to the north and west; there is an excellent chance of intersecting higher-grade mineralization where crossing structures have focused the gold system. Our 2017 program at Sentinel is an important opportunity for us to add more near surface, oxide ounces at the north end of Pinion and further explore the Bullion fault corridor."

Sampling Methodology, Chain of Custody, Quality Control and Quality Assurance:

All sampling was conducted under the supervision of the Company's project geologists, and the chain of custody from the project to the sample preparation facility was continuously monitored. Core was cut at the company's facility in Elko and one quarter was sent to the lab for analysis and the remaining core retained in the original core box. A blank or certified reference material was inserted approximately every tenth sample. The Pinion core and RC samples were delivered to ALS Minerals preparation facility in Elko, NV where they were crushed and pulverized. Resulting sample pulps were shipped to ALS Minerals certified laboratory in Sparks, NV or Vancouver, BC. Pulps were digested and analyzed for gold using fire assay fusion and an atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) finish on a 30 gram split. All other elements were determined by ICP analysis. Data verification of the analytical results included a statistical analysis of the standards and blanks that must pass certain parameters for acceptance to insure accurate and verifiable results.

Drill hole deviation is measured by a gyroscopic down-hole survey that has been completed on all holes by International Directional Services of Elko, NV. Final collar locations are surveyed by differential GPS by Apex Surveying, LLC of Spring Creek, Nevada.

The scientific and technical content and interpretations contained in this news release have been reviewed, verified and approved by Steven R. Koehler, Gold Standard's Manager of Projects, BSc. Geology and CPG-10216, a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

ABOUT GOLD STANDARD VENTURES - Gold Standard is an advanced stage gold exploration company focused on district scale discoveries on its Railroad-Pinion Gold Project, located within the prolific Carlin Trend. The 2014 Pinion and Dark Star gold deposit acquisitions offer Gold Standard a potential near-term development option and further consolidates the Company's premier land package on the Carlin Trend. The Pinion deposit now has an NI43-101 compliant resource estimate consisting of an Indicated Mineral Resource of 31.61 million tonnes grading 0.62 grams per tonne (g/t) gold (Au), totaling 630,300 ounces of gold and an Inferred Resource of 61.08 million tonnes grading 0.55 g/t Au, totaling 1,081,300 ounces of gold, using a cut-off grade of 0.14 g/t Au (announced March 15, 2016). The Dark Star deposit, 2.1 km to the east of Pinion, has a NI43-101 compliant resource estimate consisting of an Inferred Resource of 23.11 million tonnes grading 0.51 g/t Au, totaling 375,000 ounces of gold, using a cut-off grade of 0.14 g/t Au (announced March 3, 2015). The 2014 and 2015 definition and expansion of these two shallow, oxide deposits demonstrates their growth potential.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Feb. 9, 2017) - Riverside Resources Inc. ("Riverside" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE:RRI)(OTC PINK:RVSDF)(FRANKFURT:R99), is pleased to provide an update on the partner funded exploration work and initial drill testing at the Company's Thor Project in Sonora, Mexico. The Thor Project is 128 km2 and located approximately 80 km east of the capital city of Sonora, Hermosillo. Riverside and its partner, Antofagasta Minerals S.A. ("Antofagasta"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Antofagasta Plc, recently completed the first four (4) drill holes ever drilled on this large property package that indicate at least three separate porphyry hydrothermal centre areas over a strike length of > 8 km in total distance.

Riverside and its partner decided to complete an initial proof-of-concept drill program to confirm Laramide aged rock at depth and explore for indications of a porphyry-intrusive system. The four diamond core holes totalled 1,335 m, with all four holes intersecting fault structures which appear to intersect upper and lower structural blocks of a porphyry-intrusive system. There were no significant copper or gold mineralized intercepts over material widths in these initial four holes; however, the program successfully found a porphyry system, with drilling encountering a large Laramide aged porphyry style quartz-sericite-pyrite stockwork zone, which can now be followed up with further work. The positive indications from the current program justify additional exploration work that will initially include a detailed remote sensing study and follow up field mapping, and targeted alteration and geochemical sampling to focus on identification of further drill targeting and to help understand the structural make up of this porphyry district. Riverside and Antofagasta have reviewed the results last week and now plan to progress the project with Riverside continuing as operator and moving the discovery process forward.

Riverside's President and CEO, John-Mark Staude, stated: "We are pleased to be drilling and exploring with Antofagasta as a partner in Sonora, Mexico. The drill program at Thor has delivered a positive proof of concept with the discovery of extensive porphyry style veining in the drilled target areas. The project will now be progressed with further targeting work on both the upper and lower plates in an attempt to vector in on a potential copper porphyry discovery."

Drilling included three initial holes into the North Target area and one hole drilled at the South Target area. The recently completed program did not include any drilling at the Central area or other target zones on the >100 km2 property. The drilling so far is interpreted to have cut an upper block of porphyry style quartz sericite veining and a lower plate of intrusions with varying levels of porphyry-intrusion style alteration. The porphyry system at Thor has multiple square kilometres of strong hydrothermal acid leaching and alteration. The drill testing is encouraging and provides guidance for next phases of targeting at depth along with further evaluation of the untested Central Target area.

The upper plate has at least three distinct hydrothermal centres and both the upper and lower plate appear to have potential to host a mineral discovery. Laramide porphyry systems in Arizona, such as the San Manuel-Kalamazoo copper mine operation, were discovered proximal to large extensional fault core complexes. Riverside geologists will consider these potential analogues while completing field exploration and follow up structural targeting interpretation of the system at Thor.

For more information on the Project, please visit the Thor Project page on the Company's website: https://goo.gl/nGw88q

Qualified Person & QA/QC:

The scientific and technical data contained in this news release pertaining to the Thor Project was reviewed and approved by Locke Goldsmith, P.Geo, P. Eng, a non-independent qualified person to Riverside Resources, who is responsible for ensuring that the geologic information provided in this news release is accurate and who acts as a "qualified person" under National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

Reported core samples were taken to Hermosillo, Mexico where Bureau Veritas Laboratory Group's (BV) mineral division crushed and pulverized each sample. Gold fire assays with AA finish were analysed in BV Hermosillo laboratory. The rejects remained with BV in Hermosillo while the pulps were transported to BV ISO 9001-2008 certified laboratory in Vancouver, BC, Canada for multi-element ICP analysis. A QA/QC program was implemented as part of the sampling procedures for the exploration program. Standard and blank samples were randomly inserted into the sample stream prior to being sent to the laboratory.

About Riverside Resources Inc.:

Riverside is a well-funded exploration team of focused, proactive gold discoverers. The Company currently has approximately $3,300,000 in the treasury and less than 37,500,000 shares outstanding. The Company's model of growth through partnerships and exploration uses the prospect generation business approach to own resources, while partners share in de-risking projects on route to discovery. Riverside has additional properties available for option with more information available on the Company's website at www.rivres.com.
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VANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwired - February 09, 2017) - Balmoral Resources Ltd. ("Balmoral" or the "Company") (TSX: BAR) (OTCQX: BALMF) announced today that its 2017 drilling program is now underway with the primary focus being the continued expansion and delineation of the Bug Lake gold deposits and other recent high-grade, near surface gold discoveries on its Martiniere Property, part of the Detour Gold Trend Project, in Quebec. It is anticipated that a minimum of 25,000 metres of drilling will be completed this year along the Bug Lake Gold Trend, with expansion of the size of the program as the year progresses being a strong possibility given the excellent results from the fall 2016 program.

"Our summer/fall 2016 drill program more than doubled the known footprint of the Bug South and Bug Lower Steep gold deposits and continued to extend the Bug North deposit down-plunge," said Darin Wagner, President and CEO of Balmoral. "Those results included some of the broadest gold mineralized intercepts from the property to date from our expansion drilling of the Bug South deposit, which is the initial focus of drilling this winter."

The Bug South gold deposit (see Figure 1) is one of three deposits now recognized along the length of the Bug Lake Gold Trend located central to the Martiniere Property. The summer/fall program led to the identification of a broad central core to the Bug South deposit located at depths of less than 275 vertical metres and highlighted by intercepts of:

115.45 metres grading 1.40 g/t gold including 10.75 metres grading 3.73 g/t gold (see NR16-19)

88.36 metres grading 1.07 g/t gold including 7.77 metres grading 2.99 g/t gold (see NR17-02)

78.17 metres grading 1.65 g/t gold including 17.00 metres grading 4.50 g/t gold (see NR16-24)

41.95 metres grading 3.24 g/t gold including 11.58 metres grading 6.30 g/t gold (see NR17-02)

35.16 metres grading 2.16 g/t gold including 9.08 metres grading 7.10 g/t gold (see NR16-24)

32.29 metres grading 3.39 g/t gold including 18.26 metres grading 5.41 g/t gold (see NR16-19)

25.90 metres grading 2.73 g/t gold including 10.75 metres grading 4.17 g/t gold (see NR16-19)

To date the Bug South deposit has been intersected for approximately 300 metres along strike, to a vertical depth of approximately 275 metres and down-plunge for approximately 425 metres. It remains open to depth and down plunge. One drill is currently testing the Bug South deposit with a second slated to begin turning over the next several days.

Drilling will also target the rapidly expanding Bug Lower Steep gold deposit which has now been intersected for over 850 metres down-plunge and which, like the Bug South deposit, remains open to depth and down-plunge. The sparsely drilled Lower Steep deposit has demonstrated excellent potential to rapidly add to the overall potential of the gold system at Martiniere.

The current winter drill program will also follow-up on three high grade, near surface gold discoveries made during the fall program. The first of these three targets, the 221 Zone, has already been intersected in several holes and occurs in the hanging wall to the Bug South Deposit. The discovery intercept of 26.90 metres grading 4.51 g/t gold included two higher grade sub-intervals grading 15.89 g/t gold over 2.80 metres and 10.89 g/t gold over 6.80 metres (see NR16-20).

The other two new discoveries occur approximately 300 metres to the east of the Bug Lake Gold Trend. The first, from hole BLD-16-03, returned 5.80 metres grading 10.51 g/t gold (see NR17-01). The second discovery is located approximately 1,000 metres to the south and returned 11.58 metres grading 6.25 g/t gold (see NR17-03). Both intercepts occur at depths of less than 100 vertical metres and are open in all directions. This area, 300-500 metres east of the Bug Lake Trend, is virtually untested and based on the recent intersections appears to have good potential to add meaningful zones of gold mineralization in the near surface to the project.

Finger Lake (Lac du Doigt) Fault Corridor

The north-south oriented Bug Lake Gold Trend is located between two east-west trending deformation/fault zones, the Sunday Lake Deformation Zone to the south, host to the large Detour Lake gold mine located 45 kilometres to the west, and the sub-parallel Finger Lake fault corridor to the north. The Finger Lake fault corridor was first identified by Balmoral in late 2014.

Limited drill testing along the Finger Lake fault corridor during the 2016 summer/fall drill program successfully extended the known gold mineralization along the corridor with an intercept of 1.28 g/t gold over 7.18 metres (43.27-50.45 metres downhole) including a higher grade core of 3.46 g/t gold over 2.37 metres in hole MDX-16-55. A second zone of weaker deformation and quartz-tourmaline veining occurs directly below (56.93-73.47 metres) and returned anomalous gold mineralization grading 0.17 g/t gold over 16.54 metres.

MDX-16-55 is the westernmost hole drilled to date along the Finger Lake corridor. Three holes across 750 metres of this structure have now all successfully intersected gold mineralization of a similar nature (see Figure 2) which is open in all directions.

"We continue to be very intrigued by the evolving potential along the Finger Lake fault system," said Mr. Wagner "The style of mineralization suggests a favourable environment which has been tested by only 3 holes to date, is open in all directions, and which has shown evidence for good gold grades and thicknesses. Additional testing is currently being planned for the summer 2017 season."

Quality Control

Mr. Darin Wagner (P.Geo.), President and CEO of the Company, is the non-independent qualified person for the technical disclosure contained in this news release. Mr. Wagner has supervised the work programs on the Martiniere Property since inception, visited the property on multiple occasions, examined the drill core from the holes summarized in this release, discussed, reviewed the results with senior on-site geological staff and reviewed the available analytical and quality control results.

Balmoral has implemented a quality control program for all of its drill programs, to ensure best practice in the sampling and analysis of the drill core, which includes the insertion of blind blanks, duplicates and certified standards into sample stream. NQ sized drill core is saw cut with half of the drill core sampled at intervals based on geological criteria including lithology, visual mineralization and alteration. The remaining half of the core is stored on-site at the Company's Martiniere field camp in Central Quebec. Drill core samples are transported in sealed bags to ALS Minerals' Val d'Or, Quebec analytical facilities. Gold analyses are obtained via industry standard fire assay with atomic absorption finish using 30 g aliquots. For samples returning greater than 5.00 g/t gold follow-up fire assay analysis with a gravimetric finish is completed. The Company has also requested that any samples returning greater than 10.00 g/t gold undergo screen metallic fire assay. Following receipt of assays, visual analysis of mineralized intercepts is conducted and additional analysis may be requested. ALS Minerals is ISO 9001:2008 certified and the Val d'Or facilities are ISO 17025 certified for gold analysis.
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Associated Banc-Corp, a bank holding company, provides various banking and nonbanking products to individuals and businesses in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota. The company operates through three segments: Corporate and Commercial Specialty; Community, Consumer, and Business; and Risk Management and Shared Services. Its Corporate and Commercial Specialty segment offers lending solutions, including commercial loans and lines of credit, commercial real estate financing, construction loans, letters of credit, leasing, asset based lending, and loan syndications; deposit and cash management solutions, such as commercial checking and interest-bearing deposit products, cash vault and night depository services, liquidity solutions, payables and receivables solutions, and information services; specialized financial services such as interest rate risk management, foreign exchange solutions, and commodity hedging; fiduciary services such as administration of pension, profit-sharing and other employee benefit plans, fiduciary and corporate agency services, and institutional asset management; and investable funds solutions such as savings, money market deposit accounts, IRA accounts, CDs, fixed and variable annuities, full-service, discount and online investment brokerage; investment advisory services; and trust and investment management accounts. The company's Community, Consumer, and Business segment offers lending solutions, such as residential mortgages, home equity loans and lines of credit, personal and installment loans, auto loans, business loans, and business lines of credit; and deposit and transactional solutions such as checking, credit, debit and pre-paid cards, online banking and bill pay; and money transfer services. As of December 31, 2021, the company operated 215 banking branches. Associated Banc-Corp was founded in 1861 and is headquartered in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
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Leopard rescued after it strays into a house

A leopard was rescued from a private residential house in Panga area in Kirtipur municipality on Wednesday afternoon.
MetLife, Inc., a financial services company, provides insurance, annuities, employee benefits, and asset management services worldwide. It operates through five segments: U.S.; Asia; Latin America; Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and MetLife Holdings. The company offers life, dental, group short-and long-term disability, individual disability, pet insurance, accidental death and dismemberment, vision, and accident and health coverages, as well as prepaid legal plans; administrative services-only arrangements to employers; and general and separate account, and synthetic guaranteed interest contracts, as well as private floating rate funding agreements. It also provides pension risk transfers, institutional income annuities, structured settlements, and capital markets investment products; and other products and services, such as life insurance products and funding agreements for funding postretirement benefits, as well as company, bank, or trust-owned life insurance used to finance nonqualified benefit programs for executives. In addition, it provides fixed, indexed-linked, and variable annuities; and pension products; regular savings products; whole and term life, endowments, universal and variable life, and group life products; longevity reinsurance solutions; credit insurance products; and protection against long-term health care services. MetLife, Inc. was founded in 1863 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
MoS mulls importing 50,000 tonnes of sugar for buffer stock

Ministry of Supplies (MoS) is considering purchasing 50,000 tonnes of sugar for buffer stock, which will be used to offset price fluctuations.
MoU signed for feasibility study of sky rail in Capital

The Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Cimex Inc Pvt Ltd for conducting a feasibility study of a sky rail system in Kathmandu. The MoU signed on Wednesday is first of its kind to explore possibility of sky rail system in Nepal.
Banc of California, Inc. operates as the bank holding company for Banc of California, National Association that provides banking products and services in the United States. The company offers deposit products, including checking, savings, money market, retirement, and interest-bearing and noninterest-bearing demand accounts, as well as certificate of deposits. It also provides various commercial and consumer loan products, such as commercial and industrial loans; commercial real estate and multifamily loans; construction loans; single family residential mortgage loans; warehouse and indirect/direct leveraged lending; home equity lines of credit; small business administration loans; and other consumer loans. In addition, the company offers automated bill payment, cash and treasury management, foreign exchange, card payment, remote and mobile deposit capture, automated clearing house origination, wire transfer, direct deposit, and internet banking services; and master demand accounts, interest rate swaps, and safe deposit boxes. Further, it invests in collateralized loan obligations, agency securities, municipal bonds, agency residential mortgage-backed securities, and corporate debt securities. As of December 31, 2020, the company operated 29 full-service branches in Southern California. The company was formerly known as First PacTrust Bancorp, Inc. and changed its name to Banc of California, Inc. in July 2013. Banc of California, Inc. was founded in 1941 and is headquartered in Santa Ana, California.
GRAMMY nominated musician and activist, Rocky Dawuni, returns to Africa for a series of shows this month as part of his East African Tour 2017 his first time in Zanzibar, Tanzania at the famed Sauti za Busara Festival on February 12 as well as including February 18 at the taste maker Alchemist Bar in Nairobi and the beautiful Soysambu Conservancy near Lake Elmenteita for their In The Wild Festival on February 24.

Originally from Ghana, West Africa, Rocky Dawuni straddles the boundaries between Africa, the Caribbean and the U.S. to create his appealing Afro Roots sound that unites generations and cultures. A galvanizing performer, Dawuni has shared the stage with Stevie Wonder, Janelle Monae and John Legend, among many others. Named one of Africa's Top 10 global stars by CNN, he has showcased his talent at prestigious venues and events including The Kennedy Center, Montreux Jazz Festival and The Hollywood Bowl. Rocky Dawuni's sixth album, Branches of the Same Tree (Cumbancha), which features the song African Thriller  was nominated for a GRAMMY for Best Reggae Album.

Branches" also features the super catchy "Shine A Light which Rocky Dawuni just released a brand new video for. The track combines the sounds of New Orleans with reggae and samba to create an anthem of positivity. The song and video celebrate the power of our shared humanity and the importance of being courageous to tap into your own power of expression. In a time of great uncertainty in our world, "Shine A Light reminds the listener to uphold the positive and recognize that we are all agents of hope and change. Shine A Light was just licensed for the new Ice Cube film "Fist Fight" which debuts in the US on February 17.

Rocky Dawuni East Africa Tour 2017 is supported by Gina Din Group who are celebrating 20 years of shaping African conversations.

Please come out and see this amazing live artist for one of these rare appearances in East Africa!

For more information on Rocky Dawuni :

www.RockyDawuni.com

www.Cumbancha.com/RockyDawuni
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Gospel musician Anita Afriyie has denied reports that gospel artistes in the country depend on 'juju' (black magic) to be successful in their musical career.

The 'Adehye Mogya' hitmaker's denial follows claims made by a spiritualist who appeared on The Pundit Show on GHOne Television that gospel musicians consult him for spiritual support.

The spiritualist, Nana Boafo, revealed that a large number of artistes consult him for spiritual assistance to boost the sale of the musical work, as well as their career.

He stated that in the Ghanaian music industry, gospel artistes consult and deal in 'juju' (black magic) more than any other persons in the industry.

He also pointed out that consultations and dealings in 'juju' by these artistes are done here in Ghana, Togo and predominantly in Benin.

Reacting to the claims made by the spiritualist, Anita Afriyie in an interview with KMJ on Daybreak Hitz on Hitz FM pointed out that an individual who does the work of God cannot depend on the devil and be successful at what he or she does.

She added that it is possible for individuals to go for some supernatural powers to aid them with their works, but that will only prove how uncertain they are of their works.

Anita Afriyie said she serves a living God who is able to do all things for her and any other genuine Christian; therefore, she does not need to depend on any other supernatural power to be successful.

She complained bitterly about how gospel artistes have been tagged negatively by the media lately, adding that such tags tarnish the image of the gospel music industry and also belittle the gospel artistes.

It would be recalled that in August last year, Kumasi-based gospel musician Jak Alolome in a chat on Abusua FM in Kumasi with Nana Hemaa indicated that the situation is not peculiar to only gospel artistes, but that those in secular music are worse off.

I have heard some of my colleagues are into juju but that is not the best for the industry. I am a true believing Christian and I know God is the only one who protects me and my music career and not any other god, he emphasized.

It is true some gospel artistes are engaging in 'juju' but those in secular music are also doing same, he said.

According to him, he has, over the years, resolved not to indulge in such practices since it is at variance with his religious beliefs.
Mogadishu (AFP) - Supporters of Somalia's new President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, a veteran diplomat and former prime minister, hope he can be the answer to corruption and extremism in the world's most notorious failed state.

The 55-year-old father of four, better known as Farmajo, holds both American and Somali citizenship, and was elected after a six-month voting process marred by widespread allegations of vote-buying and corruption.

Nevertheless, Farmajo, from the Darod clan, was welcomed with celebration by many Somalis who had looked forward to change after a series of Hawiye presidents.

In a country where clan divisions dominate politics, the administration of his predecessor, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, was widely seen as more corrupt than any that came before him.

As president, Farmajo inherits a country where Al-Shabaab extremists hold swathes of countryside and attack Mogadishu at will.

And after decades of unrest, hundreds of thousands of Somalis have been displaced internally, or else have fled the country.

Somalia's new president was elected after a six-month voting process marred by widespread allegations of vote-buying and corruption

"This is the beginning of unity for the Somali nation, the beginning of the fight against Shabaab and corruption," a triumphant Farmajo said after being declared president.

Many Somalis fondly remember the eight months when Farmajo -- whose nickname means "cheese" -- was prime minister in 2010-11.

On his Facebook page, Farmajo says that while premier, he implemented the first monthly stipends for soldiers, worked on the country's new constitution and sent delegations to defuse clan-related tensions in several regions.

The soldiers firing celebratory gunfire in the streets of Mogadishu on Wednesday have not been paid for months.

And in a report this week, the Somali anti-corruption NGO Marqaati said civil servants had gone unpaid so the government could pay for lobbying during the elections.

In his time as prime minister, Farmajo also established an anti-corruption commission, prohibited unnecessary trips abroad by members of government and put in place an audit of government property and vehicles.

Forced out

After decades of unrest, hundreds of thousands of Somalis have been displaced internally, or else have fled the country

In 2011, after months of political infighting over the holding of presidential elections, a deal was struck to postpone the vote in exchange for Farmajo's resignation.

He agreed to step down in "the interest of the Somali people and the current situation in Somalia".

In early 2012 Farmajo and members of his former cabinet set up the Tayo ("Quality") political party.

On his Facebook page, he says that the party's priority was "encouraging the repatriation of Somali diasporans so as to assist in the post-conflict reconstruction process."

Farmajo was born in Mogadishu to activist parents from the southern Gedo region.

He has lived off and on for years in the United States, where he studied history and political science.

He worked at the foreign ministry before the overthrow of Siad Barre's regime in 1991 ushered in decades of anarchy. He also worked at the Somali embassy in Washington.

Before being appointed prime minister he spent several years working in New York for the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority and the Erie County Division of Equal Employment Opportunity, as well as the New York State Department of Transportation.
Goma (DR Congo) (AFP) - Two Congolese working for Al-Jazeera have been freed five days after being abducted during a reporting mission, the Qatar-based broadcaster said Wednesday.

The two men were kidnapped last Wednesday near Nyanzale in the south of the restive Nord-Kivu province and were freed on Monday, it said.

The zone in the Democratic Republic of Congo's turbulent east is notorious for kidnappings for ransom.

Al-Jazeera however said no money was paid for their release, explaining it was secured "through the work of the local authorities".

"Al-Jazeera is relieved that all men are safe and sound and would like to thank officials from the FARDC (the Congolese army) and the UN mission in DRC for their support in assisting Al-Jazeera in getting the two men released without paying for any ransom demands and assisting in escorting our staff to safety during this traumatic period."

Al-Jazeera's English service staffers who were with the men said their vehicle was attacked by armed men who took the two locals hostage but left three foreign journalists -- a Briton, an Italian and a Kenyan -- untouched.

One of the freed men said the kidnappers appeared to be Rwandan Hutu rebels associated with the Nyatura Mai-Mai, a local Congolese Hutu militia.

The man said both he and his colleague were "severely abused" by their abductors and were hospitalised in Goma, the region's main city, on Wednesday.

Nord-Kivu has been torn by violence and armed conflict for more than two decades.
09.02.2017 LISTEN

Apparently, I have been incurring the wrath of diehard supporters of the NDC Party for vigorously upbraiding the erstwhile NDC government on its inability to transform Ghanas fortunes.

Let me however venture to stress that I am a proud and an unrepentant critic of the NDC government. Indeed, I have no regrets for relentlessly highlighting all the negative effects of the NDCs maladaptive governance.

Of course, to ceaselessly scribe and squall about the appalling state of Ghanas economy which the NDC apologists back then, strangely perceived as an innocuous or a convivial issue, is to be more or less regarded as a political fanatic, or even as a radical conservative, mischievously seeking to discredit their beloved party.

But far from it, I was rather being true to the faith, and with a view to upholding and defending the good name of our beloved Ghana.

As a matter of fact and observation, the good people of Ghana witnessed so much duplicities, corruption, incompetence, nepotism, cronyism and frequent abuse of power in the NDC government. Hence the vast majority of Ghanaians lost trust in President Mahama and his government.

Truly, President Mahama and his laid-back appointees wilfully collapsed Ghanas economy, yet President Mahama and his apologists kept trumpeting their vague rhetoric , political insobrieties and meaningless slogans-Mahama Tuaso; We care for you; people matter, you matter; we are transforming lives.

Amazingly, however, President Mahama and his NDC apparatchiks kept trumpeting the meaningless better Ghana agenda and unprecedented achievements, meanwhile Ghanaians businesses were collapsing due to the never ending dumsor and could not even pay their utility bills and their children school fees.

It was in the light of the irreversible harsh socio-economic standards of living that discerning people of Ghana bought into the NPPs much trumpeted change.

Let me however stress that election is a social contract that exists between a candidate and a voter. In the scheme of things, the candidate solicits for votes in exchange of provision of relevant human needs.

It is also worth mentioning that our contemporary authority or government came into being, as a result of the emergence of social contract.

It was based on such agreement that the NPP Party entered into contract with Ghanaians prior to the 2016 general election.

Indeed, the good people of Ghana found in NPP, a panacea who they trust to set them free from the existential economic bondage.

Thus, President Nana Akufo-Addo and his appointees must not and cannot disappoint the teeming Ghanaians, whose invaluable efforts brought about the needed change.

Apparently, when promises are broken, the bonds of trust are breached, thus the NPP government must not and cannot renege on its Manifesto promises.

So, in the grand scheme of things, President Akufo-Addo and his appointees must endeavour to initiate expedient policies to overturn the failed policies of agriculture, poverty reduction and resource allocation in the areas of healthcare, education, finance, supply chain management and security sector planning, amongst others.

Suffice it to point out that as the international community heads toward implementing and monitoring the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals agenda, the human development approach remains useful to articulating the objectives of development and improving peoples well-being by ensuring an equitable, sustainable and stable world.

Absolutely, it is expedient and a worthwhile for any authority to attempt to bridge social inequalities through rational distribution of national resources (Li, Savage, Ward 2008).

Thus, it is not out of place for the NPP government to seek to improve Ghanaians well-being through the implementation of advantageous policies such as one district one factory, one constituency one million dollars, one village one dam, free SHS, tax deductions and many others.

Of course, the promises are exciting and achievable. But then again, it is up to President Nana Akufo-Addo and his appointees to deliver the goods.

Make no mistake; it is not going to be an easy task in the midst of the huge debt left by the erstwhile NDC government. Ghanas debt is reported to be around GH120billion as of December 2016.

Indeed, the task confronting the NPP government is herculean, and I do not envy any appointee of President Nana Akufo-Addo at all.

It must however be emphasised that the previous NPP government under former President Kufuor met a similar gloomy situation in 2001.

Unfortunately, former President Kufuors predecessor, (former President Rawlings), Nineteen years rule add nothing meaningful to the economy, but it rather destabilised Ghanas macroeconomic indicators.

Ghana was thus declared as Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC).

Despite the apparent destabilisation of the macroeconomic indicators amid dire socio-economic standards of living, NPP government under President Kufuor managed to turn Ghanas fortunes around.

Amazingly, macroeconomic indicators begun to stabilize and Ghanas debt stock was significantly reduced by about $4 billion within that period.

In addition, as a result of the HIPC initiative and prudent borrowing, Ghanas external debt stock actually declined from $6.1 billion in 2000 to$3.8 billion by 2008 ( dailyguideafrica.com, 2016).

Even though the task ahead seems extremely difficult, the effervescent President Nana Akufo-Addo and his formidable appointees are expected to deliver the goods to the good people of Ghana.

In ending, if the Manifesto promises are kept and the able appointees live up to the expectation, trust me, the NDC Party will be kept in the opposition for a very long time.

K. Badu, UK.
NATO allies lock in U.S. support for stand-off with Russia

Immediately after Donald Trump was elected, U.S. diplomats urged Lithuania to rush through an agreement to keep American troops on its soil, reflecting alarm that the new, Russia-friendly U.S. president might try to stop more deployments in Europe.
The Police has cautioned persons raiding government installations and private properties in the name of protecting state assets to desist from such acts.

In a statement, the Director of Public Affairs of the Ghana Police Service, Superintendent Cephas Arthur said: It is an offence for any person or group of persons to take the law into their own hands and invade peoples homes and workplaces under the pretext of retrieving stolen state property.

Anyone with information about any act of criminality, including the alleged stealing of any state property by any persons, be they public officials or private individuals, should report the matter to the nearest police station or CID Headquarters, Accra, for the necessary action.

Read a copy of the police statement below

UNLAWFUL SEIZURE OF PROPERTY

Information reaching the Police Administration indicates that some group of persons are going around seizing vehicles and other items belonging to functionaries of the previous government for having stolen them, and also taking over and locking up state institutions and agencies, with the latest of such take-overs being those of SADA, NHIA offices in Tamale, Northern Region.

The Police Administration takes a very serious view of these acts, as they constitute criminal offences, and also breach the peace.

Perpetrators of these unlawful entries and seizures of state institutions and other persons belonging could be held for any or all of the following offences:

1. Unlawful Entry. Contrary to the Criminal offences Act, 1960 (Act 29) Section 152. 2. Stealing. Contrary to the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29) Section 125.

It is an offence for any person or group of persons to take the law into their own hands and invade peoples homes and workplaces under the pretext of retrieving stolen state property.

Anyone with information about any act of criminality, including alleged stealing of any state property by any persons, be they public officials or private individuals should report the matter to the nearest Police Station or CID Headquarters, Accra for the necessary action.

The Police has commenced an operation to arrest and prosecute those who commit these unlawful acts.

Meanwhile, members of the public, especially victims of these acts of criminality are entreated to report them to the nearest Police Station or call Police Hotlines: MTN & Vodafone  18555 and All Networks - 191
Cape Town (AFP) - South Africa has advertised it is "open for business" at the world's largest annual mining conference, but industry players worry regulatory confusion could prevent the country from cashing in on the bull years that may lie ahead.

After mineral resources minister Mosebenzi Zwane told the Mining Indaba in Cape Town that rising commodity prices marked the start of "a new spring", Neal Froneman, chief executive of the Sibanye mining company, said that "the investment appetite is very negative."

Analysts and miners have decried a regulatory environment that they say has hit investment and forced industry and government to slug it out in court.

Sibanye is taking the government to court for about 26 million rand ($1.9 million) after one of its platinum mines was completely shut down following a fatal accident in September.

Last year a court also said safety officers acted disproportionately when operations at an AngloGold Ashanti gold mine were suspended over violations in a single section of the mine.

Mosebenzi Zwane, South African Minister of Mineral Resources, told the Mining Indaba in Cape Town that rising commodity prices marked the start of "a new spring"

"When you end up closing an entire mine when you've got a localised problem, the economic damage of that is significant," said Chamber of Mines CEO Roger Baxter.

But Zwane has insisted he will not compromise on safety standards and slammed mining companies for "threatening" his department with court action.

Minister chides industry

There were 73 deaths in South African mines last year, down slightly from 77 in 2015.

"Courts should not be used as a tool to stifle debate and threaten government into taking positions," Zwane told journalists at the conference. "We'll take positions. We are here to govern. And we'll do exactly that."

Speaking to AFP on the sidelines of the conference, his deputy was more diplomatic.

"We've got to be fair and reasonable," said Godfrey Oliphant. "If there's any citizen who feels that they were unreasonably stopped, they've got the right and recourse to come to the department or to take court action."

Turning to the courts was the "last resort" for Sibanye, Froneman told AFP.

Delegates attend the third day of Africa's biggest annual mining conference, the "Mining Indaba", at the International Convention Centre in Cape Town

"You can engage so much and for so long. You can even make proposals as to a protocol for how these things must work. When you receive no response, you are actually only left with no alternative but to take the issue regarding the damages you as a company are experiencing to court."

It was not a knee-jerk reaction to one stoppage, but a series that had caused Sibanye "unnecessary damage and we're not going to to tolerate it anymore".

Also looming is a rejig of the country's mining charter, the guiding document meant to transform the industry and address long-standing racial inequality in the sector by boosting black ownership.

Industry representatives at the Indaba repeatedly said they had not been adequately consulted in the drafting of the charter.

Not so, said Oliphant.

"Consultation has been extensive," he stressed.

This week a Johannesburg law firm took the issue to court, arguing the proposed charter be declared invalid.

Mining means jobs

Tension between the government and the mining industry -- a key jobs provider -- was palpable at the Indaba.

"The Chamber of Mines is not the only stakeholder in South Africa that is affected by the mining charter," Zwane said. "The majority of the 60 stakeholders that we have consulted with are very happy."

Meanwhile, amendments to key mining legislation have been stuck in parliament for four years.

"This industry absolutely requires regulatory certainty," said Baxter. "Four years down the road is just too long. The industry cannot wait this long for these bits of legislation."

The minister announced the latest version of charter will be published next month, while the long-awaited legislation should be passed come June.

Until it is, analysts say the uncertain regulatory situation could mean South Africa fails to benefit as markets pick up.

"It's all stick and no carrot," said mining analyst Peter Leon.

He said the government needed to start incentivising the industry if it wanted to attract investors.

"We need to move away from this obsession around regulation to one which is a more enabling environment."

Mining contributes about eight percent to South Africa's GDP and accounts for some 400,000 direct jobs.

The country has an unemployment rate of about 27 percent, a 13-year high.
The immediate past Executive Director of the National Service Scheme, Dr. Michael Kpessah Whyte, is urging persons affected by the scheme's decision to cancel their appointment to go to court.

The Scheme, under the leadership of Ussif Mustapha , on Wednesday, 8th February,terminated the appointment of 205 persons, who were employed by the secretariat towards the end of the erstwhile National Democratic Congress' (NDC) government in December 2016.

According to a statement signed by Mr. Mustapha, the recruitment process was not properly followed hence the decision.

But speaking on Eyewitness News on Wednesday, the former NSS boss, Dr. Kpessah Whyte, challenged the new Executive director's decision saying he did not abreast himself with the documents that guided the recruitment of the staff.

As far as I am concerned, during our time, we followed due process to the letter and the documents are there and the new executive director and his team need to ask for them. They should go into correspondences and they should ask for all the correspondence, otherwise, I will advise the new recruits, who have been asked to stay home that if the decision is not reversed, they should take it to court, because the truth is on their side, Dr Kpessah Whyte said.

He noted that, the petition against the recruitment process on which the new executive director premised the decision, was from an individual staff of the scheme, and was not appropriately addressed to the Chairman of the Public Services Commission who had the right to give instructions on what must be done.

The Public Services Commission does not recruit for state agencies. Public Services Commission at the senior level may interview or em-panel people to interview. What we were doing was, we were recruiting people at the junior level and it was based on clearance given from the Commission itself.

If anybody had raised an issue during the process of the interview or recruitment process, one would have expected that a professional Public Services Commission will first of all look into the issue and see if it has any merit. You don't move on the basis of a mere letter from one staff and say stop the entire process. The petition that was written was to a particular staff at the Public Services Commission instead of the chairman of the Public Services Commission, Kpessah Whyte said.

We didnt err in terminating the appointments

Meanwhile, the acting NSS Executive Director who was recently appointed by President Akufo-Addo, has said that his actions are justified and was ready to challenge anyone who thought otherwise.

Speaking on Eyewitness News, he said the former director blatantly ignored a directive from the Public Services Commission to halt the recruitment process over some challenges that had been raised about the way the process was being undertaken.



By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

Follow @jnyabor
It has emerged that Otiko Afisa Djaba's exemption from the mandatory national service, following her controversial approval as the Gender, Children and Social Protection Minister, is only temporary.

According to the acting Executive Director of the National Service Scheme, Ussif Mustapha, Madam Djaba's brief exemption, is because there is currently no board in place for the NSS.

Prior to Madam Djaba's approval for her ministerial portfolio in Parliament on Tuesday, the Majority leader, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, said the then nominee, following her vetting, secured an exemption from the National Service Scheme.

According to him, the waiver on her National Service made her eligible to be employed in any institution in the country, as required by the National Service Act 426.

Madam Djaba was 47 at the time she graduated from the University of Development Studies (UDS), also making her eligible for the waiver.

She was eventually sworn in as the Gender, Children and Social Protection Minister on Tuesday evening only by majority votes.

Speaking on Eyewitness News, Ussif Mustapha said, she has written to us, applied for an exemption and we have given her a temporal letter that will grant her the exemption whilst we are waiting for the board to be constituted properly.

Despite no board being constituted for the NSS, the NSS Head stated that, the temporary waiver was granted in consultation with the President and the Education Ministry.

When there is no board, the president and the minister, which the president has appointed, is the person we consult during this period and he was duly consulted, Ussif Mustapha explained.

NDC MP threatens lawsuit

Despite the exemption, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for the Ashaiman Constituency, Ernest Norgbey, has hinted of legal action to challenge the approval of the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Otiko Afisa Djaba.

According to him, the minister's failure to undertake the mandatory one-year national service makes it illegal for her to occupy the ministerial position.



By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Reports indicate that the five-member committee appointed to investigate the bribery allegation involving some MPs and a minister of state will be conducted in public.

State-owned newspaper, Daily Graphic, reports in its February 9, 2017, edition reports a highly placed source has revealed to make the committees work transparent the committee had decided to open up the inquiry to the public.

It said for that reason, the doors of the committee would be open to the public to afford people the opportunity to appreciate what would transpire, reports the newspaper.

It is, however, not clear if the committee would also allow live coverage of the hearings on television.

The source said the committee would leave that to the discretion of media managers, according to the Daily Graphic report.

It is still not clear when the hearings will begin.

Bawku Central MP, Mahama Ayariga, inflamed passions when alleged that Energy Minister Boakye Agyarko, bribed himself and other MPs on Parliament's Appointment Committee GHc3,000 in a bid to facilitate is approval for the ministerial portfolio.

Mr Ayariga claimed that Minority Chief Whip Muntaka Mohammed and Chair of the Appointment Committee, Joseph Osei-Owusu, knew about the bribe money -- claims all three persons cited have denied.

Meanwhile, two Minority MPs, Okudzeto Ablakwa and Alhassan Suhuyini have backed Mr Ayariga's claims.

Speaker of Parliament, Mike Ocquaye, subsequently up a five-member Committee to probe the alleged bribery attempt.

The Speaker explained that the Committee has become necessary because of the weight of the allegation made by Mahama Ayariga.

Upholding Standing Orders 191 which advises the formation of a special committee to investigate any matter of public importance, the Speaker announced the formation of the high-powered parliamentary special committee to investigate the matter.

The committee members as suggested by the Majority Leader Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu agreed to by the Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu and approved by the Speaker are;

(a) Essikadu/Ketan MP, Joe Ghartey as Chairman

(b) Offinso South MP Ben Abdallah Banda

(c) Juaben MP, Ama Pomaa Boateng

(d) Talensi MP, Benson Tongo Baba

(e) Yilo Krobo MP, Magnus Kofi Amoatey

The terms of reference given the Special Committee are;

(a) To establish if First Deputy Speaker Joseph Osei Owusu took money from Energy Minister Boakye Agyarko and gave it to Minority Chief Whip Alhaji Mubarak Mohammed Muntaka.

(b) To do an internal inquiry to find out whether there were attempts to bribe members of Appointments Committee

(d) To look into the remit of complaints and assertions made by First Deputy Speaker about the matter.

The establishment of the Committee comes days after Bakwu Central MP Mahama Ayariga alleged members of the Appointments Committee were offered GHC3,000 to approve Mr Agyarko as the Energy Minister.

He claimed National Democratic Congress (NDC) members on the Committee returned the money to the minority Chief Whip after they were told it was given to them by Mr Agyarko to bribe them.

The two people implicated in the scandal - Mr Osei Owusu and Alhaji Muntaka - have each dismissed the claim describing it as purely a concoction.

Making his official statement on the matter in Parliament Tuesday, Mr Osei Owusu said he was "livid" when Mr Ayariga linked him to the bribery claim.

"NPP has such a huge majority and does not need to pay a bribe in this House," he noted, adding the need to build consensus on issues in the House is largely to benefit the minority.

He had requested the Speaker to permit him to drag the MP who made the claim to court, but this was turned down.

"I crave your indulgence to permit me to ventilate my grievances in court," he said.

But Prof Ocquaye said Parliament is empowered to inquire into any matter from "Archaeology to Zoology."

He assured Ghanaians the Special Committee set up would undertake an independent work, adding it would not push "anything under the carpet."

He also cautioned MPs to be mindful about their commentary on the issue in the public since it might undermine the work of the Committee, threatening, people will be held for contempt of Parliament if their comments prejudice the case.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com
Yaounde, Cameroon, February 8, 2017  The Central African Ministerial Conference on Youth Employment held Tuesday, February 7 in Yaounde, Cameroon, was a resounding success, with over 200 participants attending the high-level event. The conference opened with the testimony of young entrepreneur Fabrice Olomo, who engaged the audience on issues faced by youth when starting their businesses, and demonstrated how bright the future can be when young Africans are empowered.

In his welcoming address, the African Development Banks Resident Representative in Cameroon, Racine Kane, expressed his gratitude to the Government of Cameroon for hosting the Banks Jobs for Youth Ministerial Conference. While addressing the audience, he added, The Bank is committed to finding resolution to this ever-important issue, and that is why it has adopted the coordinated approach of the Jobs for Youth in Africa Strategy.

Africas population is rising rapidly and will reach 2 billion by 2050. It is expected that the youth population will double from 480 million today to 840 million by 2050. This means that Africa will be the youngest continent in the world. Unless employment opportunities are created for them, this rapidly growing youthful population could give rise to serious social, economic, political and security challenges.

In his opening remarks, Louis Paul Motaze, the Cameroonian Minister of Economy, Planning and Development, recognized the importance of youth issues and that unemployment exposes youth to many perils, impacting their precarity, and jeopardizing the countrys economy and stability.

The objective of Tuesdays high-level meeting was about forging strong partnerships and working towards improved policies, strategies, programs and projects focused on youth employment and entrepreneurship in the Central Africa region. Ministers of Finance and Youth Employment, youth organizations, business leaders, universities and representatives of civil society were in attendance.

The Banks Jobs for Youth in Africa Strategy (JfYA) was presented during the meeting and participants had the opportunity to get acquainted with its flagship programs. Panelists explored possibilities for sustainable solutions to the youth unemployment crisis, its medium- and long-term impacts and the creation of a better business climate that will lead to decent jobs for youth. When launching the Regional Ministerial Conferences in Abidjan, Cote dIvoire, on October 18, 2016, AfDB President Akinwumi Adesina pointed out the urgent need for action, stating, If youth is our future, then we are already behind schedule, in providing them access to credit and better financing for their projects.

The next Ministerial Conference on Youth Employment for Southern Africa will take place in Pretoria, South Africa on February 27, 2017.

For more information on Jobs for Youth in Africa: http://bit.ly/2aYPun8

Contact: Anouar Ouedraogo, Jobs for Youth in Africa Team, tel. +225 2026 5598, [email protected]
There was an incredible rush of nostalgia as old and past students of the sociology department of the university of Ghana, Legon gathered after many years to reconnect, network and support their alma mata.

After several years in exile, the Sociology Department with the support of some old students has organized the First Sociology Alumni Homecoming to bring back old students with the aim of supporting their Alma Mata.

The Head of Department, Professor Michael Egiriful, said this initiative is critical to the department which seeks to bring together former students to sustain the development and progress of the sociology department.

He called for the establishment of an alumni research fund which will be used to promote research related purposes of the department.

Prof. Egiriful also appealed to the support of the alumni towards the procurement of a US$32,000 van for the department that will be used to facilitate the easy movement of students and officers during field research.

Delivering the first lecture on the topic The Relevance of Sociology in Career Development, Prof. Ernest Dumor, who is the father of the Late Ace Broadcast Journalist Komla Dumor, used the professional growth and development of his son career as a sociologist who later became a journalist as the focus of his lecture.

He stated that his late sons professional life and development was driven by excellence and personal integrity.

Prof. Dumor noted that his son became the international measure for the practice of modern journalism in the changing digital space as the number one anchor for the British Broadcast Corporation (BBC) television worldwide.

According to him, the late Komla Dumor journey as a sociologist can be traced to the educational framework within which he grew and had the opportunity to traverse the territory of sociology to politics, history, literature etc.

He indicated that the late Komla Dumor is very much rooted in the classical education which emphasized on grammar that included the skills in reading, writing, with the view to expanding vocabulary, the management and the ability to understand concepts of varied degrees.

Prof Dumor said this educational framework also included logic which allows him to question ideas, seek explanations and join debates and argument in order to advance his own knowledge and thinking.

The third component of his classical education, according to him, with regard to rhetoric, the idea was to develop the skills of persuasion and learns to articulate answers to questions in his own way and learn to defend ideas against rebuttal, and with this experience the foundation was made for Komla.

He emphasized that Komlas second journey was growing up in a racially polarized society in the United States of America with his siblings who were the only children in the highly concentrated white society.

Prof. Dumor noted that they suffered all forms of racism and they had to learn ways by which they can cope with the racism which later saw Komla asking simple questions about why should African Americans go through this historically determined fist of the earth.

A few years later Komla was exposed to a documentary called roots imagining how a young man of African descent Kutakinti seeing his pride and honor while experiencing sorrow and bitterness watching his freedom disappear, he stated.

After years in the states, according to him, Komla landed in Nigeria and interacted with Moslems and all the different tribes, lived with the company of the rich children and those left down in the midst of brutality in the Baba Ngidas military regime.

Prof. Dumor indicated that Komla the sociologist turned journalist accepted to apply categorical imperatives and for that reason he committed to the practice of ethical principles of journalism.

Komla used the sociological imagination in order to look at the issues of power elites and what a sociologist should be doing within the context of a society dominated by the power elites who were holding overwhelming power ignoring the wishes of the ordinary person, he said.

Within the context of powerlessness, it is the political task of the sociologist to translate personal troubles into public issues which is exactly what Komla did, Prof. intimated.

He concluded that the narratives and the western monologue of Africa must change and in a very consummate way, Komla was ready to present Africa as the new frontier and economic power house on the globe.

The second speaker, Professor Kodjo Senah, a lecturer at the Department of Sociology, presented a lecture on Health Risks of Young Professionals with focus on stress.

He said medical sociologists have always emphasized that health problems can be understood largely within the context of the nexus between the society and the individual.

Prof. Senah noted that irrespective of whatever job one engages in, there is some degree of stress to the extent that one must meet certain deliverable targets and confront situations that require quick resolution.

He added the effects of stress can be emotional, psychological, physical and signs of stress are different in everyone, with some people expressing more physical signs, like fatigue or high blood pressure, and others expressing more emotion or psychological signs, like irritability or depression.

According to him, the literature on the health status and health-seeking behaviour of Ghanaians in various occupations or job situations is respectable and with increase in globalization, it appears that research on health and occupational status of Ghanaians is increasing.

Coping with stress, he explained that coping strategies are influenced by the socio-cultural environment and the individuals personality.

Prof. Senah indicated that stress in a way can be positive adding that in very stressful situations, a person can unearth a hidden talent; he/she may come to know himself/herself a lot better.

Over the years, I have realized that I work better under stress. Yes, manageable doses of stress can enable individuals to organize their affairs in a more orderly manner, he stated.

However, according to him, as indicated, generally, stress, especially the chronic one disrupts nearly every system in the body.

He said it can shut down the immune system, upset the and reproductive systems, raise blood pressure, increase the risk of heart attack and stroke, speed up the aging process and leave us vulnerable to depression and many mental and physical health problems.

Prof. Senah concluded that stress also suppresses the immune system and exposes us to nosocomial or opportunistic infections.
09.02.2017 LISTEN

With tact and diplomacy, he delivered. With confidence and rationality, he convinced his audience. With industrial experience and technical know-how, he impressed all. With language and logic, he stood tall among all.

I am referring to the performance of the Minister-designate for Business Development and Investment, Mr. Mohammed Awal Ibrahim, when he was vetted by a committee of honorable legislators in Parliament yesterday. It was, indeed, a showcase of competence indicators: knowledge, skills, wisdom, experience, and articulation.

His presentation raised a number of thematic areas critical to good governance and national development. Among them are:

 Maximization of job opportunities

 Globalization of Businesses

 Consolidation of the private sector.

As a tertiary-level teacher, I fell in love with "the school incubator system" announced by the Minister-designate as one of the policies he would pursue when given the mandate. In his words, this system would bridge the gap between Academia and Industry. How? He explained that in line with "the school incubator system", students of tertiary institutions would be encouraged to develop business proposals for consideration by relevant industry players.

The students would then be assisted - financially and technically - to pursue the proposals to profitable levels. This way, the students would, even before graduation, be equipped with entrepreneurial and employable skills. Undoubtedly, this policy would minimize graduate unemployment and maximize opportunities of graduate employment.

I, therefore, call on the youth of Ghana to rise in support of this initiative when the Minister-designate is approved. In fact, most of the plans of the novel ministry are youth-friemdly, although they are generally meant to accelerate business development for national development.

By Abubakar Mohammed Marzuq Azindoo

Lecturer, University of Applied Management, Germany - McCathy Hil, Accra.
When the wind began whispering through the grapevine, as has been with most political appointments, I was like, " Wow, my man She-She - The President has done it again! If I owned a gold mine, I would definitely employ Nana." I said to myself. The president is the kind of collier every mining emperor would love to have - the man mines for appointees with deliberate precision.

I came into contact with Mr. Akoto Ampaw, affectionately called Tony She-She, during the struggle about twenty five years ago.

Though She-She and I used to talk on the phone and would meet me at the airport in the company of Kwesi Pratt, ostensibly to protect me any time I visited home during the heady days of the struggle, my most memorable experience with him is when, as one of the " High Priest " of the struggle, he baptized me into the struggle, an initiation of some sort: Hitherto, my main contribution had been theoretical - submitting write-ups and pontificating from the comforts of my abode in Dallas.

That lifestyle was subjected to rude awakening when one night, very late, of course, She-She, Kwesi, two others, and myself, jumped into Kwesi's small blue Renault and headed to the Accra Central Business District, armed with a bucket of starch, brushes, and all the necessary accoutrements, for an anti PNDC pamphleteering campaign. It was soon followed by a demonstration in Accra where we were confronted by AK-47 and truncheon-wielding riot police. From then on we worked on several pro democracy projects together that gave me ample opportunity to know him better. My spasmodic interactions with him since the return to constitutional rule, also reinforced the indelible impression he had etched on my subconscious mind.

My honest opinion of him is an independent-minded, conscientious, courageous and hard working individual who takes his obligations very seriously. Also, he is an affable individual with an impeccable human relations skills.

To those who want his nomination withdrawn, I say, "You don't know She-She, neither do you know the President very well." I can say without a shred of fear of contradiction, that, She-She is not an NPP member or affiliate. He just happened to be employed by the law firm of a former colleague of the Struggle of yesteryear who happens to be the president of the nation today, and that disqualifies him, right? He is one of the most far left politicians in the country today. He was a member of the Kwame Nkrumah Revolutionary Guards, and the New Democratic Movement, and also contested the 1996 Parliamentary elections on the ticket of the CPP. So much for an NPP member, right? He was engaged by Tarzan, Wreko Brobbey, his former colleague in the erstwhile Alliance for Change so he is an NPP member, seriously? Who doesn't know there are only a handful of lawyers who don't have a relationship one way or the other with the President? Most of the top lawyers have been through his chambers because, as some of them say, the president is a very generous person. Tsatsu Tsikata, an NDC guru, and one of the legal luminaries in the country worked with the President, and was once defended by the President, if my recollection is right, so, I guess the President is an NDC member, if we are to use the logic that these two prominent lawyers are applying, correct?

The chairman of the Electoral Commission, Ms. Charlotte Osei also passed through the President's chambers, so, I guess that alone is enough to disqualify her, right? Though I believe there are stronger grounds to get rid of her, having worked in the President's chambers has nothing to do with it.

Time and space will not permit me to list a number of such associations the President has with many crack attorneys.

The President himself is a very meticulous and independent minded individual, so, there should be no cause for alarm.

I fervently believe the President has struck another gem in the person of Anthony Akoto Ampaw, and so must stick with his choice.

JUSTICE NOW!

Charles Biney

Dallas, Texas. USA
Feeling gratitude without expressing it is like wrapping a present without presenting it. There is the need to show how grateful I am to Ghanaians for at least giving me the opportunity to serve them in the high office of the presidency by giving me their mandate in the last four (4) years. Not to talk of the memorable days in that luxurious part of life, the presidential hideout and the unpleasant side of leadership. Only history will know best. Despite all odds Ghana must still move forward.

Development; is striving to become better than we are, growing maturely than we were, erasing all odds, fighting the needed battles and doing everything achievable within our means to grow as a better country in this topsy-turvy economy of the 21st century. Indeed every country in that regards must also yearn to become better too. As a government does to its people so must the people do for their unborn dreams? To wait for the better days that never came; unfortunate. The roads, market, schools, hospitals and other developmental projects from Paga to Ada that was established under my watch will one day judge me.

I assumed office of the presidency of this enormous republic with a dream that was worth materializing but to say whether it materialized or nor lies in the bare hands of history. I was with the dreams of my fathers fathers, I will work tirelessly with fairness and firmness, to make name for myself and also history. I would have loved to even do more but who am I to challenge the will of the Ghanaian people. Indeed power resides in the populace. The pronouncement that I made wrongly and those that I made from fame, remorse will define it better. Its only the ignoramus mind that will call me a charlatan rather than calling me a leader.

Today is witnessed as today but that of yesterday still remains a history. I have contributed my quota to the social, political and economic dispensation of this great nation and have lived to leave with my reputation intact. A leader is best when people barely know he exist, when his work is done and his aims fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves. I will not command that my successes and prospects need to be written in any book such as the green book because its written boldly on the minds of the masses. I accept the very fact that I had fears and downs but that will only be a solution to sentimentality.

To my senior brother and good friend, His Excellency Nana Addo, I hope you will learn from my lessons, not entrust much power in ugly hands and emulate from my flaws.

Akwasi Brobbey

(Senior writer and editor at TIC)

0548412192/0266175686
T20 World Cup for Blind: Nepal concede biggest defeat

Nepal suffered their biggest defeat in terms of run-margin in the ongoing World Twenty20 for the Blind in the penultimate league stage match losing to hosts India by 152 runs on Wednesday.
Nairobi (AFP) - Kenya's High Court on Thursday declared as "null and void" the government's decision to close the Dadaab refugee camp -- the world's largest -- and to send Somali refugees home.

"The government decision specifically targetting Somali refugees is an act of group persecution, illegal, discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional," Judge John Mativo ruled.

The shutdown was ordered without proper consultation of people affected, in violation of the constitutional right to fair legal proceedings, Mativo said in his ruling.

"Hence the said decision is null and void," he said, adding that sending refugees home would be in breach of Kenya's obligations under international law.

The government can appeal the decision.

Dadaab is home to some 256,000 people, the vast majority of them Somalis who fled across the border following the outbreak of civil war in 1991.

Kenya's High Court has voided a government decision to close the Dadaab refugee camp

Authorities initially planned to close Dadaab at the end of November, but delayed the shutdown until May 2017 at the request of the UN refugee agency and against a backdrop of growing accusations of forced refugee returns to Somalia.

The High Court ruling also blocks the government's decision to disband the Department for Refugee Affairs.

The case had been filed by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights and rights group Kituo Cha Sheria, which had both questioned the legality of the decision to close the camp and send refugees home.

An elderly Somali woman sits outside a kitchen in a compound at Hagadera sector of the Dadaab refugee camp

The government caught refugees, aid groups, the UN and Kenya's Western partners offguard last May when it announced plans to shut down the huge camp near the border, citing security concerns.

Since sending troops into neighbouring Somalia in 2011, Kenya has come under repeated attack from Shabaab, East Africa's long-time branch of Al-Qaeda.

It has presented Dadaab a security risk, saying Somali Islamists inside the camp planned the Shabaab attacks at Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall in 2013 and the Garissa university attack in 2015, though it has not provided evidence.
Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta has disclosed that initial interactions with a team of staff from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has so far proved fruitful.

An IMF team which is currently meeting with the government's Economic Team is expected to discuss how the new government's fiscal policies can be incorporated into requirements set by the Fund.

Ghana went to the IMF in 2015 for an External Credit Facility of about US$918 million under the John Mahama administration.

Already, the Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Maafo has stressed that government will review some of the conditions to allow the Nana Addo administration to implement its major campaign promises.

Mr. Osafo Maafo stated at parliament's Appointment Committee that the Economic Team will review the agreement to create some fiscal space for the the government to implement its campaign promises.

Speaking at the launch of Golden Link Savings and Loans Company, Mr. Ofori-Atta announced that the deliberations have been progressive.

This week in our partnership with the IMF, I will say it's going well. There is a lot of candid and forthrightness and we are committed to successfully completing the programme in good time, he said.

He assured that government's position is ultimately aimed at improving the lives of Ghanaians through sound economic policies.

He stated that the Economic Team has so far shown enthusiasm in working hard to capture government's plans of implementing the tax cuts in the budget.

We have gone through these ten days seeing a strong team .Lots of camaraderie, and under the guidance of the Senior Minister and the Vice President. We can see that Ghanaians are ready to work and looking for the type of leadership that would enable them to get back to business and that is exciting, he said.



By: Lawrence Segbefia/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana
With current attempts by fraudsters to access peoples bank accounts through text messages, emails, phone calls etc., it is important we are armed with the knowledge of the different ways our bank accounts can be hacked by these fraudsters. This will help us better discern their gimmicks, avoid their traps and keep our money safe.

Jumia Travel reveals 6 ways your bank account can be hacked.

TRUSTING SUSPICIOUS EMAILS, TEXT MESSAGES AND PHONE CALLS

In 2015, Babatunde Fatai, a young man arrested by the Oyo State Police command for various internet crimes including hacking into bank accounts of people in and outside Nigeria, revealed that to hack into bank accounts he would either go to dating sites to woo men and women into trusting him with their account details, or he would send fake emails to bank customers asking them to change their accounts and bank security details. Fatai will then use their old security details to access their accounts and transfer their money to his online lovers, for these lovers to transfer back to him through another means.

You should be alert to suspicious emails, especially those that come with promotions from banks giving links you should click. Check the email ID or address and compare with the banks official email to see if anything is off (that is, to see if its an unofficial or copycat account). Most importantly, always call your bank to confirm any suspicious email before you reply.

TRUSTING SUSPICIOUS TEXT MESSAGES AND PHONE CALLS

As you should be careful with emails, so should you also be careful with text messages and phone calls.

Text messages about your account being blocked because of your BVN and instructing you to call another number to activate; phone calls from strange numbers (numbers different from your banks customer care numbers) asking you to disclose your banks details especially when you did not previously log a complaint with your bank about any issue related to what is being asked of you, amongst many others, should all be confirmed before responding to them.

Use your banks helpline and if you can, go to a nearest bank branch to confirm. The cost of not confirming is most times far more than the cost of confirming. Dont be quick to share sensitive bank details through any means, no matter how genuine it seems.

SOCIAL MEDIA PROFILES

Some hackers get personal information such as your name, date of birth, email and phone number off your social media accounts. With this basic information, a sophisticated hacker can get past other options to change your pin and access your account.

If you use Internet Banking, it is advisable you edit your social media profiles, especially Facebook profiles. If you must leave your day and month of birth, delete your birth year, delete phone numbers you put there that are connected to your bank account and use ones that are not linked to your bank account. For your name, you dont have to put your full name, especially the one your bank recognizes, on your profile. Your first and last name, or simply a username or nickname is fine.

UNENCRYPTED WEBSITES

According to the Telegraph, you should never shop or log in to online banking when the web address does not begin with https or without a lock sign displayed on the address bar.

For an added layer of security, check the online banking security options your bank provides such as free antivirus and browser security software. Ensure that your computer is protected by firewall software. Also, browsers (especially Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox) often come with built-in security features. Make sure they are activated.

WEAK PASSWORDS

Especially for those who use Internet Banking, weak passwords make it easy for hackers to crack your passcode and access your account. Strong and unique passwords that are long, random and made up of different cases, numbers, letters and symbols are the best.

CHEQUE BOOKS AND ACCOUNT NUMBERS

Afam Nriezedi, along with his syndicate members, was arrested in 2015 by detectives attached to the Special Anti-Robbery squad of the Lagos State Police Command for hacking into Nigerian banks with the assistance of bankers and domestic servants.

To hack bank accounts, someone (a domestic servant or relative from the house of the victim) will bring a leaf from the cheque book of the victim to them. The leaf most times isnt signed but contains the victims account number. With the account number, details of the victims name, phone number, email, house and work address including the victims account balance can be gotten, once they contact an insider in the bank they need the information from. Getting the insider usually isnt easy but because it is a syndicate, its all about the effort and teamwork.

Their next step is to get a copy of the signature of the victim provided most times by the insider in the victims home. The cheque is taken to Mushin where the signature is forged and the amount they intend to steal is written.Most times, they dont use e-banking to transfer the money but withdraw it upfront (usually using an amount that is possible to withdraw upfront). They never go the branch of their insider to do this.

It is important to be careful and restrict access to your cheque book. Also, dont be careless with your account numbers and emails, phone numbers and addresses linked to your account number. From time to time, check your cheque book to confirm there is no missing page. Also monitor text messages and emails sent to you by your bank to be sure transactions you did not authorize have not occurred.
The acting Executive Director of the National Service Scheme has defended the dismissal national service staff recruited in the dying embers of the NDC administration on grounds that due process was not followed in the recruitment process.

Ussif Mustapha reveals that the recruitment of all the 205 workers sacked on Wednesday was done against the advice of eminent members of the National Service Scheme (NSS).

The NSS wrote to the Public Services Commission for approval to recruit, the approval was granted and [Michael Kpessah Whyte] started the process by outsourcing it. The most senior persons at the secretariat petitioned the Public Services Commission against outsourcing the recruitment to a private entity but the director went ahead and carried out the recruitment process to a private entity without the Public Services Commission sitting on the board, he told Accra-based Citi FM.

He said the Public Service Commission should have scrutinised the recruitment process, but that was not done.

The Service on Wednesday annulled the recruitment of new workers engaged in December 2016.

The annulment, according to the NSS management, was done on the advice of the newly approved Education Minister, Mathew Opoku Prempeh.

However, the acting Executive Director of NSS said all persons affected by the decision can reapply and be interviewed by a properly constituted panel that includes Human Resources Department and Public Services Commission representatives.

Meanwhile, the former Director of NSS Dr Michael Kpessah Whyte is urging the affected persons to seek redress in court.

According to him, no illegality was perpetuated during the recruitment process.

The documents are there [to show], he reiterates.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com
Perhaps the caption Dag Heward-Mills Causes Controversy in South Africa (peacefmonline.com, Monday January 23, 2017 http://www.peacefmonline.com/pages/local/social/201701/303774.php ) is not only scary but presents two main hunches. Either an incredible journalistic faux pas or contemporary meaning of the word truth is controversy. Preaching at the famous Grace Bible Church, situated at Soweto in the Republic of South Africa, the outspoken Bishop warned the congregants against unnatural carnal knowledge.

In a swift rebuttal, the leadership of the aforesaid church distanced itself from the sermon when it became pervasively clear that Bishop Dags message did not go down well with some church members, one of whom registered his discontent through a video which went viral on the social media. Those were the views of Bishop Dag Heward-Mills and not of Grace Bible Church. We welcome everyone, we do not discriminate, whether you are black, gay, white or orange we welcome you.

After reading this press release from the above Church, I remembered the Hebrew name Ichabod meaning glory is gone from Israel (1Sam, 4:21). When the worship of Yahweh became adulterated with the worship of Baal, Jehu launched a prophetic revolution to purge Yahwehism in Israel. This revolution culminated in the massacring of the households of king Ahab and his hand bag, Jezebel (2 Kings 9). This revolution was in fulfilment of prophesy of Elijah (1 Kings, 21:17-24). Bishop Dag Heward-Mills is a Holy Ghost preacher and a prolific writer with impressive and unblemished erudition. One of my favorites of the books from him is The Sweet Influence of The Holy Spirit.

I am not in any way insinuating that the noble bishop is without errors as a territorial being. Having being nudged by my background and personal experience, I must confess that I had never received his teachings on loyalty without a heart-wrenching grief. I receive loyalty message with a mortifying groans because it is not devoid of conceptual encumbrances. Loyalty is a necessary evil. It contravenes many historical happenings and somewhat not practical. It is an affront to diverse views and friendly to autocracy. Loyalty can be pernicious to human existence. We are told in the Old Testament of how Uriah lost his life and beautiful wife to King David as a result of silly and unadulterated loyalty (2 Sam 11). Without disloyalty, the world cannot not move on.

As to whether the noble Bishop must continue his loyalty to The Grace Bible Church of Soweto is another reason of my contempt relative to loyalty. I think as for continuous loyalty to the above church, every genuine believer will proclaim! Hey Dr. Evangelist, Bishop Dag, make you take Jesus out of this your loyalty game ooh! And I will build my church on the rock and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18). True followers of Jesus will not compromise their stance on unholy altars of any greedy pastors egocentric convenience. Bishop Dag did nothing wrong during his sermon at the foregoing church. The word of God is black and white on the dos and donts of believers and a follower of Jesus like Bishop Dag must not kowtow to any ignorant pastors useless whims and caprices orchestrated by sycophancy and hypocrisy of his own creation.

The shocking disassociation from Bishop Dags message is a wakeup call for the church to shift its focus from using church and program attendance as measurement of spirituality or righteousness. He is always in church, he sings, he serves a bishop, therefore, he is righteous and spiritual. Pressures are mounted on church members only to consider such people as marriage partners. Church attendance is not an epitome of righteousness. Probably that is why Jesus abandoned Holy of Holies and selected disciples outside the Temple.

Recently, Bishop Charles Agyin Asare admonished his members against thieves masquerading as believers. Fraudsters, thieves and robbers have craftily found their way into the Church, Bishop Charles Agyin-Asare of Perez Chapel International (PCI) has said. Preaching to his congregation at the Perez Dome, Dzorwulu in Accra on Sunday, 5 February the month of loyalty and love for PCI the Presiding Bishop said: There are some who come into the church and they are thieves; their purpose is to steal. In fact there are church members who come in [to steal]. Citing an example to buttress his point, Bishop Agyin-Asare recounted how a married couple in PCI defrauded him and other church members and later bolted to join a different church (Source: ghanaweb.com, Sunday, February 5, 2017 http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/religion/There-re-fraudsters-thieves-in-church-Agyin-Asare-506987 ).

Without further ado, let me explain spirituality. The term spirituality is a vague and murky variant of religion and a way to name universal essential capacities for freedom and transcendence (Bregman, 2006). Spirituality as a concept was once linked to practices by members of Roman Catholic religious orders (Bregman, 2006). The source went further to claim that Walter Principe in 1983 found that the term had been used to identify the relationship between the individual and his or her chosen ideal or between some objective pole of Religious belief and practices. Such chosen ideals or convictions differ from culture to culture. Among African traditional believers of the Black racial stock, spirituality is found in the belief in Supreme Being manifested anthropomorphically (Giving human attribute to God) and anthropocentrically (seeing God as the center of universe), belief in divinities and ancestors (Mbiti, 1990).

Reducing spirituality to Church attendance solely is inimical to spiritual development because For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are (Romans 8:19). For me, any activity that is geared towards positive transformation and survival of human to the glorification of God is divinely activated and must be considered as spiritual. Many of the problems facing the church had been addressed in history. For example, readers of St. Augustine came out with these questions: Is salvation through the church and sacraments or by a predestined grace? (Dodd, 2011). St. Augustine argued in his principle of efficacious grace and predestination that those who will enter heaven had already been chosen. If this is the case, what then are the relevance of the church and sacraments? Does an exemplary Christian life involve faithfully walking in love or holding an ascetic legalism (Dodd, 2011)?

Aurelius Augustine was born in A.D 354 in what is now Algeria. He was a teacher, philosopher, rhetorician and later a bishop of Hippo (Modern Algerian city of Annaba). During the time of Augustine, many parts of Europe and North Africa came under a hegemony known as the Roman Empire. The powers within the empire were shared among the Emperor and the Pope. The former wielded political powers and the latter had religious powers. Internal squabble within the empire compelled the Germanic tribes, such as the Franks, the Saxons and the Vandals to invade the Roman Empire. This culminated in the division of the empire into two: the western half governed from Rome and the eastern half better known as Byzantine governed from Constantinople (Modern Istanbul in Turkey).

Romans had their religion before the Christian Roman Empire. In ancient Rome, almost invariably, everything was divinely activated. In other words every human activity in Rome was regulated by a deity (Day, 2007). For example, god of sky, thunderstorm, lightening, weather and air was Jupiter. Juno was the goddess of marriage and women. Mars was the god of war, Venus goddess of love, Bellona goddess of war. Neptune was god of seas and brother of Jupiter. Janus was god of beginning gate. The month of January is named after Janus.

After the fall of Roman Empire many inhabitants of Rome thought the adoption of Christianity and rejection of Roman deities were the main reasons behind the calamity that befell Rome. If Christian God was all powerful why did he not protect the empire? St. Augustine put up a solid defense for Christianity in his famous work The City Of God. Augustine revealed the interlocking progression of two cities. These cities metaphorically represents a group of individuals formed by two loves: the earthly by love of self, even if it means denouncing God and heavenly people by the love of God (Like Bishop Dag).

The earthly city in a word glories in itself, and the heavenly city glories in the lord (Dodd, 2011). The inhabitants of the world city seek glory from men but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience (Dodd, 2011). St Augustine based on the Old Testament to provide his solid argument. He turned to the New Testament and provided the apocalyptic scriptures and presented the future destiny of both cities or communities, those who love and serve God and neighbor, and those who reject God and serve selfish ambition. Many men of God are now God of men who live in Augustines earthly city and seek glory from men. Like the Pharisees, they hold ascetic legalism and are very doctrinaire for people see them as puritanical believers. In effect, there is no scintilla of love for God.

The Grace Bible Church thought Bishop Dag stabbed them at the back by preaching the truth. The church disassociated itself from God but not Bishop Dag. Many pastors preach as if heaven is only meant for their followers. How many pastors are ready for martyrdom? Never give up bishop! If Bishop Dag dies today like the historical John Brown whose body lies a mouldering in the grave, his soul will go marching on. Preacher men must not swallow their dangerous cough for the fear of hurting others. Shalom!

By Nana Yaw Osei (Padigo), USA

[email protected]

Reference

Bregman, L. (2006). Spirituality: A glowing and useful term in search of a meaning. Omega, 53(1/2), 526.

Day, M. (2007). 100 characters from classical mythology: Discover the fascinating stories of the Greek and Roman Deitie, New York, Barron

Dodds. M (2011). The city of God, Saint Augustine, Hendrickson publishers, MA

Mbiti, J. S (1997). African Religions and Philosophy, 2nd, ed, Heineman.
The inflated cost of the Vice President's official residence represents another blemish on our ability as a people to manage the national purse, as it does our opaqueness in running state affairs.

To think that those responsible for such integrity drawbacks swore oaths of office before assuming the task of managing this nation is beyond our ken.

What has gone wrong with us that we do not consider the national interest when managing state funds we hold in trust for the rest of us?

The subject is cruising to outdo the other negative chapters in our contemporary fiscal history, especially under the immediate political administration of the country. In terms of the magnitude of harm it has inflicted on the state kitty, it can only be imagined by the ordinary Ghanaian with limited knowledge about fiscal matters.

The opportunity cost of the money blown on the project can best be appreciated when we consider the schools or even drugs which can be constructed and purchased for cash-strapped health facilities in the countryside.

We recall the painful death of kids through the collapse of their dilapidated school block in the Central Region with pain.

Those who consider the revelations popping up as witch-hunting must consider the national interest vis-a-vis the impunity with which national funds are being handled by those put in positions of trust.

It is not for nothing that some professions are hinged on sacred ethics, the breaches of which can lead to the withdrawal of the licenses of practitioners.

Perhaps given the rate at which bad politicians are running the country, it would become necessary to consider means of sanctioning those found culpable in the thievery of the national purse in a manner which would debar them from holding critical public offices in future.

We would take issues with the President and his team, if out of a fear of being tagged witch hunters they gloss over the flagrant abuse of the public purse by the past government.

The disparities in the figures being laid out on the public domain by different personalities in the previous government make their feeble and useless efforts laughable.

They are wicked and unfit to be assigned the privileged role of running the affairs of this country; their stewardship of managing Ghana most repugnant and unacceptable by all standards.

The Vice President's residence project is just a tip of the iceberg of the financial mess this country has been plunged into by those the ship of state was entrusted to.

While the General Secretary of the now opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has quoted a figure below $4 million, another party source puts it at a little over $5 million, a far cry from the $14 million cost of the project.

We can only conclude that there is a confused effort to conceal the truth. It's a shameful ploy which has exposed the crooks even further and beyond imagination.

Former President Jerry John Rawlings must be a troubled man.

He and others ousted a government in the past charging them of being corrupt. The monies referred to at the time were nowhere near the cost of the Vice President's residence.

Matters have reached a head with the aforementioned revelation but we are told that we ain't seen anything yet because the worst would come when the can of worms which the contents of the transition report represents are let out.
Kwasi Frimpong, the Abusuapanyin of the family of the late Joseph Boakye Danquah-Adu, who was Member of Parliament for Abuakwa North, has revealed that he feels disgusted whenever the suspected killer of the deceased lawmaker demands preferential treatment from the state.

Earlier this year, Daniel Aseidu, aka Sexy Dondon, one of the suspects in the murder case, told the court presided over by Mr Stephen Owusu: The Police Service has stopped giving me food and I depend on leftovers.

Since December 30 last year till date, the police have not been giving me food and they have also asked my family members not to bring me food in the cells. My Lord, I feed on leftovers and when I collect them I pray over it and eat, I dont know why the police have stopped giving me food. Now, if the police give me food again, I will not eat it, he said.

However, speaking to Chief Jerry Forson, host of Ghana Yensom, on Accra100.5FM as part of the one year anniversary of the late MP on Thursday February 9, 2017, Mr Frimpong said: We get livid when someone who has [allegedly] killed a human being and has been arrested says he has missed his wife, and that he doesnt like some foods given to him. He likes that, he like this. We get angry with that posture.

For us the family, we cant do anything about it but we know that the president, His Excellency Nana Akufo-Addo, will ensure that justice is done.

Meanwhile, a church service was organised at the Ridge Church in Accra in remembrance of the late MP.

Accra News Nana Amoako Gyampah, who was at the memorial service being held at Ridge Church, Accra, for the slain MP, reported that several dignitaries including President Akufo-Addo, Speaker of Parliament Professor Mike Oquaye, Members of Parliament, and several other dignitaries attended to observe the memorial
London (AFP) - British travel group Thomas Cook said Thursday that demand for holidays in Egypt is picking up again, after unrest in the North African nation had pushed holidaymakers into choosing rival sun spots.

Thomas Cook said the improvement, along with especially strong demand for bookings to Greece, is helping to offset persistent weakness for holidays in Turkey, which last year suffered an attempted coup and deadly bombings.

The update came as Thomas Cook announced flat revenues and losses for its first quarter, or three months to the end of December.

"Continued reductions in bookings to Turkey have been more than offset by strong demand for Greece," the company said of its holidays for summer 2017.

"We have also grown bookings significantly to a number of smaller European destinations including Cyprus, Bulgaria, Croatia and Portugal, and we have seen a strengthening of demand for Egypt and Morocco."

Thomas Cook, along with other UK travel groups and airlines, last year cancelled flights to the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Thomas Cook last year cancelled flights to Sharm el-Sheikh

This was after the crash of a Russian airliner near the Red Sea holiday destination in late 2015 that killed all 224 people on board.

Investigators have concluded it was downed by a bomb and the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility.

The UK Foreign Office meanwhile is sticking to its advice of warning Britons "against all but essential travel by air to or from Sharm el Sheikh".

Thomas Cook typically posts a loss during its first half ahead of the peak demand season coinciding with the northern hemisphere summer season.

"Key will be the summer season coming up, when the real money is to be made," said Neil Wilson, senior market analyst at ETX Capital.

"Bookings are already nine percent ahead of last year, which ought to offer some comfort."

Laith Khalaf, senior analyst as stockbroker Hargreaves Lansdown, said the good news for Thomas Cook was that its recent tough trading period does not appear to be worsening.

"Like-for-like revenues and losses were broadly flat on last year, which probably represents a small victory against such a competitive backdrop," he said.

"Times are tough in the European travel industry," Khalaf added in a client note.

In early deals, shares in Thomas Cook tumbled by about 6.0 percent, sending it to the bottom of London's second-tier FTSE 250 index, as investors found only small comfort in the group's outlook.
The National Organiser of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Kofi Adams, will sue his defamers in connection with reports that he is hiding state vehicles, his aide Ibrahim Yahya has said.

The Daily Guide newspaper has reported that apart from the five cars that were recently found in Mr Adams home by some state security agencies, six other state Land Cruisers are in his custody but had been taken out of his house. Those six SUVs, according to the paper, are part of over nine missing cars which the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service has been grilling Mr Adams about.

Mr Yahya, however, told Moro Awudu on Class91.3FMs Executive Breakfast Show on Thursday that Mr Adams owns only two Land Cruisers. Three of the vehicles are not for Mr Kofi Adams, they are registered in the name of an automobile company, we made the documentation available to the Deputy CID Boss, and, so, Kofis vehicles are the two Land Cruisers. The three [Pickups] were in their custody, which was used for operational purposes as National Organiser, they were given to him by the party to deploy, he stated.

According to him, the report by the Daily Guide is inaccurate and defamatory, hinting at a possible legal action. That is what journalism has become in Ghana and I am not surprised at the actions of Daily Guide. It took us less than four minutes to give those documents to the Deputy CID boss, so if she granted that interview to Daily Guide and told them that we struggled then its between her and her God, he said.

As far as the nine missing cars are concerned, Mr Yahya said: I dont know anything about this but Kofi Adams house cannot take more than five vehicles.

Mr Adams had five vehicles in his house, three Pick-Ups and two Land Cruisers. The two Land Cruisers are in his name, the remaining ones that they are reporting, maybe when we get to court Daily Guide will show us where those vehicles that had their chassis number scrapped are. Its an issue our lawyers are handling and Ive told you by the end of today youll hear from us. The best thing any civil and right-thinking person will do under this circumstance is that option, all the actors who are part of it, by close of day youll hear their names.
NRA told to ensure homes for quake-hit before monsoon

A parliamentary committee has directed the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) to ensure that all the earthquake-affected families have their houses rebuilt before the start of the rainy season, in the next three months.
Supporters of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), especially those in the Ashanti Region, should be patient with President Akufo-Addo with regards to the appointments he is making, Dr Kwame Amoako Tuffuor, a leading member of the NPP in the Ashanti Region, has said.

According to him, concerns being expressed by some party executives in the region that Ashantis have been neglected by the president should be disregarded because the president is not done with the appointments. The appointments to come are more than the ones he has made so far, hence there will be no need to panic.

His comments follow concerns raised by some members of the communication team of the NPP in the region that only a handful of persons who hail from the NPPs stronghold have been given appointments in the government of Mr Akufo-Addo.

Raphael Patrick Sarfo, a member of the communications team in the region, told Chief Jerry Forson, host of Ghana Yensom on Accra100.5FM on Thursday February 9 that the seemingly neglect of people from the region by the president was creating a lot of apprehension among regional executives.

He said: I think the regional balance in the appointments by the president is right, however only a few people from the Ashanti Region have been given appointments. Even those few people are not known to the regional executives and that is a concern for us all.

But allaying the fears of the regional communicator, Dr Tuffuor said: There are board chairmanship positions, ambassadorial positions, deputy ministerial positions, and several other appointments the president is yet to make.

I can assure you that the president will appoint all the people who matter and are competent to help him govern the country. And so if you havent heard your name as at now, there is the need for you to exercise restraint, because the appointments have not been concluded. The president will not disappoint the people of the Ashanti Region; that is a fact.
Nairobi (AFP) - Kenya's High Court on Thursday blocked the government's decision to close the Dadaab refugee camp -- the world's largest -- and to send Somali refugees home.

Judge John Mativo ruled that the plan to shut down the camp was unconstitutional and amounted to persecution of refugees.

Dadaab is home to some 256,000 people, the vast majority of them Somalis who fled across the border following the outbreak of civil war in 1991.

The government has taken a hardline stance on the sprawling camp, saying it acts as a terrorist training ground for Shabaab Islamists, and repeatedly stating its intention to deport all Somali refugees.

But Mativo ruled that "the government decision specifically targetting Somali refugees is an act of group persecution, illegal, discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional".

The shutdown was ordered without proper consultation of people affected by the decision, in violation of the constitutional right to fair legal proceedings, he said in his ruling.

"Hence the said decision is null and void," he said, adding that sending refugees home would be in breach of Kenya's obligations under international law.

The ruling also blocks the government's decision to disband the Department for Refugee Affairs.

The government can appeal the court ruling, which comes after the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights and rights group Kituo Cha Sheria filed a case challenging the legality of the shutdown.

Kenya's High Court has voided a government decision to close the Dadaab refugee camp

Amnesty International's East Africa chief Muthoni Wanyeki hailed the ruling as "historic".

"Today is a historic day for more than a quarter of a million refugees who were at risk of being forcefully returned to Somalia, where they would have been at serious risk of human rights abuses," Wanyeki said.

"This ruling reaffirms Kenya's constitutional and international legal obligation to protect people who seek safety from harm and persecution."

Security threat?

The government caught refugees, aid groups, the United Nations and Kenya's Western partners offguard last May when it announced plans to shut down the huge camp near the border, citing security concerns.

Since sending troops into neighbouring Somalia in 2011, Kenya has come under repeated attack from Al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab militants.

An elderly Somali woman sits outside a kitchen in a compound at Hagadera sector of the Dadaab refugee camp

The government has presented Dadaab as a security risk, saying Somali Islamists inside the camp planned the Shabaab attacks at Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall in 2013 and the Garissa university attack in 2015, though it has not provided evidence.

Authorities initially planned to close Dadaab at the end of November, but delayed the shutdown until May 2017 at the request of the UN refugee agency and against a backdrop of growing accusations of forced refugee returns to Somalia.

In September, Human Rights Watch warned in a report that the repatriation of Somalis from the camp violated international standards and that refugees were returning home involuntarily only to face persecution and hunger. The Kenyan government dismissed the report.
Vetting of Roads and Highways Minister, Kwasi Amoako Atta took one hour, 55 minutes.

He was asked 56 questions by both the Majority and Minority when he appeared before the Appointments Committee of Parliament.

He touched on issues relating to payment of contractors, construction of roads among others.

The infographic below has more details





By: Mawuli Tsikata & Caleb Kudah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
There is the need for the state to provide adequate security for Members of Parliament (MPs), ministers of state, and other high-ranking state officials, KB Asante, a retired diplomat, has said.

According to him, the current security arrangement for ministers of state and MPs is not the best.

His comments follow suggestions in certain quarters that the state should take a leaf from last years murder of Joseph Boakye Danquah-Adu, then Member of Parliament for Abuakwa North, and provide police protection for Ghanas lawmakers MPs.

Speaking in an interview with Chief Jerry Forson, host of Ghana Yensom, on Accra100.5FM in connection with the one-year anniversary of the killing of the late MP on Thursday February 9, Mr Asante said: Security should be improved for all. How do you provide security for MPs in parliament? I think while they are in parliament there is security but when they leave parliament to their homes, do they want security there also?

It has been suggested they should have one policeman but will that be sufficient? We have had for years certain officials having police escorts but they are mainly ceremonial in that if there is a crisis, there is no way of getting support or they doing something positive.

My own experience is that the police escorts do not really provide security. When I was a minister, I had police escorts. Even in the house I had police, and yet my electric bulbs were stolen. You need proper security not only for parliamentarians but for our ministers and key personalities who may be attacked when they make certain decisions or they take certain lines of actions, we need to protect such people but that protection should not turn to be ad hoc, it should be properly organised.
Tex Styles Ghana Limited (GTP) has handed over the 200-seater canteen to authorities of the Tema Community 4 Number Two Primary School as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations.

The company in 2016 promised to construct a modern canteen for the Tema Community 4 Number Two Primary School.

The 200-seater capacity canteen, which costs GH200,000, was funded from the personal contributions of employees of the company with support from the establishment.

The project was initiated during the tenure of the immediate past Managing Director of the company, Kofi Boateng, and was completed under the current MD, Erik Van Der Staaij, who inaugurated and handed over the facility to the school's authorities at a colourful ceremony in Tema on Wednesday.

The canteen is fitted with chairs, tables, and kitchen, hygiene and safety facilities.

Mr Van Der Staaij, speaking at the ceremony, said the company did not only provide the funds, but more importantly, our skilled craftsmen, designers, masons, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, and painters designed and built this block and the furniture inside.

This school is more or less our school. We have been neighbours for so long. So when the idea came up that we should select one public school to support, we could not have passed this school by and go to other schools. It was just natural that we help our neighbour first. We were eager to execute this canteen project because we felt it was a project that will impact directly on the health and wellbeing of school children, he said.

Mr Staaij said the schoolchildren had no proper eating place, compelling them to eat in the open.

According to him, while some children sat on the staircase and stones, others sat on the bare floor to eat their food.

This was a cause of worry for us. The health of our children was at stake here. So we decided to build them this canteen.

The canteen is fitted with sinks with running water and soap for the children to wash their hands.

Mr Staaij said the company had also printed some habit-forming messages on the inside walls of the canteen to educate the children on good hygienic practices.

In the past three years, he said the company had undertaken a number of projects, including the renovation and refurbishment of the Lye-In Ward of Tema General Hospital, supported Breast Care International to educate Ghanaians on the prevention of Breast Cancer, trained about 30 Ghanaians in tailoring and fashion designing and donated some 200 pints of blood to the National Blood Bank in April 2016.

All these we have done just to show to Ghanaians that we care.

Caption

Van Der Staaij being assisted by Christiana Taylor, Deputy Director of GES in-charge of Supervision in Tema Metro, to cut the tape to inaugurate the facility
President Akufo-Addo yesterday dropped hint of the return of mining company, Rangold Resources to the country.

The company pulled out of a deal with Anglogold Ashanti in the year 2015 after the previous National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration refused to endorse the transaction.

At a meeting with the chiefs of Adansi Traditional area where the Obuasi Mine of Aglogold is situated, President Nana Akufo-Addo revealed that on the Sunday after the election results were declared, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of gold mining company, Rangold Resources, Mark Bristow called me on phone with indications of their intentions to come and revamp the activities and operations of the company in Ghana.

Assurance

I'm confident things will go well for us to develop the country once again because mentioning Ghana without Anglogold it's almost like saying nothing. So be rest assured that a government has come for Adansiman to regain its lost glory for wealth creation, he told the chiefs and people of Adansi.

The President could not fathom why in the midst of abundant natural resources, Ghanaians have almost become a pale shadow of themselves.

He promised do everything possible to improve the living conditions of the people.

I know you are going to support me and my government to succeed to the benefit of all Ghanaians; we didn't come into government for nothing but to develop the nation of Ghana to take its place on the global stage, we will do our best for this country.

He thanked the chiefs and people of the area for their support during the 2016 campaign.

One thing that struck me during the election was when the Edubiase results started coming in because I remember the queen mother of the place promising me of the support of the people of the area and it indeed came to pass. I will therefore use this opportunity to thank the chiefs and people of Adansi for the honour done me and the NPP. It's no mean an achievement to win all six constituencies in the area, he said.

The President disclosed that Ghanaians will soon get to know we did not make empty promises because we have a plan to develop this country.

Commendation

On his part, the Chief of Adansi, Opagyakotwere Bonsra Afriyie II, congratulated Nana Akufo-Addo on his assumption of the highest office of the land.

He lauded his tenacity and likened him to onetime America beauty queen Tara Holland.

The Chief of Adansi was accompanied by the chiefs of the area, all six Members of Parliament (MPs) in the area and the Managing Director of Anglogold Ashanti, Eric Asubonteng and some management and staff of the mining company.

He commended the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and President Akufo-Addo for planning to build a factory each in every district of the country.

He said the chiefs and people of Adansi have allocated a land for that purpose.

We will help whichever private investor would come and establish the factory as our own contribution to the achievement of this dream, he disclosed.

By Charles Takyi-Boadu, Jubilee House


Government has indicated its readiness to work assiduously to return Ghana to prosperity soon.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who gave the assurance on Tuesday in Accra when Togbe Afede XIV, President of the National House of Chiefs led a delegation on a visit to the Presidency, disclosed that his administration will send Ghana onto the path of progress and prosperity.

Very soon the difficulties in our economic circumstances are going to be a thing of a past.

He also stated that steps are going to be taken very soon, in my own address to the nation, and in the first budget, to let the Ghanaian people know that the commitments we made in order to get their mandate were not just hollow words, and that there was every intention to live by those commitments. Those commitments, in our vision, are the way forward for the progress and prosperity of our country.

It is the considerations of the public sector which should guide us. We should never put ourselves as competitors with people in the private sector. I want to assure you, and through you to all the chiefs of our country, that to the extent that I have control over those I am working with, that is going to be the situation, he said.

Nana Addo reassured the chiefs that there will be no situation whereby Ministers, Deputy Ministers, or members of government are going to see themselves as competitors to the private sector. Our business is to make the policy, define the rules and regulations that will make the private sector flourish and grow.

Touching on the development of entrepreneurship, which was a central feature of Togbe Afede's remarks, President Akufo-Addo stated that the development of entrepreneurial talent is a make or break for our country.

He noted that if we can find young, Ghanaian men and women who have that sense of innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship, and given the right framework, our country can make it and our people will prosper.

The President added that it is only through the development of entrepreneurial talent in Ghana that we will be able to emulate others who have come from the same conditions as ourselves, and yet, are today enjoying advanced standards of living. I speak of our brothers and sisters in Asia. I cannot accept that the Asians can do something we Africans cannot do. We can do it, and the opportunity is there for us.
Government has been asked to consider renovating the Ghana International Trade Fair Centre at La, Accra as part of its plans to promote industrialization in the country.

Consultant at Afro-Arab Group Ghana Limited, Alhassan Abdallah Musah, made the call in an interview with BUSINESS GUIDE on the sidelines of a media briefing on an upcoming trade exhibition in Turkey, saying the move will make the facility become a truly international trade fair site.

The business fair is being organized by the Afro-Arab Group of Companies in partnership with the Joudy Group International for all industries in Turkey between March and July 2017, and Ghanaian companies are encouraged to participate at a rate of $400 per entity.

According to him, the current status of the Trade Fair Centre is pathetic and that the facility does not encourage trade shows even though the rationale behind the establishment of the centre is to boost trade through fairs.

In the opinion of Mr. Musah, the Trade Fair Centre has in recent past become a white elephant which defeats government's claims of creating an enabling environment for the business community.

He said government should seek private partnership in redeveloping the centre built in 1967 in order to provide an attractive environment for international trade shows in Ghana.

He also appealed to government to consider supporting private sector in organizing international trade fairs in order to boost investment activities in the country in line with President Akufo-Addo's industrialization agenda for Ghana.

According to him, government should begin to follow the examples of countries like Egypt and Turkey where the state organizes trade exhibitions free of charge for the business community or at subsidized rate for participants.

The Afro-Arab Group of Companies is a private company established in 2010 with its headquarters at Accra New Town.

The group accordingly has about nine subsidiaries operating in different parts of Ghana.

By Melvin Tarlue
The Civil Society Platform on Oil and Gas (CSPOG) has endorsed the appointment of Dr. Ben Asante as the caretaker Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ghana Gas by President Akufo-Addo.

CSPOG's endorsement of Dr. Asante's appointment is contrary to reservations expressed by a section of the public about his choice as the caretaker CEO.

It would be recalled that a group from the Western Region calling itself the Nzema Youth Association issued a statement to oppose the appointment of Dr. Asante.

The group had alleged in the statement that Dr Asante's advice to the previous NDC government led to the relocation of the Ghana Gas Processing facility from Jomoro to Ellembelle, a decision that the Nzemas in the Jomoro area blamed for the lost of a unique economic opportunity.

But CSPOG, in a statement signed by its Chairman, Dr. Steve Manteaw, said the group's opposition to Dr. Asante's appointment is without factual and objective basis, adding that the allegations are clearly at variance with the facts as CSPOG has come to know them.

According to CSPOG, Dr. Ben Asante is the best choice but urged him to work with government to address hostile ethnic sentiments.

Indeed, the President couldn't have made a better choice, as Dr Asante has over the past few years proven that he has what it takes to manage the state entity.

Besides his impeccable academic and professional achievements both locally and internationally, Dr Asante, by virtue of his association with the Western Corridor Gas Infrastructure Project as a consultant to Ghana Gas, and subsequently as an advisor on gas matters to the Minister of Petroleum, is very familiar with the company he is now assuming responsibility for.

A statement from Ghana Gas recently stated that the Board of the Company had approved a request from Dr. George Sipa-Adjah Yankey to proceed on terminal leave, effective February 1, 2017, and terminating in May 2017, paving way for the appointment of renowned engineer, Dr. Asante.

Dr Ben Asante has over 25 years of experience in the oil and gas industry.

He was the technical director of Ghana's first Gas Infrastructure project and also developed the gas infrastructure master plan for Ghana in 2008.

He has also served as a consultant to the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) and provided engineering services, project management and technical support for various projects across the world, including UAE, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Mexico, Russia, Thailand and USA.

He has worked for major companies, including Nova/TransCanada and Enron and Jacobs Engineering.

By Melvin Tarlue


President Akufo-Addo and Vice-President Bawumia in a photo with the National House Of Chiefs

The Standing Committee of the National House of Chiefs on Tuesday, February 7, 2017, paid a courtesy call on the President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, to congratulate him on his electoral victory and assumption of the highest office of the land.

The Committee, led by Togbe Afede XIV, President of the National House of Chiefs, noted that in electing you as President, the people of Ghana, unhappy with their circumstances, have endorsed your agenda for change. Many of your pronouncements and actions since your assumption of office are very reassuring, and we would like to commend and assure you of our support.

In the company of other members of the Standing Committee, Togbe Afede XIV, disclosed that President Akufo-Addo's promise to be President for all Ghanaians, and to create opportunities for all is consistent with the requirements of the constitution.

We are happy about the boldness of your vision and the initiatives you have taken so far. We are excited about your One-district-One-factory programme; we see in it a serious commitment to bring jobs to the people.

Togbe Afede also commended the President's commitment towards rebuilding the inner cities and Zongo communities, as well the commitment to paying special attention to the road, railway and aviation sectors, adding that the material development of Africa can be summed up on one word  transport.

On the fight against corruption, the President of the National House of Chiefs, applauded President Akufo-Addo's stance against corruption and his commitment to fighting it.

The declaration of assets by the President was described by Togbe Afede XIV as a more refreshing commitment of the intent to fighting corruption.

Togbe Afede XIV also stressed that politicians should never be jealous of the people they lead, and become stumbling blocks to their progress. Never should politicians behave like rivals of hardworking Ghanaians, stealing their ideas and truncating their projects  projects that will create jobs for the people.

To President Akufo-Addo, he said that the task at hand cannot be accomplished by you alone. The desired growth, development and prosperity will not come from the exploitation of our natural resources alone. We have to tap the entrepreneurship and ingenuity of our people. That is why we are calling on all Ghanaians to lend their support. There is no room for apathetic spectating.

Togbe Afede, in concluding, urged President Akufo-Addo to lead us selflessly so that our success will cause the redemption of the black man, so that we can serve, once again, as an example to all our racial compatriots.

He also assured President Akufo-Addo of the desire of the National House of Chiefs to partner government to resolve all outstanding chieftaincy disputes, saying we have no choice.
Poll dates after agreement with Morcha: Dahal

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has said election dates will be announced after reaching an agreement with the Samyukta Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha (SLMM).
A 48-year-old woman at Assin Sibinso in the South District of the Central Region, Vida Brew aka, Adjoa Belt, has been arrested by the Assin Juaben Police Command for biting the nipple of a 37-year-old woman Ama Fosua during a fight.

Briefing DAILY GUIDE, the District Police Commander, ASP Okyere Andam, said the incident happened in the area on February 1, 2017 when the two fought over the connection of electricity.

ASP Andam noted that last year, Vida who had an electricity meter in the area was contacted by Fosua to allow her use some of the electrical power but Vida collected some money from the complainant before she allowed her to use it.

The Police Commander stated that Vida, who also collected the electricity bills, defaulted in payment, which compelled the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to disconnect the meter.

ASP Andam said some weeks later, Fosua also went for her own meter and Vida approached her to allow her to use some of the power since she had a funeral in her house, adding that Fosua also demanded money from Vida.

He disclosed that Vida, who was not happy with Fosua's request, waited for her to go to town and made the connection without her knowledge.

He added that Fosua was informed about the action of Vida in her absence, compelling her to go to the funeral grounds to exchange words with her and later went home.

ASP Andam told DAILY GUIDE that Vida moved to the house and rained insults on Fosua.

Vida subsequently bit the nipple of Fosua during a fight.

A police medical form was issued to Fosua to go to the hospital.

Vida, who was arrested, has since been granted

bail by the police.

From Sarah Afful, Cape Coast

Email:[email protected]
Children in Nkra Akura and other surrounding communities in the Krachi East District of the Volta Region have resorted to fishing after their school became non-operational due to the withdrawal of teachers under the Youth Employment Agency (YEA) programme.

The head of the Nkra Akura Community, Dzoboku told Oti Radio that the school, which was built by the community, became defunct after government withdrew the teachers from the school.

After the withdrawal of the YEA teachers, we employed pupil teachers and paid them from our own resources, he added.

He indicated that although the former Member of Parliament (MP), Wisdom Gidisu, assisted the community to roof the school building, they failed to sustain the payment of pupil teachers.

Owing to the development, children of school going age are always seen fishing in the Oti River and assisting their parents in other jobs.

Mr. Dzoboku said that over the past two years, the children have abandoned their academic work for fishing.

Members of the community, who confirmed the incident to DAILY GUIDE, therefore called on the Ghana Education Service (GES), District Assembly, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and other benevolent persons and institutions to come to their aid.

Apart from that, Nkra Akura has poor road network and they also have to travel several kilometers on bad roads to access healthcare and the Dambai Market.

The community lacks potable water and relies on the Oti River for both domestic and commercial use.

Nkra Akura Not On GES List

The Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Krachi East Education Directorate, Boniface Onyameama, however narrated that the school at Nkra Akura has not been on the list of the Education Directorate for many years.

He explained that his preliminary investigations indicate that the school used to be on the list of schools of the then Krachi District, which was later split into Krachi East and West.

After the division of the district in 2005, Krachi East had 94 Junior High and Primary Schools, but this particular school is not on the GES list, so it is not recognized, he noted.

He explained the Nkra Akura School, which used to be under the Krachi District, collapsed in the 1990s.

People think that the two schools are the same because it was the Tsavokofe School which was placed under the tutelage of the YEA teachers and not Nkra Akura. Probably because they are close by, the people are confusing the two schools. Be that as it may, Tsavokofe School also became defunct after the YEA teachers were disengaged, Mr. Onyameama added.

He said the children in the two communities, Nkra Akura and Tsavokofe, can attend school at Monkurate, which is close to both communities.

The PRO gave the assurance that the GES Office would support any initiative by the inhabitants of Nkra Akura and Tsavokofe to build their school.

From Fred Duodu, Dambai ([email protected])
The graduate enlistment process into the Ghana Police Service, the Police Administration has announced, is ongoing and not ceased.

The seeming silence, a press release from the Administration said is not a sign of delay or cessation of the process.

Applicants, the release assured, will be apprised of the status of their application, and the next step or stage in due course.

Continuing, the release stated the Police, therefore, entreat members of the public, especially applicants, to exercise patience to ensure an efficient and successful exercise.


The President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has assured that Ghana, under his leadership will be returned onto the path of progress and prosperity, stressing that very soon the difficulties in our economic circumstances are going to be a thing of the past.

According to President Akufo-Addo, steps are going to be taken very soon, in my own address to the nation, and in the first budget, to let the Ghanaian people know that the commitments we made in order to get their mandate were not just hollow words, and that there was every intention to live by those commitments. Those commitments, in our vision, are the way forward for the progress and prosperity of our country.

The President made this known on Tuesday, February 7, 2017, when the Standing Committee of the National House of Chiefs paid a courtesy call on him at the Presidency.

In his response to remarks made by the President of the House of Chiefs, Togbe Afede XIV, President Akufo-Addo noted that the business of political leaders is to capture the spirit of the time and make policy for the furtherance of the interest of the people.

It is the considerations of the public sector which should guide us. We should never put ourselves as competitors with people in the private sector. I want to assure you, and through you to all the Chiefs of our country, that to the extent that I have control over those I am working with, that is going to be the situation, he said.

He reassured the Chiefs that there will be no situation whereby Ministers, Deputy Ministers, or members of government are going to see themselves as competitors to the private sector. Our business is to make the policy, define the rules and regulations that will make the private sector flourish and grow.

Touching on the development of entrepreneurship, which was a central feature of Togbe Afede's remarks, President Akufo-Addo stated that the development of entrepreneurial talent is a make or break for our country.

He noted that if we can find young, Ghanaian men and women who have that sense of innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship, and given the right framework, our country can make it and our people will prosper.

It is only through the development of entrepreneurial talent in Ghana, according to the President, that we will be able to emulate others who have come from the same conditions as ourselves, and, yet, are today enjoying advanced standards of living. I speak of our brothers and sisters in Asia. I cannot accept that the Asians can do something we Africans cannot do. We can do it, and the opportunity is there for us.

The President, in concluding, urged the citizenry to continue to cherish the institution of Chieftaincy, and assured that his administration would find a way to make this institution a feature of the governance system.

There are many things we need your assistance in  protecting our environment, providing a solid base for the education of our youth, amongst others. We need each and every one of you gathered here to help in the development of our country, he ended.
It is emerging that the two storey buildings situated at East Legon and Dzorwulu in Accra that Akua Adubofour, mother of Ruby Adu-Gyamfi aka Nayele Ametefe, is claiming ownership of, are not the only properties belonging to her daughter.

According to Peter Dadzie, lawyer for Madam Adubofour, the Narcotic Control Board (NACOB) had also pasted seizure notices and filed for confiscation of another property located at Pease in the Ashanti Region.

The defence lawyer disclosed this yesterday during further cross-examination of a NACOB investigator (name withheld) at the Accra Financial and Economic Crimes Court.

He contended that the state had recommended the seizure of the Pease property when it has no basis to do so.

However, the NACOB investigator said the recommendation for the confiscation of the said property was based on intelligence in relation to the stated property, adding that verification from state institutions like the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) and the Lands Commission confirmed his suspicion.

Although the NACOB officer admitted that he had not obtained any evidence to buttress his claim, he insisted that he acted within the confines of the law.

In an answer to a question, the NACOB investigator argued that anything the respondent (Nayele) was associated with was under suspicion.

But Mr Peter Dadzie disagreed, indicating that the suspicion was wrong and was not informed by any evidence.

In the view of the lawyer, the owner of the building at Dzorwulu which houses the Night Angels stores of Nayele, had filed for notice of claim and had produced land titles in the court, an assertion the witness said he was not aware of.

For this reason the lawyer stated, I suggest to you that you did a very bad job because a simple investigation or search at the Lands Commission could have shown that the building housing Night Angel did not belong to the respondent.

The witness said the seizure was for the stores and not the whole property.

Meanwhile, EOCO lawyers had told the court presided over by Justice Georgina Mensah-Datsa that the prosecution intends to subpoena its next witness to testify in the case.

Hearing continues on February 28, 2017.

By Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson

[email protected]
Accra (AFP) - Ghana's new government has set up a special task force to track down more than 200 missing vehicles that should have been handed back when President Nana Akufo-Addo took office.

Presidency spokesman Eugene Arhin told reporters on Wednesday that an audit of vehicles indicated that many appeared not to have been returned.

He said officials could only find:

- 74 of the presidency's 196 Toyota Land Cruisers

- 20 out of 73 Toyota Land Cruiser Prados

- 11 out of 24 Mercedes

- two out of 28 Toyota Avalons

- two out of six BMWs.

"The president of the republic currently has virtually only one vehicle at his disposal," said Arhin.

"This is the vehicle which was purchased in 2007 during the Ghana at 50 celebrations. It is a BMW."

The vehicles were assigned to former government officials and appointees under the previous administration of president John Dramani Mahama, whom Akufo-Addo beat in elections last December.

Presidency chief of staff Akosua Frema Osei-Opare said in a statement that the retention of state assets was illegal.

"Persons with state properties unlawfully in their possession should endeavour to contact the task force and make arrangements to surrender (the) same with immediate effect," he added.

There was no immediate response from Mahama's National Democratic Congress (NDC) party but the party faced a similar situation when it took power in 2008.
President Akufo Addo has appointed Major General Obed Akwa as the acting Chief of Defense Staff (CDS).

He is taking over from Air Marshall Samson Oje who has retired, and bid the President farewell.

Major General Akwa is currently the Chief of Army staff; but also served as the Commandant of the Kofi Annan Peacekeeping Training Center.

EDUCATION  QUALIFICATIONS AND INSTITUTIONS

Master of Science (MSc) in Global Security  Cranfield University, United Kingdom, 2003.

Masters of Science (MSc) in Defence and Strategic Studies  University of Madras, India 1997.

Passed Staff College (psc)  Defence Services Staff College, Wellington, India, 1997.

Passed Staff College (psc)  Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Teshie, Ghana, 1989.

Certificate in Public Administration  Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, Accra, Ghana, 1989.

Junior Staff Course (jsc)  Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Teshie, Ghana, 1989.

Diploma in Military Studies from the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, UK from January 1976  March 1977.

Basic Officer training at the Ghana Military Academy from October 1975  January 1976.

General Certificate of Education, Advanced Level (GCE A level)  Sekondi College, Ghana 1975.

General Certificate of Education, Ordinary Level (GCE O Level)  Mpraeso Secondary School, Ghana, 1973.

WORK EXPERIENCE AND POSITIONS HELD

2012  2013

In the rank of Brigadier General, served as the Western Brigade Commander/Ghanaian Contingent Commander, MONUSCO. Was responsible for the largest sector of the MONUSCO operational area comprising six out of eleven Provinces. Exercised command over 2000 officers and men from twenty- five countries. Deployed and coordinated the defence of Goma in the North Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo during the M23 onslaught in July 2012. Also coordinated the evacuation of 30,000 refugees from Congo-Brazzaville to the Equateur Province in October-December 2012.

2009  2012

In the rank of Brigadier General, commanded the Ghana Military Academy. Was a permanent member of the Selection Board for selecting suitably qualified candidates into the Ghana Military Academy. On an annual basis, was responsible for training over 150 Officer Cadets for commissioning into the Ghana Armed Forces. Also had responsibility of administering over 200 permanent staff, both military and civilian.

2005  2009

In the rank of a Colonel, was the Military Assistant to the President of the Republic of Ghana/Commander -in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces. Contributed to policy discourses on the deepening of civilian control over the security sector; particularly ensuring that the military civilian-subordinated and appropriately sized with improved transparency and accountability for national defence. Also provided policy briefs on military and security matters as and when required.

2003  2005

In the rank of Colonel, was the Army Secretary at the Ghana Army Headquarters. Was responsible to the Chief of the Army Staff for the career management of all officers of the Ghana Army. Also served as the Personal Staff Officer to the Chief of Army Staff.

2001  2002

In the rank of Colonel, served as the Military Assistant to the Minister for Defence. Was responsible for liaison between the Ministry of Defence and the Military High Command. Contributed to policy dialogues on capacity building to enhance skilled, appropriately equipped and motivated troops that could respond to crisis and emergencies international/sub-regional and national levels.

1999  2001

In the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, served as the Commanding Officer of the 2nd Infantry Battalion of the Ghana Army. Had responsibility for the Internal Security of two strategic, mineral producing Regions in Ghana. Frequently conducted Counter Insurgency and Internal Security operations to maintain law and order and boost economic activities in the Regions. Was responsible for the command, training and administration of over 800 officers and men and women of the Battalion and the welfare of their families as well as other civilian workers.

1997  1999

In the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, served as a Deputy Army Secretary at the Ghana Army Headquarters. Assisted the Army Secretary in the career management of officers of the Ghana Army.

1993  1997

In the rank of Major, served as a Tactical Instructor at the Ghana Military Academy and the Army Combat Training School. Had instructional assignment at the tactical level for Officer Cadets and Young Officers.

1992  1993

In the rank of Major, served as a Directing Staff at the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College (Junior Division). Undertook instructional duties on Staff Functions and Procedures for Grade Three Staff Officers.

1989  1991

In the rank of Major, served as the Assistant Director Army Training at the Ghana Army Headquarters. Was responsible for co-ordinating courses, both local and overseas, for Army Officers.

1987  1988

In the rank of Captain, served as the Operations and Training Staff Officer at the Headquarters of the 1 Infantry Brigade Group. Was responsible for coordinating operations and training matters of six major Units in the Formation.

1985  1987

In the rank of Captain, served as the Adjutant in the 2nd Battalion of Infantry, Ghana Army. Was responsible for Unit discipline and the co-ordination of all training, administration and logistics matters in the Battalion.

1983  1985

In the rank of Captain, served as a Company Commander in 2nd Battalion of Infantry, Ghana Army. Was responsible for command, training and administration of troops at the Company level and also the welfare of troops' families.

1982  1983

In the rank of Lieutenant, served as an Aide-de-Camp to the Chief of the Defence Staff, Ministry of Defence. Was responsible for the personal security and the co-ordination of the daily routine of the Chief of the Defence Staff

1979  1982

In the rank of Lieutenant served as the Intelligence Officer and Adjutant in the 1st Battalion of Infantry, Ghana Army. Was responsible for collection, collation and dissemination of intelligence at the unit level as well as the discipline and orderliness of the Battalion.

1977  1979

In the rank of Second Lieutenant, served as a Platoon Commander in the 1st Battalion of Infantry, Ghana Army. Was responsible for command, training and administration of troops at the Platoon Level and also the welfare of troops' families.

PEACEKEEPING EXPERIENCE

January 2012  January 2013

Served as the Western Brigade Commander/ Ghanaian Contingent Commander with the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Congo (MONUSCO). Had responsibility for the largest sector of the MONUSCO operational area; (i.e. 6 out of the 11 provinces). Also was responsible for the provision of security cover during the Francophonie Conference held in KINSHASA in October 2012. Coordinated the security and logistics arrangements for the return of over 30,000 refugees from Congo Brazzaville to the Equateur Province of DR Congo. Deployed an infantry Company to Goma to hold the airport in strength against the M23 onslaught which proved very successful.

March  October 1993

Served as Deputy Commanding Officer of Ghana Battalion which was part of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC). Supervised and monitored the 1993 elections which restored democracy to Cambodia.

April 1991  April 1992

Served as a Military Observer with the United Nations Iraq-Kuwait Observation Mission Liaison (UNIKOM). Whilst with UNIKOM was re-deployed to serve with the Military Liaison Team in the former Yugoslavia to prepare the grounds for the insertion of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR).

June 1985  January 1986

Served with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon as Personnel Officer with responsibility for the administration of over 800 Officers and men.

October 1977  March 1978

Served with the United Nations Emergency Force II as a Platoon Commander. Was responsible for the provision of security at the Sinai Field Mission which was an early warning station to monitor intrusions into the demilitarised zone of the theatre of operations.

HONOURS/AWARDS

National Award of Member of the Order of the Volta (MV), Security Service Division, 2007.

Long Service and Efficiency Medal awarded for unblemished Service with the Ghana Armed Forces.

United Nations Peace Medals for Service with MONUSCO, DR Congo (2012) UNTAC, Cambodia (1993); UNIKOM, Iraq/Kuwait (1991  1992); UNIFIL, South Lebanon (1985); UNEF II, Sinai Desert, Egypt (1977).



By: Franklin Badu Jnr/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Minister nominee for Fisheries and Aquaculture, Elizabeth Afoley Quaye has assured that government will create a conducive environment to attract investors into the fisheries industry.

According to her, the industry has the potential to provide jobs and also enhance economic development.

We are going to form an inter-ministerial committee to ensure that any investor that wants to enter into aquaculture has a one stop permit to facilitate his project. she said.

The minister made these statements when she took her turn at the Appointments Committee of parliament on Thursday.

Mrs. Quaye further added that the move will provide employment opportunities since the fisheries industry is interconnected with various sectors of the economy.

We intend to increase employment in that area and we are positive the plan will work perfectly, she said pointing out that, thousands of Ghanaians could be employed by the industry.

She expressed optimism that the interventions that would be rolled out by the ministry will substantially increase fish production within the shortest possible time.

At the moment aquaculture provides about 50,000 metric tons of our total fish production. We intend to increase it to about 100,000 metric tons. So we will make the environment conducive within the shortest possible time.

Our mandate is within four years and so we are going to work within that time frame. she said.



By: Jessica Ayorkor Aryee/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana
Four fishermen at Axim in the Nzema East Municipality of the Western Region, have been arrested by a joint police task-force from Axim and Half Assini, for allegedly killing and dumping one Eric Nyame Kwansa, 27, into the sea during a fishing expedition on Thursday, February 2, 2017.

Confirming the incident to Citi News, the Nzema East Municipal Crime Officer, ASP Lawrence Gbele, explained that six persons set out for fishing from Axim on Thursday [February 2, 2017].

On Saturday [4th February 2017], the body of Eric Nyame Kwanza washed ashore at Bonyere in the Jomoro district. The necessary rights were performed and the body was buried. A report was then made to police in Half Assini.

ASP Gbele further explained that the police in Axim was also informed and so on Tuesday [February 7, 2017], the other four crew members returned from their expedition and were picked up by the police in Axim. We subsequently handed them over to the police in Half Assini where the case was originally reported.

When Citi News contacted the Half Assini District Crime Officer, ASP Charles Mensah, he said we are now interrogating the four to ascertain what happened at sea.

Eric Nyame Kwansa, who is said to have been staying with his father at Elmina in the Central Region, joined the fishing crew of one Agya Edu at Axim in November, 2016.



By: Obrempong Yaw Ampofo/citimfonline.com/Ghana
Banjul (Gambia) (AFP) - The European Union announced aid worth 225 million euros ($240 million) on Thursday for The Gambia's new government as President Adama Barrow said his nation was "virtually bankrupt" due to economic mismanagement by the former regime.

The EU froze assistance to The Gambia in December 2014 over the dire human rights record of ex-president Yahya Jammeh, whose security services were accused by rights groups of extrajudicial killings, torture and forced disappearances.

Barrow's victory in December's election is seen by foreign donors as a new chance for human rights and the rule of law to be better respected in the tiny west African nation.

Neven Mimica, EU Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development, hailed "a peaceful democratic change in The Gambia" and said it was "fully committed to engage with President Barrow and his government".

Immediate financial assistance of 75 million euros would target food insecurity, unemployment and the poor condition of the nation's roads, the European Commission said in a statement.

Further aid worth 150 million euros would be disbursed following a future visit by an EU delegation, it added.

President Barrow said in a speech given at the signing of the aid deal that his nation had just two months of foreign exchange reserves left, and described "an economy that is virtually bankrupt and in need of immediate rescue."

"Most public enterprises are debt-ridden and underperforming including the energy sector," Barrow said, adding that youth unemployment had rocketed.

Jammeh is accused by Gambians of land grabs and taking over businesses for his personal gain, while new Interior Minister Mai Fatty alleged last month the ex-president took $11 million from state coffers before heading for exile in Equatorial Guinea.

Meanwhile Foreign Minister Ousainou Darboe said human rights concerns would be "speedily addressed" by the new administration, and that the process of rejoining the International Criminal Court would soon begin.

The Gambia notified the United Nations in November it would withdraw from the legal body on Jammeh's orders.
Raxaul-Parwanipur power line nears completion

The much touted 132-KV Raxaul-Parwanipur electricity transmission line is scheduled to go online within the next two weeks.
On the eve of Ghanas 50th Independence Anniversary on March 6, 2007, Christian Churches in Ghana, in the spirit of the Golden Jubilee Celebration, gathered together to pray fervently to thank God for the development of the nation. As the nation prepares to celebrate the 60th Independence Anniversary on March 6, 2017, Ghanaians are once again fervently waiting to further see the efforts of Churches.

As it is known in Ghana, it is common on Sundays and for that matter, any other day to see Christians going to Church to give thanks to God for the numerous good things He has done for them either over the week, month or years, more especially seeing Ghanaians through a successful elections over the years and also for the forthcoming one on November 7, 2016.

Efforts of Churches in Ghanas history

In the past sixty years, Churches have played pivotal roles in the evolution of the Gold Coast, now Ghana. The advent of Christianity or Christian Orthodox Churches in Ghana  Roman Catholic, Evangelical Presbyterian, Methodist, Anglican and Presbyterian brought a great deal to the nation through their fight against injustices, oppressions, social evils, poverty.

The Orthodox Christian Churches led the evangelization crusade in Ghana in the 19th century onwards. These religious denominations were led by Europeans and the impact of these Christian institutions cannot be over emphasized. The late 1970s witnessed a second wave of religious crusade led by Ghanaians. These Charismatic Churches for the past three decades have been making headlines with their healing and deliverance services.

The Catholic Church especially is one of the premier Christian Religious Missions established in Ghana by the Europeans in the 15th Century (1482) by some Catholic Priests who accompanied the Portuguese to Elmina who arrived in the Gold Coast in January 1482 to build the Elmina Castle.

In 1642, the Dutch forbade the Catholic Church which led to the arrest of the Portuguese between 1637 and 1642.Catholicism came to a halt due to the presence of the Dutch from 1637- 1872. This situation became a bother to Sir James Marshall, a Scottish layman, who arrived in the Gold Coast as a Chief Justice in 1879.

With the zeal to bring back Catholicism, Sir James Marshall championed the refounding of the Catholic Church in the year 1880 after 250 years of the breakdown (1637) of the first Catholic Church established by the Portuguese in 1482. His efforts led to the arrival of two Catholic Priests  Rev. Frs. Augustine Moreau and Eugene Murat, both SMA and French nationals to commence Catholic evangelisation after Propaganda Fide, on the approval of Pope Leo XIII, officially assigned them to take charge of the Gold Coast as a Prefecture at Elmina.

After establishing a mission station at Elmina by March, 31, 1882, the S.M.A Missionaries decided to extend the Catholic faith to Kumasi, the capital of the Asante State. They would, in due course spread the Catholic faith to other communities. However, this intention was not possible and it took the Catholic Missionaries twenty eighty years to found a formal Church in Asante. The Catholic Church opened the way for other religious denominations when it was on recess during the time of the Dutch.

Many Ghanaians became formally educated through the work of the Christian Missions. Many acquired skills through which they had decent means of livelihood as they contributed to local, regional and national development at various levels. Again, by embracing Christianity, many Ghanaian societies abandoned several obnoxious traditional customs. Further, the Christian missions led the way in health-care provision on which they provided western health facilities for the people of Ghana especially to the rural folk.

The Methodist Mission was established in Cape Coast by Rev. Joseph Rhodes Dunwell in 1835. Both the Catholic Church and Methodist expanded their missions beyond the coastal towns of Ghana after establishment at Elmina and Cape Coast respectively.

Over the years or precisely over the last two decades saw the proliferation of Pentecostalism along the Coastal and southern parts of Ghana, which emphasises on healing and deliverance; preach prosperity and acquisition of wealth.

In Ghana today, there are over 2,000 Churches, some of which have turned uncompleted buildings, rooms, streets and lorry parks into places of worship or organised crusades and all- night sessions.

Christian Missions in the past sixty years without any reservation have played prominent roles in seeing the country into independence and bringing socio-economic development to the nation. All over Ghana, the Missions, especially the Orthodox ones have provided education as part of their evangelisation.

Catholic education in focus

The Catholic Church, for instance, provides about 30 percent of educational institutions in the country and can boast of providing education in some of the most deprived areas of Ghana.

It is estimated that between 15 to 20 percent of all Public Schools at the Basic level in Ghana were established by the Catholic Church. Over ten out of the Public Senior High Girls School are Catholic, while 40 percent of the Public Boys Schools are also Catholic. The Church also runs over 58 Vocational and/or Technical Institutes in the country. The top ten Senior High Schools in the Country at least include at least six Catholic Schools.

The Church also has a Catholic University College at Fiapre in the Sunyani Diocese of the Brong-Ahafo Region, the Spiritan University College at Ejisu-Ashanti, the Catholic Institute of Business Technology in Accra and the Pastoral Social Institute at Wa.

Holistic education by the Church is an imperative from Jesus Christ. In Jesus life and mission on earth, He educated the people of His time and advanced their development, says Most Rev. Charles Palmer-Buckle, Metropolitan Archbishop of Accra, Ghana, during one of the Catholic Education Week Celebrations in Accra.

Some of the most prominent Second Cycle Schools established by the Catholic Church are St. Augustines and Holy Child (Central Region); Bishop Herman, OLA Girls, St. Pauls, St. Marys (Volta); St. Francis Xavier Minor Seminary, St. Francis of Assisi (Upper West); St. Charles (Tamale); Notre Dame, St. Bernadette Vocational (Upper East); Opoku Ware, St. Louis, (Kumasi), Pope John, St. Peters, St. Roses, St. Martins, St. Pauls Technical (Eastern Region); Archbishop Porters, St. Marys and St. Johns(Western Region), St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Margaret Mary (Accra) and others.

Health

In the area of health, Christian Churches have led the way in the provision of health care facilities, thus providing jobs for the youth. The promotion of good health over the years has been the desire of the Mission Churches. Today, most of the hospitals in the country are owned by the missions. Currently, according to reports; there are 137 Catholic Health Delivery Facilities of which over 37 are Hospitals.

Among them are Apam St. Luke Catholic Hospital, St. Francis Xavier, Our lady of Grace (Cape Coast); Battor Catholic Hospital; St. Andrew Catholic Clinic (Accra); Anfoega Catholic Hospital, Margaret Marquart (Ho Diocese); St Anthony, Sacred Heart, Comboni Hospital (Keta-Akatsi); Holy Family, St. Dominic, St. Joseph, St. Martin de Porres (Koforidua Diocese); St. John of God, St. Elizabeth, (Goaso); St. Martins, St. Michaels and St. Peters (Obuasi); St. Martin de Porres (Takoradi); Holy Family, St. Marys (Sunyani); Holy Family , St. Theresa and St. Matthias (Techiman)

Long before the idea of the Health Insurance dawned on the then New Patriotic Party (NPP) government of President John Agyekum Kufuor, the Catholic Church had already advanced in the industry through the establishment of the Nkoranza Health Insurance Scheme in the Techiman Diocese which has had an impact on the people.

Voice of the Voiceless

Churches in Ghana over the years also took a stand against social evils in the political process of Ghana, in order to bring peace and justice. All the political regimes in Ghana from 1957 to date in one way or the other have had confrontations with Churches as they (Churches) openly condemn some acts of governments.

The political struggles that immediately followed Independence saw one of the most horrendous era that may be ranked second to the slave trade in terms of its destruction of human dignity and resources, states Sir Fosuaba Mensah Banahene, a staunch Catholic and the former Administrator of the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFUND) in a speech he delivered on the theme: 50 Years of Independence: The Impact of the Diocesan Priest in Nation Building at the 21ST Biennial Congress of the National Union of Ghana Diocesan Priests Associations (NUGDPA) in 2007.

During the time of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the First President of Ghana who was a Catholic, the Christian Council of Ghana had some misunderstandings with Nkrumahs Convention Peoples Party (CPP) over the pouring of libation to welcome the Duchess of Kent and over a statue of Nkrumah. (George Bob Millar and Gloria K. Bob Millar, 28th February, 2007).

In 1958, Nkrumahs statue which stood twenty feet high was erected in front of the old Parliament House. On its pedestal was inscribed Seek ye first the political kingdom and all other things shall be added to you.

The Christian Council of Ghana (CCG) campaigned for the removal of the words but to no avail as Nkrumah stood his grounds.

This inscription might have been borrowed from scriptures (Matthew 6:33) Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all things shall be added unto you.

The Christian Council of Ghana (CCG) never deterred about the inability of the government to remove the inscription on Nkrumahs statue again condemned the introduction of the Preventive Detention Act.

Olusegun Obasanjo, former President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria who was the Special Guest of Honour at Ghanas 50th Independence celebration on 6th March, 2007 at the Independence Square, asked Ghanaians to take critical look at the words of Matthew 6:33 and live by it to move the nation forward to the next 50 years.

Another Ghanaian leader who came in for criticism by Christian denominations was General Ignatius Kutu Acheampong (1972-78) who was also born into the Catholic Church. The supposed mismanagement of the Ghanaian economy by the Supreme Military Council Members (SMC) resulted in organised labour embarking on strikes.

When the crisis in May to August 1977 erupted, General Acheampong declared a Week of National repentance to run from 27th June to July 3, 1977. The official reasons given by the soldiers for subjecting all ills of the nation, political and economic, were due to the sinfulness of the nation (Pobee 1992: 6).

During that time, most of the Churches ignored the call for repentance and rather criticized him for his mismanagement of the country until he was overthrown in a palace coup by General F. W. Akuffo in 1978.

The other regime that came under heavy criticism was the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC) led by Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings (The Peoples man). This regime which run the country from 1981 to 1992 before going for a constitutional rule in 1993, really suffered a lot of criticisms through Communiques from the Churches and publication in the Mission Media (The Catholic Standard and the Christian Messenger).

In the 1980s, The Catholic Standard became a credible, eloquent mouth piece not only for the Church but also for Ghanaians as a whole. During that period, the Ghana Catholic Bishops Conference worked assiduously to uphold and defend the human rights of the people by together staging a national crusade with the Christian Council of Ghana in 1989 to prevent the then government from implementing the infamous Religious Bodies (Registration Law), which sought to take away from the people the right of freedom of worship (Sir Fosuaba Banahene, January 2007).

The Ghana Catholic Bishops Conference (GCBC) over the years after its Plenary Assemblies, issues Communiques on national issues, which have helped governments to work harder for the betterment of the ordinary Ghanaian. The Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Church also issued various statements in the mid-eighties to condemn the alleged atrocities that were being meted out on Ghanaians.

For example, the Metropolitan Archbishop of Tamale and currently the President of the GCBC, Most Rev. Philip Naameh, in an interview with this Writer in 2009, called on the Government to join hands with Religious Bodies to fight the twin evils of bribery and corruption in the country.

He said the problem of corruption in the nation had come about because people have thrown away their religious values that instill good morals in them. He said that the corruption in the system was due to human weakness and debunked the perception that Churches only take care of the pastoral needs while the government provide the material needs of the people.

According to him, Africans were very religious but many have thrown away their religious values, saying that they have become corrupt because Religion is no more in their offices.

Archbishop Naameh queried: Why do politicians fortify themselves. For all you know, some of them are Christians but visit shrines. What does the juju man have that God does not have? He said it was time efforts were made to bring Religion also to offices to instill moral values in the fabric of society. If we do not see nation-building in terms of putting a good moral fabric among Ghanaians, we are going to be sorry, he added

He said the relationship with God, morals and ethics were very integral to society, stating that when we start talking about corruption to people who have no moral values, how can they know corrupt practices are evil?

Archbishop Naameh, who was then the Episcopal Chairman for Education of the GCBC, noted that morality and values were the issues that our educational system should be stressing on and when it gets deep rooted in the people, they will understand the dos and donts of society. You can recall that the Ghana Catholic Bishops Conference acted aggressively on the removal of Religious and Moral Education from the School curricula, he said. The Archbishop was of the view that for morality to widely have impact on society, more Schools should be turned into boarding Schools.

In 2006, the Christian Council of Ghana and the Catholic Church jointly also condemned the purported Gay Conference in Accra and described it as an evil act and abomination.

Conflict resolution is of no exception by the Christian Missions which are seen as institutions that can bring true reconciliation and heal wounds of the people.

The former Chairman of the Christian Council of Ghana, Rt. Rev. Dr. Paul Fynn in one of his Sermons at an Ecumenical Service between the CCG and the GCBC, asked Ghanaians to give thanks to God for not experiencing any civil war as in other countries.

This message brings to mind the need for Ghanaians, Christians and Muslims like to take a critical stock of their lives in the past fifty-nine years, work towards true peace and unity devoid of political tension, ethnic sentiment and bickering.

Conclusion

Leaders of Christian denominations, as peacemakers, have been made part of the National Peace Council with Cardinal Peter Appiah Turkson, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace as its first Chairman.

For the role Christian Missions especially the Orthodox are playing in the development of the nation deserves a lot of recognition beyond honour, as put by Archbishop Palmer-Buckle, It stands to reason that the Catholic Church should be recognised as a principal provider and stake-holder in national development.

We should not only be accorded the due honour, but we expect also to be consulted in matters of the delivery of education in this country (Ghana). Unfortunately, most of what we get is lip service and rather weak commitment on the part of the governing institutions that are responsible for providing and supervising education in this country (Ghana).

Indeed, the role Churches have played on Ghanas Evolution and Development leaves a lot to be desired and Ghanaians are looking forward to a better Ghana, while the Churches continue to be the voices of the voiceless, the hope of the hopeless and the helper of the helpless.
09.02.2017 LISTEN

Haruna Iddrisu  Chairman, let me thank the Hon Minister-designate for National Security. Undoubtedly a fine gentleman and you redeemed yourself very well as Member of Parliament conspicuously lost in your CV. You will be exercising a very important mandate that borders on the security of the state, per the provisions of the Constitution under article 83.

You've been a member of the National Security Council, but as I refer to your CV, you refer to boards and councils. It is missing, but it does you a lot of good. Having served under 83 (c); Minister for Defence, Minister for Interior, you necessarily served on the National Security Council. If I indulge you further, your national award, both Togo and Ghana, whether we will not be able to add a year of the award in order that for reference purposes we know. I thank you and congratulations.

Kan-Dapaah  Hon Chairman, they were both earned in 2008.

Chairman  Did you serve on the National Security Council?

Kan-Dapaah  As Minister of Defence.

Chairman  So let the record reflect that he served on the National Security Council

Alhassan Suhuyini  Thank you Mr Chairman. I want your guidance. Mr Chairman, maybe before I proceed I want your guidance, sorry, because I came in a bit late. It is a question on the CV, but it is also not a question of a National Security. A question of his role in a matter that was before the Judgment Debt Commission. Can I ask a question on that?

Chairman  Okay, let's hear you. If I think is not advisable for him to answer, Ill rule it out, but please ask.

Alhassan Suhuyini  Alright, thank you very much. Hon Minister, now when the Judgment Debt Commission was sitting, there was a very controversial matter that came up. It had to do with the sale of a drillship.

Now, witnesses who appeared before the commission, one of such witnesses, Hon K. T. Hammond, made reference to a committee that you set up when you were Minister for Energy to negotiate with Societe Generale and others in the sale of the drillship. He also indicated the membership of the committee to include Dr Esigah Agambila, who was at the time a Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Finance.

He came out to say that he was not a member of any such committee, and has no knowledge of a committee such as that that was set up at the time. You were not at the commission, so that matter still hangs. I just want to know what you remember, as far as that sale was concerned, and did you, indeed, form this committee that included these people to negotiate the sale of [the] Ghana drillship?

Kan-Dapaah  Hon Chairman, no such committee was set up to sell the drillship. What happened was that, there was an attempt to settle with the company that we were owing. A committee was set up to do that negotiation.

I do now that they did have some meetings, but before they came up with a final report, the company that we were owing had been able to get judgment, and at that point, they were not willing to negotiate any further, so not much came out of the committee. I have heard the Hon member, Dr Agambila, saying that he did not remember serving on that committee, obviously, we have to check from the records of the ministry. He was a member, if what he meant is that he had not been able to attend any of the meetings, that probably, is another issue all together, but yet still, a committee was set up and he was supposed to be a member of that committee.

The outcome of the committee's work, to me, is not all, because I said before they had been able to conclude their work Societe Generale had obtained court judgment, and why will they negotiate when the court said you must pay them this amount?

Haruna Iddrisu  Chairman, thank you once again. The Minister for National Security will largely be operating under Act 526 the Security and Intelligence Act of 1996. Therefore, Hon Minister-designate, you will be responsible to secure the security of the state. There's a political disease in the last seven years that following the successful and particularly smooth transfer of political power, members of political parties have become victims of either persons who are seeking to celebrate or jubilate, and that infringes on the right of other persons, resulting, sometimes, in loss of lives, loss of properties. There's been an effort by some people to even take over public institutions. Can you assure this committee that you will deal with this disease, recognising the first principle of national justice and equality before the law? Thank you.

Kan-Dapaah  Hon Chairman, when you ask people why they do that, the only response they gave is, but they did it to us. But, as you will agree, two wrongs will never make one right, and I think, as we go along, we should find a way of stopping such behaviour. Now, I think the creation of a Minister for National Security, which then enables the ministry and the secretariat to be more accountable to the people of Ghana, because we have to report to Parliament on regular basis, this time it will give the chance or opportunity to address some of these issues.

Haruna Iddrisu  Chairman, thank you once again. We've had post-election violence, Sawaba in Kumasi, Agbobloshi daily. I'm sure even within the precincts of and outside Parliament, we have victims of it. Can you assure the Ghanaian public that you will ensure that the security agencies deal ruthlessly with any Ghanaian seeking to undermine the peace of the country, and seeking to take over any public institutions?

Kan-Dapaah  Hon Chairman, let me, in this connection, congratulate the Ghana Police Service for the effort they have made in recent times, in trying to stop the unfortunate incidents. I think they have been very, very firm; they have been very, very strict. As a result of which the problem is no longer existing to a very large extent, even to stop that, but Hon Member, I can assure you that I do fully support that we must make people to agree to respect the laws of Ghana. If we don't respect the laws of our country, we will always be in trouble, and I agree with you.

Mahama Ayariga  Thank you very much Mr Chairman. In your response to Hon Minority Leader's question, you mentioned the establishment of a Ministry of National Security. Are you Minister responsible for National Security or a Ministry National Security has established? If one has been established, do you think that establishment will have a problem with Article 85 of the Constitution?

Kan-Dapaah Hon Chair, my understanding is that I am being vetted for the position of Minister for National Security. Hon Chairman, I want explain that this will not be the first time that we doing that. Under the NDC, they found it necessary to establish such a ministry, which was headed by Mr Totobi Quakyi. During President Kufour's era, he also found it necessary to do the same thing. I know that the Hon member is a lawyer of repute. If he thinks there are some constitutional issues which need to be addressed, I think it is appropriate that he points it out to the authorities.

Titus Glover  Congratulations! A major challenge to our national security is the galamsey menace that has led to the destruction of our water bodies and vegetation. I want to find out how are you going to collaborate with other security agencies; the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources and other institutions to ensure we bring some sanity in the destruction of our vegetation and water bodies to enhance national security? Thank you.

Kan-Dapaah  Hon Chairman, I believe when we go to discuss the national security matters in-camera this is one of the issues that we probably may want to consider seriously. It's certainly one of the major security challenges in this country, and I think we should find a way to deal with it in a manner that can stop it.

Chairman  I think the way we are going, we will ask one more question and we close the public section and go into the closed-door section, where other questions relating to security would be asked. So, please hold your fire. Just one more question, because it relates to a petition that has been put before us from the public, so I will give him the opportunity to respond to that, and then we go into a closed session.

Hon Kan-Dapaah, a member of the public has put a petition before us, and two issues are raised. One, that when you were a Minister for Defence you were given information about a ship carrying cocaine, and you failed to act on it. Two, that one John King, in cables released through wikileaks, said that you were dismissive and irritated when those issues were brought to your attention for discussion. We will like to hear your response to these allegations.

Kan-Dapaah  Thank you Hon Chairman. With regards to the cocaine that came into the country, in actual fact, I wasn't even the Minister, and Hon Chairman, it wasn't as the Ministry of Defence. It was as the Minister for the Interior. I was appointed Minister for the Interior on the 5th of May, it took me about one week before I even went there. The ship and the laws and the problems that came with it was on 3rd May, so at the time it happened, I wasn't the Minister.

But, Hon Chairman, I want to explain that so far as matters of NACOB is concerned, the Minister for the Interior has nothing to do with it. The Minister of the Interior would not know of the work they do. The Minister for the Interior is only responsible for the administrative work of that Ministry. So, even if I was there at the time, I wouldn't have been informed of what they were doing, but I think the key thing is that the ship arrived and the problems arose on the 3rd of May; I wasn't the Minister.

Chairman  Were you dismissive of one John King?

Kan-Dapaah  Hon Chairman, this was contained in a wikileaks publication, where it was said that when I met this gentleman I was dismissive and irritated, when he talked to me about the drug menace of at the airport.

I did issue a press statement immediately thereafter to explain what happened, and with you permission, Hon Chairman, I will want to quote from that press statement, and I said that the agent, in fact, did come to my office, and he expressed concerns about some security leakages at the airport on drugs, and that he did not think that the government was doing enough.

The agent was aware that my role as the Minister of Interior was such that I would not be involved in operational matters, but yes, we engaged in a conversation. He made his point very, very strongly. In an equal manner, I also made my point strongly. I said to him that I did not share in his view, as much as is related to me.

I referred to a number of actions that the government of Ghana had taken at those that related to my ministry. I pointed out to him that we had introduced what we call the West Bridge Project, which I can explain to you when we are in-camera, which had been commissioned not long before our conversation, and which the Home Office Minister from UK had commended that it was a very, very example of how to tackle the cocaine trade.

And I said to him that he should be aware of that statement made by the Minister. I explained to him that we had given enough funds to the NACOB for them to engage more people, and also undergo training, and that it all came from the Ministry of Interior. I also said that we had given them money to complete the headquarters building, which had been abandoned for some time. So I made these points to him. I really don't understand how he thought I was irritated and dismissive; if making my views known to him is what he calls dismissive, then I disagree.

But, Hon Chairman, it may also be useful to tell this House that in the same wikileaks report, there was another article about me, which, Hon Chairman read as recently as June 19. The Minister of Interior, Albert Kan-Dapaah, publically asserted this morning that restructuring and re-strengthening NACOB, particularly the human resource capacity of the body, is one of the key issues the government has decided to address urgently.

He was speaking to a health of mission meeting in Accra, and he did indicate that he was very concerned about Ghanaians growing narcotics problem, and its potential impact. So the same report also had some nice words to say about me, but as for being dismissive and irritated, I don't think that was the case, and I want to believe that as many Ghanaians that know me do know that that is not how I operate.

Sarah Adwoa Safo  Hon nominee, that will be all for it. I will take one more from Hon Sampson Ahi, and then we can go into camera so that the media and all other persons can excuse us. Thank you!

Sampson Ahi  Thank you Madam Chairperson. With regards to the takeovers by the NPP youth after the elections  It happened in my constituency, and when it happened I know leading members of NPP came out to condemn the act (Adwoa Safo interjects)

Adwoa Safo  Hon Member, I believe that this question was asked, and the nominee has answered the question. We have to also not be repeating ourselves. I believe that if we should reduce it to in my constituency, I won't end this matter. So the general question has been answered, let's take another.

Sampson Ahi  No, it's a different question.

Adwoa Safo  You have a different question?

Sampson Ahi  Yes.

Adwoa Safo  Okay then reframe it.

Sampson Ahi  On the matter of takeovers. People believe that the President must speak to the matter to bring a stop to it. Will the nominee advice His Excellency the President to speak to the matter, so that people who are doing it illegally will put a stop to it? Because, his words are stronger than those who have condemned the act.

Adwoa Safo  Hon Member, I have the power to admit questions or not. I believe that when we go into camera, details of such questions can be provided. But now we are dealing with general matters, and we have all come to that conclusion, so I will overrule that question.

Haruna  Chairperson, before going into the closed session, may we kindly request the nominee to tender the press statement that you referred to, and the other paragraphs, into evidence to be part of the records of this committee, so that clerks will have it, thank you.

Document not available (Adwoa Safo intervenes)

Adwoa Safo  Hon nominee, if you don't have it here, you can tender it to the committee later. I believe that at this point we will retire and hold further discussions in-camera. So if the media and other persons could excuse us, thank you!

By Maxwell Ofori, Parliament House
The Employment and Labour Relations Minister, Ignatius Baffour Awuah has told Citi Business News his outfit will investigate demands from workers of the National Labour Commission for their boss to be sacked.

It follows an official complaint from the workers and defence by the management, to be presented to the Ministry on Thursday.

I do not know the gravity of the issues the workers are raising. I have said that when the issue comes before us, it will inform us as to what to do next, Mr. Baffour Awuah told Citi Business News.

The workers of the NLC want the Executive Secretary, Charles Adongo Bawa Duah relieved of his post over allegations of unfair termination of the appointment of two staff members and other concerns over his management style.

The Senior Industrial Relations Officer at the NLC, Eric Omane Yeboah alleges that the political affiliation of Mr. Bawa Duah with the NDC defeats the independence of the NLC in executing its mandate.

Most definitely the NLC is a neutral institution and under the public service; all things being equal, public servants are non-partisan and therefore I cannot go and represent a political party and still hold myself in a public office. We are therefore saying that he cannot still remain in office when his government is not in power, he stated.

Even though the NLC is the body mandated to resolve all labour issues in the country, the Minister has ruled out any significant impact of the workers' agitation on the Commission's work.

I do not think it will affect the cases before the commission; that is why I visited the premises and finally convinced the workers to unlock the offices.

Mr. Charles Adongo Bawa Duah was appointed as the new Executive Secretary of the National Labour Commission (NLC) in April 2016.

His appointment came at a time where the commission was saddled with uneasy calm following the delay in appointing a substantive Executive Secretary.

The workers were agitated by the long period Dr. Bernice Anowa Welbeck served as Acting Executive Secretary of the NLC.

Meanwhile the Employment Ministry has resolved to update the public with the details of its investigations.

The NLC is a strategic institution in the country resolving labour issues and that it if it should have a problem at that level, then the public must be made aware in our efforts to address them, the sector minister said.



By: Pius Amihere Eduku/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana
Banjul (Gambia) (AFP) - The European Union announced aid worth 225 million euros ($240 million) for The Gambia on Thursday as President Adama Barrow warned that the nation was "virtually bankrupt" due to economic mismanagement by the former regime.

The EU froze assistance to The Gambia in December 2014 over the dire human rights record of ex-president Yahya Jammeh, whose security services were accused by rights groups of extrajudicial killings, torture and forced disappearances.

Barrow's victory over Jammeh in December's election is seen by foreign donors as a new chance for human rights and the rule of law to be better respected in the tiny west African nation.

Neven Mimica, European Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development, hailed "a peaceful democratic change in The Gambia" and said the bloc was "fully committed to engage with President Barrow and his government".

Immediate financial assistance of 75 million euros would target food insecurity and unemployment and help improve the nation's roads, the European Commission said in a statement.

A further 150 million euros would be disbursed following a future visit by an EU delegation, it added.

Barrow said in a speech at the signing of the aid deal that The Gambia had just two months of foreign exchange reserves left, and described "an economy that is virtually bankrupt and in need of immediate rescue".

"Most public enterprises are debt-ridden and underperforming including the energy sector," he said, adding that youth unemployment had rocketed.

Specific funding worth 11 million euros will go towards creating jobs for young people in a nation that currently sends the highest per capita number of migrants across the Mediterranean to Italy.

"To stem the current migration trend, it is crucial to step up job creation and create more meaningful income opportunities at home," said Trade Minister Isatou Touray.

Jammeh is accused by Gambians of land grabs and taking over businesses for his personal gain, while new Interior Minister Mai Fatty alleged last month the ex-president took $11 million from state coffers before heading for exile in Equatorial Guinea.

Foreign Minister Ousainou Darboe said human rights concerns would be "speedily addressed" by the new administration, and that the process of rejoining the International Criminal Court would begin soon.

The Gambia notified the United Nations in November that it would withdraw from the ICC on Jammeh's orders.
The Interior Ministry has imposed a 4pm to 6am curfew on Bimbila, the capital town of the Nanumba North district of the Northern region.

The curfew, which takes immediate effect was imposed after gunshots were heard in the town Thursday.

It is not clear yet what may have triggered another bout of gun shots in an area noted for its ethnic and chieftaincy violence.

Joy News Seth Kwame Boateng reports that the police have arrived at the area and are trying to restore calm.

The police are yet to adequately brief the media about the cause of the violence, the factions involved and possible casualties that may have bee recorded.

A shooting incident which led to the death of the overlord of Bimbilla, Naa Dasana Abdulai Andani II in 2014 resulted in the imposition of a 12 hour curfew In 2014.

The shooting incident was triggered by a disagreement between two chieftaincy factions over where to bury the late chief of the town, Nakpaa-Naa Salifu Dawuni.

Since then, the Bimbilla township has been fraught with similar incidents which have claimed the lives of many and destroyed properties running into several thousands of cedis.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Naa Sakwaba Akwa | [email protected]
Despite a very novel article I got published on Modern Ghana Web relating to the efficacy of Community Organizing and the viability and capacity of a Community Government Project, a lack of cognizance by policy makers and development agents, reminds me to reintroduce the subject. This week, the sad story of child marriage originating from the Upper East Region and headlining in the Northern Region was aired by Joy News. Dissecting the various angles of the issue by stakeholders including Children, Gender and Social Protection Minister, Madam Otiko Djaba Afisa in an interview, the stack problem of poverty came to the fore.

Indeeed, the girl child in question originated from a rural community of Naaga in the Upper East Region which is primarily an agrarian community deprived in so many ways including education, healthcare, sufficient recreation, adequate basic social services among others. Interestingly, just like many rural communities in many areas especially in the Northern part of Ghana, very minor challenges like child marriage have often teamed up to shape and condemn the destinies of millions of people into very unpleasant nightmare scenarios. But Community organizing in its various forms has the track record of achieving tremendous ends and must be the option to pursue.

This is because community organizing can unleash a new wave of energy from within the community and provide the power to drive home the agenda of development. It can build influence, provide representation and participation, build commitment, bring social change and reforms and establish a winning reputation. It can provide targeted development because these local communities know better, their most pressing needs and the conditions that shape them.

In Africa, and most parts of the developing world, the state has often failed to roll out and sustain policy programs that will directly tackle the challenges confronting citizens living in the most deprived and remote parts of the country. In other cases, these states, led by their governments have rather misapplied and mismanaged funding secured or granted for anti-poverty programs.

Alongside state failure, the works of Non-Government Organizations in this same regard are more than less uncoordinated resulting in insignificant impact on very isolated populations. It is also the case that some of these Non-Government Organizations misuse and misappropriate funds in the same way and manner like that of government officials.

The result of this state of affairs is a deepening of the poverty situation in already less deprived communities in which human capacities are already low, access to basic necessities is low and the prevalence of disease remain high, keeping the gulf between them and the few endowed in the country more deep and wide.

Not surprisingly, the majority of citizens in these parts of the world still resort to very crude ways of living by: sharing drinking water with frogs and toads in surface dug-out wells rather than walking tens of miles to access boreholes; exploiting their local vegetation for use as fuel for cooking and lighting if they do not wish to spend their entire incomes on proper energy sources; using local herbs from trees and performing cruel practices like body markings to cure diseases if they wish not to cross streams and rivers on boats to clinics tens of miles away; and marrying early and many to raise families to provide agricultural labor if they choose not to endure the cost of education which outstrips their lifetime earnings entirely.

However, these are mostly communities endowed massively with natural resources that can be tapped to make life a booming and exciting episode such as large populations with impressive talents, vast and fertile flat lands that include large portions of river valleys, and numerous water resources that can provide great potential for irrigation farming.

To allow these to go to waste is to not appreciate natures gift of an exciting life; and to fail to affect the lives of the inhabitants of these communities with sound resource mobilization and exploitation, is sheer cruelty of mankind to his fellows.

Herein lies the challenge of organizing these poor but deprived rural communities which are naturally endowed to provide meaningful development to reduce joblessness, inequality and disease. It is a challenge that governments of the developing world have the muscles to meet but have not shown the commitment of doing; a challenge Non-Government Organizations are more primed to do but are ineffectively delivering; and a challenge that poor rural communities must meet by themselves but have long failed to recognize the immense power they have to make it happen.

This challenge brings to the fore the imminent need for community organizing: a process that galvanizes together local community residents with common conditions and situations to provide durable power that can be channeled towards providing community development and solving local problems. The reason for community organizing is that poor rural communities are so uniquely deprived and impoverished in such a manner that they require good leadership and direction to be able to set their eyes on the horizon of determination and the hope of achievement.

In most cases, they lack a central point of authority that can regulate and provide coordination and direction; they lack representation that can ensure participation and commitment; they lack the belief in communalism, hence making it difficult to self-organize; and they lack basic public development which dissipates confidence in the state and politics.

In this regard, before any meaningful development can be taken or initiated from within these communities, there ought to be a committed program to organize these communities and channel that organization towards the basic needs, goals and aspirations of the people.

Community organizing in its various forms has the track record of achieving tremendous ends and must be the option to pursue. This is because community organizing can unleash a new wave of energy from within the community and provide the power to drive home the agenda of development. It can build influence, provide representation and participation, build commitment, bring social change and reforms and establish a winning reputation. It can provide targeted development because these local communities know better, their most pressing needs and the conditions that shape them.

The secret of providing success through community organizing lies in the belief that change can only come if we come together to compel state authorities and corporations to respond to the needs of local communities. When local community members come together, they are capable of waging a fierce and relentless war against the social ills of unemployment, inequality and disease that ravages the hopes of generation upon generation.

According to Alinsky Saul, a peoples organization is dedicated to an eternal war against poverty, misery, delinquency, disease, injustice, hopelessness, despair and unhappiness. They are basically the same issues which nations have gone to war in almost every generation..war is not an intellectual debate, and in the war against social evils there are no rules of fair play.

Understanding the need for a project of community organizing leads to the question of who to lead the process and what shape the organization should take. This is in view of the fact that local communities themselves have not the leadership initiative to provide direction and the financial wherewithal to provide funding; and the state is ill-prepared to lead such a process.

Be as it may, key individuals within the community can liaise with the power players of the state and NGOs to undertake the process. It may be frustrating at first, but the benefits of being directly involved in bringing progressive change to the life of ones community are everlasting. Throughout history, people who achieved world acclaim have often been leaders of change in their communities. The likes of Mark Anderson, Cesar Charez, Mary Harris Jones, Martin Luther King Junior and more recently, Barack Hussein Obama, are all renowned community organizers worthy of emulation. These are people who held on to the arc of history and bent it a little more towards change that shaped generations of America.

In our local communities, we can build ourselves by organizing our communities to demand more from government and civil society when we establish a fierce reputation of unity and strength. The power of a united community that seeks consistently a better living from its government lies not in the real power it has, but the power the government thinks it has. As stated explicitly by Alinsky Saul, the first rule of power tactics is that power is not what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.

Even if one cannot be the same as the likes of Barack Obama, one can provide the initiative for people to pounce on and deliver this change that generations will one day remember with the fondest of memories and the greatest of appreciation.

Concerning the shape of the initiative, community organizing may be faith based or others; but with challenges confronting whole communities with different categories of people and groups, the type of organizing that involves the entirety of the community will deliver the goods.

The modest of all can be a project that seeks first to provide public consultation and awareness creation among the populations of these communities. This follows with a structure that starts with an Assembly that seeks representation from all groups of people within the community such as gender specific groups, traditional groups and leaders, political leaders, occupational groups and recreational or social groups which will serve as a forum for discussing local community issues. From this mass of people, a Council can emerge of key individuals with the special task of formulating programs and policies emerging from discussions of the Assembly. A third structure may involve setting up Ad-hoc Committees comprising people with unique specialties selected from within the community and tasked with the duty of executing specific programs formulated by the council.

However, different communities may roll out structures that best suit their own special conditions and the socio-cultural configuration. The assurance nonetheless is that, these structures will bring a coordinated system of power structure and authority which will control community affairs and promote social order in the conduct of people in the community. It will also serve as a check-point from which local community problems can be discussed and solved. The simplest scenario is that, it will provide the authority needed in the community to stop noise making and deforestation for instance; and also be the driving force to organize influence and resources for the provision of boreholes and public toilets if these be the needs of the community.

In 2001, the U.S government under the Bush administration, launched a department in the White House tasked with the specific responsibility of promoting community organizing. In all justifications, this remains the single biggest attempt at the global level to explain the emerging necessity of community organizing.

In Africa, and across the developing world, lack of commitment as well as incessant corruption and exploitation of the citizenry by successive governments of the state have led to failure of the state to develop poor rural communities. Also, the lack of coordination and instances of misapplication of funds by NGOs has resulted in their ineffectiveness at taking over the role of the state in providing development to poor rural communities by eliminating poverty.

These serve as a clear premise on which to call upon citizens in poor rural communities to pick themselves up, dust themselves up, roll their sleeves and begin the work to providing their own development. At least, the state may provide the assistance, but the destiny of a poor rural community wherever in the world lies in the hands of its people.

By David Azuliya

Mobile: 0505005012

Email: [email protected]
Mogadishu (AFP) - Holding high portraits of the man who pledges to bring the nation together, Somalis in the capital hailed their new president Thursday, singing in joy while soldiers fired weapons skyward in celebration.

Such scenes are unusual in the city, where security is a constant concern due to attacks from Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab militants who control many regions of the country.

After decades of corruption and strife the incoming leader, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, faces a huge task rebuilding a battered state.

But those who took to the streets have placed their faith in the 55-year-old former prime minister nicknamed Farmajo (from formaggio, or "cheese" in Italian).

"This man will not only bring good governance but he will also unite the Somalis, he is the president of the people and we support him," said local resident Idris Sharif of the new leader.

Farmajo served as premier for only eight months between 2010 and 2011, before being ousted. However several steps he took, such as ensuring regular pay for soldiers, were well received and many protested against his removal.

Soldiers and police were among those optimistic about Farmajo's victory after incumbent president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud acknowledged defeat after a second round of voting by lawmakers on Wednesday.

"If you look back at what he did during the short time he was prime minister, I think he could be the right guy," Abdulahi Duale, a grocer on southern Mogadishu's Maka Al-Mukarama road told AFP.

Farmajo, from the Darod clan, in his victory speech spelled out the wrongs that have to be righted for Somalia to reverse its failed state reputation.

"This is the beginning of unity for the Somali nation, the beginning of the fight against Shabaab and corruption," he said, in a message that resonates.

"People are very excited... hoping the new president will at least make sure the security forces get their salaries. If he succeeds in that then it will help the fight against Al-Shabaab," said Said Ali, another shopkeeper in the capital.

'Wait and see'

But not everyone shared the enthusiasm and hopes of reform.

"I did not support him during the election campaign," Jawahir Ali, a nursing student at university, told AFP.

Attacks by the Shabaab militants, like the car bombing near the Peace Hotel January 2, 2017, have been an obstacle to peace and stability in the Somalia capital Mogadishu

"Somalis are full of sentiment which makes them blindly support Farmajo but let's wait, I'm sure time will come when they start cursing him," she said. "Many people think he will bring changes but let's wait and see what changes will come."

Farmajo also ran for president in 2012, the first election in the country since 1991 though only 135 clan elders picked the lawmakers who went on to elect the president.

In 2016 Somalis were promised a one-person, one-vote poll but political infighting and insecurity saw the plan ditched for a limited vote running six months behind schedule.

In the end only 14,000 delegates were allowed to vote for the lawmakers who picked the president. Some citizens spoke of pitfalls that lie ahead for Farmajo, pointing to Somalia's clan structure. While he is of the Darod clan the man he defeated is from the Hawiye, a clan that has had several recent presidents.

"We have to wait and see who he is going to pick as prime minister," said Mohamed Adan, a school teacher.

"The Hawiye clan lost the presidency yet they are the dominant clan in Mogadishu and they could become an obstacle if they feel disengaged.

Somalia's drawn-out, indirect election has been criticised for encouraging alleged vote-buying among the limited numbers of lawmakers who were allowed to cast ballots

"Some violent politics can exploit clan policies... and this could be more dangerous than any other situation," he added.

Despite Farmajo's win, the underlying reality is that the federal government controls only part of the country, helped by a 22,000-strong African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) force. The Shabaab holds large areas in the centre and south, and in the past 12 months they have multiplied their murderous attacks in the capital and at Amisom bases.

Somalia is also suffering its worst drought since 2010-2011, affecting an estimated three million people.

Farmajo, however, will start the job with his stock high according to Rashid Abdi, Horn of Africa programme director at International Crisis Group, which monitors conflict.

"The reactions we see in Somalia show he is very popular, he has credibility, also across the clan divide. But being popular is one thing, and being efficient is a very different one," he said.
2017 is shaping up to be the most exciting year of the century. Were only two months in and so much has happened already. Most of the attention is focused on Donald Trumps every actionand Tweet.

So far, US markets havent spiralled down, even with Donald as President.

The Dow and the S&P 500 are up 1.48% and 2.49% year-to-date. Could it be that Trump is exactly what investors and America needs?

Not according to the Australian Financial Review.

Trump has a track record of acting irrationally and in complete disagreement with accepted liberal economic orthodoxy. Investors looking for guidance on how to position their portfolios might want to be careful. As Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has discovered, nothing is certain until Trump actually does something. Markets have rallied on the rational expectation that the irrational and unpredictable Trump would be counselled and cajoled into rational action by his team of advisers, many of whom have the respect of Wall Street.

Thats typical mainstream thinking for you.

I would argue that Trump isnt acting irrationally at all. Whether you like his proposed policies or not, Trump is doing what he said he would.

Its what every politician should aspire to do, dont you agree?

Trumps decisions are exactly what we should expect. Trump himself outlined many changes he wanted to make. So why try and guess what hell do next? Instead, just pay attention to Trumps scriptand his Tweets.

Delivering on promises

Trump officially assumed office a little over two weeks ago. What has he done so far?

He made a series of policy changes that blocked refugee admission for months. He increased detention and deportation of unauthorised immigrants.

As you probably know, a federal court judge lifted the travel ban. That prompted Trump to respond to this so-called judge, on Twitter, saying his ruling was ridiculous and will be overturned!

Trump has also blocked federal funding to organisations that provide abortion.

Already, these are two pretty controversial topics. But its these types of changes that put Trump in office. Can you blame him for doing what he said hed do?

Other campaign topics included the US-Mexican border wall, dismantling Obamacare, and abandoning the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

And guess what? Hes dealing with those topics too.

He withdrew from negotiations over a proposed TPP trade deal. It effectively put the nail in the TPP coffin. Trump exempted agencies from Obamacare fees and regulation. And hes directed the Department of Homeland Security to begin construction on a US-Mexican wall.

Its almost like hes steamrolling through his campaign promises.

Trump isnt an irrational man whose unpredictability is bad for investors. Hes given investors an outline of everything hed like to get done in office.

Its almost like having the answers to a test.

Stop guessing and look for a related investment

What does Trump still want to achieve while in office?

On 21 November, Trump posted a video outlining his first 100 days in office.

My agenda will be based on a simple core principle, putting America first. Whether its producing steel, building cars or curing disease, I want the next generation of production and innovation to happen right here on our great home land, America.

Cyber security was another key topic Trump planned to tackle in the first 100 days.

On national security, I will ask the Department of Defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff to develop a comprehensive plan to protect Americas vital infrastructure from cyber-attacks and all other forms of attacks.

Cyber security is already a huge and growing market. Its become a necessity for almost every business. According to Cybersecurity Ventures, cyber security costs will total US$1 trillion globally from 201721.

The US government has increased their annual cyber security budget by 35%. Obamas 2017 budget proposal allotted US$19 billion for cyber security.

Under Trump that figure might increase further. And it could be great news for companies like Covata Ltd [ASX:CVT] and Prophecy International Holdings [ASX:PRO].

Both are listed on the ASX and operate internationally. Covata provides services to various government agencies around the world. PRO works closely with various US universities and institutions.

And if Donald focuses on spending more on cyber protection, it presents potential opportunities to both companies.

Another possible investment created by predictable Trump is infrastructure.

Trump has an affinity for infrastructure. According to donaldjtrump.com, He plans to refocus government spending on American infrastructure. And he plans to pump $1 trillion into the sector.

Reported by Fortune:

He [Trump] talked about it all the time on the campaign trail, promising a $1 trillion investing blitz. And again mere hours after declaring victory: Were going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none.

With a trillion dollars funnelled into US infrastructure, it provides opportunities for companies like Eden Innovations [ASX:EDE] and Macquarie Atlas Roads Ltd [ASX:MQA].

Both companies are listed on the ASX. And both stand to profit from ramping up US infrastructure.

Eden is all about making concrete stronger and longer lasting. They achieve this through their admixture, EdenCrete. The end goal for Eden is to become a standard admixture in the US infrastructure market.

MQAs business is slightly different. They develop and operate toll roads. One of their assets resides in northern Virginia, US.

A trillion bucks pumped into US infrastructure could potentially mean more contracts for Eden, MQA, and other companies whose products and technical skills will come into greater demand.

So the next time youre hit over the head with another mainstream article declaring the erratic and unpredictable policies of Donald Trump, stop reading. They obviously didnt listen to Trump during his campaign, and they arent listening now.

Trump is focused on what got him voted in to office  at least for now. Ignore his proclamations at your own peril.

Regards,

Harje Ronngard,

Contributing Editor, Money Morning

PS: Ill say it again, 2017 will be the most exciting year yet. Not just because things are changing. This year will be full of opportunities in the Aussie small-cap space.

President Trump is good news for a lot of Aussie small-caps. Its why stocks like Eden jumped when Donald officially claimed victory. So start profiting from Trump instead of protesting.

Small-cap specialist, Sam Volkering has stocks which could potentially skyrocket under President Trump. And hes no stranger to explosive stocks.

In his advisory service, Australian Small-Cap Investigator, Sam has six active investments returning triple digit figures. He even recommended one stock to his readers thats up more than 1,000%!

To find out more, click here.

From the Port Phillip Publishing Library

Special Report: The Lazarus Project Your best chance to double every dollar you invest this year [More]
Proverb are short sayings that express thoughts and opinions, beliefs and superstitions, rules of everyday wisdom of the people. Proverbs describe different phenomena of life and historical events. Vast majority of proverbs has a double meaning - one clearly stated in a proverb, and the other - the crux of the matter, which derives from it, or is only implied, so it is said, "the proverb has hidden wise."

READ ALSO: Top 30 African proverbs and meaning

What is the role of proverbs in our lives?

Proverbs proclaim rules of morality;

Proverbs are verbal gems, they decorate the language;

Proverbs carry the bases of native folk philosophy;

Proverbs play great role in the study of the native language;

Proverbs ascribe to human wisdom;

Proverbs are an example of the most optimal connection of content and form.

Igbo proverbs and their meaning

Igbo proverbs are taken directly from Igbo life, they are good in all respects, it can be recommended to anyone, not only to the native folk. Proverbs were written by people not intentionally, they arose naturally; caused by everyday life, they gradually multiplied, together with the historical course of the development of life. A good awareness of Igbo Proverbs and their meaning would undoubtedly lead to a deep understanding of the Igbo, their life philosophy, traditions, culture and way of living.

If you want to prove your point and achieve the desired result, it is not right just to recite Igbo proverbs it is extremely important to know the proper event and actual time to use the proverb.

Few people understand Igbo language, because it has several dialects, so equivalent English meanings doubtless will help to improve understanding of Igbo proverbs and will help to solve present difficulties.

Igbo proverbs and their meaning

Igbo proverbs and wise sayings

Igbo Proverb  Gidi gidi bu ugwu eze.

English meaning - Unity is strength

Igbo Proverb  Otu onye tuo izu, o gbue ochu

English meaning - Knowledge is never complete: two heads are better than one.

Igbo Proverb  Oge adighi eche mmadu

English meaning - Time and tide wait for nobody.

Igbo Proverb  Ihe di woro ogori azuala na ahia.

English meaning - What was secret is revealed in the market place.

Igbo Proverb  O bulu na i taa m aru n'ike, ma i zeghi nshi; mu taa gi aru n'isi, agaghi m ezere uvulu.

English meaning - If you bite me on the butt, despite the danger of sinking your teeth into fecal matter, then if I bite you on the head, I will disregard the danger of sinking my teeth into cerebral matter.

Igbo proverbs and their meaning

Igbo proverbs about love

Igbo Proverb  Ihere adighi eme onye ara ka o na-eme umu-nna ya.

English meaning - Relations are concerned most with a persons behavior.

Igbo proverbs on marriage

Igbo Proverb  Nwunye awo si na di atoka uto, ya jiri nuta nke ya kworo ya n'azu.

English meaning - The female toad said that husband is so sweet that when she got married, she carried her husband permanently on the back.

Igbo Proverb  Nwaanyi muta ite ofe mmiri mmiri, di ya amuta ipi utara aka were suru ofe.

English meaning - If a woman decides to make the soup watery, the husband will learn to dent the Garri before dipping it into the soup.

Igbo Proverb - "Nwunye anyi, nwunye anyi": ka ndeli bia ka anyi mara onye o bu nwunye ya.

English meaning - "Our wife, our wife": come midnight and we will know whose wife she really is.

Funny Igbo proverbs

Igbo Proverb - Ndi na-eje mposi abali na-ahu ukpana ndi mmuo.

English meaning - Those who defecate at night see the ghost grasshopper.

READ ALSO: Pete Edochie: The wisest man in Nollywood

Igbo proverbs about success

Igbo Proverb - Uzu na-amaghi akpu ogene lee egbe anya n'odu.

English meaning - The blacksmith who does know how to forge a metal gong should look at the tail of a kite.

Igbo Proverb - Si kele onye nti chiri; enu anughi, ala anu.

English meaning - Salute the deaf; if the heavens don't hear, the earth will hear.

Igbo Proverb - Onwu egbuchughi ji e jiri chu aja, e mesie o pue ome.

English meaning -Things will eventually improve despite the present difficulties.

Igbo proverbs about death

Igbo Proverb - Ura ga-eju onye nwuru anwu afo.

English meaning - A dead person shall have all the sleep necessary.

Igbo Proverb - Ijiji na-enweghi onye ndumodu na-eso ozu ala n'inyi.

English meaning - A fly that has no counselor follows the corpse to the grave.

Times change, attitude to life changes too, but the proverbs continue to exist. By what will the next proverb surprise us, what a new interesting idea it will find, what important it will say?

READ ALSO: IGBO traditional attire

Source: Legit.ng
Six Afghan ICRC workers 'killed by Islamic State'

Six Afghans working for the Red Cross have been killed by suspected Islamic State (IS) group gunmen in the province of Jowzjan, officials say.
The University of Ibadan is one of the oldest and the most prestigious universities in Nigeria. Learn how to get the university of Ibadan admission and what fee is necessary to pay for entering the online course.

University of Ibadan distance learning: How to apply?

The start of the process of applications taking

Taking of requests for university of Ibadan distance learning is open.

The following faculties are available:

 English of degree of the bachelor of the humanities,

 Philosophy of faculty of the humanities and public relations,

 Psychology,

 Economy,

 Political science.

The mandatory requirement for arriving is the availability of 5 credits, including English, the English literature, art and any two or three subjects.

Candidates should have NCE or the document equivalent to it plus 5 credits. Mature candidates have the right to submit the application for participation in the four-year program in the field of the humanities, including English, philosophy, and public relations.

For entering the faculty of psychology, it is necessary to pass an examination in mathematics instead of literature.

For filing of the application on economics department, it is necessary to pass mathematics, economy, English, and any two subjects from the sphere of sociology and art.

For entering the faculty of political science, it is necessary to pass history, English, and any other 3 subjects and to get at least the lowest passing score in mathematics.

READ ALSO: JAMB reveals Nigeria's most popular universities

University of Ibadan distance learning: How to apply?

READ ALSO: Unaccredited courses in Nigerian universities

For entering the faculty of psychology, it is necessary to pass 5 examinations, including the sphere of social sciences and mathematics.

The point on NCE, HND, B.Sc should reach the established lowest passing score.

In the presence of nursing, it has to be registered in RNM.

Adult candidates who have no above-mentioned qualifications can be taken in the university in case of experience of work. Such candidates have to be at least 26 years old and have to provide the following information: the academic qualification, a working experience, assessment of professional competence and the recommendation from competent people. The oral interview and the test for grammar are a part of selection process. More detailed information will be provided to applicants in the interview.

Candidates with HND, the degree of the bachelor and higher degrees can get the short higher education. The student will be able to finish the program earlier than it comes to an end usually.

Candidates with qualifications of O/L have to pass the admission examinations checking educational and communicative capabilities. In order that the commission was convinced that you are ready to online training, it is necessary to undergo testing of computer knowledge, to study the university of Ibadan distance learning centre portal, to show elementary knowledge of the Open Distance Learning mode.

University of Ibadan distance learning: How to apply?

University of Ibadan distance learning school fees

The questionnaire is available after payment of the admission fee of N 10,500. An available method is A Card/E-Payment. Applicants can log in, using the link http://newportal.dlc.ui.edu.ng/home/Applicants and make payment, using any ATM card.

 Go to the link http://newportal.dlc.ui.edu.ng portal,

 Having opened the Prospective Students tab, click on the link Candidates,

 Scroll the page of the notification down, then click on the reference Create an Accounting Record,

 Fill in the questionnaire as soon as the accounting record is created,

 As soon as your accounting record will be created, return to the portal,

 Log in using a username and the password, which you created to get access to your profile.

It is very important that you visited the official portal to study detailed conditions of the admission, processes and the mode of a research and other important information.

All process of application is made online. Any candidate who makes any transaction with cash with people or the group belonging to the bank, not specified in the list of officially confirmed ones, risks to be the victim of swindlers.

The Center of Distance training of the University of Ibadan has no representative/partner/employee who is engaged in the implementation of programs for the increase in degree.

To get more information, you have to visit the official portal.

Conclusion

As you see, to apply on studying at the University of Ibadan is not very hard. The process of studying online is also very simple and convenient. Pass the test and enjoy the quality of your education!

Source: Legit.ng
- The federal government insisted that President Buhari is not ill as being reported

- Lai Mohammed said he has a right to go on vacation in spite of recession

- He said his situation is different from Yar'Adua's own

The federal government has said that the comparison being made about President Muhammadu Buhari and late president, Umaru Musa YarAdua was baseless as there were no similarities.

Since President Buhari travelled to the UK on vacation, there have been rumours that he has passed away although his media aides have denied them several times.

Some have pointed out that the presidents extended leave was a testimony to his failing health which they have compared to the situation of YarAdua when he was president.

READ ALSO: Buhari is hale and hearty - Lai Mohammed

The Nation reports that the minister of information, Lai Mohammed has described the comparison as akin to comparing apple and oranges and said the situations were different.

He said those spreading rumours that he was seriously ill were looters who were against his anticorruption crusade.

He said: I think it was one of the newspapers that said when I was the spokesman of Action Congress (AC) I demanded for hourly bulletin on YarAduas health and that I ought to be giving hourly bulletin as minister of Information on the health of the President. And I said you are comparing apples and oranges. Mr. President is not ill; he is not in hospital. There will be no need to give anybody hourly bulletin about his health  pure and simple.

Mr. President, like I said elsewhere, is a victim of his own transparency. He was going on leave; he did what the constitution said he should do. He transmitted a letter to the National Assembly and an acting president was put in place and he said while I am on leave I am going to conduct some medical tests, which all of us do without announcing it. And, of course, less than six hours after he got there he was pronounced dead by some people. Even those who saw him climb the aircraft in Abuja said he was flown by air ambulance.

I can assure you that Mr. President is well, he is hale and hearty and no cause for concern. The Acting President speaks to him every day and he told you so

READ ALSO: Senator gives details of Buharis medical status

I wont blame Mr. President too because this is the third time you are declaring him dead.

When he was asked whether President Buhari has a right to go on vacation during recession, he said: Absolutely yes. Our constitution guarantees that. Did Obama not go on leave? Do other presidents not go on leave? Mr. President will go on vacation when he has to go on vacation. Do you know how many ministers have gone on vacation this year?

To say Mr. President cannot go on vacation that is ridiculous.

Source: Legit.ng
- A 74-hour ultimatum has been given to the Federal Government by the Save Nigeria Group (SNG), to disclose the health status of President Muhammadu Buhari

- The APC has faulted the SNG's ultimatum

- APC says President Buhari has breached no law by not disclosing his health status to Nigerians

- The party says the president has the right to keep mute on certain issues, especially if they are of a personal nature

The national leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Youths Renaissance has faulted the 74-hour ultimatum given to the Federal Government by the Save Nigeria Group to disclose the health status of President Muhammadu Buhari.

READ ALSO: BREAKING: Buhari may return from vacation on Saturday

APC to SNG - No one can force Buhari to reveal his health status

The group claimed that after a review of the demand reached the by SNG, it concluded that President Buhari breached no law by not disclosing his ailment to the public.

Daily Post reports that the Save Nigeria Group (SNG), had on Wednesday, February 8, given the Presidency a 74-hour ultimatum, to provide full information on the health status of President Muhammadu Buhari.

PAY ATTENTION: Get the latest News on Legit.ng News App

In a letter titled Request for information on President Muhammadu Buharis health status and addressed to the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SNG said it was important for the information to be provided, to ease tension in the country.

Speaking on the matter, the North Central Coordinator of APC Youths Renaissance Honourable Abubakar Yakubu asked the Save Nigeria Group to tell the world which section of the Nigerian constitution has the President violated by not disclosing his health situation to Nigerians? Saying the President as a public servant still enjoys his right to personal liberty which must not be invaded.

He further noted that if the President should disclose his ailment to the public, it should be done out of choice and not out of necessity.

The group said they are ready to stage a counter protest in defence of Mr. President if the Save Nigeria Group decides to hold their protest at the expiration of the 74-hour ultimatum given to the Federal Government.

Source: Legit.ng
Senate president Bukola Saraki has confirmed that President Muhammadu Buhari is quite fine and doing well in the United Kingdom where is currently on vacation.

Saraki says he spoke with President Buhari on phone on Wednesday, February 8 night.

Saraki said he spoke with President Buhari on phone on Wednesday, February 8 night and the president sounded quite like his old self.

READ ALSO: Buhari may return from vacation on Saturday

The senate president made the confirmation in a tweet late on Wednesday, shortly after speaking with Nigerias number one citizen.

Sarakis confirmation comes just hours after the federal government reiterated through the minister of information and culture Lai Mohammed on Wednesday afternoon that the president was doing quite well and was not in hospital as was being insinuated.

Meanwhile, Saraki has his own battles to fight as the federal government increased charges against him at the Code of Conduct Tribunal where he is facing charges on false declaration of assets during his tenure as governor of Kwara state, which is punishable under Nigerian law.

If found guilty of the charges, Saraki could lose his seat as senate president and could also be jailed because his office does not carry any immunity.

Source: Legit.ng
Teenage girl found dead in Khotang

A 17-year-old was found dead at the Kuse Ausi Jungle in Simpani-7 of Khotang district on Wednesday night.
Nigerians have once again gathered in Lagos and Abuja protesting against the government of President Muhamamdu Buhari in a rally organized by the NLC and TUC.

Charly Boy, Sahara Reporters publisher, Omoyele Sowore on February 9, joined NLC and Trade Union Congress (TUC) to protest corruption and bad government in Nigeria.

Charly Boy who was one of front-liners for the Monday, February 6, protest in Lagos says he understands the challenges this country is facing from decades of wasteful wickedness; insensitive leadership.

According to him bad governance is a failure of the governed just as much as it is a failure of political leadership.

PAY ATTENTION: Get the latest News on Legit.ng News App

On Monday, February 6, The I stand for Nigeria held a similar march through the streets of Abuja and Lagos but were stopped by armed policemen on their way to the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

Legit.ng will be bringing you live updates of the protest.

03.12 pm: Acting president Yemi Osinbajo met with a delegation of protesting Nigerian Labour Congress members at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

02.18 pm: The Nigerian Senate president, Bukola Saraki addressed the NLC/TUC protesters at the National Assembly.

We feel your pain! We hear your words! Everything that you have brought to our attention will be addressed. -Senate President to NLC/TUC

01.15 pm: NLC forcefully gains entrance into National Assembly to protest .

11.21 am: Ikorodu road to maryland service lane free as protesters blocks expressway.

10.43 am: Members of the NLC marching through the streets of Lagos to make their demands known to the government.

10.30 am: NLC protesters march to Aso villa to express their discretion.

Nigeria Labour Congress protest happening in Abuja Photo credit: Daily Trust

Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) protesting to the Aso Villa, in Abuja

10.25am: NLC Lagos protest pass through Ojuelegba bridge

10.02 am: At the National Secretariat of the Nigeria Labour Congress in Yaba, members of NLC have converged and are about to commence their protest

08.14 am: Police officers present at the NLC office Yaba Lagos.

READ ALSO: Live Updates: Anti-Government protest kicks off as Nigerians gather in Lagos, Abuja (photos,video)

Source: Legit.ng
- The Indigenous People of Biafra has showered praises on the former minister of aviation Femi Fani-Kayode

- The group said Fani-Kayode is not just an in-law and friend to the people of South-East but also as a fearless intellectual and the conscience of the West

The Indigenous People of Biafra has showered praises on the former minister of aviation Femi Fani-Kayode.

The group in a statement said the former minister is not just an in-law and friend to the people of South-East but also as a fearless intellectual and the conscience of the West.

READ ALSO: Like Donald Trump; like Nnamdi Kanu, see what Fani-Kayode wore to court today

The groups statement comes after the former minister appeared in Lagos High Court dressed in a Jewish tallit.

The new form of dressing has also been adopted by the leader of the IPOB Nnamdi Kanu and some other members of the group.

The tallit was also worn by the president of the United States of America Donald Trump  a man who the former minister and the IPOB support.

READ ALSO: Nigeria: A hell-hole for Christians by Femi Fani-Kayode

The IPOBs spokesperson Powerful Emma said: Femi Fani-Kayode is not just an in-law and a friend but also as a fearless intellectual and the conscience of the West. Such men should be leaders in Africa not washed out discredited tyrants.

He said: We are not ordinary Christians like some people profess. We are EBONITE CHRISTIANS, the real Christians. Or what they baptized to Judo-Christianity. We are the real children of God.

Source: Legit.ng
Wholl be next police chief ?

With the terms of chiefs of Nepal Police and the Armed Police Force about to end in a week, parties are wrestling over top cops, as leaders seem to be bent on getting comfortable persons to head the two security agencies.
- A former Katsina state governor, Dr Ibrahim Shema, has accused his successor of witch-hunt

- Shema says Governor Aminu Masari masterminded his recent abduction by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)

- The governor has however denied his predecessors claims

A former Katsina state governor, Dr Ibrahim Shema has accused his successor, Governor Aminu Masari of masterminding his recent abduction by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Governor Aminu Masari has denied the claims made by his predecessor, Ibrahim Shema

EFCC operatives on Tuesday, February 7 besieged the premises of the Katsina High Court where they picked the former governor up.

PAY ATTENTION: Get the latest News on Legit.ng News App

According to Daily Trust, Shemas media aide, Oluwabusula Olawale, said the development was an extension of the ongoing witch-hunt and intimidation using state and federal institutions.

He described the EFCCs move as a sheer personal vendetta and a wicked attempt to humiliate and harass the immediate past governor.

He continued: We are saying it for the umpteenth time that Shema is not afraid of court trial. He has submitted himself to the court and he is ready to defend himself in an atmosphere of fair hearing, justice and rule of law.

We are calling on the international community and well-meaning Nigerians to call Governor Aminu Bello Masari to order on his use of state and federal institutions for political intimidation and harassment before he truncates democratic institutions in Nigeria.

But in a swift reaction, Governor Masari speaking through his spokesman, Abdu Labaran, dismissed the allegation, adding that the governor had no hands whatsoever in the ongoing travails of Shema.

His words: If I remember well, there was a time Shema went on air challenging and daring Masari to take him to court; and now that the judicial process is taking its course, he is blaming the governor in a situation he has no control over or knowledge.

Shema should bear his cross or look for other scapegoats but not Governor Masari.

Shema is standing trial before Justice Maikaita Bako alongside three others, Rufai Safana, Sani Makana and Lawal Dankaba on 22 count charge bordering on alleged financial misdemeanor of about N11 billion.

READ ALSO: 4 people who have surrendered themselves to the EFCC

Meanwhile, the PDP has condemned the continued trial of Shema. The opposition party said it was disheartening that the former governor was only being persecuted in the guise of anti-corruption fight by the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti state had also condemned the federal government for its action against Shema.

According to the governor, Shemas trial was only part of a plot to ruin the opposition and its members ahead of President Buharis re-election campaign in 2019.

Source: Legit.ng
A Nigerian man and an Algerian national have been detained in Germany over alleged plans to carry out a terrorist attack in the European country.

German police made the arrests in a night raid

German news agency DPA reports that the suspects were arrested in the city of Goettingen while perfecting plans to attack parts of the European country.

READ ALSO: Alleged deportation of 80000 Nigerians from China: Nigerian Consulate clears the air

The report said the men, who were aged between 23 and 27 years respectively, were taken into custody in a 450-strong police operation that took place during the night.

The report however said it could not be confirmed from the Goettingen police and the Interior Ministry of the state of Lower Saxony if any evidence was confiscated from the arrested men.

But both men were men were said to have been long active in the radical Islamist scene in Gottingen.

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The 23-year-old Nigerian, who was not named and his Algerian counterpart have been classified by Germanys domestic intelligence agency as "a danger to others," people who are prepared to commit acts of terrorism at any time.

Police chief Uwe Luhrig was quoted as saying that indications of a "potentially imminent terror attack" had "solidified to such an extent in recent days," that authorities elected to mobilize against the prime suspects and their close associates.

This development comes just as reports emerged that Germany is set to deport more than 12,000 Nigerians from the country in 2018 according to the countrys global head of programme, migration and development.

This is just a few days after the country is trying to deal with the deportation of 41 Nigerians from the UK.

Source: Legit.ng
- South Africa has announced the increament of national minimum wage to 3,500 rand ($260)

- The new increase which will take effect from May 2018 is expected to stimulate economic growth

- Critics have however express fear that the new wage may lead to unemployment as employers might not be able to afford it

South Africa has announced the introduction of 3,500 rand ($260) national minimum wage effective from 2018.

According to Reuters, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa made this announcement on Wednesday, February 8 while speaking to pressmen after a negotiation by the government of South Africa and the Labour unions.

South Africa raises national minimum wage to 3,500 rand ($260)

READ ALSO: Why we demanded for N56,000 minimum wage  NLC

Supporters of a minimum wage say it can stimulate growth as workers can spend more, as well as reducing inequality. However, critics have warned that this might lead to unemployment as employers might be unable to afford higher wage bills.

Ramaphosa said the national minimum wage, which equates to 20 rand ($1.50) per hour, would come into effect in May 2018.

Ramaphosa said: "The balance we have sought to strike is that it must not be too low, so that it doesn't affect the lowest paid workers, but not too high that it leads to massive job losses."

Recall that the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress of Nigeria called on the federal government to increase the minimum wage from N18,000 to N56,000. Mr Peters Adeyemi, deputy president of the NLC made the call for increment in Abuja on Friday, April 29, 2016. Several months after the call for this increment, Nigeria is still stuck at N18,000 minimum wage.

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Meanwhile, the federal government has asked the South African Government to investigate and punish those involved in the killing of a Nigerian in Johannesburg in December last year.

It also called on Pretoria to end extrajudicial killings, criminalisation of immigrants and xenophobic attacks in South Africa.

The Special Assistant to the President on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, said that Nigeria and South Africa should rather be engaging in cooperation that could lead to social-economic development as the two giants of Africa

Source: Legit.ng
The Rivers state government has traced the black soot polluting the atmosphere of Port Harcourt and its environs to a Chinese construction company, named CGC.

According to a statement Commissioner of Information, Dr Austin Tam-George, the company has been shutdown by the Rivers State Task Force on the Black Soot.

A statement by Tam-George on Saturday, February 11 read: "This is to inform the public that a Chinese construction company, named CGC, located on the Obirikwere-Airport Link Road has been shut down on Friday, the 10th of February, 2017, by the Rivers State Task Force on the Black Soot.

"The Asphalt plant was found to be producing thick black smog out of the furnace in the process of burning Asphalt, heavily polluting the air.

"The Asphalt plant was immediately shut down by the task force. All the directors of the company will be prosecuted according to the law.

"The public is therefore advised to cooperate with the Task Force, by providing useful information on the Black Soot.

"Please call or send Whatsapp messages to the following hot lines: 08065768366, 08036621435, 08037503473."

Recall that the Rivers state government had set up a Task Force to tackle the black soot polluting the atmosphere of Port Harcourt and its environs.

The Task Force was mandated to investigate and resolve the environmental challenge.

This was part of the resolutions of the State Executive Council meeting of Wednesday, February 8 at the government House, Port Harcourt Executive Council Chambers chaired by Governor Nyesom Ezenwo Wike.

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Rivers state govt sets up task force to tackle black soot

READ ALSO: 'Save our children, we can't breathe!' - Nigerians react as air and sky in Port Harcourt turns black

The Task Force to investigate the Black Soot has the Commissioner of Environment, Professor Roseline Konya, Commissioner of Special Duties, Emeka Onowu and the Commissioner of Information, Dr Austin Tam-George as members.

The committee which will be backed by technical experts will liaise with major stakeholders to resolve the environmental challenges posed by the black soot.

For over two months, Port Harcourt has been engulfed with black soot polluting the air and putting the residents health in danger.

Black soot includes black particles composed by carbon produced by incomplete combustion of coals. Soot can consist of acid, chemicals, or soil and dust and the particles are extremely tiny powder form.

Source: Legit.ng
On March 9, 2010, something happened which given the state of Nigeria right now, can best be described as the mother of all ironies.

Late Yar'adua and Goodluck Jonathan

The Nigerian president in that year was Umar Musa Yar'Adua and he had been sick and away from the country for a while. The then vice president, Goodluck Jonathan, was made the acting president and the entire country was confused about the exact state of Yar'Adua's health.

Then an opposition leader, General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd.), joined the growing number of Nigerians to call for the removal of President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua.

READ ALSO: Buhari is not in the hospital - Presidency

According to the This Day article dated March 9, 2010, President Buhari maintained that the only viable option out of the present political logjam in the country was for the Executive Council of the Federation (EXCOF) to declare the president incapacitated and have him impeached.

Buhari, in 2010, said Nigeria should not have been in the situation it was in the first instance because the constitution had made it clear on how an ailing president could be succeeded.

Insisting on Yar'Adua's impeachment, he said the refusal of the council to follow constitutional provisions with regards to the illness of the then president had thrown Nigeria into crisis and he argued that the 1999 Constitution was clear on the issue of succession when an incumbent president is incapacitated.

Buhari, who is the president now, said all this when he received members of the National Unity Forum in Kaduna who paid him a solidarity visit.

Goodluck Jonathan was not spared, as the former military ruler criticized what he described as "extra-constitutional measures", the measures applied by the National Assembly to empower Goodluck Jonathan as the acting president when the constitution already had a solution to the problem.

READ ALSO: 6 things Osinbajo has done as acting president

Below were his words from March 2010:

"Political expediency won't remedy this kind of problem because if the Executive Council of the Federation had acted in accordance with the constitution, by invoking the necessary sections to declare the President incapacitated, we would not have found ourselves in this present situation.

"As you can see, adopting extra-constitutional measures have not addressed the problem. If it had, we would not have been subjected to the raging debates and controversy going on. So, we must go back to the constitution.

"The Executive Council of the Federation must do the right thing because once we start moving away from the constitution, then we are inviting anarchy.

Looking back at 2010, from 2017, it is indeed ironical that President Buhari is now receiving treatment in another country, and he has placed his vice president, Yemi Osinbajo, as the acting president?!

Source: Legit.ng
Again, President Muhammadu Buhari has called Nigeria to speak with countrys number four citizen, the Speaker of the House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara.

Dogara says President Buhari is concerned about food security for Nigeria in 2017.

Dogara confirmed this in a tweet on Thursday's afternoon, February 9, noting that President Buhari had some concerns about food security in the country.

READ ALSO: The fight against corruption must be holistic - NLC (photos, video)

He said: @MBuhari called me yesterday evening. He talked about what the Executive/ Legislature must do to ensure food security for all Nigerians.

He said the president is committed to ensuring that sufferings Nigerians went through in 2016 over food security will not repeat themselves.

This is the second top official whom President Muhammadu Buhari is calling in two days.

Late on Wednesday, February 8, the countrys number three citizen, the Senate president Bukola Saraki, confirmed that he spoke with Buhari on phone.

According to Saraki, the president was in high spirits.

Also, the elder sister of the president, Hajiya Rakiya, said she "speaks with Muhammadu regularly since he travelled to London".

Source: Legit.ng
The Nigeria Police Force (NPF) has acquired dog trailers under its K9 unit in its quest to combat crimes in Nigeria.

Nigeria Police prepares its dog trailers to fight crime

According to the NPF, these trailers called K9 sniffers will be deployed to to escort peaceful protesters and processions.

Nigeria Police prepares its dog trailers to fight crime

''If in any case the protesters become riotus, the K9 unit will quell the riot and the procession continues and normalcy restored,'' the police said in a statement.

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Nigeria Police prepare its dog trailers to fight crime

With the temporary closure of the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja, the K9 unit will be deployed to the Abuja-Kaduna expressway for crime control.

Nigeria Police prepare its dog trailers to fight crime

The expressway will witness heavy traffic, as flights will be diverted to the Kaduna Airport.

The K9 sniffers will also be deployed to Nigeria's international airports and they will be involved in sniffing of IEDs, narcotics, arms and ammunition and crime prevention and detection.

Nigeria Police prepare its dog trailers to fight crime

They will also be deployed at the National Assembly, Force Headquarters, Defence College, the Federal Secretariat and other vulnerable areas and black spots.

Nigeria Police prepare its dog trailers to fight crime

The Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris on Thursday, February 9 officially flagged off the K9 trailers at the Force Heaquarters.

READ ALSO: 45-yr-old man set ablaze over dog dispute

Source: Legit.ng
President Muhammadu Buhari has received leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in London, UK.

Chief Bisi Akande and Chief Bola Tinubu paid a visit to President Buhari on Thursday, February 9 which confirms the president is alive.

READ ALSO: 7 prominent Nigerians who have spoken with Buhari since he traveled

There has been rumour that President Buhari was dead although this has been refuted by his media aides.

The president spoke with the APC leaders at the Abuja House in London.

See photo below:

BREAKING: President Buhari receives APC leaders in London

BREAKING: President Buhari receives APC leaders in London

President Muhammadu Buhari seeing his guests off to the door

President Buhari's vacation extension fueled rumours that he was very sick.

Earlier, he spoke with countrys number four citizen, the Speaker of the House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara.

Dogara confirmed this in a tweet on Thursday's afternoon, February 9, noting that President Buhari had some concerns about food security for the country.

He said: @MBuhari called me yesterday evening. He talked about what the Executive/ Legislature must do to ensure food security for all Nigerians.

He said the president is committed to ensuring that sufferings Nigerians went through in 2016 over food security will not repeat themselves.

Source: Legit.ng
The breaking report of President Muhammadu Buhari receiving leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in London, UK, has sent tongues wagging again.

Legit.ng had earlier reported that Chief Bisi Akande and Chief Bola Tinubu paid a visit to President Buhari on Thursday, February 9, which confirms the president is alive.

Nigerians react as President Buhari receives APC leaders in London on Thursday, February 9, 2017

Following the report, Nigerians have taken to social media to air their views on this issue which many cannot wait to hear the last of.

Bimbo Ola said: "Thank Almighty God....President Buhari is doing well......The #wailers who never voted for President Buhari should continue ranting senselessly."

Emeka Mekus Mopao said: "So why did he not come out to address Nigerians"

Ofonime Sam Uwem was of the opinion that "he looks really sick while our vice president and Senate president are telling us he is hale and hearty.....

Meanwhile adesina and buharis elder sister are asking Nigerians to pray for his(Buhari) health.... Wether dead or alive, we still don't have a president."

Chrisantus Emmy Hmmmm asked a question saying: "so this is the only clothes our president has? Adding: "Habah media, why are guys misleading us?"

Ahuruonye Nna Emmajesus was of the opinion that "Baba (PMB) went with only one cloth, and forgot to the aisha n tinubu to bring him cloth."

Valentine Nwankwo said: "Nigerians should get ready to pack their belongings to UK since the president has choosed to be governing the country from there."

Engr Osborn Essien said: "The drama continues! one day the real news will come out! Nigerians are watching!"

Augustine Uzohuo was of the opinion that "videos speak louder than pictures. We need videos"

Okafor Sandra Chidera said: "I am not understanding ,what stops buhari from saying something, that is alive"

Onuoha Cletus said: "If this picture is true,then take a closer look at buhari right hand,i think that hand is lifeless."

Bashiru Abdul Ibrahim said: "Mr president Baba Buhari we always wish you quick recovery."

Caliante Silverado said: "You people are just making a mockery of the whole situation. Take a closer look at the pictures you posted, in the first picture Buhari was literally hiding, in the second picture where tinubu is seated beside him.

He looks totally worn out and one can easily say he was placed to sit for a few seconds, if Buhari loves the country like he claims he should start by loving himself a man who loves himself, when he is sick he should man up handover to the next person like that lying pastor professor osibanjo atleast we know he ain't an honest pastor but he is the next to take over and he looks fit and educated.

Power is not worth all this buhari drama. If he is sick like he looks its easy for him to handover and take care of himself. Black men and Africa should not continue with lies and deceits by those in power."

Omoniyi SurnamedinChrist said: "With all due respect and love to the person of our dear president, please stop pasting pictures of 'Buhari meeting people'. It is starting to feel like you guys have experience as 'yahoo boys' who use pictures to scam people. Seeing is believing. No need to flog this issue. Let the man return in good health. Amin"

Source: Legit.ng
President Muhammadu Buhari's personal assistant on social media Lauretta Onochie has revealed fresh details about how he travelled abroad and his state of health.

President Buhari meeting with some top politicians of the All Progressives Congress in London on Thursday, February 9.

In a statement released on her Twitter handle on Thursday, February 9, Onochie denied reports that Buhari was flown abroad aboard an air ambulance to a hospital in UK.

She tweeted:

She described the reports as untrue and the work of the presidents detractors while also assuring Nigerians that all the reports so far released by the presidency about the presidents state of health were true.

READ ALSO: Buhari calls Nigeria, expresses worries

Her statement read: I dont blame those who believe the lies peddled by liars about the health of @MBuhari. We have been lied to in the past by PDP leaders

@MBuhari was clear as to what he was to do from the beginning. He was going on leave and would have a health checkup. He told Nigerians

When @MBuhari's doctors said he needed further tests, he was not shy to tell Nigerians and asked for an extension of his leave.

Recall that when @MBuhari had issues with his ear & had to go for TREATMENT, he was open about it. He told Nigerians as with this CHECKUP

Pres. Buhari is not ill. He is not in any hospital. One doesnt need to sleep over in a hospital for a checkup as the Custom is in the UK

READ ALSO: CAN speaks on Buharis health, tells Osinbajo what to do

Acting Pres. Osinbajo has assured Nigerians that @MBuhari is hale and hearty. He has no reason to believe otherwise or lie to Nigerians.

Presidential Spokesman, @FemAdesina, also assured Nigerians that their president is well and alive. He has no reason to lie.

Info Minister, Lai Mohammed has assured there's no correlation between @MBuhari & Late Pres. Yar Adua. @MBuhari will not lie to Nigerians

Most Nigerians are genuinely concerned about the health of @MBuhari. So those who peddle lies in this regard, must think about Nigerians

It's a great shame that those who lied to us for 16yrs are misinforming Nigerians about a man who has been nothing but honest with them.

Meanwhile, President Muhammadu Buhari has received leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in London, UK.

Chief Bisi Akande and Chief Bola Tinubu paid a visit to President Buhari on Thursday, February 9 which confirms the president is alive.

Source: Legit.ng
- Governor Okowa of Delta state has allegedly released the sum of N350 million to celebrate the return of former Governor James Ibori

- The governor allegedly released the huge sum as a form of appreciation to James Ibori who helped the governor into power in 2015

- The welcome party is set to come up on Sunday, February 12

Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta state has allegedly ordered the release of the sum of N350 million for the celebration and welcome party of ex-convict and former governor of Delta state, Chief James Ibori.

According to an investigative report by Sahara Reporters, two sources in Delta state, one of them a senior government official, said that Governor Okowa released the funds in order to ensure that the reception for Mr Ibori, scheduled to take place on Sunday, February 12, at James Iboris hometown of Oghara, would be a huge event.

Delta state governor allegedly earmarks N350 million for Iboris welcome party

READ ALSO: Delta government goes hard, demolishes structures in alleged government land

Recall that Ibori returned from the UK on February 4, after serving a concurrent 13-year jail term for money laundering and was reportedly visited by some top politicians in the state including Okowa.

An anonymous official of the Delta state government reportedly disclosed that Governor Okowa decided that the state government must bankroll the events formally welcoming ex-Governor Ibori back to the state. The source said the governors decision was also a way to show gratitude to Chief Ibori, who single-handedly made sure that he won the 2015 governorship election.

The source reportedly said: Chief Ibori not only saw Senator Okowa through all the hurdles in the PDP governorship primaries but made him the governor of the state right from his prison far away in London. Before now, the governor had always vowed to give Chief an elaborate reception for standing behind him politically.

The commissioner of Information in Delta state is yet to confirm this report but an official at the Ministry of Information reportedly confirmed to Sahara Reporters that the state was playing a big role in the forthcoming reception for Ibori.

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Meanwhile, governor Okowa has said Chief James Ibori should be more concerned with his family now that he has returned from prison rather than politics.

Okowa stated this in reaction to claims that the former governor of Delta state on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and acclaimed political godfather was planning to join the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Source: Legit.ng
Editors note: In any recruitment process, both the employees and employers usually want trust to be the key factor in engaging either at entry or managerial level. However, in this piece , Ganiyu Akeem, the Legit.ng contributor explains how he and other Truck Officers employed by the company were hired and left stranded.

More details in Legit.ngs step-by-step guide for guest bloggers.

In April 2015, the company announced both in print and electronic media a Truck Entrepreneurship Scheme that sought to empower graduates financially. The scheme entails eventual ownership of a truck each by every successful employee (Truck Officer) who was able to cover 400,000km with the truck.

We excitedly applied for this offer with the required documents, and were eventually shortlisted. Thereafter, we went through the first training process that lasted from June to October 2015 at Obajana (Kogi state), Ibese (Ogun state), and Ikeja (Lagos state).

READ ALSO: Dangote declares 285 drivers wanted

Thereafter, there was physical background confirmation of our residences and that of our guarantors by Background Check International (BCI), a company in Lagos, whose staff visited our homes and that of our guarantors from November 2015 and January 2016.

On February 2016, 200 (two hundred) of us got phone calls to report to Obajana plant for immediate commencement of duty. The impromptu manner with which we heeded this call from this reputable company cost most of us our current jobs then. Yet after training, we were asked to go back and wait for their call.

In March 2016, an agreement form covering the scheme was sent to us via email to complete and send to the High Court for legal endorsement. This, we promptly did at our own cost. It is noteworthy that the agreement provided a monthly remuneration of N60, 000 for every Truck Officer including a performance bonus of N90, 000 on meeting the monthly target.

In April 2016, we got a call to report to Ibese plant to process our documents and commence work. This we did, and after training, we were asked to go back and wait for their call.

In May 2016, we got a call asking us to report to Ibese plant for immediate commencement of duty, some reported on 12th while some resumed on 13th and we were allocated one truck each to supervise. Later on, the trucks we each handled increased to four, then to six for those in Ibese and seven for those in Obajana.

On 2nd June 2016, the management summoned us to a meeting to announce the cancellation of the entrepreneurship scheme. They issued us an appointment letter saying we were automatically staff of the company. However, the letter stated that our appointment would be confirmed permanent after six (6) months. It further stipulated a monthly consolidated salary of N60, 000 and unspecified performance bonus.

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On that same month (June 2016), another 200 (two hundred) Truck Officers were added to our number and were deployed to Obajana plant and the same appointment letters were issued to them.

In September 2016, about 400 (four hundred) Truck Officers were further employed, 200 were deployed to Obajana plant while 200 were deployed to Ibese plant.

In December 2016, instead of issuing the first batch of Truck Officers confirmation letters, our management introduced a new form of daily truck reporting, saying it was meant to be used as our Key Performance Indicator (KPI). Though grossly disappointed, we obediently adjusted to this new development which officially commenced in Ibese plant In January 2017.

On Sunday 8th January 2017, a Truck Officer, Oyelami Adekunle Ismael, slumped and died on duty in Ibese plant, and all our management did was to ask some Truck Officers to accompany the corpse with an ambulance to his hometown with a paltry sum of N50,000 (fifty thousand naira).

It is noteworthy to say that we made effort by sending mails twice to our management to book a meeting with us in order to discuss our issues but it all proved abortive as we got no response. Also worthy of note is that our enterprising actions led to the revival of more than 500 (five hundred) non- operational trucks to become operational.

READ ALSO: Dangote net worth, house, cars and private jet

On Saturday 4th February 2017, we were suddenly summoned by our management via Whatsapp social media to report to the plant for a very important meeting. To our surprise, military men were stationed at strategic positions around the plant. It was then that they started distributing termination

Letters (printed on ordinary A4 papers as against the companys official letter-headed papers) to us, asking us to submit our identity cards and other company belongings, saying nothing about our severance dues and allowances if any.

We hereby implore all well-meaning Nigerians and the general public to come to our aid so as to bring this draconian and tyrannical method of management to an end in this country, and thus save the Nigerian youth from undue humiliation and victimization.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily represent the editorial policy of Legit.ng.

Your own opinion articles are welcome at info@naij.com  drop an email telling us what you want to write about and why. More details in Legit.ngs step-by-step guide for guest contributors.

Were ready to trade your news for our money: submit news and photo reports from your area using our Citizen Journalism App.

Contact us if you have any feedback, suggestions, complaints or compliments. We are also available on Facebook and Twitter. Subscribe to Legit.ng Opinion page!

Source: Legit.ng
- IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, explained why it is too late for him to support Nigeria's unity

- Kanu said so many people have lost their lives due to government negligence

- He also listed 9 states that will form the Republic of Biafra if referendum is granted

Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has listed 9 Nigerian states that will form the Republic of Biafra if referendum is granted to him.

Legit.ng gathered that Kanu, who made this statement during an interview on Channels TV, claimed that it is too late for him to stop the agitation for Biafra.

The states mentioned by Kanu are:

1) Rivers state

2) Bayelsa state

3) Delta state

4) Anambra state

5) Imo state

6) Enugu state

7) Ebonyi state

8) Cross Rivers state

9) Akwa Ibom state

READ ALSO: God told me Nnmadi Kanu is fighting a genuine battle - Prophet

After listing the states, Kanu said: "Basically South East and South South without Edo state. This also includes Igede Idoma.

Kanu however said he is not agitating for a violent breakup and when he says 'Biafra or death', he does not mean war merely talking about his dedication to the course as long as he is alive.

He said: "Truth is a far more potent and deadlier weapon than bullets. No war. When I say Biafra or death, I mean I will keep pushing, either I am Alive or I die in the process. I wouldnt stop.

Had sovereign National conference been convened by the powers that be, where every ethnic Nationality comes together to say what type of country do we want? Sit down, discuss and agree. I can begin to perhaps submit to the opposition.

It is way too late. They have killed so many people. They have ruined too many lives. They have wasted too many souls. How do we bring those people back.

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Meanwhile, the Efik Leadership Foundation (ELF), an Efik apex group, has warned the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), to desist from further inclusion of the Efik people in their 'shenanigan', reports state.

According to the ELF board of trustees, led by the chairman Richard Duke, the Efik people are insulted by their inclusion into the map of Biafra and they can champion their own course if the need arises.

Legit.ng notes that in a statement signed by hundreds of members of the group, they stated that the Efik people are not a part of Biafra and have never been.

Watch this Legit.ng TV video of Nnamdi Kanu speaking about Biafra agitation:

Source: Legit.ng
- The Nigeria Navy has discovered 40 illegal refineries in the creeks of Warri south local government area of Delta state

- The refineries were discovered following a major operation raid where over one million tons of stolen crude was being refined

- The Navy warned crude oil thieves to stop the act and also called for a concerted effort to from authorities to stop the trend

The Nigeria Navy on Thursday raided over forty illegal crude oil refineries at the Jones Creek in Warri south local government area of Delta state.

The Navy said the more than forty illegal refineries contain over one million metric tons of stolen crude being illegally refined at the creeks by crude oil thieves.

The Nigerian Navy commander, in Delta, Commodore Ibrahim Dewu, told journalists that the discovery was a consequence of a raid on major illegal refineries in the creeks on Thursday.

Illegal refineries in the Niger Delta

Dewu said: What we saw today is really far beyond comprehension because for just one camp we have discovered over 40 illegal refineries.

READ ALSO: Delta government goes hard, demolishes structures in alleged government land

The quantity of the product in the tanks and the one flowing on the ground is really much; we discovered over 200 tanks, carrying over 10,000 liters each, which were boiling, meaning the refineries were fully operating by the time we got there.

Daily Post reports that three suspects were arrested during the raid of the illegal refineries.

Following the quantity of crude discovered, Dewu called for a quick stop to the operation of illegal refineries, noting that the operation of illegal refineries is dangerous to human lives and the environment.

He said the Nigerian Navy Ship was engaging oil thieves and operators of illegal refineries so as to end their illicit activities and ensure that the lives and environment of the people in the Niger Delta communities were safe.

He warned operators of illegal refineries to stop the trade, noting that they have a mandate and they must execute it to the letter.

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Im sending a message to the communities that we are equal to our task. The CNS has given us a mandate, which we must keep; we are going to continue to sustain these operations so that well be able to stop all these illegal activities within the creeks.

This will make the people in the communities live a normal life because as it is now, theres no aquatic life because the environment is polluted by these illegal activities, he said.

Source: Legit.ng
- Governor Ayodele Fayose wishes President Muhammadu Buhari speedy recovery

- Fayose advises the presidency to ensure it gives accurate information about the health status of the president to forestall the spread of rumours

- The governor says nobody has control over health challenges

Governor Fayose has urged Nigerians to pray for President Buharis quick recovery.

Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti state has called on Nigerians to jointly pray to God for President Muhammadu Buharis speedy recovery so that he can return on time and resume work.

READ ALSO: Buhari never lied about his health, presidential aide Onochie

Fayose made the call on Thursday, February 9, at the government house in Ekiti state when the general overseer of Champions Glory Assembly Church, Pastor Joshua Lasisi, paid him a visit, Vanguard reports.

The governor who wished the president sound health, however, advised the presidency to ensure that it gives accurate information about the health status of the president so as to forestall a situation whereby people would continue to spread rumour.

He said: But the best thing we should all realize is that the Presidency owes Nigerians accurate information about the situation of things.

"Otherwise people would continue to spread one rumour or the other. Nigerians demanding for truthful and accurate information about the Presidents health from the Presidency are right because the moment you assume such a position, your life has become public. So, we should let Nigerians have the accurate information about the whereabouts of Mr. President."

READ ALSO: CAN speaks on Buharis health, tells Osinbajo what to do

He asked Nigerians to pray for the president, noting that nobody has control over health challenges.

"I cannot say I cannot be sick when Im sick because I am a public figure. I represent the interests of many people. They must know where I am, what is wrong and what am doing it is the right of every Nigerians. But I want to urge all of us to stick together and pray for Mr. President," he said.

In related news, emerging reports suggest that, if all things go as planned, then President Muhammadu Buhari would return to Nigeria from his vacation to the United Kingdom this Saturday, February 11.

According to Leadership, a source disclosed on Wednesday, February 8, that except there would be any last minute change, all is set for President Buharis return.

The source, a senior official in the presidency, who spoke in confidence with newsmen, simply said: Barring any last minute change, we are expecting the president back this weekend, probably on Saturday.

Source: Legit.ng
- The minister of foreign affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, insists President Muhammadu Buhari is not in any hospital in the United Kingdom

- Onyeama said says the noise over the presidents vacation is unnecessary

- The minister says the president will be back as soon as possible

Onyeama has said President Buhari is resting in the Nigeria House in London.

The minister of foreign affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, has President Muhammadu Buhari is not in any hospital in the United Kingdom but relaxing in the Nigeria House in London.

READ ALSO: BREAKING: Buhari may return from vacation on Saturday

Nigerians have been apprehensive following conflicting reports about the presidents health status since he embarked for a medical trip in the United Kingdaom.

However, Onyeama, said he has not had direct communication with the president since he embarked on vacation. New telegraph reports.

The minister explained that the reason why he has not had direct communication with the president since he travelled is because he has not had any reason to do so.

He made the disclosure on Thursday, February 9, shortly after taking part in the ongoing re-registration exercise of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in his Eke ward in Udi local government area of Enugu state.

Onyeama said the noise over the presidents vacation was not necessary, adding that since assumption of office, the President had probably rested for only three weeks.

He said: The President is in London, at the nations official residence in London, not in any hospital. He is in the Nigeria House. And, I know very well that he will be back as soon as possible. In my opinion, we dont need to make out anything from that.

When you think of the pace upon which hes been working, not too long ago, people were saying he was travelling too much, he was not travelling on holiday, hes been working, and it has taken a huge toll on him.

After about 18 months, hes probably not had more than three weeks rest time, thats not much in 18 months

As the minister, I spoke to him before I went to the AU summit, we were together actually not too long ago, in Mali, Bamako in the mid-January, when we came back and I had to go to Addis Ababa, while he went to London. We spoke before he travelled.

READ ALSO: APC to SNG - No one can force Buhari to reveal his health status

But since he went on vacation, Ive not had direct communication with him and the reason why is because Ive not had any reason to have direct communication."

He said he could have initiated direct communication with the president if he wanted to, but added that the president went to London to rest and should be allowed his rest.

In a related news, Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti state has called on Nigerians to jointly pray to God for President Muhammadu Buharis speedy recovery so that he can return on time and resume work.

Fayose made the call on Thursday, February 9, at the government house in Ekiti state when the general overseer of Champions Glory Assembly Church, Pastor Joshua Lasisi, paid him a visit, Vanguard reports.

The governor who wished the president sound health, however, advised the presidency to ensure that it gives accurate information about the health status of the president so as to forestall a situation whereby people would continue to spread rumour.

Source: Legit.ng
- Nigerians in the United Kingdom have denied protesting against the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari

- These Nigerians under the aegis of the UK chapter of the Nigerians in Diaspora Monitoring Group (NDMG) said media reports that there was a protest against President Buahri are false

- The group said some mischievous Nigerians in the UK are working towards recruiting uniformed persons who would embarrass the Nigerian government.

Nigerians in the United Kingdom have denied protesting against the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

These Nigerians under the aegis of the UK chapter of the Nigerians in Diaspora Monitoring Group (NDMG) said media reports that there was a protest against President Buahri are false.

In a statement signed by the UK coordinator of the group, Adeka Onyilo, NDMG said some mischievous Nigerians in the UK are working towards recruiting uniformed persons who would embarrass the Nigerian government.

READ ALSO: The fight against corruption must be holistic - NLC (photos, video)

Onyilo said these individuals are aimed at tainting the image of the anti-corruption fight of President Buhari in Nigeria.

He said these Nigerians also hope to use the recruits gathered for anti-corruption crusade that could help corrupt individuals escape justice in Nigeria.

Onyilo however said that no member of the NDMG any any other groups to the best of his knowledge stage a protest in the UK.

He said: "The group has confirmed that Mr President is not in any critical condition that calls for Nigerians to worry."

READ ALSO: BEWARE! These Police dogs will be deployed for protests across Nigeria (photos, video)

"The NDMG believes in and will continue to identify with the laudable achievements of President Buhari especially in the areas of fighting corruption and defeating Boko Haram terrorism and routing the group from Nigerias soil," Onyilo said.

He added that the pockets of isolated attacks in the North-East are challenges also faced across the globe.

He said: "To this ends, the NDMG (UK) wishes to salute the efforts of the Nigerian Army which led other security partners to flush the insurgents out of their stronghold."

"No amount of honour is enough for the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Buratai and the gallant troops under his command that performed the magic that has brought so much honour to the country abroad.

READ ALSO: Nigerian media announces mass protests in London with fake photos

"To the extent that the people are celebrating the peace that has returned to their various communities across the north east and local government elections holding in all the wards of Yobe State on Saturday February 11, 2017, we hereby declare that there are indisputable facts that the Nigerian Military have delivered and must be commended."

During the nationwide protest on Monday, February 6, some Nigeria media reported that Nigerians in the UK were marching in protest against the present Muhammadu Buhari's administration.

The reports were followed with the release of various old and fake pictures depicting an ongoing protest in the United Kingdom.

The photos also showed some Nigerians positioned in front of the Nigerian High Commission in London.

READ ALSO: TENSION as lack of trust, betrayal mars NLC Abuja protest

The scores of protesters were allegedly demanding that President Buhari who is currently away in London for a medical vacation address the crowd.

However, Onyilo warned these reports should be ignored while he said that those attempting tarnish the image of Nigeria to have a rethink and desist from such.

Source: Legit.ng
Nigerias acting President Yemi Osinbajo is currently meeting with heads of security agencies in the country including Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Ibrahim Idris.

Osinbajo met with the security chiefs and ministers in Aso Rock

Others at the meeting include the acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, the minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, the chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Ekpo Nta, the minister of Information, Lai Mohammed and the director-General of the Department of State Services (DSS), Lawal Daura.

READ ALSO: Osinbajo reacts as NLC, TUC present 18-point demand

Details of the meeting had not been made official at the time of this report.

The Punch reports that the chief of staff to President Muhammadu Buhari had earlier met with the heads of the anti-graft agencies and the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele.

Speaking with journalists, Magu pleaded with Nigerians to support the fight against corruption which he called the greatest menace ravaging Nigeria and responsible for the countrys recession.

READ ALSO: CAN speaks on Buharis health, tells Osinbajo what to do

Meanwhile, Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti state and chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has commended Prof Yemi Osinbajo, acting president, for saving Nigeria by sending the name of Justice Walter Onnoghen to the senate for confirmation as the substantive Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN).

Source: Legit.ng
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A memoir by a Korean-American author about teaching English to adolescent boys at a private university in Pyongyang was certain to anger the North Korean government.

But the author, Suki Kim, may have provoked even more anger among the universitys Christian educators. They have denounced Ms. Kim for breaking a promise not to write anything about her experiences and said her memoir contains inaccuracies, notably her portrayal of them as missionaries, which could cause them trouble with the North Korean authorities.

The private university, the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, was approved in 2001 by the North Korean authorities, despite their distrust of outsiders. Fenced and heavily guarded, the university opened eight years later. It was there that Ms. Kim secretly took notes as she taught English in 2011 to 50 teenage boys and young men drawn from North Koreas most privileged families.

It is unclear whether the school will suffer any repercussions because of the book, Without You, There Is No Us (Crown Publishers), named for a lyric in an ode to the ruling Kim family, often sung by the students in their regimented routines.
SANA, Yemen  Airstrikes by a Saudi-led military coalition were said to have killed at least 80 people in Yemen on Wednesday, and the World Health Organization warned that roughly one-third of the countrys population was in urgent need of medical care.

The airstrikes hit a military base in a densely populated neighborhood here in the capital and areas near the Saudi border. Health officials said those killed included dozens of civilians, as well as fighters loyal to the Houthi rebel movement.

The death toll, which could not be independently confirmed, appeared to be one of the highest in a single day since Saudi Arabia launched its air war against the Houthis in late March, with the stated goal of returning Yemens exiled government to power.
Airline executives were preparing to meet with President Trump on Thursday to discuss issues including jobs and international competition, a meeting that comes as the on-again, off-again enactment of his travel ban has had them scrambling.

But even beyond the ban, executives and government officials expect Mr. Trump to be a disruptive influence on air travel. Some are concerned about an executive order seeking the elimination of two regulations for every new one enacted, which they say could have a negative effect on safety rules. They also await Mr. Trumps thoughts on a proposal to privatize the air traffic control system, which has been run by the federal government since 1936.

President Trump has not taken a position on a House Transportation Committee proposal to turn over more than 300 air traffic control facilities and 30,000 employees to a private nonprofit corporation run by executives nominated by aviation industry participants.

Privatization would be the biggest change in the system since President Ronald Reagan fired 11,345 striking air traffic controllers in 1981, effectively killing their union.
A federal judge on Wednesday blocked a proposed $48 billion merger of Anthem and Cigna, derailing another effort by top health insurers to reshape the industry by combining.

The ruling, by Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, came two weeks after another federal judge blocked a proposed $37 billion merger between Aetna and Humana on antitrust grounds.

Judge Jackson wrote in her order that she found the Justice Departments arguments against the deal persuasive, and that putting Anthem and Cigna together would harm customers.

The evidence has also shown that the merger is likely to result in higher prices, and that it will have other anticompetitive effects, the judge wrote. It will eliminate the two firms vigorous competition against each other for national accounts, reduce the number of national carriers available to respond to solicitations in the future, and diminish the prospects for innovation in the market.
Well, I think its in a great place. Theyre already making a shift, between the acquisition of Elizabeth Arden and the reorganization of the company itself. So I think theyre primed to really change. Legacy brands have a certain nostalgic value, but you cant subsist on nostalgia alone.

You left Conde Nast after 25 years of editing Allure, where you earned a reputation for bringing a healthy skepticism to the industry you were championing. You once told a writer that you werent going to run a piece she was writing on a self-tanner until she tried it on herself. I imagine there was stuff you tried and might not recommend.

Including this serum that was made from the foreskin of a poor, poor baby. Maybe the product was great, but it was bright red, and that was a whole experience I couldnt cope with. Then it made my skin break out in welts. It was like the foreskin of this tiny child was making its revenge.

You were open about having tried injectables.

I remember, I first got Botox in Paris during fashion week. I was having lunch with a Saudi billionaire and she said: Im going to the doctor. Come with me. Botox was not approved in the U.S. at this time. I knew I shouldnt do it, but I went anyway. I wanted to experience it. I was 34. So I have a healthy skepticism, but then I also think I should know what Im talking about.

Later, Botox became a kind of Rorschach test on vanity. Why do you think it was?

There was nothing else like it. I guess there was collagen and there was silicone, but they were so sketchy at that time. There was no other injectable used for anti-aging. And the fact that Botox is a toxin, the fact that it was a poison and the fact that it paralyzed your muscles, all made it sound like a bad B horror movie. And Botox is kind of a gateway drug. It opens you up to all the other injections and all the other lasers. But Im a believer. I think its safe. And there were positive aspects, too.

Such as?

People became less ashamed about trying to look younger. Its been used well and not used well. Theres nothing inherently wrong with wanting to look younger.
Doctors and hospitals failed to tell the Food and Drug Administration about cases in which cancer was spread around inside womens bodies by a surgical tool used to operate on the uterus, according to a report issued on Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office.

Scattering cancer cells worsens the disease and decreases a patients chances of long-term survival.

Because information was lacking, the tool, called a power morcellator, was widely used for more than 20 years before the F.D.A. acted to limit it, after being alerted to the problem in 2013 by a patient who was harmed. The device, with a spinning blade that shreds tissue, was by then being used in at least 50,000 women a year in the United States to help remove benign uterine tumors called fibroids, or to remove the entire uterus. It had become a mainstay in minimally invasive surgery, slicing up tissue so it could be removed through tiny incisions.

But some women with fibroids have undiagnosed cancers, and morcellation can spray malignant cells around inside the abdomen and pelvis like seeds, upstaging the disease to a more advanced and deadly form.
In Connecticut, there is a vast gulf between the quality of education in the states wealthy school districts and those where families are poor.

On Wednesday, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, a Democrat, proposed sweeping changes to how the state finances education in an effort to narrow that gap, shifting money from most municipalities to focus on a few with high rates of poverty.

The proposal, part of the governors biennial budget, was intended, in part, to answer a ruling last year by a State Superior Court judge in Hartford who found that Connecticut was defaulting on its constitutional duty to give all students an adequate education.

The judge, Thomas Moukawsher, ordered the state to revamp the way it funds its schools and nearly every other major aspect of the school system, including graduation requirements and special education programs.
New York City public schools will be closed on Thursday because of a significant winter storm heading to the city, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Twitter on Wednesday evening.

The announcement came after the National Weather Service posted a winter storm warning on Wednesday afternoon for the city and a blizzard warning for the eastern part of Long Island. Forecasts called for 8 to 12 inches of snow throughout northern New Jersey, the Hudson Valley, Long Island, parts of Connecticut and New York City.

The heaviest snow was expected from early morning through afternoon on Thursday, with wind gusts up to 35 miles per hour, the service said on its website.

On Wednesday, the temperature reached 62 degrees in Central Park, exceeding the record of 61 degrees set in 1965.
The Timess deployment analysis grew out of a series of articles about murder in the 40th Precinct, a two-square-mile section of the South Bronx where three detectives last year carried more than 400 cases and many others had loads in the high 300s, markedly more than the 150 cases per year the department recommends for precincts with high rates of violent crime.

Chief Boyce said Wednesday that about 40 of the citys 77 precincts needed additional help to meet caseload goals. In the Bronx, he said, the 40th and the 47th, covering Wakefield and Williamsbridge, were especially burdened, some of that owing to increases in crime there last year.

The department has already identified and interviewed the 75 new investigators and will send them to squads by the end of the month, Chief Boyce said. Six of them will be sent to the 40th Precinct, in addition to three detectives and one investigator added in mid-January, giving the squad a total of 33 detectives and investigators. The Times analysis last year focused on detectives and deliberately excluded white-shield investigators because they are in training and primarily act in support roles.

Police officials and elected leaders said that adding white-shield investigators, although not as quick a fix as transferring detectives from one precinct to another, was more politically palatable and would have a lasting impact. The investigators, once promoted, typically stay in the same precinct squads where they were trained.

The district attorney in the Bronx, Darcel D. Clark, said she was very pleased with the plan. The people of the Bronx have been underserved too long, Ms. Clark said.

After the publication of the Times article in December, she said, she asked her offices bureau chiefs to submit ideas for addressing the paucity in investigative resources and pressed Chief Boyce to add detectives. Ms. Clark worried that the understaffing scared off witnesses  who did not believe the police could protect them  from testifying.

Michael J. Palladino, the head of the union representing New York Citys 5,500 detectives, said that even 75 new investigators was only a first step.
Officer Holder, who was 33, was a third-generation police officer: His father and grandfather had both served on the force in their native Guyana. He had immigrated to New York as a boy, and, in 2010, he joined the family profession in his adopted city. As a police recruit, in 2010, he wrote a letter to the New York Police Department describing his desire from a young age to make a difference in my community and become a role model. His life, and his death, resonated across New York and back to Guyana.

But after sitting through three days of testimony, jurors have heard remarkably little about Officer Holder, or who he was. Nothing of his life has been mentioned beyond how it ended, in an instant, on the footbridge. Why prosecutors have chosen to say so little about him, other than his name, is not at all clear  and that may change as the trial, which is expected to last weeks, unfolds. But it has been difficult not to notice hours go by without a single mention of Officer Holder.

On Wednesday, when Officer Wallace took the stand, it seemed that a portrait, or at least a sketch, of the slain officer might finally emerge. But the lead prosecutor, Linda Ford, asked Officer Wallace more questions about what he carried on his gun belt that night than about what memories he carried of his partner.

Image Officer Randolph Holder Credit... New York Police Department

Speaking quietly, Officer Wallace described how the two of them had heard a call over the police radio about a shooting around East 102nd Street and a fleeing suspect, who was most likely heading north on the promenade along the water. So they drove north to the entrance of a footbridge farther uptown that they thought the assailant might use to cross back over the F.D.R. Drive.
The most reassuring sound in these rancorous early days of the Trump administration was the legal debate, at times arcane, over the presidents travel ban during live-streamed oral arguments in a federal appeals court on Tuesday.

No gratuitous insults, no personal threats or childish tantrum  only judges and lawyers debating complex legal issues with respect and restraint. It was the sound of grown-ups taking responsibility for governing the country, and for peoples lives.

Contrast that with the unfiltered outbursts Americans have endured from President Trump in the chaotic days since he signed his slapdash order suspending entry for people from seven predominantly Muslim countries, and all refugees.

Mr. Trumps attacks on judges who questioned his order were too much even for his nominee to the Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch of the federal appeals court in Denver. Judge Gorsuch called the comments demoralizing and disheartening, according to a senator with whom he met on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.
Despite these citations, city officials did nothing to shut down the building.

Mike Madden, whose 23-year-old son, Griffin Madden, was killed in the fire, said the scores of visits to the warehouse by the authorities validate the view that the fire was preventable.

This is another example of a very broken system within the city of Oakland, he said. Oakland has been given some tough punches over the decades, but that doesnt excuse this. It just doesnt.

The fire at the warehouse, which was named the Ghost Ship by the artists who illegally resided inside, was the deadliest structural fire in the United States in more than a decade. All but one of the people killed in the fire on Dec. 2 were there to attend a concert held without a permit. Most of the victims were young people who were overcome by thick smoke and trapped on the second floor of the building when a treacherous, makeshift staircase collapsed.

Neighbors said loud parties were frequently held at the warehouse. A 2015 police report by Officer Hector Chavez described how he was flagged down late one Saturday evening to break up an illegal cabaret there. Officer Chavez wrote that the police ordered everyone out of the warehouse, but that no arrests were made or further action taken.

I did not detain, handcuff or search anyone while on scene, he wrote.

The 39 inspections by the citys Building Department stemmed from violations that included abandoned vehicles, rats, and construction materials and trash left on the sidewalk.
WASHINGTON  A former security contractor was indicted on Wednesday on charges of stealing a trove of highly classified information that federal prosecutors, for the first time, said included documents on sensitive counterterrorism operations, a foreign intelligence target the C.I.A. was tracking and the launch of a satellite.

The 20-count indictment that was unsealed in Maryland federal court offered just a glimpse of what prosecutors claim Harold T. Martin III, 52, stole undetected for years.

Mr. Martin, of Glen Burnie, Md., was arrested in late August after the F.B.I. raided his house and found an estimated 50 terabytes of electronic files in his home office, car and shed. It is still not clear why Mr. Martin was hoarding the documents, and prosecutors have not suggested, at least publicly, that he might have passed the information to anyone or sold it to a foreign intelligence agency.

The indictment says Mr. Martin was employed as a private contractor for the American government from December 1993 to August 2016. In that time, he worked for at least seven private companies, including Booz Allen Hamilton. He held security clearances that allowed him access to some of the governments most sensitive intelligence programs.
HOUSTON  A comment President Trump made on Tuesday in which he spoke of destroying the career of a Texas state senator has angered Democratic lawmakers in the state and cast a spotlight on the issue that set off the remark  the seizing of suspects property by law enforcement before those suspects have been convicted of a crime.

Mr. Trumps remark came during a meeting at the White House with sheriffs from around the country. At one point, the president asked the sheriffs seated at a table around him if there were any pressing law enforcement issues they wanted to talk about.

A Texas sheriff, Harold Eavenson of Rockwall County, spoke up.

Mr. President, on asset forfeiture, Sheriff Eavenson said, in an exchange that was observed by reporters and filmed, weve got a state senator in Texas that was talking about introducing legislation to require conviction before we can receive that forfeiture money, and I told him that the cartel would build a monument to him in Mexico if he could get that legislation passed.

Can you believe that? Mr. Trump responded, then added, Whos the state senator?

Sheriff Eavenson did not reply. Do you want to give his name? Mr. Trump said. Well destroy his career. Laughter then broke out.
LONDON  Boris Johnson, Britains colorful and blustery foreign secretary, who is perhaps best known for his leading role in campaigning for his countrys departure from the European Union, has given up his American citizenship, a United States Treasury Department list showed Wednesday.

Born in New York, Mr. Johnson, 52, held dual citizenship until last year. He had long complained about having to pay taxes in the United States even though he was 5 when he last lived there. Unlike most countries, the United States taxes nationals who live abroad on their worldwide income.

According to British news reports, as recently as 2015, he settled a hefty capital gains tax bill on the sale of his north London home  after claiming that he wouldnt pay.

In an interview with National Public Radio in 2014, he described the doctrine of global taxation applied by the United States as incredible.
MOSCOW  All died far from the front lines in circumstances unrelated to military action. They died in elaborate ambushes, car bomb attacks and, in one case, a booby-trapped elevator. The latest died on Wednesday in an explosion in his office.

The staccato of about half a dozen assassinations of commanders in the Russian-backed separatist army in eastern Ukraine has become one of the riddles of the war there since 2015, when the first unexplained killings of Cossack militia leaders occurred.

Ukrainian officials have denied any involvement in the killings, while welcoming them for thinning the ranks of the breakaway military. The authorities in Kiev say the deaths point to either infighting in the separatist leadership or efforts by Russia to consolidate control by eliminating erratic, if popular, local commanders on their own side.

The assassinations could ease peace talks; Ukraine had refused direct negotiations with the rebel leadership as long as men it deemed war criminals held senior posts.
In Cairo, however, Yemens foreign minister, Abdul Malik al-Mekhlafi, called for the review of the operation, in which one American commando and some 14 fighters of Al Qaeda died, adding that Yemen continues to cooperate with the United States and continues to abide by all the agreements.

Yemens embassy in Washington said in a statement that it had not suspended any counterterrorism programs with the United States. But hinting that Yemeni leaders were not fully informed in advance about the mission, the embassy also said that any counterterrorism operations carried out in Yemen should continue to be in consultation with Yemeni authorities and have precautionary measures to prevent civilian casualties.

The raid, which suffered a number of failings and faced unexpected resistance, was an early test of Mr. Trumps national security decision-making  and his willingness to rely on the assurances of his military advisers. His aides say that even though the decision was made over a dinner, it had been fully vetted and had the required legal approvals.
While the Bramans now agree on everything they buy, that wasnt always the case. Weve had works that she did not like and we got rid of them, Mr. Braman said. Weve been married for 60 years. We dont buy anything anymore without being on the same page.

Here are edited excerpts from a conversation with Mr. Braman.

Which piece are you repeatedly drawn to?

The work I have that continues to blow me away is that 1923 Picasso [The Lovers]. It could be a contemporary painting today. The color is incredible. Ill sit on the ledge in front of that painting for hours.

How did you come to buy it?

I saw it at the Guggenheims Picasso Black and White show [in 2012-13] and I just was mesmerized. It belonged to the estate of Jan Krugier [a Holocaust survivor who became a modern art dealer]. After seeing that show, Tzila Krugier [Krugiers daughter] calls me and says, I can now offer you a painting and this was the painting she offered me. I bought it on the telephone. Ive learned that if you see something thats incredible, move on it quickly.

What were other fast purchases?

The big Sam Francis we saw in Basel, Switzerland  [the dealer Robert] Mnuchin had it. But I couldnt remember if it would fit on that wall. So we waited until 8 oclock in the morning, when our handyman comes in, which was 2 oclock in the afternoon our time. I said, Bob, hold it for me; Ill buy it if it fits on the wall, and we bought it. Thats the way we buy.
The Whitney show is quite satisfying  even revelatory  since many works have not been on view in years. But the exhibitions unrealized potential is equally visible. To start with, the Whitneys collection has some unfortunate gaps. Among the most glaring is the absence of one of Philip Taaffes burnished reprises of the 60s Op Art paintings of Bridget Riley or Victor Vasarely, which operated in the gray area between the Neo-Expressionists and the Pictures Generation.

Also, Fast Forward has not been given enough room to even take advantage of outstanding 80s paintings the museum already owns. Over a dozen artists are represented with small works mostly on paper crowded salon-style on one wall, which is insulting. But there are pleasant surprises here: early works by Andrew Masullo; a Nancy Spero collage; and a painterly, highly personal Glenn Ligon. With more space, some of these artists could have been represented by larger efforts.

The show reminds us that art doesnt adhere neatly to decades; what we consider 80s painting began in the 1970s and extended into the 1990s. Too bad the curators didnt stretch the decade a bit more. They could have added Joe Zuckers funny beautiful Merlyns Lab, from 1977, whose mosaiclike surface of color-soaked cotton balls presages Mr. Schnabels broken crockery. Elizabeth Murrays great 1978 painting Children Meeting also deserves to be here. With its bold-scale, brilliant colors and grand biomorphic evocations of cartooning and Surrealism, this is among the first paintings of the American 1980s and would have given Mr. Scharfs When the Worlds Collide a run for its money.

Nonetheless, Fast Forward reveals a complex subject crying out for attention by outlining how the Neo-Expressionists and their 80s cohort broke painting wide open. Their legacy is a sense of freedom and possibility that infuses the medium to this day.
MATT KEEGAN

Through Sunday. Participant Inc., 253 East Houston Street, Manhattan; 212-254-4334, participantinc.org.

Tolstoy may have explained the difference between happy and unhappy families: The first are all alike; the second are unhappy in their own way. But he never mentioned average families for whom such feelings twist together. For that, there is Matt Keegans show at Participant Inc., his first solo in New York since 2011. It is titled Generation, as is the two-channel, 45-minute video installation that is its centerpiece.

Executed in an uninflected D.I.Y. documentary style, Generation is alternately funny, poignant and sad. It stars three generations of Mr. Keegans immediate family, including his parents, siblings, nieces and a precocious nephew. Each of them is asked to define a series of fairly charged words, including love, sex, race, anger, nationalism, immigrant, masculine and history. Its all quite simple, but what you learn about family dynamics, knowledge and language  as well as the wisdom of age  is amazing. The youngest niece describes race as a competition; Mr. Keegans father sees it as something just made up.

The video includes a few interviews in the subjects habitats, and occasionally Mr. Keegan asks people to describe a word as a physical object, while the second screen illustrates responses in animated form. Other animations include a pitcher of water poured over a human brain, nourishing it. Mr. Keegans interests being multimedia, the show also includes three large, handsome wall pieces in powder-coated steel seemingly based on bits of folded-and-cut paper. They emit low vibrations, serving as speakers for audio tracks generated with the sound artist Sergei Tcherepnin using the wall reliefs themselves as drums. Their tones work well as ambient accompaniment for the video. Its a little like having a large, friendly family pet in the next room.
Ten months after Princes death, the last piece of the business puzzle for his music has finally been reached. Princes estate has made an agreement with the Universal Music Group for his music recorded after 1995, as well as material from Princes storied recording vault, Universal and the estate announced on Thursday.

The deal covers 25 albums that Prince released through his NPG Records label after going independent in the mid-1990s, including Emancipation, Musicology and 3121. Prince started NPG after feuding with Warner Bros., his first label and the home of virtually all of his biggest hits, like Purple Rain and 1999. The contents of Princes vault  legendary among fans  have never been fully revealed; the announcement on Thursday said only that it included outtakes as well as live and demo recordings.

The agreement, whose terms were not disclosed, is the latest in a series of deals that Universal has struck with Princes estate to secure rights connected to his music and celebrity brand. In November, Universals music publishing division became the administrator for Princes songwriting catalog, and in January the company struck a merchandising deal with the estate.
CNN examines what makes us laugh  and who has made us laugh  in its latest documentary series, The History of Comedy. And ShondaLand dominates the ABC prime-time lineup with new episodes of Greys Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away With Murder.

Whats on TV

THE HISTORY OF COMEDY 10 p.m. on CNN. The latest in CNNs nostalgia-fueled documentaries  an eight-part look at what makes people laugh, and what role comedy plays in social trends and politics  has its premiere with a focus on pioneering comedians George Carlin and Lenny Bruce. Interviews in the series include those with Judd Apatow, Sarah Silverman and Patton Oswalt, as well as talk-show hosts like Samantha Bee, Conan OBrien and Jimmy Kimmel. Even Al Franken, the Saturday Night Live alumnus turned Democratic senator from Minnesota, appears.
LONDON  Basically, Mr. Darcy, the dark, brooding hero of one of Jane Austens most famous novels, Pride and Prejudice, would not have looked at all like Colin Firth.

Rather, the real Mr. Darcy would have been pale and pointy-chinned, and would have had a long nose on an oval, beardless face. His hair, strangely, would have been powdered white. And he would have been slightly undernourished, with sloping shoulders  more ballet dancer than beefcake, according to one of the authors of a new study.

Hardly a steamy romantic hero, then, in modern eyes.

Ahead of the 200th anniversary of Austens death, Fitzwilliam Darcy, the much-fantasized hero of her novel Pride and Prejudice, was given an unflattering makeover in a study published on Thursday, shocking fans and possibly forever altering their adoration of English literatures most eligible bachelor.

The study  by John Sutherland, a professor of modern English literature at University College London, and Amanda Vickery, a professor of early modern history at Queen Mary University of London  was billed as the first historically accurate portrait of the fictional character.
THE GIRL FROM THE METROPOL HOTEL

Growing Up in Communist Russia

By Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

Translated by Anna Summers

Illustrated. 149 pp. Penguin Books. Paper, $16.

Russian literature is replete with powerful memoirs of childhood: Tolstoy, Gorky, Nabokov, Mandelstam and Tsvetayeva all wrote movingly and insightfully about growing up. And yet, when one looks for texts about childrens lives after the Communist revolution, the bookshelf seems strangely empty. Where are the great memoirs of Soviet childhood? Perhaps the traditional narrative approach taken by Tolstoy or Nabokov cannot effectively depict the spare, hungry life of a child in a totalitarian state.

Ludmilla Petrushevskayas slender, fragmentary memoir, The Girl From the Metropol Hotel, is strangely much closer in tone and craft to Soviet absurdist poetry than it is to these classic memoirs. That poetry is exemplified by authors such as Daniil Kharms and Aleksander Vvedensky, known for their farcical depictions of early Soviet life in all its casual brutality. The reader feels the echo of such poems when Petrushevskayas younger self, a girl whos been desperately hungry for most of her life, finds herself in possession of a fistful of silver coins. What does she do? She throws them into the courtyard, watching with a smile as dirty boys swarm to retrieve them, as each dropped coin caused a new explosion of howling and fighting. If this memoir of growing up on the streets of the Soviet Union follows a logic, it is the violent, chaotic logic of Soviet history itself.

As the girl from the Metropol Hotel, Petrushevskaya was born into an elite Bolshevik family in 1938, in the midst of great misfortune: Several family members were executed by Stalins firing squads. The family became enemies to everyone, Petrushevskaya writes, to our neighbors, to the police, to the janitors, to the passers-by, to every resident of our courtyard of any age. We were not allowed to use the shared bathroom, to wash our clothes, and we didnt have soap anyway. At the age of 9 I was unfamiliar with shoes, with handkerchiefs, with combs; I did not know what school or discipline was.
 President Trump made the latest in a series of conciliatory signals toward China, writing in a letter to President Xi Jinping that he looked forward to developing a constructive relationship. The two have still not spoken by phone.

Another widely noted gesture: Mr. Trumps granddaughter Arabella sang a New Years greeting in Mandarin.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan meets Mr. Trump in Washington and then spends the weekend with him at his Florida resort, hoping to avert a trade war. In the automobile sector, marketing may be more of a factor than Japanese protectionism.
People worried about having fewer choices for health insurance can breathe a little easier.

A federal judge has blocked the proposed $48 billion merger of Anthem and Cigna, soon after another judge did the same to the $37 billion deal between Aetna and Humana.

In the latest ruling, the judge found that the deal between Anthem and Cigna would most likely harm customers, push up prices and eliminate competition.

Anthem now owes Cigna a $1.85 billion breakup fee.

Its worth noting this was not exactly a match made in heaven. Court documents showed that the two companies had accused each other of breaching their agreement.

They had argued that the merger would create billions of dollars in savings, but the government countered that such savings required the companies to cooperate in integrating their businesses.
Anthem and Cigna may have one fight left. Their $54 billion deal was nixed on Wednesday by a federal judge, who agreed with the Justice Departments concerns about competition. In addition to fighting the government, the two health insurers had been squabbling with each other over the merger. That suggests that the payment of the breakup fee could be contentious, too.

The large, overlapping operations meant that combining Anthem and Cigna would shrink the number of choices for big employers across the country. A separate ruling last month also torpedoed the planned $33 billion union of Aetna and Humana, signaling that the courts were unlikely to accept further consolidation. The industry, instead of being reshaped into one with three dominant national providers, will remain with five.

Anthem had argued that the enlarged enterprise would be in a position to negotiate better deals with hospitals and drugmakers. These savings, along with other cost-cutting enabled by the merger, would be passed on to consumers. The judge didnt buy it, not least because of what she described as the elephant in the courtroom: the companies being at odds with each other. Cigna officials, for example, argued in court against some of Anthems projections.

The bad blood probably will persist. Under the terms of the transaction, Anthem is on the hook for $1.85 billion because of the failure. It could, however, argue that Cigna is not entitled to the sum because it did not work its hardest to close the deal. The judges statement that Cigna was actively warning against Anthems characterization of the outcome provides ammunition.
FRANKFURT  Germans who never really warmed up to the euro may be able to sleep a little easier.

After decades of being safeguarded overseas, the nations gold reserves  a large part of them, at least  are once again safe in Frankfurt.

Not that the gold was ever in danger of being stolen, according to the Bundesbank, the German central bank, which is in charge of the reserves. But the Bundesbank said on Thursday that it had completed a planned transfer of some $13 billion in gold bars that for historical reasons had been stored in vaults deep below Lower Manhattan.

Whether gold matters anymore is questionable in an age of Bitcoin and digital payments. Even paper money is losing importance.

But at least for some Germans, many of them nostalgic for the deutsche mark, gold provides reassurance that the embattled euro is underpinned by something tangible.
Image Credit... Christoph Niemann

My father died last week. I flew home to help my mom and sister make the funeral arrangements. Heres the thing: A few times, over the years, my dad and I talked about playing the song Papa Was a Rolling Stone at his service. My mother said she never heard anything about it and is violently opposed to including a pop song in his religious ceremony. I dont want to upset her more than she already is. My father died unexpectedly and pretty young. But I think its disrespectful of her not to honor his wishes. You?

PATRICK

Weirdly, I have some analogous experience for you, Patrick. (I hope it helps during this rough time.) Frequently, over the years, my mother also dictated unusual funeral song requests: Im Still Here by Stephen Sondheim (which is really odd, if you think about it), and some brassy numbers from Judy Garlands concert at Carnegie Hall.

What these songs had in common was an in-your-face repudiation of death, even as my mother acknowledged that she would die. And as a mother, she was (I think) rehearsing a moment she knew would be horrendous for me, with an eye to making it less so. She didnt really want the songs. Perhaps your father was doing something similar with psychedelic soul.

Defer to your mother, if you can. This song is more valuable to you as a vivid memory of time with your dad (and his great taste in music) than as an actual funeral jam. Listen to it as often as you like. But dont fight with your mom over it now. If your father really wanted it in his service, she would probably know. Whats more, the song is about a lowdown father who never even bothered to meet his son: Papa was a rolling stone/Wherever he laid his head was his home/And when he died, all he left us was alone. That doesnt sound like your dad. He was there, and you have the memories to prove it.
New York definitely needs some excitement, said Jennifer Sunwoo, the executive vice president and general merchandise manager for womens wear at Barneys New York.

Mr. Simons is, in a sense, an unusual person to provide it. He is serious, intense and soft-spoken, more discussed but less known by many in the fashion establishment than his more bombastic peers. He keeps close, nearly cloistered company, an inner circle that he has imported with him to Calvin Klein.

That includes devoted staff, including Pieter Mulier, his longtime No. 2 and now the creative director of Calvin Klein; Mr. Muliers boyfriend, Matthieu Blazy, the design director of womens ready-to-wear; and Mr. Simonss boyfriend, Jean-Georges dOrazio, now a senior director of brand experience. He is also continuing to collaborate with artists like Sterling Ruby, who once worked with Mr. Simons on a collection and has been spotted at the Calvin Klein studios, and the photographer/stylist duo Willy Vanderperre and Olivier Rizzo, friends from their days at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, who have worked with him on Calvin Kleins new advertising campaigns.

Since Mr. Simonss designs for the new collections are so tightly guarded that even many Calvin Klein staff members have not yet seen them, these ads are the only glimpse of what Calvin Klein could look like under his watch. (Mr. Simons declined to comment for this article.)

Advertising may seem an ephemeral marker of change, but few were as aware of its power and potential as Mr. Klein himself. Many of the ads the fashion world considers iconic were manufactured at Mr. Kleins in-house CRK Advertising studio: Kate Moss, nude, at her heroin chicest; Mark Wahlberg, then known as Marky Mark, grabbing his groin through boxer briefs.
What seemed like a sudden turnaround in Times policy had actually been the byproduct of decades of debate in and outside the gay community.

Though The Times had covered the issue of whether to legalize same-sex marriage for years, it did not seem especially urgent to lesbian and gay advocates in the 1980s. They were more focused on discrimination, antigay violence and the AIDS epidemic.

While the epidemic prompted many hateful and misinformed responses, it also exposed society to couples who cared for each other until parted by death  as fundamental a marital obligation as any. AIDS also showed how cruelly unwed partners could be treated. They were denied hospital visits, insurance proceeds and estate inheritance.

Commitment ceremonies were growing common. But The Times hesitated to bestow what amounted to an institutional benediction of those unions in its society pages. Were likely to hide behind the argument that those pages just record legal weddings, Joseph Lelyveld, then the managing editor, told a gay journalists organization in 1992.
At first it was like, Hows school? and What movies have you seen lately? that kind of stuff, she said. But we struck up a friendship and learned so many things about each other, like the fact that we were both movie geeks who loved cheesy action films from the 80s with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal  the good Steven Seagal.

By 2003, their friendship had evolved into a mutual crush. Now both 17 and living in a still-Twitterless universe, they exchanged photos of themselves, for the first and only time, using a computer scanner.

Ms. Champion, who was just beginning her first year at New York University, and Mr. Cooper, still a senior in high school, knew almost everything about each other, but they also knew that their timing for romance was not quite right.

There was nothing we could do about it, Mr. Cooper said. We were almost 3,000 miles apart, didnt have money to buy airline tickets, and our parents had no idea what was going on, as we kind of kept what we had as our own little secret.

That secret was nearly spilled when Mr. Coopers father, Christopher, said he came home early one day and realized his son had skipped school.

I walk in and the computer is on, so I know Tristan is playing hooky, he recalled. I look down and see a note on the screen saying, Im bored. So I wrote back, Im really bored, too.
Article: Joyous Africans Take to the Rails, With China's Help

Before Reading

Watch the video above that documents the inaugural journey of the first electric, transnational railway in Africa. What do you notice about the people, the mood, the scenery and the train itself?

Do you ever ride the train? How often, and for what purpose? Describe your train experiences.



Questions for Comprehension and Analysis

1. Who was on the first train ride out of Djiboutis capital? Where was the train headed, and what was Chinas role in developing the new mode of transportation?

2. What is Chinas experience with building modern rail networks, both in China and in other countries? Cite specific examples.
Colin Hanks has a lot of experience as an actor but little as a documentary filmmaker. He set himself a formidable challenge with Eagles of Death Metal: Nos Amis (Our Friends), his documentary about the American rock band that was performing at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris on Nov. 13, 2015, when terrorists killed 90 people there.

The film has a lot of emotion to capture as it chronicles the bands return to Paris three months after the attack to, in a sense, complete the concert that the terrorists interrupted. Its a pileup of sorrow, survivor guilt, anger and defiance that sometimes grows unruly. Mr. Hanks tries to give the journey a through-line by focusing on the friendship between the bands founders, Jesse Hughes and Josh Homme, a device that works early but then is overwhelmed by the events of Nov. 13.

Mr. Homme, in this telling (which HBO will broadcast on Monday), steered Mr. Hughes to a rock n roll career to give his friend focus after some personal setbacks, and he speaks with admiration about how Mr. Hughes found a new purpose when he stepped onstage. But Mr. Homme, who is also a member of Queens of the Stone Age, often doesnt tour with Eagles of Death Metal, and he was not part of the lineup that played the Bataclan on the fateful day.

The vivid recollections of the attack by survivors, including Mr. Hughes, take over the film midway through, and the friendship story line never quite re-establishes itself. The return concert, too, ends up feeling less cathartic than it might have; its more coda than main focus.
Our guide to film series and special screenings. All our movie reviews are at nytimes.com/reviews/movies.

BOUND AND AUDITION at the Alamo Drafthouse Downtown Brooklyn (Feb. 14); THE LADY EVE AND IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES at the Metrograph (Feb. 14). There is often synchronicity in movie programming, but the Valentines Day dockets at these two New York theaters take the cake. For Feb. 14, the Alamo Drafthouse and the Metrograph have both scheduled dinner-and-a-movie evenings that feature female swindlers and graphically severed body parts. At the Alamo Drafthouse, the Wachowski siblings lesbian caper film Bound (1996), which is sold out at 7:15 p.m., will be followed by Takashi Miikes 1999 thriller Audition, at 9:30 p.m., in which a widowers efforts to audition a new wife lead him down a path that culminates in a grisly use of piano wire. At the Metrograph, Preston Sturgess 1941 screwball classic The Lady Eve (showing three times on Feb. 14 and returning the next day) will precede a screening of Nagisa Oshimas In the Realm of the Senses (1976), at 10 p.m. Mr. Oshimas movie gained notoriety for its hard-core sex scenes, but its also a supremely artful and disturbing portrait of hermetic obsession.

718-513-2547, drafthouse.com/nyc

212-660-0312, metrograph.com

A GRIN WITHOUT A CAT at Spectacle (Feb. 11; through Feb. 28). In this monumental assemblage, originally shown in 1977 and subsequently revised, the master essay filmmaker Chris Marker (1921-2012) sifts through and annotates a wealth of archival footage to reflect on the rise of the New Left across the globe in the 1960s and 70s. Dave Kehr, writing in The New York Times when a restored version played at Film Forum in 2002, said the film might seem simply a work of extraordinary journalism, but it is also a work of deft and subtle poetry, visual (in the rhyming of gestures and shapes across images and sequences) as much as verbal.

spectacletheater.com
When the credits started rolling at the end of opening night of The Ring in 2002, several moviegoers were hugging their knees to their chests. The rest of the audience sat in stunned silence. As people filed out, a young woman, visibly shaken, asked her boyfriend to stand guard outside the bathroom door while she went in. Our collective shock was understandable: We were not used to seeing technology framed with such frightening agency onscreen before.

Based on the Japanese director Hideo Nakatas 1998 film adaptation of a Japanese novel, the American version of The Ring was both a sly swipe at televisions seduction of our culture and a supremely disturbing examination of the nature of evil. It spawned a sequel, in 2005, that, while far inferior, offered some equally chilling moments, and a wave of American remakes of Asian horror movies, many of which involved the ghosts of murdered children and brackish water. (Another entry, Rings, opened this month.)

The plots of all three Ring films revolve around a mysterious video  dead horses, giant centipedes, rivers of blood  that somehow made its way onto a VHS cassette in a remote cabin in the Pacific Northwest. Those who watch the video, teenagers whisper to one another, will die seven days later  and they do, horribly, withering in the gaze of Samara, the tortured soul whose thoughts have somehow generated those images. Her entrances, and their results, are hard to unsee, like nightmares that linger for hours.

Since then, filmmakers have found many ways, digitally and psychologically, to jump over the bar the franchise set, and some of its visual elements may now seem dated to a generation raised on the torture porn of the Saw films and Eli Roths Hostel movies that came after. You would think that a 15-year-old horror movie that makes a VCR complicit in a series of murders would come across today as a laughable concept. But it is the idea of death by watching that resonates the most now, especially given the way the latest sequel upgrades the technology, threading the idea of a souls journey into our iPhones and QuickTime files.
I have never seen myself as a spokesman, James Baldwin once said in an interview. I am a witness. In the church in which I was raised, you were supposed to bear witness to the truth. Now, later on, you wonder what in the world the truth is, but you do know what a lie is.

This notion of a witness  as a person who can distinguish between falsehoods and facts, myths and truths, and whose testimony about the past can transform the fate of another  is one of the most profound themes in James Baldwins work. But being both a writer of and witness to Americas complex and tumultuous history was Baldwins calling and curse: For it often meant trying to save a nation from racial ruin at the very same time that his friends and civil rights activists Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were being killed.

Baldwins confrontation with this dilemma is at the heart of the filmmaker Raoul Pecks new Oscar-nominated documentary, I Am Not Your Negro, partly based on the unfinished Baldwin manuscript Remember This House given to Mr. Peck by Baldwins sister, Gloria Karefa-Smart. In a 1979 letter to his agent, Baldwin said the book would entail exposing myself as one of the witnesses to the lives and deaths of their famous fathers, a reference to the children of Evers, X and King, and it means much, much more than that.

There have been several documentaries featuring Baldwin as subject or narrator, including the 1982 film I Heard It Through the Grapevine, but I Am Not Your Negro is the first one shaped entirely by Baldwins words. You could say he was Mr. Pecks collaborator, and indeed Baldwin is credited as the films sole writer, which is fitting for an author who had been fascinated by the movies all of his life.
Addressing a world that is still (even after the precedent set by the presidency of Barack Obama) increasingly afflicted by institutionalized racism and all manner of bigotries, A United Kingdom looks back to mid-20th-century history to create a love-conquers-much-if-not-all tale of interracial marriage and international politics.

The story is of Seretse Khama, heir to the kingship of an African people, who was attending school in Britain during the late 1940s. At a church dance, Seretse, played by David Oyelowo, meets Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike). The two eye each other warily as the band bleats. He asks her if she likes jazz; she insists she does, only not as shes ever heard any British musicians play it. Soon they are swapping 78s by mail, and dating. One night he kneels to propose.

There are, of course, complications. A good number of them are predictable, but they go deeper than a viewer unfamiliar with their story might have expected. Seretses homeland, Bechuanaland (now Botswana), an African protectorate under British control, sits directly above South Africa, which in the late 1940s was instituting the murderous policy of apartheid. The British, therefore, were deeply invested in not alienating South Africas rulers. And Seretses uncle is not keen on the returning king bringing home a white queen.

For all the tumult surrounding them, the couple remain the focus of the film. The director, Amma Asante (working from a script by Guy Hibbert, who adapted Susan Williamss 2006 nonfiction book Colour Bar), emphasizes this in her staging of the unequivocal and unaffected affection and regard they exchange.
Many details are still being worked out, like whether to delete just a tenth of these warrants, or as many as half. But the citys district attorneys have agreed in principle to ask the courts to purge at least some of them  in what will most likely be applauded by advocates of criminal justice reform and for immigrants concerned about increased deportations under the Trump administration.

A warrant can hang over someones head for years, even decades, threatening to escalate any interaction with the police into a night in jail, or worse. For undocumented immigrants, a low-level warrant could conceivably lead to deportation proceedings, civil rights lawyers say, particularly given the executive order President Trump signed on Jan. 25 that expands the definition of who is to be targeted for deportation. An arrest on a warrant throws people right in the cross hairs of ICE and that is particularly scary now, said Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, referring to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

The Bronx district attorney, Darcel Clark, said that the goal was to give tens of thousands of people another chance to improve their lives while reinforcing faith in our criminal justice system. She said that plenty of the warrants resulted from tickets that police officers might have avoided writing in the first place.

A kid riding his bike on the sidewalk to me is not a risk to public safety and a lot of those tickets were written for that, she said, adding that the sheer number of such warrants has become a burden for the community.

For now, the district attorneys offices say they have agreed to purge warrants that were issued at least 20 years ago, a period dating to Mayor Rudolph W. Giulianis first term and before. That could lead to the dismissal of just under 200,000 warrants citywide, according to figures compiled by the courts.
There are 18 people in the mayors office of operations who spend at least some of their time attending to the commitments. The administration has built on, and improved, the Bloomberg-era tools that allowed City Hall to measure the huge flow of data collected by city government. In addition to a massive screen in City Hall, a holdover from the Bloomberg administration, the data also flows onto desktop computers and into the pockets of deputy mayors, chiefs of staff and other top officials on their smartphones.

The dashboard provides the most recent statistics, sortable by agency, in order to flag problems daily, and they eventually end up in the mayors management report. (A preliminary version of the report was released on Monday.)

The verve for data is driven by the first deputy mayor, Anthony Shorris, and shepherded by Mindy Tarlow, the head of the mayors office of operations, who describes herself laughingly as the Rain Man of city government, a reference to the fictional 1980s Hollywood savant.

This is how we manage, said Mr. Shorris, displaying a dashboard app that blared red to show trends in the wrong direction. Because Im a dark kind of guy, I have them sorted by worst to best. Because if things are going well, I dont have to worry about them.

While 20 top officials carry the commitments app, and several dozen more have the mobile dashboards, the mayor does not have either on his BlackBerry smartphone, preferring to get updates directly from Mr. Shorris. (Neither would work on his flip phone, which he favors for many calls.)

There are only three 2013 campaign promises listed by the administration as not done in the report. Two are oversight issues with the City Council: doing away with the system of doling out funds to individual members, known as member items; and creating an independent inspector general for the Council. The third is the prolonged and unsuccessful effort to ban horse carriages.

However, the grading, in the administrations accounting, often appears on a favorable curve.

Take, for instance, the mayors promise to provide advanced placement classes in every city high school. Presented by the mayor as A.P. for All in recent news conferences, the 2013 promise as tracked by City Hall is more modest: expand advanced placement programs. In that, the administration has been successful. Dozens of high schools now have courses they did not have.
Ms. Maldonado recalled her reaction to being told last year that her son had to leave the Scouts. An official at the council was pretty much saying that he could no longer be in the Scouts because his identity was a girl, she said. He mentioned my childs birth name. I jumped down his throat and said, No, his identity is a boy. 

The Northern New Jersey council was closed on Thursday because of the snow, and an email sent to Eric Chamberlin, a deputy scout executive there, was not immediately answered.

But Effie Delimarkos, the director of communications for the Boy Scouts of America, said in an email: The Boy Scouts of America is pleased to welcome Joe and the Maldonado family back into the Scouting community. Moving forward, the B.S.A. will continue to work to bring the benefits of our programs to as many children, families and communities as possible.

In its statement announcing the policy reversal, the Boy Scouts said that using the information on a persons birth certificate to determine eligibility for single-gender programs was no longer sufficient as communities and state laws are interpreting gender identity differently, and these laws vary widely from state to state.

Michael Surbaugh, the Scouts chief executive, added in a recorded message that the decision came after weeks of significant conversations at all levels of our organization.

The move was the latest transformation of the Scouts approach to gender identity and sexual orientation. In 2013, the Boy Scouts of America ended its ban on allowing openly gay youths to participate in activities, and two years later, its ban on openly gay adult leaders.

The Record newspaper of Northern New Jersey, which has reported on Joes story, wrote about his ejection from the Secaucus Cub Scouts last year. I had a sad face, but I wasnt crying, he was quoted as saying. Im way more angry than sad. My identity is a boy. If I was them, I would let every person in the world go in. Its right to do.
Though marred by spectacular corruption, Somalias presidential election on Wednesday managed to deliver a surprise result: Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, an American citizen who once worked for the New York State Department of Transportation and served as Somalias prime minister in 2010, beat the incumbent, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud.

Mr. Mohamed now has the opportunity to form Somalias first functioning government in more than 25 years. With his election, theres hope that Somalia can turn away from years of dysfunctional, corrupt leadership, and put in place a government that can tackle the countrys serious problems.

Transparency International ranks Somalia the most corrupt country on earth. Some $20 million changed hands in the lead-up to Wednesdays election, and bribe-taking, crony capitalism and the stealing of public money are deeply entrenched. Mr. Mohamed must move quickly to curb the corruption that has made it nearly impossible to provide basic services. Poverty and terrorism have made Somalia the worlds third-largest refugee-producing country after Syria and Afghanistan. More than one million Somalis have fled the country, many to neighboring Kenya.

Famine, which caused the deaths of more than a quarter of a million Somalis in 2011, is again a severe threat because of continuing drought. The Al Qaeda-affiliated Shabab militant group, one of the worlds deadliest Islamist organizations, and other armed groups remain strong in Somalia, despite an intensified American clandestine war, in concert with African troops, against Islamist terrorists. On Tuesday, mortars landed near Mogadishus international airport, where lawmakers voted the next day. On Wednesday morning, militants attacked a hotel in Somalias semiautonomous region of Puntland, killing four guards.
Still, the judges order of celibacy helps no one. A probationers freedom hangs on his compliance with probation conditions. Banning sexual relations without defining the term does not fairly tell a person what conduct violates the condition and can result in imprisonment. Unless defined, sexual relations can mean anything from phone sex to intercourse. Can a kiss lead to jail time? A defendant needs to know the limits of acceptable conduct. And a defense attorney shouldnt have to puzzle about a condition when advising a client.

A vague condition is also a problem for probation officers charged with implementing a courts order and trying to reintegrate a person into society. One officer might interpret sexual relations in a relatively permissive way while another deems the same conduct to be a violation. Potential for inconsistent law enforcement must be avoided. Rather than wondering if a kiss is a violation, probation officers should be able to devote themselves to better things like helping a defendant get a job (a major factor affecting recidivism) or getting a probationer substance abuse or mental health treatment (as drugs and mental issues factor into criminality).

Additionally, suppose kissing isnt a violation, but intercourse is. Should an unmarried probationer who has consensual intercourse be imprisoned? The costs are enormous. Its not just $20,000 to $30,000 in annual expenses. If the probationer is employed, he gets removed from the work force  and it is plenty hard for convicts to get jobs. If the probationer is a parent, the family becomes fractured and someone has to raise the children.

Society needs ways to keep people out of jail, and judges should not impose conditions that lead to unnecessary incarceration. The celibacy requirement is that kind of condition. It doesnt seem to keep society safe, but it can lead to unnecessary incarceration.
To the Editor:

Dissent on Travel Ban Spreads From One Embassy to Another (front page, Feb. 1), about a State Department cable that traveled like a chain letter  or a viral video through American embassies around the world, quotes a diplomat as saying policy dissent is part of the departments culture to the point that we even have awards for it.

Acknowledgment of the value of policy dissent at the department began in 1967 when the American Foreign Service Association and my mother, Enid Hammerman Rivkin, established the William R. Rivkin Award in honor of my father, an ambassador, to encourage Foreign Service officers to tell truth to power, recognizing the best for their initiative, integrity, courage and constructive dissent. In 1971, the State Department established a formal dissent channel to ensure that its senior officials would consider differing views in formulating policy.

So when 1,000 or so department employees explained through the established dissent channel that President Trumps executive order suspending visas for citizens of seven Muslim countries would not make our country safer, and why it would in fact sour relations with these countries, deprive us of intelligence and other resources needed to fight terror abroad, increase anti-American sentiment, thwart humanitarian efforts and hurt our economy, one would have expected senior officials to give them a careful hearing.

That is what Secretary of State John Kerry did last year after a group of midlevel Foreign Service officers wrote a dissent cable criticizing Obama administration policy in Syria.
There are good reasons that the Brotherhood, with millions of members, doesnt merit the terrorist designation. Rather than a single organization, it is a collection of groups and movements that can vary widely from country to country. While the Brotherhood calls for a society governed by Islamic law, it renounced violence decades ago, has supported elections and has become a political and social organization. Its branches often have tenuous connections to the original movement founded in Egypt in 1928.

Under State Department guidelines, the terrorist designation is intended to punish groups that carry out terrorist attacks. Theres no question that some such groups have grown out of the Muslim Brotherhood, like Hamas, the adversary of Israel, which the United States named a terrorist organization in 1997. Egypts president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, has worked to crush the Brotherhood in his country since he overthrew his predecessor, Mohamed Morsi, a former Brotherhood leader, in 2013. But there is no evidence that senior Brotherhood leaders ordered any violence or carried out any of the recent major terrorist attacks in Egypt, according to the analysts Michele Dunne and Nathan Brown of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

But those advising Mr. Trump seem unwilling to draw distinctions. Stephen Bannon, the chief White House strategist, once called the Brotherhood the foundation of modern terrorism. And Frank Gaffney Jr., an anti-Muslim analyst who heads a small think tank, recently told The Times that the Brotherhoods goals are exactly the same as those of the Islamic State and Al Qaeda.

It is wrongheaded and dangerous to tar all Brotherhood members with one brush. The Brotherhood is associated with political parties in Indonesia, Pakistan, Morocco, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Yemen and even Israel, and runs schools and hospitals. Many of those parties are Americas partners. The governing party in Turkey, a NATO member, also has connections to the Brotherhood. If the group is named to the terrorism list, how will Washington continue these relationships without violating the law?
Its a wonderful development in many ways. Its also a reminder of Chinas rising strategic challenge to the United States. The Silk Road initiative gives China influence in, and access to, a huge continent  one with growing economies and geopolitically important spots, like Djibouti.

And the United States? Our country is not exactly in the midst of a sustained campaign of reaching out to the rest of the world. Our government has just scrapped a trade deal with Asia and is trying to ban many Muslims from entering this country. The Trump administration has signaled that it also may soon cut back on humanitarian aid to Africa.

On todays Op-Ed page, Bill Frist, the former Republican Senate leader, makes an urgent plea for continuing the Pepfar program. A program that George W. Bush personally helped to push, it has saved many, many lives in Africa through improved AIDS treatment.

But more than one million Africans still die every year from AIDS, many because of lack of access to treatment. President Trump and some close aides have spoken favorably about Pepfar, but the administration has also raised questions about its massive [sic] cost.

The overwhelming reason to continue Pepfar is humanitarian. Yet it has the ancillary benefit of promoting American interests on a continent where our main rival for global influence is very active.
Mrs. Kings letter was not flattering. (has used the awesome power of his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters.) Neither were the quotes Warren read from the late Senator Edward Kennedy (a disgrace). But none of it was exactly a surprise, and all of Washington knew the nomination was eventually going to pass. Yet McConnell decided to shut down Warren, claiming she had impugned the motives and conduct of a fellow senator.

McConnell cited Rule 19, which is more than a century old. It comes up about once a generation, when somebody calls a colleague an idiot or a liar. But this was totally different. The other senators were startled  or would have been if most of them had not been napping or back in their offices, dialing up donors.

She was warned, McConnell said later. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.

Wow, nothing worse than a woman who wont stop talking.

They were waiting to Rule 19 someone and they specifically targeted Elizabeth, said Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. I think because shes effective.

The social media exploded. You have to admit we live in wondrous times, people. There was a day when people only took to Facebook to post pictures of their vacation. On Wednesday they were pouring in to watch Elizabeth Warren read her forbidden letter.

Dark and extremely conspiratorial minds suggested the whole thing was a Republican plot to promote Warren as a presidential candidate, since they believe Trump could defeat her in 2020. This presumes that McConnell is suffering from a pathological case of advance planning.
This Week in Hate highlights hate crimes and harassment around the country since the election of President Trump.

Marc Yellin had gotten some political criticism during his six years of blogging about Jewish life in Albuquerque, but nothing like the messages he received last month.

The 66-year-old retired technical writer checked his email on the morning of Jan. 13, to find that someone had used the contact form on his website to submit two threatening messages containing anti-Semitic slurs.

If you try to get the US involved in another war for Israel there are thousands of sleepers in the US who will shoot up your synagogues, one of the messages said.
One January morning in 2002, I met 15-year-old Sita Tamang in a prison in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. Her boyfriend, who had promised marriage, made her pregnant. Afterward, he gave her a pill to make her feel stronger. The pill aborted her pregnancy. Ms. Tamang was still delirious with pain and shock when the police arrested her and charged her with infanticide. A court gave her a life sentence.

In the late 1990s, 80 Nepali women were in prison for having undergone an abortion. It took Nepali activists three decades of advocacy to change the abortion laws. In March 2002, Nepal legalized abortion. Over the next two years, the women imprisoned for abortion were granted amnesty and released.

Nepal had a very high maternal mortality rate. For every 100,000 live births, 539 women died in 1996. Unsafe abortion was seen to be one of the reasons. Most women had little or no access to any health care during pregnancy or delivery. A poor country torn by a decade of insurgency, Nepal relied on outside help to provide health care, and the United States was the largest donor.

On Jan. 20, 2001, President George W. Bush assumed office. On that very first day in the White House, he imposed the global gag rule, which stopped United States government funding to overseas organizations that provide abortions or counseling on abortions.
In the December study, Chetty and Hendren found that

neighborhoods have substantial childhood exposure effects: every additional year of childhood spent in a better environment improves a childs long-term outcomes.

Why is this?

First, place matters for intergenerational mobility: the differences we see in outcomes across neighborhoods are largely due to the causal effect of places rather than differences in the characteristics of their residents. Second, place matters for intergenerational mobility largely through differences in childhood environment, rather than the differences in labor market conditions that have received attention in previous studies of place.

Third, Chetty and Hendren report that contrary to conventional wisdom

each year of childhood exposure matters roughly equally; there is no critical age after which the marginal returns to being in a better neighborhood fall sharply.

The two economists found a significant gain for every year a child spent in the improved neighborhood, suggesting that by the age of 20

children who move to a new area at birth will pick up roughly 80% of the difference in permanent residents outcomes between their origin and destination.

In addition, they found

childhood exposure effects of a similar magnitude for several other outcomes, including rates of college attendance, teenage employment, teenage birth, and marriage.

These results, Chetty and Hendren argue,

motivate place-based approaches to improving economic mobility, such as making investments to improve opportunity in areas that currently have low levels of mobility or helping families move to higher opportunity areas using targeted housing vouchers.

Another significant finding by academic researchers is that segregation, especially neighborhood segregation, exacerbates the racial test score gap. David Card and Jesse Rothstein, economists at Berkeley, found in a 2006 study that:

Holding constant family background and other factors, a shift from a fully segregated to a completely integrated city closes about one-quarter of the raw black-white gap in SAT scores.

In a 2012 study, The Grandchildren of Brown: The Long Legacy of School Desegregation, Rucker Johnson of Berkeley found that the beneficial effects of desegregation continue into the next generation. The children of those who went to integrated school demonstrated

increased math and reading test scores, reduced likelihood of grade repetition, increased likelihood of high school graduation and college attendance, improvements in college quality/selectivity, and increased racial diversity of student body at their selected college. The findings demonstrate that part of the intergenerational transmission of inequality can be attributable to school quality related influences.

Sean Reardon, a professor of education at Stanford, examines many of the same problems from a different vantage point, focusing in particular on the characteristics of schools and surrounding communities that correlate with test score gaps.

In a January 2017 paper, The Geography of Racial/Ethnic Test Score Gaps, Reardon, Demetra Kalogrides, a sociologist at Stanford, and Kenneth Shores, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, determined that:

The strongest correlates of achievement gaps are local racial/ethnic differences in parental income, local average parental education levels, and patterns of racial/ethnic segregation, consistent with a theoretical model in which family socioeconomic factors affect educational opportunity partly though residential and school segregation patterns.

The authors examined achievement gaps in almost every metropolitan area and school district in the U.S. with a significant population of black or Hispanic students and based their analysis on the results of roughly 200 million standardized math and reading tests administered to elementary and middle school students from 2009-2013.

Reardon and his colleagues write that it is very difficult to sort out causal factors in test score gaps because they are all closely interrelated:

The patterns we note should not be taken as describing causal relationships. The forces producing racial/ethnic inequality in educational outcomes are complex, interactive, and self-reinforcing.

They noted a number of basic patterns, including the fact that some of the largest gaps can be found in affluent, well-educated communities and that the higher the level of racial and economic segregation in an area, the larger the achievement gap.

Perhaps most intriguing, increased spending correlated with a widening of the achievement gap:

The most consistent relationship between schooling characteristics and achievement gaps is the positive association between per pupil instructional expenditures and achievement gaps; in areas with greater spending, even after controlling for between state differences, achievement gaps tend to be larger than in those with lower spending.

In evaluating the multiple forces at work, Reardon, Kalogrides and Shores contend that chief among these factors is racial segregation. And the one measure of segregation

that is a consistently significant predictor in our multivariate models is racial differences in exposure to poverty. Racial achievement gaps are larger, all else equal, in places where black and Hispanic students attend higher poverty schools than their white peers.

In practice, the conditions that Reardon and others view as germane to the achievement gap are not improving; they are worsening.

In an April 2016 report, the Government Accountability Office found that from 2001 to 2014, the percentage of public schools in which three quarters or more of the students were poor African-Americans or Hispanics grew from 9 percent of all schools to 16 percent.

The study also found that

compared with other schools, these schools offered disproportionately fewer math, science, and college preparatory courses and had disproportionately higher rates of students who were held back in 9th grade, suspended, or expelled.

Among the scholars cited here, there is virtual unanimity on the conviction that one way to improve the prospects of poor minorities, black and Hispanic, is to desegregate both schools and housing.

Those are difficult goals even in less polarized times, as the intense opposition to the court-ordered construction of 750 units of affordable housing in Democratic Westchester County recently showed.
And just who are our neighbors? They are undocumented immigrants who seek to be with their families in the United States; they are refugees and strangers with whom we share a common humanity and who flee war-torn countries. As we fight against draconian orders that would make us turn our backs on those in need, we must also collectively fight against an Orwellian nightmare that would have us believe that two plus two equals five.

As Americans of all races reflect on our history this month, it is important that we acknowledge the systemic forms of marginalization, pain and suffering that black people had to endure, and that others may now face. In this way, we confront white Americas sins unequivocally. We undertake a collective mourning for black people who were never meant to be included within the ideal norms of American democracy, yet forced themselves to dream as they faced nightmares, to continue breathing as they were suffocating from the stench of black bodies lynched and burned alive, and who forced themselves to stay alive when suicide would have been easier.

Black History Month must not be just about black people, but about white people, too. It requires more than just having white students read a poem by a black poet. So, if you are white, take this month and grieve. Find a private and sacred place to weep for those whose dark skin marked them for sub-personhood. Consider the racist historical conditions that allowed you freedom of mobility, freedom of being and a sense of personhood. Acknowledge that whiteness saved those who looked like you from the vicious barbarity visited upon black people. And in that moment, I want you to lament a country that continues to grant privilege to whiteness, that continues to fall far short of what is written on parchment.

White people ought to use this month to engage in a shared form of vulnerability and mourning, a collective recognition, with a fearless countenance, of how white racist complicity and black suffering were historically linked and are currently intertwined. Such a courageous act of vulnerability is not about white guilt, but white responsibility. There is a specific injury that is necessary for white people; it is a kind of injury that will unsuture forms of trapped and concealed lies. King likened racism to a boil that can never be cured as long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its pus-flowing ugliness.

Part of the narrative of this election is that it was a repudiation of those voters who ignored the plight of poor and working-class whites in this country. To those whites I would say, I empathize with your economic pain and suffering. I understand your lack of economic growth, but are you then prepared to understand that, being black, we suffer economically, but also physically and spiritually under the institution of white racism? I agree with my fellow philosopher Judith Butler, who said: Lets face it. Were undone by each other. And if were not, were missing something. If I am to be undone by your economic pain and plight, then you must be willing to be undone by the economic and white systemic and prejudicial racist pain that we feel.

Now, if youre white and you think that Im playing the race card, I ask you to perform this small task. Look at your face in the mirror. Allow your economic plight to anger you. And as you do, imagine your face encased in dark skin. And as you look in the mirror and begin to see a dark face look back, be honest with yourself. Isnt it better to be white and economically forgotten than to be economically forgotten and to be black under the same circumstances? My guess is that you would rather the former.

Butler also warns us that we make a mistake when we take self-preservation to be the essence of the human. There is something indeed inhuman about insulating ourselves from the touch of the other, willfully ignoring the pain and suffering of the other. We are headed into an ethical abyss beyond which there may be no return. Before he was murdered on April 4, 1968, King had planned to deliver a sermon titled Why America May Go to Hell. Though King did not give that sermon, we should heed his prophetic warning.
With the death last month of the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman at age 91, the intellectual world lost a thinker of rare insight and range. Because his style of work was radically different from that of most social scientists in the United States today, his passing is an occasion to consider what might be gained if more members of our profession were to follow his example.

Mr. Bauman wrote scores of books and taught for many years at the University of Leeds, in England. He became a scholar to be reckoned with relatively late in his career. A major success came in 1989, at age 64, when he published a landmark study, Modernity and the Holocaust. Against the widespread view that the Holocaust reflected an anti-Semitic madness that had seized civilized Germany and thrown it back into an atavistic state, Mr. Bauman described the genocide as an all-too-characteristic creature of the modern era.

The early 20th century, he noted, had brought us large-scale factories, efficient systems of transport, huge enterprises with disciplined work forces and pseudoscientific ideologies like eugenics. These were essential elements, alongside anti-Semitism, of Hitlers mass slaughter. Mr. Bauman argued that we must not celebrate the achievements of the modern age without also paying attention to its dark side.

Modernity and the Holocaust was a work of theory and synthesis. He collected no data and had no methodology to speak of. That didnt make it any less of a powerful contribution.
Some people stand up to President Trump in the courts, others in street protests. And the poets among us, they battle President Trump with an arsenal of verse.

The Republican man of the hour

Is a wellspring of bluster and glower.

Trump is rich and hes white,

Hows he leading the fight

Against entrenched Establishment power?

Thats by Bill McGloughlin, a librarian in Charlotte, N.C., who was one of the winners of my Donald Trump Poetry Contest. We had about 2,000 entries, and today Im publishing the winners.

Some relied on humor  while complaining that almost nothing rhymes with orange!  and thats the tack taken by Stephen Benko, a retired businessman in Fairfield, Conn. Benko has published an entire book of poems about Trump, but this one is new:

If God has made man in his image

Please explain our new Presidents visage

That pucker and scowl

Look like murder most foul

What in heaven, Lord, earned us this privlege?
CANBERRA, Australia  The United States-Australia alliance faces a crucial test over how to deal with a powerful and increasingly assertive China. Under President Trump, it is already failing.

The phone call last week between Mr. Trump and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, in which the president denounced a refugee deal made between the United States and Australia under President Obama, showed Australians that they can no longer trust America. As a result of Mr. Trumps approach, Australia will drift away from America and move closer to China.

Mr. Obamas ineffectual pivot to Asia undermined confidence among Australians that Washington had the resolve to resist Beijings ambitions, or the finesse to do so without provoking a war. Mr. Trump is making that worse.

No one in Australia wants this to happen. Australia has benefited as much as any other country from the peace and stability that American leadership has brought to Asia. No country feels closer to America in its core values.
MICHAEL BURKE

Brookline, Mass.

To the Editor:

President Trump is his lawyers worst nightmare  a client who publicly attacks the judges of a federal appeals court while they are deciding his case. And the president wants us to believe he is smart.

MALCOLM M. GAYNOR

Chicago

The writer is a retired lawyer.

To the Editor:

Re Senate Confirms Sessions to Lead the Justice Department (front page, Feb. 9):

In reality, there was little chance that Senate Democrats could defeat the nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions to become the attorney general, given their minority status. One can only hope that the intense debate as to his qualifications and past racially motivated statements will encourage him to lead the Justice Department in defending the constitutional rights and best interests of all Americans.

He can, by his actions, prove the Democrats wrong, in which case the country will be the true winner.

Lets hope that he can rise to that occasion.

DORIS FENIG

Boca Raton, Fla.

To the Editor:

Re Trump Says Nordstrom Treated Ivanka Unfairly  (news article, Feb. 9):

Most Americans are too young to remember when Harry Truman took a music critic to task for panning a performance by his daughter, Margaret. In that case it was only the wounded pride of a loving father on display. But Donald Trumps attack on Nordstrom for dropping his daughters product line may allow Trumans actions to fade into a benign and well-deserved obscurity.

By contrast to Truman, Mr. Trump has attacked a business for a justified economic decision to drop his daughters product line because it wasnt selling. His attack was calculated to achieve economic revenge.
President Obama was no fan of the dreadful 2010 Supreme Court decision ruling in favor of corporate personhood. In that case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the court asserted that political spending, including by corporations, was a form of speech protected by the First Amendment, opening the door for corporations to spend unlimited money on ads and other tools to get candidates elected.

The president was not alone. As The Washington Post reported the month after the ruling:

Americans of both parties overwhelmingly oppose a Supreme Court ruling that allows corporations and unions to spend as much as they want on political campaigns, and most favor new limits on such spending, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The Post continued:

Eight in 10 poll respondents say they oppose the high courts Jan. 21 decision to allow unfettered corporate political spending, with 65 percent strongly opposed. Nearly as many backed congressional action to curb the ruling, with 72 percent in favor of reinstating limits. The poll reveals relatively little difference of opinion on the issue among Democrats (85 percent opposed to the ruling), Republicans (76 percent) and independents (81 percent).

An overwhelming majority of America was aghast. So Obama reflected that frustration in his public statements.
Also, with the final season of Girls beginning on Sunday night on HBO, we take a moment to talk about the shows legacy. And after we talk about the show, we talk to it, with excerpts from Jennas recent conversation with the cast: Lena Dunham, Allison Williams, Zosia Mamet and Jemima Kirke. They discuss the shows early lack of diversity, why Silicon Valley gets off easy and what its like to have the public completely conflate actors and the characters they play. Weve got excerpts!

Finally, we play a new celebrity-focused game that we hope to come back to. It requires zero expertise, just lots and lots of speculation.

How do I listen? Two ways

From a desktop or laptop, you can listen by pressing play on the button above.

Or if youre on a mobile device, the instructions below will help you find and subscribe to the series.

On your iPhone or iPad:

1. Open your podcast app. Its a pre-loaded app called Podcasts with a purple icon. (This link may help.)

2. Search for the series. Tap on the search magnifying glass icon at the bottom of the screen, type in Still Processing and select it from the list of results.
If youre reading this at home, pause and put on a song you cant resist dancing to. Go on, bop your head to the beat. Let yourself wiggle a bit. Throw in some arms and legs. If youre reading this at work, maybe imagine these things at your desk.

As youre dancing, pay attention to where and how youre moving. How much are you swaying your hips? Are your legs moving together or independently of each other? How vigorously are you moving your torso?

You should note those movements, because very specific patterns may make some people appear to be better dancers than others. Thats the conclusion of a study published on Thursday in Scientific Reports, in which researchers asked 200 people to rate 39 female dancers. A few features stood out as contributing to higher-quality dance: big hip swings, and the right and left limbs moving independently of one another (which the researchers describe as asymmetric arm and thigh movements).

The researchers speculate that those moves serve two purposes for heterosexual women. One is, theyre showing off their reproductive quality, perhaps their hormonal status, to males, said Nick Neave, an associate professor of psychology at Northumbria University in England and an author of the paper. Another is, theyre showing off how good they are to female rivals.
Back when SoHo was a frontier, a place promising infinite possibility for limited funds, the neighborhoods 19th-century cast-iron buildings began to fill up with struggling artists. The lofts, as they would come to be called  entire floors in former factories and warehouses gone to seed  were drafty in winter, noisy in summer and challenged when it came to plumbing, but who cared when you were getting thousands of feet of raw space for as little as $100 a month? By 1970, galleries were opening, and restaurants and bars soon followed. The artists Gordon Matta-Clark and Carol Goodden opened the restaurant Food on the corner of Prince and Wooster in 1971, fueling the neighborhoods growing mythology of the artist as urban pioneer. Things got fancier in 1977, when Giorgio DeLuca teamed up with Joel Dean and Jack Ceglic to open the first Dean & DeLuca half a block away on Prince Street. A cavernous space, its white walls and industrial shelving were designed by Ceglic, a painter, to honor the buildings factory roots. The shelves, stocked with then-rare American and European foods (fine olive oils, balsamic vinegars, baby vegetables) became proxy larders for, among others, Donald Judd, who had bought an entire building on Spring Street.

One of the first SoHo lofts featured in The New York Times was, as it happened, the Wooster Street home of Dean and Ceglic, who, in 1969, paid $20,000 for one of the seven floors in a warehouse building (their floor previously housed a doll factory), before industrial conversions were legal. A photo of the place caught the eye of Ronnie Sassoon, then a young woman living in Cincinnati: I saw it and thought, This is where I would live if I lived in New York.
Almost half of people in their early 20s have a secret, one they dont usually share even with friends: Their parents help them pay the rent.

Moving into adulthood has never been easy, but Americas rapidly changing labor market is making it harder to find economic security at a young age. Skilled work is increasingly concentrated in high-rent metropolitan areas, so more young people are tapping into their parents bank accounts.

According to surveys that track young people through their first decade of adulthood, about 40 percent of 22-, 23- and 24-year-olds receive some financial assistance from their parents for living expenses. Among those who get help, the average amount is about $3,000 a year.

Its a stark reminder that social and economic mobility continues past grade school, high school and even college. Economic advantages continue well into the opening chapters of adulthood, a time when young people are making big personal investments that typically lead to higher incomes but can be hard to pay for.
Put yourself in the shoes of a purchasing manager considering adding the Ivanka Trump Collection to your stores. Even if you think her products are excellent, Mr. Trumps outburst provides an incentive not to stock them. After all, if it doesnt work out, who wants to be in the cross-hairs of an easily angered president with 24.3 million Twitter followers and the power of the regulatory state? It might be far safer to do business with someone else.

Mr. Trumps strategy to protect his daughters business seems to mirror his strategy to protect American jobs. Just as he has made it more expensive for potential partners to sever business relationships with his daughter, the C.E.O.s of Carrier, General Motors and Toyota can attest that he has made it more expensive for them to sever their relationships with American workers.
Most of the workers in Mr. McClartys vineyards and orchards have well-established lives in the area.

Javier Soto, 46, bought a home for his family of five in Reedley, a city of 25,000 that calls itself the worlds fruit basket. He has worked for Mr. McClartys farm for the last six years and his supervisor knows he is here without papers.

It is more scary now that he is really the president and we see what he is doing, Mr. Soto said.

They are hopeful Mr. Trump will not make good on most of his threats. Quien mas habla, menos hace, they tell each other  the more you talk, the less you do. There are too many of them, they reason, to throw them all out.

Were just waiting and praying, hoping that somebody can convince them that we are not hurting anyone by being here, said Isabel Rios, 49, who has been picking grapes for the last two decades. Like most women in the fields, she covers her face with a bandanna to protect against the blaring sun, dust and pesticides. Her two children, 9 and 18, are American-born citizens and she worries what will happen to them if she is sent back to Mexico. Who will benefit if we are not here?

Mr. Marchini, the radicchio farmer, said he felt similarly after seeing generations of workers on his family farm send their children to college and join the middle class. Mr. Marchinis family has farmed in the valley for four generations and he grew up working side by side with Mexican immigrants.

He said that no feasible increase in wages or change in conditions would be enough to draw native-born Americans back into the fields.

It was the other conservatives, Mr. Marchini said, who were out of touch about how to deal with foreign workers. If you find a way to get in here, he said, theres a need for what you do.
With the president already running for re-election, federal workers get guidance on office politics

The day President Trump took the oath of office, he filed paperwork to declare his candidacy for re-election, not so much because he was overeager but because money was still flowing into his campaign coffers, and any funds raised over $5,000 in 2017 would have had to be returned unless Mr. Trump registered as a candidate. And we know the president doesnt like refunds.

So whats a federal employee to do with a boss who was technically running for office the day he stepped into the Oval Office? The Office of Special Counsel has answers. It has told federal employees that they may not express a view about whether Mr. Trump should be re-elected or defeated in 2020 while on duty or in the workplace, but it assured them that they were otherwise free to express support or disapproval about Mr. Trump and his policies.

A new guidance document was issued on Tuesday after the office said that it had received numerous inquiries about the impact of Mr. Trumps filing for re-election. In contrast, former President Barack Obama filed such paperwork more than two years after his inauguration.

The office  an independent agency that watchdogs civil-service protections  said that with the exception of expressly advocating Mr. Trumps success or failure in the 2020 election, federal employees were still pretty free.

Because the 2020 election is still more than three years away, at this time not all expressions of support or opposition to President Trump constitute political activity for purposes of the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from politicking, it said.

The office also developed a new answer to its list of frequently asked questions that spells out with greater detail the scope and limits of federal employees right to express their views while they are at work or on duty.

The new answer distinguished between expressing a view about current events, policy issues and matters of public interest  which federal employees are always free to do  and political activity, meaning advocating the success or failure of a particular political candidate or party.
WASHINGTON  The White House on Thursday counseled Kellyanne Conway, one of President Trumps top advisers, in an unusual show of displeasure after she urged consumers to buy fashion products marketed by Ivanka Trump, the presidents daughter. Legal experts said Ms. Conway might have violated a federal ethics rule against endorsing products or promoting an associates financial interests.

Go buy Ivankas stuff is what I would say, Ms. Conway said in a Thursday morning interview with Fox News, speaking from the White House briefing room. Im going to give a free commercial here: Go buy it today, everybody; you can find it online.

Sean Spicer, the presidents press secretary, would not elaborate on what the counseling entailed.

Jason Chaffetz, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said Ms. Conways comments were wrong, wrong, wrong, and theres no excuse for it. Mr. Chaffetz  who so far had not acted on calls since Election Day to investigate ethics issues related to Mr. Trump  and the panels ranking Democrat, Elijah Cummings, formally asked the Office of Government Ethics for an inquiry.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and Public Citizen, nonprofit advocacy groups, sent their own requests to the ethics office to investigate whether Ms. Conways comments went over the line. The director of the office, Walter M. Shaub Jr., has said publicly that the president needs to do more to separate himself from his businesses.
But the broader question is what course President Trump might chart on Afghanistan. Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who chairs the Armed Services Committee, said that for too long the United States strategy had been not to lose, and urged that a plan be devised to break the stalemate.

General Nicholson said the administration was working on one. Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trumps national security adviser, served as an intelligence officer in Afghanistan. Mr. Mattis, Mr. Trumps defense secretary, oversaw the military effort there when he served as the head of Central Command.

Mr. Trump has said little about Afghanistan, although on Thursday he held his second call since his election with Ashraf Ghani, the nations president.

The two leaders spoke about the counterterrorism efforts, threat levels in Afghanistan, the capabilities of Afghan forces, as well as the risks of terrorism in the region and the countries that support terrorism, said Nader Nadery, Mr. Ghanis adviser on strategic affairs.

Mr. Nadery said troop levels were not a focus of the call. But Afghan officials say Mr. Ghani and Mr. Trump spoke about the possibility of increasing troop levels if a military assessment showed the need for it during their first conversation, in early December.

The war in Afghanistan is a topic the president has rarely discussed. Hardly a word was mentioned by Trump about Afghanistan during the campaign, yet it remains one of the U.S.s largest security expenditures, said Daniel Feldman, who served as the senior envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan during the Obama administration.

Mr. Feldman said that a broad assessment was needed of the terrorist threat, the role of international partners and how to pursue reconciliation between the Afghan government and the Taliban. But he said there was no indication that the new administration had begun such a review.
A fire that gutted a Texas mosque last month was arson, but there is no evidence that it was a hate crime, investigators say.

The authorities have offered a $30,000 reward for information about the blaze, which caused an estimated $500,000 in damage at the Victoria Islamic Center, about 100 miles southwest of Houston.

The mosque has raised more than $1 million online to help it rebuild after the fire on Jan. 28 destroyed the 4,000-square-foot prayer and community center in Victoria, home to about 66,000 people.
Trapped in an airport terminal in Jordan by President Trumps travel ban, Hanan Isweiri fretted that as a Libyan citizen she would not be able to return to her husband and three children in Colorado. She wondered if she could complete the doctorate she had worked toward for seven years. Most of all, she feared for her 1-year-old son, who was having an allergic reaction but was not permitted to leave the airport.

Just about the only thing she did not have to worry about  despite staying in airport hotels in Jordan and Turkey, and repeatedly booking and rebooking intercontinental flights in those chaotic early days  was money. Friends had set up a GoFundMe web page, raising $5,366 to help defray the significant costs she incurred as a result of the ban.

Some friends do a fund-raising site for me, and I believe without this I would never make it, said Ms. Isweiri, 41, who made it back to Colorado on Sunday, two days after a federal judge put a halt, for now, on the travel ban.

After Mr. Trumps executive order, individual lawyers volunteered their time and expertise at airports around the country. Large organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, which had seen a boom in fund-raising after Mr. Trumps election victory, have helped mount legal challenges.
Yoga offers some obvious benefits: stress reduction, muscular flexibility, an enhanced sense of well-being, even cute clothes. But does it qualify as an aerobic workout?

Aerobic activity, characterized by an elevated heart rate and increase in the bodys use of oxygen, is closely linked to improved health and prolonged life spans; current guidelines suggest that people get at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise each week. Scant research has examined whether yoga is exercise under those guidelines, though. Now two new studies in Complementary Therapies in Medicine indicate that it can be, at least if its done rapidly.

The practice of yoga in America typically consists of bodily poses interspersed with or followed by breathing exercises and meditation. The most famous movements are incorporated into the sun salutation, a series of poses that includes the downward-facing dog, among others. These are usually performed near the start of yoga classes and can be among their most physically demanding segments. Yet according to a 2016 review of yoga research, the energy expended by those who move slowly during sun salutations generally compares to the demands of a stroll at three miles per hour. (This was the case for both standard yoga and the poses used in Bikram-style hot yoga.)
BAMENDA, Cameroon  Lawyers have long put up with laws that arent translated into their native English. They have endured French-speaking judges whose English is barely passable and who arent familiar with their judicial system.

Last fall, after another new law, regarding business transactions, was not translated, the lawyers here in Bamenda, a bustling city in Cameroons northwest, decided theyd had enough. They organized a demonstration to protest a government that they believed had long slighted their English-speaking region by failing to uphold a constitutional promise of a bilingual nation.

The demonstrations grew, as teachers vented their frustration that the government in Yaounde  dominated by the French-speaking majority  sent teachers with shoddy English skills to schools in their area. Hundreds of citizens joined in, carrying banners and chanting against what they said were longtime injustices against their region.

By December, the protests had turned violent. Security forces used live ammunition to disperse demonstrations in Bamenda. At least two unarmed protesters were killed and others were injured, according to human rights groups. News media reports said as many as four protesters died.
More than a quarter of a million Somali refugees got a huge break on Thursday.

A Kenyan judge ruled that the Kenyan governments contentious plan to close Dadaab, the worlds largest refugee camp, was illegal and discriminatory, and that the refugees could not be forcefully relocated.

For years, Kenya has threatened to shut the sprawling camp, a crowded, sweltering realm near Kenyas border with Somalia that has been a refuge for desperate people since Somalis began fleeing to Kenya in 1991, when their country was plunged into civil war.

The government has said the camp is a breeding ground for Islamist terrorists, though the evidence is mixed for how central it really is to Kenyas terrorism problem, which has claimed hundreds of lives in recent years.

The vast majority of refugees who live in Dadaab are Somalis, too scared to return home to a nation plagued by war, famine, chaos, poverty and disease.
WASHINGTON  President Trump told President Xi Jinping of China on Thursday evening that the United States would honor the One China policy, reversing his earlier expressions of doubt about the longtime diplomatic understanding and removing a major source of tension between the United States and China since shortly after he was elected.

In a statement, the White House said Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi discussed numerous topics, and President Trump agreed, at the request of President Xi, to honor our One China policy. It described the call as extremely cordial and said the leaders had invited each other to visit.

The concession was clearly designed to put an end to an extended chill in the relationship between China and the United States. Mr. Xi, stung by Mr. Trumps unorthodox telephone call with the president of Taiwan in December and his subsequent assertion that the United States might no longer abide by the One China policy, had not spoken to Mr. Trump since Nov. 14, the week after he was elected.

Administration officials concluded that Mr. Xi would take a call only if Mr. Trump publicly committed to upholding the 44-year-old policy, under which the United States recognized a single Chinese government in Beijing and severed its diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
NEW DELHI  A former president of the Maldives, who now lives in exile in London, is planning to run in his partys internal primaries with the hope of becoming a presidential candidate in elections in the country next year.

Mohamed Nasheed, the former president, met with members of his party, the Maldivian Democratic Party, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, over the last week.

On Thursday, he told reporters, I can contest, I am a Maldives national, and I am free  I must be free to contest.

Mr. Nasheed was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2015 on terrorism charges that his supporters said were politically motivated under the government of his successor, President Abdulla Yameen.
BOBIGNY, France  After the shantytown he was living in burned to the ground, Slavi and his siblings slept in the trunk of a car for several weeks one winter. When police officers confiscated the car and moved them on, they did not allow the children to even retrieve their shoes.

Today, however, Slavi is lucky enough to have something that most Roma children do not: a classroom that allows him to imagine a future beyond the shacks and the frigid train station halls in which he has spent most of his 11 years.

When I first started coming here, I didnt really know what school was, said Slavi, reflecting on his school, Marie Curie, in this Paris suburb. School will help me a lot. More than anything.

On that, most agree. But while there is consensus that public education could help integrate a Roma population that has long faced systematic discrimination, the obstacles remain formidable.
BERLIN  An Algerian man and a Nigerian man were detained in central Germany on Thursday on suspicion of preparing an attack with a machete and guns, which were confiscated, as about 450 police officers swooped down on 12 locations.

Eleven of the 12 raided sites were in or near the university town of Gottingen, in the state of Lower Saxony; the other was in the northern part of the state of Hesse.

The Algerian, 27, and the Nigerian, 23, whose names were not disclosed, both lived with their families in Gottingen, the authorities said. The citys police chief, Uwe Luhrig, said that live ammunition was found with the weapons and that an attack had been planned. Photographs also showed a machete among the items confiscated.

Neither the police chief nor Boris Pistorius, the interior minister of Lower Saxony, provided additional details. However, the minister said the raids on Thursday represented a very important success against terrorism.
TEHRAN  Burning American flags and homemade effigies of American presidents is a cherished tradition among Iranian hard-liners, but as the country prepares for the anniversary on Friday of the 1979 revolution that established the Islamic republic, others want to thank Americans instead.

President Trumps executive order barring travelers from Iran and six other largely Muslim countries has prompted a backlash in the United States, including challenges in federal court.

Iranians have taken notice.

We thank Americans who stood up for the seven countries blocked from entering the US by the new travel ban, one popular Iranian Twitter account stated, with the hashtag #LoveBeyondFlags.

The Twitter user added that the theme of #LoveBeyondFlags resonated from the Azadi Tower, a landmark at the western entrance of Tehran, to the Statue of Liberty in New York. The towers name can be translated as freedom.
BEIRUT, Lebanon  A Russian airstrike killed three Turkish soldiers in northern Syria on Thursday, an attack that both countries described as an accident. Still, it injected new tension into a volatile corner of the Syrian battlefield as new clashes erupted between Turkish-backed rebels and Russian-backed government forces.

Russias president, Vladimir V. Putin, apologized in a phone call to his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, calling the deaths a tragic incident, according to official accounts from their governments. One Turkish official called it friendly fire.

Both countries appeared eager to avoid derailing their new cooperation in Syria, where they have been seeking to lead a new effort to resolve the complex six-year-old conflict, even as they support combatants on opposite sides.

But the incident between Turkey, a NATO member, and Russia, ratcheted up an already risky situation in northern Syria. It came as Syrian rebels fighting alongside Turkish troops clashed in that same area for the first time with pro-government forces working with Russian air cover.
WASHINGTON  President Trump and his advisers, venturing for the first time into the fraught world of Middle East peacemaking, are developing a strategy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would enlist Arab nations like Saudi Arabia and Egypt to break years of deadlock.

The emerging approach mirrors the thinking of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who will visit the United States next week, and would build on his de facto alignment with Sunni Muslim countries in trying to counter the rise of Shiite-led Iran. But Arab officials have warned Mr. Trump and his advisers that if they want cooperation, the United States cannot make life harder for them with provocative pro-Israel moves.

The White House seems to be taking the advice. Mr. Trump delayed his plan to move the United States Embassy to Jerusalem after Arab leaders told him that doing so would cause angry protests among Palestinians, who also claim the city as the capital of a future state. And after meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan last week, Mr. Trump authorized a statement that, for the first time, cautioned Israel against building new West Bank settlements beyond existing lines.

There are some quite interesting ideas circulating on the potential for U.S.-Israeli-Arab discussions on regional security in which Israeli-Palestinian issues would play a significant role, said Robert Satloff, the executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. I dont know if this is going to ripen by next week, but this stuff is out there.
CAIRO  The Egyptian police on Thursday shut down the offices of an organization that treats victims of torture and violence in the latest escalation of a harsh government crackdown against human rights defenders and civil liberties groups.

The organization, Al Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, is one of several groups to have their offices closed, their assets frozen or travel bans imposed on their leaders in the past year. Prominent lawyers, journalists and others considered a threat to President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi have also been singled out.

In justifying the sweeping measures, Egyptian officials say they need to regulate Western-funded groups that threaten the stability of the Egyptian state and aid terrorism. Critics say Mr. Sisi is seeking to consolidate his control by silencing even the mildest sources of dissent.

Since coming to power in 2013, his government has locked up tens of thousands of opponents and effectively outlawed public protests. Now, many fear, President Trumps support for Mr. Sisi could embolden the Egyptian leader to go further.
Saturday

4. Graffiti Tour, 10 a.m.

One of Bogotas defining characteristics is its graffiti. Its not technically illegal to paint walls here, which has led to a dynamic street art culture. Join the Bogota Graffiti Tour (free, donations strongly encouraged), a two-and-a-half-hour walking tour and an introduction to the work of some of the citys most compelling artists. The guides are all involved in Bogotas street art scene and can explain technical details like how stencils are made, along with political and historical background. The murals by the artist Bastardilla are some of the most notable, calling attention to infringements upon womens rights in Colombia. Also note the colorful pieces by Guache, a member of the Bogota Street Art collective, which have a distinct indigenous influence. Post-tour, double back to Calle 20 and pop into Ricardo Corazon de Papel (Richard, the Heart of Paper) for souvenir shopping  all the notebooks in this small-scale bookbinding and print shop are made on site, and some feature covers printed with native plants and animals like the capybara.

5. Shake It Up, 1 p.m.

Colombia is home to a huge number of exotic fruits, many of which never make it to supermarket shelves in the United States. Head to the sprawling Paloquemao market, where the fruit vendors hawk everything from tomate de arbol to feijoa to granadilla. Pull up a stool at a juice bar and sample a few shakes made with local fruits, blended with milk and ice and tasting like nothing youve ever had before. If youre brave, try the jugo de borojo y cangrejo  this fruit shake (around 8,000 pesos), once a countryside tradition and now more of a novelty item, has live river crabs blended into it and is meant to encourage virility.

6. Linger Over Lunch, 3 p.m.

The chef Tomas Rueda presides over the citys most beautiful dining room, where the skylight-filled ceiling and polished wooden tables encourage you to linger over a long, boozy lunch. Mr. Rueda, a leader of Bogotas restaurant revival, emphasizes traditional ingredients from small-scale producers. Sample the menu of nueva Colombiana cuisine (lunch for two, around 180,000 pesos), which incorporates traditional ingredients in dishes like the croquetas de pescado con suero costeno amostazado (fish croquets with mustard sauce).

7. Fashion/Coffee/Art, 4:30 p.m.

Chapinero is a fascinating, sprawling central neighborhood. Start an exploration of the area with a visit to La Percha, a shop in the chic Quinta Camacho area that sells clothes, jewelry and other accessories by Colombian designers. Some pieces, like the sleek work and day bags by the two-year-old Bogota brand Mago Maga, are pure modernity, while an indigenous influence can be seen in the patterned jackets by Hipolita. Refuel with coffee at Bourbon, a modern exposed-brick-and-wood cafe with its own quiet garden, excellent baked goods and micro-lot beans (Aeropress, 6,900 pesos). From here, head to Flora Ars&Natura, a small, stellar gallery space, tucked away among garages in an industrial area, that focuses on exhibitions by local and international artists that relate to nature.

8. Dining Alfresco, 8:30 p.m.

Make the most of Bogotas temperate nights by dining on the patio at Bruto, a reservations-a-must restaurant (dinner for two, around 130,000 pesos) that draws a stylish clientele. The chef, Felipe Arizabaleta, is Colombian, the food is Spanish and the atmosphere is buzzy, with good cocktails and live music Tuesday through Saturday. Come for the salmorejo, a silky, cold tomato soup topped with egg and bacon, and the squid croquetas with garlicky aioli; stay for cava and the cool clientele. Dinner for two, around 150,000 pesos.
Historically, the Senate voted with little opposition to confirm a presidents first slate of cabinet nominees. As Congress has become more partisan and quicker to oppose incoming presidents, more nominees have faced contentious confirmation votes.

With less than half of his cabinet in place, President Trumps confirmed nominees have already faced an unprecedented level of opposition. Only five first-year nominees have ever received 40 or more no votes. Three of those nominees were under Mr. Trump.

Number of no votes

Cabinet nominees during a presidents first year in office

After a 50-50 vote on Tuesday, Betsy DeVos was the first cabinet nominee ever to require a tie-breaking confirmation vote from a vice president. Jeff Sessions was confirmed as attorney general on Wednesday despite receiving 47 no votes, the third highest number among all first-year nominees.

John G. Tower, President George Bushs pick for defense secretary in 1989, is the only nominee to be rejected during a presidents first year. Before the 53-47 vote against Mr. Tower, whose hearing included allegations of drinking problems and misconduct toward women, a first-year nominee had never received opposition from more than 21 senators in a recorded vote.

Number of recorded no votes against first-year nominees since 1789
WASHINGTON  The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency will host a workshop in Tulsa, Okla., at the Renaissance Tulsa Hotel & Convention Center, March 27-29, for directors of national community banks and federal savings associations supervised by the OCC.

The Building Blocks for Directors workshop combines lectures, discussion, and exercises to provide practical information on the roles and responsibilities of board participation for both new and experienced directors. Taught by seasoned OCC supervision staff, the workshop focuses on directors duties and core responsibilities, discusses major laws and regulations, and increases familiarity with the examination process.

The workshop fee is $99. Participants receive a pre-workshop reading package and course materials, assorted supervisory publications, and a Dictionary of Banking Terms. The workshop is limited to the first 35 registrants.

The workshops are taught by experienced OCC staff and are offered nationwide to enhance and expand the skills of national community bank and federal savings association directors. To register for this workshop, visit www.occ.gov/occworkshops or call (240) 485-1700.
Playground Winter Festival: Jordan Saccucci Ships the Bounty

February 09, 2017 Anthony Charter

Just a day after bubbling the final table of The $250 Frenzy, Jordan Saccucci returned for action on Wednesday looking for a deep run in Event # 7: $1,100 NL Holdem 50/50 Bounty. To everyones delight, the event drew a field of 145 runners, creating a prize pool of $70,325 with bounties equaling that amount spread among the players.

It took a little over 13 hours of play for Saccucci to eliminate his final opponent and earn his winners photo. For the win, Saccucci picked up the $17,000 top prize and 11 bounties worth $500 for an extra $5,500.

Final Table Payouts:

Place Name Prize 1 Jordan Saccucci $17,000 2 Omid Shahbazian $12,925 3 Dustin Melanson $9,500 4 Mounzer Awada $7,200 5 Pierre Paul Paulin $5,400 6 Paul Mohorea $4,000 7 Jimmy Setna $3,000 8 Daune Fernandez $2,300 9 Andrew Forest $1,700 10 Carlos Mora $1,350

The higher buy-in attracted some notable players that have been absent from the festival so far including Kevin MacPhee and Maria Ho. Unfortunately, neither made it to the money.

A few others joining them on the rail before the business end of the tournament began were Event #5 champ Ruben Perceval, who busted just before the bubble, Jason Conforti, Philippe Belley, Jeffrey Cormier, Joey Boczek, Chanracy Khun and Laurence Grondin.

Paul Mohorea controlled the chip lead when play at the 10-handed final table began. Things got off to a booming start at the final table with a double elimination at the hands of Mounzer Awada. Andrew Forest and Carlos Mora moved all in preflop only to see Awada come over the top and put them both at risk. Both players were in bad shape against the pocket queens of Awada and as a queen fell on the flop, the field was reduced to eight.

Daune Fernandez saw another deep run end when his ill-timed river bluff shove got picked off by Saccucci. Moments later, Saccucci picked up another bounty sending Jimmy Senta to the rail. Mohorea had seen his stack dwindle since the start of the final table and got his chips in the middle with king-queen against Awadas ace-eight. The board brought no aid and Mohorea fell in sixth.

Short-stacked Pierre Paul Paulin was the next victim of the eventual champ, relinquishing his bounty to Saccucci. Awada was the next player to see himself at risk. Tabling two sevens, Awada needed some help running into the pocket nines of Omid Shahbazian. The board bricked and Awada departed in fourth.

After multiple fades of elimination throughout the final table, Dustin Melanson finally got his chips in good against Shahbazian. Shahbazian had open-jammed from the small blind with king-five and Melanson put himself at risk, calling off with ace-ten in the big blind. A king fell on the flop pairing Shahbazian and it held through the turn and river to set heads-up play.

Shahbazian began with the chip lead but a quick double up for Saccucci turned the tables. Soon after, Saccucci put Shahbazian at risk, four-bet shoving with ace-ten and being called by Shahbazians pocket kings. Shahbazian held through the flop but an ace on the turn gave Saccucci the lead and it was all he needed to take down the title.

Kicking off Thursday evening was another installment of the Survivor structure. Event #8: $330 NL Holdem Survivor got underway at 7 p.m. to the delight of 116 runners. Originally paying just the top 14 players, with 17 remaining, negotiations were fired up and ultimately an agreement was reached to restructure the prize pool and pay the final 17. Two players, Shawn Daigle and Timothy Deering, held a sizable lead over the rest of the field and made out with a significantly larger prize.

The Survivors:

Place Name Prize 1 Shawn Daigle $2,900 1 Timothy Deering $2,900 2 Andre Pelletier $1,864 2 Andrew Molotchko $1,864 2 Ben Menache $1,864 2 David Bonneau $1,864 2 David Scott $1,864 2 [Removed:367] $1,864 2 Gaetan Perreault $1,864 2 Haitham Masri $1,864 2 Lindsay Larocque $1,864 2 Marc Saddik $1,864 2 Michael Tremblay $1,864 2 Mitchell Dredge $1,864 2 Neil Trahey $1,864 2 Rameez Saleem $1,864 2 Trevor Dixon $1,864

The final event of the day kicked off at 7:30 p.m. local time. Event #9: $550 PL Omaha 8-Max Re-entry attracted a field of 48 entries, five of which needed to fire a second bullet, bringing the total to 53. The two-day event saw just 13 players remain when play was halted on Day 1. Leading the survivors was Manfred Gunther.

Gunther built a stack of 306,300 to earn the top honors with his closest competitor, Nicolas Le Floch, ending with 230,700. Also among the leaders are Ron Farber (141,300), Brian Birenbaum (137,400) and Randy Vermette (124,400).

The event has not yet reached the money with just six prizes up for grabs. A min-cash of $1,280 will await the sixth-place finisher with the eventual champ walking away with $9,240. A few players to fall on Day 1 include Michael Malm, Harley S, Aleeyah Jadavji and Kevin MacDonald.

Day 2 will resume at 7 p.m. on Thursday evening when the remaining field will play down to a champion.

In addition to the Winter Festival action on Wednesday, a special Champions Freeroll was offered up to 16 players who had won recent titles at Playground. A $3,500 World Poker Tour (WPT) Playground seat was up for grabs for the winner. Only 13 of the players invited could make it and coming out on top was Dan Vigderhous. Vigderhous defeated none other than poker legend and WPT Montreal champion Mike Sexton, kicking him out in third, to take the seat.

Thursday is satellite day at Playground Poker Club. The much anticipated WPT Playground kicks off on Friday and Playground is giving players a bunch of opportunities to qualify for fractions of the cost.

The Playground Winter Festival runs through Feb. 15 and PokerNews will bring you daily updates of all the happenings throughout the festival. For full coverage and details check out the Playground event blog here.

Sharelines Jordan Saccucci picked up the $17,000 top prize and 11 bounties for an extra $5,500.

Jordan Saccucci takes the $1,100 NL Hold'em 50/50 Bounty.
Life is Dulce

We call it the dolce far niente. It means the sweetness of doing nothing. You may have heard this while scrolling through Instagram or T Read moreThe benefits of doing nothing
By: Over 40 Females

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-- Over 40 Females, a nationally acclaimed inspirational networking community for women has changed their name after five years in business to What Women Want Networking to solidify branding of their wildly successful radio show, What Women Want Talk Radio, which has garnered over 500,000 downloads within two years of airing the show on LA Talk Radio.The company now called What Women Want was founded in January, 2010 by Judy Goss, a TV personality/Radio Show Host, St. Martin's Press Author, Speaker and Women's Advocate, to Connect, Encourage and Inspire women all over the world. The first established chapter was back in the fall of 2011 in Fairfield County, Connecticut, which has been run successfully for over five years by Chapter Director Christine Oleynick.Judy is a regular contributor for FOX NY and NBC CT in addition to the host of "What Women Want," a weekly podcast airing on LA Talk Radio which has an average of 30Kdownloads/month. In the press constantly because of Judy's background, who was also an editor and news correspondent at, What Women Want has now become a force to be reckoned with in the women's networking industry. Judy created What Women Want to give women the resources necessary to start a business, connect with like-minded women, gain financial freedom, enhance their spirituality, improve health awareness, learn about fashion, beauty and more through continual live and online networking events, guest speakers, personal online profiles of the women and more. There is a competitive Speakers Board, an elevated "Executive Membership" and new chapters constantly opening across the country. What Women Want will also be hosting a national conference called "Spirit of Women" in Atlanta in the fall of 2017.Not just another networking group, What Women Want has gotten its members press (both TV and editorials), jobs, national speaking opportunities, a $25,000 scholarship, invaluable business connections, education, hundreds of thousands of dollars in giveaways, friendships, increased personal confidence and more. Since the fall of 2011, 20 chapters have been established nationwide to represent women who are joining this rapidly expanding group.The founder, Judy Goss, enthusiastically states "I am over the moon that we are now operating under the name of What Women Want, as our national non-profit partner has been Girls Inc. for three years and we want to make sure to include all women who want to be a part of such an important movement for women. We are striving for inclusiveness of women who want to "Connect, Encourage and Inspire" which is our motto, and whose desire is to grow, learn and feel supported in their personal lives as well as business or career."Over 40 Females and their members and sponsors are routinely seen nationwide on outlets such as: NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, Better TV, News 12, Huffington Post, Shape Magazine, Westport Magazine, Bella Magazine, Long Island Herald and countless other outlets, newspapers, radio shows and blogs around the country.Press contact: Beth Mercante, (888) 954-5552
RAM will celebrate Wustum's continuing legacy of bringing art to our community and the world for 75 years.

By: Racine Art Museum

Contact

Racine Art Museum

***@ramart.org Racine Art Museum

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-- RAM will celebrate Wustum's continuing legacy of bringing art to our community and the world for 75 years. Open January 22 - April 30, 2017,features works by artists who have been essential to the development of Wustum and RAM.For decades, Wustum has both embrace, and been embraced by, members of the Racine community. The museum offers exhibitions, classes, and workshops; hosts special events, including weddings on its scenic and inspiring grounds; and, generally, functions as an artistic beacon for the region. Involving working artists--both from the area and beyond--in planning and executing all manner of programs and cultivating fundamental relationships has ensured that Wustum and RAM remain vital.When RAM came into existence in 2003, the role of the artist in institutional development necessarily expanded in need and scope. Artists who have played important roles at Wustum and RAM have done so not just as working artists, but also as teachers, donors, board members, volunteers, committee members, staff, activists, catalysts for large gifts, benefactors, and donors of significant archives. The artists included in this exhibition fulfill two criteria-they have been integral to the evolution of Wustum and RAM in one or more capacities and they are represented in the museum's holdings.Many of the exhibitions at Racine Art Museum in 2017 continue the 75th anniversary celebration of RAM's Wustum Museum. Open January 29 - July 9, 2017, Variations on a Theme: Teapots from RAM's Collection ( http://www.ramart.org/ content/variations- theme-teapots- ra... ), features a stunning selection of the museum's holdings, part of a concentration launched by a pivotal gift of over 250 teapots from collector Donna Moog. Since that time, RAM has added over 100 teapots from other donors, establishing one of the largest public collections of contemporary artist-made teapots in the United States.Open February 19 - June 4, 2017, WPA Art from RAM's Collection ( http://www.ramart.org/ content/wpa- art-rams-collection ) highlights a selection of prints, watercolors, drawings, photographs, and textiles generated through the Federal Art Project (FAP) of Works Progress Administration (WPA), a program that provided jobs during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Initially, Wustum became an institution before it had an art collection. The museum's first director Sylvester Jerry was able to obtain over 260 works produced through WPA to launch the collection. This effort was visionary for Wustum and RAM since it foreshadowed the current collecting foci-works on paper and contemporary craft.This exhibition is made possible by: Platinum Sponsors - Karen Johnson Boyd and William B. Boyd, SC Johnson, Windgate Charitable Foundation; Diamond Sponsor: Osborne and Scekic Family Foundation; Gold Sponsors - Herzfeld Foundation, Johnson Bank, National Endowment for the Arts, Racine Community Foundation, W. T. Walker Group, Inc.; Silver Sponsors - Andis Foundation, Real Racine, Runzheimer International Ltd., United Way Racine County, Wisconsin Arts Board; Bronze Sponsors - Burlington Graphic Systems, Inc., CNH Industrial, EC Styberg Foundation, Educators Credit Union, In Sink Erator, The Norbell Foundation, Orkney Springs Retreat, Rasmussen Diamonds, Southern Connecticut Polymer Clay Guild, Wisconsin Public Radio
By: Luxe Bloom

Shelley Rosen in front of The Red Door

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-- The Red Door by Elizabeth Arden has welcomed guests since day spa pioneer Elizabeth Arden opened her first location in 1910 on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Today, The Red Door operates 28 day and resort spa locations across the country for women and men looking for a quick beauty fix, a custom facial or a luxurious spa day. The iconic red door is a symbol of beauty that is recognized around the world.Always on the industry's cutting edge, the spas work closely with Luxe Bloom, the market leader in the luxury preserved flower industry, to add a touch of luxury and elegance to the spas' modern environment. Luxe Bloom takes real Ecuadorian rosesthe finest roses in the worldand preserves them using an ancient method that maintains their naturally vibrant beauty for at least 60 days."We know our floral saves time and money for luxury operators," said Shelley Rosen. "Now, with the Luxe Bloom Promise, The Red Door Salons & Spas have a uniform floral plan across the nation."Luxe Bloom's rose arrangements create a brand standard in floral for all 28 Red Door locations. While Luxe Bloom brings the same high quality level of luxury and beauty to each arrangement, the arrangements are one of a kind, helping build a sense of uniqueness in each Red Door."We were very excited to work with Luxe Bloom to create a brand standard floral program in all our Red Door locations," said Carolyn Keats, Vice President of Design, Construction and Facilities. "We now have a consistent floral display in key areas in each Red Door."Contact Luxe Bloom's floral concierge today to begin your custom floral order. Luxe Bloom can be reached at 312-492-7772 or via email at info@luxebloom.com. To order online, visit luxebloom.com.Based in Chicago, Illinois, Luxe Bloom, LLC was founded in early 2013 by former Fortune 50 executive Shelley Rosen. Luxe Bloom offers real, long-lasting rose arrangements to luxury business operators and consumers on a monthly recurring basis. Luxe Bloom roses are 100% ethically sourced from Ecuador, producer of the world's finest roses. Luxe Bloom was named a Finalist for the Best Innovative Products Editor's Choice Awards at the 2012 International Hotel, Motel and Restaurant Show and has been featured on NBC's The Today Show and QVC.In December 2016, the Langham Place New York's Christmas tree, created with 3,500 red, cream and dusty pink roses from Luxe Bloom, was named one of the top 12 hotel Christmas trees by Conde Nast Traveler magazine. The Better Business Bureau magazine featured Luxe Bloom in its January 2017 issue on how to build a trusted brand. Luxe Bloom also has been featured in several hospitality industry publications.In February 2017, Luxe Bloom was named the official rose of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures live action adaptation of "Beauty and the Beast," which will open in movie theaters across the country in March 2017. Luxe Bloom's rose arrangements will play a key role in the film's launch and promotional campaign.View the whole collection at http://www.luxebloom.com . Follow Luxe Bloom news at http://www.newsline360.com/ luxebloom Like Luxe Bloom on Facebook, Follow us on Twitter at @Luxebloomroses and on Instagram at luxebloomroses.
50 Individuals have just been recognized in a list naming the country's premiere financial planners.

Contact

Katrina Ricarte

***@keymedia.com Katrina Ricarte

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--has released its 2017 Top 50 Advisors report, recognizing 50 finance professionals who are driving the advisory business forward.Since 2014has compiled this annual report featuring the individuals who have distinguished themselves in the past year through increased assets or revenue. This year's selection includes familiar names but also new faces, which shows just how the advisory business is thriving despite the challenging investment environment."Just by looking at the numbers, it is clear that Canadian advisors are still bringing in a considerable amount of new business," said David Keelaghan,news editor. "Canada's advisory business is undoubtedly changing as investors across the country continue to show their faith and entrust their wealth management to the professionals."For the full report see issue 5.01 ofout now.To view the list go to http://www.wealthprofessional.ca/ rankings/top- 50-advisors- 2017/ ###is designed for today's sophisticated financial planning and advice professionals. It focuses on providing practical and accessible advice tailored to the needs of financial service industry professionals.also provides the latest industry news and issues, covering diverse topics such as mutual funds, investment research, estate planning, and tax issues  keeping professionals up to date with industry developments and the latest business techniques.For more information, please contact:Katrina Ricarte
The multi-award winning, rescue documentary Lion Ark will be screening at Full Frame Theater, Durham for the North Carolina premiere of the film.

By: Animal Defenders International

Contact

Lori De Waal

***@dewaalpr.com Lori De Waal

End

-- The multi-award winning, rescue documentary Lion Ark will be screening at Full Frame Theater, Durham on Saturday February 18th - the North Carolina premiere of the film.More action adventure than traditional documentary, Lion Ark follows the story of how a shocking expose led to Bolivia banning animal circuses. Circuses defy the law but are tracked down by Animal Defenders International (ADI), animals saved and a joyous finale sees 25 lions airlifted to freedom.The critically acclaimed movie took film festivals by storm winning 11 awards and an NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding International Motion Picture  the first time for an animal protection film in the prestigious civil rights awards. Feel-good movie of the year!" Reel Talk; ""Compelling cinema verite" Hollywood Reporter; "Refreshing"New York Times; "Five Stars, Unmissable. Born Free with balls on" Britflicks.The Durham screening will be followed by Q&A with the rescue team leaders and the director and producer of Lion Ark, Tim Phillips and Jan Creamer. Just 48 hours earlier Tim and Jan will have been completing the rescue of a spectacled bear, called Dominga, from a zoo high in the Andes and taking her to an ADI sanctuary in the Peruvian forest. The rescue will involve moving the almost completely bald bear for two days through the mountains and then by boat along the Madre de Dios River to her knew home.ADI specialises in complex rescue operations, like the rescue and relocation of the 25 lions in Lion Ark and 33 lions from circuses in Peru and Colombia flown home to Africa last year. Tim and Jan will fly from Peru on Friday.Tim Phillips, Lion Ark Director: "We may look a little exhausted as we will have been sleeping in cars for Dominga the bear's move to her new home, but that's how we often look in Lion Ark! As a treat for the Durham audience, they will get to see Lion Ark and be the first to see images of this latest rescue. It's also a reminder that the work featured in Lion Ark is on-going."View trailer at www.lionarkthemovie.com
Contact

Berry Whale

Victor Pizarro

***@berrywhale.com Berry WhaleVictor Pizarro

End

-- China, whose engine for economic growth has remained steady at close to 8% per year for several decades, is also the main tourist source market since 2011.In 2016 an estimated 131 million Chinese engaged in tourism activities across the world. At an annual growth rate of 20%, a billion travelers are expected to come from China between 2017 and 2020.These travelers are increasingly demanding more services, more transportation, more hotels and restaurants, while creating a new set of challenges for the entire tourism industry supply chain seeking to attract a segment of these Chinese citizens who want to live new experiences outside of their home country.For Latin America, the statistics for inbound tourism from China still present meager indicators. Nevertheless, a substantial influx of Chinese tourists is expected to arrive in destinations like Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Peru and Argentina.Given this challenging framework where everything remains to be done, Chinese Friendly International, the world leader in awarding the certification of the main tourism quality seals specialized in China's outbound tourism market selected Berry Whale, one of the leading tourism marketing agencies in Latin America, as its strategic partner in Latin America to guide and facilitate the implementation of quality processes to ensure a high quality level of experience for the Chinese tourist in the region.Recently, both organizations concluded a Joint Venture Commercial Agreement to coordinate joint actions to facilitate the increase of tourists originating from China in the main tourism destinations in the region.Both organizations will work as exclusive strategic allies to promote the certification processes related to the Chinese Tourist Quality Seal and QSC Program of the China Outbound Tourism Quality Service Certification in cities, hotels, airlines, airports, tourist attractions and other companies that make up the value chain of the tourism industry.The agreement between the organizations was signed by Victor Pizarro, on behalf of Berry Whale, and by Dr. Kurt Grotsch, in the name of Chinese Friendly International. The latter organization is a partnership with experience in the development and implementation of a comprehensive certification system that facilitates tourist destinations, institutions and organizations the know-how to help them achieve a high-quality experience for Chinese tourists.For its part, Berry Whale is a company with over 10 years' experience in the production and distribution of comprehensive marketing, communication and public relations services to the tourism industry, with specific experience in Latin America. It is recognized in the tourist market for its expertise in the development and implementation of solutions that integrate marketing, communication and technological innovation. It seeks to continue to expand its portfolio of products and services through this strategic alliance.The agreement includes the development of a platform that facilitates the sharing of information about the services offered by Chinese Friendly in Latin America. Among these initiatives is the development of workshops and training events and continuing education seminars and the development of the First Latin American Congress of Chinese Tourism to be held in the second half of 2017 in a capital city of the region.A professional services company primarily dedicated to adapting current tourist offerings to match the needs or preferences of tourists of Chinese origin.Chinese Friendly International provides a very unique communication system, due to its complexity and scope, between the country of origin; the Asian giant; and the tourist destination, thus bringing professionals, companies, institutions and other entities together in order to provide guidance.For further informationChinese Friendly InternationalDr. Kurt Grotsch // info@chinesefriendly.comBerry Whale is a multinational organization dedicated to providing marketing, communication and public relations services to the tourism and hospitality industry.It has a wide portfolio of products and services and, since its foundation in 2006, has served over one hundred public and private organizations worldwide. Its portfolio includes: country brands, destination brands, hotel chains, airlines and other top-tier worldwide organizations.With headquarters in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and operations in Canada, Argentina and Mexico.Berry Whale partners and works in conjunction with other participating companies within the tourism sector in such areas as: specialized media for the tourist industry, media planning and in-house app and Internet software development.For further informationBerry WhaleVictor Pizarro // info@berrywhale.com
By: Army Women's Foundation

Join us for our 9th Annual AWF Summit - Wednesday, March 8th

Media Contact

Angel Livas

alivas@hayespr.com

202-930-3262 Angel Livas202-930-3262

End

-- As the nation gears up to celebrate Women's History month in March, the United States Army Women's Foundation (AWF) is preparing to commemorate and celebrate the service, accomplishments and sacrifices made by Army women. The AWF will host its 9th Annual Summit on Wednesday, March 8, 2017, from noon until 5 PM on Capitol Hill.This year's theme is "Evolving Opportunities for Army Women: Equip ~ Empower ~ Engage," and features keynote addresses from former Surgeon General of the Army, LTG Patricia Horoho, USA (Ret.), and Deputy G1, Department of the Army, MG Hugh Van Roosen, followed by two powerhouse panel discussions.The AWF is humbled to promote public interest in the Army and honor the service of all Army women through programs, research and scholarships. Since 2008, the AWF has awarded over $300,000 in scholarships to Army women - active duty, retired, National Guard, and Reserve - and their children through the foundation's Legacy Scholarship Program."With this award my dream to help wounded military service members recover from physical, mental and emotional injury will come true, said Cristian Arreaza, 2016 AWF Legacy Scholarship Recipient. "Thanks to the Legacy award, I will become a better candidate to work for the Department of Veterans affairs and continue to serve my country as a civilian. Thank you for choosing me and helping me reach my goals."The 2017 Legacy Scholarship winners will be announced at the AWF Summit, where they will have the opportunity to meet the generous supporters who made their scholarships possible, such as Prudential, Sierra Nevada, L3, Walmart, GE, and PenFed Credit Union, among others.Register to attend the free Army Women's Foundation 9th Annual Summit online at https://AWFSummit.eventbrite.com About the US Army Women's Foundation: The US Army Women's Foundation (AWF) is the premier center for educational excellence, the national network for today's Army women and a dynamic advocate for preserving and sharing the history of Army women. The mission of the US Army Women's Foundation is to honor and preserve the service of women in the Army.
The Dayton Emerging Fashion Incubator is hosting (DE-FI) Fashion Week March 5-11, featuring workshops, fabric sales, and a fashion meets food finale!

By: The Dayton Emerging Fashion Incubator (DE-FI) LLC

unnamed

Contact

Dayton Emerging Fashion Incubator (DE-FI) LLC

info@daytonemergingfashionincubator.com

937-416-1388 Dayton Emerging Fashion Incubator (DE-FI) LLC937-416-1388

End

-- Fashion Shows are popping up every week BUT the show only makes up 5% of the Fashion Industry. The Dayton Emerging Fashion Incubator (DE-FI) LLC is bringing you the other 95%.The weeks events are as follows:Date: Sunday, March 5, 2017, Time: 1p-6p, Event: Designers Workshop for Beginners Day 1, Cost: $87.50 +suppliesEvent Description:Instructed by Lynn Barnes, PhD, this event is designed for newbies to the world of Fashion who are looking to become designers but don't have the fashion based sewing skills needed for garment construction.Date: Monday, March 6, 2017, Time: 9a-2p,Event:Designers Workshop for Beginners Day 2, Cost: $87.50 + suppliesEvent Description:Conclusion of the Lynn Barnes, PhD, instructed workshop designed for newbies to the world of Fashion who are looking to become designers but don't have the fashion based sewing skills needed for garment construction.Date: Monday, March 6, 2017,Time: 5:30p-9:30p,Event:Business of Fashion Seminar, Cost: FreeEvent Description:Guest will here from industry professionals on how to advance their careers in the fashion industry. Confirmed Guest speakers include. Lynn Bartley from the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising (California)on finding your design inspiration Jay Arbetman of The Souring District (Illinois) to source your fabric and other essential supplies Lynn Barnes from M. Lynn Barnes Fashion Design Studio(Ohio)and learn Fashion history Corey Winborn, creator of Designs by Winborn (Ohio), learn how to become a successful independent designer from the comfort of your own home Della Reams, Visiting Assistant Professor, Miami University (OH) College of Creative Arts, Interdisciplinary Design  Fashion andLeslie D. Stoel, Professor, Miami University (OH), Farmer School of Business, Department of Marketing and College of Creative Arts, Fashion, learn about Miami University's Fashion Design Co-major right here at home Caressa Brown, Owner/Director of the Dayton Emerging Fashion Incubator (DE-FI) LLC, where you will learn what it takes to produce a world class fashion experience.Date: Tuesday, March 7, 2017,Time: 2p-8p,Event:Fabric Fest,Cost: Free to attend, purchase of fabrics prices will varyEvent Description:Chicago based The Sourcing District will be on hand to offer unique and hard to find fabrics and other supplies from from around the world at wholesale prices.Date: Wednesday, March 8, 2017,Time: 5:30p-9:30p,Event:Acting and Improvisation Workshop,Cost:FreeEvent Description:Asset consultant & producer Chu Oparah will help models explore their own story which can be a phenomenal resource to take you from walking and taking photos to bringing undeniable value to the set of any production.Date: Thursday, March 9, 2017,Time: 9a-4p,Event:Knits Only Sewing Workshop,COst:$50 if you attended the Designers Workshop for Beginners Day 1 & 2, $100 if you did not participate in the earlier workshops.Event Descripion: Take your sewing skills to the next level with the Lynn Barnes, PhD Knits Only Sewing Class. This 7hr class on the introductory how-to's of basic knit clothing construction and fitting. The class content includes stretch-to-fit, use of ribby for T-shirts, sweatshirts and turtlenecks, lettucing, and a final project using an approved commercial pattern (knit skirts, tops, leggings or pull-on pants). How to construct sweaters and active sportswear will be covered.Date: Friday, March 10, 2017,Time: 5:30p-8:00p,Event:Pop Up Shop and Clothing Swap,Cost: Free, items cost will varyEvent Description:Purchase samples or place a custom order directly from the designer at our Pop-Up Shop OR clean out that closet just to fill it back up again! Do you have any clothes or accessories that you absolutely love but just may not wear anymore? Bring those gently used garments and accessories over to the (DE-FI) Clothing Swap and SHOP FOR FREE! Participants can search through items dropped off by other fashionista's and fashionisto's to replace the items you are trading in.Unclaimed items will be donated to our official non-profit the Circle of Vision Keepers Re-Entry and Recovery Program.Date: Saturday, March 11, 2017,Time: 9a-2p,Event:Model Bootcamp,Cost:FreeEvent Description:Whether you are seeking modeling as a career or if it's just a hobby this workshop is for you! The Dayton Emerging Fashion Incubator (DE-FI) LLC celebrates beauty in all forms, there are no height or size restrictions and is open to male and females ages 12 and better.Participants will be equipped with the following skills and knowledge:Agency Talk, Focus on Inner Beauty, Healthy Living,Hair, Skin, & Nail Care, Runway, and PosingDate: Saturday, March 11, 2017,Time: 7p-9p,Event:The Taste of (DE-FI)ance Magazine Release Party,Cost: $65Event Description:Designers Misti Leigh (iii Creations), Sonya Mills (Kerapa Klothing), Corey Winborn (Designs by Winborn), Edina Ndebele (Endexus Creations), Jamez Novotny (Styles by Novotny), and Megan Antkoviak (Antkoviak) are scheduled to set the runway on FIRE at the Grand Finale of (DE-FI) Fashion Week, The Taste of (DE-FI)ance Magazine Release Party.Chef Anthony Head will be working one on one with designers, to createappetizers, (non-alcoholic)drinks, and deserts that not only compliment the origin of the fabric used but he will also draw on his artistic skills by using only ingredients and colors that reflects the design.Also, for the first time since (DE-FI)ance Magazine launched in 2013,the cover model was not been preselected!Each model that was selected to participate in this issue of (DE-FI)ance and A Generation of (DE-FI)ance Magazine has an equal opportunity of landing the cover which will be revealed during this event.All events are scheduled to take place at theHeadquarters of the Dayton Emerging Fashion Incubator (DE-FI) LLC,721 Springfield St., Dayton, OH 45403 ( https://www.google.com/ maps/place/721+ Springfield+ St,+Day... ).
Dwight's Fleet and Auto of Salt Lake City Retains elleven marketing group as agency of record

By: elleven marketing group

Media Contact

elleven marketing group Samuel Sadler

***@ellevengroup.com elleven marketing group Samuel Sadler

End

-- Dwight Rouse, President of Dwight's Fleet and Auto announced today that the Murray, UT-based auto repair company has retained elleven marketing group as their agency of record. Dallas, TX-based elleven marketing group opened a Salt Lake City office November 2016. Samuel Sadler, CEO of elleven group said, "We met Dwight's Fleet and Auto when we did a project together with J and G Transmissions to fix up a veteran's truck on Veteran's Day. It was obvious they had big hearts and genuinely wanted to help the community so we wanted to help Dwight's Fleet and Auto as well."Dwight Rouse began his business as a mobile mechanic with the American dream in his eyes and a desire to serve the great people of Salt Lake City and Murray, UT. "When someone comes into Dwight's Fleet and Auto they are treated like family. We are straight forward with them. That isn't always popular because they might get a cheap quote somewhere but we know that person will be back when the other repair fails."When asked what makes their Murray auto repair location different Rouse said, "We never sacrifice quality and safety for speed. I am a single father and there is nothing more important to me than the safety of my daughter. That extends into our business and we make sure a family's safety is first priority. That makes us different."The Salt Lake City auto repair market is extremely competitive, especially in Murray, UT. "We have been blessed to have only done business by referral up until now. We were to a point where we needed to build our company to ensure a steady work environment for our employees and at the same time offer higher quality staff by hiring. Meeting elleven group was perfect timing for us. They came highly recommended and we liked them. Nothing is going to stop us now." Said Rouse.Sadler commented, "I will give you a little peek into what is to come. Dwight's Fleet and Auto needs to communicate to the marketplace that it is the safest auto repair shop in Salt Lake City and really the entire Wasatch front. Working together their bays will be full of vehicles and don't be surprised to see more locations boasting Dwight's Fleet and Auto signs. This auto repair shop is great at what they do and they are becoming better. The entire Salt Lake area will know who they are and they will grow to dominate their market. If I had a microphone I would drop it."For more information visit our website http://www.dwightsautorepair.com
Contact

LaShonda Scott Robinson, Scott Robinson Designs

***@scottrdesigns.com LaShonda Scott Robinson, Scott Robinson Designs

End

-- LaShonda Scott Robinson, an artist based in Alabama, has released her new, international website to showcase her artwork and to celebrate her unique artistic voice.The website gives previews of upcoming exhibitions and showcases LaShonda's latest artwork. The site has been designed to celebrate the art of individuality, and illustrates the artist's personal journey through watercolor.Being self-taught, LaShonda has created her own unique technique of painting, which has allowed her to make her art original and honest."My art is a reflection of me," says LaShonda. "I express my feelings without shame or censorship."Being a woman of color, I understand discrimination and inequality. In life, I am sometimes restrained. But on canvas, I am completely free."The paintings featured on LaShonda's website illustrate the colorful nature of her personality. Collectors are able to access first-hand information about exhibitions, and gain an insight into personal information regarding her artwork by visiting her website.LaShonda is dedicated to using her art as a means of personal expression. The new website went live February 1, 2017."I hope my art inspires others to celebrate their individuality,"says LaShonda. "Every soul has color. Identify your hues and embrace the beauty of your rainbow."To see LaShonda's new website and artwork, visit www.lashondascottrobinson.com
Contact

Allyson Patterson, BEN Colorado

***@bencolorado.org Allyson Patterson, BEN Colorado

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-- The Blackstone Entrepreneurs Network Colorado (BEN) announced today that Allyson Patterson has joined the organization in the newly created position of Managing Director, reporting to Greg Greenwood, Executive Director. Ms. Patterson will be responsible for maximizing the BEN programs' impact for its network companies, managing advisor relationships and working with Mr. Greenwood to ensure the successful sustainability of the program. She is also responsible for day-to-day team operations. BEN is dedicated to strengthening Colorado's entrepreneurial ecosystem by connecting high-growth CEOs with serially successful entrepreneurs and community resources.Ms. Patterson comes to BEN Colorado from Zayo Group in Boulder, where she was most recently Director of Strategic Markets and Alliances. During her time at Zayo, she also served as the Director of Community Development, Investor Relations, and Employee Programs, as well as Chief of StaffExternal Relations to the CEO. She is a member of CU Women's Council and active in the entrepreneurial community in Colorado. Ms. Patterson's prior experience includes operations management and sales and trading for foundations, family investment offices and institutions at Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management. She has a B.A. in Economics from the University of Illinois.Ms. Patterson said, "The BEN team has achieved remarkable program and network growth since the organization's inception in 2014 thanks to the valuable contributions of our members, advisors, and community partners. I am excited by the opportunity to build on the current momentum and advance our mission of support to the entrepreneurial and business communities."Mr. Greenwood said, "Ally's extensive experience in program and relationship management makes her ideally suited to her role here. She has the dedication and passion to drive and expand BEN's engagement with local entrepreneurial, not-for-profit and academic communities in our target industries: tech, natural products, energy, healthcare and aerospace."About BEN ColoradoThe Blackstone Entrepreneurs Network in Colorado (BEN Colorado) is funded by a $3 million gift from the Blackstone Charitable Foundation ( http://www.blackstone.com/ our-impact/blackstone- charitabl... ) to the University of Colorado's Silicon Flatirons Center for Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship ( http://siliconflatirons.org/ ). Its objective is to identify promising Colorado companies and provide meaningful connections to help these companies scale. Learn more at: http://www.bencolorado.org/
The finest in European holiday parks have been unveiled for the fourth year running

By: HolidayParkSpecials

Media Contact

Georgia Walker

g.walker@bungalowspecials.nl Georgia Walker

End

-- The winners of the holiday park awards 2017 were announced on February 9th, where winners in 20 categories won awards based solely on guests ratings and reviews.With over 250,000 guests per year staying in one of 800 holiday parks, visitors are invited to rate their experiences based on a number of criteria. This allows holiday makers to easily choose the best properties while rewarding parks for their excellence.With the majority of their holiday parks in the Benelux and Germany, HolidayParkSpecials award the best parks per country for the highest overall ratings. Efteling Bosrijk was awarded the best holiday park in the Netherlands for the 4year running with an overall rating of 8.8."What an enormous compliment to be elected for the fourth year in a row the 'Best holiday park in the Netherlands.' This award is agreat accolade in an already festive year, as Efteling celebrates its 65anniversary. With the unveiling of our new holiday park Efteling Loonsche Land, we can introduce our enchanting accommodations to even more national and international guests,Nicole Scheffers, Manager Sales & International Efteling.The award for the best holiday park in Germany went to Lindner Ferienpark Nurburgring, a luxury resort near Nurburgring race track. The Belgian winner was Domaine Le Boulac in the Ardennes. DroomParken won the award for the best park group this year. One of the lesser known groups in the UK, DroomParken have 11 parks in the Netherlands and specialise in relaxing breaks in nature-rich recreational areas.To participate in the awards, a holiday park must have received at least 10 reviews in the previous year. The average scores are taken into account when choosing the winner.For the full list of award winners, please visit HolidayParkSpecials ( http://www.holidayparkspecials.co.uk/ awards.html ).HolidayParkSpecials is an online holiday provider that specialises in offering accommodations in holiday parks. HolidayParkSpecials is part of Bungalow Booker B.V., one of the market leaders in the Dutch tourism industry, founded in 2005. HolidayParkSpecials work with over 700 holiday parks in Europe, including parks in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands. This number is growing daily. Together with the sites BungalowSpecials.nl, BungalowSpecials.be, FerienparkSpecials.de, and sister company Hotel Booker B.V. (known from the sites HotelSpecials.nl and HotelSpecials.de), HolidayParkSpecials is one of the leading experts regarding the best destinations in 8 countries.
Amazing travel deals from Club Paradise Palawan, a top resort in Coron, await guests at the 24th PTAA Travel Tour Expo.

Contact

Jane Santiago

***@discovery.com.ph Jane Santiago

End

-- Explore "A World of Discovery" at the 24th PTAA Travel Tour Expo on 10 to 12 February 2017 at the SMX Convention Center in Pasay City. Visit the booth of Club Paradise Palawan along Hall 1, Aisle F and G. This year, Club Paradise Palawan unveils its amazing Suite Deals with special rates starting at PHP 7,700++ per night in a Hillside Room for lean season and PHP 8,800++ per night in a Hillside Room for peak season. The offer includes buffet breakfast at Firefish Restaurant and a complimentary foot wash upon arrival. Extra person charge is at PHP 2,500++ inclusive of buffet breakfast for 12 years old and above. Extra child rate is at PHP 1,500++ inclusive of buffet breakfast for kids 8 to 11 years old. Round trip Busuanga airport transfers is at P 1,500++ per person for 8 years old and above.Discover other exciting offers for Boracay, Tagaytay and Ortigas from The Discovery Leisure Company (TDLCI), a homegrown hospitality group. Have a sneak peek of "A World of Discovery" through a fun Virtual Reality viewing area at the booth showcasing a 360 degree view of TDLCI's hotels and resorts. . An additional discount of 5% off the bill await My Discovery Elite members during the expo.Discover these exciting Suite Deals for Palawan at http://www.clubparadisepalawan.com/ travel-tour- expo-2017 Club Paradise Palawan is a 19-hectare island resort in Dimakya Island of Coron, dotted along UNESCO's marine sanctuary. The exclusive property features 54 rooms and cottages with scenic views of nature, as well as a spa, restaurant, and two bars. Coron is a haven for the gentle dugong, colorful flora and fauna, and world-class reef and wreck dive sites. Exciting day trip options include Coron Island Tour, Calauit Safari, Bottom Fishing and Island Hopping.Club Paradise Palawan is one of five properties of The Discovery Leisure Company's portfolio of distinctive hotels and resorts. Get updates through Club Paradise Palawan's official website at http://www.clubparadisepalawan.com The Discovery Leisure Company, Inc. is a Filipino hospitality group that manages a collection of hotels and resorts in exquisite locations around the Philippines. Its distinctive destinations inspire authentic experiences for every traveler, from Discovery Suites Manila, Discovery Country Suites Tagaytay, Discovery Shores Boracay, Club Paradise in Coron, Palawan and Discovery Primea Makati.The Discovery Leisure Company, Inc.'s portfolio of award-winning properties is known worldwide for its signature Filipino hospitality, marked by genuine and personalized "Service That's All Heart".
A special and unique celebration to kick start your spring season

By: Atlantis Holidays

Contact

Irene Osegere

***@atlantisuae.com Irene Osegere

End

-- If you delight in pleasant gatherings and love to have a good time with family, you are invited to Azerbaijan. To celebrate the most awaited and cheerful celebrations of the start of agricultural activities and restoration of nature and sunny days. According to the Representative Office of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Azerbaijan in GCC the Novruz Festivities 2017 are going to big and major plans are underway to ensure this.Novruz Bayram, as the festival is also known, is a traditional Azerbaijani holiday that signals the start of springtime in the Land of magic colors. The Festival dates back as far as 5,000 years ago and is a celebration of renewal and rebirth. Novruz, takes place in Azerbaijan every year between March 20and March 22and is celebrated for 7 days. It is characterized by a deep cultural heritage including grand banquets, fascinating customs and a reawakened sensation of good cheer and hope for the New Year.Speaking about the festival, Rashid AL Noori, the Chairman of the Representative Office said "GCC Nationals and residents will love Novruz most because it's a family affair. The festivity is not just a holiday to denote the commencement of spring. It is a holiday of the equality of the people and it draws together various sections of the population and enhances their mutual admiration, mutual understanding, and social coherence."Novruz celebrations often begin four weeks before the definite day of festivity, and since the festival is associated with nature and the elements, four Wednesdays of the four weeks are dedicated to one of the each nature elements. I.e. Water (Su Charhshanba), Fire (Odlu Charhshanba)Earth (Torpaq Charhshanba), Last Wednesday (Akhir Charhshanba). As with most significant festivals in Azerbaijan, a substantial part of Novruz celebrations revolve around foodchildren are given sweets and tables are set with Khoncha- a big silver or copper tray with the most exquisite decorations such as hand-painted eggs, candles and Semeni-green wheat sprouts that symbolize rebirth. The table is also filled with traditional dishes. According to ancient beliefs in Azerbaijan, a table filled with food guarantees its abundance for the rest of the year. So throughout the holiday, the women of the house, make sure that the table is set with no less than seven different dishes.Dayana Persan, the general manager of the Representative Office and a native of Azerbaijan said that the Novruz Bayrami is a family celebration. According to her, when the entire family draws together around a well-laden table of distinctive national meals and sweets, peace and clemency reign as everyone forgets all the mistakes, and unity is seen once again. "The ceremony is even more fun mainly in the regions Gabala and Guba as one gets to see nature waking up and new life is initiated. While still experiencing the Novruz festivities in its raw state," She added.When asked about what he loves most in the Novruz festivals, Mr. Rashid AL Noori said: "I love the Family spirit, the togetherness, the delicious halal food, the sweet symbols of the holiday, benevolence and charity for those in need and the purification and renewal fire ritual."The Novruz Festival is recognized as part of the Azerbaijan's Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO. Apart from the joys this festival brings to families, the ceremonies provide awesome outdoor activities. The highlight of the holiday is a ritual where a bonfire is lit, and people jump over it. The ritual is considered an irreplaceable attribute of the celebration, and signifies renovation and growing in strength. Families from GCC will love this festival as their children can join Azerbaijani children in roaming around the neighborhood knocking on doors and leaving hats, hiding nearby to gather sweets. A tradition that may remind them of Qatar's Garangao Festival, GCC's Qarqe'an, Lebanon's Eid il-Burbara, or Western world's Halloween trick or treating.With this official invite by the Ministry of Culture & Tourism of Azerbaijan. Save the dates, book your tickets and take your family to Azerbaijan for the unforgettable experience of the Novruz Festivals.........................................................................................................................................The people of Azerbaijan are famous for their Hospitality and they celebrate all festivals and events with great enthusiasm. There are several Azerbaijan holidays and events throughout the year. The busiest month is May, largely because of Baku's many food festivals and jazz concerts. A majority of the locals are Muslims so Ramadan (also called Ramazan) is one of the most important and highly anticipated celebrations in the country. There are also plenty of national days honoring important historical events during the struggle for independence. For more information email: marcom@ourazerbaijan.com
SMi Group release exclusive new interviews with the Norwegian Armed Forces, Spanish Army, Royal Netherlands Army and PSM GmbH

By: SMi Group

375x375

Contact

Teri Arri

***@smi-online.co.uk Teri Arri

End

-- SMi Group have released an exclusive set of interviews ahead of the only conference dedicated to combat vehicle C4ISTAR, Future Armoured Vehicles Situational Awareness 2017. Growing from strength to strength, the popularity of the event highlights the imminent need to prepare today's mechanised and armoured forces for the challenges of tomorrow within the broader set of C4ISTAR requirements for contemporary operations.With expert insight and topical debate surrounding key issues such as vetronic architectures, sensor integration, CIS and battle management, this year's agenda has been designed for those looking to deliver a new generation of information superiority to their armoured vehicle.The Q&A's released with 4 of the keynote speakers are available to read in the event download centre ahead of their talks next month. Based upon the answers given it is apparent that Situational Awareness means different things to different people.QUESTION: Situations - Who should we be aware of what, how quickly, how reliably, for how long?Major Wouter Samson, Doctrine C4I, Manoeuvre Centre of Knowledge, Manoeuvre Centre of Excellence, Royal Netherlands Army:ANSWER: "This is something that will require more studying since how we fight conflicts is changing. In a certain way total war is back because attack on civilian systems are back, for example cyber-attacks. These changes also happen in the military environment and it certainly is not always clear who the enemy is."Colonel Manuel Jesus De Hoyos Sanchez, Head of 8x8 VCR Programme, Spanish Army:ANSWER: "Three types of factors may be identified for the adequate operation of a ground vehicle. (1) The Chief of the vehicle in charge of the overall management of the vehicle and responsible for the success of the assigned mission, (2) the driver in charge of the driving of the vehicle, and (3) the shooter in charge of the weapon stations...nevertheless, it may be considered that there are some critical data that need to be provided with stringent requirements...data feeding the systems that may affect the safety of the crew, other units and the civilian population."Major Ola Petter Odden, Norwegian Army Combat Lab, Norwegian Army Land Warfare Centre, Norwegian Armed ForcesANSWER: "The need for information and the ability/ opportunity to absorb information varies greatly in different situation. During a battle day you might have long periods of relative calm where you can access a lot of information. But when in enemy contact, you only worry about your immediate surroundings and survival. So the system must be able to switch modes."Martin Roder, Project Manager IT Department, PSM:ANSWER: "Every commander has to know everything about his team and the tactical situation they are in. There are the status of his vehicle, the condition of his crew, the tactical situation in near range and the position of his platoon members. The platoon leader has in addition to interact with his bataillion. The batailion has to know the tactical situation on high-level range to deploy the platoons at its best. Real time information are the most valuable source informations for all these purposes. The challenge is to exchange the right level of information between the different operation layers."The full interviews are available to read at http://www.smi- online.co.uk/ 2017armouredvehicles- situatio... For a detailed conference agenda and full speaker line-up featuring other notable speakers such as the United States Army, French MoD, German MoD, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin and Thales, visit www.armouredvehicles-sa.com/prlogFuture Armoured Vehicles Situational Awareness29th & 30th Mar 2017London, UKSponsored by: Galleon Embedded Computing, Instro Precision Ltd, Kent Modular Electronics, Lockheed Martin, Microflown Avisa, Palomar Display Products, Pleora Technologies Inc, RFEL, Safran Electronics and Defence---- END ----Contact information:For media enquiries contact Teri Arri on Tel: +44 20 7827 6162 / Email: tarri@smi-online.co.ukTo register onto the event visit www.armouredvehicles-sa.com or contact James Hitchen on Tel +44 (0) 207 827 6054 / Email jhitchen@smi-online.co.ukFor sponsorship packages contact Justin Predescu Tel: +44 (0) 207 827 6130 / Email: jpredescu@smi-online.co.ukAbout SMi Group: Established since 1993, the SMi Group is a global event-production company that specializes in Business-to-Business Conferences, Workshops, Masterclasses and online Communities. We create and deliver events in the Defence, Security, Energy, Utilities, Finance and Pharmaceutical industries. We pride ourselves on having access to the world's most forward thinking opinion leaders and visionaries, allowing us to bring our communities together to Learn, Engage, Share and Network. More information can be found at http://www.smi- online.co.uk
Media Contact

Kehinde Ayeni

kayeni@leapafrica.org Kehinde Ayeni

End

-- Adiya Atuluku is a management and sustainability consultant, working on national projects mainly in Information Technology (IT), telecommunications, and environmental industries in multicultural environments. Adiya recently published an ebook on business sustainability. She found interesting insights developing her business sustainability series and explains how to balance and deliver on the triple bottom line. Additionally, this article emphasizes how to seamlessly manage profit and create a sustainable culture in organizations.--------------------------------These days, a lot of the conversation around entrepreneurship and starting your own business has been less and less about starting to make a profit, but more and more about adding value to people's lives and communities. People now say you should start your business because of the purpose it will fulfil, and then money will follow. In this way, business sustainability in entrepreneurship is getting easier, especially when entrepreneurs consider sustainability right from the get go.Where it gets harder is when you try to consider these relatively new factors of planet and people when you're already running your business, and already used to a certain way of operating. For these entrepreneurs, I find that a common challenge has been seeing business sustainability as a cost which drains their revenue, rather than as an opportunity for profit. This mindset is a big hindrance.Ideally, business sustainability should not be hinged on profitability, but instead, is a balancing act between profit, people and planet. There is definitely a way you can operate your business and design your products and services so that you add value to all these three factors.Unfortunately, organizations are used to trying to maximize their profit and squeeze out every kobo they can. As such, they still think of profitability first and would not attempt to incorporate business sustainability concepts and initiatives if they are not already profitable. You would hardly find an organization that is struggling to stay afloat say they want to start a sustainability initiative. They fail to see that thinking sustainably can be a means of reducing their costs and increasing their profits.Entrepreneurs who manage growth towards business sustainability are those that understand that business sustainability is a journey; it is iterative, with a goal post that is always moving. As long as they can measure where they are now (in terms of sustainability initiatives and goals) with were they were in the past, and with where their competitors are, they can measure their growth effectively.Needless to say, understanding what measurements to take, and actually collecting this data is key in any business' growth towards sustainability.Perhaps the biggest factor (in my opinion) is the demand for business sustainability by consumers. As a business, if your clients start refusing to buy from you because you dump your wastes in the stream behind your factory, no one will have to force you into changing your waste management practices. Or if enough of your customers reject your product because you use plastic, you will innovate and find some other way to package. Entrepreneurs have been taught that their customers are king. So these customers dictate how much the entrepreneurs consider people and planet, along with profit.Two other key factors to grow business sustainability in the country is the growing interests of investors (who would want to see how you manage environmental and social issues even as you make profit before they lend or grant you funding); and of course well enforced government regulation (whether they are incentives or sanctions).A key factor that has hindered growth of Nigerian SMEs into large organizations has to do with a major sustainability characteristic  long term thinking! Many entrepreneurs lack this. They are in it for the 'hustle' and cannot envision their business being in its 30year. This is why they don't consider the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit in their business operations  because they want to see returns immediately and so they automatically make decisions which will maximize their profit, and profit alone. This is obviously not a balance. Until this mindset is changed, our SMEs will not grow into large organizations.Unfortunately, this mindset has grown as a result of poverty, where many start a business primarily to meet ends meet, and not because they have a purpose. As such, government has a big role to play in changing this mindset and enabling SME growth if they can uphold their responsibilities of providing enabling infrastructure (power, roads, water, etc.), ensuring welfare and eradicating poverty. You really cannot think long-term if you are hungry. And this continues to present a problem.Every business, irrespective of the growth stage of their enterprise should be proactive with implementing sustainability measures that will make money yet met the other two bottom line, the people and planet.In recession, priority is businesses in Nigeria at this time is to stay afloat. As this article points out, thinking sustainably can be a means of reducing costs and increasing profits.The 12th CEOs Forum ( http://leapafrica.org/ home/?page_id= 642 ) by LEAP Africa is themedand presents an opportunity for small businesses in Nigeria to review and adopt best practices on growth and profitability in business. Join the discourse on business sustainability at the Forum and you can download the ebook ( http://sustyvibes.com/ wp-content/uploads/ 2016/10/AGuideto... ) for free to read 13 interesting topics on this subject.
Ecosmob Technology has announced to offer WebRTC client solution development service for the corporate world. This solution can be used to enhance the service and communication model of the corporate world.

By: Ecosmob Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

Contact

Ecosmob Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

***@ecosmob.com Ecosmob Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

End

-- Ecosmob Technologies is a well-known name in the VoIP industry. The company has its headquarter in Ahmedabad city of Gujarat, India. The company has been offering different services and solutions in the VoIP industry for more than 9 years. The company is also renowned for its contribution, and expertise in the VoIP industry. The WebRTC technology has been one of the areas where the company excels. This is evident from the published interviews withthe director, Ruchir Brahmbhatt, of the company on different news media sites. The company has been offering industry specific solutions in WebRTC. Recently, spokesperson of Ecosmob Technologies has announced to offer the custom WebRTC client solution development for the corporate world.The WebRTC client solution is a browser to browser communication solution which can be used by corporate offices and enterprises to provide quick and flexible communication channel to their staff, customers, prospects, vendors and other business entities. As per the details shared by the spokesperson of Ecosmob Technologies, thecorporate world faces theneed of massive communication. The WebRTC client solution ( https://www.ecosmob.com/ webrtc-client/ ) will not only satisfy this communication needbut also remove the communication cost. As this solution uses thebrowser to browser calling which is absolutely free. Even for international calls, corporate companies will not need to invest a single penny. Moreover, the WebRTC client solution for corporate world offers different modes of communication including: Audio call Video call Instant messagingThis will provide all required mode of communication to the companies."The WebRTC client solution for corporate world has brought amazing benefits to this industry vertical. All offered communication features along with screen sharing and image sharing. This helps in offering complete communication software to corporate industry. They will be empowered to offer not only internal communication among their staff members, but will also be able to use this communication channel to provide demonstrations and Knowledge Transfer of their products to their clients and prospects. This WebRTC client solution can work amazingly for all required communication of any corporate office or company. Also, this solution supports remote communication in real time. This further helps in improving productivity. "Now, the employees of the company can communicate with each other even from home or from the location of their business tour.", shared spokesperson of Ecosmob Technologies.The company offers custom development service of WebRTC Client solution for the corporate world. To know more about this solution and offering,visit: https://www.ecosmob.com/webrtc-client/
Dave Cox, Middleton Idaho DUI Analyst and Consultant, recently concluded multiple DUI Seminars in California, helping DUI attorneys win more DUI cases.

Contact

Dave Cox

***@yourduipro.com Dave Cox

End

--Your DUI Pro, recently traveled to California to present his well-received "Winning DUI Cases" Seminar. Dave visited Stockton, Fresno, Oxnard, San Bernardino, and Anaheim; California to deliver the seminar to some of California's best DUI attorneys. Dave Cox taught these Attorneys how to win DUI cases using NHTSA Manuals and advanced cross-examination techniques.The attorneys who attended Dave Cox's DUI Seminar, "Winning DUI Cases", had great things to say about their experience. Here are some testimonials from some of California's best DUI attorneys:"The seminar was very useful in that it teaches attorneys how to use the officer's testimony by essentially treating him like a defense expert. I highly recommend the seminar and am glad I came."Scott Bentley - Ventura, California"Worth its weight in gold."Hector Perez - Corona, California"I got my money's worth in the 1st 45 minutes!"Patrick Silva - San Bernardino, CA"Dave Cox is extremely knowledgeable in the areas of drug and alcohol driving - extremely practical subject matter & presentation!"Jim Weyant - Big Bear, CA"A very concised - practical approach seminar."Andres Bustamante - Los Angeles, CA"Great program! I look forward to winning more cases."Don Hammond - San Pedro, CADave Cox, DUI Analyst and Consultant, has personally trained thousands of attorneys across the United States. Dave is a former police officer and, during his career, he was recognized as one of the top DUI officers in the country. As an officer, Dave Cox was certified as a Drug Recognition Expert, the highest level of training available to DUI enforcement officers. Dave now specializes in training attorneys how to easily and effectively use the officer, the officer's training, and the officer's NHTSA Manuals to win DUI Cases.In the upcoming weeks, Dave Cox will be presenting his DUI Seminar to attorneys in North Carolina, Texas, Georgia, and Illinois. Dave will be visiting the following cities:Asheville, Hickory, and Charlotte; North CarolinaAmarillo, Lubbock, and El Paso; TexasValdosta, Savannah, and Macon; GeorgiaChampaign, Peoria, and Springfield;IllinoisFort Worth, Tyler, and Dallas; TexasTo register for upcoming seminars, please visit http://www.YourDUIPro.com/ seminars To learn more about Dave Cox and Your DUI Pro, please visit http://www.YourDUIPro.com
By: ITE Group plc & fairtrade

Contact

Ms Sarah Nitsche

***@fairtrade- messe.de Ms Sarah Nitsche

End

-- Organized by the British and German trade fair specialists for emerging markets ITE and fairtrade, the leading international building & interiors exhibition "AfricaBuild Lagos" takes place on 14 to 16 February 2017 at the Landmark Centre in Lagos.The event enjoys a strong institutional support and top quality exhibitors from 12 countries. Nigeria's ever growing construction market is a major attraction for international suppliers. More than 1,500 professional visitors are expected.The event will bring together Nigeria's key construction professionals and present products from top quality exhibitors from 12 countries.The exhibitors will display their latest innovations in construction machinery and technology, building equipment and tools, building materials and interior finishing materials. They come from Austria, China, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Nigeria, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom.AfricaBuild Lagos is supported by the Delegation of the European Union to Nigeria and to the ECOWAS-States, Advantage Austria, AHK Nigeria-Delegation of German Industry and Commerce in Nigeria, FOCI-Federation of Construction Industry Nigeria and ICEX-Spanish Embassy. Austria, Spain and Turkey are presenting official country pavilions.Nigeria is Africa's second largest economy with an estimated GDP of 415 billion USD (gtai) in 2016. With 187 million inhabitants it is the most populous African country and the 7most populous country in the world. The construction industry is worth 60 billion USD and has averaged 9.5% growth over the past 5 years. Nigeria is expected to become one of the world's top 20 economies by 2050.For more information about AfricaBuild Lagos 2017, please visit www.africabuild- lagos.com ---- ENDS ----fairtrade was founded by Martin Marz in 1991. Since long, fairtrade ranks among the leading organisers of professional international trade fairs in emerging markets, especially in North and Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Managed by its shareholder and committed to the values of a family business and the team spirit, fairtrade maintains a powerful network of partnerships throughout the world. fairtrade organizes shows in the sectors Agrofood, Building, CIT Solutions, Energy, Environment, Industry and PlastPrintPack and strives for a high level of customer satisfaction. By means of innovative products and excellent service fairtrade organizes professional platforms for valuable business contacts between exhibitors and visitors. A member of UFI The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry, fairtrade's management system is ISO 9001: 2008 certified.For more than two decades ITE Build & Interiors have been connecting businesses to some of the most significant building and interiors markets around the world. Since the first event in Kazakhstan in 1994 (KazBuild), the portfolio has continued to grow across Russia, Central Asia, Eastern and Southern Europe, Asia and Africa.The portfolio now consists of over 40 specialist events worldwide and owns some of the most globally-renowned brands such as MosBuild (Russia), Yapi TurkeyBuild (Turkey), Indobuildtech (Indonesia), BakuBuild (Azerbaijan)among many others.fairtrade GmbH & Co. KGMs Sarah NitscheHead of Marketing & Public RelationsKurfursten-Anlage 36D-69115 HeidelbergTel +49 / 62 21 / 45 65 22Fax +49 / 62 21 / 45 65 25Ms Blessing AbelTel +234 / 816 930 7338nigeria@fairtrade-messe.de
Libel Hearing Aid Centers, a hearing aid clinic with six locations headquartered in St. Joseph, Missouri has launched a new website for its business.

By: Libel Hearing Aids Center

LIBELHEARINGAID S

Contact

Libel Hearing Aids Center

Andrew Lekashman

***@libelhearingaids.com

816-558-3411



Photo:

https://www.prlog.org/ 12618968/1 Libel Hearing Aids CenterAndrew Lekashman816-558-3411

End

-- We are very excited to announce the launch of our new website for Libel Hearing Aids Center at http://www.libelhearingaids.com . We have been working on the new website since November and we have finally put the finishing touches on it that make it fully functioning.Our aim with this new website was to give the people of St. Joseph a good place to learn about hearing loss and hearing aids, find contact information for our Missouri and Kansas locations, and have a location for our new blog on the hearing industry. Hearing aids help improve spoken communication, and many people with hearing loss may not be able to clearly understand things said over the phone. An easy to use website with large font sizes, clear directions to clinic locations, and simple answers to questions about hearing will be very useful to those who have a difficult time with the spoken word.We hope that you enjoy our new website, and if there is anything that you feel we should change or adjust to make it more useful to you, please send us an email at email@libelhearingaids.com or give us a call at 816-558-3411.
By: Independent Business Association of Wisconsin

Steve Kohlmann

Contact

Judi Murphy

Murphy Associates

***@marketingwithmurphy.com Judi MurphyMurphy Associates

End

-- The Independent Business Association of Wisconsin (IBAW) hosts breakfast meeting on Friday, February 17, 7  9:00 am, at the Wisconsin Club, 900 W Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee, Wis. Presentation is "More Than Just Multiples: What Buyers & Sellers Should Know When Considering a Transaction."A plated breakfast will be served.The meeting keynote is Joe Froehlich, who is managing director at TKO Miller. Froehlich will talk about whether you're thinking of an exit strategy and are looking to sell your business, or if you're looking to acquire a business, there are specific items that need to be checked off to make sure the deal works to everyone's satisfaction  especially yours. TKO Miller professionals are seasoned experts in mergers and acquisitions consulting.Steve Kohlmann, Executive Director of IBAW, said, "Joe Froehlich will provide key takeaways regardless of which side of the business transaction you're on." To register for the February 17program, go to www.IBAW.com The mission of the IBAW is to advance business prosperity through insightful programming, executive networking, and member-driven public policy and advocacy. IBAW membership encompasses manufacturing, service, distribution, healthcare, technology, financial, consulting and others. A statewide, non-profit association, IBAW members and sponsors employ thousands of Wisconsin workers.Since 1973, the Independent Business Association of Wisconsin (IBAW) was formed for small business owners to engage in conversation relating to legislation which impacts the bottom-line costs of businesses throughout the state of Wisconsin. IBAW is a venue for high level CEOs, CFOs, COOs, other upper management and entrepreneurs to network, exchange business ideas, and become educated and involved on issues which impact their business.For additional information, contact Steve Kohlmann, IBAW Executive Director, via email at IBAWOffice@gmail.com
Country Manager of ISS Norway, Hans John iestad, will transfer into a new role as Regional Specialised Cleaning Director, Northern Europe, reporting directly to the Regional CEO of Northern Europe. The new Country Manager of ISS Norway will be Keld Mosgaard Christensen, who recently completed an assignment as Executive Vice-President

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The annual summer monsoon that drops rain onto East Asia, an area with about a billion people, has shifted dramatically in the distant past, at times moving northward by as much as 400 kilometers and doubling rainfall in that northern reach. The monsoon's changes over the past 10,000 years likely altered the course of early human cultures in China, say the authors of a new study.

Researchers from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Xi'an studied ancient water levels for Lake Dali, a closed-basin lake in Inner Mongolia in the northeast of China. They found that the lake was six times larger and water levels were 60 meters higher than present during the early and middle Holocene -- the period beginning about 11,700 years ago, and encompassing the development of human civilization.

"I think it is important to emphasize that these spatial fluctuations in the monsoon drive large changes in northern China," said Yonaton Goldsmith, a graduate student at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and lead author of the paper. "When the monsoon is strong, it shifts northward and northern China becomes green. When the monsoon is weak, the monsoon stays in the south and northern China dries out. Such large fluctuations must have altered the ecosystems in northern China dramatically."

The study, appearing this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also ties the shifting monsoon to changes in Earth's orbit and other periodic changes in the climate system. The study should help scientists understand how the monsoon is affected by those natural cycles, and how a changing climate today might influence the monsoon in the future.

Goldsmith said it's still unclear how the monsoon will react to global warming. One view is that the monsoon should grow stronger, but the area studied has been drying out over recent decades, he said, "so there is still a lot that needs to be done in that region before we can get definitive answers."

Dali Lake is located near the northwestern limit of the East Asian monsoon, and so would reflect the changes brought about when the monsoon shifted north. The researchers studied outcrops of sediments left behind when the lake was far larger, and used those and other markers to construct a timeline of lake levels, and the fluctuation of rainfall over millennia.

They found that the lake reached peak levels around 123,000 years ago, again around 58,000 years ago, and once more between 11,000 and 5,500 years ago. They tie the periodic increases in rainfall to the range of the monsoon shifting north by as much as 400 kilometers. The lake record is "highly correlated" with measurements taken earlier from cave deposits in both northern and southern China.

Between 5,500 and 5,000 years ago, the monsoon weakened and rainfall over northern China decreased by 50 percent, the researchers found. They speculate that this drying triggered a major cultural transition in the region. As they describe it, two early Neolithic societies, the Hongshan culture in North China and the Yangshao culture in central China, collapsed around 5,000 years ago. In central China, the following period saw the rise of more stratified and socially and politically complex societies, including the Longshan culture. Previously unoccupied areas on the eastern margin of the Tibetan plateau were populated. Meanwhile, northeast China experienced a sharp population decline, represented by the Xiaoheyan culture.

"These findings show that climate change can have dramatic effects on human societies and highlight the necessity to understand the effect of global warming on rainfall patterns in China and all over the world," the authors write.

Intense variations in rainfall may have played a role in the collapse of other civilizations. A study led by Lamont scientist Brendan Buckley, published several years ago, suggested that extended drought coupled with changes in the monsoon could have doomed Cambodia's ancient Khmer civilization at Angkor nearly 600 years ago. Drought is thought to have played a role in the decline of the Classic Maya civilization, too, though in that case, another Lamont study suggests that the Maya themselves contributed to the drought by clearing forests for cities and crops.

The Lake Dali paper's other authors are Wallace S. Broecker, Pratigya J. Polissar and Peter B. deMenocal of Lamont-Doherty; Hai Xu, Jianghu Lan, Peng Cheng, Weijian Zhou and Zhisheng An of the State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences; and Naomi Porat of the Geological Survey of Israel.

This work was supported by a Gary Comer Science and Education Foundation grant to Yonaton Goldsmith and Pratigya J. Polissar; Columbia's Center for Climate and Life; the National Basic Research Program of China Grant 2013CB955900; the External Cooperation Program of Bureau of International Cooperation, Chinese Academy of Sciences Grant 132B61KYSB20130003; and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Contribution no. 8084.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis has been called "the perfect pathogen." These bacteria hijack human macrophages, persist inside the cells to evade immune destruction, and then prevent the macrophage from undergoing programmed cell death. This provides a niche where they grow in a protected environment that is hard to reach with antibiotics.

An end to that hijacking may now be possible, as University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers explain in the journal Scientific Reports. In a proof-of-concept experiment, they were able to specifically force M. tuberculosis-infected macrophages into programmed cell death called apoptosis, thereby releasing the sheltered M. tuberculosis bacteria from the macrophage. The released pathogenic bacteria could then be killed by a lower concentration of rifampicin, one of the front-line tuberculosis antibiotics that is ineffective against the sheltered intracellular bacteria.

This strategy has been dubbed "release and kill," by Jim Sun, Ph.D., and colleagues, and if developed to clinical application, it could mean greatly shortened treatment periods for patients with tuberculosis, which now last at least six months. Their preclinical findings show, for the first time, that drug-induced selective apoptosis of M. tuberculosis-infected macrophages is achievable. Furthermore, drug-induced apoptosis could also improve the adaptive immune response against the pathogen and potentiate vaccines.

More than 10 million people develop active tuberculosis disease each year, and 1.8 million die.

This latest paper expands upon seminal results published by Sun and colleagues last year. They identified a macrophage enzyme called PPM1A as a central component of both the antiviral and antibacterial responses of macrophages. When M. tuberculosis infects macrophages, they found that it induced the upregulation of PPM1A, which in turn caused what Sun called "immune paralysis" of the macrophages.

Specifically, the heightened PPM1A levels abrogated the ability of macrophages to send out an "alarm signal" (the efficient production of cytokines and chemokines) in response to pathogen-associated molecules like lipopolysaccharide, it blocked the rush to the "scene of the fire" (migration of macrophages in response to a chemotactic signal of infection from other cells), and it prevented the macrophage's ability to "put out the fire" (by impairing the macrophage's capacity to engulf, or phagocytose, bacteria, the first step in the normal defense against bacterial infections).

In this latest Scientific Reports paper, the UAB researchers greatly expand their understanding of PPM1A's role beyond immune paralysis. They show how the abnormal upregulation of this macrophage enzyme provoked by M. tuberculosis acts as a checkpoint that ends the macrophage's ability to undergo both intrinsic and extrinsic apoptosis.

Apoptosis is a normal, daily event. Between 50 billion and 70 billion cells in an adult undergo apoptotic death every day. Intrinsic apoptosis responds to a signal of cell aging or dysfunction from the inside, and extrinsic apoptosis responds to a 'death signal' from outside the cell. The normal apoptosis of a macrophage after it has engulfed an invading bacterium leads to priming of cell-mediated immunity, helps to kill the intracellular bacteria and limits harmful tissue inflammation. M. tuberculosis blocks these events, and when the bacteria are ready to exit the macrophage to disseminate, they induce necrosis, not apoptosis, of the cell, which evades stimulation of an immune reaction.
Children exposed to harsh parenting are at greater risk of having poor school outcomes. A new longitudinal study sought to determine why. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh who conducted the study suggest that both direct and indirect effects of parenting play a role in shaping children's behavior, as well as their relationships with peers.

The study appears in the journal Child Development.

"We believe our study is the first to use children's life histories as a framework to examine how parenting affects children's educational outcomes via relationships with peers, sexual behavior, and delinquency," notes Rochelle F. Hentges, a postdoctoral fellow in the psychology department at the University of Pittsburgh, who led the study. "In our study, harsh parenting was related to lower educational attainment through a set of complex cascading processes that emphasized present-oriented behaviors at the cost of future-oriented educational goals." Harsh parenting was defined as yelling, hitting, and engaging in coercive behaviors like verbal or physical threats as a means of punishment.

The researchers looked at youth who were part of the Maryland Adolescent Development in Context Study, which examined the influences of social contexts on adolescents' academic and psychosocial development. This ongoing longitudinal study in a large county near Washington, D.C., included 1,482 students, who were followed over nine years, beginning in seventh grade and ending three years after students' expected high school graduation. By the end of the study, 1,060 students remained. The participants reflected a broad range of racial, socioeconomic, and geographic backgrounds. Participants reported on their parents' use of physical and verbal aggression, as well as their own interactions with peers, delinquency, and sexual behavior. Markers of overreliance on peers included deciding to spend time with friends instead of doing homework and feeling like it's okay to break rules to keep friends. When participants were 21, they reported on their highest level of educational attainment.

Researchers found that students who were parented harshly in seventh grade were more likely in ninth grade to say their peer group was more important than other responsibilities, including following parents' rules. This in turn led them to engage in more risky behaviors in eleventh grade, including more frequent early sexual behavior in females and greater delinquency (e.g., hitting, stealing) in males. These behaviors, in turn, led to low educational achievement (as assessed by years of school completed) three years after high school, meaning that youth who were parented harshly were more likely to drop out of high school or college. Parenting influenced educational outcomes even after accounting for socioeconomic status, standardized test scores, grade point average, and educational values.

"Youth whose needs aren't met by their primary attachment figures may seek validation from peers," explains Hentges. "This may include turning to peers in unhealthy ways, which may lead to increased aggression and delinquency, as well as early sexual behavior at the expense of long-term goals such as education."

The study's findings have implications for prevention and intervention programs aimed at increasing students' engagement in school and boosting graduation rates. "Since children who are exposed to harsh and aggressive parenting are susceptible to lower educational attainment, they could be targeted for intervention," suggests Ming-Te Wang, associate professor of psychology in education at the University of Pittsburgh, who coauthored the study. Programs dealing with unhealthy peer relationships, delinquency, and sexual behaviors may also play a role in increasing educational attainment, the authors note. And teaching methods that focus on present-oriented goals and strategies (e.g., hands-on experimental learning, group activities) may promote learning and educational goals for individuals, especially those who are parented harshly.
A new study on the relationship between people and the planet shows that climate change is only one of many inter-related threats to the Earth's capacity to support human life.

An international team of distinguished scientists, including five members of the National Academies, argues that there are critical components missing from current climate models that inform environmental, climate, and economic policies.

The article, published in the National Science Review, describes how the recent growth in resource use, land-use change, emissions, and pollution has made humanity the dominant driver of change in most of the Earth's natural systems, and how these changes, in turn, have important feedback effects on humans with costly and serious consequences.

The authors argue that current estimates of the impact of climate change do not connect human variables -- such as demographics, inequality, economic growth, and migration -- with planetary changes. This makes current models likely to miss important feedbacks in the real Earth-human system, especially those that may result in unexpected or counterintuitive outcomes.

Furthermore, the authors argue that some of the existing models are unreliable. The United Nations projections of a relatively stable population for the whole of the developed world depend, for instance, on dramatic, and highly unlikely, declines projected in a few key countries. Japan, for example, must decline by 34%, Germany by 31% and Russia by about 30% for the projected stability in total developed country population to be born out.12 In addition, countries often highlighted for their low birth rates, like Italy and Spain, are not projected to decline by even 1% for decades.

In this new research, the authors present extensive evidence of the need for a new type of model that incorporates the feedbacks that the Earth System has on humans, and propose a framework for future modeling that would serve as a more realistic guide for policymaking and sustainable development.

"Current models are likely to miss critical feedbacks in the combined Earth-Human system," said co-author Eugenia Kalnay, professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science at University of Maryland. "It would be like trying to predict El Nino with a sophisticated atmospheric model but with the Sea Surface Temperatures taken from external, independent projections by, for example, the United Nations. Without including the real feedbacks, predictions for coupled systems cannot work; the model can get away from reality very quickly."
Holographic atomic memory, invented and constructed by physicists from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw, is the first device able to generate single photons on demand in groups of several dozen or more. The device, successfully demonstrated in practice, overcomes one of the fundamental obstacles towards the construction of some type of quantum computer.

Completely secure, high-speed quantum communication, or even a model of quantum computer, may be among the possible applications for the new source of single photons recently built at the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw (UW Physics), Poland. An unprecedented feature of this new device is that for the first time it enables the on-demand production of a precisely controlled group of photons, as opposed to just a single one.

"Compared to existing solutions and ideas, our device is much more efficient and allows for integration on a larger scale. In the functional sense, one can even think of it as a first equivalent of a small 'integrated circuit' operating on single photons," explains Dr. Wojciech Wasilewski (UW Physics), one of the authors of an article published in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters.

The first single-photon sources were invented in the 1970s, and even though the many types of them that exist today still have their many drawbacks, single photons can nevertheless be successfully used in quantum communication protocols that guarantee full confidentiality. However, to be able to perform complex quantum computations we would need entire groups of photons.

The simplest method of generating groups of photons is to use a sufficiently large number of sources. The devices in widespread use today utilize the phenomenon of Spontaneous Parametric Down-Conversion (SPDC). Under certain conditions, a photon generated by a laser can split into two new ones, each with half the amount of energy, and with all other properties linked by the principles of conserving energy and momentum. Thus, when we record information on one of the photon from the pair we also find out about the existence and properties of the other photon, which nevertheless remains undisturbed by observation and therefore perfectly suitable for quantum operations. Unfortunately, every SPDC source generates single photons rather slowly and quite randomly. As a result, for a simultaneous emission from even as few as 10 sources we might have to wait up for several years.

In 2013 a team of physicists from the Universities of Oxford and London proposed a much more efficient protocol for generating groups of photons. The idea was to place a quantum memory at each source, which would be capable of storing emitted photons. The photons stored in the memories could be released at the same moment. Calculations showed that the time scale required to wait for a group of 10 photons would then be shortened by a whopping ten orders of magnitude: from years down to microseconds!

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The source now unveiled by the University of Warsaw physicists represents the first implementation of this concept, and one that's much more integrated: here, all the photons are created immediately within the quantum memory as a result of the laser pulse, which lasts only microseconds. External sources of single photons are no longer needed at all, and the necessary number of quantum memories has dwindled to just one.

"Our entire experimental setup takes up about two square meters of our optical table surface. But the most important events take place in the memory itself, in a glass cylinder measuring approximately 10 cm in length and with a diameter of 2.5 cm. Anyone who might expect to see inside the cylinder a sophisticated design worthy of a semiconductor integrated circuit will be greatly disappointed: the interior of a cell is filled only with pairs of rubidium atoms 87Rb at 60-80 degrees Celsius," describes Michal Dabrowski, a PhD student at UW Physics.

The new memory, which was built with the support of PRELUDIUM and SONATA grants from Poland's National Science Centre and the resources of the PhoQuS@UW project is a spatially multimode memory: individual photons can be placed, stored, processed and read in different areas inside the cylinder, acting as separate memory drawers. The write operation, performed with a laser beam, works by preserving a certain spatial model, a hologram, in the form of atomic excitations. Illuminating the system with the laser allows us to reconstruct the hologram and read the memory's content.

In the conducted experiments the new source generated a group of up to 60 photons. Calculations show that in realistic conditions, the use of higher power lasers would help to increase this number even up to several thousand. (The calculations involved in the data analysis from this experiment were of such great complexity that they required the computing power of 53,000 grid cores of the PL-Grid Infrastructure).

Due to noise, losses and other parasitic processes, the quantum memory from UW Physics can store photons from several to tens of microseconds, which for humans can seem like a very short time. However, there are systems allowing for simple operations to be performed on photons in nanoseconds. In the new quantum memory we can in principle perform several hundred operations on each photon, which is sufficient for quantum communication and information processing.

Having such a working source of large groups of photons brings us an important step closer to constructing one type of a quantum computer, able to perform certain calculations in much less time than the best modern computing machines. Several years ago it was shown that by performing simple linear optics operations on photons we can increase the speed of quantum computing. The complexity of these computations depends on the number of photons processed simultaneously. However, the limitations of the sources of large groups of photons prevented linear quantum computers from spreading their wings, keeping them limited to elementary mathematical operations.

In addition to quantum computations, the photonic 'integrated circuit' may be useful in quantum communication. Currently, this involves sending single photons using an optical fibre. The new source would allow many photons to enter the optical fibre simultaneously, and therefore would increase the capacity of quantum channels.
Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a desktop diagnosis tool that detects the presence of harmful bacteria in a blood sample in a matter of hours instead of days. The breakthrough was made possible by a combination of proprietary chemistry, innovative electrical engineering and high-end imaging and analysis techniques powered by machine learning. The team details their work in the Feb. 8 issue of Scientific Reports.

To identify low levels of harmful bacteria among a large number of human blood cells, researchers for the first time melted bacterial DNA in 20,000 extremely small simultaneous reactions. Each reaction contained only 20 picoliters -- a scale that is hard to picture: one drop of rain contains hundreds of thousands of picoliters.

Each type of DNA has a specific signature as it comes apart during melting. As the melting process is imaged and analyzed, researchers can use machine learning to determine which types of DNA appear in blood samples. During experiments, the system accurately identified, 99 percent of the time, DNA sequences from bacteria causing food-borne illnesses and pneumonia -- in less than four hours.

"Analyzing this many reactions at the same time at this small a scale had never been attempted before," said Stephanie Fraley, a professor of bioengineering at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego and the paper's lead author. "Most molecular tests look at DNA on a much larger scale and look for just one type of bacteria at a time. We analyze all the bacteria in a sample. This is a much more holistic approach."

Current methods used to detect and identify bacteria rely on cultures, which can take days. That is too long to provide physicians with an effective and timely diagnosis tool -- as anyone who has been prescribed antibiotics while waiting for test results knows.

"We are driven by clinical needs," Fraley said.

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She brought together a team of bioengineers, clinicians, electrical engineers and computer scientists to develop a faster diagnosis system.

How it works

It all starts with one milliliter of blood, which researchers inoculated with Listeria monocytogenes, a food-borne bacterium that causes about 260 deaths a year in the United States, and Streptococcus pneumoniae, which causes everything from sinus infections, to pneumonia, to meningitis.

Researchers isolated all DNA from the blood sample. The DNA was then placed on a digital chip that allowed each piece to independently multiply in its own small reaction. For the process to work at such small scales -- each well containing DNA in the chip was only 20 picoliters in volume -- researchers used a proprietary mix of chemicals subject to a provisional patent.

The chip with the amplified DNA was placed in an innovative high-throughput microscope that Fraley and her team designed. The DNA was then heated in increments of 0.2 degrees Celsius, causing it to melt at temperatures between 50 to 90 degrees Celsius -about 120 to 190 degrees Fahrenheit.

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As the DNA double-helix melts, the bonds holding together the DNA strands break. Depending on the DNA's sequence, the bonds have different strengths and that changes the way the strands unwind from each other. This creates a unique sequence-dependent fingerprint, which researchers can detect using a special dye. The dye causes the unwinding process to give off fluorescent light, creating what researchers call a melting curve -- a unique signature for each type of bacteria.

When engineers imaged the melting process with the high-throughput microscope, they were able to capture the bacteria's melting curves. They then analyzed the curves with a machine learning algorithm they developed.

In previous work, the algorithm was trained on 37 different types of bacteria undergoing different reactions in different conditions. The researchers showed that it was able to identify bacteria strains with 99 percent accuracy. By contrast, the error rate for traditional methods can be up to 22.6 percent.

Next steps

Next steps include shrinking the size of the system so that it can be more easily deployed in clinics and physicians' offices. Researchers also want to add to the system the capability to detect fungal and viral pathogens, as well as genes for antibiotic resistance. They also want to further validate their results on patient samples.

Fraley hopes the system will be available to physicians in the next five years.

"This has the potential to reach people near or at the point of care," she said. "With further improvements, it could also be deployed in low-resources settings. It's a simple and innovative approach."
Poorer and less-educated older Americans are more like to suffer from chronic pain than those with greater wealth and more education, but the disparity between the two groups is much greater than previously thought, climbing as high as 370 percent in some categories, according to new research by a University at Buffalo medical sociologist.

The results, based on 12 years of data from more than 19,000 subjects aged 51 and over, excluding those diagnosed or treated for cancer, provide several kinds of bad news about chronic pain in the United States, according to Hanna Grol-Prokopczyk, an assistant professor of sociology at UB and the paper's author, published in this month's issue of the journal Pain.

Chronic pain levels are also rising by period and not just by age, meaning people who were in their 60s in 2010 reported more pain than people who were in their 60s in 1998. "There are a lot of pressures right now to reduce opioid prescription," says Grol-Prokopczyk. "In part, this study should be a reminder that many people are legitimately suffering from pain. Health care providers shouldn't assume that someone who shows up in their office complaining of pain is just trying to get an opioid prescription. "We have to remember that pain is a legitimate and widespread problem," she says.

The study also serves as an argument for investing more into research for other treatments.

"We don't have particularly good treatments for chronic pain. If opioids are to some extent being taken off the table, it becomes even more important to find other ways of addressing this big public health problem."

Tens of millions of American adults experience chronic pain. A 2011 Institute of Medicine report (now the National Academy of Science Health and Medicine Division) noted that chronic pain affects more people and costs the economy more money than heart disease, cancer and diabetes combined. Yet most research on the condition has asked only whether people had chronic pain or did not.

Grol-Prokopczyk's groundbreaking study is among the first to look beyond either the presence or absence of chronic pain to examine instead matters of degree, asking whether the pain was mild, moderate or severe. Her research, based on the Health and Retirement Study, which asked participants if they were "often troubled with pain," also follows the same subjects over 12 years, as opposed to most studies that illuminate a particular point in time.

"I found that people with lower levels of education and wealth don't just have more pain, they also have more severe pain," she says. "I also looked at pain-related disability, meaning that pain is interfering with the ability to do normal work or household activities. And again, people with less wealth and education are more likely to experience this disability."

People with the least education are 80 percent more likely to experience chronic pain than people with the most. Looking exclusively at severe pain, subjects who didn't finish high school are 370 percent more likely to experience severe chronic pain than those with graduate degrees.

"If you're looking at all pain -- mild, moderate and severe combined -- you do see a difference across socioeconomic groups. And other studies have shown that. But if you look at the most severe pain, which happens to be the pain most associated with disability and death, then the socioeconomically disadvantaged are much, much more likely to experience it."

More research needs to be done to understand why pain is so unequally distributed in the population, but Grol-Prokopczyk says it's critical to keep the high burden of pain in mind in this period of concern over the opioid epidemic.

"If we as a society decide that opioid analgesics are often too high risk as a treatment for chronic pain, then we need to invest in other effective treatments for chronic pain, and/or figure out how to prevent it in the first place," she says.
Due to its excellent material properties of elasticity, resilience, and electrical and thermal insulation, elastomers have been used in a myriad of applications. They are especially ideal for fabricating soft robots, flexible electronics and smart biomedical devices which require soft and deformable material properties to establish safe and smooth interactions with humans externally and internally.

However, to date, the most widely used silicon rubber-based elastomers require a thermal curing process which significantly limits its fabrication in traditional ways, such as by cutting, molding and casting, which constrains design freedom and geometric complexity. In order to enrich the design and fabrication flexibility, researchers attempted to use 3D printing techniques, such as the ultraviolet (UV) curing based 3D printing techniques that solidify liquid polymer resins to 3D objects through patterned UV light, to fabricate elastomeric 3D objects. Nevertheless, most of the commercially available UV curable thus 3D printable elastomers break at less than 200% (two times the original length), which makes it unsuitable for many applications.

Recently, researchers have developed a family of highly stretchable and UV curable (SUV) elastomers that can be stretched by up to 1100%, and are suitable for UV curing based 3D printing techniques. This work is a collaborative effort between researchers from the Singapore University of Technology and Design's (SUTD) Digital Manufacturing and Design (DManD) Centre which is funded by the Singapore National Research Foundation (NRF), the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI), and the Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE), also funded by the NRF. Details of this project appeared in the Journal of Advanced Materials on 7 February 2017.

"We have developed the most stretchable 3D printable elastomer in the world," said Assistant Professor Qi (Kevin) Ge from the SUTD's DManD Centre, who is one of the co-leaders in developing the SUV elastomers. He added: "Our new elastomers can be stretched by up to 1100% which is more than five times the elongation at break of any commercially available elastomer that is suitable for UV curing based 3D printing techniques."

Using high resolution 3D printing with the SUV elastomer compositions enables the direct creation of complex 3D lattices or hollow structures that exhibit extremely large deformation. "The new SUV elastomers enable us to directly print complicated geometric structures and devices such as a 3D soft robotic gripper within an hour. Compared to traditional molding and casting methods, using UV curing based 3D printing with the SUV elastomers significantly reduces the fabrication time from many hours, even days, to a few minutes or hours as the complicated and time-consuming fabrication steps such as mold-building, molding/demolding, and part assembly are replaced by a single 3D printing step," said Dr Ge.

The SUV elastomers not only sustain large elastic deformation, but also maintain good mechanical repeatability, which makes them good materials for fabricating flexible electronics. To demonstrate this, the researchers fabricated a 3D buckyball light switch that still works after being pressed for more than 1000 times.

"Overall, we believe the SUV elastomers, together with the UV curing based 3D printing techniques, will significantly enhance the capability of fabricating soft and deformable 3D structures and devices including soft actuators and robots, flexible electronics, acoustic metamaterials, and many other applications," said Professor Shlomo Magdassi who is a co-leader of this project at HUJI and CREATE.
A new form of congenital muscular dystrophy has been discovered which is caused by mutations in a previously un-linked gene.

The study is published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

The discovery will allow a precise genetic diagnosis for a greater number of children affected by this condition, and help inform better clinical management.

The study, led by Dr Yalda Jamshidi from St George's, University of London and Dr Chiara Manzini from George Washington University, examined the DNA of five individuals who were affected by early onset of a group of conditions including muscle weakness and an inability to stand or walk.

Other symptoms included cataracts, intellectual disability and short stature.

Although some of the symptoms varied between individuals, the results identified mutations in the same disease gene. Mutations in this gene -- INPP5K -- had not previously been reported.

To get a better idea of the gene's role in development the researchers blocked the expression of the gene in zebrafish. They found that the fish then showed muscle damage and eye defects, similar to the features seen in the individuals with the mutations.

Dr Jamshidi said: "These findings can be used for diagnostic testing of people with symptoms similar to those described in this study and where the gene responsible for their condition is not known. If INPP5K is found to be the faulty gene, patients will get better guidance and more accurate information on their condition."

Congenital muscular dystrophy (CMD) is a term used for a group of genetic muscle-wasting conditions, in which the symptoms become apparent at an early age. They cause muscles to weaken and waste over time, leading to increasing disability. They can also cause learning difficulties.

Robert Meadowcroft, Chief Executive of Muscular Dystrophy UK, commented: "Early stage research identifying genes for muscle-wasting conditions, such as this, gives us valuable insight into better understanding these complex and rare conditions. We know families find it extremely difficult living in limbo without a precise diagnosis, particularly in this current era of increasing precision medicine. The results from this paper could help some families living with congenital muscular dystrophy to receive a faster diagnosis, paving the way for a potential treatment for this mutation in the future."

Dr Jamshidi added: "There is currently no treatment available to address the underlying genetic cause of CMD. We hope that further research may identify why a faulty INPP5K gene causes these symptoms -- and that information will help with the search for therapies in the future."
Scientists are joining lawyers, policymakers and writers to urge conservationists not only to save species, but also to preserve a diverse array of ecosystem structures and functions in the face of rising populations and changing climate. This could include allowing some species to disappear from some areas if that means a more resilient environment able to respond to warming temperatures and loss of habitat.

Key to assessing the health of today's rapidly changing ecosystems is understanding their history, which can only be read from the fossil record, or the paleobiology of the region, the scientists argue.

"In the past, conservation biology was about trying to hold everything static, to save everything just the way it is, like you have a museum collection of species," said senior author Anthony Barnosky, a professor emeritus of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, who is now executive director of Stanford University's Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve. "But we are changing the planet so much that we can't expect to hold to the old norms. Already there are new normals, and in the future there will be even more new normals. So the question is: How do we do conservation biology under that scenario of really rapid change?"

The answer is rethinking how to manage ecosystems, whether wilderness like Yellowstone National Park or a field of strawberries, to promote healthy change over time.

"We are advocating in this paper that we have to preserve the capacity to respond to changes in a way that keeps the ecosystem healthy, which will likely involve watching species come and go, watching assemblages of species change, and in any given place, what we regard as a normal ecosystem today will not be the same 20 to 30 years down the road," Barnosky said.

The ideas came from a workshop involving 41 scholars from around the world convened at UC Berkeley by an international group of collaborators in September 2015 to discuss the future of conservation. The group, which included ecologists, conservation biologists, paleobiologists, geologists, lawyers, policymakers and writers, is publishing its conclusions in a perspective paper appearing in the Feb. 10 issue of the journal Science.

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"Having collaborators from developing parts of the world helped us ground our ideas," said Elizabeth Hadly, a professor of biology at Stanford University and co-author of the paper. "Our ideas are well-motivated in science, but must account for the realities people living in these landscapes experience each day."

Is conservation about preserving museum specimens?

Barnosky noted that conservation biologists have become split between those who want to focus on preserving ecosystems such as wilderness areas by excluding humans, and those wanting to manipulate what they refer to as "novel ecosystems" that result from human activities.

The workshop group's consensus was that both perspectives are needed. Historically intact ecosystems, like parts of the Amazon, could be managed to simultaneously maximize biodiversity, a balanced food web and ecosystem services such as storing carbon or cleansing water, all the while preserving a feeling of wildness.

Other ecosystems, like agricultural fields, could be managed to maximize producton without destroying the biodiversity surrounding them, as often happens with monocultures of corn, wheat or soybeans.

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"We rely on nature for almost everything: clean water, food, materials for construction and making computers and phones," said co-author Allison Stegner, a former UC Berkeley graduate student who is now a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "The pace of global change today is so fast that we stand to lose all of those things that we rely on. Coming up with new approaches to conservation is essential to maintaining human life."

Whether dealing with historically intact or novel ecosystems -- the 47 percent of Earth's ice-free land that has been altered by humans -- scientists need to look at the paleobiology of the region, that is, what the ecosystem looked like before humans altered it, and seek to rebuild it to some degree toward that natural balance, Barnosky said.

In many cases, this may involve trying to preserve a member of the community that does a critical job, like a top carnivore, although the particular species that does the job may change through time.

"One of the things we are arguing is, let's decide what we are trying to preserve and then use the paleobiological record to tell you how to preserve it. The fossil record is becoming critical in guiding nature into the future," Barnosky said.

For novel ecosystems, the paleobiological record is essential because we may have to artificially rebuild a healthy ecosystem, which means knowing the jobs of each species there and making sure we have the right number of large mammals, for example, or the right balance of carnivores and herbivores.

"You have to know the pieces, the functional roles and how to put species together to make an ecosystem that is going to last and maintain itself and remain healthy," Barnosky said.
Researchers have identified a gatekeeper protein that prevents pancreatic cancer cells from transitioning into a particularly aggressive cell type and also found therapies capable of thwarting those cells when the gatekeeper is depleted.

A team from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center describes this week in the journal Nature a series of preclinical experiments using patient-derived tumor xenografts (PDXs) and mouse models that point to potential treatments for patients with a rapidly-progressing and resistant subgroup of tumor cells.

"Pancreatic cancer cells are characterized by remarkable plasticity, cellular changes that make this malignancy so difficult to treat," said first author Giannicola Genovese, M.D., instructor in Genomic Medicine.

Genovese and colleagues found, in a subset of tumor cells, after the original oncogenic driver fades, depletion of a gene called SMARCB1 results in a cellular change to mesenchymal status, a mobile and invasive cell state.

The team also found a vulnerability for mesenchymal cells: they are overly reliant on accelerated protein production to meet increased metabolic needs.

"Inhibiting proteostasis in combination with standard of care chemotherapy was highly effective in killing these most aggressive subpopulations of pancreatic cancer," Genovese said.

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Identify, understand tumor cells to kill them

This led the team to look at a drug called AUY922, an inhibitor of heat shock protein 90, which blocks proteostasis -- the creation, folding, distribution and degrading of proteins. Both as a single agent and combined with the chemotherapy gemcitabine, AUY922 increased the response rate and lengthened survival of mice whose tumors faithfully recapitulated key features of human pancreatic cancers.

A key challenge in treating cancer stems from molecular and genomic variability of tumor cells, which causes functional differences across cells that can fuel resistance to treatment.

"We are working to dissect the cell populations within tumors to attempt to understand the functional vulnerabilities of each, then to plan for more rational combinatorial treatment approaches," said Giulio Draetta, M.D., Ph.D., professor of Genomic Medicine and director of MD Anderson's Institute for Applied Cancer Science.

Draetta, who is corresponding author of the paper, noted that identifying the subpopulation of aggressive cells and establishing their vulnerability to proteostasis inhibitors allows a match of treatment to specific cell type. "This is truly functionally defined, personalized medicine."

Path to mesenchymal status

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To identify and study the impact of pancreatic cancer cell plasticity, the team established an experimental approach to isolate and characterize single cell clones called "escapers" that spontaneously acquire malignant features. They identified two major sub-populations, one preserving simpler epithelial differentiation, one displaying mesenchymal features.

Profiling the two types of escaper populations revealed that mesenchymal clones are characterized by the extinction of KRAS signaling, a common driver of pancreatic cancer, and the abnormal activation of epigenetic programs regulated by the chromatin remodeling factor SMARCB1.

Lower SMARCB1, shorter life

To explore the clinical relevance of these findings, the researchers analyzed surgically removed tumors from 134 patients and identified a subset of patients whose tumors displayed low levels of SMARCB1, independence from KRAS signaling and who had a dismal prognosis.

Subsequent experiments ablating the SMARCB1 gene in mouse models led to the rapid expansion of mesenchymal sub-populations with powerful growth and metastatic characteristics. Restoring SMARCB1 caused mesenchymal cells to revert to the less aggressive epithelial type, establishing SMARCB1 as a gatekeeper of epithelial identity.

The researchers also found that SMARCB1-deficient cells had increased protein synthesis rates and activation of a number of protein-related stress-response pathways. They also found that expression of the oncogene MYC is required to maintain the mesenchymal state in SMARCB1-deficient cells.

To test the stress-response connection, they ablated a crucial stress response gene, which resulted in tumor regression and prolonged survival in mice.

These findings led to the experiments with the HSP90 inhibitor AUY922, which caused tumor cell death and hindered growth in SMARCB1-deficient mice but had a limited impact on mice with intact SMARCB1. The combination with gemcitabine extended survival in mice transplanted with patient-derived xenografts.

Hunting mechanisms of cell change

"This work represents the first step of a major effort to understand the mechanisms allowing malignant cells to hijack specific gene programs to adapt to stress and survive," Genovese said. "Today we have a detailed map of the genetic landscape driving cancer initiation and progression, but our knowledge of the epigenetic, metabolic and molecular programs conferring on tumors cells the ability to change state are still elusive."

The team is developing novel technological tools to dissect those mechanisms in detail and also collaborates with the Institute for Applied Cancer Science to translate its findings by designing tailored clinical trials to exploit the vulnerabilities of those highly aggressive mesenchymal cells.
A team of University of Colorado Boulder engineers has developed a scalable manufactured metamaterial -- an engineered material with extraordinary properties not found in nature -- to act as a kind of air conditioning system for structures. It has the ability to cool objects even under direct sunlight with zero energy and water consumption.

When applied to a surface, the metamaterial film cools the object underneath by efficiently reflecting incoming solar energy back into space while simultaneously allowing the surface to shed its own heat in the form of infrared thermal radiation.

The new material, which is described today in the journal Science, could provide an eco-friendly means of supplementary cooling for thermoelectric power plants, which currently require large amounts of water and electricity to maintain the operating temperatures of their machinery.

The researchers' glass-polymer hybrid material measures just 50 micrometers thick -- slightly thicker than the aluminum foil found in a kitchen -- and can be manufactured economically on rolls, making it a potentially viable large-scale technology for both residential and commercial applications.

"We feel that this low-cost manufacturing process will be transformative for real-world applications of this radiative cooling technology," said Xiaobo Yin, co-director of the research and an assistant professor who holds dual appointments in CU Boulder's Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Materials Science and Engineering Program. Yin received DARPA's Young Faculty Award in 2015.

The material takes advantage of passive radiative cooling, the process by which objects naturally shed heat in the form of infrared radiation, without consuming energy. Thermal radiation provides some natural nighttime cooling and is used for residential cooling in some areas, but daytime cooling has historically been more of a challenge. For a structure exposed to sunlight, even a small amount of directly-absorbed solar energy is enough to negate passive radiation.

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The challenge for the CU Boulder researchers, then, was to create a material that could provide a one-two punch: reflect any incoming solar rays back into the atmosphere while still providing a means of escape for infrared radiation. To solve this, the researchers embedded visibly-scattering but infrared-radiant glass microspheres into a polymer film. They then added a thin silver coating underneath in order to achieve maximum spectral reflectance.

"Both the glass-polymer metamaterial formation and the silver coating are manufactured at scale on roll-to-roll processes," added Ronggui Yang, also a professor of mechanical engineering and a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

During field tests in Boulder, Colorado and Cave Creek, Arizona, the metamaterial successfully demonstrated its average radiative cooling power larger than 110W/m2 for continuous 72 hours and larger than 90W/m2 in direct, noon-time sunlight. That cooling power is roughly equivalent to the electricity generated using solar cells for similar area, but the radiative cooling has the advantage of continuous running both day and night.

"Just 10 to 20 square meters of this material on the rooftop could nicely cool down a single-family house in summer," said Gang Tan, an associate professor in the University of Wyoming's Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering and a co-author of the paper.

In addition to being useful for cooling of buildings and power plants, the material could also help improve the efficiency and lifetime of solar panels. In direct sunlight, panels can overheat to temperatures that hamper their ability to convert solar rays into electricity.

"Just by applying this material to the surface of a solar panel, we can cool the panel and recover an additional one to two percent of solar efficiency," said Yin. "That makes a big difference at scale."

The engineers have applied for a patent for the technology and are working with CU Boulder's Technology Transfer Office to explore potential commercial applications. They plan to create a 200-square-meter "cooling farm" prototype in Boulder in 2017.

The invention is the result of a $3 million grant awarded in 2015 to Yang, Yin and Tang by the Energy Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).

"The key advantage of this technology is that it works 24/7 with no electricity or water usage," said Yang "We're excited about the opportunity to explore potential uses in the power industry, aerospace, agriculture and more."
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A written arbitration agreement between an employee and her employer could not be enforced because the document failed to properly identify the claims covered and to adequately specify the procedures to be followed, the California Court of Appeal ruled. The court affirmed a lower court's refusal to compel arbitration of the employee's claims under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act.

In July 2001, Julie Flores began working for Nature's Best Distribution in the shipping/receiving department. After she was terminated following a medical leave, she filed a complaint against the company in November 2014, alleging disability discrimination, failure to engage in the interactive process, failure to accommodate disability, failure to prevent discrimination or retaliation, and wrongful termination in violation of public policy.

Nature's Best filed a petition to compel arbitration of the claims and to stay judicial proceedings on the grounds that Flores had signed an arbitration agreement. The trial court denied the petition, and Nature's Best appealed.

The appellate court noted that when a petition to compel arbitration is filed, the employer must show that an agreement to arbitrate exists. California contract law applies to determine whether the parties formed an enforceable contract.

The court then concluded that Nature's Best failed to show that Flores had agreed to submit her claims to binding arbitration.

First, the court found that while the agreement stated that it was between "employee and company," it did not define either term. While the signature block had the name "Julie Flores" printed and signed under the word "employee," the signature block for the employer was not filled in, dated or signed. Therefore, it was not clear which entity or entities were covered by the agreement.

Second, the agreement required the employee to "submit all legal, equitable and administrative disputes to the American Arbitration Association (AAA) for mediation and binding arbitration" except for those disputes covered by a collective bargaining agreement between Nature's Best and Teamsters Local 692, which represented some of the company's employees. However, the agreement failed to define which disputes would be subject to arbitration before the AAA and which would be subject to resolution through the grievance and arbitration procedure contained in the collective bargaining agreement. The company's motion to compel arbitration did not include any explanation of why Flores' claims were not covered by the collective bargaining agreement.

Third, the agreement failed to identify which set of AAA rules would apply to binding arbitration. The agreement simply stated that disputes that were not subject to the grievance and arbitration procedure in the collective bargaining agreement were to be submitted to the AAA for mediation and binding arbitration to be held in accordance "with the rules of" the AAA.

The company provided to the trial court a copy of AAA rules, but those rules became effective in 2013about 12 years after Flores signed the agreement. It did not produce evidence that identified any particular set of AAA rules that were in effect at the time of the signing. According to the court, Nature's Best could have but did not specify the type or version of AAA rules in the agreement, attach a copy of the governing rules, or provide information such as a website link to Flores informing her where she might find the governing arbitration rules.

Therefore, the court concluded that the agreement was ambiguous regarding:

Who the covered employer was.



Whether the arbitration provision of the agreement and not a grievance and arbitration procedure of the collective bargaining agreement applied to any or all of Flores' claims.



Which rules and procedures governed the arbitration.



The court concluded that no agreement had been reached between the parties and that, therefore, the trial court was correct in refusing to compel arbitration.

Flores v. Nature's Best Distribution, No. G052410, Cal. Ct. App. (Dec. 27, 2016).

[SHRM members-only platform: SHRM Connect]

Professional Pointer: California courts are often wary of arbitration agreements in the employment context. To ensure enforceability, all agreements must be carefully drafted and should be reviewed by counsel.

Joanne Deschenaux, J.D., is a freelance writer in Annapolis, Md.
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India is the latest country where the military has been forced to deal with the problems created when soldiers have their cell phones with them while on duty. Indian military personnel are not supposed to carry and use their cell phones while on duty. While technically forbidden many officers and troops carry the phones with them anyway. India is now trying more surprise inspections and escalating threats and warnings to those caught with the forbidden cell phones. Indian commanders feel they have a unique problem in that Pakistani hackers working for the military have managed to install malware (malicious hidden software secretly installed on a computer) on cell phones and laptops used by Indian offers and used that to capture what was on the infected device and also secretly turn on the camera and record what was in view. This is a problem other nations have to watch out for and the Indians say they do not have the resources of nations like Israel or the United States to deal with this.

Meanwhile other nations have confronted and handled this problem. Israel was probably the first to notice this issue. By 2005 Israel, and several other Western nations had noticed that cell phones were changing military life in unexpected ways. When on base, cell phones have proved to be an asset. Its much easier to get in touch with people, and communicate in general. Even warship crews, when in port, make use of their cell phones on board. At sea, the navy uses walkie talkies. However, there are commercial services that connect cell phone users at sea (on cruise ships), via a satellite link, with world-wide cell phone service. The U.S. Navy eventually developed that kind of capability for users on warships, with restrictions on the link to the rest of the world.

Troops often carried their cell phones on training exercises, or even into combat zones, or even combat itself, keeping them connected to family and friends. Units have different policies on cell phone use in the field. Usually, the troops are told to turn them off when they are training, or set them on vibrate. But even when in the field (and within range of cell phone service), the troops often prefer to use their cells, rather than military radios.

By 2005 social networks were making the situation worse. For a long time the Israelis felt they couldn't ban troops from using social networking sites, mainly because most of them are reservists called up for a short period of active duty. Instead, the army just kept reminding everyone that only they can avoid deadly accidents on the information highway. When this did not work a total ban for troops, while on duty, was attempted. That didnt work either. One problem was that for some people social networks like Facebook are an addiction.

The Israeli army tried constant reminders to soldiers to think twice before they post any military related items on the Internet. To that end, the military released information about the soldier who got prosecuted and convicted for a serious violation, emphasizing the punishment angle. Just another reminder for the troops. But since 2010 the Israelis have also come to realize that cell phones can be very useful in combat. The Americans were demonstrating this in Iraq and Afghanistan. That resulted in local commanders being given a lot of discretion on what the cell phone rules were for their troops. That led to different rules for different units and the debate rages on.

Meanwhile in South Korea the troops were going through the same problems and made it clear they just want the cell phones many have become addicted to. In 2015 China decided that morale was more important than unenforceable security rules and reduced restrictions. This was in recognition that many Chinese troops were already ignoring the rules, often with the assent (but not official permission) of their superiors. Chinese commanders have apparently noted the experience of their counterparts in other nations and decided that the best way to deal with this problem is to let the troops have their cell phones.

One reason for this Chinese approach was the impact of widespread cell phone use on the ability of the government to control the media. From the time the communists took control of China in the late 1940s until the Internet became widely available in China in the 1990s, the government controlled the media. The Internet and cell phones changed all that. It was no secret that China is fighting a losing war with cell phones in general. In 2014, the Chinese military surprised everyone by admitting that because two J-15 jet fighter test pilots had died during landing and takeoff operations on Chinas first aircraft carrier and cell phone photos of the incident soon appeared on the Internet. Such testing and training deaths are considered military secrets in China. But with the spread of Internet and cell phone use keeping such things secret has become more difficult. In the past the families of the dead understood that they could be prosecuted for treason if they went public with details and since the state controlled the media that was that. No more. Even if the families remain silent, neighbors and friends of the deceased can spread and discuss the news and this apparently forces the government to announce the deaths. This is to prevent the growth of troublesome conspiracy, but also provide an opportunity to praise exceptional performance and bravery (sometimes when it was stupidity and incompetence that cause the death). This was not an isolated incident and trying to keep the troops from having or using their cellphones is a losing battle.

In democracies parental pressure on the government becomes an issue. South Korea soldiers and their parents pressured the government to allow conscripts to have cell phones with them when they do their two years mandatory service. The military has long banned conscripts from having phones, considering cell phones, especially smart phones (the only kind most South Korean conscripts had soon after these became available) a security risk in the hands of young soldiers. What really annoyed the conscripts was seeing American soldiers of the same age being allowed to have cell phones with them all the time. The largest cell phone manufacturer (Samsung) is a South Korean firm and there have been plenty of stories about Samsung phones being used by the American military on active duty and even in combat. So the South Korean soldiers wonder; what is the problem? Many in the government were inclined to follow the American example.

South Korean commanders have also been paying attention to what their Israeli counterparts are doing to deal with the cell phone problem. The cell phones for soldiers policy in Israel has gone though many changes since 2000. Not just cell phones, but also the use of social networks. Back in 2010 Israel prohibited active duty troops from even using social networking sites like Facebook. This included access via PCs or smart phones. This was to prevent information on current or planned operations getting to terrorists. These leaks had occurred several times already by 2010. As a result of that one Israeli soldier was court martialed (and spent ten days in jail) for reporting an upcoming raid on his Facebook page. The soldier had casually mentioned that his unit was going to conduct a raid in the West Bank, to arrest some Palestinians believed planning a terrorist attack on Israel. Another soldier who saw the Facebook posting, alerted the army, and the raid was called off. But the military leadership in most nations eventually recognized that cell phone discipline could be as important as what is taught about safely handling weapons. Its the discipline and training that counts and the officers had to lead the way to make it all work.
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Brookdale Senior Living Inc. owns, manages, and operates senior living communities in the United States. It operates in three segments: Independent Living, Assisted Living and Memory Care, and Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs). The Independent Living segment owns or leases communities comprising independent and assisted living units in a single community that are primarily designed for middle to upper income seniors. The Assisted Living and Memory Care segment owns or leases communities consisting of freestanding multi-story communities and freestanding single-story communities, which offer housing and 24-hour assistance with activities of daily living for the Company's residents. This segment also operates memory care communities for residents with Alzheimer's and other dementias. The CCRCs segment owns or leases communities that provides various living arrangements, such as independent and assisted living, memory care, and skilled nursing; and services to accommodate various levels of physical ability and healthcare needs. It also manages communities on behalf of others. As of December 31, 2021, the company owned 347 communities, leased 299 communities, and managed 33 communities on behalf of others. Brookdale Senior Living Inc. was incorporated in 2005 and is headquartered in Brentwood, Tennessee.
BAE Systems plc provides defense, aerospace, and security solutions worldwide. The company operates through five segments: Electronic Systems, Cyber & Intelligence, Platforms & Services (US), Air, and Maritime. The Electronic Systems segment offers electronic warfare systems, navigation systems, electro-optical sensors, military and commercial digital engine and flight controls, precision guidance and seeker solutions, military communication systems and data links, persistent surveillance systems, space electronics, and electric drive propulsion systems. The Cyber & Intelligence segment provides solutions to modernize, maintain, and test cyber-harden aircraft, radars, missile systems, and mission applications that detect and deter threats to national security; systems engineering, integration, and sustainment services for critical weapons systems, C5ISR, and cyber security; and solutions and services to intelligence and federal/civilian agencies. It also offers data intelligence solutions to defend against national-scale threats, protect their networks, and data against attacks; security and intelligence solutions to the United Kingdom government and allied international governments; anti-fraud and regulatory compliance solutions; and enterprise-level data and digital services. The Platforms & Services (US) segment manufactures combat vehicles, weapons, and munitions, as well as provides ship repair services and the management of government-owned munitions facilities. The Air segment develops, manufactures, upgrades, and supports combat and jet trainer aircraft. The Maritime segment designs, manufactures, and supports surface ships, submarines, torpedoes, radars, and command and combat systems; and supplies naval gun systems. It also supplies naval weapon systems, missile launchers, and precision munitions. The company was founded in 1970 and is based in Farnborough, the United Kingdom.
Ever since animal welfare reports - which have been easily available to the public for a decade - were suddenly scrubbed from a government website last Friday, people who love animals have been speaking out. The reports, which were housed on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) site, included details about animal abuse and suffering at puppy mills, circuses, zoos, laboratories, farms and even SeaWorld. Since they were removed, it's become much harder for the public to be informed about which facilities are good and which are bad for animals.

A USDA-licensed puppy mill in Iowa | Vimeo/CAPS

"All information was removed today. This includes inspection reports for breeders, exhibitors and research facilities," Tanya Espinosa, public affairs specialist for legislative and public affairs at USDA-APHIS, told The Dodo on Friday. The unofficial Twitter account for the USDA - one of many alternative accounts that arose after the federal government started restricting what information government agencies could tell the public - encouraged people on Thursday to speak up for the sake of transparency, using adorable photos of their pets.

So the animal photos started pouring in, using the hashtag #NoUSDAblackout. And many of them came with a little story.

Dodo Shows Little But Fierce Pocket-Sized Kitten Grows Up To Be A Wild Woman

Some showed dogs and puppies who had been rescued from puppy mills.

Some of these dogs had been bred relentlessly at these mills, and abuses were exposed to the public, thanks to the USDA reports.

Others showed cats who finally found real homes, after surviving the worst.

And still others showed people with their pets - whole families that became complete, thanks to their rescued animals.

Meanwhile, as concerned citizens are speaking out, animal welfare organizations are making plans to take legal action against the USDA to make the information freely available again.

And a New Jersey Senator, Raymond Lesniak, is already planning to fight the information blackout locally: New Jersey "will counter the USDA info blackout by prohibiting any pet store from sourcing a pet unless the breeder waives its 'so called' right of privacy and has its inspection reports on the USDA website," Senator Lesniak told The Dodo.

"This appears to be a situation of agency capture with the USDA cowering to special interests to the detriment of transparency and animal welfare," Nancy Perry, senior vice president of government relations for the ASPCA, told The Dodo. "This is public information and subject to FOIA, so it's dumbfounding that the USDA would take action to make this information more difficult to access. We are deeply concerned this is an effort to protect those who are doing harm to animals." Luckily, people who love animals, of all political backgrounds, know that people who abuse animals should not be protected by opacity and that animals deserve better.

"Most days it's hard to tell who rescued who," one woman @USDA#NoUSDAblackout">wrote on Twitter, posting a photo of her rescue dog. "Restore @USDA #NoUSDAblackout."
Folks, we really didnt think it was possible, but somehow, Meghan Markles awful family got even messier this week. And 
In theory people are getting taller, but many men and women remain vertically challenged. Its not a big deal, but it does impact their ability to reach things on high shelves and find fashionable, quality clothing that actually fits.

Robbie Brown, a new store on Yonge St., north of Eglinton Ave., runs with the tagline Clothing for men up to 5ive ei8ht, and aims to fix that problem.

At the helm is Robbie Brown himself, 60, whos already put in a long career in apparel for diminutive people. Hes ably aided by his spouse and longtime business partner Candace Muskat.

(Brown stands roughly 5-foot-9, although he suspects hes losing inches these days. Muskat is 5-foot-4, putting the duo on the fringe of their target market.)

Browns grandfather Willie Brown launched the family into the clothing business in 1929 with a secondhand clothing store on Queen St. W. When his son Lou joined Browns as a young man, he updated the business to help his own street cred. He brought in new clothes to impress girls, says Robbie.

As a boy, young Robbie would hang out in the store and the tailors would show him the inside of garments, and how the seams fit together. He often helped out and officially came on staff in 1979, while studying psychology and business at York University. (He was too busy with work to finish that degree.)

Like his own dad, he had new ideas. Since many of the stores customers were of Portuguese and Italian backgrounds, and needed alterations to fit their short stature, Robbie suggested they bring in clothing for these clients.

That did so well, the company soon began specializing in shorter men, even so-called extra short, for guys under 5-foot-4. Robbie spearheaded selling womens clothes, which also thrived. The business opened other locations, including one on Avenue Rd., which remains open still and Lou Brown, at 88, still comes into work daily.

After a decade, the younger Brown was ready for something new. We worked well together, but we had different ideas, Robbie says of his dad.

So, in 1989, Robbie and Muskat, a social worker by trade, opened the petit womens store Muskat Brown on Yonge St., just a few blocks from this new stores location.

There, they raised their first child in the change room, recalls Muskat. Once the baby started moving around and a basket to nap in wasnt enough, they had to hire a nanny. Two more kids followed, as well as three recessions, and taste shifts in womens wear.

In retail, if you have a nice store you can make a living, says Brown. You dont get rich.

By 2014, Brown found himself ready to move on. He really missed working with mens clothes, says Muskat.

So the duo plotted out this venture by tapping into their considerable contacts in the Canadian and international apparel industry to get shorter cuts of mainstream labels  no overlong jackets here  plus pants and shirts in extra small sizes, and put together their own line of suits, dress shirts and ties. (Price-wise, this is quality stuff, with dress shirts hovering around the $200 mark.)

They opened last fall and this crisp, compact store is fully stocked with an ample selection of suits, dress shirts, accessories and casual pieces. Customers can order a custom suit, but Browns got a bias for choosing the right item off the rack, deftly pinning it for a quick alteration, and having it ready in days.

Brown is into fit, but also shoots down dated ideas about what guys of certain sizes can pull off. He scoffs at assumptions about bright colours, pleats and cutting you in half ensembles.

Instead, his store cultivates an accepting environment where customers share their shopping war stories while Brown offers fashion-forward, high-end suits  including plaids  fun ties, and whatever cuts are in fashion.

I truly believe a guy can wear anything he wants as long as its proportioned properly, says Brown.

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A small group of people huddled in the parking lot of a closed No Frills wait for a shuttle bus to go grocery shopping.

Among them is Chris Wood, 60, who has bronchitis. He should be in bed, but is standing in the cold because Roccas No Frills at Coxwell Ave. and Gerrard St. E. closed for repairs in May.

Wood lives nearby, but is waiting for a free company bus to take him to another No Frills. He has little choice. Local green grocers are too expensive. He doesnt own a car. And he cant afford to regularly ride the TTC.

Its a hassle, says Wood, who gets by on about $900 a month from Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP). Being able to shop at a grocery store with lower costs, like No Frills, is quite important for me.

Two other No Frills stores in the GTA have also recently closed, shedding light on the need for access to affordable and healthy food.

Vis No Frills in Parkdale closed in early December for immediate roof repairs  the landlord is hopeful it will reopen in the spring. And Lindas No Frills in Port Credit, Mississauga, permanently closed in late December when a leasing agreement couldnt be reached. That site will be redeveloped to include a condo, commercial and office space.

Loblaw, the parent company of No Frills, is running free shuttle buses at all three locations to other No Frills stores, a move that is commended by residents, but not without complaints.

Residents fear these discount supermarkets wont reopen and theyll be left in food deserts. Its a pressing issue for those on low or fixed incomes and appears to be driving up food bank usage. It also raises questions about what obligations, if any, municipal governments and private companies have in ensuring access to nutritious food. After all, food insecurity  not being able to access or afford food  impacts one in eight households, according to the citys public health unit.

Were a little bit worried that the (Vis) No Frills will never open and there will be a condominium development on that property, says Ric Amis, a board member of the Parkdale Residents Association.

But Kevin Groh, spokesman for Loblaw Companies Limited, says We are as disappointed as our customers in the need to close these three stores.

We will absolutely reopen both Roccas No Frills and Vis No Frills, and would open them today if we could, says the vice president of corporate affairs and communication. In both cases, the closures were out of our hands and related to the buildings need for significant repairs. Vis will reopen soon and Roccas is a bigger job that needs time, patience and City permits.

We could not continue to operate our Port Credit location, as our business model relies on reasonable real estate costs. We take huge pride in serving communities that need No Frills prices, value and freshness. Some locations are simply too expensive. Thats not our fault, nor the fault of our cities or landlords. Its just a reality.

People end up paying for it with their health

Its early afternoon and 10 people wait on a King St. W. corner in Parkdale for the Vis No Frills daily shuttle to take them 1.5 kilometres to a No Frills on Lansdowne Ave.

Soaring behind them are rental buildings that line Jameson Ave. South Parkdale has the largest renters population in Toronto at 90 per cent. For many, Vis is a mainstay.

After 15 minutes, a white 21-seater bus rolls up. Passengers, with their shopping buggies in tow, clamber aboard.

A neighbour helps Abby Thomas fold her walker and lug it up the three steps. Thomas broke her hip in 2015 and five surgeries later cant carry much. She shops frequently, in small amounts. Todays list consists of Coke, sliced bread and wipes.

The shuttle is not made for a walker, says Thomas. But, shes thankful for the ride. Its an excellent response. Im very glad they implemented it.

That kind of feedback is common.

While the situation is not ideal, our customers have expressed appreciation for the shuttle service, and we appreciate their patience while we wait for Vis No Frills and Roccas No Frills to reopen, says Groh, adding the shuttle service in Port Credit will continue as long as its viable.

Barb Livesay, 57, doesnt like waiting for a shuttle. She prefers to walk a kilometre to a Metro grocery store, even though her weekly food bill has doubled to $45.

Im buying less, spending more, says the Parkdale resident on ODSP. Financially, it hurts.

Steven Swain, registrar of the Parkdale Community Food Bank, says there are a lot of working poor in the area. By the time they get home, the shuttle is either no longer running or theyre too tired to trek to a low-cost grocer, so some go to the corner convenience store or local McDonalds.

People who are hungry make rash decisions, Swain says.

Food bank use up

Jacob Rothchild waits in line for the Parkdale Community Food Bank to open.

I used to use No Frills all the time, says Rothchild, adding since it closed hes become a frequent visitor to the food bank. Now I come every week. Before, I came once a month.

The Parkdale Community Food Bank has seen a jump in daily clients, from about 70 to 90, attributed, in part, to the closure of Vis.

Across town, visits to food banks also went up after Roccas No Frills closed in May 2016. For instance, during June, July and August 2016 compared with the same three months in 2015, visits increased by 39 per cent at Glen Rhodes Food Bank and 13 per cent at Calvary Baptist Church. And at Danforth Mosaic, there was a 30 per cent rise during the month of June 2016, before it closed.

Rising food prices and losing a low-cost grocer are contributing factors, says Richard Matern, director of research and communications at Daily Bread Food Bank, who analyzes data from member agencies and spots neighbourhood trends.

When (people) have limited incomes and most of their money is going to rent theres various ways of coping, and shopping at the discount store was one way they were coping with rising food prices.

In Toronto, the minimum cost of buying healthy food for a family of four is $858 per month  a 20 per cent jump since 2009, according to the Toronto Public Health report, Cost of the Nutritious Food Basket. As food prices continue to rise, low-income households will be hardest hit.

Its something the city should look at as a priority

Mississauga Councillor Jim Tovey and Toronto Councillors Gord Perks and Mary-Margaret McMahon  each representing a ward with a closed No Frills  say residents are upset, but theres nothing the City can do to compel a business to open, or remain open.

Rachel Gray of the Toronto Food Policy Council suggests the city provide incentives for retailers to serve low-income communities and employ local residents. And Darcy Higgins of Building Roots says a tax credit for small grocers could be the answer.

Its something the city should look at as a priority when a neighbourhood is changing or getting more costly, says Higgins, whose business focuses on helping communities access fresh and healthy food.

For now, folks like Michael Self, 64, of Port Credit, must make do. Having a No Frills less than a block from home was convenient. Now he rides his scooter 1.2 kilometres to a Dollarama for canned goods and to Loblaws for milk, bread, margarine and whatevers on sale. Plus, it was a lot easier on his wallet.

Im like a sailor on shore leave.

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OTTAWACanadas foreign affairs minister says she warned Washington that any border tax on Canadian imports would trigger retaliation by Ottawa.

Chrystia Freeland, fresh off a blitz of meetings in the U.S. capital with counterpart Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and other Washington power brokers, said there are no firm American proposals and many divergent views in D.C. on a potential renegotiation of the North American free trade deal and on a possible border tax on imports to the U.S.

President Donald Trump has vowed both.

But in a conference call with reporters, Freeland said she delivered a forceful defence of Canadian trade and economic interests.

Canada will have no position on the tax reform plan or the border adjustment tax idea until it is fully formed and is a concrete proposal, she said. But I did make clear that we would be strongly opposed to any imposition of new tariffs between Canada and the United States; that we felt tariffs on exports would be mutually harmful to both Canada and the United States, and if such an idea were ever to come into being Canada would respond appropriately.

Freeland did not say if that means matching U.S. action on the Canadian side with a tariff or non-tariff barrier, or by making a complaint under NAFTA or to the World Trade Organization.

Her parliamentary secretary on Canada-U.S. affairs, Andrew Leslie, would not clarify further. Were there to ensure our economic interests are protected and well defend those fiercely . . . until the actual negotiations start were not in a position to say what we will or wont do.

Freeland would not put her cards on the table publicly in advance of any possible move by the U.S. to reopen the NAFTA.

Still, she said in all her meetings  with Tillerson and senior Republican congressional leaders like Speaker Paul Ryan, Sen. John McCain, and senators Bob Corker and Ben Cardin  the Americans were well-briefed on the mutually beneficial Canada-U.S. economic and trading relationship.

I really felt I was pushing on an open door with everyone I spoke to.

Freelands comments come as Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus office is trying to organize a meeting with Trump.

A Trump adviser said a meeting was expected next week but Trudeaus office would not confirm it. Trudeau travels to northern Canada Thursday and Friday, and to Germany from Feb. 15-18 next week. Hell address the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, and will hold bilateral meetings with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin.

The Canadian government has signalled a serious, measured approach to the arrival of Trump in the Oval Office, even as its ministers scramble to understand what Trumps administration will do on the trade, security and border front. A Trudeau meeting with Trump would cap an intensive series of ministerial treks to Washington. First Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan on Monday. Freeland spent Tuesday and Wednesday in D.C., and Finance Minister Bill Morneau travels to Washington Thursday to meet with senior White House economic advisers.

Freeland said her talks did not address border security or the influx of refugees across the Canada-U.S. border in Manitoba, but rather on thinning the border.

She downplayed NAFTA concerns, saying Canada routinely modernizes international trade deals. By her count, NAFTA has undergone 11 significant updates since coming into force Jan. 1, 1994. Freeland said she is meeting Canadian executives of the automotive sector and softwood lumber industry to prepare positions on NAFTA.

The best defence is a strong offence, said Freeland. Canada definitely will be and is good at taking strong offensive positions and we will do that if and when negotiations begin.

Conservative trade critic Gerry Ritz, a former agriculture minister who handled negotiations with the U.S. on country-of-origin-labelling requirements, welcomed Freelands outreach but said the Canadian government still has a lot of work to do with like-minded allies in U.S. business circles, and at the state level.

Outlining the fact that were a willing trade partner but were not going to roll over to do trade is not a bad thing, but its not time to throw down the gauntlet quite yet.

Theres many ways to do this without picking a fight in Washington . . . you cant just go head-to-head with the administration in the U.S. Youre gonna lose. So you have to build up some clientele, some like-minded people throughout the United States.

NDP foreign affairs critic Helene Laverdiere questioned what the minister means by respond forcefully . . . weve seen every now and then strong words and little action. Well see when she comes back and if the worst happens how the government actually reacts.

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A growing chorus of legal experts on both sides of the border is calling on Ottawa to suspend a bilateral pact that bans asylum seekers from crossing border for protection, warning the U.S. is unsafe for refugees.

A Harvard University Law School review is the latest to warn about the negative impact of President Donald Trumps executive orders on refugees, and is urging Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to reconsider the Safe Third Country Agreement.

The report, released Wednesday by Harvards immigration and refugee clinical program, comes on the heels of the arrival of 22 asylum seekers from North Dakota, including a child and a baby, caught walking in thick snow across an unguarded border into Manitoba last weekend.

It also echoed the recent calls on Canada by refugee advocates, immigration lawyers and academics to suspend the treaty.

The new policies allow any state and local enforcement official, not just trained federal agents, to pick people up on mere suspicion, detain them in any remote location, subject them to an expedited removal process, where many if not most will be unable to express their fear of return and be screened, said Deborah Anker, head of the Harvard program.

We are not going to tell the Canadian government what to do, but the finding that the U.S. is safe is wrong and unfounded, and should be blown out of the water.

In the House of Commons Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was very concerned about asylum seekers attempting to reach Canada on foot, but refused to answer if the government would remove the safe country designation of the U.S.

We are a country of immigrants, and Canadians have always acted with compassion (toward) those seeking safety for themselves and their families, Trudeau told MPs. We will continue to welcome people in need of protection.

The Safe Third Country agreement, introduced in 2004, prevents refugees from making asylum claims in both the U.S. and Canada, which clogs the system. Claimants are banned from entering the other country for asylum unless they belong to one of four exemption groups.

Speaking outside the Commons, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said Canadian border officials have both the training and resources to properly handle asylum seekers making the perilous journey across the border in the middle of winter.

The fact that somebody crossed the border back at Christmas time and suffered very severe injuries is a serious concern, said Goodale, referring to Seidu Mohammad, a 24-year-old Ghanian refugee who suffered severe frostbite trying to cross into Emerson, Man., on Dec. 24.

Obviously, were concerned about the integrity of Canadian borders. Were concerned about the public health and safety of the people that are involved. And both Immigration Minister (Ahmed) Hussen and I are examining all of the means that may be necessary in order to properly deal with this situation.

While public attention thus far has focused on Trumps executive orders that restrict travel and refugee intake from seven Muslim-majority countries, Anker said the fine print in the orders paints a bleaker picture for asylum seekers.

According to the Harvard review, Trumps executive orders would:

Expand immigration-related detention and the construction of new detention centres at the southern border;

Expedite removal without due process;

Authorize state and local officials to detain individuals on mere suspicion of immigration violations;

Call for massive increases in the prosecution of immigrants and subject refugees with gender-based asylum claims to prolonged detention.

Anker said she is not surprised by the surge of asylum seekers risking their lives and illegally crossing the land border for protection in Canada to flee what she dubbed the reign of terror under Trump.

They are terrified and have every reason to be very scared, said Anker. They have no idea when they would get picked up by who and where they would be sent to.

York University Osgoode Hall law professor Sean Rehaag agreed.

These are the expected consequences when Canada is closing its front door to asylum seekers via the U.S. and not let them in lawfully, said Rehaag. They cannot go through the port of entry and must come through irregular means. Canada needs to create a safe, lawful way for people to come.

Hussen disputed the connection between Trumps executive orders and the U.S.-Canada pact designed for the orderly management of asylum seekers in both countries.

All I can tell you is this: anyone who comes to Canada and comes into our country, and makes an asylum claim, has access to a fair hearing at our Immigration and Refugee Board. Whether they pursue that fair hearing is up to them, Hussen told reporters.

We also have to maintain the integrity of our system and make sure that our system is about compassion and generosity, but also about controlling our borders.

Queens University law professor Sharry Aiken said Canada has had a managed migration system to control the inflow at the border and she wondered if the Trump administration would care about the suspension of the agreement at a time when the U.S. is the last place refugees want to be.

It is not going to significantly affect the U.S.-Canada relationship. They would be more than happy to do that, said Aiken. We are talking about a trickle here compared to refugees other parts of the world receive.

With files from Tonda MacCharles

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Batten down the hatches. All the old Canadian insecurities are about to gust up to hurricane force.

A young, inexperienced, left-leaning Canadian prime minister, alone in the Oval Office with a NATO-chomping Republican silverback who will  not  shut  up  about how tough and smart and smart and tough and winning and tough and smart he is.

Its enough to make you cover your eyes and peek between fingers. The kidll get eaten alive. Therell be nothing but freshly picked-over bones of part-time drama teacher on the grassy floor of the Trump enclosure when its done. The Sun headlines write themselves. Therell be time for Kevin OLeary to shout Bambi vs. Godzilla! 40 times before Justin Trudeaus aircraft even leaves the tarmac at Ottawa airport.

Unless things work out differently. They could, you know.

Read more:Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to meet U.S. President Donald Trump Monday

Twenty days elapsed between Donald Trumps inauguration and the announcement, Thursday morning, that Justin Trudeau will spend Monday in Washington. Surely that was plenty of time for the prime minister and his staff to go back and forth a dozen times over whether its even a good idea to get into the big guys personal space.

Maybe this whole relationship could be managed by telephone. Maybe they could tweet at each other. Maybe surrogates could do the heavy lifting. Harjit Sajjan, the defence minister, has worked with American soldiers. Chrystia Freelands been on CNN. Maybe Trump and Trudeau could meet, but just not quickly. Give everything a chance to settle down. What harm could there be?

Those sentiments seem to have put an extra week or two into the delay before Trudeaus trip. But there are good reasons not to wait longer.

First, there is no evidence that anyone does better by staying out of the new presidents face than by getting into it. Its safe to assume Trumps French is shaky, but he seems to live his life by the maxim that Les absents ont toujours tort  that the absent are always wrong. He feels free to badmouth a federal judge in Seattle or the management of Nordstrom when hes alone on his phone in the White House residence. He even managed to pick a fight with Australias prime minister over the phone.

But in face-to-face meetings, Godzilla has shown a surprising and consistent tendency to shrink to Bambi-like proportions. Trump hasnt had a cross word against Barack Obama since the two men met after last Novembers election. He was never nicer to Enrique Pena Nieto than when he was in the Mexican presidents presence last August. Not even the hated New York Times could remain in his bad books when he visited the paper in late November (a great, great American jewel, world jewel).

In the most extraordinary example of Trumps willingness to roll over in the face of personal attention, he was the worlds biggest advocate of torturing prisoners until his choice for Secretary of Defence, Gen. James Mattis, told him the practice serves no useful purpose. The thought doesnt seem to have occurred to Trump previously. For now, at least, he seems to have abandoned torture as a policy. Baby steps.

The second thing Trudeau has going for him is that Canada does not seem to figure on Trumps well-established list of things he loves to hate. The man has a robust trail of Twitter invective, on which China, Mexico, street gangs and certain celebrities feature prominently. Canada doesnt.

This benevolence seems widespread even in todays Washington. Freeland reports that on her first trip to Washington as foreign minister, she felt like she was pushing on an open door whenever she talked up the merits of Canada-U.S. trade.

So. Meeting Trump seems a safer bet than keeping him at bay and hoping he doesnt notice. Canada in general is highly regarded, or at least not seen as a focus of resentment, across the administration and the U.S. capitol. Whats to discuss? Trade. Security. Here, Trudeau might as well try to work with Trumps fondness for gated communities, because there is no way to change his mind. The president views the world as divided between outsiders, who have no right to get in; and insiders, who need protecting or can help with it. It would be handy if Canada were viewed as a fellow insider.

Little bits of theatre could help. If Trudeau could bring Ralph Goodale, the fabulously taciturn public safety minister, along with a ranking soldier or Mountie in everyday uniform, it couldnt hurt. (Im conscious that this sounds ridiculous. Im keeping the Canadians intended audience in mind.)

Trump may demand increased Canadian military spending. Trudeau may have to make encouraging noises. Most new money would go to consultants and cost overruns instead of to genuinely enhanced military capability. But if its the price of calm on the southern border, it may be worth it.

There may be no way to build a constructive relationship. A responsible Canadian government will try anyway. Maybe everything will be fine. Its worth a shot.

Paul Wells is a national affairs writer. His column appears Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

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HALIFAXThe husband of Nova Scotias immigration minister stood quietly Thursday as he consented to a psychiatric assessment amid charges he assaulted, threatened and choked his wife on New Years Eve.

Maroun Diab appeared briefly in Halifax provincial court and was remanded for the assessment at the East Coast Forensic Hospital to determine his fitness to stand trial and criminal responsibility.

Diab had been released on a series of conditions last month, including one prohibiting him from having any contact with his wife, Lena Diab, and two other people.

Read more:

Nova Scotia cabinet minister thanks entire community as husband gets bail

But his lawyer Mark Knox said he was later admitted to hospital under the provinces Involuntary Psychiatric Treatment Act and was brought to court Thursday by staff from the Abbie J. Lane hospital.

Ive spoken to Mr. Diab and his family members and he is agreeable to a term at the East Coast Forensic unit, said Knox, as Maroun Diab stood next to him emotionless in a dark suit.

Diab also faces two counts of threatening two other people and will return to court March 8.

Halifax police said the 58-year-old was arrested early New Years Day after they received a call shortly before midnight from the Diabs home near Mount Saint Vincent University.

Lena Diab later described the incident as a very tragic, sad, private and personal matter, and publicly thanked the community for supporting her and her family of four children and one grandchild.

Lena Diab, a lawyer and business owner, was appointed Nova Scotias first female justice minister after winning office in October 2013, and was named to the immigration portfolio in 2015.

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The Woodstock nursing home at the centre of a multiple murder investigation had admissions suspended after provincial inspectors found examples of medication going missing or given to the wrong patient.

The examples are contained in eight inspection reports and orders to comply released Thursday by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care.

The reports and orders describe the result of inspections at the Caressant Care home conducted from last August to January, more than two years after registered nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer was fired.

One inspection order issued to the nursing home cites 41 medication incidents documented between early August and late December 2016.

They include five cases where medication was given to the wrong residents, three cases where meds were given at the wrong time, six where the wrong dosage was given, 22 where prescribed meds were not given, and one where a medication was given with no prescription from a physician.

Read more:

Wettlaufer was fired from Woodstock home, documents show

Nursing home in Woodstock murder probe ordered to stop new admissions

Police exhume bodies of two alleged victims of Elizabeth Wettlaufer

The home failed to ensure that every medication incident involving a resident and every adverse drug reaction was documented with a record of the immediate actions taken to assess and maintain the residents health, says an inspectors order dated Jan. 24, the day before the ministry suspended admissions at the home.

In addition, the home failed to ensure that corrective action was taken as necessary for every medication incident involving a resident or for the analysis of medication errors that occurred at the home, the inspection order adds.

It cites two examples of medication tablets going missing, and staff unable to account for them.

Wettlaufer, who worked at the home for seven years, is charged with eight counts of first-degree murder, four counts of attempted murder and two counts of aggravated assault. For the attempted murders and aggravated assaults, Wettlaufer is accused of injecting the victims with insulin. The charges cover a period from June 2007 to August 2016.

Eleven of her alleged victims, including seven of the people police say were murdered, lived at the Caressant nursing home in Woodstock. Wettlaufer was fired on March 31, 2014, according to court documents obtained by the Star.

In a Facebook post, Wettlaufer admitted to being an addict until late September 2014. One friend said Wettlaufer told her she got hooked on drugs from the medication cart she controlled during her night shifts at Caressant Care.

Ontarios health minister, Dr. Eric Hoskins, said in a statement that the incidents noted in the inspection reports do not involve matters being investigated by police.

Residents in nursing homes deserve to be cared for in a safe, secure and compassionate environment, Hoskins said, describing safety and quality of care as the top priority of his inspectors.

A plan demanded by the ministry to address the problems was submitted by Caressant Care officials on Feb. 1, Hoskins added.

Caressant spokesperson Lee Griffi referred the Star to a statement he released when the admissions shutdown was announced. It said immediate changes had been made and an external consultant has been hired to help meet or exceed ministry standards.

We are confident that these actions enable us to better provide for the physical, social and spiritual needs of our residents, Griffi said.

The government order to suspend admissions came as staff at Caressant Care was poised to fill 12 beds with patients from Woodstock General Hospital, said Ross Gerrie, president of the Unifor local representing registered practical nurses and support staff at the home. The for-profit home has 193 beds.

Provincial inspectors have monitored the home daily since charges against Wettlaufer were announced last October. Karen Simpson, director of the ministrys inspection branch, shut down admissions due to her belief that there is a risk of harm to the health or well-being of residents in the home or persons who might be admitted as residents.

Since being fired from Caressant Care in March 2014, Wettlaufer is accused of killing 75-year-old Arpad Horvath at a London nursing home five months later. Police alleged she then tried to kill a nursing home resident in Paris, Ont., in September 2015, and tried to kill again while providing in-home care in August 2016.

Her dismissal from Caressant raises further questions about whether her three alleged victims after leaving the nursing home could have been spared. Provincial regulations state that registered nurses who are fired must be reported to the College of Nurses, which regulates the profession.

The college, Caressant Care, and the ministry of health have all refused to say whether the college was notified of Wettlaufers firing.

Inspection reports released Thursday cite examples of residents being neglected, and left dirty and soiled. They also describe residents with pressure ulcers and wounds failing to be properly treated. And they cite a case of a residents claim of physical abuse by staff not being investigated.

One resident was injured during a meal after the home failed to provide the assistance the resident needed to eat and drink. The nursing home, the inspection report notes, had a history of non-compliance when it comes to assisting residents with their meals.

One report cited the home for neglect, which it defines as inaction or a pattern of inaction that jeopardizes the health, safety or well-being of one or more residents.

The nursing home has failed to ensure that specified residents received individualized personal care, including hygiene care and grooming, on a daily basis, the report states. It describes the problem as widespread, noting it applied to five residents inspected.

The report also cites several concerns about the meal service at the home, including improper food handling, preparation and storage to prevent contamination and food-born illnesses. Residents received their meals in a hectic and unpleasant atmosphere.

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Its unlikely anyone will ever know the motive of a brutal and horrific triple murder in a family home that left a mother and two beloved relatives dead.

On Thursday, Alexander Khalilov was sentenced to three counts of life in prison to be served concurrently with no eligibility of parole for 18 years for the grisly slayings that shocked the quiet Etobicoke neighbourhood where the family lived.

Khalilov, wearing a black suit and a red shirt, was impassive as his sentence was read out by Justice John McMahon.

He was charged with three counts of second-degree murder after his family members were found dead in the Etobicoke townhome on Old Burnhamthorpe Rd. in July 2013.

Khalilov lived at home with his mother, his father Yusif Khalilov and his sister. At the time of the murders, his great aunt Svetlana Babaeva and great uncle Victor Zyban, who were described as defacto grandparents, were visiting from Russia.

The bodies, all with multiple stab and defensive wounds, were discovered in the blood splashed basement by Khalilovs father when he came home from work.

Khalilovs mother, 49-year-old Tatiana Khalilova, was stabbed 22 times, his great uncle 19 times and his great aunt 16 times.

Theres absolutely no motive in this case that we can think of, said crown lawyer Jill Cameron outside of court. Mr. Khalilov offered absolutely no explanation as to why he did this.

Though Khalilov, who was 19 at the time of the murders, had used alcohol and drugs in the past, there was no evidence found at the time of the murders of impairment or depression.

Days before the murders, Khalilov had spent the little money he had on a large knife which he told a friend was for his own protection.

Unbeknownst to his parents, Khalilov had been laid off of his job at a grocery store and had flunked out of high school. His parents were expecting him to provide money to help support the family, but he couldnt do so because hed lost his job. They also didnt know he wouldnt be attending college in the fall.

His lies to his family were coming to a head, said McMahon in his sentencing.

After the murders, Khalilov was involved in a standoff with police where he begged officers to shoot him, telling them hed just killed three people and his life was over.

Officers were able to take him into custody without incident.

(Khalilov) basically has no memory of what happened that day or being arrested or anything else, said his lawyer Daniel Moore. He remembers being in custody the next day and having to come to grips with the fact of what hes done.

The judge considered several mitigating factors in his sentencing decision. Khalilov had no prior criminal record and was 19 years-old at the time of the slayings. He didnt remember the events and had taken responsibility for his actions, he said, saving the family from the nightmare of a lengthy public trial.

Since in custody, Khalilov has completed his high school degree and taken some college and bible study courses.

The victim impact statement from his father was also significant, noted McMahon.

His statement is not so much a victim impact statement but a plea for mercy for his son, he said.

But among the aggravating factors were the brutality of the killings, the weapon used and the fact that it was a case of family domestic violence.

It would seem the three killings took place in one unspeakable frenzy, where, in no doubt, all three victims were butchered in a few minutes, said McMahon.

Its just a completely unexplained thing that he unfortunately and his father and his sister have to deal with for the rest of their lives, Moore said.

RELATED STORY:

Man faces three counts of second-degree murder in Etobicoke slayings

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The population is shrinking in more than a dozen neighbourhoods in the immediate vicinity of the planned one-stop Scarborough subway extension, raising fresh concerns about the viability of the $3.2-billion transit project.

According to a Star analysis of 2016 census data released on Wednesday, of 31 census tracts surrounding the planned location for the subway station at Scarborough Town Centre, the population of 18 declined over the previous five years.

Some tracts, including the one in which the station will be built, saw robust growth percentages in the double digits, and the population of Scarborough Centre, the federal riding that covers the area, grew by 3.5 per cent. But in the majority of nearby tracts the population fell, by between 1.4 per cent and 6.3 per cent.

Eric Miller, a professor at the University of Torontos Transportation Engineering Research Group, warned that if the trend continued it could jeopardize the extension of the Line 2 (Bloor-Danforth) subway.

Any subway station depends on two things: the people that are within the close distance to it that can maybe walk or take a very short bus ride, and then people who are coming in from further afield to use it, Miller said.

If in fact that (local) growth doesnt materialize, that could be a problem.

The citys chief planner said she was unconcerned by declining growth in pockets around the subway stop.

Jennifer Keesmaat said city staff are working on a complete overhaul of the Scarborough centre neighbourhood that will transform it an urban centre fertile for commercial and residential growth. The Scarborough Centre master plan, which is still in draft form, calls for narrower pedestrian-friendly streets, generous landscaping and smaller city blocks, which would be attractive to developers.

The Scarborough subway is not based on short-term growth, its based on a long-term vision to turn the Scarborough centre into something fundamentally different than what it is today, Keesmaat said, adding that she wouldnt find it troublesome if the population in nearby areas continued to decline for a few years. The subway alone isnt enough to create an urban place.

Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker, a vocal proponent of the subway extension, argued that the transit stop will serve a much greater population than the neighbourhoods directly surrounding it.

I have no concerns at all about the viability of the subway station because the subway station isnt just about a circle or a bull's-eye around the station, said De Baeremaeker (Ward 38, Scarborough Centre). He predicted that the stop would be a feeder station for hundreds of thousands of residents in northeast Scarborough and Markham.

A preliminary business case prepared by city planning staff projected that the subway stop would attract 4,500 new transit riders.

De Baremaeker also argued that the station would serve as a catalyst for growth. The business case said it would be possible to build about 12,500 residential units within half a kilometre of the subway stop.

Ive talked to condo developers and Ive talked to office tower developers who have said, once the subway gets here, then we can sell condos, then we can sell office towers, De Baremaeker said.

That sentiment was echoed by Mayor John Tory, who has defended the subway plan despite ballooning costs and questions about low ridership.

We have to promote growth in other parts of the city, Torys spokesperson said in an email. It's no surprise there's been negative population growth around the Scarborough Town Centre  it's poorly served by transit, especially higher-order transit.

Matti Siemiatycki, an associate professor at U of Ts geography and planning department, cautioned against relying on the subway extension to spur growth, especially because the plan has been whittled down from its original three-stop design to a single station connected to the closest stop by a 6-kilometre tunnel.

The census is showing that around transit stations are places where growth takes place, he said. And with the current Scarborough subway plan, its only one stop, so theres going to be less locations that can improve (transit) accessibility, and then by extension, perhaps less potential for redevelopment.

He suggested the original plan for a seven-stop LRT, which council rejected again last July, would have afforded more opportunities for growth.

Siemiatycki also questioned whether by spending billions of dollars on a single subway stop in Scarborough the city is striking the right balance between trying to use transit as a catalyst for redevelopment and serving existing, pressing transit needs.

Some waterfront neighbourhoods saw population growths as high as 97.2 per cent over five years, but plans for a Waterfront LRT are gathering dust with no funding or timeline for completion.

The key with all of our transit investments is using evidence to make decisions, and weve struggled with that in this region, Siemiatycki said. Maybe the 2016 census provides another opportunity to go back to the numbers  and see if (the Scarborough subway extension) really makes sense in that location, and with only one stop.

MORE ON THESTAR.COM

Canadas 2016 census shows growth rate of new dwellings slowing down

Census shows big population gains in Toronto, Milton and Brampton

Immigration fuels Canadas population growth of 1.7 million in five years: latest census

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Robyn Naylor remembers a dress that caught her eye while shopping  she liked it until she looked at the tag.

The label said Ivanka Trump, and for her that changed things.

Naylor wont buy anything with the name Trump because of whom its associated with  she said her views clash with those of the U.S. president.

Naylors feelings about Ivanka Trump products were shaped, not by the quality or look of them, but instead by their connection to the first daughters father and his controversial politics. Shes not alone.

In the U.S., a boycott campaign called #GrabYourWallet has been gaining momentum since last October, pushing people to stop supporting businesses selling Trump family products.

Read more:

Growing online backlash over Ivanka Trump brand offered at The Bay

Nordstrom stock rises, breaking the curse of the Trump tweet

Trump aide counselled after Ivanka pitch on Fox News, White House says

In Canada, an online petition is asking people to boycott Hudsons Bay Company for selling Ivanka Trump products.

We want them to get rid of Ivanka Trumps brand otherwise they will be known as a company that values misogyny, racism and hypocrisy over diversity, inclusion and compassion, the petition states. As of Thursday afternoon, it has 275 signatures.

Brigitte Timmins, corporate communications manager at the Bay, was asked whether the store was considering dropping the brand.

Across our banners, we aim to a deliver a strong assortment of fashion. We respect our customers right to choose the brands that work for them, Timmins wrote in an e-mail. In turn, our customers choices inform our decisions on which merchandise we offer.

Meanwhile, other major businesses around the continent have been cutting ties with the Ivanka Trump brand.

Earlier this week, Marshalls and T.J. Maxx stores in the U.S. had received a memo, asking that they remove all Ivanka Trump brand signs and place the brands products amongst others.

In an email, Doreen Thompson, spokesperson for those stores parent business TJX Companies, clarified that the memo said to mix this line of merchandise into our racks, not to remove it from the sales floor.

Thompson confirmed that TJX Canada stores, Marshalls and Winners, will continue to sell the Ivanka Trump brand.

We aim to offer a merchandise mix that gives our customers a choice in what they may want to purchase, Thompson wrote.

Some shoppers in Toronto spoke highly of Ivanka Trump products, saying they were good quality and especially great for wearing to work, with one calling a boycott a little ridiculous.

Earlier on Thursday, senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway drew sharp criticism and complaints over the ethics of using her position to promote Ivanka Trump products, a day after the president attacked Nordstrom for dropping them.

Federal ethics rules prohibit executive branch employees from using their positions to endorse products or for the private gain of friends.

Go buy Ivankas stuff . . . Im going to go get some myself today, Conway told Fox News in an interview from the White House. Im going to give a free commercial here: Go buy it today, everybody.

Conway has been counselled, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said, and thats all were going to say.

Conway spoke from the White House briefing room and encouraged people to go buy Ivankas stuff. She made the comments a day after Trump attacked Nordstrom on Twitter for dropping his daughters fashion line.

On Wednesday, Trump jumped to his daughters defence, tweeting: My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person  always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!

Following the presidents tweet, Nordstroms stocks climbed by four per cent.

Meanwhile, Shopifys CEO is defending the e-commerce companys decision to keep hosting an online store for the controversial right-wing U.S. media organization Breitbart News.

Tobi Lutke posted a statement online Wednesday that says he has received more than 10,000 messages asking the Ottawa-based company to stop hosting Breitbarts online store.

But Lutke says that to do so would be an act of censorship and would interfere with the free exchange of goods that is at the heart of commerce.

With files from Star wire services

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Nearly a month since workers at the Molson Coors plant in Toronto began striking, the brewing company says the labour stoppage remains unlikely to result in beer shortages due to its full-blown contingency plan.

Gavin Thompson, vice-president of corporate affairs of Molson Coors Canada, said customers should expect the shelves to remain stocked with his companys products despite its workers off the job, due to extra supply theyve stored.

Typically, as most manufacturers do, when youre heading into CBA, you do want to have obviously contingency plans in place should there be a labour disruption, he said. Our team did a fantastic job pulling that together as we were heading into the negotiations and during the negotiations as well.

The union is encouraging a boycott of three American brands the company produces: Miller Lite, Miller Genuine Draft and Coors Banquet.

Robert Folk, president of the Canadian Union of Brewery and General Workers Local 325, which represents the 320 striking workers at the Etobicoke brewing plant, said the union is looking for improvements to its graduated pay scale system.

He said the union has offered multiple concessions, including reduced overtime pay, straight time weekend pay and worker pension contributions.

We were not looking for massive gains, Folk said. We were looking to maintain what we had and maybe move a few things around to benefit us.

The union held a solidarity barbecue on the picket line Thursday to put pressure on the company.

Folk said talks broke off Dec. 15 after a month and a half. The collective agreement, which began in 2010, expired about two weeks later and the union began striking Jan. 12.

The company never did put a formalized offer for us to present to our membership, said Folk. I have indicated, almost on a daily basis, that we are willing to come back to the table at any time. The companys response is give us a time, give us a place, but when you come back, be more creative in what you want to offer us. 

Thompson declined to comment on the specifics of the negotiations for confidentiality reasons. But he said a formal offer was tabled before talks came to a standstill.

The offers been open since the negotiations broke off, Thompson said. Were still at an impasse and right now on our side, our priority is getting everybody back to the table so we can continue negotiating a deal and get everybody back to work to brewing great beer.

Should the strike end up being a prolonged one, the company is ready on all fronts, said Thompson. He would not rule out replacement workers, but added thats not ideal.

The contingency plan is evolving as we speak, Thompson said. We had a short-term solution in place and now we continue to look at what if. Weve addressed pretty much every what if scenario right now.

Unlike the month-long lockout in 1985 of 3,500 workers at the three major breweries  Molson, Labatts and Carling OKeefe  there wont be a province-wide dry spell anytime soon even if Molson Coors distribution eventually takes a hit.

Back then, they controlled so much of the volume and the distribution, but thats just not the case today, said analyst Robert Carter, executive director of food service at NPD Group.

The portfolio of options is just so much more broader, the distribution channels so much bigger that we wont experience something like what we did in the 1980s.

He said he doubted the strike would have a major impact on the companys sales.

The challenge for someone like a Molson is theyre losing market share on a regular basis to these smaller craft breweries so any negative press is a concern for them overall, Carter said.

Folk says he sees no end in sight to the strike.

Its been a great job, a proud job. Ive always been proud to be an employee of Molson and its a very sad day, said Folk, whos worked as a brewery worker for nearly 35 years.

If they bring in replacement workers, I might not ever drink a Molson product again.

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The Ontario Medical Association is decapitated, its membership divided.

Its full executive resigned this week after barely surviving a vote of non-confidence, which amounted to a public repudiation and humiliation. With the lame duck leadership gutted, dissidents are now mobilizing to take over the OMA.

Once they triumph, doctors will marshal for a final confrontation with Ontarios Liberal government.

The good news for patients, the press, and our politicians? This climactic struggle for our cash-starved $52-billion health-care system will yield a happy ending for us all, rich and poor, sick and able-bodied, each and every one.

You neednt be a brain surgeon to understand the plan, because its elegantly self-evident. Heres how:

Better-paid doctors means happier doctors, which leads to healthier patients, yields a more efficient health-care system, produces shorter wait times for family doctors, and guarantees faster referrals to specialists. More inputs equals better outcomes.

More doctors, higher fees, fewer bureaucrats. If only we could rid ourselves of the pigheaded politicians and the army of overpaid civil servants who dont understand this the way doctors do.

Like the health minister, Dr. Eric Hoskins. And his deputy, Dr. Bob Bell.

Never mind that they went to medical school. They obviously dont understand doctors because they are self-hating doctors who hate other doctors.

And they are Liberals, so they are prima facie anti-doctor. Oh wait, Dr. Bell is the non-partisan bureaucrat who used to run the mega-hospitals in Torontos University Health Network, but never mind that.

Hes not the only one.

All the former leaders of the OMA are also infected by self-loathing, for they were surely in league with the Liberals when negotiating a contract last summer that would have brought stability to the system after a two-year standoff. Self-hating sellouts.

A cash infusion is the solution, an OMA housecleaning is the remedy, and a change of government is the prescription. Its not just doctors who need a change of leadership, but all Ontarians, which is why a reinvigorated OMA will work to elect Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown as the provinces next premier.

Not just because a number of Browns people were involved in the insurrection at the OMA, but because the leader himself has led doctors to believe that he will accede to their main demand: Arbitration is their precondition, without which doctors will never return to the bargaining table.

They believe its only fair for an outsider to decide what doctors deserve, and dictate to the government what they must pay. Do physicians not work long hours, spend years in medical school, and face rising overhead costs?

Thats the story  their narrative  so far. But here is how it really ends:

Brown will break their heart if he ever becomes premier, because he will never agree to arbitration  it is long-standing PC policy to rein in arbitration, not expand it. No premier has acceded, and no premier will, because doctors are not like you and me.

They are, in large measure, gatekeepers to the health-care system  major drivers of usage and rising costs. Through no fault of their own, many are still incentivized by a fee-for-service system that needs to be recalibrated to take account of technological advances and human nature.

If doctors have their way, who will pay? Taxpayers will just have to cough up more cash to get rid of that annoying cough, or make do with less in other areas  from education to transportation.

Doctors demand fair play, but they like to have it both ways. The OMA may be riven by personality conflicts among members, but doctors are also personally conflicted  unable to decide if they belong to a professional movement or a labour union.

On the one hand, they seek arbitration like any other union that delivers what is essentially an essential service. After all, the OMA bargains on behalf of its 34,000 members, speaking out for their monetary demands and conditions of work.

On the other hand, doctors insist they are not unionized employees, merely outside contractors working on a fee for service basis. They are reluctant to surrender the temptations of incorporation, by which they gain major tax advantages by sheltering their income from the regular taxes that other unionized employees pay.

Today, the OMA is not just rudderless but leaderless, on the verge of a hostile takeover. The vocal doctors who have seized the megaphone  in the mainstream media, social media, and proxy battles  are no mere dissidents, they are maximalists whose demands will never be met, neither by Liberals nor Tories.

The doctors precondition  arbitration or nothing  is reminiscent of doomed Middle East peace negotiations, where one side refuses to come to the table unless its demands are met in advance. And so the war of attrition and contrition will continue  pitting OMA doctors against themselves, and against the doctors at the health ministry.

Patients will be bystanders, wooed by both sides but also wounded by the collateral damage. In this war of bombast, co-operation and communication  the prerequisites for any partnership to improve our health-care system  will be unavoidable casualties.

Martin Regg Cohns political column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. mcohn@thestar.ca , Twitter: @reggcohn

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Kellyanne Conway has been counselled after she urged people to buy Ivanka Trump products during an interview on Fox News.

Sean Spicer says, Shes been counselled, and thats all were going to say.

Conway spoke on Fox News Thursday morning from the White House briefing room. She encouraged people to go buy Ivankas stuff. She made the comments a day after Trump attacked Nordstrom on Twitter for dropping his daughters fashion line.

While Trump himself is not subject to the standards of ethical conduct for federal employees, Conway is. Among the rules: An employee shall not use his or her office for the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise.

House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz also said Conways promotion of Ivanka Trumps fashion brand was wrong, wrong, wrong, clearly over the line, unacceptable.

The Republican congressman said the White House must refer the matter to the Office of Government Ethics for review. He said he and Democratic Oversight Leader Elijah Cummings are writing a letter to the office and he will also write to President Donald Trump about the matter.

It needs to be dealt with, he told The Associated Press. Theres no ifs, ands or buts about it.

Conway told Fox News that Trump is a successful businesswoman and people should give the company their business.

Im going to give it a free commercial here, Conway said of the presidents daughters merchandise brand. Go buy Ivankas stuff.

Read the latest news on U.S. President Donald Trump

U.S. President Donald Trump launched a Twitter attack against Nordstrom on Wednesday after the Seattle-based retailer dropped his daughters clothing and accessory line. Trump says his daughter has been treated so unfairly.

The tweet drew swift criticism from ethics experts.

Trump has tweeted about companies such as Boeing, Carrier and General Motors. But ethics experts say this time is different because it involves a business run by his daughter  and that raises conflict-of-interest concerns.

Federal employees are banned from using their public office to endorse products.

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Trump slams Nordstrom for treating daughter unfairly

Nordstrom stock rises, breaking the curse of the Trump tweet

With files from the Washington Post

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BOSTONThe biggest storm to hit the Northeast this winter dumped a foot or more of snow along the New York-to-Boston corridor Thursday, turning roads treacherous, grounding flights and giving millions of people weather whiplash a day after temperatures soared into the 50s and 60s.

Scores of accidents were reported as drivers confronted windblown snow and slick highways, with southbound Interstate 95 at the Rhode Island-Connecticut line closed in the afternoon because several tractor-trailers got stuck on an incline.

More than 3,500 flights were cancelled across the region and all planes bound for New Yorks Kennedy Airport were ordered held on the ground for hours while crews cleared the runways.

Schools closed in cities big and small, including New York City, Philadelphia and Boston, and government offices told non-essential workers to stay home.

A doorman in New York City died after falling down a set of stairs and crashing through a plate-glass window while shovelling snow, police said. He suffered cuts on his neck and face.

Its pretty nuts here, Felecia White said as she and friends hunkered down in a restaurant in Newport, Rhode Island, waiting for the weather to improve enough for them to venture back out. Even with four-wheel drive, you cant do anything. You cant see across the street.

The National Weather Service said up to 27 centimetres fell in New Yorks Hudson Valley by noon, while areas around New York City and Long Island received 15 to 22 centimetres. West Hartford, Connecticut, had more than 33 centimetres, and Ludlow, Massachusetts, 41 centimetres.

A blizzard warning was posted for a swath of the New England coast, with forecasters saying Boston and Providence, Rhode Island, could get up to a foot and a half by evening.

The storm came midway through a largely snow-free winter in the Northeast and a day after much of the region enjoyed a brief taste of spring, with record-breaking highs in some places. Temperatures then crashed more than 30 degrees as the storm rolled in.

We were waiting for a good one all year, said Morgan Crum, a manager at Katz Ace Hardware in Glastonbury, Connecticut, where more than 50 people stopped in to buy shovels, ice melt, gas cans and other storm provisions. We live in New England. This is what we expect.

The Philadelphia area was largely spared after being told to expect up to 20 centimetres in the morning. Some suburbs received 12 centimetres, but by the afternoon, there was almost no trace of snow downtown, and the sun came out.

Wearing a T-shirt, Alicia Jones tossed salt on the sidewalk outside the Philadelphia restaurant where she works as a server. She said her daughter had the day off from school, and Jones had been looking forward to playing in the snow.

By the time we woke up, it was all over, she said.

Rhode Islanders reported seeing and hearing thundersnow, with the rumble of thunder accompanying the near white-out conditions.

Its pretty rare. Ive been plowing snow for 20 years now. Every snowstorm, Im out. Ive only seen it three times in my life, said Jared Nunes, a state lawmaker from Coventry who runs a construction company that does plowing in the winter.

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FLEMINGTON, N.J.A New Jersey woman who was the oldest American has died at age 114.

Adele Dunlap died Sunday at a hospital near Flemington, according to the Martin Funeral Home.

She became the countrys oldest person in July 2016 following the death of 113-year-old Goldie Michelson, of Worcester, Massachusetts.

A group that tracks long-living people says the oldest known person living in the U.S. now is 113-year-old Delphine Gibson, of Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania.

Dunlap didnt have an explanation for her longevity, and neither did her children. Asked once how it felt to be the oldest American, Dunlap said, I dont feel any different.

Dunlap was born Dec. 12, 1902, in Newark, though family and caregivers said she often gave a younger age when asked how old she was. The year she was born, Theodore Roosevelt was president, Cuba gained independence from Spain, the second Boer War ended, and the U.S. bought the rights to the Panama Canal from France.

Dunlap taught school before marrying and settling down to raise the couples three children. Her husband worked for an insurance company and died in 1963.

Its hard to say, her son, Earl Dunlap, said when his mother became the oldest American. She never went out jogging or anything like that. Shes not really thin, but she never weighed more than 140 pounds. She smoked, and when my father had his first heart attack, they both stopped. I think she ate anything she wanted.

Earl Dunlap said his mother wasnt a drinker but did occasionally enjoy a martini with her husband. Officials at the Country Arch Care Center in Pittstown, where Dunlap first arrived at age 99 , described her as a passive participant in daily activities and said she didnt socialize much. But they said she looked forward to Girl Scouts coming to sing Christmas carols.

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KABULThe international Red Cross on Thursday temporarily suspended its activities in Afghanistan following an attack that killed six of its employees the previous day in a northern province.

According to Thomas Glass, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the aid groups activities are on hold until next Tuesday or possibly longer.

The organization, he told The Associated Press, needs to reassess how we can conduct our work safely following Wednesdays attack near the northern town of Shibirghan.

Glass described the assault as the worst incident for ICRC in 16 years in Afghanistan. The eight-person ICRC team was delivering livestock materials near Shibirghan, the capital of Jowzjan province, when the gunmen attacked their convoy.

We are not planning to leave Afghanistan, he added. We need to have a dialogue with all parties in the conflict about the security and safety of our staff.

No one has claimed the attack, but the provincial police chief, Rahmatullah Turkistani, said it was likely carried out by Daesh (also known as ISIS or ISIL) militants, who have a presence in the area. The Taliban, who have been waging a 15-year insurgency against the Kabul government, denied involvement.

Earlier on Thursday, an Afghan official said NATO drone strikes killed 11 Daesh militants, including two senior commanders, in the eastern Nangarhar province.

According to Mohammad Hussain Mashraqiwal, a spokesman for the provincial police chief, the two commanders killed in Wednesdays strikes were Mohammed Omar Sadiq and Omar Farooq. Six people were also wounded in the airstrikes, he added.

U.S. Navy Cpt. Bill Salvin, a military spokesman, confirmed that American forces conducted counterterrorism strikes in Nangarhar on Wednesday, without providing further details.

An Islamic State affiliate has emerged in eastern Afghanistan as a rival to the much larger Taliban, and has carried out attacks targeting the countrys Shiite minority and security forces.

In other violence on Thursday, a gunman shot and killed a member of the provincial council along with four of his bodyguards in norther Baghlan province, police spokesman Jawed Basharat said.

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The Ontario Medical Association is in total disarray after the dramatic resignation this week of its entire executive team  and thats bad news for patients.

The mass resignation has left the union, which represents Ontarios 34,000 doctors and medical students, with its biggest internal crisis in more than 30 years and with no president or president-elect.

Worse, it has opened the door wide to a radical Tea Party-style takeover of the OMA that sees doctors fighting doctors, increased moves to defeat the Wynne government in the 2018 election and more power for Conservative party operatives within the organization.

For patients, this could mean big trouble.

Thats because a radicalized OMA is expected to step up threats of job actions by doctors, such as reduced office hours or rotating shutdowns of hospital emergency departments, as they push for a new wage contract with Queens Park.

This is a sad day, Dr. Richard Reznick, dean of the faculty of health sciences at Queens University, wrote in an online blog after the executives quit Monday, just a week following a non-confidence vote by the OMAs governing council. What has transpired cannot be good for the profession, Reznick added.

The OMA infighting stems from the unions failure to secure a wage agreement with the Liberal government. The last contract expired three years ago. Last summer OMA members soundly rejected a tentative deal backed by the OMA executive team.

For more than a year, radicals within the OMA have worked openly to oust the executive team, which they decried as ineffective.

Two weeks ago, the OMAs 260-member governing council voted 55 per cent in favour of a non-confidence motion in the executive, but failed to gain the two-thirds majority needed to oust the six-member executive team.

The dissidents, many of whom support private two-tier medicine, argue their real motivation isnt more pay for themselves. Rather, they claim they are advocating on behalf of patients who are suffering because the Liberals are driving health care into the ground.

Few people are buying that argument, though. One of those is Bob Rae, the former Ontario NDP premier, who tweeted this week that the OMA is a union fighting for higher incomes for docs. Period.

Another driving force for the dissidents is their desire to defeat the Wynne government in the next election. Social media postings make it clear they are targeting Health Minister Eric Hoskins in particular while praising Conservative leader Patrick Brown.

Conservative operatives have also been advising the dissident groups in recent months, with at least one organizer angling for a top OMA job. Meanwhile, Joanne McNamara, a former deputy chief of staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, starts work in March as the OMAs head of advocacy and public affairs.

Already the OMA is getting mobilized for the 2018 election. With a slogan of No Safe Seats, the union will launch a highly organized campaign in all 124 ridings with the goal of making health care a top election issue.

Whats next for the OMA?

First, members will vote between Feb. 15 and March 7 to elect the 260-member council, which serves a one-year term. Hardline members are already lined up as candidates for these spots. The council will elect the new president and president-elect.

Second, the new OMA executive will try to reopen negotiations with Queens Park on a wage deal. These talks will almost surely collapse, primarily because Hoskins refuses to agree to binding arbitration as a precondition for the talks to resume. The dissidents have made that a prerequisite for any negotiations.

Third, once the talks fail, the radicalized OMA could then launch job actions.

Such a move could prove disastrous for the doctors, many of whom are too young to remember the 1986 strike over extra-billing that seriously damaged their reputation. Some doctors closed their offices for two days, held a massive rally at Queens Park, closed emergency wards in Toronto and shut down the Newmarket hospital for an entire day.

Instead of siding with the doctors, though, patients showed little sympathy for them, eyeing them as being greedy rather than physicians who cared about their patients first. The strike petered out after 25 days.

The best hope for patients in the coming months is that OMA moderates will manage to hold some sway within the organization.

As Reznick, the Queens University dean, says, if leadership emanates from groups that hold extreme views, at this juncture in time, the medical profession will take a great step backwards.

Calm, moderate views are needed right now, he adds.

Given the success the hardliners have enjoyed in driving the executive team out of office, calm and moderate may be the last thing patients see from the embattled OMA for a long time.

Bob Hepburns column appears Thursday. bhepburn@thestar.ca

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Toronto is at a tipping point.

Families across the city are swimming upstream against a cost of living that just keeps climbing, even though most peoples paycheques arent. And the city is struggling with crumbling infrastructure, inadequate transit, and roads completely clogged with cars.

This situation didnt come out of nowhere.

Starting in the 90s, the Progressive Conservative government of Mike Harris made drastic cuts to municipal funding, including stripping away critical transit operation funding in 1998. For 13 years, the Liberal government has refused to restore it. Those cuts have left social housing across the city crumbling, and families struggling to find affordable, safe child care.

Twenty years of cutting, and downloading the price tag for things such as transit onto the city have left Toronto desperately in need of funds, but out of revenue options, leading City Council to consider tolls that I believe would only make life harder for many GTHA residents already struggling to get by.

We can do something about this.

Investing in our cities is a practical way to make life more affordable for everyday Ontarians, without depending on unfair user fees and flat taxes. Great cities and communities arent built through cuts  they are built through collaboration and co-operation between the province, the federal government, and local government.

Mayor Tory hit the nail on the head in his recent letter to Premier Wynne, saying it can no longer be business as usual because the status quo leaves Toronto taxpayers footing the bills that the province should be paying.

It is the duty of a provincial government to respond to the pressing needs of cities and municipalities now, not just when its politically convenient. To me, that duty means all levels of government coming back to the table and investing in our shared future.

Federal and provincial governments have the ability to raise revenues through an array of progressive tax measures, as well as the ability to shift priorities. Many of these same options are not available to cities. The Ontario governments priority should be helping to build a world class transit system for Toronto, not competing with the state of Alabama for the lowest combined corporate tax rate.

Heres my plan for a fair deal that makes life a little more affordable for everyone.

We need to protect and restore affordable municipal child care spaces. Investing $50 million would bring subsidies back to 2010 levels. But this investment alone is not enough. I believe the province has a role to play in making high-quality, not-for-profit child-care accessible to all Ontarians

The province should commit to providing an equitable one-third split on affordable housing, alongside the federal government and the city, so the Toronto Community Housing Corporation can make more affordable housing options available to families, and make necessary repairs to existing affordable homes.

And the province should restore the Toronto Transit Commisions operating cost subsidies. That would put over $330 million back in to Torontos transit system, which is more than the estimated revenue from the proposed road tolls, and nearly double the new gas tax funding being offered by the Wynne Liberals.

I believe in a fair, affordable Toronto where everyone can participate, and I know Im not alone in this vision. Thats why Im meeting with Mayor John Tory today, and will meet with other municipal leaders across the province going forward. Its time to talk about how we can, and should, make life more affordable for everyone by investing in city services.

The time has come for the province to start showing real leadership when it comes to investing in our cities. All levels of government need to come together to undo the harm done by years of cuts and downloading, and start building a future we can all be proud of.

Andrea Horwath is the leader of Ontarios New Democratic Party.

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We are all immigrants. The phrase has become a popular slogan of opposition to the closing of borders in Canada and the United States.

It has been written on protest signs held high against Donald Trumps ban on nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries, and echoed by Canadian politicians proclaiming their acceptance of refugees from countries like Syria.

We understand that as Canadians we are almost all immigrants, and that no one should be excluded on the basis of their ethnicity or nationality, said Toronto mayor John Tory, for instance, in response to Trumps Muslim ban.

The claim that we are a country of immigrants is meant to be a statement of open arms to those outside the borders, but it closes our eyes to the hierarchies that exist within them.

We are all immigrants hides the violence of settler colonialism by calling it immigration.

Misrepresenting the process of European colonization of North America, making everyone an immigrant, serves to preserve the official story of a mostly benign and benevolent U.S.A., and to mask the fact that the pre-U.S. independence settlers, were, well, settlers, colonial setters, just as they were in Africa and India, acclaimed historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz points out.

Settlers, unlike most immigrants, do not seek to join a society as it exists, but to create a new one by destroying what was already there. Immigration is a gross euphemism for an exercise that has entailed the genocide of indigenous peoples, committed in Canada using means such as smallpox blankets and forced sterilizations and sexual violence and residential schools.

We are all immigrants deletes the fact that black people who were enslaved did not travel here voluntarily, but were transported forcibly  not only to the United States, but to Canada as well, where slavery was legal until 1834.

The assertion that Canada is a nation of immigrants excises the thousands of black people enslaved in Canada from our history. It expunges from our self-representation people such as Olivier Le Jeune, the first enslaved African in Canada, who was brought to New France from Madagascar as a six-year-old boy in 1628 by British commander Sir David Kirke.

And like Marie-Joseph Angelique, an enslaved black woman who was brutally tortured and hanged in 1734 in Montreal, for allegedly setting fire to her mistresss home after she threatened to sell her.

Is immigrants the appropriate designation for the indigenous peoples of North America? No. Is immigrants the appropriate designation for enslaved Africans? No. Is immigrants the appropriate designation for the original European settlers? No, writes Dunbar-Ortiz.

We are all immigrants also obscures the reality of deep inequalities between different groups of people that have migrated to Canada.

The slogan covers over the truth that some move here and live here on far more privileged terms than others; that we may inhabit the same piece of land but we are not all in the same boat.

Not all immigrants are equal, Carleton University Professors Frances Abele and Daiva Stasiulis remind us. Throughout the history of this country, many different peoples have come, often in flight from poverty or persecution at home, only to find themselves exploited here.

This was true for the 17,000 Chinese men brought in as cheap and expendable railway workers in the 1880s; they were paid a fraction of the wage earned by white workers, and many hundreds of them died doing the most perilous jobs.

And it continues to be true today. For example, certain highly skilled immigrants and business entrepreneurs are given preferential access to permanent residence. But the temporary migrant workers that Canada uses to perform essential labour  such as farming the food we eat and making the clothes we wear and disposing of the waste we produce  are denied secure status, often trapped in abusive and dangerous working conditions with low pay.

Racialized workers are overrepresented in the latter cohort, perpetuating the historical racial inequalities in immigration selection, according to the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants.

As a Muslim, I have been deeply moved by recent displays of solidarity against efforts to keep Muslims out of the United States. But we cannot build a more just world by perpetuating unjust myths, including the fairy-tale that we are all immigrants here.

Azeezah Kanji is a legal analyst and writer based in Toronto.

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On the face of it, it sounded crystal clear. Canada will never use torture or be party to that, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said after meeting his counterpart this week in Washington.

But the reality is Sajjans comments are as clear as mud. Thats because the minister would not say what his commitment never to be a party to torture might mean in practice.

Some might argue we already are. Under a formal policy put forward by the Harper government in 2012, Canada can use information obtained through torture in exceptional circumstances involving an immediate threat. That means that if another country passes on tips it obtained through torture, Canada can act on them  a directive that some believe encourages other regimes to continue their terrible practices.

The order creates an incentive for countries that engage in torture to continue to do so to curry favour with the Canadian intelligence community, wrote Robert Holmes, the former president of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

That is unacceptable. And when the Liberals were in opposition they knew that. Then, they urged the Conservative government to issue a clear ministerial directive against swapping information with torturing regimes. But more than a year into the Liberal governments mandate, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale has so far refused to rescind the directive, even while admitting it raises a troubling set of issues.

Troubling, indeed. Sajjans stated categorical opposition to torture is welcome. But it means little if not reflected in policy. As Sukanya Pillay, executive director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, rightly points out, Canada has to now take care that we do not condone or inadvertently collude with torture.

This is particularly important at a moment when the new U.S. administration has expressed openness to revisiting its ban on so-called enhanced interrogation techniques. President Donald Trump has been clear that he supports the use of torture and firmly believes that it works, though most military and security experts suggest that it doesnt. He vowed on the campaign trail to bring back not only the torture tactic of waterboarding, but a hell of a lot worse.

Its true that since taking office he has said he would defer to the anti-torture views of his defence secretary, James Mattis. But that means the U.S. is potentially only one adviser away from embracing torture if Trump changes his mind and overturns former president Barack Obamas ban on the practice.

All the more reason, then, for Canada to send a clear message to the U.S.  and the world  that it will not accept information obtained through torture.

Any policy that condones torture, or worse, creates a market for it and thereby contributes to its use, is a betrayal of our values and our obligations as a signatory of the UN Convention Against Torture. Sajjan is right to unequivocally condemn torture and complicity in it. But to do so in words is not enough. His government should now act accordingly.

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Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. provides technical, professional, and construction services. The company's Aerospace, Technology, Environmental and Nuclear segment offers scientific, engineering, construction, nuclear, environmental, and technical support services to the aerospace, defense, technical, and automotive industries. Its Buildings, Infrastructure and Advanced Facilities segment develops/rehabilitates plans for highways, bridges, transit, tunnels, airports, railroads, intermodal facilities, and maritime or port projects; develops or rehabilitates critical water resource systems, water/wastewater conveyance systems, and flood defense projects; and provides engineering design, construction management, design build, and operations and maintenance. This segment also designs and constructs buildings; offers consulting, engineering, procurement, construction management, and delivery services for life sciences clients; and provides services relating to modular construction and other consulting and strategic planning services, as well as offers services in containment, barrier technology, locally controlled environments, building systems automation, off-the-site design, and fabrication of facility modules. The company's Energy, Chemicals and Resources segment offers services relating to onshore and offshore oil and gas production facilities, processing facilities, gathering systems, and transmission pipelines and terminals; feasibility/economic studies, technology evaluation, conceptual engineering, front end loading, detailed engineering, procurement, construction, maintenance, and commissioning services; and engineering, procurement, and construction solutions. This segment also provides services, such as manufacturing complex, expansions, modifications, and management of plant relocations; construction management and field construction services; and services to operate and maintain facilities. The company was founded in 1947 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.
Zoetis Inc. discovers, develops, manufactures, and commercializes animal health medicines, vaccines, and diagnostic products in the United States and internationally. It commercializes products primarily across species, including livestock, such as cattle, swine, poultry, fish, and sheep; and companion animals comprising dogs, cats, and horses. The company also offers vaccines, which are biological preparations to prevent diseases of the respiratory, gastrointestinal, and reproductive tracts or induce a specific immune response; anti-infectives that prevent, kill, or slow the growth of bacteria, fungi, or protozoa; and parasiticides that prevent or eliminate external and internal parasites, which include fleas, ticks, and worms. It also provides other pharmaceutical products that comprise pain and sedation, antiemetic, reproductive, and oncology products; dermatology products for itch associated with allergic conditions and atopic dermatitis; and medicated feed additives, which offer medicines to livestock. In addition, the company provides portable blood and urine analysis testing, including point-of-care diagnostic products, instruments and reagents, rapid immunoassay tests, reference laboratory kits and services, and blood glucose monitors; and other non-pharmaceutical products, including nutritionals and agribusiness services, as well as products and services in areas, such as biodevices, genetics tests, and precision animal health. It markets its products to veterinarians, livestock producers, and retail outlets, as well as third-party veterinary distributors through its sales representatives, and technical and veterinary operations specialists. The company was founded in 1952 and is headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey.
Guide for Returning to Campus

In the current environment, the health and safety of students, faculty, and staff remain our top priority. To that end, we have taken several important steps that are consistent with the requests of government leaders and health officials.
The main version of murder of journalist Pavel Sheremet is his journalistic and opposition activities.

Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said this at a briefing.

"Initially, the investigation considered five versions. The separate bloc included his journalistic and opposition activities outside of Ukraine," Avakov said.

He added that 16 examinations had been currently conducted.

As reported, the National Police considered five versions of the murder of journalist Pavel Sheremet in Kyiv last summer. Among them were the journalistic activity of Sheremet in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, the murder by mistake, the attempt to destabilize the situation in the country, and personal conflict because of family, commercial and financial disputes.

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The NATO-Ukraine Commission in Brussels on February 8 held an extraordinary meeting at the ambassadorial level regarding the situation in Avdiivka.

Ukraines Vice Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze wrote this on Facebook.

Because of the recent escalation in Avdiivka, a meeting of NATO-Ukraine Commission at the ambassadorial level was held yesterday. All countries of the Alliance expressed their unanimous support for Ukraine, the territorial integrity and sovereignty of our state. NATO member countries have no doubts that this is Russia and its associates who are responsible for the escalation of the situation in the security area in Donbas, she wrote.

According to her, the Allies confirmed that the lifting of sanctions against Russia is impossible because of the non-fulfillment of the Minsk agreements, which are the only way to resolve the conflict.

"Thats why NATO will continue political pressure on Russia, there will be no hesitations with this regard. NATO also noted visible results of reforms in Ukraine, the vice prime minister noted.

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Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksandr Turchynov held a meeting with Foreign Minister of the Republic of Lithuania Linas Linkevicius.

This has been reported by the press service of the National Security and Defense Council.

During the meeting, the parties discussed the issues of escalation in Donbas that has taken place over the past weeks as a result of the increase in the number of provocations by Russian hybrid troops.

Secretary of the NSDC of Ukraine informed the foreign minister of Lithuania about "the expansion of the Russian Federation's military potential in the east of Ukraine, aggressive actions of Russian hybrid troops in Donbas and provocations, in particular, against civilians".

"Every day new equipment and weapons are supplied to Donbas from Russia: self-propelled guns, multiple launch rocket systems, howitzers, etc.," he noted.

Moreover, the interlocutors discussed the issue of granting the visa-free regime to Ukraine. According to the foreign minister of Lithuania, Ukraine has "all chances to get the visa-free regime in the nearest time".

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Canada annually imports goods worth about $420 billion, opening great opportunities for Ukraine.

Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister of Ukraine Natalia Mykolska said this on the air of UA|TV channel.

Canada is a huge market, both in terms of GDP and imports. Canada annually imports goods worth about $420 billion. If we divide this sum by the actual population of Canada, it turns out that every Canadian resident accounts for about $12,000 in imports per year. This means very large opportunities for us, she said.

Mykolska added that Canada had opened 98% of its market for Ukrainian goods, so Ukrainian goods could be delivered there without payment of customs duties almost immediately.

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The Treaties Committee of the Federal Parliament of Australia has supported conclusion of the agreement between the governments of Ukraine and Australia on cooperation in the field of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

This is reported by an Ukrinform correspondent with reference to the Embassy of Ukraine in Australia.

The concern was expressed about the consequences of recent aggravation of the security situation in Ukraine and the risk that the control over nuclear materials may be lost. It was recommended to assess the risks and develop the plan of response.

In accordance with the Australian procedure for approving the intergovernmental agreements, the relevant committee will consider the agreement throughout 20 parliamentary sessions. The Government's response to the Committee's recommendations is expected in March 2017. Afterwards, the document will be submitted to the Parliament.

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President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has met with wife and children of Ukrinform correspondent Roman Sushchenko, illegally arrested in Russia, on the occasion of journalists birthday.

This is reported by the press service of the Head of State.

"Today is the birthday of your husband and father. Our meeting is little birthday greeting to him," he said.

Poroshenko noted that he as the President, the Government and the Foreign Ministry are making every effort to return Sushchenko home as soon as possible.

Earlier, Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman and a number of Ukrainian and European politicians and diplomats congratulated Roman Sushchenko on his birthday.

As reported, Ukrinform correspondent in France Roman Sushchenko was arrested in Moscow on September 30, where he arrived on a private visit. He was accused of espionage, allegedly being a member of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. The Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate denied allegations of the Russian Federal Security Service.

The Russian court ruled at its closed hearing on October 1 to arrest the journalist for two months - until November 30.

On October 7, the Russian Federation officially charged the Ukrainian journalist with spying. Sushchenko denies any guilt.

Roman Sushchenko works with the Ukrainian National News Agency Ukrinform since 2002 and is agency's own correspondent in France since 2010.

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Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has stated that the situation in eastern Ukraine should be settled peacefully and the Minsk agreements are the tool to facilitate such a settlement.

He said this at a joint briefing with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman in Kyiv on Wednesday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"As for political situation in the region [in Donbas], Greece is monitoring it very closely and is very much interested in the peaceful ways to settle the conflict. We believe that the Minsk agreements are one of the most important aspects that could help," Tsipras said.

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President Petro Poroshenko has started a meeting in vis-a-vis format with Prime Minister of Greece Alexis Tsipras who is on a working visit to Ukraine.

This has been reported by the press service of the Head of State.

The Head of State expressed gratitude to Greece for a solid stand in the issue of withstanding Ukraines territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence, condemning Russian aggression against Ukraine and non-recognizing the annexation of Crimea.

Greece supports Ukraine in the process of European integration and firmly insists on the necessity of full implementation of the Minsk agreements: total ceasefire, withdrawal of Russian troops from the Ukrainian territory and ensuring peace process, as stated by Petro Poroshenko.

The President emphasizes that the two countries share close economic, social, cultural and interpersonal ties that will be further enhanced.

Upon completion of the bilateral meeting, the parties will hold an expanded meeting of the Ukrainian and Greek delegations.

ish
Polish-Ukrainian strategic partnership is increasingly being filled with positive content. Warsaw supports Kyiv on the path of European integration and implementation of domestic reforms, admitting that historical problems should not affect further relationship.

Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski said this, while delivering the speech on the principles of foreign policy in 2017 at the Polish Sejm, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"Poland supports European aspirations of Ukraine. We also believe that full implementation of the Minsk agreements is the basis for the peaceful settlement of the conflict [in eastern Ukraine]," Waszczykowski said (read more...)
Kyiv City Council plans to increase spending on the organization and hosting of the Eurovision Song Contest 2017.

Mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko has said this during todays meeting of Kyiv City Council, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"We must approve amendments to the budget for 2017. In particular, it concerns the funds needed for the target municipal programme on the prevention of and fight against crime Safe capital. And also regarding the financing of events on the organization and hosting of Eurovision, said Klitschko.

According to him, it is proposed that budget funds, remained at the Culture Department of Kyiv City Sate Administration as of the beginning of the year, be also spent on Eurovision organization in order to host the song contest at a high level.

"To transfer to Ukraines national budget a subvention worth UAH 165 million from the city budget, said Klitschko.

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We kicked off the show with Austin Aries announcing that Tony Nese was injured on Raw and therefore would not be able to compete in the main event match, however, his spot would be filled by a match between Ariya Daivari and Mustafa Ali to start the show.

Analysis: It's a shame that Tony Nese isn't able to perform as he has been heavily featured recently and could have really benefited from being in such a high-profile match, however, he was unlikely to win anyway.

Mustafa Ali - Ariya Daivari

This match was to determine who would fill Nese's spot in the main event and Ali started things out in control, using his agility to avoid Daivari's offense, catching a kick by him and reversing with a spinning heel kick sending Daivari to the outside. Daivari cleverly played possum though and caught Ali out, ramming him into the barricade before hitting a neck breaker on the outside. Daivari then cleverly attacked the back and neck of his opponent, focusing solely on those areas to inflict maximum damage, but after hitting a great spine buster he went one move too far, missing with his attempted frog splash.

After a brief comeback from Ali, a unique counter from Daivari, dropping to the floor as Ali ran at him causing Ali to go face first into the turnbuckle, allowed him to regain control, with an impressive hammerlock into a lariat. The match continued to go back and forth until Ali hit a tornado DDT before finishing it off with his inverted 450 to progress to the main event.

Ali progressed to the main event. Photo-WWE.com

Analysis: Ali moves into the main event after a very fun opening match. It was a good back and forth battle between two guys who have been well developed on 205 Live, Ali is someone the fans are getting behind so it is sensible to give him the opportunity.

Vignette for Gran Metalik airs.

Analysis: As usual, a very good video package to hype up Metalik, WWE are great at these. He arrives next week which is a very good addition to the roster.

Lince Dorado - The Brian Kendrick

The ex Cruiserweight Champion had the microphone on the way to the ring as he claimed he was the gatekeeper of 205 Live, which means anytime they send in the clowns he is there to snuff out their dreams. Whether it be a young upstart or a legend like Tajiri, but there was one exception, Akira Tozawa. He see's potential in him and he hopes he is watching in the back, Kendrick claimed that he might take him under his wing to make him 'The Protege.'

It was a slow start for The Brian Kendrick so he jumped out of the ring, only for Lince Dorado to follow him, kicking him in the face and springing off the ropes to land a moonsault to the outside. Back in the ring and a quick hard hitting kick from Kendrick provided some separation as he followed it up with a back body drop. Dorado slapped the chest of Kendrick several times to keep him away before a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker gave him some momentum, after a cross body and a spring stunner it seemed he had the match won, but Kendrick kicked out.

Dorado then went to the top rope in a quest to finish the match but his move was reversed and Kendrick locked in the Captain's Hook to gain the win.

Analysis: A short match to continue Kendrick's storyline of being a crafty heel who defeats whoever he is put up against. This was Dorado's best showing since debuting on 205 Live.

After the match, Austin Aries was in the ring for an 'exclusive interview' where both he and Kendrick agreed it was Kendrick's honor to be in the ring with him. The 'greatest man that ever lived' wanted to know why Kendrick had changed his opinion on Tozawa and Kendrick invited him to the ring, but instead, we got Tajiri's music and when he turned around he walked right into green mist.

Tajiri made a surprise return. Photo- WWE.com

Analysis: It was great to see Tajiri back after his injury which should see the rivalry pick back up where it left off, the Japanese Buzzsaw got a great reaction.

Neville was interviewed ahead of the main event where he said all the winner gets is an opportunity to stand before the king until the bell rings when you then have no chance. He went through each competitor and stated why he be able to beat all of them and said it doesn't matter who wins as they will simply bend their knee and pay respect to the 'king of the cruiserweights.'

Analysis: Solid interview segment by the champion to build the main event and remind us what is at stake.

Elimination fatal fiveway (winner becomes #1 contender) Mustafa Ali - Noam Dar - TJ Perkins - Cedric Alexander - Jack Gallagher

Noam Dar started out the match by trash talking everyone in the ring, so the baby faces ganged up on him throwing him out of the ring. All four men then put on an incredible flurry of fast paced maneuvers that were very well put together with people being Irish whipped into others, reversing moves and walking straight into another; starting this match at an incredible pace.

After everyone spilled to the outside of the ring, Jack Gallagher picked up William lll and opened it up before diving from the top rope to take everybody out in a very fun spot. Dar then hit a big chopping kick to Gallagher's knees which had a huge impact, but the Scottish Supernova spent too long posing and Cedric Alexander hit the Lumbar Check and got the pin.

Gallagher went flying. Photo-WWE.com

Cedrick Alexander eliminates Noam Dar

Analysis: This elimination is smart, it gets rid of the only heel and it shows Alexander hasn't forgotten the history between them.

Alexander then performed an excellent standing Spanish fly on Ali but he kicked out, as Alexander continued to impress, hitting a handspring roundhouse kick to TJ Perkins before a boot to the head of Gallagher, he was on a roll. After going to the top rope Noam Dar would return and push him, knocking him off balance as Perkins would pick him up and hit the Detonation Kick to pick up the pinfall.

TJ Perkins eliminates Cedric Alexander

Analysis: It looks like this feud may not be over, it was a good way for Dar to get some heat back and a clever way to eliminate one of the more popular men in the match. Alexander had a great showing.

TJP then got caught on Gallagher's shoulders as he looked for the electric chair, but instead, Ali hit a crossbody to Perkins from the top rope, knocking them all down. He then attempted to hit his 450 finisher but Gallagher moved and Perkins caught him in an armbar for a submission.

Ali impressed. Photo- WWE.com

TJ Perkins eliminates Mustafa Ali

Analysis: Another well-booked elimination with Ali getting a little too confident and paying the price. He sold the battles from earlier on in the night well and TJP getting another elimination reminds fans what a threat he is.

The remaining two men went back and forth with Perkins focusing on the injured leg of Gallagher as he locked in the knee bar, only for him to reach the ropes. Gallagher dove over Perkins but landed on his leg awkwardly and TJP hit the Detonation Kick, but after Gallagher fell back and bounced off the ropes he hit a massive headbutt and almost got the three count, great near fall. However, Gallagher quickly followed it up with his running drop kick and won the match.

Jack Gallagher eliminated TJ Perkins to become the number one contender.

Analysis: That was an amazing match, potentially the greatest in 205 Live's short history and the 'this is awesome' chants were well earned. All five men brought their A game and they showed what the show's potential is. It was fast paced and everyone had their time to shine with some very clever spots added in. Gallagher picking up the win is well-deserved as he is arguably the most popular man in the division and a match with Neville should be very good. The champion came out to stare down his challenger to end the show.

Star of the night: Jack Gallagher. This was a very tough decision this week as there Jack Gallagher. This was a very tough decision this week as there were several standouts with Ali pulling double duty and both Perkins and Alexander impressing, but picking up the win in the main event to become number one contender gave Gallagher the edge.

Rating: 8.5/10 That is exactly what 205 Live should be and if WWE can keep it up they will have a very exciting show on their hands. It was fast paced cruiserweight action which is what fans have been crying out for. The first two matches were fun and the main event was brilliant, add in the return of Tajiri, a hot crowd, and some storyline development and there was a lot to be excited about during this hour of television.

Last Week: 5.5/10
With a new administration in the White House, some businesses in Washington are seeing more business, including the historic Old Ebbitt Grill. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)

In the three weeks since the Trump administration moved into town, business at Bullfeathers, a Capitol Hill watering hole popular among Republican staffers, has climbed 55 percent. Old Ebbitt Grill, across from the White House, has reported an uptick in sales of Fireball whisky shots.

And at Luigi Parasmo Salon and Spa in Georgetown, a steady stream of recently relocated New Yorkers has been calling to schedule weekly blowouts and French manicures. The newcomers are somewhat trendier than the salons usual lineup of Washingtonians, owner Luigi Parasmo said. (He also has some ideas to jazz up the presidents hairdo, if called upon.)

Lots of long hair! he wrote in an email. In general, big city people tend to be more attentive to their hair, nails and skin care.

Throughout Washington, business owners say its clear that the Trump administration has arrived. The new president and his staffers are settling in, and beginning to venture out to the regions restaurants, bars, shops and salons.

Its a tide that turns every four  or eight  years in Washington as one presidential administration gives way to the next, ushering in a new wave of people and preferences from across the country. Eight years ago, the Obama administration brought an influx of younger staffers who helped shore up the citys drinking and dining scene. This time around, business owners like John Tattersall are readying for their own renaissance.

(Claritza Jimenez,Ashleigh Joplin,Dani Player/The Washington Post)

As soon as theres a Republican president, I know business is going to pick up, said Tattersall, owner of Grand Ole Potomac Fly Fishing Guides. Theres lots of good activity on the books for the spring.

But, he noted, his clients  most of whom are Republican  seem to be more pressed for time than usual this year. Instead of booking eight-hour fishing trips on the Potomac River, theyre opting for four-hour half-days.

Usually they have more time, especially when theyre not in power, Tattersall, 54, said. But now theyre getting really busy. They dont have as much time for me.

[Trumps D.C. hotel is promising government and military discounts, but good luck getting them]

New faces have begun popping in to Ashok Bajajs restaurants around town, including Rasika, 701 and Bibiana. White House press secretary Sean Spicer recently dined at the Oval Room, while Housing and Urban Development nominee Ben Carson had lunch at the Bombay Club.

Theyre starting to get their footing, diningwise, Bajaj said. As with any new administration, there is excitement about the new people coming in. And those who worked in Republican administrations before, theyre coming back and saying, Hey, how are you? Im back. 

At East City Bookshop on Capitol Hill, owner Laurie Gillman has noticed a revival in book sales since the election. But, she said, its not necessarily Trump staffers who are stopping by, although a handful did pop in before the holidays. (The president, for his part, has said he does not have time to read.)

People are buying a lot more dystopian novels  1984, The Handmaids Tale,  she said, adding that a childrens book called A is for Activist is on back order.

Were on Capitol Hill, so its a very liberal-leaning, progressive group of people, Gillman said. Its a population thats very attuned to whats happening around us, so people are finding books that speak to their worries.

A few blocks over, at Capitol Lounge, co-owner James Silk says bottled Bud Light and Titos vodka have become popular in recent weeks. A lot of new, young, eager faces have helped drive sales since the inauguration, he said.

Its the same kind of turnover we see every two years with the change in Hill staffers, Silk said. Its just a fact of doing business so close to the Capitol.

Read more:

Whats selling at the inauguration: Socks, mugs and Trump-scented candles

Even Donald Trump cant pull Twitter out of a slump

Airbnb bookings in D.C. are nearing an all-time high for Trumps inauguration


The dining room at Iron Gate: No more separate menus. (Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post)

Although the chef of the romantic Iron Gate says his restaurant has enjoyed a respectable three years in Dupont Circle, Tony Chittum concedes that its original format  different menus depending on where you were sitting  confused some diners.

He thinks he has solved the problem, even as options at Iron Gate have grown. As of this month, patrons can order from an a la carte menu, a tasting menu or a family-style plan and can eat wherever they want within the historic restaurant: the bar, patio or rear dining room.

We want to make everyone who comes through the door happy, says Chittum.

Count me pleased with the chefs new, six-course, Italian-leaning tasting menu, a $90 spread thats best taken in the cozy dining room with its burgundy banquettes, open kitchen and live fire. The evening unfolds like a good novel as smoked polenta tortellini segues to cod in a circle of saffron mussels and moves to crimson hanger steak: bison served as a garland with beets that are alternately roasted, pickled and raw. Everything about the repast  the flatbread we cant stop inhaling, the wines washed back with interesting backstories, the chocolate budino that ends the meal on a sigh  makes you want to revisit it.



Smoked Polenta Tortellini with trumpet mushrooms, quail egg and winter truffle at Iron Gate. (Dixie D. Vereen/For The Washington Post)

Another night, more fun: dinner composed from among a dozen or so small plates, an outing enjoyed on the brick courtyard separating the front bar (love the vaulted ceiling) from what was once the chefs tasting room.

Hummus made from pureed shell beans, zapped with harissa oil and scooped up with house-baked fennel crackers, would be good anywhere. It doesnt hurt that Im eating the snack beneath vines strung with white lights and beside a glowing fire pit. Risotto flush with toasted hazelnuts, fried rosemary and cremini mushrooms, smoky from their time in a wood oven, keeps me in my seat. Will the next dish compare as favorably? House-made cotechino fanned over a salad of lentils, creamy with tahini, is every bite as delicious, and I love the pork sausages sly heat, from crushed red pepper flakes.

The one dish a companion and I fail to finish is squid stuffed with feta on a pool of too-sweet mustard cream. But the backdrop, including pots of herbs gracing the fence and some Michael Jackson tunes, makes up for the small slip. Its February, and were dining alfresco!

As much as I would like winter to be winter, says Chittum, the weather has been good for business.

The only time I struck out at Iron Gate, part of the Neighborhood Restaurant Group, was the night I asked about the family-style spread and was told a minimum of four people had to order it. My party was one person short. So I can tell you only that the menu costs $55 a person for four courses, starting with shared hot and cold antipasti, continuing with pasta and a main course and ending with dessert. Earlier this week, the lot included rigatoni with smoked mushrooms, roast pork loin, and zabaglione with compressed apple. (In a follow-up phone conversation, Chittum said exceptions could be made for groups of fewer than four.)

The new format at Iron Gate is liberating. No longer is the crackle limited to the fires.

1734 N St. NW. 202-524-5202. irongaterestaurantdc.com. A la carte dishes, $6 to $75 (for entrees for two).
Lisa Carruth hugs her granddaughter Juayonna Carruth after a tornado tore through their neighborhood in New Orleans on Tuesday. (Gerald Herbert/AP)

Dwight Powell lost one of his cars, a Lexus, to the massive tornado that injured 33 people and damaged more than 300 buildings in New Orleans on Tuesday. He had just parked it inside his garage to avoid hail damage before the twister struck.

At least his Yukon pickup truck would be all right, he thought. It was in a friends repair shop, 60 miles north.

Then his phone rang.

The man called me this morning and said, Man, the tornado hit your truck,  Powell said.

Thats a bad joke to tell a friend who just lost his house, he told him.

Dwight Powell recovers mirrors from the bathroom of his master bedroom. (Max Becherer/AP)

But it wasnt. The truck was slammed by another tornado that hit Donaldsonville, one of at least four confirmed twisters tearing up Louisiana on Tuesday as a line of severe weather moved across the Deep South.

Ive got to pick up the pieces and walk in faith. God is going to take care of me, Powell said Wednesday.

The other tornadoes injured nine people in the Baton Rouge area and two people north of Lake Pontchartrain, but nobody was killed, authorities said. Parts of the Florida Panhandle and southern Alabama also saw severe weather Wednesday, but no injuries.

[A new satellite will help people learn about dangerous storms earlier than ever]

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said that two people remain hospitalized, and that 78 people spent Tuesday night in a shelter, which remains open. He also said that two-thirds of the 10,400 people who lost power have had their electricity restored. The rest may have to wait up to 5 days before getting their lights back on.

National Weather Service teams fanned out Wednesday in Louisiana and Mississippi, which had one confirmed tornado, to analyze the destruction and estimate the tornadoes power. They determined that the twister that struck eastern New Orleans was an EF3 on the enhanced Fujita scale, meaning its winds reached from 136 to 165 miles per hour, capable of causing severe damage.

Powell had just finished renovating his house when the storm struck.

A two-mile stretch of eastern New Orleans was hit hardest by the tornado. (Gerald Herbert/AP)

I was about to put my house on the market for sale this Friday. This Thursday, I was going to get homeowners and flood insurance, he said.

He and an employee saw the tornado from the back door and moved to the front.

All we heard was that train sound, woo-woo-woo boom! In 15 seconds it was over, he said. The front of the house was intact, but the whole back is gone. The garage is gone. The kitchen gone.

[What are tornadoes, and why can they be so destructive?]

Rocqueisha Williams lives in the same neighborhood and was sitting on her bed when a friend called to warn her to take shelter. She said she didnt see any rain, but then she heard thunder. She grabbed a mattress and looked out her front window as she ran to the bathroom.

The sky was charcoal gray, like the world was just gray. She said she saw a strong bolt of turquoise lightning.

Glass was coming toward me. It sounded like the wind and everything was chasing me, she said. The wind was whistling, tyoo! Tyoo! Glass was breaking out of the window Id just looked out of.

She emerged to find the bed she just left covered by shattered glass.

The Lord was on my side, she said.

Then she ran, shaking, to the nearby school where her eighth-grade boys were. I knew if I was hit, they were also hit, she said.

Eric Williams, 14, and Erin Williams, 13, were fine. Her other children, KeErica Williams, 15, and Evrin Thompson, 11, were at other schools outside the tornados path.

She said pieces of walls and part of a blue door had crashed through her car windows, and the wind had thrown someone elses underwear onto her lawn.
Granddad the Australian lungfish was on exhibit at Chicagos Shedd Aquarium for more than 80 years. He died Sunday. (Brenna Hernandez/Shedd Aquarium via Reuters)

An Australian lungfish that entranced visitors to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, Illinois, for more than 80 years has been put to sleep due to old age, the popular tourist attraction announced this week.

Granddad, who was four feet long and weighed 25 pounds, had stopped eating and started showing signs of organ failure. He died on Sunday.

For a fish who spent much of his time imitating a fallen log, he sparked curiosity, excitement and wonder among guests of all ages who would hear his story, said Bridget C. Coughlin, Shedd Aquariums president.

Shedd estimates Granddad was more than 90 years old. The aquarium acquired him from the Sydney Aquarium in Australia during a 1933 collecting expedition, and Granddad was one of two lungfish that attracted visitors during that years A Century of Progress International Exposition in Chicago. Aquarium officials estimate more than 104 million people saw Granddad over eight decades.

Rob Vernon, a spokesman for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, said the nonprofit group is unaware of any older fish kept by a zoo or aquarium that it accredits in the United States or eight other countries.

Granddad lived a pretty relaxed life, enjoyed interactions with us, including gentle pats along his back, and loved to eat his leafy greens, said Michelle Sattler, who was Granddads caretaker for more than 30 years.

Lungfish can live up to 100 years and are a protected species in Australia. The species has existed for more than 380 million years and has not changed for 100 million years, according to the aquarium. Lungfish, as the name suggests, can breathe air.
SPAGnVola chocolate boutique has opened a store at the Shops at 2000 Penn (2000 Pennsylvania Ave. NW). (Yacouba Tanou )

It starts in the mountains of the Dominican Republic, lands in a small factory in Gaithersburg, and ultimately winds up behind a few choice Washington-area shop counters  the most recent being in a new store in the District.

SPAGnVOLA chocolate is on a sweet mission. Pronounced spang-VOLA, the brand recently opened a D.C. boutique and gift shop at the Shops at 2000 Penn (2000 Pennsylvania Ave. NW). Its the third site for husband and wife Eric and Crisoire Reid, who import about 22 tons of cacao beans annually from their Dominican Republic farm. The beans are hand-sorted at the Reids Gaithersburg factory (360 Main St., Suite 100), which opened in 2009. The result is a delicious assortment of single-estate, organic chocolate bars, bonbons and truffles.

Chocolate was our calling, says Eric Reid, president and chief executive. He and Crisoire, an award-winning chocolatier and Dominican Republic native, also have a location in National Harbor (181 Waterfront St., Oxon Hill, Md.). They are planning to open a fourth shop in Virginia this year.

The Reids say they are committed to aiding farmers abroad. Theyre working with the Ondo state government in Nigeria to build the countrys first premium-chocolate factory and teach farmers how to produce the bricks chocolatiers use in their work.

We [will] provide the knowledge to produce bricks and then [SPAGnVOLA] will buy their bricks, Eric Reid says.

Through the project, farmers earnings will increase from less than 50 cents a pound [for beans] to about $8 a pound for chocolate bricks, he says.

In July, SPAGnVOLA received a top 10 ranking among the worlds chocolate shops from National Geographic.

Washington, D.C. The shop features signature items, including olive oil truffles and hot chocolate spiced with ginger, cinnamon, cardamom and nutmeg.

Gaithersburg, Md. For the most immersive SPAGnVOLA experience, head to the companys original location, which offers free factory tours, classes ($75), and wine and chocolate pairings ($70). Visit spagnvola.com for dates and times.

Oxon Hill, Md. The National Harbor store opened more than three years ago. It has a new neighbor: MGM National Harbor casino.


(Illustration by Jun Chen)

We arrived at the courthouse just before 10 a.m., after those in line for jury duty had made it through security. Once cleared, we rode the escalator down to the basement, rounded two corners and located the office at the end of the hall.

After signing in, we took a seat and waited for our names to be called. Just two of the four booths were staffed. It felt like the Department of Motor Vehicles  only people here looked a lot happier. Ahead of us were four other couples, including two men and two women.

It was a Monday morning in December, and my partner of five years and I were getting married. I dressed in my finest athleisure: black yoga pants, with pockets. He wore jeans.

A sign on the wall featuring a camera with a slash through it reminded us there would be no Instagramming the moment. Another sign hooked over a cubicle divider read All Because Two People Fell in Love. The All and Love were written in cursive. I tried not to cringe at the mixed fonts, let alone the inscriptions cheesiness. Potted poinsettias and golden globes dangling from the ceiling lent a festive air to an otherwise bureaucratic office. The only sound was CNNs latest reports on Russias interference with the U.S. presidential election.

I thought back to the time I watched other couples try to get their own marriage licenses in 2013. I was a reporter on assignment in Mississippi documenting gay and lesbian couples hurdles to gaining legal recognition of their relationships, a full two years before the Supreme Court made same-sex marriages legal across the country.

The couples I was following, some of whom had been together for decades, didnt need government validation of their love. They needed it for security  security in knowing that their children would not be yanked away in the event one of them died, in the right to visit their partner in the hospital, in getting health insurance.

And thats what brought Gerald and me to the Moultrie Courthouse in downtown Washington five days before Christmas. I had just started a job at The Washington Post, a position that came with many perks. Health insurance for domestic partners was not one of them. Upon learning this during orientation on my first day, I texted Gerald, who was in the midst of job hunting, and proposed.

Its either that or go on Medicaid, he wrote back.

The happy couple minutes after making it official. (Courtesy of Tracy Jan)

Gerald and I met in the summer of 2011 at a mutual friends party, right after I had moved from Boston to Washington to be a national political correspondent for the Boston Globe. On our first date, we sat and talked on the rooftop at Perrys in Adams Morgan until it closed. After just two more dates, he called to inform me that hed canceled a trip that week to visit an ex-girlfriend in Costa Rica. Things progressed quickly from there. By October, we were vacationing in Hawaii, where I met him after his work trip to American Samoa.

Then in early December, just before I was to move to Iowa for a month to cover the 2012 presidential caucuses, I discovered I was pregnant  while on the pill.

Marriage, let alone motherhood, had never topped my list of life goals. But our decision to plunge ahead with parenthood marked a more momentous turning point for our relationship than any wedding would. When our son was born exactly one year after we met, having our names together on Langstons birth certificate was as official as we felt we needed to be.

We both liked the idea of a celebration with our families and friends, but we did not want to rush to plan a wedding. Besides, I was in the middle of covering a presidential campaign. Then we were new parents. The day-to-day realities of raising our son  as well as day-care costs  soon overshadowed any desire to blow money on a wedding. Five years later, after another presidential cycle, the idea seemed even less practical, at ages 40 and 45.

I often introduced Gerald as my partner, a title he cringed at because he said it made us sound like lawyers. In some social situations, to keep explanations to a minimum, we referred to each other as husband and wife. Among friends, as boyfriend, girlfriend, compadre.

Or, sometimes, something more accurate. When the military social aide at a White House holiday party asked our names and relationship to note on a card as we lined up for photos with President Barack Obama and the first lady, I did not want to lie. Id also had several glasses of champagne. Baby daddy, I replied. The man in uniform did not smile. Ill put down spouse, he said, and ushered us along.

Spouse. And so he was.

(Illustration by Jun Chen)

Now we were having a shotgun wedding to make our union official.

When our names were called after a half-hour of waiting at the courthouse, we sat before the court clerk, who was all business despite the cheery holiday decor. We were grateful for her efficiency.

Since we did not want to wait weeks to schedule a free courthouse civil ceremony, the clerk informed us we could essentially marry ourselves. Only the District of Columbia and a few states allow a couple to officiate their own wedding.

The process was amazingly simple  much easier than obtaining a drivers license in the District, which involves multiple forms of identification and proofs of residency, as well as an often frustrating wait, or multiple trips, to the DMV.

To get married, we simply had to show our drivers licenses and pay $45. We decided Gerald, the one with better penmanship, would be the named officiant. We filled out a one-page form asking our names, contact information and, strangely, how many times we had previously been married and whether there was any kinship between us. (Zero and no.)

Then we were instructed to leave the courthouse premises for our wedding ceremony. Our chosen location would be printed on our official marriage certificate. And because there is a flicker of a romantic streak at our cores despite our unusual wedding circumstances, we decided to eschew the closest intersection at Fifth and Indiana  the most expedient location  and walk three blocks to the National Gallery of Art.

After all, we still had a few hours before we had to pick our son up from preschool. Mindful of the time, we darted through the galleries seeking a suitable location in which to self-conduct our vows. We whizzed past the van Goghs and the Rembrandts, pausing at 16th-century furniture to joke about registering for a formal dining table to complete our tiny condo.

We settled on a quiet courtyard with a fountain and sat on a marble bench. Gerald, trying to keep a straight face, asked me if I would take him to be my husband in sickness and in health. How sick? I asked. Like you cant cook for me sick? The exercise seemed a bit silly. We didnt even bother with rings. Ive loved this man from the day he called me at work from the grocery store, when a rare hurricane was scheduled to hit the District soon after we had met, to ask if I would prefer buffalo spaghetti or chili. When Im sick, he makes chicken soup from scratch and helps our son squeeze oranges on a juicer.

We had no witnesses at our succinct declarations of devotion. When a group of elementary-school kids traipsed through the courtyard on a field trip, we took it as a cue to wrap up and head back to the courthouse.

We signed in again and waited for our names to be called. Gerald, as the officiant, filled out the date and location and signed our certificate of marriage, along with a deputy clerk. After paying 10 more dollars and waiting a few more minutes, we received a certified copy. The entire process took a total of two hours; it would have been even faster had we not held our vows at the National Gallery.

My lifes about to go in a whole different direction now, Gerald declared.

Yeah, youre about to get health insurance, I said.

So are we official now? Gerald asked.

The court clerk smiled. It dont get more official than this, she said.

Outside the courthouse, Gerald snapped a selfie of us  our first portrait as husband and wife. After all, its not official until its Facebook official.

That evening, we shared the news with our 4-year-old as we walked him home from preschool.

Mommy and Daddy got married today, I said.

His answer summed up the whole exercise. To who?

Tracy Jan is a Post staff writer. Follow her on Twitter: @TracyJan. To comment on this story, email wpmagazine@washpost.com or visit washingtonpost.com/magazine.

Email us at wpmagazine@washpost.com.

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Mattel restyled Ken in 2006, calling him "a changed man" who "exudes a new sense of his own personal style." The toymaker gave him two new looks to help win back Barbie after the couple split in 2004. (Dima Gavrysh/AP)

Feb. 13, 2004 Rarely does a celebrity breakup come as a shocker. As soon as two stars begin dating, breakup rumors start to circulate. But Ken and Barbie were the exception. After all, he was a blond. She was a blonde. He was buff. She was busty. He never got angry. She couldnt flatten her feet. For 43 years, everything looked fine on the outside, but who ever really knows what is going on inside a relationship, right? Mattel officials didnt divulge many details of what went wrong when they announced in 2004 that the couple had called it quits. Mattels Russell Arons told the Associated Press at the time that Ken and Barbie feel its time to spend some quality time  apart, and denied the split was linked to the arrival in stores of Cali Girl Barbie.

Phew, we were worried, The Washington Posts Anne Schroeder wrote about the breakup. For the record, Cali Girl is already taken by a new plastic hunk, Blaine the Australian boogie boarder.

Next thing you know, Barbie and Blaine are an item and Ken is on Facebook and Twitter trying to win Barbie back. Mattel also restyled Ken in 2006, calling him a changed man who exudes a new sense of his own personal style. In 2011, Mattel announced the couple was reuniting  just as it released a new set of Ken and Barbie dolls for sale, decked out for a wedding.
The Rosenzweig family has a heated coop for the flock, which sometimes roam the house in chicken diapers. (Video: May-Ying Lam/The Washington Post)

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The five chickens that live behind Mark Verschell's stately Takoma Park Victorian have an enviable existence, for birds. Their accommodations are a heated, trailer-style coop. Their enclosure protects them from predators and is adorned with shiny compact discs to deter feed-stealing sparrows. They snack on dried mealworms and fresh grapes. Their water contains a bit of apple cider vinegar to help balance pH levels and smooth digestion.

But even hens leading comfortable lives can have health issues, a fact Verschell confronted when he spotted a bright red protrusion on the nether regions of Ethel, the largest and blondest of his familys flock. Verschell, 56, grew up in northern Californias Castro Valley, once home to vast poultry operations, and knew what it was: a prolapse of Ethels vent (also called a cloaca), which is the exit route for both waste and eggs.

In the old days, Verschell would have gone to the local feed store and asked for advice. But now youve got the Internet, he said. So thats how Verschell, a climate scientist, ended up spending about a week of last summer applying cold compresses and Preparation H to the rear end of a hen and shooing away the flockmates that might have pecked at her.

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Backyard flocks like Verschells have become so popular over the past two decades that enthusiasts host neighborhood coop tours, Etsy shops sell hen harnesses, and chicken-focused bloggers can have followings the size of a C-list celebritys. In many ways, the roosters and hens clucking outside American homes have become pets like the dogs and cats that got there first. But chicken owners are learning that when their birds get sick, veterinary care can be difficult to find. And the humans who dreamed of fresh, free-range eggs and urban rusticity can find themselves offering hens ground oyster shell as a calcium supplement or dabbing Neosporin on raccoon-inflicted wounds.

For backyard chickens, lots of TLC Share Share Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Reddit Share on LinkedIn MailSolid Email this link View Photos View Photos Next Image Annika McKillop looks over chickens with respiratory issues during a house call in Maryland. (Lexey Swall/GRAIN/For The Washington Post)

There's no national data on the number of backyard chickens in the United States, much less on their veterinary experiences. A study based on an online survey of backyard flock owners, published in 2014 in the journal Poultry Science, found that most had a "lack of awareness about some poultry health conditions," and that 87 percent well, wing it, using the Internet as their main source for chicken health-care information. The study's authors surmised that it is likely due to most storefront veterinarians' unfamiliarity with the birds.

Online chicken hobbyist sites cover esoteric as well as common ailments; recent subject lines on BackYardChickens.coms user forum include caring for a chicken after a hawk attack and Home amputation success story and how-to.Got a hen having a problem passing eggs? You can try to remedy that with a spa treatment involving a soak in a warm Epsom salt bath, a blow dry and doses of olive oil.

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Even professionals sometimes turn to the Internet. Take Kathy Trow, a Philadelphia-area veterinarian who mostly treats cats and dogs. In the summer of 2014, one of her clients called to ask whether she could heal a friendly hen named Black Henry, who had begun dropping weight.

Trow, 50, recalls responding: Just know that well be seeing the chicken with the textbook open and YouTube on the screen.

And so she did. Black Henry had an impacted crop, a small sac where chicken food collects after it is swallowed but before it moves to the stomach. Guided by a YouTube video, Trow and her colleagues tried tube-feeding Black Henry olive oil and warm water, and massaging the hardened lump. When that didnt work, they numbed the area with lidocaine, sliced open the birds chest, pulled out the mass of straw stuck in her crop, sewed her up and pulled the skin together with surgical glue.  another technique from YouTube.

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Beyond the Internet, chicken keepers can tune in to the Backyard Poultry With the Chicken Whisperer podcast, which regularly features Salisbury, Md., poultry biologist Peter Brown discussing topics like what new federal antibiotics regulations mean for chicken owners. On his website, Brown offers $25 consultations and sells a range of products including incubators, antibiotics, vaccines and, until recently, a $34.95 emergency medication kit.

The Rosenzweig-Fang household in Gaithersburg, Md., owns such an emergency kit. But that only hints at the lengths the family will go to to keep their six chickens healthy and happy.

The back yard of the Rosenzweig-Fang'sneat ranch-style house is what you might imagine chicken paradise looks like. On the patio is a red barn-style coop with a ceramic heater inside. Atop a plastic shoe cabinet is a small box that serves as a maternity ward for Snowy, who prefers to lay her eggs in private. In the corner of the yard are sandboxes that Aaron Rosenzweig acknowledges he did not buy for his two "human children," but rather to be used as chicken dust baths.

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Inside, under the stairs to the basement, is the infirmary: a spotless space brightened with flower decals and divided in two by an apple-green picket fence. Also inside is Lulu, a rooster, who on a recent day wore a red bandanna-patterned diaper.

Okay, boy, lets put your diaper back on. Oh, youre such a good boy, Rosenzweig, sitting on a pristine white family-room couch, murmured to Lulu as he strapped on the contraption. He stroked the birds impressive tail feathers. Ive debated on changing his name to Fabio.

Rosenzweig, a 41-year-old who writes software, said he and his wife, Jen-Lien Fang, chose to get chickens more than two years ago as pets, ones that were soft and social but would not bite their children, ages 11 and 13. Now their small flock has access to the indoors, and the two males spend nights inside, the better not to annoy neighbors or the city, which frowns on roosters. Hence the diapers, lined fabric pouches that are held on by straps that extend over the wings. Fang, 45, sews them herself.

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Chickens are excellent pets, Rosenzweig insists: cuddly, warm and smart enough to learn tricks. He said the family has taught the birds to jump for treats and to recognize some colors and suits on playing cards. Currently, he said, the chickens are learning to play the xylophone with their beaks.

Dog owners might bring their pets stool samples to a vet once a year to check for worms. Rosenzweig collects chicken poop twice a year and drives it 25 miles to a state animal health lab in Frederick, Md., to be tested for worms. Concerned by the loss of his pets, hes also taken the corpses of three dead chickens there for necropsies. He learned that two died of cancer, and one from a heart attack, perhaps spurred by a marauding fox.

Frederick-based Annika McKillop is a rarity: a mobile chicken vet. She had previously worked in large commercial settings. But when her husband was transferred to Maryland three years ago, she said she realized "there's a big need for backyard poultry people."

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McKillop, who says remedies suggested on the Internet usually dont work, travels through Maryland, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, handling up to four sick chicken visits a day. She usually treats respiratory illnesses (though, she notes, the vast majority of the chickens she sees are also overweight due to indulgences such as doughnuts and human leftovers).

Spending time with McKillop is a sobering warning about the precariousness of chicken health. To avoid spreading disease, she wears two layers of scrubs to appointments  one to pull off after the visit and before getting back into her car  and a disposable hairnet and shoe covers. She takes her car to a carwash and sprays her shoes with disinfectant after each visit.

Though McKillop normally doesnt make night calls, she drove out to a home near Boonsboro, Md., on a recent rainy evening to visit a distraught owner. Some of the womans flock of 49 chickens had runny noses and were sneezing, and the feed-store antibiotics and Internet-recommended smoothie of kale, yogurt, garlic and vanilla wafers werent helping. One chicken had died the night before.

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The flocks troubles had begun after the owner had adopted 12 of the chickens, some from a guy on Craigslist who said he would kill them if they didnt find new homes, others from a man whod procured them at an auction. McKillop says its perilous to acquire chickens with unknown histories, who can endanger other birds.

Inside the chickens plywood quarters behind the house, McKillop cradled one afflicted bird after the other in her left arm, swabbing inside their beaks for samples to send to a lab.

One of the worst-hit birds, a tawny rooster named Flip, was hunched. His eyes were practically swollen shut, and his once-red comb was black  a possible sign, McKillop said, of loss of blood flow.

Dont be surprised if he goes, McKillop said to the worried owner. I can euthanize him for you now, or you can try to nurse him back to health. That would involve tube-feeding, she explained. The woman said she wanted to try.

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The rooster made it, but because tests later confirmed that the flock had more than one infection  including a chronic, transmittable respiratory disease  the owner later decided to euthanize all the birds.

Working with home-based flocks has been eye-opening for McKillop. One of her clients let her birds live indoors full-time; each chicken had its own bedroom, and they spent time lying by the fire. Some owners dress their hens in sweaters. People love their birds, McKillop said. But they dont always know how  or have the resources  to keep their clucking pets hale.

People think its like having a dog, she said. And its completely different.

Those unexpected challenges havent dissuaded Rosenzweig. You get attached to them, he said. Its not just the eggs. Chickens, their life value is about five bucks ... but for us, theyre pets, and if theyre healthy, they live 10, sometimes 18 years  as much as a dog. So its worth it to us.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to Peter Brown as a veterinarian. Brown is a poultry biologist and specialist.

Karin Brulliard edits and writes for The Posts Animalia blog. To comment: Email wpmagazine@washpost.com or visit washingtonpost.com/magazine.

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Its never a good sign when a movie makes you think about statistics.

Thats especially true when the movie is Fifty Shades Darker, the follow-up to 2015s adaptation of E.L. Jamess hit novel Fifty Shades of Grey. The movies are supposed to be steamy, sexy romantic thrillers with a splash of kink. But when Darker screened earlier this week, I found my mind wandering, not only because of the plodding pacing and cumbersomely long running time. In the film, Dakota Johnson reprises her breakout role from the first film, playing Anastasia Steele, a virginal young woman who just happens to have fallen in love with Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan)  sadistic, super-wealthy and Seattles most eligible bachelor.

Like its predecessor, Fifty Shades Darker hews to the house aesthetic James set up, replete with picturesque Pacific Northwest backdrops, expensive homes, nice dresses and the kind of titillating, soft-core sexuality that is staged with coy good taste, luxuriating in the protagonists perfectly proportioned bodies and gothic accoutrements but cutting away before things get too graphic.

Theres not much to defend in either movie, frankly. But there are some crucial differences that come into sharp relief upon comparing the two. In Fifty Shades of Grey, which was adapted by screenwriter Kelly Marcel and directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, Anastasia was still a college student  dreamily innocent, but bright and alert to the contradictions of her attraction to a dominating, creepily possessive man; the film was animated by an at least somewhat interesting subtext having to do with consent, female desire and self-discovery.

Those undercurrents go almost completely missing in the far drearier sequel, which amounts to an interminable slog of soapy love-talk and fetishy sex scenes. Darker is markedly less self-aware, and Anastasia  now a budding book editor  is a far more passive, insipid figure than in the first film. Think Cinderella, with ankle cuffs.

On location in New York during the filming of I am Jane Doe. (Richard E. Schultz/50 Eggs Films)

While James herself exerted almost unprecedented control over the first movie, she was joined in the effort by two women: the screenwriter and the director. Both Marcel and Taylor-Johnson having vowed never to work with James again (insert dominant-submissive joke here), Fifty Shades Darker was written by Jamess husband Niall Leonard and directed by James Foley. Did those gender dynamics play into the tiresomely conventional story at Darkers core? Its impossible to prove one way or another, but arguably Marcel and Taylor-Johnson brought added psychological insight to a female protagonist who is far less compelling and layered this time out.

Heres where the statistics became more interesting than the spankings and sex toys: As she does most years, Martha Lauzen, executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University, recently found that women are dramatically underrepresented in the ranks of high-powered directors. In her annual Celluloid Ceiling report, released in January, she found that women comprised just 7 percent of directors working on the 250 top-grossing films in 2016; it was 9 percent the year before.

Lauzens findings were backed up a few weeks later by the Media, Diversity & Social Change Initiative of the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. The researchers there looked at the top 100 movies released every year between 2007 and 2016, accounting not just for gender but for ethnicity and age. Out of a total of 1,146 directors, they found that only 4 percent were women, only six of whom were African American or Asian.

The Annenberg teams conclusion: There has been no meaningful change in the prevalence of female directors across the top films from 2007 to 2016 and, when studio executives deign to consider a woman to helm a movie, Hollywoods perception of women directors is that of a white female. It came as no surprise, then, when the Washington-based Womens Media Center crunched the Oscar numbers to reveal that only 20 percent of this years non-acting nominees were female. (That figure pretty much lines up with Lauzens findings that women accounted for 17 percent of the directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors and cinematographers of top films in 2016.)

Depressing statistics, no doubt, especially arriving at a time when the movie industry has been under scrutiny by the likes of the American Civil Liberties Union and the U.S. government for discriminatory hiring and employment practices. And they have all manner of knock-on effects, from economic  how much does Hollywood lose when it ignores the perspective of half its audience?  to basic fairness.

Perhaps most powerfully, though, womens absence as storytellers severely limits the narrative warp and woof of the movies themselves, and we need only travel to the local multiplex to see the evidence. Theres no question that Fifty Shades Darkers point of view is far more conventionally male, keeping Dornans character relatively covered up while lingering over Johnsons creamy skin and curves. But its not nearly as unsettling  and downright cynical  as M. Night Shyamalans imagery in his hit horror film Split, in which James McAvoy takes on multiple personae as a kidnapper and murderer suffering from dissociative identity disorder. The film co-stars Anya Taylor-Joy as one of three teenage girls held in captivity by the villain, with Shyamalan displaying the kind of have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too attitude toward his subjects that Hollywood specializes in, both abhorring the suffering of the young victims, but also framing it in a way that is undeniably sexualized.

Lest anyone think that these issues are academic, a documentary arrives in theaters Friday proving that they are anything but. In I Am Jane Doe, filmmaker Mary Mazzio reveals the sordid world of underage sex trafficking, specifically as it pertains to young women who were forced into prostitution, their services made available on the online classified site Backpage.com. In a series of sickening montages, viewers can see how the films subjects were presented by their pimps, playing into myths as old as Lolita and as new as Anastasia Steele. (In one sequence, Mazzio shows how movies like Pretty Woman have helped to sanitize and even romanticize the seamy underbelly of coerced sex work.)

This is the moment when Im obligated to remind readers that Im not suggesting a simplistic cause-and-effect correlation between movies and real-world behavior. Nor am I arguing that women arent equally as capable as men of objectifying female figures in troubling ways, although only with genuine parity will we know that for sure.

But I am observing the self-evident fact that film has exceptional  maybe even unique  power to shape and inform our norms, expectations and desires. That might be the chief reason it matters so much who makes them. And thats why a movie culture defined by the white male gaze isnt just unfair and dreary, but toxic.


In a 1960 Buick Electra, self-proclaimed Ambassador of Americana Charles Phoenix rolls up on the Charcoal Oven, a 56-year-old classic Oklahoma City hamburger stand, on its last day of business. (Jim Jordan )

Charles Phoenix, the self-proclaimed Ambassador of Americana, is known for his Retro Slide Shows, comically narrated Kodachrome presentations celebrating travel, entertaining and lifestyles in the mid-20th century using personal slides hes found or had donated. Based in Los Angeles, Phoenix occasionally leads retro tours of his hometown  taking guests to vintage downtown spots such as Union Station, Olvera Street and Cliftons Cafeteria  as well as others such as Palm Springs, Calif., Las Vegas and Nashville.

Over the years, Phoenix has written several coffee table books, including Americana the Beautiful, about midcentury travel destinations, and runs the Charles Phoenix Test Kitchen, where he demonstrates how to make fanciful original recipes such as his cherpumple, a campy combination of cherry, pumpkin and apple pies banked in layers of cake.

Phoenix started his career as a fashion designer and later bought and sold classic cars, at one time owning some 200 midcentury automobiles before he took his slide shows to the stage. First and foremost, he says, Im an entertainer, and my shtick is pop culture American history.

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Q. What inspired your interest in retro?

A. I grew up in the 60s in Ontario, Calif. My dad was a used-car dealer and I was totally into cars  this was the era of the space-age designs. When I was 14, I tried out for Oklahoma at school and was told youve got a part if you have a cowboy shirt. I didnt, so they sent me across the street to a thrift store to find one. I threw open the double doors and saw a part of the world Id never seen before. It was honest and unpretentious, a treasure trove of layers of times. After that, Id go to thrift shops and look at every item in the store. I was obsessed.

Q. How did that morph into a career in slide shows?

A. When I was 29, at a thrift shop I found a shoe box marked Trip Across the United States 1957. It was full of Kodachrome slides. I was captivated. I held them up to the light and my life just changed. Kodachrome is the ultimate luxurious medium. I immediately begin going to estate sales and flea markets, and collecting old slides. My first real slide show was in 1998, where I created a trip across America with different slides and little stories. I could feel a sense of joy from the audience, some from my enthusiasm and this gold mine of documentation, but also the fact that we were celebrating American culture. At the time, I was buying and selling classic cars, but now the slide shows are my main stock and trade.

Phoenix raises a mug of homemade root beer at Brownies Hamburgers, open in Tulsa since 1956. (Jim Jordan )

Q. How many slides do you have?

A. Hundreds of thousands. Ive had a slibrarian for 12 years. She comes every Wednesday and keeps the collection in order.

Q. What are you looking for in an image or a show?

A. Things that can tell a story about people, travel, customs, food. I have a lot of different topics. I also do custom shows across the country, where I observe a town and put it on a pedestal. I look for mom-and-pop businesses, local landmarks, unique architecture, unusual traditions of that town, whatever makes a city unique. With those shows, I co-mingle contemporary images with those from my archives.

Q. Youre giving bus tours during Modernism Week in Palm Springs, along with presenting a slide show of midcentury automobiles. What do you like about that area?

A. Its a fascinating place, both for what it was and what it has become. It was Hollywoods backyard playground, where the elite mixed and mingled with titans of industry. It has these amazing mid-century-style buildings. We started going there when I was a little kid, and I saw it go from a vibrant, chic community to kind of run down. Little by little, a few pioneers realized it was a treasure trove of something very special to be put up on a pedestal and preserved. Now its been transformed, with people buying and restoring homes. People fly in from all over the world to attend Modernism Week.

Q. Do you also see pieces of Americana vanishing?

A. Oh yeah, artifacts are destroyed every day. I just went to Oklahoma City, where they had the Charcoal Oven, a beautiful, picturesque hamburger stand with a giant neon chef  an absolute pure and simple Americana classic. Now its going to be a Discount Tire store. I arranged a Last Supper event there. One of the stops on my L.A. tour, the Bob Baker Marionette Theater, a historic monument, is about to close to make way for condos.

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Q. Is preservation one of your goals?

A. Partly, without saying so. Im paying tribute to our culture and showing people what is uniquely American, and in doing so, Im hoping to inspire them to cherish things they have and to preserve them for future generations. That said, its not that I want to live in the past  I dont want to go back. I think were able to look at the vintage images with a level of sophistication we didnt have back then. But of course I dont say all that. This is a theatrical presentation, after all.



Phoenix shows off a classic bomb pop from the Merrymobile, a self-propelled carousel truck. (Bob Greenspan)

Q. Do you have favorite regions for retro, or do your slides skew to certain places?

A. The three most photographed states are California, Hawaii and Florida. I actually havent performed in Florida, but I did a show on it in Las Vegas. Im a child of Disneyland, and I think in some ways all cities have elements of theme parks. In the case of Florida, it has manufactured themes overlaid on natures wonderland. Some of its vintage tourist attractions endure, like Silver Springs and Weeki Wachee. But the most extraordinary places to me are the ones that have continued in a family for several generations, like Dutch Girl Donuts in Detroit and the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo. Those are the places I cherish the most.

Daniel is a writer based in the Netherlands. Her website is bydianedaniel.com .

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When a carrier says a delay or cancellation is caused by circumstances beyond its control, you can still appeal to government regulations, empathy or its own customer-service guarantees to get it to do the right thing. (iStock)

Sometimes, airlines do the right thing  no questions asked.

Gerrard Hattfield knows what thats like. The entrepreneur was flying from Durban, South Africa, back to his home in Cape Town when thunderstorms delayed his Mango Airlines departure. After a two-hour wait, an airline representative approached him and did something that surprised him: She asked him if he was comfortable.

Then she gave me a coupon to have a meal and two drinks at a restaurant at the airport, he remembers.

The experience changed the way Hattfield felt about Mango, a low-cost South African airline. And thats saying a lot. Among his projects is starting a search website called Flight Factory, so he was not an easy conversion. But it also is instructive for those of us in the United States. Occasionally, airlines do right by their customers, although finding an example of an airline that does the right thing without being pushed, prodded or threatened is so rare that I had to look outside the country to find one.

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Heres why : Airlines have written ticket contracts  in the industry theyre called contracts of carriage  that let them off the hook for anything beyond circumstances that they directly control. So if theres air traffic or a natural disaster or a weather delay, they arent obligated to compensate their passengers.

At best, that means youll have to haul your luggage into the main terminal and wait for the weather to clear while enjoying overpriced airport food. At worst, you could find yourself sleeping on the airport floor.

But there are workarounds. Sure, airlines have policies, but they dont always follow them. When a carrier says a delay or cancellation is caused by circumstances beyond its control, you can still appeal to government regulations, empathy or its own customer-service guarantees to get it to do the right thing.

An airline may not tell you everything when it comes to your rights  including the fact that you are protected by government regulations when you fly. For example, on certain flights operating in Europe, a consumer protection rule called EU 261 applies. The rule requires airlines to compensate passengers for any delays not caused by circumstances beyond their control, no matter what their company policy. European courts have adopted a tight definition of what is and isnt considered beyond an airlines control, all of which means that if your next flight in Europe is delayed, chances are the airline owes you.

Domestic carriers can often be held to the high standards implicit in their own promotional material. Ive heard many accounts in which an airline wasnt technically required to help a passenger, but was gently persuaded by a passenger who referred to an advertisement or to website language in which customer service was promised.

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For example, American Airlines prominently advertises its mission to give passengers the best travel experience possible as befits the greatest airline in the world. While such words are not a contract, they can be enough on which to hang a successful claim, even when theres no contractual basis for the complaint.

Often, you can appeal to an airlines sense of decency. When Cessie Cerrato recently flew from Atlanta to San Jose, Costa Rica, her flight was delayed by what is commonly referred to as an act of God  in her case, a volcanic eruption. Delta Air Lines finally canceled the flight. At the end of the day, she found herself at the end of a line, waiting to be rebooked. She asked a representative to help, and the airline covered an overnight stay in Atlanta even though it wasnt required to. When Cerrato mentioned that her luggage was already checked, an agent went above and beyond.

They covered the cost of our clothes and toiletries, Cerrato says.

Current and former airline employees have told me thats generally how the system works. If theyre not required to provide meal vouchers or hotel accommodations, agents are instructed to not offer anything. If asked, they consider a variety of factors, including the length of the delay, personal circumstances (whether youre traveling with young children or have a disability or a medical condition) and your airline elite status. Connections are also a factor. If youre flying back to the United States and connecting through a hub, and theres a weather delay, an airline will probably cover your overnight accommodations.

Put differently, a legacy carrier would be reluctant to let an elite-level frequent flyer in a wheelchair traveling in business class with a baby, whose connection from Europe is delayed in New York, sleep on the airport floor. But an able-bodied non-elite passenger making a connection in, say, Salt Lake City, might end up roughing it on the floor in a snow delay. Flying as a nonrevenue passenger or using an award ticket might also affect your chances of getting compensation. Of course, it could depend on the agent, the time of day and the length of the delay. Compensation is more of an art than a science.

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Thats what Ahmed Bhuiyan discovered when he checked his new MacBook on a Delta Air Lines flight from Seattle to New York. When the bag arrived on the conveyor belt at John F. Kennedy International Airport, the computer was gone. Delta, like most other domestic airlines, doesnt cover electronics checked in luggage.

Bhuiyan, who is the director of business development for Seattle-based Utrip, filed a claim with his credit-card company, which covers some luggage theft. He was turned down. They more or less told me it was my fault for losing the laptop, he says. But Delta covered his claim even though it wasnt technically required to do so. The reason: Bhuiyan was an upper-level elite passenger, the kind the airline would be reluctant to disappoint. The airline cut him a check for $1,100  the full value of his computer.

The bottom line: If an airline doesnt do the right thing, there are ways to gently nudge it. With a little patience, politeness and persistence, you can both arrive at the same destination.

Elliott is a consumer advocate, journalist and co-founder of the advocacy group Travelers United. Email him at chris@elliott.org.


Strawberry Park Hot Springs, just outside Steamboat Springs, Colo., and adults-only after dark, is among the favorites for what one pal calls textile-free soaks. (Colorado Tourism Office)

I have been visiting Colorado since I first passed through on childhood road trips. Ive come to know the state from many angles of adventure, from the adrenaline rushes of offroading in Grand Junction to white-water kayaking in the Crystal River. Last summers visit was no different, beginning with stand-up paddling in Boulder and ending with an exhausting hike up the tallest dune in North America at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.

Through the years, Ive stumbled across a few natural hot springs, which range from hippie, clothing-optional pools to family-friendly resorts. But it wasnt until my most recent trip that I realized how much soaking is part of Colorado culture. Its a difficult life: You play hard, you relax hard.

People like to soak after an adventure, said Deborah Frazier, author of Colorados Hot Springs. Theyre a great tonic after a terribly physically fit day.

With the creation of its tourism initiative, the Colorado Historic Hot Springs Loop, the Rocky Mountain state has made it easy to plan a hot-springs visit, whether its following an adventure or as a stand-alone trip. The 722-mile scenic route features hot springs in five regions of Western Colorado, each with its own culture and vibe. Some soaks are serene, set under the stars, while others are lively, with waterslides and Marco Polo players.

Hot springs are linked to claims of therapeutic benefits from their geothermally heated groundwater and all-but guarantee that youll leave rejuvenated and free of stress. As locals explain, members of the Ute Indian Tribe would travel for days to reach what they considered to be miracle waters; some springs are still used for ceremonial purposes.



Glenwood Hot Springs claims that its hot-springs pool  405 feet long and 100 feet wide  is the worlds largest. (Glenwood Hot Springs)

Colorado has hundreds of hot springs, Frazier said, but only 93 are large enough for a soak and 46 are accessible to the public year-round. Of those, 19 are in the loop, which makes a circle though five areas: Chaffee County, Pagosa Springs, Ouray County, Glenwood Springs and Steamboat Springs. Many are surrounded by national forests or wilderness areas, and all are near ski destinations and hiking trails, making them perfectly situated for relaxing after an active day .

Keep in mind that these 19, which all have a day-pass fee or resort fee, are fairly accessible by car compared with some other hot springs, which may require hikes. Among the most remote in the state: a free hot spring on public land known as Conundrum, which requires a 17-mile round-trip hike with 2,500 feet of elevation.

Hot springs come in various flavors, and with a little research, youll find a good match. Many are located at resorts with full spa and dining services, but others are bare-bones.

Among the 19, many are family friendly. Glenwood Hot Springs Resort is located between Aspen and Vail on the Colorado River and claims to have the worlds largest hot-springs pool  405 feet long and 100 feet wide. At 90 degrees, its warm for swimming laps (I tried after kayaking) but heaven in the winter and  with two waterslides  a fun spot for kids.

The Historic Bath House at Mount Princeton Hot Springs Resort, just south of Buena Vista, also caters to kids, with a 400-foot waterslide, a big outdoor fireplace and a 90-degree exercise pool. The resort also has a soaking pool, kept at 105 degrees, and creekside hot springs, a more private option where you can enjoy starlight soaks.





For utter privacy during your soak, head to Chaffee County, which includes Buena Vista, Nathrop and Salida, and runs along the Continental Divide. Here, you will discover three of the most secluded hot springs open to the public: Alpine Hot Springs Hideaway, a vacation home surrounded by ponderosa pines and the Chalk Cliffs; Antero Hot Springs, with two log cabins and a larger mountain chalet, all with private soaking tubs; and Creekside Hot Springs cabin and soaking pool, both of which can accommodate eight.

Youll find more traditional clothing-optional soaking at Orvis Hot Springs in Ridgway, which has several ponds and waterfalls strategically positioned . The seven soaking areas range in temperature: the Lobster Pot averages between 108 and 114 degrees. Four of the areas are outside, so you can enjoy views of soaring Mount Sneffels as you soak.

A few Colorado friends agreed that Strawberry Park Hot Springs, just outside Steamboat Springs  and adults-only after dark  is among the favorites for what one pal calls textile-free soaks. Its also a good option if you prefer a tub rather than a swimming pool.

The setting is rustic, and you can choose from a number of pools, moving around until you find one you like. An icy cold creek on the opposite side of a rock wall can be refreshing after a hot soak.

Before May and after November, youll need a vehicle with four-wheel drive and snow tires to reach Strawberry Park, and they only accept cash and checks for payment. Its on the list for my next visit. There, visitors can take the plunge with something called Watsu aquatic therapy. My own private massage therapist in a hot spring? Sounds like a fine way to end every physically exhausting day.

Tips for first-time soakers

1. Ask the doc: If youre elderly, pregnant or have medical conditions, check with your physician before you soak. Avoid the pools if you have open wounds.

2. Stay hydrated: The elevation of Colorado and physical exertion will dehydrate you, and hot water  plus perspiring  will do so further. Drink plenty of fresh water before, during and after a soak. Glass is generally prohibited around hot springs, but you can take water in a plastic or metal container.

3. Keep an eye on the clock: Fifteen-minute soaks are recommended, especially if youre new at this and dont know how your body will react. If you soak longer, take frequent breaks. Its not unusual to feel tired after a soak, so factor in rest time afterward.

4. Know the rules before you go: At most of the hot springs, food, alcohol, tobacco and drugs and are prohibited. Generally, hot springs dont allow dogs on the grounds.

5. Take appropriate attire: Unless otherwise stated as clothing-optional, wear a bathing suit and bring a towel; many spots have towel and/or robe rentals. Proper etiquette: Shower before you enter the water.

6. Be safe: Enter and exit the pools slowly to adjust to the change of temperature and avoid slipping. Keep in mind that smaller pools and soaking areas typically dont have a lifeguard on duty. You may be asked to sign a liability waver.

7. Rules on children vary: Some hot springs dont allow children at all; some require adult supervision; some require them to vacate the area after dark (which is usually code for clothing-optional at night).

8. Be prepared for discoloration and tarnishing: Natural mineral waters are rich in iron, so veteran soakers suggest wearing an old bathing suit and removing all jewelry before soaking.

Kaplan is a writer based in the District. Her website is melaniedgkaplan.com.

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On a cool night in Charlottesville this week, dozens of people armed with protest signs and rigid opinions packed into a room to contend with a controversy facing cities throughout the South: What to do about the symbols of their Confederate past.

At issue in the town 120 miles southwest of the nations capital was a bronze equestrian monument to Robert E. Lee that stands in a downtown park named in his honor.

After months of contentious debate  and a meeting repeatedly disrupted by attendees  the City Council voted 3 to 2 to remove the statue. The decision triggered both cheers and boos from the overflow crowd. Some waved signs with bold black letters: Remove the statue. Others held up images of the memorial next to the word SAVE.

Before the vote, Vice Mayor Wes Bellamy, the councils only African American member and the man who led the push for change, pleaded with residents to try to better understand each other.

You, my friends  regardless of your skin color, regardless of your position on this issue  are not my enemy, he said. However, I will be very clear, we will not be bullied. We will not be pushed away. And we  we, for the last time  are not going anywhere.

At least two people in the crowd who interrupted his address had to be escorted from the room.

A nationwide backlash against Confederate symbols exploded in 2015 in the months after a white gunman motivated by animosity toward African Americans, massacred nine black churchgoers in Charleston, S.C. Some major retailers banned related merchandise as lawmakers in states across the country called for flags to be taken down and school names to be changed.

[Remembering the Charleston church shooting victims]

But in the commonwealth, where both Lee and the battle flag were born, the issue is particularly fraught. The state is home to legions of reenactors, descendants of Southern soldiers, Lee devotees and flag-revering groups who have fervently defended Confederate history for decades.

In Charlottesville, the councils vote may ultimately be nothing more than symbolic. Those opposed to the statues removal intend to file a lawsuit in the coming days, and theyve pointed to a state statute that says Virginia towns have no authority over the war memorials they inherited from past generations.

If such are erected, the law reads, it shall be unlawful for the authorities of the locality, or any other person or persons, to disturb or interfere with any monuments or memorials so erected.

It pretty much straight-up bars them from doing this, and thats our argument, said attorney Elliott Harding, who accused the council members of thumbing their nose at the law while setting up a legal fight that could cost taxpayers thousands of dollars.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the Save the Robert E. Lee Statue Facebook page had nearly 13,000 likes. Beneath a post requesting donations to help fund the impending lawsuit, an image of the memorial was inscribed with these words: THE LEGAL BATTLE BEGINS.

Charlottesville isnt the first Virginia municipality to pursue such a change  and one recent attempt will offer them little encouragement.

In September, the Alexandria City Council voted unanimously to change the name of Jefferson Davis Highway and ask the Virginia General Assembly for permission to move a renowned Confederate statue.

Two months later, state legislators who represent the city said they wouldnt even try to present a bill to their colleagues because the effort was unlikely to succeed.

Such legislation was a non-starter, said one state lawmaker. Another said he had received a dozen calls opposing the statues removal and none in favor of it.

Alexandrias city attorney has said that moving the 1889 statue may require the state law to be changed.

In June 2015, Loudoun County officials came to the same conclusion, deciding that they could do nothing about the armed Confederate soldier standing in front of the courthouse.

In Charlottesville, Bellamy began to consider the issue in 2013 when he held a community cookout in the park named for Lee, infuriating a number of the communitys African American elders.

They lit into me like you would not believe, he said.

The scolding also came with a history lesson.

The statue was unveiled in 1924 during a Confederate reunion, according to the citys website. To celebrate, 100 cadets paraded through town wearing the Souths colors.

In the decades that followed, Bellamy said African Americans had been spat upon just for walking in the park, which many came to view as a symbol of racism.

Bellamy and another council member hosted a news conference last year where they announced their plan to remove the statue and change the parks name. A number of protesters showed up with Confederate flags.

Afterward, he said, someone shouted at him: You should be hung from a tree.

In the months that followed, Bellamy said, he became a target. Soon, someone discovered a number of his old tweets, including several that were racist, sexist and homophobic. He later apologized and resigned from his teaching job, but he remained on the council and continued to fight for the statues removal.

[Virginia Board of Education member resigns after vulgar tweets surface]

A special commission the city had created to consider different options recommended that the statue remain but that the park be dramatically altered to offer visitors more context about the horrors of slavery and the Civil War.

Mayor Mike Signer (D) supported that concept, as he explained at this weeks meeting.

I want to be very clear: My vote is not for this statue. I despise the Jim Crow era. I revile the racism and white supremacy of our past that certainly is included in these statues history and in their meaning to many today, he said, adding later that ignoring such remnants of the past would fix nothing.

We must see and defy these monuments to overcome what they mean, he said. That is a more uncomfortable reality, to be sure.
Steven Galdamez, 18, grinds welded studs during his collision repair class at the Arlington Career Center in March. A survey of Virginians found that a majority would like to see more focus on career training in high school. (Amanda Voisard for The Washington Post)

About two-thirds of Virginians said public schools do not get enough funding to meet their needs, a finding that has remained unchanged from last year even as funding for schools has inched upward.

The Commonwealth Educational Policy Institute surveyed a representative sample of about 800 adults, conducting phone interviews to gauge their attitudes and impressions of the states public school system. The institute presented its findings to the state House and Senate education committees on Wednesday.

The poll focused on a wide variety of topics related to education, including whether schools are preparing young people for the workforce and whether schools are safe. The survey has been conducted annually for the past 18 years with the help of funding from the state.

Robyn McDougle, the institutes interim director, said the poll provides important insights for policymakers into how the public school system is faring.

We hope it helps guide their policy recommendations and the legislation theyre putting forward, McDougle said.

The poll dug into respondents views of the public education system and its flaws, including how to improve it. About half of respondents said they would be willing to pay higher taxes to boost school funding. About two-thirds said they would be willing to pay extra taxes to increase funding to high-poverty, low-performing schools.

It also found that most Virginians do not think that high school graduates are prepared for the workforce. Sixty-two percent said high school graduates are not ready for work, while 60 percent said high school graduates are ready for college.

The state is also trying to change high school, state school officials say, with the aim of giving students more hands-on experience, as well as career and technical education opportunities. For example, students could earn workplace certifications.

[Va. governor moves to upend traditional high school]

One proposal would have students take academic coursework in their early high school years and focus on a career of their choice in their final years. A wide majority  77 percent  of respondents endorsed the idea.

Del. R. Steven Landes (R-Augusta), the chair of the House education committee, said the finding validated the states effort to reorganize high school.

It at least validates that from our standpoint, and it at least tells us were headed in the right direction, Landes said.
THE DISTRICT

Police identify man shot after robbery

D.C. police on Wednesday released the name of a man shot by officers a day earlier after he allegedly brandished a BB gun after an armed robbery.

At about 8 a.m. Tuesday, pedestrians flagged down officers in the 1300 block of Good Hope Road SE to report a robbery, D.C. police said. When officers approached the suspect, he brandished a gun and disregarded commands to drop it, and officers shot him, the police statement said.

Police identified him as Eric Cuthbertson, 50, of no fixed address, who was taken to a hospital for treatment of serious wounds, police said.

Cuthbertson was charged with armed robbery and assault on a police officer while armed, among other offenses, police said.

 Justin Wm. Moyer

Firefighters rescue

elderly woman

An elderly woman was in serious condition after being rescued from a house fire in Southeast Washington, authorities said Wednesday.

At about 5:15 p.m., D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services said it was fighting a fire in a two-story home in the 800 block of Xenia Street SE, and there was a report of a 95-year-old woman who was trapped inside.

About 5:50 p.m., the department said it rescued the elderly woman from the second floor of the home and transported her to a hospital in serious condition. A fire department spokesman said the woman was conscious when sent to the hospital.

Three people were displaced, authorities said.

Teen tries to take

gun into high school

A male teenager was arrested Wednesday after trying to take a gun into a high school in Southeast Washington, authorities said.

About 9 a.m., officers went to the 3400 block of Fourth Street SE to investigate the report of a gun at Ballou High School, a D.C. police spokesman said.

The handgun was detected by the staff when the 17-year-old tried to take it into the school. Police didnt know whether the teen was a student at the school.

The gun was confiscated and the teenager was arrested, according to police. No information about charges was immediately available.

 Justin Wm. Moyer

MARYLAND

Man slain at gas

station is identified

Police have identified a man fatally stabbed outside a Seat Pleasant gas station as Jamal Barnes, 34.

Seat Pleasant police went to the 6400 block of Central Avenue at 12 p.m. Tuesday after a report of a fight, authorities said. The officers found Barnes suffering from trauma to the upper body,and he was taken to a hospital, where he died.

 Lynh Bui

4 judges added to

Pr. Georges court

Four judges have been added to the Prince Georges County Circuit Court.

Gov. Larry Hogan (R) appointed Tiffany H. Anderson, Robin D. Gill Bright and William A. Snoddy. Ingrid M. Turner won her seat in a recent election, according to a statement from the court.

Turner was the Prince Georges County Council member for District 4 from December 2006 to December 2014. She served in the Navy and has degrees from the Naval Academy, Golden Gate University and Columbus School of Law at Catholic University.

Anderson was the administrative judge for Prince Georges District Court. She graduated from the University of California at San Diego and the Columbus School of Law.

Bright served as a district court judge in Prince Georges. She holds degrees from Niagara University, Bowie State University and the Francis King Carey School of Law at the University of Maryland.

Snoddy managed the litigation division and adult and child welfare unit as the deputy county attorney for Prince Georges. He has degrees from Howard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

 Lynh Bui
Marylands largest immigrant advocacy group plans to push for legislation in Montgomery and Prince Georges counties that affirms protections for undocumented immigrants, a measure similar to one that spawned a bitter debate and executive veto in Howard County this week.

Gustavo Torres, executive director of CASA de Maryland, told a meeting of immigrant advocacy groups Wednesday that he wants county law to reflect longtime practices in the two liberal and ethnically diverse suburbs, which generally limit collaboration by police and corrections personnel with federal deportation authorities.

New statutes are needed, he said, as President Trump attempts to crack down on undocumented immigrants nationwide.

We want to keep Montgomery as a welcoming county, said Torres, announcing that he planned to speak with County Council members next week. We want to clarify and send a very strong message that all agencies in Montgomery County are not going to collaborate with this administration.

Torress plan represents a potentially significant escalation of state and local resistance to a Trump executive order that lays the groundwork for denying federal funding to sanctuary communities.

Opponents and supporters of the bill to make Howard County a sanctuary city listen as the council votes 3 to 2 in favor of passage. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)

CASA and other advocates are working with state lawmakers to pass the Trust Act, which is based on a California measure and would bar police and sheriffs departments, for example, from complying with federal requests to hold undocumented prisoners beyond their release date.

But the outlook for the bill, sponsored by state Sen. Victor R. Ramirez (D-Prince Georges), is uncertain. It has yet to be filed in the House of Delegates, although Del. Marice I. Morales (D-Montgomery) has said she will sponsor the proposal.

Gov. Larry Hogan (R) has signaled little interest in limiting the reach of federal immigration enforcement. Shortly after taking office in 2014, he reversed the policy of his Democratic predecessor, Martin OMalley, and agreed to notify U.S. authorities when an undocumented immigrant targeted for deportation was released from the state-run Baltimore city jail.

Torres said the political environment at the state level makes it all the more important that similar legislation be pursued in local jurisdictions.

We dont know if the governor is going to sign this, he said.

He vowed that his group will put pressure on cities and counties with the strongest records of protecting immigrant populations from federal law enforcement.

That strategy fell short this week in Howard. County Executive Allen H. Kittleman (R) on Thursday vetoed legislation approved 3 to 2 by the County Council that would have codified policies that bar police from asking about immigration status of criminal suspects, victims or witnesses.

(Claritza Jimenez/The Washington Post)

Despite amendments that softened the bills language  excluding a declaration, for example, of Howard as a sanctuary jurisdiction, a legally vague but politically volatile term  Kittleman called the legislation an empty gesture offering only a false sense of security to undocumented immigrants. He said the countys established police and corrections practices provide more than adequate protection.

Officials in Montgomery and Prince Georges also express confidence that existing policies need not be codified into law  as well as concern that doing so could place them in the crosshairs of Trumps attempts to cut off federal funding.

Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) has repeatedly assured immigrant groups that they have nothing to fear from local law enforcement, and that what he calls the Montgomery way, a body of policies and practices emphasizing tolerance and understanding, will not falter.

At a news conference outside the immigration meeting at the Silver Spring Civic Center, Leggett said he wasnt convinced of the need for a new law.

I dont see the necessity at this point in time, he said. Im not saying we may not get to that point . . . but I dont think that were there yet.

Montgomery police operate under a 2009 departmental directive that bars officers from indiscriminate questioning about citizenship or immigration status. Any arrest must be based on state or local charges.

The directive permits Montgomery officers to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in cases involving drugs, money laundering, human trafficking or terrorism, but not violations of federal immigration law.

Weve been at this for a very long time, Leggett said.

Council member Nancy Navarro (D-Mid-County) agreed with Leggett that, for the moment at least, no legislation is needed.

We have a very strong track record in Montgomery. I feel comfortable where we are right now, Navarro said. But we have to evaluate as this progresses.

In his comments to the group, Torres pointed to council member Hans Riemer (D-At Large) as a potential sponsor of the type of legislation he was describing. Thank you very much, Hans, he said.

Riemer said later that it was the first hed heard of the idea. But he said he would consider it. Some people are afraid to have us put our heads up, he said. I dont think you can avoid standing up.

Scott Peterson, a spokesman for Prince Georges County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D), directed questions Thursday to Bakers previous statements, which mirror Leggetts.

County policy didnt change under President Obama and is not changing under President Trump, Baker said in Annapolis on Jan. 25. We believe the county is following the law, and were going to honor that.

Torres said both counties can do better.

Our job is to educate them, he said.

Josh Hicks contributed to this report.
Marylands Republican senators knew they didnt have the votes to block a resolution that would give Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D) more power to sue the federal government.

So they tried for a delay.

When the motion failed, nine of the 14 Republicans stormed out in protest  a rare sign of unrest in a majority Democratic chamber where longtime Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) emphasizes civility and decorum.

Im done, said an exasperated J.B. Jennings (R-Baltimore County), the minority leader.

He and other Republicans said that passage of the resolution, known as the Maryland Defense Act, was not urgent and that requests for delays are typically granted as a matter of course.

Maryland Senate Minority Leader J.B. Jennings (R-Baltimore County), left, pictured with Sen. Stephen Hershey (R). (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)

Millers refusal to do so, they said, is the latest sign the partisan rancor commonly found in Congress is creeping toward the State House in Annapolis as Democrats take steps to combat President Trump (R) on health care, immigration and the environment.

They argue they hate Washington politics, but they wont give us a simple courtesy, Jennings said later. Its just like Washington.

The Defense Act stems from a provision in the Maryland Constitution that requires the attorney general to obtain permission from the General Assembly or the governor to file certain cases. It would essentially give Frosh blanket authority from the legislature to challenge the federal government on any legal issue.

Miller said he wanted to deal with the bill quickly, in part because he knew it was divisive. He also said he wants Frosh to be ready to stand up to any attempt to undo regulations that could harm the Chesapeake Bay.

Weve made great progress, Miller said. I want that progress not to be stymied or set back, and I want somebody to protect the rights of myself and the citizens who care about the environment in the federal courts.

At the beginning of Thursdays legislative session, the Republican senators asked for a one-day delay.

Sen. Richard S. Madaleno Jr. (D-Montgomery) argued that the legislature needed to move swiftly because Froshs hands were tied to respond to actions that could be taken on the federal level. He said attorneys general in 41 other states already have the authority that the resolution would give Frosh.

Miller agreed to move the vote to the end of the days brief calendar, which meant it was back on the floor in less than 20 minutes.

Jennings again asked for more time. His request was denied, and the resolution passed 28 to 18. The Senate will vote again on the measure Friday before it heads to the House of Delegates for consideration.

The growing divide between Democratic and Republican lawmakers was also visible Tuesday on the House side, where Del. Patrick L. McDonough (R-Baltimore County) announced a bill that would allow Marylanders to sue elected officials in state courts to stop policies they believe provide safe havens for undocumented immigrants.

Such policies, McDonough said, violate federal immigration law and harm legal residents by taking away jobs, increasing the cost of public benefits and creating public-safety risks.

In this state, this is a Disneyland for illegal immigrants, McDonough, one of the states most conservative lawmakers, told reporters.

All the politicians are pro-illegal immigrant. We have no recourse. We cant go to our elected officials. Theyre all against us. We have to go to court to prove theyre wrong.

He was joined by Lewis Evans, who runs a staffing agency in Baltimore and accused construction contractors of favoring undocumented immigrants for low-skilled work over the U.S. citizens he employs.

Evans said he plans to file a class-action lawsuit against the Baltimore City government, seeking to end what he described as sanctuary policies in the city.

McDonough acknowledged that his legislation has little chance of advancing in the Democratic-majority legislature. But he said the measure would still have an impact, particularly because it would align with efforts by Trump and the U.S. Justice Department to crack down on illegal immigration.
Obituaries of residents from the District, Maryland and Northern Virginia.

Lawrence Margolis, Court of Federal Claims judge

Lawrence Margolis, 81, a jurist who served for more than three decades as a judge on the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, died Jan. 18 at a hospital in the District. The cause was acute cardiovascular disease, said a daughter, Aleta Margolis.

Mr. Margolis, a District resident, was born in Philadelphia. His legal career included service as a D.C. assistant attorney general, a Justice Department prosecutor, an assistant U.S. attorney for the District and a magistrate in U.S. District Court in Washington.

In the last capacity, he oversaw early legal proceedings in the case of John W. Hinckley Jr., who tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981. Appointed by Reagan, Mr. Margolis joined the Court of Federal Claims in 1983. He took senior status in 1997 but remained on recall until shortly before his death.

Mr. Margolis was active with the Rotary Club in Washington and Rotary International and was named Rotarian of the Decade, his daughter said. He was a former trustee of Drexel University in Philadelphia, a leader of the George Washington University law school alumni organization and an advocate for the schools night law program.

Arthur Lerner, lawyer

Arthur Lerner, 65, a lawyer whose specialties with the Washington firm Crowell & Moring included antitrust matters, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and health reform initiatives, died Nov. 8 at a hospice center in Rockville, Md. The cause was pancreatic cancer, said a brother, Richard Lerner.

Mr. Lerner, a resident of Chevy Chase, Md., was born in Newark. He came to the Washington area in 1976 and spent 10 years at the Federal Trade Commission. He entered private practice in 1986, first with the firm Michaels & Wishner. In 2000, he joined Crowell & Moring, where he maintained a partnership until his death.

Anita Schelp, labor negotiator

Anita Schelp, 93, a former labor negotiator in Chicago who settled in the Washington area in 1960 and became involved in community groups, died Dec. 30 at a senior community in Silver Spring, Md. The cause was complications from dementia, said a son, Paul Schelp.

Mrs. Schelp was born Anita Dunne in Chicago, where she helped businesses, including General Instrument, in negotiations with labor groups. In the Washington area, she was a past president of the Parents Pre-School Council and her memberships included the Washington Club and the Capital Speakers Club. She was a docent at the Corcoran Gallery and the National Gallery of Art.

Brian Clukey, advocate for disabled

Brian Clukey, 53, an advocate for people with developmental disabilities, died Jan. 7 at a hospice center in Arlington, Va. The cause was early-onset Alzheimers disease and complications from Down syndrome, said his mother, Marcia Clukey.

Mr. Clukey was born in Syracuse, N.Y., and settled in the Washington area in 1998. He served two terms on the Virginia Board for People With Disabilities and served on the National Council on Disability. He was a board member of the Arc of Northern Virginia, an advocacy and service organization for people with developmental disabilities, and what is now the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. He lived in Falls Church, Va.

Guido Fenzi, Foreign Service officer

Guido Fenzi, 89, who served in the State Department from 1956 to 1985 as an economic specialist and in retirement became an expert on imperial Russian coins, died Jan. 2 at his home in the District. The cause was complications from Parkinsons disease, said his wife, Jewell Fenzi.

Mr. Fenzi was born in Santa Barbara, Calif. His Foreign Service career took him to embassies and consulates in Europe, Africa, the Caribbean and South America. He retired in 1985 and chaired the Dupont Circle Citizens Associations zoning committee.

He volunteered for the National Museum of American Historys National Numismatic Collection. He taught himself Cyrillic and spent 25 years researching and authenticating the noted coin collection of Grand Duke George Mikhailovich, a member of the Romanov family, and published articles in the journal of the Russian Numismatic Society. He wrote a book, The Rubles of Peter the Great: From the Collection of Grand Duke George Mikhailovich, 1704-1725.

William L. Bird, REA official

William L. Bird, 91, an engineer and official with the Rural Electrification Administration for 42 years who retired in 1991, died Dec. 24 at the home of a daughter in Edgewater, Md. The cause was prostate cancer, said a son, Mark Bird.

Mr. Bird, a resident of Galesville, Md., was born in Greenup, Ky., and moved to the Washington area as an infant. He served in the Army during World War II and was captured by German forces during the Battle of the Bulge in January 1945. He was held as a prisoner of war for more than two months. He retired from the REA as telephone program director. He was a former Sunday school teacher at the United Methodist Church of Landover Hills, Md.

Edward Berlin, lawyer

Edward Berlin, 77, a lawyer who specialized in public utilities law, died Dec. 25 at a hospital in Durham, N.C. The cause was acute respiratory failure, said a son, Douglas Berlin.

Mr. Berlin was born in the Bronx and came to Washington in 1961 to work for the Justice Department. After serving on the Federal Power Commission and the New York Public Service Commission, he joined the Washington firm of Leva, Hawes, Symington, Martin and Oppenheimer.

In 1982, Mr. Berlin formed the firm that became Swidler & Berlin, where he served as chairman for 24 years. He retired in 2006. He was a longtime resident of McLean, Va., and later lived in Arlington, Va., and Spotsylvania, Va.

Mary Rose, medical researcher

Mary Rose, 73, a medical investigator and researcher from 1984 to 2016 at Childrens National Medical Center and George Washington University, died Dec. 28 at a hospital in the District. The cause was cancer, said her husband, Michael Smith.

Dr. Rose, a resident of Rockville, Md., was born Mary Callaghan in Boston. Her research specialties included the fundamental mechanisms of chronic lung diseases such as cystic fibrosis and asthma. Her research was published in more than 60 reviews, papers and book chapters.

Joseph Miller, lobbyist

Joseph Miller, 95, a political consultant and lobbyist who specialized in concerns affecting the Pacific Northwest, and whose clients included the port of Portland, Ore., and the United Steelworkers, died Jan. 4 at a rehabilitation center in Bethesda, Md. The cause was complications from a stroke, said a daughter, Sue Miller.

Mr. Miller, a District resident, was born in New York City. He worked for newspapers in the Pacific Northwest before coming to the Washington area in 1956 as executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. He worked as a lobbyist from 1961 until his retirement in the early 2000s.

Potarazu Krishna Rao, NOAA meteorologist

Potarazu Krishna Rao, a meteorologist who retired in 2002 as chief scientist at the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service, died Jan. 19 at his home in Rockville, Md. The cause was complications from a stroke, said a son, Sreedhar Potarazu.

Dr. Rao was born in Andhra state, India. He joined the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 1961, focusing on the use of satellites for weather forecasting. He rose to the senior executive service, published more than 60 scientific papers and received a NOAA award for distinguished service. He was a fellow of the American Meteorological Society, the New York Academy of Sciences and Britains Royal Meteorological Society. He was a founding member of Sri Siva Vishnu Temple in Lanham, Md.

 From staff reports
D.C. police identified Nathaniel Taylor, 23, as a suspect in the April slaying of 23-year-old Nuru Frenche in April 2016. (D.C. police department/D.C. police department)

D.C. police identified a 23-year-old man Wednesday as a second suspect in the killing of a Brandywine man during a shooting in Northeast Washington in April.

Police said they obtained a warrant for Nathaniel Taylor on a charge of first-degree felony murder in connection with the killing of 23-year-old Nuru Frenche. Frenche was found fatally shot in the 4900 block of Just Street NE about 10:30 p.m. on April 23.

In May, police announced they arrested and charged 21-year-old Anthony Blackmone of Southeast Washington with first-degree murder in the case.

Authorities said Taylor should be considered as armed and dangerous. Police said he is known to hang out in the areas of Quarles Street, Northeast and Grant Street, Northeast.
A federal judge canceled a hearing scheduled for Thursday to determine whether to issue a preliminary injunction barring the Fairfax County police from releasing the name of an officer involved in a fatal shooting, according to court documents.

U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III said the hearing was no longer necessary because the release of the officers name is no longer imminent. Police, who had been working to determine whether publicly releasing the officers identity could endanger him or her, said that decision has been delayed because they discovered new evidence which must be considered.

The officer, who has 16 years service and is a member of the Special Operations Division, fatally shot a man who police say lunged at officers with a knife. The incident followed a two-hour standoff at the mans home in Herndon on Jan. 16.

The officer filed a lawsuit on Feb. 3 seeking to block the release of his or her name, saying it could put him or her at risk. Ellis issued a temporary restraining order on Monday, blocking the release because the officer said the department planned to identify him or her to the public. The judge on Thursday vacated that order, saying it was also no longer necessary.

Last year, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors required the police department to release the name of any officers involved in deadly use-of-force incidents within 10 days, unless there was a credible threat to the officer's safety.

Fairfax County Police Chief Edwin C. Roessler Jr. said the new evidence was discovered during the ongoing threat assessment that determines whether it is safe to release the officers name. Roessler declined to discuss the nature of that evidence and said he couldnt give a timeline on when the threat assessment would be completed.

The case in federal court in Alexandria touches on a hot-button issue in the wake of national protests over fatal shootings by police officers. Advocates for reform say releasing the names of officers involved in fatal shootings is necessary for accountability, but officers and police unions are worried such moves can potentially put officers in harms way and cite a number of cases where officers have received threats.
Presidential hopeful and former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina speaks at the Practical Federalism Forum hosted by American Principles Project held at Southern New Hampshire University in Hooksett, N.H., in October 2015. (Cheryl Senter/AP)

Carly Fiorina, the former GOP presidential candidate, is considering challenging Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) next year.

Her comments on a Portsmouth-based radio show popular among party activists marks the first time that the Fairfax resident has spoken publicly about getting back into politics since the November election.

Im certainly looking at that opportunity, she told host John Fredericks on Tuesday about a Senate bid. Its a little early to be making that decision.

Fiorina and her husband moved to Lorton, in Fairfax County, in 2011 after a bruising loss in her bid to unseat Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).

She ended her presidential campaign one year ago this month and briefly jumped onto the ill-fated campaign of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) as his vice-presidential pick. In the months since, Fiorina has been helping other Republicans, particularly in Virginia, where she stumped for everyone from Rep. Barbara Comstock (R) to little-known candidates for state legislature.

Kaine, who was Hillary Clintons running mate on the Democratic presidential ticket, will be seeking a second term in the Senate in 2018.

A former governor whose place on the Clinton ticket helped him build a national profile, Kaine has returned to the Capitol Hill as an outspoken critic of President Trumps agenda.

Virginia was the only southern state that Clinton carried in November. All five statewide officeholders are Democrats, something Fiorina referenced in her interview.

We [Republicans] should be realistic that is going to be a very, very tough race, said the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive. Virginia is a purple state. Virginia has two Democratic senators. The Democratic Party is going to throw everything they have at defending Tim Kaines seat.

Other candidates are toying with running, as well.

Laura Ingraham, the conservative radio host who supported Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) in his 2014 ouster of then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, confirmed on Fox & Friends last month that she is considering jumping into the race. Contacted by The Washington Post, she declined to comment further.

Although Brat stopped short of endorsing Ingraham, he said she would do well in the race and took himself out of contention.

Shes got a huge personality, a huge following and the ability to lead the news cycle, he said last week.

Republicans say that GOP Rep. Barbara Comstock would also be a top contender if she would risk giving up her northern Virginia seat to run. Through a spokesman, she declined to comment on her plans.

Former governor Jim Gilmore, who ran a failed presidential bid last year, and Del. Jimmie Massie (R-Richmond) are also expected to compete for the party nomination.

The 2018 field has been slow to coalesce in part because national groups are likely to focus resources on 10 Republican takeover opportunities in states that Trump won.

With a governors race immediately following the presidential contest, Virginia voters have historically chosen a governor of the opposite party. The 2013 win by Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) after President Obamas reelection was a rare exception.

If the pattern holds and a Democrat  Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam or former congressman Tom Perriello  wins this year governors race, Kaine could enjoy a boost, as well.

I dont think Republicans are going to give Tim Kaine a free pass, but Virginia has shown in recent federal races a trend toward Democrats, said Nathan L. Gonzales, a political anaylst at the nonpartisan Inside Elections.

State GOP chairman John Whitbeck said the party is committed to ousting Kaine.

Tim Kaine has shown that hes far outside the mainstream of Virginia, he said. Hes effectively taken his mask off. Hes nothing more than a cookie cutter left-wing liberal.
State Sen. J. Chapman Chap Petersen had proposed a measure aimed at undoing a 2015 law that froze base electricity rates in Virginia for five years. It died in committee. (Steve Helber/AP)

Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) on Thursday said he supports scrapping a two-year-old deal that shields Dominion Power from rate reviews, saying the rationale for protecting the utility will be lost if the Trump Administration does away with the federal Clean Power Plan.

The reason we did this, lets be fair, I mean, was because of the Clean Power Plan and the increased costs that would come with the Clean Power Plan, McAuliffe said in an interview on the John Fredericks Show, a conservative talk-radio program. From what I read and from what I hear from Washington from President Trump and his new proposed EPA administrator, the Clean Power Plan is going to go away. . . . If we dont have those increased costs because of the Clean Power Plan, then [protection for Dominion] should be off the table.

McAuliffe (D) made the remark after Fredericks, who has been broadcasting his show from different locations on Capitol Square during the legislative session, asked him about an already defeated bill on the subject.

Proposed by state Sen. J. Chapman Chap Petersen (D-Fairfax), the measure had been aimed at undoing a 2015 law that froze base electricity rates in Virginia for five years. The law also shields utilities from rate review through 2019 while preserving their ability to seek rate hikes.

Dominion and Appalachian Power Co., the two utilities that supply virtually all electricity in the state, said at the time that they needed rate protection from the anticipated costs of complying then-President Obamas Clean Power Plan. The 2015 protection measure, the subject of a pending lawsuit filed on behalf of rate-payers, was sponsored by state Sen. Frank Wagner (Virginia Beach), who is running in a crowded Republican primary for governor.

Dominion is the largest corporate contributor in Virginia, having plowed $4 million into state-level races over the past decade.

[Former Va. attorney general Cuccinelli files brief challenging Dominion Power rates]

McAuliffe had signed the 2015 bill into law, but on Thursday he told Fredericks he agreed with Petersen that those protections will not be needed if the power plan goes away. His comments came as two other candidates running to succeed the term-limited governor  Republican Denver Riggleman and Democrat Tom Perriello  have incorporated populist-style attacks on Dominion into their campaigns.

[Riggleman, contender for Va. governor, takes on utility giant Dominion]

I support Chap Petersen on this, McAuliffe said.

His answer seemed to surprise Petersen, who was part of the conversation because his office served as Frederickss makeshift radio studio for the day.

Oh my God, Petersen said. Thank you, governor.

Dominion spokesman David Botkins said the 2015 legislation also prompted the company to make expansions into solar energy and should stay in place.

Virginias energy plan has provided direct benefits to all customers in the form of an immediate rate cut in 2015 and ongoing assistance to low-income customers, seniors, the disabled, and military veterans, he said in an email. The legislation has saved customers millions of dollars in costs while keeping Dominions rates well below the national average  lower now than before the energy plan was passed.

[Perriello comes out against pipeline and, in a shift, says he is skeptical of offshore drilling]

As a practical matter, McAuliffes statement of support does nothing to revive Petersens bill, which died in committee. Even if Petersen thought the governors support would help his cause, it is too late for him to submit a new bill. His only option would be to turn his bill into an amendment that could be attached to another piece of pending legislation, a move that would be open to challenge if his amendment is not germane to the underlying legislation.

As governor, McAuliffe is free to propose legislation at any time. On the radio program, Petersen encouraged him to do just that.

Governor, you need to send down the legislation, Petersen said.

McAuliffe asked if Petersen could round up enough votes to pass it.

I tell you what, you send it down and tell the Democrats what to do, theyll follow [your] lead, Petersen said. They usually do.

McAuliffe spokesman Brian Coy said later that the governor does not intend to send propose a bill.
Tom Perriello, who is running an upstart campaign for the Democratic nomination for governor, said he is opposed to two proposed natural gas pipelines, will not take campaign cash from utility giant Dominion Virginia Power and voiced doubts about offshore drilling  something he supported as a congressman.

I will not take one dime from Dominion, but I will sit down with them any time to talk about pragmatic solutions that move us forward, Perriello said at a news conference Wednesday at a park overlooking the James River.

The Democrats announcement came a week after a populist Republican running for governor, Denver Riggleman, appeared at the Capitol with his own anti-Dominion pitch, calling for a ban on political donations from the state-regulated monopoly.

[Riggleman, a contender for Virginia governor, takes on utility giant Dominion]

While Rigglemans appeal was a defense of property rights and an attack on crony capitalism, Perriellos centered on clean energy and jobs. Perriello also said he was skeptical about offshore drilling  something he backed during his single term in Congress.

Ive always been very skeptical of offshore drilling, he said. Ive been a big supporter of offshore wind.

Along with a bipartisan group of Virginia congressional members, Perriello sponsored a measure to allow oil and gas drilling off Virginias coast, Energy Tomorrow reported in March 2010. The Republican Party of Virginias website linked to that article last month in a post from Chairman John Whitbeck, who predicted that Perriello would flip on the issue.

I look forward to yet another heart-felt, tear filled Jimmy Swaggart-style Facebook post in which Tom Perriello repents for his previous sins against the church of far-left liberalism, Whitbeck wrote, referring to a long mea culpa Perriello had posted on Facebook to explain an abortion vote he said he now regrets. Hes already apologized for his previous pro-life leanings and support from the NRA. His flip on offshore drilling should be one for the ages.

During his successful 2008 campaign, Perriello called on TV stations to drop ads aired by incumbent Virgil Goode (R), complaining that they included the libelous claim that Perriello opposed offshore drilling, according to a news account from the time, to which Whitbecks post also linked.

In response to a request for comment, Perriello spokeswoman Remi Yamamoto emailed a statement issued when Whitbecks post first appeared.

Tom believes a robust and innovative clean energy sector is key to Virginias inclusive economic future, said Jessica Barba Brown, who was then Perriellos campaign spokeswoman. Throughout his career, Tom has been willing to consider offshore drilling only as part of a comprehensive energy strategy, and only if it is not done in environmentally sensitive areas. He has fought for strong environmental and safety regulations and would continue that track record as governor.

At Richmonds Libby Hill Park, Perriello laid out his opposition to two natural gas pipelines proposed for Virginia: Dominions Atlantic Coast Pipeline project and the Mountain Valley Pipeline Project, a joint venture that does not include Dominion.

Wasting $8.6 billion on the technologies of the past and the energy sources of the past, on projects that will largely employ people from out of state and not in Virginia, to transport fracked gas from out of state across our beautiful heritage to other areas is not the way that we keep value in the community, he said.

He said a focus on wind, solar and energy-saving weatherization projects would create more jobs and better protect the environment.

Perriello faces Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam in the June Democratic primary. Northam spokesman David Turner said the lieutenant governor supports the pipelines as long as property rights, safety and the environment are protected.

As a doctor and a scientist, Ralph Northam always believes in a robust and transparent process driven by science, facts and property rights, Turner said in an email. This is why he urges the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and Virginias Department of Environmental Quality to hold this process to the highest possible standards with the utmost due diligence given to protecting our natural heritage. This is the logic that has underscored his long-standing opposition to offshore drilling.

Aaron Ruby, a Dominion Energy spokesman, said Virginians strongly support the Atlantic Coast project.

Virginians want new jobs; they want cleaner energy; they want more economic opportunity; and, they recognize that new infrastructure like the Atlantic Coast Pipeline is critical to making it happen, Ruby said in a written statement. This project is essential to the economic vitality and environmental future of Virginia. It will create thousands of new jobs, promote cleaner air in our communities and enhance the energy security of our region. Its unfortunate Mr. Perriello has disregarded these important public priorities and the aspirations of most Virginians.

In his visit to the Capitol last week, Riggleman drew attention to two bills aimed at Dominion, both brought by state Sen. J. Chapman Chap Petersen (D-Fairfax). One would have subjected electricity rates to review by the state. The other would have prohibited Dominion and other state-regulated monopolies from donating to legislators and statewide candidates.

Dominion is the largest corporate contributor in Virginia, having plowed $4 million into state-level races over the past decade.

Both bills died.

Riggleman, a distillery owner and one of four Republicans running for governor, has tangled with Dominion as a property owner. At one point, plans called for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline to cross 50 acres he owns in Nelson County. He has said he is not opposed to the pipeline, but to eminent domain practices that he contends are unfair to property owners.
Del. Rob Bell (R-Albermarle) said the state inspector general, June Jennings, is too sweet for the job and that the office requires a bulldog. (Steve Helber/AP)

Virginias inspector general, whose office is supposed to uncover waste, fraud and abuse in state government, might lose her job over what Republican lawmakers say was a failure to rigorously investigate the death of a mentally ill man in a Hampton Roads jail 18 months ago.

The Republican-controlled Virginia House of Delegates decision to reject Gov. Terry McAuliffes appointment of June Jennings to a full four-year term prompted an angry response Thursday from the governor, who suggested that sexism was at play.

Appearing on a Richmond-area radio talk show, the Democratic governor called the House action outrageous and suggested that it was motivated by sexism. Why do they keep going after women here? he asked, 15 minutes into The John Fredericks Show. To take this innocent woman and toss her under the bus . . . 

Each house in the General Assembly essentially has veto power over appointments, so unless McAuliffe (D) works out a deal and resubmits Jenningss name, her three-year interim term could end in June.

McAuliffe said that Jennings bears absolutely zero responsibility for Jamycheal Mitchells death. He accused the Republicans of hypocrisy for failing to give Jennings the authority to investigate the death.

Del. Robert B. Bell (R-Albemarle), who led the House effort on Wednesday to unseat Jennings, said he and his colleagues are dissatisfied with her investigation of the death of Mitchell, a mentally ill man who died in jail Aug. 19, 2015. The inspector generals office needs a bulldog and Jennings is simply too nice . . . too sweet for the job, Bell said.

Its not unprecedented for the Virginia General Assembly to reject a governors appointment. The last time was a year ago, when the legislators refused to reappoint former Fairfax County Circuit Court judge Jane Roush to the state Supreme Court after she served two recess appointments on the states top court.

Bell agreed in an interview that its disputable if the inspector general should investigate a death in the jail but its indisputable that the office has oversight over the contracted health-care provider, NaphCare, which failed to address Mitchells deteriorating condition that led to his death at the Hampton Roads Regional Jail.

A bill proposed by Bell that would assign the responsibility of investigating jail deaths to the state Department of Corrections has languished in the House, he said. McAuliffes efforts to clarify the oversight of jails have also been stalled or defeated, he said.

Jennings declined to comment Thursday. Appointed to the position in June 2014, after serving as deputy to Michael Morehart, she previously oversaw internal audits for the Virginia Department of Corrections. She has also worked as a senior auditor at the state Auditor of Public Accounts.

Mitchell, 24, was arrested in April 2015 for stealing $5 worth of junk food from a 7-Eleven. He died that summer in jail after he wasted away, losing 40 pounds in less than four months.

Diagnosed as manic and psychotic, Mitchell had stopped taking his medications for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and was awaiting assignment to Eastern State Hospital, where he would receive mental health care. But a state audit later found that the judges order putting him on a waiting list for care there had not been processed  it had been stuffed into a drawer at the hospital and wasnt found until after his death. Meanwhile, reports by other inmates to Portsmouth jailers about Mitchells worsening condition were ignored.

The federal Department of Justice opened a civil rights investigation into the Portsmouth jail in December over inmates access to medical and mental health care. Mitchells family has also filed a $60 million lawsuit against the jail.

Some 226 people have died in Virginias jails, or under jail supervision, since 2012, the Department of Corrections said. Local and regional jails largely police themselves. More than 7,000 mentally troubled people have been incarcerated in Virginia jails in recent years, a state audit found.
House Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford), left, confers with Del. S. Chris Jones (R-Suffolk), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, during the floor session of the Virginia House of Delegates at Capitol in Richmond on Feb. 6, 2017. (Bob Brown/RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Thursday was pecking day at the General Assembly, as the Senate and House each passed a version of the budget and withstood last attempts by members to peck away at the fringes of the spending plans.

Neither chambers budget is drastically different from what Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) proposed in December, and none of the down-to-the-wire changes made much impact on the bottom line.

The legislature is fashioning the second year of a two-year, $105 billion spending plan adopted in 2016. Unexpected drops in revenue last year led to a shortfall of about $1.2 billion, so the haggling here is over how to patch that without causing too much pain.

[McAuliffe submits cautious budget that closes shortfalls]

The biggest difference among the three versions of the budget is over raises for state employees. McAuliffe proposed a one-time bonus of 1.5 percent, costing about $111.5 million. Both House and Senate leaders dislike that idea and prefer to raise salaries.

The House and Senate budgets would pay for a 3 percent raise for state employees and would single out state police, Capitol police and sheriffs deputies for targeted increases to make their pay more competitive.

Instead of funding a raise for teachers, the House would return about $62 million in state lottery money to local school boards and let them decide whether to use it for salaries or pension contributions. The Senate budget sets aside $83.2 million for the state contribution to a 2 percent pay raise for K-12 teachers.

[Va. Senate spending plan slashes $500,000 from attorney general]

Otherwise, the budget plans are more harmonious than usual, possibly because this is an election year for the governor and the House and there is little incentive to shake things up.

But that doesnt mean there werent a few flare-ups of partisan posturing on Thursday.

On the House side, Democrats made futile efforts to restore favorite items (such as overtime for home health-care workers, funding for long-term contraceptives for low-income women and money to replace lead water pipes), while Republicans had more success with some that did not carry price tags.

Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William) stirred a debate with an amendment to stipulate that no state money would be spent on abortion services unless required by federal law. When Del. Mark D. Sickles (D-Fairfax) questioned whether it would prevent abortions when a fetus is too deformed to survive outside the womb, Marshall called the idea eugenics and said angrily that all babies are still made in the image and likeness of God.

The amendment passed on a straight party line vote, 60 to 34.

Republican delegates also took a shot at the Senate, declining to take up a budget amendment that would have equalized the pay between House Clerk G. Paul Nardo and Senate Clerk Susan Clarke Schaar. Nardo makes about $194,000 after five and a half years on the job, while Schaar makes about $175,000 after 27 years.

But Del. S. Chris Jones (R-Suffolk), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, pointed out that Nardos job has extra duties of enrolling or processing all bills passed by both chambers and that he will have to coordinate next years gubernatorial inauguration.

So their jobs are not equal, Jones said. The House set the amendment aside on a voice vote.

In the Senate, the practice of relying on unrecorded voice votes led to at least one minor dust-up. Democrats tried to restore an item in McAuliffes budget that would give the governor the ability to expand Medicaid in Virginia if the Affordable Care Act is still in existence after one year.

Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam (D), who presides over the Senate, ruled that he couldnt tell whether the voice vote was in favor of or against the idea, so he called for a recorded vote.

This provoked complaints from Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr. (R-James City), who pressed Northam on just how he makes such a decision when one side is plainly louder than the other.

I know you are a pediatric neurologist, Norment said to Northam, but I have a good friend who is an audiologist.

The attempt to restore the governors language failed on a party-line vote, 21 to 19.

Each budget now goes to the opposite chamber, and they will appoint conferees to hammer out a final version that requires the approval of the House and the Senate before it can be sent to the governor. Both Republican and Democratic leaders praised one another for working conscientiously.

While we would not have written this budget precisely this way, House Minority Leader David J. Toscano (D-Charlottesville) said, its our view that we are moving in the right direction.
FBI agents unwrap "Young Man As Bacchus" by Jan Franse Verzijl before before the start of a ceremony Wednesday to formally return the painting to representatives of the Max and Iris Stern Foundation at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York. Federal investigators recovered the 1630 oil painting in a 2015 art fair. (Mary Altaffer/AP)

NORTH CAROLINA

Panel blocks Senate vote on Cabinet posts

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) won the latest battle against the states Republican-controlled legislature Wednesday as a three-judge panel temporarily blocked a new law that required Senate confirmation for the governors Cabinet members, using a process similar to what the U.S. Senate does for the presidents Cabinet choices.

The state law was passed in the waning days of Republican Gov. Pat McCrorys administration and was seen by Democrats as a way to undermine the new governors authority. Cooper sued over this and other laws that reduced his powers after he was sworn in Jan. 1.

The decision by the judges was released an hour before senators were scheduled to question Coopers pick to lead the department of military and veterans affairs, but he was absent. Committee co-chairman Sen. Wesley Meredith read a brief statement in which he said senators would still get answers about the qualifications of secretaries, and the meeting abruptly ended.

Cooper appointed eight of his 10 Cabinet members before the legislature came into session in January and they were sworn in. Some legislators call them acting heads. Under the law passed in December, they can be dismissed if the Senate does not confirm them.

The three Superior Court judges have scheduled another hearing in the case Friday and will decide whether to postpone enforcement of the law until they can reach a final decision.

 Associated Press

ARIZONA

Man sentenced for conspiring to help ISIS

An Arizona man was sentenced on Wednesday to 30 years in prison for conspiring to support the Islamic State for his role in planning a May 2015 shooting in Texas.

Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem, 45, also was placed on lifetime supervised release during a hearing in federal court in Phoenix for his role in the May 3, 2015, Islamic State-inspired attack at a cartoon exhibit in Garland, Tex., featuring images of the prophet Muhammad.

Two co-conspirators, Kareems former roommates, were killed in a shootout with police.

Kareem, a moving company owner, was convicted in March 2016 on all five terror-related charges by a jury. Prosecutors had sought a 50-year sentence, while his attorney had asked for a six-year sentence.

The case against Kareem, also known as Decarus Thomas, was the first Islamic State-related prosecution to reach trial of the dozens brought by the federal government across the nation and the second to result in a jury verdict.

 Reuters

PENNSYLVANIA

Settlement reached for 2013 building collapse

Lawyers for 19 people killed or injured in a Philadelphia building collapse reached a $227 million settlement with several defendants as the jury, which already had found them liable, deliberated Wednesday on damages.

Six people were killed and 13 injured when a towering brick wall left unbraced during a demolition project crushed an adjacent Salvation Army store in 2013.

Two demolition contractors are serving long prison terms for involuntary manslaughter convictions. But the building owner and his architect were never charged. The victims had been seeking damages from both men, along with the Salvation Army.

Lawyers for a number of victims and their families called the sum the largest personal-injury settlement in state court history.

The defendants include building owner Richard Basciano, a New York speculator hoping to redevelop a block of seedy properties he had held for 20 years, and his architect, Plato Marinakos, who hired the demolition contractor. Marinakos testified at the criminal trial under a grant of immunity.

 Associated Press
The UN Refugee Agency UNHCR has raised concern over the rising exodus of Burundians into neighboring countries amid ongoing instability in the country.

The country has been rocked by violent protests and what UN experts have described as growing government repression since President Pierre Nkurunziza stood for and won a controversial third term in office in 2015.

According to UNHCR, neighboring countries such as Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are struggling to cope with the new arrivals.

The pressure is most acute in Tanzania, where 600 people arrive daily.

The refugee agency says that since April last year more than 386,000 people have fled Burundi and numbers are expected to pass the half-a-million mark in 2017 if the instability inside Burundi continues.
FRANCE

Rioting spreads in suburbs of Paris

A gang of masked rioters set more than a dozen vehicles ablaze in a car dealership as violence spread to more suburban Paris towns over the alleged rape of a young black man with a police baton, authorities said Wednesday.

Police made 17 arrests, according to the prefecture of Seine-Saint-Denis, a working-class region northeast of Paris with a large minority population.

The violence, which has spread to at least five towns, erupted after a 22-year-old man was allegedly sodomized with a police baton during an identity check last week. One officer was charged Sunday with aggravated rape and three others were charged with aggravated assault. Police have denied the allegations.

 Associated Press

BRAZIL

Governor says hell ask for more troops

A Brazilian governor said Wednesday that he needs more army troops to help cope with a police crisis that has led to a wave of violence and at least 80 deaths in his southeastern state.

Cesar Colnago, acting governor of the state of Espirito Santo, told reporters he would ask the federal government for more troops, saying the 1,000 already sent were not enough.

The killings in the state capital, Vitoria, and other cities erupted as friends and family of military police blocked their barracks to demand higher pay for the officers, preventing them from patrolling. Brazils military police are barred by law from going on strike.

 Associated Press

NIGERIA

7 Russians, Ukrainian abducted from ship

Seven Russian sailors and a Ukrainian have been kidnapped from a cargo ship in Nigerian waters, the Russian Embassy in the West African nation said Wednesday.

The kidnappings come less than three months after three Russians were taken hostage off a ship in Nigerian waters and freed weeks later.

The Russian Embassy posted messages on social media saying Nigerian authorities have been asked to help locate the victims. It said the men were taken off the BBC Caribbean, a cargo vessel owned by Dutch company Briese Shipping B.V. and flagged in Antigua and Barbuda.

Nigerias navy and police refused to comment.

 Associated Press

Militiamen storm health center in Central African Republic: Militia members stormed a health center in the Central African Republics capital seeking to kill the wounded after renewed violence left at least five people dead, including a pastor, authorities said. The fighting centered Tuesday around Banguis PK5 district, long a flash point for tensions between Muslim and Christian fighters. More than two dozen wounded were taken to a health facility, according to Michel Yao, acting U.N. humanitarian coordinator in the country. Armed elements forcefully entered the facility with the intention to kill some of the injured, he said.

Teens sentenced for leaving names on Auschwitz gate: Two Portuguese teenagers who wrote their names on a gate of the former Nazi German death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau were fined and given one-year suspended prison terms by a Polish court. The lawyer for the 17- and 18-year-old said they regret and have apologized for putting their names and the date on the red-brick gate of Birkenau, part of the Auschwitz complex, in southern Poland.

Israel says cave held Dead Sea scrolls: Israels Hebrew University said archaeologists have found a cave that once contained Dead Sea scrolls. The university said that while no texts were found in the cave near the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, findings indicate that scrolls were once stored there. Storage jars, fragments of a scroll wrapping and a string used to tie the scroll were all found in the cave. It is the 12th known cave said to have contained scrolls. The university says the scrolls are believed to have been stolen from the cave in the 1950s.

Antiquities found in truck in Hungary may date to 900 B.C.: Some objects in a trove of Persian, Sumerian, Assyrian and other antiquities found last year in a truck could be from as early as 900 B.C., and the collection may be worth as much as $690,000, Hungarian police said. The 115 objects, also including 14 Roman gold coins and some high-quality forgeries, were found during a search of a truck going to Lithuania. None of the objects was found to be from a museum or private collection.

 From news services
WHILE THE country has been focused on President Trumps rocky first weeks, the new GOP Congress has been busy. Among other things, Republicans have been putting the Congressional Review Act, a law that allows them to expeditiously dispose of new federal regulations lawmakers do not like, to unprecedented use. They have already passed several resolutions of disapproval that, if Mr. Trump signs them, as expected, would overturn rules pushed through at the twilight of President Barack Obamas second term.

Though critics have noted that its use is rare, the Congressional Review Act is a wholly legitimate expression of congressional prerogatives. Over the course of decades, Congress delegated various policymaking powers, which the Constitution grants to the legislative branch, to executive agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency. The act checks the executive branchs use of those delegated authorities by specifying that Congress can overturn agency rules by a simple majority vote within 60 legislative days of their promulgation.

But that does not mean Republican lawmakers are using their powers wisely. A large part of the reason Congress delegated policymaking authorities to executive branch experts in the first place was to ensure that science and data, rather than politics, drove regulation.

Over the past several years, for example, studies have increased alarm about what coal-mining operations have done to streams and other waterways that underpin aquatic food chains in states such as West Virginia, a problem that the advent of so-called mountaintop-removal mining has not helped. The Interior Department created a rule demanding that mining companies contain their harm to waterways during operations and restore the physical form, hydrologic function, and ecological function of the segment of a perennial or intermittent stream that a permittee mines through. Lawmakers have now voted to revoke this sensible rule.

Similarly, the House voted to rescind another Interior Department rule that would cut down on methane emissions emerging from oil and gas drilling on federal lands. Allowing methane, the main component of natural gas, to waft into the air during drilling operations is pure resource waste, and it is bad for the environment too. Among other things, the oil and gas industry argues that Interiors rules are redundant, given that the EPA also has methane emissions rules in place. It is true that the EPA has its own rules, and we hope their invocation in this debate is a sign the Trump administration will refrain from ripping them up too. But the EPA rules do not apply to existing oil and gas infrastructure  only to new and substantially changed facilities. Courts, meanwhile, will review related accusations that Interior acted outside its legal lane. The Interior rules, in fact, were written carefully to complement state and other federal regulatory efforts, and they deserve to stay in place.

Congresss moves would be less concerning except for one of the most powerful provisions in the Congressional Review Act: a stipulation that, once lawmakers have rescinded a rule, federal agencies cannot issue a new one substantially like it. This legal standard has not been tested in court. But it means that Congress may be essentially barring agencies such as the Interior Department from revisiting issues such as methane pollution on federal lands in a rigorous way. That is not a legacy the 115th Congress should be seeking.
WHEN IT comes to repairing the gaping hole in Marylands public employee pension fund, on whose good health nearly 400,000 current and retired teachers, prison guards and other state workers depend, elected officials in Annapolis are taking a stroll down memory-impaired lane.

That includes not just the Democratic-controlled legislature, which has a spotty track record on the pension fund, but also, more recently, Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, who took office promising an end to what he correctly considered the gimmickry that has bedeviled state finances.

Practically the first fight Mr. Hogan picked with lawmakers, in 2015, involved their efforts to trim the states contributions to the $46 billion fund, whose obligations outweigh its balance by about $20 billion. Back then, the governor fought to maintain extra annual set-asides to fatten the funds bottom line. Now, under mounting budgetary pressure, he seems content to join forces with the legislature, which prefers to divert dollars to pressing popular causes, and let the looming long-term pension problem sort itself out. Or rather, foist the problem on a future generation of politicians and taxpayers.

That might work, assuming the stock market, on whose performance the fund largely depends, suffers no serious setbacks. But to imagine such a future is to forget the recent past  namely, the 2000s, which the pension fund began flush with cash but ended in a deep hole, from which the state has been trying to extract itself ever since.

Reforms enacted under then-Gov. Martin OMalley (D)  higher contributions, lower benefits and later retirement age for future employees, plus a sizeable bump in the states own annual set-aside  put the fund on course to reestablish good health by 2023. But lawmakers whittled away at the set-aside in 2014, and again in 2015. And now Mr. Hogan himself wants to scrap a provision that earmarks a sizeable chunk of any end-of-year state budget surplus for the pension fund. Thats a bad idea.

Mr. Hogan has proposed legislation that would create a 401(k)-style savings program for future state workers as an alternative to the traditional pension. In the long run, such a program might trim the states annual pension contributions and stabilize the existing fund to some degree, but only if any savings are earmarked for deposit into the fund  which the governors bill does not require. Its an empty gesture.

Against the backdrop of fading memories of hard times in Annapolis, the target for restoring the pension fund to good health has slipped by five years, to 2028. Last year, Moodys Investors Service ranked Marylands three-year average pension liabilities seventh-highest in the nation. It does not help that the funds investment returns have been anemic for two years straight.

On balance, Maryland has been a competent manager of its finances, with the glaring exception of the pension fund. The state now faces a revenue squeeze owing to a slowdown in federal spending, on which Maryland depends heavily. That slowdown will inevitably trigger tough choices, but it is important that the pension fund, which will deliver monthly checks to hundreds of thousands of retirees, not become a casualty of budgetary convenience.
Stephen K. Bannon disrupted American politics and helped elect Donald Trump as president. Will he disrupt the Roman Catholic Church by joining forces with right-wing Catholics who oppose Pope Francis?

Bannons dark vision contrasts sharply with the sunny disposition of a pope who has chided sourpusses and querulous and disillusioned pessimists.

Bannon believes that the Judeo-Christian West is in a crisis. He calls for a return of the church militant who will fight for our beliefs against this new barbarity, which threatens to completely eradicate everything that weve been bequeathed over the last 2,000, 2,500 years.

Where Francis has insisted on dialogue with Muslims, Bannon points to the long history of the Judeo-Christian West struggle against Islam and reaches as far back as the eighth century to praise forefathers who defeated Islam on the battlefield and kept it out of the world, whether it was at Vienna, or Tours, or other places.

See whats happening, Bannon insists, and you will see were in a war of immense proportions.

Bannon offered these comments in 2014 to the Institute for Human Dignity, an ultra-traditionalist group based in Rome and allied with some of Franciss sharpest internal critics. They include Cardinal Raymond Burke, who has been so tough on Francis that he had to deny he was accusing the pontiff of heresy.

[What happens to us? Why Sweden is so worried about the Trump administration.]

The New York Times Jason Horowitz put Bannons Catholic project front and center this week with a Page 1 story reporting that during a 2014 visit to Rome for the canonizations of Popes John Paul II and John XXIII, Bannon met and bonded with Burke.

Neither Bannon nor Trump (nor, for that matter, Burke) is likely to dent Franciss immense popularity with American Catholics. But Horowitzs story brought into relief the struggle inside the church  and particularly within American Catholicism  over the popes stewardship, his emphasis on battling poverty, his insistence on the importance of welcoming immigrants and refugees, and his relative openness to modernity.

Massimo Faggioli, a professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University and a close student of the Vatican, argues that Francis has aroused a similar hostility among some on the Catholic right to that Barack Obama called forth on the right end of politics generally. Francis is the first pope from Latin America, and his vision of economics is inflected by his experiences there. Moreover, Francis accepts the reforming Second Vatican Council in the 1960s in its entirety and is not just paying lip service.

The vast majority of conservative American bishops and Catholic thinkers have, of course, pledged their allegiance to the pope. But Faggioli argues that many of them are often critical of Franciss attitude toward doctrine (the pope, he says, is pastoral, not ideological) and toward Vatican IIs reforms, which shifted church teaching toward a greater respect for religious pluralism.

On the surface, some of Bannons economic views would seem to match Franciss. In his speech broadcast to the group in Rome, Bannon spoke against a brutal form of capitalism that is really about creating wealth and creating value for a very small subset of people.

(Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

But as Faggioli notes, Bannon links his criticism of capitalism to nationalism, which makes his views more similar to those of far-right groups in the 1920s and 30s such as Action Francaise, a French nationalist group condemned by the Vatican. Franciss economics, on the other hand, focus on global concerns, including climate change.

Cathleen Kaveny, a professor of law and theology at Boston College, argues that Bannons view is also at odds with Catholicisms tradition of rejecting an apocalyptic take on the world. The church, she said, has taught that you dont get to Gods Kingdom by blowing up whats here.

[Michael Flynn: Trump is like the chariot driver in Ben-Hur]

Trump won overwhelmingly among conservative American Catholics last year, and many of them likely sympathize with aspects of Bannons nationalist outlook. But the tensions between Trump and Francis are likely to grow. Ironically, given the opposition to him among many American bishops, Obamas foreign policy was far closer to the Vaticans approach than is Trumps.

And Trumps moves against refugees and immigrants mobilized even conservative bishops to loud condemnations. The fact that about a third of American Catholics are Latino weighs heavily in the churchs thinking.

Bannon is unlikely to want Trump to force American Catholics to choose between their president and their pope. But the battle is on to define the meaning of both Americanism and Catholicism. Bannons worldview could incite the same showdown in the church that he has already ignited in politics.

Read more from E.J. Dionnes archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
Egged on by his top political adviser, Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump is touting an analogy between his populist administration and that of Andrew Jackson, who was first elected in 1828 as the tribune of Appalachian backwoodsmen  and whose portrait now hangs significantly in the Oval Office.

Theyve got the wrong Andrew. The past White House occupant Trump most closely resembles is the 17th president, Andrew Johnson, who served briefly as Abraham Lincolns vice president before Lincolns assassination in April 1865  then ruled turbulently, barely staving off impeachment, over the next three years and 11 months.

As it happens, ostentatious admiration for Jackson is the first point of similarity between Trump and Johnson  though the latter, a Scotch-Irishman of humble origins who rose to represent Jacksons home state, Tennessee, in the Senate, came by his more honestly.

Like Jackson, Johnson believed there was no contradiction between strong states rights and unconditional commitment to the Union, and he never wavered, not even after the Civil War broke out. His pro-Union stance led to his selection as Lincolns running mate in the 1864 presidential election: Republicans saw this rare loyal Southern politician as a ticket-balancing pick.

Johnsons open and thorough racism mattered less to Lincolns party than the onetime tailors animosity toward the Southern planter class (faintly echoed in Trumps Queens-bred insecurities regarding Manhattanites and other elites). Their aristocratic pretensions annoyed Johnson even if their slave-holding per se did not.

Republicans of Johnsons time, in short, intended to use Johnson for their own purposes, not for this ideological misfit to become president.

Once he did, however, his stubborn, conflictual and erratic personality proved a constant source of irritation and embarrassment.

Just as Trump has taken to Twitter to berate everyone from Nordstrom to a so-called judge who had the temerity to rule against his administration, Johnson transgressed contemporary norms of presidential communication.

Flouting his eras unwritten rule against politicking by the chief executive, Johnson embarked on a national swing around the circle for the 1866 midterm election. Shouting and trading insults with hecklers at every whistlestop, Johnson slammed diabolical political opponents and denounced the House and Senate as a body called or which assumes to be the Congress of the United States.

In one rant, which the Chicago Tribune called the crowning disgrace of a disreputable series, Johnson blamed a bloody race riot in New Orleans not on the white ex-Confederates who actually killed 34 African Americans and four white supporters, but on unnamed persons, linked to Congress, who had supposedly exhorted blacks to arm themselves and prepare for the shedding of blood.

One hundred and fifty years later, Trump would make a similar demagogic insinuation regarding political violence, labeling President Barack Obama a founder of the Islamic State terrorist group, and Hillary Clinton a co-founder.

The root cause of Johnsons conflict with Congress, dominated by Northern Republicans, was his attempt to bring Southern states back into the union by presidential fiat, on terms that were lenient toward ex-Confederates and, accordingly, harsh toward newly freed African Americans.

When Johnson stubbornly refused to change, his erstwhile tactical allies in the party of Lincoln sought impeachment.

But this is where the Trump analogy starts to break down. The Republicans of the 1860s turned on Johnson from a strong position, in both moral and political terms.

Made president through tragic happenstance, Johnson not only lacked legitimacy among the wider public, he also had little or no leverage in Congress, even before he started alienating it.

Trumps ascent was weird, too  hes only the fifth president to win office with a majority of the electoral college while losing the popular vote. Obviously, his behavior and his policies dismay more than a few conventional Republican politicians.

These circumstances fuel a persistent hope that the GOP will rid itself of Trump, just as the very different Republicans of Johnsons time rose up against him. Given the sheer danger to the Republic as well as to the Republicans, Trumps impeachment will happen, predicts liberal journalist Robert Kuttner in an American Prospect article wishfully subtitled The Inevitability of Trumps Removal.

Among the many facts this scenario overlooks are that Trump won election in his own right, legitimately, despite the electoral-popular vote anomaly, and that a large minority of the country  including a majority of Republican voters  still supports him.

If anyone is running scared in Washington now, its the Republican establishment, which grumbles here and there but hesitates to cross Trump lest his loyal fans among the GOP electorate turn on them.

Similar though his conduct may be to that of Andrew Johnson, a man widely considered the worst of his predecessors, Trump is far stronger, politically, than Johnson ever was.

Read more from Charles Lanes archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
The Cold War was waged and won in many places, including this beach city, home to the Rand Corp. Created in 1948 to think about research and development as it effects military planning and procurement, Rand pioneered strategic thinking about nuclear weapons in the context of the U.S.-Soviet competition. Seven decades later, it is thinking about the nuclear threat from a nation created in 1948.

When Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said that any North Korean use of nuclear weapons would draw an effective and overwhelming U.S. response, he did not, according to Rands Bruce W. Bennett, overcommit the president by saying that the response would be nuclear. But an overwhelming response could be.

On Jan. 1, North Koreas 33-year-old leader, Kim Jong Un, said that his regime was at the final stage in preparations to test-launch an intercontinental ballistic missile, perhaps one capable of reaching the United States West Coast. On Jan. 2, Donald Trump tweeted: It wont happen! He thereby drew a red line comparable to his predecessors concerning Syrian chemical weapons. So Trump, who excoriated Barack Obama for ignoring that red line, must, Bennett believes, be prepared to threaten actions that would prevent North Korea from learning from its test, actions such as shooting down the missile.

The United States has 30-some ground-based interceptor missiles at Fort Greely in Alaska and others at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. This small capability is intended to cope with an accidental firing by an adversary, or an intentional firing by a rogue general, or to deter or defeat a deliberate attack by an adversary with a small nuclear arsenal, such as North Korea. Will the U.S. anti-ballistic-missile system work? Bennett says technologies can go wrong, so this would be an opportunity to fix any failures. And unless we then are prepared to shoot down theater-range ballistic missiles, we will signal less-than-convincing commitment to South Korea and Japan. To those who say it is premature to conclude that Kim is capable of delivering a nuclear warhead, Bennett says: In 1966, China, in its fourth nuclear test, just two years after its first, had a missile carry a nuclear weapon to its detonation over its western desert.

In 2006, William Perry, who had been defense secretary for Bill Clinton, and Ashton Carter, who would be Obamas final defense secretary, recommended U.S. action to destroy any ICBM set for testing on a North Korean launch pad. But that nations conventional retaliatory capabilities, including artillery and rockets capable of inflicting considerable damage on at least Seouls northern suburbs, forestalled this. And North Korea has perhaps 1,000 tactical-range ballistic missiles capable of striking throughout South Korea and Japan. Furthermore, North Korea has cyberwar, commando and sabotage capabilities.

Today, U.S. surface ships and submarines alone could deliver dozens of cruise missiles, and each of up to 10 B-2 bombers could carry two Massive Ordnance Penetrators to destroy underground leadership or missile bunkers. But as soon as Kim has one or more ICBMs (probably road-mobile) capable of delivering, on short notice, a nuclear payload to, say, Santa Monica, preemptive U.S. action, even just against his nuclear infrastructure, might be too risky.

Furthermore, preparations for a more ambitious strike  against North Korean artillery and rockets, ports, airfields, command-and-control centers, leadership bunkers and forward-positioned forces  might be apparent and might provoke Kim to strike first against Seoul and U.S. forces in South Korea. South Korea talks openly of creating, this year, a decapitation brigade involving perhaps as many as 2,000 troops whose mission would be to eliminate North Koreas leadership in the event of war.

Kim recently dismissed the head of his secret police, the latest sign of insecurity. Bennett believes Kim, undeterred by tweets, might test his ICBM for internal purposes  to impress restive North Korean elites. Bennett suggests that the threat to shoot down the test flight would constructively exacerbate Kims problems. As might U.S. propaganda, for example by reminding North Korean elites that Chinas president has had eight summits with South Koreas president in the past four years but never has had one with Kim, whom China apparently considers not important.

North Korea, which has been run opaquely for the Kim familys benefit since 1953, is approaching a red line. Although the line was drawn before Trump took office, perhaps it represents continuity. It prefigured the kind of improvisational governance that has made his early weeks so interesting.

Read more from George F. Wills archive or follow him on Facebook.
Jonah Berger is a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Contagious: Why Things Catch On and Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces that Shape Behavior.

Is Claude Monet a truly great painter or just the beneficiary of good early publicity? To hear Derek Thompson tell it, he was a highly skilled early impressionist. But there was something else subtly at work in Monets day that created his enduring popularity. Monet was one of a handful of impressionist painters whose work was given to the Musee du Luxembourg in Paris as part of a young mans bequest in the late 1800s. As a result, his paintings, along with other impressionist art, were shown in the first national exhibition of such work, and that broad publicity, Thompson argues, was what made those artists popular. The bequest shaped what people thought impressionism was, and Monet rode the wave to fame. As Thompson argues in his book Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction, Monet succeeded not because he was the best artist but because repeated exposure persuaded people to like his work.

In our age, the principles of popularity still apply. Books like Fifty Shades of Grey land on the bestseller list. Movies like the Star Wars franchise gross billions of dollars and ignite the imaginations of children everywhere. And social movements like the recent Womens March bring communities together around a common goal or interest. But while its clear that some things grab collective attention, why these things in particular? That question lies at the heart of Thompsons book. Mixing anecdotes and science, he explains the famous psychological principle of mere exposure, or the fact that the more you see something, the more you like it. He began pondering Monets success after seeing his famous painting The Japanese Footbridge at the National Gallery of Art.

"Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction," by Derek Thompson (Penguin Press)

[Mad Enchantment, by Ross King: Monets last, desperate effort to create the worlds most beautiful paintings]

Thompson is a gifted writer and has a knack for finding intriguing stories. But rather than dwelling on any one in particular, or taking the time to fully unpack it, he often flits to the next sexy example. This quickly gets overwhelming. It makes it hard to remember what the main point is or how it relates to the overall theme.

In a chapter on The Viral Myth, Thompson argues that nothing goes viral. While this is a fun idea, its not exactly correct. Thompson reviews research on social media that suggests few things spread from person to person online. Rather, traditional media, especially broadcast, is responsible for causing broad exposure. If something spreads virally through social media, it typically doesnt go from one person to the next, like a virus, but rather is propelled by a few people who have big followings, and it takes off from there.

Thompson is partially right. When people use the word viral what they often mean is that something is popular: a video got 10 million views or a post got hundreds of thousands of likes. But that doesnt mean the content was actually contagious. Advertisements might get 1 million views because they were shown during the Super Bowl or because companies paid to feature them on various websites, but that doesnt mean people shared them.

What Thompson glosses over is that some things do get highly shared. And if you understand why people share, you can engineer things to be more contagious. More emotional news articles are more likely to make the most emailed list, and people are more likely to talk about certain things, or brands, if reminded to think of them by the surrounding environment; for example, a reference to peanut butter makes some people think of jelly. Even before broadcast media existed, people were sharing stories, news and information among each other. Some things spread wide, others didnt. Weve all seen juicy gossip dash around a schoolyard or through an office. But Thompson provides few insights into how this builds and spreads. This kind of person-to-person sharing gets short shrift in his book.

Thompson also argues the virtues of optimal newness, which occurs through a blend of familiarity and novelty. On the familiar side, hit songs tend to have a certain structure, Barack Obamas speeches repeat the same refrains, and ESPN shows the same clips again and again. Familiarity can be good, but too much of it can be boring. So if you add a pinch of newness, then youve got a familiar surprise  something that seems new on the surface but is similar enough to things weve seen or heard before to evoke familiaritys warm glow.

And that notion captures Hit Makers perfectly. Thompson takes well-worn research that has often been covered elsewhere and tries to give it new life through novel stories. It doesnt make for the most revelatory book, but thats not necessarily a bad thing. Thompson, after all, seems to be taking his own advice. As he notes: The difference between a brilliant new idea with bad marketing and a mediocre idea with excellent marketing can be the difference between bankruptcy and success. To sell something familiar, make it surprising.
The White House on Thursday said that a top adviser to President Trump had been counseled after using a television appearance from the West Wing to promote the clothing and jewelry line sold under the brand of Trumps daughter.

The endorsement, in which Kellyanne Conway told Fox News Channel viewers to go buy Ivankas stuff, appeared to violate a key ethics rule barring federal employees from using their public office to endorse products. The White House reaction was a rare acknowledgment of an ethical misstep.

Conways remarks drew a sharp and unusual rebuke from a top Republican lawmaker, House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who said that Conways comments were absolutely wrong, wrong, wrong and clearly over the line.

Chaffetz, who has resisted calls by Democrats to investigate potential conflicts related to President Trumps businesses, joined with the Oversight Committees ranking Democrat, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (Md.), in sending a letter to the Office of Government Ethics calling Conways comments unacceptable. The letter asked the agency to recommend discipline given that Trump, who is Conways agency head, holds an inherent conflict of interest due to the involvement of his daughters business.

In a terse comment to reporters Thursday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said that Conway had been counseled on the subject but did not say whether she would be disciplined. Spicer did not say why Conways statements had required the intervention, and the White House declined to answer further questions.

President Trumps counselor Kellyanne Conway at the White House on Jan .24. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

Speaking on Fox News Thursday evening, Conway declined to comment but said Trump supports her 100 percent.

Conway said she advised all women to, at some point in their life, have a boss who treats them the way the president of the United States treated me today.

The incident was the latest illustration of how the Trump White House has struggled to grapple with long-established ethics rules as the president has attempted to balance the potentially competing interests of his new public position and his familys vast business holdings.

The matter has grown politically thorny in recent weeks as many opponents of Trumps policies have waged a campaign to boycott the familys brands and protest at its properties. The tensions underscore the difficulty Trump faces in carrying through on his vow to separate his presidency from his businesses  particularly given that he and his daughter have refused to divest their ownership stakes.

The president has faced criticism from ethics experts and Democratic lawmakers who have warned that his public power could be misused to enrich him and his family. Trump has turned over the management of his businesses to his two adult sons and a longtime executive.

Although Trump has said that most ethics laws and rules do not apply to the president, Conways stumble Thursday served as a reminder that staffers are nonetheless subject to those provisions.

The Conway episode followed other instances in which Trumps political rise and his presidency have provided a promotional platform for the family businesses.

1 of 10 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Controversial comments from Kellyanne Conway that made headlines View Photos Conway, counselor to President Trump, coined the term alternative facts and referred to a Bowling Green massacre that never happened. Caption Conway, counselor to President Trump, coined the term alternative facts and referred to a Bowling Green massacre that never happened. The government has many ways to surveil What I can say is there are many ways to surveil each other now, unfortunately, including microwaves that turn into cameras, et cetera, Conway told the Bergen Record in an interview Sunday. So we know that that is just a fact of modern life,Conway told ABCs Good Morning America. READ THE STORY Bill OLeary/The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue.

On Monday, first lady Melania Trump filed a lawsuit accusing a British news company of publishing an inaccurate story that hurt her ability to take advantage of a once in a lifetime opportunity to build her brand of jewelry and accessories. The lawsuit said that the August 2016 article, which falsely suggested that Melania Trump had once worked for an escort service, damaged her ability to build multimillion dollar business relationships for a multi-year term and damaged her brand during a time when Trump is one of the most photographed women in the world.

A day later, after ethics experts criticized the notion of Melania Trump attempting to make money from her public role, her attorney and a spokeswoman issued statements saying that the first lady has no intention of using her position for profit.

The first family has struggled to cleanse its public appearances of private entanglements.

In his official biography on the White House website, Donald Trump boasts of the success of the business he still owns and cites his book The Art of the Deal, which remains for sale.

Melania Trumps initial online biography referenced her jewelry line, once sold on the cable television channel QVC, and noted its trademark, a registration now overseen by a federal office led by her husband.

Ivanka Trump, whose brand includes dresses, shoes, skirts, handbags, jewelry and accessories, much of which is sold online and at dozens of the United States largest retailers and department-store chains, mixed her business and newly elevated political profile shortly after the election.

Hours after she was interviewed by CBSs 60 Minutes about her fathers victory, her jewelry line alerted journalists to the fact that she was wearing an Ivanka-brand diamond bracelet, which viewers could buy for $10,800.

Conways endorsement of Ivanka Trumps brand followed a tweet Wednesday by President Trump complaining that his daughter had been treated so unfairly by the department store Nordstrom, which dropped her clothing line, citing slow sales.

Conway touted Ivanka Trumps wonderful line of clothing and shoes during an interview Thursday morning with Fox & Friends from the White House briefing room.

Responding to national boycotts of Ivanka Trump merchandise, Conway said, Go buy Ivankas stuff is what I would tell you.

Im going to give a free commercial here, she added. Go buy it today, everybody. You can find it online.

Experts quickly seized on Conways remarks as a direct violation of Office of Government Ethics rules. Don W. Fox, a former OGE acting director and general counsel, said Conways statements were jaw-dropping and a clear violation of rules prohibiting misuse of public office for anyones private gain.

Peter Schweizer, who has worked closely with Trump chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon and wrote a book, Clinton Cash, that was critical of donations to the Clinton Foundation, said, Theyve crossed a very, very important, bright line, and its not good.

To encourage Americans to buy goods from companies owned by the first family is totally out of bounds and needs to stop, Schweizer added. Clearly, the Trumps feel some of this is related to politics. But whether thats true or not, these marketing battles need to be fought by Ivanka and her company. They cannot and should not be fought by government employees and the White House.

Schweizer said that it was time for Trump to move beyond the mind-set and the role of a businessman and assume the mantle of commander in chief.

Federal law states that the director of the Office of Government Ethics can advise the White House and Conway of the violation and recommend disciplinary action. But the OGEs recommendations are nonbinding, and the ultimate decision resides with the White House.

OGE officials did not respond to requests for comment. By midmorning, the agencys website had crashed, and the OGEs official Twitter account said that the offices phone and email systems were receiving an extraordinary volume of citizen input about recent events.

The office tweeted that its role is to help prevent ethics violations but not to investigate allegations that rules have been broken  a job reserved for the FBI, inspectors general and other watchdogs. Still, the OGE notifies agencies of possible ethics violations and asks for reports on any action taken, a process the office indicated it is actively following, according to the OGEs tweets.

Experts said that a typical executive-branch employee who violated the endorsement rule could face significant disciplinary action, including a multi-day suspension and loss of pay. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees, for instance, face a five-day suspension or termination for using public office for private gain.

But enforcement measures are largely left to the head of the federal agency  in Conways case, the White House. Conways counseling, independent lawyers said, could have included a meeting with members of the White House counsels office, but it remained unclear what disciplinary steps would be taken.

Independent ethics groups and Trump critics targeted the endorsement as a make-or-break moment for how the White House will address future ethical concerns.

Noah Bookbinder, director of the liberal Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which filed an official ethics complaint, called Conways comments just another example of what looks like a disturbing pattern of this administration acting to benefit the businesses of the presidents family and supporters.

Conways endorsement of Ivanka Trumps business also highlighted an awkward reality for a White House threatening U.S. companies seeking to move jobs or operations overseas. Nearly all Ivanka-brand merchandise is manufactured in low-cost-labor countries, including China, Indonesia and Vietnam.

The president and his daughter have taken steps to put distance between their private companies and public ambitions. Both resigned their official leadership roles in the Trump Organization.

Ivanka Trump retains a financial interest in her separate business. The Trump company says the president does not have a financial interest or ownership stake in the Ivanka brand.

[Fact Checker: Trumps claim Ivanka is being treated so unfairly by Nordstrom]
Rep. candidate Sean Patrick Maloney speaks at Pace University in New York. He conducted an independent autopsy of House Democrats 2016 election performance that may turn conventional widsom on its head. (AP Photo/Stuart Ramson, File, Pool) (Stuart Ramson/AP)

Rep. Sean Maloney has one of the most sensitive jobs in Washington.

The third-term Democrat, representing parts of New Yorks Hudson Valley, is leading a review into what House Democrats did wrong in 2016. Its a bit like working internal affairs of a police force, essentially investigating his own party and trying to explain what needs to be done differently next time around.

What hes found, so far, in his independent autopsy of the House Democrats disappointing performance in the 2016 elections is a mix of optimistic and depressing news. We can win where we used to struggle, and were struggling a bit where we used to win, Maloney said in an hour-long interview here at the Democratic policy retreat, on the eve of a 90-minute presentation he made Thursday afternoon.

He means that there are House districts that Democrats have competed in, or even represented for a long time, that have moved so sharply away from Democrats that they need to reassess whether to compete there ever again. Yet there is also an emerging set of districts that have long been held by Republicans that are now bending toward Democrats faster than even the most optimistic strategists envisioned.

The ones now on the table? Longtime Republican districts that are becoming more demographically diverse. Off the table may be rural districts with little diversity, the very places where President Trump did well in 2016.

With the help of two aides, Maloney set up shop inside the offices of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and has examined 127 House races from the 2016 cycle, interviewing more than 50 campaign managers and candidates. Hes nothing but complimentary to the DCCC staff and its chairman, Rep. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.), who was elected to a second term to run the House campaign operation despite a disappointing 2016. With Trumps unexpected win, the party gained just six House seats after leaders predicted a gain of more than 20.

The Maloney review is one that rank-and-file lawmakers pushed as an independent check on the campaign, running parallel but separate from the deep dive that Lujan is overseeing. Theres a natural tension to what Maloney is doing, and as votes finished late Tuesday afternoon, he and Lujan could be seen having a long, animated discussion on the House floor. Lujan joined Maloney for Thursdays presentation here.

A lawyer, Maloney is a bit obsessed with data, and he said he believes there are 350 unique characteristics that can be applied to every House race that will indicate which direction it will go.

Some findings are surprising. Did the unemployment rate matter or not? he said. Turns out it doesnt matter much at all.

Maloney also wants to abandon the longtime party metric used by operatives known as the Democratic Performance Index, a complicated formula based on presidential and congressional candidate performance in specific House districts. Instead, he said, the three biggest predictors of the partisan bent of a House district are the percentage of it that is rural, how much of its population has received college degrees and how diverse it is.

We need to get out of the past. Our tools need to get out of the past, Maloney said.

This means that Democrats made mistakes in places such as Iowas 1st Congressional District and Minnesotas 2nd Congressional District, seats that in the summer of 2016 Democrats expected to win. But both are very rural and are not diverse. Rep. Rod Blum (R-Iowa) won reelection by nearly eight percentage points in a district that swung from twice voting for Barack Obama for president to supporting Donald Trump, and Rep. Jason Lewis (R-Minn.) won his first election despite a long career of controversial statements as a radio talk-show host.

Two highlights for Democrats came in highly educated suburban districts: in northern New Jersey, where Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D) ousted a seven-term Republican; and outside Orlando, where Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D) knocked off a 23-year incumbent.

Some of this wont be news to Lujan and senior DCCC staff, because they have already launched a Majority Project in these emerging districts. In private they admit they realized too late that Trump was speeding up the shift of well-educated suburbanites toward the Democrats, leaving too many Republicans facing inferior opponents last year in potentially competitive races.

Still, Lujan told reporters he has put pollsters and consultants on notice they might be losing their contracts because they were too far off the mark in some of their assessments, particularly in rural districts.

Whats most disturbing for Democrats is just how badly their candidates did in some places. In Denvers eastern suburbs, Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) won a fourth term by more than eight percentage points despite a relentless DCCC investment there; Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) won the suburban district north of Philadelphia previously held by his brother by nine percentage points; and in the Twin Cities suburbs, Rep. Erik Paulsen (R) won a fifth term by an astounding 13 percentage points.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton won Coffmans and Paulsens districts by nine percentage points over Trump, and Fitzpatricks district was essentially a tie in the presidential race.

Maloney summed up those suburban follies in the most basic terms: Candidates still matter.

The question neither Maloney nor Lujan will answer is whether they should recruit moderate to conservative candidates in rural districts or just abandon them altogether.

A beta test for 2018 will come in two special elections this spring to replace House members getting elevated to Trumps Cabinet. Democrats regularly win governors and Senate races in Montana, where Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) is set to become interior secretary, but its unclear whether the DCCC will invest in that mostly rural at-large district.

Instead, Maloney said, Watch the special election for Tom Prices seat in suburban Atlanta.

Rep. Price (R-Ga.), who is expected to win confirmation as Trumps health secretary, has never faced a difficult race in 12 years in Congress, but his district snapped from favoring Republican Mitt Romney by 14 percentage points over Obama in 2012 to a narrow win for Trump of just two percentage points.

Thats one of 10 seats held by a Republican that Clinton lost by less than four percentage points, and there are another 23 GOP seats that Clinton won.

We need to see those opportunities, and we need to take advantage of them, Maloney said.

Read more from Paul Kanes archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
A Kenyan court ruled Thursday against government plans to close the worlds largest refugee camp, which officials have claimed also serves as a foothold and recruiting ground for Islamist militants.

The courts decision offers some breathing room to the mostly Somali refugees in the sprawling Dadaab camp, which holds hundreds of thousands of people fleeing unrest in Somalia.

It also could force Kenyan authorities to draft another strategy for dealing with the camp, which the government insists is infiltrated by Islamist militant groups such as al-Shabab. Kenya has never made public any evidence to back up its assertions.

Meanwhile, human rights groups and others have denounced Kenyas plans, saying it would put refugees lives at risk by sending them back.

[In Dadaab, one man tries to explain Trump to those now banned]





Al-Shabab, which has carried out attacks in Somalia for years, also has struck in Kenya, which sent troops to Somalia in 2011 to fight the militants. The attacks include a September 2013 rampage at the Westgate mall in Nairobi that killed 67 people, and a 2015 massacre at Garissa University in northeastern Kenya that killed 148 people, mostly students.

The immediate effect of the ruling is a halt to an ongoing process of repatriating Somali refugees to their war-torn country.

At Dadaabs peak in 2011, its population surged well above 500,000, and it was dubbed the worlds largest refugee camp. Last year, U.N. officials said the number had fallen to 350,000. Kenyan officials give a lower estimate.

In his ruling, High Court Judge John Mativo said the decision to repatriate refugees was unconstitutional and an act of Somali refugees persecution. The judge also said that Kenyan Interior Ministry officials acted beyond their powers in issuing directives to close down the camp.

One refugee in Dadaab, Fatma Ahmed, called the court ruling good news . . . but not the best.

This will give us more time to plan whats next, said Ahmed, a 20-year-old mother of two children. At least we do not have to go back to Somalia, but that means we have to remain here in the camp for quite some time because it will now be almost impossible to go to the U.S.

[Somalis new president is also an American]

Many refugees had hoped to reach the United States, which has Somali communities in several states. But the Trump administrations travel ban  now in limbo as a legal challenge plays out  included Somalia among seven majority-Muslim nations whose citizens are temporarily barred from entering the United States.

Last May, the Kenyan government cited security concerns as it announced it would close the camp in northeastern Kenya near the Somali border.

The court decision came a day after a former Somali prime minister and dual U.S. citizen, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, was announced as the winner of the countrys long-delayed presidential election.

The news hasnt reached most people yet. People are still celebrating the election of the new Somali president, said Hassan Mohammed, a refugee. By tomorrow, when everyone has the news, there should be more celebrations.

Close to 10,000 refugees have been repatriated so far since late 2013 following the signing of a three-party accord by Kenya, Somalia and the U.N. refugee agency.

Human rights groups have opposed closure of the camp. Last year, Human Rights Watch called the repatriation of Somalis from Dadaab a violation of international refugee standards.

A statement from Human Rights Watch on Thursday said the refugees had faced months of anxiety because of the planned closure and increasingly restricted asylum options and the recent U.S. administration suspension of refugee resettlement.

It added, The courts judgment offers Somali refugees a hope that they may still be have a choice other than returning to insecure and drought-ridden Somalia.

Read more:

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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French farmer Cedric Herrou speaks to reporters upon leaving the courthouse of Nice, southeastern France, on Jan. 4 after his trial for allegedly assisting migrants to enter and remain illegally in France. (Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images)

The house, if you can call it that, is nearly impossible to find. Unless you happen to be a migrant  then you probably know the place. And, by word of mouth, its owner.

A self-described extreme leftist with the requisite beard and unruly ponytail, Cedric Herrou  once an auto mechanic, then a steeplejack  is now technically an olive farmer, living out of a crumbling, 19th-century cottage in the middle of nowhere, on a rocky incline high above a riverbed. But Herrous focus is no longer the picholines that grow on his trees. These days, what matters are the migrants.

For the past two years, Herrou, 37, has continually defied French authorities by shepherding undocumented migrants across the Italian border and onto his hillside farm. As many as 60, he says, have stayed on his land at one time, some after knocking on his door in the dead of night. Herrou, like other good Samaritans in Britain and Scandinavia, is now on trial, accused of helping undocumented foreigners enter, move about and reside in France. He faced a possible sentence of five years in prison as well as a fine of 30,000 euros ($32,000) if convicted.

On Friday, he was fined 3,000 euros and given a suspended sentence. But Herrou vowed not to give up the fight: We will continue because it is necessary to continue, he said, speaking outside the courthouse in Nice.

As France struggles to navigate the tidal wave of migration that has crashed onto European shores in recent years, the case of this obscure mechanic-turned-farmer has electrified a nation that has remained comparatively inhospitable to refugees. At its core is an uncomfortable question about the moral obligations of French citizenship. In times like these, does being French mean following the letter of the law, which indeed prohibits undocumented foreigners? Or does it mean upholding the lofty, humanitarian values of the French republic in spite of its laws?

(James McAuley/The Washington Post)

Herrou  and the thousands who have rallied to his defense across the country  insist on the latter. As was widely reported in French media during his trial last month, he responded to a judge who asked him why he had helped migrants across the border with a simple phrase.

I am a Frenchman, Herrou said.

Theres much to criticize about it today, but France is a country with values that are beautiful  the rights of man, the protection of children, and the social welfare we have, Herrou said in an interview Wednesday, sitting on the terrace of his cottage, sipping coffee he had made in his alfresco kitchen. All of which we are in the process of losing.

He was brandishing a sizzling skillet in front of the last of the migrants staying on his land: Mohamed, 19, from Sudan, who had made his way into Libya and across the central Mediterranean to Lampedusa and then onto the Italian mainland. Herrou had found Mohamed wandering in the valley earlier in the week and quickly taken him in.

I worry about this one, Herrou said. He doesnt eat much.

Typically, Herrou said, he collects migrants from a church in nearby Ventimiglia, Italy, where many  most often from sub-Saharan Africa  live in a squalid camp along a set of abandoned train tracks outside of town. Then he drives them across the French border in the same beat-up blue van he uses on the farm.

Entry into France tends to be safer on the back roads than through the train stations, where  in spectacles eerily reminiscent of the hunts for Jewish stowaways during World War II  French police repeatedly stop and comb trains for migrants without the right papers.

This is precisely what happened Tuesday afternoon at the Menton-Garavan station, the last stop in France before the Italian border. A squadron of the French National Police flanked Cheick Isaac Binate, 21, from Ivory Coast, on the platform and deposited him on the 3:40 p.m. train for Ventimiglia.

Dont you worry! Binate screamed as the officers shoved him on the train and waited for it to pull out of the station.

All of the officers involved declined to comment.

Once on the Italian side, Binate  who had also arrived in Europe via Libya and Lampedusa  explained that he had crossed the French border late Sunday night with hopes of making it to the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis to find his aunt. The French police had caught him in Nice earlier on Tuesday trying to board a Paris-bound train with papers that had expired in mid-November.

When he struggled with the officers, Binate said, one of them struck him over the head, leaving a bloody gash, which he bent over to show. I had a positive idea of France, the country of human rights, of legality, he said. But theres nothing to see of that here. Even still, he vowed to try again.

Back on the French side of the border, Herrou scoffed at the notion that many now consider him a hero.

Im not doing this for the money or the material benefit. When you dont live for that, the notion of your house and my house being somehow separate doesnt apply, he said.

Herrou sees the problem on the border as less about a society shutting its doors on foreigners than about people willing to tolerate indecency beyond the scope of their immediate concerns.

Everyone should go out in the streets and try to solve whatever problems they see, he said. Thats what democracy is. Its not staying at home and sharing things on Facebook. Its positioning ourselves to live better together.

And if we have to fight against the state to do it, then we have an obligation to do so.

Read more

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Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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Refugee kids play with the snow in the refugee camp of Malakasa, north of Athens, on Jan. 12. (Orestis Panagiotou/Europress Photo Agency)

A former child refugee, Alfred Dubs was elated in May when he helped force the British government to accept unaccompanied refugee children from other European countries.

Less than a year later, the Czechoslovakia-born Dubs, a member of the opposition Labour Party, is trying to prevent the closure of the refugee program he helped spearhead.

The British government announced quietly Wednesday that it would limit the number of lone child refugees brought in from Europe under the Dubs Amendment to 350  far fewer than the 3,000 that campaigners wanted.

The rollback, however, reflects forces that resonate across the West as many countries tighten immigration policies, rethink the size of their welcome mat for refugees, fret over perceived threats to their culture  and watch a landmark court battle play out in the United States over the Trump administrations entry ban on refugees and on citizens from seven Muslim-majority nations.

[Britain will start taking in child refugees, as it did before World War II]

British Prime Minister Theresa May said at a news conference Thursday that President Trumps ban was wrong and divisive and not something that Britain would do. She also insisted that Britains approach to child refugees is absolutely right and said that Britain is helping refugees from Syria.

What we are doing in terms of refugees is absolutely right, on top, of course, of the significant financial support and humanitarian aid we are giving to refugees in the region of Syria  a commitment of 2.3 billion pounds, the second-biggest bilateral donor, she said.

Dubs, whose father was Jewish and who entered Britain at age 6 on one of the famed Kindertransports out of Nazi-occupied Europe, disagreed. They have no right to stop it at any point on any basis. Its going against the whole tenor of the parliamentary debate, Dubs, 84, said in an interview with The Washington Post.

Britain is not the only country in Europe wrestling with its stance on immigration and refugees. In Germany, for instance, Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is facing an election this year, has recently taken a tougher position on deporting rejected asylum seekers. Germany deported 620 unaccompanied minors in 2016.

Amber Rudd, Britains home secretary, defended the governments decision, telling Parliament on Thursday that the initiative risked encouraging traffickers and suggested that local councils did not have the capacity to accept more children.

In a statement Wednesday, the British government said that 200 children had arrived from France and that 150 more were expected next month. A spokesman for the Home Office said that a total of 350 children would be accepted under the Dubs program.

[They were rescued as kids in WWII. Now they want to help todays refugee children.]

Last year, Dubs sponsored an amendment to the governments immigration bill that required Britain to make arrangements for the safe passage of unaccompanied refugee children who arrived in the European Union before March 20, 2016. The government never agreed to a specific number, but Dubs originally proposed that it take 3,000 children.

In a passionate address in the House of Commons on Thursday, Yvette Cooper, a Labour politician who chairs the Home Affairs Committee, urged the British government to reconsider.

Where does it say that instead of the 3,000 that Parliament debated that we will only help one-tenth of that number? she said. Britain can do better than this.

Some have suggested that by limiting the number of refugees allowed in by this route, May is moving Britain in the direction of Trumps immigration policies.

Mays treatment of refugee children is appalling, and shows how close she has moved to the policies of Trump, the Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said in a statement.

But Rudd insisted that the United Kingdom was not turning its back on vulnerable children, and that it would focus on supporting those in Syria and the region.

The U.K. has a strong reputation, in Europe and internationally, for looking after the most vulnerable that will continue, she said. We have a different approach to where the most vulnerable are. We believe that they are in the region. Thats why we have made a pledge to accept 3,000 children from the region and we are committed to delivering on that. They are the most vulnerable.

Campaigners have indicated that the decision to end the Dubs scheme could face a legal challenge.

Read more:

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Britain to begin taking in eligible children from Calais refugee camp

France gets ready to dismantle the Jungle. But what happens to the refugee children?

Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
Senior defense and intelligence officials have cautioned the White House that a proposal to designate Irans Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization could endanger U.S. troops in Iraq and the overall fight against the Islamic State, and would be an unprecedented use of a law that was not designed to sanction government institutions.

Defense and intelligence concerns have been expressed at the highest levels over the past several days, as the White House was preparing to roll out an executive order dealing with both Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Muslim Brotherhood, according to administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive matter.

The order would direct the State Department  in charge of the designation process  to move toward declaring them terrorist organizations.

[Trump administration sanctions Iran over missile test ]

A senior White House official said the order was still under active consideration as part of the new administrations determination to take a hard line against Iran, but the official acknowledged concerns. I dont think its so much Defense and intelligence; I think its ourselves, the official said.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard troops march in a military parade marking the 36th anniversary of Iraq's 1980 invasion of Iran, in front of the shrine of late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, just outside Tehran, Iran on Sept. 21, 2016. (Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)

There are so many second, third and fifth order of effects with every decision, as we see it, and so I think that this is an area where, rightly so, we have to be very smart. . . . This all has to do with [Irans] behavior. What we have to do is figure out what are the right things to consider. We consider a lot of things. What we actually decide to do is different.

White House enthusiasm for the directives was high at the end of last week, with plans to release them as soon as Tuesday. But since then, national security agencies, still smarting from the White Houses failure to vet last months immigration order with them before President Trump signed it, have been concerned about a repeat of the criticism and chaos that ensued.

Asked about the order at Wednesdays White House briefing, press secretary Sean Spicer declined to make a specific comment, saying that there is no one who can question the presidents commitment to fully attacking and addressing the threat that we face from radical Islamic terrorism. . . . The first step is knowing and proclaiming who the enemy is.

Designating the Revolutionary Guard  a force of more than 100,000 that fields an army, navy and air force, in addition to wielding significant economic power  would mark the first time the Foreign Terrorist Organizations law has been applied to an official government institution. Created by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after the 1979 Islamic revolution as a counterweight to the suspect loyalties of the Iranian military, the Revolutionary Guard is both the guardian of internal security and a conventional fighting force that has been deployed overseas, including in Iraq and Syria.

[Irans supreme leader thanks Trump for revealing the real face of the United States]

The Revolutionary Guard, including its Quds Force, the elite international operations wing, and a number of Guard-affiliated companies and individuals, were placed on a sanctions list by the Treasury Department in 2007 for terrorist activities and support. The proposed Foreign Terrorist Organization designation by the State Department, however, would have far broader impact on the ability of Iranians to travel and access the international financial system.

Although the Obama administration considered taking such action, it ultimately decided it was not useful, according to a former senior national security official

This former official and others also noted that Iran is one of three countries, including Syria and Sudan, that the United States has labeled state sponsors of terrorism, a designation that brings its own strict sanctions.

The FTO has until now been applied only to nonstate actors, including groups such as al-Qaeda and 60 others on the list. One official said that designating the Revolutionary Guard was comparable in scale and complication to a foreign power declaring the military of another country a terrorist organization.

The designation also prohibits any material support or other kinds of contact with the sanctioned entity, an issue that arose when Obamas State Department attempted to address the problem of the Mujahideen-e Khalq, or MEK, an anti-Khomeini Iranian group that relocated to Iraq after the 1979 revolution and was placed on the FTO list in 1997.

The Shiite-dominated government friendly to Iran that took over Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion there rejected the group, which was then placed under U.S. protection despite its terrorist designation. The MEK was removed from the FTO list in 2012.

A similar effort is underway in Congress to designate the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, with legislation introduced last month by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.).

Although there is no love lost between the Defense Department and the Revolutionary Guard, defense officials worry the designation could affect indirect contacts the U.S. military maintains with Quds Force-organized- and maintained Shiite militias in Iraq.

Many of those groups include Shiite fighters who regularly attacked U.S. forces occupying Iraq until the end of 2011, when the U.S. military withdrew. Although there were initial problems when the Americans returned, beginning in 2014, to help Iraq combat the Sunni Muslim Islamic State, they have found themselves on the same side against the militants.

Although the two forces now operate in proximity to one another, especially in and around the major offensive underway in Mosul, there has been tacit agreement, negotiated through the Iraqi government, to keep their distance and avoid clashes. The concern is that any upset in that tenuous arrangement could undermine the counterterrorism war, possibly even leading to renewed Shiite attacks against U.S. forces, officials said.

A new move against the Revolutionary Guard would also likely buttress the position of internal Iranian hard-liners against President Hassan Rouhani, whose government negotiated the 2015 Iran nuclear deal with the United States and other world powers. Preserving Rouhani, with a presidential election due in May, is unlikely to be a priority for the Trump administration, however, which has called the agreement a bad deal that has encouraged Irans malign behavior in other areas. Last week the administration imposed new sanctions against 25 Iranian individuals and entities in response to a ballistic missile test that it said contravened the nuclear agreement.

[Iran holds military exercises in response to U.S. sanctions]

Terrorist designation of the Muslim Brotherhood, a religious and social movement founded nearly 100 years ago in Egypt, would pose different problems.

Experts disagree on what this would accomplish, noting that the Brotherhood is not a single organization but a broad, transnational movement of Sunni Muslims whose individual factions differ widely in both goals and activities in various nations.

In Egypt, where Trump is seeking a stronger relationship, the current military government overthrew an elected Muslim Brotherhood government in 2013, calling it a terrorist organization. Other U.S. allies, including Turkey, consider it a legitimate political organization; in Jordan, the Muslim Brotherhood party makes up 10 percent of the parliament.

Correction: A quote attributed to a senior White House official in an earlier version of this story has been changed to correct a one-word transcription error.

Read more:

Trump wants to push back against Iran, but Iran is now more powerful than ever

Taunts and threats mark first exchanges between U.S. and Iran in the Trump era

Pentagon leader assumes new role: Turning down the temperature on Trump
A federal appeals panel has maintained the freeze on President Trumps controversial immigration order, meaning previously barred refugees and citizens from seven majority-Muslim countries can continue entering the United States.

In a unanimous 29-page opinion, three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit flatly rejected the governments argument that suspension of the order should be lifted immediately for national security reasons, and they forcefully asserted their ability to serve as a check on the presidents power.

The judges wrote that any suggestion that they could not runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy.

[7 key take-aways from the courts ruling on Trumps immigration order]

The judges did not declare outright that the ban was meant to disfavor Muslims  essentially saying it was too early for them to render a judgment on that question. But their ruling is undeniably a blow to the government and means the travel ban will remain off for the foreseeable future.

Trump reacted angrily on Twitter, posting just minutes after the ruling, SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE! He later said to reporters that the judges had made a political decision.

We have a situation where the security of our country is at stake, and its a very, very serious situation, so we look forward, as I just said, to seeing them in court, he said.

On Friday, Trump continued to take aim at the ruling. He posted on Twitter a quote from a Lawfare article, which noted the judges had not cited in their opinion the section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that gives the president broad powers to stop foreigners from entering the United States.

What Trump failed to note is the articles author said he felt the courts decision was correct  for the simple reason that there is no cause to plunge the country into turmoil again while the courts address the merits of these matters over the next few weeks. The judges, too, noted they owe considerable deference to the Presidents policy determinations with respect to immigration and national security, and their decision  for now  was limited to whether the government had an immediate need to put the ban back in place.

The Justice Department, the Lawfare piece added, had submitted no evidence to rebut the States argument that the district courts order merely returned the nation temporarily to the position it has occupied for many previous years, adding that the government may yet pursue and vindicate its interests in the full course of this litigation.

The Justice Department, which was defending the administrations position, said in a statement it was reviewing the decision and considering its options.

Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who had sued over the ban, said, Bottom line, this is a complete victory for the state of Washington, and declared that the judges ruling effectively granted everything we sought.

[Read the 9th Circuits opinion on the travel ban]

The Justice Department could now ask the Supreme Court  which often defers to the president on matters of immigration and national security  to intervene. The Supreme Court, though, remains one justice short, and many see it as ideologically split 4 to 4. A tie would keep in place whatever the appeals court decides. The Justice Department could also ask the full 9th Circuit to consider the matter.

The appeals court opinion was written by Judge Michelle T. Friedland, who was appointed by President Barack Obama; Judge Richard R. Clifton, who was appointed by President George W. Bush; and Judge William C. Canby, who was appointed by President Jimmy Carter. It was detailed, but it does not represent a final judgment on Trumps immigration ban.

Last Friday, U.S. District Judge James L. Robart granted the states of Washington and Minnesota a temporary restraining order on the ban. The appeals court judges noted their ruling was a preliminary one, and they were deciding only whether the government had made a strong showing of its likely success in getting the restraining order thrown out.

Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, said on Fox News: This ruling does not affect the merits at all. It is an interim ruling, and were fully confident now that well get our day in court and have an opportunity to argue this on the merits, that well prevail.

The ruling, though, is critically important  as Trumps ban on refugees lasts only 120 days, and his ban on visitors from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen lasts only 90 days. The judges also said that while the states of Washington and Minnesota had made serious allegations  and the impact of the order was immediate and widespread  the government had not pointed to any substantive evidence to support its need for the ban.

The Government has pointed to no evidence that any alien from any of the countries named in the Order has perpetrated a terrorist attack in the United States, the judges wrote. Rather than present evidence to explain the need for the Executive Order, the Government has taken the position that we must not review its decision at all.

[Travelers from Iran board flights to the United States following stay, attorney says]

The states have alleged that the executive order harms their businesses and universities, preventing some students and faculty from traveling abroad for fear of being stranded and diminishing the sales tax revenue they receive.

Legislators and others who had opposed the ban hailed the judges ruling and urged Trump to back down.

President Trump ought to see the handwriting on the wall that his executive order is unconstitutional, said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). He should abandon this proposal, roll up his sleeves and come up with a real, bipartisan plan to keep us safe.

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said, If the President were serious about bringing our country together and keeping us safe, he would rescind this arbitrary and discriminatory order and recall what makes our country great.

Hillary Clinton, who lost the presidency to Trump in November, posted on Twitter simply, 3-0.

Federal immigration law undeniably gives the president broad authority to bar people from coming into the United States, stating that if the president finds the entry of any aliens would be detrimental to the countrys interests, he can impose restrictions. But lawsuits across the country have alleged that Trumps particular order ran afoul of the Constitution in that it intentionally discriminated against Muslims.

At a hearing Tuesday, Justice Department lawyer August Flentje vigorously disputed that the measure was intended to target Muslims. In their ruling, the judges did not reveal their opinion on that question, although they noted Washington and Minnesota had offered evidence of numerous statements by the President about his intent to implement a Muslim ban as well as evidence they claim suggests that the Executive Order was intended to be that ban.

Former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani recently said publicly: So when [Trump] first announced it, he said, Muslim ban. He called me up. He said: Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally.  On the campaign trail, Trump himself called for a complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the country.

The appeals court judges had questioned both sides skeptically at Tuesdays hearing, seeming particularly interested in what evidence Trump relied upon in implementing his order and what limits the Justice Department saw on the presidents authority to set immigration policy. While Flentje urged them to restore the measure completely, he also at one point offered a fallback position. The judges, he suggested, could limit Robarts order so that it applied only to foreigners previously admitted to the country who were abroad now or those who wished to travel and return to the United States in the future.

[Trump decries disgraceful opposition as appeals court weighs immigration order]

They declined to do even that, saying, as written, the presidents executive order could apply even to green-card holders  which it once seemed to do, although the White House counsel later issued guidance saying it did not. The judges said the Justice Department had offered no authority establishing that the White House counsel is empowered to issue an amended order superseding the Executive Order, and in light of the Governments shifting interpretations of the Executive Order, they were not convinced that guidance would hold.

Trump and his supporters have pressed the case that the short-term stoppage on refugees and immigrants from the seven countries is necessary for national security reasons, and they have leveled blunt criticism at the courts. Trump went so far as to suggest on Twitter that if an attack were to happen, the judiciary would be to blame. On Wednesday, he denounced arguments about his order as disgraceful and said a bad high school student would understand the broad authority the law gives him to impose immigration restrictions.

A day earlier, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told Congress that he thought judges might be considering the issue from an academic perspective instead of the national security lens through which he views the world.

[Trump lashes out at so-called judge who temporarily blocked entry ban]

Of course, in their courtrooms, theyre protected by people like me, Kelly said.

Federal courts in New York, California and elsewhere already had blocked aspects of the ban from being implemented, although one federal judge in Massachusetts declared that he did not think that challengers had demonstrated that they had a high likelihood of success. The case before the 9th Circuit, though, was much broader than the others, because it stemmed from a federal judges outright halting of the ban.

Abby Phillip and John Wagner contributed to this report.

Read more:

Denied Entry: Stories of refugees and immigrants barred from the U.S.

Donald Trump destroyed my life, says barred Iraqi who worked for U.S.
If President Trump hires Elliott Abrams as the No. 2 at the State Department, he will be sending several important signals on the administrations emerging foreign policy, especially regarding Israel, and on his own tolerance for dissenting views.

Abrams is fiercely pro-Israel, and his inclusion at a high level in the State Department would be another sign that the Trump administration intends to remake U.S.-Israel policy after what Trump sees as the failures of the Obama years. It also suggests that Trump plans to quickly make good on Trumps pledge to seek a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

Best known for his role in the Reagan-era Iran-contra scandal, Abrams interviewed for the deputy secretary of state job Tuesday at the White House. The nomination could come within days, ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus visit to the White House next week.

If he is chosen, Abrams is expected to play a major role in the administrations effort to resume negotiations toward a peace settlement or smaller, interim agreements. That effort is likely to be headquartered at the White House under presidential adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner. While Kushner has no government experience, and other influential Trump advisers on Israel have little, Abrams would bring decades of experience and extensive contacts across the Middle East.

Ghaith Al-Omari, a former Palestinian peace negotiator, praised what he called Abramss solid grounding in reality and learned understanding of the problem.

As importantly, he was an effective counterpart to work with: He got things done, Omari said.

Paula Dobriansky, who served in the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations, is another potential choice for deputy. The post often goes to an experienced bureaucrat or a career Foreign Service officer. Although recent secretaries of state have had two deputies, the Trump administration might fill only one slot, according to current and former officials.

Abramss White House visit is the clearest sign yet that he has become the leading candidate, people familiar with the search said. Through an assistant, Abrams declined to comment. A White House spokesman did not respond to a request for information about the meeting between Trump and Abrams.

An appointment under Trump would be Abramss third stint in government, all for Republican presidents, and the most surprising.

As a candidate, Trump pilloried the views of neoconservatives such as Abrams, especially in relation to their support for the Iraq War. He vowed to break free of constraints on U.S. actions abroad that he said were the false constructs of a Washington foreign policy establishment that Abrams undoubtedly represents.

Abrams supported two of Trumps Republican rivals during the presidential campaign, Sens. Ted Cruz (Tex.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.), and declined to back the businessman once he became the GOP nominee.

Trump and chief adviser Stephen K. Bannon prize loyalty, and the administration turned its back on Republicans who signed manifestos calling Trump unqualified on national security grounds. Abrams did not sign those letters but wrote last year that Republicans had chosen someone who could not win. Questions about his loyalty are a main reason for the long delay in announcing a nominee for the deputy job at State, people familiar with the process said.

Abrams has no personal history with either Trump or Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who also attended the Tuesday meeting at the White House.

But Abramss knowledge of Washington appealed to Tillerson, who has no government background, one official said. As Abramss stock rose as a potential deputy to Tillerson, current and former officials and others involved in Middle East peace issues were encouraged.

James J. Carafano, head of foreign and defense policy analysts at the Heritage Foundation, said Abrams knows the State Department well and believes American diplomacy is important.

Hes a tough, thick-skinned guy, Carafano said. Thats what you need as a deputy. Its not a job where you make a lot of friends.

Hes a guy a lot of conservatives trust, he said of Abrams. I dont think hes intensely ideological. He makes each decision on its merits.

Carafano said he expects Trump to brush off Abramss criticism of him during the campaign.

He respects expertise and leadership, he said of Trump. I dont think he keeps score. If he thinks someone is good for the team and gives honest, straightforward advice, hell be fine.

Within the State Department, Abrams developed a reputation as a manager who listened to alternative viewpoints before making a decision. His appointment would come as a welcome relief to employees who were dreading the prospects of another former diplomat whose name was floated as a deputy, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton.

Hes not going to burn the building down, said a State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to comment on a personnel issue.

David Makovsky, an adviser on the Middle East under President Barack Obama, witnessed the collapse of former secretary of state John F. Kerrys peace efforts.

Adding Elliot would be a very important signal that someone who has experience in this issue will be very much at the center of administration policy, he said. I served in a Democratic administration, but I think it would be welcome across the board.

The bipartisan praise is all the more noteworthy for the fact that Abramss conviction for withholding information from Congress is seldom mentioned.

Abrams pleaded guilty in 1991 to concealing knowledge of the scheme to sell arms illegally to Iran and divert the profits to anti-communist rebels in Nicaragua.

Abrams was pardoned by President George H.W. Bush.

Carol Morello contributed to this report.
The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Jeff Sessions as the next attorney general, following a bitter debate in the chamber that saw Republicans formally rebuke Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) for the manner in which she criticized her colleague from Alabama.

Sessions, a four-term U.S. senator, was the first senator to endorse Trump in February 2016, and his conservative, populist views have shaped many of the administrations early policies, including on immigration.

The vote, 52-47 in favor of confirmation, ran largely down party lines. Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) was the only Democrat who supported him. Sessions voted present.

Republicans accused Democrats of seeking to undercut Trump by attempting to derail his cabinet choices. Its no secret that our Democrat colleagues dont like the new president and are doing what they can to undermine the new administration, said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the Judiciary Committee chairman.

He expressed disappointment in colleagues who, he said, suggested Sessions wont be able to put aside his policy preferences and enforce the law. This is especially troubling after he specifically committed to us during his confirmation hearing that, if hes confirmed, he will follow the law, regardless of whether he supported the statute as a policy matter, Grassley said.

(Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

[Republicans vote to rebuke Elizabeth Warren]

Leading Democrats have argued that Trumps criticisms of the federal courts over his immigration order makes the need for an attorney general who will be willing to disagree with the president even more urgent.

What weve seen is a president who belittles judges when they dont agree with him, said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). What weve seen is a president who is willing to shake the roots of the Constitution and a fundamental premise  no religious test  thats embodied in our Constitution within his first few weeks in office, Schumer said. We certainly need an attorney general who will stand up to that president . But [Sessions] is not, if you can say one thing about him, hes not independent of Donald Trump.

Sessions, 70, advanced out of the judiciary committee last week after a vote along party lines. The hearing took place after then-acting Attorney General, Sally Yates, an Obama administration holdover, had ordered the departments lawyers not to defend Trumps immigration order on grounds that she was not convinced it was lawful. Within hours, Trump fired her.

In his confirmation hearing last month, Sessions repeatedly vowed to put the law above his personal views. He said he would abide by the Supreme Court decision underpinning abortion rights and a court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. He said he understood that the waterboarding of terrorism suspects to elicit information is absolutely improper and illegal and, though he voted against it, he would uphold a law banning the governments bulk collection of phone records.

[Trumps pick for attorney general is shadowed by race and history]

He also declared that he would recuse himself from Justice Department probe of Hillary Clintons email practices or her familys charitable foundation, mindful that his previous comments could place my objectivity in question.

But he has repeatedly declined to say whether he would recuse himself from any investigation involving Trump associates and possible links to Russias interference in the presidential election, saying he would seek the recommendations of department ethics officials and value them significantly in making a decision.

Sessions confirmation leaves a vacancy that will be filled by Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, a Republican. That term ends in 2018.

A measure of the hostility that has permeated the confirmation process for Trumps cabinet nominees was reflected in the rare censure of Warren after she read from a letter written by the late Coretta Scott King in opposition to Sessions nomination to the federal bench in 1986.

The senator has impugned the motives and conduct of our colleague from Alabama, said Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) of Warren, before the Senate voted along party lines to bar the Massachusetts senator from speaking during the remainder of the nomination debate.

Sessions, who came of age in the Deep South during the darkest days of the civil rights movement, has struggled to reconcile the charged racial politics of his region with the changing national discourse that has lifted longstanding legal barriers for minorities. His career has long been shadowed by charges that he is racially insensitive, which doomed his bid to become a federal judge.

His supporters have pointed to his prosecution as U.S. Attorney of two Ku Klux Klan members for killing a black youth, and his co-sponsoring of legislation to honor civil rights activist Rosa Parks with the Congressional Gold Medal. To underscore the point, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) on Tuesday went to the floor and put on display an enlarged photograph of a governmental award of excellence given to Sessions in 2009 by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples Alabama chapter--an award that he said Sessions forgot to tell us about. The plaque was engraved with the words for the outstanding work you do.

Said Graham: His biggest crime is, I think, that hes very conservative. That to me is not a disqualifier, any more than being liberal is a disqualifier.

McConnell on Wednesday said, Its been tough to watch all this good man has been put through in recent weeks. This is a well-qualified colleague with a deep reverence for the law. He believes strongly in the equal application of it to everyone.

But Sessions critics point to his record on voting rights, same-sex marriage, gender equality and immigration and say they fear he will work to restrict civil rights. They point to his prosecution of voting rights activists in Alabama in the 1980s that resulted in an acquittal for all three defendants, and which was the basis of Kings letter charging him with attempting to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters.

He has voted at least twice against comprehensive immigration reform, which was supported by members of his own party. They note he was one of just four senators in 2015 to oppose a Senate resolution affirming that the United States must not bar individuals from entering into the United States based on their religion.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, said on the floor that her office had received 114,000 calls and emails regarding Sessions, with more than 98 percent opposed. She quoted from constitutents who deeply oppose this president and this nominee and have hit the streets in protest. One doctor, she said, marched because of the thousands of patients Ive seen in the community, people of color, immigrants from all over the globe, who are terrified about the loss of their rights and the dramatic explosion of racially and culturally-focused hate crimes were reading about.

She questioned how Sessions would handle the governments investigation of Russian interference in the election, which could lead to the prosecution of individuals who helped hack the Democratic party in an effort to help Trump win.

It obviously has the potential to create embarrassment for the president and his people, and to implicate people involved in the campaign, she said. Can [Sessions] be independent of the White House? I do not believe he can.
Turkish forces and members of the Free Syrian Army are seen on the outskirts of al-Bab in Syria on Feb. 4, 2017. (Khalil Ashawi/Reuters)

A Russian airstrike in northern Syria killed three Turkish soldiers and wounded 11 others Thursday, in a friendly fire incident that could test the shaky coordination between the two countries in the fight against the Islamic State.

Russia and Turkey both described the morning attack as accidental, saying a bomb hit a building used by Turkish troops near the northern Syrian town of al-Bab. Turkish forces are launching an offensive to retake the town from the Islamic State.

The two countries quickly took steps to limit fallout from the incident. Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed condolences to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a telephone call and blamed the strike on poor coordination, according to a Kremlin spokesman. The Russian Defense Ministry said the strike was meant to hit Islamic State targets.

The deaths added to a heavy toll suffered by Turkish troops embroiled in an increasingly complicated and bloody fight to help Syrian rebels capture al-Bab from the Islamic State. Five died Wednesday, and the latest deaths brought the number of Turkish soldiers killed in the two-month battle to more than 60.

[Report: Syria has secretly executed thousands of political prisoners]





In a short statement, the Turkish armed forces said Russian officials had expressed their sadness and condolences. It added that investigation and studies related to the event will be carried out by both sides.

Moscow and Ankara appeared close to the brink of war in late 2015 after Turkish jets shot down a Russian warplane over Turkeys border with Syria. But Putin restored relations with Erdogan after a coup attempt nearly unseated the Turkish leader in July.

The two countries have increased their coordination in Syria, where Turkish-backed rebels have sought to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, a Moscow ally. Last month, Russia, Turkey and Iran hosted talks in Kazakhstan to manage a cease-fire between rebel factions and the Syrian government, and Russian and Turkish officials announced that they would begin coordinating strikes against the Islamic State.

The two countries relations have warmed despite dramatic incidents, including the assassination of Russias ambassador to Turkey in December by a gunman who yelled, God is great! and Dont forget Aleppo! Dont forget Syria!

[Trump to Erdogan: No decision yet on arming Kurds in Syria]

In recent days, rebel and Turkish reinforcements have been converging from the north on the outskirts of al-Bab for what rebel commanders said is expected to be a major push to eject the militants.

Meanwhile, Syrian government forces have also been advancing on the town from the south, setting up a race for control of al-Bab between Turkish-backed forces and those loyal to Assad.

Russia has been providing air support to both sides as they advance. It was unclear whether the errant strike Thursday was conducted in support of Syrian or Turkish operations there.

The attack also coincided with reports of the first direct clashes between Syrian forces and Turkish-backed rebels on the outskirts of al-Bab, threatening to turn the battle into a three-front, international war. Photographs posted on social media by rebel groups showed rebels driving an armored vehicle that was said to have been commandeered from government forces.

[The road to Raqqa: On the front line of a U.S.-backed advance]

Erdogan is hoping to persuade U.S. military commanders to partner with the Turkish-backed force fighting in Syria  rather than arm Syrian Kurdish fighters linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which is designated a terrorist group by Turkey and the United States. The ground force would be used in a final assault on the Islamic States self-proclaimed capital in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa.

President Trumps advisers have been skeptical about a plan to arm the Kurds but have not ruled it out.

Sly reported from Beirut. Kareem Fahim in Istanbul contributed to this report.

Read more:

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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Europe is top travel destination despite slowing growth

Iceland welcomed 40% more visitors in 2016

Europe remains the world's number one region as a travel destination - but tourism growth is slowing down, a travel industry report has said.

Europe welcomed 620 million international tourist arrivals in 2016, indicating tourism growth of 2%, according to data from the United Nations' World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO).

This compares with 5% growth for the previous year.

The impact of terror threats

In the European Travel Commission's (ETC) latest report, European Tourism - Trends and Prospects , the majority of destinations across the continent reported a "healthy" increase in the number of visitors over the past 12 months.

However, the impact of several European terrorism attacks triggering concerns about safety appear to be impacting holidaymakers' decisions to travel overseas.

In the wake of several terror attacks since 2015, visitors to Turkey have dropped by nearly a third (31%) in the last year, while Belgium tourism growth has dropped by 14%,

The ETC says market confidence needs to be rebuilt as destinations repair the damage from tragic security incidents.

Eduardo Santander, Executive Director of ETC, said: "European destinations acknowledge the need to remain competitive in a sector that is swiftly adapting to the diverse needs of travellers from both established and emerging markets.

"Only through increased commitment and cooperation from the European tourism authorities will Europe remain a competitive destination and will succeed in fostering inbound travel."

Britons undeterred by weak pound

The political uncertainty in the UK and the devaluation of the sterling has failed to derail travel demand among British tourists.

Almost 50% of destinations in Europe are experiencing double-digit growth from Britain, the ETC reports.

New airline routes to Iceland have helped the country achieve top spot as the destination experiencing highest growth, with tourism increasing by 40% for 2016.

Cyprus is next in line with 20%, followed by Slovakia at 19% and 16% growth in Bulgaria.

Anyone planning a European holiday can take out travel insurance to cover any eventuality.
On Monday, the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) submitted the paperwork to reapply for club status at New York University (NYU) after holding a well-attended rally and public meeting near campus last week. Roughly 400 students and faculty have signed a petition supporting the IYSSEs drive for official club status.

Last semester, the NYU administration and the Student Activities Board (SAB) denied the IYSSE club status on fraudulent and antidemocratic grounds, claiming that the school lacks the funds to support the club and that the IYSSE is insufficiently distinct from the International Socialist Organization (ISO).

The application begins by stating: The IYSSE represents the student movement of the Socialist Equality Party, a distinct political party with a unique history, perspective and program. The IYSSE is the only youth movement that adheres to orthodox Marxism. It is a Trotskyist party and it traces its roots through the struggle waged by Leon Trotsky against the Stalinist bureaucracy and the Russian Revolution of 1917 to the works of the original theorists of scientific socialism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

In response to the claim that the IYSSE and the ISO are too similar for both to merit clubs, the application states:

The IYSSE and ISO represent two historically distinct tendencies whose differences date back to 1939/1940 and have diverged sharply on practically every political question over three quarters of a century. In fact, it was at this very campus that major differences between the Trotskyists and the ISOs predecessors, who became known as the Shachtmanites, took acute form. In 1940, NYU Professor James Burnham split from the Trotskyist movement as a leader of the Shachtmanites. Burnham went on to become a major inspiration of the American neoconservative movement and editor of the National Review .

The IYSSE held a successful gathering off campus outside of Washington Square Park on February 2 that was attended by several dozen people. IYSSE and SEP speakers addressed the crowd and denounced Trump and the Democratic Party for laying the foundations for Trumps rise to power.

At the rally, SEP member Fred Mazelis told the NYU students in attendance: It is important and commendable that youth from this school have joined this demonstration. However, students who want to oppose inequality, deportations, and war must expand their horizons beyond this campus. They must turn to the working class, to the exploited and historically progressive force that is capable of transforming society and reorganizing it along socialist and egalitarian principles.

Another IYSSE member referenced the fact that at the time of the rally, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement was holding an informational session on campus to recruit agents: NYU has barred the IYSSE from club status, but it opens its doors to the government so that it can hire deportation agents. These officials will be responsible for splitting children from their mothers and deporting people back to the violence caused by American imperialism in Central America, the Middle East, and worldwide. The IYSSE categorically opposes this.

That night, the IYSSE held a public meeting titled The fight against the Trump administration: The way forward.

The meetings keynote speaker was Socialist Equality Party National Secretary Joseph Kishore, who addressed a room of over 40 attendees. Trump did not come out of nowhere, Kishore said, nor is he a blemish on an otherwise pristine democratic system in America. Trump is the product of a deep crisis in American capitalism, in which the Democratic as well as the Republicans have presided over growing inequality and non-stop war.

These are serious times, and serious times require serious politics, Kishore said. They require a rejection of pragmatic solutions. Among these is the idea that the Democratic Party can be transformed into an instrument for working people.

Kishore explained the emergence of Trump from a historical standpoint.

The Democratic Party has completely abandoned any pretense to be the party of social reform. Long gone are the days of the New Deal, the New Frontier, or the Great Society.

Beginning in the 1970s, Kishore explained, the American ruling class unleashed a period of social counterrevolution that each president has escalated. Obama, Kishore insisted, represented a continuation of these attacks on wages, living standards, and social programs, and an expansion of US imperialist wars abroad. The eight years of the Obama administration set the stage for Trump, Kishore explained, by increasing the powers of the military, the deportation machine, and the intelligence agencies and by driving tens of millions to abstain from voting.

The diverse crowd of mostly youth included high school students as well as students from NYU, CUNY, and Barnard.

Kyra, a first year student at NYU, explained, I thought the rally was interesting. I received a pamphlet for it a few days ago, and I think it is important to defend immigrant rights, she said. What I was surprised at was the speakers attacking the Democratic Party because I have always been aligned with it. But it is two weeks of the Trump administration, and things are scary.

Kyra agreed with connections the speakers brought out between US militarism and the refugee crisis. We have politicians who say they care about not starting another war, but they are the ones who made the problems themselves. The terrorists are the result of the US invasions of those countries. The refugees are just running from what we all detest. There is a tendency to blame the people who are the most disenfranchised for what is not their fault.

For me, it comes down to the haves and the have-nots, she added. I want to hear more.

Ali, a CUNY student who attended the meeting, gave his thoughts. Its only been two weeks since Trump took office, but it feels like two years with all thats happened. Its hard to process, he said. I think we got a detailed report with a lot of useful, significant information. To me the difference between the Democrats, the Republicans and the mainstream media are incidental. The message here needs to be widely disseminated.

Alissa first encountered the Socialist Equality Party in Washington D.C. on a high school class trip to Washington, D.C. to protest Trumps inauguration.

The speaker said Trump is a continuation from what was happening before. I am not a supporter of Trump but I want people to know that it is not true that this is just since Trumps been inaugurated. But now, more than ever, it is not going to go away, and not go away peacefully. That is because a lot of Trump supporters are not going to be peaceful. Trump supporters say he will give jobs back but he is against minorities and religiously bigoted.

It is hard to see someone in his position who does not really see the problems. The Affordable Care Act was being discussed. Obama was supposed to give healthcare. Instead, low-income kids families will not be able to receive housing and healthcare and instead are condemned in a cycle to the bottom.

The opposition of the young people in attendance to the policies implemented by Trump sheds further light on the urgent need to build a political movement based in the working class and aimed against the root cause for the rise of Trump: the capitalist system. The IYSSE expects a decision on its application from the SAB within two weeks.
On January 30, 2017, Argentine president Mauricio Macri made official an executive order of necessity and urgency (Decreto de necesidad y urgencia, DNU 70/2017) that modifies the 2003 Immigration Law, returning immigration policy to what it was during the days of the Videla dictatorship (1976-1983). The Videla junta was a regime of mass repression of the Argentine working class and youth, responsible for the death and disappearance of some 30,000 workers, leftists, trade union militants and students.

Macris executive order is nothing less than a repudiation of democracy and the Argentine Constitution. Human and immigrant rights organizations have condemned it, including the Argentine Center of Legal and Social Studies (CELS) and Amnesty International. DNU 70/2017 restricts access at border crossings, requires an examination of a potential immigrants past, and speeds up the process of deportation of foreign workers.

Under the terms of the infamous Videla Law of 1981, impoverished immigrants from the countries surrounding Argentina were deemed a threat to national security. The entry of undocumented immigrant workers from those regions into Argentina was categorized as a crime, much like in the United States today. Undocumented immigrants and their families were denied health, education and other social services. Government employees were obligated to turn them in to the police. Lacking any rights, immigrants from impoverished nations, such as Paraguay and Bolivia, were subject to super-exploitation by agribusiness and urban factories.

In defense of DNU 70/2017, Macris Security Minister, Patricia Bullrich revived the line of the Videla dictatorship with exaggerated and unproven claims of the participation of Peruvians, Paraguayans, and Bolivians in drug trafficking, claims that were denounced and corrected by the Bolivian Consulate and by CELS.

The Macri decree is a direct violation of the Argentine Constitutionas was the Videla Law. Article 4 of Constitution declares: The right to immigrate is a personal right that is essential and inalienable, which the Argentine Republic guarantees, on the basis of equality and universality.

The new directive does not limit itself to possible crimes committed in Argentina. It also calls for an examination of infractions possibly committed by the immigrants in other countries. A strongly worded protest issued by the Bolivian Consulate on January 31 pointed out that had this rule been in effect in the past, Macris own immigrant father would have been banned for having participated in smuggling. The Bolivian condemnation, using corrupt friends of Macri as examples, rightly points out the fact that DNU 70/2017 will do nothing to prevent the movement of wealthy immigrants, no matter what their criminal history, but is aimed at the poor.

Those who are deported could be barred from re-entering this South American nation for up to eight years. Coming on the heels of a year of increasing unemployment and misery for vast sections of the Argentine working class, a more sinister purpose is to appeal to xenophobia in the most backward sections of Argentine workers and the middle class on the basis of stereotypes (the Chilean pick-pocket, the Brazilian or Uruguayan contrabandist, the Bolivian drug-trafficker, etc.), thus blaming them for the social crisis that Argentina is going through.

Macris own xenophobic views are well known. In 2010, for instance, he blamed the occupation of public lands by workers demanding decent homes on uncontrolled migration from Bolivia. This is in line with the disdain with which the more European upper classes of Eastern Argentina have viewed Native Americans and people of mixed ethnicity in the Argentine northwest and Andean nations such as Bolivia and Peru, who are heavily represented in the working class of Buenos Aires.

Without providing any evidence that links immigration to crime (a recent study indicates that only six percent of the prison population in Argentina is foreign born), DNU 70/17 makes the absurd claim that the public is well aware of recent acts of organized crime by people of foreign nationality and that current law makes it difficult to expel them from the country, as a result of a complex process, that could take seven years. In other words, before the DNU was issued, foreign nationals accused of crimes had the same right to a trial in Argentine courts as those born in Argentina.

Macris order explicitly states that a guilty sentence is no longer necessary to expel an immigrant or to prevent him/her from reentering Argentina. In contrast, the 2003 law recognized immigration as a democratic right, abolished llegal immigrant as a criminal category and provided ways in which immigrants could establish residency, including those who had moved into Argentina under the Videla Law. The restrictions imposed by the dictatorship had created a huge population of undocumented workers, all of them considered illegal under that law, who lived a life of economic and social insecurity.

It would take 20 years after the fall of the military-fascist dictatorship to abolish the Videla Law. Succeeding administrations clung to the fraudulent claims that blamed immigrants for unemployment, cholera, occupations of lands and homes, dependence on government programs and crime. The widespread social struggles of 2001 and 2002 that resulted from the national debt crisis and widespread corruption made it possible to do away with much of what was left from the dictatorship, including the repressive and anti-proletarian Videla Law.

The 2003 Immigration Law together with new regulations in the MercoSur common market, made the movement of people somewhat routine in the Southern Cone. For Argentina, the 2010 census listed 1,245,054 immigrants from those nations sharing a border with Argentina (Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia and Chile); together with immigrants from Peru (157,514), that group accounted for 77 percent of all recent immigrants, the majority of whom belonged to the working class. The balance came from Europe (300,000), from the rest of the American continent (68,000), Asia (31,000) and Africa (3,000).

Despite the 2003 law, conditions for immigrants, particularly those from Bolivia, continued to be exploitative. In 2006, a fire at a clandestine garment factory killed six immigrants and revealing the existence of a layer of workers who worked under conditions of slavery, mainly in the garment industry. The tragedy created a national scandal that spurred the legalization of undocumented immigrants and a campaign for the closure of illicit factories.

Macris executive order is bound to return immigrant workers to those conditions.

DNU 70/2017 codifies a transformation that was already taking place since December 2015. First, the police were given the right to stop and ask for identity papers of anyone at any time. In mid-2016, immigration prisons were established, as part of a campaign against migratory irregularities.

These changes occurred in tandem with the abolition of programs to aid and give legal advice to new immigrants who have yet to establish residency and with a substantial increase in police raids against undocumented workers, in bus stations, apartment buildings, and places of work. In effect, the legal principle of innocent until proven guilty had been turned on its head by the Macri administration months before DNU 70/2017.

In a larger context, and in line with a shift to the language and policies of the Videla dictatorship, there is a consistent campaign by Macri and his government to revise historical memory and minimize the impact of that savagely violent period. In this spirit, Macri has restored to the armed forces the autonomy it had lost following 1983, promised to increase the military budget for weapons, fighter planes and other purchases with the pretext of fighting terrorism and attempted to change the scope of the trials against members of the Videla Junta for crimes against humanity, in many cases favoring turning prison sentences into house arrest.

Mass popular opposition forced Macri to back down from his proposal to transform March 24, the Day of Remembrance For Truth and Justice, the solemn commemoration of the Videla coup detat (March 24, 1976), into a floating holiday. The government has also revised downward the number of victims and the impact of Videlas genocidal and fascistic policies.

Macris DNU 70/2017 is being compared to US president Trumps recent ban on refugees and travel from seven predominantly Muslim nations. The comparison is apt, for in both cases, cloaked behind the immigration issue is a deliberate policy of attacking, dividing and disarming the working class to further the profit interests of the financial oligarchy and US imperialism. Already, even before Trump took power, Macri had begun discussing closer military ties with the United States, including the establishment of military bases on the border with Brazil and Paraguay and in the southern tip of Argentina.

It took 20 years, between the restoration of democracy in 1983 and the promulgation of the 2003 immigration law, to abolish the undemocratic, unconstitutional and repressive Videla Law. It has taken Macri little more than a year to formally restore all of its featureswith the collaboration of the trade unions and Peronist parties.

The powerful movement of the working class of December 2001, the Argentinazo, in response to the implosion that resulted from the Argentine debt crisis, led to a series of concessions by the bourgeois nationalist Peronist governments of Nestor Kirchner and his widow, Cristina Fernandez. Those included the abolition of the Videla Law, and the renewal and more aggressive pursuit and prosecution of former junta members and collaborators.

However, absent a socialist internationalist leadership, the workers rebellion of 2001, for all its militancy and combativeness, could not break with Peronism, which in 2015 ceded power to Macri, the successor to Videla and representative of Wall Street. Peronist leaders in the National Congress are said to be supporting Macris executive order.
Austrias grand coalition of the Social Democratic Party (SPO) and conservative Austrian Peoples Party (OVP) adopted a programme last month entitled For Austria, which is to be implemented by the middle of the year. At its heart are attacks on refugees and asylum seekers, an easing of labour laws and the abolition of basic democratic rights.

The programme enabled SPO Chancellor Christian Kern to enforce large parts of his Plan A, which he announced last month, marking a sharp rightward shift in the SPO.

The agreement was preceded by major disputes within the governing coalition. The coalition was on the verge of collapse. Kern pressured the OVP to either accept his terms or agree to new elections.

Kern speculated openly about the possibility of a coalition with the far-right FPO, if the government fell and new elections were called. It was only at the end of last year that the SPO leadership abolished a ban preventing the party from forming coalitions with the FPO. Such a coalition on a federal level, however, threatens to tear the SPO apart.

Fresh elections would have been disastrous for the OVP. The party is far behind the FPO and SPO in the pollsin an alliance with the FPO, the OVP would only be the junior partner. Such a step on the part of the conservative leadership would be a very long shot, opined political scientist Peter Filzmaier recently on ORF.

The governments new programme contains massive attacks on labour laws. The current relatively restrictive lay-off protection is to be undermined. Workers over 50 years old will be the main targets, since they can be simply laid off or sent into early retirement. And it is precisely this group of workers which has the worst prospects of getting a new job.

At the same time, the so-called reasonableness regulations for the unemployed will be tightened. In the future, a monthly wage of 1,500 will be considered reasonable. Even if an unemployed person earned significantly more in the past, the authorities can threaten to cut off benefits if he or she does not accept the job.

The issues of a minimum wage and the flexibilisation of working hours will be outsourced to the social partners, the trade unions and employers organisations. Among other things, they are to agree a comprehensive minimum wage by June of 1,500 a month. If no agreement is achieved, legal regulations will be imposed.

The trade unions stand on the far right of the SPO. They are well known for closely collaborating with the government and big business. Kern is above all relying on them to break with the legally-regulated working times. The introduction of a minimum wage of 1,500 a month is aimed at reducing the wages in the country, which are comparatively high by EU standards.

The right-wing character of the programme is especially evident with its attacks on immigrants and refugees. The highly exaggerated events of New Years Eve in Cologne last year have been used by right-wing forces in Austria to legitimise a campaign against Muslims and refugees. Now there are to be stiffer penalties for sexual assaults in groups.

In addition, threatening persons, insofar as detention is not an option, must wear electronic ankle tags. However, it remains entirely unclear who will be deemed such a threat.

The federal government will massively reduce the numbers of arriving and illegally residing migrants in Austria, the paper states further. To this end, a target of halving the current upper limit of 36,000 refugees per year is being discussed in government circles.

For those entitled to asylum and asylum seekers with a high likelihood of staying a compulsory year of integration will be introduced. It will include courses in German and national values, as well as joint activities run by civilian national service operators. Those who refuse to participate will lose social welfare benefits.

Under the pretext of stopping the influx of refugees, the deployment of the army domestically will be codified. The so-called assistance intervention by the army to protect the borders will be expanded, above all to carry out surveillance on the land border and support the registration and rejection of refugees.

The proposed integration law makes clear the xenophobic orientation of the coalitions programme. Plans include the banning of the full veil or the burka in public places and a headscarf ban for executives, judges and state prosecutorsa favourite demand of the extreme right.

The attack on democratic rights is directed not only against Muslims, but against the entire population. Video surveillance is therefore being significantly expanded. At border crossings where checkpoints are in place, vehicle number plates will automatically be recorded. Electronic eavesdropping will also be permitted in cars. For this, the police, intelligence agencies and security authorities will receive wide-ranging powers.

A new category of crime is to be created: Founding or leadership activities in movements hostile to the state. Under the pretext of the struggle against Islamist terrorism, it supplies the groundwork for the suppression and banning of all undesirable political groups and movements.

While some media outlets praised the reform attempts of the coalition in Vienna, there was also criticism from the right. The programme represented undoubted progress, but the major reform building blocks had been avoided, commented Die Presse. The Vienna-based Standard also thought the programme did not go far enough: the coalition was showing a readiness to work after years of stalling. But it was not guaranteed that this will be maintained, wrote the paper.

It is once again clear that the comprehensive plans in the areas of security and refugee policy are oriented towards the far right FPO which has been ahead in polls for months. Even in Vienna, long a stronghold of the SPO, the FPO is ahead with 38 percent, while the SPO has collapsed to 25 percent. At the municipal election in 2015, the SPO won almost 40 percent of the vote.
The National Health Service (NHS) in the UK is, according to the Red Cross, facing a humanitarian crisis. Its assessment followed the recent deaths of two patients who died while waiting on trolleys in hospital corridors for treatment. These tragic deaths underline the deliberate, ongoing destruction of the NHS.

This process is part of the privatisation and slashing of funding for all public services. Every aspect of public health care is currently under attack.

A recent report by the Nuffield Trusta health policy research bodyon the increasing rise in waiting times for all treatments revealed dangerous levels of delay in those waiting for diagnostic tests. The trust revealed that waiting times for diagnosis and diagnostic testing doubled from 2008 to 2016. In December 2008, 403,955 people were waiting for diagnostic tests. In January 2016, this had increased to 818,599, and rose further to 882, 321 in September 2016.

Cuts to mental health services have led to a situation where there is enormous demand, with little capacity to meet the need. In the five years up to 2016, mental health trusts in England had 600 million (US$751 million) slashed from their budgets. Meanwhile the number of people seeking mental health community help has jumped by almost 500,000 a year, to 1.7 million, since 2010.

The 1997-2010 Labour government was instrumental in cutting the number of overnight beds available for those requiring mental health support. The number of beds available fell from 34,124 in 2001 to 19,249 in 2015.

Figures made available last year by the Kings Fund think tank estimated that 40 percent of 58 mental health trusts in England saw their budgets cut in 2015-2016. Six of the trusts saw their budgets slashed three years in a row.

Government data obtained last September showed that 73 local areas will see their General Practitioner mental health budgets slashed in 2016-2017. In Haringey, one of the poorest boroughs in London, the Clinical Commissioning Group is to cut 16 percent of its mental health budget.

Recent figures for mental health waiting lists in the Greater Manchester Area in North West England reveal a huge crisis in patients unable to access mental health services. Over 200 patients waited for treatment for 90 days, double the regional wait of 27 days and almost five times the already high national average wait of 18.8 days.

Patients who find themselves in crisis due to the unavailability of doctors appointments, hospital referrals and lack of community social care services are forced to attend accident and emergency (A&E) departments.

The BBC noted in January that data compiled by NHS Digital showed that between 2011-12 and 2015-16 the number of patients attending A&E units with psychiatric problems rose by nearly 50% to 165,000.

These do not include those patients who may have been recorded as attending for other reasons.

The BBC reported that some trusts it had spoken to said as many as a tenth of patients were attending A&E because of mental health problems.

The Crisis Care Concordatset up by the Department of Health with a remit to improve outcomes for patients with mental health issueswas already warning in 2015 of an NHS system failure. This had led to large numbers of people in mental distress turning to A&E for help, due to inadequate community-based mental health services, it said.

The warning was echoed by the Rethink Mental Illness charity, which said cuts to funding for mental health services were costing lives.

In response to the innumerable cases revealing that NHS and social care services can no longer provide basic services, Conservative Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt callously dismissed any such claim. Instead, he attacked the thousands who use A&E departmentsunable to get GP appointments and hospital referrals and finding themselves in crisisas frankly selfish.

Prime Minister Theresa May, attempting to divert attention away from the crisis ripping apart the NHS, pledged to prioritise mental health services. However, she failed to mention the impact on mental health due to her governments overall assault on the welfare state, as well as the proven link between mental health and job insecurity, low wages, poor housing and benefit reform.

A 2014 report by the Faculty of Public Health (FPH) charity linked the rise in the number of mental health patients to the economic crash of 2008. The FPH describes itself as a standard setting body for specialists in public health in the United Kingdom and a joint faculty of the three Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom (London, Edinburgh and Glasgow) and also a member of the World Federation of Public Health Associations.

The report said the UK is experiencing a prolonged economic downturn with rising unemployment and uncertain recovery since 2008. It added, Economic crises increase the risk factors for poor mental health (poverty and low household income, debt and financial difficulties, poor housing, unemployment and job insecurity).

It added, There is evidence to suggest that the UK recession may result in an increase in mental health problems and lower levels of wellbeing, with a widening of inequalities.

Labours Shadow Health Secretary John Ashworth attacked the Conservative government for this crisis and appealed to Hunt, May and Chancellor Philip Hammond to pledge more funding to prevent a repeat of recent events.

Ashworth called for a new funding settlement for health and care in the next budget so this years crisis never happens again. He said May should commit to bringing forward 700 million of social care money to help hospitals cope this winter.

While Ashworth criticised May for not shining a light on cuts to mental health services, no mention was made of the track record of the Tony Blair/Gordon Brown Labour governmentswhich laid the basis for todays disaster by launching the huge cuts now wrecking the NHS and inaugurating privatisation policies. Labour introduced the private finance initiative (PFI) into the NHS, resulting in hospital closures, shortages of staff and ward closuresas hospitals faced huge debts paying off PFI mortgages.

This was overseen by the health trade unions such as Unison and Unitewith the co-operation of Labour councilsensuring that any opposition by the working class to the breakup of the NHS and what remains of the welfare state was sabotaged.

The unions have not led a single successful struggle to prevent the closures of hospitals, cuts to social care services and savage benefit reformsnor will they. Their role is to prevent any independent action to fight back against the destruction of the NHS and every social gain won over generations.

For further information visit www.nhsfightback.org
The media firestorm over Donald Trumps hinting in a recent Fox News interview at the crimes carried out by the US government and its military and intelligence killers found fresh expression Tuesday in a New York Times editorial titled Blaming America First.

Responding to Fox commentator Bill OReillys indictment of Russian President Vladimir Putin as a killer, Trump, with the cynicism of an old gangster who knows how America works, stated, We got a lot of killers. What, you think our countrys so innocent?

Trumps one undoubtedly true statement provoked media outrage, especially in the flagship of CIA-directed journalism, the New York Times. Its editorial indicts Trump for the crime of moral equivalencythat is, implying that the actions of the United States in pursuit of its interests can be compared to the crimes of its adversaries. This accusation was a staple of Cold War propaganda, used to justify US imperialisms crimes and intimidate those who exposed them on the grounds of Americas supposed moral superiority to the Soviet Union.

The editorial denounces Putins brutality, including bombing civilians in Syria, while rejecting any comparison of his actions with some terrible mistakes made by Washington. The editorial mentions the invasion of Iraq (but not the death of over a million Iraqis) and torturing terrorism suspects (but not the establishment of secret torture centers all over the world). Whatever harm done by US military operations, it adds, has been the result of unintended consequences.

The Times insists that no American president has done what Mr. Putin has done in silencing nearly all independent media, crushing dissent, snuffing out Russias once-incipient democracy, invading Ukraine, interfering in the American electionapparently on Mr. Trumps behalfand trying to destabilize Europe.

It continues: At least in recent decades, American presidents who took military action have been driven by the desire to promote freedom and democracy, sometimes with extraordinary results, as when Germany and Japan evolved after World War II from vanquished enemies into trusted, prosperous allies.

US imperialism killed millions in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and elsewhere to promote freedom and democracy? Who does the Times think its kidding?

There is no doubt that Putin has blood on his hands. But when it comes to mass murder, the overthrow of governments and subversion of elections, he is not in the same league as US imperialism. This is not a matter of personality, but of Russias limited resources and the far smaller scope of its geopolitical reach.

Moreover, Putin is the direct and inevitable product of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the restoration of capitalism in Russia, which was celebrated by Washington as the greatest triumph of its global crusade for democracy. He heads the kind of regime that is required to defend the interests of the criminal oligarchs who enriched themselves through the theft of state property against the masses of impoverished Russian workers. To the extent that this regime enjoys a popular base and is able to suppress opposition from below, it is largely thanks to the concern and fear generated by the aggressive anti-Russian foreign policy of the United States.

The Times attitude toward Putin has nothing to do with crimes he may or may not have committed. Rather, it follows a well-worn Washington playbook: demonization of a countrys head of state always precedes a war of aggression. The same modus operandi was employed against Manuel Noriega in Panama, Serbias Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Libyas Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

To advance its brief against moral equivalency, the Times editorial board has to engage in a form of self-induced amnesia. One has only to do a cursory search of the Times own archives, using terms such as CIA, assassination, torture, death squads, etc., to turn up thousands of news reports of crimes carried out by US imperialism, from the fomenting of bloody coups, to the assassination of foreign heads of state, to the training of torturers and the organization of death squads. To cite only a few examples:

Vietnam assassination program

Dark Side Up, July 1, 1973

The Times presented a profile of new CIA director William Colby who supervised the Phoenix program, designed to neutralize the Vietcong, which its critics have charged was a program of systematic assassination, murder and torturean accusation that Colby has vigorously denied, under oath. According to figures Colby provided to a House subcommittee in 1971, however, the Phoenix program killed 20,587 persons between 1968 and May, 1971.

Training torturers

Testifying to Torture, June 5, 1988

The Times interviewed an interrogator in a Honduran Army death squad, which he said had tortured and then murdered approximately 120 Hondurans and other Latin Americans. He had been trained in Texas by the Central Intelligence Agency, he told me. As a sergeant in the Honduran Army, he said, he had kidnapped and interrogated people, including an American priest, who were then murdered. Horrible things had been done to people in dark basements and hidden graveyards.

Operation PhoenixVietnam

Body Count Was Their Most Important Product, October 21, 1990

So out into the countryside went teams of accountants and case officers, Vietnamese assassins and their American counterparts, with bags and bags of money, the whole effort tethered to a computer in the United States Embassy in Saigon. And from the embassy came reports again and again that the program was working. Body count became our most important product. The bodies turned out to be just about anyone who got in the way...

Assassinations in Guatemala

The CIA: A Pattern of Deceit, April 1, 1995

There is a pathology of secrecy and deceit at the Central Intelligence Agency that seems to defeat all remedial efforts, starting with the Congressional inquiries 20 years ago into intelligence abuses. The latest sign of the agencys chilling indifference to democratic principles is the still unfolding story of two killings [Michael DeVine, an American living in Guatemala, and Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, a rebel leader married to an American] in Guatemala and the CIAs role in impeding the investigations and subverting a suspension of aid to Guatemala.

Iranian, Guatemalan coups

The CIAs Foreign Policy, May 31, 1997

This week the Central Intelligence Agency revealed that it had destroyed almost all its files related to its secret mission in 1953 to overthrow the Government of Iran. Documents about other major covert operations may also have been destroyed long ago.

Nonetheless, some secret files survived, and this week the CIA released documents showing how it had orchestrated the 1954 overthrow of Guatemalas democratically elected President, Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. The agency also made plans, which it says were never carried out, to assassinate 58 Government officials, including Mr. Arbenz.

Chilean coup

All the President Had to Do Was Ask; The CIA Took Aim at Allende, September 13, 1998

The Times cited documents on the run-up to the 1973 coup in Chile, which led to the death, disappearance and torture of tens of thousands of workers, leftists and students. The documents showed how much the United States was committed to thwarting Mr. Allende even before he took office, and they illustrate a fact that was not well understood during the cold war: The CIA very rarely acted as a rogue elephant. When it plotted coups and shipped guns to murderous colonels, it did so on orders from the President.

Exposing Americas Role in Chile, October 6, 1999

Because of two 1975 Senate reports, Justice Department investigations and CIA reviews, the world is aware that Washington ran covert operations in Chile. These operations tried to prevent the inauguration of Salvador Allende, a Socialist, as president in 1970. They then sought to undermine his administration and encouragedat the very leastthe coup that toppled him. The CIA then maintained close ties to Mr. Pinochets repressive security forces.

New Evidence Surfaces in 73 Killing of American in Chile, March 12, 2004

More than 30 years after an American writer and filmmaker was kidnapped by Chilean security forces and killed here evidence has been unearthed pointing to the involvement of high-ranking military and intelligence officials in the death of Charles Horman, who disappeared shortly after the American-instigated military coup that toppled President Salvador Allende on Sept. 11, 1973 In 1976, for instance, three State Department officials wrote a cable to the assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs accepting a degree of responsibility for Mr. Hormans execution. US intelligence may have played an unfortunate part in Hormans death, the report acknowledges. At best, it was limited to providing or confirming information that helped motivate his murder by the government of Chile.

The CIA and the Nazis

CIA Knew Where Eichmann Was Hiding, Documents Show, June 7, 2006

The Central Intelligence Agency took no action after learning the pseudonym and whereabouts of the fugitive Holocaust administrator Adolf Eichmann in 1958, according to CIA documents released Tuesday that shed new light on the spy agencys use of former Nazis as informants after World War II The Eichmann papers are among 27,000 newly declassified pages released by the CIA to the National Archives under Congressional pressure to make public files about former officials of Hitlers regime later used as American agents.

In Cold War, US Spy Agencies Used 1,000 Nazis, October 26, 2014

In the decades after World War II, the CIA and other United States agencies employed at least a thousand Nazis as Cold War spies and informants and, as recently as the 1990s, concealed the governments ties to some still living in America, newly disclosed records and interviews show... The agency hired one former SS officer as a spy in the 1950s, for instance, even after concluding he was probably guilty of minor war crimes.

Assassinating Patrice Lumumba

Obituary of former CIA agent Lawrence Devlin, December 11, 2008

The Times cited Devlins meeting in 1960 with the CIAs top poison expert, who passed on orders he said had been approved by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to kill Lumumba [the Congolese independence leader], who the United States feared might ally the mineral-rich Congo with the Soviet Union.

All of the above is well known history, not a matter of opinion. For the Times to pretend otherwise is preposterous.

These crimes and so many more, from the savage repression and wholesale killings following CIA coups in Iran in 1953 and Indonesia in 1965, to the bringing to power of fascist-military regimes throughout South America, to the death squad massacres of hundreds of thousands in Guatemala and El Salvador and the dirty CIA contra war in Nicaragua, are now justified by the Times as part of a selfless moral struggle.

The Times, like the rest of the media, has been so corrupted over the past 30 years that it no longer even attempts to expose the crimes carried out by the CIA. An agency that was long viewed as a global criminal conspiracy, dubbed Murder Inc., is now hailed as a foundation of liberty and a counter-weight to the right-wing policies of Donald Trump.

Today, under the guiding hand of state-connected figures such as the newspapers editorial page editor, James Bennet, whose father was head of the US Agency for International Development, a long-time CIA front, and whose brother is US senator from Colorado, the Times functions as a direct mouthpiece for Washingtons massive military and intelligence apparatus.

The paper is outraged over Trumps remarks on Fox because they cut across the propaganda campaign to demonize Putin and Russia. This campaign is, in turn, driven not by Washingtons supposed crusade to promote freedom and democracy, but by the calculations of that faction of the ruling establishment that sees Russia as the foremost obstacle to US imperialisms drive to assert global hegemony.

Trump's overtures to Russia have complicated that strategy. For the present, the president seemingly prefers to delay a settling of accounts with Russia, advancing instead a policy of belligerent militarism directed at Iran and China. Trump calculates in the manner of an experienced Mafia don that it makes more sense to drive a wedge between China and Iran on the one side, and Russia on the other. The Times and those sections of the CIA for which it speaks oppose that strategy. It is the bitter internecine struggle within the ruling establishment over the prioritizing of targets and the best path to world war that underlies the Times relentless propaganda barrage against Trump's nods in Russia's direction and its outrage over suggestions of moral equivalency between old KGB hand Putin and America's own CIA killers.
John Horvatinovich, owner of restaurant Salt 88 in Omaha, Nebraska , found himself in hot water after he tweeted a picture that landed him in front of six jurors, who ultimately found him not guilty of ruining a sting operation . Horvatinovich was charged with the misdemeanor of...

John Horvatinovich, owner of restaurant Salt 88 in Omaha, Nebraska, found himself in hot water after he tweeted a picture that landed him in front of six jurors, who ultimately found him not guilty of ruining a sting operation.

Horvatinovich was charged with the misdemeanor of obstructing a government operation when he tweeted a picture last summer of two undercover teens attempting to order alcohol. He was trying to warn other Omaha restaurant-owners of alcohol compliance checks, according to the Omaha World-Herald.

Omaha restaurant peeps: These two are trying to ruin your night w/sting operations in town, the now-deleted tweet read.

Although the restaurant did not serve the teens, Horvatinovich told KETV NewsWatch 7 that he was not sure how the case would play out and was a little surprised at the verdict.

"My argument is still that we have freedom of speech, and that he was well within his rights to send this tweet out," Carolyn Wilson, Horvatinovich's attorney, told KETV NewsWatch 7.
Woman Accused of Kidnapping Newborn and Raising Her as Her Own Daughter Enters Plea

Gloria Williams, the woman accused of kidnapping a newborn baby from a Florida hospital in 1998 and raising the girl as her own, has pleaded not guilty, PEOPLE confirms.

On Thursday, Williams entered her plea in the abduction of Kamiyah Mobley, a Florida state attorney official tells PEOPLE.

Mobley was just eight hours old when Williams allegedly posed as a nurse and stole her from a hospital in Jacksonville, Florida, in July 1998. Following her kidnapping, she was apparently raised as Williams daughter under a false identity, authorities say.

Williams has been charged with first-degree kidnapping and third-degree custodial interference. She is scheduled to appear again in court in April. Her attorney could not be reached for comment.

Mobley was discovered alive and well in Walterboro, South Carolina, in January. Investigators confirmed her identity via DNA, after they were led to her by tips through the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Williams was arrested soon after and extradited to Florida to face charges.

While she remains behind bars, Mobley  who goes by Alexis Manigo  has openly defended the woman she believed to be her mother. She told ABC News,  loved me for 18 years. She raised me for 18 years  I will always love her.

From that one mistake, I was given the best life. I was. I had everything I ever needed, wanted. I had love especially, Mobley said. I understand what she did was wrong, but just dont lock her up and throw away the key like everything she did was just awful.

 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.

The day after Williams was arrested, Mobley reunited with her biological parents  father Craig Aiken and mother Shanara Mobley  for the first time in South Carolina, WCSC reported.

I feel like I do owe them that, to give them a chance, you know? Get to know them, Mobley told ABC News. Im not saying they werent going to be good parents. Im not saying that at all. But it would have been a different life.

Story continues

 Pick up PEOPLEs special edition True Crime Stories: Cases That Shocked America, on sale now, for the latest on Casey Anthony, JonBenet Ramsey and more.

She added: When you find out youve got another family out there, its just more love.




Consider Whether a Program Is Accredited

Accreditation is a process conducted by an outside authority to ensure a school and degree program -- whether online, on campus or blended -- meet certain standards of quality. Though it's voluntary, accreditation has many benefits and tells employers and other institutions a program is legitimate.

Here are 10 facts to consider about accreditation when selecting an online degree program.

1. There are two levels of accreditation.

Prospective online students should usually confirm that both a program and the university have specialized and institutional accreditation, respectively, experts say. Specialized, or programmatic, accreditation is for particular degrees, departments or schools, while institutional applies to an entire university.

Not every program, however, has specialized accreditation. That varies depending on the university and industry standards.

2. Accreditation status is generally published online.

A program should be accredited by agencies recognized by the Department of Education or the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, experts say.

Accreditation status is typically published on a program's website, Karen Pedersen, chief knowledge officer for the Online Learning Consortium, a group aiming to improve online higher education, told U.S. News in 2016. Prospective online students can double-check through the department or the council, or by contacting the school.

3. Not all programs are accredited.

Accreditation is important for online students given the number of fraudulent programs on the internet. If something seems too good to be true -- abnormally low tuition, for instance -- check the accreditation, experts say.

Prospective online students should also avoid so-called "accreditation mills," or groups that accredit schools under minimum standards, by confirming the accreditor is recognized by the DOE or CHEA.

4. Programs at reputable schools are usually accredited.

It's usually safe to assume an online program at a respected, well-known university will have both institutional and specialized accreditation, experts say, but it's still a good idea to confirm before applying.

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While it's not common, "Even good schools sometimes do things, or have things happen, that may jeopardize their accreditation," Jennifer Mathes, director of strategic partnerships for OLC, told U.S. News.

5. Employers might verify a program's accreditation.

Especially for lesser-known schools, many employers will verify that a candidate's online college has accreditation, recruiters say. Regional accreditation is usually preferred over national accreditation, which is often a less rigorous process, one expert told U.S. News.

While accreditation doesn't guarantee quality, it ensures "there is oversight regarding the instruction and their authority to issue degrees," Susan Aldridge, now president of Drexel University Online, told U.S. News in 2013.

6. Accreditation helps ensure credits transfer.

Choosing a school with regional accreditation, which includes most state universities and private nonprofits, also increases the likelihood that credits will transfer to other similar institutions, Aldridge said.

That's particularly important for online students, who often enroll with some education already completed, experts say.

7. Many for-profits are nationally accredited.

For-profit, online programs are more likely to have national rather than regional accreditation -- though that's not the case at some major for-profits, Kevin Kinser, professor and head of the education policy studies department at Pennsylvania State University, told U.S. News.

"I think it's fair to say, if schools are not regionally accredited, it's because they couldn't get regionally accredited, and so they're only nationally accredited," Kinser says.

8. Accreditation may affect online students' financial aid.

Like those on campus, online students can receive federal financial aid -- if their school has institutional accreditation, Barbara Gellman-Danley, president of the Higher Learning Commission, which accredits colleges and universities, told U.S. News earlier this year. In most cases, grants, loans and work-study are available for online students.

9. Accreditation is rigorous and continuous.

Accreditation usually involves a self-review and a site visit by faculty or administrators at similar universities and practitioners in the field. For online programs, evaluators might access online classes and interact with students virtually, says Mathes of the Online Learning Consortium.

Agencies then monitor programs and institutions to ensure they continue to meet standards, and programs are typically re-accredited every several years.

10. Online and on-campus programs are held to the same standard.

Expectations aren't lower just because a program is online; however, an accreditor might take extra steps to ensure a program meets online students' specific needs, Mathes says.

For example, she says, they might determine how well students and faculty interact in the virtual classroom and how student services function for remote learners.

Learn More About Online Education

Find more advice about accreditation and how to choose an online degree program on the Online Learning Lessons blog, and get our complete rankings of the Best Online Programs.

For additional tips and information on how to navigate online program admissions, connect with U.S. News Education on Twitter or Facebook.

Jordan Friedman is an online education editor at U.S. News. You can follow him on Twitter or email him at jfriedman@usnews.com.


A cave that held Dead Sea Scrolls before they were stolen in the mid-20th century has been discovered near Qumran.

Inside the cave, archaeologists found a blank scroll along with the remains of jars, cloth and a leather strap. The researchers said they believe these items were used to bind, wrap and hold the scrolls.

Between 1947 and 1956, the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in a series of 11 caves located near the site of Qumran in what is now the West Bank. The scrolls contain copies of books of the Hebrew Bible along with community rules, calendars and astronomical texts, among other writings.

Some of the scrolls were found by the Bedouin people, who sold the artifacts to antiquities dealers, while other scrolls were found during archaeological excavations. [See Images of the Dead Sea Scrolls]

Archaeologists taking part in the excavation said they could tell from modern day pickaxes found in the cave that the newly discovered cave had been robbed. Thus, any scrolls that may have held writing were taken, the researchers said. The scientists added that they think the blank scroll found in the cave was, in ancient times, being prepared for writing.

he only scroll found in the Qumran cave was blank, though archaeologists believe that in ancient times it was being prepared for writing. Oren Gutfeld & Ahiad Ovadia

"Although, at the end of the day, no scroll was found, and instead we 'only' found a piece of parchment rolled up in a jug that was being processed for writing, the findings indicate beyond any doubt that the cave contained scrolls that were stolen," said excavation director Oren Gutfeld, an archaeologist at the Hebrew University's Institute of Archaeology, in a statement.

"The findings include the jars in which the scrolls and their covering were hidden, a leather strap for binding the scroll, a cloth that wrapped the scrolls, tendons and pieces of skin connecting fragments, and more," he added.

Some of the thousands of fragments of Dead Sea Scrolls that are now in museums or private collections could have come from this new cave rather than the 11 previously known caves, Gutfeld said. "Finding this additional scroll cave means we can no longer be certain that the original locations (Caves 1 through 11) attributed to the Dead Sea scrolls that reached the market via the Bedouins are accurate," Gutfeld said in the statement.

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The excavation of the cave is part of a larger operation in which the Israel Antiquities Authority is trying to find and excavate caves in the Judean Desert that may hold archaeological remains. The operation was sparked by the activity of looters in the Judean desert.

"The important discovery of another scroll cave attests to the fact that a lot of work remains to be done in the Judean Desert, and finds of huge importance are still waiting to be discovered," Israel Hasson, director-general of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said in the statement.

"We are in a race against time as antiquities thieves steal heritage assets worldwide for financial gain. The state of Israel needs to mobilize and allocate the necessary resources in order to launch a historic operation, together with the public, to carry out a systematic excavation of all the caves of the Judean Desert," Hasson added.

Original article on Live Science.

Editor's Recommendations
PARIS (AP)  French investigators have interviewed two children of conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillon as part of an embezzlement probe into paid  but allegedly fake  political jobs they had working for their father.

Fillon's lawyer, Antonin Levy, told a news conference on Thursday that his client already provided investigators "explanations" regarding the work his children did between 2005 and 2007.

Prosecutors are investigating the jobs that Fillon's wife and two of their five children had working as his parliamentary aides. The preliminary probe involves suspicions of embezzlement and misappropriation of public funds.

Employing relatives is not prohibited under conflict-of-interest laws in France. Fillon has said his wife and children were paid for actual work they performed.

Levy and Pierre Cornut-Gentille, the lawyer for Fillon's wife, Penelope, called on the financial prosecutors to drop the case. The lawyers argue the investigation violate the separation of powers required under the French Constitution, a "preoccupying situation" before the April-May presidential election.

"The current investigation on the Fillon case is blatantly null and violating major principles of French law  French constitutional law on one side, and the French criminal law on the other side," Levy said.

The two lawyers also said misappropriation of public funds was not applicable to lawmakers under the circumstances being investigated.

Fillon's popularity has dropped following successive waves of revelations in the weekly Canard Enchaine newspaper. The newspaper said Fillon, who served as prime minister from 2007 to 2012, paid his wife 830,000 euros ($900,000) during the 15 years she worked on and off as his aide.

The candidate denies wrongdoing. He apologized Monday for employing Penelope, while noting that it is not illegal and he is not the only politician to have done so.

French politicians are allowed to hire family members as aides as long as they actually do the jobs for which they are paid.
Kendallville, IN (46755)

Today

Partly cloudy. Gusty winds diminishing after midnight. Low 41F. SW winds at 20 to 30 mph, decreasing to 5 to 10 mph. Higher wind gusts possible..

Tonight

Partly cloudy. Gusty winds diminishing after midnight. Low 41F. SW winds at 20 to 30 mph, decreasing to 5 to 10 mph. Higher wind gusts possible.
2018 Dodge Durango SRT front quarter left photo

Fast Facts:

High-performance version of Dodge Durango

Full SRT performance treatment

6.4-liter Hemi V-8 engine

8-speed automatic transmission

Performance AWD system

Launch control

Adaptive suspension

Brembo braking components

180-mph speedometer

SRT Performance Pages technology

On sale in fall of 2017

Built in Detroit, Michigan



Introduction

Billing its new high-performance SUV as domestic, but not domesticated, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles unveiled the 2018 Dodge Durango SRT in advance of the 2017 Chicago Auto Show.



Dodge calls the new Durango SRT Americas fastest, most powerful, and most capable three-row SUV. Given the hardware installed beneath its slab-sided, refrigerator white bodywork, coupled with performance statistics certified by the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA), that sounds like a credible claim.

Exterior Features

With no more than a glance, it is easy to see that the Durango SRT is no ordinary SUV.



Up front, new styling supplies the necessary cold air intakes and heat extractors that help the monstrous Hemi motor to perform at its best. The entire front fascia is new and includes a mesh pattern grille as well as LED fog lights. The hood contains no fewer than three scoops and vents for freer breathing.



The Durango sits on 20-in. aluminum wheels wrapped in 295/45 Z-rated all-season performance tires. Summer tires are optional, as is a set of lightweight forged aluminum wheels. Regardless of wheel selection, theyre finished in Black Noise.





2018 Dodge Durango SRT wheel photo

Front and rear fender flares help to cover the wide rubber, connected by substantial rocker panel extensions. The Durango SRT proudly wears 392 badges on each front fender.



Around back, a revised rear fascia includes a black valence panel punctured by 4-in. round exhaust outlets finished in nickel chrome.



Interior Features

Sitting at the top of the Durango trim level tree, the SRT is nicely outfitted with standard Nappa leather upholstery with Dinamica simulated suede inserts. Front seats are heated and ventilated, and the second-row captains chairs are also heated.





Story continues

2018 Dodge Durango SRT interior photo

Dinamica also covers the windshield pillars and headliner, and the driver faces a flat-bottom SRT performance steering wheel equipped with paddle shifters. A hand-wrapped dashboard is standard, featuring exposed contrast stitching. Feet rest upon premium velour floor mats embroidered with SRT.



The instrument panel includes a 7-in. digital gauge cluster with a 180-mph speedometer and is finished in Light Black Chrome and Matte Reverse Chain trim.



Optional Features

Because the Durango SRT is fully equipped, few options will be available. Among those confirmed by Dodge, premium leather in a Demonic Red color will be available, and sometime during calendar year 2018 the SUV can be decked out with genuine carbon fiber interior trim.



Under the Hood

Salivating yet? If not, consider what Dodge has stuffed under the Durango SRTs hood.



Were talking about a 6.4-liter V-8 engine good for 475 horsepower at 6,000 rpm and 470 lb.-ft. of torque at 4,300 rpm, exhaling through a 2.75-in. dual performance exhaust system. Its bolted to an adaptive 8-speed automatic transmission featuring a new electronic T-shaped shifter and a manual AutoStick gate, as well as rev-matched downshifting. A performance all-wheel-drive system distributes power depending on the selected driving mode and conditions.





2018 Dodge Durango SRT engine photo

Together, these components produce NHRA-certified acceleration to 60 mph in 4.4 seconds and a quarter-mile time of 12.9 seconds. Oh, and the Durango SRT can tow up to 8,600 lbs.



The SRT Drive system offers seven different driving modes. They include Eco (stop laughing), Auto, Snow, Tow, and Valet, the latter to discourage anyone from making your Durango SRT the subject of a viral video. Additionally, a Sport mode reduces shift time by 50% compared with Auto mode and sends 65% of torque to the rear wheels. Track mode provides 160-millisecond shifts and up to 70% of torque to the rear wheels, Dodge says.



This SUV stops as well as it goes, screeching to a halt from 60 mph in just 115 feet, according to Dodge. Credit the 6-piston front and 4-piston rear Brembo calipers, clamping 15-in. front vented and slotted discs and 13.8-in. rear vented rotors.



A Launch Control system is also standard for the Durango SRT, along with an adaptive damping suspension with stiffer springs and sway bars.





2018 Dodge Durango SRT rear quarter left photo

Safety



Every Dodge Durango SRT includes one full-day session at the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance driving in Arizona. Does that count as a safety feature? If not, know that Dodge equips this performance SUV with an adaptive cruise control system with full-stop capability, a forward-collision warning system with automatic emergency braking, and a blind-spot warning system with rear cross-traffic alert. If these features fail to prevent a collision, the Uconnect Access subscription service plan provides easy 9-1-1 calling.



Technology

Durango SRT buyers get a Uconnect 8.4 infotainment system as standard equipment. In addition to its 8.4-in. touch-screen display, it includes a navigation system, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto smartphone-projection technology, HD Radio, downloadable apps, and SiriusXM Travel Link and Traffic. It is paired with a Beats Audio sound system with 9 speakers and a 506-watt amplifier.



This version of Uconnect also includes SRT Performance Pages, which allows the owner to track and record data while slamming the SUV around the track on the weekend.

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Billing its new high-performance SUV as domestic, but not domesticated, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles unveiled the 2018 Dodge Durango SRT.

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It was 50 years ago this Friday, on Feb. 10, 1967, that the state of Nevada became the 38th to ratify the 25th Amendment, thereby officially answering a question that had plagued the United States ever since its founding. How could the country make sure that there would always be a capable person at the helm of the ship of state? If the President were killed, the answer was clear; if he were sick or injured, however, the Constitution was vague.

President Johnson, who had come to the White House under extraordinary circumstances following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, knew that the time had come for a solution to be put in place. In January of 1965, he had sent a message to Congress noting that it was largely luck alone that the U.S. could thank for thus far avoiding a catastrophic situation in which a President was incapacitated but not dead. Following a run of other officials who had suggested the same, he called for a Constitutional amendment that would address the matter.

On at least two occasions in our history, and perhaps others, American presidentsJames Garfield and Woodrow Wilsonhave for prolonged periods been rendered incapable of discharging their Presidential duties, he wrote. On sixteen occasions in our thirty-six Administrations, the Office of Vice President has been vacantand over the two perilous decades since the end of the Second World War, that vital office has been vacant the equivalent of one year out of four. (He also noted that the Constitution did not provide for the possibility of subversion of the Electoral College as a possible problem with Presidential succession.)

Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter

As TIME noted, the amendment came amidst a flurry of tweaks to the Constitution, during which residents of Washington, D.C., got the vote in Presidential elections and poll taxes were banned. The 25th Amendment as it eventually passed did not take on all of Johnsons suggestions, but it strove to address his top two concerns, as the magazine summed up the week of its ratification:

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Under the amendment, an incapacitated Chief Executive can himself declare in writing that he is unable to continue in office, and the Vice President can take overat least temporarily. If an ailing President is unable or unwilling to step aside voluntarily, the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet can send a written statement to Congress declaring that the President is incapable of holding office. If the President were to challenge such a resolution, Congress itself would vote on the question. The amendment also authorizes the President to appoint, and Congress to confirm, a new Vice President if a vacancy occurs in that office.

The four sections of the amendment deal with four possible situations in which the line of succession would need to be put into play. First, if the President dies or resigns, the VP takes over. Second, if there is no VP for one reason or another, the President nominates a new one, who has to be confirmed by Congress. Third, if the President declares that he cannot fulfill his duties for some period of time, the VP becomes Acting President. And finally, if it is decided (by the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide) that the President cannot do his job, the Vice President becomes Acting President until the President submits a written declaration that he can in fact do his job. If theres disagreement about whether or not thats the case, Congress gets to decide.

The amendment was soon put to the test.

An effort among some in Washington to push to have President Richard Nixon declared incapacitated prior to his resignation had not gone anywhere, but the scandals of the early 1970s did call for the use of the amendment as a means of replacing the Vice President. The resignation of embattled Vice President Spiro Agnew in late 1973 led Nixon to pick Gerald Ford to be his new Vice President, under the terms of the 25thwhich was invoked once again only about a year later, when Nixons resignation put Ford in the White House, leaving the Vice Presidency open for Ford to name Nelson Rockefeller to the post.

Ronald Reagan would put the amendment to use as well, in 1985, when he declared that George H.W. Bush would be in charge while he was unconscious during a surgery. (George W. Bush did the same during his time in office.) And, to those worried about the consequences of Reagans place as the oldest President in U.S. history at the time of his electiona superlative he has since given up to Donald Trumpthe Amendment offered a safety valve. One TIME columnist surmised in 1984 that, thanks to television, the world would instantly detect presidential infirmity in a way that would past ailing presidents managed to avoid.

The amendment has become newly newsworthy in recent weeks, as some opponents of President Trump, such as former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum, have floated the idea that the Amendment could be used to declare that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.

Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Article 4. Were all going to be talking a lot more about it in the months ahead.  David Frum (@davidfrum) November 16, 2016

Though it is very unlikely that such an event might take placethe process for declaring a President incapacitated against his will is purposefully difficultthose who fought for its creation a half-century ago might be glad to hear that the American people know that, if the President were incapacitated, the steps to take are clear.

By this thoughtful amendment, [the amendments advocates] have further perfected the oldest written constitution in the world, Johnson said upon its ratification. They have earned the lasting thanks of the American people, for whom it has so long secured the blessings of liberty.
When something goes wrong, it's tempting to think it can only get better. That's often the case for large companies, where investors may see a dinged-up stock as an opportunity to jump in for cheap.

But that idiom doesn't always play out. Sometimes bad situations just get worse. That's why large-capitalization "values" can be tricky for investors -- the company's price looks attractive, but company-specific or industry-wide issues could keep the stock from ever bouncing back.

[See: 7 of the Best Stocks to Buy in 2017.]

Below are four large companies at such a crossroads. Analysts are trying to decide whether their fates will improve, but in some cases, it looks like bleaker days ahead.

Macy's remains stuck between Amazon and thrift. Macy's (ticker: M) started 2017 by announcing it would cut more than 10,000 employees -- 3,900 cuts from store closures, and 6,200 cuts as a result of a corporate restructuring. Macy's also reported some coal in its stocking -- a 2.1 percent decline in comparable-store sales for November and December.

The pain isn't new for Macy's, whose stock price has dropped nearly 60 percent since July 2015. The reason: off-price retailers such as TJX Companies ( TJX) brands T.J.Maxx and Marshalls, and the growing clout of online retailers such as Amazon.com ( AMZN).

Retailers like T.J.Maxx and Marshalls sell similar products as Macy's, but undercut Macy's on price. Morningstar analyst Bridget Weishaar says Macy's is trying to match TJX by expanding its own off-price retail store, Backstage, which launched in fall 2015. The outlet offers clearance items from Macy's stores, but remains a small part of overall sales.

[See: 8 Gold ETFs to Buy Anytime.]

It's a similar story as it tries to fight e-commerce operators like Amazon. While Macy's has taken steps to improve its online efforts, such as offering in-store pickup of online purchases, it hasn't been nearly enough to stem the 5 percent drop in sales in the first three quarters of 2016.

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Yes, Macy's 9.7 forward price-earnings ratio looks attractive compared to the overall Standard & Poor's 500 index's 17.5. But this might be just a value trap, as "the core business is in state of permanent decline," Weishaar says.

Hertz's troubles start with an ill-fated merger. You have to go back to 2012 to find the root cause of Hertz Global Holdings ( HTZ) troubles. That's when it purchased Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group for $2.3 billion. Its stock price has fallen roughly 65 percent since it closed the deal.

The first hiccup came in 2013 when Hertz decided to move its headquarters to Estero, Florida. This led to the departure of many "mid-level revenue managers that didn't make the move," Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Woronka says. The loss of these managers has impacted Hertz's ability to correctly price rentals and maximize its fleet.

Another issue is Hertz's current fleet of vehicles. While Americans have moved toward SUVs and other premium large vehicles, much of Hertz's fleet was made up of smaller cars. It hasn't spent to reflect consumer tastes, while rival Avis Budget Group ( CAR) has taken advantage of the trend, Woronka says. In response, Hertz's revenues have fallen 3 percent in the first three quarters of 2016, while Avis jumped 3 percent.

CEO John Tague stepped down in December amid Hertz's struggles, and was replaced by Kathryn Marinello. But activist investor Carl Icahn holds a massive 33.8 percent stake in Hertz and controls three board seats.

Hertz's issues require spending to fix, but Icahn-controlled companies aren't known for increasing spending to solve problems. "It's fair to say, they did not foresee the operational challenges lying ahead," Woronka says.

Chipotle tries to court customers again. Chipotle Mexican Grill's ( CMG) stock has sickened investors ever since in the restaurant suffered a multi-state E. coli outbreak in late 2015. Its stock is off nearly 45 percent since October of that year.

But nearly a year since the problem was fixed, it's hard to tell how long the damage will linger. Through nine months of 2016, revenues had fallen 18 percent compared to the year prior.

"This has been something of a crucible for Chipotle," Bernstein analyst Sara Senatore says. She adds that it forced Chipotle to focus on some issues it had ignored.

In December, Chipotle dropped its co-chief structure, promoting founder Steve Ells to sole CEO. The restaurant chain also has focused on improving what may have lagged in quality.

"It always had some stores not up to best-in-class best practices," Senatore says. "It had so much demand, [it was] not as noticeable."

But Chipotle's business remains a great draw. It increased its marketing spending from 2.4 percent of revenues in the third quarter of 2015 to 4.8 percent of revenues in the same quarter of 2016, to encourage customers to return.

Chipotle is in a good place to turn things around -- it's just a matter of when. The 11 percent run since the start of 2017 is a promising start.

J.C. Penney's problems look familiar. Under previous leadership, J.C. Penney ( JCP) tried to shift its focus away from bargains, but the strategy not only failed to attract new customers -- it pushed away its base.

Now under CEO Marvin Ellison, it's going back to basics, returning its private brands that connect with customers, controlling costs, offering cheaper options and increasing its promotions. J.C. Penney's customers "tend to react to promotional activity," says Brian Nagel, an analyst at Oppenheimer.

But the turnaround is struggling. Comparable-store sales fell 0.8 percent in the holiday season, and its stock has traded roughly flat over the past three years. It's in the same sector as Macy's, and facing similar struggles.

[See: 7 Turnaround Stocks and How They're Doing.]

The large, mostly mall-based operator is in a "really tough spot," Nagel says.

Ryan Derousseau is a journalist with nine years of experience writing about investing and leadership issues. His work has been read in Fortune, Money, CNNMoney and Fast Company, among other publications. You can find more from him on Twitter @ryanderous.
Istanbul (AFP) - Five more Turkish soldiers were killed Thursday in fighting for the Islamic State (IS) held town of Al-Bab in northern Syria, bringing the army's death toll to 10 over two days, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.

Ten soldiers were also wounded in the latest fighting between IS jihadists and the Turkish army, which is backing a campaign by Syrian rebels to take the town.

Another five soldiers had already been killed in fighting on Wednesday and 15 more wounded.

One of the soldiers killed on Wednesday, sergeant Mahmut Uslu, was given a full funeral ceremony in Ankara attended by Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and other Turkish leaders.

Mourners including Yildirim consoled his distraught mother Murside while his comrades bore a picture of the dead soldier, an AFP photographer reported.

Turkey on August 24 began an unprecedented campaign inside Syria against IS and Kurdish militia which initially made rapid progress but has become mired in a deadly fight for Al-Bab since December.

According to Dogan news agency, 66 Turkish soldiers have now been killed in the Syria operation since it began in August, mostly in attacks by IS.

Turkey had on Wednesday claimed significant progress in the battle to capture Al-Bab and signalled it was looking to push to the jihadist stronghold of Raqa in the next stage of the operation.

Yildirim said Al-Bab was now "surrounded on all sides" and the town's outer neighbourhoods were "under control".

Al-Bab has been besieged since Monday, when government forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad advancing from the south cut off a road leading into the town.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu suggested that once Al-Bab was captured Turkey and its allies could send special forces to take Raqa, the de-facto capital for IS to the southwest.
A 76-year-old Florida man is behind bars after cops say he shot his wife in the butt after an argument about sex, or lack thereof.

Donald Royce told police he accidentally shot his 62-year-old wife of just a few months on Saturday following a spat about their sleeping arrangements, according to the Lee County Sheriff's Office.

Read: Caretakers Arrested After 10-Year-Old Girl With Autism Found Locked in Cage: Cops

But instead of shooting the mattress to scare his wife as he said he intended, Royce told police he shot her in the butt.

While theyve reportedly been married since August, the couple has yet to consummate the marriage.

According to WFTX, the couple's roommate told cops she heard two shots. When she went to investigate, the roommate reportedly told officers that Royce pointed the gun at her.

However, she said she convinced Royce to let her call for help.

When they arrived, cops say Royce told them: "I shot her and the gun is in my room."

Read: Husband Beat and Strangled Wife While Their Child Was in the Same House: Cops

Royce has been charged with aggravated battery.

His wife was treated for gunshot wounds to the buttocks and hip.

Watch: Couple Sentenced in Beating Death of 5-Year-Old Expecting Another Child

Related Articles:
Associated Press

Astros first baseman Yuli Gurriel will miss the rest of the World Series after spraining his right knee in Game 5, an injury that led to the surprise activation of rookie catcher Korey Lee. He wasnt crying, but he had tears in his eyes," Astros manager Dusty Baker said of Gurriel. Gurriel collided with Philadelphia first baseman Rhys Hoskins during a rundown between third base and home plate on Chas McCormick's seven-inning grounder during Thursday night's 3-2 win, taking a knee to his head.
A Pakistani activist abducted last month has broken his silence on his weeks-long disappearance, but is refusing to point fingers in a country where criticising extremism or the security establishment can make you a target.

Ahmad Waqass Goraya was among five activists who vanished in Pakistan in early January.

Human Rights Watch, opposition lawmakers and Pakistani activists have said their near simultaneous abductions pointed to government involvement in a country with a history of enforced disappearances.

Goraya was freed at the end of January along with at least three others and swiftly fled back to the Netherlands, where he has lived for the last decade.

"I felt I would never come back, I would never see my son and family," the 34-year-old IT worker told AFP during a phone interview in which he frequently became agitated.

Goraya, who like the other activists criticised religious extremism and the military establishment, refused to say anything about his captors or describe what happened during his ordeal, which began after he was abducted on January 4 shortly after leaving his family home in Lahore.

But he angrily rejected accusations that he was a traitor for daring to be vocal about alleged abuses of power in Pakistan, insisting he was a true patriot.

"Nothing was against Pakistan, nothing was against Islam, I was critical of policies because I want to see a better Pakistan," he said, adding in a later message: "We want a Pakistan with rule of law".

Goraya also said he fears that a virulent ultra right-wing campaign to paint him as a blasphemer while he was missing has followed him to Europe.

The charge, which engulfed Pakistani social media and was repeated by mainstream television hosts, is an incendiary one that can carry the death penalty in the conservative Muslim country.

Even unproven allegations have caused mob lynchings and violence. At least 65 people including lawyers, judges and activists have been murdered by vigilantes over blasphemy allegations since 1990, according to the Center for Research and Security Studies.

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Goraya said allegations of blasphemy had surfaced on social media sites frequented by the Pakistani community in the Netherlands, prompting him to seek police advice.

"I'm looking over my shoulder -- I have been warned by people it is a crazy world."

- Silencing dissent -

Pakistan has had a history of enforced disappearances over the past decade, but they have mainly been confined to conflict zones near the Afghanistan border or to southwestern Balochistan province, where separatists are battling for independence.

Campaigners and opposition politicians believe the disappearances in January were part of a new strategy by the military -- which has ruled the country for nearly half its existence and wields de facto control over security policy -- to stamp out criticism and dissent online.

Officials have denied any role in the disappearances, which sparked protests in cities across Pakistan by progressives concerned that the space for free speech is shrinking.

But, said Goraya, they have had their intended chilling effect.

"Hundreds of our friends deactivated their (social media) accounts, their pages," Goraya said, adding that well-known liberal blog "Roshni" (whose name means "light" in Urdu) was among those deleted, despite the fact its administrator was based in London.

His three-year-old son, meanwhile, has been deeply traumatised by his father's weeks-long disappearance and its impact on his family.

"What can you tell a three-year-old kid, all he can see are his mother and grandparents screaming and crying," Goraya said.

He described how the once quiet child now lashes out. "He's yelling and slapping and beating -- that's what I would say is the worst loss I suffer."

Goraya said he has spent almost a decade in the Netherlands but had come to Pakistan in late 2016 to gauge the possibility of returning to Lahore with his family once his wife had completed her PhD studies.

"I could have applied for Dutch citizenship after five years but we never went that way -- it would mean giving up my Pakistani passport," he said.

"The plan was to move permanently back to Pakistan. But now we have to replan our whole life."
Cape Town (AFP) - South Africa has advertised it is "open for business" at the world's largest annual mining conference, but industry players worry regulatory confusion could prevent the country from cashing in on the bull years that may lie ahead.

After mineral resources minister Mosebenzi Zwane told the Mining Indaba in Cape Town that rising commodity prices marked the start of "a new spring", Neal Froneman, chief executive of the Sibanye mining company, said that "the investment appetite is very negative."

Analysts and miners have decried a regulatory environment that they say has hit investment and forced industry and government to slug it out in court.

Sibanye is taking the government to court for about 26 million rand ($1.9 million) after one of its platinum mines was completely shut down following a fatal accident in September.

Last year a court also said safety officers acted disproportionately when operations at an AngloGold Ashanti gold mine were suspended over violations in a single section of the mine.

"When you end up closing an entire mine when you've got a localised problem, the economic damage of that is significant," said Chamber of Mines CEO Roger Baxter.

But Zwane has insisted he will not compromise on safety standards and slammed mining companies for "threatening" his department with court action.

- Minister chides industry -

There were 73 deaths in South African mines last year, down slightly from 77 in 2015.

"Courts should not be used as a tool to stifle debate and threaten government into taking positions," Zwane told journalists at the conference. "We'll take positions. We are here to govern. And we'll do exactly that."

Speaking to AFP on the sidelines of the conference, his deputy was more diplomatic.

"We've got to be fair and reasonable," said Godfrey Oliphant. "If there's any citizen who feels that they were unreasonably stopped, they've got the right and recourse to come to the department or to take court action."

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Turning to the courts was the "last resort" for Sibanye, Froneman told AFP.

"You can engage so much and for so long. You can even make proposals as to a protocol for how these things must work. When you receive no response, you are actually only left with no alternative but to take the issue regarding the damages you as a company are experiencing to court."

It was not a knee-jerk reaction to one stoppage, but a series that had caused Sibanye "unnecessary damage and we're not going to to tolerate it anymore".

Also looming is a rejig of the country's mining charter, the guiding document meant to transform the industry and address long-standing racial inequality in the sector by boosting black ownership.

Industry representatives at the Indaba repeatedly said they had not been adequately consulted in the drafting of the charter.

Not so, said Oliphant.

"Consultation has been extensive," he stressed.

This week a Johannesburg law firm took the issue to court, arguing the proposed charter be declared invalid.

- Mining means jobs -

Tension between the government and the mining industry -- a key jobs provider -- was palpable at the Indaba.

"The Chamber of Mines is not the only stakeholder in South Africa that is affected by the mining charter," Zwane said. "The majority of the 60 stakeholders that we have consulted with are very happy."

Meanwhile, amendments to key mining legislation have been stuck in parliament for four years.

"This industry absolutely requires regulatory certainty," said Baxter. "Four years down the road is just too long. The industry cannot wait this long for these bits of legislation."

The minister announced the latest version of charter will be published next month, while the long-awaited legislation should be passed come June.

Until it is, analysts say the uncertain regulatory situation could mean South Africa fails to benefit as markets pick up.

"It's all stick and no carrot," said mining analyst Peter Leon.

He said the government needed to start incentivising the industry if it wanted to attract investors.

"We need to move away from this obsession around regulation to one which is a more enabling environment."

Mining contributes about eight percent to South Africa's GDP and accounts for some 400,000 direct jobs.

The country has an unemployment rate of about 27 percent, a 13-year high.
By Simon Lewis and Aye Win Myint YANGON (Reuters) - A small group of protesters greeted a ship from Malaysia when it docked in Myanmar on Thursday carrying aid bound for the troubled state of Rakhine, where many members of the stateless Rohingya Muslim minority live. The ship docked on the outskirts of the commercial hub, Yangon, where it was due to unload 500 tonnes of food and emergency supplies, with the rest of its 2,200 ton cargo bound for southeast Bangladesh. Almost 69,000 Rohingyas have fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh in the past four months from a security force crackdown. The aid shipment from mostly Muslim Malaysia has stirred opposition in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where many see the Rohingya as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Malaysia has been an outspoken critic of Myanmar over the crisis in Rakhine state, which erupted after nine policemen were killed in attacks on border posts on Oct. 9 claimed by Rohingya militants. U.N. officials working with refugees in Bangladesh have told Reuters the death toll in the Myanmar security sweep could be more than 1,000. Refugees have given journalists, human rights groups and U.N. investigators detailed accounts of troops firing on civilians, burning villages, beatings, detention and rape. The Myanmar government, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, has rejected the reports of abuse, saying many were fabricated. It insists the strife is an internal matter. Underlining the controversy surrounding the aid for the Rohingya, several dozen Buddhist monks and nationalists demonstrated outside the port terminal on Thursday. They held signs rejecting the use of the name Rohingya - the name most Muslims in northern Rakhine state use to describe themselves, which Myanmar rejects."We don't mind that they want to support people who are suffering," Buddhist monk U Thuseiktha told Reuters. "But we don't want political exploitation of this issue by calling them Rohingya. The name Rohingya doesn't exist." 'CONFIDENCE' Myanmar officials have also accused Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak of tapping into the Rohingya cause "to promote a certain political agenda". The Muslim groups and aid organizations behind the aid shipment had hoped to deliver the supplies directly to Rohingyas in Rakhine State, but were instead forced to hand the aid over to the Myanmar government in Yangon. Myanmar has also insisted that it be distributed equally between Buddhists and Muslims in Rakhine State. Abd. Aziz Sheikh Fadzir, a lawmaker from Najib's ruling party who attended the docking, said the organizations behind the shipment had been delivering aid to other crises around Asia and the Pacific. Any suggestion of political expediency was "speculation", he said. Najib has called Myanmar's military operation "genocide" and saw off the shipment when it left Malaysia last Friday. Reezal Merican Naina Merican, Malaysia's deputy minister of foreign affairs, who was also at the port, praised Myanmar for agreeing to accept the delivery, saying it built confidence between the international community and Myanmar. Win Myat Aye, Myanmar's minister for social welfare, relief and resettlement, said Rakhine was "the second-poorest state in Myanmar, is a natural disaster-prone area by geographical location, and it is compounded by communal conflicts unfortunately".Myanmar has been criticized for hampering the work of agencies including the U.N. World Food Program trying to feed people in area where malnutrition rates were high before the conflict .The government had been delivering aid to affected people in northern Rakhine "without discrimination", Win Myat Aye said, adding Myanmar would "arrange the distribution of this aid to the communities in the affected areas at the soonest possible time". (Editing by Robert Birsel)
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When it's freezing outside and your toes are steadily going numb, it can be hard to concentrate on anything but how cold you are.

So don't!

Instead, make being cold the only thing that identifies you by eradicating all the other facets of your personality. It will make expressing yourself much easier  which is good, because you have to save energy to retain heat.

Here's where to start.

When you enter a room, wiggle around and say, "brr!"

Before anyone knows your first name, last name or reason for being in the room, they should know you are feeling a little cold.

Show everyone that your fingers are kind of blue.

Image: Shutterstock/Image Point Fr

Yeah, it's like a purplish-blue color. Wild, right? It happens at the beach, too, like if the water is cold.

Make sure to bring up your circulation a few times per week.

If you're cold all the time, it doesn't necessarily mean you have poor circulation. However, talking about your real or imaginary circulatory issues is a great way to bond with other cold people.

Never drink iced coffee. (Too cold!)

Image: Shutterstock/mongione

Even if iced coffee  or soda, or iced tea, or cold water  sounds delicious, it's important to stay on brand. Time to boil your body from the inside!

Pretend you don't know what the Winter Olympics are.

Repeat after us: "Winter Olympics? Only Summer Olympics for me, please."

Refer to your space heater as your "spouse."

Cutie.

Image: Shutterstock/ronstik

You spend so much time together, it's similar to being married! Cutie.

When selecting an office blanket, go for the loudest print and the brightest colors.

When you get up from your desk to go the bathroom, do not take the blanket off. Better yet, announce, "Me and my office blanket are headed somewhere!"

Keep no fewer than 20 scarves in your bag at all times.

Image: Etsy/IfKnotForYourGrace

They must all be different and they must all be so huge.

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Every day, take a 2-hour hot shower.

Make sure to bring it up to your friends and coworkers. They want to hear about when you shower and what you do in there.

Leave the room every time you see a commercial for tourism in Park City, Utah.

Seems cold.

Image: Youtube/Visit Park City

It is not good for you to look at all that snow on the television.
President Trump and his aides frequently invoke the will of the voters in advancing his hard-edged conservative agenda, from dismantling the Affordable Care Act and stripping away onerous government regulations to retreating on climate change and banning immigrants from seven terrorism prone countries.

But a new Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday tells a different story. Just a few tumultuous weeks into the Trump presidency, a majority of Americans sharply disagree with him on many key elements of policy.

Related: Trump Plays the Fear Card as He Badgers Judges for Their Vote

A litany of calls to hold your horses, Mr. President, Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, said in a statement summing up the findings. Americans want President Donald Trump to keep the regulatory reins on business, and voters call for a full stop to laying new pipelines full of oil. They are against taking the knife to Obamacare and opposed to lifting environmental regulations.

According to the poll, a majority of voters surveyed nationwide (49 percent to 39 percent) are opposed to Trumps promise to gut Dodd-Frank and other regulations governing Wall Street and businesses. And they say the new president should not decimate regulations and agreements designed to combat climate change, by a two to one margin.

Indeed, 72 percent of the voters surveyed said they were very concerned or somewhat concerned about the problem of global warming, which Trump once dismissed as a hoax perpetrated by China. Just 17 percent of voters believe the U.S. is doing enough to address the problem, while 59 percent say that more needs to be done.

Moreover, 50 percent of Americans dont want Trump and his GOP allies to repeal and replace Obamacare, which has provided health insurance coverage to more than 20 million people. Not surprisingly, the issue sharply divides the two parties. Eighty-six percent of Democrats are opposed to repealing President Barack Obamas signature program, while just 10 percent of Republicans want to see Obamacare survive.

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Americans also generally oppose Trumps plan to build a wall along the southern border, particularly if U.S. taxpayers get stuck with the bill: 63 percent oppose an American taxpayer-funded wall, compared to 35 percent who support it.

Related: Defying the Best Legacy of the Free World, Trump Instills Fear Itself

To be sure, the results arent all negative: By a margin of 60 percent to 31 percent, the public supports Trumps plan to renegotiate NAFTA and other international trade agreements. They overwhelmingly support the presidents idea for investing $1 trillion in roads, bridges and other infrastructure. And they heartily approve of his choice of Judge Neil M. Gorsuch to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court.

But voters are wary of Trumps emerging global posture, including his complaints that not all European allies are spending their fair share on defense. Americans maintain, 79 percent to 13 percent, that Trump and U.S. forces should defend all of this countrys NATO allies.

Many Americans appear dismayed by Trumps insistence that he won the November election over Democrat Hillary Clinton despite widespread voter fraud. By 61 percent to 28 percent, voters say they dont believe Trumps assertion that three million to five million non-citizens voted in the 2016 election.

The poll didnt question voters about their stand on Trumps controversial executive order temporarily banning immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries. That order triggered days of chaos and confusions in airports throughout the world and has been put on hold pending ruling by a three-judge panel of the San Francisco based Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A separate poll by Morning Consult and Politico shows public support for the president  55 percent to 38 percent, although support appears to be slipping.

Related: Heres Why Trump May Be Sending More Jobs to Mexico than He Saves

The Quinnipiac poll was conducted from Feb. 2 to 6 and involved interviews with 1,155 voters nationwide; it has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
The majority of Americans oppose President Donald Trumps plan to eliminate environmental regulations that combat climate change, according to a new poll, underscoring skepticism about an oft-repeated promise the campaign trail.

The Quinnipiac University poll shows that 61% of Americans oppose removing regulations that combat climate change, with remaining 29% supporting the rollback. Trump has aggressively pursued deregulation in the environmental area during his first weeks in office, working with Congress to undo a slew of rules recently implemented under former President Barack Obama. The Clean Power Plan, Obamas most significant domestic measure to fight climate change, remains on the books, though Trump promised during the campaign to undo it.

The poll also found that 50% of Americans oppose reviving the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, compared to 40% who support the pipelines. Trump has already taken decisive action on both, directing the Army to issue the final permit for the Dakota Access Pipeline and inviting the company behind Keystone XL to reapply for a permit rejected under the Obama Administration.

Most Republican elected officials at the federal level have rebuffed efforts to launch a full-throated effort to address climate change, but some have argued that the party is out of step with the American public on the issue. A group of Republican elder statesmen on Wednesday proposed a carbon tax as an alternative to the Clean Power Plan. Their announcement noted the broad scientific consensus that the issue must be addressed urgently, as well as the discrepancy between party orthodoxy and the views of the general public.

The national survey of more than 1,100 voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.
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Its not often a 6-foot-8 man can get a piggyback ride.

Its just math, you see. The legs of a tall person are long, and tall people are usually heavier than shorter human beings. Basically, tall people need other tall people to offer their shoulders up for a seat and let their friends take a bit of a ride.

Thats what makes this Andrew Wiggins dunk so upsetting. The Minnesota Timberwolves guard finally saw an opportunity for a piggyback ride after a big dunk on Torontos Jonas Valanciunas. He lines up the dunk, then lines up Valanciunas shoulders and tries to go for a ride.

Andrew Wiggins slams on Jonas Valanciunas who refuses to cooperate with the piggyback ride (r @JaceFrederick) pic.twitter.com/qX6xc7wzTA  CJ Fogler (@cjzero) February 9, 2017

Valanciunas, however, wasnt having it. He tries to fight off Wiggins while hes still hanging from the rim. Some friend he is.

Listen, Im sure the Toronto Raptors center wasnt excited about the big dunk. It was an easy one, too. Wiggins got a dish from Gorgui Dieng off a turnover and even had time to start a dribble and set himself up for the big dunk. But this is a rare opportunity for big man joy for Andrew Wiggins, and Valanciunas let him down. Maybe the Lithuanian has never truly experienced the joy of human-on-human transportation and wanted to get his before he started giving away freebies.

Its selfish, sure. But maybe Wiggins should have offered to reciprocate here, too. Its only fair.
MIAMI (AP)  The Miami Marlins are for sale, and owner Jeffrey Loria may have a buyer.

Loria has a preliminary agreement to sell the team to a New York businessman, but the deal could fall through because the final purchase price hasn't been determined, a person with direct knowledge of the negotiations said Thursday. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the Marlins have not commented publicly on the negotiations.

The preliminary agreement was for a purchase price of about $1.6 billion, the person said, but added that was before the prospective buyer did due diligence. The final offer by the potential buyer could be much lower, the person said.

The person declined to identify the prospective buyer but said other parties are also interested in purchasing the team, and negotiations with them might eventually be reopened.

Forbes reported earlier Thursday, citing two unidentified sources, that Marlins President David Samson has said that there is a $1.6 billion handshake agreement for a sale.

Samson declined to comment to the AP and has been unwilling to say publicly whether the team is for sale.

Loria, 76, bought the Marlins for $158.5 million in 2002 from John Henry, part of the Boston Red Sox ownership group that has celebrated three World Series titles. The Marlins won the World Series in 2003 but haven't been the postseason since, and they haven't finished above .500 since 2009.

They've also finished last in the National League in attendance in 11 of the past 12 years despite moving into a new ballpark in 2012. The small crowds have been blamed in part on antipathy for Loria stemming from the team's perennially small payrolls and a financing agreement for the new ballpark widely viewed as unfair to taxpayers. Public money covered more than three-fourths of the project's $634 million cost.

Loria, a New York art dealer, has kept a low profile in Miami the past couple of seasons. But he approved increasing team payroll by one-third this season to about $100 million, which raised speculation he wanted a competitive team to make it more appealing to potential buyers.

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The death of ace Jose Fernandez in a boat crash in September might be a factor in Loria's willingness to sell.

"Jeffrey was obviously impacted emotionally by the loss of Jose very significantly, like losing a child," Samson said last week. "But he continues to be motivated and interested and engaged."

Before purchasing the Marlins, Loria owned the Montreal Expos and became unpopular with their fans as well. He bought 24 percent of the team in 1999, and his share eventually rose to 92 percent. He failed to reverse the decline of the franchise, and it moved to Washington in 2005.

The Marlins' next owner will be their fourth. Wayne Huizenga founded the franchise in 1993.

Miami will host the All-Star Game for the first time in July. When Samson was asked last week if he anticipates that Loria will still own the team when this season ends, he said yes.
By David Schwartz PHOENIX (Reuters) - An Arizona mother of two who lived in the United States for more than 20 years was deported to Mexico on Thursday, becoming one of the first to be swept up in the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigrants in the United States, her attorney and family said. Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, 36, was taken to Nogales, Mexico, on Thursday morning by U.S. immigration staff, her attorney Ray Ybarra-Maldonado told a news conference. Both of her American-born children and her husband remained in the United States. Her detention sparked a protest on Wednesday outside a Phoenix Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office during which seven demonstrators were arrested. Garcia de Rayos, who came to the United States at age 14 and was living in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa, had been allowed to remain under the Obama administrations policy despite a 2013 arrest by immigration officials, her attorney said. ICE spokeswoman Yasmeen Pitts O'Keefe confirmed in an email that Garcia de Rayos was deported to Mexico. "Ms. Garcia, who has a prior felony conviction in Arizona for criminal impersonation, was the subject of a court-issued removal order that became final in July 2013," Pitts O'Keefe said. "Ms. Garcias immigration case underwent review at multiple levels of the immigration court system, including the Board of Immigration Appeals, and the judges held she did not have a legal basis to remain in the U.S.," she said. Pitts O'Keefe declined to give details of the arrest, but Garcia de Rayos' attorney said she was arrested in 2008 as part of a workplace raid at a Mesa water park and accused of identity theft. Garcia de Rayos was required to check-in annually with officials and was taken into custody on Wednesday after her regular check-in. Her attorney and family decried the action. What have we come to as a society when we allow our government to rip a mother away from her two children? Ybarra-Maldonado said at the news conference outside the ICE office. Her teenage daughter, Jacqueline, vowed to continue efforts to bring her mother back to the United States. Im going to keep on fighting for my mom and for the other families that are going through the same thing because this is unfair, she said. President Donald Trump's administration has directed immigration officials to end the practice known as "catch and release" and deport all illegal immigrants, even if they have not committed serious crimes or pose any danger. (Reporting by David Schwartz; Editing by Ben Klayman, Toni Reinhold)
WARSAW  A charge of theft has been filed against the former 3rd District Democratic Party treasurer, Tyler Cooley, who is accused of embezzling more than $7,000 from the party.

Prosecutors in Kosciusko County filed the single Level 6 felony charge against Cooley, 33, Feb. 3.

That charge is punishable by between six months and 2 1/2 years in jail, if convicted. A judge also could order he make restitution back to the party.

According to court documents, former 3rd District chairwoman Carmen Darland, who lives outside Albion, reported to the Noble County Sheriffs Department she discovered $5,677 had been stolen from the Democrats account at Old National Bank in Kosciusko County.

She told a deputy she had spoken with Cooley, who admitted to her he had taken money from party accounts, the documents state. An audit of the partys accounts was completed, and a total of $7,042 reportedly was missing.

Cooley, who lives in Markle, resigned as treasurer of the 3rd District Democrats in June 2016. The discrepancy was found during an audit by the partys executive committee after his departure, according to a letter sent to party donors Jan. 30 by new 3rd District Chairwoman Madalyn Sade-Bartl.

Sade-Bartl was appointed treasurer after Cooley and was part of the executive committee that discovered the alleged embezzlement.

Noble County Sheriffs Department Detective Sgt. Joe Hutsell spoke to Cooley on July 14, during which time the former treasurer admitted he stole money between September 2015 and July 2016 and used it for his own personal use, according to charging documents.

A withdrawal of $5,677 was taken from the Democrats Old National Bank account; $700 was stolen from a party raffle; and $665 was taken from event revenue, according to court documents.

Cooley had three monetary court judgments ordered against him from August 2014 to April 2016, according to online court records.

On Aug. 26, 2014, a court issued a judgment of $941.76 to Huntington County Federal Credit Union. At the end of divorce hearings in April 2015, Cooley was ordered to pay $2,600 to his spouse as part of the final dissolution order. A year later in April 2016, he was ordered to pay $4,741.77 to family law attorney Tandra S. Johnson, who represented him during his divorce proceedings.

Cooley also was unemployed for a period of about six months, and Sade-Bartl said she thinks he used the money to pay personal expenses during that time.

As far as I know from what hes indicated to myself and other members in the situation, it was paying bills and paying child support, she said.

Cooley sent a check for $150 to the party last week to begin repayment, but Sade-Bartl said police advised her not to deposit that check at this time.

In her letter to donors, Sade-Bartl wrote she anticipated the party would be fully reimbursed.

The charge comes about seven months after Noble County police spoke to Cooley about the incident.

Hutsell said he had submitted paperwork to the Kosciusko County prosecutors office in the summer, but that office was burdened with other cases at the time. Prosecutors didnt get back with him until recently to finalize their information, he said.

They had a lot going on in their office, and it just got shuffled around, Hutsell said.

Since the incident, 3rd District Democrats have implemented new internal controls in an effort to prevent a bookkeeping scheme in the future.

Previously, both the party chair and treasurer were listed as authorized users on the bank accounts, but only the treasurer was receiving bank statements, Sade-Bartl said.

Now, both are getting monthly statements, and Sade-Bartl is forwarding those documents to other members of the partys executive committee, she said.

Sade-Bartl added the 3rd District is researching whether it could get a bond to protect the party against another such loss in the future. Requiring a personal bond for the treasurer likely would be too costly, but party leaders are looking for alternatives, she said.

The loss of the $7,200 didnt prevent 3rd District Democrats from making donations to candidates during the 2016 elections, although the party had less money available for contributions, including those to local office seekers.

Extra money probably wouldnt have helped in statewide races considering how badly Democrats performed against Republicans in the general election. But additional money might have made a difference in local contests, Sade-Bartl said.
Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos  who inspired protests in Phoenix, Arizona, when she was detained Wednesday during a routine check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)  was deported to Mexico on Thursday morning.

Garcia de Rayos, a 35-year-old mother of two, came to the United States illegally when she was 14 years old. She has been required to regularly check in with ICE officials since 2008, when she was caught using a fake Social Security Number to gain employment.

Her attorney, Ray A. Ybarra Maldonado, said he was informed of her deportation Thursday by the Mexican consulate but had few further details. Maldonado had filed a stay of deportation on Wednesday to keep her in the country, but he said ICE officials never responded to it, though they told him they would take it into consideration.

She just has all the equities that would necessitate finding humanitarian reasons to grant her a stay in this country, Maldonado said in a press call on Thursday.

Maldonado and other advocates attributed the deportation to President Donald Trumps new immigration order, which prioritizes the deportation of undocumented immigrants who have been charged with a crime.

We knew that theres a new President, we knew that there were new priorities set forth, said Carlos Garcia, executive director of the immigrant rights group Puente Arizona. The family knew that this was a possibility.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP)  Arkansas would become the eighth state to ban abortions based solely on whether a woman wants to have a girl or a boy under a measure a House panel approved Thursday that is part of a Republican agenda that started with the party's takeover of the Legislature four years ago.

Opponents said the measure is unconstitutional. Supporters said the ban on so-called sex-selection abortions would have a minimal effect because most abortions occur before the gender is known. However, Rep. Charlie Collins said it's still necessary because that could change with advances in technology.

"What's reasonable today and what's reasonable in the future could be very, very different," the Fayetteville Republican told colleagues on the House Public Health Committee.

Rita Sklar, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Arkansas, said any restriction would be illegal if the fetus isn't able to survive outside the womb.

"Any law passed about an abortion performed pre-viability under the current law is unconstitutional. It doesn't matter why. It doesn't matter the method," Sklar said. "There is very good potential for litigation because of this burden on women obtaining abortions that they want for whatever reason."

Arizona, Kansas, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and South Dakota already ban such abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research center that favors abortion rights. Indiana's is on hold amid a court challenge.

Under the Arkansas measure, a doctor performing an abortion would ask the patient if she knows the sex of the child. If she does, the doctor lets her know that is illegal to have an abortion based solely on gender, Collins said. Would-be parents can usually find out the sex of the child at the mother's 20-week checkup.

"Today's technology does not allow sex to be determined very early in a pregnancy," Collins said. "Viability, abortion timelines, etc. that exist today, and when sex is determinable are such that it would be almost impossible for this to be a massive issue in the United States today."

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Planned Parenthood's Great Plains affiliate said the if the Legislature is concerned about gender bias, it should focus on equal pay for women and other unfair treatment.

"We can all agree that gender discrimination is a problem. This bill however does nothing to address that issue or actually solve that problem," public policy manager Ashley Wright said. "These laws would interfere with open, honest communication between doctors and patients."

The bill now heads to the full House for consideration.

Since Republicans took control of the Arkansas Legislature in 2013, the state has banned abortions after 20 weeks' gestation. Courts have blocked other laws banning abortions after 12 weeks and limiting how the abortion pill is administered in the state.

So far this session, legislators have outlawed dilation and evacuation abortions, which abortion-rights supporters say is the most common second-trimester procedure. The ban takes effect later this year.

___

Follow Kelly P. Kissel on Twitter at www.twitter.com/kisselAP and go to http://bigstory.ap.org/author/kelly-p-kissel to see his work.
Refugees who had arrived via buses chartered by Austrian authorities walk towards the border to Germany near Mistlberg, Austria: Getty

Austrian is planning to send troops to protect the European Unions external borders against refugees.

Hans Peter Doskozil, the defence minister, said Austria was one of 16 countries around the Balkan route used by more than a million migrants to journey from Greece into Europe who are cooperating on the new border defence project.

The western Balkan route is still not as closed as it should be, the Social Democrat (SPO) minister told Die Welt.

Unfortunately [there are] still significant activities by criminal smugglers and a significant number of migrantsif there is a mass influx of refugees, states involved in the border protection initiative want to be able to act quickly.

Mr Doskozil said the Austrian government was working on legal changes to allow its troops to be deployed abroad for reasons other than humanitarian operations, meaning they could be sent within and outside the EU to protect borders.

In 2015 a record of 90,000 people applied for asylum in Austria after hundreds of thousands of migrants passed through the country after journeying along the Balkan route to Germany and other European countries.

More than 10,000 migrants crossed into Austria in a single day at the height of the refugee crisis in October 2015, but the number plummeted to 100-200 after the implementation of the controversial EU-Turkey deal.

The agreement came into effect last March, seeing anyone arriving by boat on Greek islands automatically detained under the threat of deportation, as borders closed across Europe.

Recep Tayyip Erdogans government has repeatedly threatened to scrap the deal over the EUs opposition to human rights violations following a coup attempting to oust the President.

Mr Doskozil said the Turkish leader was not a reliable partner of the EU and that Europe should prepare for the possibility Ankara will open the floodgates.

The deal caused a dramatic drop in the number of asylum seekers arriving in Greece, but attempts to make the longer and more treacherous Mediterranean crossing from Libya to Italy have continued, claiming almost 5,000 lives last year.

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The Austrian government has also been mounting its own attempts to reduce the number of migrants attempting to settle in the country.

Cabinet members agreed draft legislation in December that would bring in prison sentences of up to three weeks and 5,000 (4,200) in penalties for anyone giving authorities false information.

The perceived prioritisation of Syrians over other nationalities has led a minority of people from countries including Afghanistan to lie about their origin in the belief it will help them gain protection in Europe.

Austria is among several European countries steadily tightening asylum laws amid growing anti-migrant sentiment. The far-right Freedom Party (FPO), whose candidate Norbert Hofer narrowly lost last year's presidential election, has been leading opinion polls with around 33 per cent for months.

The ruling coalition of the conservative People's Party (OVP) and SPO have taken note and are already punishing those who stay in Austria after being ordered to leave fines of up to 15,000 (13,000) and six week prison sentences.

Almost 10,000 asylum seekers have reached Europe by sea so far this year, with the vast majority taken to Italy by rescue ships. Most are from Syria, followed by Afghanistan, Nigeria, Iraq and Eritrea.


Tennessee deputies discovered an autistic 10-year-old girl locked inside a wooden cage that reeked of feces and urine, authorities said.

The Washington County Sheriffs officers were conducting a welfare check after receiving reports about an imprisoned child when they found the girl in a bedroom, officials said.

Read: 14-Year-Old Student with Autism Drowns in High School Pool

Mickey Sparks, 69, and Patricia Laws, 43, were arrested at the house and charged with aggravated child abuse, said Sheriff Ed Graybeal in a statement Monday.

The couple was identified as the childs caretakers. Both remain at the Washington County Detention Center in lieu of $50,000 bail each, according to online records.

They have not entered pleas. Both requested public defenders at a Tuesday hearing, according to the Johnston City Press.

Deputies said the home smelled strongly of human waste and that feces appeared to be ground into the carpet and the kitchens tile floor, according to court documents, the paper said.

Read: Autistic Man Who Can't Speak Uses Facebook to Summon Cops for Drowning Toddler

Laws told investigators the girl was locked in the cage to control her and that she slept on a mattress at night while locked up, the affidavits said. The couple also told deputies that child welfare workers had approved their use of the wooden box.

Three other children were living in the home, and Department of Childrens Services employees removed all four, authorities said. The social workers told deputies there was no record of their department approving the device, the newspaper reported.

Watch: Parents Leave 7-Year-Old Boy in Woods Filled with Bears as Punishment

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Wellington (AFP) - All Blacks lock Patrick Tuipulotu has been "fully exonerated" of doping after his B-sample came up clean, New Zealand Rugby said Thursday.

Tuipulotu's provisional suspension was immediately lifted after the second sample was examined at a World Anti-Doping Agency-accredited laboratory in the United States.

"This is an important and welcomed conclusion for both Patrick and for rugby," NZR chief Steve Tew said.

"We are pleased that a robust process has been undertaken, and that he has been fully cleared."

Tuipulotu returned to New Zealand before the All Blacks' Test against France on their northern hemisphere tour last November, for what was then described as "personal reasons".

But it emerged this week that the 24-year-old had been provisionally suspended after a doping test revealed a "specified substance" on WADA's banned list.

New Zealand Rugby Players' Association chief Rob Nichol said it was unclear why there was a discrepancy between Tuipulotu's A and B samples.

"This is a matter that SMRTL (the US laboratory) is investigating and we look forward to their feedback," he said.

Tuipulotu, who has played 12 Tests and is signed with NZR until the end of the 2019 season, said the episode had been "incredibly stressful" but he was glad the truth had come out.

"I'm pleased the matter is now closed, with my reputation and integrity intact, and I look forward to getting back into training and an exciting year of rugby," he said.
Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fcard%2fimage%2f377207%2f75b7e934-eb69-42e3-a7b5-a9ef0fee3b60

Scientists and environmental advocates are up in arms after lumps of coal were found washed up on beaches around Australia's Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.

Showing what's at stake for vulnerable marine life, a local found a turtle hatchling next to a lump of coal on East Point Beach in Mackay, Queensland and shared the pictures.

SEE ALSO: Something is very, very wrong with the Arctic climate

Lance Payne spotted the hatchling while wandering the beach early this week. Though he's not part of any environmental group, he felt compelled to share what he saw with authorities. He says the beach is covered in bits of coal and what he believes to be fine black coal dust.

"It's very alarming," he said. "There's coal, potential coal dust and plastic pollution from the streets. "All these awful things happening on the one beach."

While its effect on turtles is not known, scientists regard coal as potentially having a detrimental affect on some marine plants and animals.

Kathryn Berry, a PhD candidate at James Cook University in Queensland, has studied the effects of small coal particles on tropical organisms, including corals, fish and seagrass, in aquarium environments. A 2015 report was published in Nature.

She said that contamination by small coal particles can lower coral survivorship as well as fish and seagrass growth rates.

"There are different ways that coal can cause harm to plants and animals," she explained. "The direct physical effects include smothering and abrasion of plant and animal tissues. When small coal particles are suspended in the water, light levels can be reduced, meaning there is less light reaching plants that require it to photosynthesize."

Image: Lance Payne

Measuring the potential impact of coal contamination is complex, she added, because it depends on the amount of coal spilled and the size of the coal particles. Around the Reef, in particular, there is little data on how much coal is entering the water and where it is going.

Story continues

"It is simply not good enough for coal to be washing up on beaches in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area," WWF Australia head of oceans Richard Leck said in a statement. "Coal is a potentially toxic material for marine life and must be managed in a way that stops it ending up in Reef waters."

The WFF is calling for a government investigation into the matter, as well as infrastructure changes to prevent coal spillages at nearby mining ports.

Payne's photo comes as the Queensland government found a coal spillage at a mining port in waters near the Reef, ABC reported. The coal appears to have spilled from one of the ship loaders at Hay Point Coal port, as well as spillages from trestles carrying the coal to ship loaders.

The WWF said coal has washed up at East Point Beach and Louisa Creek Beach, not far from the Hay Point Coal port. Environment Minister Steven Miles told the ABC it was not yet possible to say whether Hay Point was the source of the coal.

The federal and Queensland state governments have given the go-ahead to a number of coal ports close by the Reef, including the Abbot Point coal terminal. The terminal will serve the Adani's Carmichael coal mine, which will be one of the world's largest if completed.

Image: Lance Payne

A coal spillage near a World Heritage-listed marine park is always unwelcome, but parts of the Reef are also recovering from a global coral bleaching event.

When stressed by environmental factors such as rising water temperatures and pollution, coral can expel the algae that lives in its tissues, providing it colour and nutrients. Exposing its white skeleton, bleaching leaves coral more vulnerable to disease.

In November, it was announced that the Reef had suffered its largest die-off on record. Its northern section was estimated to lose 67 percent of its shallow water corals. Coral can recover from bleaching, provided it's not exposed to further stresses.

The bleaching event was caused by global warming and an El Nino event, but additional pollutants near the Great Barrier Reef are unwelcome under any circumstances.

"Beginning your first moments as a hatchling beside a lump of coal is not the best start to life," Leck said.

UPDATE: Feb. 9, 2017, 5:12 p.m. AEDT Comment added from Kathryn Berry.
A Pennsylvania bail bondsman is behind bars and apparently unable to make his own bail after his arrest on multiple charges, including bigamy, after he was found to be married a 43-year-old woman and her 18-year-old daughter at the same time, authorities said.

Christopher Hauptmann, 43, was unable to post $300,000 bail, in spite of his argument before Shamokin District Judge John Gembic that he should remain free because criminals would run buck wild during his time in jail, the Daily Item reported.

This is a bizarre case, Judge Gembic reportedly said when presented with the charges.

Authorities executed a search warrant at Hauptmann's home Tuesday after the Northumberland County District Attorneys Office received information that the 43-year-old man also went by the name Christopher Buckley, the DAs office said in a statement.

Records for Buckley show he had previously been sentenced for drug crimes in California, but records for Hauptmann, an alias allegedly used last year to apply for a concealed weapon permit in Northumberland County, showed no serious interactions with law enforcement, officials said.

Investigators said Hauptmann and Buckley looked the same and shared the same birth date, hair color, eye color, street address  and fingerprints.

Hauptmann also allegedly bought firearms in 2012 and 2013, knowing that identifying himself as Christopher Buckley would have prevented such a purchase.

Read: New Abuse Allegations Against Robin Thicke Surface In Divorce Case

Officials investigating Hauptmann found he had allegedly married an 18-year-old woman while still married to that womans mother, whom he had wed less than a year earlier.

In November 2015, Hauptmann married 43-year-old Shannon Deitrich-Durovick in Florida, authorities said.

The pair was still married when he married Deitrich-Durovicks daughter, Kaylee Durovick  now Kaylee Hauptmann  in September 2016, officials said.

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A written statement from the elder Durovick suggest both marriages remain valid as of this date, the district attorney said in a statement on Wednesday.

Hauptmann and his second wife own and operate PA Bail and Recovery in Coal Township, saying on their website they offer services including background checks, fugitive recovery, prisoner transport and defendant monitoring.

Spending quality time with my amazing husband. Loyalty and dedication. Till death do us part, Kaylee Hauptmann wrote on a Facebook photo of the pair smiling on February 2.

She and Deitrich-Durovick are not currently on speaking terms, the mother posted on social media.

Ripping my heart out all over again, she wrote on Facebook on February 2.

Deitrich-Durovick declined InsideEdition.com's request for comment, citing the ongoing investigation.

During his appearance before Judge Gembic, Hauptmann reportedly continued to ask to be released, saying he is not a flight risk and said he has hundreds of clients out on bail who were at risk of running buck wild if he remains behind bars.

Read: How These Women Used Fake Pregnancy Tests To Dupe The Men In Their Lives

I have always been on the side of the law, and I have had police back me up several times," he told the Daily Item. "That's why they handcuffed me in the front because they know I am no threat to them."

But Northumberland County Detective Degg Stark argued Hauptmann was a flight risk, saying: He is wrong  there are a number of other charges on the way in this case. There will be three other outside agencies involved with this case by the end of the day."

Hauptmann was charged with four felony weapons charges and one charge of misdemeanor bigamy.

He remained in custody at Montour County Prison on Thursday, officials said.

The investigation is ongoing and the Hauptmanns' bail bond agency has a legal surety bond with the county, however, since Hauptmann was allegedly using false identification, the bonds posted may not be legal, the district attorneys office told the Daily Item.

When reached by InsideEdition.com, Kaylee Hauptmann declined to comment.

On Tuesday, she told the Daily Item that while their business was still in operation, she herself is not a licensed bail bondsman and was using sub-contractors to provide bail.

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By Andrius Sytas VILNIUS (Reuters) - The Baltic states will press the United States and NATO to take additional security measures in the region ahead of a large Russian military exercise planned for September, Lithuania's president said on Thursday. NATO has already started to deploy four battle groups of about 1,000 soldiers each to the Baltic states and Poland, part of efforts agreed under previous U.S. president Barack Obama to deter Russia from interfering in the region. The three small Baltic republics and Poland have felt especially vulnerable since Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region in 2014 and its support for pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine. New U.S. President Donald Trump's calls for improved ties with Moscow have added to their anxiety. "We see that risks are increasing, and we are worried about the upcoming 'Zapad 2017' exercise, which will deploy a very large and aggressive force (on our borders) that will very demonstrably be preparing for a war with the West," Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite told reporters after talks with her counterparts from Latvia and Estonia in Riga. "This means that we will be talking with NATO about creating additional standing defense plans, about stationing additional military means and about creating a faster decision- making process", she said. Russia announced last September its plans to stage the Zapad 2017 exercise near its western borders but has not said how many troops will take part. On Thursday Moscow reiterated its stance that the deployment of new NATO troops and military hardware in the Baltic states, Poland and Germany posed a threat to its security and said it did not know how and when the buildup would end. "PROVOCATIONS" Lithuanian Defense Minister Raimundas Karoblis told Reuters NATO must be ready to defuse any "provocations" during the Zapad exercise. "The presence of such a large amount of troops next to our borders, of course, creates some risks. We will take counter-measures, including with our allies, to avoid any provocations," said Karoblis. "It is clear that Russia wants to re-establish its domination, to change the defense system in Europe. It is already a threat for central Europe, particularly for the Baltics," he added. Moscow denies having any expansionist or aggressive agenda. The three Baltic states will lobby U.S. Secretary of State James Mattis in Munich next week to keep U.S. contingents that were deployed to the Baltics after Russia's annexation of Crimea in the region to complement the incoming NATO battle groups, a senior security official told Reuters. Karoblis also said NATO's European members should set aside their concerns about Trump's commitment to the alliance and focus instead on boosting their defense spending and military capabilities, something Washington has long called for. The minister said NATO should be ready to "If we speak about modification of some priorities of NATO, for example, increasing attention to terrorism, I think in the present situation this is fair enough," he said. "But the classical role of NATO should remain, including, of course, (responding) to the aspects and threats related to the East." (Reporting By Andrius Sytas; Editing by Gareth Jones)
By Krishna N. Das and Serajul Quadir DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh is working with Myanmar security forces to stop Rohingya Muslim militants crossing their shared border, but will continue to allow women, children and the elderly to seek shelter there, a top government official said. Around 69,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh to escape violence in Buddhist majority Myanmar since October, straining relations between the two neighbors who both see the stateless Muslim minority as the other nation's problem. Despite those tensions, H.T. Imam, political adviser to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said Bangladesh had handed over two Rohingya militants caught sneaking into its territory in October, and was continuing to cooperate with Myanmar to prevent more from doing so. "Those who are absolutely helpless  women with children and the elderly  we will give them temporary shelter," Imam said in an interview on Wednesday. "We are doing this at a heavy cost. It's a crisis that has been forced on us. They are citizens of Myanmar and must be taken back." About 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims live in Myanmar's Rakhine state, where they face restrictions on their movements and are denied citizenship. Many Myanmar Buddhists regard them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Myanmar's military launched what it describes as a counterinsurgency operation in northwestern Rakhine in October. A United Nations report last week said soldiers have committed mass killings, gang rapes and arson. REFUGEE INFLUX Bangladesh is already host to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees, and says the latest influx has strained its limited resources. Officials, including Imam and Foreign Minister A.H. Mahmood Ali, met diplomats from countries including the United States, Saudi Arabia and Myanmar in Dhaka on Sunday to address the crisis. Bangladesh is seeking funds for its much-criticized plan to relocate new and old refugees from Myanmar to an isolated and undeveloped island in the Bay of Bengal called Thengar Char - which floods at high tide. They are currently sheltered in the coastal district of Cox's Bazar. "The foreign minister requested for international help and also for taking the Rohingya population," Imam said. "Bangladesh has a serious political, economic and financial problem because of the influx." Underscoring Bangladesh's commitment to press ahead with the island plan, the prime minister's military secretary, Major General Mia Mohammad Zainul Abedin, visited Thengar Char on Wednesday. The general asked the local administration to set up a helipad, jetty, deep tube well for drinking water and other infrastructure to make the island liveable, a local official said. The crisis erupt after nine Myanmar police officers were killed in coordinated attacks on border posts on Oct. 9. Refugees started to trickle across the border soon after that, but many were initially turned back by Bangladeshi border guards. Imam said they were later allowed to come in after Prime Minister Hasina intervened on humanitarian grounds and at the request of the international community. Over the past five months Hasina has twice spoken with Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who leads Myanmar's government, to work out ways to send back the refugees that Bangladesh calls "undocumented Myanmar nationals". "The PM also sent a special envoy to Yangon," Imam said. "We are trying to engage them as much as possible. We suggested joint border patrols, joint border watch. Our border guards keep regular contact so that there is no cross-border militancy." Myanmar, however, has not responded to the proposal for joint patrolling of the border, Imam said. Myanmar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to a request for comment. (Reporting by Krishna N. Das and Serajul Quadir in DHAKA; Additional reporting by Simon Lewis in YANGON; Editing by Alex Richardson)
ANGOLA  Trine University will receive around $2,500 for a womens initiative from the proceeds of the former Womens Business Forum.

The volunteer committee that organized the annual forum announced that it will no longer be held. The networking and educational outreach was offered in the spring at Trine University, with support from Trines Deborah McHenry, the City of Angola and SCORE, a business mentoring service in northeastern Indiana, with funds managed by the Steuben County Community Foundation.

Money remaining in a foundation fund will be provided to Trine for its sponsorship over the years, said Linda Driver, a member of the committee.

The remaining funds will be used at a later date for a womens initiative as part of our distinguished speaker series in the near future here at Trine, said McHenry. We are probably looking at fall 2017.

The Womens Business Forum was held at Trine for seven years, featuring a variety of keynote speakers and an ever-evolving format.

Weve had so much positive feedback from people, a cross section of ages and careers, said Driver. Every time we were trying new things.

Last year was the first post-event social hour, which was a hit, said Driver. One year featured an intense afternoon of networking.

For the last seven years, I think it was an opportunity for women to come together from various professions and to share information to improve the quality of womens lives, said McHenry. There are a lot more programs, workshops and other womens initiatives that are being made available to todays women across the region. You always want to keep the programs fresh, relative and current.

The Womens Business Forum was started by former Angola plan director Julie Cole and Guy Rhodes of SCORE. Driver said there was a focus on quality, relevant keynote speakers. While it was a challenge to fill the house, those in attendance received a stimulating experience, said Driver.

It just made you feel so good to feel the positive vibes, she said.

Along with speakers, there were booths by area business associations. The committee thanked all that were involved in the collaborative, volunteer effort over the years.
Photo credit: Ahn Young-joon / AP

From Popular Mechanics

First Samsung was rocked by exploding batteries. Now the batteries are catching on fire. That's according to the Fire Department in Tianjin, China, whose account of the fire differs from what the South Korean company is saying.

A fire occurred, both sides agree on that. Samsung SDI spokesman Shin Yong-doo, according to Reuters, says the fire broke out in a part of the facility designated for waste, including faulty batteries. Yong-doo seemed to indicate that the factory was running as normal, and the batteries which caught on fire were far away from production lines.

But on its official Weibo, the Tianjin Fire Department noted that the "material that caught fire was lithium batteries inside the production workshops and some half-finished products." In other words, batteries that were being installed to be shipped. Far from the "minor" fire Samsung indicated, the Wuqing branch noted that they sent out 110 firefighters and 19 trucks to stop the flames.

Luckily, no one was harmed. But this isn't the first problem at Samsung SDI's production plant in Tianjin. A 2012 report by China Labor Watch discussed abusive practices within the company, including a manager who "regularly beat up the contracted workers." Working conditions across Samsung's Chinese plants found unfair overtime charges and long periods of forced standing. Factory workers reported getting either partial or useless safety instructions.

Source: Reuters

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Brussels (AFP) - The Belgian authorities on Thursday released 11 people arrested in a series of anti-terror raids targeting jihadists who have returned from Syria, federal prosecutors said.

The arrests took place overnight Tuesday when police searched nine houses in various areas of Brussels including Molenbeek, the district that was home to several of those involved in the Paris and Brussels attacks.

"Everybody has been released after thorough questioning," the federal prosecutor's office said in a statement, giving no other details.

Prosecutors had said Wednesday the 11 had been arrested as part of a probe into the "issue of possible returning Syria fighters," adding no weapons or explosives had been found in the operations.

They said the case was completely separate from the probes into the March 22, 2016 Brussels attacks and the November 13, 2015 Paris attacks, which investigators say were hatched by the same Brussels-based cell.

Belgium has been on high alert since last March, when three suicide bombers attacked Brussels' Zaventem airport and its metro system, killing 32.

Several people have been jailed in Belgium in recent years for recruiting jihadists to fight for the Islamic State group in Syria.
A politically charged Berlin film festival opened Thursday with a movie about the Nazis' persecution of Gypsy-jazz great Django Reinhardt and a vow by Hollywood's Maggie Gyllenhaal that Americans were "ready to resist" Donald Trump.

A total of 18 movies are vying for the festival's Golden Bear top prize, which will be awarded on February 18 by a jury led by director Paul Verhoeven ("RoboCop", "Elle").

"I hope we will see a lot of movies that are different, hopefully controversial," the Dutch filmmaker told reporters, adding that he was ready for "heated arguments" with the jury.

Living up to the Berlinale's reputation as the most topical of the big festivals, his fellow jury members wasted no time in taking aim at the US president who has drawn fierce criticism from the art world, particularly over his disputed travel ban.

"I want people to know there are many, many people in my country that are ready to resist," 39-year-old actress Gyllenhaal told reporters.

Mexican director and actor Diego Luna, at the same press conference, used humour to criticise Trump's plan to build a wall on the border with Mexico.

"I'm here to investigate how to tear down walls," the 37-year-old star of "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" quipped, in a nod to Berlin's decades-long division.

The 11-day Berlinale, Europe's first major cinema showcase of the year, will screen nearly 400 movies from 70 countries.

- Art in troubled times -

The festival's kick-off film "Django" marks the directorial debut of Etienne Comar, a French screenwriter and producer.

A virtuoso guitarist and composer who shot to global renown with his delicate melodies, Reinhardt was a member of the Sinti minority who was forced to flee German-occupied Paris in 1943 as Gypsies were being rounded up and sent to concentration camps.

The Nazis tried to enlist Reinhardt for propaganda and morale-boosting for the troops but insisted that he strip out the "Negro sound" from his music including swing and syncopation.

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He refused the German tour and, recognising the grave threat to his clan and fellow musicians, Reinhardt, his elderly mother and pregnant wife became refugees.

However they got waylaid awaiting safe passage to Switzerland in the French border town of Thonon-les-Bains, where he was arrested by German troops, briefly imprisoned and forced to perform.

Comar told AFP that Reinhardt's tragic aspect came from being a "character blinded by his music, who doesn't see the world changing, in which the war sneaks up on him and only then does he finally see what is happening."

He admitted he took some liberties with the actual story but said its essence was true to history and the Catch-22 faced by artists under repressive regimes.

"It is the question: do you raise your voice by continuing to play music, writing music that expresses your resistance?" he said, noting the lengthy archival work he had done to present an accurate portrait.

The film stars Reda Kateb, who appeared with Viggo Mortensen in the Algeria-set war drama "Far From Men".

Kateb told AFP he left the historical aspects to Comar while he delved into mastering Reinhardt's signature technique, which the guitarist perfected despite losing the use of two fingers in a fire as a child.

He said he found the musician's integrity inspiring.

"For citizens in general, the role of our convictions determines where we stand in life and how we live with others."

"Django", which drew polite applause at a press preview ahead of a gala evening screening, won praise as one of the few big-budget films to address Nazi persecution of Roma, an estimated 500,000 of whom died in the Holocaust.

- Politics off-screen -

As a festival that is traditionally heavy on the politics, stars were expected to sound off on global affairs.

Richard Gere, in town to present his new thriller "The Dinner", used the occasion Thursday to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on his long-running activism for the Tibetan people.

Merkel had last year met with George Clooney and his human right lawyer wife Amal on the sidelines of the festival to discuss the refugee influx.

The 2016 Golden Bear went to Italy's "Fire at Sea", a portrait of the refugee crisis on the island of Lampedusa, from a jury led by Meryl Streep.

It is nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary this month.
Hundreds of South Korean artists filed a lawsuit against impeached President Park Geun-Hye and two officials Thursday over a state "blacklist" of creatives who had criticised the authorities.

Park's former chief of staff and the ex-culture minister were charged this week for compiling and enforcing the list of nearly 10,000 artists in music, literature, film, dance, fine arts and theatre.

The list of "left-wing" artists was aimed at starving them of government subsidies or private funding, according to prosecutors probing a wider scandal around Park.

In the legal action, 461 artists sought one million won ($872) each for breach of their basic rights in privacy and freedom of expression and belief, said lawyers representing them.

"The artists were forced to censor themselves to avoid being labelled as 'leftists' and treated unfairly in state support, or becoming targets of state surveillance," the Lawyers for a Democratic Society said in a statement.

"We would like to show that it is wrong for authorities to try to conquer and tame culture and the arts by abusing its power through the blacklist," it said.

The defendants include Park, the two indicted officials, and several state bodies in charge of distributing government subsidies to artists.

Many artists on the list had satirised or criticised in their works Park or her late dictator father, Park Chung-Hee, who ruled with an iron fist from 1961 to 1979.

Many also criticised her policy failures including a botched rescue effort over the 2014 Sewol ferry sinking disaster that killed 300, or simply voiced support for the victims' families.

The full list features many top stars in Seoul's art scene, including Han Kang, who won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize with her novel "Vegetarian", and "Oldboy" film director Park Chan-Wook.
KILLEEN, Texas (AP)  They say everything is bigger in Texas. It's now safe to say that applies to bail.

Bell County Justice of the Peace Claudia Brown set Antonio Marquis Willis' bond last week at a whopping $4 billion in the Dec. 22 killing of another man at a home in Killeen, about 55 miles north of Austin.

County sheriff's Deputy Chief Chuck Cox said he's never heard of such a high bond, the Temple Daily Telegram reported (http://bit.ly/2knLEss ). The highest amount he had previously seen was $1 million.

Willis' lawyer, Billy Ray Hall Jr., said he's confident the amount will be lowered when Hall makes the request to a state district judge. Hall said he wasn't certain it would be lowered to the point where Willis could afford to post the amount and leave jail until his next court hearing.

Another lawyer, Michael White, said bond is designed to protect the public and ensure a defendant appears in court. It's not meant to be a punitive measure, he said.

"This justice of the peace is abusing the bail process in an attempt to make a name for herself, as opposed to setting a reasonable and affordable bond as required by law," White said. "It makes a mockery of the process and a fool of her."

Lawyer Jeff Parker said the $4 billion bond could be challenged as unconstitutional. The Constitution's Eighth Amendment protects against cruel and unusual punishment and specifically refers to protections against excessive bail or fines.

The Associated Press left a message at Brown's office Thursday asking why she set such an expensive bond. She was elected to her position in November.

Willis, 25, is charged with first-degree murder in the killing of Donte Samuels.

Willis' bond far exceeds the $3 billion amount set for New York real estate heir Robert Durst before an appeals court in 2004 determined it was unconstitutionally excessive and it was lowered to $450,000. At the time, Durst had recently been acquitted of killing his neighbor while living in Texas. He was being held on related charges.
An Ohio community is coming together to send 1,000 Valentines Day cards for this 5-year-old boy battling cancer, all in the name of love.

Read: Boy Nicknamed 'Bear' Loses Cancer Fight After Receiving Hundreds of Birthday Cards

Timmys so excited hes going to get cards, said Jamie Harmount, an assistant professor at the Ohio University-Chillicothe where the boys mother takes classes. As of today, we have almost 900 Valentines.

Timmy, 5, was diagnosed about three weeks ago with rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare form of childhood cancer. Doctors caught it after his mom, Cassandra Nelson, noticed a growth in his nose that grew at an alarming rate.

Cassandra, who was pursuing a bachelors degree in early childhood education in hopes of becoming an elementary school teacher, realized she would have to drop out of college to take care of her son.

Shes an excellent student, said Harmount, who has taught the mother since she enrolled in the program last summer. Other students around her know how much she loves coming to school.

Timmy was also devastated to miss out on school for treatment, his dad Tobias Nelson told InsideEdition.com.

Hes just sad hes not at school, Tobias said. Hes a kid who likes to go to school. He misses his friends, and wants stuff to be normal.

Harmount told InsideEdition.com she then thought of Valentines Day celebrations in the classroom, and how the kindergartener would have to miss them this year.

Who doesnt remember those Valentines, and boxes, and cupcakes? Harmount explained. Heres a little boy whos going to miss his first Valentines party.

Thats when Harmount and her class decided they wanted to bring celebrations to him, by collecting 1,000 Valentines Day cards in his honor.

Story continues

She explained it was important for her to take on the project because in addition to rallying behind a family in need, she thought it would be a good lesson to her students, who would soon graduate to become teachers.

In a childs life, their family and their community help shape who they are and you need to be able to support them, Harmount said. This is what we teach  to help those people who need it.

Since they started spreading the word, Harmount said students and alumni of the school all pitched in to help. One of her current students made a mailbox by hand for the boy to collect the cards. A former student, who is now teaching her own class, have enlisted her own students to create handmade Valentines for the boy who wouldnt be able to be at school to accept them himself.

Read: Terminally Ill Teen Wants 10,000 Cards for His 14th Birthday: 'They Make Me Feel Better'

Harmount said she hopes to be able to deliver the 1,000 cards within the next couple of days, depending on Timmys health.

Hes excited, Timmys dad said, who also mentioned the boys favorite part of the holiday is the candy.

To send him Valentine's Day wishes, address cards to the following P.O. Box, or visit his GoFundMe page:

Ohio University Chillicothe Child Development Center

Attn: Jamie Harmount

101 University Drive

Chillicothe, OH 45601

Watch: 2-Year-Old Battling Cancer Asked for 500 Christmas Cards, Receives Thousands

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By Brad Haynes and Alonso Soto

SAO PAULO/BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil opened a formal complaint against Canada at the World Trade Organization (WTO) on Wednesday, accusing the country of distorting the global aerospace industry with subsidies for planemaker Bombardier Inc .

Brazil has threatened for months to open the WTO dispute, arguing that support for Bombardier's new CSeries was undercutting the market for commercial jets made by Brazilian rival Embraer SA .

The case builds on decades of antagonism between the two regional jet makers and echoes arguments in the world's largest trade dispute, a transatlantic spat over government support for Boeing Co  and Airbus Group SE .

Brazil's action came on the heels of fresh support for Bombardier on Tuesday in the form of interest-free loans worth C$373 million ($283 million) from the Canadian government. Canada's Trade Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said the loans complied with WTO rules and the government would defend itself against litigation.

Brazil's Foreign Ministry criticized "at least $2.5 billion in government support" for the Canadian planemaker last year and a senior official said the complaint would include the loans announced on Tuesday.

"It is the understanding of Brazil that these Canadian subsidies artificially affect international competitiveness," the ministry said in a statement.

The province of Quebec, where Bombardier is based, injected $1 billion into the company's CSeries program last year. The province's largest pension fund also invested $1.5 billion in the company's rail unit.

Embraer Chief Executive Officer Paulo Cesar Silva said in a statement that the ongoing cash injections "have not only been fundamental in the development and survival of the CSeries program, but have also allowed Bombardier to offer its aircraft at artificially low prices."

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STEEP DELTA DISCOUNT

Last year, Bombardier scored an order from Delta Air Lines Inc  for 75 CSeries jets, worth some $5.6 billion at list prices, beating out Embraer's competing E-Jets with below break-even prices, according to the Brazilians.

Two sources familiar with the deal said Bombardier offered a roughly two-thirds discount to win the order, its biggest to date for the fledgling CSeries program.

Bombardier booked a $500 million "onerous contract" charge related to that Delta order and a separate deal with Air Canada .

Carlos Cozendey, undersecretary for economic affairs at Brazil's Foreign Ministry, said that subsidies had been key in helping Bombardier win the Delta contract and could influence more sales campaigns this year.

Bombardier pushed back on Wednesday, calling the government support a standard practice in the global aerospace industry.

"All forms of support provided to Bombardier, including the repayable program contributions announced by the federal government yesterday and the investment from the Quebec government... are fully compliant with Canada's international trade obligations," Bombardier said in a statement.

The company compared that funding to loans for Embraer from Brazil's state development bank BNDES and an investment by the Brazilian Air Force in Embraer's new military cargo jet.

"The aerospace industry is heavily subsidized around the world," said lawyer Renata Amaral, head of the international trade practice at Brazilian firm Barral M Jorge & Associates. "The problem is when subsidies reach a degree that starts creating distortions in the market."

Amaral, who has advised Brazil on previous WTO cases, said that a decision on the current dispute was likely to stretch into 2018.

Both countries now have up to 60 days to try to settle the dispute before the WTO convenes a panel of experts to help make a ruling in the case.

BUILDING ON PRECEDENT

The latest WTO standoff follows nearly a decade of sparring between Brazil and Canada over state financing for Embraer and Bombardier's exports in the 1990s.

However, the current dispute is closer in substance to the clash between the United States and the European Union over allegedly unfair support for Boeing and Airbus.

Brazil will aim to build on a partial U.S. victory in that case, which focused on comparing public financing for aircraft development with private-sector benchmarks to determine whether the loans constituted improper subsidies.

The WTO ruled that loans to Airbus were unfair but stopped short of putting them in the worst category of "prohibited" aid. The dispute, which started more than a decade ago, has still not completed a lengthy WTO compliance process.

Cozendey, of Brazil's foreign ministry, said that precedent strengthened the argument against Canadian subsidies.

Brazil will argue that some of Canada's measures are "prohibited" under international trade law, while others are not illegal per se but are "actionable" because the scale of the subsidies are disrupting competition, Cozendey said.

(Reporting by Brad Haynes in Sao Paulo and Alonso Soto in Brasilia; Additional reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal and Tim Hepher in Paris; Editing by Daniel Flynn, Nick Zieminski and Lisa Shumaker)
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - An electoral court in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday ordered Rio de Janeiro state governor Luiz Fernando Pezao and his deputy to stand down, accusing them of offering state contracts to attract financing for a 2014 reelection campaign. The court said in a statement that the order would not take effect until Pezao and Vice-Governor Francisco Dornelles had exhausted the appeals process, something likely to take some time in Brazil's complex judicial system. Press aides to the governor said that the men would appeal the decision, which comes as Rio de Janeiro state is struggling with a budgetary crisis triggered by a collapse in oil prices and Brazil's deepest recession in decades. The court ruled that Pezao's administration had awarded sizeable state contracts to companies that contributed generously to his campaign to win a new four-year term. Rio de Janeiro state is home to much of Brazil's offshore oil industry. The state payroll expanded sharply during the country's commodities-fuelled boom earlier this decade, wrecking state finances when oil prices collapsed. Last week, the state reached an agreement with the federal government to ease the debt burden of the cash-strapped state. In exchange for the deal, Pezao committed to the implementation of a series of austerity measures and now faces the challenge of pushing them through a hostile state congress. (Reporting by Rodrigo Viga Gaia; Writing by Ana Mano; Editing by Daniel Flynn and James Dalgleish)
Brasilia (AFP) - A Brazilian court barred a close ally of President Michel Temer from taking a ministerial position Wednesday because he has been implicated in a corruption probe.

Judge Eduardo Rocha Penteado ordered the suspension of the elevation of Temer's close ally Wellington Moreira Franco -- currently infrastructure investment secretary -- to minister status in the administration.

The nomination was controversial because Moreira Franco has been named in plea bargain testimony by former executives in the Odebrecht construction giant as taking part in illegal campaign funding.

Once becoming a minister, Moreira Franco's case would have automatically been transferred to the Supreme Court, which deals with sitting politicians, meaning they do not have to face prosecution in lower courts.

In his decision, Rocha Penteado cited the precedent of a similar case last year in which Temer's leftist predecessor Dilma Rousseff tried to bring her own predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, into the government.

That move was widely seen as an attempt to shield Lula, who was embroiled in his own graft probe. It also ultimately failed and the former president now faces trial in lower courts.

Brazilian politics has been shaken to its roots by revelations of a far-reaching embezzlement and bribery network in which political parties were funded with bribe money.
Best Actress: Jennifer Lawrence

Film: "Silver Linings Playbook"

Film Smart Rating: 93.36

Role in film: Tiffany Maxwell

Synopsis: After losing his job and wife, and spending time in a mental institution, Pat Solatano (Bradley Cooper) winds up living with his parents (Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver). He wants to rebuild his life and reunite with his wife, but his parents would be happy if he just shared their obsession with the Philadelphia Eagles. Things get complicated when Pat meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), who offers to help him reconnect with his wife, if he will do something very important for her in exchange.
Photo credit: The Enthusiast Network / Getty

From Road & Track

In one (OK, actually two) of the better episodes of The Grand Tour this season, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May went to Namibia to prove that dune buggies still make good off-roaders. They drove more than 1000 miles up Namibia's Skeleton Coast, eventually making it to the Angolan border. And while they suffered their fair share of mechanical difficulties and (scripted) mishaps, their little air-cooled Volkswagen-based buggies did surprisingly well.

Shown above, Bruce Meyers catching air in a Meyers Manx in 1966.

Considering how incredibly capable side-by-sides are these days, it might have made more sense for them to make the journey in something like the Can-Am Maverick. Or perhaps an Ariel Nomad could have speeded up their progress. But there's still something wonderful about those old, Beetle-based buggies.

The documentary below is all about the most famous of all dune buggies-the Meyers Manx. Created by Bruce Meyers in the 1960s, the Manx used a modified Beetle floor pan, as well as its engine and suspension. Meyers created the iconic, lightweight fiberglass body which could fit bigger floatation tires for tackling shifting sand. The resulting vehicle became an instant off-roading classic.

Despite being two-wheel drive, a lightweight Manx can handle some surprisingly tough off-roading, and makes a fantastic desert racer. Even today, when you hear the term "dune buggy," you probably picture the Meyers Manx. Now that's an achievement.

Go ahead, sit yourself down for an hour and 20 minutes and learn the complete history of the most iconic beach vehicle the world has ever known.

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Budapest (AFP) - Hungary on Thursday slammed Dutch beer giant Heineken as "anti-Hungarian" as a trademark row in a part of Romania populated mainly by ethnic-Hungarians bubbled over.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban's chief-of-staff said a lawsuit won last month by Heineken that banned the use of a Hungarian-language brand was "undignified, unjust, and anti-Hungarian".

"All Hungarians should unite against it," Janos Lazar told reporters in Budapest.

Last month a court in Targu Mures prohibited the Lixid Project brewer from using the "Csiki" brand name (pronounced "Cheeky") for its product range.

It said the name was too similar to Heineken's Romanian-language "Ciuc" brand which the multinational has produced since 2003.

According to Lazar the verdict complemented Romanian government policies that he said had pushed ethnic-Hungarian institutions and symbols like the Csiki brand "into a corner".

Romania's 1.2-million-strong ethnic-Hungarian community makes up some six percent of the population of around 19 million, making it the country's largest minority group.

Last week Lazar joined a call by Hungary's radical nationalist Jobbik party for Hungarian consumers and retailers to boycott the Dutch firm's product range.

Organisers of a Hungarian rock festival RockMaraton said Heineken's "Soproni" brand, manufactured in Hungary, will not be for sale at their event as a protest.

A spokesperson for Heineken Hungary, who also distribute the firm's "Gosser" beer and "Strongbow" cider brands, declined a request by AFP Thursday for comment.

The firm's head, Jose Matthijsse, told the Hungarian newspaper HVG last week that a boycott is "not the right way" to solve a dispute and could put jobs in Hungary at risk.

The leader of the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania political party (UDMR), Hunor Kelemen, told AFP Thursday that the Dutch firm "made a mistake by using brute legal force rather than dialogue".

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"But the row should remain a commercial one...politics shouldn't come into it," he said.

Lixid Project, which employs some 140 staff in the town of Sansimion in the predominantly ethnic-Hungarian Szeklerland area, has vowed to take the case to the European court.

In the meantime it says it will continue producing the beverage, but under the name "Banned Beer".

The Transylvania region in central Romania where the Szeklerland enclave is located was part of Hungary for centuries until the end of World War I.

Last year Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto stoked controversy by banning diplomats from attending Romanian national day celebrations on December 1.

That anniversary marks a 1918 mass assembly that urged the union of Transylvania with the kingdom of Romania.
Rohingya children react to the camera as they attend a class at a school inside the Kutupalang Refugee Camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh: Reuters

The Burmese authorities may have killed more than 1,000 Rohingya Muslims during a recent crackdown on the minority group in the northeast Rakhine state, two unnamed UN officials have told the Reuters news agency.

Authorities in Burma launched a military campaign against the Rohingya after militant elements of the group were accused of attacking police border posts in October last year.

The government accepts it has killed some Rohingyas in the crackdown but denies allegations of atrocities against civilians, including claims that women and children have been raped and murdered.

The two UN officials, who Reuters said were senior members of different agencies involved in monitoring the human rights situation in Burma, said they were concerned the scale of the casualties had not been grasped by the outside world.

"The talk until now has been of hundreds of deaths," one was quoted as saying. "This is probably an underestimation - we could be looking at thousands."

Myanmar's presidential spokesman, Zaw Htay, said the latest reports from military commanders were that fewer than 100 Rohingya militants have been killed in a counterinsurgency operation.

Asked about the UN officials' comments that the death toll could be over 1,000, he said: "Their number is much greater than our figure. We have to check on the ground."

Earlier, Pope Francis issued a strong defence of the Rohingya Muslims' right to live free from persecution. In a stinging attack on the Burmese regime, the Pope said the Rohingyas have been tortured and killed simply because they want to live their culture and their Muslim faith.

Pope Francis made his comments during an unprepared section of his weekly address. He appeared to be referring to a UN rights office flash report, issued last week, detailing allegations of abuse, rape and murder of Rohingyas at the hands of the Burmese military.

The UN has previously dubbed the Rohingyas, who are also denied access to university education and in 2013 were hit with a two-child policy, as the most oppressed people on Earth.

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"Pope Francis' comments should serve as a wake up call to the international community," Charu Lata Hogg, an associate fellow with the Asia Programme at Chatham House, told The Independent.

"Despite the scathing UN report and the stream of NGO reporting on the plight of the Rohingyas, there doesn't seem to have been much international condemnation.

"Strong political leverages need to be exercised to stop this egregious assault on a stateless people."
By Allison Lampert

MONTREAL (Reuters) - The Canadian government on Tuesday announced C$372.5 million ($283 million) in repayable loans for two of Bombardier Inc's  jet programs, promising to defend the deal against a potential trade challenge by Brazil.

While the aid was far less than the $1 billion originally sought by the Canadian plane and train maker, Chief Executive Officer Alain Bellemare called it the right level of support, saying the company's financial situation had improved.

The interest-free loans, which come from a Canadian aerospace and defense fund targeting research and development projects, will be used for Bombardier's new CSeries jet and the Global 7000 business jet.

The contributions will be provided over four years with the majority allocated to the Global 7000 program and will not be repaid on a scheduled basis.

The move risks exacerbating trade wounds with rival jetmaking nation Brazil, which has already threatened to take Canada to the World Trade Organization over a $1 billion injection by Quebec for the CSeries.

Asked about the potential ramifications of the new aid, Canada Trade Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said: "We'll fight that wherever we need to fight that."

"I'm very much prepared to defend what we're doing," Champagne added, noting other countries supported their aerospace sectors.

Bellemare said both the earlier funding from Quebec and the new federal money complied with WTO rules.

Bombardier initially asked Canada to match Quebec's investment in the CSeries, but negotiations dragged on for more than a year as the Liberal government made requests of the company, such as changes to its dual-class governing structure.

Quebec's spending on the CSeries, along with a separate $1.5 billion investment by the province's largest pension fund in Bombardier's rail division, already risks triggering a trade feud between the company and Brazilian planemaker Embraer SA .

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Brazil on Wednesday will request the WTO start consultations on a dispute involving the two companies around Quebec's funding, Brazil's Foreign Ministry said.

Bombardier's CSeries competes with some Embraer jets and the smallest products of Boeing Co  and Airbus Group SE .

Reimbursable loans are a pillar of the world's largest trade dispute, involving mutual transatlantic claims of unfair support for aircraft makers Airbus and Boeing.

The WTO found government loans used by European Union member states to support Airbus airplane developments constituted unfair subsidies, prompting the threat of U.S. sanctions. The case has yet to complete lengthy WTO legal and compliance processes.

(Additional reporting by Tim Hepher in Paris, Sweta Singh in Bangalore, David Ljunggren and Leah Schnurr in Ottawa; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Peter Cooney)
If the visit by Canadas Foreign Ministers to Washington is any indication, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may be preparing to talk tough on trade when he finally meets with U.S. President Donald Trump.

In Washington to meet with her American counterpart, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, as well as with House Speaker Paul Ryan, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), Chrystia Freeland made clear Canada wont roll over for Trumps planned renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Freeland, who was previously minister of international trade, said that the United States will not be the only party looking for a better deal in the event of a renegotiation. Its good to be good at playing defence, but the best defence is a strong offense. And Canada definitely will be and is good at taking strong offensive positions, she told reporters on Wednesday.

She also said that Canada opposes new tariffs and vowed retaliation if any are slapped on imports. Canada is the largest export market for 35 of Americas 50 states. Trump has toyed with tariffs or a border tax on imports.

Thats not only a warning shot to Washington ahead of Trudeaus meeting with Trump, which will take place at some point this month. Its also likely to play well back home  a new Nanos poll shows 58 percent of Canadians would go to the mattresses if Trumps administration put tariffs on Canadian exports.

As Nik Nanos told the Globe and Mail, When Canadians see the type of leadership style from Donald Trump, they realize that the only way to respond to him is assertively and confidently, even if it means a trade war.

Trudeau had previously said Canada was open to renegotiating NAFTA. But Freelands tougher rhetoric may show that theyre open to renegotiating because Canada sees an opportunity to get a better deal  or at least show the United States that Canada isnt always maple syrup sweet.

Photo credit: THIERRY MONASSE/AFP/Getty Images
Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump will host Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Washington on Monday, the White House said, amid stark disagreements between the North American neighbors over trade and immigration.

"President Trump and Prime Minister Trudeau look forward to a constructive conversation on strengthening the relationship between our two nations," White House press secretary Sean Spicer said in a statement.

Trump has vowed to renegotiate or scrap the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Canada, the United States and Mexico. The new Republican president has branded the pact a "catastrophe" for American jobs.

Trudeau, a fervent supporter of free trade, meanwhile has emphasized the importance of the tripartite pact for his country's economy.

"Strong Canada-US ties help the middle class in both our countries. Monday, I'll meet @RealDonaldTrump in DC to keep working for that goal," Trudeau said on Twitter.

The Canadian prime minister will be the third foreign leader to visit the White House since Trump took office on January 20, after Britain's Theresa May and Japan's Shinzo Abe.

Trudeau has expressed vastly different views to Trump on immigration, stressing Canada's desire to host refugees. He has not commented publicly on Trump's controversial immigration order, currently under review in the US courts.

The pair agree on the massive Keystone XL pipeline project, which would carry oil from Canadian tar sands to US Gulf Coast refineries. The project had been blocked by former president Barack Obama, but has been given the green light by Trump.

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland was in Washington on Wednesday to meet new Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and their Mexican counterpart Luis Videgaray.
SANTIAGO (Reuters) - An algal bloom killed some 170,000 salmon in recent days in Chile, the world's second-biggest exporter of the fish after Norway, as they were being transported by boat, raising concern about an industry that was devastated by an outbreak last year. The current algal outbreak is not located near any of the salmon farms that dot southern Chile's coastline but has infested sections of the shipping lanes used by producers, the government's fisheries Sernapesca body told Reuters on Thursday. Harmful algal blooms happen when the normally occurring aquatic plants grow out of control and produce toxic effects on fish. Live fish being transported by local producers Australis Seafoods and Nova Austral were infected and killed earlier this month. The boats, which recirculate ocean water into the tanks to keep the fish alive as they are transported, inadvertently passed through the infested waters, Sernapesca said. "Warm weather and little rain were some of the reasons for the algae bloom last year, and Chile has experienced some of the same weather this year," broker Pareto said. Last year, an algal bloom killed up to 20 percent of Chile's farmed salmon, some 25 million fish, pushing prices higher globally. Part of the fish being transported were headed for harvest and others were tiny smelts that were going from fresh water to cages in the ocean. A flyover on Wednesday by Chile's navy and Sernapesca could not visually locate the algal bloom, which has a distinctive color, the government body said. (Reporting by Anthony Esposito; Additional reporting by Ole Petter Skonnord in Oslo; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Juhe (China) (AFP) - Carrying the golden statue of a revered ancient general, villagers in eastern China dash wildly through waterlogged fields in a mud-spattered celebration of a local rebel adored for stealing from the rich to give to the poor.

Spurred on by the roar of firecrackers and cheers of families crowded on muddy banks, teams of men splash through the quagmire, in a centuries-old ceremony that is part of the lead up to China's Lantern Festival on February 11.

It is a time for colourful ceremonies in the coastal province of Fujian, where the Hakka people have held on particularly strongly to their folk traditions.

At the centre of the celebrations is the solemn-faced gilded effigy of Guan Gong, a Chinese general who lived nearly 2,000 years ago during the Eastern Han dynasty and has been granted god-like status.

But he is not the main focus of the festivities.

For villagers here Guan Gong acts as a stand-in for a local rebel king named Zhang Lian, akin to a Robin Hood figure, who looted riches and helped the poor.

He rose up in 1560 against the corrupt Ming empire, which used its massive army to impose heavy taxes on local peasants.

After two years of fighting, the government crushed the insurrection, leading the hero to flee to Indonesia, where legend has it he eventually became king of the southeastern island known today as Sumatra.

Seeking to honour him without upsetting the emperor, Ming dynasty peasants paid tribute to an image of Guan Gong instead.

Local families pray to the statue, light incense and sacrifice chickens, before carrying it down to the field.

Villagers on Wednesday ran through the flooded fields to the point of collapse and then splashed water on the statue and each other in the winter morning chill.

Stomping about in the mud is also a way to "awaken" the farmland for the coming spring and express hopes for a good harvest year.

Hu Sheng, one of the men carrying the statue in a bamboo litter, told AFP that he travelled to the ceremony every year from the southern city of Shenzhen where he works.

"Everyone respects Guan Gong. I must come back for this because I hope he will bless me and my family this year, and I want everyone to have a good harvest, he said.
Frankfurt am Main (AFP) - German semiconductor giant Infineon has said its proposed acquisition of US computer chip specialist Wolfspeed has run into opposition from US regulators over security concerns.

The German firm had announced last year that it planned to buy Wolfspeed from US group Cree for $850 million (800 million euros) to boost its position in radio frequency and power solutions, but it said the deal now looks unlikely to go ahead.

"The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) informed Infineon and Cree that the transaction poses a risk to the national security of the United States," the German company said in a statement late Wednesday.

Since the US body did not propose any remedies that might alleviate those concerns, "there is a considerable risk that the transaction, as agreed, is not going to close".

Cree, in a statement of its own, said both sides were exploring ways to address the US concerns, but warned that there was "no assurance" that even a revised deal would be approved.

No details were given about the nature of the security fears, but it comes as US authorities have shown a growing willingness to halt deals they believe could pose a national security risk.

Last December, the planned purchase of German semiconductor equipment maker Aixtron by a Chinese company fell through because of CFIUS objections, amid fears that Aixtron technology could have military applications.
CNN anchor Chris Cuomo pushed back on Thursday after President Trump dismissed one of his interviews as fake news. Cuomo defended his credibility on air and in an extended flurry of tweets throughout the morning.

Trump started the morning spat by ripping Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., on Twitter, suggesting that he was not a trustworthy source because he had misrepresented his military record in the past. Blumenthal had told reporters that Neil Gorsuch, Trumps nominee for the Supreme Court, had called the presidents attacks on federal judges disheartening and demoralizing.

Sen.Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie),now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2017

Cuomo subsequently interviewed Blumenthal about his meeting with Gorsuch, who faces confirmation in the U.S. Senate.

The New Day host addressed Trumps tweet, asking, What is your response to the president of the United States saying you should not be believed because you misrepresented your military record in the past?

The president, an avid watcher of cable news, then tweeted erroneously that Cuomo had never asked [Blumenthal] about his long-term lie. During his 2010 Senate race, Blumenthal apologized after he was challenged about having claimed, inaccurately, that he had served in Vietnam.

Chris Cuomo, in his interview with Sen. Blumenthal, never asked him about his long-term lie about his brave "service" in Vietnam. FAKE NEWS!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2017

Shortly after the critical tweet was posted, Cuomo read it on air, following it with a replay of the beginning of his interview with Blumenthal. Cuomo noted that Blumenthals claim about his military service was literally the first point that I made in the interview.

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The president, with all due respect, is once again off on the facts, Cuomo said. And thats not something that any of us have any desire to say on a regular basis, but it keeps being true.

Fake news is the worst thing that you can call a journalist, Cuomo continued. Its like an ethnic disparagement. We all have these ugly words for people, thats the one for journalists.

In the segment, Cuomo acknowledged that Blumenthal had dodged his question, but said that the heart of the issue at hand was whether Gorsuch had in fact called Trumps criticism of federal judges demoralizing and disheartening. Former Republican New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who is working on behalf of the Trump administration to guide Gorsuch through the confirmation process, confirmed that Gorsuch had made these comments.

Later, Cuomo, who is known for engaging with viewers on Twitter, continued to bat back at Trumps criticism of him, asserting that the president likes to brand as fake news stories that are negative toward him, rather than untrue.

u take a snowball to the head? what did i say  one thing  that wasnt true? facts not feelings. #PressOn https://t.co/EziPc2HCXu  Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 9, 2017

thats the job. when potus made "what is true" the main measure of political assessment: that was like Christmas. @NewDay Every. Damn. Day https://t.co/Br0MDlVZlB  Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 9, 2017

sadly, potus is just wrong about the facts. it was my first point to the senator  about his having misrepresented military career. sigh https://t.co/zozIOHNvjb  Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 9, 2017

this is silly. appreciate POTUS watching @NewDay. untrue blumenthal not confronted with war record. "fake news " = i dont like this fact https://t.co/jgCCieWWmQ  Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 9, 2017

it was the first thing out of my mouth! u bought trump distraction. gorsuch comms guy confirmed words. only potus questioning. why? https://t.co/7ccNxOEshs  Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 9, 2017

Right at the start. Literally first thing. Not an issue. Neither is blumenthal credibility on this because Gorsuch confirmed comments https://t.co/G0gGpSsJHc  Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 9, 2017

Except i did. Killing YOUR credibility. no one but Prez questions the veracity. U say fake I say fact. https://t.co/6HidsmffC7  Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 9, 2017

Bigger point is no one saying Gorsuch didn't say it (except Prez)  including Gorsuch own comms guy. https://t.co/YobN4wuhUf  Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 9, 2017

I was accused of not bringing it up. False. I didnt chase. True. Why. It? because Gorsuch own comms guy confirmed it as true. Fact. https://t.co/cvOBucJgNb  Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 9, 2017

Thanks joe. Appreciated. This is all distraction. No one questions veracity on this. Irony: Gorsuch did trump a favor showing independence. https://t.co/gMfPI9oaBY  Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 9, 2017

No one ever happy because so much division and tension. I will get you the facts and you make the judgments. Deal? https://t.co/rA1D6LwWSj  Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 9, 2017

This is what I worried about with potus tweet. No need for more fighting. Facts are clear. This is all a negative distraction. https://t.co/WlrbNilldn  Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 9, 2017

I would IF there were a basis for questioning veracity. BUT GORSUCH CONFIRMED THAT HE SAID IT. GET IT NOW? #factsnotfeelings https://t.co/qWAW6DR5GD  Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 9, 2017

Hence the distraction by potus and it is working with his followers. https://t.co/04uLIUZWGD  Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 9, 2017

Exactly. Trump wants blumenthal attacked to distract from what Gorsuch said and his own comms guy confirmed. https://t.co/vuw1Y1wpVw  Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 9, 2017

This is simply about respecting the truth. POTUS should come on @NewDay and let's put the facts out there for all to see. https://t.co/vDudtf2n6E  Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 9, 2017

It is attacking the core of your being. It is done to inflict pain; to injure. Absent a basis of falsity in fact  it is a slur https://t.co/ahDxL058w0  Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 9, 2017

We are only emboldened by the attacks. The job matters more than ever. The hope? administration makes life better for as many as possible https://t.co/Ar8DENJCTr  Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 9, 2017

His comms director confirmed it https://t.co/osUtDYpjWP  Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 9, 2017

Interestingly, despite having been the target of a Twitter attack by the president, Cuomo disagreed with someone who suggested that Trumps account should be shut down, arguing that this direct reflection of his views of the moment, unprecedented in U.S. presidential politics, provides a clear window into the presidents thinking.

dont you want a clear window into workings of trump's mind? we have never gotten the good bad and ugly without a filter. https://t.co/8djdKkxoHQ  Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 9, 2017

Signing off at the end of his Twitter flurry, Cuomo said that he ultimately valued the criticism from his viewers, good bad and ugly.

I am on here to engage  the good bad and ugly. But now time to play in snow. Kids are off. Hope everyone affected stays safe. https://t.co/JmtljmuWrT  Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 9, 2017

Read more from Yahoo News:
Yet another Kennedy is poised to enter the political arena. Chris Kennedy, the son of late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, announced his intention to run for governor of Illinois Wednesday. A businessman, the fifty-three-year-old chairs the familys investment firm, Joseph P. Kennedy Enterprises.

Its time for Illinois to again embrace the American dream, Kennedy said in a press release announcing his run. The notion that we are a country and a state where anyone can make it and where unlimited opportunity is the promise of our country.

Kennedy, who planned to run as a Democrat, previously served as chairman of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. Alongside his wife, he runs Top Box Foods, a hunger relief nonprofit. He is also involved in real estate development at the Wolf Point project in Chicago. Though hes toyed with the idea of running for public office in the past, this will be his first time.

I know how an economy is meant to function, not just for the rich, but for members of all communities, he said. Together, we can fix the mess and restore the promise of our state.

The businessman is no stranger to the family fortune, altogether worth a whopping $1 billion, Forbes estimated in 2014. That includes 30 family members and multiple surnames, and even the most modest family members are worth tens of millions. Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of former President John F. Kennedy, was worth the most at $175 million, according to Forbes.

The familys lasting wealth is attributed to the fact that Joseph P. Kennedy, who made his fortune in insider trading, tucked the money into dozens of trusts. Those trusts are managed by Joseph P. Kennedy Enterprises, the investment firm headed by Chris Kennedy.

Kennedy said he believed the state was headed in the wrong direction and hoped to oust Republican incumbent Bruce Rauner, who poured $50 million of his own money into his campaign in 2016.

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Ankara (AFP) - New CIA chief Mike Pompeo arrived in Ankara on Thursday for talks with Turkish officials, on his first foreign visit since the inauguration of US President Donald Trump.

His visit came two days after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke to Trump for the first time in his White House term, agreeing to work together in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria.

He is due to meet Erdogan and Turkish spy agency chief Hakan Fidan, NTV television reported, after the two presidents on Tuesday held their first phone call since Trump took office last month.

Pompeo is to discuss the Syria conflict, in particular Turkey's operation against IS in the town of Al-Bab and a possible plan to capture the group's de-facto capital Raqa, NTV said.

Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said on Wednesday that discussions were under way with the US over efforts to retake Raqa from IS, with Trump giving a "positive" response to Turkish plans.

On the same day, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu raised the prospect of Turkish special forces' involvement in any Raqa operation after recapturing Al-Bab.s

According to Hurriyet daily's well-connected columnist Abdulkadir Selvi, when Erdogan raised the issue of the fight against IS and the Syrian Kurdish militia, Trump said: "I am sending the CIA chief, you can speak with him in detail."

Turkey is hoping for better relations with the new US administration, after the relationship with Barack Obma was marked by disappointment and anger.

The NATO allies have seen relations strained over Washington's support for Syrian Kurdish militia, whom Washington views as the most effective fighting force against IS.

But Ankara sees the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing, the Kurdish Peoples' Protection Units (YPG), as terror groups linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Pompeo is also likely to discuss the status of US-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen whom Ankara blames for July's failed coup against Erdogan. Gulen denies the charges.

Turkey has repeatedly asked the US to extradite Gulen, who has been living in self-imposed exile there since 1999. But the Obama administration said a possibly slow legal process should take its course.
A CIA memo warns the Trump administration it would be a mistake to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization, Politico reported Thursday.

The memo dated Jan. 31 warns labeling the Islamist group as terrorist may fuel extremism and hurt relations with allies.

The Muslim Brotherhood has millions of followers around the Arab world and officially rejects violence as a matter of official policy, and only a small number of its followers have engaged in violence, usually in response to repression, perceived foreign occupation or civil conflicts, the memo says, noting, it has opposed al Qaeda and the Islamic State group.

MB groups enjoy widespread support across the Near East-North Africa region and many Arabs and Muslims worldwide would view an MB designation as an affront to their core religious and societal values, the document says.

Moreover, a U.S. designation would probably weaken MB leaders arguments against violence and provide ISIS and al Qaeda additional grist for propaganda to win followers and support, particularly for attacks against U.S. interests.

A foreign terrorist organization is defined as a political movement that uses terror as a weapon to achieve its goals. The State Department currently lists 61 organizations as foreign terrorist groups, including various offshoots of al Qaeda and ISIS. Twelve groups have been removed from the list since 1999.

There are a number of legal criteria that have to be met before a designation can be issued, including that the organization must pose a threat to the security of the United States or its nationals.

The memo would appear to be at odds with the views of the CIAs new director, Mike Pompeo, who co-sponsored a bill to ban the Brotherhood.

Various groups have been urging the Trump administration to make the designation. A source told Politico President Donald Trump may be considering an executive order that would direct the State Department to determine whether the Brotherhood meets the criteria for designation as a terrorist organization.

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I think it would be an incredibly stupid thing to do, said Daniel Benjamin, the State Departments coordinator for counterterrorism under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The top reason being that its not a terrorist group.

Egypt outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013 after former President Mohamed Morsi, a Brotherhood member, was ousted by the military. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have followed suit.

Eric Trager, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Politico the Muslim Brotherhood does not meet the criteria for the designation.

The Muslim Brotherhood could not control Egypt  where it is from, where it has existed for over 80 years, and where it could not keep control for more than a year, Trager said. It sure as hell is not going to take over America.

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Miami (AFP) - Climate change and overfishing have left already endangered young penguins in Africa confused about where to find food, and they are dying in high numbers as a result, researchers said Thursday.

The report in the journal Current Biology describes a dire predicament for African penguins, whose young population is projected to be down 50 percent in some of the most affected areas of coastal Namibia and South Africa.

"Our results show that juvenile African penguins are stuck foraging for food in the wrong places due to fishing and climate change," said lead author Richard Sherley of the University of Exeter and University of Cape Town.

The problem happens when the young penguins leave their colonies for the first time and travel long distances, searching the ocean for signs that an area has plenty of fish and the smaller creatures they feed on, called plankton.

These signs include areas of low sea temperatures and high chlorophyll-a, which indicates plankton is near, and likely also the sardines and anchovies that feed on it.

"These were once reliable cues for prey-rich waters, but climate change and industrial fishing have depleted forage fish stocks in this system," said Sherley.

"These signs can now lead them to places where these fish, the penguins' main prey, are scarce."

Researchers used satellites to track newly fledged African penguins from eight sites across their breeding range.

They found that many penguins were getting trapped in the Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem (BCLME), an area that stretches from southern Angola to Cape Point in South Africa's Western Cape.

The region has suffered from decades of overfishing and environmental changes, reducing the number of fish.

"The penguins still move to where the plankton are abundant, but the fish are no longer there," Sherley said.

Young penguins that wind up there often starve to death.

"Their breeding numbers are about 50 percent lower than they would be if they found their way to other waters, where the human impact has been less severe," said the study.

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Scientists are considering the possibility of transporting young penguins to areas where food is more abundant.

African penguins are considered endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), with about 50,000 penguins remaining in Namibia and South Africa.

Food shortage is considered the main reason for their endangered status.

African penguins are "undergoing a very rapid population decline, probably as a result of commercial fisheries and shifts in prey populations," said the IUCN.

"This trend currently shows no sign of reversing, and immediate conservation action is required to prevent further declines."
Abidjan (AFP) - The Ivorian government planned Thursday to pursue talks with elite troops responsible for President Alassane Ouattara's security in a bid to end a revolt by the special forces, a defence ministry official said.

"Normally the discussions should resume this morning," the source told AFP after the mutineers began talks with top military staff following armed protests this week in their barracks town of Adiake, 90 kilometres (56 miles) east of Abidjan.

Inhabitants of Adiake returned to business as usual on Thursday morning, as schools and shops reopened and soldiers were no longer firing in the air, several residents said by phone.

"We can breathe this morning. Since 3:00 pm yesterday, the gunfire stopped and we haven't heard anything up to this morning. Pupils have headed back to school. I know that business will pick up. We're very happy. I even did a tour of the town, where people are starting to do their jobs," one resident said.

"Currently it's calm, but we remain cautious because yesterday evening tension rose among the soldiers. We could hear them arguing. Some wanted to return (to barracks) while others said they should stay in the streets, so we're still afraid," another resident said.

The elite Special Forces, directly responsible for the safety of the head of state at close quarters, appeared to be angling for a deal like one struck after unrest last month, offering some soldiers large one-off payments.

On Wednesday, a group of mutineers headed from Adiake to the commercial capital Abidjan, where they were due to meet Defence Minister Alain Richard Donwahi.

Asked why they had fired shots in the air, one said: "The authorities know what we want."

At the start of January, former rebels integrated into army ranks staged a mutiny that paralysed activity in several towns of the west African country while they pressed for bonuses.

In meeting the demands of these ex-rebels, who controlled the northern half of Africa's biggest cocoa producer between 2002 and 2011, the authorities provoked a fresh mutiny by other troops and paramilitary gendarmes.

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Clashes claimed four lives in the political capital Yamoussoukro.

Ouattara's government restored the peace by vowing "to improve the living standards" of security forces across the board.

In 2016, Ivory Coast's parliament passed a law providing for an ambitious four-year plan to restructure the military by 2020 and to purchase new equipment to the tune of 1.2 billion euros ($1.28 billion).
NEW YORK (AP) -- Coke is trying to slim down its business, not just its sodas.

The Atlanta-based company said its profit fell 55 percent as global sales volume dipped and it booked charges related to getting out of the manufacturing and distribution of its drinks.

Coca-Cola Co. has been selling those operations back to independent bottlers around the country and plans to complete the process by the end of this year. That frees up the company to focus on the more profitable work of burnishing its brand, while selling concentrates to bottlers.

"Basically, you're becoming a branding company and selling a little syrup on the side," said Ali Dibadj, a Bernstein analyst.

The structural shift comes as the world's biggest beverage maker also looks change the type of drinks it offers amid competitive pressure and changing tastes. As it faces criticism for marketing sugary drinks, the company has said that it is working to adapt its offerings and push more lower-calorie beverages. That dovetails with shifting trends, including the growth of bottled water.

Habits are tough to change, however. Although Americans have been cutting back on traditional sodas for years, Coke and Pepsi still rely on their namesake drinks for huge portions of their revenues. For 2016, Coke said sales volume of its carbonated beverages in North America was flat, as growth in Sprite, Fanta and energy drinks offset a decline in Diet Coke. Non-carbonated drinks rose 3 percent, boosted by vitaminwater and its new milk drink.

Another way Coke is trying to drive profitability is through different types of packaging for sodas, not just 12-ounce cans and 20-ounce bottles. Coca-Cola has been marketing mini-cans and aluminum bottles, which it says fetch more money per ounce.

In the meantime, the company has also been refranchising bottling operations overseas.

The structure is comparable to companies such as McDonald's Corp. and Yum Brands Inc., which make most their money from taking a cut of the sales at restaurants run by franchisees. Those two fast-food companies are also working on refranchising more of their restaurants, which reduces risk and increases profitability.

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There are benefits to controlling the bottling systems for beverage makers, such as the ability to get new products on the shelf quicker. That's the type of advantage PepsiCo Inc. has cited for holding onto its bottling system in North America.

Duane Stanford, publisher of Beverage Digest, said Coke saw the past acquisition of its bottlers as a way to get them more operating more efficiently. Until a few years ago, he noted, the company said it would keep the manufacturing portion of the business in the U.S. while refranchising distribution responsibilities. Now it plans to sell off both.

"Investors like to see Coke asset-light," Stanford said.

For the quarter ended Dec. 31, Coca-Cola's global sales volume dipped 1 percent, dragged down by a 4 percent drop in Latin America. Volume rose 1 percent in both North America and Europe.

Coca-Cola earned $550 million, or 13 cents per share Adjusted for one-time costs and asset impairment costs, it earned 37 cents per share. Total revenue dropped to $9.41 billion from $10 billion, dragged down partly by a strong dollar, acquisitions and divestitures.

For the current year, the company expects earnings to fall below 2016's earnings of $1.91 per share.

Shares of Coca-Cola Co. fell 77 cents, or 1.8 percent, to $41.25 on Thursday.

___

Follow Candice Choi at www.twitter.com/candicechoi
Frankfurt am Main (AFP) - Germany's second-largest lender Commerzbank downplayed a sharp slowdown in 2016 Thursday, saying it will win new customers and become more competitive with a deep restructuring.

The bank booked net profits that were down more than 74 percent last year at 279 million euros ($298 million), but that still beat the 222 million forecast by analysts surveyed by Factset.

Lower profits had been on the cards for the lender since it forecast only that it would not post a loss as it released its third-quarter results last year.

At 1.4 billion euros, operating profit was down 28 percent, while revenues showed a more modest drop, falling around 4.0 percent to 9.4 billion euros.

"We want to make Commerzbank the most competitive bank in Germany by 2020," chief executive Martin Zielke told a Frankfurt press conference, adding that he hopes to woo two million new customers by that date.

"We've created the necessary space to manouevre and can move on to the implementation" of a new strategy unveiled in September, he said.

Shares in the bank had lost 3.18 percent to trade at 7.49 euros ($8.00) by 1215 GMT, trailing the DAX 30 index of leading German shares which had climbed 0.68 percent.

- Fierce headwinds -

Commerzbank invested some 129 million euros into restructuring expenses in 2016, as Zielke seeks to return its focus to the core activities of lending to households and businesses and slash some 9,600 jobs by 2020.

The bank also plans to digitise many of its internal processes and deepen its online offering to customers.

But challenges on several fronts make setting a new direction even more difficult.

Along with other German banks, it faces stiff headwinds from low interest rates and intense competition thanks to a crowded domestic market and the arrival of new digital competitors.

And the bank said it had set aside some 900 million euros to cover loan losses, an increase of more than 200 million over 2015 as it remains exposed to struggling shipping firms.

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"Commerzbank's results show that without new demand for investment and higher interest rates, it won't be able to improve its profitability," analyst Jochen Stanzl of CMC Markets said, while allowing the bank was "ready for an economic upturn".

- 'Not satisfied' -

"We can't be satisfied with the quality of the results" published Thursday, Zielke acknowledged.

Nevertheless, the group was able to offer some crumbs of good news about its progress last year.

Commerzbank increased its core capital ratio -- a key measure of solvency used to judge its resilience to future financial shocks -- to 12.3 percent, from 12.0 at the end of 2015.

Like its bigger German rival Deutsche Bank, stress tests carried out last year showed that Commerzbank would be badly affected if a new financial crisis took hold.

The German government still holds a 15-percent stake in the lender, as it had to be rescued in the face of heavy losses in the 2008 financial crisis.

Commerzbank did not offer a forecast for its performance in 2017, but restructuring costs are likely to remain a burden.

Talks with labour representatives representing its roughly 50,000 personnel are scheduled to begin in a few weeks to deal with the job cuts called for by the new strategy.
Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - The Islamic State group said Thursday that it fired rockets at the Israeli resort of Eilat from the Sinai Peninsula in a rare attack on the Jewish state from Egyptian territory.

The Israeli army said there were no casualties from Wednesday evening's rocket fire -- three of the rockets were intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome air defence system and a fourth fell short of the town.

A few hours later, two Palestinians were killed elsewhere in the Sinai. The Islamist Hamas movement which rules Gaza said it was an Israeli air strike. The Israeli army denied carrying out any such action.

"Thanks to God alone, a military platoon fired several Grad rockets yesterday" towards Eilat, the jihadists' Egyptian affiliate said in a statement circulated on social media.

It was the first time since 2015 that rockets had been fired at Israel from Egypt, said Ely Karmon, senior research scholar at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism.

Egypt is one of just two Arab countries that have signed a peace treaty with the Jewish state.

IS has been waging a deadly insurgency against Egyptian security forces in the Sinai but it has rarely attempted attacks against Israel.

A few hours after the rocket attack, two Palestinians died elsewhere in the Sinai near the border with Gaza.

Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs territory, said the two men were hit by an Israeli air strike just inside Egypt.

Israeli army spokesman Peter Lerner denied any involvement in the strike. There was no comment from the Egyptian government.

The vast Sinai Peninsula borders both Israel and Gaza, although more than 200 kilometres (125 miles) separates Eilat from the site of the alleged Israeli strike.

- Smuggling tunnel -

Israel and Egypt have long accused Hamas of providing support to IS in Sinai.

"If indeed the attack on the tunnel was done by Israel then clearly Israel thinks that Hamas has some input in (the rocket attack)," Karmon said.

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"Perhaps there is an evaluation that some of these jihadists came from, or weapons were received from, Hamas."

Israel provides intelligence support to Egyptian security forces fighting IS but tries to avoid any public involvement, he added.

The spokesman of Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry, Ashraf al-Qudra, named the two men killed as Hossam al-Sufi, 24, and Mohammed al-Aqra, 38.

Qudra said five others were wounded in what he called an Israeli strike.

A Hamas security source said the men were working in a tunnel used to smuggle goods between Gaza and Egypt when the Egyptian entrance was hit.

In the past, a labyrinth of smuggling tunnels linked the Sinai with Gaza.

But since the 2013 overthrow of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi, Egyptian authorities have moved to destroy them and have set up a wide no-go zone on the Gaza border.

Under the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, there are restrictions on military deployments on the Sinai border monitored by international peacekeepers.

But since the jihadists launched their deadly insurgency in the wake of Morsi's ouster, Egypt has poured troops and police into the peninsula with the blessing of Israel and Western governments.

Hundreds of Egyptian security personnel have been killed, particularly in the north Sinai near the Gaza border.

There have been periodic attacks into Israel.

In 2011, assailants who came from the Sinai killed eight Israelis in a triple ambush north of Eilat. Pursuing Israeli forces killed seven attackers and five Egyptian police.

In 2013, four jihadists were killed by an Egyptian air strike as they were about to fire a rocket at Israel, according to the Egyptian military.

In 2014, two Israeli soldiers on patrol were wounded by unidentified men who fired an anti-tank weapon from the Sinai during an attempted drug-smuggling operation, according to the Israeli military.

And in 2015, rockets fired from the Sinai hit southern Israel without causing any casualties. IS claimed responsibility.
Kinshasa (AFP) - Plans to bring home the body of longtime Congolese opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi and give him a grand national funeral appear to have run aground, mired in a rumpus between his friends and foes.

Almost 10 days after his death at 84 in Brussels, there was no sign Thursday of his coffin's imminent return to Democratic Republic of Congo as had been hoped.

Last weekend, thousands of tearful members of Europe's Congolese diaspora turned out in Brussels to pay their last respects to Tshisekedi, who had a three-day funeral wake, his casket on display in a large hall made available by city authorities.

But at home, angry words and jockeying for power have snared efforts to give "Tshishi" or "Papa", as he was known, a fitting send-off.

On Tuesday, government spokesman Lambert Mende promised on national television to let his casket lie in state in parliament and offered air tickets to Brussels to members of his party and to his friends.

But his Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) party angrily rejected the tickets the following day and threw down a two-pronged challenge before agreeing to set a time and place for the funeral.

Firstly it demanded the government build a mausoleum for Tshisekedi in the heart of the capital.

Secondly -- setting a far tougher condition -- it demanded the funeral costs be covered by an as yet non-existent government.

An agreement to create a government incorporating an opposition coalition recently put together by Tshisekedi is part of a power-sharing deal agreed on New Year's Eve to avoid fresh political violence in the large central African country.

It enables President Joseph Kabila, whose second and final mandate expired in December, to remain in office until elections are held late this year.

It also provided for Tshisekedi to head a transition council while a new government of "large national union" was put in place.

Mende said the government saw no problem in building a mausoleum for the late opposition chief -- but not in the city centre.

But according to the Catholic Church, which is overseeing the enactment of the December 31 deal, the talks to set up a new government can only start after Tshisekedi's funeral.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP)  In a story Feb. 9 about Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport hiring a consultant to review the response to January's mass shooting there, The Associated Press misspelled the company's name. St. Louis-based Ross & Baruzzini Inc. is the name of the company, not Ross & Barruzini.

A corrected version of the story is below:

Consultant to look at how Florida airport handled shooting

Officials in Florida are hiring a consultant to assess how well authorities handled the aftermath of a shooting in the baggage claim area at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP)  Officials in Florida are hiring a consultant to assess how well authorities handled the aftermath of a shooting in the baggage claim area at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

The SunSentinel (http://bit.ly/2kvbEEA) reports Broward County officials are in negotiations with St. Louis-based Ross & Baruzzini Inc. to look at a variety of issues, including general airport security, cooperation between agencies and assistance to passengers and their families. Five people died and six others were injured in the Jan. 6 attack.

The shooting was followed by panic by people in other terminals. There also were rumors of additional shooters that led to stampedes onto tarmacs.

Twenty-six-year-old Esteban Santiago of Anchorage, Alaska, was taken into custody after the shooting and is being held on a 22-count federal indictment charging. He could face the death penalty.
Scientists believe millions of people are endangering their health by cooking rice incorrectly. As a result of industrial toxins and pesticides found in soil, rice is contaminated with many chemicals  but research has suggested that the way the rice is cooked could reduce exposure to the toxic chemicals.

In an experiment for the BBC programme 'Trust Me, I'm a Doctor', Professor Andy Meharg, from Queen University Belfast, found that putting more water in the pan or even leaving it to soak overnight is the best way to reduce traces of the chemicals.

The experience reheats an age old conundrum: how do you cook perfect rice? Here we round up the tried and tested methods, along with a few useful home appliances, so you can make the decision yourself.

Know your grains

Appliances and method aside, the key to getting great rice is to know what you're working with. There are a multitude of different rice types out there (more than 40,000) and not all will give you the same results.

If you want fluffy rice that will stay separate even after cooking, go for a long grain  either white or brown. If you need your rice to be cooked in a hurry but still retain its flavour, choose basmati. For sweet and sticky rice, opt for a glutinous grain.

Unless you're making a risotto, take care to rinse your rice thoroughly before you cook it. Wait until the water begins to run clear, showing it is free of starch.

Steaming vs Boiling

Boiling is probably the most common method when it comes to cooking rice. Simply place the rice in a pot of water and boil it until it becomes soft enough to chew, then strain and serve. This method doesn't require exact water measurements, just make sure you've poured enough to cover the rice.

Boiled rice will generally be more tender than steamed rice and must be pre-rinsed before cooking can begin.

Rice recipes

The steaming method on the other hand does require precise measurements. The ratio of water to rice will depend on what type of grain you are using, but a good rule of thumb is two cups of water for every one cup of rice. Bring the water to the boil, reduce the heat, cover with a tight lid, and allow it to simmer until all the water has been absorbed. Leave to sit for five minutes and then serve.

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Steamed rice doesn't require as thorough a pre-rinse as boiled rice does and will typically be sticky and softer. It also won't have as much flavour.

While there is a crossover between the recipes both steamed and boiled rice can be used in, there tend to be specific uses for each type. The steamed rice method is particularly useful for making sushi while the boiled rice method is commonly used in Indian dishes.

Microwave it

You may think that microwaving your rice will save you some time, but the process is just as lengthy as either boiling or steaming method.

Place your rice in a bowl with some water keeping in mind the 1:2 ratio from above. If you are worried about the water boiling over, some recipes suggest adding some butter or oil. Then simply place the bowl in the microwave and heat it for between 20 and 30 minutes, depending on your microwave.

risotto

This method requires no stirring, so it can be a hit and miss if you're hoping to get perfectly fluffy rice out of it. If you're looking for a method that, while not exactly time saving, requires minimal effort on your part, this is the one for you.

The risotto method

Risotto is a tricky dish to get right and the secret lies not only in the method, but in the type of rice you choose. Diana Henry recommends going for the 'carnaroli' type: "Carnaroli has a great flavour and produces a very creamy risotto. Vialone nano has smaller, less starchy grains, so the finished risotto seems lighter. Arborio is the most basic and widely available but overcooks easily. I always go for carnaroli or vialone nano."

The next step is get your stock ready: "Cook the onion until its soft and lightly coloured (never browned). Most Italians will tell you to use butter or a mix of oil and butter." Once you add the rice, stir it for a few minutes until it starts to become glossy, then begin adding the stock one ladle at a time making sure to only add more once the previous ladleful has been absorbed.

Heat is key here: "The rice should always be sloppy, never dry. Heat is important. If it's too high, the stock evaporates too quickly and the rice won't cook evenly. If it's too low, the rice will become gluey."

Once the rice begins to soften, start adding the stock in smaller amounts. Once you've got the perfect texture, add butter and cheese to the cooked rice: "Not all recipes call for it, but it makes the risotto rich and glossy."

Theo Randalls Risotto Rules

Add some milk

This process is best reserved for making desserts, as you'll be left with a thick and creamy paste. Firstly blanch the rice in hot water, rinse it until the water runs clear, and then drain it.

rice pudding

Pour your milk into either a saucepan or a pot and add the rice, cooking slowly until you achieve the creamy texture you're looking for.

Products

Whatever method you decide to choose to cook your rice, you're going to need some equipment to help you. Here are some of our favourites...

Joseph Joseph M-Cuisine Microwave Rice Cooker

20, John Lewis

Best for quick microwave dinners, this Joseph Joseph easy rice cooker is easy enough to use. Simply poor the rice into the colander, rinse and drain, then place the colander into the cooking pot.

Add your water and leave it to soak for a while. Once you're happy, secure the lid with the rice paddle and place in the microwave - consult cooking guidelines for timings.

Before serving make sure to fluff the rice with the paddle.

Jamaica Sun Dutch Pot

25.99, Tropical Sun Foods

Walk into any Caribbean home and it's likely you'll find a dutch pot sitting on the stove - and for good reason too. A cooking staple, dutch pots are typically used to make a variety of meats, stews and, crucially, rice.

Made of cast aluminium, the dutch pot retains heat in the sides and lid allowing it to be distributed more evenly throughout the pot so you don't have to worry about uncooked patches of rice throughout.

Tefal RK156 rice cooker

30, Debenhams

If rice is a regular accompaniment to your meals, you might want to think about investing in a rice cooker to make things that little bit easier for you. Simply pour your rice in, tell the machine what type of rice it is and how long it needs to be cooked, and you're finished. No need to waste time and energy stirring.

This Tefal rice cooker can contain 10 and 20 portions and also has a keep warm setting for when your rice has finished cooking.

Zojirushi Rice Cooker

229.99, Amazon

For a more high end and expensive model, most experts would recommend something from the Zojirushi range.

It produces remarkably fluffy rice thank to what the manufacturers call "micro computerized fuzzy logic technology", meaning the cooker can learn to make cooking adjustments for each session, and also has settings for four different types of rice - white, sushi, sweet, and brown.

Langostina Heritage Risotto Pan

199, Steamer Trading Cookshop

Make an authentic tasting Italian risotto by using an authentic Italian heritage pan with an unique five-ply base and a cherry wood lid that doubles up as trivet - allowing you to retain the heat of the pan when bringing it to the table to serve.
By Zandi Shabalala CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - Canada-based Copperzone Resources could list on the Toronto or London stock exchanges within the next two years to raise money to fund its exploration ventures in Zambia's copper belt. "We are a private company so its a continual assessment but this year or next year looks more likely than before," the company's chief geologist and director Paul Lemmon told Reuters on the sidelines of an annual mining summit in Cape Town. Copperzone is exploring on 22 sites in Zambia but Lemmon said a promising project in the northern province of Loupolo was at an advanced stage and could receive the bulk of the proceeds from any listing. The company has signed agreements with BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Vale to develop at some of its licenses. Copper prices on the London Metals Exchange rose for the first time in three years in 2016 and many analysts expect them to remain stable this year. Lemmon said there were still benefits to staying private as the organisation was small and nimble, adding that many of the company's now-listed peers had seen shareholder value eroded. "We have to time it correctly - we are in no rush," he said. U.S.-based mining investor Sprott Group is the largest shareholder in Copperzone. For a take-a-look on the mining summit in Cape Town, click here: (Reporting by Zandi Shabalala; Editing by Dale Hudson)
When Cuba expanded private enterprise in 2010, Marta Castaeda and her husband were granted a license to open up their own pizzeria, which they called "A Mi Manera" or "My Way." Despite working out of less than ideal circumstances, Castaeda found a creative way to deliver pizzas from the ovens on her roof to customers on the ground. Years later, after Castaeda's husband passed away, her friend Marta Del Barrio joined her in keeping the dream of Cuban flying pizzas alive.
The Dakota Access Pipeline has started back up despite huge controversy

Right now, people are pretty upset because the Dakota Access Pipeline construction is moving forward again. Yeah, that pipeline. People were just celebrating what felt like a win for #NoDAPL protesters under Obama, but Trump was quick to sign executive actions. And now, the Dakota Access Pipeline has started back up.

The concerns surrounding the pipeline remain the same, as some of your fave anti-pipeline celebs can tell you. One main concern is that if the pipeline leaks (which has happened before), it will harm many in North and South Dakota, including the Standing Rock Sioux tribe.

Plus, this isnt even the original route for the pipeline. Originally, it was going to go through the Missouri River north of Bismarck, but then that community expressed concern that their water could become contaminatedso they moved it, and now these communities are panicked.

BREAKING: Army clears way for completion of Dakota Access oil pipeline with notice of intent to grant easement.  The Associated Press (@AP) February 7, 2017

Despite controversy on a HUGE scale, the Dakota Access Pipeline has started back up with support from Trump.

US Army confirms it is giving the green light for the completion of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline. #DAPL pic.twitter.com/CqIjWtiwmP  James Cook (@BBCJamesCook) February 7, 2017

It really does feel like the water protectors have done everything they can do. Theyve protested, and not just once, but for months now. Theyve tried to go the legal route. Theyve had celebrity support. They even had veteran support!

Will the pipeline create jobs? Sure, but so does environmentally-conscious energy creation that doesnt put sacred lands and water supplies in danger. Just sayin.

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The brave people of Standing Rock arent going down without a fight, though, and that fight continues.

Standing Rock denounces Army easement announcement, vows court challenge: https://t.co/UlhpngSmc1  Standing Rock Sioux (@StandingRockST) February 7, 2017

If you want to support Standing Rock protesters, here are a few ideas!

H/T Bustle
Activists are threatening "mass resistance" to President Donald Trump and the Army Corps of Engineers on the hotly disputed Dakota Access pipeline  and it could be difficult for the White House to counter the movement.

Acting on an order from Trump , the Army Corps of Engineers on Tuesday said it would grant the easement that Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) needs to finish the final stretch of the pipeline. It also canceled an environmental review the Corps said it would undertake while President Barack Obama was still in office.

That announcement amplified alarm among Native Americans and their allies, who oppose the pipeline because it would pass beneath Lake Oahe, a drinking water source and sacred site.

"The granting of an easement, without any environmental review or tribal consultation, is not the end of this fight  it is the new beginning. Expect mass resistance far beyond what Trump has seen so far," the Indigenous Environmental Network said in a statement.

What that resistance will look like is uncertain. The movement appears to be taking on a diffuse, leaderless structure, similar to Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter. Such movements tend to have staying power.

Dakota Access pipeline route, source: Energy Transfer Partners



On the one hand, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Council, whose reservation is half a mile south of the contested site, is mounting a legal challenge to the easement and promoting a march on Washington next month.

Standing Rock Tribal Council Chairman Dave Archambault II asked protesters to return home after the Army Corps of Engineers announced it would not grant the easement in December. He repeated that request again on Tuesday.

But other councils and camp organizers have sent conflicting messages, suggesting the chairman may not be able to control the flow of activists to the region.

The Cheyenne River Tribal Council of South Dakota invited a limited number of volunteers from the former servicemember group Veterans Stand to return to Standing Rock, Anthony Diggs, secretary of communications for the group, told CNBC.

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U.S. military veterans associated with the group are on site assisting with clean up and other logistics. The group is currently forming a network that can deploy thousands of veterans to Standing Rock as needed, but stresses it will only do so in consultation with tribal leaders.

"Our plan is to send support where support is needed, and in light of the easement being granted over the next few days, we'll be able to better determine where that will be," Diggs said.

The website for the main camp, Oceti Sakowin, reads "ADVISORY: Don't travel during inclement weather. If you choose to come, be prepared for sub-zero temperatures." A section on the website still lists guidelines for living at the camps.

The Oceti Sakowin camp did not immediately return a request for comment.

Eryn Wise, a spokesperson for the Sacred Stone camp, confirmed it is still encouraging activists to travel to Standing Rock. However, only those prepared to handle punishing winter conditions, contribute to camp maintenance and face risk of arrest should come, she said.

The camp is also encouraging a campaign of local actions around the country and divestment in businesses associated with the Dakota Access pipeline.

In perhaps the most dramatic clash among protesters, Sacred Stone founder LaDonna Bravebull Allard publicly criticized Archambault and alleged the tribal council, working with local authorities, had sought to evict campers.

"Chairman Dave Archambault threw our people to the dogs when he said the camps' actions '...do not represent the tribe nor the original intent of the water protectors,'" she wrote in a statement. She also cast tribal councils as relics of colonialism.

In an apparent response, the tribal council stressed it is "cleaning the camps, not clearing them," and said it does not support raids.

"Rumors and conspiracy theories abound in any movement as powerful as this; we cannot let media and other governments manipulate our statements and actions into a narrative counter to the truth," the council wrote on its Facebook page.

A spokesperson for Standing Rock could not be reached.

Wise acknowledged the recent differences between Standing Stone and the tribal council and noted that the council was acting to protect long-term relations between Native Americans and the broader community.

Diggs and Wise both said local authorities were seeking to sow division and intimidation, in part by building a militarized presence. The Morton County Sheriff's Department has recently attempted to highlight its restraint following a series of clashes with protesters in recent weeks.
The death toll after a brutal military crackdown on Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar may be in the thousands, U.N. officials say, vastly higher than previous estimates provided by the government.

Reuters reports that two officials based in neighboring Bangladesh, where some 69,000 Rohingya have fled, concluded that the scale of the slaughter has been grossly underrepresented, based on refugee testimonies.

The talk until now has been of hundreds of deaths. This is probably an underestimation  we could be looking at thousands, one U.N. official, who wished to remain anonymous, told Reuters.

On Oct. 9, the Myanmar military launched a counterterrorism operation in the western state of Rakhine, which borders Bangladesh, in response to a deadly attack on security forces that is believed to have been carried out by Rohingya militants.

The Rohingya are a Muslim minority numbering about 1.1 million, and have suffered decades of persecution in Buddhist-majority Myanmar. Almost all of them live in Rakhine, where they are denied citizenship and live in apartheid-like conditions under which they are denied freedom of movement and basic services.

Parts of the Rakhine state were immediately put on lockdown as troops were deployed to hunt down suspected jihadists; journalists have been barred and humanitarian aid has been almost completely suspended in the area, which was home to more than 100,000 aid-reliant people.

Read more: Reprisals, Rape, and Children Burned Alive: Burmas Rohingya Speak of Genocidal Terror

Access restrictions have made the crisis difficult to assess, but the refugees pouring across the border into the Bangladeshi district of Coxs Bazar have arrived with harrowing accounts of systematic rape, extrajudicial killing, indiscriminate violence and torture perpetrated by the armed forces and their proxies.

A report released by the U.N. last week presented gruesome details of the alleged atrocities, concluding the very likely commission of crimes against humanity and calling the military operations a calculated policy of terror. The sum of tactics used by security forces could also be likened to ethnic cleansing, the report said.

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A spokesperson for the Myanmar government, Aye Aye Soe, tells TIME that an investigation team led by the countrys Vice President Myint Swe, a former general, is still looking into the allegations, and that at this time the government is neither denying nor accepting them as truth.

The Myanmar government, led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has until now met accusations of military misconduct with almost blanket denial. Suu Kyi has received sharp criticism for her reluctance to speak publicly about the crisis.

Myanmar was ruled by a brutal military regime until 2011, and while Suu Kyis National League for Democracy is now the ruling party, the armed forces retain significant political and economic power. The military is not under civilian control, and its commander in chief, Min Aung Hlaing, has complete authority over ministries related to defense and security.
The Onalaska Police Department go wild and will team up with Buffalo Wild Wings this month to raise money for Wisconsin Special Olympics.

Local officers will be at the Onalaska Onalaska Buffalo Wild Wings from noon to 8 p.m. Feb. 24 to greet customers and assist the wait staff. Meanwhile, the store will donate a portion of all food sales to the Wisconsin Special Olympics.

We have a long history with Buffalo Wild Wings, said Investigator Pete Jakowski of the Onalaska Police Department. Their generosity in hosting our annual fundraiser has enabled Special Olympics to assure that their athletes have state of the art equipment. The athletes love helping out at this event, greeting the public and working with the Officers. We are hoping for a good turn out and the citizens of Onalaska never disappoint us.

The highlight of the event is a wing-eating contest at 5 p.m. featuring Special Olympics athletes, officers, sheriffs and police chiefs who will square off to see who can eat the most wings.
WASHINGTON (AP)  President Donald Trump says it doesn't take a lawyer to see that his order banning visitors from seven Muslim-majority nations is a "common sense" move to protect the U.S. from terrorists. He says even a bad high school student could figure that out.

But critics, who won an early skirmish in the legal battles over it, describe the order as unconstitutional and discriminatory against Muslims and say that it has caused hardships for families, businesses and universities.

The order is on hold for now while federal courts consider the matter. With the process likely to take weeks or months, here's a glossary to help follow the legal doings.

EXECUTIVE ORDER: At issue is Trump's order of Jan. 27 entitled: "Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States." The 3,100-word order would temporarily ban visitors from seven mainly Muslim countries with terror ties, halt the entire U.S. refugee program for four months and ban Syrians from the U.S. indefinitely.

TRAVEL BAN: There's a dispute over what to call the order, routinely referred to as a "travel ban." Trump himself has called it a "ban" at times. But his press secretary says that's not a fair characterization since plenty of people continued to flow into the United States when the order was in effect. Trump tweeted on Feb. 1: "Call it what you want, it is about keeping bad people (with bad intentions) out of country!"

TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER: Trump's order is on hold for now because a federal judge in Seattle last week issued a temporary restraining order "to preserve the status quo" until the courts have a chance to explore legal arguments on the constitutionality of the order. The ruling by U.S. District Judge James Robart, appointed by President George W. Bush, incensed Trump, who referred to Robart as a "so-called judge."

EMERGENCY STAY MOTION: Trump's legal team has asked the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to issue an "emergency stay" that would allow the president's order to go back into effect while the courts consider the merits of the case. A three-judge panel from the 9th Circuit heard arguments Tuesday and a ruling is expected within days. Trump's lawyer told the judges that rather than issuing an up-or-down ruling, the court could strike a middle ground and exempt from the ban people who have previously been admitted to the U.S., and keep it in place for people who have never visited.

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EN BANC REVIEW: After the three-judge panel rules, the losing side can request a re-hearing by a larger group of judges on the 9th Circuit. That's known as "en banc" review.

SUPREME COURT APPEAL: Whatever the 9th Circuit decides, either side could ask the Supreme Court to weigh in on the restraining order. The 9-member court has a vacancy, leaving open the possibility of a 4-4 split. A tie vote would leave intact the 9th Circuit's ruling. If the restraining order were lifted, the administration could immediately start blocking travel to the U.S. again by those singled out in Trump's executive order.

STATE OF WASHINGTON v. TRUMP: Regardless of what happens with the restraining order, the case is likely to go back to Judge Robart for a ruling on the broader legal challenge mounted by Washington state and joined by Minnesota. And the case could end up back before the Supreme Court once the lower-level courts consider the case on its merits. Elsewhere in the nation, a number of other lawsuits have been filed against the order by other states and advocacy groups.

AMICUS BRIEFS: More than 90 companies have gone on record in support of the Washington state lawsuit by filing amicus, or friend of the court, briefs that offer arguments to buttress the case. The companies include Apple, Google and other tech and social media companies that call the ban unconstitutional, un-American and bad for the economy.

U.S. CODE: To justify his executive order, Trump on Wednesday read aloud from what he calls the "beautifully written" U.S. Code, citing a section that authorizes the president to suspend the entry of aliens whose presence would be "detrimental to the interests of the United States." Says Trump: "There it is, folks. It's as plain as you can have it." The U.S. Code is a compilation of federal law.

___

Follow Nancy Benac on Twitter at http://twitter.com/nbenac
Senator and Democrat Daylin Leach used Facebook and Twitter to taunt Mr Trump: AP/Bradley C. Bower

A state senator has dared fascist Donald Trump to come after him and make good on his promise to end his career.

Pennsylvania senator Daylin Leach sent out his message to the US President via Twitter and Facebook in a show of solidarity with an unnamed Texas state senator.

Mr Trump appeared to encourage the sheriff of a small Texas county to destroy the career of a Texas senator who wanted to tamper with asset forfeiture laws.

The controversial legislation allows police to seize cash and property of suspected criminals before conviction.

Hey @realDonaldTrump I oppose civil asset forfeiture too! Why don't you try to destroy my career you fascist, loofa-faced, shit-gibbon!  Daylin Leach (@daylinleach) February 7, 2017

Hey @realDonald Trump I oppose civil asset forfeiture too! Why dont you try to destroy my career you fascist, loofa-faced s***-gibbon, said Mr Leach on Twitter this week.

He also taunted on Facebook: Why dont you come after me.

Mr Trump was meeting county sheriffs from across the US in the White Houses Roosevelt Room when Rockwall Countrys Sheriff Harold Eavenson mentioned the Texan who was talking about introducing legislation to require conviction before seizing cash and assets.

Can you believe that, Mr Trump interjected, according to Politico.

.@realDonaldTrump, a lot of people have tried to end @daylinleach's career. They failed. So will you. pic.twitter.com/I0IePZfyki  Steve Hoenstine (@stevehoenstine) February 8, 2017

And I told him that the cartel would build a monument to him in Mexico if he could get that legislation passed, the Texas sheriff continued.

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Who is the state senator? Do you want to give his name? Well destroy his career, Mr Trump allegedly replied.

Democrat Mr Leach, who practised law, then tweeted this afternoon: New bill requires psychiatrist at WH (White House). Great idea! Maybe they could also require the guy with the nuclear codes to carry a straight jacket.

His spokesman Steve Hoenstine added: President Trump blithely talked about destroying the career of a man who disagreed with Trump on a policy issue. Then Trump laughed about it, which is just what youd expect from someone who gets his kicks firing people on national television.

Trump just continues to undermine democratic norms, Americas system of checks and balances, and the general principle of human decency. Senator Leach is mad as hell about it, as you can see from his tweet.

Mr Hoenstine also told The Independent that Mr Leach was "always fighting for what's right" and would not back down if indeed Mr Trump did come after him.

"Donald Trump may try a lot of dirty tricks, but Daylin would fight back intelligently and tirelessly, and his constituents would have his back," added Mr Hoenstine.

Asked about Mr Leach's imaginative use of swear words, he added: "I know this isn't the first time someone has called Trump a s***gibbon. Safe to say this also isn't the last time someone calls Trump a s***gibbon."

The Independent has contacted Mr Trumps communications director Hope Hicks for comment.
Photo credit: Getty

From Esquire

WASHINGTON-As Monday became Tuesday, and the rattle of the custodial carts grew louder across the marble floors of the Capitol, Robert Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania, was talking about sexual assault on college campuses and about the regulations designed to prevent the crimes and help the victims. This, along with so much else, had baffled Betsy DeVos, the president*'s nominee to be the next Secretary of Education, during the committee hearings into her nomination.

(She didn't really know what she was talking about on this particular subject, or on the subject of the guarantees made in federal law to help students with disabilities, or on the subject that has been the most basic question in education going back to Plato: namely, do you measure a student's performance-and, by extension, a teacher's effectiveness-by the student's proficiency or the student's growth? It wasn't that DeVos failed to stake out a position on this question and defend it. It was that she clearly didn't know what the debate was all about. Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, was more flummoxed than I ever saw him, and this was a guy who used to do live comedy on TV.)

Here's Casey:

This is the line of questioning that I pursued with Mrs. DeVos when she came before the HELP committee-the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee-just a couple of days ago. I want to start with the stark reality of sexual assault on college and university campuses across the country. Here's what the Centers for Disease Control tell us. One in five women on college campuses experience attempted or completed sexual assaults. One in five. Now, that's an abomination. That's a stain on our country. That's something we should not allow to continue, and we're just beginning in the last couple of years to begin to tackle that horrific problem, that insult, that outrage to young women and their families all across the country. We pass legislation that I will talk about in a moment, but this is a matter I believe of basic justiceYears ago, St. Augustine said without justice, what are kingdoms but great bands of robbers? If we don't get serious about this problem, the problem of sexual assault and what happens to young women on our college campuses.

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Specifically, I asked her to uphold the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights guidance from 2011 that advises institutions of higher education to use the preponderance of evidence standard for campus conduct proceedings. Some people know the difference between one level of evidentiary standards versus others. They made a determination that preponderance of the evidence was the right standard. I asked her a very specific question whether or not she would uphold that standard of evidentiary-that basic evidentiary standard, and she said it was-quote-premature so make such a commitment. I also asked her whether she would enforce the law as it relates to sexual assault, and she didn't seem to believe that she had to answer that question in a manner that would give us confidence that she would uphold the law.

OK, it was a little early in the morning for St. Augustine, but Casey made his point. Thus we were here all night, as Monday became Tuesday, because the Democratic senators believe that Betsy DeVos' ridiculous nomination was the one they could beat. All week, the plan is to slow-play the confirmation votes to let public outrage and pressure build while, in the Senate, the Democrats would use every millisecond of the 30 hours of "debate" they are allowed before a confirmation vote is taken. This, of course, is not a "debate" in a real sense. The Democrats divvied up their allotted time and each Democratic senator had an hour to spout off to a largely empty chamber.

Photo credit: Getty

Meanwhile, even in a largely empty Capitol, the rumors flew. Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, was wavering. The cellphones belonging to the staff of Pat Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, had melted into the sides of their heads. Maybe Dean Heller, Republican of Nevada, can be flipped back. The smart money remained on the notion that, in a move unprecedented in a Cabinet confirmation, Vice-President Mike Pence would be forced to perform his only constitutional duty and break a 50-50 tie. The Democrats kept talking and talking, which really is all the American voters left them to do in the autumn of 2016.

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Each of them had a point to make, and they made it at length, with practically no opposition from the Republican majority, the majority of which were somewhere tucked away for a long winter's nap. Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina, came rolling in around midnight to add his two cents to the proceedings, defending DeVos by avoiding talking about her at any length. Instead, Scott insisted that the "real debate" should be about the issues concerning public education.

This is not about teachers. It is not necessarily about Betsy DeVos, not even Betsy DeVos. For me, the issue is simply an issue of quality education, and I will, without any question, have a very specific conversation on Betsy DeVos. For me, however, this is simply about quality education and how we get there. My story is familiar to many people in this chamber. I've spoken about it on a number of times. I'll tell you that my entire time in the senate, the four years that I've been here, Ive been talking consistently about the power of education and the necessity of quality education. I call it the Opportunity Agenda, the Opportunity Agenda which has been my focus for the last four year's focus, first, on education, making sure that every single zip code in America has a quality choice in education.

This is a nice try, and Tim Scott must have been one hellacious goddamn Amway salesman. Yes, in one of the wonders of coincidence for which American politics is noted around the world, Scott once went door-to-door on behalf of the company that made the DeVos family wealthy enough so that, when Betsy married into it, she and her husband could afford to buy the political establishment of the state of Michigan wholesale while also embarking on Betsy's golden dream of using public education to "build God's kingdom."

Photo credit: Getty

Scott gave it his all, and gave the DeVos family a fine return on the nearly $50,000 in direct contributions that the DeVos family has lavished upon him. (One of the most interesting statistics of this 115th Congress is that the DeVos family has dropped almost a million bucks on various senators who will vote to give Betsy a job or not.) Unfortunately for Scott, of course, the actual subject of all the jaw-jaw was whether or not to turn Betsy DeVos loose to pursue her dream further as the head of the Department of Education, and the multifarious reasons as to why that's a really bad idea were parceled out by the Democratic leadership at about one per senator.

They let the younger folks have the overnight shift. (It would have made no sense to drag, say, 76-year old Pat Leahy out in the late whiskey hours to talk at length about anything.) For example, Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii, and a senatorial stripling at 44, used his time to deliver a thwacking attack on the privatization of the commons in general, and the creeping influence of the private profit motive into education in particular, using the DeVos-enabled catastrophe in Michigan as a case study.

A 2014 investigation by the Detroit Free Press suggests their profits are enormous. During the 2013 school year, the paper found Detroit public schools spend an average of $12,000 per student in the classroom. Charter schools spent about $2,000 less per pupil, getting the same amount of money. They are spending $2,000 less per kid, yet spent double that rate on per-pupil funding on administrative costs. That's their skim. That's their profit. Meanwhile, the oversupply of seats in for-profit schools has arguably kept nonprofit charter networks with better track records off the market.

So they really are operating like a business. They are operating like an airline, right? They are operating like a credit card company, a financial services company. I mean, this is the private sector at work in public education. There are some private sector models where I think, hey, let's have a partnership with the Department of Education to try to see how much clean energy we can develop. Let's work with the Department of Commerce on export promotion. But there are some aspects of what the government does that are not a good fit with the private sector, and this is one of them. And this isn't some ideological test. This is-it's just not working. We're ripping off our taxpayers and we're giving a bad value to the students who deserve better.

(This, it should be said, was partly in response to Scott, a very smooth operator, who glided easily from support for charter schools to support for "school choice," using as his inapt comparison the Pell Grant program, reminding us that his Republican colleague, James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, said the same thing about the GI Bill. Schatz correctly pointed out that what Scott called "school choice" is privatization in sheep's clothing.)

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It was a little after three when Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, rose to speak. I feel fairly safe in observing that speaking on Donald Trump's nominee for Secretary of Education was not what Kaine thought he'd be doing at the beginning of February in 2017. Nevertheless, Kaine built on what Schatz had said, tracing the evolution of school vouchers back to their roots in the segregation academies in the South that arose in response to the Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which mandated the desegregation of the country's public schools.

Photo credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty

Kaine leaned particularly hard on the history of Prince Edward County, which simply closed all of its public schools for five years rather than comply with the court's decision. This, at least, had more historical validity than calling the GI Bill and Pell Grants examples of "school choice." Said Kaine:

Prince Edward County did something that no other jurisdiction in the United States did. They decided, okay, if we have public schools, we're required to treat kids equally based on the color of their skin, I have an idea-we'll close all our public schools. So Prince Edward County for a period of five years-five years-shut all their public schools. And you know what they did? They used county funds and state funds to support vouchers to private schools. And they gave those vouchers to students who were white so that they could go to private schools. They called them Segregation Academies, and they set up all over VirginiaWe've gone from back of the pack to front of the pack. We care about public education in my Commonwealth. And we do not take kindly to people who trash the state of public education today because we know how far we've come.

There was some bone-deep serious politics going on in the strange, chilly Senate chamber, witnessed only by the presiding officer, some sleepy pages, and the guy running the sound system. (My pal Joni Ernst, Republican of Iowa, took over the president's chair while Kaine was speaking.) The assumption behind all this post-midnight rambling is that, while the Democrats were speaking, and Tim Kaine was talking about segregation academies, their constituents were still calling the offices of sleeping Republicans. The night became the day, slowly. Senators kept talking. You could hear the day begin in the rising buzz coming from the hallways, where sunlight was just beginning to creep down across the marble floors.

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President Trump lashed out at Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., on Thursday after the lawmaker said Judge Neil Gorsuch, Trumps nominee for the Supreme Court, had called the presidents criticism of judges demoralizing and disheartening.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie), now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him? Trump tweeted.

Sen.Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie),now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2017

Yet according to former New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who is leading the White House team working to confirm Trumps pick, Gorsuch indeed used those words to describe any criticism of a judges integrity. And Trump has indeed repeatedly laced into the integrity of federal judges who have so far stymied his immigration ban.

Judge Gorsuch has made it very clear in all of his discussions with senators, including Sen. Blumenthal, that he could not comment on any specific cases and that judicial ethics prevent him from commenting on political matters, Ayotte said in a statement. He has also emphasized the importance of an independent judiciary, and while he made clear that he was not referring to any specific case, he said that he finds any criticism of a judges integrity and independence disheartening and demoralizing.

Sen. Ben Sasse just contradicted Trump, confirms Gorsuch's comments on @Morning_Joe: "He got pretty passionate about it." pic.twitter.com/tsPeQ156vs  Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 9, 2017

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., said that Gorsuch criticized Trumps attacks in a meeting with him as well.

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He said any attack on any brothers or sisters of the robe is an attack on all judges, Sasse said on MSNBCs Morning Joe Thursday. He believes in an independent judiciary.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also said Gorsuch told him he was disheartened by the presidents comments.

And a White House official confirmed Gorsuchs comments to a wide range of media outlets.

Gorsuchs rebuke of Trump came on the heels of the presidents criticism of James Robart, the federal judge who issued a restraining order against his controversial executive order banning immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017

What is our country coming to when a judge can halt a Homeland Security travel ban and anyone, even with bad intentions, can come into U.S.?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017

The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned! Trump tweeted. What is our country coming to when a judge can halt a Homeland Security travel ban and anyone, even with bad intentions, can come into U.S.?

The U.S. government appealed the ruling, and a decision from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is expected soon. And Trump blasted the appeals court on Wednesday for its sometimes political approach to the White Houses position during hearings the day before.

I dont ever want to call a court biased, so I wont call it biased, Trump said during a gathering of police chiefs and sheriffs in Washington, D.C. And we havent had a decision yet. But courts seem to be so political, and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do whats right.

Meanwhile, Blumenthal said Thursday that Gorsuchs private assessment of Trumps attacks on the judiciary is not enough.

I think that telling me he finds these attacks to be demoralizing or disheartening behind closed doors is not enough, Blumenthal said on CNN. He needs to make that statement publicly and condemn this attack on the judiciary and show the American public that he will be independent.

During a SCOTUS listening session at the White House early Thursday afternoon, Trump reiterated his attack on Blumenthal.

His comments were misrepresented, the president told reporters. And what you should do is ask Sen. Blumenthal about his Vietnam record, which didnt exist.

President Trump steps back as Neil Gorsuch approaches the podium at the White House after being nominated to the Supreme Court on Jan. 31. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)

But Blumenthals misrepresentation of his military service was well-documented.

In 2010, Blumenthal apologized for repeatedly claiming he had served in Vietnam after the the New York Times reported he obtained at least five military deferments between 1965 and 1970 to avoid going to war.

On a few occasions, I have misspoken about my service and I regret that, Blumenthal said at the time. I take full responsibility, but I will not allow anyone to take a few misplaced words and impugn my record of military service.

Read more from Yahoo News:
Frankfurt am Main (AFP) - Volkswagen's "dieselgate" crisis turned personal this week, as the German auto giant's patriarch and ex-boss Ferdinand Piech implicated his successors in the cheating scandal.

The rift was laid bare after the Wolfsburg-based firm's supervisory board issued a statement late Wednesday to dispute Piech's claims that board members knew about the diesel emissions cheating sooner than they have so far admitted.

The board members targeted in Piech's allegations "rejected them as false, independently from one another," the statement read.

An internal investigation had examined Piech's claims last year and found no evidence, the firm added.

According to German tabloid Bild, Piech has told prosecutors in the German city of Brunswick that he heard rumours about the fraud in February 2015, while he was still chairman of the supervisory board.

He reportedly put the allegations to then-chief executive Martin Winterkorn, who denied them, and to some members of the board.

The allegations have explosive potential as so far VW has always denied that senior management knew of the cheating before it became public knowledge in September 2015.

The company's admission at the time that it had installed in 11 million diesel engines worldwide software designed to dupe pollution tests triggered a share sell-off and a deep crisis at the carmaker.

Prosecutors have told AFP that no one who sat on the supervisory board at the time of Piech's allegations is under investigation, but would not comment on the witnesses they had interviewed or their testimony.

"Piech is clearly trying to settle scores," a VW source who asked not to be identified told AFP.

- 'Fake news' -

As the grandson of the inventor of the VW Beetle, former chief executive and a member of the Porsche-Piech clan that owns much of the group, 79-year-old Piech was long a fixture at VW.

But a confrontation with Winterkorn, his former protege, cost him his place at the head of the supervisory board in April 2015.

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"There might be a connection there" to Piech's latest allegations, said Stephan Weil, the minister-president of the carmaker's home state of Lower Saxony, which is a major VW shareholder.

"It's regrettable that a man with indisputable merits like Ferdinand Piech is now resorting to tactics that can only be described as 'fake news'," Weil was quoted as saying by German news agency DPA on Thursday.

The cause of Piech and Winterkorn's falling-out -- after years in which they worked hand-in-glove -- has so far remained a mystery.

- High stakes -

VW has already agreed to pay out more than $22 billion to customers, dealers and authorities in the US to settle claims related to the emissions scam.

But if Piech's allegations turn out to be true, the bill could become even weightier, Bratzel noted, making him "very dangerous" for the firm.

Investors who suffered losses when 'dieselgate' became public are demanding billions of euros in damages from the group, saying it failed to inform them in time.

Meanwhile, investigators in the US and Germany are still trying to determine who was responsible.

Winterkorn -- who stepped down days after the dieselgate scandal broke -- is already under investigation by Brunswick prosecutors over when he knew about the defeat devices.
Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fcard%2fimage%2f377562%2f6e44420f-863e-45c8-87e0-cef8e221a2c5

In one of the most bizarre surgeries ever, doctors in India removed a live cockroach from a woman's nasal cavity reaching the brain.

42-year-old Selvi had complained of an "crawling sensation" for several hours, before being operated upon, The New Indian Express reported.

SEE ALSO: Young snake catcher dies while attempting to kiss a cobra

"It was a full grown cockroach... It was alive. And it didn't seem to want to come out," Dr M.N. Shankar, head of the ENT department at Stanley Medical College and Hospital in southern Indian city of Chennai said.

Doctors were relieved that the cockroach was taken out alive because had it died it would have infected the woman's brain.

I could not explain the feeling but I was sure it was some insect Whenever it moved, it gave me a burning sensation in my eyes," the woman said.

She made visits to multiple hospitals because her discomfort was undetected. Until, doctors at Stanley used an endoscope to find the reason. The insect was sitting in the skull base, between the eyes and close to the brain, Dr Shankar said.

After a 45-minute procedure, using suction and forceps, doctors were able to extract the cockroach, still alive.

A video of the extraction is doing the rounds on social media. Warning: it's graphic.

Ewwww! Doctors in India remove LIVE cockroach from woman's skull. Check out the video and read my upcoming @CNN story pic.twitter.com/Z7CfxaVcOW  Doug Criss (@CNNDoug) February 8, 2017

The doctors reportedly said that this was a first-of-its-kind experience for them. In the past, the hospitals ENT department has removed a leach, houseflies, and maggots from patients nasal cavities.

However, there seems to have been a global precedent when a small cockroach crawled into the ear of a George Washington University student. There too the roach was flushed out live.

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Donald Trump has sent a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping rather than call him, a move experts say will be "interpreted as a slight".

The two leaders have not spoken directly since Mr Trump's inauguration.

In his letter, Mr Trump wished the Chinese people a prosperous Lunar New Year of the Rooster, making him the only US leader not to have sent well wishes to the world's most populous nation on its most important holiday, which fell on 28 January this year.

"It will be interpreted as a slight," Leslie Vinjamuri, an associate fellow of the US & the Americas programme at Chatham House told The Independent.

She said Mr Trump was careful in wording the letter to appear conciliatory, "but undoubtedly most people and the Chinese will notice this was not a phone call."

A statement from the White House said Mr Trump wrote to Mr Xi to say he looked forward to "developing a constructive relationship that benefits both the United States and China."

Ms Vinjamuri said it was "a very clear signal" Mr Trump is "keeping the Chinese at arm's length."

"To wait nearly three weeks to establish contact, when we're talking about the most strategic relationship that the United States has over the course of the century, is a very significant factor."

Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China "highly commended" Mr Trump for the letter. He dismissed suggestions that Beijing took offence in the timing.

"It is known to all that since President Trump took office, China and the US have been in close contact," Mr Lu said.

Speculation has simmered in China about how Mr Trump might back up his tough talk, with observers noting that since his inauguration on 20 January, he has spoken to more than a dozen foreign leaders but not Mr Xi.

The US President has accused Beijing of unfair trade practices and a deliberately undervalued currency. He has also criticised China's buildup in the South China Sea and accused Beijing of doing too little to pressure North Korea over its nuclear missile programme.

Story continues

He also broke four decades of diplomatic protocol by speaking by phone with the president of Taiwan, a country China claims as its own territory.

Mr Trump's closest adviser and chief strategist has openly envisaged the possibility of a US-China war over the South China Sea.

Steve Bannon said he thinks the US will be at war with China within the next five to 10 years.

Graphiq

Ms Vinjamuri said future relations between the US and China will be hard to predict, due to being in a "very unstable and unpredictable phase in US politics."

"There's a strong expectation that the Trump administration will take a much more aggressive line. And I think there's some very real concerns, especially with respect to the economic relationship."

She added: "I suspect this relationship is going to go through a very difficult patch."
For the Christians living under the Islamic State, every day brings fear of rape, death or forced conversions.

The atrocities suffered by Christians and other religious minorities, including the 2015 ISIS beheading and shootings of 30 Ethiopian Christians, have been so brutal that last March, the U.S. administration said ISIS was committing genocide against the groups.

While U.S. President Donald Trump's recent executive order on immigration and national security didn't mention Christians specifically, many assume it was meant to give them a leg up in the refugee resettlement process. Yet some argue the order could actually hurt Christians more than help them.

The president's controversial executive order suspends the refugee program for now, but calls for it to "prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual's country of nationality" once it resumes.

In the eyes of Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, this is little more than a cynical ploy to please the Christians in Trump's base, while actually doing something counter to their interests. Katulis, who has studied the plight of Christians in the Middle East, says the order will hurt Christians in two ways.

By limiting the number of refugees in fiscal year 2017 to 50,000, as opposed to the 110,000 that former U.S. President Obama had pledged, Katulis believes Trump is hurting the chances of Christians making it to the U.S. "There are simply not enough slots," he says.

"The second way it will harm these religious minorities like Christians is by actually creating greater possibilities for them being targeted in their home countries by militant groups and others," Katulis says. Most Christians in the Middle East want to be considered normal citizens, with an equal to devotion to country, he says. But the order "fuels the hatred and animosity that is there already and it allows ISIS militants to say, 'I told you so, these people aren't one of us.'"

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Samuel Tadros, senior fellow at the right-leaning Hudson Institute, believes the executive order is flawed on policy and moral grounds. But he's convinced that the portion related to religious minorities should be less controversial than it has been.

"It's a reflection of reality, meaning that the religious minorities are facing a greater threat than others and as a result it's natural that the greater threat means more prioritization," he says.

Futhermore, Tadros says, prioritizing religious minorities in this manner will help correct a previous wrong. Christians and other religious minorities from Syria tend to be extremely under-represented in the U.S. refugee program, he says, mainly because relatively few are referred to the U.S. by the U.N. He says that's because religious often fear persecution in refugee camps, and often seek safety in church camps or elsewhere.

There is nothing new about prioritizing religious or ethnic groups in the refugee program, Tadros says. "Current U.S. law creates a category called priority 2 for refugees defined as 'groups of special humanitarian concern identified by the U.S. refugee program,'" he wrote in a recent article. Groups in the special class include Ukrainian Catholics, Iraqis working for the U.S., Cuban political activists and members of religious minorities, ethnic minorities in Myanmar, and Congolese in Rwanda.

The Christian population in the Middle East was about 7.5 million in 2010, according to the Pew Research Center, though some estimates put the figure at nearly 15 million. The number of Christians in the region has grown since the early 1900s and the group now represent 5 percent of the population.

As of 2012, "Christians faced religious harassment in a greater share of countries in the Middle East and North Africa than in any other region," Pew found. But while the group has been targeted by extremists, "Muslims have been the group's victims far more frequently and represent the strong majority," according to NPR. Many targeted are Shiite Muslims, who ISIS sees as apostates.

Muslims made up 46 percent of all refugee admissions to the U.S. in 2016, while Christians represented 44 percent.

Devon Haynie is news editor, international for U.S. News. You can follow her on Twitter or email her at dhaynie@usnews.com.
Six tornadoes hit New Orleans and the wider south Louisiana area on Tuesday, injuring around 40 people, destroying homes and leaving 16,000 buildings without power.

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards has declared a state of emergency, and deployed State Police and the Louisiana National Guard to support the New Orleans police.

"The width of the devastation was unlike any that I have seen before," Gov. Edwards told a news conference. "When you see it from the air you're even more impressed that so few people were injured and that nobody's life was lost."

Search and rescue operations continued, and there are currently no reports of any deaths.

There has not yet been any estimates on the cost of the damage, as officials have stated that it is too early to assess.

NASAs Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, which is working toward building the Orion spacecraft, was hit by one of the tornadoes at 11.25 CST (17.25 GMT) on Tuesday, with reports of two building and several external structures being damaged, along with 200 cars.

At 11:25am CT, a tornado impacted our Michoud Facility in New Orleans. Only minor injuries reported & personnel are being accounted for (1)  NASA (@NASA) February 7, 2017

The Mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu, said it's devastating. There are a lot of families that lost everything they have." He added that the experience was akin to an elephant stomping on your house.

Louisiana has been hit by a series of natural disasters over the past year, with flooding in March 2016 killing 4, and again in August killing 13. The floods were described as worse than Hurricane Katrina and 20,000 people needed to be evacuated.

Gov. Edwards said that the state has had its share of natural disasters and that there were budgetary constraints." However, this would not prevent the state from doing everything we need to do. He had been due in Washington D.C. this week to convince Congress to increase federal aid funds.
Mexico City (AFP) - Sons of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman accused a former ally of trying to kill them, a prominent journalist said Thursday, indicating a possible battle for the jailed Mexican drug kingpin's succession.

Two weeks after the Sinaloa drug cartel leader was extradited to the United States, broadcast journalist Ciro Gomez Leyva said late Wednesday the sons made the allegation in a handwritten letter sent to him.

The message claims that one of the gang's reputed top lieutenants, Damaso Lopez, convened a meeting with the sons and cartel co-founder Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada on February 4.

The letter says Lopez called the meeting to discuss last year's brief kidnapping of at least one of Guzman's sons.

But once they arrived at the meeting, Lopez was not there and gunmen fired at them, killing an unspecified number of bodyguards, the letter alleges.

The sons, who "realized that they were betrayed" by Lopez, ran into a hill, where they were attacked again and wounded before local people helped them, the missive says.

The letter does not say which or how many of Guzman's sons were attacked, but the US Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on three of them: Jesus Alfredo, Ivan and Ovidio.

It is also unclear whether the letter refers to Lopez or his son, Damaso Lopez Jr, who is also an alleged cartel operative.

The elder Lopez, who is accused of helping Guzman escape from prison for the first time in 2001, was charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine by US prosecutors in 2013.

Guzman, who escaped twice from prison, was extradited to the United States on January 19, a year after he was recaptured.

The letter emerged as the northwestern state of Sinaloa has been hit by a series of gunfights that have left at least 21 people dead since last weekend.

Authorities have not said whether the shootouts were linked to a war within the Sinaloa drug cartel.

The death or capture of a drug baron can often lead to internal power struggles in Mexican gangs, though the Sinaloa cartel has avoided such violence in the previous times that Guzman was in prison.

While the letter's authenticity could not be independently verified by AFP, one of Guzman's lawyers, Jose Refugio Rodriguez, told Radio Formula that he believes it was sent by the sons.
Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as yourself."

But what do you do when he or she tries to kill you?

You people who are protesting President Trump's temporary ban on allowing refugees from coming into our country ought to read the Koran. That's the Muslim Bible. It says Muslims can cheat or lie or anything else to further their cause and that cause is to rule the world. There is no freedom of religion with Islam. They think have the truth, period.

Ladies, in Islam only the men count. Only the men go in the mosque. Only the men have the last word. Men can beat their wives for any grievance, even burning the toast.

If we had taken the time to investigate those who downed the Twin Towers there would be folks alive today.
donald trump

President Donald Trump tweeted on Wednesday about "Easy D!" to imply that Americans were in danger while the US court system prevented his administration from implementing his controversial travel ban.

"Big increase in traffic into our country from certain areas, while our people are far more vulnerable, as we wait for what should be EASY D!" Trump tweeted.

(The "D"in "Easy D" means "Decision.")

Trump was most likely referring to the decision on his executive order temporarily barring citizens from seven majority-Muslim countries  identified by Congress in 2015 as hot spots for terrorism  along with all refugees from entering the US. Last week, a judge in Washington state issued a stay on the order to suspend its implementation.

It was not clear what data Trump was referring to in his tweet. A representative for the Department of Homeland Security was not immediately available for comment.

Some experts opposed to the travel ban have contended that it is not an effective way to protect Americans from terrorist attacks.

Trump defended the ban in a rambling speech to the National Sheriffs' Association on Wednesday morning. He accused judges of trying to overturn the executive order because of politics and pointed to immigration law that seemed to support his authority to issue the travel ban.

"I think our security is at risk today, and it will be at risk until such time we are entitled and get what we are entitled to as citizens of this country," he said. "We want security. One of the reasons I was elected is because of law and order and security."

NOW WATCH: Trump's Attorney General pick wants access to everyone's phones  here's why that's a problem





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Ecuadorians head to the polls for general elections on Feb. 19. And if they end up backing the main opposition candidate Guillermo Lasso, Julian Assange could find his stay at the countrys London embassy coming to a halt.

Lasso, the leader of the right-wing Creo-Suma party, has argued that hosting the WikiLeaks founder has become an unjustifiable expense, the Guardian reports.

The Ecuadorian people have been paying a cost that we should not have to bear, Lasso told the newspaper during an interview in Quito, We will cordially ask Senor Assange to leave within 30 days of assuming a mandate.

Until recently, a Lasso victory seemed unlikely. However, ruling party candidate Lenin Morenos lead had narrowed to seven points in the latest poll and many forecasters tip Lasso to force a second ballot under Ecuadors two-round system.

Assange was given asylum by Ecuador in August 2012 and has lived in the countrys London embassy since. But according to the Guardian, even if the supportive ruling party retains power, he will be under pressure to leave.

Our staff have been through a lot. There is a human cost, Guillaume Long, Ecuadors Foreign Minister, told the Guardian. This is probably the most watched embassy on the planet.
Julian Assanges days of asylum may be numbered, depending on how Ecuadors presidential elections go. Guillermo Lasso, a leading candidate in Ecuadors presidential race, said he would boot the Wikileaks chief out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London if he wins the upcoming presidential elections next week.

More than four years after Assange got asylum, he has long overstayed his welcome in the embassy, Lasso said in an interview with the Guardian. We will cordially ask Senor Assange to leave within 30 days of assuming a mandate.

Lasso trails the ruling party candidate Lenin Moreno by seven points according to the latest polls, but is well-positioned to win a runoff vote.

Ecuador granted Assange asylum in 2012 to prevent his extradition to Sweden over a sexual assault accusation, with Western intelligence agencies hot on his trail. Ecuadors self-described anti-imperialist president Rafael Correa spurned the United States and gained international prominence by agreeing to shelter Assange.

But since then, the country has started feeling buyers remorse. British intelligence closely monitors the embassy. And Assange, who hasnt stepped foot outside the embassy in four years, is starting to wear on their patience.

Our staff have been through a lot. There is a human cost, said Guillaume Long, Ecuadors foreign minister. This is probably the most watched embassy on the planet. In October, 2016, the embassy even cut off Assanges internet access, citing concerns over Wikileaks involvement in the U.S. presidential race hackings.

The Ecuadorian people have been paying a cost that we should not have to bear, said Lasso, a leader in the conservative Creo-Suma political alliance.

Though Lasso is still trailing, he has gained momentum as the most likely candidate to oust Moreno after an initial round of voting on Feb. 19 is expected to lead to a runoff vote. Its safe to say Assange is following this election closely, too.

Photo credit: Carl Court / Staff
Plans to build a bulletproof, glass enclosure that will form a perimeter around the Eiffel Tower have been announced, in a new measure aimed at making France's most iconic monument more secure.

According to French daily publication Le Parisien, construction will start in the fall for the 2.5-meter-tall barricade and cost 20 million euros.

Likewise, officials who are responsible for the administration of the tower announced plans to reorganize the way tourists access the monument.

Despite fears that the enclosure could mar one of the world's most popular attractions, officials insist it will not resemble a fortress thanks to the use of glass.
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"She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted." - Mitch McConnell's thankful contribution to the feminist movement.

On Wednesday night's The Daily Show, host Trevor Noah had Sen. Elizabeth Warren on to talk about her formal silencing on the Senate floor while reading a letter from Coretta Scott King regarding Sen. Jeff Sessions.

SEE ALSO: Elizabeth Warren takes to Facebook Live after being silenced in the Senate

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"In the time that this has blown up everywhere, four of your male colleagues have been able to read the letter in full. Is there something to that?" the host asked the Democratic Senator from Massachusetts.

"Look, the main thing is that millions of people are now reading Coretta Scott King's letter," Warren responded, highlighting the importance and relevance of King's words. "I hope everybody reads her letter."

Do you think Mitch McConnell realized what a solid hes done you, the host asked Warren, referring to Senator's supporter's new rallying cry, #ShePersisted.

What it's done is its helped us have a better Democratic conversation, she responded, humbly brushing past her now-iconic moment on the Senate floor.

We dont have the votes in the United States Senate to block somebody like Jeff Sessions [from becoming attorney general]," the Senator continued, "So what weve got to do is count on people all around this country to make their voices heard.

Watch Warren's impassioned interview above.
Washington (AFP) - The European Union's chief diplomat Federica Mogherini held her first meetings with President Donald Trump's US administration on Thursday, at a moment of uncertainty for trans-Atlantic ties.

Trump's election dismayed many European leaders, who see him as dangerously naive about the disruptive threat posed by Russia and fear his victory will inspire Europe's own far-right populist parties.

The new US leader has lavished praise on Britain's decision to leave the European Union and is reportedly planning to nominate Ted Malloch, a businessman who recently compared the bloc to the Soviet Union, as US ambassador to the EU.

Since his election, Trump has toned down some of his criticism of America's NATO allies in Europe, but he has shown no enthusiasm for the 28-member political union.

So Mogherini arrived in Washington on a delicate mission to build a working relationship with the novice administration, and began by meeting Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

The Texas oilman, a former head of US energy giant ExxonMobil and a holder of Russia's Order of Friendship medal, hosted her at the State Department for what Mogherini later described as a "fruitful meeting."

"There are many files on which the EU and the US have an interest to closely cooperate," Mogherini said. Her office said the pair discussed counterterrorism strategy, relations with Russia, the Iran nuclear deal and the crises in Ukraine and Syria.

Trump has said he wants to mend ties with Russia's President Vladimir Putin and to join Moscow in a battle to eradicate "radical Islamic terrorism." Europe fears he will take a soft line on Russia's intervention in Ukraine.

After her talks with Tillerson, Mogherini was due at the White House to meet National Security Adviser Michael Flynn -- another strong advocate of closer Russian ties -- and Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner.
In the five years since Mamy Ranaivoson became a pastor, he has performed the marriage of one of his daughters, baptized his first grandchild and welcomed another daughter to the clergy. Last fall, the Madagascar native marked another milestone: relocating to Wisconsin to preside over Journey Lutheran Church in Onalaska.

A fifth-generation Lutheran and father of four, Ranaivoson, 55, has dedicated his life to helping others through his work as a physician, missionary and pastor, a journey that has spanned four continents, three decades and six degrees in medicine and theology. Along the way, he has mastered French, English, Malagasy and a Papuan dialect, along with a wealth of compassion.

Ranaivoson left Madagascar, where he practiced family medicine, in 1991, relocating to Papua New Guinea for missionary work, serving as the local hospitals sole physician for several years. While he experienced the joy of bringing babies into the world, he was also often the last person patients saw before they died.

Death can happen anywhere, and you do whatever you can, said Ranaivoson, who did his best to fill their last moments with comfort and peace. Id say, God loves you, but I wanted to be able to say more.

That yearning led him to Wartburg Seminary in Iowa, where he earned a master of arts in theology development and evangelism. However, he deferred his religious career to obtain a masters degree in public health at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Maryland before embarking for Africa, where he founded clinics for HIV/AIDS patients in 23 countries.

While in Kenya, he had lunch with a pastor from the United States who reignited his interest in the clergy.

He patted me on the shoulder and said, Dont give up on your call. I (enrolled) in the seminary again for my master of divinity.

In 2012, he began his pastoral career in Kansas but left after four years to live closer to his infant granddaughter in Minnesota. Upon joining Journey Lutheran, he was immediately struck by the similarities between the church and his life.

One particular thing about this church: its five years old and Ive been five years in the ministry. The church was built in 91, and I left my home (in Madagascar) then, Ranaivoson said, adding, The missionary in charge when I was in Papua New Guinea was from Holmen. Small world.

Ranaivoson says he was overwhelmed by the welcome he received from the congregation, as members sent over meals for his family and hosted gatherings.

We were very touched by the love they showed us, Ranaivoson said. We have that eagerness to journey together. This is really a true of reflection of God is welcome everywhere. I am an outsider and I am welcome here. God meets us where we are.

Ranaivoson has carried over the follow-up mentality of the medical field to his ministry, diligently checking back with church members who are recovering from illness or loss. However, he recognizes the doctor approach wont always suffice.

When you are a physician, you prescribe and tell people what to do. You have the power to influence and change their lifestyle, he said. As minister, you cant tell them what to do. You are there to listen and accompany people at where they are.

In addition to providing an open mind and open ears, Ranaivoson presides over weddings, visits patients in hospice, leads both traditional and contemporary services and is implementing an online Bible study program.

I want to provide a place where you grow in faith and own your place in the church, he shared. So they can find what God wants them to be and go for it.

While still in his first months at Journey Lutheran, Ranaivoson has found himself at home and grateful for the journey that led him there.

I have done my part in medicine, Ranaivoson said. Now they need me here.
Banjul (Gambia) (AFP) - The European Union announced aid worth 225 million euros ($240 million) for The Gambia on Thursday as President Adama Barrow warned that the nation was "virtually bankrupt" due to economic mismanagement by the former regime.

The EU froze assistance to The Gambia in December 2014 over the dire human rights record of ex-president Yahya Jammeh, whose security services were accused by rights groups of extrajudicial killings, torture and forced disappearances.

Barrow's victory over Jammeh in December's election is seen by foreign donors as a new chance for human rights and the rule of law to be better respected in the tiny west African nation.

Neven Mimica, European Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development, hailed "a peaceful democratic change in The Gambia" and said the bloc was "fully committed to engage with President Barrow and his government".

Immediate financial assistance of 75 million euros would target food insecurity and unemployment and help improve the nation's roads, the European Commission said in a statement.

A further 150 million euros would be disbursed following a future visit by an EU delegation, it added.

Barrow said in a speech at the signing of the aid deal that The Gambia had just two months of foreign exchange reserves left, and described "an economy that is virtually bankrupt and in need of immediate rescue".

"Most public enterprises are debt-ridden and underperforming including the energy sector," he said, adding that youth unemployment had rocketed.

Specific funding worth 11 million euros will go towards creating jobs for young people in a nation that currently sends the highest per capita number of migrants across the Mediterranean to Italy.

"To stem the current migration trend, it is crucial to step up job creation and create more meaningful income opportunities at home," said Trade Minister Isatou Touray.

Story continues

Jammeh is accused by Gambians of land grabs and taking over businesses for his personal gain, while new Interior Minister Mai Fatty alleged last month the ex-president took $11 million from state coffers before heading for exile in Equatorial Guinea.

Foreign Minister Ousainou Darboe said human rights concerns would be "speedily addressed" by the new administration, and that the process of rejoining the International Criminal Court would begin soon.

The Gambia notified the United Nations in November that it would withdraw from the ICC on Jammeh's orders.
By Alissa de Carbonnel BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union plans more legal action soon against governments that have failed to police emissions test cheating by carmakers in the wake of the Volkswagen diesel scandal, a top official said on Thursday. In a bid to prevent a rerun of the VW scandal, the European Commission has proposed an overhaul of rules on how vehicles are licensed and tested across the bloc. A draft bill, which would bolster EU oversight, won the backing of the European Parliament's internal market committee in a vote on Thursday. But it still faces a tough battle to be approved by member states, with EU industry Commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska accusing governments of obstructing the bloc's efforts to rein in what it sees as wayward behavior by the car industry. "Member states really failed to enforce the law," Bienkowska told the EU lawmakers. "I feel they are still playing for time." Amid mounting frustration over what Brussels sees as governments colluding with carmakers, it began legal cases against Germany, Britain and five other EU members in December. Bienkowska said there were a lot more cases to come in the coming months. "But these are very limited tools," she added. "We need a new type approval system." FIXING THE SYSTEM The draft law, which will tackle conflicts of interest when national regulators inspect and certify cars made by their own domestic manufacturers, will now go to a plenary vote next month. But some countries have balked at the reforms. "There are elements of this that are going to be very tough," Conservative lawmaker Daniel Dalton, who is steering the bill through Parliament, told Reuters. "But member states can't act in isolation." After VW admitted to using software to mask the levels of health-harming emissions from some of its diesel cars, several European countries ran their own investigations. They revealed on-road nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions as high as 15 times the regulatory limits, as well as the use of defeat devices to reduce exhaust treatment. The use of such devices is illegal under EU law, but car manufacturers have invoked an EU legal loophole that allows them to use software to scale back emissions controls when necessary to protect car engines. All deny breaking the law. Seeking to close this loophole, the Commission issued guidance last month on how members of the 28-nation bloc should apply the rules. Under the reforms, Brussels would get powers to carry out vehicle spot-checks and levy fines, while national authorities would be able to peer-review each other's decisions. Currently, vehicles can only be recalled by the country that licensed them, although they can be sold across the bloc. The bill also seeks to break cozy relations between carmakers and the firms they hire to test new vehicles by introducing a non-direct payment mechanism. Lawmakers also call for on-road checks on a minimum of 20 percent of car models per year across Europe. (Additional reporting by Waverly Colville; Editing by Ed Osmond and Susan Fenton)
Brussels (AFP) - The European Union must close all 315 of its coal-fired power plants by 2030 in order to meet its commitments under the Paris climate agreement, a research institute said Thursday.

The goal set at the December 2015 Paris conference to maintain average temperature increases to less than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels requires the gradual closure of EU coal plants, Climate Analytics said.

"The long-term temperature goal adopted under the Paris agreement... requires a rapid decarbonisation of the global power sector and the phaseout of the last unabated coal-fired power plant in the EU by around 2030," the report said.

Climate Analytics estimated that the EU's carbon budget, which is how much carbon dioxide it can emit to stay under two degrees Celsius, is at 6.5 gigatonnes by 2050.

The institute said the EU will exceed the budget by 85 percent by then if it continues with current emissions rates at coal plants.

It said there were 315 coal plants across the 28-nation bloc, and that 11 newly announced plants would raise EU emissions to almost twice the levels required to limit temperature rises.

"We find the cheapest way for the EU to make the emissions cuts required to meet its Paris Agreement commitments is to phase out coal from the electricity sector, and replace this capacity with renewables and energy efficiency measures," said Paola Yanguas Parra, a lead author of the report.

Parra said Germany and Poland had the most work to do as they were together responsible for 54 percent of emissions from coal.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In their first meeting, the European Union's foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke "at length" about terrorism, Russia, the Iran nuclear deal and Ukraine, the EU said in a statement. Mogherini is in Washington on Thursday and Friday, for the first time since Donald Trump became president. She also met on Thursday with Michael Flynn, Trump's national security advisor, a White House official said. Mogherini said in a statement after the meeting that she was "pleased to meet" Tillerson, and that they had an "open exchange on many dossiers that we are dealing with." The two discussed "trans-Atlantic relations, the common challenge of countering terrorism, the ongoing work to strengthen European defense, relations with Russia, the Iran nuclear deal and the main crises, from Ukraine to Syria," the statement said. The State Department did not provide details of what the two top diplomats for the United States and Europe discussed. Mogherini helped negotiate the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, along with diplomats from Iran, the United States and other major world powers. The deal curbed Iran's nuclear program in return for sanctions relief. Trump has said the deal is terrible, and Flynn put Iran "on notice" last week for test-firing a ballistic missile, raising the prospect of spiking tensions between Iran and the United States. Trump has expressed openness to working more closely with Russia, a stance that has rattled European allies and drawn criticism from Democrats and Republicans who say Russia is an adversary of the United States and other Western democracies. Tillerson had significant business ties with prominent Russians in his former position as Exxon Mobil Corp's chief executive, but also referred to Russia as a "bad actor" during his confirmation hearing last month. (Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati and Steve Holland; Editing by Andrew Hay)
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Avi Primor, a former Israeli ambassador to Germany, never spoke to ousted Volkswagen Chairman Ferdinand Piech about issues the carmaker could face regarding its diesel-emissions tests in the United States, he told Reuters on Thursday. Primor had been named by Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung as the source of Piech's information in early 2015 that trouble could be brewing for Volkswagen, which later that year was forced to admit it deliberately cheated the tests. He said he had got to know Piech while he was ambassador in Berlin during the 1990s. Piech had approached Primor, a promoter of German-Israeli dialogue, because he wanted to support his university projects, Primor said. "I spoke with Mr Piech only concerning this university project," he told Reuters by telephone. German media have reported in the past days that then-chairman Piech raised the issue with then-chief executive Martin Winterkorn and key members of the supervisory board in early 2015, six months before it became a public scandal. Volkswagen signaled on Wednesday it could take legal action against Piech, and said it "emphatically denied" the allegation that supervisory board members knew about the problem in advance. (Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Ludwig Burger)
The woman credited with smoothing over Donald Trumps relations with evangelical Christians and shaping the image of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has snagged a job at the State Department, Foreign Policy has learned.

Pam Pryor, the Trump campaigns leader of faith and Christian outreach is vetting personnel and coordinating policy issues from her perch inside the Office of International Religious Freedom, according to two officials who spotted Pryor in her new digs.

The office is expected to gain a higher profile under the Trump administration as it carries out White House directives to prioritize the plight of persecuted Christians in the Middle East and more aggressively call out Muslim-majority governments for failing to protect religious minorities.

Pryor is currently a member of the State Departments beachhead team, a group of enforcers tasked with putting in place the people and policies that align with the Trump White House. A formal role for Pryor isnt expected to be announced for several weeks.

A State Department spokesperson declined to outline Pryors responsibilities, but a separate source familiar with her activities said shes been vetting candidates for the job of ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, a shortlist that includes Ken Starr, the attorney best known for his controversial investigations into Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

Its my understanding that its his job if he wants it, said an individual familiar with the process.

Pryor burst onto the national stage during the 2008 presidential election as Palins go-to girl and confidante, and later served as the spokeswoman for Palins political action committee and her national political adviser. Palin endorsed Trump in a freewheeling speech to Iowa voters last January, a risky gamble at the time considering the real estate moguls outsider status.

Pryor boasts a strong network of social conservatives and religious leaders and has been credited with helping allay concerns many Christian leaders had with Trump, a crass-talking twice-divorced former reality TV star who stumbled through bible verse recitations in the primaries.

Story continues

Despite his awkward courtship of the Christian right, Trump dominated the white evangelical vote, 80-16 percent, according to exit polls, the most theyve supported a GOP presidential candidate since 2004.

In recent interviews, Trump has promised to do more than the Obama administration to protect Christians from extremists who are chopping off the heads of everybody but more so the Christians.

Were going to help them, Trump told the Christian broadcaster CBN last month. Theyve been horribly treated.

Supporters will be watching closely for who he picks for the top post at the Office of International Religious Freedom.

Though best known for uncovering details of Clintons extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky, Starr took an interest in religious freedom issues in his role as president of Baylor University in Texas from 2010 to 2016. Hes been very, very strong on the issue, Frank Wolf, a former Republican congressman and religious freedom advocate, told FP. The university has been organizing conferences and sending letters on the issue, he added. Starr left Baylor in 2016 amid criticisms of the universitys handling of a series of sexual assault cases under his watch.

Other rumored candidates include Johnnie Moore, Jr., the former special faith adviser to Ben Carson and Nina Shea, a human rights lawyer at the conservative Hudson Institute.

Shea denied any interest in the position in an interview with FP, but said from her discussions, the Trump administration would break sharply with the Obama administration on religious freedom issues.

She said the Trump administration is likely to crack down on Saudi textbooks that denigrate Christians and Jews, take a firmer opposition to discriminatory blasphemy laws in Pakistan and swear off apologizing for private speech in the United States that offends Muslims. She referred specifically to the 2012 U.S. video titled Innocence of Muslims that sparked protests throughout the Muslim world and prompted condemnation from then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Countering radical Islam should be a diplomatic priority, she said.

The Obama administration expressly avoided using the words radical Islam out of concern that such language would energize extremists and create the impression that the United States was fighting a holy war against a religion with 1.6 billion adherents.

This article has been updated.
Weighing in on one of the most contentious issues in American politics  the danger posed to host countries by the 4.8 million people who have fled from Syrias civil war  Syrian President Bashar Assad told Yahoo News that some of the refugees are definitely terrorists.

In an exclusive interview with Yahoo News at a presidential office in Damascus, Assad said President Trumps freeze on admitting refugees from his country  part of an executive order that has drawn widespread protests and is being challenged in federal court  is an American issue on which he would not take sides. But asked if some of those who fled are aligned with terrorists, Assad quickly replied, Definitely.

You can find it on the Net, Assad went on: Those terrorists in Syria, holding the machine gun or killing people, they [appear as] peaceful refugees in Europe or in the West. He said he couldnt estimate how many there might be, but he added that you dont need a significant number to commit atrocities. He noted that the 9/11 attacks were pulled off by fewer than 20 terrorists out of maybe millions of immigrants in the United States. So its not about the number, its about the quality, its about the intentions.

As for the future of Syrias 4.8 million refugees, Assad said, For me, the priority is to bring those citizens to their country, not to help them immigrate.

_____

As with all interviews granted by President Bashar al-Assad, this interview was filmed by his presidential press office. No editorial changes were made to the content.

Full interview

Read more from the Yahoo News Exclusive interview with Syrian President Assad:
By Julia Edwards Ainsley WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trumps wall along the U.S.-Mexico border would be a series of fences and walls that would cost as much as $21.6 billion, and take more than three years to construct, based on a U.S. Department of Homeland Security internal report seen by Reuters on Thursday. The reports estimated price-tag is much higher than a $12-billion figure cited by Trump in his campaign and estimates as high as $15 billion from Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The report is expected to be presented to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary John Kelly in coming days, although the administration will not necessarily take actions it recommends. The plan lays out what it would take to seal the border in three phases of construction of fences and walls covering just over 1,250 miles (2,000 km) by the end of 2020. With 654 miles (1,046 km) of the border already fortified, the new construction would extend almost the length of the entire border. Many cost estimates and timelines have been floated since Trump campaigned on the promise of building a wall. The report seen by Reuters is the work of a group commissioned by Kelly as a final step before moving forward with requesting U.S. taxpayer funds from Congress and getting started on construction. A DHS spokeswoman said the department does "not comment on or confirm the potential existence of pre-decisional, deliberative documents." A White House spokeswoman said it would be premature to comment on a report that has not officially been presented to the president. The report said the first phase would be the smallest, targeting sections covering 26 miles (42 km) near San Diego, California; El Paso, Texas; and in Texas's Rio Grande Valley. The report assumes DHS would get funding from Congress by April or May, giving the department sufficient time to secure contractors and begin construction by September. Trump has said Congress should fund the wall upfront, but that Mexico will reimburse U.S. taxpayers. Mexico has said it will not pay. Several U.S. congressional delegations are visiting the border this month to assess funding needs, according to several people familiar with the travel plans. The report shows the U.S. government has begun seeking waivers to address environmental laws on building in some areas. It also shows the government has begun working with existing contractors and planning steel purchases for the project. Trump told law enforcement officials on Wednesday, "The wall is getting designed right now." The report accounted for the time and cost of acquiring private land, one reason for its steep price increase compared to estimates from Trump and members of Congress. Bernstein Research, an investment research group that tracks material costs, has said that uncertainties around the project could drive its cost up to as much as $25 billion. The second phase of construction proposed in the report would cover 151 miles (242 km) of border in and around the Rio Grande Valley; Laredo, Texas; Tucson, Arizona; El Paso, Texas and Big Bend, Texas. The third phase would cover an unspecified 1,080 miles (1,728 km), essentially sealing off the entire U.S.-Mexico border. BARRIERS TO CONSTRUCTION The report lays out costs to cover the border with barriers, but funding constraints and legal battles are likely to place limits on those plans. It also does not account for major physical barriers, like mountains, in areas where it would not be feasible to build. A source familiar with the plans said DHS may have to go to court to seek eminent domain in order to acquire some of the private land needed to cover the final and most ambitious phase. The first phase, estimated to cost only $360 million, could be a relatively easy way for Trump to satisfy supporters eager to see him make good on his campaign promises to limit illegal migration. But the rest of the construction will be markedly more expensive, covering a much larger stretch of land, much of it privately owned or inaccessible by road. In addition to seeking eminent domain and environmental waivers, the U.S. government would also have to meet the requirements of the International Boundary and Water Commission, a U.S.-Mexico pact over shared waters. The report estimated that agreement alone could bring the cost from $11 million per mile to $15 million per mile in one area. (Reporting by Julia Edwards Ainsley; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Alistair Bell)
The exiled former leader of the Maldives announced Thursday he would return to run for election as president of the troubled Indian Ocean nation, despite facing jail after a controversial conviction on terror-related charges.

Mohamed Nasheed became the Maldives' first democratically elected president in 2008, but was narrowly defeated in 2013 elections by President Abdullah Yameen.

Nasheed was later jailed on terrorism charges he says were politically motivated. He has lived in exile for the past year after Maldives authorities gave him leave to travel to London for medical treatment.

But on Thursday he announced he would contest the 2018 presidential elections, following talks this week in Colombo with his Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP).

"We have decided that the MDP will produce a candidate, I am hopeful to be that candidate," the 49-year-old told reporters in Colombo after talks with party leaders living in exile in the Sri Lankan capital.

Nasheed is almost certain to be arrested on return to the Indian Ocean archipelago, whose reputation as an upmarket honeymoon destination has been battered by years of political unrest.

He would be able to contest party primaries from outside the country, but would need to return to Male for the election.

The Maldives constitution bars Nasheed from being a candidate because of a 2015 criminal conviction.

But the former leader expects the restriction to be lifted in response to international pressure.

A UN panel has ruled that Nasheed's imprisonment was illegal and ordered the regime to pay him compensation.

The Maldives government has accused Nasheed -- whose legal team includes high-profile human rights lawyer Amal Clooney -- of only securing asylum to avoid serving jail time.

Nasheed said he was still a Maldivian national despite having his passport revoked last year by Yameen's regime and being issued a British travel document.

"I am not a British citizen. I am a refugee," Nasheed said.

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A crackdown on political dissent in the nation of 340,000 has dented its popular image as an idyllic island paradise in recent years.

Almost all key opposition leaders and a number of ruling party dissidents have either been jailed or fled into exile since Yameen took office in a controversial run-off election against Nasheed.

At the country's first multi-party elections in 2008, Nasheed beat long-time president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who had ruled the island for three straight decades.

Gayoom is the half brother of the current incumbent, and widely regarded as the power behind the ruling Yameen regime.

Nasheed had sought an alliance with his old foe Gayoom in August to challenge the regime, but was unsuccessful.

"We didn't have the necessary political alignment for such a force to ensure change," Nasheed said.

"The MDP is never very comfortable with transfers of power through any other means. We would always step back when we think the transfer of power is going to happen through means other than the ballot."
Caen (France) (AFP) - An explosion at a nuclear power plant on France's northwest coast on Thursday caused minor injuries, but the authorities said there was no risk of radiation.

The blast occurred in the engine room at the Flamanville plant, which lies 25 kilometres (15 miles) west of the port of Cherbourg and just across from the Channel Islands.

"It is a technical incident. It is not a nuclear accident," senior local official Jacques Witkowski told AFP.

He said a ventilator had exploded outside the nuclear zone at the plant, which has been in operation since the 1980s and is operated by state-controlled energy giant EDF.

"It's all over. The emergency teams are leaving," Witkowski said.

Five people suffered smoke inhalation but there were no serious injuries, Witkowski said.

One of the two pressurised water reactors at the plant was shut down after the explosion and the incident was declared over at 1100 GMT, the authorities said.

The two 1,300 megawatt reactors have been in service since 1985 and 1986, and the site currently employs 810 people, along with an additional 350 subcontractors.

A new third-generation reactor known as EPR is being built at Flamanville, which will be the world's largest when it goes into operation in late 2018.

"Explosions in turbines, usually related to oil in bearings overheating, are not uncommon and occur from time to time in conventional coal, oil or gas plants," said Barry Marsden, a professor of nuclear graphite technology at the University of Manchester.

But Neil Hyatt, a professor of radioactive waste management at Sheffiled University said the incident should not be taken lightly.

"Any incident of this kind at a nuclear power plant is very serious, and the national and international regulators will want to undertake a thorough investigation to understand the cause and lessons to be learned," he said.

- 'Improved safety record' -

Construction of the new reactor at Flamanville began in 2007 and was initially due for completion in 2012 but has been delayed several times, and its initial budget has more than tripled, to 10.5 billion euros ($11.2 billion).

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EDF said its safety record at nuclear sites improved last year, with 2.3 accidents for every one million hours worked, compared with 2.6 accidents in 2015.

That translates into five accidents that required reactor shutdowns in 2016, after eight the previous year.

France relies heavily on nuclear power, building its first nuclear plant in 1977 at Fessenheim, a site on the border with Germany that is set to be decommissioned in 2018.

Nuclear reactors generate about 75 percent of France's electricity supply, a level the government wants to bring down to 50 percent by 2025.

Fessenheim, located on a seismic fault line, has worried French, German and Swiss environmentalists for years and its fate has been the subject of dispute with Berlin.

France and Germany are close EU partners but have taken vastly different approaches to power generation.

Germany -- where the public mood swung against nuclear power following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster -- decided to phase out nuclear power after Japan's Fukushima meltdown in 2011.
The Jazz Studies program at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse is putting together a midwinter treat for folks who love the sound of the big bands of the 1940s and 50s. That would include those who grew up during the swing era, those who learned to enjoy that unmistakable sound later on and those who love dancing to swing music.

On Feb. 18, the 17-piece Tuxedo Dance Orchestra  otherwise known as the UW-L Jazz Orchestra  will take the stage in the spacious Grand Bluffs Ballroom at the brand new UW-L Student Union. Directed by Professor Karyn Quinn, theyll recreate sounds of Glenn Miller, Les Brown, Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey.

The Black Coat Jazz Band  otherwise known as the UW-L Jazz Ensemble also will perform a set of famous swing selections. At the piano, Dr. Christopher Frye, chair of the UW-L Music Department, will play numbers including Count Basies classic The Kid from Red Bank, while adjunct faculty member Janette Hanson will be featured on Taking a Chance on Love, a song first made famous by Benny Goodman and vocalist Helen Forrest.

Meanwhile, the Tuxedo Dance Orchestra will welcome a number of guest artists, including vocalists Hanson and Tim Henke, saxophone player Greg Balfany and trumpeter Tom Brown.

Henke has attracted an avid following because of his work with the La Crosse Jazz Orchestra. Hes a retired music teacher from La Crescent whos a drummer and a vocalist, Quinn said. And he can really swing a band with his voice and his energy.

Henke is particularly good at doing songs identified with Frank Sinatra. Thats why Luck Be a Lady Tonight and Come Fly with Me are sure to be on Saturdays set list. Balfany and Brown will share the spotlight as well, on ballads like My Funny Valentine and Tenderly.

Although this is the first Big Band Cabaret event in the new student union, the event has a long history. This is my 30th year being involved, Quinn said. She noted that Balfany, who retired two years ago as director of the Jazz Studies program, was the major force in starting the annual affair.

And, since Quinn will be retiring herself at the end of the school year, theres the possibility this could be the end of an era. Greg started it and handed it over to me, but you never know what a new person will want to do, Quinn said.

There would be a lot of disappointed people if this was the last Big Band Cabaret as the event has developed a strong loyal following. People start calling us in January asking When can I get my tickets, Quinn said. She added that its not just older people who show up.

Its near Valentines Day and university students will take their date out for a romantic evening, Quinn said. We get younger people who come back year after year.

In fact, Quinn said one of the things most enjoyable for her is seeing how the younger musicians respond to the music.

I love seeing how the students really buy into the program and the music  even though many of them were not even born until the 90s, she said. We have alumni wholl come back and say The best part (of the music studies program) was the Big Band Cabaret because it helped them to be a gigging musician out there in the real world of art and music. We treat the evening just like a professional musician would.

The set list includes a mixture of swing, vocals, waltzes, foxtrots and even polkas  plus an effort to recreate a club environment with cabaret seating and the opportunity to get a drink while listening to the band. Its all for a good cause, too, as the money raised goes to scholarships.

Its been a great fundraiser for us, Quinn said.

Although the Grand Bluffs Ballroom is probably a third larger than Valhalla (where previous big band cabaret nights were held), Quinn is hoping for a big turnout. She noted that sometimes older people are hesitant to go out to a venue like this because of parking issues. She emphasized that it shouldnt be the case Saturday evening.

Theres a parking ramp right there next door, Quinn said. You can just walk right over to the student union.

That parking ramp, between 16th and 17th streets on La Crosse Street, will offer free parking. Free parking is available even closer at the Cleary Center lot just north of the Student Union and at the stadium parking lot across the street.

Regardless of how one gets there, the evening promises to be special. Its a great chance to recreate and be part of the music of the swing erawhether you want to dance or just sit and listen and feel the energy, Quinn said.

To reserve tickets or for more information, call 608-785-8415.
By Gene Emery (Reuters Health) - Women who are told that their suspicious mammogram was a false alarm are more likely to delay their next scheduled mammogram, or possibly not show up for their next screening at all. The finding, in a study of 261,767 Chicago-area women in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, highlights an unintended consequence of such false alarms, known as false positives. In cases where a mammogram was recommended every year, women who had an unfounded scare tended to delay their next test by an additional 13 months compared to a three- to six-month delay for women whose tests had come out negative. That, in turn, can affect a woman's chances of survival if breast cancer is subsequently diagnosed. Among women who had not experienced a false alarm, their odds of being diagnosed with an advanced tumor were 0.3 percent. The odds for a woman who had experienced a false alarm were slightly but significantly higher at 0.4 percent. Some women never showed up at all, but the researchers couldn't determine whether they gave up on the breast cancer screening or simply had it done elsewhere. "It's a delicate balance," chief author Firas Dabbous of Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois, told Reuters Health. "We want to detect tumors when they are present but we don't want to overburden women with a lot of false positives and a workup that is not needed." Debates over how often women should get mammograms often focus on whether false positives - which can cause women to experience anxiety as well as painful and expensive extra testing, including biopsies  represent a harm that outweighs the benefits of screening. "The delays the authors observed were significant," Robert Smith, vice president for cancer screening at the American Cancer Society, told Reuters Health by email. "If these findings can be validated in other studies, then it suggests that extra attention should be dedicated to insuring that women with false positive findings are reminded to return to annual or biennial screening with sufficient notice and multiple reminders." Being told that a breast X-ray has uncovered something suspicious is always stressful, even though most women are also told that, in the vast majority of cases, there is no problem. Women who have a mammogram have a chance as high as 1 in 10 of getting a false positive. In fact, a woman who has an annual mammogram has a 50-50 chance of having one false positive every decade. An estimated 7 percent to 17 percent of those will require a biopsy. Previous studies that have tried to assess how false positives affect the willingness to have a future mammogram have produced mixed results. "Most U.S. studies have shown either greater adherence to screening recommendations after a false positive, or no difference, whereas studies done in Europe have shown screening rates somewhat lower than women who have true negative results," Smith said. The Dabbous team looked at 741,150 screening mammograms done at a large healthcare organization. In 12.3 percent of the cases, there was something suspicious but it turned out to be a false alarm. During the three years after that initial mammogram, 77.9 percent of the women with a false positive result had a subsequent mammogram compared to 85.0 percent of the women who had not experienced a false alarm. Biopsies seemed to play a significant role in whether a woman came back for another mammogram. Compared to patients who had received a false positive and simply received additional imaging, women who also got a biopsy were 19 percent less likely to come back for a regular mammogram. Its not known if the false positive experience prompted some women to give up on mammograms, said Dabbous, who is manager of patient centered outcomes research at Advocate's Russell Institute for Research and Innovation. The lesson for women remains "to encourage women to adhere to mammography screening and come back on time because this is the only tool that we have that is literally working," Dabbous said. "Yes, it has some limitations. But it's increasing the survivability of the woman through early detection." SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2kLmR2s Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, online February 9, 2017.
The Office of Government Ethics said Thursday that it has received a flood of messages from citizens concerned about recent events, purportedly referring to comments by President Donald Trumps White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, who urged consumers to buy Ivanka Trumps products.

OGEs website, phone system and email system are receiving an extraordinary volume of contacts from citizens about recent events, the office tweeted Thursday, kicking off a five-part tweet storm about ethical violations.

1/OGEs website, phone system and email system are receiving an extraordinary volume of contacts from citizens about recent events.  U.S. OGE (@OfficeGovEthics) February 9, 2017

The department then added that it is not responsible for investigating or enforcing ethics violations, but rather works to prevent them. When the ethics office learns of possible violations, it will contact the appropriate agency and provide guidance on the issue.

2/OGE works to prevent ethics violations. OGE does not have investigative or enforcement authority.  U.S. OGE (@OfficeGovEthics) February 9, 2017

3/Congress, GAO, the FBI, Inspectors General, and the Office of Special Counsel have the authority to conduct investigations.  U.S. OGE (@OfficeGovEthics) February 9, 2017

4/ When OGE learns of possible ethics violations, OGE contacts the agency, provides guidance & asks them to notify OGE of any action taken.  U.S. OGE (@OfficeGovEthics) February 9, 2017

Conways comments, which she made during an appearance on Fox & Friends on Thursday morning, came in response to Nordstrom saying it was dropping the first daughters fashion brand after weak sales.

The President tweeted about the situation on Wednesday, criticizing Nordstrom. Later, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer called the stores decision a direct attack on the Trump administration.

Since then, a slew of critics have condemned Conways comments, and legal experts said she might have violated a federal ethics rule that prohibits officials from using their position to promote a product. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Republican who chairs the House Oversight Committee, said Conways sales pitch was clearly over the line and unacceptable, according to the Associated Press.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, also said Thursday that Chaffetz would join him in sending a letter requesting an ethics review of Conways actions, according to The Hill.
(WASHINGTON)  President Donald Trumps unusually personal criticism of federal judges has drawn rebukes from many quarters, including from Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, but not from the judges themselves.

And thats not likely to change, even if the tweeter in chief keeps up his attacks on judges. Bolstered by lifetime tenure, independent judges should not respond to criticism, no matter how harsh or that its source is the president, said a former judge, a law school dean and a constitutional law professor.

Judges should basically give the tweets the attention they deserve, which means they should be ignored. This is basically a childish tantrum from someone who didnt get his way. And the judiciary should go about its business and decide cases, including cases involving him, said Vanderbilt University law professor Suzanna Sherry.

Trumps style may be different and his language more coarse, but the comments themselves are not the threat to judicial independence that some commentators have made them out to be, said University of Pennsylvania law school dean Theodore Ruger.

Former U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell said judges would find themselves in unfamiliar territory if they start critiquing the Twitter feed of the president.

Chief Justice John Roberts has apparently embraced that advice. Roberts declined through a court spokeswoman to comment for this article.

Roberts himself was Trumps first target during the presidential campaign. Last winter, Trump called the chief justice an absolute disaster and disgraceful mainly for the two opinions Roberts wrote that preserved President Barack Obamas health care overhaul.

Next in Trumps sights was U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who was presiding over fraud lawsuits against Trump University. In June, Trump called Curiel a hater of Donald Trump who couldnt be fair to him because Curiel is of Mexican heritage and Trump had proposed building a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border.

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Last week, Trump pegged U.S. District Judge James Robart as a so-called judge after Robart imposed a temporary halt on Trumps executive order barring people from seven predominantly Muslim countries from coming to the United States. On Sunday, Trump renewed his Twitter attacks against Robart: Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!

On Wednesday, he said the courts seem to be so political, in reference to the three federal appeals court judges who are considering the administrations plea to enforce the order.

Later Wednesday, Gorsuch said he found the presidents attacks on the judiciary disheartening and demoralizing. The comments were made in a private meeting with Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, although senators often provide an account of what was discussed in such meetings. Gorsuchs confirmation team confirmed the essence of the remarks.

Trump is not the first president to object to court decisions or to opine about how a court should rule, said Paul Collins, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Obama used his 2010 State of the Union message to assail the Supreme Courts Citizens United campaign finance ruling, with several justices in the audience. Obama also delivered a lengthy pitch for his health care law while the court was weighing the case in 2015.

With the exception of John F. Kennedy, every president since Dwight Eisenhower has been critical of some Supreme Court decisions, said Collins, drawing on research he did with co-author Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha of the University of North Texas.

But past presidents did not make their displeasure known by attacking judges  or by questioning the decision such that theres a possibility of undermining faith in the judicial system, Collins said. I get this uncomfortable sense that the president may be trying to lower confidence in judges in anticipation of defying a ruling.

Ruger said Roberts, as the head of the judicial branch of government, or another justice might feel compelled to speak up about the importance of an independent judiciary if the attacks continue.

But Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah who was a judge from 2002 to 2007, said Trump has the right to voice his disagreement. We live in an age now where, for better or for worse, the language we use is getting rougher in a variety of contexts, he said.
By Lisa Rapaport (Reuters Health) - Black patients are half as likely as white patients to get care at academic medical centers in New York City even after accounting for differences in health insurance, a recent study suggests. Compared to privately insured patients, people with coverage through Medicaid, the government health program for the poor, are three times less likely to receive treatment at these elite New York hospitals, the study also found. Uninsured patients are five times less likely to get care at academic hospitals. Academic medical centers are generally better able to provide highly specialized care for patients with complex or rare illnesses, said lead study author Roosa Sofia Tikkanen, a researcher at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester who completed the work while at City University of New York School of Public Health at Hunter College. Most experts believe unequal access to high-quality health care contributes to disparities in health outcomes, Tikkanen added by email. In New York City, life expectancy can differ by up to 10 years between two neighborhoods that are located just six subway stops apart. About 18 percent of patients at academic medical centers are black, compared with almost one-third at other hospitals in the city, the analysis of discharge data from 2009 and 2014 found. At the same time, 22 percent of patients were insured by Medicaid at academic hospitals, compared with 42 percent at other hospitals in the city. And only 1 percent of academic hospital patients were uninsured, compared with 4 percent elsewhere. While Medicaid and uninsured patients accounted for nearly half of all patients at non-academic hospitals in the city, they made up less than one-quarter of inpatients at academic medical centers. At one-third of academic hospitals, less than 10 percent of patients had Medicaid or were uninsured. To see how race, ethnicity and payer status affect the likelihood of being treated at an academic medical center, researchers analyzed data on adults discharged from hospitals in New York City in 2009 and 2014, and they also looked at similar data for Boston hospitals in 2009. In Boston, uninsured and Medicaid patients were just as likely to be treated at academic medical centers as at other hospitals. And racial and ethnic minorities were slightly overrepresented at academic hospitals. Its possible some of the differences between the two cities might be explained by the extensive public hospital network in New York, the authors note in the International Journal of Health Services. All of the academic medical centers in Boston and New York are nonprofit hospitals, however, and enjoy tax exemptions worth tens of millions of dollars, the researchers point out. In exchange, they are expected to provide community benefits, including caring for Medicaid and uninsured patients. One limitation of the study is that researchers didnt account for patients diagnoses or severity of illnesses, which could influence which hospital they went to for care, the authors add. The analysis of two cities also might not reflect what happens in other communities. The study also didnt examine the role of residential segregation or neighborhood poverty on use of academic medical centers, noted Asal Mohamadi Johnson, a public health researcher at Stetson University in Florida who wasnt involved in the study. The issue of equity and fairness is at stake here, Johnson said by email. Academic medical centers should be held to higher levels of ethical standards in providing care for low income and minority patients. When there are disparities in patients access to care, academic medical centers may not offer the best possible education to new doctors, Johnson added. Active participation of academic medical centers in caring for non-whites and the poor prepares a more qualified and culturally competent generation of physicians and health care providers who will have more familiarity with the unique circumstances and barriers confronting these patients, Johnson said. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2kvPClc International Journal of Health Services, online February 2, 2017.
By Scott Malone and Jonathan Allen BOSTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The fiercest snowstorm of the winter slammed the northeastern United States on Thursday, leaving a foot (30 cm) of snow in places, canceling thousands of flights and shutting down schools. At least two deaths were blamed on the storm. The storm, which came a day after temperatures had been a spring-like 50 to 60 degrees (10 to 16C), had wind gusts up to 50 miles per hour (80 kph) and left roads and sidewalks dangerously slick in densely populated cities such as New York, Boston and Hartford, Connecticut. The storm's winds reached as far south as Virginia, where a truck driver died after his tractor-trailer was blown off the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, Tom Anderson, the facility's deputy director, said in a phone interview. A New York City doorman died while shoveling snow as he slipped and fell down a flight of stairs, crashing into a window that cut his neck, police reported. Some areas experienced "thunder snow," violent bursts of weather featuring both snow and lightning. Nearly two-thirds of the flights into or out of the three major New York-area airports were canceled, as were 69 percent of those at Boston Logan International Airport, according to Flightaware.com. Nationwide, about 4,000 flights were canceled and 5,700 delayed. "The roads are dangerous," New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told reporters. "I don't care if you have a four-wheel-drive car and you think you're a super hero ... if you don't have to be out, don't be out." David Hassan, 50, attested to the ugliness of the weather as he packed up his mobile coffee cart in New York's Times Square. "I don't like coming out in this weather but I have three kids going to school and I have to work," Hassan said as he prepared for the two-hour trip back to his home in Parsippany, New Jersey. New York received about a foot of snow, while Boston was braced for up to 20 inches. Many schools systems were closed in the area, and Boston schools would remain closed on Friday, Mayor Marty Walsh said. Many government offices also were shuttered with Massachusetts and Connecticut ordering non-emergency workers to stay home. Blizzard warnings were in effect for the New York's eastern Long Island suburbs, southern Connecticut and Rhode Island, as well as the Massachusetts coast. Temperatures were expected to fall to single-digit Fahrenheit levels overnight in the Boston area. (Additional reporting by Gina Cherelus and Daniel Trotta in New York, Ian Simpson in Washington and Svea Herbst-Bayliss in Providence, Rhode Island; Editing by Larry King and Bill Trott)
Paris (AFP) - Lawyers for French presidential candidate Francois Fillon on Thursday called on prosecutors to drop their probe into payments made to his wife for a suspected fake job, calling it "illegal".

The lawyers said the two-week-old investigation into the payments to Penelope Fillon, who was hired by her husband as a parliamentary aide, was "invalid" and "completely tramples democratic principles".

The investigation dealt a "serious blow to the principle of the separation of powers" between the judiciary and the legislature, lawyer Antonin Levy told a press conference.

Levy and fellow lawyer Pierre Cornut-Gentille argued that Fillon enjoyed discretion in the use of funds available to him as an MP and that the probe into misuse of public money was therefore "totally inapplicable".

"The absence of such an offence makes the financial prosecutor's office incompetent to investigate and the investigation is therefore illegal," Levy said.

He also criticised constant leaks about the investigation to the media which he said were damaging to his client and likely to have an impact on the two-round presidential election in April and May.

"The financial prosector's office has a responsiblity. It's important that voters don't have their election stolen in April," Levy added.

Their complaint could fall on deaf ears, however, as the prosecutor's office is not obliged to respond.

Fillon's presidential bid has been thrown into turmoil by revelations that his wife was paid hundreds of thousands of euros over 15 years for a role she is suspected of not having fulfilled.

The conservative former prime minister -- who had been leading the race before the story broke but is now shown trailing in third -- insists his wife did real work in his Sarthe constituency in northern France.

On Monday, 62-year-old Fillon admitted to committing an "error" by employing his wife and apologised to the French while maintaining his wife's earnings were "perfectly justified".

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Welsh-born Penelope was paid over 800,000 euros before tax ($860,000) over three periods between 1988 and 2013 to act as an assistant to her husband and his deputy.

Fillon also used public funds to hire two of his adult children when he was a senator, paying them 84,000 euros ($91,000) pre-tax between 2005 and 2007.

Charles and Marie Fillon were questioned by investigators on Monday over the affair.

- Sinking ratings -

The usually unflappable rightwinger, who won the Republicans nomination on a promise to slash public spending, claims he is the victim of a plot to prevent the right returning to power after five years of Socialist rule.

But while managing so far to retain his party's support, polls show French voters souring on him in an election seen as a referendum on the political class.

An Elabe survey of 1,050 people this week showed Fillon's approval ratings falling 13 points in a month, to 22 points.

Polls show centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron, 39, and far-right leader Marine Le Pen stand to benefit most from his woes.

Former economy minister Macron, a relative newcomer to politics who has drawn large crowds at his rallies, is shown stealing past Fillon in the first round of the election in April, qualifying for the run-off round against Le Pen on May 7.

While Macron is tipped for victory at the final hurdle, analysts says all bets are off in an election dominated by the anti-establishment sentiment that fuelled Brexit and Donald Trump's rise to the White House.
Twenty-three residents of the La Crescent area returned to Grand Rapids, Minn., Jan. 27 for a five-day leadership retreat. This was the first segment of an intense eight-day training provided by the Blandin Community Leadership Program (BCLP). The team will also participate in three follow up workshops.

A program of the Grand Rapids-based Blandin Foundation, BCLP has provided experiential leadership training for more than 7,000 community leaders from nearly 500 rural Minnesota communities since it began in 1985. This is the second time the community has participated in the BCLP leadership program.

Local residents that participated in this training were:

Jerry Berns, Ruth Berns, Deana Caron, Joe Caron, Jen Conroy, Jeff Copp, Abby Dean, Mike Dohnalik, David Ebner, Mike Ernster, Jen Etrheim, Chris Fortsch, Cherryl Jostad, Brett Kemmer, Angel Klankowski, Michelle McLellan, Travis Minegar, Susan Oddsen, Teresa ODonnell-Ebner, Lynn Reynolds, Beth Theede, Paul Theede and Brooke White.

The goal of the BCLP is to develop and train a broad base of local leaders to build healthy communities.

There were many topics covered during the retreat. They focused on identifying and describing community issues and opportunities through the lens of the nine dimensions of a healthy community, effective interpersonal communication, building social capital, appreciating personality differences, managing interpersonal conflict, understanding community power, mobilizing community resources and goal setting.

A healthy community depends on leadership engagement of community members, leadership programs Director Valerie Shangreaux said. The leadership demonstrated by these participants reflects their commitment to their community, as well as to the region and to rural Minnesota.

BCLP training programs are funded entirely by the Blandin Foundation. Their mission is to strengthen rural Minnesota communities, especially the Grand Rapids area.
Paris (AFP) - More than 50 years after France began conducting dozens of nuclear tests in the South Pacific, the French parliament on Thursday significantly eased the criteria for islanders who suffered health effects to be compensated.

The upper house Senate is expected to follow suit next Tuesday, scrapping barriers to compensation that deemed most claimants to have been at "insignificant risk" of developing a radiation-induced illness.

Around 150,000 civilian and military personnel took part in 210 nuclear tests carried out by France between 1960 and 1996 in the Pacific and the Sahara desert. Thousands of them later developed serious health problems.

Only around 20 of approximately 1,000 people who filed complaints against France have received compensation.

Ahead of Thursday's vote, Tahitian MP Maina Sage said extending compensation to other sufferers would "finally appease somewhat (the) deep trauma" caused by a "state (that) operated with full awareness of the consequences".

The Mururoa and Fangataufa atolls saw 193 nuclear tests over three decades until then-president Jacques Chirac called a halt to the programme in the 1990s.

France long denied its responsibility for the health and environmental impacts out of fear the admission would weaken its nuclear programme during the Cold War.

It was only in 2010 that France passed a law authorising compensation for military veterans and civilians whose cancer could be attributed to the test programme.

During a visit to French Polynesia in February 2016, President Francois Hollande acknowledged the deleterious effects on health and the environment and pledged to revamp the compensation process.

Hollande also said France would provide financial assistance to the oncology department of Tahiti's hospital, in line with demands from local politicians.

Starting this year, France will pay more than 90 million euros ($96 million) a year to boost the facilities.

It was above the Fangataufa atoll that France launched its first H-bomb in August 1968.

French Polynesia, with a population of about 280,000, is one of three French territories in the Pacific.
ROME (Reuters) - Major industrialised nations will look into how new digital companies should be taxed during Group of Seven meetings that will be hosted by Italy this year, Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said on Thursday. "The G7 will discuss taxing the new types of companies born with the digital economy," Padoan told conference in Rome. France, Italy and other countries have long complained at the way Google, Yahoo! and other digital giants generate huge profits in their countries but have their tax base in countries where corporate tax rates are far lower. But the complaints have made little legal headway because EU tax law protects companies against paying tax in a country where they do not have what is termed a "permanent establishment". (Reporting by Giuseppe Fonte, writing by Isla Binnie, editing by Crispian Balmer)
Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - A young Palestinian contortionist known in Gaza as "Spider-Man" has entered the Guinness book of records, his trainer said Thursday.

The 13-year-old, Mohammad al-Sheikh, broke the record for the most full body revolutions maintaining a chest stand in one minute, Mohammed Loubbad told AFP.

The move involves lying on the chest, bending the back to put the feet in front of the head then rotating the hips to run the feet in laps around the body.

"Mohammad al-Sheikh set the record by performing 38 laps around his body in one minute. He beats the previous record, which was 29 laps," Loubbad said.

A team from Guinness World Records was planning to visit the small coastal enclave to see the attempt but it has been subject to a tight Israeli blockade for 10 years, he said.

Instead, the attempt took place in Amman, Jordan.

Neither Sheikh's mother nor his trainer received Israeli permission to leave the Gaza Strip, so he travelled with another adult.

But those obstacles did not dampen his trainer's determination.

"We are preparing another three record attempts," said Loubbad, who has been working with Sheikh for three years.

"He has received invitations to competitions and shows in several countries," he said.

That is a bright prospect for the youngster who, says his trainer, fears returning and being "buried" in Gaza.
It's double the joy for George Clooney and his wife Amal, who are now expecting twins.

Read: The Risks Beyonce Faces While Carrying Twins, and the Precautions She Should Take

Julie Chen broke the news on The Talk Thursday, saying: Congratulations are in order for George and Amal Clooney. The Talk has confirmed that the 55-year-old superstar and his attorney wife are expecting twins!

The couple, who have been married for two-and-a-half years, will have their children in June.

Rumors that 38-year-old Amal was pregnant started swirling last month when she was spotted in loose-fitting clothing. Then, a small baby bump was visible during a dinner at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

Read: Beyonce Announces She is Pregnant With Twins in Instagram Post

The Michael Clayton actor is 55 and it will be the first children for both him and his wife.

Watch: FakeABaby.Com Provides Positive Pregnancy Tests and Sonograms, Some Use It to Dupe Their Lovers

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By Reinhard Becker LEIPZIG, Germany (Reuters) - Plans to dredge the river Elbe in Hamburg must be improved before a stop order on the work is lifted, a German court ruled on Thursday, raising the risk of more delay to work to deepen Germany's biggest port and open it up to new container ships. Green pressure groups had lodged a legal complaint against the original plan, arguing the environmental impact of dumping mud and sand on fragile coastal wetlands would be devastating. Following the ruling from Germany's top administrative court that authorities must do more to protect the river's maritime environment, shares in Hamburg port terminal operator HHLA were down 11.5 percent at 1215 GMT. The Hamburg city government said it was pleased the court had in principle accepted that dredging can take place. "We have at least legal security," said the city's economy minister Frank Horch. The planning application must be amended but "there is no doubt" that the dredging will take place, he said in a statement. Hamburg wants to make it easier for new large container vessels to reach the port regardless of the tide to counter intense competition from Rotterdam, Antwerp and Bremerhaven. Despite the river having been deepened six times already, some of the largest ships face a costly wait for high tides to dock in Hamburg and the city fears shipping lines will switch to other ports if the Elbe is not dredged further. The court ruled that although parts of the planning process were incorrectly handled and broke planning law, this should not in principle stop Hamburg getting consent to dredge the river. The association of Hamburg port companies UVHH said it regretted that the court had not removed a stop order on the dredging. Authorities must now take rapid action to resolve the deficiencies in the planning process, especially involving damage to water quality from the dredging, it said. If immediate action was taken a supplementary planning permission process for the dredging could be completed in 2018. A successful conclusion of the dredging application is essential "so that the port of Hamburg, Germany's largest harbor and one of Europe's most important ports, can still play in league division one," said UVHH president Gunther Bonz. The city of Hamburg and federal waterways authorities want to dredge about 130 kilometers of the river so that ships with 14.5 meters draught can reach the port, against 13.5 meters now. Ships have grown from carrying 2,000 to 3,000 standard twenty foot cargo containers (TEU) in the 1980s to carrying up to 18,000 containers and vessels of 20,000 TEU are being built. (Writing by Paul Carrel and Michael Hogan; Editing by Alexander Smith and David Evans)
BERLIN (AP)  A town in Germany has stopped playing a popular children's song about a fox who steals a goose after a complaint from a vegan.

Limburg's town spokesman Johannes Laubach told the dpa news agency Thursday a local woman had asked the mayor to remove the tune from the town hall's mechanical carillon.

Laubach said the mayor had temporarily granted her request. The carillon  a series of bells  has a repertoire of 33 tunes, including 15 German children's songs, that are played several times a day.

The Frankfurter Neue Presse newspaper reports the woman was upset by being reminded of the song's words  "the hunter's going to get you with his gun," rather than by the fox's theft of the goose.

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'Fox, you stole the goose': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M6dvdjw_PQ
BERLIN (AP)  Police in central Germany detained two men they described as known Islamic extremists on Thursday in an investigation of suspected plans for an attack.

The men, a 27-year-old Algerian and a 23-year-old Nigerian whose names weren't released, were detained during early-morning searches in and near Goettingen. Both men live in the city and have long been part of the Salafist scene there, police said.

Twelve properties were searched in the operation. Information about a possible attack plan had accumulated in recent days to the extent that officials decided to take quick action, Goettingen police chief Uwe Luehrig said.

Investigators found two weapons, at least one of them a firearm that required no permit but had been altered to fire live ammunition, senior Goettingen police official Volker Warnecke told reporters. They also found ammunition, flags of the Islamic State group and a machete.

Warnecke said investigators had been looking into the local radical scene for several months and determined last weekend that the suspects might carry out an attack soon.

Officials could not yet say how concrete and advanced the plans were, including what the suspects intended to and what or where the target might have been, Warnecke said.

The suspects are not asylum-seekers and had "worked sporadically," he said. Investigators think neither had fought in Syria or Iraq.

Germany was shaken last year by three attacks claimed by IS, including the Dec. 19 attack on a Christmas market in Berlin in which 12 people were killed.

In a separate case, federal prosecutors said Thursday they have charged three Syrians with being members of a terrorist organization. The men, ages 18 to 26, are believed to have been sent to Germany by IS as a possible "sleeper cell" and were arrested in September.

Prosecutors say that the three, who traveled to Germany in November 2015 via Turkey and Greece, were given passports by IS along with a "high four-figure sum" of cash in U.S. dollars and cellphones with a pre-installed communication program.
Frankfurt am Main (AFP) - Germany's latest record trade surplus announced Thursday may be a point of pride for some, but experts warn the imbalance is doing more harm than good as grumbling grows in the Trump White House.

The country exported goods worth 253 billion euros ($270 billion) more than it imported in 2016, the federal statistics office Destatis said.

Exports added 1.2 percent to top 1.2 trillion euros, while imports climbed 0.6 percent to 955 billion euros.

Germany's trade surplus has repeatedly broken records in the years since the 2008-09 financial crisis.

The new high is likely to feed criticisms from the US and elsewhere that Germany exports too many of its machine tools, chemicals, and cars, while failing to reinvest the proceeds.

US President Donald Trump's top trade advisor Peter Navarro accused Berlin last month of exploiting a "grossly undervalued" euro to boost its exports.

Germany's trade surplus is around half that of the $510 billion China booked in 2016, but well ahead of Japan's $36 billion or Brazil's $48 billion.

Meanwhile, the US recorded a $502-billion trade deficit last year -- importing more than it exported -- and France a deficit of $51 billion.

Elected on promises to bring jobs and manufacturing back onto American soil after decades of offshoring, Trump and his team are hunting for export sinners to target.

"When you walk down Fifth Avenue, everyone has a Mercedes-Benz in front of his house," the president complained in an interview with German tabloid Bild shortly before his inauguration.

"You've been very unfair with the USA," he went on, "it's a one-way street."

In a sharp retort, German vice-chancellor Sigmar Gabriel responded: "The US needs to build better cars."

Trump is far from the first foreign leader to bemoan German surpluses, as the Obama administration, the International Monetary Fund, and European neighbours like France have all criticised the imbalance.

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- 'Big gap in investment' -

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble agreed in an interview last weekend that "the exchange rate is too low" between the euro and the dollar, but noted that it was the European Central Bank that decided monetary policy for the entire single currency area.

Long a critic of the ECB's loose monetary policy, which has been blamed for cheapening the euro against the dollar, Schaeuble's comments were aimed as much at Frankfurt as at Washington.

"I told ECB boss Mario Draghi that he would push up the German trade surplus when he started loose monetary policy," Schaeuble said.

But some experts argue that the source of the problem is closer to home.

"The problem is the weak growth in imports resulting from a big gap in investment," said Marcel Fratzscher, president of economic think-tank DIW Berlin.

Strong economic performance has produced a well-worn cleft in Germany's governing left-right coalition, with Social Democrats calling for more infrastructure investment while Schaeuble and Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives resist running up new debts.

Draghi also calls regularly for countries like Germany that have "fiscal space" to use it for investment and growth-friendly spending.

Lacking investment "causes high economic costs for Germany, because it reduces productivity and incomes" as well as heightening international friction, Fratzscher argued.

"The record surplus will further inflame the conflict with the USA and within the EU," he predicted.
Billy OReillys joust with President Donald Trump over whether the United States has the same killer DNA as Russian President Vladimir Putin has drawn reactions ranging from outrage to shrugged shoulders.

Some say that Trump, in effect, implied that U.S. service members are killers, while others insist that that interpretation is as hyperbolic as a Trump tweet.

One could argue thats the most anti-American statement ever made by the president of the United States, to confuse American values with Putin, retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey told NBC White House correspondent Hallie Jackson during an interview Monday.

McCaffreys umbrage targeted this segment of OReillys taped Fox interview with Trump, which was televised before the Super Bowl on Sunday:

OReilly: Do you respect Putin?

Trump: I do respect him, but 

OReilly: Do you? Why?

Trump: Well, I respect a lot of people, but that doesnt mean Im going to get along with him. Hes a leader of his country. I say its better to get along with Russia than not. And if Russia helps us in the fight against ISIS, which is a major fight, and Islamic terrorism all over the world  thats a good thing. Will I get along with him? I have no idea.

OReilly: But hes a killer, though  Putins a killer.

Trump: There are a lot of killers. Weve got a lot of killers. What do you think  our countrys so innocent? You think our countrys so innocent?

OReilly: I dont know of any government leaders that are killers.

Trump: Well, take a look at what weve done, too. We made a lot of mistakes. Ive been against the war in Iraq from the beginning.

OReilly: But mistakes are different than 

Trump: A lot of mistakes, but a lot of people were killed. A lot of killers around, believe me.

In answer to one of Jacksons questions about the exchange, an incredulous McCaffrey asked how Trump possibly could suggest that the United States is like Putin, who is running a criminal oligarchy, who kills people abroad and at home, who imprisons journalists and takes away business property, who shares it with his former KGB agents, who invades and seizes Crimea in eastern Ukraine  this is an astonishing state of affairs.

For all we know, McCaffrey still is chuffed at candidate Trumps declaration: I know more about ISIS than the generals do, believe me, or, perhaps, his assertion that his education in the New York Military Academy gave him more training militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military.

Regardless of those comments, many are troubled about the presidents repetition of his erroneous assertion that he was against the Iraq War from the outset  and it spawned a lot of killers.

That echoed the chants of protesters in the 1960s and 70s who harassed returning Vietnam War veterans as baby killers  as if U.S. service members fighting in Iraq and other Mideast conflicts since then are nothing short of killers.

I was very shocked, very dismayed and very disappointed, said U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, D-La Crosse. If that reflects Trumps image of America.  The moral equivalency he made between us and Russia is unconscionable.

Kind noted Trumps pride in declaring himself as the great negotiator, adding, As president, some things are not negotiable, such as American values.  Also, to intimate that our military is going out and committing war crimes is incomprehensible.

Tony Kurtz, an Army veteran with 20 years of service during which he piloted Apache helicopters  including deployments during the first Gulf War in the early 1990s and its follow-up of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003  didnt interpret Trumps comments as insinuating that U.S. service members are cold-blooded killers.

I asked Kurtz for his personal reaction  separate from his position as regional representative for U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis.  and he made sure that his comments would be reported as such.

I didnt take it that way, said Kurtz, who also farms near Prairie du Chien. Im not gonna lie  I wasnt thrilled he put it that way.

As a veteran, I have to say we went above and beyond to protect each other, civilians and enemy combatants, he said. The American military  the way we treat our fallen and others is astonishing.

Even other countries say we go overboard to treat other combatants, Kurtz said.

Meanwhile, several men playing cards at American Legion Post 52 in La Crosse Monday hesitated to question Trumps assessment of Putin. In fact, they seemed as hell-bent on razzing me good-naturedly as a liberal as addressing the issue.

One, a Vietnam veteran who asked not to be identified, recalled the pain of being denigrated as a baby killer, excoriated the protesting, flag-burning masses of that era. He also criticized the behavior of some of the thousands of anti-Trump demonstrators since his inauguration.

I dont have a problem with protesting  that is peoples right  but closing airports and smashing glass and blocking people from getting around is wrong, he said. If it keeps going, its going to get worse.

Im not certain of a lot of things, but three things are clear to me:

Vladimir Putin runs a killing machine that may be deadlier than the one he was involved with as a KGB officer, despite the naysayers.

U.S. service members are honorable, dedicated people who make sacrifices to their country  and us. They in no way are comparable to Putin.

The political discord in this country and around the globe is killin me.
The court says the merger between Anthem and Cigna would have harmed consumers by resulting in fewer choices and higher costs. It would have been one of the largest deals in any industry, worth $48 billion. Recenlty, regulators also stopped another health insurance merger between Humana and Aetna . Executives in the aviation industry will meet with President Donald Trump today. The CEO's of Delta , United , Southwest , JetBlue , and Alaska Airlines will attend. They are expected to discuss the aging infrastructure of airports, taxes and regulations. A winter storm is threatening to drop a foot of snow across the northeast United States. Many flights have been cancelled and public schools are closed. The storm could limit trading volume on Wall Street.
For pushing back against the patriarchy, there a few better role models than Aletta Jacobs, commemorated Thursday in a Google Doodle.

Born in the Netherlands in 1854, Jacobs dreamed of becoming a doctor like her father. But to most around her, the ambition must have seemed wildly unrealistic: no Dutch woman had formally studied medicine  girls werent even permitted to attend high school.

Undeterred, Jacobs studied independently and passed the assistant chemist exam in 1870. Then she successfully petitioned the University of Groningen to allow her to attend classes. When Jacobs graduated with a medical degree in 1879, she became the Netherlands first women to do so, and the countrys first female physician.

But that was only the beginning of her work to advance womens rights.

Against stout resistance from her colleagues, Jacobs established the worlds first birth-control clinic and helped to make contraceptives more widely available. In 1903, she quit her medical practice to focus on advancing the womens-suffrage movement. And in 1919, the same year Dutch women won voting rights, Jacobs co-founded the Womens International League for Peace and Freedom.

Jacobs died aged 75 in Baarn, Netherlands. Thursday would have been her 163rd birthday.
CONCORD, N.H. (AP)  As President Donald Trump hurls unfounded allegations of colossal fraud in last fall's election, lawmakers in at least 20 mostly Republican-led states are pushing to make it harder to register or to vote.

Efforts are underway in places such as Arkansas, Iowa, Maine, Nebraska and Indiana to adopt or tighten requirements that voters show identification at the polls. There is a move in Iowa and New Hampshire to eliminate Election Day registration. New Hampshire may also make it difficult for college students to vote. And Texas could shorten the early voting period by several days.

Supporters say the measures are necessary to combat voter fraud and increase public confidence in elections. But research has shown that in-person fraud at the polls is extremely rare, and critics of these restrictions warn that they will hurt mostly poor people, minorities and students  all of whom tend to vote Democratic  as well as the elderly.

They fear, too, that the U.S. Justice Department, under newly confirmed Attorney General Jeff Sessions, will do little to intervene to protect voters.

Some election watchers see voting rights under heavy attack.

"What is really happening here is an attempt to manipulate the system so that some people can participate and some people can't," said Myrna Perez, director of the Voting Rights and Elections project at New York University's Brennan Center for Justice.

Even so, there are more bills around the country aimed at making it easier to vote, according to the Brennan Center. Starting or expanding early voting and creating automatic voter registration are two popular proposals.

Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, for example, is backing a proposal to automatically register people to vote using their motor vehicle paperwork and to offer early voting for 12 days before Election Day.

Many of the restrictive laws became possible after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 struck down a key provision of the federal Voting Rights Act that required certain states and counties, largely in the South, to get Justice Department approval before changing their election laws. The 2016 presidential election was the first without those protections, and voters in 14 states faced new restrictions on voting or registration.

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Kevin Hall, spokesman for the Iowa Secretary of State, said proposed legislation would provide non-photo identification cards to anyone who doesn't have another acceptable form of ID, such as a driver's license or passport. The bill would also update voting system technology.

"This is a commonsense approach just to protect the integrity of our election," he said. "We want to make sure it's secure and boost voter confidence as well."

Other states such as Maine and Nebraska, meanwhile, are looking to require photo identification for voting.

In addition to eliminating same-day registration, New Hampshire Republicans want to add a residency requirement that critics say could prevent college students from voting. People can now vote in New Hampshire if they consider it their home. Proponents say the new measure would ensure that only people who truly live in the state can take part in elections.

Many of these measures are certain to face court challenges.

Before the presidential election, federal courts rolled back some of the toughest restrictions in North Carolina and Texas. Those cases are still working their way through the legal system, and voting rights groups are worried the new attorney general will abandon efforts made under the Obama administration to fight the restrictions.

Over the past few years, "states and localities were emboldened unlike ever before in employing a wide range of tactics to deny voting rights to people of color and people with disabilities," said Scott Simpson with the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. "We expect that this will get much worse with a Justice Department that is hostile to voting rights."

Trump has claimed without evidence that as many as 5 million people voted illegally in the presidential election, complaining that the voter rolls include dead people, non-citizens and people registered in multiple states. He has called for an investigation.

Election experts are more concerned about the age of the nation's voting systems and their vulnerability to tampering.

A federal commission responsible for working with states on those very issues is facing an uncertain future, after a House committee this week voted to eliminate it. The Election Assistance Commission was created after the "hanging chad" debacle in Florida during the 2000 presidential election. Republicans say the agency is a prime example of government waste.

The commission is scheduled to make recommendations later this year on new standards for voting equipment.

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This story has been corrected to show that the Iowa legislation would provide non-photo identification cards, not photo ones, to people who do not have a valid ID for voting purposes.

___

Cassidy reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writer Barbara Rodriguez in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report. Follow Kathleen Ronayne on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kronayne and Christina Almeida Cassidy at http://twitter.com/AP_Christina .
Comments attributed to Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch criticizing President Donald Trumps attacks on federal judges are adding a new angle to the drama over Trumps immigration executive order  and Gorsuchs nomination.

Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal told reporters on Wednesday afternoon that Gorsuch called Trumps Twitter comments about federal judge James Robart disheartening and demoralizing, in a private meeting. Gorsuch and Blumenthal met as part of the usual nomination process undertaken by Supreme Court candidates before Judiciary Committee hearings.

Ron Bonjean, Gorsuchs spokesman, then confirmed the comments to the media and their relation to President Trumps criticism of Robart as a so-called judge. As of Wednesday evening, Gorsuch had not commented publicly on the matter.

During the day, Trump continued with his public criticism of how the legal system is handling the dispute over the executive order, which placed temporary immigration bans on seven predominantly Muslim Mideast countries, as well as measures to block refugees from entering the United States.

I dont ever want to call a court biased, so I wont call it biased, Trump told a gathering of law enforcement officials on Wednesday. But courts seem to be so political, and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do whats right.

Trump also criticized the Ninth Circuit judges who heard Justice Department appeal in his immigration executive order case on Tuesday. If these judges wanted to, in my opinion, help the court in terms of respect for the court, theyd do what they should be doing, he said. Its so sad.

Last week, Trump introduced Gorsuch as his nominee to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court with much fanfare. The conservative jurist is also a federal appeals judge based in Colorado.

Under the constitutional process for Supreme Court nominations, once the President notifies the Senate that a candidate has been placed in nomination, the Supreme Court confirmation remains solely in the hands of Congress.

It remains to be seen if Trump will comment on Gorsuchs private remarks to Blumenthal. A decision in the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court could come as soon as Thursday.
BERLIN (Reuters) - Greece should leave the euro zone and then be given debt relief, the head of Germany's pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) told a German radio station on Thursday. Greece should, however, remain in the European Union, FDP leader Christian Lindner told Deutschlandfunk, so it can get subsidies to put into infrastructure or help small- and medium-sized businesses. "It's clear that Greece needs to have its debts written off," Lindner said. "Greece's debts can only be written off outside of the euro zone, so we're talking about Grexit." Recent polls put support for the FDP, which was the junior coalition partner to Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives from 2009 to 2013, at 5 to 7 percent. That suggests it will get enough support to cross the 5 percent threshold to enter the Bundestag lower house of parliament in elections on Sept. 24. Lindner said Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras did not intend to implement agreed reforms, so the strategy needed to be changed. The German government wants the International Monetary Fund to have a stake in Greece's bailout to give the rescue plan greater credibility. But it opposes granting Athens the significant debt relief that the IMF is demanding. On Friday, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Greece must meet commitments it has made under its international bailout plans or else it will end up in an impossible position . (Reporting by Michelle Martin, editing by Larry King)
TALLINN, Estonia (AP)  For several years a group of Russian hackers have been posting letters and documents stolen from senior Russian officials with impunity. And then the nation's spy agency tracked them down and offered them a deal.

A member of the Shaltai Boltai (Humpty Dumpty) group told The Associated Press on Thursday that the hackers accepted the offer from the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the top KGB successor agency: show their spoils before publishing in exchange for protection.

But somehow the things went wrong for the group, and its leader and two other men have ended up behind bars.

Alexander Glazastikov, who spoke to the AP from Tallinn, Estonia, where he's seeking political asylum, said his group had no connection to the hacking of Democratic Party emails during the 2016 U.S. election campaign. Former President Barack Obama's administration had accused Russia of launching the hacking campaign to help Republican Donald Trump win, accusations that the Kremlin has denied.

"We did not have any interest in Western countries, the United States. No one except inside Russia," Glazastikov said.

He didn't say if the FSB officers who approached the group were those arrested in December on charges of spying for the United States. The arrests reported by Russian media outlets fueled speculation that the officers could have been connected to hacking the Democrats.

While the interview Thursday provided no new information about Russian meddling in the U.S. elections, it offered a rare glimpse into the shadowy world of Russian politics, where hackers serve as a weapon for competing Kremlin clans and rival spy agencies.

Glazastikov said the hacking group's leader, Vladimir Anikeyev, had offered to set up Shaltai Boltai as a resource that would release information serving public interests. Glazastikov said he joined the group because he was bored with his marketing job.

The group quickly won the limelight by publishing letters written by government officials, artists or Kremlin-connected tycoons that cast them as unscrupulous and cynical. And then Shaltai Boltai began to cash in on its fame by blackmailing its victims to make them pay to prevent the publication of their personal data.

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Glazastikov said he believed the group crossed a red line for Russian officials in 2015, when it posted letters and documents from the chief of the Defense Ministry's construction department and then followed up with an open letter to the head of military counterintelligence mocking the agency's inability to keep secrets.

"We were playing with fire: The counterintelligence got very interested in us after that letter," Glazastikov said in an interview broadcast Thursday with the Russian Dozhd television station.

He said unidentified people, possibly from the Defense Ministry, bought the cache of documents stolen from the military construction department chief for about $100,000.

Separately, the FSB, competing for influence with other spy agencies, got the hacking group in its crosshairs.

Glazastikov told Dozhd that Anikeyev, the hacking group's leader, had told him the FSB contacted him via proxies to give a message: "Guys, we know all about you. We won't arrest you, but we would like to know what you are doing."

Neither the Defense Ministry nor the FSB has had any immediate comment about Glazastikov's claims.

Glazastikov said Anikeyev was maintaining links to hackers who stole personal data and also dealing with the victims and those who ordered the hackings. Glazastikov estimated the group earned up to $2 million since 2014, but a large share of the money was spent to cover "operational expenses." He said he himself made less than $100,000.

Glazastikov said Anikeyev didn't name the FSB officers he was dealing with, and added that he doesn't know if they were the officers of the FSB's cybercrime division arrested on treason charges in December. Two of them have been named in Russian media as Col. Sergei Mikhailov, deputy head of the FSB's Information Security Center (TsIB), and his subordinate, Maj. Dmitry Dokuchayev.

According to Russian media reports, Mikhailov was arrested in a way designed to sow fear in the ranks: He had a bag placed over his head while attending a meeting of senior FSB officials.

Glazastikov said Anikeyev had asked him to come to Russia, but he refused because he had a feeling that Anikeyev had been arrested and was making the request on officials' orders. Another hacking group member, Konstantin Teplyakov, agreed to come and was arrested.

Anikeyev's arrest was later officially announced.

Glazastikov said he didn't know another alleged group member, Alexander Filinov, who also was arrested. Filinov showed up Thursday at a Moscow court, which extended his arrest until April.

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Isachenkov reported from Moscow.
Port-au-Prince (AFP) - Haitian Prime Minister Enex Jean-Charles resigned Thursday, opening the door for the country's new president, Jovenel Moise, to form a new government.

A law professor and adviser to previous presidents, Jean-Charles, 57, was appointed prime minister in March by then interim president Jocelerme Privert.

Moise, who was sworn in on Tuesday, is expected to quickly name his successor.

Due to a constitutional amendment that came into effect as Moise took office, the Haitian president no longer needs approval from parliament for his choice of prime minister. The need for this approval in the past has led to lengthy government paralysis.

The future prime minister however will still need his policies approved by the legislature -- which in this case is a formality, since Moise supporters have a majority in both chambers.

Moise, a 48-year-old banana exporter who has never held political office, was former president Michel Martelly's hand-picked choice to lead the poorest country in the Americas.

Haiti is struggling to emerge from a major cholera outbreak, with an estimated 30,000 cases expected this year, and is still suffering the effects of the January 2010 earthquake, with tens of thousands of people still camping in tents without proper sanitation.

The government is also dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew, which caused $2.8 billion in damage and left more than 1.5 million people in need of humanitarian assistance when it struck in October.
On February 9, 1773, future U.S. president William Henry Harrison was born in Virginia. The enigmatic Harrison is best known for his premature death in office after 30 days. Harrison is one of the more interesting early Presidents because of his pre-White House career.

harrison

Harrison was a legitimate military hero who had a popular 1840 campaign slogan: Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too. His grandson, Benjamin Harrison, later became a U.S. President.

Harrison was born into an aristocratic Virginia family, but he decided to forgo medicine for a military career. He then left the army to become Governor of the Illinois Territory for 12 years.

As Governor, Harrison led troops that defeated an attacking American Indian force at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, which made Harrison a national figure. Two years later, Harrison served as a General who led American forces to victory at the Battle of the Thames.

Following his military career, Harrison had mixed success as a political figure over the next 25 years. He briefly served in the House and Senate before gaining an appointment as ambassador to Colombia. President Andrew Jackson recalled Harrison, who had sided with Jacksons enemy, Henry Clay.

In an attempt to derail Jacksons hand-picked successor, Martin Van Buren, from winning the White House in 1836, the Whigs picked three regional leaders, including Harrison, in an attempt to divide the Electoral College. Harrison finished second to the victorious Van Buren.

The 1840 Whig convention saw the party unite behind Harrison after Clay failed to gain enough popular support to be a viable candidate.

The second contest between Harrison and Martin Van Buren was nasty, prolonged, and full of gamesmanship. It also featured stump speeches, smear campaigns, and dirty tactics. In the election of 1840, the Van Buren camp, knowing their candidate had been president during an economic depression, focused their campaign on attacking Harrisons character. One Democratic newspaper printed the following quote about Harrison: Give him a barrel of hard cider and settle a pension of two thousand a year on him, and take my word for it, he will sit the remainder of his days in his log cabin.

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The image of Harrison as a hard-cider-drinking frontiersman was campaign goldfor the Whigs. As it turned out, many Americans saw those attributes as positive character traits, and the Democrats smear tactic became one of the worst campaign mistakes made in a presidential election.

The united Whigs used campaign slogans, music, and mass rallies (with lots of whiskey and hard cider) to get out the vote for Harrison. Harrison also took the unusual step of actually going out on the campaign trail. He took part in the new practice of stump speeches, where he spoke in front of mass audiences.

When the votes were counted in December 1840, Harrison had won the Electoral College vote easily, but the popular vote was very close. The Whigs had won with 240 electoral votes, compared with 60 for the Democrats. But Harrison only took the popular vote by about 150,000 votes.

But the staggering stat was the huge increase in voter turnout triggered by the new style of targeted campaign tactics. More than 80 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the 1840 race, a record turnout at the time and the third best turnout in any presidential election. (By comparison, the previous election had a 57 percent turnoutwhich also happens to be the estimated turnout of the 2012 election.)

But after just over a month in office, Harrison died of complications what was believed to be pneumoniagiving him claim as not only the president with the shortest term, but also the first president to die in office. (A 2014 New York Times article theorized that Harrison died from typhoid fever related to Washingtons bad water supply.)

His vice president, John Tyler, did not fare well with the Whigs. For all their guile in running an election, the Whigs had focused little on the vice presidential candidate. Tyler, a former Democrat, quickly antagonized his own party, and the Whigs eventually expelled him from their party while he was still president.

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Nurse Katie Farka was so smitten with providing a healing touch to people in Ethiopia that she sold her house in La Crosse, quit her job and will embark soon on a year-long volunteer mission that probably will stretch to two years or more.

I have wanted to be a medical missionary since I was in nursing school, explained the 33-year-old Farka, a hematology and oncology nurse who has worked at Gundersen Health System in La Crosse for eight years.

After visiting Ethiopia several years ago with family, she said, I was lucky enough two years ago to be part of a volunteer medical and educational team to Yetebon, Ethiopia, with the Gundersen Medical Foundations Global Partners.

I loved the area. It is probably one of three places in the world I find most peace-filled, Farka said, flashing the wide smile that seems so ingrained in her that she probably even grins in her sleep. The land is beautiful, and the people are friendly and grateful. It makes you appreciate every step of the day.

Global Partners leaders, including administrative director Liz Arnold, so appreciated the talents that Farka brought to the venture that they picked her to lead a subsequent trip of volunteers to the African nation.

Embodies servant leadership

Katie really embodies servant leadership, she is extremely competent as a nurse and she has a huge heart of compassion  qualities that make her perfect for the mission role, Arnold said. She has such a positive spirit and is willing to do anything.

It is one thing to volunteer locally, but abroad, you have to be flexible and adaptable, Arnold said.

For anyone, leading a team is very different than being on a team, and you learn a lot about yourself, she said.

Farka will remain at her Gundersen job through March before taking a little time off and heading nearly 8,000 miles to Ethiopia. Her volunteer stint this time will be with Project Mercy, which has a school, a hospital and a clinic, in Yetebon, a rural village about three hours from the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.

In assuming the outposts new position as community health development director, Farka will coordinate medical volunteers and students and do health assessments for the 1,500 students in the developments K-12 schools. She plans to fold health education into the assessments.

My passion here (at Gundersen) is patient education, she said. Id love to be able to roll that into Project Mercy. Once youve taught kids, youve taught their families and then, youve taught the community.

Not that Farka doesnt need a little teaching herself, she acknowledged, noting that Ethiopian children start learning English in fifth grade but that their facility with it can be sketchy.

I need to know Amharic, she said of Ethiopias official language.

Some of her co-workers wonder about her venture, she said, adding, They dont understand why I would go somewhere not knowing anybody and not being paid.

My family is on board, though  they know Im crazy, she said with a laugh that caromed off the walls of the expansive lobby in Gundersens Heritage Building and echoed up and down the circular staircase to floors above and below.

Besides, she said, Global Partners will send volunteer teams with familiar faces to Yetebon while she is there to help train staffers with Project Mercy, which has been a partner organization with Global Partners since 2014.

It will be like having my family coming to visit, she said.

Without pay, Farkas means of support includes family and friends, she said.

People are helping finance support for me as a missionary. To my parents chagrin, that also means using my house money, she said as a hint of mischief rippled through her laugh.

I have a group of supporters  financial, prayer, whatever, she said.

One worldly benefit will be free digs.

Project Mercy has a compound with housing, so I will be living on the compound. They will cook for me and take care of me. Itll be like moving in at moms, except better cooking  but dont tell her that, she said in a conspiratorial laugh that almost requires keeping the quote intact.

Despite Farkas long-held dream of being a medical missionary, she said, I got here and was so busy, I never found the right time to do it. This is a logical step to take.

As a single person with the equivalent of a four-bedroom house, it was time to downsize, and my family doesnt live in the area, she said.

Project Mercy is an organization I would trust with my life and my career  and I am. It does everything carefully and prayerfully, said Farka, whose mention of prayer several times during an interview reflected the faith she has absorbed as a lifetime member of Faith Free Church.

Sad to leave Gundersen

At the same time, she confessed that she will miss Gundersen and her co-workers.

The only sad part is Ive come to love Gundersen as an organization. It taught me everything I know and even stuff I dont know, she said, giggling as she added, because I forgot.

After the first year, Farka will come back to the United States to fill out work permit paperwork to be able to return for a second year, which she fully expects to do.

My assumption is that a new position really needs a steady two years, she said.

Farka credits Global Partners with teaching her the necessity for initiatives to become sustainable.

When you teach people in a community, you give them the power to teach the community. The ideal is to work myself out of a job, she said, punctuating the point with  of course  a hearty laugh.
Paris (AFP) - France notched up record exports of wine and spirits for a second straight year in 2016 thanks to brisk sales of Cognac but the amount of wine sold declined, industry figures showed Thursday.

Sales abroad rose 1.2 percent to 11.9 billion euros ($12.7 billion) last year, with spirits making up a third of the total and Cognac alone hitting an all-time export high, according to the French Federation of Exporters (FEVS).

The figures showed that while the amount of wine sold declined -- France fell behind Italy as the world's biggest wine producer two years ago -- the product that was sold was of higher quality than in previous years and hence sold for a higher price.

Alcohol is now France's second biggest export sector after the aerospace industry.

Cognac was the star product in 2016, showing a 5.5-percent rise in sales, with drinkers in the United States happy to pay premium prices and Chinese customers rediscovering their taste for luxury, too.

Wine sales dropped 1.8 percent, continuing a downward trend in terms of volume, and in value.

The post-Brexit vote drop in the value of the pound hit the important British market, with a sharp 10-percent drop in wine sales.

However, France's main market, the United States, was strong and accounted for 2.8 billion euros of business, equivalent to one quarter of the overall sales, "mainly thanks to a euro-dollar parity that was favourable to our exports", said FEVS president Christophe Navarre.

China returned with a bang after a lean few years, with a 12.7 percent rise in sales, but French wine producers said they feared the key Chinese market was fragile.

"Our competitors such as Chile have agreements with China, where they no longer pay any customs taxes, while we still pay quite high taxes," said Philippe Casteja, a Saint-Emilion-based producer, who was speaking on behalf of Bordeaux wines.
Jerusalem (AFP) - Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews demonstrated on Thursday in Israel against compulsory military service with more than 30 arrested, AFP photographers and police said.

For several days the ultra-Orthodox, who represent about 10 percent of the Israeli population and live in compliance with a strict interpretation of Jewish laws, have been protesting in locations across the country.

The demonstrations were apparently triggered by the arrest of an ultra-Orthodox youth who refused to attend an army recruitment post to enrol in military service.

"Police units arrested 31 suspects involved in disturbances in Jerusalem and Bet Shemesh," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said in a statement, referring to two major protests.

The demonstrators formed a human chain and chanted "Nazis" at the policemen, with police using a hose to scatter them, the AFP photographers said.

Military service, two years and eight months for men and two years for women, is compulsory for most Israelis, with the exception of Israeli Arabs.

The ultra-Orthodox are exempt if studying in yeshivas (religious schools), though the issue is controversial with secular Israelis and attempts have been made to remove the exemption.

Either way they must register at the recruitment office but some, inspired by rabbis hostile to any cooperation with the Israeli authorities, refuse to and are considered deserters.

The conscription of the ultra-Orthodox is regularly the source of clashes with the police.

Some of the ultra-Orthodox view military service as a source of temptation for young people who then leave the closed world of prayer and religious study.

Ultra-Orthodox women are exempt if they request and can perform civilian service.
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP)  Hungary plans to hold migrants in border camps made up of shipping containers while their asylum requests are settled, a top official said Thursday.

Janos Lazar, Prime Minister Viktor Orban's chief of staff, also said once new rules are in place, any migrants detained anywhere in Hungary without documents allowing them to be in the country will be returned across the border.

"We need a legal system that protects us. This is a very serious change," Lazar said. "We expect debates with the European Commission and other organizations."

Human rights advocates noted that Hungary was already holding large numbers of asylum-seekers in closed camps and that the massive, indiscriminate detention of all asylum-seekers "has not been seen in decades in democratic Europe."

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee also vowed to sue Hungary at the European Court of Justice in every case where asylum-seekers are illegally kept in custody, which would likely force the country to make compensation payments.

"The government would do better instead to improve the quality of the open reception centers and spend this money on the integration of people who have found asylum in Hungary," the group said.

Presently, asylum-seekers whose claims are under appeal are placed mostly in open camps and some leave for Western Europe before their cases are decided. Migrants detained within 8 kilometers (5 miles) of the border are sent back across the fences Hungary has built on its southern borders with Serbia and Croatia.

Lazar said the measures will be enacted only when, like at the present time, the government declares a state of emergency because of mass immigration.

"It is clear that the security situation in Europe has deteriorated, not improved," Lazar told reporters after a government meeting. "Turkey is presently defending the borders of Europe. We would like to strengthen the Hungarian border."

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Lazar reiterated that Hungary was ready to build a second, stronger fence if needed, on its southern borders. Lazar also said the government would increase aid to charity groups working along the border.

Hungary is also is building four small military bases along the fence to provide accommodations for some of the 3,000 soldiers on border duty along with police. The barracks are being built out of shipping containers and each base will have room for 150 people.

It is difficult to get asylum in Hungary. The country granted asylum or some form of protection to 425 people in 2016, while receiving 29,432 applications.
By Andrew R.C. Marshall BANGKOK (Reuters) - A United Nations human rights investigator says there are signs of mounting opposition within the Philippines to President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs, with police operations on hold and the Church getting critical of the campaign. Agnes Callamard, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, however said the thousands of killings in the campaign had given rise to a sense of impunity, which could lead to increased lawlessness and violence. More than 7,600 people, mostly drug users and small-time dealers, have been killed since Duterte took office on June 30, about a third of them in police operations. Callamard said she knew of only four court cases seeking justice for the victims. "The difference between the number of reported killings and the number of court cases is unbelievable," she told Reuters in Bangkok. "It's very unusual for that degree of impunity to remain restricted to one kind of crime or one type of community." Spokesmen for Duterte could not immediately be reached for comment. The war on drugs has been a signature policy of Duterte, who remains popular in opinion polls. But Callamard, a human rights expert from France who took up the U.N. post in August, said opposition to the drug war was increasing and had reached a "tipping point." "There is an increasing awareness on the part of the Filipino people that the war on drugs could hurt them," she said. "The surveys that are being done indicate support for the president...but critique the war on drugs." One of the Philippines' top polling agencies, Social Weather Stations, said after a survey of 1,500 people in early December that most were satisfied with Duterte's rule. But 78 percent said they were worried that they or someone they knew would be a victim of an extra-judicial killing. In a series of reports last year, Reuters showed that the police had a 97-percent kill rate in their drug operations, the strongest proof yet that police were summarily shooting drug suspects. Both the government and police have strenuously denied that extra-judicial killings have taken place. The Church in the Philippines, Asia's largest Catholic nation, had been a muted critic of the campaign but slammed it earlier this month for creating a "reign of terror" among the poor. The bloodshed had also generated growing unease and criticism from Philippine civil society groups and media, Callamard said. Her remarks come as Duterte and his police chief Ronald Dela Rosa face intense criticism for the October kidnap and killing of a South Korean businessmen by anti-narcotics officers inside national police headquarters. He was arrested for drug offences that his wife said was an official cover for kidnap for ransom. The case, which came to light in January, prompted dela Rosa to announce the suspension of anti-drug operations to purge the police force of what he termed "rogue cops." Duterte has however vowed to maintain his anti-drugs campaign until his term ends in 2022. Callamard said real opposition to the drugs war would come from within the Philippines rather than international bodies such as the International Criminal Court (ICC). In October, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda warned the Hague-based tribunal could prosecute if the killings were "committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population." Duterte has threatened to withdraw from the ICC, calling it "useless," and said in a November speech: "You scare me that you will jail me? International Criminal Court? Bullshit." (Reporting by Andrew R.C. Marshall, Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India said on Thursday it had applied to Britain to extradite Vijay Mallya to face trial after the liquor and aviation tycoon was charged with conspiracy and fraud over a loan to his defunct Kingfisher Airlines. Mallya moved to Britain last March after banks sued to recover about $1.4 billion (1.1 billion) the Indian authorities say is owed by Kingfisher. He has dismissed the charges against him, saying on Jan. 28 that "not one rupee was misused". Mallya's press representative was not immediately available for comment on the Indian extradition request. Earlier attempts by India to get Mallya, the head of the Force India Formula One team and one-time billionaire, deported have failed. The new push comes after Mallya was charged in absentia last month by the Central Bureau of Investigation - along with nine former executives from the failed Kingfisher Airlines and IDBI Bank Ltd - over a 9 billion rupee (107.3 million) loan. "We have today handed over the request for the extradition of Mr Vijay Vittal Mallya, as received from the CBI, to the UK High Commission in New Delhi," Vikas Swarup, spokesman for the Ministry of External Affairs, told a news conference. A spokesman for the British High Commission said it did not comment on individual cases. The CBI, in its charge sheet, alleged Mallya diverted 2.54 billion rupees intended for Kingfisher Airlines from India. Kingfisher is also named as a defendant in the case. (Reporting by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Alexander Smith)
New Delhi (AFP) - It's the stuff of nightmares -- a cockroach crawls up your nose in the middle of the night, burrows in and drives you mad with scratching behind your eyes. But for one Indian woman, this horror story proved all too real.

The 42-year-old had a painful crawling sensation behind her eyes when she woke up, so rushed to a local clinic where her nose was flushed and she was sent home.

But the sensation didn't subside, and it wasn't until a specialist explored her nasal passages with an endoscope that she learned the awful truth.

"I saw some tiny legs moving inside," M.N. Shankar, an ear, nose and throat specialist at Chennai's Stanley Medical College Hospital, told AFP on Wednesday.

"I looked further in and almost five centimetres from the tip of the nose I saw something unusual.

"I realised I was actually looking at the bottom of a cockroach."

The invasive critter had burrowed deep inside her nose, almost to the base of the skull, and was still alive after roughly 12 hours, Shankar added.

Using an instrument akin to a vacuum cleaner, Shankar managed to extract the cockroach from her skull intact -- still alive and kicking.

It was the first time Shankar had seen anything like it in his three decades of medical practice.

The woman was doing "absolutely fine" following the 45-minute procedure, he said, but was "embarrassed she had a cockroach up her nose".

"It was an out of the world kind of thing for her," he said.
Indonesia said it had accepted an Australian apology after teaching materials deemed offensive to Jakarta led to a partial suspension of ties, as the neighbours sought to end their latest row.

The dispute erupted last month when the Indonesian armed forces announced it was putting military cooperation with Australia on hold after the materials were found at an Australian army base where Indonesian forces were training.

After initially announcing a full freeze, Indonesia later insisted the suspension was only partial and applied to joint language training.

The materials, which were spotted by a visiting Indonesian officer, contained comments deemed offensive on subjects including the Papua region's independence movement and Indonesia's state ideology known as Pancasila.

It was just the latest row between the neighbours, whose relationship has been beset in recent years by disputes over Jakarta's execution of Australian drug smugglers and Canberra's hardline policy of turning migrant boats back to Indonesia.

In a bid to resolve the row, Australian Army Chief Angus Campbell visited Jakarta on Wednesday to meet with Indonesia's military chief Gatot Nurmantyo.

Campbell offered an apology, said that Australia was suspending the Indonesian language education programme to make improvements, and insisted all personnel involved in the incident had been punished, according to a statement from the Indonesian military.

Nurmantyo accepted the apology and noted that in an era of global competition, unity and friendship are a necessity, said the statement released late Wednesday after the talks.

The partial military suspension will stay in place for now. Nurmantyo will report to Indonesian President Joko Widodo on whether he believes full ties should be restored, the statement added.

Earlier Wednesday, Indonesian Security Minister Wiranto played down the row, insisting their relations were "very strong" and noting Widodo planned to visit Australia later this month.

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The minister, who goes by one name, said "small incidents" should not "rattle the good relations between the two countries".

There have been tensions between the neighbours' militaries in the past.

Australia suspended training with notorious Indonesian army unit Kopassus over the notorious unit's role in human rights abuses in East Timor in 1999 as the then-Indonesian territory geared up for independence, but it resumed several years later.
While tolls help pay for bridges and roads and red light and speeding cameras keep our streets safer, an Inside Edition investigation has found some members of law enforcement illegally covering up their license plates.

Read: Some Law Enforcement Officers Are Using Plastic Covers to Obscure Their License Plates, Investigation Finds

The Inside Edition probe found more than 100 vehicles parked near New York City courthouses and police precincts with plastic license plate covers that allow for a plate to be read straight on, but when viewed from an angle, the characters on the plate become obscured and would not be able to be read by red light or toll cameras.

All of the vehicles were adorned with placards indicating they were the personal vehicles of members of law enforcement.

The placard on one dashboard said the driver was with the New York City Police Department. When he returned to his car, Inside Editions Chief Investigative Correspondent Lisa Guerrero spoke to him.

Are you trying to avoid paying tolls and paying tickets by having those covers on your license plate? Guerrero asked the officer.

"No," he replied.

Then why would you put them on there? she asked.

He was apparently so embarrassed that he decided to remove the plate covers right in front of our cameras with a screwdriver Guerrero loaned him.

I just noticed that you have plastic covers on your license plate. Does that allow to skip paying tolls? she asked an NYPD officer as he tried to drive away.

No it does not, he replied.

A third driver with plastic covers on his plates wouldnt even roll down the window of his car.

Inside Edition also found an SUV with a dashboard placard indicated that the driver was a federal officer. His car had its front license plate removed and the rear plate was covered by one of those plastic covers. The driver wouldnt answer Guerreros questions about his illegal plate configuration.

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And New York City is not alone; Inside Edition found law enforcement employees hiding their plates in Philadelphia as well.

Many Philadelphia Police Department officers use tinted covers while others preferred to hide their plate by affixing a police union badge right over the digits on the plate.

Guerrero asked one such driver about the badge concealing his plate: Can I ask you about your license plate over here?

No thanks, he said, as he closed his door and drove off.

One SUV had a plate cover so obscured with tint, you could barely see it.

Again, the driver, whos placard indicated she was a member of the Philadelphia Police Department, refused to answer Guerreros questions.

Read: American Hustle: Some Inauguration Ticket Holders Trying to Make a Quick Buck on Free Admission Passes

In a statement to Inside Edition, The Philadelphia Police Department said, Officers must abide by all laws of the commonwealth, the same as any other citizen, which includes vehicle codes. If an officer has something obstructing the view of the license plate, then they can be cited just as any other citizen would be. This is not tolerated by the department."

The New York Police Department also responded to the Inside Edition investigation, saying, This is an issue the Department has been aware of and is working to address. The Department has instructed precinct commanders to ensure officers in their commands are complying with traffic laws and internal guidelines on license plate covers. Just this week, there were several spot inspections in lower Manhattan to ensure personal vehicles of police officers are following traffic laws.

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Iran conducted a missile test Wednesday in defiance of U.S. warnings against such actions, Fox News reported.

The test was conducted on the Semnan launch pad, the same launch pad from which a ballistic missile was fired last month, prompting the Trump administration to impose new sanctions, sources told Fox News. The launch pad is 140 miles east of Tehran.

Wednesdays test was of a short-range Mersad surface-to-air missile, which came down 35 miles away, a U.S. official told Fox.

https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/829467067124379648

Irans Jan. 29 test involved a medium-range ballistic missile capable of reaching Israel and Saudi Arabia, prompting an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting and a statement from national security adviser Michael Flynn putting the Islamic Republic on notice.

U.N. Resolution 2231 asks Iran not to conduct ballistic missile tests but does not prohibit them. The resolution was adopted days after acceptance of the nuclear deal that rolled back Tehrans nuclear program.

Iranian officials said they have the right to conduct missile tests.

The Treasury Department Friday imposed sanctions against multiple entities and individuals involved in procuring technology and/or materials to support Irans ballistic missile program, as well as for acting for or on behalf of, or providing support to, Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force. Some of the companies hit are Chinese, prompting complaints from Bejing.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed the U.S. actions, saying Iran is not afraid of President Donald Trump and U.S. enmity against his country never has eased, Xinhua reported.

"Iran would not be crippled by the enemies," Khamenei vowed as the country prepared to celebrate the anniversary of the 1979 Iranian revolution Friday.

Chinese Foreign Minister Lu Kang criticized the sanctions, saying they harm the interests of a third party and are not helpful.

Trump has threatened to tear up the nuclear deal, which was reached in July 2015 between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said Tuesday Iran is not inclined to renegotiate the deal.

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"It's clear that neither Iran nor Europe will accept a re-examination of the deal. So, we have difficult days ahead, Zarif said.

Trump has called the deal a disaster and the worst deal ever negotiated.

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Iran appears to have pulled a ballistic missile that appeared prepared for testing off a launch pad after being put "on notice" by the US, according to a report from Fox News on Tuesday.

Studying satellite imagery, Fox determined that Iran pulled a Safir missile from the launch pad in recent days.

Patrick Megahan, an expert on Iran's missile programs at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Business Insider that the Safir has been used to launch a satellite into space in the past.

However, "it could serve as a test-bed for technology that may be used in a future ICBM, said Megahan.

"Why they removed it from the launch pad this time could be for a number of reasons, including they noticed a technical deficiency before launch, were experimenting with a new launch pad or procedure, or got skittish following the US response to last weeks missile test," said Megahan. "I think its too difficult to tell based on what we know."

Iran tested a ballistic missile on January 29, which the US claims violated the UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which prohibits Iran from developing nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.

But a European Union representative said on Tuesday at the UN Security Council that Iran's test did not violate the resolution.

Iran missile

Experts on Iran's missile program have told Business Insider that the lack of a clear definition on what exactly distinguishes a conventional missile from a nuclear-capable missile leaves the resolution open to interpretation.

In response to Iran's provocative missile test, retired Gen. Michael Flynn, a senior adviser to President Donald Trump, told reporters at a White House press conference that the US was "officially putting Iran on notice."

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The president followed through with a new wave of sanctions two days later.

Iran offered varying statements on the nature and intent of its ballistic missile program in the the missile tests. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said "Iran will never use missiles produced in Iran to attack any other country," before the sanctions.

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif waves after a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, June 22, 2016. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe

After the sanctions, Iran carried out yet another round of missile tests. Bloomberg quoted an Iranian brigadier general as saying "If the enemy falls out of line, our missiles will pour down on them" to Iranian press two days after the sanctions.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry further commented on missile testing saying the following: "There is no need to test Mr. Trump as we have heard his views on different issues in recent days... We know him quite well."

In a tweet on February 3, Trump warned that Iran was "playing with fire," and signaled that he would be tougher on Tehran than Obama was.

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The city of La Crosse has agreed to pay $65,000 to a former assistant city attorney who claimed he was wrongfully fired.

The city and its insurer have reached an agreement with Peter Kisken to settle claims that he was unfairly targeted and eventually fired in 2013 as retaliation for past city hall disputes, according to a resolution set to be considered at Thursdays council meeting after a special meeting of the Finance and Personnel Committee.

Kisken was placed on paid administrative leave in May 2012 and fired about a year later after an investigation found numerous violations or deficiencies that included ignoring the city attorneys orders, neglecting cases, sharing confidential legal information and having an improper, two-year workplace relationship with another employee.

Kisken denied the reports, arguing that city officials sought to oust Kisken after a sometimes rocky 22 years in City Hall.

He filed complaints with the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Developments Equal Rights Division and U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Repeated clashes with former city attorney Pat Houlihan garnered Kisken a $55,000 settlement in 2006 and an office separate from the legal department. He then sought damages in 2010 when he moved back to the legal department under Houlihans successor, Stephen Matty, but the city disallowed his claim and Kisken did not pursue it in court.

The citys investigation into Kisken and former community development administrator Liana Escott began not long afterward, Kisken argued. Escott resigned in January 2013.

Reached by phone Wednesday, Kisken said he was not allowed to talk about the case. His attorney, Michael Fox, declined to comment until the agreement is finalized.

According to the resolution, it would likely cost more to continue fighting the case.

Fox said the city has spent more than $200,000 to date on the case. In addition, the city paid Kisken nearly $67,000 during the time he was on administrative leave.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Five oil wells are still burning out of 25 that Islamic State set on fire in Qayyara, south of Mosul, an oil ministry statement said on Thursday. State-run North Oil Company crews are working to control the fires torched by the hardline militants to slow down the advance of U.S.-backed Iraqi forces toward Mosul, their last major city stronghold in Iraq. The oil field was one of the main sources of revenue for the group that declared in 2014 a self-styled ''caliphate'' in parts of Syria and Iraq. (Reporting by Saif Hameed; Editing by Greg Mahlich)
The Hollywood star's next film will be shown at the South by Southwest Festival to be held March 10-19 in Austin, Texas. Terrence Malick's "Song to Song", Edgar Wright's "Baby Driver" and Ben Wheatley's "Free Fire" have also been selected for the event.

"The Disaster Artist" tells the story of the making of "The Room," which, since its release in 2003, has become a cult movie acclaimed as the worst feature film in the history of cinema. Marked by unintentional humor and the narcissism of actor-director, Tommy Wiseau, The Room has been described as the "Citizen Kane of bad films."

The comedy will feature a star-studded cast, led by James Franco, who will take on the role of Tommy Wiseau. His brother Dave Franco, Seth Rogen, Sharon Stone, Zac Efron, Bryan Cranston, Josh Hutcherson and Judd Apatow are also on the playbill. The film is to go on general release in the course this year.

SXSW will also offer an opportunity to discover Terrence Malick's new feature, "Song to Song", which will open the festival in the run-up to its US release on March 17. Here again the cast list features a profusion of major names, including Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Natalie Portman, Benicio del Toro, Holly Hunter and Val Kilmer. Rock stars Iggy Pop and Patti Smith will play themselves in the film, which focuses on the story of two entangled couples against a backdrop of the Austin music scene.

Edgar Wright, the director of such comedies as "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz," will be in Texas to present "Baby Driver," which is slated for general release in August. Ansel Elgort, Lily James, Jamie Foxx, Jon Hamm and Kevin Spacey play leading roles in this bank heist story. Brie Larson and Armie Hammer will top the bill in "Free Fire," a thriller set in Boston in 1978.

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A television series festival too

Initially dedicated to music, SXSW Festival has boasted a film section since 1994. This year, 125 feature films will be presented, of which 51 are the work of first-time directors. With a program that combines promising newcomers and such well-known film makers as Richard Linklater ("Boyhood") and Robert Rodriguez, the event has grown in scope and reputation in recent years.

In 2016, the festival provided the venue for the world premiere of "Westworld," the television series broadcast by HBO in the following autumn. This year, there are two series on the program, "American Gods" which will be broadcast by Starz and distributed worldwide by Amazon in the spring, and "Dear White People," a Netflix comedy which examines the social divide between black and white students in a prestigious university.
Tokyo (AFP) - A top Japanese company said Thursday it had dropped Mexico as a possible location for a new auto parts factory after Donald Trump rapped Toyota over a plant in the country -- and economists warned more firms could follow suit.

The decision by Nikkei 225-listed Nisshinbo Holdings marked the first time a Japanese company has publicly abandoned a Mexican facility in response to the new US president's protectionist outbursts, the Nikkei business daily said Thursday.

The announcement comes as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe heads to Washington Thursday for meetings with Trump aimed at cementing ties and underscoring Japan's commitment to investing in the US.

Mexico was among the locations being considered for Nisshinbo's vehicle brake parts plant, reportedly worth up to 10 billion yen ($89 million).

The firm is a leading maker of friction-reducing brake parts with about a 15 percent share of the global market.

Nisshinbo, which also makes a range of other products including electronics and textiles, already has a US plant and is looking for a new facility to service the North American market.

Nisshinbo's shares sank more than four percent to close at 1,040 yen ($9) Thursday.

Company spokesman Kiyohiro Kida said Mexico had been at the top of the list for possible sites.

"Mexico was the strongest candidate but we have taken a step back," he told AFP, confirming the decision was a response to Trump's trade policies.

His comments came a day after Nisshinbo's executive managing officer Takayoshi Okugawa told an earnings briefing that the country was off the list.

"Regarding Mexico, we've dropped it," he said. "We have to pick a site other than Mexico."

- 'Similar moves' -

The US is the most likely alternative for the plant, the Nikkei said, as Trump moves to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico.

More Japanese companies could follow Nisshinbo's example and avoid Mexico, said Takeshi Minami, chief economist at Norinchukin Research Institute in Tokyo.

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"It's likely that we could see similar moves" by other firms, he told AFP.

Trump's policies "could affect both companies which already have plants (in Mexico) and those planning to invest there", he added.

The tycoon has assailed Japan for allegedly devaluing the yen to boost exports, grouping it with other countries he says are taking "advantage" of the United States.

Trump has targeted Toyota with strong criticism of its ongoing project to build a new factory in Mexico, threatening it with painful tariffs if its goes ahead.

The Japanese auto giant has stuck to its Mexico plans, but said last month it intends to invest $600 million and create 400 jobs at one of its US plants..

Ford last month abruptly cancelled plans to build a new factory in Mexico.

But Japan Inc.'s possible move away from Mexico would have "little impact" on the economy given its relatively small presence in the nation, said Takashi Shiono, an economist at Credit Suisse in Tokyo.

Mexico has only about a 0.5 percent share of Japan's outstanding foreign direct investment, according to official data.
New York (AFP) - In the age of Donald Trump, it is a British comic with a mild regional accent and an acerbic wit who is the most popular satirist on American television.

John Oliver, 39, returns to screens this Sunday with a fourth season of HBO's award-winning "Last Week Tonight" at a time when the Trump presidency stands accused of testing the limits of freedom of expression and a free press.

Oliver, probably more than anyone else, has stepped into the shoes of Jon Stewart, the American satirist who transformed US political comedy before retiring from "The Daily Show" in 2015 just as the Trump train got started.

It was "The Daily Show" that gave Oliver his big break, plucking him from obscurity in England to work on the show from 2006 to 2014, when he appeared in a somber suit with rumpled British-rocker hair for reporter-style segments.

He even filled in for Stewart in 2013 while the American worked on a film project. HBO then offered him his own show.

"Last Week Tonight" launched in 2014. Sitting behind a desk, again in a somber suit, he has delivered verbal punches on weighty topics such as automobile lenders, charter schools and food waste.

It turned him into a voice that counts. It stood him in good stead for the political arrival of Trump, with one particular segment about his campaign viewed 31 million times on YouTube.

"It was quite hard last year," Oliver told AFP in an interview in New York.

"Normally you take something serious and then you make it silly. But if you have something already stupid, how do you show people that that's actually more important than it sounds? That was the problem," he said.

Now that Trump is in power, Oliver expects it to be difficult in a different way. He calls some of the language coming out of the White House "objectively dangerous" -- such as the president calling the press the opposition.

- 'Sucked down' -

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But he is also wary of devoting too much time to the Republican billionaire-turned-world leader.

Last year, Trump and the election were the bulk of just eight out of 30 shows, and this season, Oliver says he wants "to make sure that we don't get sucked down the easy road of making everything about Trump."

The program has been working on stories that have nothing to do with the administration, even if tangentially almost everything is "because the solution to any potential problem has to run through the White House," he said.

As with last year, when he tackled Brexit and the crisis in Brazil, Oliver wants again to give viewers a sense of what is happening abroad, the French presidential election and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen included.

"I don't think people understand what that name means here. So yes, I'm fascinated with the French election. We will absolutely be looking at that," he said.

- 'That line' -

While Oliver doesn't exactly hide his left-leaning tendencies, he likes to believe that the rigor of his approach plays beyond his naturally Democratic-centric audience.

He points out, for example, that a segment on civil forfeitures got a lot of positive feedback on conservative websites.

"I would hope that even people that are diametrically opposed to how I might be politically might still find interesting things in the show," he says.

"They wouldn't be able to say 'the facts are wrong' but they can absolutely disagree with my conclusions to those."

Though relatively few Britons break through into American television, Oliver is particularly unusual in having been relatively unsuccessful in England. His home and his career are here now, he says.

"In general, comedians are outsiders. It's an outsider eye. And it probably helps being from a different country."

If his work is often compared to journalism, it is a comparison that Oliver shies away from.

"It's pretty clearly not journalism," he says, stressing it is instead dependent on the work of investigative reporters.

"I'm not qualified," he says. "We need people to have done that reporting and that reporting to appear on television so we can do clips about it."

He is also aware that the freedom of expression enshrined in the US Constitution and HBO's ad-free model gives him unusual latitude in being able to pick his targets, large corporations included.

"That's why I feel even more of a duty to swing as hard as I can. I get all the toys. So I don't feel you get to feel lazy about that."

"I'll keep trying to find where that line is," he said.
Stockholm (AFP) - A Swedish court on Thursday found a TV journalist guilty of human trafficking for helping a Syrian boy migrate to the country and gave him a suspended sentence.

In the spring of 2014, Fredrik Onnevall was filming a documentary about the response of European nationalist parties to the migration crisis when he met the 15-year-old boy in Greece.

Along with two colleagues, Onnevall helped "Abed", which is not his real name, travel to Sweden.

Scrawny and exhausted, the teenager was travelling alone and asked Onnevall to help him get to Sweden to join his cousin.

"It took 10 to 15 minutes maybe for me to get that question into my head, and to understand what he was asking me and to make up my mind," the 43-year-old journalist told AFP in an interview last month in the southern Swedish town of Malmo just prior to the start of his trial.

"Everything became more clear when it came down to that very question: 'What decision will I be able to live with in the future for myself?'," he said.

Onnevall's lawyers had called for an acquittal on the grounds that he acted out of compassion and concern for the boy's fate.

But the Malmo district court found him guilty of human trafficking and gave him a suspended sentence and ordered him to complete 75 hours of community service.

While the court noted the SVT team had acted for purely humanitarian reasons, it said "jurisprudence leaves little scope to acquit someone for that reason."

The journalist said he would appeal the ruling.

"This is no surprise because I was prepared for all scenarios," he told AFP.

"The district court is only the first legal step and I hope the appeals court will come to a different conclusion," he added.

His two colleagues, a cameraman and an interpreter, received the same sentence.

Since 2015 -- when the number of asylum applications in Sweden soared (from 80,000 in 2014 to 160,000 in 2015), requiring the country to halt its generous refugee policy -- the number of cases of people helping illegal immigrants come to Sweden has skyrocketed.

A total of 116 people were charged with human trafficking in 2016, twice as many as the previous year and almost eight times more than in 2014. Those convicted risk up to two years in prison.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is coming to Washington, D.C. to visit President Donald Trump on Monday, the White House said.

They look forward to discussing the unique relationship between Canada and the United States of America and how we can continue to work hard for middle class Canadians and Americans, together, Kate Purchase, Trudeaus director of communications, said in a statement, according to the Toronto Star.

The two leaders have previously spoken on the phone, but this will be their first in-person meeting.

Several of Trudeaus ministers traveled to Washington, D.C. in the past week to meet with the Trump administration and prepare for the talk, according to CBC News. Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway also told CNN on Tuesday that Trudeau would come to the White House next week.

Trump and Trudeau  a self-described feminist who tweets welcome messages to refugees and has championed trade deals  seem to have little in common politically, but their meeting has been highly anticipated. The Canadian prime minister talked to other world leaders about how best to engage with Trump ahead of this first meeting, the Guardian reported this week.
On Thursday morning, Kellyanne Conway spoke with Fox & Friends from the White House and delivered a straightforward message regarding the controversy surrounding retailers dropping the Ivanka Trump label.

When asked about Ivanka and her fathers tweet on Wednesday addressing her issues with Nordstrom, Kellyanne shared, This is a very successful business woman twice. Obviously shes stepped away from it now, but in the past shes helped to run her familys real estate empire. On the side, she developed another fully, unbelievably entrepreneurial, wildly successful business that bears her name.

She addressed Ivankas critics, saying, I do find it ironic that youve got some executives all over the Internet bragging about what theyve done to her and her line, yet theyre using the most prominent women  shes his daughter  who has been a champion for women empowerment, women in the workplace to get to him. So I think people can see through that.

In her closing remarks, she delivered a message thats making waves across the Internet. Go buy Ivankas stuff is what I would tell you. I hate shopping; Im gonna go get some myself today.

Its a wonderful line. I own some of it, she continued. Im going to give a free commercial here. Go buy it today, everybody.

Kellyanne Conway, from the White House: "Go buy Ivanka's stuff!" pic.twitter.com/81QfBQpiWD  Justin Green (@JGreenDC) February 9, 2017

Many took issue with the Counselor to the President directing viewers across the nation to buy products from the Ivanka Trump brand, believing the action was unethical and a serious conflict of interest.

Lawmakers and public officials were quick to point out Conways possible legal flub on Twitter. Lawrence M. Noble, General Counsel of the Campaign Legal Center, suggested she violated the ban that prohibits federal employees from the endorsement of any product.

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Appears Kellayanne Conway may have just violated ban on Federal employee using public office for endorsement of product. 5 CFR 2635.702 https://t.co/mIvngSHCnk  Larry Noble (@LarryNoble_DC) February 9, 2017

Chris Lu, former United States Deputy Secretary of Labor and former Assistant to the President and White House Cabinet Secretary for President Barack Obama, addressed Conways words on Twitter as well, also suggesting Conway violated federal law.

When asked about Conways comments is his daily briefing, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said that she was counseled on the subject of asking Americans to buy Ivanka Trump products.

Meanwhile, the House Oversight chairman called Conways promotion of the Ivanka Trump brand clearly over the line, unacceptable, the Associated Press reports.

While its not immediately clear whether or not Conway did in fact violate the federal ethics law, Americans across the nation reacted to her words as well.

I'm just waiting for the "QVC LIVE! from the White House" hour.  Tom + Lorenzo (@tomandlorenzo) February 9, 2017

"Go Buy Ivanka's Stuff",Kellyanne?How much more greediness?Priorities? is this how u guys make U.S great? Do u realize the damage u r doing?  Veda Konduru (@vedakonduru) February 9, 2017

Kellyanne Conway just said that everyone should "go buy Ivanka's stuff". The naked profiteering off the presidency is breathtaking.  Mike Gibson (@mike_gibson99) February 9, 2017

Surely Kellyanne using her position of office to advertise Ivanka's clothes is breaking the law?  R. A. Kennedy (@RomeoRites) February 9, 2017

@realDonaldTrump @Nordstrom Now the Oval Office is Ivanka's private PR Co? Kellyanne says go buy her stuff. #CourtofDeception. No thank you.  Marilee Mai (@Owldreams) February 9, 2017

So the White House is doin plugs for Ivanka Trump's declining biz? Thanks Kellyanne for showin again the real motives of @realDonaldTrump ????  Diara J. (@CuriousScout) February 9, 2017

Conways remarks come a day after President Trump addressed American retailer Nordstrom dropping his daughters clothing line on Twitter. My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person  always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible! he shared.

My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person  always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2017

White House spokesman Sean Spicer later defended President Trumps tweet in his daily press briefing, saying the President has every right to stand up for his family.

I think this was less about his family business than an attack on his daughter, Spicer said. For someone to take out their concern with his policy on a family member of his is not acceptable, and the president has every right as a father to stand up for them.

Read More:

Sean Spicer Defends Trumps Rip on Nordstrom for Dropping Ivankas Line

Ivanka Trump Brand Has Expansion Plans Despite Criticism





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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is proposing to let several utility companies pay to speed up review of their permit applications in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Under plans announced Wednesday, the St. Paul District would accept utility funds to add up to two full-time staff to handle wetland and water crossing permits from American Transmission Co. and the WEC Energy Group, whose subsidiaries include We Energies, Wisconsin Public Service Corp., the Wisconsin River Power Co., and Minnesota Energy Resources Corp.

The cost and terms of the arrangement would be spelled out in agreements between the partners and the Corps, which says it cannot expedite permits with its congressionally funded staff of 60 full-time workers.

It would be the first such arrangement between the Corps and a private utility, although there are dozens of agreements with public agencies  primarily transportation departments, cities and port authorities  in other parts of the country under a 2000 federal law that authorizes the Corps to accept outside funding for expedited utility permits so long as they do not impact impartial decision making with respect to permits, either substantively or procedurally.

The St. Paul district, which is responsible for regulating navigable waters in Minnesota and Wisconsin, has a similar agreement with the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

Rebecca Graser, the agencys regulatory branch program manager for Wisconsin said there are a handful of partnerships with other private utilities in the works.

American Transmission Co. spokeswoman Kaya Freiman said having a dedicated person on staff with the Corps would provide better certainty on the timing of permit applications for projects that involve years of planning and construction. A joint venture of more than two dozen public and investor-owned utilities, ATC builds and operates high-voltage transmission lines to move electricity over long distances.

WEC spokeswoman Cathy Schulze said she wasnt aware of projects delayed because of permitting, but having a dedicated staffer would speed up the process and allow the company to better serve its customers.

Graser said utility applications during the past five years took up the time of more than one full-time person.

On its face, the proposal has the potential to blur lines between regulators and the companies they are supposed to oversee, said Katie Nekola, general counsel for the environmental advocacy group Clean Wisconsin.

Its important to keep the regulators impartial and ensure theres not any compromising ... of enforcement of what the requirements are for permitting these projects, Nekola said. You dont want to sacrifice any of that kind of oversight  especially in such a beautiful region as the Coulee Region.

But Nekola also notes that regulatory agencies are stretched thin by lack of government funding.

In an effort to ensure impartiality, the Corps says supervisors and a non-funded regulator must review and sign off on any permits for the participating utilities, and those permit decisions will be posted monthly in a separate section of the districts web page.

The Corps also stipulates that utility funding will not be used for reviews of its decisions or for enforcement of its regulations.

Freiman said the partnership is unrelated to the Badger-Coulee transmission line between La Crosse and Dane counties, a joint venture of ATC and several regional utilities, including Dairyland Power Cooperative.

Though construction of the line has begun, ATC is still awaiting wetland and river crossing permits from the Corps, which it warned last week could potentially delay the project. ATC filed its application on June 29, 2015, but as of last week had received a permit for only the first of eight construction segments.

The Corps says it is waiting for the Wisconsin Historical Preservation Office and two Native American tribes to review potential impacts to cultural resources on three segments. The agency is also waiting on ATC to provide additional information requested in September 2015.
Kellyanne Conway came to the defense of Ivanka Trump in a bizarre endorsement of her products during a live TV interview after Nordstrom and other major retailers dropped the first daughter's fashion line.

Read: Melania Trump's Rep Claims She's Not Trying to Profit From First Lady Role After $150M Libel Lawsuit

Go buy Ivankas stuff, is what I would say. I hate shopping. I'm going to buy stuff today, Conway told Fox & Friends Thursday morning from the White House briefing room. Its a wonderful line. I own some of it. I'm going to give a free commercial here. Go buy it today, everybody. You can find it online."

Following the declaration from one of Donald Trumps top advisers, some have contended that the very public endorsement may have violated ethics laws.

Ethics lawyers and Democratic lawmakers have since called for an investigation, according to CNN.

In addition, the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has asked for the Office of Government Ethics and the White House counsel's office to look into the "apparent violation of law" and to "take any necessary discipline against [Conway]."

At the White House daily briefing Thursday afternoon, Press Secretary Sean Spicer addressed the situation.

Kellyanne has been counseled and that's all Im gonna say, he said.

Read: President Trump, Melania and Barron Jet Off For Family's First Weekend Getaway Since Inauguration

Conway's comments came a day after President Trump tweeted about Nordstrom nixing his eldest daughter's fashion line, saying: "My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @nordstrom."

My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2017

Nordstrom is standing by its decision, and denying that it was motivated by politics.

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"Sales of the brand have steadily declined to the point where it didn't make good business sense for us to continue with the line for now," the retail giant said in a statement.

Watch: Melania Trump Spotted for the First Time Since Inauguration, Avoids Manhattan Protests

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Nairobi (AFP) - Kenya's High Court on Thursday blocked the government's decision to close the Dadaab refugee camp -- the world's largest -- and force Somali refugees to return home.

Judge John Mativo ruled that the plan to shut down the camp was unconstitutional, violated Kenya's international obligations and amounted to the persecution of refugees.

Dadaab is home to some 256,000 people, the vast majority of them Somalis who fled across the border following the outbreak of civil war in 1991. Many have lived there ever since.

The government unilaterally decided to close the camp in May last year, saying it was a terrorist training ground for Shabaab Islamist militants based in Somalia.

But Mativo ruled that a "decision specifically targeting Somali refugees is an act of group persecution, illegal, discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional".

The shutdown was ordered without proper consultation of people affected by the decision, in violation of the constitutional right to fair legal proceedings, he said in his ruling.

"Hence the said decision is null and void," he said.

He also blocked a government decision to disband Kenya's Department for Refugee Affairs.

But the government later cautioned that it aimed to "strongly" appeal the ruling.

"We as a government have the cardinal responsibility of providing security for all Kenyans," a statement said. "The camp had lost its humanitarian nature, and had become a haven for terrorism and other illegal activities.".

Mativo also said the forced repatriation violated the 1951 United Nations Convention on refugees.

- Security threat? -

He was ruling on a challenge to the shutdown filed by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights and rights group Kituo Cha Sheria.

Amnesty International's East Africa chief Muthoni Wanyeki hailed Thursday's outcome as "historic".

"Today is a historic day for more than a quarter of a million refugees who were at risk of being forcefully returned to Somalia, where they would have been at serious risk of human rights abuses," Wanyeki said.

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"This ruling reaffirms Kenya's constitutional and international legal obligation to protect people who seek safety from harm and persecution."

The government caught refugees, aid groups, the United Nations and Kenya's Western partners offguard last May when it announced plans to shut down the huge camp near the border, citing security concerns.

Since sending troops into neighbouring Somalia in 2011, Kenya has come under repeated attack from Al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab militants.

The government has presented Dadaab as a security risk, saying Somali Islamists inside the camp planned the Shabaab attacks at Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall in 2013 and the Garissa university attack in 2015, though it has not provided evidence.

Authorities initially planned to close Dadaab at the end of November, but delayed the shutdown until May 2017 at the request of the UN refugee agency and against a backdrop of growing accusations of forced refugee returns to Somalia.

The sprawling Dadaab complex near the border with Somalia currently houses some 256,000 people compared to 320,000 in mid 2016.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says the numbers have dwindled thanks to voluntary repatriations as well as resettlement in the Kakuma camp in northwest Kenya.

In September, Human Rights Watch warned in a report that the repatriation of Somalis violated international standards and that refugees were returning home involuntarily to face persecution and hunger.

Medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) on Thursday welcomed the ruling as "a very positive step".

It urged the government to consider "alternative solutions to long-term encampment on such a large scale," including resettlement to third countries or to smaller camps in Kenya, or integration in Kenya.
Collin May was a terrific 17-year-old who yearned for independence, adult responsibilities and driving privileges just like any other teen. But with 20 seizures a day, these goals were problematic. Since he first began experiencing epilepsy at age 8, May explored all avenues including eight different medications, medical marijuana and a surgically implanted vagus nerve stimulator device. Nothing relieved the seizures.

[See: Was That a Seizure?]

May's home doctor suggested he schedule an appointment at Cleveland Clinic's Epilepsy Center, where he came under the care of our multi-disciplinary team. Shortly thereafter, May learned that epilepsy surgery may be an option for him. Detailed testing indicated that his seizures were arising from a trouble spot deep inside the brain, but with his normal MRI, our team required more information.

The next step was to record May's brain wave activity directly, with thin probes carefully placed on his brain, targeting the area of concern. This method, called stereotactic EEG, successfully pinpointed the problem and helped us develop a concrete plan for surgery.

[See: Best Hospitals for Neurology & Neurosurgery.]

For the procedure, May's neurosurgeon placed a thin laser probe directly into the target brain area, extinguishing the spot of concern in May's brain. The next morning, May was able to go home, excited to enjoy a new and better life. Now 19, the Ohioan has not experienced any seizures in the almost two years since surgery, and as incredible as it sounds, his hobby is riding a motorcycle!

May's experience clearly demonstrates the life-changing possibilities of epilepsy surgery. Not everyone qualifies, because surgery is only possible if all the seizures start from a limited and safely removable area of the brain. But when strict criteria are met, surgery offers a chance for seizure control that is unmatched by other treatments. Then why, as research demonstrates, do only a small percentage of eligible patients currently receive the procedure?

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One barrier is that some physicians perceive brain surgery as a "last resort" and hesitate to recommend consultation at a specialized epilepsy center. Another obstacle is that some patients and families are fearful of surgery, and reject the option. If these hurdles could be overcome, then epilepsy surgery could improve the lives of many thousands more people each year in the U.S. alone. In some other countries, the potential is even greater.

Laser surgery is an exciting, cutting-edge technique that may help narrow the gap. Compared to conventional surgery, which requires opening a portion of the skull bone to expose the brain, laser surgery offers lower risk, less postoperative discomfort and shorter recovery time. These advantages are especially important for patients with other serious medical conditions, such as heart disease, which increase the risk for conventional surgery.

[See: 10 Concerns Parents Have About Their Kids' Health.]

On the other hand, a limitation of the laser is that it focuses on a fairly small area of the brain, potentially increasing the chance that some seizures will persist after the procedure. Laser surgery is best suited to treat small trouble spots deep inside the brain, while conventional techniques are preferable when larger problem areas are causing the epilepsy.

Laser surgery is not for everyone, but for patients who qualify, it may be an attractive alternative. The costs of laser treatment and conventional surgery are similar. If you or a loved one is experiencing uncontrolled seizures, then ask an epilepsy specialist whether conventional or laser surgery may be right for you. Laser surgery for epilepsy is new and not yet available at every center, but for eligible patients, it may be worth the trip.

Elaine Wyllie, MD, professor, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, is a world-renowned thought leader in neurology and epilepsy at Cleveland Clinic's Neurological Institute.
By Madeline Kennedy (Reuters Health) - As concentrated laundry detergent pods have become more common, so have chemical eye injuries among young children, according to a recent U.S. study. The small, colorful packets of detergent were responsible for more than a quarter of cases of 3- and 4-year-olds admitted to emergency rooms with chemical eye burns in 2015, researchers found. Chemical eye burns are potentially very serious injuries and these laundry detergent pods are a very concentrated form of an extremely hazardous chemical, said Dr. Sterling Haring, a physician and researcher at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. They may not look as dangerous as a bottle of bleach, but we need to treat them like we would any other dangerous chemical, and that means keeping it up and away and out of sight, Haring told Reuters Health by email. Consumers Union, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group, says the pods can be mistaken for candy by very young children and it has petitioned regulators and manufacturers to change the product in ways that make it less appealing to kids and the containers more child-proof. The study team also writes in JAMA Ophthalmology that it would help if the pods were redesigned to make them less attractive and more durable. To see how laundry pod-related eye injuries have changed over time, the researchers analyzed data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, which provides national estimates of product-related injuries. In particular, the team searched for emergency room admissions for eye injuries resulting from chemical burns among 3- and 4 year-old children and determined from descriptions which of these injuries were caused by laundry detergent pods. Between 2010 and 2015, there were 1,201 eye burns from laundry detergent pods among kids in this age group treated in emergency rooms. The number of incidents rose dramatically each year from 12 injuries in 2012 to 480 in 2015, representing a 32-fold increase. In 2012, laundry pod-related burns made up 0.8 percent of all chemical eye burns in young kids, while in 2015, laundry pods caused 26 percent of all chemical eye burns in this age group. Most of the eye injuries occurred at home and resulted from children breaking the pod itself, and either having detergent squirt directly into one or both eyes, or getting it on their hands and then touching their eyes. The primary problem with laundry pods is not with negligent parenting, but with a product design that does not consider childrens safety, said Dr. Gary Smith, president of the Child Injury Prevention Alliance in Columbus, Ohio. Packets often resemble candy or juice, and are the perfect size for a young child to grab and put in their mouth, Smith, who was not involved in the study, said by email. We recommend that households where children younger than 6 years of age live or visit use traditional (liquid or powder) laundry detergent, Smith said. If laundry detergent does get in a childs eye, the first thing to do is put the eye under a faucet and run cool water on it for 20 minutes, said Haring, urging parents to do this before calling 911 or going to the hospital. The sooner you can get the eye flushed and the longer you can flush it, the better the odds are of protecting your childs vision, Haring said. SOURCE: bit.ly/2k4eA7y JAMA Ophthalmology, online February 2, 2017.
While red lights and speeding cameras make our streets safer and tolls pay for bridges and roads, some law enforcement officers may have found a way to avoid them.

An Inside Edition investigation, which will air in full Thursday, found that some officers in New York City are obscuring their license plates with plastic covers.

Read: Cops Overwhelmed by Excessive Calls to Walmart: 'There Are Days I Run Out of Handcuffs'

The covers allow the license plates to be read clearly from straight on, but when viewed from an angle, the characters disappear so they cannot be read by traffic and toll cameras.

Inside Edition's Chief Investigative Correspondent Lisa Guerrero found more than 100 vehicles parked throughout the streets of New York City with the illegally obscured license plates.

On the cars' dashboards, she found parking placards indicating the vehicles belong to law enforcement officers or employees of the police department. All of the cars were parked near police precincts and courthouses.

Guerrero saw one car with obscured front and rear plates and a placard on the dashboard showing the owner was with the New York City Police Department. She waited for him to return and approached him as he neared his car.

"Is this your car?" she asked.

"Yes," he responded.

"Can you tell me why you have illegal cover on your license plate?" she asked, but he turned away.

Read: How Airline Programs Designed to Protect Unaccompanied Children Can Sometimes Go Awry

He said he would remove the plate covers so Guerrero offered him a screwdriver and he took them off in front of our cameras.

The NYPD told Inside Edition they are investigating.

"This is an issue the Department has been aware of and is working to address," J. Peter Donald, assistant commissioner for communication and public Information, told Inside Edition. "The Department has instructed precinct commanders to ensure officers in their commands are complying with traffic laws and internal guidelines on license plate covers.

Story continues

"Just this week, there were several spot inspections in lower Manhattan to ensure personal vehicles of police officers are following traffic laws."

To see another major city where law enforcement officers are allegedly using this scheme, tune into Inside Edition on Thursday. Check here for local listings.

Watch: Investigation Discovers Some Hotel Rooms Have Hidden Cameras Installed

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SEOUL (Reuters) - Lawyers for South Korean President Park Geun-hye have rejected a plan by a special prosecutor investigating a graft scandal to question her, citing a media leak, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office said on Thursday. The plan was to question Park on Thursday at an undisclosed location, Lee Kyu-chul, spokesman for the prosecutor's office, told a media briefing. But Park's office had notified the prosecutor that it was scrapping an agreement on the questioning, Lee said. "There is no change to the position that a face-to-face questioning of the president is necessary but there has been no decision specifically on the schedule from this point on," he said. Lee said Park's lawyers had notified the prosecutor's office of the decision after a television station said in a Tuesday broadcast Park would be questioned on Thursday at an office inside the presidential Blue House compound. It was not clear why the media report triggered the decision to cancel the questioning. Park was impeached by parliament on Dec. 9 on suspicion of colluding with a long-time friend, Choi Soon-sil, to pressure big business to donate to two foundations set up to back the president's policy initiatives. Park, whose powers have been suspended while the Constitutional Court reviews the impeachment, is also accused of allowing Choi to exert inappropriate influence over state affairs. Both have denied wrongdoing. Last week, the presidential Blue House, where Park remains, blocked officials from the special prosecutor's office from conducting a search under a court warrant, citing security. Park has not been formally changed for wrongdoing, as she has immunity while in office except for subversion or treason, but she has been named an accomplice to Choi under an indictment filed against the friend. Park had previously said she would cooperate with the special prosecutor. (Reporting by Jack Kim and Ju-min Park; Editing by Robert Birsel and Tony Munroe)
By Scott Malone BOSTON (Reuters) - A man died in Massachusetts on Wednesday while helping his adult son involved in one of scores of accidents around New England caused by an unexpected bout of icy weather, with another 55 vehicles colliding in crashes outside Boston. Police in Needham, Massachusetts, said a vehicle struck and killed 63-year-old Joseph Flynn while he was trying to help his son free his car stuck on the ice in the suburb about 18 miles (29 km) west of Boston. "It appears as though the vehicle was sliding on the ice and was unable to stop before striking the victim, pinning him between the two vehicles," the Needham Police Department said in a statement. Stormy weather throughout the Northeast United States also led to school closings in New York and Boston for Thursday, officials said. North of Boston, some 55 cars were involved in a series of crashes in the suburb of Wakefield, Massachusetts, with multiple motorists injured, though none seriously, state police said. It was the start of a forecast whipsaw of weather over 48 hours. Temperatures around Boston are expected to pass 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) on Wednesday before dropping back below freezing overnight, when a snowstorm is expected to begin. The National Weather Service was forecasting 8 to 14 inches (20 to 36 cm) of snow in the area on Thursday. Cities through the region including Boston and Providence, Rhode Island, said on Thursday they would be closing schools on Thursday due to the storm. Wednesday's ice, the result of an overnight rainstorm, may have caught commuters off-guard since earlier forecasts had anticipated temperatures would rise above freezing before the snow begins, said National Weather Service meteorologist Bill Simpson. The result was chaos on roads around Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire. Photos from the Wakefield area showed vehicles spun at strange angles, blocking the roadway, with emergency responders having trouble maintaining their footing on icy roads. The Massachusetts State Police had not yet counted the total number of collisions around the state, a dispatcher said. Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker ordered a two-hour opening delay for state offices. "Exercise extreme caution," Baker said, "as driving is very difficult due to icy conditions." Farther north, all but one lane of a major interstate highway in Maine were closed after a tractor-trailer ran off the road and flipped on its side due to the ice. Work crews were removing its cargo of potatoes before attempting to lift the vehicle off its side, a state police spokesman said. (Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by James Dalgleish and Bill Rigby)
Steve Bannon disrupted American politics and helped elect Donald Trump as president. Will he disrupt the Roman Catholic Church by joining forces with right-wing Catholics who oppose Pope Francis?

Bannons dark vision contrasts sharply with the sunny disposition of a pope who has chided sourpusses and querulous and disillusioned pessimists.

Bannon believes that the Judeo-Christian West is in a crisis. He calls for a return of the church militant who will fight for our beliefs against this new barbarity which threatens to completely eradicate everything that weve been bequeathed over the last 2,000, 2,500 years.

Where Francis has insisted on dialogue with Muslims, Bannon points to the long history of the Judeo-Christian West struggle against Islam and reaches as far back as the eighth century to praise forefathers who defeated Islam on the battlefield and kept it out of the world, whether it was at Vienna, or Tours, or other places.

See whats happening, Bannon insists, and you will see were in a war of immense proportions.

Bannon offered these comments in 2014 to the Institute for Human Dignity, an ultra-traditionalist group based in Rome allied with some of Francis sharpest internal critics. They include Cardinal Raymond Burke, the former bishop of La Crosse, who has been so tough on Francis that he had to deny he was accusing the pontiff of heresy.

The New York Times Jason Horowitz put Bannons Catholic project front and center this week with a Page One story reporting that during a 2014 visit to Rome for the canonizations of Popes John Paul II and John XXIII, Bannon met and bonded with Burke.

Neither Bannon nor Trump (nor, for that matter, Burke) is likely to dent Francis immense popularity with American Catholics. But Horowitzs story brought into relief the struggle inside the church  and particularly within American Catholicism over the popes stewardship, his emphasis on battling poverty, his insistence on the importance of welcoming immigrants and refugees, and his relative openness to modernity.

Massimo Faggioli, a professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University and a close student of the Vatican, argues that Francis has aroused a similar hostility among some on the Catholic right to that Barack Obama called forth on the right end of politics generally. Francis is the first pope from Latin America and his vision of economics is inflected by his experiences there. Moreover, Francis accepts the reforming Second Vatican Council in the 1960s in its entirety and is not just paying lip service.

The vast majority of conservative American bishops and Catholic thinkers have, of course, pledged their allegiance to the pope. But Faggioli argues that many of them are often critical of Francis attitude toward doctrine (the pope, he says, is pastoral, not ideological) and toward Vatican IIs reforms, which shifted church teaching toward a greater respect for religious pluralism.

On the surface, some of Bannons economic views would seem to match Francis. In his speech broadcast to the group in Rome, Bannon spoke against a brutal form of capitalism that is really about creating wealth and creating value for a very small subset of people.

But as Faggioli notes, Bannon links his criticism of capitalism to nationalism, which makes his views more similar to those of far-right groups in the 1920s and 30s such as Action Francaise, a French nationalist group condemned by the Vatican. Francis economics, on the other hand, focus on global concerns, including climate change.

Cathleen Kaveny, a professor of law and theology at Boston College, argues that Bannons view is also at odds with Catholicisms tradition of rejecting an apocalyptic take on the world. The church, she said, has taught that you dont get to Gods Kingdom by blowing up whats here.

Trump won overwhelmingly among conservative American Catholics last year, and many of them likely sympathize with aspects of Bannons nationalist outlook. But the tensions between Trump and Francis are likely to grow. Ironically, given the opposition to him among many American bishops, Obamas foreign policy was far closer to the Vaticans approach than is Trumps.

And Trumps moves against refugees and immigrants mobilized even conservative Bishops to loud condemnations. The fact that about a third of American Catholics are Latino weighs heavily in the churchs thinking.

Bannon is unlikely to want Trump to force American Catholics to choose between their president and their pope. But the battle is on to define the meaning of both Americanism and Catholicism. Bannons worldview could incite the same showdown in the church that he has already ignited in politics.
By Mica Rosenberg NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court is weighing arguments for and against President Donald Trump's temporary travel ban, but its decision this week may not yet answer the underlying legal questions being raised in the fast-moving case. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco is expected to rule only on the narrow question of whether a lower court's emergency halt to an executive order by Trump was justified. Trump signed the order on Jan. 27 barring citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries for 90 days and halted all refugee entries for four months. The appeals court has several options. It could kick the case back to lower court judge James Robart in Seattle, saying it is premature for them to make a ruling before he has had a chance to consider all the evidence. Robart stopped Trump's order just a week after he issued it and before all the arguments had been developed on both sides. Or the panel of three appellate judges could side with the government and find halting the order was harmful to national security, reinstating it while the case continues. Their decision is "one step in what will be a long, historic case," Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor at Cornell University Law School who specializes in immigration. Ultimately, the case is likely to end up in the U.S. Supreme Court, legal experts said. The case is the first serious test of executive authority since Trump became president on Jan. 20, and legal experts said there were three main issues at play for the judiciary. The broad questions in the case are whether the states have the right to challenge federal immigration laws, how much power the court has to question the president's national security decisions, and if the order discriminates against Muslims. Washington state filed the original lawsuit, claiming it was hurt by the ban when students and faculty from state-run universities and corporate employees were stranded overseas. Trump administration lawyer August Flentje argued at an appeals court hearing on Tuesday that the states lack "standing" to sue the federal government over immigration law, but his arguments were questioned by the judges. NATIONAL SECURITY If the court decides the states are allowed to bring the case, the next major question is about the limits of the president's power. "Historically courts have been exceedingly deferential to governmental actions in the immigration area," said Jonathan Adler, a Case Western Reserve University School of Law professor. Though, he added, "the way they carried it out understandably makes some people, and perhaps some courts, uneasy with applying the traditional rules." Trump issued the order late on a Friday and caused chaos at airports as officials struggled to quickly change procedures. At Tuesday's hearing, Judge Richard Clifton, an appointee of Republican president George W. Bush and Judge William Canby, an appointee of Democratic president Jimmy Carter, pushed the government to explain what would happen if Trump simply decided to ban all Muslims from entering the United States. "Would anybody be able to challenge that?" Canby asked. Flentje emphasized that the order did not ban Muslims. He said the president made a determination about immigration policy based on a legitimate assessment of risk. The government has said its order is grounded in a law passed by congress that allows the president to suspend the entry of "any class of aliens" that he deems "would be detrimental to the interests of the United States." When asked by the third judge - Michelle Friedland, appointed by Democrat Barack Obama - if that meant the president's decisions are "unreviewable" Flentje, after a pause, answered "yes." When pressed, Flentje acknowledged, however, that constitutional concerns had been raised about the order. RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION One of the main concerns is allegations by the states, civil rights groups, some lawmakers and citizens that the order discriminates in violation of the constitution's First Amendment, which prohibits favoring one religion over another. The judges will have to decide whether to look exclusively at the actual text of the president's order, which does not mention any particular religion, or consider outside comments by Trump and his team to discern their intent. Washington state's attorney Noah Purcell told the hearing that even though the lawsuit is at an early stage, the amount of evidence that Trump intended to discriminate against Muslims is "remarkable." It cited Trump's campaign promises of a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States." In a tweet on Monday night, Trump said "the threat from radical Islamic terrorism is very real" urging the courts to act quickly. Government lawyer Flentje countered Purcell by saying there was danger in second guessing Trump's decision-making about U.S. security "based on some newspaper articles." Clifton asked about statements on Fox News by Trump adviser Rudolph Giuliani, former New York mayor and former prosecutor, that Trump had asked him to figure out how to make a Muslim ban legal. "Do you deny that in fact the statements attributed to then candidate Trump and to his political advisers and most recently Mr. Giuliani?" Clifton asked. "Either those types of statements were made or not," said Clifton. "If they were made it is potential evidence." (Reporting by Mica Rosenberg in New York; Additional reporting by Lawrence Hurley in Washington and Nathan Layne in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Grant McCool)
Berlin (AFP) - The head of German industrial gases maker Linde said Thursday he aimed to finalise the details of a planned mega-merger with US rival Praxair by late April, signalling that the push to create a new global gas giant was picking up speed.

"Our goal is to be ready by the end of April and agree on a binding merger agreement, in which all the details are worked out," chief executive Aldo Belloni told Germany's daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung in an interview.

The agreement would then be presented to shareholders at Linde's annual general meeting on May 10, he added.

The proposed $65-billion (60-billion-euro) deal, which would see the two groups overtake France's Air Liquide as the world's industrial gas leader, still requires regulatory approval.

Belloni hinted that the two firms were bracing for the challenge of dealing with a new US administration that favours a protectionist, inward-looking stance that could potentially complicate the deal.

"It's not easy at the moment to imagine building closer ties with the US," Belloni said.

But "we are sticking to our plan, we're convinced of its logic," he added.

If it receives the necessary approvals, the transaction should be completed in the first half of 2018.

The new company would be based in Praxair's home of Connecticut but carry the Linde name.

Linde and Praxair announced in December that they had agreed the outlines of what their so-called "merger of equals" would look like.

The breakthrough came after an earlier attempt at a tie-up failed amid reports of infighting about executive positions and management locations.

Linde's chief financial officer Georg Denoke, said to have opposed the merger, stepped down after those talks fell through.
A so-called court ruling.

If the law means anything, the Trump administration will succeed in overturning the so-called court ruling against its travel ban.

The nationwide stay of the ban issued by Judge James Robart, a Washington state-based federal district judge, is tissue-thin. It doesnt bother to engage on the substance, presumably because facts, logic and the law dont support Robarts sweeping assertion of judicial authority in an area where judicial power is inherently quite limited.

This doesnt justify President Donald Trump tweeting that Robart is a so-called judge. That slam earned Trump bipartisan blowback and may encourage other judges to tilt against Trumps ban in response to a perceived threat to the independence of the judiciary. But Robarts handiwork is shoddy and usurpatory, despite the fact that he is indeed a literal judge.

Even if you assume that the states of Washington and Minnesota have standing to pursue the litigation (Robart asserts implausibly that they face immediate and irreparable injury from the executive order, the heart of which is a three-month pause on most travel from seven countries), the stay falls down. It ignores our constitutional scheme and Supreme Court precedent, as the Justice Department brief seeking to reverse it persuasively argues.

First, Judge Robart is trespassing on a core executive responsibility. The exclusion of aliens is a fundamental act of sovereignty, the Supreme Court held in the 1950 Knauff case, inherent in the executive power to control the foreign affairs of the nation. The courts are not meant to second guess the executives conduct of foreign affairs, or intrude on its plenary power in this area. It is not within the province of any court, the court noted in that decision, unless expressly authorized by law, to review the determination of the political branch of the Government to exclude a given alien.

Second, its hard to get around the relevant federal immigration law, which says, 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.

This is as explicit and wide-ranging as it gets. When the president has such authorization from Congress, the Supreme Court held in the Youngstown Steel case in 1952, his authority is at its maximum, for it includes all that he possesses in his own right plus all that Congress can delegate.

Finally, aliens residing outside the United States have no right to come here. The Supreme Court held in the 1982 Landon case, an alien seeking initial admission to the United States requests a privilege and has no constitutional rights regarding his application, for the power to admit or exclude aliens is a sovereign prerogative.

Its not clear how Judge Robart expects opponents of the Trump ban to overcome these substantial and well-established obstacles. A more extensive and carefully reasoned decision by a Massachusetts-based district judge reached the opposite conclusion of his.

It is true that the ultimate source of the Trump executive order is his ill-advised call for a Muslim ban during the campaign. But the executive order, focusing on seven war-torn or hostile countries that had already been singled out for special scrutiny during the Obama administration, is manifestly not a Muslim ban.

Judge Robart may not like the Trump policy, but that doesnt mean that it is illegal or unconstitutional. His ruling is worthy of the generally unhinged opposition to President Trump. If the judge doesnt deserve the abuse that Trump heaped on him on Twitter, he produced what should rightly be considered so-called jurisprudence.
Our state needs to fix its roads.

"Wisconsin has some of the worst roads in the country," according to Craig Thompson, executive director of Transportation Development Association of Wisconsin.

Unfortunately, any responsible plan to fix them and pay for the repairs is being held hostage by our governor's personal ambitions -- to run for a third term, and perhaps to run again for president.

The reasonable solution is to raise the gas tax and perhaps raise automobile registration fees. Some Republicans in the Legislature would like to pay for road repairs this way, but Gov. Scott Walker promises he would veto such a plan. He prefers borrowing money, but there is a significant cost to that. We would end up paying more in the long run. This is irresponsible.

The purpose of any government is to collect taxes in order to provide for the common needs of the people. These needs include a good transportation system. Gov. Walker has ridiculously cut taxes so that now the state is in this situation. I recall one tax cut a few years ago that he boasted about. It cut property taxes and resulted in a savings for my family of about $5 per year. Whoopee.

Clearly, when Walker runs for office again, he wants to be able to boast that he cut taxes many times and never raised them. We need to get the roads fixed and we need to pay for this with reasonable tax and fee increases.
Skopje (AFP) - The European Union urged Macedonia on Thursday to form a new government as soon as possible, with the Balkan country mired in political stalemate following an inconclusive early election in December.

The vote was held as part of a EU-brokered deal between Macedonia's four main political parties and aimed to end a long-running crisis, but none of them secured a majority and a coalition deal has yet to be struck.

"It is important to stress that elections are not the end of the process," EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn told reporters during a two-day visit.

"The earlier there is a government in place the better it is. There is no further time to waste."

Macedonia's crisis erupted in February 2015 when a mass wiretapping scandal incited huge street protests for and against the government, forcing the EU to step in.

Former premier Nikola Gruevski stepped down a year ago after nearly a decade in power to pave the way for new elections.

His conservative VMRO-DPMNE party secured 51 seats in the 120-seat parliament -- or two more than the main opposition Social Democrats (SDSM) -- but he has failed to reach a deal with ethnic Albanian parties, who have a kingmaker role.

President Gjorge Ivanov subsequently told SDSM leader Zoran Zaev that he would be appointed prime minister-designate once he secured the support of 61 MPs.

Macedonia wants to join both NATO and the EU, but its membership has been blocked by Athens over a dispute about the country's name -- a northern region of Greece is also called Macedonia.

Ethnic Albanians make up about 25 percent of Macedonia's two million people.
Mexico City (AFP) - Mexican leftist 2018 presidential hopeful Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador plans to visit the United States on Sunday to talk with migrants and Americans about US President Donald Trump's "poisonous" rhetoric.

Lopez Obrador, who is leading in opinion polls for next year's elections, told the daily El Universal in an interview published on Thursday that Trump has shown a lack of respect for Mexico.

"This campaign -- because it is very poisonous -- of xenophobia, of causing hate, must be confronted," said the two-time presidential election runner-up.

"We, Mexicans, are being persecuted. It's all a political strategy, so I will go to the United States precisely because of this," said Lopez Obrador, who is scheduled to arrive in Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon.

"I will talk to business owners and migrants of the world, but I am also very interested in speaking with Americans."

Trump's vow to make Mexico pay for a border wall has angered Mexicans and sparked patriotic pride in America's southern neighbor.

Lopez Obrador criticized President Enrique Pena Nieto, who defeated him in the 2012 election, for inviting Trump to Mexico when the Republican billionaire was still on the White House campaign trail in August.

The leader of the National Regeneration Movement said Trump must be confronted "with respect, but firmly."

Lopez Obrador led conservative politician Margarita Zavala and Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, of the ruling party, in an election poll published by the daily Reforma late last year.

Pena Nieto is constitutionally barred from running for re-election.
MONTERREY, Mexico (AP)  Authorities in the northern Mexico say they've arrested a businessman accused in the U.S. of helping a former governor launder money.

Nuevo Leon state security spokesman Aldo Fasci Zuazua says state police investigators arrested Fernando Cano Martinez in the wealthy Monterrey suburb of San Pedro Garza Garcia on Thursday. He says Cano attempted to flee, but was apprehended after a short chase.

Fasci says Cano was turned over to the federal Attorney General's Office.

U.S. authorities allege Cano helped former Tamaulipas state Gov. Tomas Yarrington launder millions of dollars in bribes from the Gulf cartel.

U.S. prosecutors in Texas have been seeking the men's extradition since 2014. Yarrington's location is unknown, but his lawyers have denied the charges.
MARQUETTE, Mich. (AP)  A Michigan Republican has resigned after causing outrage by suggesting that protesters at University of California, Berkeley, should be shot.

Dan Adamini, secretary of the Marquette County GOP, told The Mining Journal of Marquette (http://bit.ly/2kSiN2P ) he stepped down so he isn't "a distraction and a hindrance to the work of the party."

Adamini last week tweeted: "Violent protesters who shut down free speech? Time for another Kent State perhaps. One bullet stops a lot of thuggery."

In 1970, the Ohio National Guard fatally shot four Kent State students during Vietnam War protests.

Adamini said he was calling for an end to violence after last week's student demonstration that stopped a speech by right-wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulos. Protesters broke windows and tossed smoke bombs.

Kent State officials called Adamini's posts "abhorrent."

___

Information from: The Mining Journal, http://www.miningjournal.net
By Tom Lasseter and Rupam Jain LUCKNOW, India (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised to clean up politics. The man running the ruling party's campaign in a crucial state election, who is facing 11 criminal cases, says it will take a while. "At a time of elections, one has to forget every other aspect and just focus on victory," said Keshav Prasad Maurya, as his three-vehicle convoy carrying police with automatic rifles sped through the countryside. Polls open on Saturday in Uttar Pradesh, with a population of some 220 million, and on the ground Modi's loftier aims for a new India seem far away. Maurya, the state's president for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), says the charges against him are false and politically motivated; unless he is convicted, they do not prevent him from holding office. His bosses are not concerned. An official at the prime minister's office referred questions about Maurya and his criminal cases to the BJP, where an aide to party president and Modi confidant Amit Shah said there was no problem. The charges are related to Maurya protesting on behalf of Hindu causes, said the aide, and anyone who does so "is not a criminal in the party's eyes." "Slowly," Maurya told Reuters, "the BJP will be moving towards a direction where it will only have politicians who are absolutely clean and have no cases of corruption against them." Modi stormed to power in 2014 vowing to sweep away corruption and vested interests from business and politics. Late last year, he abruptly abolished 86 percent of cash in circulation, in a bid to crush the shadow economy, force Indians to declare their wealth and empower the poor. Ahead of the world's biggest scheduled election this year in Uttar Pradesh, though, the BJP is sticking to an old formula: an elite with rap sheets and swelling bank accounts who pit religious communities and caste against each other. The party's manifesto for the state poll, for example, mixed development with a set of right wing Hindu causes likely to upset the sizeable Muslim population. WIN AT ALL COSTS? As Maurya criss-crossed Uttar Pradesh by helicopter and sport utility vehicle ahead of a month-long election, voters were doubtful of wholesale reform to the way Indian politics work. "That's not going to change  the corrupt and the criminal are able to get votes," said Rakesh Kumar Gupta, as he sold bread, cigarettes and snacks from the same cramped stand his father tended before him in Uttar Pradesh's capital, Lucknow. Ashutosh Mishra, head of the political science department at the University of Lucknow, said he saw no sign that Modi or any other major Indian politician was serious about overhauling a system he described as "feudal." "Why should they? They are enjoying the perks of power, they are living the lives of modern gods," Mishra said. The biggest of five state polls held in India this spring points to a central dilemma for Modi. If he loses the poll in Uttar Pradesh, he risks dissent in the ranks of his support base and a weaker position for his bid for re-election in 2019. But analysts say that if Modi wins through divisive politics driven by men with controversial backgrounds, it undermines his populist narrative of a rising India. Also at stake in Uttar Pradesh is the number of seats Modi controls in the upper parliamentary chamber, where the opposition has managed to delay some economic reforms. HUMBLE ROOTS Maurya's career bears a resemblance to that of the prime minister. Both are from poor families and as young men helped their fathers sell cups of tea. Each rose to prominence through the ranks of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a powerful Hindu nationalist umbrella group that helped create the ruling party. Unlike Modi, though, Maurya's criminal docket and wallet have expanded in recent years. In 2007, when he ran for office in the state legislature in Uttar Pradesh, he had four criminal cases pending and some 13.6 million rupees (about $200,000 at current rates) in assets, according to his election filings. In 2014, as he campaigned successfully for a seat in the lower house of India's parliament, Maurya faced 11 cases and declared 93.2 million rupees in assets. Maurya blamed rival politicians for the criminal cases lodged against him. Asked how his declared assets rose so rapidly - nearly sevenfold in seven years to more than $1.3 million, in a state where average annual per capita earnings are less than $750 - he replied: "My assets are very small, I don't have too much." The combination of wealth and criminal charges have a close correlation with election success in India, data show. During the last Uttar Pradesh state polls, in 2012, those with criminal cases made up some 20 percent of candidates but almost 50 percent of winners, according to the Association for Democratic Reforms, a Delhi-based advocacy group that examines candidate disclosure forms. The margin was even wider for those with declared assets of at least 10 million rupees (about $150,000)  20 percent of candidates and 67 percent of winners. The figures partly reflect wealthy candidates' ability to spend on campaigns, although the gap between their earnings and that of ordinary voters in India is eyecatching. PLUS CA CHANGE The BJP is not the only party with an imperfect image in the forthcoming poll. Juhie Singh, spokeswoman for the Samajwadi Party, a main competitor to the BJP, said her party sought to winnow people from its candidate list who had been named in criminal cases. "But ultimately the win-ability criteria does take over these things," Singh said. "It's still not such a mature democracy where we can completely discount it." Singh herself is a defendant in a public corruption case that relates mainly to her father. "I'm just a lateral entry into the whole case," she said. Meanwhile, haggling for seats at the political high table goes on unchecked, in scenes that have played out for decades in India's rough-and-tumble elections. Pulling up to the state headquarters of the BJP in Lucknow on a recent morning, Maurya was greeted by a crowd of angry party supporters demanding to know why their candidates had not been given a slot to run for the state legislature. Police pushed them aside to make way for Maurya's gleaming white SUV and clanged the gates shut. After Maurya walked into the building, a guard slammed the front door closed and slapped a lock on it. "Let them in two at a time, no more than that," Maurya told an aide as he settled behind his desk, flanked by police. Outside, amid the cries of insults and threats directed at Maurya, a man shouted, "You are a dictator! This is our party too! Let us in!" Maurya met three sets of protesters before saying he had other business he needed to attend to. With that, Maurya, who like Modi speaks passionately about bringing a different brand of politics to the people, retired with a group of BJP leaders to an inner courtyard. A metal fence closed behind them. For graphic on Indian state elections, click http://tmsnrt.rs/2eIWO8W For graphic on Uttar Pradesh elections, click http://tmsnrt.rs/2lpDML2 For graphic on wealth, criminal charges and election success, click http://tmsnrt.rs/2ksaCXn (Writing by Tom Lasseter; Editing by Mike Collett-White)
Mexico City (AFP) - The monarch butterfly population dropped by a quarter in its Mexican wintering grounds this season and US President Donald Trump's planned wall could affect its migration from Canada, Mexican authorities said Thursday.

The orange and black butterfly covered 2.91 hectares (7.2 acres) of pine and fir forest in the 2016-2017 season, compared to 4.01 hectares the previous year, a 27.4 percent decline, the government said.

The monarch population is estimated by the area of forest it occupies in the states of Mexico and Michoacan, where it overwinters.

Last year, cold fronts and snow slammed 100 hectares of woods in the central mountains where the butterfly spends the winter months after traveling 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) across Canada and the United States.

"The causes for this drop are mainly the extreme climate events," Alejandro Del Mazo, Mexico's commissioner for protected areas, said at a news conference.

"There were deaths of monarch butterflies in the previous season, and this, without a doubt, is one of the main causes for the reduction" this year, Del Mazo said.

The butterfly's population had rebounded last year, but some seven percent were killed in a storm in March, around the time they make their journey back across the United States.

Del Mazo warned that the butterfly's survival could be threatened by the massive wall that Trump says he plans to build across the 3,000-kilometer border.

The barrier could change the natural markers that guide the insect across the border, he said.

"Without a doubt, fragmenting the habitats and maybe causing changes to the tributaries and rivers that we share with the United States could have an impact," Del Mazo said.

"Along its route, this insect also needs to identify refuges, climate events and water that, if altered, could have some impact, but it's very early to say," he cautioned.

The monarch has been threatened by illegal logging in its Mexican habitat and the use of herbicides in fields of milkweed -- the plant that it feeds on when in caterpillar form -- in the United States and Canada.

Mexico's government has deployed a special police unit in the mountains to find illegal sawmills.
Moscow (AFP) - Russia's foreign ministry on Thursday condemned as a fabrication an Amnesty International report alleging up to 13,000 people were hanged in a Syrian government jail.

Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told journalists the report was "a false story that does not correspond to reality" and "a fake."

The damning report released Tuesday details mass hangings at one of Syria's largest detention centres near Damascus between 2011 and 2015.

Russia has backed long-time ally President Bashar al-Assad throughout the Syrian conflict and launched a bombing campaign in support of his regime in September 2015.

"This is yet another targeted act of provocation aimed at pouring oil on the fire of the dying-down conflict within Syria," she said.

The Syrian justice ministry has already dismissed the Amnesty report as "completely false" and intended to damage the country's reputation at international forums.

Zakharova rebuked Amnesty for publishing figures that she said were "the result of mathematical calculations on the basis of testimony of unnamed people."

"The leadership of this respected NGO should take a more serious approach to these extremely dangerous fantasies of its Lebanon subsidiary," Zakharova added.
Los Angeles (AFP) - The estate of Prince, who long battled the music industry, announced a deal Thursday with the world's largest label group Universal to release much of the pop icon's vast catalog.

Under the deal, Universal gained rights to the fabled vault of unreleased music that Prince kept in his Paisley Park estate in Minnesota where he died in April.

Universal is also taking control of 25 albums that Prince released on his own NPG Records imprint from the mid-1990s, when he wrote "slave" on his cheek and changed his name to the unpronounceable "love symbol" to fight his contract with Warner Brothers.

Universal said, without further detail, that it will obtain rights in the United States to "certain renowned Prince albums from 1979 to 1995" -- the star's emblematic era when he topped the charts with "Purple Rain" and other works.

The deal for the early catalog would mark a major blow to Universal's rival Warner, which had reconciled with Prince in 2014.

Warner had already announced that it will reissue "Purple Rain" accompanied by a full second album worth of unreleased material.

"Prince was one of the greatest musical talents of all time -- an incomparable genius as a performer, recording artist and songwriter," Lucian Grainge, the chairman and chief executive of Universal Music Group, said in a statement which did not disclose the deal's value.

L. Londell McMillan, the star's longtime lawyer who represented the estate, voiced confidence that Universal -- which earlier reached a separate deal for Prince's songwriting rights -- was "passionate about presenting Prince's music with a holistic vision that celebrates his iconic status."

Prince died at age 57 from an accidental overdose of powerful painkillers. He did not leave a will or have children, throwing his estate into confusion.

His estate also appears to have sealed deals to bring Prince's music to major streaming sites such as Spotify, which has been running advertisements ahead of Sunday's Grammy Awards in the color purple.

Prince was a staunch critic of labels and later the internet, describing corporations as putting artists into virtual slavery.

He only streamed his music on rap mogul Jay Z's upstart Tidal service, which he credited with giving him wide artistic freedom.
MADRID (Reuters) - Rafael Nadal has withdrawn from next week's Rotterdam Open after being advised by doctors to rest, he said on Thursday. The Spanish world number six, who lost in five sets to old rival Roger Federer in the Australian Open final last month, was left out of Spain's Davis Cup squad for their World Group first-round tie against Croatia last weekend due to fatigue. "I am very sorry to announce I won't be able to play in Rotterdam next week," Nadal said on Twitter. "After last year's absence from some tournaments, I started this season well and made a significant effort during the Australian swing," he added. "It's because of this that my doctors have strongly advised me to take it easy and give enough rest to my body before competing again to avoid further injuries. I fully understand that the Dutch fans will be disappointed." A wrist injury cut short Nadal's season in 2016. (Reporting by Adriana Garcia, editing by Ed Osmond)
Brussels (AFP) - All 28 NATO allies fully support Ukraine as it faces the worst upsurge in fighting against pro-Russian rebels in two years, alliance deputy head Rose Gottemoeller said Thursday.

US President Donald Trump has stoked concerns in NATO and Europe by dubbing the alliance "obsolete" and taking a softer stance on Russia, in marked contrast to his predecessor.

"There was unanimity around the NATO-Ukraine Council table, strong support from all allies for Ukraine," she told reporters after talks with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

The US-led alliance had stood by Ukraine since "Russian aggressive actions" began in 2014 and it would not recognise the illegal annexation of Crimea early that year, she said.

The recent fighting was the worst in two years, with OSCE monitors reporting more than 10,000 violations of the Minsk ceasefire accords on one day, she said.

"We are deeply concerned by the recent spike in violence... We must not accept this as the new normal," she said, urging all parties and especially Russia to honour their commitments to the Minsk deal.

Trump told Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko last week in a telephone call that he would work with both Kiev and Moscow to end the conflict, but fears persist he might prefer to deal directly with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Gottemoeller, a former US under-secretary of state who was nominated for the NATO post last year by then-president Barack Obama, stressed NATO's full support.

Groysman said the whole world was aware of "Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine... we value highly the unanimous support of all the allies."

Asked about possible policy changes under Trump, Groysman said he had no concerns.

"I am sure that the new president... will always fight for democracy and democratic values," he said.

"I believe the United States will always support justice and justice is on the side of Ukraine."
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Washington (AFP) - The US general commanding NATO forces in Afghanistan warned Thursday that he needs thousands more troops and accused Russia of seeking to prop up the Taliban rebels.

US-led forces have been fighting in Afghanistan for 16 years, making it already America's longest-ever war, but General John Nicholson told Congress: "I believe we're in a stalemate."

The question of whether to double down in the seemingly endless conflict will now become one of the first major military strategy questions of President Donald Trump's term.

Trump has not laid out any detailed new strategy for Afghanistan in his first weeks in office, but during the campaign, he reluctantly accepted that US troops would remain.

And last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had suggested in a call to Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani that he would consider sending more soldiers. The pair spoke again on Thursday.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump would seek the advice of Defense Secretary James Mattis before deciding on Nicholson's request for reinforcements.

"I think the president will heed the advice of the generals and Secretary Mattis. That conversation has yet to happen," he said.

Testifying before the US Senate Armed Services Committee, Nicholson said he has a "shortfall of a few thousand" troops needed to train, advise and assist Afghan government forces.

The NATO alliance has 13,300 troops in Afghanistan, about half of them American, assisting a much larger Afghan force in a war against the Taliban and other Islamist militants.

- Afghan casualties -

Afghan government police and armed forces now take the lead in the battle against the Taliban, which was forced from power in Kabul after the 2001 US-led invasion.

US battlefield deaths are relatively rare since the transfer of primary responsibility to Afghan forces.

But the Afghans are facing mounting casualties -- their losses in 2016 were up by a third over 2015, with 6,785 killed in the first 10 months of the year -- and losing ground.

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Last year was also particularly deadly for Afghan civilians. A UN report found that 11,500 were killed or injured in 2016, the most since it began keeping records in 2009.

Nicholson told the committee that having more US and allied troops would allow him to train and advise Afghan units down to a brigade level and in ministries in Kabul.

The general said he was discussing the request for reinforcements with his own chain of command and that Mattis would talk to the NATO allies.

The Senate panel, led by hawkish committee chairman John McCain, were also keen to hear more about the alleged malign influence of Russia and Iran in the Afghan conflict.

Trump has repeatedly said he hopes to mend ties with Russia's President Vladimir Putin so that Russia and the United States can work together against "radical Islamic terror."

But, according to Nicholson, Russia is instead giving the Taliban encouragement and diplomatic cover in order to undermine American influence and to defeat NATO.

The general told the senators that Russia was trying to "legitimize" the Taliban by promoting a "false narrative" that the rebels are fighting the Islamic State group.

Russia has, for example, invited Taliban leaders to Moscow for talks with the involvement of Ghani's government, undermining efforts to build an Afghan-led peace process.

"When we look at Russia and Iranian actions in Afghanistan, I believe that in part they're to undermine the United States and NATO," Nicholson said.

In Moscow, meanwhile, a senior Russian official cautioned against any reduction in foreign forces in Afghanistan.

"This is not the right time to withdraw foreign soldiers from Afghanistan, including American soldiers," Zamir Kabulov, the Kremlin's special envoy for Afghanistan, told the state news agency TASS.

"The security situation in the country is worsening, and the Afghan forces are unable to resist the armed opposition by themselves."

Kabulov said there were around 15,000 "extremists" in northern Afghanistan, with "the risk that these fighters could try to expand into territory in neighbouring countries in Central Asia."

He reiterated that Russia was willing to cooperate with the United States and NATO members in Afghanistan.

Russia fought its own nine-year war in Afghanistan in the 1980s as the Soviet Union.

It announced on Tuesday that it plans to host a conference of regional powers.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow would invite representatives from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, Iran and India and insisted the Taliban must be included in peace talks.
(WASHINGTON)  More than 12.2 million people have signed up for coverage nationwide this year under the Obama-era health care law even with the uncertainty created by President Donald Trumps vow to repeal and replace it.

A count by The Associated Press shows that many consumers returned to the program despite its problems. Aside from the political turmoil, those difficulties include a spike in premiums, rising deductibles and dwindling choice of insurers.

Although initial enrollment is about 4 percent lower than last year, the sizable number of sign-ups illustrates the risk Republicans face as they begin moving to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and put in its place a yet-to-be-defined conservative approach.

APs analysis showed that a clear majority of those enrolled  nearly 64 percent  live in states that Trump carried in November.

If they are going to replace it, it had better be as good or better than what is there, and if its not I think its going to cost them, said John Chipman, a drummer from Austin, Texas, whos also covering his wife and their two children.

This year the family scaled back from a silver plan to bronze to avoid a big premium increase. But without the health law, Chipman says he and his wife would probably be turned down for health insurance because of pre-existing medical conditions.

The federal Health and Human Services Department reported last week that 9.2 million people signed up in the 39 states served by the HealthCare.gov website, which offers subsidized private health insurance to people who dont have job-based coverage.

AP checked with the remaining 11 states, and Washington, D.C., and found an additional 3 million enrolled, for a national total of 12.2 million. A full national report from the government wont be available for at least another month.

Under the health care law, the nations uninsured rate has fallen to a historic low of about 9 percent, with some 20 million people gaining coverage since its passage in 2010. In addition to the subsidized private plans available through HealthCare.gov and state marketplaces, the law offers states the option of extending Medicaid to cover more low-income adults.

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Republicans say this years enrollment numbers do not equate to a success story for former President Barack Obamas signature domestic legislation.

To begin with, the numbers are well short of the 13.8 million people that the Obama administration had hoped to sign up. Also, the public health insurance markets usually see high attrition as the year goes on, with about 1 in 5 customers eventually dropping out. Some customers dont even bother to pay their first months premium.

Its clear overall enrollment numbers are trending downward for Obamacare over last year, no doubt due to the laws unpopular mandates and high costs, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said in a statement. Republicans are committed to establishing a responsible transition phase to ensure as much stability as possible for consumers who purchased insurance.

A Trump administration spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

One state  Minnesota  took extraordinary measures to keep residents insured. The state has seen premium increases averaging from 50 percent to 67 percent, and lawmakers used $312 million in rainy day funds to buy down monthly rates for consumers who dont get federal subsidies. Since most health law customers already get federal assistance, the bulk of the state money is going to residents who purchase plans outside the government-sponsored marketplace.

Supporters of the health care law say the political uncertainty about its future probably kept many people from signing up.

We heard from consumers saying they thought Obamacare had ended with President Obamas administration, said Elizabeth Colvin, who heads the health care sign-up program at Foundation Communities, an Austin nonprofit serving low-income working people. Some consumers said, Why bother if its going to go away?'

Although Colvin said the confusion made it harder to reach consumers, her program signed up some 4,000 people, or about 6 percent more than last year.

These numbers demonstrate that theres a demand for this insurance, and that people see value in the financial protection that comes from health insurance and the access it gives you to health care, she said.

Vincent Daley, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, works three jobs but none of them offers insurance. He signed up during open enrollment after missing last years. Insurance was extremely important because I had been through an accident before playing rugby, he said.

APs national tally of sign-ups comes as the Senate is moving to confirm Georgia congressman Tom Price as the nations next health secretary. Price, an orthopedic surgeon-turned-legislator, has authored his own plan to repeal and replace the Obama health law.

In confirmation hearings, he told senators that the new administration does not want to pull the rug out from people who now have coverage, and he all but acknowledged that theres no Trump replacement plan ready to roll out.

Independent analyst Caroline Pearson of the consulting firm Avalere Health said without the full support of the new administration, insurance markets will continue to struggle. Insurer participation in 2018 remains uncertain, and some regions are at risk of having no participating plan, she said.
By Ernest Scheyder and Terray Sylvester HOUSTON/CANNON BALL, N.D. (Reuters) - The leader of a Native American tribe attempting to block the Dakota Access oil pipeline said on Wednesday the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe may have exhausted legal options to stop the project after the company building it won federal permission to tunnel under the Missouri River. Legal experts agreed the tribe faces long odds in convincing any court to halt the $3.8 billion project led by Energy Transfer Partners LP, which could now begin operation as soon as June. The U.S. Army said on Wednesday it had granted the final permit for the pipeline after an order from President Donald Trump to expedite the project. The army owns the land through its Corps of Engineers. "We're running out of options, but that doesn't mean that it's over," David Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, told Reuters in a telephone interview. "We're still going to continue to look at all legal options available to us." Native American tribes and climate activists have vowed to fight the pipeline, fearing it will desecrate sacred sites and endanger drinking water. Supporters say the pipeline is safer than rail or trucks to transport the oil. The 1,170-mile (1,885-km) line will move crude from the shale oilfields of North Dakota to Illinois en route to the Gulf of Mexico, where many U.S. refineries are located. Public opposition has drawn thousands of people to the North Dakota plains, including high-profile political and celebrity supporters. Large protest camps popped up near the site, leading to several violent clashes and some 600 arrests. The opposition sensed victory last year when the administration of President Barack Obama, a Democrat, delayed completion of the pipeline pending a review of tribal concerns and in December ordered an environmental study. But those fortunes were reversed after Trump, a Republican, took office on Jan. 20. Trump issued an order on Jan. 24 to expedite both the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) and to revive another multibillion-dollar oil artery, Keystone XL. The Obama administration had blocked that project in 2015. On Wednesday, some 350 people converged in lower Manhattan, hoisting signs such as "Water is Life," "Dump Trump" and "Respect Native Sovereignty." "This isn't just a Native American problem, this isn't just an issue over race, this goes way beyond that," said Matene Strikefirst, who said he is a member of the tribe of Ojibwe and Dakota. "We need to get over our dependence on fossil fuels; we need to ensure drinking water for everyone." Another 100 gathered near the White House, denouncing Trump. "We know there is going to be bloodshed," said Eryn Wise, spokeswoman for the International Indigenous Youth Council. "This is cultural genocide," said Linda Black Elk, a resident of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. BIG HURDLE In a court filing on Tuesday, the Army said it would allow the final section of the DAPL to tunnel under Lake Oahe, part of the Missouri River system. The permit was the last bureaucratic hurdle to the pipeline's completion. The tribe said on Wednesday it would attempt to use a "legal battle and temporary restraining order" to shut down pipeline operations. But Wayne D'Angelo, an energy and environmental lawyer with Kelley Drye & Warren in Washington, said he believed the Trump administration was on "pretty solid legal ground." The tribe would have to prove a very difficult standard: that approval for the pipeline was "arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion or inconsistent with the record before the agency," D'Angelo said. The protest camps dwindled after the Obama administration ordered the environmental review in December as the tribe urged people to leave due to concerns about trash buildup in a flood plain. But a few holdouts have remained, including some who braved temperatures of minus 9 Fahrenheit (minus 23 C) on Wednesday. (Additional reporting by Brendan Pierson and Tina Bellon in New York and Tom Ramstack in Washington; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Leslie Adler)
President Trumps attacks on the federal appellate judges considering a constitutional challenge to his immigration banhe called the proceedings disgraceful and the courts so politicalhas provoked widespread condemnation from across the political spectrum. Even Judge Neil Gorsuch, Trumps Supreme Court nominee, said the criticisms were demoralizing and disheartening.

Some might look for a historical precedent for Trumps attacks in the alleged comments of Trumps hero Andrew Jackson, who criticized Chief Justice John Marshalls decision in a case involving the Cherokee Indians. John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it, the former president allegedly said. In fact, Jackson, whose portrait hangs in Trumps office, provides no historical support for Trumps unprecedented personal assault on the motives of judges evaluating the constitutionality of his executive orders. Jackson criticized Marshall on constitutional, rather than political, terms, and he ultimately required Congress and the states to acknowledge the Supreme Courts authority to interpret the Constitution, rather than threaten to disregard it.

Jacksons constitutional clashes with Marshall were precipitated by the most important constitutional clash of the early republic, involving the Bank of the United States. At Alexander Hamiltons urging, Congress established the First National Bank of the United States in 1791 and the Second National Bank in 1816. States, who feared competition with their own banks, insisted that the National Bank violated principles of federalism and exceeded Congresss power to regulate interstate commerce.

In McCulloch v. Maryland in 1819, Marshall interpreted Congresss powers in the Hamiltonian spirit, rejecting Jeffersons views that the states were sovereign governments who could tax the bank and substitute their own constitutional views for those of Congress. Instead of attacking Marshall directly, Jefferson wrote a private letter the following year complaining that the judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric. He also endorsed attacks on McCulloch by radical partisans of states rights, insisting that the Supreme Court had no authority to review the constitutionality of state laws. Later, Jefferson seemed to deny the power of the Supreme Court to bind the other branches with its interpretations of the Constitution. But although Jefferson detested his distant cousin and archrival Marshall, and criticized him vividly in private as a sophist, he did not attack his motives in public or defy his decisions.

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The constitutionality of the bank of the United States provoked an even more explosive conflict between Marshall and Jeffersons populist successor, Andrew Jackson. After he became president, Jackson resurrected Jeffersons interpretation of limited federal power in vetoing a request to renew the banks charter in 1832, the first veto in American history on constitutional grounds. In his veto message, Jackson described his disagreement with the McCulloch decision and insisted that the Court wasnt necessarily the final arbiter of the Constitution because the president and Congress could reach their own interpretations. It is as much the duty of the House of Representatives, of the Senate, and of the president to decide upon the constitutionality of any bill or resolution which may be presented to them for passage or approval as it is of the supreme judges when it may be brought before them for judicial decision, Jackson wrote. The opinion of the judges has no more authority over Congress than the opinion of Congress has over the judges, and on that point the president is independent of both. The authority of the Supreme Court must not, therefore, be permitted to control the Congress or the Executive when acting in their legislative capacities, but to have only such influence as the force of their reasoning may deserve.

Jackson didnt question Marshalls motives or call him a politician in robes.

Jackson then transferred one treasury secretary and fired another in order to remove federal deposits from the bank in the face of congressional disapproval. Jacksons actions were legally questionable, although not clearly illegal, and the Senate censured him in 1834 because it lacked sufficient support for impeachment. Three years later, Democrats regained the majority in the Senate and removed the notation of censure. But the same year, a spending spree by the state banks, which were bloated by federal deposits, caused a financial crash that eventually drove the Democrats from power.

Whats notable about Jacksons fight with Marshall over the bank is that it was fought entirely on constitutional, rather than personal, terms. Jackson didnt question Marshalls motives or call him a politician in robes. This reflected the fact that Jackson, unlike Trump, was a trained lawyer and former judge with a clear constitutional vision, having served on the Tennessee Supreme Court from 1798 to 1804.

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The same sensitivity to constitutional roles suffused Jacksons most famous conflict with Marshall. In the Cherokee Indians case, Worcester v. Georgia in 1832, Jackson was livid at Marshalls ruling that Georgia state laws seizing Cherokee lands violated federal treaties and laws. Georgia had jailed two missionaries for refusing to obey these anti-Cherokee laws and had sentenced them to hard labor. In a 5 to 1 decision, Marshall held that Georgia laws used to seize Cherokee lands violated federal law and treaties. The Cherokee nation, then, is a distinct community occupying its own territory in which the laws of Georgia can have no force, he wrote. The whole intercourse between the United States and this nation, is, by our constitution and laws, vested in the government of the United States. After Marshall handed down the decision, Justice Joseph Story said: The Court has done its duty. Let the nation now do theirs.

When Marshall died, Jackson hailed his former adversary as a national hero.

Jackson, who had built his career on expanding American territory into Native American lands, privately sided with Georgia but publicly remained silent. As historian Jon Meacham notes in his biography of Jackson, American Lion, the presidents foe and election rival Henry Clay was unsettled by Jacksons silence. Writing in March 1832, he said: The consequences of the recent decision of the Supreme Court must be very great. If it be resisted, and the president refuses to enforce it, there is virtual dissolution of the union. For it will be in vain to consider it as existing if a single state can put aside the laws and treaties of the U.S. and when their authority is vindicated by a decision of the S. Court, the president will not perform his duty to enforce it.

Jackson is famous for having privately remarked, according to the celebrated editor Horace Greely, that John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it. But his actual remark, to his ally John Coffee, seems to have been: The decision of the Supreme Court has fell still born ... and they find that it cannot coerce Georgia to yield to its mandate. Unlike Jackson, Georgia tried openly to defy Marshall, passing a law declaring that anyone who came to Georgia to enforce the Supreme Court ruling would be hanged. Jackson, who had no desire to threaten Georgia with federal forces or openly challenge the Supreme Court, solved the problem deftly by convincing the governor of Georgia to set the missionaries free. The Supreme Court never had to issue an order requiring compliance and the crisis was defused. As a relieved Chief Justice Marshall wrote to Justice Story: Imitating the Quaker who said the dog he wished to destroy was mad, they said Andrew Jackson had become a federalist, even an ultra-federalist. To have said he was ready to break down and trample on every other department of the government would not have injured him, but to say that he was a federalista convert to the opinions of Washington, was a mortal blow under which he is yet staggering.

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The Georgia crisis provoked Jackson openly to embrace federal authority in a way he had previously resisted. Georgias intransigence spurred other states to try to nullify federal laws, leaving Jackson with no choice but to ask Congress to authorize the executive to use the military to enforce the Supreme Courts rulings. In 1832, South Carolina asserted its power to nullify federal laws it rejected. Jackson defended the Court, issuing a proclamation emphasizing that its decisions had to be obeyed. And when Marshall died three years later, Jackson hailed his former adversary as a national hero:

I sometimes dissented from the constitutional expositions of John Marshall, I have always set a high value upon the good he has done for his country. The judicial opinions of John Marshall were expressed with the energy [and clarity,] which were peculiar to his strong mind, and give him a rank among the greatest men of his age.

In other words, nothing in Jacksons constitutional legacy compares with President Trumps attempts to malign the motives of individual judges or to suggest they are merely politicians in robes. On the contrary, Jackson challenged the Supreme Court on constitutional, rather than political, grounds, insisting on his own power to interpret the Constitution in ways that differed from Chief Justice Marshall, but ultimately avoiding a direct conflict with the Supreme Court and requiring Congress and the states to accept the authority of federal judges to expound the Constitution. For this reason, Jacksonlike other presidents who clashed with the Supreme Court, including Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Harry Trumanpreserved and acknowledged the independence of the judiciary and encouraged citizens to respect it.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Oprah Winfrey will take a cruise this summer in a place she's never been before: Alaska.

The trip launches a partnership between O, The Oprah Magazine, and Holland America Line, according to an announcement Thursday by the cruise company and Hearst magazines.

The partnership will include programming for 300 Holland America cruises developed in collaboration with O magazine. Onboard activities designed to "bring the magazine to life" will include meditation, tai chi, healthy cooking demonstrations, a book club and more.

The cruises will take place this year and next year in North America and the Caribbean. Four trips will feature appearances by members of the "SuperSoul 100," a group of entrepreneurs, authors, artists and others deemed inspirational by Winfrey.

The inaugural Alaska trip on Holland America's Eurodam ship will embark from Seattle July 15 and will visit Alaskan ports in Juneau, Sitka and Ketchikan. The itinerary also includes a day of scenic cruising through Glacier Bay National Park and a stop in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, before returning to Seattle July 22. Berths in interior cabins for the trip begin at $1,999 per person plus taxes and other fees.

Winfrey will be onboard for part of the trip. Also scheduled to join the trip is Gayle King, O magazine's editor at large. The magazine is holding a contest awarding three readers passage on the ship.
JERUSALEM (AP)  An official says the Palestinian intelligence chief has met with U.S. security officials in the first meetings between the Palestinians and the Trump administration.

The official said on Thursday that Majed Faraj met with U.S. security and intelligence officials in Washington over the past two days. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with protocol.

The Palestinian leadership has tried unsuccessfully to reach out to President Donald Trump and feared the possibility of being sidelined as the administration is embracing Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who heads to the White House next week.

A strong relationship with the United States has been key to the Palestinian strategy for statehood. The U.S. has served as sole broker in two decades of intermittent talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
Jerusalem (AFP) - Six people were wounded Thursday when a Palestinian man stabbed and shot at market-goers in central Israel, police said.

The attack in the city of Petah Tikva, outside Tel Aviv, was carried out by a Palestinian assailant, police said, calling it a "terrorist" incident.

Police said initial indications were the attacker, 19, was from the Nablus governorate in the north of the occupied West Bank.

The man was arrested uninjured while still carrying the gun, they added.

The wounded were taken to hospital, with none of their injuries described as life threatening.

The attack was reminiscent of a far bloodier one in June 2016 in which four people died during a shooting at a popular Tel Aviv market.

A police spokesman said in a video from the scene that the assailant opened fire seemingly at random before stopping and running away.

He was then pursued by civilians who succeeded in "neutralising" him.

"Police arrived very quickly and took his weapon from him," the spokesman said.

The Magen David Adom medical agency said in a statement it treated three people with bullet wounds and a man who was stabbed in his upper body.

An MDA medic described the scene upon arrival as "chaos," while a police video showed a bus with a single bullet hole in its windscreen.

The United Hatzalah medical group said another man was beaten by the crowd who had apparently mistaken him for the attacker.

Last month four Israeli soldiers died after being run over by a truck in Jerusalem.

Since a wave of violence broke out in October 2015, more than 250 Palestinians, 41 Israelis, two Americans, a Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese have died.

Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks, according to Israeli authorities, with others were killed during protests, in clashes or Israeli air raids on Gaza.

The rate of attacks has declined significantly in recent months.
PETAH TIKVA, Israel (Reuters) - A Palestinian man opened fire in an Israeli market on Thursday, injuring four people, before being arrested by police, Israeli authorities said. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the man from the West Bank opened fire with an automatic weapon in the city of Petah Tikva, 10 km (six miles) east of Tel Aviv. He shot two people in the legs and two others were also injured. "The terrorist was captured," he said. "We're trying to understand how he arrived in the area." A wave of Palestinian street attacks, including vehicle rammings, shootings and stabbings, began in October 2015 and has slowed but not stopped completely. Israel blames the violence on incitement by the Palestinian leadership. The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank, denies that and says assailants have acted out of frustration over Israeli occupation of land sought by Palestinians in peace talks that have been stalled since 2014. (Reporting by Rami Amichai and Ari Rabinovitch; editing by Andrew Roche)
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi addresses the opening news conference during the House Democratic caucus Issues Conference on Feb. 8, 2017, in Baltimore, Md. (Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

BALTIMORE  Talking with reporters during a policy retreat for Democratic House members, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., tamped down reports of disunity in the party, saying her caucus is united in its plan to win back the House in 2018.

Asked by a reporter why some of her progressive colleagues had reportedly walked out of a meeting hosted by the centrist think tank Third Way at the retreat Wednesday, Pelosi answered, I didnt notice that.

Members walk out for a variety of reasons, some of them relate to personal hygiene, she joked.

The reporter pressed on, asking if Pelosi was denying real divisions within her party.

Yeah, thats what Im saying, Pelosi insisted.

A political party has to accommodate differences, or else wed all be teeny-tiny political parties, and we could meet in this room for the rest of our time, she said, indicating the small hotel meeting room where she was meeting with reporters. She claimed that unlike Republicans, Democrats dont have a party orthodoxy.

But the retreat betrayed signs of discord over the best way forward for the party, which is still reeling from Novembers stunning defeat.

Some progressive members think that embracing a Sen. Bernie Sanders-style populism that feeds on the grassroots energy demonstrated in the Womens March and other protests will lead to victory. Others are looking to appeal to swing voters by learning lessons from members of Congress who were able to hold onto their seats in districts that voted for Trump in November.

Rep. Cheri Bustos of Illinois, who is now co-leading the House Democrats messaging and policy operation, is one who survived. She defended her seat in a largely rural northern Illinois district that swung decisively for Trump.

As Democrats, we can relate to folks who tried Trump, Bustos told reporters Thursday. I believe it was people trying Trump because theyre concerned about their wages not going up for so long.

She urged fellow Democrats to reach out to those voters and advised them not to talk down to them.

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The message here is that Democrats are authentic, added Rep. Joe Crowley of New York. Cheri Bustos is the real deal. She lives in rural Illinois  she understands what makes Americans tick.

But its unclear if messaging to Trump voters will sit well with the Democratic base, which has taken to the streets to protest the new presidents executive order on immigration and to pressure Democratic lawmakers to block his Cabinet and agenda.

Rep. Marcia Fudge of Ohio told reporters she was wary of focusing solely on an economic message aimed at voters whom Trump won over in 2016, because, in her view, Trump did not win on an economic message. What Donald Trump did was address them at a very different level  an emotional level, a racial level, a fear level, she said. If all we talk about is the economic message, were not going to win.

Still, nearly all the speakers suggested that while Trumps unpopularity so far could be a boon to them in 2018, they realize they cannot simply run against the president and expect to win back the House.

President Trump is a better recruitment tool for us than a central campaign issue, said Washington Rep. Denny Heck, who is leading recruitment for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).

Democrats are zeroing in on 23 seats held by Republicans in districts that voted for Hillary Clinton in November, as well as 10 more Republican seats in districts where she lost by only a few points. Massachusetts Rep. Katherine Clark, who is vice chair of recruitment for the DCCC, said she has spoken to more than 40 potential Democratic candidates, many of them veterans, who want to challenge Republican incumbents in these districts in 2018.

An early test for the grassroots energy in the party will be the four Republican House seats that are being vacated by Trumps Cabinet picks, including Rep. Tom Price of Georgia. In Georgia, theres already an incredible amount of energy beginning to coalesce around the candidate down there, said Heck, referring to former congressional aide Jon Ossoff.

Read more from Yahoo News:
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP)  Penn State has indefinitely halted fraternity and sorority parties where alcohol is available because of a student's recent death and what the school calls growing allegations of hazing, sexual assault and other misconduct.

The university announced Wednesday that Damon Sims, its vice president for student affairs, and the Penn State Interfraternity Council acted jointly to stop all alcohol-related social activities "until further notice."

The decision followed the death Saturday of Timothy Piazza, 19, of Lebanon, New Jersey.

Investigators said Beta Theta Pi fraternity members told them Piazza, a sophomore, was intoxicated when Piazza fell down a stairwell during a party late Thursday night.

Police said members of the fraternity didn't call for help until about 12 hours later. The fraternity has been suspended.

Penn State said Sims told fraternity leaders the moratorium will remain until they agree to change their policies and practices.

The alcohol moratorium at the privately owned chapter houses on the main campus in State College will be enforced by spot checks of public areas by university officials and the Interfraternity Council.
LIMA, Peru (AP)  Peru's government says it will present to the opposition-dominated legislature a plan to legalize the medical use of marijuana "for the treatment of serious and terminal illnesses."

President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski's administration said Wednesday the plan was developed after police raided a house in a Lima neighborhood where a group of parents grew marijuana to make oil for treating their children suffering from epilepsy and other diseases.

Officials say that trafficking and use of marijuana for other purposes would remain a crime under the proposal.

Aida Farfan belongs to the parent group that was raising marijuana and said it has more than 80 members whose sick children benefited from the medicinal properties of marijuana. She says the group petitioned lawmakers for years trying to get those uses legalized.
Oslo (AFP) - The youth wing of Norway's Labour Party proposed Thursday to move the location of a controversial memorial for the victims of Anders Behring Breivik's 2011 massacre after local residents sued the state.

The planned memorial, entitled "Memory Wound", would see a wide slit cut into a strip of land near the island of Utoya where most of Breivik's 77 victims were killed.

But about 20 locals, some of whom helped save lives during the massacre, sued the state in June to block the project, arguing it would harm the local community and landscape.

They see the planned memorial as too invasive and too close to their homes.

Now, the Labour Party's youth wing and a support group for the victims' families have proposed moving the location in a bid to avoid a legal battle.

"We ... feel that we cannot stay on the sidelines and watch a difficult process become even more difficult by entering into a humiliating and unworthy trial," Mani Hussaini said at a press conference held at the new proposed location, on the shores of Tyrifjorden lake where the ferry departs for Utoya.

The new location is just a few hundred metres (yards) away from the original one.

Norway's Minister of Communal Affairs and Modernisation, Jan Tore Sanner, said the state would consider the proposal.

But residents said they may also reject the second location.

"Off the bat, we can't say that this is a good solution," Jorn Overby told Norwegian television, though he said locals were willing to have a dialogue with authorities.

Utoya was the scene of Breivik's gun rampage on July 22, 2011. He spent more than an hour shooting at hundreds of people gathered for a summer camp organised by the Labour Party's youth wing, killing 69 of them.

He had earlier killed eight others by blowing up a bomb outside a government building in Oslo.

The 37-year-old right-wing extremist is serving a 21-year prison sentence that can be extended indefinitely.
Vatican finance chief George Pell Thursday hit out at calls that he return to Australia to assist in a child sex investigation into him, railing against "anti-religion" agendas.

Pell, the country's most senior Catholic cleric, was interviewed in Rome by Australian police last October over historical sex assault claims. He strongly denies the allegations and no charges have yet been laid.

The Melbourne Herald Sun this week said a brief of evidence concerning the matter had now been handed to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

It coincided with the final stages of a long-running national inquiry into institutional responses to child sex abuse, which heard on Monday that seven percent of Catholic priests were accused of abusing children between 1950 and 2010.

Pell has appeared before the royal commission three times, once in person and twice via video-link.

The Greens party on Wednesday filed a motion in the upper house Senate, which was widely supported, calling for him to return to assist police and prosecutors.

"The Greens have opted for an obvious political stunt while knowing full well Cardinal Pell has consistently cooperated with the royal commission and the Victorian police," his spokesman said in a statement to AFP.

"The suggestion that Cardinal Pell should be accountable for all the wrongdoings of Church personnel throughout Australia over many decades is not only unjust and completely fanciful but also acts to shield those in the Church who should be called to account for their failures."

The statement added that Pell had taken "decisive actions to address the evils of abuse".

"Their (the Greens) anti-religion agenda is notorious and most fair-minded Australians would see this motion as pathetic point-scoring," he said.

The Greens said Pell had "done a very good job at avoiding a return to Australia".

"We know that the Victorian police now have allegations of criminal misconduct against Cardinal Pell. It is time he came back to Australia to assist with investigations on this matter," they said in a statement.

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The allegations against him came from two men, now in their 40s, who said he groped them in summer 1978-79 at the Eureka pool in Ballarat, Australia, where the cleric grew up and worked.

The allegations were the subject of the police interview in Rome.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has also alleged Pell was naked in front of three young boys, believed to be aged eight to 10, in a surf club changing room in summer 1986-87.

There have also reportedly been complaints relating to his time as Archbishop of Melbourne in the 1990s.

During the royal commission, ordered by the government in 2012, Pell admitted he "mucked up" in dealing with paedophile priests in Victoria state in the 1970s.
Vatican City (AFP) - Pope Francis has shrugged off recent in-fighting in the Vatican and other stresses of his job by joking: "I am not on tranquilisers".

"There is corruption in the Vatican. But I am at peace," the pontiff said in a personally revealing interview with Italy's Corriere della Sera, published on Thursday.

In it, the erstwhile Jorge Bergoglio reveals how feelings of anxiety he sometimes experienced while he was bishop of Buenos Aires disappeared following his elevation to the papacy.

And he insists that he is losing no sleep over the manoeuvring of conservatives opposed to his reforms of Church teaching and governance.

The 80-year-old says his secret for dealing with stress is to write down all his problems in letters to Saint Joseph.

He then places the missives under a statue of the man described in the bible as the carpenter father of Jesus.

"And now he is sleeping on a mattress of letters! That's why I sleep well: it is the grace of God. I always sleep six hours. And I pray," Francis said.

Francis's reform drive has run into opposition from conservative cardinals and entrenched interests in the Vatican bureaucracy.

Tensions have appeared to be running particularly high of late.

Francis last month dismissed the head of the Knights of Malta after the ancient order challenged his authority in a dispute seen as being linked to a broader row over the direction of the Church.

And the last week has seen a series of anti-pope posters plastered all over Rome by unidentified agitators.

Asked how he dealt with such tensions and the challenges he faces, Francis quipped: "I'm not on tranquilisers.

"The Italians offer a good lesson - to live in peace you need a healthy 'couldn't care less' attitude.

"I don't mind telling you that what I am going through is a completely new experience for me.

"In Buenos Aires I was more anxious, I admit it. I felt more tense and worried. Basically I wasn't like I am now.

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"From the moment I was elected I had a very particular feeling of profound peace. And that has never left me. I am at peace. I don't know how to explain it."

In what may have been an allusion to opponents led by US Cardinal Raymond Burke, Francis implied he had made his intentions clear in meetings with other senior clerics before his election.

"In the general assemblies we discussed the Vatican's problems, we discussed reforms. Everyone wanted them," he said.
President Trump told a group of lawmakers at the White House on Thursday that he is open to reexamining the 2013 Gang of Eight immigration bill, a bipartisan compromise that included a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, according to a Senator who was at the meeting.

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia told reporters on Capitol Hill that in their meeting Trump said he was open to reexamining the legislation. A spokesman confirmed Manchin made the comment to reporters.

Shortly afterward, the White House walked back the Presidents statement, with White House spokesman Sean Spicer he does not support the Gang of Eight but encouraged similar cooperative efforts by Senators in the future.

If the President did support the Gang of Eight, it would be a remarkable break from his previous stance on immigration. He has called for building a wall on the border with Mexico and relentlessly mocked Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for supporting it, calling him Mr. Amnesty in a November 2015 tweet.

Further proof that Gang of Eight member Marco Rubio is weak on illegal immigration is Paul Singer's, Mr. Amnesty, endorsement.Rubs can't win  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 1, 2015

Its unclear whether the President understands the bill and its implications. It included provisions to build tougher border security and allow over a multi-year period undocumented residents to eventually achieve legal status.

Drafted by Republican Sens. John McCain, Marco Rubio, Jeff Flake and Lindsey Graham, as well as four Democrats including Sen. Chuck Schumer, now the Democratic leader, it passed the Senate with an overwhelming majority but was never brought to the floor of the House of Representatives for a vote.

Trumps popularity with his base stemmed in part from his hardline opposition to compromise on immigration reform. There are an estimated 11 million undocumented people living in the United States.
A commander of Ukraine's pro-Russian separatist forces known as Givi died Wednesday after an explosion went off at his office in the rebels de facto capital city of Donetsk. Authorities in the rebel groups were calling it a terrorist attack by Ukrainian security forces.

Ukrainians with knowledge of the crisis said Kiev forces were not involved, and that Mikhail Tolstykhs killing was probably the result of infighting among the pro-Russia separatists. Military commentator Dmytro Tymchuk told BBC News that Givi directly disobeyed orders during last weeks fighting just outside of Donetsk that left seven Ukrainian soldiers dead and 14 wounded. And Dmytro Tymchuk, a deputy in Ukraines parliament, told the Wall Street Journal, the bombing was performed by Russian military personnel. Tymchuk called Tolstykhs killing "inevitable" because Moscow was attempting to kill off charismatic rebel commanders that had become "out of control."

Tolstykh, 35, was blown up by a rocket fired from a portable launcher into his office. Images of Tolstykhs office after the explosion showed several rooms had been completely gutted by the blast, according to local reports Wednesday.

Tolstykh was killed four days after another pro-Russian military leader, Oleg Anashchenko, was assassinated by a car bomb. Anashchenko, who was the defense minister of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic, was driving his car Saturday in the city of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine when it blew up.

Rebels have blamed Ukraines security forces for both bomb attacks.

The two senior rebel military figures killed in the last few days are the latest in a string of rebel commanders who were also assassinated in eastern Ukraine. Arseny Pavlov was blown up in October 2016 inside of an elevator at an apartment building in Donetsk. Pavlov, who was a veteran of the Russian military, had been high on Kievs wanted list after confessing on tape that he killed 15 Ukrainian prisoners, according to The Guardian.

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The violence between pro-Russian separatists groups and Ukrainian forces beginning in 2014 has claimed the lives of at least 9,750 civilians and militants. Russia has been accused by the governments of European nations and the United States of providing military aid to the rebel groups in the southeastern part of Ukraine, which it has denied.

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Police arrested seven people outside a Phoenix Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office Wednesday as officials tried to transport a longtime U.S. resident thought to be an undocumented immigrant, according to reports.

Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, who left Mexico more than 20 years ago and has not returned, showed up at the ICE office Wednesday for an annual review required since she was caught using a fake Social Security number in 2008, according to a New York Times report. In the past, officials released Rayos after questioning, but this year they arrested her and placed her in a van to transport her. It remains unclear whether they intended to deport her immediately or transfer her to a detention center.

The story prompted immediate outcry from family and others in the community who showed up outside the ICE office to protest, including a demonstrator who chained himself to a government van. The protests remained nonviolent, but police said they arrested people engaged in criminal conduct.

The arrests follow a tightening of immigration measures from President Donald Trump. An executive order signed by the new president calls for the deportation of undocumented immigrants who have been charged with a crime. It also gives the immigration officer latitude to deport someone who poses a risk to public safety or national security.
In Kopi Es Tak Kie, a small cafe in Jakartas Chinese quarter, Glodok, the singsong of myriad Chinese dialects has for decades mingled with the more staccato Bahasa Indonesia. The business opened in 1927 as a street stall dispensing steaming mugs of coffee brewed from local java beans. After 10 years, it moved into its current whitewashed premises, where customers huddle around Formica tables to gossip beneath the din of clattering crockery.

Regulars whisper that Indonesias top gangsters used to congregate here to slurp noodles and to plot. Recently, though, the clientele has turned significantly more salubrious: photos of Joko Widodo, the Indonesian President popularly known as Jokowi, pepper the walls.

He always has black coffee and local snacks like tempe [soybean cake], says Latif Yulus, 67, whose grandfather opened Tak Kie after emigrating from Chinas southern Guangdong province. Jokowi is a nice person, patient; he speaks slowly and listens carefully.

But what the President would have heard emanating from the streets of Jakarta recently grates with the cultural harmony on show at Tak Kie.

A virulent Islamist movement led by the Islamic Defenders Front (known after its Indonesian initials as the FPI) has taken to the streets in an attempt to oust Jakartas governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama. Popularly known by his Hakka nickname Ahok, the ethnic Chinese Christian previously served as deputy governor under Jokowi, whom he succeeded when Jokowi became President.

Ahok is now standing for another term, hoping to win a mandate in his own right. However, the FPI insists that no Christian  especially a Chinese one  should lead the capital of worlds largest Muslim-majority nation, citing a Quranic verse that warns against allying with Christians and Jews. The issue is particularly charged because the high-profile gubernatorial job is seen as a stepping-stone to national politics.

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The FPIs campaign threatens to drive a wedge between Indonesias Muslim majority and its 3 million ethnic Chinese citizens. The famously blunt-speaking Ahok did not help the situation when he told a crowd on Sept. 27: Ladies and gentlemen, you dont have to vote for me  because youve been lied to by those using [the Qurans] Surah al-Maidah verse 51. Thats your right.

Ahoks citation of a Quranic verse, and his disputation of the hard-line interpretation of it, infuriated the FPI. A doctored recording of the governors speech  carefully edited to amplify the outrage of protesters  went viral. Led by firebrand cleric Habib Muhammad Rizieq Shihab, the FPI accused Ahok of blasphemy and organize three massive protests that paralyzed downtown Jakarta. Another is slated for Saturday.

The FPI is demanding that Ahok be jailed and also that Jokowi step down, since as his party is endorsing Ahoks candidacy. Jokowi has met with FPI leaders in an attempt to quell their rancor, though many say this act simply legitimized their complaints.

Ahok has appeared in court to fight blasphemy charges while simultaneously campaigning for office in polls slated for Feb. 15. He is the most senior official ever to be charged with the offense and could face five years in prison. The blasphemy case, and the gubernatorial election, are being billed as a litmus test for Indonesias young, secular democracy, which is increasingly under threat from a radical Islamist right.

The Ahok issue has been a rallying point that has brought many different strands [of radical Islam] together, Sidney Jones, director of the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, tells TIME. That is why the demonstrations have been so big.

And increasingly militant. The FPI is not a solid organization with one command system, like the police or military, Indonesias national police chief Tito Karnavian tells TIME. In Central Java, they have members who are also supporting ISIS groups.

At one recent FPI demonstration outside the Jakarta Police Headquarters, many protesters appeared in camouflage gear. One jacket bore an embroidered AK-47 and the rubric Defend Palestine.

The leader of Jakarta must be Muslim because he must give direction to the people, said protester Muhammad Mahdi, 33. But how can Ahok if he doesnt follow our [Sharia] laws?

Since the end of colonial rule in 1945, Indonesias leaders have sought to guard against religious extremism by rooting governance in the state ideology of Pancasila  belief in one God, a just and civilized humanity, national unity, democracy through deliberation, and social justice for all. But groups like FPI want to implant Sharia in Indonesia, placing religious doctrine above the rules written by government and courts.

The Chinese community worry because FPI are growing bigger and more powerful, says Latif. We know that the FPI likes to attack people, sweeping businesses.

Sweeping refers to the harassment of business owners by groups like the FPI, who seek to stop behavior that is contrary to Sharia, such as the sale of alcohol or the employment of female staff who are not dressed according to conservative Muslim codes. The practice has often been employed by business rivals, who pay mobs under the cloak of Islamic righteousness, disguising what are essentially hoodlums for hire.

FPIs own sweeping has even extended to shops that requested Muslim employees to don Santa hats in the run-up to Christmas. In cosmopolitan Jakarta, there are no end of potential targets. In Glodok market, rows of char siu pork hang outside shops selling Chinese liquor, as well as the tangerine trees, lanterns and trinkets synonymous with Chinas Taoist Spring Festival.

Indonesias Chinese population has fallen victim to repeated pogroms over the years, most savagely in 1965 when an failed leftist coup against the dictator Sukarno sparked an anticommunist purge that claimed, depending on estimates, up to 2 million lives  predominantly of ethnic Chinese, irrespective of their political affiliation.

That massacre helped usher in the reign of similarly autocratic President Suharto, who put proscriptions on Chinese language and festivals. However, the father of development also cut business deals with Chinese tycoons; at his fall in 1998, Indonesias largest conglomerates were all controlled by ethnic Chinese.

More anti-Chinese riots followed Suhartos toppling and, if left unchecked, many fear the actions of Islamist groups like FPI could trigger a bloody repeat. Especially as FPIs anti-Ahok rhetoric has been echoed by secular, right-wing nationalists who fear the exploitation of Indonesian natural resources by Chinese firms, which they even accuse of inculcating a fifth column to spread communism.

An alliance between the ultranationalist right and the hard-line Muslims could create more anti-Chinese sentiment than weve seen here since 1998, says Jones.

Although most Chinese Indonesians are, like Latif, small-scale traders, and some are very poor indeed, there is a perception among many Indonesians that the community is fabulously wealthy. There are bitter complaints of reverse discrimination  apocryphal tales, for instance of even poor Chinese securing bank loans with greater easy than aristrocratic Javanese or Sumatrans.

Ahoks rise has led to an unfortunate resurgence in these sorts of racial tensions and in identity politics. In early November, former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, whom Jokowi replaced, warned that Indonesia would burn with the anger of those seeking justice unless Ahok was prosecuted. (Yudhoyonos presidential term, from 2004 to 2014, corresponded with an emboldening of Islamist movements hobbled during the postcolonial authoritarian period. Not entirely coincidentally, Yudhoyonos son Agus is running against Ahok for the post of Jakarta governor and appears a chief beneficiary of the FPIs ire.)

Until the blasphemy controversy erupted, Ahok looked certain to win re-election. The grandson of a Guangdong tin miner, he has won plaudits for cutting through red tape since assuming Jakartas top job in 2014. The citys previously opaque finances are now published online, and he nixed a stalled  though increasingly expensive  monorail system, instead fast-tracking a Light Transit Rail project. Construction for the latter is ongoing throughout the sprawling city of 30 million that accounts for a sixth of national GDP, but where infamous snarled traffic is a tremendous drag on productivity.

Ahok has also developed a reputation as a straight talker with no tolerance for corruption or incompetence. City residents speaks in glowing terms to TIME of being able to contact their local authorities through social-media accounts set up by Ahok in order to report illegal trash piles (another notorious Jakarta problem) and then to see them miraculously cleared away. Videos of Ahok berating inept transport officials have gone viral, striking a cord with many tired by decades of endemic corruption, though his famously blunt style has also made him enemies beyond FPI.

Ahoks program of bulldozing slums and rehousing the occupants elsewhere is rife with accusations of inadequate consolation and compensation. Ahok has this image of the city becoming like Singapore  a clean, sanitized streetscape with concrete rivers, says Elisa Sutanudjaja, the director of the Jakarta-based Rujak Center for Urban Studies and noted Ahok critic. And with that view in mind he tried to clean out these communities.

Sutanudjaja, who is also ethnic Chinese, blames Ahok for sowing communal division with his brusque manner. Public officials have a certain standard not to provoke or offend people, she says. Its not related to his ethnicity but about his position as a public official. Its like having Donald Trump saying ridiculous things.

Nevertheless, latest polls published by the newspaper Kompas on Thursday put Ahok at eight percentage points ahead of rivals. Whether he can stay out of jail is another story. But for now, it looks like Jakartans are rejecting the FPIs invective.

A lot of Chinese arent buying into identity politics either. I still dont know who I will vote for, says Latif, hilariously. Ahok is too loud, too rude. A lot of Chinese people dont like him.

 With reporting by Febriana Firdaus / Jakarta
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a voluble, energetic New Yorker, has expressed a willingness to work with President Trump on issues ranging from infrastructure to tax reform and trade.

But facing rising pressure from the Democratic base, the leader of the Democratic opposition in the Senate said in an interview for this weeks TIMEs cover story that his party is increasingly unlikely to find common ground with the President.

Right now, it looks like Im going to be spending more time opposed, says Schumer. Hes moving to the hard-right on issue after issue after issue, which conflicts with our Democratic caucus values.

The countrys most powerful Democrat spoke with TIME at length about his conversations with Trump (You never know if hes really paying attention), his experience on Election Night (I was distraught), why Hillary Clinton lost the election (rightly or wrongly she stood for status quo), the growing anger in the Democratic base (Im glad its there), and the importance of his role as minority leader.

If Hillary won and I was majority leader, Id have more fun, and Id get more good things done, which is why Im here, says Schumer. But with Trump as President and me as minority leader, that job is far more important.

Read in this weeks issue of TIME: Inside Chuck Schumers Plan to take on President Trump

The segments of the interview published below have been edited and condensed for clarity.

On Schumers conversations with Trump:

I did tell him this on the phone early on. Ive given it to him over a while, and Ive also said it to a few of his other minions. I said it in public. But I said, You ran against both Democratic and Republican establishments. If you continue to be against both, you might get something done. But if you let the hard right take you over, you will not succeed as President. And that is whats happened. His rhetoric is still populist, but his Cabinet and his moves are hard-right. 

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And so that was my advice, and I dont think theyre taking it. Its my analysis [that] Pence and Preibus have said, Lets mollify the hard-right, lets win them over, and the Cabinet is the most hard-right Cabinet Ive ever seen. Its also so antithetical to what Trump professed to be for the middle class. We call it a Swamp Cabinet of Billionaires and Bankers.  He acknowledges but you never know if hes really paying attention. You really dont know if its registered in his head.

On agreement with Trump on policy issues:

I did have a lengthy talk on infrastructure, and this is the one place where I thought I made somewhere I saw some push. He said, A trillion dollars. I said, That sounds like a good number. But I said, A few things, Mr. President. First, it has to have labor and environmental protections. I said, It cant be this tax breaks. You know they were talking about doing a privateprivate public partnership and have deep tax breaks to fund the roads. Cant be that, for two reasonsI dont know if I told him bothbut one is that you dont get most things built. And second, they put huge tolls everywhere

I said, Mr. Presidentit was President-elect then, but Ive repeated it to him, Ive said it twiceMr. President-elect, its going to mean youre going to need real spending. Were not going to support this if you cut education or healthcare or Medicare or Social Security. So it means youre going to have to take on your right-wing because they dont want to spend money on this.

And he said, I know. That was the one acknowledgment that Ive gotten from him that if hes going to work with us, hes going to have tohe may have to break with his hard-right. I said the hard-right. There I said that Freedom Caucus doesnt want to spend any money. He said, I know.

On his familys connection to Trump:

After World War II, a lot of these immigrant families started building houses. And [my maternal grandfather] built little rowhouses, and Fred Trump was building little rowhouses, too, and they knew each other. I think they had the same lawyer. And they would share supplies occasionally, and things like that. 

[Trump] acknowledged that his father and my grandfather knew each other. And I knew them as landlords. And I did tenant organizing. They were good landlords. I mean Donaldbut Fred was the main guy. Fred, he wasI remember seeing on Ocean Parkway [in Brooklyn]. He would drive every day. He had a modest office right near Trump Village in Beach Haven, and he was known for going to a luncheonette and having a tuna fish sandwich. I never saw it happen. But he would drive.

I would see, theyd point out his car. Big black Cadillac and he would be driving it. The license plate was FT. Fred Trump. He had a big black Cadillac. Now they were already wealthy. They lived in Queens, in Jamaica Estates. But they had a lot of apartment buildings in Brooklyn. Thats how they started.

On Trumps accusation that he shed fake tears over the refugee ban:

He said, I know Chuck well. It shows he doesnt know me well. Everyone who knows me knows[Im] not as bad as Boehner, but at Harry Reids going away, I was tearful. In my caucus I often get teary. And my caucus all knew what B.S. it was when [Trump] said he knew me well.

And the famous story, which Ive told on occasion, my daughters were about 4 and 8, and I took them to see Free Willy. When he escaped, I started to really cry. And they ran out. They were embarrassed. I had to chase after them [out of] the movie theater. So, Ilook, but can I tell you something, it doesnt bother me. When he flattered me, when he calls names, it doesnt. I have always functioned by an internal gyroscope, my values and who I am, and what I am.

On the growing anger in the Democratic base:

We are remarkably united, from Bernie and Elizabeth to Manchin and Warnerall of whomyou know I expanded my leadership team because I think we need unity. And so far, on the big issuesCabinet, ACA particularly (Affordable Care Act)we are united. I think well be united on the Supreme Court. So, what Im saying here is we will stay true to our values, and I think the overwhelming majority of Democrats will agree with us. 

And look, I respect the people who are upset and angry. I think its a great thing for the Democratic Party that there is such fervor. I spentI intended to speak at the Womens March because I had to swear in a local elected official. I stayed four-and-a-half hours. I was exhilarated by the strength and passion. And I understand people are frustrated, and if they want to take an occasional shot at me, thats fine. It doesnt offend me. But Im glad its there. And our job is going to have to be to work together to prevent Donald Trump from ruining American values.

On writing a new Democratic platform to win in 2018:

We are coming up on it. But I will tell you, what we will have, we did our infrastructure bill already, were going to have a sharp-edged bold economic message that will do several things. One, it will unite the Democrats. My goal is to have Bernie Sanders and Joe ManchinBernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren on the one side and Joe Manchin and Mark Warner on the othersupport the same 7 proposals. 

Some people say, who are the Democrats going to appeal to? The new Obama coalition or the blue collar? Here is notfirmly we believe thisan either/or. Itll be a sharp-edged bold economic message that also mentions that the systems rigged against the middle class will appeal to both. It will appeal to the worker in Canton and Scranton, it will appeal to the young woman who just got out of college in Los Angeles, and it will appeal to the single mother on minimum wage in Buffalo. 

It is an economically-focused bold populist message. Thats what we missed [in 2016]. And you know I always said, there were some reasons Hillary lost that were illegitimate. But the one reason she lost that was legitimate that rightly or wrongly, he stood for change, she stood for status quo.

On whether Trump will come to the table with Schumer:

Look, I mean Pence has come and visited me a couple of times. I think Pence is the link to Congress. When he calls, Ill certainly talk to him and if theres a need, Ill call him, but right now, it looks like Im going to be spending more time opposed. Much more time opposing him. Hes moving to the hard-right on issue after issue after issue, which conflicts with our Democratic Caucus values, and I believe it conflicts with American values. What hes doing now is not what the American people voted for. 

You know I have been true to my values constantly. Hes all over the lot. And if he comesit depends on him. Not on us. Were sticking with our values and as I said, were going to fight him when he tramples on those values. We would work with him if he agrees with those values, and the campaign, there were some he did. Hes moving away from all that.

On the night of the election:

I was shocked. Heres what happened Election Night. Eight p.m., I claimed victory in New York because I was running and then I was going to go down to Washington to be with the DSCC.

But at 8 p.m., Im waiting in New York, and I see the exit polls, of college-educated women in Florida and North Carolina. I said, This is trouble. Because we all thoughtand I didthat wed lose blue-collar but make up for it with the college-educated, particularly women. So I call up one of Hillarys top people, who I know well, but Im not going to embarrass that person. And I said, This is horrible. They say, I know, we saw those, but dont worry. Our firewall in Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin and Michigan is solid, theres no way we can lose.

The next day, [Republican House Speaker] Paul Ryan called me to congratulate meor I called himI cant remember. And I said, Did this take you by surprise, Paul? He said this unprompted, he said, At 6:30, I spoke to my top pollster guy. He said, its bad news, Paul. Feingolds going to be your Senator, Schumers going to be Majority Leader, Hillarys going to be President.

No one thought. But heres what I want to really say. So for 3 days, 4 days, I was distraught, I taught my daughters who were as distraught as me the old Shirelles song, Mama said thered be days like this. Do you remember that one? Its a greatyou know, Mama said thered be days like this.

And I realized something, and this has helped guide me, really. This is really part of it. If Hillary won and I was Majority Leader, Id have more fun, and Id get more good things done, which is why Im here. But with Trump as President and me as Minority Leader, that job is far more important. And I realized that. And thats important.
A record number of individuals renounced their U.S. citizenship or chose to expatriate in 2016, according to data published by the Internal Revenue Service today.

The government agency, a bureau of the U.S. Treasury Department, publishes the names of those individuals in a list each quarter, in accordance with the Internal Revenue Code. Before 2011, less than 1,000 individuals chose to expatriate each year, according to the lists published on the Federal Register. More than 2,300 expatriated in the last quarter of 2016 alone, and this year's total of 5,411 individuals is 26 percent more than last year's 4,279.

The connection between the list of expatriates and the IRS implies a link to tax policy. The U.S. is one of a very small number of countries that tax based on nationality, not residency, leaving Americans living abroad to face double taxation. "The escalation of offshore penalties over the last 20 years is likely contributing to the increased incidence of expatriation," according to the tax attorneys at Andrew Mitchel LLC who track the expatriate data on their International Tax Blog.

U.S.-born British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson -- who has spoken out against the U.S. tax code, The Guardian reports -- appears on this quarter's list, which was initially released on Wednesday and published online on Thursday.

However, today's list that covers the last quarter of 2016 -- the time period after Donald Trump was elected president -- is nearly twice as long as the list from the last quarter of 2015.

Leading up to the U.S. election, a number of high-profile individuals, including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg and actor Bryan Cranston said, jokingly or otherwise, that they would leave the country if Trump was elected. A number of countries, including Canada and New Zealand, also launched campaigns promoting themselves as destinations for Americans looking to leave the country after the election.

The IRS reports include the names of expatriated individuals for which the Treasury secretary has received information, which is subject to logistical delay, but the annual totals of individuals choosing to expatriate has been steadily rising since 2012.

Deidre McPhillips is a data reporter at U.S. News. You can find her on Twitter or email her at dmcphillips@usnews.com.
By Natalie Grover and Divya Grover (Reuters) - Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc Chief Executive Leonard Schleifer signaled that the U.S. biotech was on track to reduce its reliance on its flagship drug Eylea, as the company awaits the approval of two potential blockbuster treatments. Eylea has powered much of the company's explosive growth since late 2011, but sales growth in the United States has slowed in recent quarters as the market saturates and competition heats up. Regeneron said on Thursday it expected single-digit percentage increase in U.S. net Eylea sales in 2017, while Wall Street is expecting an 11.3-12.9 percent rise, said Evercore ISI's Mark Schoenebaum. Indicating the shift, the company said on a post-earnings call that this is the last year it will provide a separate forecast for the eye drug. Regeneron is betting on two key treatments - Dupixent for eczema and Sarilumab for rheumatoid arthritis - to diversify its revenue stream. A U.S. regulatory decision on Dupixent is expected by March, while the company hopes to resubmit a marketing application for sarilumab this quarter. Reimbursement discussions for Dupixent are encouraging, Schleifer said on the call. Schleifer also underscored Regeneron's practice of not increasing Eylea prices, bucking the industry trend of raising prices on drugs twice a year, often by double digit percentages. "Price increases are nice, but if you cannot get them you better be able to innovate and that is our sweet spot," he said. Other drugmakers, including AbbVie and Allergan, have responded to intense criticism over the high price of prescription medicines by vowing to take one increase a year of less than 10 percent. Regeneron's shares rose as much as nearly 4 percent to $366.95. PRALUENT WEIGHS Tepid sales of Regeneron and Sanofi SA's cholesterol-fighter Praluent and lower-than-expected collaboration revenue led to a narrow miss on quarterly revenue. Praluent - a potent but expensive injection - is yet to unlock its blockbuster potential as health insurers await evidence that the drug can reduce heart attacks. Amgen Inc has already announced positive heart data on its rival drug Repatha, while Regeneron's trial results are expected later this year. Global Praluent sales were $41 million, well under analysts' estimates of $57 million, and the $58 million Repatha generated. Regeneron and Sanofi suffered a huge setback in January after a federal judge banned Praluent sales, finding it infringed patents held by Amgen. But concerns were allayed on Wednesday, after a U.S. appeals court ruled that the companies can continue selling the drug, while they appeal the permanent injunction. Excluding items, Regeneron earned $3.04 per share, edging past the average analysts' estimate by 1 cent, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Total revenue rose 11.7 percent to $1.23 billion, but missed estimates of $1.30 billion. (Reporting by Divya Grover and Natalie Grover in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)
BANJUL (Reuters) - A West African military operation that pressured Gambia's long-time leader, Yahya Jammeh, to step down and flee into exile has had its mandate extended by three months, the office of new President Adama Barrow said on Wednesday. Barrow won a Dec. 1 election but Jammeh, who had ruled since seizing power in a coup in 1994, refused to step down, forcing his opponent to be sworn in at the Gambian Embassy in neighbouring Senegal last month. Barrow immediately asked regional bloc ECOWAS for assistance and West African troops quickly crossed into Gambia from Senegal, giving mediators the necessary leverage to negotiate Jammeh's departure. "President Barrow is glad to inform the general public that the standby force ECOMIG has integrated itself into the security and military fabric of the country," the president's office said in a statement. "The Standby Force has had its mandate extended by three months subject to renewal." A senior United Nations official said late last month that Barrow had requested that the 7,000-troop strong ECOWAS force's mandate be extended by six months. (Reporting by Pap Saine; Writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by Sandra Maler)
MEXICO CITY (AP)  A prominent Mexican journalist reported Wednesday that the sons of Sinaloa cartel kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman say they were wounded in an attack they blamed on a rival drug gang figure and onetime "top lieutenant" for their father.

Ciro Gomez Leyva said he received word about Saturday's purported attack in a handwritten letter from Guzman's sons that said they were with Sinaloa boss Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada at the time and that he was also targeted.

Gomez Leyva said the letter accused Damaso Lopez, another alleged Sinaloa figure who is believed to be disputing for control of the cartel, of betraying them. The letter said they had come to a meeting organized by Lopez only to find he was not there, and gunmen suddenly opened fire and killed their bodyguards. Guzman's sons said they and Zambada escaped.

Guzman lawyer Jose Refugio confirmed to local media that the letter came from the sons.

"I was aware of that, I know about that letter and I know they wrote that letter," Refugio told Radio Formula. "But it was not delivered through me."

Mexican authorities did not immediately confirm or otherwise comment on the purported attack.

Guzman was arrested for the third time in January 2016 and finally extradited to the United States last month. Some have speculated a bloody turf war could break out to fill the power vacuum.

Last August, his son Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar was one of a half-dozen people kidnapped by armed men from a restaurant in the Pacific coast city of Puerto Vallarta. He was released not long afterward.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Lopez was indicted by a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, in 2011, accused of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and conspiracy to launder money.

When the indictment was unsealed on March 7, 2013, he was said to be 47 years old. At the time, the Department of Justice called him "a top lieutenant" for Guzman and the Sinaloa cartel.
WASHINGTON, D.C.From a politics and policy standpoint, its brilliant.

The United States has a problem: runaway climate change, which will degrade or damage agriculture, biodiversity, coastal cities, and the social politics of some of the most volatile regions of the world. Climate change is a function of how much heat-trapping carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere. The more CO people emit, the more the planet warms. But in an unregulated market, theres no mechanism to keep people from emitting carbon dioxide, because it is cheap.

So, et voila, you invent just such a mechanism. You create a Pigovian taxa simple tax on an economic externalitythat you impose at the places where potential carbon emissions enter the economy: the ports, the refineries, the coal mines. For every ton of carbon dioxide emitted, you charge the emitter $40 to account for the warming caused by the gas. Then, to keep from depressing the economy, you rebate the money from that tax back to Americans in the form of a quarterly check.

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The tax makes emitting carbon dioxide costly, but it also does not expand the size of the government. And because Americans love getting their quarterly rebate check, they approve as the government increases the tax over time. A higher tax means more money in their pocket (at least at first).

Of course it is not so simple. Carbon dioxide is not the only gas that causes global warming. Redistributing the revenue to Americans prevents the government from spending it on renewable-energy research. People may save their government checks instead of spending them. But a carbon tax-and-dividend scheme really could be an elegant, market-friendly way to begin to address climate change in American policymaking.

This week, members of the Republican old guardincluding two architects of the Reagan administrationproposed that the United States should adopt a carbon tax. They did so in a blitz of elite publicity: a story in The New York Times, dueling op-eds in the Times and the Wall Street Journal, and a press conference at the National Press Club. On Wednesday, they will meet with senior economic officials at the White House.

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Their proposal is called The Conservative Case for Carbon Dividends. Mitt Romney has already tweeted it approvingly.

For too long, we Republicans and conservatives havent occupied a real place at the table during a debate on global climate change, said James Baker III at the conference. Baker served as secretary of the treasury under President Reagan and secretary of state under President Bush.

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Instead, we have continued to dispute the fact of climate change, he continued. I was, and remain, somewhat of a skeptic to the extent that man is responsible for climate change. But I do think that the risks associated with it are too great to ignore, and that we need an insurance policy.

Climate change is definitely happening, and it is definitely human-caused. The vast majority of climate scientists have recognized this for almost two decades. But the pitch of Bakers appeal is interesting: He is opening a path for Republicans to support the policy without looking like hypocrites.

Indeed, most of the comments on Wednesday were aimed at Republicans. Baker and the rest of the panel seemed to hope that if they said the carbon tax was conservative or a free-market solution many, many times, then their fellow partisans would come to agree with them.

This makes such good sense from a conservative, limited-government competitive approach, said Baker.

For the sake of our children and grandchildren, I believe it is imperative that we set forth a climate solution that embodies long-standing conservative principles, said George Shultz, the secretary of state under President Reagan, in a statement read at the event.

This is a fundamentally conservative planone that showcases the principles of free markets and limited government, said Hank Paulson, the treasury secretary under President George W. Bush, in another statement.

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Shultzs comments even referenced the Montreal Protocol, the landmark treaty passed under Reagan that remedied the hole in the ozone layer. Given the risks, [Reagan] advocated for an insurance policy. As it turned out, the scientists who were worried were right and Reagans Montreal Protocol came along just in time.

This is all true. A revenue-neutral carbon tax really is a free-market-friendly solution. The elegance of the tax was frequently and favorably compared to the onerous regulations imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Obama administration. If the House G.O.P. adopted a carbon tax, it could return Republican leadership to a constructive stance on this critical issue while repealing and replacing those same rules.

But those rules were not advanced out of any particular Democratic fondness for regulation. Rather, they were advanced chiefly because the Republican Congress declined to advance Obamas original climate policy, a plan to cap and trade carbon emissions. (Cap-and-trade was, in fact, another market-based policy favored the Reagan administration.) In the wake of this failure, Obama explicitly tried to advance the climate policies he could through the EPAs statutory powers.

And Democrats have long been willing to entertain the idea of a carbon tax. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator from Rhode Island, introduced a proposal for one last year.

The problem in fighting climate change has never been a natural Democratic love for onerous regulatory regimes. It has been Republicans who have long refused to even entertain the idea that climate change is dangerous or human-caused.

What I think is interesting and salient is that its a whole bunch of Republicans now speaking to a Republican town. They are saying to Republicans that all the things you may be concerned aboutthe potential harms of a real and ambitious climate policythey can be worked around now, said Joseph Majkut, the director of climate science at the Niskanen Center, a libertarian think tank.

Niskanen has always been of the mind that revenue neutrality is really important, because a carbon tax will have significant economic impacts that people are going to feel, he told me. Were happy to see someone pushing this anglewhether this is something that will pass Congress, should a carbon tax pass Congress, is a separate question.

Most environmental advocates would also support a carbon tax, though they would add that it cannot work as the countrys only climate policy. As Brad Plumer writes at Vox, many environmental regulations act as complements to a broader carbon-tax policy: One Obama-era rule tries to limit the amount of methane accidentally emitted during the mining process, for instance. This type of emission would not be covered by a carbon tax.

And, in fact, methane emissions as a whole would be omitted from the Baker-Shultz plan: At least as described, it only covers carbon dioxide, which constitutes 80 percent of American greenhouse gas emissions. Other types of greenhouse gases, like methanewhich does not last as long in the atmosphere as carbon but which traps more heatare left out of the proposal.

But it is a Republican town, and these objections will not be what keeps the carbon-tax plan from advancing. The biggest obstacle to a Republican-led climate policy are Congressional Republicans. Last year, the House G.O.P. unanimously supported a resolution that declared a carbon tax would be detrimental to American families and businesses, and is not in the best interest of the United States. It is unlikely they feel more pressure to support the policy now.

Just as Baker was beginning his press conference, the influential organization Heritage Action for America released an angry denunciation of the proposal.

There is no room in the Republican Party for a carbon tax, said Michael A. Needham, the organizations CEO. Replacing Obamas destructive regulatory regime with a destructive taxation regime will not make American companies more competitive or bring jobs back to abandoned communities. Beyond the policy implications, the Climate Leadership Councils carbon tax proposal is just the latest example of policy solutions crafted by and made for cultural elites.

And then, twisting the dagger: These so-called Party elders might want to meet with former Secretary Clinton to discuss this idea.

Baker and Shultz, remember, served in multiple cabinet-level roles under President Reagan. Short of President George H.W. Bush, they are the closest thing the G.O.P. has to elders. It is laudable that they are advancing a Republican-endorsed climate-change policy proposal. But the challenge to addressing climate change in the United States has never been a paucity of policies. It has been the Republican Party.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Bucharest (AFP) - Romania's justice minister announced his resignation on Thursday after a planned relaxation of anti-corruption laws provoked the biggest nationwide protests since the end of communism in 1989.

The offending emergency decree issued last week was scrapped on Sunday. But protests have continued, with many calling for the entire left-wing government to quit.

The minister, Florin Iordache, defended the legislation, saying all his "initiatives were legal and constitutional".

"But despite that, public opinion did not consider it sufficient, and that's why I have decided to submit my resignation," the 56-year-old told a news conference.

Hundreds of thousands of Romanians have protested over the past week, culminating in half a million people, according to media estimates, taking to the streets nationwide on Sunday evening.

Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu has refused to resign and his government easily survived a no-confidence motion in parliament on Wednesday thanks to its solid majority in parliament.

The proposed changes would have made abuse of power a crime punishable by jail only if the amount of money concerned exceeded 200,000 lei (44,000 euros, $47,500).

Separately the government, which has been in office barely a month, wants to release some 2,500 people serving prison sentences for non-violent crimes of less than five years.

Grindeanu has said that the aim was to bring penal law into line with the constitution and to reduce overcrowding in prisons.

But critics see the moves as a brazen attempt to let off the many lawmakers who have been ensnared in a major anti-corruption drive in recent years.

European Commission vice president Frans Timmermans said Wednesday that after the recent "incredible progress", Bucharest should not start "running in the other direction".

The US State Department also expressed its deep concern. Corruption has long been a major problem since Romania joined the European Union as its second-poorest member in 2007.

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Iordache is from the ruling Social Democrats (PSD), which won a thumping election victory only in December. His successor has not yet been named.

The protests have died down since Sunday but around 6,000 people, according to media reports, still braved a blizzard in downtown Bucharest on Wednesday night as well as some 3,000 in Cluj.

Several hundred government supporters also staged a demonstration outside the presidential palace, calling on the head of state Klaus Iohannis, who has supported the main demonstrations, to step down.

More protests are expected in the coming days.
Bucharest (AFP) - Romania's justice minister resigned on Thursday, becoming the first major political casualty of a government effort to roll back anti-corruption laws which backfired, sparking nationwide outrage.

The offending emergency decree issued last week was scrapped on Sunday in the face of the country's biggest protests since the end of communism in 1989. Those protests have continued, with many now calling for the entire left-wing government to quit.

The minister, Florin Iordache, defended the legislation, saying all his "initiatives were legal and constitutional".

"But despite that, public opinion did not consider it sufficient, and that's why I have decided to submit my resignation," the 56-year-old told reporters.

Hundreds of thousands of Romanians have protested over the past week, culminating in half a million people in the streets on Sunday, according to media estimates.

Iordache is from the ruling Social Democrats (PSD), which won a thumping election victory only in December. His successor has not yet been named.

Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu's government easily survived a no-confidence motion on Wednesday thanks to its solid majority in parliament.

The proposed changes would have made abuse of power a crime punishable by jail only if the amount of money involved exceeded 200,000 lei (44,000 euros, $47,500).

On Thursday, a much smaller but fiery crowd of 2,500 still turned out to protest in central Bucharest, waving Romanian and European Union flags and holding placards reading "We are fighting for principles and values".

Foreign Minister Teodor Melescanu sought to reassure the public Thursday that the government would listen and take their concerns into account when considering future legal amendments.

"This process will take time," he added.

However the government is separately aiming to change the law to release 2,500 people serving prison sentences for non-violent crimes of less than five years.

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Grindeanu has said the aim was to bring penal law into line with the constitution and to reduce overcrowding in prisons.

But critics see the move as a brazen attempt to let off the many lawmakers who have been ensnared in a major anti-corruption drive in recent years.

The head of the country's anti-corruption force told AFP in an interview that the fight against graft was far from being won, despite the government's withdrawal of the decree.

The "danger is not ruled out" because such attempts to change laws are likely to happen again, said Laura Codruta Kovesi, chief prosecutor of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate.

European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans said Wednesday that after the recent "incredible progress", Bucharest should not start "running in the other direction".

The US State Department also expressed its deep concern. Corruption has long been a major problem since Romania joined the European Union as its second-poorest member in 2007.
Istanbul (AFP) - Three Turkish soldiers were "accidentally" killed and 11 wounded on Thursday when a Russian air strike targeting jihadists in Syria hit a building where the troops were deployed, the Turkish army said.

With Moscow and Ankara cooperating ever more closely on Syria, President Vladimir Putin quickly reached out to Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan to express condolences and promise better future coordination.

The Russian plane had been seeking to hit targets of Islamic State (IS) jihadists but "by accident three of our heroic soldiers were martyred when a building was bombed where our units were," the Turkish army said in a statement.

It said that of the 11 injured, one was badly wounded.

Putin contacted Erdogan to express his "sadness and condolences," it added.

"Russian officials have said that the incident was an accident," the army said, adding an investigation is being carried out by both sides.

- Fight for Al-Bab -

In Moscow, the Kremlin said Putin had offered Erdogan his condolences and that the leaders had "agreed to enhance military coordination" in the fight against IS in Syria.

It said the incident took place in the flashpoint IS-held town of Al-Bab where both countries have been conducting air strikes.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russian strike took place on Thursday morning due to a "lack of agreement of coordinates during strikes by the Russian air force."

Both sides appeared keen to move on from the incident, as was the case when an off-duty Turkish policeman shot dead Russia's ambassador to Ankara Andrei Karlov on December 19 in a crime that shocked both countries.

Then, Ankara allowed Russian investigators to work in Turkey and also gave the slain ambassador the honour of a ceremony on the tarmac of Ankara airport before his corpse was airlifted back to Russia.

The Russian defence ministry said Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov and Turkish counterpart Hulusi Akar had in a call "agreed on closer coordination of joint actions".

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Turkey had on August 24 began an unprecedented campaign inside Syria against IS and Kurdish militia which initially made rapid progress but has become mired in a deadly fight for the IS held town of Al-Bab since December.

The incident came with new CIA chief Mike Pompeo in Ankara for talks with Turkish officials on issues including Syria, on his first foreign visit since the inauguration of US President Donald Trump.

The fight for Al-Bab has been by far the bloodiest yet of Turkey's incursion inside Syria but the authorities have vowed to press on until its capture despite a mounting casualty toll.

Before Thursday's casualties were reported, the Dogan news agency said 66 Turkish soldiers have now been killed in the Syria operation since it began in August, mostly in attacks by IS.

- Revival in ties -

Turkey and Russia have been on sharply opposing sides in the Syria conflict, with Moscow supporting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad but Ankara pushing for his ouster as the key to peace.

Relations reached a dangerous low in November 2015 when Turkish warplanes shot down a Russian fighter jet over the Syrian border.

But a normalisation deal was reached over the summer and the two sides have been working ever more closely over the Syrian conflict.

They secured a deal to evacuate Syrians from Aleppo after the city was retaken by Assad backed by his Russian allies.

The two sides have since backed a process in the Kazakh capital Astana to search for peace to end the almost six-year civil war in Syria.

And Russian jets have on occasion carried out air strikes in Al-Bab in support of the operation.

Separate operations by Turkey and Assad's forces, backed by Moscow, has trapped the jihadists inside Al-Bab which has been besieged since Monday when Syrian forces cut off a road leading into the town.

There has been concerns of the risk of accidental contact in the busy skies above Syria although these have usually surrounded Turkey and Syrian regime forces.

Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said Wednesday Turkey had been coordinating with Russia to avoid any risk of contact with the Syrian regime forces.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow is ready to renew cooperation with the United States and other NATO powers to reach mutual goals in Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, a Russian Foreign Ministry official, said in an interview with the state TASS agency published on Thursday. Kabulov said Russia was concerned about insurgents' activity in Afghanistan and it was not the best time for Washington to withdraw troops from there. "The situation with security in this country is deteriorating, while Afghan national security forces are unable to stand against armed opposition due to a number of reasons," Kabulov said. "In such circumstances a hasty departure of foreign military servicemen could have unpredictable consequences and destroy those minimal positive results that were achieved in recent years." (Reporting by Andrey Ostroukh; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
Outlets that dont toe the Kremlin line have long had trouble gaining a foothold in the Russian media market. As a result, the expertly-produced state media enjoys a virtual monopoly in the Russian-speaking world, stifling independent voices and stories critical of official Russia.

Now, a new network for Russian speakers has entered the market and it hopes to break through the drumbeat of Kremlin narratives by focusing on local issues and peoples daily lives.

Current Time, backed by U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Free Liberty and partnered with Voice of America, launched its 24/7 Russian language television channel on Tuesday. It had already started a website last year. With about 100 staff members in Prague and correspondents stationed throughout the region, the network will broadcast in 11 countries across the former Soviet Union, including Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia, and the Baltic countries.

Our focus is on real human beings, bread and butter issues, Daisy Sindelar, the director of Current Time, told Foreign Policy during an interview. The videos really tap into day-to-day but universal issues, like corruption and poverty and health care.

The move comes as European Union officials have stepped up criticism of Kremlin-controlled media. Moscow-funded outlets like RT and Sputnik often set the tone on stories like the Ukraine conflict, NATO, and domestic issues inside some countries with large Russian-speaking populations, sometimes sparking controversy with false information.

Russia tries to challenge the stability and the minds of Western societies, said Anna Fotyga, a Polish member of the European Council who sponsored an EU report on Russian disinformation last year. I consider a Russian-language satellite and digital network an excellent response to this threat.

Current Time may have trouble drawing eyeballs away from well-funded state media pumped up with drama and glitz. The new outlet will have to make do with a much smaller budget than established Russian networks enjoy. Meanwhile, local affiliate stations that Current Time relies on to distribute their content in Russia are often hesitant to pick up foreign programming for fear that they could lose advertising revenue by going against the official line.

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In the short term, we dont anticipate that our TV penetration will be significant in Russia, said Sindelar.

Current Times founders think theyll have better luck reaching the millions-strong Russian language audience across the region on their smartphones, using video to tell personal narratives and highlight local issues. The digital division has already garnered more than 200 million views on sites like YouTube, Facebook, and the Russian social media site VKontakte since January 2016.

Glenn Kates, the managing editor of Current Times digital department, said the team was inspired by the growing popularity of short subtitled videos on Facebook from outlets like Al Jazeera +, Buzzfeed, and others news sites that managed to excel in accessing audiences on social media platforms.

I had seen how those videos were capable of engaging with people and I realized that there is no reason that something that works there shouldnt work [for Current Time], he said.

Current Time, which is affiliated with the Broadcasting Board of Governors and funded by the U.S. government, will also need to shed criticism it has its own state-funded editorial viewpoint.

Sindelar counters that the Russian government pours millions into their glossy media industry, blocking independent channels from offering different points of views. She said Current Time doesnt push a political viewpoint besides highlighting human rights and rule of law issues.

We present one of the few alternatives that Russian speakers have to this state-orchestrated media, Sindelar said. I think in the end we will have an audience that knows they can come to us with zero spin and good factual reporting about things that are important to them.

Focusing on personal storytelling, instead of politics, will allow their content to spread in Russia, Sindelar and Kates argued. Some shows, like Unknown Russia, gives viewers a glimpse of life across Russia and tells personal stories from the far-flung regions that many Russians themselves have never visited. Others focus on how-to advice, such as Business Plan, a show about creating start ups in Ukraine.

But it wont be all lighter fare. For example, one recent story used smartphone video footage and audio recordings to expose a harrowing episode of police brutality  and its coverup  in Russia.

Other digital offerings use animation to explain murky topics, like a complex new surveillance law in Russia.

Where it becomes powerful is where we are able to show Russians all over Russia that a problem that may seem very local or particular to one city is actually of interest to everybody, said Sindelar.

Photo Credit: DMITRY SEREBRYAKOV/AFP/Getty Images
Ms Palin was one of the first high-profile Republicans to endorse Mr Trump during his election campaign: Getty

Sarah Palin has been touted as a potential US ambassador to Canada, prompting a mixture of mirth, confusion and anger from their neighbours north of the border.

The rumour started to fly after White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer refused to rule out her appointment, despite being directly questioned about whether the 2008 Vice Presidential candidate was being considered.

We have no additional ambassador nominations or announcements to make on that front. I'm sure at some point we will have, soon, he said.

Ms Palin was one of the first high-profile Republicans to endorse Mr Trump during his election campaign last year as the first state, Iowa, prepared to hold its caucus.

Are you ready for the leader to make America great again? she asked a rally at Iowa State University. Are you ready to stump for Trump? Im here to support the next president of the United States  Donald Trump.

The former Governor of Alaska also reportedly spoke to Mr Trump about the position of veterans affairs secretary. However she was not selected for the cabinet role.

The lack of denial from the Trump administration led many Canadians to take to social media in despair over the potential appointment.

Dear Mr. Trump: Rather than appoint Sarah Palin as ambassador to Canada, please bomb us. Signed, all intelligent life in Canada. #killmenow  Doug Youmans (@dippedbanana) February 8, 2017

As an American citizen, I want to apologize to Canada. Appointing #sarahpalin as Ambassador is no way to treat a friend. https://t.co/UZRGLqmvvj  Marion Swan (@BlueEyesSwan) February 9, 2017

Many accused Ms Palin of being under-qualified for the job.

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#BetsyDeVos makes Sarah Palin look like a Rhodes Scholar...  Cyrus McQueen (@CyrusMMcQueen) February 9, 2017

This is entirely because Sarah Palin can see Canada from Alaska, isn't it? https://t.co/9DzQzMnthR  Jamie Lendino (@jlendino) February 8, 2017

However, ambassadorships are often presented to those loyal to the President, regardless of their career trajectory.

The last 18 US ambassadors to Canada were not career diplomats, according to the Ottawa Sun newspaper.

The position has remained vacant since Barack Obama's ambassador to Canada Bruce Heyman resigned ahead of Mr Trumps inauguration.
Every year, approximately 65,000 undocumented students -- many of whom were brought to the country at a young age by a parent or guardian -- graduate from U.S. high schools. For many, this is the end of their education.

Undocumented students cannot legally receive federal student financial aid of any form, including loans, grants and scholarships. At the state level, most require undocumented students to pay out-of-state tuition to attend public colleges and universities and prohibit the students from receiving state loans, grants and other financial help. Private college tuition can be just as daunting for the vast majority of students.

[Learn how the first year of Deferred Action affected undocumented students.]

The result: Plenty of high-achieving undocumented students can't further their studies. This includes those in the country under former President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, which currently allows some undocumented immigrants who entered the country as minors to enjoy protection from deportation for renewable two-year periods.

However, scholarships are available to help high-achieving undocumented students pursue their dreams of going to college.

TheDream.US calls itself the country's largest program for DREAMers -- students who qualify for DACA status. TheDream.US has committed close to $43 million to 1,700 students. The organization offers two scholarships for high-achieving undocumented students.

The National Scholarship is open to current or soon-to-be high school or community college graduates who qualify for in-state tuition at TheDream.US' partner schools, which include Arizona State University--Tempe, San Jose State University and Colorado State University. The National Scholarship pays for tuition and fees up to $12,500 for an associate degree and $25,000 for a bachelor's.

TheDream.US also offers the Opportunity Scholarship for current and soon-to-be high school graduates who live in states that do not offer in-state tuition to undocumented students. Applicants must have or be eligible for DACA status and intend to enroll full time in a partner school's bachelor's degree program.

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The scholarship pays up to $80,000 for tuition, fees, on-campus housing and meals. Applications for both scholarships are scheduled to reopen in early November.

[Consider scholarships for immigrant students.]

Educators for Fair Consideration is another organization that offers scholarships to undocumented students. The New American Scholars Program is open to students who reside in or attend school in the San Francisco Bay Area. Recipients can use the $7,000 scholarship to pay for tuition and expenses.

Applicants must meet minimum 3.3 and 3.0 GPA requirements for high school students and college students, respectively. Recipients are chosen based on academic excellence, impact on their community and financial need. Applications are due March 1.

Another scholarship opportunity for high-achieving undocumented students is the Golden Door Scholars scholarship, which offers full scholarships to partner schools, such as Wake Forest University, Emory University, Lehigh University and Tufts University.

Current high school students and recent high school graduates must submit transcripts and essays with their application. Preference is given to students from states that require undocumented students to pay out-of-state tuition.

Winners must maintain a 3.0 GPA each semester. They are also assigned mentors and offered professional development and internship support, so applicants must be eligible to participate in paid internships.

Applications will open in September. Full disclosure: Arthur Murray, who wrote this post, is a Golden Doors Scholar member and mentor to two undocumented students.

[Learn tips and advice on paying for college.]

While these scholarships are specifically for undocumented students, additional scholarship opportunities exist for undocumented students as well as legal U.S. residents and U.S. citizens.

The QuestBridge National College Match program, for example, pairs high-achieving, low-income students -- including undocumented residents -- with 38 top colleges, including Duke University, Brown University and the University of Notre Dame. The schools then award full four-year scholarships, including room and board, to QuestBridge scholars.

Academically outstanding students from households making less than $65,000 annually for a family of four should consider applying. The application process will open this summer.

The Hispanic Scholarship Fund is designed to help graduating high school seniors, community college transfer students, and undergraduate and graduate students of Hispanic heritage obtain a postsecondary degree. Awards range from $500 to $5,000 and are based on merit and need.

Applicants must meet minimum GPA requirements based on their current education level and must plan to enroll full time in an accredited, nonprofit, four-year university or graduate institution. Preference is given to science, technology, engineering and math -- or STEM -- majors. The deadline to apply is March 30.

The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation offers the College Scholarship Program to reward outstanding students with financial need. This competitive program awards as many as 40 students with up to $40,000 to attend accredited, four-year undergraduate institutions.

Recipients are selected for exceptional academic ability and achievement, leadership skills, financial need and service to others. Applicants must also meet minimum GPA and standardized test requirements. Applications open in late September and close in late November.

For additional scholarship resources, undocumented students can explore Scholarships A-Z, a nonprofit based in Arizona, and MALDEF, a Latino legal civil rights organization.

Arthur Murray, a graduate of the University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill, is managing editor of the GoodCall.com newsroom. The organization provides access to information, data, technology and tools, including a scholarship engine, to help visitors make important decisions.
Just why exactly would 151 state legislators from places like Idaho and Texas accept subsidized junkets from a Turkish opposition group now blamed by that countrys government for an attempted coup last summer?

Its puzzling that state legislators who rarely get involved in foreign policy matters have been courted with international trips.

Its especially surprising for the invitations to come from a powerful religious movement that until recently ran media outlets and a bank before falling out with the government in Turkey, a pivotal U.S. ally that serves as the gateway to the Middle East. Though followers of the movement deny having supported the failed coup, Turkey has asked the United States to extradite its leader, Fethullah Gulen, a reclusive Islamic cleric who lives in a compound not in Ankara or Istanbul but in the woods of Pennsylvania.

The Center for Public Integrity documented the extent of the trips and found that some state lawmakers who attended them later introduced resolutions supporting Gulens controversial Hizmet movement. And some have even supported charter schools that are part of a network from Washington, D.C., to California of roughly 160 taxpayer-funded schools run by friends of the movement.

While some familiar with the lawmakers trips frame them as innocuous learning experiences, the trips are meant to transform American community leaders into Gulen sympathizers, according to Joshua Hendrick, a sociologist at Loyola University and a leading expert on the movement.

It most certainly has the impact of cultivating influence, Hendrick said. It is a political effort but it is framed as a grassroots mobilization of dialogue.

Related: Key findings: schools and subsidized trips to Turkey

This story is part of Whos Calling the Shots in State Politics?. The Center exposes the powerful special interests that drive elections and policy in the states. Click here to read more stories in this series.

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Sympathetic to the cause

The long parade of state legislators who have accepted the heavily subsidized trips from the Gulen movement includes some influential figures. The man known as Illinois most powerful state politician, Democratic Speaker of the House Mike Madigan, traveled four times to Turkey on trips sponsored by nonprofit groups associated with Gulens Hizmet  or service  movement.

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In 2011, at least a tenth of Idahos state legislators toured the land of the Ottomans on the movements dime.

At least four Texas lawmakers who have served on legislative education committees went on the sponsored trips. The Lone Star state is home to the most Gulen-linked charter schools.

California has about a dozen of the schools, as do Florida and Ohio. Arizona, Illinois and Missouri are among the states that have them, as well.

The Center for Public Integrity used lawmakers annual disclosures and news reports to identify 151 state legislators from 29 states who toured Turkey between 2006 and 2015 thanks to more than two dozen nonprofits associated with the Gulen movement.

Among those who went on the trips were lawmakers who had rarely traveled overseas. Many had little knowledge of Gulen or Turkish politics. Few of their states have trade connections to Turkey.

But state legislators represent the political farm team of leaders who may someday play in the big leagues of Congress or beyond. Thom Tillis, for one, was first elected to the North Carolina statehouse in 2006 and went on a trip to Turkey with a Gulen movement group in 2011. Fast forward: The Republican is now a U.S. senator serving on the powerful Armed Services Committee, which oversees members of the U.S. military stationed in Turkey.

State lawmakers also shape education policy and hold the purse strings on state budgets, which fund charter schools.

Its effective public relations, said William Martin, a Rice University sociologist who went on two sponsored trips. That can affect their schools, it can affect the things they would like to do.

The schools have denied connections to Gulen, but experts and even some friends of the movement call the links obvious. The charter schools are often founded and run by individuals with long ties to the Gulen movement, and they frequently hire Turkish teachers, sponsor their visas and move them between schools. Many were set up with the help of nonprofits tied to the movement.

Gulen supporters say the trips for lawmakers promoted intercultural dialogue, a key component of Gulen's teaching. The former imam preaches a unique brand of Islamic mysticism paired with Turkish nationalism and respect for modern science.

We wanted to act as a kind of a bridge between Americans and Turks, said Atilla Kahveci, vice president of the California-based Pacifica Institute, a Gulen-movement group that has organized lawmaker trips. We didn't have any kind of, from our point of view, ulterior agenda, no matter how it seems from outside.

But other experts think the trips have political motivations.

Its like any other lobbying or political operation, said James Jeffrey, who served as ambassador to Turkey under President George W. Bush and is now a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank. Theyre doing this to advance their cause.

American sympathizers have stuck up for Gulen and his followers. Since 2011, state lawmakers in 23 states have introduced at least 54 resolutions honoring Turkey or Turkish Americans, some of which specifically praised Gulen or Gulen-movement organizations, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of data from Quorum, a legislative tracking service.

For example, the Illinois House of Representatives passed a resolution in 2011 recognizing Gulen for his inspirational contributions to the promotion of global peace and understanding. A Gulen-movement group sponsored at least 32 trips to Turkey for Illinois state lawmakers between 2008 and 2012, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

In Kansas, former state Rep. Tom Moxley, a Republican who went on a subsidized trip to Turkey in 2011, sponsored a resolution the following year that praised Turkeys diversity and called for the creation of a Kansan-Turkish Friendship Network.

Im more sympathetic to the cause, the belief system of this group of Muslims, versus the ones that are in power in Turkey today, he said. Were watching a dictator take over at a time when the American government can least afford to lose them as a friend.

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A movement centered in the Poconos

Fethullah Gulen, Turkeys most wanted man, lives tucked in the green mountains of the Poconos, a Pennsylvania tourism spot better known for its honeymoon suites with heart-shaped tubs than as an incubator for international insurrection.

Gulen, now in his 70s, began preaching in Turkey by the early 1960s and quickly drew followers to his messages of devotion to Islam paired with success in the modern world.

He moved to the United States in 1999, ostensibly for medical treatment, though he left just before the secularist regime ruling at the time accused him of threatening to overthrow the government. Gulen later obtained a U.S. green card, on the grounds that he had special abilities in the field of education.

Gulens movement in Turkey continued to grow, aligning itself with the conservative AKP party that now rules the country.

His followers established dormitories and schools in Turkey and elsewhere, as well as a network of nonprofit groups and foundations, including those in the United States that sponsor lawmakers trips, such as the Pacifica Institute and the American Turkish Friendship Association.

The nonprofits frequently share open allegiance to Gulens Hizmet movement, staff or other ties, according to Hendrick, the Loyola sociologist who mapped the connections between the groups in his research. Hendrick calls their informal connections to each other and Gulen part of the movements strategic ambiguity, which makes it more difficult for outsiders to assess the movements size and power.

But tensions in Turkey flared in 2013, and the AKP blamed its former political allies for the attempted coup in July 2016.

Though Gulen and his followers have denied responsibility for the recent coup attempt, the Turkish government led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has cracked down on the Gulen movement, arresting 40,000 people and firing more than 100,000 soldiers, teachers and civil servants. Erdogan has also moved to silence dissenters and has jailed more than 100 journalists.

Today, Turkish leaders call Gulen a terrorist.

Turkey has also hired Amsterdam and Partners LLP, an international law firm that specializes in political advocacy and cross-border disputes, to pursue investigations into U.S. schools connected to the movement. The Turkish embassy did not return requests for comment.

Gulen was not available for an interview, according to the Alliance for Shared Values, a Gulen-movement umbrella group based in New York that handles his media requests.

We hope that Americans see that he is a peaceful man who has been wrongly accused by an autocratic Turkish president, said Mustafa Akpinar, CEO of the Rumi Forum, a Gulen-movement nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. We are confident in the rule of law in the United States and expect due process for Turkeys misguided extradition request.

All this has put the United States in a tricky position. U.S. officials have offered to help Turkey investigate the attempted coup, while simultaneously warning its ally to live up to democratic principles in dealing with suspects.

Though the U.S. has not formally said who was to blame for the coup, two U.S. ambassadors to the country, including current ambassador John Bass, have made the connection to Gulen. Bass in a television interview last August referenced the apparent involvement of a large number of Gulens followers in the attempted takeover.

Experts say even if this is true, it remains possible that Gulen himself and his American followers were not directly involved in the failed takeover.

In September, after Turkey asked the U.S. to extradite Gulen back to Turkey, the Obama administration promised to consider it but did not move quickly.

Experts are uncertain where the new administration stands. Former Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, President Trump's national security adviser, has called Gulen shady and his schools a scam.

State Department spokeswoman Pooja Jhunjhunwala said the agency had no update on the issue.

Meanwhile, the Turkey trips for state legislators have dried up amid the current political upheaval.

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Fact-finding mission or junket?

Some lawmakers are bewildered that the groups that paid for their trips are now swept up in Turkeys current political turmoil.

I cant imagine what they would have wanted out of the North Dakota state Legislature, said former North Dakota state Rep. Ben Hanson, a Democrat who went on a trip sponsored by a Gulen group in 2013 with six other lawmakers from his state. North Dakota does not currently allow charter schools and has few ties to the Middle East.

It seemed like their group was trying to educate people and trying to bridge relations, and that seemed like a positive thing in and of itself, he added.

The Center for Public Integrity attempted to contact the legislators it identified as having gone on the trips. Of the 34 lawmakers willing to comment, most spoke of their trips positively. Many said their trips were packed with educational information and meetings with Turkish businessmen or officials and were not pleasure tours. While some, like Moxley in Kansas, defended Gulens followers, others said they didnt know what to make of recent events in Turkey.

Thats above my pay grade, said Roger Katz, a Republican in the Maine Senate who traveled to Turkey.

Some said they had no idea the sponsors of the trips were even part of the Gulen movement. To be sure, many of the trips occurred before the movement became an enemy of the Turkish state.

The people I was associated with were devout Muslims and, I thought, the nicest people, said Harry Kennedy, a former Democratic state senator in Missouri who went to Turkey in 2008. But we really didnt talk much about international politics.

Lawmakers who have gone on the trips also have praised the experience as a way to dispel myths about Muslims in a post-9/11 world. But not every trip participant walked away with the same conclusions. New Mexico state Sen. George Munoz said he left his trip early.

I thought it was interesting to see another culture and government, but there were some things that were deeply wrong," the Democrat said. "Theres a reason our country chose Christianity.

Gulen-movement groups are not the only ones paying for foreign travel by state lawmakers who have no power over foreign affairs. The government of Taiwan has sponsored trips for state lawmakers, and various Jewish nonprofits have taken state legislators to Israel.

But the Gulen movements efforts are extensive. For years, Gulens followers have been making friends in the United States by offering receptions, awards dinners and the subsidized trips  and not just for state lawmakers.

A 2015 USA Today investigation found the Gulen movement organized 200 trips for members of Congress and their staff.

One Gulen movement member estimated that more than 7,000 Gulen-movement-sponsored trips for North Americans occurred between 2003 and 2010, at an estimated cost of $17.5 million. The trips included mayors, university professors, journalists and other community leaders from across the United States.

The Center for Public Integritys review of lawmakers disclosures show that the Gulen-movement groups shelled out between $1,000 and $7,047 per trip.

Some lawmakers' spouses also came along for the subsidized journeys, which often included visits to major Turkish historical sites such as the Hagia Sophia, a cruise on the Bosphorus Strait, shopping, as well as tours of Gulen-linked institutions such as Zaman, a daily newspaper, or private schools run by the movement.

Though some lawmakers paid for the cost of their flights to the country, expenses such as hotels, meals and tours were frequently covered by Gulen-movement nonprofits, which run on generous donations from Gulens followers, experts said. In addition, local Turkish followers of Gulen often donated funds specifically for the trips and then hosted the travelers in their homes for dinners or joined them for tours.

While federal lawmakers trips are governed by strict rules and must be disclosed, state regulations and their interpretations vary. Many states that regulate lawmaker gifts and travel include exceptions for educational trips, and none ban subsidized travel for legislators outright, according to Ethan Wilson, an ethics expert at the National Conference of State Legislatures.

For example, Colorado bans gifts for lawmakers above $50, but the states ethics commission ruled that the Turkey trips fall under the definition of fact-finding missions, which are allowed.

And though some Kansas legislators reported their trips in financial disclosures, at least two did not. They told the Center for Public Integrity that the state ethics commission told them it wasnt required, though the director of the commission said hotel stays worth more than $500 should be disclosed.

North Dakota does not have any rules barring such trips, nor does it even require them to be disclosed.

Still, lawmakers should scrutinize perks offered to them carefully, said Mike Palmer, an ethics consultant who has worked on ethics codes for municipalities and government agencies. Certain groups like federal contracting officers have strict bans on gifts for good reason, he said.

Theres a balance there between receiving education and being lobbied, Palmer said. What one would ask is: Why are they providing this? Why is this person taking me to lunch? Whats in it for them?

Related: Lawmakers traveling to Turkey

Education favors?

Several lawmakers who went on the trips said they were never asked for any kind of favors in exchange.

But critics of charter schools associated with the Gulen movement worry the subsidized trips make influential friends for the movements burgeoning network of science and math academies in the U.S.  more than 160 in 26 states and the District of Columbia.

Sharon Higgins, a self-described Gulen-watcher who helped found Parents Across America that tries to strengthen public schools, said she believes the trips are brainwashing the lawmakers and officials who go on them.

A lot of times those people dont know the dimension of the controversy surrounding the Gulen movement, said the charter school critic who lives in California. Thats what concerns me is this one-sided presentation.

Supporters of the movement often write off discomfort with Gulen-movement events or schools as Islamophobia. Such Gulen-linked charter schools are generally well-regarded in education circles, and students at many of them consistently score well on standardized exams.

But they've also faced investigations in at least seven states over, among other things, accusations that they favor Turkish nationals when hiring teachers and contractors and spend taxpayer dollars extravagantly to do so. One audit in Georgia found schools bypassing bidding rules to make purchases from companies with ties to Gulen followers. A school in Utah was shut down for financial mismanagement. The state of Louisiana shuttered another Gulen-linked school amid allegations of attempted bribery.

The international law firm hired by the Turkish government to investigate the Gulen network, which has offices in London and Washington, D.C., has already filed formal complaints about charter schools in several states alleging financial improprieties. Robert Amsterdam, the lead attorney, said he believes previous investigations into the schools proved fruitless because of the movement's sway with local leaders.

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In reality, I can point you to lots of smoke, but no charges have been laid in the United States with respect to their activities, Amsterdam said. We think part of it is motivated by a huge effort by the Gulenists to influence political actors.

Several lawmakers who went on trips to Turkey have later supported Gulen-linked charter schools.

Former Maine state Rep. Dennis Keschl and his wife traveled to Turkey in both 2013 and 2014 with a Gulen-linked group, the Turkish Cultural Center Maine. The Republican subsequently wrote letters of support to the states charter school oversight board for two schools that were applying to open in Maine and were said to have ties to Gulen. (Neither school was approved.)

He said a representative from the Turkish Cultural Center Maine asked him to support the schools.

Im a strong supporter of charter schools, Keschl said. In almost all of their charter schools theyve established in the country, with a few exceptions, their students really are top students.

Discord in Texas

Perhaps no state has seen the depths of this controversy more than Texas. The state is home to more than 40 charter schools with reported ties to the movement.

And the Center for Public Integrity identified 10 state legislators who accepted subsidized trips to Turkey from Gulen-related groups, including Democratic state Rep. Alma Allen. She has served as the vice chair of the Houses Public Education Committee and on the advisory board of Harmony Schools, a chain of the Gulen-linked charter schools that has sites in her Houston district.

Allen did not respond to requests for comment.

Experts and observers say the Harmony charter schools were founded by Gulen supporters and, like other Gulen schools, hire an unusual number of Turkish teachers and contractors.

Harmony spokeswoman Peggy England denied any connection to Gulen, saying only 6 percent of its staff are on skilled-worker H-1B visas and that it follows federal and state contracting laws.

We have absolutely no relationship with any religious or social or political movements or organizations. Period, she said. Our books are open and transparent.

Likewise, the Texas Charter Schools Association, which represents Harmony, denied the schools have any direct ties to the cleric at the heart of the movement. We are not aware that he is a charter operator within the state, said Christine Isett, the trade groups director of communications. Our experience is that Harmony public schools produce great results with kids and great outcomes. Oftentimes the kids that graduate from Harmony are the first in their families to go to college.

Yet such denials baffle even friends of the movement.

When I went to Turkey I was shown these schools, and they said, 'We have schools in Texas,' said Martin, the Rice professor.

He said he urges his Gulen-movement friends to be open about their connection with the charter schools. You dont have an organizational tie, I can accept that, but to say you dont have a tie hurts your credibility because people know there is a connection here.

The Gulen-connected trips for lawmakers are allowed in Texas. The state technically banned lawmakers from traveling for pleasure at others expense decades ago, but it allows fact-finding trips.

Still, Texas politicians in 2011 expressed reluctance to go on the trips after The New York Times documented financial improprieties at Gulen-linked schools there and bloggers accused the schools of promoting Islam. (Gulen-movement schools frequently teach the Turkish language but the Center for Public Integrity found no evidence they teach religion.)

It would look like a junket, now deceased Texas state Rep. Ken Legler, a Republican, told the Austin American-Statesman at the time. "I'm just worried about how it looks."

Then in 2012, a conservative group lobbied for Texas to require charter school operators to be American citizens. A modified version requiring a majority of board members to be U.S. citizens eventually became law there, which England said did not affect Harmony schools because they were in compliance before and after it passed.

During a hearing about the bill, Allen came to the defense of the Harmony chain of schools linked to the Hizmet movement. As shown in the anti-Gulen documentary Killing Ed, she specifically cited her trips to Turkey, at least one of which was sponsored by a Gulen-movement nonprofit.

Wonderful Turkey  Ive been there twice, she said. Its beautiful. You should go. 

David Jordan contributed to this story.



A version of this story was co-published by USA Today.

This story is part of Whos Calling the Shots in State Politics?. The Center exposes the powerful special interests that drive elections and policy in the states. Click here to read more stories in this series.

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Copyright 2017 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
The first foreign-policy crisis of the Trump administration may well involve a country most Americans could not find on a map. Already, the new president has signaled his intention to increase military involvement in Yemen, putting Iran on notice and warning that it was playing with fire, following a Iranian ballistic-missile launch and an attack on a Saudi vessel just off the Yemeni coast by Shiite Houthi rebels. Days earlier, President Donald Trump green-lighted a risky special operations raid against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) that led to the death of a U.S. Navy SEAL and numerous Yemeni civilians.

When Sen. John McCain questioned the portrayal of that raid as a success, Trump and Press Secretary Sean Spicer earned further criticism for lashing out that such comments dishonor American dead and aid the enemy. As is often the case with Trumps comments on policy, they quickly become the focus of media attention, rather than what the administration is actually doing  or what the facts are on the ground.

The impoverished Gulf nation is actually marred by two separate but overlapping conflicts.

The first, which predates the Arab Spring uprising that swept longtime dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh from power in 2012, is a counterterrorism fight waged by Yemeni government, with U.S. support, against AQAP, al Qaedas most virulent franchise.

The second, and more damaging conflict, is a civil war between the government of Yemen and the Houthi minority, which was expected to last a matter of weeks, and maybe months, but is now well into its third year. It began when Houthi militia fighters descended on the capital Sanaa in late 2014 and soon evicted the government of President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a close partner of the United States.

Getting more deeply embroiled in Yemens first war without a strategy for resolving the second would be a mistake. Instead, if new Secretary of State Rex Tillerson wants to make an early diplomatic contribution, then there is a confounding but vital mission with his name on it: de-escalating a Yemen civil war that is damaging U.S. interests and should have stopped a long time ago.

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The civil war escalated dramatically in March 2015, with the intervention of a coalition led by Saudi Arabia, which understandably felt threatened by the turmoil on its border and by ties between the Houthis and Riyadhs arch-rival Iran. The United States, which had long been urging Saudi Arabia to take greater responsibility for security challenges in its region, offered a range of support, including with intelligence, weapons sales, aerial refueling for Saudi planes, and various measures to help secure the Saudi border.

Saudi Arabias intervention succeeded in shoring up much of southern Yemen, where the Hadi government is seeking to reconstitute, after decamping to Saudi Arabia.

It has also come at great cost. According to the United Nations, 16,200 people have been killed in Yemen since the intervention, including 10,000 civilians. The humanitarian situation in what was already one of the worlds poorest countries, is now, after Syria, the most dire on the planet, with one in five Yemenis severely food insecure.

Meanwhile, for well over a year now, the military campaign has failed to make measurable progress, demonstrating what U.S. officials have been telling their Saudi counterparts all along  that any resolution will come through negotiation, not military victory, and that the longer the conflict drags on, the greater the cost to the Yemeni people, as well as to Saudi Arabias resources and reputation.

For the United States, the cost has also been significant.

The war has preoccupied key partners with an enemy that does not directly threaten the United States. Indiscriminate air strikes, conducted with American weapons and in the context of American assistance, have killed scores of non-combatants (such incidents eventually compelled the Obama administration to review and adjust our assistance to the coalition). And while Iran and the Houthis have historically maintained an arms-length relationship, the long conflict has brought them closer and led to the introduction of more advanced weapons, such as missiles capable of striking deep into Saudi territory or of threatening the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, a critical channel for maritime traffic.

U.S. interests took a further hit earlier this week when the Yemeni government in-exile, frustrated by the bloody U.S. special forces raid near Aden, said it was revoking permission for U.S. operations against AQAP, which poses a genuine threat to the homeland (the Yemeni government later said the operations could continue though asked for greater coordination).

Should he choose to accept this mission, Secretary Tillerson may be well-placed to succeed.

He knows the complex politics and terrain, having served in Yemen early in his career at ExxonMobil. His close relations in the Gulf  and our Gulf partners purported confidence in him  could help them make the difficult decisions peace will require. He will not face the overhang of (unfounded, but also undeniable) suspicion in the wake of the Iran nuclear deal that the Obama administration tolerated Iranian meddling on Saudi Arabias border.

The timing may also be ripe. Saudi officials and their Emirati coalition partners have been signaling for months that they are eager to end the conflict, which they did not expect to last nearly this long. The Obama administration was making painstaking but genuine progress toward an accord until the election, after which it partners seemed more inclined to wait for the new team to arrive.

And after years of U.N.-led negotiations that sought to sell a relatively one-sided peace to the Houthis (despite what was, at best, a stalemate on the ground), the Obama administration developed and bequeathed to its successors a more balanced roadmap to which all key parties (the Saudis, the Houthis, and the Yemeni government  as well as the United States, U.N., and U.K.) grudgingly agreed.

The new approach did not reflect a more neutral stance in the conflict  the Obama administration explicitly took one side. It reflected the reality, as we saw it, that the Houthis would be reluctant to concede in negotiations what could clearly not be achieved in combat.

The main innovation in the roadmap was that, rather than requiring the Houthis to make all of the concessions up front, which they would never have agreed to do, given their relative strength on the ground, it carefully sequences the various steps that constitute each sides key demands.

For the coalition, that means the Houthis first withdraw from the Saudi border and key cities, such as Sanaa. For the Houthis, it means the subsequent replacement of the Hadi government with one that includes more of their officials in senior positions.

All of that said, making peace between these adversaries will be extremely difficult. For one thing, the Houthis are infamously difficult to work with. When Secretary of State John Kerry met for several hours with their representatives in Oman last November, he was forced to endure a lengthy airing of historical grievances before embarking on the topic at hand. They also have a long history of violating dozens of agreements, which every Saudi diplomat can recount, chapter and verse.

Negotiating peace will also inevitably involve straining relationships with our key partners, who will need to be pushed in the right direction.

Hadi, who all relevant players acknowledge cannot govern a reconciled Yemeni state, has consistently scuttled deals that would require him leave office. His Saudi patrons have proven either unwilling, or unable, to compel better behavior and are themselves too are quick to revert to unreasonable demands  a tendency that would be reinforced if the Trump administration signals it unconditionally has Riyadhs back.

Meanwhile, the Emiratis, who maintain a heavy troop presence in southern Yemen but have, wisely, been more focused on AQAP (the first war) than the Houthis (second), have for many months been threatening to attack the Houthi-held port of Hudeidah, a provocative step that would almost certain set back any peacemaking efforts indefinitely.

In other words, getting this done will require the United States to play hardball with both sides, and deftly  the kind of tough, cajoling diplomacy that should be right up the alley of a former CEO, guided by an adept team of State Department Arabists.

Early signs, however, suggest the new administration may take a different tack, foregoing the more balanced approach necessary to end the Yemen civil war, while aligning the United States more fully with our Gulf partners.

According to news reports the administration may soon designate Yemen a formal battlefield for U.S. troops, which would give the Pentagon and commanders in the field greater latitude to make operational decisions with less political oversight.

This approach would be fraught with risks that must be managed.

First and foremost is that the civil war, and the humanitarian and strategic catastrophe it has spawned, will not end any time soon. The Houthis, according to one State Department official who dealt with them and refers to as junk yard dogs, are hardened fighters ready to dig in for the long haul.

Second, depending on their location, mission, and rules of engagement, an expanded presence of U.S. forces  while Yemeni and Saudi governments are still at war with the Houthis  could bring U.S. troops into close quarters with Iran and its proxies, with all of the escalatory potential that entails. Resisting Iranian meddling in the region is a worthy goal that the Obama administration shared and acted upon. The question, though is whether deeper  and possibly even direct  U.S. intervention on this battlefield at this time makes sense. While the Houthis fired on a U.S. ship late last year, they have not repeated that mistake since the Obama administration retaliated by destroying radars located along the coast. If President Trump chooses to put U.S. forces into the middle of a civil war, it should explain a purpose and objective more concretely than simply pushing back on Iran. Moreover, it must do so with its eyes open to the risks those forces would be assuming and the reality that a limited special forces mission is unlikely to turn the tide on the ground.

Finally, the longer the conflict with the Houthis continues, the more AQAP will continue to benefit from our, and our partners, divided focus, as it strengthens its hold on ungoverned territory. Increasing counterterrorism operations in the absence of a viable government partner could also backfire, since such missions tend to be less effective at best, and at worst can increase the likelihood of mishaps like the January 29 raid.

Every new secretary of state has to prioritize. This means balancing between the issues you choose to tackle, and those that must be addressed. Yemens civil war probably falls somewhere in between. Given the crush of higher-profile global challenges, Tillerson could easily give it a pass. But if he does, things could continue to escalate quickly, all of its damaging qualities will get worse, and a solution will be even further out of reach. Now may be the best chance he has to give it a shot.

Photo credit: SALEH AL-OBEIDI/AFP/Getty Images
Mayor Ed Murray of Seattle addresses the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle in October 2016. (Photo: Ted S. Warren/AP Photo)

As the cities  or at least the mayors  of blue America vie for the mantle of resistance to the Trump administrations domestic, foreign, environmental and labor policies, Seattle seized an early lead with a decision Tuesday to stop doing business with Wells Fargo over the banks role in funding the Dakota Access pipeline. Mayor Ed Murray has already defied President Trumps threat to withhold aid to sanctuary cities, having vowed he will oppose it even if it costs every single penny in federal funds.

We will not be intimidated by the authoritarian message coming from this administration, Murray proclaimed at a press conference in January, referring to Trumps plans to restrict immigration and crack down on undocumented immigrants.

The Dakota Access pipeline, which was shelved by the Obama administration but has been revived by Trump, has been a flashpoint for environmentalists and Native American activists for years. Wells Fargo is one of a dozen banks that are lenders to the project, and had already been targeted last year by the city, which canceled a planned $100 million bond issue over news that the bank had been bilking retail customers for years, resulting in $190 million in fines. The unanimous vote by the City Council on Tuesday means that the citys operating accounts, which handle around $3 billion a year, will have to find a new home when the contract with Wells Fargo expires in late 2018.

You have been a city setting the example to the world, and I look to you to do that now, said Olivia One Feather of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. When big cities such as this do the right thing, it sparks hope in the world.

Olivia One Feather, center, of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, in Seattle on Feb. 7, salutes its City Councils vote to divest from Wells Fargo for lending to the Dakota Access pipeline project and for other business practices. Wells Fargo manages more than $3 billion of Seattles operating account. (Elaine Thompson/AP Photo)

Studies have pegged Seattle as one of the most liberal cities in the United States, in a state that gave Trump only 38.1 percent of the vote in November. It is represented by two Democratic senators in Washington and is the home of such progressive companies as Starbucks, Microsoft and Amazon, as well as Nordstrom, the department store company the president attacked Wednesday on Twitter for dropping his daughter Ivankas clothing line. Another large local employer, Boeing, the countrys leading exporter, has had a rocky relationship with the Trump administration over foreign trade issues and the cost of a replacement plane for Air Force One.

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Some of the legislation rolled out in the area almost reads like a wish list for Democrats nationwide. In 2012, voters in the state approved both same-sex marriage and the use of recreational marijuana. As far back as 2003, Seattle voters moved to make policing adults using marijuana the lowest priority for area law enforcement, essentially decriminalizing weed. In 2015, Seattle began the process to raise the citys minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2020. The state of Washington followed suit in November, passing a ballot initiative that would raise the state minimum wage to $13.50 by the same year. And Seattle residents voted last year to increase property and sales taxes in order to fund an expansion of mass transit in the area.

But the politics of immigration have galvanized the city like few other issues. Murray, a long-time state legislator, who was elected in 2013, has also said that he plans to maintain Seattles status as a so-called sanctuary city, ignoring the White House executive order targeting undocumented immigrants.

Washington was one of two states bringing a lawsuit that won a temporary restraining order against the presidents Muslim immigration ban, and the attorney general who filed the stay, Bob Ferguson, is a Seattle native. James Robart, the federal judge who ruled in favor of the state, is another Seattle native whose chambers are located in the city.

The Space Needle and Mount Rainier pictured at dusk in Seattle, on March 12, 2014. (Photo: Jason Redmond/Reuters)

While a recent Atlantic article highlighted the difficulties some liberal cities have had with state decisions overriding city-level legislation, Seattles policies should be in the relative clear, even though most of the eastern portion of the state leans Republican. Their governor and the state house are both Democratic, mitigating the GOPs small edge in the state Senate. (A ballot initiative that would have either cut the state sales tax or made it more difficult for the state Legislature to raise taxes passed in 2015 but was subsequently struck down by the state Supreme Court.)

Federal money is another matter, and the city is taking precautions in case the White House reduces or eliminates its funding in the battle over immigration. In a press conference last month, Murray said that he had instructed departments to prepare budget cuts in case the approximately $75 million of federal funding in the citys $5 billion budget was pulled.

Its important to remember that the courts have clearly said that you cannot punish or coerce a jurisdiction by taking away their money, said Murray. It also says if there is not a nexus or connection between the program youre trying to enforce and the funds, you cant cut those funds.

Murray did say that $10 million in federal law enforcement funding could be vulnerable, because it could be directly tied to any refusal to enforce federal immigration laws. But he vowed he would not cooperate with the administration on what he views as civil rights issues.

The language in the executive order affecting sanctuary cities talks about giving the immigration police complete authority as an individual to decide if there is cause to detain somebody, Murray said. I cant compromise on that issue. That is police authority like we have never seen in this country.

Read more from Yahoo News:
(WASHINGTON)  The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Sen. Jeff Sessions to be attorney general in the Trump administration despite fierce Democratic opposition to the Alabama Republican over his record on civil rights and immigration.

The 52-47 nearly party-line vote capped weeks of divisive battles over Sessions, an early supporter of President Donald Trump and one of the Senates most conservative lawmakers.

Democrats laced into Sessions, casting him as too cozy with Trump and too harsh on immigrants. They asserted he wouldnt do enough to protect voting rights of minorities, protections for gays and the legal right of women to obtain an abortion. They fear immigrants in the country illegally wont receive due process with Session as the top law enforcement officer.

Any attorney general must be able to stand firm for the rule of law even against the powerful executive that nominated him or her. In this administration I believe that independence is even more necessary, said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va. His (Sessions) record raises doubts about whether he can be a champion for those who need this office most and it also raises doubts about whether he can curb unlawful overreach by Trump.

Republicans say Sessions has demonstrated over a long career in public service  and two decades in the Senate  that he possesses integrity, honesty and is committed to justice.

Hes honest. Hes fair. Hes been a friend to many of us, on both sides of the aisle, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said. Its been tough to watch all this good man has been put through in recent weeks. This is a well-qualified colleague with a deep reverence for the law. He believes strongly in the equal application of it to everyone.

Sessions won unanimous backing from Senate Republicans but picked up the support of just one Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

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Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley is expected to name a replacement for sessions as early as Thursday. Bentley has named six finalists for the Senate appointment, including state Attorney General Luther Strange and GOP Rep. Robert Aderholt.

Strange is considered a leading candidate for the job since Bentley interviewed potential replacements for state attorney general, according to people close to the process. However, Bentleys office has said he has not made a decision.

Wednesdays vote came amid rising tension between Republicans controlling the chamber over delaying tactics by minority Democratic that have left fewer of Trumps picks in place than President Barack Obama had eight years ago. Democrats no longer have filibuster power over Cabinet picks, however, after changing Senate rules when they controlled the chamber in 2013.

Next up for the Senate is Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., Trumps pick for health secretary. A final vote on Price could come late Thursday and success seemed certain.

Democrats have solidly opposed Price, a staunch advocate of repealing Obamas health care overhaul and reshaping and scaling back the Medicare and Medicaid programs that provide health care to older and low-income people.

But theyve mostly accused Price, a wealthy former orthopedic surgeon, of conflicts of interest by acquiring stocks in health care companies and pushing legislation that could help those firms.

Theyve especially targeted his acquisition of shares in Innate Immunotherapeutics, an Australian biotech firm thats said Price got a special insiders deal. Price, who has said he learned of the opportunity from a fellow lawmaker, Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., had testified to Congress that the shares were available to all investors.

If I were a prosecutor, Id say this case has real potential, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Wednesday.

This week has featured overnight, round-the-clock Senate sessions as GOP leaders are grinding through a thicket of controversial picks.

Epitomizing the sharp-edged partisanship surrounding confirmation of Trumps Cabinet nominees, Sen. Elizabeth Warren was given a rare rebuke Tuesday evening for quoting Coretta Scott King, widow of the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., in her 1986 criticism of Sessions.

King wrote that as an acting federal prosecutor in Alabama, Sessions used his power to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens.

McConnell held that the Massachusetts Democrat had run afoul of rules about impugning a fellow senator.

Sessions nomination to a federal judgeship was rejected three decades ago by the Senate Judiciary Committee after it was alleged that as a federal prosecutor he had called a black attorney boy and had said organizations like the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union were un-American.

At his hearing last month, Sessions said he had never harbored racial animus, saying he had been falsely caricatured.

___

Associated Press writer Kimberly Chandler in Montgomery, Alabama, contributed to this report.
After being sworn in as attorney general on Thursday, Jeff Sessions lamented the rise in crime in the United States while issuing a warning about what he claimed was a trend.

We have a crime problem, Sessions said at the White House. I wish the rise that were seeing in crime in America today was some sort of aberration or blip. My best judgment, having been involved in law enforcement for many years, is this is a dangerous permanent trend.

But according to FBI data, that simply is not the case.

While the reported violent crime rate in the United States rose in 2015 compared to the previous year, it has fallen consistently since the early 1990s.

In 2015, there were 372.6 cases of violent crime reported per 100,000 people, according to the FBI. In 1992, there were 758.2 cases per 100,000 people. In 2008, the year before Barack Obama took office, the violent crime rate was 458.6 cases per 100,000 people. In 2009, the rate was 431.9.

"This is a dangerous permanent trend"  AG Sessions on growing crime rate. But here is the actual data https://t.co/YOMla306P7 pic.twitter.com/9Q3mgdEo5n  Mark Murray (@mmurraypolitics) February 9, 2017

Sessions false assertion that the rise in crime is a permanent trend is in line with the man who nominated him.

Earlier this week, during a meeting with a group of sheriffs from the National Sheriffs Association at the White House, President Trump claimed the murder rate in our country is the highest its been in 47 years.

Except it isnt.

According to FBI data, the U.S. murder rate  defined as the number of murders and non-negligent homicides per 100,000  was 4.9 in 2015, up from 4.4 in 2014. But its down significantly from 10.2 in 1980, having fallen steadily over the last three decades. Similarly, the number of overall homicides reported in 2015 was up compared to the previous year, but is well below its peak in the 1990s.

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Jeff Sessions is sworn in as attorney general in the White House on Thursday. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

As PolitiFact pointed out, the number of murders has declined by 42 percent between 1993 and 2014, even as the U.S. population rose by 25 percent over the same period.

During an address to the Major Cities Chiefs Association winter conference in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Trump offered a different statistic, this time correctly noting there has been an increase in the murder rate within U.S. cities.

In 2016, murders in large cities continued to climb by double digits, Trump said. In many of our biggest cities, 2016 brought an increase in the number of homicides, rapes, assaults and shootings. In Chicago, more than 4,000 people were shot last year alone, and the rate so far this year has been even higher. What is going on in Chicago? We cannot allow this to continue.

According to FBI data and the last two annual reports by the Brennan Center for Justice on crime in the countrys 30 largest cities, those figures were accurate.

More from Yahoo News:
Washington (AFP) - The US Senate confirmed Jeff Sessions as attorney general Wednesday, despite fierce debate about his civil rights record and Democratic concern over whether he serves as the nation's top law enforcement officer independent from President Donald Trump.

Lawmakers greenlighted the senator as the 84th US attorney general on a mostly party line vote of 52 to 47, with one Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, voting with the Republican majority.

When the tally was announced, many senators broke into extended applause for their colleague.

Trump has harangued Democrats for slow-walking his nominees, blasting their unprecedented obstruction as a "disgrace."

He appeared particularly angered by the delay on Sessions, who as attorney general would wield enormous power regarding the administration of justice, including on the issue of voting rights.

"Congratulations to our new attorney general," Trump tweeted shortly after the vote.

Sessions, widely seen as an inspiration for Trump's anti-immigration policies, is just the sixth of 15 cabinet members to be confirmed, in addition to the cabinet-rank positions of CIA director and US ambassador to the United Nations.

He takes charge of the Justice Department and its 113,000 employees amid a swirling legal debate over Trump's most controversial White House action to date, an executive order temporarily blocking all refugee arrivals and immigration from seven mainly Muslim countries.

With Trump using Twitter to bully a judge who rolled back the ban, and an appeals court weighing whether to reinstate it, debate over Sessions grew increasingly acrimonious and personal.

On Tuesday night, it turned ugly. Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sternly rebuked Democrat Elizabeth Warren for reading a letter written by the widow of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr that criticized Sessions's civil rights record.

"She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted," McConnell said of Warren's violation of the chamber's rules of decorum.

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Warren, a potential 2020 presidential candidate, later said: "I will not be silent about a nominee for AG who has made derogatory and racist comments that have no place in our justice system."

In 1986, Coretta Scott King wrote a letter to the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee urging senators to reject Sessions's nomination as a federal judge. His appointment ultimately failed.

"Mr Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens," King wrote.

Senator Sherrod Brown expressed concern about Sessions in light of Trump's recent executive order.

"We need an attorney general who will be an independent voice beholden to the Constitution and the American people, not the president," Brown said.

- 'August responsibilities' -

The genteel Sessions, who like the president is 70, was an early loyal Trump supporter who became a pivotal figure in his campaign and his transition team.

Sessions grew up in Alabama, in the segregated South. He was a US prosecutor from 1981 to 1993, before serving as the state's attorney general. He won a seat in the US Senate in 1996.

His career was almost derailed when the Senate panel rejected him for a federal judgeship amid concerns over past comments he made about blacks, and voter rights.

At his confirmation hearing last month, Sessions endured pinpoint attacks by Democrats on his civil rights record, but he insisted that "this caricature of me from 1986 was not correct."

Shortly after his confirmation he sought to assuage concerns about how he would run the department.

"I fully understand the august responsibilities of that office," he said.

Sessions also recognized the heated US political debate since Trump's election victory and urged Americans to come together.

"Our nation does have room for Republicans and Democrats," he said.

But Senate Democrat Chris Murphy said he was "scared" about changes Sessions could bring.

Sessions's "history of opposing civil rights, anti-gun violence measures and immigration reform makes him uniquely ill-fitted to serve" as attorney general, Murphy said.

"I want a chief law enforcement official that will be a champion of the disenfranchised and dispossessed, not a defender of discrimination and nativism."
Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon had a debate on The Tonight Show Wednesday night in which one of them could draw the ire of some and the praise of others: Which of them is responsible for Donald Trump being elected president. Meyers believes hes responsible because of the jokes he told as host of the 2011 White House Correspondents Association dinner, where Trump was present. Fallon believes, or at least thinks that some people believe, it may have something to do with the time he messed up Trumps hair when he was a guest on the show before the election. Both make compelling arguments.

When Fallon messed up Trumps hair on The Tonight Show, it generated a huge response from the public because many people thought Fallon should have been harder on the controversial candidate rather than play around with him. Others said it humanized Trump when he smiled and let Fallon mess up his normally perfectly styled coif and thought the appearance led to more votes.

Meyers may have a stronger argument, however, because without the night at the Correspondents Association dinner, when he believes we started down this path, that moment with Fallon never would have happened. Meyers said that throughout the dinner, Trump was the butt of numerous jokes made by Meyers and President Barack Obama. Many of the jokes were about a Trump run for the presidency and were met with laughter from the crowd  but not from Trump. And this is why Meyers believes he is responsible for the Trump presidency.

I made fun of him in 2011. Thats the night he decided to run. I kicked the hornets nest, Meyers said.

Check out the people of Scotland showing Full Frontal how they fought Trump:

Tell us what you think! Hit us up on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, or leave your comments below. And check out our host, Khail Anonymous, on Twitter.
By Anthony Deutsch and Toby Sterling AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The authenticity of more than 400,000 signatures gathered by activists in the Netherlands to trigger last year's referendum on the European Union treaty with Ukraine was never verified, it emerged on Thursday. The information came in a letter from the Internal Affairs Ministry, responding to a Freedom of Information Act request, published by broadcaster RTL. A spokeswoman for the country's Electoral Council confirmed to Reuters that a sampling of names had been checked to verify they were those of registered voters, but not whether the signatures themselves were real. "The Dutch referendum law does not require the signatures to be verified," said Heleen Hormann. "When we evaluated the law we raised concerns ... about the process. There is no way for the signatures to be verified because they were never entered in the system." The council had recommended that the government use its national digital identification system, known by the acronym DigiD, for the referendum application, but that advice was not adopted, she said. The nonbinding Ukraine referendum was the first in the Netherlands put forward by citizens under a law that went into effect in July 2015 and is up for review this year. Dutch voters overwhelmingly rejected the EU-Ukraine association treaty, which was strongly opposed by Russia, in the plebiscite last April. The result forced Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to seek a compromise deal with 27 other EU member states that eventually saved the agreement. Intelligence agencies have warned that elections this year in the Netherlands, France and Germany could be vulnerable to manipulation by outside actors, including Russia. The Dutch government last week ordered ballots in the March 15 parliamentary vote to be hand-counted and said the software previously used to aggregate local votes nationally must not be used. [L5N1FM5YB] Interior Minister Ronald Plasterk said the measures were needed to avoid the risk of manipulation. (Editing by Andrew Roche)
Bannonism. The first several weeks of the Trump administration have been intense, controversial, chaotic, and often confused. But that might very well be by design. The presidents chief advisor, Steve Bannon, has long espoused a Leninist philosophy that aims to bring the institutions of the state crashing down in order to birth a new political and cultural reality.

What by conventional measures looks like a string of setbacks and misfires, FPs Dan De Luce writes in a new piece, could to an ideologue like Bannon be proof that the administration is on the right track to achieving its goal  destroying what he calls the Washington establishment. Whats less clear is what might take its place.

Moscow not having it. The Kremlin is bristling as thousands of NATO troops and dozens of tanks settle into position in the alliances Baltic member states, a move the alliance says is necessary given Russias invasion of Ukraine and other provocative moves over the past two years that threaten its neighbors. And Russian officials are using more provocative language to express their concern.

This deployment is of course a threat for us, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Meshkov said Thursday. For the first time since World War Two we see German soldiers along our borders.

In a similar move, another Russian official complained Thursday that a U.S.-funded anti-missile shield in Romania represents a direct threat to Moscow. The U.S. military has long argued that the system is needed to protect from Iran, and doesnt threaten Russia, but the Kremlin isnt buying it. Romanias stance and the stance of its leadership, who have turned the country into an outpost, is a clear threat for us, Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko, a senior Russian foreign ministry official, said.

Despite the rhetoric from Moscow, and President Trumps complaints about the NATO alliance and threats to pull Washington out of the pact, U.S. and NATO officials appear confident that the deployments to Eastern Europe and the Baltics are here to stay.

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Russia sends big shipment to Syria. While all this is happening in Europe, Russia has gone ahead and shipped its largest cache of missiles to Syria to date, FOX News reports. The shipment of 50 SS-21 short-range ballistic missiles arrived at the Syrian port of Tartus along the Mediterranean Sea this week, a U.S. defense official said. For someone winding down a war, thats a big missile shipment, another official added.

Waiting for my man. Russian President Vladimir Putins likely pick for his next ambassador the the United States, Anatoly Antonov, is a well-known figure among U.S. diplomatic and foreign policy hands. Several of those officials and Russian watchers characterized him as a tough, well-prepared negotiator who can also act as an unrepentant propagandist when the need arises, FPs Paul McLeary and Reid Standish write in a mini-profile of the long time diplomat.

But many of Antonovs comments about terrorism sound much like the rhetoric coming out of the White House under the Trump administration. And it might be a fruitful time for a new ambassador to come to town. An advisor to U.S. national security officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity told FP that Trumps top advisers, notably White House strategist Steve Bannon and national security advisor Michael Flynn, see Russia as a potential partner. Its not that theyre Russia lovers. They have a view that in the scheme of things, Russia is not the real problem. We need to rethink how we work with Russia, and in the end Russia can actually be  at times  a partner to deal with real problems like China and radical Islam, the official said.

Six months to Raqqa? The head of the U.S.-led war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria on Thursday predicted that within the next six months both Raqqa and Mosul could fall completely. U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend told reporters traveling with him that the terrorist group is on its heels, and that U.S.-backed Kurdish and Syrian Arab forces are close to encircling Raqqa, after which a push into the city will begin. In Iraq, the eastern half of Mosul has fallen to government forces, who are beginning their push on the more densely populated western half of the city.

Elsewhere in Syria, Turkish-backed Syrian rebels  supported by American air power  are pressing on the ISIS stronghold of al Bab form the north, while Syrian government forces, backed by Russian aircraft, are pressing from the south, leading to some jittery times for all of the countries involved.

Not so fast. The Trump administration has hinted that it might sanction the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist political group, as a terrorist organization. But Politico reports that the CIA is pushing back against the idea, arguing that the group is actually ideologically at odds with the Islamic State and al Qaeda, has largely given up on violence as a political tool, and that designating the group as a Foreign Terrorist Organization could lead its broad base of supporters to abandon the political process and take up arms. An anonymous State Department source tells Politico that the move to sanction the Brotherhood met resistance at the department and is likely no longer on the front burner in the Trump administration.

Welcome to SitRep. Send any tips, thoughts or national security events to paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com or via Twitter: @paulmcleary or @arawnsley.

China

President Trumps first outreach to Chinese President Xi Jinping has come in the form of a letter rather than a phone call, Reuters reports. In contrast to the hard line Trump has taken against Xi and China in speeches and tweets, the letter expressed a desire to form a constructive relationship with China under the new administration. A phone call between Trump and Xi might not be in the cards anytime soon  one anonymous foreign diplomat tells the wire service, as Trumps penchant for going off script and berating even close allies like Australia means Xi is unlikely to risk an embarrassing conversation with him.

Russia

A recent change in Russian law has opened up the door to Russian private security companies operating abroad. Zeit Online reports that Russias Law No. 53 classifies any veteran of basic military service in the country who fights terrorism abroad to have legal status as a member of the Russian military. Recruiters have taken advantage of the new law, using social media to sign up would-be private security guards.

Ukraine

Someone is appears to be killing rebel commanders in Donetsk. The Wall Street Journal reports that Ukrainian rebel warlord Mikhail Tolstykh was killed in an explosion attack at his office, with rebel sources claiming a rocket attack as the cause of death. Other high profile rebel commanders, such as Arseny Motorola Pavlov, have died in mysterious explosions, raising questions about who is behind the attacks. Rebels blame the Ukrainian government for the killings, while the Ukrainian government claims that Russia is getting rid of hard-to-control commanders in its proxy war against Kiev.

Iran

Iran has launched another missile, but it wasnt the one observers were initially expecting. Fox News reports that Iran test fired a short range Mersad missile from a launch pad in Semnan. Earlier this week, Fox reported that Iran satellite imagery showed that Iran had placed a Safir rocket, capable of launching a satellite into orbit, onto the launch pad. The switch comes after the Trump administration pronounced Iran to be on notice in the wake of an earlier ballistic missile test and applied a new round of sanctions. The U.S. has argued that Irans ballistic missile tests violate U.N. Resolution 2231, but Iran, Russia, China regard the resolution banning ballistic missiles as more of a suggestion. The Mersad missile tested on Wednesday is not a ballistic missile.

Israel

The AP reports that Israel came under rocket fire from militants in Egypt on Wednesday. The rockets targeted the southern Israeli city of Eilat, triggering Israels Iron Dome anti-rocket system. Egypts Sinai Peninsula has increasingly been home to Islamist militants, including an affiliate of the Islamic State.

Afghanistan

The U.N. has taken a look at the Afghan air force airstrikes throughout 2016 and claims to have found a troubling uptick in civilian casualties. The U.N. counted 252 civilians killed in Afghan air strikes throughout the year, which represents nearly twice the number of civilians killed in 2015. The uptick in civilian deaths comes as the U.S. military has tried to quickly stand up an independent Afghan air capability in order to allow the countrys military to assume greater responsibility for its own security.

Photo Credit PETRAS MALUKAS/AFP/Getty Images
Here's a message you really don't want to receive from the Internal Revenue Service: Someone has already received your tax refund.

More than 237,500 taxpayers filed affidavits with the IRS in the first nine months of 2016 reporting that they had been victims of identity theft, according to the agency, although that number was down 50 percent from 2015. During that same period, the IRS stopped 787,000 identity theft returns that had sought more than $4 billion in refunds.

Scammers can steal taxpayers' identity in a variety of ways, from data breaches at retail stores, medical facilities and the IRS itself to theft of paper mail. Scams often involve a web of thieves, with one group stealing identities and another filing bogus tax returns.

[Read: 9 Tax Changes to Know Before Filing Your 2016 Return.]

The IRS, tax preparers and online tax preparation services have taken a variety of measures to combat fraud.

"We are requiring our customers to have stronger passwords," says Lisa Greene-Lewis, a CPA, tax expert for TurboTax and U.S. News contributor. The company also is requiring multifactor authentication to log in, where access is granted after providing more than one piece of information to verify your identity.

Last year, the IRS instituted new security measures for all online filing. Some states are requiring driver's license numbers with returns, figuring that a thief who acquired a taxpayer's Social Security number didn't necessarily acquire his or her driver's license number as well.

If someone has filed a fraudulent tax return in your name, that means they have your Social Security number and can engage in other financial fraud. The first step is locking down your financial accounts to avoid further damage.

"If they stole your identity for a tax return, they're probably into your credit cards next," says Jeff Schnepper, a tax attorney in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and the author of "How to Pay Zero Taxes 2017: Your Guide to Every Tax Break the IRS Allows."

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Scammers usually file returns as soon as tax filing opens, hoping to receive refunds before the real taxpayers report their fraud. If the IRS flags problems with your return, you'll get a letter before any refund is issued, which gives you the opportunity to tag the initial return as fraudulent and go on and file normally. But if the IRS doesn't catch the fraudulent return, you won't find out about it until you file your return electronically and get a message that your return has already been filed. If you file a paper return, you'll receive a letter from the IRS informing you a return has already been filed in your name.

[See: Answers to 7 Burning Tax Questions.]

If the scammer gets your refund, you may have a long wait before you see any money yourself. It may take six months or longer for the IRS to agree that it sent someone else your refund and actually send the money to you.

"[The IRS has] been devastated by budget cuts," Schepper says. "They don't have the staff to do this."

Here are eight things to do if someone has filed a fraudulent tax return in your name or you have recently been a victim of ID theft and fear it might lead to a fraudulent tax return:

File Form 14039. If you receive a letter from the IRS or otherwise suspect you're the victim of ID theft, you should fill out and mail this form, called Identity Theft Affidavit, to the IRS with a copy of your driver's license, Social Security card or passport.

Put a credit freeze on your accounts. Call the three major credit bureaus -- Experian, TransUnion and Equifax -- and ask that your credit be frozen. Now no one can request new credit in your name. Keep in mind that if you apply for a new cellphone or utility account, or otherwise agree to a credit check, you'll have to lift the freeze long enough for the check to be done.

Check your credit card accounts. Make sure no one has charged anything to your credit card accounts, changed your address or otherwise done anything you did not authorize. Consider changing passwords to online accounts and deleting your credit card information from online shopping sites.

File a police report. Your fraud may be part of a larger local fraud scheme. The more information the police have, the better chance they have of cracking the criminal enterprise. Depending on the size of your local police department, there may even be a division that deals with financial crimes or ID theft.

File a report with the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC also has helpful information on its website for taxpayers who face this situation.

Watch for scams. The IRS will not contact you via email or phone to ask for financial information. Don't give out any personal information to phone callers and don't click on links in emails that purport to come from the IRS. Only respond to paper mail correspondence from the IRS.

[See: 9 Red Flags That Could Trigger a Tax Audit.]

Get a PIN for tax filing. You can add an extra layer of protection to your tax filing if you use an IRS-provided personal identification number. You can request a PIN if the IRS has invited you to or if you filed your tax return from Georgia, Florida or the District of Columbia. But once you get a PIN, you can't file without it.

Only work with reputable tax preparers. Tax preparers have been both victims and perpetrators of scams. If you hire someone else to do your taxes, hire someone with good references and experience. You can check whether preparers hold credentials recognized by the IRS.

Teresa Mears writes about personal finance, real estate and retirement for U.S. News and other publications. She was previously the real estate blogger for MSN Money and worked as the Home & Design editor for The Miami Herald. During her journalism career, she worked on coverage of immigration, religion, national and international news and local news, serving on the staffs of The Miami Herald, The Los Angeles Times and the St. Petersburg Times. She has also been a contributor for The New York Times and The Boston Globe, among other publications. She publishes Living on the Cheap and Miami on the Cheap. Follow her on Twitter @TeresaMears.
SpaceX has targeted Feb. 18 to launch Dragon, a spacecraft that will deliver supplies and scientific experiments to the International Space Station for NASA.

Its an important launch for SpaceX, led by CEO Elon Musk, because it marks the second one since an explosion in September temporarily halted space flights.

The Dragon spacecraft will be deployed on a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida using a site that was originally built for the Apollo program. This will be the first from the launch pad since SpaceX began modernizing the structure in preparation to fly astronauts on future NASA missions, according to the space agency.

Targeting Feb. 18 for Dragon's next resupply mission to the @Space_Station -- our 1st launch from LC-39A at @NASA's Kennedy Space Center.  SpaceX (@SpaceX) February 8, 2017

The Dragon will carry supplies as well as a number of science experiments to the space station, including an experiment that will use the low gravity environment to grow stem cells to use in the treatment of patients who have had strokes. Another is a Research Labs investigation that tests growth in low gravity of antibodies that are important for fighting a human diseases including cancer.

This will be the 10th contracted mission by SpaceX under a NASA commercial resupply contract.

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SpaceX returned to flight in January following an explosion on Sept. 1 at the Cape Canaveral. After SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded during a test firing in September, the company postponed its planned launches.

In January, SpaceX launched the Falcon 9 loaded with 10 of Iridium Communications satellites. They were successfully deployed, and the Falcon 9 returned to the launch pad.

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After a new launch pad in Florida is ready, the company plans to launch its Falcon 9 rockets every two to three weeks, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell told Reuters on Monday. This would be the fastest pace since SpaceX started launches in 2010.

The new launch pad in Florida is expected to be put into service next week.

See original article on Fortune.com

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Santiago (AFP) - Workers at the world's top copper mine, BHP Billiton's Escondida in Chile, launched what they vowed would be a "long and hard" strike Thursday, causing jitters on world commodity markets.

Escondida is the first of several key mines worldwide where contracts expire this year, and markets are watching nervously to see how the strike impacts supply and prices.

"The company is sticking to its inflexible stance. This will be a tough fight," said Carlos Allendes, spokesman for the Escondida miners' union.

"This could go on for a long time. We're prepared to maintain a long and hard strike."

BHP Billiton, one of the world's leading mining consortiums, has rejected workers' demands for a seven-percent raise and bonuses of 25 million pesos (around $39,000).

It is offering bonuses of eight million pesos, with no raise.

Like other miners, the Anglo-Australian company has had to cut costs as copper prices slid in recent years, from a record high of $10,190 per metric ton in February 2011 to $4,318 per ton in January 2016, to just over $6,000 today.

Ninety-nine percent of Escondida's 2,500 workers voted Tuesday to strike, after government-mediated negotiations collapsed.

Workers have set up a protest camp outside the giant mine complex in the Atacama desert in northern Chile.

They say they have a war chest of $390,000 to sustain the strike.

BHP Billiton, Escondida's majority owner, has said it will suspend production for at least the first 15 days of the strike.

It urged employees to remain peaceful.

- 'Symbolic weight' -

Escondida produces five percent of global copper output, some 927,000 metric tons (one million tons) a year.

"A strike at Escondida is important not just for the immediate effect on production and global balances, but also because it carries symbolic weight," said analyst Dane Davis of Barclays.

Eight other major copper mines in Chile and around the world also face expiring contracts this year. That means the Escondida negotiations will be seen as a bellwether.

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Including Escondida, the mines account for around 12 percent of the world's total copper supply.

Uncertainty is also clouding the outlook at the world's second-biggest copper mine -- Grasberg in Indonesia -- where a smelters' strike and regulatory snags have forced the majority owner, US firm Freeport-McMoRan, to announce production cuts.

Other experts however sought to put the Escondida strike in perspective.

"It is worth noting that strikes in 2011 and 2006 lasted two and four weeks, respectively. This, combined with high copper inventory levels, will likely reduce the impact strike action would have on the copper price," analysts at Natixis bank said in a note.

Chile's mining minister, Aurora Williams, said it was hard to gauge the impact.

"It could eventually have a temporary effect on the price," said Williams, whose country is the world's largest copper producer, supplying one-third of global output.

"It's not so easy to indicate how many cents it will be."

- Shortage in China? -

Copper prices have rallied in recent weeks, gaining 30 percent in less than a month -- to $6,045.50 per ton at the end of November -- on the back of US President Donald Trump's infrastructure spending plans.

The red metal is a key component in wiring, and demand for heavy machinery, electrical grids and telecommunication networks drives prices up.

Renewed appetite in China, the world's biggest copper consumer, is also shaping the market.

China imported a record 4.95 million tons of copper last year, fueled by Beijing's stimulus spending on infrastructure.

The strike could mean China will face seasonal shortages, said Chris Wu, an analyst at consulting firm CRU.

"Stockpiles in China can last for several days, maybe one week but not enough for a longer period like two or three months," she told AFP.

Still, the recent jump in Chinese copper imports -- up 30 percent month-on-month in December -- may soon fizzle.

China's growth is slowing, the government is seeking to shift to a consumption-led economic model, and its recent infrastructure splurge "cannot be maintained," said Wu.

"That would clearly indicate a slowing demand for copper."
By Johan Ahlander and Niklas Pollard STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Swedish academic Hans Rosling, a doctor and statistician who captured a worldwide audience with his witty style and original thinking on topics like population growth and development, has died at the age of 68. With humor, lively graphics and an impassioned rhetorical style, Rosling used forums like online TED talks to influence public debate. In one typical example, he deployed a set of brightly colored plastic boxes from furniture store IKEA to illustrate demographic trends in the richest and poorest countries. The Gapminder foundation, a self-styled "fact tank" he co-founded to fight misconceptions about global development, said in a statement that Rosling had died on Tuesday, a year after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. A health professor at Sweden's Karolinska Institute, Rosling was known for highlighting progress in the developing world, including declines in child mortality and poverty, and the advance of democracy in Africa. "Hans Rosling was a good friend and a brilliant teacher. He managed to bring life to facts and he helped people to see the progress we often overlooked. We are deeply saddened by the loss," philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates told Swedish news agency TT. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg wrote on Twitter: "A giant has passed away. Hans Rosling made change possible by sharing his extraordinary knowledge. A friend that will be missed by many." In 2014, at the height of the Ebola epidemic, Rosling packed his bags and went to Liberia to offer his services. "He went straight into the Health Ministry and said, 'Hi there, here I am. Professor Hans Rosling. Can I help you?'," Helena Nordenstedt, doctor and scientist at Karolinska, told Swedish daily Expressen. In the past decade, Rosling had cut back on his work at Karolinska to devote more time to work as a public educator for Gapminder, where he liked to refer to his role as an "Edutainer". "We know that many will be saddened by this message. Hans is no longer alive, but he will always be with us and his dream of a fact-based world view, we will never let die," the foundation said. (Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Beirut (AFP) - Rebel fire on an aid distribution centre in Syria's Aleppo city has killed three people, including a Red Crescent volunteer and a child, a monitor said Thursday.

The Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) and the International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed the volunteer's death in Wednesday's incident.

"One SARC staff member was killed. Seven SARC volunteers and staff were injured, three of them severely," a statement said.

"Two beneficiaries who had come to the centre to receive humanitarian aid also died, and several others were injured."

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor identified those two killed as a woman and a child.

The rocket fire hit a SARC distribution centre in the Hamdaniyah neighbourhood of the city, which was fully recaptured by government forces in December after a months-long siege and heavy fighting.

The Observatory also reported five children were killed Wednesday when unexploded ordnance detonated in the Bustan al-Qasr neighbourhood, a rebel-held district recaptured by government forces in December.

Families who fled formerly rebel-held east Aleppo during the fighting in December, or earlier, have been returning to devastated neighbourhoods like Bustan al-Qasr to start the slow work of rebuilding.

Syrian government forces have carried out operations to clear explosives from east Aleppo and authorities have encouraged civilians to return to their homes.

Aleppo was once Syria's economic powerhouse and a tourist draw for its ancient markets and famed citadel.

But it was ravaged by fighting from mid-2012, when rebels seized the eastern portion of the city.

Years of conflict ended after a devastating siege and heavy assault saw government forces reclaim full control of Aleppo on December 22.

More than 310,000 people have been killed since the Syrian conflict began with anti-government demonstrations in March 2011.
A Costa Rican court has sentenced a Taiwanese business owner to prison over a fishing haul of illegally hacked-off shark fins destined for sale abroad, officials and environmentalists said Thursday.

The businesswoman, identified by her last name of Tseng, was ordered to spend six months behind bars. The verdict was handed down Monday by the court in the western port city of Puntarenas.

It was the first criminal sentence in the country against the practice of shark finning, which involves slicing off a shark's fins before dropping the live fish back in the sea. Unable to swim effectively, the wounded creature faces a grim future: suffocating, starving or being eaten.

Shark fins fetch a high price in Asia, where they are often used in soups served on special occasions.

Tseng's was "a historic sentence," said Gladys Martinez, lawyer for the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA).

Her case began in October 2011, when her fishing boat, the Wan Jia Men 88, was found with 151 sharks aboard. Their fins had been chopped off.

She was initially acquitted in 2014, but the matter went to appeal, and the Puntarenas court this week found her responsible for damage to Costa Rica's natural resources.

The Central American country, known for its biodiversity, has ratified several treaties for the protection and sustainable use of marine resources.
London (AFP) - British travel group Thomas Cook said Thursday that demand for holidays in Egypt is picking up again, after unrest in the North African nation had pushed holidaymakers into choosing rival sun spots.

Thomas Cook said the improvement, along with especially strong demand for bookings to Greece, is helping to offset persistent weakness for holidays in Turkey, which last year suffered an attempted coup and deadly bombings.

The update came as Thomas Cook announced flat revenues and losses for its first quarter, or three months to the end of December.

"Continued reductions in bookings to Turkey have been more than offset by strong demand for Greece," the company said of its holidays for summer 2017.

"We have also grown bookings significantly to a number of smaller European destinations including Cyprus, Bulgaria, Croatia and Portugal, and we have seen a strengthening of demand for Egypt and Morocco."

Thomas Cook, along with other UK travel groups and airlines, last year cancelled flights to the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

This was after the crash of a Russian airliner near the Red Sea holiday destination in late 2015 that killed all 224 people on board.

Investigators have concluded it was downed by a bomb and the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility.

The UK Foreign Office meanwhile is sticking to its advice of warning Britons "against all but essential travel by air to or from Sharm el Sheikh".

Thomas Cook typically posts a loss during its first half ahead of the peak demand season coinciding with the northern hemisphere summer season.

"Key will be the summer season coming up, when the real money is to be made," said Neil Wilson, senior market analyst at ETX Capital.

"Bookings are already nine percent ahead of last year, which ought to offer some comfort."

Laith Khalaf, senior analyst as stockbroker Hargreaves Lansdown, said the good news for Thomas Cook was that its recent tough trading period does not appear to be worsening.

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"Like-for-like revenues and losses were broadly flat on last year, which probably represents a small victory against such a competitive backdrop," he said.

"Times are tough in the European travel industry," Khalaf added in a client note.

In early deals, shares in Thomas Cook tumbled by about 6.0 percent, sending it to the bottom of London's second-tier FTSE 250 index, as investors found only small comfort in the group's outlook.
Athens (AFP) - Greece's best-selling daily newspaper Ta Nea was absent from newsstands on Thursday in the latest evidence of the crisis facing its debt-ridden publisher Lambrakis Press Group (DOL).

Aside from the occasional suspension due to strike action, "this is the first time that the newspaper has not come out" since Greece's return to democracy in 1974, its director Panagiotis Lampsias told AFP.

The management said it had decided to suspend publication due to financial constraints following a court ruling on Tuesday in favour of its creditor banks, leaving it with no funds to pay for the publication of its flagship daily.

As one of Greece's largest media groups, DOL also owns the To Vima weekly as well as numerous magazines, websites and the Vima FM radio station. But it has racked up debts of nearly 100 million euros, warning on January 28 it would be forced to halt publication of its two flagship papers.

Lampsias said the move did not necessarily spell the death of Ta Nea, which was set up in 1931 and has a daily circulation of 14,000.

"We will file suit later today" to try and reopen a funding channel, he said.

Despite the crisis, the group's 500 or so employees who have not been paid for six months, have continued to publish the newspaper's online version as well as maintaining the company's websites.

"If we can pay for it, Ta Nea will come out," Costas Delezos, one of the paper's union officials, told AFP.

- 'Harsh blow' -

The group is hoping to launch a political initiative to bring about its rescue, with the Panhellenic Federation of Journalists' Unions launching a parallel appeal on Wednesday.

Both Lampsias and Delezos claim the group has fallen victim to financial "mismanagement" by its president, Stavros Psycharis, who has been charged with tax evasion and money laundering.

They also believe that Ta Nea, which has taken a particularly critical stance towards leftist premier Alexis Tsipras, is a victim of the government's desire to see the newspaper muzzled.

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Tsipras's government's has previously said it intends to "reestablish transparency" in what it calls a sector "of oligarchs".

To its critics, the formerly all-powerful DOL media empire was the embodiment of decades of collusion between the media, the banks and the government which Tsipras has promised to shake up.

Late last month, European rights commissioner Nils Muiznieks warned that the likely closure of the two papers would deal "a harsh blow to media pluralism in Greece" and would reduce "the diversity of sources of information available to citizens."
Washington (AFP) - A key aide to Donald Trump was facing possible investigation after pitching the clothing line of the president's daughter Ivanka on television, with top lawmakers from both camps denouncing a major ethics breach and urging "disciplinary action."

Speaking with the White House seal clearly visible over her shoulder, Kellyanne Conway gave Ivanka Trump's clothing a rave review during a Fox interview early Thursday, urging shoppers to "go buy Ivanka's stuff."

"This is just a wonderful line," she said. "I own some of it. I fully -- I'm going to give a free commercial here. Go buy it today, everybody. You can find it online."

Conway was clearly channeling the anger expressed a day earlier by the president himself, when he tweeted that Ivanka had been "treated so unfairly" by Nordstrom, an upscale department store chain that dropped her fashion brand.

But to Washington traditionalists, Conway's direct pitch from the White House for a product line sold by the president's child seemed a jaw-dropping -- and possibly illegal -- misuse of presidential prestige.

Democrat Elijah Cummings and Republican Jason Chaffetz -- both lawmakers on the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which Chaffetz chairs -- led calls for Conway to face rebuke.

"Conway's statements clearly violate the ethical principles for federal employees and are unacceptable," the congressmen said in a letter to the federal ethics chief, Walter Shaub, requesting that he recommend "appropriate disciplinary action" against her.

"What she did was wrong, wrong, wrong," said Chaffetz on Twitter.

The Office of Government Ethics, which Shaub heads, separately said it had been "receiving an extraordinary volume of contacts from citizens about recent events."

Without mentioning Conway by name, it said it was reaching out to the appropriate government agencies who would decide whether to pursue the matter -- the established protocol when the OGE learns of "possible ethics violations."

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- 'The law is clear' -

Conway said the Trump team was "aware" of the lawmakers' letter and was "reviewing that internally."

She also told Fox News she had spoken with the president about the incident and that he "supports me 100 percent."

"All I can say, at some point in your life, you ought to have a boss who treated me the way that the president is treating me today."

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Trump's aide had been "counseled" over the issue, without providing more detail.

"Kellyanne Conway's White House Infomercial," as it was dubbed in a scathing New York Times editorial, again fanned debate over the unprecedented level to which the new president -- despite his protestations to the contrary -- has mixed politics, business and family, raising questions about conflicts of interest.

For Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group which filed a separate complaint, "the law is clear" on such matters.

"This is just another example of what looks like a disturbing pattern of this administration acting to benefit the businesses of the president's family and supporters."

- Boycott calls -

Since his election in November, Trump has targeted a series of American multinationals by name (General Motors, Ford, Boeing, Lockheed and others) for moving production overseas or for allegedly overcharging the government.

But his tweet targeting Nordstrom marked the first time he had complained directly about the business interests of one of his adult children. The tweet appeared both on Trump's personal account and on that of the presidency, @POTUS.

The Nordstrom group, with 350 stores in the United States and Canada, has repeatedly denied any political motive to its dropping of Ivanka Trump's clothing line, saying it was motivated purely by "performance" considerations. Sales had fallen, particularly in last year's second half.

But products carrying a Trump brand, including Ivanka's, have been boycotted by critics of the new president, leading to his complaint of a political motivation behind Nordstrom's move.

TJX Companies, which operates the clothing store chains TJ Maxx and Marshalls, told AFP on Thursday it had instructed store employees no longer to display Ivanka Trump products separately.

"The communication we sent to TJ Maxx and Marshalls in the US instructed stores to mix this line of merchandise into our racks, not to remove it from the sales floor," a spokesperson told AFP.
Washington (AFP) - Washington's new top diplomat, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, met his Canadian and Mexican opposite numbers on Wednesday amid concerns over President Donald Trump's trade policy.

Canada, Mexico and the United States are members of the NAFTA free trade bloc, which Trump has branded a "catastrophe" for American jobs and has threatened to renegotiate.

The new US leader has also insisted that Mexico will pay for the anti-immigration wall he plans to build on America's southern frontier, possibly through an import tariff.

The continental neighbors are traditionally so close that summits between them have been dubbed the "Tres Amigos" in recent years. Maintaining strong ties will be a key task for Tillerson.

But Mexico, in particular, has been offended by Trump's talk of paying for the wall, and Canada's Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland has made it clear that Ottawa does not favor tariffs either.

"Canada would respond appropriately," she warned at a news conference after her meeting in the State Department.

"We do not know what the position of the United States will be when it comes to the notion of tariffs."

Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray has previously echoed the view of his president, Enrique Pena Nieto, that Mexico will never pay for the wall, describing the position as "non-negotiable."

A late evening State Department statement said Tillerson and Videgaray had a "constructive" conversation that touched on law enforcement, migration and security.

The pair "look forward to working together on the essential relationship between our two countries," it added, noting Tillerson is due to travel to Mexico City.

Videgaray's visit was not announced on the US secretary's public schedule and the pair did not allow reporters into their meeting, but he spoke briefly to Spanish-speaking reporters as he left.

"It was a good first meeting," Videgaray said. "We agreed that we will have frequent meetings."

"Clearly, we are at a defining moment in the (bilateral) relationship," he added in an interview with Radio Formula.

"And the Mexican government will continue to work with a positive and constructive attitude to reach good agreements, as long as it is in an atmosphere of respect for Mexicans."
Travel bookings to the United States fell 6.5 percent in late January compared to last year in the wake of President Donald Trump's travel ban, according to a report Wednesday.

The travel restrictions apparently deterred travelers from outside the seven Muslim-majority countries hit by the ban, according to data from ForwardKeys, a travel analysis firm.

The executive order, signed January 27 and suspended by the courts since February 3, blocked the arrival of travelers and refugees from Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Sudan.

Arrivals from those countries from January 28 to February 4 were down 80 percent from the same period of 2016, the report said.

But bookings from Western Europe and the Asia Pacific region each fell about 14 percent, while those from Northern Europe were down 6.6 percent. (The data excludes China and Hong Kong due to the Chinese New Year holiday impact.)

"The data forces a compelling conclusion that Donald Trump's travel ban immediately caused a significant drop in bookings to the USA and an immediate impact on future travel," ForwardKeys CEO Olivier Jager said in the report.

"As inbound travel is an export industry (it earns foreign currency), this is not good news for the US economy."

While he cautioned that the data represents just an eight-day snapshot, the report said the period represents the first consistently long run of declines from the corresponding year-earlier period since before the presidential election in November.

In addition, total international bookings for travel to the United States for the coming three months have slowed amid the continuing immigration controversy. While they are currently 2.3 percent ahead of last year, they had been running 3.4 percent ahead just eight days earlier, the report said.
JOHANNESBURG (AP)  South Africa's parliament descended into chaos on Thursday, with opposition lawmakers denouncing President Jacob Zuma as a "scoundrel" and "rotten to the core" because of corruption allegations and then brawling with guards who dragged them out of the chamber.

The raucous scenes unfolded on national television as opposition legislators tried to stop Zuma from addressing the chamber, repeatedly insulting the president and declaring him unfit for office. In the surrounding streets of Cape Town, police and hundreds of military forces patrolled to guard against protesters who want Zuma to quit.

Security teams eventually were called into the chamber to remove red-clad members of the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters, some of whom threw punches and pounded guards with plastic helmets.

Lawmakers from the Democratic Alliance, the country's biggest opposition group, then walked out in protest. Some members of the ruling African National Congress party heckled them as they left.

"Out! Out!" they shouted.

"Finally," said a laughing Zuma, who then started an annual address on the economy and other national matters.

A politically weakened figure, Zuma has faced calls to resign even from factions of the ruling party. Some ANC members blame Zuma's scandals for the party's poor performance in local elections in August, in which it lost control of several key metropolitan areas.

Critics condemned an announcement by Zuma's office that 441 members of the military would assist police in maintaining order during the speech and the opening of parliament. The military has previously deployed for the event, but the security operation was among the largest in recent years.

While at least one group of protesters scuffled with police who blocked their path, the streets were mostly calm before the speech, in contrast to the events later in parliament.

Zuma is "rotten to the core," said Julius Malema, leader of the EFF. Other opposition legislators described the president as a "scoundrel" and a "constitutional delinquent."

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Earlier, police near parliament used stun grenades to disperse ruling party members and opposition groups who were fighting.

The hours leading up to Zuma's speech featured the pomp associated with the annual opening of parliament, when dignitaries walk on a red carpet and pose for cameras in an impromptu fashion show.

Zuma has been under scrutiny for an allegedly improper relationship with the Guptas, a business family of Indian immigrants that has been accused of meddling in top government appointments. The president has denied wrongdoing.

Zuma, who took office in 2009, also reimbursed the state more than $500,000 in a scandal over upgrades to his private home.

The president's speech addressed numerous sources of frustration for many South Africans, including the delivery of basic services and an economy that has stalled. He said he expects 1.3 percent growth in 2017, after just 0.5 percent last year.

___

Follow Christopher Torchia on Twitter at www.twitter.com/torchiachris
President Trump unleashed a furious tirade against Vietnam veteran Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on Thursday morning amid their ongoing dispute over the White Houses characterization of a recent military raid targeting al-Qaida terrorists as a success.

According to McCain, the Jan. 28 intelligence-gathering raid in Yemen should not be considered successful because it resulted in the death of a Navy SEAL: Chief Petty Officer William Ryan Owens. He said this does not in any way diminish the courage of the troops involved.

In his Thursday tweetstorm, Trump bashed McCain for his history of losing and accused the senator of emboldening the enemy while getting the U.S. bogged down in conflict all over the place.

The day before, White House press secretary Sean Spicer suggested McCain should apologize, but McCain rebuffed the request. In a statement, he provided an example from the Vietnam War when fellow soldiers unsuccessfully tried to rescue him and other prisoners of war from a North Vietnamese prison.

President Trump, Sen. John McCain (Photos: Chris Kleponis/Pool via CNP/MediaPunch/IPX, J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

Unfortunately, the prison had been evacuated. But the brave men who risked their lives in an effort to rescue us prisoners of war were genuine American heroes, he told NBC News. Because the mission failed did not in any way diminish their courage and willingness to help their fellow Americans who were held captive.

Mr. Spicer should know that story.

That set the stage for Trump to pounce Thursday morning.

Not one to balk at an opportunity for personal insults, Trump said McCain, whose 2008 White House bid was unsuccessful, has been losing for such a long time that he doesnt know how to win anymore.

Sen. McCain should not be talking about the success or failure of a mission to the media. Only emboldens the enemy! He's been losing so.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2017

long he doesn't know how to win anymore, just look at the mess our country is in  bogged down in conflict all over the place. Our hero..  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2017

..Ryan died on a winning mission ( according to General Mattis), not a "failure." Time for the U.S. to get smart and start winning again!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2017

Julie Tarallo, a spokesperson for McCain, released a statement responding to Trumps latest ragegasm: Senator McCain will continue to execute his oversight duties as Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and support the brave men and women serving our nation in uniform.

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Although Trump and McCain have already had a rocky relationship, the latest quarrel grew from Spicers critique of anybody who says the raid was unsuccessful shortly after McCain called it a failure.

Its absolutely a success, and I think anyone who would suggest that its not a success does disservice to the life of Chief Ryan Owens, Spicer said. And anybody who would suggest otherwise doesnt fully appreciate how successful that mission was.

When asked to clarify whether his critique was directed at McCain, Spicer replied, I think anybody who undermines the success of that [raid] owes an apology and [is] a disservice to the life of Chief Owens.

This is not the first time Trump and McCain have butted heads. In July 2015, as a presidential candidate, Trump insisted that McCain was not actually a war hero. I like people that werent captured, he infamously quipped.

McCain, a prisoner of war in North Vietnam from 1967 until 1973, is a decorated veteran who declined an offer from his captors to be released early while his fellow soldiers remained behind. I knew that they wouldnt have offered it to me if I hadnt been the son of an admiral, McCain explained, according to a 2007 Arizona Republic profile.

In August 2016, McCain also rebutted Trump when the Republican nominee attacked a Muslim Gold Star family who had criticized him at the Democratic National Convention.

While our party has bestowed upon him the nomination, it is not accompanied by unfettered license to defame those who are the best among us, McCain said of Khizr and Ghazala Khan, whose son died serving in Iraq.

Read more from Yahoo News:
By Matt Spetalnick and Luke Baker WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - During his 2016 election campaign, Donald Trump signaled his presidency would be a boon for Israel and tough on Palestinians. The U.S. Embassy would move to Jerusalem, he would name an ambassador who backs Israeli settlements on land Palestinians seek for a state and there would be no pressure for peace talks. But as Trump prepares for his first White House meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his administration has not only toned down its pro-Israel bravado but also taken the first tentative steps toward a more cautious Middle East diplomacy, including consultations with Sunni Arab allies and U.S. lawmakers, according to people familiar with the matter. While any strategy is still far from complete, there is growing consensus in the White House that tackling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could require gentle nudging of Israel together with assurances to the Arab world that Trump will be more even-handed than his campaign rhetoric suggested. "This is a case where campaign promises run head-on into geopolitical reality and they have to be adjusted accordingly," said a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity. As a result, relocating the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem  a step world leaders including Jordan's King Abdullah warned against and which would probably inflame the Muslim world - has been put on hold for now. At the same time, the White House has adopted a more measured stance on Israeli settlement-building in occupied territory than candidate Trump appeared to advocate. Even so, there is little doubt that when Netanyahu meets Trump on Wednesday, he will find a Republican president determined to show more warmth to Israel than his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, with whom he had an acrimonious relationship. Social media exchanges have suggested a budding "bromance" between Netanyahu and Trump, who has pledged to be the "best friend" Israel has ever had in the White House. As a result, Palestinians fear their leaders will be frozen out and their statehood aspirations pushed aside. One White House aide cautioned that the administration is still in "listening mode" on the issue. Since taking office on Jan. 20, Trump has spoken by phone to Egyptian, Saudi and United Arab Emirates leaders and heard Abdullahs concerns in person. All of these countries have growing contacts with Israel, mostly behind the scenes and centered on a shared desire to counter Iran, a point that Netanyahu has often cited as among the grounds for his countrys eventual thaw with the Arab world. Signaling an emerging view that U.S. Arab allies could be helpful on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner, assigned to a senior role in Middle East diplomacy, has met Arab officials, including the UAEs ambassador to Washington, the New York Times reported. In his talks with Trump, Netanyahu is expected to try to keep the focus on forging a common front against Iran, Israel's regional enemy and a target of Trump's ire. The Israeli-Palestinian dispute will nonetheless be on the agenda, especially after Israel's parliament drew international condemnation for approving a law retroactively legalizing 4,000 settler homes built on privately owned Palestinian land. Barring a curve ball from the sometimes unpredictable U.S. president, Trump is unlikely to use the talks to press Netanyahu for concessions toward the Palestinians in the way Obama did. But neither can Trump afford to be seen to abandon the U.S. commitment to a two-state solution, the bedrock of Washingtons Middle East policy since the 1993 interim peace accords and a principle embraced internationally. CAREFUL STATEMENT ON SETTLEMENTS A White House statement on Feb. 2 set forth a more nuanced position, backing away from a longstanding U.S. view of settlements as an "impediment" to peace but instead saying new settlements or the expansion of existing ones beyond current boundaries may not be helpful" to that goal. That shift transpired just hours after Trump met briefly with King Abdullah on the sidelines of an event in Washington. Even so, the emerging shape of Trump policy remains more accommodating toward Israel than at any time since Republican George W. Bush occupied the White House. "It seems we are headed for a new policy with this administration that is different from its predecessor in how it deals with the Palestinian leadership and the Palestinian cause," said Wasel Abu Youssef, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's executive committee. There has been no contact between the Palestinian leadership and the Trump administration so far, Palestinian officials said. Moderate, Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was among the first world leaders Obama called on his first full day in office in 2009. A White House official insisted, however, that the administration intends to develop a relationship with the Palestinian Authority. All the same, many Israeli officials do not read the White House's settlements statement as a warning to Israel or a reining-in of Netanyahu. Not only does it conclude that settlements do not block peace prospects, it also says construction within established settlements is acceptable to Washington. "Bibi will be happy," said an Israeli diplomat, using Netanyahu's nickname. "He can put new settlements on hold and hold off the right wing by pointing to Trump. At the same time, he can build as much as he wants within existing settlements." In that regard, the lines drawn by the White House help Netanyahu fend off demands from the far right in his coalition for sweeping steps, like annexing portions of the West Bank. Palestinians would be especially alarmed if Trump decided to proceed with moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, essentially recognizing the city as Israel's capital despite international insistence that its status must be decided in negotiations. The Palestinians want East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in a move not recognized internationally, as the capital of their future state. Trump and his aides have played down the prospects for a quick embassy move since he took office. MODERATING INFLUENCE Some experts see a moderating influence in Trump's national security team. It has members such as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, a former Exxon Mobil chief executive with extensive contacts among Gulf Arab governments, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a retired Marine general. They will have to deal with other, sometimes ideologically driven advisers with close personal ties to Trump. David Friedman, Trump's former bankruptcy lawyer and now nominee as ambassador to Israel, has raised funds for a West Bank settlement and voiced doubt about Palestinian statehood. Kushners family has donated tens of thousands of dollars to the same settlement. Aides may be moving circumspectly also in hope of keeping the door open if Trump  who has touted his skills as a master dealmaker  decides to seek what he has called the "ultimate deal": Israeli-Palestinian peace. To pursue such an initiative, the United States needs to be seen as an even-handed mediator, while also overcoming the rigid disputes that have scuppered so many peace efforts over the years: settlements, borders, the status of Jerusalem, what to do with Palestinian refugees, and Palestinian political divisions. The last, U.S.-brokered round of peace talks collapsed in 2014. It remains to be seen whether the Trump administration will be inclined to devote much attention to the Israeli-Palestinian issue at a time when it is distracted by other priorities. In the Middle East alone, the fight against Islamic State and countering Iran are higher on the agenda. However, if Trump at some point does opt to wade in where so many of his predecessors have failed, for Netanyahu  who is looking for a reset of U.S.-Israeli relations  it might be a case of "be careful what you wish for". (Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Howard Goller)
Brussels (AFP) - NATO will host a summit of leaders including US President Donald Trump in May at its new Brussels headquarters, even though it will not be ready by then, officials and sources said Thursday.

Security and IT systems at the $1.2-billion headquarters in the Belgian capital are behind schedule and so the transatlantic military alliance will only properly move in come September, sources told AFP.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said on Twitter late Wednesday that the meeting of 28 leaders would take place on May 25 and that the building would be opened then.

"Very pleased to welcome my colleagues for the next NATO summit in Brussels on 25th May and opening of new headquarters," Michel tweeted.

But NATO would not confirm the date or the venue, saying only that Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Trump had agreed by phone on Sunday that the summit would be in late May.

"Consultations on the exact date are ongoing among allies. As to the summit venue, we aim to hold it at the new Headquarters," a NATO official told AFP.

Trump has previously criticised NATO, calling it "obsolete" in an interview earlier this year and pressing the rest of the 28-nation group to commit more money to it.

A source close to the matter told AFP that NATO aimed to inaugurate its new building after the summer holidays, "in my view more like the end of September."

- 'Slightly behind schedule' -

NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said earlier that the move would be a "complex logistical undertaking" involving more than 4,000 NATO staff and delegations from the 28 allies.

"The move to the new NATO headquarters has started and it's due to be completed later this year," she said in a statement to AFP.

"The new IT and security systems in the building are highly complex and we are slightly behind schedule in making all of them fully operational."

The supplier responsible for delivering the network infrastructure has still not delivered it to the alliance, which has in turn pushed back security tests, the source close to the matter said.

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The new NATO HQ, with its distinctive shape of two double lightning bolts, is built just over the road from the current 1960s-era headquarters near Brussels airport.

It had been scheduled to open in the first quarter of 2017.

The White House confirmed last week that Trump will attend the May summit, easing doubts in Europe about the new US president's commitment to the bloc.

Trump expressed "strong support for NATO" in a phone call with Stoltenberg but also urged European members to pitch in more to ease the defence spending burden.

Trump's apparent coolness towards the alliance has been particularly alarming for some member nations given his friendly stance towards Russia, which NATO has described as being increasingly assertive in the wake of its seizure of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
By Alana Wise and David Shepardson

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. aviation executives will discuss the industry's aging airports and air traffic control reform when they meet with President Donald Trump on Thursday, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The White House meeting comes at a time of heightened tension within the industry after U.S. carriers raised concerns about ongoing trade agreements with foreign carriers. Trump has vowed to renegotiate or scrap trade deals he sees as unfair between the United States and other countries.

A source told Reuters the airlines expect last month's executive order barring travel from seven Muslim-majority countries may come up and if so, the carriers in attendance would stress the need for better coordination and planning ahead of announcing such an order instead of having it sprung on them, the source said.

The session will include reforming the air traffic control system, Transportation Security Administration issues, user fees and regulatory burdens, a White House official told Reuters.

The expected participants include the chief executives of Delta Air Lines Inc, JetBlue Airways Corp, United Continental Holdings Inc, Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings Inc, Alaska Airlines and trade group Airlines for America, along with top officials from FedEx Corp and United Parcel Service Inc, the official said.

Also expected to attend are airport directors from Los Angeles, Chicago, Tampa, Washington, Buffalo, Nashville and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

American Airlines Chief Executive Officer Doug Parker, who called Trump's executive order on travel "divisive," is unable to attend due to a scheduling conflict with a conference he is hosting, company spokesman Matt Miller said.

Other industry executives have spoken out against the temporary travel ban saying it could hurt the industry and their employees.

During the 2016 election race Trump campaigned on improving U.S. infrastructure, talking about a $1 trillion infrastructure plan over a decade.

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"Our airports are like from a third world country," Trump said at a presidential debate in September. "You land at LaGuardia, you land at Kennedy, you land at LAX, you land at Newark, and you come in from Dubai and Qatar and you see these incredible  you come in from China, you see these incredible airports, and you land  weve become a third world country."

OPEN SKIES

Heads of the three largest U.S. passenger carriers - American Airlines Group Inc, United and Delta - have sought to pressure the new administration into denouncing U.S. Open Skies agreements with the three major Middle Eastern carriers, which they accuse of having been unfairly subsidized by their governments. The three airlines, Qatar, Etihad and Emirates, have denied these claims.

The Trump administration has not yet addressed the U.S. carriers' competition concerns. Whether the issue is discussed on Thursday will be decided when the executives meet with Trump, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said.

"The president wants to talk about economic growth, job creation," Spicer said at the daily White House press briefing on Wednesday. He did not say which executives would attend the meeting.

Smaller U.S. carriers JetBlue, Atlas Air Wand Hawaiian Holdings Inc, as well as the air cargo unit of FedEx have formally banded together behind the Gulf carriers, against their larger competitors.

Also a point of contention is an order signed under departing former President Barack Obama granting flying rights to Norwegian Air International, which U.S. airlines and unions have said will undermine wages and working standards.

Spicer, during the Wednesday press briefing, said "there is a huge economic interest that America has in that deal right now," citing Norwegian's use of U.S. workers and Boeing Co jets.

"I don't want to get ahead of the president on that; but just to be clear we're talking about U.S. jobs both in terms of the people who are serving those planes, and the persons building them," Spicer said.

(Reporting by Alana Wise in New York, David Shepardson and Steve Holland in Washington; Editing by Alan Crosby, Andrew Hay and Michael Perry)
By Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump stepped up his criticism of the U.S. judicial system on Wednesday, saying courts seem to be "so political," a day after his U.S. travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries faced close scrutiny from an appeals court. A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday heard arguments on the Trump administration's challenge to a lower court order putting his temporary travel ban on hold. The appeals court is expected to issue a ruling as soon as Wednesday. "I don't ever want to call a court biased," Trump told a few hundred police chiefs and sheriffs from major cities at a meeting in Washington. "So I won't call it biased. And we haven't had a decision yet. But courts seem to be so political. And it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read the statement and do what's right. "I think it's a sad day. I think our security's at risk today," Trump said. Trump's Jan. 27 order barred travelers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering for 90 days and all refugees for 120 days, except those from Syria, whom he would ban indefinitely. He said his directive was "done for the security of our nation, the security of our citizens." The appeals court must decide if Trump acted within his authority or whether his directive was tantamount to a discriminatory ban targeting Muslims. The appeals court judges questioned whether the directive improperly targeted people because of their religion. "If these judges wanted to, in my opinion, help the court in terms of respect for the court, they'd do what they should be doing," the Republican president said. Last week Trump labeled the judge who put his directive on hold, U.S. District Judge James Robart of Seattle, who was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush, a "so-called judge." Last year Trump sharply attacked a judge who was presiding over a case involving one of his businesses. In a Twitter post earlier on Wednesday, Trump wrote, "If the U.S. does not win this case as it so obviously should, we can never have the security and safety to which we are entitled. Politics!" During an oral argument lasting more than an hour on Tuesday, the appeals court panel in San Francisco pressed an administration lawyer over whether the Trump administration's national security argument was backed by evidence that people from the seven countries posed a danger. At the meeting with law enforcement officials, Trump read from the law he used to justify the travel ban, quoting it in fragments and sprinkling bits of interpretation in between. He said the law clearly allowed a president to suspend entry of any class of people if he determines would be a detriment to national security. "A bad high school student would understand this," Trump said. "Anybody would understand this." Judge Richard Clifton, who was appointed to the bench by Bush, posed equally tough questions for a lawyer representing Minnesota and Washington states, which are challenging the ban. (Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavy in Washington; Writing by Will Dunham and Susan Heavey; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Bill Trott)
President Trump was dealt a rebuke from an unfamiliar placehis Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuchwho called Trumps attack on the so-called judge who halted the immigration executive order disheartening. Trumps comments have drawn criticism from far and wide, but that wont stop him. On Thursday, he launched a Twitter assault on Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, to whom Gorsuch made the comments, and on Republican Sen. John McCain over his doubts about the success of the Yemen raid last month. The White House Wednesday argued that any questioning of the raid would be a disservice to the life of Ryan Owens, the SEAL who was killed in the action.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer knows Donald Trump. Both creatures of New York, they speak the same language, share friends and war stories. Now theyre on opposite sides of the biggest fights in Washington. But Schumer is holding out hope he can drag Trump to the center, as he struggles to keep his warring party in line.

The CIA warns on the Muslim Brotherhood. Trumps space war. And Nordstroms attack on the President.

Here are your must reads:

Must Reads

Inside Chuck Schumers Plan to Take on President Trump

TIMEs Sam Frizell profiles the opposition leader

Read Chuck Schumers Thoughts on Dealing With President Trump

The Q&A [TIME]

Trump Questions a Rule Obliging Financial Advisers to Put Clients Interests First

The fiduciary rule under fire [TIME]

Silicon Valley Thinks Politics Is Broken. So Its Building Apps

TIMEs Katy Steinmetz on the Valleys response to Trump

The Fistfight Behind the Rule That Silenced Elizabeth Warren

As Described in 1902 [TIME]

CIA Memo: Designating Muslim Brotherhood Could Fuel Extremism

An agency report warns the Trump administration risks driving Muslims into the arms of al Qaeda and ISIS [Politico]

Story continues

Supreme Court Nominee Gorsuch Calls Trumps Tweets Disheartening

Spokesman confirms his criticism of Trump [CNN]

Sound Off

The life of Chief Ryan Owens was done in service to this country and we owe him and his family a great debt for the information that we received during that raid. I think any suggestion otherwise is a disservice to his courageous life and the actions that he took. Full stop.  White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, rejecting any assertion that the Yemen raid wasnt a success

Youve never seen so much paper on a Presidents desk. Thats because were negotiating lots of deals for our country, which will be tremendous.  President Trump on his desk

Bits and Bites

Elizabeth Warren Was Silenced for Criticizing a Senator. But the Senate Is Not Always So Civil [TIME]

White House Says Nordstrom Decision Was Direct Attack on President Trump [TIME]

Carly Fiorina confirms it: she is considering challenging Sen. Tim Kaine [Washington Post]

Trumps space war [Politico]

Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange Appointed to Jeff Sessions Senate Seat [Associated Press]

US-funded news channel in Russian offers Kremlin alternative [Associated Press]
Washington (AFP) - A US court will rule Thursday on whether to reinstate President Donald Trump's executive order closing US borders to refugees and nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries, in a major legal test of his controversial law-and-order agenda.

The ruling from the federal appeals court in San Francisco on the contentious ban, which was issued on January 27 with no prior warning and suspended a week later, comes just three weeks into Trump's presidency.

The order sparked travel chaos and was met with condemnation by immigration advocacy groups.

But the Republican leader has blasted its suspension, labelling the Seattle federal judge who issued it as a "so-called judge" and branding the courts "disgraceful" and politicized.

A spokesman for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said the ruling would come before the end of the day.

Trump's decree summarily denied entry to all refugees for 120 days, and travelers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days. Refugees from Syria were blocked indefinitely.

Trump and other top administration officials have argued it is needed to keep out Islamic State and Al-Qaeda fighters migrating from Middle East hotspots, insisting time is needed to implement stricter vetting procedures.

In a hearing Tuesday, the judges appeared skeptical of the White House's defense of the sweeping order, which critics say was aimed at Muslims in violation of US law.

Echoing Trump, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly -- who is in charge of enforcing the immigration ban -- has said the courts do not understand the threat the country faces.

"In their world it is very academic, almost in a vacuum. In their courtrooms, they are protected by people like me," Kelly told lawmakers.

- 'New era' of justice -

Earlier in the day, Trump defended his hardline policies, which have run up against legal checks and balances, as he declared a "new era of justice" in America and swore in his attorney general Jeff Sessions in the Oval Office.

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The property mogul-turned-president also signed three executive orders designed to burnish his law-and-order credentials.

"We face the menace of rising crime and the threat of deadly terror," said the Republican leader, doubling down on his dystopian vision of America.

"A new era of justice begins and it begins right now," he said.

The rate of violent crime in America's 30 largest cities rose slightly last year, but remains near historic lows, according to the Brennan Center, an independent think tank.

Trump's tough talk belies a political and legislative agenda that has been beset by missteps and legal challenges.

The blowback from Trump's outbursts over the travel ban suspension showed no signs of abating, after his own Supreme Court nominee described the president's comments as "disheartening" and "demoralizing."

Opposition Democrats echoed those criticisms, but also suggested the nominee, Neil Gorsuch, was trying to smooth his nomination by appearing as an independent voice.

- Popular support -

Trump has been able to demonstrate a steady level of support from Republicans in Congress, who have almost unanimously backed his key administration appointments.

Late Wednesday, the Senate voted 52-47 to approve Sessions, after Democrats stalled for weeks on a nominee whose civil rights record has come under intense scrutiny.

While being sworn in, Sessions echoed Trump's view of the urgency of tackling violent crime.

"We have a crime problem. I wish the rise that we're seeing in crime in America today was some sort of aberration or blip" but, Sessions said, it is a "dangerous permanent trend."

Trump signed an order creating a task force on violent crime and another to tackle crime directed at law enforcement officials.

Those measures drew criticism from across the ideological spectrum.

"President Trump intends to build task forces to investigate and stop national trends that don't exist." said Jeffery Robinson of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The third presidential order tasks officials with looking at how the United States tackles organized crime syndicates.

Trump's message may be criticized by experts, but it appears to be resonating with supporters.

Trump won the election last November with 46 percent of the popular vote, and the RealClearPolitics average of polls shows his job approval at about that level, with the split largely along Republican-Democratic lines.

Trump on Wednesday trumpeted a Morning Consult-Politico poll showing 55 percent voter approval for his immigration ban, with 38 percent disapproving.

Previous studies -- which the president dismissed as "fake news" -- had shown a majority of Americans opposing the measure.

Trump also cited the poll published Tuesday by London's Chatham House think tank showing 55 percent support across 10 European countries for a freeze on immigration from Muslim countries.
By Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump castigated a Democratic senator on Thursday for saying U.S. Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch had voiced dismay in a private meeting over Trump's attacks on the judiciary, while Republicans came forward to back up the lawmaker's portrayal.

The Republican president has publicly vented his frustration with a court order last week that temporarily halted his travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries, criticizing the judge who issued the order, the appeals process and the wider judiciary. That has morphed into a dispute over comments made by his pick for the Supreme Court.

Senator Richard Blumenthal said on Wednesday that Gorsuch had told him that Trump's comments about the judiciary, which have included calling the judge who blocked his travel ban a "so-called judge," were "disheartening and demoralizing."

On Thursday, Blumenthal urged Gorsuch to condemn Trump's attacks "publicly, unequivocally and clearly."

Trump, in a Twitter post and in a later meeting with a bipartisan group of senators, accused Blumenthal of misrepresenting Gorsuch's comments.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer, at a briefing with reporters, defended Trump and said Gorsuch had not been commenting specifically about the president's attacks on the judiciary.

Blumenthal's account of Gorsuch's comments was backed up by Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist and spokesman for the nominee, and by Kelly Ayotte, a Republican former senator who has accompanied the judge during meetings with lawmakers to build support for his Senate confirmation.

Other senators, including Republican Ben Sasse and Democrat Chuck Schumer, also said Gorsuch made similar comments to them.

In blasting Blumenthal, Trump sought to revive a years-old controversy over the senator's military service during the Vietnam War era.

"Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie), now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?" Trump wrote in a Twitter post.

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Trump nominated Gorsuch, a conservative federal appeals court judge, on Jan. 31 as his nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left when Justice Antonin Scalia died a year ago. Democrats have said they will push to establish that Gorsuch can exercise independence if he is confirmed to the lifetime position on the country's highest court.

Blumenthal said there were numerous White House staffers in the room when Gorsuch made the comments.

Ayotte said in a statement that Gorsuch, speaking in discussions with senators including Blumenthal, had said "he finds any criticism of a judge's integrity and independence disheartening and demoralizing," while making clear he "was not referring to any specific case."

Gorsuch has not made any public comment on the matter.

'ATTACK ON ALL JUDGES'

Sasse, who has been critical of Trump's attacks on the judiciary, described his meeting with Gorsuch.

"I asked him about the 'so-called judges' comment because we don't have so-called judges or so-called presidents or so-called senators," Sasse said on MSNBC. He added that Gorsuch "welled up with some energy" and said any attack on his "brothers or sisters of the robe is an attack on all judges."

Spicer said the president had no regrets about his comments on the judiciary and that his behavior would not change.

"The president is going to speak his mind," he said.

A federal judge in Seattle, James Robart, last Friday put on hold Trump's Jan. 27 executive order that temporarily barred entry to the United States by people from seven Muslim-majority countries and by all refugees. An appeals court is considering Robart's order and is expected to rule in the coming days.

On Saturday, Trump called Robart a "so-called judge" whose "ridiculous" ruling "essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country." On Wednesday, he stepped up his criticism of the judiciary, calling courts "so political" and describing the proceedings in the appeals court as "disgraceful."

Democrats have called Trump's comments an attack on a core principle of American democracy by which the judiciary is independent and upholds the rule of law.

GORSUCH CAUGHT IN STORM

Republican senators, who have the majority in the Senate, painted Gorsuch's comments as evidence of his independence from the president. But Schumer, leader of the Senate Democrats, said the judge's comments were "mild" at best and "insufficient" in terms of showing independence.

"I think President Trump is going to harm both Judge Gorsuch's chances at confirmation and his standing as president if he continues to undermine the independence of the judiciary," Democratic Senator Chris Coons told CNN on Thursday.

Trump's spat with Blumenthal overshadowed a meeting with senators that was aimed at trying to build support for Gorsuch. If confirmed, the judge would restore a conservative majority on the Supreme Court.

"Ask Senator Blumenthal about his Vietnam record," Trump told reporters at the meeting.

In 2010, while running for the Senate, Blumenthal said he had "misspoken about my service" by earlier stating he had served in Vietnam when he in fact got military deferments before joining the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve in 1970, allowing him to avoid combat overseas.

Blumenthal expressed regret over his previous comments but said he would proud of his service as a reservist.

Trump himself received five deferments during the Vietnam War, including one for bone spurs in his heel, the New York Times reported last August, and never served in the military.

(Additional reporting by Ayesha Rascoe, David Morgan, Susan Cornwell, Lawrence Hurley, Susan Heavey and Richard Cowan; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Tom Brown and Frances Kerry)
The Trump administration is finalizing an executive order that effectively tells allies and Islamic State fighters alike: Guantanamo is open for business.

The imminent directive temporarily bars the transfer of any current detainees and instructs the U.S. military to bring any new detainees  explicitly including Islamic State militants  to the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to a draft of the executive order, which is expected as soon as this week. The draft directive was first released Wednesday by the New York Times, and Foreign Policy independently confirmed the details with current and former officials.

But in a clear break from Trumps controversial Jan. 27 executive order barring refugees and travel from seven Muslim-majority countries, which is currently facing several court challenges, a number of officials at the departments of Defense and State have viewed and weighed in on drafts of the Guantanamo directive, as recently as last Friday. Trumps National Security Council, while holding the order close, has made changes in response, most notably dropping language ordering a review of whether the United States should bring back torture and reopen CIA black sites.

The new directive indicates a shift in U.S. counterterrorism strategy, with a renewed emphasis on capturing suspected terrorists for their intelligence value rather than killing them in targeted strikes. Observers and lawmakers say the botched Jan. 29 military raid in Yemen was motivated in part by an eagerness to capture new detainees to put in the Cuba prison.

But a return to reliance on the controversial detention center carries with it plenty of risks, including alienating allies and giving the Islamic State fodder for recruitment and propaganda, in addition to a hefty annual cost.

And by explicitly including Islamic State fighters in Guantanamos remit, the new directive may be stretching perilously thin the existing legal authority for the war on terror, which dates to 2001, and initially was intended for members of al Qaeda and the Taliban but has been expanded to include associated forces. That could set up a potential court challenge.

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The new directive would rescind former President Barack Obamas Jan. 22, 2009, order to close Guantanamo but not the accompanying Obama directives that banned torture, an apparent evolution that officials welcome.

And while the latest draft would temporarily freeze transfers  Obama had kept shipping detainees out of the facility until his final days in office  it doesnt explicitly stop periodic reviews of detainees cases nor does it halt military commissions to try suspects. One detainee case review takes place Thursday, and the Pentagon said another pretrial hearing will take place in early March.

Trumps drafted order says it is in the U.S. interest to continue operating Guantanamo for the detention of enemy combatants captured in the armed conflict against al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces, including individuals and networks associated with the Islamic State, and to prevent them from returning to that fight.

It repeats a much-cited but misleading critique that 30 percent of detainees released from Guantanamo have returned to, or are suspected of returning to, the battlefield. In reality, 14 percent of the 500-plus detainees transferred by former President George W. Bush are suspected of returning to the fight, and only 6.8 percent of the roughly 200 released by Obama, according to the latest report from the director of national intelligence.

Putting Guantanamo back at the center of the U.S. fight against terrorism has its own risks. The Obama administration argued  as the Bush administration ultimately did  that Guantanamo is a recruitment tool for terrorists. Many dispute the claim, but the Islamic State has also invoked the detention facility in its propaganda. And the group is already taking credit for Trumps immigration executive order, calling it the blessed ban for reinforcing its narrative that the West is at war with Islam.

Paul Lewis, Obamas special envoy at the Pentagon for closing Guantanamo, said he hopes Trump changes his mind after he reviews the intelligence and talks to officials like Secretary of Defense James Mattis.

If you use force, you have to detain people, and Guantanamo is humane  its lawful, Lewis told FP. But the Department of Defense doesnt want to be in the detention business.

When the president has time to hear the arguments  the astronomical cost, the terrorist recruiting tool, and harm it does to foreign relations  he may change his mind, Lewis said.

The planned new directive has some supporters on Capitol Hill, including Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.), but Trump still appears to be cutting out key lawmakers. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), who supports closing Guantanamo, and Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said they had not been consulted on the directive. Many members of Congress were critical of Trumps immigration order, its chaotic rollout, and lack of congressional notification, and some are already pushing back against the next expected directive.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) called keeping Guantanamo open one of the dumbest things in the world.

Its a black mark for us, Leahy told FP, and its costing us hundreds of millions of dollars for nothing. (Last year, the Pentagon spent $445 million operating Guantanamo.)

Last week, ranking members of the relevant Senate committees wrote to Mattis and CIA Director Mike Pompeo demanding information on Trumps plans for Guantanamo and interrogation. They have not received responses.

The order may also prod Congress into updating the legal authority for the war on terror. While the Obama administration based its campaign against the Islamic State on congressional authorizations for the use of military force (AUMFs) from 2001 and 2002, those were focused on al Qaeda and the Taliban and Saddam-era Iraq. Legal experts hotly debate the notion that the authority covers the fight against the Islamic State.

If Trump expands the population at Guantanamo with Islamic State suspects or fighters from other even more distantly related groups, lawmakers and legal experts say the prior authorities would be stretched dangerously thin and may not hold up when a detainee inevitably challenges his detention in U.S. courts.

Lewis said the AUMF is getting increasingly old, adding, Were soon going to reach a point where the courts are going to take a close look.



Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), the former Democratic vice presidential nominee, said, I believe they need new authorization like four or five years ago. Congress has repeatedly punted when pressed to update the military authorizations.

Photo credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images
In an interview in 2011, Stephen Bannon boasted to Variety that his approach to documentary filmmaking was kinetic and that he sometimes tried to almost overwhelm an audience with material.

Now Bannon is overseeing a new ideological production as President Donald Trumps chief strategist, and he has embraced the same overwhelming aesthetic. From an executive order banning immigrants from seven Muslim countries, to antagonizing the leaders of Mexico, Australia and France, to putting Iran on notice, the new administration has loosed a firehose of executive actions and statements that have alarmed fellow Republicans, angered foreign allies, and sparked street protests at home and abroad.

The result has been chaotic and often disorganized, prompting satiric television sketches and accusations from veteran Washington hands that the administration is amateurish and inept. Trumps approval ratings fall by the day.

But what by conventional measures looks like a string of setbacks and misfires, could to an ideologue like Bannon be proof that the administration is on the right track to achieving its goal  destroying what he calls the Washington establishment. Whats less clear is what might take its place.

Im a Leninist, Bannon once told the Daily Beast. Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and thats my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of todays establishment.

Whether speaking to supporters of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, or to listeners on his former radio show, Bannon has long employed the revolutionary language of a political insurgent. And like political insurgents through history, including Lenin, Bannon and other like-minded ideologues in the Trump White House view disruption and polarization as means of pressing ahead with their agenda and rallying their core supporters.

But Bannons radical approach carries big risks, and amounts to a high-stakes gamble that Trump can deliver sufficiently on his ambitious promises to satisfy both his loyal supporters and those ready to roll the dice who voted him into office.

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The disruption strategy works only if you deliver, said author Joseph Nye, a Harvard professor who served in senior roles in Bill Clintons administration. If Trump fails to bring jobs back to the Rust Belt or to coal country, if Obamacare is repealed and something worse replaces it, or if Trumps government-by-tweet sparks a trade war or even a shooting war in the Middle East, then that fervent support in his political base could dissolve.

For now, Trumps habit of tweeting to grab headlines and punch back at his critics helps shape this chaotic environment, in which political opponents are often forced respond to his priorities, Nye said.

Trump has used Twitter in a way which allows him to control the agenda, and to set the agenda, Nye said. So when a story comes up which is not helpful, not favorable, or when he wants to get people disrupted  he throws a ball and everybody scrambles after it and neglects the story they should be following.

After a federal district court temporarily stopped his immigration ban, Trump took to Twitter to discredit the judiciary, sparking plenty of outrage. By early Wednesday morning, Trump was tweeting an attack on Nordstroms department stores, which are phasing out poor-selling products from Ivanka Trump.

As Trump meets resistance from courts, criticism from Congress, bad poll numbers, or critical news coverage, he has sought to rally his core supporters and claim that unpatriotic losers are standing in the way of his plan to make America great again.

Nye calls the presidents spontaneous twitter salvos Zeus tweets, thunderbolts from on high that shock the body politic. The chaos and disarray displayed in the first weeks of the administration makes sense if Trump and his team are gunning for a political transformation to reshape the Republican Party and bypass the established leadership in Washington, said Nye.

If Trumps objective is to realign American politics and to create a populist party, then the appeal to his base is understandable, he said.

History is littered with political rebels, autocrats, and revolutionaries who sowed chaos and division to consolidate power and advance their agenda.

Heather Cox Richardson, a professor of history at Boston College, argues that the executive order issued last week barring Syrian refugees and citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries bears the hallmarks of a shock event designed to throw adversaries off guard and seize the initiative.

A successful shock event depends on speed and chaos because it requires knee-jerk reactions so that people divide along established lines, she wrote in a Facebook post that went viral.

Richardson, author of several books on the politics of the Civil War, sees a parallel in how Confederate leaders used disruptive tactics and fueled division to push the first Southern states into seceding from the Union after Abraham Lincolns election in 1860.

They slammed through the idea that South was out in the few months between the election and his subsequent inauguration, Richardson told Foreign Policy.

Likewise, experts said, Bannon and his allies are trying to squeeze through a shrinking window of opportunity, moving quickly and decisively before the federal governments bureaucracy can respond and before members of Congress or grass roots activists can coalesce to push back.

If youre Bannon, you realize your chances of disruption diminish the more the permanent government regains its feet, Nye said. He struck while the iron was hot.

But the administrations shoot-from-the-hip approach has already alienated numerous groups, including much of Silicon Valley, and elements of agriculture and industry, threatened by the administrations broadsides on immigration and free trade.

The dramatic and angry political clashes triggered by Trumps electoral victory seem to fit into a script from a Bannon polemic on the big screen. The former investment banker has portrayed history as a series of earthquakes, and believes the current moment represents a tectonic shift requiring working-class Americans to stand up for their rights and avenge the injustices they have endured at the hands of global elites.

That, for him, translates into a vehement nativism. For Bannon, immigration  and Muslim immigration in particular  represents an existential threat to what he calls Americas Judeo-Christian identity. He has frequently argued that the West is engaged in a life-and-death clash of civilizations, including in a 2014 address to a Vatican conference organized by a right-wing cardinal, Raymond Burke.

We are in an outright war against jihadist Islamic fascism, he said. And this war is, I think, metastasizing far quicker than governments can handle it.

But those fears dont lend themselves to any coherent political design for Trumps White House. Bannon has no hard and fast political philosophy, only apocalyptic thinking, said Ben Shapiro, a former Breitbart journalist who for two years had daily contact with the Trump consigliere, but fell out with him during the campaign.

While Bannon is described in press reports as having won the presidents confidence because he has a clear plan for the administration, Shapiro told FP: I dont think theres a lot there.

Elliot Cohen, a conservative and an outspoken critic of Trump, said Bannon falls short of being a true revolutionary, because he has never outlined a coherent vision for the way ahead.

The administration so far has offered no detailed plans on replacing Obamas healthcare reforms, or how it will conduct trade policy based on its protectionist campaign promises, how it will revive the coal industry, or defeat the Islamic State.

This is actually a little bit closer to nihilism. Its simply a desire to destroy things, said Cohen, a professor at Johns Hopkins University who served in the Bush administration.

As for Bannons writings and ideas, its a mistake to dignify it too much, he said. This is crackpot thinking.

FP reporter Elias Groll contributed to this article.

Photo credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images
The Senates vote to confirm Jeff Sessions as Attorney General Wednesday night is a watershed moment for the new Trump administration, because the former Alabama senator is, far more than any of President Trumps other nominees for key positions, in close agreement with the White House on issues where Trump has promised sweeping change to current policy.

Other top cabinet positions have been filled with people whose loyalty and personal ties to Trump are not as ironclad as those of Sessions, the first senior Republican lawmaker to endorse the president at a time when Trump's candidacy was still viewed as a longshot at best.

Related: Americans Are Having Doubts About Trumps Agenda: Poll

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of Exxon-Mobil played no substantial role in Trumps campaign and comes to the office with few connections to the administration. James Mattis and John Kelly, the secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security, are both retired career military men who have spent much of their time in office so far trying to calm lawmakers and nervous allies who are unsettled by the rapid and unpredictable changes being implemented by the new White House.

Even Neil Gorsuch, the federal judge tapped by Trump last week to fill the empty seat on the Supreme Court, has demonstrated independence from the White House. On Wednesday, Trump had continued his attacks on other federal judges currently hearing the case against his ban on refugees and residents of seven majority Muslim countries from entering the United States.

In a conversation with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Gorsuch said that he found Trumps comments disheartening and demoralizing. After Blumenthal made the comments public, a Republican member of the team shepherding Gorsuch through the confirmation process confirmed them to The Washington Post.

There is little reason to expect similar hesitation from Sessions, at least when it comes to implementing Trumps priorities with regard to the strict enforcement of immigration law, the toughening of criminal justice system, and the extension of support to state and local law enforcement agencies.

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Related: Trump Plays the Fear Card as He Badgers Judges for Their Vote

To be clear, this is not because Sessions is a puppet of the new president. It is because he agrees with him.

Sessions jumped on the Trump train very early and even saw his top policy adviser, Stephen Miller, shift over to a key role with the Trump campaign. Miller was Sessions communications director, but the title underplays the importance of his role in helping Sessions and other conservative members of Congress develop policy positions on immigration and what Miller would call nation-state populism.

In an interview with Politico last summer, Miller described the role Sessions and his staff played in immigration debates on Capitol Hill, saying, When I was in Sessions office, this movement for nation-state populism, the intellectual framework for that was being formed. ...We saw ourselves as a kind of think tank for immigration issues and linking that to the larger questions of globalism and populism.

Unlike the majority of Trumps cabinet picks, who have little or no experience in the federal government, Sessions will arrive at the Justice Department with a wealth of it. He is a former United States Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama and has spent 20 years in the United States Senate. While other nominees, like Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, are coming to grips with the realities of working for the federal government and trying to find the light switches, Sessions will be ready to move on day one.

Related: Trump May Try to Weed Out Immigrants Who Cost Taxpayers $279 Billion Annually

What that means is that the marching orders for US Attorneys across the country will be coming from an Attorney General who largely shares President Trumps concern that immigrants, particularly undocumented immigrants, are a major threat to the physical safety and economic well-being of American citizens. It is a safe bet that prosecutorial resources will continue to be shifted sharply toward immigration-related enforcement.

It also means that state and local law enforcement can expect a sharp increase in support from the federal government. That will take the form of both closer cooperation and increased financial aid. The Attorney General has authority over a wide array of grant-making programs that support state and local police.

He also oversees the federal asset forfeiture program, which allows police to seize the assets of criminals and, in many cases, even of people who have not been convicted of a crime. The federal program allows the seizing agency to retain some or all of the property taken, a program that Trump has promised to support.

In sum, it seems likely that for the next four years, at least on President Trumps signature law enforcement issues, there will be little daylight between the White House and the agency implementing them.

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Washington (AFP) - Donald Trump lashed out Thursday at a Democratic senator who revealed that the president's own Supreme Court nominee had called Trump's attacks on the judiciary "disheartening" and "demoralizing."

Having blasted a federal judge who temporarily blocked his controversial immigration decree -- calling him a "so-called judge" -- Trump renewed his attacks Wednesday on the appellate court panel currently weighing his ban on refugees and visitors from seven mainly Muslim countries, calling the judges "so political."

Judge Neil Gorsuch, nominated last week to fill a key vacancy on the Supreme Court, criticized Trump's stance during a meeting with Senator Richard Blumenthal, in remarks that were later confirmed to AFP by a spokesman for Gorsuch.

Trump, however, zeroed-in on Blumenthal.

"Sen.Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie), now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?" Trump wrote on Twitter Thursday.

Blumenthal served during that period in the US Marines, but was never deployed to Vietnam, despite claims he made when he was running for the US Senate in 2010.

Trump himself obtained five deferments from the Vietnam war draft between 1965 and 1970, four on education grounds and one for bone spurs in his heels, according to The New York Times.
a katz / Shutterstock, Inc.

Do you know where the tantalum in your phone comes from? How about the tin in your computer? Probably not. Its not like Apple or Dell slaps a list of ingredients and sourcing on the side of their products. But in recent years thats become a problem, as brutal dictatorships have used mining to fund their regimes, unknowingly making everyday Americans participants in bloody civil conflicts. Theyre called conflict minerals, and Trump  if a leaked presidential memo becomes a signed executive order  is about to do away with a rule that made them harder to buy.

The specific problem is the Democratic Republic of The Congo, a resource-rich nation with a brutal, bloody history thats still unfolding. The DRC is currently in the middle of its next ugly chapter, with a civil war that had killed at least 900,000 people, and possibly as many as 5.4 million, by 2009, and where President Joseph Kabila has refused to step down from office, despite his term ending December 20th. Kabila is just the latest in a long line of corrupt and brutal dictators stretching back to when the country was forcibly put under Belgian rule with the goal of taking its natural resources, killing ten million Africans along the way.

Conflict minerals are how all this violence is paid for, and until recently, a lot of that money came from US companies. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street reforms included a provision, Section 1502, that requires companies who buy minerals from the DRC, and adjoining countries, to ensure, basically, their money isnt headed straight to the pockets of local terrorists.

As the leaked memo shows, Trump may be planning to do this by suspending the relevant Dodd-Frank provision as a matter of national security. Just what this national security matter might be goes unmentioned. But it is worth noting that Intel, which lobbied heavily against the rule and has struggled to keep conflict minerals out of its supply chains despite claims that their processors were conflict-free, just gave Trump credit for an Arizona plant his policies had nothing to do with building. They wouldnt be the only beneficiary of 1502 being suspended, but its a curious chain of events.

Reuters has also dug into the matter, and while they werent able to independently verify the leaked memos authenticity, they spoke to sources familiar with the administrations thinking, who confirm that Trump is planning such a directive.

(via The Intercept, Reuters & Boing Boing)
Public education in Wisconsin should provide high-quality learning for ALL children no matter who they are or where they live, Eau Claire School Board president Chris Hambuch-Boyle recently told me.

Chris and education leaders across the state read with interest details of the governors plan for our next state budget. Governor Scott Walker gave money to a number of new initiatives and reaped the praise of some education leaders.

The plan picks and chooses among various proposals advanced over the last few years. Some new programs are funded and some existing programs get more money. The plan is a compromise.

However  as with any political compromise  we should know what is not included and what is not being done.

We fund schools primarily through a school aid formula. Its purpose is to equalize resources in school districts across Wisconsin so regardless of where a child lives in the state, the opportunities for learning will be relatively equal.

The equalized aid formula is broken. A number of plans were proposed to fix the formula, including ideas I supported. But the governors new plan does nothing to fix the formula. Rather, most of the new money in the governors plan gives the same dollars to property-rich districts as to property-poor districts.

This is a new direction for our state.

Since 1973, governors have supported sending money for schools through the equalized aid formula. The policy of both parties was to see that every Wisconsin child had the same benefit of equal opportunity for a sound education.

Board president Hambuch-Boyle expressed concerns that the governors plan makes the inequity worse. Under the guise of heres some more money he extends the inequity.

Consequently, children in property-rich schools have a better opportunity than children living in a property-poor district. School districts across the state would be better served if the additional dollars recommended by the governor were distributed through an improved equalized aid formula. Children would be better served if school leaders knew they could count on a steady partnership from the state.

Hambuch-Boyle and many others across the state are working very hard to re-imagine public education for 21st Century students. Leaders in western Wisconsin encouraged legislators to learn about innovations. During a recent visit to an Eau Claire middle school, I saw evidence of a new world in our public schools.

What do we want from our education system for our children? We want a place for our children to learn, to develop cognitive and social skills. We need our children to develop character and become responsible citizens. But we also want our children to find their passion and purpose.

Tony Wagner and Ted Dintersmith write in their book, Most Likely to Succeed, that students need to tackle the challenge of how to leverage your passion and talents to make the world better.

Most Likely to Succeed is both a book and a documentary. Local education leaders recently invited legislators to view the film and talk about changes in our classrooms. The film explores innovation in education and the possibilities for the 21st century school. After viewing the film and visiting the ARCTIC Zone classroom at Eau Claires Northstar Middle School, I am beginning to see the future of education.

The world no longer cares how much you know, because Google knows everything. What the world cares about  what matters for learning, work and citizenship  is what you can do with what you know, write Wagner and Dintersmith. Students need to learn in groups by practicing problem solving and navigating group dynamics.

Critical thinking, communication, and collaborative problem solving are skills actively taught and evaluated as part of the school day in pioneering programs. New ways of teaching and learning mean many old ways must change. Resources are needed. Funding stability is critical.

Wisconsin schools can innovate. We can provide high quality opportunities for our children who live in Beloit, Black River Falls, Brookfield or Bruce.

To get there, school leaders must be confident they dont have to worry about deep cuts in the next budget, and we must fix the current school funding formula. This commitment is necessary to provide an equal opportunity education to every child.

Democrat Kathleen Vinehout, Alma, represents the 31st state Senate District.
By David Ljunggren OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will hold his first talks with U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday amid tensions over whether the administration plans protectionist measures that could cripple Canada's economy. The two leaders also have differing views about immigration from predominantly Muslim nations and Trump is likely to press his Canadian counterpart to ramp up defense spending and thereby help shore up NATO. Although the progressive 45-year-old Trudeau has little in common with the 70-year-old Republican businessman president, he needs to make a good impression on Trump, who wants to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Canada sends 75 percent of its exports to the United States and is keen to avoid becoming the target of extra tariffs or other damaging measures. Trump says NAFTA, which also includes Mexico, has been disastrous for American workers. Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland sounded a note of caution on Wednesday, saying Canada opposed the idea of the United States imposing new border tariffs and would respond appropriately to any such move. Although neither administration released details of Monday's meeting at the White House, two people familiar with the talks said it would be wide-ranging. "They will discuss everything - trade, the border, security and defense," said one person, who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the matter. Defense, particularly NATO, is a likely sticking point. Although Alliance nations have committed to spending 2 percent of gross domestic product on their militaries, Canada contributes barely half that. Trudeau's office, asked about the agenda, said more details would become known later. "President Trump and Prime Minister Trudeau look forward to a constructive conversation on strengthening the relationship between our two nations," the White House said in a statement. Several senior Canadian government ministers visited Washington this week to meet their U.S. counterparts as part of a charm offensive designed to persuade the Trump team not to single out Canada during the NAFTA talks. The Trump administration is not necessarily all bad news for the Canadian economy. Last month, the president cleared the way for TransCanada Corp's proposed Keystone XL pipeline from the Alberta oil sands to U.S. refineries. If built, the project could help a Canadian energy sector struggling with low crude prices. (Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu in Washington; editing by David Alexander, Bernard Orr)
WASHINGTON (AP)  With Senate confirmation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, President Donald Trump filled another important post in his new government. Only 685 to go.

In his third week in office, Trump's young government remains a work in progress, with hundreds of empty desks in agency offices across Washington. While the president has criticized Democrats for the delays, he also shares at least part of the blame for moving more slowly than his predecessor to submit vetting information and paperwork for his nominations.

A tally of appointments and unfilled posts illustrates the daunting challenge facing any new president. Through Wednesday, Trump's team has nominated 35 people to fill 693 high-level positions that require Senate confirmation, according to data maintained by the Partnership for Public Service. At this stage in 2009, then-President Barack Obama's administration had nominated 38 officials in all.

Sessions was the eighth member of Trump's administration to be confirmed; at this point eight years ago Obama had 23 officials confirmed, including department heads and deputies.

In total, there are 1,200 positions that require Senate confirmation and about 4,100 appointed positions, according to the partnership. Many of the positions are still vacant, leaving the federal government in the hands of acting leaders and career employees who often stay in their jobs regardless of political affiliation.

"It's not as if the government stops because these appointees are not in place. There are acting people in these jobs," said Max Stier, the partnership's president and CEO. "But they're acting. They don't have the imprimatur of the president. They're not thinking about the long-term."

The delays have forced Trump's administration to be reliant upon a number of holdovers who played prominent roles in the Obama administration, leading to suspicions of the federal bureaucracy. In the most prominent example, Trump fired acting attorney general Sally Yates, a career prosecutor and Democratic appointee, after she publicly questioned the constitutionality of his refugee and immigration ban and refused to defend it in court.

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Other holdovers are awkward, too. Among the 50 Obama officials asked to stay on to help with continuity was Brett McGurk, the U.S. special envoy to the anti-Islamic State coalition. Trump spent his campaign blasting the strategy that McGurk helped devise and publicly defend.

Also on the list was Adam Szubin, whose confirmation as Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence was stalled by Republicans for more than a year. Szubin served in an acting capacity, he was never confirmed, until he was named acting Treasury secretary by Trump.

Trump's choice for treasury, Steven Mnuchin, is expected to get a vote in the Senate later this week.

The White House has complained about the slow pace of the confirmation process, blaming Senate Democrats for slow-walking their picks. The president tweeted Wednesday morning that it was a "disgrace that my full Cabinet is still not in place, the longest such delay in the history of our country," charging, "Obstruction by Democrats!"

Trump's claims about the historic nature of the delays are not accurate  at least not yet. Obama's Cabinet wasn't completely confirmed until late April 2009 and President Bill Clinton's didn't have his full Cabinet in place until mid-March 1993.

Democrats contend the administration has failed to fully vet the nominees, many of whom are wealthy and have extensive business ties, and have been lackadaisical in providing financial records and ethics filings.

Democrats boycotted a Senate Finance Committee meeting last week called to vote on Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, and Mnuchin, who has clashed with Democrats over the foreclosures of thousands of homeowners when he headed OneWest bank. Democrats have said that both nominees have been misleading in their disclosure of their financial backgrounds.

Trump's pick for Labor Secretary, Andrew Puzder, only submitted his required government ethics paperwork this week.

Beyond the Cabinet positions, however, many key agency roles remain unfilled, from deputy secretaries, general counsels and undersecretaries who often play a lead role in managing each department.

"There are critical positions around the secretary that allows the secretary to function," said Clay Johnson, who served as deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget under President George W. Bush. "The secretary is way less of a secretary without those people."

Johnson said typically about 225 Senate confirmed positions are filled by the annual congressional recess in August. "It still seems like they're playing catch-up," he said.

Many of the earliest picks have been focused on the military, national security and law enforcement.

Trump won an early confirmation of Gen. John Kelly to lead the Department of Homeland Security and has nominated Elaine Duke, who served in the department during the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, to serve as deputy secretary.

But many positions in the department remain unfilled as the ongoing legal fight over his executive order on immigration consumes time and resources. The president has yet to select heads of the Transportation Security Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which responds to natural disasters.

On the diplomatic front, Trump has nominated only three U.S. ambassadors to foreign countries  Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad to China, New York Jets owner Woody Johnson to the United Kingdom and attorney David Friedman to Israel.

And while Trump recently tapped Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the vacancy left by the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, he has yet to name his choice to serve as Solicitor General, who is responsible for arguing the federal government's cases before the Supreme Court.

___

On Twitter follow Ken Thomas at @KThomasDC.
(Reuters) - Highlights of the day for U.S. President Donald Trump's administration on Wednesday: CABINET The U.S. Senate votes to confirm Republican Senator Jeff Sessions as the next attorney general of the United States. Hillary Clinton and other Democrats flock to support U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren for criticizing Trump's nominee for attorney general after being silenced by Republicans on the Senate floor. The White House says the directors of national intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency will both be members of Trump's Cabinet. IMMIGRATION Trump fumes over what he calls too much politics in the U.S. judiciary, while a federal appeals court keeps him and the rest of the country waiting for its ruling on a suspension of his temporary travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries. Trump's nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, describes the president's Twitter attacks on the judiciary as "demoralizing" and "disheartening," a spokesman for Gorsuch says. COMPANIES Trump blasts department store chain Nordstrom Inc for dropping his daughter Ivanka's clothing line, prompting critics to accuse him of misusing public office to benefit his family's sprawling business empire. Intel Corp chooses the Oval Office to announce a $7 billion investment in a new Arizona semiconductor factory, a move it says would create 3,000 new jobs when the plant is up and running. U.S. aviation executives will discuss the industry's aging airports and air traffic control reform when they meet with Trump on Thursday, sources familiar with the matter say. SECURITY Trump and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan agree in an overnight phone call to act jointly against Islamic State in the Syrian towns of al-Bab and Raqqa, Turkish sources say. The Trump administration is considering a proposal that could lead to potentially designating Irans powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, U.S. officials familiar with the matter say. INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Secretary of State Rex Tillerson meets his Canadian counterpart for the first time for talks that touch on the trilateral NAFTA trade agreement, which Trump wants to renegotiate. Senior U.S. senators call for the right to review any move the White House might make to ease sanctions on Russia, amid mounting concern in Congress - and among U.S. allies - that Trump will be too conciliatory toward Moscow. Friendly phone calls, an invitation to the White House, a focus on Islamist militancy and what Trump calls "chemistry" set the tone for warmer U.S.-Egyptian ties that could herald more military and political support for Cairo. (Compiled by Bill Trott and Jonathan Oatis; Editing by Bernard Orr and Peter Cooney)
WASHINGTON (AP)  President Donald Trump will reaffirm America's commitment to its security alliance with Japan when the nation's prime minister visits the White House on Friday, a senior U.S official said.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe arrived in the U.S. on Thursday, landing at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. At the summit, he will be seeking reassurance from the new president on the U.S. role in Asia, while offering job-creating Japanese investment in the United States to shore up economic ties. Abe will be only the second foreign leader to meet with Trump since the Republican took office last month.

The official said the Trump administration is upholding the U.S. position that its defense treaty with Japan applies to East China Sea islands disputed by Japan and China  a stance opposed by Beijing. The president is expected to speak on that subject, the official said.

The official briefed reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss planning for the trip. Abe is hoping to build a rapport with the former reality TV star, whom he met in New York in November, shortly after Trump's election victory upended U.S. politics.

Their Oval Office meeting Friday will be followed by a joint press conference and a working lunch. Trump will then host Abe and his wife at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida. The pair are scheduled to play golf on Saturday.

Trump's "America First" rhetoric and campaign trail demands that allies pay more for their own defense sowed doubts in Tokyo about the new administration's commitment to an alliance that has underpinned security in the Asia-Pacific since the end of World War II and which Abe has sought to strengthen.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis allayed many of those concerns during a trip last week to Japan and South Korea. Both countries host tens of thousands of U.S. forces  seen as a deterrent against the nuclear threat from North Korea and China's growing assertiveness.

The economic side of the U.S.-Japan relationship is more uncertain.

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One of Trump's first actions as president was to withdraw the U.S. from a 12-nation, trans-Pacific trade agreement that was negotiated by the Obama administration and strongly supported by Tokyo.

Trump has also criticized Toyota Motor Corp. for planning to build an assembly plant in Mexico, complained Japanese don't buy enough U.S.-made cars, and accused Japan of engineering its monetary policies to help Japanese exporters, although Tokyo denies manipulating its currency.

Japanese companies are already major employers in the U.S., and Japanese officials say they are hammering out a job-creation package of infrastructure investments to propose during Abe's visit. Japanese media have reported key areas of investment may include building high-speed trains, joint development of robotics, artificial intelligence and space technologies and ramping up imports of U.S. natural gas in Japan and elsewhere in Asia.

Abe has said that Japan may be open to a bilateral trade deal with the U.S., which is Trump's preference, but reaching such a deal would be political difficult. Japan logged the second largest trade surplus with the U.S. last year, similar to the surpluses of Germany and Mexico, but far smaller than China's.

The U.S. official deferred to Japan's government on possible economic outcomes of the summit, but said Abe is well-acquainted with President Trump's priorities when it comes to creating jobs.
President Donald Trump has sent a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping, the White House said, weeks after receiving a letter of congratulations from the leader of the Asian giant.

Beijing has been on tenterhooks waiting for a contact from the billionaire president, who seems set to take a hard line against the Asian giant on a wide range of issues from trade to security.

During his campaign, Trump repeatedly attacked Beijing for "stealing" American jobs and has threatened to slap it with massive tariffs.

In his missive, Trump said he looked forward to developing "a constructive relationship that benefits both the United States and China," spokesman Sean Spicer said in a statement Wednesday.

The billionaire politician has already had phone conversations with more than a dozen foreign leaders since he was inaugurated last month.

His decision to send a letter, rather than call the head of the world's second largest economy, could be read as a snub, raising questions about how willing Trump is to engage with a country that he has accused of "raping" the United States.

It is not clear if or when he will dial Xi up.

But Lu Kang, a spokesman for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, still praised the letter at a regular press briefing on Thursday.

"We highly commend President Trump for expressing festive greetings to President Xi Jinping and the Chinese people," Lu said, adding "cooperation is the only right choice for the two countries."

Just after winning the November election, Trump provoked Beijing's ire by accepting a congratulatory call from Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen.

Washington cut formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979, recognizing the Communist mainland rulers in Beijing as the sole government of "One China."

Under the terms of the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, Washington maintains an ambiguous approach to the island, keeping trade ties and selling Taipei weapons.

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But the law does not recognize Tsai as a head of state, and China was infuriated at what it saw as a breach of protocol in Trump's acceptance of her call.

In December, Trump told The Wall Street Journal that "everything is on the table, including One China," suggesting that Beijing could save the policy by negotiating a trade deal with him.

In the shadow of this exchange, Chinese officials were anticipating a conciliatory message from Trump, according to Song Guoyou, an expert in China-US relations at Fudan University in Shanghai.

Trump took "a long time to learn the real importance of the volatile relations between China and the US," Song told AFP.

But he said the letter is "a very good sign" that Trump and his team will "take a pragmatic attitude toward China."

In recent weeks, Chinese social media users have expressed indignation at Trump's lack of engagement with Xi, particularly during last week's Lunar New Year holiday.

The outrage was somewhat mollified last Wednesday, when Trump's daughter Ivanka and her Chinese-speaking toddler attended a Lunar Near Year celebration at the Chinese embassy in Washington.
WASHINGTON (AP)  President Donald Trump insisted Thursday that comments by his Supreme Court nominee criticizing his own attacks on the judiciary were "misrepresented," even as Republican and Democratic lawmakers vouched for the veracity of the remarks.

Trump responded after private rebukes from Judge Neil Gorsuch, who said in meetings with lawmakers on Wednesday that the president's comments about federal judges were "disheartening."

Gorsuch, who was nominated by Trump last week to the nation's highest court, made the comments in meetings with senators after Trump accused an appeals court panel considering his immigration and refugee executive order of being "so political." Over the weekend, he labeled a judge who ruled on his executive order a "so-called judge" and referred to the ruling as "ridiculous."

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut first relayed Gorsuch's remarks on Wednesday following a meeting with him. Trump's own confirmation team for Gorsuch later confirmed he had made the remarks.

But Trump said during a Thursday luncheon with senators that Blumenthal had misrepresented Gorsuch. "His comments were misrepresented. And what you should do is ask Senator Blumenthal about his Vietnam record that didn't exist after years of saying it did," he said.

Blumenthal, who served in the Marine Corps Reserves during Vietnam, apologized in 2010 for saying he had served in Vietnam.

The president made the comments while making the case for Gorsuch during a luncheon with 10 senators, including six of Blumenthal's fellow Democrats.

Blumenthal, a former state attorney general, argued Thursday that Gorsuch would need to go further to publicly denounce Trump's verbal assault on judicial independence.

"He needs to condemn Donald Trump's attacks publicly and it needs to be much stronger, more explicit and direct than has been done so far," Blumenthal said. "Unless it is done publicly in a clear condemnation, it will not establish his independence."

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Lawmakers from both parties quickly vouched for the veracity of the remarks the senator said Gorsuch made. GOP former Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who is helping with Gorsuch's confirmation and was at the meeting, issued a statement saying Gorsuch made clear he was not referring to any specific case. But she said the nominee said he finds any criticism of a judge's integrity and independence to be "disheartening and demoralizing."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., each confirmed that Gorsuch made the same comments to them.

Sasse told MSNBC's "Morning Joe," ''Frankly, he got pretty passionate about it." He added that Gorsuch said any attack on the "'brothers or sisters of the robe is an attack on all judges'."

Fellow Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy came to Blumenthal's defense Thursday, lashing out in a tweet directed at Trump: "Ha! As a prosecutor, Dick used to put guys like u in jail. Now, u use your position to mock vets, he uses his to make their lives better."

Gorsuch's comments came at the end of a week of meetings with members of the Senate, which is considering his nomination. His response may have been aimed at drawing a line of separation with the new president.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is weighing the appeal of Trump's executive order on immigration, which included a temporary travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries. In a hearing Tuesday, judges on the appeals court challenged the administration's claim that the ban was motivated by terrorism fears, but they also questioned an attorney's argument that it unconstitutionally targeted Muslims.

Trump told visiting police chiefs Wednesday that a portion of the immigration law gives him the power to enact the ban, calling it "beautifully written" and saying, "A bad high school student would understand this."

"Courts seem to be so political and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do what's right," Trump added. "And that has to do with the security of our country, which is so important."

Since a lower-court judge blocked the order last week, Trump has assailed the decision, leading legal experts, Democrats and some Republicans to question whether his remarks might jeopardize the independence of the judiciary. Others have expressed fears he may be attempting to use political influence to sway the courts.

The president has repeatedly said foreigners are "pouring in" since the ban was put on hold and suggested that blocking the order would be dangerous for U.S. citizens.

On Wednesday he tweeted, "Big increase in traffic into our country from certain areas, while our people are far more vulnerable, as we wait for what should be EASY D!"

The administration has not provided any information to support his claims.

___

Associated Press writers Catherine Lucey, Alan Fram, Alicia Caldwell and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump says he wants safe zones in Syria. His intent is to keep displaced people, who might otherwise be inclined to join the nearly 5 million Syrian refugees, within their country. What might he be able to achieve?

The first thing a new president should know is that a safe zone must entail robust protection by both ground and air forces. This is what distinguishes it from a killing zone.

Over the nearly six years of conflict in Syria, there have been many calls for no-fly zones. They have studiously avoided discussing who would defend the zone on the ground, as if civilians could be protected from 30,000 feet. Indeed, the ground protection question acted as a conversation-stopper in discussions of how to shield Syrian civilians from a homicidal regime.

In Syria today, there are at least three active conflict areas that might lend themselves to being transformed into safe zones. The Islamic State currently occupies areas of central and eastern Syria; part of the Euphrates River Valley, north of Aleppo, where Turkish soldiers and Free Syrian Army rebel forces are closing in on the Islamic State-held town of al-Bab; and in northwestern Idlib province, where al Qaedas Jabhat Fatah al-Sham is still a major force.

The presumed forthcoming military defeat of the Islamic State, if handled properly, could produce the mother of all safe zones  one stretching from the Euphrates River to Iraq. But proper handling requires a major strategy shift by Washington. The ground force currently battling the Islamic State is the Kurdish YPG, the Syrian arm of the Kurdistan Workers Party  a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. The YPG and some Arab auxiliaries, under the name Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), are slated to enter the Islamic States capital of Raqqa, an Arab city.

Fighting in urban areas is not, however, a job for lightly trained militiamen. It requires the specialized skills that are the calling card of first-world militaries  skills that minimize casualties both for the entering force and for the civilian population.

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A professional ground force coalition-of-the-willing led by the United States is something this writer has been long urging. This would involve American combat skin-in-the-game along with ground forces from countries such as Turkey, Jordan, France, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain. The final three on the list have already volunteered forces to fight the Islamic State; recruiting the others would require hard-nosed diplomacy. But if the Islamic State is the threat the Trump administration says it is  and the people of Paris, Brussels, Istanbul, and Ankara, who have all suffered terror attacks at its hands, would agree  why would its neutralization be left to militiamen?

In addition to putting the military defeat of the Islamic State in the hands of military professionals, the Pentagons plan for northern Syria must take several other factors into account. The military campaign should cover all of eastern Syria (not just Raqqa), eliminating the Islamic State in Deir Ezzor and all of Syria. A post-combat stabilization plan establishing local governance is absolutely essential. It can draw on Syrian local councils that have been forced underground by the Islamic State, the Syrian nationalist opposition, Syrian civil servants, and the SDF in its own localities. Finally, the forces that defeat the Islamic State must plan for sustained ground and air force protection for the liberated areas.

This isnt simply a matter of defeating the Islamic State. Converting central and eastern Syria from caliphate to safe zone means keeping President Bashar al-Assads forces out. Permitting a murderously corrupt regime to replace the Islamic State would simply set the stage for the jihadi groups resurgence, which will eventually lead to a stampede of Syrian civilians heading to Turkey and Iraq.

The area from which the Islamic State is being attacked by Turkey in the Euphrates River Valley might also become a safe zone. Turkey and its Syrian rebel allies are experiencing difficulty ousting the terror group from al-Bab, a large Sunni Arab town northeast of Aleppo. But assuming al-Bab is eventually taken, the Islamic State will have been cleared from a sizable pocket extending south from the Turkish border. An effective safe zone, however, will require a sustained and significant Turkish ground force presence and air cover, supplemented by nationalist Syrian rebels willing to fight all comers: Shiite militias, al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and Assad.

In Idlib province, Russian President Vladimir Putin could play a crucial role in the establishment of a safe zone  if he is willing and able. If Russia can help neutralize undisciplined, Iranian-led Shiite militiamen while enforcing a genuine cessation of hostilities in northwestern Syria, nationalist rebels will be able to disentangle themselves from Jabhat Fatah al-Sham and work with Washington and Moscow to defeat al Qaeda and defend civilians.

For Idlib to evolve in the direction of a safe zone, however, Russia would have to refrain from the kinds of air attacks it inflicted on Aleppo while keeping the Assad regime and its Iranian-led backers on a very tight leash. Will Moscow do so? Can it? Will the Russians, in effect, impose a no-fly zone on the Assad regime once Jabhat Fatah al-Sham is history? Will conditions actually emerge that enable the nationalist Syrian opposition to kill al Qaeda? For Idlib province to be safe for civilians, much heavy lifting lies ahead.

Trump and Jordans King Abdullah have also reportedly discussed a safe zone in southwestern Syria, between Damascus and the Jordanian border. That area has been relatively quiet. For it to be truly safe for civilians, however, a central role for Jordanian ground and air forces would be ideal.

Only in the case of establishing a post-Islamic State safe zone might American boots on the ground in the form of large combat formations be a possibility. Unless Islamic State fighters simply vanish from central and eastern Syria, densely populated areas must be liberated from their grip by military professionals. Pitting militiamen against the Islamic State will only deepen a humanitarian abomination and worsen its political consequences.

For nearly six years, Syrian civilians have had a bulls-eye painted on them. They, their neighbors, and Western Europeans have paid the price for Assad and the Islamic States criminality. A full political transition moving Assad, his family, and his entourage off stage can make all of Syria a safe zone. In the meantime, however, Washington and Moscow must revise their strategies for protecting civilians from the horrors of war.

Photo credit: ABD DOUMANY/AFP/Getty Images
When the early pioneers came to Coon Prairie, many were Norwegian immigrants. But also choosing to settle on this fertile soil were Americans from various states and other immigrants from Ireland, France, Germany and other countries.

Westward expansion became one of the defining themes for 19th century United States history. After the American Revolution, the new nation owed huge debts. It also owned vast amounts of land between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River. The Land Ordinance of 1785 created the Public Land Survey System to survey and plat the land for sale. This system divided the land into six-mile square townships that were subdivided into thirty-six one-mile square sections. Each section was further subdivided into marketable lots of between 40 to 160 acres.

President Thomas Jefferson purchased the territory of Louisiana from the French in 1803 increasing the size of the United States by approximately 827,000 square miles. The country had stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River. This new territory doubled the size of the United States and much of it had not yet been explored, surveyed or mapped. The government wanted it quickly settled. Young men and families began moving west to farm, others to log the rich forests or as trappers for the plentiful game. Wars and troop movement brought still others west.

Various Acts were written and signed into law addressing the sale of land. The Land Act of 1820 required full payment at the time of purchase and registration. The purpose was to discourage credit and make the land affordable, but many couldnt afford the $1.25 an acre especially in one large payment. The Preemption Act of 1841 permitted squatters the first right of purchase for up to 160 acres of land.

With the War of 1812, the Mexican War, a variety of Indian wars and other military action, the federal government needed to maintain a volunteer military force. The federal budget was without enough funds, but had plenty of land to offer for service. The government issued Military Land Warrants either as incentives for signing up or as a post-service benefit. The amount of land a veteran was entitled to was determined by rank and length of service.

From 17751855 land warrants were assignable, meaning the soldier could sell his warrant. One study shows that less than one soldier in 10 used his warrant for land. Instead, most soldiers or their widows or heirs, signed away their rights for a price. The price for purchasing warrants peaked at about $1.20 an acre.

Initially, land warrants were restricted to military reserve lands, but this changed in 1842 creating a real estate boom. In Christiana Township over 5,000 acres of land were purchased using warrants. Rufus Munson purchased over 1,000 acres of land using eight separate warrants.

Even Gullord purchased 171 acres in Viroqua Township with a warrant assigned from Joseph Bernard, a private in Captain Knowltons Company of Wisconsin Volunteers. By 1855 the government stopped offering land for service.

After the Civil War, an amendment to the 1862 Homestead Act gave Union veterans the right to claim 160 acres within railroad grant areas. Another amendment in 1872 gave Union veterans the right to deduct the length of their war service from the residency needed to prove a homestead.

When Wisconsin became a state in 1848 six million acres of Wisconsin land was granted to railroad companies as an incentive to lay their tracks across the state. The State also acquired title to more than four million acres of land. This was approximately one-third of Wisconsins land area. The other two-thirds were sold by the Federal Government through federal land patents or Military Land Warrants.

In 1848, the state established the University of Wisconsin and a system for free common schools. To finance public education, a Common School Fund was started with a grant of land from the federal government. The proceeds from the sale of the 16th section of each of the approximately 1,500 townships provided the funding. An additional 500,000 acres were awarded to the states to add to the fund. Today the proceeds from the sale of this land in the State of Wisconsin continue to be used for education, managed by the Wisconsin Board of Commissioners of Public Lands.

Although some had the means to purchase their land quickly, others by the time they arrived, had little if any money left to pay the interest and taxes. According to the sales contract, the grantee did not have to pay anything toward the principal, but was required to pay interest at 7 percent each year on the 30-year loan. For many, there was a long period of time between when the process began and when the purchase was completed and the patent issued.

My ancestors, John Larson Kvernstuen and Ingeborg Pedersdatter Gullord settled upon 120 acres in Christiana Township under the additional 500,000 acres grant. Their sons, Henry and Elias Johnson arrived in 1850, while John, Ingeborg and their daughters arrived the next year. The boys initially made a squatters claim, not uncommon, until the pioneers found time to travel to the land office or money could be accumulated to begin payments. Many of the men from Coon Prairie earned wages working in the pineries during the winter. The women and children would remain behind to secure the claim. But for the Kvernstuen and Gullord families, they spent the winter in Jackson County. In 1851, Ingeborg Emeline Olsdatter (Ingeborg Kvernstuens niece and Even Gullords sister) married John Levis, a lumberman who owned one of the Black River Falls lumber mills.

On Oct. 17, 1853, Henry Johnsen, the oldest son to emigrate with his parents, entered into contracts to purchase three, 40-acre parcels at $1.25 per acre, plus 90 cents in fees for a cost of $150.90. He did not pay anything towards the principal, but did pay the first portion of interest on the principal at the rate of 7 percent. In 1861 Henry sold the contract to buy the land to his brother, Elias, for $300. By this time Henry had married and was living in Coon Valley where he partnered with Nils Neprud to operate the Coon Valley Mill.

In 1867, Elias paid the principal on the contract and received the Patent that transferred fee-title ownership to him. With the death of his parents two years earlier, Elias sold the farm to Christian Jaeger and moved his family to Sparta. Today the farm is owned by Tom and Dana McCauley.

You can contact us at 608-634-4478 to leave a message or send an email to westbywihistory@gmail.com.
With his Twitter blast at Nordstrom (JWN), President Donald Trump sparked fresh concerns that he and his family are using the Oval Office for personal gain.

Trump accused the department store chain on Wednesday of treating his daughter Ivanka "unfairly," prompting its stock to drop briefly before it recovered. The president's tweet came days after Nordstrom said it would not sell his daughter's brand in the upcoming season due to sagging performance.

Trump's tweet, later distributed by the official "@POTUS" account, pulled him back into a debate over whether he did enough to distance himself from his family's businesses when he took office. The president chose not to divest from the Trump Organization, handing control to his two eldest sons and a company executive.

While the Trump Organization said Ivanka Trump stepped down from her roles there, she licenses her name to merchandise manufacturers, who then sell products at stores like Nordstrom and Macy's, according to The New York Times. It's not clear if she still receives royalties from her clothing licensing.

Trump's criticism of a company that distanced itself from his daughter's brand shows "un-presidential behavior and potentially much worse," said Richard Painter, a former top White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush.

"It is the use of public office for private gain," he said.

Later Wednesday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer called Nordstrom's move an "attack" on Ivanka Trump based on her father's policies and argued that he should have the ability to defend her. Asked whether Nordstrom's decision matters since Ivanka Trump said she stepped down from her companies, Spicer said it still damages a brand that carries her name.

"I think this was less about the family business than an attack on his daughter," the White House press secretary said.

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In a statement Wednesday, Nordstrom said it made the decision because "sales of the brand have steadily declined," adding that "Ivanka was personally informed of our decision in early January." Nordstrom and other companies faced pressure as part of an effort by some consumers to avoid businesses with connections to the Trump family.

Ivanka Trump's brand makes the largest share of its sales from licensed clothing like the products sold at department stores, according to the Times. Her father also increasingly turned to brand licensing in his ventures before he took office.



Painter added that Trump's comments prompt concerns about the potential for insider trading if anyone knew to short the stock before Trump's tweet. Still, there is no indication that any improper trading took place around the time of the tweet.

Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., also raised ethics concerns after Trump's attack, tagging the independent Office of Government Ethics in response to the president's tweet. The agency has heavily criticized Trump for not divesting from his businesses or establishing a blind trust when he took office.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., also called Trump's comments "inappropriate."

Since his electoral win in November, Trump has rightfully noted that the president is exempt from criminal conflict of interest laws.

Ivanka Trump's brand did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The OGE declined to comment.





Trump's Nordstrom attack marks the second time in recent days that the first family has prompted ethics concerns. In filings that are part of a libel lawsuit that first lady Melania Trump filed against the Daily Mail tabloid, her lawyers argue that her position could help her grow her personal brand, according to The Associated Press.

While her attorney said she had no intention of profiting from her standing, she has not stepped down from her brand, the AP said. For example, she was still listed on New York filings for companies that managed $15,000 to $50,000 in royalties from her accessories line, according to financial disclosures filed in May.

Separately on Wednesday, The New York Times reported that TJX Companies (TJX), the parent of T.J. Maxx and Marshalls, instructed employees to throw away Ivanka Trump signs and stop displaying Ivanka Trump merchandise separately.

WATCH: Analyst weighs in on Nordstrom-Trump conflict: It's not personal, it's product





More From CNBC


Tunis (AFP) - Tunisian ex-president Zine el Abidine Ben Ali and his wife, already convicted in absentia several times, have been issued new 10-year prison sentences for corruption, authorities said Thursday.

They were found guilty Tuesday by a court in Tunis in a case involving "administrative and financial corruption", said prosecution spokesman Sofiene Sliti.

Ben Ali, who ruled Tunisia with an iron fist for 23 years, has been living in exile with his wife in Saudi Arabia since fleeing during the 2011 revolution.

The case also saw two other officials convicted, including a former minister for the environment who was jailed for five years and another ministry official was sentenced to three.

A relative of the exiled president's wife, Leila Trabelsi, was also sentenced to three years in prison.

A ministerial source said the case related to the "commercial use" of the Club Elyssa, in the grounds of a state-owned nature park in the suburbs of Tunis.

Trabelsi used to organise social gatherings at the club.

In November, the venue hosted the first public hearings of the Truth and Dignity Commission on human rights violations during six decades of dictatorship.

Since Ben Ali and his wife fled, they have been convicted in several cases, mostly for corruption.

Ben Ali was also sentenced to life imprisonment for the crackdown on demonstrations during the 2011 revolution, in which 338 people were killed.
GAZA (Reuters) - An Islamic State-affiliated group claimed responsibility for firing rockets on Thursday towards Israel's Red Sea resort of Eilat from Egypt's Sinai peninsula, an attack that Israel said caused no damage or casualties. The Sinai Province group said it fired "a number of Grad rockets against gatherings of Zionist occupiers" in Eilat. In an apparently unrelated incident several hours after the rockets were fired, two Palestinians were killed along Gaza's border with Egypt when a tunnel beneath the frontier was bombed, Gaza's Health Ministry said, blaming Israel. An Israeli military spokeswoman said she had no information about an Israeli strike. Israel's military said that of the rockets launched from the Sinai towards Eilat one landed harmlessly in an open area and the others were intercepted by its Iron Dome anti-missile system. "What is coming is graver and more bitter," Sinai Province said on Telegram, an encrypted instant messaging system used by ISIS to communicate with followers. Islamic State-linked groups waging an insurgency against Egypt in the Sinai have claimed responsibility for past rocket attacks in the Eilat area. Egypt, which has destroyed some 2,000 smuggling tunnels on the Gaza border, has accused the Palestinian enclave's Islamist ruling movement, Hamas, of aiding Islamic State-linked militants in the Sinai. Hamas denies the allegation. The Israel-Gaza border has been largely quiet in recent months, but on Monday a Palestinian rocket launched from the enclave drew several Israeli strikes against Hamas targets. (Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Maayan Lubell and Omar Fahmy; Editing by Nick Macfie and Richard Lough)
By Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Daren Butler AMMAN/ANKARA (Reuters) - Russian air strikes accidentally killed three Turkish soldiers during an operation against Islamic State in Syria on Thursday, the Turkish military said, highlighting the risk of unintended clashes between the numerous outside powers in a complex war. "During an operation by a Russia Federation warplane against Islamic State targets in the region of the Euphrates Shield operation in Syria, a bomb accidentally hit a building used by Turkish Army units," the Turkish military said in a statement. Eleven other soldiers were wounded. The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin had called Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan and expressed his condolences, blaming the incident on poor coordination between Moscow and Ankara. Besides Russia and Turkey, the foreign powers embroiled in Syria's increasingly convoluted six-year-old war include Lebanon's Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed militias, and members of a U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State. Russia is a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while Turkey supports the rebels opposing him. In 2015, Turkey shot down a Russian air force jet that it said had crossed into Turkish airspace, though Moscow denied that happened. The two countries have since repaired relations, and Thursday's Kremlin statement said the two leaders had agreed to step up military coordination against Islamic State. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence expressed condolences for the Turkish losses in a call with Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, in which they discussed cooperation in the fight against terrorism, Yildirim's office said. CLOSING IN ON AL-BAB Turkish-backed Syrian rebels meanwhile pursued a major offensive against the IS-held Syrian city of al-Bab, 30 km (20 miles) south of the border with Turkey. Their advances risk putting them in conflict with Syrian government forces also closing in on the city from the south. A rebel commander said fighters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), working with Turkish commanders, were moving forward from territory near the western gates of al-Bab, which they had stormed on Wednesday. "The battles began a short while ago to complete what had been achieved yesterday," said a commander of a leading FSA group fighting in al-Bab, who requested anonymity. The capture of the town would deepen Turkey's influence in an area of northern Syria where it has created a de facto buffer zone. It launched its Euphrates Shield operation in August, backing Syrian rebels with special forces, tanks and aircraft to sweep Islamic State from its border area and stop the advance of a Kurdish militia. Al-Bab is a major economic hub for the militants and lies on a key crossroads for the region north of Aleppo. Syria's army secured a string of villages on the southern edge of the city on Thursday, state media said. The Turkish military said it had killed 44 militants in aerial and artillery strikes and clashes in northern Syria. Five Turkish soldiers were killed in the clashes, the private Turkish news agency Dogan said. (Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Ece Toksabay; Additional reporting by Daren Butler in Istanbul and Andrey Ostroukh in Moscow; Editing by Mark Trevelyan/Nick Tattersall)
Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - An Israeli air strike killed two Palestinians on the Egyptian side of the border with Gaza early Thursday following rocket fire from the area into Israel, the territory's Islamist rulers Hamas said.

Israel denied it had carried out any strikes over the border into Egypt's restive Sinai Peninsula in response to the rockets, which caused no casualties.

The spokesman of Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry, Ashraf al-Qudra, named the two men killed as Hossam al-Sufi, 24, and Mohammed al-Aqra, 38.

Their deaths came just hours after a volley of rockets fired from the Sinai targeted the Israeli Red Sea resort of Eilat, a rare assault from Egypt, which is one of just two Arab states that have signed a peace treaty with Israel.

Three rockets were intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome air defence system and a fourth fell short of the town.

The Sinai is a stronghold of jihadists loyal to the Islamic State group who have waged a long-running insurgency against the Egyptian security forces but attacks on Israel are rare.

In the past, a labyrinth of smuggling tunnels linked the Sinai with Gaza. But since the 2013 overthrow of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi after a single year in power, Egyptian authorities have moved to destroy them and have set up a wide no-go zone on the Gaza border.

Qudra said five people were also wounded in what he said was an Israeli strike.

Israeli army chief spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner said: "Military officials denied Israel Defence Force involvement in the reported strike."

Under the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, there are restrictions on military deployments on the Sinai border monitored by international peacekeepers.

But since the jihadists launched their deadly insurgency in the wake of Morsi's ouster, Egypt has poured troops and police into the peninsula with the blessing of Israel and Western governments.

Hundreds of Egyptian security personnel have been killed, particularly in the north Sinai near the Gaza border.

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There have been periodic attacks into Israel.

In 2011, assailants who came from the Sinai killed eight Israelis in a triple ambush north of Eilat. Pursuing Israeli forces killed seven attackers and five Egyptian police.

In 2013, four jihadists were killed by an Egyptian air strike as they were about to fire a rocket at Israel, according to the Egyptian military.

And in 2014, two patrolling Israeli soldiers were wounded by unidentified men who fired an anti-tank weapon from the Sinai during an attempted drug-smuggling operation, according to the Israeli military.

In 2015, rockets fired from Sinai hit southern Israel without causing casualties. IS claimed responsibility.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Navy P-3 plane and a Chinese military aircraft came close to each other over the South China Sea in an incident the Navy believes was inadvertent, a U.S. official told Reuters on Thursday. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the aircraft came within 1,000 feet (305 meters) of each other on Wednesday in the vicinity of the Scarborough Shoal, between the Philippines and the Chinese mainland. The official added that such interactions between Chinese and American aircraft are infrequent, with only two occurring in 2016. (Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Sandra Maler)
By Ankur Banerjee (Reuters) - U.S. Democrat Senator Claire McCaskill on Thursday asked Kaleo Pharmaceuticals to justify the more than 550 percent surge in the price of its device to treat painkiller overdoses, becoming the second senator to question Evzio's $4,500 price tag. Evzio contains the overdose-reversing drug naloxone and can be used in emergencies by people without medical training. Privately held Kaleo has raised the price of a twin-pack to $4,500, from $690 in 2014, according to a Kaiser Health News report. (http://bit.ly/2kFzxaq) The concerns over Evzio's price comes at a time when pharmaceutical companies are facing intense scrutiny over "price-gouging", and as lawmakers struggle with the epidemic of opioid abuse. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates at least 91 Americans succumb every day to opioid overdose, which experts partly blame on unrestricted painkiller prescriptions. "At a time when Congress has worked to expand access to naloxone products and to assist state and local communities to equip first responders with this life-saving drug, this startling price hike is very concerning," McCaskill said in a letter to Kaleo Chief Executive Spencer Williamson. (http://bit.ly/2kYbUMP) The letter, which was signed by 30 U.S. senators, asked Kaleo for information on Evzio's price structure and why the company chose to adjust prices. "We received the letter from the Senators and are in communication with them to ensure all questions are addressed," Williamson told Reuters in an e-mailed statement. Democrat Senator Amy Klobuchar sent Kaleo a letter earlier this month, voicing similar concerns. Williamson said that Americans with commercial insurance and a prescription could get Evzio, which was approved in 2014, for no out-of-pocket cost, or for $360 if they paid cash. He added that people without insurance and with household income under $100,000 could get Evzio for no out-of-pocket cost. Kaleo's other product is Auvi-Q, an emergency allergy auto-injector that is a rival to Mylan NV's EpiPen, which came under intense criticism last year for its high price. Kaleo said last month that it would offer Auvi-Q at no cost to many consumers, but set a list price  to be used as the benchmark cost to insurance companies  at a whopping $4,500. (Reporting by Ankur Banerjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza)
ANKARA (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Mike Pence told Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim it was a "new day" in Turkish-U.S. relations in a phone call on Thursday to discuss cooperation in the fight against terrorism, Yildirim's office said in a statement. Pence also expressed his condolences for the death of Turkish soldiers fighting against Islamic State in the northern Syrian city of al-Bab, the Turkish statement said. Russian air strikes accidentally killed three Turkish soldiers and wounded 11 others in Syria on Thursday, the Turkish military said earlier. Turkey is a NATO ally and member of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State. (Reporting by Ercan Gurses; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
London (AFP) - Britain said Thursday it was "concerned" at the guilty verdict against Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, saying it raised questions about the rule of law.

Navalny was found guilty Wednesday of embezzlement and given a five-year suspended sentence that threatens to end his bid to challenge President Vladimir Putin in next year's presidential elections.

"We are concerned at the conviction handed down to Russian opposition politician, Alexei Navalny," Britain's Foreign Office said in a statement.

"The judgement once again raises questions about the selective application of the rule of law in Russia."

The ministry said the case reflected "a worrying trend in Russia" of opposition voices being silenced.

"The UK urges Russia to uphold the principles of democracy and support political pluralism."

A judge in the provincial city of Kirov found the Kremlin critic and anti-corruption campaigner guilty at a trial that he insists was aimed at knocking him out of the election expected in March 2018.

Navalny condemned the verdict as a "telegram from the Kremlin".

The court was holding a retrial after Navalny and his co-defendant, businessman Pyotr Ofitserov, were convicted of alleged embezzlement in 2013.

The European Court of Human Rights last year quashed the ruling, saying the men did not have a fair trial.

But Russia's supreme court then ordered that Navalny and Ofitserov face a retrial.

British Prime Minister Theresa May earlier Thursday demanded international pressure on Russia over an upsurge of violence in eastern Ukraine.

During a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, May "emphasised the UK's continuing concern over Russia's aggressive and destabilising actions and the drastic deterioration in the humanitarian situation.

"It is vital that the international community continues to exert pressure and that we continue to maintain sanctions on Russia until the Minsk agreements are fully implemented."
By Susanna Twidale LONDON (Reuters) - Britain is unlikely to remain in Europe's carbon market following its exit from the European Union, the European Parliament's lead carbon policymaker said on Thursday. Britain has a legally binding target to cut emissions of harmful greenhouse gases, such as those produced by fossil-fuel-based power plants, by 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050. Leaving the scheme would raise questions about how Britain plans to meet its targets. Several utilities said the scheme offered an important policy signal to encourage their investment in renewable and low-cabon electricity production. "I don't think it will have a future in the EU ETS after the UK leaves (Europe)," Scottish Conservative Ian Duncan, who is shepherding reforms of the EU ETS through the European Parliament, said on a webcast on Thursday. "Were the UK to be part of a system over which it could have no influence. I think that would be very difficult," he said. Britain is the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in Europe and as a result its utilities and industry are among the largest buyers of permits in the EU's Emission Trading System (ETS), which charges power plants and factories for every tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) they emit. EU lawmakers are currently working on reforms of the market that will reduce the share of free carbon permits handed out after 2020 as part of an effort to fix oversupply in the market and boost prices. Rules of the ETS are also enforced by the European Court of Justice, and industry experts said it would be hard for British Prime Minister Theresa May to justify staying within the scheme. "Staying in the EU ETS sounds a lot like being half in and half out, which May seemed to be ruling out as a principle," said Trevor Sikorski, head of natural gas, coal and carbon research at consultancy Energy Aspects. May signaled last month, when outlining Britain's plans to leave the European Union, the country would exit the EU single market and the legal jurisdiction in Britain of the European Court of Justice would end.. Companies in the power sector such as E.ON and Centrica have urged Britain to remain in the scheme. "It is better to have robust carbon pricing across Europe rather than paddling in our own canoe," Paul Hallas, Regulation and Strategy Director, Centrica, told members of Britain's cross-party Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Committee earlier this week. BEIS said the issue remains part of the Brexit negotiations. "We are carefully considering the implications of a range of options for future UK participation in the EU ETS, as part of delivering a wider settlement in the best interests of the UK," BEIS told the Committee in a written submission. (Additional reporting by Nina Chestney and Alissa De Carbonnel; editing by Susan Thomas)
Washington (AFP) - The US military said Wednesday that it had killed eleven Al-Qaeda operatives, including a veteran leader and suicide bombing pioneer, in a bombing raid in Syria.

The Pentagon said Abu Hani al-Masri, the Qaeda veteran, was one of those killed in the precision airstrikes near Idlib carried out on February 3-4.

Al-Masri was an early official in al-Qaeda, overseeing the group's training camps in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s as he worked with Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden and current leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

There "he recruited, indoctrinated, trained and equipped thousands of terrorists who subsequently spread throughout the region and the world," the Pentagon said in a statement.

They said he also helped found Egyptian Islamic Jihad "he first Sunni group to use suicide bombers in their terror attacks."

"These strikes disrupt al-Qaeda's ability to plot and direct external attacks targeting the US and our interests worldwide," said Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis.

The US has mostly focused its attacks in Syria on the Islamic State group. But in recent months, US forces have also launched several attacks against its al-Qaeda rivals.

Idlib province is largely occupied by the former Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, Fateh al-Sham, which has been allied to several Syrian rebel groups fighting the government.
South Korea and the U.S. have agreed to conduct joint military exercises beginning next month in the latest effort to deter North Korea's Kim Jong Un from launching nuclear missiles, military officials said Wednesday.

U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis and his Seoul counterpart Han Min Koo agreed while meeting in Seoul last week to the military exercises. The annual event, which will take place in central South Korea, consists of field-training exercises, including air, land and sea elements. It will also include missile defense drills.

"Working-level officials between the two nations are close to reaching a consensus on expanding the scale of the drills compared to those of last year," a military official said on condition of anonymity. "The two sides are also exchanging opinions on whether Washington will send its strategic weapons for the drills."

The military exercises were approved in November 2015 and the drills started in 2016, according to local reports. The events are a "routine and defense-oriented exercise designed to enhance readiness, protect the region and maintain stability on the Korean Peninsula," Maj. Chris Ophardt, U.S. Army Secretary Eric Fannings public affairs officer, said in an email last year, according to the Guardian.

The details of the upcoming exercise were still evolving, but the U.S is in talks regarding the deployment of U.S. strategic assets to the peninsula," an unidentified official said, referring to the possible deployment of the B-1B strategic bomber from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, the B-2 stealth bomber from the U.S. mainland, the B-52 long-range nuclear bomber and F-22 stealth fighters maintained by U.S. Forces Korea.

There were 310,000 troops from South Korea and 17,000 from the U.S. involved in the exercises in 2016, the largest ever. There might be a slight change in next month's exercises, with officials considering increasing the number of American troops. However, they would maintain a similar number of South Korean troops, according to Korea Times.

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North Korea, which has threatened to bomb Washington and Seoul, hasn't taken kindly to these types of drills in the past. The North Korean army and people will take military counteraction for preemptive attack so that they may deal merciless deadly blows at the enemies, the Norths powerful National Defense Commission said in a statement during drills in March 2016.

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By Barbara Lewis CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - Indian mining company Vedanta Resources is urgently trying to overcome technical issues at its Zambian copper operations that it says have the potential to produce the metal for another 50 years. The mining industry as a whole has been frustrated by a lack of available high-quality copper assets at time demand for the metal is predicted to rise and Vedanta is wrestling with the need to remove large amounts of water, amongst other issues. "We're all here working with an element of urgency to find a solution. We're committed to Zambia. We want to invest," Vedanta Chief Executive Tom Albanese told Reuters at an annual mining conference in Cape Town. "I continue to believe there's a 50-year vision for our Zambian copper operations. We have invested billions of dollars," Albanese said. The Vedanta chief said he had used the Cape Town event to meet Zambian officials and the industry's best engineers because a lack of alternative copper assets made it imperative to exploit the company's existing deposits. Vedanta has a majority stake in Konkola Copper Mines (KCM), which Albanese said was "one of the largest copper deposits still to be mined at one of the highest grades". Vedanta has also faced legal and regulatory issues in the southern African country. Last year, the Zambian government proposed an import duty on copper concentrate imports to be smelted in Zambia, but decided against it. "It was recognised it was a proposal that would only be at the expense of the copper producers in Zambia and ultimately refined copper exports from Zambia," Albanese said. Vedanta has three smelters in Zambia, Africa's second biggest copper producer, and the import duty was expected to disrupt the supply of copper concentrate from neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. A $100 million payment to the Zambian government ordered by an English court over outstanding payments from a 2013 agreement had also been dealt with, he said. Konkola Copper Mines paid $20 million in January, will pay $22 million in February and the balance in instalments over the next 24 months. A legal battle over whether an English court has jurisdiction to decide a claim on behalf of Zambian villagers seeking compensation for what they say is damage to their health and land by KCM is unresolved. Vedanta has appealed, saying Zambia is the appropriate jurisdiction, and expects to know the outcome this year. Albanese said he had no news on the case. Vedanta is also expanding in the two other African countries. In South Africa, it is developing the Gamsberg zinc mine, which it began last year with a capital investment of $400 million and the aim of producing the first ore in mid 2018. It is also seeking to extend its Skorpion zinc mine in Namibia via an underground development as the existing reserve is expected to be exhausted by 2020. (Editing by David Clarke)
Cali (Colombia) (AFP) - Juan Daniel Otoya was 10 years old when ELN guerrillas burst into the church in western Colombia where he was attending mass with his family and kidnapped 180 people.

Today, the leftist guerrillas -- the last active rebel group in Colombia -- are in peace talks with the government to end a 53-year conflict that has claimed 260,000 lives.

Otoya, meanwhile, is a 28-year-old artist who has dedicated himself to painting giant pictures of the violence perpetrated by the ELN, or National Liberation Army.

It is, he says, an important reminder of the country's bloody history as it seeks to achieve lasting peace.

It is also a form of therapy for his own terrifying childhood experience of the war.

"I am traumatized, and I decided I was going to talk about it," he told AFP.

"Victims of the conflict have long remained silent.... For me, capturing all that in a painting has been a way to get it out."

It was an ordinary Sunday in 1999 when Otoya and his family were kidnapped.

As they sat through mass at La Maria Catholic church in the city of Cali, some 20 soldiers rushed inside and said they had to evacuate the building because of a bomb.

But the "soldiers" were actually ELN rebels in disguise.

They seized 180 hostages -- one of the largest kidnappings in the history of a group that has funded itself with ransom payments.

Otoya was released almost immediately since he was so young.

But his parents and brother were held captive for six months, released only after the family paid a ransom.

Otoya lived with an uncle while they were in captivity.

It was then that he turned to painting.

"What I remember most is my mom's face -- a face I can't shake from my memory, a face of anguish at leaving me all alone," he said.

With a realistic yet dreamlike style, Otoya paints giant canvases measuring two by two meters (yards), reproducing news photographs of the La Maria kidnapping.

Painting the "atrocious act," he says, is a way to heal the wounds of "hate and powerlessness."

Achieving peace, he says, will be "a long, hard job."

But, he adds, "Let's hope it's possible."
(Reuters) - Opener Murali Vijay closed in on his ninth test century as he and Cheteshwar Pujara laid the foundation for India's big first innings total on the opening day of the one-off test against Bangladesh on Thursday. Vijay was batting on 98 at tea with skipper Virat Kohli on 17 at the other end as India reached 206 for two after opting to bat at Hyderabad's Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium. Pujara added 178 for the second wicket with Vijay before being dismissed for 83 in what was Bangladesh's lone success in the second session which yielded 120 runs. Playing their first test on Indian soil, Bangladesh got an early breakthrough when the sprightly Taskin Ahmed dismissed Lokesh Rahul with the fourth delivery of the match. While many others in his place would probably have left the fuller delivery well outside the off-stump, Rahul went for an expansive cover drive without moving his feet, dragging the ball onto his wickets via a backfoot deflection. Rahul, who smashed 199 in his previous test knock against England in December, made two. Vijay and Pujara shrugged off occasional discomforts to help India overcome the loss with their fifth century stand of the current home season. They patiently saw through the new ball threats from Taskin and Kamrul Islam Rabbi, the latter occasionally troubling them with the odd short ball, as the partnership bloomed. Off-spinner Mehedi Hasan induced a couple of edges but could not break the association despite occasional comic running between the wickets. On one such occasion, both the batsmen found themselves at the same end but bowler Mehedi could not collect a throw and dislodge the bails which could have sent Vijay, then on 35, back to the pavilion. Vijay made Bangladesh pay for the lapse, bringing up his fifty in 82 balls and going on to hit Shakib Al Hasan straight back for the only six of his knock which also contained 11 boundaries. Pujara was looking good for his 11th test century when he edged Mehedi and Bangladesh captain Mushfiqur Rahim took the catch after the ball had hit the batsman's pad and popped up. (Reporting by Amlan Chakraborty in New Delhi; editing by Sudipto Ganguly)
Vladimir Kara-Murza (L) alongside Russian opposition leader and former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov: Getty

A prominent critic of Vladimir Putin who was rushed to hospital with organ failure had been planning to travel to the United States later that day, his wife has revealed.

Vladimir Kara-Murza, who works for pro-democracy group Open Russia, was taken to an intensive care unit in Moscow on 2 February and remains in a grave condition.

The 34-year-old had spent the night at his in-laws home where his wife and two children live, when he fell ill hours before they were due to fly to Washington DC.

In 2015, the activist and journalist spent two months in hospitals after surviving a suspected poisoning.

Evgenia, his wife, told The Independent: They are symptoms that resemble those from two years ago. My parents called me and I asked the ambulance to take my husband to the same medical team he was with last time.

They were supposed to fly to Washington together that same day.

The last time Ms Kara-Murza spoke to her husband was the night he became ill.

He spoke to me at the onset of his symptoms, she said. He called me to say he was not feeling right, that he had an accelerated heart rate and trouble breathing.

His medical team have diagnosed an acute intoxication by an unidentified substance.

Mr Kara-Murza had been travelling around Russia in recent weeks to conduct screenings of his documentary about his friend Boris Nemtsov, a liberal opposition politician who was assassinated near the Kremlin in 2015.

The day before falling ill, he had paid tribute to Nemtsov on Facebook.

No definite cause was ever established for Mr Kara-Murzas illness in 2015, but both he and his wife believe it was intentional poisoning.

There are unfortunately many people very irritated with my husbands activities, so its very hard to determine who exactly could be behind both attacks, or one of them, Ms Kara-Murza said.

Speaking in 2016, Mr Kara-Murza said he had no doubt his ordeal two years ago was a deliberate poisoning aimed to kill, and that it was politically motivated.

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I was a healthy 33-year-old man. Suddenly, when all of your major organs shut down within 24 hours, one after another  that doesn't just happen, he told RFE.

Doctors are currently trying to wake Mr Kara-Murza from his coma by lowering the dosage of his medication.
Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fstory%2fthumbnail%2f36239%2f3714d36b-f2e0-4fe5-b244-e42ab1b2aa73

Vogue's new cover is looking a little different than the ones we've seen in the past - and we've got to say, it looks so  much  better.

The American magazine's March issue aims to celebrate beauty of "all types," featuring models of various ethnicities (!) and body types (!!) surrounding fashion 'it' girls Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner.

SEE ALSO: Nourish your Insta: 10 self-love advocating women to follow in 2017

Liu Wen, Ashley Graham, Kendall Jenner, Gigi Hadid, Imaan Hammam, Adwoa Aboah, Vittoria Ceretti.

Image:  Inez and Vinoodh/VOGUE

Liu Wen is the first Chinese model to ever appear on the glossy's cover, and "the first Asian model...on the front cover of the publication (excluding foldouts) since the 1930s," according to her management's press release.

Beside Wen is plus-size trailblazer and self-love advocate Ashley Graham, marking her first appearance on American Vogue's cover, and a huge step in the direction of curve inclusivity.

Imaan Hammam, Adwoa Aboah, and Vittoria Ceretti round out the beautiful shot in matching black Prada turtlenecks.

"Each of these cover girls proudly inhabits her own particular gorgeousness in her own particular way," the magazine writes of its cover models. "Together they represent a seismic social shift: The new beauty norm is no norm."

While the industry certainly has a long, long way to go to represent all kinds of beauty (not just our cis-ters!), a more inclusive Vogue cover is a wonderfully important start.

Mashable has reached out to Ashley Graham and Liu Wen for comment.
Berlin (AFP) - Volkswagen has rejected allegations by former boss Ferdinand Piech who reportedly said the German car giant was aware of the "dieselgate" emissions cheating scam well before the scandal broke.

German magazine Der Spiegel said last week that Piech, ex-chairman of the Volkswagen supervisory board, had incriminated former group CEO Martin Winterkorn, who had "knowledge of the diesel fraud earlier than admitted".

"All affected members of the executive committee of the supervisory board, acting independently of each other, have unequivocally and emphatically rejected all assertions made by Ferdinand Piech as untrue," Volkswagen said in a statement, threatening possible legal action against him.

Piech, a grandson of VW's founder who served as CEO between 1993 and 2002, was forced from his position as chairman of its supervisory board in April 2015 after an ugly leadership battle with his former protege Winterkorn.

According to Der Spiegel, Piech told German investigators that he himself learned from an informant in February 2015 that the company had a "big problem" in the United States.

The source told Piech that US authorities were looking into its use of manipulating software to dupe pollution tests and had passed on their findings to Volkswagen.

Piech then asked Winterkorn about it, who assured him that no such document from US officials existed, according to Der Spiegel.

After steering Volkswagen from 2007 to 2015, Winterkorn resigned days after VW admitted in September 2015 that it had installed so-called defeat devices in 11 million diesel engines worldwide to make the cars seem less polluting than they were.

Winterkorn has always insisted he knew nothing of the scam before it became public knowledge.

Prosecutors in the German city of Brunswick however announced at the end of January that they were investigating Winterkorn for fraud, saying they had "sufficient indications" he knew about the cheating earlier than he claimed.
Banjul (Gambia) (AFP) - West African troops will spend three more months in The Gambia, their mission chief said Thursday, as President Adama Barrow carries out large-scale reforms of the army and intelligence services.

Five hundred Ghanaian, Senegalese and Nigerian troops will remain in the tiny west African country until at least late May, according to a communique released on behalf of Senegalese General Francois Ndiaye.

"The three-month mandate... will start its mission on February 21, 2017," the statement said, and would continue to assure the safety of Barrow, his government and state institutions.

A statement from Barrow's office late Wednesday did not specify exact dates or troop numbers, but said the three-month extension was "renewable".

Manpower has already reduced from a peak of 4,000 at the height of the country's political crisis, and the force will have a land presence only by February 20, according to Ndiaye.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) mission in The Gambia launched on January 19, shortly after Barrow took the oath of office in Dakar, the capital of neighbouring Senegal.

It then suspended military action to give a chance for final diplomatic efforts to convince longstanding hardline ruler Yahya Jammeh to step down following his defeat to Barrow in December elections.

Jammeh agreed to leave for exile on January 21 following negotiations with other west African leaders.

Sections of the security services were under Jammeh's personal control and are responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture and arbitrary detention, rights groups say, including the notorious secret police of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA).

Explaining how the NIA would be reformed, a statement from Barrow's office on Thursday said its name would change and functions would be limited to "intelligence gathering, analysis and advice to the relevant arms of government responsible for internal and external security."

The NIA "has not limited itself to work within its mandate but has abused the office and instilled fear amongst citizens," the statement added.

Barrow took refuge in Senegal on January 15, fearing for his safety after Jammeh reversed his acceptance of the election result and sought for six weeks to cling to power.
From the Manson family to the Branch Davidians, there have been some truly horrific cults in American history that have ruined the lives of both followers and outsiders. So when market analysts refer to certain stocks in the market as "cult stocks," investors should take notice.

Cults are often led by charismatic leaders who offer followers hope of a better future, give them a sense of purpose and make them feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves.

Of course, when analysts refer to stocks as cult stocks, they don't mean it in a literal sense. However, investors in certain companies can display a dangerous cult-like mentality.

Typically, stocks are valued based on dozens of metrics that incorporate earnings, growth, cash flow, revenue, margins, debt and other measures of business performance. These measures serve as a guide for investors to use to determine how much they should pay for a stock. However, at the end of the day, buyers are free to pay as much as they want regardless of the valuation metrics.

[See: 7 Best Tech Stocks to Buy for 2017.]

Exception to the rules. Cult followers can be convinced that the words of their leaders override the norms. When it comes to the stock market, words from a company's management during presentations, interviews and conference calls are very convincing to a trusting investor. Skilled CEOs are savvy at spinning the truth and explaining away criticism.

The story often goes something like this: It doesn't matter that our company isn't profitable and is millions of dollars in debt because we are changing the world with our new product and you will want to be a part of it.

Cult stock investors often suffer from confirmation bias as well, which is the tendency to seek out information that supports previously-held opinions and ignore conflicting evidence. Cult stock investors may be much more willing to believe a CEO's hype than an outside criticism.

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A familiar product. Investors can even be so impressed by a company's product or service that they will dive into a stock without paying any heed to how overpriced it may be.

"I think part of the reason that investors are drawn to stocks with high valuations is that often these are companies that have products that they are familiar with that have a new twist to them," says JJ Kinahan, chief market strategist at TD Ameritrade.

Investors may use the product and love it, but that doesn't necessarily mean the company's stock is a good investment. There are plenty of people who love ice cream, but few people would pay $100 for a pint of Ben & Jerry's.

Blind faith. Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at Convergex Group, says an exciting product is one of three traits that cult stocks tend to exhibit. They often have visionary leaders and impressive sales growth as well.

"As a result, valuations tend to get pushed to the background," Colas says. "Investors see a great product, a rock star CEO and a track record of growth. They just want to be along for the ride."

This blind faith may seem like a bad investment strategy, but it's relatively common when it comes to cult stocks.

"My impression is that investors of cult stocks fall into one of two camps: those who aren't interested in a stock's valuation and those who believe the growth potential for the earnings justifies the astronomical valuations," says Owen Murray, the director of investments at Horizon Advisors.

[See: 20 Awesome Dividend Stocks for Guaranteed Income.]

The second class of investors Murray describes are simply so excited about the potential they see in a stock that they will buy it at any price.

Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan famously called this mentality "irrational exuberance." It's the same mentality investors tend to demonstrate during market bubbles.

Popular cult stocks. While investors may think of cult stocks as shady companies selling weight-loss pills or snake oil, they are actually some of the most popular public companies in the world. Stocks with extremely high price-earnings ratios, such as Netflix (ticker: NFLX) and Amazon.com ( AMZN), are often considered cult stocks.

Greenspan's comment came during the dot-com bubble of the 1990s when internet companies' share prices were soaring based on their page views rather than sound financial performance. Today, the market reacts much more strongly to Amazon and Netflix's subscriber counts rather than the companies' reported income.

Tesla Motors ( TSLA) also fits the bill of a cult stock. The stock often trades up or down in response to tweets and presentations by charismatic visionary leader Elon Musk, but Tesla has yet to actually turn a profit. Investors simply trust that Musk will deliver.

"A lot has to go right in order to make money," Murray says of cult stocks. "It is much safer to invest in companies that are more mature and have a proven history from which you can properly judge value."

Horizon Advisors takes risk mitigation one step further and recommends investors always opt for diversified exchange-traded funds and mutual funds over individual stocks.

Of course, despite all the negative connotations associated with the word "cult," cult stocks aren't necessarily always bad investments.

The key concern when it comes to cult stocks is the risk associated with investing in extremely expensive, volatile and unpredictable stocks. For every Alphabet ( GOOG, GOOGL) that ends up actually changing the world, there are hundreds of others that never live up to the hype.

[See: 10 Long-Term Investing Strategies That Work.]

In that sense, perhaps the only true difference between a cult stock and a divine investment in the long term is whether or not followers ever make it to the promised land.

Wayne Duggan is a freelance investment strategy reporter with a focus on energy and emerging market stocks. He has a degree in brain and cognitive sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and specializes in the psychological challenges of investing. He is a senior financial market reporter for Benzinga and has contributed financial market analysis to Motley Fool, Seeking Alpha and InvestorPlace. He is also the author of the book "Beating Wall Street With Common Sense," which focuses on the practical strategies he has used to outperform the stock market. You can follow him on Twitter @DugganSense, check out his latest content at tradingcommonsense.com or email him at wpd@tradingcommonsense.com.
Labor unions are, to put it kindly, not generally supportive of Republican politicians. There are exceptions of course, but Democrats historically have been seen as the party of workers and Republicans as the party of management. But on the Monday after he was sworn in, President Donald Trump made a show of meeting with top labor union leaders in the White House.

Reaching out to this traditional Democratic constituency was one of the more unconventional moves Trump made during a highly unconventional presidential campaign, and it won him a lot of unexpected support at the ballot box, even if it bore little fruit in terms of endorsements from labor leaders. However, by bringing them into the White House so early in his tenure, Trump signaled that he has an eye on union leaders future support.

Related: Trump Takes Aim at Americas Consumer Watchdog

There are definitely areas of overlap between Trumps policies and those unions endorse. His withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal endeared him to some labor advocates, and his bullying of private companies that move jobs overseas has also been cheered by union officials.

However, congressional Republicans are at the beginning of an effort that could seriously strain whatever bonds Trump has been able to build with the movement.

Last week, Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King introduced a bill that would make so-called right-to-work policy federal law. Right-to-work laws, which have been proliferating at the state level for years, generally hamper the ability of labor unions to organize by making it illegal for labor contracts to include a requirement that union dues be paid as a condition of employment. This week, Missouri became the 28th state to enact some form of right-to-work legislation.

Kings brief two-page bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), would strike language from the National Labor Relations Act and the more obscure Railway Labor Act in a way that would effectively implement right-to-work nationwide.

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Related: Trump May Be Sending More Jobs to Mexico Than He Saves

Writing at The National Law Review, Garen E. Dodge and Anna M. Stancu, attorneys with the firm Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton, note that this would likely mean the end of any meaningful labor movement in the U.S.

Organized labor in the United States has experienced a steady decline in the last several decades, from a peak union membership rate of 35% during the mid-1950s to 10.7% in the year 2016. For the private sector, the decline has been even more precipitous: a mere 6.4% of private sector workers in the U.S. were members of a union in 2016.

Kings bill, they say, would likely deal a crippling blow to already weakened organized labor in the U.S.

Trump has already gone on the record as a supporter of right-to-work legislation, and said as early as the Republican primary that he would sign a federal right-to-work bill into law if it reached his desk. But that was at a time when the idea of Trump winning the presidency was considered highly unlikely, and the idea of him doing so with Republican majorities in the House and Senate seemed laughable.

Related: Trump Continues to Cash In on the Presidency

Now, things look a little more real, and last week White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer reiterated Trumps position.

The president believes in right to work, Spicer said. He wants to give workers and companies the flexibility to do whats in the best interest for job creators.

Whether Republicans will be able to muscle a right-to-work bill through both houses of Congress is unclear, given the ability of Democrats to filibuster in the Senate. However, there are many endangered Senate Democrats running for reelection in states that are already in the right-to-work category who might be pressured to support it.

If it lands on Trumps desk and he signs it, there would likely be no more cordial meetings between the president and labor leaders. But, given that in a right-to-work nation those leaders would see their influence greatly diminished, that might not matter to the president.

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
The South Carolina woman who allegedly stole a newborn baby nearly 20 years ago before raising it as her own has pleaded not guilty.

Gloria Williams made national news last month following her arrest on allegations she took a child from her mother hours after she was born in Jacksonville in 1998.

Read: Baby Kidnapped From Florida Hospital in 1998 is Found Living in South Carolina With Alleged Abductor

On Thursday, Williams reportedly faced a judge in Florida and proclaimed her innocence after she was formally charged with kidnapping.

About a month earlier, 18-year-old Alexis Manigo was identified as the person missing from Jacksonville since 1998 through a DNA test after two leads led police to South Carolina, where she was living with Williams, according to police.

Though Manigo had a different name, detectives learned her identity was established with fraudulent documents and they collected a DNA sample to be tested against the missing newborns DNA available at the hospital, according to reports.

According to reports from the time of the kidnapping, Kamiyahs mother, Shanara Mobley, believed a woman who came into her room after she gave birth was a medical professional, while the woman passed herself off as a family member to hospital staff.

Shanara Mobley went on to sue the hospital and was awarded a $1.5 million settlement, according to CharleyProject.org. She has since had three more children.

Manigo, meanwhile, has been reunited with her biological parents. And while happy to now know where she comes from, the teen has told reporters she has mixed emotions about the jailed woman she still thinks of as her mother.

I understand what she did was wrong, but just dont lock her up and throw away the key like everything she did was awful," Manigo told Good Morning America.

Read: Teen Meets Biological Parents After Alleged Abductor Raised Her as Her Own Since 1998

Following the kidnapping, the hospital, now known as UF Health Jacksonville, implemented a system where all newborns must wear wristbands and ankle bands.

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It also limited access to the maternity ward, added security, and instituted kidnapping drills, according to reports.

Williams was arrested at her home in Walterboro, South Carolina, on January 13.

She is due back in court in April.

Watch: Missing 4-Year-Old Girl Found Alive Hours After Search

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Yemenis inspect damaged houses following reported Saudi-led coalition air strikes on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital Sanaa: Getty

Yemen has denied reports that it has withdrawn its permission for the US to conduct special operations missions in the country after a raid on an al-Qaeda base last month killed up to 30 civilians and a US Navy SEAL.

There has been widespread anger in Yemen at the reported loss of life in a ground raid in which almost everything went wrong, as one US military official described it, leading Yemeni officials to suspend the counter-terror programme.

Neither Yemen nor the US have officially announced the decision, which was reported by the New York Times, citing unnamed American officials, on Tuesday.

Representatives from the Yemeni government said on Wednesday that the report was erroneous.

We have not withdrawn our permission for the United States to carry out special operations ground missions. However, we made clear our reservations about the last operation, a senior Yemeni official told Reuters news agency.

Several Yemeni officials said that they had not been given proper notice or fully consulted on the raid before it took place. Foreign minister Abdul Malik Al Mekhlafi condemned the raid in a Twitter post as extrajudicial killings.

It is also unclear whether US President Donald Trumps proposed travel ban for citizens of Yemen and six other Muslim countries  which is currently being challenged in federal courts  had any bearing on the reported Yemeni decision.

The withdrawal of permission for ground raids would not affect unmanned drone missions, nor the small number of US personnel currently assisting anti-terror initiatives in the country.

A ban on US operations would be a set back for the new President, who made much of his promise on the campaign trail to be tough on Isis and other religious extremism. An investigation into the events of the 29 January raid is ongoing.

The Pentagon repeatedly sought permission from Mr Trumps predecessor Barack Obama to allow operations to take place without detailed White House review. It is not known whether the Yemeni decision will impact any future plans to allow the Pentagon to operate more freely.

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The botched operation was planned under Mr Obama, but the White House later clarified it had been reviewed and approved by the Trump administration.

As well as the reported civilian casualties and the death of 36-year-old Navy SEAL Owen Williams, the MV-22 Osprey carrying the troops apparently landed hard, injuring several on board, and had to be destroyed.

The majority of the deaths are thought to have occurred during a 50-minute-long gun battle. Several children, including the eight-year-old daughter of American-born Al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Alwaki, who himself died in Yemen in 2011, were reported killed in the crossfire.

The mission, which White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer has continually defended as a success, had originally been intended to capture intelligence and computer equipment. Mr Trumps team has denied allegations from NBC News that the missions secret objective was to kill or capture a top al-Qaeda leader.

Yemen is currently in the grips of an almost two-year long civil war which has pitted Shia Houthi rebels, who control much of the country, against the internationally recognised exiled government. More than 10,000 people have died in the conflict, the UN says.

Extremist groups such as al-Qaeda have taken advantage of Yemens chaos, establishing several strongholds in the country.
By Nate Raymond

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York City man admitted on Thursday that he had sought to provide support to Islamic State and tried to kill an FBI agent with a knife when authorities came to his home to execute a search warrant in 2015.

Fareed Mumuni, 22, pleaded guilty in federal court in Brooklyn to five counts, including charges that he conspired to provide material support to Islamic State and attempted to murder a federal officer.

He was one of six young men in New York and New Jersey charged in a probe into what Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander Solomon called a "group of like-minded individuals who had pledged allegiance to ISIL," using another name for Islamic State.

Those men included Munther Omar Saleh, a college student whom prosecutors say obtained instructions to build a pressure cooker bomb and planned to carry out an attack in New York City. Saleh is scheduled to plead guilty on Friday.

Since March 2014, 114 people have faced U.S. charges related to the Islamic State militant group, according to the Program on Extremism at George Washington University.

In court, Mumuni admitted he had discussed traveling overseas to join Islamic State, which has seized control of parts of Iraq and Syria, and gave someone a ride so he could buy shoes and supplies to do the same.

Prosecutors said Mumuni also, as part of an alternative plot, met with Saleh, 21, to help him carry out a potential domestic attack with a bomb.

On June 13, 2015, law enforcement arrested Saleh and a high school senior, Imran Rabbani, after they got out of their vehicle and ran toward a surveillance vehicle that was following them, prosecutors said.

Mumuni was arrested two days later after trying to stab an FBI agent wearing body armor with a knife after authorities arrived at his Staten Island residence to execute a search warrant, he admitted in court on Thursday.

"By lunging with a knife, I knew that if I succeeded I could kill him," Mumuni said.

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Mumuni faces up to 85 years in prison when he is sentenced on May 16. Rabbani was sentenced to 20 months in prison in August after pleading guilty to a non-terrorism charge.

Three other men in New Jersey who prosecutors say were in contact with Saleh and sought to travel overseas to join Islamic State have pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to Islamic State.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Sandra Maler)
CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - Zambia revoked five oil exploration licences after the companies failed to comply with the rules, mining minister Christopher Yaluma said on Thursday, without naming the firms. "We had given out 17 license and defaulted a few because of non-compliance and not responding to the licence conditions, so now we have 12 left," Yaluma said on the sidelines of a mining conference in Cape Town. "If they dont come at pace with the program we have scheduled for them we will revoke the licences," he said referring to the 12 remaining firms. (Reporting by Zandi Shabalala; Editing by James Macharia)
Wellington (AFP) - New Zealand announced plans Thursday to erase historic convictions for engaging in gay sex, apologising to those branded criminals under old laws.

Homosexuality became legal in New Zealand in 1986 but people who were convicted before then still have the offence listed on their official records.

Justice Minister Amy Adams said such convictions could appear on criminal history checks and in some cases had to be disclosed while applying for jobs.

She said people would soon be able to have them expunged from official records.

"It means people will be treated as if they had never been convicted and removes the ongoing stigma and prejudice that can arise from convictions for homosexual offences," she said.

"I acknowledge the pain that these New Zealanders have lived with and hope that this will go some way toward addressing that."

Adams apologised to those she said had lived with years of stigma and prejudice.

"We are sorry for what those men and their families have gone through and the continued effect the convictions have had on them," she said.

The justice department said the convictions related to three offences that were dropped in 1986 -- sodomy, indecency between males and keeping a place of resort for homosexual acts.

It estimated about 1,000 people will be eligible to apply to have their records cleared when the scheme take effect next year.

To qualify, the sex that led to the conviction must have been consensual and taken place between adults aged 16 years or older.

Family members can also apply to have the records of a deceased relative cleared.

After legalising homosexuality in 1986, New Zealand passed laws banning discrimination against gays in 1993 and introduced same-sex marriage in 2013.

Britain this month enacted "Turing's Law", giving a blanket posthumous pardon to almost 50,000 men convicted under old laws in England and Wales.

Named after the WWII code-breaker and mathematician Alan Turing, it also allows living people to have their convictions erased, although they must apply individually.
By Heather Somerville SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Zenefits is laying off nearly half its staff as the software startup grapples with the fallout of insurance violations that resulted in hefty penalties from state regulators. The company, which offers free human-resources software to manage benefits and payroll while making its money as an insurance broker, said on Thursday that 430 employees would lose their jobs. That leaves 4-year-old Zenefits with about 500 employees, roughly a third of what it had a year ago. The layoffs are part of a widespread restructuring effort to reduce costs and had been planned by Zenefits' board and previous chief executive officer, according to a company spokeswoman. "This has been planned for some time and is the result of a lot of hard work over the past year to improve our products and service and make the operations of the company more efficient," the spokeswoman said in a statement. Employees were alerted to the layoffs in a memo sent by Jay Fulcher, who started as the San Francisco-based company's CEO on Monday. "In 2015, Zenefits grew too quickly, hiring employees to support revenue projections that far surpass where we are today," Fulcher said in the memo, which Reuters saw. "Today's action aligns our costs more closely to our business realities and gives us the runway we need to build the business properly for the long term." Fulcher said Zenefits would move its operations to its Tempe, Arizona, office while expanding product and engineering groups in Vancouver and Bangalore, India, to supplement its San Francisco team. "This isn't how any CEO would choose to spend his first week on the job," Fulcher said in the memo, "but I strongly believe these difficult decisions are essential in setting Zenefits up for success." Zenefits also laid off more than 350 people last year. The company's software provides a range of human-resources functions, but Zenefits primarily makes money as a middleman between businesses and health insurance providers such as Anthem Blue Cross. Founder Parker Conrad was replaced as CEO a year ago after revelations that employees had acted as insurance brokers without obtaining the required licenses, circumventing state laws. Several states began investigating the company. In November, California fined Zenefits $7 million for licensing violations, one of the largest in the state insurance department's history. Fulcher, the company's third CEO in a year, previously headed software companies Ooyala Inc and Agile Software Corp. His predecessor, David Sacks, announced his resignation in December. BuzzFeed News reported the layoffs earlier on Thursday. (Reporting by Heather Somerville; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP)  A Zimbabwean pastor arrested for organizing anti-government protests said Thursday he was looking forward to getting cleaned up after being released on bail from a maximum-security prison.

Evan Mawarire, who launched a protest movement on social media called #ThisFlag, was detained Feb. 1 after returning from months in the United States. He faces charges of subverting a constitutionally elected government. If convicted, he could go to prison for 20 years.

"I am looking forward to taking a shower," Mawarire told reporters after leaving Chikurubi Maximum Prison. He also said he was looking forward to some rest and time with his family.

A judge ruled Wednesday that Mawarire does not pose a flight risk and that he should be released on $300 bail, while surrendering his passport and reporting twice a week to police. The prosecutor had described him as a "terrorist."

The charges against Mawarire arise partly from his role in organizing protests against Zimbabwe's 92-year-old President Robert Mugabe during the U.N. General Assembly in September, according to Mawarire's lawyer, Harrison Nkomo.

There were no crowds to support the pastor upon his release, in contrast to the rapturous reception he got from government opponents when he appeared in court last year because of his protest efforts.

Mawarire has become a subject of heated social media debate since his return. Some resent the fact that he left the country at a time when many Zimbabweans were protesting or didn't have the means to go abroad. He has said he left for his security.

Others continue to support Mawarire, calling him courageous.

Mugabe, in power since independence in 1980, faces a brewing succession battle within the ruling ZANU-PF party amid economic turmoil. Police cracked down on last year's protests, and Mugabe said people unhappy with Zimbabwe's situation should leave.
Zurich (AFP) - Zurich Insurance said Thursday its profits rose 74 percent in 2016, thanks to fewer claims and progress in its restructuring drive.

Switzerland's largest insurer said in a statement net profit amounted to $3.2 billion (3.0 billion euros) last year, a huge increase over the figure for 2015 when the company was hit by heavy costs linked to the industrial disaster in Tianjin, China.

Chief executive Mario Greco, who has been on the job for a year, is leading a reform effort focused on cost-cutting and streamlining the company's operations.

"We are well on our way to creating a simpler structure," Greco said, describing 2016 as "a very good year."

Analysts have, however, voiced doubt about Zurich's ability to reform.

Thomas Seidl, an analyst at Bernstein in London, said in a note to clients that he remains "sceptical about Zurich's turnaround plans."

"The track record of past cost-cutting exercises is not strong and the people involved have not changed that much," Seidl said.

Zurich's shares were trading at 281.10 Swiss francs ($282.33), down about one percent, while the overall market was higher.
Photo: Kelsey Fairhurst

The Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) announced a new collaboration Monday with Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), to raise awareness and support for the wide range of services that the nonprofit organization provides.

Just in time for New York Fashion Week, the CFDA and PPFA have collaborated on hot-pink pins designed by Conde Nasts Creative Group that read Fashion Stands With Planned Parenthood, and they are already expected to become a hot item.

They have been distributed to all participating NYFW designers, public relations agencies, modeling agencies, creative agencies, fashion week locations, industry influencers, and press attending the upcoming event, which begins on Thursday, Feb. 9.

The fashion industry has always been a voice for issues that are important to its base, women being a big part of it  both women who work in our industry and the people who benefit from fashion. So its not unusual for us to organize around Planned Parenthood, Steven Kolb, president and chief executive officer of the CFDA, told Yahoo Style.

Kolb pointed to the work that the CFDA and its foundation have done for decades around breast cancer and HIV/AIDS as evidence of the fashion industrys long-standing commitment to speaking out on health issues that matter to its community and customers.

Were an industry of creative people, and creative people have very big hearts and have always reacted and responded to issues and moments that are important, Kolb said. Fashion is powerful in that it touches people every single day. To be able to use Fashion Week or use the industry to extend a message beyond what is the next trend or item to wear, but to put some substance behind that  thats very powerful.

Tracy Reese, who sits on the board of the CFDA and whose eponymous line has been a fashion mainstay since its launch in 1998, has taken on the role of designer emissary. For this self-appointed job, shes been reaching out to her fellow designers to encourage them to wear the pin themselves when they go out for their final walk after their runway shows, and to also place pins on the models as they go down the runway in their fall lines. More than 40 designers are participating in the initiative.

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When we woke up after the election, it was a call to action: What can we do to stand behind the causes we care about? Reese said of how she got involved in this initiative. Fashion Week seemed like the perfect time, when all eyes are on New York to stand together with Planned Parenthood.

This isnt the first time that members of the fashion industry have taken steps to support Planned Parenthood and the role it plays in the American health care system. On Black Friday in November, for example, a number of independent designers, including Zero Maria Cornejo, Ulla Johnson, and Apiece Apart, joined forces to commit a portion of their sales to Planned Parenthood under the hashtag #WomenTogether.

The ubiquitous T-shirts Nasty Woman by Google Ghost and The Future Is Female by Otherwild also benefit Planned Parenthood, in addition, to not one but two shirts from a collaboration between designer Marc Jacobs, photographer Marilyn Minter, and Miley Cyrus. Other designers, from Rachel Antonoff to the independent fragrance house OLO, have also donated proceeds of their sales at various times to Planned Parenthood.

Many major industries have also taken a public stand in support of the reproductive and sexual health care provider. Southwest Airlines planes taking passengers to Washington, D.C., for the Womens March turned the cabin lights pink in support of Planned Parenthood midflight. During Googles annual Global Giving Week, $800,000 was raised by its employees for Planned Parenthood. The pharmaceutical company Gilead announced a $900,000 grant on Feb. 2, to support and expand efforts in HIV prevention and education services, the first significant corporate grant of its kind awarded to Planned Parenthood. And on Feb. 1, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebooks chief operating officer and author of Lean In, announced her personal gift of $1 million to the organization.

Reese, whose designs were frequently worn by former first lady Michelle Obama during her tenure in the White House, believes the CFDAs new initiative in support of Planned Parenthood is especially critical at the moment.

This is a nationwide effort and thats important  a lot of what we do is so focused on New York state and New York City, but were talking about the whole country, Reese said. We need to talk to our customers, talk to people interested in fashion to get information out there and let them know that we will stand with Planned Parenthood. We hope to open their hearts and minds as well.

Reese and Kolb both said they hope Washington, D.C. takes note of whats happening at New York Fashion Week this year. I hope they see the energy. I hope they see the passion. I hope they see the importance. I hope they see an industry that cares, an industry that I think wants the new administration to succeed, but succeed in a way that is inclusive  and inclusive on issues like this, said Kolb.

Kolb also noted that the FDA is also looking at immigration issues, another issue that matters to our industry. To date, the CFDA has not issued any public statement or actions on the Trump administrations recent executive orders on immigration, from the move to build a border wall with Mexico to the halting of the Syrian refugee program and the freeze on immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries.

As Reese put it, I dont know how much Washington listens, but hopefully theyll listen to their constituents.  Ive always designed for a diverse group of women. I think all women are beautiful: Every size, every color. Im about empowerment. Im about individuality. And I think this is just a natural extension of what I believe in as a designer. I have to push myself and be more vocal about these types of causes that affect me and my customers and the people who look up to me, and the people who are disenfranchised or dont have a voice. If I have a voice, a platform that can do some good, Im going to use it.

Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration, delivered fresh to your feed, every day.




From Good Housekeeping

There's a lot of heat surrounding breastfeeding (how to do it, where to do it and whether you should do it at all), but we think you'll agree that the following controversy is just plain wrong.

Kaycee Oxendine, a North Carolina mom and pre-kindergarten teacher at Carrboro Early School, brings her three-month-old son to the day care program at her school, where he is watched while she works. Shockingly, a woman who works there did a little more than watch her son last week. She took it upon herself to breastfeed him.

Next at 5 @ABC11_WTVD A mom is angry & disgusted after she says a daycare worker was caught breastfeeding her baby without her permission. pic.twitter.com/bYtuUs7q0w - Andrea Blanford (@AndreaABC11) February 6, 2017

If that sounds insane, hang on - it gets worse. The employee told Oxendine that the baby was constipated and asked the mom if she could breastfeed him. "She said that she had a son and did I want her to put my child to her breast and breastfeed?" Oxendine told ABC 11. "And I said no, that's nasty."

Oxendine actually said no twice, after which she thought she'd made her point clear. Video surveillance, though, proved otherwise - just moments after she left the room, security cameras show the woman adjusting her shirt and lifting the boy to her chest. She stops when another worker in the room stands up to leave.

Oxendine learned of the incident that day after another employee reported what happened. As a result, the accused woman was fired last Friday - but for Oxendine, her termination didn't get to the root of the issue. "As a mom, you've taken something from me, because I wasn't able to defend my child," she said. "I wasn't there."

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If she had been there, she might have been able to tell that worker that her son, born prematurely, is lactose-intolerant. Sure enough, on Friday evening, he began to vomit - Oxendine rushed him to UNC hospital for treatment.

"To me, a criminal act was committed against him," she said. "Not only did you put your breast to my son, you also made my son sick because he's lactose intolerant. So you've put something in his body that his body can't digest."

She intends to press charges against the day care employee, but doesn't blame the facility or the director, Daron Council, who's "done everything in his power," said Oxendine. Nothing like this has ever happened at the day care or in any school in Carrboro County, Council claims.

Police are currently investigating the incident as misdemeanor child abuse, but no charges or arrests have been made. "I'm very angry at the employee," Oxendine explained to ABC. "I do hope there's justice for my son."

[h/t ABC 11]

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By Sumeet Chatterjee and Sijia Jiang HONG KONG (Reuters) - China's most valuable online finance company, Ant Financial, is in early stage talks with banks to raise between $2 billion to $3 billion in debt to fund acquisitions and foreign investments, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. Banks have made "soft pitches" to help Ant raise funds, most likely through loans, to be used by the company for acquisitions such as that of MoneyGram International Inc as well as for boosting existing investments, the person said. Ant, an affiliate of online shopping giant Alibaba Group, dominates China's online payment market, but has been ramping up investment overseas amid fierce rivalry at home with peers like Tencent Holdings Ltd's popular WeChat Pay. "It is the market practice for a globalized company like Ant Financial to raise debt in U.S. dollars," a representative of Ant Financial told Reuters, but gave no further details. Ant, valued at about $60 billion after a $4.5 billion funding round last April, is set for an initial public offering (IPO), though the firm has not specified a timeframe or listing venue. With 450 million users of its Alipay payment service, Ant is making a concerted push to expand its presence overseas. Last month, the firm said it would acquire U.S. money-transfer company MoneyGram for about $880 million. It has also invested in Indian mobile payment and e-commerce website Paytm and Thai financial technology firm Ascend Money. Ant's move to raise funds via debt, instead of selling equity as most Chinese tech firms have done in the past, is due to favorable interest rates for bank loans, the source with direct knowledge of the matter said, declining to be named as the talks were not yet public. Technology news website, The Information, earlier reported that Ant was looking to raise more than $3 billion, citing a person familiar with the matter. Ant is controlled by Alibaba founder Jack Ma. Last year, in three separate loan deals, Chinese Internet giants Alibaba, Baidu Inc and Tencent raised a combined $10.4 billion, according to Thomson Reuters LPC data. Tencent also raised $3.5 billion in bank loans in October to fund its acquisition of Supercell, the Finnish maker of hit game 'Clash of Clans'. (Reporting by Sumeet Chatterjee and Sijia Jiang, additional reporting by Prakash Chakravarti, writing by Adam Jourdan; Editing by Himani Sarkar)
(Reuters) - Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook told Prime Minister Theresa May the company was optimistic about Britain's future after it leaves the European Union, the BBC reported on Thursday. Cook met May at Downing Street and said he thought the UK would be "just fine" outside the European Union, BBC said. Apple could not be immediately reached for a comment. Last year, Apple said it was moving its London headquarters to the landmark Battersea Power Station, a move that was hailed by the government as a sign that major firms are still investing after the Brexit vote. (Reporting by Rama Venkat Raman in Bengaluru; editing by Susan Thomas)
Microsoft announced last October that its Office suite will support Apples brand new MacBook Pro trick, the Touch Bar. Back then, we learned that all Office apps will have Touch Bar shortcuts in the future, and it looks like you can already test them out.

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Before you get too excited, you should know the Touch Bar features are only available to users who are willing to become on Office Insider  that means registering to test beta releases of Microsofts productivity suite. Theres no telling when Microsoft will release an Office for Mac update to enable the features, so getting on the Insider program is your best bet right now.

Once thats done, youll see Touch Bar support in every Office app, The Verge reports. A Focus Mode in Word will remove the Ribbon from the screen and place it on the small touchscreen.

In Excel, the Touch Bar will list the most recently used functions, color cells, and charts.

In PowerPoint, the Touch Bar menu will show you an overview of the slides in your presentation, and youll be able to reorder them.

Outlook gets its own Touch Bar menu, including a today view to display calendar appointments, and the Touch Bar will also list the most recently used documents when youre writing emails.

Finally, Skype and Skype for Business are also going to get their own Touch Bar shortcuts, allowing users to mute calls and enable video directly from the MacBooks touch screen.

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FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

President Trumps new head of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, hasnt been in office long, but hes has been quick to make his policy priorities clear. And diluting the net-neutrality regulations adopted by his predecessor Tom Wheeler  if not outright deleting them  looks high on his list.

The rules currently remain in force, and still bar internet providers from stopping or slowing down legal websites and apps  or straight up charging them for faster delivery of their data. But in his first two weeks as chairman, Pai has followed through on his longstanding opposition to those regulations by taking early steps to weaken them, which could mean your favorite sites and apps like Spotify will load a lot slower or cost more.

Opening moves

One of Pais first moves as chairman was to propose a five-year extension of an expired waiver that had let smaller internet providers out of reporting requirements mandating disclosure of network management practices, performance and commercial terms, otherwise known as fees and surcharges you may owe them.

Pai said that exemption, limited to providers with 250,000 subscribers or less (the old waiver set that ceiling at 100,000), would free them from unnecessary, onerous and ill-defined reporting obligations. But it also liberates them from the pressure to adopt last years FCC proposal for nutrition-label-style disclosures.

Days later, Pai terminated an investigation into whether AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ) were violating net-neutrality principles by exempting their own video services from their wireless data caps. In a statement, Pai defended those free-data plans by saying they are popular with customers and boost competition among wireless providers.

Neither move should have surprised readers of Pais earlier statements. When the FCC adopted net-neutrality rules in early 2015, his 67-page dissent denounced them as intrusive government regulations that wont work to solve a problem that doesnt exist using legal authority the FCC doesnt have.

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In that and older writings  see, for instance, his May 2014 statement on net-neutrality  Pai has suggested that the FCC should defend basic freedoms to connect to and use legal sites and apps while allowing ISPs to charge sites and apps for better-than-basic delivery.

In a live-streamed press conference held Tuesday, Democratic senators lined up to defend the existing rules.

There is no problem that needs to be fixed, said Sen. Ed Markey (D.-Mass.). Sen. Patrick Leahy (D.-Vt.) scorned Pais vision of the internet as free and open if youve got money.

Varying views from private industry

A venture capitalist who has long backed net-neutrality rules, Union Square Ventures partner Fred Wilson, wrote in a blog post that backing startups on a field tilted in the favor of the incumbents is not fun and not particularly profitable either.

Another veteran investor who had expressed fears in 2014 about the viability of media-based startups, however, was more confident Monday.

I am not really worried about this issue, said John Backus, co-founder and managing partner of the PROOF Fund. He pointed to increasingly fast and cheap bandwidth, much of it from WiFi hotspots instead of cellular networks.

Backus also rejected the idea that startups would pay ISPs for premier treatment: I have never seen a startup want to use high-cost equity capital to prioritize delivery of their bits.

Large content companies, meanwhile, dont seem afraid. Netflix (NFLX) has told shareholders that its now popular enough with ISPs customers to discourage any bullying attempts.

Young Turks Network founder Cenk Uygur pointed to his two big content hosts as reason for confidence that ISPs wont bog down his news-and-talk shows.

If they come for us, theyre coming for Google and Facebook, he said in an interview Saturday. I at least have some pretty decent heavyweight partners.

Uygur, a net-neutrality advocate, added that smaller video sites had more to fear.

What about internet providers themselves? Big ones like Comcast (CMCSA) have made a point of saying they already follow open-internet principles. Net-neutrality opponents suggest that dumping the current rules would let smaller providers raise money by crafting their own deals, but will a Netflix pick up the phone when they call?

We will never have the volume of traffic to get significant revenue on the content side, said Michael Goldstein, vice president of sales and marketing at Ting. Ting, which resells Sprint (S) and T-Mobile (TMUS) wireless service and offers its own gigabit fiber internet connection in a few locations, backs net-neutrality.

An experiment with real-world consequences

The net-neutrality debate can seem abstract, especially since the current rules are call for the FCC to treat internet providers as common carriers that, like phone companies connecting calls, must treat all customers equally.

But the outcome of argument will have real-world consequences for not just internet providers and video sites, but you the paying subscriber.

Pai and other opponents say rolling back the current rules will free internet providers to invest in upgrading their service. Thats something we should be able to check in two years: If your connection gets faster and cheaper than it would have otherwise, the FCC chair can claim a victory.

But if going to sites or apps that your ISP hasnt blessed gets notably more annoying, youll have grounds for complaint. That will also be the case if you get stuck paying more for less, as Markey warned in Tuesdays press conference.

None of those outcomes are assured today. Its easier to predict the persistence of the problem net-neutrality rules are supposed to address  a lack of competition. So whatever the FCC does, odds are youll still have the same couple of wired broadband providers  which for many of you will mean only one, the local cable company.

Disclosure: Verizon is in the process of buying Yahoo Finances parent company, Yahoo.

More from Rob:

Email Rob at rob@robpegoraro.com; follow him on Twitter at @robpegoraro.
The war between pirate sites and rights-holders isnt ending any time soon. But Cogent Communications, a giant ISP that underpins the backbone of the internet, seems to have struck a silent but painful blow against the pirates.

According to TorrentFreak, Cogent has started blocking access to The Pirate Bay, Putlocker and other big piracy sites across its entire network. Cogent hasnt commented on why its doing this  or, in fact, confirmed that its a deliberate action  but its already causing big problems for streaming and torrenting across the globe.

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Cogent mostly provides backbone services to regular Internet Service Providers, who then pipe the sweet, sweet internet into your house. Basically, think of it as the company that sells internet to Comcast.

TorrentFreak reports that users around the globe, from various ISPs who are affected by Cogent, have not been able to access a range of piracy sites. Those include The Pirate Bay, but also Primewire, Movie4k, Torrentproject, Couch-tuner, Cyro.se, Watchseriesfree, Megashare, Hdmovieswatch, Torrentbutler.eu, Afdah. Movie.to, Mp3monkey, Rnbxclusive.me, Torrentcd, Moviesub, Iptorrents, Putlocker.com and Torrentz.cd.

Those sites all use CloudFlare, a company that uses a large network and a public IP address to protect sites against DDOS attacks. That may have something to do with Cogents ability to block the piracy sites, or a reason why those sites and not others are being blocked.

For the time being, anyone affected by the outage should be able to use a VPN to get around the blocking, as its not a blanket blackout across one particular country or region.

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See the original version of this article on BGR.com
President Donald Trump talks with aviation executives. (White House Photo via Pool)

Airline and airport executives, including Alaska Air Groups CEO, had their turn today to talk with President Donald Trump, who promised them lower taxes and fewer regulations as well as improvements in aviation infrastructure.

Were going to be announcing something  over the next two or three weeks that will be phenomenal in terms of tax, and developing our aviation infrastructure, Trump told the group of more than a dozen industry leaders during the White House meeting.

The president also hinted that he wants to make big changes at the Federal Aviation Administration and the air traffic control system, relying in part on advice from his own pilot.

I have a pilot whos a real expert, and he said, Sir, the equipment theyre putting on is just the wrong stuff,' Trump said, according to a White House transcript of the meeting. Well talk about that, because if were going to modernize our systems, we should be using the right equipment.

Trump suggested that Brad Tilden, the president and CEO of Seattle-based Alaska Air Group, agreed with him on that point. I know Mr. Tilden is nodding, the president said. You know what I mean.

Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly set the tone for the conversation, telling Trump that we need to address the fundamental organization of air traffic management while leaving safety and regulatory oversight as government functions.

Kelly favored creating a not-for-profit corporation to take on the management of the nations air traffic, with representatives from commercial airlines, general aviation and the government on the corporations board.

We want the government out of managing the air traffic control system so that it can be adequately managed, adequately financed  and we can get this done, Kelly said. We won World War II in three and a half years, we ought to be able to modernize air traffic control.

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The FAA and other agencies are in the midst of a $40 billion initiative known as the Next Generation Air Transportation System, or NextGen. but the program has been plagued by cost overruns and delays. In 2015, the National Research Council issued a critical report that said NextGen has become a misnomer and advised the FAA to reset expectations for the program.

I hear were spending billions and billions of dollars, Trump said. Its a system thats totally out of whack. Its way over budget, its way beyond schedule, and when its completed, its not going to be a good system. Other than that, its OK.

For years, lawmakers have been debating the idea of privatizing the air traffic control system. The concept has gained traction, especially among Republicans. But in a statement issued last month, Reps. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., and Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., blamed the airlines for air traffic disruptions and said we remain unconvinced that privatizing the air traffic control system would lead to improvement.

The president seemed receptive to Kellys call for an overhaul but made no commitments during the meeting.

Todays meeting produced a number of other nuggets:

Trump signaled that hell name a pilot to head the FAA. The current administrator, Michael Huerta, has long experience in information technology and transportation management, but is not a certified pilot. Being a pilot would be helpful, because  I hear the government contracted this system thats the wrong system, and I hear that from pilots, Trump said.

Joe Lopano, the CEO of Tampa International Airport in Florida, suggested that the $4.50 passenger-facility charge could be raised to help pay for airport modernization. But Trump replied that I dont like raising fees or taxes.  I understand what youre saying, but $4.50  its a lot when you look at all of the passengers.

Trump suggested that the money for modernization would come from cuts elsewhere in the federal budget. Were spending so much money overseas, fighting wars, doing things, and frankly, making horrible trade deals, he said. So dont worry about the money. Ill be able to get the money.

For more from the meeting, including the list of industry representatives in attendance, check out the White House transcript.

More from GeekWire:
The repatriation of the group - who are suspected of defrauding Chinese nationals over the phone from Spain - is likely to heighten tensions between Beijing and Taipei (AFP Photo/Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV) (AFP/File)

Washington (AFP) - A contractor for the US National Security Agency was indicted Wednesday for removing massive amounts of top secret materials, but was not accused of leaking or selling them to anyone.

In a case that had worried US officials over a possible repeat of the hugely damaging Edward Snowden leaks, Harold Martin had piled up in his home and car an estimated 50 terabytes worth of data and documents, including reportedly sensitive tools for hacking foreign governments' computers, that he removed from the leading US electronic spying agency over a 20 year period.

Martin was charged with 20 counts of "willful retention" of national defense information, in violation of his contract commitments against removing classified information from the NSA.

But in a possibly telling difference from the Snowden case, Martin was not charged with spying. Last October, federal prosecutors bringing the case had said they expected to file espionage charges against him.

"Martin allegedly violated the trust our nation put in him by stealing and retaining classified documents and other material relating to the national defense," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Mary McCord in a statement.

"Insider threats are a significant danger to our national security and we will continue to work relentlessly with our law enforcement and intelligence partners to identify, pursue and prosecute such individuals."

Martin, a former member of the US Navy, worked for the NSA through different contractors, including Booz Allen Hamilton, the same company that hired Snowden to work at the NSA.

In 2013, Snowden leaked to the media documents that showed the NSA had been sweeping up huge amounts of information on Americans' telecommunications and internet use as part of its secret global surveillance programs. The leak led to laws forbidding the agency from doing that, but US officials have branded Snowden, now exiled in Russia, as a traitor.

Story continues

Despite reports to the contrary last year, the indictment made no suggestion that Martin had divulged any of the materials he had taken.

But the embarrassment of the case was said to be behind pressure late last year on NSA chief Admiral Michael Rogers' removal. Rogers though has been retained in his position in the new government of President Donald Trump.

According to the indictment, Martin's cache of top secret materials included documents with details on how the NSA infiltrates foreign computers and how US computer systems are protected; intelligence on extremist and terrorist activities; indications of intelligence sources; and reports on the capabilities and shortcomings in US military cyber operations.

The materials came from the NSA, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the military's US Cyber Command.
The worlds largest refugee camp will remain open in Kenya.

Kenyas high court announced the ruling Thursday. It said closing the Dadaab camp would violate the countrys constitution.

Rights groups sought legal action after the Kenyan government announced last May that it would close the camp. It said it would return home the almost 260,000 Somali refugees living there.

The Somalis had fled fighting in their country, which borders Kenya.

Kenyan high court justice John Mativo said the governments orders to close the camp were discriminatory and amounted to collective punishment.

Kenya had argued that security threats made it necessary to close the camp.

The government also said it would close the Department of Refugee Affairs. The High Court also rejected that plan.

A Ministry of the Interior official, Mwenda Njoka, said the Kenyan government will appeal the ruling because the reason for closing the camp remains.

The main reason was security, Njoka said. The fact that the camps have lost their humanitarian character and they became places where terrorists would come, al-Shabab and their sympathizers would go and plan their attacks on Kenya. So that has not changed.

Njoka said that Somalia has also stabilized. A new president, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, took office in Somalia on Wednesday.

Njoka also said that the Kenyan government would obey the courts ruling if it loses on appeal. We cannot defy a court order, he said.

The rights group Amnesty International praised the courts decision. But the groups deputy regional director Michelle Kagari also said that Kenya has carried a disproportionate burden when it comes to housing refugees. She called on western countries to take a fair share of refugees.

The Norwegian Refugee Council, Doctors Without Borders and Human Rights Watch also released statements praising the ruling.

The United Nations says almost 34,000 refugees have returned to Somalia since Kenya announced it would close the Dadaab camp.

Im Anne Ball.

Jill Craig reported this story for VOA from Nairobi, Kenya. Anne Ball adapted it for Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section and visit us on our Facebook page.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

discriminatory  adj. not fair : unfairly treating a person or group of people differently from other people or groups of people

character  n. the way someone thinks, feels, and behaves : someone's personality

stabilize  v. to become stable or to make (something) stable

disproportionate  adj. having or showing a difference that is not fair, reasonable, or expected

burden  n. someone or something that is very difficult to accept, do, or deal with


More visitors to Vietnam come from China than from any other country.

The number of Chinese tourists going to Vietnam reached 250,000 last month. Vietnamese state media say that is a 68 percent increase from the number in January 2016.

The popularity of Vietnam with Chinese tourists is somewhat of a surprise.

The two countries are involved in a territorial dispute in the South China Sea. They also have a long history of disputes and distrust.

Chinese tourists have influenced the economies of places like Hong Kong and Taiwan over the past 10 years.

Fredrick Burke is a partner in Baker & McKenzie, a law office in Ho Chi Minh City. He says, while there are disagreements between the countries, Chinese like to visit Vietnam.

There are some underlying tensions over the East Sea or the South China Sea, but nevertheless Vietnam is a place the Chinese feel comfortable going, he said.

Tourism: a way to ease tensions

Relations have not always been warm. China and Vietnam have argued for years over two groups of small islands and rocks in the South China Sea. In 1979, the two sides fought a brief war.

The number of Chinese visitors fell in 2014 when Chinas state oil company set up an oil rig in disputed waters. The move resulted in deadly anti-Chinese riots in Vietnam.

But since then, the number of Chinese tourists has increased. About 2.2 million Chinese went to Vietnam last year.

Some observers say increasing tourism is a way for Vietnam to be more than a manufacturing center.

Louie Nguyen started the news website VietnamAdvisors. He says the country is seeking to develop new industries.

You can see that in the increase in the startup initiatives in terms of tech startups. Even the film business, the latest King Kong was made in Vietnam. So there (are) various initiatives to try to move away from manufacturing. Tourism is one of them.

Vietnam still depends on manufacturing to keep its economy strong. However, Fredrick Burke says tourism provided 6.6 percent of Vietnams economic activity last year. He says one in eight jobs is tied to services such as hotels, travel and food.

China and Vietnam share a border and flights between the two are short, especially from southern China.

Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand were first countries in Southeast Asia to become popular tourist destinations. But the number of Chinese visitors to Malaysia has dropped since the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines MH370.

Singapore reported a drop in Chinese tourists in both 2013 and 2014 before the country made it easier for Chinese families to travel there.

Thailand has remained a popular place for Chinese tourists, with a 20 percent increase in visitors in 2015.

Chinese tourist destinations can change

Tourists from China have influenced other parts of Asia.

China eased restrictions on travel to Hong Kong from mainland China in 2003. In 2015, the territory received nearly 46 million mainland Chinese.

Also, millions of Chinese also have visited the island of Taiwan since 2008. But Taiwanese officials have reported a 30- to 40-percent drop in Chinese travel groups since the swearing-in of Taiwans President Tsai Ing-wen last May. Tsai opposes closer ties with China, which considers the island a rebel province.

Taiwans hotels and bus operators have been hurt by the decrease in tourists.

In the case of Vietnam, Fredrick Burke says China does not appear to be pushing tourism for any long-term gain. But Chinese travel agencies could cut back their services if relations get tense.

In Hong Kong, visits from the mainland dropped three percent during 2015. That year, thousands of young people demonstrated in what became known as the Umbrella Movement. Protesters were angry about Chinese government efforts to influence in the election of Hong Kongs chief executive.

Jonathan Spangler is director of the South China Sea Think Tank, a research group based in Taiwan. He says Vietnam understands the risk of a sudden decrease in tourism.

Beijing has been known to limit outbound tourism as a political tool, but the Vietnamese government understands that such risks are only a small part of its economic relations with China and broader diplomatic and political interests, he said.

Im Mario Ritter.

Ralph Jennings reported this story for VOANews.com. Mario Ritter adapted the report for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

_____________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

tourists  n. people who travel to another country for pleasure

initiative  n. a plan or program to solve a problem or start a business

startup n. a business that has just opened or started

destinations  n. a place that a person or group is going or is being sent
Editor's Note: On Thursday evening, the White House released the following statement on President Donald Trump's phone call with President Xi Jinping of China.

"President Donald J. Trump and President Xi Jinping of China had a lengthy telephone conversation on Thursday evening. The two leaders discussed numerous topics and President Trump agreed, at the request of President Xi, to honor our "one China" policy. Representatives of the United States and China will engage in discussions and negotiations on various issues of mutual interest. The phone call between President Trump and President Xi was extremely cordial, and both leaders extended best wishes to the people of each other's countries. They also extended invitations to meet in their respective countries. President Trump and President Xi look forward to further talks with very successful outcomes."

_______________________________________________________________

U.S. President Donald Trump sent a letter Wednesday to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

He wrote that he is looking forward to working with Xi to develop a constructive relationship that benefits both countries, the White House said in a statement.

The letter also thanked Xi for his note of congratulations on Trumps inauguration. It also wished the Chinese people a happy Lantern Festival and a successful Year of the Rooster.

Chinas Lantern Festival takes place this Saturday, February 11. The Lunar New Year was January 28.

China praised Trumps letter on Thursday. Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China highly commended Trump for the letter to Xi. Lu also dismissed suggestions that China had expected contact from Trump sooner.

It is known to all that since President Trump took office, China and the U.S. have been in close contact, Lu said.

Trump and Xi have not spoken directly since Trump took office last month. They did, however, talk on the phone soon after Trump won the presidential election in November.

The Foreign Ministry in Beijing said last week that the two countries were remaining "in close touch. Chinas top diplomat, State Councillor Yang Jiechi, has led that contact.

Last week, Yang told Michael Flynn, Trump's national security adviser, that China hopes it can work with the United States to manage and control disputes and sensitive problems.

As a presidential candidate, Trump accused China of unfair trade practices and of undervaluing its currency.

When he was president-elect, Trump took a telephone call from Taiwans president, Tsai Ing-wen. Some Chinese officials said the call violated Americas 1979 pledge of support for a one-China policy. China claims Taiwan as its own territory.

Since taking office, Trump and members of his administration have been critical of Chinas actions in the South China Sea.

Diao Daming is with the Institute of American studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He told the state-run Global Times that Trumps letter to Xi is a good sign, but we still need to observe his [Trumps] real actions.

Chu Yun is a professor at the University of International Relations in Beijing. He told the Global Times that Trumps choice to send a letter instead of making a phone call shows he may still want to keep his distance from China. However, he said, a friendly signal is better than a provocation."

Last month, Chinese internet users found another friendly signal on social media. Trumps daughter, Ivanka, posted a video of her 5-year-old daughter singing a song in Mandarin in celebration of the Chinese New Year.

The short video spread quickly in China.

Im Anna Matteo.

VOA News and the Associated Press reported this story. Ashley Thompson adapted it with additional materials from the Global Times and Learning English content. Hai Do was the editor.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in this Story

constructive - adj. helping to develop or improve something

benefit - v. to be useful or helpful to (someone or something)

commend - v. to praise (someone or something) in a serious and often public way

sensitive - adj. likely to cause people to become upset

provocation - n. an action or occurrence that causes someone to become angry or to begin to do something
On Nov. 1, Linn Benton Food Shares warehouse in Tangent received two truckloads of food and household supplies arranged by the local branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Robin Fretwell Wilson (University of Illinois College of Law) has posted The Nonsense About Bathrooms: How Purported Concerns over Safety Block LGBT Nondiscrimination Laws and Obscure Real Religious Liberty Concerns (Lewis & Clark Law Review, Vol. 20, No. 4, 2017) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

Although Americans overwhelmingly believe that LGBT people should not be turned away from a business open to the public just for being gay or transgender, no state has enacted protections for all LGBT people against being told that we dont serve people like you.

This Article traces the impasse over new state legislation banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) to one critical assertion: that ensuring LGBT people equal enjoyment of facilities means that men will now be allowed in womens bathrooms, threatening the safety of others. Although the claim that SOGI nondiscrimination laws expose the public to victimization by sexual predators reaches back to 2008, it reached a crescendo in 2015 when opponents defeated Houstons Equal Rights Ordinance by tagging it as a bathroom bill, and 2016 when North Carolina legislators wiped aside a Charlotte ordinance that was silent about facility access, requiring in- stead that businesses defined as public accommodations must require patrons to use the bathroom matching the sex of their birth.

Despite the punishing treatment of North Carolina after H.B. 2, the 2017 legislative year opened with a raft of bills designed to force individuals to use the bathroom matching the sex of their birth. While proponents of these bills claim that extending nondiscrimination protections to the LGBT community imperils public safety, this Article argues that this claim is not predicated on evidence aboutor risks fromtrans people. Sex offenders are the source of this threat, as affidavits filed in support of North Carolinas defense of H.B. 2 acknowledge.

Notably, the bathroom narrative has served to obscure pressing religious liberty issues, such as how nondiscrimination laws should interact withor give way toreligious convictions on questions of sexuality in religious spaces, like the nature of gender itself. This Article concludes that SOGI nondiscrimination laws are necessary to advance human dignity and to secure a level playing field so that all persons can enjoy the fruits of their labor. Policymakers should therefore reject the case against SOGI nondiscrimination protections based on public safety. It is, however, incumbent on lawmakers to ensure that civil laws governing questions of sexuality do not inadvertently spill over to houses of worship and other places where religious believers should have discretion to decide such matters for their communities. This Article further concludes that it is possible to authorize businesses to open restrooms to LGBT persons in a way that ensures the safety, dignity, and privacy of all their patrons while respecting the religious convictions of people of faith.

Highly recommended.
With Pasco County's homeless population in the thousands, county officials are looking into opening a new center for the homeless, the first of its kind in the county.

Center to be built on former Boys and Girls Club on Little Road

Center would be "low barrier"

Estimated cost of center annually would be about $600,000

The Boys and Girls Club on Little Road in Port Richey closed its doors last summer. Currently, the building sits vacant as the county looks for ways to find funding to build a center for the homeless on the site, modeled off a center in San Francisco.



The county already has a few local shelters. The idea behind this proposed center, in comparison, is it would be "low barrier," meaning anyone could utilize it, with one requirement: the desire to be there.



Pasco officials said there are about 4,500 people in the county who are homeless living in an estimated 100 camps. Of those, 800 are chronically homeless.



The county hopes to bring in that population, aiding 50-100 of them at a time for up to 90 days.



Thats going to be the focus of the navigation center," said Pasco public services assistant administrator Cathy Pearson, "to take one camp at a time and navigate them through the resources to help them get acclimated back into jobs and resources they may need."



The estimated cost of running the center annually would be about $600,000. The county hopes to pool community resources to fund it.



The county has also asked the state legislature for a $1 million to renovate the building.



County officials will present a completed plan April 19 to the Homeless Coalition Advisory Council. It hopes to have the center open in late 2018.
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The U.S. and India seem like a natural fit in the Trump era: rambunctious democracies, led by populists, focused on economic growth and fighting radical Islam. Its a budding partnership that could be set back by a nuts-and- bolts dispute over employment visas.

As President Donald Trump looks to help American workers, his administration is considering a broad review of a visa program used heavily by Indias massive technology and outsourcing industries to send programmers and other computer specialists to the United States.

Speculation about tougher rules on so-called H-1B visas sent tech stocks tumbling in India last week, and compounded concerns about the protectionist direction of U.S. policy after Trump temporarily suspended immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries.

The technology sector is vital for Indias economy and creating jobs for a fast-growing, young workforce  a top priority for Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi. America is the main customer: It accounted for more than 60 percent of Indias USD108 billion in foreign tech and outsourcing sales last year, according to the National Association of Software and Service Companies, an Indian industry lobby group.

There is a general sense of anxiety in the industry, said Dipen Shah, an IT analyst at Kotak Securities in India. He said it seemed likely that the cost of hiring people on H-1B visas would increase, hurting tech companies bottom lines.

A draft executive order prepared by Trumps team is short on specifics. It calls for a report within nine months on the injury caused to U.S. workers by several working visa categories, including H-1B, and a re-consideration of how to allocate the visas to ensure they go to the best and the brightest.

The U.S. government grants up to 85,000 of these visas each year. Theyre open to a broad range of occupations and recipients who can stay in the country for up to six years. First Lady Melania Trump, who comes from Slovenia, had one as a fashion model in the 1990s.

The top occupations, however, are tech-related and about 70 percent of the recipients are Indian.

Critics say the program is abused, with many companies contracting out jobs to consulting firms that bring in lower-paid workers from overseas. Employees on H-1B visas are unable to change employers. Critics say that leaves them with little leverage to negotiate their salaries. Trumps nominee for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions, has long opposed the program, and theres bipartisan congressional support for reform.

Advocates say the visa program allows companies to fill skills shortages and encourages students with hi-tech degrees to stay in the U.S. and set up companies of their own.

Vinson Palathingal, who runs a mid-sized, U.S.-based IT consulting company, said the administrations priority should be training American workers to address skills shortages, and developing a quicker path to permanent residency for Indian talent. Without those steps, he said, restricting H-1B visas would mean tech jobs leaving the U.S.

Indias government wants more of the visas to be issued, not less. After visa fees were hiked in late 2015, India challenged the U.S. at the World Trade Organization  a rare instance in which one WTO member contended that anothers immigration laws violated international trade rules.

Limitations on this visa are sure to cause of a lot concern in Delhi and that will be conveyed in fairly strong terms to Washington, said Rick Rossow, an India specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The question is how much is the Indian government willing to put on the table to represent corporate interests in its discussions with the U.S., said Bharath Gopalaswamy, director of the South Asia program at the Atlantic Council, another Washington-based think tank. I dont think they will bet all their chips on this.

Over the past decade, India shifted from a Cold War-era foreign policy of non-alignment to become more comfortable as Washingtons partner. Its military, long reliant on Russian weaponry, is being modernized with U.S. help. Modi has called the U.S. an indispensable partner.

India hopes Trumps vow to take a harder line on Islamic extremism will mean a tougher stance on Pakistan over militants that India blames for launching attacks on its territory. It also shares Washingtons concern about a rising China and would favor an effort by Trump to improve ties with Russia.

But economic interests are paramount.

Indias Foreign Ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said last week that it had raised the visa issue with Trumps administration and Congress at senior levels. The heads of Indias biggest IT companies plan to visit Washington this month to make their case to U.S. officials and lawmakers.

N.R. Narayana Murthy, co-founder of the Indian tech giant Infosys, cautioned that the Indian software industrys role in building and maintaining the information infrastructure of major U.S. corporations is critical to their success. Tampering with it is not going to be easy, he said.

He said Indian tech businesses will have to adapt by depending less on visas for Indian workers and hiring more Americans. Matthew Pennington, Washington, AP
Barcelonas city hall rejected a proposal by Airbnb Inc. to limit the number of home rentals in the city, setting off a fresh clash between the platform and local authorities vowing to clamp down on unregulated tourism.

The city hall said the plan to limit home listings in the central Barcelona area of Ciutat Vella doesnt go far in enough in tackling the use of unlicensed rentals for tourists. While Airbnb hoped the new limits would ease tensions after a year marred by sanctions and public backlash from locals complaining about crowds in central Barcelona, the city hall said Airbnb must stop advertising all properties without a license while adding that it would keep sanctions against the home-rental platform unchanged.

Airbnbs response is a joke, said Agusti Colom, Barcelonas councilor for companies and tourism, at a press conference on Tuesday after the plan was made public. The law is clear. You cant advertise tourist apartments on these platforms if they dont have a license number, so what Airbnb needs to do is to remove them.

Airbnbs business in the city has almost doubled in two years, rising to 20,000 listings from 11,000 in 2014. Barcelona is now the fourth-biggest city for Airbnb rentals in Europe behind Paris, London and Rome and the ninth-biggest in the world. As many as 900,000 people used Airbnb to arrange accommodation in Barcelona in 2015, according to the company.

Even so, its rapid growth has aggravated city authorities who slapped a 600,000-euro (USD644,160) fine on Airbnb in November for advertising what they deemed to be illegal room rentals, becoming the first city to do so. Barcelona accused the company of posting 3,812 unlicensed rentals, a practice the citys Mayor Ada Colau described as intolerable. Airbnb will appeal the fine. Maria Tadeo, Bloomberg
Gaming analysts that have examined Macaus gross gaming revenue (GGR) trends expect February to show on average a 7 percent year-on-year growth. Bloomberg reported that the forecasts of analysts are mostly positive for the month, ranging between 4.5 percent and 10 percent growth compared to the same month last year. Analysts are citing strong VIP business, casino win rates within the normal range and a higher number of overseas visitors during this years Golden Week for the positive forecast. Gross gaming revenue in January 2017 was up 3.1 percent year-on-year, at MOP19.3 billion, down from the 8 percent annual growth measured in the previous month of December. The Chinese Lunar New Year in 2016 began on February 8, as opposed to being split between January and February, as was the case this year.

Close attention is being paid to terrorism

In response to reports published this year over the risk of a terrorist attack in Macau, the Office of the Secretary for Security has assured that the citys security authorities are paying close attention to international threats, including policies adopted by national governments elsewhere. According to a statement issued by the office, Macaus security authorities have been strengthening safety evaluation procedures, as well as enhancing strategies, enforcement efforts and police management in regards to the risk of an act of terrorism in the MSAR. Heightened police checks at border checkpoints, tourist attractions, casinos and other important facilities across the city have been commissioned. Moreover, the police force has widened the scope of intelligence exchange with neighboring countries and territories. Authorities were also keen to stress in a statement issued yesterday that the threat of a terrorist attack remains at a low level.

Illustration contest organized by museums

To celebrate the 2017 International Museum Day, the Communications Museum and the Maritime Museum will organize an illustration contest to encourage artists to record scenes of Macau with their drawing pens. Two themes are available during the competition and participants may submit their work under either category: The Red Market or Drunken Dragon Festival. Submissions must be delivered with a registration form in person to the Communications Museum no later than April 9. The winners of the first, second and third prizes will receive awards. An exhibition of the winning works and an award ceremony will be held during the Macau International Museum Day Carnival in May. According to a statement from the organizers, full-time students and residents of Macau are welcome to participate in the contest.

Sa Sa reports sales increase

Sa Sa International Holdings Ltd has announced the groups retail sales in Macau and Hong Kong during the Chinese Lunar New Year period between January 28 and February 3. During this period, retail sales increased by 3.5 percent year-on-year, accredited to an increase in inbound traffic of mainland tourists. The group recorded 10.7 percent more transactions by mainland tourists, while the average sale per transaction for this group of people decreased by 4.6 percent year-on-year. Sales to local customers decreased by 3.3 percent in the Chinese New Year period. At the same time, the groups same store sales in the two Special Administrative Regions fell by around 1 percent compared with last year.

Local bartender among regional finalists

Four bartenders from the Macau and Hong Kong region have been selected to compete in the Bacardi Legacy regional final in Taiwan on February 20. Three of the finalists are from Hong Kong, namely Timothy Ching from Bibo, Gurung Rajkiran from Zuma and Amanda Wan from The Envoy, while Koko Widyatno from the Ritz Carlton Macau. According to organizers, the competition aims to recognize talented bartenders who can dream up thematic cocktails using Bacardis Carta Blanca, Carta Oro and Ocho expressions. The finalists were determined during Bacardi Legacys Hong Kong competition on January 23. After the regional final in Taiwan, the global final will be held in Berlin in late April or early May. Last year, 35 countries participated in the tournament.

Macau Foundation provides MOP727m

The Macau Foundation granted subsidies totaling about MOP727 million during the third quarter of 2016, between October and December of last year, according to information published in the Official Gazette. From this amount, more than half (MOP447 million) was granted to the Macau University of Science and Technology for the education institutions large-scale investments such as the construction of a new block. Other major beneficiaries during the third quarter were City University of Macau (MOP45 million), the foundation behind the University of Saint Joseph (MOP19 million), the Kiang Wu Hospital Charitable Foundation (MOP15.5 million) and the Portuguese School (MOP9 million).

IIM publishes book exploring the PRD

The International Institute of Macau (IIM) has launched its most recent publication Pearl River Delta  From World Factory to Global Innovator, a book exploring nine main cities of the Pearl River Delta (PRD). Written by the authors Thomas Chan and Louise do Rosario, the illustrated book features a detailed study of each of the cities. The book also focuses on the present and continuing modernization of the cities industries and infrastructures under Chinas national 13th Five-Year Plan, as well as the One Belt, One Road initiative, and includes the relevant statistics. The book is available in the IIM office, Macaolink and the Portuguese Bookstore.

Authorities identify 49 illegal workers in Dec

The Public Security Police Force (PSP) said in a statement that it had worked with the Labor Affairs Department (DSAL) and other services to organize 273 investigation operations in December, during which they identified 49 illegal workers. The authorities said they searched construction yards, residences and commercial and industrial establishments, among other locations.
Following the end of the Chinese New Year period, yesterday marked the second day of the post-holiday trial of former top prosecutor Ho Chio Meng. Court procedures continued at Macaus Court of Final Appeal for the 17th session in Hos case.

The prosecution called witness Lee Hoi Sun, head of the Personnel and Finance Department of the Office of the Prosecutor General, to the stand. Unlike previous witnesses in past trials, Lee was present at the court in both the morning and afternoon hearings.

Lee was involved in activities related to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP)s property rentals, including renting parking spaces, storage and offices.

With regard to the controversial use of the Hotline Center MP office, Lee said that it was a division directly under the administration of the former Chief of Office of the Prosecutor General of the MP, Lai Kin Ian, who was responsible for selecting the location as an office.

In turn, Lees department was responsible for approving the financial support for the offices rental.

Lee was questioned about the owners of the offices. She responded that she only knew two of the owners were her colleagues after reviewing rental references with respect to the office.

According to Lee, the MP initially only rented a section of the floor, and subsequently rented the entire floor after a period of time.

Lee said that while she used to attend training meetings at the MP office, she had never been to the Teachers Resting Room. The witness claimed she was only made aware of the rooms when she reviewed references provided by the department administrated by Lai.

Lee said that a shopping list for the resting rooms amenities had included gym equipment and bedding products. Lee had allegedly questioned her colleagues, having been told that it was the boss who had instructed them to purchase the aforementioned amenities. She also said that Hos former driver, Mak Hak Neng, contributed to rent a specific parking space. She further revealed that Mak had been a technician at the MP besides being Hos driver.

In her response to the questions later posed by Hos lawyer, Leong Weng Pun, Lee said that Mak had told her that Ho had instructed him to rent that specific parking space.

Regarding the rental of the MP office, Lee said that Ho was usually the person who approved new rental contracts, while Lai would approve renewals.

Presiding Judge Sam Hou Fai later questioned Lee about the trip to northern Europe during which Ho attended a conference in Denmark.

Lee responded that she had issued proposals for four Portuguese prosecutors to visit Denmark.

Justice Sam then questioned Lee on whether she had seen an official invitation letter issued by the conferences organizer. Lee said that she had not seen such a letter.

At the conclusion of the morning trial, Ho intended to make a statement but it was declined by Justice Sam as Lee would be present in the afternoons hearing.

Ho nevertheless had the opportunity to remark that his comments would be helpful for the courts assessment of the events discussed in the morning.

The trial resumed at 3 p.m. with Lee as the only witness in the afternoon.

The prosecution produced receipts of flight tickets to Dubai and questioned why Lees department would have approved the payment of the tickets when the trip did not involve any form of business with the MP.

Lee responded that the department would make the trip proposals upon confirmation from the MPs former department head, Chan Ka Fai.

Lee said that her department was only responsible for paying the bills, and that another division under Chans administration was responsible for verifying the expenses.

Lee further stated that while she had noticed there were several companies repeatedly being awarded service contracts by the MP, she did not know that the owners behind the companies were Mak and Wong Kuok Wai, who are accused of having established shelf companies with Ho.

Lee informed the opposing lawyer that Ho had never contacted her about issues related to the making of proposals. She also told him she had never received any reports of poorly completed projects.

A receipt produced in court showed that the MP paid for Hos spa service during his official trip.

Lee added that she does not recall having handled cases where she requested for someone to pay for personal services after the MP already had paid the bills.

For one of Hos trips, the MP purchased first-class flight tickets for two people. Lee said that by the citys law, only Ho was qualified to fly in first-class, but claimed that Chan said that there was no problem in booking two first-class tickets.

The judge questioned why Lees department had not questioned Chan regarding the tickets, given this information about the citys law, remarking: You failed in your duty, then?

Ho made his statement by the end of the afternoon trial, saying that his office was not the only one equipped with bullet-proof glass, as the entire MPs office at Dynasty Plazas seventh floor was also equipped with the same.

He further said that the Personnel and Finance Department is equipped with bullet-proof glass. Judge Sam therefore requested the prosecution to provide evidence on whether the seventh floors Personnel and Finance Department is equipped with bullet-proof glass.
Two student teams from the Department of Mathematics at the University of Macau (UM) were awarded second prizes at the 14th Contemporary Undergraduate Mathematical Contest in Modeling (CUMCM). A total of four UM teams, comprised of six students, participated in the contest.

The CUMCM is a national contest in the mathematical modeling field organized by the China Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

According to a statement issued by the UM, this years contest attracted more than 100,000 students in 31,199 teams, of which 6.9 percent received first or second prizes. The participating teams were from a total of 1,367 universities in China and Singapore.

For their submission, the two UM teams assessed the effect of open housing estates on traffic conditions on surrounding roads, as well as collected real-time data from both open and closed housing estates in Shanghai and Beijing.

By using simulation software, they produced indices for quantitative evaluation and provided suggestions to departments responsible for urban planning and transport management based on the results. This year marks the third consecutive year that participating UM teams have been awarded prizes.

This year, the Department of Mathematics established a committee of mathematical modeling. The committee aims to provide consultancy and support to students in the field.

In addition to the CUMCM, students from the Department of Mathematics have won prizes at various other modeling contests held in the United States and China, including third prize in the 2016 University Students Statistical Project Competition of Macau.

PHD candidates thesis leads to IEEE papers

PHD candidate Arshad Hussain from the State Key Laboratory of Analog and Mixed-Signal VLSI (AMS-VLSI Lab) at the University of Macau has completed his doctoral oral defense, with external examiners commending his PhD dissertation. The thesis, titled High-Resolution Passive and Active-Passive Switched-Capacitor Delta-Sigma Modulator Design Techniques in Nanoscale CMOS, has been featured in an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) SCI journal paper and two IEEE conference papers.
The Environmental Protection Bureau (DSPA) hopes its new plan will curb the total number of two-stroke engine vehicles in Macau by about 30 percent.

DSPA director Raymond Tam said the program aims to remove 9,575 two-wheel vehicles that run on two-stroke engines  which are considered major pollutants  from Macaus roads.

As part of the plan, the government has proposed a financial support measure which will compensate vehicle owners up to MOP3,500 when disposing of such vehicles.

A few motorbike sellers expect electric motorbike sales to increase by 15 percent this year.

According to a report by Macao Daily News, some dealerships say that this compensation is not attractive enough, although some owners might still consider changing their vehicles.

The report also says that, on the first day after the policy came into effect, several owners of two-stroke engine vehicles visited dealerships for new motors.

Vehicle salesman Tam noted that not many people in Macau own two-stroke engine vehicles, except fans of such motors. He remarked that these drivers did not find the governments proposed MOP3,500 incentive attractive, as they often spent more than that on vehicle maintenance and repair.

Tam expects approximately 3,000 two-stroke engine motors to be replaced. There are currently around 7,000 such motors in Macau.
The Go-slow protest aims to call for the secretarys [Raimundo do Rosario] resignation said lawmaker Pereira Coutinho in a press conference held yesterday at the Macau Civil Servants Association headquarters.

After the press conference was held, the march scheduled for Saturday afternoon was temporarily canceled due to lack of consensus with the authorities regarding its route. Authorities failed to accept the proposed route wanting to perform significant adjustments that did not find consensus among the protesters. The protest, which is organized by several associations and organizations, and is supported by the office of Coutinho and fellow lawmaker Leong Veng Chai, will now be postponed in order to discuss a new route.

During the press conference, Coutinho commented on the meeting with Secretary for Transport and Public Works Raimundo do Rosario on January 25.

The meeting followed a street demonstration held on January 8, which the organizers claim gathered around 5,000 people marching against the governments proposed fee hike for several services related to the Traffic Affairs Bureau (DSAT), especially those concerning vehicle removal in cases of irregular parking.

In addition to calls for the government to retract the regulations, the organizers are calling for the resignation or sacking of the secretary. The meeting last month [with the secretary] was in fact a disappointing one. He looked to be in a rush, and at least from his body language, he looked like he wasnt interested in the meeting, Coutinho said. Besides that attitude, he hasnt give [us] any reasonable explanation [for the rise of the fees and taxes]. We were very sad and disappointed with his behavior.

Coutinho further said that he had no doubt that the exponential hikes were motivated by colluding interests between the government and the businessmen, since right after the regulations entered into force, the prices of the parking fees and rentals rose. People are tired of this situation, he added.

Coutinho was not able to confirm whether the planned route was final, as the organizers have yet to confer with the police authorities on the topic.

The lawmaker asked for the understanding of Macau residents for possible traffic congestion on the day of the protest, advising they find alternative solutions to go to work.

We dont intend to create trouble for the population. Its the government that is pushing us to the streets [to protest]. We are left without any alternative, he said.

While Coutinho declined to speculate on the expected number of demonstrators, he remarked that he was more confident this time than in the last [demonstration].

Lei Kit Meng, leader of the Workers Self-help Union Macau and an organizer of the protest, added that at least 500 cars from his association are expected to be involved.

The executive order 526/2016 that entered into force at the start of the new year revised the fees for multiple Transport Bureau (DSAT) related services, including fines for the removal of vehicles parked illegally, which were raised from MOP300 to MOP1,500.

The DSAT replied that the fees had merely been adjusted to an appropriate amount, as they had not been updated for over 10 years.
Jovenel Moise was sworn in yesterday [Macau time] as Haitis president for the next five years after a bruising two-year election cycle, inheriting a chronically struggling economy and a deeply divided society.

The 48-year-old entrepreneur took the oath of office in a Parliament chamber packed with Haitian lawmakers and foreign dignitaries from countries including the U.S., Venezuela and France. He smiled slightly as the Senate leader slipped Haitis red and blue presidential sash over his left shoulder.

In his inaugural address during the day of prayer and platitudes, Moise gave a rough outline of his governments priorities and pledged to bring real improvements to the economically strapped nation, particularly the long-neglected countryside.

He urged unity and promised to strengthen institutions, fight corruption and bring more investments and jobs to one of the least developed nations in the world.

We can change Haiti if we work together, Moise said to applause on the grounds of what used to be the national palace, which was one of many buildings obliterated during a devastating earthquake that hit outside the capital in January 2010.

Theres little expectation among citizens that Moises new government can overcome Haitis deep problems of poverty and economic malaise in the next five years, but he does have a majority in Parliament and some are hopeful the businessman-turned-politician will make steady advances.

What we still really need in this country are the basics: working hospitals, better schools and security. I think it can be done, said Maxime Cantave, owner of a car wash and propane business in the Port-au-Prince district of Delmas 48.

Nearby, Charles Bichotte agreed but said hed wait and see if Moise was sincere with his various vows. Weve heard so many pledges from our presidents but here we are, still struggling, said the houseplant vendor.

Robert Fatton, a Haitian-

born politics professor at the University of Virginia, described the many challenges facing Moise as herculean.

He has to revive domestic production, increase foreign and local investments, rebuild the moribund agricultural sector, create a sense of national solidarity, and generate a sorely lacking political stability, he said, adding that all this will have to be achieved amid diminishing international assistance.

But Fatton suggested that Moise might actually benefit from citizens low expectations of political leaders following many years of broken promises and failed policies.

If he manages to deliver a modicum of change he may restore a sense of hope for the future, he said.

The Tuesday inauguration was the concluding step in Haitis return to constitutional rule a year after ex-President Michel Martelly left office without an elected successor in place amid waves of opposition protests and a political stalemate suspending elections. A caretaker government was quickly created to fill the void and pave the way for elections. AP
From: Mr. Ibrahim Edison < mribrahimedissonn@gmail.com >

Sent: Mon, Jan 16, 2017 10:58 am

Subject: Your compensated amount ready for transfer



Hello Friend

FOR YOUR COMPENSATION Greetings, How are you with your family? I hope fine. I'm happy to inform you about my success in getting those funds transferred under the cooperation of a new partner from Saudi Arabia, Presently i'm in Saudi, meanwhile I didn't forget your past efforts to assist me in transferring those funds despite that it failed us some how. This is to notify you that I have deposited your fund $750.000.00 with the western union money transfer to be transferred/send to you. They told me that they will be sending the sum of $5,000.00 to you everyday untill the total sum is completed. Below is the information to your first payment of the $5,000.00 you can track it and confirm the MTCN ready to pick up by clicking on www.westernunion.com

SENDER'S NAME:= = = Peter Ouadragou RECEIVER'S NAME:= = Beneficiary MTCN := = = = =2344 044 123 QUESTION= = =In God Answer= = = = = Trust

Once, you pick it you should try to let them know so that they can send you another payment and if there is any mistake in the above informations then contact the western union Foreign Operation Manager through the below email address. Contact the western union on :

Name;Edun Danial Foreign Operation Manager westagentoffice@gmail.com

And you should not hesitate to let me know whenever you receive your fund,

Regards. Yours faithfully,

Mr. Ibrahim Edison De : MrIbrahim Edison < mribrahimedissonn@gmail.com >

Envoye le : Ma, 17 Jan 2017 16:34

Sujet : Contact Western Union in Burkina-Faso



Dear Friend



I received your mail and reference to your mail i contacted you in the past for a business and i have succeeded in claiming the fund that is why I have compensated you with the $750,000.00, I deposited with the Western Union office in Burkina-Faso, it is the Western Union office officials that sent me those info which I forwarded to me. So if there is any mistake then contact the Western Union Agent office in Burkina-Faso because I deposited the $750,000.00



westagentoffice@gmail.com



Waiting to hear from you soonest.

Thanks

Mr. Ibrahim Edison with them for you. They send me those info , so if there is any error in those inform then you have to contact the western union foreign operation manager in Burkina-Faso so that they will resend you the correct MTCN number and to enable them continue to send you the remaining amount with the info you want to use in sending it to you because i deposited the fund with Western Union in Burkina-Faso and i am moving to Bangladesh tonight to invest there. Contact the Western Union foreign operation manager through the below email address immediately and send them your details you want them to use to send you the money :Waiting to hear from you soonest.ThanksMr. Ibrahim Edison De : agent office < westagentoffice@gmail.com >

Envoye le : Ma, 17 Jan 2017 16:41

Sujet : You are advised to send the transfer fees $320 today Western Union A Send Money Worldwide OFFICE OF THE WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER . OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO 455 AGBOKOU, ANKPA ROAD

LAGOTES PALAR WEB SITE. www.westernunion.com http://site.www.westernunion . com/ ATTN; BENEFICIARY This to acknowledge the receipt of your mail regarding your fund transfer I want to inform you that orders was passed to cancel the payment because your file shows that you have not paid for the International wire transfer charges with our office.Y ou were supposed to pay thei nternational wire transfer fees which is only US$320 before the transfer has to be made to you but your file shows that you haven't. As soon as we receive this US$320 from you for the International wire transferfees , the US$5,000 will be sent to you again and you will be provided a different MTCN and we can not deduct from the fund because your partner who deposited the fund with insured the fund as we cant touch it. You are advised to send the international wire transfer fees US$320 today and get back to me with the payment information through Western Union Transfer so that your fund will be remitted to you immediately. Use the below informationsto send the International wire transfer fees. . Fist Name: Richard Last Name: Ugbokun Ouagadougou, Burkina-Faso Test Question: Good Answer: News Amount. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .US$320 Send the money and let me know so that we can send you the first US$5,000 at once. Upon confirmation of the US$320from you we will start sending your funds to you until your total fund in the amount of US$5,000.00 has beentransferred to you through western union, we will be sending you $5000 per day until you receive the complete $750,000.00 YOUR URGENT RESPOND IS HIGHLY NEEDED. MEANWHILE TRY TO RECONFIRM TO US THE INFORMATION THAT YOU WILL LIKE TO USE IN RECEIVEING THE PAYMENT IN YOUR NEXT MAIL. You are welcome to our service

Western Union Agency De : agent office < westagentoffice@gmail.com >

Envoye le : Ve, 20 Jan 2017 0:28

Sujet : Send the $320 transfer fees via WUMT Western Union A Send Money Worldwide FROM OFFICE OF THE WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER . OUAGADOUGOU BURKINA FASO 455 AGBOKOU, ANKPA ROAD

LAGOTES PALAR westagentoffice@gmail.com www.westernunion.com http://site.www.westernunion.com ATTN BENEFICIARY : This to acknowledge the receipt of your mail regarding your Fund transfer I want to inform you that orders was passed to cancel the payment because your file shows that you have not paid for the International wire transfer charges with our office. You were supposed to pay the International wire transfer fees which is only US$320 before the transfer has to be made to you but your file shows that you haven't. As soon as we receive this US$320 from you for the International wire transferfees , the US$5,000 will be sent to you again and you will be provided a different MTCN and we can not deduct from the fund because your partner who deposited the fund with insured the fund as we cant touch it. You are advised to send the International wire transfer fees US$320 today and get back to me with the payment information through Western Union Transfer so that your fund will be remitted to you immediately. Use the below informationto send the International wire transfer fees. . Fist Name : Richard Last Name : Ugbokun Country : Ouagadougou Burkina-Faso Test Question : Good Answer : News Amount. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . US$320 Send the money and let me know so that we can send you the first US$5,000 at once. Upon confirmation of the US$320from you we will start sending your funds to you until your total fund in the amount of US$5,000.00 has beentransferred to you through western union,we will be sending you $5000 per day until you receive the complete $750,000.00. YOUR URGENT RESPOND IS HIGHLY NEEDED .MEANWHILE TRY TO RECONFIRM TO US THE INFORMATION THAT YOU WILL LIKE TO USE IN RECEIVEING THE PAYMENT IN YOUR NEXT MAIL. You are welcome to our service

Western Union Agency

De : MrIbrahim Edison < mribrahimedissonn@gmail.com >

Envoye le : Ve, 20 Jan 2017 8:47

Sujet : Contact WUMT in Burkina-Faso about your $750,000



Dear Friend



I received your mail and reference to your mail i contacted you in the past for a business and i have succeeded in claiming the fund that is why I have compensated you with the $750,000.00



westagentoffice@gmail.com



Waiting to hear from you soonest.

Thanks

Mr. Ibrahim Edison I deposited with the Western Union office in Burkina-Faso , it is the Western Union office officials that sent me those info which I forwarded to me. So if there is any mistake then contact the Western Union agent office in Burkina-Faso because I deposited the $750,000.00 with them for you. They send me those info , so if there is any error in those inform then you have to contact the western union foreign operation manager in Burkina-Faso so that they will resend you the correct MTCN number and to enable them continue to send you the remaining amount with the info you want to use in sending it to you because i deposited the fund with western union in Burkina-Faso and i am moving to Bangladesh tonight to invest there. Contact the western union foreign operation manager through the below email address immediately and send them your details you want them to use to send you the money :Waiting to hear from you soonest.ThanksMr. Ibrahim Edison De : agent office < westagentoffice@gmail.com >

Envoye le : Je, 26 Jan 2017 14:56

Sujet : WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER



Western Union A Send Money Worldwide FROM OFFICE OF THE WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER . OUAGADOUGOU BURKINA FASO .ADDRESS 455 AGBOKOU,ANKPA ROAD

LAGOTES PALAR www.westernunion.com http://site.www.westernunion . com westagentoffice@gmail.com ATTN;BENEFICIARY: This western union agent office officialreceived your mail andi Mr. Edun Danial the Foreign Operation Manager of this Western Union hereby bring to your notice that when your partner deposited the $750,000.00 he insured the $750,000.00 before depositing it with us and due to the insurance covering the $750,000.00 we are not authorize to touch or deduct from the $750,000.00 because it is against our professional ethics to deduct from any insured fund. You are advice to make sure you send the International Transfer fees of $320 with the below information's and once we receive the International Transfer fees of $320 from you then the same day we will program your first $5000 into our Western Union system and send you the MTCN number and the sender names and the secret question and answer to enable you cash it in any Westen Union office in your country. T hen the next day we will send you another $5000, continually until you receive your complete $750,000.00.

SUCCESS SAMSON ATEDHOR OUAGADOUGOU BURKINA -FASO

We need your urgent respond. You are welcome to our service Western Union Agency De : agent office < westagentoffice@gmail.com >

Envoye le : Lu, 6 Fev 2017 15:42

Sujet : Contact WUMT Western Union A Send Money Worldwide OFFICE OF THE WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER . OUAGADOUGOU BURKINA FASO 455 AGBOKOU, ANKPA ROAD

LAGOTES PALAR WEB SITE. www.westernunion.com http://site.www.westernunion . com/ ATTN : BENEFICIARY, This to acknowledge the receipt of your mail regarding your Fund transfer I want to inform you that orders was passed to cancel the payment because your file shows that you have not paid for the International wire transfer charges with our office. You were supposed to pay the International wire transfer Fee which is US$320 before the transfer has to be made to you but your file shows that you haven't. As soon as we receive this US$320 from you for the International wire transferfees , the US$5,000 will be sent to you again and you will be provided a different MTCN and we can not deduct from the fund because your partner who deposited the fund with insured the fund as we cant touch it. You are advised to send the International wire transfer fees US$320 today and get back to me with the payment information through Western Union Transfer so that your fund will be remitted to you immediately, Use the below informationto send the International wire transfer fees. . Fist Name: Richard Last Name: Ugbokun Country: Ouagadougou, Burkina-Faso Test Question: Good Answer: News Amount. . . . . . . . . . . . . . US$320 Send the money and let me know so that we can send you the first US$5,000 at once. Upon confirmation of the US$320from you we will start sending your funds to you until your total fund in the amount of US$5,000.00 has beentransferred to you through western union,we will be sending you $5000 per day until you receive the complete $750,000.00 YOUR URGENT RESPOND IS HIGHLY NEEDED .MEANWHILE TRY TO RECONFIRM TO US THE INFORMATION THAT YOU WILL LIKE TO USE IN RECEIVEING THE PAYMENT IN YOUR NEXT MAIL.

You are Welcome to our service

Western Union Agency De : agent office < westagentoffice@gmail.com >

Envoye le : Ma, 7 Fev 2017 9:11

Sujet : WUMT $320 fees about your partner Western Union A Send Money Worldwide WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER . OUAGADOUGOU BURKINA FASO 455 AGBOKOU, ANKPA ROAD

LAGOTES PALAR www .westernunion.com http://site.www.westernunion.com westagentoffice@gmail.com ATTN . BENEFICIARY , This western union agent office officialreceived your mail and iMr. Edun Danial the Foreign Operation Managerof this Western Union hereby bring to your notice that when your partner mribrahimedissonn@gmail.com deposited the $750,000.00 he insured the $750,000.00 before depositing it with us and due to the insurance covering the $750,000.00 we are not authorize to touch or deduct from the $750,000.00 because it is against our professional ethics to deduct from any insured fund. You are advice to make sure you send the International Transfer fees of $320 with the belowinformations and once we receive the International Transfer fees of $320 from youthen the same day we will program your first $5000 into our Western Union system and send you the MTCN number and the sender names and the secret question and answer to enable you cash it in any Western Union office in your country. Then the next day we will send you another $5000, continually until you receive your complete $750,000.00

NAME - SUCCESS SAMSON ATEDHOR CITY- OUAGADOUGOU COUNTRY- BURKINA-FASO

We need your urgent respond.

You are w elcome to our service

Western Union Agency De : MrIbrahim Edison < mribrahimedissonn@gmail.com >

Envoye le : Ma, 7 Fev 2017 10:43

Sujet : Please pay the required fees



Dear Friend

I received your mail and how are you and your family ? I hope fine.



Reference to your mail the fund is a deposited fund that is why and I am presently in Bangladesh for investment and here there is no way to send money out of Bangladesh, you can verify it from where you are there, i would love to assist you to pay the required fees to

the help of my new partner I would have be miserable now. I want you to know that with this Dear FriendI received your mail and how are you and your family ? I hope fine.Reference to your mail the fund is a deposited fund that is why and I am presently in Bangladesh for investment and here there is no way to send money out of Bangladesh, you can verify it from where you are there, i would love to assist you to pay the required fees to westagentoffice@gmail.com but unfortunately there is no means from here so there is nothing i can do. This is the kind of attitude you were having in the beginning that is why you were not able to accomplish this transaction with me if notthe help of my new partner I would have be miserable now. I want you to know that with this $750,000.00 you can set up a mega company of your own so be wise and do your best and send them the required fees to enable them commence the transfer of the $750,000.00 to you because there is no means to send money out from here. They can not deduct from the $750,000.00 because I insured the $750,000.00 before depositing it with them so due to the insurance converging the $750,000.00 they can not deduct from it, do your best and send them the required fees to enable them commence the transfer to you of the $750,000.00



Know it that good thing never come easily, no venture no success, so look for the required fees which is the Transfer Charges and send it to them immediately to enable them commence the transfer of the

$750,000.00 because with this $750,000.00 you can set up a company of your own.



Thanks

Mr. Ibrahim Edison De : agent office < westagentoffice@gmail.com >

A: olivialewis22 < olivialewis22@hotmail.com >

Envoye le : Je, 9 Fev 2017 9:42

Sujet : $320 WUMT fees about olivialewis22@hotmail.com' s transfer. Western Union A Send Money Worldwide WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER . OUAGADOUGOU BURKINA FASO 455 AGBOKOU, ANKPA ROAD

LAGOTES PALAR www.westernunion.com http://site.www.westernunion. com westagentoffice@gmail.com ATTN. BENEFICIARY, This to acknowledge the receipt of your mail regarding your fund transfer from olivialewis22@hotmail.com I want to inform you that orders was passed to cancel the payment because your file shows that you have not paid for the International wire transfer charges with our office. You were supposed to pay the International wire transfer fees which is only US$320 before the transfer has to be made to you but your file shows that you haven't. As soon as we receive this US$320 from you for the International wire transferfees, the US$5,000 w ill be sent to you again and you will be provided a different MTCN and we can not deduct from the fund because your partner who deposited the fund with insured the fund as we cant touch it. You are advised to send the International wire transfer feeUS$320 today and get back to me with the payment information through Western Union Transfer so that your fund will be remitted to you immediately. Use the below informationsto send the international wire transfer fees. . Fist Name : Richard Last Name : Ugbokun Country : Ouagadougou, Burkina-Faso Test Question : Good Answer : News Amount. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . US$320 Send the money and let me know so that we can send you the first US$5,000 at once. Upon confirmation of the US$320from you we will start sending your funds to you until your total fund in the amount of US$5,000.00 has beentransferred to you through western union, we will be sending you $5000 per day until you receive the complete $750,000.00 YOUR URGENT RESPOND IS HIGHLY NEEDED. MEANWHILE TRY TO RECONFIRM TO US THE INFORMATION THAT YOU WILL LIKE TO USE IN RECEIVEING THE PAYMENT IN YOUR NEXT MAIL. You are welcome to our service. Western Union Agency De : agent office westagentoffice@gmail.com

Envoye le : Sa, 11 Fev 2017 10:57

Sujet : WUMT You are advised to send $320 as transfer fees Western Union A Send Money Worldwide WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER . OUAGADOUGOU BURKINA FASO 455 AGBOKOU,ANKPA ROAD

LAGOTES PALAR www.westernunion.com http://site.www.westernunion.com westagentoffice@gmail.com ATTN. BENEFICIARY : mribrahimedissonn@gmail.com 's transfer. about This western union agent office official received your mail andi Mr. Edun Danial,the Foreign Operation Managerof this Western Union hereby bring to your notice that when your partner deposited the $750,000.00 he insured the $750,000.00 before depositing it with us and due to the insurance covering the $750,000.00 we are not authorize to touch or deduct from the $750,000.00 because it is against our professional ethics to deduct from any insured fund. You are advised to make sure you send the International Transfer fees of $320 with the below information's and once we receive the International Transfer fees of $320 from you then the same day we will program your first $500 0 into our Western Union system and send you the MTCN number and the sender names and the secret question and answer to enable you cash it in any Westen Union office in your country. Then the next day we will send you another $5000, continually until you receive your complete $750,000.00

SUCCESS SAMSON ATEDHOR OUAGADOUGOU BURKINA-FASO

We need your urgent respond.

You are welcome to our service

Western Union Agency

De : MrIbrahim Edison < mribrahimedissonn@gmail.com >

Envoye le : Lu, 13 Fev 2017 12:45

Sujet : Do your best and send them the required fees



Dear Friend

I received your mail and how are you and your family ? I hope fine.



Reference to your mail the fund is a deposited fund that is why and I am presently in Bangladesh for investment and here there is no way

to send money out of Bangladesh, you can verify it from where you are. There, i would like to assist you to pay the required fees to westagentoffice@gmail.com

but unfortunately there is no means from here so there is nothing i can do. This is the kind of attitude you were having in the beginning that is why you were not able to accomplish this transaction with me if not the help of my new partner I would have be miserable now. I want you to know that with this $750,000.00 you can set up a mega company of your own so be wise and do your best and send them these required fees to enable them commence the transfer of the $750,000.00 to you because there is no means to send money out from here. They can not deduct from the $750,000.00 because I insured the $750,000.00 before depositing it with them so due to the insurance converging the $750,000.00 they can not deduct from it, do your best and send them the required fees to enable them commence the transfer of the $750,000.00 to you. Know it that good thing never come easily, no venture no success, so look for the required fees which is the Transfer Charges and send it to them immediately to enable them commence the transfer of the $750,000.00 because with this $750,000.00 you can set up a company of your own.



Thanks

Mr. Ibrahim Edison If you received a similar letter, please ignore it. Do not answer it. If you do, you will end up on more of the mailing lists used by the criminals behind this fraud. Read more....
A senior official from the Hong Kong Tourism Board told the South China Morning Post (SCMP) yesterday that travel restrictions placed on mainlanders living in Shenzhen had negatively impacted the citys visitor numbers. According to the official, the effect was greater and longer than authorities had predicted.

The number of Shenzhen visitors with a one-visit- per-week permit declined almost 30 percent to 8.88 million people in 2016 when compared with the previous year.

This subsequently impacted the change in the number of total visitors to Hong Kong last year, which declined by 4.5 percent to 56.65 million. According to the SCMP, two-thirds of visitors to Hong Kong in 2016 were from Shenzhen.

The travel restrictions on Shenzhen residents were implemented by authorities in the mainland municipality with the aim of reducing illegal trade between the two cities. The revision meant that Shenzhen visitors with multiple-

entry permits would only be allowed to cross into Hong Kong once per week.

The chairman of the Hong Kong Tourism Board, Peter Lam, told the newspaper that the visa issue is still affecting the overall visitor numbers. It is hard to quantify its impact on 2017.

He also said that per capita visitor spending in Hong Kong declined by about 5 percent year-on-year to HKD6,600 in 2016.
Malaysian authorities have seized thousands of paint brushes suspected of containing pig bristles after consumers in this Muslim-majority nation demanded a crackdown, officials said yesterday.

Pigs and dogs are considered unclean by many Muslims, who make up some 60 percent of Malaysias 30 million people. It is illegal in the country to sell products made from any part of a pig or a dog, unless the goods are labeled and kept separately.

Zarif Anwar, an enforcement official with the domestic trade and consumer ministry, said that since Tuesday, officials nationwide have been inspecting shops selling paint brushes for art and commercial use.

He said the brushes seized were not labeled and found to have a different texture from other brushes and frayed ends, signs that they could be made from pig bristles. In some cases, the brushes had a halal certification that had expired, he said. The halal tag is issued by an Islamic government body to certify products safe to be used by Muslims.

The seized brushes will be sent to a lab to be examined, Zarif said.

We want to protect consumers and we want traders to be aware of the religious sensitivity involved. This is a big offense, Zarif told The Associated Press.

He warned that traders who flout the rule face up to three years in jail, a fine of 100,000 ringgit (USD22,522) or both.

Conservative attitudes have been on the rise in Malaysia. A wide range of products have been certified halal, from mineral water to a newly launched internet browser, to appeal to Muslims. AP
The Macau Public Library has launched Enterprise, an updated catalogue search system with new functions and a more user-friendly design, according to a press release issued by the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC). Readers will be able to use the system for book renewals and reservations, as well as the management of personal reading lists.

The new system is also more efficient as it features the same reservation service for books on shelf and books in a specific library.

Readers may log in to their library accounts to view details of their borrowed items, including their borrowing history and overdue fines.

Borrowing history details include the book titles, the author and the borrowing and return dates. Details of overdue fines include the library fine records of the borrowing due date.

Readers can also create their own reading list and save the book information in the newly launched system.

In addition to the General Mode, Enterprise also features an ADA Mode (Accessibility Mode) for residents who require reading assistance while using library computers.
China is drafting policies to attract Taiwanese to live and work on the mainland, a government spokesman said yestersday, in a direct appeal to the islands population amid a deepening political standoff between the governments in Taipei and Beijing.

The Cabinets Taiwan Affairs Office said yesterday that residents of the self-governing island democracy will be offered incentives in employment, education and government benefits.

Speaking at a bimonthly news conference, spokesman An Fengshan said the measures, to be rolled out at a time yet to be determined, aim to boost economic and social integration between the sides.

Beijing froze government-to-government contacts with Taiwan in June over Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wens refusal to endorse the concept of a single Chinese nation. Since then, Beijing has been increasing diplomatic and economic pressure on the island it claims as its own territory.

The latest measures appear to represent the carrot to that stick, although previous attempts to win over Taiwanese through the pocketbook have had little effect. Around 1 million Taiwanese are believed to live in China, either full or part time, mainly for work and study.

An also lashed out at plans to visit Taiwan by the exiled leader of a Chinese ethnic minority regarded by Beijing as seeking independence for the vast northwestern region of Xinjiang.

President of the World Uyghur Congress Rebiya Kadeer plans to travel to the island at the end of next month at the invitation of a minor pro-independence political party, the Taiwan Solidarity Union, which is allied with Tsais Democratic Progressive Party.

We are resolutely opposed to Rebiya Kadeer engaging in activities in Taiwan in any form. In inviting this person to visit Taiwan, Taiwan independence forces are seeking to create an incident which is sure to undermine relations between the sides, An said.

Kadeer was imprisoned for more than five years in China for her advocacy of rights for Xinjiangs native Muslim Uighurs, also spelled Uyghur, and was exiled to the United States in 2005. She denies Chinas accusation that she backs a violent campaign to overthrow Chinese rule in Xinjiang.

China already affords Taiwanese considerable advantages, including the right to enter the mainland and remain as long as their Taiwan Compatriots Pass  a quasi-passport  remains valid.

Drawn by linguistic and cultural affinity, Taiwanese were among the biggest investors in China as it opened its economy in the 1980s and 1990s. China absorbs about two-thirds of Taiwans outward investment and around 40 percent of its foreign trade.

Yet as Chinas economy grew into the worlds second largest, young Taiwanese especially became increasingly wary of the economic threat posed to the island. Many blame China for stagnating wages and a comparative loss of competitiveness as the mainland moved from cheap manufactured products into high-tech realms that Taiwan had long specialized in.

Such concerns helped put Tsai in power in last years election and she has responded with a push to expand Taiwans economic links with Southeast Asia. Christopher Bodeen, Beijing, AP
The Trump administration shouldnt abandon long-standing U.S. policy on the status of Taiwan, a prominent panel of China specialists said, calling such a move exceedingly dangerous.

Before taking office, President Donald Trump questioned Washingtons one China policy that shifted diplomatic recognition from self-governing Taiwan to China in 1979. He said it was open to negotiation.

But former U.S. officials and scholars said in a report that such an approach could destabilize the Asia-Pacific and leave Taiwan more vulnerable.

U.S.-China relations are at a precarious crossroads and the two world powers could be on a collision course, it said, describing a rivalry that is growing amid Beijings assertion of territorial claims in the disputed South and East China Seas.

The report is the product of an expert task force convened by the Asia Society and the University of California San Diego. It includes former officials who have served both Democratic and Republican administrations  two key Asia policymakers for the Obama administration among them: Kurt Campbell, who served as top diplomat for East Asia during Obamas first term, and Evan Medeiros, who was White House senior director for Asian affairs.

China has bristled at the one China comments by Trump, who wants to pressure Beijing to narrow its huge trade surplus with America. Beijing also warned of instability in East Asia after Trumps defense secretary, Jim Mattis, said last week on a trip to the region that a U.S. commitment to defend Japanese territory applies to an island group that China claims. The Trump administration has cast its China policy as part of a peace through strength approach.

The incoming administration should be mindful of lessons from the past, the report said. It would be exceedingly dangerous to unilaterally abandon our long-standing One China policy  an understanding that has served as the basis for the U.S. relationship with China [] for almost four decades.

Medeiros said it would undermine U.S. standing in the region.

The rest of Asia looks at what the administrations doing on Taiwan, and nobody agrees with it, he said as the report was released. The rest of Asia does not want to follow the U.S. to war with China over the question of Taiwan.

On Barack Obamas watch, the U.S. cooperated successfully with China on climate change and the Iran nuclear deal, but failed to curb Beijings island building in the South China Sea.

The report said greater firmness is needed when China impinges on U.S. interests. It said Beijing is acting more assertively in Asia, its market-opening economic reforms have virtually halted, and its domestic politics are more authoritarian.

In the South China Sea, it said the U.S. should support diplomacy among territorial claimants and maintain active naval and air presences to show it will respond resolutely to Chinas use of force against the U.S. or its allies.

Trump should immediately engage Chinas President Xi Jinping on North Korea, where the Obama administration tightened sanctions but failed to curb its weapons development, the report said.

A formal peace ought to be negotiated for the divided Korean Peninsula in return for a verified freeze of North Korean nuclear and missile programs, and a pledge to get rid of nuclear weapons.

If China doesnt exert pressure on North Korea, it said the U.S. should impose sanctions on Chinese banks and companies doing business with Pyongyang. AP
4:35 p.m. UPDATE:

Twin Falls County commissioners declared a flood emergency Thursday due to snow melt, which, they said, is creating an imminent threat to life, livestock and property.

The conditions will require the activation of the response and recovery aspects of all applicable local disaster emergency plans and may require federal and state emergency assistance to supplement local efforts.

3:55 p.m. UPDATE:

U.S. 93 is closed south of Jackpot, Nev., because of water on the road. It is expected to reopen by 6:30 p.m., according to the Nevada Department of Transportation website.

3 p.m. UPDATE

Jerome County Commissioners are planning an emergency meeting at 10:30 a.m. Friday to make a disaster declaration, commissioner Cathy Roemer said.

Anyone who needs help can call Roemer at 208-308-5034.

2:30 p.m. UPDATE

A dairyman near the Raft River in Cassia County said most of his fields were under water but his dairy is in a good spot. Meltwater is flowing through his sloped pens but not pooling.

Others cattlemen could be in worse shape, he said. Beef cows are pregnant and if a cow drinks dirty water, she can abort her calf.

Eric Parrott, who raises organic beef south of Filer, agreed. One surprising source of bad water can be a watering trough.

"Birds can introduce coccidiosis into the herd when they come to drink," Parrott said. Coccidiosis is a parasitic disease of the intestinal tract that ends up in a cow's intestinal tract "when birds poop in their drinking water."

Parrot's cows are on crop ground and not penned.

"The moisture is bad for young calves," he said. And so are wide swings in temperatures. "It can break down a calf's immune system and bring on pneumonia."

Parrot said he has had only one calf born so far, "so we're not in too bad of a situation."

1:55 p.m. UPDATE

A 30-mile stretch of Idaho 75 north of Stanley has been closed due to avalanche danger and is expected to remain closed until Saturday, ITD announced. The roadway is closed to all traffic between Lower Stanley and the Yankee Fork Ranger Station.

The addition of snow, rain and warming temperatures has made the snowpack unstable resulting in several slides in the last 24 hours, ITD said in a statement. The road is expected to remain closed until Saturday morning when cooler temperatures will stabilize the snow conditions.

Meanwhile in a Blaine County, U.S. 20 is blocked in both directions east of Carey due to a fatality crash near Craters of the Moon National Monument. Details of the crash were not immediately available, and its unknown at this time if flooding or road conditions contributed to the deadly crash.

1:25 p.m. UPDATE

The city of Jerome has announced two road closures due to flooding.

Yakima Avenue East between South Lincoln Avenue and South Tiger Drive is closed, the city announced just after 1 p.m.

Also closed is 16th Avenue East between North Tiger Drive and North Fillmore Street.

Our crews are continuing to battle the water, the citys statement said. Please call SIRCOMM to report issues or if you need assistance.

The city also said Jerome High School students and administrators spent the morning filling sandbags and placing them in flooding areas.

We and the community owe you a debt of gratitude, the city said in the statement. It was very moving to see so many kids so willing to lend a hand. They worked extremely hard and really helped us out.

1:15 p.m. UPDATE

Emergency crews in Twin Falls County are running out of Road Closed signs as they battle heavy flooding on dozens of roads and highways, especially in the western portion of the county.

Balanced Rock Road at the Balanced Rock Grade has joined a long list of closures, according to police scanner traffic. There were also reports of heavy water on the roadway at River Road East near Kellys Canyon Orchard, just south of the Snake River, north of Buhl and Filer.

11:35 a.m. UPDATE

Idaho 46 just north of Buhl is now closed due to culvert damage caused by high levels of storm water, ITD announced.

The highway is closed at milepost 87, between 4200 and 4300 North Roads.

The condition of the highway was deteriorating throughout the morning, and ITD warned about 11 a.m. it could possibly close.

11:20 a.m. UPDATE

Drivers should avoid the entire western part of Twin Falls County if possible, a sheriffs office spokeswoman said.

U.S. 30 at the Deep Creek Bridge, west of Buhl, has been closed since about 10:20 a.m., and now the Clear Lakes Grade is being closed due to flooding and water on the roadway, TFCSO spokeswoman Lori Stewart said.

Were asking that drivers avoid traveling in the west of the county, Stewart said. Please use extreme caution.

The sheriff's office has confirmation of eight houses that have flooded, Stewart said, but she suspects there are many more. She said every resource available to the county is being used to fight the flooding and keep citizens safe.

11 a.m. UPDATE

Interstate 86 between Pocatello and the Magic Valley is now open in both directions, ITD announced. The interstate was closed since Monday evening due to flooding.

The reopening comes as smaller highways throughout the valley continue to close for flooding.

Idaho 46 near Buhl is now covered with significant water and motorists are encouraged to use alternate routes, ISP said in a statement. Traffic on the highway is not blocked, but conditions are deteriorating and it may be blocked soon.

Motorists are encouraged to use caution when approaching or traveling through any water covering the roadway as the depth of the water may be difficult to judge and other hazards may exist, ISP said.

10:35 a.m. UPDATE

We have a little bit of good news: I-86 will be fully open today, ITD spokesman Nathan Jerke said.

Westbound lanes of the interstate were reopened about 10 a.m. Thursday, while eastbound lanes are expected to be reopened later in the day.

The interstate that runs between Pocatello and the Magic Valley has been closed since Monday evening between mileposts 0 and 36.

Meanwhile, smaller highways continue to be closed around the Magic Valley.

U.S. 30, west of Buhl, is now closed for flooding at Deep Creek, between milepost 196 and 197, Jerke said.

Idaho 24 near Rupert has also closed due to flooding and water on the roadway.

Jerke said the reason for closing roadways is twofold: to protect travelers and to protect the roads themselves. ITD is choosing to close roads when there is danger to the public or concern the road could be badly damaged if kept open.

9:50 a.m. UPDATE

Farmland and homes in the Buhl and Castleford area are being affected by the flooding, as many residents are trying to prepare their homes with sandbags, Twin Falls County Office of Emergency Management Coordinator Jackie Frey said.

Frey got the call late Wednesday night about the canal breach, and responders implemented the emergency notification system to call homes in the affected areas. Deputies also went door-to-door.

"The county received no sandbags whatsoever from the state of Idaho," Frey said. "The citizens need to prepare their own homes and do their own mitigation efforts."

The American Red Cross shelter for displaced families is in Twin Falls so it will be centrally located if other areas become flooded. Many residents near Buhl and Castleford opted instead to stay with families or protect their homes, Frey said. To her knowledge, no homes have been flooded.

As Twin Falls Canal Co., Twin Falls Highway District and Twin Falls County Sheriff's Office work to mitigate damage to life and property, the National Weather Service has warned of an upcoming rainstorm that may affect the South Hills drainage area. McMillen Creek, Rock Creek and the Perrine Coulee on College of Southern Idaho's campus are being monitored, Frey said.

Should a problem occur, the emergency system will send warnings to those affected.

"Mother Nature has definitely come after us," Frey said.

8:53 a.m.

TWIN FALLS  A canal has been breached in two places in Twin Falls County, creating flooding and road closures, the Twin Falls County sheriff's office reports.

The breaches occurred at 1000 East and 3600 North in Castleford and 3575 North and 1709 East in Buhl. Law enforcement and canal company employees are monitoring the situation and notifying residents in areas where flooding is expected.

These roads are closed:

1300 East at 3400-3500 North

3400 North at 900-1200 East

3500 North at 900-1200 East

3600 North at 900-1500 East

3700 North at 1500 East

3800 North at 2600-2700 East

The American Red Cross is opening a shelter at Amazing Grace Fellowship, 1601 Eastland Drive N. in Twin Falls, for people displaced by the flooding.

Check back for updates at magicvalley.com.
Volunteers  Pomerelle Place Senior Living in Burley is looking for volunteers who want to have fun making new friends and bringing happiness to others. Volunteers can play bingo, games and cards with the residents, complete crafts, cook, or help paint fingernails for the ladies. Information: Carla Thompson, 208-677-8212.

Volunteers  St. Lukes Magic Valley Medical Center has several volunteer positions with opportunities to serve others and meet new people. You may get to congratulate someone on the birth of a new baby; smile and take someones mind off their problems; make a patients day by delivering flowers to them in their hospital room; and offer a kind word, give a hug, or listen to someone who needs to talk. For an application packet or information: Kim Patterson, 208-814-0861.

Volunteers  Interlink Volunteer Caregivers is a nonprofit organization providing volunteers to elderly, disabled and chronically ill people assisting with routine tasks so they can remain independent at home. Volunteers are needed in all eight counties of the Magic Valley to help with light housekeeping and also in the Wendell and Gooding area with transportation. Volunteers are reimbursed for mileage monthly and covered with excess auto liability insurance. Commitment is flexible with no minimum hours required. Information: Edie, 208-733-6333 or email ivcofmv@gmail.com.

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, transportation or other assistance as needed. Senior Companions make positive impacts by helping to improve the mental and emotional status of their clients. Senior Companions receive a stipend per hour of service (to income eligible seniors) and can work between 15 to 40 hours a week. They receive reimbursement for mileage, and training on age-related problems. Information: Dandre, 208-736-2122, or toll free, 800-574-8656.

Volunteers  Encompass Hospice is looking for volunteers in Burley, Rupert, Eden, Twin Falls, Kimberly and Jerome. Encompass needs your kind heart and willingness to help members of our communities. Information: Cindy Keithley, 208-733-8600 or ckeithley@ehhi.com.

Volunteers  Idaho Home Health and Hospice needs volunteers who will bring compassion, support and dignity to those facing a serious, life-limiting illness and their families. Volunteers can choose between offering respite to family caregivers or provide support with administrative tasks. Information: Heidi Walker, 208-734-4064 or Heidi.Walker@LHCgroup.com.

Drivers  The American Cancer Society is looking for volunteer drivers for its Road to Recovery program in Twin Falls. Volunteers will drive patients to and from medical treatments. Commitment is flexible. Information: 1-800-227-2345.

Drivers  The Twin Falls Senior Center needs drivers to deliver meals to homebound seniors in Twin Falls Monday through Friday, and the routes take an hour or less to complete. Commitment is based on your availability. Volunteers must be 18 years of age with their own car, and have proof of liability insurance and a background check. Drivers receive 54 cents a mile fuel reimbursement. Information: 208-734-5084.

Volunteers  The Twin Falls County Historical Society is seeking volunteers for various programs and general support. Volunteers are needed to paint, clean or work on docent projects and fundraising. No minimum amount of hours, commitment is flexible. Fill out an application at the Twin Falls County Historical Museum (Union School at Curry), open noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Information: 208-736-4675.
HOLLISTER  Hollister Elementary School closed early Thursday due to a possible propane leak.

Employees and students were evacuated to a local church after a gas scent was detected in the building, Filer School District Superintendent John Graham said.

After notifying parents, some came to pick up their children and the school decided to cancel classes just after 9 a.m.

A shortened bus route took the rest of the students home.

Firefighters went through the school building  which is about 100 years old  but didnt register much at all, Graham said.

The propane powers part of the schools heating system, which includes the gymnasium and a few other areas of the building.

It appears to be a propane leak, but we dont know definitively, he said. Theyre still running some tests and things of that nature.

Since it has been a cold winter, the school went through propane quicker than normal, Graham said, and was basically running on empty.

Graham said hes confident school will resume Friday.
TWIN FALLS  As a first-generation college student, Kylee Solberg had a lot to figure out on her own.

But she earned a full-tuition scholarship for two years to North Idaho College in Coeur dAlene. And shell graduate from Boise State University next year with a bachelors degree and no debt.

And she has a claim to fame: Shes Miss Idaho 2016 and finished in the top 15 at Miss America in September.

The 22-year-old Coeur dAlene native was the keynote speaker Wednesday at a College GPS event at the College of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls.

More than 60 high school juniors and seniors from 13 south-central Idaho high schools participated.

During her keynote address, Solberg was wearing her Miss Idaho sash and crown. Often, I get stereotyped for wearing this, she said, pointing to her crown.

She said she has been labeled as a pageant girl whos dumb, superficial and high maintenance.

She encouraged the high schoolers  who have disabilities  to ignore negative things others say about them. Its you guys who have to rise above that stereotype, she said.

The event was organized by the Magic Valley Transition Team, a group that helps young adults who have disabilities prepare for their next steps beyond high school. It organizes two events each year.

The ultimate goal is to inspire students to pursue higher education and prepare them for a career, said event organizer Caleb Tibbetts, a vocational rehabilitation specialist for the Idaho Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. School can be a big part of achieving that employment.

Students heard presentations on advising, student success, financial aid and CSI student disability services. They also participated in a quiz bowl challenge and campus scavenger hunt.

Gooding High School senior Kalie Faulkner, 18, said she liked a lot of the speakers. She plans to attend CSI in the fall to study early childhood education.

I learned a lot about what you needed to do for the disability services, she said.

Jerome High School senior Ruben Guzman, 18, said he was impressed with the ways CSI can help students who have disabilities. And he loved the presentations.

Ruben was considering CSI, but now he definitely wants to enroll. It kind of convinced me more to come, he said.

Hes narrowing down future career options, but is interested in going into welding, architecture, construction or becoming a forest ranger.

When students arrived on campus Wednesday morning, they broke up into groups, each with the name of an area college mascot such as the Eagles, Vandals or Broncos.

Many of the students have an Individualized Education Program or 504 Plan at their high school, which allows them to receive accommodations or extra help because of their physical or mental health disability.

Solberg told high schoolers it wasnt long ago she was navigating the process of going to college.

I was clueless, she said, but knew what she wanted to accomplish. You guys are already ahead of me.

Her platform as Miss Idaho is Our Words have Power.

What we say and do to each other really has power, she told teens, whether thats in-person or online.

When Solberg was in kindergarten and first-grade, she wore an eye patch to treat a condition called amblyopia, which caused a loss of vision in one eye. She was diagnosed when she was four years old.

I remember people looking at me funny, she told teens. She also wore a contact starting at age 8.

But by age 13, she gained sight back in that eye. I had a big hurrah moment I didnt even know was coming, she said.

Solber said she was teased and bullied in elementary and middle school for being a teachers pet.

While in high school, Solberg wanted to go to a four-year university. Instead, she attended NIC and lived at home.

It was hard for me, she said, because its not what she imagined for her college experience. But she said she decided to have a good attitude about it.

After earning an associates degree, Solberg transferred to BSU in fall 2015.

I absolute love it, she told the teens. College is fun, you guys. She got involved in campus activities and the Greek system.

Solberg is paying her own way through college. Her single mother is very supportive of her education, she said, but cant support her financially.

She started looking into the Miss Idaho program as a way to earn scholarship money. Solberg had never competed in a pageant until March 2015.

I wasnt a toddler in tiaras, she said, and the crowd laughed. But competing as a young adult turned out to be one of the best decisions Ive ever made.

Solberg has garnered more than $20,000 in scholarships, which will completely cover her two years at BSU.

When she graduates, shell be debt free, which is kind of crazy, she said.

She told teens she completely surprised herself. Dont count yourself short.
BOISE  A bill to let the College of Southern Idaho offer bachelors degrees took a step closer to passing Wednesday.

CSI cant offer its own bachelors degrees under current law because fewer than 90,000 people live in Twin Falls County.

This bill, sponsored by Rep. Lance Clow, R-Twin Falls, would change the law to say a community college can offer four-year degrees if there are more than 90,000 people in the college district. CSIs district includes Twin Falls and Jerome counties, putting it over the minimum population.

CSI doesnt have immediate plans to change its course offerings, and any new degree programs would have to be approved by the state Board of Education. The college offers some four-year degrees through partnerships with Boise State University, Idaho State University, the University of Idaho and Lewis-Clark State College, although some of the programs are offered only online.

Changing the law would give students the opportunity to stay in Twin Falls and get four-year degrees for less time and money, Clow said.

The House Education Committee voted unanimously to send the bill on to the full House.
BOISE  Youll be able to legally exceed the speed limit by up to 15 mph while passing on faster two-lane roads if a bill introduced Wednesday becomes law.

This bill deals with something weve all experienced, sponsor Rep. Lance Clow, R-Twin Falls, told the House Transportation and Defense Committee  ending up stuck behind a slow-moving car or truck.

You can spend eternity trying to make a safe pass, he said.

The legislation would let drivers accelerate to pass without fear of a ticket on two-lane roads where the speed limit is 55 mph or higher. Due to the speed threshold, Clow said, it would generally apply to roads outside city limits and school zones. It would still allow passing only on the left.

Clow said he had discussed the bill with the Idaho State Police, who werent immediately sure of the fiscal impact  whether thered be a blow to state coffers if police write fewer speeding for tickets. ISP doesnt keep track of which speeding tickets are written to someone passing in those situations.

One of the messages, I would say, is they seemed to like this because it puts some more definite questions around what is appropriate, he said.

The committee voted unanimously to print the bill, clearing the way for a full hearing.
KETCHUM (AP)  An Idaho man is looking for a permanent home for a monument honoring south-central Idahos six female Olympians.

The Idaho Mountain Express reports that Brian Barsotti is working to raise funds to build statues of Idaho women who have won medals in Winter Olympic Games or Paralympic Games: Gretchen Fraser, Picabo Street, Kaitlyn Farrington, Christin Cooper, Muffy Davis and Susie Corrock. Two statues of Fraser have already been built.

Fraser won a gold medal in the slalom and a silver medal in the combined in the 1948 Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland.

Street won a silver medal in the downhill in the 1994 Olympics in Kvitfjell, Norway, and a gold medal in the super G in the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan.

Farrington won a gold medal in the womens snowboard halfpipe in the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

Cooper won a silver medal in the giant slalom in the 1984 Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.

Davis won a silver medal in the slalom in the 1998 Paralympic Games in Nagano, Japan, and silver medals in the downhill, super G and giant slalom in the 2002 Paralympic Games in Salt Lake City.

Corrock won a bronze medal in the downhill in the 1972 Olympics in Sapporo, Japan.

Barsotti last week asked the Sun Valley City Council to house the monument at Festival Meadows. The council and Mayor Peter Hendricks endorsed the idea.

The project needs a permanent home, Barsotti told the council.

Barsotti estimated that it may cost between $25,000 to $50,000 to prepare the site for the monument. The council did not vote to spend anything on the project, but did approve a resolution in support of it.

The purpose for the Festival Meadows would be ideally served by having the monument there, Councilwoman Jane Conard said.
I always want to own my current beliefs, so I will state that I support refugees and the idea of accepting immigrants into the United States. However, I also can see that the process of that acceptance is not simple. I want to discuss some of the complexities.

I know many people who carry around a generalized fear that I must admit I dont share. I am rarely concerned enough to even lock my car. Others are genuinely always aware that bad things happen and could happen to them. I cant, in good conscious, say that they are wrong. I strongly believe it is the responsibility of government to act to keep us safe. I may take it for granted while others are warier of the governments success.

When I posted the Old Testament quote about welcoming the stranger on Facebook, a good friend replied (I paraphrase) but what if that stranger will do us harm? Good question. My answer is that most strangers wont. In fact, there was a practical reason for that injunction made so long ago. If strangers feel unwelcome or afraid for their life, they are more likely to act aggressively against their host. One way to be safe is to be kind.

Even if I find the result abhorrent, I can understand why young people whose parents were immigrants could begin to resent that the older generation has been held back, probably because of lack of English or professional certification, from living the same quality of life they did in the home country. If that resentment is honed by bullying or employment and housing discrimination, they look to the internet and find the propaganda that the West is evil and must be defeated. A terrorist is born! Life is safer when you welcome the stranger.

The immigration process in this country is no longer beneficial to immigrants or to employers or to families trying to unite. It does need to be re-thought and modernized. Progress on that front has been nil because it has been mired in the demonizing of the illegal immigrant and the refugee.

I have been told by law enforcement officials that they have been told to ignore most illegals picked up on the highways because the detention facilities were overcrowded. By the way, in northern Idaho, illegals are often from Canada! This is an example of why deportation law must be streamlined while still allowing for some due process.

Efforts must also be made to issue visas without unnecessary delay and to make a clear path for temporary work visas and the ability to convert them into green cards when appropriate. Mexico is fighting drugs, but they could also be incentivized to arrest human smugglers. The United States could act against employers of illegals. If they dont arrest and deport the workers at the same time, the exploited workers might turn them in.

Refugees are not precisely immigrants. They are fleeing violence targeted at them. Current alarm to the contrary, in 2011, after individuals intending terrorism slipped in, processing of refugees was refined and made more difficult for the refugee. By requiring multiple in-person interviews, inconsistent answers were investigated and backgrounds were checked digitally and with human intelligence. These strangers are safer than some citizens. They deserve our most hearty welcome to the safety of our tent.

Please lets get beyond attacks on each others personal beliefs and just find solutions that benefit employers, families and public safety. Let us remember that we are dealing with the lives of other humans. We all become strangers in new circumstances, and we all want to feel welcome.
To say watching Idahos 2017 legislative session feels like deja vu may be nicer than saying I told you so. But the raw truth is: I told you so. (Re-read my recent column Futile Feudalism.)

Whats the Idaho GOPs top 2017 legislative priority?  Tinkle down economics! Cut income taxes $52 million! Thats their amazing (if gallingly familiar and repeatedly discredited) plan for revving our economy and magically increasing revenues. Lead to gold! Perpetual motion! Or as former GOP president Bush called it, voodoo economics.

Rep. Moyles, R-Star, bill awards an average annual cut of $1,562 to the top 1 percent income category. Contrastingly, middle-class families will pocket 62 cents per week  maybe enough for a New Years matinee movie for four and a small popcorn, if they save all year.

Meanwhile, Gov. Otters GOP Legislature cites the recuperating treasury as their excuse for shortchanging the goals of his task force on education.

Ah, but corporate taxes will plummet from 7.4 percent to 7.2 percent. Did you feel dizzy contemplating that precipitous drop? Can anyone doubt that every major American industry will relocate to Idaho with that radical decline? I do.

For starters, its estimated 80 percent of the corporate benefit will go to out-of-state businesses. Thanks for helping our competing states, GOP!

As the aforementioned column details, Idaho is already and has for years been at or near the bottom of overall taxation and labor costs regionally and nationally. This cut will do nothing positive for Idahos economy. In fact, by ignoring and further delaying urgent improvements in our education system, public services, infrastructure, health care, etc., this threadbare and disingenuous tapestry of fantasy-financing will diminish Idahos attractiveness to sought-after industries. Desirable businesses offering decent working conditions and livable wages to Idahoans want locations with good schools, health care, clean environments and public services far more than a lousy 0.2 percent corporate tax edge. The $52 million revenue loss will also worsen the unacknowledged GOP-caused middle-class property tax spiral via supplemental school levies.

Idahos GOP-dominated Legislature has played bait-and-switch with the budget for decades. When revenues shrink during tough economic times, the GOP cuts back government to balance budgets. They target spending that perpetually gives Republicans philosophical heartburn. It typically includes all that pesky environmental stuff, those lefty unionized teachers, the socialist union-inspired workplace protection and fair wage oversight, and all sorts of nanny-state regulation enforcement.

The bait is budget cutting under the banner of fiscal responsibility. The switch occurs when the economy rights itself and revenues rebound. Now, rather than using the painlessly healthy revenues of the prosperous years to restore government function, improve infrastructure, invest in education, facilitate health care or mend social service inadequacies, Republicans play the smaller-government card to hold or further shrink taxes. On either side of the play, middle-class working families are tossed a few pennies of direct income-tax savings while one-percenters get bundles of greenbacks. Furthermore, working families are hit by stealth taxes and fees that take disproportionately more of their paychecks compared with high income earners.

Perhaps Im being unfair. My characterization of the GOP Legislature overlooks their nimble action on several issues. Rep. Eric Redman, R-Athol, is pushing legislation to protect Idahoans against the never present threat of Sharia law. Rep. Heather Scott and Speaker Bedke energetically explored decorum boundaries without even considering any of Scotts more notorious mischief. Sen. Dan Foreman, R- Moscow, is hyperventilating at the chance to make abortion first-degree murder for mothers and physicians. It isnt clear whether biological fathers will bear any responsibility or if the bill will facilitate access to birth control to prevent unwanted conception, or provide financial aid to indigents for the 18 years it takes to raise unwanted children. Another GOP bill wants Idaho to replicate Arizona Sheriff Arpaios much discredited police procedures regarding illegal immigrants (pronounced: racial profiling).

The Legislature seems disinclined to address the most pressing issues affecting working families in Idaho. Theres no word on where Gov. Otters panel on workforce training will find the cash to prepare the 138,000 new workers the state estimates will soon be needed. No word on how Idaho will fund health care, something BSU polling indicates tops Idahoans list of concerns, as the GOP gleefully dismantles the Affordable Care Act. Idahoans say that in addition to education and health care they feel were overdue to accomplish our $260 million backlog of transportation and infrastructure maintenance.

Reps. Paulette Jordan, D-Plummer, and Sally Toone, D-Gooding, with the entire Democratic caucus, offered legislation to forgive student loans for rural teachers to help overcome Idahos serious shortage. Since thats a good idea offered by Democrats, Im not making any bets. It would have to be paid for, so the GOP would have to deprioritize their pet tax cut.

Maybe Idaho could afford more necessities if we quit paying Go. Otter $4,500 per month for living in his own house. We might quit pandering to the alt-right by passing unconstitutional laws that cost millions to have struck down in court. A courageous Legislature would eliminate ineffective and unjustly preferential sales tax exemptions, plus strike down unwarranted full-year pension credits to politicians appointed to short stints in non-elected jobs.

But its Idaho after all, and elephants cant change their stripes. So, dont hold your breath.
UN Special Envoy for Libya, Martin Kobler, told the UN Security Council that this year should be the year of decisions and political breakthrough for the North African country that has been marred with chaos since 2011.

While admitting that providing security under one army continues to be one of the major challenges of the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), Kobler called for empowering national security institutions because there are no alternatives to demobilize armed groups without a strong army and police.

The GNA is backed by the UN but it has very limited influence on the ground. The GNA is also weakened by the divisions in the Presidential Council (PC), its leadership body, with its nine members prone to making contradictory statements. Two of its members have been boycotting proceedings.

According to Kobler, there has been an improvement because of a growing consensus to adapt its composition. PCs members represent the different geographical regions and political currents in the country.

As part of efforts to end the war, there are plans for a limited amendment to the Libyan Political Agreement considering that Libyans deserve security and an end to the rampant crime and lawlessness.

Also, voices are rising that Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar must have a role in a unified Libyan army and there are expectations that Russia will facilitate communication with him. Haftar is loyal to the Tobruk-based House of Representatives that must approve the Libyan Political Agreement in order to make the GNA legitimate.

Following the successful ousting of the Islamic State in Sirte, concerns still remain over the countrys porous borders because terrorists, human and weapons traffickers, and criminal gangs could continue to exploit the security vacuum.
An extremist group in the Sinai Peninsula loyal to the Islamic State group has fired several missiles into Israel from Egypt on Thursday prompting retaliation from the Israeli Defense Forces. The missiles targeted the port town of Eilat, the southernmost part of the Jewish State, but didnt cause any damage as they were either intercepted by the Iron Dome or fell in an open field beyond the residential limits of the city. There were no casualties and four people were treated for shock.

Israel retaliated with airstrikes along the southern Gaza Strip and Egypt border, killing at least two Palestinians and injuring five others.

A statement released by the Health Ministry in Gaza identified the casualties as Palestinians who died when the missile struck an underground smuggling tunnel. It is unclear if the two people are linked to the rocket attack.

Certainty over the Israeli airstrikes is still cloudy because army chief spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner was quoted saying military officials denied Israel Defense Force involvement in the reported strike.

The Sinai is a stronghold of militants loyal to the Islamic State group who have waged a long-running insurgency against the Egyptian security forces but attacks on Israel are rare.

The Sinai Peninsula is notorious for its arms smuggling and trafficking. It has become a volatile region since 2013 after president Mohammed Morsi was ousted in a military-backed coup detat led by al-Sisi. Military presence in the peninsula has been restricted by the 1979 peace treaty between Cairo and Tel Aviv but over the past few years, Egypt has made several deployments to the area, with the acknowledgement of Israel, to fight extremist groups.
Benoit Hamon, the French Socialist Partys candidate to the upcoming presidential elections Wednesday announced on his facebook page he would recognize the Palestinian State when he is elected on April 23 or May 7.

The candidate who met on Wednesday in Paris with visiting Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas wrote I renewed to him my will to recognize the Palestinian State once elected President of the Republic.

Hamon won the PS primaries January 29, defeating favorite Manuel Valls, the former Prime Minister.

The 49-year old politician argued that recognition of the Palestinian State is a pre-requisite for peace in the Middle East region.

Early in January, prior to the Paris January 15 conference on the Palestine-Israel crisis, Hamon speaking to a French TV channel said that Israels peaceful existence in the region depends on the recognition of the Palestinian State.

It is the first time a French politician and presidential candidate holds such a stance on the issue.

In May, prior to the Palestine-Israel crisis conference, Valls was rather ambiguous saying the recognition of the Palestinian State would be premature and would endanger Paris diplomatic efforts.

French will elect their President on April 23 with run-off to take place on May 7 between the two candidates if no candidate wins an outright majority.
Chicken will be the best-positioned protein due to its low price position in times of pressure on consumer spending power but rises in production costs and the long-term impact of COVID-19 threaten to disrupt the sector, according to Rabobank.
Angolan rebels on Tuesday called on the countrys oil region to boycott the elections scheduled for August.

The separatist rebels of the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC) said it would not participate in a foreign election.

The FLEC does not accept the permanence of a foreign power on our territory, but does not want to interfere in the internal affairs of Angola, the group said in a statement.

For this reason, FLEC urges all the people of Cabinda to not participate in presidential elections in Angola, it said.

Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos last week announced that he would step down this year to bring an end to a 37-year reign marked by an unrelenting authoritarian style.

Now aged 74, and in reportedly poor health, Dos Santos became president in 1979, making him Africas second-longest serving leader, one month shy of Equatorial Guineas Teodoro Obiang Nguema.

Joao Lourenco, Dos Santoss defense minister, was named as the ruling partys candidate to run in the presidents place in August elections.

Dos Santos has been credited for leading Angola out of the war, moving away from hardline Marxism and fostering a post-war oil boom and foreign investment surge that transformed central Luanda.

However, the FLEC, which fought a low-level insurgency for four decades, has been seriously threatened by Santos regime because the crude is drilled on their territory.
Heavy gunfire erupted in the Ivorian coastal town of Adiake on Tuesday, where disgruntled soldiers fired their weapons into the air, local media reported.

Gunfire began earlier in the Special Forces camp and then the town began panicking as armed soldiers left the barracks, Reuters quoted a resident as saying.

A spokesman for the army confirmed that there was gunfire in the Adiake barracks but was not immediately able to confirm that a mutiny had occurred, Reuters reported.

Cote dIvoire, French-speaking West Africas largest economy, has emerged from a decade-long political crisis as one of the continents rising economic stars.

However, years of conflict and a failure to reform its army, thrown together from a patchwork of former rebel fighters and government soldiers, have left the country with an unruly force hobbled by internal divisions.

The government last month agreed to a payment demand by a group of mainly former rebel fighters who claimed they were owed money for fighting against ex-president Laurent Gbagbo.

Ivorian authorities have not released details but mutiny leaders said the deal included a promise to pay 12 million CFA francs ($19,476.73) to some 8,400 troops.
The EU has vowed to take the necessary measures to protect the farm accord and partnership sealed with Morocco, affirming that the accord was not endangered by an EU court ruling.

The commitment was made by the European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini during a meeting held Tuesday with Moroccos Deputy Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita.

Appropriate measures would be taken where necessary to secure the implementation of the free-trade agreement for processed agricultural products and fishery products between the European Union and Morocco, says a joint statement released following the Moroccan-EU high level talks.

Morocco is a key partner for the EU and vice-versa, adds the statement, noting that both parties remain attached to this partnership and committed to defending it.

The EU-Morocco partnership is exemplary, rich and multidimensional, stresses document, underlining the two parties determination to preserve and develop its different dimensions.

Recalling the strategic importance of their ties, the two sides expressed their will to work and build cooperation in all areas of shared interest, notes the joint statement.

An EU official said the bloc had not changed its position, despite the European Court of Justice ruling in December saying that deals involving trade of agricultural products and fisheries between the EU and Morocco did not apply to the Moroccan Sahara.

Last year, Morocco suspended all ties with Brussels after an EU court partly annulled the trade deal on this ground. But few months later, the EUs top court reversed the ruling, dealing a hard blow to the enemies of Moroccos territorial integrity.

The Moroccan ministry of agriculture and fisheries warned that if the deal is not implemented, the North African country would have no other choice but to turn to other partners, including Russia, China, India and Japan as well as African and Arab Gulf nations.

The EU Foreign policy Chief Mogherini has always backed trade deals with Morocco to enable the North African country develop its economy and help it face waves of illegal migrants heading for Europe.
The 275 Somali MPs and 72 senators are electing this Wednesday a new president after several postponements since last year.

There are 23 candidates in the race for the top political executive position, including incumbent President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud.

Somalia has not had an effective central government since 1991 when the regime of Siad Barre ended. Barre ruled between 1969 and 1991.

The capital has been under a partial curfew ahead of the vote.

The government dropped an initial plan to give each adult a vote owing to challenges in securing national polling stations. Instead, about 14,000 clan elders and regional figures chose the 329 lawmakers.

The candidates have been making speeches before the members of parliament to explain their plans for the future of Somalia. Most criticized the current president, accusing him of failing to stop al-Shabab attacks or to stabilize the country.

Al Shabaab insurgents have long threatened to scuttle the process they are opposed to, arguing they do not believe in the democratic process.

Al-Shabab, which is affiliated with al-Qaeda, has waged an insurgency in the Horn of Africa nation since 2006 in a bid to impose its version of Islamic law. While the group was driven out of Mogadishu in 2011 by government and African Union forces, it continues to stage deadly gun and bomb attacks.
The Democratic Republic of Congo will mine about 1.5 million tons of copper in 2018, the industry-led Chambers vice-president said on Wednesday.

Simon Tuma-Waku, who was speaking on the sideline of African Mining Indaba conference in Cape Town, said the expected 2018 resumption of Glencores Katanga Mining project, which has been suspended since September 2015, would significantly boost the mineral rich Congos output.

Mining giant Glencore, 6th largest mining company in the world according to PwC, has suspended processing of copper and cobalt for 18 months in the country to build new processing facilities.

The company said it would invest $900m to develop and modernize the mine and raise output to about 280,000 tons per annum while cutting costs.

Congo is the worlds largest miner of cobalt, used in rechargeable batteries, and Africas top copper producer. Katanga produces about 200,000 tons per year, the equivalent to roughly 20 per cent of the DRCs copper output.

The World Bank expects the countrys economy to average 5 percent growth in 2017-18, compared with 2.7 percent in 2016, thanks to stronger commodity prices and expanding agriculture and services sectors.

The Central African nation has seen its economy battered by low commodity prices over the past two years.
Some IDPs will lose state support

By Messenger Staff

Ministry of Refugees stated that some internally displaced families will no longer receive the state monthly support, worth 45GEL.He stressed this concerned the families, whose members were employed and who have already received accommodations from the government.Subari stated that instead the government would double support for the most vulnerable IDPs and also save money to buy accommodations for the internally displaced population.The statement has caused criticism from the opposition, and they demanded that the Minister come to the legislative body and answer their questions.According to the United Nations Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), there were up to 206,600 IDPs registered in Georgia at the end of 2013.The Prime Minister, Giorgi Kvirikashvili, said that in total, around 13,700 IDP and 300 eco-migrant families have received apartments since 2012, while around 1,700 other families will move to their new apartments this year.In the country where the majority of the population lives in poverty, the 45 GEL (approximately 17 USD) allowance is an important income they cannot afford to lose.Every government is obliged to improve the socioeconomic situation in a country for its people, not to let them be dependent on state support alone, especially when this support is a ridiculously low amount of money.However, when at a certain stage the government fails to do this, then it must help those who need help the most.The ministry must very cautiously study the economic situation of each IDP and only after make a decision to suspend the support for them.However, there were certain cases when IDPs had a quite a good income and they still received the state assistance and social allowances regardless.
The News in Brief

Ukrainian website claims it obtained correspondence where Mikheil Saakashvili blackmails judges



Ukrainian information-analytical edition Oeainuea aaieoy reports that it has obtained copies of correspondence between former governor of Odessa Mikheil Saakashvili and former Ukrainian Deputy Prosecutor General Davit Sakvarelidze.



The website claims that it published the transcripts of the correspondence in two languages - Russian and Georgian.



It also published the alleged Viber correspondence between Saakashvili and Sakvarelidze wherein the two men discuss Vice Colonel Gia Tsertsvadzes case. Saakashvili asks questions the progress of the case, specifically the release of Tsertsvadze.



"I've spoken to some people. We have to become active in order to prevent that all this is attributed to Givi. I think they will not dare to release him. You need to show up often so that to make an impression that it is our case. By the way, Gvaramia raised this issue well and he will further help us," says Saakashvili, according to the Oeainuea aaieoy.



After that, Sakvarelidze mentions two names to which parcels were sent to Tbilisi. They are most likely Supreme Court judges Paata Katamadze and Besarion Alavidze, who are considering the Rustavi 2 case. In addition, according to Oeainuea aaieoy, Sakvarelidze mentions another person, thought to be the Chairman of the Lawyers Association, Zaza Khatiashvili.



It should be noted that the website offers only a transcript and is not accompanied by any video or other materials.



The same site has dedicated several other articles to Mikheil Saakashvili. (IPN)







UNM Loses 35 Sakrebulo Members After Split, the Party Says



The United National Movement lost 35 out of a total of 276 members of local councils, Sakrebulos, following the party split, according to the UNMs statement on February 1.



35 members of 14 Sakrebulos (including nine municipal districts and five cities) left the party, UNM stated.



Among them, three in the Tbilisi City Council (out of seven), nine in Khoni (out of 12), four in Gurjaani (out of six), four in Zugdidi (out of 18), four in Khulo (out of five), two in Akhaltsikhe (out of 11), two in Adigeni (out of six), two in Poti (out of two), two in Kutaisi (out of four), one in Akhalkalaki (out of one), one in Mtskheta (out of two), one in Chiatura (out of 5).



The UNM added that it still commands 241 Sakrebulo members.



The statement echoes the dispute over the assessments of the scale of the recent split; while European Georgia members claim that the party was divided, those remaining argue that it was a small group who quit the party. (civil.ge)







Meeting of Chairman with President of European Parliament



The Chairman of Parliament of Georgia, Mr. Irakli Kobakhidze is holding important meetings this week. Today, the Chairman met with the President of the European Parliament, Mr. Antonio Tajani.



The parties discussed bilateral relations and future cooperation, and the newly elected EP President congratulated Mr. Kobakhidze on his victory in the recent elections and spoke about the importance of democratic reforms. He also underlined the importance of EU support in economic reforms and various directions.



We, naturally, expressed our gratitude for cooperation between our institutions and expressed our will for future enhancement of relations. We plan to hold bilateral and close cooperation with EP through respective mechanisms and EP is committed to consider bilateral cooperation through set up of such foundation. So, we will work in this direction, the Chair of the EU Integration Committee, Ms. Tamar Khulordava, stated.



The meeting was attended by Georgian Delegation members Tamar Khulordava, Sofio Katsarava, Nikoloz Samkharadze and the head of the Georgia Mission to the EU, Natalia Sabanadze. (parliament.ge)







UK concerned by imminent closure of crossing points along de-facto border with occupied Abkhazia



The United Kingdom (UK) condemns the imminent closure of several crossing points along the Administrative Boundary Line (ABL) between occupied Abkhazia and the rest of Georgia.



The UKs representation to the South Caucasus issued a statement on Facebook regarding this issue.



The statement expressed the UKs strong support for the positions of the United Nations and European Union on the matter, claiming that the local population will be negatively impacted by these changes, creating greater vulnerability and isolation of those living in the adjacent areas.



"Reducing the number of crossings will inevitably have a negative impact on the lives of the local population and is not conducive to longer-term conflict resolution, the statement read.



Abkhazian officials announced their decision to keep only one entry point open through Enguri Bridge at the ABL earlier this month, which resulted in hundreds of residents of Gali in Abkhazia protesting against the decision.



A crowd of peaceful protesters last week blocked the central road of Nabakevi village where another crossing point had operated previously. The protesters said that it will be difficult to use only one point of entry and exit because it will be time consuming. (Agenda.ge)




Shah Deniz Stage 2 of fundamental importance for Georgia

The second stage of development of Azerbaijan's largest Shah Deniz gas field is of fundamental importance for Georgia, said Georgias Deputy Energy Minister Mariam Valishvili in an interview with Business Time Georgia.According to Valishvili, one of the main issues in the development of Georgias energy market in the next few years is the launch of the expanded South Caucasus Pipeline as part of Shah Deniz 2 and construction of an underground gas storage facility.In response to the increased consumption [of gas], we already have a 10-year plan for infrastructure development. It is necessary to build a gas storage facility. Gas storage facilities allow flexibly regulating supply volumes, she said.According to the contract signed with the Shah Deniz consortium, there is a restriction, under which in case Georgia is unable to use the supplied gas, it will lose those gas volumes, and at the same time, we have no re-export opportunity.Valishvili added that in summer, when consumption is not high, Georgia will be able to accumulate these volumes in the gas storage facility and use them in peak season.Reserves of the Shah Deniz field are estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas. Shah Deniz Stage 2 will add a further 16 billion cubic meters per year of gas production to the approximately 9 billion cubic meters per year produced by Shah Deniz Stage 1.The gas will be exported to Georgia, Turkey and European markets through expansion of the South Caucasus Pipeline and the construction of the Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline.
Georgia-Russia dialogue helped visa waiver with EU

By Messenger Staff

One of the factors of the success of our European project was the dialogue with Russia, says Zurab Abashidze, Georgias Prime Minister's Special Representative for Relations with Russia. The post was created by the current Georgian Dream leadership to carry out negotiations with Russia solely for trade-economic issues.Abashidze called the European Parliament's decision to grant visa waiver to Georgia historic, and added that "this is clear evidence that the country has a reasonable foreign policy."The European Parliament adopted a historic decision regarding visa liberalization and it is very good evidence that Georgia has a reasonable foreign policy in this difficult time and difficult region.I hope that this example of our experience will be used by our partner countries to achieve the similar results - I am referring to Ukraine and other countries with which we have friendly relations, Abashidze said.He stressed that one of the factors of success in terms of visa liberalisation was the dialogue with Russia.Without it, it would have been very difficult to sign the Association Agreement with the EU and to achieve success on visa liberalization, said Abashidze.According to him, Russia had enough leverage to hamper the process.As for the question of whether the visa liberalization will become a factor for Russia to cancel its own visa regime with Georgia, Abashidze said it would be the right decision, but it was up to Russia.However, Russia remains a very powerful enemy, which still occupies 20 percent of Georgia's land.If Georgia were dragged into another armed conflict with Russia, it would be very hard for the country to achieve any success, as reforms and development require peace.Russia is unless likely to be happy with Georgias European intentions, however the countrys reaction would likely be very different if Georgia achieved the same level of success with NATO.
@PatriciaMazzei

Forty-nine states and U.S. territories submitted a wish list of road, transportation and pipe projects to the Trump administration Wednesday. One of the few holdouts? Florida.

The National Governors Association said it sent governors' list of 428 "shovel-ready" infrastructure projects to the Executive Office of the President and the White House National Trade Council. The submission, which the NGA says it won't make public, comes after the administration asked for help after offering its own list of projects to the association. Some projects on that initial list, such as the I-395 highway interchange in Miami, had already been funded. The initial list was compiled by a consultant.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott didn't contribute to the NGA's additions. Spokeswoman Jackie Schutz said Wednesday that, instead, Scott "will be working directly with the administration."

McClatchy Washington correspondent Lindsay Wise contributed.
State Rep. Paul Renner, R-Jacksonville, talks to reporters after his bill to kill Enterprise Florida and Visit Florida easily passed a House Committee.

@JeremySWallace

The Florida House took a stunning first step towards killing the states primary tourism marketing agency and the state's chief economic development agency.

By an overwhelming vote, a Florida House committee voted to eliminate Visit Florida and Enterprise Florida, despite testimony from dozens of businesses and economic development groups from around the state that warned them not to.

The 10-5 vote is a blow to Gov. Rick Scott who just a day earlier lashed out at the House for even considering the idea which he said would hurt Floridas economic momentum and result in few jobs.

But State Rep. Paul Renner, R-Jacksonville, said he wasnt deterred at all from pushing his legislation. He said economic incentives are inherently unfair because it is essentially the government picking some companies for incentives over others.

For me, this issue is an easy issue, Renner said. Its not hard to stand on principle.

The bill still has a long way to go, with more committee stops in the House and a Florida Senate that appears far away from backing a plan to kill both agencies. State Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, has questioned both Enterprise Florida and Visit Florida spending, but said he wants to recast those agencies, not eliminate them like the House.

Brandes is the chairman of a Senate budget writing committee with jurisdiction over both agencies. He held a hearing earlier on Wednesday that questioned the return on investment Florida gets from Enterprise Florida and how much more the taxpayers are funding Enterprise Florida compared to private business. The agency is supposed to be a 50-50 split.
@ByKristenMClark

Declaring we are a nation of rules, Florida Republican lawmakers have officially revived their efforts to go after so-called sanctuary cities and counties in Florida  and their elected officials  that dont fully cooperate with federal enforcement of immigration law.

The bills (SB 786 / HB 697)  dubbed the Rule of Law Adherence Act  impose an array of restrictions to ban sanctuary policies in Florida and create fines and penalties for state agencies, local governments or law enforcement agencies that have one. Sen. Aaron Bean, R-Fernandina Beach, and Rep. Larry Metz, R-Yalaha, unveiled their legislation Wednesday in Tallahassee.

The one thing that everybody should know in our country is: We cant choose which laws well obey or which laws we dont obey, said Bean, who told the Herald/Times last week the legislation would be coming.

The bills would formally define a sanctuary policy as any law, policy, practice, procedure, or custom adopted or permitted by a state, local or law enforcement agency which contravenes or which knowingly prohibits or impedes a law enforcement agency from communicating or cooperating with a federal immigration agency with respect to federal immigration enforcement.

Its not clear when  or even, if  the legislation might be considered, but the proposal is likely to draw backlash from Democrats, as well as immigrant advocates and local governments.

More here on what exactly Bean and Metz are proposing this year.

Photo credit: Jeremy Wallace / Herald/Times Tallahassee bureau
@JeremySWallace

The Florida Senate continues to send unmistakably blunt signals that it is not going along with a House plan to completely kill whole agencies like Visit Florida and Enterprise Florida.

During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing Thursday, the Legislatures top economic analyst Amy Baker, showed lawmakers data that indicated that for every $1 the state invests in Visit Florida, it gets $3.20 in return.

That provoked State Sen. Rob Bradley, R-Fleming Island, to ask Baker to clarify that she presents those same numbers to the House.

You provide services to not just us but to our friends in the House right, Bradley asked

Baker assured him she did.



And youre telling us for every dollar of taxpayer money we spend, we get $3.20 back, Bradley said in emphasizing the point more than actually asking a question he didnt know the answer to.

If that was not enough, State Sen. Jack Latvala, R-St. Petersburg, bluntly told the audience that Bakers charts showed five of the states top economic development programs that generate the biggest return on investment from the state would be killed under a bill the Florida House is pushing that would eliminate Enterprise Florida and Visit Florida. Those programs returned as much as $5.60 for every $1 the state invests.

They all produce a net increase in tax revenue over and above what we invest in them, and all five of those are included in a bill the House passed out of a committee yesterday to abolish, Latvala said.
@amysherman1

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio will keynote the Broward Democratic Party's annual fundraising dinner.

The event, which the Broward Democrats recently renamed the "Obama-Roosevelt Dinner," is March 4 at the Hyatt Pier 66 in Fort Lauderdale.

Mayor De Blasio has distinguished himself as a voice of the people. His message of inclusion and acceptance of all Americans is what we need as a nation of diversity in these troubling times. America is the melting pot of the world, and nowhere is that more true than in Broward County and New York City. Mayor De Blasio is a rising leader in the Democratic Party, and it will be a great honor to welcome him to beautiful Broward, said Cynthia Busch, chair of the Broward Democratic Party.

Broward has about 600,000 registered Democrats -- the highest number in Florida.

Check out de Blasio's Truth-O-Meter record from PolitiFact New York including a claim he made about Trump and sanctuary cities.
At Florida's Capitol, far from the noise over tourism spending, a bigger clash looms between the House and Senate over stark differences in the Legislature's sole constitutional responsibility: the writing of a state budget.

For weeks, Senate President Joe Negron and his lieutenants have worked on a proposed new joint rule in response to House changes to the budget process, including a separate bill for each member project and a filing deadline of March 7, the first day of session. The Senate opposes those changes and considers them a procedural straitjacket that gives the House too much control over writing a budget while limiting public access to spending decisions.

Senators will offer a compromise Thursday at a Rules Committee meeting in what Negron calls a "show of good faith" to the House. "I'm putting forth a proposal that hopefully will allow us to work out this issue before we get to session," Negron told the Times/Herald.

Senators are critical of House Speaker Richard Corcoran's changes, approved by all House members. But without a two-chamber agreement, work on the budget can't get very far, virtually ensuring an overtime session. The Senate proposal would largely roll back the House changes, which Corcoran considers unacceptable.

"It's a giant move backwards against accountability and transparency," Corcoran told the Times/Herald.

Negron says the Legislature should not "artificially shut down the budget process" and that the Florida Constitution is clear: Neither chamber can establish a budget process that the other chamber must follow. "We're a bicameral Legislature," Negron said.

The Senate proposal, known as Joint Rule Two, says any member's spending project can be included in the final budget if it "is provided to the public at the time the funding is proposed in the conference committee and the conference committee has provided time for public testimony." The Senate also would replace a Corcoran priority, an online 37-question survey on every project, with eight general criteria, such as "the legal entity designated to receive and expend the funding." The Senate also wants to prohibit any lawmaker from raising a point of order to challenge any item in the final budget.
Florida homeowners who lost their beloved citrus trees to the failed canker eradication program 17 years ago could be compensated this year under a $100 million budget request being filed this week by a Miami lawmaker.

Rep. Jose Felix Diaz wants the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (DACS) to make good on four court rulings ordering the state to pay more than 114,000 homeowners in Broward, Palm Beach, Lee and Orange counties whose citrus trees were cut down between 2000 and 2006 to curb the spread of citrus canker.

State agriculture inspectors deployed crews with chainsaws to chop down 577,253 orange, grapefruit and key lime trees throughout the state  even if the trees showed no signs of infection.

Outraged property owners representing counties with 94 percent of the lost trees joined five class action lawsuits to seek compensation. In four of the cases, the court ordered the state to pay more than $100 million in judgments, attorneys fees and interest. The fifth case, involving Miami-Dade residents who lost 40 percent of the healthy trees removed in Florida, is still pending.

The budget request filed by Diaz  and a similar one expected to be filed in the Senate by Sen. Anitere Flores, R-Miami  is likely the largest member project to be filed this session in the House. Under new House rules, every budget request made by individual members must be filed and voted on as a separate bill.

Diaz, who chairs the powerful House Commerce Committee, said it is time the state compensate Floridians whose property was illegally taken through no fault of their own.

Anyone who was in Florida for the citrus canker scare knows of someone who had their property taken away and who never received a dime for it, he told the Herald/Times. There are tens of thousands of Floridians who were stripped of their citrus trees and are still wondering why the state has not made them whole. Story here.
For picture posts from 2010 and earlier, see the Earlier Picture Posts Page
Mo Essen called Sen. Elizabeth Warren's office on Wednesday to apologize.

Essen, from Missoula, said Republican Montana Sen. Steve Daines' silencing of Warren on the Senate floor Tuesday was uncalled for.

Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, was reading a letter that civil rights leader Coretta Scott King wrote in 1986 protesting Jeff Sessions' nomination as a federal judge. At the time, he was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. King argued that Sessions had used his political power "to intimidate and chill" black voters; testimony to the same effect eventually led to his nomination being withdrawn.

Three decades later and Sen. Sessions has been nominated for U.S. attorney general.

On Wednesday night, the Senate voted to confirm Sessions, 52-47.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., interrupted Warren on Tuesday, saying she was out of order according to a rarely used Senate rule that states a senator cannot impugn the motives or conduct of another senator, "directly or indirectly."

Daines, who was presiding over the Senate on Tuesday, agreed with McConnell, saying, "The senator will take her seat."

On Wednesday afternoon, Essen and about 30 others joined Missoula Rises at Daines' Missoula office to read King's letter aloud. A different woman read each paragraph, with several men standing by in silent support.

Daines staffers told the crowd, which was crammed into the small lobby, not to take photos or video due to sensitive information in the office. The crowd asked the staffers if they would step outside to listen to them. Staffers said they would prefer not to.

So everyone stayed inside, and the protesters took photos and video anyway.

"Our message to Senator Daines is we are extremely disappointed in his ability to listen to his constituents, to have any dialogue with his constituents," said Erin Erickson of Missoula Rises. "He's essentially shutting us out, and to see him on the national stage shutting down a fellow senator is something we cannot ignore."

Daines' silencing of Warren came just hours after he was the final senator to cast a vote for billionaire and school choice and voucher advocate Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education. His vote brought it to a tie, with Vice President Mike Pence breaking the tie to confirm DeVos. Montana Sen. Jon Tester joined his fellow Democrats and two Republican senators in the vote against DeVos.

The group asked Daines' staffers for a conversation with the senator, "not a form letter."

"He doesn't need to agree with us, but we need a dialogue," Erickson said.

***

Warren appealed Daines' ruling, but it was upheld by the Republican-majority Senate. It silenced her for the rest of Sessions' confirmation process.

Immediately after, Warren took to social media, live-streaming herself reading King's letter outside Senate chambers after she was silenced.

McConnell's comments  particularly "Nevertheless, she persisted"  became a rallying cry for opponents. The incident also sparked trending hashtags on Twitter, #ShePersisted and #LetLizSpeak, criticizing Republicans for silencing Warren. Critics were further enraged when on Wednesday, several Democrat senators  all men  read aloud from the same letter, without interruption.

"That's why we're letting women speak today," Erickson said of the Missoula rally. "It feels like an affront to women in positions of power."

On Wednesday morning, Daines posted a clip of the incident on his Facebook page, writing "Last night the U.S. Senate chose civility over inappropriate behavior by Senator Elizabeth Warren. As you know the U.S. Senate is the world's greatest deliberative body and we should be able to have civilized debate."
MISSOULA  Marlin Everett Seaholm, 86, passed away on Monday, Jan. 30, 2017 in Missoula, Montana of an inoperable dissected aortic aneurysm. He was strong throughout his three weeks in the hospital, giving many family members and friends time to come visit him.

Marly, as he was known to all, was born on Aug. 13, 1930 at the family ranch in Grass Range to Albert and Mabelle Seaholm. He attended the one-room school house at Pine Ridge, and then graduated in 1948 from Grass Range High School as valedictorian of his class. After graduation, he served for four years in the U.S. Army, the last two in the Korean War. Marly was honorably discharged on Friday the 13th (his lucky day) in 1952 as a Sergeant First Class with a Bronze Star, a Distinguished Unit Citation and a United Nations Service Medal.

He returned to Grass Range, and later attended Rocky Mountain College in Billings on the G.I. Bill, receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in 1958. On a few shared drives home to Grass Range, he came to know fellow Ranger, Olive "Buttons" Vahl as she attended Eastern Montana College and, in his words, made the best decision of his life when they married in 1956. They both taught school for three years in Three Forks before returning to Billings while Buttons attended summer school. Marly drove tanker truck during this time, foreshadowing his future career.

Two of their four boys, Dave and Steve, were born in Billings, and then the family moved to Missoula in 1963 for Marly to pursue a Master's Degree and reform the world of Education. His time in academia was short-lived, however, and he ventured into several business opportunities, including a bar and restaurant supply and a One-Hour Martinizing dry-cleaning franchise that he and Buttons would later own and operate as the Village Cleaners. The second two boys, Al and Greg, were born during this time, and Marly slowly moved out of the cleaners and into driving truck for a friend. He soon bought that truck, and began his career in earnest in the early 1970s.

He and Buttons purchased a craft store in 1976. The Treasure Chest of Hobbies and Crafts was christened, and Buttons later moved the business to its current location in 1982. Marly continued trucking for Don Tripp, and later the Tripp Brothers through the early 1980's, and then co-founded Sea-Nic Transport in 1985. He semi-retired in 1990, selling the business to his partner, Rick Nichols. His retirement did not last long, and he returned to driving over-the-road in 1995 for Earl's Distributing.

Marly tried to leave trucking in 2000 (at age seventy), and sold radio controlled airplanes out of the Treasure Chest, meeting many new friends and model airplane enthusiasts along the way, primarily through his membership in the Big Sky Thunderbirds. He liked radio controlled planes, but not retail sales; and returned to driving, this time buying his own truck and leasing it out first to High Country Carriers and then Summit Beverage until he officially retired in 2016 at the age of eighty-six. He was quite pleased to pass his D.O.T. physical in December 2016, meaning he was "good for another year."

Marly and Buttons hosted many get-togethers over the years at their summer home on Flathead Lake, including a celebration of their 60th wedding anniversary this past August. Marly would balk when visitors called it a "cabin" because he spent so much time keeping the house looking good, but he welcomed one and all to the lake and always told them to come back... and "bring beer!"

Marlin was preceded in death by his brother, Norman. He is survived by his wife, Olive; his four children, David (Paula) and Steven (Teresa) of Missoula, Allen (Laura) of Madison, Wisconsin and Greg (Christy) Seaholm of Missoula; his two brothers, Philip of Grass Range, and Earl of Billings; and his seven grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, and numerous nieces and nephews. A celebration of life will be held at the family's home on Flathead Lake in early August, with his ashes being laid to rest in Grass Range the following weekend.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Grass Range Reunion Committee, c/o Brandon Dantz, Grass Range, MT 59032 (to celebrate the school's 100th anniversary). Special thanks to the staff at St. Patrick Hospital and Mark at the Cremation Society of the Rockies. At the end of a life well lived, Dad would no doubt say, "Keep on Truckin'."
At some point, nearly every worker faces a moment when they need leave, whether its to care for an aging parent, help a family member after surgery, recover from their own illness or injury, or welcome a new child into the family.

As the Montana Legislature debates ways to improve the lives of Montanans, I wanted to take a moment to highlight one important issue. Paid family and medical leave has been making national headlines, and here in Montana we have the opportunity to design a plan that is unique to the needs of our state, is affordable for business and employees, and helps both families and our economy.

Some of us are fortunate to have employers who provide time off for maternity leave or vacation time that can be used for medical reasons. Unfortunately, most working Montanans do not have access to any paid leave, and they are forced to make impossible choices between their paycheck and the health of themselves and their families.

The United States is the only industrialized country that does not guarantee workers paid leave. Only 13 percent of working Americans have access through their employers. Many people think that the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) helps, but the reality is that this law is not enough. It provides some employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave. Many people do not qualify because they work too few hours or work for businesses with fewer than 50 employees. In Montana, only one out of three workers qualify for the FMLA. Even for those who do qualify, many workers cannot afford to take unpaid leave.

Four states have successfully created statewide insurance programs that provide workers access to paid family and medical leave benefits. Through these statewide plans, workers receive a portion of their wages for a defined number of weeks to bond with a new child, recover from a serious illness or injury, or care for a loved one with a serious illness.

We can do this in Montana. We can implement a program to cover most workers, and help families make ends meet during some of the most wonderful or most difficult times of their lives. Most importantly, we can do this with modest monthly premiums. Estimates suggest that for an employee making $40,000 a year, premiums would be around $15 per month.

 Paid leave allows men and women to better balance work and caregiving responsibilities.

 Paid leave increases the likelihood that new mothers will return to work after giving birth, allowing them to earn more over their lifetimes.

 Paid leave helps when single people get hurt or sick and need time to recover and still earn a paycheck.

 Paid leave helps parents (both men and women) take the time to bond with a new baby or take time to care for their kids if they get sick or hurt.

 Paid leave helps seniors who often need family members (spouses, partners, adult children or siblings) to care for them as they age and would make it possible for them to stay in their home. Family should be able to help without sacrificing their jobs.

What would this mean for Montana business? At a time when tens of thousands of workers will be aging out of the Montana labor force, paid leave can help businesses keep workers attached to the workforce and their business.

 Paid leave helps businesses save money through reduced employee turnover. Retaining one employee can save a business between $5,000 and $15,000.

 We know that workforce stability is critical to businesses success. Paid leave encourages women and low-wage workers - populations most likely to not have access to paid leave - to return to their same employers after taking leave.

 Research shows that paid leave in Montana would keep $45 million in the pockets of thousands of working families and stimulate local economies.

It is time for Montana to invest in solutions that help families balance home and work responsibilities. Montanans need and deserve the time to support themselves and their families when they are sick.

We can do this. It is affordable. It is important. Paid family and medical leave is good for moms, dads, kids, seniors, businesses, the economy and most importantly, families.
Over 1,000 Montanans rallied to show their strong support for our public lands at our state capitol on a cold, January day. It was a sign of a healthy democracy  cars, trucks, minivans and buses full of Montanans converged on the Peoples House from all corners of our state. Families, young couples, grandmas, grandpas, college kids and the young at heart were smiling and cheering as a broad cross-section of Montanans took to the podium to loudly proclaim their love of the greatest treasure in the treasure state: our public lands. It was truly a shining moment, full of harmony and good will, with a little biting humor thrown in (we are Montanans, after all).

Unfortunately, the response that was received from the Senate majority floor leader left many of us cold and disheartened. Sen. Fred Thomas, from his lofty perch on the third floor of the Capitol, claimed that the concerns of outdoor enthusiasts were completely fake. He also said that concerns over how the state of Montana would manage 27 million acres of public land, with no plan in place to do so, have no merit.

Proponents of the transfer and sale of public lands use a common refrain in their push to steal land that belongs to all Americans: Trust us, but we have to get the lands before we tell you how theyll be managed. To us, that sounds a lot like we need to pass the bill so we can know whats in it.

Congress, not wanting to wait for anything, has already started the assault on public lands. H.R. 621, while recently pulled by the sponsor, would have sold 3.3 million acres of public land. H.R. 622 would eliminate Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management rangers who help keep hunters and hikers safe in the backcountry, and help our game wardens and sheriffs catch bad guys on the back roads of Montana. Further assaults on public land are in the works under Orwellian named bills that would end the public involvement in public land management or hand management of public lands over to states or even individual counties, who are ill-equipped to handle the massive amount of work and costs involved.

On the home front, the Montana Legislature has repeatedly tried to pass anti-public land bills and resolutions, attempted to legislatively manage our wildlife and as this session unfolds, they will bring more bills to try and advance the unpopular and unwise notion of transferring public lands out of public hands.

A recent Colorado College Poll has shown that 88 percent of Montanans want improved access to public lands and 58 percent of Montanans oppose the transfer and sale of public lands. Being outdoors and enjoying all Montana has to offer is not partisan and its not an issue that our elected leaders should ignore us on to push out-of-state snake oil pitches. Montanans love all of our public lands. That includes our beautiful mountains, forests and streams, many of which are on federal national forests and other lands.

All Montanans want to see the proper stewardship of our public lands. We invite Senator Thomas to join us in working with local collaboratives that seek common ground on these issues. This would be a much better use of his time and talents, instead of telling concerned Montanans that their fears are fake, and their love of public lands is misplaced.
Some problems dont go away when you ignore them.

Common colds and a heated argument tend to settle down, but the problem of inadequate infrastructure just gets worse over time. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton agreed about the need for improved infrastructure for a vigorous U.S. economy, and we have the chance to give Montana an upgrade with the Build Montana plan.

Using a fiscally responsible mix of cash and bonds, Gov. Steve Bullock is proposing modernizing our infrastructure so businesses will see Big Sky Country as a reliable, high-functioning place to bring their good-paying jobs. When Montanans show our pride by investing in water and wastewater systems, roads and bridges, and schools and universities, companies are more likely to want to invest here, too.

Passing the Build Montana plan is a double win. We get jobs as we rebuild and even more down the road as more companies make Montana their home.

Paige Rappleye,

Kalispell
I must agree that Ed Jenne is one of the greatest art illustrators in the Northern Rockies. The art community having Jenne as a member is a great victory for them. But I must sadly say it's a great loss to the community of professional ecologists in western Montana.

In the University of Montana's spring quarter of 1985, I had Ed Jenne as a student in my upper-division plant ecology class. He was one among 40 seniors and graduate students, but ended up ranked No. 1 among all of them. He consistently had the highest exam grades, but he also turned in a required outside field project that consisted of the most artistic and realistic illustration of the vegetation cover at Maclay Flat.

His illustration of the natural landscape was one of the highest quality I had ever seen submitted by a student. It was indeed beautiful, but highly informational, ecologically. I have to believe I was one of the earliest Missoula residents to recognize Jenne's talent to view and translate nature and transfer this understanding to a sheet of paper.

Jenne's talent is not remote from the skills many bioecologists hope to acquire. My own training in plant ecology taught me how to "read the landscape" and how to connect, relate and interpret the physical and biological features witnessed as one traverses the mountain slopes, or travels along rivers and riparian bottomlands. During my class field trips, I generally hoped my students would also develop these same skills.

Jenne would have made an outstanding, successful professional ecologist. I should assume he has retained the basic ecological skills he learned years ago, and that now contribute to his abilities to translate what he sees on the Earth's surface to construct the both artistic and ecologically meaningful illustrations everyone loves and appreciates. Thanks, Ed Jenne!

James Habeck,

Missoula
On Feb. 3, U.S. Sen. Steve Daines emailed a survey asking my opinion on whether to split the 9th Circuit Court, but after he introduced two bills in Congress to do just that. His given rationale is that the court is overburdened and unable to provide quality service and expeditious justice.

Those same arguments were given in 1983 when Thomas Slade Gorton of Washington introduced a bill to split the court. Similar bills have been submitted every few years over three decades. A special commission appointed in 1998 recommended against a split. Instead the commission proposed creation of three administrate divisions within the circuit to maintain consistency while easing logistical problems.

It is disingenuous to assert that repeatedly introduced congressional bills were drafted to fix an overwhelming case load. This is the same court that will rule on the recent decision to stay the immigration ban made by a federal judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western Division of Washington. During a prior attempt in 2005, Reagan-appointed 9th Circuit Judge Kozinski said, Youd have to believe in the tooth fairy to say this has nothing to do with politics. Orrin Hatch complained then that the court was seriously out of balance because the majority of its active judges were appointed by Democratic presidents. Splitting the 9th Circuit Court would create new appellate judgeships that would be filled by a new president modifying that balance so worrying to Hatch.

A vote to divide the 9th Circuit is an obvious attempt to override separation of branches of government. The framers of the Constitution created three separate, but equal branches to ensure balance, thereby preventing abuse of power.

If Daines sends you the opinion survey, check NO to the effort to weaken substantially the U.S. system of checks and balances.

Arlene Walker-Andrews,

Missoula
The purpose of President Trumps executive order on immigration is to ban Muslims, not make us safer, as he asserts.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani on FOX News: When he (Trump) first announced it, he said Muslim ban He called me up and he said, Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally. 

Trump wanted a legal way to institute a Muslim ban.

The ban bars people from countries whose citizens have not attacked Americans in the United States. Countries not included in the ban have killed Americans between 1975 and 2015 as follows: Saudi Arabia, 2,369; United Arab Emirates, 314; Egypt, 162; Lebanon, 159 (Nowrasteh, Alex,Terrorisum and Immigration: A Risk Analysis, http://bit.ly/2iaPuod). Fifteen of the Sept. 11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

Experts including Malcolm Nance, former career counterterrorism and intelligence officer for the U.S. government, say that the ban has given ISIS a valuable recruiting tool.

White House aides who crafted Trumps Muslim ban, Stephen Bannon, Trumps chief of staff, and Stephen Miller, a senior adviser, have a history of promoting Islamophobia, courting anti-Muslim extremists, and boosting white nationalists (www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/stephen-bannon-miller-trump-refugee-ban-islamophobia-white-nationalist).

Nearly twice as many Americans have been killed by right-wing extremists since 9/11 as have died at the hands of radical Muslims on U.S. soil (Southern Poverty Law Center).

The ban is unconstitutional, puts us all in more danger, and has exposed Donald Trump as a president who, like Richard Nixon, disrespects the rule of law.

Kathryn Kern,

Red Lodge
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HELENA  Landowners might think twice about slapping a locked gate on a county road if fines for doing so are substantially increased, a Great Falls legislator told a committee Thursday.

Democratic Rep. Tom Jacobson brought House Bill 295 before the House Judiciary Committee. The bill offers two changes to the law. The first allows counties to issue a permit, excluding a locked gate, for an encroachment upon a county road right-of-way, as may occur in the case of a structure. Secondly, HB295 increases the fine for failing to remove an encroachment from $10 per day to up to $500 per day.

What the bill aims to alleviate are cases where the public is locked out of using county roads, Jacobson said, and it gives judges discretion to fine offenders based upon the egregiousness of the offense.

The bill drew support from pro-access groups and the Montana Association of Counties.

Sometimes its local landowners, but it tends to be people from out of state with lots of money, and the first thing they want to do is keep us off, said Chris Marchion with the Anaconda Sportsmen Association.

More rural counties often struggle with the resources to fight illegal road closures, he said, adding, This would actually give us some leverage to prevent this from happening.

Former Anaconda-Deer Lodge County Commissioner Mark Sweeney said he agreed HB295 will strengthen the law.

In my opinion, this is how well lose our access to public lands, he said of illegally gated roads.

MACO Executive Director Harold Blattie said the bill is taking the right approach by allowing a measured view to addressing disputes.

Nick Gevock with the Montana Wildlife Federation pointed to his organizations annual report on illegally blocked roads and examples in recent years where access has been restored after legal fights. HB295 addresses public access and county authority, and it gives landowners clarity on receiving a permit when needed.

Speaking against the bill, Abby St. Lawrence with the Rocky Mountain Stockgrowers Association blasted the notion that HB295 is a consensus bill. St. Lawrence said raising fines from $10 per day to up to $500 per day is an enormous hammer over landowners with questions or concerns about the status of roads.

St. Lawrence testified that as an attorney litigating road cases, the status is seldom cut and dried. She also took issue with the characterization of the bill targeting rich, out-of-state landowners, saying that often the disputes arise on family ranches and are brought by sportsmen groups.

Chuck Denowh, representing United Property Owners of Montana, argued that HB295 gives an unfair advantage to those trying to force access when road status has yet to be determined.

What this bill is asking to do is throw out adjudication and tip the scales of justice to one side in these disputes, he said. In our experience, these lawsuits dont target wealthy out-of-staters, they target ranchers that are land-rich and cash-poor.

Gevock responded to the opponents, saying they were trying to confuse the issue between road disputes outside of the bill and those dealing with established country roads.

What constitutes a country road, how the law would be enforced and whether the bill would fuel access advocates to pursue more battles with landowners pushed much of the committees questioning.

Blattie clarified that HB295 only pertains to county roads with an established right of way. Other public roads, such as Forest Service roads, would not be affected.

Blattie further testified that the processes for record-keeping vary widely across counties, and under his interpretation, fines could only be levied once the county established its easement.

Rep. Bill Harris, R-Winnett, asked whether the bill was an effort to bully landowners into giving up access to avoid legal fights.

Jacobson replied that he saw a landowner putting the screws to the country as bullying. He further responded that granting judges the discretion to fine from $10 to $500 allowed them to enact different punishments for honest mistakes and egregious efforts to block the public from well-established county roads.

I think a lot of this comes down to local control and whether the county has the ability to open roads that have been encroached upon, Jacobson said in closing. This is about giving the counties more authority and ability for what happens on their roads, which are in effect our roads.
HELENA  A proposed checkoff program would allow hunters purchasing licenses to voluntarily donate for lethal control of wolves.

Rep. Becky Beard, R-Elliston, brought House Bill 367 before the House Fish, Wildlife and Parks Committee Tuesday. The bill creates a voluntary checkoff where hunters can donate $1 or more to help reduce the impact of wolves on landowners and livestock producers.

Beard brought the bill at the request of her constituents, she told the committee.

The bill requires Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to use the funding to contract with USDA Wildlife Services, including but not limited to flight time, collaring, and lethal control of wolves.

FWP currently spends about $800,000 annually on collaring and lethal control programs.

Similar checkoffs are available for programs such as non-game animals and Hunters Against Hunger.

Avon-area rancher Brian Quigley with the Rocky Mountain Stockgrowers Association detailed some of the additional expenses faced by livestock producers, such as paying fees per animal for predator control.

We were asked how else hunters could help and this is what we came up with, he said of the proposed checkoff.

Ranchers will continue to bear the brunt of predator costs, particularly with the recent loss of a federal grant that financed a portion of predator programs, Jim Brown with the Montana Woolgrowers Association said.

Jay Bodner with the Montana Stockgrowers Association also voiced support.

In our mind, its money very well spent and another opportunity for hunters who want to contribute to this, he said.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks opposed the bill for technical reasons that it felt could be addressed through amendments. Wildlife division administrator Ken MacDonald said the department does not oppose the concept of the bill.

Marc Cooke with Wolves of the Rockies did oppose the concept of HB367. He argued that the bill excludes nonlethal measures that have proven effective and that wolf populations are stable.

To say wolves arent being killed and we need to kill more, I just dont buy it, he said.

Also opposing was Ben Lamb with the National Wildlife Federation, agreeing that funding should be available for lethal and nonlethal wolf management. Voluntary checkoffs also do not tend to work well in most cases, pointing to a similar program in Wyoming that runs at a deficit.

Beard closed on the bill noting the importance of agriculture in Montanas economy and touting the bill as a voluntary step to assist livestock producers requesting assistance. She indicated that she may be open to FWP suggested amendments but would need additional fact checking before deciding.

The committee took no immediate action on HB367.
Judge James Robart, of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington State, believes there is no basis for President Trump's executive order temporarily suspending non-American entry from seven terrorism-plagued countries.

In court last week, Robart questioned Justice Department lawyer Michelle Bennett about the administration's decision to confine the moratorium to Somalia, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Sudan, Iraq, and Iran.

"Have there been terrorist attacks in the United States by refugees or other immigrants from the seven countries listed, since 9/11?" Bennett said.

"Your honor, I don't know the specific details of attacks or planned attacks," Bennett responded. "I think  I will point out, first of all, that the rationale for the order was not only 9/11, it was to protect the United States from the potential for terrorism. I will also note that the seven countries that are listed in the executive order are the same seven countries that were already subject to other restrictions in obtaining visas that Congress put in place, both by naming countries, Syria and Iraq, and that the prior administration put in place by designating them as places where terrorism is likely to occur, or -- the specific factors are whether the presence in a particular country increases the likelihood that an alien is a credible threat to U.S. security or an area that is a safe haven for terrorists."

Bennett was obviously improvising a bit at that point and did not have the facts at her fingertips. Robart would have none of that.

"Well, let me walk you back, then," Robart said. "You're from the Department of Justice, if I understand correctly?"

"Yes."

"So you're aware of law enforcement. How many arrests have there been of foreign nationals for those seven countries since 9/11?"

"Your honor, I don't have that information. I'm from the civil division, if that helps get me off the hook."

"Let me tell you," Robart said. "The answer to that is none, as best I can tell. So, I mean, you're here arguing on behalf of someone President Trump that says: We have to protect the United States from these individuals coming from these countries, and there's no support for that."

In that brief moment, Robart declared there is "no support" for Trump's decision. And with that, the judge from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington State ordered a nationwide  actually worldwide  halt to enforcement of the president's executive order.

Now, it turns out Robart might not know as much as he let on. Last summer, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest analyzed public sources of information, seeking to learn more about people convicted of terror-related offenses. The Justice Department provided the subcommittee with a list of 580 people who were convicted  not just arrested, but tried and convicted  of terror-related offenses between Sept. 11, 2001 and Dec. 31, 2014.

The subcommittee investigated further and found that at least 380 of the 580 were foreign-born and that an additional 129 were of unknown origin. Of the 380, there were representatives  at least 60 -- from all of the countries on the Trump executive order list. And with 129 unknowns, there might be more, as well.

In addition, since the Senate list was compiled, there have been others involved in terrorism in the United States from the seven countries. One highly publicized example was the case of Abdul Artan, a Somali refugee who last November wounded 11 people with a machete during an attack on the campus of Ohio State University. In fairness to Judge Robart, Artan was shot and killed by police  not arrested  so perhaps the judge didn't count him.

In a report Monday, the Associated Press, relying on the research of University of North Carolina professor Charles Kurzman, reported that "23 percent of Muslim Americans involved with extremist plots since Sept. 11 had family backgrounds from the seven countries."

The bottom line is, Robart's confident assertion to Bennett was wrong.

In her exchange with the judge, Bennett tried to argue that the Constitution and the law make clear that the president is the person charged with making national security decisions like those in the Trump executive order.

"Your honor, I think the point is that because this is a question of foreign affairs, because this is an area where Congress has delegated authority to the president to make these determinations, it's the president that gets to make the determinations," Bennett said. "And the court doesn't have authority to look behind those determinations."

Robart strongly disagreed, and stopped the president's order. After all, he knew best.
HELENA  A bill that would require photo identification to vote faced heated opposition from committee members and in testimony during a hearing on Thursday.

House Bill 357, carried by Derek Skees, R-Kalispell, would require all voters to present a photo ID. Under current law, people without an ID can use a document such as a utility bill or a paycheck stub with their name and address to vote. Similar legislation was vetoed in 2011 and died in committee in 2013. Skees said he drafted the bill to mirror legislation upheld in Crawford v. Marion County Election board, a 2008 decision allowing some voter ID laws.

The bill would require voters to present a drivers license, state ID card, military ID, tribal ID, U.S. passport or a state, federal or local government ID or a concealed carry permit.

Skees said hes carrying the bill to eliminate voter fraud he believes has occurred and gone unreported. Opponents to the bill said similar laws have historically disenfranchised minorities and low-income people and was unfair to people with disabilities and students who no longer could use student ID cards. Numerous opponents and committee members said there isnt a need for the bill. No one spoke as a proponent.

SK Rossi, the director of advocacy and policy at ACLU Montana, said HB 357 is closer to legislation struck down recently in federal district courts in North Carolina and Texas than the Supreme Court decision Skees referenced. While bills may look neutral on their face, Rossi said the courts have an obligation to see if they function neutrally as well.

It doesnt matter if you attempt to put in safeguards if those safeguards dont actually protect marginalized people from discrimination, Rossi said.

Rossi was concerned that people without an ID would have trouble getting one. To get a $16 Montana ID card to vote, a person has to present two of three documents: a passport, Social Security card or birth certificate.

If they didnt already have two of the three documents, it would be difficult to get them without a photo ID. To get a $12 birth certificate requires a photo ID, and a social security card requires both a birth certificate and a photo ID. A passport costs $135 and requires both a birth certificate and a photo ID.

Youre basically placing people in this race to get all the documents you need to get an ID, but you cant, Rossi said. That sounds reasonable, but its not.

Skees said he believed the overwhelming majority of Montanans have a photo ID already, but Rossi disagreed. Sarah Garcia, a DMV administrator, didnt have exact numbers on who in Montana holds a drivers license or an ID card.

Rep. Kathy Swanson, D-Anaconda, asked Skees if there were any cases of when or how voter fraud was prosecuted in the state of Montana.

No, Skees said.

When other committee members asked about possibilities of voter fraud, Skees said there are likely instances that havent been reported because the system in place makes fraud difficult to detect.

I suggest it can be gained and frauded and it hasnt been reported by the previous secretary of state, he said.

Rep. Bryce Bennett, D-Missoula, said he wanted to go on the record saying Skees statement was untrue.

Exceptions to voter ID requirements for people with disabilities and people over the age of 65 was criticized in testimony. The language in the bill says the exception is only for an impossible physical disability. Disability Right of Montana said its likely the Secretary of State lacks the expertise to determine the severity of a disability and the usage of physical disability leaves out excludes sensory disabilities. Rossi said it would be difficult to prove a voter is actually over the age of 65 if they dont have a photo ID with their birth date.
HELENA  A Helena teacher whose pleas to be able to see a therapist were denied by a doctor that never met her spoke in support of a bill to require insurance companies to cover mental health the same as physical health.

Sharla Crawford, of Helena, spoke in support of House Bill 142, carried by Rep. Laurie Bishop, D-Livingston, on Wednesday.

What I compare it to is you wouldn't give a diabetic insulin but not cover the needles, Crawford said.

Bishop told the House Human Services Committee that while there are already state and federal parity laws, not all plans are included and federal law could change under a new administration in Washington, D.C. Her bill would expand parity to self-funded plans, like the state's coverage for employees and what's offered to workers at the university system.

The health care benefits you receive through your insurance company for your mental health should be no less favorable than the benefits you receive for your physical health, Bishop said. You can see it at this moment in time as an important statement of our values.

About a dozen people spoke in support of the bill, saying they know friends, co-workers or patients who had struggled to get their health insurance to cover their mental health needs. No one opposed it.

Crawford said she hasnt been able to see a therapist for a year to get treatment for her bipolar disorder, even though it was recommended by her psychiatrist. Her request was denied by a doctor who never met her. Shes now covered under her wifes insurance, at an extra $400 a month, and will be able to see a therapist.

The committee took no action Wednesday.
HELENA  Child survivors of sexual abuse and their parents urged legislators to support a bill that would encourage schools to provide sexual abuse awareness education in elementary schools.

House Bill 298 would require the Office of Public Instruction, in coordination with the Department of Public Health and Human Services as well as experts on childhood trauma, to develop sample policies, education plans and related materials that school districts could use to teach kids about safe touch and let them know it is safe to tell teachers or other staff about abuse. The program also would include training for school employees about the signs of sexual abuse and about what their responsibilities are as mandatory reporters under state law.

The bill has been called Taras Law, recognizing a Hamilton abuse survivor who has rallied support for the proposal. It has been known as Erins Law or Jennas Law in at least 26 other states where similar legislation passed.

Kirsten Schmitt of Emmas House in Hamilton said it is common for children not to be sure who to talk to about their abuse or even how to speak about it. As a result, she pointed to national studies that show 1-in-10 victims never talk about their experience and only 30 percent of cases are ultimately reported.

When children are not educated about keeping their own bodies safe, they have no means to communicate what happened to them, she said. We teach them about fire safety, active shooter safety, drug safety, but we dont talk about personal boundaries.

Schmitt said the handful of Childrens Advocacy Centers in Montana interviewed 704 children about reported abuse in the first half of 2016, 40 percent of whom were boys. She noted that 98 percent of them knew their offender, who was a member of their family about half the time. More than 1,200 kids were served in 2015 and 865 in 2014.

Among the survivors to testify was a Helena sixth-grader.

I was secretly abused by my father, she said, reading from handwritten notes on ruled paper. It wouldve been nice to know I couldve talked to my really good teacher about what was going on at homeKids would be less scared to tell the truth if they know theyd be heard.

Her mother said the programs emphasis on training for teachers and administrators is just as important, not only to better identify potential victims sooner but to make sure they are not unintentionally triggering memories of the trauma. She described an incident in which one of her daughters teachers, in a humorous attempt to punish kids for not cleaning desks, told her to get on her knees" and then bow. She said he became upset when she refused.

Other children described being bullied by their peers when details of their abuse became public. They said they ultimately had to move to another town because school administrators told their parents they had no authority to address the situation or talk to kids about sexual abuse.

Another parent, holding the hand of her young daughter as she testified, said they were lucky to be in a district where teachers and staff worked with them to manage the anger issues that are the result of the abuse. She noted, however, that not all schools have had the same training and might instead punish victims because they do not understand the reasons they are acting out, as they did, too, before learning what had happened.

Rep. Edward Greef, R-Florence, said his bill is an important first step in providing protections for kids and forcing a more open community dialogue about an issue most would rather not have to talk about.

This bill is a great starting point, he said. The intent of the bill is to create policy for awareness, prevention, response and reporting. This bill will do that.

The Legislative Fiscal Division estimated it would take about $190,000 a year over four years to develop the program and distribute materials to all of the states 306 elementary districts, assuming they all choose to participate.

No action was taken on the bill Wednesday.
Governor Steve Bullocks request to the current Legislature to expand and upgrade the 65-year-old Montana Historical Society facility has been misrepresented by some as unneeded pork. This characterization is both wrong and ridiculous. Fortunately, however, members of both political parties recognize the real and critical need to care for and provide access to priceless collections belonging to the people of Montana and provide economic development ongoing  jobs during construction and development of enhanced tourism dollars in the future.

Montana Territory was created by the signature of President Abraham Lincoln in 1864. The Montana Historical Society was created the following year by one of the first acts of our first Territorial Legislature. It is the second oldest state historical society west of the Mississippi. That fact, and that it was prominently housed in our state Capitol building after its completion in 1901, shows the deep respect for Montanas history of our states early citizens. It is a respect we believe is still shared by Montana citizens of today.

It was 1949 when Governor John Bonner, with support of the Sons and Daughters of the Montana Pioneers and the states veterans' organizations, persuaded the Legislature to put the final funding in place for the Veterans and Pioneers Memorial Building, the current home of the Montana Historical Society. Now this 65-year-old facility is outdated and in constant need of repair. The ability to provide appropriate environmental conditions for important artifacts, irreplaceable works of art and archival material gets more difficult with each passing year. Exhibition and research space is severely restricted. The need for the proposed Historical Society Heritage Center project is real and indisputable.

Sadly Montanas Heritage Center has been rejected by the last five legislatures, last session by only one vote. Surrounding states have invested in their heritage facilities and are reaping the benefits. A recent study by the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of Montana estimated the Montana Heritage Center would have a comparable economic impact on Montana, generating an additional 78,000 history-related tourist visits each year, with spending by these visitors of $7.5 million. Not only is the investment in safeguarding and showcasing Montanas history necessary, it is an investment with a real economic return. Montana has a powerful opportunity to invest in sustained economic development in a vital driver of Montanas economy  tourism now and into the future.

The Montanas Historical Society has been dubbed the Smithsonian of the West. Its collections have become even more historically significant, complete and valuable over time. Montana can do a far better job with our priceless historical assets than it is doing. It is therefore very important to contact your state senators and representatives, and strongly direct them to vote for the Montana Heritage Center.

More than any other project it will serve our sense of pride in our shared Montana heritage. It will address the extreme and pressing need for improved conditions. It will bring untapped rewards from the resource of our history. Our ancestors, men and women, immigrants and Native Americans, rich and poor, progressives and conservatives, all made Montana history together. Our history is our unifying and common bond. We share it equally and together. We urge you to direct our Legislature to meld our Montana pride of heritage with economic development.

Just as our parents and grandparents made their commitment and investment in Montana history, it is now our turn to pass on to our children and grandchildren what was passed on to us.
The Crazy Mountain Stockgrowers Association is a non-profit, grassroots membership organization in Sweet Grass County, Montana, that works on behalf of our cattle ranching families. Were deeply committed to caring for the land, livestock and rural lifestyle that makes Montana a great place for all of us. Were also school board members, volunteer firefighters, community business owners, sportsman, cowboys, professionals, volunteers, recreationists and parents to the next generation of Montanans who love this land.

Were firmly rooted and committed to the future of our rural communities and these beautiful landscapes. Because of that, we are very concerned with some of the tactics the U.S. Forest Service is currently promoting to increase access to public land in the Crazy Mountains. If the Forest Service feels they have claim to a public easement, and the public is being denied that access, then we encourage the USFS to go through proper legal channels to settle that claim.

If an easement is proven to exist, we encourage our members to respect and honor that easement. However, if an easement does not exist or is not proven in court, we firmly support the choice of a landowner in exercising his or her private property rights.

CMSGA finds it disappointing that the USFS, in order to gain more access, is encouraging its employees and the public to compromise their own integrity by trespassing on private property. This only further divides the non-landowner and landowner citizens the Forest Service is supposed to be serving. Furthermore, this has the prospect of leading to hostile encounters between landowners and the public and is contrary to prior Agency advice, as well as the Montana Access Guide.

The clashing of personalities and strife between public land users, government agencies, and private landowners jeopardizes the future of our state and communities. CMSGA believes that being respectful, courteous and law-abiding is imperative when dealing with these issues. We encourage the U.S. Forest Service to adopt the same approach.

-- Nathan Anderson of Melville, president of the Crazy Mountain Stockgrowers Association, on behalf of the association's Board of Directors.
The Trump wall is estimated to cost $12 billion to $13 billion. Why pays for it? Not a billionaire who pays no taxes and brags about it.

An intelligent president could do much good with those kind of bucks. Chicago is a killing field because good people can't find a job and have to join gangs and do what gangs do. It could be used to work with Mexicans whose lives are controlled by the drug cartels.

The Berlin Wall didn't work and neither will the Trump wall. It will only breed hatred towards the people on the good side of the wall. It isn't human, nor does it meet the demands of religious groups and common sense. Shame on you, Donald Trump!

 Randall Morey, Missoula
Twice in one day, Senator Steve Daines has disgraced Montana.

School choice does not help the budget of public schools in our cities and towns, and it offers nothing whatsoever for public education in our rural areas, where there will never be charter schools to offer choice. But Daines chose to back a major campaign contributor over the best interests of our citizens when he voted for Betsy deVos.

Later the same day, he played toady to authoritarian party powers, helping to silence open, honest debate, with the party-line vote to silence Senator Elizabeth Warren. Her out of bounds testimony? Reading letters written by Senator Ted Kennedy and by Coretta Scott King, which had been considered as testimony by earlier Senate committee hearings.

If Steve Daines and the party in power are so genuine in their adherence to Senate rules, why didnt those same rules compel them to allow Supreme Court nomination hearings last year, as provided for by the Constitution?

This is a sad day for Montanas representation in our nations capital. Steve Daines has disgraced our state by putting wealthy campaign donors ahead of Montanas school children, and by taking part in ham-fisted authoritarian practices more at home in the Kremlin or the 1930s Reichstag than in a 21st-century democracy.

 Tod Trimble, Stevensville
MISSOULA  Mo Essen called Sen. Elizabeth Warren's office on Wednesday to apologize.

Essen, from Missoula, said Republican Montana Sen. Steve Daines' silencing of Warren on the Senate floor Tuesday was uncalled for.

Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, was reading a letter that civil rights leader Coretta Scott King wrote in 1986 protesting Jeff Sessions' nomination as a federal judge. At the time, he was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. King argued that Sessions had used his political power "to intimidate and chill" black voters; testimony to the same effect eventually led to his nomination being withdrawn.

Three decades later and Sen. Sessions has been nominated for U.S. attorney general.

On Wednesday night, the Senate voted to confirm Sessions, 52-47.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., interrupted Warren on Tuesday, saying she was out of order according to a rarely used Senate rule that states a senator cannot impugn the motives or conduct of another senator, "directly or indirectly."

Daines, who was presiding over the Senate on Tuesday, agreed with McConnell, saying, "The senator will take her seat."

On Wednesday afternoon, Essen and about 30 others joined Missoula Rises at Daines' Missoula office to read King's letter aloud. A different woman read each paragraph, with several men standing by in silent support.

Daines staffers told the crowd, which was crammed into the small lobby, not to take photos or video due to sensitive information in the office. The crowd asked the staffers if they would step outside to listen to them. Staffers said they would prefer not to.

So everyone stayed inside, and the protesters took photos and video anyway.

"Our message to Senator Daines is we are extremely disappointed in his ability to listen to his constituents, to have any dialogue with his constituents," said Erin Erickson of Missoula Rises. "He's essentially shutting us out, and to see him on the national stage shutting down a fellow senator is something we cannot ignore."

Daines' silencing of Warren came just hours after he was the final senator to cast a vote for billionaire and school choice and voucher advocate Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education. His vote brought it to a tie, with Vice President Mike Pence breaking the tie to confirm DeVos. Montana Sen. Jon Tester joined his fellow Democrats and two Republican senators in the vote against DeVos.

The group asked Daines' staffers for a conversation with the senator, "not a form letter."

"He doesn't need to agree with us, but we need a dialogue," Erickson said.

***

Warren appealed Daines' ruling, but it was upheld by the Republican-majority Senate. It silenced her for the rest of Sessions' confirmation process.

Immediately after, Warren took to social media, live-streaming herself reading King's letter outside Senate chambers after she was silenced.

McConnell's comments  particularly "Nevertheless, she persisted"  became a rallying cry for opponents. The incident also sparked trending hashtags on Twitter, #ShePersisted and #LetLizSpeak, criticizing Republicans for silencing Warren. Critics were further enraged when on Wednesday, several Democrat senators  all men  read aloud from the same letter, without interruption.

"That's why we're letting women speak today," Erickson said of the Missoula rally. "It feels like an affront to women in positions of power."

On Wednesday morning, Daines posted a clip of the incident on his Facebook page, writing "Last night the U.S. Senate chose civility over inappropriate behavior by Senator Elizabeth Warren. As you know the U.S. Senate is the world's greatest deliberative body and we should be able to have civilized debate."
HELENA  Dozens of nurses have emailed the chairman of a committee that tabled a bill making it a felony to assault health care workers and first responders, asking him to revive the legislation.

"I am a nurse that has been attacked on the job multiple times. Nothing was done because the police state that 'the charges won't stick,'" wrote Ryan Carroll, a registered nurse. "I feel that I should not have to worry about being hurt by my patients and they can get away with it. If you were attacked on your job, it would be a different story."

House Bill 268, carried by James O'Hara, R-Fort Benton, was tabled in the House Judiciary Committee on Feb. 1 after a motion by Rep. Theresa Manzella, R-Hamilton, passed on a 12-7 vote.

When the bill was first heard by the committee, more than 100 nurses came to the Capitol to support it, filling the hearing room and an overflow room. Nurses again gathered Wednesday for Montana Nurses Association Legislative Day and to lobby lawmakers to bring the bill out of committee.

On Feb. 1, Manzella told the committee that Montana already has laws against assault, but nurses aren't using those avenues. She cited testimony provided at the bill hearing that in one year there were 2,155 workers compensation claims paid to nurses hurt on the job but no coinciding police reports.

"I really think that nurses need to provide us with the necessary information we need to expose the holes in the system, should there be holes," she said. "We may have a problem we need to address, but they're not giving us what we need to address it."

At the bill hearing, two nurses testified they were assaulted by patients and reported it to police, but the assailant only received a citation. Other nurses said they did not report assaults because they felt nothing would happen as a result.

Rep. Dale Mortensen, R-Billings, said before voting to table the bill that a felony conviction on a person's record could destroy their life. As a former police officer, Mortensen was covered under state laws that make it a felony to assault law enforcement.

"If I charged every person that shoved me or spit on me or anything like that while I was making an arrest for a misdemeanor offense and I charged them with a felony, I guarantee you half of my jurisdiction where I used to work would probably still be in prison," he said.

Dozens of nurses who wrote letters to Rep. Alan Doane, R-Bloomfield, the committee chair, requesting him to revive the bill said it was necessary to protect their safety. They shared stories of those who were attacked while working. Doane on Thursday said a member of the committee could bring a motion to untable the bill; the motion would require a majority vote by the committee to pass.

"I have filed charges against these individuals, and nothing happens," wrote nurse Jaala Wickman. "When they return, they know they can continue to be violent, to assault myself and others. I was once attacked by a patient who punched me in the head twice before another nurse could pull the patient off me. Nothing happened to that patient."

Vicky Byrd, executive director of the Montana Nurses Association, said her group will work to encourage nurses to report more assaults but also said fault shouldn't be placed with them.

"You can't blame the nurse," Byrd said. "She's traumatized. You can't blame the victim. We have to get away from that way of thinking."
Civil #: 17-000093

Special Execution

Nationwide Advantage Mortgage Company

VS.

Brittany N. Genung And Roberto Alfonso Mendoza, Wife And Husband, And Any And All Unknown Parties In Possession Of The Real Estate Located At 1419 1st Ave., Muscatine, Iowa,

As a result of the judgment rendered in the above referenced court case, an execution was issued by the court to the Sheriff of this county. The execution ordered the sale of defendant(s) Real Estate Described Below. To satisfy the judgment. The property to be sold is

Lot 14, in Block 18, of Park Place Addition to the City of Muscatine, in Muscatine County, Iowa (Locally known as 1419 1st Ave., Muscatine, Iowa)

Property Address: 1419 1st Ave., Muscatine, Iowa 52761

The described property will be offered for sale at public auction for cash only as follows:

Sale Date: 03/14/2017

Sale Time: 9:30 am

Place of Sale: Muscatine County Jail Lobby, 400 Walnut Street, Muscatine, IA 52761

This sale not subject to redemption.

Property exemption: Certain money or property may be exempt. Contact your attorney promptly to review specific provisions of the law and file appropriate notice, if applicable.

Judgment Amount: $68,337.79

Costs: $2,611.25

Accruing Costs: Plus

Interest: $1,123.81

Sheriffs Fees: Pending

Date: 01/26/2017

Attorney:

David R. Elkin

315 East 5th St., Ste. 5

Des Moines, IA 50309

(515)244-3188

C.J. Ryan

Muscatine County Sheriff

Melissa Hurlbut

Civil Deputy
Civil #: 17-000052

Special Execution

Hills Bank And Trust Company

VS.

Paul L. Stagg, Unknown Spouse Of Paul L. Stagg, And United States Of America-Internal Revenue Service,

As a result of the judgment rendered in the above referenced court case, an execution was issued by the court to the Sheriff of this county. The execution ordered the sale of defendant(s) Real Estate Described Below. To satisfy the judgment. The property to be sold is

Lot 7, in Block 1, of Langley's 1st Addition to West Liberty, Muscatine County, Iowa (Locally Known As 520 N. Columbus St, West Liberty IA).

Property Address: 520 N. Columbus St., West Liberty, IA 52776

The described property will be offered for sale at public auction for cash only as follows:

Sale Date: 03/14/2017

Sale Time: 9:30 am

Place of Sale: Muscatine County Jail Lobby, 400 Walnut Street, Muscatine, IA 52761

Redemption: 135-Day Redemption for the United States of America-Internal Revenue Service Only.

Property exemption: Certain money or property may be exempt. Contact your attorney promptly to review specific provisions of the law and file appropriate notice, if applicable.

Judgment Amount: $72,118.17

Costs: $4,186.29

Accruing Costs: Plus

Interest: $1,921.25

Sheriffs Fees: Pending

Date: 01/26/2017

Attorney:

Kevin B. Nelson

131 Main St./PO Box 160

Hills, IA 52235

(319)679-5330

C.J. Ryan

Muscatine County Sheriff

Melissa Hurlbut

Civil Deputy
MUSCATINE, Iowa  A Muscatine High School graduate is looking forward to being near his hometown as he records his first comedy album Saturday in Iowa City.

Mike Bridenstine, 37, has been doing stand-up comedy since 2002, and has been based in Los Angeles since late 2007. When deciding where to record, Bridenstine said The Mill in Iowa City felt like the right place, since he has memories of his grandfather playing in a bluegrass band there.

"But whats nice about it is since a lot of people I went to high school with live in Muscatine still or in Cedar Rapids and stuff, I kind of thought it would be a good location for people to go to so I could see a lot of my old high school friends too," he said.

His comedy, Bridenstine said, will not contain a lot of pop-culture or political references, but he expects Muscatine residents will recognize some of the stories he tells.

"Its like 90 percent self-deprecating stories and things that Im embarrassed about," he said.

When he did a stand-up routine on Comedy Central a few years ago, Bridenstine said he told almost all Muscatine stories, and enjoyed hearing from people on Facebook telling him they remembered some of them.

"Or telling me what I got wrong," he said with a laugh.

Writing jokes takes "trial and error," Bridenstine said, and it's a challenge to find an individual voice among many comedians. To other comedians, especially those just starting out, Bridenstine said his advice would be to keep trying.

"Theres a million different right answers or everybody would be doing the same thing," he said. "You've got to be really patient and youve got to be really driven to do this because its hard."

Bridenstine said he has seen stand-up comedy evolve, becoming more honest and story-oriented.

"I think that people should just go up and be as honest as they can and find things that are true to them," he said.

As he looks forward to recording his first album, Bridenstine said he felt this was the time, though it may be the last time he performs some of these jokes.

"I think everybody who does stand-up wants to put out their album," he said. "One thing is it means Im done with all of those jokes, so its kind of like a swan song for 14 years worth of jokes."

Bridenstine said he hopes Muscatine residents will turn out to see him perform, and he is excited to be performing so close to home.

"I got some of the best advice from a comedian named Doug Stanhope," Bridenstine said. "He said just go be funny, and if you're funny good stuff will happen.'"
COLUMBUS JUNCTION, Iowa  New Louisa County Supervisor Brad Quigley is hoping a few town hall visits will help lead to a large county population.

Quigley, who was elected in November to his first term on the board, told the council Wednesday that the visits would be an opportunity to introduce himself and also push his effort to bring more families into the county.

We need to hear if we need to be working with you on anything. We want to grow the county, he told the council, adding he had the support of supervisors Chris Ball and Randy Griffin.

We are there if you need anything, he said.

Im going to talk to all the city councils and say the same thing, he said.

City officials thanked Quigley for attending the meeting, but did not suggest any future projects that could include both the county and the city.

Columbus Junction attorney Steve Sents however did present a request that was specifically tied to an ongoing rural project. Sents said the proposed D&W Subdivision east of Columbus Junction was possibly within one mile of the city, which under Iowa law meant the city could require it to meet city subdivision specifications.

Sents asked the council to approve a resolution waiving those specifications. He said the proposed subdivision would still need county approval, but the citys waiver would remove that potential step.

The council agreed and approved the waiver resolution.

The areas Welsh community will also have an opportunity to celebrate their ancestral homes patron saint, St David. The council approved a parade on Feb. 25 at 1 p.m.

The council also agreed to hold a public hearing on its proposed Fiscal Year 2018 budget on Mar. 8. Officials said they would meet next week to work on the proposal.
Louisa County Conference Board have approved a draft fiscal year 2018 budget for the Louisa County Assessors Office that slightly decreases spending.

According to the proposal, the $358,736 spending budgeted for fiscal year 2018 would be less than this years expenses of $361,952. The projected tax levy of around $0.53 per $1,000 taxable valuation, lower than this years $0.58 per $1,000 rate.

The board will hold a public hearing on the budget at 4:30 p.m. Feb. 28. Final action by the board is expected after the public hearing.

Assessor Cathy Smith told board members, which includes mayors, county supervisors and representatives of local school boards, that the budget included funding for a deputy assessor and to fill an existing, vacant position that would include field appraising.

Smith said the deputy assessor, which had been an identified position in some previous assessor office administrations, would fill an important need.

If I couldnt be in the office, (administration) would fall under the auditor, she said, adding that officer already has a heavy work load.

Smith said a current employee has the necessary experience, but would need to complete a deputy assessor exam before being eligible. Board members agreed to the move, which would include a salary increase once the employee qualified. Smith said she set a May 1 target date for the new position.

She also said the proposed budget included funds for a new vehicle to replace a current 12-year-old unit with more than 155,000 miles.

Board members also agreed to include an $8,000 annual set-aside to fund a future aerial survey of the county. Smith said the estimated cost for the survey was around $48,000, with a projected flight in 2023.

Smith said the budget also funds a software contract with Vanguard.

In final action, the board approved the re-appointment of Scott Heater to a six-year term on the Louisa County Board of Review.
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 []
A 65-Year-Old man on Wednesday afternoon died inside a Kenya Airways plane ten minutes before take off.

The national carrier was forced to cancel the flight that was to depart for Mombasa.

The unidentified man was in the company of his family in the 1.40 pm KQ 606 flight.

According to passengers, the man appeared unwell upon boarding and had to be assisted by staff and ground crew. He died at about 1.30pm.

Police reported to the scene and moved the body from the plane.

The incident left dozens of passengers stranded at the Transit Lounge at the JKIA.

Heres a video courtesy of The Star.


In a bid to mobilize more youth to register as voters, President Uhuru Kenyatta met a host of Kenyas youthful entertainers at Statehouse on Wednesday.

The entertainers included popular radio presenter Daniel Githinji Mwangi popularly known as Mbusii, gospel crooner Roy Smith Mwatia aka Rufftone and the award-winning FBI dance crew.

The President called on the youth to take an active role in the upcoming polls in order to elect leaders who care about their interests.

The youth make up about two-thirds of the Kenyan population and that means they have the power to put in office leaders who care about their interests. Kenyan youth have an obligation to register as voters so that they can participate in the upcoming polls. The present and the future of the country belongs to the youth and they should step up to take an active role, said the Head of State.

In the afternoon meet up with the entertainers, the president shared light moments with Mbusii and FBI  who taught the president how to pull off the dab.

Some pics:
Napa urologist Dr. James Hendricks, who had previously been prohibited from practicing medicine after testing positive for ingesting alcohol while on probation, is allowed to practice again.

According to a Feb. 3 order from the Medical Board of California, Hendricks remains on probation for two years and will undergo random drug screening and attend support group meetings and psychotherapy.

Hendricks is also prohibited from practicing medicine alone and from supervising physician assistants.

I think they made the right decision to allow him to practice again, Hendricks said in an interview Wednesday.

Im a good doctor. I had one positive test in three-and-a-half years. I dont think I should be kept out of practicing medicine for alcohol when alcohol is not an issue in my life.

Im human and I had one positive test, but Im a good person. My patients are my top priority.

In 2013, Hendricks was sentenced by the Medical Board of California to four years probation following a DUI charge from 2011.

His probation terms include abstaining completely from the use of alcohol, enrolling in an ethics course and undergoing therapy. During the probation period, Hendricks was able to continue to practice medicine, but would undergo random drug screenings and was not allowed to supervise physician assistants.

According to a Sept. 14, 2016 cease practice order from the Medical Board, Hendricks tested positive for drinking alcohol on Aug. 1.

After over three years of rigorous alcohol testing, I only recently had a few drinks when I was not on duty while on vacation, said Hendricks in a September phone interview.

Hendricks, formerly at Napa Valley Urology Associates, was issued his Physicians and Surgeons Certificate by the state Medical Board in September 1998.

On Wednesday, Hendricks said he isnt sure what his plans are.

I do want to say thank you to my patients for their patience, said the doctor.
YOUNTVILLE  Its pruning season in the vineyards, and at this years Napa County Pruning Contest the only thing sharper than the shears were the whetted skills of the contestants handling them.

Braving a steady downpour Wednesday afternoon, a record turnout of more than 100 contestants competed among the vineyard rows at Beringer Vineyards Gamble Ranch property for the 16th iteration of the annual contest.

This year is wet, said contestant Roberto Juarez, vineyard manager at Moulds Family Vineyard. We thought, Were not going to make it.

But by noon, the contest, hosted each year by the Napa Valley Grapegrowers and the Napa Valley Farmworker Foundation, was well under way, and Juarezs brother, Jesus Juarez, had already competed.

Sharing his time of just over two and a half minutes, Jesus Juarez said he felt confident in his work. I think its very good pruning, Juarez said. Very nice, clean. I think its good time.

He feels pretty comfortable, Roberto said of his brother, who in 2008 pruned his way to first place and has since taken second-, third- and fourth-place honors in various years.

Given five vines each to prune, contestants were accompanied in the vineyard by an official who timed their work. After the pruning concluded, judges would inspect the vines, docking points for things such as poor-quality cuts. Roberto estimated that, for each vine, a contestant would make around 20 cuts, for a total of close to 100 for the five vines. Officials noted the average contestants time fell between two and three minutes.

For the Juarez brothers, their years of practice in the vineyards of Napa is key. When you have practice, it automatically (comes) to your mind what youre going to do, Roberto said. So when you see the vine you know what youre going to do

And its easy, Jesus chimed in.

Jennifer Putnam, executive director of the Napa Valley Grapegrowers said, Pruning is the most important and the most under-recognized practice in the vineyard in general, because it sets the vine up for this growing season and the next.

The farmworkers who do the pruning, Putnam said, are also under-recognized, because they have to make very technical, strategic decisions and they need to have a high level of understanding and training and education to be able to do it.

A total of 104 contestants were split into two divisions, 86 in the mens division, and 18 in the womens. From the first round, eight would be chosen from each division and a semi-final round would follow to yield four final winners.

Contestants in the womens division  Guadalupe Avalos, Adrianna Cervantes and Celia Perez  sat at a table under a large tent that offered a respite from the rain. The trio said they had each already competed in the first round.

Avalos translated for Perez, who explained in Spanish that she felt the same excitement competing in this years event that she did in her pruning contest debut.

Excited, nervous and everything together, Avalos translated. Perez won first place in the womens division in 2014, its inaugural year.

Perez explained in Spanish why she had come for this years competition. Avalos translated: She (came) for first place.

And me, just the second, Cervantes said with a laugh, adding, Everybody comes to learn more. The (pruning) is different, so you learn more.

The trio agreed the rain in particular made the pruning different from their typical work and, thus, more difficult. Apart from clouding their glasses, the women said the rain dampened the branches, making clean cuts harder to achieve.

Despite the days challenges, Avalos said she considered herself lucky if only to get the additional experience. I already win, she said.
As he was signing edicts hurting one group after another over the past two weeks, it was only a matter of time before Donald Trump got around to hurting animals - already the most oppressed sentient beings on earth.

The animals' turn came last Friday- by taking down the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) site that reports on government regulation of roughly 9,000 animal handling facilities. These are laboratories, dog breeders, fur farms, circuses, zoos, and aquariums. The site is used every day by animal protection activists to monitor government enforcement of the 1966 Animal Welfare Act, the only effective federal law protecting animals.

Taking down the APHIS inspection site is a huge setback for animal protection. It will almost certainly lead to reduced government inspection of animal facilities and more animal suffering - a virtual repeal of the Animal Welfare Act.

Ironically, this oppressive act was launched by the same dark-of-night process as that of pulling more than 100,000 visas from thoroughly vetted Muslim immigrants one week earlier - no notice, no hearings, no due process, no public announcement.

The oppressive mindset doesn't really care who the victims are. Hopefully, the courts will.

Harold Kunitz

Walnut Creek
The Napa County District Attorneys Office reported on Tuesday that no charges will be filed against celebrity chef Michael Dominic Chiarello who was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence last fall.

Assistant District Attorney Paul Gero cited a lack of sufficient evidence.

Then 54-year-old Chiarello, a St. Helena resident and owner of Bottega in Yountville, had pulled his 2015 Porsche Boxster to the side of Silverado Trail, south of Yountville Cross Road, at 3:27 a.m. Nov. 2, when a California Highway Patrol officer stopped to check the vehicle out.

He was arrested and booked at the Napa County jail on suspicion of misdemeanor driving under the influence and possession of a controlled substance. Chiarello posted the $5,000 bail and was released from jail in less than three hours.

Chiarello immediately disputed the arrest allegations and, according to a spokesman, planned to challenge any charges filed against him.

Chiarello is a well-known chef who also owns Coqueta in San Francisco and has made numerous television appearances on Top Chef and Top Masters as well as hosting his own show Easy Entertaining with Michael Chiarello.

He also owns Chiarello Family Vineyards in St. Helena, where he was the founding chef of Tra Vigne restaurant in the 1980s.

This story has been modified from the original to reflect that Chiarello was already pulled over when law enforcement encountered him.
NSIB: Meth dealers arrested in Napa

Two suspected methamphetamine dealers were arrested following an undercover drug operation in Napa on Feb. 1, according to the Napa Special Investigations Bureau.

An undercover Napa County Sheriffs deputy bought methamphetamine from both Michael Dunne, 31, and his girlfriend, 21-year-old Angela Dongworth, also known as Taylor, NSIB officials said. Dunne was arrested on suspicion of selling methamphetamine and oxycodone during an arranged oxycodone sale with the deputy on Feb. 1, the bureau said.

Dongworth was arrested on suspicion of selling methamphetamine that same night while detectives were serving a search warrant on the couples home on the 2500 block of Butte Street. She was in possession of heroin, officials said.

Dunnes brother, 31-year-old Jason Dunne, was also arrested at the home on suspicion of having methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia as well as a probation violation. He was found hiding in the backyard under the detached hood of a car, officials said.

All three suspects were booked at the Napa County jail.
Marlon Wayans is an a Read more [...]
NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller welcomed the Moldovan President Igor Dodon to NATO headquarters on Tuesday (7 February 2017) for talks on the partnership between the Alliance and the Republic of Moldova. Ms Gottemoeller thanked Moldova for its contribution to NATOs KFOR peacekeeping mission, which also gives Moldovan troops valuable practical experience. She explained how the partnership between NATO and the Republic of Moldova helps improve peoples lives, for instance with training for almost 2,000 Moldovans in areas such as fighting corruption in the defence sector, border security and civil emergency planning.

The Alliance has spent 4.5 million euros on destroying pesticides, anti-personnel mines, surplus munitions and rocket fuel. The Deputy Secretary General said that NATO will open a new civilian Liaison Office in Chisinau this year to facilitate NATO support for the countrys reforms, as requested by the Moldovan government. She stressed that NATO fully respects Moldovas constitutional neutrality, as recognised in the Individual Partnership Action Plan.
The NATO Deputy Secretary General, Ms. Rose Gottemoeller, will meet with the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General (SRSG) for Children and Armed Conflict, Ms. Leila Zerrougui at the Palais dEgmont on Friday, 10 February 2017.

Ms. Gottemoeller together with Ms. Zerrougui will attend the International Conference on Children and Armed Conflict hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belgium at Palais dEgmont with the presence of Her Royal Highness Queen Mathilde of Belgium.

The Deputy Secretary General will deliver some remarks on that occasion which will be available on the NATO website after the event.

Still images of the event will be available on the NATO website.

Follow the Deputy Secretary General on Twitter (@Gottemoeller). Also follow us at @NATOPress
Experts in HIV, cancer and mental health highlighted Emorys leadership in disciplines of critical global importance at Tuesday's Inauguration Academic Symposium, titled "Health Challenges and Bold Opportunities."

In a brief introduction, President Claire E. Sterk said the symposium topic symbolizes what Emory stands for because it captures not just what we know in terms of content, but the way in which we care about the world and the way we care about people.

We make so many contributions, Sterk said. One of the areas in which we are extremely strong is health, in the way we work to make the world better, to make peoples lives better. We focus on improving access to care, removing health disparities, working to prevent diseases and to understand emerging disease.

Carlos del Rio, Hubert Professor and chair of the Department of Global Health at the Rollins School of Public Health and professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Emory School of Medicine, served as moderator for the symposium, held in Glenn Memorial Auditorium.

Panelists included Michel Sidibe, executive director of UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, and under-secretary-general of the United Nations; Deborah Bruner, associate director for mentorship, education and training at Winship Cancer Institute and professor in the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing and Emory School of Medicine; and Elaine Walker, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Emory College and director of Emorys Development and Mental Health Research Program.

An end to AIDS by 2030?

Introducing Sidibe, del Rio asked him to elaborate on what it will take to achieve the goal of ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030.

Just a few years back  when you were traveling anyplace in Africa, hospitals were full of people dying, and we never would have dreamed of the treatment that is now available, Sidibe said. He added that HIV/AIDS research and treatment changed when social and scientific movements moved HIV from an issue of you to an issue of all of us.

In large part because of breakthroughs pioneered at Emory, treatment of HIV progressed from taking more than a dozen pills a day to one a day and soon to one injection every four months, said Sidibe, who noted that those working to end the epidemic must continue to challenge paradigms in HIV treatment.

"The success stories are there. We have been able to reduce new infections, we have been able to reduce the mortality of this epidemic, but we still have a challenge. We know if we want to achieve this vision of ending this epidemic by 2030, we need to address more of the underlying causes, said Sidibe.

He cited education of HIV-positive mothers whose children are born free of HIV and who adhere to treatment to prevent transmission during breastfeeding; the need to address increasing infections among adolescent girls in developing countries who lack access to testing and treatment; and the importance of reaching at-risk populations, including men who have sex with men, drug users and sex workers.

In 35 years of fighting this epidemic, we still have 45 percent of people who dont know their status, Sidibe said. When we have 90 percent who know their status, we want 90 percent of those who are positive to be put on treatment. And 90 percent of those people who are put on treatment, we want to make sure we monitor their viral load.

The future of cancer treatment

Bruner presented Challenges in Cancer: Moonshots, Miracles and Myths.

For all the good news we have in cancer, there are still many, many challenges and here are just two. Things like better treatments in HIV have caused populations that used to have short life spans to now have longer life spans. That is the good news. The bad news is that, if you live long enough, you get your cancer, Bruner said.

Given that many cancers occur in patients age 50 and older, they are often managing multiple chronic diseases, and treatment costs can be prohibitive. In the case of new precision medicines, immunotherapy treatments and other miracle drugs, exorbitant costs may place those drugs out of reach for the small populations for whom the medicines are an option, Bruner said.

We have found immunotherapy drugs to treat a mutation in 10 percent of patients with lung cancer who would have died, but who were cured. That is amazing, miraculous, but only 10 percent of lung cancer patients have that mutation and only 10 percent of that 10 percent experience the miracle. In most cancers, we have not identified a mutation," she said.

Many new precision and immunotherapy medicines also have long lists of side effects. Asked Bruner, Would you trade nausea and vomiting for more time to live? Of course, but some of these drugs  can kill the patient, so you die from the drug, not the disease. And many side effects are long-term, persistent and terrible.

She emphasized the importance of changing our focus, saying, These side effects have gotten not enough attention. In addition, many of the drugs  are unbelievably costly, so we worry terribly about adherence and patients ability to take these drugs. We need to look at the person wrapped around that tumor.

Although Emory makes significant contributions in drug discovery and immunotherapy, Bruner feels that the university can also become a global leader in implementation science, interdisciplinary collaboration and comprehensive patient care.

Not only should we be doing all these things, but we could do something that no one else is doing. Not a penny of the moonshot is going for care and compassion. Almost all federal and drug dollars go for technology and gene sequencing and new drugs. We need them, they are important, they are miracles, but we need care and compassion, she said.

From heart to head

Walker focused on the global burden of mental illness and how addressing it will depend on a shift in research and attitudes surrounding mental illness and substance abuse.

Mental illness and substance-use disorders have become much more prominent in research and public health and epidemiology, and there is an increasing emphasis on morbidity rather than solely mortality of mental illness and substance-abuse disorders, Walker said.

We know that, globally, mental disorders, including mental illnesses and substance abuse disorders, account for 13 percent of the total disease burden, Walker said, adding that mental illness and substance abuse are often co-morbidities. As it turns out, mental and substance-abuse disorders are associated with a larger proportion of the global burden of health and disease than most communicable disorders.

The burden of mental illness and substance-abuse disorders is compounded by the stigma that people dealing with them often encounter, the lack of a cure and the early onset of many mental disorders.

Perhaps the most tragic aspect of mental illness is the fact that these disorders typically have their onset in adolescence or early adulthood. These are relatively early-onset disorders with relatively low mortality compared to other illnesses, but high disability because individuals are likely to live such a large portion of their lives with the illness, Walker said.

Mental illness in adolescence, though, presents the bold opportunity to identify at-risk youth as early as possible through both clinical channels and brain research into the prodromal period, the period before the onset of mental illness.

Emory is a partner in the North American Prodromal Longitudinal Study, a nationwide partnership between research universities and organizations dedicated to predicting the onset of psychotic disorders, particularly schizophrenia, and learning more about the underlying brain changes leading to their onset.

We need to intensify research on adolescent brain development," Walker said. "Twenty years ago, it was not uncommon to hear it said that there does not seem to be much change in the human brain beyond early childhood. We now know, in fact, that adolescence appears to be one of the most profound periods of brain development in the human lifespan. The brain is being reconfigured, setting the stage for new abilities and new capacities, but unfortunately also setting the stage for the possible onset of mental disorders."

Honoring a global health champion

At the conclusion of the program, Sterk presented Sidibe with the first Emory Presidents Medal of her tenure for his more than 30 years in public service, including service to UNAIDS and UNICEF and advancing health in his native Mali, where he worked on behalf of the nomadic Tuareg people.

I dont know if I deserve it, but I will accept it in the names of people who are not in the room, people who we fight to give a voice to and to give them a possibility to have a better life, Sidibe said.
When Emory PhD student Fahamu Pecou was asked by the Emory Alumni Association to create a work of art commemorating the inauguration of President Claire E. Sterk, he approached the challenge as both an artist and a scholar.

First, Pecou did his research, sitting down in conversation with Sterk to discover more about her life and work. The more he learned about the internationally acclaimed public health researcher and academic leader, the more he realized how much they had in common.

Though her work is rooted in the sciences and mine in the humanities, there was not very much difference in our approach, observed Pecou, a fast-rising visual artist and scholar whose own bold work has been featured in private and public collections around the world.

She shares my passion for engaging with communities outside of the academy. Similarly, she shares a commitment to doing the work  to make meaningful and impactful contributions to society informed by in-depth scholarly inquiry, he said.

Next, Pecou dove into a deep exploration of Emorys symbolism and iconography. Once his scholarly research was complete, the artist was moved to interpret.

The resulting artwork, Emerge, was unveiled Tuesday night before an appreciative crowd at a reception hosted by the alumni association at the Michael C. Carlos Museum.

The large acrylic painting depicts a female figure in a white gown rising off the ground, as if frozen mid-leap  an image inspired by The Phoenix, the name of one of Emorys original student journals.

And so the imagery of a phoenix, rising and reborn, would inform the painting.

In the flowing folds of her gown, Pecou saw wings.

Forward momentum

Arms thrown back, toes pointed in takeoff, chin thrust triumphantly skyward, the figure projects a powerful sense of forward momentum  appropriate for the bold vision of Emorys next president, Pecou thought.

In conversations with Sterk, one of the things that we talked about was the importance of Emory not as an island, but contributing to and engaging with Atlanta, he noted. When we think of Atlanta, we think of the phoenix  a city born out of its own ashes. A city of transcendence and transformation.

The final work also reflects Emory colors: The figure is set against a deep blue sky and bounded by a gold-leaf frame; above her floats a glowing golden egg, representing what is yet to come.

Once the painting was unveiled, Sterk praised it as a wonderful piece of art, adding that it will be displayed in a prominent place, where every day we can be reminded of its message.

This is just an incredible moment for Emory, she said. I think what Fahamus art shows us is how much is at stake, how much potential that we have here.

Creativity is a key feature of what Emory stands for, in the sense of ambition, and where we want to go, Sterk said. We want to be creative about it, we want to be bold about it, we want to push the boundaries.

Smiling, Sterk observed that the female figures feet have already left the Earth, propelled skyward. Like the figure, Emory is already off the ground and moving forward, Sterk said. And we will do so with grace and determination.

The transformative power of art

For Pecou, the painting has come to embody themes of inclusion and diversity, an opportunity to think about the university beyond the vocabulary of images that have existed, signifying a shift, a change of perspective.

Speaking before the crowd, the artist-scholar shared a bit of his own perspective, too, describing how he had learned as an undergraduate that art had the power to transform us  a revelation he likened to discovering a superpower.

I began to see that through art I could affect change both in and around me, he said. I decided then that making pretty pictures was not enough. I set out to make work that would do something, be a catalyst for change.

Since then, his career has exploded, with exhibits in top international and national galleries, including the High Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia (MOCA), and public lectures and speaking engagements nationwide.

Last year, one of Pecous paintings was acquired by the Smithsonian National Museum of African American Art and Culture in Washington, D.C. Hes also completing a series of large-scale art installations at four Atlanta MARTA stations.

It was after establishing the foundations of a successful art career that Pecou found his way to graduate studies at Emorys Institute of the Liberal Arts and Laney Graduate School, drawn by a yearning to be challenged in an intellectual environment.

Ultimately, deepening my pool of knowledge would substantiate my work and me, he said. Very early on, I began to see my experience as a scholar not as a complement to my practice  or vice versa  but rather, the two sides became inextricable.

Scholarship enriches artistic vision

For Pecou, scholarship became not so much an exercise in how much do you know, but rather the challenge of what can you do with what you know?

As a result, my work ceased to be merely substantiated by the ideas I was introduced to, and instead became an expression  an activation  of those very ideas. Not just in theory, but in voice, in form and function.

While at Emory, Pecou said hes gained a deeper sense of purpose, both for himself and his artwork.

What became most apparent to me is the idea of function, he said. What is scholarship without action? What is a pursuit of knowledge that fails to serve our fellow man? How can we, as scholars, use our knowledge for the good of all?

Pecou emphasized that it is with pride and honor that he created the new artwork in celebration of Sterks vision.

As the Emory community embarks on a new dawn, I hope this piece will serve as a reminder and source of inspiration, he said.

May it remind us that knowing is only half the battle. Emorys symbols, the torch and bugle, signify the search and sharing of knowledge. It is my hope that so-armed, we will now be inspired to leap boldly forward, to act on what we know and to use our collective superpowers to make our world better for all humanity.
14:12

A section of AIADMK MLAs owing allegiance to party General Secretary V K Sasikala today dismissed media reports and allegations from the Panneerselvam camp that they were being "detained" at a resort near Chennai and asserted that they were "free".



VC Arukutty, MLA from Kavundampalayam in Coimbatore and a supporter of revolting Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, alleged that the MLAs were "detained" and "not reachable."



"The MLAs are not reachable. They have been detained. They are legislators elected by people, so release them. Let them go and meet people," he told reporters in Chennai.



However, the MLAs owing allegiance to Sasikala rejected the allegations. "We are free. We are keenly awaiting Governor's invitation (to Sasikala to form government). We are not children to be detained or abducted as is being reported in a section of media," Perundurai MLA ND Venkadachalam said.



Some of the MLAs, including former ministers like himself, were made to stay put at one place to move swiftly in case there was a need in the wake of an invitation from the Governor, he told a TV channel. Kattumannarkoil MLA N Murugumaran said he was staying at the resort near here on his own volition and that he was paying for the expenses from his own pocket.



"There is no intimidation, no abduction, no pressure. These are all cooked up charges," he said. While some of the MLAs were staying there, others were residing at places of their choice, he said. Responding to reports that most of the MLAs were not reachable on the phone, he said he had switched off his mobile phone to avoid "unnecessary calls," and to avoid any kind of speculations and "wrong news."



Gudiyatham MLA Jayanti Padmanabhan also said she was not being detained as was being made out and lashed out at Panneerselvam. Former Minister and senior party leader B Valarmathi insisted that the MLAs were free and alleged they were being "intimidated" by those close to Panneerselvam.



"The MLAs are free. They are being intimidated by Panneerselvam's relatives over phone and that is why they have switched off their mobile phones," she said.





MAGE: AIADMK general secretary V K Sasikala hands over a letter presumably containing the names of MLAs who elected her as the legislature party leader to Tamil Nadu Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao at Raj Bhawan in Chennai on Thursday. Photograph: @AIADMKOfficial/ Twitter


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Ten months into Japan's power market shake-up aimed at boosting choice and energy security, more than 2.5 million retail electricity users switched to new power providers, data from an agency monitoring use of the national grid shows. More than half of the switches were in the home turf of Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), operator of the wrecked Fukushima power station, the monthly data by the national grid monitor Organization for Cross-regional Coordination of Transmission Operators, Japan (OCCTO) shows. Hundreds of companies became eligible from April 2016 to sell power in Japan's $71 billion retail market for electricity, a challenge to Japan's former monopoly utilities. The following table shows the number of switches to new power providers made by retail power users in each area of the former monopolies. The switches are counted by 1,000s. The percentages are the ratio of the number of switched accounts to each utility's total retail power accounts. Utility Switch % of total Hokkaido Electric 129.2 4.7 Tohoku Electric 84.7 1.5 Tepco 1,443.8 6.3 Chubu Electric 202.8 2.7 Hokuriku Electric 12.3 1.0 Kansai Electric 517.9 5.1 Chugoku Electric 16.6 0.5 Shikoku Electric 21.0 1.1 Kyushu Electric 146.2 2.3 Okinawa Electric - 0% Total 2,574.5 4.1% (Source: OCCTO, industry data) REUTERS CJ RAI0942 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0400-1142696.Xml
Two days after China again blocked an attempt to ban Jaish-e-Mohamed chief Masood Azhar in the UN, an influential Chinese daily said on Thursday that India, "under the defence of its counter-terrorism crusade", could step up military pressure on Pakistan, which would risk escalating tensions between the two arch-rivals. Defending China's latest veto to have Pakistani terrorist Masood Azhar -- mastermind of the Pathankot airbase terror attack last year -- declared as an international terrorist, the Global Times said that India had its own reasons to push against the militant. "India has its own reasons to have Azhar listed as a terrorist. However, observers are also worried that under the defence of the counter-terrorism crusade, India can increase its military pressure on Pakistan, thus risking escalating tensions between the two countries," it said. The editorial in the newspaper lamented that Indian media accused China of adopting double standard because Beijing had rejected India's proposal to add Azhar to the UN list of international terrorists. It said Beijing did so because India failed to provide concrete evidence against Azhar. On Tuesday, China blocked a US proposal to get Azhar listed as an international terrorist. Last year, Beijing thrice rejected India's proposal for the same, frustrating New Delhi. The issue is one of the irritants in the India-China relationship. However, the editorial said China was willing to work with India to combat terrorism, but peace and stability will always be its priority "The India-Pakistan feud has been a thorny issue in South Asia for a long time and China is caught in the middle, given geographic and geopolitical proximities to the two." "The failure to bring the two on the path to peace underscores their different domestic and diplomatic trajectories. Any action the UN takes should assist the peace process rather than escalate tensions between the two." "However, observers are also worried that under the defence of the counterterrorism crusade, India can increase its military pressure on Pakistan, thus risking escalating tensions between the two countries. "Chinese analysts said they believe India did not provide enough evidence to support its proposals, as evidence is required not only because of the need to maintain the UN's authority, but also because of the complexities in the region. "What is troublesome is some Indian media view China with prejudice and overly interpret China's moves, especially after China and Pakistan hastened the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project. "As a responsible power, China must help maintain regional order. Any India-Pakistan confrontation may bring other players into the region, which would complicate the situation." "China supports India's efforts at curbing terrorism. India can work more to bring all the parties to reach a consensus over the issue, instead of only blaming China for its failed attempts." "China is aware that the terrorism issue is a burning one, and has been trying to work with all stakeholders to crack down on terrorists in the region. China has also set up anti-terror mechanisms with India in this regard. In the future, China will enhance anti-terror cooperation with India, but regional peace and stability will always be a priority," it wrote. --IANS gsh/rn ( 534 Words) 2017-02-09-20:54:06 (IANS)
India has handed over a request for the extradition of liquor baron Vijay Mallya to the British High Commission here, the Ministry of External Affairs on Thursday said. "We have today handed over the request for extradition of Vijay Mallya as received from the CBI to the UK High Commission in New Delhi. We have requested the UK side to extradite him to face trial in India," said Vikas Swarup, the official spokesperson of the ministry. --IANS rs/rn ( 90 Words) 2017-02-09-17:28:06 (IANS)
The censor board has refused to clear a feature film based on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's development agenda. One of the grounds cited is the ongoing assembly elections in five states. The producer of the medium-budget film, "Modi ka Gaon", Suresh Jha, who has co-directed it with Tushar A. Goel, is crying foul and charged the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) with discriminating against a movie due for release on Friday. "Censor board officials informed us they found the film objectionable on three main counts. There is no way I can release it tomorrow (Friday). So I am considering moving the court," Jha told IANS. "They have stipulated conditions which are so difficult to comply with that I might as well forget about releasing the film. "The golden solution: 'Get a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and Election Commission... I think this must be the first time the PMO or EC are expected to preview a film and clear it before the CBFC certifies it," Jha said. The CBFC said: "Submit NOC from PMO regarding Prime Minister's portrayal/references through a character in the film resembles... (The film portrays development plans, references to Pakistan's Uri attack, news and speeches related to the PM)." It has also sought NOC from the EC "as elections are going on in various parts of the country and the film can be treated as promotional material for political campaigns". The board also orally raised the issue of casting Vikas Mahante as Modi -- the CBFC has objected to the look-alike actor playing the title role, said Jha. "The film is about Modiji's development agenda and his vision for transforming the country... How can I possibly portray all this with somebody who does not resemble him? If film-makers have to get clearances from other bodies, then what is the need for CBFC?" Jha asked. He surmised that the CBFC is worried that the Modi look-alike might stoke a fresh row, with the opposition parties targeting the censor board for permitting its release. Mahante's uncanny resemblance to Modi has made him a crowd puller in his own right and earned him the sobriquet "Modi from Mumbai". The CBFC has also taken umbrage at a prominent side-character, "Pappu Bihari", in the film, saying the name should be deleted from the movie, including the songs. Jha's much-anticipated 135-minute feature film completed shooting in December. He applied for CBFC certification in January. Emphasising that the film was "not a biopic", he said he was planning a mega premiere with the Prime Minister himself. The film was extensively shot in Mumbai, Patna and Darbhanga, detailing Modi's aim of making all rural and urban centres 'Smart Villages' or 'Smart Cities'. --IANS qn/ksk/mr ( 466 Words) 2017-02-09-13:32:06 (IANS)
Rumours have been doing rounds that how Hrithik Roshan has parted ways with his earlier team. However Hrithik Roshan took to twitter to silence everyone. Putting the rumours to rest and setting the record straight, Hrithik Roshan took to Twitter and wrote, "Contrary 2 d rumours I hv not parted ways with my management team led by @afsarzaidi". Further throwing light to the addition, the actor clarified, "They (@afsarzaidi n team) hv been part of my journey since last 10 years n dey continue to propel the growth of HRX with renewed strength. Sharing insights into the taken course of action, he said, "Regarding endorsements, I have teamed up with Kwan and together we build from here on." The actor has recently been the talk of the town for his superlative performance as Rohan Bhatnagar in his last release, 'Kaabil'. Not only has Hrithik bagged critical acclaim for his powerful delivery of a visually challenged man, but also has struck a chord with the audience by his delighting screen presence.(ANI)
Hrithik Roshan and Yami Gautam have garnered a lot of praise and accolades not just for the strong performances in their recently released film 'Kaabil', but also together as a pair. The duo's interesting pairing in 'Kaabil' has become a major take away for the audience. Their pairing became a topic of discussion earlier when the film was announced because of its freshness but this time it's the response to their performance together. Their innocence has struck a chord with majority of the audience. The unanimous feedback has been that they are both looking really good together. It is after a long time that Hrithik Roshan's pairing with a co-star has been liked to this extent. The feedback was similar to Hrithik - Katrina's chemistry in 'Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara'.(ANI)
It has been observed, there is a spike in the number of cases in heart attacks during winter season, particularly for those who are already suffering from a heart condition. The cold weather can lead to cardiac problems which could be deadly. The dip in the temperature restricts the arteries, which in turn leads to decreasing the blood flow and oxygen supply to the heart. And since the heart is already working harder to pump blood through the body to maintain body heat, the stress can elevate the risk of a heart attack. Factors like drop in body temperature, decreased level of vitamin D in the body and an increase of blood viscosity can amplify the risk of cardio-vascular diseases during this season. "At Max Super Speciality Hospital, Saket, we are receiving three new patients every day in the last few weeks. We have also seen an increase in the number of cases reported on heart failure, especially at night. In the last two weeks, we saw five new cases coming in at night for cardiac arrest. Out of the five cases, only two patients survived as they sought immediate medical assistance and did not wait for the morning. People who generally wait till morning to visit the hospital delay the medical assistance and in turn, increases the risk involved. So, not only are we more susceptible to heart attacks in January, but there is also a higher incidence of heart attacks between 11pm at night to 4am in the morning," explained by Dr. Viveka Kumar, Director of Cath Lab, Max Super Speciality Hospital, Saket. The cold weather can create threatening factors for heart attacks, especially for people who are above the age of 50 or have had a history with heart problems, diabetes and hypertension. Additionally, the risk of heart failure in existing cardiac patients is 4-5 times more comparatively during winters. The usual symptoms that are ignored during winters are - unusual gastric problems, profuse sweating, and any pain that lasts for more than 15 minutes. In case of such symptoms, immediately rush to the hospital. Awareness and knowledge is the key to prevention. With suitable preparation, we can take substantial steps to prevent silent heart attacks and protect our health. According to Dr. Kumar, the risk for heart attacks can be reduced by following the recommendations: Avoid eating a big or heavy meal, alcohol, junk food, and smoking. Without any physical activity or exercise, these factors can lead to high blood pressure. Physical activity is extremely crucial, and should be followed at least 6 times a week. If you do experience chest discomfort, seek medical attention immediately. Regular health check-up during winters is imperative. Additionally, blood pressure (BP), sugar levels, cholesterol and other risk factors should be monitored. Pay attention to the weather and prepare accordingly. Dress warmly, particularly in windy weather, to retain body heat while outside in the cold.(ANI)
The Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) on Thursday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not targeted his predecessor Dr. Manmohan Singh but remarked on latter's regime which was tainted with scams. "Prime Minister Modi has not targeted Dr. Manmohan Singh but his government and if there have been scams and there are blemishes, shouldn't that be questioned?" BJP leader Shaina NC told ANI. She added that Prime Minister Modi has raised the part of transparent accountability process in public life. "One talks about credibility and integrity in public life and these are part of transparent accountable process and Prime Minister Modi has questioned that part of the previous regime. That is not targeting Manmohan Singh ji but targeting the previous government," she added. After his 'earthquake' jibe at Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi in the parliament, the Prime Minister on Wednesday earned the wrath of the grand old party by training guns at Dr. Manmohan Singh during the Parliament session. "Dr. Manhmohan has played a significant role in the economic system of India. But during the most corrupt regime in the nation, there was not a single corruption charge against him. This art of taking bath wearing a raincoat must be learnt from Manmohan Singh," the Prime Minister said, setting off cries of outrage by the Congress. Immediately the Congress MPs staged a walkout, to which the Prime Minister responded, saying that if the Opposition breaches decorum then they should also have the courage to listen to the response. Outside the Parliament, Dr. Singh maintained his trademark calm and simply chose not to respond to questions over the Prime Minister's statement.(ANI)
The State Bank of India (SBI) ATM in Gandhi Camp area was targetted by robbers, who held the guard hostage and tried to break into the it.

"Having failed to take the money out, the thieves set it on fire in frustration," police officials said.

--IANS js/ksk

( 76 Words)

2017-02-09-10:26:07 (IANS)
Tamil Nadu's caretaker Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam said on Thursday party legislators will have the chance to vote as per their conscience and he would be able to prove his majority. Panneerselvam also said he personally did not have any suspicion on the death of J. Jayalalithaa. In an interview to a Tamil channel Panneerselvam declining to reveal the number of legislators who were supporting him said he would prove his strength on the floor of the house. On Wednesday Panneerselvam said a commission of inquiry headed by a sitting Supreme Court judge would be set up to probe into the death of Jayalalithaa. She passed away on December 5, 2016 after being admitted to Apollo Hospitals for 75 days. There is widespread doubt about her death and hence the probe. Panneerselvam had resigned as Chief Minister on February 5, and his resignation was accepted by Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao. On that day AIADMK General Secretary V.K. Sasikala was elected as the leader of the legislature party so that she could become the Chief Minister. Rao had asked Panneerselvam to continue till alternate arrangement was made. On Thursday in a dramatic turn of events, Panneerselvam after meditating 40 minutes at Jayalalithaa's memorial dropped the 'Paneer Bomb'. He said he was compelled to resign as Chief Minister and propose Sasikala for the post of leader of legislature party. While majority of the legislators are with Sasikala, around five legislators are with Panneerselvam. Governor Rao was expected to reach here later on Thursday and Sasikala was slated to present the letters of AIADMK legislators supporting her and stake claim to form the government. Meanwhile DMK Working President M.K. Stalin in a statement said Governor should see that the vote of confidence is held in the state assembly. He also said the AIADMK legislators were being housed in resorts. --IANS vj/in ( 319 Words) 2017-02-09-11:58:10 (IANS)
The city police today seized as much as 20 tonnes of beef and arrested four people, police said today. Police Inspector MA Patil of the Kalwa police station told this correspondent that the vehicle carrying the beef was being transported from Malegaon to Mumbai and was meant for export to foreign countries. The vehicle was intercepted at the Karegon toll Naka by the police and the activists of the Gauraksha samiti and the beef seized. Four people, including the driver of the truck, have been arrested it was stated. He said that the police at Kalwa were carrying out further probe into the case. A case under relevant sections of IPC and Maharashtra Animal Preservation (Amendment) Act was registered in this regard, police said, adding that a probe was on. Talking to this correspondent Rajendra Patil, the VHP Prant Goraksha Pramukh, said that the transportation of beef into Mumbai and Thane was on the rise in the recent past. He pointed out since December end, the activists of the Gouraksha has seized around 50 tonnes of beef which was being illegally transported into the city. Last month, the activists of the VHP Gouraksha cell had held a protest rally at the Kalwa police station demanding stricter implementation of the cow protection laws. They also sought protection to the Gourakshaks who raid the places and the vehicles transporting the beef. They also sought a toll free number for lodging the complaints of such violations relating to the beef, he said and added that the same has not not come through. Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) Makarand Ranade had then, during the protest and agitation by hundreds of activists, assured all possible assistance from the police in this regard to the Gourakshaks said Mr Patil who also said that in the recent period, the attitude of the police had changed for better.UNI XR SB 1250 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-1142837.Xml
The battleground of ballots in Uttar Pradesh, termed as semi-final for the crucial 2019 Lok Sabha elections, has been set as the campaigning for the first phase of elections in 73 seats of western UP comes to an end today. Polling in these constituencies would be held on February 11. With BSP fielding Muslim candidates on 18 out of 73 seats and SP-Congress alliance giving a Muslim face in 12 constituencies, it's a bitter battle between the two for wooing the minority vote bank. BJP's strategies in the communally sensitive regions of the west have been further put to test by a resurgent RLD of Chowdhary Ajit Singh, with the latter trying hard to regain it's lost Jat Support. With the entire election narrative boiling down to attempted consolidation on caste and communal lines on the ground, polling in the so called Jatland and the sugar belt of North India covering some of the sensitive districts like Muzaffarnagar, Shamli, Merrut, Baghpat, Etah, Agra, Gautam Budhh Nagar and Mathura will surely be interesting. It will not just be the Litmus test for strategy of all major political players in battleground UP, it will also have a strong potential to set a trend for subsequent phases- the political wave. While BSP is primarily banking on its much publicised Dalit-Muslim(DM) with the understanding that both the communities have a strong presence in most of the seats going to the poll in the first Phase, SP-Congress alliance too has pitched itself strongly as the secular front against the BJP. With Muslim candidates on 12 seats of Phase 1 and 10 candidates from Gujjar community, the alliance has put Muslim-Gujjar(MG) formula to test. Gujjars being part of the Backward caste list. The community on its own has a limited appeal as they dominate only on some seats including Kairana, Shamli and parts of Saharanpur, but together with Muslims they can make a difference on far greater number of seats. In 2012, Assembly polls BSP has won 23 seats while SP was victorious on 24 and Congress on 5 seats. For the BJP it's a momentous task at Hand. Phase 1 probably holds the key for it to get back to power in UP after more than 15 years. Also, it has a challenge to defend it's electoral performance of 2014 Lok Sabha polls. BJP has then won on 60 out of 73 Assembly segments going to poll on February 11. In 2012, Assembly polls the party has, however, won on just 9 seats in the region. Since the election will also be judged as referendum on Modi government's decision of demonetisation, its a further high stake battle for the saffron party. Reflection of grassroots political strategy for the BJP can be guessed from its repeated emphasis on alleged exodus of majority community from towns of west UP, specially Kairana. Apart from exodus, issues like that of illegal slaughter houses, safeguarding honour of women and daughters and charges of appeasement politics against its opponents, leave no doubt that the party wants a counter polarisation of the majority community in its favour. With the likes of Sangeet Som, Suresh Rana being the party's candidates in electoral fray and leaders like Mahant Adityanath comparing Kairana to Kashmir, the micro strategy is out in the open. However, BJP's political calculations have been slightly complicated with a seemingly resurgent RLD. While Muslims and larger sections of Dalits remain out of reach for the party, it's RLD which can be a threat to BJP's Jat votebank calculations. Being the part of OBC, Jats have a strong presence on several seats in this region also known as the Jatland. In 2014, Jats had voted enmass for BJP but a lot has changed since then. Political observers say that from west UP to Haryana, Jat politics is on the boil. The Jat community feels that their leadership is being increasingly ignored. Appointment of non Jat as the Chief Minister in Haryana too didn't go in BJP's favour. Hence the community can again look towards Ajit singh of the RLD. The only Jat leader of prominence and who has the honour of being the heir to legacy of most prominent of Jat Leader ever,the late prime Minister Charan Singh. RLD has tried to forge a Jat-Muslim combination. With flames of Muzaffarnagar riots being calmed down efforts are to rebuild this alliance. That's the reason why RLD too has fielded five Muslim candidates in the first phase. In 2012 RLD has won 9 seats in this region. This time it has fielded candidates on 59 out of 73 seats of Phase 1. Apart from the larger deciding battle for the political parties, the Phase 1 will also decide fate of some prominent political faces. There are around 25 VIP seats in the region. These include Noida where Pankaj Singh, son of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Atrauli in Aligarh where Sandeep Singh, grandson of former UP CM Kalyan Singh would be vying for their maiden entry in the UP Assembly. Similarly, Ms Mriganka Singh, daughter of BJP MP Hukum Singh is also fighting her first election from Kairana seat on BJP ticket. Eyes will also be on the Sardhana seat in Meerut and Thanabhawan seat in Shamli where BJP has yet again put faith in Muzaffarnagar riot accused MLA Sangeet Singh Som and Suresh Rana respectively. While Som has been challenged by UP CM Akhilesh Yadav's close confident SP candidate Atul Chauhan and BSP's Hafiz Yakoob, it's a Lucknow University Professor Sudhir Pawar who is the SP candidate against Suresh Rana in Thana Bhuwan. BSP again has fielded a Muslim Abdul Waris Khan from the seat. Another high profile contest will be on the Mathura seat. Incumbent Congress MLA Pradeep Mathur has been challenged by BJP national spokesperson Srikant Sharma. Mathur has won the Mathura seat for 3 consecutive terms. Eyes will also be on Rahul Yadav, son- in-law of former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, who is contesting on SP ticket from Sikendrabad seat in Gautam Buddha Nagar district. Former BJP UP president Laxmikant Bajpai is also trying his luck from Meerut(city) seat to make a hat trick.UNI MB SB 1239 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0196-1142736.Xml
Mulayam Singh Yadav's daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav, along with former UP Congress president and now BJP leader Rita Bahuguna Joshi, has been served notice in Lucknow(Cantonment) Assembly constituency for violating Model Code of Conduct. SDM (Sadar) Raj Kamal Yadav, the returning officer of the Lucknow (Cantonment) seat, has served the notices to the candidates last night asking them to reply on the violation of the election model code of conduct within two days time. In the first notice, the authorities have asked Aparna Yadav, why a case should not be registered against her for holding a meeting at Gurunanak PG College at Naka Hindola area of the constituency yesterday without taking any permission from the EC. Rita Bahuguna Joshi has been served notice after one Virendra Kumar complained that the BJP candidate had pasted a poster outside his house without taking any permission. Besides a Shiv Sena candidate from the constituency Kumar Gaurav Upadhaya too was served notice for violating the election norms.UNI MB SB 1311 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0196-1142899.Xml
Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India], Feb 9: Reacting to AIADMK's leader, V.K. Sasikala's comments on DMK president M.K. Stalin, being responsible for O Panneerselvam's rebellion against her, DMK leader Kanimozhi said that the DMK is playing party politics over the issue of who should be the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. "Our party president clearly mentioned that we are not involved in any sort of party politics", DMK leader Sasikala told to ANI. Kanimozhi further added, "MLAs should be free to decide on their own rather being influenced under any pressures." Her comments came a day after the AIADMK appeared to be heading for a split into two camps- one led by Chief Minister O.Panneerselvam and the second by V.K. Sasikala. A final decision on this issue on who will be the chief minister is expected to be taken by Tamil Nadu Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao in the next 48 hours. (ANI)
The National Fisherfolk Forum has urged the Central government to ban the disposal of micro plastic into the sea. In a letter to Environment Minister Anil Madhav Dave, NFF chairperson M Illango urged the Ministry to take necessary steps in this regard. He said like US and the UK, the Union Government should also come up with laws to ban disposal of micro plastic into the sea. Mr Illango also demanded that the usage of micro plastic fibers in cosmetic and cleansing products shall be totally banned. He said so far it was thought that the plastic waste causes damage to the environment and ecology of shallow waters. But now, recent researches confirmed that the micro plastic and plastic nano-granules can damage the deep sea organism. Since the study is done in the deep seas of Indian Ocean, the Forum, demand that the toothpastes cosmetics that contain micro beads and other such cleansing products be banned from sales in India, as done in Britain and US, Mr Illango added. He added that last week, A Gopalakrishnan, director of Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, while inaugurating a two-month-long campaign to raise awareness about prevention of marine pollution said, "By dumping plastic waste into the sea, we are causing great damage to the sea organisms and deprive ourselves our food, as the marine fish species are drastically reduced by this activity." Mr Gopalakrishnan has raised a severe alarm by saying that since the fishes contain micro plastic residues of the waste in their body, it would adversely affect the human being who consume it, Mr Illango pointed out.UNI PAB SW SB 1438 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0103-1143058.Xml
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam(AIADMK) Nellithoppe constituency functionaries today resigned en masse from the party to protest the removal of former legislator Om Sakthi Sekhar from the party by general secretary V K Sasikala. Mr Sekhar, the former legislator from Nellithoppe had extended his support to Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, following which he was dismissed from the AIADMK today.Irate over this, the Nellithoppe functionaries resigned. Led by constituency secretary Ganesan, they gathered in front of the Nellithoppe party office and burnt an effigy of Ms Sasikala after beating it with chapels.Meanwhile, AIADMK Puducherry doctor's wing secretary Dr Nannian resigned from the post extending support to Mr Panneerselvam and he later dissolved the doctor's wing of the party here.UNI PAB SHS SW 1540 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0329-1143152.Xml
Leading scientists from different countries have shown interest in collaborations with the premium research institute Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB) here, to enable better understanding of genetic properties of native Indian plant species and incorporate the findings to improve crop productivity. "We are already working in a detailed manner on a number of spices and are open to collaborate with foreign scientists, who can lend us their know-how to create value additions to our native spices like ginger and pepper," said E V Soniya, Scientist, RGCB. Molecular plant biologists from nearly 20 countries including Canada, Belgium, Germany, Israel, Spain and Australia were among others participating in a recently concluded four-day conference organised here jointly by RGCB and the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO). Dr Takayuki Tohge, a Japanese scientist who works with Germany's Max Plant Institute and with an interest in folk medicines, expressed his interest in expanding his research into the spices found in Kerala. "My interest is in polyphenols and I have worked on tomato, a little bit of maize, potatoes and beans among other crops, testing to identify the beneficial compounds that can be used to cross breed and engineer disease resistant and stable crops. I am interested in extending it to spices like ginger and pepper among others as well," said Tohge. According to Jennifer Ann Harikrishna, Professor, Institute Of Biological Sciences, Malaysia, global climate change and various fungal diseases adversely affect the cultivation of banana crop in the world and researchers are now looking into native species of bananas. "We don't have any ongoing collaborations, but will be interested for future. Our current research is on how to grow saline tolerant bananas because while coconut and palm trees can grow in salt water, bananas cannot and people both in India and Malaysia are fond of their bananas," she said. Soybean, one of the most protein rich plants found in nature is a widely cultivated crop in India, which has health properties like cholesterol reducing, anti-diabetic and heart healthy benefits. It also fixes nitrogen in soil thus reducing nitrogen fertilisers. "India has got a good potential for cultivation of soybean. We need more genetic sequencing research to get maximum yield," said Prof Babu Valliyodan from University of Missouri, who is exploring collaborations with different institutes in India. UNI DS SHS SNU 1548 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0329-1143238.Xml
With the detention of 11 people, the Madhya Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad (MPATS) today claimed to have busted a gang involved in making funds available on the directives of their Pakistan-based handlers to spies. "Five people have been taken into custody in Gwalior, three in Bhopal, two in Jabalpur and one in Satna. The modus operandi included hiding caller identification (CID) of calls made through Internet and providing it CID of a cellular or a landline number thereby forming a parallel telephone exchange," MPATS Chief Sanjeev Shami told media here. This arrangement was not only employed in 'hawala' and lottery fraud but also in receiving directives from Pakistani handlers after which money used to be deposited in accounts of spies. He said two spies Satvinder and Dadu who where arrested from Jammu in November 2016 had received money from Satna-resident Balram, who has also been detained. Balram, who managed several bank accounts, was in constant contact with his Pakistani handlers. Mr Shami said the gang was busted with the cooperation of central agencies as well as agencies of Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh after the espionage case came to light. "The gang's network is suspected of being spread in other states. Certain people associated with telephone companies are also complicit," he added.UNI PS SW 1419 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0044-1143065.Xml
Amid call for development and freedom from 'goonda raj', the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) has now taken the caste route to woo the voters. The BJP has targeted both the SP and the BSP with their caste strategy which aims at penetrating the BSP's strong Dalit and the Samajwadi Party's Backward Caste vote bank. After all, the BJP hopes to repeat its 2014 success and stage a strong battle against regional heavyweights Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance. The most ambitious, but less discussed, is the BJP's 'division of caste' strategy. Aimed at chipping off sizeable segment of the non-Jatav, Dalit vote bank is the party's strategy against the BSP. Similarly, addressing the Backward Caste electorate, the BJP has strategised to lure away the non-Yadav Backward Castes. A reflection of the strategy can clearly be seen in the choice of candidates by the party. Out of 86 reserved constituencies, 84 for Schedule Caste and two for Schedule Tribe, the BJP has given 65 tickets to non-Jatav Dalits. The idea is to focus more on Dalits that are not that strongly attached to the BSP. Of around 25 per cent Dalit votes in UP, non-Jatavs make around 14 per cent. Similarly, out of around 25 per cent strong Backward Caste population, the BJP is eyeing the approximately 15 per cent non-Yadav segment. It comes as no surprise then that BJP and its allies together have given tickets to 134 Backward Caste candidates, of whom only nine are Yadavs. A senior BJP leader, who was involved in the planning and execution of backroom strategies, says, "Jatavs among Dalits continue to be firmly stand behind Mayawati. Similarly, Yadavs, more or less, continue to be with Akhilesh Yadav and his party. Hence, the BJP has devised a clear strategy to target leftover Dalits and Backwards Castes. The target area for the BJP among Dalits seems to be the Pasi, Dhobi and Khatik castes. These three castes together have got 39 tickets. The party has also given representation to around 11 other non-Jatav Dalit castes in ticket distribution. Among the Backward Castes, the BJP is most hopeful of getting support among major non-Yadav castes like Kurmi, Maurya, Lodh and Jats. With 29 tickets going to Kurmi candidates and 24 to Mauryas (including Kushwaha, Shakya and Saini), 20 tickets have been given to candidates from Lodh community and 15 to Jats. Another senior leader, who did not wish to be named, accepted the caste calculations and said, "Out of UP's electorate, there are 10 per cent Yadavs, 11 per cent Jatavs and 17 per cent Muslim votes. This 38 per cent of vote share is more or less out of the reach for the BJP. Hence, for the BJP, the target hunting ground is upper castes, non-Jatav Dalits and non-Yadav Backwards Castes. With an estimated 25 per cent upper caste population, this together makes around 55 per cent of the voters. A strategist for the BJP, who had been instrumental in generating this caste study, said, "For the party traditionally dominated and supported by upper castes, accommodating so many Backward Caste candidates was not an easy exercise. Despite this, 184 tickets have gone to candidates from upper castes. Out of them, only 66 were given to Brahmins, 67 to Rajputs and 28 to the Vaishya community." The understanding within the BJP's top leadership is that upper caste votes that have traditionally been with the BJP should continue to support it in this election. If the Dalit and Backward Caste strategy pays dividends, the party hopes to easily cross the 30 per cent vote share mark. State BJP general secretary Vijay Bahadur Pathak, however, denied that pure caste calculations were behind the ticket distribution. "Our party aims at 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas'. We are committed to taking forward people from all castes and religion. The candidates have been selected on the basis of merit and winnability." For the BJP, the challenge is to raise its vote share as compared to a mere 14 per cent in 2012 Assembly polls. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the 'Modi eave' helped it scale caste boundaries and get a massive 42 per cent vote share. Now, through micro-caste planning, the BJP hopes to continue its new found penetration across caste fault lines and retain its Lok Sabha vote share in the 2017 UP polls.UNI MB SW SB 1440 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0196-1143029.Xml
Police Commissioner T G Krishna Bhat told UNI today that thearrested ere identified as Charansing Hatshingh of Chachewadi inMadhya Pradesh and Gajanan Sadashiv Shetty of Baikanpadi, MangaluruDistrict, were remanded to judicial custody.

The arrested were closely associated with other gangsters andsharp shooters arrested and huge quantity of Arms including pistols,live bullets, Dragans, knifes etc.. were recovered from them. Theywere planning to get release of Dinesh Shetty who was convicted on amuder case and housed in the Hindalga jail.

Gajanan Shetty and Charansing both of them were in touch withsuspected sharp shooters and involved in several other criminalactivities. UNI HVN MSP ADB1450

-- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0284-1143114.Xml
Various infrastructure works in preparation forMahamastakabhisheka of Gomateshwara at Shravanabelgola in 2018 beganhere today with Shravanabelgola Digambara Jain Mutt, Swamiji andChairman of the mega event Organising Committee, CharukeerthiBhattaraka performing pooja. Speaking to media on the occasion, he said the Committee hassought Rs 575 crores from the state government and already Rs 5crore released. Stating that the Mahamastakabhisheka was held once in 12 years,he said that during a month long event religious programmes will beheld for nine days in February 2018. The 57-feet statue of Bahubali was installed in 981 A.D. the yearwhen the first Mahamastakabhisheka was held under the leadership ofChavundaraya, the prime minister in the Ganga Dynasty. Since thenthe event has been held once in 12 years. The 87th edition of theevent was last held in 2006. The seer said the President, Vice-President and Prime Ministerwould be invited for the programme. "In the past, Presidents,Vice-Presidents and Prime Ministers have taken part in the event.This time also we will invite them." The mutt has decided to urge the government to implement certaindevelopmental works ahead of the mega event. One such project is theHassan-Bengaluru railway line that has remained incomplete forseveral years now. "The Committee wants the project to be completedbefore the Mahamastakabhisheka begins. We will start writing lettersto Ministries concerned and get the works done with the help of thepeople's representatives." Charukeerthi Bhattaraka Swami said it was the responsibility ofboth State and the Union governments to develop one of the mainjain pilgrim Centre as a large number of devotees and touristsvisit the place throughout the year. Speaking on the occasion, Hassan District Incharge Minister A Manju said the government has released Rs five crore and anotherRs 42 lakhs received from the Centre. Shravanabelagola, an ancient town in Hassan district of Karnatakaand overlooked by two rocky hills, Chandragiri and Indragiri,attracts lakhs of tourists every year. This is the second Mahamastakabhisheka of the new millennium andis taking place after the completion of the 1,000 year anniversarycelebrations of the creation of the statue. The statue, that has stood the vagaries of time, is a symbol ofrenunciation from all worldly desires will be anointed according towhat is prescribed for abhisheka in the scriptures, with some minor modifications. According to an estimate, over 40 lakh devotees from across theworld are expected to throng this town to witness this event. On anygiven day, there are at least 1,000 people who travel to the summitof the hill to view the colossal monolith.UNI BSP MSP RSS1550 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0284-1143252.Xml
The website, developed as a CSR initiative is live and has allthe necessary information on many war martyrs.

The National Military Memorial Website (NMM) is a tribute by thepeople and the government to honor the men and families of martyrswho have died in the service of the country.

The website was launched in presence of senior officials likeAir Marshal, SK Ghotia Officiating AOC in C HQ Training Comd., AirChief Marshal (Retd.) F.H Major, Air Marshal (Retd.) D G Kinglee,Vice Admiral (Retd.) P J Jacob, Air Marshal (Retd.) EPR Nair, AirMarshal (Retd.) P.P Rajkumar, Major General V.P.S Bhakuni, R.Admiral (Retd.) H.R Sampat Gopal, Col (Retd.) Rajan and Air Comd(Retd.) M K Chandrasekhar.

Air Comde (Retd.) M K Chandrasekhar said on the occasion thatSoldiers were the real treasures of the country but unfortunatelybeing known only to those who are either our relatives oracquaintances. He congratulated 7EDGE team for building such aplatform for the nation where one could know all about the martyrswho sacrificed their lives.

The NMM website disseminates information about not just the warmartyrs but also about India's top bravery awardees that includeParam Vir Chakra, Ashok Chakra, and Kirti Chakra. UNI CNR MSP RSS1600

-- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0284-1143270.Xml
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah today made arepeated appeal to the union government to write off farm loansavailed by farmers in Karnataka from public sector banks as thestate had faced unprecedented drought spell this year and farmingcommunity was under duress and suffered huge crop loss. Answering a question from N S Bosaraju of Congress during thequestion hour in the Legislative Council here, he said a total Rs52,000 crore of farm loans had been disbursed so far during thecurrent financial year and this included Rs 42,000 crore extended bycommercial and public sector banks, while the remaining Rs 10,000crore was distributed by state level Cooperative banks. Nearly 80 per cent of farmers have availed loans from bankscontrolled by the centre besides some all-India commercial banks. Ifthe centre decides to waive off loans in PSU banks controlled by it,Karnataka government will reciprocate by writing off farm loans incooperative banks. Main opposition BJP members protested against chief minister'sstatement saying that the State government should first write offfarm loans in the cooperative banks and then seek relief from theunion government. Mr Siddaramaiah hit back at the BJP benches saying that the partyhad no moral rights to speak for the farmers as he had already metPrime Minister Narendra Modi twice and appealed him to order writingoff of farm loans in public sector banks. But there was no response.Instead of 'jumping around' in the house, you go and impress upon MrModi the serious nature of problems being faced by the farmers inKarnataka, he said. Mr Siddaramaiah said during the two terms of UPA rule, the centrehad written off farm loans to the extent of Rs 72,000 crore. Whenthe prime minister had called chief minister's meeting he had raisedthe issue but there was no response. You (BJP) leaders, whoaccompanied me when we met Mr Modi, you were too scared to open yourmouth and now you are coming out with such views, he charged. This led to severe protests from BJP members. Earlier, the chief minister said the State government had decidedto increase number of farm loans from cooperative banks during thecoming season. During 2016-17 23 lakh farmers had taken loans in thestate and the government had set a target of a 10 per cent increaseto add at least another 2.3 lakh farmers more as there was moredemand for farm loans. He said the government's intention was tobring in farmers who had not taken bank loans but depended on localmoney lenders and increase funds allocated to cooperative banks forthe farm sector in stages. He said currently farm loans to the extent of Rs 3 lakh comesfree of interest to the farmers and the government was paying Rs 900interest subsidy to cooperative banks.UNI RS CNR RSS1645 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0287-1143336.Xml
Security forces burst teargas shells and resorted to lathicharge to disperse demonstrators at apple township of Sopore who were protesting on the fourth death anniversary of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. Guru was hanged and later buried in Delhi's Tihar jail on this day in 2013. Hundreds of people, mostly youths, took to the streets at several places in Sopore, the hometown of Guru, raising slogans and demanding the body of Afzal.Security forces and state police personnel were deployed in strength since early this morning to maintain law and order. But the demonstrators started pelting stones on them. They forces also resorted to lathicharge them.Later security forces burst teargas shells also, eye witnesses told UNI. Meanwhile, Ghalib Guru, son of Afzal, alleged that despite promises, the separatist leadership has failed to bring back the body of his father.UNI BAS SW SNU 1710 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0153-1143390.Xml
Launching a full-fledged campaign for the forthcoming local bodies election in Marathwada region after snapping ties with BJP in the state, the Shiv Sena attacked their alliance partner in the election rallies on the issues of demonetisation and transparency. Sena leaders like Aurangabad MP Chandrakant Khaire, district chiefs Ambadas Danve and Narendra Trivedi, women's wing leaders Ranjana Kulkarni and Anandi Annadate addressed a series of meetings at various places in all the constituencies of 62 Zilla Parishads and nine Panchayat Samitis in the Aurangabad district, in its first round of campaigning in the past couple of days, party sources said. In his election rallies, Mr Khaire criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not paying a single visit toMarathwada after coming to power at the Centre, even as the region was reeling under severe drought for three consecutive years, prompting farmers to end their lives. He claimed that neither the Central nor the State Governments provided any assistance to the affected ryots,despite the issue being raised by him in the Lok Sabha from time to time. Mr Khaire listed out the various measures taken by the Sena on its own for the affected peasants like extension of financial assistance, provision of agriculture implements and food grain to the farmers, as well as organisation of mass weddings in the region during the drought condition. Mr Khaire will address a series of election rallies in Paithan taluka of the district tomorrow, while the party's deputy leader in the district Dr Amol Khole will be addressing five meetings at different places in the district in support of party nominees on Saturday, sources added.UNI VKB SS RJ SNU 1803 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-1143435.Xml
India today handed over a request to the UK authorities for the extradition of fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya, to ensure his presence before the legal authorities to stand trial in the embezzlement of huge bank loans. When asked about the forward movement in ensuring the return of Mallya from Britain, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said the MEA has forwarded the formal request received from the CBI to the UK. "We have, today, handed over the request for extradition of Mr Vijay Vittal Mallaya to the UK High Commission in New Delhi. We have requested the UK side to extradite him to face trial in India," Mr Swarup said in his weekly media briefing. The passport of the Ex-MP of Rajya Sabha, who had resigned in the wake of the cases filed against him, had already been revoked by the External Affairs Ministry. UNI MK RJSNU 1832 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0090-1143628.Xml
Senior BJP leader and Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal today alleged that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav had distributed power connections in Uttar Pradesh on the basis of religion, giving preference to Muslims over Hindus. "BJP MP Sarvesh Kumar had lodged a complaint with Prime Minister's Office (PMO) about discrimination in distribution of power connections on the basis of religion in Moradabad. After enquiry these charges were found to be correct," Mr Goyal told mediapersons here. He said how a government can talk about development if it gives preference to religion in distribution of power connection. "There is a big scam in power distribution. We got complaints that villagers were asked to pay for new connection. Quality of work was very bad. The Union government had asked the state to take action against the guilty but Chief Minister, who is also holding power portfolio, preferred to look other way. This is done to provide an escape route to contractors," the Power minister said. He churned out figures to suggest that UP government did not take enough steps to get rid of power crisis. "The electricity is available at a cheap rate of Rs 2.80 per unit at central pool but the Akhilesh Yadav Government is not keen to purchase this electricity," he said and added that Union government had signed MoU with states to provide 24X7 electricity. At least 18 states have signed this MoU but Uttar Pradesh has preferred to give this a skip," he said. The power minister even alleged that state government has signed costly power purchase agreements with private players. "We have suggested state to go for solar energy. It sent a proposal of 600 MW and that accepted immediately. But the state has swathe of barren land which was never utilized for this purpose," he said. He also attacked SP government for poor law and order situation in the state. Recently traders were shot dead in Lucknow and Meerut. In Hathras two groups of SP and BSP workers clashed with each other. This shows Chief Minister has lost grip on law and order. He appealed to the people to vote for BJP so that Uttar Pradesh can be made Uttam Pradesh once again.UNI MB SHS GC2114 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0329-1143952.Xml
Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee today said that the party is ready for early polls but sought free fair and transparent delimitation of Panchayats across the state. Congress today took objections to be mode and manner the delimitation of wards in the Panchayats has been undertaken by the PDP-BJP Government thus vitiating the atmosphere for a free, fair and transparent electoral exercise to the Panchayat bodies in the State. ''Entire exercise has been undertaken by the government in arbitrary and hush-hush manner in the delimitation of wards and Panchayats in the run up to the elections to the Panchayat Bodies,'' Congress Chief Spokesperson Ravinder Sharma here told reporters. He said while the PDP-BJP government has already diluted the spirit and authority of 73rd amendment by indirect election of sarpanchs from panchs and by not constituting the independent state election commission, the exercise under taken for delimitation of wards and panchayats in an arbitrary and hush- hush manner has led to great resentment amongst people in villages, as the same is being conducted through favoritism and on political consideration Mr Sharma said that present coalition having failed on all fronts and has not been able to provide basic facilities ration on reasonable rates as per scale, power and water to the people, while BJP is on back foot on all its tall slogans be it abrogation of Act 370, providing voting rights and citizenship to West Pakistani Refugees and even domicile certificate, setting up of separate colonies to Kashmiri Pandits and have reducing the duration of Amarnath Yatra, it now wants to manipulate elections to panchayat bodies by resorting to such tactics, which will be resisted tooth and nail by the people, as it would weaken the democracy in the state. ''Government did not constitute the Independent election commission, in accordance with the provision of the amended State Panchayat Act of 73rd amendment and secondly, brought out an anti democratic and retrograde amendment whereby instead of general election of sarpanch, the Panchs would chose a sarpanch,'' he said. He added that it was the duty of election Authority to ensure that a fair and transparent procedure is adopted after taking due and proper views of all political parties and other concerned, but unfortunately that has not happened. It is the election authority which has to exercise the power delimitation of Panchayats and wards after notifying a reasonable and transparent criteria and procedure for the same. ''The Congress party has already conveyed its objections through a letter written to the CEO on Feb 3 but there is no response or action on this,'' he claimed.UNI VBH JW GC2115 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0329-1144029.Xml
In a statement here he said Police Station Mattan, Anantnag was informed that a woman along with her 2 years old daughter were missing since February 7 from their Nambal home.

On this information a missing report was lodged and manhunt head by Station House Officer (SHO) police station Mattan was launched to trace the duo.

The police team after its hard efforts traced the duo and handed them over to their relatives. UNI BAS JW ADG 2030

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Hitting out at the BJP and BSP, Samajwadi Party National President and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav today said that one thrives on communal politics, while the other is testimony of corruption and would use public money in construction of parks and memorials and asked people to discard both these parties. ''The Opposition parties cannot match the development being carried out by the Samajwadi Party government. Baffled by the massive response SP-Congress alliance is getting in Uttar Pradesh, BJP has started spreading communal hatred, while BSP is playing caste card,'' Mr Yadav said, while addressing a rally here. He said that people now know the true character of BJP and BSP. One party thrives on dividing society on religious lines while other has proven credential of making money through corruption. "Bua ji is now saying that she will not construct memorials if BSP come to power but who is going to believe her," he said. Mr Yadav said that SP and Congress alliance will win over 300 seats. ''This I am saying because we have delivered in the last five years. We have worked in all sectors, be it health, education, infrastructure building and electricity. Can any party match us in carrying out development schemes in such a short span," he said. Taking a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said that during last elections, he had promised Rs 15 lakh in every account. Forget Rs 15 lakh, have you got even Rs 15,000. The youth were assured two crore job annually. Has anyone in the crowd got a single job, he said. ''BJP gives false promises. Do not believe in this party. BSP, on the other hand, talks about caste. It is only Samajwadi Party and Congress that talk about development. So, vote for development. If the alliance returns to power, we will speed up development and introduce new projects for the poor and the down-trodden,'' he added.UNI MB RJ 2020 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0196-1143802.Xml
Both Houses of Parliament were today adjourned till March nine, marking the end of the first part of the Budget session during which debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President's address was completed and the Lok Sabha passed two bills, and the Rajya Sabha one. In the Lok Sabha, the discussion on the Budget was also completed, while in the Rajya Sabha it was started but remained inconclusive and will be resumed after the month-long recess. A heavy legislative agenda,including the GST Bill, awaits both Houses when they meet for the second part of the Budget session. In the part one, the Government also introduced two bills in the Lok Sabhathe IIM Bill and the Repealing and Amending bill.The House passed two bills, the Payment of wages Bill,(which was also cleared by the Rajya Sabha), and the Specified Bank Notes (Cessation of Liabilities) Bill 2017 that would make holding of more than 10 old notes of Rs 500 or Rs 1000 currency notes punishable with a minimum fine of Rs 10,000. Both the Houses witnessed heated exchanges between the Opposition and Treasury benches and also several lighter moments during the debate on the note ban and other issues during the course of discussions and reply of the Prime Minister to the debate. The two sides also clashed on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "art of taking bath with a raincoat on" remark against former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh. Today on the last day, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan adjourned the House immediately after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley made his reply to the debate on the General Budget. Among other senior members M Mallikarjun Kharge and Prime Minister Narendra Modi were present in the House. In the Rajya Sabha today, The adjournment came on a day when the House took up the discussion on the General Budget which was initiated by Congress MP P Chidambaram. Mr Prabhat Jha of the BJP, Mr Vishambhar Prasad Nishad of Samajwadi Party and Mr Sukendu Sekhar Roy of the AITC and Mr Tapan Kumar Sen of CPM participated in the debate which remained inconclusive and will continue on March 9. This session was unique in the sense that for the first time in the country's history it was started on Janauary 31, and the budget was presented on Febrauary 1, almost a month in advance, in a break from the colonial days when it was tabled in the House towards the close of February. This year's budget saw many first like the merger of plan and non-plan expenditures, Railway Budget with the General Budget .UNI TEAM NAZ ADG 2150 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0091-1144098.Xml
All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretary Girish Chodankar today criticised Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar for allegedly sleeping in parliament while Prime Minister Narendra Modi was speaking on the issue of demonetisation yesterday. Speaking to UNI, Mr Chodankar said, ''Mr Parrikar was sleeping when the Prime Minister was making a statement on an issue which was widely discused across the country.'' ''Mr Parrikar has defamed Goa again. He was sleeping for the second time. Earlier, he was sleeping on Janaury 26 when Republic Day parade was underway. He has proved Congress is right because we have been saying for the last two years that he was doing nothing,'' the senior Congress leader alleged and demandedthat Mr Parrikar should be sent back to Goa as he had failed to perform. ''Sleeping of Mr Parrikar when even opposition members were listening to the Prime Minister was very wrong and we condemn it. He has proved that he is doing nothing. He should not waste his time in Delhi as most of the decisions are taken by the Prime Minister,'' Mr Chodankar added.UNI AKM SS JW GC2157 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-1143982.Xml
Geojit, a leading retail financial services company in the country, has announced the formal change of its name and unveiled a new logo as part of its rebranding exercise that also coincides with the completion of its 30 years of operations. Geojit chairman A P Kurian unveiled the new logo at an event here last evening, in the presence of its founder and managing director C J George, and other senior officials including executive director Satish Menon and managing director of Geojit Technologies Ltd A Balakrishnan, a release issued here today said. The company is being renamed as Geojit Financial Services, in line with the restated shareholder agreement between Geojit and BNP Paribas (a French multinational bank). The French multinational bank will continue to be a prominent shareholder along with Kerala State IndustrialDevelopment Corporation (KSIDC) and Rakesh Jhunjhunwala. Speaking on the occasion, Mr Kurian said, ''All through my long association with Geojit, the company has always been progressive, innovative and has spearheaded many changes in the industry. With this new identity, I am sure that Geojit will move forth with renewed energy and commitment towards its clients.'' Geojit has 511 offices spread across India and the Gulf countries catering to over 8.5 lakh clients and has AUM worth Rs 29,000 crore, the release added.UNI JM SS JW GC2130 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-1144091.Xml
Mr Fadnavis had yesterday said in an election rally thatShiv Sena had allegedly made a false claim about BMC havingearned number one tag in transparency and accountability in theEconomic Survey of India and pointed out that it was in fact on apar with that of Patna in Bihar.

Talking to mediapersons here, Mumbai Regional CongressCommittee (MRCC) president Sanjay Nirupam alleged that the ChiefMinister compared the Mumbai city to Bihar's Patna, in a bid tohide the failure of the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) inthe development of the commercial capital of country during their20-year rule.

He further alleged that BJP was totally against the UttarBharatiyas and demanded a public apology for insulting the Uttar Bharatiyas.

Mr Nirupam also demanded that the Chief Minister shouldtake back his statement.

The MRCC chief alleged that during past 20-year rule incountry's richest Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), theBJP and Sena failed to provide drinking water, fill potholes andlay drainage lines, and to hide their failure both the partieswere blaming each other, he claimed.

Talking on issue of corruption, Mr Nirupam said, ''BothBJP and Sena are equally responsible for the corruption in theCorporation as both were in alliance in BMC for past 20 years.''

He described the snapping of alliance by the Sena with BJPfor civic polls in the state as 'nothing but match fixing and a drama'.UNI ST SS JW

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Researchers from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the US found a significant decrease in automobile travel is linked to decline in the number of traffic-related deaths, especially among young men.

The findings, published in the journal of Preventive Medicine, also revealed that at the same time, there was no increase in how active Americans were, meaning physical activity did not replace driving for many people.

Noreen McDonald wanted to analyse how the decline in driving time had affected two key areas: changes in physical activity and number of motor vehicle fatalities.

She found that while less driving did mean a decrease in deaths, it did not have an impact on activity levels.

Between 2004 and 2014, per-capita driving shrank by nearly 600 miles annually.

Young adults, millennials born in the 1980s and early 1990s, saw the largest decline.

"My analysis shows a drop in automobile travel from 2003 to 2014 with the largest decreases among young adults, particularly men," explained Dr. McDonald.

The study also found that auto travel decreased by 9.2 minutes per day from 2003-2014 and men aged 20-29 years saw the largest drop.

Consequently, motor vehicle fatalities showed significant declines among young men, but also across all ages.

"Fatalities to motor vehicle occupants dropped significantly during the study period, particularly among millennials," Dr. McDonald stated.

"Safer cars and better driving training could explain this decline, but the decrease could also be explained by the large and significant drop in driving. The challenge that we must all now work towards is how to maintain the safety record on American roads as population growth, low gas prices and an improving economy lead to more travel," Dr. McDonald noted. (ANI)
A recently discovered Earth-sized planet, dubbed Proxima b, which orbits within the "habitable zone" of the red dwarf Proxima Centauri, may not actually harbour life, new NASA research suggests. The search for life beyond Earth starts in habitable zones, the regions around stars where conditions could potentially allow liquid water -- which is essential for life as we know it -- to pool on a planet's surface. And the discovery of Proxima b raised hope of finding life beyond our home planet. But some of these zones might not actually be able to support life due to frequent stellar eruptions from young red dwarf stars which can threaten an exoplanet's atmosphere with oxygen loss , said the study published in the journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters. It is quite unlikely Proxima b is habitable, the scientists concluded. "If we want to find an exoplanet that can develop and sustain life, we must figure out which stars make the best parents," said Vladimir Airapetian, lead author of the paper and a solar scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "We're coming closer to understanding what kind of parent stars we need," Airapetian noted. The team of NASA scientists wanted to expand how habitable zones are defined, taking into account the impact of stellar activity. To determine a star's habitable zone, scientists have traditionally considered how much heat and light the star emits. Stars more massive than our sun produce more heat and light, so the habitable zone must be farther out. Smaller, cooler stars yield close-in habitable zones. But along with heat and visible light, stars emit X-ray and ultraviolet radiation, and produce stellar eruptions such as flares and coronal mass ejections -- collectively called space weather. One possible effect of this radiation is atmospheric erosion, in which high-energy particles drag atmospheric molecules -- such as hydrogen and oxygen, the two ingredients for water out into space. Airapetian and his team's new model for habitable zones now takes this effect into account. Another important habitability factor is a star's age, said the scientists, based on observations they have gathered from NASA's Kepler mission. Considering the host star's age and the planet's proximity to its host star, the scientists expect that Proxima b is subjected to torrents of X-ray and extreme ultraviolet radiation from superflares occurring roughly every two hours. They estimated oxygen would escape Proxima b's atmosphere in 10 million years. Additionally, intense magnetic activity and stellar wind -- the continuous flow of charged particles from a star -- would exacerbate already harsh space weather conditions, the study said. --IANS gb/vm ( 438 Words) 2017-02-09-12:48:08 (IANS)
The Trump administration has no plan to ban Pakistani citizens from travelling to the United States because Islamabad is providing the data they need to vet a visitor. According to the Dawn, in recent briefings to various media outlets, White House officials also said the administration had no plan to add other countries to the list of seven Muslim countries whose citizens were barred from travelling or migrating to the US. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer explained that Afghanistan, Pakistan and Lebanon were among the countries which were providing the information needed to scrutinise travellers. But he warned that if this cooperation changed, these or other countries could also be added to the list. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), however, was more categorical in assuring the 40 non-designated Muslim countries that Spicer mentioned in his statement. "Importantly, these seven countries are the only countries to which the pause on entry applies. No other countries face such treatment. Nor have any other countries been identified as warranting future inclusion at this time," the DHS said in a statement. Another White House added that reports of banning travellers from other countries were just rumours. "There's nothing imminent that I'm aware of," the spokesperson added. Other White House officials said that even the Obama administration had problems with the seven countries now facing the travel ban as they were not providing the data needed to scrutinise their citizens. But a passage in the January 27 executive order leaves the option to expand the list open, causing worries and rumours across the Muslim world. "At any point after submitting the list described in subsection (e) of this section, the secretary of state or the secretary of homeland security may submit to the president the names of any additional countries recommended for similar treatment," it said. But the DHS, while ruling out the possibility of expanding the list in the near future, said the aliens affected by the 90-day pause on travel were also getting "case-by-base exceptions and waivers, as outlined in President Donald Trump's executive order, "Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States."(ANI)
Six Afghan Red Cross aid workers have been killed in an ambush in the country's north by a suspected Islamic state gunmen, while travelling to a remote area to deliver humanitarian aid. Three vehicles carrying eight International Committee of the Red Cross(ICRC) employees were travelling through Dasht-e Leili, a desert in Jowzjan province, when they came under fire, according to the provincial governor, Lotfullah Azizi. According to the Guardian, three drivers and three other personnel were killed, and two are missing. The ICRC in Afghanistan confirmed the killings and said it was putting its activities across the country on hold while it assessed what had happened. Its director-general, Yves Daccord, described the incident as "the worst attack against us since 20 years. We are all outraged and so sad." The ICRC vehicles were clearly marked when they were ambushed outside Turkman Qudoq village by militants carrying Kalashnikov rifles, said the provincial police chief, Rahmatullah Turkistani. He said a local delegation of elders was investigating the incident. The attack underscores the danger facing NGOs in Afghanistan. Fifteen aid workers were killed in Afghanistan last year in more than 200 incidents of violence, kidnappings and killings directed against humanitarian organisations, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha). Northern Afghanistan in particular has become increasingly dangerous for aid workers. In 2013, militants shot and killed six employees of the French charity ACTED in Faryab. In 2015, nine Afghan staff members with the Czech organisation People in Need were shot in a guesthouse in Balkh. In April 2015 the bullet-riddled bodies of five Afghan workers for Save the Children were found after they were abducted in the strife-torn southern province of Uruzgan.(ANI)
An average of 55 per cent of those surveyed for London-based think tank, Chatham House, agreed that immigration from Muslim-majority countries should be halted, NBCnews reported on Wednesday.

Majorities in all but two of the 10 countries polled supported a ban, ranging from 71 per cent in Poland, to 53 per cent in Germany, 47 per cent in Britain and 41 per cent in Spain. In no country did the percentage that disagreed surpass 32 per cent, the report said.

The poll, carried out before President Trump took office, also found that the issue crossed the political spectrum -- three-quarters of respondents in support of a ban self-classified as right-wing and more than a third said they were left-leaning.

Support for a ban was also higher among older Europeans than younger ones as less than half of all college graduates supported further migration curbs.

--IANS sku/

( 181 Words)

2017-02-09-07:48:06 (IANS)
"This visit continues the dialogue and communication that the presidents of both countries agreed to in recent days," Xinhua news agency quoted ministry's statement as saying on Wednesday.

Videgaray is to hold talks with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of National Security John Kelly on "topics of the bilateral agenda billed as a priority by President Enrique Pena Nieto," including protecting the rights of Mexican immigrants in the US, migration, border security and infrastructure.

The term "border infrastructure" is taken to mean the controversial wall Trump wants to build along the shared border of the two countries.

Mexico is against the wall and has refused to pay for the project as requested by Trump. It remains to be seen what mechanism the US will put in place to recoup the expense.

--IANS sku/

( 175 Words)

2017-02-09-07:54:06 (IANS)
Niceta Lloyd, also known as Rickie, along with the First Lady, will be responsible for the planning and execution of events that take place at the White House, the statement issued late Wednesday from the Office of the Press Secretary.

She will oversee all social events and gatherings, from Official State Dinners, White House social calendar events, official policy-related events, to the First Lady's initiatives.

"Rickie brings with her over twenty-two years of solid diplomatic, political and social entertaining experience," Melania Trump said.

"I am looking forward to sharing my ideas and traditions of entertaining and social hospitality to America's house, my new home as well. That, along with Rickie's vast experience, I am even more excited."

According to the statement, Niceta Lloyd has worked with both Democratic and Republican Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies (JCCIC) leadership in planning the last five presidential inaugurations.

During her time at Design Cuisine -- creative catering and event styling providing fine dining for political, corporate, and social events in Northern Virginia, Montgomery county, and Washington -- she assisted the State Department's Office of Protocol in executing numerous state luncheons, summits and conferences.

Most recently she executed events during President Donald Trump's 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee celebrations.

--IANS ksk

( 238 Words)

2017-02-09-09:38:12 (IANS)
The Gaza Health Ministry said an Israeli bombing of a tunnel near the Egyptian border killed two Palestinians on Thursday, but the military denied any involvement.The Gaza Health ministry spokesman said in a statement the two men were "martyred and five other people were wounded as a result of being targeted by an Israeli warplane along the Palestinian Egyptian borders."An Israeli military spokeswoman said she had no knowledge of the attack, which happened before dawn.A few hours earlier, the Israeli military said it had intercepted several rockets fired from the Egyptian Sinai peninsula at the southern Israeli town of Eilat. One rocket landed in an open area causing no casualties or damage, police said.There was no immediate claim of responsibility from any group for firing the rockets.In the past, Islamic State-linked groups in Sinai have claimed responsibility for such attacks. Gaza, which shares borders with Israel and Egypt, is ruled by the Islamist Palestinian group Hamas.Egypt's government has accused Hamas of aiding the Islamic State-linked militants in the Sinai desert. Hamas denies those allegations.The Israel-Gaza border has been largely quiet in recent months, but on Monday a Palestinian rocket launched from the enclave drew several Israeli strikes against Hamas targets.Israel has said that Hamas bears overall responsibility for what happens in the enclave.Hamas has observed a de-facto ceasefire with Israel since a 2014 war but small armed cells of Jihadist Salafis have defied the agreement and have continued to occasionally launch rockets at Israel. When those attacks occur, Hamas usually orders its fighters to vacate potential targets for Israeli retaliation.In the past few years, Egypt has destroyed nearly 2,000 smuggling tunnels that provided Gaza's two million people with goods. Gaza is under an Israeli naval blockade.Egypt has recently eased restrictions at its tightly controlled border with Gaza.reuters cj RK1125 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0400-1142765.Xml
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged Bangladesh to immediately drop its plan to transfer Rohingya refugees from the Cox's Bazar area to Thengar Char, an uninhabited coastal island, saying the move would deprive them of their rights to freedom of movement, livelihood, food and education, in violation of Bangladesh's obligations under international human rights law. Between 300,000 and 500,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees, most of them unregistered by the authorities, are in Bangladesh after fleeing persecution in Myanmar dating back to the 1990s. Since October 2016, nearly 69,000 Rohingya from Rakhine State in Myanmar have entered Bangladesh to escape alleged attacks by the national security forces, including unlawful killings, sexual violence and wholesale destruction of villages. "The Bangladesh government is making the ridiculous claim that relocating Rohingya refugees to an island with absolutely no facilities that is deluged at high tide and submerged during the monsoon season will improve their living conditions. This proposal is both cruel and unworkable and should be abandoned," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. The plan to move long-term refugees to Thengar Char was first suggested in 2015, but was shelved after widespread condemnation, said HRW. The government revived the plan in early February 2017 following the new influx of Rohingya refugees. Officials contended that the new arrivals pose a law and order and a public health problem, but have produced no evidence to support this claim. I In addition, the government has issued warnings against new arrivals mixing with the general population and established committees to increase security around the camps to prevent refugees from exiting the camps or "intermingling" with Bangladeshi citizens. A cabinet order, passed on January 26, 2017, is unclear as to whether all Rohingya in Bangladesh would be transferred or only new arrivals. However, State Minister for Foreign Affairs Mohammad Shahriar Alom has said that, "The Rohingya will live [in Thengar Char] temporarily and our desire is that the Myanmar government will take them back as soon as possible." Aid agencies, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which administers the refugee camps, expressed alarm over the revival of this plan. Journalists who have visited the island described it as empty and featureless, subject to cyclones and flooding. During monsoon season, the island is submerged; anyone living on the island will have to be evacuated, and any infrastructure would be damaged. "The Bangladeshi government needs to treat the persecuted Rohingya humanely, but they shouldn't have to go it alone. Instead of dumping Rohingya on a flooded island, the government should be seeking immediate donor support to improve existing conditions for the refugees," said Adams said. (ANI)
Russia views Romania as a NATO outpost and as a threat due to it hosting elements of a US anti-missile shield, the Interfax news agency reported today, citing a Russian foreign ministry official.The U.S. military, which says the shield is needed to protect from Iran, not threaten Russia, switched on the $800 million Romanian part of the shield in May last year. Another part of the shield is due to be built in Poland."Romania's stance and the stance of its leadership, who have turned the country into an outpost, is a clear threat for us," Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko, a senior Russian foreign ministry official, told Interfax in an interview."All these decisions ... are in the first instance aimed against Russia," he said, accusing Romanian authorities of revelling in anti-Russian rhetoric.Moscow's comments come as NATO deploys thousands of soldiers and heavy weaponry to Poland, the Baltic states and southeastern Europe, in its biggest buildup since the Cold War.U.S. and NATO officials say the move is needed to provide extra security and reassurance to European countries after Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea, but Russia says it is part of an aggressive strategy on its borders.REUTERS CJ AN1422 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0400-1143071.Xml
Fighting between government and opposition forces in South Sudan has reached "worrying proportions" in recent days and forced the evacuation of aid workers, with more military supplies seen arriving in Upper Nile State, the UN Mission in South Sudan said.UNMISS said in a statement late yesterday fighting had been reported on the west bank of River Nile, in the north of the country. A government army spokesman denied this and rebels could not be reached immediately for comment.The civil war in world's youngest nation has forced more than 3 million people from their homes."What began with an exchange of fire between SPLA and Aguelek (militia) opposition forces, has expanded geographically. Military resupplies have since been observed arriving in the area," UNMISS said, referring to the South Sudan army.A spokesman for the government SPLA denied there had been fighting in recent days in the region UNMISS referred to."What had happened was three days ago when our forces had overrun Renk town. So it was not in West Bank, it was far away from the West Bank," Brigadier General Lul Ruai, SPLA Spokesman, said.Political rivalry between South Sudan President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, and his former deputy Riek Machar, a Nuer, led to civil war in 2013 that has often followed ethnic lines.The war has driven more than 3 million people from their homes.The two signed a shaky peace deal in 2015, but fighting has continued. Machar fled in July and is now in South Africa.In December, the then head of the UN Ban Ki-Moon warned that barring immediate action, he feared genocide was about to start in South Sudan.On Tuesday, Adama Dieng, UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, said in a statement that more than 52,000 people had fled South Sudan to Uganda in January alone from Yei, Morobo, Lainya and Kajo-Keji - all near Uganda."Many have given accounts of the killing of civilians, destruction of homes, sexual violence, and looting of livestock and property, and cite fear of arrest and torture," Dieng said. REUTERS AKC AN1557 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0432-1143264.Xml
An Australian man was charged by Thai police today following the death of his girlfriend in a jet ski accident on the tourist island of Phuket.Emily Jayne Collie, 20, died on Sunday after her jet ski collided with one being ridden by her boyfriend, Thomas Keating, as they approached the beach."We have charged him with causing death to another through carelessness," Police Colonel Sanya Thongsawad told reporters.Keating, 22, had reported to a police station accompanied by his relatives and members of Collie's family.Keating was not detained, but police said he could not leave Thailand until the court process was completed.Collie's family, including her parents, arrived at a Phuket hospital yesterday to identify her body, which will be sent back to Australia this week. REUTERS AKC AN1651 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0432-1143374.Xml
Russia expects the United State to use its influence to persuade Ukraine to give up "aggressive tactics" in the Ukrainian conflict resolution, the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said today. "As for the prospects of the Moscow-Washington dialogue on the Ukrainian issue, we want to hope that Washington will somehow use its influence to persuade Ukraine to fulfill obligations taken under the Minsk Accords and to give up aggressive tactics in the resolution of this problem, which we have observed in the past days," Peskov told mediaperson. "The intra-Ukrainian conflict can hardly be the subject of any deal. This information in no way corresponds to reality," he said. "Moreover, the destiny of people who live in Donbass and who have been de facto rejected by their own country cannot be the subject of a deal either," Peskov noted.UNI XC SHS PM1728 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0329-1143443.Xml
I mmediately after Donald Trump was elected, US diplomats urged Lithuania to rush through an agreement to keep American troops on its soil, reflecting alarm that the new, Russia-friendly US president might try to stop more deployments in Europe.The agreement was signed just a few days before Trump's inauguration, according to a document from the Lithuanian defence ministry, and became the first step locking the new US president into a NATO strategy to deter Russia in Poland and the Baltics, following Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea.European allies are growing confident that, with the arrival of US troops in Poland, plans ordered by Barack Obama will hold. They are reassured by Trump's remarks to US forces in Florida this week, when he said: "We strongly support NATO.""When you put soldiers on the ground, tanks like this, that signifies a long-term commitment," Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, the US army's top commander in Europe, said at the snow-covered base in Zagan, Poland where thousands of US troops are arriving before fanning out across the region."I am not hearing anything that would tell me otherwise," Hodges said when asked whether Trump might scale back deployments. The president has described NATO as "obsolete" and has praised Russian leader Vladimir Putin.But it will be hard politically for Trump to bring troops home "on the orders of Russia", one senior alliance diplomat said. The US soldiers featured in a TV commercial seen by millions of Americans at the end of the Super Bowl on Sunday.Worried since Russia's seizure of Crimea that Moscow could invade Poland or the Baltic states, the Western military alliance wants to bolster its eastern flank without provoking the Kremlin by stationing large forces permanently.The troop build-up is NATO's biggest in Europe since the end of the Cold War, using a web of small eastern outposts, forces on rotation, regular war games and warehoused US equipment ready for a rapid response force of up to 40,000 personnel.Britain, Germany and Canada are playing major roles in the force build-up. "Every ally is locked in," said Adam Thomson, a former British ambassador to NATO and now director of the European Leadership Network think-tank in London.GRAND BARGAIN?Apparently confident of Washington's commitment to Obama's strategy, Poland's Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz declared "God bless President Trump" at a welcoming ceremony for US forces in Zagan last week.But European governments remain concerned Trump could use the troop deployments as a chip with Moscow in a grand bargain. Political analysts say that could involve giving Moscow a free hand in much of the former Soviet Union in return for a commitment not to interfere in Europe."Trump is a businessman and he wants to negotiate from a position of strength," a central European diplomat in Brussels said of the decision to allow US deployments to continue.Trump held an hour-long phone call with Putin in late January but avoided talk of Crimea and the rebellion in eastern Ukraine that the West accuses Moscow of sponsoring.Trump has suggested lifting economic sanctions imposed on Russia over Crimea in return for a reduction of nuclear weapons.He might offer to scale back NATO projects like the new Polish site set to form part of the alliance's missile shield in the region. NATO says the system is designed to intercept Iranian rockets but Moscow says it is aimed at disabling Russian missiles.The shield was developed by the United States and is now part of NATO. "It is impossible for Washington to act unilaterally without upsetting allies," Thomson said.For now, Obama's "dialogue and deterrent" remains the NATO mantra - talking to Moscow but also sending US tanks back to Europe and reopening Cold War-era storage sites."We stick with the facts, not the forecasts," Salvatore Farina, the NATO commander coordinating forces in Poland and the three Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, told Reuters at the Rukla military base in Lithuania, where both a German battle group and US infantry are based. REUTERS AKC AN1716 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0432-1143427.Xml
Bangladesh is working with Myanmar security forces to stop Rohingya Muslim militants crossing their shared border, but will continue to allow women, children and the elderly to seek shelter there, a top government official said.Around 69,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh to escape violence in Buddhist majority Myanmar since October, straining relations between the two neighbours who both see the stateless Muslim minority as the other nation's problem.Despite those tensions, HT Imam, political adviser to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said Bangladesh had handed over two Rohingya militants caught sneaking into its territory in October, and was continuing to cooperate with Myanmar to prevent more from doing so."Those who are absolutely helpless - women with children and the elderly - we will give them temporary shelter," Imam said in an interview yesterday. "We are doing this at a heavy cost. It's a crisis that has been forced on us. They are citizens of Myanmar and must be taken back."About 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims live in Myanmar's Rakhine state, where they face restrictions on their movements and are denied citizenship. Many Myanmar Buddhists regard them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.Myanmar's military launched what it describes as a counterinsurgency operation in northwestern Rakhine in October. A United Nations report last week said soldiers have committed mass killings, gang rapes and arson.REFUGEE INFLUXBangladesh is already host to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees, and says the latest influx has strained its limited resources.Officials, including Imam and Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali, met diplomats from countries including the United States, Saudi Arabia and Myanmar in Dhaka on Sunday to address the crisis.Bangladesh is seeking funds for its much-criticised plan to relocate new and old refugees from Myanmar to an isolated and undeveloped island in the Bay of Bengal called Thengar Char - which floods at high tide. They are currently sheltered in the coastal district of Cox's Bazar."The foreign minister requested for international help and also for taking the Rohingya population," Imam said. "Bangladesh has a serious political, economic and financial problem because of the influx."The crisis erupt after nine Myanmar police officers were killed in coordinated attacks on border posts on October 9.Refugees started to trickle across the border soon after that, but many were initially turned back by Bangladeshi border guards. Imam said they were later allowed to come in after Prime Minister Hasina intervened on humanitarian grounds and at the request of the international community.Over the past five months Hasina has twice spoken with Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who leads Myanmar's government, to work out ways to send back the refugees that Bangladesh calls "undocumented Myanmar nationals"."The PM also sent a special envoy to Yangon," Imam said. "We are trying to engage them as much as possible. We suggested joint border patrols, joint border watch. Our border guards keep regular contact so that there is no cross-border militancy."Myanmar, however, has not responded to the proposal for joint patrolling of the border, Imam said. Myanmar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to a request for comment. REUTERS AKC AN1730 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0432-1143454.Xml
Five Turkish soldiers were killed and 10 were wounded in clashes with Islamic State militants during operations to seize control of the northern Syrian town of al-Bab from the jihadists, Dogan news agency reported today.It said these casualties, during clashes today morning, were in addition to five Turkish soldiers killed in the same area yesterday. REUTERS AKC PM1803 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0432-1143537.Xml
A small group of protesters greeted a ship from Malaysia when it docked in Myanmar today carrying aid bound for the troubled state of Rakhine, where many members of the stateless Rohingya Muslim minority live.The ship docked on the outskirts of the commercial hub, Yangon, where it was due to unload 500 tonnes of food and emergency supplies, with the rest of its 2,200 tonne cargo bound for southeast Bangladesh.Almost 69,000 Rohingyas have fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh in the past four months from a security force crackdown.The aid shipment from mostly Muslim Malaysia has stirred opposition in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where many see the Rohingya as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.Malaysia has been an outspoken critic of Myanmar over the crisis in Rakhine state, which erupted after nine policemen were killed in attacks on border posts on October 9 claimed by Rohingya militants.UN officials working with refugees in Bangladesh have told Reuters the death toll in the Myanmar security sweep could be more than 1,000.Refugees have given journalists, human rights groups and UN investigators detailed accounts of troops firing on civilians, burning villages, beatings, detention and rape.The Myanmar government, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, has rejected the reports of abuse, saying many were fabricated. It insists the strife is an internal matter.Underlining the controversy surrounding the aid for the Rohingya, several dozen Buddhist monks and nationalists demonstrated outside the port terminal today.They held signs rejecting the use of the name Rohingya - the name most Muslims in northern Rakhine state use to describe themselves, which Myanmar rejects."We don't mind that they want to support people who are suffering," Buddhist monk U Thuseiktha told Reuters."But we don't want political exploitation of this issue by calling them Rohingya. The name Rohingya doesn't exist."'CONFIDENCE'Myanmar officials have also accused Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak of tapping into the Rohingya cause "to promote a certain political agenda".The Muslim groups and aid organisations behind the aid shipment had hoped to deliver the supplies directly to Rohingyas in Rakhine State, but were instead forced to hand the aid over to the Myanmar government in Yangon.Myanmar has also insisted that it be distributed equally between Buddhists and Muslims in Rakhine State.Abd. Aziz Sheikh Fadzir, a lawmaker from Najib's ruling party who attended the docking, said the organizations behind the shipment had been delivering aid to other crises around Asia and the Pacific.Any suggestion of political expediency was "speculation", he said.Najib has called Myanmar's military operation "genocide" and saw off the shipment when it left Malaysia last Friday.Reezal Merican Naina Merican, Malaysia's deputy minister of foreign affairs, who was also at the port, praised Myanmar for agreeing to accept the delivery, saying it built confidence between the international community and Myanmar.Win Myat Aye, Myanmar's minister for social welfare, relief and resettlement, said Rakhine was "the second-poorest state in Myanmar, is a natural disaster-prone area by geographical location, and it is compounded by communal conflicts unfortunately".Myanmar has been criticized for hampering the work of agencies including the UN World Food Program trying to feed people in area where malnutrition rates were high before the conflict .The government had been delivering aid to affected people in northern Rakhine "without discrimination", Win Myat Aye said, adding Myanmar would "arrange the distribution of this aid to the communities in the affected areas at the soonest possible time". REUTERS AKC PM1833 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0432-1143618.Xml
President Donald Trump today disputed accounts that his Supreme Court pick was disheartened by the Republican president's attacks on judges, saying Judge Neil Gorsuch's comments were misrepresented.Gorsuch's remarks describing Trump's Twitter attacks on the judiciary as "demoralizing" and "disheartening" were confirmed yesterday by Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist hired by the White House to guide his nomination through the US Senate.Gorsuch made those comments in a meeting with Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, who had urged him to go public.Trump, offering no evidence and taking a swipe at Blumenthal, disputed the account in a Twitter post early today."Sen.Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie),now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?" Trump wrote.As a Senate candidate in 2010, Blumenthal came under fire after the New York Times quoted him in a speech saying he "served in Vietnam" and posted the audio on its website. Blumenthal said he had used "misplaced words" about his Vietnam service but never meant to deceive voters.Trump himself received five draft deferments during the Vietnam War, including one for bone spurs in his heel, the Times reported in August.Trump, who took office on January 20, took to Twitter over the weekend to condemn the Friday night order by Judge James Robart that placed on hold the president's January 27 temporary travel ban on people from seven countries and all refugees.The administration appealed that ruling to a three-judge federal panel, which is due to decide on the issue this week.Trump called Robart a "so-called judge" whose "ridiculous" opinion "essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country."US presidents are usually hesitant to weigh in on judicial matters out of respect for a US Constitution clause ensuring a separation of powers between the executive branch, Congress and the judiciary.Trump nominated Gorsuch on January 31 to succeed Justice Antonin Scalia on the nine-member court. Scalia died a year ago this month. Blumenthal is a member of the Judiciary Committee that will hold a confirmation hearing on Gorsuch's nomination. REUTERS AKC AN1844 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0432-1143687.Xml
Norwegian Air is lobbying its government to scrap a deal which prevents it from flying the "Siberian Corridor" over Russia, the shortest route between Scandinavia and Asia.Russia only allows one airline per country to use its and under the terms of a 1956 Soviet-era deal with Denmark, Norway and Sweden only Scandinavian Airlines and Aeroflot can fly the route.Since Scandinavia is three countries and SAS, which is partly owned by all three, only flies direct to Asia from Denmark, Norway should rework the deal, Norwegian Air argues.Europe's third-largest budget airline by passenger numbers after Ryanair and EasyJet has to take a longer, more expensive route for its flights to Thailand.Now Norwegian Air wants to fly elsewhere in Asia and its executives met Norway's foreign minister Boerge Brende on Tuesday to see if the deal could be replaced."We have our planes ready to go and we want to start flying these direct routes to Asia as soon as possible, but we can't because of this incredibly outdated deal," its spokeswoman said."Most of these Asian routes will never happen if we are not allowed to fly over Siberia. It would be so much more expensive that we haven't even bothered to do the maths."Scandinavian Airlines said it would not stand in the way of a new deal, while Russia's flights authority and Norway's transport ministry did not immediately comment."We would very much like to see free competition over Siberia, and have lobbied for this on several occasions", an SAS spokesman said.Norwegian Air, which has previously said it would be interested in flying direct to China, Japan, Hong Kong, India and Pakistan, hopes a new deal will open up the route to other airlines and aims to take a larger share of the Asia-to-Europe market, helped by its ability to offer cheaper airfares.And with an increasing number of flights between the US and Europe, Norwegian Air believes it can create a new "highway" from the US to Asia via Norway's capital."Right now we are stopped by this outdated deal, but we hope that will change," the spokeswoman said, adding it would also consider direct routes to several Russian cities.Norwegian Air has ordered 18.5 billion dollars worth of planes from Boeing so far, including 29 Dreamliners last October and after its Irish subsidiary was granted approval for trans-Atlantic routes to the US in December, it said it would consider buying even more planes.REUTERS AKC AN1906 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0432-1143762.Xml
Turkish police have detained four Islamic State suspects who were believed to be planning attacks in Turkey, along with suicide belts and explosives, a provincial governor's office said today.The arrests come after the biggest round-up targeting the jihadist group in Turkey last weekend, when 748 suspects were detained."Information was obtained indicating that some group members were going to carry out sensational attacks in our country in line with orders from senior members in Syria," the Gaziantep governor's office said in a written statement.It said that in subsequent operations four suspects were detained, one of them already sought over terrorist group membership. No details were provided on their identity.In searches, police seized 24 suicide belts weighing a total 150 kg, two kalashnikov rifles and bomb detonators.A string of bomb and gun attacks in Turkey over the last two years have been blamed on Islamic State militants. Turkey is part of the US-led coalition against the militant group.The head of the US CIA, Mike Pompeo, arrived in Turkey today for an official visit to Ankara, where he is expected to discuss the situation in Syria.Thirty-nine people, mainly foreigners, were killed at New Year when an Islamic State militant opened fire inside the Reina night club in Istanbul. REUTERS AKC PM1937 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0432-1143820.Xml
India and the US have agreed to maintain the pace and momentum of their partnership, particularly in the defence ties, after US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis spoke over phone with Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, American and Indian officials said on Thursday. Spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said it was the "first conversation" between Mattis and Parrikar. "Secretary Mattis committed to build upon the tremendous progress in bilateral defence cooperation made in recent years, underscoring the strategic importance of the US-India relationship and India's role in advancing global peace and security," Davis said after the two leaders spoke on Wednesday. Mattis and Parrikar, Davis said, also "affirmed their commitment to sustain the momentum on key bilateral defence efforts to include the Defence Technology and Trade Initiative". The Defence Ministry in a statement in Delhi said the two leaders "expressed satisfaction at the progress in defence cooperation between India and the United States, especially in recent years and noted its significance in the regional and global context". It said Mattis and Parrikar "emphasised the special significance and high priority placed by both countries to the relationship, and resolved to work together to further consolidate and expand this partnership in the future". --IANS aks-sar/nir/vt ( 213 Words) 2017-02-09-22:48:07 (IANS)
PARIS, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- French independent centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron is forecast to win the race to the Elysee Palace, beating with a large lead his rival Marine Le Pen, a survey showed on Wednesday.

An opinionway poll for Les Echos newspaper and Radio Classique showed that in the first round of voting scheduled for April 23, the former economy minister would win 22 percent of the vote, behind the National Front leader's score of 25 percent.

Under fire over his wife's fake job, embattled conservative contender Francois Fillon is projected to win 20 percent of the vote.

In May's decisive second round of elections, Macron would beat Le Pen 66 percent to 34 percent, the poll's figures showed.

The ex-investment banker promised to further reduce France's high employment charges and increase workers' minimum wages by 500 euros (533 U.S. dollars) per year by cutting taxes on wages. He also wants to raise taxes on consumption and wealthy pensioners.

Macron promised to boost the defense budget, hire 10,000 police officers and raise funding for schools.

"We can no longer defend a political system whose practices weaken democracy," he told the 15,000-crowd at the weekend in east-central town of Lyon.

The pro-business youngest contender joined the Socialist government in August 2014 to replace ousted economy minister Arnaud Montebourg. Two years later, he quit his post to focus on his political career.

Macron, an advisor to current President Francois Hollande during his election campaign and later became his economy minister, was one of main figures that forged the law on growth and activity and responsibility pact, flagship pieces of the government's roadmap to revive sluggish growth and lower unemployment in France.

He has never had an elected post. He disclosed his political ambition after creating his own political movement "En Marche" (On the Move) in April last year, vowing to lead the movement "to 2017 and to victory."
KIGALI, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Rwanda has serious concerns as Burundian refugees continue to arrive while the country's largest refugee camp has surpassed its capacity of 50,000 residents.

Mahama camp located in Kirehe district, Eastern Province is now sheltering more than 53,000 refugees.

It was established to accommodate Burundian refugees who massively fled to Rwanda when political crisis related to presidential elections erupted into violence in Burundi in 2015.

Speaking to Xinhua on Wednesday, Seraphine Mukantabana, Rwanda's minister of disaster management and refugees affairs, said that the country's largest refugee camp is already overcrowded with Burundian refugees, creating serious concerns as more refugees continue to arrive.

"The camp has surpassed its accommodation capacity, but we can't chase the refugees, or tell them go back to their country since they are fleeing violence. We are worried that even as the refugee population grows, meeting basic needs will be a challenge," she added.

"We are looking into the matter and soon we will find a solution to overcrowding of refugee camps in our country."

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), since April 2015, more than 384,000 Burundian refugees have fled to Tanzania (222,271), Rwanda (84,866), Uganda (about 44,000) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (32,650) and its projections indicate that numbers will cross half-a-million by the end of the year.

With the number of arrivals at more than 160 a week in January, many live under plastic sheeting in overcrowded area, waiting for a move to a family shelter.

Last month, Burundian refugees at Mahama camp acquired new health facility that is expected to improve general health services for the refugees.

The health facility, equipped with a maternity room/labor ward, medical isolation centre and a laboratory, was constructed through collaboration of different international organizations and the government of Rwanda.

UNHCR says that the number of people fleeing Burundi, where peace talks have stalled, has been rising in the first weeks of the year, adding to the pressure for land in host countries. The majority are women, children and individuals with specific needs.

The UN body is calling on host governments to urgently provide more land to ensure shelter and avert a drastic deterioration in conditions.

The small central African country is a home to 160,000 refugees mainly from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi with a little number of refugees with other nationalities. Enditem
The China-made aircraft MA60 (R) and Y12e are pictured during the delivery ceremony at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, Nepal, Feb. 8, 2017. Nepal received two aircraft MA60 and Y12e as part of a six aircraft deal between Nepal and China. (Xinhua/Sunil Sharma)

KATHMANDU, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC), the national flag carrier of the Himalayan nation, on Wednesday formally received two brand new aircrafts from the Chinese supplier to add in its domestic fleet.

With addition of two new Chinese planes, one 56-seater MA60 and another Y-12e, the NAC has now majority of its planes made in China. Of the total seven planes in its domestic fleet, four are China-made while three are Canadian Twin Otters.

Chinese supplier -- AVIC International Holding, handed over planes to the NAC amid a function organised at the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu.

The two planes had landed in Kathmandu on Jan. 26 and Feb. 1.

NAC Managing Director Sugat Ratna Kansakar and Xu Bo, vice-president of AVIC International Aero-Development, signed the handover document at the presence of Nepalese Minister of Culture Tourism and Civil Aviation Jiwan Bahadur Shahi and Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Yu Hong.

Kansakar said, "NAC considers entry of Chinese aircraft as an impetus to expand domestic service." According to a senior NAC official, they expects to increase the NAC's domestic market share to 20 percent from current around six percent with the operation of Chinese planes.

As per an agreement signed between the NAC and AVIC International Holding, in 2012, Nepal would acquire six Chinese aircraft, two in grants and four in loans. Of the six planes, Nepal's national flag carrier has to take delivery of two MA60 and four Y12e as per the agreement.

During the handover ceremony, Nepalese Minister Shahi made an empathic appeal to the Chinese side to arrange the English speaking pilots. "The NAC plans to bring two additional Y-12e in the very new future," said Kansakar.

The NAC had taken delivery of two new planes after nearly two year-long hiatus of first acquiring first two planes -- one MA60 and Y-12e in 2014 which were given to NAC as a grant from China, because it had concerns regarding spare parts, training, load capacity and insurance cost with the supplier.
BRUSSELS, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini will visit Washington on Thursday and Friday in a bid to revive transatlantic relations which has been at its lowest ebb since U.S. President Donald Trump took office in January.

During her visit, Mogherini will meet U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, White House Advisor Jared Kushner, and U.S. National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, the European External Action Service (EEAS) announced on Wednesday.

The EU's diplomatic service added that she will also meet several U.S. senators.

Moreover, Mogherini will appear on Friday at the think tank Atlantic Council to discuss how the EU can build a strong relationship with the new U.S. administration, the EEAS said.

EU-U.S. relations have been at their lowest ebb since Trump took the reins, with many EU leaders standing against the new U.S. President's words and policies.

The European Council President Donald Tusk on Jan. 31 even branded Trump's "worrying declarations" as an external threat, which along with other factors, "make our future highly unpredictable."

The EU, who slapped sanctions on Russia in 2014 in response to an alleged role it played in conflicts in eastern Ukraine, is deeply concerned over Trump's pro-Russia stance.

Trump has indicated that he could lift sanctions against Russia if Moscow proved helpful in battling terrorists and reaching other goals important to the United States.

Moreover, the top brass of the EU, including Mogherini, recently blasted a travel ban signed by Trump that bars citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from traveling to the United States for 90 days, and stops accepting refugees for 120 days.

Mogherini last week pledged that the EU would not turn its back on anyone who has the right to international protection, because "this is where we stand, this is where we will continue to stand."

The stance was highlighted again on Wednesday when she addressed a meeting on the Joint Valletta Action Plan, saying "Building walls and borders is not the European way of dealing with the issues."

These words also run contrary to Trump's policies towards migration, considering the U.S. president's controversial travel ban and border wall plans between the United States and Mexico.
JERUSALEM, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Archaeologists excavating a cave in the Dead Sea announced Wednesday they had discovered the 12th cave that held scrolls from the Jewish Second Temple, a period dated to some 2,000 years ago.

The rare parchments were looted in the mid-20th century, presumably by local shepherds, the researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Liberty University in Virginia, United States, said in a statement.

The cave is located on cliffs west of Qumran, near the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, where 11 other caves were found in a series of discoveries in between 1947 and 1956.

The so-called "Dead Sea Scrolls" were found in these caves near the shore of the salty lake, after which they were named. Dated to between the third century B.C. and 70 A.D., the scrolls are widely considered by scholars as the oldest written biblical fragment ever found.

Until now, researchers believed that only 11 caves had contained the ancient manuscripts. "With the discovery of this cave, scholars have now suggested that it would be numbered as Cave 12," according to a statement released by the Hebrew University on behalf of the team.

"Like Cave 8, in which scroll jars but no scrolls were found, this cave will receive the designation Q12 (Qumran)," the statement read.

The finds from the excavation include pieces of broken jars that held the scrolls and fragments of scroll wrappings, a string that tied the scrolls, and a piece of leather that was part of a scroll.

"This exciting excavation is the closest we've come to discover new Dead Sea scrolls in 60 years," said Dr. Oren Gutfeld, an archaeologist at the Hebrew University's Institute of Archaeology and director of the excavation.

"Although at the end of the day no scroll was found, and instead we 'only' found a piece of parchment rolled up in a jug that was being processed for writing, the findings indicate beyond any doubt that the cave contained scrolls that were stolen," he said.
BEIRUT, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- The Lebanese Directorate of General Security confirmed Wednesday that it had foiled an extremist plot targeting Beirut's downtown area and arrested two suspects.

The directorate said in a statement that its forces had arrested a Lebanese and a Palestinian, who confessed to plot a suicide attack by monitoring movement of politicians, obtaining their addresses and observing their security convoys in downtown Beirut.

The two suspects were also on charges of "belonging to an extremist group and contacting militants in an attempt to join their ranks."

The Lebanese confessed to have contacted Syrian extremists for enrollment under the help of the Palestinian, who was a member of the group.
by Ronald Njoroge

NAIROBI, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Severe drought in Kenya is likely to lead to increased human-wildlife conflict, the country's wildlife conservationists warned on Wednesday.

International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) East Africa Regional Director James Isiche told Xinhua in Nairobi that lack of water and pasture will force wildlife to move out of protected areas in search of water.

"As a result, we are likely to witness increasing cases of human wildlife conflict this year," Isiche said on the sidelines of the conference on building capacity in the management of the wildlife-livestock interface.

Isiche said that the situation for elephants is very dire as they will likely encounter livestock and humans as they all search for water.

"Elephants tend to move along in families and the old and young are likely to be impacted because they are weaker," he added.

IFAW noted that it will be a mammoth task to avoid animal deaths resulting from the human-wildlife conflict. Some of the measures that could be used include deploying wildlife rangers to separate wildlife and humans.

Isiche said the drought has been exacerbated due to the destruction of Kenya's key catchment areas.

Wildlife conservationists noted that drought could reverse the gains made to reduce elephants deaths caused by poaching.

The number of elephants killed by poachers has been reducing from a high of approximately 350 elephants a year in 2012 to fewer than 200 currently. Enditem
TEHRAN, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Russia and Iran will sign an agreement on visa-free travels of the nationals by group tours, Russian ambassador to Iran Levan Dzhagaryan said on Wednesday.

The agreement will be signed during the visit of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to Moscow in March, Dzhagaryan was quoted as saying by semi-official Fars news agency.

The citizens of both countries will take advantage of visa-free trips in group travels organized by tours containing 5-25 passengers, he said.

"We believe this agreement is particularly important because it will significantly increase the flow of tourists both from Iran to Russia, and vice versa," he added.
WASHINGTON, Feb 8 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday accused U.S. courts of being political after his executive order banning immigrants from the Middle East was halted.

"Courts seem to be so political and it would be so great for our justice system if they could read a statement and do what's right," Trump told a gathering of police officers in Washington.

Trump said the court should immediately reinstate the executive order, which he said was signed to promote national security.

"They were talking about things that just had nothing to do with this," he said.

The executive order, which Trump signed on Jan.27, banned the entry of citizens of seven Middle Eastern countries for 90 days, the entry of all immigrants for 120 days and the entry of Syrian immigrants indefinitely.

Major protests broke out in big cities and major airports around the country as many saw the effort as a deviation from long standing immigrants-friendly policies in the United States.

James Robart, a judge at the federal court of the Western District of Washington State, ruled on Friday to put the executive order on freeze nationwide on the ground that the ban was causing states "irreversible damages."

The Department of Justice then made an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal, asking for the retraction of the restraining order. But the request was denied by the Ninth Circuit Court.

Trump has previously attacked Robart for blocking his executive order, tweeting "the opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is rediculous and will be overturned!"

The criticism shattered a U.S. political tradition where members of the executive branch and legislative branch refrained from commenting on judicial decisions.

"I think it's best not to single out judges for criticism," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in response to Trump's tweet.
British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street for Prime Minister's questions at the House of parliament in London, Britain, Feb. 8, 2017. The British House of Commons on Wednesday night passed the Brexit Bill which gives the British government the power to begin the formal process of Britain leaving the European Union . (Xinhua/Tim Ireland)

LONDON, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- The parliamentary bill empowering the British government to begin the formal process of leaving the European Union completed its passage Wednesday night in the House of Commons.

Prime Minister Theresa May's government succeeded in crossing the final crucial hurdle with 494 votes to 122 -- a majority of 372.

May sat in the chamber alongside her Brexit ministers as the historic result was announced by deputy speaker Lindsay Hoyle.

It now goes to the unelected House of Lords for further scrutiny before being sent to Queen Elizabeth for royal assent.

Scottish Nationalist MP Alex Salmond criticized the process and accused the government of railroading the legislation through parliament in a "disgraceful fashion.

He said this was the first time a bill of great constitutional importance had been passed in this day since the Defense of the Realm Bill prior to World War One in 1914.

Having won Wednesday night in the Commons, where a string of amendments were defeated, it almost guarantees that May will be on course to tell Brussels within weeks to start the EU exit process.

May's government only introduced the briefly worded bill into parliament last week, determined to see it fast-tracked through the parliamentary process.

It has meant members of parliament (MPs) sitting until midnight on some occasions to complete a series of debates.

Attempts by the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) to ensure the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh could have a vote on Brexit, as well as a call by the minority Liberal Democrats for a second national referendum, each failed, as did a string of proposed amendments by the main opposition Labor party.

In the final vote, the result indicated that some Labor MPs had defied an instruction from their leader Jeremy Corbyn to vote in favor of the Article 50 bill.

A number of his shadow cabinet members have already resigned, and more may quit as a result of the vote.

Before the result was even announced it was reported that Labor's shadow business secretary Clive Lewis resigned from Corbyn's shadow cabinet, saying he could not vote in favor of the Brexit bill.

Under parliamentary convention in Britain a minister or shadow minister disobeying the leadership is expected to resign or be fired. The vote will add to the ongoing civil war within the Labor Party that erupted after Corbyn's election as leader.

During a day of intensive debates, MPs failed by 332 votes to 290 to ensure EU nationals lawfully resident in Britain on the date of last June's EU referendum would have the right to stay in Britain.

Another vote called for Britain to remain as a member of Euratom, the European Atomic Agency Community. This was also lost with a vote of 287 in support and 336 against, another victory f

Brexit Minister David Jones had confirmed during the debate that Britain leaving the EU also meant leaving Euratom.

But he added that the government wants to maintain successful cooperation with the EU and says this will be a matter for negotiation with Brussels.

On the residence rights of EU nationals in Britain, Jones said the government recognizes issue is extremely important and will addressed as a matter of priority.

As MPs were voting, a group of MPs burst into song in the chamber of Commons where even applause if frowned upon. The choir was silenced by an order from Deputy Speaker Lindsay Hoyle.
NEW YORK, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday railed against department store chain Nordstrom over its decision to stop selling his daughter Ivanka Trump's clothing and accessory line.

The retailer said last week that it won't purchase products from the Ivanka Trump line this fall, based on the brand's performance.

"My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!" Trump tweeted via his private Twitter account, which reaches 24.2 million followers.

Trump also retweeted his tweet on his official @POTUS account, which has 15.1 million followers. The tweet was retweeted by 14,000 times in three hours and evoked thousands of replies, among which many followers voiced concerns that the U.S. president abused his power to benefit his family.

Nordstrom, which has about 350 stores in the United States and Canada, can't be reached for an immediate comment.

Stock of the Seattle-based retailer took a brief fall after the Twitter criticism, from 42.69 U.S. dollars per share at 10:50 a.m. to 42.50 at 10:55 a.m.

The shares, however, regained ground in early afternoon trading, in contrast with other companies Trump has criticised on Twitter, including Lockheed, Boeing and Ford.

The White House defended Trump's criticism of Nordstrom. "I think this was less than his family's business than an attack on his daughter," White House spokesman Sean Spicer told a news briefing.

Nordstrom is among one of dozens of retailers that faced boycott calls for selling Trump products or doing business with his family.

A social media campaign called "Grap Your Wallet" started in October following the revelation of a tape that showed Trump making lewd comments about women.

Ivanka, Trump's eldest daughter, has said she would take a leave of absence from her clothing business as well as the Trump organization.

She has moved to Washington along with her husband, Jared Kushner, who was appointed to the position of senior adviser to the president despite worries of nepotism.
British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street for Prime Minister's questions at the House of parliament in London, Britain, Feb. 8, 2017. The British House of Commons on Wednesday night passed the Brexit Bill which gives the British government the power to begin the formal process of Britain leaving the European Union. (Xinhua/Tim Ireland)

LONDON, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- The parliamentary bill empowering the British government to begin the formal process of leaving the European Union completed its passage Wednesday night in the House of Commons.

Prime Minister Theresa May's government succeeded in crossing the final crucial hurdle with 494 votes to 122 -- a majority of 372.

May sat in the chamber alongside her Brexit ministers as the historic result was announced by deputy speaker Lindsay Hoyle.

It now goes to the unelected House of Lords for further scrutiny before being sent to Queen Elizabeth for royal assent.

Over the landslide victory, David Davis, the Brexit Minister said: "The decision on EU membership has been made by the people we serve. It is now time for everyone, whichever way they voted in the Referendum, to unite to make a success of the important task at hand for our country."

Britain is set to trigger Article 50, the formal procedure by which an EU member state notifies the European Council that it intends to leave the block, by the end of March.

Once triggered, Article 50 requires "divorce" negotiations to be completed within two years.

Scottish Nationalist MP Alex Salmond criticized the process and accused the government of railroading the legislation through parliament in a "disgraceful fashion".

He said this was the first time a bill of great constitutional importance had been passed in this day since the Defense of the Realm Bill prior to World War One in 1914.

Having won Wednesday night in the Commons, where a string of amendments were defeated, it almost guarantees that May will be on course to tell Brussels within weeks to start the EU exit process.

May's government only introduced the briefly worded bill into parliament last week, determined to see it fast-tracked through the parliamentary process.

It has meant members of parliament (MPs) sitting until midnight on some occasions to complete a series of debates.

Attempts by the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) to ensure the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh could have a vote on Brexit, as well as a call by the minority Liberal Democrats for a second national referendum, each failed, as did a string of proposed amendments by the main opposition Labor party.

In the final vote, the result indicated that some Labor MPs had defied an instruction from their leader Jeremy Corbyn to vote in favor of the Article 50 bill.

A number of his shadow cabinet members have already resigned, and more may quit as a result of the vote.

Before the result was even announced it was reported that Labor's shadow business secretary Clive Lewis resigned from Corbyn's shadow cabinet, saying he could not vote in favor of the Brexit bill.

Under parliamentary convention in Britain a minister or shadow minister disobeying the leadership is expected to resign or be fired. The vote will add to the ongoing civil war within the Labor Party that erupted after Corbyn's election as leader.

During a day of intensive debates, MPs failed by 332 votes to 290 to ensure EU nationals lawfully resident in Britain on the date of last June's EU referendum would have the right to stay in Britain.

Another vote called for Britain to remain as a member of Euratom, the European Atomic Agency Community. This was also lost with a vote of 287 in support and 336 against.

Brexit Minister David Jones had confirmed during the debate that Britain leaving the EU also meant leaving Euratom.

But he added that the government wants to maintain successful cooperation with the EU and says this will be a matter for negotiation with Brussels.

On the residence rights of EU nationals in Britain, Jones said the government recognizes issue is extremely important and will addressed as a matter of priority.

As MPs were voting, a group of MPs burst into song in the chamber of Commons where even applause if frowned upon. The choir was silenced by an order from Deputy Speaker Lindsay Hoyle.
DAMASCUS, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- An Israeli fighter jet fired a rocket at a Syrian military site in the country's southern province of Qunaitera on Wednesday, leaving no casualties, pro-government al-Watan electronic newspaper reported.

The warplane targeted the position at the outskirts of al-Baath city in Qunaitera, said the report, adding that no casualties have fallen during the attack.

Meanwhile, pan-Arab al-Mayadeen TV said that the Israeli war jet fired the rocket from inside the airspace of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The report said that the targeted site faces a position of the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front in Qunaitera.

Israeli media reportedly said that the Israeli rocket fire came as a response to a mortar shell that landed at the northern rim of Golan Heights.

Israel has repeatedly targeted military positions in Syria, some of which were in the capital Damascus.

Last month, Israeli rocket fire targeted arms depots in the Mazzeh airbase west of Damascus, causing big fire.

The Syrian government repeatedly accused Israel of supporting to radical rebels in Syria, particularly those operating in Qunitera near Golan Heights.
International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde (R) speaks on 'The Power of Transparency to Increase Economic Resilience' at Atlantic Council in Washington D.C., the United States, Feb. 8, 2017. (Xinhua/Bao Dandan)

WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde said on Wednesday that greater data transparency could help increase the resiliency of the economy.

"Greater data transparency -- promoted through the IMF data standard initiatives-leads to a 15 percent reduction in the spreads on emerging market sovereign bonds," Lagarde revealed the result of a new IMF policy paper at an event held by the Atlantic Council.

She called on members to improve data transparency, which could help increase economic resiliency.

During the question and answer session, she said that IMF tries to be "ruthless truth tellers" in its assessment of Greece's economic prospects.

In its recent economic assessment for Greece economy, IMF said that Greece's debt was still unsustainable after years of austerity. It called on Greece to continue push forward reforms of its pension, tax and banking systems, which drew opposition from Greek government.
By Matthew Rusling

WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump is continuing his plan to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border in a bid to stem illegal immigration, but experts said whether the wall will work remains an open question.

During his campaign, Trump made border security one of his main platforms, repeatedly promising to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border to stop the flood of illegal migrants who head into the U.S. every day.

Currently, there are around 11 million migrants living illegally in the U.S., and the problem of America's broken immigration system has been an issue causing bitter partisan rivalry in recent years.

Advocates of the wall say it will help keep out unfair competition for jobs in an economy where millions of Americans remain unemployed or underemployed. Supporters of the wall say illegal immigration drives down wages. And despite some economists' claims that Americans don't want the jobs that illegal migrants perform, others say those who've been unlucky in the job hunt will jump at any chance they can get for work.

Tiffiany Howard, professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, told Xinhua it's difficult to make predictions about the impact of the wall, since the concept has not been fully formed into legislation.

Indeed, it remains unknown whether Trump's wall will actually be a wall, or whether the president will add extra fencing across the 2,000 mile frontier.

"If it's an actual wall and there are border agents on the wall, it could potentially reduce the number of those who are entering into the country from Mexico. But at the same time we have to remember that there are tunnels between Mexico and the United States, so that's another route that undocumented individuals are able to enter the United States," Howard said.

So it may decrease illegal immigrants from entering the country for a moment, but there are alternative ways in which to enter the United States," she said, arguing that a wall could cause an initial dip in the number of undocumented individuals crossing the border, which would later return to normal levels.

Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Darrell West told Xinhua that the U.S. has a border with Mexico that is several thousand miles long. "It is impractical and prohibitively expensive to build a wall along the entire border," he said.

"If there is a wall, smugglers simply will build tunnels underneath it. It will be very difficult to finance the construction, and estimates already suggest it will cost 20 billion (U.S. dollars)," West said.

Moreover, at a time when domestic programs are facing major cuts, it is not clear that the U.S. public will believe the high costs of the wall would be worthwhile. Many people would prefer that public money be spent on education or healthcare, West said.

Experts also said the wall could harm the U.S.-Mexican relations, especially since Trump has said many times that he would get Mexico to pay for the wall.

Last month the White House said it would raise billions of U.S. dollars for the wall by imposing a border tax on Mexican goods entering the United States. The controversy led to a cancellation of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's planned meeting with Trump at the White House.

West said a wall would not be good for U.S.-Mexican relations because it creates a major barrier, and Mexicans already have expressed anger over the possibility of building a wall. Such a construction would signal major barriers between the two countries and a vast gulf in terms of how the two countries see the situation.

Ana Rosa Quintana, Heritage Foundation's Latin America analyst, was optimistic that both the U.S. and Mexico are committed to advancing the bilateral relationship despite challenges.

"Both recognize the need to secure and modernize the border. Significant infrastructure updates are necessary to protect both countries and also facilitate commerce," Quintana said.

Another problem Trump wants to solve is the massive amount of illegal drugs flowing over the border from Mexico into the United States.

But West countered that a wall will not stop the flow of drugs over the border, as smugglers will simply tunnel under the wall or switch to boats as a way to move around a wall.

"The situation a few years from now is not likely to be any better than it is today," West said.
Afghan children pose for photos outside their home on the Universal Children's Day in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, Nov. 20, 2016. Universal Children's Day, which falls on Nov. 20 every year, marks the day on which the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1959 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989. (Xinhua/Rahmat Alizadah)

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations on Wednesday marked the 20th anniversary of protecting children in armed conflicts with top UN officials applauding two decades of world efforts to save children from the scourge of war.

Feb. 8 marks the 20th Anniversary of the children and armed conflict mandate" as the UN General Assembly resolution 51/77 was adopted in 1997 on promotion and protection of the rights of children.

At a meeting held at UN Headquarters in New York, Maria Luiza Viotti, UN chef de cabinet, delivered a message from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, saying that this mandate has helped make a tangible difference to the lives of boys and girls in many countries.

Thanks to the efforts of governments, the UN and civil society partners, more than 115,000 children have been released from the ranks of State forces and armed groups, Guterres noted.

"However, the persistence and multiplication of conflicts continues to place children at grave risk, and the only way we can truly protect children is by preventing conflict," the secretary-general said.

"We also need to urgently prioritize support to children who have been affected by armed conflict, and education, particularly in emergency settings, must be a key element of our response," he said.

For his part, the president of the UN General Assembly, Peter Thomson, called the resolution "a landmark development in our global efforts to improve the protection of children in conflict situations."

"Among the incomprehensible horrors that take place in the chaos of war zones, unconscionable crimes, violations, exploitation and abuse are perpetrated against the most vulnerable members of our societies -- namely our children," Thomson said.

The General Assembly president called for a concerted effort to protect children in armed conflict as part of the international community's commitments to peace and security, sustainable development and human rights.

Also speaking at the meeting was Leila Zerrougui, the UN special representative for children and armed conflict. As an outcome of the historic resolution, the General Assembly requested the secretary-general to name a special representative for children and armed conflict.

In addition to Zerrougui, the Wednesday event recognized past mandate-holders -- Graca Machel, Olara Otunnu and Radhika Coomaraswamy.

It was Machel's landmark report back in 1996 that led to the creation of the mandate and the appointment of a special representative.

She urged member states to consider children as "zones of peace," saying that by focusing on them, "politicians, governments, the military and non-State entities will begin to recognize how much they destroy through armed conflict, and therefore, how little they gain."

The best way to protect children from armed conflict is to prevent armed conflict in the first place, Machel wrote in the report. That idea was echoed in the message of Guterres, who identified good quality education and productive, decent work for young people as prerequisites for both peace and development.

When prevention fails, however, the UN chief called on the Special Representative's Office to continue monitoring and reporting violations to promote informed and timely action.

Over the past years, the Office of the Special Representative has worked with other UN agencies, notably the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), to protect children in conflict areas.

Among the joint projects is "the Children, Not Soldiers" campaign, which aims to end the recruitment and use of child soldiers by government forces. Since 2000, the work of the Office and partners has led to the release of more than 115,000 child soldiers.

"Children don't belong on the battlefield, they belong in school where they can build a future," said UNICEF Executive Director Tony Lake, who also took part in the event.

UN Assistant-Secretary-General Miroslav Jenca, who represented the UN Department of Political Affairs which is a key partner of Zerrougui's Office, reiterated the importance of integration to protect children.

Jenca also highlighted the utility of a checklist for drafting children and armed conflict provisions developed with UN and partners, as a useful tool for mediators.

Grave violations against children include recruitment and use of children, killing and maiming, rape and sexual violence, attacks on schools and hospitals, abduction of children, and denial of humanitarian access in armed conflicts.
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have developed a way to produce a reusable "lab on a chip" as a diagnostic tool.

Described in a paper published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the all-in-one biochip combines microfluidics, electronics and inkjet printing technology and costs as little as 1 U.S. cent in production.

As a two-part system, it consists of a clear silicone microfluidic chamber for housing cells and a reusable electronic strip, and a regular inkjet printer that can be used to print the electronic strip onto a flexible sheet of polyester using commercially available conductive nanoparticle ink.

Noting that one chip can be produced in about 20 minutes, the paper's lead author Rahim Esfandyarpour, an electrical engineer by training and an research associate at the Stanford Genome Technology Center, explained that "we designed it to eliminate the need for clean-room facilities and trained personnel to fabricate such a device."

Designed to handle small-volume samples for a variety of assays and as a multifunctional platform, the tool can help analyze different cell types without using fluorescent or magnetic labels that are typically required to track cells by separating cells based on their intrinsic electrical properties, and can help capture single cells from a mix, isolate rare cells and count cells based on cell types.

The trick behind: when an electric potential is applied across the inkjet-printed strip, cells loaded into the microfluidic chamber get pulled in different directions depending on their "polarizability" in a process called dielectrophoresis.

"The motivation was really how to export technology and how to decrease the cost of things," Ron Davis, professor of biochemistry and of genetics and director of the genome technology center, was quoted as saying in a news release from Stanford University in Northern California, on the U.S. West Coast.

The technology also has the potential to accelerate basic and applied research by allowing researchers and clinicians to potentially analyze more cells in shorter time periods, manipulate stem cells to achieve efficient gene transfer and develop cost-effective ways to diagnose diseases, Esfandyarpour said, adding that the team hopes the chip will create a transformation in how people use instruments in the lab.

Davis said the new technology could usher in a medical diagnostics revolution like the kind brought on by low-cost genome sequencing. "The genome project has changed the way an awful lot of medicine is done, and we want to continue that with all sorts of other technology that are just really inexpensive and accessible."
Image taken on April 21, 2011 shows wooden crosses on the border wall between Mexico and the United States in Tijuana city, Mexico. On Jan. 25, 2017, U.S.President Donald Trump signed an executive order for a border wall to be built, but Center for Latin American Monetary Studies (CEMLA) estimated that migration from Mexico has been slowing down since 2008 after growing from 1990 to its peak in 2007. (Xinhua/Guillermo Arias)

by Matthew Rusling

WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump is continuing his plan to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border in a bid to stem illegal immigration, but experts said whether the wall will work remains an open question.

During his campaign, Trump made border security one of his main platforms, repeatedly promising to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border to stop the flood of illegal migrants who head into the U.S. every day.

Currently, there are around 11 million migrants living illegally in the U.S., and the problem of America's broken immigration system has been an issue causing bitter partisan rivalry in recent years.

Advocates of the wall say it will help keep out unfair competition for jobs in an economy where millions of Americans remain unemployed or underemployed. Supporters of the wall say illegal immigration drives down wages. And despite some economists' claims that Americans don't want the jobs that illegal migrants perform, others say those who've been unlucky in the job hunt will jump at any chance they can get for work.

Tiffiany Howard, professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, told Xinhua it's difficult to make predictions about the impact of the wall, since the concept has not been fully formed into legislation.

Indeed, it remains unknown whether Trump's wall will actually be a wall, or whether the president will add extra fencing across the 2,000 mile frontier.

"If it's an actual wall and there are border agents on the wall, it could potentially reduce the number of those who are entering into the country from Mexico. But at the same time we have to remember that there are tunnels between Mexico and the United States, so that's another route that undocumented individuals are able to enter the United States," Howard said.

So it may decrease illegal immigrants from entering the country for a moment, but there are alternative ways in which to enter the United States," she said, arguing that a wall could cause an initial dip in the number of undocumented individuals crossing the border, which would later return to normal levels.

Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Darrell West told Xinhua that the U.S. has a border with Mexico that is several thousand miles long. "It is impractical and prohibitively expensive to build a wall along the entire border," he said.

"If there is a wall, smugglers simply will build tunnels underneath it. It will be very difficult to finance the construction, and estimates already suggest it will cost 20 billion (U.S. dollars)," West said.

Moreover, at a time when domestic programs are facing major cuts, it is not clear that the U.S. public will believe the high costs of the wall would be worthwhile. Many people would prefer that public money be spent on education or healthcare, West said.

Experts also said the wall could harm the U.S.-Mexican relations, especially since Trump has said many times that he would get Mexico to pay for the wall.

Last month the White House said it would raise billions of U.S. dollars for the wall by imposing a border tax on Mexican goods entering the United States. The controversy led to a cancellation of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's planned meeting with Trump at the White House.

West said a wall would not be good for U.S.-Mexican relations because it creates a major barrier, and Mexicans already have expressed anger over the possibility of building a wall. Such a construction would signal major barriers between the two countries and a vast gulf in terms of how the two countries see the situation.

Ana Rosa Quintana, Heritage Foundation's Latin America analyst, was optimistic that both the U.S. and Mexico are committed to advancing the bilateral relationship despite challenges.

"Both recognize the need to secure and modernize the border. Significant infrastructure updates are necessary to protect both countries and also facilitate commerce," Quintana said.

Another problem Trump wants to solve is the massive amount of illegal drugs flowing over the border from Mexico into the United States.

But West countered that a wall will not stop the flow of drugs over the border, as smugglers will simply tunnel under the wall or switch to boats as a way to move around a wall.

"The situation a few years from now is not likely to be any better than it is today," West said.
SYDNEY, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- An astronomer from the University of Queensland (UoQ) was announced Thursday to have played a pivotal role in the discovery of a "middleweight" black hole in space, after a 40 year search.

UoQ Associate Prof. Holger Baumgardt says the discovery would help astronomers to understand the creation of galaxies and how they evolve.

According to Baumgardt, black holes are either small, slightly larger in mass than our own Sun, or extraordinarily large, and weigh in at millions of times the mass of our own celestial star.

However, this study proved there is a black hole in the middle, a "middleweight" weighing in at roughly 2,200 times the mass of our own Sun.

"An intermediate-mass black hole at the cluster's centre acts like a cosmic spoon that stirs the pot, causing the stars near it to slingshot at higher speeds and greater distances, imparting a subtle signal that astronomers can measure," Baumgardt told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

But the astronomer was quick to point out that this discovery will shed no new light on the question of whether there is life in space.

"What we have found is not telling us anything about life in the universe, because a black hole is a place where there should be no life, but it tells us something about the evolution of galaxies on a large scale," Baumgardt said.
SYDNEY, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Melbourne will soon be home to Australia's tallest building after a 90-storey, six-star hotel was approved by the state government on Thursday.

The 323-meter building, which will form part of the Crown Casino complex on Melbourne's Southbank, will cost 1.3 billion U.S. dollars to build and will feature 388 hotel rooms and 708 apartments.

Daniel Andrews, Victoria's Premier, said the plans had been approved after Crown agreed to spend 75 million U.S. dollars improving street level amenities near the site of the new tower.

The Queensbridge Hotel Tower would transform Melbourne's skyline and increase the city's capacity to host major events, Andrews told reporters on Thursday.

The project's ability to create jobs for Victoria was another key factor in the approval, he said.

"What we're really approving is 4,000 jobs ... for construction workers and for those in the hospitality sector, in the construction phase and for the future," he said.

"That of course adds to the ten-and-a-half thousand jobs that Crown currently support."

Todd Nisbet, Crown Resorts executive vice-president of strategy and development, said Crown's three existing Melbourne hotels were currently running at over 90 per cent occupancy.

"The proposed addition of this luxury hotel will also assist Melbourne to meet its future tourist accommodation demands, with Crown being able to offer over 2,000 guest rooms and suites upon completion," Nisbet said.
SYDNEY, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- A Melbourne Invitro fertilization (IVF) clinic has signed an agreement that will see Chinese couples flown into Australia for fertility treatment.

Up to 100 Chinese women will receive treatment at Monash IVF, the clinic which completed the world's first IVF pregnancy, in the next 12 months with the possibility of more in the future.

The move comes in response to the waiting list for IVF clinics in China being up to two years long due to the country's growing middle class and relaxation of the one-child policy.

James Thiedman, CEO of Monash IVF, said the clinic's reputation resonated with potential Chinese clients.

"Now in China you have literally millions of women between their mid-30s to mid-40s who have one child, and now have the opportunity to have a second child, and the unfortunate reality is many of these women, due to their more advanced maternal age will struggle to conceive spontaneously, so they need some help," Thiedman told News Limited on Thursday.

"While there are fertility clinics in China, they don't necessarily have the level of technology that we have here in Australia, but also importantly their waiting lists because of this sudden step up in demand, are up to two years.

"This arrangement gives patients in China an alternative to having to sit back and wait for two years, they can get on a plane, come over and have world-class care and take the opportunity to see the great state of Victoria."

He said the intake of Chinese clients would not have any effect on the clinic's capacity to treat local patients.

Jenny Chin, operation director of AC International Medical Tourism, said Monash IVF would help bridge the gap for wealthy Chinese families unwilling to wait up to two years for treatment.

"IVF patients really need to undergo treatment, they cannot wait. Their high-end patients will be given to AC International to undergo treatment at Monash," Chin said.

"We will be looking at people over 40, to 45, because that is a lot of the demand. They are wealthy, they have only one child, and they can afford this."

"Chinese now are pretty wealthy in their own right, and the Australian dollar is low, so it is all about medical tourism."
SYDNEY, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Authorities in the island nation of Papua New Guinea have begun action on Thursday to force the deportation of refugees housed in the Manus Island facility.

The move has drawn outrage from Australian Greens Senator Nick McKim, who says the Papua New Guinean government are targeting 60 men, who are still awaiting appeal, yet their refugee status has as of yet, been refused.

A lawyer for the refugees on the island, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), a Nepalese asylum seeker has been removed from the centre on Thursday, to be flown back to Nepal via the Papua New Guinean capital of Port Moresby.

"It's a concern that some of them, not all of them, but some of them or even a few of them, may not have been assessed properly." Ben Lomai, lawyer for the refugees said.

This comes as tensions have been rising on Manus Island for months, with the ongoing refugee housing leading to complaints by locals about their behaviour, while the refugees are frustrated by their uncertain future.

The commander of the Manus Province police force, David Yapu, said Monday his force is struggling to cope with the demands of having the asylum seekers housed there, and lacks adequate staff.

"We currently only have 55 police and when you look at the asylum seekers it's about 800-plus," Yapu said.

Yapu claims that so far 39 asylum seekers had faced court on a variety of charges through last year, and says the number will only continue to grow.

"My prediction is that by the end of 2017 we should reach about 50 or 60 that have gone through the court." Yapu said.

Refugees on the island are also looking for other options, with Australian authorities remaining steadfast in their stance to not allow any of the asylum seekers into the country.

One refugee, who wished to remain anonymous, told the ABC, that Manus Island is too much of a culture shock for them to settle there instead.

"It's not possible for Western country people and other Asian peoples (to) live here, because their culture is different and their living style is different," the refugee said.

"So we don't accept to settle here, so we looking for a third country."
Donald Trump speaks on the last day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, the United States, July 21, 2016. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)

WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump's pick for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch said Wednesday that Trump's tweets attacking federal judges were "disheartening" and "demoralizing".

Gorsuch's spokesman Ron Bonjean confirmed that Gorsuch made the remarks during a conversation with Democrat Senator Richard Blumenthal.

The show of solidarity with fellow judges was in response to Trump's previous criticism of federal judges who ruled against his executive order, which banned the entry of citizens of seven Middle Eastern countries for 90 days, the entry of all immigrants for 120 days and the entry of Syrian immigrants indefinitely.

Speaking at a gathering of police chiefs earlier Wednesday, Trump accused U.S. courts of being political after his executive order signed on Jan. 27 was halted.

"Courts seem to be so political and it would be so great for our justice system if they could read a statement and do what's right," he said.

Trump said the court should immediately reinstate the executive order, which he said was signed to promote national security.

Trump has also singled out federal district court judge James Robart, who blocked his executive order, tweeting "the opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be over turned!"

Robart ruled Friday to put the executive order on freeze nationwide on the ground that the ban was causing states "irreversible damages."

Trump's criticism shattered a U.S. political tradition that members of the executive branch and legislative branch refrained from commenting on judicial decisions.

"I think it's best not to single out judges for criticism," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in response to Trump's tweet.

Major protests broke out in big cities and major airports around the country as many saw the effort as a deviation from long standing immigrants-friendly policies in the United States.

The Department of Justice has made an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal, in the meantime asking for the retraction of the restraining order.

The request was denied by the Ninth Circuit Court.
SYDNEY, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Police are still searching for over 60 inmates who escaped from Bei-ubi prison in Papua New Guinea's Southern Highlands.

Although the breakout occurred on Friday, the Highlands Western Division Commander Kaiglo Ambane told The National newspaper that police were only made aware on Monday, conceding the figure could be as high as 80.

Ambane had previously voiced his concerns about overcrowding in the prison system.

"The jail has capacity to hold 150 people at any time, but was forced to accommodate 210 prisoners last week just before the breakout," he said.

"The jail was facing an acute shortage of CS officers, with 30 of the 40 officers working,"

An issue was ordered by Ambane last week to police from Hela and the Southern Highlands, not to make any new arrests because the Bei-ubi prison could not take anymore prisoners.

Last year 11 people were shot dead when 70 escaped from Buimo prison, 300 km north of Port Moresby, the same facility also experienced another incident where people were believed to have escaped last week.

At Wewak prison, on the country's north coast a breakout occurred one month ago with the exact number of escapees not known.

Ambane fears the issues facing the Prison system may get worse after the nation's gun amnesty window expires on the February 28.
PHNOM PENH, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia's Appeal Court on Thursday upheld the verdict of a lower court ordering self-exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy to pay 6,250 U.S. dollars in fine and compensation for accusing a senior official of seeking to boost Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen's Facebook popularity by buying fake "likes".

"The Appeal Court decides to uphold the Phnom Penh Municipal Court (PPMC)'s verdict against Sam Rainsy on November 8, 2016," read the decision pronounced by Presiding Judge Samrith Sophal.

Sam Sokong, the defense lawyer for Rainsy, told reporters that the ruling was "unacceptable" for his client, so he would file an appeal to the Supreme Court against it.

On Nov. 8 last year, the PPMC found Rainsy guilty of defamation for alleging that ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP)'s website administrator Som Soeun sought to inflate Hun Sen's Facebook popularity by buying "likes" originating in India and the Philippines, as well as advising CPP supporters and officials to create fake Facebook accounts to click "likes" for Hun Sen's Facebook page.

The court ordered him to pay a fine of 2,500 U.S. dollars in addition to 3,750 U.S. dollars in compensation to Som Soeun.

The prime minister publicly denied that he bought "likes" on his Facebook page. Hun Sen launched his Facebook page in September 2015. Now, his page attracted over 6.84 million likes, while Rainsy's page received only 3.66 million likes.

Rainsy, president of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, has been living in self-imposed exile in France since November 2015 to avoid a two-year prison sentence in a defamation case brought by Deputy Prime Minister Hor Namhong.

In December 2016, the PPMC also sentenced, in absentia, him to another five years in prison for conspiring to incite chaos in the country through posting fake documents on his Facebook page.

Rainsy is currently facing two other defamation lawsuits filed by Hun Sen and social media activist Thy Sovantha.
SYDNEY, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) comes out against mandatory circumcision, despite a report released on Thursday that suggests the procedure is beneficial.

A study conducted by Brian Morris, professor emeritus at the University of Sydney, found that males who do not undergo the procedure to remove their foreskin face an 80 percent risk of needing medical attention at some point in their life, due to the extra skin.

Morris says the relatively low, one in 250 chances, of those who have their foreskin removed suffering some kind of mishap during the procedure, speak for themselves.

"Over their lifetime more than one in two uncircumcised males will suffer an adverse medical condition caused by their foreskin," Morris said.

"The enormous benefit but low risk makes early infant circumcision akin to childhood vaccination."

But the RACP disagrees, saying while the numbers might be in favor of the procedure, the stark reality remains that it is an invasive one and a decision should always be made by the families of those involved.

"The RACP believes that the frequency of diseases modifiable by circumcision, the level of protection offered by circumcision and the complication rates of circumcision do not warrant routine infant circumcision for healthy male infants in Australia and New Zealand," a RACP spokesperson said.

Current estimates in Australia suggest 10 to 20 percent of newborn male infants are circumcised.
YANGON, Feb.9 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar's Ministry of Information has introduced May Yu FM radio program that can be received within three restricted areas in northern Rakhine state -- Buthitaung, Maungtaw and Yathedaung, according to a statement of the ministry's information committee Thursday.

The radio program, which began broadcasting on Feb. 1 on test, is to release news for local people to keep up with the times and know about the stories as conflicts have taken place recently in the region causing rumors and invented stories to emerge, the statement said.

The May Yu FM radio program is implemented for current need within the restricted area and it is broadcast with a view to reaching all local people in multiple languages -- Rakhine, Myanmar and Bengali, the statement added.

Three border outposts in Maungtaw, Rakhine state came under violent attack by armed men on Oct. 9 last year in which nine policemen and five soldiers were killed.
WELLINGTON, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The New Zealand navy has launched a research buoy in the sub-Antarctic Southern Ocean to help a study on how ships can navigate mammoth waves known as "liquid Himalayas."

The moored wave buoy was launched about 10 kilometers south of the remote Campbell Island -- the furthest south such a device had ever been launched, the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) said Thursday.

Offshore patrol vessel HMNZS Otago launched the buoy while on a resupply mission to the island, home of six species of albatross and the world's rarest duck, to support other government agencies.

The buoy was part of a collaborative project between the Defence Technology Agency, which is a business unit of the NZDF, and a private meteorology and oceanography consultancy.

DTA researcher Sally Garrett said the it would be used to gather data like wave height and wave direction over the next six months.

"Southern Ocean waves are described by sailors as 'liquid Himalayas' and remain largely unstudied, including our ability to forecast them," Garrett said in a statement.

"The wave buoy will characterize what waves are present, and this information will help us assess how well our forecasting models are predicting these waves."

Launching a wave buoy so far south had not been done before because of the environmental difficulties, she said.

"The launch requires low sea states, which happens about once in 15 days in the sub-Antarctic region," said Garrett.

Commodore Jim Gilmour, the Maritime Component Commander, said the data gathered by the buoy would be transmitted back to New Zealand and studied, and would be used to help design the navy's third offshore patrol vessel.

"The data will be useful because waves affect all facets of operation in the Southern Ocean and Ross Sea, from the design of ships to day-to-day planning," Gilmour said in the statement.
WELLINGTON, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The New Zealand Parliament is to mark the Chinese New Year on Thursday evening with a gathering of members of the country's growing Chinese community.

The Chinese New Year was the biggest and most important festival in the Chinese calendar, and was fast becoming very popular among the wider New Zealand society, Ethnic Communities Minister Judith Collins said in a statement.

"This is the Year of the Fire Rooster. The Rooster Year is said to be characterized by great progress, with rewards for those who have the rooster traits of loyalty, commitment, hard work and family values," said Collins.

"Chinese people have been settling in New Zealand for more than 150 years and today, about 172,000 Chinese people call New Zealand home. Some have ancestors who arrived in the 19th Century, others have recently come from China, and some are from other parts of the world," she said.

"China is our second largest export partner, our biggest international education market and our second largest tourist market. About 50,000 tourists are expected from China to spend their Chinese New Year holidays in New Zealand."

The Parliament had held Chinese New Year celebrations since 2002.

The annual Lantern Festival held in central Auckland, New Zealand's largest city and home to a third of the population, also kicked off Thursday and will run till Sunday.

It is Auckland's largest cultural festival and New Zealand's largest Chinese festival, with more than 200,000 attending in 2016.

Other events to mark the Chinese New Year included visits by Chinese performers to schools in Auckland and the far north city of Whangarei and the South Island's Canterbury region.

The acts included Mongolian musicians Nair Ensemble and martial arts performers from Shanghai Shangwu Group.

"These school visits give hundreds of New Zealand children a taste of the breadth of Chinese culture and learn about the traditions of the Lunar New Year," said Sean O'Connor, of the Asia New Zealand Foundation which is organizing the visits.

"They'll get the chance to see the performers up close and even try out some of their skills. These visits help spark interest in Chinese culture and support the students' other learning about China," O'Connor said in a statement Thursday.

Also Thursday, the Dunedin City Council announced the South Island city would host New Zealand's first ever official China Film Festival from March 31 to April 2.

The event, held in partnership with the New Zealand Film Commission, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Shanghai Art Film Festival, would include screenings of six new-release feature movies.

"It reflects our city's increasingly outward looking focus and heightened consciousness of our Chinese heritage. It is also an opportunity to further develop creative, cultural and commercial collaboration between Dunedin and our sister city Shanghai," Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull said in a statement.

A high-level delegation from Shanghai, including political and film industry representatives, would travel to Dunedin for the event, said Cull.
CANBERRA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Australia's average wheat yields and scope for prosperity has stalled due to the nation's changing climate, scientists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) said Thursday.

After the Australian wheat industry more than tripled in size due to technological advancements between 1900 and 1990, scientists have determined that wheat yields have stalled from 1990 onwards due to a decline in the nation's wheat yield potential, which is determined by climate and soil type.

The CSIRO's Dr. Zvi Hochman said the findings indicate a risk to the prosperity of the nation's wheat industry, which is currently worth around 5 billion Australian dollars (3.75 billion US dollars) annually - or 12 percent of the world's total traded wheat.

"Our results are a serious concern to the future livelihood of wheat farmers in marginal growing areas and to the Australian economy, as well as future global food security," Hochman said in a statement released on Thursday.

He said if current climate trends continue, it was likely that farmers would experience a drop in wheat yields, even if they keep up with the latest farming practices and technologies.

"We estimate that the recent average yield of 1.74 tonnes per hectare will fall to 1.55 tonnes per hectare by 2041," Hochman said.

"The 2016 season is expected to result in a 'bumper crop', however, our preliminary estimates show that yield potential in 2016 was about the same as in 2010."

The CSIRO said even though the study focused on wheat, the findings would be "broadly applicable" to other cereal grains, pulses and oilseed crops, which "grow in the same regions and same season as wheat".
ZHENGZHOU, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Duan Lin manages vast swathes of farmland in central China's Henan Province. Next week, the agricultural specialist will fly to Tajikistan to inspect 1,600 hectares of farmland he runs there.

Duan comes from a family of agricultural businessmen. His grandfather, Duan Shouming, was among the first generation of farmers who came in 1956 to develop the so-called Huangfanqu, a barren and salty plain formed after massive flooding of the Yellow River in the 1930s and 1940s.

Hard work by three generations of people, including Duan's family, has turned the area into 6,700 hectares of the most fertile farmland, run by the state-owned Huangfanqu Farm.

However, about 10 years ago, the farm began to find it difficult to provide for its 30,000-odd employees. "We sent people to Namibia, Uganda, Cambodia, Myanmar and other countries to seek new opportunities abroad," said Zhai Jinzhong, head of the farm's overseas investment department.

In 2013, almost at the same time when the Road and Belt Initiative was proposed by the Chinese government, the farm officially registered companies in Tajikistan and Ukraine.

The farm has invested 29 million U.S. dollars in Tajikistan, where it grows wheat, corn and cotton. Its cotton processing factory is the biggest in Central Asia, with products exported to Iran and Turkey, said Duan Lin, who manages the Tajikistan business.

Production at the Tajik farm is highly mechanized. Together with the use of advanced drip irrigation technology, quality seeds and good farming practices, the wheat output of the farm is three times over that of its local counterparts.

In Ukraine, the farm entered into a joint venture with local partner and has invested 10 million dollars. The joint venture's 211 local employees grow 6,800 hectares of wheat, rye and grass, and raise 1,800 dairy cows.

With improved feed formula and breeds, milk production in 2016 increased nearly 1,000 tonnes from a year ago to 3,000 tonnes.

The joint venture is already making a profit. With rising milk price and higher productivity, it expects a big profit jump in 2017, said deputy general manager Sun Zhidong.

According to China's first policy statement of the year released Sunday, which was devoted to agriculture, farmers and rural areas, the government will continue to encourage agricultural players to seek opportunities abroad.

The government will support agricultural enterprises that want to start business abroad, especially countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative, the statement said.

Henan, a major grain producer of China, is also a leader in overseas agriculture investment.

By the end of 2016, more than 100 Henan companies had invested 7.36 billion dollars in grain production, animal farming and farm produce processing businesses abroad. They manage 120,000 hectares of farmland and generate an annual income of over 13.6 billion dollars.
SEOUL, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- South Korean Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, who is serving as acting president, rose to the second place in recent presidential survey, benefitting from former UN chief's withdrawal from the presidential bid.

According to a Realmeter poll released on Thursday, Hwang garnered 15.9 percent in the opinion poll this week, up 3.5 percentage points from the previous week.

The result is based on a survey of 1,508 voters conducted from Monday to Wednesday. It has a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.

Hwang moved to the second spot for the first time as he emerged as the best hope in the conservative bloc after former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon declared his drop in the run for presidency last week.

Ban, whose second, five-year term in the top UN post terminated at the end of last year, returned to South Korea on Jan. 12, and conducted a de-facto presidential campaign by making a nationwide tour and meeting politicians and ordinary citizens.

On Feb. 1, Ban abruptly announced his withdrawal from the presidential race as his approval rating dropped after the lunar New Year's holiday due to his mistakes during the actual campaign trail and his alleged involvement in corruption scandals surrounding his younger brother and nephew.

In the absence of Ban, Hwang emerged as an icon in the conservative camp, which is struggling to regain public support following the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye.

Hwang is former justice minister and now serves as an interim president, forming a personal image of stable manager amid the political unrest.

Approval scores for Hwang, however, are far behind Moon Jae-in, former chief of the biggest opposition Minjoo Party whose approval rating gained 2.0 percentage points to 33.2 percent this week.

Moon kept the top spot in opinion polls for the sixth consecutive week.

Ahn Hee-jung, the governor of South Chungcheong province who is affiliated with the Minjoo Party, logged 15.7 percent in support scores, slightly below the prime minister's 15.9 percent.

Support for Ahn increased for three straight weeks as the governor shares the same political support base as the former UN chief's in the Chungcheong province. Ban's withdrawal eventually divided his support base into Hwang and Ahn.
Relatives of a victim mourn at a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, on Feb. 9, 2017. Two Palestinians were killed and five others were wounded Thursday in a predawn Israeli air strike on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, reports and witnesses said. (Xinhua/Khaled Omar)

RAFAH, Gaza Strip, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Two Palestinians were killed and five others were wounded Thursday in a predawn Israeli air strike on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, reports and witnesses said.

The Health Ministry in Gaza said in an e-mailed press statement that Israeli F-16 fighter jets struck with air-to-ground missiles an underground smuggling tunnel on the border.

Husam al-Sofi, a resident of Rafah in southern Gaza and Mohamed el-Aqra'a, 38, were killed in the air strike, the statement said, adding that the five injured had been sent to local hospital.

Eyewitnesses in Rafah said that Israeli air fighters struck a tunnel with two missiles in the border area between Rafah and Egypt.

An Israeli army spokesman said radical militants in the Egyptian Peninsula of Sinai fired about seven makeshift rockets into southern Israel overnight.

Israeli media quoted army officials as saying that the air strike was a retaliation against the rockets attacks launched from Sinai into the Israeli port city of Eilat.

Two days ago, Israeli fighter jets launched about 17 successive air strikes on Gaza military posts and facilities belonging to the military wing of Hamas and other groups.
HOUSTON, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Three people were killed and one person remains missing in a blast at a packaging plant in the U.S. state of Louisiana on Wednesday.

The explosion occurred early Wednesday at the Packaging Corporation of America, located north of Lake Charles, a city in the southwestern part of Louisiana, according to the Times-Picayune, an English daily in the state's city of New Orleans.

Several others were injured in the blast. An air medic helicopter has landed near the plant to help the wounded.

The report did not mention the cause of the explosion. Police have rushed to the site.
OTTAWA, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Whether U.S. President Donald Trump's latest travel ban targeting seven Muslim-majority countries inspired the deadly attack on a Canadian mosque is a question that could only be answered by the murderer whose shooting spree left six dead and 19 wounded.

But Alexandre Bissonnette, a 27-year-old resident of Canada's French-speaking province Quebec, where the carnage occurred, might provide some insight into his motivation once he goes on trial for the six counts of first-degree murder and five counts of attempted murder he now faces.

There have been deep concerns within Canada's Muslim community, which comprises the second largest religious group in the country only behind Christianity, that the assault against worshippers at the Islamic Cultural Center in Quebec City is a deadly manifestation of Islamophobia running through the Canadian society.

On Wednesday, a coalition of Canadian and Quebec-based Muslim organizations held a news conference here and released an open letter calling on the government to act against all forms of systemic racism and discrimination against Muslims in Canada.

The National Council of Canadian Muslims, which led the coalition, wanted the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage to undertake a study that could in part gather data on hate crime reports, provide assistance to the impacted communities, and develop a policy to reduce and finally eliminate Islamophobia and other forms of hatred and prejudice in Canada.

Canadian Muslim leaders also recommended that the country's 10 provinces, including Quebec, create a mandatory high school course on systemic racism that focuses on the impacts the xenophobia, anti-Black racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia have on Canadian society.

At the municipal level, the coalition wanted cities to train their police forces on how to both deal with hate crimes and avoid profiling people based on such characteristics as race or religion.

Hate crimes have already been tracked in Canada, and Muslims increasingly targeted, according to the numbers released last year by Statistics Canada.

In 2014, police recorded 99 religiously motivated hate crimes against Muslims across the country, more than double the 45 cases reported in 2012.

Within three days of the massacre in the Quebec capital, police in the province's largest city Montreal received 29 reports of hate incidents, arresting a man charged with uttering threats and inciting hatred through social media.

Mohamed Boudjenane, acting president of the Canadian Arab Federation, called on the Canadian government to enact strong measures to ensure that all Canadians, regardless of their origin, "are protected and feel secure" when traveling to the United States.

However, as the Muslim groups said, the Canadians they represent need to be protected and feel safe at home. Ottawa has provided some assistance in this regard by offering to partly cover the cost of security at Canadian mosques.
New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English (L) meets with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Auckland, New Zealand, Feb. 9, 2017. (Xinhua/Su Liang)



AUCKLAND, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi here on Thursday.

English, during the meeting, said New Zealand boasts several No.1s in China-ties, including the the first Western country supporting China's joining in the World Trade Organization, China's launching of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Belt and Road Initiatives.

The prime minister spoke highly of Chinese President Xi Jinping's speech at the 2017 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, which delivers important and positive messages to the world.

New Zealand is keen to support globalization and free trade side by side with China, English said.

He also vowed to boost high-level exchanges, launch the upgrading negotiation of the bilateral free trade agreement, and cooperations in sectors including infrastructure, humanities, tourism, education, science and technology, and judicial enforcement.

The New Zealand leader also welcomes Chinese enterprises to invest in his country.

The Chinese foreign minister said the Sino-New Zealand relation has displayed a model for cooperations between countries with different sizes and social systems.

New Zealand is among close partners from the West which meets the benefits of New Zealand and its people, said Wang.

He said the year 2017 marks the 45th anniversary of the establishment of the Sino-New Zealand diplomatic relations.

The two countries, through the organizing of anniversary activities, could boost high-level exchanges, consolidate mutual trust and implement the strategic partnership.

Wang said China and New Zealand are both advocates and practitioners of the free trade.

"Hand in hand, we should protect the international trade system, build the open economy, and try to start the upgrading negotiation of the free trade agreement," said the Chinese foreign minister.

He also expressed the wish that the two countries would join hands in connecting the Belt and Road Initiatives with New Zealand's infrastructure schemes.

Wang echoed English's calling for the enhancing of the mutual cooperations in sectors of humanities and judicial enforcement, which, according to him, will bring more substantial benefits to the two peoples.
SEOUL, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- South Korean prosecutors independently investigating the scandal involving impeached President Park Geun-hye on Thursday complained about the presidential side's unilateral delay of the face-to-face interrogation, which Park had vowed to accept.

The independent counsel team has demanded grilling the impeached president face to face as late as this week when considering that its investigation is scheduled to end by the end of this month according to a special law.

President Park had promised to be interrogated by the special prosecutors, but the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae refused to accept it on Thursday, the originally agreed-upon date, for what it claimed was the leakage of the interrogation date to a local broadcaster.

Local media speculated that President Park's side may be looking for reasons to deliberately shun the face-to-face interview. Park denied such interrogation by state prosecutors, who had probed the case before the independent counsel and identified Park as a criminal suspect.

Lee Kyu-chul, spokesman of the special prosecutors, told a press briefing that there is no reason for any of special prosecutors to leak or disclose the interrogation date as they already agreed with the president side to unveil the result following the questioning.

During the past discussions on the venue and date for the questioning, the special prosecutors accepted most of conditions the president side demanded given that it would be the quizzing of an incumbent president, Lee said.

He said the president side unilaterally notified the independent counsel team of its refusal to be questioned after a local media's report on the questioning date on Tuesday.

Asked about re-discussion on the date, the spokesman said nothing has been decided yet.

Opposition parties are seeking to revise the special law on the independent counsel as signs are being detected on the president side's attempt to delay the investigation.

The special prosecutors, which launched their probe on Dec. 21, are supposed to end their investigation into the corruption scandal by the end of this month. If Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, who is serving as acting president, allows it, the investigation can be extended for up to 30 days, but the possibility for his approval is considered as very low as he is one of the closest aides to the impeached president.
New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English (L) meets with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Auckland, New Zealand, Feb. 9, 2017. (Xinhua/Su Liang)

Hi, here's what you need to know about China:

BEIJING -- China's State Council Wednesday decided to further reduce and standardize business charges to lower the corporate burden in the real economy.

Such moves mark a key part of the country's drive to streamline administration and push forward supply-side reform, as the country aims to progress while maintaining stability in running the economy, according to a statement released after a State Council executive meeting presided over by Premier Li Keqiang. xhne.ws/D7jyy

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PARIS -- The year 2016 "was a great year for France and China," said French President Francois Hollande Wednesday, lauding the outcome of bilateral relations over the past year.

During a reception at Elysee Palace celebrating the Chinese New Year, Holland said France and China have witnessed solid advances in civilian nuclear power in recent months, and expressed his appreciation for China's recognition of 45 appellations of wines from Bordeaux. xhne.ws/Q09Yx

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BEIJING-- A Chinese mainland spokesperson said Wednesday that Beijing will issue policies to support and attract Taiwanese to work and live on the mainland.

The policies are currently being drawn up, An Fengshan, spokesperson of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said at a regular press conference. xhne.ws/CsgMB

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AUCKLAND -- New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi here on Thursday.

English, during the meeting, said New Zealand boasts several No.1s in China-ties, including the the first Western country supporting China's joining in the World Trade Organization, China's launching of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Belt and Road Initiatives. xhne.ws/UluH2

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VATICAN -- A senior Chinese representative on Tuesday presented related data on China's organ donations and transplantations at a world conference here, highlighting the country's commitment to combating organ trafficking and transplant tourism.

During the first day of the two-day Pontifical Academy Summit (PAS), which was being held by Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Jiefu Huang, professor and chairman of the China National Organ Donation and Transplantation Committee, presented the data on China's new program for prohibiting the use of organs from executed prisoners. xhne.ws/V32fW

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BEIJING -- China saw record expansion of outbound financial assets in 2016 as domestic investors bought overseas assets.

Outbound direct investment grew by 211 billion U.S. dollars in 2016, up 12 percent, according to the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE). xhne.ws/lciM7
MANILA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Postmen in the Philippines will play cupid this Valentine's Day through its "love express" delivery campaign, said the Philippine Postal Corporation (Philpost) on Thursday, adding it is accepting flowers, chocolates and "real" greeting cards for personal delivery this Valentine's Day.

The Philpost will revive the so-called "singing kartero," wherein people can pay 2,000 pesos (40 U.S. dollars) for a mailman to deliver a bouquet of roses, a greeting card and serenading the recipient with her favorite theme songs -- a romantic Filipino courtship tradition to express a man's love and admiration even on a distance.

Philpost said postal patrons can avail of themselves of the flowers and chocolates that the mailman will deliver to their loved ones.

It also announced that it is issuing a limited edition of Valentine's Day personalized stamps that lover's can use to send their Valentine's card and love letters. "With the popularity of taking selfies, one can now have their selfies printed on stamps for 17 pesos (0.34 U.S. dollars) each," the Philpost said.

"Love is in the air-mail, sealed and to be delivered by your friendly postman," the Philpost said.

The Philpost said its Manila Central Post Office will open its postal counters to receive flowers and other special items that people can buy to send to their loved ones from Feb. 8 until Valentine's Day.

Aside from flowers and chocolates, it said love-senders can also pick from its array of gifts like greeting cards, stuffed toys, cakes and other Valentine novelties.

A team of letter carriers called the Express Elite Force, will deliver these gift items via Domestic Express Mail Service on Valentine's Day to clients within Metro Manila and nearby areas, the Philpost said.

Philpost also launched its Facebook promo dubbed "Pusuan Me Bes," wherein those clients who avail of the singing telegram and domestic express mail packages will have a chance to win a dinner for two worth 2,000 pesos (40 U.S. dollars). All they have to do is take a selfie with the singing mailman and post it on the official Philpost Facebook, and the entry that gets the highest number of "likes and loves" at noon on Valentine's Day will win, the Philpost said.

Despite our modern technology, such as the use of text messaging, e-cards, the Philpost said it is more romantic to express your love through the sending of flowers, chocolates and Valentine's card.

Philpost is encouraging Filipinos to use the snail mail to express their true love during special occasions like Heart's Day.
BEIJING, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- China's central bank has warned the country's Bitcoin exchanges against margin trading and money laundering, in a further step to tighten regulation over the digital currency.

An inspection team from the People's Bank of China (PBOC) met and gave verbal warnings to company officials of nine Beijing-based Bitcoin trading platforms Wednesday afternoon, according to a PBOC statement Thursday.

The PBOC ordered the exchanges not to engage in margin trading, money laundering or practices violating laws on foreign exchange, taxation and advertising.

Trading platforms will be closed if they seriously violate the regulations, according to the statement.

The company officials were also reminded of the technology risks of Bitcoin trading.

Bitcoin, without ties to the bank or government, is underpinned by blockchain technology, a digital ledger system that uses cryptography.

It allows users to spend and transfer money anonymously, making the digital currency a handy tool for money laundering and capital flight.

With its help, investors are able to buy with Chinese yuan and sell for U.S. dollars, effectively bypassing the annual forex purchase quota of 50,000 U.S. dollars.

China has strengthened scrutiny over illegal forex purchases amid capital outflow concerns as the yuan weakened against the U.S. dollar.

Many exchanges also offer margin trading, which allows investors to trade Bitcoin using borrowed funds and capitalize on Bitcoin's price fluctuations but which also amplifies risk.

The value of Bitcoin surged in the second half of 2016 but plummeted after surpassing 8,000 yuan (1,165 U.S. dollars) per unit early in January this year.

Last month, the PBOC conducted on-site checks to BTCChina, the country's biggest Bitcoin trading platform, and two other major Bitcoin exchanges, Huobi and Okcoin.

The nine exchanges warned Wednesday, included CHBTC, Btc Trade and HaoBTC.
BEIJING, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping has offered condolences to Chilean President Michelle Bachelet over deadly forest fires in the South American country.

In a message dated Wednesday, Xi mourned the dead and extended sincere condolences, on behalf of the Chinese government and people and in his own name, to the bereaved families and the injured.

Xi said China would like to offer assistance to Chile in disaster relief and post-disaster reconstruction, noting that the Chinese people can feel the pain of the Chilean people.

Xi also expressed the belief that under the leadership of President Bachelet and her government, the Chilean people will be able to overcome the disaster and rebuild their homes.

Forest fires in Chile have killed 11 people, destroyed over 1,600 homes and made thousands of people homeless.
TRIPOLI, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Heavy clashes erupted in southern Libya's Tripoli on Wednesday night and lasted until early Thursday morning between rival militias.

Media reports said the clashes were between two rival militias, one loyal to the United Nations-backed government of national accord and the other loyal to the government of national salvation which is trying to seize the city.

The Tripoli-based militia loyal to the unity government said "an outlawed armed group did an armed robbery to nine vehicles in the area."

Witnesses said heavy artillery was used and loud explosions could be heard from kilometers away.

Residents had to flee their homes to avoid the fighting. There were no official reports of casualties so far.

The government of national accord was appointed based on a UN-sponsored peace agreement signed by Libya's political rivals and replaced the government of national salvation, headed by Khalifa Gwell.

However, Gwell's government returned to Tripoli recently and took over some government buildings with the help of militias.

Libya has been in the grips of political crises and chronic insecurity since the fall of former leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
A Chinese agriculture expert (L) receives certificate of honor and present from a Namibian official (R) from the agriculture ministry in Windhoek, Feb. 8, 2017. (Xinhua/Wu Changwei)

WINDHOEK, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Rice yields increasing by 10 percent, new varieties under trial, hundreds of Namibians benefiting from hands-on training programs...

Fifteen Chinese experts were given the credits by Namibian authorities as they completed a two-year program teaching farming skills in the southern African country.

The 15 Chinese agriculture experts were part of the Tripartite Agreement on South to South Cooperation (SSC) entered into between Namibia, China and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations on June 2014.

Under the agreement, China deployed 15 experts from various agricultural fields, who for the past two years provided technical assistance to Namibia's irrigation projects, veterinary laboratories and research stations.

John Mutorwa, minister of Namibia's Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry (MAWF), said the ministry also hosted a debriefing meeting on the project Wednesday in the presence of delegates from FAO and the Chinese embassy as the first phase of the SSC that was implemented under the agreement is nearing completion on Apr. 30.

Namibian Minister of Agriculture, Water and Forestry John Mutorwa speaks at a farewell ceremony for the departing Chinese agriculture expert team in Windhoek, Feb. 8, 2017. (Xinhua/Wu Changwei)

At the event, Chinese Charge d'affaires ad interim, Li Na said, during the past two years, the MAWF and FAO provided a very comfortable environment and sufficient facilities to secure a better living and working conditions for the Chinese experts.

"The SSC tripartite agreement sets a new and efficient cooperation between our two countries. I believe that under the frame of the Johannesburg Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, our partnerships in various fields, including agriculture, will surely be well promoted," he said.

FAO Country Representative Babagana Ahmadu said the SSC project in Namibia achieved significant success in terms of complementing government's efforts of increasing agricultural production.

According to Ahmadu, through the SSC project, rice yields at Kalimbeza increased with more than 10 percent and that 15 new Chinese rice varieties and one foxtail millet variety are under trial to determine their adaptability.

"About 400 Namibian farmers and government officials have been trained in rice, foxtail millet and horticulture production," he added.
BEIJING, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- China on Thursday confirmed that it has received a letter to President Xi Jinping, sent by U.S. President Donald Trump, who extended his greetings ahead of the Lantern Festival.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang made the remarks at a daily press briefing, responding to reports that Trump on Feb. 8 sent a letter to President Xi, wishing Xi and the Chinese people a happy Lantern Festival and saying that he looked forward to working with China to develop a constructive relationship.

"China attaches great importance to developing the relationship with the United States," said Lu.

China is ready to work with the U.S. side to expand cooperation and manage any differences guided by the principles of upholding non-conflict and non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation, so that bilateral ties develop in a healthy and stable way, said Lu.

Lu added, just as President Xi has said, China and the United States both had a responsibility to safeguard world peace and stability, and promote global development and prosperity.

"Cooperation is the only right choice for China and the United States,"said Lu.

Lantern Festival, which falls on Feb. 11 this year, is held to mark the first full moon of the new lunar year. It falls on the 15th day of the first lunar month. Chinese people consider it to be one of the country's most important holidays.
BEIJING, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- China will improve its logistics network to reduce costs for wholesalers and retailers.

The government will reduce the ratio of the retail and wholesale sectors' overall logistics costs on total GDP to 7 percent by 2020, according to a plan released by the Ministry of Commerce and other ministries.

High logistics costs hold back enterprises' growth. The ratio of China's total logistics spending on total GDP stood at 14.5 percent in the first three quarters of 2016, much higher than the average 8-to-9 percent level in developed economies.

China will expand its commercial logistics network and improve efficiency through IT application.

The government will also establish several national and regional commercial logistics hubs and invest more in infrastructure development.
HANOI, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The first Senior Officials' Meeting and related meetings (SOM 1) of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Year 2017 are expected to take place in Vietnam's central Nha Trang city from Feb. 18 to March 3, 2017, said a Vietnamese official here Thursday.

Le Hai Binh, spokesperson of Vietnamese Foreign Ministry made the announcement at a regular press briefing held in capital Hanoi.

"Against the backdrop of changing global and regional landscape, SOM 1 is an important event that will affirm APEC determination to enhance cooperation and reinforce the momentum for growth and connectivity in the Asia-Pacific, "said Binh.

Within the framework of SOM 1, there will be some 60 meetings, dialogues and conferences under the theme of APEC Year 2017, which is "creating new dynamism, fostering a shared future," Binh told reporters, adding that discussions will be focused on the following items.

First is details of four priorities of the APEC Year 2017, and initiatives to implement such priorities. Second is priorities for the four committees of trade-investment, economic, technology, budget management as well as other APEC cooperation schemes. Thirdly, it includes orientations for APEC 2017 activities.

The spokesperson said the meetings are expected to draw participation of 1,500 representatives from APEC member economies, international and regional organizations, businesses and academics from countries inside and outside APEC.

Also in Nha Trang, some 1,040 km south of capital Hanoi, the APEC 2017 Finance and Central Bank Deputies' meeting (FCBDM) will be held on Feb. 23-24, said Binh.
PARIS, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- After Brexit and the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president, eyes are on France where voters will choose their next president amid public discontent and high terror alert in the European country.

Could Trump's victory serve as a boon to France's far-right candidate Marine Le Pen from the National Front?

"The impossible has suddenly become possible," Le Pen told thousands of supporters in Lyon, France's third-largest city, kicking off her campaign on Sunday.

"Other countries have shown us the way. The British have chosen Brexit and the United States has chosen their national interests," Le Pen told her followers.

However, BVA pollster analyst Erwan Lestrohan believed that Le Pen might enjoy a boost in ratings but could not win the presidency.

Providing support for Lestrohan's remarks, an Opinionway poll published on Wednesday showed that French independent centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron would easily beat Le Pen in the race.

An Opinionway poll for Les Echos newspaper and Radio Classique showed that in the first round of voting scheduled for April 23, Macron, a former economy minister, would get 22 percent of the vote, behind Le Pen's 25 percent. But in the decisive second round, Macron would beat Le Pen 66 percent to 34 percent, the poll showed.

Under fire over his wife's fake job, embattled conservative contender Francois Fillon, a front-runner until two weeks ago, will not be able to enter the second round.

Experts believed that the surprise that happened in the U.S. election is not expected in France because the two electoral systems are different.

"In the United States, the presidential election has only one vote, which Donald Trump won. In France, the presidential election has two rounds. This allows the voters of non-finalist candidates to choose one of the two qualified to block the other," Lestrohan told Xinhua.

Continued terror threats and rising risks of immigration crisis give a boost to Le Pen, who embraces protectionism. However, the 49-year-old lawyer does not have a strong majority and enough solidity to win the presidential run-off, said Lestrohan.

Thomas Guenole, a political scientist and professor at Sciences Po University, agreed.

"The only one scenario in which Le Pen could likely win the presidential election is if she faces an unpopular candidate from the right or the left in the second round, which is very unlikely," said Guenole.

In 144 "commitments" unveiled on Saturday, Le Pen pledged to slash migration, repatriate all illegal immigrants and impose taxes on the job contracts of foreigners.

Macron promised to further reduce France's high employment charges and increase workers' minimum wage. He also wants to raise taxes on consumption and wealthy pensioners.

Macron also promised to boost the defense budget, hire 10,000 more police officers and raise funding for schools.

"We can no longer defend a political system whose practices weaken democracy," he told supporters at the weekend in Lyon.

The pro-business contender joined the Socialist government in August 2014 as economy minister. Two years later, he quit his post to focus on his presidential campaign.

Macron, an advisor to current President Francois Hollande during his election campaign, was one of the authors of a flagship blueprint for the revival of growth and employment in France.

The disgraced Fillon appealed to voters on Wednesday via a newspaper column to back his campaign.

"It's for you and only you to decide," Fillon wrote. "Nothing will divert me from the real aim of my presidential campaign: to get France back on its feet and bring the French together."

The Republican candidate has pledged tough cuts in public spending.

Since the scandal emerged that his wife was receiving hefty salaries for an alleged job she did not do, Fillon's campaign has lost steam. Opinion polls show that he is unlikely to reach a second round run-off.

However, the 62-year-old ex-prime minister has expressed fierce determination to stick to his presidential bid.

"I am the only candidate which can bring about a national recovery," he told reporters.

Related:

Fresh poll predicts Macron winning French presidential election

PARIS, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- French independent centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron is forecast to win the race to the Elysee Palace, beating with a large lead his rival Marine Le Pen, a survey showed on Wednesday.
COLOMBO, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- One solider was killed and another injured when the army vehicle they were travelling in collided with a train in the former war torn north on Thursday, police in Sri Lanka said.

The two soldiers were attached to the Ariyalai army camp in the Jaffna district.

Local media reported that the accident occurred when the army vehicle had attempted to cross the railway track despite the Yal Devi Train being in close distance.

An investigation has been launched into the accident.
PHNOM PENH, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- About 830,000 Chinese tourists visited Cambodia in 2016, a 19.5-percent rise year-on-year, according to a Cambodian Tourism Ministry report on Thursday.

Chinese holidaymakers accounted for 16.6 percent of the 5 million international tourists traveling to the Southeast Asian country last year, the report said.

It added that China ranked the second largest source of tourists to Cambodia after Vietnam, whose 959,600 people visited the kingdom last year, down 2.8 percent year-on-year.

Cambodia targets 2 million Chinese tourists by 2020.

Last year, the country launched a white paper which listed steps to be taken by tourism authorities to facilitate visits by Chinese tourists, such as providing Chinese signage and documents for visa processing, encouraging local use of the Chinese yuan currency, encouraging the use of Chinese language, and ensuring that food and accommodation facilities are suited to Chinese tastes.

Cambodia is famous for the 12th century Angkor Archeological Park in northwestern Siem Reap province. Besides, it has a 450-km pristine coastline stretching across four provinces in the country's southwestern part.

Tourism Minister Thong Khon estimated last month that tourism industry earned gross revenue of more than 3 billion U.S. dollars in 2016, accounting for 13 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
COLOMBO, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Exiled former Maldives President, Mohamed Nasheed, on Thursday announced that he would contest the 2018 Maldives Presidential election if he gets elected as the Maldives Democratic Party's presidential candidate.

Nasheed told reporters on press conference in Sri Lankan capital Colombo, his detention and arrest by a Maldivian court last year was politically motivated and illegal and the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions had called for his civil and political rights to be restored.

"I am here in Colombo to meet our party officials. We have decided to hold the MDP Presidential primaries perhaps later this year. I will contest those internal elections. I hope to win the MDP's ticket as the party's candidate of choice for the 2018 Maldives Presidential elections," Nasheed said.

Nasheed who has been in Colombo for the past two weeks to hold indepth discussions with his party, said that if he is not allowed to contest the elections, then the MDP would support another candidate from another party.

He stressed that the MDP would not boycott the elections and neither would they field another candidate.

However he remained confident that he would be able to contest in a free and fair manner.

Nasheed, the leader of the MDP, is Maldives' first democratically elected president.

He was jailed in the Maldives in 2015, on terrorism charges after allegedly ordering the arrest of a judge during his tenure as the president.

He was sentenced to 13 years imprisonment.

In January 2016, Nasheed was allowed to go to Britain for treatment on his back and remained there after he received political asylum by Britain.
MANILA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Prospects to end almost 50-year long leftist insurgency in the Philippines have dimmed following the decision of President Rodrigo Duterte to suspend the peace talks and ordered the resumption of military offensive against the Philippine communist insurgents who have been trying to overthrow the government since 1969.

The talks that kicked off in Oslo, Norway in August last year was the latest attempt of the government to end one of the world's last communist insurgencies. The armed conflict, which has left more than 40,000 insurgents, soldiers and civilians dead, has spanned 48 years.

Duterte, who presented himself as a "socialist" and the first "leftist" Philippine president, said when he assumed office in June that he was willing to "walk the extra mile" to achieve peace, a campaign promise that he wants to pursue.

But last Friday he ordered government troops to prepare to fight the New People's Army (NPA) guerrillas, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines. "I am asking the soldiers: Go back to your camps, clean your riles and be ready to fight," Duterte said.

"I have lost many soldiers in just 48 hours, I think to continue with the ceasefire does not, or will not, produce anything," Duterte said in a speech, referring to the alleged atrocities committed by the rebels while separate unilateral ceasefire was in force.

Both sides separately declared truce to give way to the latest talks in August last year.

"Take your position and be alert," the tough-talking Duterte said. "My opinion is that there will no more be peace in this land vis-a-vis the communists. Let us continue the war. If you want to go to war for another 50 years, then let's go to war. Peace is not possible during our generation, I'm sorry," Duterte said.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said on Tuesday that the government would wage "an all-out war" against the rebels, saying the group poses a huge threat to national security.

Military spokesman Col. Edgard Arevalo said elite troops would be deployed to launch "surgical (and) focused" strikes on the rebel-held areas.

"We are confident that we are going to win this time," he told reporters, adding the 125,000-strong armed forces is better equipped now to fight the estimated 3,700 New People's Army guerrillas.

Over the weekend, Duterte ordered the arrests of 19 top rebels leaders the government freed to participate in the fresh talks that kicked off in Oslo, Norway in August.

Duterte has labeled the communist rebels as a "terrorist group," saying the clandestine armed group has resorted to banditry, extortion and other criminal activities. "They burn equipment of companies that refused to pay revolutionary taxes. They have direct havoc in the economy," he said.

The communist party condemned Duterte's decision. "Duterte has gone berserk and upturned the entire peace process. He has wasted the achievements attained in peace talks over the past few months," the party said in a statement.

The Duterte administration revived the talks with communist rebels in August after talks collapsed in 2011. Norway has agreed to broker the talks again this time. Since August, both sides have conducted three rounds of talks.

To win the rebels' trust, Duterte appointed former top leftist cadres to the cabinet and released top rebel leaders from jail to participate in the Oslo talks.

At their third meeting in Rome, Italy last month both sides agreed to meet again on Feb. 22 in The Netherlands to further discuss a joint ceasefire deal while the talks continue. The fourth round of peace talks was scheduled to convene again in Oslo, Norway on April 2.

The government has been trying to forge a lasting peace with the communist rebels since 1986 but the on-and-off talks between the two sides have failed to make any headway.

Negotiations have spanned 30 years and five presidencies. This is the sixth panel to conduct the negotiations, and over 40 rounds were completed since 1992, according to government data.

More than 10 agreements and joint statement signed by the parties including the CARHRIH or the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, a landmark agreement signed by both parties in 1998 which orders the government to review the cases of all political prisoners for their immediate release.

Talks are usually interrupted due to contentious and prejudicial issues like sovereignty, abduction of military or police personnel, forward deployment of armed troops in NPA guerrilla zones and bases, armed skirmishes and strike operations resulting in the deaths of soldiers and rebels on the ground and other alleged violations of truce agreements.

In 1999, the rebels pulled out of the talks after the government ratified the Visiting Forces Agreement with the U.S. In 2004, negotiations were again suspended after the U.S. renews its terrorist list which included the CPP, its founding leader Jose Maria Sison, and its armed wing, the NPA.

To date, the talks hit snag over the failure of the government to free around 400 "political prisoners."

At the opening of the last round of talks in Rome last month, Fidel Agcaoili, the chief negotiator of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, clearly stated that the release of prisoners "should not be seen as a mere confidence-building measure or a gift to the NDFP."

NDFP is the political arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines which represents the rebels in peace negotiations to end the 48-year-old insurgency waged by the NPA rebels.

"It is an obligation of the (government). Neither should the political prisoners be treated as trump cards to extract concessions from the NDFP. Such conduct is bound to further erode mutual trust and confidence," Agcaoili said.

However, Duterte has insisted that he could not order the release of the prisoners who are facing criminal charges such as murder. Freeing these prisoners is tantamount to government surrender, he said.

Indeed, decades-old obstacles continue to hound the Philippines's quest for a lasting peace, rendering useless the efforts to carry out peace negotiations as a means to resolve the roots of the ongoing civil war.

"The root causes of the rebellion persist to this day," retired Army Brig. Gen. Victor Corpus told Xinhua in an interview.

Corpus was an officer in the Philippine Army and instructor at the Philippines Military Academy who defected to the NPA in 1970 after raiding the academy's armory and absconding with a large number of assorted infantry weapons, which he then used to train the rebels.

"The wide gap between the rich and the poor where the rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer (continue to exist), and the economic elite are also the ones who control political power in government and they use this political power to preserve their vested interests," Corpus said.

Corpus said deep distrust between the military and the rebels and myopia have also plagued efforts of the past." There's also the element of distrust. They have been at war with each other for so many decades so it's really hard to find a final solution to the issue," he said.

While talks are under way, the CPP last December urged its members and cadres "to unite and strengthen the party" in a bid to "lead the national democratic revolution to greater heights."

"The party is poised to lead the national democratic revolution to greater heights over the next few years and onwards to victory," said the CPP said in its official publication called Ang Bayan.

But Corpus stressed the need to continue the peace negotiations. "I think that we now have the best opportunity (to talk peace) because we have a receptive president who is willing to do it, who is sincere in trying to do it, and a president who understands the problem. So, I think that both sides should take advantage of this rare situation."

The communist rebellion began in 1969 and reached its peak in 1987 when it boasted 26,000 armed guerrillas. However, the movement has since dwindled due to in-fighting within the Marxist movement and the arrests of many of its top leaders in the late 1980s.
NANCHANG, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- After three days of searching, an injured finless porpoise was finally discovered Thursday afternoon in the Poyang Lake, China's largest freshwater lake.

Finless porpoise protection volunteers in Jiangxi Province discovered a large fishhook on the back of the endangered animal, using a long-focus lens on Feb. 5, but the the animal disappeared before they could help.

Jiangxi Provincial Fishery Department initiated a search for the animal after being informed by volunteers. Hydrobiology experts from the Chinese Academy of Sciences also joined the search.

Experts said the porpoise seemed to be in stable condition, and are making plans to capture the porpoise to offer it assistance.

Zhan Shupin, a department employee, said it was hard to catch it since it was in a water channel 400 meters wide and 20 meters deep.

Rarer than China's giant panda, the finless porpoise is a mammal similar to the dolphin, and now teeters on the brink of extinction, with a population of around 1,000. About 450 live in the Poyang Lake.
NAIROBI, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of refugees who have settled in temporary camps located in Kenya's northern frontier districts are an asset rather than a burden to the local economy, the World Bank said on Thursday in a new report launched in Nairobi.

According to the report "Economics of Refugees and their Social Dynamics in Kakuma, Kenya," the east African nation could reap enormous benefits through integration of foreign refugees into the local economy and cultural setups.

Apurva Sanghi, World Bank Lead Economist and co-author of the report, urged the authorities to harness the skills and talents of refugees from neighboring countries to foster economic growth, stability and peace.

"Refugees presence in Kenya has been a boon to the macro-economy as evidenced by higher demand for goods and services and provision of skilled labor," Sanghi said.

The World Bank and UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) collaborated in the study to ascertain the contribution of displaced persons from neighboring countries to Kenya's economy.

Kenya is the second largest refugee hosting country in Africa after Ethiopia with government statistics indicating the country is home to an estimated 700,000 refugees from strife-torn neighboring states.

World Bank researchers noted the presence of Kenya's second largest refugee camp Kakuma had a positive impact on key economic sectors like agriculture, fisheries and retail in the Turkana County where it is located.

Their conclusions revealed the presence of refugees in the expansive and semi-arid Turkana County boosted overall income and job creation by 3.4 percent and 3 percent respectively.

In addition, the refugees increased consumption of local staples and dairy products by 35 percent hence expanding the revenue base for smallholder farmers and herders.

Sanghi noted that livestock keepers, farmers and retailers in Turkana County were the greatest beneficiaries of the presence of a refugee camp in their locality.

"Other benefits linked to the presence of a refugee camp in Turkana county include better nutritional outcomes for local population," said Sanghi.

He said the government should invest in skills development for refugees to enhance their contribution to the economy and social renewal.

Raouf Mazou, the UNHCR Representative in Kenya said that reintegration of foreign refugees in their host country will catalyze socioeconomic development.

"Government policies should facilitate a transition from emergency support for refugees to their involvement in long-term development of their host country," Mazou said.

He noted that development of social amenities like education and health is key to hasten reintegration of foreign refugees in Kenya.
TOKYO, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Japan's Defense Minister Tomomi Inada's resignation was demanded by the main opposition party here on Thursday for possibly diluting the severity of the security situation in the South Sudan and in doing so allowing Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) troops to not be withdrawn.

Democratic Party lawmaker Yuichi Goto slammed the government for attempting to hide the real situation in South Sudan and accused Inada of not using the term "fighting" as that would have required Japanese troops deployed to the area on U.N. peacekeeping missions to be withdrawn.

According to Japan's pacifist, war-renouncing Constitution and in line with rules governing Japan's GSDF's role in U.N. peacekeeping missions, troops must be withdrawn from conflict zones if exchanges specifically described as "fighting" occur.

The Japanese government recently released records and daily activity logs of the GSDF troops that were previously deemed "lost" stating that troops in South Sudan should be careful of being drawn into "sudden fighting" in the city of Juba.

The daily logs were retrieved, however, from July last year when the security situation deteriorated in South Sudan, yet the situation was described then by the government not as "fighting" but as "armed clashes."

"In a legal sense, there was no fighting in South Sudan even if the logs said there was," Inada said in response to claims the government had knowingly concealed the situation.

Inada and the Defense Ministry were in hot water previously as on Monday the ministry said it had found the daily activity logs of the troops, having stated previously that they had been lost completely.

Goto said the defense ministry had tried to intentionally conceal the potentially damaging records of the troop's activities during a time when 270 people died in fighting between government forces and rebels in Juba, between July 7 and 12, 2016.

In the recovered logs, the troops said they must be "careful about getting drawn into sudden fighting in the city." The record also refers to the possible "suspension of U.N. activities amid intensifying clashes in Juba."

Japan has deployed engineers to South Sudan since 2012 as part of the U.N. mission. In November last year the government controversially assigned GSDF members there a new role, amid heated debate as to whether their responsibilities should be expanded further to come to the aid of peacekeepers and other non-combatants if they're under attack.
JAKARTA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian Transport Ministry has asked airlines to open routes at newly-developed tourism destinations to help lure holidaymakers visiting the areas, a senior official said on Thursday.

The call was made as the tourism ministry has been developing 10 new tourist resorts called "prioritized tourism destination" across the archipelago country.

"I beg the opening of new route is not only prioritized in an area with high passenger rate," said Suprasetyo, director general for Civil Aviation of the Transport Ministry.

"Should an airline submit a request for a license to open a new route at such area, we will enclose it with a license for opening a route at low passenger rate area so that the number of passengers visiting the site will rise," he said.

The director suggested airlines to apply a cross-subsidy scheme if the opening of a route in the low-passenger-rate area is not economically beneficial for business.

Indonesia eyes 12 million foreign tourist arrivals this year and last year, and expects it to jump to 20 million in 2019.

In 2015, a total of about 10 million foreign visitors visited Indonesia.
TEHRAN, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Iran's defense minister on Thursday denied as "fabricated" media reports that the Islamic republic has test-fired another missile recently.

"Such fabricated claims are propagated by the Zionist regime (of Israel) and are aimed at Iranophobia," Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehqan said.

The allegations are "provocative and lies" seeking to create enmity with Iran, Dehqan added.

He advised the Persian Gulf Arab states "not to be deceived by such propaganda.

"The Islamic republic is not and will never be a threat to them (Persian Gulf Arab states) and the Americans are seeking to sell arms by making a psychological war," Dehqan said.

On Thursday, an unidentified U.S. official told CNN that Iran fired a surface-to-air missile on Wednesday.

"The missile was launched from the same pad that Iran used to conduct its failed medium-range missile test earlier this month," the report said.

The United States on Friday announced sanctions on multiple entities and individuals allegedly involved in Iran's ballistic missile program and providing support to the military in Iran.

The move came days after Iran launched a ballistic missile test, which drew a stern warning from Washington.

In reaction, Iranian officials unanimously described the missile test an "inalienable right" of the country to boost its deterrent power.

Tehran has vowed to counter the fresh U.S. sanctions.
NAIROBI, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's High Court on Thursday quashed the government's unilateral decision to shut down Dadaab refugee camp which mainly hosts Somalis, terming the move as unconstitutional.

High Court Justice John Mativo termed the directive by Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaissery and his Principal Secretary Karanja Kibicho as "arbitrary, null and void" in the ruling.

Mativo said the government's orders to repatriate Somali refugees living in the world's largest refugee camp were discriminatory and amounted to collective punishment. He also described the orders as excessive, arbitrary and disproportionate.

"The government violated the law. Its decision ought to be examined. It was a drastic measure that should have been taken within the confines of the law," the judge ruled.

Mativo said there was no proof of the people's involvement in crime, or a single arrest or conviction that has been sighted as evidence of risk at the camp, or the presence of Al-Shabaab members.

Mativo further directed the government to adopt mechanisms that would ensure the department of refugees is functioning properly and avoid collective discrimination of refugees.

The High Court ruling came in response to a petition by two Kenyan human rights organizations, Kenya National Commission on Human Rights and Kituo Cha Sheria, which challenged the constitutionality of the government's directive to shut down Dadaab, the world's largest refugee camp, and the Department of Refugee Affairs.

The camp was initially due to be closed on November 30, 2016, but the government announced a six-month delay on "humanitarian grounds." Dadaab's closure would effectively have left more than 300,000 Somali refugees with nowhere else to go.

The East African nation has also cited the influence of terror group Al-Shabaab as among the risks of keeping the camps open.

It was not yet clear when the closures would have begun, but the government has already disbanded the Department of Refugee Affairs (that the court quashed on Thursday), which worked with humanitarian organizations for the welfare of the refugees.
GUANGZHOU, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Wildlife experts in south China are trying to rescue an endangered white dolphin that is in worsening health after mistakenly swimming into a freshwater river a week ago.

The Chinese white dolphin, about 30 years old, equivalent to 70 human years, swam into the Baisha River, a tributary of the Pearl River in Jiangmen, Guangdong Province Feb.1. The animal is in a stretch about 100 km from the river's estuary.

The species is under China's top protection list.

A rescue team comprising personnel from local nature reserve and fishery authorities has attempted several times to drive the creature back to sea but has had no success.

"As it is too old and has been stranded for many days, the skin of the dolphin is festering and its health is deteriorating ... its moving area is shrinking," said Feng Kangkang, a worker with Jiangmen Chinese White Dolphin Nature Reserve, on Thursday.

Driving it back to sea should cause the animal minimum harm, but the dolphin has repeatedly swam back into the river due to weakening bodily functions, according to Feng.

The team is watching the dolphin around-the-clock through devices and recording its health condition, according to the Guangdong provincial ocean and fishery department.

White dolphins rely on echolocation systems to identify the location of objects in water, but when they get old or suffer disease they are likely to run aground.

Each year, Guangdong reports two to three cases of senior white dolphins mistakenly entering freshwater rivers.

Dubbed the "giant pandas of the sea," Chinese white dolphins are mainly scattered in a few coastal areas and exist only in small numbers, with about 2,000 detected at the mouth of the Pearl River.
PUL-E-KHUMRI, Afghanistan, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Unknown armed men gunned down four people including a member of provincial council of the northern Baghlan province on Thursday, police said.
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg this week announced that the company's employees will receive longer paid paternal leave and new benefits, namely family sick leave as well as bereavement leave.

"Starting today, Facebook employees will have up to 20 days paid leave to grieve an immediate family member, up to 10 days to grieve an extended family member, and will be able to take up to six weeks of paid leave to care for a sick relative," Sandberg wrote on her personal Facebook account.

"We're also introducing paid family sick time -- three days to take care of a family member with a short-term illness, like a child with the flu," added Sandberg.

Facebook employees are welcoming these new benefits as they significantly ease the lives of new parents and grieving employees.
LONDON, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Two British families have recently showed their disapproval of U.S. President Donald Trump's "underreported" terrorist attack list, which included their children's deaths last August in Australia.

The tragedy happened in a backpacker's hostel in Queensland, Australia, in which Mia Ayliffe-Chung and Tom Jackson were stabbed and killed by Smail Ayad, a French man who lived with the victims in the hostel.

Jackson's parents on Wednesday tweeted that Tom and Mia died because of the "actions of a disturbed individual," a claim supported by Mia's mother Rosie Ayliffe.

Ayliffe said in a tweet Thursday that "Tom and Mia's deaths were not committed out of some misguided interpretation of the Koran."

She also confirmed that the possibility of an Islamic terror attack was discounted in the early stages of the police investigation.

Police in Australia had said that Ayad uttered "Allahu Akbar" ("God is the greatest" in Arabic) during the attack, but there was no other sign of radicalization.

The families' clarifications came as the White House released a list Monday evening of 78 attacks around the world from September 2014 to December 2016, including Tom and Mia's case, which it said Western media have ignored.

Trump also said on Monday that "the very, very dishonest press" chose to ignore attacks by Islamist militants.

Although the list appeared to be a tool for Trump to upgrade his "running war" with U.S. media, the two British families seized this opportunity to blast the U.S. president's "callous decree" on immigration.

Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 27 banning the entry into the United States of citizens of seven Middle Eastern countries for 90 days, the entry of all immigrants for 120 days and the entry of Syrian immigrants indefinitely.

"Tom was a fun loving 'citizen of the world' ... who would be appalled at the prejudice, hatred and downright nastiness of what we see spewing out of many Western nations now -- despicably led by the U.S. and the U.K. it seems," Tom's father, Les Jackson, said in a tweet.

Ayliffe also warned in an open letter to Trump that "this vilification of a whole nation and their people based on religion is a terrifying reminder of the horror that can ensue when we allow ourselves to be led by ignorant people into darkness and hatred."
PUL-E-KHUMRI, Afghanistan, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Unknown armed men gunned down four people including a member of provincial council of the northern Baghlan province in Afghanistan on Thursday, police spokesman said.

"Unknown armed men gunned down member of provincial council Alam Jan Majahid and three others outside provincial capital Pul-e-Khumri today afternoon," Zabihullah Shija told Xinhua.

Four more people sustained injuries in the attack, the official added.

No group or individuals have claimed responsibility.

However, the official did not rule out the involvement of Taliban militants, saying the "armed enemies" by organizing subversive activities want to terrorize the people.
NANNING, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Chinese zoologist Pan Wenshi, 80, believes the secret of his success in saving endangered white-headed langurs is not just love for the animals, but also his love for people.

During the past 20 years, he and his team at Peking University have helped the langurs, one of the world's 25 most endangered primate species and exclusive to China, recover their habitat from the hands of their human neighbors and restore their once dwindling population.

Instead of driving the local villagers away, Pan led a campaign to improve their lives so that they became friends of the monkeys, which are characterized by their white head hair.

A new book on his field-research is to be the most authoritative and comprehensive monograph ever written on the species.

GRINDING POVERTY

Though initially a prominent researcher of the giant panda, in 1996 Pan went to the karst mountains of Chongzuo, southern China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, to study the langurs.

"I wanted to explore the evolution from animal society to human society," Pan said, adding that Chongzuo gave him a chance to study both man and monkey, where they both coexist.

Three abandoned rooms at the foot of the Nongguan Mountain, a langur habitat, were all he had for a research base. Residing there, he cooked on a clay stove and slept on a straw mat.

Pan soon found that rampant logging, grass fires and stone exploitation were destroying the species' habitat, and almost led to the extinction of the langurs in the 1990s. The root cause of the langurs' predicament was clearly the extreme poverty that forced villagers to feed themselves at the cost of the local environment.

"They had nothing except small patches of farmland," Pan said.

Pan once hired a local farmer as his assistant, and gave him some dessert to take to his children as a gift. The next day, he asked if the children had enjoyed it.

"I ate it before I got home. I was too hungry," the farmer replied.

Pan was shocked at such hunger, but soon understood when he visited the family and saw the food that they had to feed a family of eight -- a single pot of porridge. Their neighbors were just as hungry.

He once saw an elderly villager drink water from a pond where several buffaloes had just relieved themselves. Due to contaminated drinking water, many men in the village suffered from liver diseases, the women from cervical cancer.

It was clear that the villagers cut wild plants and took stone from the mountain as they needed to make ends meet and had little choice.

It was no wonder the langurs were badly treated. Some villagers even killed the langurs to make medicated liquor believed to cure disease; a movie ticket could be exchanged for two langurs.

SAVE PEOPLE FIRST

Pan realized that if the lives of villagers were not improved, the langurs would soon be extinct.

"It will not be too late if we delay our research on langurs for 100 or 200 years, but if we don't save the villagers first, the monkeys' habitat will be totally ruined," he said

First, he encouraged the use of biogas as an alternative to firewood, to restore local vegetation.

In 2000, he donated a 100,000 yuan (14,500 U.S. dollars) environmental award he received from the Ford Motor Company, to build biogas tanks in three nearby villages.

Later, he collected 2.14 million yuan from the central government and other donors to set up the tanks for over 1,800 families in 14 villages around the Nongguan Mountain.

Finally, he persuaded the local government to help villagers grow sugarcane, which had a higher economic value than rice, the traditional village crop. He also told them to reduce the use of pesticides for the sake of the environment and to lower costs.

The average per capita income of the Nongguan Mountain villagers reached more than 6,000 yuan in 2015 from less than 400 yuan in 1996.

In addition, he collected 13.7 million yuan over 20 years from donors, including his friends at home and abroad, private companies and the government, to build a primary school, two clinics, three drinking water projects and a two-kilometer-long road for nearby villages, as well as set up a biological museum, an education center and an ecological park featuring the langurs.

As the villagers' lives improved, the langur population thrived. Currently, Chongzuo is home to more than 800 white-headed langurs, up from just 96 when Pan first arrived.

"We have many endangered species in the world, but it doesn't mean they have come to the end. They can recover as long as we give them enough time and space," Pan said.
LANZHOU, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- A "sunning of the Buddha" ceremony was held on Thursday morning at Labrang Monastery in the northwestern province of Gansu.

Around 9 a.m., Buddhists and tourists gathered in the square in front of the monastery's scripture hall.

At 10 a.m., a huge thangka scroll bearing the image of the Buddha was carried out of the hall by lamas and unrolled around on the side of a hill.

After sunbathing for around an hour the portrait was rolled up again and carried back into the monastery.

The ceremony is held each year on the 13th day of the first lunar month.

Built in 1709, the monastery in Xiahe County in the autonomous prefecture of Gannan, is one of the six great temples of the Gelug Sect of Tibetan Buddhism.
BUCHAREST, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Romanian Minister of Justice Florin Iordache announced his resignation on Thursday.

The decision came some 10 days after the emergency ordinance formulated by his ministry caused huge anti-government protests in the country.

However, even when announcing his resignation, Iordache stressed that all initiatives were "legal and constitutional."

Earlier in the day, the country's constitutional court rejected as inadmissible claims that the government introducing the emergency ordinance amending the country's criminal codes was unconstitutional.

On Wednesday, the court established that there is no legal conflict of a constitutional nature between state powers following the adoption of the controversial emergency ordinance, pointing out that the government acted legally within its competence of issuing ordinances.

Romania has seen mass protests after the coalition government adopted an emergency ordinance on amending criminal codes on Jan. 31.

The opposition and protesters complained that the changes would likely prevent some politicians charged with crimes from being punished.

The authorities had to annul the ordinance on Sunday amid mass protests. However, demonstrations across the country did not stop, with protesters as well as opposition parties led by the Liberals putting forward new demands for the government to step down.

A few days ago, Romanian Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu said the Justice Ministry and Iordache would take responsibility for the poor communication and confusion related to the adoption of this emergency ordinance.
BAGHDAD, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi Oil Ministry on Thursday said firefighters have put out fire at an oil well near the town of Qayyara, which Iraqi forces freed from the Islamic State (IS) militants last year.

"The technical teams of the (government-owned) North Oil Company, civil defense and military engineers have managed to extinguish well No. 70 in Qayyara oilfield in Iraq's northern province of Nineveh," the ministry said in a statement.

Efforts are continuing to extinguish fire on five more oil wells, the statement said, quoting oil ministry spokesman Asim Jihad.

So far, the firefighting efforts managed to put out some fire at 20 oil wells south of Mosul, Jihad said.

Ahead of the advance of the security forces to liberate Mosul, IS militants set fire to many oil wells and sabotaged the town's oil installations before fleeing Qayyara, some 50 km south of Mosul.

On Aug. 25, Iraqi security forces freed the strategic Qayyara, to use it as a staging ground for a major offensive to retake Mosul, the last major IS stronghold in Iraq, some 400 km north of Baghdad.

On Oct. 17, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared the start of the offensive to recapture Mosul, the country's second largest city.

Late in December, the troops freed the eastern side of Mosul, locally known as the left bank of Tigris River that bisects the city.

Mosul, the capital city of Nineveh province, has been under IS control since June 2014, when Iraqi government forces abandoned their weapons and fled, enabling IS militants to take control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions.
ADDIS ABABA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The African Union (AU) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) have congratulated Mohammed Abdullahi Mohamed for winning Somalia's presidential elections held on Wednesday.

Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, the outgoing Chairperson of the AU Commission, has congratulated the Somalia President-Elect, Mohamed Abdullahi "Farmajo", for his election as the next President of the Federal Republic of Somalia, said an AU statement on Thursday.

Dlamini Zuma has commended the incumbent president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, for his service to his nation and for gracefully accepting the election outcome in a manner that exemplifies good statesmanship.

The outgoing chairperson has equally lauded the Somali people for exercising their democratic rights and applauded the commendable work of the Independent Electoral Teams at the federal and state level managing the highly contested Presidential and Parliamentary elections amid attempts by terrorists to discredit and disrupt the electoral process, according to the statement.

She has acknowledged and appreciated the resilience of Somalis as they defied all odds and fully supported and facilitated the electoral process, which will serve as a catalyst to tackle the numerous priorities including security, the ongoing drought, reform of the security sector, acceleration of the constitutional review, consolidation of the federal member states, reconciliation and resolution of many local conflicts around the country.

She also paid tribute to AMISOM and Somali security forces for protecting electoral sites around the country and for fulfilling an arduous job in very difficult circumstances.

"This is a clear testimony of the determination, professionalism and effectiveness of the security strategy that have been implemented during this electoral process," she said.

She has reaffirmed AU's commitment to work with the leaders and people of Somalia as they embark on the huge task of rebuilding their country.

Meanwhile, in his congratulatory message to the president-elect, the IGAD Executive Secretary, Mahboub Maalim, has expressed his happiness to see a successful election process, which endowed the people of Somalia with a democratically elected leader, said a statement from the East African bloc on Thursday.

"Your victory with a large majority fills us with immense joy and we take this opportunity to congratulate you on your well-deserved success," said Maalim.

"We believe that your commitment and dedication will help Somalia achieve the peace, stability and prosperity that the people of Somalia have longed for and desired. We commend Somalia for the efforts and commitment, despite the numerous challenges, towards holding historic free and fair general elections," he said.

IGAD and Somalia's development partners have played an important role in providing political, financial, technical and logistical support towards the peace, security and political development of the country including the electoral processes, he said.

"We are looking forward to continued cooperation and collaboration with the president-elect and government. IGAD also would like to congratulate the people of Somalia for the successful conclusion of the national electoral process, as well as the outgoing president for his exemplary leadership during his tenure."

IGAD reassures its commitment to the people and government of Somalia and its other member states of its support for a secure, peaceful and integrated region and continent, said the Executive Secretary. Enditem
BEIJING, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- China's outbound direct investment (ODI) will steadily slow, but be of better quality in 2017, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said Thursday.

Despite rapid ODI growth in 2016, Chinese companies face increased risks in investing overseas due to fluctuations on international financial markets, uncertainties in other country's economic policy and restrictions by some developed countries on investment from China, particularly from Chinese state firms, said MOC spokesperson Sun Jiwen at a press briefing.

The ministry will support authentic, legal outbound investment by capable and qualified Chinese companies, Sun told reporters.

He said measures will be taken to prevent risks in outbound investment, regulate the market and encourage investment in the real economy and emerging industries.

China's non-financial ODI soared 44.1 percent 170 billion U.S. dollars in 2016.
by Xinhua writers Hu Tao, Zhou Shengping

BEIJING, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) - Chinese aviation executive Zhang Guangjian was surprised when thousands of people turned out to welcome his flight from Nepal's capital of Kathmandu to Lumbini, Buddha's birthplace.

The China-made MA60 aircraft, brandishing a red dot on its nose from a religious blessing ceremony, was the first new aircraft for the national carrier, Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC), in about 30 years.

"Now, we are creating history again with the delivery of two more planes," says Zhang, chairman of AVIC International Aero-Development Corporation.

One China-made 56-seat MA60 regional aircraft and a 17-seat Y-12E were delivered to NAC on Wednesday from AVIC International, a subsidiary of state-owned aviation giant China Aviation Industry Corporation (AVIC).

CONNECTING PEOPLE

The delivery is a major step in improving mountainous Nepal's domestic transport network and a major contribution to China's international "Belt and Road" initiative.

This is the second delivery of China-made aircraft to Nepal after an MA60 and a Y-12E were delivered to NAC in 2014.

"It is mutually beneficial cooperation. We bring China's aviation products and services, while our customers receive cost-effective and reliable aircraft," says Zhang.

Both models "perfectly match" the natural and geographical environments of Nepal, with its mountains and plateaus as well as its climatic variations.

"Aircraft are the most appropriate modern vehicles for mountainous Nepal," says Jeeva Bahadur Shahi, Nepal's Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation. "They are of critical importance to poor people in remote regions. Air fares should be affordable. The Chinese planes are just right."

The turboprop MA60 is manufactured by AVIC Xi'an Aircraft Industry Company Ltd. in northwest China's Xi'an, the starting point of the ancient Silk Road, and is designed for short airstrips.

The Y-12 series, manufactured by AVIC Harbin Aircraft Industry Company Ltd., is a regional turboprop aircraft designed for passenger, cargo and emergency rescue flights in plateau or mountainous regions.

It has obtained certifications from the Civil Aviation Certification of China (CAAC) and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The MA60 and Y-12E will fly a total of 32 services on NAC's domestic routes each week.

MUTUAL BENEFITS

"With the delivery of new planes, NAC will open more routes. They are critical to the rejuvenation of the national carrier," says NAC managing director Sugat Rana Kansakar.

The Chinese aircraft are expected to lift NAC's share of the domestic aviation market from about 6 percent to about 20 percent, servicing 20 of the country's 50-odd airports.

"The new planes perform well and the Chinese side has promised to provide support in parts, maintenance and pilot training. More Chinese planes are expected to join the fleet," he says.

The aircraft deliveries were agreed by the Chinese and Nepalese governments in 2013.

One MA60 and a Y-12E were delivered in 2014. Since then, the MA60 has flown more than 2,200 flights and the Y-12E 1,000, boosting tourism as well as emergency services.

In April 2015, an 8.1-magnitude earthquake jolted Nepal, causing enormous casualties and damage.

"During the aftershocks, we arrived at the airport to help protect the planes and the NAC crews. Luckily, they were not damaged," says Yang Kunbang, deputy managing director of the civil aviation division of AVIC International.

AVIC International's project leader in Nepal, Yang and 11 colleagues worked to help resume flights as quickly as possible.

During the rescue operations, the two aircraft flew eight times a day in total, shuttling the injured and taking emergency supplies to remote regions.

WIDER WORLD

As part of China's effort to strengthen regional cooperation, its "Belt and Road" initiative aims to realize benefit-sharing and common prosperity. China's aviation industry is working with other countries to create "Silk Road in the sky".

"Air connectivity means not only more aircraft in the sky, but also more airports on the ground, maintenance and professional personnel," says Zhang.

Those factors sustain the development of the aviation industry.

AVIC is working with Nepal's aviation industry to build modern hangars, and provide technical support and training.

"We are exploring effective ways to combine the advantageous resources of technology, products, capital and markets of nations along the 'Belt and Road' to share development achievements," says Zhang.

China has also pledged to strengthen aviation cooperation with African countries by accelerating work on jointly running airlines, technology and aircraft exports.

Zhang says China's aviation industry is cultivating markets worldwide: "We are holding firm in African markets, competing in Asian markets, exploring South American countries, and starting to study the European and North American markets."
FILE PHOTO: A gas flare on an oil production platform in the Soroush oil fields is seen alongside an Iranian flag in the Persian Gulf, Iran July 25, 2005. (REUTERS Photo)

BAGHDAD, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi Oil Ministry on Thursday said firefighters have put out fire at an oil well near the town of Qayyara, which Iraqi forces freed from the Islamic State (IS) militants last year.

"The technical teams of the (government-owned) North Oil Company, civil defense and military engineers have managed to extinguish well No. 70 in Qayyara oilfield in Iraq's northern province of Nineveh," the ministry said in a statement.

Efforts are continuing to extinguish fire on five more oil wells, the statement said, quoting oil ministry spokesman Asim Jihad.

So far, the firefighting efforts managed to put out some fire at 20 oil wells south of Mosul, Jihad said.

Ahead of the advance of the security forces to liberate Mosul, IS militants set fire to many oil wells and sabotaged the town's oil installations before fleeing Qayyara, some 50 km south of Mosul.

On Aug. 25, Iraqi security forces freed the strategic Qayyara, to use it as a staging ground for a major offensive to retake Mosul, the last major IS stronghold in Iraq, some 400 km north of Baghdad.

On Oct. 17, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared the start of the offensive to recapture Mosul, the country's second largest city.

Late in December, the troops freed the eastern side of Mosul, locally known as the left bank of Tigris River that bisects the city.

Mosul, the capital city of Nineveh province, has been under IS control since June 2014, when Iraqi government forces abandoned their weapons and fled, enabling IS militants to take control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions.
MOGADISHU, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations (UN) and Africa Union (AU) have pledged their support for the newly elected Somalia president to help tackle daunting challenges that await his government.

In separate statements issued in Somalia on Wednesday night, the UN Assistance Mission in the country (UNSOM) and the Special Representative of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission (SRCC) for Somalia congratulated former Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo on his election as Somalia's new president.

In his statement, SRCC for Somalia, Francisco Caetano Madeira appealed to the newly elected president and all leaders to work together in uniting the country by pursuing reconciliation to enable Somalia to tackle the political and socioeconomic challenges.

"I appeal to the new government that will be formed, to use the next four years in office, to enhance reconciliation and unity. The African Union remains committed to supporting you in your efforts to stabilize the country," Madeira said.

The AU envoy also lauded the Somalia National Security Forces and AMISOM for their commitment and hard work which provided an environment suitable for the successful completion of the electoral process.

Madeira said the last couple of months, leading to this momentous day, have no doubt been challenging for Somalia in its effort to bring peace and stability.

"The electoral process journey was intricate, requiring negotiations and compromises to overcome the challenges that once appeared insurmountable," he said.

The new president, Farmajo, who holds dual Somali-U.S. citizenship was declared the winner after two rounds of voting by the Somali Parliament in Mogadishu on Wednesday in an electoral process that took almost 18 months.

UNSOM Spokesperson Joseph Contreras said the UN will work with President Farmajo and his government in tackling the many economic, political, security and humanitarian challenges facing Somalia.

"It's an historic milestone in the country's emergence from years of chaos and civil war. We feel the process, though flawed in some respects by allegations of corruption and manipulation of some of the parliamentary voting, overall, produced some very positive results," he said according to UN news release.

President Farmajo faces a formidable set of challenges in meeting the expectations of the Somali people who will expect the new federal government to respond to the country's worsening drought crisis and avert another famine.

A top priority identified by Farmajo is improving security for all Somalis, which will require continued partnership with the African Union and international donors.

Other challenges include reconciliation and the peaceful resolution of a number of local conflicts and the resumption of the constitutional review process, not least to map out the pathway to one-person, one-vote elections in 2020.

"The international community is eager to partner with the new President, the Federal Government of Somalia, the country's federal member states and the people of Somalia in responding to these challenges," said Michael Keating, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Somalia.

"Yesterday's (Wednesday) orderly and peaceful transfer of power is a major achievement for Somalia and should boost confidence in the country's future both at home and abroad," he said in a statement issued on Thursday. Enditem
BEIJING, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- A senior official has urged further innovation in the theory and practice of China's people's congress system.

Wang Chen, vice chairman and secretary-general of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, called for strengthening and improving the supervisory role of the people's congress, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, at an two-day annual meeting of China Institute of Theory on the People's Congress System (CITPCS) concluded Thursday.

He also asked the attendees of the CITPCS annual meeting to advance the research on the theory on the people's congress system, so as to make new contributions to following, implementing and developing the people's congress system.

The research should be forward-looking and solution-seeking, he said.
DAMASCUS, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Syrian army backed by the Lebanese Hezbollah group are closing in on the IS stronghold of the city of al-Bab in northern Syria, while Turkish forces and allied rebels are advancing in the northern part of that key city near the Turkish borders, a monitor group reported on Thursday.

Intense battles are raging between Syrian army and Hezbollah on one side with the backing of Russian artillery shelling, against the IS in the southern and southwestern part of the city of al-Bab, the last major IS stronghold in the northern province of Aleppo, near the Turkish frontier, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Meanwhile, Turkish forces and rebels of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and other rebel groups fighting under the umbrella of the Ankara-backed Euphrates Shield are advancing in the northern part of al-Bab, according to the UK-based watchdog group.

The Syrian army and allied fighters have become less than three kilometers from al-Bab, said the report.

As for the Turkish forces, the troops are aiming to divert the attention of the IS militants inside the city, by heavily shelling al-Bab by airstrikes and artillery shelling.

The Observatory said tens of fighters from the Turkish and IS sides have been killed during the confrontation since Tuesday.

It also added that 315 civilians, including 64 children, have been killed by the Turkish shelling on al-Bab since Nov. 13, 2016, the date on which the Turkish-backed rebels reached the outskirts of the city.

Both the Turkish forces and the Syrian ones are fighting separately and haven't clashed with one another, as observers said it's a result of a Russian-Turkish coordination, which was reached when Turkey and Russia sponsored a cease-fire in Syria that went into effect on Dec. 30.

For the Turks, al-Bab is important to cut the road in front of the Kurdish dream to link areas under their control in northern Syria.

As for the Syrian army, securing the southern rim of al-Bab will help in protecting the city of Aleppo from IS attacks.

The Syrian army wrested full control over the entire city of Aleppo in December of last year, poising for further military operations in the sprawling countryside of that key province, with the help of the Russian air force and the ground fighters of Hezbollah and other Shiite groups.
LUSAKA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- A United Kingdom (UK) firm has been given a license to commence uranium exploration in southern Zambia's Siavonga district, a senior government official said on Thursday.

Minister of Mines and Minerals Development Christopher Yaluma said Groviacks Minerals has taken over a license of two firms that were initially awarded rights to explore for uranium.

Africa Energy and Denison Mines have handed over their licenses to the UK firm that also runs uranium mines in Niger, according to state broadcaster, the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation.

The firm, he said, has so far done tremendous works in their exploration and that latest geological findings so far look promising.

The Zambian minister was speaking in South Africa on the sidelines of the African Mining Indaba.
ISLAMABAD, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Thursday told world leading investors here that the multi-billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a key regional initiative for connectivity and shared prosperity of nations.

Addressing a gathering of corporate and business leaders from around the world in Islamabad, Sharif said CPEC is in partnership with China as a part of China's One Belt One Road Initiative.

"Under CPEC, a portfolio of over 55 billion U.S. dollars is already being implemented. Investment of more than 35 billion dollars in the energy sector is being implemented. Apart from energy, road and rail infrastructure, industrial parks and economic zones and a deep sea port at Gwadar give CPEC the potential of changing the destiny of people in the region and beyond," Sharif said.

The prime minister said the corridor will substantially shorten transportation distances between Africa and Middle East to Central and South Asian regions.

"CPEC would connect the port of Gwadar to Kashghar. It will not only connect Pakistan to China but also provide connectivity to Central Asia," he further said.

Talking about Pakistan's economy, he said international economic agencies are upgrading ratings for the financial and economic stability of the country.

"Standard & Poor (S&P) has upgraded its forecast of average annual GDP growth from 4.7 percent to 5 percent. World Bank forecasts a GDP growth of 5.2 percent for 2016-17. S&P also expects Pakistan's debt to fall below 60 percent of GDP by 2018. It has upgraded Pakistan's long-term credit rating to B with a stable outlook," Sharif said.

He invited the foreign investors and businessmen to take benefit from the economic revival of Pakistan and enjoy the first mover's advantage. Pakistan is ready to do business with the world, he said.
KATHMANDU, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Nepalese government on Thursday extended the tenure of two transitional justice mechanisms by a year which were formed to investigate war-era human rights violation cases, officials said here.

A Cabinet meeting decided to extend the term of Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and Commission of Enquiry on Enforced Disappearance (CEED), which are also mandated to provide justice to the conflict victims, Defense Minister Bal Krishna Khand told media in Kathmandu.

Mandates of the two commissions, which were formed two years ago, were set to expire on Tuesday.

The transitional justice mechanisms were set up after eight years of the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA) which ended a 10-year civil war in Nepal, though the then rebel Maoists and the then government pledged to establish such commissions within six months after signing the CPA.

The commissions are mandated to launch probe into all cases of human rights abuses committed by both the Maoists and the state forces during the 10-year-conflict (1996-2006). The armed struggle between the Maoists and the state claimed over 13,000 lives and left hundreds of thousands displaced and thousands disappeared.

The government's decision to extend the tenure of the two commissions has come at a time when the government and political parties have drawn flak for failing to ensure accountability for human rights abuses committed during the civil war.
KIGALI, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Rwanda and Mozambique are looking forward to enhancing agriculture cooperation, following the visit of a Mozambican agriculture minister to the small central African country.

Jose Condungua Pacheco on Thursday met with his Rwandan counterpart Geraldine Mukeshimana in Kigali, Capital of Rwanda to seal agriculture cooperation deals.

Both countries have agreed to work together to share best practices and improve agricultural and rural development for the benefit of citizens of the two countries.

Speaking to reporters, Mukeshimana said that agriculture is one of the potential areas for Rwanda-Mozambique cooperation.

"We are committed to ensuring agriculture cooperation between the two countries yield fruitful achievements in trade and investment, technology exchange and personnel training," she noted.

Bilateral talks between the two nations also included the possibility of having RwandAir commencing flights to Mozambique.

According to Pacheco, Mozambique is committed to partnering with Rwanda to achieve mutual goals of ensuring food security while facilitating and expanding trade.

"The aim of the visit is to strengthen bilateral relations in the area of agriculture between Mozambique and Rwanda. We are looking forward to strong cooperation in agriculture sector," he added. Enditem
BERLIN, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The value of German exports and imports has reached new highs in 2016, official data showed on Thursday.

According to the provisional data of German federal statistical office Destatis, the value of exported goods amounted to 1,207.5 billion euros (1,292.0 billion U.S. dollars), up by 1.2 percent year on year. The value of imported goods totaled 954.6 billion euros, 0.6 percent higher than in 2015.

Germany exported most goods to the members of the European Union (EU), with the value of 707.9 billion euros, a year-on-year increase of 2.2 percent. Meanwhile, Germany also imported goods worth 632.5 billion euros from EU countries, 1.8 percent higher than in 2015.

In addition, the value of goods, which Germany exported to countries and regions outside the EU came to 499.6 billion euros in 2016, while imported goods with the value of 322.1 billion euros. The two values decreased by 0.2 percent and 1.7 percent separately.

"Germany's new export record shows a global interest in 'Made in Germany' goods. German export enterprises have setting new records for three consecutive years," said Benno Bunse, chairman of Germany Trade & Invest, the economic development agency of Germany.

"German companies' high-quality products and innovative technology is one of the important reasons for Germany's leading position. These reasons also strengthen the competitiveness of Germany as a place of investment," Bunse added. (1 euro=1.07 dollars)
BRUSSELS, Feb.9 (Xinhua) -- Lawmakers of the European Union (EU) Thursday requested to amend the bloc's rules on car approvals in a drive to prevent a recurrence of the Volkswagen (VW) emissions scandal.

A committee on internal market affairs in the European Parliament voted for the amendments to EU car "type approval" rules, asking for more EU oversight of cars and more independent environmental and safety testing.

Daniel Dalton, who is steering this legislation through the European Parliament, said it was a "strong, robust response" to the Dieselgate scandal.

"With today's vote the Internal Market Committee has sent a clear signal to national governments and consumers that it is about time we addressed the weaknesses that allowed the emissions scandal to take place," he said.

"We agreed that the key to rebuilding consumer trust in the motor vehicle approval system is more rigorous and systematic oversight at every stage."

The lawmakers argued that national approval authorities should provide the EU institutions with market surveillance plans, which the EU regulators could reject.

The amended text was approved in the committee by 33 votes in favour and four against. However, the European Parliament still need to find a compromise with national governments on the legislation. Enditem
ANKARA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- A Russian airstrike mistakenly killed three Turkish soldiers and injured 11 in Syria's al-Bab town, the Turkish Armed Forces said in a statement on Thursday.

A Russian warplane, conducting airstrikes against Islamic State (IS) targets in Syria, mistakenly hit a building where Turkish soldiers were placed.

Russian officials explained that the incident was an accident and offered condolences, said the army.

Russian President Vladimir Putin talked to his Turkish counterpart and expressed sorrow, the statement said.

Investigation regarding the incident is being carried out by both parties.
SINGAPORE, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Singapore's Minister for Foreign Affairs Vivian Balakrishnan and the new United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have reaffirmed the longstanding and strong relationship between their two countries in a telephone conversation.

Both officials have agreed on the enormous scope of regional business opportunities, the need for a principled collective stand against terrorism, and the importance of continued peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific over a phone call on Wednesday, Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Thursday.

A spokesman said that Tillerson "knows Singapore well" and has met Singapore leaders given his previous leadership in ExxonMobil.

Tillerson, former CEO of the ExxonMobil, was confirmed by the Senate as the Secretary of State last week.
JERUSALEM, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Four people were injured on Thursday afternoon in a shooting and stabbing attack in the central Israeli city of Petah Tikva, the Israeli Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency medical service said.

A man and a woman in their 50s, as well as an approximately 30-year-old woman, are being treated for gunshot wounds to the legs, according to MDA.

Another man in his 40s suffered a stab wound, the medical service said, adding that all four were being taken to Petah Tikva's Beilinson hospital for treatment.

Israeli police confirmed that the shooting and stabbing attack in an outdoor market in Petah Tikva is a terror attack.

The suspect fled the scene but was shortly arrested by the police. Police said he is a Palestinian from the West Bank.
German President Joachim Gauck attends a meeting with Latvian President Raimonds Vejonis, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite and Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid in Riga, Latvia, Feb. 9, 2017. German President Joachim Gauck on Thursday admitted the European Union (EU) is facing "problems with unity" and called for a "strong and united EU." (Xinhua/Janis)

RIGA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- German President Joachim Gauck on Thursday admitted the European Union (EU) is facing "problems with unity" and called for a "strong and united EU."

In a meeting here with his Baltic counterparts, Gauck voiced concerns about EU citizens' critical attitudes, especially in regard to the Brexit referendum.

"We need a strong and united EU. We need a sustainable agreement on the EU's future," the German president said, adding that the bloc's member states have to be prepared for compromise.

Speaking at a joint news conference with the Baltic heads of state after his meeting with the presidents of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, Gauck said he understood the Baltic states' concerns about their security very well.

"Germany is and will remain on the Baltic states' side," the German president said, reiterating German solidarity with the Baltic states' efforts to boost their defense capabilities.

Latvian President Raimonds Vejonis underlined Germany is one of the Baltic states' key partners not only in business exchange, but also in security matters.

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite also called attention to regional security issues and thanked Germany for its decision to become the framework country leading the multinational NATO battle group to be deployed in Lithuania.

Grybauskaite also expressed the necessity for unanimity on the EU's future and said that the Baltic states would therefore have to coordinate their position, including on Britain's planned exit from the bloc.

Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid said: "We can be proud of having a country like Germany in the Baltic Sea region,"adding the EU project has to be made stronger.

The presidents of the three Baltic states and Germany gathered in Riga on Thursday to discuss current affairs and future cooperation.
Photo taken on May 8, 2015 shows an overlook of Dadaab refugee camp, Kenya. Dadaab, the world's largest refugee camp in northeastern Kenya, currently houses some 350,000 people. For more than 20 years, it has been home to generations of Somalis who have fled their homeland wracked by conflicts. (Xinhua/Sun Ruibo)

NAIROBI, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's High Court on Thursday quashed the government's unilateral decision to shut down Dadaab refugee camp which mainly hosts Somalis, terming the move as unconstitutional.

High Court Justice John Mativo termed the directive by Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaissery and his Principal Secretary Karanja Kibicho as "arbitrary, null and void" in the ruling.

Mativo said the government's orders to repatriate Somali refugees living in the world's largest refugee camp were discriminatory and amounted to collective punishment. He also described the orders as excessive, arbitrary and disproportionate.

"The government violated the law. Its decision ought to be examined. It was a drastic measure that should have been taken within the confines of the law," the judge ruled.

Mativo said there was no proof of the people's involvement in crime, or a single arrest or conviction that has been sighted as evidence of risk at the camp, or the presence of Al-Shabaab members.

Refugees gather to watch UN High Commissioner for Refugee Antonio Guterres' visiting delegation at Dadaab refugee camp, Kenya, May 8, 2015. Dadaab, the world's largest refugee camp in northeastern Kenya, currently houses some 350,000 people. For more than 20 years, it has been home to generations of Somalis who have fled their homeland wracked by conflicts. (Xinhua/Sun Ruibo)

Mativo further directed the government to adopt mechanisms that would ensure the department of refugees is functioning properly and avoid collective discrimination of refugees.

The High Court ruling came in response to a petition by two Kenyan human rights organizations, Kenya National Commission on Human Rights and Kituo Cha Sheria, which challenged the constitutionality of the government's directive to shut down Dadaab, the world's largest refugee camp, and the Department of Refugee Affairs.

The camp was initially due to be closed on November 30, 2016, but the government announced a six-month delay on "humanitarian grounds." Dadaab's closure would effectively have left more than 300,000 Somali refugees with nowhere else to go.

A refugee mother and her child look outside of a window at a hospital in Dadaab refugee camp, Kenya, May 8, 2015. Dadaab, the world's largest refugee camp in northeastern Kenya, currently houses some 350,000 people. For more than 20 years, it has been home to generations of Somalis who have fled their homeland wracked by conflicts. (Xinhua/Sun Ruibo)

The East African nation has also cited the influence of terror group Al-Shabaab as among the risks of keeping the camps open.

It was not yet clear when the closures would have begun, but the government has already disbanded the Department of Refugee Affairs (that the court quashed on Thursday), which worked with humanitarian organizations for the welfare of the refugees.
A civil police member takes part in an strike to demand higher wages and better working conditions for officers in Vitoria, capital of Espirito Santo state, Brazil, on Feb. 8, 2017. Brazil's armed forces on Wednesday took over security operations in the southeastern state of Espirito Santo, after a police strike sparked rampant violence. Five days into the strike, the murder rate has spiked, with 90 homicides registered since Saturday, when officers renounced their duties to demand higher wages and better working conditions, news agency Globo reported on its website. (Xinhua/AGENCIA ESTADO/Wilton Junior)

BRASILIA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's armed forces on Wednesday took over security operations in the southeastern state of Espirito Santo, after a police strike sparked rampant violence.

Five days into the strike, the murder rate has spiked, with 90 homicides registered since Saturday, when officers renounced their duties to demand higher wages and better working conditions, news agency Globo reported on its website.

According to the Agencia Brasil news agency, the state government signed over control of security operations to the armed forces.

The crime wave and insecurity have brought the state to a virtual standstill, disrupting public transportation and businesses.

"Buses are not circulating in (the capital) Victoria. Schools and universities are closed, clinics and local governments will not be offering services. Some banks and shopping centers are also not operating," the agency said.

Police representatives met with lawmakers and government officials over their demands, but so far no agreement has been reached.
MOGADISHU, Feb. 8, 2017 (Xinhua) -- Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo (C) raises his hands with outgoing President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Feb. 8, 2017. Former Prime Minster Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo was elected the new president of Somalia after the incumbent Hassan Sheikh Mohamud conceded his defeat after two rounds of voting. (Xinhua/Pan Siwei)

MOGADISHU, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations (UN) and Africa Union (AU) have pledged their support for the newly elected Somalia president to help tackle daunting challenges that await his government.

In separate statements issued in Somalia on Wednesday night, the UN Assistance Mission in the country (UNSOM) and the Special Representative of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission (SRCC) for Somalia congratulated former Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo on his election as Somalia's new president.

In his statement, SRCC for Somalia, Francisco Caetano Madeira appealed to the newly elected president and all leaders to work together in uniting the country by pursuing reconciliation to enable Somalia to tackle the political and socioeconomic challenges.

"I appeal to the new government that will be formed, to use the next four years in office, to enhance reconciliation and unity. The African Union remains committed to supporting you in your efforts to stabilize the country," Madeira said.

The AU envoy also lauded the Somalia National Security Forces and AMISOM for their commitment and hard work which provided an environment suitable for the successful completion of the electoral process.

Madeira said the last couple of months, leading to this momentous day, have no doubt been challenging for Somalia in its effort to bring peace and stability.

Members of the federal parliament gesture after Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo won the election in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Feb. 8, 2017. Former Prime Minster Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo was elected the new president of Somalia after the incumbent Hassan Sheikh Mohamud conceded his defeat after two rounds of voting. (Xinhua/Pan Siwei)

"The electoral process journey was intricate, requiring negotiations and compromises to overcome the challenges that once appeared insurmountable," he said.

The new president, Farmajo, who holds dual Somali-U.S. citizenship was declared the winner after two rounds of voting by the Somali Parliament in Mogadishu on Wednesday in an electoral process that took almost 18 months.

UNSOM Spokesperson Joseph Contreras said the UN will work with President Farmajo and his government in tackling the many economic, political, security and humanitarian challenges facing Somalia.

"It's an historic milestone in the country's emergence from years of chaos and civil war. We feel the process, though flawed in some respects by allegations of corruption and manipulation of some of the parliamentary voting, overall, produced some very positive results," he said according to UN news release.

President Farmajo faces a formidable set of challenges in meeting the expectations of the Somali people who will expect the new federal government to respond to the country's worsening drought crisis and avert another famine.

A top priority identified by Farmajo is improving security for all Somalis, which will require continued partnership with the African Union and international donors.

Other challenges include reconciliation and the peaceful resolution of a number of local conflicts and the resumption of the constitutional review process, not least to map out the pathway to one-person, one-vote elections in 2020.

"The international community is eager to partner with the new President, the Federal Government of Somalia, the country's federal member states and the people of Somalia in responding to these challenges," said Michael Keating, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Somalia.

"Yesterday's (Wednesday) orderly and peaceful transfer of power is a major achievement for Somalia and should boost confidence in the country's future both at home and abroad," he said in a statement issued on Thursday.
by Bedah Mengo

NAIROBI, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Investors are back at Kenya's debt market after a five-week hiatus, with Treasury bills offered for sale receiving up to a 300-percent subscription.

For the second week running, the investors have swarmed the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) with bids, mainly targeting the 182-day paper that is offering higher returns compared to the 91-day and 182-day bills.

In this week's auction, the CBK put up for sale 182- and 364-days bills worth 58 million U.S. dollars for each of the security.

"The total number of bids received amounted to 172 million dollars representing 299-percent subscription and 60 million dollars accounting for 137-percent subscription for 182- and 364-days bills, respectively," said the CBK in auction data released Thursday.

The government's appetite for debt surged with the increased subscription. The apex bank accepted bids amounting to 145 million dollars for the 182-day paper and 59 million dollars for the 384-day bill at a rate of 10.5 percent and 10.9 percent respectively. The yields remained nearly flat for both securities.

"The 182-day paper continues to offer the highest return on a risk-adjusted basis, as evidenced by the higher subscription levels on the paper," noted Cytonn, a Nairobi-based investment firm, adding that there has been increased liquidity in the market.

Last week, Kenya raised 229 million dollars from Treasury bills despite the government being in the market to raise 154 million dollars.

Most of the money (154 million dollars) was raised from the 182-day paper which during the auction registered a 256-percent subscription.

Subscription for the 91-day bill, however, remains flat, standing at 93.4 percent last week. Enditem
DHAKA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Bangladesh's highest economic policy-making body has approved a northeastern Bangladesh airport up-gradation project to build a key airport in South Asia.

A Planning Ministry official told Xinhua Thursday that the project, worth nearly 5 billion taka, were approved at a meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday.

As part of the up-gradation, the official said the existing runway and taxiway capacity of Osmani International Airport in Sylhet city, some 241 km northeast of capital Dhaka, will be increased.

Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal earlier told journalists that they are keen to modernize the airport so that it can function as one of the key airports of the South Asia region.

"We want to modernize the airport in such a manner so that wide-bodied air crafts can make landing and take off from it."

Because of the increasing number of flights he said there is need for runways in the airport which is now handling about 30-40 international flights monthly .

According to the official,however, the government's relevant department will soon float an international tender to appoint a contractor to implement the 4.92 billion taka project. (1 U.S. dollar equals to about 82 taka) Enditem
BRUSSELS, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Lawmakers of the European Union (EU) on Thursday requested to overhaul the bloc's rules on car approvals in a drive to prevent a recurrence of the Volkswagen (VW) emissions scandal.

A committee on internal market affairs in the European Parliament voted 33 in favor to four against for amendments to EU car "type approval" rules, and asked for more EU oversight of cars and more independent environmental and safety testing.

"Type approval" is the process whereby national authorities certify that a vehicle model meets all EU safety, environmental, and production requirements before it can be placed on the market.

Daniel Dalton, who is steering this legislation through the European Parliament, said it was a "strong, robust response" to what is known as the Dieselgate scandal.

"With today's vote, the internal market committee has sent a clear signal to national governments and consumers that it is about time we addressed the weaknesses that allowed the emissions scandal to take place," he said.

"We agreed that the key to rebuilding consumer trust in the motor vehicle approval system is more rigorous and systematic oversight at every stage."

The lawmakers argued that the costs of type-approval and market surveillance work must be covered by the member states in order to ensure independence.

Meanwhile, national approval authorities should be required to provide the EU institutions with market surveillance plans, which the EU regulators could reject.

Besides, the lawmakers said fines to the car makers should benefit consumers affected by breaches.

According to EU rules, car manufacturers who are in breach of the rules -- for falsifying test results, for example -- risk administrative fines of up to 30,000 euros (32,000 U.S. dollars) per vehicle.

"The penalties should be used to support market surveillance, benefit affected consumers and, if appropriate, for environmental protection," the lawmakers said.

However, it seems hard for the European Parliament to find a compromise with national governments on the legislation.

In September 2015, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that many VW cars being sold in the United States had a "defeat device," software in diesel engines that could detect when they were being tested, and could change the performance accordingly to improve results. The German car giant has since admitted cheating emissions tests.

Later studies indicated similar issues might affect cars by other manufacturers, but they are so far denying any wrongdoing.

Therefore, the European Parliament has launched an investigation into why the EU tests were insufficient, who was aware of the problems and since when, and why nothing was done.

EU commissioner for industry Elzbieta Bienkowska told the lawmakers on Thursday morning that she saw "no shift of attitude" among car makers after the Dieselgate scandal.

Speaking with members of the inquiry committee into Dieselgate, Bienkowska said several national car approval authorities were still refusing to share emissions data with her.

"The general attitude has not changed and this is unacceptable," she stressed.
DAMASCUS, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Syrian forces clashed with the Turkish-backed rebels on Thursday near the northern city of al-Bab, the first confrontation between the two sides for the control of al-Bab, the last Islamic State (IS) stronghold in northern Syria near the Turkish borders, a monitor group reported.

Violent clashes were reported between the Syrian army backed by the Lebanese Hezbollah group and the Turkish-backed rebels of the Euphrates Shield near al-Bab, as both parties were closing in on the IS stronghold in that city from different directions, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Syrian side is supported by Russian artillery as the rebel side is supported by the Turkish forces and airstrikes.

With the fresh confrontation, Russia's Defense Ministry said that Russian airstrikes have accidentally killed three Turkish soldiers and injured 11 others in al-Bab on Thursday.

Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed condolences over the accidental loss of lives in the airstrike, in a phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Earlier in the day, the Observatory said Syrian army is closing in on al-Bab from its southern rim, while Turkish forces and allied rebels are advancing in the northern part of that key city.

The Syrian army and allied fighters have become less than three kilometers from al-Bab, said the report.

As for the Turkish forces, the troops are aiming to divert the attention of the IS militants inside the city, by heavily shelling al-Bab by airstrikes and artillery shelling, according to the Observatory.

The UK-based watchdog group said tens of fighters from the Turkish and IS sides have been killed during the confrontation since Tuesday.

It also added that 315 civilians, including 64 children, have been killed by the Turkish shelling on al-Bab since Nov.13, 2016, the date on which the Turkish-backed rebels reached the outskirts of the city.

Both the Turkish forces and the Syrian ones are fighting separately, as observers said it's a result of a Russian-Turkish coordination, which was reached when Turkey and Russia sponsored a cease-fire in Syria that went into effect on Dec.30.

But after Thursday's first-of-its-kind confrontation, and the killing of Turkish soldiers in the process, the prospects of the Turkish-Russian cooperation in the war on IS could become compromised.

For the Turks, al-Bab is important to cut the road in front of the Kurdish dream to link areas under their control in northern Syria.

As for the Syrian army, securing the southern rim of al-Bab will help in protecting the city of Aleppo from IS attacks.

The Syrian army wrested full control over the entire city of Aleppo in December of last year, poising for further military operations in the sprawling countryside of that key province, with the help of the Russian air force and the ground fighters of Hezbollah and other Shiite groups.
WARSAW, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Security policy and consolidating the U.S.-European cooperation are among the priorities of Poland's foreign policy in 2017, Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski said here on Thursday when speaking to the Sejm, the lower house of Polish parliament.

Other priorities include taking advantage of mechanisms of bilateral cooperation with the United States, Britain and Germany, pursuing a dynamic regional policy, and expanding Poland's diplomatic presence in the world.

In Waszczykowski's view, Poland's interests did not rule out concern for the future of a united Europe, the security of its borders, its stability, and strong transatlantic relations.

He listed intensive relations with Germany, close regional cooperation within the Visegrad Group, Baltic states, as well as with the Nordic countries as the foreign policy achievements last year.

Regarding the challenges ahead, the minister said: "The future of the EU, which has found itself in an extremely difficult position, is the most difficult task we will face in 2017."

He stressed that all states needed to observe the values and fundamental principles of international law, saying doing so "was of fundamental significance for Poland and our entire region."

"It is the Polish government's priority to repair the European Union (EU) and not to dismantle it," Waszczykowski said.

The minister added that Poland would continue supporting the EU's enlargement. "We still want to share our accession experience with Western Balkans," Waszczykowski stressed.

Regarding the migration crisis, Waszczykowski said he didn't think EU directives would stem the flow of migrants to Western Europe and that it was necessary to deal with the causes of migration and better protect the EU's external borders. He reminded that Poland was sending humanitarian aid and working on border protection towards this aim.

In 2016, the total value of assistance granted by Poland as a response to the conflict in Syria and the migration crisis exceeded 119 million zloty (29.4 million U.S. dollars), he said, adding that the 2017 priority was to offer assistance to Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

The minister said Poland would also strive to become a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council as of June 2017, continue the country's involvement in anti-terrorist coalition operations, and maintain its commitment to NATO and EU operations.
MEXICO CITY, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Mexico could quadruple its sales to China by 2030 if the public and private sectors unite behind a single strategy, a business leader said on Wednesday.

Efren Calvo, head of the Mexico Chamber of Commerce in China (Mexcham), said a unified strategy could see sales skyrocket from the current 6 billion U.S. dollars a year to at least 25 billion dollars over the next 12 years.

To do that, Mexico's government and businesses need to present their Chinese counterparts with an effective plan, he said.

Today the bilateral trade tilts strongly in favor of China at a ratio of 10 to one, with Chinese exports amounting to approximately 60 billion U.S. dollars a year, according to government figures.

"The Chinese know it and they are open (to changes). They want to open their doors, but we have to present them with projects, not ideas," Calvo told reporters, following his presentation on bilateral trade ties at the Center for China-Mexico Studies at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

The key to building more prosperous ties with China is to offer long-term certainty and stability, otherwise Mexico will continue to be a sporadic source of goods.

Calvo recommended an approach of "selling by sectors, (such as) biomedical, aerospace and agriculture. What do we want in each sector, how can we develop that together, what is our goal?"

With the U.S., Mexico's biggest trade partner, spurning bilateral ties under President Donald Trump, the Latin American country is looking to strengthen its relationship with other countries, and China has been named as an obvious potential market to focus on.

Mexico's officials should brainstorm with a group of business leaders, academics and Mexcham members on possible strategies, Calvo said.

"We need to approach a country like China together. The American market is different. For the Chinese market, we need to act as a team, because the Chinese government always views with respect the authority of a country it deals with," said Calvo.
MOSCOW, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Moscow and Ankara agreed Thursday to improve military coordination in Syria after a Russian jet accidentally killed three Turkish soldiers in the Middle East country.

A Russian warplane in an offensive against Islamic State (IS) targets in Syria, mistakenly hit a building in Al-Bab town where Turkish soldiers were stationed, killing three and injuring 11 others, the Turkish Armed Forces said Thursday.

During a phone conversation, Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the "tragic" accident, according to a Kremlin statement.

"The two leaders agreed to enhance coordination in military operations in Syria against IS and other extremist organizations," said the statement.

Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, also expressed condolences to his Turkish counterpart in a phone conversation.

"Both sides agreed on closer coordination in joint actions in Syria, as well as the exchange of information about the situation on the ground," said a Russian Defense Ministry statement.

Russia began its military intervention in the Syrian civil war in September 2015.

Russia has cut the number of airstrikes and withdrawn the majority of its troops since December 2016 when it, together with Turkey and Iran, brokered a truce in Syria, but a high-ranking military official said Russian jets will continue to support anti-terrorist missions there.

As for the political settlement of the Syrian crisis, Putin and Erdogan reaffirmed their readiness during Thursday's conversation to actively contribute to the dialogues in Astana, Kazakhstan and in Geneva, Switzerland.

In addition, the two presidents discussed bilateral trade and economic cooperation by phone.

Related:

Russian jet mistakenly kills 3 Turkish soldiers in Syria

ANKARA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- A Russian airstrike mistakenly killed three Turkish soldiers and injured 11 in Syria's al-Bab town, the Turkish Armed Forces said in a statement on Thursday.
WARSAW, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- EU should better respond to citizens'needs and more effectively react to the tasks it faces, Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo said following a meeting with with her Irish counterpart Enda Kenny here on Thursday.

During a press conference, Szyldo said that Britain's decision to leave the EU is a clear signal that the EU needs to be reformed.

She added that both Poland and Ireland shared the view that voices of national states and parliaments should be reflected in the EU's decision making process to a greater extent.

Kenny underlined the fact that the Britain's decision will be a huge challenge to Ireland due to their complex relations.

"We determined that the negative effects brought by Brexit to economies and citizens must be minimalized ... we hope for constructive negotiations which will be an impulse for closer Irish-Polish cooperation," Kenny said, adding that both the leaders hoped the 27 EU countries to speak in one voice while protecting four freedoms, including the freedom of travelling.

Szydlo declared that for Poland and Ireland, the common market is among the most important achievements of European integration.

She also thanked Ireland for receiving thousands of Polish people, stressing that they contribute to the development of Ireland. Enditem
ADDIS ABABA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Stuffing and funding are the two focuses for the African Union (AU) to run the newly launched Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), Africa's continent-wide public health agency, the outgoing AU Commissioner for Social Affairs has said.

In an interview with Xinhua, Mustapha Sidiki Kaloko emphasized that cooperation and support from member states and development partners are very important for the Africa CDC.

The pan-African bloc has been working on Africa CDC since the Abuja extraordinary summit in 2013, and the advent of Ebola crisis has put a lot of emphasis on the issue of having the agency, Kaloko recalled.

The AU Commission launched the Africa CDC on Jan. 31 on the margin of the 28th AU summit in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa.

The agency was launched to help African member states respond to public health emergencies, as the importance of public health is underlined by its impact on national, social and economic development, according to the AU.

The pan-African bloc has now the director for the Africa CDC, the structure, and established an emergency operation center to run on surveillance system for the whole continent, said Kaloko.

"What we did after that (the Ebola crisis) was to set up a multinational taskforce made of representatives of all members states of the African Union, relevant agencies and partners that deal with health on the continent, and also various centers like the American CDC in Atlanta, Chinese CDC, European CDC, put all these people together that was the first meeting we had on planning on the Africa CDC. So, from there, we decided that we are going to have a decentralized Africa Centers for Disease Control that is each regional will have collaboration center," said the commissioner.

Stating that epidemiologists and experts are already there with the Africa CDC, Kaloko said further stuffing and more funding would be the next immediate focus with the CDC.

He also stated that the pan-African bloc looks forward to technical and other forms of support from non-members and development partners.

"Very important in the immediate sense is the issue of funding. So, we are going to look at ways in which we are able to fund the institutions as much as we can. Our member states have pledged to assist with the funding. But, we are going to need a lot more funds, definitely, we need some assistance from our major partners," the commissioner added.

Five countries including Egypt, Zambia, Nigeria, Kenya, and Gabon have already been identified to host the regional collaboration centers of the Africa CDC, which will work with the African CDC Coordinating Center in Addis Ababa, according to the AU official.

The Africa CDC will join the international networks of public health institutions to share information and improve surveillance of public health threats, the AU has said.

As an African-owned institution, the Africa CDC is uniquely positioned to help protect the health of the continent, it said. Enditem
French President Francois Hollande delivers a speech to the Asian community during a Lunar New Year reception held at Elysee Palace in Paris, France, on Feb. 8, 2017. (Xinhua/Chen Yichen)

PARIS, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The year 2016 "was a great year for France and China," said French President Francois Hollande Wednesday, lauding the outcome of bilateral relations over the past year.

During a reception at Elysee Palace celebrating the Chinese New Year, Holland said France and China have witnessed solid advances in civilian nuclear power in recent months, and expressed his appreciation for China's recognition of 45 appellations of wines from Bordeaux.

"I also hope that we can have more (human) exchanges between France and China," Hollande said, referring to the increase in the numbers of French visas issued to Chinese in the past few years.

In his speech, Hollande also praised his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on defending free trade at the Davos summit held in mid-January.

"President Xi Jinping, during his visit at the Davos summit, defended the principles of regulated trade," said Hollande, adding that France also rejects the "temptation of withdrawal, closure and protectionism."

In his keynote speech at Davos, Xi said: "Whether you like it or not, the global economy is the big ocean that you cannot escape from. Any attempt to cut off the flow of capital, technologies, products, industries and people between economies, and channel the waters in the ocean back into isolated lakes and creeks is simply not possible. Indeed, it runs counter to the historical trend."

Hollande also praised China for reaching an agreement on climate change in Paris, stressing the importance of the joint statement between France and China in fighting against climate change.

"France will not accept the questioning of the achievements of this negotiation or the agreement which commits all countries and surely the biggest of them," said Hollande.
British European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Major Tim Peake gives a talk during the first New Scientist Live event on his experiences of ESA expeditions lasting over six months in space in London, Britain, on Sept. 22, 2016. (Xinhua/Ray Tang)

LONDON, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Britain's ambitions to journey into space took a leap forward Thursday when the government announced a scheme to see rockets taking off by 2020.

As well as a 12.5 million U.S.dollar-scheme to incentivise the commercial spaceflight market, the government announced that within weeks, a draft legislation will be put before parliament to enable spaceflights from Britain.

Grants are to be made available to help develop commercial launch capabilities for spaceflights.

The funding program comes as the government set a timeline for new legislation which will facilitate and regulate commercial spaceflight.

The Department for Business, Engergy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) said the government's ambitions is for Britain to hold a greater share of the commercial spaceflight market, worth an estimated 25 billion pounds (32 billion U.S.dollars) over the next 20 years.

It has issued a call for businesses to develop competitive, commercial and safe spaceflight proposals for Britain-based satellite launch services and sub-orbital flights.

Science Minister Jo Johnson said: "Spaceflight offers Britain the opportunity to build on our strengths in science, research and innovation. It provides opportunities to expand into new markets, creating highly-skilled jobs and boosting local economies across the country."

"We want to see the UK space sector flourish, that is why we are laying the groundwork needed for business to be able to access this lucrative global market. The call for proposals I announced today, together with a new, dedicated Spaceflight Bill, will help make our space ambitions a reality.

Organisations expected to bid for a share of the funding are likely to be joint enterprises of launch vehicle operators and potential launch sites.

BEIS say the funding must be used to develop spaceflight capabilities, such as building spaceport infrastructure or adapting launch vehicle technology for use in Britain. The aim is to establish a commercial spaceflight market to capture a share of the emerging global market from 2020.

A BEIS spokesman added: "There will be further discussions with industry on the future of the UK's commercial spaceflight market at the Royal Aeronautical Society on February 21, hosted by the UK Space Agency."

"The initial call is focused on establishing the commercial spaceflight market in the UK by potentially providing grant funding to the most feasible proposals, and is not a prize. The UK Space Agency will continue to offer support and advice to all potential UK spaceports and operators, regardless of the outcome."
Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) soldiers beef up security in Mandera, Kenya, July 8, 2015. The town's proximity to Somalia makes it an easy target for Al-Shabaab militants to carry out its attacks. (Xinhua/Stephen Ingati)

NAIROBI, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan police offered a total of 140,000 U.S. dollar bounty for information that will lead to arrest of seven terror suspects behind a series of attacks in northeast region along the Somalia border.

Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinett also circulated photos of Abdikadir Haret Mohamed, Abdullahi Issack Diyat aka Ubeyd, Idriss Ismael Issack, Mohamed Yussuf Kuno aka Abu Ali, Ahmed Maalim Bashir, Sharif Sheikh Arab and Ahmed Mahat Mohamed aka Jerry who are armed and dangerous.

"Airising from our intensified efforts to counter terrorists plots, seven individuals have been identified as having been behind the recent terror attacks that led to the killing of innocent Kenyans and needless destruction of property," Boinnet said in a statement issued in Nairobi on Wednesday .

Each of the seven has a 20,000 dollar bounty and the public has been asked to provide information on their whereabouts.

He said the seven terrorists are believed to be operating between Kenya and Somalia and are suspected to have been involved in a number of terror attacks in the northeastern region, particularly in Mandera County.

"The individuals were instrumental in the planning and execution of attacks on non-Somalis at Bisharo Lodge in October 2016, Jabane Hotel in January and Arabia Police post in February," said Boinnet.

He noted that the individuals have received training from Al-Shabaab on explosives and handling of weapons.
MANAMA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Bahrain security forces killed three terror fugitives Thursday after intercepted their vessel, which was heading to Iran.

The vessel occupants fired shots at the security forces in a chase on the sea, said Public Security Chief Major-General Tariq al-Hassan, adding that they changed its route to the northern part of Bahrain and refused to stop despite warning by the Bahrain security forces.

The operation is one of the two which are taken as part of their investigations, he said, and three men were killed in the incident, including one who was among 10 escaped men from the Jaw prison facility.

The men named Redha al-Ghasra, who was sentenced for life and additional 79 years for several terror cases, escaped for the fourth time from detention.

Maj. Al Hassan said a group of 10 terror fugitives were trying to escape in the boat and during the clashes two sustained injuries and five were arrested.

"We found a satellite phone, GPS system, money and personal belongings from the boat," he said.

"Preliminary investigations indicate that some groups in Iran were waiting to escort this boat," he added.

The second operation arrested two men with cache of weapons which included main suspect involved in the killing of a policeman last month.

The official revealed that 18 policemen were killed since the 2011 unrest and more than 3,200 injured in terror attacks.
by Ronald Njoroge

NAIROBI, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Kenya plans to gazette coffee regulations next month that will help to boost earnings from the sector.

Cabinet Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries Willy Bett told a media briefing on Thursday that once the regulations are operationalized, farmers will make more from sales of their crop.

"The overall aim of the regulations is to remove restrictions in the coffee value chain that have negatively impacted on the farmers earnings," Bett said after a meeting with coffee farmers, millers, cooperatives and marketing societies.

The East African nation plans to boost production of the sector that produced fewer than 50,000 tonnes of coffee in 2016 compared to the 130,000 tonnes in the late 1980s.

Bett said the new regulations would ensure coffee farmers be paid a certain percentage of payment as soon as they deliver their produce.

"Coffee farmers normally have to wait for up to eight months before they are paid and this makes it difficult for them to invest in expanding production," he said.

Other reforms will include the establishment of a Central Depository Unit that will receive all coffee payments. "Then the farmers, cooperatives, millers and marketers will be all paid from the funds," Bett said. Enditem
KIEV, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Visiting Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Thursday has called for a political settlement to the conflict in eastern Ukraine, urging the sides to address the situation in compliance with international law.

"Finding the ways to resolve the situation in the east is very important for us. We believe, the diplomatic way will be the best one," Tsipras said, speaking at a joint briefing with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Kiev.

Greece attaches a particular importance to the developments in eastern Ukraine as it is home to a large number of ethnic Greeks, Tsipras said, adding that the Athens are ready to provide humanitarian and medical assistance to those affected by the violence.

For his part, Poroshenko has appreciated Greece for the political role in resolving the conflict and humanitarian support.

"This is particularly important now as from Jan. 29 to February 6 we had a drastic escalation of the situation in the industrial area of Avdeevka that deprived the town of light, heat, water and gas, with temperatures reaching minus 22 degrees," Poroshenko said.

According to the official estimates, about 100,000 of ethnic Greeks live in Ukraine, with the majority of them are residing in the eastern part of the country.

Tsipras arrived in Kiev on Wednesday for a two-day official visit, his first trip to Ukraine since taking office.
by Maria Vasileiou

THE HAGUE, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- By proposing different paths of integration and enhanced cooperation for effective responses to challenges that affect member states in different ways, Benelux has joined the ranks of those calling for a more differentiated European integration, experts said.

Ahead of the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome to be celebrated on March 25, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg issued a joint statement on their common vision for a successful future of the EU.

The bloc proposed "different paths of integration and enhanced cooperation," saying the EU should focus on core priorities and only act when member states themselves are not able to deliver for their citizens.

The Benelux, a politico-economic Union, is the starting point of the EU. In 1944, the three countries initiated a union with a customs agreement. In 1951, the Benelux joined West Germany, France, and Italy to form the European Coal and Steel Community, a predecessor of the European Economic Community and today's EU.

"The Benelux statement admits that the EU is not a coherent block and calls for an even more differentiated integration," commented Adriaan Schout, senior research fellow at Clingendael, the Dutch institute for international relations.

"Different levels of integration are already a fact in the European Union. There are countries in the euro zone and countries outside the single currency bloc," he said.

For the euro zone, Schout ruled out the possibility of different degrees of integration among the countries sharing the single currency due to the structure of the euro zone.

"The statement might mean a willingness to proceed towards more integration in certain directions, for example, in setting a common budget shared among the Eurozone members," he said.

Ben Crum, professor in political theory at Amsterdam's Vrij Universiteit (VU) believed that the Benelux would go further than just calling for a fast track for the 19-member euro zone.

"The joint statement underlines the intention to form rather 'ad hoc' coalitions of different groups of those willing to proceed with more enhanced cooperation within certain policy domains," he said.

Other domains of "enhanced cooperation" could include defense, free movement policies as well as fiscal and financial integration, suggested the VU professor.

For example, "with the departure of long-time skeptic Britain, France and Germany are keen to develop closer EU ties in defense, but other governments are divided over the degree of integration," he told Xinhua.

On the Netherlands' role in the Benelux joint statement, interpreted as an endorsement for a "multi-speed Europe", the Clingendeal researcher said it was "a political declaration which is in line with the Dutch stance against an ever-closer union and in favor of more respect for national sovereignty." Ever closer Europe is one of the principles of the EU's treaties.

As Geert Wilders' anti-EU Freedom Party leads the polls ahead of general election scheduled for March 15, "the country follows a more skeptical approach on more integration and the government is repositioning itself into a more reluctant stance on Europe favoring less integration," he said.

The euro crisis "made apparent that a too inclusive approach may come with a price," explained Crum, "The Netherlands thinks that working in a smaller group could be better."

Over the refugee crisis, as early as in October 2015 the Netherlands floated the idea of a mini-Schengen zone, Crum recalled.

At that time, Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem told media that the Schengen zone, created in 1995, cannot work if only a few countries give shelter to most of the refugees.

Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said this might ultimately lead to a mini-Schengen zone involving the core north western European countries where free movement could be maintained.

As to the Brexit vote which has prompted European leaders to rethink Europe, "the Netherlands adopts a more defensive line to balance federalist inclinations expressed mainly by France," said Crum.

Efforts at strengthening European integration and keeping the EU project afloat would only be viable if there is a small permanent group of hardcore countries bonded closer together with the rest enjoying different levels of cooperation in structured formations, stressed Crum.

"Within this arrangement you could also have a place for the UK," he added. "But in this case amendments in main treaties would be necessary, an option the Dutch and other EU member governments do not endorse given the complexities caused by a new wave of referenda."
by Daniel Majack

JUBA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) on Thursday deplored fighting on the west bank of the River Nile in South Sudan's Upper Nile, saying it has reached "worrying proportions."

Head of the UNMISS David Shearer said the mission on Wednesday received reports of hostilities between the government's Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and opposition forces in Owachi and Tonga, Panyinkang County.

"What began with an exchange of fire between SPLA and Aguelek opposition forces has expanded geographically. Military resupplies have since been observed arriving in the area," Shearer said in a statement.

He said the military operations on the west bank of the Nile River are taking place in an area where people are predominantly from the Shilluk ethnic group, forcing people out of their homes.

"The town of Wau Shilluk town is now reported to be deserted. Humanitarian workers have been evacuated and aid is not being provided," Shearer said.

Wau Shilluk is located in northeastern South Sudan, across the White Nile River from Malakal town.

Malakal was one of South Sudan's largest urban areas before the current crisis and home to more than 33,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) who are taking shelter at the protection of civilians (PoC) site.

The statement came after the UN agency, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on January 31 suspended humanitarian activities in the area due to fighting, leaving the fate of thousands of people in need of aid hung in the air. Enditem
GENEVA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), Saber Chowdhury, expressed his "deep disappointment" on Thursday over the Israeli parliament's adoption of the so-called "Regularization Law" on Monday.

The bill legalized the construction of about 3,000 housing units on the private Palestinian land in the West Bank.

"The legislation, an affront to the rule of law, will seriously jeopardize ongoing efforts to secure a peaceful resolution to the conflict in the Middle East, including the two-state solution that the parties have committed to with the strong support of the international community," he said in a statement issued Thursday.

Saying the legislation was consistent with neither national nor international law as evidenced by the United Nation's Security Council resolution 2334, the IPU chief stressed that such a measure would ultimately lead to heightened instability and insecurity for the entire region and beyond.

According to the statement issued Thursday, the IPU president and its secretary general Martin Chungong, are now consulting with the Israeli parliamentary authorities, urging the Knesset, Israel's parliament, to reconsider and repeal this legislation in the interest of peace between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.

Based in Geneva, the IPU is the global organization of national parliaments, which tries to safeguard peace and drive positive democratic change through political dialogue and concrete action.
BRUSSELS, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Representatives for member states of the European Union (EU) and the European Parliament reached a provisional agreement on Thursday to establish a European Year of Cultural Heritage in 2018.

The bloc's decision makers want to raise awareness of European history and values and to strengthen a sense of European identity through the event.

Meanwhile, the event is expected to draw attention to the opportunities offered by Europe's cultural heritage, but also to the challenges, such as the impact of the digital shift, environmental and physical pressure on heritage sites, and the illicit trafficking of cultural objects.

"As Europeans, we have a particularly rich cultural heritage born of our long shared history. I welcome the opportunity to celebrate that heritage and to take pride in all that makes up our common European identity," Owen Bonnici, Malta's minister for justice, culture and local government, said in a statement released by the meeting.

The European Year of Cultural Heritage will be funded through the redeployment of budgetary resources from existing EU programs, the statement said.
Police and security officials stand guard at a checkpoint on a highway in Sanabis west of Manama, Bahrain February 9, 2017. (Reuters photo)

MANAMA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Bahrain security forces killed three terror fugitives Thursday after intercepted their vessel, which was heading to Iran.

The vessel occupants fired shots at the security forces in a chase on the sea, said Public Security Chief Major-General Tariq al-Hassan, adding that they changed its route to the northern part of Bahrain and refused to stop despite warning by the Bahrain security forces.

The operation is one of the two which are taken as part of their investigations, he said, and three men were killed in the incident, including one who was among 10 escaped men from the Jaw prison facility.

The men named Redha al-Ghasra, who was sentenced for life and additional 79 years for several terror cases, escaped for the fourth time from detention.

Maj. Al Hassan said a group of 10 terror fugitives were trying to escape in the boat and during the clashes two sustained injuries and five were arrested.

"We found a satellite phone, GPS system, money and personal belongings from the boat," he said.

"Preliminary investigations indicate that some groups in Iran were waiting to escort this boat," he added.

The second operation arrested two men with cache of weapons which included main suspect involved in the killing of a policeman last month.

The official revealed that 18 policemen were killed since the 2011 unrest and more than 3,200 injured in terror attacks.
A member of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), made up of US-backed Kurdish and Arab fighters, stands guard near the village of Bir Fawaz, 20 km north of Raqa, during their offensive towards the Islamic State (IS) group's Syrian stronghold as part of the third phase to retake the city and its surroundings, on February 8, 2017. (AFP photo)

DAMASCUS, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Syrian army backed by the Lebanese Hezbollah group are closing in on the IS stronghold of the city of al-Bab in northern Syria, while Turkish forces and allied rebels are advancing in the northern part of that key city near the Turkish borders, a monitor group reported on Thursday.

Intense battles are raging between Syrian army and Hezbollah on one side with the backing of Russian artillery shelling, against the IS in the southern and southwestern part of the city of al-Bab, the last major IS stronghold in the northern province of Aleppo, near the Turkish frontier, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Meanwhile, Turkish forces and rebels of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and other rebel groups fighting under the umbrella of the Ankara-backed Euphrates Shield are advancing in the northern part of al-Bab, according to the UK-based watchdog group.

The Syrian army and allied fighters have become less than three kilometers from al-Bab, said the report.

As for the Turkish forces, the troops are aiming to divert the attention of the IS militants inside the city, by heavily shelling al-Bab by airstrikes and artillery shelling.

The Observatory said tens of fighters from the Turkish and IS sides have been killed during the confrontation since Tuesday.

It also added that 315 civilians, including 64 children, have been killed by the Turkish shelling on al-Bab since Nov. 13, 2016, the date on which the Turkish-backed rebels reached the outskirts of the city.

Both the Turkish forces and the Syrian ones are fighting separately and haven't clashed with one another, as observers said it's a result of a Russian-Turkish coordination, which was reached when Turkey and Russia sponsored a cease-fire in Syria that went into effect on Dec. 30.

For the Turks, al-Bab is important to cut the road in front of the Kurdish dream to link areas under their control in northern Syria.

As for the Syrian army, securing the southern rim of al-Bab will help in protecting the city of Aleppo from IS attacks.

The Syrian army wrested full control over the entire city of Aleppo in December of last year, poising for further military operations in the sprawling countryside of that key province, with the help of the Russian air force and the ground fighters of Hezbollah and other Shiite groups.
ROME, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon on Thursday said there was no need for a second independence referendum in Scotland.

"We don't see any need for a second referendum in Scotland," Fallon said at a joint news briefing in Rome with Italian Defense Minister Roberta Pinotti.

"The Scottish government should get on with what it was elected to do which is to improve school standards in Scotland, to tackle the problems of the Scottish health service, and above all to revive the Scottish economy where unemployment is now rising. Those are the priorities for Scotland, not a second referendum," Fallon told reporters.

After Britain's European Union membership referendum last June, First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon said a second referendum on Scottish independence could be held in the future.

A referendum on Scottish independence was previously held in Sept. 2014, in which 55.3 percent voted against the plan to separate.
ADDIS ABABA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- ChildFund Ethiopia said Thursday that it has so far reached close to 100,000 Ethiopians in its response to the El-Nino-driven drought that affected millions of people in the East African country.

"We are seeing fewer cases of acute malnutrition among children under age five, new mothers and the elderly," said Chege Ngugi, ChildFund Ethiopia National Director.

"However, this season's below-average Kiremt (winter) rainfall means that further challenges are ahead," he added.

ChildFund Ethiopia has a National Emergency Response Team (NERT) to address the emergency needs of children, pregnant and lactating women and the elderly in its drought-affected operational areas.

ChildFund has so far secured close to 2.5 million U.S. dollars to address the emergency situation in many parts of Ethiopia, including Dugda, Fentale, Boset, Siraro, Kochere, Wonago, West Harerge and Adami Tulu, Jido Kombolcha woredas.

The Ethiopian government and humanitarian partners in January officially launched the Humanitarian Requirements Document (HRD) for 2017 looking for 948 million dollars to help 5.6 million people with emergency assistance. Enditem
ROME, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Italy's wine sales to China registered a record increase in terms of value last year, according to a market study released here on Thursday.

"In 2016, Italy achieved the highest growth in terms of value (of wine exports) in China, compared to all major competitors," Bologna-based wine monitor Nomisma said in a report.

The study specifically focused on global wine exports to the BRICS countries -- Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

"Italian wine exports to China reached a 39 percent increase in the segment of still bottled wines," said the report.

Overall, Italy ranked fifth in wine sales to China, far behind France, Australia, Chile, and Spain.

But the performance of Italian wines becomes remarkable when growths of all the five countries are taken into account.

"Italy's was a respectable performance, considering both the category's average trend (17 percent increase) in 2016, and those of direct competitors such as Spain (up 27 percent), Australia and Chile (up 24 percent), and the leader of the market, France (up 12 percent)," the wine monitor said.
DAR ES SALAAM, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Tanzania's ban on foreign travels of public servants has saved the East African nation 429.5 million U.S. dollars between November 2015 and November 2016, the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) said Thursday.

BoT said in its economic review for December that the reduction in travel expenses was a result of President John Magufuli's order limiting foreign travel by government officials, issued just a few days after he assumed office on November 5, 2015.

The bank said Tanzania spent 774.4 million dollars in overseas travels between November 2015 and November 2016, a significant decrease from 1.2 billion dollars spent in the same period between November 2014 and November 2015.

"Travel payments declined by about 36 percent, consistent with the government move to reduce foreign travel costs," said the review.

The review said the reduction in travel payments was in tandem with the general decline in imports with the exception of oil and industrial raw materials.

In his speech on November 6, 2015, Magufuli said foreign travel by government officials cost the government 178 million dollars in air tickets, allowances and training between 2013/14 and 2014/15.

"That money could have been used to construct a 400-kilometre road," the president said. Enditem
VILNIUS, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The number of emigrants leaving Lithuania more than doubled in January, data published by Statistics Lithuania showed on Thursday.

A total of 7,048 people were registered as having emigrated in January, compared with January 2016 when 3,445 people were registered as having left the country. January saw the highest monthly emigration since August 2010, the statistics agency showed.

But analysts said the number of emigrants had jumped because of an increase in emigration applications recently filled by Lithuanians who had left the country long before and not because the actual number of emigrants had suddenly spiked.

The reason for the increase was also due to the Lithuanian State Social Insurance Fund Board (Sodra) announcing in January that the residents who were late paying social security tax could face penalties. Around 300,000 Lithuanians were asked to cover their debt for social insurance by Sodra.

To avoid social security taxes, some Lithuanians have to inform the country's authorities they have emigrated.

Lithuania, a small country with a population of less than 3 million, has been dealing with high emigration since the country joined the European Union (EU) in 2004.

In 2016, almost 51,000 people emigrated from Lithuania, compared with 44,533 in 2015. Enditem
LONDON, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The barrister at the center of the historic court case over Britain's exit from the European Union (EU) is to address the House of Lords on the Brexit bill, it was announced Thursday.

Lord David Pannick represented businesswoman Gina Miller who challenged Prime Minister Theresa May's right to trigger the article 50 mechanism to kickstart Britain's departure from Brussels without the consent of parliament.

The Supreme Court in London ruled in favor of Miller on Jan. 24, which means MPs (members of the Parliament) need to vote on a parliamentary bill before the process can start.

The Brexit bill ended its journey on Wednesday in the House of Commons with a landslide victory for May.

The parliamentary bill giving May authority to trigger article 50 must now be passed by to the unelected House of Lords.

It was revealed Thursday by officials at Westminster that Lord Pannick was one of 140 peers in the upper chamber wanting to speak in the debate later this month.

It also became clear that May wouldn't learn whether she is free to trigger the mechanism until March 7.

Officials at Westminster announced the timetable for taking the Brexit bill through its final stages in the House of Lords.

Because the House of Lords will be entering a short recess, the main debates will not start until Feb. 20 when the first of 140 peers have their say.

The debate will continue on Feb. 21, with the process switching to more detailed debates by a committee on Feb. 27, which will continue into early March.

The third and final stage will be reached on March 7 when the House of Lords makes its final decision with a vote.

If the House of Lords follows the Commons and approves the bill, it will then go to the palace to be given Royal Assent by Queen Elizabeth.

Only then will May have the legal authority to trigger article 50, but it will be tight to meet her end-of-March deadline.

Once article 50 is triggered, it means the process has reached a point of no return. It will set a two-year maximum timetable for London and Brussels to strike a deal on the post-Brexit relationship between the two.

Downing Street will be eagerly waiting to see whether any potentially-delaying amendments are put forward by peers in the House of Lords where there is strong support for Britain remaining in the EU.

Some MPs have already signalled that if members of the House of Lords attempt to delay or wreck Brexit, it could lead to demands for Britain's upper chamber to be abolished.

May made no comment on her landslide victory in the Commons when she met Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloini on Thursday for bilateral talks at 10 Downing Street.

However, the pair did discuss post-Brexit relationship between the two countries, with both prime ministers saying they looked forward to a continuing relationship between London and Rome.

May also said at a media briefing that after she triggered article 50 she would press for the status of EU nationals living in Britain and British citizens living in EU countries to be addressed at an early stage so assurances could be given to both.
CAIRO, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- An Egyptian court sentenced on Thursday a former irrigation minister for seven years in prison over corruption related to illegal sales of agricultural lands for construction, official MENA news agency reported.

Giza Criminal Court convicted both former Irrigation Minister Mohamed Nasr El-Din Allam and fugitive businessman Ahmed Abdel-Salam Qura of selling vast areas of agricultural lands in Giza's Ayyat district for construction, wasting public funds of over 37 billion Egyptian pounds (about 2 billion U.S. dollars). The court handed each a seven-year jail term.

The case is part of a large anti-corruption campaign launched by Egypt over the past few years that led to the arrest and imprisonment of several officials and senior employees and the retrieval of large amounts of money.

In April 2016, Egyptian former Minister of Agriculture Salah Helal and his deputy were sentenced to 10 years in prison over receiving bribes to grant state-owned land licenses to prominent Egyptian businessman. Helal was also fined 1 million pounds (56,657 dollars) while his deputy was fined half a million (28,328 dollars).

Likewise, former Supplies Minister Khaled Hanafy resigned in August 2016 amid sharp criticism over using millions of dollars allocated for subsidies to purchase wheat that existed only on papers in the most populous Arab states and the world's largest wheat importer.

Hanafy was also accused of wasting seven million pounds (396,613 dollars) in staying at a luxurious hotel in Cairo since he took office in 2014, yet the minister denied the charges.

In two separate cases in November 2016, the Egypt authorities arrested and sacked two senior judges, one over possession of 68 kilograms of hashish drug and another over accepting a large bribe to acquit a defendant in a drug smuggling case.

In December 2016, the Administrative Control Authority (ACA), an official anti-corruption body, said it busted a national agricultural company's chief over bribery related to favored import orders and a tax official over bribery to reduce a company's taxes of 4 million pounds (226,634 dollars).

Later in December 2016, the authorities busted a senior judicial employee over corruption and found at his home following his reception of bribery 24 million pounds (1,360,000 dollars) and 4 million dollars, 2 million euros (2,130,544 dollars) and 1 million Saudi riyals (266,534 dollars), besides large amounts of gold accessories.

In the same month, an Egyptian court confirmed a three-year jail term against former Housing Minister Mohamed Ibrahim Suleiman and ordered him to refund over 255 million pounds (14,447,528 dollars) to the state over selling vast areas of state-owned lands in new cities to a real estate mogul below market prices.

Hisham Genina, former chief of Egypt's Central Auditing Authority (CAA), made statements late 2015 alleging mass corruption in the country's institutions involving over 600 billion pounds (about 34 billion dollars) in 2015 alone.

However, a committee formed by order of President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi refuted Genina's charges as "misleading and exaggerated." Genina was sacked in March 2016 by a presidential decree.

Out of 168 countries and regions, Egypt ranked the 88th least corrupt in the Corruption Perceptions Index 2015 reported by Berlin-based Transparency International, which shows improvement of Egypt's anti-corruption campaign as the country ranked 95th in 2014 and 114th in 2013. Enditem
by Francis Tandoh

ACCRA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Authorities in Ghana have imposed a 14-hour curfew on Bimbilla following the outbreak of violence in the community on Thursday morning that claimed two lives, local media reported.

According to the Interior Ministry, the curfew announced by mid-day takes immediate effect and will be observed in the northern town from 4 p.m. to 6 a.m..

It is not clear what caused the sporadic shooting in the Nanumba North District capital. Police have dispatched personnel to the area to maintain law and order.

In 2014, a 12-hour curfew was imposed on the same community following shooting that led to the death of the overlord of Bimbilla, Naa Dasana Abdulai Andani II.

That shooting was triggered by a disagreement between two chieftaincy factions over where to bury a late traditional ruler of the town.

Since then, the Bimbilla township has been fraught with similar incidents which have claimed the lives of many and causing massive property losses. Enditem
A pedestrian walks past snow-covered vehicles in New York City, the United States, on Feb. 9, 2017. A powerful winter storm brought heavy snow and strong winds to the northeastern U.S. on Thursday, creating treacherous road conditions and leaving schools and businesses closed. (Xinhua/Li Rui)

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- A powerful winter storm brought heavy snow and strong winds to the northeastern U.S. on Thursday, creating treacherous road conditions and leaving schools and businesses closed.

Forecasters said the fast-moving storm had the potential to be the most powerful one that some areas have seen in a mostly snow-free winter.

Area effected by the weather system stretches from Maine to northern Virginia, covering most large New England cities including Boston, New York City and Philadelphia.

A billboard featuring "Celebrate winter in New York city!" is shown on a building on Times Square seen through a window covered with snow in New York City, the United States, on Feb. 9, 2017. A powerful winter storm brought heavy snow and strong winds to the northeastern U.S. on Thursday, creating treacherous road conditions and leaving schools and businesses closed. (Xinhua/Li Rui)

Winter storm warnings were currently in effect for much of Washington, northern Idaho, western and northern Montana and western Wyoming, the National Weather Service said.

The National Weather Service predicted that the Boston area and eastern Maine could get 12 to 18 inches (20 to 30 cm) of snow before the day is out, and a blizzard warning has been issued for Long Island until 6 p.m. local time.

New York City urged residents to avoid unnecessary travel as it could be coated with 8 to 12 inches of snow.

A billboard featuring "Celebrate winter in New York city!" is shown on a building on Times Square seen through a window covered with snow in New York City, the United States, on Feb. 9, 2017. A powerful winter storm brought heavy snow and strong winds to the northeastern U.S. on Thursday, creating treacherous road conditions and leaving schools and businesses closed. (Xinhua/Li Rui)

Authorities said nearly 1,700 flights have been canceled at New York City's three major airports because of the storm, about half of their daily flights.

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker said the storm "is hard hitting, quick-moving and it's going to dump a lot of snow on us in a short period of time so our goal will be to stay ahead of that."

In Boston, 18 inches of snow or more are expected by the end of the day.

According to weather broadcast, the quick-moving storm is expected to move back into the sea late Thursday.
BANJUL, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The European Union on Thursday signed a grant agreement of 75 million euros with The Gambia's new government.

The signing ceremony, held in Banjul, was presided by President Adama Barrow and the EU Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development Neven Mimica, who led a high-level delegation to the West African country.

"In addition to the 75 million euros package of immediate support signed today, we are already preparing a medium-term package of 150 million euros which will focus on building capacities of state and on job creation," said Mimica.

The 75-mln-euro package comprises a road rehabilitation program of 10.5 million euros to improve access to vulnerable populations, 20.5 million euros for boosting growth and employment, 11.5 million euros for improving food security, 11 million euros for creating jobs for youth, and 21.5 million for addressing climate change, human rights and supporting civil society.

For the new president, the funds came at a time when his government required "immediate rescue in order to meet the commitment of the birth of the new Gambia."

"As a new government, what we have inherited is an economy that is virtually bankrupt and in need of immediate rescue. This sad reality was brought about through a mismanagement of our finances," Barrow said.

The Gambia emerged from a political crisis that lasted about two months after Yahya Jammeh refused to step down as president after losing the elections. He was later forced into exile by an ECOWAS military intervention force.

The relations between The Gambia and the EU had in the recent past years been rocky, since 2013 when Jammeh gave a persona non grata to the head of the EU mission in the country, after the EU, the largest foreign donor to the country, blocked funds for the second time over allegations of human rights violations by Jammeh's government.

However, officials from both the EU and the new Gambian government pledged a new page based on "genuine dialogue on the values of freedom, democracy, human rights and inclusive development". Enditem
TIRANA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Albanian authorities smashed a migrants' smuggling network, arresting six out of 18 alleged members of the group, police sources confirmed Thursday.

The six suspects face charges of bringing migrants from the Middle East and Africa to Western Europe, sources said.

The police operation, which kicked off last September, shed light on a network that was well organised.

Members of the network are believed to have transferred migrants first through Greece and then through Albania, Kosovo, Serbia and Hungary, before reaching Austria and Germany, the Albanian prosecution press office said.

According to police, the smugglers received between 900 euros and 1,250 euros per migrant (960 U.S. dollars and 1,333 U.S. dollars) for the journey. (1 euro = 1.07 U.S. dollars) Enditem
A footage screengrab of a Russian Su-34 jet bombing terrorists in Syria, provided by the Russian Defense Ministry on August 18, 2016.

MOSCOW, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Moscow and Ankara agreed Thursday to improve military coordination in Syria after a Russian jet accidentally killed three Turkish soldiers in the Middle East country.

A Russian warplane in an offensive against Islamic State (IS) targets in Syria, mistakenly hit a building in Al-Bab town where Turkish soldiers were stationed, killing three and injuring 11 others, the Turkish Armed Forces said Thursday.

During a phone conversation, Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the "tragic" accident, according to a Kremlin statement.

"The two leaders agreed to enhance coordination in military operations in Syria against IS and other extremist organizations," said the statement.

Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, also expressed condolences to his Turkish counterpart in a phone conversation.

"Both sides agreed on closer coordination in joint actions in Syria, as well as the exchange of information about the situation on the ground," said a Russian Defense Ministry statement.

Russia began its military intervention in the Syrian civil war in September 2015.

Russia has cut the number of airstrikes and withdrawn the majority of its troops since December 2016 when it, together with Turkey and Iran, brokered a truce in Syria, but a high-ranking military official said Russian jets will continue to support anti-terrorist missions there.

As for the political settlement of the Syrian crisis, Putin and Erdogan reaffirmed their readiness during Thursday's conversation to actively contribute to the dialogues in Astana, Kazakhstan and in Geneva, Switzerland.

In addition, the two presidents discussed bilateral trade and economic cooperation by phone.
A Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bomber is seen during the military parade marking the 70th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War, in Moscow, Russia, May 9, 2015. (Xinhua/Jia Yuchen)

MOSCOW, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Russian strategic bombers patrolled seas off northwestern Europe on Thursday amid military buildup by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) near its borders.

Russian Defense Ministry confirmed that two Russian Tu-160 long-range bombers flew over the neutral waters in the Barents Sea, the Norwegian Sea and the Atlantic.

"The flights strictly complied with international regulations on the use of airspace over neutral waters, without violating the borders of other countries," the ministry's spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.

The Russian aircraft were closely followed at some stages of the the flights by NATO combat aircraft, including British jets, according to the spokesman.

Last month, Poland received about 1,000 U.S. soldiers and a tank brigade comprising some 3,500 servicemen and various weaponry.

NATO has also decided to deploy multinational battalions to the Baltic countries of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

The bloc's military expansion poses a threat to Russia and greatly increases the danger of possible incidents, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksey Meshkov was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti news agency Thursday.
KHARTOUM, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Diplomats in the European Union (EU) delegation to Sudan on Thursday acknowledged improvement of security situation and decline of rebellion in Darfur region.

A delegation of 16 European diplomats on Thursday started a visit to El Fasher, capital of North Darfur State as part of a tour covering Darfur's five states.

"The European delegation reiterated that it has been fully convinced that Darfur has become more secured, stable and free of rebellion," Mohamed Braima Hasab al-Nabi, deputy governor of North Darfur State, told reporters following talks with the visiting delegation.

He said the delegation reiterated readiness of the EU member states to contribute to supporting the efforts aiming at establishing infrastructures projects and providing the services needed by Darfur citizens.

The delegation's visit came at the invitation by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) with the aim to discuss the challenges facing development in the region and the funding fields and to get acquainted with the projects being implemented by the UNICEF in Darfur in cooperation with its EU partners. Enditem
SKOPJE, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- A total of 49 migrants from the transit center Tabanovce in Macedonia, near the border with Serbia, were transported to the Greek border on Thursday and turned in to the Greek authorities.

According to the Macedonian interior ministry, the migrants entered Macedonian territory illegally and were stuck in the transition center Tabanovce after the closing of the so-called Balkan route. Forty-two were Syrians and seven were Iraqis, the interior ministry confirmed in a written statement issued on Thursday afternoon.

"The whole procedure of readmission in Greece was initiated in September 2016 and was realized in accordance to the agreement between the European Community and the Republic of Macedonia. We conducted the procedure after we received a positive response from the Greek side that it was willing to accept them."

The NGOs working with the migrants in the transit centers said some of the people that were transported to Greece had been stuck in Tabanovce for almost a year.

A number of migrants still remain in the two transition centers on Macedonian territory. According to the latest data, around 40 migrants are still in Tabanovce on the border with Serbia, while approximately 60 are in the camp Vinojug near Gevgelija on the border with Greece.

Hundreds of thousands of migrants from conflict areas in the Middle East and Africa had used the Balkan route until its closure in March 2016. Since the closing of the route, the number of attempts to illegally transit through Macedonia has increased.

Overall, the European Union (EU) has allocated nearly 19 million euros (20.27 million U.S. dollars) over the last year to help the country cope with the refugee crisis.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump will welcome Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to the White House on Monday for their first talks, the White House said Thursday.

"President Trump and Prime Minister Trudeau look forward to a constructive conversation on strengthening the relationship between our two nations," the White House said in a statement.

However, it did not provide any details about the agenda of the meeting.

In January, Trump signed an executive order to advance the controversial Keystone XL project, which was rejected by former President Barack Obama mainly due to environmental concerns.

The project, worth 8 billion U.S. dollars, is proposed to go from Canada through the U.S. state of Montana and South Dakota to Nebraska, where it would connect with existing pipelines to carry more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day to refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast.

On trade issue, Trump has dismissed a free trade deal with Canada and Mexico in 1994 as one of the worst trade deals the U.S. ever signed and announced to renegotiate it.

The U.S. opinion is divided over whether Trump's plan to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will bring back jobs to the United States as promised.
UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) on Thursday voiced concern about an escalation in the fighting between government and opposition forces in South Sudan, a UN spokesman told reporters here.

The head of the UNMISS David Shearer said that fighting in the west bank of the River Nile in the north part of South Sudan has reached "worrying proportions," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

The UN Mission said what began with an exchange of fire between the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and Aguelek opposition forces has expanded geographically and military resupplies have been observed arriving in the area.

Shearer on Thursday returned to the South Sudanese capital Juba from a two-day field visit to Bentiu and Leer, two towns which have been among the most affected by the country's conflict, he said.

"Military operations on the west bank of the Nile river have forced people out of their homes, and the town of Wau Shilluk is now reported to be deserted," Dujarric said. "Humanitarian workers have been evacuated and aid is not being provided."

South Sudan has faced ongoing challenges since a political face-off between President Salva Kiir and his former Vice-President Riek Machar erupted into full conflict in December 2013.

The crisis has produced one of the world's worst displacement situations with immense suffering for civilians.

Despite the August 2015 peace agreement that formally ended the war, conflict and instability have also spread to previously unaffected areas.
Some illegal immigrants are on a boat after being rescued in Garabulli, Libya, on Nov. 20, 2014.(Xinhua/Hamza Turkia)

ROME, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Italian government has emerged as a key player in transforming the way the European Union will approach the worldwide migrant crisis.

The most recent developments came on Feb. 4, when leaders from 28 European Union states gathered in Malta for what was billed as an "informal summit" on the migrant crisis agreed to a new 31-billion-euro (33.1 billion U.S. dollars) plan to stem the flow of migrants into Europe.

The tone for the summit was set two days earlier, when Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni met with Libyan counterpart Fayez Al-Sarraj in Rome, where they unveiled a bilateral cooperation agreement where Italy will help Libya finance an array of domestic initiatives.

But the Malta summit was the big news. And while the plan negotiated there has drawn mixed reviews, the summit was significant because it showed the EU has begun searching for solutions to the migrant crisis as a bloc -- a view Italy has long promoted.

"We realize now that we're all in the same boat," Gian Carlo Biangiardo, an expert on migration and demographics with Bicocca University in Milan, told Xinhua.

Gentiloni has been one of the main advocates for the collaborative policy. The 62-year-old Rome native has only been prime minister since December, but he has focused on migrant-related issues for years, advocating for a single European policy in his previous role as Italy's minister for foreign affairs.

Until recently, the strategy among most major European Union players was to turn boats of migrants around when possible, and arguing that Italy and Greece, the two countries most impacted by migrant arrivals and also among Europe's most indebted nations, should shoulder most of the financial and bureaucratic burden of processing refugees because most migrants were landing on their beaches.

In 2015, Gentiloni, as foreign minister, used the words "selfish" and "short-sighted" to describe Europe's strategy.

"It is on this issue that Europe will either rediscover its soul, or lose it for good," Gentiloni said at the time. "Asking Italy and Greece to do more on immigration is like asking a country hit by floods to increase its production of umbrellas."

In Malta, the EU agreed with that view. The plan calls for the nations of the bloc to collectively spend more than ever before to help prevent would-be African migrants from reaching Europe's shores through a combination of collaborating to police the highly-trafficked Central Mediterranean Route that connects Libya and by helping to stabilize the political and economic situation in Libya and other African states to make it more attractive for potential migrants to stay home.

The number of migrant arrivals -- as well as the number to die en route -- has risen each year since 2010. Last year alone, more than 180,000 arrived via the Central Mediterranean Route alone.

Stabilizing Libya is "more important than ever, and the European Union will do its utmost to contribute to that objective," the Malta Declaration stated, adding that the EU is "determined to take additional action to significantly reduce migratory flows along the Central Mediterranean route and break the business model of smugglers."

Seen as an important first attempt at confronting one of the world's most prickly issues, the response to the recent developments among some expert observers was lukewarm.

"The 31 billion euros the EU says it will spend sounds like a lot, but it is not nearly enough," Umberto Triulzi, a political scientist focusing on international issues, said in an interview.

"If potential migrants are going to conclude they are better off staying at home, we will have to confront civil wars, a lack of infrastructure, income inequality, and inadequate education systems."

Biangiardo, from Bicocca University, was only a little more supportive of the conclusion the leaders reached.

"It's a first attempt to solve the problem, and that's a lot better than doing nothing," Biangiardo said. "It will be important to watch what happens next."
A picture shows a view of the Givat Harsina Jewish settlement on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Hebron on Feb. 7, 2017. Israel's parliament passed Monday a controversial law to retroactively legalize wildcat Jewish outposts built on private Palestinian lands, despite international condemnations and warnings that the law is unconstitutional. (Xinhua/Mamoun Wazwaz)

by Keren Setton

JERUSALEM, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Israel's parliament, the Knesset, passed a contentious bill earlier this week to retroactively legalize Israeli settlements in the West Bank that previous Israeli governments deemed illegal.

Some of the settlements which will be legalized have been ruled to be built on land that was previously privately owned by Palestinians.

Chances are that the so-call regulation bill will be annulled by the Israeli Supreme Court -- there are already petitions against it. Israel's attorney general said he would not be defending the law in court, signaling how contentious the legal battle is expected to be.

Hours before the vote took place, an editorial article in the left-wing Haaretz newspaper in Israel said lawmakers who would vote in favor of it would be "voting 'yes' for theft."

Israel is at odds with the majority of the international community regarding settlements.

Israel captured the land in 1967 from Jordan and immediately began populating the land. While Jordan later said it had no claim over the land, the international community sees the territories as an integral part of a future Palestinian state.

Israeli settlements create facts on the ground that make the foundation of a Palestinian state impossible. There are over 380,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank living side-by-side over 2.5 million Palestinians.

The settlements which the bill legalizes were supported by all Israeli governments beforehand. The bill seeks to regulate their position, erasing any ambiguity Israeli law previously enabled on the issue.

Israel also captured East Jerusalem in the 1967 War. While it immediately annexed it and declared it part of its capital, Israel never annexed the West Bank.

Many Israelis refer to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria, its biblical name, highlighting what they see as their age-old attachment to the land.

There is speculation that the regulation law will eventually lead to an annexation of the territories. This is something some members of the current Israeli coalition government have said they are in favor of.

Speaking after a meeting with French President Francoise Hollande, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the law was "an aggression towards the Palestinian people."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leads a right-wing coalition. One of his main partners is Naftali Bennett, leader of the Jewish Home party, which is considered more hawkish than Netanyahu's Likud party.

While for Netanyahu, the law causes discomfort, Bennett sees it's passing as a victory. On his Facebook page he called the law a "revolution," saying it was the beginning of "a new legal regime in Judea and Samaria that will normalize all of the settlements and eventually (lead to) the application of Israel's sovereignty on the whole of Judea and Samaria."

Daniel Shek, a former Israeli diplomat, sees the passing of the bill as mainly an internal political issue.

"Many of those who voted in favor of the bill are hoping and waiting for the court to save them from it," Shek said.

Last week, Israeli police forces evacuated an illegal outpost of Amona in the West Bank. Scenes of Israeli officers dragging settlers from their homes are not politically beneficial for Netanyahu or Bennett.

The law which was intended to pass before the court-mandated evacuation was too late for Amona, which will enable the Israeli government to avoid such scenes in the future.

The new American administration led by U.S. President Donald Trump is seen by Netanyahu as more convenient for his policy. The Israeli prime minister frequently clashed with former U.S. President Barack Obama on the issue of settlements.

In a bitter ending to their relationship, the U.S. did not veto a UN resolution calling all Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal.

"It enables the Israeli government to expropriate Palestinian land in order to build new settlements," said Shek.

The law is an attempt by the right-wing elements in the Netanyahu government to pacify their constituents.

Saeb Erekat, the secretary general of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), has denounced the passage of the regulation bill as "putting the last nail in the coffin of the two-state solution."

It is highly likely that the Palestinians will take steps against the law.

"There is no doubt the Palestinians will try to capitalize on the sympathy towards them by making moves in international organizations or perhaps turning to the International Court of Justice in the Hague," believes Shek.

The consequences of the law on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will become clear once the Israeli Supreme Court will deliver its verdict on the issue.

While Netanyahu seems to enjoy an easier relationship with the current U.S. administration, the law may dampen the warmth.

"It is still unclear what the U.S. position is. They do not want to refer to the law until the (Israeli) Supreme Court does. They are avoiding an answer and are also waiting for the Trump Netanyahu meeting scheduled for next week," explained Shek.

While Bennett said he is in favor of the annexation of the West Bank, it is highly unlikely that the government will go for such a controversial move.

"I do not think it will happen because the government does not have the courage for any political move. That is why they took a legal move that does not take any courage," said Shek. He added that the Trump administration will be "extremely dissatisfied" with an Israeli annexation.

Netanyahu allowed the annexation bill to pass, knowing Israel's Supreme Court will most likely strike it down. It helps him save face showing his main voter base that while he has acted in favor of Israeli settlements, it was the country's court who curbed his ambitions.

Legal or not, Israeli settlements remain on the ground.
LONDON, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- A move that could threaten the future of the House of Commons Speaker following his remarks against U.S. President Donald Trump has been tabled by an MP (member of the Parliament) at Westminster.

The motion of no-confidence in John Bercow will be considered by MPs in the House of Commons.

It was tabled under a procedure known as an early-day motion (EDM) by James Duddridge, Conservative MP for the southern England constituency of Rochford and Southend Kent.

It follows a statement earlier this week when Bercow announced in the chamber of the Commons that he would not support Trump addressing MPs during his proposed state visit to Britain.

Although Bercow's comments were widely welcomed by opposition MPs, members of the governing Conservative Party were infuriated by his stand.

A spokeswoman at the Houses of Parliament told Xinhua Thursday night that the motion of no-confidence had been tabled by Duddridge as the House of Commons was rising for its February recess.

No date has been set for a debate by politicians in parliament.

The Commons spokeswoman told Xinhua: "An EDM is a formal motion submitted for debate in the House of Commons at an 'early day,' that is, an unspecified future day."

There are a number of routes for the EDM to be fully discussed in the chamber of the House of Commons.

In a media interview Thursday Duddridge said Speaker Bercow had "overstepped the mark a number of times".

He added: "This most recent incident, where he used the Speaker's chair to pronounce his views on an international situation in some quite detailed and lengthy manner, is wholly inappropriate."

During her recent visit to Washington, Prime Minister Theresa May invited Trump and the First Lady to pay a state visit to Britain. The visit would include a state banquet hosted by Queen Elizabeth.

The announcement prompted a petition against Trump's state visit signed by almost 2 million people.

Around 70 MPs also signed a motion saying Trump should now be allowed to follow in the footsteps of other U.S. presidents by addressing politicians at Westminster.

Bercow became embroiled in the row over Trump's proposed visit when he announced this week that Trump should not be allowed to address parliament.
OSLO, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Norwegian government said on Thursday it would extend its border controls until May 11 after the Council of the EU gave its okay on Tuesday to extend temporary internal border controls in five Schengen countries for another three months.

Norway will maintain its border controls in ports with ferry arrivals from Sweden, Denmark and Germany, the Norwegian ministry of justice and public security said in a statement.

"The government believes that there is still an unstable migration situation in Europe, which makes it necessary to control entry to Norway," minister of justice and public security Per-Willy Amundsen was quoted as saying.

"We will continue to evaluate the need for border controls against the current security situation," he said.

The Council of the EU announced on Tuesday that starting from Feb. 11, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway should prolong "proportionate temporary border controls" for a maximum period of three months at certain internal borders.

The temporary border checks, currently in place at certain borders in the five countries, was last extended on Nov. 11, 2016 and due to expire on Feb. 11, 2017.
HAVANA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Cuba's 26th International Book Fair (FIL) began on Thursday in an event that marked by a tribute to late former President Fidel Castro.

The inaugural ceremony, chaired by Cuban first Vice-president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, gathered authors and guests from 46 countries who will participate for the next 10 days in the most popular and widespread cultural event in the Caribbean nation.

Juan Rodriguez, President of the Cuban Book Institute, said the literary event will sell a collection of 24 books dedicated to the historical leader of the Cuban Revolution and there will also be several conferences on Fidel's contribution to literature and reading habits.

"Exactly 50 years ago, Fidel Castro founded the Cuban Book Institute and our editorial publishing houses, today we honor his legacy and work for literature and culture in this book fair," he said.

Around four million books of different Cuban and foreign authors have been printed for the fair, as well as 700 new publications.

Over 400 guests and 150 authors from 46 countries have confirmed their participation in the literary event which will run until February 19.

Canada is invited as the guest country this year at the book fair. Isabelle Berard, director of Latin American affairs at Canada's foreign ministry, said it was a great honor for her nation to be the guest country.

"We thank Cuba for recognizing our cultural diversity and the invitation to the fair is a sign of our long uninterrupted relation for over seven decades," she said.

"Canada and Cuba know the benefits of friendly and long-term relations. After Prime Minister Trudeau's visit to Cuba last year, Canada is willing to strengthen our ties based on a respectful approach and constructive engagement," she added.

The book fair, considered as the greatest cultural event in the island, takes place at the San Carlos de la Cabana Fortress, east of Havana.
DAMASCUS, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his wife, first lady Asma, received on Thursday tens of women and children recently set free from rebel abduction, according to state news agency SANA.

The women and children were abducted by the rebels from the countryside of Latakia province in northwestern Syria three and a half years ago, and were set free a day earlier during a swap between the government and the rebels.

"We have waited for three and a half years... there wasn't a day that people stopped asking about you... the state with all of its institutions have been looking for you and the goal of every soldier and martyr was your return," Assad told the women and children in Damascus.

Assad urged the people to "return to your normal lives and families, your villages and country... we want you to be an example of steadfastness and determination, and patriotism, and you actually are."

For her part, the first lady stressed that "the determination demonstrated by the abducted women and their children during the years of captivity must continue through rebuilding their lives and to try to compensate for their children and what they have missed of education."

The freed abductees said they have always had faith in the government, stressing resolve to stand again and overcome the difficulties that have been caused by the "tough years of abduction."

SANA also posted photos of the president meeting with the women and children, ahead of their departure toward their homes in the countryside of Latakia.

Sources familiar with the swap said 54 women and their children from Latakia were included in the swap, in exchange of a similar number from the rebel detainees in government prisons.

The swap took place in the countryside of the central province of Hama, by vehicles of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC).

The women and children from Latakia were kidnapped when the rebels stormed areas in the countryside of Latakia over three years ago.
Rambharat meets with EU Ambassador, FAO experts

During Biesebroeks hour-long visit at the Ministers St Clair office, discussions focused on agroprocessing, youth in agriculture, innovation; legislative and policy support, competitiveness, diversification, fisheries, climate change, the honey sector, forestry, among other topics.

Rambharat discussed technical guidance and oversight for the conduct of a National Forestry Inventory with the FAO officials.
Private companies urged to benefit from CARIFORUM-EU EPA

Biesebroek, who was speaking at the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Industry and Commerces breakfast seminar, defined the CARIFORUM-EU EPA as a stable and transparent regulatory framework. Besides its basis in the essential and fundamental elements of the Cotonou Agreement (human rights, democracy, rule of law and good governance), he said, the EPA promotes economic growth in a manner that is consistent with sustainable development and the gradual integration of the Caribbean States into the world economy. But while the foundation has been laid by national and regional bodies for private companies to profit from the agreement, he continued, these companies ultimately have to utilise the stipulations in the agreement to enjoy its economic benefits.

In fact, Biesebroek admitted that the agreement does face some challenges, one of which is the lack of awareness of the benefits of the EPA in the private sector.

Local businesses, therefore, must become knowledgeable about the agreements stipulations and how these stipulations can work to their advantage.

Another challenge Biesebroek highlighted was the issue of supply constraints on businesses  limitations on the production of new stock. He explained, Making access to a stable, regulatory environment and labour markets respecting international standards are important growth factors.

So too are promoting corporate social responsibility and building a greater transparency in finance to help combat corruption and illicit financial flows, including through the development of fair and effective tax systems. He also emphasised the importance of and called for the support of value chains of targeted productive industries and enterprises to increase their competitiveness and trade capacities.

On the topic of development cooperation, Biesebroek said it was essential to the implementation of the EPA. Using the Cotonou Agreements definition of the EPA as a trade and a development instrument, he said that the EPA has very clear development cooperation commitments. For this reason, both pillars  trade and development  must be addressed simultaneously so that Caribbean Sates and stakeholders will benefit from the EPA.

Services Specialist at the Caribbean Export Development Agency, Sonja Francis was also present at the seminar and reiterated Biesebroeks assertion that companies need to use the EPA to their advantage. She defined the EPA as a tool for development which can work only if private companies utilise it.

Francis also spoke on the limitations facing export growth in CARIFORUM, specifying ineffective or nonexistent platforms for publicprivate dialogue and business support organisations lacking the capacity to mount effective advocacy campaigns. She also identified limited access to finances and reiterated Biesebroeks point that competitiveness is crucial for businesses to prosper in the EPA.

Progress in the EPA It is important to note that Trinidad and Tobago is CARIFORUMs largest regional exporting country, with 43 percent of its total regional export going to the EU.

The government ratified the agreement in 2008 and is now in its implementation stage of the agreement.

Adam Wisniewski, Trade Policy manager in the Cooperation Delegation of the EU to Barbados, ECS, OECS and CARICOM/CARIFORUM, Trinidad and Tobago explained, The EPA provides for a 25-year long schedule for elimination of tariffs on the CARIFORUM countries side for products coming from the EU.

The latest tariff modification took place in 2015...and will continue to take place up to 2033. And up till now, Trinidad and Tobago has implemented and passed legislation on all the tariffs waves or models that have occurred so far. In comparison, not all CARIFORUM countries are implementing the legislation.

In this sense, Trinidad and Tobago is doing better. Trade and Industry Minister, Paula Gopee-Scoon also spoke at the event and confirmed Wisniewskis assertion.

However, she said that there are still some outstanding matters to which the government is attending. She said that one of the main tasks of the Trade and Industry Ministry is to implement and encourage the use of the EPA, and confirmed that the ministry has started activities to support the agreement through ExporTT and would like to join forces with the private sector to continue its promotion of the agreement.
Imbert calls for review of retirement age

In delivering the feature address, Imbert said while the Government had not taken a decision on the matter and it was not a Government policy, in his view, raising the retirement age from 60 to 65 was an important matter that required, careful consideration and discussion, since many other countries have gone this way to protect the viability their national pension schemes. He highlighted the history of the National Insurance Scheme as well as the need for its sustainability, adding that based on the ninth actuarial review, a mix of shortterm and long-term reforms were recommended to strengthen the national insurance system.

These recommendations informed Governments policy decision to increase NIS contributions last year.

He said, They [Actuarial Review] also project that (the) number of persons at pensionable age will grow from just under 200,000 now to over 400,000 in 2063, while the population aged 16 to 59 who support the retirees though their contributions, will decrease by almost 25 percent over the same period.

Most importantly, they tell us that the number of working-age persons for each person aged 60 and over will fall dramatically from 4.5 to 1.6 over the projection period. In addition, the total number of pensioners is projected to more than double by 2063, while the number of contributors will decrease over time. In fact, as people live longer, the ratio of contributors to pensioners is expected to decrease from 3.7 to 1.1 over the next 50 years. Financial projections in 2013, he said, showed that the NIS fund would have been depleted by 2030 if contributions had not been increased. To protect the insurance system, he said, actuaries recommended, that the Government examine the possibility of an increase in the retirement age from age 60 to age 65 over the period 2025 to 2060. Although recommendations were made, as far back as 1991, for changes to the system nothing was done. In 1991, the scheme had 323,000 contributors representing 67 percent of the labour force at the time. The contribution yield in 1991 was estimated to be $207 million. In 2016, a further 25 years after that, the annual contributions reached $4.25 billion. Twenty times more than 1991 and the number of contributors had risen in 2016 to 516,000 representing now over 80 percent of the labour force.

After outlining the eligibility for national insurance and pension, Imbert said, My research tells me these criteria have remained unchanged for 45 years almost since inception. In 1991, the maximum amount for retirement pension for a person in the highest earnings class was $338 per month. In 2017 pension is now $3000. Almost nine times what it was 25 years ago. In 1991 there were 31,000 pensioners while in 2017 there are approximately 105,000 pensioners.

As far back as 1991 it was determined that the retirement benefits scheme administered by the NIB was in need of major reform, there were issues at that time, with the overlap of the old age pension, as there are now and there was a recommendation that linkages with the private sector should be addressed. These concerns are as valid today as they were 25 years ago, he said.

The building project cost the Government $343 million excluding Value Added Tax, and the unit cost of construction was $2,000 per square feet. The fivestorey building took under two years to be fully completed and outfitted. The building designed by Bouygues Batiment Trinidad and Tobago, is soon to be certified Class A, leed Silver Certified  a US Certification which represents Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.
Time to act on crime

Statistics presented by the Acting Commissioner of Police (CoP) regarding a drop in reported violent crime did not have the desired effect of allaying the pervasive fear that has now gripped our nation. It is exceedingly disturbing that our law enforcement agencies appear incapable of making any significant inroads in the fight against crime.

Apart from the murders, the upsurge in kidnappings, missing children and young adults, and the vulnerability of women using public transportation has led to a growing sense of unease among the population. To add to an already distressing situation, social media is now being used to feed widespread fear through a great deal of misinformation and rumour-mongering that is shared and broadcast on these platforms. In all of this, many of us remain unconvinced that enough is being done by way of detection and prosecution.

More and more, TT is being highlighted in the international media for all the wrong reasons; terrorist recruits, gang activity, human trafficking and crimes against tourists have all made headlines in recent times. Last year, the US Department of State, Bureau of Diplomatic Security noted that A significant and growing portion of this violence is attributed to the influence of gangs, illegal narcotics, and firearms. Several high-profile crimes have seemingly dropped off the radar, though yet to be solved, with perpetrators being brought to justice.

Any attempt to urgently address the situation, ought to take the following points into consideration.

The Acting CoP is on his eighth six-month contract and there are no signs that we are drawing any closer to appointing a permanent commissioner. This has become something of a farce, but we remain ever hopeful that the Police Service Commission would make this matter an urgent priority.

Manpower shortages remain a challenge for the police service. While there were reports in early 2016 that some 1500-plus Special Reserve officers would be absorbed into the service, this has not materialised. Fast-tracking this plan would give a much-needed boost to the TTPS and allow it to increase its visibility in public.

The police must be properly equipped to respond, detect and prosecute crimes. Basic tools of the trade such as bullet-proof vests, handcuffs, flashlights as well as more sophisticated equipment need to be provided to officers. The Acting Commissioner has made a clear case for administering his own budget and it is hoped that this would be given fair consideration.

If all that was mentioned before is addressed and the service remains with a high level of rogue officers, it would be akin to the proverbial spinning top in mud. Far too many officers are before the courts, while others are convicted of unlawful killings, solicitation of bribes, theft and other crimes. Ultimately this is the reason why public confidence low. The TT Chamber is of the firm view that this must be comprehensively addressed, even if it means soliciting foreign assistance.
Vendors to play a key role in TSTTs multi-billiondollar transformation

These were the words of Dr Ronald Walcott, TSTTs Chief Executive Officer, as he addressed dozens of the companys local and international vendors during TSTTs first annual Vendors Forum on February 7, 2017 at the Hyatt Regency Trinidad.

Gerry Brooks, Chairman of TSTTs Tenders Committee, also delivered greetings on behalf of TSTTs Chairman, Emile Elias to the 150 vendors, and other guests including Lisa Phillips, Ag Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance and Vashti Shrikrisensingh Jitman, Deputy Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Public Utilities.

Brooks explained that the vendor forum will help TSTT become a more focused agile broadband company and there was a new opportunity for a very exciting and collaborative future for vendors and TSTT.

TSTT sees vendors as strategic partners and we are opening up all of our opportunities to everyone, said Brooks and he encouraged the audience to support local development, support innovation, support private-public sector partnerships but most of all support TSTT because when TSTT wins, you (vendors) win and the customers win.

Also speaking at the Vendor Forum, Gerard Cooper, TSTTs Chief Financial Officer, indicated that TSTTs vision for vendors was to create a partnership with them that would give TSTT a competitive advantage through continuous innovation in its supply chain. That partnership will play a key role in the success of the projects to be funded over the next 5 years which include TSTTs mobile long term and wireless strategy, core network rebuild, fiber deployment, new business support systems and TSTTs joint venture with E-IDCOT for a Tobago Data Centre.

All told, Cooper said TSTTs Capital and Operational expenditure will be in excess of TT$8 billion and the company had improved the robustness of its E-tender online procurement system to facilitate easier vendor participation in tendering for providing services required by TSTT. Noting the tremendous opportunity this presented for vendors, Cooper assured the audience that ongoing initiatives to improve TSTTs procurement system will provide stronger governance and the continuous innovation needed to support a fair and transparent system that was inclusive to all vendors.

Cooper explained that TSTTs new approach to vendor relations was being guided by four pillars of the companys supply chain improvement:

1. Fostering entrepreneurial growth

2. Institutional strengthening by building capacity for supply partners

3. Building long term partnerships by deepening relationships with supply partners and

4. Improving the governance model and leveling the playing field to achieve better Request For Proposals (RFP) responses.

Keino Cox, TSTTs Senior Manager Supply Chain unveiled the upgraded TSTT e-Tender portal, the first totally local-developed, digital procurement platform. He remarked that TSTT moved to an online procurement system to provide an open and transparent, simplified process that cut costs and improved convenience for vendors and provided real-time data for them.

The online platform has allowed TSTT to expand its reach of vendors globally with over 3,000 registered vendors from Trinidad and Tobago and countries such as the USA, Canada, Czech Republic, England, Belize, Barbados and Jamaica. He noted that with over 4,000 Purchase Orders issued, 2,000 tender bid responses received and $100M TTD of negotiated savings, TSTT was very happy with how E-Tender has developed, and going forward the platform will be the only way to do procurement business with TSTT.

To allow vendors the opportunity to get more details on specific areas of interest, roundtable discussions were also hosted by with Roger Richards, TSTTs Chief Technology and Information Officer; Carol David, TSTTs EVP Human Resources, Industrial Relations and Corporate Support Services; Miguel Garcia, TSTTs Chief Commercial Officer; Rakesh Goswami, TSTTs EVP Strategic Alliance, Enterprise and Tobago Operations and Sathnarain Tewarie, TSTTs GM Fibre, who focused on plans to provide fibre to residential and business areas.
Central auto dealers business raided, Lamborghini seized

The car dealer is the owner of another lamborghini.

It is alleged that the dealer corruptly used someone living in the United States to bring in the lamborghini on the pretext that he was a returning national.

Under the Customs Act, a returning national can bring in any vehicle owned by that person and be exempted from exorbitant duties.

Investigations by Police and Customs revealed that the returning national left the country after delivering the lamborghini to the car dealer which resulted in the vehicle being seized.

Newsday also understands the three other high end vehicles which were also brought into the country and which were also exempted from duties were also seized.

An investigation has now been launched to ascertain how certain vehicles were cleared by Customs and Excise without the proper documents and FIB officers are probing how the car dealer was able to import a number of vehicles into the country by making cash payments with US currency and with no paper trail to show how he came into possession of those monies.

In an unrelated matter, Senior Customs and Excise officers have begun a probe into the presence of five Customs and Excise officers at a Siparia hotel two Fridays ago during a police raid of the establishment.

According to reports, a joint team of Police and immigration officers raided a Siparia hotel in which several foreign nationals believed to be Venezuelans were found. The five Customs and Excise officers were questioned about their presence at the hotel and they allegedly began abusing officers claiming that they had every right to be there and provided their identification to the raiding officers during the exercise.

The five officers were allowed to leave without facing any prosecution but the matter was reported to Customs and Excise which has now launched an internal investigation into the matter.
Car dealer fined $20,000 for fraud

Mohammed pleaded guilty before Senior Magistrate Nanette Forde-John in the San Fernando Magistrates Court, to three charges.

One charge alleged that on August 16, 2016 at Debe Village near Penal, he stole $6,500 from Sunil Jairajsingh. And on same day and place, he stole $3,500 from Gary Persad and $3,500 from Darin Ganess.

The charges arose from the taking of the monies, the court police prosecutor attorney Cleyon Seedan told the court, from the victims and promises made to them that the monies would go towards downpayments for vehicles.

Forde-John fined Mohammed $3,500 on each of the three charges. The magistrate also read more charges that he took $24,500 from Dave Seepersad in Siparia, and, $53,000 and $4,000 from Kevin Mangoo and Mahadeo Geewar respectively in Couva.

The charge relating to the Siparia matter was transferred for today in the Siparia Magistrates court and the two in the Couva district, were transferred to Monday in the Couva Magistrates Court. A fourth charge which alleged that Mohammed took $10,000 from Vanessa Sookai, in Chaguanas, was also read to Mohammed and that case was transferred to the Chaguanas court for Monday as well.

Mohammed was remanded into custody. The charges stemmed from investigations conducted by the Fraud Squad headed by Senior Supt of Police Totaram Dookie, Cpl Darwin Badree, Ag Cpl Shane Ramdath and PC Brandon Solzano.
Man shot dead in Enterprise

The man, identified as Gabriel King from Enterprise in Chaguanas was to have been shot multiple times.

According to police sources, gunshots were heard at about 2.30 pm yesterday on Dass Street in Enterprise.

When residents checked, they found King lying in a pool of blood. Police and emergency services were alerted and a party of officers from the Central Division Police Service responded, but by the time officers arrived, King was dead.

Homicide detectives are trying to ascertain a motive behind the mans murder.

An autopsy is expected to be done at the Forensic Science Centre in St James today.

Kings murder is the 63rd for the year.
Rio man was shot twice

According to reports, Biprams body was found at about 8.30 am by fire officers of the Mayaro Fire Station after they responded to reports of a house fire along the Guayaguayare Road.

After the blaze was extinguished, Biprams remains were found among the ruins. Investigators said that a week ago, Bipram was involved in an altercation with a man over a bag of dasheen.

Police said the man threatened to kill the father of two. Relatives told Newsday that the man had confronted Bipram over the bag of dasheen and also hit him to the face during a heated argument.

Bipram had also reported the threats made on his life to the Rio Claro Police Station. Bipram lived alone in a wooden oneroom house. Speaking with Newsday yesterday Biprams mother Guridai, 72, said her sons murder was an act of pure evil.

This person shot my son, then set him on fire...he is just pure evil, she cried. Bipram said she hopes justice will be served and her sons killer arrested and charged. The man who did this to my son does not deserve to live. What type of person would kill another human being in this cruel manner, she asked.

Bipram will be cremated at the Mafeking Cremation Site today following a funeral service at the familys Navet Village, Rio Claro home. Up to late yesterday no arrest was made.
No bail granted for manslaughter

Peter Sheldon Roger Julien, also known as Garnet, went before Chief Magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar in the Port-of- Spain Eighth Court, charged with the death of David Tittle.

Julien was denied bail and will return to court on March 6.

Tittle, a homeless man, was beaten during an incident at Harold Street, Boissiere No 1, on January 31.

He died the following day at Port-of- Spain General Hospital.

Julien, 39, was charged by Sgt Roger Reyes of the Homicide Bureau of Investigations (Region I).

Acting ASP Suzette Martin spearheaded the enquiry which eventually resulted in the charge of manslaughter.
Guard detained for fatal shooting

The security officer was detained after Verne Pomba Sambury died at San Fernando General Hospital, after he was shot three times.

Yesterday, Southern Division Homicide detectives confirmed that a file was sent to DPP Gaspard for his consideration.

Samburys relatives insisted he was unarmed and only went to purchase two loaves of bread from the supermarket. But police were told that the guard thought Sambury had come to rob the establishment and a scuffle ensued.

Sambury, 38, of Naparima/Mayaro Road, New Grant was shot in the stomach, arm and foot by the guard who was on duty at the supermarket.

He underwent emergency surgery at hospital but died hours later.

According to police, Sambury was shot outside the New Grant supermarket at 8 am. Samburys brother Hayden Hamilton told Newsday that Sambury who lived a stones throw away from the supermarket, went to purchase the bread for a villager when he was shot.

Video footage of the shooting has been circulating on social media.

Relatives yesterday said while they cannot bring Sambury back, they hope that at the very least, justice will be served.

He was an innocent man who just went to buy bread and instead was shot and killed, a relative cried.
New Deputy Chief Magistrate

Her elevation, 22 years after her appointment to the magistracy, became effective on January 13, a statement from the Judiciary said yesterday.

Busby-Earle-Caddle began her legal career at Trintopec (now Petrotrin) and later served a number of years at the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. She was admitted to the Bar in 1989.

She was appointed magistrate on January, 10, 1995 and was subsequently promoted to the post of Senior Magistrate in September 2006.

Deputy Chief Magistrate Busby-Earle-Caddle will sit in chambers in the district of St George West at the Port-of-Spain Magistrates court, St Vincent Street, Port-of-Spain.

In its statement, the Judiciary extended congratulations to Busby-Earle-Caddle on her elevation and wished her success in her new appointment
Mission Road tell cops of crime woes

The meeting was held in collaboration with the Caroni Central Member of Parliament Dr Bhoendradatt Tewarie at the Reesal Hardware on Mission Road.

Over 300 residents attended the meeting to air their concerns.

A resident who identified himself as a religious leader told police officers criminals no longer had respect for religious institutions.

He recalled recently that his church in Freeport was broken into and electronic equipment stolen.

This matter is still being investigated.

Other residents said they are concerned with the abuse of power by police and a lack of police presence in the area.

One resident said police officers most often do not respond in a timely manner to reports.

Drug dens are flourishing in residential communities, another said.

The meeting was attended by senior officers including DCP Deodath Dulalchan, ACP Surajdeen Persad, Snr Supt Kenny McIntyre, Supts Richard Corbett and Michael Jackman.

The officers told residents that their support is critical in the fight against crime.

Dulalchan vowed to work with MP Tewarie in keeping the criminal elements out of the district and restoring peace. He also said there would be an increase in patrols across the neighborhood and officers will also investigate claims of drug dens in the area.

Tewarie told residents not to be afraid to speak out. Say what you need to say and let us find a way of moving forward from there, the MP said. I want to remind the DCP and his team of the 12 plus murders that we have had over the last year in Caroni Central...

something that was unheard of in a place like this, Tewarie said.

We need to team up to find solutions to this spreading plague of robberies, violence and murders.

Lets start with the criminal enclaves within, then the criminals who migrate here to plunder and exploit, Tewarie advised.
Nailah wants to bring renewed energy

FROM the wellspring of Garfield Ras Shorty I Blackman, Nailah Blackman has come. The musical root of a family of musicians sprouting from the life and work of one often regarded as the father of soca. The 19-year-old is walking in the footsteps of her grandfather and has given her first offering to soca .

Blackmans Workout done collaboratively with Kees Dieffenthaller has become one of the more popular song out for Carnival 2017. It is the first of many to come, she said .

Like Ras Shorty I, Blackman hopes to put her own stamp and sound on the local genre. Blackmans root also springs from mother and calypsonian, Abbi Blackman and father Carlyle Thornhill (a manager and writer in the music industry). He managed her mother and uncle, Dereck (OC) Blackman .

Blackmans music journey began at an early age, four to be exact .

Music started for me at a very young age. I started singing in public at the age of four-years-old. My dad would write calypsoes and my mother would compose them and I would go to many different calypso competitions such as NJAC, national competitions, school competitions .

There are competitions everywhere around Carnival time and even just in general that I would do from four till high school. Blackman attended Rio Claro East Secondary School.

I was always doing music because I love to sing, always. Coming from a music family like my own, it was kind of bound to for me. Whereas I knew what I wanted to be from a very young age .

I modelled my life and my being and my entity behind what she [her mother; Abbi Blackman] was doing because I thought it was fantastic, she said .

At 11, she began writing her own songs. She then joined her aunts Nehilet Blackmans All Girls Band, a gospel band where she sang background vocals.

Although she is not a Christian, she used the experience to hone her skills and develop the art of performing. At 12, she learned to play the guitar and was, at that time, writing, robustly, as well.

At 15, she was prompted by Nehilet to forge her own path. She then teamed with her uncle, gospel artiste Isaac Blackman, doing studio recordings and doing my own material. I tried to forge a song from him but I couldnt because everything that we created sounded like his and I wanted my own sound. She began working with Kasey Phillips who then introduced her to other producers. I started there and I soon became known by other producers and I started going to different places seeing who I clicked withwho I had that musical chemistry with and I started doing my EP by a producer by the name of Keron Sherriff Mumbles Thompson and we released my first single entitled Cigarettes in 2016, she said.

Blackman then made the decision to do more.

Doing more meant developing her musical interests, among them soca. I wanted to do soca even before. I also did a lot of soca competitions in school but people talked me out of it because they felt I was much bigger than soca, she said.

She began working with Mumbles and Anson [Soverall] to do soca. Visiting Soverall, he played her a rhythm and,I fell in love with it and I started writing. Another writer was in the studio at the time and said the song would be great as a duet. The male part was written and pitched to different male artistes. Two weeks after, I met Kees in a studio and I told him I have a song and it would be great if you could be on it. I played the song for him and he loved the track but felt the male part was not suited well for him.

He wanted to re-write the male part, so that was when writers and artistes like Preddy, Anson and Kees, we all came together to rewrite the male part, and her 2017 track Workout was born.

But as she began her journey in the soca world, she has plans to greatly impact it. Soca, Blackman said, is much more than people perceive it.

I feel people put down soca because of what we have made it. Soca is an amazing genre.

It is only mediocre because people make it a joke. People make it about money, people make it about hype, people make it about everything other than the music. I want to bring that back. My grandfather being the creator of soca music, I wanted to bring back some sort of life and justice and integrity to the music, she said.

While for some, soca is a topic and the topic being what happens in Carnival, for Blackman, soca is an all-year thing. It is a rhythmic structure, it is a feeling. And so looking at soca as more than ...she hopes to infuse different sounds into her music but more interestingly, she wants to experiment more with the Indo- Trinidadian sounds which gave rise to soca in the first place.

She has been approached by different artistes since her 2017 soca debut and is expected to release a single with a top Jamaican artiste-although she was reluctant to say who.

She also plans to redo some of her grandfathers classics among them his 1974 Endless Vibration.

As for what she defines her style as, It is such a fusion. It is very ballad type, very contemporary but it is very jazz, very funk, very indie, very alternative as well. But it is extremely Caribbean. It is such a fusion there is no box I can put it in as yet and until I can find my path I am just going to stay out in the wind.
Pan Trinbago takes NCC to court

The application for judicial review will be heard today by Justice Vasheist Kokaram at the Hall of Justice in Port-of-Spain. Pan Trinbagos acting President Richard Forteau confirmed to Newsday that the legal action surrounds the alleged hostile takeover of the Carnival interest group.

Forteau said the pan body will be seeking to have reviewed a decision of January 24 and 25, by the Minister of Community Development, Culture and Arts Dr Nyan Gadsby- Dolly, who ordered a forensic audit into Pan Trinbago.

Following allegations of financial mismanagement and impropriety by the Pan Trinbago Executive, Gadsby-Dolly also instructed NCC to take over the gate receipts for Panorama 2017, in addition to the financial audit. Forteau declined to give further details of the court action. The pan body has accused the Government and the NCC of usurping their role in Carnival and their legislative authority.

Pan Trinbago also accused the Government of failing to appoint members of the three stakeholder Carnival bodies to the NCC as was required under the law. In recent weeks, pan players have been demanding the immediate resignation of the Pan Trinbago executive after several issues of mismanagement of funds, including for the purchase of a luxury car, and the lack of payment to players were raised.

The players had threatened to boycott this years Panorama competition but an agreement was arrived at, in January, to allow for the staging of the national competition.

Pan Trinbago was said to be owing close to $31 million at the start of the year, according to NCC president Kenny De Silva in published reports.
PTSC at 52, has never made a profit

The PTSC executives appeared before the committee at the J. Hamilton Maurice Meeting Room of the Parliament Building, Tower D at the International Waterfront Centre, Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain, to answer questions arising from a special audit of the corporation done by the Auditor Generals Department.

In response to questioning from committee members, PTSC Chairman Edwin Gooding said it would take some time before the corporation could produce a profit. He said the more immediate objective of the company is to slowly wean itself off the Government subventions on which it currently depends, get new buses and improve service on its routes.

In fact, Gooding said he does not see the PTSC making a profit in the near future although he said that by the end of 2017 it will be poised to begin its turnaround.

Gooding said some of the realities pointed out by the audit were reducing passenger loads and resulting falling revenues; increasing cost of operation; reducing number of buses; inadequate fleet availability and inability to service all its established routes. He said many of the corrective measures have already been put into effect and will be key elements in the PTSCs 2017 to 2019 Strategic Plan.

He said he was heartened that the corporations financial statements up to and including 2015 had already been submitted to the Auditor Generals department for its review.

Assistant Auditor General, Jaiwantie Ramdass told the committee that a special audit was called for because government subventions totalling a quarter billion dollars a year went to the PTSC to cover recurrent expenditure; that in 2010, 12.5 million passengers travelled on PTSC buses indicating that the corporation had an impact on a lot of people although she said ridership declined to 7.6 million in 2014.
Senate passes Procurement Bill

Imbert, who was the chairman of the joint select committee (JSC) which dealt with the Procurement Bill, said the minutes of the fifth meeting of the committee clearly showed that Caroni Central MP Dr Bhoe Tewarie (one of two Opposition parliamentarians on the JSC) was in total support of the decision to change the terms of office for the procurement regulator and people working under the regulator. He said Mark would have seen this had he spent two minutes to read the minutes of that meeting instead of the minutes of the fourth meeting of the JSC.

Imbert said Tewaries only objection was to the proposal of a review board to assess any issues arising with the regulator in the conduct of his duties.

He added that while Tewarie attended all but one meeting of the JSC, Opposition Senator Wayne Sturge (the other Opposition member on the committee) was absent for all the meetings. The amendments reduced the terms of the regulator and deputy regulator from seven to five years while other members of the procurement board had their terms reduced from six to four years and four to three years, respectively.

Indicating the reason for this was very, very simple, Imbert said the terms of office of the President, Parliament and Government in TT were all five years. We did not think that we should have someone holding this type of office transcending administrations. So we simply decided to limit it to the term of office of the Parliament, the Government and the President, he stated.

Responding to Opposition Senator Khadijah Ameens concerns, Imbert said it was a mathematical impossibility for the terms of office of the regulator, President, Parliament and Government to expire at the same time.

He explained that when appointed this year, the regulators term will end in 2022, two years after the next general election and two years into the term of the next government.

Imbert added the legislation does not allow for the regulator to get another term in office after the five-year period is up. He also said the tenures of the other members of the board will ensure continuity.

Imbert thanked temporary Independent Senator Nikoli Edwards for informing the Senate about the wide range of interest groups (including women and young people) who will be represented on the board. After noting the regulator is appointed by the President after consultation with the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader, Imbert said the terms and conditions for the regulator must be settled before the President appoints that person. That is in process, he added.
UNC women bash Rowley

In a statement, the Womens Arm said, Victim blaming occurs when the victim of a crime or any wrongful act is held entirely or partially responsible for the harm that befell them. The study of victimology seeks to mitigate the perception of victims as responsible. There is a greater tendency to blame victims than perpetrators.

The UNC women called on Rowley to apologise immediately since these women and their families, having undergone tremendous psychological and physical trauma during their ordeals, are now placed under similar trauma by this comment. We also would like to ask the Prime Minister: were Nadia Simms, Rachel Ramkissoon and other women who were victims of heinous crimes, were they also murdered because of their choices? the group asked.

The Womens Arm also alleged that Rowley shed accountability for other murders by playing the victim card. It also criticised Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi, claiming he was sending mixed messages with respect to traffic crimes. As elected representatives, the Prime Minister and Attorney General are responsible for public safety, the women said, adding: Domestic violence is a crime, a public matter, a social problem.

The States primary responsibility is to protect all citizens, not pick and choose, not profit from crime. Speaking via a press release in her personal capacity as Couva North MP, Ramona Ramdial yesterday called on Rowley to apologist rather than try and defend his statement. She said the prime ministers language was poor and crass and that his response on Monday should have been more solution-oriented.

She said Rowleys focus must be on improving the legal system and assist all women in regards the granting of protection orders, training police adequately to deal with domestic issues, have social officers at all police stations, construct more shelters and safe spaces for women through collaboration with NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations), CBO (Community Based Organisations). She also called on Rowley to exercise more sensitivity when dealing with such a topic as domestic violence.
FATCA report laid in Senate

The House of Representatives will sit from 2.30 pm on Monday to debate a motion to adopt this report. After it is approved, the House will debate the Bill.

When he laid the report in the House last Friday, Finance Minister Colm Imbert said, We leave the report open for the signatures of the Opposition. Imbert is also the chairman of this JSC.

The other members are Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi, Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister Stuart Young, Trade and Industry Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon, Agriculture Minister Clarence Rambharat, Caroni East MP Dr Tim Gopeesingh, Caroni Central MP Dr Bhoe Tewarie, Opposition Senator Gerald Ramdeen, and Independent Senators Hugh Russell Ian Roach and Taurel Shrikissoon.

The Bill requires a three-fifths majority for passage in both Houses of Parliament.

This equates to 25 votes in the House and 19 votes in the Senate. In the House, this means at least two of the 18 Opposition MPs must vote with the 23 Government MPs for the Bill to pass.

In the Senate, Government needs four votes from either the nine Independent senators or six Opposition senators to add to its 15 votes to pass the Bill.

Last year, the Opposition walked out of debate on the Bill twice and boycotted the debate on another occasion. On January 6, Government bowed to the Oppositions request to send the Bill to a JSC. Last week, the Parliament issued a statement inviting the public to comment on the Bill.

On Tuesday, the Senate also approved the names of senators to sit on the JSCs established to deliberate on the Gambling Bill and the Insurance Bill. The former JSC comprises Imbert, Al-Rawi, Young, La Brea MP Nicole Olivierre, Chaguanas West MP Ganga Singh, Couva South MP Rudy Indarsingh, Trade and Industry Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon, Coppin, Government Senator Foster Cummings, Opposition Senator Wade Mark, and Independent Senator Melissa Ramkissoon.

The membership of the latter JSC consists of Imbert, Al-Rawi, Public Utilities Minister Fitzgerald Hinds, Portof- Spain South MP Marlene McDonald, Pointe-a-Pierre MP David Lee, and Tabaquite MP Dr Suruj Rambachan. Both committees must report to Parliament by March 17.
Drug-resistant Malaria? Medication has failed for the first time

The recent case of four separate malaria patients in the United Kingdom suggests that multidrug-resistant malaria may be evolving faster than researchers had previously thought, according to a study conducted by researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and published in the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

The four patients, whose cases were unrelated to each other, all failed to recover when treated with a frontline malaria drug intended to combat even drug-resistant forms of the disease. It is believed to be the first documented failure of that particular malaria treatment. Because all four patients contracted malaria in Africa, the case also indicated the presence of multidrug-resistant malaria on that continent.

Previously, malaria resistant to frontline drugs has mostly been found in southeast Asia.

Frontline treatments starting to fail

Malaria is considered a major global health concern. It is endemic to more than 100 countries, including large sections of Africa, the Americas, and Asia. In 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports that 14 million people were infected with malaria and 438,000 died from it.

Most people who receive prompt treatment for malaria will recover fully. The disease is dangerous if left untreated however, which is why it is so deadly in countries with poor health systems.

The United Kingdom sees about 1,500 cases of malaria per year. In 2016, at least four of those patients suffered a recurrence of the disease within a month of treatment with the combination drug artemether-lumefantrine (AL). All four recurrences were severe enough to require hospitalization. After analyzing blood samples from the four patients, researchers confirmed that the malaria parasites involved showed resistance to AL.

AL is a form of artemisinin combination therapy (ACT), which is now the frontline treatment for malaria in many parts of the world. ACT consists of combining a drug in the artemisinin family (in this case, artemether) with a drug from another family in order to help bypass the growing problem of artemisinin-resistance.

Frontline doctors should be alert to the possibility of artemisinin-based drugs failing, and assist with the collection of detailed information about specific travel destinations, lead researcher Colin Sutherland said. A concerted effort to monitor AL outcomes in U.K. malaria patients needs to be made. This will determine whether our front-line malaria treatment drug is under threat.

All four patients recovered after being treated with other antimalarial drugs.

Public health catastrophe looming

Experts have been warning for some time that malaria is developing resistance to ACT. A study in early 2016 confirmed for the first time that malaria in three separate provinces of Cambodia is resistant to the frontline ACT therapy used in that country (dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine).

As far back as 2013, the World Health Organization warned that efforts to contain artemisinin-resistant malaria were not stemming the spread of the problem. Even as containment efforts in Cambodia appeared to be working, multidrug-resistant malaria independently evolved in Thailand, Burma, and Vietnam.

If history is any guide, if we were not to contain this problem, then it is very likely to spread elsewhere, he said. Especially risky is to sub-Saharan Africa, where the greatest burden still exists. And, if we were to lose the efficacy of the [frontline treatments]  today, this really would be a public health catastrophe in Africa, said Robert Newman, director of the WHOs Global Malaria Program.

The new study suggests that this catastrophe may already be taking shape. Notably, the four patients in the study had been infected in three different countries: Angola, Liberia, and Uganda.

A recent report by the British governments Review on Antimicrobial Resistance predicted that by 2050, superbugs will kill 10 million people per year worldwide; more than cancer and diabetes put together. This was based on analysis of only six drug-resistant superbugs.

One of them was malaria.

Sources for this article include:

DailyMail.co.uk

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com

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Putin orders Russian Air Force to prepare for war

To many geopolitical observers, the world has not seemed as tense as it is now in decades  not since the globe convulsed for a second in the 20th century during World War II.

Many believe tensions are so high at the present time that just one spark is all that will be needed to begin the worlds third global conflagration.

And though President Donald Trump has signaled a great willingness to improve U.S. relations with Russia that were left in shambles by the incompetent Obama administration, there are forces seemingly beyond his control that are pushing the West closer to war with the worlds largest nuclear-armed force.

As reported by the UKs Daily Mail, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his air force to be prepared for a time of war, according to Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, who added that Putin is currently engaged in personal inspections of air assets to evaluate readiness for combat. (RELATED: Are we inching closer to World War III? Stay informed at Collapse.news)

Shoigu also said that the Russian military would be deploying air defense systems, as NATO launches its largest military exercises in years near the countrys border.

In late January, U.S. forces moved into Poland to conduct exercises on ground once dominated by the Soviet military. Some 87 heavy tanks, 144 armored vehicles and 3,500 troops took part in live-fire exercises to demonstrate the U.S. commitment to NATO, and NATOs commitment to one of its newer members, NBC News reported.

While the exercises werent publicly directed at Russia, it was a message to the Kremlin nonetheless; following Russias invasion of Georgia in 2008 and its involvement in the Ukraine, NATO, and in particular the Pentagon, want Putin to understand there is still an alliance in effect and it is just as strong as ever.

There are other signs of trouble around the globe:

 Syria continues to self-destruct. There, the United States and Russia are backing different factions, and there have already been near-misses and dust-ups, including the downing by NATO member Turkey of a Russian combat aircraft last fall; its two pilots were subsequently killed by rebel forces on the ground.

 The South China Sea is tense. Beijing continues to fortify man-made islands in the middle of international waters, including air defense radar and missiles. In addition, a new report details that China appears to be developing plans for preemptive missile strikes on U.S. and Japanese military bases in a Pearl Harbor 2 type of attack, the Daily Mail reports. U.S.-China relations were not good under Obama, but Trump made campaign promises to renegotiate trade and other arrangements with China, and has angered Beijing by taking a post-election congratulatory phone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen; China considers Taiwan a renegade province.

 The Middle East as a whole is aflame. Beyond Syria, there are growing tensions between the U.S. and Iran, as well as Iran and other regional powers, especially Saudi Arabia, which has been engaged in a war in Yemen against Iran-backed Houthi rebels. The U.S. backs the Saudis. In recent days, a suicide craft believed to have been sent by Iran, damaged a Saudi warship in the Red Sea, killing two sailors.

The Trump administration has put Iran on notice over its continued ballistic missile development, reportedly in violation of the nuclear deal made by the Obama administration.

So there are several potential flashpoints around the globe  and a few inside the United States as well. (RELATED: Read all about the latest threats to the United States at NationalSecurity.news)

Putin ordering one of his military branches to be prepared for war could be for a couple of reasons: He really is preparing for an impending war with NATO (not likely); he wants his air power up to speed for use in Syria or Ukraine (more likely); or he is simply ensuring that his air force is ready for any major conflict, should one arise, and is sending a message to potential adversaries that hes prepared (most likely).

Nevertheless, its a sobering development in a nuclear-armed world that may be sleepwalking towards another world war.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for Natural News and News Target, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources:

TheNationalSentinel.com

DailyMail.co.uk

NationalSecurity.news

NBCNews.com

DailyMail.co.uk

Submit a correction >>
Sanctioned abductions: Why is China kidnapping billionaires and CEOs?

Something strange has been happening in China over the past two years. During that period, dozens of Chinese CEOs, millionaires and even a few billionaires have vanished in what are being called state-sanctioned abductions conducted by Chinese authorities.

Most of these company heads and business moguls have eventually resurfaced without giving any explanation, while others have ended up behind bars  a few have also managed to mysteriously fall out of buildings.

The latest such case involves a prominent Chinese-born billionaire named Xiao Jianhua, who was kidnapped in Hong Kong on January 27, by security agents from the Chinese mainland.

Security footage from the Hong Kong Four Seasons hotel where Xiao resides allegedly shows him being led away without signs of a struggle.

Things become a little fuzzy after that. Mr. Xiao is apparently now in mainland China and not in custody, but he has not acknowledged that any abduction took place. In fact, there have only been a couple of rather suspect statements posted on his financial services firm Tomorrow Groups WeChat account  which were later deleted  and a front-page ad posted in the newspaper Ming Pao that was purportedly penned by Mr. Xiao.

One of the deleted WeChat posts read: Regarding the reports on me in recent days, I have to say that I, Xiao Jianhua, have been recovering from an illness outside the country.

The front-page Ming Pao ad, which appeared on Saturday, January 28, read:

Let there be no misunderstanding! Its not true that Ive been abducted and taken back to the mainland. Im a patriotic Overseas Chinese and Ive always loved the (ruling Communist) party and the country.

Hong Kong police are investigating the incident, despite the fears of Xiaos family that any intervention may endanger his safety.

Reportedly, Xiaos wife fled to Japan after reporting the incident and later retracting her report.

From News.com.au:

Mr Xiao is the most high-profile of a long list of moguls and executives from at least 34 Chinese companies to be seized in bizarre circumstances over the past year alone.

Their disappearances are believed to be linked to Chinas ongoing anti-corruption campaign, which some critics believe is being used to target President Xi Jinpings political opponents.

Xiao had close ties to the Chinese leadership, including President Xi, but may have fallen from favor in recent years. Some have speculated that he has been targeted because of potentially embarrassing details he may possess regarding powerful business figures in China.

Whatever the reasons behind this latest abduction, a storm of controversy has been stirred regarding Chinas actions in Hong Kong, which may be in violation of the law.

From Bloomberg:

The possibility that police from mainland China seized Xiao and took him back across the border is a politically sensitive issue in Hong Kong, which is part of China but has a separate legal system.

Hong Kongs Basic Law  the mini-constitution drawn up in consultation with the British before the 1997 return to China  prohibits Chinese law enforcement authorities from operating independently in the city.

Xiaos case is similar to that of Hong Kong bookseller, Lee Bo, who vanished in January 2016, reappearing in mainland China a few months later, insisting he entered the country voluntarily.

Mr. Bo, who holds a British passport, was one of five booksellers who were abducted by the Chinese during 2015 and 2016. The five were reportedly involved in a plan to publish a series of books that would have cast a negative light on the Chinese leadership, including one about President Xis early love life.

The Chinese seem ever more emboldened in their willingness to break international treaties and kidnap whomever they deem to be a threat to their power  including even those who are rich and powerful themselves.

Sources:

News.com.au

Independent.co.uk

Bloomberg.com

Submit a correction >>
Soros: I Will Take Down President Trump

A battle cry has been issued against our new president by arguably the worlds most evil villain: billionaire financier George Soros. At a recent meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Soros told a crowd of wealthy politicians and corporate heads that he plans to take down President Trump in order to usher in a financial armageddon that fits his plans for a New World Order.

One of the big backers of failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Soros has been on a mission to destroy Trump since long before he was elected president. But after losing nearly $1 billion in the stock market, which made a big rally after Trumps victory, Soros is more determined than ever to stop the agenda of President Trump, which in large part involves rolling back globalism and bringing jobs back to the United States.

Reports indicate that Soros instructed many of the top dogs of various large, multinational corporations who attended the meeting to immediately stop doing business in the U.S. until President Trumps agenda is halted. If these companies continue to do business in the U.S., Soros warned, they will most certainly face serious consequences, economic and otherwise.

Id keep as far away from it as I can, Soros stated in cryptic fashion to his audience of listeners. (RELATED: Follow the happenings of Donald Trumps presidency at Trump.news)

Soros a wounded beast that is hell bent on revenge, say Wall Street analysts

In Soros view, all of the promises President Trump is making, from his pledges to cut taxes and reduce regulations to bringing outsourced jobs back to the states, are not going to happen. Even if they appear to at first, he claims, it will not be long before they all fail. Within 24 hours of Trump taking office, Soros stated, reality will prevail.

Soros has hardly been shy in making his views known about President Trump. The Jewish Nazi collaborator is on the record as having called the president a dictator, for instance, adding that the president wont be able to get away with some of the things he is doing to upset the plans of the globalist cabal.

Soros fury has been so pronounced over the past several months that Wall Street analysts actually likened him to a wounded beast that is hell bent on revenge, presumably a reference to the biblical prophecies of the Book of Revelation. In the meantime, many observers, including many conservative Republicans, are wondering what other nefarious tricks Soros might have hiding up his sleeve.

One idea is the financial armageddon and the unleashing of hell that some media sources claim Soros is hatching as a Plan B. Again making reference to biblical prophecy, the plan, some say, is for Soros to crash the world financial markets in order to create chaos. This act would put the U.S. on the brink of financial ruin, and in the midst of that, the phoenix will rise and usher in a New World Order.

Whether or not this actually happens remains to be seen, and only time will tell. But it is certain that the globalists do not plan to give up without a fight. And the fight they have planned could result in some major tumult for our country and for much of the rest of the world, which is directly affected by market and financial volatility here in the states.

The way Soros broke the Bank of England and ruined the Malaysian economy, these will one day just be seen as warm ups for his full scale tilt at global financial armageddon, a Wall Street analyst is quoted as saying.

Sources for this article include:

NeonNettle.com

YourNewsWire.com

Submit a correction >>
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We've already known for some time now that Nokia (News - Alert) is a force to be reckoned with in next generation communications. Ever since its phone market collapsed, the company pivoted handily into this space and is now one of the lead developers on a host of different systems. It's even gotten to the point where it's considering bringing phones back in. A recent move details its greater diversification, as it announced plans to acquire Comptel, complete with a cash tender offer.





With Comptel under Nokia's banner, reports note, Nokia will have a means to improve its software strategy on several fronts. The biggest such measure will give Nokia access to a new means to develop, provide and even assure services on the various kinds of networks out there, ranging from physical and virtual to a hybrid of both.

Having Comptel on hand would allow Nokia to push into a standalone software business, providing solutions in data processing, customer engagement, and even service monetization that can adjust its priorities according to needs on the ground.

The aforementioned cash tender offer has been reportedly valued at around $371 million as of this writing, though as it's denominated in euros, that may fluctuate until the offer is paid. Each share works out to around $3.24.

Overall, the measure is part of a master plan Nokia started up back in November 2016though in a lot of ways it may actually go back farthercalled Rebalancing for Growth. Nokia is keeping with that plan by stepping up its software capabilities in several areas, and with Comptel in play, it could improve its capabilities in the go-to-market side of its software operations. The systems Comptel offers, coupled with Nokia's next generation communications technologies like analytics and cloud systems, could provide access to several new technologies like network functions virtualization (NFV) and software defined networking (SDN) deployments.

Nokia has come a long way from its days as the biggest cell phone maker on the block. Stepping up its offerings on several fronts improves the likelihood that it can maintain its position in the field and deliver value for itself and its shareholders. By branching out into different software positions, it's taking advantage of a market that's increasingly running on software, and that allows Nokia a place at a growing market table.

Here, Nokia has demonstrated the importance of diversification in the next generation communications market. There are several different facets of this market, and the more Nokia can develop a presence in, the more likely it will be to survive future downturns.

Edited by Alicia Young
Never send a cop to do a man's job
I used to be one of those parents who took a second look at their kids bags of candy theyd gotten Halloween night and think, Wait a minute. Is that a full-size Butterfingers bar? Why would a kid need that much candy in one serving? Id either then ask if they really wanted that item or I
Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo CR7 is to inaugurate a hotel in Casablanca as part of a series of other tourism resorts he is planning g to acquire in the North African country.

The information, kept secret, was blown by Casablanca-based Arabic daily Al Akhbar.

According to the daily the Portuguese superstar has acquired a posh hotel in the Moroccan economic capital and is reportedly expected in the city for its inauguration.

The hotel situated on the Corniche Boulevard is undergoing makeover and name changing. Even workers on the site are not aware of the change of owner, the daily notes.

Room rates at the hotel can reach 4,000 dirham (about $400) and plus.

Ronaldo himself may travel to Casablanca for the inauguration.

The now most well paid world sportsman (82 million euros) has chosen tourism for his business investments. The 32-year old is also looking to own other hotels in Marrakech and Agadir, according to the daily.

The four times world best player in December 2015 joined forces with Portuguese hotel chain Pestana for the building of four hotels in Madeira, Lisbon, Madrid and New York under the brand PestanaCR7, Portugalresident.com reports.

The young millionaire is to inaugurate four other hotels in Ibiza Island, Spain.
Head of the UN Special Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) Martin Kobler Wednesday indicated that consensus to readapt the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA) and to modify the Presidential Council (PC) in order to fit Khalifa Haftar is being reached.

The political crisis has reached a deadlock with the UN-backed Faiez Serraj-led PC and Government of National Accord (GNA) unable to control of the country. The PC installed in Tripoli in March has become unpopular.

Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar aligned with rival government based in the East has shunned Serraj and refused to abide by the LPA, which put Libyas military command under the PC.

Haftar has dealt several setbacks to the UN-backed PC.

Addressing the UN Security Council, Kobler noted that talks on changes to Libyas unity government could yield results in the coming weeks, putting the North African country on a path to stability.

In an interview with Reuters, the German diplomat argued that Haftars future is the talk of town in new negotiations.

The single most important topic is the construction of a Libyan united army with a clear chain of command, where general Haftar must have a role, he said.

The leader of the Libyan National Army (LNA) in a recent interview with French Journal du Dimanche (JDD) claimed that his army controls most of the Libyan territory. He became figurehead in Libyan crisis after securing major supports, mainly from Moscow, which made him their top Libyan interlocutor.

Moscow has chided Kobler for ignoring Haftar who is, according to Russian authorities, a major stakeholder.

Kobler seemed to have heeded the Russian call after a visit to Moscow early this week.

I just came now from Moscow  the Russians have a close relation(ship) to Haftar, so there is no lack of communication, he said.

Libya slid into chaos following the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 as a result of a NATO-backed revolution.
BFFs? Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Were just finishing, Steve Bannon told me. Reince is giving me my daily back massage.

The two men burst into a fit of conspiratorial laughter.

Off the record! Reince Priebus said.

Off the record! Bannon repeated.

They continued to laugh.

It was Tuesday morning and, having just returned from a weekend jaunt to the Winter White House in Palm Beach, President Donald Trumps chief strategist and the White House chief of staff huddled in the latters West Wing office to, as they put it, help make the truth come out. Specifically, the two men wanted to address, in each others company, reports in the media  many based on quotes from high-level White House officials  that they are engaged in a bitter, zero-sum power struggle to win primacy with Trump, instead of continuing to function as improbable co-equals. The contest is now, the story goes, being waged in the form of damaging leaks about each other.

Plenty of savvy media observers see obvious intent in the gush of leaks now coming out of the White House. If you read between the lines in some of the anonymous quotes, Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior adviser to President Obama, said, its clear that Bannon, [Jared] Kushner, and Priebus are spending half their time blaming each other and the other half ensuring they dont get the blame.

But Bannon and Priebus said these impressions are wrong, and that rumors and reports that they are furiously leaking to gut each other and gain more sway with Trump are mostly media inventions. Any leaks come from lower down the totem pole. The truth, they said, is that they are rather chummy.

Bannon and Priebus spoke with me on a prearranged conference call, joined by Katie Walsh, Priebuss deputy, and Lindsay Walters, deputy to press secretary Sean Spicer. For about 25 minutes, talking into Walshs cell phone on speaker mode, Bannon and Priebus performed a buddy comedy, finishing each others sentences and swearing up and down that they are good friends who work together well  and constantly.

Im quite aggressive, and Reince is a calming influence on hey  bang bang bang, heres how we ought to think about doing that, Bannon said, explaining how their personal styles complement each other.

We talk a lot, pretty much all day long, Priebus said. And then we communicate at night 

Until we fall asleep, Bannon interjected with a laugh.

Priebus cut in, Until somebody falls asleep  You fell asleep last night.

I did, Bannon said.

I think, like, a quarter to 11, Priebus added.

I did, Bannon said.

He became unresponsive, Priebus laughed.

Claims to the contrary, Priebus said, are upsetting to both of them. It bothers us because its not true, and we actually like and care about each other a lot. So its sort of like, if we were just sort of colleagues that kind of tolerate each other every day, maybe it wouldnt bother us. But because its the total opposite  and were sitting here, and were friends and weve kind of been to hell and back ten times together and we like each other  so then we see these things, yeah, it bothers us because it sort of hurts our friendship, and its not truthful.

Priebus and Bannon in the Oval Office on January 28, 2017. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Bannon dismissed the entire theory as a manifestation of media myopia and incuriosity. The opposition party  meaning the press, not the Democrats  has to have  He paused. Since theyre too dumb and too lazy to actually do any work, um  am I over my skis here right now? he asked Priebus.

No, no, Priebus laughed.

They have to come up with the gossipy stuff. Its just like on the campaign, Bannon continued.

He criticized the well-paid media and all the commentators who couldnt predict Trumps victory, blaming them for having never rolled up their sleeves to do the hard work of analyzing demographics and economics, which, he believes, would have revealed Trump was tapping into something. Its very easy to write the gossipy stuff, he said, mocking the media for reading into Priebuss Republican National Committee background, or casting himself and Stephen Miller as wild men and people who are crazy.

Writing those stories, he said, was easy because it only required talking to underlings around here and then you just kind of type it up.

Theres no question that the men offer a study in stark contrasts. After stints at Goldman Sachs and in Hollywood, Bannon got involved in populist right-wing media, taking control of Breitbart News after the death of its founder, Andrew Breitbart. He labeled it the platform for the alt-right in an interview last year. The alt-right, a broad label for the fringe far-right (including outright racists and anti-Semites), is at the forefront of the outsider hordes that are overrunning the conservative Establishment  that is, the political culture that produced Priebus, two-time chairman of the RNC.

They even wear their differences: Bannon dresses in casual black clothing and is generally unshaven, while Priebus  called anal retentive by one source  is usually clad in crisp suits and bright-colored ties that make him look like hes just stepped out of a Brooks Brothers catalogue.

But theres a bipartisan perspective that whats happening isnt normal. Steve Schmidt, who served in the George W. Bush White House, told me that the tactics employed by Trump officials  like leaking as a means of harming the competition within  would have been unthinkable in the Bush or Obama administrations. What youre seeing here is a total lack of discipline and an utterly chaotic process, he said, comparing it to Game of Thrones. Jon Favreau, the former director of speechwriting for President Obama, had a different reference. Every White House has its share of leaks and infighting, he said. But this is like Hunger Games shit.

Even some people inside the White House see Priebuss mark on the emerging narrative that Bannon is the mastermind behind Trumps populism  a story Trump surely dislikes. He hates that, one source close to the president said. The way to kill somebody in the Trump orbit is to say to him, Oh, this guys your brain! Hes calling the shots! Youre just a fucker who does what he says! Thats the surest way to kill somebody, even if that somebody is doing a really good job.

And potentially worse than suggesting Trump isnt thinking for himself is diverting the spotlight away from him at all. Bannons been very shrewd to give no interviews because when Trump urged [former campaign manager Paul] Manafort to give interviews and Trump urged Kellyanne [Conway] to give interviews  and they both went out there and did that and they both did a very good job  I still think theres some jealousy, the source said, noting that while Bannon has spoken occasionally to print media, he has stayed away from television. The Trump show only has one star, there are no co-stars.

Priebus denied any involvement in furthering that narrative about Bannon. If I were the mastermind behind the Steve Bannonbrain story, Steve would know about it, because hes sitting here in my office all day long, he told me. Its totally ridiculous and I dont have time to play the double-reverse-agent role and run the White House at the same time. Its totally ridiculous and Steve would know because hes sitting right here!

The two of them laughed. Its all phony-baloney garbage that doesnt exist and I hope that you can clear that up in the article, Priebus added.

Bannon claimed that usually leaks from the Trump White House werent coming from people in the room.

He pointed to the example of Anthony Scaramucci, a hedge funder who was tapped to work at the White House as a liaison to the business community, before he was suddenly and unexpectedly sidelined just before his scheduled swearing-in. Plenty of observers saw it as a power move by Priebus, who is generally acknowledged to be in control of staffing. Scaramucci, who has known the president and Bannon since the mid-1990s and maintains a friendly relationship with both, would have posed a threat to the chief of staff, goes the theory.

You can tell when the stories come out, like the Scaramucci thing, its so 180 opposite from what reality is, we sit here and laugh about it, right? Bannon said. Its like these two factions and theyre all fighting for that is, about  Scaramucci? Riiight, he said sarcastically.

Its not true, Priebus said of the rumors that he nixed the hire. The person closest to Anthony in the entire West Wing is me, he said. So, Bannon and Anthony know each other but Im the closest to Anthony, and I love the guy. Whatever the narrative is thats out there is 100 percent false.

The White House similarly shot down claims that Priebus also undercut Monica Crowley, a Fox News personality who was Trumps pick for a prominent national-security communications job. When she was revealed to be a serial plagiarist, Priebus, sources said, forbade Crowley from appearing on TV to defend herself, and before long, she was asked to resign. Spicer, through an email, said there was zero truth to that story.

True or not, paranoia has certainly set in among vulnerable members of the administration and those within its orbit, the most worried of whom have focused their frustrations and concerns on Priebus. Theyve nicknamed him Rancid, the creature of the swamp they thought they were going to drain.

Are these and other pesky underlings also hell-bent on sabotaging the relationship of the presidents two most important staffers? Or, to borrow a phrase from Trump, is something going on here?
Ignored. Photo: Andrew Harrer - Pool/Getty Images

Its become something of a tradition. As soon as President Trump fires off a tweet explicitly criticizing a publicly traded company, its stock price begins to dip. It happened again today, after Trump tweeted his criticism of Nordstrom, which recently dropped his daughters fashion line. But then something else happened. After a momentary decline, the stock price rose. At post time, Nordstrom was trading at $44.20 a share, up 3.35 percent on the day.

Despite drawing the ire of the worlds most powerful man, Nordstroms stock price did not suffer, and its not the first company to have those two things happen in quick succession.

Rexnord Corporation drew Trumps ire in December, when he called out the company for its plans to move a factory from Indiana to Mexico. Though its stock price responded with an initial downturn, it closed at a nine-month high Tuesday. And Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported the company is still planning to ship jobs to Mexico.

The day after his Rexnord tweet, Trump took shots at Boeing on Twitter and in the lobby of Trump Tower for what he saw as overcharging the government for its work on the Air Force One program. After a small drop that day, Boeings stock price began steadily moving upward and currently sits about 8 percent higher than it was when Trump first tweeted.

The pattern holds for United Technologies, GM, and Ford, which all have higher stock prices today than they did when Trump tweeted about them. Toyota, which Trump warned, on January 5, of a big border tax in a tweet full of inaccuracies, is down since the January 5 tweet. But thats reportedly got more to do with disappointing earnings than Trumps admonishment.

If Trump really wants to teach a company a lesson, maybe he should try embracing them. Some of his unpopularity might rub off.
Disheartened. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Donald Trumps pick to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, called the presidents recent bashing of another federal judge disheartening and demoralizing in a Wednesday meeting with Connecticut senator Richard Blumenthal.

He said very specifically that they were demoralizing and disheartening and he characterized them very specifically that way, Blumenthal said after the meeting. I said they were more than disheartening, and I said to him that he has an obligation to make his views clear to the American people, so they understand how abhorrent or unacceptable President Trumps attacks on the judiciary are.

The judges spokesperson Ron Bonjean confirmed Blumenthals characterization of Gorsuchs remarks.

In a series of tweets on Saturday and Sunday, Trump attacked U.S. District Court Judge James Robart after he temporarily blocked the presidents ban on refugees and citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries. Trump referred to Robart as a so-called judge, accused him of putting our country in such peril and wrote that a terror attack, should one happen, should be blamed on Robart and the judiciary.

It will be interesting to see how President Trump responds to this critique, if he does at all. But Gorsuch was not saying what he said to please the president. His audience for these comments was a Democratic senator, and more broadly, all the Democrats in the Senate, who will undoubtedly like what theyve heard.
Mad Dog the moderate. Photo-Illustration: Daily Intelligencer; Photos: Getty Images

Secretary of Defense James Mattis is nicknamed Mad Dog  a reference to his love of swearing and killing enemy soldiers. He has said that its a hell of a lot of fun to shoot members of the Taliban, and told Iraqi military leaders, If you fuck with me, Ill kill you all. The general was such a fervent opponent of the Iran nuclear agreement  and staunch proponent of covert confrontation with Tehran  President Obama relieved him of his duties in 2013.

But in the retirement home for Islamophobic cranks that is the Trump White House, James Mattis is the closest thing to a coolheaded, diplomatic dove.

The former general has already torpedoed Trumps torture plans, defended NATO against the presidents slings and arrows, and, reportedly, pushed for the president to add exemptions to his ban on immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations.

And, through it all, Mattis has been serving as a kind of equanimity translator for the president  adapting Trumps belligerent tweets into carefully worded diplomatic missives to calm our allies shaky nerves. Per the Washington Post:



In Seoul, Mattis told South Korean leaders that the United States will maintain a tough stance on North Koreas nuclear and missile programs, predicting a lasting partnership despite Trumps repeated questioning of the two countries military alliance. In Tokyo, he said the United States will stick to a mutual defense treaty, allaying Japanese officials concerns about whether the United States will continue its backing in a territorial dispute with China.



He also acted to stanch speculation that the United States, as White House officials suggested, might act precipitously against perceived threats from China and Iran, saying that military steps were not required. This week, Mattis spoke with Mexican defense leaders, highlighting cooperation in the wake of Trumps high-profile feud with President Enrqiue Pena Nieto.

Steve Bannon, by contrast, predicted last year that a war between the United States and China over the latters disputed claims to the South China Sea is inevitable  as is another major shooting war in the Middle East.

You have an expansionist Islam and you have an expansionist China. Right? the Brietbart mastermind turned chief White House strategist asked his radio audience in February 2016. They are motivated. Theyre arrogant. Theyre on the march. And they think the Judeo-Christian West is on the retreat.

Theres reason to think this was more than mere talk-radio blather. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and White House press secretary Sean Spicer have both suggested that the United States will block China from accessing its disputed islands in the South China Sea  an action that would (almost certainly) prompt a military confrontation between the worlds two greatest powers.

Other Trump aides have taken a similarly belligerent line toward Beijing, with top trade adviser Peter Navarro describing China as a despicable, parasitic, brutal, brass-knuckled, crass, callous, amoral, ruthless, and totally totalitarian imperialist power.

Meanwhile, the administration has put Iran on notice; considered declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group; and, on one occasion, falsely claimed that Iran had attacked an American Navy vessel.

As already established, Mattis is an unlikely candidate for wet blanket at the saber-rattling party. The defense secretarys antipathy for Iran is personal, tracing back to Tehrans 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon.

But Mattiss firsthand knowledge of wars costs may be the reason he treads more carefully than his new colleagues. While Bannon did serve in the U.S. Navy decades ago, the far-right flamethrower has surveyed the war on terror from a spectators seat. A reactionary radio host has little incentive to question his intuition of a coming war between Judeo-Christian civilization and the Muslim hordes (and/or godless Chinese).



The head of U.S. Central Command, by contrast, has plenty of motivation to resist such far-right fever dreams  not least, that maintaining friendly relations with Arab nations is a critical part of Americas counterterrorism strategy.

With President Trump (reportedly) unable to read memos longer than one page  or to resist the temptation to tweet through his daily intelligence briefings  the details of American foreign policy will likely be left to whichever adviser wins the lions share of the commander-in-chiefs trust.

Which is to say: The Mattis-Bannon race for shadow president may be the most important election of our lives. And it will be decided by a single vote.
Trump more trusted than own lying eyes. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Better to get your news directly from the president, Republican congressman Lamar Smith said last month. In fact, it might be the only way to get the unvarnished truth.

You may call that sentiment Orwellian, but nine out of ten Republicans would call it common sense: A new poll from Emerson College finds 90 percent of Republicans believe that the Trump administration is truthful  while less than 10 percent say the same about the news media.

By contrast, 77 percent of Democrats believe the Trump White House is untruthful, while 69 percent think the news media generally tells the truth. Independents tend to think theyre all a bunch of liars, with 52 percent calling the administration untruthful and 47 percent calling the media the same.

Republicans nearly unanimous trust in the Trump White House  and contempt for the Fourth Estate  means that, on the whole, voters have more faith in the president: Forty-nine percent call the Trump administration truthful, 48 percent say the opposite; for the media, those numbers are 39 and 53, respectively.

Ultimately, these results are probably more dismaying for journalists than they are encouraging for Trump. Overwhelming trust from self-identified Republicans is nice, but majority distrust from independents is not.

Trump would not have won in November without the support of voters who said they didnt like him. Nothing in Emersons poll  or in the latest Gallup survey  suggests Trump is broadening his base of support. Maybe being less hated than the other candidate will work again in 2020. But thats not the kind of support most presidents would want to count on.
Photo: vhines200 /CC/flickr Thanks to funds from a new tax on high-end real-estate sales, the City College of San Francisco will be free for all residents.

Old-timers remember when California was the cockpit of a national battle over the idea  championed by Governor Ronald Reagan  that students and their parents should have to bear a portion of the cost of higher education via tuition. Reagan, who was not at all reluctant to accompany his arguments for tuition with robust hippie-bashing, never succeeded in charging tuition at the states higher-ed facilities, but did get a camels nose under the tent with higher fees. By the time a new batch of conservative politicians and fiscal hard times arrived in the early 1980s, so too did college tuition in California. And tuition has kept climbing on both coasts and everywhere in between, along with levels of student indebtedness.

So it is appropriate that a California city, San Francisco, has become the first to bring back no-tuition college as a reality, at least for that entryway to upward mobility, the community college:

City College of San Francisco will be free of charge to all city residents under a deal announced Monday by Mayor Ed Lee and Supervisor Jane Kim that college trustees hope will lead to an enrollment jolt and more state funding for the school.

Under the agreement, which is expected to take effect in the fall, the city will pay $5.4 million a year to buy out the $46-a-credit fee usually paid by students.

Low-income students already benefiting from tuition waivers will get a grant to cover books and transportation costs.

But unlike New York Governor Andrew Cuomos free public-college initiative, the basic program is not means-tested (though it also applies only to community college, whereas New Yorks would be much broader).

The funding source for the San Francisco free community college is perhaps its most interesting feature: last Novembers successful Proposition W ballot initiative, which imposed a new tax on the sale of properties costing more than $5 million. In a city with insane top-end real-estate prices and some of the worst inequality in the country, theres a lot of justice in this particular form of wealth redistribution.

The old socialist Bernie Sanders, who made free tuition a cornerstone of his nearly successful run for the Democratic presidential nomination, couldnt have designed it better.
Jeff Sessions, your new attorney general. Photo: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

In spite of fierce Democratic opposition, which was intensified by Tuesday nights silencing of Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Jeff Sessions was confirmed to be attorney general on Wednesday night. The vote was 52 to 47, with Senator Joe Manchin casting the one Democratic vote in support of Sessions. The Alabama senator voted present on his own nomination.

For weeks, Democrats argued that Sessions, who was denied a federal judgeship in 1986 amid accusations of racism, would not uphold civil and voting rights for African-Americans. They also criticized his stance on immigration, womens rights, and LGBT rights. Senator Cory Booker made history by testifying against his colleague during Sessionss confirmation hearing.

His record raises doubts about whether he can be a champion for those who need this office most and it also raises doubts about whether he can curb unlawful overreach by President Trump, said Senator Tim Kaine.

As Democrats came to Warrens defense, with several reading the Coretta Scott King letter that led to Republicans barring the Massachusetts senator from the debate, Republicans said Sessions had been mistreated throughout the confirmation process.

Hes honest. Hes fair. Hes been a friend to many of us, on both sides of the aisle, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said. Its been tough to watch all this good man has been put through in recent weeks. This is a well-qualified colleague with a deep reverence for the law. He believes strongly in the equal application of it to everyone.

Tim Scott, the chambers only African-American Republican, defended Sessions on the Senate floor, saying he had earned my support. Scott read messages he received on social media accusing him of letting black people down by standing behind Sessions. I left out all the ones that used the n-word, he said, noting that the complaints werent that unusual. If you sign up to be a black conservative, the chances are very high you will be attacked. It comes with the territory, Scott explained.

In a speech following the vote, Sessions acknowledged the heated debate and said he hopes members of the Senate can find common ground going forward. Denigrating people who disagree with us is not a healthy trend for our body, he said.

But Democrats said they have no intention of holding back on the Trump administration. Just after Wednesday nights vote, Warren tweeted that shes deeply disappointed by Sessionss confirmation, and vowed that she and other Democrats will speak out if the attorney general violates the law.

Im deeply disappointed that the Senate voted to confirm Jeff Sessions as Attorney General tonight.  Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) February 9, 2017

Deeply disappointed that the Senate confirmed an AG whose record does not show he will faithfully & fairly enforce the law.  Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) February 9, 2017

Thanks to you, everyone now knows the concerns that Coretta Scott King had about Jeff Sessions. Concerns that millions of people still have.  Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) February 9, 2017

Theres no Rule 19 to silence me from talking about Jeff Sessions anymore. So let me say loudly & clearly: This is just the beginning.  Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) February 9, 2017

If Jeff Sessions turns a blind eye while @realDonaldTrump violates the Constitution or breaks the law, he'll hear from all of us.  Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) February 9, 2017

And you better believe every Senator who voted to put Jeff Sessionss radical hatred into @TheJusticeDept will hear from all of us, too.  Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) February 9, 2017

Consider this MY warning: We wont be silent. We will speak out. And we WILL persist.  Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) February 9, 2017

This post was updated to include Warrens response.
What I love about Gorsuch is that he doesnt judge. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Last week, President Trump named Neil Gorsuch as his nominee for the Supreme Court. Then, he instructed the American people to blame the court system for the next terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

This put Gorsuch in a bit of pickle: If he chastised the president, he could find himself reduced to the status of so-called judge; if he didnt, hed be excoriated for spinelessness at his confirmation hearing.

But Neil Gorsuch believes that when life gives you lemons, you should avoid assisted suicide. And so the judge used Trumps comments as an opportunity to establish his independence from the unpopular president  and, thereby, make it a little more difficult for Democrats to obstruct his nomination.

In a meeting with Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, Gorsuch described Trumps comments as demoralizing and disheartening. Ron Bonjean, a White House advisor, subsequently confirmed that Gorsuch had, indeed, made those comments.

And this approach seemed to strike a deft political balance: On the one hand, Gorsuch hadnt let the presidents attack on the judiciary slide; on the other, he hadnt criticized Trump in public. Without video of Gorsuchs reprimand, cable news was unlikely to give the remarks wall-to-wall coverage.

And then, on Thursday morning, the president signed onto Twitter.

Sen.Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie),now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2017

The presidents case here is airtight: Richard Blumenthal once apologized for saying that he had served in Vietnam, when, in fact, the senator had merely served as a Marine Corps Reserve during the Vietnam War, but was never sent overseas. By contrast, the president spent his Vietnam fearlessly weathering round after round of unprotected sex. Therefore, both Blumenthal and Bonjean are lying. After all, why would a federal judge complain about the president characterizing the judiciary as a national security threat?

Alas, shortly after Trumps tweets, a Republican senator from Nebraska gave the president some Sasse.

Sen. Ben Sasse just contradicted Trump, confirms Gorsuch's comments on @Morning_Joe: "He got pretty passionate about it." pic.twitter.com/tsPeQ156vs  Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 9, 2017

Minutes later, Trump turned his attention to another man whose Vietnam-era service he disdains. Earlier this week John McCain had described the raid of a Yemeni compound that the president ordered  which killed one Navy SEAL, many civilians, but not the terrorist it had been launched to target  as a failure.

Sen. McCain should not be talking about the success or failure of a mission to the media. Only emboldens the enemy! He's been losing so....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2017

...long he doesn't know how to win anymore, just look at the mess our country is in - bogged down in conflict all over the place. Our hero..  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2017

..Ryan died on a winning mission ( according to General Mattis), not a "failure." Time for the U.S. to get smart and start winning again!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2017

Youre going to get so sick of winning.
More like New STOP, Vladdie, baby. Photo: Pete Marovich/Bloomberg via Getty Images

I was a good student. I understand things, President Trump assured America on Wednesday. I comprehend very well, okay? Better than, I think, almost anybody.

But many within the White House beg to differ. In leak after leak, anonymous administration officials paint the president as less teachers pet than class clown  one who refuses to do his homework, demands the Cliffs Notes for every reading assignment, and struggles to comprehend the most basic aspects of the curriculum.

The latest SOS from the West Wing was intercepted by Reuters:

In his first call as president with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump denounced a treaty that caps U.S. and Russian deployment of nuclear warheads as a bad deal for the United States, according to two U.S. officials and one former U.S. official with knowledge of the call.



When Putin raised the possibility of extending the 2010 treaty, known as New START, Trump paused to ask his aides in an aside what the treaty was, these sources said.



Trump then told Putin the treaty was one of several bad deals negotiated by the Obama administration, saying that New START favored Russia. Trump also talked about his own popularity, the sources said.





New START is pretty fundamental to U.S.-Russian relations. At his confirmation hearing, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson expressed his support for the agreement. Trump, himself, was aware of the treatys significance  if not of its proper name  last year, when he complained that Russia outsmarted Obama on START Up.

To avoid such lapses in memory, presidents typically request an in-depth briefing from the National Security Council before dialing up world leaders. But, according to Reuters sources, Trump received no such briefing before hopping on the horn with Putin. (Considering that Trump has often bragged about being too smart to read long things, it seems safe to take Reuters word on this one.)

Under New START, the United States and Russia committed to reducing their respective supplies of strategic nuclear warheads to no more than 1,550 by February 2018. This would leave America with a big enough atomic stockpile to induce a civilization-destroying nuclear winter at least 15.5 times.

But many Republicans think that isnt nearly enough. When the Senate ratified New START in December 2010, only 13 Republicans voted in favor. Granted, some of the naysayers may have been motivated less by opposition to deproliferation than by fear of Obamas radioactivity with the GOP base.

The source of Trumps antipathy for New START is similarly unclear. On the one hand, the president has expressed enthusiasm for a new arms race. On the other, he has called nuclear weapons the single greatest threat we face  and has a habit of disparaging any deal that he did not, himself, negotiate.

At any rate, it appears that Trumps tolerance for Putins transgressions has its limits: If Vladimir wants to kill his political enemies, who are we to judge? But if that wily Muscovite tries to extend our mutual commitment to reducing the global supply of apocalyptic weapons, hes got another thing coming.
President Donald Trump speaks as he meets with county sheriffs during a listening session in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Tuesday. Photo: Andrew Harrer - Pool/Getty Images

On Tuesday, in an incident picked up by NPR and a bunch of other outlets, Donald Trump joked to a group of sheriffs about destroying the career of a Texas state senator one of the sheriffs, Harold Eavenson of Rockwall County, Texas, was unhappy with. Eavenson is a fan of what is known as asset forfeiture, and the state senator had lobbied hard against a certain type of it.

What is asset forfeiture? Traditionally, its been the practice of taking someones stuff after theyve been convicted of a crime  picture a DEA photo opp in front of a drug lords boats and jewelry and cars. But in many parts of the country, the practice has grown extremely loose, and there are numerous signs of widespread abuse. Law-enforcement officers can often take your stuff simply by, in effect, declaring that theres some connection between you and a hypothetical crime  they dont need to even arrest or charge you.

Sarah Stillman of The New Yorker wrote what is probably the definitive journalistic account of this subject, and her piece contains truly astounding stuff. In the story that leads off the article, for example, Stillman relates an incident in which a couple passing through Tenaha, Texas, with a bunch of cash to buy a used car was pulled over, brought to the local police station, and given a choice: Either they could sign a document handing the cash over to Tenaha, or they could be charged  despite a lack of any substantive evidence  with money laundering and child endangerment, meaning they would immediately be sent to jail and their children, who had been riding in the backseat, taken from them. If they signed the document, there would be no charges at all, so that was what they did. The couple would later learn that this was something of a tradition in Tenaha; there had been a raft of complaints from out-of-town drivers who claimed that they had been stopped in Tenaha and stripped of cash, valuables, and, in at least one case, an infant child, without clear evidence of contraband. (They joined in a class-action lawsuit fighting the practice.)

This sort of thing is disturbingly common, and some of the stories make the Tenaha incident look minor in comparison  as the subhead of Stillmans article notes, Americans who havent been charged with wrongdoing can be stripped of their cash, cars, and even homes. Thats why, in recent years, something of a left-right alliance of criminal-justice reformers has formed to try to rein in the worst excesses of asset forfeiture, with many critics of the practice pointing out that police often target poor and minority citizens who lack the legal resources to defend their property. Basically the only groups that aggressively defends these types of asset forfeitures, on the other hand, are law-enforcement organizations themselves (and the politicians who want to broadcast unwavering support for them). They often claim asset forfeiture is a vital tool in their fight against drug cartels, but the full story is a bit more complicated and less noble: Asset forfeiture has become a big business. Some police departments rake in hefty sums from pulling people over, taking their stuff, and letting them go without charging them with anything. At a time of widespread state budget cuts, regularly harvesting the money and cars and other assets of local residents and passers-through has become a convenient way for some small-town police departments to stay in the black. Elsewhere, its used for other purposes: A Washington Post investigative series published in 2014, for example, revealed that, Police agencies have used hundreds of millions of dollars taken from Americans under federal civil forfeiture law in recent years to buy guns, armored cars and electronic surveillance gear. They have also spent money on luxury vehicles, travel and a clown named Sparkles.

So, back to Trump and the sheriff: Trump made his joke after Eavenson complained about a state senator in Texas who was talking about introducing legislation to require conviction before we can receive their forfeiture. Can you believe that? responded Trump, before joking about ruining his career. As the Dallas Morning News reported Tuesday, it isnt clear exactly which state senator Eavenson was referring to, but both Democrats and some Republicans there have pushed for laws to reform the states asset-forfeiture practices. And all they are asking is that someone be convicted of a crime before police take their stuff  they arent even questioning law enforcements authority to seize certain property.

The whole debate was new to Trump. As the White Houses transcript of the session where he made his joke makes clear (hat tip to Reason), the president didnt appear to know what asset forfeiture was or what the debate over it entailed. This probably shouldnt come as a surprise given that Trump, by his own admission, isnt much of a reader, and has exhibited very little interest in questions of public policy. Whats interesting, though, is observing, through the transcript, the process of Trump puzzling through a new concept and trying to understand what it means and how it fits into his worldview.

Interesting and deeply, deeply discomfiting:

SHERIFF AUBREY: Sheriff John Aubrey, fifth-term sheriff, Jefferson County, Kentucky. Past president of National Sheriffs Association. And my fellow sheriffs have brought up a number of points, and Id like to add two to it that I know are on your plate and the administrations plate. The 1033 program, where we were sharing Department of Defense surplus material that helps us in our war. They were used in the war, and they helped us in our war. That got severely curtailed.



And the other thing is asset forfeiture. People want to say were taking money and without due process. Thats not true. We take money from dope dealers 



THE PRESIDENT: So youre saying  okay, so youre saying the asset-taking you used to do, and it had an impact, right? And youre not allowed to do it now?



SHERIFF AUBREY: No, they have curtailed it a little bit. And Im sure the folks are 



THE PRESIDENT: And thats for legal reasons? Or just political reasons?



SHERIFF AUBREY: They make it political and they make it  they make up stories. All youve got to do 



THE PRESIDENT: Id like to look into that, okay? Theres no reason for that. Dana, do you think theres any reason for that? Are you aware of this?



[Then-acting Attorney General Dana Boente]: I am aware of that, Mr. President. And we have gotten a great deal of criticism for the asset forfeiture, which, as the sheriff said, frequently was taking narcotics proceeds and other proceeds of crime. But there has been a lot of pressure on the department to curtail some of that.



THE PRESIDENT: So what do you do? So in other words, they have a huge stash of drugs. So in the old days, you take it. Now were criticized if we take it. So who gets it? What happens to it? Tell them to keep it?



MR. BOENTE: Well, we have what is called equitable sharing, where we usually share it with the local police departments for whatever portion that they worked on the case. And it was a very successful program, very popular with the law enforcement community.



THE PRESIDENT: And now what happens?



MR. BOENTE: Well, now weve just been given  theres been a lot of pressure not to forfeit, in some cases.



THE PRESIDENT: Who would want that pressure, other than, like, bad people, right? But who would want that pressure? You would think theyd want this stuff taken away.



SHERIFF AUBREY: You have to be careful how you speak, I guess. But a lot of pressure is coming out of  was coming out of Congress. I dont know that that will continue now or not.



THE PRESIDENT: I think less so. I think Congress is going to get beat up really badly by the voters because theyve let this happen. And I think badly. I think youll be back in shape. So, asset forfeiture, were going to go back on, okay?



SHERIFF AUBREY: Thank you, sir.



THE PRESIDENT: I mean, how simple can anything be? You all agree with that, I assume, right?



In reality, of course, none of the controversy over asset forfeiture centers around what authorities do when they find a huge stash of drugs  Team Let Them Keep Illegal Drugs has approximately zero members. So whats striking here is the manner in which, over the course of an exchange that lasts perhaps a couple minutes, Trump progresses from learning of the existence of a new (to him) concept, to misunderstanding completely what it is and why its controversial, to developing a strong opinion about it painted in a childlike understanding of the world and of morality (Who would want that pressure, other than, like, bad people, right?), to expressing outrage that anyone could have an opinion about it that diverges from his own.

In this instance, we have full access to Trumps thought process, to his confused knee-jerk conclusions. Whats going on behind closed doors, when the stakes are higher and there are no White House transcripts available?


Donald and Ivanka Trump, who has been treated so unfairly. Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

One of the most astonishing things about the Trump presidency has been the presidents ability to obliterate every norm holding back his ability to profit from office and then, having met no resistance, continue to go farther and farther. Last month, Trump announced a separation agreement, according to which he would continue to own his business while his children ran it in purportedly independent fashion. In the meantime, he has used his office to enrich that business in numerous ways (that we know of  the concealment of his tax returns means the extent of Trumps self-enrichment will remain unknown to the public).

This morning, Trump denounced Nordstrom, which is dropping his daughters brands.

My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2017

At todays press conference, Sean Spicer elaborated. Theres a targeting of her brand and its her name, Spicer said. Shes not directly running the company. Its still her name on it. There are clearly efforts to undermine that name based on her fathers positions on particular policies that hes taken. This is a direct attack on his policies and her name and so theres clearly an attempt for [Trump] to stand up for her being maligned because they have a problem with his policies.

It is probably true that Nordstrom is dropping the brand because consumers are refusing to shop there because of the stores association with Donald Trump. If you accept the logic of unlimited entanglement between Trumps presidency and his branding business, this is unavoidable: Trump brands are going to have to reorient themselves to the minority of the public that likes Trump. On the whole, the chance to use the presidency to leverage his brand is a lucrative opportunity for the Trump family, since even an unpopular president like Trump will still command a numerically huge fan base. But many people who loathe the first family will refuse to give them their money.

Spicer is asserting that Trump can intermingle his public and private roles as he sees fit, and can enjoy all the financial upside of the arrangement, but should not have to suffer any of the downside. It is the official position of the White House that a store that finds it unprofitable to continue doing business with a Trump brand has made a direct attack on him.

The Republican Party as a whole has decided not to object to any of this. Today, Mitch McConnell expressed a high level of satisfaction with the presidents behavior so far. Back during the campaign, there were a lot of questions: Is Trump really a conservative? A lot of questions about it, McConnell says. But if you look at the steps that have been taken so far, looks good to me. And it is true: Trump has supported mostly conventional conservative policies, and in return Republican leaders have turned their back to his unprecedented corruption.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Photo: Brendan Smialowksi/AFP/Getty Images

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Department of Homeland Security head John Kelly sat down Wednesday with Mexicos foreign minister Luis Videgaray in Washington, D.C. The meeting came about two weeks after Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto canceled his own White House visit after tensions escalated between the two when President Donald Trump signed an executive order for the construction of the border-wall and insisted, again, that Mexico pick up the billion-dollar tab. The two presidents later spoke over the phone, but it apparently got a bit weird.

According to a State Department spokesperson, Tillerson and Videgaray had a constructive conversation on a range of U.S.-Mexico collaboration including law enforcement, migration, and security.  The Mexican Foreign ministry says more or less the same, adding that they discussed the treatment and due-process protections for Mexican migrants in the United States.

Tillerson will repay the favor in a few weeks, and head down to Mexico City  though the exact date of his visit has not been set. Videgaray, when asked if Nieto would be meet with Trump in person any time soon, he replied succinctly: Not for now.

But Nieto may still end up booking a trip to Washington. Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus have requested House and Senate leaders invite Nieto to speak at a joint session of Congress. Recent statements and actions by the Trump Administration have damaged our nations ties, the letters signatories wrote. It is absolutely critical that Congress reiterate the United States commitment to our important ally Mexico. The letter does ask that Congress consult with Trump before extending a formal invite  likely to avoid another Boehner-Netanyahu debacle  but say lawmakers would benefit from engaging directly with the Mexican president.
Photo: David Zach/Getty Images

In a memorable scene from Cant Just Stop, a new book about compulsive behavior by journalist Sharon Begley, a woman named Shala Nicely is concerned about the whereabouts of her beloved cat, who, she fears, may be in the refrigerator.

Shala heard the OCD whisper, I think your cat Fred is in there, freezing to death. Oh, come on, the non-OCD part of her brain retorted; how could Fred have gotten into the refrigerator? But of course, it doesnt hurt to look; such a tiny effort for such enormous peace of mind! There; no Fred. I think you should check one more time. Shala stood there opening the refrigerator, poking around until she had assured herself that Fred was neither in the crisper nor hidden behind the jug of orange juice  and then looking compulsively again, and again, and again, a hostage to the OCD.

As she told Begley later: Id say to myself, I know this is ridiculous. I know Fred wasnt in the refrigerator. But I couldnt walk away.

Begley is a veteran medical journalist  shes currently stationed at the reliably rigorous health-news site, Stat  and her book is a refreshingly nuanced, careful take on a complex and fascinating subject. She defines a compulsion, straightforwardly enough, as a reaction to anxiety, but as she explores the concept, she trusts her readers to be able to hold two truths in their minds at once. The first, and obvious, one: Compulsive behaviors can be ruinous. Compulsions come from a need so desperate, burning, and tortured it makes us feel like a vessel filling with steam, saturating us with a hot urgency that demands relief, she writes. They are an outlet valve, a consequence of anxiety as inevitable as burst pipes are a consequence of water freezing within a buildings plumbing. But while compulsions bring relief, they bring little enjoyment, and while with one part of our brain we desperately wish to stop them, with another we are desperately afraid of stopping.

But the second truth is less obvious, and therefore more interesting. As destructive as they can be, compulsions are not necessarily a sign of a malfunctioning brain. Mild compulsions are a little like the psychological equivalent of steering into a skid: counterintuitive, initially scary but ultimately effective (at least for most of us), Begley wrote in a recent piece for The Wall Street Journal. Its a message that has resonated already with some of her early readers. According to Sharon Begley - me and many people have a few compulsions that seem like understandable responses to angst that might otherwise eat me/us alive, one woman wrote in a review on Goodreads. WE ARE NOT CRAZY.or even BROKEN. In fact we may be keeping ourselves together - functioning better than if we had allowed the anxiety to swallow us.

In the below interview, Begley explains her theories on compulsive behavior.

I think you might hate this question, because you write toward the end of your book that there is no bright line between mental illness and mental normality. But  is there a blurry line? How can you tell when compulsive behavior is becoming a problem? So, this is of course a problem, because psychiatry  much as it wants to be a science, I think its fair to say it still falls a little bit short, starting with diagnoses. There is no blood-pressure cuff, theres no blood test, theres no objective reading for whether someone has a mental illness. All there is is a checklist of symptoms. And those too are subjective. Its a bunch of guys and it is mostly guys  who sit around saying, Well, here are some descriptions of what its like to have generalized anxiety disorder or schizophrenia or, you know, fill in the blanks. And we think that if you meet five of these criteria, you count.

Its really quite ridiculous, but thats what anyone who asks a question like yours  which people keep asking  thats what youre up against. The American Psychiatric Association and its changing guidelines over the decades  it really falls short of rigorous empirical science.

With those caveats, I can only say that psychiatry  mainstream psychiatry  requires that someone have either distress or impairment. So, therefore, if what you are doing is quote-unquote working for you, then psychiatry is not going to swoop down and say, Oh, well, we dont like what youre doing. That means its a mental disorder. As long as its not wrecking your life, causing you to be miserable  then its not a mental disorder.

Working with that, I looked at the spectrum of compulsions. And, without minimizing that many people do have a disorder  and it is horrible, and ruining their lives, and they are really suffering  there are other people who act compulsively and its not any of those things.

While compulsions bring relief, they bring little enjoyment, and while with one part of our brain we desperately wish to stop them, with another we are desperately afraid of stopping.

It makes me think of one of the people you interview in your book  a woman named Bianca, who gets up and does yoga for 45 minutes and rides her bike for 75 minutes, every morning, no matter what.

Right. Well, some people like that have other things going on. Like, many compulsive exercisers also have an eating disorder. And that qualifies as a mental disorder, because an eating disorder cause impairment  they just wreak horrible physiological damage. So even if youre fine with the behavior, you still have the disorder because its impairing your physiology. But, anyway, yes, I think Bianca is a good example of that earlier point.

All right, Im going to ask a personal question. I would say I check my phone  and, more specifically, Twitter  compulsively. Maybe the behavior doesnt rise to the level of a disorder, but I also hate it and wish I could stop. So: Help.

There this idea thats a little bit like the cognitive behavioral therapy for OCD, where you try just a little bit of something that causes you anxiety and you just try to build up tolerance to it. So the analogy for digital stuff is, okay, try to sleep for the night without your phone actually on, or without your phone on your pillow. And if you manage to get to the next morning and it hasnt been horribly, cripplingly anxiety-producing, then maybe you want to try something else later on  maybe youre not going to check your phone when youre having a drink with friends. Or just fill in the blank. But the idea is to try just a little bit of time and see if you can stand the anxiety.

This is a very still-developing area because, clearly, a lot of people are bothered by how attached they are and how needy they are about digital stuff. But the people who are doing things like the National Day of Unplugging, they say that it works for them. And when they spread the word about it, other people find it effective as well.

Ill have to give that a try. But Im also curious to hear you talk about the connection between compulsions and anxiety  specifically, how do compulsive behaviors help to quell anxiety?Right now, the best studied examples are of course in OCD. And there, the source of the anxiety is very, very specific  its this intrusive thought that just kind of takes over and invades your brain. You often dont know where it comes from, but it can be the thought that, I have touched something in the world, and my hands are covered with germs. Or, Something is amiss  the stove is still on, the door is unlocked. So this thought invades your brain, it creates anxiety, and you execute the compulsion. And presto  the anxiety drains away.

So using that model, the researchers who have looked at other compulsive behaviors  including those that dont quite rise to the level of an actual mental disorder  have observed the same thing. So there was Amy, the neuroscience grad student I interview in the book, who is a compulsive hair-puller. She described herself as an anxious person, and she said that the anxiety builds up and builds up and builds up, and she then pulls out her hair. Now, in that case, its a sort of free-floating anxiety. Its not like anxiety that I have too much hair, and therefore Im pulling it out. So in that way its different from OCD, where the thing that you do addresses the thing that made you anxious. With hair-pulling, its just this free-floating anxiety, and she pulls out her hair, and then she feels normal again.

So in a less dramatic example, I interviewed people with mild compulsions, who expressed just a free-floating anxiety about, The world is spinning out of control. And, I should say, I conducted these interviews before last November 8. And you know, there are just countless things that we cant control. But for one woman I interviewed, she told me, Okay, no matter what is going on in the outside world, I can control this little bit of it here in my home. And that gives me a sense of agency  it makes me think that there are at least a few little things I can do to control the world I live in.

You know, speaking of November 8  have you noticed people saying their compulsive urges have increased since the election? Just speaking anecdotally, I certainly have.

Right, so this obviously is anecdotal, but for what its worth  I was just thinking back to the Womens March. And a lot of people who were there said in interviews that they just could not stand to sit still, to sit in their homes and not be part of this.

I dont think any of us are under the illusion that that alone will, you know, keep Betsy DeVos from being education secretary, or just pick your favorite example. But the feeling the Womens March participants described really was a feeling of, I cant just sit here. And it made me glad in retrospect that I included a chapter in the book on compulsions to do good things. Because if that feeling of anxiety mobilizes you to get the heck up and out and do something  well, then I think we should all be pretty grateful that that form of compulsion exists.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Well damn, Milo.

Jenna Stoyanov is a 19-year-old college student who describes herself as embarrassingly obsessed with cats. So while shes away from home studying journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, her mom sends her plenty of photos of her cats  Milo and Foster  back home. This week, Milo learned how to scale the familys refrigerator to lap water out of the in-door dispenser. A feat which Stoyanovs mom managed to get a picture of, prompting her to post a now-viral tweet. (Stoyanovs picture of Milo has been retweeted over 39,000 times and counting.)

my cat figured out how the fridge works and now he's turnt on fresh, crisp water pic.twitter.com/t9LfWwhbwh  jenna (@jennastoya) February 8, 2017

He jumped from the ground and we didnt see him do it. I looked up and was like WHAT???? I just happened to have my phone in my hand, and took the picture before I yelled at him to get down, Stoyanovs mom told her about seeing the cat clinging to the front of the fridge. She guesses Milo hung on for about a minute and a half. He probably would have stayed for a long time if my mom didnt yell at him, she told Select All. If my mom catches him again, shell probably put the fridge on child lock so it wont dispense anymore, Stoyanov said. But other than that, I dont think theres anything else we can do.
An unprecedented number of women are stepping up to run for office. Photo: Getty Images

On Inauguration Weekend, an estimated 3.2 million people in hundreds of cities across the country took to the streets to protest the incoming president. More than 400,000 people marched in Washington, D.C., similar numbers turned out in New York and Los Angeles, and even in Houston, Phoenix, New Orleans, Santa Fe, and Reno, marchers numbered in the tens of thousands. It was, as organizers promised it would be, the most massive coordinated demonstration an incoming president has ever faced. But its real power will be measured not in crowd size but in the lasting impact it has on the political process. And one of the clearest results of the march  and of the election as a whole  is the wave of political participation among women at local, state, and national levels thats emerging in its wake.

The day after Womens Marches swept the country, 500 women gathered in an auditorium in Washington, D.C.s Grand Hyatt Hotel. Each one had registered to complete EMILYs Lists candidate training program, which would better equip them to run for public office. According to EMILYs List, a week before the training was scheduled to take place it had already sold out, and 500 more women were on the waiting list. EMILYs List president Stephanie Schriock said the organization holds these types of trainings often, but the incredible energy around this one is unique. We spend a lot of time recruiting, she said. [Now] were seeing women calling us.

Like-minded organizations have reported similar spikes in interest. VoteRunLead reported that in the past two months, more than 2,300 women have signed up to take its online course, and the organizations January 7 seminar registered 1,200 women in less than 48 hours. Since Election Day, EMILYs List has had more than 4,000 people reach out to say theyre interested in running  1,660 since Inauguration Day. And according to a She Should Run spokesperson, in a normal month the organization sees at best, and with significant effort, anywhere between a few dozen to a few hundred women sign up. But in the three months since the election, co-founder and CEO Erin Loos Cutraro said 8,100 women have indicated their interest in running for office by registering for She Should Runs online incubator program, which teaches them how. Whats more, Cutraro said things show no sign of slowing. We had a staff meeting, and we were going over numbers, Cutraro said. Our community manager said, But hold on  we got 100 more last night.

The United States pathetic record on women in politics (women only hold about 20 percent of all national-level seats, and the local numbers are just as bad) is due in large part to the fact that women just dont run for office at the same rate as men. When they do run, theyre elected and reelected at about the same rate as their male counterparts  as EMILYs List president Stephanie Schriock put it, If we were in a country where women didnt feel there were obstacles in the way, wed be in a country where there were an equal number of women and men running for office. But judging by the numbers, women are increasingly willing to face those obstacles. And that could mean the beginning of the end of gender disparity in American politics.

The explosion in interest is a surprising byproduct of an election in which Americas first-ever major-party female candidate for president lost narrowly to a man who during the campaign seemed to confess to serial sexual assault. Hillary Clintons supporters also watched her be picked apart with a type of scrutiny thats rarely applied to men. But when I talked to the women gathered at the Grand Hyatt, almost all of them cited the election as motivation. Having Trump win has made me realize how complacent I was about a lot of things, said Bonnie Casillas, 23, whos from California and would like to run for governor  especially after learning all of the states governors have been men. And although the policy area that most interests her is immigration (both her parents came to the United States from Mexico), she said another key reason shes running is to dismantle the stereotypes Clinton faced. People arent born thinking women are too hormonal to do something  thats a cultural thing, she said. A lot of women are fed up with that. Casillas wants to prove them wrong.

Thirty-year-old Jamila Aswad also said she saw the election as a challenge to womens leadership. Shes from D.C. by way of California, but before moving to Washington she spent some time in St. Louis. Shes interested in running for office because she wants to see concrete change in red states like Missouri. Im tired of thinking, Where can I not live based on the policies?, said Aswad, whos a member of the African-American Policy Forum. I want to make everywhere a place where I feel comfortable living. Shes planning a stint abroad, but when she comes back Stateside, Missouri might get her attention. Theres a lot of need there, she said. But once Im back, where should I start?

And Maritza Zermano, whos 53, said shell run for office as soon as a local government seat opens up in her hometown of Mount Vernon, Washington, because she doesnt see herself represented in government  either as a woman or as a Latina. For three years I was part of a committee that helped to elect Democrats, but there was no diversity, she said. There was nobody I could identify [with]. Thats not right.

That was another common thread among the women there for the candidate training: Every single one wanted to change something concrete. According to Cutraro, this is a common characteristic of women who seek office  running to get something specific done, versus simply to gain power.

The training EMILYs List offered was designed to give them a jumping-off point. Assisted by a series of slides, Wambu Kraal started her lecture by telling other womens stories. Senator Elizabeth Warrens political career, she said, began with a simple donation  an action more and more have taken following this years election. She traced Warrens path from stay-at-home mom to lawyer to law professor to Congressional Oversight Panel member to senator, somehow making it sound accessible. Then, she addressed things like the confidence gap, an unwillingness to fundraise, sexism on the campaign trail, and other barriers that all too often make women think theyre not a good fit for public office. Now is the time, she said, to break them down: If you think there are too many barriers to running, who the heck is going to remove them?

When these women do run, itll likely be at a local level  Aswad wasnt ready to plunge into the Missouri House of Representatives race, but said shed look into City Council or school-board positions. Before she considered running for governor, Castillas said she was thinking about running for a local position in her California hometown. As Wambu Kraal put it, the state and local offices are going to be ground zero [to deal with] this nonsense.

Statistically, some of the 500 women who attended the training (or the 7,000 women involved in She Should Run, or the 2,300 who signed up to take VoteRunLeads online course) wont run for office at all. But that doesnt mean theyll fall off the radar  plenty will get behind female candidates, even if they dont run their own campaigns. In the end, what will keep them involved is the community they create around issues they care about. Its not just about running, said Marianna Anaya, 27, whos on the board of Emerge New Mexico, another organization that aims to attract Democratic women. (Incidentally, she said applications to Emerge skyrocketed this year.) Programs like this create a culture, so its important that the culture remains and that its cyclical.

Of course, its still unclear whether the explosion of interest at ground level will yield results in, say, the 2018 election. Schriock is optimistic. I see this as a new beginning, she said. I think youre going to see a new generation of women leaders rise up and change this country. But even if Schriocks grand vision of the future fails to materialize, the women who run arent going anywhere  theyll be right at the forefront of what seems likely to become a serious social movement. The dominant culture has always framed us as submissive, but were not, Anaya said. Women are resilient.
The Trumps. Photo: Christopher Gregory/Getty Images

On Wednesday, President Trump lashed out at Nordstrom on Twitter for dropping his daughter Ivankas brand from their stores. The previous day, his wife Melania refiled her $150 million libel lawsuit against the Daily Mails parent company, saying she has lost major business opportunities because of retracted claims that her old Slovenian modeling agency was also an escort service. Now, watchdogs and former presidential ethics advisers are speaking out, saying the Trump family is trying to use the White House to expand their business empires, the Guardian reports.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Obamas former chief ethics adviser Norman Eisen said, The Trumps are using the White House like the Kardashians used reality TV, to build and vastly expand their overall business enterprises. Likewise, George W. Bushs former ethics adviser Richard Painter said the language of Melanias Daily Mail lawsuit suggests she may be in an unprecedented, clear breach of rules about using her government position for private gain.

Per the Guardian:

An AP review of business filings has found that Melania Trump has not stepped away from companies that manage royalties from her name-branded products. As of Tuesday, she was listed in New York filings as the CEO of Melania Marks Accessories Member Corp, the holding company of Melania Marks Accessories LLC, both of which remain active. Those companies managed between $15,000 and $50,000 in royalties from her accessories lines, the Trumps May 2016 financial disclosure filing shows.

The general counsel of the watchdog Project on Government Oversight, Scott Amey, called Melanias ongoing businesses another example of the first family blurring the line between public service and private business interests. The Guardian also notes that while the president has handed over daily management of his real-estate, property-management, and licensing business to his adult sons and a longtime employee, he clearly continues to financially benefit from his global business empire in a break from past practices.
cast jordan in everything! he's so cute and talented

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Jordan Fisher won me over the moment I saw his performance of Those Magic Changes in Grease Live. Cast him in everything tbh x

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He's great and talented and seems nice, he'd make a cute Benny, although it is hard to fill Chris' shoes. Damn, he was such a hot Benny. He could be a great Sonny but he's not Latino, sadly.



Diane Guerrero for Vanessa, please!

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diane as vanessa is the one i want the most. idk if i could accept anyone else as vanessa in the movie tbh.

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omg jordan fisher is soooo handsome <3

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yesss do it! i love him

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the show is in austin this summer and i'd reaaaalllly to go!

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I was in LOVE with him during Grease until I googled and saw he was my brother's age :(

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*it's been 84 years gif*



i;ve been waiting for an "in the heights" movie since forever~~~

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Yay Jordan Fisher!



He was so great in Liv and Maddie. I listen to his version of "You're Welcome" so much more than The Rock's.

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Learn more about LiveJournal Ratings in Hello! Your entry got to top-25 of the most popular entries in LiveJournal!Learn more about LiveJournal Ratings in FAQ

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I'm sure this play is nice and everything but the actual Heights is a miserable hell hole



Edited at 2017-02-09 06:17 am (UTC)

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I need this movie in my life ASAP

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Oh, the kid from Grease. Yeah, I can see that. He's got a pretty good voice.

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I adore Jordan. He's so charming in everything he is in, and seems like a nice guy irl.

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well can he try to be in the casting room then because if not we are going to get some reject from a failed Freeform pilot.

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My friends and I just saw him in Hamilton this past Friday. HE IS PRECIOUS.

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Mine too! He really stole all of his scenes.

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I still swoon over this damn performance

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Cool

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OPEC provide a shot in the arm for oil prices this week when S&P Global Platts reported a much higher than expected compliance rate for the month of June. So far, OPEC has achieved 91 percent of its promised production cuts, impressing many oil watchers who expected mutual antipathy and mistrust to get in the way of cooperation.

But the success of the deal could be undermined by a few members within OPEC that are not part of the deal. Libya and Nigeria were given exemptions, due to the sizable portion of oil production capacity sidelined because of war, sabotage and political strife in both countries.

There are still very large question marks over the stability of these two countries, but it is not impossible that some of the obstacles start to clear and more production comes back online. Libya produced just under 700,000 bpd in January, a remarkable rebound from the recent past. That figure is up about 500,000 bpd from its lowest point last year, while up more than 100,000 bpd since the OPEC deal was announced. The more Libya raises output the more it will offset some of the punch packed by the OPEC deal.

Libya is targeting production of 900,000 bpd by the end of the year, a feat that will be difficult to achieve but not out of the realm of possibility. To help its cause, a major oil export terminal was brought online a few weeks ago. Nevertheless, political instability and rival factions fighting for power in different parts of the country, combined with the threat of ISIS, all stand in the way of Libyas objective.

Nigeria has had much less success in recent months. S&P Global Platts puts Nigerias January production at just 1.65 mb/d, roughly flat compared to 2016 levels and down sharply from 2015. In fact, 2016 was a horrific year for Nigeria. While the country has long suffered from theft, sabotage, and a growing internal security threat from a variety of militant groups in both the north and in the Niger Delta, 2016 proved to be a low point, at least from the oil sectors point of view. The surprisingly successful campaign of attacks from the Niger Delta Avengers took Nigerian oil production from over 2 mb/d at its highest point in 2015 down to 1.4 mb/d last summer, the lowest production level in thirty years. Related: Electric Vehicles Will Be A Major Oil Price Driver In The Future

Attacks hit the industry on multiple fronts, destroying platforms, pipelines and export terminals. Just as Libya feels optimistic about its ability to ramp up production and exports because it brought a major terminal back online, one of the keys to Nigerias success will be the Forcados export terminal, Nigerias third largest. Forcados, which has an export capacity of over 200,000 bpd, was offline for most of last year because of multiple attacks. Nigerias oil minister repeatedly predicted its imminent restart in 2016, but to no avail. There is currently no timeline for when it might be brought back online.

Nigeria has roughly 500,000 bpd offline because of security issues, Manji Cheto, senior vice president for West Africa at Teneo Intelligence, told Bloomberg.

To be sure, it would be foolish to think this capacity could come back online quickly or easily. But the government is making a concerted effort to reduce attacks, reversing its decision to scrap years of supporting the amnesty program for militants, in which former militants are paid a stipend to essentially remain peaceful. The surge in attacks last year came as President Muhammadu Buhari suspended the program. Reeling from the wave of attacks, the President called for restoring funding for amnesty in an effort to bring back a semblance of peace. Related: Expensive Middle East Crude Could Lose Market Share To U.S. Shale

It is a little early, but this could breathe a bit of life into Nigerias struggling oil sector. The government is already engaging the Niger delta inhabitants towards creating an enabling environment for us to drive our production back up, Wale Tinubu, CEO of Oando Plc, a small Nigerian energy company, told Bloomberg. I know for a fact were going to get an improvement.

So, we have Libya hoping to bring back at least 200,000 bpd on top of the almost 200,000 bpd it added since OPEC announced its deal in November. Then there is some 0.5 mb/d that Nigeria has sitting offline, and while it would probably be overly ambitious for it to restore all of that output anytime soon, the government is determined to restore some of it.

All eyes are on OPEC cuts, but new supply could be coming from more than a handful of sources in 2017, and Libya and Nigeria are just two of the countries hoping to add production this year. In a sign that there is waning confidence in the six-month OPEC deal, the oil ministers from Iran and Qatar recently hinted that the deal might need to be extended through the end of the year for the oil market to balance.

By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com

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While the Eastern Mediterranean is well known for its major (and underexploited) gas reserves, Lebanon is the latest country in the region to join the oil rush, after Egypts fitful entry into the market and Israels more straightforward path to exporter status. Seismic surveys in 2013 estimated Lebanons offshore fields to hold 96 trillion cubic feet of gas and 850 million barrels of oil. On January 27th, the government finally opened the bidding for five offshore blocks in a first licensing round, after a three-year delay brought upon by political instability.

The fractious Lebanese government hopes that these energy reserves and the wealth that should come with them will alleviate the countrys notorious power shortages and budget deficits. But, history is littered with examples of fragile countries going completely off the rails because of the warping effects oil has on their economies  will Lebanon follow suit or can Beirut dodge the resource curse?

Michel Aoun, who was elected President at the end of October, after a grueling 29-month standoff, vowed to use the fund for the good of the Lebanese people, financing development projects and revamping ailing infrastructure. In this, his government wants to follow the example of developed economies that have the advantage of better governance and economic planning, greater regional security, and long-established transparency practices. However, even if Lebanons estimated reserves turn out to be as substantial and as profitable as its leaders predict, replicating that success wont be an easy feat.

For the time being, the government is off to a good start. To send a message that it will handle the future proceeds from exploiting its reserves responsibly, Beirut is pushing a plan that would require all oil-generated proceeds be deposited into a national sovereign wealth fund (SWF), which emulates the path followed by Norway and more recently by Saudi Arabia.

Norway, the country that manages the worlds largest wealth fund, sets the gold standard when it comes to transparency. The Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) publishes online details of every investment it makes to uphold its culture of political trust. As former fund supervisor Martin Skancke put it, the trust the fund enjoys comes down to relatively high levels of equality and cultural homogeneity. Even with unexpected bumper profits, Nordic frugality and trust in government meant the public has thus far been content to put hundreds of billions into the fund and let the money stay there. Related: The Unlikely Alliance Between Trump And Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabias SWF is still a work in progress and is the result of the Kingdoms Vision 2030 economic diversification plan. The centerpiece of the strategy is to sell a 5 percent stake in Saudi Aramco (whose total reserves add up to 260 billion barrels), the proceeds of which will go towards increasing the countrys Public Investment Fund (PIF), which made headlines in 2016 with its $3.5 billion investment in Uber and $100 billion joint initiative with Japans SoftBank. The strategy is paying off, as financial service hubs are jockeying to host the listing, although some candidates are going the extra mile: on her trip to Bahrain in December to attend the Gulf Cooperation Council summit, Britains Theresa May highlighted Saudi Arabias status as a trusted partner and pointed to Vision 2030 as an example of the reform her government wants to encourage in the oil-dependent Gulf monarchies. The kind words had an ulterior motive: London is a leading candidate for a share of the Aramco listing, and Saudi Arabia is one of the markets May needs to make her Brexit strategy work.

But can Lebanon really replicate Norways prudent management or Saudis global appeal? Aouns promises hit the right notes, but Lebanons precarious stability and endless political wrangling could lead its own sovereign wealth fund straight into a brick wall. Even if the security situation has been relatively calm amidst regional turmoil, oil and gas initiatives were paralyzed for years over political battles and the fight for the presidency.

If officials in Norway point to homogeneity as an explanation for good governance, Lebanon is the exact opposite. Not only is the country home to 18 sectarian groups, but it also hosts one of the largest refugee populations in the world. Each of the sectarian communities, several of which have their own armed militias, has a say in power sharing. This makes political consensus shaky and turf wars a matter of armed conflict as much as backdoor horse-trading. The countrys rival power centers already fight constantly over the tools of state, and a major influx of oil revenue could become the new apple of discord in simmering sectarian rivalries between Lebanons Sunni, Shia, and Maronite Christian communities.

There are plenty of examples for how such a scenario could play out. Econometric studies demonstrate that the more countries depend on oil & gas exports, the higher the risk of civil conflict goes. Three factors that explain this correlation: resource rents can incentivize challenges to the central government, rebel groups can finance their operations thanks to resource wealth, and poor governance and corruption can lead to grievances and rebellion. Related: Time Bomb In Oil Markets: Goldman Sachs Issues Warning

Nigeria, to take just one example, illustrates how mismanaging oil wealth can actually reduce prosperity and heighten insecurity. Not only did the average Nigerian become worse off in relative terms in the last three decades, but the state has to deal with insurgent militias that blackmail government with attacks on its oil infrastructure.

Such a scenario is just as plausible in Lebanon. If Hezbollah  which, in addition to being an armed movement, is also one of the leading political parties  were to benefit from the new revenues, Lebanons energy infrastructure could become a target for Israel or for rival domestic groups in future conflicts. Conversely, if Hezbollah were frozen out of a future government, it could copy the playbook written by the Niger Delta Avengers in Nigeria by attacking production facilities and pipelines. The civil war in Syria has already deeply impacted Lebanon, and theres no telling what the security outlook will look like over the next few years.

In short, Lebanons leaders need to be extremely prudent in how they go about launching their countrys energy industry. While the revenues could be a long-term salve in terms of financial stability, they could also make Lebanons volatile internal politics even deadlier. Its a fine line between a blessing and a curse.

By Scott Belinksi for Oilprice.com

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The blog ad industry has blackballed me and all of my websites because of my political views, so I can no longer support this site through ads. Accordingly, I have posted

my resume

for prospective employers to view.


 :     ,   ,   

  ,        , -     28         .
By Jacob Vandever



In recent days it seems that our beloved elected official is in a competition of sorts to see who can oppose President Trump the most. So lets take a look at the participants and see if we can predict who will take home the gold in the Resistance Olympics.

Senator Merkley currently advertises on his Facebook page for folks to Join the Resistance against President Trump. The good Senator has voted against five out of the seven cabinet nominees who have gone before the full Senate. That includes voting against Elaine Chao for Transportation Secretary. Chao was the first Asian-American woman to be appointed to the Presidents cabinet when she served as Secretary of Labor under President George W Bush. Prior to that Chao served as the Deputy Secretary of Transportation under George H W Bush, but apparently, those qualifications werent good enough for Senator Merkley and his resistance. Senator Gillibrand from New York is the only person who has voted against more nominees than our dear Senator. Additionally, before President Trump even announced his nominee to the Supreme Court, Senator Merkley pledged to Filibuster that appointment.

Governor Brown recently made headlines with the formation of her Social Action Team intended to oppose President Trumps actions and expand Governor Browns reelection campaign email list of course. In reaction to Trumps executive orders, Governor Brown also doubled down on Oregons status as a Sanctuary state and directed the Attorney General of Oregon to fight against the travel ban from the Trump administration.

Finally, lets take a look at Senator Wyden. Wyden voted against four of the seven nominees that have gone before the Senate. In his role as the ranking Democrat on the Senate finance committee, Wyden led a walkout intended to stall the confirmation of Steven Mnuchin for Secretary of the Treasury. Then on his Facebook page, Wyden has up petitions to tell the Senate to reject Scott Pruitt, Trumps nominee for head of the Environmental Protection Agency and one telling President Trump to release his tax returns.

Those are just a few of the Oregon politicians vying for the gold. Remember three of our congressional representatives Earl Blumenauer, Peter DeFazio, and Kurt Schrader refused to attend the inauguration of President Trump.

So while our leaders are busy fundraising and building up their email list off of opposition to President Trump, Oregon is being left off the list of infrastructure projects being prioritized by the Trump Administration and federal funding is being put in jeopardy because of Oregons status as a sanctuary state.

We will see who ends up being the winner in the Trump Resistance Olympics, but I highly doubt it will be the people of Oregon.

Jacob Vandever is the editor of Oregon Upstart, the newest conservative blog on the Oregon political scene.
China invited British PM to attend summit on new Silk Road

China has invited British Prime Minister Theresa May to attend a major summit in May on its "One Belt, One Road" initiative to build a new Silk Road, diplomatic sources told Reuters, as London said she would visit China this year.



"One Belt, One Road" is Chinese President Xi Jinping's landmark programme to invest billions of dollars in infrastructure projects including railways, ports and power grids across Asia, 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 $50b China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.



China has so far given few details about who will attend the summit, to be held in Beijing.



The country's top diplomat, State Councillor Yang Jiechi, told the official China Daily last week that leaders from about 20 countries have confirmed their participation, representing Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America, though he did not give names.



One Beijing-based diplomatic source with direct knowledge of the invite list told Reuters that May was among the leaders who had been invited.



"China is choosing the countries it sees as friends and who will be most influential in promoting 'One Belt, One Road'," said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity.



Two other diplomatic sources confirmed May was on the invite list. "It's China's most important diplomatic event of the year," one of the sources told Reuters.



Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said plans for the summit are proceeding smoothly, and that details of the participants will be announced at a later date.



"China welcomes Prime Minister May to visit China at the appropriate time," Lu told a daily news briefing.



Sri Lanka has already confirmed its prime minister is coming, and China says Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is also attending.



Foreign leaders often combine attendances at important multilateral events China is hosting with official state visits to China.



Speaking in London, May's aides confirmed she would visit China this year to discuss trade ties, the latest in a series of foreign trips to cement relations with major powers as she negotiates Britain's divorce from the European Union.



May's aides gave few details about the trip, but she is keen to strengthen her hand by securing foreign support before launching Brexit talks, which are set to be among the most complicated Britain has ever undertaken.



"It would be a renewed expression of the close relationship between Britain and China, something that you have seen obviously develop over the past few years," May's spokesman told reporters on Tuesday.



"I would imagine that trade would form some part of the discussions that we have."



The Commerce Ministry has said China has an open attitude towards a free trade deal with Britain once it leaves the EU and was willing to study it, but Chinese officials have otherwise said little publicly about the subject.



May attended a summit in China of the G20 leading economies last September, shortly after she became prime minister following June's referendum vote to leave the EU, and was invited by Xi to visit again.



With May having made clear she plans for Britain to leave the EU's single market, trade has dominated her talks with foreign leaders in recent months.



She has secured assurances from US President Donald Trump, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other world powers that they are keen to start talks on boosting links.



But her attempts to up the stakes in talks with the EU, which she is due to launch before the end of March, have also drawn criticism.



Some opposition lawmakers have accused May of ducking difficult issues to win promises for trade - a charge repeated when she became the first foreign leader late last month to meet Trump, who has since been criticized over his immigration curbs.



She also came under fire for strengthening ties with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who has been criticized by rights groups for jailing tens of thousands of people after a failed coup in July.
The mathematical (and other) thoughts of a (now retired) math teacher,
Jan-Henrik Forster of Bloomberg reports the clock is ticking for private equity to spend through tough times: Time is ticking away for private equity firms to get ready for their next wave of deals. Rising interest rates, inflation and recession risks have eroded consumer confidence and left buyout firms facing a new reality of higher financing costs and potentially lower returns. None of which changes the fact theres more than $1 trillion sitting in their funds that needs to be spent. People say theres no financing available but then our clients are telling us we have a big fund that we have to deploy, said Umberto Giacometti, co-head of financial sponsors in Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Nomura Holdings Inc. If you need to deploy, say, $10 billion in four years, and dont do anything for sixth months, you are under pressure. The shift is profound for an asset class that for more than a decade was flooded with cash from investors hunting yield in a low-i
GLENS FALLS  To visit with the art of Allen Blagden is to visit with the soul of nature.

There is an intimacy between the contemporary realist and his art that reveals a reverence for and a love of nature. Whether its the vast swath of sky broken only by the wings of soaring eagles, the gentle coating of new snow on a fawns back, the piercing eyes of three wolves or the upturned corner of a bears mouth, Blagden offers enticing glimpses of nature at its most vulnerable.

He has an uncanny ability to empathize with his subject whether human or animal, said Caroline Welsh, director emerita of the Adirondack Museum and the curator of an upcoming exhibit of Blagdens work at The Hyde Collection.

You feel at times like he has a sense of whimsy about it, Welsh said, sharing a story about the watercolor, Gossip. In the 2012 creation, three white crowned pigeons are casually grouped together with the middle pigeon looking over her shoulder as if the trio was just caught sharing secrets.

And on Sunday, a retrospective exhibition, Marking the Moment: The Art of Allen Blagden, opens to the public at The Hyde in Glens Falls.

We are thrilled to have the works of one of the nations greatest watercolorists at The Hyde, said Erin Coe, museum director. He combines a naturalists love and respect for his subjects with a mastery of watercolor.

Spend even five minutes with Blagden and its easy to feel his love for the natural world and how spending idyllic summers, as he calls them, with his grandparents at Upper Saranac Lake filled his childhood and colored his lens of the natural world. He talks easily and delightedly about his white pigeons, his dogs and even the baby possum that showed up last fall for a time.

And while Blagden calls Salisbury, Connecticut, home, a piece of the artist remains in the Adirondacks and he keeps returning to the place of childhood dreams. Hes had shows in Tupper Lake, Lake Placid and nearby Bennington, Vermont. And several large pieces are part of the permanent collection at the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake.

There are two huge watercolors, five-foot by three-foot watercolors, he said.

And Welsh, who brought the idea for the Blagden show to the Hyde, said her connection to Blagden spans nearly three decades. I met Allen in the late 1980s. And in 1992, for the centennial of the Adirondack Park, we asked him to create a special painting to commemorate the centennial.

Welch continued.

He painted Buttermilk Falls in winter, she said. It was an unusual perspective capturing it when it is frozen. We were ultimately able to collect that painting and then we kept in touch.

Blagden, born in New York City in 1938, has been an artist for most of his life. It was a seed first planted by his art teacher father, Thomas Blagden.

My father was the art teacher at the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut, he said. He would come home with supplies and there was this long bench where he would put them. I remember running and sliding across the floor and grabbing them.

Early in his career, Blagden was an illustrator for the Department of Ornithology at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., but he said he was heading toward scientific illustration, a road he was not really interested in taking. So he moved on, working in New Mexico as a cinematographer for Denny McCoy, Andrew Wyeths nephew. It was a film on Billy the Kid.

Interestingly, Blagdens work has often been compared to Wyeths.

Soon after his short stint in filmmaking, Blagden decided to return to painting.

I kind of missed painting, he said. And thats when I decided to treat it like a job and work nine to five.

But a commitment to his art did not mean he controlled where it was heading. My subjects find me, he said. I can walk in the studio and have nothing planned and I dont come out until dark.

As far as his show at The Hyde?

Welsh said this is his first major retrospective.

There are 47 pieces from private collections. He is an unrivaled painter of birds and animals, she said. I thought it was important to not only show the arc of his career, but he is a very fine portrait painter and those pieces are also important.

These days Blagden has been rediscovering painting in oils.

I speak the language of watercolor, but now Im back learning and thats a good thing, he said. It keeps us young.
FORT EDWARD  A Vermont woman who received a nine-year prison sentence in a heroin possession case, after perjuring herself to try to help a co-defendant, lost a bid Thursday to have an appeals court toss out her sentence.

Anna L. Garrow, 25, of Rutland, was sentenced in 2014 after cutting a plea deal and agreeing to cooperate against a New York City man, but then revising her version of events at his trial after her plea.

Her initial plea deal called for a two-year prison term, but Washington County Judge Kelly McKeighan sentenced her to 9 years after she gave false testimony in the trial of Robert Nelson, 25, of New York City. Authorities found numerous letters Nelson wrote to Garrow instructing her how to testify. Nelson later received a 15-year prison sentence.

Garrow appealed to the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, which ruled Thursday that McKeighan had grounds to impose the longer sentence.

Garrow and Nelson were part of a group that was arrested after a September 2013 traffic stop in Fort Ann, transporting nearly 600 bags of heroin and $4,000 in cash.
FORT ANN  State Police seized 9 ounces of cocaine during a traffic stop early Thursday on Route 149, netting a Vermont woman the state's weightiest drug charge, authorities said.

The seizure was one of the biggest in the region's recent history, and came after a woman who police believe was transporting the drugs from Pennsylvania to northern Vermont was stopped for speeding, authorities said.

Donna LaRose, 56, of St. Albans, Vermont, was stopped by state troopers Aaron Mound and Jason Gutowski just after 1:30 a.m. when she was spotted driving a minivan 58 mph in a 45 mph zone, officials said.

LaRose was also found to be driving with a suspended license, and as police searched her vehicle following that arrest, two bags containing a large quantity of a white powder were found hidden under a seat, officials said. It was field tested and found to be cocaine, officials said.

LaRose was not cooperative with officers as to the source of the drugs, but indicated she had been in Philadelphia and was being paid $200 to transport the drugs, police said.

"Her story was that she was headed to Vermont from Pennsylvania," State Police Senior Investigator Robert Stampfli said.

LaRose was also found to have prescription pills for which she didn't have a prescription, and was charged with a felony count of first-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance and misdemeanor charge of criminal possession of a controlled substance, according to State Police.

First-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance is filed when a person has 8 ounces or more of cocaine.

She was arraigned in Fort Ann Town Court and sent to Washington County Jail without bail, as no bail can be set on a Class A felony, the state's weightiest drug charge, at the lower court level.

LaRose faces up to 20 years in state prison if convicted of the charge.

State Police asked that anyone who had contact with LaRose or had information about her activities to contact them at 642-9455 or 692-3015.

The cocaine seizure was the biggest in Washington County since a January 2014 seizure of a pound of crack cocaine from a Hartford home. Police have made a number of large drug seizures along the Route 149-Route 4 corridor in recent years, typically netting dealers and couriers bringing drugs to Vermont.
QUEENSBURY  The circumstances of Kevin Jenks death were consistent with two people killing him, given no signs of a struggle before his death, a doctor told a Warren County jury on Thursday.

Forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Sikirica told the jury hearing the murder case that Jenks had only a minor leg injury and neck injuries when Sikirica performed an autopsy last July 8.

He concluded that Jenks was likely overpowered given the lack of injuries and material under his fingernails that would have been found had he fought back.

Was there any indication Kevin Jenks put up a fight? Warren County District Attorney Matt Burin asked.

No, Sikirica replied.

The physician testified as Robert M. Divine Henrys trial on murder, robbery and burglary charges in Jenks death continued for a ninth day.

Henry, 46, of Ilion and co-defendant Kevin S. Chapman, 49, of Herkimer, are accused of choking the 58-year-old Jenks to death in his Glens Falls home last July 6 before stealing thousands of dollars worth of valuables from him. Chapman has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and is expected to testify Friday.

Sikirica was the first medical expert to testify, and he told the jury he concluded Jenks was the victim of strangulation, and one or more people could have been responsible.

But on cross examination by defense lawyer Tucker Stanclift, he acknowledged he told the Warren County grand jury that indicted Henry that he believed the evidence was consistent with a large male killing Jenks, based on the absence of a struggle.

Chapman is much larger than Henry.

Burin, though, pointed out that the defendants told police Jenks was bound and gagged before his death, and Sikirica acknowledged a smaller person could have choked Jenks to death in the position on a bed where he was found.

There has been no DNA evidence in the prosecutions case, as authorities said none was recovered from Jenks body or home, at least in part because the suspects were believed to have worn gloves that they stole from a convenience store on their way to Glens Falls.

The jury also saw more video of Henrys questioning by police and heard more testimony from one of the investigators who interviewed him.

State Police Investigator David Mosher testified about Henrys changing version of events, which ended with him telling police on video that he saw Chapman kill Jenks.

Chappy had a pillow over his head and hand around his neck, he said. I was like Nah, dont do that, Chappy was like, Shut up and go to the car. I couldnt stop him, there was nothing I could do.

What I did was wrong. Im caught, I did it, credit cards, jewelry, CDs, I did it. As far as murdering somebody, its never been my nature, it never will be, he said on the video.

The jury on Thursday saw surveillance video of a man who appears to be Henry using one of Jenks credit cards at a Wal-Mart store in central New York to buy jewelry for his girlfriend and other items the day after the homicide.

Henry is charged with murder under a theory of law that makes it murder for a death to occur during the commission of another felony.

The jury did not see the entire 3.5-hour video of Henrys questioning.
FORT EDWARD  After 38 years of public service, Fort Edward Supervisor Mitch Suprenant is retiring.

He has been town supervisor for 10 years. He wont run for a sixth term this fall, he said.

My wife is retired. We do a lot of traveling, but I dont like missing meetings, he said.

Its been hard to squeeze time for trips between town meetings, county committee meetings and the monthly county meeting.

And next year were spending four weeks in Aruba. Its hard to fit it in, he said.

He also wants to see his daughter more often. She lives in Chicago.

Before running for office, Suprenant was a police officer in Fort Edward for 28 years, rising to chief.

I did 38 years of public service, he said. And now I am going to kick back and relax.

Suprenant currently chairs the county Public Safety Committee.

Hes not the only supervisor who has announced he wont run for re-election.

Whitehall Supervisor George Armstrong announced his retirement last fall, when he sold his vegetable farm and moved to a smaller house in the village.

But Armstrong might not fully retire  he is weighing a run for school board. He led the board before becoming supervisor.
"Theyre foaming at the mouth practically," Cruz said on "Americas Newsroom."

"It's one of the crutches  when the left doesnt have any other arguments, they go and just accuse everyone of being a racist, and it's an ugly, ugly part of the modern Democratic Party."

"The Democrats are the party of the Ku Klux Klan," he said. "The Dixiecrats, they were Democrats who imposed segregation, imposed Jim Crow laws, who founded the Klan. The Klan was founded by a great many Democrats."
The biggest problem, according to Capt. Joshua Waddell, is "self-delusion."

"Let us first begin with the fundamental underpinnings of this delusion: our measures of performance and effectiveness in recent wars," he wrote. "It is time that we, as professional military officers, accept the fact that we lost the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."

The active-duty infantry officer, who served with and lost Marines under his command with 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, in Afghanistan, didn't come to this conclusion lightly. He said it took several years for him to accept that, with the goal of improving the system.

A case in point, he says, is a comparison of the US military with other adversaries.

The Pentagon's budget dwarfs the combined defense spending of the next 10 countries. The Army and Marine Corps are arguably the best-trained fighting forces in the world. The Air Force has the most high-tech aircraft and weaponry, while the Navy maintains nearly 20 aircraft carriers  far more than adversaries like Russia and China that have only one each.

These stats should mean the US military is unstoppable, but the budget, talk of being the best in the world, and other claims it makes don't square with measures of effectiveness, Waddell writes.

"How, then, have we been bested by malnourished and undereducated men with antiquated and improvised weaponry whilst spending trillions of dollars in national treasure and costing the lives of thousands of servicemen and hundreds of thousands of civilians?" he wrote.

Waddell continues:

"For example, a multibillion-dollar aircraft carrier that can be bested by a few million dollars in the form of a swarming missile barrage or a small unmanned aircraft system (UAS) capable of rendering its flight deck unusable does not retain its dollar value in real terms. Neither does the M1A1 tank, which is defeated by $20 worth of household items and scrap metal rendered into an explosively-formed projectile.

"The Joint Improvised Threat Defeat Organization has a library full of examples like these, and that is without touching the weaponized return on investment in terms of industrial output and capability development currently being employed by our conventional adversaries."

His article isn't just a critique; Waddell offers several solutions to get the military out of the "business-as-usual" mindset that looks good in PowerPoint briefs but doesn't translate to success on the ground.

While military leaders typically complain to Congress that constrained budgets have a "crippling" effect on the military, Waddell says the military should work more efficiently with the money it has. He gives an example of a nation already doing this: Russia.

Moscow's military budget is about $52 billion, versus Washington's proposed defense budget of $583 billion. Yet with far less money, Russia has been a consistent thorn in the US's side in Syria, Ukraine, and now Afghanistan. That's not to mention Moscow's success in cyberwarfare.

"This is the same Russian military whom the RAND Corporation has estimated would be unstoppable in an initial conventional conflict in the Baltic states, even against the combined might of the NATO forces stationed there," Waddell wrote. "Given the generous funding the American people have bequeathed us to provide for the common defense, is it so unreasonable to seek an efficient frontier of that resource's utility?"

Waddell's critique includes a call to fix inefficiencies between the Defense Department getting gear to war fighters, as some have to buy things they need because they don't get there before they deploy. Waddell also calls for an audit of the Marines to see whether there are redundant efforts among contractors.

"There is no reason we should be paying twice for the same work or, as is often the case, paying government personnel for work that they have instead outsourced to more capable contractors for tasks within the government worker's job description," he wrote. "I would be willing to bet that a savvy staff officer with access to these position and billet descriptions as well as contracting line items could save the Marine Corps millions of dollars by simply hitting Control+F (find all) on his keyboard, querying key tasks, and counting redundancies."

It's unclear how much of an effect this op-ed would have on any changes. The Marine Corps Gazette is read mostly by senior Marine leadership, but whether that translates to taking this captain's advice in an institution that is resistant to change is an open question.
They say they found a new cave that their excavations show once held Dead Sea Scrolls, making the total number of Dead Sea Scroll caves 12 instead of 11, as was previously thought. The 11th cave was found 60 years ago.

"This is one of the most exciting archaeological discoveries, and the most important in the last 60 years, in the caves of Qumran," Oren Gutfeld, an archaeologist at the Hebrew University's Institute of Archaeology and director of the excavation, said in a Hebrew University press release announcing the news.

But their excavations also revealed that someone else got there first and looted the caves. Jars that once held scrolls were broken open, their contents removed. Iron pickax heads from the 1950s were stored in the tunnel leading into the cave, which the researchers say indicates Bedouins uncovered the site in the mid-20th century and removed the scrolls.

They left behind fragments of pottery, blank parchment, and cloth that the scrolls likely were wrapped in, along with flint blades, arrowheads, and a decorative stamp that helps date the remnants in the cave.

"Although at the end of the day no scroll was found, and instead we 'only' found a piece of parchment rolled up in a jug that was being processed for writing, the findings indicate beyond any doubt that the cave contained scrolls that were stolen," Gutfeld said. "The findings include the jars in which the scrolls and their covering were hidden, a leather strap for binding the scroll, a cloth that wrapped the scrolls, tendons, and pieces of skin connecting fragments, and more."

And in a way, this changes what we know about the scrolls, which date back to the Second Temple period, or about 530 BC to 70 AD. They include some of the first copies of biblical texts and many other documents from that period.

As Smithsonian magazine explained, these documents have revealed much of what we know about two major world religions and shed light on what life was like at that time: "The Dead Sea Scrolls  comprising more than 800 documents made of animal skin, papyrus, and even forged copper  deepened our understanding of the Bible and shed light on the histories of Judaism and Christianity."

Fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls are thought to have appeared on the "antiquity black market" over the years, according to CNN, which has driven researchers to scour the desert for other caves. The fact that a new cave was found means that what's known about the origin of all known scroll fragments may be incomplete or inaccurate  some may not have come from known caves.

"This exciting excavation is the closest we've come to discovering new Dead Sea scrolls in 60 years. Until now, it was accepted that Dead Sea Scrolls were found only in 11 caves at Qumran, but now there is no doubt that this is the 12th cave," Gutfeld said. "We can no longer be certain that the original locations (Caves 1 through 11) attributed to the Dead Sea scrolls that reached the market via the Bedouins are accurate."

This excavation, which the press release says is part of "Operation Scroll," indicates that more may be out there to be discovered.
Blow Group, manufacturers of Bel-Aqua who are behind the move said the factory will employ about 500 people.

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If you look at all the other brands on the market, they are all imported, so we decided to do a locally manufactured instant noodles product with international quality, he said.

Yum-mie noddle, which received some positive reviews immediately it was introduced into the market, comes in six flavors; chicken, pepper chicken, onion chicken, pepper beef, Jollof, beef and light soup.

Mr Quist said the long-term plan of the company is to empower persons in the noodle food chain to enhance their skills.

Many local industries in Ghana often face stiff competition from importers who usually sell their products at cheap prices.

Mr Quist has, therefore, appealed to the government to intervene and shield local industries from such competition.
My feedback would definitely not be to insult or be aggressive but to correct and deliver words of wisdom that would urge him to channel his career in a much decent & professional way!.

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as she is popularly called added that she is not really perturbed about the Counsellors commentsin her Instagram post.

You are in love with your father. Small girl like you, you want to kill Kofi Adjorlolo. You want to kill the man for us. The only actor we have?, Counsellor Lutterodt lamented in a video leaked online.

READ ALSO:Victoria Lebene

Read Victorias Instagram post below:

Good morning my loved ones, family & fans,this is to tell you that I'm completely okay and not bothered at all with the Saga....I still remain the strong young lady and super mama

Silence they say is golden and that's what makes a diva. I refused at the moment to exchange words with a personality who does that purposely to grab some attention to boost his marketing strategies.....

READ ALSO:Feud

My feedback would definitely not be to insult or be aggressive but to correct and deliver words of wisdom that would urge him to channel his career in a much decent & professional way!

READ ALSO: Photos
According to reports, the commercial vehicle was conveying seven persons when the accident occurred at Magboro along the highway.

Fato Richard, one of the passengers in the bus told the Daily Post News that their conveyance had attempted to pick up a passenger by the road when the sport utility smashed into them.

The bus driver had parked to pick a passenger when we heard a loud bang. The SUV had hit us. Within a few seconds, our bus tumbled.

The impact lifted the bus off the ground before it landed on its side.

We were able to make use of the available windows of the bus to crawl out. I boarded the bus at Asese, Ogun State, and I was going to Ketu, Lagos. But right now, Im going back home," Richard narrated.

ALSO READ: Car driver rams 4 motorcyclists to death in Abuja

The bus conductor, who was one of the occupants injured from the accident blamed the Honda vehicle driver for the unfortunate event.
Narrating the incident, the Nzema East Municipal Crime Officer, ASP Lawrence Gbele said that six persons set out for fishing from Axim on Thursday [February 2, 2017]. On Saturday [4th February 2017], the body of Eric Nyame Kwanza washed ashore at Bonyere in the Jomoro district.

READ ALSO: Woman found dead at La Beach

"The necessary rights were performed and the body was buried. A report was then made to police in Half Assini.

The police in Axim was also informed and so on Tuesday [February 7, 2017], the other four crew members returned from their expedition and were picked up by the police in Axim. We subsequently handed them over to the police in Half Assini where the case was originally reported, ASP Gbele told Accra-based Citi FM.

The Half Assini District Crime Officer, ASP Charles Mensah, said the police are interrogating the four to find out what happened at sea.

The deceased, Eric Nyame Kwansa, was allegedly staying with his father at Elmina in the Central Region.
Authorities of Immigration and Refugee Board in Canada said the man's application was rejected because he had fake identity documents and so his identity could not be established.

The claimant's lawyer, Bashir Khan said "He has been accused by the member [of the board] to have had fraudulent identity documents and his identity is not clear."

READ MORE: Ayittey Powers accuses Bukom Banku of homosexuality

"That is entirely incorrect and we disagree.

"He will not be at risk of deportation, but certainly he will live with the mental fear of how much longer, what's going to happen in the end," said Khan.

He said he left Ghana at the end of 2015 after being attacked by a group of men who stabbed him in the stomach and left him lying in the dirt while they went to get shovels to bury him alive.

The man, who has asked not to be identified, says he is gay and that he fears for his safety if he has to return to Ghana. He walked through a field in December to cross the border and make a refugee claim.

He was able to get his phone out of his pocket, he said, and call his boyfriend, who helped him flee the country and then left for his own safety. The man said he doesn't know where his boyfriend is now.

Khan said his client plans to appeal the ruling and can remain in Canada until his appeal application is reviewed and a new decision is made, according to report by CBC news.

From Ghana, he went first to Ecuador and from there north through Colombia and Central America to Mexico. He made a refugee claim in the U.S. in March 2016. He was detained in Pennsylvania for seven months before having his application rejected.

He said he couldn't afford a lawyer, so he had no help to make his case. From there he made his way to Minneapolis and eventually across the Canadian border to Emerson, Man. He's been in Winnipeg waiting to find out if he'll be allowed to stay in Canada since December.

READ MORE:Anglican Priest accused of homosexuality speaks

At his hearing Tuesday, he was looking at pictures of his young children before the refugee board member came back with his decision.

After the decision was made, the man said if he has to go back to Ghana he will be killed.

Khan said he will exhaust every legal option for his client.
Stephen Asamoah Boateng, a former Minister of Information in the erstwhile Kufuor administration said the party is ready to assist the police to speed up the investigation.

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He made this known at a ceremony to mark the 1st anniversary of the death of the late Member of Parliament.

Mr. Danquah Adu was murdered at his Shiashie residence on February 9, 2016.

A suspect, Daniel Asiedu was arrested for the crime, after allegedly confessing to committing the crime.

He is currently standing trial for the murder, but relatives of the late MP have always felt that the case is being delayed.

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Mr Asamoah Boateng has, however, assured that justice will soon be served.
The congratulatory message, which was conveyed to President Akufo-Addo by a special envoy of the Swazi King, assured the President of the co-operation of the King and people of Swaziland over the course of the tenure of office of President Akufo-Addo.

It was the hope of King Mswati III that bilateral relations between the two countries will grow from strength to strength to the mutual benefit of the peoples of the two countries.

The King of Swaziland also extended his deepest condolences, through the President, to the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, Asanteman and Ghana, on the passing of the Asantehemaa, Nana Afia Kobi Serwaa Ampem II.

On his part, President Akufo-Addo thanked the Kings envoy for his message, and used the opportunity to congratulate the King Mswati III on his election as the Third Vice-Chairperson of the Bureau of the Assembly of the African Union.

President Akufo-Addo also congratulated King Mswati on his nomination as Chair of the African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA), during the 28th African Union Summit which was held in Addis Ababa this January, and assured the King of Ghanas support to help achieve a malaria-free Africa.

The President recounted how he, as Ghanas Foreign Minister and Chairman of the AU Ministerial conclave in Swaziland, in 2005, together with his colleague AU Foreign Ministers drafted the Ezulwuni consensus, which called for a more representative and democratic Security Council.

The goal of the AU, as contained in the Ezulwuni Consensus, was to be fully represented in all the decision-making organs of the UN, particularly in the Security Council, which is the principal decision-making organ of the UN in matters relating to international peace and security.

Full representation of Africa on the Security Council would mean having not less than two permanent seats with all the prerogatives and privileges of permanent membership including the right of veto; five non-permanent seats; and that the AU should be responsible for the selection of Africas representatives on the Security Council.
He takes over from Air Marshall Samson Oje who has retired from the force.

Major General Akwa is currently the Chief of Army staff. He also served as the Commandant of the Kofi Annan Peacekeeping Training Center.

EDUCATION  QUALIFICATIONS AND INSTITUTIONS

Master of Science (MSc) in Global Security  Cranfield University, United Kingdom, 2003.

Masters of Science (MSc) in Defence and Strategic Studies  University of Madras, India 1997.

Passed Staff College (psc)  Defence Services Staff College, Wellington, India, 1997.

Passed Staff College (psc)  Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Teshie, Ghana, 1989.

Certificate in Public Administration  Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, Accra, Ghana, 1989.

Junior Staff Course (jsc)  Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Teshie, Ghana, 1989.

Diploma in Military Studies from the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, UK from January 1976  March 1977.

Basic Officer training at the Ghana Military Academy from October 1975  January 1976.

General Certificate of Education, Advanced Level (GCE A level)  Sekondi College, Ghana 1975.

General Certificate of Education, Ordinary Level (GCE O Level)  Mpraeso Secondary School, Ghana, 1973.

WORK EXPERIENCE AND POSITIONS HELD

In the rank of Brigadier General, served as the Western Brigade Commander/Ghanaian Contingent Commander, MONUSCO. Was responsible for the largest sector of the MONUSCO operational area comprising six out of eleven Provinces. Exercised command over 2000 officers and men from twenty- five countries. Deployed and coordinated the defence of Goma in the North Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo during the M23 onslaught in July 2012. Also coordinated the evacuation of 30,000 refugees from Congo-Brazzaville to the Equateur Province in October-December 2012.

In the rank of Brigadier General, commanded the Ghana Military Academy. Was a permanent member of the Selection Board for selecting suitably qualified candidates into the Ghana Military Academy. On an annual basis, was responsible for training over 150 Officer Cadets for commissioning into the Ghana Armed Forces. Also had responsibility of administering over 200 permanent staff, both military and civilian.

In the rank of a Colonel, was the Military Assistant to the President of the Republic of Ghana/Commander -in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces. Contributed to policy discourses on the deepening of civilian control over the security sector; particularly ensuring that the military civilian-subordinated and appropriately sized with improved transparency and accountability for national defence. Also provided policy briefs on military and security matters as and when required.

In the rank of Colonel, was the Army Secretary at the Ghana Army Headquarters. Was responsible to the Chief of the Army Staff for the career management of all officers of the Ghana Army. Also served as the Personal Staff Officer to the Chief of Army Staff.

In the rank of Colonel, served as the Military Assistant to the Minister for Defence. Was responsible for liaison between the Ministry of Defence and the Military High Command. Contributed to policy dialogues on capacity building to enhance skilled, appropriately equipped and motivated troops that could respond to crisis and emergencies international/sub-regional and national levels.

In the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, served as the Commanding Officer of the 2 Infantry Battalion of the Ghana Army. Had responsibility for the Internal Security of two strategic, mineral producing Regions in Ghana. Frequently conducted Counter Insurgency and Internal Security operations to maintain law and order and boost economic activities in the Regions. Was responsible for the command, training and administration of over 800 officers and men and women of the Battalion and the welfare of their families as well as other civilian workers.

In the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, served as a Deputy Army Secretary at the Ghana Army Headquarters. Assisted the Army Secretary in the career management of officers of the Ghana Army.

In the rank of Major, served as a Tactical Instructor at the Ghana Military Academy and the Army Combat Training School. Had instructional assignment at the tactical level for Officer Cadets and Young Officers.

In the rank of Major, served as a Directing Staff at the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College (Junior Division). Undertook instructional duties on Staff Functions and Procedures for Grade Three Staff Officers.

In the rank of Major, served as the Assistant Director Army Training at the Ghana Army Headquarters. Was responsible for co-ordinating courses, both local and overseas, for Army Officers.

In the rank of Captain, served as the Operations and Training Staff Officer at the Headquarters of the 1 Infantry Brigade Group. Was responsible for coordinating operations and training matters of six major Units in the Formation.

In the rank of Captain, served as the Adjutant in the 2 Battalion of Infantry, Ghana Army. Was responsible for Unit discipline and the co-ordination of all training, administration and logistics matters in the Battalion.

In the rank of Captain, served as a Company Commander in 2nd Battalion of Infantry, Ghana Army. Was responsible for command, training and administration of troops at the Company level and also the welfare of troops families.

In the rank of Lieutenant, served as an Aide-de-Camp to the Chief of the Defence Staff, Ministry of Defence. Was responsible for the personal security and the co-ordination of the daily routine of the Chief of the Defence Staff

In the rank of Lieutenant served as the Intelligence Officer and Adjutant in the 1 Battalion of Infantry, Ghana Army. Was responsible for collection, collation and dissemination of intelligence at the unit level as well as the discipline and orderliness of the Battalion.

In the rank of Second Lieutenant, served as a Platoon Commander in the 1 Battalion of Infantry, Ghana Army. Was responsible for command, training and administration of troops at the Platoon Level and also the welfare of troops families.

PEACEKEEPING EXPERIENCE

Served as the Western Brigade Commander/ Ghanaian Contingent Commander with the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Congo (MONUSCO). Had responsibility for the largest sector of the MONUSCO operational area; (i.e. 6 out of the 11 provinces). Also was responsible for the provision of security cover during the Francophonie Conference held in KINSHASA in October 2012. Coordinated the security and logistics arrangements for the return of over 30,000 refugees from Congo Brazzaville to the Equateur Province of DR Congo. Deployed an infantry Company to Goma to hold the airport in strength against the M23 onslaught which proved very successful.

Served as Deputy Commanding Officer of Ghana Battalion which was part of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC). Supervised and monitored the 1993 elections which restored democracy to Cambodia.

Served as a Military Observer with the United Nations Iraq-Kuwait Observation Mission Liaison (UNIKOM). Whilst with UNIKOM was re-deployed to serve with the Military Liaison Team in the former Yugoslavia to prepare the grounds for the insertion of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR).

Served with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon as Personnel Officer with responsibility for the administration of over 800 Officers and men.

Served with the United Nations Emergency Force II as a Platoon Commander. Was responsible for the provision of security at the Sinai Field Mission which was an early warning station to monitor intrusions into the demilitarised zone of the theatre of operations.

HONOURS/AWARDS
In a letter dated February 8, 2017, Mr Smith-Graham says his resignation will take effect on May 9, 2017 in line with his contract of giving a three-month notice before the action.

READ MORE: Sylvester Mensah for President campaign posters pop up

In a letter copied to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, he said "I wish to serve the required length of notice of three months."

Mr Smith-Graham was appointed head of the public sector salary-negotiating body to see to the implementation of the Single Spine Pay Policy (SSPP).

"It was a great honour to serve my country as the Chief Executive of FWSC over the last eight years."

"During my tenure, I enjoyed the support of a dedicated team made up of Directors and staff of FWSC, as well as Organized Labour and the Ministries of Employment, Finance among others.

READ ALSO: Nathaniel Otoo resigns as NHIA boss

"I am very grateful to the Presidency and every person/institution that gave and continue to give me the needed support for the successful implementation of the SSPP."

He said he [Smith Graham] wants to pursue other careers.

Mr. George Smith-Graham, until his appointment by President John Evans Atta Mills in 2009, was the Senior Vice President, and Head of Human Capital Management and Administration of Databank Group.

He is an experienced Human Resource Management professional with over 19 years working experience. Before joining Databank, he was the Human Resources Manager of the Forestry Commission of Ghana (FC), a multi-divisional organization.

As the Human Resource Manager, he was very instrumental in the transformation of the Forestry Commission from a predominantly Civil Service organization into a corporate organization. He is very experienced in organizational change and transformation, job evaluations, performance management, salary negotiation among others.

READ ALSO: 19 NHIA staff interdicted

Currently, a research student with the University Of South Africa ( UNISA) pursuing Doctor of Business Leadership (PhD), he holds an International Executive Master of Business Administration (Human Resource Management) from the Paris Graduate School of Management-Paris, France, a Graduate Diploma in Management from the International Professional Managers Association, UK and a degree in Economic Planning from the Republic of Cuba.
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The National Democratic Congress (NDC) MP said the nominee I question have flouted the rule by not enrolling to do her national service as mandated by Ghanas constitution.

Anybody who has been engaged in infraction of the law is not qualified to hold public office. It is clear if you have flouted the law. You have to go and purge yourself before you come back. As legislators, we must be the first in line in defence of the law. If we allow infractions of the law to get away and we ourselves are involved in the brazen infraction of the law, then we are perpetuating something very dangerous for our democracy, he said.

READ ALSO: Why the Minority walked out of Parliament

Speaking to Accra-based Citi FM, Fuseini said Parliament will not be sending the right signals to the general public if they approve the nomination of Afeku.

He said if the Appointments Committee of Parliament approve the nomination of Afeku the house will be willfully ignoring the laws in the constitution.

Catherine Afeku, during her vetting on Monday, February 6, 2017, confessed to the Appointments Committee that she did not enrol onto the mandatory National Service Scheme because she was in Kenya at the time.

She, however, expressed her readiness to undertake the 12-month national service if given the opportunity.
Ernest Norgbey and Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, MPs for Ashaiman and Juaboso constituencies respectively argue in their reliefs that Ms Djaba cannot become a Minister because she failed to do her national service.

READ ALSO:

They are praying the court to declare that upon a true and proper interpretation of the provisions of the constitution particularly Article 94 (2)(g) of the constitution allowing Ms Djaba to continue as Minister is in contempt of section (7) of the Ghana National Service Act, Act 426.

The two also want a declaration that the swearing in of Ms Djaba (second defendant) is null and void and has no effect whatsoever.

We also want an order directed at the second defendant restraining her from acting or purporting to act as Minister of State until such a time she completes her national service or duly granted an exemption in accordance with the National Service Act, the writ said.

The minority in parliament abstained from a vote to approve Madam Otiko on Tuesday after she failed to apologise for her attacks on former President John Mahama.

The minority accused the Speaker of parliament of being bias in the process. But Madam Otiko Djaba has said she is grateful to Ghanaians for the support they gave her as she awaited her approval.
In December, the US Department of Transportation finalized its decision to grant NAI approval to operate flights into the US.

"This case is among the most novel and complex ever undertaken by the department," the DOT said in its final ruling on the matter. "Regardless of our appreciation of the public policy arguments raised by opponents, we have been advised that the law and our bilateral obligations leave us no avenue to reject this application."

Many in the US airline industry, especially the unions that represent pilots and flight attendants, would like to see the Trump administration overturn the decision. But it's unclear what action, if any, the Trump administration would take against Norwegian.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer indicated on Tuesday that the deal with Norwegian involves the hiring of large numbers of US-based pilots and cabin crew. Spicer also said that as a major customer for Boeing airplanes, Norwegian has significant economic interests in the US.

"We are a big Boeing customer, so I think we do exactly what Trump would like everybody to do," Norwegian Air CEO Bjoern Kjos told Reuters on Wednesday. "Trump wants American jobs. We provide American jobs."

Norwegian currently operates about 120 Boeing 737 and 787 airliners, with another 120 or so Boeing jets on order.

NAI is one of several subsidiaries operating under the Norwegian banner. Unlike the rest of Norwegian, NAI is based in Dublin, instead of in Norway. Critics say this allows NAI to take advantage of Ireland's employment laws, which are significantly less stringent than Norway's. As a result, they say, NAI could hire pilots and cabin crew members from Asia at lower wages to fly transatlantic routes.

The airline operates flights into the US using its Norway-registered Norwegian Long Haul subsidiary with Europe-based pilots and crew.

In a December statement, Edward Wytkind, president of the AFL-CIO's Transportation Trades Department, wrote:

"Today's decision betrays America's aviation workers by granting a rogue, flag-of-convenience airline a permit to serve the United States. Unless reversed, this decision threatens a generation of US airline jobs and tells foreign airlines that scour the globe for cheap labor and lax employment laws that America is open for business. Clearly, a Norwegian-owned airline that is based in Ireland for the purpose of evading Norway's labor and tax laws, and that will hire crews under Asian contracts, is in violation of these explicit labor protections and should be denied entry into our marketplace."

The Air Line Pilots Association, a union that represents 54,000 US and Canadian pilots, echoed the AFL-CIO's aggravation.

"We are extremely disappointed by the Department of Transportation's decision to run roughshod over the US Open Skies agreement and allow Norwegian Air International to fly to and from the United States," ALPA President Tim Canoll said in a statement. "This decision is an affront to fair competition and will ultimately result in the loss of US jobs and, potentially, significant losses for the US international aviation industry."

In light of the DOT's ruling, Norwegian announced in December it would ramp up the hiring of American pilots and cabin crew.

"In October this year, Norwegian announced it would open its first US pilot base at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport," Kjos said in a statement. "Now that we finally have our DOT approval for Norwegian Air International, I'm pleased to announce that we will also be opening a second and third pilot base in the US."

The second and third crew bases will be in the New York and Greater Boston areas, Norwegian Air representative Anders Lindstrom told Business Insider. The initial group of 25 US pilots destined for the base in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, will begin training in March to fly the airline's fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliners.

Once the airline's new 737 MAX 8 airliners enter service in the middle of 2017, Norwegian is expected to hire another batch of US pilots for the New York and Greater Boston bases.

According to Lindstrom, all pilots hired for the new US bases are either flying for another US airline or are American pilots flying overseas. Lindstrom also told Business Insider in April that the airline pays all its pilots "almost exactly" the same, regardless of where they are based.

The airline said its New York base would have more than 300 cabin crew members by year's end, while its Fort Lauderdale base would have nearly 200.

Norwegian expects to hire another 150 pilots and cabin crew members in the US in 2017. In 2018, Norwegian is eyeing the possibility of additional pilot and crew bases in Oakland, California, and LAX, Lindstrom said.

When the Boeing 737 MAXs arrive later this year, Norwegian will begin offering $69 tickets to Europe from secondary cities in the northeastern US. Norwegian Air CCO Thomas Ramdahl told The Wall Street Journal in December that the airline intends to set up a base at Stewart International Airport in upstate New York, and Bradley International Airport in Hartford, Connecticut, is also under consideration.

In 2017, the airline is expected to receive nine 787s, six 737 MAXs, and 17 737 NGs. Norwegian  which in July was named the best low-cost airline in Europe by Skytrax for the fourth consecutive year  operates 450 routes with 150 destinations around the world.
The country saw a 22% increase in homicide cases, rising from 17,034 in 2015 to 20,789 in 2016.

Individual homicide cases can contain more than one victim, and data released by the government showed that the number of homicide victims jumped 22.8%, from 18,673 in 2015 to 22,932 last year.

Government data released each year since 1997 indicates that Pena Nieto's first four years have had 71,808 homicide cases opened, putting his term on pace to exceed those of his two predecessors.

Vicente Fox saw 74,389 homicide cases opened during his term from 2001 to 2006, while Felipe Calderon, who deployed troops around Mexico in the move that is credited with kicking off Mexico's cartel wars, recorded 104,794 homicide cases during his term from 2007 to 2012.

Recent reports by a Mexican nonprofit agency suggest that Mexican state governments, possibly at the direction of the federal government, have been manipulating the number of high- and low-level crimes they report. Such legerdemain may mean that the true number of violent deaths in Mexico is much higher.

Whatever the true number of homicides, government statistics indicate that they haven't accumulated at a consistent rate over the last decade.

As noted by University of San Diego professor David Shirk, Calderon's term was marked by a significant increase around 2008 and 2009 (2007 had the lowest number of homicides in Mexican history, Shirk said), but the killing slacked off during the first two years of Pena Nieto's term.

"Pena Nieto came into office promising that within the first six months, we would see significant declines in violence," Shirk said during a recent presentation at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC.

"That was extremely ambitious, but we did see a significant year-over-year decrease over the course of 2013 and 2014. And then, starting in 2015 and 2016, the numbers started to creep back up," he added.

While the Mexican government's reported homicide rate was 17 per 100,000 people in 2016, recent data indicates that the country is middle of the pack in Latin America, where countries like Venezuela, El Salvador, and Honduras well exceed it in deadly violence.

That 17 homicides per 100,000 people rate is Mexico's fourth-highest recorded in the last 20 years, behind 1997's rate and the peak years of 2010-2012.

The declines seen during Pena Nieto's first two years as president have been reversed by increases in his third and fourth years in office.

Both 2015 and 2016 were marked by spikes in homicides during the latter half of the year.

In terms of individual homicide victims, data for which the Mexican government did not start releasing until 2014, 2016 also registered the highest monthly totals.

The 2,098 homicides recorded in July 2016 were the most recorded up until that point and were topped by each of the two following months.

The numbers of victims declined in each of the last three months of 2016, but never dropped below 2,000 a month.

While the overall homicides numbers have risen during Pena Nieto's term in office, the increases have not been spread evenly around the country.

Deadly violence was "highly concentrated in certain parts of the country, particularly in the northwest during the worst of the violence," in the latter half of Calderon's term, Shirk said.

Killings were also concentrated in areas along "the Gulf coast, and, to some extent, the eastern border region," he added.

With the recent spikes, Mexico's violence again appears to be concentrating in specific areas  that is, zones that are strategically valuable to the criminal organizations largely driving the killing.

"In 2016, the violence again was highly concentrated, and the top 5 cities with the most violence accounted for 15% of all homicides over the course of the last year," Shirk said.

Among those cities were Tijuana, where the Sinaloa cartel is clashing with rivals over control of one of the most lucrative drug-trafficking routes in the world; Acapulco, a Pacific coast port city centrally located along smuggling routes and near an extensive opium-cultivating region; and Ciudad Juarez, which is also a valuable trafficking corridor where the Sinaloa cartel is competing for control.

However, while that concentration "sounds like a lot," Shirk said, "during the peak of the violence in 2011, the top 5 cities accounted for about a third of all homicides in Mexico. So if you saw a big drop in Ciudad Juarez, it had a national-level effect."

Overall, 22 of Mexico's 32 states saw increases in the number of homicide victims between 2015 and 2016.

Some of those states, like Guerrero (where Acapulco is located), Sinaloa, and Mexico City, usually have elevated homicide numbers  the latter because its population is so much larger than that of other states.

That said, many of those states saw increases, some of them double-digit percentages. Spikes were more pronounced elsewhere, particularly in states valuable to drug traffickers.

Chihuahua, home to Ciudad Juarez, saw a 27.7% increase in homicides. Baja California, where Tijuana is located, had a 38.7% increase. In Veracruz, a Gulf coast state valuable to traffickers, saw a 147.5% jump, and Colima, where the Sinaloa cartel is fighting for supremacy, killings jumped 221%.

To the extent that organized crime is responsible for the increase in killing, two trends appear to be in play: the ongoing fragmentation of criminal groups, particularly in the southwest, and the likely more significant emergence of the powerful Jalisco New Generation cartel.

"The one thing that I think you could identify as causing much of the increase in violence in the last year or two is the reaccommodation and repositioning of the New Generation cartel," Shirk told Business Insider in an interview earlier this month.

"That to me is the one piece of the puzzle that we can look to and say, 'Wow, New Generation is clearly expanding, asserting itself in lots of ways,' [like] kidnapping ['El Chapo' Guzman's] children," he added. "It's doing stuff that clearly constitutes an aggressive expansion of influence and presumably capability and control."

Feeding the violence are a number of socioeconomic and political factors. Many in Mexico remain mired in poverty with few job opportunities outside of criminal enterprise. Impunity also remains widespread, with only about 1% of crimes in Mexico being punished.

Shirk noted to Business Insider that the recent increase in deadly violence hadn't manifested itself with the suddenness seen during the Calderon administration. But, for several reasons, this increase may not soon relent.

Amid the slow growth of an economy weakened by a prolonged slump in oil prices, the Mexican federal government has decreased its spending on security since 2015, according to analysis of government outlays by Reuters.

"If the government doesn't have any money for security measures ... it's going to be terrible. (The number of murders) is probably going to get to the worst level it's ever been," Leo Silva, who led the Drug Enforcement Administration office in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey until 2015, told Reuters in January.

"If those programs are cut out, you've got all these at-risk youth, and they're just going to rot in the street," Silva said.

If increases in homicides continue apace "2017 could be a year of records," Mexican security analyst Alejandro Hope wrote at the end of January.

"To keep the rhythm of growth of 2016, the annual total of homicides will be higher than 30,00o," Hope said, citing statistics gathered by the Mexican national statistics, which are typically higher than those released by the Mexican interior ministry.
The case has been viewed as a consequence of President Donald Trump's recent expansion of immigration laws.

Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, who is living in the US illegally, was visiting a local Immigration Customs and Enforcement office in Phoenix for a yearly review on Wednesday. The meetings stemmed from a 2009 criminal case in which Rayos was convicted of using a phony Social Security number for employment, The New York Times reported.

A judge had ordered her deportation in 2013, but she was allowed to stay in the US because the Obama administration generally limited deportations of immigrants living in the country illegally to only those who were convicted of serious crimes or who had ties to criminal organizations, The Times' Fernanda Santos wrote.

During Rayos' meeting on Wednesday, officers arrested her and prepared her for deportation.

Protesters saw the move as directly related to one of Trump's executive orders, called Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States, which contains a section that gives immigration officials broader latitude to detain and deport people who are in the US illegally.

Rayos is a married mother of two. She has been in the US for more than 20 years, several local media outlets reported.

"Ms. Garcia de Rayos is currently being detained by ICE based on a removal order issued by the Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review which became final in May 2013," the agency said in a statement cited by the Los Angeles Times.

Protesters surrounded a van carrying Rayos and other immigration detainees on Wednesday night.

Trump has made immigration crackdowns a cornerstone of his presidency. In late January, he issued an executive order meant to stop refugees from entering the US for 120 days and banning travel from seven majority-Muslim countries for 90 days.
As White House press secretary Sean Spicer argued on Wednesday, it is shameful for anyone to criticize a successful military operation that resulted in loss of life, whether it be a raid in Yemen where an armchair general said "almost everything went wrong," or war in Iraq, Afghanistan, or elsewhere.

Yet Trump hasn't always been so favorable toward "successful" military operations like the one in Yemen, where one SEAL died, three others were injured, a $75 million helicopter was destroyed, and roughly 30 civilians died, including an 8-year-old American girl  in addition to 14 militants that were killed.

A prominent talking point of his campaign was his claim that he was "totally against the war in Iraq." In a 2004 interview with Esquire, he called the US military's efforts there a "mess," and said he would have never handled it the way President George W. Bush did.

Only years later, the "mess" that Trump described flourished into a budding democracy  free from terrorism  that conservatives such as Ann Coulter, one of his prominent supporters, called the "most magnificent United States foreign policy success in 50 years." Talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh railed against the media for convincing Americans of the Iraq War's supposed failure.

Here's how you should view the Iraq War, if you subscribe to the White House's new standards: For anyone, including Trump  to suggest that the Iraq War was not a success does a disservice to the 4,411 service members who gave their lives in that war, and the 31,954 who were wounded.

They fought knowing what was at stake in that mission, which was accomplished on May 1, 2003.

Furthermore, anyone  anyone  who would suggest otherwise doesn't fully appreciate how successful that mission was, what the information that they were able to retrieve was, and how that war helped prevent future terrorist attacks.

As we know, the Iraq War completely decimated terror groups, denied them propaganda, and hurt their funding and recruitment.

Anyone who undermines the success of that war owes an apology to all those brave men and women who died. Any suggestion otherwise is a disservice to their courageous lives and the actions that they took.
We know this because Cook has been publicly sharing updates about his travels with his 4.1 million Twitter followers, posting a stream of new photos with the zeal of a work colleague flooding their friends' timelines with vacation photos.

While it looks as if Cook is having a blast in his posted photos, it is still a business trip. A French startup CEO told Business Insider that Apple people contacted him 10 days ago to help set up one of Cook's meetings, so that he could learn more about French app developers.

Cook also gave a speech at the University of Glasgow on Wednesday after receiving an honorary degree, and spoke out against US President Donald Trump's immigration ban.

And on Thursday, he met British Prime Minister Theresa May to chat about Brexit and Apple's investment in Britain.

Cook appears to be eating well, meeting interesting people, and testing out his foreign-language skills. And he's dutifully chronicling it all on Twitter  of Cook's 330 total tweets, 10 are from this trip alone.

So far this week, he's visited France, Germany, Scotland, and England  and the trip's not over yet.

Here's a quick look at his European travels:

Here's an overview of where Cook has been this week so far.

The public portion of Cook's trip started when he dropped into an Apple Store in Marseille, France.

Then Cook met up with Jean claude Luong, who said he spent two hours with Apple's CEO. Luong had taken a photograph that was used in Apple's "shot with iPhone campaign. "

Apparently Cook wanted to know how he got the shot.

That wasn't the only Apple Store Cook visited that day. He popped into a Paris store late in the day.

Now in Paris, Cook spent time meeting interesting people, like fashion designer Julien Fournie, in his couture studio.

Cook also found time to meet the CEO of BPCE, France's second-largest bank.

And chat with some French journalists.

Then he had a meal hosted in the home of a Parisian. The meal included salmon filets in creamy lemon shallot sauce, and was organized through an app called VizEat.

Of course, he needs to check out what the cool new apps are in France, too.

He wrapped up the Paris part of his trip with a visit to artist JR's studio.

Apparently, the artist wanted him to take a look at a 13-year-old computer.

Cook made his way to Germany, just across the Rhine river, next. Here's Cook checking out the factory of the company that builds the tables for Apple Stores and the Apple headquarters.

Then it was off to Berlin. Cook stopped by the Berlin Philharmonic where he was "was particularly interested in the Digital Concert Hall," according the Berliner Philharmonike.

... but he also sat in the real concert hall and listened in on rehearsals for Ligetis opera "Le Grand Macabre" and met chief conductor Sir Simon Rattle. In a video the Berlin Philharmonie made about Cook's visit, he said: "I knew I was going to hear something fantastic but it was better, it was great."

Cook then visited a kitchen in Berlin run by cooking app Kitchen Stories. Here, he's showing nice form flipping what appears to be a pancake of some sort  perhaps the famous German Apfelpfannkuchen.

Nailed it.

He was spotted visiting an Apple Store in Scotland on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, Cook took part in a question and answer session at the historic University of Glasgow.

He also received an honorary degree.

While there, he spoke critically about President Trump's immigration ban, saying: "Our simple view is that Apple would not exist without immigration, so this is a huge issue for us."

"We dont support the immigration ban and we have been very public about it," The Alabaman exec said.

"I don't view Apple as an activist, and I don't view myself as an activist ... The reason is that a lot of people hear that word and they think of a professional activist, and that's not what we are. What we do, for things that we have deep knowledge on, or think we do, or a strong point of view based on what we've learned, that gives us some standing to make a point, we're not shy. We'll stand up even when our voice shakes."

And on Thursday morning, he met with British Prime Minister Theresa May at 10 Downing Street, London. They discussed investment and Brexit.

Here's what the Prime Minister's office said in a statement about the meeting:

"It was a meeting with the prime minister. It was a very positive and useful discussion. Apple have made a recent announcement about their investment in the UK and they had a conversation around that and the importance of government and business on digital skills which going forward will clearly be a huge part of the future industry. It was a chance for the prime minister to outline her plans for negotiating our EU exit. It was also a chance for her to reiterate and welcome Apple's investment in the UK."

Cook's next stop was a visit to London's Mayor Sadiq Khan who tweeted: "Delighted to welcome @Tim_Cook to City Hall to discuss access to talent, digital skills & Apples investment in London #LondonIsOpen"

A spokesperson for the Mayor of London told Business Insider:

London is the tech capital of Europe and the Mayor met Tim Cook to discuss Apples investment into Battersea Power Station that will generate new jobs and economic prosperity for the city. They also discussed trade and investment opportunities post-Brexit and the Mayors new Digital Talent Programme that that will arm young Londoners with the skills they need to access jobs in the industry.

And then he popped up at a primary school in North London called Woodberry Down. The school tweeted: "Thumbs Up From @tim_cook This Afternoon At Woodberry Down! @woodberrydownN4 @AppleEDU @Grazebrook_Pri @ShacklewellE8"

East London games studio Ustwo Games were the next to host Cook, he tweeted: "Met the incredibly creative team behind #MonumentValleyGame @ustwogames in London & got a sneak peek at their latest project, coming soon!"

Cook then paid a visit to Tate Britain, an art gallery in central London, where he looked at some digital artwork.
Senate spokesman, Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi disclosed this on Wednesday, February 8, stating that this will help to finance the nations budget deficit and infrastructure projects like the country's two railway projects.

According to him, "The only request for approval from the executive was...for the issuance of $1 billion Eurobond...for the funding of the 2016 budget deficit, and we immediately granted the approval,"

Investors in the country have been worried about the continuity of government policies especially with the absence of the country's president, Muhammadu Buhari who is away on medical leave in London.

Their concerns were addressed in meetings organised by Citigroup and Standard Chartered this week as they held discussions with Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun, Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, and other senior government officials.

The government officials met with investors in London and the United States in attempts to issue the bond with a 15-year maturity.

The Finance Minister, Adeosun stated in August that the country's economy, currently undergoing a recession for the first time in 25 years, had commitments for half the amount it wanted to raise from the Eurobond, to be issued in dollars.

The government is hoping that the issuance will help to make up for the shortfall in its 2017 budget, where it has laid out plans to spend N7.298 trillion in a draft President Buhari presented to the Senate in December.

According to data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the country's GDP slumped by 1.7% in 2016.
Pulse reached out to his manager, Bishop, when we came across a video of him singing with his band.

Apparently, Agwu is back like never before. His manager says, "We are going to have a thanksgiving concert tour (as we did in USA Nov - Dec 2015), we putting all plans and logistics in place.

We cannot but take time to thank God and the fantastic fans that supported with time, goodwill message and prayers."

Knowing the actor just recovered from a health scare, Pulse asked if Agwu should be having a tour right now or resting?

"He's rested very well for four months, he's in great shape to start rehearsals and he's been writing book, poems and script.
"Great to see uncle Julius Agwu back, Band Rehearsal for his Upcoming Thanksgiving in America!! You are totally Healed in Jesus Name, Amen. Julius the Genius!" he wrote alongside the video.

Agwu shared a video of himself thanking fans on Instagram on February 3, 2017.

Meanwhile, on Sunday, January 1, 2017, Julius was pictured with his wife at a church in Houston, Texas.

Recall that the ace comedian also shared a photo of his feet via his Instagram page on Friday, November 18, 2016, deleting it shortly after.
The soldiers were caught on a video that went viral assaulting the handicapped man along the ever busy New Market Road in Onitsha, the commercial hub of the state, on Tuesday, February 7, 2017.

In the video, the soldiers were allegedly driving along the street in a vehicle marked Military Police when they cited the crippled man on his wheelchair.

Angered by the disabled man's effrontery in wearing a camouflage, a special preserve of the military, they stopped and confronted the man.

Before the man could explain himself, the soldiers had flung him from the wheelchair and descended on him, using sticks and horsewhips to assault the man.

While he was begging for mercy, the soldiers kept beating him and dragged him all over the ground to the bewilderment of the people who could do nothing to help the defenseless man.

But after the video went viral and drew the wrath of Nigerians, the military authority released a statement at about 11.50 pm on Wednesday, February 8, 2017, stating that the soldiers had been identified, arrested and have been charged by their commanding officer.

The statement signed by the Director, Army Public Relations, Brig. Gen. Sani Usman, reads:

The attention of the Nigerian Army has been drawn to a video clip in which two soldiers were seen maltreating a physically challenged person for allegedly wearing a camouflage shirt.

We wish to inform the public that the incident took place on Tuesday 7th, February 2017, at Onitsha, Anambra State.

In line with our zero tolerance for acts of indiscipline and unprofessional conducts especially in relation to violation of human rights, we wish to further state that the soldiers involved have since been identified and apprehended.

They have also been charged with assault by their Commanding Officer. Similarly, troops have been warned to desist from such acts that infringe on human rights and cast serious aspersions on the good image of the Nigerian Army.

The public should please regard this ugly incident as an isolated case which is not a true reflection of the Nigerian Army.

The Nigerian Army also posted a tweet on its Twitter handle, @HQNigerianArmy where it announced the arrest of the offending soldiers:
She was presented before Court Magistrate, Ade Adefulire who granted her bail in the sum of N200,000 following her not-guilty plea.

Addressing the court on the matter, Inspector Ben Ekundayo, the case prosecutor stated that the accused committed the offence on Friday, January 27, 2017 at the headquarters of the United Bank for Africa (UBA), Marina.

Ekundayo stated that the female banker obstructed the officer from discharging his duties, while also tearing his uniform.

Obi assaulted SP Sina Olunlade, the DPO at Ebute-Ero Police Division by holding and tearing his uniform.

She also beat the DPO and in the process, she gave him bruises on his face with her artificial nails.

The accused was not allowed to drive through a particular an access road in the area because an electric pole fell on a road after a rainstorm in the area.

People were directed to another route but the accused refused because the blocked route is closer to her office," the prosecutor mentioned.

ALSO READ: Army arrests soldiers who brutalized crippled man
According to Vanguard News, the president of the court, Omolara Abiola had initially granted Mary custody of their two offspring after determining that Linus had been an irresponsible father.

He was warned against going after the children following the court decision but has refused to comply.

Court president Abiola revealed that the children managed to disclose their location to their mother via a phone call.
The arrest was made during a vehicle search conducted along the Ebonyi-Enugu border on Wednesday, February 8, 2017.

Vanguard News reported that the suspects attempted to escape the scene following the discovery but were hindered due to gunshot wound on their legs.

The DSS officials soon took them to an unknown location where they will be making more investigation on the matter.

This incident is one of many arrests already made since the new year.
The accused are: Innocent Wanya, 27, Adamu Mustapha, 23, and Shafiu Sani, 25 all of Kubwa, Abuja, facing three- count charge bordering on conspiracy, theft and receiving stolen items.

The accused committed the alleged offence and were arrested sometime in August 2016 in Phase 3, Kubwa Abuja."

That Wanya and Mustapha unlawfully conspired to conceal and procure an Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) prepaid meters used for converting electricity."

The two received stolen prepaid meters from Sani who is the third accused."

That Sani stole and received stolen items from Wanya and Mustapha."

"The offence contravened Sections 3 (6), 290 of the Criminal Law Code of the Federation, according to the charge sheet.The prosecution counsel, Miss E. A Aniyi, urged the court to remand the accused in custody.

Lawyers to accused persons; Mr Gabriel John and Mr Ayodele Johnson, told the court they had a motion for bail for the accused, dated Feb. 2, filed on Feb. 3 and served on the prosecution.

Chikere said she ordered the remand of the accused in prison to enable her go through the motion for bail and give her ruling.
Osuolale is facing a two-count charge of assault and malicious damage.

Police Prosecutor Zedekiah Orogbemi told the court that the accused had on Jan. 1 at about 11.00 a.m. at No. 17, Akinfolarin Str., Okitipupa, assaulted a woman, Ayinke Bolajoko, following a misunderstanding between them.

The accused also used a saw to inflict injuries on the complainant.

He also maliciously damaged a wooden door valued at N35, 000 and windows worth N60, 000, property of Bolajoko.

According to him, the offences contravene Sections 355 and 451, Criminal Code, Laws of Ondo State 2006.

The accused, whose address is unknown, pleaded not guilty.

In his ruling, the Magistrate, Mr Banji Ayeomoni, granted the accused bail in the sum of N50, 000 with a surety in like sum.

He said the surety should provide evidence tax payment to the government as part of the bail condition.
She presented her request before the Idi-Ogungun Customary Court, Agodi, Ibadan where she wants her marriage to Anthony dissolved due to brutal treatment.

Alele's statement during the court hearing reads, My husband asked me to join him to worship his family idol several times but l refused, and this made him to beat me always.

His parents did not want him to marry me but we came together since he claimed to love me but he changed.

He even took the only child of the union from me and cannot really say where he kept my child.

I pray the court to grant my request for divorce; I am not ready to worship any idol and l dont want die young due to his constant beating.

ALSO READ: Idol worshippers beat Catholic priest to state of coma

Mukaila Balogun, the court president ruled in favour of the petitioner granting her custody of her only child with Anthony.
The woman who previously gave birth to twins made the appeal for funds at the Nigeria Union of Journalists secretariat in Benin.

My husband abandoned me at the hospital immediately he heard that I had given birth to triplets on April 26, 2016.

I already had a set of twins before giving birth to triplets, which I saw as a thing of joy and Gods blessing until my husband absconded.

I am presently finding it extremely difficult to feed the babies not to mention clothing them," she said.

ALSO READ: Man poisons twin daughters over witchcraft allegations
Know as Tiko Tiko the clown, Carrillo is running for political office. Tiko Tiko is the candidate for the Ecuadorian Socialist Party. He is vying for a spot in the National Assembly. He is the third candidate for the second district in Guayaquil.

Tiko Tiko is a famous clown in Ecuador. His career began in the 1970s. His programmes and commentary on child issues have made him relevant till today.

Carrillo isn't originally from Ecuador. He was born in Colombia but later secured Ecuadorian nationality. "I was born in Bogota and Tiko Tiko was born in Guayaquil," he told The Universe in 2008.

Tiko Tiko is so famous and his influence far-reaching that he usually features in the weekly address of President Rafael Correa.

ALSO READ: The trend of killer clowns in America

British comedian John Oliver mocked Correa for featuring a clown in his weekly addresses. His criticism got a lot of backlash among Ecuadorians including President Rafael Correa.

Tiko Tiko also got into the action. He penned an op-ed piece in a newspaper and said that clowns have a right to participate in the political affairs of a country.
Born on October 23rd, 1949, the late Dr. Owoso hails from the Akinjokun family of Odo-oja, Ijebu-Jesa in Osun State.

Dr. Owoso was the former National President of the Polytechnic Staff Association of Nigeria (POSSAN). In 2012, he was awarded the National Productivity Order of Merit (NPOM), a distinguished national honor, for his outstanding contributions to human resources development in Nigeria.

After his successful two-term tenure as the Rector of YABATECH from 2001 to 2009, Dr. Owoso was appointed by the Federal Government as Nigerias representative for the position of Secretary General / Chief Executive Officer of the Commonwealth Association of Technical Universities and Polytechnics in Africa (CAPA) where he served from March, 2012 to December, 2018.

According to a statement by OlaOluwa Owoso, his oldest son, the family has set up an online condolence in honour of their patriarch where friends and well-wishers can pay tribute.

The current Rector of YABATECH, Engr. Femi Omokungbe, described the late Dr. Owoso as a great educationist and an administrator of repute. Engr. Omokungbe stated in a tribute, The college community received with a deep sense of loss the shocking news of the passing into eternal glory of a past Rector of this great institution, Yaba College of Technology."

The administration of Dr. Olubunmi Owoso as Rector witnessed remarkable achievements. He midwifed the establishment of the Centre for Entrepreneurship Development and thus made the College one of the few institutions in Nigeria to establish such centre. He also established the Centre for Applied and Technology Innovation (ARTI) which raised the status of the college. There is no doubt that Dr. Olubunmi Owoso left his mark in the sand of time. The college community will no doubt miss him very much.

In a tribute by the Commonwealth Association of Polytechnics in Africa (CAPA), Dr. Owoso was described as a force whose influence on Technical and Vocational Education (TVET) transcended borders, industries and institutions.
The Task Force is mandated to investigate and resolve the environmental challenge.

This was part of the resolutions of the State Executive Council meeting of Wednesday, February 8, 2017, at the Government House, Port Harcourt Executive Council Chambers chaired by Governor Nyesom Ezenwo Wike .

The Task Force to investigate the Black Soot has the Commissioner of Environment, Professor Roseline Konya, Commissioner of Special Duties, Mr Emeka Onowu and the Commissioner of Information, Dr Austin Tam-George as members.

The committee which will be backed by technical experts will liaise with major stakeholders to resolve the environmental challenges posed by the black soot.

Briefing the media after the Executive Council meeting, Commissioner of Information, Dr Austin Tam-George stated that the resolution was reached after the Commissioner of Environment, Professor Roseline Konya on the preliminary results of its Ministerial Investigation.

Also, the Rivers State Executive Council approved the purchase of hi-tech equipment for the Braithwaite Memorial Hospital at the cost of $10.5million.
Amidst rumours of President Buhari's death, some notable persons have seen and spoken with him since he departed Nigeria for London.

lists five notable personalities who recently had contact with President Buhari.

1. Governor Ibikunle Amosun

A photo of Ogun state governor, Ibikunle Amosun with President Buhari hit the internet on Friday, January 27, 2017.

In the picture, President Buhari looked calm on a sofa with the governor and other personalities.

Although the exact location in U.K was not given, it is reported that the President was enjoying his 10-day vacation.

2. Aisha Buhari

Another picture has surfaced on Sunday, January 29, 2017, showing the First Lady, Aisha Buhari by the side of the President.

3. Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo

Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo told State House correspondents on Monday, February 6, 2017, that he had a long chat with President Buhari earlier.

Prof. Osinbajo also said he knows President Buhari's health status but will not disclose it.

4. Buhari's sister

Hajiya Rakiya, the only surviving sister of President Buhari told on Wednesday, February 8, 2017, that she speaks with her brother daily.

She further called on Nigerians to pray for President Buhari for him to succeed in the task of addressing the problems facing the nation.

5. Senate President, Bukola Saraki

In a tweet, late Wednesday, Senator Bukola Saraki disclosed that he spoke with President Buhari.

According to Saraki, President Buhari was in good spirits and joked about him working late into the night.

See tweet below:
According to Daily Post, the Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters, Ita Enang said the constitution only requires that Buhari should inform the Senate.

He said But, I want us to look at the Constitution because the Constitution says what should be done is notification.

Enang also said that no form of Senate resolution is needed for the Presidents letter to be approved.

It doesnt require a `yes or a `no; it is to inform it.

What is important is that there is a communication with the senate.

Once the communication is received by the senate and the House of Representatives, through their respective presiding officers, that settles it, he added.

The extension of the Presidents stay in the United Kingdom, reportedly on the orders of his doctor has raised a lot of speculations as to his fitness.
According to Saraki, the president is in good spirits and even teased him about working late.

Happy to have spoken with @NGRPresident @MBuhari tonight. He was in good spirits and joked about my working late into the night, as usual, Saraki tweeted.

Concerns about the presidents health arose in January after he left the country for a 10-day medical vacation.

Tensions were further heightened after Buhari wrote the Senate to extend his vacation indefinitely.

ALSO READ: President extends vacation in London
The meeting, which was also attended by Chief Bisi Akande, held at the Abuja House in London, a tweet from the presidency revealed.

President Buhari has been away from Nigeria since Thursday January 19, when he departed for a 10-day medical vacation in London.

During the vacation, the President will also undergo routine medical check-upsWhile away, the Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, will perform the functions of the Office of the President, a statement from presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina read at the time.

The presidents silence during his vacation has however given rise to fears that he is in worse condition than the presidency wants to reveal.

Buhari earlier appeared in photos with his wife, Aisha but the photos were dismissed as lacking in the chemistry expected of husband and wife.

The government has also been forced on numerous occasions to dismiss rumours that the president had died.

Its only in this part of the world that you wake up in the morning and you say the president of the country is dead. I will not join that kind of debate at all, Information Minister, Lai Mohammed said on January 25.

Concerns about Buharis health status were heightened when he wrote the Senate, on Sunday, February 5, 2017, to extend his vacation indefinitely.

President Buhari has extended his leave in order to complete and receive the results of a series of tests recommended by his doctors, a statement by Adesina read.

However, various government officials have assured Nigerians that the president is hale and hearty.

The President is hale and hearty. I spoke to him just this afternoon and we had a very long conversation, Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo said on Monday, February 6.

Hajiya Rakiya, Buharis only surviving elder sister also told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that her brother needs the prayers of every Nigerianfor him to succeed in the task of addressing the problems facing the nation.

I just returned from the lesser Hajj, and even while in Saudi Arabia, I was communicating with him every day, Rakiya popularly called Amadodo said.

Senate President, Bukola Saraki also revealed that he spoke to Buhari on Wednesday, February 8, adding that the president was in good spirits.

Meanwhile a presidency source has said that Buhari might be back in the country on Saturday, February 11.

Barring any last minute change, we are expecting the president back this weekend, probably on Saturday, the source said.

This mirrors an earlier comment made by Femi Adesina that the president may come back sooner than expected.

ALSO READ: President extends vacation in London
She made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Daura, Katsina State, on Wednesday.

The 84-year-old woman said the President needed the prayers of every Nigerian for him to succeed in the task of addressing the problems facing the nation.

She said that President Buhari being a mortal was bound to fall ill or even die at any time his creator wishes.

According to her, she speaks with the president daily since his departure to London on annual leave and he is in high spirit.

She added that I just returned from the lesser Hajj and even while in Saudi Arabia, I was communicating with him daily.

The presidents sister, popularly called Amadodo, told NAN that while in Saudi Arabia, she communicated with Buhari every 10 hours.

We were 28 from our mother, late Hajiya Zulaihatu, who died in 1992, but Buhari was her last born, she said.

A cross section of people in the ancient city of Daura, Katsina State, expressed dismay over how some Nigerians spread rumours about the presidents health.

Alhaji Abdulrahman Daura, the Northwest Organising Secretary of All Progressives Congress (APC), described the rumoured death and state of health of the president as baseless and unfounded.

Daura said Buhari is in good health and is only conducting routine medical checkup in the United Kingdom.

He advised those spreading such rumours to always be constructive and avoid campaign of hate and calumny, adding that it is only God that gives health and takes life.

Similarly, Alhaji Aminu Na-Dari, a close ally of the President, said he had also been in constant touch with Buhari since his departure and their conversation did not in any way indicate that he was having health challenge.

He said the current economic hardship was not caused by the present administration andthe Buhari-led government had been working hard to remedy the situation.

A group of students of the School of Health Technology, Daura, described the rumour as unfortunate and asked the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) to issue a statement condemning it.

Aminu Mohammed, the Spokesperson of the students, urged Nigerians to always think and act positive, stressing that Buhari had started correcting the ills of this nation and corruption was now fighting back.

He urged Nigerians to continue to pray for the nation and safe return of the President.

Alhaji Salisu Haro, the Information Officer of Daura Local Government Area, also told NAN that the local council was conscious of the rumour, stressing that it was a mere political gimmick fabricated by enemies of progress.

He said the local government had collaborated with the Daura Emirate Council to find out the true situation and our findings show that Mr president is doing very well and there is nothing to fear.

Also, Mr Emeka Chidozie, a businessman and a resident of Sabongari community in Daura, expressed sadness over the rumoured death of the President.

He called on Federal Government to regulate the social media as some individuals used the platform to cause confusion and apprehension which threaten the peace and unity of the country.
The News Agency of Nigeria(NAN) reports that divergent opinions erupted at the special Yoruba session of the Assemblys plenary presided over by the Speaker, Hon. Michael Adeyemo.

NAN reports that Hon Gbenga Oyekola (LP -Atiba State Constituency) and Safiu Olalere(APC- Ido State Constituency) had moved a motion calling for a special day for the celebration of Yoruba traditional religion.

The duo had advocated the need to recognise traditional religion as entrenched in the Nigerian constitution and demanded for its inclusion in the festive calendar of the state.

They observed that traditional religion had long been in existence before the advent of Christianity and Islam.

The duo stated that the Nigerian constitution made adequate provision for freedom of religion.

Reading the motion at plenary, Oyekola maintained that the place of traditional religion could not be waved aside as it has its own place of pride among other religions in the country.

But in their respective arguments against the motion, Segun Ajanaku, Joshua Oyebamiji, John Olaleru, Oyeleke Oyatokun and Michael Sangodipe held that the motion presented before the House fell under the Federal Governments jurisdiction.

They all held that such matter was no longer what any state could deliberate upon.

The members observed that there would be no universality in any date picked by the adherents of different traditional religions in Yoruba land if the issue was to be considered.

Ajanaku said that the movers of the motion should have looked inward to come up with a motion that would advocate the national observance of Yoruba cultural heritage by the Federal Government over traditional religion.

He added that such would encapsulate other traditional issues that fell within the purview.

NAN reports that the motion was put into voice votes after robust deliberations by the Speaker and was supported by majority of the lawmakers.

Speaking to newsmen after the plenary, Oyekola stated that the motion was aimed at providing unity among all religious adherents in the state.
The minister, who made this known while defending the ministrys budget before the Senate Committee on Information, said the ministry was also liaising with the German Government and other international organisations to help preserve the materials.

Mohammed said that if nothing was done in that regard, the country may lose its heritage, thereby making it difficult for future generation to know about the countrys heritage.

We are looking outside government to see how we could preserve these valuable materials."

We recently sent one of our staffs to the German Government to reinstate a particular film and exhibit it."

We are also in the process of looking for other philanthropists, who will help us to ensure that all these delicate and sensitive materials are put in digital form."

We are in touch with international organisations to help us preserve these materials, but we have not arrived at a conclusion yet."

We are aware of the need to keep our heritage safe."

Earlier, the Chairman of the committee, Sen. Suleiman Adokwe advised the minister on the urgent need to recapture the materials in order not to lose them.

According to him, most materials that ought to be used for reference purposes are being manhandled.

I want to draw your attention to another issue. It is the issue of archiving. We have problems with the archives in the film corporation."

There are lots of valuable films and other important materials that are not being kept properly."

We therefore advise the ministry to liaise with the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) to recapture the materials in digital form."
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arraigned Fani-Kayode alongside a former Minister of State for Finance, Sen. Nenadi Usman and a former National Chairman, the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) Yusuf Danjuma and a company  Jointrust Dimentions Nigeria Ltd.

The accused, who were arraigned on a 17-count charge, pleaded not guilty.

Fani-Kayode, in his pending application, is asking Justice Muslim Hassan to disqualify himself because he was worried and terrified that he would not get a fair trial.

He is asking the judge to decline jurisdiction and transfer the case to Abuja Division of Federal High courts.

He said that Justice Hassan, who worked as a prosecutor at the Federal Ministry of Justice and later seconded to the EFCC, signed the charges against him when he was previously tried for money laundering.Meanwhile, Usman, in her application, is asking the court to allow her to be tried separately from Fani-Kayode and for her trial to be transferred from Lagos to Abuja for convenience.

When the case came up on Wednesday, Counsel to Usman, Mr Abiodun Owonikowo (SAN) urged the court to consider the former ministers application to travel for medical reasons.

If she collapses, will this case go on? She has undergone surgery and has a relapse; doctors at the National Hospital have recommended that she needs to get urgent medical treatment abroad."This is a matter as serious as breast cancer, we are all humans and can fall sick, he said.

In his response, the EFCCs lawyer, Mr Rotimi Oyedepo, said Usmans application for leave to travel could not be heard when there were pending applications challenging the courts jurisdiction.

He said the issue of jurisdiction ought to be determined first before all other applications would be heard.

If they want this application (for leave to travel) to be heard, then they should withdraw the application challenging the courts jurisdiction.

In his ruling, Justice Hassan agreed with the prosecutions submissions, saying since the accused had applications on jurisdiction with regards to where they should be tried, as well as on fair hearing, those applications ought to be determined first.

The law is clear, the court is obliged to determine the issue of jurisdiction first and I am inclined to take the application challenging the competence of this court to entertain the case, he said.

The judge then directed the Defence to move the pending applications while Fani-Kayodes lawyer, Mr Norrison Quakers (SAN), informed the court that EFCC had served him with counter-affidavit three days ago and that he required time to reply on points of law.
The NLC, which is joined by members of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), is protesting against the effects of poor governance.

Members of the NLC gathered at the associations National Secretariat in Yaba, before commencing the march.

The unions will be marching through the streets of Lagos to make their demands known to the government.

Prominent Nigerians at the march include Charles Charly Boy Oputa and Sahara Reporters publisher, Omoyele Sowore.

A similar march is being conducted in Abuja following a gathering at the Unity Fountain.

The protest comes days after the I Stand with Nigeria demonstrations which were organized by citizens across the country.

ALSO READ: 2Face to lead nationwide protest against Nigerian government
The organised labour made the demand during a protest in Abuja on Thursday, February 9, 2017.

The rally tagged saw protesters with placards walk from the Unity Fountain to the Presidential Villa and National Assembly.

Addressing the crowd at Unity Fountain, NLC President, Comrade Ayuba Wabba noted that individuals who have stolen public funds should be named and shamed.

Wabba lamented the situation where corrupt government officials are allowed to walk the streets free.

The NLC President noted that the government must take concrete steps to prove to the world that it was serious with the fight against corruption and recover all stolen money.

Why should somebody steal one billion naira and walk the street free?", he asked.

He continued: "We are demanding that they should be named and shamed. We are also demanding that one of their hands be cut off so that when we see them, we will know that they are people that have stolen our money.

We must not allow a situation where few, because of their interests will hold the system to ransom. We are demanding an increase in electricity supply and they are saying pay more tariff. We are demanding an increase in minimum wage and they say they are going to be paying in percentage.

Today, with what is happening in our system, we are actually at the receiving end because there is near absence of good governance and corruption is also fighting back very badly and we have been at the receiving end. Instead of addressing those challenges and paying salaries, what they are doing in some states is paying salaries in percentages.

The height of this challenge is the absence of good governance, accountability, transparency and the rule of law, any system that does not have those ingredients, the first group that will suffer is the working class and their families and the citizens.

That is why we are marching to canvass for good governance and also to lend our voice to saying that the fight against corruption must continue. If you look at the NEITI report, it states clearly that unremitted funds from the sale of oil and gas amount to another 22 billion dollars.

It is obvious that what we are doing today is in our collective interest. As working class and our families and as Nigerians, we must always make our voice known and heard very clearly.

Not to pay salaries and pensions is criminal. Not to increase our wages in this condition is corruption and so, we must demand good governance and support the fight against corruption, the NLC President added.

ALSO READ: NLC wants President Buhar to address Nigerians from the UK, Presidency kicks

Marching through the streets of Abuja, the protesters sang various anti-government and solidarity songs.

When they got to the Presidential Villa, Wabba, the TUC President, Bobboi Kaigama took the 18-point demands by Labour Movement for Good Governance to Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo.

Addressing journalists after presenting the union's demands to Professor Osinbajo, the NLC president said: "We told him [Osinbajo] that despite all that is going on, there is no connect with what is happening at the centre and the states because up till today, the funds for some local governments haven't been released.

"Despite the bailout, up till now, we are yet to see something tangible. We are still discussing the issues of salaries, pension and gratuity.

"He [Osinbajo] appreciated the fact that we came in an orderly manner to table our demands, saying that is what is expected.

"The Vice President said every item on that agenda is going to receive the attention of government. We also reminded them about pensioners because we have also been at the receiving end," he added.

General secretary of National Union of Textiles, Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria, Comrade Issa Aremu noted that "the only way to get the country out of the current recession is for the government to reflate the economy and pay adequate salary to workers. Without payment of salaries and allowances to workers, the fight against corruption will not succeed," he added.
Akiolu, who spoke with State House correspondents, said he decided to use the opportunity created by the postponement of a security meeting to which he was invited by the National Assembly, to convey the message.

I am a traditional ruler and I am a servant of the people, I am here to see the Acting President."

We had a meeting here, I was invited by the Senate and the House of Representatives on Tuesday, we were supposed to have another security meeting tomorrow (Friday)."

But unfortunately, it was cancelled and I decided to spend that time to see my former law lecture to wish him and once more to convey to him the wishes and prayers of Lagos state people."

That, by the Grace of God, the Almighty Allah our President will return to us hale and hearty."

And all will be well with us in this country, provided all of us are sincere to cooperate with the government and tell the government what we feel: constructively and not destructive criticism that is all."

Absolutely, patience and useful suggestions will move the country forward.

The monarch described the orchestrated reactions to President Muhammadu Buharis vacation as very funny.By the grace of God, our President will be back to all of us.

Akiolu said told the Acting President, who was his Law teacher, that God blessed him more than he expected.

He is very quiet, easy going and always with his Bible see what God has done for him."

He was not interested in any political base but God has destined that he will be the number two man. All of us should pray for the two of them and for Nigeria to be very successful, provided we are patient, close to God and absolutely honest in what we are doing."

All will be well with us, the monarch added.

It will be recalled that President Buhari had written to the National Assembly notifying members of his plan to proceed on a 10-day annual leave during which he would undergo routine medical check-ups.

The President was scheduled to resume on Feb. 6 but did not.

Instead, he again wrote the National Assembly on Feb. 5 and informed members of his desire to extend his ten-day vacation in the United Kingdom citing health reasons.

Since then, reports that the President had died in London have gone viral.
THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER

NJC seeks extension of acting Chief Justice Onnoghen's tenure

The Senate yesterday said it would not convene an emergency session to screen and confirm the acting Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Walter Onnoghen whose name has been forwarded to the upper legislative chamber by the Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo.

DSS detains five personnel over FGGC Calabar invasion

Five personnel of the Department of State Services (DSS) have been detained over an alleged brutality on the teachers of Federal Government Girls College (FGGC), Calabar.

VANGUARD NEWSPAPER

Don't compare Yar'Adua's health case to Buhari - FG

Amid the unabating controversy trailing the indefinite medical vacation of President Muhammadu Buhari in London, United Kingdom, the Federal Government, yesterday, said there is no basis for comparison between the Presidents health case and that of late President Umaru Musa YarAdua.

Budget Funding: FG set to borrow another N110bn via local bond issue

As part of its fiscal funding plans, the Federal Government, through the Debt Management Office, DMO, is set to raise another bond amounting to N110 billion for budgetary deficit funding next week

NJC extends Onnoghen's acting tenure, writes Osinbajo

The National Judicial Council, NJC, at the end of an emergency meeting it held in Abuja on Wednesday, re-nominated Justice Walter Onnoghen for appointment as the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN.

THE NATION NEWSPAPER

Buhari's case different from Yar'Adua's, says Federal Government

The Federal Government spoke yesterday on President Muhammadu Buharis health, saying it is wrong to compare his situation with the late President Umaru Musa YarAduas.

Ex-Finance Minister, Nenadi Usman: I have breast cancer

A former Minister of State for Finance, Senator Nenadi Usman, has asked Justice Muslim Hassan of the Federal High Court in Lagos to permit her to travel abroad to receive treatment for breast cancer.

Police dogs to tackle drug traffickers in Lagos, Abuja airports

The police have said they will deploy dogs in Murtala Muhammed International and Nnamdi Azikwe International airports to check the rate at which drugs are smuggled into the country.

THE PUNCH NEWSPAPER

NJC asks Osinbajo to extend Onnoghen's status as acting CJN

The National Judicial Council, on Wednesday, asked Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, in the absence of President Muhammadu Buhari, to extend the tenure of Justice Walter Onnoghen as the Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria.

Trust fund video: DSS quizzes ex-CBN chief, CAN leaders

The Department of State Services have quizzed the members of the Board of Trustees of the Christian Association of Nigeria over a video some Christian leaders have been using to mobilise funds for the rebuilding of churches destroyed by Boko Haram.

N4.9bn suit: Ex-Minister seeks permission to treat cancer abroad
Since the opening of the Central American waterways expanded third lane, roughly 2 percent of vessel transits have resulted in incidents that damaged the ship or the canal locks themselves, according to a recent report from the Associated Press.



Source: Matt Ragen / Shutterstock

Since the opening of the Panama Canals expanded third lane, roughly 2 percent of vessel transits have resulted in incidents that damaged the ship or the canal locks themselves, according to a recent report from the Associated Press.

More than seven months since the opening of the expanded Panama Canal, the important Central American waterway is still suffering from growing pains, according to a recent report from the Associated Press.

The expansion, which began in 2007 and was originally scheduled for completion in late 2014, allows the canal to accommodate post-Panamax containerships with up to 13,000-TEUs of capacity, nearly three times the previous 5,000-TEU limit. Construction was initially expected to cost $5.3 billion, but reports suggest the actual budget for the project far exceeded that figure.

Despite the meticulous planning that went into the expansion, the narrow width of the canal is still posing a serious problem for ships and the tugs that guide them through the expanded third lane, according to the Associated Press report.

With little margin for error, ships are still scraping the walls and prematurely wearing out defenses designed to protect both the vessels and the locks themselves, the report said.

AP reporters traveled on a recent voyage by a tugboat guiding the containership Ever Living through the canals Cocoli locks on the Pacific side of the waterway and found multiple places where the black rubber cushion defenses were visibly worn down, hanging into the water or missing entirely.

In one spot, a pile of dislodged bumpers sat on the side of the locks, apparently waiting to be hauled away, it added.

London-based risk management consultancy PGI Intelligence in July 2016 published a report warning of considerable safety concerns with the canal expansion that could lead to accidents and delays for shippers and higher claims for insurers. According to the report, at 427 meters long and 55 meters wide, the new locks are still too small for neo-Panamax ships.

The largest vessels can measure up to 366m long and 49m wide, leaving a distance of just 6m across the width of the canal and 61m length-wise, much of which will be taken up by tugboats on either end of the vessel to guide it through the lock, said PGI. A joint study by the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) and Brazils Fundacao Homem de Mar (FHM) found that under windy conditions, the maneuverability of vessels would be compromised, making accidents likely due to the locks narrow dimensions.

Shortly after the report was published, a China Shipping (now part of China COSCO Shipping) containership scraped its side against the wall of one of the new locks while transiting the third lane, leaving a gash in the vessels exterior and causing damage to its hull.

Since the expansions opening in late June 2016, roughly 2 percent of vessel transits (15 of a total 700) have resulted in incidents that damaged the ship or the canal locks themselves, according to data from the Panama Canal Authority (ACP).

But ACP Deputy Administrator Manuel Benitez told the Associated Press the reported incidents have not been of a magnitude that could affect the operation of the locks.

The ships have not run aground; they continue their routes, he said, adding that it has been pretty positive the way our people have been able to navigate that [learning] curve.

The ACP declined to comment on the cost of repairing the new bumpers or whether the schedule for such repairs has been moved up as a result of the higher-than-expected incident rate.
According to a tweet by the Russian ministry of foreign affairs, its embassy in Nigeria is in contact with the Nigerian government to ensure the release of the sailors.

The tweet reads: "@ are maintaining contacts with Nigerian officials to liberate Russian sailors captured in "

Pavel Fedulov, the director of a Briese Schiffahrts subsidiary in St Petersburg said The armed pirates approached (the vessel) in a boat, captured the crew and left on the boat at the direction of the Nigerian shores.

According to security analysts, most of the pirates are militants from the Niger Delta.
Buhari urged the Executive Council of the Federation (EXCOF) to declare Yar'Adua incapacitated and have him impeached due to his inability to carry out his official duties.

The former Head of State said further that YarAduas removal was the only viable option out of the political logjam caused by his long absence.

Buhari made the comments when members of the National Unity Forum paid him a visit in Kaduna.

He also criticized the National Assembly for using extra-constitutional measures to empower Goodluck Jonathan as Acting President when the constitution already had a solution to the problem.

The Senate had, on February 9, 2010, controversially used the doctrine of necessity to transfer presidential powers to Jonathan, and declared him Acting President until Yar'Adua returned to full health.

Political expediency won't remedy this kind of problem because if the Executive Council of the Federation had acted in accordance with the constitution, by invoking the necessary sections to declare the President incapacitated, we would not have found ourselves in this present situation," Buhari said.

As you can see, adopting extra-constitutional measures have not addressed the problem. If it had, we would not have been subjected to the raging debates and controversy going on.

So, we must go back to the constitution. The Executive Council of the Federation must do the right thing because once we start moving away from the constitution, then we are inviting anarchy, Buhari added.

In response to Buhari however, the Senate said that it would not impeach YarAdua despite pressure to do so.

Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on Information and Media, Anthony Manzo, said, after plenary on Wednesday, March 10, 2010, that the Senate has already spoken, citing the resolution which is working, the one that enabled the Vice President to become Acting President.

ALSO READ:

Manzo also said that the Senate believes that the situation is stable, and as for impeachment, it is a process, but that is not something that we are contemplating at this time.
"Hi. Im Danny Rand. Ive been away a long time, Jones says in the first minutes of the trailer, clothed in tattered wears as he returns to New York City, after being missing for fifteen years, to reclaim his family company.

When a threat emerges, Rand must choose between his family's legacy and his duties as the Iron Fist.

ALSO READ: undefined

The series stars Finn Jones as Danny Rand / Iron Fist, a martial arts expert with the ability to call upon the power of the Iron Fist.

Jessica Henwick, David Wenham, Jessica Stroup, Tom Pelphrey, and Rosario Dawson also star in "Iron Fist" which debuts on March 17, 2017.
The order by the Justice Ahmed Badamasi-led three-member tribunal, followed an application by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Osagie Ize-Iyamu, its candidate in the governorship election for recounting of the papers in court.

The petitioners are challenging the declaration by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of Mr Godwin Obaseki of APC as winner of the election.

The petitioners had named INEC, Obaseki and the APC as first, second and third respondents respectively in the petition.

INEC had declared Obaseki winner of the Edo governorship election after he polled 319,483 votes to defeat Ize-Iyamu, his closest rival, who scored 250,000 votes.

At the resumed hearing, Mr Ahmed Salman, INEC administrative officer, on subpoena, produced bags of Ghana must go in court containing used ballot papers for Egor, Akoko-Edo, Etsako-East and Estako-West, respectively.

The petitioners counsel, Mr Yusuf Ali (SAN), then made an oral application for the recounting of the papers in court before their admissibility.

But Mr Onyinye Anunonye, Mr Ken Mozia and Mr Rotimi Ogunesho, all SANs, and counsel to INEC, Obaseki and APC, respectively opposed their admissibility in court, and argued that the mode of its presentation ran foul of the Electoral Act.

They urged the tribunal not to allow recounting of the ballot papers and their admissibility in court as being prayed by the petitioners.

But Mr Yusuf Ali (SAN), and counsel to the petitioners, urged the tribunal to discountenance the respondents applications.

Ali, who described the respondents as interlopers and busy bodies, argued that we have pleaded this in our petition, and urged the tribunal to dismiss their applications for objection as irrelevant and tendentious.

Delivering ruling, the tribunal held that the petitioners had sufficiently complied with the relevant sections of the Electoral Act as contained in their pleadings of their petition.

Badamasi held that it is important to note that the petitioners so stated this fact in their pleadings which was also contained in their motion on notice.

It will therefore tantamount to shutting them out if the application is refused.

It is in our considered opinion that this application for recounting has merit and is therefore granted while dismissing the application for objection of the respondents, he said.
Sanusi also condemned the idea that public office is a place for people to enjoy themselves.

The Emir made the comments in Abuja on Wednesday, February 8, while presenting the award for Most Security Conscious Governor to Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi state.

The bane of leadership in Nigeria is that the leaders are selfish; they only think of their families. Those of us who think that public office is a place to enjoy ourselves should think again, he said according to Vanguard.

Sanusi also said that the security challenges being experienced in the country were caused by poverty and lack of education, among other things.
In a statement signed by Special Assistant (Media and Communications), Adebayo Oladeji, to the National President, Rev. Samson Ayokunle, urged the minster to stop lying and attacking religious leaders, Vanguard reports.

We are disappointed but not surprised with the disparaging lies and abusive statements credited to the Minister of Information in Ilorin during the town hall meeting where he was accusing religious leaders of making alleged provocative statements that can lead to religious war," the statement read.

The statement also encouraged Mohammed to shed light on the killings in the North, rather than covering them up.

Is he accusing CAN of telling lies that our members are being killed, maimed and burnt by the terrorists in the North-East? That our members are being killed by the Fulani herdsmen in Plateau, Benue and now Southern Kaduna? That those responsible for these killings profess Islam as their religion? That those who killed Madam Bridget Agbahime in Kano were Muslims who were arrested but later discharged and acquitted by the court as requested by the state Attorney- General and Commissioner of Justice?

That those who killed Madam Eunice Elisha Olawale while doing the morning preaching in Kubwa, Abuja, were Muslim fundamentalists, who were arrested but also freed by the Police? Is Lai Mohammed telling us that no Christian was killed by the Fulani herdsmen who invaded the Southern Kaduna, killed and maimed our members and razed down their communities recently?

Is Mohammed saying the Fulani herdsmen, who have been killing our members are not armed with sophisticated weapons and is it wrong for us to ask where they get the AK-47 and other weapons they are using? When all those killings were going on in Plateau, Benue and Southern Kaduna, was there any time Lai Mohammed or anyone in the Federal Government raised up a voice against the atrocities?

If those murderous Fulani herdsmen are faceless, how come the Sultan of Sokoto is claiming that they are not Nigerians and in another instance, the Kaduna State governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, said they had been paid for the wrong done to them? Why is it that whenever these murderers are perpetrating their atrocities, the security agencies look elsewhere until their victims decided to fight back? Is it because the security agencies are Muslim dominated? CAN says no to disparaging remarks in the name of politics. Enough of these lies by Lai Mohammed.

ALSO READ: Christian leaders blame Goodluck Jonathan for religious killings

The statement was released after the minister claimed that violence in Nigeria is not religious, but is political.

Speaking in Kwara, he said, "It is also important to note that the underlying principle of religious conflict may not be purely religious, but more often than not coloured with political connotations as vividly depicted in the case of the terrorist group Boko Haram.

And more often than not, conflicts between Muslims and Christians are fuelled by political motivations, ethnic differences, extremism, intolerance and terrorism.

Before I end my speech, let me appeal to the media to desist from providing a platform for exponents of incendiary statements, those who will latch on to religion and ethnicity to divide us, and those who have no qualms about leveraging their privileged positions to give Nigeria a bad name in the international community.
Despite the presidency's attempts to debunk these claims by posting pictures of the president in London, these rumors continue to swirl around.

Rev. Fr. Ejike Mbaka, the spiritual leader of the Adoration Ministries in Enugu State, is the latest person to react to these, Nigerian Bulletin reports.

While delivering a sermon at the first Adoration Crusade for the year, the cleric advised people to pray for the president, instead of spreading death rumors.

Mbaka said: Those wishing the president dead dont love this country. Children of God, what do people gain by wishing somebody dead? We should pray for our leaders; that is what the Bible says.

He also spoke on the president's cabinet.

According to him, the motives of these officials differ from the president's intentions.

 has good intentions for the country; unfortunately, his subordinates have different agenda  they are interested in their pockets," he said.

Rev. Mbaka is not the first to rise to the president's defence.

Buhari has been defended by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who released a statement.

Just like the cleric, he encouraged people to pray, instead of spreading rumors.

No normal human being will wish an elderly person dead, irrespective of their differences.

If you dont like him, wait for another election, not going about to say he is dead. No matter his health situation, we should pray for him to recover quick and come back stronger and better.

For anyone wishing him dead, such person or group of persons are callous, wicked and treacherous.

I was also rumored to have died almost 12 times. I dont know what they derive from doing so, but, they should seek for forgiveness.

Even if we know that the President is sick, he is in a better position to know what to say or what to do and not wishing him dead. We should just stop politicizing everything, especially with the elderly in the country," he said.

Youths from Bauchi State have also shown their support for the president.

DailyPost reports that they took to the streets with placards that had things like, Buhari is alive, say what you like, Support Baba Buhari, I love Naija, I love Buhari,' written on them.
The student, Adeyemi Temitope is currently being tried and has seen his programme forcefully put on hold until further notice.

A bulletin to this effect was released on Friday, February 3, 2017 according to The Nation news.

Professor Olanrewaju Fagbohun, the vice-chancellor of the institution approved a recommendation given by the institution's disciplinary committee which prescribed that Temitope be made to leave school until the trial ends.

The Vice-Chancellor has approved the recommendation of the Students Disciplinary Committee that Adeyemi Temitope, with Matriculation Number 100832003, be suspended.

Temitope, of the Department of Public Administration in the Faculty of Management Sciences, is suspended with immediate effect from the University.

The suspension is pending the outcome of the court judgement on the case of cultism and rape against him," the bulletin statement reads.
Taneli Ruda, head of ONESOURCE Global Trade, has examined the economies of China and India, and analyzed the economic outlook for both countries.



As the world continues to move forward from the surprises of 2016, it is worth examining how China and India, the two fastest growing major economies, compare and contrast.

About a year ago, India was poised to stake claim to the designation. It had, by some measures, beaten Chinas annual economic growth clip for the first time since 1999, and the common refrain was that it needed to spend significantly and quickly on infrastructure to meet the promises of its Make in India campaign.

Three sectors  financial, real estate, and professional services; manufacturing; and trade, hotels, transport, communication, and services related to broadcasting  seem to have driven Indias impressive growth rate. Lower crude oil prices have also helped, as India is a net importer.

However, more recently, Indias Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the unusual and controversial decision to ban most of the countrys cash notes in circulation, replacing them with new notes in an effort to combat tax evasion and corruption. The fact that the fastest-growing economy would suddenly demonetize its currency raises an eyebrow  and, sure enough, after Modis cash replacement plan took effect, Indias central bank downgraded its growth forecast to 7.1 percent from 7.6 percent. Many analysts expect it to fall further.

Additionally, Indias trade deficit widened to a 16-month high in November driven partially by a slowdown in exports, and a new report issued by Morgan Stanley said India would be relatively exposed to changes in the United States trade policies.

While demonetization seems likely to hold back a bit of growth in the near term, and external factors certainly challenge Indias exports, neither should materially affect its infrastructure projects.

Chinas infrastructure spending, meanwhile, is poised to receive a significant boost in the near term by way of a high-speed rail network expansion. It plans to invest $504 billion in rail construction projects between now and 2020, CNBC reported recently, including a network that would connect more than 80 percent of its major cities. This comes in addition to a separate three-year, $720 billion infrastructure-spending plan that China announced earlier in 2016.

The import volume of major bulk commodities rose reliably, with iron ore, crude oil, coal, and copper all maintaining growth at clips of 9.1 percent, 14 percent, 15.2 percent, and 11.8 percent, respectively, according to China Customs Statistics.

Looking at Chinas consumers also tells a revealing story. Household income in China is substantially higher than that of the other BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), with analysts at McKinsey estimating it to be above $5 trillion per year. Furthermore, the firm expects growth in discretionary spending within China to outpace growth in spending on necessities, 7.6 percent to 5.3 percent, between now and 2030.

These figures signal Beijings goal to transition from an export-oriented economy to a consumption-oriented one is well within reach. [Chinas economy] may be volatile. Its also somewhat unpredictable. But you just dont get a consumer growth story this good anywhere else, the McKinsey analysts concluded.

Chinas exports appear to be on solid ground, as well. During the first three quarters of 2016, Chinas exports to Pakistan, Russia, Poland, Bangladesh, and India grew 14.9 percent, 14.1 percent, 11.7 percent, 9.6 percent, and 7.8 percent, respectively. And the most recent figures, Novembers net trade, saw dollar-denominated exports rise slightly (0.1 percent), putting a stop to Octobers 7.3 percent slide.

These statistics suggest China is sufficiently hedged against modest trade-inhibiting measures that would come from the United States.

The bearish take on China is set forth most notably by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. It believes Chinese exports will continue to lag because of weaker demand and more competition and that corporate debt will reach more than 250 percent of Chinas gross domestic product by 2018. It forecasts China will grow 6.1 percent this year, while most other forecasts peg growth expectations at around 6.6 percent. These are both sufficiently strong, but still shy of Indias recently downgraded expectations.

Chinas GDP per capita is $14,300, per The World Factbook, while Indias checks in at $6,200  suggesting India has the opportunity to play catchup by boosting its labor productivity and building basic and essential infrastructure.

Another unique wrinkle in this comparison: data on fixed asset investments in China and India shows both countries have an obvious two-track economy in which strong growth in investment by state-owned enterprises is offsetting low growth in investment from private enterprises. One logical place for much of that capital to go is towards infrastructure.

Few, if any, other developed economies show this amount of disparity between where investments are coming from. Generally, private investment growth can complement public investment growth, and vice versa, and there is no obvious causal relationship. However, both China and India have signaled clearly and consistently that they perceive state-sponsored spending as a facilitator of overall economic growth to some degree.

It is safe to say that both China and India will experience a higher demand for infrastructure projects and raw materials moving forward, particularly if state investment growth continues to outpace private investment growth at a similar clip.

As for which country grows the most in 2017, its still a tossup.

Ruda heads Thomson Reuters global trade management business, ONESOURCE Global Trade. He can be reached by email at [email protected]
Collins is the first Black person and also the first African to win Google's yearly Code-In hacking competition. But his win is not the real gem here, it's how he won.

Google Code-In is a competition for pre-university students between the ages of 13 and 17 where the students are given a variety of bite-sized tasks to hack open source software.

The government of Cameroon has shut down internet access in Anglophone parts of the country (for the past 23 days now) after English-speaking Cameroonians protested marginalization and systemic oppression in the country.

Bamenda, where Collins lives, is one of the locations where Internet has been shut down.

But he didn't let that stop him. In true African spirit, Collins defied the odds stacked against him and travelled to Bafoussam in Francophone Cameroon to work on, and submit, his solutions before returning to Bamenda despite unrest in the country.

When GCI started I was anxious and nervous to some extend I had to find ways to turn my nervousness into creativity and fun. Participating was super exciting and really exhausting, and at the end, I discovered that I gained a whole new level of experience in the Open source world," says Collins.

On January 30, 2017, Google announced Collins as the winner of this year's edition of the competition, crowning his efforts and sheer will-power.

As a result, Collins will be travelling to the Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California to meet with Google's Open Source team and other members of the Google Software Engineering team.

His victory stands as a beacon of ambition and tenacity buried somewhere in Africa's collective spirit.
Security and IT systems at the $1.2-billion headquarters in the Belgian capital are behind schedule and so the transatlantic military alliance will only properly move in come September, sources told AFP.

Trump has previously criticised NATO, calling it "obsolete" in an interview earlier this year and pressing the rest of the 28-nation group to commit more money to it.

A source close to the matter told AFP that NATO aimed to inaugurate its new building after the summer holidays, "in my view more like the end of September."

Asked for comment, NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu told AFP: "On the summit venue, we aim to hold it at the new headquarters."

"The move to the new NATO headquarters has started and it's due to be completed later this year," she said, describing it as a "complex logistical undertaking" involving NATO staff and delegations from the 28 allies.

"The new IT and security systems in the building are highly complex and we are slightly behind schedule in making all of them fully operational."

Lungescu did not give a date.

The supplier responsible for delivering the network infrastructure has still not delivered it to the alliance, which has in turn pushed back security tests, the source close to the matter said.

The new NATO HQ, built in a distinctive double lightning bolt shape, will house 4,000 staff and diplomats from the 28 member countries.

Built just over the road from the current 1960s-era headquarters near Brussels airport, it had been scheduled to open in the first quarter of 2017.

The White House confirmed last week that Trump will attend the May summit, easing doubts in Europe about the new US president's commitment to the bloc.

Trump expressed "strong support for NATO" in a phone call with the alliance's Norwegian chief Jens Stoltenberg but also urged European members to pitch in more to ease the defence spending burden.
Belgium has been on high alert since three suicide bombers attacked Zaventem Airport and the Brussels metro system in March 2016, killing 32 people.

"We believe that a growing number of mosques and Islamic centres in Belgium, like the rest of Europe, are under the influence of Wahhabism, the Salafist missionary apparatus," the centre said.

"We also note that the imams of these mosques are regularly being 'salafised' or are already 'salafised'," it added.

Saudi Arabia is the cradle of Wahhabism, which has been accused of inspiring extremist ideologies across the Muslim world.

The Belgian official report said Saudi authorities had set up a "generous" bursary scheme for Muslim students from other countries.

"They are strongly encouraged to become imams in their Belgian mosques or be active in proselytising in Belgium or more widely in French-speaking or Dutch-speaking areas," it said, as cited by De Standaard daily.

"The Saudi authorities and the Wahhabist establishment have clearly settled on this method to reinforce the influence of the doctrine and practice of Wahhabism in Muslim communities in Europe," it said.

Belgium has a long-running problem with radicalisation, producing what officials say is the highest number of jihadists going to fight in Syria and Iraq in proportion to its population of any EU country.
UN envoy Martin Kobler told the Secu

rity Council that talks on "possible amendments" to the political agreement, and notably on Haftar's future role, had made progress in the past two months.

"I am confident that a format will be found in the next weeks within which these questions can be decided upon and recommendations can be put forth for approval to the relevant institutions," Kobler said.

Any changes must be endorsed by the Libyan House of Representatives, which has refused to back the Sarraj government.

"2017 must be a year of decisions and political breakthrough," said Kobler.

The United Nations brokered the Libyan political agreement that was signed in Morocco in 2015 and Western countries had been adamant that the Sarraj government was the only legitimate voice.

Security Council members Egypt and Russia have offered support for Haftar, whose self-declared Libyan National Army has had success in battling jihadists in Benghazi, the country's second city.

Following the meeting, the council declared that it "recognizes the growing concern among Libyans for a more inclusive political settlement within the framework of the Libyan political agreement," said Ukrainian Ambassador Volodymyr Yelchenko, this month's council president.

Bring in all the actors

Libya has been in turmoil since the 2011 ousting of Moamer Kadhafi, with rival administrations vying for power.

"What we need is a genuinely inclusive government that brings in all of the key actors in Libya, and we need that because that is the best way to restore stability," said British Deputy Ambassador Peter Wilson.

Kobler admitted that opening up the hard-fought political agreement to changes was risky, and stressed that there should be "very limited" amendments.

"It's also a risk to leave the agreement as it is, because it doesn't work," the envoy told reporters following the council meeting.

Sarraj has reportedly offered to meet Haftar in Cairo to try to come to agreement.

"General Haftar must have a role in the chain of command of the army, and we encourage talks," said Kobler.

Despite the political deadlock, Libya has boosted its oil production to over 700,000 barrels a day, providing the state with much-needed revenue.
Duterte on Monday suspended police from anti-narcotics operations after a South Korean businessman was murdered by rogue drugs squad police.

He has put the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in charge, and plans to deploy troops as reinforcements.

Duterte said his campaign was about destroying the apparatus of the drugs trade, not killing, and only he would be accountable if law enforcers were accused of wrongful killings during raids and sting operations.

Those done in the line of duty I take full responsibility, he said.

If someone should go to jail, its not police, not military, not the PDEA, Its me.

Dutertes war on drugs has attracted global attention due to its high death toll in his first seven months in office and the shock factor of images in media of bloodied corpses lying in streets and slums.

As at Jan. 31, some 2,555 Filipinos were killed in what police said were shootouts during anti-drugs operations.

More than 7,700 deaths have been recorded overall, and the cause of many of those are much in dispute.

The Catholic Church used sermons at the weekend to speak out about the drugs war, saying killings were not the solution and the poor were being worst hit.

A Feb. 1 report by Amnesty International said the same, and concluded that police had behaved like the criminal underworld they were supposed to suppress, taking payments for killings.

The report said many killings were systematic, planned and organised by authorities.

Duterte rubbished those claims and said it was necessary to provide undercover police with cash to buy drugs in sting operations, referred to as buy-busts, otherwise prosecuting dealers would be difficult.

He denied his campaign was focusing on small-time users and pushers only, and he had proved local politicians were on his radar.

There is always a contention Duterte is killing the poor, he said.

So where is the big fish? We started with the mayors, they were killed along the way, so theres the big fish, he said.

In Tuesdays New York Times, Gaviria, who was Colombias president from 1990-1994, appealed to Duterte to use alternative strategies to fight drugs and explained why his countrys crackdowns on cocaine cartels had failed.

He hoped Duterte would avoid a heavy-handed approach and not fall into the same trap.

Trust me, I learned the hard way, he wrote.
In the past two weeks, seven asylum seekers, all unaccompanied minors, have tried to kill themselves at different refugee housing centres across Sweden.

Three of them died, all Afghan teenagers aged under 18, said Mahboba Madadi, who works closely with unaccompanied asylum seekers for a non-profit group.

"They're afraid of being expelled and have no hope," Madadi told AFP.

In a revised security assessment published in December, the Swedish Migration Board deemed some regions of Afghanistan "less dangerous" despite "increasing violence" in the war-torn country. The assessment has made it easier for authorities to expel rejected asylum seekers to Afghanistan.

"There are parts of Afghanistan where one can return," a spokesman at the Swedish Migration Board told AFP.

He said rejected asylum seekers under 18 will not be sent back to Afghanistan if they do not have family members or acquaintances to take care of them.

Sara Edvardson Ehrnborg, a teacher who also volunteers for a non-profit group helping refugees, said unaccompanied Afghan migrants were increasingly worried their asylum applications would be rejected.

Loneliness and lack of affection in asylum homes could also trigger the teens to end their lives, according to Madadi.

"They're not happy in the homes. They're kids who need someone who shows them love," she said, expressing concerns that more asylum seekers would attempt suicide.

"We are extremely worried and we want the Swedish government to do something about this," she added.

Sweden took in the highest number of refugees per capita in Europe in 2015, registering 160,000 asylum applications.

Last year, the Scandinavian country granted 2,100 Afghan minors asylum and rejected 600 others.
Turning the ship before it hits the iceberg
Davenport police have arrested a man who allegedly has committed three armed robberies, including the robbery of two people whom he forced at gunpoint to withdraw money from an ATM machine using one of the victims bank card.

Dayvon Davell Freeman, 23, of 1417 Warren St., Davenport, is charged with first-degree robbery, second-degree kidnapping and being a felon in possession of a firearm for the robbery of the two people that occurred Jan. 14.

He also is charged with first-degree robbery and being a felon in possession of a firearm in each of two other robberies for which he is charged. The first of those is the Jan. 28 armed robbery of the Dollar General store at 403 E. Locust St., and for the Feb. 4 armed robbery of Electronic Expressions, 1634 W. Locust St.

He also is charged with one count of trafficking in stolen weapons.

Freeman was shot in the back Nov. 1 when he was found burglarizing a mans truck in the 1300 block of Division Street. The man who shot Freeman, Byron J. Blackwell, is charged with attempted murder, willful injury, and going armed with intent. Blackwells case goes to trial April 17 in Scott County District Court.

According to the arrest affidavit filed by Davenport Police Detective Aric Robinson, at 12:56 a.m. Jan. 14, Davenport police were sent to the Kwik Shop at 1732 Marquette St. in reference to a robbery that occurred in the parking lot of Stoegers Bar and Grill, 1520 Washington St.

According to Robinsons affidavit, Freeman was wielding a handgun when he approached two people and ordered them into a vehicle owned by one of the victims. Both victims were ordered into the front seats. Freeman then ordered the victims to take him to an automatic teller machine and withdraw money. The transaction was caught on the ATMs video camera and was verified by the bank receipt.

After getting the victims money, he ordered them to drive around and eventually got out of the vehicle in the north alley of 800 West 14th Street.

In addition to taking money from the victims, Freeman also ordered them to give him their cellphones. He also made several threats to kill the victims and their families, according to Robinsons affidavit.

Freeman was arrested Wednesday and was being held without bond in the Scott County Jail.

First-degree robbery is a Class B felony under Iowa law that carries a mandatory prison sentence of 25 years, 17 of which must be served before parole can be granted.

Second-degree kidnapping also is a Class B felony that carries a prison sentence of up to 25 years.

The charge of felon in possession of a firearm is a Class D felony that carries a prison sentence of five years.

Trafficking in stolen weapons is a Class D felony. However, it is a Class C felony for a second or subsequent offense or if the weapons was used in the commission of a crime. Class C felonies carry a prison sentence of up to 10 years.

Freeman has an extensive criminal record that includes being arrested in connection with a Chicago shooting in 2014, police said.
The Taiwanese ocean carrier has sold 161 million new shares to the state-run National Development Fund, Taiwan Navigation and a handful of unnamed institutional investors, according to multiple media reports.



Source: Oliver Hoffmann / Shutterstock

Taiwanese ocean carrier Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp. has secured more than $54 million via a private stock offering, according to multiple media reports.



Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp. has secured more than $54 million via a private stock offering, according to multiple media reports.

The reports cite a stock exchange release in which the Taiwanese ocean carrier said it has sold 161 million new shares to the state-run National Development Fund, Taiwan Navigation and a handful of unnamed institutional investors for 10.48 new Taiwan dollars (NTD) per share for a total of NTD 1.69 billion (U.S. $54.37 million).

The company in late January instituted a recapitalization plan aimed at providing immediate benefits to its balance sheets and improving liquidity.

In a Dec. 22, 2016 shareholders meeting, the shareholders voted to approve a stock consolidation plan, Yang Ming said at the time. This move was designed to pare down accumulated loss. Additionally, it was announced at the meeting that Yang Ming would receive injection of fresh capital from new investors. The first stage of this injection of capital will be from various government and private entities, including banks and financial institutions. Yang Ming will issue new stock to these investors, and with the new capital, Yang Ming expects immediate benefits to its balance sheets.

The move came shortly after the investment research arm of maritime industry consultant Drewry issued a report expressing concerns about the companys high level of debt, even going as far as to compare Yang Ming to now-insolvent South Korean carrier Hanjin Shipping.

Back in November 2016, the Government of Taiwan announced a $1.9 billion aid package for the countrys shipping industry, to which both Yang Ming and compatriot line Evergreen will potentially have access.

Yang Ming has reported losses totaling NTD 12.98 billion through the first nine months of 2016 compared with a loss of about 3.98 billion NTD in the same 2015 period. Revenues at the company stood at NTD 83.9 billion for the first nine months of the year compared with NTD 97.7 billion in 2015.
A Rock Island man charged in connection with a fatal shooting in Moline made his first court appearance Wednesday in Rock Island County Court.

Kaleb Joseph Mallek, 22, of Rock Island, faces charges of aggravated battery with a firearm, armed violence, both Class X felonies, and felon in possession of a firearm, a Class 3 felony.

Bond was set at $1 million; he has a preliminary hearing Feb. 21.

Mallek was arrested Friday in Iowa City. He waived extradition in Johnson County on Monday and was brought back to Rock Island County on Tuesday, according to court records.

The shooting occurred at about 10 p.m. Feb. 2 at Westwood Terrace, 2200 1st St. A. Police had received several reports of gunshots in the east parking lot of the apartment complex.

Officers found Keswan T. Simmons, 23, of Moline, with a fatal gunshot wound to the chest.

Mallek was initially charged with aggravated battery. The two additional charges were filed Monday, Rock Island County States Attorney John McGehee said.

Prosecutors allege in court documents that Mallek was armed with a firearm and in possession of, with intent to deliver, more than 10 grams of marijuana when he personally discharged a firearm and by doing so, caused the death of Simmons.

McGehee said Wednesday he could not elaborate further on the allegations, citing the ongoing court case.

He said based on the facts that we have from the investigation, more serious charges, such as murder, are not likely to be filed.

A Class X felony typically carries a punishment of six to 30 years in prison, but the armed violence charge carries an enhanced sentence of 25 to 45 years.

A Class 3 felony is punishable by two to five years in prison.

Mallek was paroled from the Illinois Department of Corrections in September after serving nearly a year of a four-year sentence for failure to report an accident involving injury.

According to court documents, Mallek crashed into another vehicle April 25, 2015, at East 10th Avenue and the Rock Island/Milan Parkway, leaving two people with serious injuries.

Mallek failed to stop and report the accident, according to court documents.
A third man wanted in connection with an assault at a Davenport strip club that left one man seriously injured in October 2015 has been arrested.

Trenton Diontrae Shelton, 31, was booked into the Scott County Jail just after 6 p.m. Wednesday on a charge of willful injury causing serious injury, a Class C felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

He also was wanted on a charge of failure to register as a sex offender, an aggravated misdemeanor punishable by up to two years in prison, in a separate case. He also is accused of violating his probation in a drug case.

Bond was set Thursday at $17,000 cash-only. He waived his right to a preliminary hearing and will be arraigned Feb. 16.

A revocation hearing on the probation violation is scheduled for Aug. 10.

At 12:26 a.m. Oct. 15, 2015, Davenport police officers responded to a fight at Chorus Line, 4128 Brady St.

Police say Shelton and his brothers, Kamden and Juan, were involved in a fight with Joshua Sutton, 41, who was knocked to the floor.

According to police, Sutton was kicked in the head and torso several times and stomped on.

Kamden Shelton was arrested the day of the incident. Juan Shelton was arrested the next day after police say he led them on a five-minute car chase from Rock Island into Davenport via the Interstate 280 bridge.

Trenton Diontrae Shelton was arrested in December 2015 in Mississippi by the U.S. Marshals Service. He was charged in federal court for failing to register as a sex offender and in November, was sentenced to 16 months in prison.

According to Bureau of Prisons online records, he was released from prison on Tuesday.

Kamden Shelton entered an Alford plea to willful injury causing serious injury and was sentenced the following month to up to 10 years in prison.

In an Alford plea, a defendant does not admit guilt but concedes that prosecutors have enough evidence to win a conviction.

Juan Shelton also entered an Alford plea in May to willful injury causing serious injury.

He pleaded as a habitual offender, which prosecutors can seek if a defendant has two prior felony convictions. He faced 15 years in prison and was advised at the time of his plea that he must serve at least three years of the sentence before he is eligible for parole.

Later that month, he filed a motion to take back the plea, saying he was not properly advised.

His attorney, Russell Dircks, argued Juan Shelton was not properly advised that he must serve half, or 7 years, of the sentence because he was on parole at the time of the alleged assault.

District Court Judge Thomas Reidel allowed Juan Shelton to take back his plea and reinstated the charges.

He has a final pretrial conference March 8.
Iowa Republicans seeking to overhaul the state's collective bargaining law are following in the footsteps of states such as Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan by carving out major exemptions for unions predominantly representing police officers, firefighters and other public safety workers.

However, the 68-page proposal isnt uniformly positive for the men and women who fight fires and crime. Nor does it cover all who engage in dangerous work.

In fact, some critics of the proposal say it removes major workplace protections that prevent supervisors from dismissing firefighters and police officers on a whim.

It moves us to an at-will employee. We have no protections whatsoever, said Doug Neys, president of Iowa Professional Firefighters, which represents nearly 1,600 firefighters across the state.

The new proposal changes the standard for disciplinary action for employees who are covered by civil service rules. It would allow employers to take action against workers for any act or failure to act that they think makes an employee "unsuitable or unfit" for the job.

Neys said that's not fair to workers, nor is it good for public safety. He said debriefings after fire calls are an opportunity to speak frankly about performance and procedural issues, even to superiors. However, the new threshold would make it difficult to do that, he said, and would have a huge negative effect on public safety.

The change still would allow for disciplinary action to be appealed to a civil service commission, but it eliminates the right to appeal to the court, which Neys said is pivotal.

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, who has long called for a revamp of the states collective bargaining law, has praised the House and Senate proposals.

His spokesman, Ben Hammes, said the bill goes to great lengths exempting public safety employees who risk their lives on a daily basis. But he added that, with respect to the change in civil service rules, unionized employees still would have the same protections that are available to public workers who arent in unions. He also says there are federal and state-level protections in place to prevent discrimination and retaliation.

The most notable exemption in the bill for unions that predominantly represent public safety workers is that they still will be able to bargain on such things as health insurance, vacation and other matters of interest as they do today. But non-public safety workers would be able to bargain on base wages, but not on health insurance and other items that now are on the table.

Proponents say the limits will benefit the taxpayer. And they say the reason for the exemption for public safety unions is that police, firefighters and state troopers risk their lives in the work they do.

"The people that put on the uniform to go out there and protect the lives and safety of each of us every day, I think theres a reason to treat them different," the governor said at a news conference Tuesday. He noted there is a different pension system for police and firefighters.

Neys, of the firefighters association, said he appreciates that part of the proposal, although his group still opposes the plan overall. Meanwhile, other union leaders say that some public workers who deal with a dangerous element are left out.

An example is corrections officers, said Danny Homan, president of AFSCME, Local 61. He added that some unions, while not representing predominantly public safety officials, still cover some of them. The Republican proposal provides exemptions on mandatory bargaining items for unions who have a majority of members from the public safety field.

I think theyre using this to divide the labor movement, Homan said.

Critics of such exemptions also point to federal Department of Labor data that say non-public safety workers suffer more fatalities on the job. In 2015, the rate of fatalities for police officers and sheriffs patrol officers was 4.3 and 11.7 per 100,000 full-time workers, according to Department of Labor data. For grounds maintenance workers, however, it was 15 per 100,000, and for transit and ground transportation workers, the rate was at 9 per 100,000.

Still, 2016 did see a sharp increase in police officers killed on the job. The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund said 135 officers suffered job-related deaths through Dec. 28, about a 10 percent increase, including a 56 percent jump in those who were killed by gunfire.

Several states have enacted, or tried to enact, major changes to collective bargaining laws in recent years. Wisconsin is perhaps the most well known. Act 10, which was passed in 2011, drew tens of thousands of people to Madison, the state capital, to protest.

Wisconsin largely exempted police and firefighters from the provisions of Act 10. So have other states that had narrowed collective bargaining laws.

"If you're going to attack any group, the ones you're least likely to attack are first responders," says Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute, which has studied changes in collective bargaining laws across the country.

Not all states have done that, however. In Ohio, voters in 2011 rejected an attempt to curtail collective bargaining rights. There, police and firefighters who would have seen their rights limited played a key role in a referendum defeating the proposal.

Backers of Iowa's law say that, for taxpayers, there needs to be some balance in the relationship between workers and management.

"The provisions in the bill are meant to restore more control and discretion to local office holders and decision makers. We want the people who are handling tax dollars to be the ones who are most answerable to the people who elected them," said Sen. Jason Schultz, R-Schleswig, chairman of Senate Labor and Business Relations Committee.

(Rod Boshart contributed to this report.)
DES MOINES  Business representatives Wednesday applauded a House proposal to pre-empt cities and counties from going beyond statewide standards for minimum wages and civil rights, while critics blasted the bill as an overreach that flies in the face of home rule and local control.

We think there needs to be a clear policy across the state, not a patchwork, said Jessica Harder, a lobbyist for the Iowa Association of Business & Industry, who was joined by representatives of retailers, chambers of commerce and casinos in supporting the bill to bar local entities from establishing minimum wage levels or employment regulations, marketing or consumer merchandise sales restrictions or adopting civil rights ordinances that go above and beyond what the Legislature and governor have set as a statewide standard.

Its kind of an inconsistent policy to have, she said.

The section of House Study Bill 92 dealing with any terms or conditions of employment that exceed or conflict with the requirements of federal or state minimums or the living wage rate stated that any local ordinance or resolution in conflict with the preemption slated to take effect upon the governors signature would be void and unenforceable after that enactment date.

For folks who believe in small government and local control, this makes absolutely no sense, Connie Ryan, executive director of the Interfaith Alliance of Iowa Action Fund told the two majority Republicans on a three-member House local government subcommittee. She questioned why lawmakers were pushing civil rights law pre-emptions designed to protect marginalized people in our state with a change that could re-establish discriminatory practices of the 1950s.

Why are you messing with the Iowa Civil Rights Act? she asked.

Joe Fagan, a Des Moines resident who applauded his Polk County supervisors for raising the countys minimum wage above the states current $7.25 hourly minimum, chastised legislators for their inaction to address the issue until someone else did it for them.

You didnt do anything for all these years. Now they did something and now youre here to take it away. The people who are poor, youre acting like you want to keep them that way, he said. You finally did something by doing something bad.

At the local level, Johnson County was the first in the state to pass a countywide minimum wage ordinance, which brought the local rate up to $10.10 last month. Future adjustments are possible based on committee recommendations.

Linn Countys minimum wage increased last month to $8.25 an hour, and is slated to increase to $9.25 next year and reach $10.25 in 2019.

Wapello County approved an increase to $10.10 in 2019, while Polk Countys minimum wage will reach $10.75 an hour that same year.

Gary Grant, a lobbyist representing the city of Cedar Rapids, the Linn County supervisors and the Urban County Coalition, said he was concerned the bill goes far beyond the minimum wage dispute.

This could be viewed as a virtual elimination of home rule, Grant told the subcommittee members. We understand what the target is, but we believe the bill is so broadly written it could be construed to almost remove the discretion of local governments in making ordinances.

Several speakers expressed concern HSB92 would actually lower wages for some Iowans, while Pastor Debbie Griffin of the downtown Disciples of Christ church, implored lawmakers not to adversely impact changes that are helping to support, feed and empower disadvantaged Iowans.

It is just appalling to me that you would do this injustice to people who are hungry, people who cant afford child care, people who have to lower their pride to get assistance and they dont want to, she said. So to take away the pride and the equality and the ability for people to earn a living wage, I just beg you not to do this and I completely cannot understand why.

Subcommittee chair Rep. John Landon, R-Ankeny, said the bill would get more discussion from subcommittee members who did not vote publicly Wednesday.

Rep. Brian Meyer, D-Des Moines, said he opposed the measure but planned to offer amendments in committee and on the House floor that would include an effort to raise the statewide minimum wage to $11 an hour.
Signs of a busy household  a childs pink bicycle and kick scooter  are scattered across the front lawn at Holly Kays rental home in Bettendorf.

A closer inspection of the landscape reveals handprints enshrined in five separate decorative stones, which the single mother received as gifts last Mothers Day from her five children.

Inside, an overwhelmed Kay, 33, has a moment to herself at her kitchen table, where shes jotting down a list of Quad-City contacts she has made this week in preparation for her teenage sons upcoming birthday.

In years past, Kay has sent party invitations to her sons classmates, but no one ever showed. So, for his 14th birthday this month, the devoted mother took to Facebook and asked her network of family and friends to send her son, Mitchell, birthday cards to help lift his spirits.

Within the past week, Kays request has gone viral, and the publics response has blown her away.

I thought, even if Mitchell ended up with 10 cards, he would be so excited, Kay said, her phone ringing with notifications.

Since Jan. 9, her initial post has been shared more than 7,000 times, and as of Thursday morning, Kay had received more than 800 cards in the mail from friends and strangers across the country.

On Tuesday alone, Jennifer Simmons, a U.S. Postal Service mail carrier, delivered Kay a box of nearly 130 cards for Mitchell.

This is the best part of my day, Simmons told the smiling mother, who plans to surprise Mitchell with the snail mail next week.

The eighth grader turns 14 on Feb. 20, but Kay rented out three rooms next Friday, Feb. 17, at the Bettendorf Community Center, where she plans to host a public birthday bash for her son. Several Quad-City businesses and organizations, including Happy Joe's Pizza and Analog Arcade Bar, already have reached out to volunteer their services, Kay said.

Because she does not allow Mitchell to use social media, the teenager has no clue what's coming, except that his family is throwing him a party.

"I know the party is going to be huge, but that protective mom in me makes me worried that nobody's going to come," said Kay, a hairdresser who formerly managed the Great Clips in Rock Island.

Last yearKay, whose children range in age from 2-16, moved her family from Rock Island to Bettendorf. She is taking a break from work and relying on savings, and the help of the father of three of her children, to support them. In March, she plans to enroll at Scott Community College in hopes of becoming an ultrasound technician.

When Mitchell's new classmates at Bettendorf Middle School noticed Kay's post on social media, they immediately banded together, temporarily ridding the mother's fears of bullying and her sons loneliness at the lunch table.

"I've never seen anything like this," said Lisa Reid, principal of Bettendorf Middle School, who noted the call for help has empowered students.

"Theyre taking on something they read about on social media that wasnt negative," she said. "Its really refreshing.

On Monday, his peers gave Mitchell a cake and a tri-fold poster board adorned with dozens of signatures and short notes, including one that asks him to connect on Snapchat.

Kay praised the students and faculty for their efforts.

She said Mitchell, who enjoys video games and Japanese culture, has struggled to make friends, but she thinks these acts of kindness will give him a boost of confidence "he's never had before."

It's so much more than a $2 card, she said. Hes going to wake up in the morning and not be bummed about having to go to school.
Julie Schmidt Urban, a co-founder of Backyard Chickens-Scott County, IA, said she couldnt have been happier Wednesday after Davenport aldermen voted 8-1 to change the citys ordinance to allow residents to raise chickens.

When you do something for the first time people are going to be watching, she told alderman after their vote. We are well aware that everyone is watching and we will do it right.

The ordinance allows for six hens to lay eggs. The hens have to have a coop, and the coop must be 25 feet from a neighbors house and 15 feet from the owners home.

The original draft of the ordinance had the coop 25 feet away from the owners home, but the closer it is to the house reduces the likelihood of predators, she said.

Numerous cities around Iowa, including Des Moines, Dubuque and Cedar Rapids all have ordinances for urban chickens, she added. So its not anything new at all.

Another resident, Kathy Miller, said she has five family members and three eager dogs.

I will be able to use all of the eggs our hens lay, she said. Its going to be fun.

Thomas Rutherford, also a resident, told council members he grew up on a farm, and that allowing him to keep chickens, will allow me to hang on to my roots.

The only dissenting vote was by Alderman Ray Ambrose, 4th Ward, who said the ordinance likely will have a negative impact on property values.

The Health Department has a problem with the odors and the flies, he said. The Humane Society is concerned about predators. The challenges and impact it will have on the neighborhoods outweighs your fresh eggs.

Alderman Kyle Gripp, at large, told the members of Backyard Chickens he was happy to see them participating in their government. Gripp added that some people said the city had bigger fish to fry, but in the midst of researching the urban chicken issue, Davenport city staff landed one of the biggest economic deals for the city, proving we can walk and chew gum at the same time.

Alderman Maria Dickmann, 2nd Ward, told Backyard Chickens and other City Council members she was happy with the direction the city is taking on the issue.

Alderman also passed by a vote of 9-0 all rezone ordinances needed to allow Sterilite to build its $73 million 2.4 million-square-foot plant at the intersection of Slopertown Road and Division Street.

Aldermen suspended the rules to allow for a vote on all three considerations to change the zoning from Agricultural District to Light Industrial District.

Mayor Frank Klipsch said the faster the city gets its job done, the faster jobs can be brought to the area.

Sterilite officials have said the project will create 500 jobs.
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The priest was clearly uncomfortable.

A red hat, emblazoned with the slogan "Make America Great Again," sat next to him Saturday morning on the altar of St. James Catholic Church in rural Carthage, New York. The politically charged headgear was affixed to a flower vase, filled with the carnations and lilies that are traditional at a funeral.

"This will be next to me as I give Holy Communion," he said with a chuckle, before using Donald Trump's campaign slogan as a jumping off point about my dead grandmother's personal "greatness."

Alice Burrell was 92 when a massive heart attack killed her last week. A classic matriarch, her loss will send shock waves throughout our family dynamics for years. I called her Q-Tip, because of her milk-white permed hair, and she was the reason aunts and cousins, littered throughout the country, returned to upstate New York's snowbound Canadian border.

She didn't wield local fame or influence, the priest correctly noted. But her strength was undeniable. She survived breast cancer in the early 1960s. Cancer killed a teenage daughter not long after, financially ruining my grandparents and driving my grandfather toward the bottle.

Some of my fondest memories are of picking wild berries and making pies. I'd call her because my pierogi dough just wasn't right. Too much flour, she'd say.

My grandmother was a kind, simple and devout woman whose life revolved around her children, grandchildren and her church.

And yet, it was Donald Trump's fiery, sometimes hateful rhetoric that -- for the last two years of her life -- impassioned her.

I didn't often talk politics with her but never before had I seen my grandmother so enamored with a politician.

"They're all crooks," she'd say about the Bushes, Clintons, Kennedys and the like.

She'd tell me she was praying for me, her way of politely expressing disapproval. Abortion was a driving issue for her. But so, too, was an innate sense of unquantifiable loss. The social gains of others, in some way, came at the expense of her and those like her in this once prosperous mill town on the Black River.

It was a zero-sum perspective.

And that's what ran through my mind as I stood, covered in snow and sniveling, at the cemetery with my fellow pallbearers. I thought about a gentle woman -- a daughter of Polish immigrants -- so fully latching on to Trump's dystopian view of the country. It was buy-in so complete that, upon her death, it was deemed appropriate to affix that hat to a flower vase and display it proudly beside her casket.

The few times we argued, I'd talk about job-killing automation and the importance of global economic engagement to American power. I'd tap historic examples of discrimination against Poles and Catholics to highlight the necessity of equal protection. I'd note Pope Francis, her spiritual leader, had rebuked Trump's worldview.

But, to her, the Trump movement boiled down to emotion. It was about perceived loss. It was a rejection of an order that, throughout her lifetime, transitioned from elevating the needs of those like her to something more urban and diverse.
On the occasion of his 80th birthday, Jacques Saade the founder of CMA CGM, appointed his son to run what is the worlds third largest ocean carrier.



Rodolphe Saade has been named chief executive officer of the CMA CGM Group.

On the occasion of his 80th birthday, Jacques Saade appointed his son to the top job at the Marseilles-based firm.

Jacques Saade, who will remain chairman of the company, said, Rodolphe has proven himself over the years, and he has my deepest trust as chief executive officer of the Group. I know that, with Rodolphe as CEO, with Farid Salem and Tanya Saade Zeenny, our executive officers, and all our teams around the world, the group will continue its development with the same commitment and passion.

After having left Lebanon to protect his family from civil war, Jacques Saade moved to Marseilles where he set up the Compagnie Maritime dAffretement (CMA) on Sept. 13, 1978, with one ship and one route linking Marseilles, Livorno (Italy), Lattakia (Syria) and Beirut (Lebanon).

The company grew over the years to become the third largest container carrier in the world.

Milestones include:

 In 1983, CMAs first vessels sailed beyond the Mediterranean Sea and through the Suez Canal;

 In 1986, CMA launched a service linking Northern Europe to Singapore, South Korea and Japan;

 In 1992, CMAs first commercial office opened in China;

 In 1996, the French government decided to privatize Compagnie Generale Maritime (CGM), resulting in CMA taking over operations and merging the company in 1999;

 In 2005, CMA CGM took over Delmas;

 And in 2016, CMA CGM acquired Neptune Orient Line and its APL liner unit.

Rodolphe Saade was previously executive officer of the company.

After he founded a company selling water coolers in the Middle East, he joined CMA CGM in 1994 in the U.S.

He then worked in Hong Kong before coming back to Marseilles to head a shipping service linking Northern China to Japan.

From 1997 to 2000, Rodolphe Saade was in charge of a sucession of different services.

In 2008, when the cruise yacht Le Ponant, which was owned by a CMA CGM subsidiary, was hijacked, Rodolphe Saade led negotiations with the pirates, which ended with the release of hostages.

In 2009, he took over responsibility of the groups financial restructuring, while in 2015 and 2016, he led the companys effort to acquire NOL/APL and negotiations to create the Ocean Alliance with COSCO, Evergreen, and OOCL, which will commence operations in April.
BOSTON | The biggest storm to hit the Northeast this winter dumped a foot or more of snow along the New York-to-Boston corridor Thursday, turning roads treacherous, grounding flights and giving millions of people weather whiplash a day after temperatures soared into the 50s and 60s.

Scores of accidents were reported as drivers confronted windblown snow and slick highways, with southbound Interstate 95 at the Rhode Island-Connecticut line closed in the afternoon because several tractor-trailers got stuck on an incline.

More than 3,500 flights were canceled, and all planes bound for New York's Kennedy Airport were ordered held on the ground at one point while crews cleared the runways.

Schools closed in cities big and small, including New York City, Philadelphia and Boston, and government offices told non-essential workers to stay home.

A doorman in New York City died after falling down a set of stairs and crashing through a plate-glass window while shoveling snow, police said. He suffered cuts on his neck and face.

The National Weather Service said up to 11 inches fell in New York's Hudson Valley by noon, while areas around New York City and Long Island received 6 to 9 inches. West Hartford, Connecticut, had more than 13 inches, and Ludlow, Massachusetts, 16.

A blizzard warning was posted for a swath of the New England coast, with forecasters saying Boston and Providence, Rhode Island, could get up to a foot and a half by evening.

A group of women wearing their pajamas on a New York City sidewalk because it was "Pajama Day" at ABC's "The Chew" show were undeterred by the snow.

Elaine Higgins, a retired educator from Blackwood, New Jersey, was among those waiting in the freezing cold to get into ABC's studios.

"It's fun. And it's an experience. Yesterday was 65 degrees and today, a snowstorm," she said. "What's life without adventure?"

The storm came midway through a largely snow-free winter in the Northeast and a day after much of the region enjoyed a brief taste of spring, with record-breaking highs in some places. Temperatures then crashed more than 30 degrees as the storm rolled in.

The Philadelphia area had been told to expect up to 8 inches in the morning, but ended up getting much less. Some suburbs received 5 inches, but by the afternoon, there was almost no trace of snow downtown, and the sun came out.

Wearing a T-shirt, Alicia Jones tossed salt on the sidewalk outside the Philadelphia restaurant where she works as a server. She said her daughter had the day off from school, and Jones had been looking forward to playing in the snow.

"But by the time we woke up, it was all over," she said.

Rhode Islanders reported seeing and hearing "thundersnow," with the rumble of thunder accompanying the near white-out conditions.

"It's pretty rare. I've been plowing snow for 20 years now. Every snowstorm, I'm out. I've only seen it three times in my life," said Jared Nunes, a state lawmaker from Coventry who runs a construction company that does plowing in the winter.

Connecticut communities had 8 to 10 inches of snow by midday.

"We were waiting for a good one all year," said Morgan Crum, a manager at Katz Ace Hardware in Glastonbury, Connecticut. "We live in New England. This is what we expect."

Crum said more than 50 people stopped by the store to buy shovels, ice melt, gas cans and other storm provisions.
PIERRE | A South Dakota board has voted to withhold payments to the company upgrading the state's 911 emergency system because of recurring bugs.

The state's 911 Coordination Board sent a letter to NextGen Communications Inc. (Comtech) of Annapolis, Maryland, Thursday saying the monthly payments of $259,000 wouldn't be sent until the company fixes the issues.

The South Dakota Department of Public Safety says the company started upgrading the system in 2015 and has collected $7.4 million for design, construction and maintenance.

The department says while there are issues in some areas, the 911 system is still functional statewide.

A company official did not immediately return requests for comment.

The new technology is meant to make it easier for call centers to share information and will eventually let people send texts for an emergency response if they can't call 911.
SIOUX FALLS | Nearly a dozen former employees of Wells Fargo in several states are suing the bank in federal court in Rapid City, alleging they were fired for minor criminal charges that had already been disclosed when they were hired.

The criminal records surfaced when Wells Fargo hired a company to conduct background checks on employees, the Argus Leader reported. The background checks were conducted to comply with a 2008 federal law that prohibited banks and mortgage lenders from employing people convicted of crimes involving dishonesty.

In some cases, the criminal charges were decades old and had been expunged or dismissed from employees' records. According to the suit, the former employees' backgrounds didn't bar them from employment in the industry. The suit alleges that some employees were told the criminal charges wouldn't affect their employment.

Among the employees is Kathryn Eastman, who was fired in 2012 because she had stolen a hairbrush in 1982. She had previously passed two background checks and had informed the bank of her history, which she was told wouldn't affect her employment.

"Pursuant to the Backgrounds Check Project, Wells Fargo abruptly fired hundreds of exemplary employees, some of whom had worked for Wells Fargo for decades and were approaching retirement, others who had just received promotions or had bonuses forthcoming," according to the 64-page complaint filed Feb. 2. An amended complaint was filed Monday.

The suit also accuses the bank of fraud, conspiracy and violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The case has been assigned to the South Dakota District Court's chief judge, Jeffrey Viken.

The 11 plaintiffs are residents of Iowa, Minnesota, Montana and Texas. It was not clear if any of them had worked for Wells Fargo in South Dakota.

Beardsley, Jensen & Lee, a Rapid City law firm representing the plaintiffs, declined to comment on why the federal court in South Dakota got the case except to say the "jurisdiction of the venue is appropriate."

Wells Fargo had not filed a response in court as of Wednesday afternoon. A spokeswoman for Wells Fargo didn't immediately respond to the Argus Leader for comment.
PIERRE | Employees of local governments in South Dakota would receive whistleblower protections for reporting possible wrongdoing under a measure approved Wednesday by the state House of Representatives.

Rep. Don Haggar, R-Sioux Falls, said they should have the same protections state government employees already have.

Its pretty straightforward, he said.

A coalition of Republicans and Democrats approved an amendment by Rep. Susan Wismer, D-Britton.

It would prohibit retaliation against state employees who talk to a legislator, legislative auditor or constitutional officer of state government.

Wismer gave examples from the past decade when she learned state employees had been barred from talking to her or other legislators.

Rep. Larry Rhoden, R-Sturgis, said Wismer had spent 10 minutes to grind axes and spread rumors.

House Democratic leader Spencer Hawley of Brookings said he'd run into a roadblock last summer with a state employee who reportedly wasnt allowed to answer his questions.

Rep. Dan Kaiser, R-Aberdeen, spoke forcefully for the amendment. Kaiser said it gives employees certainty. Kaiser talked about probation officers who told him they couldnt answer questions about justice legislation.

Im going to ask you to trust your gut, Kaiser said.

Haggar opposed the amendment. He said he's never met resistance when hes called the agency head first and asked for a meeting with some employees.

The amendment vote was 35-32. Initially the House speaker, Rep. Mark Mickelson, R-Sioux Falls, said it had failed. After murmurs and some consultation, he declared the amendment passed because it had a majority of the members present.

Well, I stand corrected and I withdraw the gavel, Mickelson said. Applause came from several legislators in the Democratic section.

There was no further debate. The final tally was 62-5, more than a majority in the 70-member chamber.
Jailing mentally ill people who have committed no crimes is unacceptable in the eyes of Gilbert Gonzales, a psychologist from San Antonio who visited Rapid City last week to promote and praise mental health services in the Black Hills.

Putting people in jail because there is no treatment is effectively criminalizing mental illness, Gonzales said in a phone interview with the Journal on Wednesday. I think it is really the wrong message, the wrong approach."

Yet that is the approach proposed in a major policy change by Rapid City Regional Hospital, communicated to certain local officials via a letter sent Jan. 23. The announcement has sent shock waves through the community and left many looking for leadership to provide immediate solutions to the severe lack of mental health resources in the area.

Effective Feb. 1, 2017, we will no longer admit behavioral health patients who do not have acute medical needs to the main hospital when the Behavioral Health facility is at capacity, the letter from Regional said.

It goes on to say that from now on, we will contact the sheriffs office to take custody of involuntarily detained persons when the Behavioral Health Facility is at capacity.

Regional says it also can no longer provide inpatient mental health services for any individual with neurodevelopmental/cognitive disorders such as dementia, Alzheimers and autism spectrum disorders.

Regionals new approach has come as a surprise to many local mental health service providers and drawn criticism from local law enforcement officials, who say their input was not sought.

Its going to cause very damaging consequences for our community, especially mentally ill people, Rapid City Police Chief Karl Jegeris said.

Its very disheartening, said Lori Atkins, nursing supervisor at Behavior Management Systems. These people who are in crisis because of an illness are, to me, being categorized as criminals and put in jail. The community is in crisis because of it.

BMS, a local nonprofit, offers limited inpatient mental health services, but not for people in crisis. It has only 12 beds, and with most patients enrolled for 12 to 24 months, openings are rare and quickly filled by names on a waiting list.

"They are human beings," Dr. Stephen Manlove, a local psychiatrist, said of Rapid City's mentally ill population. "And they deserve as much health care as someone with a heart attack. They deserve to be treated with respect and professionally in a caring manner."

Gonzales, director of the Department of Behavioral and Mental Health in Bexar County, Texas, visited Rapid City on Feb. 2  a day after Regionals new policies went into effect  to speak to an audience of 200 people at Dahl Arts Center.

His remarks focused on Haven for Hope, a 22-acre campus for the homeless and mental health treatment facility in Bexar County that has received nationwide praise for its effectiveness. Gonzales also praised Rapid City's mental health service providers, saying that the path that you all are on (in Pennington County) is accelerated from the path that we had.

On the phone Wednesday, Gonzales was less complimentary.

The one rule in health care that guides us all is do no harm, he said. If that is our guiding line, do no harm, we just violated it by incarcerating.

In a statement Wednesday night, Regional drew a distinction between calling the sheriff's office when no beds are available and the decision to incarcerate.

We agree with Mr. Gonzales, and we are not suggesting that anyone be placed in jail," the statement said. "The decision to hold a committed behavioral health patient in jail is exclusively the decision of the county.

"Behavioral health patients should be placed in a secure community setting where they are safe and can be assessed properly. ...

"Regional Health will continue to hold patients who are committed on behalf of the county based on bed availability at our Behavioral Health Unit. When the behavioral health beds are occupied, we have no additional capacity to hold committed behavioral health patients on behalf of the county.

Gonzales speech was organized by Rapid City Collective Impact, a citizen-led nonprofit aimed at improving social problems such as homelessness, substance abuse and mental illness in the community.

With a renewed sense of urgency injected into Rapid City's need for more comprehensive mental health services, Collective Impact director Albert Linderman is unsure what the next step should be.

I would say that it is a bit premature to say what possible direction we can head in, he said. At the same time, I have some optimism that were going to see something emerge out of this that is going to be a better solution than what weve had thus far.

Asked if his group would be leading efforts to increase services and prevent the probable jailing of Rapid Citys mentally ill, Linderman said, I would not characterize what were doing as taking a leadership role. I would characterize it as a facilitative role that is critical, but in no way are we leading.
CANNON BALL, N.D. | As expected, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granted an easement Wednesday to complete drilling of the Dakota Access pipeline under the Missouri River reservoir. And although developer Energy Transfer Partners indicated it will begin drilling immediately, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe intends to sue to stop it.

"The drill under Lake Oahe will take approximately 60 days. It will take an additional 23 days to fill the line to Patoka, Ill., enabling Dakota Access to be in service in approximately 83 days," ETP spokeswoman Vicki Granado said.

"With this action, Dakota Access now has received all federal authorizations necessary to proceed expeditiously to complete construction of the pipeline."

The announcement came after the Army notified Congress on Tuesday that it had completed an expedited review of the pipeline route after an order from President Trump. The environmental impact study initiated in January will be canceled, the Corps said.

"On Feb. 8, 2017, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granted an easement to Dakota Access LLC allowing the installation of a 30-inch-diameter light crude oil pipeline under federal lands managed by the Corps at Oahe Reservoir," the Corps said in a statement released Wednesday evening.

The Standing Rock Sioux, whose reservation is just downstream from the crossing, said Tuesday that it would fight the easement in court on the grounds that the EIS was wrongfully terminated.

In cities around the country, including San Francisco and Chicago, people took to the streets Wednesday in a "#NoDAPL last stand." While most organizers have encouraged people to fight the pipeline in Washington and through their local governments instead of coming to North Dakota, Chase Iron Eyes and some others have encouraged people to return to North Dakota to protest construction.

"I'll see you on the front line," Iron Eyes said in a video statement posted online.

The Standing Rock Sioux say a pipeline leak could contaminate their drinking water. ETP insists the $3.8 billion, four-state crude oil pipeline is safe and outfitted with the latest technology.

Local and state leaders quickly applauded the decision they hoped would bring finality to months of protests in southern Morton County. They are asking for more federal law enforcement officers to ensure the construction process proceeds peacefully.

"Our hope is that the new administration in Washington will now provide North Dakota law enforcement the necessary resources to bring closure to the protests," Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier said in a statement.
Concerns that not all of the unions will agree to ratify their labor agreements have caused rail shippers and other transportation industry stakeholders to push President Joe Biden to act.
SANTA MONICA, Calif. The Cold War was waged and won in many places, including this beach city, home to the RAND Corp. Created in 1948 to think about research and development as it effects military planning and procurement, RAND pioneered strategic thinking about nuclear weapons in the context of the U.S.-Soviet competition. Seven decades later it is thinking about the nuclear threat from a nation created in 1948.

When Defense Secretary James Mattis said that any North Korean use of nuclear weapons would draw an "effective and overwhelming" U.S. response, he did not, according to RAND's Bruce W. Bennett, "overcommit" the president by saying that the response would be nuclear. But an overwhelming response could be.

On Jan. 1, North Korea's 33-year-old leader Kim Jong Un said that his regime was at "the final stage in preparations to test-launch" an ICBM, perhaps one capable of reaching America's Pacific Coast. On Jan. 2, Donald Trump tweeted: "It won't happen!" He thereby drew a red line comparable to his predecessor's concerning Syrian chemical weapons. So, Trump, who excoriated Barack Obama for ignoring that red line, must, Bennett believes, be prepared to threaten actions that would prevent North Korea from learning from its test, actions such as shooting down the missile.

The United States has 30-some ground-based interceptor missiles at Fort Greely in Alaska and others at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. This small capability is intended to cope with an accidental firing by an adversary, or an intentional firing by a rogue general, or to deter or defeat a deliberate attack by an adversary with a small nuclear arsenal, such as North Korea. Will the U.S. anti-ballistic missile system work? Bennett says technologies can go wrong, so this would be an opportunity to fix any failures. And unless we then are prepared to shoot down theater-range ballistic missiles, we will signal less-than-convincing commitment to South Korea and Japan. To those who say it is premature to conclude that Kim is capable of delivering a nuclear warhead, Bennett says: In 1966, China, in its fourth nuclear test, just two years after its first, had a missile carry a nuclear weapon to its detonation over its western desert.

In 2006, William Perry, who had been defense secretary for Bill Clinton, and Ashton Carter, who would be Obama's final defense secretary, recommended U.S. action to destroy any ICBM set for testing on a North Korean launch pad. But that nation's conventional retaliatory capabilities, including artillery and rockets capable of inflicting considerable damage on at least Seoul's northern suburbs, forestalled this. And North Korea has perhaps 1,000 tactical-range ballistic missiles capable of striking throughout South Korea and Japan. Furthermore, North Korea has cyberwar, commando and sabotage capabilities.

Today, U.S. surface ships and submarines alone could deliver dozens of cruise missiles, and each of up to 10 B-2 bombers could carry two Massive Ordnance Penetrators to destroy underground leadership or missile bunkers. But as soon as Kim has one or more ICBMs (probably road-mobile) capable of delivering, on short notice, a nuclear payload to, say, Santa Monica, pre-emptive U.S. action, even just against his nuclear infrastructure, might be too risky.

Furthermore, preparations for a more ambitious strike  against North Korean artillery and rockets, ports, airfields, command-and-control centers, leadership bunkers and forward-positioned forces  might be apparent and might provoke Kim to strike first against Seoul and U.S. forces in South Korea. South Korea talks openly of creating, this year, a "decapitation brigade" involving perhaps as many as 2,000 troops whose mission would be to eliminate North Korea's leadership in the event of war.

Kim recently dismissed the head of his secret police, the latest sign of insecurity. Bennett believes Kim, undeterred by tweets, might test his ICBM for internal purposes  to impress restive North Korean elites. Bennett suggests that the threat to shoot down the test flight would constructively exacerbate Kim's problems. As might U.S. propaganda, for example by reminding North Korean elites that China's president has had eight summits with South Korea's president in the last four years but never has had one with Kim, who China apparently considers not important.

North Korea, which has been run opaquely for the Kim family's benefit since 1953, is approaching a red line. Although the line was drawn before Trump took office, perhaps it represents continuity. It prefigured the kind of improvisational governance that has made his early weeks so interesting.
Once again, a handful of lawmakers have sponsored a bill that would deprive the public of easy access to the permanent records of city governments official actions.

House Bill 1167 allows municipal governments in communities of 5,000 or more residents to no longer publish legal notices, minutes of city council meetings, delinquent property tax rolls and other information required by state law in the local newspaper.

Instead, the legislation allows Rapid City, Sturgis, Belle Fourche, Spearfish, Pierre, Sioux Falls and other cities to post the information on the website of their choosing, which likely would be municipal websites maintained by their city employees.

If this legislation  which targets only 17 cities  passes it would replace the current system where public records are published in the local newspaper as well as on the South Dakota Newspaper Association website, which assures taxpayers those records will be available and not altered in the future.

In Rapid City, it would mean the same elected representatives who now meet with city department heads in private meetings before City Council and committee meetings to fine-tune agendas could do the same with meeting minutes already posted on their websites. Who would know the difference if there was no other published record?

There are other problems with HB 1167 that should concern taxpayers and those who desire open and transparent government.

First, government websites are often extremely difficult to navigate as there is no incentive to make them user-friendly. Secondly, not everyone in Pennington, Butte, Meade, Lawrence and likely every other county in the state has internet service. Some people don't want it and it might not be available to others, especially in far-flung western counties. The legislations remedy for that is to require local libraries to allow residents to use their computers for no charge, which is not much of an option if you live 50 or more miles away from the nearest library as many do in western South Dakota.

Then there is the inherent unfairness of legislation that singles out the states largest communities. Why are the bills nine sponsors  including Rep. Tim Goodwin who represents a portion of Pennington County  not including the vast majority of communities in the legislation? Could it be that rural lawmakers see the value of public notices being published in their newspapers?

A justification for the legislation is that it will save money for the 17 communities even though the cost of legal advertising is apparently not an issue for the rest of the state.

This, however, is entirely misleading. Rapid City, for example, has an annual budget of around $158 million. The money it pays to publish legal advertising in the Rapid City Journal represents less than 1 percent of that figure.

This legislation is not about money. Rather, it is an effort to enable local governments to become less transparent and less accountable, the very concerns that led to the passage of Initiated Measure 22.

This legislation will do nothing to improve the performance of government or the quality of our lives. In fact, it does just the opposite. Instead of having legal notices and other public information delivered to our doorsteps and into the hands of residents across the state and elected officials knowing that, it will be more difficult to obtain information that is exclusively maintained by those in power.

As they have done in the past with similar legislation, lawmakers should reject this bill. The publication of public records in local newspapers has not harmed taxpayers nor caused financial harm to city governments. In other words, it serves no purpose beyond whatever motivates the bill's sponsors.

If HB 1167 is passed, however, it will be a significant step toward making it more difficult to monitor government, a key part of the democratic process.
Russias Supreme Court upholds sentence for Hizb ut-Tahrir member

MOSCOW, February 9 (RAPSI)  Russias Supreme Court has upheld a 6-year prison term and a 55,800-ruble ($938) fine given to Marcel Gabbasov for participating in activities of Hizb ut-Tahrir terrorist organization banned in Russia, RAPSI learnt from the courts press service on Thursday.

The court thus dismissed an appeal filed by Gabbasov against the Privolzhsky District Military Courts judgment issued on October 31, 2016. The sentence has become effective.

Gabbasov has been earlier convicted of other extremist crimes. In 2014, a court in Nizhnevartovsk found him guilty of organizing the activities of a prohibited organization, incitement of hatred and enmity and sentenced him to 6 months of community service. The man was also fined 100,000 rubles. According to investigators, Gabbasov, an active Hizb ut-Tahrir member, has carried on propaganda among citizens of Nizhnevartovsk.

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.
Russian antimonopoly watchdog reveals violations during sales of air tickets

MOSCOW, February 9 (RAPSI)  The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has revealed violations committed during signing of contracts for purchase of air tickets for servicemen of the Interior Ministry, the Service announced on Thursday.

FAS has conducted an unscheduled inspection of activities of the Interior Ministrys Head Center for special transportation. The inspection showed that since 2011 the Center has signed agreements with contractors for the provision of the purchase of airline tickets amounting to more than 8 billion rubles ($135.5 million).

According to the Service, legislation on government procurement and contract system requires carrying out of such services with the use of competitive methods. FAS notes that the Center signed public procurement contracts only with one contractor, chosen without any rationale by the Center itself.

As a result of this inspection administrative cases are to be launched against officials involved in an ungrounded signing of public procurement contracts.
Our state's economy is rapidly evolving.

Over the last five years, whats been striking is that the (sic) Montanas economy has diversified, said Dan Lloyd, business development specialist at the Montana Governor's Office of Economic Development. We are a state rich in natural resources, but we are starting to see the shift.

One of the main goals of the Office of Economic Development is to provide the right tools for businesses to excel. Infrastructure is a primary driver of economic development, said Lloyd. If you were to start a restaurant, you need the infrastructure for water and electricity to get things rolling. Infrastructure also extends to connectivity, such as phone and broadband. Continued investments in infrastructure are something that Montanans agree on, Lloyd added.

Montana, and the U.S. for that matter, is shifting from a resources-based economy to a knowledge-based economy, which means communities may need to look for new ways to attract businesses.

In traditional resources economies, businesses locate where the resources are, said Lloyd. But in a knowledge economy, he continued, its based on the workforce.

We have a quality of life (and) people want to live here, said Lloyd. We are seeing the shift to a knowledge economy, a service economy," he added. "We are seeing companies conduct their businesses online. People arent just manufacturing widgets, they are sending bits and bytes out, its digital.

Last year, the Office of Economic Development recommended House Bill 14, which would have created a state matching fund for broadband infrastructure, said Lloyd. He said there are communities in Montana that are underserved due to their rural proximity. And in our modern age, connectivity in an interconnected business environment is just as important as traditional infrastructures like water or electricity.

In our knowledge-based economy, economic growth is really related to labor force. Continued investment in our education infrastructure ensures everything from K-12 to community colleges to four-year universities to give people the skills they need in the 21st century, said Lloyd.

For Montana to continue its growth, we must make infrastructure investment a priority for the future of our state. Infrastructure isnt just limited to water, power and connectivity, it also includes education, which grants our citizens the skills to make an impact in the global economy.

For Montana to continue to grow, we have to have an educated and trained workforce available for employers, said Lloyd.
In 2016, 12.3 million travelers from out of state visited the Big Sky state, which has a population of just over 1 million.

That means there were 12 times as many tourists as locals here last year. And the main reason theyre coming here is because of the states mountains, rivers, lakes, streams, wildlife, national parks and other outdoor recreation opportunities.

According to Norma Nickerson, the director of the Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research at the University of Montana, those visitors created 52,630 jobs in the state and spent an estimated $3.49 billion in the state.

The outdoors is our business, Nickerson told the crowd during a recent Economic Outlook webinar presented by UMs Bureau of Business and Economic Research. If it werent for our mountains, lakes and streams  and access to those places  our way of life and the economy here would be different. Our economy wouldnt be the same and there would be less people spending money here.

Because it sits in the nexus between Glacier National Park and Yellowstone National Park, Missoula sees a fair amount of those travelers.

Last year, 4.2 million people visited Yellowstone, and 68 percent of them came through Montana, although the majority of the park is in Wyoming. Since 2012, Glaciers visitation has increased 34 percent to almost 3 million people this past year.

Nickerson said that with the increased visitation, there are downsides like enormous added pressure on natural resources and the costs that come along with that. Yellowstone National Park found that since 2012, there has been a 96 percent increase in wildlife violation tickets issues in Yellowstone, along with a 61 percent increase in search and rescue calls, a 28 percent increase in domestic violence incidents and a 62 percent jump in driving under the influence citations.

There are traffic jams and lines to the bathroom 20 people deep, she said. It has made it difficult for the parks administrators to follow their mandate of protecting resources while providing access to the public.

All those extra visitors are taking an environmental toll as well. High-profile incidents, such as when people walked across a delicate thermal feature in Yellowstone last summer, are only the tip of the iceberg because they only came to light when video was posted to social media. There was a 177 percent increase of out-of-bounds camping citations in 2015.

In Glacier, camping spots are filling up by 8 in the morning, Nickerson said. We have never seen that before. But despite all these crowds, surveys show that when people are asked about their satisfaction levels, they are happy. Were a very adaptive species.

She said more and more people are learning to get up earlier or visit parks in other seasons to avoid crowds.

Besides the two crown jewels of Yellowstone and Glacier, Montana also boasts many other lakes, streams and rivers that provide a lot of outdoor recreation jobs.

When the Yellowstone River was closed on August 19 of last year due to the deaths of thousands of Whitefish from a disease, Nickerson estimates that the local economy suffered an estimated impact of between $360,000 and $524,000. The incident underscores how the health of the natural environment is tied in with the health of local economies.

She said that 120 businesses reported that they had a negative impact (after the fish die-off). The majority were outfitters, guides and fly shops. It was across the board. The average net loss was $7,000 but it went up to $50,000 for some rafting companies. And when the employees are college kids trying to pay for school, its tough.

The threat posed by invasive mussels to Montanas waterways is more than an environmental concern, its also an economic one, Nickerson explained. This past November, they were found in the Tiber Reservoir and the Canyon Ferry Reservoir.

Once you have mussels in a waterway, you wont get rid of them, she said. Its virtually impossible. When you look at maps of where they had been found before, it was bound to happen. What mussels do is clean the water, but they do such a good job that they get rid of everything else and it devastates the aquatic ecosystem.

She said that a city in Michigan had to pay $325,000 to rid mussels from public drinking water pipes.

It is for those reasons and more, she said, that several different public surveys have found that roughly 68 percent of people in the Rocky Mountain states say they want the Trump administration to protect clean water, clean air and wildlife viewing opportunities.

It may be different out East, but in the Rocky Mountain west there is a lot of concern and a lot of support for conservation, she said.

The outlook for tourism is strong in Montana. She said that surveys of tourism-dependent businesses show that 57 percent of owners expect an increase in 2017, even though 2016 was a huge year. Overall, U.S. travel is expected to pick up 2 percent this year, although those surveys were done before the November elections.

Outdoor recreation is a $646 billion industry in the United States, and it generates $5.8 billion in consumer spending in Montana. She said that Gov. Steve Bullock has recognized the importance of the industry and has hired a public access specialist whose main role is to troubleshoot specific issues that prevent full access to public lands.

***

Dan Vermillion, the chairman of the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission, said that Montana has to grapple with protecting natural resources if the economic benefits of tourism are to continue to be reaped. Montanans also have to realize that while they may view tourists as a nuisance who overrun public lands here, they are a huge contributor to the economy.

Im in the tourism business, I own a fly shop in Livingston, Vermillion said. It allows us to employ the people we employ. People see tourism activity as additional people on public resources. Its kind of like Montanans think Montana should be for Montanans only. But in a place like Livingston, theres a broad understanding of how critical tourism is to our economy. In places like Billings or Great Falls, its a little less obvious. But theres still thousands of visitors who are staying in hotels, eating in restaurants and stopping in gas stations on their way to Yellowstone or Glacier.

Vermillion said the Fish and Wildlife Commission must rely on biologists and trained scientific professionals to manage wildlife in a sustainable way.

We try to make sure we manage our resources so we have healthy rivers and healthy big game herds for wildlife watchers and hunters, he said. We are trying to figure out how to accommodate so many users on the landscape. Sometimes we have to limit certain uses. There is no right answer. Its a tricky conversation, so we have to try to be as mindful as possible.

Vermillion said he believes compromises can be found between those who want to preserve jobs in mining, forestry and drilling and those who want to preserve pristine environments for outdoor recreationists.

If you look at a place like the Paradise Valley, there are two mining proposals on the northern border of Yellowstone Park, he said. Both incoming Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke and Sen. Jon Tester have made it pretty clear thats not a place there should be an open pit gold mine. It jeopardizes the incredible value of the tourism resource there.

However, Vermillion said the massive Stillwater Mine near the Boulder River is an example of a mine that has found a way to preserve the river.

Theyve done a really good job of having a really strong mine that employs a lot of people and right downstream were fishing every day, he said. Theres a way to do it. You can accommodate both industries by acknowledging that we need minerals to operate the industrial society while also knowing that Montanas best competitive advantage is the quality of our natural environment.

Vermillion said that it is Montanas great outdoors that allows companies to attract workers here.

You look at the cities in Montana that are experiencing the most growth  Bozeman, Missoula and Kalispell  the common denominator there is the quality of public lands right out their back door, he said. So when technology companies move to Bozeman, it is the quality of life that allows them to attract high quality talent.

Vermillion is profoundly opposed to the sale or transfer of federally administered public lands to the states, where they would be more susceptible to being sold to private owners and locked up.

A lot of those public rivers that we fish from, they come out of drainages where the upper reaches is all public land, he said. If those reaches are not properly managed, anything that happens really affects downstream. Its super important to make sure the management of public lands takes into account the implications that can occur downstream.
A mapping technology company based in Missoula is expected to create 25 new jobs here and another 16 jobs in Bozeman as a result of $267,500 in grant money awarded by Gov. Steve Bullocks administration.

Missoula County has been awarded $187,500 in Big Sky Trust Fund job creation funds to help OnXmaps to expand. The money will be used for the purchase of equipment, software, furniture, lease rate reduction and reimbursement of wages. The company creates GIS/GPS software so that people (mainly hunters and hikers) can see precise public and private land boundaries on their smartphones even when they are out of cell coverage. They also make chips for GPS units.

OnXmaps recently announced the construction of a second building next to their headquarters on Brooks Street in Missoula to keep up with their rapid growth. They have offices in Bozeman, as well, and the City of Bozeman will get $80,000 to help the company there.

In total, Bullock announced Tuesday that $512,700 in grants will help businesses in five Montana communities, supporting the creation of 74 new jobs.

A micro-distillery in Butte called Headframe Spirits will get $60,000 from Butte-Silver Bow County to create eight new jobs, and a concrete siding business in Drummond called Better Than Logs will get $15,000 to create two new jobs. Lake County got $170,200 to assist Jore Corporation/Rocky Mountain Twist in creating 23 new jobs in Ronan. The company makes power tool accessories and supplies them to the retail market. It also produces engineered drilling solutions for industrial clients.

From making whiskey to programming better maps for hunting, Im pleased we can help these homegrown businesses create even more jobs, Gov. Bullock said in a statement. Our economy is diverse, and these public-private partnerships make a difference.

The recipients of the grant money are chosen through a rigorous application process through the Montana Department of Commerces Office of Tourism and Business Development. The goal is to give businesses that can prove they could grow with a cash infusion the chance to provide stable and long-term economic growth.

Eric Siegfried, the founder and president of OnXmaps, said his company has benefited  and created jobs  with Big Sky Trust Fund grant money twice before. In fact, they received a $221,600 grant back in 2013 when the company was called Hunting GPS Maps.

We bring 90 percent of revenue from out-of-state into Montana, so were excited that we can hire this many people in Montana, he said.

Siegfried said the application process involves lots of paperwork and audits.

They ask you for your business plan, and you have to show every job youve created or they dont count it, he explained. It was challenging back when we didnt have enough staff. Now we have the department to do all that paperwork.

The company needs to hire across the board, he said, but especially software engineers, database engineers and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) engineers to make maps. They will also be hiring in the digital marketing and sales departments, as well as customer service.

Most of their GIS experts have graduated from the University of Montana, and many of their software engineers have come from Montana State University in Bozeman.

According to Emilie Saunders, a spokesperson for the Department of Commerce, the Big Sky Trust Fund is funded by the states coal severance tax fund. Its a reimbursement grant program, meaning that each business only receives the money after working with the state to document the job creation. Then, there is a site visit to review the progress, and after that the grantee is reimbursed for the cost of those jobs.

More funding opportunities are still available. The deadline for submitting an application for consideration at the next Grant/Loan Review Committee meeting is March 1. For more information, contact section manager Annmarie Robinson by phone at 406-841-2250 or by visiting bstf.mt.gov.
Loggers are in race with the weather to complete a salvage logging project around trailheads impacted by last summers Roaring Lion Fire.

On Wednesday, the three-man crew from Potomac was working to harvest hundreds of fire-killed trees on the 45-acres surrounding the Roaring Lion, Sawtooth and Ward Mountain trailheads.

The conditions couldnt have been better for the winter logging operation, but the forecast for warmer temperatures and rain was worrisome.

We need 10 inches of snow or frozen ground for this operation, said the Bitterroot National Forests Jon Garlitz. We have the snow cover we need right now to make this work, but underneath all this snow, the ground is not frozen.

If the rains come and the snow melts, the logging operation could be forced to cease until the conditions improve.

If the loggers have to wait too long, the value of the timber headed to two Montana mills could diminish.

The salvage sale is expected to produce about 100 truckloads of logs that will be hauled to mills in St. Regis and Seeley Lake.

Tricon Timber of St. Regis purchased the sale. All the Douglas fir and small ponderosa pine will go to that mill.

The fire also killed some 300-year-plus ponderosa pine trees that will eventually be made into window sashes at Pyramid Lumber in Seeley Lake.

These trees were large when Lewis and Clark came through the valley, said Ryan Hughes of the Bitterroot Forest.

The large trees  some as big as 42 inches wide  were cut down by an experienced hand sawyer. The mechanical clippers used by the logging operation can handle logs only about half that size.

Some of those large trees had to be left behind because they were filled with lead bullets after being used for target practice by people for years.

The sawyer buggered up his saw several times after hitting lead in the trees, Garlitz said. They painted a blue line on the trees above where they thought the lead would be, but they still found some big chunks higher than they expected.

If the weather holds, the project is expected to last about two or three more weeks. Logging trucks were scheduled to start bringing out logs Thursday.

Even if the salvage logging wraps up by the end of February, Bitterroot National Forest officials said it will probably take a little more time before the public will be allowed to reenter the area.

Its going to be springish before that happens, said Darby District Ranger Eric Winthers.

The popular trailheads have been closed since July 31 when the 8,700-acre Roaring Lion Fire started.
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As'ad's Bio

As'ad AbuKhalil, born March 16, 1960. From Tyre, Lebanon, grew up in Beirut. Received his BA and MA from American University of Beirut in pol sc. Came to US in 1983 and received his PhD in comparative government from Georgetown University. Taught at Tufts University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, Colorado College, and Randolph-Macon Woman's College. Served as a Scholar-in-Residence at Middle East Institute in Washington DC. He served as free-lance Middle East consultant for NBC News and ABC News, an experience that only served to increase his disdain for maintream US media. He is now professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus. His favorite food is fried eggplants.
Sets target to skill 1.5 lakh youths in 2017-18

Guwahati : In a bid to give skill development a boost and increase the employability of the youths, the Assam government to set up Multi Skill Development Centres at Majuli, Dibrugrah, Nalbari, Silchar, Biswanath, Diphu, Dhubri, Nagaon and Kokrajhar.

A decision has been reached at to set up these Multi Skill Development Centres in line with Centre of Excellence at the first Governing Council meeting of Assam Skill Development Mission at the conference room of Chief Minister's Office in Dispur on Wednesday.

A decision has also been taken to integrate Employment Generation Mission with Assam Skill Development Mission and skilling 1.5 lakh youth in different vocations like hospitality, tourism, horticulture and floriculture, electronic and construction in the financial year 2017-18.

To take the proposed venture of skilling the youths of the State to its logical end, Assam Skill Development Mission has signed a MoU with Institute of Technical Education, Singapore to set up Multi Skill Education Institute in Assam.

Moreover, with the instance of Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, Assam Skill Development Mission (ASDM) has proposed to enter into a MoU with Skill Development Schools of South Korea, Japan, Taiwan to replicate their youth skilling models in Assam.

ASDM has also proposed to set a Skill City with different categories of Skill Development Schools. Besides to create employment avenues and to increase the employability of the youths of the State, ASDM would also open Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Bikas Kendra in all the districts.

Chaired by Chief Minister Sonowal, the Governing Council meeting also vowed to take steps to chennalise the youth power to speed up economic development of State in sync with available resources of the State.

He also asked the ASDM to prepare the youths for expanding their employability outside the State as well as country.

Transport Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary, Irrigation Minister Ranjit Dutta, Minister of State for Panchayat and Rural Development Naba Kumar Doley, Minister of State for Labour and Employment Pallab Lochan Das, Chief Secretary Vinod Kumar Pipersenia, senior officers from NABARD, CII, SBI and other organisations were present at the meeting.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Kathmandu, Nepal: A cabinet meeting called for Thursday morning has been cancelled before its commencement, thanks to the differences between the major government allies- Nepali Congress and the CPN Maoist Center.

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal cancelled the cabinet meeting called for Thursday morning without specifying the reason behind the cancelation.

It is said that internal differences among the government allies particularly the appointment row of the Inspector General of Police (IGP) would be a reason behind the cancelation of the cabinet meeting.
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Child Health Institute of New Jersey Awarded $5 Million Grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Supports Research of Childhood Illnesses Prevalent in New Jersey New Brunswick, NJ -- The states leading comprehensive biomedical research institute for childhood diseases, the Child Health Institute of New Jersey, has been awarded a $5 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The funding will expand and enhance the core mission of the institute, which seeks to improve childrens health through the scientific study of pediatric illnesses, including asthma, type 1 diabetes and autism, for which New Jersey has the highest rate in the nation according to the CDC, with 1 in every 41 children diagnosed. The CDC also reports that asthma accounts for 14 million lost days of school missed annually and is the third-ranking cause of hospitalization among those younger than 15. The institute is part of Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, part of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and worked closely with the Rutgers University Foundation to secure the grant. We are very grateful to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for this significant grant and for their continuing support and confidence in the Child Health Institute of New Jersey, said Brian Strom, MD, MPH, chancellor, Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences. This grant will enable the institute to expand on its core mission to improve childrens health by studying the underlying mechanisms of serious pediatric illnesses including asthma, type 1 diabetes, and autism. Arnold B. Rabson, MD, the Laura Gallagher Chair of Developmental Biology and director of the Child Health Institute, echoed Dr. Stroms sentiment. We sincerely value the Robert Wood Johnson Foundations support of our mission. The funding will allow for continued growth of our basic science endeavors and the opportunity to expand research by recruiting accomplished scientists who focus on the development of therapeutic tools and the prevention of pediatric disorders. Dr. Rabson indicated that new investigators will likely be recruited in two areas. One of the goals is to expand research in inflammation and immunity, which include illnesses such as asthma, type 1 diabetes, pediatric lupus and juvenile arthritis. The institute also will recruit scientists to expand its studies of neurodevelopmental disorders, including childhood autism. We are truly appreciative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundations support which will foster growth of the institutes research enterprise and provide more opportunity for collaboration with scientists across Rutgers, said Sherine E. Gabriel, MD, MSc, dean of Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Funding from the grant will help establish new initiatives to attract researchers focused on childhood disorders to join the institute as scientific members. The Child Health Institute will utilize the grant to strengthen its translational research program, also known as bench-to-bedside, which transforms findings from laboratory investigations into the development of treatment and prevention therapies, improving the care provided to children. Projects already established with pediatricians at the medical school will be enhanced, as will programs with the Bristol-Myers Squibb Childrens Hospital at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and PSE& G Childrens Specialized Hospital, which along with the Child Health Institute compose the childrens academic health campus in New Brunswick. According to Dr. Rabson, research is key to improving or preventing the symptoms of chronic conditions in pediatric populations throughout the country, but especially in New Jersey where rates of childhood asthma and autism are particularly high. A pilot grant program supporting novel investigations with the potential to become significant research projects is one of the initiatives being planned. The pilot grant program is intended to spark new studies of childhood illnesses, providing startup support for child health researchers throughout Rutgers, said Dr. Rabson. Innovative new projects will add to the mission of the institute with the hopes that they will lead to the development of new diagnostic tools, or prevention and treatment strategies for children with chronic illnesses. About Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School

As one of the nation's leading comprehensive medical schools, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, part of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in education, research, health care delivery, and the promotion of community health. In cooperation with Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, the medical school's principal affiliate, they comprise New Jersey's premier academic medical center. In addition, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School has 34 other hospital affiliates and ambulatory care sites throughout the region. Robert Wood Johnson Medical School encompasses 21 basic science and clinical departments, and hosts centers and institutes including The Cardiovascular Institute, the Child Health Institute of New Jersey, and the Women's Health Institute. The medical school maintains educational programs at the undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate levels for more than 1,500 students on its campuses in New Brunswick and Piscataway, and provides continuing education courses for health care professionals and community education programs. To learn more about Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, visit rwjms.rutgers.edu. Find us online at facebook.com/RWJMedicalSchool and twitter.com/RWJMS. ###




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Feb-09-2017 12:20 TweetFollow @OregonNews 15 Men Arrested in Undercover Sex Trafficking Mission Victims are forced to suffer through physical, sexual, and mental abuse.



(PORTLAND, Ore.) - During the week of January 31 to February 3, 2016, the Portland Police Bureau's Sex Trafficking Unit conducted undercover missions to address online sex trafficking as part of the 13th National Johns Suppression Initiative. Sex trafficking and prostitution are not victimless crimes. Victims of sex trafficking and prostitution are forced, coerced, and manipulated into this lifestyle against their will. The Portland Police Bureau, in conjunction with other Federal and local law enforcement agencies, is committed to deterring prostitution and sex trafficking activities. The Bureau also works with community organizations like Lifeworks NW to help sex trafficking victims: LIFEWORKS NW During this mission, investigators posted online ads on known sex trafficking websites. 15 men contacted undercover police officers to arrange payment for sexual acts. Investigators were assisted by Portland area hotels as part of this effort. For investigative reasons, the Sex Trafficking Unit is not sharing the specific website, application, or ad text publicly. The 15 men who responded to the ad and came to the hotel were arrested with the misdemeanor crime of Commercial Sexual Solicitation (Oregon Revised Statute 167.008). Unless noted, all were given a criminal citation to appear in court at a later time. The following is a list of the men arrested for Commercial Sexual Solicitation: 33-year-old Ravikumar Dojad of Beaverton, Oregon

47-year-old Chad Patrick Andrews of Ridgefield, Washington

20-year-old Danil Viktorovich Nyukeyev of Vancouver, Washington

53-year-old Cory Kevin Ryan of Everett, Washington

37-year-old [case expunged] of Portland, Oregon

32-year-old Jeremy Merrell Tanner of Dayton, Oregon

33-year-old Juan Lopez of Portland, Oregon

24-year-old Gilberto David Luna Ramirez of Vancouver, Washington

33-year-old Gilles Marie Christian Barjon of Montreal, Quebec, Canada

22-year-old Kurt Bryant Parker of Portland, Oregon

31-year-old Joel Osbely Garcia-Cruz of Vancouver, Washington

39-year-old [no charges filed] of Kirkland, Washington

22-year-old Charles Nijel Wilson II of Vancouver, Washington

30-year-old Matthew Allen Schrader of Johnson City, Oregon, was charged with Commercial Sexual Solicitation three separate times during this time frame for three separate incidents. He was booked into the Multnomah County Jail after the third arrest.

48-year-old Darrin R. Maxey of Vancouver, Washington, was charged with Commercial Sexual Solicitation two separate times during this time frame for two separate incidents. If you know or think that someone may be involved in trafficking or is being exploited, please contact: the Portland Police Bureau's Sex Trafficking Unit at 503-255-0118, the Sexual Assault Resource Center hotline 1-800-640-5311; or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 1-800-843-5678 or via the Cyber Tipline: www.missingkids.org/CyberTiipline See also: NATIONAL SUPER BOWL SEX TRAFFICKING STING NETS OVER 700 SEX BUYERS AND 29 PIMPS/TRAFFICKERS _________________________________________

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Hot on the heels of revealing a first poster, powerhouse A24 now treats genre loving audiences to an ominous teaser for It Comes at Night. The sophomore film from Trey Edward Shults is all mood as the camera opens on The Triumph of Death (an oil painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder) before stalking through a darkened hallway, inching closer to a door that clearly failed to keep evil at bay.

Completely spoiler-free and evocatively enigmatic the teaser glimpses Joel Edgerton as a family man whose attempts at warding off external horrors may have awakened the darkness that lies within. Writer-director Shults made waves with his debut Krisha, a family-reunion drama that had intense thrills to spare. Its far from surprising to see him tackle the horror genre with his follow-up film.

A24, who previously spooked us with pagan folklore in The Witch and stupefied us with the bizarrely affecting Swiss Army Man, will release the film on August 25th although a festival appearance prior to that date seems more than likely. Without doubt one of this years most anticipated horror films.
All he wants to do is enjoy his retirement. With his new dog. But first, he needs his car.

So begins John Wick: Chapter 2, continuing the tearjerking saga of the titular character, an assassin who broke free of his murderous responsibilities, only to lose his beloved bride and then his old dog and his beloved automobile. It was all too much for him, as those who saw John Wick (2014) can testify, and he exploded into a frenzy of vengeance.

The original was a marvel of construction and execution, which makes topping it a daunting task. Instead of devising something entirely new, therefore, the decision was made to ... make the same movie all over again!

To be fair, a better title for the sequel might have been The Continuing Adventures of John Wick, because this film picks up soon after the original, time-wise, and then comes up with strong motivation for John to stay out of retirement and keep on killing. He is an honorable man, after all, and the world in which he lives is kept somewhat in check by the rules of that universe.

Like a Supreme Court justice, John received a lifetime appointment as an assassin. To escape that life, he made a deal with Italian mob boss Santino D'Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio) and, not 10 seconds after John has returned home and once again buried his weaponry upon a layer of concrete, Santino shows up at his door to collect on his blood-stamped marker.

It's a blood oath, recognized by the "Upper Table," the High Holy of assassins worldwide, and John is bound to honor it or else face death, though he initially resists. Once he accepts his fate, he is outfitted head to foot in necessary gear -- in an amusing sequence that resembles the fantasy underworld version of James Bond learning about new toys from Q -- before heading to Rome to commit a supposedly impossible job: killing Santino's sister.

She sits on the High Table, a powerful position inherited from their father, but one that Santino believes should rightfully be his. Once John completes that task, Santino intends to conquer New York. But first, he puts out an open, $7 million contract on John for killing his sister.

Of course, this is all ridiculously formal, as if all the hired killers in the world respected and obeyed a governing body. Yet it also imagines a scenario that gives all the murderous madness in the movie a formal structure, instead of the anarchy that exists in real life.

Really, it's almost reassuring to watch the carefully choreographed fist fights, knife fights, and gun fights break out against backdrops that are often fully populated. As the body count rises quickly, we refuse to believe that it could possibly be real because we know it's a movie.

The action is (again) so over the top that it quickly gains escape velocity from reality. The ludicrous plot holes and superhuman tolerance for bodily violence are more about the rhythms of the punches and gun blasts and knife thrusts and less about logic and the natural laws of the universe in which everyone else lives.

In John Wick: Chapter 2, there will be blood, oh, so much blood, gushing and spraying and collecting in pools on the ground, as bodies fall, one after the other and the other, an accumulation of corpses that should offend, except that none of it is real and all of it is outrageously entertaining for devoted fans of action movies.

Once again, Chad Stahelski directed. The cast includes the wonderful Ian McShane as the owner of assassin hotel/refuge the Continental, as well as Lance Reddick and John Leguizamo, also reprising their roles. New players include the aforementioned Scarmarcio, Ruby Rose and Common, all on the villainous side, though lacking anything to define their characters.

Despite what I stated above, John Wick: Chapter 2 is not exactly the same movie as the original, but it certainly works very hard, and very stylishly, and very effectively, to recapture its cold, cold heart. It adds an existential question that no one was asking after the original: what is John Wick's true motivation for killing? That powers the movie straight through to the final shot.

The films open wide in theaters throughout North America on Friday, February 10. Stay off the streets if you want to stay alive.
Long before the internet made cats everyone's favorite animal, the cat love has been going on for thousands of years in the city of Istanbul, Turkey. In the sprawling metropolitan city of 20 million people, hundreds of thousands of street cats co-exist, vying for every inch of its ever expanding territory.

Director Ceyda Torun and her cinematographer Charlie Wuppermann capture some of these beautiful, eccentric feline creatures and people who love them in the stunningly picturesque city.

Kedi starts out with a yellow tabby as she makes the daily rounds in the bustling neighborhood. She meows at humans at outdoor cafes for food. It seems she has her route all mapped out. She brings a piece of pastry in her mouth all the way across town for her four kittens. 'She's got character,' her human caregiver tells us. As the film concentrates on a handful of cats with their stories told by their human counterparts, we get the distinct feeling that many Istanbulites have accepted that cats are just as human and full of distinctive characters as they are.

Everywhere the camera points, we see cats: they are on the rooftops, building ledges, steps, cars, boats, tombstones, in the streets, basements, outdoor markets, cafes, restaurants... It's a city that seems to be completely devoid of animal pounds.The city can be easily renamed Catstanbul.

There is Gamsiz, a short haired black-and-white badass who forever seems to be in trouble. 'He was a mess, getting into fights with other cats every time,' his baker carer tells the filmmaker. 'Doesn't it get expensive?' Torun asks him off-camera. He tells her that everybody in the city has a running tab with the vets.

Then there is the neighborhood psychopath, a female cat who is very territorial and very good at stealing fish from fishmongers. She also prefers heavy petting. 'She likes it rough', her carer says at the outdoor tea house, massaging her as she lounges on a chair.

There is an aristocat named The Gentleman, an overweight smokey who appeared at a fancy restaurant one day and never left. He doesn't like to be petted nor wants to come in and beg for food, but when he gets hungry, he paws at the window.

Many humans in the film says it was the cats who saved their lives. When they were down and life seemed hopless, caring for them gave them peace and worked as the best kind of therapy. 'No drugs would cure me, but the cats did,' one carer recalls.

The general sentiment of the film is that if you don't love animals, you don't love people. The voice over in the beginning goes, 'Unlike dogs, cats know god exists. Dogs think we are god, but cats know we are just a middleman. ... If all the cats disappear one day, Istanbul will lose its soul too.'

Istanbul is a great mix of ancient culture and cosmopolitan living. Torun slightly makes a socio-political statement with the opposing shots of iconic mosques and their towering minarets by the sea and new modern skyscrapers. People in many gentrifying neighborhoods worry about not themselves, but the fate of thousands of cats who will be losing their green territories to the glass and concrete. There are stenciled graffittis against highly unpopular president Recep Tayyip Edogan- 'Erdo-gone!' in the background.

With the camera constanlty on the cat's eye level, the filmmakers follow the creatures through labyrinthine back streets. With some beautiful shallow depth photography and spectacular drone shots of the city, Kedi is a love song to Istanbul and its cats.

Just like watching cat videos on Youtube when you are feeling down, Kedi works as a purrfect antidote for all the ugliness going on in the world.

Oscilloscope Laboratories will release Kedi on February 10 in New York at the Metrograph and on February 17 in Los Angeles at the Royal. National expansion will follow.

Dustin Chang is a freelance writer. His musings and opinons on everything cinema and beyond can be found at www.dustinchang.com
Answers Africa is one of a kind platform created for Africans both locally and in the diaspora and those seeking for more in-depth information about Africa. We have always focused on creating the highest quality informational contents right from the beginning. We share the most relevant information on the latest and trending news, events, people, and places in Africa.

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Tracing Isha Sesays Career Until CNN, Her Worth And Why She Divorce Her Husband As far as journalists of African origin go, Isha Sesay is one of the most famous on the continent  and by extension, the world. The Sierra Leonean and British journalist has had a successful career since she joined the industry in 1998. In that time, she has worked for a host of major media ...

Open Secrets of How Joanna Gaines Balances Her Career With Being a Wife and Mother Joanna Gaines is the co-founder of Magnolia Homes, a business she runs with one goal: converting houses to homes. She doubles as the lead designer of the company which she co-owns with her husband, Chip Gaines. Lady Gaines gained massive popularity when she became a co-star with her husband on the HGTVs show, Fixer Upper. ...

Juicy Details of Ayesha Currys Love Story With Stephen, Her Family Members and Recent Pursuits When your husband is one of the greatest basketballers that the NBA has ever seen, then it bestows on you the status of a celebrity wife  and may not even demand that you do anything extra to maintain that status. However, Ayesha Curry, the wife of multiple NBA champion, Steph Curry, is not one ...

What Is Tarek el Moussas Ethnicity, Why Did He Divorce His Wife and Who Is He Dating? Tarek El Moussa has made himself one of the most recognizable men on reality television, especially to fans of HGTV. Thanks to his expertise in the world of real estate, Tarek has become a national star. But even to his hardcore followers, there are questions about Tarek El Moussa that remain unanswered, such as his ...

Fun Facts About Natalie Beckers Lonely Childhood and Eventual Career Success Natalie Becker is an actress of South African descent who became famous for her appearance in films like The World Unseen and The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior. A multitalented individual, Natalie is also a television/radio presenter. She is also a co-founder of the Thought Leader Global Media which she runs together with ...

Top 3 Female CNN News Anchors You Didnt Know Were Africans CNN is one of the leading news agencies in the world. The satellite and cable news network was founded in 1980 by Ted Turner and has been one of the best sources of news for a number of years. It also boasts of the best journalists and presenters all around in media broadcasting. The company is a ...

Channels That Aided Katie Pavlichs Growth as a Journalist and All About Her Marriage To Friedson If you have ever come across any Fast and Furious featuring Barack Obama, it is the handiwork of Katie Pavlich. The book which claims to have exposed Obamas bloodiest scandal and the shameless cover-up thereof, has been earning Pavlich much praise and fame ever since it was published in 2012. Nonetheless, Pavlich is more famed ...

Is Oprah Winfrey Married? Husband, Children, Biography, House, Facts Oprah Winfrey is a billionaire philanthropist, talk show icon, producer, actress, and writer. The media icon famously dubbed The Queen Of All Media owns and hosts the highest-rated television program in the media circle. Read more about the powerful television star below. Oprah Winfrey Biography Oprah was born as Orpah Gail Winfrey on January 29, 1954, to a ...

Who Is Arsenio Hall, What Happened To His Talk Show and Why Do Fans Think He Is Gay? He is one of the funniest beings to have graced the comedy constituent of the American entertainment industry. Arsenio Hall has a reputation for the rib-cracking disposition always portrayed in his comedy roles. He is not just a comedian; he is also an actor and a former talk show host for his popular show, The ...

What Is Woah Vicky Famous For and Who Are Her Family Members? Like most social media celebrities in this digital era, Woah Vicky is one of those stars that have utilized the internet as a powerful tool to propel themselves to instant fame. The social media space, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, etc., offers lots of people the right opportunities and potentials to become superstars overnight. Not everyone achieves ...

Where Is Michael Strahan Since His Retirement From The NFL and Who Is His Partner? Michael Strahan is a retired American football player turned media personality. He played the defensive lineman position and holds the record for most sacks in a single NFL season. He also only played for the New York Giants throughout the entire 15-year professional career that saw him win a Super Bowl ring. In February 2014, ...

How Wendy Williams Went From Being a College DJ to Having Her Own Talk Show and More About Her Divorce Wendy Williams is a former radio personality, now talk show host, who is known for her outspokenness and brash no-nonsense attitude. She gained fame and notoriety for her on-air clashes with celebrities before moving on to host her own talk show. Since 2008, Williams has hosted the nationally syndicated television talk show, The Wendy Williams Show. ...

Who is Sunny Hostin? Her Husband, Family & Net Worth Sunny Hostin is no ordinary Latina  American lawyer but also a successful columnist, multi-platform journalist, and social commentator. A happily married woman and mother of two, Hostin is the Senior Legal Correspondent and Analyst for ABC News and co-host of ABCs popular morning talk show, The View. She is a legal expert popularly known as a former ...

Who Is Robert Costa and Is He Married, Who Is His Wife? Robert Costa is a political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC who is regarded as being part of Americas next generation of journalists. The University of Notre Dame graduate, who is of Italian/Portuguese descent, has been lauded for his fresh political perspectives in an industry full of old heads. In addition to his work listed above, Costa ...

Team Valor Pokemon Go  7 Key Facts You Need To Know Team Valor Pokemon Go  The craze of the new game Pokemon Go is one that took the gaming world by storm sending teenagers and adults alike into a frenzy and one of its teams Team Valor, has proven to be instrumental in making it so. Before the game was created, Pokemon was a cartoon ...

Sheryl Underwood  Husband, Family & Net Worth She is known for her trademark smile which can be described as the brightest and broadest smile ever seen on planet earth. She is none other than Sheryl Underwood the comedian, actress, and TV host whose funny wits has left America in great awe. Although Sheryl has risen to become an important personality in the industry, ...

Team Mystic Pokemon Go: 7 Facts You Need To Know And Signs You Are One Team Mystic of the break out game Pokemon Go is a team that is full of sass and chivalry. With an enchanting monicker, Team Mystic stands out from the rest of its counterparts and deserves to take the crown as champion in the Pokemon gaming-verse. To be a member of this exceptional team of Pokemon battle ...

Exploring Guy Beahms Dr Disrespect Persona, Wife and Why He was Banned Permanently From Twitch Guy Beahm who is popularly known by his online alias  Dr DisRespect, is an award-winning Twitch.tv streamer. He has leveraged on the Twitch platform to become an internet personality that is quite widely known. His online success is just more proof that anyone who is good at what they do can attain celebrity status ...

Critical Facts About Lee Ann McAdoo  The Infowars Anchor Lee Ann Mcadoo is a conservative journalist and television host whose interests in conspiracies and astrology has established her as a famous American reporter. Often referred to as Wonder Woman, McAdoo is a reporter who works for InfoWars.com, a controversial right-wing website run by radio show host, Alex Jones. Who Is Lee Ann McAdoo? Lee Ann McAdoo was born on 7 ...

Millie Weaver  Age, Husband & Infowars Career Millie Weaver is an American model, journalist, political activist, and social commentator. The young and beautiful journalist rose to fame working as a reporter for a controversial right-wing website InfoWars.com. Also known as Millennial Millie, Weaver is a social media influencer with over 100,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel and over 35,000 followers on Twitter. Who Is Millie Weaver and What Is ...

Is Jessica Tarlov Married? What Are Her Height & Weight? Jessica Tarlov is an American political consultant, strategist, and analyst whose influential and regular TV presence has made a popular figure. A good example of beauty with brains, Tarlov has appeared on various TV networks, mostly the FOX News Network where she is known for her liberal views on political analysis and insights. She is also the senior director ...

Who Is Kelly Rebecca Nichols  Alex Jones Ex-Wife? Kelly Rebecca Nichols is the ex-wife of controversial American radio show host, Alex Jones. She got nationwide attention following her divorce and subsequent custody battle with her estranged husband. Nichols, who worked with PETAs public relations department, was herself no stranger to controversies as she was involved in several publicity stunts of the non-profit animal rights ...

Who Is Bree Morgan  Cole Sprouse Ex-Girlfriend And What Is She Up To Now? Although Bree Morgan became famous through the Instagram, she also sapped some dose of popularity from Disneys sweetheart, Cole Sprouse of the Sprouse brothers. She is not only an Instagram star but also a YouTube vlogger whose popularity has long exceeded the ordinary level. Bree is conspicuously prominent on the internet and has her digital savviness ...

Does Vanna White Have Husband or Children, What Is Her Net Worth / Salary? For over three decades, Vanna White has been a household name, famous as the co-host and letter turner of the iconic NBC game show Wheel of Fortune. The talented and beautiful television personality is also an actress with several TV series and films to her credit. Since making her Wheel of Fortune debut in 1982, she has become one ...

Liz Wheeler  Biography, Husband & Net Worth Liz Wheeler is the kind of girl who sets the room on fire whenever she comes around. In this situation, however, she sets our screens on fire each time she appears as the host of One America News Tipping Point. She is, therefore, a presenter, publisher, consultant and a member of the Board of Zoning ...

Betty White  Net Worth, Children & Husband The entertainment industry will remain indebted to personalities like Betty White who brought something extra to the table and kept the world entertained for donkey years. The comedienne, actress, and writer graced the big screens in the early 50s as a show host and has been a delight since then. She is the queen of ...

Is Bill Nye (The Science Guy) Dead or Alive, What Are His Net Worth & Education? Everyone will always remember Bill Nye as the Science Guy. Besides his TV show Bill Nye the Science Guy, he is well-known for his Netflix show Bill Nye Saves the World which started airing in 2017 as well as his appearances in many famous media projects as a science educator. The star studied mechanical engineering ...

Is Cesar Millan Dead, Who Is The Wife & What Is His Net Worth? Cesar Millan is the famous dog whisperer who often stirs up mixed emotions. The Mexican-American is precisely speaking, a dog behaviorist; he has been in the game for over 25 years. His Emmy-nominated television series, Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan further pushed his method and tactics into the limelight. The series was produced from 2004 ...

Is Thomas Sanders Gay and Does He Have A Boyfriend? By the time Vine was shut down in January 2017, Thomas Sanders was already popular within and beyond the internet community for his heavy involvements on the online video hosting platform. After the tragic shutdown of Vine impacted on the growing career of the multi-talented personality, he immediately switched over to YouTube where he continued to upload ...

Is Shepard Smith Gay, Who Is The Boyfriend & What Is His Net Worth? There are only a few media personalities who are as bold and confident as Shepard Smith. Apart from his impressive stint at Fox News Channel which includes but not limited to his classic news delivery, upfront stance on virtually every issue and much more; he loves his job as much as he loves his personality. Smith ...

Is Milo Yiannopoulos Gay? His Husband and Net Worth Milo Yiannopoulos is a popular writer, journalist, polemicist, public speaker, and political commentator who is also known as the founder of The Kernel, an online blog. He has been said to be among the list of 100 weird and influential people in the United Kingdom. He appeared on this list as a result of personal beliefs and ...

Does Ryan Seacrest Have A Wife Or Girlfriend, What Is His Net Worth? From radio to television, Ryan Seacrest is a household name and a force to be reckoned with in showbiz. The radio personality, television host, and producer is best recognized as the host of the popular TV talent search contest American Idol. Heres how the media personality who always knew what his lifes ambition was and diligently pursued ...

Is Anderson Cooper Gay, Who is The Boyfriend or Husband? For many, the thought of becoming a millionaire by writing and talking about other people appears unachievable but this is the reality of the prominent American journalist Anderson Cooper who gathered millions of dollars for conducting accurate political analysis and other vital reports on TV. He is the main anchor of the CNN news show Anderson ...

Is David Muir Gay or Does He Have A Wife, What Is His Salary? David Muir is an Emmy Award-winning journalist who works for the ABC broadcast-television network and anchors the ABC World News Tonight with David Muir program while also co-anchoring the magazine program 20/20. The Ithaca College graduate, whose show has become the most-watched newscast in America, has covered stories from all across America and the world; reporting ...

Joel Osteen  Divorce Rumors, Net Worth & Family Members Joel Osteen is an American Televangelist, Senior Pastor of Lakewood Church based in Houston, Texas, a husband and a father of two. He is an author of many books, seven of which are New York Times Best Sellers and his televised sermons capture more than 7 million viewers per week and 20 million every month ...

Who Is Todd Chrisley? What To Know About His Children, Gay Rumors & Net Worth Premiered on the USA network in 2014, Chrisley Knows Best is one of the most watched family reality TV shows in the U.S. The series which is currently in its sixth season is centered around U.S real estate mogul Todd Chrisley and his family. The show reveals Todd the patriarch of the Chrisley family as a strict dad who rules ...

Who Is Shannon Bream Of Fox News? Her Husband, Children & Net Worth Shannon Bream who hosts the iconic primetime program started her journalism career in the late 1990s debuting as the evening and late-night news reporter for the CBS affiliate, WBTV. The beauty from America currently works for the Fox News Channel and she is best known for anchoring the primetime program. She also hosts Americas News ...

Is Troye Sivan Gay, Who Is His Boyfriend and What Is His Net Worth? Troye Sivan is an Australian singer and songwriter best known for songs like Happy Little Pill, Youth, Heaven (with Betty Who) and The Boyfriend Tag (with Tyler Oakley) which have all garnered him different awards and ranked on the Billboard Charts. Sivan, who was born in South Africa but now resides in the United States, is ...

Did iDubbbz Have Cancer, Is He Gay and Who Is His Girlfriend Now? iDubbbz is one YouTuber who has made a career out of courting controversy. Renowned for his absurdist channels and comedy video series, the Los Angeles based personality is the owner of two channels, iDubbzTV, and iDubbzTV2, as well as the brains behind comedy video series such as Content Cop, Kickstarter Crap, Gaming News Crap, and ...

Inside Greg Gutfelds Love Story With Wife Elena Moussa and Why Fans Thought He Was Gay Greg Gutfeld is a seasoned American television producer whose career in the media industry has spanned over a decade. He is a man of many talents who makes extra income through comedy, journalism, and editorial works. Gutfeld regularly appears on Fox News Channel as a panellist and co-host of the political talk show The Five ...

Works That Made Bo Burnham A Household Name and How Much He Is Worth Now One of YouTubes first viral stars and the worlds most exciting young comedian, Bo Burnham, has always amazed critics and comedy aficionados alike. Often regarded as the Justin Bieber of comedy, thanks to his fresh looks, floppy blond hair and hoodies, he has a multi-faceted career bigger than many comedians twice his age. It wouldnt ...

Is Louie Anderson Gay And What Is His Net Worth? Louie Anderson has one of the most abstract faces in the industry and equally knows how to use it to his advantage. He is not only a stand-up comedian but also an actor and television host who is known for his distinctive comic wits. Some of his notable projects include Family Feud, where he was ...

Is Don Lemon of CNN Gay, Who is His Partner and What Is His Salary? Don Lemon has risen to become one of the most recognizable faces on CNN over the past few years. The fiery journalist, who anchors CNN Tonight with Don Lemon, is liked and somewhat disliked for his strong and candid opinions on a variety of matters that do not just include politics but also race, significantly, matters that ...

Is Rachel Maddow Gay, Who is the Wife and How Much Does She Earn in Salary? Rachel Maddow is an award-winning American journalist, political commentator, and television news anchor. She is best known for hosting the popular nightly TV show The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC. Prior to this, she hosted a talk radio program on Air America Radio from 2005 to 2010. As of now, the TV sensation co-anchors MSNBCs ...

Demystifying Pokimane  Her Real Name, Ethnicity & Boyfriend Like most social media celebrities in this digital era, Pokimane Thicc is one of those stars who took advantage of the internet to make a name for herself. Given the unlimited potentials which the social media space offers, many people have been instantly propelled to fame just by posting creative online contents. Not only has ...

A Breakdown of Kris Jenners Net Worth, Sources Of Income and Relationships Over The Years Standing outside and looking in, Kris Jenner looks like the oil that greases the wheels of the entire Kardashian/Jenner machine. She has been dubbed a momager and rightfully so because she seems to have had a part to play in the trajectory of each and every one of her daughters individually and the Kardashian brand ...

Pursuits That Brought Liza Koshys Fame To its Zenith and Her Love Life Since David Dobrik Liza Koshy is an American actress who has leveraged YouTube as a platform to promote her comedy while also serving as a television host on occasions. She is talented and funny and has gathered a lot of fans from around the world. Koshy started on Vine in high school and was able to get millions of ...

Alex Aiono Biography  Inside The Life Of The American Singer Not everyone who started from the streets has attained the heights where Alex Aiono is currently. His story could be referred to as the perfect definition of rising from Grass to Grace. He came into the limelight after he started out as a YouTuber, singer, and producer. One fascinating thing about the young YouTuber is ...

Virginia Vallejo Biography And Her Love Story With Pablo Escobar Virginia Vallejo can be referred to as one of the oldest whistleblowers in history after her involvement with Pablo Escobar which made her famous. Over the years, many questions have been raised about her relationship with the drug lord and why she endangered her life to be with him despite his notorious acts. The death ...

Princess Love Bio  Ethnicity, Real Name & Parents For many people, Princess Love is simply Ray Js wife but there is so much more to this feisty lady than meets the eye. She is a star in her own right and has many feathers on her cap. Princess Love is a reality TV star, a model, video vixen, and fashion designer. She and her ...

Who is Papa Franku Also Known As Filthy Frank or Joji, Where is He Now? The social media as we all know today has given people the opportunity to be creative and innovative and at the same time, make something of themselves. YouTube is one of the known social platforms we have today that makes it possible for people to express their God-given talents and post videos they created to ...

Who Is Molly Qerim, How Did She Become a Famous Sports Anchor and Who Is Her Husband? Molly Qerim is an American sports anchor popularly known for moderating First Take, a highly rated sports talk show, on ESPN. Prior to joining ESPN, Qerim hosted Fantasy Live and NFL AM on NFL Network. It is quite obvious that the widely acclaimed television personality is in a class of her own when it comes ...

Safiya Nygaard  Height, Parents & Net Worth Safiya Nygaard is an American YouTuber, writer, content producer, and director who is popular for posting makeup, beauty and fashion videos on YouTube. Her videos regularly top at least one million views, thanks to her lively character as well as her willingness to experiment with outrageous outfits and different beauty products. Here are the things to ...

The Rigors of Sunlen Serfatys Career Journey Until CNN and Fun Facts About Her Personal Life CNN correspondent, Sunlen Serfaty is an Emmy Award-winning journalist known for covering a broad range of breaking news stories, national news, and Washington politics. She has been able to garner widespread recognition for herself which even goes beyond the sphere of her work. Her profile also increased with the extensive work she did in covering ...

Demystifying Jazz Jennings Real Name, Boyfriend & Family Of One The Youngest Transgenders Jazz Jennings is an unusual personality who became famous as a transgender activist and was recorded as the youngest documented public figure to be seen as transgender. She is also a YouTube personality and spokesmodel for brands, her fans, and other transgenders. She fought for acceptance in her high school with her super supportive family for over ...

Inside Fred Armisens Life  Ethnicity, Romantic Relationships and Gay Rumors Fred Armisen is an award-winning American comedian, he is also a writer, an actor as well as a musician. He was a cast member of the legendary comedy show, Saturday Night Live for 13 years and also one of the brains behind the successful satirical show Portlandia. Find out more about this incredibly talented guy ...

Ed and Lorraine Warren Biography: Cases, Kids, and Family Life Have you ever woken up with fear you could not explain, or felt a strange presence that made the hair at your nape rise or even experienced strange occurrences around you? Well, these were some of the promptings that made the well-known paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren delve into trying to explain the ideas ...

Truth About Tony Romos Wife, Kids and Life Since His NFL Retirement Tony Romo grew from the field as a quarterback to the screens as an American Football Analyst. He was a quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys in the richest football league in the world (NFL) before retiring. As a junior, he was honored as an All-Ohio Conference Member, an Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Year and ...

Who is Brittany Venti, The Controversial Game Streamer and YouTuber? In recent times, many people live stream themselves playing video games. This has become a popular pastime on the internet and many highly skilled gamers have become internet celebrities through this means. However, some of them rather than becoming renowned for their gaming skills and great commentary, have become controversial and infamous. A good example ...

Rob Dyrdeks Family: His Kids And Relationship With Wife Bryiana Noelle Flores A multi-talented star and an elite pro skateboarder, Rob Dyrdeks success story began at a remarkably young age. Yet another proof that schooling doesnt always correlate with success, Rob has established himself not just as a phenomenal sportsman but also as a successful entrepreneur. Besides perfecting his skill as a natural talent on the board, ...

xChocobars  Biography and Everything You Should Know About Her Having distinguished herself and recorded massive successes in an industry notably dominated by men, it is very safe to say that Xchocobars deserves all the attention and cash she makes from her career. A household name on Twitch (a smart live streaming video platform), the online-gamer is popularly known for streaming classic games such as Stardew ...

Everything To Know About Mary Padian, Her Boyfriend and Net Worth Mary Padian is a famous American television reality personality best known for her involvements on the Reality show Storage Wars. She also has her own shop called Mary finds where she displays her antique collections. Since her childhood, Padian has been a creative learner. At the time, she used to create new items out of reusable ones and ...

Betsy Woodruffs Family Life: Is She Married or Related To Bob Woodruff? An old name in the world of journalism, Betsy Woodruff has warmed her way into the hearts of many with her impressive talents. Through hard work, Woodruff has carved a niche for herself in a very competitive field. Betsy has strong family and work values and is also an advocate for equal opportunities for everyone ...

Matpat (Matthew Patrick)  Wife, Height & Net Worth As far as internet business is concerned, Matpat remains one of the most dynamic and seasoned figures. He boasts a wealth of experience that has helped him in growing his business from one level of greatness to another. Like most successful people, MatPat started out small but today, he makes millions of dollars from his ...

Facts About Ricegum  His Girlfriend, Real Name & Net Worth Ricegum is an online gamer and YouTube sensation who ditched college; took advantage of the digital era, and made a name for himself on the internet. Though he began as a gaming YouTuber, Ricegum soon gained recognition as a controversial internet star following his many diss tracks. Here is everything you need to know about the youngster ...

Joy Taylor Once Married MLBs Richard Giannotti  Inside Look At Her Love Life and Family The erosion of the sexist idea that women have no business in sports broadcasting created a host of women celebrities who attained fame outside of modeling and acting. One of them, Joy Taylor, a radio personality and TV host for Fox Sports 1, has been in the industry since 2009, becoming one of the most ...

What To Know About Conan OBriens Wife, Kids & Family Today The name Conan OBrien is one that jumps right at you almost immediately you start talking about the most popular television hosts in the USA and this is no surprise because the man behind that name has risen to become one of the most admired men in the business. Known for hosting the late-night talk ...

David Letterman  Net Worth, Wife & Son In all of American, one man whose face has been seen frequently by late night TV talk show lovers is none but David Letterman. The comedian and TV show veteran has been hosting late night talk shows for more than three decades. His Late Night with David Letterman show began on February 1st, 1982 aired ...

Demystifying Sssniperwolfs Family Background And The Boyfriends Shes Had Since she launched her eponymously named channel in 2013, Sssniperwolf has been on the rise when it comes to video game influencers. She is one of the biggest names in the online gaming subgenre of YouTube videos. Real name Lia Shelesh, she started with Call of Duty: Black Ops II but has diversified with other ...

Lester Holt  Wife, Family & Net Worth Lester Holt is a multiple award-winning journalist, newscaster, reporter, and actor who has worked for notable media houses like WCBS TV, CBS, MSNBC and among others. His remarkable feat in journalism has endeared him to the hearts of many and earned him some awards and recognitions. Read on to get acquainted with his biography, ethnicity, ...

What Is Louis C.K. Doing Now, Where Are His Family And How Much Is His Net Worth? It is not easy to make it in comedy. It takes more than a funny bone and the ability to elicit a few giggles from a listening audience. For all the complexities that go into making a successful career in comedy, Louis C.K, the Washington D.C-born comedian, did it. For years, he was at the ...

The Progression of Hoda Kotbs Career, Her Ancestry and Family Life Hoda Kotb gained fame as a television host and news anchor for NBC. She anchors the shows signature show Today, and it has been an excellent vehicle for her skills in front of a camera. Kotb has won several awards, including Daytime Emmys and Peabody Awards. Simply put, she is one of the most successful ...

Jerry Seinfelds Family: All About The Amazing Comedians Wife and Kids Apparently one of the highly important entertainers in America, Jerry Seinfeld is a man of many talents. A very funny man, he is considered to be one of the most successful comedians in the USA who has been in the business as a professional rib-cracker for more than 40 years. As an actor, he has ...

The Rigors Of Sarah Silvermans Rise To Prominence And Rundown Of The Men She Has Dated A comedian, writer, and actress, Sarah Silvermans art and craft is as unique as you would ever find. Her poignant use of comedy to discuss social issues such as race, sexism, politics, and religion has gained her an impressive following. As unorthodox as her style is, so is her life experiences. She previously suffered from epiglottitis ...

Who Is Hannibal Buress, Does He Have A Wife or Girlfriend & Why Was He Arrested? Making people laugh when they are tense or not in the mood is a tough order and to ply the trade, it must indeed take some guts and expertise, this is what the humor maker, Hannibal Buress has been able to achieve and sustain after his inital teething process. The African-American is a screen writer, stand-up ...

The Success of John Mulaneys Career Efforts Since His Work On Saturday Night Live and Facts About His Wife John Mulaney had been working as a professional comedian for years before Saturday Night Live changed his status for life and like many who are now his fans, you probably did not know of him then. However, that changed when he joined the sketch comedy show in 2008. Since then, he has been one of ...

Jeff Dunham  Wife, Children and Net Worth Ventriloquism is a very subtle method of making an inanimate object (like a puppet, doll or dummy) appear to be saying words which are actually coming from the person (holding the inanimate object). In effect, the individual throws his/her voice to the puppet and can even appear to be having a conversation with it. Not ...

Ellen DeGeneres  Net Worth, Wife  Portia de Rossi & Parents Ellen DeGeneres is an American female standup comedian who has proven that whatever a man can do, a woman can also do. Since her journey as a standup comedian started in 1981, she has held swirl as one of the finest comedians America and the world at large has seen. She is often referred to ...

Revisiting Joan Rivers Death  The Daughter, Husband & Net Worth She Left Behind Joan Rivers was a renowned American comedian, TV host, writer, and actress. Her brand of comedy consisted of scathing one-liners and no individual or topic is spared. She hosted her own talk shows in the 80s and 90s and was a pioneer for women in stand up comedy. She was the first woman to host a late night ...

The Struggles of Margaret Chos Childhood, How It Influenced Her Career Growth and Love Life Margaret Cho is best described as a comic star who knows how to maneuver everything related to life into a rib-cracking joke. She is also known to criticize every social and political problem, especially those involving race and sexuality. Apart from her talents as a comic actress, she does amazingly well as a singer and ...

Where Is Eric Bolling Today? Who Is His Son & What Is His Net Worth? Eric Bolling who was once a notable figure on Fox News, is an American TV personality, an author, and versatile Journalist. As a political and financial analyst/commentator, he anchored discussions bothering on finance for Fox Business Channel. Here is everything there is to know about his career, family, and allegations that led to his exit ...

Who Is Chelsea Handler and Does She Have A Husband or Boyfriend? Chelsea Handler is one of Americas top female comedians. She is also an actress, writer, television host, producer, and activist. She is known to be very outspoken even with things that are very personal. In separate interviews with The New York Times, Handler revealed that she had an abortion twice when she was 16. She has authored five books ...

How Did Laura Lee Achieve Fame, How Much is She Worth and Who is Her Husband? Laura Lee is a popular American YouTuber, make-up artist and beauty blogger. From posting videos of her makeup routines on Instagram, Lee has transformed into a beauty influencer and a YouTube sensation. Today, her YouTube Channel has over 630 million views and 4.5 million subscribers. Asides having millions of followers across all social media platforms, ...

Madison Gesiotto Bio  Ethnicity, Parents & Measurements Madison Gesiotto is no ordinary woman; although she excelled in quite a number of pageants and competitions while she was in school, it is her views on politics and issues in America that has made her name known to most people. She possesses beauty and intelligence in a seemingly equal measure and has been able ...

Who Is Lil Tay? Parents, Brother, Sister, Age, Net Worth, Ethnicity Child stardom is nothing new in the entertainment world. With the advent of social media, we have seen more stars made from the internet than ever before, and Lil Tay is one of them. Her uploaded rap videos trademark is cursing, swearing, cash-throwing, and use of obscene languages. Her fame went wild after she dropped ...

What To Know About Tig Notaros Wife, Kids and Family Today Tig Notaro is an American stand-up comic star, writer, actress, and radio analyst. Since she started her career in 2001, she has become one of Americas best comedians, particularly when it comes to observational comedy. One prominent aspect of her routine involves her family, which includes a wife and two children. Interestingly, Tig Notaro is part ...

Who Is Chantel Jeffries? What To Know About Her Age, Ethnicity & Net Worth Chantel Jeffries is a lady of many talents. Beyond being celebrated as a DJ, she has fared well as a model, an actress, musician, and as an artist. She first rose to fame on Instagram where she has a large following. However, in recent times, she has hit the spotlight for her rumored relationships with some ...

Is Ellen DeGeneres Married, Who Is The Brother  Vance DeGeneres and Family Members? Ellen DeGeneres is one of a kind celebrity in todays world as she has used her wealth for the greater good for many people. She has served a host of famous awards shows like the Grammy, Primetime Emmy and Academy Awards. Moreso, she is probably one of the most decorated entertainment personalities around the world and ...

Carli Bybel Bio  Height, Boyfriend & Net Worth Video blogging is now on the rise and YouTube is the place where most of it happens. If you are a lady who cares about her looks or a guy who likes to help his woman out with her looks, then one person whose name rings a bell when it comes to giving beauty tips ...

Who Is Lexy Panterra? What To Know About Her Ethnicity, Boyfriend & Net Worth Lexy Panterra is one of the YouTube personalities whose breakout came through the Twerk dance videos she posted on her social media handles and YouTube which has so far generated over 13 million views for her. From there on, she created her LexTwerkOut workout program in 2014. She is sure very talented as she as moved ...

Who Is AnneMunition? What Is Her Ethnicity & Does She Have A Girlfriend or Boyfriend? AnneMunition is a professional gamer and content creator of American origin. She is one of the most sought-after streamers on Twitch  a popular online platform for watching and streaming videos, especially video games. AnneMunition has almost half a million followers on Twitch and her channel has accumulated at least 13 million views. Her favorite games ...

Norm MacDonald  Former Wife, Son & Net Worth Recently, 59-year-old former Saturday Night Live stand-up comic Norm MacDonald caused a not-so-funny stir when he expressed his personal opinion about the #MeToo movement speaking in defense of Louis CK and Roseanne Barr. Following the backlash of his actions, he is diligently doing damage control for his questionable opinion by posting a public apology on ...

Inside Iliza Shlesingers Life With Husband and How Much She is Worth Now Witty, spontaneous, and truly humorous, Iliza Shlesinger is an American comedian who is clearly proving that the stereotypical claim that women are not really funny is not only incredibly wrong but completely outrageous. Having been in the game for more than 10 years, Shlesinger has grown bigger with each step, stunning fans with her incredible ...

Who Is Nessa Diab? Details of her Parents, Ethnicity & Relationship With Colin Kaepernick Nessa Diab has gained more fame as the girlfriend of different footballers than in her career. She is currently with the popular National Football League (NFL) player, Colin Kaepernick, and has stood by his side during his most trying times. Also known for her mononym, Nessa, she recently engaged in a tweet battle with the ...

Samantha Bee  Inside the Life of Full Frontal Comedian and Presenter We have over the decades seen various brands of humor and personalities who have walked the ropes. One of the formidable forces in the world of comedy is no other than the iconic Samantha Bee of the Daily Show who now runs her own television show on TBS channel. She is a Canadian-American political commentator, ...

What Happened To Jessica Williamss Boyfriend And Which Are Her Best Works? Jessica Williams is a woman who has a lot of feathers in her cap  and keeps acquiring more. The former senior political correspondent of the comic Daily Show, who is also a comedian and actress whose recent movie appearance include starring as a playwright just recovering from a recent split with her boyfriend, Damon, and ...

Who is Nicole Byer? Here are 5 Facts You Need To Know About The Comedian Nicole Byer, an American comedian, actress, and writer, made a name for herself after she played supporting roles on MTVs prank show Ladylike and the reality show Girl Code. The latter was a series that featured comedians who analyzed in minute details, all the issues that young women deal with daily, from period to dating, to weird friendship dynamics and questions about sex. Currently, ...

A Closer Look At Bart Kwans Ethnicity, Height & Personal Life Bart Kwan is one of few Asians who is known for being successful in the comic industry at an international level. His fame broke out after the YouTube channel which he created with his close pal Joe Jo garnered up massive followings. The talented duo has been running the channel since 2007 and their success ...

Heres How VanossGaming Achieved Fame Online, His Worth and Other Facts About The Gamer For many years, the decision to drop out of college to pursue an online career was considered to be foolish and self-destructive by conventional wisdom. It was no different when Evan Fong, popularly known as VanossGaming, dropped out of college to pursue a YouTube career. However, that radical move paid off, and he stands shoulder to ...

Desi Perkins  Ethnicity, Net Worth & Husband YouTube is littered with videos of makeup tutorials by different people but if you are interested in learning how to do your makeup like a pro, there is just one person on that platform who you must follow. She is none other than Desi Perkins! She is a popular make-up artist, Instagram star, and vlogger. Desi, ...

The Phases of Casey Neistats Pursuits and His Love Story With Candice Pool YouTuber, vlogger, filmmaker, and creator extraordinaire; these are just a few hats that Casey Neistat wears and the story of how he got here is incredible. A native of Connecticut, Neistat started out by making refreshingly-authentic short films and videos that featured content that was based on everyday life and called attention to serious issues. He ...

Connor Franta  Inside The Life of American YouTuber YouTube has produced a lot of young celebrities in modern times and Connor Franta happens to be one of them. Apart from being a YouTuber, the young American is also an entrepreneur, entertainer, and writer. His journey to fame began almost a decade ago when he started a self-named YouTube channel where he uploads content ranging ...

Rhett and Link  Bio, Who are Their Wives, Net Worth and Family Facts Rhett and Link refer to an American comedy duo who are very popular on YouTube. They are known for their comic songs, viral commercials, skits and the daily show, Good Mythical Morning. Good Mythical Morning is the most watched daily show online, averaging 100 million views in a month. The show has featured guests such ...

A Walk Through The Maze of Ryan Higas Career Pursuits And Relationship With Arden Cho Ryan Higa is not only celebrated as a YouTube star, but he is also famed for appearing on television screens as an actor and comedian. Nigahiga, his Youtube channel, has gathered over 20 million subscribers and billions of views with his different comic acts, short films, and music videos uploads. With the rise in his career, ...

What to Know About The Shows That Made Craig Ferguson a Star and His Family Ties Rising to the top of your profession can sometimes be a hard and difficult process. It requires days and nights of working consistently hard to be better than what you were yesterday. It requires not giving up when all of your experiences seem to be pushing you to quit. It is because of these challenges ...

David Dobrik Married Liza Koshy for One Month  Inside His Family and Relationships David Dobrik is a YouTube sensation who has garnered fame not just for his vlogs but his love life too. Given his career as a YouTuber, his channel is one place where he shares his romantic escapades. With a cute boyish look like his, this Slovakian young man is definitely a good catch, and not ...

Merrell Twins Bio  Ethnicity, Parents & Boyfriend One of the beautiful things about modern life is social media. As rudimentary as it might seem, it could turn out to be the greatest thing that would be invented in the next 50 years because of its impact on human life. Very few tools have revolutionized human behavior and culture as much as social ...

Who Is Bunny Meyer, Is She Married & What Is Her Net Worth? Bunny Meyer is a YouTube celebrity who has amassed over 8.8 million subscribers with 1.5 million viewers on her channel. She is popularly known as Grav3yardgirl and is one of the highest-paid YouTubers in the world. She initially started out as a fashion designer and later chose the path of a YouTuber. Grav3yardgirl has used her knowledge on fashion, makeup, ...

Ninja  Inside The Life of The American YouTuber and Internet Personality Ninja is a talented video game player known for his mastery of Fortnite and other seemingly difficult games he plays with ease. The video gamer made a career out of what is ordinarily the hobby of many people and has since then amassed a huge online following. Find out about him here, including the controversies that ...

What Is Eva Gutowskis True Sexuality and How Did She Rise So Fast As an Influencer? Ever since Eva Gutowski joined YouTube in 2011, it has been an interesting journey for her, moving from one milestone to the other. Backed by an army of young women and teenage girl fans known as Evanators, she has risen to become one of the most-talked-about personalities in the digital stratosphere. She has also leveraged ...

Emma Chamberlain Biography  Age, Height & Net Worth Before now, people in the entertainment industry could only achieve popularity after many years of dedication and hard work but since social media came into the scene, massive success and overnight popularity became possible. That is the story of Emma Chamberlain who encountered fame as a fifteen-year-old. Emma is one of the many young people who became ...

Anna Akana  Ethnicity, Boyfriend & Net Worth There is a new crop of YouTubers known by their different contents with a very strong uniqueness that stands every one of them out, some upload video games, some fashion while some others have comedy video contents to showcase on their channels. Anna Akana has used her platform to showcase her comedy contents to the ...

Revealing Truths About Lilly Singhs Ethnic Background, Family and Her Relationship With Yousef Erakat Lilly Singh is an Indian-Canadian YouTube personality, actress, and comedian also known as Superwoman. She kicked off her YouTube career in 2010 with the launch of her channel IISuperwomanII and followed it up with a vlog channel in 2011. This paved the way for her fame and success which led to a world tour. The ...

Who Is Andrea Constand, Is She Married and What Is Her Connection With Bill Cosby? Many people got sexually molested but could not voice out due to the stigma victims suffer and what will become of them thereafter. Very few of the victims danm every consequence to seek justice and bring the perpetrator to the book, like Andrea Constand. She never got any media buzz, not until her friend cum molester; ...

Who Is Lazarbeam (Lannan Eacott)? Here Are Facts You Need To Know Lannan Eacott became a person of interest after his YouTube channel, LazarBeam pulled him to the limelight. Initially, he started with uploads of Madden Challenge videos before deciding to build his own channel in January 2015. Within the space of three years, his YouTube channel had gathered over 7 million loyal subscribers. Today, he has not ...

Puzzling Facts About Wengies YouTube Success and More About Her Fiance Among the many YouTubers who have succeeded in winning the hearts of millions of people is Wengie. She is a Chinese-Australian YouTube personality, vlogger, singer, and voice actress. Wengie is famous for a lot of things, from her simple life hacks, DIYs, craft ideas to fun experiments, tricks and pranks. Her content portfolio also includes hair tutorials, diet & fitness tips, lookbooks, ...

Is Jeffree Star A Billionaire and How Much Does He Make On YouTube? If looks can be deceptive then theres no other person who proves this maxim better than Jeffree Star. A quick look at Stars pictures would likely leave you wondering whether or not to tag him a male or female. But who says being controversial has to be a curse? For Star, his looks have caught ...

The Place of Rosanna Pansinos Career Hats In Her Rise To Fame and Facts About Her Personal Life There are a few phrases that could summarize Rosanna Pansinos rise to fame. None of them can do it better than the famous axiom, no knowledge is lost. Her popularity YouTube comes out of her foray into other professions, specifically acting. Although acting now occupies one of the major professional hats in Rosannas resume, it was ...

Muselk (Elliott Watkins) Biography  Age, Girlfriend and Net Worth The new and best in-thing in terms of career is video gaming and we have over time seen young men and women make massive income from an activity that was purportedly designed to serve as a hobby or a relaxation activity. One of such individuals is the Australian-born YouTube Celebrity and Twitch streamer, Muselk, whose ...

PopularMMOs Biography: 5 Interesting Facts You Need To Know We have over the years seen social media millionaires, especially on the YouTube social platform. These celebrities cum millionaires have made names for themselves after carving out niches on the internet, and a typical example of one of such exciting media personality on the YouTube is American Minecraft gamer and YouTube star, PopularMMOs whose channel ...

Jason Nash Once Married Marney Hochman  What To Know About His Ex-Wife and Kids The now-defunct video-sharing app Vine was the path that led Jason Nash to fame. With it, he built an audience of over two million followers, which he parlayed into a significant YouTube career. That move has seen him become one of the most popular personalities on the internet, with the cash income to go with ...

Where Does Dantdm Live? What Do We Know About His Net Worth, Wife and Brother? Most parents buy video games for their kids to occupy their time leisure, while other parents frown at their kids when they play video games. Despite the disparity, every parent would be proud of their child if he/she eventually turns a celebrity or millionaire through playing video games like Dantdm. Biography of Dantdm Dantdm was born Daniel ...

LaurDIY  Biography: 5 Facts You Need To Know About The YouTuber LaurDIY is the YouTube channel of Lauren Riihimaki which she created on December 1, 2011, when she was still a college undergrad with the sole aim of giving Do It Yourself (DIY) as well as practical fashion and beauty tips to her followers. She has used the channel to establish herself as a YouTube personality ...

Lachlan Ross Power  Bio And Family Life Of Australian The YouTube Star It is amazing the varied sources of income that the internet has made possible in this day and age. Internet fame can get its holder a whole lot of monetary and social benefits, but it must be noted that it does not come easy or cheap. For those who desire fame, content is the sacrifice ...

Alfie Deyes  Bio and Net Worth: Everything You Need To Know Alfie Deyes is one internet personality you definitely would like to know about. He boasts of over 10 million subscribers on three of his YouTube channels and has three bestseller books to his name. He is probably the most renowned young personality on YouTube today and his vlogging empire continues to grow by the day. ...

Colleen Ballingers Love Story With Husband Erik Stocklin and How Much She Is Worth Now Colleen Ballinger is an American comedian and YouTuber who is a very funny, adventurous, and highly talented woman. She is also an actress, singer, and writer. Collen is widely known for her work on YouTube where she posts content on her channel, Miranda Sings. The comedian has gained many subscribers over the years and has ...

Who Are The Dude Perfect Members and How Much Are They Worth? Entertainment in the 21st century can be digested in many forms and with platforms like YouTube, the creators and purveyors of entertainment have been democratized. Today, one of the most popular platforms to exhibit ones creative talents is YouTube, even though there are other platforms like Twitter, Facebook, who suffer in comparison to YouTube because ...

Who Is Rudy Mancuso, What Is His Earning Power and What Do We Know About His Girlfriend? Rudy Mancuso started his internet journey on Vine. He would later transition to YouTube where he solidified his place among the internets most beloved comedic creators. He is now regarded as one of the renowned internet personalities in the world, with a presence in mainstream TV and film projects like Comedy Centrals Drunk History and ...

Vsauce (Michael Stevens) Biography and Net Worth: All You Need To Know The advent of YouTube and the internet as a whole revolutionized how human beings consume information. With each passing year, the percentage of learning that is done in a traditional classroom decrease as a seismic shift to internet-based learning happens in our education industry. From open courses online to YouTube classes and videos, there are ...

How did Jake Paul Make His YouTube Big Break and Who is His Wife? One of the most interesting Social Media personalities of the 21st century is the young and popular Jake Paul whose elder brother is the famed Vine star, Logan Paul. Jake has utilized the power of the internet to bring himself to the limelight with a channel named JakePaulProductions that has amassed up to six billion ...

5 Facts You Need To Know About Reaction Time (Tal Fishman)  The American YouTuber Before 2015, the leading meaning of reaction time was the amount of time it takes to respond to a stimulus, until Tal Fishman started his channel, Reaction Time on YouTube and the dominant meaning changed. Today, a google search of Reaction Time would deliver Tal Fishmans videos and YouTube channel link with a few physics ...

Grace Helbig  Net Worth, Boyfriend and Family Life of The YouTuber Grace Helbig is an American internet personality, comedian, actress, and writer. She became popular due to her daily vlog series, DailyGrace, which ran on My Damn Channel from 2008 to 2013. Helbig is also popular for her own indie series on YouTube, ItsGrace, which she launched in 2014. Her vlogs which feature random stuff such as ...

Mark Wiens Bio  Ethnicity, Wife and Parents Food is a great way to connect with people. We all love to eat, if not for the pleasure of food, the satisfaction of quenching hunger, and the very process of providing and sharing that food is part of the strongest bonds that bind humanity together. Maybe it is our historical connection to food, where ...

Is Filthy Frank Dead, What Happened To Him and How Much Is He Worth? As George Kusunoki Miller, he was a nobody. However, as Filthy Frank, George was one of the most famous internet personalities on the planet. The Filthy Frank Show, a sketch series on his YouTube channel, TVFilthyFrank, was one of the platforms most influential creations. He is the reason a crazy dance song, Harlem Shake, made it ...

CaptainSparklez Bio  Net Worth, House and Cars of The Famous YouTuber Sometimes, what society wants from its citizens is quite different from what the citizens want for themselves. This is evident in the life and career of video blogger and American YouTube personality, Jordan Maron famous for his YouTube channel CaptainSparklez. He dropped out of school after discovering his talent in playing an online game called Minecraft. ...

Who is Simply Nailogical (Cristine Rotenberg)? Here are Facts You Must Know Canadian Youtube personality, Simply Nailogical (Cristine Rotenberg) originally started out polishing and designing nails even before it became a trendy culture in the social media. Simply Nailogica started out her showbiz career in her early days as a child actress, acting in commercials for game and toy companies. Aside from acting, she is blogger, vlogger, specializing ...

5 Interesting Facts You Need To Know About Huda Beauty In the world of entrepreneurship, it is interesting when an individual has a mentor who he/she looks up to, this yield more productivity on the part of the individual. The iconic and rich American beautician and makeup artist Huda Kattan nicknamed Heida is the founder of the Huda Beauty blog which is number one Instagram beauty blog ...

Is Dino MasterChef Gay? Details About His Ethnicity, Girlfriend, Where He Is Now Food, for the better part of the early years of human life, was nothing more than what we needed for survival. There was no artistry or curation to the method of cooking. The scarcity of food left no room for artistic expression until we figured out agriculture and we could make as much as we ...

Who Is Gabbie Hanna And How Did She Become Famous? As the world shifts to digital media and depends more and more on streaming services for its news and entertainment content, YouTubers have become one of the leading creators in the new media world. Their understanding of the online audience: how to create, maintain, and increase followers, are all handy skills that have primed them ...

Jacksepticeye  Height, Girlfriend & Net Worth Jacksepticeye is a YouTuber and actor who gained popularity with a series of gaming videos he uploads on his channel to the delight of millions of his subscribers. He is Known primarily for his comic video game series titled Lets Play and his vlogs. His channel was formerly ranked 46th in the list of most subscribed ...

Chris Heria Personal Details: About His Wife, Height & Ethnicity Background In this generation, keeping fit has become one of the major criteria for being hale and hearty. In fact, most occupations these days are majorly concerned with ones body mass, weight and looks. Unlike the past where most people have to register in a gym to keep fit, social media has made it quite easy ...

Everything You Need To Know About Game Grumps Gaming is becoming incredibly popular on YouTube these days with game vloggers make millions of dollars out of them yearly. One of the most popular up-coming gaming YouTube channels is Game Grumps. The Lets Play series was created in 2012 and celebrated its fifth anniversary on July 18th, 2017. In six years of its existence, the ...

Daithi De Nogla Biography, Girlfriend and Net Worth YouTube has created an avenue for many to make wealth and become famous from the comfort of their homes while having fun. Many have built a career out of the platform, uploading numerous videos that have earned them the admiration of viewers across the globe. For Daithi De Nogla, he is loved for his humorous commentary on ...

Does Phoebe Robinson Have A Boyfriend or Husband and What Do We Know About Her Family? Phoebe Robinson is a New York-based comedian, writer, and actress. She is best known as the co-creator and co-host of the WNYC Studios podcast 2 Dope Queens. Just like some other female comedians, she never had any original plans of becoming a stand-up comedian even though, according to her, she took a class on a whim at Carolines on Broadway. After ...

Who Are Lex and Alana from Listed Sisters? What Is Their Ethnicity & Is the Show Cancelled? America is a country built on diversity. Everywhere you look all over the country, a countless number of immigrants or children of immigrants have become an integral part of the fabric of the country. From entertainment to business, immigrants are creating a niche for themselves and climbing to the summit of their respective professions. One ...

Riveting Facts About Danielle Lombard And What She Is Best Known For The American entertainment industry is one that provides many avenues for aspiring hopefuls to express their talents and become famous. From films to television shows and game shows, there is no shortage of ways for men and women who desire fame to pursue and earn it in the United States of America. Another tested medium ...

Unearthing New Details About The YouTube Success And Personal Life of Alex Burriss of Wassabi Productions Wildly hilarious and truly audacious, Alex Wassabi is an American YouTuber who has become a very popular face on the video-sharing platform after having garnered millions of subscribers over the years by keeping people glued to his channel with his witty parody video releases. If you have always loved parody videos, there is every chance ...

Everything You Need To Know About H2O Delirious H2O Delirious whose full birth name is reported to be Jonathan Gormon Dennis has successfully kept himself mystified by hiding his face behind the masks leaving his loyal fans speculating who he really is for many years. The American YouTube star is easily identified by the Jason Mask Style with make-up which he wears on his ...

Who Is HolaSoyGerman and What Happened To Him? German Garmendia has certainly seen it all when it comes to internet success. His channels, HolaSoyGerman and JuegaGerman are in the top twenty most subscribed channel on YouTube. The Chilean YouTuber found a way to tap into one of the worlds greatest inventions and make a living from it. He has been able to build ...

Who Are Glenn Becks Family, What Is His Net Worth And What Happened To Him? The American political commentary space is filled with different personalities. A few of them, through their rhetoric, charisma, and resources have been able to build a large following of men and women who listen to them for insight and direction for various political and social issues in the United States. For Conservatives, the story is ...

Following Charissa Thompsons Rise Through The Ranks Of Sports Casting and All About Her Boyfriend Superstar TV host and sportscaster, Charissa Thompson, has been hailed as one of the highest-profile women journalists in America, and the reason is there for all to see. She has worked for popular establishments such as Versus, Yahoo! Sports, ESPN, GSN, and Big Ten Network. She currently hosts the popular pre-game show, Fox NFL Kickoff, ...

Is Chris Kattan Gay or Does He Have A Wife? What Is His Net Worth? Chris Kattan is a popular American comedian and actor. He has appeared in several comic movies and TV series such as The Middle, A Night at the Roxbury and Bunnicula. Kattan is, however, most popular for his six-year stint as a cast member of Saturday Night Live. During his time on the legendary show, he ...

Everything You Should Know About the Rise of Insta Star Claire Abbott and Why She Gave It All Up A lot of young Americans have shot into the limelight for uploading different kinds of videos on YouTube. Some of these young stars include Connor Franta, Desi Perkins, Emma Chamberlain, the Dolan Twins (Ethan and Grayson), and Claire Abbott. The latter became a social media celebrity for uploading sexy bikini pictures of herself on social media. Apart from ...

5 Facts You Need To Know About The YouTube Channel  h3h3Productions H3h3Productions is a YouTube channel that specializes on Comic responses or reactions of other contents or trendy stories. The celebrity couple that created the channel has over time racked up sizable views for their commentaries and contents. Even though they had their own fair share of copyright cases, thankfully they scored an unprecedented victory in all ...

Lilypichu Bio  Height, Brother and Love Story With Albert SleightlyMusical Chang Like most popular internet celebrities, Lilypichu is one of those Twitch streamers who spend their lives on camera. From daydreaming about the possibility of becoming a full-time professional streamer, she grew to live out her dreams on the popular live streaming platform where people play games, make crafts, and showcase their day-to-day activities. Given the rise of ...

KSI  What To Know About His Girlfriend, Brother  Deji Olatunji & Net Worth Assuredly, when Internet inventors Vint Cerf and Bob Khan created the technological masterpiece, they probably did not know how massive the creation will be harnessed by many for different purposes including as a platform for earning money through content creation. One of such person who smiles to the bank regularly today for spending time creating ...

The Interesting Progression and Highlights of Carrie Keagans Career as a Host and Actress Carrie Keagan has garnered huge fame through her various stints on television. She is not just your regular TV host but one with a difference. Keagan has hosted several high profile events and TV shows, including VH1s Big Morning Buzz Live and Fox News Channels Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld. However, not many know she ...

The Gist On Elise Jordans Marriages And Her Rise To Prominence Political commentaries tend to be boring when it is handled by someone who does not have a knack for it. However, when you see the likes of Elise Jordan run the same commentary, you will have a lot of reasons to look forward to watching her again as the journalist is well-versed in the field ...

What Is Timmy Thick Best Known For and How Successful Is The Star? Thanks to the internet, many people whose talents would have ordinarily gone unnoticed have become famous. A very good example of this modern-day internet celebrity is Timmy Thick, an American social media star. He became popular on Instagram due to his penchant for posting raunchy pictures of himself. He also often posted videos of himself ...

What Does Heather Storm Do For a Living and Who Is She Dating? Reality Television is a great way to make a name for oneself as well as amass a fortune. Heather Storm can attest to this as she is one of those who have made a name and earned a lot from reality TV. She made her name appearing on shows like Car Fanatics, Awesome Autos, and, ...

Matt Carriker Biography  Net Worth, Wife & Height Unlike your regular veterinary doctor next door, Matt Carriker chose to spice up his noble profession with the unusual. Though he is known to many as a medical practitioner, Carriker is better renowned as a YouTube star and an animal lover. Having recorded huge successes on his various YouTube channels, the vet doctors name and ...

Jillian Mele of Fox News Career Achievements, Husband & Measurements There are quite a good number of presenters on radio and television who listeners and viewers may never wish to miss any of their shows because of their sensational golden voice, beauty or the special way or artistry they anchor their shows. Jillian Mele is one of such. She has been at the top of ...

Who is Gillian Turner of Fox News? Her Fiance or Husband and Net Worth Gillian Turner is well-known as a news correspondent for Fox News Channel but before she became a TV personality, she built an intimidating resume working for different institutions, including the American government. She served in different capacities at the White House National Security Council during the administration of former US Presidents  George W. Bush and Barack Obama. ...

Gloria Govan Bio  Age, Ethnicity & Height Even as Gloria Govan is famous as an American actress, author, a TV host, and reality television star, shes more popular as the wife of the former NBA player, Matt Barnes. She became known after appearing on the Florida version of the reality television series, Basketball Wives and later, Basketball Wives: LA  after Matt was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. Sadly, ...

Michael Fishmans Interesting Start as an Actor and Why He Divorced His Wife of Many Years When one door closes, another one opens. As silly as that axiom may seem, it is the story of the resurgence of Michael Fishman, who plays D.J Conner on the popular show, Roseanne. Having played the character for several years as a child actor into his teenage years; when the show originally ended, Michael did ...

Who Is October Gonzalez  Tony Gonzalezs Wife? All You Need To Know October Gonzalez is a popular American TV host and media personality. Additionally, she is also a model. Gonzalez has hosted several TV shows such as Beat Shazam, Entertainment Tonight, and Rachel Ray. She has also featured in several reality TV shows. Gonzalezs fame is not just due to her profession but also because of her ...

Who Is Tony Berlin  Harris Faulkners Husband: His Children and Family Facts Tony Berlin is a popular American media guru. He has variously worked as a reporter, anchor, and producer for some of the biggest TV networks in America. They include CNN, CBS, NBC, and ABC (where he hosted the popular Good Morning America). Berlin has now diversified into public relations and owns his own PR firm. ...

The Progression of Gianna Tobonis Journalism Career and Details About Her Marriage to Kyle Buckley Gianna Toboni may not be your ideal newscaster but her unusual reporting is what made her a household name. The American journalist is renowned for her hard-hitting and authentic reportage. A motivator and activist for total press freedom, Gianna loves to explore pervasive cultural issues. Not only does this unique and ambitious journalist call for all ...

Dog The Bounty Hunters Family Including Details of His Late Wife and Kids Popularly known as Dog, a name which he got from the television series, Dog The Bounty Hunter, Duane Chapman, an American bounty hunter, and one-time bail bondsman, went from being convicted for a felony to being a reality TV star. He was brought to the limelight following the capture of the convicted criminal, Andrew Luster in 2003 and this eventually made ...

Vicky Karayiannis, Chris Cornells Wifes Bio, Children and Family The world of showbiz is made up of different people who serve different roles, and function in a variety of capacities, and one of the most important people are those in the background. Publicists are undoubtedly one of these background people yet they are vital to the life and fame of most of our favorite ...

Joe Rogan Has A Step-Daughter and 2 Other Kids With Wife Jessica Ditzel  Meet His Family Joe Rogan is a popular American stand-up comedian and TV host. His journey to stardom began in the late 80s and has seen him host several shows, the most popular is the game show titled Fear Factor. The exciting show dares contestants to face some of their greatest fears and embark on challenging stunts. The ...

Josh Gates and Wife Hallie Gnatovich Have 2 Kids But Who Has the Higher Net Worth? Best known for his explorations and adventures, Josh Gates, is a television presenter with a voracious appetite for seeing the world and the beauties in it. Some of that beauty, however, is in his home, in the form of two children he shares with his wife, Hallie Gnatovich. Not excluded is their marriage which has lasted ...

Holly Sonders Wiki, Plastic Surgery & Why She Divorced Her Husband  Erik Kuselias After trying everything within her capacity to have a low key wedding, Holly Sonders was drawn to the public because of her husbands controversy at his workplace. Well, the two are rumored to be divorced but the article below will give more light on how true these rumors are. Meanwhile, Holly Sonders is yet to ...

Nadeska Alexis Bio  Age, Boyfriend & Net Worth Journalism is one diverse profession that allows the practitioners to choose their area of specialty, build a career on it by reporting the truth and facts which in the long run will distinguish them as deserving commendation and recognition among their peers. Some choose to specialize in political journalism, while to others it is sports ...

Media Platforms Charlamagne Tha God Has Explored and All The Controversies He Has Courted Charlamagne Tha God is an American on-air personality, radio presenter, and more recently, author. He is popularly known as a co-host on New York radios nationally syndicated show, The Breakfast Club, a program he has been hosting alongside DJ Envy and Angela Yee since 2010. However, his early years had no connection to his current career ...

A Look At Jimmy Fallons Net Worth and Family Including His Wife & Kids Sometimes, a childs passion for something is a pointer to what he/she would become in the future. As a child, Jimmy Fallon was literally obsessed with watching the late-night comedy program, Saturday Night Live (SNL). Then, his parents would tape the clean parts for him to watch and later, he and his sister would re-enact sketches from the ...

Kay Adams Biography  Does The Sportscaster Have A Husband or Boyfriend? When you hear the phrase sports enthusiast, women are hardly the first group that comes to mind. Well, thats changing pretty fast. Especially with the rise of female sports analysts and broadcasters like Kay Adams who is famed for knowing more about sports than most men do. And why not, shes paid handsomely for it ...

Ben Shapiros Family  Meet His Wife, Kids and Sister Who is Popular for the Wrong Reasons A multi-talented man, Ben Shapiro is a man of controversial nature, an attribute that has made him an unusual public figure. An intellectual whose career path was clearly defined even before he became a man, the Jewish conservative commentator has always had his way with words. He became popular by sharing his critical and often ...

QVC Shawn Killinger Bio  Husband, Net Worth & Facts To Know Shawn Killinger is a prominent TV personality who has worked her way to the top. Though not initially a journalist by training, she defied the odds and today has established herself as a household name, as well as, worked alongside some industry legends. More than just being a reporter, newscaster, and anchor, heres all you ...

Liv Lo  Dissecting the Ethnicity, Parents and Personal Life of Henry Goldings Wife While many are aware that Liv Lo is the better half to Crazy Rich Asians star Henry Golding, only a few understand why his beautiful wife appears increasingly endearing to fans. A former model turned TV personality, and fitness star, Liv has an impressive resume which when combined with that of her statuesque spouse is considered a perfect ...

Stpeach Age, Husband and Other Facts About The Twitch Streamer Lisa Vannatta, famously known by her online alias, STPeach is a Canadian video game streamer cum vlogger who has garnered fame through her appearances on different video-sharing/social networking platforms such as Youtube, Instagram, Twitch, Reddit, and Twitter. The beautiful lady got her career to a start in August 2015 when she joined the live streaming video platform, Twitch. She rose to ...

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Understanding The Height of Fame John Oliver Achieved With The Daily Show and How He Met His Wife Without knowledge of who he is and his exemplary career, John Oliver cuts an unassuming figure of a regular man but he is one of the most influential personalities in America, especially on television. Since he began his career in 1998, he has been a loud and unapologetic agent of change, using his wit and ...

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The Progression of Howard Sterns Career As A Media Personality And Why He Divorced His First Wife Howard Stern is a legendary American radio host, who has also done some notable work as an actor, producer, author, as well as photographer. The radio personality achieved worldwide fame as a result of his self-titled radio program, The Howard Stern Show. As a professional radio personality, he has worked in different radio stations. Since 2006, ...

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Amanda Balionis Rise Through the Ranks of Sportscasting and the Identity of Her Boyfriend Amanda Balionis is an American sportscaster currently working as a golf broadcaster for CBS Sports. Among so many of her works in the field of sports reporting, Amandas PGA Tour coverage seems to be the most popular so far. She covered the Super Bowl working with CBS Sports social media team in Atlanta, where she ...

Dissecting Charles Paynes Sexual Allegations, Its After Effects and More About His Wife Charles Payne had a respectable career as an analyst on Wall Street before he made the transition to television and became a contributor and later a host on Fox. In that time, his expertise has come under scrutiny, and he has been at the center of at least one major controversy. The major controversy in question ...

Erik Asla And Tryra Banks Split: Everything You Need To Know Tyra Banks and Erik Asla have called it quits! The couple, who began dating in 2013 and have a son named York Banks Asla, has decided to end what everybody taught was the perfect relationship. Neither person has come out to give a reason for the breakup, but what is obvious right now is that ...

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Earlier this week, and as expected, the San Francisco Arts Commission unanimously approved a final inscription for a memorial to the women who were sexually enslaved by the imperial Japanese army during WWII, a group usually referred to as "Comfort Women" based on the cruel euphemism once used to describe them. The Comfort Women Justice Organization, led by retired San Francisco Superior Court judges Julie Tang and Lillian Sing, is the driving force behind the privately funded memorial, and announced news of the inscription's approval. They plan to have the small monument built this fall in an extension of St. Mary's Square at the corner of Pine and Kearny. The inscription:

This Monument bears witness to the suffering of hundreds of thousands of women and girls, euphemistically called Comfort women, who are sexually enslaved by the Japanese Imperial Armed Forces in thirteen Asian Pacific countries from 1931 to 1945. Most of these women died during their wartime captivity. This dark history was largely hidden for decades until the 1990s, when the survivors courageously broke their silence. They helped move the world to declare that sexual violence as a strategy of war is a crime against humanity for which governments must be held accountable. This memorial is dedicated to the memory of these women, and to eradicating sexual violence and sex trafficking throughout the world.

Historians like South Korean professor Park Yu-ha say that "at least tens of thousands" of women, many of them Korean, many Chinese, were enslaved during the period of the early 1930s to 1945. 238 of them have come forward in South Korea, although only 40 of them are still alive, in their 80s and 90s according to the New York Times. As the crimes are a source of tension between Japan, Korea, and China, scholars like Park Yu-ha have faced repeated defamation for their work to publicize and contextualize the Comfort Women. A statue depicting a comfort woman outside the Japanese Consulate in Busan, South Korea, as the Times wrote in January, was removed by police amid protests, then later reinstalled,.

San Francisco has entered the fray in the past, fighting back against the mayor of Osaka, an SF sister city, who once called the system of enslavement and rape "necessary to maintain discipline" at the time in Japan, passing a symbolic resolution condemning his remarks. Osaka's Mayor canceled a trip to San Francisco at one point, and later, the Board of Supervisors approved the Comfort Women memorial here in 2015 over his objections.

But those objections kept coming, many of them in the form of emails denying the very premise of the Comfort Women. Those were sent to my inbox as well as to other writers who had covered the memorial efforts in San Francisco and were addressed to members of the SF Arts Commission. I counted more than 200 of them. These emails came mostly from unknown email addresses, some of them signed with names and addresses in Japan, and are clearly part of a concerted campaign, although they're not quite form letters or spam.

"[A] comfort girl is nothing more than a prostitute or professional camp followers attached to the Japanese Army for the benefit of soldiers," one email that might stand for many alleges. They had a phonograph and in the towns they were allowed to go shopping. Can you call it slavery?"

Other remarks dismissed the idea altogether or call into question the necessity of memorializing the period as it could cause present day international tensions.

That's in keeping with a long history of what the Comfort Women Justice Organization calls a system of "organized, official distortion and denialism." As they write on their website, "There is a systematic attempt at permanent erasure of WWII-era atrocities (including the Nanjing Massacre and Japanese military sexual slavery), spearheaded by Japans highest levels of government and the Prime Minister himself. The current government is actively working to distort its own troubled past in Japan and around the world, in particular, the erasure of Comfort Women issue, as part of a global campaign to improve Japans image."

Sadly, that's likely to continue even as the Comfort Women memorial here in San Francisco moves forward. The latest email I've received on the subject is one where I'm CC'd with other writers on a message addressed to Mayor Ed Lee. "Dear Mr. Mayor of San Francisco," that reads, "Since San Francisco has granted final approval for comfort womens memorial, the campaign to erect counter comfort womens memorials will vigorously be pushed forward in USA."

Previously: Renowned Sculptor Sarah Sze Withdraws Chinatown Public Art Project Where Space Was Promised To Different Entities
Waze, the Israeli-created GPS maps application that tracks traffic and crowdsources up-to-the-minute reports on everything from accidents to potholes, was snapped up by Google in 2013, and as that company has incorporated Waze information into its Google Maps application, it's also begun to connect Waze users  900,000 in the Bay Area  to encourage carpooling. If, per Waze's motto, the goal is "outsmarting traffic, together," then what better way to do so than by taking cars off the road?

A small pilot program in and around Mountain View was first, then last summer Waze, which operates as a unit of Google parent Alphabet, announced its San Francisco launch. As of this week Waze Carpool is now in all nine Bay Area counties and has entered a partnership with Kaiser Permanente, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and Bay Area Toll Authority, and UCSF. That was announced on Facebook yesterday, and Forbes had the inside story.

For Waze Carpool, which already operates across Israel, participants provide information like a Facebook or LinkedIn profile and car details to be paired with others who might be headed the same way. Rather than competing with Uber and Lyft on its own turf, Josh Fried, head of business development for Waze, tells Forbes that "We have no intention of going above the 54-cent IRS cap as that brings us into a whole other type of service and we're very committed to keeping this as a not-for-profit, share the expense type of carpool, for regular people going to and from work... There's no way to become a professional Carpool driver -- it's about a ride to work and a ride home."

Further, drivers can't make more than two rides per day, so there's no incentive to drive more than you would already plan on. And, as for Waze's cut: "We are not collecting a fee, but eventually we will," Fried says, as is the case in Israel.

Major employers like UCSF and Kaiser see the Waze system as in keeping with their own goals, as, predictably, does the MTC. The transportation option with the greatest available capacity in the Bay Area remains the empty seats in peoples cars, John Goodwin, a spokesperson for that transit agency, tells the Business Times. Encouraging carpooling is a heavy lift. We are hopeful that partnerships that involve major employers can make it a little bit lighter.

Taking a casual carpool across the Bay Bridge or with a coworker to the office is one thing, but Waze users picking up the stranger equivalent of hitchhikers seems more unlikely or at least far off.

Previously: Google's Waze-Based Carpool App Launching In San Francisco, To Compete With Uber
In the latest episode of the Democracy in Crisis Podcast, hosts Baynard Woods and Marc Steiner speak with Ron Rosenbaum. He is the author of "Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil," which includes a chapter on the Munich Post, a German newspaper that was highly critical of Hitler during his rise to power. The newspaper was shut down by the Nazis in 1933, and its writers and editors were arrested and imprisoned in concentration camps. Last weekend, Rosenbaum wrote an article for the LA Review of Books called "Against Normalization: The Lesson of the Munich Post," where he reflects on the lessons journalists can learn from the Munich Post in the age of Trump. Another of Rosenbaum's older stories recently gained a disturbing relevance. When he did an interview with Donald Trump in 1987, all the future president wanted to talk about was nuclear proliferation and Russia.



To read Baynard Woods' weekly Democracy in Crisis column click here.
SIOUX CITY -- At least three prospective businesses have expressed interest in acquiring a tract of city-owned industrial property near the proposed Seaboard Triumph Foods pork plant, city officials said.

Starting Saturday, the city will begin accepting proposals for the 21.4-acre site at the intersection of Oehlerking Drive and Boulevard of Champions in the Bridgeport West Business Park. The parcel includes a 50,000-square-foot "spec" building, constructed two years ago in hopes of attracting a new or expanding industry, as well as utilities and more than $6 million worth of road improvements that will support the $264 million pork plant, which is expected to open in July with at least 1,100 workers.

We have seen a demand for businesses wanting to locate near the Seaboard Triumph site, city economic development director Marty Dougherty said.

Chris Myres, a city economic development staffer, said he knows of three or four parties that are eyeing the property the city is offering. While he declined to identify any of them, he noted the location would be perfect for an ancillary business that would support the pork plant.

We know the proposals are kind of all over the board as far as how much land they need and how many jobs they will create and that sort of thing, whether they need a spec building or not, Myres said. So we just kind of threw it all out there: All of the land, plus the building and we basically said, 'How much of this do you need? Tell us how much you are willing to pay for it?

City officials stressed the high bidder would not necessarily prevail.

Were not selling the land for speculation; we are selling to people who are going to build something on it, Dougherty said.

If somebody give us a proposal that just says, Im going to give you X dollars and just hold onto it, they are going to lose, Myres added.

The number of jobs and property tax valuation will factor heavily into the city's decision, they said.

Ideally, Myres said the city wants to get the most use out of the land.

If we can fit two projects or maybe three projects on that 21 acres, thats even better, he said.

Both Dougherty and Myres said the city is willing to negotiate with bidders.

"We're just trying to get the most bang for our buck with the land the city bought," Dougherty said.

Because the property is located in an urban renewal district, the city is required by law to advertise the property for at least 30 days before accepting a proposal.

After Dougherty's office vets the proposals, he will make a recommendation to the City Council.
SIOUX CITY | Emma Cournoyer struggled to get the words out, stopping several times to regain her composure.

Between sobs, she told Isack Abdinur that when he killed her sister, Cornelia Stead, he took her away from their family. Her presence is missed at family gatherings and birthday parties.

"You took all that away from us," Cournoyer said Thursday during Abdinur's sentencing hearing, telling Abdinur that with the prison sentence he faced, he was going where he belonged. "After that, you're going to go to hell," Cournoyer said after Abdinur had interrupted her, trying to explain what happened the night he stabbed Stead to death.

Cournoyer concluded her statement by telling Abdinur it was hard for her to say her final words.

"I forgive you for what you did to her," Cournoyer said. "You're going to need it where you're going."

District Judge Steven Andreasen sentenced Abdinur to a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole for the June 23, 2015, stabbing of Stead at her apartment at 521 W. 16th St. Andreasen had found Abdinur, 37, guilty of first-degree murder in December.

A medical examiner said at trial that Stead, 43, was stabbed 23 times, including a fatal wound that sliced her aorta and caused massive internal bleeding.

Abdinur, who was living with Stead, told Andreasen Thursday that he was unconscious most of the night of the murder.

"I don't know what happened," Abdinur said.

He remembered getting a beer from the refrigerator, he said, seeing a knife and then stabbing Stead three times. He told Andreasen that police officers stabbed Stead 18 times.

"Police poured blood on me. It's the police you should go after, not me," said Abdinur, a native of Somalia.

A witness testified during the three-day trial in November that she was in the room when Abdinur punched Stead in the face several times before getting a knife from the kitchen and stabbing her in the chest multiple times. A blood-covered Abdinur was found in a nearby alley soon after police arrived at the scene.

Two psychologists, one called by the defense, one by the prosecution, both testified that Abdinur is a violent schizophrenic.

The defense's psychologist said Abdinur was not aware of what he was doing at the time of the attack. The prosecution's psychologist said he believed Abdinur knew he had done something wrong and understood his actions.

In reaching his guilty verdict, Andreasen, who presided over the trial after Abdinur waived his right to a jury trial, ruled that Abdinur was aware of what he was doing while stabbing Stead.
SIOUX CITY | Siouxlanders have to make it through one more day of below freezing temperatures before spring-like temperatures move into the area.

The National Weather Service of Sioux Falls said Thursday's high temperature is expected to reach 25 degrees, with the low at about 23 degrees.

Temperatures will start to rise Thursday night into Friday morning, with a high temperature near 50 degrees.

The weather service said the warm weather is expected to stick around for the foreseeable future. Highs on Saturday will hover near 50 degrees again. A slight chance of rain before 11 p.m., and then a mix of snow and rain between 11 and midnight Friday is possible.

Sunday will bring slightly cooler conditions, with a high near 42 expected.

Highs in the mid- to upper-40's are expected for the early part of next week.
SOUTH SIOUX CITY | For South Sioux Citys Lewis and Clark Elementary students, two simple words can make a big difference in the community.

The Choose Kind program, spurred by reading teacher Erica Bowman, challenges students to spread smiles and compassion throughout South Sioux City with random acts of kindness.

South Sioux City hasnt been in the best light lately and I said to (Principal Ben Schultz) We need a little positivity and a little kindness in our community, Bowman said. What better way to start than with our kids?

Since January, students have used their minds, hands and hearts to craft cards and gifts to give to organizations in the communities. The gifts will then be distributed during Random Acts of Kindness Week, Feb. 13-17.

One such project has first and second graders crafting cards and baking treats for the South Sioux City police and fire departments. Veterans, residents in nursing homes and even fellow students in different buildings will also experience thoughtful gifts and kind gestures.

Second grader Adrian Silvas grinned as he picked up a red marker to trace the words Choose Kind on a card he will give to a South Sioux City police officer.

Im going to draw donuts, he said, since police like donuts.

Silvas comment drew giggles from some of his classmates, but his heartfelt joke reflects the ownership of the Choose Kind movement.

I want everyone to be good to everyone, he said. I dont want people to fight. I want our community to be safe.

His classmate and drawing buddy, Valeria Gonzalez, said she knows its important to show support to police officers and others who risk well-being for the sake of the community.

I want to help keep the community safe and I want everyone to keep living in a nice place, she said.

The concern for the communitys safety shows Bowman that the students have realized the program extends beyond the desire for a pat on the back.

You can hear kids saying, Im going to choose kind, or I did this kind thing today, Bowman said. Our kids have really grasped onto it.

Principal Schultz said hes been amazed by the childrens response, but not necessarily surprised.

We are teaching them that we do this not for graces or to get attentionyou do it just to be kind, he said. Our goal is to not only teach the kids, but teach them to be better to the community.

The students have latched onto to the belief that Choose Kind isnt done for rewards or compliments.

They (policemen) work hard to keep our community safe, said second grader Mady Chase. I am going to tell them Thank you and You are my hero.

The enthusiasm students have shown, Bowman said, has proven to be contagious. The Choose Kind program has reached other schools in the South Sioux City School District, communities throughout Nebraska and has crept across the Missouri River into Sioux City.

Students and staff presented the project to the Sioux City Council Monday, and received glowing remarks.

Now, businesses are on board as well. About 55 businesses and organizations throughout the metro area have joined the Choose Kind movement. Those places display their support through Choose Kind signs displayed on storefronts.

The signs were created and donated by Adcraft, Inc. The Optimist Club of South Sioux City has helped distribute the posters throughout the community. Absolute Screen Art kicked in with t-shirts. Some of the businesses have gone one step further to offer free treats or services to customers during Random Acts of Kindness Week.

South Sioux City Area Chamber of Commerce President Jim Steele said supporting Choose Kind was a no-brainer.

We want people to appreciate South Sioux City and show off our community. Were very proud of it, he said. We want people to know we are trying to do things to make it a better place to live.

Bowman said its not too late for people to join in. Interested individuals and businesses can contact the school at 402-494-1917 to obtain a sign or a button. Those who support Choose Kind are also encouraged to share photos on Facebook or Twitter with the hashtag #LCChooseKind

Looking at how much this program has grown in a short amount of time is emotional for Bowman. She said its unbelievable how elementary students have taken Choose Kind from a couple of words to a community-wide movement.

When I see these students doing this thing, it does tug on your heart, she said. You stop and think that if we can all think like these children, the world really would be a better place.
Jeremy Sabatka, 32, entered his written plea Wednesday in Woodbury County District Court to two counts of domestic abuse assault. His trial was set for March 28.

According to court documents, Sabatka was arguing with the mother of his child on Dec. 31 at a home in the 2200 block of Hanford Street. Sabatka got upset with the woman and punched and elbowed her in the face, breaking her nose and giving her two black eyes, court documents said.
SIOUX CITY | A public forum dubbed "A Conversation With Our Muslim Neighbors" packed the Sioux City Public Museum in the wake of President Donald Trump's executive order banning immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries.

The event is part of the Sioux City Human Rights Commission's on-going series, "Who Are The People In Our Neighborhood," that features panelists and tries to bolster public civil discussion to gain a better understanding of points-of-view. The director of the commission, Karen Mackey, said Wednesday's forum was moved to a larger venue due to an overwhelming response.

"Typically, at an educational event like this we get about 30 people -- we had over 230 tonight," Mackey said. "Obviously people want the information, they want the opportunity to ask questions and have a good back and forth. It has been a good night."

The panelists were two Sioux City medical doctors who practice Islam -- Rick Colwell and Fayez Hakim. Colwell grew up Christian but converted after meeting his Pakistani wife, who is Muslim. Hakim was raised Muslim in his home of Kashmir, a region in south Asia.

At the event, the crowd and panelists had a public conversation on Islamic beliefs, practices, and some misconceptions often associated with the religion.

"A jihad, if we go into the literal meaning, means struggle," Hakim said. "... if I am working to feed my family that is jihad. If I am trying to keep myself pious, dutiful, honest that is jihad... People that tell you jihad means killing (are) wrong."

Mackey said the event was planned months before Trump recently signed an executive order on immigration that he said was targeted at preventing terrorists from entering the country.

"It's sad timing," Mackey said, "but I think that's why a lot of people came here tonight."

Trump's order bans travel for citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, including Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The order also suspends all refugee entrances for 120 days and bars all Syrian refugees indefinitely.

"People came here to get away from religious persecution," Colwell said. "... I feel like this order is promoting religious persecution. (Trump) has singled out a group. Despite all the lawyer talk and legal mumbo-jumbo, he has picked out a religion to discriminate which goes against the very... foundation our country was founded on."

Federal authorities in the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals are considering a challenge to the order.
Authorities have identified a body found in the Missouri River, but can't say for certain if it's the same man reported to have jumped into the river from a bridge more than a month ago.
Is Donald Trump to be allowed to craft a foreign policy based on the ideas on which he ran and won the presidency in 2016?

Our foreign policy elite's answer appears to be a thunderous no.

Case in point: U.S. relations with Russia.

During the campaign Trump was clear. He would seek closer ties with Russia and cooperate with Vladimir Putin in smashing al-Qaida and ISIS terrorists in Syria, and leave Putin's ally Bashar Assad alone.

With this diplomatic deal in mind, President Trump has resisted efforts to get him to call Putin a "thug" or a "murderer."

Asked during his taped Super Bowl interview with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly whether he respected Putin, Trump said that, as a leader, yes.

O'Reilly pressed, "But he's a killer, though. Putin's a killer."

To which Trump replied, "There are a lot of killers. We've got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country's so innocent?"

While his reply was clumsy, Trump's intent was commendable.

If he is to negotiate a modus vivendi with a nation with an arsenal of nuclear weapons sufficient to end life as we know it in the USA, probably not a good idea to start off by calling its leader a "killer."

Mitch McConnell rushed to assure America he believes Putin is a "thug" and any suggestion of a moral equivalence between America and Russia is outrageous.

Apparently referring to a polonium poisoning of KGB defector Alexander Litvinenko, Marco Rubio tweeted, "When has a Democratic political activist ever been poisoned by the GOP? Or vice versa?"

Yet, as we beat our chests in celebration of our own moral superiority over other nations and peoples, consider what Trump is trying to do here, and who is really behaving as a statesmen, and who is acting like an infantile and self-righteous prig.

When President Eisenhower invited Nikita Khrushchev to the United States, did Ike denounce him as the "Butcher of Budapest" for his massacre of the Hungarian patriots in 1956?

Did President Nixon, while negotiating his trip to Peking to end decades of hostility, speak the unvarnished truth about Mao Zedong -- that he was a greater mass murderer than Stalin?

While Nixon was in Peking, Mao was conducting his infamous Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution that resulted in millions of deaths, a years-long pogrom that dwarfed the two-day Kristallnacht. Yet Mao's crimes went unmentioned in Nixon's toast to America and China starting a "long march" together.

John McCain calls Putin a KGB thug, "a murderer, and a killer."

Yet, Yuri Andropov, the Soviet ambassador in Budapest who engineered the slaughter of the Hungarian rebels with Russian tanks, became head of the KGB. And when he rose to general secretary of the Communist Party, Ronald Reagan wanted to talk to him, as he had wanted to talk to every Soviet leader.

Why? Because Reagan believed the truly moral thing he could do was negotiate to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

He finally met Gorbachev in 1985, when the USSR was occupying Afghanistan and slaughtering Afghan patriots.

The problem with some of our noisier exponents of "American exceptionalism" is that they lack Reagan's moral maturity.

Undeniably, we were on God's side in World War II and the Cold War. But were we ourselves without sin in those just struggles?

Was it not at least morally problematic what we did to Cologne, Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki where hundreds of thousands of women and children were blasted and burned to death?

How many innocent Iraqis have perished in the 13 years of war we began, based on falsified or fake evidence of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction?

In Russia, there have been murders of journalists and dissidents. Yes, and President Rodrigo Duterte, our Philippine ally, has apparently condoned the deaths of thousands of drug dealers and users since last summer.

The Philippine Catholic Church calls it "a reign of terror."

Should we sever our treaty ties to the Duterte regime?

Have there been any extrajudicial killings in the Egypt of our ally Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi since he overthrew the elected government?

Has our Turkish ally, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, killed no innocents in his sweeping repression since last summer's attempted coup?

Some of us remember a Cold War in which Gen. Augusto Pinochet dealt summarily with our common enemies in Chile, and when the Savak of our ally the Shah of Iran was not a 501(c)(3) organization.

Sen. Rubio notwithstanding, the CIA has not been a complete stranger to "wet" operations or "terminating with extreme prejudice."

Was it not LBJ who said of the Kennedys, who had arranged multiple assassination attempts of Fidel Castro, that they had been "operating a damned Murder Inc. in the Caribbean"?

If Trump's talking to Putin can help end the bloodshed in Ukraine or Syria, it would appear to be at least as ethical an act as pulpiteering about our moral superiority on the Sunday talk shows.
The Armenian government approved agreement on air communication with Syria.

February 9, 2017, 12:54 Armenia approves agreement on air communication with Syria

STEPANAKERT, FEBRUARY 9, ARTSAKHPRESS: The written justification of the agreement said it will create a legal framework for air links between the countries. The agreement provides regulation of air transport. Each country will have the right to issue permits to its air companies to operate on specific routes, NEWS.am reports.
SOUTH SIOUX CITY | Steaming sewage filled a snowy ditch to the south of Interstate 129 Wednesday after one of two pumps at a temporary lift station in the area failed.

City administrator Lance Hedquist said the pump failed around 10 a.m. Wednesday morning, resulting in a backup of sewage flowing from Big Ox Energy and other tenants in the Roth Industrial Park. The sewage flowed out of a manhole and filled a north-south ditch running alongside C Avenue, as well as several meters of an east-west ditch alongside the interstate.

City crews replaced the pump around 1:30 p.m., Hedquist said, and the cause of the failure remains under investigation.

"We asked the engineer to give us a report on that," Hedquist said, adding that the city will share the results of the investigation when they become available.

The city has notified the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality of the overflow and is cleaning up the sewage from the ditch.

The temporary lift station is part of the city's plan to reroute industrial sewage around homes in a five-block area of Red Bird Lane and Lemasa Drive. More than a dozen families were forced to flee last fall due to hydrogen sulfide gas believed to have emanated through pipes at several residences that, at the time, shared a sewer line with the Big Ox renewable energy plant, which fired up around the time the odors were reported.

The city has been working with McClure Engineering throughout the process to reroute industrial sewage away from the homes. A separate force main is scheduled to be expanded to the Roth Industrial Park later this spring. The temporary lift station that failed Wednesday will no longer be needed after that, city officials noted.

South Sioux City resident Rob Baker, who lives about a quarter mile to the north of the scene and is one of about a dozen homeowners still displaced due to the odors, said he saw this incident as another example that the city doesn't have the situation under control.

Its every day something new happens," said Baker as he watched the sewage in the ditch.

Baker said he had observed work on the new full force main at 39th and G streets over the past few days.
DES MOINES | Iowa senators voted Wednesday to approve legislation that would make it a primary offense to write, send or read text messages while driving even though some admitted they would like the state to go farther to ban hand-held smart phones as a way to reduce distractions.

This is a big, big deal, said Sen. Michael Breitbach, D-Strawberry Point, after the Senate Transportation Committee voted 12-0 to move the anti-texting bill to the Senate debate calendar.

I think everybody is fully aware of the dangers of distracted driving, said Breitbach, who hoped an issue that has stalled in the Legislature in past sessions would get new attention after Iowas traffic deaths spiked in the last year. Iowas highway death toll rose from a five-year low of 317 in 2013 to 403 in 2016.

It doesnt seem like weve been able to come to agreement between the Senate and House to get it passed, he said. Personally, I would like to see us go a little further but I want to make sure that we get texting while driving as a primary offense, so I pushing that we move this bill.

Iowa is currently one of five states that classify texting while driving as a secondary offense for adults, meaning law enforcement officers are not allowed to pull over a driver unless they suspect another violation also may have been committed. Iowa has a texting ban for young drivers. The bill being considered would eliminate the provision that prohibits a peace officer from stopping or detaining a person solely for a violation which relates to texting while driving.

The proposed primary offense considered a moving violation punishable with a scheduled fine would include but not be limited to texts, email, social media and talking. Exemptions would be maintained for existing public safety and emergency use.

We need to keep moving forward. Its not going to solve itself with this bill, even if it does get adopted by the House and signed by the governor, said Sen. Tod Bowman, D-Maquoketa. Its a step in the right direction. We need to focus on reducing fatalities and accidents.

Earlier this week, Gov. Terry Branstad told reporters he has joined the chorus of Iowans calling for a ban on drivers use of hand-held phones as part of an effort to address the problem of distracted and impaired drivers on Iowa roadways.

Iowa is not among the 15 states that prohibit drivers use of hand-held phones. Under current law, a driver may use a hand-held phone to search for contacts, select music, type addresses into a navigation system and play games. Simply making texting while driving a primary offense would not make the law enforceable, Branstad said.

After Wednesdays committee action, Breitbach said he would like to see the Legislature consider a ban on hand-held devices but as a separate bill.

I want to make sure that this can pass muster in the Senate and in the House, get that taken care of and then we can address the hands free, he said. Weve got a bill ready. We want to do the doable now.
DES MOINES | Gov. Terry Branstad came full circle Wednesday, signing into law a school-funding bill that scraps a forward-funding process that he championed several decades ago.

State law has prescribed  at Branstads past insistence -- that lawmakers should begin each biennium by setting K-12 funding levels within the first 30 days of their odd-year session after receiving the governors budget recommendation for each of the next two budget years in advance to allow districts to plan ahead.

However, that law has gone ignored in recent years and the GOP-run Legislature this year opted to scrap that law in favor of a requirement that lawmakers set the first year within the 30-day framework but then wait until after the March revenue estimate to decide whether to set the fiscal 2019 amount for state aid yet this session.

On Wednesday, Branstad signed Senate File 166 which revamps the states school funding system.

Under the bill, which passed the Iowa Senate 28-21 last week and the Iowa House 55-40 on Monday evening, Iowas 333 public school districts will receive an extra $40 million in state supplemental aid for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Overall, funding for each student enrolled in K-12 public schools would increase by $73 to $6,664 under the 1.11 percent increase included in Senate File 166 with overall state general fund spending approaching $3.2 billion next school year.

Senate File 166 also would boost categorical funding to help reduce class sizes, boost teacher salaries and pay for early intervention programs by 1.11 percent and provide a $5.3 million boost in property tax replacement money.

Under the proposed GOP funding level, more than half  about 54 percent  of Iowas school districts would be under the states budget guarantee  a safeguard for schools dealing with declining enrollments that provides for 1 percent funding growth using local property taxes.

In my Condition of the State address, I challenged the Legislature to set school funding in the first 30 days of the legislative session. Today, with the help of House and Senate Republicans, we made that goal a reality," Branstad said in a statement.

In his two-year budget plan outlined last month, Branstad recommended to boost K-12 funding by $78.8 million next fiscal year and $63.5 million in fiscal 2019. He also asked the Legislature to set both fiscal years state aid increases for schools in the first 30 days of the session that began on Jan. 9.

I remain hopeful that the Legislature will be able to set funding for fiscal year 2019 after the March revenue estimate, Branstad added in Wednesdays statement.

Legislative Democrats tried unsuccessfully to convince majority Republicans to at least provide the governors recommended funding levels for school administrators who predicted class sizes would increase, teachers would be laid off, academic offerings would be pared back and more school consolidation could be in the offing with the 1.1 percent boost in supplemental state aid.

Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds said Wednesdays action would provide predictability and stability that administrators, school boards and teachers need, while noting that the $40 million increase for K-12 education was on top of the $150 million provided through the Teacher Leadership System that rewards our great teachers.
DES MOINES  A former adviser to Gov. Terry Branstad told lawmakers she is appalled by a legislative proposal he has endorsed despite public employee warnings that it will strip them of collective bargaining rights they have enjoyed for more than 40 years.

Jodie Butler, who advised Branstad on education policy for almost five years, told members of the Senate Labor and Business Relations Committee Wednesday that Senate File 213 would cause irreparable harm and undo Branstad-backed policies, such as his Teacher Leadership and Compensation System, adopted to improve K-12 education in Iowa.

Youre on course to set us back 40 years, Butler said. Quite honestly, I am appalled. I am outraged.

She wasnt alone. For the second day in a row, labor activists flooded the Iowa Statehouse to offer public comment in defense of the 43-year-old collective bargaining law. Despite their numbers, they were unable to stop House Study Bill 84 and SF 213 from being approved by the House Labor Committee and a Senate Labor and Business Relations subcommittee, respectively. The action paved the way for action in the Senate committee Thursday and on the floor of the House and Senate next week.

In general, the 68-page bill majority Republicans say tweaks a 16-page law seeks to limit the subjects that non-public safety workers can bring to the bargaining table, changes arbitration rules, alters how unions are certified and eliminates the longtime practice of gathering dues through payroll deductions. It also treats public safety employees differently than other public employees. Those not involved in public safety would be able to bargain only for base wages. Under current law, they can bargain for insurance, hours, vacations, holidays, overtime compensation, and health and safety matters.

That doesnt mean those issues cant be discussed, said House Labor Committee Chairman Dave Deyoe, R-Nevada, because they would be permissive subjects of bargaining under the bills.

You can talk about anything that is permissive, he said. It just requires both sides to agree they are going to talk about it.

There was plenty of talk during more than eight hours of public comment and discussion. Most of it was in opposition to the bills, which was not lost on Sen. Nate Boulton, D-Des Moines. Only three speakers at the Senate supported the bill and only one offered any explanation for their support.

That tells me that either it doesnt have the broad base of support were hearing is what apparently motivated this or they dont want to be looking the people this affects in the eye and explain why its needed, Boulton said.

Woodbury County Sheriff Dave Drew, a Republican, told legislators it is not defensible to gut Chapter 20 provisions about public employee collective bargaining. Drew said he's been involved in bargaining for 36 years, with much of that as a deputy in a union prior to becoming sheriff in 2013.

"I have seen collective bargaining work," Drew said.

He said collective bargaining gives the opportunity for both workers and bosses to hash out solutions when the two sides are at loggerheads.

Drew cited a lawmaker saying "the system is bogged down in grievances." If that is the case at times, Drew said, it is likely because management isn't making compromises with union workers.

Christopher Ingstad of Iowans for Tax Relief, which recently called state employees Iowas privileged class, was booed when he said the group supported SF 213. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data it shared with members in a newsletter, Iowa public sector workers earn 150 percent more than private sector workers in comparable jobs, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

However, Rep. Bruce Hunters, D-Des Moines, rebutted that later, telling representatives that public sector workers earn 12 percent to 19 percent less than private sector counterparts.

So were getting a good deal, he said.

Americans for Prosperity, which supports free market solutions, and the Associated Builders & Contractors of Iowa also supported the bill.

Senate Labor Chairman Jason Schultz, R-Schleswig, said some associations representing local governments have told him they are afraid to speak out publicly on Chapter 20 changes.

Theyve told me they are somewhat intimidated (because of) the amount of anger, the potential for violence, he said.

Opponents of the bill were not reluctant to speak and to warn Republicans that they are jeopardizing their Statehouse majority.

You think we always support Democrats. Youre wrong, Mike Weckman of Laborers Local 177 said, noting that public employees plowed the streets so you all could get here.

Weckman and other suggested the attempt to bust public employee unions is part of a larger, extreme strategy, what one called a vast right-wing conspiracy.

This is how we make American great again, by literally taking away the rights of public employees, Hunter said.

If its part of a conspiracy, I dont know anything about it, HSB 84 floor manager Rep. Steven Holt, R-Denison, said.

Whether it is or isnt, the Chapter 20 change will be nothing more than a temporary setback in the long arc of justice, according to John Campbell of the United Steel Workers and AFSCME.

This bill will only survive for two years because the people will hear and feel the effects, and demand change against tyranny and oppression in the workplace, Campbell said.

Journal reporter Bret Hayworth contributed to this story.
'The LEGO Batman Movie' (Rated PG for rude humor and some action) -- Bruce Wayne juggles his responsibility of raising a boy he adopted and defeating the lunatic criminals of Gotham City as Batman.

'Fifty Shades Darker' (Rated R for strong erotic sexual content, some graphic nudity, and language) -- Anastasia confronts the angry and envious women from Christian's past as he deals with his inner demons.

'John Wick: Chapter 2' (Rated R for strong violence throughout, some language and brief nudity) -- John Wick discovers that a large bounty has been put on him after returning to the criminal underworld to repay a debt.

'A United Kingdom' (Rated PG-13 for some language including racial epithets and a scene of sensuality) -- The prince of Botswana causes an international controversy when he marries a white woman from London in the late 1940s.

New DVD Releases for this week:

'Arrival'

'Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk'

'Christine'

'The Edge of Seventeen'
Street name: Irony

SIOUX CITY | Sometimes, these quips and jokes just write themselves.

A Sioux City man with the street name "Trouble" is in legal trouble after allegedly stealing cars last month. And police believe he drove one of them in a high-speed chase where he fled to South Sioux City, parked the vehicle in a backyard and paid residents $300 "not to snitch."

According to officer affidavits, Christopher Brickey, 27, was arrested shortly after midnight Thursday in connection with the thefts. He was also charged with carrying a double-edged knife, a stun gun and a small plastic bag containing meth residue.

The documents said on Jan. 5, a Chevy Suburban and a Dodge Charger were stolen from two different Sioux City homes while the owners left them running unattended.

Three days later, the Charger was spotted by an off-duty cop in the parking lot of Sam's Mini Mart, 4218 Morningside Ave., but the vehicle was gone by the time officers arrived. Video from the store revealed the driver of the Charger was known by police as an acquaintance of Brickey.

On Jan. 10, the Suburban was involved in a high-speed pursuit with police before it was driven across the bridge into South Sioux City, the documents said.

Shortly thereafter, the man from the store video was brought in for questioning and told police that Brickey goes by the name "Shawn Fogg" and has a street name of "Trouble," the documents said.

He said Brickey had let him borrow the Charger and that he had knowledge of Brickey stealing vehicles. He also told police that he had just picked up Brickey after he parked the Suburban at a South Sioux City residence after the pursuit and brought him back to Sioux City.

Officers went to that location and found the stolen Suburban. Two females who live at the residence told police that Brickey parked the Suburban in their backyard after the pursuit and offered them $300 "not to snitch," the documents said.

On Jan. 11, the Charger was located in an alleyway near the 100 block of Bluff Street, near where Brickey was believed to live on Perry Street. The Charger had stolen plates and spray-painted rims, and the entire front end had been ripped off.

The police affidavit said the vehicle had been involved in at least one pursuit with the SCPD. Brickey's fingerprints were found on the driver's door, and paperwork with his information was found inside.

A neighbor of Brickey's said they had seen a Charger, a Suburban and a Dodge Caliber parked recently at Brickey's residence. All three vehicles had been stolen, police said, and all have since been recovered.

Early Thursday morning, Brickey was located as a passenger in a vehicle during a traffic stop, and was arrested.

Brickey is being held in the Woodbury County Jail for violating his parole, two counts of second-degree theft, carrying a concealed and dangerous weapon and possession of drug paraphernalia. His bond is set at $25,000. He has a court date on Monday.
Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (NYSE:ARE), an S&P 500 urban office real estate investment trust ("REIT"), is the first, longest-tenured, and pioneering owner, operator, and developer uniquely focused on collaborative life science, technology, and agtech campuses in AAA innovation cluster locations, with a total market capitalization of $31.9 billion as of December 31, 2020, and an asset base in North America of 49.7 million square feet ("SF"). The asset base in North America includes 31.9 million RSF of operating properties and 3.3 million RSF of Class A properties undergoing construction, 7.1 million RSF of near-term and intermediate-term development and redevelopment projects, and 7.4 million SF of future development projects. Founded in 1994, Alexandria pioneered this niche and has since established a significant market presence in key locations, including Greater Boston, San Francisco, New York City, San Diego, Seattle, Maryland, and Research Triangle. Alexandria has a longstanding and proven track record of developing Class A properties clustered in urban life science, technology, and agtech campuses that provide our innovative tenants with highly dynamic and collaborative environments that enhance their ability to successfully recruit and retain world-class talent and inspire productivity, efficiency, creativity, and success. Alexandria also provides strategic capital to transformative life science, technology, and agtech companies through our venture capital platform. We believe our unique business model and diligent underwriting ensure a high-quality and diverse tenant base that results in higher occupancy levels, longer lease terms, higher rental income, higher returns, and greater long-term asset value.
To build support for his plan to offer free tuition at State University of New York institutions, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is inviting students to participate in a coding competition to promote the initiative.

The "Making College Possible Coding Challenge" is open to SUNY and City University of New York students. Entrants will design a mobile app or website that provides information about Cuomo's proposal, the Excelsior Scholarship, that would offer free tuition to CUNY and SUNY schools for students whose families earn no more than $125,000 annually.

The apps or websites also must share what "making college possible" means for students.

The registration deadline is Monday, Feb. 13. The initial round of judging will occur later this month. The top five entrants will advance to the final round of judging, which will be held in early March and hosted by Cuomo in New York City.

Finalists will receive guidance from New York technology gurus to make their pitch. The winning app or website will be used to promote the tuition-free proposal.

SUNY's top three finishers will each receive $2,000 prizes.

To register, go to ny.gov/content/making-college-possible-coding-challenge.

"With our innovative coding challenge, I look forward to seeing how creative our New York students can be in sharing information with their peers about the Excelsior Scholarship, and telling us what making college possible means to them," Cuomo said in a statement.

The tuition-free proposal is one of the top priorities for Cuomo. He first outlined the plan in his State of the State and included it in his executive budget that was released last month.

Cuomo's office said more than 940,000 New York families would be eligible to receive free tuition at CUNY and SUNY institutions.
BT Group plc provides communications services worldwide. Its Consumer segment sells telephones, baby monitors, and Wi-Fi extenders through high street retailers, online BT Shop, and Website BT.com; and offers home phone, copper and fiber broadband, TV, and mobile services in various packages. The company's EE segment offers 2G, 3G, and 4G mobile network services; broadband, fixed-voice, and TV services; and postpaid and prepaid plans, and emergency services network. This segment also sells 4G mobile phones, tablets, connected devices, and mobile broadband devices from various manufacturers. Its Business and Public Sector segment provides fixed voice, mobility, fiber and connectivity, and networked IT services to retailers, utilities, public sector, healthcare, sports, construction, finance, and educational sectors. The company's Global Services segment offers business communications and ICT services comprising BT Connect, BT Security, BT One, BT Contact, BT Compute, BT Advise, and BT for financial markets. This segment serves approximately 5,500 customers in 180 countries. Its Wholesale and Ventures segment enables communications providers and other organizations to provide fixed or mobile phone services. Its ventures provide mass-market services, such as directory enquiries and payphones; and enterprise services comprising BT Fleet and BT Redcare. This segment also provides broadband and Ethernet, voice, hosted communication, mobile virtual network operator, managed solutions, machine-to-machine, roaming, and media services. The company's Openreach segment engages in the provision of services over the local access network; and installation and maintenance of fiber and copper communications networks that connect homes and businesses. The company was formerly known as Newgate Telecommunications Limited and changed its name to BT Group plc in September 2001. BT Group plc was incorporated in 2001 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.
STERIS plc provides infection prevention and other procedural products and services worldwide. It operates through four segments: Healthcare, Applied Sterilization Technologies, Life Sciences, and Dental. The Healthcare segment offers cleaning chemistries and sterility assurance products; automated endoscope reprocessing system and tracking products; accessories for gastrointestinal (GI) procedures, washers, sterilizers, and other pieces of capital equipment for the operation of a sterile processing department; and equipment used directly in the operating room, including surgical tables, lights, and connectivity solutions, as well as equipment management services. It also provides capital equipment installation, maintenance, upgradation, repair, and troubleshooting services; preventive maintenance programs and repair services; instrument and endoscope repair and maintenance services; and custom process improvement consulting and outsourced instrument sterile processing services. The Applied Sterilization Technologies segment provides contract sterilization and testing services for medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturers through a network of approximately 50 contract sterilization and laboratory facilities. The Life Sciences segment designs, manufactures and sells consumable products, such as formulated cleaning chemistries, barrier and sterility assurance products, steam and vaporized hydrogen peroxide sterilizers, and washer disinfectors. This segment also offers equipment installation, maintenance, upgradation, repair, and troubleshooting services; and preventive maintenance programs and repair services. The Dental segment provides hand and powered dental instruments, infection control products, personal protective equipment, and water quality products for dental suite. The company serves its products and services to hospitals, other healthcare providers, and pharmaceutical manufacturers. The company was founded in 1985 and is based in Dublin, Ireland.
A new exhibit at the state Capitol in Albany celebrates several of New York's prominent African American leaders, including civil rights icons Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman.

The Black History Month exhibit, which runs through the end of February, is located in the War Room on the second floor of the state Capitol.

"This history is New York's history and it is the deeds and accomplishments of these men and women that helped build the foundation of equality and fairness that this state rests upon," Cuomo said in a statement. "I urge residents and tourists alike to visit this exhibit and learn more about the contributions of these visionary African American leaders and great New Yorkers."

Tubman spent the latter part of her life living in Auburn. Sites in the city associated with her life, including her residence and the Home for the Aged on South Street, are part of the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park that was formally established in January.

A newly discovered photo of Tubman generated national headlines.

The state's exhibit also features the late Gwen Ifill, a native New Yorker who co-anchored "Newshour" on PBS and became the first African American woman to host nationally televised public affairs program when she hosted "Washington Week in Review."

Ifill died of cancer last year.

Artifacts and documents are also on display within the exhibit, including toy soldiers of the Harlem Hellfighters, a unit that fought in World War I.

The exhibit also features the briefcase and personal documents of A. Phillip Randolph, a major labor figure who organized the 1963 March on Washington.

After the exhibit concludes at the end of the month, the items will be added to the permanent collection at the new National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington.

Here is the full list of African American leaders recognized in the exhibit:

 Marie M. Daly (1921  2003): First African-American woman to be awarded a Ph.D. in chemistry (Columbia University, NY), ground-breaking researcher, and professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, who helped other minority students enter the sciences.

 Frederick Douglass (1818  1895): Abolitionist, best-selling author of three auto-biographies, prominent intellectual of his time and longtime resident of Rochester.

 W. E. B. Du Bois (1868  1963): Early civil rights leader, founder of the Niagara Movement, a sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, and editor of NAACP magazine The Crisis in New York City.

 Shirley Chisholm (1924  2005): Educator, first African-American congresswoman, college professor, and public speaker.

 369th Infantry Regiment Harlem Hellfighters (1917  1918): The first African-American regiment to serve with the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I.

 Matthew Henson, (1866  1955): First African-American Arctic explorer as the second-hand man of Commander Robert Peary on seven voyages over a period of nearly 23 years, and longtime resident of New York City.

 Gwen Ifill (1955  2016): Political reporter, co-anchor of PBS "NewsHour," and best-selling author who became the first African-American woman to host a nationally televised U.S. public affairs program with "Washington Week in Review." Ifill was born in Queens and, growing up, lived for several years in public housing in Buffalo and on Staten Island.

 Constance Baker Motley (1921  2005): Graduate of Columbia Law School, integral member of NAACP legal team in New York City that won major civil rights legal battles in the 20th Century, first black woman to serve as Manhattan Borough President, first black woman to serve as federal judge, and first black woman to serve as chief federal district court judge.

 Stephen Myers (1800  1870): Former slave and prominent newspaper publisher of The Telegraph and Temperance Journal, activist, and leader of the Albany Underground Railroad.

 Ted Poston (1906  1974): One of the first African-American journalists to work at a mainstream newspaper, the New York Post, author of award-winning early Civil Rights Era coverage of racially-charged 1949 Florida rape trial for the Post, and member of the famed black cabinet, an informal group of African-American policy advisors to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

 A. Philip Randolph (1889  1979): One of the major civil rights leaders of 20th Century and longtime resident of New York City who organized and led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first predominantly African-American labor union, and, in the early Civil Rights Movement, prompted President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 8802 in 1941, banning discrimination in the defense industries during World War II; as well as serve as the leader of 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

 Bayard Rustin (1912  1987): Longtime Harlem resident, civil rights leader, openly gay African-American, advisor to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., principal organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

 Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, also Arthur Schomburg (1874 1938): Historian, writer, and activist of the Harlem Renaissance, whose collection of African-American literature, art, and materials became the basis of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library branch in Harlem.

 Mabel Keaton Staupers (1890-1989): Harlem resident and nurse who, as the executive director of the National Council of Colored Graduate Nurses, helped break down color barriers for nurses serving in World War II.

 Mary Burnett Talbert (1866- 1923): Educator, American orator, Buffalo activist, suffragist, teacher, reformer, and a founder of the Niagara Movement.

 The Rev. Gardner Taylor (1918  2015): Highly-acclaimed African-American minister who spoke nationally and internationally and served, for 42 years, as lead pastor of Bedford-Stuyvesants Concord Baptist Church of Christ, the second largest Baptist congregation in America.

 Franklin A. Thomas (b. 1934): First African-American president of Ford Foundation and former federal prosecutor in New York City who was raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant and attended Columbia University for college and law school.

 Harriet Tubman (1820  1913): Abolitionist and leader on the Underground Railroad who lived in Auburn, where she became an advocate for the aging and for womens suffrage.

 Madam C.J. Walker (1867  1919): An African-American entrepreneur, philanthropist, and political and social activist who created the Madame C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company, offering many African-American women their first job opportunity outside of domestic work.

 Robert C. Weaver (1907  1977): First African-American Cabinet member as the U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, who previously served as New York State Rent Commissioner, New York State's first black State Cabinet member.
ANNAPOLIS (Feb. 09, 2017)A bill that introduces steep penalties for the perpetrators of ransomware attacks, like the one that disabled the network of several Maryland hospitals last year, is making its way through the Maryland legislature.



The bill defines ransomware attacks as felonies that would carry a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine. At present, ransomware attacks are covered by Maryland's extortion statutes, the penalties for which range from a misdemeanor with a maximum $1,000 fine and up to 18 months in prison to a felony and a $25,000 fine and up to 25 years in prison.



The new bill would mean perpetrators who extort less than $1,000 using ransomware can be charged with felonies instead of misdemeanors.



The bill also allows victims to sue for damages in civil court. The bill's sponsor, Sen. Susan Lee, D-Montgomery, said this provision is vital as it offers victims recourse without having to wait for state prosecutors to pursue their case.



Ransomware is a type of malicious software that locks or seizes control of hardware or data until a specific code is provided. Typically, victims are asked to pay a ransom ranging from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars to get the code. However, hackers have been known to delete data and wipe machines even after their victims have paid their ransom.



The bill leaves many details up to interpretation. For example, it's not clear whether a single attack that brings down three different computers would be treated as one count of the crime, or three countspotentially tripling the maximum penalty for the accused. What if a different person owned each computer?



The text of the bill specifies that ransomware involves the "intent to extort money, property, or anything of value from another."



But some ransomware has been reported that requires victims to view web pages, thereby boosting ad revenue at those sites, essentially stealing a few minutes of time. It's unclear whether mandating a visit to a Web site would qualify as something of value.



Ransomware is such a fluid and varied form of attack that it would be difficult for a law to cover every possible permutation of the crime. Instead, Lee told Maryland's Capital News Service, the bill concentrates on the fundamental principle of a ransomware attackan attacker compromises a system and threatens to either deny access to or destroy data for the purpose of extortionbut that the precise implementation of the bill as law will be heavily influenced by judges and prosecutors.



Delegate Erek Barron, D-Prince George's, said that he and Lee considered adding a provision to the bill that would introduce penalties for people found to be creating ransomware, even if they themselves did not deploy it. That provision did not make it into the final draft of the bill. Barron is co-filing the bill in the Maryland House of Delegates.



In spring 2016, a group of Maryland hospitals run by MedStar was targeted by a large ransomware attack. The attack forced the hospitals to shut down most of their computer systems for about a week. Lee called the attack "a wake-up call."



According to Osterman Research, nearly 50 percent of organizations surveyed in the U.S. reported being victimized by a ransomware attack between June 2015 and June 2016.



That same survey found that healthcare and finance were the most-targeted industries in the U.S.



Jonathan Katz, a professor of computer science and director of the Maryland Cybersecurity Center, theorized that hospitals might be popular targets because their systems are often set up to allow quick access to vital patient information across a large network, which could make ransomware penetration easier.



Katz said that one of the challenges in dealing with ransomware, and other forms of cybercrime, is that many efforts to defend against attacks simply shift costs around.



For example, many "ransoms" are in the thousands of dollars; but improving security at a large organization or company could cost millions of dollars, or more.



When asked whether some organizations may choose to simply absorb the cost of an occasional ransomware attack rather than substantially upgrade securitycalculating that the former option is more cost-effectiveKatz said there is "some truth to that," but that "it's sort of a depressing way to view things."



With this in mind, Katz said, governments should try to implement policies that require institutions to improve their security, but should be mindful that doing so will almost certainly pass a cost on to those institutions.



Another problem Katz pointed out is that many organizations are simply not setup to handle massive cybersecurity threats. Although steps such as training and hiring cybersecurity monitors can improve an organization's protection, many vulnerabilities exist within commonly used software that most companies have little influence over.



"A healthcare company is not in the business of redesigning their software" Katz said.



Governments and leaders are under pressure to both protect the public from the growing threats of cybercrime and secure the largest possible slice of an industry that is rapidly expanding to meet those threats. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that there will be nearly 490,000 jobs created in computer and information technology in the United States by 2024, a 12 percent increase over 2015.



To draw some of those jobs to Maryland, Gov. Larry Hogan's 2018 budget proposal allocates $3 million for cyber-job training. The governor has also proposed a program that would offer tax credits to investors in cybersecurity startups.
The old proverb goes, If you cant stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Well, Ive taken several cooking classes, so a hot oven isnt necessarily a deterrent. In fact, Ive also taken pottery classes and even tried my hand at blacksmithing this summer. (Check out the September 2016 issue of Mirror.)

So, when a winter cold front nally hit South Florida, I knew it was time to take that glassblowing class at Hollywood Hot Glass. A 2300 degree oven would certainly counter the damp wind gusts.

Situated in the heart of Arts Park on Young Circle and surrounded by other artisans and small craft studios, Hollywood Hot Glass offers live demonstrations ve days a week, as well as the opportunity to try a hands-on experience with the assistance of one of the resident artists. The projects range from colorful round paperweights to bowls, tumblers and vases.

I was met by glass artist Brenna Baker, the studios proprietor, who showed me around the studio, adorned with stunning examples of her work.

Baker fist became enamored with glass while still in high school. Her mother moved to Corning, New York, which also happens to be the glass capital of the U.S.

I just fell in love with it, Baker told me, from the minute I rst worked with it.

In addition to business studies in college, she spent a year working in Murano, Italy under the tutelage of Pino Signoretto, one of the worlds nest glass sculptor. She then traveled the world on Celebrity Solstice class ships with the Hot Glass Show of the Corning Museum of Glass, before becoming the youngest Master Gaffer and only the second female gaffer ever employed by Steuben Glass. Baker also gained expertise in teaching at the Studio of the Corning Museum of Glass.

Three years ago, she opened Hollywood Hot Glass, where she produces custom commissions and introduces hundreds of people each week to her art through demonstrations and private events.

I selected a bowl for my project. The contemporary, free-owing form in clear, white, black and blue glass would look fabulous on my coffee table at home.

I should mention now that Bakers incredibly patient. Baker and her team handle the most difcult stepsdipping the metal pipe into a ceramic furnace and pulling out the glowing red, molten glob of glass, ready to be plied into art.

Within a few minutes, we covered the glass into frit, tiny glass crystals infused with elements to lend the glass its color. The frit got rolled into the glass and then I swirled it into a pattern with a pair of giant tongs.

Then, we set out to form the round bulb of the bowl. Baker started the bubble of air inside and then it was my turn. I was surprised how little air it actually took. She instructed me how to rotate the tube to create a symmetrical form. We used other tools to create a score to form the bowl, atten the bottom and then widen the rim. One more heating and I spun the tube to create the oppy shape.

The entire process only took about 20 minutes, instant grati cation, Baker bragged, but I would have to pick up the nished piece another day because the glass actually takes 12 hours to thoroughly cool and harden properly.

Of course, Baker made it all seem too easy. She and her team have put in years of trial and error. to master the craft. But I have to say, I was kinda hooked, too, after picking up my masterpiece.

I wonder what I should make next time. A wave vase, set of tumblers or maybe an art installation for the living room wall? Maybe Im getting ahead of myself.

HOLLYWOOD HOT GLASS

Arts Park at Young Circle 1 Young Circle

Hollywood, FL 33020

HollywoodHotGlass.com

CLASS / WORKSHOP SCHEDULE

Live Demonstrations and Walk-in Workshops

October  May

(Check website for summer schedule)



Monday 4 p.m.  10 p.m.

Tuesday Closed

Wednesday 4 p.m.  10 p.m.

Thursday 4 p.m.  10 p.m.

Friday 4 p.m.  10 p.m.

Saturday 2 p.m.  10 p.m.

Sunday Closed

Private classes and teambuilding workshops also available. Walk-in workshops start at $40.
Do gay men go back into the closet when theyre at work?

Travis Speice, an assistant professor at the Christ College of Nursing and Health Sciences, spent four years asking this question and determined that in one way or another, and even if they dont realize it, they do.

Gay men do in fact change how they behave how they work, he said. Its not surprising because everybody does this to some extent. We dont wear the same clothes we wear to work while were sitting on the couch at home.

Speice was a Ph.D. student at the University of Cincinnati at the time of conducting the study, which began in 2012. For two years, he interviewed more than 50 men from the Cincinnati area, as well as men in Texas, Florida, and Colorado. He presented his findings, How Gay Men Navigate the Corporate World, (www.uc.edu/news/NR.aspx?id=23820) at the end of 2016.

In those interviews, men talked about having to reveal their sexuality to different people, almost having to continually come out of the closet. Others said they made efforts to tone down my gayness, such as the way they spoke or holding back hand gestures.

But what Speice noticed was the continual reference to acting professional. When he noticed the pattern, he started questioning his subjects what that meant to hem.

What they meant by being professional was doing some of the things or dressing as or talking like straight men in their jobs, he said. But they really did talk about the ways, I dress like the other guys in the office, I dont want to stand out, I dont want to hurt myself either in an interview for the job or being considered for a promotion.

Sometimes they were told explicitly by their bosses, You cant act gay.

The occupations that the men were in also impacted their behavior in the office, whether it was a more traditional workplace or one that was more laid back. However, even in my liberal workplaces, gay men found that they still experienced bias.

One man worked in a marketing firm with artsy coworkers; he was free to express himself openly and was out to all his colleagues. However, he noticed that he still behaved differently when he was with his female or male coworkers -- with the latter, he would lower his voice, speak slower. Also, he saw that his boss would often place him in campaign projects geared towards women and with his female colleagues.

That gay identity does shape your work experience, Speice said.

Now, as an assistant professor, Speice is interested in pursuing studying how gay men present themselves online, whether it be social media or on dating sites. It was actually this idea that lead him to his original study of gay men in the corporate world.

I started to find that even among gay men, they tend to rank and rate each other, so within a marginalized group, theres further marginalization, he said.
The largest global AIDS service organization is taking a neutral position on medical marijuana in Florida.

W. Imara Canady, Regional Director of Communications and Community Engagement for the AIDS Healthcare Foundations Southern Bureau, said the organization is not taking a public stance on the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

We respectfully leave that conversation between the doctor and the patient, Canady told SFGN in a telephone call Tuesday morning. AHF is always focused on the well-being of our patients and providing the best quality care.

AHF has clinics in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties, providing prevention, testing and healthcare options to people living with HIV. In some cases, marijuana has been prescribed to alleviate side effects of HIV medications.

Jack Doren, a resident of Oakland Park, said only marijuana was able to settle his stomach.

I tried every medication I could try to alleviate the nausea, Doren told the Oakland Park Commission during a public hearing last week. Nothing worked  prescription or over the counter. I remember telling my physician that Id choose death rather than continue suffering from this. Then I tried marijuana. I found that one inhaling took away 95 percent of the nausea, within seconds. Im not exaggerating. So I personally know how effective this medicine can be.

The Florida Department of Health has until June to put regulations in place to allow for qualified patients to access marijuana for medicinal purposes. Many cities, like Oakland Park, have placed a moratorium on applications pending state guidelines.

And then theres the matter of federal law, which declares marijuana illegal. Previously, the Obama administration declined to go after dispensaries in Colorado and California, but there is no such guarantee from the new Trump administration.

For that reason, AHF is staying on the sidelines of this debate.

We always follow in alignment of federal law, Canady said. Our legislative team in Florida is watching this issue closely and looking to see how it plays out.

Current Florida rules call for a patient to be in the care of their doctor for at least three months in order to receive a medical marijuana prescription.
Europa lander NASA

A report on the potential science value of a lander on the surface of Jupiters icy moon Europa has been delivered to NASA, and the agency is now engaging the broader science community to open a discussion about its findings.

In early 2016, in response to a congressional directive, NASAs Planetary Science Division began a pre-Phase A study to assess the science value and engineering design of a future Europa lander mission. NASA routinely conducts such studies  known as Science Definition Team (SDT) reports  long before the beginning of any mission to gain an understanding of the challenges, feasibility and science value of the potential mission. In June 2016, NASA convened a 21-member team of scientists for the SDT. Since then, the team has deliberated to define a workable and worthy set of science objectives and measurements for the mission concept, submitting a report to NASA on Feb. 7.

The report lists three science goals for the mission. The primary goal is to search for evidence of life on Europa. The other goals are to assess the habitability of Europa by directly analyzing material from the surface, and to characterize the surface and subsurface to support future robotic exploration of Europa and its ocean. The report also describes some of the notional instruments that could be expected to perform measurements in support of these goals.

Scientists agree that the evidence is quite strong that Europa, which is slightly smaller than Earths moon, has a global saltwater ocean beneath its icy crust. This ocean has at least twice as much water as Earths oceans. While recent discoveries have shown that many bodies in the solar system either have subsurface oceans now, or may have in the past, Europa is one of only two places where the ocean is understood to be in contact with a rocky seafloor (the other being Saturns moon Enceladus). This rare circumstance makes Europa one of the highest priority targets in the search for present-day life beyond Earth.

The SDT was tasked with developing a life-detection strategy, a first for a NASA mission since the Mars Viking mission era more than four decades ago. The report makes recommendations on the number and type of science instruments that would be required to confirm if signs of life are present in samples collected from the icy moons surface.

The team also worked closely with engineers to design a system capable of landing on a surface about which very little is known. Given that Europa has no atmosphere, the team developed a concept that could deliver its science payload to the icy surface without the benefit of technologies like a heat shield or parachutes.

The concept lander is separate from the solar-powered Europa multiple flyby mission, now in development for launch in the early 2020s. The spacecraft will arrive at Jupiter after a multi-year journey, orbiting the gas giant every two weeks for a series of 45 close flybys of Europa. The multiple flyby mission will investigate Europas habitability by mapping its composition, determining the characteristics of the ocean and ice shell, and increasing our understanding of its geology. The mission also will lay the foundation for a future landing by performing detailed reconnaissance using its powerful cameras.

NASA has announced two upcoming town hall meetings to discuss the Science Definition Team report and receive feedback from the science community. The first will be on March 19, in conjunction with the 2017 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) at The Woodlands, Texas. The second event will be on April 23 at the Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon) in Mesa, Arizona.

Read the complete report, Europa Lander Study 2016 Report at:

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/europa/technical.cfm
Dear Mr. Schultz,

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Were reaching out today because this is an extraordinary moment we sharea moment youve spoken on eloquently as a thought leader in American public lifeand we need your help.

Last weekend, more than 400 privately owned coffee brands representing some 800 + cafes joined together across the United States to raise funds for the American Civil Liberties Union, those non-partisan defenders of the Constitution who serve all Americans, regardless of religious or political beliefs. We launched with 26 partners and agreed to match the first $500 they raised, but nothing could have prepared us for the flood of interest and good will that followed, as hundreds and hundreds more coffee companies reached out to join in. Journalists in the media helped amplify this effort greatly, with stories about the fundraiser appearing in NPR, Food and Wine, your hometown Seattle Magazine, Teen Vogue (currently this countrys most important publication), and dozens more regional and national news outlets across the country.

All told, including corporate matching partners stepping up in a big way, Americas coffee bars raised some $423,373 for the ACLU as of press time, with around 100 coffee brands left to report. We believe the total amount raised last weekend will reach the $500 thousand dollar mark once all the reporting comes in.

Were asking you today to consider matching that amount in the form of a $500,000 donation to the ACLU.

Participation in the fundraiser was open to all coffee companies, and we know yall read us, but we never heard from you or anyone on the team at Starbucks. Thats fineyouve got your own stuff going on right now. And in fact, if youll permit us the compliment, Starbucks is very much out there fighting the good fight every day, making laudable public commitments to basic human rights and values when it comes to refugees, immigrants, veterans, the LGBTQ community, and new parents, recently expanding your maternity and paternity programs into one of corporate Americas best.

We have fun here at Sprudge, but please know that we respect you and your vision for Starbucks place in American society and around the world. The importance of the role your company plays in communities large and small cannot be overstated, and your commitment to acting responsibly up and down the supply chain is the stuff of much admiration and legend in the coffee industry. We grew up drinking coffee in your cafes, and Sprudge co-founder Zachary Carlsen took his very first coffee job at Starbucks store #342 in the Tacoma, Washington suburb of University Place. When Sprudge launched in 2009, we printed out our very first set of business cards in the Kinkos that occupies much of the ground floor of your SoDo headquarters in Seattle. We still happily patronize your cafes around the world today.

Much has been made over the last few years of Starbucks assuming its place at the American specialty coffee scenes table. You helped set that table, thats for sureso many of todays leading coffee professionals got their start, either as coffee drinkers or baristas, in one of your many coffee bars across the United States. We know that opening more of these Reserve cafes is now your main professional focus at Starbucks, and we know from interviewing your capable team of designers that independent coffee bars are a major source of style inspiration in designing these new cafes.

When you launched your first Reserve Roastery in Seattle, your media team took time and effort to reach out to us, a small independent publication, and made sure we were part of the same first-look media consideration you gave to the folks like The New York Times and Bloomberg. You even gave all the media brands the same embargo deadline for web publishing, which means our story came out the same time theirs dida major show of respect and good faith towards our comparatively tiny media company and its coffee-loving readership.

The respect goes both ways. Under your guidance and leadership, Starbucks helped pave the way for a new generation of American coffee lover, a generation who has expressed that love in the form of vital, vibrant coffee companies operating in every nook and cranny of the United States. We are inspired by you, and in turn, you by us.

Match the coffee community by making a $500k donation in your own name, or on behalf of Starbucks, to the American Civil Liberties Union. Do it now; join us in helping support the non-partisan keepers of American liberty at the ACLU. Be a part of the wider moment of fundraising and awareness in American coffee, and together well have raised a million dollars for this deeply important cause.

Please forgive us this moment of bombastthe open letter and all thatand know that like you, our hearts are in the rightest place we know. Thank you for reading, and onward.

-Jordan Michelman and Zachary Carlsen

Co-founders, Editors

Sprudge Media Network
With her sire stakes victory last week, Kissed The Boys now has the distinction of being a stakes winner on both the trot and the pace.

Kissed The Boys is a four-year-old Desomer Stables homebred daughter of Claudius Augustus, who passed away last month, out of the multiple stakes-winner and outstanding producer Charlottes Web.

A sire stakes winner last season while doing her work as a trotter, the bay miss has switched over the pacing for her current campaign and got the job done in the first stakes dance for that group with veteran Steve Desomer in the sulky.

Weve had trotters that were bred to pace and pacers that were bred to trot, Vickie explained, but this is the first time weve had a horse win stakes races on both gaits.

Steve has always been enthusiastic about Kissed The Boys. She has the same staying power as her siblings, but has had some issues behind the gate. He felt that if she could get away safely the other night, she would be competitive.

Kissed The Boys just did that and was able to get the job done and earn another trophy in a race that did see her rivals get in some trouble behind her at the head of the stretch.

Vickie noted that this was the first pacer for Charlottes Web, who has been represented by stakes-winning trotters Silverlode, Cadet and Placer. Sadly, Charlotte failed to get in foal to Claudius Augustus last year and she was bred to Ice Machine, she added.

OPEN TROT, SOPHOMORE SIRE STAKES ON TAP

A $6,000 Open Trot featuring Silverlode and the first California Sire Stakes for the three-year-old pacers headline Saturday evenings program at Cal Expo.

There will be 13 races and first-race post time will be 6:15 p.m. The Open Trot is scheduled as the third race on the card and the two California Sire Stakes will be non-betting contests prior to the regular program.

Silverlode is an eight-year-old homebred daughter of British Sterling who races for Team Desomer and will have Luke Plano at the controls. She has captured three of the six Open Trots decided during the current meet, finishing second behind Flameon in the other three top dances.

Taking her on this weekend are barnmate Cadet, My Little Susie, Lodi Dorian Blues, Windsun Galaxe and Franky Provolone.

Looking at the sire stakes for pacing colts, Army Of One is a homebred son of Hi Ho Silverheels out of the Artsplace mare Aftermath who carries the banner and Wayne and Rod Knittel with Bob Johnson the conditioner and Mooney Svendsen in the sulky.

After getting a good tightener in his January 14 unveiling at Cal Expo, the bay performer has come back with two huge efforts. He earned his graduation papers on January 27 when he sat a pocket trip for Svendsen and proved strongest in the stretch for a length and a quarter score with a 1:57.3 clocking.

Wheeled back last weekend, Army Of One hooked up with a sharp Indiana invader in Gorgeous For Real and turned in another giant mile, missing by only a half-length to that 2-5 favourite in a sharp 1:54.3 tour of the Cal Expo oval.

(Cal Expo)
Post Time with Mike and Mike presented by BetAmerica has announced its Thursday afternoon line up at 1 p.m.

The show's co-hosts will be speaking with a few of the candidates running for USTA positions.

Two of the candidates running for Vice Chairman, Alan Leavitt and Steve Oldford, will join the show to talk about how they got into racing and what their plans will be for their positions if elected. Mike and Mike will discuss some of the issues that are important to both candidates running for the position.

Ivan Axelrod, the incumbent candidate for Chairman, will join the program to talk about his experiences so far with the USTA. He is also the acting President of the USTA, while waiting on the election results of the upcoming USTA Presidential election.

His opponent, Gabe Wand, will also join the program and talk a little about his experience in racing. Wand will discuss how he got into the business and what his plans for the USTA are going forward.

Gabe Prewitt will also join the continuing Pompano Park series about the happenings in South Florida.

Post Time with Mike and Mike has also announced that it will provide an American race call to the Prix de Paris, which will take place on Sunday. The show will begin at approximately 9:30 a.m. and last about one hour depending on the schedule that is set by Vincennes Racecourse in France.

Post Time with Mike and Mike provided an American race call to the Triple Crown attempt by Bold Eagle in 2016 and Mike Bozich had the call. For the middle leg of the Triple Crown, Michael Carter will have the call.

Anyone wishing to listen to the show on Sunday can do so by visiting posttimewithmikeandmike.com or on the archive at betamerica.com/BARN.

(With files from Post Time with Mike and Mike)
Standardbred horseman Gary R. Luft, 72, of Verona, NY, passed away unexpectedly on Sunday, February 5 in the Oneida Healthcare Center after being stricken ill at home.

He was born July 1, 1944, in Amsterdam, NY, a son of the late Edward and Alberta (Sparks) Luft and was a graduate of the Fort Plain Schools.

On July 2, 1960, Luft and Dianne E. Darrach were united in marriage in Fort Plains, NY and shared their loving union of more than 56 years together.

Luft was an owner, trainer and driver at Vernon Downs and along with his wife cared for many good Standardbreds throughout the years in the Gary Luft Stable, including a family favourite, Hayden Collins.

He enjoyed fishing and caring for his other animals.

He is survived by his wife, Dianne; daughter, Susan; grandsons, Robert, Dave and Timothy Green; and one great-grandson, Trent Green.

In keeping with family wishes there will be no public calling hours or funeral services. Burial will be private and at the convenience of the family. Arrangements are with the Malecki Funeral Home Inc., Vernon. Online condolences may be sent to maleckifuneralhome.com.

Please join Standardbred Canada in offering condolences to the family and friends of Gary Luft.

(USTA)
WASHINGTON (AP)  President Donald Trump told airline and airport executives Thursday that he supports privatizing America's air traffic control system, according to a top airline industry lobbyist who was in the meeting.

Nick Calio, president and CEO of Airlines for America, the trade association that represents the major airlines, said after the White House meeting that Trump was "extraordinarily positive" when airline executives urged him to spin off air traffic control operations from the Federal Aviation Administration and place them under the control of a private, nonprofit corporation.

That corporation would most likely be dominated by the major airlines.

Asked if Trump committed to back a bill to do that, Calio said: "I think he's on track to do that."

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on his remarks.

Unlike the U.S., most countries separate their air traffic control operations from their aviation safety oversight agency. But it is unusual to actually privatize air traffic operations. Canada is an exception.

Airlines  with the notable exception of Delta  have complained the FAA is taking too long to modernize the air traffic system. Republican congressman Bill Shuster, chairman of the House transportation committee, introduced legislation to privatize the system last year, but the bill stalled after opposition from other top lawmakers and from business aircraft operators.

Some lawmakers in both parties object to removing air traffic operations from the control of Congress because it would reduce their influence over aviation. But proponents say the FAA's modernization program, called NextGen, has been hampered by government shutdowns and budget uncertainties. By removing the air traffic system from congressional control, they hope to provide the certainty necessary to make long-term financial commitments.

Business aircraft operators fear the corporation's board would be dominated by airlines, and that they would lose access to larger airports to make more room for airlines and be asked to pay more to finance the system.

The privatization effort has the backing of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, although other FAA unions are opposed.

Gary Kelly, CEO of Southwest Airlines, told Trump during the meeting the top priority for helping airlines would be to "modernize the air traffic control system." He complained that money spent on the system has not helped improve it in the past.

"I hear we're spending billions and billions of dollars, it's a system that's totally out of whack," Trump said. The president asked why airline corporations had allowed the government to invest in a faulty system. Kelly said airlines are not "in control" of those decisions.

Trump said he believes the system could potentially work better if FAA was run by a pilot. The current administrator, Michael Huerta, a holdover from the Obama administration, isn't a pilot.

FAA officials maintain that they have made significant progress over the past 10 years of the modernization effort, and that airlines have begun to reap the benefits of those changes.

Besides Southwest, Trump met with the chief executives of Delta, United, and JetBlue, executives from air cargo companies, and officials from several airports.
Supreme Court Wants to Hear More on Religious Counseling Case

Contact: Brad Dacus, Pacific Justice Institute, 949-422-0395



WASHINGTON, Feb. 9, 2017 /Standard Newswire/ -- The U.S. Supreme Court may be closer to accepting review of a case with far-reaching implications for churches, religious counselors, and religious freedom.



This week, the Court directed the State of California to respond to a Petition for Certiorari filed by Pacific Justice Institute on behalf of Christian counselors. Each year, the Supreme Court grants review to about 1% of the thousands of petitions and other requests it receives for review. When the Court orders an opposing party to file a responsive brief, it does not necessarily mean the Court will ultimately take the case, but the odds increase significantly.



PJI has been battling Senate Bill (SB) 1172 for nearly five years, beginning early in the legislative process. The bill, which was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2012, requires state-licensed mental health providers, including psychologists, psychiatrists, licensed marriage and family therapists, licensed professional counselors, and many others, to refrain from counseling youth in ways that differ from state orthodoxy on LGBTQ issues.



PJI filed suit on behalf of mental health professionals, including one who is also an ordained minister and oversees a counseling ministry at his church. PJI obtained an injunction that blocked the law for about 18 months. Ultimately, though, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected free speech, religious freedom and privacy challenges to the law.



Brad Dacus, president of Pacific Justice Institute, commented, "The state orthodoxy mandated by SB 1172 raises serious concerns for religious freedom and privacy, and we are glad the Supreme Court is taking our Petition seriously. Many young people who struggle with same-sex attraction or gender confusion want to hear something different than political correctness on LGBTQ issuesthey want to hear Biblical truth spoken in love. They absolutely should have the right to seek professional help, including church counseling, consistent with their values."
Perhaps one reason in particular that the novel is gaining renewed influence now is that Nineteen Eighty-Four explicitly portrays Asia as a bogeyman and a pawn in the militarized rhetoric of fear in which Big Brother traffics.

Perhaps one reason in particular that the novel is gaining renewed influence now is that Nineteen Eighty-Four explicitly portrays Asia as a bogeyman and a pawn in the militarized rhetoric of fear in which Big Brother traffics. Throughout Orwells novel the declining white empire of Oceania is always at war with East Asia or Eurasiain fact, a particularly macabre moment in the novel occurs when a professional orator charged with inciting crowds abruptly changes mid-harangue from vilifying one enemy to the other. As Orwell describes it, it was almost impossible to listen  without being first convinced and then maddened. As a description of political rhetoric and its use in manufacturing consent, Nineteen Eighty-Four thus presages the ever shifting, fill-in-the-blank scapegoating of ethnic, racial, and religious others that fuels so much of our post-9/11, anti-immigration and anti-China hysteria. As the novel furthermore notes, Hate continued exactly as before, except that the target had changed.

George Orwells dystopian classic Nineteen Eighty-Four recently shot to the top of Amazons bestseller list , crowning a sudden rebirth of interest in the cautionary tale that has been brewing over the past few months. As many commentators noted, sales were particularly high in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australiawestern nations currently riven by divisive social politicssuggesting that this renewed interest in a novel about a charismatic demagogue spouting misleading evidence and trafficking in xenophobia arises because Orwells fiction may help us to understand the contemporary world.



Though little of the recent commentary on Nineteen Eighty-Fours current popularity among western nations has yet to acknowledge this China connection, three decades of relentless Chinese growth has engendered widespread anxiety regarding an imminent Chinese eclipse of the Wests once unchallenged supremacy. Contemporary Sinophobia highlights western insecurities regarding its declining power in the world. We are all aware of Chinas extraordinary political and economic power; further astonishing is the fact that the country has achieved this ascendancy while maintaining Communist practices of party privilege, informational opacity, and repressive tactics of eliciting compliancedomestic policies that now jar westerners as uncannily similar to rapidly unfolding developments at home. This belligerent fear mongering associated with the East Asian Communist state is precisely what western powers have historically defined themselves against.

It is perhaps unsurprising that the Sinophone world has its own canon of dystopian narratives.

Although Orwell developed his fictional projections of socialist excesses on Russia, and the 1949 novel only makes specific mention of China a handful of times, its vision of mass labor organization, uniformed anonymity, group persecution and self-critique proved prophetic of Maos Cultural Revolution. While prosperous postmillennial China has moved far beyond that terrible history, any Chinese citizen or China watcher today is cognizant of the governments continued and active role in censoring facts and manipulating the free flow of opinion. The widespread ignorance among contemporary Chinese youth of the Cultural Revolution and the 1989 Tiananmen Square events are two glaring examples of the countrys efficacy in implementing Orwellian Ministry of Truth-like information distortion.

Given this, it is perhaps unsurprising that the Sinophone world has its own canon of dystopian narratives. Hong Kong author Chan Koonchungs superb 2013 novel, The Fat Years, offers a compelling glimpse of a modern China where problematic history has successfully been erased from common knowledge. In a similar vein, the 2015 Hong Kong film, Ten Years, consists of five self-contained stories that each imagine what life might be like in Hong Kong a decade into the future. The film was produced at a time when the Chinese governments strengthening crackdown on dissentevident in such recent events as the abduction of dissident booksellers and the unilateral divesting of elected legislators critical of the governmentcontinues to mount and entrench government power.

Not surprisingly, the film was the object of direct attack by the Chinese government, which was widely thought to be the reason for the films quick disappearance from Hong Kong theaters (despite sell-out audiences). The Global Times, a party instrument, dubbed Ten Years a thought virus and later cut mainland broadcast of the Hong Kong Film Awards during the climactic moment when Ten Years was named Best Picture. Movingly though, in organized backlash by civic culture against this authoritarian censorship, Ten Years then precipitated an equally politicized counter-surveillance response, as the filmmakers worked with activists, educators and civic and community leaders to screen the film for free at various locations throughout the city, and frequently appeared to lead post-screening discussions.

Ten Years was in production when the Umbrella Movementa series of pro-democracy protests against Chinese government controlerupted in Hong Kong in late 2014. At a time in world history when anger is so rampant that communities from the First to the Third World are constantly spilling into streets in organized civic protest, films like Ten Years attest to the continuing power of literary and visual art to offer cautionary tales about our changing world.

The high-water marks of western dystopian fiction, like Nineteen Eighty-Four, as well as its notable precursor, Aldous Huxleys Brave New World, understand and underscore this dimension of art. Both novels portray literature as possessing a volatile, powerful agency, equally capable of subversion and indoctrination: Shakespeare is banned in both novels, and both works protagonists are knowledge workers employed in propaganda who suspect that an alternate literary production can be the means of undermining entrenched power.

Arresting Cinema  draws on Hong Kong's renowned crime films and other unique genres to illustrate views of surveillance.

Current popular interest in Nineteen Eighty-Four is a resounding affirmation of this humanist claim, but as The Fat Years and Ten Years show, global culture is rich with diverse other works that may illuminate Orwellian insights far beyond surveillance societys canonical western texts. Cinema in particular should be recognized as a vital resource within this archive. Although the telescreens and feelies in Orwell and Huxleys respective novels suggest ambivalent or critical positions regarding the moving image, Huxleys more stylistically experimental narrative novel also includes moments of impressionistic stream-of-consciousness, the montage-like imagery of which also suggests a traditional medium reinventing itself in search of ever more powerful ways of soliciting affective response in order to incite political change.

More than a half century after Orwells original vision, Nineteen Eighty-Four remains the canonical source text of global meditations upon surveillance society (it has even has been translated into Chinese!). The recent return to this classic bespeaks a heartening resurgence of art and literature in an austere and repressive time where such engagements seem increasingly less possible. Yet with the economic and technological shifts transforming politics and popular culture since the mid-twentieth century, even if western readers are right at sensing a tightening of government power and freezing of individual agency, it is shortsighted to limit that inquiry to only the western canon. As Ten Years and The Fat Years show, new works and media from outside the Global North offer valuable insights into contemporary society, comparable to or even exceeding longstanding western surveillance classics like Huxleys and Orwells. At this juncture it is critical that the West cast its gaze beyond its own navel to consider how others have grappled with authoritarian conditions, both within the West and within the rising powers with which the West increasingly must now contend.

Start reading Arresting Cinema 

Karen Fang (@KfangKaren) teaches literature and film at the University of Houston and is the author of Arresting Cinema: Surveillance in Hong Kong Film.
More than 60 businesses have benefitted from the program, which was extended through May 1 while a permanent program is in the works.
Union Springs Central School District Superintendent Jarett Powers believes it's critical to raise awareness of lead poisoning and how people can be tested for and avoid lead exposure.

"Anything we can do to get the word out and engage families on lead and lead risk, that's good information for folks to have," Powers said.

Free lead testing clinic screenings will be available for students attending Union Springs' registration night for kindergarten and preschool at Cayuga Elementary School, 255 Wheat St., Cayuga. Registration will be from 3 to 6 p.m. March 29.

Deanna Ryan, the Cayuga County Health Department's senior public health educator, said parents must consent for their child to be tested by the mobile machine that will be used on-site. The test will be a finger-poke administered by a nurse, and results on whether the child has elevated blood-lead levels will be known in about three minutes, she said.

"We haven't had a lead testing clinic at a school, so this is the first one," Ryan said.

Ryan said it's important for parents to test their children for lead poisoning, especially when they are young, in order to prevent permanent damage.

Ryan and Powers are members of the Cayuga County Lead Poisoning Prevention Task Force, which is dedicated to raising awareness of and combating lead poisoning. The task force was formed in January 2016.

Powers said health department representatives sometimes attend BOCES district superintendent meetings. When the department asked for a superintendent to join the task force, Powers jumped at the chance.

Powers has personally dealt with lead-related issues; he said his current house in Union Springs, which he moved into in 2015, was first built in 1870. Powers said that despite there being more than a 125-year difference between when the residence was built and when he moved in, the lead from the structure had not been removed.

Powers said the lead has largely been taken out of his home. He believes people are busy and may just assume that the paint in their home and the lead in the plumbing are safe.

"How often do we think about lead? Probably not very often," Powers said.

The health department said old paint is often the cause of how young children get lead poisoning, usually by breathing in or swallowing lead dust or exposure to the dust or chipped and peeled old lead paint.

Old houses often contain lead paint that can be dangerous if not dealt with properly, the department said, also noting that according to 2013 U.S. Census Bureau data, 73.7 percent of Cayuga County homes were built before 1980, with 54.6 percent before 1960.

Childhood health effects from lead are irreversible, ranging from hearing loss to behavior and development problems to brain damage and death, depending on how much lead a child has been exposed to, the department said.
Erin Blake wants to know three things. Who killed her mother? What is her fathers name and where is he? And whoever he is  he isnt her mothers killer  right?

Erin is the protagonist of To Catch a Killer, the debut young adult novel by Sheryl Scarborough of Kalama. The novel went on sale Tuesday, Feb. 7. A former television writer from Los Angeles, Scarborough and her husband made a home for themselves in Southwestern Washington nearly a year ago in the midst of a lengthy publication process. The move signaled a transition from television writing to novel writing for Scarborough.

Set in the fictional town of Iron Rain, Ore., To Catch a Killer tells the story of Erin Blake, a high school student who has spent her whole life living in the shadow of her mothers grisly murder. In the first pages, Erin is in the back of a police car  again. But this time she is being questioned about another murder: that of her Biology teacher, Miss Peters.

Its the first in a series, Scarborough said in her basement office Monday (Feb. 6). Because I worked in childrens television, I really consider myself a childrens specialist. There are things that television requires that publishing does not. Youve got to know whats going on in kids heads today because its so easy to change the channel.

The crux of the story relies on solving all these questions through forensic DNA analysis, which Scarborough admits she is a nut for. A fan of the Fox television show Bones and other crime-solving shows and books, Scarboroughs license plate displays her love of the subject. Her customized Washington plates read 4N6FAN (forensics fan). Her husband even bought her a fingerprinting kit for Christmas.

My family was like, You guys are the biggest geeks I know,  Scarborough said. Ive got a little light, luminol, brushes  . Scarborough even assembled mini fingerprint kits for pre-order sales of the book that include a brush, fingerprint powder and fingerprint cards along with instructions on how to lift a print.

But while Scarborough loves mystery stories, inspiration came from real life. She was amazed to find out the son of one of her friends had the opportunity to take a forensics class in high school.

And Im like, forensics class? How do I get in there? Scarborough said. It exploded because they figured out that forensics could match the curriculum for 10th-grade biology terrifically. And if they called it forensics, it became sexy and the kids then wanted to sign up.

In the novel, Erin Blakes forensics knowledge is mostly self-taught. She learns the basics of lifting fingerprints, hair analysis and chromatography from books (her own uncle is a renowned crime scene investigator who has written on the subject). After entering a chromatography test in the science fair her freshman year of high school that compared different shades and brands of lipstick, Erin gets noticed by her classmates. She even begins her own side business using her forensics tricks helping friends who think their girlfriends or boyfriends might be cheating on them.

But when she starts to use her forensics knowledge and skills to find the identity of her father, the story begins to get complicated. A mix of Nancy Drew and C.S.I., the 300-page book is appropriate for young teens, but could entertain adult mystery-junkies as well.

The rocky road to hardcover

It wasnt easy getting a book published, despite the fact that Scarborough boasts about 30 years of experience writing for television, including penning episodes for the likes of Disney and working with high-profile clients such as Shelley Duvall and Stan Lee.

Scarborough pitched To Catch a Killer for television about 10 years ago. After producers passed on it the first time around, she decided to turn it into a book.

I wrote a version of the book and then  well, publishing is a process, Scarborough said. So you write the book and then you have to find an agent. After a less-than-favorable reception from the first round of editors queried, Scarborough wasnt happy.

So Scarborough decided to stop sending her book out and work on it more. She knew she could fix it.

Her journey led her to Vermont College of Fine Arts, where she received a masters degree in Writing for Children and Young Adults in 2013.

To Catch a Killer consumed most of Scarboroughs time as a graduate student, and it paid off. Young adult fiction publisher TorTeen bought the book in 2014. They have since bought another book in the series, which is finished, though Scarborough hopes there will be at least four books total.

People often ask me: You know my daughter wants to write. Should I encourage her, should I get her classes? Scarborough said. And what I always say is: discourage her. And if you cant, get her in classes. Because then shes a writer. If someone can stop, theyre not a writer. The ones who cant stop are writers. Sometimes it just takes a while.
With Vice President Mike Pences historic tie-breaking vote Tuesday, Michigan billionaire Betsy DeVos became the next head of the federal Department of Education.

Its not a development that Longview School Superintendent Dan Zorn is relishing.

DeVos has long advocated for school choice by providing students with vouchers that would allow them to take taxpayer money and use it to attend private or charter schools.

The businesswoman and Republican campaign contributor has also drawn criticism for her lack of experience with public schools (she never attended public school, and neither did her children).

Zorn has been outspoken about his opposition to Devos appointment since then president-elect Trump announced her as his selection for Secretary of Education in November. Zorn said Wednesday he is disappointed with the choice.

I certainly have great concern, Zorn said Wednesday. I think she is very much in favor of privatizing our public school system.

State teachers union spokesman Rich Wood also criticized DeVos.

Shes unqualified and unfit to be secretary of education, said Wood, who represents the Washington Education Association.

No Democrats supported DeVos confirmation, and two Republican senators voted against her as well, making it the first time an education secretary has been appointed without any bipartisan support.

Theres just tremendous opposition to DeVos really extreme approach to privatizing public education, Wood told The Columbian.

Superintendent Zorn said hes had to base a lot of what he expects from the new secretary on Republican policies, because DeVos herself has actually said very little, particularly about public schools.

The Republican party has talked for years about curbing the influence of federal government on local education policy and returning that control to states and locally elected school boards, Zorn said. I think that from a policy standpoint, if thats where things head, there could be some good news.

Zorn added that the public school model is sound and transferring public money to private schools would decrease accountability.

The locally elected school board model truly does hold our schools accountable to the public and the use of funds that we do have, Zorn said. The private efforts do not do that.

Washington State Charter Schools Association spokeswoman Maggie Meyers said the association is waiting to see what DeVos will offer Washingtons currently operating charter schools, and what will happen next with the three are slated to open this fall.

In the context of todays confirmation, I think the question is now whether (DeVos) will stand up to support a strong public education system and stand up for the civil rights of all students, Meyers said.
Skoda looks set to launch a limited black edition of its Skoda Octavia model in India next month. The car was teased on Skoda Indias social accounts.

The Skoda Octavia normally sells in India for around Rs 23 lakh. The black edition will sell for between Rs 15,000 and Rs 20,000 more than the current model, reports The Economic Times.

Not only will the car be painted black, it will also come with black alloy wheels, a black rear spoiler and black ORVMs. The limited edition will car will only be available in the top end variant with either a 1.8 litre petrol or a 2 litre diesel engine.

The vehicles is available in India in 4 variants, two with diesel engines and two with petrol ones. The petrol variants are available with a 1.4 litre with 150bhp on tap and a 1.8 litre variant with 180bhp on tap.

Both the 2.0 litre diesel variants produce around 140bhp, but offer higher mileage and greater torque.

The cars are quite well-equipped and you can choose from a range of feature, including adaptive headlamps, panoramic sunroofs, up to eight airbags, tyre-pressure monitors and more. You also get an option for a DSG gearbox and a smart link system to hook up your phone to your cars infotainment system.

Safety features such as Anti-Lock Braking (ABS) systems, traction control and Electronic Stability Control (ESC) come as standard. Parking sensors and dual-front airbags are also available on all models.
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Facebook has rolled out a new feature that shows full weather forecast on its mobile app and desktop site. According to a report in TechCrunch, within the new Weather section, users can view a full forecast for a week ahead, powered by data from Weather.com. The new feature, an extension of its earlier version 'weather greetings', can be accessed from News Feed or the mobile app's 'More' menu.

"Facebook confirmed that the new feature was launched to around 95 percent of its global population this week," the report noted. Facebook rolled out 'weather greetings' a year ago in News Feed, which would briefly update the weather on top of the News Feed. In the latest feature, users will see a similar weather information with a link to the full, five-day forecast.

"We are doing this because our goal is to develop products that connect people to the things they care about most and create moments of joy in people's day, like simply telling you that it's going to rain later," a Facebook spokesperson was quoted as saying.

IANS
Aditya Madanapalle

The history of rockets in India goes back to 1780, when the army of Tipu Sultan successfully used weaponised rockets against invading British forces in the Battle of Pollilur.

Known as Mysore Rockets, it was the first time ever that the propellant was enclosed in iron tubes, which enabled higher bursting pressure in the combustion chamber, which generated more thrust, and allowed the rockets to travel longer.

The rockets had a range of over 2 kilometers, and were mounted with swords. The rockets were inaccurate and likely to cause chaos, and were soon forgotten because of improvements in other weapons. Rockets would not make a comeback in India till the start of the Indian Space Program in the 1960s.

With the live transmission of the 1960 Tokyo Olympic games by an American communications satellite, Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, the father of the Indian space program, realised the potential of communication satellites. Sarabhai convened a meeting at Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmadabad, of scientists, sociologists, anthropologists and communication experts to kick start the Indian space program. The Physical Research Laboratory was then a precursor to Isro, and is now a part of the Indian Department of Space.

St Mary Magdalene Church, in a fishing village called Thumba, on the outskirts of Thiruvananthapuram was chosen as a base for indigenous rocket launches because of its proximity to the magnetic equator. The Church is considered a mecca for rocket scientists in India and Isro still uses the facility for launching sounding rockets. There is a space museum housed within the Church.

The first sounding rocket launched from the Thumba base in 1963 kickstarted the Indian Space Program. The rockets used were imported Russian M-100 and French Centaur models. The first rocket launched by India was transported to the Thumba base on the carrier of a bicycle.

The experience gained from sounding rocket launches was instrumental in the development of Isro. From 1975 onwards, all sounding rocket launches were consolidated under the Rohini Sounding Rocket (RSR) programme.

On 10 August, 1979, there was an unsuccessful maiden attempt at a Satellite Launch Vehicle-3 (SLV-3) spaceflight. The second SLV-3 spaceflight managed to put into orbit a Rohini satellite. The rocket was launched from the Sriharikota base, and India became the sixth nation to join the exclusive club of space-faring nations.

The successful SLV launch paved the way for more advanced launch vehicles such as the Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle (ASLV), the hugely successful Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV).

The first flight of a PSLV took place on 20 September, 1993. The IRS-1E Satellite on board could not be deployed into orbit. This is the only failure of the PSLV so far. The first operational flight, PSLV-G on 27 September 1997 saw the fourth stage underperform, but the satellite used its own propellant to enter the correct orbit. The PSLV has had a flawless record since then.

The PSLV-C2 mission on 26 May, 1999 was the first time a PSLV rocket was used to place into orbit multiple satellites in a single flight. This was an important step in boosting launch capacity and reducing the cost of launching a single satellite. The Indian Remote Sensing Satellite (IRS-P4) was the primary payload, with the Korean KitSat-3 and the German DLR-TubSat as co-passengers.

The PSLV-C5 launch on 17 October, 2003 saw six consecutive PSLV flights that were successful in their missions. The launch cemented the position of PSLV as the "workhorse" launch vehicle of the Indian space program. On board was the Indian remote sensing satellite, ResourceSat-1. On 28 April, 2008, the PSLV-C9 mission was launched with ten satellites on board.

The PSLV has been used to launch the historic Mangalyaan and Chandrayaan missions. For over 20 years, the PSLV has been one of the world's most reliable launch vehicles. Over that period, the PSLV has launched over 40 satellites for 19 countries.

On 23 June, 2016, the PSLV-C34 mission placed 20 satellites in orbit with a single flight. This is the record for the most number of satellites put into orbit by an Isro mission so far. Isro is poised to break its own record, as well as records of all launch vehicles worldwide, with the launch of 104 satellites on a single mission. The PSLV-C37 launch is scheduled for 15 February, 2017.

Isro's Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle is designed to place satellites in Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO). The first GLSV mission launched on 18 April, 2001. There have been 10 launches so far, and India is in the testing phase of its own cryogenic engine for the upper stage of the GSLV.

In March 2017, the GSLV MKII is expected to launch the GSAT-9, commonly known as the SAARC Satellite. The satellite is Prime Minister Narendra Modi's pet project, and a gift from India to other South Asian nations.

2016 saw a number of exciting developments at Isro, including the test flights of two experimental launch vehicles that are years or decades away from practical realisation and operational spaceflight.

On 28 August, 2016, Isro successfully tested a Scramjet engine, which is a more fuel efficient air breathing engine. The air breathing engines were successfully ignited at supersonic speeds.

On 23 May 2016, Isro launched the Reusable Launch Vehicle - Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD). The RLV-TD is the first step, a demonstration, towards reusable launch vehicles, which has the potential to further decrease the cost of satellite launches. India already offers one of the cheapest satellite launch rates in the world, but the practical application of Indian reusable launch vehicles is still at least a decade away.

This story is a part of a series on the world record launch of 104 satellites on a single mission by Isro. The stories in the series are:
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Though Facebook controls what you see in your News Feed, its lawyer claims not everything can be controlled - like policing all racist posts - media reports said. According to a report in Engadget on Wednesday, while defending against a German lawsuit over misuse of photos in fake news, Facebook's attorney said it wasn't possible for Facebook to watch for racist language in every post arguing that there were billions of posts every day, which would require a "wonder machine" to catch every possible instance of abuse.

Syrian refugee Anas Modamani recently sued Facebook to have it delete all fake news stories using his image. Modamani had taken a selfie with German Chancellor Angela Merkel which was used by fake news stories, falsely connecting him to terror attacks. But plaintiff Modamani refutes the arguement by citing an example of Volkswagen, claiming: "It couldn't make every car safe, just because there is a large volume of content doesn't mean you're off the hook."

Modamani was quoted as saying that Facebook was quick enough to detect nudity. "Why can't Facebook tackle racism and misused photos with similar enthusiasm?" he asked. "Facebook is so far opposed to paying out damages in the case, but it's open to a court-offered proposal that would settle the case by blocking use of the photo in question across Europe," the report noted.

IANS
tech2 News Staff

Update: On speaking to UCWeb, we were told this 'plan' is nothing more than a long-term vision that the company has for our country. They add that any mention of a plan right now is only speculation as no concrete details are available.

UCWeb also issued the following statement to us, "Internet access for all is integral to realize the Digital India dream and a long-term vision for UCWeb. Being the No.1 mobile browser in India not only means we are supported by the local market, but that we should take on our responsibility to serve them with better technology and products. We are committed to creating a product that helps millions of users access mobile internet in under-connected or unconnected parts of the country. At the same time, we respect and strictly adhere to local regulations of each country we operate in."

Our original report is as follows:

UCWeb, a subsidiary of Chinas Alibaba group, is looking to make inroads in India by offering subsidised or even free internet access to Indians.

Indians are very familiar with UC Browser, currently the most popular browser in our country. It shot to fame many years ago and was seen as a competitor to Opera Mini. This was UCWebs original offering, but its services have since expanded to include mobile search, ebooks, mobile gaming, etc.

UCWeb was acquired by Alibaba Group in 2014.

Speaking to Business Insider, Jack Huang, President of Overseas Business, Mobile Business, Alibaba UC, indicated that the company was in talks with various service providers and Wi-Fi providers to bring lower data costs, better internet connectivity and maybe even free internet to India.

Alibabas UCWeb intends to invest over Rs 200 crore in India and Indonesia over the next two years. And, as BI points out, the company is looking to develop a rather large content generation platform as it gears up to hire over 30,000 bloggers and content creators.

On the surface, this does indeed look like another attempt to reincarnate Facebooks infamous internet.org / Free Basics program.

Last year, Facebook attempted to launch a free internet program in India called Free Basics. Ostensibly, Free Basics was to offer free internet to Indias citizens. In reality, however, Free Basics intended to allow users access only to certain sites and these select sites would be curated exclusively by Facebook.

Understandably, people were angry, the government stepped in and Free Basics was quashed.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) issued an order against differential pricing and banned any service that offered differential access to services on the internet.

Google, however, took a better approach with its Railwire project. It simply worked with the government to offer free internet to anyone who could access a RailWire hotspot. This internet wasnt curated in anyway and the access actually was free.

UCWeb hasnt clarified its intentions yet so its too early to speculate on its plans. Huang only goes so far as to tell BI that the company is looking at the country in a geographic way. It might offer free services in states with little to no internet access, for example.

The exact mechanism for this is unknown.
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Minister of State for Law and IT PP Chaudhary today said that government's digital payment application Bhim may take lead among the most successful branded software products in the country. "Bhim digital payments app, which is reported as top trending app in terms of downloads across a range of platforms by the users, with updated version of Bhim scheduled regularly, it might emerge first among the most successful Branded software products from India," Chaudhary said at Convergence India 2017.

He was talking about efforts being made by government to spread digital technology in various walks of life. Chaudhary said post-demonetisation, since November 8, 2016, the UPI, USSD, AEPS (Aadhaar Enabled Payment System) and RuPay Card transactions etc, have shown exponential growth and registered multi-digit growth figures in percentage. "A Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) working under my ministry on a 24x7 basis is already in place to ensure that digital data and transactions are safe and secure, Chaudhary said.

He said that apart from developing digital infrastructure and products, it is also of utmost importance that the people are made aware not only about such products and services but also about the benefits that accrue due to their usage. Chaudhary said it is time that the private sector also comes forward in a big way to contribute in the efforts of the government by developing applications and products utilising this digital infrastructure and platforms. Department of Science and Technology Secretary Ashutosh Sharma said that his department is bullish on innovations.

"DST runs 100 incubator programmes across the country, incubating 2000 start-ups and we plan to increase that to 5000 in the next three years. A new programme Nidhi ((National Initiative for Development and Harnessing Innovations), has been launched which offers seed funding of Rs 1 crore," Sharma said.

PTI
tech2 News Staff

Samsung has announced 'Bundle of Love' to celebrate and spread the spirit of love on this Valentine's Day. The 'Bundle' comprises 'special offers' on the best-selling Samsung products available on Samsung Shop. Samsung Shop is the online shopping portal of Samsung India and the special offers will only be available on the online platform. You can buy across the portfolio of Samsung devices ranging from Smartphones, wearables, televisions, home appliances, mobile accessories and storage devices.

Asim Warsi, Senior Vice President for Samsung India added, "We are happy to spread the joy of gifting with special deals on some of our bestselling Samsung products. We have recently revamped the Samsung eStore with richer content and a wider portfolio of Samsung products. Rechristened Samsung Shop with better features and functions and great offers like the one for Valentine's Day."

Users can head to the website to avail the benefit of these offers as these offers are available for a limited time period. The offer will only be served on first come first serve basis. One thing to note here is the company has relaunched the store after adding improvements like live chat, corporate offers and other things to pull people to use the online store.
tech2 News Staff

Internet shutdowns have seen an increase in frequency over the years, with 2016 recording close to 30 instances, according to the InternetShutdown tracker released by SFLC.in.

Even though we have the freedom of speech, we all know it isn't absolute. In a country such as India, where offence is taken liberally, absolute freedom of speech could prove to be detrimental as well. A lot of the time, we have seen internet services being disabled during times of terror attacks, or conflict-ridden areas, or natural disasters, when the prospect of spread of rumours is high.

We are all part of that one WhatsApp group where you routinely keep coming across scams and fake forwards.

This is in addition to the censorship that is already happening on the internet in India. Last August, there were reports of blocked websites issuing a warning message which included Sections of the Copyright Act under which you could be booked as well as be fined amount you would be liable to pay.

Torrent as well as pornography websites have been blocked, and later unblocked at regular intervals. Social media sites such as Facebook keep getting requests to take down profiles or posts or are approached by legal authorities to share data. In the January to June 2016 period, there were 2,034 content pieces that were restricted.

InternetShutdown.in has listed instances of shutdowns overlaid on a map of India. Hovering over the number lists the incidents of shutdowns from 2012 onwards. According to the site, these shutdowns are imposed by the government; i.e. Internet Service Providers serving the locality in question are ordered by an agency of the government to cut-off Internet services to that area.

An internet shutdown, unlike blocking certain websites, pertains to putting a blanket ban on internet services as a whole. Telecom service providers and internet service providers have blocked all access to internet on 3 occasions in 2012, 14 occasions in 2015, 30 occasions in 2016 and around 4 instances already this year.

Here are a few screenshots of different states and the reasons behind the shutdown.

Data shared on this site will be updated regularly. Users can themselves report instances of shutdowns as well. There have been 62 instances of Internet shutdowns across various regions in 12 states in India. Around 30 were reported in 2016 and 4 have been reported in 2017.

Mishi Choudhary, the executive director of SFLC, says, "Many countries block Internet services as responses to conflict situations, or even for trivial reasons such as to prevent cheating during examinations. Unfortunately, these shutdowns not only imperil civil liberties, but also grievously hurt the economy, as a recent report by the US policy think-tank Brookings Institution showed. The shutdowns in 2015-16 cost Indian businesses an estimated amount of $968 million (Rs 6,485 crore)." SFLC has partnered with Access Now for this initiative.

According to the tracker, the state of Jammu and Kashmir has faced the maximum number of internet shutdown, with 27 instances, with the last three years having 5 instances each. There's a pattern of shutting mobile internet and telephony services on 15 August and 26 January in J&K. Last year Kashmir witnessed over three months of internet shutdown. Naturally, this made the information technology sector dysfunctional, leading to job cuts and shifting operations outside the state.

In 2016, there have been over 50 Internet shutdown instances and the SFLC tracker puts the India number at 30, which is over half of those instances. This has led to a loss of close to $968mn in India, $465mn in Saudi Arabia and $320mn in Morocco, due to the loss in economic activities. The Brookings Institution study analysed 81 short-term shutdowns across 19 countries between 1 July, 2015, and 30 June, 2016, and estimated that these shutdowns cost the global economy at least $2.4 billion (around Rs 16,080 crore).

In the majority of the cases, the internet block has been resolved in 24 hours, but there are cases where it has gone on for more than three days.

According to SFLC, the data is currently being collected from reports published in national and regional newspapers. "As the Government does not formally announce Internet shutdowns to the public before or after they happen, we currently rely entirely on secondary sources for information. We are working on technical methods to be notified of Internet shutdowns in real-time, but these are still in early stages of development and do not supply any information to our tracker as of yet."

Users can also report shutdowns in their areas here.
tech2 News Staff

Speaking at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, Apple CEO Tim Cook took a clear stance against Donald Trumps immigration ban saying, If we stand and say nothing, we become a part of it, our company thrives on diversity.

If we stand and say nothing we become a part of it, our company thrives on Diversity! @tim_cook on @realDonaldTrump executive order. pic.twitter.com/Wc9DPxThUA  Uni of Glasgow (@UofGlasgow) February 8, 2017

Cook was at the university to receive an honorary degree.

Just a few weeks ago, US President Donald Trump issued an executive order banning the entry of refugees and that of citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries. The ban extends to US visa holders from those countries.

The order faced immediate backlash from Americans and Silicon Valley. Almost 100 tech companies, including Apple, Facebook and Google have signed an amicus curiae brief in support of a lawsuit fighting the order.

US Federal Courts have since halted the order.

Despite the statement, Cook assured everyone at the university that Apple wasnt a political company, reports Cnet.

Cook adds that I dont believe Apple is an activist and I dont view myself as an activist.

Stating that Apple is not shy, he went on to state that Apple will continue to address issues that it feels very strongly about, but that these issues are based on Apples beliefs and nothing else.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo this week ramped up his push for free college tuition for middle-income families. On Tuesday, he visited a couple of upstate communities to insist that the state's economy is dependent upon a college-educated workforce and that future students need help staying out of debt, pointing to statistics showing the average student loan debt in New York in 2015 was nearly $30,000.

But Cuomo's Excelsior Scholarship plan can't be looked at in a vacuum, because while "free tuition" has a nice ring to it, there are other things that need to be considered.

First off, Cuomo said the plan will cost taxpayers $163 million per year once its fully implemented, a figure that critics say is unrealistically low.

And an unintended consequence of the Excelsior plan could be that some schools suffer as other thrive.

Cayuga Community College says it is ready, willing and able to accept an influx of students, but some have raised concerns that the state's community colleges could actually lose out on enrollment because cost-conscious students who would traditionally attend smaller schools near home the first two years might instead elect to go directly to four-year colleges.

And free tuition at state schools could have a negative impact on the nearly 200 private, non-profit colleges and universities across the state.

Private schools don't just support the goals of higher education, they are often the largest employers in their communities, providing thousands of jobs across the state.

And small tuition-dependent schools such as Wells College in Aurora say they would face tremendous economic hardship if just a handful of students who otherwise might have enrolled there decide on the state-school option instead.

The governor's office counters that the state has invested $2.4 billion in private schools since 2011, but when you factor in the number of years since 2011 and the number of private colleges and universities sharing in those funds, the $2.4 billion isn't such an overwhelming figure.

Could the state, as part of this plan, include additional funding for private universities to lessen the economic blow that a loss of students would bring? Should the formula for the state's Tuition Assistance Program be changed to provide more help for students to pay for private college tuition?

The short answer is that this proposal must not be pushed through the Legislature as part of a larger deal to get the state budget passed. It needs a thorough vetting. This is one of the most important and expensive items on this year's agenda, and it will require a careful review by the state Assembly and Senate if it is going to be passed in any form at all.
tech2 News Staff

Xiaomi officially launched the updated version of Xiaomi Redmi Note 4, the Redmi Note 4X in China. As all the product launches, officially, this will be limited to China in terms of availability. One important thing to note is that design-wise the Redmi Note 4X is same as the Redmi Note 4. The only difference is the availability in Teal Green which is being termed as the limited edition Hatsune Miku edition, on the occasion of Valentine's Day.

For the uninitiated, Hatsune Miku is an extremely popular singing synthesiser app primarily popular in Japan. The popularity is such that people attend concerts where the holographic avatar of Miku is performing on stage. In addition to the 'Hatsune Gree', the company has also launched a variant in 'Cherry Pink' colour as reported by GSMArena. The entire package comes along with a stylised package, protective case and limited edition Mi Power bank.

The company has not published detailed specs of the smartphone along or the pricing but the company is expected to release these details prior to the sales day. However, as reported by GSMArena, the internals of the Redmi Note 4X are exactly the same as the internals of Redmi Note 4. In terms of hardware, the phone will be powered by a Snapdragon 653 chipset internationally and a MediaTek Helio X20 in China (the same as on the Chinese Note 4). The current international edition of the Note 4 uses the Snapdragon 625 chip, which is slightly less powerful than the 653, but more power efficient.

Storage options will now include variants with 3GB RAM / 32GB storage, 4GB RAM / 32GB storage and 4GB RAM / 64GB storage. Unlike the Note 4, there will be no 2GB RAM variant.
A survey of citizens in ten European countries found that more than half of respondents want to stop migration from mainly Muslim countries.



The survey, conducted by the United Kingdoms Chatham House Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA), found an average of 55 percent of the 10,000 Europeans surveyed agreed with the statement: all further migration from mainly Muslim countries should be stopped.



A majority of respondents from all but two of the countries (the U.K. and Spain) included in the survey agreed with the statement. The percentages of agreement ranged from a high of 71 percent in Poland to a low of 41 percent in Spain.



Chatham House concluded that the survey results suggest that public opposition to any further migration from predominantly Muslim states is by no means confined to Trumps electorate in the U.S. but is fairly widespread.

Proof that there's Europeans who agree with Donald Trump's special ban on entry from Muslim majority regimes. The Daily Caller (via Jihad Watch ) says:It's clear there's Europeans out there who've come to recognize the evil that's part and parcel with Islamism, and they've had enough. And hopefully, they'll have had enough of the politicians who've been allowing this as well.

Labels: Europe, France, germany, immigration, islam, Italy, jihad, londonistan, political corruption, Spain, terrorism, United States
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PHOENIX  Unable to push through a cap on university tuition hikes to control spending, a state lawmaker said she wants to require schools to offer what amounts to a "stripped-down'' degree.

Sen. Sylvia Allen, R-Snowflake, acknowledged Wednesday she cannot marshal the votes for her plan to limit year-over-year increases to 2 percent. SB 1061 drew stiff opposition from the Board of Regents, who contended that the higher tuition is related to the cuts in state funding enacted by the Republican-controlled legislature.

In addition, NAU already offers a four-year tuition freeze to incoming freshmen  the rapid annual growth in tuition revenue recently is due mainly to higher enrollment, not the tuition rate.

But Allen, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, told Capitol Media Services she is now crafting other ways to cut the cost of higher education. And one of those is requiring universities to provide programs where students need take only the courses absolutely necessary to gain the particular skill set.

"They make them take a lot of classes that have nothing to do with the degree they're trying to get,'' Allen explained. "They could tighten that up a little bit so that there's less time at the university taking courses that don't necessarily apply to what it is you're trying to get your degree for."

So, for example, a student wanting a degree in journalism might need only 36 hours of journalism courses and perhaps some courses in English and political science. But much of the rest that fills out the 120 hours needed for a bachelor's degree, ranging from foreign language skills to sociology courses, would be optional.

The contention has been that a liberal arts education leads to a well-rounded individual.

"I've heard the arguments,'' Allen said. But she said she's not convinced that's appropriate for everyone.

"I believe that a student should choose,'' she said.

"Maybe you have a degree that's 'the well-rounded' degree because it shows that you took credits in other classes," Allen continued. "Great. But if a student wants to fast-track to be able to get a degree in journalism, that should be offered."

More to the point, she said that making such a program an option would be another way to make higher education more affordable.

Allen said there's no intent to trick either students or those from whom they seek a job.

"Your degree would just say that," she said, leaving it up to the would-be employer to decide if he or she wants someone with a full-blown liberal arts degree or someone who took only the minimally required courses.

Anyway, Allen said, she's not convinced that the academic courses are what make someone skilled in a profession.

"I think whether you're a good journalist or not is ... determined after you got out on the ground and started really doing it and the experience that you've had since then," she said.

There was no immediate response from Eileen Klein, president of the Arizona Board of Regents.

Despite the inability to get that 2 percent cap, Allen is pursuing some other options this session designed to help students.

One issue, she said, is that it's not fair for a student who enters school to be priced out because of a sudden increase.

She acknowledged that two of the state's three universities have some form of a four-year tuition guarantee. Allen said, though, that testimony provided when she first heard SB 1061 last month shows that these are flawed because they fail to include a host of non-optional fees, including special charges for classes a student is required to take.

At NAU, tuition for 2016-17 is $9,746 and mandatory fees amount to $1,018 more. With other charges for room, board and transportation, it is estimated that a school year enrolled on the Mountain Campus costs $26,096 for state residents, $39,476 for nonresidents.

So she is now recrafting the legislation to make that guarantee more inclusive. No date has been set for a new hearing.

What Allen is doing is separate from a proposal by Rep. Mark Finchem, R-Oro Valley, to reduce the Arizona Board of Regents to a strictly advisory role and set up a separate governing board for each university. Finchem said that will promote more efficiency and cooperation.

His HB 2359 had been scheduled for a hearing earlier this week but was postponed after Finchem said everyone who wanted to testify could not be present. It is now set for this coming Tuesday.
UK govt 'does not believe' in second Scottish referendum

AFP, London :

The British government "does not believe there should be a second referendum" on Scottish independence, Prime Minister Theresa May's spokeswoman said Wednesday, following reports that she is making contingency plans for another vote.

Speculation is mounting that Scotland First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will declare her intention to hold a rerun of the September 2014 vote, as a poll published Wednesday revealed rising support for independence ahead of Britain's departure from the European Union.

"We don't believe that there should be a second referendum. There has been a referendum, it was clear, decisive, it was legal, and both sides agreed to abide by the results of that referendum," May's spokesman told journalists on Wednesday.

Downing Street was responding to a report that it had told Scottish newspaper The Courier it was holding "contingency" talks to deal with a referendum announcement.

Scotland rejected independence by 55 percent in 2014, but 20 months later it voted to remain in the European Union by 62 percent, sparking calls for a fresh vote. The battle over Scotland's constitutional future is now almost an even split, according to a new poll released Wednesday.
BARISAL: Students of Govt BM College brought out a procession on the campus demanding immediate election of college students union on Wednesday.
Te amo Valentino

Barrister Miti Sanjana :

Valentines Day is a time to celebrate romance and love. Valentines Day (or Saint Valentines Day) is observed on each February 14, by exchanging notes of affection, love, and devotion around the entire world.

The lovers celebrate Valentines Day by giving flowers, candy and cards to the loved ones. It is time to brush up on the origins of this festival and Valentines history!

In Roman mythology, Cupid (meaning desire in Latin) is the god of desire, affection and erotic love. Cupids Greek counterpart was Eros. Cupid is the son of Venus, goddess of love who was also a messenger of Venus. He is also known as Amor (meaning love in Latin). Cupid appeared as a winged infant carrying a bow and an arrow. This arrow is known as love arrow which wounds both gods and humans causing them to fall in love. Cupid is often referred as an icon of Valentines Day.

However, there are different versions of stories as to how the celebration of Valentines Day began. St Valentine was a priest during third century in Rome. There was an oppressive Roman emperor named Claudius II. Emperor Claudius II believed that single men made braver soldiers. He prohibited marriage for all young men serving in his army. St Valentine strongly protested his decision and went against him. When Emperor Claudius II found out such disobedience act of Valentine, he arrested and imprisoned him. Later the Emperor carried out the sentence of death.

There is another version of the story which states that Valentine was an imprisoned man. During the last few days of his life he fell in love with the jailors daughter who was his devoted student. Valentine was a very wise man. The jailer sent his daughter, Julia, to Valentine for lessons. The beautiful young girl was blind since her birth.

Valentine read many beautiful stories of Roman history to her. He described the beauties of world and nature to her. He was always there for Julia. The poor blind girl was becoming more and more curious about what was happening around her. Valentine was very happy to share whatever he knew with Julia who asked him thoughtful questions about nature, God and many more aspects of life. She was spellbound by his unique wisdom. His tantalizing verbal creations had made her more interested to learn and absorb knowledge from him. She was blessed and enriched by the wisdom radiated from him. She could see the entire world through his eyes. She was receiving the heartwarming one-on-one mentoring in the darkness of the small, confined and suffocating cell of the prison. She felt touched and healed somewhere deep inside by the kindness and love of Valentine. Tragically, the day of execution arrived.

Valentine became quiet as he contemplated his fate. He embraced the hangman's noose wholeheartedly for the sake of love. On the eve of his death he wrote Julia his beloved the last goodbye note and signed it From your Valentine.

His death sentence was carried out on February 14, 270 AD. He was buried at the Church of Praxedes in Rome. In the loving memory of Valentine, Julia planted a pink-blossomed almond tree near his grave which remains today as a symbol of affection, love, and devotion.

February has been declared as the month of love to celebrate romance, love, desire and devotion in the honor of Saint Valentine. He sacrificed his precious life for the sake of love but is still alive in millions of hearts.

(The writer is an Advocate, Supreme Court of Bangladesh

and an activist)


One gets life term for possessing phensidyl

BSS, Chittagong :

A Chittagong court in a verdict on Wednesday sentenced a drug trader to life term imprisonment for possessing 188 bottles of contraband phensidyl.

Chittagong Divisional Special Judge Mir Ruhul Amin delivered the judgment convicting Mohammad Idris, 40, hailed from Doulotpur village of Feni Sadar area.

Court sources said a team of Narcotics Control Department arrested Idris with 188 bottles of phensidyl from his shop at city's Pologround area on October 22, 2015.

Later, Osman Kabir, inspector of NCD, filed a case against Idris for possessing and peddling phensidyl at his shop. After submission of the charge sheet, the court framed charges against him on January 10, 2016.

The court examined a total of four prosecution witnesses in the trial process and ordered to send the convict person to jail, court sources added.




Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina addressing the National Imam Conference and National Juvenile Cultural Competition at Bangabandhu International Conference Center in the city on Thursday.
Now entering its fifth year, the Flagstaff Watershed Protection Project, or FWPP, is poised for a major ramp-up in forest thinning activities in 2017. And much of the work will be taking place next door to Flagstaff neighborhoods as well as throughout popular recreation areas.

Starting this spring, forests in the Dry Lake Hills area near Rocky Ridge and Schultz Creek trails, along the base of Mount Elden near upper Fourth Street and on Observatory Mesa west of the Lockett Park neighborhood will see a combination of mechanical logging and hand cutting with chainsaws .

(Thinned acreage) has been climbing and should climb dramatically this year, said Mike Elson, district ranger with the Forest Services Flagstaff Ranger District.

According to plans laid out by the Forest Service and the city of Flagstaff, at least 1,300 acres, and potentially more than 1,800 acres will be treated on city, state and National Forest land this coming year.

That will be about 50 percent more than the 885 acres that were thinned on city and National Forest land within the 15,300-acre project area in 2016, which was the first year that substantial acreage was completed.

Elson said that despite some delays from loggers who were supposed to begin work last fall, the Forest Service is still in the ballpark of its original estimate that FWPP forest treatments will happen over an eight- to 10-year timeline. The project, which is financed in part by a $10 million bond approved by city voters in 2012, calls for both thinning and the use of prescribed fire in ponderosa forests across the Rio de Flag and Lake Mary watersheds to reduce the risk of severe wildfire and subsequent flooding.

Thinning specifics

Hand-thinning crews working with chainsaws will start cutting smaller-diameter trees in March or April along the base of Mount Elden and in the lower Dry Lake Hills area.

Sometime in late summer, mechanical thinning will begin on more than 600 acres mostly along the southern and western base of Mount Elden near Buffalo Park and the Swiss Manor neighborhoods. The contractor, Arizona Lumber Products, has until the end of December to finish that work, Elson said.

Trails in these areas will likely be closed for some parts of the year. Those potentially affected include Schultz Creek, Rocky Ridge, Upper Oldham, Lower Oldham and Brookbank trails. An interactive map on the FWPP website will show those closures.

Logging equipment also will begin rolling into a 400-acre segment of Observatory Mesa sometime after May, said Matt Millar, FWPP operations specialist with the city of Flagstaff. The Observatory Mesa Trail could be closed for parts of the work, he said.

The thinning will aim to create a forest structure and degree of openness similar to other parts of the mesa that were thinned last year, Millar said.

Later in the fall, more mechanical thinning will pick up between Schultz Pass and Freidlein Prairie roads. So far, 263 acres have been thinned of the nearly 900-acre Orion task order, said Jessica Richardson, FWPP project manager with the Forest Service.

As for cable and helicopter logging, the Forest Service is in the midst of marking trees to be cut during those operations and plans to issue contracts for the work this summer, Elson said. Actual cutting likely wont start until summer of 2018, he said. It could take between two and four years to complete that work.

In addition to organizing mechanical and hand thinning for the watershed health project, the Forest Service is overseeing monitoring work in the FWPP area, Richardson said.

The Forest Service is doing annual check-ups on the endangered Mexican spotted owl habitat areas within FWPP and is installing gauges that will measure precipitation and waterflow through drainages, she said.
Normalising hate politics

Paul Simon :

On 24 September, federal elections will be held in Germany. The right-wing party AfD, which in recent months has been polling consistently well above 10%, will almost certainly enter federal parliament. Merkel will in all likelihood remain in power but the rise of the far-right has already shaken Germany's politics.

About a month ago, a "strategy paper", adopted by the national leadership of the AfD was leaked to the press, providing us with an insight into what to expect in the coming months. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung summed it up: "The more the AfD will be stigmatised, 'the more positive the image of the party will be'", the paper says.

In order to push the boundaries of political discourse, the AfD wants to rely on provocation. Statements must be carefully calculated, with two different audiences in mind: the media and general public must be outraged by the shrieking dog-whistle provocation.

But for sympathisers it must be possible to decode the message as innocent, normal even, so that the media's reaction will in turn appear hysterical and irrational - an oppressive establishment's attempt to shut down a critical voice.

All this is done to polarise society more and the end goal is to normalise reactionary and hateful politics.

In order to play this game effectively, it helps to be an opportunist, a demagogue with neither scruples nor strong personal convictions - which may be the reason that the ex-liberal Donald Trump excelled at it.

It is also a strategy that reflects the ambiguity at the heart of the success of the AfD, a party that harbours its fair share of extremists but still finds support among many "ordinary" conservatives outside of radical milieus.

It seems clear by now that Bjorn Hocke's recent speech, in which he called for "a 180 degree turn in our politics of memory" may have been similarly designed as a provocation. All too early and well-prepared were the follow-up explanations he offered, in which he began to relativise his statements. Hocke was "surprised" by the reactions, he wrote. "In my speech, I merely wanted to question the way in which we Germans look back on our history, and how our history can create a sense of identity in the 21st century."

Alas, this time it didn't work. With great relish, even some of his rivals stuck in the knife, declaring him a "liability" for the party. The first and most vocal was MEP Marcus Pretzell, the husband of party leader and Hocke-rival, Frauke Petry.

But even supporters shook their heads over Hocke's clumsiness, worrying about how this might impact election chances. Only his closest allies stood by him.

The party itself is not really divided, but its leaders clearly are. Hocke is the charismatic figurehead of the ultranationalist wing, which dominates the eastern states and is closely connected to anti-immigrant street movements.

Frauke Petry, on the other hand, has gained control over the party but is by no means powerful enough to marginalise her opponents.

Hocke, after all, is popular with the base, and often holds rallies drawing a few thousand people. The two factions don't disagree about the (vague and contradictory) program of the party, but they do have different conceptions of their historical role. Petry and her allies are seeking to establish a modern far-right party following the model of the Austrian FPO or the Front National in France, which have become "normal" parties competing for power.

Hocke and his allies in the "New Right", however, have loftier, almost revolutionary goals. To them, the nation is in existential crisis. Only a radical break, an "absolute victory", as Hocke put it in his speech, can save it. Their ideology and style is harkening back to older political traditions, most importantly the national-revolutionary and anti-liberal politics of the Weimar Republic.

In Hocke's words, their party constitutes "the last evolutionary and peaceful chance for Germany" and he has always demanded that the party must position itself "in fundamental opposition" and remain a "movement party" connected to other forms of resistance. He implores it not to be corrupted by the moderating forces of day-to-day politics.

His decision not to stand for federal election can be read as a victory of his nemesis Petry - but it may also reflect the conviction by Hocke and his allies that parliamentary politics ultimately are secondary.

What counts is to agitate, to bring down and discredit the establishment and the government, and ultimately to transform the political culture. The change must be fundamental.

The new nationalists want to leave the past behind, they say, and found a new, confident patriotism but they remain obsessed with the German defeat and its subsequent status of submission to the West.

To remember national crimes, but not national glory, is to Hocke only another sign of this. Instead, he wants Germans to think of themselves as victims: "With the bombardment of Dresden and other German cities, they wanted nothing short of robbing us of our collective identity. They wanted to destroy us root and branch, they wanted to rip out our roots. And combined with the systematic re-education begun in 1945, they almost achieved it."

This is a reading of history generally reserved for neo-Nazi revanchist. Smart rightwing politicians know that, if they want to build a majority for xenophobia in Germany, their best bet is to stay away from history, and instead present themselves as a modern, forward-looking movement, at peace with the constitution and the post-war order.

But to the wounded nationalism espoused by Hocke and his allies, this post-war order itself is precisely the problem. The rot, they believe, has set in a long time before Merkel came to power.

In his speech, Hocke likened Angela Merkel to Erich Honecker, and his own movement to the resistance that brought down the communist state of East Germany.

Like the fascists of the 1920s, Hocke painted an apocalyptic picture of a nation in grave danger, surrounded by enemies and ruled by traitors, claiming "this is the terrible state of our nation, this is the terrible state of our people in the year 2017. I have always insisted, I have preached again and again, and I will do it again tonight, because it is so important: The AfD is the last evolutionary, it is the last peaceful chance that our fatherland has."

(Paul Simon is pursuing a master's degree in North American Studies at the University of Leipzig, and is a regular contributor to Souciant, in which this article first appeared).
Dr Kamal now well

Staff Reporter :

Eminent jurist and President of Gano Forum Dr Kamal Hossain has joined his office in Dhaka after completion of treatment at a Bangkok hospital.

An official of Dr. Kamal Hossain & Associates told

The New Nation on Thursday night that Dr Kamal is now fully cured. "He has already started his official activities. His health condition is well." Accompanied by his wife Dr Hamida Hossain, he returned home from Thailand by a flight of Bangkok Airways earlier on Tuesday.

He was received at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport among others, by general secretary of Gano Forum Mostafa Mohsin Montu, Mokabbir Khan, AOM Shafiq Ullah and Mostaq Ahmed.

Family sources said, he went to Thailand after completion of his professional work in the Netherlands. Later, he went to the hospital on December 29 last year for routine checkup.
Mystery to be debunked soon: Asad

Unb, Dhaka :

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan on Thursday said RAB members will soon unearth the mystery behind the murder of journalist couple Sagar-Runi.

I don't know about the progress of investigation into the Sagar-Runi murder case but hope RAB will dig out the mystery behind the murders after investigation, he said while talking to reporters after attending a welfare meeting of Armed Police Battalion, held in the city's Uttara area.

As per the directives of the High Court, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) is investigating the Sagar-Runi murder case and they have submitted the progress report on the case before the court, he said.

Maasranga Television News Editor Sagar Sarowar and his wife ATN Bangla senior reporter Meherun Runi were found dead at their rented apartment in the city's West Razabazar area on February 11, 2012.

On April 18, 2012, the High Court (HC) asked the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to hand over charge of probing the journalist couple murder case to RAB.

Replying to a question about the progress of probe into the killing of former police superintendent Babul Akhter's wife Mahmuda Khanam Mitu, the Home boss said, The investigation is going on and the probe report will be submitted within a few days.

Unidentified miscreants gunned down Mitu at the port city's GEC intersection as she went there to drop her son, Mahir Akhter, 7, for a bus to Chittagong Cantonment Public School and College on June 5, last year. In a query about the recent killing of a journalist during a clash between two associate bodies of Awami League in Shahjadpur, Asaduzzaman said, Legal action has been taken against those involved in carrying out such attacks, no matter whether he is a public representative or mayor.


Businessman stabbed, beaten

Staff Reporter :

Miscreants stabbed a man and snatched away his car in the city's Kalabagan area early Thursday.

The victim was identified as KM Rana, 32, a 'rent a car' businessman in the capital.

The incident of the hijacking the Toyota Corolla G model car took place near the Laaz Pharma in Kalabagan around 3:00am.

The victim was sent to Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DMCH), police said.

Quoting the relatives, DMCH Police Outpost Sub-Inspector Bachchu Mia, said, "Rana was sick last night. He bought medicine from Laaz Pharma and was resting in his car. Then someone knocked on his car's window. As soon as he opened the window, about six to seven miscreants stabbed him and beat him ferociously and left the spot safely with the car."

"The criminals came to him by a pickup van at night and asked for the car's key. Miscreants struck on Rana's back, head and legs when he refused to handover the key," the police official said.

A case was filed with the Kalabagan Police Station in this connection.


New CEC talking like `ruling party spokesman`: BNP

UNB, Dhaka :

Criticising Chief Election Commissioner-designate KM Nurul Huda for his reported remark that the parliamentary elections should be held under an elected government, BNP on Thursday alleged that he is talking like the 'ruling party spokesman'.

The new CEC has said Jatiya Sangsad election should be held under an elected government. The CEC who was one of the organisers of Janatar Manch is now speaking like the Awami League spokesperson. It's his usual attitude, said BNP senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi. Speaking at a press conference at BNP's Nayapaltan central office, he further said, People are in doubt how it will be possible to

conduct elections neutrally by such a person. Rizvi also came down hard on outgoing CEC Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmed for his comment that his Commission held January-5 election with the parties that believe in transpiring power in a democratic way through voting, saying his comments exposed how much 'Baksali' he was.

We've long been saying free and fair elections are only possible under a non-party election-time government. Or else, the polls will be unilateral like January-5 one, he observed.

The BNP leader alleged that police attacked their party leaders and activists and arrested many of them as they gathered near Matshya Bhaban and Ramna Park to welcome their chairperson who was secluded to go the Special Judge Court-3 at Bakshibazar.

Police charged batons, fired bullets on our leaders and activists and common people without any provocation, leaving many of them injured. We strongly condemn and protest the police attack, he said.

Rizvi demanded the government immediately release those were arrested from the area on Thursday.
3 envoys visit Rohingya camp in Cox`s Bazar

Blake terms crackdown in Rakhine state as genocide

Staff Reporter :

Foreign diplomats of three countries on Thursday visited the Rohingya refugee camp in Ukhia to observe the overall situation of the inmates there.

British High Commissioner Alison Blake, Canadian High Commissioner Benoit-Pierre Laramee and Australian High Commissioner Julia Niblett during their visit listened to horrific tale of Rohingya refugees.

They talked to at least 30 Rohingyas who narrated them about the barbarism of the Myanmar security forces during the crackdown.

Earlier in the day, they visited the Ukhia Health Complex. The envoys also had a meeting with ADC (general) Kazi Abdur Rahman.

Alison Blake termed the crackdown on Rohingyas in Myanmar's Rakhine state as genocide.

"It might be tantamount to genocide," she told journalists after visiting Rohingya refugee camps in Ukhiya of Cox's Bazar.

Blake said, the Rohingya refugees shared their experiences of torture, repression and mass killings by the Myanmar authorities.

"If their statement is true, it can be ascertained that the crackdown at Rakhine state is tantamount to genocide," Alison Blake said.

The British high commissioner, however, stressed the need for extending the international cooperation for protecting the lives and rightsf Rohingya people in Myanmar.

Earlier on January 29 and 30, a three-member team of Annan Commission visited two unregistered Rohingya camps in Ukhia and Teknaf while a nine-member delegation, led by US Ambassador Marcia Bernicat, visited Ukhia and Teknaf on January 31.
7 accused put on remand

Court Correspondent :

The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) Court of Dhaka on Thursday placed seven persons on a 3-day remand each in a case filed for killing schoolboy Adnan Kabir in Uttara area of the city.

Magistrate AKM Mainuddin Siddique passed the order when Investigation Officer of the case and also a Sub-Inspector of Uttara West Police Station Shaheen Mia produced them to the court seeking a 10-day remand for interrogation.

The seven suspects are: Shariar Bin Sattar, Raihan Ahmed Setu, Akhtaruzzaman Choton, Mahidul Islam, Jahidur Rahman, Selim Khan, Ibrahim Hossain and Mizanur Rahman Sumon.

The IO in his remand petition said that the suspects need to be remanded to carry out investigation and to nab their accomplices.

The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) on Wednesday arrested eight persons in connection with the murder of schoolboy. RAB officials said the arrests were made during overnight raids on Tuesday in Dhaka and adjacent areas. The eight suspects allegedly belong to 'Disco Boys' and 'Big Boss' gangs.

The victim, an eighth grade-student of the Trust School and College in Uttara, was hacked with sharp weapons at Road 17 of Uttara's Sector 13 on the evening of Jan 6. Adnan died at 6:30 pm at a hospital of the city.
Question paper leakage goes on

M M Jasim :

The question papeeakage in the ongoing Secondary School Certificate Examination-2017 is reportedly going on.

The photo copies of Bengoli Second Paper, English 1st Paper and 2nd Paper questions which have cent per cent similarities with the leaked question papers went viral on facebook and WhatsApp.

The students and the guardians expressed their deep concern over the question paper leakage and said that the continuation of leakage would shatter the total education structure. Guardians also complained that questions were routinely being leaked, but the perpetrators remain beyond justice. The relevant Ministries and Departments form probe committees, but none of their reports is ever released to the public.

A female SSC student wishing anonymity told The New Nation that she found a question paper on the facebook page named "Out Proshner Bazar" before the night of the English 2nd paper examination. She denied the question papers. But after starting of the examination, she found cent per cent similarities between the Board and facebook providing question papers.

"I never want to sit for the examination following leaked question papers. I want to write in the examination papers what my brain contains," she said.

A guardian, preferring not to be named, said, "If you go through some Facebook pages, you will get such questions. Then why doesn't the government take any action?"

"We are not sure whether the government measures to check the leak are enough. We are afraid about the fate of upcoming examinations," he said.

On Thursday, students took part in the English 2nd paper examination amid allegations of question leak on the night before.

When they checked with the original questions the following day, they found many questions including essay and unseen passages matched with the original ones.

The teachers also became astonished after getting the question papers yesterday.

A teacher of a renowned school in the capital said her students informed them about the question paper leakage. But she ignored it outright and challenged the students that it was impossible to leak any question. He was surprised after getting almost similar question paper yesterday.

On Sunday, students sat for their Bangla second paper examination amid allegations of question leak the night before.

They found many questions including essay and unseen passages matched with the original ones.

According to the sample question, students were asked to write on any of the two topics -- "Bangla Nababarsha" (Bangla New Year) and "Paribesh Dushon" (Environment Pollution) -- while the original question paper had the same thing, said a guardian of an SSC examinee from Uttara

The SSC and equivalent examinations began on February 2 with more than 17.86 lakh students taking the tests. The examinees took Bangla first paper on the first day.

Briefing reporters two days before the examinations, Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid had said, "Here is no possibility for the original question paper to be leaked..."

Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid said following the allegation of leak of English first paper question on Facebook, the officials of Dhaka Board checked with the original questions and became certain that the questions were not leaked.

"We are alert and our law enforcing agencies are continuing their monitoring," he said, requesting the parents and students not to go after the fake question paper.

Meanwhile, Dhaka Board Chairman Professor Mahabubur Rahman admitted the matter and said some members of the question paper leakage syndicate have been arrested. But he did not reveal the name of the perpetrators.

"This is a matter of investigation. It is also very difficult to find out the actual culprit. We are trying to search the root of the incident," he said.

There have been allegations of question leak in the SSC and HSC examinations in the past several years. In most of the cases, questions were leaked allegedly through Facebook and SMS. In 2014, a government inquiry committee found question papers of English second paper, and Mathematics second paper of the HSC examination under the Dhaka Board were leaked.
ACC men severely beaten at Sylhet DC office

Staff Reporter :

Staffs of Sylhet Deputy Commissioner Office on Thursday attacked the officials of Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) when they stormed their office to catch them with bribe money.

Ranjit Kumar Karmakar, Deputy Assistant Director, Wahid Murad Sohagh, official, Misbahudin Ahmed, constable and driver Biplob of ACC were injured in the attack.

As the condition of constable Misbahudin Ahmed is stated to be critical, he has been admitted to the Sylhet MAG Osmani Medical College Hospital.

Shirin Parveen, Director of ACC Sylhet office led the drive.

The staffs of Sylhet Deputy Commissioner Office also held the ACC officials hostage for three hours.

Being informed a special squad of police led by Rukon Uddin, Additional Police Commissioner and Sohel Ahmed, Officer-in-Charge of Kotwali police station rushed to spot and rescued them from the clutches of the Deputy Commissioner's staffs.

According to locals, Wakhil Chandra Sutradhar, owner of Payel Enterprise made a deal of giving Tk 20,000 in bribe to the Deputy Commissioner's office employee Azizul Islam for shifting his business establishment.

On Thursday afternoon when Wakhil Chandra Sutradhar went to Deputy Commissioner office for giving the bribe to Azizul, the ACC team caught him red handed.

As the ACC team wanted to go to meet the Deputy Commissioner, other staffs beat them up with iron rods.

"They beat us and snatched away our documents and seized money,"

Shirin Parveen, director of ACC Sylhet office told local journalists.




Giving cases is everything for imprisonment when bail is denied

THE High Court has asked for case documents of 20 accused and ordered concerned jail authorities to produce them before the court this month for hearing and why they should not be granted bail till the end of their trial. They are languishing in the jail from 18 years to 10 years out of 462 accused serving for over five years in prison till December last.



Case documents say one accused in Sunamganj jail, appeared before the District and Sessions Judge's Court 81 times in 13 years till November last year. Another was produced before the court 122 times in about 12 years till November last year and yet their trial remained unending.



As per statistics revealed by an official of the Supreme Court Legal Aid Office (SCLAO) at least 53 accused have spent more than 10 years in different jails and yet their trials have not ended. He made the disclosure while placing cases of 20 of those accused before the two Benches of the High Court early this week by legal aid panel lawyers. Meanwhile the court of Justice Obaidul Hassan and Justice Krishna Debnath taking the cases of 10 persons who are in jails in Mymensingh, Rajshahi and Khulna Divisions has asked the jail authorities to produce five of them before it on February 26 and five others on February 28 for review of their lower court papers.



The Court has also asked the lower courts, with which the cases are pending, to send the case documents by February 26. The Bench has issued a suo moto rule upon the government to explain within two weeks why the prisoners should not be set free on bail till the disposal of their cases by lower court.



The High Court Bench of Justice Md Nuruzzaman and Justice SH Md Nurul Huda Jaigirdar also gave almost similar order after another SCLAO lawyer drew their attention to the case of about 10 other accused. The Bench also asked the authorities concerned to produce the accused on February 23 and send the case documents by that date. It also issued the suo moto rule and asked the authorities to explain within one week why they should not be set free on bail.



Following media reports that many have long been in jails without being convicted, SCLAO on November 16 last year sent letters to the authorities of all 68 jails across the country seeking names and particulars of prisoners whose trials have long been going on. Most prisoners are languishing in jails at Pabna, Rajshahi, Mymensingh, Khulna, Natore, Jessore and other prisons.



We have been insisting that arresting a person must not be seen as convicted and to suffer in jail. What is happening is police justice. It is for the judges to save the judiciary.






PHOENIX  Volkswagen will have to stand trial in Arizona over the sale of diesel vehicles that were sold to state residents as emitting less pollution.

In an order made public Wednesday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Randall Warner acknowledged that violations of federally set emission standards can be handled only in federal court. And VW has admitted that its vehicles actually did produce more emissions than legally allowed.

But Warner pointed out that the lawsuit filed last year by Attorney General Mark Brnovich is not based on the failure of the company's vehicles to meet federal air quality standards.

Instead, he noted that Brnovich is charging the company deceived Arizonans into buying something that does not perform as advertised. And that claim, Warner said, falls not under federal law but the state's Consumer Fraud Act.

It is true that the alleged misrepresentations concerned emissions, the judge wrote.

But the Clean Air Act does not preempt all lawsuits relating to emissions, he continued, but only efforts by states to enforce federal pollution standards. Congress did not clearly manifest a purpose to preempt state law fraud claims merely because the subject of the fraud concerns emissions.

Warner also rebuffed a separate contention by Porsche, which is now part of the Volkswagen corporate group and made some of the engines at issue, that Arizona courts have no jurisdiction over the company.

The company acknowledged it marketed its cars to Arizona residents. But its lawyers argued that did not deliberately target Arizona consumers, pointing out this was part of a national campaign.

Warner sniffed at that contention.

A company that advertises with the purpose of selling its products to Arizona consumers has made purposeful contacts with Arizona, even if it also made purposeful contacts with the other 49 states, he wrote. To hold otherwise would mean no state has jurisdiction over deceptive nationwide marketing campaigns.

There was no immediate response from an attorney for the defendants.

The case surrounds the sale of vehicles with a special diesel engine that was advertised as having just a fraction of the emissions as similar cars. Buyers paid anywhere from $1,000 to $7,000 more than comparable vehicles.

But those low emissions were, in many ways, on paper only.

VW engineers had programmed each vehicle's computer to recognize when it was being tested for emissions. At that point, it would go into a low-power mode with sharply reduced pollution.

Once the test was over, the engine returned to full power. Only thing is, that mode produced more pollutants, including as much as 40 times the maximum allowable standards of nitrogen oxides.

VW has admitted what happened for the vehicles sold from 2008 to 2015. It pleaded guilty to charges brought by the Environmental Protection Agency and agreed to pay $4.3 billion in penalties. That's on top of $17.5 billion it is paying out to resolve civil lawsuits by customers and dealers.

In discussing the litigation last year, Assistant Attorney General O.H. Skinner said any relief VW provides to buyers does not override the state's interest in pursuing consumer fraud charges.

The statute specifically provides that when you willfully do this there's a penalty of $10,000 per violation, he said. Based on the estimated number of vehicles sold in Arizona, the AGs office has estimated the penalty could reach $40 million.

It doesn't matter if Volkswagen, years later, after the people bring lawsuits, decides to make Arizona consumers whole, Skinner explained. The point of the civil penalty ... is to prevent people from doing this in the future, tell people that you can't just do this and then get called out and then just scurry to try to make people whole and make the case go away.

This is the second time VW has been rebuffed in its bid to escape facing consumer fraud charges in state courts.

Last year, U.S. District Court Judge Roslyn Silver said the state's entire case is based on the contention that the German automaker knowingly and intentionally deceived Arizonans into buying diesel cars that were supposed to produce less emissions. In fact, she said, the company has admitted the engines burn dirtier than claimed.

What all that means, Silver said, is it is legally irrelevant whether VW did or did not violate federal clean air standards, the claim VW is making to have the case handled by her versus some judge in Maricopa County Superior Court.

She said the only issue is whether VW lied to Arizonans. And that, she said, does not require a federal court to decide.
Migratory birds needs protection

MEDIA report said arrival of migratory birds from snow covered Siberian lakes sees a boost in Hakaluki Haor this year along with many other birds sanctuaries in the country like Tanguar Haor as winter intensifies in the west.



This year the count is much bigger than last year's to say that Bangladesh offers one of the best staying places for the migratory birds until winter climate improves for the return of the birds to their original habitats. Birds have special sensors to know their destinations and fly over several days to reach the new place over thousands of miles to the East. Their choice for Hakaluki Haor is increasing, as environment-friendly aquatic trees are abundantly available in the vast water bodies spanning over six Upazilas of Moulovi Bazar and Sylhet districts.



We must say migratory birds are our guests and need to be protected. But we have also many mindless poachers who go on hunting the birds at night and kill them to eat a delicious fest. Some of these birds are also seen in ponds and water bodies in and around the Jahangir Nagar University and they are also not totally safe from the poachers. It is sad that many peddlers take such birds in city streets for push sale to show the terrible fate they face while taking shelter away from Siberian cold.



We know such poaching is illegal and yet some people are hunting them and others don't feel scared to bring them for sale in city centers. We must say the law enforcers must show their vigilance and officials of the Department of Environment must set up watch posts around such sanctuaries to make sure that poachers have no easy access to such birds' sanctuaries for hunting. It appears that such water bodies are totally unprotected to the whims of the bird hunters and the local administration must take effective steps to deny such access to birds hunters.



Our problem is that we have laws but their application is absent as powerful people break the laws. In our view only exemplary punishment such as detention and imposing fines on poachers can put signals to such lawbreakers that birds are also protected and they have no freedom to kill them. Cruelty to animals is not acceptable, least to migrant birds which travel thousands of miles for a safe winter stay.
It was a close vote Tuesday, just 51 to 50, but Betsy DeVos was confirmed by the Senate as the new secretary of education, and now we can get on with the rescue of our schools. The Obama administration was micromanaging them to death and Congress intervened, but there is far more to do and she will likely help do it.

To be someone nominated by President Donald Trump is to be embarrassed for life by critics, of course, and DeVos was not spared. The usual screeching told us she had all kinds of faults that disqualified her. Then the public, thinking our public schools were about to be burned to the earth while she danced around them, chipped in with thousands, maybe millions, of concerned emails, it was revealed by numerically confident senators of the Democratic persuasion.

The lambasting was largely hokum. DeVos has shortcomings, but mainly the critics did not like it that she is conservative, religious and rich, you finally figured out. The most pertinent data did not make its way into the minds of many who also managed to ignore the Obama record. So lets set things straight, both on the past administration and DeVos herself.

She is an exceptional woman. She has devoted her life to giving poor children possibilities denied them by too many public schools flunking their duties. Her chief answer is charter schools and public vouchers for private schools. To that end, her family has given large amounts of money to support organizations fighting for these causes and she has served in leadership roles of major groups herself.

Its said that charter schools dont work and just take money from public schools. But they are themselves public schools that largely escape the hindrance of teachers unions and have innovative approaches that have often paid off greatly. Not all charter schools soar anymore than all public schools just limp along, but we have known for decades that too many of our schools are malfunctioning and we are finding that charter schools offer real remedies, especially for the poor and minorities.

DeVos played a large role in expanding charter schools in Michigan, and critics say the consequences have been awful. Thats false. The Wall Street Journal points out that charter school students in Detroit do significantly better on state tests than those at regular public schools and that most of the top schools in the city are charter schools while most of the worst are the regular schools. The paper also cites a Stanford study showing charter schools appear to perform better statewide.

President Barack Obama, surprise, surprise, is a charter school fan, but he shut down a voucher school program in Washington, D.C., even though the federal government itself had shown it was improving reading skills. On top of that, his administration has played a dictatorial role in public schools, from curriculum, to what bathrooms and locker rooms students can use, to how students are disciplined.

Here is a major intervention because the administration assumes racism if minority students are punished more than white students and wont allow it. A consequence in some schools has been next to no discipline for some misbehaving students and utter chaos.

In 2015, both Democrats and Republicans in Congress acted to rein in the federal government in some areas, getting the education department out of Common Core, for instance, and allowing states to revise demoralizing, ineffective evaluations of teaching and school performance. It also updated a program helping to get charter schools started, seen as a crucial step in their expansion, quality enhancement and doing for students what they so desperately need.

National and international student tests indicate Obamas program called Race to the Top was more nearly a slide in the other direction, but now we have DeVos, surely no miracle worker but a common sense crusader who just may work with states to accomplish sensible goals.
B.I. Moody IIIs more than $8.2 million in contributions recognized in connection with 15th anniversary of the renaming of the college.

From left: B.I. Moody III; John T. Landry, former director of development at UL; and John Blohm, the university's vice president for advancement Photo by Doug Dugas

More than 100 UL Lafayette students, faculty, staff, alumni, friends and supporters honored the College of Business Administrations namesake, B.I. Moody III, in connection with the 15th anniversary of the renaming of the college.

At the Feb. 1 event, UL Lafayette President Dr. Joseph Savoie and Dr. Gwen Fontenot, interim dean of the college, gave welcomes before the unveiling of three bronze plaques that will be displayed permanently in the Moody Hall lobby.

The unveiling was followed by a presentation in an adjacent auditorium about the impact of Moodys contributions to the University, which total over $8.2 million, including a Moody Match program implemented in 2006.

We are elated to share in this celebration of Mr. Moody and his familys legacy. Many students have asked about him, so this was not only a way to honor him but a great way for the students to learn about his life. The highlight of his night was meeting students who introduced themselves and expressed their gratitude for his support, Fontenot said.

Moody, 91, is chairman of The Moody Company and of Louisiana State Newspapers Inc.

Moodys college career was interrupted by service in the U.S. Navy during World War II. After the war ended, he graduated from Southwestern Louisiana Institute (now UL) in 1949 with a bachelors degree in accounting. He is a founding partner in the CPA firm of Moody, Broussard, Poche & Guidry and later became president and CEO of Chart House Inc. in Lafayette and chairman of the board for First National Bank of Lafayette.

Moody has served on the boards of directors of many other companies, including First Commerce of New Orleans, Riviana Foods Inc., Celeron Oil Company Inc. and Quantum Restaurants.a
Charlie Goodson Photo by Robin May

In late January, the Louisiana Travel Promotion Association honored Charlie Goodson of Southern Hospitality Kitchens as Restaurateur of the Year and DoubleTree by Hilton Lafayette as Full Service Accommodation of the Year during its Annual Membership Meeting in Natchitoches.

This year, LTPA presented 17 Louey Awards to individuals and organizations making outstanding contributions to the Louisiana tourism industry.

Southern Hospitality Kitchens owns Charley G's, Social Southern Table & Bar, The Tap Room and Pete's.

This is great recognition for our area, and we are proud of this years award winners. Charlie Goodson has been a fixture in the restaurant scene for nearly 40 years, and has been a mentor to many in the restaurant industry. He is always willing to lend a helping hand. He is also known for being the founder of Eat Lafayette, and has been a driving force behind the campaign, which has grown into a near three-month promotion with over 100 participating restaurants, said Ben Berthelot, President & CEO of Lafayette Travel.

In addition to the award winners being recognized at the Annual Banquet, Berthelot was named to the Executive Committee of the LTPA and will serve as treasurer during 2017.
Detail from photo by Andreas Schwarzkopf/Wikimedia

Republican lawmakers unraveling the details of Gov. John Bel Edwards' deficit-closing proposal said Tuesday they were concerned it contains too many short-term fixes and too few long-term cuts.

Edwards' plan, released a day earlier, recommends cutting about $60 million in state agencies and using more than $240 million in reserves and other financing to close the $304 million deficit for the budget year that ends June 30.

Lawmakers will consider the proposal in a 10-day special session that begins Monday, called by the Democratic governor to rebalance the budget.

REPUBLICANS WANT MORE CUTS

Rep. Lance Harris, leader of the House GOP delegation, said the state needs to cut its spending more deeply to compensate for economic declines across Louisiana, rather than patch its way through another budget year.

Rep. Lance Harris

"To me, all we're doing is kicking the can into next year again (with Edwards' plan)," Harris said. "You're perpetuating the overspending."

Rep. Jack McFarland, R-Jonesboro, said the cuts in Edwards' plan appeared to be "minimal." He questioned whether they would represent permanent savings to the $27 billion operating budget or short-term reductions like delaying hiring plans.

Edwards described the approach as responsible financial management, until the state can make long-term changes in its budget and tax structure in the regular legislative session that begins in April.

"To force cuts at this point in time, with this little time left in the fiscal year is very difficult for agencies to do, especially when heaped on previous cuts," said Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne, Edwards' chief budget adviser.

The governor's plan would use more than $119 million from Louisiana's "rainy day" fund and another $120 million in patchwork financing, dollars from better-than-expected tax and fee collections and other financing sources to fill gaps, rather than make cuts.

PROPOSED CUTS

Colleges, prisons, K-12 public schools and the state child welfare agency would be protected.

Of the spending reductions, cuts would hit the privatized charity hospital services. Money would be stripped from medical training programs. Caseloads would be increased for probation and parole officers in the Office of Juvenile Justice. A dental services program would be eliminated in New Orleans.

Planned road work wouldn't happen this year. Spending on outreach services for the homeless would be trimmed. Vacant jobs wouldn't be filled. Dollars planned for supplies, travel and equipment would be cut. Marketing plans and contracts in the state's economic development agency would be reduced.

Dardenne said some cuts would be permanent, offering long-term savings in later years, but others are only planned as temporary.

Wikimedia

RAINY DAY FUND

Whether to use the rainy day fund is shaping up to be the key debate of the session, requiring support from two-thirds of the House and Senate to tap into the savings account.

The fund topped $853 million eight years ago, but lawmakers siphoned off money from the fund repeatedly at the request of former Gov. Bobby Jindal to lessen budget gaps.

Now, some lawmakers  particularly Republicans in the House  say they've used the savings account too much and want to enact permanent changes to stabilize the state budget.

"Until I see real cuts, I'm a no" vote on the rainy day fund, McFarland said.

Rep. Paula Davis, R-Baton Rouge, also isn't convinced the savings account should be used.

"I don't like the Band-Aid approach," she said. "Never say never, but at this point, I just don't see it."

State senators seem more open to the idea.

"I anticipate that we'll approve the whole thing, and then maybe the House will do something different," said Senate Finance Chairman Eric LaFleur, D-Ville Platte.

Dardenne said if lawmakers don't want to use the rainy day fund, they need to devise a list of cuts. He believes they're going to have a hard time coming up with it.
Aggravated Assault

A woman was arrested for resisting arrest and four counts of aggravated assault which included attacking a police officer and a healthcare professional.

Bre Funk was arrested by police after instigating a fist fight at the West Glen Mobile Home Park located at 1450 W. Kaibab Lane.

According to the police report, Funk was seen hitting a man multiple times in the face and was arrested when she would not stop screaming and impeding the investigation. The woman was also reported as being extremely intoxicated and was sent to Flagstaff Medical Center.

While at the hospital Funk reportedly grabbed a nurse by the arm causing contusions.

She then said she felt sick and spit in the officers face when he offered her a bag to throw up in.

DUI

 Karan Patel, a Flagstaff resident, was arrested Friday on suspicion of DUI.

City and county residents who want to report a crime but wish to remain anonymous may call Silent Witness at 774-6111 or (877) 29-CRIME, submit a tip online at www.coconinosilentwitness.org, or text the word Flagtip along with your information to 274637 (CRIMES). Rewards of up to $2,000 are given for information that leads to an arrest.
The best bang for your buck! This option enables you to purchase online 24/7 access and receive the Sunday, Tuesday & Thursday print edition at no additional cost * Print edition only available in our carrier delivery area. Allow up to 72 hours for delivery of your print edition to begin. Print edition not available for Day Pass option.
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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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.

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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.

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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.
CARBONDALE  The American Automobile Association office at 1348 E. Main St. in Carbondale, the motor clubs sole location in the immediate region, will permanently close at the end of business on Feb. 17.

Michael J. Right, vice president of public affairs with AAA Missouri, said the decision to shutter the facility stemmed from changing demand.

The need for brick-and-mortar facilities is diminishing, not only for us, but you see that in many businesses, Right said.

The majority of AAAs services are available through the companys website, by phone or through the AAA mobile app, leaving little need for a physical location, Right said. Local club members will only lose services that require a persons physical presence, such as passport photographs.

The local AAA club will still be offering insurance sales agents to provide homeowners and automotive insurance; those agents will be working out of other offices.

The closure of the Carbondale facility could pose a problem for travelers looking to obtain International Driving Permits for the purpose of driving in foreign countries. AAA and the American Automobile Touring Alliance are the only agencies that provide those permits.

That service will still be available at AAAs other offices, the nearest being in Paducah and in Cape Girardeau.

Books and travel maps will still be available through AAAs website or by phone, and many of the printed materials are available for download online.

AAA has operated from several locations in the Southern Illinois region over the years and first made the move to Carbondale in 1997. The organization has occupied the office next to the AMC University Place 8 movie theater since January 2013.

The small Carbondale office employed two travel counselors and was the least-visited AAA facility in the entire Mid-America network, Right said.

We have enjoyed servicing people in Carbondale area, and its certainly going to continue  its just going to be in a different mode, he said.
A missing 15-year-old was found in Carbondale on Wednesday but has since run away again, the City of Carbondale Police Department said in a news release.

Officers located Damari R.S. Cross at about 2:30 p.m. Wednesday. He was found to be in good health, but ran away again after he was returned to his family.

He was last seen at about 11 p.m. Wednesday in the 600 block of East College Street.

Cross is described as a black male with brown eyes and black hair. He weighs about 125 pounds and is about 5 feet 6 inches tall, and he was last seen wearing a gold jacket, black pants with multiple gold zippers and red shoes.

He may be attempting to return to other family members living in Chicago, police said.

Anyone with information on Crosss whereabouts is encouraged to call the Carbondale Police Department at 618-457-3200. You can also call the Carbondale/SIU Crime Stoppers anonymous tip line at 618-549-2677 or the Murphysboro/Jackson County anonymous tip line at 618-687-2677.

The investigation is continuing.

 The Southern
MURPHYSBORO  Employees of Abbey Ridge Brewery and Tap Room were treated to dinner at 17th Street Barbecue on Wednesday, Feb. 8, evening during Abbey Ridge Friends and Family Night at the restaurant. A portion of the entire days proceeds also were donated to the brewery, which suffered a devastating fire early Feb. 1.

For Abbey Ridge co-owners Terri Addison and Cindy and Phil Royster, it was an emotional evening, filled with both tears and laughter.

Weve mourned and sobbed and cried. You come to a point where its not going to change anything, so you move on, Addison said.

The business employs 25 people, most of them part-time.

Our employees are getting over their initial shock and horror. Their second home is gone, Addison said.

The proceeds from the fundraisers will go to help support the brewerys employees until the business reopens, especially part-time employees. Some of the full-time employees have been able to collect unemployment.

Theyll all have a job when we reopen, Addison added.

Addison hoped whats left of the building will be released to the owners Thursday. They cannot begin demolition until the building is released. The building is a total loss. Even the concrete was compromised by the fire, Addison said.

We have seen such monumental growth (in two years) and have such an awesome community that we have no other choice but to rebuild, Addison said.

The brewery community has reached out from as far away as Kentucky and Tennessee. Even breweries in California, where Addison has family, are talking about the fire.

Addison and Cindy Royster said they were very humbled by all the support and filled with overwhelming gratitude for those who have helped.

Laurie Neef and Mike (Mills) have been the biggest morale boosters, Addison said.

For Neef, Mills and the rest of the crew at 17th Street, helping is all about community and supporting one another.

If we dont help each other, what are we? Mills said.

Mills added that Neef organized the event. On Tuesday evening, Neef helped seat guests, deliver food and drinks and clear tables.

For now, Addison and the Roysters will turn their attention to rebuilding.

Abbey Ridge 2.0  coming soon, Addison said.
A Carbondale man has been sentenced to serve three years in prison after pleading guilty to the charge of unlawful use of a credit card, Jackson County States Attorney Michael C. Carr announced Thursday.

On Oct. 8, 2016, Charles Brooks, 27, used a credit card belonging to another person, without permission, to buy items at Walmart in Murphysboro. Deputies with the Jackson County Sheriffs Office identified Brooks as perpetrator after reviewing video surveillance footage.

Brooks was sentenced to serve three years in the Illinois Department of Corrections followed by one year of mandatory supervised release.

The states attorneys office noted in a press release that Brooks meets the eligibility requirements to be placed in the Illinois Impact Incarceration Program, an intervention program intended to promote lawful behavior in criminal offenders.

The Jackson County Sheriffs Office oversaw the investigation. Assistant States Attorney Rebecca L. Blomer handled the prosecution.

 The Southern
The Southern Illinois University Carbondale Department of Public Safety is investigating a report of an armed robbery that an individual told police took place on Tuesday on campus during a drug transaction.

The individual told police that the incident took place around 11 p.m. Tuesday in SIU Lot 14, at 1200 S. Washington St. The incident was reported to SIU police the next day, on Wednesday, at 5:11 p.m., the department stated in a news release.

The suspect, unknown to the victim, was with two other males. Taken from the individual was $80, and an iPhone 6. No other details were provided about the suspects, except it is noted that they left the scene in a vehicle for which no description was available.

If anyone has information about this crime or has witnessed other crimes in this area or on campus, please call the SIU Department of Public Safety at 618-453-3771.

 Molly Parker
SPRINGFIELD  When it comes to the complex, politically prickly topic of overhauling public school funding in Illinois, lawmakers and Gov. Bruce Rauner's office can't even agree on who should take the first step.

Democrats who run the Senate Education Committee told Rauner's education adviser Thursday that the Republican governor should draft legislation to reflect recommendations from a school funding report released last week. The adviser, Beth Purvis, countered that the plan should come from the Legislature.

The two sides agree that the formula for financing public education should be changed to ensure poorer districts receive more financial support from the state. The recommendations, which come from a commission created by the governor, said that Illinois must assess how it supports schools on a district-by-district basis but didn't indicate how legislators could accomplish this.

Sen. Andy Manar, a Bunker Hill Democrat and commission member, suggested the governor's office should translate the findings into legislation.

"How do we make sure that this report doesn't just get plopped on the heaping pile of reports that are somewhere in the basement of this building?" he said.

Purvis responded that writing legislation is "usually the job of the General Assembly" and explained Rauner would use the commission's report to assess any education funding proposals that cross his desk.

But Manar remained concerned about how long it could take for the report's recommendations to make an impact on schools without input from everyone involved. He pointed to one school district the commission reviewed where each student could expect just $280 in additional funds under the initial funding increase the committee assumed.

"A student in that district who enrolls in kindergarten will be out of college before that district is adequately funded," he said.

Sen. Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant of Shorewood, the committee's Democratic chairwoman, agreed with Manar and pointed out to Purvis that anyone can write legislation. It just has to be introduced by a lawmaker.

"If we have a framework designed through the governor's office, we may be able to come to a quicker consensus," Bertino-Tarrant said.
Donald Trumps promise to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border is back in the news. Technically speaking, hes really promising to finish a project thats already well underway. Construction began in 2006, right after passage of the so-called Secure Fence Act. Some 650 miles of that 2,000-mile border, or about a third, have now been walled off.

Trump, in other words, is not exactly a visionary on this topic, although his fantasy of sending Mexico the bill for it has to be given some points for originality.

For that matter, the whole idea of border fences and separation walls is nothing new. Powerful nation-states have long been tempted to build them even though they cost a fortune, seldom accomplish their supposed objectives, and are on a moral par with concentration camps and black interrogation sites.

Here are a few examples from history:

Great Wall of China: As many know, the ancient Chinese built a wall that eventually stretched so large and long that 2,000 or so years later, American astronauts could see it from the moon. Its presumed to have been for protection. But as one scholar, Rhio Laurisaar, has observed (and most others agree) if its purpose was to keep invaders from the north away from China, the Great Wall has failed miserably.

Hadrians Wall: Built by the Roman emperor Hadrian in 122 A.D., this one was a mere 80 miles long, but it spanned Northern England from the North Sea to the Irish Sea. The purpose cited by Hadrians biographer has a familiar ring to it: to separate the Romans from the barbarians." We all know how that turned out.

The Warsaw Ghetto: In 1940, Nazi Germany created an open-air concentration camp around Jewish Warsaw by building a wall completely around it. Ten feet tall and topped with barbed wire, it literally concentrated effectively imprisoned some 4,000 Jews. Those Jews, of course, were also portrayed by their conquerors as barbarians and terrorists. The story of the courageous uprising in Warsaw against the Nazis was well-told in a excellent work of historical fiction by John Hersey. The title, appropriately, was The Wall.

The Berlin Wall: And there was, of course, the much despised Berlin Wall, built by Communist East Germany, the tearing down of which was celebrated as marking the end of the Cold War.

And so, with separation walls having such an infamous history, you might think that modern countries would be embarrassed to build any more.

Yet nation-states go right on doing just that. Even in this age of globalized trade and instant worldwide communication, there are presently no fewer than 50 international border walls.

The longest modern one, at 1,700 miles, belongs to Morocco. It effectively imprisons the Sawahiri people of Western Sahara, which Morocco has cynically occupied since the mid-1970s. And it prevents several thousand 1970s and 80s era war refugees from returning to their homelands and families. Small wonder its widely called The Wall of Shame.

Equally shameful is the one Saudi Arabia built on its entire border with Yemen. This one, among other things, divides families and usurps the rights of sheepherders to graze their animals as they had done for untold centuries before.

And no mention of modern walls would be complete without mention of the one built by Israel, which winds its way some 440 miles through and around numerous Palestinian communities on the Jordan Rivers West Bank. Folding back on itself like a large intestine, it effectively entraps several hundred thousand innocent people in a string of twenty-first century ghettoes. The purported purpose  it goes without saying  is protection from barbaric Palestinians.

So we ought to ask ourselves something before proceeding along our own southern border: Why in the world would the U.S. want to join the likes of Nazi Germany and others whose walls were more barbarous than the barbarians they supposedly kept at bay?

The answer, I fear, is that empires cant stop themselves from self-destructive behavior. Or, as British author Rory Stewart observes in a recent book about Hadrians Wall, such things are done because empires need adversaries and civilizations need barbarians.
Tuesday was a beautiful late spring day in Southern Illinois.

A humid morning mist cleared in favor of picturesque blue skies by lunchtime, so I walked downtown for an afternoon meeting. The wild wind whipped my hair and the warm sun felt like a hug on my arms, bare from the elbow down as a I rolled my sweater sleeves up. Auto shop garage doors and glass doors on shops were thrown open to the fresh air.

Just one problem. It was Feb. 7.

On a hike this past weekend, on a 50-degree February Sunday, I spotted a harbinger of spring in bloom, its tiny white petals peeking out from the leaf litter.

Its not exactly record-breaking. According to the National Weather Service climatology data for Paducah (the office that serves Southern Illinois), the warmest high temperature recorded in February was 78 degrees on Feb. 13, 1962. The warmest its been on Feb. 7 was 66 in 2013.

Harbingers of spring have been known to pop up in February.

I know, one warm day and one blooming flower does not a pattern make.

A Feb. 2 Associated Press story said Januarys temperature was 5 degrees above normal in Illinois. And this past January was the states 14th warmest ever. According to the state climatologist with the Illinois State Water Survey, 2016 was our state's fifth warmest year on record.

According to a Jan. 18 story in Scientific American, for the planet, 2016 was the hottest year in 137 years of record keeping and the third year in a row to take the number one slot, according to NASA and the NOAA. The article also cites NOAA data that show the contiguous United States had its second warmest year on record in 2016.

An Associated Press story last month discussed the finding in a study by a NOAA and Princeton University meteorology researcher that said the earth will have about 10 fewer milder days  those pleasant days like Tuesday  by the end of the century. The U.S. will lose nine picture-perfect days, but will gain some of those days back in the winter, spring and fall.

President Trump once tweeted that climate change was a concept created by China. On Monday, about 300 people rallied outside the Environmental Protection Agency regional headquarters in Chicago to voice displeasure with Trumps pick to lead the EPA, Scott Pruitt, who has sued the agency more than a dozen times as Oklahoma's attorney general. It's not clear where Trump stands on the Paris Agreement, in which global leaders made a pact to reduce emissions in order to combat climate change.

Climate change is a hot-button political issue in the U.S., and in Southern Illinois, where federal and state energy regulations are often blamed for the loss of coal industry jobs.

And on Wednesday, several Republican officials, including people who served with the Bush and Reagan administrations, went to the White House to seek support for a carbon tax that would ease the effects of climate change. Jim Baker, who was secretary of state during George H.W. Bush's presidency, said the group knows "we have an uphill slog to get the Republicans interested in this."

While we argue about whether or not we should be afraid of Muslims, or whether banning people from Yemen coming to our country will keep us any safer, the planet warms. While we argue about whether taxpayer money should be funneled to vouchers for private schools, the sea levels rise. While we talk about how to make Illinois more competitive with neighboring states for job-creating businesses, an increase in flooding drifts on our horizon. While our new president, as one of his first actions in the White House, signs an executive order to reinstate the global gag rule  also known as the Mexico City policy  which prevents United States aid from going to groups overseas that even mention abortion, we are having one of the warmest winters on record.

These are all important topics. While we politick and argue, our climate is changing. And its only going to get worse.

The endless politicking, on a day like our sunny Tuesday, which saw Betsy DeVos confirmation as secretary of education, after a historic tie-breaking vote by Vice President Mike Pence, is enough to make the weary among us just enjoy the sunshine and go for a walk.
COLUMBIA -- The South Carolina State Library is presenting a photography exhibit of the works of Cecil Williams, an Orangeburg photographer, author, publisher and inventor, through Feb. 28.

The exhibit, titled "Unforgettable: Celebrating a Time of Life, Hope and Bravery," is a collection of 40 images providing a rare glimpse of events, portraits and moments of significant social change during the 1950s through the 1970s.

The images in the exhibit are a prelude to Williams newest publication, Unforgettable, which debuts March 2017.

The 40 large-format images fill the State Librarys entrance hall. The noble subjects and pioneers captured in Williams images also depict the unforgettable waves of change that impacted the world during that era. Although Williams images exhibited in the past mostly relate to the Civil Rights Movement, images in this exhibit depict and represent the heritage, culture and history of people he photographed during this 20-year period of transitional social change.

Recently, Williams announced the invention of the FilmToaster, a device platform for cameras that rapidly converts film into digital. The invention has been cited by many publications including USA Today, which labeled it, From chemical to digital: Bridging the photographic divide. All images in the exhibit have been digitized by Williams, university archivists and a team of five interns in a newly established lab located in the H.V. Manning Library. The digitization process began in October 2015 when Williams was appointed the director of historic preservation by Claflin University President Henry N. Tisdale.

Last month, Williams completed an artist in residency for Darlington County Schools, sponsored by the South Carolina Arts Commission and the South Carolina African American Heritage Foundation. At 12 p.m. on Feb. 13, Williams will also make a visual presentation of this exhibit at Russell House on the campus of the University of South Carolina.

In February 2016, Williams historic photos of the people involved in the Clarendon County Briggs vs. Elliott case were displayed in Charleston at the opening of Dock Street Theatre's "Seat of Justice" by Julian Wise, playwright founder and producer.

Williams is a member of the coveted American Society of Media Photographers and a Getty Images contributor, an honor attributed to only a select number of photographers worldwide. In January 2016, the South Carolina African American Heritage Foundation honored him with the prestigious Herbert A. DeCosta Jr. Trailblazer Award, an honor previously received by Congressman James E. Clyburn, Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin and Judge Matthew Perry.

Over the years, Williams photographs have appeared in thousands of publications and have been featured in galleries around the country. In 1996, he was the writer, producer and director of "Freedom and Justice," an 86-minute film documentary. His publication, "Freedom and Justice: Four Decades of the Civil Rights Movement As Seen By a Black Photographer of the Deep South," is one of the most comprehensive sources of photographs from that era.

In February 1994, Williams received a commendation from the S.C. General Assembly for the photographic exhibit "Quiet Heroes." In August 1995, he was selected by the S.C. Arts Commission to participate as artist-in-residence at William A. Perry High School in Columbia.

Williams received the Presidential Citation, awarded by Claflin President Henry N. Tisdale, for outstanding contributions to the college and community in October 1995. He was featured as one of four civil rights photographers in a 1996 screening of "Exposures of a Movement" at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte.

He was the featured presenter during the 2005 Martin Luther King Jr. program at Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. Other honors include the Freedom Fighter Award, presented in 1994 by the Orangeburg Branch NAACP; Outstanding Young Men of America; Whos Who in American Colleges and Universities; and the Martin Luther King Jr. Distinguished Service Award, presented in 2005 by Delta Zeta Lambda Chapter of Orangeburg Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. Williams is a member of the Delta Chi Boule of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity.

He is married to Barbara Johnson-Williams, a retired educator, adjunct professor and trustee board member of the Medical University of South Carolina.

There is no charge to attend the exhibit during the State Librarys normal hours from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

For more information, contact Ashley Till at atill@statelibrary.sc.gov or 803-734-8625.
Orangeburg City Council has agreed to join other groups in an effort to find money for road improvements.

Council unanimously agreed Tuesday to the payment of local contributions to the South Carolina Transportation Infrastructure Bank and the execution of an application for grant funds.

Its all designed to improve connectivity to I-26 and the port for economic development for our county, City Administrator John Yow said.

Mayor Michael Butler said the amount of the citys contributions cannot be disclosed at the present time, but he hopes the road improvements will spark infrastructure and economic development.

Our port is going to be one of the largest ports in the Southeastern region, Butler said.

Councilman Charles Jernigan said with the possibility of new businesses locating to the region, the surrounding roads will need to be able to accommodate the traffic.

Were just in bad need of repair, Jernigan said. If we get a lot of industry in here, were going to have a lot of truck traffic.

Butler added that widening roads in areas such as along Joe Jeffords Highway will cut down on bottlenecks and enable the roads to handle the capacity of traffic thats coming through Orangeburg.

I think its a great idea, Councilwoman L. Zimmerman Keitt said.

She said it will take everyone working together to move the city forward and is thankful for the efforts of Sen. John Matthews, D-Bowman.

We appreciate him, Keitt said.

In a recent County Transportation Committee meeting, the committee approved $1 million in matching funds for an effort led by Matthews.

Committee Chairman Dr. Jesse Kinard said the $30 million project will go toward roads and infrastructure repairs.

Committee members said the money could be matched 10-to-1, with local officials having a say in how the money is spent. If it does not work out, the money will be returned to the county, they said.

No further information is being given on the infrastructure project. Council is waiting on Orangeburg County Council to approve their participation in the project.

In other business:

Council approved third reading of an ordinance adopting amended electric and gas rates for the Department of Public Utilities. They are effective on March 1.

These are not rate increases, DPU Interim Manager Warren Harley said.

The amended electric rate provides a credit to customers who have solar panels. The customers are to receive about 3 cents per kilowatt hour in credit for the energy the systems generate and push back onto the system.

The rate reflects the industry standard for crediting customers only for the power generated and not for the cost of distributing the power.

The gas rate changes only affect DPUs larger utility customers and the gas transportation service. This will not have an effect on homeowners.

The larger the gas load, the more of a discount the companies will see.

Patty Horger appeared before council to voice her concerns about the use of land beside her Moore Road property as a dump after storms.

Over the past four years, the lot next to us became a dump, Horger said. After every big weather event, be it rain, ice, snow storms, hurricanes, Pin High dumped rubbish debris on this property.

Pin High, a company owned by Zeus, operates the Orangeburg Country Club and used the lot for debris.

Horger said that the property is a residential lot and instead of just grass clippings, branches or tree stumps from storm damage, she also witnessed plastic bottles being dumped, food boxes left by workers and workers urinating on the property.

She added that at times, the trash had reached heights above 10 feet, leading to an increase in rodents, snakes and roaches coming onto her property.

After city staff was notified, Yow said they made contact with Pin High.

We talked with staff associated with Pin High  Zeus  and they have been very cooperative, Yow said. That property has been cleaned.

He added that the company assured him they wouldnt use the lot in the future.

Heather Bernardo, project coordinator of the Filling Station/Into the Mouths of Babes, appeared before council to request $48,000 in funds to finish out the rest of the year.

For the past seven years, weve been serving 150 to 200 children at Mellichamp Elementary School, giving them food on the weekends, she said.

The two organizations now serve over 1,000 students from K-5 to 12th grade.

Bernardo said most of the money comes from private donations, which all goes directly toward purchasing food.

Butler said council would take the matter under advisement.

Margaret Tate of Diamonds Transitional Home appeared before council to request help from the city.

Were an organization that advocates for the homeless, for battered persons, for runaway teens, for disabled vets, for anyone with no place to call home, Tate said.

She wanted to know if council was working on plans toward helping the homeless population.

Butler said, We are very, very passionate about it. If one is homeless, its a problem for the entire city.

He added that council members will consider possible funding for the Diamonds Transitional Home.

Grit was proclaimed the character trait for the month of February.
Denmark will elect its mayor on Feb. 14.

Mayor Gerald Wright is being challenged by two opponents: Charles Bailey Sr. and write-in candidate Deanna Berry.

City Council members Jake N. Bookard, Bonnie H. Love and James J. Robinson are all unopposed for re-election. Since no write-in candidates are challenging them, they are automatically re-elected and their names will not appear on the ballot.

Voting will take place from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday.

Polling locations will be the East Denmark precinct at the Brooker Center, 19 Maple Ave., and the West Denmark precinct at the Old Train Depot, 18748 Heritage Highway.

Bailey could not be reached for comment.

Deanna Berry

I want to revitalize the city, Berry said. Im looking to be mayor because I want to help see the city grow.

Since moving to Denmark roughly four years ago, the Ridgeville native and Army veteran has taken up several roles in the community.

Four years ago when we moved to Denmark, I noticed there was great interest, especially in the school district, Berry said.

She joined Denmark-Olar High Schools School Improvement Council and later became president.

Berry said she has developed strong relationships with school officials and has a great rapport with the people of Denmark.

They know that I am the type of leader who will go after whatever is needed to be able to help the city, she said.

As mayor, Berry said she would have an open-door policy not only with the citizens but with other municipalities as well.

Im also looking to strengthen the relationship between Denmark and other cities within the county that make up Bamberg County, she said.

A key priority will be improving the water system in Denmark and bringing major industries into the area.

The current water system is not going to be able to satisfy the requirements for those industries to operate, Berry said.

She also wants to strengthen the relationship between law enforcement and the community, clean up abandoned houses and build a new park.

I want to build a better community park thats in a prime location, Berry said. She said the current park is in an area thats not easily accessed and has no signs to direct people.

Berry is a volunteer for over 10 civic organizations in Bamberg County and has created a non-profit organization which helped to equip 187 non-verbal and verbally challenged special needs children with free Android tablets customized to fit their verbal needs.

Were jumpstarting the heartbeat of Denmark, Berry said.

She hopes to bring employment to a city thats poverty stricken but rich in other assets.

Berry entered the U.S. Army after graduating from Harleyville-Ridgeville High School.

Gerald E. Wright

Wright is seeking a third term as mayor.

A lifelong resident of Denmark, Wright has held teaching and administrative positions with the local school district for over 35 years and was a City Council member from 1975 until 1992 when he was named superintendent of schools.

His election in 1975 made him the first African American elected to public office in Denmark and Bamberg County.

Ive dedicated my adult life to public service, he said. I have an interest in the quality of life in Denmark because this is where I stay and intend to stay.

Since his first run as mayor in 2009, he has completed various projects.

In his first term, Denmark successfully annexed Voorhees College and Denmark Technical College into the city limits. He said that brought in more federal funds, cutting the cost of utility bills for individual property owners in half.

Wright said the city has also been involved in continuous efforts to eliminate any problems with our water distribution system.

Two new wells were constructed, old water hydrants were replaced and old pipes were removed. The new pipes are larger and designed with loops, so there are no dead ends, to improve water flow.

Wright also noted the completion of the library, the addition of a splash pad for youth and the elimination of all long-term debts associated with the fire station.

Ive demonstrated the ability to perform in the interest of Denmark, Wright said. We have made continuous progress.

He added that there is a tremendous number of things that can be done but we will continue on a path of making progress and address any issue that impacts us.

Wright graduated from Morehouse College in 1965, received his masters from Howard University in 1972 and later went on to earn his doctorate in education administration from South Carolina State University in 1995.

He also serves on the board of the Lower Savannah Council of Governments and on the executive committee for the Municipal Association for South Carolina.
National Black HIV/Awareness Day was Tuesday but the need for all Americans -- and in particular African-Americans -- to know the reality of the disease does not diminish every day of the year.

Phill Wilson, president and chief executive officer of the Black AIDS Institute, offers insight:

In 1999, the first year this day was observed, HIV/AIDS was the leading cause of death among black men ages 25 to 44. It was also the year that I founded the Black AIDS Institute, the only national HIV/AIDS think tank focused exclusively on black people. Since then, countless individuals have invested their time, resources and passion to addressing the critical challenge of HIV/AIDS in black communities. While we have made incredible strides, black Americans continue to bear the greatest HIV/AIDS burden in the United States. While we represent only 12 percent of the U.S. population, 44 percent (19,540) of new HIV diagnoses in the United States were among black Americans in 2014. And, nearly two-thirds of those newly diagnosed live in the Southeastern United States.

I sometimes get criticized for saying AIDS in America is a black disease. I know black people are not the only people living with or at risk for HIV infection, but the numbers paint a clear picture. If current trends continue, one in 48 black women and one in 20 black men will be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetime. To put that in perspective, black men are six times more likely to contract HIV than white men, and black women are nearly 20 times more likely to contract HIV than white women. Black men who have sex with men face the highest risk with a 1-in-2 chance of being diagnosed with HIV in their lifetime. The progress we have made has been hard won, but race still matters.

Wilsons assessment alone is enough to show why HIV/AIDS is a major health issue in areas such as Orangeburg, Bamberg and Calhoun counties, with large African-American populations. But there is more evidence to be gleaned from S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control reports from recent years:

 The 11 Lowcountry counties that include Orangeburg, Bamberg and Calhoun account for a quarter of the total cases diagnosed in South Carolina.

 By race/ethnicity, among people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, nearly three-quarters are African-American, who have a rate about six times greater than whites in local counties.

 Among women diagnosed with HIV/AIDS locally, nearly 80 percent are African-American.

 Among men recently diagnosed in local counties, more than 70 percent are African-American.

 Nearly half the people living with HIV in the 11 counties are African-American.

"We know that more than 12,600 African-Americans in our state are living with HIV/AIDS," said Linda Bell, MD, state epidemiologist and director of DHEC's Bureau of Disease Control. "There are more, however, who have not yet been tested and don't know their HIV status.

DHEC encourages all persons to learn their status and gain access to the most appropriate system of care if they are infected. It is very important not to delay. Health care providers urge early testing so treatment can begin before people are too sick to benefit from it.

Bell said various tests are offered throughout the state in local health departments and with community agencies, including the traditional blood draw method and the rapid test, which provides preliminary results in less than one hour.

Locally, Shiheda Furse is community manager over at HopeHealth in Orangeburg. In addition to providing testing, the agency is targeting local college students for awareness. HopeHealth personnel plan to visit Voorhees College, Claflin University, Denmark Technical College and South Carolina State University.

We are hosting an event called Condom Casino, and its an educational event that promotes learning through game-focused activities for the students, she said, noting that free HIV testing is also provided.

Testing and awareness of HIV/AIDS remain important for all, but emphasis on reducing the number of effected African-Americans is vital to improving the health of our local population.

As Wilson of the Black AIDS Institute states: While there are many challenges, we can still end the AIDS epidemic. If we focus, stay prepared and never give up, we can do it.
A blog for students in my introductory classes in government, and any interested passersby. You'll find news items and random stories that illustrate any of the topics we cover in class. Special attention will be paid to the constitutional issues associated with contemporary issues and disputes. Feel free to send me stories you find important. Please note that due to spam, I'm limiting the ability of people to comment on these pages. My apologies.
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By Azernews





By Nigar Abbasova

The pharmaceutical industry of Azerbaijan is taking shape steadily as more foreign countries seek to enter the sector. VPS Healthcare Company became the latest company wishing to build a plant for manufacturing medicines in Azerbaijan.

The Abu-Dhabi based company signed a relevant MoU with Azerbaijan Investment Company on February 9. The document envisages cooperation of the sides in the sphere of joint production of medicines, which will meet all international standards.

Prior to the signing ceremony, Azerbaijani Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev met with the Director of the Healthcare Company Shamsheer Vayalil.

Mustafayev gave an insight in investment and business environment of Azerbaijan, saying that the work is underway to establish a sustainable pharmaceutical industry in the country.

Vayalil, in turn, said that Azerbaijan has a good potential for developing the sphere, noting that his company is highly interested in cooperation.

VPS Healthcare runs a fully integrated healthcare business and operates some 20 clinics, as well as 13 hospitals and recreation centers in different countries of the world.

The company plans to cooperate with Azerbaijan in the spheres of healthcare, management and production of pharmaceuticals, Mustafayev told reporters after the meeting.

We agreed to build a pharmaceuticals production plant in Azerbaijan and preliminary documents have been signed. After our experts make an in-deep analyses, they will hold other necessary negotiations on the construction of the plant, said Mustafayev.

In late 2015, the government announced that Azerbaijan will create its own enterprises that will manufacture medicines to cease dependence on imports.

A lions share of medicines is currently being delivered from abroad. Import of drugs increased some 20 percent in 2016 as compared to 2015, with some 80 percent of drugs being imported from the European countries and the remaining part falling to a share of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.

Within the next three years, a number of pharma plants are expected to be put in operation in the country. A groundbreaking ceremony for the Azerbaijani-Russian joint pharmaceutical plant Hayat Pharm was laid in early November 2016. The enterprise is planned to produce some 80 types of medicines, turning the country into a manufacturer of high-quality medicines within two years. Some $74 million will be invested in the project.

A foundation stone for the Azerbaijan-Iran pharma plant was laid in the Pirallahi Industrial Park early this year. The construction of the plant will take around a year and a half, while the plant will start producing 84 kinds of medicines in the third quarter of 2018. The major part of drugs is planned to be sold on the domestic market, while a certain part will be exported. The construction of the third pharmaceutical plant is planned to be launched in March 2017.

Besides, Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey, Cuba and some European countries are also interested in cooperation in such fields as healthcare services and pharmaceutical industry.
By Azernews





By Laman Ismayilova

Baku will host an exhibition dedicated to the Khojaly Genocide , which is one of the blackest and bloodiest pages of human history.

Entitled " Bloody footprints", the event is organized by the Nasimi District Central Library.

Thos wishing to to participate in the exhibition can send art works via the following email address: [email protected] Please give a brief background about yourself.

For more information, please contact:

(012) 490-49-01

(070) 391-06-76

(055) 792-01-76

Khojaly, the second largest town in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, came under intense fire from the towns of Khankendi and Askeran already occupied by the Armenian armed forces in 1992.

About 613 civilians mostly women and children were killed in the massacre, and a total of 1,000 people were disabled. Eight families were exterminated, 25 children lost both parents, and 130 children lost one parent. Moreover, 1,275 innocent people were taken hostage, and the fate of 150 of them remains unknown.
By Azernews





By Laman Ismayilova

Bakus Nizami Cinema Center will host next Turkish poetry evening entitled "The Sound of Love in the Caspian as part of the literature project "Word" on February 14.

Co-organized by Baku Yunus Emre Institute and Azerbaijan's Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the project aims at raising awareness of national culture and revealing new talents.

Famous Turkish and Azerbaijani artists and poets, including "Savalan" band and the Honored Artist Lala Mammadova will delight you with poems by Orhan Veli, Nasimi, Shahriyar, Mikail Mushfig, Huseyn Javid and others.

Guests will enjoy greatness of national poems and feel the bonds of brotherhood between two nations.

The event will start at 19:00.

Media partners of the event are Trend.az, Day.az, Milli.az, Azernews.az
By Azernews





By Rashid Shirinov

The Armenian economy suffered a dramatic deterioration in 2016 due to rising borrowings and capital outflow. The picture is not pretty for 2017.

The volume of external debt seriously increased, unemployed jumped and migration further intensified, while the foreigners refused to invest in this poor South Caucasian country. Economists believe that the volume of Armenias external debt, which currently stands at $5.122 billion, may exceed 50 percent of GDP in 2017.

Ukrainian economist Alexander Okhrimenko, who is the President of the Ukrainian Analytical Center, is sure that the Armenian economy will continue to stand idle because of the unresolved Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

He noted that the economies of neighboring countries of Armenia and Azerbaijan - the sides to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict- differ considerably in terms of their potential. Okhrimenko said that the GDP per capita in terms of purchasing power parity in Armenia is by $10,000 less than in Azerbaijan.

Like many experts, he believes that the protracted Nagorno-Karabakh conflict does not give Armenia any opportunity to build normal business relations with its neighbors in the region. As a result, there is no possibility of economic cooperation. Armenia's economy is in self-isolation because of this conflict, the analyst said.

The expert went on to say that the share of industry in Armenia's GDP is decreasing, and other industries are not able to ensure the normal operation of the economy. Moreover, the trade balance of Armenia is negative; meanwhile, the national debt keeps growing. The national debt of Armenia is one of the highest in the world, Okhrimenko stressed.

The country also faces a big problem such as migration. The countrys population decreased by 12,100 people, or 0.4 percent, over the past year. Okhrimenko explains this with the fact that Armenia has no prospects. Given that Armenia has no future, it is clear that many people will try to go abroad, there is logic in this, the expert said.

He added that labor export is a profitable business for the Armenian authorities because the Armenian emigrants ensure currency inflow into the country.

Every year Armenia receives about $1 billion transfers, and this is more profitable for the ruling regime than exporting goods from the country, which does not even exceed $150 million, Okhrimenko said.

The Ukrainian expert also stressed that any military conflict is a dead end for a country. Wars have never brought economic success and prosperity; therefore, it is difficult to understand the logic of Armenia, that conducts senseless military conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh for more than 25 years, the analyst said.

The continuing aggression of Armenia against Azerbaijan, its territorial claims to neighboring countries pose serious obstacles to the expansion of regional cooperation. This policy leads to Armenia being locked out of all regional projects.

Azerbaijan has repeatedly announced that as long as Armenia does not put an end to its aggressive policy, its participation in any regional project will be impossible.

Azerbaijan's internationally recognized Nagorno-Karabakh territory became a conflict zone following Armenia's aggression in the early 1990s. As a result of Armenia's armed invasion, 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory fell under Armenia's occupation and over 1 million people turned into refugees and IDPs.
By Azernews





By Kamila Aliyeva

Moscow hopes to host a meeting of the Russian-Turkish High-Level Cooperation Council in the near future, during which a number of international and regional issues will be discussed.

Russian Foreign Ministry's Fourth European Department Director Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko said that Moscow hopes that a meeting of the Russia-Turkey high-level cooperation council led by the countries presidents will take place in the near future, while the sides will discuss the issues such as Syria, the Turkish Stream pipeline and the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant.

Earlier it was reported that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan plans to visit Russia in early March and attend the meeting of the Russian-Turkish High-Level Cooperation Council. The leaders of Turkey and Russia expected to mull the measure for further removal of economic restrictions from Turkish products and the complete abolition of the visa regime with Turkey.

The previous meeting of the Council was held in Ankara in December 2014, while the meeting that had to take place in Russia in 2015 was canceled due to the crisis in relations between Moscow and Ankara.

"There is an agreement in principle to restore the work of the high-level cooperation council. I hope that the restoration will take place soon, and a high-level meeting within the framework of the Turkey high-level cooperation council will take place as soon as possible," Botsan-Kharchenko said.

The official stressed that foreign policy cooperation, including coordination in Syria, will be one of the topics for discussion at the meeting, but bilateral issues will too be touched upon.

First of all, these are the prospects for the implementation of major strategic projects such as Akkuyu and Turkish stream, he added.

Responding to the question on whether the Syrian crisis coordination will be discussed the Russian diplomat said sure.

The Turkish Stream gas pipeline was announced in December 2014. President Putin lately signed a law on the ratification of the agreement with Ankara on the Turkish Stream gas pipeline.

Moscow and Ankara signed an agreement to construct and operate Turkeys first nuclear power plant at the Akkuyu site in May 2010. As many as 35 billion kWh per year are expected to be produced by the plant.
By Azernews





By Kamila Aliyeva

The European Union will soon let Ukrainians and Georgians visit the bloc freely.

A visa-free regime with the European Union (EU) for Georgia is expected to take effect from March29, and for Ukraine - June 12, Georgia Online reported wit reference to Rad?o Liberty reporter Rikard Jozwiak.

Earlier, the European Parliament, the European Commission, and the European Council decided on the date for the tripartite talks on the abolition of the visa-free regime for Ukrainian citizens.

Johannes Hahn , EU Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiation announced that Georgia should fulfill more than 40, and Ukraine more than 150, economic and political conditions of the EU, in order to achieve the complete elimination of entry visa.

Last year, the EU approved the completion of the legislative process of providing the citizens of Ukraine and Georgia with the visa-free regime with the EU member states.

The prospect of easier travel to Europe has been used by the pro-Western governments in Kiev and Tbilisi to win popular backing for painful EU-sponsored reforms.

Georgia, with only 3.7 million citizens, is an easier case for the EU but has been held hostage by the greater hesitation over Ukraine, which has 45 million people, and is stuck in a conflict with Russia.

Negotiations on visa liberalization for Ukraine and Georgia began back in 2008 as part of the Eastern Partnership Program. Georgia entered the practical phase of those talks in 2012 as it prepared for associate EU membership. Ukraine reached that stage in 2014. Ukraine abolished visa requirements for EU citizens back in 2005, and Georgia followed this example in 2006.

According to the Eastern Partnership Visa Liberalization Index prepared by the Visa-free Europe Coalition and the Stefan Batory Foundation, Armenia, Belarus, and Azerbaijan are the countries which are next in line to gain ratification of visa-free regimes.
A major financial summit in Switzerland, supported by key Gulf institutions, will focus on responsible finance and seek inputs to make finance a force for good in the global economy.



The Responsible Finance & Investment (RFI) Summit 2017 will convene in Zurich on May 3 and 4 around the theme Building Bridges, Expanding Impact to forge stronger links between different parts of the responsible finance industry and identify actionable strategies to increase their positive impact on society.

The summit is an initiative of the RFI Foundation and Swiss Arab Network to build awareness of shared values that can bring socially responsible investing (SRI), environmental, social and governance (ESG) and Islamic finance together to increase their positive impact.



The public perception of the financial sector seems to continue to be negatively influenced by the effects of the global financial crisis. In the intervening years, many financial institutions appear to have responded by increasing consideration of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into their business. Responsible finance, including Islamic finance, has positioned itself as an industry capable of supporting equitable, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, said a statement.



Blake Goud, CEO of the RFI Foundation, said: We are pleased with the response we have received since we announced the RFI Summit 2017. We are grateful to all our sponsors, including diamond sponsor Sedco Capital, and gold sponsors, DDCAP Group and Dubai Islamic Economy Development Center. We look forward to this summit that would both raise awareness of growth in responsible finance and identify the steps needed to expand its positive social impact.



Hasan Al-Jabri, CEO of Sedco Capital, said: "The RFI Summit provides an excellent platform to build bridges between different approaches to responsible finance. We see it as being closely aligned with our Prudent Ethical Investment approach which we have used to connect different forms of responsible investment around similar values and a shared belief that finance can be a force for good in the global economy while still adding value to investors."



Stella Cox, managing Director of DDCAP Group, commented: We have found many overlaps between the concerns of our customers who integrate ESG and those of our customers focused on adherence to Islamic financial principles. There is an increasing recognition that the financial sector is in a powerful position to contribute to a stronger, more inclusive economy and the RFI Summit provides a forum for the leaders across responsible finance to come together to chart the way forward.



Abdulla Al Awar, CEO of the Dubai Islamic Economy Development Centre, said: The RFI Summit 2017 is based on the theme Building Bridges, Expanding Impact and will hopefully will serve as a unique platform to carry forward the discussion on how Islamic economy can contribute to translating a positive overall impact and ensure socio-economic development within a broader framework of sustainability. It is important to understand that Islamic economy is an inherent part of the responsible finance industry that is in a prime position to achieve long-term growth for the global economy.



Other summit partners include: Alexander & Partner, the Bahrain Economic Development Board, Eiger Trading Advisors, Forum Nachhaltige Geldanlagen (FNG), IsFin, the Islamica 500, Luxembourg for Finance, Millenium Associates AG, Saudia, Swiss Finance + Technology Association, Swiss Sustainable Finance, Thomson Reuters and Zoccolillo Partner. - TradeArabia News Service
Marsh, a global leader in insurance broking and risk management, explored the unique set of risks associated with construction and operation of tall buildings at a key summit in Dubai, UAE.



Marsh 2017 Infrastructure Risk Management Forum was this year held under the theme From Risk to Resilience in the Infrastructure Industry: Assessing the Challenges and Opportunities in Emerging Infrastructure Risks'.



The one-day event held at The Ritz-Carlton, Dubai, yielded a positive response from the delegates, said a statement from Marsh.



The forum focused on a hotly-anticipated report Sky High Risks: Managing Tall Building Exposures, which discusses mitigation strategies to protect brand and reputation, as well as insights into how building regulations will evolve in the near term.



Gaurav Bhatnagar, the head of specialties for Middle East and North Africa (Mena) at Marsh, said: "This years forum saw it firmly solidified as a must-attend fixture, for infrastructure and construction professionals across the region."



"The forum provided insightful thought leadership, which stimulated debate on a wide range of risk-related subjects that affect the infrastructure and construction industry in the UAE and wider Mena (Middle East and North Africa) region," he noted.



A packed conference saw industry experts address many important and topical risk topics for infrastructure and construction professionals from across the Mena region.



The Marsh 2017 Infrastructure Risk Management Forum was aligned with the vision of Expo 2020 Dubai, with many panel discussions taking into account its three key themes of opportunity, mobility and sustainability.



Subjects included project management and delay mitigation, balance sheet protection, renewables and sustainability development opportunities, said the statement from Marsh.



Traditional risks were also considered including building, fire and inherent defects and the risks posed by emerging threats such as cyber and talent shortages, it added.-TradeArabia News Service
Airbus will be transferring four of its test aircraft to museums: the Museum of Air and Space in Paris-Le Bourget and Aeroscopia in Toulouse.



These aircraft comprise: A320 MSN1, recently withdrawn from the test aircraft fleet; A340-600 MSN360; A380 MSN2 and A380 MSN4. These aircraft will benefit from heritage preservation measures and will soon be presented to the public.



The first aircraft to be transferred will be A380 MSN4, which will arrive in Le Bourget on February 14. The other three aircraft maintained by Airbus Heritage in Toulouse, within the Airbus plant, will travel to Aeroscopia in Toulouse within the next two years, when an area in the northern part of the museum has been made ready for them. All these aircraft cover more than 30 years of flight tests and commercial success for the Airbus brand.



Following the arrival of A380 MSN4 in Le Bourget and in preparation for its display at the museum there  one of the largest aviation museums worldwide  the iconic test aircraft will undergo a unique refurbishment to showcase its operational role.



Once an initial phase of technical work has been carried out on the airframe  which will include structural preservation  a special exhibit will also be created inside the aircrafts interior to enable the greatest possible number of people to visit it from 2018 to experience the success of Airbus.  TradeArabia News Service
The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi will present Imagine Science Abu Dhabi 2017, an interdisciplinary festival that celebrates science and art, in March.



The event will happen at the NYU Abu Dhabi campus from March 2-4.



Returning to the Middle East for the third time, this festival includes three feature films, 21 short films, a science-art gallery exhibition Spectrum, a science communication panel discussion, artist talks, and educational workshops. Showcasing the work of artists from the UAE and beyond, this three-day festival will be open to the public free of charge.



The purpose of Imagine Science Abu Dhabi, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, is to facilitate an understanding of science for the common man by bringing together scientists who learn and decipher the world that we live in, and filmmakers who communicate this knowledge to everyone else, said Alexis Gambis, visiting assistant professor of biology, film and new media at NYUAD, and founder of Imagine Science Films, a non-profit organisation committed to promoting high-level dialogue between scientists and filmmakers since 2008.



Imagine Science Abu Dhabi 2017 will officially open on March 2 with the acclaimed feature film Honey, Rain and Dust by Emirati filmmaker Nujoom Al Ghanem. The film traces the developing dynamic in the context of occupational challenges that beekeepers face, whilst placing beekeeping in the spotlight.



Also opening on March 2 is Spectrum, the exhibit in the Project Space at the Arts Center, which is accompanying Imagine Science Abu Dhabi. It will present the subject of light examined through the eyes of five international artists. This will include Virtual Reality fly-through Fistful of Stars created by Eliza Mcnitt, a retrospective of the work of Pohjankonna Oy, a Finnish film production company, and the laser installation Bleu Gorgone by French artist Stefane Perraud whose main subjects concern light and how it relates to knowledge and disaster both symbolically and scientifically. Several of the exhibitions offer a closer look at films that will be screened later at the festival.



Also among the films slated to be featured is English filmmaker Otto Bells The Eagle Huntress, which

was shortlisted for an Oscar Award last year and is the story of the first female in 12 generations of a Kazakh family to become an eagle hunter. Following its screening will be a talk by Youssef Idaghour, NYUAD assistant professor of biology, on his research on developing genetic tools to facilitate population genetic analysis of falcons and other endangered wildlife.



The closing night of Imagine Science Abu Dhabi 2017 will include a screening of French filmmaker Antoine Viviani's film In Limbo, followed by a Q&A with the director. Viviani's poetic experimental documentary features interviews with digital luminaries such as Ray Kurzweil, Gordon Bell, and others. Alongside this historical and philosophical look at the internet age, it will also consider the future of communication technology via a demonstration of M3diate, a multi-user VR environment that is being developed at NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Shanghai. - TradeArabia News Service


Careem, the Middle Easts leading ride-hailing app, has confirmed that its Ride Now booking service will be available again in Abu Dhabi, UAE, starting from today (February 9).



Careem users will be able to book on-demand rides through the app, with a new service called Careem Limo. This service offering will be operated under the regulations for limo services in Abu Dhabi, making Careem the only ride-hailing app service in the city, said a statement from the company.



On launching the new Careem Limo service, Aura Lunde, general manager of Careem UAE, said: Abu Dhabi is a special market for Careem- being home to many of our team members as well as being the second ever city launched when we first started out in 2012. Our mission is to simplify and improve the lives of people. We are fully committed to offering a great service for people in the UAE capital, as well as supporting our captains who are the lifeblood of our business.



"We will continue to work in close partnership with the local authorities to enhance the transportation network for all residents and visitors to Abu Dhabi and hope to introduce new services in the near future, Lunde said. - TradeArabia News Service


Iran has launched a project to conserve 10 million barrels of crude oil north of Bushehr Province, the biggest reserve run by the private sector, a report said.



The project had cost 7.28 billion rials ($225,000) to be engineered, monitored and implemented, managing director of Asia Petro Omid Company Vahid Zakeri was quoted as saying in the Irna report.



Zakeri said the project will raise national oil conservation and export capacity by 36 per cent.



The facilities consist eight one million barrel reserves, two 500,000 barrel reserves and f our 250,000 barrel reserves.



The official said the facilities are on 100 hectares of lands, lying on the line of project for transfer of oil of the south oil rich regions, including Masjed Soleiman, Ahvaz, Maroon, Aghajari and Gachsaran. After collection of oil in Gureh and Genaveh regions, they will be transferred to Kharg Island for exports, he added.
3G-ERES, a leader in solar energy systems, has connected three hotels in Jordan to its grid producing a total of 11.1MWp photovoltaic (PV) power.



The three entities include the Arab International Hotels (Marriott Amman Hotel), Business Tourism Company (Marriott Dead Sea and Petra Hotel), and Dawliyah for Hotels & Malls (Sheraton Hotel).



The connection of the three plants (respectively 2.6MWp; 5MWp; 3,5MWp) took place successfully in December 2016 and January 2017.



The three plants are set to produce more than 25 Million kWh/yr, covering 100 per cent of the electrical needs of the hotels. Marriott and Sheraton, in Jordan, thus become the first five-star hotels in the world to be fully powered by solar energy.



In terms of a lower carbon footprint, the three PV Plant installations are set to save more than 10 million tonnes of CO2 per year and can be seen as the equivalent of planting an 800 donum (800,000 sq m) forest.



3G-ERES was contracted as the consultancy company of the Arab International Hotels, Business Tourism Company, and Dawliyah for Hotels & Malls, being the consultant, technical supervisor, tendering and contracting manager, and the owners engineer for the 11.1MWp solar plants.



3G-ERES will remain alongside the employer during the post-construction phase to ensure EPC guarantees through Performance Monitoring and to ensure an optimal O&M setup, a statement said.



The Marriott Amman Hotels 2.6MWp PV plant is set for a 5.8 million kWh/yr production and is located on an 80 donum surface near Mwaqqar (25km south-east of Amman). At the same location, the Sheraton Hotels 3.5 MWp solar plant is connected. The Sheratons plant has an expected 8.3 million kWh/yr production and occupies a 110 donum surface.



The Marriott Dead Sea & Petra Hotels 5MWp PV plant has an expected yearly production of 11.2 million kWh and is built on a 170 donum parcel of land in the Karak district (Dhamikhi), 80km south of Amman.



With the objective of maximizing the electrical production, the PV Plants include state-of-the-art single axis tracking structures enabling a increased module efficiency of more than 20 per cent.



CEO of 3G-ERES Umberto Albarosa said: The strategic vision of the Marriott & Sheraton Owners in Jordan and the passionate commitment of their management team were the key drivers for this first-of-its-kind power wheeling project in the Hashemite Kingdom. This premier project in the private sector reflects Jordans leading role in the transition to green energy in the Middle East region.  TradeArabia News Service




People look into a sinkhole which has opened up in the suburb of Point Piper in Sydney, New South Wales (NSW), Australia on February 8. Emergency services arrived at the scene on Wentworth Street, Point Piper where a gas line had ruptured due to a collapsed footpath, Fire and Rescue NSW said. EPA/Paul Miller








Boeing has launched a new programme which enables customers to exchange nacelle and flight-control surface parts that need repair or overhaul from a certified pool that Boeing maintains throughout its global network.



The Nacelle and Flight-Control Surface Exchange Program eliminates the need for customers to contract, schedule, manage and own or lease these parts.



Our customers have asked for more flexibility and weve heard them, said Lynne Hopper, vice president of Parts Solutions. This offering is one more example of how Boeing creates high-quality, flexible solutions that make life more convenient for our customers, allowing them to mix and match procurement approaches ranging from ownership to pooling to leasing to exchanging.



Parts distributed through the program represent all Boeing models and are updated to the latest configurations, incorporating all applicable service bulletins and airworthiness directives.



Another benefit of an exchange is that customers only need to take an airplane out of service once, reducing maintenance needs. When a similar part is leased, the plane must be taken out of service for both removal and installation.



Boeing is a leader in providing 24/7 support and service to the global aviation industry. Boeings parts portfolio is the most complete in the industry, with total stock of over 400,000 part numbers and over 10,000 parts shipped daily.



In addition to its parts business, Boeing offers the industrys largest portfolio of services, including retrofits and modifications, subscription-based maintenance programs, engineering support, crew training, route planning, digital crew scheduling, advanced data analytics and software to enhance airlines and leasing company operations.  TradeArabia News Service
Beverly J. Bowers, 77, of Beatrice. Memorial services will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017 at the Griffiths-Hovendick Chapel in Beatrice with Reverend John Duling officiating. Private family inurnment of her ashes will be in the Evergreen Home Cemetery in Beatrice. There will be no viewing or visitation. In lieu of flowers, a memorial has been established to the Beatrice Senior Center and the Blue Valley Shrine Widows Group with the funeral home in charge.

Margot Maria Korslund, 88, of Beatrice. A memorial service on Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017 at 10:30 a.m. at Harman-Wright Mortuary Chapel in Beatrice. Cremation has occurred. Inurnment will be in Evergreen Cemetery, Beatrice. In lieu of flowers, a memorial is established to the Beatrice Salvation Army or the Beatrice American Red Cross.

JoAnn Pearl Kostal, 83, of Odell. Services will be held on Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017 at 10 a.m. at the United Methodist Church at Odell, with Pastor Curt Magelky officiating. Burial in the Odell Czech Cemetery. Memorials to the Odell Fired Dept. and familys choice.

George D. Kropp, 87, of Wymore. Funeral services will be held on Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017 at 11 a.m. at the Laughlin-Hoevet Funeral Home in Wymore with Lori Miller officiating. Casual attire is requested. Interment will be at the Wymore Cemetery. The body will lie in state on Thursday from 4-8 p.m., Friday from 9 a.m.-8 p.m., and one hour prior to the service on Saturday. The family will greet relatives and friends on Thursday from 6-7:30 p.m. In lieu of flowers, a memorial has been established to the familys choice with the funeral home in charge.

Debbie L. Mick, 57, of Wymore. Memorial services will be held on Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017 at 1 p.m. at Laughlin-Hoevet Funeral Home in Wymore with Jon Palmquist officiating. There will be no viewing, as cremation has taken place.

Maxine L. Salts, 80. Memorial services will be held at 2 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 10, 2017 at St. Marys Catholic Church in Wymore with Father Ferdinand Boehme officiating. A private interment of ashes will take place at a later date. There will be no viewing as cremation has taken place. The family will greet relatives and friends at the Laughlin-Hoevet Funeral Home in Wymore on Thursday from 6-8 -p.m. A register book will be available on Thursday from 9 a.m. - 8 p.m. and on Friday from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. A memorial has been established to the familys choice with the funeral home in charge.

Thomas G. Scheetz, 69, Hanover, Kan. Funeral services will be 10 a.m., Thursday, Feb. 9, at St. John's Catholic Church, Hanover. Burial will be in the church cemetery.

Goldie "Louise" Trauernicht, 63, of Beatrice. Memorial services will be held at 11 a.m. on Friday, Feb. 10, 2017 at the Griffiths-Hovendick Chapel in Beatrice with Jon Palmquist officiating. Burial of her ashes will be at a later date. There will be no viewing or visitation as cremation has taken place. A memorial has been established to the family with the funeral home in charge.

Gaylord G. Wehmer, 89, of Tecumseh. Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. on Friday, Feb. 10, 2017 at the United Methodist Church, Tecumseh. Visitation will be Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017 9 a.m.-8 p.m., at the Wherry Funeral Home, Tecumseh, with family greeting friends 6-8 p.m. Memorials to the family's choice. Interment at 2 p.m. Friday in the Lewiston Cemetery, with full military honors.
Meet award-winning artisans and buy their products at Kerala Arts and Crafts Village
The fate of Wyomings first new coal mine in 50 years is on hold yet again as state regulators and landowners wrangle over a mining permit.

The Environmental Quality Council, a seven-person group that decides contested environmental cases, announced Tuesday that it would stay a hearing about Ramacos Brook Mine set for next week.

At issue is the Lexington, Kentucky-based companys mining plan. State regulators approved the plan, but the Powder River Basin Resource Council argues the plan is vague on issues such as production and reclamation. They are also concerned about the long-term commitment the company will have in the area.

After Tuesdays delay, state regulators and local landowners must argue, first in written briefs, then in oral arguments, as to whether Ramacos permit to mine should even go before the EQC.

Companies must obtain a permit to mine from the states Department of Environmental Quality, and the viability of that contract is largely based on a mine plan, which lays out future production, employment and reclamation.

The landowner group Powder River Basin Resource Council contested Ramacos mine plan in late January and requested an informal conference with state regulators at the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality. The DEQ denied the request for an informal conference and sent the dispute straight to the EQC, prompting complaints of due process from the land owner advocate group.

For DEQ it was a pragmatic decision based on the complexity of the PRBRCs claims against Ramaco, said Keith Guille, spokesman for Wyoming DEQ.

These were things that we didnt feel could be resolved in an informal conference, Guille said. So why spend more time? Lets just move it to the EQC and have that council hear all parties and their cases.

For the PRBRC, the right to an informal conference is tantamount. Those who could not travel to Cheyenne for the hearing, nor navigate the official proceedings, will have a better chance to have their voices heard, said Shannon Anderson, legal counsel for the landowners group.

The ability for the public to voice concerns in is a crucial right in these types of cases, she said.

However, access is not the first concern for the EQC.

What the EQC needs to know is whether the DEQ prematurely sent the case straight to the EQC. The problem is a procedural one, said Jim Ruby, for the EQC.

Until we get a decision as to whether or not this is truly poised for a contested case before the council, all of that is secondary right now, he said.

When the DEQ sent the case to the Environmental Quality Council, it was filed like any other contested case. But by DEQ standards an informal conference must be held within 20 days of the end of public comment period.

To cover its bases, the EQC scheduled the hearing within that time frame, while it navigated the state and department regulations in the somewhat unique case.

Written briefs to the EQC are due by Feb. 16. The oral hearing will be by telecast as well as in Cheyenne on Feb. 21.

What all of this means for Ramaco is one more delay to beginning mining.

If successful in obtaining a permit, the company will be the first to actively mine in Sheridan County since the Big Horn Coal Company ceased operations in the 80s.

Brook would be the first new coal mine in the state in half a century, and the current dispute follows a long legal fight over property rights.

Ramacos CEO Randall Atkins did not respond to requests for comment.

Ramaco successfully argued that it held mineral rights per a 1954 deed. Lighthouse Resources, the parent company of Big Horn Coal, claimed surface rights from 1983 and threatened to block access to the site until it had approved the mine and reclamation plan. A local rancher sought damages.

The company has two metallurgical mining operations in Appalachia and recently entered the stock market.
CHEYENNE  Cheyenne had been on the short list to house a new Smucker's Uncrustables factory but has lost out to Longmont, Colorado.

Leaders at the J.S. Smucker Co. chose Colorado as the sire of its new $340 million facility. The company plans to hire up to 500 people to help make the crust-less peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Cheyenne LEADS leader Randy Bruns says Smucker's officials felt Cheyenne lacked a large enough workforce for the facility.

Cheyenne was one of four final sites located along the Interstate 25 corridor from Cheyenne to southern Colorado that the company considered.

J.M Smucker Co. is headquartered in Orrville, Ohio, and makes fruit spreads, ice cream toppings, peanut butter and beverages.
Japanese foods at CC dinner

Japanese dishes will be served at the third cultural dinner scheduled for the 2016-2017 school year at Casper College from 5 to 6:30 p.m., on Thursday, Feb. 16, in Tobin Dining Hall.

The Japanese cultural dinner will feature Miso Soup, a traditional Japanese soup of soy paste and dried bonito; Cucumber Salad, cucumbers in sesame chili marinade; Gyoza, Japanese dumplings; Jasmine Rice; and Shoyu Pork, tender pork cooked in garlic, ginger and brewed soy sauce. For dessert, two dishes will be served: Mochi, a traditional chewy sweet rice cake, and Sata Andagi, a deep-fried sugar cake.

Tickets are $12.25 for adults and $8.90 for children ages 7-12 when purchased in advance by Friday, Feb. 10, and $14 for adults and $10.15 for children at the door. There is no charge for children 6 and under. Sales tax will be added to all ticket purchases.

Tickets may be purchased at the Casper College Financial Management/cashier window or the Gateway Cafe, both located on the third floor of the Walter H. Nolte Gateway Center, as well as at Tobin Dining Hall in the Union/University Building during regular meal times. Cash is accepted at all locations, and credit cards are also accepted at the cafeteria and cafe.

The final dinner in the series will feature Irish cuisine and will take place on Thursday, March 23. Because dinners often sell out, advanced ticket purchases are highly encouraged. The Casper College International Education Committee hosts the cultural dinner series. Both the Nolte Gateway Center and the Union/University Building are located on the Casper College campus.

Spring lecture series at Tate

The Tate Geological Museum will look at Science in the Public Eye through three lectures beginning at 7 p.m., on Thursday, Feb. 16.

The first lecture titled Total Solar Eclipse will be given by Dr. Andrew Young, physics and astronomy instructor at Casper College. Young will discuss the total solar eclipse happening over the United States on August 21, 2017, and will explore the various aspects of historical significance for this astronomical phenomenon. He will also look at several science outreach programs in progress on a state and national level. Finally, he will discuss the essential features of safely viewing the solar event.

The other two lectures set in the series will include Emily Calandrelli, host of FOXs Xploration Outer Space, on March 16. Dr. Donald Johanson, paleoanthropologist, will speak on April 20. Johanson is known for his discovery of Lucy, one of the most complete skeletons of Australopithecus afarensis, in the Afar Triangle region of Hadar, Ethiopia.

All presentations in the lecture series will begin at 7 p.m. and are free and open to the public. The first lecture will take place in the Wheeler Auditorium, Room 103 in the Wold Physical Science Center on the Casper College campus, the second will take place in the Wheeler Concert Hall on the Casper College campus, while the final lecture will be held at the John F. Welsh Auditorium at Natrona County High School.

Wildlife study group talks owls

Local rancher and birding enthusiast Stacey Scott will be the guest speaker at the February edition of the Werner Wildlife Museums Wildlife Study Group at 7 p.m., on Thursday, Feb. 16. Scott will present Silent Wings and Night Vision: Wyomings Owls.

During his presentation, Scott will discuss the natural history of owls, demonstrate the various calls they make, and tell owl stories gathered during his six decades in the field. A lifelong member of the National Audubon Society, Scott currently serves as treasurer for the Murie Audubon Society chapter in Casper and is also president of the Werner Wildlife Museum advisory board.

The Wildlife Study Group is free and open to the public and meets monthly in the Africa-Artic Room at Casper Colleges Werner Wildlife Museum, located off the Casper College campus at 405 E. 15th Street. For more information call the museum at 235-2108, stop by Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., or email indiahayford@caspercollege.edu.

Soroptimists hear filmmaker McInroy

The Soroptimists of Central Wyoming (SICW) meet at noon on the second and fourth Mondays of each month. The club will meet for the February business meeting on Monday, Feb. 13, at the Ramada Plaza, 300 West F Street.

A program meeting will be held at noon on Monday, Feb. 27, at the Cheese Barrel, 544 South Center Street. Patricia McInroy will be the speaker. Patricia created a documentary, Clara: Angel of the Rockies, which aired on Wyoming PBS, on Jan. 8, 2017.

The documentary tells the biographical story of Clara Brown, a former slave who came west and made a fortune. The film was a winner of PBSs To The Contrary: All About Women, film festival in the womens U.S. history category.

McInroy grew up in Casper, went to Casper College, and is a former Star-Tribune photographer. She will talk to the group about Clara Browns life and the documentary.

All women are invited. Soroptimist means Best for Women. SICW is a volunteer non-profit organization which strives to improve the lives of women and girls through community-based and international projects. SICW provides gift baskets and holiday meals to Seton House, gift baskets to the Transformation Center, and offers an annual Live Your Dream cash award for women seeking higher education or job training.

For more information about the monthly meetings or the Soroptimists, please contact Debbie Ehlers at 234-2173 or debbiehlrs@yahoo.com and find SICW on Facebook.Follow community news editor Sally Ann Shurmur on Twitter @WYOSAS
Introduction to 3D modeling

The Natrona County Library will offer an Introduction to 3D Modeling class from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, Feb. 11. Participants will come away from this workshop being able to design three-dimensional objects using a free, web-based Computer Aided Design program called Tinkercad. Tinkercad is an easy, browser-based 3D design and modeling tool. Its also your perfect 3d printing companion, allowing you to imagine anything, and then design it in minutes. Call 577-READ ext. 2 or email reference@natronacountylibrary.org for more information.

Selling on Craigslist

The Natrona County Library will offer a Selling on Craigslist class from 10 to 11 a.m., on Friday, Feb. 17. Learn about selling, shipping, feedback and how to handle transactions effectively and safely using Craigslist. Call 577-READ ext. 2 or email reference@natronacountylibrary.org for more information.

St. Marks hosts Financial Peace

St. Marks Episcopal Church, 7th and Wolcott, will have classes on money management, using the Financial Peace plan, starting in February. The classes will run from Feb. 18 to April 25, 2017 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., on Tuesdays at the church. To register, please contact Dorothy Brown at 377-3508 or via e-mail Wyo_nana@yahoo.com, or call the church at 234-0931.

New ministry at HPCC

Family Life Ministry (FLM) at Highland Park Community Church is offering premarital, marriage enrichment, and parenting workshops, seminars, retreats and conferences, empowering families to thrive through Gods love. Please visit the website for more information or to register, http://hpcc.church/FLM.

Free tax help

The Natrona County VITA Program, a United Way of Natrona County initiative, is open through April 12, for free tax return assistance. This is a first come, first serve program, no appointments will be scheduled. Individuals must bring their Social Security card, photo identification and the appropriate paperwork with them. For a complete listing of required paperwork, please visit the website www.wyomingfreetaxservice.org

Hours are Tuesday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.; Friday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., at Aspen Creek Building, 800 Werner Ct., Ste. 206. Closed Sunday and Monday.

For more information, call (307) 333-5588 during hours of operation or look on Facebook. The initiative is supported by funding from the Wyoming Free Tax Service and local United Way.

Win a new instrument

The Wyoming Symphony Orchestra and The Hill Music Company are joining forces to help young Wyoming musicians further their musical ability with the opportunity to win a new string or wind instrument.

Wyoming music students in grades 9 through 12, who may have outgrown or outplayed a wind or string instrument, are invited to apply for a new instrument.

To apply, download an application form and instruction packet from the WSO website, www.wyomingsymphony.org/outreach. Applicants will need to write a short essay about the importance of music and their particular instrument to their lives, and include references from music teachers, family, and friends.

The deadline to apply is Feb. 24, 2017. A certificate will be awarded to the winner at the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra concert on March 18, 2017. The Hill Music Company will provide the winning instrument, and assist the winner in selecting the instrument of his or her choice.

For questions please contact Erin Helms, 266-1478 or erin@wyomingsymphony.org.

Camera class set

Looking for a one-day workshop that will teach a new, old-time skill? Check out the Pinhole Cameras Workshop on Saturday, Feb. 11 from 2 to 4:30 p.m. at the Casper Rec Center. A pinhole camera is the earliest form of capturing images that is called a photograph today. It is a dark chamber with a pinhole and no lens. During the clinic, participants will build their own pinhole camera.

For registration fees and more information, stop by the Casper Recreation Center at 1801 E. 4th St., visit the website www.activecasper.com or call 235-8383.

Saturday watercolor classes

ART321/Casper Artists Guild holds Saturday Morning Watercolor Sessions under the direction of Ellen Black. Sessions are Saturday mornings, 10 a.m. to noon. $10 per session.

Feb. 11: Tree Studies; Feb. 18: Practice Session; Feb. 25: Mountain Landscapes. Instructed by Jennifer Morss. Please contact Ellen Black at 265-6783 for any questions. Hope to see you all again this season.

Art 321 offers February workshop

Art321/Casper Artists Guild is offering a Beginning Colored Pencil Workshop will be instructed by Lynn Jones from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., on Saturday, Feb. 18. Open to all levels. Fee is $30 for members. Take colored pencils and learn all the basic techniques of shading, blending colors and burnishing. The great thing about colored pencil is that it is easily portable, allowing artists to work from anywhere.

Register in person at the gallery or call the desk at 265-2655.

Consider becoming a member of Art321 and get discounted fees on all workshops. Annual dues are $65.

Life After Loss starts

Life After Loss is a support group for people who have lost a loved one to suicide. This is a nine-week program designed to help navigate the troubled waters of this time. The class starts at 6 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2017, at the Highland Park Community Church, 5725 Highland Dr., room 1327. There is a $12 fee for the book and materials, scholarships are available. Please contact Ardith at 267-3532 or The Healing Place at 265-3977.

GRO-Biz conference Feb. 22-23

Registration is underway for Wyomings premiere business conference, GRO-Biz Conference & Idea Expo, Feb. 22 and 23 at the Ramkota Hotel.

Register before Feb. 8, 2017 for the discounted cost of $165 per registrant; beginning February 8, 2017 registration fee is $185. To see agenda and to register, visit www.regonline.com/2017grobizidea.

The GRO-Biz Conference & Idea Expo is two events rolled into one. The event provides opportunities to learn from experts presenting innovative workshops that inspire attendees to think about their business in new and exciting ways. In addition, the conference provides Wyomings small businesses the opportunity to better understand state and federal government procurement processes and meet with professionals who can provide valuable information on the bidding process.

Self-help classes set

Conscious Co-Creation, Part Two: Field Play, Feb. 18, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., offered in person at the Agricultural Learning Resources building on Fairgrounds Rd. and also via live webinar. In the follow-up to Conscious Co-Creation Part One, explore in depth some of the ideas and skills gained in Conscious Co-Creation. Prerequisite: Conscious Co-Creation/Self-Transformation & Healing. For a full class description and registration information, visit: www.cathyhazeladams.com/pp/classes-webinars-event/.

Living from the Heart: The Key to Peace, Freedom & Creative Empowerment, Feb. 26, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., offered in person at the Agricultural Learning Resources building on Fairgrounds Rd. and also via live webinar.In the new four-hour class/playshop, learn what the field of the heart really is, practice easy, practical ways to go into heart field, and learn how to live every day from this place of peace, love, well-being and personal empowerment. No prerequisite. For a full class description and registration information, visit: www.cathyhazeladams.com/pp/classes-webinars-event/.

Parenting class available

Mercer Family Resource Center offers a class in March designed to help parents become more effective.

Make Parenting a Pleasure is for parents and caregivers with children ages 0 to 8. Class meets March 1, 8, 15, and 22 and April 5, 12, and 19 from 6 to 8 p.m. Onsite childcare available, meets once a week for seven weeks. Cost is $35 individuals and $50 a couple.

For more information or to enroll, call Lisa Brown at 233-4276.

ARTCORE music deadline March 15

The deadline for the ARTCORE New Music Competition is March 15. Entrants must be Wyoming residents.

The purpose of the competition is to find serious composers in the state; to provide an ongoing program for encouraging new music by these same composers; to give exposure to musical works of merit and to stimulate an interest in contemporary music in Wyoming audiences.

Performance time shall be limited to 20 minutes. Compositions shall not have been performed previously. Compositions shall be limited to no more than eight performers. Compositions may be for any combination of voice and/or instrument. Three copies of the manuscript must be submitted. Manuscripts will not be returned unless accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Submit manuscripts to ARTCORE, P.O. Box 874, Casper, WY 82602. Entry fee is $15. Manuscripts must be postmarked no later than March 15, 2017.

Teen Challenge offers classes

Teen Challenge Wyoming offers classes at local churches, True Care and the Link (Youth for Christ). For more information on these groups or on other Teen Challenge programs, please call 258-5397.

Peacemaking: Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. In this world of division and conflict, it is important for Christians to stay grounded in what the Bible teaches about resolving our differences with orders in a God-honoring way. For more information, call Pat at 258-5397.

Save One: A group for post-abortion healing. For more information, call Judy at 251-5644.

Single & Parenting: Sundays at 6:30 p.m. Covers major challenges single parents face in raising their children, and offers tools to help them meet these challenges. Enter anytime, each lesson stands alone. Call Cathie at 258-6119.

Professionals in Recovery: An ongoing Christian recovery group. For more information, call Gary at 267-7777.

Insight: Discovering the path to Christian character, especially in the midst of stress. Time to be announced. For more information, call Teen Challenge Wyoming at 258-5397.

Possible offering: Committed Couples and/or the Smart Stepfamily (groups designed to strengthen marriages for both married couples and those anticipating marriage) may be offered later this year. For more information on these possibilities, please call Teen Challenge Wyoming at 258-5397.

Seedling trees, shrubs and perennials on sale

Premium quality seedling trees, shrubs and perennials are available for windbreaks and wildlife habitat enhancement from the UW/Natrona County Extension. Order forms are available at the Ag Resource and Learning Center, 2011 Fairgrounds Rd. There are 41 species available. Order now for best selection with May 2017 delivery. For more information, call Rose Jones at 235-9400.

Dementia caregiver support

Wyoming Dementia Care offers five Alzheimers Caregiver Support groups each month. Caregivers of those with dementia-related illnesses and the loved ones they care for are welcome at any of the group sessions. Professional staff from Intermountain Home Companions will be on hand to offer separate activities and snacks for those who need care. There is no charge for Wyoming Dementia Cares support groups or for the respite care provided during the approximately one hour long sessions.

The morning support group sessions meet on the first and third Thursday of each month at 10 a.m. at Central Wyoming Senior Services, 1831 E. 4th St. The afternoon support groups meet at 1 p.m. on the second Tuesday of each month at Life Care Center of Casper, 4041 S. Poplar. The evening groups meet on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month at 6:30 p.m. at Meadow Wind Assisted Living, 3955 E. 12th St.

For information, email wyodementia@casperseniorcenter.com or call Dani Guerttman at 265-4678.

Family continues suicide support

Good Grief, Support will continue at 5:30 p.m. on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month at the 12-24 Club, 500 S. Wolcott, by request of attendees. Anyone who is grieving a suicide, death, or considering suicide is encouraged to attend. Attendance at the meeting, as well as the content, will be strictly confidential. The Fresh Start Cafe will be open, and you can eat during the meetings. This meeting place was offered by Dan Cantine of the 12-24 Club. You need not be a member to attend. For more information, email jlh35@hotmailcom.

New depression group begins

J.R.s Hunt for Life is offering See it Clearly, a free peer support group for persons suffering from depression and other mental conditions that lead to suicidal thoughts and actions. The group is led by like-minded peers wishing to offer support in these struggles. Anonymity and confidentiality is offered to all attending. Meetings are at 6:45 p.m. on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month at 500 South Wolcott in the conference room on the second floor, (12-24 Club). Those who have considered or attempted taking their life or are struggling are welcome. For more information, email jlh35@hotmailcom.

Family offers faith-based groups

The family of J.R. Hunter, who committed suicide, now has two additional support groups, these faith-based, in addition to the groups they run on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month at the 12-24 Club. Those continue. For more information, email jlh35@hotmailcom.

J.R.s Hunt; for life presents two faith-based grief and depression peer to peer support groups at 5:30 and 6:30 p.m. at Restoration Church, 411 S. Walsh. For more information, email jlh35@hotmailcom.

Grief Support Group, Good Grief: A faith-based grief support group that the family hosts on the first and third Tuesdays of the month at 5:30 p.m. at Restoration Church. The familys loss has moved them to offer this to anyone grieving. For more information, email jlh35@hotmailcom.

Depression Support Group, See It Clearly: A faith-based free peer to peer support group for persons suffering from depression and other mental conditions that may lead to suicidal thoughts and actions. The group is led by like-minded peers wishing to offer support in these struggles. Anonymity and confidentiality is offered to all attending. Meetings are at 6:30 p.m. on the first and third Tuesdays of the month at Restoration Church. Those who have considered or attempted taking their life or are struggling are welcome. For more information, email jlh35@hotmailcom.

Parkinsons exercise

Rocky Mountain Therapy is offering a Parkinsons exercise program. Join us from noon to 1 p.m. Thursdays at Rocky Mountain Therapy, 2546 E. Second St., Building 500. These classes are open to anyone with Parkinsons or caring for someone with Parkinsons.

Thursdays class is tailored for the individual with more advanced Parkinsons and focuses on improving endurance, safety and managing symptoms. We are open to all ages and can tailor the class to meet varying exercise needs. The cost of the class is $5. To RSVP, call 577-5204 and ask for Jerri or Shannon.

Celebrate Recovery every Friday

Celebrate Recovery meets at 5:30 p.m. every Friday at Highland Park Community Church, just south of Elkhorn Valley Rehabilitation Hospital on East Second Street. We start with a family meal, followed by praise and worship. At 7 p.m., theres either a lesson from Celebrate Recoverys planned curriculum or a testimony by a person who has found recovery through Christ. Then, people go to gender-specific small groups until 8:30 p.m., when dessert and fellowship conclude the evening. Child care is available at no cost. For more information, contact Chris at 265-4073.

Here and Now: Dementia-focused monthly art class

Classes are every third Tuesday of the month from 1 to 3 p.m. There is no charge. Here and Now is a program made possible through a collaboration between Wyoming Dementia Care and the Nicolaysen Art Museum. It is designed to provide a supportive environment for people with dementia and Alzheimers and their loved ones.

To register, contact Dani with Wyoming Dementia Care 265-4678, ext. 106, or at wyodementia@casperseniorcenter.com or Zhanna Gallegos at 235-5247 or at zgallegos@thenic.org.

Latin Club meets

Latin Study Club language enthusiasts welcome anyone who wishes they had taken Latin in school or paid better attention when they did. The group meets at 7 p.m., on Tuesday nights at Mount Hope Lutheran School, 2300 Hickory. There is no charge. The textbook used is Wheelocks Latin, 7th edition. Noli timere!
A bill authorizing Gov. Matt Meads ENDOW economic diversification initiative continues to move through the Wyoming Legislature, advancing out of a House committee Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Meads office is soliciting public feedback on the proposal, as well as nominations for who should help lead the initiative.

ENDOW, which stands for Economically Needed Diversity Options for Wyoming, is an effort being pushed by Mead that would create a 20-year blueprint to diversify the states economy.

Senate File 132, which authorizes the program and associated funding, has already passed the Senate and will go to the full House of Representatives after approval by the House Minerals, Business and Economic Development Committee.

The 17-page bill calls for the creation of a 15-member executive council made up of appointed people representing a variety of economic sectors. The group would also have ex-officio nonvoting members who are legislative leaders.

It also authorizes $2.5 million in funding for the effort, with $1.5 million of that amount going toward workforce development.

That money is proposed to come from the states Legislative Stabilization Reserve Account, or rainy day fund, but lawmakers could choose to find the money elsewhere.

An initial assessment of the states economic situation would be due Aug. 30, and preliminary recommendations would be due Dec. 31. A final, 20-year comprehensive economic diversification strategy would be due Aug. 1, 2018.

That report would include goals for the state to reach and a plan to guide the evolution of Wyomings economy in order to build a sustainable and diversified, value-added economy by 2038.

The bill is sponsored by Senate President Eli Bebout, R-Riverton; Sens. John Hastert, D-Green River, and Michael Von Flatern, R-Gillette; House Speaker Steve Harshman, R-Casper; and Reps. Mike Greear, R-Worland, and David Miller, R-Riverton.

Bebout said Wednesday the initiative is particularly important because it looks past election cycles, providing for a long-term vision for the state.

We dont want to just have a plan we put on the shelf, he said.

Bebout also said he believes the state should grow, though responsibly. He said he could envision Casper, Wyomings second-largest city, growing to 150,000 people.

But to do that, he said, the state needs a more diverse economy.

If we dont do anything, nothing happens, he said.

Harshman noted the study would look at a variety of economic sectors, including energy. The study calls for inclusion of both fossil fuels and renewable energy sources.

Representatives of the Wyoming Business Council, the Wyoming Business Alliance, the Wyoming Mining Association, the Wyoming Economic Development Association, the Wyoming Association of Municipalities, the University of Wyoming and Wyomings community colleges all spoke in favor of ENDOW.

Jerimiah Rieman of Meads staff will serve as the coordinator of the ENDOW initiative.

Mead announced the ENDOW initiative in November and included funding for the program in his supplemental budget request. He also asked lawmakers to approve the legislative framework for ENDOW during his State of the State address this year.

Building on the successes weve achieved, I continue to work for economic diversification, Mead said in a statement Wednesday. We need a long-term plan that goes beyond one governors time in office, a plan which complements our strengths and increases our economic opportunities in energy, tourism and agriculture, expands our economic base overall, and provides opportunities for our youth today and tomorrow.

Mead is asking the public to complete an online survey about ENDOW, including nominations for people to serve on the executive council.

The survey can be found on the governors website at http://governor.wyo.gov.
CHEYENNE  The House and Senate each rejected measures Wednesday aimed at reversing proposed cuts to an infant-mother program that tries to reduce future health care costs.

Despite its name, the majority of the $405,000 Adolescent Health Program is used for mothers, expectant mothers and their babies. Public health nurses visit women and their children to ensure they have proper care. About $60,000 of the programs costs go to helping adolescents obtain birth control, said Pete Obermueller of the Wyoming County Commissioners Association.

Counties, Obermueller said, also kick money into the program. Cutting the funding could lead to layoffs and high health care costs for counties, he added.

But the budget bill before the lawmakers eliminated the program from the Wyoming Department of Healths budget, said Sen. Tara Nethercott, a Cheyenne Republican who sponsored a budget amendment that would have required the department to find the funds to keep it going.

Some of the women who benefit from the service are victims of domestic violence, and others have struggled with substance abuse, Nethercott said.

Counties have discovered that the program works. Nethercott cited statistics from Park County showing that the number of low-weight babies has dropped. Obermueller said the cost of a mother on Medicaid who delivers a baby pre-term can be $15,000 or more. And since hospitals are public in Wyoming, that cost falls on the counties.

All of your counties are affected by this budget, Nethercott said.

But without much debate, the Senate rejected the budget amendment.

A similar budget amendment failed in the House a couple of hours later.

Rep. Scott Clem, R-Gillette, was one of the opponents. He said he felt bad for voting no but that the spending wasn't necessary.

Do we discourage community involvement and say, Dont worry, the government will take care of it; theyll send a nurse to your house? he said.

Nothings final in the budget yet. Wednesday was the first round of budget amendments. The second and final round comes Friday.

Many programs that affect Wyomings most vulnerable residents were rejected by the House and Senate on Wednesday  including an attempt to find more money for suicide and substance abuse prevention and seniors.

Members of the Joint Appropriations Committee, the group of lawmakers who crafted the budget bill, defended austerity, citing lower revenue receipts in the energy downturn.

In Wyomings counties, its an open question how they will proceed with the public nursing program if the cuts are ultimately adopted by the Legislature, Obermueller said.

There will clearly be further reductions in the program, he said. Some counties may have layoffs, fewer visits.

Seniors

The Senate rejected a budget amendment that would have used a portion of a potential cigarette tax increase on senior citizens.

If House Bill 151  which would increase cigarette taxes by 30 cents a pack  were enacted, then $500,000 would have gone to Wyoming Home Services and another roughly $500,000 to a senior meals services program, said Sen. Liisa Anselmi-Dalton, D-Rock Springs, who sponsored the amendment.

Wyoming Home Services identifies seniors who are on the verge of entering nursing homes. State employees provide services not covered by Medicaid to help them stay at home as long as possible, said Sen. Dave Kinskey, R-Sheridan, who co-sponsored the amendment.

Sen. Charlie Scott, R-Casper, noted that Wyoming has to come up with half the funds for Medicaid, so over the long run, the amendment may have saved money, since nursing homes are expensive.

But opponents to the measure successfully argued against earmarking a tax that hasnt passed the full Legislature.

Sen. Bruce Burns, the Sheridan Republican who is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said hes delivered food to seniors for 20 years through Meals on Wheels.

However, this is a policy decision, and [the proposed amendment is] going to go down the road of starting to earmark what the Department of Health is going to spend on, especially in lean times," he said.

Prevention

Anselmi-Dalton also sponsored an amendment that would have given $2 million of future potential new cigarette taxes to substance abuse and suicide prevention in Wyoming.

The amendment failed, as did a similar measure in the House.

The Joint Appropriations Committee cut $2.1 million from the Wyoming Health Departments budget in suicide and substance abuse prevention.

But many lawmakers in the Senate  and later in the afternoon in the House  argued that the nonprofit with the contract to oversee the prevention causes frustration in local communities. They said services were duplicate and the nonprofit, called the Prevention Management Organization of Wyoming, denied grants for activities that could have helped with tobacco and substance abuse cessation and had too much overhead.

The CEO of the Prevention Management Organization denied the overhead allegations in an interview with the Star-Tribune earlier this week, saying there is less overhead than when the state oversaw the efforts.

Anselmi-Dalton acknowledged that many lawmakers are disappointed with the PMO in their counties.

But she noted that the Wyoming Department of Health is now going to award the work in three separate private-sector contracts and PMO may not get them all.

Senators said Wyomings suicide rate hasnt meaningfully decreased in the past five years since PMO has overseen prevention.

But in the House, Rep. Cathy Connolly, D-Laramie, said underage drinking and binge drinking are down.

Youth smoking has gone down from 22 percent to 15 percent, she said.

Rep. Tom Walters said it would be best if the Wyoming Department of Health took over the program.

It still leaves in place $8 million -- or over $8 million -- to go out into the communities and do all the activities, the Casper Republican said.

In the House, Rep. Eric Barlow said he would sponsor a different amendment on suicide and substance abuse prevention Friday that would address lawmakers concerns.

A lesser-known portion of the prevention cuts in the budget bill proposes eliminating the state Quitline-Quitnet, which provides tobacco cessation services online and over the telephone.

Wyoming has some of the nations highest adult and teen smoking rates, and elimination of the program will worsen the problem, said Jason Mincer from the American Cancer Societys Cancer Action Network.

Elimination of the Quitline-Quitnet means that when people want to quit smoking, there are not resources available to them, he said.
Wyoming school districts would lose 5 percent of the money in their state-provided block grant by the end of the decade under a heavily amended bill that has passed the Senate and been received by the House.

The measure, Senate File 165, is a substitute bill thats markedly different from its predecessor. It now would cut the block grant funding given to districts by 2.5 percent for the 2018-19 school year and 5 percent by the 2019-2020 school year, as well as freeze transportation and special education spending at 2011-12 and 2015-16 levels, respectively.

The bill represents one of the most wide-ranging attempts in the Legislature to address an education funding crisis that could hit $400 million annually in the coming years. The situation is the product of a prolonged downturn in the energy economy thats also crippled Wyomings ability to pay for school construction and maintenance.

Sen. Bill Landen, a Casper Republican and the bills sponsor, told fellow lawmakers this week that something needed to be done about the deficit in this session.

I dont want to run this thing at 80 mph in a couple of years because were not going to be able to stop, he said. Were going to go over the cliff. Weve got to do what is necessary.

Its unclear how much money the bill would save or cut, but Republican Sens. Hank Coe and Charles Scott, speaking Monday about an amendment to the bill, said it would likely be more than $60 million.

The percentage cuts to the block grant are new to the measure and comply with what some superintendents and local districts have been requesting. For instance, Natrona County School District Superintendent Steve Hopkins said late last month that his school board preferred percentage cuts, rather than tweaks to individual parts of the larger block grant.

That way, he said, local districts could decide how to use the money.

Those percentage reductions would also only kick into effect if legislation hadnt been enacted to either recalibrate or change the funding model for public education. So the 5 percent reduction that would hit in the 2019-2020 school year would not happen if schools funding was recalibrated before that academic year started.

Recalibration typically takes place every five years, and it last occurred in 2015. The state hires consultants who examine the funding model for public education here and tell lawmakers how much money districts need for certain areas, like classroom sizes.

***





There are other notable differences between the original bill and its substitute. Originally, the bill would have frozen special education spending at the average level for the 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17 school years. Superintendents have expressed concern in recent weeks about what a freeze to special education spending would mean given federal requirements.

But the new measure appears to address that concern. It would authorize Medicaid reimbursement for special education expenses, would allow state superintendent Jillian Balow to adjust the amount as necessary and would further appropriate $5 million to ensure federal standards are met.

Currently, Wyoming is the only state that doesnt receive federal reimbursements for special education funding, Scott said earlier this week. He added that federal rules dictate that any money given from Medicaid must supplement, not replace, state funding. But because Wyoming has for years paid 100 percent of districts special education costs, any usage of federal dollars would inherently replace state money.

However, he said, because the state is reverting to special education costs of previous years, when costs were lower than current levels, theres now room for Wyoming to be within the rules, receive federal money and save funds.

The new bill would also try to cut down on the use of ghost teachers. Coe said there were hundreds of unfilled teaching positions, funding for which was used elsewhere by districts. The bill would reduce funding to the actual number of teachers and staff employed in the district.

The previous version of the bill called for cutting salaries for district administrators, principals and assistant principals while also appropriating funds to encourage districts to offer early retirement. Neither of those provisions are in the version of the bill that passed the Senate.

Both versions of the bill would cut funding for instructional facilitators, which serve as teachers for teachers on the district level. The latest version would cut state funding for the position to 45 percent of the cost in the next school year, then reduce it again to 30 percent in the following years.

On Monday, Coe said many public comments suggested targeting instructional facilitators funding. But doing so is tricky, he said: Theyre part of the consultant-built model, so cutting too deep could land the state in court.

A notable holdover between the two versions is the temporary nature of the cuts. Sen. Drew Perkins, one of the bills co-sponsors, said last week the goal of the bill is to make reductions until the funding model for public schools can be re-calibrated.

Senate File 165 would create a committee to do just that; it would consist of five members of the House and five from the Senate. The lawmakers would undertake a study and review education and its funding model in Wyoming to determine if modifications are necessary to ensure the model remains effective and cost-based in light of changing conditions and modifications to law.

Coe stressed that the recalibration provision is an essential part of the bill.

That is the most important thing were going to do, the Cody Republican said.

The bill passed its third reading of the Senate by a vote of 27 to three.
Will Cover believes there are several benefits to being in the Boy Scouts of America.

Chief among them, the senior district executive with the Seven Feathers Scout District said the skill learned in the Scouts stick with members for their entire lives.

Cover and other community leaders recognized those who reached the level of Eagle Scout during a breakfast Wednesday morning at Valentinos in Beatrice.

Its an opportunity to bring resident Eagle Scouts, business and community leaders and the general public together to talk a little about the benefits of scouting, in particular those things that are characteristic of Eagle Scouts, Cover said. I think its exceedingly important to recognize the Scouts. These individuals have done something that most people arent able to accomplish, even those who start out in scouts.

Cover said that around one in every 10 Scouts reach the rank of Eagle Scout, the highest level that can be achieved.

While few will reach the highest rank, Cover said his goal it to make the program available available child, and said there are several programs to become involved in.

Those include the Cub Scout program for boys in first to fifth grade, lions program for boys in kindergarten, Boy Scouts for boys 11-18, venturing program focusing on high adventure activity and hobby interests for boys and girls 14-20 and the exploring program for boys and girls with a career-interest focus.

During the recognition event, Joe Wright, who reached the rank of Eagle Scout last year along with his brother, spoke to those in attendance about what being a part of the Scouts has meant to him.

My experience with scouts has been an extremely positive thing in my life, he said. I joined in first grade when they came to our school and showed us what Scouts was about. I knew I wanted to be a part of it.

Mayor Stan Wirth also spoke at the event and commended all of the area volunteers who contribute to groups that enhance the area. While volunteers come from all walks of life, Wirth said community involvement is one defining trait of the Scouts.

We could not continue on with the programs we have today it wasnt for these volunteers, people who buy into a particular program," Wirth said. "Thats what makes everything function and I think its important to note that its the leadership skills learned at different levels. Scouting is no different. Leadership skills learned in scouting go on to bigger and better things.

Cover described some of the requirements to reach the rank of Eagle Scout, and why its such an honor for those who reach that level.

You have a series of merit badges you must earn to achieve that, he said. Among them would be first aid, environmental science and theres a wide range of opportunities that they have to be exposed to. The culmination is the completion of an Eagle Scout service project.

Thats a project that must benefit the community in some manner. It is not important that the boy himself does the work, but that he shows leadership in organizing the project, laying it all out, being the leader and seeing it through to its completion.
State regulators approved rate increases Wednesday for both Tucson Electric Power Co. and Trico Electric Cooperative  and in a surprise move, voted to cut credits to Trico customers who install rooftop solar systems.

At an open meeting in Tucson lasting more than nine hours, the Arizona Corporation Commission unanimously granted TEP a rate increase that will add about $8.50 a month to the average residential customers bill.

Basic monthly charges for TEP home customers will increase to $13 from $10 for standard rates, and drop to $10 from $11.50 for residential time-of-use rates. The rates will go into effect as soon as TEP files its new rate tariffs, or no later than March 1.

The commission also approved a rate increase for Trico that will raise basic monthly charges by one-third, from $15 to $20, and add about $4 per month to the average Trico home customers bill.

In an unexpected move, the commission adopted a new solar export rate of 7.7 cents per kilowatt hour for Trico customers who file applications to install new rooftop solar installations after the commissions rate order is filed in a few days.

In TEPs case, the commission approved new time-of-use rates and adopted a plan to make such rates the default rate for new customers starting no later than January 2018, though customers can later opt onto the standard rate.

But the commission rejected TEPs request to cut the three usage-charge tiers to two for standard rates, agreeing with a hearing judge who said keeping three rate tiers would help customers manage their bills as rates rise.

The new TEP rate plan also will move many business customers from a small general service rate class to a new medium general service rate class.

Additionally, the rate decision requires TEP to propose a new demand-reduction or load management program that would boost residential energy-storage for customers who generate their own power, with time-of-use rates to encourage peak-demand reductions.

The utility would have to come up with a plan in about four months and expect to spend about $1.4 million on such a program.

The commission passed on a proposal backed by some commissioners to allow large TEP customers such as copper mine Freeport to buy some power on the open wholesale market, citing uncertainty and potential cost shifts to other customers.

The commission also voted to cut discounts given to Pima County, Tucson and South Tucson by about 25 percent annually, or initially from 16 percent to 12.5 percent, until they are phased out.

CHANGES IN STORE

FOR TRICO CUSTOMERS

The utility panel voted to raise Tricos fixed basic monthly charges to $20 from $15, despite opposition from some consumer groups and ratepayers who spoke Wednesday.

Trico had sought to boost its basic monthly charge to $24 for residential customers, arguing that it has been unable to recover fixed costs through volume-based energy charges. Trico officials said a higher fixed monthly charge would help the nonprofit cooperative recoup costs.

But Commissioner Andy Tobin successfully pushed an amendment to cut the requested monthly rate to $20, saying the 60 percent increase was too much to swallow, and several public commenters objected.

A representative of an energy-efficiency group and others said setting the basic monthly charges so high would disproportionately affect low-usage and low-income customers, who would be less able to manage their bills by curbing their power usage.

The lower basic monthly charge will be offset by higher usage charges, so Tricos revenue increase will be about the same, Tobin noted.

Adoption of the new solar export rate came as a surprise, as the Corporation Commission had planned to set those rates in special proceedings of pending rate cases filed by TEP and other utilities.

The Corporation Commission voted in December to end net metering for new rooftop solar customers and replace it with a solar export rate based on comparable costs of energy from big, utility-scale solar farms or on extensive cost studies.

But the commission acknowledged that the electric co-ops are in different situations than investor-owned utilities like TEP, and gave the co-ops the option to use alternative methodologies to determine proper export rates.
The year is 1914 and Margaret Sanger is causing quite the controversy.

Shes demanding rights for women and is promoting the idea that the time for family planning has come.

Sanger is at the center of Monica Byrnes What Every Girl Should Know, Something Something Theatre Companys current offering.

It is set in a 1914 reformatory school where young girls, many of whom have been victims of violence and sexual assault, are first learning about Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood. They also learn they can be more than society thinks they can be.

Jasmine Roth, 26, the education associate at the Arizona Theatre Company, directs the production. She answered some questions for us.

What do you feel is the most compelling part of the story?

I think its the magic in the play. The play deals with sexual assault and violence. These girls are living in this world where thats their reality, yet they create a fantasy world where everything is colorful and beautiful. I hope we can take that and have more support for girls like them today.

Why did you decide to direct What Every Girl Should Know?

Im a huge advocate for producing theater that has a message and being an activist through art. I think this play has a good message for everyone.

This season at Something Something Theatre is all about women who dare. Why do you think this theme is important?

If you think of playwrights, especially taught in school and performed in a lot of theaters, theyre usually male. And theyre brilliant plays. Some of my favorite plays are written by male playwrights. But we need to hear stories from more people, which goes beyond the male and female divide.

Given current controversies of feminism, how do you think What Every Girl Should Know can relate to todays society?

Its important to have a dual mindset  to look at our victories and see how far weve come, but to also remind ourselves that we still need to fight for what we believe in. I dont think you have to like Margaret Sanger or support Planned Parenthood to like this play. We can talk about these issues without being divisive.

Why did you choose theater for a career?

Ive known I wanted to do theatre since I was 5 years old. I enjoyed watching Barney & Friends, and I told my mom I wanted to be on the show. She told me they were actors, and I said, Im going to be an actor then. Once I was involved in theater, it always clicked.
Our Saviour's Lutheran Church and the University of Arizona Lutheran Campus Ministry will host three free lectures honoring the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.

The Rev. Craig Nessan, the academic dean at Wartburg Theological Seminary will present "God's Two Strategies for Bringing Life to the World According to Martin Luther" 10:15 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 12 and "Radicalizing the Reformation: Provoked by the Bible and Today's Crises" 2 p.m. Sunday at Our Saviour's Lutheran Church, 1200 N. Campbell Ave.

At the UA Campus Christian Center, 715 N. Park Ave., he will speak on "Luther Against the Jews: Repudiating a Reformation Legacy" 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 13, according to press materials.
Dean Pielstick, the kenpho of the Awam Tibetan Buddhist Institute, leads a Tibetan Yoga session at the groups space. Pielstick wanted to change the fact that the local Buddhist organizations did not know much about one other.
We've collected a few front pages from newspapers.com to give you a look at some Feb. 9 papers in history. With a subscription to newspapers.com you can search the Arizona Daily Star and many other newspapers using keywords or dates, and download articles or pages.
PHOENIX -- Saying they're promoting the rights of parents to choose, a Senate panel agreed this afternoon to open the door to all 1.1 million students in Arizona schools to use state dollars to attend private or parochial schools.

The 4-3 vote by the Senate Education Committee followed hours of testimony from individuals who already get what lawmakers call "empowerment scholarship accounts detailing how they have helped their children. Eligible groups range from children with special needs to those on reservations and those who attend schools rated D or F.

And Sen. Debbie Lesko, R-Peoria, sponsor of SB 1431, said vouchers save taxpayer money. She said schools get an average of $9,529 a year for each student while a typical voucher is in the $5,200 range.

But Chuck Essigs of the Arizona Association of School Business Officials said that's misleading.

He said that $9,529 figure includes federal aid to schools as well as locally raised dollars for bonds and overrides. Essigs said the actual amount paid out of the state treasury to in state aid to schools is an average of $1,100 less per student than what the state would give a parent to send a child elsewhere; for high schools the difference is $1,200 per child.

Sen. Steve Smith, R-Maricopa, said even if SB 1431 is approved and all students are eligible for vouchers, there's no danger of wholesale shifting of funds from public schools. He cited existing law that limits vouchers to no more than one-half percent of all students, a figure that computes out about 5,500.

What Smith did not say, though, is that cap self-destructs in 2019, removing all limits.

Today's vote came after lawmakers rejected a bid by Sen. David Bradley, D-Tucson, to add a requirement that any school which accepts vouchers must comply with the same regulations that apply to all public schools. That includes not only requirements on testing and accounting but also the mandate to accept all students, even those with special needs.

Sen. Kate Brophy McGee, R-Phoenix, broke ranks with her Republican colleagues in opposing the measure.

Brophy McGee said she supports school choice. But she said there needs to be a level playing field, including "the same level of accountability and transparency.

And Brophy McGee said she cannot support having tax dollars going to private and parochial schools until the state adequately funds the public schools it is required to maintain.
A-10 Thunderbolt II ground-attack planes will keep flying through at least 2021, the Air Forces top general said this week.

The generals remarks were welcomed by U.S. Rep. Martha McSally, a former A-10 pilot, and U.S. Sen. John McCain, both of whom have worked to keep the planes from being mothballed by the Air Force.

The A-10 Warthog, which is known for its toughness and ability to provide close-air support for ground forces, is one of the main missions at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.

McSallys comments follow a statement made by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein at a media breakfast Tuesday in Washington, D.C., that the Air Force will keep all A-10s flying through at least 2021. His statements were reported online by several defense news websites.

Previous commitments by the Air Force would have seen the gradual phasing out of the aircraft starting in 2018, with plans to retire the entire fleet by 2022.

I welcome Gen. Goldfeins comments about retaining all our A-10s until at least 2021. Air Force leadership clearly recognize that the previous decision to mothball the A-10 was a mistake and that this aircraft can continue to play a critical role in strengthening our national security, McSally said in her prepared statement.

McCain also praised the decision, saying it will help protect troops around the globe.

The Air Forces announcement that it will not prematurely retire the A-10 is a credit to the brave airmen from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base and military installations across the country who are providing unmatched close-air support in critical missions throughout the world, he said.

McCain even seemed to suggest the planes should continue flying even beyond 2021.

As the White House develops a defense budget and new five-year defense plan, I hope it will recognize the need to preserve the A-10 fleet as it continues to make advances in the fight against ISIL and support NATOs efforts to deter Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, he said.

McSally has repeatedly asked the military for a comparative fly-off between the A-10 and its likely replacement, the F-35, to see which plane is better at providing close-air support of ground forces.

She believes the new timeline will give officials ample time for such a test.

My provision in last years (National Defense Authorization Act) requiring an A-10/F-35 fly-off before any A-10 can be retired aligns with this timeline, she said. We need to start a serious discussion about what will preserve the A-10s crucial capabilities in future close-air support scenarios.
PHOENIX  State laws that deny bail to people solely because they're accused of having sex with a minor are unconstitutional, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled today.

The justices acknowledged arguments by prosecutors that trial judges have the right to keep certain people behind bars while awaiting trial as a method of protecting the public. And they said that the crime of sexual conduct with a minor is a series charge.

But Justice Clint Bolick, writing for the unanimous court, said the seriousness of the charge, by itself, is insufficient to result in automatic denial of release. He said prosecutors have to prove that a defendant poses a specific threat and that there are no conditions that can be imposed that allow that person's release and protect the public.

Today's ruling comes despite arguments by prosecutors that the justices should honor the will of voters who approved state constitutional provisions in 2002 limiting access to bail.

"The people of Arizona determined that sexual conduct with a minor is an acute problem and that pretrial detention for those accused of that crime was in the best interest of the community,'' said Deputy Maricopa Attorney David Cole.
PHOENIX  A new report from an Arizona State University professor predicts that repealing Obamacare could cut Arizona jobs and send the state into a health-care recession.

Lee McPheters, a research professor of economics, discussed the findings of his January study in a conference call Wednesday.

Since 1995, one out of every five new payroll jobs came from the health-care sector, according to the study.

Its the only industry in Arizona to grow uninterrupted since 1965, McPheters said.

If the federal government repeals the health-care law, the study suggested it would cost nearly half of all of Arizonas expected job losses in 2018.

President Trump and Republican lawmakers have made repealing the Affordable Care Act a top priority.

Without Obamacare, the study said, Arizona will lose revenue from Medicaid expansion funds and insurance-premium tax credits.

First, the health-care sector will cut jobs and reduce salaries, the study said. Health-care companies will limit purchases from suppliers and halt new construction. And when people dont work, they dont spend as much and contribute to the economy.

Personal income in 2018 will be lower in Arizona by $3.5 billion, McPheters said.

The study explored two scenarios with varying degrees of cuts to the health-care program. In either case, health-care job losses would account for 47 percent of all job losses in 2018, it said.

Still, McPheters said other sectors of the economy will still grow, softening the overall impact of the cuts.

Many residents support a repeal. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, has called the Affordable Care Act an unsustainable system that places an unfair financial burden on families and small businesses.

Criticism has been especially sharp in Arizona, where ACA customers faced the steepest premium increases in the nation  116 percent, according to estimates from the Department of Health and Human Services  when this years open enrollment period began Nov. 1.

About 203,000 people in Arizona obtained coverage through one of the Affordable Care Acts marketplace plans in 2016.

Kimber Lanning, executive director of the Arizona Rural Development Council, said the council has had hundreds of smaller companies express concerns over how cuts to the health-care act will affect them.

Were concerned about care. If they have any of their services reduced, it can affect the well-being of the people they serve, Lanning said. Any threat to the sustainability of those communities  is very dangerous.
PHOENIX  Lawmakers took the first steps Wednesday toward asking voters to increase what they pay to fill their vehicles gas tanks.

On a 7-1 margin the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure approved a measure to place a dime-a-gallon increase in the gasoline tax on the 2018 ballot, to raise money for road repair and construction. If approved, it would be the first increase in the current 18-cent tax since 1991.

HCR 2011 would also impose a similar increase on the 26-cent tax paid by heavy duty diesel trucks.

Nobody likes the three-letter word, said Rep. Drew John, R-Safford. But he said all of his constituents realize there is a problem with the condition of Arizona roads due to the lack of funding.

Mike Racy, who lobbies for interests including Pima County and Tucson-based developer Diamond Ventures, told lawmakers the situation is critical.

The decaying infrastructure around the state, especially outside of Maricopa County, has reached crisis proportions, he said.

Tony Bradley, president of the Arizona Trucking Association, estimated that his members lose more than $500 million a year in this state alone in delays due to traffic congestion. Thats just part of the problem caused by roads in poor quality: The maintenance costs are almost unquantifiable, he said.

And David Martin, president of the Arizona chapter of Associated General Contractors, said Arizonas rural roads are the fifth deadliest in the nation, a statistic he attributes to their condition.

Even Rep. Paul Mosley, R-Lake Havasu City, who voted against HCR 2011, said he does not question the pressing needs  and the need for higher taxes. He said Arizonas 18-cent levy is far below the national average of 31 cents.

But Mosley said he wants a more permanent solution than the dime-a-gallon increase and the need to go back to voters for future hikes. He wants the levy to be indexed so that it increases with the price of fuel.

Mosley also said any long-term solution needs to address the fact that there are people with electric vehicles who are using the roads without paying their fair share. Aside from paying no gasoline taxes, he said they can register a vehicle for just $10 a year; the first-year registration fee for a $30,000 sedan is $504, though it drops each year.

The problem stems from the fact that while the number of vehicles continues to increase, as does the number of miles driven, fuel taxes have not kept pace. At least part of that is because cars and trucks are much more efficient.

Arizona Department of Transportation figures show the state collected about $688 million last fiscal year in fuel taxes. By contrast, the levies raised more than $702 million a decade earlier.

Theres also the fact that 18 cents isnt worth what it was when the current levy was set in 1991.

Rep. Noel Campbell, R-Prescott, who chairs the committee, also pointed out that state lawmakers have agreed in prior years to sweep some revenues from road-construction and maintenance needs to instead fund the Department of Public Safety.

That maneuver frees up general tax revenues for other priorities. In fact, the budget for the coming year proposed by Gov. Doug Ducey suggests an $89 million shift.

We know the problems in this state, Campbell said. What we lack are solutions, he continued, saying even the money raised would not solve all of the states needs.

A special task force reported last year Arizona will need $20 billion in additional dollars to construct, widen and maintain freeways necessary to meet the states growing needs. That does not count another $40 billion that economist Alan Maguire, a member of the Surface Transportation Funding Tax Force, said is needed for other road projects.

Campbell said legislative budget staffers estimate an additional 10 cents a gallon would generate more than $300 million in additional revenues by 2020 when fully implemented. The actual figure would likely be higher, he said, as the report does not include his amendment to also raise the tax on diesel fuel bought for large trucks.

More significant, if the state has a guarantee of that much more money coming in annually, it could use that as a pledge to borrow billions more.

While Campbells legislation does not address the question of all motorists paying their fair share, Sen. Bob Worsley, R-Mesa, who chairs the Senate Committee on Transportation and Technology, already is looking at that issue.

His SB 1445 would empower ADOTs director to levy fees on those who use all-electric and alternate-fuel vehicles.

It separately permits an annual tax on insurance premiums to provide funding for the DPS. That would eliminate the need to siphon off road taxes to keep the agency operating.

Campbells proposal still faces several significant hurdles.

It now needs the blessing of the House Ways and Means Committee through which all tax proposals must pass. As of late Wednesday, Rep. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, who chairs that panel, had not decided whether she will hear the measure.
U.S. Rep. Martha McSally said she would not be attending a grass-roots groups town-hall meeting planned for later this month, describing the gathering as a political ambush.

During a telephone call with constituents, the two-term Republican congresswoman who represents District 2 said activists  primarily Democrats  want an opportunity to verbally berate members of Congress in a public setting.

(The forum) is about trapping people in a political ambush for political theater, she said, shortly after her local office was presented a petition with more than 1,000 signatures asking her to hold a public meeting.

McSally reiterated she has met repeatedly with community members in public forums since taking office in 2015. Her staff earlier released a list showing the congresswoman has met with constituents about 30 times in town-hall settings since taking office.

Also, a member of her staff said McSally could not work with a specific political group to hold a town hall, noting it would violate House ethics rules.

The invitation to the forum came in the form of a protest Tuesday in front of McSallys congressional office in Tucson, with several groups joining forces to collect 1,300 signatures requesting McSally participate in a town hall.

Marion Chubon, the leader of the group McSally Take a Stand, said various groups have been trying for three months to get the congresswoman to agree to a public forum.

Other groups involved with the protest included Nasty Women and Bad Hombres of the East Side, Pansuit Nation Tucson, Progressives of Southern Arizona and Indivisible Tucson. The Pima County Democratic Party also encouraged Democrats to attend the event if it is held.

Despite failing to set a date for a meeting with McSally, group leaders scheduled a town hall to be held at St. Francis in the Foothills Methodist Church on Feb. 23. They also put down a $500 security deposit to reserve the space.

Chubon, a registered Democrat, says she got involved with the group shortly after the November election.

Most of our members are not (politically) active either and we are very careful to not endorse candidates in our group. Members discuss different candidates but we are neutral, she said.

She was disappointed with McSallys suggestion the town hall is a partisan ploy.

We call and email and we get form letters that dont address our concerns. More often than not, they do not even mention our concerns. We all have gotten the exact same two letters, she said.

If Martha McSally wants to try to paint the 125 people who showed up today out of frustration with her lack of engagement as political Democratic activists attempting to ambush her by asking for a town hall, that just shows how out of touch she is with nearly half of her constituents, Chubon said.

A spokesman for McSally said previously the two-term congresswoman has met with constituents more than 30 times since taking office and that she participated Tuesday in a phone call with constituents, what her office called a tele-town hall.

The list of public gatherings attended by McSally offered by her office contains mainly meetings with specific audiences, such as a business or organization. For example, a meeting at Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson had McSally talking to company employees and members of the press.

Patrick Ptak, a McSally spokesman, said she is in the process of scheduling meetings with several local groups. He said McSally has met with groups that disagree with her on certain issues, including Citizens Climate Lobby, Gun Violence Prevention AZ and Mothers Demand Action.
PHOENIX  Unable to push through a cap on university tuition hikes to control costs, a state lawmaker wants to require universities to offer a stripped-down degree.

Sen. Sylvia Allen, R-Snowflake, acknowledged Wednesday she cannot marshal the votes for her plan to limit year-over-year tuition increases to 2 percent. SB 1061 drew stiff opposition from the Board of Regents, which contends higher tuition is related to the cuts in state funding enacted by the Republican-controlled Legislature.

But Allen, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, said she is now crafting other ways to cut the cost of higher education.

One of those is requiring universities to provide programs in which students only need to take the courses necessary to gain a particular skill set.

They make them take a lot of classes that have nothing to do with the degree theyre trying to get, Allen said. They could tighten that up a little bit so that theres less time at the university taking courses that dont necessarily apply to what it is youre trying to get your degree for.

So, for example, a student wanting a degree in journalism might need only 36 hours of journalism courses and perhaps some courses in English and political science. But much of the rest that fills out the 120 hours needed for a bachelors degree, ranging from foreign language skills to math courses, would be optional.

Universities position has been that a liberal arts education leads to a well-rounded individual.

Ive heard the arguments, Allen said. But she said shes not convinced thats appropriate for everyone.

I believe that a student should choose, she said. If they want the well-rounded (degree), great. But if a student wants to fast-track to be able to get a degree in journalism, that should be offered.

Offering such a program would be another way to make higher education more affordable, she said.

Allen said she doesnt intend for such a degree option to trick students or their potential future employers. The degree would say that only minimally required courses were taken, and that its not a full-blown liberal arts degree, she said.

Shes not convinced, she added, that the academic courses make someone skilled in a profession.

There was no immediate response from Eileen Klein, president of the Arizona Board of Regents.

Despite Allens inability to get the 2 percent cap on tuition increases, she is pursuing other options this legislative session.

One issue, she said, is that its not fair for a student who enters school to be priced out because of a sudden increase.

Two of the states three universities have some form of a tuition guarantee. But she said legislative testimony shows these are flawed because they fail to include a host of non-optional fees, including special charges for classes a student is required to take.

She is now rewriting her proposal to make the guarantee more inclusive. No date has been set for a new hearing.
OPINION: "Im sure you will see, as I have, that for all the 'God talk' that Christian nationalists throw around, their attitudes and actions are starkly antithetical to the gospel of love and inclusion for all advocated by the Jesus they claim to believe in," writes Rev. Gary Nelson, a form
A child younger than 2 has died of flu-related causes in Pima County, becoming Arizonas first pediatric flu death this season.

Arizonas flu season, which began in October, has been remarkably mild compared with other parts of the country. But the childs death underscores the devastating consequences influenza can have in vulnerable populations, including children and the elderly, county health officials said Wednesday.

Health officials are urging local residents to get a flu vaccine if they have not done so already.

There have been 15 pediatric flu deaths nationally this flu season, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show. Last flu season there were 89. Children who are otherwise perfectly healthy can die from influenza  not just children with underlying health conditions or compromised immune systems.

Pima County Health Department Director Dr. Francisco Garcia would not release detailed information about the child who died, including gender, specific age and whether or not the child received a flu vaccine. He did say that the cause of death was confirmed Tuesday and that the child died in a hospital because of a systemic bacterial infection complicated by the flu virus.

Its Not too late

to get vaccinated

Arizona typically has between one and five pediatric flu-related deaths per season. In the 2015-16 flu season, there were four pediatric flu-related deaths, state records show.

The last time Pima County had a pediatric flu death was 2014. The county and state health departments report only pediatric flu deaths, not flu deaths in adults.

Unfortunately a small child who had flu and other complicating issues ended up succumbing to this, Garcia said Wednesday. Although we are probably in the last four weeks of our flu season, were still in it. And its not too late to vaccinate.

It takes about two weeks for the vaccine to take effect. The flu season usually peaks between December and March.

Getting vaccinated is not just about oneself, Garcia said  it is a social contract.

Our very youngest children  infants that are not yet of vaccination age  need to be surrounded, be cocooned, with caretakers that are vaccinated, he said.

When you are getting vaccinated you are not just getting yourself vaccinated, you are really protecting the people around you.

Since infants younger than 6 months cannot be vaccinated, they are particularly vulnerable.

Some at higher risk

When you and I get the flu, our body fights it off very efficiently, Garcia said. When a very young child or immuno-suppressed individual gets the flu, it makes them vulnerable to other things  and other things that might not be a big deal to the rest of us could kill someone who is vulnerable like that.

Other high-risk groups include people with chronic medical conditions such as asthma, diabetes, heart disease or neurological conditions; pregnant women; children under age 5; and adults older than 65.

Hospitals are increasingly requiring their employees to get flu shots, and the federal government is encouraging all health-care workers to get vaccinated.

The CDC recommends that everyone 6 months and older get the flu vaccine.

Flu viruses spread from person to person through coughing, sneezing, touching something with the flu virus on it, and in some cases through the air.

Quiet season

While the flu shot is the best way to prevent the flu, there are other important steps to prevent getting sick or spreading germs.

If you are sick, stay home. If you are coughing, cover your cough, Garcia said. Make sure you are washing your hands.

As of Jan. 27, flu cases in Arizona were down 19 percent compared with this time last year. Statewide, there have been 2,138 confirmed flu cases, including 232 in Pima County.

I realize there has been a lot of chatter on the national front about how bad the flu is in other states, but as far as Pima County is concerned, it has been a relatively quiet season for us, Garcia said. Thats one of the testaments to the efforts that we have made to get people vaccinated.
PHOENIX  State lawmakers took the first steps this afternoon to asking voters to hike what they pay every time they fill up their cars and trucks.

On a 7-1 margin the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure approve a measure to place a dime-a-gallon hike in the state's gasoline tax on the 2018 ballot. If approved, it would be the first hike in the current 18 cent tax since 1991.

HCR 2011 would also impose a similar increase on the 26-cent tax paid by heavy duty diesel trucks.

"Nobody likes the three-letter word, said Rep. Drew John, R-Safford. But he said all of his constituents realize there is a problem with the condition of Arizona roads due to the lack of funding.

Mike Racy who lobbies for everyone from Pima County to Tucson-based developer Diamond Ventures told lawmakers the situation is critical.

"The decaying infrastructure around the state, especially outside of Maricopa County, has reached crisis proportions, he said.

Tony Bradley, president of the Arizona Trucking Association, estimated that his members lose more than $500 million a year in this state alone in congestion delays. And that's just part of the problem caused by roads in poor quality.

"The maintenance costs are almost unquantifiable, he said.

And David Martin, president of the Arizona chapter of Associated General Contractors said Arizona's rural roads are the fifth deadliest in the nation, a statistic he attributes to their condition.

Even Rep. Paul Mosley, R-Lake Havasu City, who voted against HCR 2011, said he does not question the pressing needs  and the need for higher taxes. He said Arizona's 18-cent levy is far below the national average of 31 cents.

But Mosley said he wants a more permanent solution than the dime-a-gallon hike  and the need to go back to voters for future increases. He wants the levy to be indexed so that it increases with the price of fuel.
Proposed NCGA committee could recommend changes in benefit plans



State Treasurer Dale Folwell, shown here at a January swearing-in ceremony at the Executive Mansion. (CJ photo by Don Carrington)

Increasing assets in the Retiree Health Benefit Fund by legislative appropriations.

Increasing costs paid by the federal government by automatic enrollment of Medicare-eligible retirees in Medicare Advantage or offering financial incentives to early retirees to get insurance through the Affordable Care Act's health exchange.

Transitioning the retiree health benefit from a defined benefit to defined contribution model.

Reducing the number of eligible recipients by increasing the service time requirements to receive the benefit, or by eliminating certain groups.

Requiring employees to contribute to the fund, similar to the Teachers' and State Employees' Retirement System.

Increasing the amount retirees pay for their health benefits through premium increases or out-of-pocket costs.

Any other proposals that come before the committee.

State Treasurer Dale Folwell wants to be more than North Carolina's version of the Dutch boy, his finger plugging the dike of underperforming state health and pension plans. Rather, he plans to vigorously attack the massive unfunded liabilities.Folwell, sworn into office Jan. 1 as the first Republican to hold that seat since 1876, said he has determined the State Health Plan has unmet obligations of $32 billion. The state retirement system has $13 billion in unfunded liabilitiesFolwell said. The repair is starting gradually.he said.Folwell said.He harked back to his campaign stump speech in which he was the only candidate talking about the huge State Health Plan and pension liabilities.he said,The General Assembly might jump on the bandwagon.State Sens. Joyce Krawiec, R-Forsyth, and Chuck Edwards, R-Henderson, on Wednesday filed Senate Bill 22 . It would create a 13-member study committee to investigate options for reducing the retiree health benefit fund. Its findings would be reported back to the General Assembly when completed, or upon convening the legislature in 2018.State Reps. Pat Hurley, R-Randolph, and Rena Turner, R-Iredell, filed a companion bill in the House.The proposed legislation provides for a 13-member committee comprising five members each appointed by Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, and House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland. Nonvoting members would be Folwell or his designee; Mona Moon, the executive administrator of the State Health Plan; and a representative of the Board of Trustees of the State Health Plan.Folwell said.Ardis Watkins, spokeswoman for the 55,000-member State Employees Association of North Carolina, isn't so enthusiastic about the proposed legislation.Watkins said.Watkins said she has confidence in Folwell - he was one of only two Council of State Republican candidates endorsed by SEANC during the 2016 campaign - to find solutions without legislative mandate.The proposed study committee would be tasked with exploring at least six options for reducing the unfunded liability:Watkins said of the third through sixth alternatives.Watkins said.Watkins worries that the benefits provided to state employees "are really the only thing the state has to offer at this point to get qualified employees," and they already are being eroded. Minimal pay raises have not kept pace with the cost-of-living increases, she said.Asking retirees to pay higher premiums or out-of-pocket costs is particularly shocking, Watkins said, because retirees are living on restricted incomes after giving a minimum of 30 years' service to the state to receive the benefits.She said a better option would be to allow Folwell to investigate where the state invests its money, and look to shift it from gambling on high-risk investments to higher performing ones that don't require paying hundreds of millions of dollars in fees to Wall Street investment managers.Last year, the Treasurer's Office said that the annualized return of the retirement system over the last was seven years was 8.5 percent, Watkins said. Yet basic mutual funds got 11.2 percent returns. That 2.7 percent difference in a $90 billion fund would have been $20 billion in higher returns to the state, she said, and that could be used to pay down the unfunded liabilities.Folwell also has called into question the negative cash flow of the state's pension system.
I pose a simple question: can free and civil discourse survive inclusion of those who would silence that discourse by any means possible-including violent intimidation?That seems to be a straightforward question deserving of a straight answer: no, civil discourse will not, except under special circumstances, survive when participants seek to undermine or destroy it.Yet, when that question is applied to academia, it quickly, and very understandably, becomes clouded over with two ideals broadly engrained in the American spirit: our strong, traditional allegiance to free speech and our more recent but passionate desire for inclusion.But in this proposed scenario, both of those ideals fall short of the mark. There is an even more fundamental principle at stake: the willingness to abide by the social contract by respecting the rights of others. Unfortunately, this simple, stark conclusion is hard to see in the mists of the Ivory Tower.A recent controversy at Fordham University provides an excellent vantage point from which to examine this question. My friend Jonathan Marks, a professor of political science at Ursinus College, wrote onthat Fordham erred in denying a request by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) for official club status. While his critique of Fordham's rationale for denying that request has considerable merit, the university's decision was correct.Marks began his critique by calling to attention the 1995 landmark Supreme Court decision in. That case concerned a student Christian publication's request to receive school funding, with the Court finding that theDeciding for the publication, the Court added thatAlthough the University of Virginia is a public school (and is referred to as "the government" in the ruling), Fordham, despite being private, has long chosen to follow the same broad principles of academic freedom and free speech that public institutions do. Most private universities also adhere to those principles of free speech and open inquiry, and therefore can be subject to rulings such as Rosenberger. That means they cannot restrict student activities according to "viewpoint discrimination" (as do the few remaining religious schools that claim a right to promote a specific set of beliefs at the expense of all other perspectives).Marks properly calls out Fordham for its blatant viewpoint discrimination, referring readers to the school administration's attempt to justify its move with a claim that SJP's "sole purpose was advocating political goals of a specific group against a specific country." Fordham clearly would have been better off if it had simply omitted that rationale from its defense.But there are other issues than discrimination with bearing on the Fordham case. Its situation is hardly identical to that of the University of Virginia in 1995; the difference is how the two student groups express their views. Whereas the plaintiffs in Rosenberger revealed their opinions by merely publishing them, SJP has a long record of violently disrupting campus activities to achieve its goals. (In this instance, intimidation in various forms may be considered violence. This includes activities such as shouting down speakers, since it physically denies people their right to speak.)Indeed, there appears to be a clear pattern of activity indicating that SJP is conducting a national campaign to silence and intimidate pro-Israeli student groups through such means as counter-protests, shouting down speakers, walk-outs, demonizing or humiliating chants, and other disruptive tactics.Marks noted with disapproval SJP's tendency to perform such antisocial antics. But he rejected Fordham's argument that the conduct of other SJP chapters throughout the country was sufficient cause to deny its request, instead citing the 1972 Supreme Court decision inHealy concerned a request by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) to start a chapter at Central Connecticut State College (CCSC). SDS, as a national organization, had disrupted campuses all across the country, even shutting some down temporarily. That organization clearly did not wish to participate in a civil public discourse; it wanted to end it through intimidation. Given a chance by the university administration to denounce violence as a tactic, the CCSC chapter refused to do so, which, given prior activities by other SDS chapters, suggests an inclination to indeed use violence as a means to its ends. Still, the Court decided in favor of SDS and against the university.I contend that decision-made in the feverish conclusion to the turbulent 1960s-is wrong and needs to be challenged. While the freedoms of speech and association are extremely desirable pillars of our society, they are not necessarily of such moral weight that they trump all other concerns. As Russell Kirk wrote in 1955,American freedom is the result of a contract in which all parties agree to honor certain rights of others. Academic freedom exists with that spirit in mind, and when an individual or group on campus refuses to honor the spirit of that contract, they should forfeit their right to participate.Therefore, Fordham was correct to reject SJP, given that there is a clear and demonstrable record that shows SJP, when granted the right of free association on campus, will use that right to deny the equally valid rights of Jewish groups.Not to do so will have dire consequences, if adopted as a general rule for all academia. Extending broad academic freedom protections to organizations that use violence and intimidation to get their way will sound the death knell of academia as the marketplace of ideas and bring about an academic jungle with brute power as the standard. Dealing with such matters may mean a less-than-perfect conception of free speech in some cases. But free speech, freedom of association, and academic freedom have never been all-or-nothing propositions; everybody can come up with exceptions such as yelling "fire" in a crowded theater or promoting violent overthrow of the government.One alternative may be to give groups with antisocial proclivities, such as SJP, official status after a probationary period, during which any intrusion on the rights of others is cause for an end to their inclusion. But that may be merely postponing the inevitable-groups such as SJP and Black Lives Matter exist for political intimidation. Furthermore, it is always politically easier to deny a group initially than to remove it from campus once it has been allowed to establish itself and grow.Keeping our civilization civilized through limiting the activities of those who would damage it is hard-but unfortunately, sometimes necessary. And it may be that ensuring that young people understand that the social contract is inviolable, no matter how heartfelt their political passions are, is the most important education of all.
In October 2015 I put up a post largely about the Richag-AV and Krasukha-4 jamming systems then appearing with the Russian forces moving into Syria. It sparked a good discussion that cut through a lot of the techno-hype. One thing that became clear was that Russia developed and employed a broad family of radio-electronic combat (REC) technologies. Another point made was that these jamming technologies do not form an impenetrable force field. They work together as a system of systems to create an extremely hostile electro-magnetic environment for enemy weapons and surveillance systems. Its not voodoo magic.

As a review of this subject, South Front put out an excellent summary of Russian REC capabilities. Although the article has a sensational title, Ultra-Secret Weapon that Allows Russia to Assume His Supremacy in Electronic War in Syria and it has been translated from Romanian to French and then to English, it is both readable and informative.

To continue the review, I took a look at some of the stories out there about the Cook/Su-24 incident. They run the gamut. A lot of the stories seem to conflate two different ECM systems. The Su-24 accounts from the Cook describe a single, basket-like pod under the belly of the fighter-bomber. Other stories describe the Khibiny as torpedo-like pods attached to the wing tips of many of the newer generation Russian aircraft, but not the Su-24. The Su-24 mounted system supposedly shut down, degraded or jammed the Aegis radars and/or fire control systems, but not the engines of the Cook. The wing tip mounted Khibiny system mounted on newer Russian aircraft is said to jam the ability of missiles to lock on and hit the aircraft. Sounds like two different ECM systems to me.

Another ECM incident involved a drone flown out of Syria towards Israel. The drone "deflected" two Iron Dome missiles and one missile fired by an Israeli F-16. This last incident is from a blog by Brad Cabana, a Canadian who posted reliable info during the louder parts of the war in Ukraine along with a thought provoking story of an incident surrounding the coup attempt in Turkey.



In fact, Erdogan was scheduled to meet in Moscow with Russian President Putin just two days before the coup. However, all that came to a sudden end when Erdogan was spirited out of his vacation home just prior to an attempt on his life by a platoon of Turkish special forces. Somehow he had gotten wind of it, boarded his jet, and jettisoned off toward Turkey's capital. While enroute to the capital his plane was "locked onto" by two Turkish F-16's. Despite locking onto Erdogan's jet the Turkish fighter pilots could not fire and bring it down - for whatever reason. The bottom line is that al the evidence points toward a very important Russian intervention in the coup - to stop it that is. It appears that Russian intelligence intercepted the coup plotter's communications and plans, alerted Erdogan in advance, and saving his life in the process. It likely also proved very clearly to Erdogan who his friends were, and who they were not. In any case, the mysterious escape from the lethal missiles of those two Turkish F-16s is really what this article is about.

Funny enough, Erdogan's saving grace seems to be a part of another trend that has raised its head for at least the last few years. Simply put, the Russians have developed technology that renders all missile systems, nuclear or conventional, useless. In November, 2014 the first high profile incident occurred when a Russian SU-24 fighter bomber shut down all systems on the USS Donald Cook in the Black Sea. The only armament the plane carried was a small basket - an important little basket known as "Khibiny" - perhaps named after the Russian mountain of the same name. In any case, the entire state-of-the-art destroyer was rendered unable to defend itself while the SU-24 flew eleven simulated bombing runs over it before flying off. The Cook's Aegis system (most modern US defence system) was shut down completely.

Then, just three weeks ago a military drone entered Israeli airspace from Syria. The Israeli military fired two Patriot missiles at the drone, but the deadly accurate missiles could not hit the slow and plodding drone. Then an Israeli fighter pilot fired an air-to-air missile at the drone, but the missile would not strike it. It appears quite obvious that the Russian drone had on board a system similar to the Khibiny electronic warfare device that shut down the Cook. However, this system appears to not jam the firing systems, but just the missiles themselves. That would be a variant of the system and essentially render anti-aircraft systems and fighter jets obsolete. It seems clear the Russians used the air-tight "Iron Dome" Israeli anti-missile system as a test for this technology. Not a bad choice considering Israel's small land mass and therefore concentrated air defence systems. Or, in other words, no better place to test it in the world. (Rock Solid Politics)



Cabanas account of Erdogan owing his life to Russian ECM is interesting, but I havent found any other accounts of the incident. It might be true. It might be myth. Perhaps some of our august fellow correspondents can shed some light on this story.

I did find several other references to this last incident that corroborate Brad Cabanas account. This sounds like a well planned field test of a Russian ECM system. Im sure there were some Russian REC technicians shouting Eureka at the results of this experiment. Im also pretty damned sure there were a lot of Israeli military officers and politicians crying Ooooh Shiiit! Were scrooowed! It doesnt take much imagination to understand the ramifications of just the possibility of such a lightweight, low power ECM becoming available to Hezbollah missile forces.

TTG

http://www.timesofisrael.com/russia-not-hezbollah-sent-drone-into-israel-report/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

https://www.rt.com/news/351844-israel-drone-missiles-intercept/

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/israel-almost-shot-down-russian-drone-17390
On art, music, books, movies, politics, life - sometimes with astrology thrown in.
Help India!

Hyderabad-based All India Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen is contesting UP elections for the first time. Its president Barrister Asaduddin Owaisi was earlier denied permission to hold rallies in UP but after the commencement of elections, Owaisi is touring the state extensively and has fielded candidates in three dozen seats. Following is an excerpt from the interview with Faisal Fareed for Twocircles.net.

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What prompted AIMIM to venture in UP politics? How many seats are you contesting and what are your aims?

We are contesting against those who have betrayed in the garb of secularism and development. UP is an important state of the country and we want to provide good and clean representatives to people. We want that peoples representatives should also raise issues of education, health, security in the assembly. We are contesting only on 36 seats which have been decided by the state unit of AIMIM.

There are charges on you by Samajwadi Party leaders that you are an agent of BJP.

They level such allegations. But I have letters to show that two brothers of Mulayam SinghShivpal Yadav and Ramgopal Yadavhave accused each other of being agents of BJP. Even Mulayam has said that Ramgopal hobnobbed with BJP to save his son and daughter in law. Everybody knows which family fell over each other in taking a selfie with PM Narendra Modi. And still, they call me an agent of BJP. In fact, they are a wholesale agent of BJP.

It is reported that you will divide Muslim votes due to which BJP will win. What are your thoughts?

In 2014 Lok Sabha elections, AIMIM was not in UP, yet the BJP won. It is a mere theory that these parties are spreading. I am just telling people to ask these people about their report card. They invite BJP people at their home and share good bonhomie and accuse me of dividing Muslim votes. I am exposing their dubious nature.

Why are you so against SP and Congress?

Since SP is in power it has to answer the questions. Where are its poll promises of Muslim reservation, school, and education for Muslims? They gave Muzaffarnagar riots. If you again vote for someone who has given you 200 riots, he will again give you more riots. And what about Congress, they have to change their slogan of 27 saal UP Behal. But why is Congress silent on the atrocities upon Muslims during its regime? It is not that people have forgotten Hashimpura and Maliana. Both are just traders of Muslim voters.

You only speak about Muslims. Why is it so?

I speak only as per Indian constitution. I even carry a copy of our constitution. It has given us equality, justice, and brotherhood. When I talk about it why those who have fleeced Muslims in the name of secularism and highlighting the apprehension of BJP are worried. I just raise issues which have been guaranteed by the constitution to everyone.

Who according to you is the biggest enemy of AIMIM and the people of UP?

I consider both Narendra Modi and Akhilesh Yadav as two faces of the same coin. Even Mulayam is saying that Akhilesh is anti-Muslim. My enemies are all those who are opportunists and communal people. There is not much difference between SP and BJP.
Help India!

By Twocircles.net Staff Reporters

The Uttar Pradesh government has failed to expeditiously investigate and prosecute the seven cases of gang-rape filed after the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots and deliver justice, Amnesty International India said while publishing a report in Delhi on Thursday, February 9.

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The briefing, Losing Faith: The Muzaffarnagar Gang-rape Survivors Struggle for Justice, details the cases of seven Muslim women who came forward after the September 2013 riots to report that they had been gang-raped, all by men from the Jat community.

Over three years after the riots, there has not been a single conviction in any of the cases. Despite changes to Indias laws in 2013 requiring trials in rape cases to be completed without unnecessary delay, trials have proceeded extremely slowly. The state government and successive central governments have also failed to adequately protect the survivors from threats and harassment  which in some cases led to them retracting their statements  and to provide adequate reparation.

The Uttar Pradesh government has failed the seven women who have fought enormous odds to pursue their cases, said Aakar Patel, Executive Director, Amnesty International India. The governments apparent lack of interest in delivering justice also goes against the spirit of the legal reforms passed in 2013 to end impunity for violence against women, he added.

Amnesty International interviewed six out of the seven gang rape survivors who had filed FIRs, between July 2016 and January 2017. In all seven gang-rape cases, the police took months to file charges, and even after they did so, trials have proceeded extremely slowly. Even where the police filed charges which took between six and 14 months in most cases the trials did not commence immediately.

In three cases, survivors identified and named the men they said had raped them in their First Information Reports but then retracted their statements in court. Some of them later admitted that they had been compelled to do so after facing pressure and threats to their safety and that of their families, and a lack of adequate support and security from the authorities.

We are still scared when we leave home, said one of the survivors to Amnesty International India.

Human rights lawyer Vrinda Grover, who has represented the survivors in the Supreme Court, said, We are saying yes, you must stand up, in court, in a rape trial, and give evidence, and your dignity must be vindicated. But for that what should she do? She should either put her own life or the life of her children or other family members at stake.

The state police also did not at first invoke Section 376(2)(g) of the Indian Penal Code, which specifically recognizes the offense of rape during the communal or sectarian violence, in the FIRs registered in September and October 2013 and February 2014. There were also delays in filing FIRs, conducting medical examinations and recording the statements of the survivors before a magistrate.

The timeline of the reasons for court adjournments in Ghazalas case illustrates how repeated delays and adjournments, and an apparent lack of intent from

prosecutors to expedite proceedings, can hinder the survivors right to justice, the organisation said.

The Allahabad High Court granted bail to the three accused men in December 2014, January 2015 and February 2015, on the condition that they shall not seek adjournments on the dates fixed for evidence when the witnesses are present in court. However, adjournments were repeatedly both sought by the accused, and granted by the fast-track court hearing the case, it added in the report.

All seven survivors have received little assistance from authorities in helping them rebuild their lives despite suffering enormous damage to their livelihoods. Many of the families had to arrange to provide food to the constables appointed to protect them.

The families have also been at the receiving end of threats and intimidations, the organisation said.

Every one of the seven women gang-rape survivors from Muzaffarnagar and Shamli who sought justice reported that they had faced harassment, threats, and intimidation from the accused men and their relatives after they filed their complaints. In many instances, the threats continued despite repeated complaints and police protection, the report added.

The new government in Uttar Pradesh, which will take office in March, must ensure that the investigations and prosecutions in all the cases are pursued vigorously without undue delay and that survivors are provided full reparation. The central government must enact a law to prevent and respond to communal violence, and establish a comprehensive victim and witness protection programme, said Aakar Patel.
Help India!

New Delhi, (IANS) : The central government on Thursday said around 54 per cent of the Social Justice and Empowerment Ministrys budgetary allocation in the year 2016-17, was spent on Scheduled Castes (SC) scholarships.

In the year 2016-17, almost 54 per cent of the (ministrys) Budget has been spent on scholarships for the Scheduled Castes and around 60 lakh beneficiaries across several scholarship schemes received this amount through the digital mode, Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Thawar Chand Gehlot told media.

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He said the ministry had given a strong push to digital transactions.

Around 53 lakh beneficiaries under Backward Class and Other Backward Class categories were given scholarship through the digital mode, Gehlot said.

The three corporations of the ministry  National Scheduled Caste Finance Development Corporation (NSFDC), National Backward Class Finance Development Corporation (NBCFDC), and National Safai Karamcharis Finance Development Corporation (NSKFDC)  distributed around Rs 475 crore through digital mode to almost two lakh beneficiaries, he added.

Gehlot also said the definition of atrocity has been widened and amendments were introduced in June 2016 to protect the Scheduled Castes.

Compensation payable to victims of atrocities has been enhanced and in the previous year 42,541 people were given compensation of Rs 130 crore, he said.

He also spoke about the steady increase in the ministrys budgetary allocations since 2014.

Budget of the ministry has been steadily increasing from Rs 55 crore in 2014-15 to Rs 70 crore in 2017-18. This is an increase of 6 per cent, he explained.
Company Will Invest $330 Million in Production and Distribution Operations

"For those same reasons and a competitive incentive program from the City of Shelby, Cleveland County and the State of North Carolina, we are pleased to announce the company's newest state-of-the-art tissue machine will be built in Shelby. And special thanks to the citizens of Cleveland County and the State of North Carolina for making our decision clear."

Contact: Ford Porter

Ford Porter govpress@nc.gov

SHELBY, N.C. - Governor Roy Cooper announced today that Clearwater Paper Corporation will launch a major expansion at its facility in Cleveland County, creating 180 jobs over the next two years. The company will invest $330 million at its production and distribution operations in Shelby.said Governor Cooper.Clearwater Paper is the largest provider of private-brand tissue to the U.S. retail market. Headquartered in Spokane, Wash., the publicly-traded company [NYSE: CLW] was created in 2008 through a spinoff from a predecessor company. Clearwater Paper has manufacturing facilities in 13 states. Its facility in Shelby opened in 2012 and currently employs 264.said North Carolina Commerce Secretary Anthony M. Copeland. N.C. Commerce and the Economic Development Partnership of N.C. led the state's support for the company's expansion.Clearwater Paper will hire operators, distribution staff, maintenance personnel and other workers. Salaries will vary by position, but the annual compensation of the company's 180 new jobs will average $40,791. Cleveland County's overall average wage is currently $36,576 per year.said Linda Massman, president and CEO of Clearwater Paper.Clearwater Paper's expansion in Cleveland County will be facilitated, in part, by a Job Development Investment Grant (JDIG) approved by the state's Economic Investment Committee earlier today. Under the terms of the JDIG, the company is eligible to receive up to $2,635,200 in total reimbursements. Payments will occur in annual installments over 12 years pending verification by N.C. Commerce and N.C. Revenue that the company has met incremental job creation and investment targets. JDIGs reimburse new and expanding companies a portion of the newly created tax-base with the goal of increasing the overall revenue benefit to the state of North Carolina.By law, JDIG projects must result in a net revenue inflow to the state treasury over the life of the award. For projects in Cleveland and other Tier 2 counties, 15 percent of the eligible grant is directed to the state's Industrial Development Fund - Utility Account to help finance economic infrastructure in rural counties. Clearwater Paper's expansion could provide as much as $292,800 in new funds for the Utility Account. Learn more about county tier designations.said House Speaker Tim Moore.said N.C. Senator Warren DanielPartnering with N.C. Commerce and the EDPNC on this project were the North Carolina General Assembly, the N.C. Department of Transportation, the North Carolina Community College System, the Golden LEAF Foundation, the N.C. Railroad Company, CSX Corporation, Cleveland County, the City of Shelby, Duke Energy and the Cleveland County Economic Development Partnership.
Help India!

Lucknow, (IANS) : Chief Election Commissioner Naseem Zaidi on Thursday assured full security to the people who migrated from Kairana in western Uttar Pradesh and were interested to cast votes in the February 11 assembly poll.

Talking to reporters in the state capital, the CEC also said that district magistrates and police chiefs have already been directed by the poll panel to ensure full security to such people.

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Zaidi was in the state capital to review the preparations for the seven phase poll in Uttar Pradesh. The first phase of polling is scheduled in western UP districts on Saturday.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been raking up the issue of migration of Hindu families from Kairana and party chief Amit Shah has on many occasions made it amply clear that for his party, security and safety of such migrants remained a poll issue.

The Allahabad High Court has also recently asked officials to ensure the safety and security of people in this communally sensitive areas.

When asked about the repeated demands of the BJP to remove the state DGP Javeed Ahmad and the chief secretary Rahul Bhatnagar on charges of being very close to the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP), Zaidi said the poll panel was seized of the matter and action would be taken on the issue at an appropriate time.
Help India!

By Faisal Fareed, Twocircles.net

With UP going to elections this weekend, it is clear that the gloves are off and everyone is either trying to support a party or oppose it. The Ulemas of UP are not likely to be left behind. When the SP-Congress alliance was announced, Ulemas joined hands in opposing the same. Now, another group of Ulemas, the Rashtriya Ulema Council, has announced that it would extend support to the Bahujan Samaj Party. Their slogan Muslim Dalit ka Saath Pasand Hai might be similar to the one used by the SP-Congress alliance (UP ko ye saath pasand hai), but beyond slogans, what will be the impact of this alliance? Both the protests of Ulemas against Congress-SP and the support of RUC should be seen as positives for the BSP, right? The truth, however, remains that for their supposed clout and the attention from media, parties like RUC have almost zero impact on the ground.

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The BSP supporters term it as a shot in the arm, hoping that it will bring Muslim voters closer to their party. But let us not be swayed by mere emotion and beliefs, and look at the numbers: in reality, the RUC had contested 64 seats totaling crores of voters in 2012, and lost all the seats. What was worse, their candidates had to forfeit the deposits, i.e., less than one-sixth of the votes went to RUC in 63 of 64 seats. Their candidates managed to poll over 1.55 lakh votes, which shows how little the party actually mattered when it came to attracting votes. But it still performed better than other Muslim parties who contested in 2012 elections.

Many of them claim to be the sole representative of Muslims but failed miserably. Most of them got such a small number of votes that it became difficult to calculate the vote percentage. Hardly any of these parties had any impact on Muslim votes and results. Most of them failed to attract Muslims and there was no sway over the community.

The only exception to this trend was the performance of the Peace Party, which contested 208 seats and won four even as the partys candidates had to forfeit their deposits on 193 seats. The party polled over 17 lakh votes and their vote percentage were 4.54% in the seats it contested. Its president Dr. Ayub proudly claims that his party was the fifth-largest party in state assembly but even then it has not been given a government building for its office. When the best performing Muslim party managed to poll less than 5% votes, one can imagine the state of other Muslim parties.

Quami Ekta Dal of Mukhtar Ansari contested on 43 seats and won two seats and had to forfeit its deposited on 37 seats. It polled over 4 lakh votes and its vote percentage was 5.32 % on the seats it contested. Now the party has been merged with BSP.

Another party, Ittehad-E-Millat Council of Maulana Tauqeer Raza, won one seat but that MLA too joined SP. It had contested on 18 seats and polled about 1.9 lakh votes. Besides these three parties, no other Muslim party failed to make any impact, let alone win a seat.

For reference, Akhil Bharatiya Muslim League (Secular) ABML(S) contested on three seats and polled just 1,277 votes. The All India Minorities Front (AIMF) contested on 19 seats and got only 17,127 votes, about 0.48% of all votes polled. The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) contested on three seats and got 2,130 votes. Momin Conference (MC) contested on two seats and got 1,557 votes. Muslim Majlis Uttar Pradesh (MMUP) contested on two seats and got 1,235 votes. Minorities Democratic Party (MNDP) contested on one seat and got 510 votes. Indian Peace Party contested on three seats and got 1,975 votes only. Indian National League contested on two seats and got 1,329 votes. The Muslim League Kerala State Committee contested on nine seats and got 7,373 votes.

The Welfare Party of India was introduced in Lucknow by S Q R Ilyas, who came with a briefcase and it became a saying in UP that WPI is limited to this suitcase only. It contested on four seats and got 2,388 votes.

There is no doubt that BSPs tie up with RUC is a symbolic gesture: the Muslims who vote for BSP will vote because of Mayawati, not because of their faith in RUC.
Help India!

Lucknow, (IANS) : Imam Bukhari, the Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid in Delhi, on Thursday appealed to his followers in the community to vote against the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, beginning February 11.

Addressing a press conference here, Bukhari said he would expect the Muslim community to vote for the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

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He said the BSP had always maintained law and order in the state and fulfilled its promises towards the community.

Blaming the Akhilesh Yadav-led SP government for the troubles and insecurity among Muslims in the state, Bukhari also accused the Samajwadi Party of going back on its 2012 electoral promise of reservations for Muslims.

I had met both Mulayam Singh Yadav and Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav over the issue but they did not pay heed to our demands, he said.

Mulayam told Akhilesh to look into the matter but he did not listen, Bukhari added.

Taking a dig at the strained relations between the father and the son, Bukhari asked how can a person do justice to the state when he had humiliated his own father.

The development comes in stark contrast to 2012, when just before the elections to the state assembly, Bukhari along with Mulayam Singh Yadav had held a joint presser in a five-star hotel in Lucknow, wherein the Jama Masjid Imam had thrown his lot behind the SP and had asked Muslims to vote en masse for the SP.
President-elect Donald Trump made headlines after the Golden Globes ceremony, in which Meryl Streep gave a scathing speech about him (without actually naming him), when he tweeted that the Oscar-winning actress is overrated. However, its not the first time shes called a high-profile celebrity overrated.

He says it about a lot of political figures

The first in Trumps long list of overrated Celebrities is right-wing political commentator George Will, who has won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. He also took on political filmmaker and former Daily Show host Jon Stewart, tweeting I promise you that Im much smarter than [Stewart] before inevitably adding that he is totally overrated. In a series of later tweets attacking Stewart, each one of them adding his previous totally overrated sentiment, Trump added that Stewart wouldnt have even a little chance in a debate with me, citing that he is not fast enough or smart enough, and also described the poor man as a joke, not very bright, and a dumb clown.

Trump called Charles Krauthammer a highly overrated political pundit and a dope. He called Marco Rubio a highly overrated politician who he wouldnt trust to run even one of his smaller businesses.

He also made a pretty bold statement calling President Barack Obama the most overrated politician in US history. He also called out another Democratic ex-President, Bill Clinton (his rivals husband), saying that the phony media claim anything he says or does is incredible and that, yes, he is highly overrated.

Trump has also taken on showbiz figures

After the cast of Hamilton criticised Trumps Vice President Mike Pence during a production when he was in their audience, Trump was outraged. He took to Twitter to call the play highly overrated (of course) and demanded that they say sorry to Pence, although they never did. Trump also called Jerry Seinfeld highly overrated, and also claimed to be funnier than the legendary and iconic comedian who pays taxes.

And now, the most recent addition to the longest such list in history is Meryl Streep, who Trump referred to as one of the most overrated actresses in Hollywood. Theres certainly a pattern forming in his insults against famous people. He also bashed Streep for saying scathing things about him without knowing him personally, despite his lack of personal relationships with Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, and the cast of Hamilton. The pot appears to be calling the kettle black and highly overrated.
The number of refugee children being accepted in the UK has fallen from 3,000 to 350 following a recent decision on behalf of the UK government to halt the Dubs Scheme.

During yesterday's Brexit debate, the Home Office announced the scheme's early closure, arguing the programme could incentivise children to travel to Europe.

Yvette Cooper, Labours refugee task force spokesperson, said this morning in Parliament: "Once those 350 children are here, thats it, it is closed. Where does it say in the Hansard debate that I have here from our debates in the Dubs amendment that we will only help lone child refugees for less than six months.

Where does it say that instead of the 3,000 that Parliament debated we will only help a tenth of that number?"

Where does it say that when we get the chance we will somehow turn our backs once again. It doesnt because we didnt say that at the time. The Home Secretary knows what she is doing is shameful, she added.

Amber Rudd MP and home secretary continued to claim "the scheme is not closed."

Back to the Jungle

In light of the construction of "the great wall of Calais," all refugee children refused entry to the UK will be sent back to the jungle camp, infamous for its dangerous conditions.

With temperatures hitting below freezing in the winter, there has been many cases of unaccompanied minors going missing, and starving or freezing to death.

Reports have also claimed the camp is infested with rats and contaminated with faeces, causing the residents to contract deadly diseases such as tuberculous.

Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott said: The worst thing about this Governments failure to step up to the totality of the refugee crisis is the children.

How does she [Rudd] live with herself leaving thousands of children, subject to disease, people trafficking, squalor and hopelessness?

What is the Dubs Amendment?

The Amendment was initiated by Lord Dubs, a former holocaust survivor, who pushed for the government to accept more child refugees and asylum seekers under the age of 15, from war-torn countries such as Syria and Afghanistan.

Despite promising to enforce the law, the government have reportedly scrapped the scheme.

Lord Dubs said he will challenge the "bitterly disappointing" termination of his amendment against the UK's immigration act.

Many MP's have named and shamed the decision as "letting the country down by refusing to help children fleeing war and genocide."
President-elect Donald Trump's pick to be the new attorney general of the United States has emphatically denied sympathising with the Klu Klux Klan in front of his Senate confirmation hearing today. Despite pressing concerns outlined by numerous Democratic senators, the opposition are powerless to prevent Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, 69, from being confirmed as America's top prosecutor. Thus far, Donald Trump's choices for the upper chamber have raised eyebrows across the board due to their problematic backgrounds.

In the first day of a two-day hearing, Jeff Sessions claimed that accusations he once supported the notorious white supremacist group were "damnably false".

Sessions continued: "I abhor the KKK, what it represents and its pernicious ideology". Further, Jeff Sessions acknowledged the horrific impact that systemic discrimination has had on "our African-American" brothers and sisters.

A problematic past

Sessions is one of the most conservative members of Trump's assembled upper chamber. In the hearing, Sessions denied warning a black assistant to be "careful how he spoke to white people". In 1986, Jeff Sessions was denied federal judgeship after a committee heard he made racist remarks.

Throughout the course of the hearing, protesters chanted: "No Trump, No Klu Klux Klan, No Racist USA". An African American protester was heard shouting: "Stop this racist pig from getting into power," before he was escorted from the premises by police officers in attendance.

Opposition voice

The main voice of Democratic opposition in the hearing came from Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, who noted that there was a tangible fear in the African American community since the election of Donald Trump. Feinstein said that Mr Sessions had voted against a recent amendment that affirmed the United States would not prevent immigrants entering the country based on their religious beliefs.

However, Jeff Sessions denied that he supported the demonisation of the Islamic community, citing the "great Muslim citizens we have in this country".

In other testimony, Jeff Sessions appeared to distance himself further from his past political statements. Mr Sessions recognised that same-sex marriage and the right to abortion were fundamental laws of the modern day United States. In a surprise piece of testimony, Jeff Sessions stated that he possessed no reason to doubt that Russian President Vladimir Putin was behind the hacking of Democratic party emails.
Its good to be home, said President Barack Obama as he walked onstage in Chicagos McCormick Place last night to the sounds of U2 to give his farewell speech while he prepares to hand the reins over to President-elect Donald Trump.

When he brought up the peaceful transfer of power from one freely elected President to the next, everyone in the audience of 18,000 erupted into booing Obama, but he calmed them down with a quick No, no, no, before clarifying that he committed to President-elect Trump that my administration would ensure the smoothest possible transition, and mentioned how George W.

Bush did the same for him in 2009, for which everybody cheered.

Obama mostly addressed political division

The biggest subject Obama tackled in his speech was the divide between liberals and conservatives as a Democratic government transitions into a Republican government. Obama called this fear of change, and addressed Trumps selective sorting of the facts, disregard for climate change (a topic Obama feels very passionately about), discrimination against Muslim Americans, and arguing with strangers on the internet. Obama warned that, for all of these issues, there are no quick fixes, and only named Trump once throughout the entire hour-long address.

Obama had a lot to say about the air of bitterness surrounding the election cycle this past year, as Trump and Hillary Clinton became fierce rivals and began personally attacking one another to get ahead in the ultimately meaningless polls.

He says that the rapidly changing economy and the media made this switch of political power seem natural, even inevitable.

Obama said that the spreading of fake news is increasingly becoming a problem, as we become so secure in our bubbles that we accept only information, whether true or not, that fits our opinions, instead of basing our opinions on the evidence thats out there. This could be a reference to the Pizzagate scandal surrounding Hillary Clinton that alleged she was running a child sex abuse ring out of a pizzeria basement.

Despite no evidence whatsoever to support it, right-wing conspiracy theorists who support Trump became obsessed, and led to a shooting incident at the pizzeria involved.

The farewell speech is a tried and true Presidential tradition

US Presidents have always given farewell speeches on their way out of the White House, ever since George Washington, but it was Eisenhower whose gripping and groovy remarks in 1961 flipped the script on the old-fashioned farewell address and injected some much-needed life into the proceedings.

However, they are mostly delivered from the Oval Office, whereas Obama decided to do it in Chicago, the city he feels he most identifies with, having gone to school there and worked there.

Obama wasnt humble in bringing up all the good change his administration has been responsible for: the legalisation of gay marriage nationwide, the killing of Osama Bin Laden, healthcare reform, wealth inequity, and saving America from the recession it had gotten itself into when he was first sworn in. He also had laudatory things to say about the influence of his wife Michelle and his daughters on his Presidency.

He ended on an inspirational note

As Obama wrapped up, he said, My fellow Americans, it has been the honour of my life to serve you. He also promised that he wont stop and that hell be right there with you as a citizen as Trump takes over.

He told the crowd that he had one final ask of you as your President, and in an inspiring note to end his Presidency on, he repeated the ask he first made when he went into office eight years ago: I am asking you to believe. Not in my ability to bring about change...but in yours.
Jeremy Corbyn has had a mixed few days and after performing well at PMQs, putting Theresa May into a spot of bother about Surrey Council. You could be forgiven in thinking that he might turn around the Brexit debacle. However, yesterday evening saw the Brexit bill pass through parliament without a single amendment, effectively handing Theresa May the power to do what she wants.

Prior the vote, Clive Lewis, MP for Norwich South, resigned from his front bench position. Dealing a massive blow to Corbyns leadership, as he was a close ally but seen as someone who the party can unite around by many.

Cause for concern

The issue with there being so little opposition to the bill, is that it gives the power to the government, who will feel that they can do anything. It also will cause further mistrust in Corbyn and his leadership with the public, the general feeling of who is going to hold the government to account, if not the opposition?.

The failure to win any concessions on the bill and then allow it to be passed through Parliament is absurd. The bill itself was full of flaws and rhetoric but it also highlighted key leave campaign arguments as false. The plan the government have will only serve to cut corporate tax, create a tax haven, decrease UK productivity, depress wages further, stagnate growth, damage social cohesion, limit the rights of our workers, cut important environmental and investment in renewables, potential privatisation of the NHS, increase tax and VAT costs that hit the poorest hardest and the cost of living will rise.

There are many more issues that could arise from giving the furthest right wing government we have had since Thatcher, even the current government are further to the right than Thatcher was, a clean bill. Their plans will only serve the few not the many but this is Machiavellianism at its finest. Corbyn allowed the bill to pass without any concessions and there were two very notable losses during the debates that took place.

Key amendments

Labours Chuka Umunna tabled an amendment that the promise of 350 million a week extra to the NHS, was to be honoured. However, this was voted down by parliament and the likes of Boris Johnson, Andrea Leadsom and Michael Gove, all whom were part of the campaign, voted against the amendment. Another amendment, this time tabled by Labours Harriet Harman, was to guarantee the rights of EU citizens living in Britain.

MPs opposed the amendment with a majority of 42, with the likes of George Osbourne, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Jeremy Hunt, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Douglas Carswell, David Davis plus many others including Labour MPs Kate Hoey, Gisela Stuart and Graham Stringer voting against it. Conservative MP Ken Clarke voted in favour of the amendment, as well as most of Labour and the entirety of the SNP and Lib Dems.

The future

The clean bill is expected to pass through the House of Lords with no opposition, because despite a remain majority itll be harder for the unelected lords to oppose because of their reluctance to take on elected MPs, with it being given Royal Assent on March 7th. That means Theresa May would then be formally allowed to notify the EU that she is invoking Article 50 at the EU summit later that week.

With no real opposition to the bill, Theresa May will be able to go to the EU negotiating table on her terms. With a notable dislike of the many European bodies that support fundamental rights for workers and citizens, shell be looking for a full removal of as many bodies as possible. The problem is what she is going to offer instead?

With the risk of losing many companies in scientific research, tech and university research work plus other losses, the future is very uncertain and this is a time where we need the opposition to stand and be heard.
In a survey before president Trump initiated his partial ban on Muslims, Chatham House, The Royal Institute of International Affairs asked 10,000 people in 10 EU countries, including the UK, what they thought of Muslims - whether they would support the kind of ban Candidate and President-Elect Trump had called for during his campaign.

Survey before Trump Order

The survey, which took place before President Trump issued his controversial Executive Order banning all Syrians permanently and those from 6 other predominently muslim countries for 90 days, asked if people agreed or disagreed with the following statement, All further migration from mainly Muslim countries should be stopped, and to what extent they either agreed or disagreed.

Many EU leaders have disagreed with the ban. German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Trump about UN Refugee Convention. The 1949 Geneva Convention included a complete ban on all refugees as a war crime.

London's Mayor Sadiq Khan opposes trump's proposed state visit.

Meanwhile, right-leaning party leaders Geert Wilders, Nigel Farage and Matteo Salvini, all strongly support President Trump.

Shocker

But, never mind what the elected leaders think, what did the people say in the survey? According to Chatham House, in the majority of people in all EU countries opposed all further migration from mainly Muslim countries while 45% either disagreed or had no opinion.

In all but two of the countries included in the survey more than 50% of the people agreed with the idea of a Muslim ban, with a peak of 71% in Poland and 65% in Austria.

In the UK 47% of those surveyed agreed with a ban on Muslims. The lowest anti-Muslim sentiment was recorded at 41% in Spain, but in none of the 10 countries did the numbers of those who disagreed with a ban exceed 32%.

In Belgium, France, and Hungary more than 60% of the people agreed with a Muslim ban.

Chatham House conclusion

At the end of the press release about the survey and its results which showed that anti-Muslim feelings are not confined to President Trumps US followers, the Chatham House conclusion was that Muslim immigration is opposed by older and less educated people.
ABC News(DETROIT) -- Baron the Rottweiler was given a second chance at life thanks to a team of surgeons in Michigan.

On Jan. 17, the Michigan Human Society (MHS) received an anonymous phone call about a stray dog abandoned on a street corner in Detroit. Baron, estimated to be 8 years old, was found with lacerations on his legs and his nose, tail, and ears were chopped off. The likely cause? Dog fighting.

MHS offered a $2,500 reward for information about Baron's previous owner.

After news about Baron went viral, people from around the U.S. and the world donated money to MHS. The money was used to increase the amount of the reward to $40,000.

"We knew that sharing Barron's story on social media would probably be recognized outside of Detroit," Kathy Bilitzki, director of marketing and communications at MHS, told ABC News. "But I didn't think I'd be getting phone calls from Japan, Australia, Denmark, Germany."

MHS staffers knew they had to act fast to save Baron's life. They reached out to Dr. Bryden Stanley, head of surgery at Michigan State Universitys College of Veterinary Medicine, to reconstruct Baron's tail and nose.

Stanley, Dr. Maria Posiedlik and Dr. Robert Fisher, MHS' chief medical officer, performed the three hour surgery. According to Stanley, a surgery like Barons can cost anywhere between $3,000 and $3,500. Stanley's team decided to do the surgery free of charge.

Stanley told ABC News that Baron should not require any further surgery. Once he recovers, he will be ready for adoption. Bilitzki said MHS has already received 30 applications from all over the U.S.



Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
"As leaders in the school choice movement, we would be thrilled to host Secretary DeVos at the earliest possible time. We look forward to showing her North Carolina's success, and examine ways how we can expand school choice with a now willing federal government."

-NCGOP Chairman Robin Hayes

Contact: Emily Weeks

Emily Weeks Emily.Weeks@ncgop.org

Yesterday, on February 7th, Betsy DeVos was confirmed by the Senate as US Secretary of Education in President Trump's administration. Her extensive background in business, entrepreneurship, politics, and education meant she was the perfect choice for President Trump. DeVos is a strong advocate of school choice, voucher programs, and charter schools.Today NCGOP Chair Robin Hayes congratulated new education secretary Betsy DeVos on her confirmation and immediately invited her to visit North Carolina, where Republicans dedication to school choice is improving the quality of education and choices for parents and students across the Tar Heel State.According to her website:North Carolina is a leader in school choice thanks to Republican leadership and policies set forth during the past four years. We have two educational choice programs. Click on the programs below for more information on each!In North Carolina this year, over 6,000 special needs and low income children will be receiving a voucher so they can attend a school of their choice, whether that's a public school, private school, or charter school. We have well over 90,000 children attending nearly 170 different charter schools across the state. Since 2011, the NCGA has advanced school choice more than any other time in state history.North Carolina families need more options. We can't expect one education system to meet the needs of every family. This is in no way a detriment to the public school system. Rather, these programs are being put into place to compliment the public school system. North Carolina Republicans have an increasing commitment to sustaining these programs for the long-term. Republicans have pledged to increase funding in these programs and make sure the number of eligible children who want to attend these schools will continue to increase as well.
US President Donald Trump recently sent a letter to Xi Jinping, the President of China, who happens to be another world leader who has enforced a Muslim ban in his country, inviting Xi to join him in building a stronger and more constructive relationship between the United States and China. Xi has now responded to the letter, and he seems very happy.

Trumps letter proposed a relationship between the US and China that would be healthier than it had been before, as well as more sustained, meaning hes in it for the long haul with Xi. Word from Beijing has it that Trumps administration and Xis people have been in close touch in the hopes of implementing stronger relations between their two countries.

Trump keeping China at arms length

Despite this friendly letter, it appears that Trump is keeping Xi and his country at arms length. The letter may have been a bid to keep China on hold for the time being, as he focuses his time on getting the Muslim travel ban reinstated and building the wall between the US and Mexico that he harped on about through his whole Presidential campaign from beginning to end.

Trump was also probably waiting to see what China thought of the foreign relations he proposed in the letter before committing to an actual meeting, since he has yet to speak face-to-face with Xi following his inauguration into the Oval Office, or even give him a call, but this will probably come very soon following the positive response to the letter.

While Trump hasnt called Xi and spoken to him personally, he has done so with other world leaders. But although this is just a letter, his relationship with Xi could be more important to him than any of the others. Its like when you get more nervous talking to a girl you like than just some other girl. Thats a Trump/Xi analogy, by the way.

Chinese spokesperson says letter very important

Lu Kang, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, says that Trumps letter is very important to Xi and that hes placed a lot of significance on forging a stronger relationship with the US after receiving it. He praised Trump for including a mention of the Lunar New Year in his letter, displaying a great understanding of the countrys culture.

He also says that he sees cooperation on both parts between America and China as the only option for how to proceed following the letter.

The letter, in which Trump says some very nice things to Xi about his country and has included the usual diplomatic small talk that one would expect from a letter exchange between world leaders, follows a slow but steady series of either passive-aggressive downright sly digs at China and its policies and trade industry.

Trump cheated on China with Taiwan

Trump took a call from the President of Taiwan. Who does that? The US has no formal connection to Taiwan whatsoever, and hasnt since 1979. China hates Taiwan, and wants it to come home to the mainland and resume being a mere province and not get shoes bigger than its feet and stop gallivanting around as a country.

Trump very swiftly ignored all of this when the Taiwanese President of Taiwan called and he picked up for a gab, probably talking about Xi behind his back and laughing at him, or at least thats how Xi will have pictured it, which wouldve made him mad.

Trump has also mocked Beijing, challenging them on very sensitive topics such as the lack of Chinese reclamation activity in the South China Sea. But it seems bygones are bygones and its all water under the bridge and Xi has forgiven Trump as hes very happy with the letter and very excited to forge a stronger bond between China and the US.
Conservative Party MPs have demanded that Prime Minister Theresa May clears the way for a vote of no confidence on the House of Commons speaker, John Bercow, for his remarks about US President Donald Trump earlier in the week. Bercow said that Donald Trump shouldn't be allowed to address the House of Commons during his state visit later this year.

A number of back-benchers have told the Guardian that they have already approached several clerks of the House of Commons to ask whether they can table a vote of confidence motion. Various Tory back-benchers appear convinced that John Bercow will resign before a vote is called.

Taking a stand against Trump

On Monday afternoon, John Bercow told the House of Commons that he was staunchly against the idea of Trump addressing both Houses of Parliament, citing Trump's executive order to ban citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. Bercow said: 'I feel strongly on this matter. Our opposition to racism and sexism and support of equality are important considerations in the matter. The President of the United States has proven flakey on such matters'.

A spokesperson for Theresa May said that no vote had been called before shutting down speculation about a timetable for the vote. At the time of his speech, several notable conservative mps accused Bercow of overstepping his boundaries as speaker for the house, particularly when considering Theresa May is determined to forge strong relations with the United States.

Vote of no-confidence unlikely

MPs are said to be unlikely to gain enough support of a no-confidence and the government, according to the Guardian, are not keen to see Bercow step down on his own volition. 'Regardless of how irritating Bercow is, getting rid of the speaker is destabilising and quite a lot of MPs have a begrudging respect for him,' said one Commons veteran.

Theresa May's decision to invite Trump to the United Kingdom to establish trade agreements has been met with dissent from members of the opposition and the general public.
While all seems to be dandy now, with Chinese President Xi Jinping graciously accepting a letter from US President Donald Trump, sending him high praise and looking forward to building a stronger and more constructive relationship with the US, things between Trump and China havent always been hunky dory.

Trump spoke to the President of Taiwan, which simply isnt done

Trump has been harassing Beijing on hot-button issues such as Taiwan and the South China Sea, getting them all riled up, and then he really took the cake by accepting a call from Tsai Ing-wen, the President of Taiwan.

That got China really mad. This was the first time a President or President-elect had spoken to the Taiwanese Government in decades.

The US cut all formal ties with Taiwan in 1979. China doesnt even acknowledge Taiwans right to be a country; they see Taiwan as the prodigal son, and if they dont come back to the mainland on their own, they might need to use military action to bring them back. Thats why the US has tended to stay away from Taiwan, but then again, the US has tended to stay away from a lot of things Trump is getting involved with.

Trump may be planning to use Taiwan as a bargaining chip on China, but that would be very risky business indeed.
Research that compared Yellowstone National Park grizzly bear and wolf interactions with those same animals in Sweden has produced a surprising finding: brown bear presence in both ecosystems reduces the wolf kill rate.

Its a baffling finding, said Doug Smith, Yellowstones wolf biologist. To be honest, for 20 years Ive been saying bears increase wolf kill rates because bears steal so many carcasses.

That data from two very different ecosystems pointed to the same conclusion helped convince Yellowstone bear biologist Kerry Gunther that the research was not just a fluke.

The studys lead author was Aimee Tallian, a Utah State University wildlife ecologist and former Yellowstone research assistant. Eleven international co-authors helped with the National Science Foundation-funded project that allowed Tallian to spend a year working in Sweden.

Different worlds

The research area in south-central Sweden is very different from Yellowstone, Tallian noted. Roads criss-cross the dense forest because it is logged. That means researchers could drive to most locations, compared to Yellowstone where hours spent hiking is more often the norm.

Its heavily managed by humans, but there are still a lot of woods and remote areas, she said.

Yellowstone is also unusual in that grizzly-wolf interactions are sometimes seen along the main roads where they are photographed by tourists or studied through spotting scopes. Seeing the animals in Sweden is rare, partly because they are still hunted populations.

Research says

Tallian said the assumption that the presence of an apex predator like grizzlies would drive wolves to hunt and kill more prey was never written down anywhere, but was a commonly held belief.

The results were the opposite of what we expected, she said. I double-checked the data so many times thinking, What did I do wrong?

Our results challenge the conventional view that brown bears do not affect the distribution, survival or reproduction of wolves, stated the research paper, which was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B on Feb. 8.

Although the outcome of interactions between bears and wolves at carcasses varies, bears often dominate, limiting wolves' access to food, the paper said. Furthermore, our findings suggest that wolves do not hunt more often to compensate for the loss of food to brown bears. In combination, this implies that bears might negatively affect the food intake of wolves," so wolf populations that live within the same geographical area as brown bears may see effects on their fitness.

King of the kill

Past research by Smith and his crew in Yellowstones remote, bear-rich Pelican Valley have found that, between March and October, virtually every wolf kill is taken over by a grizzly bear.

Wolves get a lot of food stolen from them by grizzlies, Smith said.

Gunther said it is common in Yellowstone for grizzlies to usurp wolf kills within hours, if not days. Takeovers by females with cubs is less common because the wolves will threaten, and sometimes kill, the young bears.

The missing piece was: What does that do to wolf kill rates? Smith noted.

Tallian said many assume that wolves are efficient and effective killers. But previous research in Yellowstone has shown that summer is a lean season, the same time that grizzlies are out of hibernation competing for food and theres no snow to slow down the wolfs favorite prey, ungulates like elk. Faced with a food shortage, packs break up into smaller groups with wolves often dining on smaller and more varied prey than in winter.

So when wolves do kill a large animal, like an elk, it may be easier to stick around and wait for an encroaching grizzly to leave than to make another kill, Smith and Tallian agreed.

One of the implications is that maybe bears do have some impact on the fitness of wolves, because bears steal their food, theres a net food loss when bears are around, Tallian said.

New question

Tallians research prompts the question: Have wolves increased bears? That would be a huge headline, Smith said. But we cant back that up.

Grizzly bear populations in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem were climbing in the 1980s, before wolves returned to the landscape in 1995, Gunther said.

Certainly wolves have played a role because there is more meat on the landscape that bears have access to, Gunther said.

But there are also fewer winterkill animals awaiting bears when they leave hibernation in spring, and he noted that wolves occasionally kill a grizzly cub.

So there are positives and negatives, he said.

Tallians research helps fill one gap in a larger story about ecosystems that are incredibly complicated, interwoven and which, in many ways, operate beyond the scope of human understanding.
HELENA  Landowners might think twice about slapping a locked gate on a county road if fines for doing so are substantially increased, a Great Falls legislator told a committee Thursday.

Democratic Rep. Tom Jacobson brought House Bill 295 before the House Judiciary Committee. The bill offers two changes to the law. The first allows counties to issue a permit, excluding a locked gate, for an encroachment upon a county road right-of-way, as may occur in the case of a structure. Secondly, HB295 increases the fine for failing to remove an encroachment from $10 per day to up to $500 per day.

What the bill aims to alleviate are cases where the public is locked out of using county roads, Jacobson said, and it gives judges discretion to fine offenders based upon the egregiousness of the offense.

The bill drew support from pro-access groups and the Montana Association of Counties.

Sometimes its local landowners, but it tends to be people from out of state with lots of money, and the first thing they want to do is keep us off, said Chris Marchion with the Anaconda Sportsmen Association.

More rural counties often struggle with the resources to fight illegal road closures, he said, adding, This would actually give us some leverage to prevent this from happening.

Former Anaconda-Deer Lodge County Commissioner Mark Sweeney said he agreed HB295 will strengthen the law.

In my opinion, this is how well lose our access to public lands, he said of illegally gated roads.

MACO Executive Director Harold Blattie said the bill is taking the right approach by allowing a measured view to addressing disputes.

Nick Gevock with the Montana Wildlife Federation pointed to his organizations annual report on illegally blocked roads and examples in recent years where access has been restored after legal fights. HB295 addresses public access and county authority, and it gives landowners clarity on receiving a permit when needed.

Speaking against the bill, Abby St. Lawrence with the Rocky Mountain Stockgrowers Association blasted the notion that HB295 is a consensus bill. St. Lawrence said raising fines from $10 per day to up to $500 per day is an enormous hammer over landowners with questions or concerns about the status of roads.

St. Lawrence testified that as an attorney litigating road cases, the status is seldom cut and dry. She also took issue with the characterization of the bill targeting rich, out-of-state landowners, saying that often the disputes arise on family ranches and are brought by sportsmen groups.

Chuck Denowh, representing United Property Owners of Montana, argued that HB295 gives an unfair advantage to those trying to force access when road status has yet to be determined.

What this bill is asking to do is throw out adjudication and tip the scales of justice to one side in these disputes, he said. In our experience, these lawsuits dont target wealthy out-of-staters, they target ranchers that are land-rich and cash-poor.

Gevock responded to the opponents, saying they were trying to confuse the issue between road disputes outside of the bill and those dealing with established country roads.

What constitutes a country road, how the law would be enforced and whether the bill would fuel access advocates to pursue more battles with landowners pushed much of the committees questioning.

Blattie clarified that HB295 pertains only to county roads with an established right-of-way. Other public roads, such as Forest Service roads, would not be impacted.

Blattie further testified that the processes for record-keeping vary widely across counties, and under his interpretation, fines could only be levied once the county established its easement.

Rep. Bill Harris, R-Winnett, asked whether the bill was an effort to bully landowners into giving up access to avoid legal fights.

Jacobson replied that he saw a landowner putting the screws to the country as bullying. He further responded that granting judges the discretion to fine from $10 to $500 allowed them to enact different punishments for honest mistakes and egregious efforts to block the public from well-established county roads.

I think a lot of this comes down to local control and whether the county has the ability to open roads that have been encroached upon, Jacobson said in closing. This is about giving the counties more authority and ability for what happens on their roads, which are in effect our roads.
Netflix is launching a new show confidently titled bill nye Saves the World where Nye will explain complicated topics like global warming to kids as he understands it. The show wants to illustrate how climate change impacts everything from politics to pop culture, but from his special blend of lab procedure and quirky guests.

He also wants to refute what he considers are non-scientific claims by industry leaders, politicians, and religious leaders. By doing that, hell be "saving the world." Theres just one problem: Nye is a not a scientist and his track record is dreadful.

Since ending his first show in the early 2000s, Nye has been on a quest to convince as many people as he can that climate change is the worlds greatest threat. But schoolchildren arent interested in demagoguery, but rather how and why things tick. And parents may be wondering if a climate activist should be spreading his gospel to their children. He also brings with him over a decade of controversial assertions that may prove daunting to overcome.

Not exactly HS Physics -> Climate change in a shoebox: Right result, wrong physics | #Science http://t.co/CrNnrXeWDw pic.twitter.com/QchZk5ELEC  intrepidwanders (@intrepidwanders) August 9, 2014

Epic fail

In a heavily publicized experiment, Nye tried to demonstrate how carbon dioxide (CO2) warmed up the atmosphere.

He put a thermometer in a sealed container filled with excess amounts of CO2. He then used a heat lamp to warm up the container and watched as the temperature rose. That, he said, was proof that CO2 is overheating the planet. But what Nye proved wasnt CO2s response to radiation like the sun, but rather the "convective" properties of any gas.

Genuine scientists who replicated his experiment used Argon as an experimental control gas (a staple in science) and just like the CO2, it heated up as well. The problem was that Argon has no infrared properties; Nyes experiment only proved the processes related to convective heat transfer, which play no role in global warming.

That didnt stop Al Gore from incorporating the debunked experiment into his Climate Un-Reality Project to train his climate warriors.

Bill Nye Misquotes Constitution To Promote Global Warming Alarmism http://t.co/z2kTFpoMe8 The science fiction guy  hockey schtick (@hockeyschtick1) May 26, 2015

Climate doubters un-American

He also said that politicians who doubt global warming were unpatriotic in order to shame them. In a well-publicized interview, Nye said Article 1, Section 8 of the constitution proved his point. He said this section alone should compel lawmakers to promote the progress of science and useful arts. Not quite.

The constitution actually reads, To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. It has nothing to do with science and everything to do with patents and copyrights.

Skeptics should be jailed

Nye even said the energy revolution of the early 1900s was akin to human slavery and climate skeptics should be jailed for ruining his quality of life. He said doubts about global warming affected his existence as a public citizen. And when Sarah Palin said Bill Nye was not a scientist, the liberal media leapt to his defense proclaiming her remarks were untrue. But Bill Nye was what one journalist described as a professional lab-coat wearer.

He has never published a single peer-reviewed paper and has spent most of his time talking about how great science is instead of doing it.

Not surprisingly, he graduated from college as a mechanical engineer. He makes science look and feel good, which allows others to call him the Science Guy. In other fields, Nye would be known as a science presenter.

More severe weather. More suffering. More expense. Let's all take climate change seriously. pic.twitter.com/HGHQJLgqRr  Bill Nye (@BillNye) May 11, 2016

Hes tweeted that theres been more severe weather despite that being statistically untrue and said climate deniers were responsible for keeping global warming out of the last election. But he has admitted that skeptics have been surprisingly successful even if he thinks the "science" is on his side. Which hell be teaching to your children starting on April 21.
President Donald Trump has made a habit out of lashing out on social media, and has only increased his attacks in recent days. To start off his day on Thursday, the commander in chief had multiple targets in his sights on Twitter.

Trump on Twitter

Two of the biggest stories over the last 24 hours has been the reaction of two senators in regards to separate Donald Trump policy decisions. One was Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who claimed that Trump's recent nominee for the Supreme Court of the United States, Neil Gorsuch, had criticized the president's comments about a federal judge.

In addition, Republican Sen. John McCain was vocal in his opposition to the White House for stating that the recent botched raid in Yemen was "successful," despite resulting in the death of an American solider. As seen on his Twitter account on February 29, Trump is not happy.

Sen.Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie),now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2017

"Sen.Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie), now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?" Donald Trump wrote on Twitter early Thursday morning. In a follow-up tweet on the issue, the former host of "The Apprentice" continued his attack, this time dragging a CNN host into the equation.

"Chris Cuomo, in his interview with Sen. Blumenthal, never asked him about his long-term lie about his brave "service" in Vietnam," Trump noted, before adding, "FAKE NEWS!"

Chris Cuomo, in his interview with Sen. Blumenthal, never asked him about his long-term lie about his brave "service" in Vietnam. FAKE NEWS!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2017

Trump on McCain

Within minutes, Donald Trump then turned his attention to Sen.

John McCain over his criticism of the aforementioned Yemen raid. "Sen. McCain should not be talking about the success or failure of a mission to the media. Only emboldens the enemy!" the president posted on Twitter. In the second part of his social media attack, the billionaire real estate mogul continued to rail against the former 2008 Republican presidential nominee.

Sen. McCain should not be talking about the success or failure of a mission to the media. Only emboldens the enemy! He's been losing so....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2017

"He's been losing so long he doesn't know how to win anymore, just look at the mess our country is in - bogged down in conflict all over the place," he tweeted. "Our hero Ryan died on a winning mission ( according to General Mattis), not a 'failure.' Time for the U.S. to get smart and start winning again!," Trump concluded.

...long he doesn't know how to win anymore, just look at the mess our country is in - bogged down in conflict all over the place. Our hero..  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2017

..Ryan died on a winning mission ( according to General Mattis), not a "failure." Time for the U.S. to get smart and start winning again!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2017

The president's feud with John McCain is well documented, and goes back to the early days of the Republican primary where Donald Trump said the senator was "not a war hero" because he was captured during the Vietnam War. As of press time, the senator has not responded to the criticism.
Ever since winning the election last November, Donald Trump has only increased his use of social media. In recent days, Trump's Twitter feed has been on fire as the new president has had a lot on his mind.

Trump on Twitter

Donald Trump is not shy about using social media to vent and express his anger. As he continues to feud with the news media, Trump has often bypassed speaking to the press, while using Twitter to get his message across. After sending out eight tweets on Friday, the billionaire real estate mogul was back on the social media platform the following morning.

As seen on his Twitter account on February 4, Trump is now focusing on his "Muslim ban" and the recent reporting of The New York Times.

When a country is no longer able to say who can, and who cannot , come in & out, especially for reasons of safety &.security - big trouble!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017

"When a country is no longer able to say who can, and who cannot , come in & out, especially for reasons of safety &.security - big trouble!" Donald Trump wrote on his Twitter account early Saturday morning. In a follow up tweet, Trump continued to defend his recent "Muslim ban" executive order. "Interesting that certain Middle-Eastern countries agree with the ban," Trump tweeted, while noting, "They know if certain people are allowed in it's death & destruction!" Trump's message is in reference to Kuwait enacting a similar ban on five countries in the Middle East, restricting travel to their country.

Interesting that certain Middle-Eastern countries agree with the ban. They know if certain people are allowed in it's death & destruction!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017

"The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!" Donald Trump went on to post on Twitter.

The president's remarks are in response to the news that broke late Friday night, that a federal judge ordered an immediate suspension of the "Muslim ban," effective immediately.

The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017

Trump on the media

Moving past the "Muslim ban," Donald Trump then decided to focus on his grudge with the mainstream media, once again going after The New York Times.

"After being forced to apologize for its bad and inaccurate coverage of me after winning the election, the FAKE NEWS @nytimes is still lost!" the former host of "The Apprentice" tweeted out.

After being forced to apologize for its bad and inaccurate coverage of me after winning the election, the FAKE NEWS @nytimes is still lost!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017

Next up

While Donald Trump was able to win the election and be sworn into office, he's currently sitting with one of the lowest approval ratings to start off an administration. According to recent polls, Trump has a favorable rating of under 40 percent, and one of the most controversial election winners kicks off his time in the White House.
In one of his first international acts as president, Donald Trump signed off on an al-Qaeda raid in Yemen. After the attack resulted in the deaths of multiple civilians and an American solider, the administration still claimed it was a success.

McCain on Trump

During Wednesday afternoon's daily briefing, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was asked about the aforementioned raid in Yemen. Spicer was visibly frustrated with the questioning, and said it was insulting to the memory of the fallen solider to criticize the incident. Like Spicer, the White House has also doubled down, and insisted they made the right decision.

In response, Arizona Sen. John McCain gave his thoughts, and wasn't too pleased at how the Donald Trump administration has handled the aftermath of the raid, as reported on February 8.

McCain Fires Back at Sean Spicer Scolding People for Saying Yemen Raid Wasnt a Success https://t.co/QyaHEm1mLU pic.twitter.com/e7AYKPIXt0  Mediaite (@Mediaite) February 8, 2017

During the press conference, Sean Spicer said, "Anybody who undermines the success of the raid owes an apology and a disservice to the life of Chief Owens." When asked if that was in reference to McCain's recent criticism, Spicer confirmed that it included anyone who spoke out. While speaking to NBC News, John McCain offered his additional response.

The senator spoke about his time as a POW in Vietnam, stating, "because the mission failed it did not in anyway diminish the courage and willingness to help their fellow Americans who were held captive. Mr. Spicer should know the story."

McCain details POW past in response to White House attack on his Yemen raid comments: https://t.co/KQIHBUCMei pic.twitter.com/4wIRuxlpeP  The Hill (@thehill) February 8, 2017

In a statement later released by McCain's office, the senator continued his criticism.

"While many of the objectives of the recent raid in Yemen were met, I would not describe any operation that results in the loss of American life as a success," the statement went on to read. Despite this, John McCain and the billionaire real estate mogul have clashed on more than one occasion, as their feud is well documented and goes back to the start of the Republican primary.

Next up

While Donald Trump has only been the commander in chief for two weeks, he's dealing with heavy backlash that appears to growing by the day. Regardless of the current state of the country, the former host of "The Apprentice" doesn't appear willing to change his tune anytime soon.
One of the first high-profiled Republicans to publicly support President Donald Trump during his campaign was former half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. After two weeks of the new administration, Palin might be making her way back into the White House sooner rather than later.

Palin on Canada

Sarah Palin was launched into the national spotlight in 2008 when she was selected to join Sen. John McCain on the Republican ticket. After being exposed for apparent ignorance on many issues, Palin was taken in by the far right and quickly viewed as a darling of the right-wing Tea Party.

After years as a contributor to Fox News, Palin went on to create her own short-lived online news network, and then came out in support of Donald Trump. After being rumored to be Trump's vice president or as the head of the Department of the Interior, new reports say Palin could be named as the ambassador to canada, as reported on February 8.

Sarah Palin touted as US ambassador to Canada? You betcha! https://t.co/Fzuscorta4  The Guardian (@guardian) February 8, 2017

Reports circulated earlier in the week that Sarah Palin could have a role in the Trump administration, with Andrew Cohen of the Ottawa Citizen writing a scathing op-ed pushing back at the possibility. The issue was then brought up during Wednesday's daily briefing with White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer.

When Spicer was asked about Palin possibly being named as Ambassador to Canada, the press secretary refused to deny the reports, and said that an announcement on the role would be made in the near future.

Could Sarah Palin could bring her carnival show here as ambassador? Andrew Cohen considers the possibility... https://t.co/xlFcrs0rbU pic.twitter.com/zaxslOtqfR  Ottawa Citizen (@OttawaCitizen) February 7, 2017

Reaction to the news made its way to social media, where Twitter users quickly expressed their outrage.

"Dear Mr. Trump: Rather then appoint Sarah Palin as ambassador to Canada, please bomb us. Signed, all intelligent life in Canada," one user wrote. "Sarah Palin rumored to be Ambassador to Canada... I was promised your mistakes wouldn't affect us. Uh oh," another tweet read. Other tweets were more humorous, with one stating, "If Sarah Palin is ambassador to Canada I suggest Nickelback as ambassador to USA."

What?!?!? Sarah Palin as US Ambassador to Canada??? pic.twitter.com/Toes7BMyeu  MarcusNapoleon (@marcusnapoleon) February 8, 2017

Moving forward

As of press time, neither Donald Trump, nor Sarah Palin, has commented on the reports, but the role of Ambassador to Canada is currently vacant. While it's unknown if Palin will take the job if it's offered, the former Alaska governor has expressed an interested in getting back into politics.
In the two weeks since Donald Trump has been commander in chief, the most controversial aspect has been his executive order that critics call the "Muslim ban." His administration has often cited various examples to justify the order, but have not always given all the facts.

Spicer debunked

Last week, Presidential Counsel Kellyanne Conway came under fire while speaking to MSNBC host Chris Matthews. In an attempt to justify Donald Trump's controversial "Muslim ban" executive order, Conway cited the now in famous "Bowling Green Massacre," that allegedly occurred in the Kentucky city by two Islamic terrorists.

The problem is that the attack never took place, but instead involved two Iraqi immigrants living in Bowling Green who were arrested for aiding terrorists in the Middle East. While Conway has been the butt of many jokes, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer is also guilty of promoting a fake terrorist attacks, as reported by The New York Daily News on February 8.

Sean Spicer references imaginary Atlanta terror attack to defend Trump's travel ban https://t.co/mYPA1rhhpk pic.twitter.com/yuzrHUaDXt  New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) February 8, 2017

In several interviews over the last week, Sean Spicer has referenced an apparent terrorist attack in Atlanta when defending Donald Trump from media criticism.

During an interview last week with ABC's "The Week," Spicer first mentioned the apparent attack in the Georgia city. "What do we say to the family that loses somebody over a Terror Attack,, whether it's Atlanta or San Bernardino or the Boston bomber?" Spicer asked host Martha Raddatz.

Kellyanne Conway is not the only Trump adviser to make up a terrorist attack... https://t.co/0n5jZOziuk pic.twitter.com/g5HPGhV3Yo  The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) February 8, 2017

The following morning, Sean Spicer spoke to MSNBC's "Morning Joe," and once again referenced the nonexistent incident.

"Too many of these cases that have happened, whether you're talking about San Bernardino, Atlanta, they've happened, Boston," the press secretary said.

Possible clarification

While it's unknown what Sean Spicer was actually talking about, it's possible that he was referring to the bombing during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

However, the man responsible, Eric Rudolph, was a white American citizen, and not an Islamic terrorist from any of the countries listed in the executive order. As of press time, neither Spicer nor the White House has offered a comment to clarify the remarks.
The announcements made by Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus to drop First Daughter Ivanka Trumps clothing line has now drawn the ire of her father, President Trump. Donald Trump did what he always does and took his battle to Twitter, proclaiming how unfair Ivanka had been treated by Nordstrom. However, the exclusive department store is not the only one citing slipping sales as their reason for throwing out Ivanka Trumps stock of dresses, shoes, and handbags. Neiman Marcus, Belk, Home Shopping Network, Jet, ShopStyle, Shoes.com, and Frasca Jewelers have followed suit.

All stores claim their decision was not motivated by politics, but by lagging sales instead. This may, in part, be true considering #GrabYourWallet organizer Shannon Coulters call to boycott Ivanka Trumps brand looks to be the factor in the halt of sales. The campaign launched last year after Donald Trumps Access Hollywood comments about women were made public. After nearly three weeks in the White House, backlash continues to ensue and is only expected to get stronger. Macys dropped Donald Trumps menswear line in 2015 after receiving an avalanche of pressure from consumers.

Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, and Belk

On February 3rd, company execs at Nordstroms insisted it was purely a business decision in dumping Ivanka Trumps products.

Nevertheless, following the presidents order to ban travelers from Muslim countries, Nordstrom issued a company memo which expressed support for immigrants. On that same day, Neiman Marcus released a statement to fashion website Racked that they will no longer sell Ivanka Trumps jewelry due to poor sales. Although Ivankas dresses and coats can still be found in a Charlotte, N.C.

department store location, her products have also been scrubbed, for the most part.

Shoes.com, Jet.com, and Frasca Jewelers

As a result of the #GrabYourWallet boycott, Canadian shoe retailer Shoes.com abandoned Ivanka Trump in November. The company released a statement which read, in part, that they heard and understand the peoples voices.

According to Mic, the discount shopping site Jet.com will be pulling Ivanka Trumps fragrance and clothing. Still, there are plenty of MAGA hats and F*** Trump shirts on hand for purchase. On Tuesday, the owner of Frasca Jewelers informed the Hollywood Reporter that, after limping sales, she has decided to stop selling Ivankas line of baubles, and has asked that her store be removed from the Ivanka trump brand website.
When he recently stated that in fifty years of journalism he had never seen as many leaks in Washington as he sees now veteran journalist Carl Bernstein spoke from experiences that few other journalists could boast. His greatest story with Bob Woodward revealed a story that had major leaks at its heart and began a mystery of the source that would only be revealed decades when he came public before his death. This mystery gives us insights into the Donald Trump Administration and its problems with leaks.

From break-in to Deep Throat

When Bernstein and Woodward first heard of the news of the burglary at the Democrat National Committee offices in June 1972 that began the Watergate scandal they could not have known that this would have led to the resignation of a President and that their names would become known around the world for their investigative journalism.

But these events and the fame would not have come about without the leaks provided by a mysterious person that the two journalists refused to identify at the time.

While members of the White House knew privately the identity of the informant known as deep throat they could do little to obstruct him. As the Watergate scandal unfolded the leaks from the informant aided the two journalists in their investigations. In the subsequent book and film the phrase follow the money would become famous as the ultimate means to reveal President Richard Nixons active role in the activities which led to his resignation in 1974.

Decades later former Deputy Director of the FBI W. Mark Felt publicly acknowledged in an interview in Vanity Fair magazine that he was Deep Throat and not only provided Woodward and Bernstein with their leads, but ensured that the FBIs own investigations would not interfere in their reporting.

Despite his public admission the two journalists kept their promise to him and only confirmed the identity after Felts death in 2008.

Lesson to be learnt

The motivations that Felt gave for his behaviour was that he believed that President Nixon abused his powers as President as, according to the New York Times obituary for Felt, he believed that Nixon was using the FBI for political advantage.

As the Times quoted in the obituary, As Deep Throat, Felt helped establish the principle that our highest government officials are subject to the Constitution and the laws of the land, the prosecutor, John W. Nields, wrote in The Washington Post in 2005. Yet when it came to the Weather Underground bag jobs, he seems not to have been aware that this same principle applied to him. Felt would be pardoned for his illegal activities within the FBI by President Ronald Reagan in 1981

The story of Felt and the motivations for his disobedience to the White House by his activities are an example of why trusted administrators and public officials may at times make leaks for what they consider the public good.

Felt, Bernstein and Woodwards story is a lesson for todays White House as it struggles with the wave of leaks that has been following President #Donald Trump. Leaks are not a simple issue to be condemned and then brushed off. They are symptoms of issues that must be faced and treated.

While we wait the next leak we must also ask if the Oval Office is learning the lesson when information is leaked to the press from inside the Administration.
A bill that critics said could jeopardize millions of dollars in tax increment finance bonds got a hearing Wednesday by the House Taxation Committee.

House Bill 359, introduced by Rep. Tom Burnett, R-Bozeman, would limit tax increment financing. Under the bill, property tax money distributed to an urban renewal area or targeted economic development district would be limited to revenue received from levies imposed under the authority of the local government that established the district.

Burnett told the committee that the bill ends TIF takings from property owners who have no vote in the cities that created the TIF district. If you live outside the city and you have to pay higher school taxes, you dont have a vote for the city (council member) who allowed the TIF district.

Burnett noted the bills fiscal note states that the proposal would shift $13.2 million from 65 TIF districts into school district coffers.

Kevin Nelson of Billings was one of two people testifying in support of Burnetts bill.

We are going to hear, We need this money, Nelson said. Theres all kinds of money. In Billings, we spend $700,000 to administer our (three) TIF districts. Money is being wasted and squandered.

More than two dozen people argued against the bill, including Tim Goodridge, who administers the East Billings Urban Renewal District.

Goodridge told the committee  chaired by Rep. Jeff Essmann, R-Billings  that 10 blocks worth of paving, water and sewer, curb and gutter and lighting work in the district have mitigated against flooding, which previously eliminated any chance of redevelopment.

Since MetraPark is nearby, it is prime real estate for a hospitality corridor, Goodridge said.

Dan Semmens, a bond counsel with Dorsey & Whitney, said enacting the legislation could result in the default of a number of TIF bonds, and I cant imagine thats a desirable outcome.

Local banks own a number of those bonds, he said, and they would be harmed.

Tim Burton, executive director of the Montana League of Cities and Towns, spoke about the states growing list of needed infrastructure improvements.

We need more infrastructure, not less, he said. His associations 127 members need to continue to use this tool to build the economy and create jobs.

Ellen Buchanan, who directs the Missoula Redevelopment Agency, said her community uses tax increment financing as an incentive to encourage better development.

Her boards policy is to use a rule of 10, she said: projects should result in 10 times the amount of private investment over public spending, and the payback should occur within 10 years.

At the end of about 90 minutes of testimony, Burnett had the opportunity to make his closing argument.

We must appreciate all the witnesses and their testimony today, he told the committee. Those accounts cant be dismissed  But people who live outside (TIF districts) are being affected, and thats the purpose of the bill  to straighten that out.

The committee took no action on the bill.
President Uhuru Kenyatta has been pressed to withdraw Kenyan soldiers from Somalia, following the recent Al-Shabaab attack on a KDF camp that left 21 workforces dead and 44 others seriously injured. This came a few days after Kenya signed a deal with America to acquire modern fighter jets to aid in the war against Al-Shabaab. Speaking during the burial of one of the soldiers who was killed in the line of duty in somalia, the grievers said it was time for the soldiers to protect the countrys borders from within. Less than a year ago, Al-Shabaab militia launched an attack on the Kenyan-run AMISOM army base in the town of El Adde and killed a number of soldiers.

The Al-Shabaab terror group has been targeting Kenya in its attacks as a sign of asking her to remove its troops from Somalia.

The repercussions behind the withdrawal

Withdrawing Kenyan forces from Somalia would mean yielding to the demands of the terrorists and definitely conceding defeat. In so doing, it will give them a reason to cause greater annihilation in countries that are currently supporting peace in Somalia Apart from adding itself to the list of countries that have turned their back against Somalia, Kenya will turn out to be egocentric and unwilling to support the Somalia brethren in restoring peace and gaining their freedom from the long-term dominance by the Al-Shabaab militia. Additionally, Kenyas withdrawal from Somalia would have a negative implication for the countrys strategic interests in Somalia and its quest for peace, both within and without.

Since Somalia is an immediate neighbor to Kenya, the exercise will mean drawing the Al-Shabaab group closer to Kenya and this may lead to its capture to this Al-Qaeda affiliate.

To withdraw or not to withdraw

If Kenya decides to withdraw its soldiers from the war-torn Somalia, it will impact adversely on the war against al-Shabaab.

It will also encourage Al-Shabaab to continue their reign of terror in Somalia and parts of Kenya. On the other hand, Kenya is fretful that the lack of funding for its troops from the United Nations is limiting its operations. Therefore, failure to withdraw its troops will see many innocent lives lost through the attacks by this terrorist group.

All in all, the option of pulling out is not as easy as the opposition groups make it appear, hitherto no-withdrawal is not as cost-free. Either way, Kenyas best options for addressing rising insecurity depends on humanizing a unity of purpose among its political leadership and citizens in their commitment to the best national course, rather than narrow-minded political and ethnic interests. Politicizing security issues is counter-productive to collective action and political consensus-building for addressing insecurity. The threat of Al-Shabaab, in most cases, is mostly in its manipulation of these vulnerabilities that require imperative attention.
Sorry, Donald Trump. Saturday Night Live is winning! The long-running comedy show has been on a tear in terms of views since the recent election cycle and its aftermath. The ratings are nowhere near down the tubes, and it's one of the most watched and talked about shows, period. And ever since Donald Trump and his administration came on the scene, the hit NBC show has seen an increase in popularity, to the point that there are now talks of giving Colin Jost and Michael Ches Weekend Update segment a primetime spot next season. With viewership up an impressive 22 percent, SNL ranked right behind The Big Bang Theory as the highest-rated program.

Since its inception, Saturday Night Live has parodied presidents and presidential candidates. Chevy Chase played a clumsy Gerald Ford and Tina Fey discredited Sarah Palin in the minds of viewers by over-exaggerating the former governors folksiness and flaws. But never before has the talented cast been afforded so much material to work with due to the curious behavior of Trump and his administration.

Are the not-so-ready-for primetime players ready for primetime?

Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler first brought Saturday Night Lives Weekend Update to primetime in October 2008 in the weeks leading up to the presidential race between John McCain and Barack Obama. Jost and Che also covered the Republican National Convention with their special brand of humor.

Season 42 may be one for the record books

The current season of NBC's comedy gem has brought in fan favorites like Dana Carvey, reprising his Church Lady character, Alec Baldwin as Trump, and Melissa McCarthys recent performance as press secretary Sean Spicer is still a top conversation topic. Now, there is word that Rosie ODonnell is willing to offer her services by playing the part of White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon.

Considering the long-standing feud between ODonnell and Trump, this may cause him to break a tweeting record, and the news of the show's success wont make the president happy, either, unless this is fake news.
Zimbabwe - ThisFlag founder pastor evan mawarire was yesterday granted bail in the face of what was described as a weak State case by High Court Judge Phiri.

Speaking to the press after court, Mawarires lawyer Harrison Nkomo said that there is a process to be followed, the court order has to be typed up and all the documentation pertaining to the bail conditions need to be in place before Pastor Evan will be freed.

He anticipated that sometime on Thursday 9 February his client will be out of jail.

During the court proceedings, Mawarire was described as a "celebrity terrorist," for his criticism of the Mugabe government.

However, it was pointed out that in terms of the Zimbabwe Constitution sec 67 that every citizen has the right to challenge the policy of the government.

Pastor E remains in CHikurubi maximum security prison till 2mrw when we handle over his passport and $300 bail. #ThisFlag  #FreePastorEvan (@ThisFlag1980) February 8, 2017

Zimbabwe High Court terms of bail for Pastor Mawarire

The terms of bail for the pastor whose movement "shut down Zimbabwe" last year with peaceful protests against the introduction of bond notes and import bans include the following provisions:

He may not leave the country and must surrender his passport,

He must post a $300.00 bail

He must report twice a week to the Avondale Police Station in Harare, and

May not interfere with other witnesses.

The #ThisFlag movement was born out of an impassioned and spontaneous video that Pastor Evan posted to Youtube the day he realized he could not afford school fees for his children.

Watch the video below:

Movements for change on social media

The various movements for change in Zimbabwe took to social media to fight for good goverance, demand accountability of theft and corruption, and called for 92-year-old President Mugabe to either reform the country or step down. War veterans who fought for Independence from Rhodesian rule joined in the calls for reform and the government responded with a brutal police action that resulted in images of people being beaten and tear-gassed spreading across the globe through main media outlets such as CNN and BBC.

For the first time in a very long time, Zimbabwean activists were getting some world attention to the plight of their once beautiful and robust country.

Pastor Evan traveled to the USA and South Africa

Pastor Evan was arrested and charged with disturbing the peace. The original charge was amended to that of attempting to overthrow an elected government, but this was thrown out of court and Mawarire left the country to journey through the USA and South Africa where he urged the diaspora to pressure the government to change from beyond the reach of Zimbabwean Intelligence agencies.

Mawarire returned voluntarily to Zimbabwe on Friday last week and was immediately arrested and detained in Chikurubi Maximum security prison.
CAIRO - China provides a world model for a peaceful big power with positive, comprehensive reforms and a ruling party that has come from the people, said the board chairman of Egypt's largest state-run Al-Ahram newspaper in an exclusive interview with Xinhua.

Ahmed al-Sayyid al-Naggar, CEO of Al-Ahram Foundation, expressed appreciation of the Chinese efforts in environmental improvement, anti-corruption crackdown and military upgrade as key positive measures in China's long-term reform.

"Economically and politically, China is already an international big power. Its long-term anti-corruption model already provides a positive image complementary of its very positive economic and political image," said Al-Ahram chief.

As a frequent visitor of Beijing, Naggar sometimes noted heavy pollution in the Chinese capital city, yet he pointed out that "China has already cultivated several forests, which signals keenness to restore tree crown cover that improves environment."

As for Chinese military reform, President Xi Jinping, who is also chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), has been urging the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to transform into a "mighty, modernized, new-style" military force based on technology rather than number of troops.

"The upgrade of China's military force to make it smaller yet more efficient is a very positive step to reduce spending and still maintain the Chinese military at highest level of readiness, professionalism and advancement to protect the country against any possible aggression," Al-Ahram CEO told Xinhua.

Naggar continued that even during the Cold War, China as a peaceful power was not dragged into the idea of armament race and it only established sufficient weapons to protect its territories.

"China made all advanced weapons like other powers, but it was not dragged into the race of numbers," he explained.

In early March, China is scheduled to hold its "two sessions": The fifth annual session of the 12th National People's Congress (NPC), the country's top legislature, and the fifth session of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the top political advisory body.

"Unlike many ruling parties made by governments, the Communist Party of China (CPC) rose from the people until it came to power. Such meetings, like the 'two sessions' coming in March, help the ruling party strongly convey the voices of the people," said Naggar.

He added that the CPC is based on collective rather than individual work as well as equal votes. "So, China's political system provides a model for collective leadership."

Al-Ahram top man stressed that through the party meetings the main topics, policies, developments and amendments raised for discussions by the NPC and the CPPCC "show the benefit of collective thinking rather than individualism."

In 2013, President Xi proposed "the Belt and Road initiative" that seeks to revive ancient trade routes to link China with countries in Asia, Africa and Europe through the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road.

Naggar, also one of Egypt's renowned economists, said that President Xi wanted through the initiative to present "a unique model to the world for running international relations in a peaceful manner."

"The initiative is not a mere reproduction of the ancient Silk Road. It's a reproduction of the symbolic value of the ancient trade route," he added, noting it aims to restore peaceful, fair and balanced economic cooperation regardless of military power.

"So, President Xi presents China's model for international relations based on peacefulness, contrary to the European and American one based on hegemony over developing states and their markets, which is no longer acceptable," Naggar said.

He believes that in order to complete this reform, the Belt and Road initiative should move from a moral initiative of good will to "an institution" gathering the concerned states, creating favorable relations among them and allowing their local currencies to be used in their mutual trade.

"Among this Silk Road region, the Chinese yuan is expected to be the most powerful currency, which is already included in the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)," Naggar said.

The Egyptian official hailed China as the world's number one exporter of high-tech products, arguing that although some of them are made by Western firms operating in China, the country has its own technological products.

"For example, our Al-Ahram is planning to establish several paper factories in Egypt and we found that the best technology for making paper out of agricultural wastes is purely a Chinese one. So, Al-Ahram is about to finalize a contract with a Chinese company to get this technology," Naggar told Xinhua.

He explained that China is "a real friend" to the Arab world as it never voted against Arab rights and always supported Arab causes, and this is why the Arab world prefers China in making business deals on the basis of mutual interest.

As for China's relations with Egypt, Naggar said that he read a lot about Chinese literature since he was young and he found many aspects in common between the Chinese people and those of other ancient civilizations like the Egyptian people.

"China is the only country visited three times by Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi. Also, President Xi's visit to Egypt last year was highly appreciated by both the Egyptian leadership and people," said Al-Ahram CEO.

He continued that the Egyptian and Chinese resources are exceptionally harmonious, citing that Egypt is a tourism destination while China is the world's largest tourism exporter and the Chinese yuan has become acceptable in the Egyptian tourism market.

"Also, the Chinese investments in Egypt are so limited compared to those of China around the world. So, we hope for more Chinese visitors to Egypt and more Chinese investments in Egypt while China remains Egypt's number one source of imported commodities," Naggar told Xinhua.
A driver checks a high-speed train before it heads from Tianjin to Beijing South Railway Station on Jan 25.[Photo/Xinhua]

Beijing and Tianjin are planning a monthly pass for high-speed intercity trains linking the cities, as well as canceling expressway toll fees between the two cities, the mayor of Tianjin said on Monday.

The move will facilitate the integrated development of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province, an outline given in 2015 to improve transportation links in the area, while also moving some of Beijing's low-end industries to neighboring areas.

Wang Dongfeng, mayor of Tianjin, said the plan is to build a modern transportation system. He added that a unified smart prepaid traffic card, called Yikatong, already exists in 12 cities in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and the government aims to expand its use to all cities in the area by the end of this year.

In addition to universal traffic cards and expressways, the proposal of a high-speed train network in the region was approved last year, with Beijing-Binhai New Area Intercity Railway expected to be completed by 2020.

The Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Railway was the first of its kind in China. Traveling at up to 350 kilometers per hour, passengers can commute between the cities in about 40 minutes on trains that depart every 10 to 15 minutes.

Officials from Tianjin's transportation bureau said they are still deliberating the monthly pass mechanism and a timetable is not available.

Potential benefactors are eagerly awaiting the implementation of the planned policies.

"We are looking forward to having monthly train passes," said Xiang Nan, the managing director of a Tianjin-based investment company that has offices in Beijing, downtown Tianjin and Binhai New Area of Tianjin. He has rented offices near the train stations to save time on commuting.

Xiang said that he and seven of his employees spend nearly 5,000 yuan ($730) every month on commuting. "We hope the monthly pass can help frequent passengers save money."

In 2009, a prepaid express card was issued by railway authorities for Beijing-Tianjin intercity trains, offering exclusive entrance channels at stations so frequent travelers don't have to buy tickets in advance or wait in line before boarding.

In 2012, the express card was upgraded into a debit card that also works on about 20 intercity rail transit lines nationwide.

However, in both cases, passengers still have to pay the full price for each trip54.5 yuan from Beijing to downtown Tianjin.

"If expressway toll fees were lifted, it would save us a lot of money," said Wang Rui, who drives between Tianjin, where she works, and Beijing, where she and her husband own a house.
People take photos of the landmark Taipei 101 building in Taiwan in January. ZHU XIANG/XINHUA

The mainland office responsible for cross-Straits relations has urged Taiwan to improve safety across its whole tourist sector and to take measures to ensure the safety of mainland travelers.

According to local media reports, the island's transportation authority will raise the daily quota for mainlanders from 5,000 to 6,000 and allow them to stay for 30 days rather than 15.

The move comes after statistics showed a drop in the number of mainland tourists visiting over the Spring Festival holiday.

Taiwan ranked ninth on online travel agency Ctrip's annual list of the most popular destinations for outbound tourists over the holiday, down from fifth last year.

Data from Taiwan's Travel Agent Association also showed the number of mainland visitors had dropped by 20 percent during Spring Festival compared with last year.

However, on Wednesday, An Fengshan, a spokesman for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing, said the reason for the decline was "quite clear" and would only be reversed through improved cross-Straits relations.

"Other solutions are a move in the wrong direction and will not succeed," he said.

Zhu Songling, a professor at Beijing Union University's Institute of Taiwan Studies, said the decline in mainland tourists has affected Taiwan's tourism industry and its economy.

Relations between the mainland and Taiwan have been tense since Tsai Ing-wen took office as the island's new leader on May 20.

Tsai has failed to acknowledged the 1992 Consensus, which refers to the one-China policy, and official channels of cross-Straits communication have been suspended.

Tsai's refusal to acknowledge the 1992 Consensus "has damaged all the hard work toward peaceful relations across the Taiwan Straits", Ma Xiaoguang, another spokesman for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, has previously said. "Whoever started the trouble should end it."

The situation was further compounded when US President Donald Trump challenged the one-China principle by taking a congratulatory call from Tsai in December shortly after he won the presidential election.

China's Foreign Ministry has called on the new US administration to stick to the one-China principle and limit its relationship with Taiwan to a nonofficial level.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, 21 mainland tourists were injured in a bus accident in Kaohsiung, a city in southern Taiwan. The bus, carrying 25 tourists and a tour guide from the mainland, hit the edge of a tunnel after the driver took a wrong turn.

The injured were taken to hospital. Everyone, apart from the tour guide who remains in hospital, has returned to the mainland, An said, adding that mainland authorities had extended their sympathies to those injured and helped handle the accident through nongovernmental tourism organizations on the two sides of the Taiwan Straits.

He also urged Taiwan to improve safety of its tourist sector and ensure the safety of mainland travelers.
Detective Wenjian Liu's father, mother and widow (holding bouquets, left), New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (center), Police Commissioner William Bratton and Detective Rafael Ramos' relatives visit the site in Brooklyn, New York, where the two officers were ambushed and slain on Dec 20, 2014. Hezi Jiang / China Daily

NYPD officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos died in an ambush in 2014. The tragedy of their deaths, though, has led to a move that will help protect other officers from a similar fate.

The city has set aside more than $10 million for bullet-resistant glass and doors on patrol vehicles in its draft $84.7 billion budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

On Jan 31, the NYPD demonstrated the glass and doors that will be installed on more than 3,800 patrol vehicles. The doors will be installed by the end of the year; the windows by the first half of next year, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

"You saw that material, very high-tech material, that absorbs the bullet and literally takes the bullet's trajectory and uses it against it to stop it dead in its tracks," de Blasio said inside an NYPD training classroom.

Police Commissioner James O'Neill said the need to protect officers in vehicles from gunfire was motivated by the 2014 shooting deaths of Liu, 32, and Ramos, 40 - who were ambushed by a gunman as they sat in their patrol car in Brooklyn - and the killing the following year of Brian Moore, 25, fatally shot in his unmarked squad car by a suspect in Queens.

The deaths of Liu and Ramos just before Christmas in 2014 stunned the city and came at a time of polarization between police and members of African-American communities across the US, with several incidents of black men dying in confrontations with police, including one in New York. Eric Garner died when he was wrestled to the ground on Staten Island.

Liu and Ramos' killer, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, claimed on social media that he was targeting police to avenge the deaths of Garner and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in the summer of 2014.

Liu, a native of South China's Guangdong province, came to the United States at age 12 with his parents. He decided to be a police officer after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, and joined the NYPD in 2007.

In June 2015, de Blasio and then-police commissioner William Bratton attended the unveiling ceremony for "Detective Wenjian Liu Way" in Gravesend, Brooklyn. Also in attendance were the officer's parents and widow, Peixia Chen, along with survivors of Detective Ramos and dozens of police officers. Both Liu and Ramos were posthumously promoted to detective.

Their funerals drew more than 20,000 police officers from around the country.

Liu lived in the neighborhood with his wife, Peixia Chen, and also had bought a home nearby for his parents, mother Xiuyan Li and father Weitang Liu.

"Our law enforcement officers sacrifice their lives day in and day out, in serving and protecting this great city. This city is our home," Chen said at the ceremony.

The news about the bullet-resistant glass and doors came on Jan 31 when the mayor and the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association (PBA) President Patrick Lynch announced a tentative contract agreement covering 23,810 NYPD employees.

"This agreement provides the compensation and benefits the world's finest police department deserves, while outfitting the entire force with body cameras and delivering the transparency and policing reforms at the center of effective and trusted law enforcement," de Blasio said.

As part of the deal, the PBA agreed to drop body camera litigation against the city, and the NYPD can expand the use of body cameras to the entire workforce - a step forward for police accountability and transparency.

All patrol officers will be outfitted with cameras by the end of 2019.

Contact the writer at williamhennelly@chinadailyusa.com.
US President Donald Trump sent President Xi Jinping new year's well wishes on Wednesday, four days before the end of the most important Chinese festival.

The White House said the president had written his Chinese counterpart wishing the "Chinese people a happy Lantern Festival and prosperous Year of the Rooster".

Trump wrote Xi to thank him for a congratulatory letter and to express his hopes of developing "a constructive relationship that benefits both the United States and China", according to a briefing from the White House Office of the Press Secretary.

The Lantern Festival, which falls on Saturday this year, is a Chinese festival celebrated on the 15th day of the first month. It marks the final day of the traditional Spring Festival celebrations.

Exactly a week ago - on the fifth day of the month, also an important day during the Spring Festival, Trump's daughter, Ivanka, visited the Chinese embassy in Washington for the first time with her 5-year-old daughter, Arabella Rose Kushner, to participate in the embassy's Chinese Spring Festival celebration.

Yuan Zheng, a senior researcher on US foreign policy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, noted that Trump had met or called leaders of many other major countries recently in the new year before he wrote to Xi, and the belated greeting itself will serve its purpose.

"Frankly speaking, Trump has drawn fire on himself because of domestic issues such as immigration, and he has flared hostility against him overseas," Yuan said.

At this moment, writing to Xi and pledging a "constructive" tie with Beijing showcases that stabilizing US-China ties at this difficult moment is "of greater significance" for Trump, Yuan said.

Yuan said he believed the letter is like a make-up effort. The new US president has broken the tradition of sending New Year greetings to people of Chinese origin in the US during their most important festival.

A report released by a bipartisan task force of prominent China specialists on Tuesday in Washington suggested that Trump meet with Xi early in his administration to establish a foundation for "effective communications at the highest level".

The report, US Policy Toward China: Recommendations for a New Administration by the Asia Society's Center on US-China Relations and the University of California San Diego's 21st Century China Center, also called on Trump to stick to the US' long-term standing one-China policy.
As a US appeals court weighs US President Donald Trump's executive order banning entry for refugees and visitors from seven mainly Muslim countries, the founder of a foundation that honors immigrants is urging Trump to rethink his policy.

Meanwhile, two of the foundation's latest recipients, both natives of China, said immigrants like themselves make important scientific contributions to the US.

Jan Vilcek, who escaped from Czechoslovakia during the Cold War and later worked on the blockbuster drug Remicade, established the Vilcek Foundation in 2000 to highlight the contributions of immigrants in the US.

"I would remind him (Trump) that his paternal grandparents and his mother were immigrants, and that much of the success of this country stems from our diversity and the fact that America is a nation of immigrants," Vilcek said.

"I would also tell him that barring the entry of innocent people because they happen to be from one of the seven predominantly Muslim countries chosen by the administration is wrong, contrary to the admirable democratic traditions and laws of the United States, harmful to the country's economic interests and competitiveness, and damaging to America's standing in the world."

Earlier this month Vilcek's foundation announced that the Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Science will be awarded jointly to Chinese-born Lily and Yuh Nung Jan, a husband and wife research team at the University of California-San Francisco. They will share a $100,000 award and will formally accept their honors in New York in April.

The Jans are being recognized for their work in isolating the gene encoding a protein that shuttles potassium ions across cell membranes, enabling the characterization of a molecular player important to functions as vital as maintaining heart rate and controlling muscle movement.

"The ion channels we have been studying are found in many tissues such as the brain, heart, kidney, pancreas and muscle. Diseases including epilepsy, arrhythmia, hypertension, diabetes and ataxia may result from mutations of these ion channels. Dysregulation of ion channel activity may also affect cancer progression," Lily Jan said in an email.

Lily was born in Fuzhou, in East China's Fujian province, while Yuh Nung was born in Shanghai. Both were educated in Taiwan and then came to the US for graduate school.

The Jans would like Trump to reconsider his travel ban. A 2013 National Science Foundation report said one in six US scientists is an immigrant.

"Please base your decisions on facts and not 'alternative facts'. Your executive orders are misguided. They don't improve the security of the US and are likely to do more harm than good. Foreign-born people have made disproportionally large contributions to the science and the entrepreneurship in the US," said Yuh Nung in an email.

The Vilcek Prizes are selected through a nomination and deliberation process by the foundation's jury panels.

paulwelitzkin@chinadailyusa.com
I met Coretta Scott King after placing a wreath of flowers upon the crypt of her slain husband.

She was grace personified, entertaining and speaking to a group of high school seniors, around 50 of us, who were in Atlanta for a summer, studying at the Youth Theology Institute of Emory University.

She was the torchbearer for her husband's legacy, and that summer as I read his words, my life was changed.

We expected her to tell us to rise to some great national calling, to stand up against injustice on the scale which she and her husband had. Idealistic and naive, we were certain we were ready to face Bull Connor's police dogs.

Instead she said, "Go back to your communities across America and work for justice there  in those places."

Her point was that injustice, prejudice, discrimination weren't just a byproduct of the South or George Wallace. They can be found on the reservations or in the towns of Montana.

So it surprised me when Sen. Elizabeth Warren was rebuked late Tuesday evening for using the words of a woman who helped change the way a middle-class white kid from Montana saw the world. Without her words, I may have been tricked into believing racism and its attendant injustices were confined by the borders of the Mason-Dixon line.

Warren was using King's words from 1986 to condemn Sen. Jeff Sessions who today stands as a nominee for attorney general of the United States of America. Warren's selection of King's words carry with them the authority of someone who knows exactly what civil rights mean. They weren't hyperbole when written, and they aren't now.

When I learned that Montana's own Sen. Steve Daines was the one who silenced Warren, I was appalled.

Senate Rule 19 prohibits Senators for speaking ill of one another. Warren may not have been speaking ill so much as she was speaking truthfully, and there's a difference. Saying something truthful and saying something nice are two entirely different things. And Warren was not speaking of Sessions as a senator, but as a person being considered for the country's top law enforcement agent. In that case, Warren must be given the broadest latitude for speaking freely because no stones should be left unturned when it comes to having as much power as is given an attorney general.

Senators exchanging snark is not a rare thing; turn on any television during the Sunday morning talk shows. So invoking Rule 19 is completely hypocritical and out of line.

For Daines to play any part of this scheme is shameful, un-American and needs to be condemned. But I don't condemn his actions solely as an editor  a person vehemently and ardently opposed to anything that would look like a curtailing of free speech. I am simply doing as Coretta Scott King herself urged me years ago: I am fighting injustice in my own community.

Not letting someone speak, and using power to thwart that speech is an injustice.

It's probably easy for Mr. Daines to go to Washington and be a party lackey to carry out a plan to silence the opposition. Who cares about a senator from Massachusetts? Or one from Alabama? Or the words of a dead wife of a civil rights leader, especially out here in the hinterlands of Montana?

I do.

All it takes is for people in Montana to believe that this fight has nothing to do with us. All it takes is for us to accept a little nick and then a slight adjustment to something as precious as freedom of speech or spirited dissent and before you know it, our freedom of speech becomes something more like freedom of acceptable speech.

But freedom of speech means absolutely nothing unless it's having to listen to vociferous, repeated ideas, thoughts and speech we don't like. Daines and the rest of the Republicans seem to think that simply being in the majority party also gives them the right to judge speech  something that should concern any citizen.

We must call Daines' actions for what they are, a deliberate assault on freedom of speech, trumped up on the charges of some arcane article of Senate decorum.

It's not as if Warren's words were vulgar or even off-topic. That's exactly the point  they were so on point that GOP leaders were obviously worried that they may be used to turn the tide of public opinion against one of their own whom they know to have an extraordinarily troubling record of civil rights.

Not only could Steve Daines not be counted to raise these same civil rights concern, he couldn't even be counted on to vouchsafe for a fellow senator's right to speak her albeit long-winded mind.

If you can gavel down a senator whose speech you don't like, what's to stop you from muzzling others, Sen. Daines? Who's next to be told to take their seat?

So I say, in full celebration of my First Amendment right to do so: Gavel this.

You can force a senator to shut up, but not me.

You can't gavel this press or the responsibility I have to point out that you were a part of the injustice that silenced a voice of opposition.

And injustice anywhere is an assault to justice everywhere.

Martin Luther King, Jr., said that.

Or would you gavel him, too?
Its no secret that Donald Trump is a deeply irresponsible person. What else can you say about a president who names an unqualified political ideologue to the National Security Council, picks fights with close American allies, and casually tweets about starting a new nuclear arms race? But even for Trump, the Twitter war he launched against a federal judge over the weekend has gone to a disturbing new level.

Over the weekend, after U.S. District Judge James Robart issued an order putting Trumps executive order on immigration and travel on hold nationwide, Trump predictably took to Twitter to vent his anger. On Saturday morning, Trump derided Robart as a so-called judge who was essentially taking law enforcement away from our country. Trumps words undermined judicial independence and ignored the role judicial review plays in setting legal limits on the power of the executive branch. On Saturday afternoon, Trump upped the ante in a tweet that falsely accused Judge Robarts order of allowing anyone, even with bad intentions to enter the United States.

This was not, of course, the first time Trump had personally attacked a federal judge. During the presidential campaign, Trump infamously questioned whether a judge of Mexican heritage could impartially rule in a case involving Trump University (House Speaker Paul Ryan called Trumps attack the textbook definition of racist comments). But Trumps attack against Judge Robart is even more troubling. Now that Trump is president, his decision to baselessly impugn the integrity of a sitting federal judge who ruled against the administration raises separation of powers concerns. Trump isnt simply expressing his disagreement with Judge Robarts ruling (which would be fine), hes seeking to delegitimize an official in a co-equal branch of the federal government. Trump is showing that, to him, federal judges are just another political opponent to be bullied  like journalists whose coverage he doesnt like, or elected officials who criticize his actions.

On Sunday, Trump went even further by using reckless words that could conceivably endanger Judge Robarts personal security. In another tweet, Trump ominously informed his supporters that they should blame [Judge Robart] and [the] court system if something happens. In the same tweet, Trump warned that the judge had placed the country in such peril, clearly suggesting that the judge should be blamed if there is a terrorist attack.

Trump is playing an incredibly dangerous game. We know that people who Trump bullies on Twitter can end up getting threatened  this is precisely what happened to Chuck Jones, a union leader who dared to challenge Trump. We also know that irresponsible charges can lead to violence. The grotesque Pizzagate conspiracy theory moved one man to self-investigate slanderous lies that Hillary Clinton was running a child sex ring out of a Washington, D.C. restaurant. The man arrived at the restaurant with two weapons and fired several shots  very fortunately, no one was hurt.

Republicans in Congress must act swiftly and clearly by denouncing Trumps dangerous smear of Judge Robart. This should not be a partisan matter. In 1937, Democratic members of Congress rightly criticized Franklin D. Roosevelts proposed court-packing scheme as a threat to judicial independence. Trumps Twitter war with Judge Robart goes even further, by undermining the integrity of the courts and outrageously blaming the judge in advance for threats to national security. This is far too dangerous to ignore.
U.S. Highway 212 has reopened, according to a Montana Department of Transportation news release.

The highway was closed between the Highway 421 Junction and Red Lodge for roughly three hours beginning Wednesday morning and going into the early afternoon.

Winds between 25 and 35 mph blew through that section of Highway 212 Wednesday morning. Shawn Palmquist, National Weather Service meteorologist, said the wind was "terrain influenced." It's blowing out of Wyoming and accelerating along the Rock Creek drainage.

"Those conditions will gradually improve later this morning and into the afternoon," Palmquist said. "So winds will lighten up a bit."
A California woman will spend five years in federal prison for her role in a meth conspiracy that distributed the drug in the Glendive community.

U.S. District Judge Susan Watters on Thursday sentenced Roper Ray Blankenship, 23, of Patterson, Calif., to the minimum mandatory five-year term for her guilty plea to a conspiracy count.

Blankenship was one of four people indicted for trafficking meth sent to Glendive under the direction of co-defendant Michael Vincent Villalobos, who used local addicts to store and distribute the drug.

The federal Drug Enforcement Administration learned through an informant that Villalobos had meth mailed from connections in California and sent back drug proceeds, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Colin Rubich earlier.

Blankenship acted as Villalobos key lieutenant, accompanying him on trips and possessing firearms, Rubich said.

Investigators from the Sidney and Miles City police departments twice pulled over Villalobos vehicle in 2015 in traffic stops. Searches of the vehicle both times turned up meth and a firearm.

Rubich said Blankenship admitted to officers that the meth and guns seized, which included a .22-caliber gun and a .38-caliber revolver, were hers.

In sentencing Blankenship, Watters noted the abuse she suffered during her childhood and the beginning of alcohol and meth use before she was 15. The judge also recommended mental health treatment to help Blankenship address trauma she suffered earlier in her life.

Your future doesnt have to be bleak at all. The key though is its all up to you, Watters said.

Villalobos was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for his conviction in the case. Co-defendants Teal Cherie Harris and Devin Allen Mitchell, who had minor roles in the conspiracy, were sentenced to time served.
An Oregon woman facing a prison sentence told a federal judge in Billings on Wednesday that she had cleaned up her life after getting convicted in a conspiracy in which a pound of almost pure methamphetamine was found hidden in a car seat occupied by her young son.

Rachel Ruiz, 31, of Portland, Ore., faced from about four years to almost five years in prison for her guilty plea to a conspiracy charge, but instead got four years of probation.

Ruiz was the last of three defendants convicted in the case to be sentenced.

Federal prosecutors charged Ruiz, Timothy Patrick Pine II, 37, of Miles City, and Francisco Gutierrez, 22, of Honduras, with trafficking meth from about January 2014 to June 2015 in Miles City, Missoula, Kalispell and other places in Montana.

Ruiz, prosecutors said, helped transport meth into Montana with Gutierrez. State and federal investigators used a confidential informant who would buy ounce and gram quantities from Pine.

U.S. District Judge Susan Watters followed a probation recommendation from defense attorney Vern Woodward, who argued that Ruiz had been sober for almost six months despite having used marijuana while on pre-trial release, had completed treatment and was a new person.

I like the sober life, Ruiz told Watters. Ruiz, who has a boyfriend and is working, also said she had no idea what would happen to her three children, ages 7, 10 and 15, if she went to prison.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Colin Rubich said while a guideline term may be too long, he recommended some prison time, saying Ruiz participated in two drug runs with a co-defendant.

While Ruiz said she didnt know there was meth in the car seat until her co-defendant told her as they were getting pulled over by law enforcement, she knew there was marijuana in the vehicle, he said.

Ruiz also was willing to use her child in the scheme, Rubich said. I think the word is appalling, he added.

Ruiz and Gutierrez got stopped along Interstate 90 as they were headed to Missoula in a Honda Civic. Gutierrez was the driver and Ruiz was a passenger. Her son was in the back seat in a car seat.

Ruiz agreed to go with investigators to be questioned but was adamant that the car seat be transported as well, Rubich said earlier.

Agents got a search warrant for the car and found marijuana inside. They also removed screws from the bottom of the car seat and found a pound of meth and 8 grams of heroin inside. All of the meth tested almost 100 percent pure.

Ruiz told the judge earlier that she knew about the marijuana but didnt know there was meth and heroin in the car seat.

Gutierrez, who was in the country illegally, was sentenced to about five years in prison while Pine was sentenced to almost 12 years in prison.
JACKSON, Wyo.  The Teton County Commission has declared a state of emergency for the Teton Village area because of weather-related issues, including power outages, heavy snowfall and increased risk of avalanches.

The Jackson Hole News & Guide reports that the emergency declaration lasts until Monday.

The areas affected include Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and several residential neighborhoods.

The resort remained closed Thursday as crews worked to restore power that was shut off by a storm that downed 17 power lines Tuesday night.

Officials noted that most of the Jackson Hole region, including the town of Jackson, Grand Targhee Ski Resort and Grand Teton National Park, are unaffected and remain open.

Commissioner Natalia Macker said the declaration is the first step should the county need to ask for state assistance.
Mark Wilson/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- The Trump administration's top spokesperson called a raid in Yemen that resulted in the death of one Navy SEAL and the likely deaths of civilians a "huge success," and rebuked any

criticism of the operation as a "disservice" to the fallen SEAL.



Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, earlier called the operation a "failure."



"It's absolutely a success and I think anyone who would suggest it's not a success does disservice to the life of Chief Ryan Owens," White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Wednesday during the

daily press briefing.



"The life of Chief Ryan Owens was done in service to this country and we owe him and his family a great debt for the information that we received during that raid  I think any suggestion otherwise

is a disservice to his courageous life and the actions that he took."



The raid last Saturday resulted in the death of Chief Petty Officer William "Ryan" Owens, 36, and the injury of three other Navy SEALS and three other service members. Fourteen al-Qaeda fighters

were killed in the raid. U.S. Central Command said last Thursday that "civilian non-combatants likely were killed" and that may have included children.



Spicer's defense given today of the Yemen raid also slightly differed from his assessment last week.



"I think, it's hard to ever say something was successful when you lose a life," Spicer said then.



Yesterday, McCain told reporters the mission was a failure and said the Senate deserves answers about what happened in order to prevent future mistakes.



Every military operation has objectives," Sen. McCain said in a follow-up statement yesterday. "And while many of the objectives of the recent raid in Yemen were met, I would not describe any

operation that results in the loss of American life as a success.



Officials told ABC News the raid was launched by the elite counterterrorism unit SEAL Team Six and was the first carried out with President Donald Trump's direct approval.



Citing American officials, the New York Times reported that the Yemen government withdrew its permission for the U.S. to conduct ground missions against terrorist in the area, because it was upset

over the death of civilians in last weekend's raid.



But a U.S. Central Command spokesperson told ABC News that nothing has changed and they have not been directed by anyone to stop conducting or planning operations in Yemen.



We are aware of reports indicating the Yemeni government requested a suspension of U.S. ground operations. We note that the Yemeni foreign minister has denied these reports." the acting

spokesperson for the US State Department, Mark Toner, said in a statement.



During the press briefing at the White House on Wednesday, Spicer said the U.S. is in touch with Yemen's government and that he would have more information on the situation later.



Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granted an easement to complete drilling of the Dakota Access Pipeline under the Missouri River/Lake Oahe. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is expected to sue. DAPL developer Energy Transfer Partners indicated it will begin drilling immediately.

"The drill under Lake Oahe will take approximately 60 days. It will take an additional 23 days to fill the line to Patoka, Ill., enabling Dakota Access to be in service in approximately 83 days," said Vicki Granado, spokeswoman for Energy Transfer Partners.

The announcement comes after the Army notified Congress Tuesday that it had completed an expedited review of the pipeline route after an order from President Donald Trump. The environmental impact study initiated in January will be canceled, the corps said.

"On Feb. 8, 2017, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granted an easement to Dakota Access LLC allowing the installation of a 30-inch-diameter light crude oil pipeline under federal lands managed by the corps at Oahe Reservoir," the corps said in a statement released Wednesday evening.

In a statement, DAPL developer Energy Transfer Partners announced that it had all of its permits and expected the pipeline to be constructed and in service in the second quarter of 2017.

"With this action, Dakota Access now has received all federal authorizations necessary to proceed expeditiously to complete construction of the pipeline," the company said.

But the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe said Tuesday they would fight the easement in court on the grounds that the EIS was wrongfully terminated.

In cities around the country, including San Francisco and Chicago, people took to the streets Wednesday in a "#NoDAPL last stand." While most organizers have encouraged people to fight the pipeline in Washington and through their local governments instead of coming to North Dakota, Chase Iron Eyes and some others have encouraged people to return to North Dakota to protest construction.

"I'll see you on the front line," Iron Eyes said in a video statement posted online.

The tribe fears a pipeline leak could contaminate its drinking water. The company building the $3.8 billion, four-state crude oil pipeline has said it is safe and outfitted with the latest technology.

Local and state leaders quickly applauded the decision they hoped would bring finality to months of protests in southern Morton County. They are asking for more federal law enforcement officers to assist during the construction process.

"Our hope is that the new administration in Washington will now provide North Dakota law enforcement the necessary resources to bring closure to the protests," Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier said in a statement.

Check back for updates to this story.
A three-day jury trial for a man accused of threatening people with a gun near U.S. Foods in north Bismarck began on Wednesday.

At issue in the proceedings may be questions of race and whether James Vann would have carried out any of the threats he made.

Vann, 32, of Bismarck, is accused of terrorizing his girlfriend, an older couple and police. Authorities say he pursued and threatened to kill the girlfriend near the food store and told the older couple buying meat there, "We're not going to have any trouble here, right?" The incident on May 17 put Legacy High School on lockdown as police hunted for Vann, a potential active shooter.

The trial began Wednesday afternoon and Vann's race was noted early on by the prosecutor and defense attorney.

During her opening statement and questioning of victim witnesses, Burleigh County Assistant State's Attorney Marina Spahr repeatedly referred to Vann as a "black man."

"Before James (Sackman) can get to his truck, a black man with a gun comes chasing after him. The black man is James Vann, the defendant," Spahr said in her opening statement to the all-white jury.

Spahr said in an email after the first day of trial that she called him that way, because it is how the older couple, who reported the incident, identified him.

"That is how the reporting party referred to him. He didnt know anything about Vann other than he had a gun and was black," Spahr wrote.

The possible racial intonations did not appear to be lost on Vann's defense attorney James Loraas. When Loraas cross-examined Sackman, a 70-year-old white man allegedly threatened by Vann, he asked about his relations with black people.

"Have you had a lot of experience with African Americans?" Loraas asked him. "Are you familiar with African-American slang?"

Sackman said he did not understand some of Loraas' questions on the topic, but also replied that he does not have many social get-togethers with black people.

In her opening statement, Spahr told the story of that day through the eyes of the older couple and the police. The couple went to U.S. Foods to buy a box of steaks. While waiting outside for the meat, Vann's girlfriend ran up to them and said there was a man who wanted to kill her. Sackman told the woman to go inside the store. Vann ran up to the couple soon after, allegedly threatened them and cocked his gun. Then Vann followed his girlfriend inside and fled when he could not enter the building.

The older couple drove off and called 911. Police from several agencies arrived to scout out a potential active shooter situation. Police tracked Vann down three hours later when he called into dispatch and, in a statement full of expletives, allegedly said he wanted to kill his girlfriend and police officers. He was ultimately arrested in Wahpeton.

But Loraas argued in his opening statement this was a case of "mistaken assumptions." Vann was chasing after his girlfriend, whom he was concerned about, and carrying a gun he intended to take out of the house due to their separation. Insofar as he made threats, they were said from anger and would not have led to real actions, Loraas said.

"The evidence will show that he was concerned for his family, frustrated and experiencing momentary anger," he said.

South Central District Judge Sonna Anderson is presiding over the trial. Vann faces a minimum of two years in prison if convicted.
A 15-year-old West Fargo girl has been missing since late October, and police believe she may be in the area from Bismarck to Fort Yates.

Alicia Mitzel has been spotted around Bismarck, at the pipeline protest camps and on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, but police and family have been unable to locate her. Mitzel is Native American and has some family ties to the reservation.

West Fargo Police Lt. Greg Warren, who is investigating the case along with the Bismarck Police, said he worries for her safety. A young girl with no food or money, it is possible that she has been trafficked.

The teen should be a sophomore at Sheyenne High School in West Fargo, according to her adoptive father, Jason Mitzel, of Detroit Lakes. She likes horses and swimming. Though only 15, she could pass for 19 or 20, he said.

Jason Mitzel said she is savvy and likely finding ways to get by.

"I am worried, but I know shes smart," said Jason Mitzel, adding she was homeless for a time as a kid and "knows what she needs to do to survive."

Jason Mitzel has traveled to the Bismarck area three times in the past four months and found people who'd recently seen her.

Its like finding a needle in a haystack, he said. "It always seemed like we were a day late."

Alicia Mitzel ran away once before earlier in October, but she was found in Wadena, Minn.

"I hope she's OK," her 19-year-old brother, Brandon Mitzel, said. "I want her to come back home."

Anyone with information about Alicia Mitzel's whereabouts should contact the West Fargo Police Department at 701-433-5500 or their local police department.
The Legislature needs to pass House Bill 1386 so all North Dakotans are protected from discrimination.

The bill would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in housing, employment, public services and credit transactions. The bill also adds sexual orientation to a list of protected statuses already in state law, including religion, sex, race, age and national origin.

Legislators have considered similar legislation in the past with the bill passing the Senate in 2015 before being rejected by the House. A similar bill was introduced in 2009 and 2013. The landscape has changed in the last two years with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June 2015 that the Constitution guarantees gay couples the right to marry. The Tribune realizes many people strongly disagree with the ruling, but it has become the law of the land. Opponents argue religious exemptions in the bill arent adequate.

The Tribune believes everyone should be treated the same under the law and, if passed, the bill wont have the consequences that opponents fear.

During more than three hours of testimony last week in the House Human Services Committee, supporters described discrimination complaints in the state. Opponents countered that if passed the bill could result in people and businesses being forced to participate in events that go against their beliefs.

Similar arguments have been used when efforts were launched to end racial, gender and age bias. They didnt hold up then and they dont hold up now. Courts have been reasonable in interpreting the laws.

The House Human Services Committee voted 12-1 for a do not pass recommendation Wednesday morning on HB1386. Amendments were offered but rejected. The Tribune urges the House to reject the recommendation and pass the bill.

Gays arent new to the North Dakota workplace. Some are open about their sexual preference while others work in silence. Whether open or not, they are a vital part of our society. Businesses and civil servants shouldnt be allowed to refuse services to people because of their race, age, gender or sexual preferences.

Theres still anti-gay sentiment in the nation. Passing HB1386 would be a positive step for North Dakota and the nation. It would signal the state believes everyone is equal under the law.

Free speech

In a vote that might bode well for HB1386, the House approved House Bill 1329 on Tuesday. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Rick Becker, R-Bismarck, would "confirm free speech as a fundamental right" while requiring the State Board of Higher Education to adopt a policy on free speech to apply to all North Dakota University System students.

The House Education Committee opposed the bill, but the House passed it easily, 65-25.
India on Thursday hit out at China for its remarks that there was no consensus over the United States' proposal to ban Pathankot attack mastermind and Jaish-e-Mohammed is chief Masood Azhar at the United Nations, saying if there is a change in the Chinese position, there will be a consensus as well.

External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup also said that the matter has been taken up with the Chinese Ambassador in New Delhi and a similar demarche is being made in Beijing.

Observing that the proposal was not moved by India but by three permanent members of the UN Security Council -- the US, the UK and France, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup described it as a "classic counter-terrorism proposal" and hoped that China will also come around to accept this view.

"It is our understanding that this was a classic counter- terrorism proposal meant to proscribe a dreaded terrorist leader Masood Azhar whose organisation the Jaish-e-Mohammad has already been proscribed by the UN 1267 Committee.

"We don't view this as a bilateral matter between India and Pakistan but as an issue of global counter terrorism. We hope that eventually China will also come around to accepting this view. Obviously, if there is a change in the Chinese position, there will be consensus also," he said.

India's sharp reaction came a day after China defended its decision to block the US-initiated proposal in the UN for designating Azhar as a global terrorist, saying the "conditions" have not yet been met for Beijing to back the move.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang had also told a media briefing in Beijing that his government resorted to this move to allow the "relevant parties" to reach a consensus.

"We put out technical hold after we had several rounds of consultations with India. We hope relevant parties have enough time to consult with each other to make sure that the decision made by the Committee will be based on consensus representing the broad international community," he said.

Swarup also said the proposal was submitted on January 19 after induction of four new members to the UN Security Council.

China has put a "hold" on the US-initiated proposal, which comes barely weeks after India's bid to get Azhar banned by the UN was scuttled by Beijing last December. This has prompted India to take up the matter with the Chinese government.

Earlier, replying to a question in Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh said the government has consistently highlighted to China the threat of cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan and affecting the region, including India.

"Specifically, we have emphasised forcefully that while Pakistan-based JeM has been proscribed by the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee established under UNSC Resolutions 1267/1989/2253, as far back as 2001, for its well-known terror activities and links to the al Qaeda.

"The designation of JeM's main leader, financer and motivator Masood Azhar has been repeatedly put on a technical hold. China decided to block the proposal to list Azhar as a designated terrorist in end December 2016," Singh said.

He said similarly on earlier occasions, India had sought action in 1267 UN Sanctions Committee against known terrorists, including LeT leaders Zakiur Rehman Lakhavi and Hafiz Saeed, and Hizbul Mujahideen leader Syed Salahuddin.

India had requested China, in accordance with its "professed position of zero tolerance for terrorism and its desire for strengthening counter-terrorism cooperation with India", to support its request, the minister said.

"However, China did not support India's request and placed technical hold and blocked action by 1267 Committee," Singh said.

He said China has stated its "resolute opposition to terrorism" in all forms and has agreed that there is no justification for terrorism.

"The government continues to push forward with resolute determination through the use of all available options to bring perpetrators of terrorist violence to justice," Singh said.

Responding to a question, M J Akbar, MoS in MEA, said India has not had any structured dialogue with China on Baluchistan issue, but has expressed concern, including at multilateral fora, about human rights violations in the insurgency-hit province of Pakistan, where it has made significant investment.

In response to another question, Akbar said at the UN level, India has consistently highlighted that terrorism poses one of the foremost threats to international peace and security.

"In this context (India) has underlined the importance of ensuring coherence and transparency in the functioning of various bodies inside the UN that deal with the issue.

"In July 2016, member countries of the UN General Assembly, including India, requested the Secretary General to submit a report to the UNGA by April 2018 on the implementation of UN's 'Global Counter Terrorism Strategy' to be discussed in June 2018 during the 72nd session of the UNGA," Akbar said.
For the party's traditional vote bank -- traders -- demonetisation was a 'political betrayal,' reports Radhika Ramaseshan.

IMAGE: In the days after demonetisation, people stood in long lines at banks to withdraw money. According to traders, Modi's notebandi was similar to Indira Gandhi's nasbandi. Photograph: PTI Photo

Manoj Kucchal, a hardware vendor in Bijnor's commercial hub, Sadar Bazar, looked harassed as he summoned his chartered accountant for the morning session he has been holding since the taxman knocked on his doors.

The taxman started sending him alerts after vetting Kucchal's bank accounts to check how much cash was put in it after November 8, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi demonetised high-value currency notes.

"The I-T (income tax) department has served 10 messages on my mobile in the past 10 days. If I do not answer these within 10 days, I will have to pay a penalty of Rs 10,000 per notice. The thing that amuses me is the number of times I have used the figure 10," said Kucchal, who heads the Bijnor district traders association.

At Saharanpur, 110 km away, Vivek Minocha, who helms the city's traders forum, is feeling harassed.

"The I-T guys are demanding proof for every rupee we put in (to a bank account). The PM himself said once not to probe deposits of up to Rs 2.5 lakh by housewives. The women in my joint family have made deposits. It seems the I-T sleuths will not heed his advice. What do I do?" asked Minocha.

In the cities of western Uttar Pradesh, whose economies are sustained mostly by wholesale and retail trading, demonetisation has been a killer.

In the absence of large industries at these places, trading in food, agro products, industrial goods and crafts is a major economic contributor and a sizeable employer.

Of Saharanpur's 12,172 registered industrial units, medium and large units account for a paltry 32.

Bijnor, a smaller place, fares a little better with 281 medium and large industries, of the 6,706 registered units.

Apart from agriculture, trade is the other big linkage between the urban and rural economies.

This linkage is operationalised by a chain of transactions that has evolved and been micro-tuned over the decades.

It has now snapped and looks irreparable for the time to come.

Minocha, who supplies innerwear to a predominantly rural clientele, explained how the breakdown happened.

"In the 22 years I have been in business, November and December are the peak months for selling thermals and warm underwear. I used to run out of stock. Last year, none of my rural clients picked up stuff. I have materials worth lakhs lying at home. Hot weather has almost set in, but I have no cash to buy summer wear (to sell)."

"My clients will seek other suppliers. The wheel has stopped turning for me," he said.

For the traders, demonetisation was a 'political betrayal' by the Bharatiya Janata Party, "the party we grew up with all our lives," rued Mukesh Dutta, Minocha's colleague.

Therefore, when Power Minister Piyush Goyal was directed by the BJP brass to 'clarify' to the trading community that the taxman's alerts meant nothing, few, if anybody, took him seriously.

Goyal was in Saharanpur last week and told the traders the messages were not notices but 'routine updates' of their savings accounts.

A show cause notice, the minister added, is always dispatched by post.

"In our presence Goyalji spoke to (Hasmukh) Adhia (the revenue secretary) and ordered him to issue a statement to the effect," said Ishwar Goyal, the BJP's joint campaign coordinator in Saharanpur.

"I admit some of our party people had doubts. If there are problems within one's household, it is incumbent on a responsible member to resolve those and that's what Goyalji did."

However, Jaswant Batra, a BJP member and the vice-president of the city's traders forum, conceded that the party had held a couple of 'perfunctory' meets with the business community.

But this time its leaders were engaging with it "at least" thrice every day.

These interactions segregated the traders into three voting groups: The younger ones rooted for the Samajwadi Party; the irate older ones claimed they would opt for NOTA (none of the above option in a voting machine) and a few die-hards resigned themselves to the inevitability of sticking with the BJP.

Bijnor transporter Atul Gupta, who voted only for the BJP until 2014, traduced the "notebandi" as Modi's "nasbandi" moment, alluding to how Indira Gandhi's enforcement of the sterilisation programme had turned the masses away from her in the post-Emergency election.

He has resolved to "teach the BJP a lesson."

Saharanpur's veteran trader Rajendra Gupta said the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party "put him off" and NOTA was his only option.

Jitendra Agarwal, a dealer of disposable crockery and cutlery in Bijnor, gave Modi the benefit of doubt.

"The bureaucracy and the banks have let him down. His intention was noble," Agarwal said.
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CANNON BALL  Wednesday's bitter cold wind swept in the news to about 300 men and women camping out in opposition of the Dakota Access Pipeline that an easement to drill under the Missouri River/Lake Oahe had finally been issued.

The Oceti Sakowin protest camp quietly absorbed the news without a ripple, at least on the surface. People bundled in layers, gloves stuffed with hand warmers, went about the business of digging out abandoned campsites and cleaning up ahead of high water expected to fill the Cannonball River floodplain come spring.

No one charged the hill one-half mile away where the brightly lit drill pad looms, ready to bore the final link in North Dakotas portion of the 1,100-mile line between the Bakken oil fields and Illinois.

Protesters aiming to stop the pipeline for fear of water contamination and destruction of sacred ground have been in the camp since August. Of the thousands once there, just hundreds remain, many determined to stay.

Were not charging the bridge, not anymore, said Matthew Bishop, of Alaska, who arrived in mid-October and will leave soon to operate his seasonal business back home. It bothers me that theres no reaction, but the other side has got us in here where we cant do anything."

Law enforcement is visible to the north and west of the camp and airplanes circled overhead.

Bishop, like others in the camp, is preparing to move, but only to higher ground, despite the Standing Rock Sioux Tribes official call for protesters to return home and carry on the pipeline fight.

Im going to listen to the people here, Bishop said.

Hannah Vandagrist, of Oregon, said shell move as far as Facebook Hill, so-named in the camp because cell coverage made it a mecca for people trying to connect to the internet.

The news of the easement didnt faze her much, and she continues her work in the camps animal medical shelter.

I feel like I didnt have a large reaction. Were not charging the (drill pad) hill; thats not a good plan of action, she said. Im staying until the pipeline is stopped or the water is safe.

Floyd Hart is a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux and was sitting in one of the large green tents where his tribe is located in the camp, making plans to empty the tents and move to higher ground.

I anticipated it to be that way, he said of the easement. I felt not defeated, but still in distress.

He said the group will make its stand on treaty land inside the camp.

I dont know if theyll try to bulldoze us over, or if well get shot with real bullets, or rubber bullets. Were not geared up for a riot. I believe in peace and prayer  some things are out of our hands, Hart said.

Bryce Peppard, of Idaho, a former U.S. Navy fire control technician, came with the call-out to veterans in November and has remained ever since. Hes planning to move with the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe contingent to "Facebook Hill" and said itll be arranged so theres room for everybody.

I want to stay. The pipelines a done deal. The fight for me is more about treaty land taken from the Indians, he said, referring to the 19th century treaties that assigned land to tribes and are still contested. Hell stay in the camp on treaty land, rather than retreat to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation across the river.

Meanwhile, volunteers and staff from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe moved though the camp this week, identifying abandoned camps and cleaning up the grounds to prevent contaminating the flood water. Man and machine worked together to haul tons of abandoned gear and ruined equipment to nearby roll-off Dumpsters.

Steve Harrison, a crew leader, was organizing the cleanup of a camp kitchen, left behind weeks ago with equipment and food stores still inside.

We can clean up eight to 10 camp sites a day, but many people want to wait as long as they can. We need them to say what theyre taking or leaving. I volunteered for this because I want to see everyone get out safely, Harrison said. A lot of people want to stay until the end, but the end is going to come real soon once Mother Nature starts the melting.

Cleanup started in earnest on Jan. 30 and large areas of the once-crowded camp are stripped bare to the ground.

Forest Borie came to the camp from Tijuana, Mexico, to protest the pipeline and stand up for indigenous treaties. Hes living in a blanket-lined summer tent, burning candles to stay warm at night.

Im focused on the cleanup and waiting if a window of opportunity still arises where we can peacefully represent the voice of the people who are from this land, Borie said. We have been supported by the entire world. I dont know what we will do.
VinaPhone has been providing 4G services on Phu Quoc Island since November after a year of preparation.  Photo doanhnhansaigon.vn

HCM City  Leading telecom service providers Viettel, MobiFone and VinaPhone are scrambling to put up base transceiver stations and pilot 4G services to be ready to officially offer them this quarter.

VinaPhone has been providing 4G services on Phu Quoc Island since November after a year of preparation.

VinaPhone will focus on speed and stability of 4G services, Luong Manh Hoang, deputy general director of VNPT and chairman of VNPT VinaPhone, told au Tu (Viet Nam Investment Review) newspaper.

Next, it plans to offer the services in Ha Noi, HCM City and 10 other cities and provinces this quarter.

It will instal around 21,000 4G base transceiver stations to provide the services country-wide this year.

Unlike Vinaphone, Viettel will provide 4G sim cards to all its customers by March 1 after beginning the task late last year.

It had planned to start 4G services in early January, but was delayed by some technical problems. The launch of services is expected no later than the end of March.

During the Lunar New Year holidays, it set up 74 base transceiver stations with four times the capacity of normal BTSs and able to support 2G, 3G and 4G services to prevent the usual network logjam.

Its deputy general director, Hoang Son, revealed that right after getting the 4G licence Viettel had begun to invest in infrastructure and equipment.

Providing 4G sims is one of our final tasks before providing 4G services.

Major General Nguyen Manh Hung, general director of Viettel, said the 4G launch was meant to boost broadband usage by mobile phone users and raise Viet Nams profile in the global telecom map.

We hope to make Viet Nam among the top 30 nations in the world [in terms of] 4G services in the next few years.

Like Viettel, MobiFone has already started to issue 4G sims to customers, with the number already crossing a million.

Besides investing in infrastructure and equipment, service providers are also focusing on digital content for their 4G services.

Minister of Information and Telecommunications Truong Minh Tuan recently instructed relevant authorities to prepare for auctioning the 2.6GHz frequency before the third quarter of this year.

He also called on all mobile phone service providers to quickly and safely deploy 4G services country-wide. -- VNS
Viet Nams import value for steel and iron products in January rose by up to 30 per cent against the same period last year.  Photo vatlieuxaydung.org.vn

HA NOI  Viet Nams import value for steel and iron products continuously surged sharply in the first month of 2017 to US$710 million, the General Statistics Office reported.

The value rose by up to 30 per cent against the same period last year.

Faster economic growth means more steel is needed to make everything from cars to buildings. Statistics show that Viet Nams steel imports so far meet up to 60 per cent of the market demand.

Last year, Viet Nams steel imports also rose sharply, hitting a record high of 18.4 million tonnes worth nearly $11 billion, up 18.4 per cent and 7.2 per cent respectively against the previous year. The imports were mainly from China (accounting for 55.1 per cent), South Korea (12.8 per cent) and Taiwan (8.9 per cent).

As a large steel import volume from China has caused major damage to domestic steel production, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has decided to apply trade defence measures to ensure fair competition with local products and promote the countrys steel sector.

For this purpose, certain kinds of steel ingots and long steel imported into Viet Nam from various countries and territories have been subject to temporary safeguard duties of 23.3 per cent and 14.2 per cent respectively.

The Viet Nam Steel Association forecast that the countrys rising steel demand will boost production by 10-12 per cent in 2017.

Viet Nams per capita steel consumption could grow further in the next few years from just below 300 kilograms today, said industry experts.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade estimates the country will spend $15 billion annually on steel imports by 2020 to meet rapidly rising domestic demand. The ministry also forecast Viet Nam will be short of 15 million tonnes by 2020 and 20 million tonnes by 2025. - VNS
TIEN GIANG  The Mekong Delta province of Tien Giang has devised numerous measures to fully explore local industrial parks (IPs) and industrial clusters (ICs).

Tien Giang is focusing on attracting investment in infrastructure facilities in IPs and ICs and developing multi-sector IPs with a wider range of products to meet domestic and export demand.

Efforts will be made in simplifying administrative procedures and facilitating operations of investors in the IPs, such as Tan Phuoc 1, Soai Rap Petroleum Service Zone, Gia Thuan 1 and 2 clusters.

According to Cao Minh Tam, head of the provinces Industrial Zones Management Board, the Government has approved planning for seven IPs on a combined area of over 2,083ha.

Currently, Tien Giang has established and put into operation four IPs on over 1,101ha, with total investment of nearly US$230 million.

Besides this, the province has put into operation four ICs -- An Thanh, Trung An, Tan My Chanh and Song Thuan.

So far, the IPs and ICs in the province have created jobs for 92,561 labourers, and 84 per cent of them work in the IPs.

In 2017, enterprises in the IPs target reaching VN58.5 trillion in industrial production value.  VNS
HA NOI  Vietcombank has submitted to the State Bank of Viet Nams governor a plan to support the restructuring of an ailing bank.

Vietcombanks chairman Nghiem Xuan Thanh told Deputy Prime Minister Vuong inh Hue at a recent meeting: After approval by the governor and the Government, Vietcombank pledges to be a pioneer in restructuring successfully an ailing bank as entrusted by the Government.

The Vietcombank representative did not reveal the name of the ailing bank that it will help restructure.

Previously, the central bank entrusted Vietcombank to support the Vietnam Construction Bank (VNCB) in a number of fields, such as capital resources, monetary business, credit and corporate governance.

According to Vietcombank, its support to VNCB meets the countrys current legal regulations.

At a meeting with Vietcombank late last year, SBV governor Le Minh Hung directed Vietcombank to take part in the restructuring of other ailing banks, but ensured that the Government would issue detailed policies in this regard to make certain the bank was not affected by it.

Hung said Vietcombank made significant achievements last year in settling bad debts, which has brought its bad debt ratio down to 1.45 per cent.

Last year, Vietcombank was also the first bank to buy back all non-performing loans (NPLs) worth VN4.3 trillion (US$189.4 million) it sold to the Viet Nam Asset Management Company three years sooner than planned.

However, Hung asked Vietcombank to boost the settlement of bad debts by selling mortgaged assets as Vietcombanks settlement of bad debts was mainly through provisions, which reduced the banks profits. Last year, Vietcombank spent some VN8.2 trillion on provisions, which was equal to 121 per cent of its total NPLs.

After gaining a record high pre-tax profit of VN8.2 trillion in 2016, Vietcombank has targeted pre-profit figure of VN9.2 trillion in 2017, 12 per cent higher than last year.  VNS
HA NOI  The second meeting between Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and the Vietnamese business community is due at the end of March in Ha Noi.

According to the Government Office, Deputy Prime Minister Vuong inh Hue on Thursday hosted a meeting to prepare for the conference.

At the conference with the Prime Minister, support to businesses, pledges and action programmes on Resolution No 35/2016/NQ-CP on supporting and developing enterprises over the next five years of each city and province will be mentioned.

The health of State-owned enterprises and foreign invested firms will also be on the conferences agenda.

Further, the conference is expected to mention measures to attract investment in agriculture and rural development, along with the development of startups.

The conference is among the Governments four most important events for 2017. The three others are the conference on shrimp production held early this week, the conference on development of material sources for the pharmaceutical industry and the conference on reviewing five years of implementing the 2012 Law on Cooperatives.

The first meeting between the Prime Minister and the Vietnamese business community was held in April last year with the theme "Vietnamese enterprises - the countrys economic development force", aimed at realising the Prime Ministers message that the Government will create favourable conditions for startup businesses and boost the development of enterprises in terms of both quantity and quality.  VNS
NAM INH  Thousands of locals and visitors attended the water procession and fish worship ceremonies held yesterday at Tran Temple Complex in Loc Vuong Ward, Nam inh City of the northern province of Nam inh.

The ceremonies aim to honour ancestors of the Tran dynasty (1226-1400), who earned their livings from fishing.

The ceremonies also remind locals of famed fish breeds dating back hundreds of years in Tuc Mac Village, in todays Loc Vuong Ward. The village was also the residential area of the Tran family in Nam inh Province.

The ceremonies, which pray for good weather, had been lost for years until they were reborn in 2014 based on the memories of local elders.

Early yesterday morning, local elders gathered at Co Trach Temple to pray before setting off to take water from a nearby ancient well.

A procession of 200 people carrying flags, including dragon dance teams and drum players carried a sedan chair to the well. Fishermen with traditional costumes and fishing tools also joined the procession.

After fetching the water, the procession stopped to join a fishing ritual at a half-moon-shaped pond near the well. Ten snakehead and carp fish were caught and stored in a boat carried on a dragon-carved palaquin.

The procession moved to Thien Truong Temple for a worship ceremony.

The fish were then set free in the Hong (Red) River, aiming to bring a prosperous year for local fishermen.

Up to Sunday (February 12), there will be other activities like dragon dances, folk singing, human chess and folk wrestling.

On Saturday (February 11, or the 15th day of the first lunar month), a worship ceremony and symbolic royal seal distribution ceremony will be held.

We have prepared enough symbolic royal seals to give to locals and tourists as lucky cards for the new year, said Cao Xuan Hoat, an organising committee member.

Pham Thi Oanh, deputy chair of Nam inh Peoples Committee, said the organisers had tightened management to ensure the festivals security.

The Tran Temple Festival in Nam inh, which is held every year between 13th and 18th day of the first lunar year, was recognised as national intangible heritage in 2014.

The historical complex of the Tran Kings shrines and tombs received special national relic status in 2015.

The neighbouring Thai Binh Province is considered the birthplace of the Tran Kings, while Nam inh was their first residential area. The festival is also held at the Tran Temple complex in Thai Binh during the first lunar month every year.  VNS




HA NOI  Viet Nam and Laos signed a series of vital agreements yesterday, pledging to boost co-operation between the two governments and countries.

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his Lao counterpart Thongloun Sisoulith--who co-chaired the 39th meeting of the Viet Nam-Laos Intergovernmental Committee in Ha Noi yesterday--witnessed the signing of four documents: a co-operation plan between the two Governments in 2017; the minutes of the 39th meeting of the Viet Nam-Laos Intergovernmental Committee; a co-operation plan between the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training and the Lao Ministry of Education and Sports; and the minutes for the establishment of a Viet Nam-Laos 500 kV electricity transmissions line joint venture.

This was the first time the PMs of the two countries had co-chaired an Inter-Governmental Committee meeting, demonstrating the two governments commitment to effectively implementing their co-operation plan.

At the meeting, PM Phuc stressed that the two sides agreed to realise declarations and agreements of the two Politburos; beef up political and diplomatic relations, national security, investment and trade to a new heights; strive for a 10 per cent two-way trade growth in 2017.

Both sides agreed to co-operate in training human resources, develop transport infrastructure projects and manage water and natural resource in a sustainable manner.

The two countries have already determined orientations to successfully organise the Viet Nam-Laos Friendship and Solidarity Year, celebrate the 55th founding anniversary of diplomatic ties and the 40th anniversary of the signing of the bilateral Treaty of Amity and Cooperation.

They also pledged to support and work together at regional and international forums.

PM Phuc pledged to direct ministries, agencies, and localities to work with Lao partners to enforce commitments at the meeting and create the best ways for businesses to boost operations in Laos.

Last year, both sides effectively implemented fruitful agreements in many areas, especially concerning stronger co-operation in politics, diplomacy, national defense and security, socio-economic development, culture and people-to-people relations.

In the field of education co-operation, more than 14,000 Lao students and pupils are currently studying in Viet Nam.

Meanwhile, Vietnamese investors poured around US$3.7 billion of capital into the neighbouring country via more than 400 projects.

The Vietnamese PM believes that the meeting will generate new momentum for the bilateral ties to take a practical course, contributing to the traditional, especially comprehensive ties.

In reply, PM Thongloun Sisoulith highlighted the significance of 2017 and promised to enforce the four documents soon.

Speaking at a press conference immediately following the meeting, the two prime ministers announced the outcomes of their meeting, calling it remarkably successful.

The meeting, with the participation of nearly 30 ministries from different sectors, played an important role in solidifying the high level agreements reached by two governments and helped support local authorities and business enterprises in implementing their 2017 work plans, PM Phuc said.

The visit made by the Lao PM was the first by a foreign government leader since the beginning of the Lunar New Year.

Viet Nam and Laos enjoy a unique relationship in the world, said Phuc, adding that Viet Nam will always support Laos in its national development and offer joint coordination at international and regional forums.

Presidential praise

President Tran ai Quang has hailed the outcomes of the 39th meeting of the Viet Nam-Laos Inter-Governmental Committee, saying that plans agreed at the meeting are important to accelerating the implementation of high-level agreements.

Receiving Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith in Ha Noi yesterday, the President asked the PMs of the two countries to direct ministries, agencies and localities to realise the outcomes of the 39th meeting.

President Quang called for increasing connectivity between the two economies to lift two-way trade, partly by prioritising energy and transport projects, dealing with barriers and providing support for Vietnamese investors in Laos.

He proposed co-ordination between Viet Nam and Laos to celebrate the 55th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties and the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Amity and Co-operation this year, as well as offering mutual support in regional and global forums.

Legislative pledge

Also yesterday, National Assembly (NA) Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan said the Vietnamese NA would work closely with its Lao counterpart to create optimal conditions for the two governments to effectively implement Viet Nam-Laos high-level agreements and cooperation pacts while receiving Lao PM Thongloun Sisoulith in Ha Noi.

Ngan said the Vietnamese NA will also facilitate the implementation of investment and trade cooperation projects between the two nations as well as the contents reached by the two prime ministers at the meeting.

The top legislator informed her guest about the effective cooperation between the two legislatures over recent years, stressing that the two bodies will coordinate closely to successfully organise celebrations for the 55th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties and the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Viet Nam-Laos Amity and Cooperation Treaty.

For his part, PM Sisoulith thanked Viet Nam for its great and effective support and assistance to Laos over past years.

The Lao PM also expressed his wish that the Vietnamese NA will support the deployment of agreements signed between the two nations in order to elevate bilateral socio-economic cooperation to be on a par with political relations between the two Parties and States. VNS
The Ministry of Health will release 1 million to 1.4 million of Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes in four wards in Nha Trang in an effort to reduce the number of incidences of dengue fever and Zika virus infections.  Photo thanhnien.vn

HCM CITY  The Ministry of Health will release 1 million to 1.4 million of Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes in four wards in Nha Trang in an effort to reduce the number of incidences of dengue fever and Zika virus infections.

About 56,000 people live in the wards, which include Vinh Phuoc, Vinh Tho, Vinh Truong and Phuoc Long.

Wolbachia is a bacterium that exists in up to 60 per cent of different species of insects, but not in the dengue and Zika-carrying mosquito Aedes aegypti.

Scientists have transferred Wolbachia from the fruit fly to Aedes aegypti mosquitoes to reduce the ability of mosquitoes to transmit dengue and Zika viruses.

After the initial release of several weeks, mosquitoes with a Wolbachia bacterium are expected to mate with wild mosquitoes without Wolbachia.

When male mosquitoes with the Wolbachia bacterium mate with female mosquitoes, the females develop eggs, but they wont hatch. If the females already carry Wolbachia, all the offspring will have Wolbachia.

When female mosquitoes with the Wolbachia bacterium mate with males without Wolbachia, all her offspring will have Wolbachia.

As the bacteria are passed on from generation to generation and over time, the percentage of mosquitoes carrying Wolbachia grows until it remains high without any need for further release.

After three months of releasing Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes, the number of the mosquitoes at the four localities, the number is expected to reach 70 per cent of the total mosquito population.

In March last year, the World Health Organisation recommended pilot deployments of the Eliminate Dengue Programme approach, which introduces Wolbachia into mosquito populations to prevent transmission of Aedes aegyot- transmitted viruses as an alternative to mosquito population suppression.

Le Tan Phung, deputy head of the Khanh Hoa Provinces Department of Health, said the provincial Peoples Committee has not yet decided the time to release the Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes in the four wards.

The committee is now instructing agencies to collect opinions about the release to people in the wards.

The first trial site for release of Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes was on Tri Nguyen Island in Khanh Hoa Province in 2013 under the Eliminate Dengue Viet Nam programme, monitored by the Ministry of Health. The release was completed in 2014.

Around 100 per cent of the mosquitoes in the area are now carrying Wolbachia, according to a press release published on the website of the Eliminate Dengue Viet Nam programme.

Thanks to the programme, only one person was infected with dengue fever on the island in 2015. As of the end of last year, there were no cases of dengue fever, but cases still occurred in Nha Trang, which is located in Khanh Hoa Province.

The programme is conducted by Australias Monash University under the sponsorship of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations Grand Challenges in Global Health Initiative.

Begun in 2005, the programme has been carried out in Australia, Brazil, China, Indonesia and Viet Nam.

Research published in Scientific Reports journal in July 2016 showed more evidence that Wolbachia blocked transmission of the Zika virus.

The research was conducted by scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Universidad de Antioquia.

We found that mosquitoes carrying Wolbachia were less likely to become infected with Zika virus after feeding on viral blood, and those that were infected were not able to transmit the virus through their saliva, said Jorge Osorio, professor at the University of Wisconsin, one of the authors of the report.

In the Eliminate Dengue Viet Nam programme, 23,682 Aedes aegypti mosquitoes were collected and stored in Nha Trang from March, 2015 to May, 2016.

Of these, 56 tested positive for Zika virus and 29 positive for dengue virus.

As of November last year, the province had recorded two patients positive for Zika virus and 4,454 patients infected with dengue fever.

Nha Trang City and Ninh Hoa Town had the highest number of dengue fever patients.  VNS
HCM CITY The number of approved visas for Vietnamese students to study in New Zealand in the past 12 months rose by 15 per cent compared to the same period last year, according to Education New Zealand (ENZ), New Zealands government agency for international education.

Last year, more than 2,000 Vietnamese students were living and studying in New Zealand.

Ben Burrowes, regional communications & strategic relations manager for Education New Zealand (Southeast Asia), said many students from Viet Nam had built up solid resumes by studying abroad in New Zealand.

As well as learning essential academic skills, students in New Zealand are encouraged and supported to develop as individuals capable of thinking independently, creatively and analytically, Burrowes said.

Besides popular disciplines like information technology (IT), business, commerce, management, education and medicine, New Zealand also offers courses with good job prospects such as film production, animation, graphic design, gaming and cybersecurity as well as courses in sport management, agricultural economics, early childhood education and information technology in health, aviation and pilot training.

All eight of the countrys universities are ranked among the top three per cent in the world by the QS World University Rankings. VNS
HA NOI  Ha Nois Department of Health will deploy mobile food testing labs to deter unsafe food sold at restaurants and street vendors where spring festivals take place, Nguyen Khac Hien, director of the department has said.

Interdisciplinary inspection teams, in co-operation with local authorities, would take samples of food at food businesses operating at festivals for tests this month, according to Hien.

Those who were found to violate food safety and hygiene regulations would face fines and be forced to stop business. Perfume Pagoda Festival in My uc District, where welcomed tens thousands of tourists each day during the festival time, would be the first to be inspected this month, the official added.

The mobile testing labs, which could test a raw food sample for different kinds of chemicals or bacteria within 30 minutes or two hours at the longest, would help deterring violated businesses at the soonest time, he said on Tuesday.

The labs would ease difficulties of inspection work, he added. As usual, there were many food vendors at festivals while the time of testing food at local labs took much time. When the authorised agencies received food test results, a large amount of food had been sold.

Previously, the department required all food businesses to sign commitment to follow the regulations on food hygiene and safety.

Last weekend, an interdisciplinary inspection team from the department conducted an inspection on 23 food businesses at en Va Festival in Son Tay Township. All 10 samples of noodles and five samples of chili sauce met the food hygiene and safetys requirements. However, only 22 out of 55 bowls were found to meet the hygiene.

The team gave warnings to these businesses. The festival welcomed nearly 1,000 tourists each day.

Another inspection team also inspected two businesses at en Soc Festival in Soc Son District and two other businesses in Tay Ho Temple in Tay Ho District. Results showed that the preservation work of raw materials did not meet safety criteria.

Last month, the Ministry of Healths Food Hygiene and Safety Department has set up six teams and more than 5,100 groups to inspect food businesses in 42 cities and provinces. More than 2,300 businesses were found to violated the regulations, receiving the fines of nearly VN8.2 billion (US$361,940) in total.

As many as 22 businesses were forced to stop its operation and 414 kinds of food were seized and culled.  VNS
KIEN GIANG  Fourteen people were rescued on Wednesday evening after their speedboat capsized due to high waves on the way from Nam Du Island to the mainland.

The speedboat met with the accident while travelling some 10km off Lai Son Island, which is one-third the distance from Nam Du Island to the mainland.

All 14 people --12 tourists and two boat drivers -- were wearing lifejackets. They were rescued by two fishing vessels while drifting in the sea.

According to the initial investigation, the speedboat has a maximum capacity of 12 people. It is also registered to transport tourists only around Nam Du Island and is not authorised to run from Nam Du to Rach Gia City, both in southern Kien Giang Province.

Moreover, safety regulations do not allow boats to transport customers on the sea in the evening. We will conduct further investigation into this accident, Colonel ang Van Thong, political commissar of Kien Giang Province Border Guard Command, told Tuoi tre (Youth) newspaper.

Earlier on Wednesday morning, the group of 12 tourists from Rach Gia City visited Nam Du Island in Nam Du Commune. In the afternoon, a woman in the group broke her arm so they decided to rent the speedboat to return to the city.  VNS
HA NOI  A digital copy of every news and feature story published on online newspapers must be stored independently and kept unchanged for at least one year for inspection purpose, the government has said.

This is part of the Governments decision to store an electronic depository for the press, which includes radio, television and online newspapers.

The decision aims to help the Government better assess the quality of the media in its reporting on issues and events. It also permits regular and unannounced inspections by authorised agencies. It will come into effect on March 30.

As per the decision, the Ministry of Information and Communications will set up a data stockpile to keep electronic depositories of stories and products in radio, television and online newspapers.

The digital copies of stories and products published on radio and television must be stored for at least six months from the date of first broadcast, while that of online newspapers must be maintained for at least a year from the first date of publication.

The electronic depository can be used as evidence while investigating violations by the media, and the publishing of incorrect information.

At a meeting held late last year, information and communications minister Truong Minh Tuan said that Viet Nams media still published sensational stories to attract more views. In some cases, they publicised such stories in the morning and removed them by the afternoon.

Such stories affect society negatively, he said, adding that some newspapers used information provided on websites or social media without verifying the information.

In 2016, the ministry took drastic action by punishing newspapers and reporters for violating laws and ethics, Tuan said. This year, the ministry would continue to take strong steps to better manage the press, particularly websites, he said.  VNS
ASHLEY  Renee Gopal was born in Malaysia, a Muslim-majority country not listed in President Donald Trumps executive order two weeks ago.

But Gopal, who is a U.S. citizen and lives in Ashley, N.D., still feels the effects of the ban.

The ban doesnt affect me physically, but it does affect me because we are formed and shaped by the traditions we are surrounded by, Gopal said. Something Ive always carried with me is to treat others how you want to be treated, so for me, it is hard to say it doesnt affect me when I do that.

Gopal is part of North Dakotas 2.7 percent immigrant population. After the process of obtaining multiple visas and a permanent residence, she became a U.S. citizen 10 years ago.

The executive order issued by Trump on Jan. 27 suspended entry of citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries  Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya  into the U.S. for 90 days, all refugee resettlement for 120 days and refugees from Syria indefinitely.

The order included people with immigrant or nonimmigrant visas and people with dual citizenship with other nations and initially affected permanent legal residents or green card holders. The Department of Homeland Security said last week that green card holders will be let in with additional questioning on a case-by-case basis.

The order was blocked by federal court Judge James Robart on Friday, Feb. 3, allowing previously affected travelers and refugees to enter the U.S. The Justice Department filed paperwork to reinstate the order and following a Tuesday hearing, a ruling is expected soon.

From immigrant to citizen

Gopal came to the U.S. as a student for undergraduate and graduate studies. It was a long process to go through, and she said she never took for granted that a visa would be given.

Gopal returned to southeast Asia after graduating, and married her husband, a U.S. citizen, in Malaysia. Gopal said she was traveling with a Malaysian passport and U.S. spousal visa after she got married until she returned to the U.S.

When she returned to the U.S., Gopal began the process of getting her green card, which required a fee, medical examination, paperwork and a thorough sit-down interview. The green card then allowed Gopal to travel with her Malaysian passport but also gave her easier access into the U.S. because she was now a resident.

Gopal became an American citizen in 2006.

We are an American family now, I am very grateful for that, Gopal said.

Gopal said the decision to give up her Malaysian citizenship was a difficult one. She said she doesnt think people realize how difficult it is to give up citizenship because it is your birth home and the place you grew up.

Misconceptions

Gopal said she has encountered two misconceptions about immigrants during her time in the U.S., but adds shes been lucky because there are not enough Malaysians here to be stereotypes about them.

Growing up bilingual, Gopal found it easier to assimilate into U.S. society. But even with her level of fluency in English, Gopal still fought the perception that foreigners with accents dont speak or understand it.

Another misconception Gopal has seen but doesnt directly affect her is that all Muslims are radicals, and a threat to our way of life. Although Gopal is not a Muslim, the misconception is something she feels because of her connections to her Muslim birth country and friends and family who are Muslims.

Its heartbreaking that we are judging an entire people by the actions of few, Gopal said.

Dr. Mohamed Sanaullah, member of Islamic Society of Fargo Moorhead, said while many in the community are open and welcoming to immigrants, others act like immigrants arent welcome.

Its dividing people, dividing neighbors and dividing communities, Sanaullah said.

The judges ruling to temporarily halt the plan has been good so far, Sanaullah said, but the Justice Department is challenging the ban, so it is unknown what the outcome will be.

Sanaullah said green cards holders in the community have been advised not to travel. People who are here legally dont want to chance visiting family members back home and not be able to get back in the country, he said.

Gopal said her extended family lives in different countries than those affected by the ban, but Gopals daughter has friends whose families were directly affected and she realized how easily families can be broken apart.

The Muslim people Gopal grew up around in Malaysia were very moderate, live and let-live people, not extreme, she said. A 2008 Gallup Poll looking at a variety of Muslim countries found that 93 percent of respondents had moderate views.

If we are not honestly committed to dealing with the challenge of terrorism, we need to be building goodwill with moderate Muslims so we can work with them, Gopal said.

The ban alienates moderate Muslim people, Gopal said, adding part of the terrorist groups propaganda is that the U.S. is anti-Islam, and that becomes a recruiting tool. So the ban just highlights that the country is anti-Muslim, and what makes it even more so is there is no criteria of why these countries were chosen in the order, Gopal said.

There hasnt been a terrorist attack coming from the countries listed in the ban, Gopal said. Trumps order does not include any countries where the 9/11 hijackers came from  Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates and Lebanon.

While Gopal said she is not advocating that the U.S. should have open borders, but she would like more transparency on the countrys immigration policy.

The order giving preference to Christian refugees is a big blow on building a relationship with the Muslim world, Gopal said. Refugees are fleeing terrible things, such as war and civil unrest, which dont discriminate, she said.

So by saying only that were only taking in Christians, were saying non-Christians arent as valued, Gopal said. Its by the grace of God we land in our religion or country. We dont ask for it; we are born into it.
HA NOI  Some 7,300 houses will be built and rebuilt in Ha Noi from now until July 27 for people with recognised contribution to the nation.

This was stated by Nguyen Quoc Khanh, deputy director of the citys Department of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs on Wednesday.

It is part of a series of welfare plans for people with recognised contribution to the nation on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Day for Martyrs and Wounded Soldiers, he said.

The city has mobilised some VN104 billion (US$4.6 million) of social capital and allocated parts of its own budget to localities in advance to complete the programme on schedule, he added.

Over the past few years, the city has taken the lead in the countrys implementation of preferential policies for people with recognised contribution to the nation and developed its own specific, innovative policies. Among them is the public health nursing work for national contributors, which has been running for more than 20 years.

The city is now providing monthly subsidies for former youth volunteers who live alone and are no longer capable of working, imprisoned revolutionary activists and participants of the resistance wars, instead of the previous one-time subsidy policy.

A care centre for victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin was put into operation last year in the city. It is equipped to detoxify an average of 500 patients per year and provide regular care for 150 patients who are not capable of taking care of themselves.  VNS
QUANG TRI  Six fishermen from the central province of Quang Tri were rescued and taken home safely on Thursday after their broken boat sank at sea.

Cua Viet Port Border Guard Station reported at 4am Thursday that it discovered a fishing vessel had sunk on the way back to Cua Viet Port.

The fishing boat sent emergency signals for help while water washed over its deck 500m off the Cua Viet Port. Immediately, border guard forces were mobilised to approach the incident area. One hour later, all six fishermen were taken land safely.

The cause was that the ships freshwater pipe collapsed causing sea water entering the cabin, resulting in the sinking, the border guards confirmed.

Major Ho Van Hinh, deputy head of Cua Viet Port Border Guard Station said rescue process was smoothly because the incident area was near shore.

These fishermen were all healthy and were taken home this afternoon.

Border guards and local authorities are working to salvage the ship.  VNS
LONDON  British MPs overwhelmingly backed a bill on Wednesday empowering Prime Minister Theresa May to start negotiations on leaving the European Union, bringing Brexit a significant step closer.

Members of the House of Commons voted by 494 votes to 122 for a law enabling May to trigger Article 50 of the EUs Lisbon Treaty, which begins two years of talks on pulling out of the 28-nation bloc.

"Weve seen a historic vote tonight -- a big majority for getting on with negotiating our exit from the EU and a strong, new partnership with its member states," said Brexit minister David Davis.

The unamended two-clause bill now moves to the House of Lords, where there may be more opposition from unelected peers -- and where Mays Conservative party does not have a majority.

But its passage through the Commons, where two-thirds of MPs had campaigned against Brexit ahead of the June referendum, puts May on course to begin the withdrawal process by the end of March, as she has vowed.

Labour headaches

The referendum result sent shockwaves around Europe, spooking investors and raising fears for the future of the EU itself.

In the early weeks, there was speculation that pro-European lawmakers might try to delay or even stop the Brexit process.

May initially sought to bypass parliament, prompting an appeal to the Supreme Court that last month ruled she must obtain their approval to trigger Article 50.

But during five days of debate on the resulting government bill, it became clear that most MPs would not stop the process -- even if some warned that leaving Europes single market could be disastrous.

The opposition Labour party and the smaller Scottish National Party (SNP) tabled amendments demanding guarantees on market access, workers rights and those of EU citizens in Britain.

Each was defeated, although during the process the government was forced to promise lawmakers a vote on the final Brexit deal before it is concluded.

Labour imposed a "three-line whip," a tough disciplinary measure ordering its MPs not to oppose the legislation, ensuring it would pass.

But some 52 Labour MPs rebelled in Wednesdays vote, including business spokesman Clive Lewis who resigned shortly beforehand, bringing a fresh headache for embattled leftist leader Jeremy Corbyn.

After two-thirds of Labour voters backed Brexit, many of them driven by concerns over mass immigration from the rest of the EU, Corbyn decided his party could not block the process.

"Real fight starts now. Over next two years Labour will use every opportunity to ensure Brexit protects jobs, living standards & the economy," Corbyn wrote on Twitter following the vote.

But he was swiftly reprimanded in a reply by SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon: "How? Youve just handed the Tories a blank cheque. You didnt win a single concession but still voted for the bill. Pathetic."

Ode to Joy

SNP lawmakers voiced their frustration during Wednesdays vote by singing Beethovens "Ode to Joy", the EUs anthem, before being told off by Deputy Speaker Lindsay Hoyle.

But the outcome was celebrated by Brexiteers such as Nigel Farage, former leader of the UK Independence Party.

"I never thought Id see the day where the House of Commons overwhelmingly voted for Britain to Leave the European Union," he wrote on Twitter.

Liberal Democrat lawmaker Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister, said the vote would allow the government to pursue its aim of a hard Brexit, which will see Britain pull out of the single market.

"There is no mandate for the hardest of hard Brexits the government favours, which risks leaving us poorer, weaker and more isolated," he said.

May has promised to prioritise controlling migration in the Brexit negotiations, even if that comes at the expense of giving up membership of Europes single market and its 500 million customers.  AFP
WASHINGTON  The US Senate confirmed Jeff Sessions as attorney general Wednesday, despite fierce debate about his civil rights record and Democratic concern over whether he serves as the nations top law enforcement officer independent from President Donald Trump.

Lawmakers greenlighted the senator as the 84th US attorney general on a mostly party line vote of 52 to 47, with one Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, voting with the Republican majority.

When the tally was announced, many senators broke into extended applause for their colleague.

Trump has harangued Democrats for slow-walking his nominees, blasting their unprecedented obstruction as a "disgrace."

He appeared particularly angered by the delay on Sessions, who as attorney general would wield enormous power regarding the administration of justice, including on the issue of voting rights.

"Congratulations to our new attorney general," Trump tweeted shortly after the vote.

Sessions, widely seen as an inspiration for Trumps anti-immigration policies, is just the sixth of 15 cabinet members to be confirmed, in addition to the cabinet-rank positions of CIA director and US ambassador to the United Nations.

He takes charge of the Justice Department and its 113,000 employees amid a swirling legal debate over Trumps most controversial White House action to date, an executive order temporarily blocking all refugee arrivals and immigration from seven mainly Muslim countries.

With Trump using Twitter to bully a judge who rolled back the ban, and an appeals court weighing whether to reinstate it, debate over Sessions grew increasingly acrimonious and personal.

On Tuesday night, it turned ugly. Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch

McConnell sternly rebuked Democrat Elizabeth Warren for reading a letter written by the widow of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr that criticised Sessionss civil rights record.

"She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted," McConnell said of Warrens violation of the chambers rules of decorum.

Warren, a potential 2020 presidential candidate, later said: "I will not be silent about a nominee for AG who has made derogatory and racist comments that have no place in our justice system."

In 1986, Coretta Scott King wrote a letter to the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee urging senators to reject Sessionss nomination as a federal judge. His appointment ultimately failed.

"Mr Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens," King wrote.

Senator Sherrod Brown expressed concern about Sessions in light of Trumps recent executive order.

"We need an attorney general who will be an independent voice beholden to the Constitution and the American people, not the president," Brown said.

August responsibilities

The genteel Sessions, who like the president is 70, was an early loyal Trump supporter who became a pivotal figure in his campaign and his transition team.

Sessions grew up in Alabama, in the segregated South. He was a US prosecutor from 1981 to 1993, before serving as the states attorney general.

He won a seat in the US Senate in 1996.

His career was almost derailed when the Senate panel rejected him for a federal judgeship amid concerns over past comments he made about blacks, and voter rights.

At his confirmation hearing last month, Sessions endured pinpoint attacks by Democrats on his civil rights record, but he insisted that "this caricature of me from 1986 was not correct."

Shortly after his confirmation he sought to assuage concerns about how he would run the department.

"I fully understand the august responsibilities of that office," he said. Sessions also recognised the heated US political debate since Trumps election victory and urged Americans to come together.

"Our nation does have room for Republicans and Democrats," he said.

But Senate Democrat Chris Murphy said he was "scared" about changes Sessions could bring.

Sessionss "history of opposing civil rights, anti-gun violence measures and immigration reform makes him uniquely ill-fitted to serve" as attorney general, Murphy said.

"I want a chief law enforcement official that will be a champion of the disenfranchised and dispossessed, not a defender of discrimination and nativism."  AFP
UNITED NATIONS, United States  Talks on changes to Libyas unity government could yield results in the coming weeks, putting the north African country on a path to stability, the UN envoy said Wednesday.

The UN-backed government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj was installed in Tripoli last year but has failed to assert itself further east, where strongman General Khalifa Haftar holds sway.

UN envoy Martin Kobler told the Security Council that talks on "possible amendments" to the political agreement, and notably on Haftars future role, had made progress in the past two months.

"I am confident that a format will be found in the next weeks within which these questions can be decided upon and recommendations can be put forth for approval to the relevant institutions," Kobler said.

Any changes must be endorsed by the Libyan House of Representatives, which has refused to back the Sarraj government.

"2017 must be a year of decisions and political breakthrough," said Kobler.

The United Nations brokered the Libyan political agreement that was signed in Morocco in 2015 and Western countries had been adamant that the Sarraj government was the only legitimate voice.

Security Council members Egypt and Russia have offered support for Haftar, whose self-declared Libyan National Army has had success in battling jihadists in Benghazi, the countrys second city.

Following the meeting, the council declared that it "recognises the growing concern among Libyans for a more inclusive political settlement within the framework of the Libyan political agreement," said Ukrainian Ambassador Volodymyr Yelchenko, this months council president.

Bring in all the actors

Libya has been in turmoil since the 2011 ousting of Moamer Kadhafi, with rival administrations vying for power.

"What we need is a genuinely inclusive government that brings in all of the key actors in Libya, and we need that because that is the best way to restore stability," said British Deputy Ambassador Peter Wilson.

Kobler admitted that opening up the hard-fought political agreement to changes was risky, and stressed that there should be "very limited" amendments.

"Its also a risk to leave the agreement as it is, because it doesnt work," the envoy told reporters following the council meeting.

Sarraj has reportedly offered to meet Haftar in Cairo to try to come to agreement.

"General Haftar must have a role in the chain of command of the army, and we encourage talks," said Kobler.

Despite the political deadlock, Libya has boosted its oil production to over 700,000 barrels a day, providing the state with much-needed revenue.

"Its a wealthy country, its a rich country, it has the largest proven oil reserves of Africa," said Kobler. "Thats why its important that the insecurity ends because the Libyan people need it."  AFP
Trumps Nordstrom tweet criticized

NEW YORK (AP)  President Donald Trump lashed out Wednesday at Nordstrom, the latest company to draw his Twitter attention, saying the department store chain that decided to stop selling his daughters clothing and accessory line has treated her so unfairly.

His action drew a rebuke from ethics experts saying the fact the comment was about a business run by his daughter raised conflict-of-interest concerns. Trumps tweet follows revelations first lady Melania Trump expected to develop multi-million dollar business relationships tied to her presence in the White House, according to a suit she filed.

Trumps presidency has raised unprecedented concerns about ethical conflicts. His plan to separate himself from his sprawling real estate business has been criticized by ethics experts, who say it doesnt do enough to make sure that Trump wont make decisions to personally benefit himself, his family or his company. The first lady has yet to step away from her companies that manage her royalties from her namesake products, business documents show.

High wire accident injures 5 in Florida

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP)  Five circus performers were seriously injured while practicing a high-wire act in Florida.

The accident involved famed high-wire walker Nik Wallenda and several members of his family. Authorities say Wallenda was not injured.

The group fell 30 or more feet, and four of the injured suffered trauma.

The group was practicing a high-wire pyramid act Wednesday in a tent for Circus Sarasota, which was set to open on Friday.

Local media reports said Nik Wallenda was the anchor for the pyramid when the accident happened. He managed to catch himself and was not injured.

Work to resume

on Dakota pipeline

CANNON BALL, N.D. (AP)  With the green light from the federal government, the company building the Dakota Access oil pipeline said Wednesday it plans to resume work immediately to finish the long-stalled project. Opponents of the $3.8 billion project meanwhile protested around the country.

The Army on Wednesday granted the developer of the four-state oil pipeline formal permission to lay pipe under a Missouri River reservoir in North Dakota, clearing the way for completion of the disputed project.

Work had been stalled for months due to opposition by the Standing Rock Sioux, but President Donald Trump last month instructed the Army Corps of Engineers to advance pipeline construction.

Man gets 30 years for terror attack plot

PHOENIX (AP)  A man was sentenced to 30 years in prison Wednesday on charges he provided support to the Islamic State group by helping two followers with an attempted attack on an anti-Islam event in Texas that resulted in a deadly shootout with police.

Prosecutors were seeking a 50-year sentence for Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem, an American-born Muslim convert who became the second person in the U.S. to be convicted of charges of supporting Islamic State.

His friends, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, were the only ones killed in a May 2015 police shootout outside a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest in Garland, Texas.

Authorities said Kareem watched videos depicting violence by jihadists with the two friends, encouraged them to launch a violent attack to support the terrorist group and researched travel to the Middle East to join Islamic State fighters.
With Split, M. Night Shyamalan plants his flag at the intersection of tense solemnity and outlandish camp. Its easier to notice the former than the latter, with his moody sets, slow pacing and formalistic camera work that lingers on the horrified faces of the storys victims.

James McAvoy plays the villain, a seriously creepy lunatic named Kevin. Hes also named Barry, Patricia, Dennis, Jade and 20 or so other names, each representing a different aspect of his fractured personality.

McAvoy, an actor mostly known to American audiences as a young Charles Xavier in the X-Men series, takes advantage of a rare opportunity to demonstrate he can nail a broad range of characters all in one movie. Split leaves most of his two dozen personalities unseen, but he gets a lot to do with those that remain; a pervert with obsessive-compulsive disorder, a cruelly calculating English lady, a gay fashionista. Even as he clearly enjoys the lurid absurdity of it, McAvoy knows when to shift from absurd humor to repressed lust and rage.

The film begins with the kidnapping of three teenage girls after a birthday party. Claire (Haley Lu Richardson) and Marcia (Jessica Sula) are BFFs, popular girls who only invited the decidedly unpopular Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy) along to be nice. Now theyre locked up in a grungy facility that resembles an underground bunker. Their captor frequently comes to their cell to torment them, usually switching between his multiple villainous personalities. Most of his personalities are those of good people, but theyve been co-opted by the evil ones. On occasion, the good ones gain control, but, conveniently for the script, never long enough to make much difference.

As the worsening hostage drama unfolds, we occasionally join Dr. Fletcher (Betty Buckley), his psychiatrist. Speaking in bursts of fantasy science, she theorizes people with multiple personalities can alter their body chemistry to match whichever persona has hold at the moment.

Shyamalan, whose 1999 film The Sixth Sense made him pop cultures undisputed master of plot twists, has some surprises in store. Theyre nothing special, but the anticipation of them gives the proceedings a suspense it would have otherwise lacked. He keeps most of the violence just out of sight, letting the audience in on what others, such as Casey and Dr. Fletcher, witness themselves.

Its all thrilling enough, with menace hanging thick in the air as the gruesome climax approaches. But its more than a little silly, and the languid pacing saps away much of the fun.
Church to host

waffle breakfast

WATERLOO -- Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church will host a chicken and waffle breakfast Saturday at 101 Albany St.

Serving will be from 8 to 11 a.m., and cost is $8.

Hearst concert

series continues

CEDAR FALLS -- The Hearst Center's Lunchtime Concert series will host members of two University of Northern Iowa School of Music ensembles in a free concert at noon Friday in Mae Latta Hall.

The Northern Iowa Woodwind Trio, under the direction of Dr. Cayla Bellamy, consists of flute, clarinet and bassoon. They will perform works by Mozart and Schubert. The GLAM Saxophone Quartet will take part in the concert, performing works by Thierry Esciach, Frank Ticheli and Guillermo Lago.

The Lunchtime Concert series presents studios and groups associated with the UNI School of Music. They take place between noon and 1 p.m. on the second Friday of each month between September and May. Audience members are welcome to bring a lunch.

Blood drive

set in Waterloo

WATERLOO -- An American Red Cross blood drive is set for 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday in the Columbus High School gym.

To make an appointment, go to redcrossblood.org or call (800) 733-2767.

Church to host

women's event

WATERLOO -- The Women of Corinthian Missionary Baptist Church will host a Sweetheart Celebration on Saturday at the Wilson O. Rideout Fellowship at Payne Memorial AME Church, 1044 Mobile St.

Social hour begins at 5 p.m. There will be a panel discussion featuring pastors and first ladies of the community.

The event is designed for those who are sweet to your heart -- mother, sister, aunt, friend, spouse. There is a donation requested.

For more information, call Corinthian at 235-0411 or email cbc519@aol.com.

Cancer benefit

set for Sunday

WATERLOO -- The "Raise Your Voice for Relay" event will take place Sunday at Bryan's on Fourth-Limestone Lounge, 320 E. Fourth St.

A social and information hour will begin at 6 p.m., and karaoke by Kugel Tunes will be from 7 to 9 p.m.

Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 at the door. Price includes appetizers and one drink. Tickets are available at Bryan's on Fourth or email cindi50701@aol.com or elise.rogaczewski@gmail.com.

All proceeds go toward the 2017 American Cancer Society.

Breakfast buffet

set for Sunday

WATERLOO -- The Knights of Columbus will serve a breakfast buffet from 8 a.m. to noon Sunday at 1955 Locke Ave.

The menu will include pancakes, eggs, biscuits and gravy, sausage, hash browns, fruit and cinnamon rolls.

Cost is $8 for adults, $4 for kids 6-12 and free for kids younger than 6.

Black history

event set at UNI

CEDAR FALLS -- The University of Northern Iowa Department of History and the History Club will host a Black History Month event: "Frederick Douglass' Oratory and Political Leadership," a talk by Julie Husband, on Feb. 15.

The talk starts at 7 p.m. in Seerley Hall, room 115, on the UNI campus.

Husband is head of the university's Department of Language and Literature.
WATERLOO  A second person has been arrested in connection with a mobile home fire allegedly sparked by a prone torch in January.

Waterloo police arrested Richard Neil Wilson, 28, of 3307 Kipling Road on Feb. 3 for child endangerment and reckless use of fire. He was late released from jail.

Authorities allege Wilson used a propane torch to light cigarettes and hash oil and he was high and had used the torch before placing it on the floor by his front door on Jan. 16.

Officials said heat from the torch started a fire at the home around 6 a.m. Damage was limited, but a 2-year-old boy who lived at the mobile home was taken to a hospital for smoke inhalation.

Court records allege that Wilsons actions endangered the safety of the boy and 29-year-old Brenna Folkers, who was also in the home. Folkers was arrested Jan. 30 for misdemeanor child endangerment.
CANNON BALL  The Cannon Ball District on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation is examining how it should enforce a resolution to close a Dakota Access Pipeline protest camp. At the same time, it has been petitioned for another vote on the matter.

The district was presented Tuesday with a petition with 66 signatures, asking for another vote on a resolution approved at a January district meeting to close the protest camps. That includes the Sacred Stone spirit camp near Cannon Ball that requires anyone going there to drive through the small community.

The petition asked for a special district meeting Sunday to vote to rescind the resolution, but district chairman Robert Fool Bear said the meeting was delayed because two deaths in the community must be honored first.

The 10-point resolution to empty the protest camps and not establish an alternative winter camp near Cannon Ball was also approved by the full tribal council and backed by five other districts on the reservation. Fool Bear said it isnt clear what effect a district vote would even have.

The petition was carried by Swan American Horse, who has been living at the Sacred Stone spirit camp. There is no known phone number for American Horse, but she had said at a public meeting last month that she didnt think the 24 district votes cast on the original resolution were fully representative.

Fool Bear said the original resolution remains in effect. It calls for the camps to be vacated by Thursday, in line with a stated 30-day deadline. In the meantime, the district wants clarification on its legal authority to close off access to Sacred Stone camp or take any other enforcement action. He said the district also wants clarification on land ownership where the Sacred Stone camp is located just north of town, along the Cannonball River.

The tribe maintains that the majority ownership on the tract of land is in tribal trust status and that LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, who identifies as camp founder starting last April, has only a small minority interest with other members of her family.

Allard did not return a phone call or text message seeking comment but has said she is working with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to clarify land ownership questions.

Fool Bear said it remains in the best interest of Cannon Ball for the camp to be vacated.

We know there are violent people there and now (with the pipeline easement granted) people are being called back. Will they be peaceful? he said.
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CEDAR FALLS  University of Northern Iowa faculty members say they are saddened about proposed changes to the states collective bargaining law, and some plan to leave UNI if the bill becomes law.

Another sentiment came out at a Courier editorial board meeting with United Faculty members Wednesday. Theyre puzzled.

My sense is that there is a total misunderstanding about what unions actually look like in Iowa, said Carissa Froyum, an executive board member of United Faculty. Theres 1,100 bargaining units, and theres this perception that theres huge unions in Iowa covering 100,000 people and theyre controlled elsewhere. So I think people have this sense of unions as sort of militant and not cooperative and all they want to do is strike, and these huge politically motivated groups.

That doesnt apply to our 500 faculty.

Faculty said they work collaboratively with the university administration and Board of Regents to foster a better learning environment. Members are puzzled by the rationales offered for changing contract negotiations.

They studied health care for a year and know they would not see a savings by joining a larger insurance plan. They says changes would lead to more governance from the regents, not more local control. They dont expect the plan to cut costs at UNI. They do expect it to mirror similar changes in Wisconsin that made it more difficult to attract educators.

Im terrified that were going to see the same pattern that we saw in 2012, said United Faculty Vice President Becky Hawbaker, referring to cuts that resulted in closing Malcolm Price Laboratory School. If we lose enrollment on top of funding, on top of faculty, then oh my gosh, UNI is in trouble.

Republican lawmakers proposed changes Tuesday that would allow unions, other than those representing public safety employees, to bargain essentially only on wages, and then with a ceiling.

The United Faculty focused on the negative effect the bill would have on the regional economy and on students. Working conditions are learning conditions, is their rallying cry.

United Faculty has called on the administration, including new President Mark Nook, and the regents to oppose the changes. So far, they have not, though they expressed support for faculty.

Nook, whose first day was Feb. 1, said in a meeting with The Courier on Tuesday before the bill was introduced that he has worked at institutions with faculty unions and without and seen both work well. But he acknowledged the difficulty in any change.

Its really important that we keep those communication lines open and people know that were supporting all workers at UNI. We want them all to have fair wages. We want them to have a fair benefits package. We want them to be treated respectfully, Nook said. He adding the university must be competetive in hiring.

UNI has both United Faculty and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Iowa Council 61 employees on campus.

The Board of Regents also is monitoring bill.

The regents have a long history of supporting their faculty, staff and graduate students, said spokesman Josh Lehman. Providing competitive pay and benefits is key to being able to recruit and retain quality employees, and we will continue to do this going forward.

Though public bargaining units hope to stop the changes, they also are preparing for the worst, looking to Wisconsin as a model.

The Badgers have become Gophers, Hawbaker said, noting the exodus in Wisconsin after bargaining changes in 2011 led teachers to flee to states like Minnesota and Iowa.

They expect a similar exodus from Iowa. In fact, 82 percent of UNI faculty who responded to a United Faculty survey said they would consider leaving UNI if the bill passes.

Theres a real, practical mess that is going to have to be cleaned up if this goes through, and really quickly, because the work and the business of the university isnt going to stop, and our procedures are going to disappear, Froyum said.
DES MOINES  Iowa is a step closer to legalizing consumer fireworks.

A Senate panel Wednesday approved 11-3 legislation establishing periods when fireworks could be bought and used by adults.

The bills manager, Sen. Jake Chapman, R-Adel, told senators the bill enhances Iowans freedom, but independent Sen. David Johnson of Ocheyedan said it means Iowans would be free to blow their fingers off.

The Senate State Government Committee approved a bill allowing licensed retailers and community groups in permanent structures to sell fireworks between June 1 and July 8 and Dec. 10 and Jan. 3. A similar provision would allow temporary structures such as tents from June 13 through July 8.

The measure allows cities or counties to opt out and bars sales by minors, with violations punishable by a fine of at least $250. The bill now goes to the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

Ive been contacted by many individuals who are interested in starting some sort of firework shop. I think theres going to be a big influx here at the beginning because people are excited about it, Chapman said. Well see if it will maintain year over year.

Iowa law currently bans fireworks without a permit other than sparklers and snakes. Chapman said Iowa is among a small number of states with such restrictions.

Sen. Tony Bisignano, D-Des Moines, said he supported time limits on sales but wants buffer zones in areas near nursing homes, hospitals, schools, churches, hospices and other locations where fireworks would be prohibited.

He also does not support temporary fireworks stands. Others called for penalties for shooting off fireworks while intoxicated.
DES MOINES -- Most Iowans believe it is legal to make a double right or double left turn on a red light onto another street or a one-way street with multiple lanes in Iowa if it does not interfere with cross traffic or pedestrians. Wrong, says officials with the state Department of Transportation.

The single right turn or single left turn onto a one-way roadway is permissible, but Iowa DOT officials said Wednesday there is sufficient confusion that they are asking the Legislature to a driver confronted with a red light to make a right turn from the right lane of traffic or another lane designated for right turns and to allow a driver on a one-way street that is turning to another one-way street to turn left on a red light from the left lane of traffic or another lane designated for left turns.

DOT official Steve Gent said the provisions of House Study Bill 71 and Senate Study Bill 1037 that got legislative consideration Wednesday were viewed as clean up bills to codify what generally is a common practice but one that a motorist occasionally gets ticketed for as a violation. Gent noted that even some state troopers werent aware that double turns are illegal since so many motorists do it.

Local option

A House Ways and Means subcommittee agreed Wednesday to adopt a provision that would allow cities in Dallas, Johnson and Polk counties to seek voter approval for a 1 percent local-option sales and services tax increase that would only be imposed in cities that passed the assessment rather than applying a countywide standard.

House Study Bill 43 was crafted to only affect those three counties because Iowas other 96 counties have successfully achieved the 50 percent plus one voter majority needed to impose the local option tax. Proponents say the change is needed so cities seeking more revenue for infrastructure or other uses will not be thwarted when other smaller communities vote to reject the countywide tax.

Critics say the change could set up a situation where businesses at city limits between municipalities would be placed at a disadvantage if they had to assess a tax that a competitor across the street did not have to impose.

Jim Henter of the Iowa Retail Federation referred to the bill as the annual money grab for cities in opposing the bill, which passed to the full House Ways and Means Committee for further consideration.

Tanning salons

Commercial tanning facilities operating in Iowa would be prohibited from allowing minors under the age of 17 from using tanning devices. Representatives from various medical and safety organizations supported House File 143, which passed out of subcommittee to the House Human Resources Committee.

However, Joe Levy of the American Sun Tanning Association, said the bill would produce the opposite of what backers intended by driving young people to more aggressive outdoor tanning or to use tanning beds in unregulated facilities such as apartment complexes. He argued the ban would hurt about 150 businesses in Iowa already stung by a 10 percent tax imposed under the Affordable Care Act.

He said Iowans between the ages of 16 and 17 represented about 5 percent of the tanning market. Rep. Rob Taylor, R-West Des Moines, said the measure was needed to protect teens from habitual overuse of tanning devices. The measure would carry a penalty of up to $1,000 and injunctive restraints for violators.

Hands-free day

Iowa lawmakers will have the opportunity to get a hands-on lesson in distracted driving Feb. 15 when a coalition of law enforcement, insurers and wireless service providers brings AT&Ts distracted driving simulator to the Capitol. From 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Room 102 of the Capitol legislators will be able to experience the dangers of distracted driving, which research has shown is six times more dangerous than drunk driving.

Texting while driving is a secondary offense, but a spike in traffic fatalities and an increase in distracted driving-related crashes has prompted lawmakers to consider bills to prohibit drivers from using hand-held communication devices such as cellphones.

Troopers needed

Iowa Public Safety Commissioner Roxanne Ryan told lawmakers the department is planning to hold a basic academy every years for at least 10 years to maintain trooper numbers in the Iowa State Patrol. There are between 15 and 20 troopers eligible for retirement each year for the next decade, Ryan told the Justice Systems Appropriations Subcommittee Wednesday.

It takes about two years from the time an ISP applicant is recruited to being road-ready, she said. Ideally, she would like to have 20 to 25 cadets each year. Trooper numbers have declined steadily from about 455 in the late 1990s to about 350 today.

Quote of the day

I do not control the sun, but in this bill I can control the habit of tanning.  Rep. Rob Taylor, R-West Des Moines, in supporting a bill that would bar minors under the age of 17 from using tanning devices.
DES MOINES -- A former adviser to Gov. Terry Branstad told lawmakers she is appalled he has endorsed a proposal to strip public employees of collective bargaining rights they have enjoyed for more than 40 years.

Jodie Butler, who advised Branstad on education policy for almost five years, told members of the Senate Labor and Business Relations Committee Wednesday the bill would cause irreparable harm and undo Branstad-backed policies, such as his Teacher Leadership and Compensation System, adopted to improve K-12 education in Iowa.

Youre on course to set us back 40 years, Butler said. Quite honestly, I am appalled. I am outraged.

She wasnt alone. For the second day in a row, labor activists flooded the Statehouse to defend the 43-year-old collective bargaining law. Despite their numbers, they were unable to stop companion bills from being approved by the House Labor Committee and a Senate Labor and Business Relations subcommittee. The action paved the way for action in the Senate committee today and on the floor of the House and Senate next week.

The 68-page bill majority Republicans say tweaks a 16-page law seeks to limit the subjects non-public safety workers can bring to the bargaining table, changes arbitration rules, alters how unions are certified and eliminates the longtime practice of gathering dues through payroll deductions. It also treats public safety employees differently than other public employees. Those not involved in public safety would be able to bargain only for base wages. Under current law, the can bargain for insurance, hours, vacations, holidays, overtime compensation, and health and safety matters.

That doesnt mean those issues cant be discussed, said House Labor Committee Chairman Dave Deyoe, R-Nevada.

It just requires both side to agree they are going to talk about it, he said.

There was plenty of talk during more than eight hours of public comment. Most of it was in opposition to the bills, which was not lost on Sen. Nate Boulton, D-Des Moines. Only three speakers in the Senate supported the bill and only one offered any explanation for their support.

That tells me that either it doesnt have the broad base of support were hearing is what apparently motivated this, or they dont want to be looking the people this affects in the eye and explain why its needed, Boulton said.

Christopher Ingstad of Iowans for Tax Relief, which recently called state employees Iowas privileged class, was booed when he said the group supported SF 213. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data it shared with members in a newsletter, Iowa public sector workers earn 150 percent more than private sector workers in comparable jobs, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

However, Rep. Bruce Hunters, D-Des Moines, rebutted that, telling representatives public sector workers earn 12 percent to 19 percent less than private sector counterparts.

So were getting a good deal, he said.

Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political advocacy group, and the Associated Builders & Contractors of Iowa also supported the bill.

Senate Labor Chairman Jason Schultz, R-Schleswig, said some associations representing local governments have told him they are afraid to speak out publicly.

Theyve told me they are somewhat intimidated (because of) the amount of anger, the potential for violence, he said.

Opponents of the bill were not reluctant to speak and to warn Republicans they are jeopardizing their Statehouse majority.

You think we always support Democrats. Youre wrong, Mike Weckman of Laborers Local 177 said, noting public employees plowed the streets so you all could get here.

Weckman and other suggested the attempt to bust public employee unions is part of a larger, extreme strategy, what one called a vast right-wing conspiracy.

This is how we make American great again, by literally taking away the rights of public employees, Hunter said.

If its part of a conspiracy, I dont know anything about it, said floor manager Rep. Steve Holt, R-Denison, said.

Whether it is or isnt, the change will be nothing more than a temporary setback in the long arc of justice, according to John Campbell of the United Steel Workers and AFSCME.

This bill will only survive for two years because the people will hear and feel the effects, and demand change against tyranny and oppression in the workplace, Campbell said.
WATERLOO  Ron Steeles covered many big stories in his 40-plus years as a journalist but never a miracle. Until now.

Hes not only on the story, hes living it.

Steele, longtime KWWL-TV news anchor, suffered a heart attack Jan. 29 or 30. He underwent successful quadruple bypass surgery at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City on Monday and is on the mend, his wife, Candy, reported Wednesday night.

He just got back from a walk, Candy Steele said from her husbands room in the UIHC intensive care unit. He tires easily but is improving daily.

His recovery will take eight to 12 weeks, station officials said.

Candy expects they will be at UIHC through the weekend and then return to their home in Hudson. He will do cardiac rehabilitation at Covenant Medical Center. Candy retired from that unit a few months ago.

His surgeon said hes going to have a new heart with a 35-year warranty on it, and hes pretty excited about that, Candy said.

Ron Steele had trouble shoveling a wet heavy snow that fell Jan. 25 but experienced no pain. A longtime distance runner, Steele then went to the gym. He ran, lifted weights and came home and shoveled the rest of the snow.

He worked out again Sunday. Sunday night he felt a stretching sensation in his chest but no pain. He worked a normal day Monday, Jan. 30, but then went to his family doctor. He was referred to a Covenant Clinic cardiologist and was sent to the cardiac catheterization lab, where blockages were detected. Steele was transported UIHC as soon as a bed was available.

Candy Steele said she and her husband are grateful for the outpouring of public support.

Hes overwhelmed by all the people praying for him. He really appreciates it. So do I, Candy said. Steeles Facebook page had been flooded with get-well wishes.

Candy said Ron wanted to issue a shout out to one special person.

He wants to say hi to his buddy Connor Helgens, who underwent heart surgery as a baby and is about 9 years old now. Helgens was recognized at a local American Heart Association Heart Walk, an event Ron has emceed for several years in a row.

She noted her husband will wear a red survivors hat at a future Heart Walk alongside his friend.

Steele has been with KWWL for 42 years, 37 as anchor. According to Iowa broadcasting historian and KXEL radio news director Jeff Stein, Steele is one of the two longest-serving anchors at any station in the states history.

I just feel that really, everything just kind of fell into place. Its almost like this is a miracle, Candy Steele said.
Q: Where is the Mandalay house in Cedar Falls?

A: Its at 1603 Mandalay Drive, close to Lookout Park.

Q: Regarding the recent death and fire on Ridgeway Avenue reported in the paper  at the end of the article you gave the exact location of the fire. I dont ever recall that happening in any death, homicide or fire in the past that The Courier gave the exact directions where this house was located. Can you provide examples of when youve done this before, especially when it is on a well known street?

A: If youre referring to the story, Waterloo man dies in blaze on page A1 of the Wednesday, Jan. 25 Courier, actually, we didnt initially. Waterloo fire officials were hesitant to give a specific address  the house number  because the victim had not yet been identified but were fine with us saying it was in the 800 block of East Ridgeway Avenue. Since most people dont memorize block numbers we felt it was important to give people landmarks as a point of reference  because as you observed, it is a well-known, heavily traveled street. A lot of people may not know exactly where the 800 block of East Ridgeway is, but they know West High School and West Ninth Street as reference points, so we said the fire was located on Ridgeway between those reference points. In fact, public safety dispatchers often give cross streets or landmarks when sending personnel to the scene of a call. Once the victim was identified, we simply listed the address.

Q: Are the Cedar Falls police captains and lieutenants who received raises the same captains and lieutenants who filed to have a unionization vote? How do these raises affect that vote? Wouldnt this constitute a bribe or payoff if no vote is held?

A: Cedar Falls Public Safety Director Jeff Olson replies: Yes, they did file a request and the matter is still pending. How each individual votes is a personal decision. The city identified a possible pay compensation difference between the police supervisors in Cedar Falls and other Iowa police departments. A salary comparison for the police supervisors was conducted and the compensation was considerably less. A comprehensive compensation study has not been conducted in Cedar Falls for city employees for over 20 years. The city may conduct such a study in the next year for other city employees.

Q: Regarding a recent Call the Courier answer that mentions where Maynard Reece was born: Where is Arnolds Park located?

A: Its in Dickinson County in northern Iowa, right on the shores of West and East Lake Okoboji. Its probably best known for the Arnolds Park Amusement Park.

Q: Would it be possible for the Iowa Legislature to take a pay cut to make up this years budget shortfall that occurred when the corporate taxes were cut?

A: Anything is possible, but lawmakers would have to pass the cuts themselves. And even if they cut their pay to zero it wouldnt cover the $118 million deficit they must make up by July 1.
JAMESTOWN  The executive order issued by President Donald Trump nearly two weeks ago affecting immigrants and refugees has received reactions from across the U.S. and the world, including support from Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D.

The order issued by Trump on Jan. 27 suspended entry of citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries  Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya  into the U.S. for 90 days, all refugee resettlement for 120 days and refugees from Syria indefinitely.

The order was blocked by federal court Judge James Robart on Friday, Feb. 3, allowing previously affected travelers and refugees to enter the U.S. The U.S. Department of Justice has filed with a federal appeals court to reinstate the order. The hearing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit was held Tuesday afternoon, and a ruling is expected soon.

Cramer said whether or not people support it, the president has the authority to make the order.

The priority is to keep America safe, Cramer said. I appreciate that the president has taken proactive measures.

The order is temporary and confined to seven countries, a modest and incremental measure compared to what Trump talked about during his campaign, Cramer said.

Cramer said he thinks the countries named in the order were chosen because they have unorganized governments, so the vetting process is difficult.

Cramer said the vetting piece of the order was similar to the Safety Against Foreign Enemies (SAFE) Act. The SAFE Act, introduced in November 2015, would have required extra background investigation for Iraqi and Syrian refugees to enter the U.S. The bill passed in the House but was voted down in the Senate. Cramer said there is a possibility the act will be revisited in Congress.

National security and immigration were major themes of Trumps campaign, Cramer said.

I dont know why anyone would be surprised that hes upholding that, Cramer said.

Fatholah Kassemi, University of Jamestown mathematics professor, moved to the U.S. from Iran in 1973 to pursue an aerospace engineering degree. Kassemi said he doesnt have a problem with the order as long as it improves security.

Although Kassemi is a U.S. citizen, he said the order also causes inconveniences for him, such as limiting travel plans. Kassemi said hes not going to leave the country because of the order, even though he should be able to get back in.

Kassemi said he doesnt have any family in Iran anymore, but has friends in the country who the order is making things more difficult for. It is also more difficult for people looking to get U.S. citizenship, he said.

Kassemi said he understands peoples problem with the order, especially when looking at individual cases of people stuck in airports and barred from the country, but he is looking at the big picture.

I dont have a problem with it if it will truly help with the national security of the country, Kassemi said. If it doesnt help national security, then we should start complaining.

There are people trying to abuse the system, such as people who become legal residents but dont live here, Kassemi said. The system should go over individual cases to catch people who are unfriendly to the country, he said.

The current immigration system has issues and people trying to abuse it, Kassemi said. An attempt to change the system is good, but Kassemi questioned the way the order was implemented. The order is an umbrella which keeps out friends and foes of the U.S., Kassemi said.

Kassemi said he is just hoping that the order is not something that will stay and hurt friends of the U.S.
Prime Minister's Office(WASHINGTON) -- Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will visit the White House on Monday, according to a White House statement released Thursday morning.

"President Trump and Prime Minister Trudeau look forward to a constructive conversation on strengthening the relationship between our two nations," the statement read in part.

On his official Twitter account, Prime Minister Trudeau indicated that he would focus on economic issues during the visit.

Strong Canada-US ties help the middle class in both our countries. Monday, I'll meet @realDonaldTrump in DC to keep working for that goal.  Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) February 9, 2017

Trudeau will be the third foreign leader to visit the White House under the new Trump administration, after British Prime Minister Theresa May and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who is scheduled to visit on Friday.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
With technology becoming more and more a part of our lives, it was only a matter of time before it started to impact the way 
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Feb 9, 2017 | By David

The ongoing expansion of the 3D printing market appears to be having a profound impact on companies manufacturing more traditional technology, as HP announced today that hundreds of its employees are set to lose their jobs within a year. Management representatives from HP said in an official statement that its site in Leixlip, Ireland will soon be closing. The site has been a major part of the company's business strategy since 1995, and its closure means that close to 500 people will be out of work. This announcement follows one made by the company last October that between 3,000 and 4,000 jobs will be cut worldwide between 2017 and 2019, amounting to almost a tenth of its workforce.

These changes can be seen as a direct result of the pressure that newer technologies are putting on the home PC and printer market. The Leixlip facility was primarily used for the production of inkjet printer cartridges, as well as research and development in this field, and sales of these products are falling rapidly. Due to the increasing popularity and availability of portable and cloud computing, demand for desktop computers is at an historic low and printing out physical copies of documents is becoming a thing of the past.

HP insisted that the closure of the plant was entirely unrelated to the performance of its staff, praising Leixlips "long history of valuable contribution, innovation and business excellence." The company was one of the two main employers in the region, just to the west of Dublin, along with fellow technology giant Intel. The decision to close the HP site could have a major imapct on the local economy.

Attempting to soften the blow, HP declared its commitment to finding alternative employment opportunities for those affected, and to "providing a programme to help them prepare for the transition ahead." Irelands Jobs Minister Mary Mitchell OConnor declared the intention of the Industrial Development Authority to sell the plant, in order to compensate for this huge loss of investment in the area.

As 2D printers are moving gradually towards obsolescence, HP is hoping for a smooth transition into the production of HP 3D printers. The investment potential of 3D printing technology has been identified as a key factor motivating the companys change of strategy. In 2015 it announced that it was splitting its operations in two, with the newly established Hewlett Packard Enterprises functioning independently of Hewlett Packard, Inc. The former would be focused on taking advantage of the latest technological developments, with a specific focus on 3D printing. We reported extensively on the company's first foray into the 3D printing world last year. The MultiJet Fusion system was announced amid much excitement in 2014, and the unique printing technology was eventually released to the manufacturing market in late 2016.

In a statement about the Leixlip closure, HP reiterated its strategy, saying that "HP's global print business is working to drive continuous efficiencies and cost savings that enable investment in new market opportunities and growth initiatives, such as 3D printing." Hopefully major companies such as HP will be able to keep pace with developments and plan ahead effectively, even helping their employees to transfer their skills so everyone can benefit as much as possible from the exciting possibilities that 3D printing presents.

Posted in 3D Printer Company

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Paul Taylor at Eurozine:

The European Union is a half-way house of states and peoples, built on a cliff. It has never been and is unlikely in our lifetime to become a full, viable federation along the lines of the United States  which took more than a century to construct in its current form. Yet it is more than a mere international organization like the United Nations or NATO, since it has important elements of supranational governance. Rather, it is a unique and unstable edifice that former European Commission President Jacques Delors aptly called a federation of nation states.

With Britains vote in June 2016 to leave the EU, for the first time a wing has fallen off the house. Even before diplomats begin to disentangle the wreckage in exit negotiations due to start in 2017 and last two years, the surviving 27 tenants are arguing over whether to add additional floors, to all lean in the opposite direction, to try to strengthen the foundations, or to cut back the condominiums central amenities to a minimum. So far, they have only been able to agree on minor repairs, not fundamental structural improvements.

more here.
How many people have already voted absentee in South Dakota ahead of Election Day?
They say: dont try to meet somebody, better become somebody. They say: dont believe your past, believe your future. They say: it is important where you finish, not where you start. But it is also important where you have been on the way.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands  February 8, 2017  It was announced today that May Harnish launched a new book: When Millionaires disregard Us. It is a set of 8 stories published in Amsterdam in January 2017 centered on the joys and challenges of life and devoted to adventurous people looking for their place in life in various ways. May suggests to entertain oneself with reading while enjoying another 5 oclock cocktail.

In real life (and the stories are based on real life), there are good and bad; many people look good but are bad inside while some prefer to think they are very bad, but still they remain at least a little bit good.  said May Harnish.

More reasons to pay attention to When Millionaires Disregard Us are explained by the fact that the book is more about how to live well, staying cool and compromising between love and hate than just a love story.

We flattened the market by producing 7 billion of us. Most of those who are able to dream imagine very simple matters. And those who dream high hardly will ever get a chance to follow their dreams. Life introduces its rules to all of us. And since we do not dare to create the rules ourselves, we have to accept the existing rules.

The author intended these stories to be reader friendly and presented them as a kind of easy cafe reading.

About The Author: May

May Alexandra Harnish who calls herself just another humble girl tried herself quite successfully in academic writing. May is in her 30s. She has been working in international relations sphere for few years and she is professionally connected with public diplomacy and favorable image of state promotion.

One day she decided to write some fiction about everyday modern life of young professionals in the city with modern priorities and high expectations (Amsterdam). She finds pleasure in writing short stories about life, love, and affection, adding a certain dose of adventure in everyday reality and the various ways to find ones place in life.

Currently, May is based in the Dutch Antilles and works on the novel about political cynicism.

For more information please visit: http://mayharnish.com/

Media Contact

Company Name: Book  When Millionaires Disregard Us

Contact Person: May A. Harnish, Author

Email: astanes@gmail.com

Phone: +31 6 25 16 06 19

Address:Johan van Hasseltkade 314

City: Amsterdam

Country: Netherlands

Website: http://mayharnish.com/
Lake Resources NL (ASX:LKE) (OTCMKTS:LLKKF) is a clean lithium developer utilising clean, direct extraction technology for the development of sustainable, high purity lithium from its flagship Kachi Project, as well as three other lithium brine projects in Argentina. The projects are in a prime location within the Lithium Triangle, where 40% of the world's lithium is produced at the lowest cost.



This method will enable Lake Resources to be an efficient, responsibly-sourced, environmentally friendly and cost competitive supplier of high-purity lithium, which is readily scalable, and in demand from Tier 1 electric vehicle makers and battery makers.
Distribution of company announcements to the professional platforms, finance portals and syndication of important corporate news to a wide variety of news aggregators and financial news systems.
Flexiroam further expands through South East Asia with Vietnamese partnership



Partners with Triip.Me to Target Vietnamese Outbound Travellers

Perth, Feb 9, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Flexiroam Limited ( ASX:FRX ) is pleased to announce that its wholly-owned subsidiary Flexiroam Asia Limited ("Flexiroam") has signed a partnership agreement with Triip Pte Ltd ("Triip").



Incorporated in Singapore and operating in Vietnam, Triip is an impact travel company that operates a global sharing-economy travel platform. It enables travellers to experience authentic private tours that have been crafted by hand-picked local experts. Triip has over 6,000 tours in 100 countries around the world, and is very strong in its base market Vietnam.



In the partnership, Flexiroam agrees to sell 100,000 Gigabytes (GB) worth of Flexiroam vouchers to Triip. Each voucher entitles Triip members to redeem 1GB of internet data via Flexiroam X app. Triip customers can benefit from using Flexiroam X to save on their roaming bills. Flexiroam can leverage on the growing tourism industry in Vietnam.



Vietnam has 143 million mobile phone subscriptions with 53% internet penetration rate in 2016. The international outbound trips by Vietnamese residents were estimated at 4.8 million in 2016, growing by an average of 9.5% per year according to a recent MasterCard report. Currently, Vietnam mobile operators charge an average of A$600 per GB for data roaming. Flexiroam X is positioned as an attractive alternative for Vietnamese travellers as they are able to save more than 90% on their data roaming bills.



"This partnership between Triip.me and Flexiroam is truly one of a kind. When you think of how to enhance the overall suite of experiences surrounding travellers, something that has been left unaddressed besides hotel bookings and car rentals is keeping guests connected online independent of WIFI - it's a major step forward. So while we at Triip provide passionately crafted authentic local experiences, through this partnership with Flexiroam, our travellers can remain connected to their loved ones and work via Flexiroam's extensive coverage. Becoming local whilst remaining global all at once, what a win for travellers!" says Hai Viet Ho, CEO of Triip.



"The growth and potential in Vietnam is phenomenal. This partnership provides us immediate access into the Vietnamese market." says Jef Ong, Managing Director of Flexiroam Limited.



ABOUT TRIIP.ME



Founded in 2013, Triip is an impact travel platform dedicated to bringing together local experts and travellers to create genuine and unique cultural experiences. Triip enables local individuals to become Triip creators, allowing them to create their own tour packages to share their passion with others, earn extra cash and make new friends while also offering independent travellers one-of-a-kind local cultural experiences with real people. Through the Triip website and mobile app, independent tour guides can post their tour package, which is then available for travellers from around the world to discover, book, enjoy, and review. To learn more, please visit http://www.triip.me.





About Flexiroam Ltd





FLEXIROAM Limited (ASX:FRX) is a leading telecommunications company offering universal voice and data services for mobile users globally. Its flagship data roaming product, FLEXIROAM X has coverage in over 100 countries with 4G speed in over 56 countries. FLEXIROAM is an asset light telecommunications company that does not own physical infrastructure yet is able to connect to around 580 network operators globally. FLEXIROAM aspires to be a household name in borderless mobile broadband service in Asia and beyond. Please visit https://www.flexiroam.com


Condat Awarded $2m in Contract Extensions

Sydney, Feb 9, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Leading big data solutions company Invigor Group Limited ( ASX:IVO ) ("Invigor") is pleased to confirm that the Company's wholly-owned Berlin-based software solutions business, Condat AG (Condat), has been awarded AUD$2 million worth of contract extensions with four major customers - ZDF, RBB, GVL and Ericsson.



- All of the $2m of revenue from contract extensions expected to be booked in FY2017



- Highlights Condat's recurring revenue, excellent client retention and high customer satisfaction rates



- Condat's FY2017 order book of $9 million now over 75% filled



- Condat's order pipeline growing with new contract opportunities in Germany and other European markets



- Ramps up international marketing with showcasing of Smart Media Engine (CSME) at US National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) conference in April



Revenue for these contracts is expected to be booked progressively through FY 2017 and contributes to Condat's $9 million FY2017 order book which is now over 75% filled. The contract extensions include:



- An agreement with the largest German Television broadcasting company ZDF on a new phase of integrating additional channels to their Video on Demand (VOD) platform.



- Integration of Condat's Smart Media Engine with Ericsson UK's Video division.



- A contract with German public broadcaster Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) on further support and maintenance for Content Management Platform.



- A contract with collective management rights group GVL for further services associated with Condat's Smart Media Engine.



The award of these extensions reinforce Condat's strong recurring revenue through its customer retention rates, and the appeal of the business' software to leading blue chip organisations. Condat is now actively strengthening its market presence and expansion outside of Germany and will showcase CSME at the US National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) in April this year, a convention that attracts a global audience. http://www.nabshow.com



Invigor's Chairman and CEO Mr Gary Cohen said: "These contracts help underpin Condat's FY2017 order book, and strengthen Invigor's growing base of stable, predictable and recurring revenue streams. Retention rates are highly encouraging and validate the effectiveness of Condat's technology.



We are very encouraged by Condat's growing order pipeline, with new contracts being pursued in Germany and other markets in Europe. The showcasing of the proprietary Smart Media Engine at NAB also provides an excellent forum to promote the broad appeal of CSME and raise awareness among a wider broadcaster audience.



The fact that Condat already works with leading European broadcasters ZDF and RBB and media giant Ericsson provides excellent reference points when marketing CSME globally at NAB. We expect this event will deliver much greater market visibility for Condat and translate into more recurring revenue-generating contracts."





About Invigor Group Ltd





Invigor Group (ASX:IVO) uses its complementary suite of big data products to source, aggregate, analyse and publish content for the benefit of businesses and consumers.

Today its interconnected data sets enable enterprise clients including retailers, brands, shopping centres and government bodies to identify and better understand competitors, consumers, markets and demographics while providing the consumer with the best value-for-money.

Using its current products and a pipeline of additional offerings Invigor will have the ability to provide an end-to-end solution spanning sales, product management, business intelligence, marketing, advertising, content creation and distribution, while monetising each step of the process.
Since indoor residual spraying was introduced to this village with the continued community engagement and sensitization outreach and dialoguethere has been a huge change in the health of my family.

Mary Wamagali IRS beneficiary from Butaleja district
SMi Group have released an exclusive set of interviews ahead of the only conference dedicated to combat vehicle C4ISTAR, Future Armoured Vehicles Situational Awareness 2017.





The event highlights the imminent need to prepare today's mechanised and armoured forces for the challenges of tomorrow within the broader set of C4ISTAR requirements for contemporary operations.



With expert insight and topical debate surrounding key issues such as vetronic architectures, sensor integration, CIS and battle management, this years agenda has been designed for those looking to deliver a new generation of information superiority to their armoured vehicle.



The Q&A's released with 4 of the keynote speakers are available to read in the event download centre ahead of their talks next month. Based upon the answers given it is apparent that Situational Awareness means different things to different people.



QUESTION: Situations - Who should we be aware of what, how quickly, how reliably, for how long?



Major Wouter Samson, Doctrine C4I, Manoeuvre Centre of Knowledge, Manoeuvre Centre of Excellence, Royal Netherlands Army:



ANSWER: "This is something that will require more studying since how we fight conflicts is changing. In a certain way total war is back because attack on civilian systems are back, for example cyber-attacks. These changes also happen in the military environment and it certainly is not always clear who the enemy is."



Colonel Manuel Jesus De Hoyos Sanchez, Head of 8x8 VCR Programme, Spanish Army:



ANSWER: "Three types of factors may be identified for the adequate operation of a ground vehicle. (1) The Chief of the vehicle in charge of the overall management of the vehicle and responsible for the success of the assigned mission, (2) the driver in charge of the driving of the vehicle, and (3) the shooter in charge of the weapon stations...nevertheless, it may be considered that there are some critical data that need to be provided with stringent requirements...data feeding the systems that may affect the safety of the crew, other units and the civilian population."



Major Ola Petter Odden, Norwegian Army Combat Lab, Norwegian Army Land Warfare Centre, Norwegian Armed Forces:



ANSWER: "The need for information and the ability/ opportunity to absorb information varies greatly in different situation. During a battle day you might have long periods of relative calm where you can access a lot of information. But when in enemy contact, you only worry about your immediate surroundings and survival. So the system must be able to switch modes."



Martin Roder, Project Manager IT Department, PSM:



ANSWER: "Every commander has to know everything about his team and the tactical situation they are in. There are the status of his vehicle, the condition of his crew, the tactical situation in near range and the position of his platoon members. The platoon leader has in addition to interact with his bataillion. The batailion has to know the tactical situation on high-level range to deploy the platoons at its best. Real time information are the most valuable source informations for all these purposes. The challenge is to exchange the right level of information between the different operation layers."


Investigation complete, clears former Air Force Acquisitions, Logistics leader

Air Force officials confirmed Richard Lombardi, the former senior acquisition official in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, was cleared of any intentional conflict of interest following a self-reported ethics matter in February 2016.



The Department of Defense Inspector General recently completed an independent inquiry into the alleged ethics violations by Lombardi. The report concluded that Lombardi failed to report his spouse's Northrop Grumman retirement account on his [ethics] filings from 2009 through 2015, and failed to report his spouse's Northrop Grumman income earned between Aug 2008 and her resignation from Northrop Grumman in Oct 2008. However, he "did not knowingly and willfully fail to report [this information]."



According to the report, Lombardi did not participate in matters involving Long Range Strategic Bomber proposal evaluations nor was he involved in selecting Northrop Grumman as the prime contractor.



The inquiry found Lombardi learned of the potential violations in mid-January 2016 and reported to senior Air Force ethics officials Feb. 2, 2016. Lombardi followed Air Force ethics officials' guidance on Feb. 24, 2016, by filing ethics forms reporting his spouse's financial information.



In February 2016, after being informed of the matter, then Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James removed Lombardi from acquisition duties and referred the issue to the DoD Inspector General.



"Rich Lombardi did the right thing at the right time," said Joseph M. McDade, Acting Air Force General Counsel and the Designated Agency Ethics Official. "He promptly self-reported a potential ethics issue, and a full and comprehensive ethics investigation has concluded that there was no knowing or willful infraction."



Lombardi is currently serving as the special assistant for the U.S. Air Force's Invisible Combat Wounds Initiative. His next assignment is pending.
Minot tests Minuteman III missile with launch from Vandenberg

A team of Air Force Global Strike Command Airmen from the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, launched an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile equipped with test reentry vehicles Feb. 8 at 11:39 p.m. Pacific Standard Time from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.



The ICBM's reentry vehicles, which contained telemetry packages used for operational testing, traveled approximately 4,200 miles to the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Test launches verify the accuracy and reliability of the ICBM weapon system, providing valuable data to ensure a continued safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent.



The men and women from the 91st Missile Wing Task Force, the Airmen from my squadron, and our host unit here at Vandenberg worked tirelessly to pull this launch offit was awesome to see everyones hard work pay off! said Col. Craig Ramsey, 576th Flight Test Squadron commander. These Airmen make me proud every day, and efforts like these make nuclear deterrence effective.



Minot AFB is one of three missile bases with crew members standing alert 24 hours a day, year-round, overseeing the nations ICBM alert forces.



I am exceedingly proud of the maintainers and operators from the 91st Missile Wing, including those that supported this mission from the onset. This Task Force worked flawlessly alongside the absolute professionals from the 576 FLTS to make this mission a success, Maj. Neil Copenhaver, GT221 Task Force commander, said. Promoting the deterrence, assurance and strike capability of the Minuteman III, along with the insight it provides to force readiness, could not be done without the dedication, professionalism and teamwork of the men and women throughout the 91st Missile Wing.



The ICBM community, including the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, and U.S. Strategic Command uses data collected from test launches for continuing force development evaluation. The ICBM test launch program demonstrates the operational capability of the Minuteman III and ensures the United States ability to maintain a strong, credible nuclear deterrent as a key element of U.S. national security and the security of U.S. allies and partners.
The Air Force has released additional guidance in regard to the federal civilian hiring freeze implemented Jan. 23.According to the official memorandum, the hiring freeze applies to all executive departments and agencies regardless of their operation and program funding. Military personnel are excluded. Some exemptions are permitted to meet national security mission and public safety responsibilities or to prevent essential services from interruption.The Air Force recently released additional implementation procedures in support of a follow-on Feb. 1 memorandum outlining the implementation of the freeze. According to the guidance, all requests for personnel action received by the Air Force Personnel Center by Feb 7, 2017, will continue to be announced, and referral certificates will continue to be issued.If tentative job offers were given to selectees before Jan. 22, but with entry dates after Feb. 22, they will be notified of their pending status. Also, as of Feb. 7, AFPC will not be accepting recruit/fill actions without an approved hiring freeze exemption signed by the Secretary of the Air Force.Official guidance also calls for the implementation of a long-term plan to reduce the size of the federal workforce through attrition. The Office of Management and Budget, in coordination with the Office of Personnel Management, has been tasked to submit a plan by early May.The Air Force is dependent on a strong civilian workforce to carry out its global mission, said Christine Armstrong, the Civilian Sustainment and Transition Programs Division chief. We will continue to work closely with Air Staff to ensure the entire Air Force team receives up-to-date guidance as it becomes available.For information concerning non-appropriated fund positions, contact: afpc.svirf.humanresources@us.af.milLocal civilian personnel offices can also provide additional information. Search Hiring Freeze onfor more information about the freeze and how organizations can submit exemption requests. Individuals who do not have a myPers account can request one by following the instructions on thewebsite.
[dropcap]U[/dropcap]ttarakhand is an important state to win in 2017 for both Congress as well as BJP. Congress would obviously want to retain power, whereas BJP would like to prove that the political game on display in Dehradun over the last few months was in fact insightful of the popular mood and would like to wrest the state from Congress eventually helping in adding a seat or two in the Rajya Sabha. With heavyweight turncoats on BJPs side against an emaciated Congress line up, the former may appear to have an advantage in Uttarakhand which goes to polls on February 15 but the absence of a chief ministerial candidate may prove to be a stumbling block. However, when Uttarakhand was granted statehood in 2000, Dehradun was made the provisional capital. For 16 years now, the BJP and Congress have been engaged in blame game when questioned about development issues, something the parties have been using for electoral benefits.

While Congress is going to the polls with a definite face in Harish Rawat, BJP has left people guessing about who would get the top office if the latter is voted to power, the presence of too many strong traitors on its side is only adding to confusion. Presently, Congress is in power and BJP is the main opposition. Ever since Uttarakhand was formed, the state has been in an alternate party system where once Congress comes to power followed by BJP. Any keen observer of politics of the state will agree that it is difficult to pick a winner at this stage, though the current scenario puts Congress a little ahead. But then, the way BJP is promoting itself with various tactics, you never know if the table turns.

The key players in the state are only Congress and BJP. BSP has a waning presence. SPs presence is almost negligible. UKD has shot itself in the foot over the course of the last 15 years. AAP is yet to come out as a major force in the state and doesnt look capable of making its presence felt in 2017. Harish Rawat is a popular Chief Minister. His connect with the electorate is quite strong, and he has been able to position himself as a CM who is close to the common people.

Earlier, the political drama played out in the state over the last few months has affected BJPs credibility and has projected it as a party ready to grab power in the state by hook or by crook. All but the much publicised CD of Harish Rawat, has played against the BJP. Its similar to the sting operation CD of AAP during Delhi elections that damaged BJPs chances. BJP has mastered in playing such dirty games and by now voters are very well aware of it. On the other hand, Harish Rawat was able to manage the crisis thrown at his government rather well, and came out as the victim. This would give him sympathy from the voter. BJP ended on the wrong side, positioning itself more as a predator.

Harish Rawat has emerged stronger within the party and has almost a free hand to manage the election which normally works out well for any party in an election. The tiff with the PCC President Kishore Upadhyay is certainly an issue but lesser than the huge situation of infighting BJP is facing. BJP which attracted several heavyweights from Congress is in a rather precarious situation. With four former CMs Koshiyari, Nishank, Khanduri, Bahuguna in its ranks, and another couple of highly ambitious CM hopefuls Maharaj and Harak Singh Rawat, the party is facing squabbling at a scale much larger than Congress. This has made necessary for the party to fight the election without a CM face and if they win the deciding CM candidate would be another challenge. BJP will have unstable and shattered government. Ajay Bhatt has proved to be a weak Leader of Opposition in the last 5 years, and yet he being given the added responsibility of BJP state chief against the partys convention of one man one post clearly creates a dilemma for it.

A fight without a clear CM candidate against Harish Rawat is not a very smart move for BJP. Though, Amit Shah will leave no stone unturned to manage election smartly in the state. But here again, Harish Rawat is also not very far behind in terms of strategy in the context of Uttarakahand. The mood created by the surgical strikes certainly works out in favour of BJP. How long will this sustain before being taken over by state level issues is something that cannot be predicted at this point of time. Corruption is an issue but BJPs previous CMs dont have a better image on that front. A third opinion poll, this one held by Lokniti-ABP News, also arrived at the same consensus: That the BJP will win at least 10 seats more than Congress and comfortably sweep polls to form a government on its own. The survey had BJP bagging 35-43 seats in the 70-member Assembly, reducing Congress to just 22-30 seats.

As far as voteshare is concerned, the survey said, Congress is likely to win about 33 per cent of total votes polled, as compared to 40 per cent won by the BJP. This represents a 7 per cent improvement for the BJP since the 2012 Assembly polls, but also suggests a 15 per cent reduction in votes polled from the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. However, the votes are going against present government, chief minister Harish Rawats popularity remains undiminished. Of those polled, 19 per cent said they would like to see Rawat as chief minister, while BJPs chief ministerial frontrunner BC Khanduri was picked up by only 13 per cent of the respondents. Most of the times news channels surveys go wrong when it comes to airing actual results. Lets see who makes to power in Uttarakhand but people are still with Harish Rawat and that is quite visible.

(Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@afternoonvoice.com)
The government has handed over request for extradition of absconding liquor baron Vijay Mallya to the British high commission in New Delhi, Indian foreign ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said on Thursday.

Honouring the request will be seen as an act of cooperation between India and Britain, Swarup said.

Earlier today, the United Breweries fired indebted Mallya from his non-executive chairman role following an order from the countrys market regulator, it said in a stock exchange filing late Wednesday.

The UB Group said the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has barred Mallya from holding key managerial roles in any listed company.

Mallya, who made Kingfisher beer a global brand, was known for his flamboyant lifestyle and styled himself as the King of Good Times.

He owes banks at least $1 billion, fleeing to Britain last March as pressure grew from banks to pay back the loans.

Mallya has repeatedly failed to appear before investigators at the Enforcement Directorate, a financial crimes agency, who suspect him of misusing funds loaned by a state bank.

The companys decision follows Karnataka high court issuing a winding-up order on United Breweries Holdings Ltd (UBHL), the firm through which Mallya controlled his once-sprawling business empire, directing an official liquidator to take over all assets.
After a shaky Tamil Nadu politics, we come across Maharashtra is also facing a ticklish position after Shiv Sena party threatened with resignation drama and Fadnavis is not perturbed much as he is likely to get outside support from like-minded parties and can survive full five year term. The resignation threat is coming from Sena for a very long time and now getting momentum before the BMC elections. At present, Sena ministers are keeping a resignation letters inside their pockets and threatening the ruling party. This is part and parcel of coalition politics and the people should realise and vote for one single party rather than voting for different parties and pave way for coalition politics. After all the Government is for the people, by the people and of the people and the voters should guage the situation and vote accordingly instead of wasting their valuable vote by preferring an outsider. Maharashtra musings continue ever since BJP-Sena coalition came to power in the state.

Calicut Ramani

(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
British Parliament overwhelmingly supported a bill on Thursday empowering Prime Minister Theresa May to start crucial negotiations by March 31 on leaving the European Union (EU), bringing Brexit a step closer.

The draft legislation of the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill was approved by 494 votes to 122 by the House of Commons after its final debate.

The bill allows Ms. May to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to begin a two-year period of negotiations for the United Kingdoms new deal as a non-member of the EU by 2019.

Now that the bill had passed the Commons, it will be debated in the House of Lords after it returns from recess on February 20, where it is expected to be given the final nod.

Earlier, the Commons debated the last set of amendments to the Bill, including on key principles for the negotiation process, before the bill went on to its third and final reading for the vote.

Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn had instructed his MPs to vote in favour of the bill whether any amendments are made or not. However, he faced a second round of rebellion after over 49 MPs had defied the whip at the last vote earlier this month.

Some 52 Labour MPs rebelled in vote on Thursday, including Shadow business secretary Clive Lewis who resigned shortly beforehand.

Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott, who missed last weeks initial vote on the bill, backed it this time.

She told the BBC she had a lot of misgivings about the idea of a Tory Brexit and predicted the U.K. would come to regret it, but added: Im a loyal member of the shadow cabinet and Im loyal to Jeremy Corbyn.

Ms. May herself faced a rebellion of up to a dozen of her Conservative MPs, but she managed to minimise the Tory rebellion on Tuesday by promising a Commons vote on the Brexit agreement before it is finalised.

Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, welcomed this as an important concession but others have dismissed it as a take it or leave it offer.

The bill was tabled last month after the Supreme Court ruled that MPs and peers must have a say before Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty could be triggered. Ms. May had initially sought to bypass parliament.

It rejected the U.K. governments argument that Ms. May had sufficient executive powers to trigger Brexit without consulting Parliament.
Hitting out at Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis over comparing metropolis Mumbai with Patna, city Congress President Sanjay Nirupam said that BJP had an inherent hatred for people from Uttar Pradesh as well as Bihar and targets them to conceal its alleged failures.

Nirupam alleged that BJP is yet come out of its Bihar Assembly poll defeat. Shiv Sena and BJP are trying to hide the failures of governance in Mumbai Municipal Corporation for the last two decades. When BJP doesnt have answers, they end up insulting Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Earlier too, Fadnavis had questioned Bihars DNA. He has baati chokha with North Indians only for the sake of votes, Nirupam said.

He said that the two saffron parties were responsible for the ills troubling the city. To divert attention of the people, to cover up for their inefficiency and failures and to garner major media space ahead of the elections, these two parties are fighting against each other, he alleged.

The corrupt functioning of the civic body cannot be possible without BJPs support to Sena, he said alleging separate contests were match fixing.

BJP President Amit Shah said the Sena-BJP are in a friendly fight for civic polls while Minister Chandrakant Patil has said both parties will come to together after the results, Nirupam recalled.

BJP looks down upon people from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and targets them when things are not going its way. They have deep-rooted hatred for people from these two states. Fadnavis should withdraw his statement regarding Patna and apologise, Nirupam demanded adding that CMs comments have hurt people from the region.

We are exploring legal options to take on the Chief Minister for his comments. Asking for votes is violation of a supreme court order against use of caste, region religion for seeking votes, he said.

Nirupam lashed out at Shiv Sena saying it lacked guts to pull down the BJP government in the state.

BJP calls Sena a party of extortionists and Sena calls BJP a party of goons. Unfortunately, both parties are ruling the state and the Centre, he said.

On Wednesday, addressing a rally in Mumbai, Fadnavis accused Uddhav Thackerays party of destroying the metropolis, and claimed that in terms of development, Mumbai now stood in the same league with Patna (Mumbai ka vikas dekho kitna hua..Patna ke sath lake khada kar diya.)
There is a possibility of Shiv Sena ministers handing over their resignation to Uddhav Thackeray instead of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

Shiv Sena which has decided to go solo in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) election is likely to quit the Fadnavis government on 18th February. Sena ministers will tender their resignation after party chief Uddhav Thackeray will address a rally on the same day in the city. Of late the relation between both Sena and BJP had strained as they failed to arrive at a consensus over seat sharing issue for contesting the civic body polls. Since then both parties have been involved in a blame game. Already grassroot workers want Sena to quit the government and start preparing for the 2019 state assembly polls.

According to them, Sena is not getting its due by continuing with the Fadnavis government and the former should now concentrate on expanding its foothold in the city and state. Moreover, Sena is keen to impose pressure on BJP ahead of the BMC election. There is a possibility of Sena ministers handing over their resignation to Uddhav Thackeray instead of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. Earlier Sena ministers had a meeting with Fadnavis and urged him to waive loans availed by farmers. For challenging BJP in its own bastion, Sena also is wooing Patidar agitation leader Hardik Patel to lure Gujarati voters. The party had declared Hardik as its chief ministerial candidate for Gujarat assembly polls.

Uddhav Thackeray said, We had an alliance with BJP for contesting Lok Sabha polls but had severed ties with them during assembly election. Now we are planning to contest BMC polls singlehandedly. If things dont work out it is always right to find other alternatives. We shall make an appropriate move when it will be in the interest of Maharashtra.

Thus speculations are rife in political circles about whether Sena will quit the alliance with Fadnavis government. A message already has gone viral pertaining to Senas exit from the government on 18th February. However, party leaders have not confirmed the same.

According to sources, Sena leaders may have leaked the message to garner publicity ahead of civic body polls. Right now they are competing with BJP to gain an upper hand over them in BMC election.

On the other hand, BJP is trying to wrest the control of the BMC which is currently ruled by Sena. Already Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut had said that the downfall of the Fadnavis government has begun and it is on notice period. If Sena quits the government, the BJP will need 10 seats to keep afloat in the House. Sena has 75 corporators in the 227-member BMC, while the BJP has 31. BJP strategists believe if the Shiv Sena crosses the 90 mark and the BJP fails to reach the 50 figure, the former will quit the government.
According to David Geier, the father-son team first became interested in this question after viewing a poster in which Dr. Boyd Haley showed how the addition of even a small amount of testosterone greatly enhanced the destructive power of mercury.

Dr. Mark Geier and his son David believe Baron-Cohen may be exactly right. I recently spoke with David Geier about these issues.

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen of Cambridge University Research Center created a firestorm of controversy a few years ago with his claim that autism was the result of an extreme male brain.

Through the work of Dr. Jill James, the Geiers were aware that people with autism had significantly lower levels of glutathione. In their investigations the Geiers found that testosterone blocks the bodys ability to make glutathione and that mercury binds to glutathione, thus inactivating whatever stores the body may already have.

According to the Geiers mercury also raises testosterone levels, while dramatically lowering glutathione. At special risk would be those individuals who have a family history of low estrogen and high testosterone. The Geiers' theory might tie together several disparate findings and give hope for those children who have not fully recovered through bio-medical interventions.

A known side-effect of high testosterone is precocious puberty, or the early development of adult features in children. When the Geiers went looking for signs of precocious puberty in the autistic children in their clinic they found it in approximately 80% of their patients.

According to the Breast Cancer Fund, over the past forty years the age of puberty in girls has dropped one to two years. The Geiers believe this is a population-wide effect of mercury from the vaccines. When the Geiers tested seventy children with autism for abnormal testosterone levels they found results outside the normal range in approximately one-quarter to one-third of their patients.

Curiously, the affected girls seemed to have even higher testosterone levels than the affected boys, leading the Geiers to conclude that was necessary to overcome the naturally protective effects of estrogen.

The testosterone molecule is also the perfect shape so that when it is combined with mercury the mercury will be tightly bound to the testosterone, making it impossible to remove from the body with chelators.

Let me say that again.

Testosterone binds with mercury, thus rendering it invulnerable to chelators. The chelators can then only pick up the free-floating heavy metals. If true, this is extremely important revelation.

Fortunately, traditional medicine has made tremendous inroads in moderating abnormal hormone levels. The drug Lupron has been used for many years to lower testosterone and has an excellent safety record according to the Geiers, with many people remaining on it for five to ten years. It is the treatment of choice among medical professionals for precocious puberty.

The Geiers theorized that if they were able to temporarily turn off testosterone production with lupron, they might be able to release these trapped stores of mercury.

In a discussion with a fellow medical professional the Geiers were curious as to whether anybody had tested what increased testosterone would do to normally developing children. The medical professional told them that testosterone shots were routinely done for boys who have undescended testes. Perhaps its not surprising, but during the course of the therapy the boys exhibit obsessive-compulsive traits, and near-autistic like tendencies which fade in the months following the end of treatment.

The Geiers claim to have treated more than two hundred patients with a combination of lupron until the point at which testosterone levels normalize, then DMSA to chelate out any remaining mercury. According to David Geier, there have been tremendous changes, almost like a light switch as these children make rapid improvements.

Treatment of children with autism by lupron seems to have some unique characteristics. Normally, a single injection of lupron is enough to bring down testosterone levels to normal levels, but when children with autism are administered lupron their testosterone levels often go up. At first it was theorized that this represented lupron resistance, although the makers of the drug when contacted by the Geiers claimed to have never heard of such a result.

For lack of a better description, it seemed as if the bodies of children with autism were stuffed with testosterone and as the bodys natural production of testosterone was temporarily interrupted it came pouring out of the bodys hidden stores. A modified lupron protocol was then created, with testing of testosterone levels guiding more frequent administration of the drug until testosterone levels are normalized.

The Geiers have found that the best results are achieved when patients are given a slow-release shot, and a daily injection.

The earliest patient was Wesley Sykes, whose mother is the Reverend Lisa Sykes of the Christ United Methodist Church in Richmond, Virginia. Three years ago, when Wesley was nine-years-old the Geiers told her about this idea. Besides being non-verbal, nine-year-old Wesley was having erections in the shower, masturbating, sporting peach fuzz, and had a two-inch growth spurt which Lisa had attributed to his good health. After talking with the Geiers it became clear to Lisa that Wesley was experiencing precocious puberty.

Working in concert with Dr. Mary Megson, it was discovered that Wesley did indeed have high testosterone levels.

As the first patient the Geiers were surprised to find that a lupron shot which should have taken Wesleys testosterone levels from 25 to 0, only reduced it to 18. During that time, though, there were significant changes in Wesley, such as reduced hyperactivity, being able to swing on a swing, and beginning verbalizations. Consistent testing of testosterone levels guided the Geiers in how often to administer the lupron.

In an interview with Reverand Sykes which can be found on the internet, she recounted how she and the Geiers came to the conclusion that the testosterone had bonded to mercury and soaked into his tissues.

In the same interview Sykes recounts how the age of puberty in the United States has dropped two years, while in Scandinavian countries which demanded thimerosal-free vaccines in 1991, there has been no drop in the age of puberty.

The identification of testosterone with mercury retention might also explain another one of the long-standing mysteries of autism, namely why so many children with autism develop seizures in adolescence.

According to Reverend Sykes, it might be because their already high testosterone levels are pushed from the stratosphere into orbit by the additional testosterone production which accompanies the change to adulthood. The high testosterone produces seizures and aggressive behavior.

Now twelve years old, Wesley is reported by his mother to be extremely calm, typing with a keyboard, affectionate and interactive. In addition, the inappropriate sexual behavior vanished and with his keyboard he seems to have a fairly good grasp of his emotions and what is happening around him.

When a therapist was late for a session, he became agitated and when she later questioned him he was why he was upset he typed back, "I miss u." Another time he did not seem to be interested in a computer game suggested by his therapist and wrote to her, "This sucks."

While his receptive language is excellent, his verbal language opened in brief windows during the lupron treatments, but did not remain. They are continuing with the therapy as his porphyrin tests indicate some mercury still remains in his body.

Personal Thoughts

I believe this may be an enormous advance in our understanding, while giving hope to those children who have not received the full benefits of a chelation protocol. In short, why do some children recover and others seem to hit a wall beyond which they don't improve?

Other physicians, like Dr. Jeff Bradstreet are looking at the usage of other medications, like spironolactone as a hormone modulator. There may be other ways to moderate testosterone levels in autistic children if indeed they are shown to be abnormal.

In a previous column I recounted how a hormone test showed my daughter to have high testosterone levels and our doctor is looking to treat it first with supplements because she likes to be conservative.

I am heartened by the claim of David Geier that this is something you can get any endocrinologist to test, and if the testosterone level comes back high, lupron is their treatment of choice.

The only caveat is the understanding that children with autism are not likely to respond in a normal fashion so there needs to be more frequent monitoring of hormone levels.

This is a really big idea. Wouldn't it be great if this turned out to be another big piece in the struggle to get all our children back?

If youd like to view interviews with either the Geiers or Reverend Lisa Sykes click HERE.

Kent Heckenlively is Legal Editor of Age of Autism.
Common Sense Kids Action fights on behalf of families everywhere -- in our home state of California, in our nation's capital, and in states across the country, where we franchise winning ideas and legislative efforts that help all kids thrive.

(c) Identify and obtain the revenue and resources necessary to ensure that the Bill of Rights for Children and Youth of California, in its totality, is applied evenly, equitably, and appropriately to all children and youth across the state

(b) Determine the amount of revenue and resources necessary to ensure that the Bill of Rights for Children and Youth of California, in its totality, is applied evenly, equitably, and appropriately to all children and youth across the state.

(a) Develop and put forth research-based policy solutions that will ensure the Bill of Rights for Children and Youth of California, in its totality, is applied evenly, equitably, and appropriately to all children and youth across the state.

It is the intent of the Legislature, by January 1, 2022, to enact appropriate legislation to accomplish all of the following:

(b) It is the intent of the Legislature in enacting this act to expand and codify the Bill of Rights for Children and Youth of California created by Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 80 (Res. Ch. 101, Stats. 2009), to establish a comprehensive framework that governs the rights of all children and youth in California, outlines the research-based essential needs of Californias children, and establishes standards relating to the health, safety, well-being, early childhood and educational opportunities, and familial supports necessary for all children to succeed.

(6) The right to appropriate, quality education and life skills leading to self-sufficiency in adulthood.

(2) The right to form healthy attachments with adults responsible for their care and well-being.

(1) The right to parents, guardians, or caregivers who act in their best interest.

(a) The Legislature finds and declares that all children and youth, regardless of gender, class, race, ethnicity, national origin, culture, religion, immigration status, sexual orientation, or ability, have inherent rights that entitle them to protection, special care, and assistance, including, but not limited to, the following:

Recently Del Bigtree reported in a Facebook video that he and others concerned about California SB18 met with "Common Sense Kids Action" after the Sacramento protest rally, at the organization's invitation, to discuss the bill. Del explained that members of Common Sense Kids Action are the authors of SB18 and that "Pan is the registered author as the politician behind it". Other groups in attendance expressing concern about the bill included "A Voice For Choice" "The National Association of Parents" and Parental Rights.org. California Senator and pediatrician Richard Pan was not in attendance.

NOTE: Thank you to an AofA reader for preparing this document to explain California's newest attempt to usurp parental rights. SB18 was introduced by Pedia-tician [sic] Senator Richard Pan, whose SB277 removed vaccine choice rights and has kept thousands of California children from attending school.

Clearly, this is not just about California. These people have their sights set on the entire country. Looking at the list of advisors, I found that all of them, except one, are high level political and media operatives. The advisory board lists:

Advisory Board

Joel Benenson

Founder and CEO

Benenson Strategy Group Angela Glover Blackwell

Founder and CEO

PolicyLink Nadine Burke Harris

Founder and CEO

Center for Youth Wellness Jim Margolis

Partner

GMMB Inc. Mike McCurry

Partner

Public Strategies Washington Inc. Mark McKinnon

Global Vice-Chairman

Hill & Knowlton Strategies Steve Schmidt

Political Analyst

MSNBC Ace Smith

Partner

SCN Strategies Darrell Steinberg

Former State Senator

State of California







Snippets of Wikipedia and other bios:

"Joel Benenson is an American pollster and consultant known for his role as a strategist for Barack Obama's 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns. He was the chief strategist for Hillary Clinton's losing 2016 presidential campaign."

"Angela Glover Blackwell is the founder and president of PolicyLink, which is "[A] national research and action institute that works collaboratively to develop and implement local, state, and federal policies to achieve economic and social equity".

"James David "Jim" Margolis (born April 30, 1955) is an American political consultant and communications executive based in Washington, DC. He served as an advisor to Barack Obama in both his 2008[1] and 2012[2] campaigns for the White House. Margolis is a partner at GMMB, Inc.,[3] a strategic communications firm and advertising agency.[4][5] Previously he served as chief of staff to US Senator Kent Conrad,[6] chief of staff to US Congressman Howard Wolpe,[7] and Deputy Director of Communications for Vice President Walter Mondale's presidential campaign.[8]...

Margolis is the fifth child of Frederick Margolis,[9] a pediatrician, [10] film producer,[11] and inventor,[12] and Elizabeth Rieger,[13] a social worker. He was born in Albuquerque, NM when his father served in the US Public Health Service directing health care on a Navajo Indian reservation.[14...

In 1992, the firm was the lead agency for President Clintons presidential campaign.[26][27]

"Michael Demaree "Mike" McCurry (born October 27, 1954) is best known as the former press secretary for Bill Clinton's administration. He is a Washington-based communications consultant and is associated with the firm Public Strategies Washington, Inc. He is also active within the administration ... McCurry is a partner at the influential Washington, D.C.-based government ..."

"Mark McKinnon (born May 5, 1955) is an American political advisor, reform advocate, media columnist and television producer. He was the chief media advisor to five successful presidential primary and general election campaigns, and is a co-founder of No Labels, an organization dedicated to bipartisanship and political problem solving. He served as vice chairman of Public Strategies, Inc., which was acquired by the international communications consultancy Hill & Knowlton Strategies, and was president of Maverick Media."

"Stephen Edward "Steve" Schmidt (born 1970) is an American campaign strategist and public relations worker for the U.S. Republican Party. He specializes in political "message development and strategy. ... He is currently a political analyst for MSNBC and has appeared frequently on Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO."

According to Wikipedia, Schmidt's wife is a Labor and Delivery nurse.

From The University of California Berkeley, Institute of Governmental Studies: Ace Smith

Ace is a 30-year veteran of state and national politics and has directed winning campaigns from district attorney to president. With deep experience on the West Coast, he specializes in high-stakes political, governmental and public affairs campaigns.

Over the years, Ace has worked with a roster of clients including Virginia Governor Doug Wilder (1989), Chicago Mayor Richard Daley (1989), U.S. Senator Paul Simon (1990), Texas Governor Ann Richards (1990), U.S. Senator Patti Murray (1992), U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (1992), U.S. Senator Kent Conrad (1994), Congressman Richard Gephardt (1994-2002), California Governor Gray Davis (1998, 2002), U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (1992-2010) and Howard Dean for President (2004).

In 2005, Ace directed Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's underdog campaign for Mayor of Los Angeles, marking the first time since the 1930's that an LA Mayor had been defeated after a single term. In 2006, he ran Jerry Brown's campaign for California Attorney General and during the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary, served as State Director for Senator Hillary Clinton's campaigns in California, Texas and North Carolina. In 2010, Ace and his partners were instrumental in this historic election of San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris as California Attorney General and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom as California Lieutenant Governor. In 2011 Ace ran San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee's victorious campaign and in 2012 he led the historic Proposition 30 effort for Governor Brown.

Ace also has extensive experience advising corporate clients and winning complex initiative campaigns. The subject of several newspaper profiles, Ace was called "legendary" by the New York Times and political campaign manager "heavyweight champion of the year" in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Darrell Steven Steinberg (born October 15, 1959) is an American politician who serves as the mayor of Sacramento, California. He was elected to be mayor on June 7, 2016 (avoiding a runoff). Before that, he was California Senate President pro Tempore and the leader of the majority party in the California State Senate from 2008 to 2014.

Steinberg was a member of the California State Senate representing the 6th District. He had also previously served as a member of the California State Assembly (19982004) and as a member of the Sacramento City Council (19921998). He is a member of the Democratic Party.

Mr. Steinberg's Wikipedia page lists many career accomplishments including many bills that he has had passed into law. One odd sentence stands out:

"On November 13, 2013, State Sen. Ron Calderon, lashed out at Federal authorities claiming that they wanted him to record conversations between Sen. Steinberg and fellow Sen. Kevin De Leon in a sting operation targeting Steinberg and De Leon.[14]"

I did not seen an explanation as to why Federal authorities were conducting a sting operation against Steinberg and De Leon. Just something to note...

These 7 operatives are all heavy weights - the heaviest - including the Mayor of Sacramento and close associates of Governor Brown. These are well connected people who sell ideas for a living.

So - who is paying them and how much, to sell SB18?

The Excuse - Preventing and Treating ACE's

We already know that Senator Pan, the AAP, CDC, and a handful of other Pharma funded conflicted entities are pushing for mandatory universal vaccination administered strictly according to CDC recommendations. But SB18 is much broader, seeking to control all aspects of every Californian and ultimately American, child's life ("standards relating to the health, safety, well-being, early childhood and educational opportunities, and familial supports necessary for all children to succeed"). What else could be behind SB18?

The last Common Sense Kids Action advisory board member is Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, CEO and Director of the Center For Youth Wellness. I believe she reveals what SB18 is about (red, my emphasis):

Dr. Nadine Burke Harris is founder and CEO of Center for Youth Wellness (CYW). She has earned international attention for her innovative approach to addressing adverse childhood experiences as a risk factor for adult diseases such as heart disease and cancer. Her work has demonstrated that its time to reassess the relationship between poverty, child development and health, and how the practical applications of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study can improve health outcomes.



Dr. Burke Harris currently serves as an expert advisor on the Too Small to Fail initiative championed by Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation in association with Next Generation. This initiative aims to help parents and businesses take meaningful actions to improve the health and well-being of children ages zero to five so that more of Americas children are prepared to succeed in the 21st century. Dr. Burke Harris also serves as an advisor on Governor Jerry Browns Lets Get Healthy California Task Force and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) as a committee member for the AAPs Medical Home for Children Exposed to Violence Committee. Her work has been profiled in Paul Toughs best-selling book, How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character hailed by NY Times columnist David Brooks as essential. Dr. Burke Harris work has also earned her the Arnold P. Gold Foundation Humanism in Medicine Award presented by the American Academy of Pediatrics.



The goal of the Center for Youth Wellness is ambitious: to create a clinical model that recognizes and effectively treats toxic stress in children and to change the standard of pediatric practice in our nation. CYW works in close partnership with the CPMC Bayview Child Health Center, where Dr. Burke Harris was the founding physician and where she maintains her clinical practice. Her areas of interest are in health disparities, child trauma, nutrition and asthma. Particularly, her focus is serving communities where issues of poverty and race present challenges to conventional health care and education."

Center For Youth Wellness explains Toxic Stress:

"The problem comes when our system is overtaxed by repeated, intense or chronic stress. That cascade of chemicals and reactions goes from saving ones life to damaging ones health. Children are especially vulnerable to the harmful effects of chronic stress and trauma. For many kids who are repeatedly exposed to Adverse Childhood Experiences, such as violence at home or in the community, or having a parent with mental illness or substance dependence, their fight or flight system is activated so often that it stays on. These high levels of emergency hormones can lead to changes in the structure and function of childrens developing brains and bodies. The result is toxic stress.

Without support and protection from adults, children who experience toxic stress are at higher risk for health and social problems, like asthma, diabetes and obesity, as well as learning difficulties. Toxic stress also may make it difficult to sit still in school or to control emotions in challenging situations. If left untreated, toxic stress can lead to increased risk of adult diseases including heart disease and cancer."

From the CDC: About the CDC-Kaiser ACE Study (red, my emphasis)

The CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study is one of the largest investigations of childhood abuse and neglect and later-life health and well-being.

The original ACE Study was conducted at Kaiser Permanente from 1995 to 1997 with two waves of data collection. Over 17,000 Health Maintenance Organization members from Southern California receiving physical exams completed confidential surveys regarding their childhood experiences and current health status and behaviors.

The CDC continues ongoing surveillance of ACEs by assessing the medical status of the study participants via periodic updates of morbidity and mortality data.

[It sure would be nice if the CDC took such a keen interest in studying in detail the long term effects of the Adverse Childhood Experience that they invent, prescribe, push, and profit from - VACCINATION.]

More detailed information about the study can be found in the links below or in Relationship of Childhood Abuse and Household Dysfunction to Many of the Leading Causes of Death in Adults, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in 1998, Volume 14, pages 245258.

The CDC link has more information about ACE's, including Pdfs of the screening tools used and prevalence statistics. The list of ACE's include: emotional, physical and sexual abuse, mother treated violently, household substance abuse, household mental illness, parental separation or divorce, incarcerated household member, emotional and physical neglect.

In Donna Jackson Nakazawa's book, The Last Best Cure, My Quest to Awaken the Healing Parts of My Brain and Get Back My Body, My Joy and My Life (p. 37), she writes:

"Researchers at Harvard have done similar groundbreaking work, showing how early childhood stresses rewire the circuitry of our brain, changing our epigenetics, and altering gene expression. They also found something else I find quite staggering. ACEs cause profound physical changes to the area of the brain that processes our emotions and our memories, known as the hippocampus. According to Harvard researchers, experiencing physical or sexual abuse, physical or emotional neglect, significant separations or losses, verbal abuse, or parental discord during childhood results in having a smaller hippocampus - about 6 percent smaller than that found in adults who didn't experience these forms of childhood adversity. It seems that a group of cells in the immature hippocampus releases a hormone when faced with excessive stress. Exposing the developing hippocampus to large amounts of this hormone reduces the actual size as well as the function of the emotional processing center of the brain. This damage to the hippocampus and our ability to process emotion, which in turn impacts how we react to and manage stress for life, may also help explain why early adversity often leads to a multitude of later health problems."

(It is important to note that researchers also believe that people can heal, and that the effects of toxic stress can be ameliorated by having loving and supportive parents.)

The Case Against SB18 series will take a critical look at the US government and health care system's historical role in children's health, with the goal of determining whether these entities should be further empowered to overrule parental authority in setting new comprehensive legislative standards as proposed in California's SB18. We'll consider some of the history of ACE legislative and other related activity, and we will compare the declared ACE epidemic response to the response to the undeclared autism epidemic.

Next: The Curious Response to the 1998 CDC/Kaiser Permanente ACE Study

Californians: Please consider signing Senator Joel Anderson has a petition opposing SB18:

https://lcmspubcontact.lc.ca.gov/PublicLCMS/SDInfo/einvites/SD38/154_No_on_SB18.html








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Mayor Jim Blevins.jpg

Pascagoula Mayor Jim Blevins delivered his annual State of the City Address Thursday afternoon at the Grand Magnolia Ballroom in Pascagoula in front of Pascagoula Rotary Club. (Tyler Carter/tcarter@al.com)

PASCAGOULA, Miss. - Mayor Jim Blevins addressed a variety of opportunities and challenges in his annual State of the City address on Tuesday, including the difficulty of improving Market Street and his high hopes for the return of Amtrak service.

Blevins covered a range of topics in his address at the Grand Magnolia Ballroom.

Blevins points of emphasis included continued growth of the community and the passing of the prepared food tax increase, which will fund improvement to recreation facilities. Because of the passage of the referendum, revenue generated is expected to be between $775,000 and $1 million annually.

Last year, Amtrak visited various locations on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, with Pascagoula being one of the stops they made. The Southern Rail Commission is attempting to revive passenger rail service along the coast. Blevins, along with Gov. Phil Bryant and U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, rolled out the red carpet with the Pascagoula High School band and cheerleaders and city fire trucks.

On Tuesday, Blevins reiterated the importance of the revival of passenger rail service.

"We are excited about bringing this to Pascagoula, and what we are also excited about is Pascagoula is the only Jackson County municipality to have a stop," Blevins said. "Citizens and their families can travel to New Orleans for either a Saints or Pelicans game and can also travel to Florida to enjoy the things they have to offer."

In December, the Federal Railroad Administration gifted Pascagoula $659,000 to make improvements to restore the historic train station.

Blevins then set his sights on improvements intended to help youth. According to Blevins, the city has a grant in place that will improve infrastructure on travel routes, specifically near Jackson and Beach Elementary Schools.

The city is striving to add sidewalks, crosswalks and signage, as well as programs that will educate parents, children and crossing guards about safety precautions when traveling through school zones.

Market Street is a constant topic of discussion and the city council has taken steps to receive public input as to what they would like to see the business district become. Blevins received a question on Wednesday concerning the paving of Market Street, which he said the city will not see for quite some time.

"Infrastructure underneath Market Street is in really bad shape so we are tackling that first instead of paving it," said Blevins. "Unfortunately, a lot of focus has been placed onto paving the surface and it's a darn rough road to travel down, but the answer to your question is that you're not going to see all of Market Street paved anytime in the near future."

Blevins said what he and the council are doing is targeting sizable sections such as Ingalls north, and that designs must be voted on by the council as to whether the medians will be wide or intermediate and where sidewalks will be placed.

With municipal elections on the horizon, District 2 Supervisor Melton Harris inquired about not seeing Blevins' name on the list for re-election. According to Blevins, he is still undecided.

"A decision such as this one isn't one you make alone," said Blevins, "I have had a great support system in my wife and we talk about it every day. This decision will be made in the next two weeks."

The deadline for candidates to qualify for municipal elections is March 3.
Aiken, SC (29801)

Today

Rain early...then remaining cloudy with showers overnight. Low 67F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Rain early...then remaining cloudy with showers overnight. Low 67F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%.
Aiken, SC (29801)

Today

A steady rain this evening. Showers continuing overnight. Low 67F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch..

Tonight

A steady rain this evening. Showers continuing overnight. Low 67F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch.
Aiken, SC (29801)

Today

A steady rain this evening. Showers continuing overnight. Low 67F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

A steady rain this evening. Showers continuing overnight. Low 67F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
Kara-Murza Family(MOSCOW)  The Putin critic, Vladimir Kara-Murza, who has been in a coma for a week after apparently being poisoned, has regained consciousness and is now awake, his wife has told ABC News.



Vladimir Kara-Murza has been in a hospital in critical condition since last Thursday when he abruptly fell ill, poisoned, doctors say, by an unknown substance.



The 35-year-old has been on life-support since then and was placed into an artificial coma after his major organs failed within a matter of hours.



Unable to identify what was causing the poisoning, doctors have been racing to clean his system, putting him on hemodialysis.



On Wednesday night though, his wife, Evgenia, told ABC News that he was doing better and was now conscious.



Hes awake but confused. He doesnt remember everything, Evgenia Kara-Murza wrote in text messages on Wednesday.



Hes doing better but there are still risks and complications of course, she added, saying his heart and kidneys were also doing better. The improvement is good news, though he is not yet out of danger.



Vladimir Kara-Murza is a well-known opposition activist, an organizer for Open Russia, the political organization founded by the exiled oligarch, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and also works with Russia's main anti-Putin parties.



This is the second time that Vladimir Kara-Murza has apparently been poisoned in two years.



The last time, where he suffered similar symptoms, he was left with nerve damage forcing him to walk with a cane. After that incident Vladimir Kara-Murza told various American and Russian news media that he believed he had been targeted because of his work but did not know who was responsible.



Then as now, the substance with which he is believed to have been poisoned has remained a mystery. Lab tests could not detect it, though a French laboratory did pick up traces of heavy metals in his blood. Evgenia Kara-Murza says samples of his hair and nails have again been taken for tests.



She says she believes the poisoning this time must again be connected with her husbands activism but that she cannot say who would try to kill him.



Vladimir Kara-Murza is active in many circles of the opposition.



He was a close friend and collaborator of the murdered opposition leader, Boris Nemtsov, who was shot dead in front of the Kremlin in 2015.



In recent years, Kara-Murza has appeared repeatedly before the U.S. Congress to call for it to impose sanctions on Russian human rights abusers.



The case has drawn parallels with the poisoning of another Putin critic in 2006. Aleksander Litvinenko, a former agent from Russias FSB intelligence service, died after being tricked into drinking a radioactive metal, slipped into his tea by two former KGB officers in London.



A British government-ordered inquiry found Putin must have almost certainly ordered the killing.



Vladimir Kara-Murzas poisoning has attracted attention in the U.S., where senators from both sides of the aisle have said it illustrates why they ought to be alarmed by President Donald Trumps overtures to Putin.



In a pre-Super Bowl interview with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, President Trump replied to O'Reilly's criticism of Putin as "a killer" by saying, "we have a lot of killers too. What, you think our country's so innocent?"



On Tuesday Sen. John McCain took to the house floor to condemn Vladimir Kara-Murza's poisoning and implicitly President Trump's comments.



"Vladimir knew there was no moral equivalence between the United States and Putins Russia," McCain said of Vladimir Kara-Murza. "And anyone who would make such a suggestion maligns the character of our great nation and does a disservice to all those whose blood is on Putins hands.



McCain also praised Vladimir Kara-Murza as one of the most effective advocates for the Magnitsky Act, sanctions legislation that punishes Russian officials involved in the killing of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who uncovered a massive tax fraud scheme in 2009.



Vladimir Kara-Murza appeared repeatedly before Congress to persuade it to adopt the Act, and a later one in 2015 that broadened the sanctions to include any Russian official committing rights abuses.



Russia has sought to punish others involved in the campaign to pass the Act, which bars offenders from travelling to or holding property in the U.S..



There is no indication yet on whether Vladimir Kara-Murzas poisoning is connected to his work around Magnitsky. His wife notes there are many people in Russia who would be interested in silencing him.



Evgenia Kara-Murza, who lives in Virginia with the couples three young children, told ABC News that she believed her husbands case and the harassment of other Putin critics should deter President Trump from pursuing friendlier relations with the Kremlin.



He must know people such as Putin are not friends, she said in an interview. They cannot be treated on friendly terms. And the United States needs to stand up for its principles.



Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Alaska Air Groups 2016 results show that it was a solid year in terms of cargo performance for the carrier.

The airlines cargo and mail operations made an operating revenue of $108m over the year, exactly the same as had been the case in 2015.

The final quarters performance did reflect a slight year on year improvement, however, cargo and mail revenue rising by 4% to $26m.

The big news last year for Alaska Air was its acquisition of Virgin America, a purchase that was completed on December 14.

It also invested in aircraft for the Alaska Air fleet: 19 Boeing 737-900ERs were added to the operating fleet last year, bringing its inventory to 155 Boeing aircraft.

Five Airbus A320 aircraft were added by Virgin America during the year, bringing its fleet to a total of 63 Airbus aircraft.

Alaska CEO Brad Tilden called 2016 was an incredible year for Alaska in almost every way.

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Introduction

Initially motivated by the shutdown of the RethinkDB company, and the licensing situation with RethinkDB (a blocker for certain parts of my business), I worked very hard for two months to completely rewrite the realtime and database components of SageMathCloud (SMC) to use PostgreSQL instead of RethinkDB, initially motivated by this discussion in Hacker news. I battled with and used RethinkDB heavily since May 2015, and Ive used PostgreSQL heavily as well, with production data, rewriting all the same queries in both systems, so Im in a good position to compare them for my use case (the site SMC).

This is my story. Its a personal comparison, with NO BENCHMARKS or hard data you could reproduce. Its what I would tell you if we were talking by the water cooler.

Summary:

Im very happy with the rewrite.

Everything is an order of magnitude more efficient using PostgreSQL than it was with RethinkDB.

It is much easier to do exploratory queries of our data using PostgreSQL than it was with RethinkDB. PostgreSQL is much more expressive than ReQL, has a massive number of built-in functions, so we are making much better use of our data. With RethinkDB, often we just ended up greping through the latest database dump.

PostgreSQL is statically typed, whereas RethinkDB had no type or schema enforcement at all; explicit clear typing improved the quality and robustness of our application.

We are saving $800 month (!), due to reduced CPU and disk space requirements.

I had no clue that RethinkDB would be Apache licensed in February 2017.

A Mathematicians Apology

This post is probably going to make some people involved with RethinkDB very angry at me:

@williamstein for the best interest of rethinkdb community project, and especially if you respect the community and ex team members trying hard, please do not sway the community like this. and @williamstein can you delete your previous post

Not listening to users is perhaps not the best approach to building quality software. In Slavas postmortem, he says:

People wanted RethinkDB to be fast on workloads they actually tried, rather than real world workloads we suggested. For example, theyd write quick scripts to measure how long it takes to insert ten thousand documents without ever reading them back. MongoDB mastered these workloads brilliantly, while we fought the losing battle of educating the market. - Slava

With SageMath we have had many very intense technical and other discussions with epic arguments back and forth. The one thing we dont do is tell people not to even try to criticize our design choices: bring it on. Obviously, the Linux kernel is similar, and it is very successful.

Im writing this blog post partly because Ive said many positive things about RethinkDB. Really, what I love is the problems that RethinkDB solved, and where I believed RethinkDB could be 2-3 years from now if brilliant engineers like Daniel Mewes continued to work fulltime on the project. I dont care so much that problems are solved using a particular piece of software. For example, every component of SMC has been rewritten multiple times  Ive thrown away tens of thousands of lines of code. I care about solutions, not glorifying a particular piece of code for its own sake. Hence this post.

I can only hope that any devs who are really, really serious about RethinkDB having a future would listen to users, and hence will appreciate this post. But Im also prepared to be hated for not staying silent.

Realtime web applications

There are many approaches to writing realtime web applications, i.e., event driven applications involving simultaneous multiple users, with the application updating quickly in response to what users do. After learning React.js and rewriting a lot of the frontend of SMC using React, I wanted to use a similar reactive architecture on the backend, where each component of the system listens for changes in state (the database), and reacts to it. In early 2015, I also wanted something like Facebooks GraphQL, but there were no available implementation yet.

RethinkDB lets clients listen for changes in state to the database, and react to them. It was advertised as production ready in 2015, so I spent months rewriting SMC so it would use RethinkDB as the backend database. Before that, I was using Cassandra, and only making very simple use of the database, with all realtime functionality done at the application level in memory (so not using the database); that architecture worked OK, but there was a huge range of functionality I wanted to implement which was impossible to do with this approach, without introducing a message queue. Also, Cassandra was a bad fit for my data, and talking with the Datastax people on the phone about their pricing really scared me.

I spent the summer of 2015 rebuilding SMC on React + RethinkDB, with the RethinkDB rewrite being many, many months of hard work and debugging, basically from May 2015 to July 2016. I hit critical bugs that would crash RethinkDB in some edge case, which the RethinkDB devs would always fix. I also encountered a lot of painful scalability and performance issues, which I fixed by tedious benchmarking, debugging, studying logs, and introducing client side workarounds (e.g., idle timeouts on changefeeds). In July 2016, using RethinkDB become pretty stable.

Jonathan Lee, a computer science student working with me on SMC in Summer 2015, advised me against using RethinkDB due to performance issues. In particular, he pointed out this 2015 blog post, in which RethinkDB is consistently 5x-10x slower than MongoDB. I ignored Jonathans advice, because I believed RethinkDB would catch up within a year or two. I thought they would obsess over benchmarks now that they were production ready. I didnt realize it would take nearly a year for them to fix the bugs in their automatic failover and stabilize the current features. I had a nagging feeling deep down that Jonathan was right and I was making a big mistake, but I ignored it.

A RethinkDB employee told me he thought I was their biggest user in terms of how hard I was pushing RethinkDB.

Using RethinkDB up until July 2016 was painful. I remember so many times doubling and doubling again the cpus in the RethinDB nodes, in order to handle the load from (say) 10K changefeeds. Maybe I just needed to be educated and was using RethinkDB incorrectly. Everything was a battle; even trying to do backups was really painful, and eventually we gave up on making proper full consistent backups (instead, backing up only the really important tables via complete JSON dumps). We also had a lot of issues with disk usage.

Around July 2016, I finally got a setup using RethinkDB to be stable and working. I finally learned to really appreciate Docker and Kubernetes, since they make it very easy to tweak dials to scale things up and down. Also Harald Schilly suggested using RethinkDB proxy nodes, inspiring this section of the RethinkDB docs. These are RethinkDB nodes that dont store any data on disk, but do the hard work of processing and serving changefeeds:

The proxy node can do some query processing itself, reducing CPU load on database servers.

We ended up spinning up a Kubernetes cluster with 20 rethinkdb proxy/webserver pods, in addition to our 6-node RethinkDB cluster, and we could handle our load. Even then, the proxy nodes would often run at relatively high cpu usage. I never understood why. In fact, they were the only part of the entire SMC architecture whose high CPU usage I didnt understand. By training and profession, Im a pure mathematics researchers and lover of open source software, so Im used to trying to understand how and why things work the way they do, but I never understood this.

When the RethinkDB company shut down, I initially decided to just wait and see what happened, maybe for a year or two, since our site was working fine with the many nodes mentioned above (I also didnt realize how much money we were wasting on this setup). Then I was in a very long and intense meeting with a potentially major customer for an on-premises install, and one of their basic requirements was no AGPL in the stack. With the RethinkDB company gone, there was no way to satisfy that requirement, and my requests went nowhere at the time.

I had assumed that the speed would increase substantially due to focused work of Daniel Mewes during 2017. However, my understanding is that he went to work fulltime at Stripe, and will not be working on RethinkDB much. I also worried that the license situation wouldnt be resolved: Worrying about licensing is what PG would call a sitcom idea [1]  it feels like doing useful work, but in actuality it makes no difference whatsoever., though as we all know now it was just resolved!

So in early December 2016, I decided enough was enough, and I started rewriting our Rethink code, which is 5600 lines of CoffeeScript, to instead use PostgreSQL. I spent the first week making prototypes and benchmarks using the LISTEN/NOTIFY/TRIGGER functionality of PostgreSQL. For me, I realized the problem should not be use some cool tech, but instead can I use this tech to solve my customer problems. Even if LISTEN/NOTIFY/TRIGGER are much lower level, and take a lot more work and thought than RethinkDB changefeeds, I dont care if the end result is better.

> I wonder what will happen to products like SageMathCloud using RethinkDB now that the company is gone away.  nchelluri on Hacker News.

PostgreSQL

I learned from this discussion in Hacker news that PostgreSQL has some basic building blocks for implementing something like RethinkDB changefeeds. Searching online for uses of NOTIFY/LISTEN yields some relatively simple (but clear!) demos, which I was very thankful for. I did lots of benchmarks, and came to the conclusion that this could work.

I knew exactly what I needed to accomplish, since I had it all running on top of RethinkDB in production. So no design was really needed. The problem was clear. Do exactly the same thing, but using PostgreSQLs LISTEN/NOTIFY and triggers instead.

Regarding PostgreSQL, Ive used it off and on since the late 1990s (in fact, PostgreSQL started at Berkeley the same year I started graduate school there!). There have been steady but major improvements to PostgreSQL over the years, including very good JSON document support, replication, and clearly somebody spent work making their LISTEN/NOTIFY functionality fast. Thank you, whoever you are.

I didnt seriously consider MySQL since it doesnt have LISTEN/NOTIFY, and is also GPL licensed, whereas PostgreSQL has a very liberal license.

After running tests and studying the API, I estimated I could rewrite SMC on top of PostgreSQL in one month of focused work.

Implementation

I made a plan and spent all December rewriting SMC on top of PostgreSQL. Indeed it took exactly a month of focused work to do the basic rewrite.

The design I used was to setup a small number of LISTEN/NOTIFY channels, which would listen for changes on a table, and send the primary key and optionally other small columns to each connected webserver. This meant that the total number of triggers and LISTEN/NOTIFY channels that the database manages is quite small  hundreds at most. When a webserver client gets a notification, it then decides whether it is interested in that record, and if so does a SELECT back to the database for the rest of the data, which it then sends out to clients. (The problem of deciding whether to do the further select currently involves an O(N) call of a bunch of functions that check equality; it could be done much more efficiently with a Bloom filter or hash table.)

In moments of frustration at the CPU usage of RethinkDB, I had imagined implementing something like the above on top of RethinkDB, but decided not to, since it is literally doing exactly what RethinkDB must be doing. When I started vaguely thinking through the details it seemed hard and complicated, and I was worried that it would be even less efficient than RethinkDB. Last August 2016, when I had dinner with Daniel Mewes, he surprised me by telling me that the RethinkDB proxy nodes were all receiving (and presumably doing something with) all of the data for all updates to all tables that had any changefeeds. Maybe this was why things were inefficient

In any case, I wrote code that automates creation of all triggers to do listen/notify. I went through my tables, and made sure to implement enough changefeed-style functionality so that they did everything I need. Also, since I actually knew what I was building ahead of time (and was scared of having hard-to-debug problems in production), I wrote a large number of unit tests.

There was also a complicated graph style query of all collaborators on projects that caused a lot of trouble with RethinkDB, often taking 10 seconds for certain users with lots of projects (e.g., me with over 500 projects). Its a query that is hard to express efficiently, involving a join over two tables. Also, RethinkDB couldnt do a changefeed on that query, so when the projects that I user collaborated on changed, I would have to kill the changefeed and recreate it. When rewriting everything, I decided to just do things right if possible, and came up with a single data structure that properly tracked all projects and collaborators of a given user by just watching the whole accounts and projects tables, and properly updating some data structures. The code is in ProjectAndUserTracker here, and it works very well in practice. Obviously, again, this same code could have been written on top of RethinkDB, and it would have helped a lot.

In any case, to build my application on PostgreSQL, many new small problems absolutely had to be solved, many taking a day of concentration. Rewriting all the code from scratch did clean it up a lot.

Also, I hope to build multimaster async replication on the above changefeed functionality. This will be important when SMC is geographically distributed. I also have plans to do a partial-multi-master async between the main public SMC and individual docker images that users run offline, which provide a genuine full offline mode, and also provide simultaneous editing of files (with multiple cursors etc.), but with all compute happening on the users local machine in a docker container, which has its own small local PostgreSQL instance. But thats for 2018

Migration

Next, in early January, I started the process of writing code to migrate all the data from RethinkDB to PostgreSQL, with minimal downtime (so one big migration, then incremental updates). I thought this would take a few hours, but it ended up taking nearly a month! I have a lot of data  one table had 150 million records in it Another obstruction is that PostgreSQL is statically typed, whereas RethinkDB is very much not and this exposed tons of subtle issues in my data. In addition, with PostgreSQL it was obvious and trivial to impose conditions on my data, e.g., all email addresses in the accounts table are unique, so of course I imposed constraints!  due to race conditions there were multiple accounts with the same email address in my RethinkDB data, so I had to write some (scary) code to deal with that. I also had to deal with things like null bytes in JSON strings, and timestamps in nested JSON data structures, and many other issues. I used a combination of relational columns and JSONB in some cases, which Ill revisit later.

I did miss one critical subtle bug regarding timestamp precision in the PostgreSQL Node.js driver, which would cost me days of painful work to debug.

Comparing speed

As I migrated my data from PostgreSQL, I found myself in a unique position. I had years of production real-world data in both RethinkDB and PostgreSQL. By this point, I knew both query languages pretty well. I did a lot of random queries of my data, sitting in both DBs, and looked at the resulting times. PostgreSQL was faster, usually 5x faster, sometimes only 2x faster, and often even 10x faster. Definitely, the act of writing queries in SQL was much faster for me than writing ReQL, despite me having used ReQL seriusly for over a year. Theres something really natural and powerful about SQL. And, holy crap, PostgreSQL has a lot of built in functions that you can use in your queries and you can add more via Python and many other languages (I havent done this yet, but I have dreams of hooking Sage into PostgreSQL).

I am not providing my data or one single proof of my claims about speed. Again, this is watercooler talk. I have a couple hours to share my experiences with the world, and then I have to get back to work.

Backups, which involve dumping full tables from the database, were an order of magnitude faster with PostgreSQL.

The total disk space usage was an order of magnitude less (800GB versus 80GB)  some of our tables had a lot of TEXT fields, and PostgreSQL automatically compresses those, which was a huge win. Also  to be fair, we had no redundancy with PostgreSQL, whereas 3x redundancy with RethinkDB. SSD disk space on GCE is expensive, so the reduction in disk usage is saving us a lot of money.

I (and the other SMC devs) run a lot of single-user RethinkDB databases for development purposes. PostgreSQL tends to use (at least) an order of magnitude less RAM to do the same thing.

In math software like Sage, I have seen these order of magnitude differences in speed with many implementations of algorithms over the years. Often the first Python implementation of an algorithm is nice and illustrative and works; then you re-implement it in Cython, change algorithms, etc., and end up with something that is 100x faster. This is just the normal experience Ive had with math software. I imagine databases are similar. Using 10x more disk space means 10x more reading and writing to disk, and disk is (way more than) 10x slower than RAM

Connection pooling

I spent a huge amount of time worry about connection pooling with RethinkDB to get better concurrency, finally just writing my own. With PostgreSQL I dont even bother, and instead each web server just has exactly one connection to PostgreSQL, and that is of course served by exactly one single-threaded process in the PostgreSQL server. The root problem is make results fast for users, not have a lot of concurrent connections. By optimizing everything, the load on the database and the web servers is now overall very low, and can easily be handled over a single connection. There simply is no need for a connection pool for my application, since PostgreSQL is so fast. Its also actually really nice that one client web server cant slow down the whole database.

Going live: things started to fail spectacularly

After all the awesome microbenchmarking above, I expected that when we went live it would be way more efficient than RethinkDB. On a nervous quiet Saturday morning, we switch the live production site over, and everything looked reasonably good for a while.

Then things started to fail spectacularly.

Every connection to the database was pegged at 100% cpu doing SELECT queries. I didnt know what to do. It made no sense. I made the database server faster and spun up way more web servers, which basically worked but seemed weird. I panicked for a while, mulled over the problem, and kept raising the number of web servers, etc. This sucked. I thought for a while the only solution would be to greatly reduce the number of SELECTs in the changefeeds. Recall that changefeeds work by doing a SELECT to get more data when necessary.

After convincing myself not to give up and shut down SMC for good, I calmed down and studied a lot of logs and found a PostgreSQL query that was taking 15s sometimes and locking the other queries. It was a query involving a subquery; it finds all collaborators of a user - its exactly the one mentioned above that I couldnt make a changefeed on with RethinkDB. I then tried an instance of this query directly in psql, and it took only a few milliseconds. Weird. OK, I tried it with some other parameters, and it suddenly took 15 seconds at 100% CPU, with PostgreSQL doing some linear scan through data. Using EXPLAIN I found that with full production data the query planner was doing something idiotic in some cases. I learned how to impact the query planner, and then this query went back to taking only a few milliseconds for any input. With this one change to influence the query planner (to actually always use an index I had properly made), things became dramatically faster. Basically the load on the database server went from 100% to well under 5%.

The Node.js PostgreSQL driver

The Node.js PostgreSQL driver claims the native bindings provide a 20-30% increase in parsing speed. For my workload, especially reading BYTEA data (blobs), the speed increase is 600%. This was another observation I made by looking at log files.

With all these optimizations, the load on the web servers and database, even when we have 600+ simultaneous users, is barely anything!

Open source

All the code I wrote related to this blog post is  ironically  AGPL. Basically it is everything that starts with postgres- here.

SageMath, Inc. owns all the copyright, so we could license under something else if somebody is serious about wanting to create a nodejs project on top of PostgreSQL to provide changefeeds. Im too busy with my company to do that, but I would be supportive.

Conclusion

I have often said that RethinkDB is the first database I ever loved. In fact, its the reactive approach to databases based on changefeeds that I love (just like I love using React.js). I still very much love trying to solve this problem. If I were in charge of the RethinkDB project, I would delete much of the code and instead focus on the problem  changefeeds, and build solutions on top of PostgreSQL (and maybe other databases). Im very thankful for the RethinkDB project for giving me the opportunity to spend time using this approach to DBs, so I know how it feels.

Regarding automatic failover and multiple nodes, what really matters is that the site works for users. Google Compute Engine is so reliable that a single VM tends to stay up for hundreds of days (!), or if it goes down, it comes back very quickly. PostgreSQL also now has a very good Master/Slave story. Its much more likely that of 6 nodes, something will go wrong with one of them, and though RethinkDB automatically fails over, it can take a while and leave clients in bad shape. Also, at our current rate of growth, and with current load, itll be a long time until one VM isnt sufficient to serve everything; our workload is 90% read and 10% write, so PostgreSQL Master/slave would also very effective for us for scaling out.

In conclusion, I hope that this post tells you as much about SMC as it does about databases. Other take-aways:

focus more on the real problem.

prepare to throw lots of code away; writing the first version(s) is not wasted effort, it brings essential insight

once you know what the code will do, its a lot easier to write it in a way that supports testing and refactoring

open source is critical for solving deep problems

dont be afraid to try alternative architecture

Discuss Hacker News
February 6, 2017

Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Irans Supreme National Security Council, said Jan. 16 that Iran does not want to topple the Saudi royal family because leaving an opening for the Islamic State to rise would not be any better.

Shamkhanis words did not go unnoticed in the regional and Lebanese political scenes.

The regional political disputes between Saudi Arabia and Iran have translated into political conflicts in Yemen, Bahrain, Iraq and Syria, affecting their allies in Lebanon. Serious confrontations broke out over the years between Lebanese political parties, specifically Iran-allied Hezbollah and the Saudi-backed Future Movement.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was crystal clear at the World Economic Congress in Davos on Jan. 18 when he said that Iran and Saudi Arabia must cooperate to end the conflicts in Syria and Yemen, just like they did in Lebanon when they worked to lift the obstacles for Lebanese presidential elections.

Zarifs words about the Saudi-Iranian understanding that allowed for the election of a president in Lebanon sparked a variety of reactions domestically. For his part, Christian Lebanese Forces Party leader Samir Geagea tweeted Jan. 19 that rumors that regional countries were behind the agreement to end the presidential stalemate are untrue.

Sadeq Nabulsi, a cleric and Lebanese University lecturer who often comments on Hezbollah, told Al-Monitor, Iran wants to strengthen ties with Saudi Arabia and reach an understanding to solve political and sectarian disputes.

He added, Iran also believes that rapprochement with the kingdom would ensure a solid base for positive ties with other Muslim countries, especially with the looming security threats [to Iran] in case of a vacuum in the kingdom or chaos instead of the current Al Saud family rule, in reference to warnings by Iranian officials about the potential advent of IS in the kingdom.

The positive impact of the recent Saudi-Iranian rapprochement on the Lebanese political environment was obvious in Hezbollah-backed Lebanese President Michel Aoun's first post-election visit to the kingdom Jan. 9.

Domestically, relations between Hezbollah and the Lebanese Forces seem to be warming. The two parties are old opponents in Lebanese politics, and established alliances with rival parties during the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990). Assassinations that remain unresolved judicially  such as that of former Prime Minister Rashid Karami on June 1, 1987, and the Ehden massacre of the Frangieh family on June 13, 1978  the abduction of Iranian diplomats on June 5, 1982, and the Lebanese Forces ties with Israel during the civil war, are also points of contention between both parties.

Geagea was tried in April 1994 for the assassination of Karami, who died after a bomb that was planted in the helicopter he took from Tripoli to Beirut exploded. His assassination marked a turning point in Lebanese politics. In 1999, the Judicial Council issued an execution sentence against Geagea in the case, then reduced it to life in prison with hard labor. However, he was granted an amnesty in 2005.

The Lebanese Forces and their allies, the Kataeb (Phalangists), took responsibility for the Ehden massacre, but the case was never tried. Hezbollah was Karamis ally and the ally of Sleiman Frangieh, the son of Tony Frangieh, who was killed in Ehden. The four Iranian diplomats, who were never seen again, were kidnapped by the Kataeb in northern Lebanon. These incidents have all contributed to the fragile relationship between Hezbollah and the Lebanese Forces.

The two parties have not officially met yet, but Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said for the first time Dec. 9 that the Lebanese Forces are an important component in Lebanon. Also, in mid-January, Geagea sent Social Affairs Minister Pierre Abu Assi, who is affiliated with the Lebanese Forces, to the Iranian Embassy in Beirut to pay respects over the death of Irans Expediency Council Chairman Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Another positive step in the relations between Hezbollah and the Lebanese Forces was Geageas welcoming of the potential Iranian donation for the Lebanese army to confront terrorism. Shamkhani had first mentioned the donation of military equipment when he met with former Lebanese Prime Minister Tammam Salam in Beirut on Sept. 30, 2014. Back then, the Lebanese Forces opposed and criticized the donation, which has yet to be deployed to Lebanon due to the political dispute surrounding it and the rejection of the parties opposing Iran.

Nabulsi told Al-Monitor that the rapprochement between Hezbollah and the Lebanese Forces opened a new page of understanding that would increase domestic resilience and contribute to resolving all former disruptive elements. The rapprochement also aims at anticipating any possible Israeli threats through unanimous approval [among the Lebanese political parties] of the resistances [Hezbollah] work. This would save Lebanon from repeating the 2006 Israeli war scenario when the internal rift was at its worst.

He added, Hezbollah and the Lebanese Forces are change-oriented parties and do not consider the Taif Accord the settlement they were waiting for after the civil war. They share Aouns vision for change and reform. Nabulsi noted, Hezbollah will not meet with the Lebanese Forces unless they are determined to make the dialogue fruitful on all levels.

The two parties refuse to talk publicly about the conditions of dialogue between them, but sources close to the parties leaderships told Al-Monitor that the ministerial and parliamentary interaction between them has begun and that their escalatory rhetoric against each other has calmed down. Concessions will be implicit and will only appear in unstated political stances that would solve the thorny issues, according to the sources.

Hezbollah sources told Al-Monitor that the memory of past wars and bloodshed will not impede the dialogue with the Lebanese Forces.

The Hezbollah sources added that the Lebanese Forces historical relationship with Israel is another looming issue based on the latters history in the Lebanese civil war

The stage is not completely set for the bilateral dialogue yet, but preparations are up and running. The stances Geagea takes in the coming days and months will determine whether a meeting will happen quickly, depending on his ability to address Hezbollahs concerns.
February 7, 2017

CAIRO  A 2,500-mile navigational shipping line connecting Lake Victoria and the Mediterranean Sea via the Nile River should be up and flowing in 2024, 11 years after it was first approved.

The African Union Steering Committee, headed by Egypt, is directing construction of the project, which is part of the Presidential Infrastructure Champion Initiative. The enterprise is being carried out under the umbrella of the New Partnership for Africa's Development.

The project entails building a shipping lane along the Nile River for small- and medium-size commercial vessels to boost bilateral trade among nine countries: Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Sudan and Egypt. The line will stretch more than 4,000 kilometers (about 2,500 miles) along the White Nile all the way to the Mediterranean Sea. The project was widely welcomed, as it will contribute to the countries' development, and has gained even more importance since Ethiopia's bid to join the project in January.

The undertaking is also considered a component of the Alexandria-Cape Town land road project. The land venture is currently operating under the umbrella of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and links southern Africa to its north. The road is about 10,000 kilometers (6,214 miles) long and goes through Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Gabon and South Africa. The African Development Bank and other international organizations are financing the road's operation, which is being handled jointly by several Egyptian, Saudi and Sudanese companies, among others.

"We still have to add the special specifications related to this international road, such as signs and markers, but all the infrastructure work has been completed, said an adviser to Samir Salam, Egypt's transportation minister for river transport affairs. The adviser told Al-Monitor that linking the land and water projects will facilitate moving people and goods along the African continent, and then to Europe through the Mediterranean Sea.

Nihal Adel, head of the African Ministers Council on Water's Technical Committee, told Al-Monitor the Nile navigational line plan will be implemented in four stages: pre-feasibility studies, feasibility studies, design and blueprints, and execution and operation.

Egypt completed a pre-feasibility study in May 2015 with $500,000 of funding. Just a few weeks ago, Egypt also signed a contract to conduct other feasibility studies with a German-Belgian international consultancy office, using $650,000 in funding from the African Development Bank. The cost of implementing the project will range between $10 billion and $12 billion, Adel said.

The pre-feasibility studies provided six alternatives for implementation. Al-Monitor obtained a copy of the study summary, drafted by the Egyptian Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, and approved by COMESA.

The second, third and fifth alternatives focus on overcoming obstacles posed by river areas where navigation is difficult by turning, in part, to land transportation, including a railway network in Uganda that would need to be built to link the Victoria Nile region to Lake Kyoga. This would also involve using the White Nile port in South Sudans capital, Juba, to receive shipments by rail and river navigation networks, relying on Egypt's 800-kilometer (497-mile) "shortcut" navigable river channel from the Abu Hamed area to Aswan, rather than the 2,300 kilometers (1,429 miles) by road.

Nader Masri, head of the unit overseeing the studies on the Nile navigational line, explained other details of those plans to Al-Monitor. The mechanisms aimed at overcoming river navigation obstacles in the Nile in the second, third and fifth alternatives to the project [also] consist of [rectifying] the Nile course, setting canal locks to overcome waterfalls and traffic areas of the dams in the Nile, and providing elevators to transport cargo from one level to another in the Nile.

Meanwhile, the first alternative relies on the course of the Nile for navigating ships and transporting goods, excluding Lake Victoria. It also relies on the rail network through Uganda and the LAPSSET program, which connects East and Central Africa to the Mombasa port in Kenya. (LAPSSET stands for Lamu Port, South Sudan, Ethiopia Transport Corridor.) The fourth alternative is similar to the first, but provides an opportunity to link Rwanda with Lake Victoria by including navigation across the lake and the Nile. The sixth alternative depends entirely on river navigation in the Nile and on construction of navigation lines on Lake Victoria, which connects Kenya, Tanzania and, through the Kagera River, Rwanda.

These three alternatives (the first, fourth and sixth) require linking Lake Edward and Lake Albert, and the construction of a navigation channel linking the Abu Hamed region of Sudan to Aswan.

From his office in Cairo, Egyptian Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Mohamed Abdel Ati told Al-Monitor that the Nile navigation project has become a development corridor, especially since linking with the Alexandria-Cape Town land route.

"Its main objective is to be linked to Europe and to solve the problem of poor infrastructure and the high cost of transportation, which reduces the economic viability of investment projects in the African continent, he said.

Objections have been raised in Cairo against the Nile navigation line. Haitham Awad, former head of the irrigation and hydraulics department at Alexandria University, told Al-Monitor the LAPSSET project in Kenya threatens the economic feasibility of the Nile navigational line. The Kenyan project will connect East and Central Africa to international markets via a line between Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan that ends at the sea port on the Indian Ocean, he said.

Trade and commerce will be faster and easier from Kenya, instead of Egypt."

Egypts former minister of water resources and irrigation, Mohamed Nasreddin Allam, told Al-Monitor political tensions and lack of security and stability in African countries present major challenges for such projects. For example, unrest in South Sudan has been impeding completion of the Jonglei Canal Project between that country and Egypt, which is designed to divert 12 billion cubic meters of water currently lost in swamps, Allam said. Also, since that project is bilateral and not regional, "Some foreign parties are hindering [its] execution, he said.

But, as for objections to the Nile navigation line, he said, The 10 countries [including Ethiopia] that are partners in the project will deploy concerted efforts to overcome any developments that may hamper its completion." In addition, studies have shown that the LAPSSET corridor in East Africa complements the navigational line project, he said.

Supporters say the efforts of the New Partnership for Africa's Development to execute the Mediterranean, Victoria-Cape Town development axis project would solve numerous problems in Africa and create a spirit of development cooperation under the banner Africa Without Borders.
February 8, 2017

Hamas representative in Iran, Khaled al-Qaddumi, tells Al-Monitor that progress has recently been made toward further developing relations between his movement and Tehran, as the latter continues to provide financial and military support to Hamas. However, he denied that there have been demands by any Arab countries for Hamas to cut ties with Iran, and stressed that no mediation efforts have been attempted by Iran to reconcile Hamas with the Syrian regime.

In a phone interview from Tehran, Qaddumi said that for the past few years he has been involved in Hamas Islamic and international relations, including dealing with some Western and southwestern Asian countries he did not name, taking part in Hamas delegations to Asian, African and European countries.

Qaddumi, who has been the head of Hamas office in Tehran since 2011, said, Hamas internal elections are expected to have a positive result on the partys relations with Iran, adding that meetings are regularly held between the two outside Iran, with Hamas maintaining contact with many Iranian official bodies such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Foreign Ministry and the office of the supreme leader.

The text of the interview follows:

Al-Monitor: How would you summarize Hamas-Iran relations up until early 2017, after years of ups and downs and in the aftermath of the Arab revolutions starting in 2011?

Qaddumi: The beginning of 2017 has ushered in a new era for Hamas-Iran relations that can be described as positive and forward-looking away from past complications, especially since Hamas does not interfere with the internal affairs of Islamic countries.

Today, Iran and Hamas wish to open a new page in order to live up to the serious challenges facing the Islamic world, mainly the Israeli occupation. The wise people in both Hamas and Iran realize the gravity of the upcoming period and the need to manage it with a fresh outlook guided by the Palestinian cause, support for the Palestinian people and standing up to the Israeli occupation.

Al-Monitor: Does Iran continue to offer financial support to Hamas and arm its military wing? Can you shed some light on the figures in this regard?

Qaddumi: I will not talk about numbers because I am neither capable nor supposed to disclose such confidential and sensitive information. However, in terms of financial and political support  and even military support  Irans offerings have not stopped.

That said, there are special circumstances underlying Hamas Arab and Muslim sponsors, which the party understands and respects. What we want is for Iran to keep Palestine as one of its priorities. Indeed, Irans support for the Palestinian cause is ongoing. But when it comes to the quantity and size, Hamas prefers to leave the figures for the sponsor to reveal. We are grateful to anyone who offers to help.

Al-Monitor: A long period of time has passed since the last Hamas political leaderships visit to Tehran in February 2016. Is there a visit planned any time soon?

Qaddumi: Meetings between Hamas and Iran have not stopped. The location is not an issue. What is important is the content. Hamas extended its condolences over the death of former Iranian President [Ali Akbar] Hashemi Rafsanjani in [early] January. Meetings are held whenever the need arises.

Al-Monitor: Some would argue that Iran is waiting for the upcoming Hamas elections and the election of a new leader other than Khaled Meshaal to end the dispute with Hamas. How accurate are these statements?

Qaddumi: This is a matter to be decided by Hamas alone, not Iran or others. Our party is an institutional one and decisions are made after consultations. Hamas is a democratic organization and elected leaders reflect the will of its cadres. Elections are held every four years on both leadership and geographic levels. Any decision should represent the party as a whole.

Our relations with Iran are based on their ability to face Israel and support the resistance, as well as common interests. The wise in Hamas and Iran are aware of the upcoming challenge and the reality of the war with the Israeli occupation. Therefore, the issue of changing the partys leadership or internal elections is irrelevant. Nevertheless, these elections will largely contribute to consolidating the principles of democracy and consultation within Hamas, and eventually reflect more positively on renewing the partys relations with its Arab and Islamic entourage.

Al-Monitor: How does Hamas perceive its future relationship with Iran amid the sectarian tension between Sunnis and Shiites in the region?

Qaddumi: This tension is part of the many setbacks the region has been facing, and it impacts the overall relations between the stakeholders. However, Hamas  in its relationship with Iran  relies on what is best for the struggle with the Israeli occupation. We are keen to mitigate this sectarian tension without biased interference. This is why Hamas-Iran relations help scale down and deal with the sectarian tension. Hamas would play a positive role in bridging the gap within the Islamic world.

Al-Monitor: Is it true that Iran is leading mediation efforts to achieve reconciliation between Hamas and the Syrian regime?

Qaddumi: This issue has not been raised thus far.

Al-Monitor: Some Iranian voices have been raised in criticism of Hamas, laying out terms for restoring relations with the party because the latter has yet to make a decision on whether or not it should back Irans regional policy, preferring to remain neutral. Does this criticism have any effect?

Qaddumi: No country can impose terms on Hamas despite the regions political polarization. Im not talking only about Iran, but the whole region. Such polarization aims to sway Hamas into taking this side or the other. However, this pressure does not affect us since we are keen to have balanced relations with all regional stakeholders.

Al-Monitor: Does Hamas maintain a relationship with the Iranian state or is it only limited to certain official bodies such as the IRGC and the office of the supreme leader?

Qaddumi: There are established channels between Hamas and Iran, although we are open to all the Iranian people and decision-makers. The message we convey is intended for Iran  as a people and leadership. Official channels such as the IRGC, the Foreign Ministry and the office of the supreme leader have always been there to facilitate the process. This is why Hamas holds deep respect for official channels and all levels of decision-making in Iran.

Al-Monitor: Does Hamas receive demands from other countries in the region to permanently cut its ties with Iran?

Qaddumi: Hamas environment is severely polarized, but none of the Arab countries demanded that we cut our ties with a certain country or another, such as Iran. This issue depends on Hamas organizational decisions that define its relationship with each country as well the partys contribution to the resistance of the Palestinian people. The way Hamas manages its relations with every stakeholder  be it Iran or others  dictates that we maintain balanced relations with everyone.

Al-Monitor: What does Hamas think of Irans support for some armed groups in the Gaza Strip such as Harakat al-Sabireen [Movement for Supporting Palestine]?

Qaddumi: The Palestinians have the right to seek all the available means of resistance against the Israeli occupation. Hamas wishes to unite the arms against the occupation, but the most important factor is coordination between all the resistance groups in Gaza to agree on how to properly deal with the occupation. We have not yet encountered any problem in terms of managing and coordinating military action against the occupation in Gaza.
February 9, 2017

With the advent of President Donald Trump, Iran finds itself on familiar ground: facing sanctions over its missile programs and an American president who is promising all options are on the table. With the Trump administration, the possibility of direct military conflict seems more likely. Former President Barack Obamas outreach to Iranian leaders and his assurances that the United States was not interested in regime change assuaged fears such that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei consented to a nuclear deal and limited bilateral negotiations. Trumps hard line against Iran not one month into his presidency, however, will force Irans leaders to recalibrate the best strategy to respond to this burgeoning threat domestically. And voices in Iran who are in favor of de-escalation will need to try much harder to make themselves heard.

One of those voices will certainly be former President Mohammad Khatami. During a speech to war veterans and former prisoners of war Feb. 7, Khatami called for national reconciliation given that Iran is facing an uncertain future with a Trump presidency. The Reformist president who led Iran from 1997 to 2005 described Trumps mentality as very extreme, harsh and quarrelsome. He warned that the combination of Trump and Republican control of Congress poses problems and dangers for Iran.

According to Khatami, while much of world opinion and many Americans are currently opposed to Trump, this could gradually change over time. He urged Iranians to not make mistakes or give excuses to the Trump administration to garner international support to launch attacks on Iran. Given the uncertain predicament Iran is in, Khatami concluded that this is the best time for an environment of national reconciliation to prevail inside the country and for everyone to stand together.

Khatami, who has been under an official media ban after siding with the Reformists during the 2009 contested elections, has remained one of the more popular politicians in Iran. His support for Hassan Rouhani in the 2013 election was one of the key factors in getting the uncharismatic long-time government bureaucrat elected into office. With many Iranians not yet seeing the economic benefits of the nuclear deal, the leaders of Irans 2009 Green Movement still jailed and many activists from those protests exiled or sidelined, a national reconciliation project is one of the few steps that could open up political space for those sidelined.

Ali Bagheri, the former deputy secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and one of the top nuclear negotiators under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, criticized those who expressed support for Khatamis idea of national reconciliation, particularly under the excuse that it is necessary under foreign threats. According to Bagheri, those who were part of the 2009 protests against Ahmadinejad's re-election were part of the enemys camp.

The timing of Khatamis speech is important not only because it comes shortly after Trump entered the White House, but also because it took place at a time when Reformists are publicly debating replacements and vying for influence in the absence of their greatest benefactor, the late Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Reformists, and to a large degree moderates, are without a single voice who can speak forcefully and loudly to push for compromise and de-escalation.

The search for a similar voice who is unafraid to criticize Irans hard-liners will likely be a long one. Various Reformists have presented their own ideas on how to replace Rafsanjanis role. Ali Akbar Nategh-Nuri, a former speaker of parliament and interior minister, urged Reformists to come back into the fold, to resolve differences quietly and know the value of the revolution and the supreme leader. Tehran professor Sadegh Zibakalam believes that someone of Rafsanjanis stature cannot be replaced, and therefore Reformists need to convene a leadership council consisting of Khatami, Nategh-Nuri, Seyyed Hassan Khomeini and Abollah Nouri.
February 9, 2017

As much as the United States' new tone toward Iran is worrisome, and as much as the Islamic Republic's Jan. 29 ballistic missile test is disconcerting, Tehran and Washington are unlikely to collide directly.

In both capitals, decision-makers see an urgent need for harsh rhetoric  albeit for different reasons. The Iranians see a need to show resilience vis-a-vis an explicitly hostile US administration. Meanwhile, the latter wants to make clear to both its domestic and international audience that the Obama era is over. This involves signaling that the easing of tensions with Iran has ended. It also involves reassuring regional allies such as Saudi Arabia and Israel that Washington would not engage in a rapprochement with Tehran at their expense.

Indeed, it should not come as a surprise that US national security adviser Michael Flynn's warning that Iran "is officially on notice" came shortly after lengthy phone calls between the White House and both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud.

But escalating rhetoric aside, the reality is that US policy toward Iran has largely remained intact.

In the 13 months since the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran has repeatedly conducted ballistic missile tests. And it is entitled to do so. In UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2231, which endorses the nuclear deal, Iran is "called upon" not to carry out tests of missiles "designed" to carry nuclear weapons. There is no legally binding prohibition of such launches, unlike in UNSCR 1929  the last and most harsh UN resolution against Iran over its nuclear program  which is superseded by UNSCR 2231.

To be clear, the nuclear deal does not address Iran's missile program. Moreover, the world powers with which Iran negotiated UNSCR 2231  apart from the United States  did not display any appetite to insert legally binding text on Iran's missile tests.

Thus, as provocative as the missile tests may be, it is hard to see them providing a legal basis for the United States to spearhead new multilateral sanctions, leaving Washington with the option of adopting unilateral sanctions, which it did on Feb. 3.

While it took the Trump administration less than two weeks to slap sanctions on Iran, the idea that there was a sanctions freeze in Obama's final year in office is inaccurate. In fact, the latest sanctions were prepared by the previous administration.

In January 2016, not long after the implementation of the nuclear deal, changes were made to the Visa Waiver Program, which excluded Iranian dual nationals and anyone who had visited Iran in the preceding five years. Moreover, last December, Obama refrained from moving to veto the congressional vote on a 10-year extension of the Iran Sanctions Act. While these sanctions are unrelated to Iran's nuclear program, they undoubtedly undermine the impact of the lifting of nuclear-related sanctions.

Iran has reacted to the escalating rhetoric and sanctions by stressing that its missile program is defensive in nature, promising retaliatory sanctions, and by carrying out new military drills.

Yet, there is little incentive for Iran to greatly alter the status quo. Iranian leaders see the JCPOA as much more than just about the United States. It is an international arrangement with world powers  including the European Union, which Iran holds in high regard as a multinational institution. They see this arrangement as beneficial to Iran's economic and security calculations. Foreign investment, albeit limited due to remaining US sanctions, is trickling in. The EU oil embargo has been lifted and major contracts in the area of petrochemicals, civic aviation and transport are increasingly sealed. Additionally, the JCPOA provides a sense of security to Iran. It is highly unlikely for any party to the agreement to green-light military action by another party against Iran. Hence, Iran has little incentive not to abide by the nuclear deal.

As such, while the cycle of escalating rhetoric is discomforting at a time of deep uncertainty and conflict in the Middle East, it is important to see that it has its limits. Short of outright regime change, the United States has in fact rather limited options to weaken and contain Iran.

Given its experiences in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, it is unlikely that the United States will launch full-scale unilateral military action against Iran. It could move to arm a third country to hit Iranian infrastructure. This was tried with Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Today, Saudi Arabia could be such a third country. But given the lack of appetite in Riyadh for direct confrontation with Tehran, and considering the downward spiral in the Saudi military intervention against Yemen  the poorest country in the region  it is unthinkable that Saudi Arabia would take such a step. Israel has repeatedly threatened to attack Iranian nuclear sites. But considering the low chances of success and the potentially dire consequences, including retaliatory attacks by Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, it can be argued that such threats primarily serve a political purpose.

Less costly measures aimed at weakening and containing Iran, such as sanctions, have been tried and tested. The Obama administration managed to put in place an unprecedented multilateral sanctions regime targeting Tehran. Yet, it was under those very sanctions that Irans nuclear program evolved into what the international community came to perceive as a major threat to global security. Consequently, the Obama administration tried diplomacy. And it worked. The JCPOA reduced the capacity and increased the transparency of Iran's nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of nuclear-related sanctions. And as the International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly certified, the deal is working.

Bearing in mind the nuclear deal is fulfilling its objectives, the limited military options to contain Iran, and perhaps most of all the likely US inability to forge an international consensus against Iran in case of its unilateral breach of the accord, the security establishments of both Israel and Saudi Arabia have publicly urged Washington not to dismantle the JCPOA.

While reveling in the newfound reassurances from Washington, it can thus be argued that Riyadh and Tel Aviv understand the limits of the cycle of escalation and mostly take solace in Trump's unwillingness to realize their nightmares under Obama.

In this vein, the Trump administration can be expected to do whatever it can to minimize the economic benefits Iran will reap under the JCPOA. It will likely seek to discredit Iran's regional policies to prevent the normalization of the Islamic Republic's ties with the world, while also diminishing the political capital the deal affords Iran. But it will do this short of breaching the accord.

Thus, while likely to squabble about respective obligations and further drift away from rapprochement, neither Iran nor the United States has the incentive or ability to take the new cycle of tension to a military confrontation.
February 9, 2017

Even after the Israel Prison Service (IPS) transferred 30 Hamas prisoners from Nafha Prison to other facilities, as reported by Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV on Feb. 2, there is still a feeling of unrest in those facilities in which Hamas prisoners are incarcerated. The moving of prisoners from one facility to another was attempted in the past to deal with riots that broke out in security prisons and to break the centers of power that emerged among the Palestinian prisoners.

Over the years, this method proved itself and became a routine preventive measure. Whenever a cohesive and influential leadership surfaced and began to accumulate status and power within the prison walls, its members were moved to a new environment, where they were forced to re-establish their reputations among the more veteran prisoners.

Preceding the transfer of these 30 prisoners were two incidents in which prison guards were stabbed by Hamas prisoners. The first took place in the Ketziot facility. The second occurred in Nafha Prison, which was created in 1980 near the remote Israeli town of Mitzpe Ramon in the south, in an effort to isolate the prisoners' leaders from the rest of the incarcerated population. Originally, the movement's leaders were transferred there from other prisons across the country. Now Nafha holds the most egregious offenders, sentenced to lengthy prison terms, usually life.

According to the IPS, the fact that the two incidents occurred simultaneously on Feb. 1 is proof that they were influenced and coordinated by sources outside the prison walls. The stabbing of the guards led to the worsening of conditions for all Hamas prisoners, which in turn resulted in clashes with the prison authorities. Leaders of the Hamas prisoners were put in solitary confinement, while sanctions were imposed on the other prisoners. These included the cancellation of family visits, bans on purchases at the prison canteen and transfers to other prisons. All of this was intended to shake up the balance of power between the various prison wings.

The IPS believes that the tense atmosphere among Hamas prisoners, as expressed in the frequent clashes with the guards and attempted attacks within the prisons, is the direct result of an order from the leadership of the military wing of Hamas in Gaza. The Hamas military leaders want to instigate conflict between the prison administration and the incarcerated Hamas members.

Palestinian prisoners are kept in different wings, based on their organizational affiliation. Qadura Fares, the director general of the Palestinian Prisoner Club in Ramallah, told Al-Monitor that there are some 7,000 Palestinian security prisoners currently held by Israel, including 1,800 Hamas prisoners. He said that there is almost no direct contact between Hamas prisoners and prisoners from Fatah or other organizations, though they sometimes find ways to pass messages to each other. This occurs mainly when they feel a common threat to the conditions of their imprisonment.

Fares said that relationships between the various groups within the prison reflect the relationships between their groups outside the prison walls. In other words, tensions between Hamas and Fatah and the separation of the Gaza Strip from the West Bank are expressed in the quality of relations between the prisoners and the development of a local prison leadership.

Elections for the Hamas prison leadership were held in January. These are democratic elections, which take place in all Israeli security prisons. The person with the most votes is appointed "emir," or leader of the prisoners' wing of Hamas. Together with the political, military and diaspora wings they make up a movement with many heads.

The winner of the last elections was Muhammad Arman, who was a member of the cell that served as an intermediary between Hamas and the Silwan cell, which launched a series of major attacks during the second intifada (2000-2005). Arman received 36 life sentences for his role in the murder of 36 Israelis. Abbas al-Sayad, the planner of the attack on the Park Hotel in Netanya in 2002, was elected deputy leader of the prisoners.

A source in the Palestinian Authority claims that these elections caused considerable tension among the prisoners. The two people elected to leadership positions are not only the most dangerous prisoners, they also advocate the harshest and most uncompromising attitude toward the IPS and the local prison leadership. The Palestinian source also confirmed that unrest among Hamas prisoners in Israeli prisons was, in fact, ordered from above in order to foment turmoil throughout the prison and to motivate Israel to agree to a full-blown prisoner exchange, instead of the humanitarian prisoner exchange proposed by Israel and rejected by Hamas.

Fares claims that current tensions can be attributed to the punitive measure that the Israeli government has decided to take against Hamas prisoners, adding that these tensions could intensify and spread to the other prisons, too. He is referring to the Jan. 1 security Cabinet decision to subject Hamas prisoners to harsher conditions. This was intended to pressure the movement's leadership to agree to a sensible deal that would result in the return of the bodies of soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin, who were killed in the 2014 Gaza war, as well as two Israeli civilians who are currently being held captive by Hamas.

In practice, it seems as if worsening prison conditions failed to provide the impetus as hoped. Instead it resulted in unrest, while the leadership of the Hamas military wing dug its heels in and refused to budge on its demands.

An Israeli security source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that the tense atmosphere in the prisons, the violent propaganda film posted recently by Hamas on social networks and the latest rocket fire in an attempt to heat up the sector are all proof that Hamas is facing a huge crisis and that it is trying to deflect local attention away from the movement's leaders. The source said that Israel should act wisely and cautiously, "because it has long been proved that even if neither of the parties is interested in a large-scale escalation or armed conflict, it would take just one mistake for everything to spin out of control," as happened in Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
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February 9, 2017

One has to go back in time a bit to understand the force of the slap in the face that Israel delivered to the international community in general and to Britain in particular on Feb. 6.

Six weeks before the ruling coalition orchestrated Knesset approval of the so-called Regularization law, which essentially allows the state to expropriate private Palestinian land and hand it over to Jews, the UN Security Council had condemned Israel for expropriating land on the West Bank, including in East Jerusalem, in violation of international humanitarian law. Resolution 2334, adopted unanimously on Dec. 23 by 14 Security Council members, with the United States abstaining, demanded that Israel respect the road map that the Middle East Quartet adopted in 2003 in Security Council Resolution 1515, including a total freeze of settlement activity.

A diplomatic source who requested anonymity told Al-Monitor that not only did Britain vote for Resolution 2334, but the top echelons in London also implored one of their Commonwealth partners, New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English, to join the sponsors of the proposed resolution condemning Israeli settlements. It is not known whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took advantage of his Feb. 6 visit to 10 Downing Street to protest Prime Minister Theresa Mays contribution to Resolution 2334. With the theft law, to quote Likud Knesset member Benny Begin, about to be voted on in Jerusalem, Netanyahu did not dare divulge the contents of his talk with May about the UN resolution condemning the occupation in general and the land-grabbing settlement enterprise in particular.

Last November, a month prior to the dramatic Security Council vote, Netanyahu had warned members of his Cabinet that the proposed law could result in criminal probes against senior Israeli government figures by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit had already informed him that he would not be able to defend the law against the petitions likely to be filed with the High Court. So what does a prime minister who calls himself a strong leader do? He finds a way to be absent for the vote, thus avoiding responsibility for the nearly unanimous vote by his party members  Begin excepted  in favor of the law. Netanyahu claims to have been held up in London because his meeting with Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson ran late.

Now Netanyahu is hiding behind the apron of the High Court. A day after the Knesset vote, the Foreign Ministry, which Netanyahu heads, sent Israeli embassies a list of talking points on how the bill will now be scrutinized by the nations top justices, who will probably strike it down. Netanyahu appears to have forgotten to send a copy to Tourism Minister Yariv Levin, who has taken credit for the legislation. Levin announced that he expects the High Court justices not to intervene in a law legislated by the Knesset. He argued that such interference by the court would constitute a tough blow to democracy. Interestingly, President Donald Trump, not known for his support of judicial meddling in administration policies, is the only world leader who took up the shield of let's wait until the relevant court ruling.

Will Netanyahu take to task his close political associate Levin, who represents him on the Ministerial Legislation Committee? How will the prime minister overcome his attorney generals refusal to represent the state before the High Court? Will he go along with appointing external legal counsel, such as controversial attorney Yoram Sheftel, to defend the land theft bill? What will Netanyahu do if the Palestinian landowners victimized by the bill refuse to cooperate with him and decide to forgo the services of Israels High Court in favor of The Hague? Some Israeli human rights organizations also called this week to let the ICC deal with the issue of a law imposed by a state on land over which it has no sovereignty.

When all else fails, Netanyahu reverts to his classic victimization ploy. He took the opportunity of his UK visit to incite against human rights organizations battling the Israeli occupation and exposing the injustices of the settlements. As soon as he came out of his meeting with May, he publicly rebuked her, posting to his Facebook page, I asked the British prime minister today how they would have felt if I were using Israeli government money to fund organizations that seek to denounce British troops as war criminals? Or that call for independence for Wales or Scotland, using Israeli government money?

How much demagogy can one cram into a single sentence? Does the British government send its troops to defend the theft of lands owned by Scottish citizens? Has it been holding Wales under military occupation for 50 years?

The following day, Netanyahu used the occasion of a visit by Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel to his office in Jerusalem to announce that he had also asked him to ensure that his government stop funding organizations like Breaking the Silence, BTselem and Adalah. He ranted, I think its high time! And I will continue to fight the lies and to do everything to protect our soldiers! Netanyahus rebuke did not spare Israel a British government announcement condemning passage of the Regularization law. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, considered Israels staunchest supporter in Europe, did not remain indifferent either.

Even taking the Iranian threat to destroy Israel out of mothballs failed to distract attention from the occupation. Netanyahu had tried this maneuver on May in London. In a few days, he will test it on the new American president in Washington. When Netanyahu waged a fight in favor of a controversial framework for Israeli natural gas resource development, he boasted, When I want something, I get it. As far as the settlements and the theft of private land goes, Trump may not want the same outcome as Netanyahu. In a competition between them, the winner is clear.
February 8, 2017

GAZIANTEP, Turkey  Mohamed Fadel owns a small clothing shop selling ready-to-wear clothing for women and children in the old market in this city in southern Turkey. He opens his shop for more than 12 hours a day to serve his customers, mostly Syrians living in Turkey.

The merchant did not pay much attention to US President Donald Trump's recent statements regarding the creation of safe zones in Fadel's homeland, Syria, in an ABC News interview broadcast Jan. 26.

Fadel, 52, hails from Aleppo in northern Syria. Back home, he owned a textile factory. After the onset of the war, he left his home and all of his properties in Aleppo and fled to Gaziantep, where he has been living for four years. He decided to open a clothing shop since this fell within his previous line of work.

The ongoing war divided Aleppo between a western part controlled by pro-Assad regime forces, and an eastern part held by the Free Syrian Army (FSA) factions. However, on Dec. 23, the FSA forces were defeated and fully retreated from Aleppo.

Fadel said of the safe zones contemplated by Trump, The borders of such zones will be closed while industrial and commercial activities need large cities, thriving markets and open internal and external borders to prosper.

Noting that the zones in question would most probably be located in Aleppo's northern countryside and eastern countryside, he said, Most of these areas are rural and disconnected. I would not work or move to live in such areas.

The war, ongoing for six years now, has turned Syria into separate patches of land, each controlled by a warring party, the Assad regime, the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG), the Islamic State (IS), factions of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra.

Noor Burhan, program manager at the Center for Civil Society Development and director of I am She Network, said, The safe zones are only temporary and not well defined. We have been keen on establishing such zones, but following the control of all these extremist groups we fear to return to Syria.

She added, The stability of these zones is far-fetched since this is linked to the general situation in the entire country, where there is no comprehensive solution or a political transition.

Gaziantep is home to 300,000 Syrian refugees, mostly from Aleppo. They are leading their lives away from the raging war in their country. Some have opened shops and small businesses, while others are working in small Syrian restaurants and bakeries, which have become widespread, attracting more and more customers, especially since everyone speaks Arabic, making communication easier with the rest of the Syrians in the city.

Samir al-Ali, 26, who graduated from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Aleppo in mid-2012, told his story, including how he managed to flee the city four years ago when he refused to join the regime army or fight along the armed opposition.

Ali and his wife live in Gaziantep, where he works as a waiter in a Syrian restaurant in the city. Will jobs be available in these safe zones? Will there be social justice? Will these zones be protected by organized forces? he wondered in an interview with Al-Monitor.

He raised doubts about these possibilities in the safe zones. I escaped Aleppo so I dont have to join the army or take up arms. Today, I am not working in my field of expertise, yet I am not considering moving back to Syria while the war is still raging there, Ali added.

Trump said in the Jan. 26 interview that he will "absolutely do safe zones in Syria."

Mohammed Anwar Majni, 42, a judge who works as a legal adviser of the National Documentation Office offering free documentation services to Syrians in Turkey and in Syria, told Al-Monitor, International conventions have not addressed the issue of safe zones but the serious human rights violations at the hands of the regime, the crimes against humanity and war crimes. There are no decisions or mechanisms aimed at preventing the daily attacks on Syrians.

Majni is from Aleppo, where he used to serve as a judge in the court of Afrin in the countryside of Aleppo. He left for Cairo in July 2012, and a year later he moved to Gaziantep.

Majni said that moving to the safe zones is a far-fetched idea for him. I am from Aleppo. Any other place will not feel as home for me and my family. I will return to Aleppo only after the fall of this totalitarian regime, he said.

He added that said safe zones will not live up to the demands of Syrians. Freedom and dignity were the goal behind the eruption of the revolution, but our country is plagued with chaos of arms and international conflict of interests over our land, he said.

Ruwaida Kanaan, 36, said she is planning on leaving for France after spending three years in Gaziantep and hopes the war in Syria will come to an end soon.

She works as a broadcaster for Rozana Radio, a Syrian radio station, broadcasting from studios in Gaziantep. She told Al-Monitor, Operation Euphrates Shield areas, Jarablus, Marea and Azaz are almost safe zones, but I believe that they are under the control of the Turkish army and therefore I cannot live or work there.

She said of Trump's announcement, If safe zones are created on the ground, controlled and protected by Syrians, then I will seriously reconsider my decision to travel to Europe, provided these zones are part of Syria, and not part of Turkey. Syrians living in the Turkish city of Gaziantep fear Trump's initiative to establish safe zones inside Syria would lead to division and a redrawing of the complex map of the zones of influence and confrontation areas in the war-torn country.
February 9, 2017

WASHINGTON  Underneath the drama and chaos of the Donald Trump White House  the rival power centers, combative press conferences mercilessly mocked on Saturday Night Live, leaked transcripts of Trump's phone calls to allied leaders, and the often inflammatory tweeter-in-chief, fuming over the latest perceived insult while watching "Morning Joe"  a cadre of deeply serious, tested military intellectuals at the National Security Council is shaping Trump's Middle East policies.

Unclear, as yet, is if they have a boss who will be receptive to their efforts and searing battlefield experiences. Those include helping devise the strategy to quell the post-US invasion Iraq insurgency, and later seeing those gains lost following the US withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 and subsequent rise of the Islamic State (IS). For all their experience, there is a tendency, as each new US administration comes in with its critique of its predecessor, to refight the last war, even as the situation on the ground has evolved.

While Trump's national security adviser, retired Army Lt. Gen. and former Defense Intelligence Agency director Michael Flynn, was visible during the 2016 US presidential campaign  including, controversially, leading chants of "Lock Her Up!"  the fellow former senior military intelligence officers who have taken top jobs advising him on Middle East policy at the NSC are widely respected in military circles, if less known or visible to the general public.

Retired US Army Col. Derek Harvey, who leads the NSC Middle East team as the special assistant to the president and White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, is credited with figuring out the nature and composition of the Iraqi insurgency that erupted after the US invasion in 2003 and dissolution of the Iraqi army.

Col. Joel Rayburn, who serves as the NSC director on Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and Syria, is an army intelligence officer who has written the US military's official account of the Iraq war, as well as the publicly available 2015 book, "Iraq after America: Strongmen, Sectarians, Resistance."

Retired US Army Col. Dr. Michael Bell, who serves as the NSC director for Gulf Affairs, served as an officer in Europe and the Middle East and as a strategist to the Joint Staff. He came to the NSC after most recently serving as chancellor of the College of International Security Affairs at National Defense University. (Yael Lempert, a career US foreign service officer who served as the Obama NSC senior director for the Levant, Israel and Egypt, is currently holding over as the NSC senior director for Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Palestinian issues, sources said. White House and NSC press officers did not respond to queries from Al-Monitor on the appointments.)

Harvey and Rayburn were handpicked by David Petraeus, the former US commander in Iraq and Afghanistan and later CIA director, to devise the surge strategy for overcoming the Iraq insurgency and stabilizing Iraq, said former CIA and NSC official Ken Pollack. Pollack, now with the Brookings Institution, told Al-Monitor, "These guys are all Petraeus' proteges."

"These are pretty unusual military officers," he said. "Derek [Harvey] and Joel [Rayburn] have a tremendous knowledge of the Middle East. Petraeus picked them to go back to Iraq to do the surge, Ph.D.-level warfare," Pollack added. He needed really smart guys, who think beyond the normal, military way of thinking.

"They were all instrumental in the surge," Pollack said. "[They realized] it was about the political and economic dynamics, and the military protecting good people, as much as killing bad people  in fact, de-emphasizing killing bad people, and recognizing that military force is only ever one part of the equation."

According to another expert, Harvey "was the military intelligence officer on the ground who shrewdly figured out the nature of the Iraqi insurgency when everyone was grappling with it in the early days of the Iraq war," said Hassan Hassan, who interviewed Harvey for his book, co-authored with Michael Weiss, "ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror."

Harvey, then working for Combined Joint Task Force 7, the US headquarters in Iraq, "found that the Sunni insurgency was a combination of Saddam loyalists, Iraqi Sunnis who were disaffected by the post-war de-Baathification policies and the disbanding of the Iraqi military that rendered thousands jobless overnight, Hassan told Al-Monitor by email, drawing from his book. "With those, there were former Baathists who were radicalized during the 1990s as a result of the Faith Campaign that Saddam Hussain inaugurated in the wake of the First Gulf War."

"The conclusion was that it was the Sunni Arab identity, and the search for lost power and prestige, that motivated the Sunni insurgency," Hassan said of Harvey's early insights into the motivations for the Iraqi revolt.

Harvey joined the DIA as a civilian analyst in 2006 after serving 26 years as an army intelligence officer specializing in the Middle East. After working with him in Iraq, Petraeus, then-US commander in Afghanistan, later enlisted Harvey "to create his own intelligence agency inside [US Central Command]," Bob Woodward reported in "Obama's Wars." Based out of Centcom headquarters in Tampa, Florida, and working 15-hour days, Harvey concluded "the [Afghanistan] war could be won, but the US government would have to make monumental long-term commitments for years that might be unpalatable with voters," Woodward wrote.

Watching US gains made against the insurgency in Iraq lost after Obama withdrew US forces in 2011 was a deeply frustrating experience for many of the Petraeus proteges and others in the Centcom alumni community, around Tampa, where Harvey was based as a consultant and professor at the University of South Florida in recent years after retiring from the DIA, according to a think tank expert who briefed Harvey on his research.

"I think in order to understand Derek [Harvey], you have to understand his milieu post-government in Tampa, interacting with [Special Operations Command]/Centcom folks," the think tank expert, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Al-Monitor. "Tampa has a very particular perspective on how it all played out."

"They think we lost Iraq," the expert said. "That Obama weakened our position."

When the expert briefed him in the 2014 time frame, Harvey's questions were about "Iran, Iran, Iran," the think tank expert said. "He was very focused on, how do you push back on their [Iran's] malign activities."

Harvey was also "a big advocate for Flynn" when Flynn was at the DIA, the think tank expert said. Flynn, who served as DIA chief from 2012 to 2014, was reportedly forced out a year early for clashing with civilian intelligence chiefs, including the director of national intelligence. Flynn, 59, has spoken of frustration with what he described as the Obama administration's inattention to what he saw as the growing instability in Iraq and the rise of IS, and alleged that intelligence reports reaching the White House during his tenure as DIA chief were, in his view, downplaying the growing threat.

"I read the Presidential Daily Briefs and the minutes of the National Security Council's deputies meetings, and it was very, very clear to me that reporting on the terrorism threat that came up the intelligence community's chain of command was very different from what was being presented at the top levels of government," Flynn told journalist James Kittfield, in a story published by Politico on Oct. 16, "How Mike Flynn became Americas angriest general." Flynn said, "That intelligence made it very clear that Al-Qaeda and its affiliates were not on the run, but were in fact rapidly expanding. The number of terrorist attacks were on the rise, and Iraq was starting to burn again. So that was Obama's big lie  that the enemy was on the run, and we were beating these guys."

According to associates, Harvey was sympathetic to Flynn's concerns.

Harvey "was considered to be brilliant, a bit pugnacious  he kind of has a personality profile similar to General Flynn's, the expert said. "Very sharp. When they are convinced that they know the truth of something, they go at it very hard.  That sometimes created problems and burnt bridges he had at DIA."

Harvey and Rayburn also share Flynn's dim view of Iran, including from their experience witnessing Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-backed militias' killing fellow US and allied forces in Iraq with improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

"All of these guys come out of that military experience, in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the Iranians were not on our side," Pollack said. "The Iranians were actively supporting the people who were killing us. And so, what they have seen, is Iran waging warfare against us with relative impunity."

Harvey and Rayburn were frustrated by Obama's walking away from Iraq, and thinking that if you "walk away, it will get better," Pollack said.

"They all worked in Iraq," a former diplomat from the region, speaking not for attribution, said, referring to Harvey and Rayburn and their team. "They lost many soldiers and colleagues in Iraq due to Iranian IEDs."

"They know the complexity," the former regional diplomat continued. "They differentiate between Islamism and the tribal system and just normal people. They worked in Iraq many years. They have good, wise [views]."

Recently, they are thinking how to put more pressure on Assad, he added. "How to do safe zones, no-fly zones, [what are the] options, geographically, where they could be.  They don't trust Russia."

If the Obama NSC was more intellectual, even professorial, Flynn's team has "a better, more operational understanding on the ground," the former diplomat said. Ideally, there would be "someone in between" the intellectual and operational, he added.

Given the Iranian-backed IEDs and militia attacks that targeted US troops in Iraq, and reported Iranian pressure on then-Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that scuttled options for a US follow on force in Iraq in 2011, it is notable that there have not been significant Iranian-backed attacks on US forces that have returned to Iraq since 2014 to help Iraqi and Kurdish forces combat IS.

As Flynn went to the White House podium last week to warn "that we are officially putting Iran on notice," following a Jan. 29 Iranian ballistic missile test, senior administration officials said Iran has a choice to make about its "behavior in the region" that is destabilizing.

But as each new US administration comes in with its critique of its predecessor  Obama with Bushs decision to invade Iraq in 2003, Trump with Obamas leaving a vacuum in Iraq that was filled by IS and also of Bushs decision to invade Iraq  is there a risk that Petraeus proteges are fighting the war they left a few years ago, even as the situation on the ground has evolved, and US and Iranian forces in Iraq seem to be observing something like a cold truce?

These are "not guys who stopped paying attention to the Middle East when Obama came into office," Pollack said. "They are well aware that Iran-backed militias are not attacking the US [in Iraq]. That is not lost on midlevel officers."

The issue, Pollack said, is how much influence they will have.

"These are really smart, able guys  [who will ensure] their boss gets the full range of views," Pollack said. "But they do not give the orders."
Here are some of today's top AL.com business headlines:

ALDI is embarking on a significant plan to remodel and expand more than 1,300 stores in the U.S. in the next three years.

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Upscale eyeglass retailer Warby Parker will open this Spring in the Pizitz building, the company has announced.

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Donald Trump has waded into the controversy over companies dropping his daughter's fashion line.

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Popular ridesharing program Lyft is in the process of hiring drivers to launch in Birmingham, multiple drivers tell AL.com.

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An Illinois company is recalling specific lots of dog food after discovering the product could contain Pentobarbital, a euthanasia drug for animals.

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Home decor chain At Home will hold a grand opening for its first Mobile superstore on Friday, Feb. 17 - but interested shoppers can get a look starting this Thursday, when the store begins a soft opening.

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Public officials, downtown residents and workers gathered Wednesday for Publix grand opening.

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A Homewood office building has been sold for $1.62 million.

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For more news, visit AL.com/business.
Warby Parker

The exterior of the Pizitz Building on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2016.

(Kelly Poe/kpoe@al.com)

Upscale eyeglass retailer Warby Parker will open this Spring in the Pizitz building, the company has announced.

The store will open this Spring. It'll be the first location in Alabama for the New York City-based brand. A representative declined to give any more details.

Signage went up at the Pizitz building this week. Warby Parker has around 30 locations nationwide.

Bayer Properties is redeveloping the historic 1923 building into a mixed-use project with a massive food hall, office space and 143 apartments on top. The project has been under construction for nearly two years, and residents began moving into some of the apartments late last year.

The building at 1821 2nd Ave. had been empty since 1988 when the flagship Pizitz store for the Birmingham-based retail chain closed.

A Bayer spokeswoman declined to speak to AL.com for this story.
Days after Gadsden police arrested a man they say was involved in a Nigerian credit card scam, investigators say another man narrowly avoided becoming entangled in a similar fraud.

"Do not let your desire for free stuff overload your common sense," said Capt. Paul Cody of Gadsden police.

Detective Ryan Preston said a Gadsden resident approached police yesterday after several weeks of contact with people he says tried to bilk him out of money and personal financial information.

The scheme unfolded this way:

The victim said he received a call informing him he had won a $2.5 million prize from Publisher's Clearing House, along with a 2017 Mercedes. However, he would need to pay taxes on the prizes and was told to wire the money.

Then, he was called to give his address in order to deliver the car. The delivery, of course, did not occur, but the man was called again and asked to send more money.

The victim then received a package in the mail containing three magazines with instructions to turn to a specific page in one of the magazines. Inside was a $35,000 check from a personal account at a Texas bank that he was told to deposit into his account as part of his prize money. Once the deposit was made, he was instructed to call and notify the sender.

However, family members, hearing about the arrest in the earlier scam, informed the man he might want to go talk to police before depositing the check.

"Everything about it is a scam," Preston said. "The account exists, but it's where a legitimate account has been hacked. (The victim) had already mailed a package to New York for $460 for bogus fees."

Investigators say they've heard of similar cases since they arrested Randy Jason Cox, 42, Sunday on two counts of first degree theft by deception. Police say Cox was involved in a scam involving bogus credit cards used to make targeted purchases, which were then shipped off to Nigeria. Cox kept some of the money for himself, they said, while making large purchases of jewelry and other items.

Cody said police also deal with other schemes this time of year, such as calls from people claiming to represent the IRS, Alabama Power, or utilities claiming unpaid balances that require money sent to a third party, or reimbursement through gift cards.
A man who authorities say was part of a plot to invade a Calhoun County home, steal a safe and deliver it to a Honduran drug enforcer has been sentenced to a year in prison.

Acting U.S. Attorney Robert Posey today, along with Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge Raymond R. Parmer Jr. and FBI Special Agent in Charge Roger Stanton, announced the sentencing in Birmingham today of Luis Diaz-Zavala, 34, of Honduras.

Diaz-Zavala pleaded guilty in October to the charge of possessing a firearm by an illegal alien.

He was one of four men who were arrested in connection with a traffic stop last March 24 in Oxford. Police found several pistols, loaded magazines, a tactical vest, knife, utility rope, a machete, handcuffs, and a black ski mask inside the car in which the three men were riding, according to federal court documents.

"Oxford Police and agents of ICE and the FBI are to be applauded for their cooperative work that prevented what could have been a violent home invasion at the behest of a drug-trafficker," Posey said in a statement. "This office and our law enforcement partners continue our commitment to capture and prosecute people intent on violence who are in the country illegally."

The other men arrested at the time all pleaded guilty last year to possessing firearms as aliens in the United States illegally. They were Camilo Antonio Espinoza-Medrano, 32, Josue Lopez-Benegas, 24, both of Honduras, and Enrique Echeverria-Benitez, 28, of Mexico. They were sentenced last year to two years and three months in prison.

After completing their prison terms, all four men will be delivered to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to begin deportation proceedings.

Oxford Police stopped Diaz-Zavala in a separate vehicle on March 24, 2016, and recovered a security guard badge, two shirts emblazoned with "FBI," and a duty belt with handcuffs and a holster, according to court documents. Diaz-Zavala later told law enforcement officers that he had possessed one of the firearms recovered from the vehicle carrying his associates.

Investigators said Lopez-Benegas told them that a friend had called him in early March wanting him to travel to Alabama to do a "security job" that would pay him $60,000 once the job was completed.

The job was supposed to have been arranged through a security company, owned by the friend's boss, who Lopez-Benegas knew as an enforcer and debt collector for drug organizations.

The group was to take a safe from occupants at an Alabama residence identified by GPS coordinates, and once the residence and safe were secured, Lopez-Benegas and his associates were to turn over the occupants to the boss.
A young Shelby County boy reportedly kept in "forced isolation" by his adoptive parents weighed only 47 pounds when he was hospitalized three months ago, and spent on average 23 hours a day in a concrete basement with little more than box-springs, a strip of fly paper and an Algebra textbook, police testified Wednesday.

In the couple's first court hearing in the case, it was revealed that they received $500 a month from the state through DHR to help take care of their son. Adopted children may receive an adoption subsidy if they meet the special needs criteria. This is paid by the federal Department of Health and Human Services and distributed to the family by Alabama DHR.

Richard and Cynthia Kelly, jailed on $1 million bond each since their November arrests, appeared in court as their attorneys argued for a lower bond. Shelby County Judge Daniel Crowson, however, refused to lower their bond and said there was enough evidence against the couple to send the case to a grand jury for indictment consideration.

The 14-year-old adopted son has since been released from the hospital and has been placed in a therapeutic foster home, where family says he appears to be happy and is doing well. A therapeutic foster home caters to the physical, emotional and social needs of children with emotional challenges.

The couple's lawyers previously claimed that their $1 million bond is "excessive and illegal," and were asking the amount to be reduced. "30 times the maximim of the bond schedule is grossly excessive,'' said attorney Jared Welborn, who represents Richard Kelly.

"There are people bonded out in Shelby County on murder cases for less than that,'' said attorney Barry Alvis, who represents Cynthia Kelly.

The plight of the young teen came to light the weekend of Nov. 12 when the boy was taken to Children's of Alabama. Helena Police Chief Pete Folmar said initially said the boy weighed roughly 55 pounds but testified in court Wednesday he actually weighed 47 pounds when he arrived at the hospital.

He was described by doctors as severely and chronically malnourished, dehydrated, suffering from acute respiratory distress, shock, hypothermia, hypothyroid and close to death. Pictures taken at the hospital of the boy were entered into evidence Wednesday showed pressure sores on his legs. He was also placed on a ventilator for about a week to help him breathe.

His adoptive parents two days later were charged with aggravated child abuse and have remained behind bars in Shelby County since their arrests. According to the arrest warrants for the parents, the couple is accused of denying food, nourishment and medical care to the boy, who was "subjected to forced isolation for extended period of time." Authorities have said that "isolation" was disciplinary in nature. There were no signs, however, the boy was handcuffed, chained or restrained.

Neither Richard nor Cynthia Kelly, who have lived in Helena for about 20 years, show any previous criminal record in Alabama. Richard Kelly worked in the computer technology field but had been unemployed for several weeks at the time of his arrest. Cynthia Kelly was a stay-at-home mother who home-schooled her adopted children.

The teen's biological brother, 18-year-old Eddie Carter, spoke extensively with AL.com. Now living in Arizona, Carter says he suffered the same neglect, abuse and despair at the hands of Richard and Cynthia Kelly. He said he was kept in the basement for weeks and months at a time.

"You're down there and nobody knows you're down there except the people in the house,'' said Carter in extensive interviews with AL.com. "It's up to those people to make sure everything's going to be all right and it's not all right and you're kinda lost. You sit in the corner and weigh out what means the most. It was horrible. Horrific.

"It gets to that point where you're like an animal,'' Carter said. "You feel like an animal."

Carter recently returned to Birmingham to try to visit his brother, but he wasn't ready to see him or any other family. Carter vows to be there for him if and when he's ready.

"We'll be all right, and I don't have to worry about anybody ever hurting my brother again,'' Carter said. "I just want to make sure everything I'm doing in Arizona and that I have lined up is beneficial not only for me but for him too. If I could talk to him, I'd let him know my place is always open to him. I'm his family."

In court Wednesday, Folmar testifed that Richard Kelly took his adopted son, referred to in court only as "EK," to Shelby Baptist Medical Center that November Sunday morning, saying he had been ill for about a week. Within hours of their arrival, the boy was airlifted to Children's of Alabama, where doctors told investigators "EK" would have likely been dead within three more hours.

The boy's body temperature upon arrival at Children's was 86 degrees. "The doctor said that was not a sufficient body temperature to sustain life,'' Folmar testified.

The chief also testified to the conditions in which "EK" was kept. The basement room had concrete floors, a box-spring, blanket and pillow as well as a hanging strip of fly paper and an Algebra textbook. The teen's clothing was kept in a plastic, three-drawer unit which contained a few shirts, pants and diapers.

There were locks on the outside of the doors, Folmar testified, and a video surveillance camera that had one time been trained on the box-springs and used to keep an eye on the teen, and his older brother who also had been previously locked in the basement, according to testimony.

Though the camera was no longer functional, Folmar said, but Richard Kelly told the chief they made "EK" think it still worked and that they were watching his behavior. Folmar testified that the boy was fed once a day, and fed food other than what the rest of the family was eating.

Cynthia Kelly told police "EK" had behavior issues and had threatened to harm the family. The parents said they kept him locked in the basement so that he wouldn't break things throughout the house, or damage their belongings. "If I didn't do that,'' she told the chief, "he would get out and break things."

She also told investigators they monitored his food intake because otherwise he would over-eat. Folmar testified that Cynthia Kelly told them that when "EK" was allowed out of the basement, his presence with the rest of the family agitated her Labrador retriever and it would "turn the house into a circus."

The chief said he asked Cynthia Kelly if she had sought professional help in dealing with "EK"'s behavioral issues and she indicated to him that "no one believed them." "I'll be honest with you," she told the chief, "We just got tired of it."

Folmar testifed that police interviewed several family friends, most of whom knew the Kelly family through cheer practice and cheer competitions of their daughter, Tamara Kelly. One recounted how she had been at a cheer party at the Kelly home where Cynthia Kelly had ordered a large amount of pizza for the group. She had put some aside for her husband to have when he got home from work, and noticed that some slices were missing.

Cynthia Kelly questioned "EK" about the missing pizza, and he denied taking it. The family friend, however, noticed that he had stuffed the pizza slices in his pockets.

Another family friend told police she had been to the home once and noticed multiple photos of the Tamara Kelly scattered throughout the home, but none of "EK."

The couple's defense attorneys said there were conflicting reports about "EK"'s treatment. Alvis questioned whether someone who was kept isolated in a basement for 23 hours a day and fed only once day could function normally in social settings without setting off questions by those around him, and whether he could continue to maintain good grades through homeschooling, which records show "EK" did.

Alvis also said in court Wednesday that "EK" had been an extra in the movie "Woodlawn" which was filmed in Birmingham in 2013. Folmar replied that that had happened, as well as most of the family friend interactions that Alvis was citing, before the beginning of the boy's two-year forced isolation.

Alvis also indicated that the reason there was no carpet or mattress in the basement was because "EK" was destructive and had torn up the carpet, as well as three mattresses.

The cases against the couple are being tried by Shelby County assistant district attorneys Gregg Lowery and Jody Tallie. The judge said the cases were consolidated only for the preliminary hearings and bond reduction hearings.

Though Welborn and Alvis argued that the $1 million is unreasonable, Tallie said she felt it best they stay behind bars. "This child was hours away from death,'' Tallie said.

Tallie told the judge there was a high probability the couple would be convicted of the Class B felony, which carries a sentence of two to 20 years in prison. Based on that, she said, they pose a serious flight risk.
Alabama Supreme Court Associate Justice Tom Parker's legal fight to overturn a state law that requires a judge be automatically suspended when judicial ethics charges are filed has gained new life.

The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals this week issued an order telling U.S. District Court Judge Keith Watkins to reconsider his dismissal of Parker's lawsuit last year.

In October 2015 the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a judicial ethics complaint with the Judicial Inquiry Commission (JIC) against Parker, claiming the justice had inappropriately commented on pending same-sex marriage cases and voiced his personal opinions about the issue. The JIC notified Parker it was investigating the charges.

Parker said he was exercising his free speech rights under the First Amendment.

Parker on June 15, while the JIC was still investigating, filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of several speech restrictive Alabama Canons of Judicial Ethics and the state law that automatically suspends a judge with pay when JIC files charges. A judge can be re-instated depending on the outcome of a trial before the Alabama Court of the Judiciary.

Watkins on Sept. 29 dismissed Parker's lawsuit against the JIC, citing a 1971 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in Younger v. Harris. Under that ruling federal courts are not to interfere with pending criminal prosecutions by a state, except under extraordinary circumstances.

On Oct. 21 the JIC announced that it had dismissed the complaint against Parker, who was never charged or suspended.

Parker, however, continued the appeal of Watkins dismissal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The appeals court stated in its brief order on Tuesday that it was sending the whole case back to Watkins "to consider the issue of mootness, in addition to any other arguments considering jurisdiction and the merits of the complaint."

One of the attorneys for the JIC declined comment about the appeals court decision on Thursday. The JIC had fought against the case being revived.

"The district court's dismissal of Justice Parker's lawsuit was appropriate on many levels, and the gravamen of Justice Parker's case is simply no longer live," according to a response to the appeals court by JIC. "This appeal should not be remanded, but instead should be dismissed as moot or affirmed on other grounds."

Liberty Counsel, the legal group representing Parker, issued a press release Thursday reacting to the appeals court action.

"The lower court dismissed Justice Parker's lawsuit, on the grounds that the JIC's pending investigation required federal courts to abstain from the matter," according to the press release. "However, while Parker's appeal was pending, the JIC dismissed the SPLC's complaint. Liberty Counsel then filed a motion to have the case returned to the lower court to address the merits of the legal challenge."

"This action is crucial since the violation of First Amendment rights is capable of being (and likely to be) repeated in this and future cases," according to the Liberty Counsel press release.

Alabama is the only state in the nation that automatically removes a judge from the bench when a charge is issued, according to the Liberty Counsel statement. Alabama provides no due process, according to the statement.

A case can drag on for months or years, and that is what happened with suspended Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, according to Liberty Counsel.

Moore was automatically suspended with pay in May 2016 after the JIC filed judicial ethics charges against him. Those charges were based on another SPLC complaint regarding a Jan. 6, 2016 administrative order Moore sent to probate judges that seemed to urge those judges to defy the U.S. Supreme Court's decision legalizing same-sex marriage.

The Alabama Court of the Judiciary on Sept. 30 suspended Moore for the rest of his term without pay after finding he had violated judicial ethics laws. Moore is now appealing that decision.

In August, before Moore was suspended by the Court of the Judiciary, Watkins also dismissed Moore's lawsuit that also challenged the automatic suspension of judges. Moore is also represented by Liberty Counsel. Moore, however, did not appeal.

"We will continue to press this case until we receive justice," Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel said of the Parker appeal. "The judicial canon that prohibits judges from commenting on any case anywhere in the country is patently unconstitutional. Every judge who teaches law school students would be silenced by this broad restriction on speech. The automatic removal provision is also unconstitutional because judges are deprived of due process. Our system of law presumes innocence until proven guilty but the automatic removal provision turns this cornerstone of justice on its head," he said.
Luther Strange Robert Bentley and Melissa Strange.jpg

Gov. Robert Bentley signs a document appointing Luther Strange as U.S. senator. Strange was joined by his wife, Melissa, at today's news conference.

(Mike Cason/mcason@al.com)

Gov. Robert Bentley and Attorney General Luther Strange held a joint news conference this morning to talk about Bentley's appointment of Strange to replace Jeff Sessions in the U.S. Senate.

The governor this morning announced the appointment of Strange to replace Sessions, who won confirmation as U.S. attorney general on Wednesday in the Senate.

Strange said Chief Deputy Attorney General Alice Martin will be acting attorney general until Bentley names a permanent replacement as attorney general.

Bentley did not say when he would name a replacement.

The attorney general's office will be up for election again in 2018.

In November, Strange asked the Alabama House Judiciary Committee to suspend an impeachment investigation of the governor because his office was conducting a related investigation.

Strange was asked today if his office is investigating the governor or has investigated the governor.

"I want to make this clear because I think there's been some misconception here," Strange said. "We have never said in our office that we are investigating the governor. And I think it's actually somewhat unfair to him and unfair to the process that that's been reported out there.

"We have six years of a record of the highest caliber of conduct by people in our office, totally professional. That's why we don't comment on those kind of things and I don't intend to comment on it anymore."

Strange said he was highly confident that Martin or whoever takes his place permanently "will continue the tradition of integrity and proper conduct across the board."

Asked to explain his comment that his office never said there was an investigation of the governor in light of the letter to the Judiciary Committee asking for the suspension of the impeachment investigation, Strange said the letter spoke for itself.

Strange said he did not see the letter to the Judiciary Committee as an issue because it was sent on Nov. 3, before Trump was elected president.

Bentley was asked about any perceived conflict of interest in the appointment because of Strange's letter to the Judiciary Committee.

"He wrote that letter long before anybody ever thought that President Trump would be president," Bentley said.

Bentley said he would be interviewing candidates to replace Strange but declined to name any candidates.

"You will hear the names after I interview them," Bentley said.

The governor said he was flying to Washington today to personally deliver the appointment letter.
Democrats could spend a lot of time fighting brand-new U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her initiatives over the next few years, especially if she tries to make good on the $20 billion voucher initiative President Donald Trump pitched on the campaign trail. But her time in the spotlight also has a big potential upside for them.

For one thing, it could energize Democrats and those who support their vision to open their wallets and pound the pavement for local, state, and federal Democratic candidates.

And that energy would serve Democrats best where they may need it most right now: in rural, red states with Democratic senators that are up for re-election in 2018. Democrats have 25 seat to protect in the mid-term election, including 10 in states that President Donald Trump won, including Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, and West Virginia.

DeVos favorite K-12 policyvoucherswont do much good in those states, where students have transportation challenges just getting to regular public schools. (More on that issue here .)

And the vulnerable senatorsall of whom joined their Democratic colleagues in voting against DeVos Tuesday were more than happy to point that out, setting up the DeVos nomination as an example of Trump betraying his most-loyal voters.

The reddest part of my state are parts of my state where there are no private schools. Rural Missouri, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said Tuesday as the Senate was wrapping up debate on DeVos. In rural areas of this country, there are not private schools for parents and kids to choose. They would have to drive miles.

Republicans, McCaskill said, are kicking in the shins the very voters that put them in power. And I dont get that. I dont understand how you can give the back of your hand to rural America with this decision.

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., made a similar pitch in this post on Medium , and said on Twitter that she had gotten nearly 3,000 anti-DeVos calls, including many questioning her qualifications, not just her positions.

Betsy DeVos doesnt understand basic education policy, including laws to protect students with disabilities, or the needs of rural schools pic.twitter.com/qXpUMrSS8k  Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (@SenatorHeitkamp) February 5, 2017

And in this tweet, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., another likely 2018 GOP target, cited DeVos lack of knowledge of education policyand especially rural schoolsas a reason he voted against her.

Secretary of Education nominee Betsy #DeVos doesnt make the grade in #WV pic.twitter.com/CS3e2D5gaV  Senator Joe Manchin (@Sen_JoeManchin) February 1, 2017

Both Heitkamp and Manchin were the target of ads by two conservative nonprofit groups, the Club for Growth and America Next, urging voters to persaude them to vote for DeVos .

And to be sure, DeVos has offered up virtual charter schools as a solution for families in isolated areas that want to take advantage of school choice. But many rural areas dont have the broadband capability to make that work. And virtual charter schools have been plagued by unevenand often, dismalacademic performance, as an investigation by Education Week found .

Notably, the two Republicans who ultimately opposed DeVosSens. Susan Collins, of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska,are both from rural states and have faced contested elections.

And on the national level, opinion polling doesnt show vouchers as a big winner, especially among Republican voters. In fact, vouchers have slipped in popularity, even as more states have embraced choice.

Less than half of Americans are fans of the policy, according to an August 2016 opinion poll by Education Next, a journal published by Stanford Universitys Hoover Institution. Forty-three percent of the 4,181 survey participantswhich constituted a nationally representative samplesaid they support the idea of vouchers, down from 55 percent four years ago.

And vouchers for low-income students were more popular among Democrats than Republicans, the poll found: 49 percent compared to 37 percent. (More here in this great explainer by my colleague Arianna Prothero.)

Jack Jennings, who spent three decades working for Democrats on Capitol Hill, sees DeVos as a policy minus, but a potential political plus for his party.

The main advantage for the Democrats is that it clearly identifies the Republicans nationally as committed to privatizing public education, Jennings said. That wont sit well with suburban parents whose kids go to public schools, a key voting block for the GOP. Democrats can tell those parents that the Republicans are only interested in charter schools, of which there are not a lot in suburbia, and private schools, of which there are not a lot anywhere. Even Catholic schools in the cities are declining.

But David Winston, the president of the Winston Group, a Washington polling firm that works with GOP candidates, noted that Trumps win is evidence that voters might be ready to take a chance on something different.

The electorate is willing to take some risks to change the status quo because they feel that it isnt working, and thats going to play in her favor, he said of DeVos. But she will have to show that her policies are actually improving student outcomes. You need results, he said.

Democrats though, already appear to think they may hold the winning cards on the DeVos debate when it comes to mobilizing the grassroots activists, if nothing else.

Even before the education secretary won Senate confirmation, a campaign to re-elect Wisconsins Sen. Tammy Baldwin, another of the 10 Democratic senators facing re-election in 2018 in a state Trump won, sent out a fundraising email, asking for $5 or $10 donations to help strengthen our opposition to DeVos, a billionaire school choice advocate who many saw as unqualified for the role after her uneven confirmation hearing.

And the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent around an email asking voters to sign a petition and take a stand against DeVos. The email promised the petition would be delivered to Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader.

The DCCC is the House campaign arm, which means itand House memberscouldnt have done much to stop DeVos from getting confirmed. But the petition could help the DCCC identify potential grassroots activists and even donors.

Vice President Mike Pence swears in Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington on Tuesday, as DeVos husband, Dick DeVos, watches. --Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

Vice President Mike Pence casts the tiebreaking vote on Tuesday as the U.S. Senate confirmed Betsy DeVos as education secretary.

--Senate Television via AP

Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 .
Water works lawsuit

Frank Matthews (l. to r.), Iva Williams and Carlos Chaverst speak about the lawsuit filed against the Birmingham Water Works.

(Howard Koplowitz)

A Birmingham activist filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of ratepayers against the city's water works board and its general manager on Wednesday night, accusing them of engaging "in a pattern or practice of gross malfeasance," including overcharging customers for water, and "self-serving nepotism."

The suit was filed in Jefferson County Circuit Court by Outcast Voter League President Frank Matthews, the night before the Birmingham Water Works Board is set to hold a 9 a.m. meeting.

Matthews said he made 20,000 robocalls urging residents to protest the meeting at 8:30 a.m., and held a press conference Wednesday elaborating on the claims made in his lawsuit. Matthews and other organizers said the goal of the protest is to shut down the board meeting.

"We're looking at nepotism, we're looking at cronyism, the entire nine yards. And because of that lawsuit, another thing that we're doing [Thursday morning] is asking for the management to be fired," said Outcast Voter League member Iva Williams. "The ratepayers pay these bills, and so we are contending that there needs to be new management at the Birmingham Water Works immediately."

The press conference and lawsuit came a day after water works board general manager Mac Underwood outlined a number of issues the utility has faced with customer billing that stem from its implementation of a new billing system. Underwood said some 5,000 customers who were overcharged on their water bills because of incorrect estimations would be receiving credits by March 1.

But Williams said the utility's solution is insufficient.

"If you overcharge me today and I paid the whole bill, then you basically robbed me. You owe me my money back, not a credit, but a refund," he said, adding that the class action suit was filed on behalf of "single mothers, on behalf of the elderly, on behalf of people with fixed incomes, on behalf of people who are just sick and tired of being taken advantage of."

Most of the lawsuit mimics an ongoing suit filed in Shelby County alleging that the water works has a "two-tiered billing system" that results in customers being overcharged.

As for the malfeasance claim, Matthews pointed to recent board actions to hire the Parnell and Thompson law firm as board attorneys. The firm's partners were lawyers under the board's previous attorneys, Waldrep, Stewart and Kendrick.

Mark Parnell and Mary Thompson received the contract last month in part by setting their fees at $325 an hour -- $50 less than the $375 and hour contract given to Fuston, Petway and French last year.

"It's our contention and our hope that his contract will be null and void because it would be like the fox guarding the hen house," Matthews said, referring to Parnell and Thompson's connections to Waldrep, Stewart and Kendrick.

The first item on the board's agenda for this morning's meeting is to terminate the contract with Fuston, Petway and French.

Matthews claimed that Parnell and Thompson were aware of Fuston, Petway and French's contract before the board hired them.

"How was he privy to the information to underbid the contract that the lawyers already had," he said. "That shouldn't have happened."

The Birmingham activist's lawsuit also claims that the board presided over "clandestine meetings" and "called emergency board meetings to conduct regular board business," -- a reference to the board's Jan. 4 special meeting when Parnell and Thompson were hired and new board officers were elected.

A Facebook live video broadcast by Matthews at that meeting uncovered Underwood acknowledging that he met with board member Sherry Lewis to discuss contracts for the new lawyers.

"It's a serial meeting. They admitted and we will present in our court hopefully .. live video from the whole meeting .. and it shows that they admitted that they had a number of serial meetings between each other that violated the State Code of Alabama," Matthews said. "That shows a conspiracy."

The lawsuit seeks changes to the water works' billing system that prevents overcharges and compensatory damages for ratepayers.
Ensley Building

A 10-story building in downtown Ensley west of Birmingham, Alabama known as the Ramsay-McCormack building on the corner of Avenue E and 19th Street was completed in 1929. (Frank Couch/fcouch@al.com)

(Frank Couch)

The historic Ramsay McCormack building, which is at the center of Birmingham Mayor William Bell's planned $40 million public safety complex in Ensley, is suitable for office space, according to a preliminary study.

ArchitectureWorks and engineers toured the 10-story building in January to determine its viability, and if the 50,000 square foot space is adequate to house Birmingham's Municipal Court or Fire Department administration offices.

"Substantially, the building frame is in solid condition, but additional research is needed to determine what will be required to secure the building envelope: brick, terra cotta and window replacement," the study states.

All new electrical, mechanical, plumbing and fire protection systems will be required, the study states. Possible additions to the building may also be required.

The preliminary study of the structure was filed in Jefferson County Circuit Court on Wednesday in a status report required as part of the terms of a final order in a 2012 lawsuit. No cost estimates for the work were included in the report.

The Birmingham City Council is expected to consider the study next week. Despite not seeing a formal plan, the Council unanimously approved a resolution supporting the project on Jan. 24.

A Dec. 8 order by Judge Michael Graffeo required the city of Birmingham to start renovations on Ramsay McCormack by Feb. 10.

The judge's order was in response to the 2012 lawsuit filed against the city of Birmingham by the Ensley Revitalization Committee, Hope International LLC and Playover Games & Movies. The groups were demanding the city demolish the deteriorating Ramsay McCormack building after officials failed at promised action to redevelop it.

Graffeo, on Dec. 1, ordered the city to start the demolition of the Ramsay McCormack building.

The plaintiffs changed their minds, though, when Bell announced on Nov. 30 plans to renovate the Ramsay McCormack as part of a public safety complex.

Initial plans call for moving Birmingham's police and fire headquarters and municipal court out of downtown Birmingham and move them to downtown Ensley. The $40 million plan calls for rehabbing Ramsay McCormack and constructing at least two additional structures in downtown Ensley.

ArchitectureWorks determined Ramsay McCormack may not be large enough to accommodate the needs of the municipal court, which includes five courtrooms; judge offices, waiting and two conference rooms for each courtroom; lobby; records and collections; parole/probation offices; court referral offices; and court referral offices. An approximate 13,000-square-foot addition could be required for required stairways and restrooms.

The firm noted that the building would be a suitable condition for historic tax credits and new market tax credits.

The architecture firm also suggested the city conduct neighborhood meetings on the project to gain input from stakeholders.

Preliminary study of Ensley Public Safety Complex by Erin Edgemon on Scribd
DerekWashingtonRememmbered.jpg

Derek Washington disappeared in April 2015. His remains were discovered Jan. 29, 2017 near a vacant home in western Jefferson County. Authorities say his death was a homicide.

(Special to AL.com)

Jessica Jackson prayed a lot over the past couple of years, pleading with God to bring back her missing son.

Those prayers were particularly fervent on Saturday, Jan. 28, though at the time she didn't know why. "I asked God to bring him home to me,'' Jackson recalled.

Just one day later, on Sunday, a man hunting squirrels in the western Jefferson County community of Booker Heights stumbled upon human remains near a vacant house on Shady Grove Road. News of the discovery was made public that Monday and Jackson feared the worst. "I was like, 'Ok, God,''' she said. "Be careful what you ask for."

Washington, then 23 with a young daughter and another on the way, disappeared April 3, 2015. He was last seen in Birmingham's Wylam community on Ninth Avenue in a white Dodge Charger about 1 a.m. that day.

He was wearing a dark blue, thin wind jacket, Tall Tee dark blue jeans and black Air Force One shoes. He was in front of a red house with people he knew and associated with, his mother said. For a while after his disappearance, Jackson said, she received mysterious phone calls but those calls eventually stopped.

"I am praying that my son is on the run and not dead, but it is a possibility he could be," she said just a few months ago.

Then came word last week of the skeletal remains being found. "I think I had a feeling it was possibly him,'' Jackson said. "It was so close to home, so close to where he was at."

She called the Birmingham police detectives that had been working his missing person's case, and they told her they were already looking into the discovery. Several others with missing loved ones had also called to check as well.

On Thursday - Jackson's birthday - investigators asked her for her son's dental records. "I knew then they had some type of evidence,'' she said.

It was a long weekend for Jackson and other family members as they awaited confirmation, one way or another. "I was hoping the detective would call me and tell me it wasn't him,'' she said.

On Monday, however, Jackson learned her missing son had been found and that his death was murder. She had mixed emotions. "I'm grateful that I'm able to bring my baby home,'' she said.

She said she had considered all possibilities over the years. "I didn't rule out that he was dead but my hope and prayer was that he was just on the run because of some of the things that happened with him,'' she said. "Your kids may be into things that you wouldn't condone or hanging around people you don't want them around, and you didn't teach them to live this way but that's what they chose, but he was still a good person,'' she said. "He was loveable. He would always give school kids a dollar on their way home, or feed a child whose mom was on drugs."

Jackson said her son doted on his young daughter, and was looking forward to having a second daughter. "He always wanted to be with her,'' he said. "He was at home more after the baby. We had to tell him to stop buying baby clothes because she wouldn't be able to ever where them all."

His daughters, McKinley and KaMiyah, are now 3 and 19 months. "The only memory they're going to have of him is through us,'' Jackson said. "His oldest daughter sees his pictures on the refrigerator and she knows that's Daddy."

Though Washington's body was found in unincorporated Jefferson County, Chief Deputy Randy Christian said authorities believe the killing happened in Birmingham's jurisdiction and they've turned over the investigation to detectives there.

Washington's remains will be cremated because of the condition of his remains and the family will have a service Saturday at 1 p.m. at Dante's funeral home on First Avenue North.

Jackson said she's confident several people will be charged in her son's death. "I am asking for the death penalty,'' she said, "and the reason why is they could have told somebody where my son was, and allow me and my family to have a proper burial."
What will Betsy DeVos confirmation as education secretary mean? Among other things, according to President Donald Trumps counselor Kellyanne Conway, it means the president can move ahead with his campaign promise to repeal the Common Core State Standards. But thats a problematic assertion.

Conway made the claim during a Tuesday interview with CNNs Jake Tapper. Her remarks about the common core begin at around the 50-second mark:

He wants to repeal common core. He doesnt think that federal standards are better than local and parental control, for example, Conway told Tapper.

As weve reported previously, states adopt content standards like the common corethe federal government doesnt get to choose for them. Washington also didnt write the common core. There was intense debate during President Barack Obamas administration about whether Washington improperly coerced states into adopting the common core through programs like Race to the Top grants. But regardless of that debate, the president by himself doesnt have the authority to scrap the standards with the stroke of a pen.

What about Congress? The Every Student Succeeds Act explicitly bars the education secretary from influencing states decisions about standards. So right now, neither Trump nor DeVos can bar states from using the common core. Absent a change to federal education law that bans the common core outright or in some way relaxes those prohibitions on the secretary (neither of those possibilities appears at all likely right now), their hands are tied.

DeVos promised to abide by those prohibitions on standards in ESSA in responses to question from Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., before DeVos was confirmed Tuesday. But DeVos reply to Murray didnt sit particularly well with Joy Pullmann, a managing editor at the Federalist website and a critic of the common corePullmann told us in an email that DeVos response was focused on compliance and wasnt particularly creative.

I do think there are a number of things a motivated education secretary and her team could do to address the intellectual monopoly ... her department helps create that helped fuel common core, Pullman told us. Such new approaches could include promoting new accountability systems and teacher training methods, for example, Pullman said.

None of this is to say Trump and DeVos cant use the bully pulpit to speak out against the common core. After all, political pressure has played a role in some states decisions to review and at least nominally replace the common core. Right now, we calculate that at least 37 states and the District of Columbia officially use the common core, although thats a number open to reasonable debate.

Conway also indicated to Tapper that the Trump administration would be looking to expand school choice, charter schools, and home schooling. Trump pitched a $20 billion voucher plan on the campaign trail.

Children should not be restricted in their educational opportunities just by their ZIP code, Conway said.

Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 .
In North Dakota, some state legislators are tryingunsuccessfully, so farto ramp up their efforts to replace the Common Core State Standards in substance as well as in name.

A bill that would have prohibited North Dakota from adopting standards for English and math instruction that align with the common core failed to pass the states House of Representatives earlier this week, WDAY reports.

The bill would have barred the state from participating in any multistate consortia focused on school curriculum (such as the Smarter Balanced and PARCC consortia of states, which developed assessments aligned to the common core) and directed it to develop standards that are explicitly not aligned to the common core.

Supporters argued that the bill would allow North Dakota to have control of its standards, assessment, and curriculum. Opponents of the bill were concerned that it would have been inefficient and lead to a waste of effort by the state education department, according to WDAY. They were also concerned the bill could cost the state federal funds.

Though the bill failed, it represented a new twist on state legislators efforts to break away from the common core.

North Dakota is in the midst of replacing the common-core standards, which it adopted in 2011, with a new set written by the state . The states new math and English learning standards are available for a second round of public comment now; a third draft is expected in April, according to the North Dakota education department . A early revision received some criticism for its resemblance to the common core .

A recent study found that most of the 21 states that have made or are making revisions to the common core havent made substantial changes. Most changed formatting or wording to clarify individual standards rather than adopting dramatically different standards. Thats led to concerns among some opponents of the common core. For instance, one writer referred to North Carolinas standards-revision process as putting lipstick on a pig .

But the effort to completely wall states off from the influence of the common core may be futile: The fact that more teachers find resources online means that common core-aligned lessons are in use even in states that never adopted the standards .

Its also a reminder that the common core remains a political hot button. President Donald Trumps counselor Kellyanne Conway said this week that Trump plans to repeal the common core (an implausible action, given that content standards are set by states, not the federal government).

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Taiba camp, Syria  Mohammed Jamoul has no job, five children, and subsists on aid from NGOs. He lost one son a year ago in an attack in their native Syria, and today his only home is the Taiba camp for displaced persons.

I dont know how long Ill stay in the camp, Jamoul told Al Jazeera. I only want to go back to our house and land, which we were forced to migrate from.

Jamoul fled his home in the southern Aleppo countryside four years ago, as bombings escalated and government forces advanced. He went to Hajjan and then to al-Bab, before arriving last year at Taiba camp, in Idlib province along the Syria-Turkey border.

Many of the 35,000 Syrians evacuated late last year from east Aleppo, formerly controlled by rebels, ended up in Idlib province, joining locals and internally displaced persons (IDPs) from elsewhere in Syria.

With entry into Turkey severely curtailed as Syrias war continues in its sixth year, camps such as Taiba have become a last resort for those fleeing the advance of government forces. Conditions in these camps have grown increasingly dire.

Seasonal diseases spread, sometimes because of the water and lack of hygiene, Jamoul said, nothing that there was a small medical station near the camp, but no pharmacy  forcing residents to walk around 25km to nearby Harem to obtain medicine.

READ MORE: Life in an ISIL firing zone on the Syria-Turkey border

Those who cannot afford petrol cook with firewood, and all of Taibas estimated 1,000 residents live in tents despite the bitter winter weather.

Khalid al-Jaber, who fled Aleppo for Idlib in December, said the conditions in Taiba camp have made his life extremely difficult.

When we came, there was a snowstorm in the camp and some people died from the cold. We sleep in a tent with five or six people and buy a little bit of food each day, said Jaber, who is unemployed and subsists on food aid. All four of his sons have been fighting with the Syrian opposition.

But Jaber has no immediate plans to leave, noting that the camp is significantly safer than Aleppo: Here, we are in the Turkish border region. Theres no bombing against us.

Turkey hosts more than two million Syrian refugees, but after Turkey shut its border last year, Syrians require permission to enter. Amru, an official with a Turkey-based Syrian NGO who declined to give his last name, said that aid workers had been helping to provide food, clothing and petrol to IDPs in Idlib.

The border is closed and making an escape is very hard and dangerous, Amru told Al Jazeera. They arent physically allowed to go live in Turkey. [Because of] that, most choose to stay in Syrian territory.

Regardless of whether upcoming peace talks in Geneva will bring an end to Syrias war, the effects of the conflict will have lasting effects on all Syrians. In particular, Jamoul laments the effect on his childrens education.

My kids have been cut off from their studies for around four years, he said. They dont know how to read or write.
Socialist groups see huge spike in membership as they join protests against US President Donald Trump.

Connor Southard had never been involved in political organising and had never been a member of a political organisation  until the election of the far-right US President, Donald Trump.

After that he joined the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

As it became clear that the organised left was getting stronger and facing more formidable threats to its agenda  it was clearly time to get involved, the 26-year-old writer from New York explained.

The far-right in the United States  and in Europe  has been energised by Trumps victory and his Republican Partys firm grip on both chambers of Congress.

The only way to oppose this level of the malignant power [of Donald Trump] is to get organised, Southard said. This moment is radicalising a lot of people due to the levels of outrage and disgust. People all over the country are asking what to do. The answer in one word is: Organise.

He learned about the DSA from friends and Chapo Trap House, a popular left-wing satirical podcast.

Since Trumps electoral victory in November, socialist organisations have reported an explosion in membership and interest.





David Duhalde, the DSAs deputy director, explains that the organisations membership has soared to 16,000, more than doubling since May 2016. In the last two weeks alone, more than 2,000 new members have registered.

Were taking advantage of the rising energy around socialism and the popular feeling that capitalism is not working for the majority of people, he told Al Jazeera, adding that around 50 new chapters have been founded in communities and on campuses in recent months.

DSA members have participated in mass protests against Trumps inauguration, supported the Womens March, and called for the release of immigrants detained at airports owing to the new presidents ban on travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries.

Its critical in our politics to promote coalition work and now to be part of a popular front against Trump, Duhalde explained. Socialists need to be in the masses of protests and doing solidarity work.

The Socialist Alternative, a Trotskyist party, said its membership has grown by more than 30 percent since Trumps election.

The Socialist Party USAs national secretary office said by email that they had also encountered a solid spike from right after the elections, although they declined to provide further details.

Although the numbers remain small when compared with Democratic and Republican Party membership, the growth has been significant. While fuelled by anger at Trump, the phenomenon hasnt come entirely out of the blue.

The working class is hyper-exploited

Connor Kilpatrick, a writer who sits on the editorial board of Jacobin, a New York-based socialist magazine, said the failures of both mainstream US parties have played a significant role in the rise of leftist politics.

In addition to the failures of establishment Democrats and Republicans, Kilpatrick places a portion of the blame on the corporate media. His analysis is supported by the findings of a study by the mediaQuant analytics firm, which concluded that Trump had received an estimated $5bn worth of free media coverage.

Just days after Trumps electoral victory, nearly every mainstream US media outlet ran segments and feature stories about a conference by the National Policy Institute, in which around 100 people celebrated Trumps win. During that conference, infamous white supremacist Richard Spencer led chants of Hail Trump! as the audience rose to its feet, making Nazi-like salutes.

READ MORE: NYC Yemenis close bodegas to protest Trump travel ban

That same night, around 450 people crowded into a small hall in Brooklyn to attend a talk about labour struggles hosted by Jacobin. Its not like there arent socialist figures that the media could be shining their light on; they are making a decision not to, Kilpatrick said.

Two days before the elections, in which Trump won the electoral college by a large margin but lost the popular vote, the Gravis Marketing research firm published a survey that examined how self-described socialist Bernie Sanders would have squared off against Trump. That survey found that Sanders would have beat Trump by a 56 to 44 percent margin.

Sanders, a former independent who ran for the Democratic presidential slot and lost the primary to Clinton, is a US senator from Vermont. I think the working class is hyper-exploited and has been given nothing, Kilpatrick said, adding of Sanders: It says a lot that their favourite politician is a 75-year-old Jewish socialist.

Not entirely new

The American socialist movement has grown and shrunk in ebbs and flows since its inception. Eugene V Debs, a socialist icon who ran for president five times, pulled in more than 900,000 votes during both the 1912 and 1920 elections. His Socialist Party of Americas membership peaked in 1912 at around 118,000 people.

But American socialisms tumultuous history is punctuated with examples of state repression; the arrest of anti-war activists during World War I, the witch hunts led by Joseph McCarthy during the 1950s and the repression of students and other radicals during the New Left rebellion of the 1960s, among others.

Although nationally they are weak today, an April 2016 study by Harvard University found that 51 percent of millennials  a loosely defined group of people aged between 18 and 29  reject capitalism and 33 percent support socialism.

Katie Feyh, a professor at Syracuse University who researches Marxism and rhetorical theory, argued that an already increasing interest in socialism was energised by the Sanders campaign.

Sanders showed how hungry progressives and leftists have been for an electoral formation to the left of where the Democrats have been for decades, Feyh told Al Jazeera.

The Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011 and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2014 attracted thousands of newcomers to progressive activism.

In the 2012 presidential election, fewer than 18,000 people voted for socialist candidates, according to Latterly magazine.

In November, the Green Partys Jill Stein clinched nearly 1.5 million votes. Although not a socialist, Stein championed many left-wing causes.

With record numbers marching against Trump, there are more people entering political activism outside the voting booth, Feyh explained.

She added that, while socialists are far from the majority of those participating in demonstrations against Trump, there is an openness to [left-wing] politics that I havent seen in a long time.

No mood to negotiate

The American political process, while allowing for third parties, is in its essence a two-party system. From raising adequate funds to getting on ballots and securing sufficient media coverage, third parties face immense barriers.

While the mainstream consensus tends to blame third-party candidates for spoiling close elections, in a September 2015 Gallup poll, 60 percent of interviewees supported the establishment of a viable third party because the two main parties do such a poor job.

Kshama Sawant, a member of the Socialist Alternative who sits on the Seattle City Council, said her party is organising and focusing on recruitment with the hope of carving out a spot on the national level.

Sawant, who took office in January 2014, was the first openly socialist politician to win a citywide election in Seattle in 97 years when she unseated four-term city councillor Richard Conlin.

Sawant said that the question of working with progressive elements within the Democratic Party is still a point of debate on the left.

While Sawant and the Socialist Alternative supported Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Party primary, they urged him to run as an independent candidate after he lost to Clinton. We were always completely open and honest that we dont believe that the Democratic Party can be a political vehicle for putting forward a progressive agenda because its establishment leadership is so closely tied to Wall Street, she told Al Jazeera.

Sawant said Democrats have further alienated progressives by urging cooperation with Trump. Following the elections, Clinton offered to work with Trump and encouraged her supporters to keep an open mind.

A week after the elections, former President Barack Obama also said Americans should give Trump a chance.

Yet Sawant said most of the young people flocking to socialist groups are not willing to negotiate over Trumps policies.

Theres no mood to negotiate, she said. Theres a mood to fight back.

IN PICTURES: Washington DC  Womens March for equal rights

Thousands descended on airports in New York City, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco and elsewhere as travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries were detained last week. As the protests spread, a court froze Trumps ban on people from those countries entering the US until it can rule on its legality.

Sawant joined thousands of demonstrators at the Seattle-Tacoma airport. There were people who have never been at a protest before  and we know that those sit-in actions and protests shutting down airports [across the US] were the principle drivers in the [freezing] of the ban.

Last week, Trump signed a pair of executive orders scrapping several regulations placed on Wall Street. He has also vowed to build a wall along the US-Mexico border and to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, and has publicly stated his support for the use of torture.

Explaining that Trumps far-right agenda has led many to join protests, Sawant argued that it is also a historic opportunity to introduce progressive politics to a broader audience.

We need to tie the demands for immigrants rights to the demands of working people in general. Its no longer going to be viable to simply play defence, she concluded.

The entire labour movement and everything weve fought for all these decades is on the chopping block right now. If we are going to save it, were going to have to fight.

Follow Patrick Strickland on Twitter: @P_Strickland_
Discussions on Syria, ISIL, Kurds and Gulen are expected to be the focus of CIA chief Mike Pompeos visit to Ankara.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo is expected to visit Turkey in the first overseas trip after his appointment to the role by US President Donald Trump.

Pompeos unexpected official visit to Turkey, perceived as a sign of the new US administrations support for Ankara, came on the back of a 45-minute telephone conversation between Trump and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on Tuesday.

Trump discussed the close, long-standing relationship between the US and Turkey, and welcomed Turkeys contributions to the fight against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group, the White House said in a statement about the phone call, which was the first between the two leaders since Trumps inauguration three weeks ago.

READ MORE: From Obama to Trump  Lessons and challenges

Turkish analysts told Al Jazeera that while the positive phone conversation between the two leaders and the CIA chiefs unexpected visit to Ankara may indicate the start of a new security-based partnership between Turkey and the US, there is still a cloud of uncertainty over the future of Turkish-American relations.

It is safe to assume, after witnessing the first three weeks of his time in office, that President Trumps approach to foreign relations is going to be unpredictable and erratic, Ali Faik Demir, expert on Turkish foreign policy at Istanbuls Galatasaray University, told Al Jazeera.

It is safe to assume, after witnessing the first three weeks of his time in office, that President Trump's approach to foreign relations is going to be unpredictable and erratic. by Ali Faik Demir, Istanbul's Galatasaray University

He already jeopardised his countrys relatively peaceful relations with major players like Iran and China and created problems with several loyal US allies, like Australia and the EU.

So the positive noises that are being made today [about Turkeys relationship with the US], may not mean anything tomorrow.

Predictions on the future of the US-Turkey partnership can only be made when there is a winner in the battle between the US establishment and Trump, Metin Gurcan, a security analyst and former adviser to the Turkish military, said.

We are either going to witness the Trumpification of the US state or institutionalisation of Trump, Gurcan told Al Jazeera.

And if Trump comes out as the victor in that battle, we are going to have to reassess Turkish-American relations on a daily basis, depending on the presidents mood.

But analysts agreed that, even if Trumps tenure as president is expected to be full of surprises for Turkey, it is going to be shaped by the new presidents perceptions about security.

There is one thing we know about Trump: His priority, at home and abroad, is security, Demir said.  And we already know that Trumps first phone call with Erdogan focused on security issues.

Trumps attitude towards Turkey is going to be shaped by the perceived security threat he will choose to prioritise, Gurcan explained.

Trump may focus on containing Russia or Irans growing influence in the Middle East, or make the fight against radical armed networks like ISIL his priority, he said.

Because Trump is not making his priorities clear, Ankara is not yet sure whether to feel content or concerned about the future of its relations with the US.

According to analysts, discussions on Syria and the Syrian Kurdish forces are going to be the focus of Pompeos visit to Ankara.

Turkish officials will undoubtedly try to convince Pompeo to support a Turkish-operated safe zone in northern Syria, Gurcan said. They are also going to lobby for the eradication of Kurdish forces from that area.

READ MORE: Kurds and refugees behind Turkeys Syria offensive

The Syrian Kurdish forces, under the banner of the Peoples Protection Units (YPG), controls swaths of territory along Syrias northeastern border with Turkey, while its political wing, the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), claims control over an autonomous region now called Rojava.

Turkey sees both the PYD and the YPG as extensions of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a bloody campaign against the Turkish state for nearly three decades.





The Trump administration wants to end the security threats and immigration waves coming from the Middle East without sending American soldiers to the region, Demir said.

I dont think it really matters to Trump whether the Kurds or the Turks do the job for him. So, I believe, if Turkish government agrees to play a more active military role in the region, the new US administration would happily turn its back to the Kurdish forces.

Turkeys recent rapprochement with Russia is not likely to cause friction between Ankara and Washington, analysts explained.

Trump has been sending positive signals to Moscow since the beginning of his election campaign, Demir said. Russia is already the primary actor in Syria, and Trump does not seem to be too concerned about this. At this point Erdogans close relations with Vladimir Putin would not be seen as detrimental to US interests.

A further rapprochement between Russia and the US, on the other hand, may be problematic for Turkeys aspirations in the Middle East, said Gurcan.

President Barack Obama was treating the Euphrates River in Syria as a natural border between US and Russian influence zones  east of the river was under US influence and the west under Russian influence, he said.

Now, Russia feels like entire northern Syria should be under its influence. Trump may not bother to maintain the status quo Obama created and allow Putin to control both sides of the river. This may be a hindrance for Turkeys plans for its southern border.

READ MORE: Which parts of Syria should be bombed?

Fethullah Gulen, a US-based preacher whom the Turkish government holds responsible for last years bloody coup attempt, is likely to be a bargaining chip in Pompeos negotiations with Turkish officials, analysts said.





Turkey wants Gulen to be extradited as soon as possible and the US is aware of Ankaras restlessness about this issue, Gurcan said. The Trump administration may offer to speed up the extradition process in exchange for Turkeys increased military involvement in the fight against ISIL.

But Demir pointed out that, especially in the current political climate, Trump may not have the power to extradite Gulen, even if he wanted to.

It is entirely possible for the Trump administration to try using Gulen as a bargaining chip in its relations and security partnerships with Turkey, Demir said.

But we have to remember that the US is still a state of law and the judiciary may stop any extradition attempt coming from the White House. 
The World Health Organization estimates that there are currently as many as 246 million people living with visual impairment worldwide and a further 39 million who are already completely blind. Of that number, 90 percent live in developing countries where there are fewer opportunities for prevention and cure.

The vast majority of forms of blindness are preventable.

READ MORE: Uganda: Onchocerciasis-river blindness along the Agogo

The lead cause of blindness in the developing world is cataracts, which can be congenital (from birth), or caused by trauma to the eye later in life. The operation to remove cataracts is both simple and cheap.

A single eye surgeon can carry out thousands in a year, each one taking as little as 10 minutes.

Yet, in places like the east African island of Zanzibar, where there is not a single paediatric eye surgeon, and much of the population lacks the access or the funds to receive the vision-saving operation, many continue to suffer needlessly.

The NGO Sightsavers has been funding a team of surgeons and medical specialists from the Tanzanian mainland who visit four times a year to carry out mass child-cataract operations.

Two-year-old Bakir Rashid underwent the surgery in September 2016.

READ MORE: Blind massage therapists offer relief from war in South Sudan
UPDATED

The Federal Communications Commission on Friday rescinded its own report documenting the success of the E-rate program, a multi-billion dollar FCC-led initiative that has helped tens of thousands of schools and libraries obtain high-speed internet access.

The report will have no legal or other effect or meaning going forward, according to the commissions order.

The move prompted sharp criticism from education and open-government groupsand a warning from Florida Sen. Bill Nelson.

While new FCC leadership may have new policy directions, the public record should not be permanently altered, the American Library Association said in a statement .

We urge the reversal of the retraction decisions and an agreement that the FCC will not order the removal of any other documents from the public record.

The report was released on January 18, just two days before former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, a Democrat who oversaw major changes to the E-rate program during his tenure, stepped down.

It was retracted on February 3, less than two weeks after President Donald Trump appointed Ajit Pai , a Republican commissioner who voted against the Wheeler-led E-rate reforms in 2014, as FCC chair.

The order officially came from the acting chiefs of the commissions Wireline Competition Bureau and Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, as well as the FCCs managing director.

An FCC spokesman said the report does not reflect the official views of the agency. A copy remains available on the agencys website.

Titled E-Rate Modernization: Progress and the Road Ahead , the document describes the impact of the FCCs 2014 effort to overhaul the E-rate program , which helps subsidize the cost of telecommunications services for public schools and libraries. In addition to raising the programs annual spending cap from $2.4 to $3.9 billion, Wheeler and the commissions Democratic majority approved regulations prioritizing broadband and Wi-Fi, increasing competition in the school-broadband market, and making a wide range of data related to the program publicly available.

Among the reports findings: Between 2013 and 2016, the percentage of school districts meeting minimum federal connectivity targets rose from 30 percent in to 77 percent. During the same span, the cost schools paid for bandwidth fell from $22 to $7 per megabit, per second.

The report also notes that the E-rate program, which is funded via fees on consumers phone bills, has paid out less than allowed by law in each of the past two years.

The FCC spokesman did not dispute the reports findings, saying its publication failed to follow proper proper procedures, and therefore we cant comment one way or the other on whether the findings and conclusions are accurate.

The findings echo those of nonprofit broadband-advocacy group EducationSuperHighway, which released its own analysis of E-rate application data last month.

Evan Marwell, the groups CEO, said he was perplexed as to why the FCC would withdraw a report showing the tremendous success of its own program.

Id think this report is exactly the kind of accountability Chairman Pai would like to see, Marwell said.

On Wednesday, Nelson, a Democrat and the ranking member of the U.S. Senates Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, sent a sharply worded rebuke to the new chairman.

The E-rate is without question the single most important educational technology program in the country, Nelsons letter reads.

Our nations students, teachers, and librariansand this senatorwill hold you accountable for any changes that roll back this highly successful and cherished program that has helped bring internet connectivity and broadband to schools and libraries throughout the nation.

Pai has long supported the E-rate program and believes it a program worth fighting for, according to the FCC spokesman.

In voting against E-rate modernization in 2014, however, Pai cast the changes to the program as financially irresponsible. He argued that Wheeler and his supporters were dismissive of the programs impact on consumers and had not done enough to check waste, fraud, and abuse.

In 2015, Education Week and the PBS NewsHour took an extensive look at the impact of E-rate modernization on rural schools .

Pai has outlined his own plans to improve broadband access for rural schools and communities. As chairman, Pai also began last week unwinding recent changes to another FCC universal-service program known as the Lifeline.

Its common for a federal agency to switch policy directions after a change in leadership, especially following a presidential election, said Douglas A. Levin, a consultant with EdTech Strategies and the former head of the State Educational Technology Directors Association.

But even during a switch in administration, rescinding a public report is an unusual decision that looks awful, Levin said.

To expunge the record is clearly a political move, he said. Its particularly curious because Pai himself seems to value data in decisionmaking.

The move could signal a coming effort to reduce overall FCC spending on universal-service programs, Levin said.

It also lends credence to the growing fear that the Trump administration is engaged in a pattern of undermining access to information and the credibility of scientific evidence, said Alexander Howard, the deputy director of the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for open data and government transparency.

Howard cited the administrations questioning of widely accepted unemployment figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the removal of thousands of documents detailing animal welfare abuses from the U.S. Department of Agriculture website as similarly troubling examples.

The FCCs decision to rescind its E-rate report and walk away from its findings is more reason for concern, he said.

If theres a body of scientific evidence collected by an agency about how to accomplish its mission, thats something we should want to be preserved in the public record, Howard said.

The basic issue we are starting to run into is whether science itself is becoming politicized.

This post has been updated with reaction from Florida Sen. Bill Nelson.

Photo: Federal Communication Commission Commissioner Ajit Pai speaks during an open hearing and vote on Net Neutrality last February in Washington.--Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP-File

See also:


It was Ayodele Fayose, the Governor of Ekiti State, who first said everything under the Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari was becoming inconclusive.

That outburst  and Fayose has quite a litany of complaints against Buhari  came after Nigerias electoral umpire declared the Bayelsa State governorship election inconclusive on the third day of the exercise.

It was a happy ending for Fayose: Seriake Dickson, candidate of his party, won the election a month later. Actually, there was little to worry about in the first place.

One year on, a crisis of monstrous scale and manifold consequences is brewing. Buhari is on medical vacation in the United Kingdom, and it is so far inconclusive, even indefinite.

The announcement of Buharis latest vacation on January 19 was itself inauspicious  not because it was his third in one year, but because he had asked the National Assembly for 10 days off when he was in fact going to be away for longer.

That a 10-day vacation began on January 19, and was to end on February 6, offered faint indication of the presidents much-guarded state of health. And it was all sudden: Yemi Osinbajo, the man Buhari temporarily handed power to, abruptly ended his participation at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Rumours of hsi death have spread on fake news sites, and it is very worrisome that Buhari has refused to personally assure the country of his wellness. On one occasion Garba Shehu, one of his two spokesmen, tweeted a photo of Buhari supposedly watching Channels, Nigerias leading television station, but it all seemed a cover-up.

The president could have called that same station to address his countrymen for just a minute. In such an ethnically divided country as Nigeria, such a move is crucial for the preservation of democratic sanity. With that assurance still missing, the power grabbers are already at work.

The fears of the north

Until May 2010, it seemed inconceivable that a member of a minority ethnic group would become president.

Were that even to happen, it looked like an outright impossibility that the north  a region that typically sees the number-one seat as its birthright  would be the victim of such power transfer.

But when northerner Umaru Musa YarAdua, the former president, left Nigeria for Saudi Arabia in November 2009 to get treatment for pericarditis and hadnt returned by February 2010, Goodluck Jonathan, from the Ijaw ethnic group, was formally declared acting president.

With YarAduas death three months later, Jonathan  a man who was chosen as YarAduas running mate not for his political appeal but for his reputation of never rocking the boat  became president.

Either Buhari returns to office in earnest to personally oversee the fulfillment of the promises he made to Nigerians in 2015, or he gives up the position for someone else who will run his own vision and will be entirely accountable for the state of the nation. by

The north had lost the power it had been impatiently waiting for since the turn of the Fourth Republic in 1999. Worse still, despite the protests of the northern elite, Jonathan ran for office, and won in 2010.

The possibility of a repetition of this situation is why the north is particularly apprehensive over Buharis extended medical vacation. There is no chance Buharis northern friends, already accused of imposing a political stranglehold over the masses, will watch Osinbajo become president without a fight  in the event that Buhari is unable to continue in office owing to ill-health or death.

Despite the denial of rumours that there is pressure on Osinbajo, a southwesterner, to resign, the meeting of northern governors with the National Security Adviser Babagana Monguno and Chief of Army Staff Tukur Buratai has raised eyebrows.

OPINION: One year ago, Buhari promised to change Nigeria

Osinbajo himself has, in practice, done very little to dismiss the rumours. He has been typically calm and self-controlled in his response to matters, but his incoherence while discussing Buharis health was a striking giveaway. I think that the health status of Mr President is an issue that only Mr President would discuss at the appropriate time, he said in Abuja on Monday.

Again, he is running test and all of that. Before you will be able to determine your health status you must be able to say this is my health status. Those closing words show Osinbajo is himself in the dark about the state of the presidents health.

Nigeria over Buhari

Buhari must be honest with himself. At 74, he alone understands his body and the rigours it can accommodate. He may have temporarily transferred power to Osinbajo but thats just a procedural constitutional requirement.

Osinbajo will not exercise that power beyond the extent to which he knows Buhari would want him to. And, quite frankly, that is not what Nigeria needs at the moment.

Either Buhari returns to office in earnest to personally oversee the fulfillment of the promises he made to Nigerians in 2015, or he gives up the position for someone else who will run his own vision and will be entirely accountable for the state of the nation.

With the Nigerian currency naira falling to an all-time low, companies folding, and the cost of living on the rise, there were protests against Buharis government across the country on February 6. There was no news from Buhari and his vice president could not be held wholly accountable.

For all his failings, Jonathan remains a hero for conceding the 2015 election. Buhari will be a far bigger one were he to concede the presidency to a fitter candidate if his health deteriorates further.

In his absence, the hawks will be hovering over Osinbajo, and the behind-the-scenes power play wont result in any meaningful national development. Buhari must spare Nigeria the political heartbreak of governance by an absentee president.

Fisayo Soyombo was the pioneer editor of Nigerian online newspaper TheCable.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
The US has long targeted immigrants and American citizens alike for no reason other than heritage, race or religion.

Stanley L Cohen is an attorney and human rights activist who has done extensive work in the Middle East and Africa.

Its always been far too easy for Americans to strut around the worlds living room praising our own inclusiveness  acting very much as revisionist historians who, once past the obvious ugly, move along quickly to welcome the worlds hungry, tired and poor.

The folly of attempting to rest the progress of a religious creed by persecutions and civil disabilities has been so often demonstrated that it is surprising to see it survived in this age and country. A distinguished advocate of religious liberty decreed, nearly a half-century ago, that even in Great Britain nearly all of its opponents had been silenced - some have been taught sense, others inspired with shame, until none were left upon the field except those that could neither learn nor blush. by John Rutherford, Chairman Democratic Party Virginia, 1855

We are, in fact, quite accomplished in repackaging a dark, ugly history with fancy wrapping paper tied together with red, white and blue ribbons that seem to surface with predictable dramatic flair as Americans walk into voting booths.

Theres not a whole lot of rewrite that can be done to sanitise the genocide of Native people or to recast slavery or reduce misogyny to anything but. These are, after all, the cornerstones upon which the United States was built. And the march from Asia to railroad peonage is littered with the bodies of indentured servants who typically found relief only in the opium that came with their forced labour as they built the passageway of the US from one coast to another.

Its a trail of tears that began long before the American Revolution and which continues on today as very much an open, oozing infection  one described not all that long ago by our Supreme Court as badges and incidents of slavery in a case which held that Congress had the authority to prohibit even private acts of ongoing discrimination.

Likewise, the smug sermon of religious freedom and diversity that seems to find its way into every politicians pulpit is belied by periods of religious persecution that not only predate the American Revolution but periodically stop to revisit us as so much a dark reminder of the wide chasm between blind faith and political reality.

The non-violent part of the story is easy. It has its genesis, not long after the Revolutionary war, when varied states abolished some churches while supporting others, issued preaching licences and collected tax money to fund and establish official state churches. Were it just about peaceful institutional discrimination, it would be far easier to sell the tale of evolving cultural and religious diversity and freedom. But its not.

Indeed, beginning in the 17th century, anti-Quaker laws imposed penalties upon heretics ranging from expulsion to capital punishment. In the 18th century, physical assaults and near-drowning of Baptists often became the cost of their beliefs.

The 19th century brought us torched convents, pitched gun battles between nativist Americans and mostly Irish Catholic immigrants, and a Mormon town burned to the ground with its leaders executed.

In the 20th century, Jews became increasing targets of anti-religious fervour which ranged from imposition of immigration quotas based upon national origin to exclusion from colleges, to being banned from holding political office, and to violent attacks typically carried out by special societies such as the Silver Shirts or the Ku Klux Klan.

In the early days of the 21st century, reported anti-Muslim hate crimes soared nationwide from 28 to 481 and ran the gamut from racial and religious slurs to attacks on mosques and to physical assaults and murder.

Ours is a political experience long rooted in theological and social animosity and domination; one where majority religious groups have long controlled domestic political power and opportunities that derive from its reach. Indeed, historically, theocratic rule has been quick to punish dissent within our midst and viewed immigrants with competing religious beliefs and values with suspicion as very much outsiders and undemocratic.

INTERACTIVE: US Elections  Who got the right to vote when?

So, one might ask, what is there, then, about the most recent Trump attack upon Muslims, all Muslims, that stands in dramatic contrast from a long and sordid American history of targeted persecutions of minorities based upon nothing more than religious and immigrant status?

The easy part of the equation is its 2017  a long way removed from the time and place where we feared witches and hanged women. Indeed, one would like to think that in an enlightened, educated, and culturally diverse advanced society, no president would dare to target men, women and children for exclusion or deportation from our shores on the basis of their place of birth, or belief, and nothing more.

But Trump is not your run-of-the-mill president. He has made a career out of exploiting the fears of others to his personal benefit and, like the brash bully that he is, has perfected the art of the contemporary coliseum where todays Roman elite decide the fate of the relatively powerless  not with a thumbs-up or down but through immigration policies that play to the roar of the crowd  a crowd long manipulated by ignorance and political greed which reduces 25 percent of the worlds population to presumptive enemy status by little more than the number of times that they pray each day.

Is Donald Trumps rhetoric, now executive policy, aberrant, or unique? Of course not. Tragically, nothing could be further from the truth. As noted, it is but another in a long history of legislative and political efforts to control the borders and street ways that, on the one hand, hold out the promise of freedom as an opportunity but, on the other, reduce it to little more than a tease based upon colour, class and religious belief.

If the past is indeed a prelude, a passing look at just several of these failed attempts to homogenise the American experience offers much a glimpse of, ultimately, where and how Trump will fail in his effort to convert the US into a mirror image of his own insular and supremacist views and values.

The Alien and Sedition Acts





In 1798 the Alien and Sedition Acts were a series of four laws proposed by the Federalist Party purportedly to increase national security. In relevant part, these laws changed residency requirements for obtaining citizenship and gave the president power to imprison or deport aliens. The Acts themselves came about in response to American fears that unrest in Europe was starting to haemorrhage over into the US.

The Federalists felt this turmoil was caused by immigrants who sympathised with the French Revolution and led people to believe that the Acts were necessary to eliminate foreign enemies residing in the US and to make America a safer place. Sound familiar?

After the laws went into effect, the government began compiling a list of aliens that were to be deported. Many who were not incarcerated fled the country on their own to avoid deportation or imprisonment.

Following the implementation of the Act in 1798, future Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison secretly drafted the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions which not only denounced the Alien and Sedition Acts as unconstitutional but prompted the first serious defence of the principles of states rights.

Not long thereafter, with the rise of public revulsion over the Acts, Jefferson was elected president. He immediately pardoned individuals who were still incarcerated for violating the Sedition Act and repaid the individuals fines with government funds.

More than 200 years later, some 15 states including Washington, Minnesota, Virginia, Massachusetts and New York, the District of Columbia along with more than 150 former US attorneys and assistant US attorneys from California, New York and Florida and some 100 US-based international companies now seek to strike down the Trump executive order which targets Muslims for exclusion or deportation from the US.

These challenges derive their impetus from the very claims raised by Jefferson and Adams against the Alien and Sedition Acts, namely that states need not sit silent in the presence of unconstitutional federal attacks upon their citizens, visitors and refugees but can, in fact, seek relief in federal courts even against policies of the president normally found within the unique province of his power.

The internment of Japanese Americans





One hundred and forty years later, the Alien and Sedition Acts laid the foundation for imprisoning so-called enemy aliens, namely Japanese Americans, and confiscating their property during World War II.

As a result of Executive Order 9066 issued in 1942 by President Franklin Roosevelt, military commanders were empowered to designate military areas from which any and all persons [could] be excluded. More than 120,000 mostly second and third-generation Japanese Americans  many, Buddhists  were forcibly relocated from their homes mostly on the West Coast of the US and incarcerated in camps in the interior of the country.

Although ordered not long after Japans attack on Pearl Harbor, there is little doubt that the forced relocation was triggered by political frenzy stirred by hate groups such as the Asiatic Exclusion League, the California Joint Immigration Committee and Native Sons of the Golden West which, along with various earlier Immigration Acts, had long targeted Japanese Americans and immigrants from other undesirable Asian countries as part of the yellow peril.

Although Roosevelts exclusion order was upheld by the Supreme Court on limited grounds, some 40 years later Congress passed the Civil Liberties Act which apologised for the internment and authorised reparations to each individual camp survivor. The legislation, which specifically acknowledged that government actions were based on race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership, resulted in payments of more than $1.6bn to some 80,000 Japanese Americans who had been interned and their heirs.

OPINION: Is this really how fascism takes hold in the US?

These are just two of the most extreme examples of race and religious-based hate by the executive and legislative branches of the federal government that cover a 200-year period of US history. They are, however, by no means alien to the American experience which, throughout its run, has targeted immigrants and American citizens alike for no reason other than heritage, race or religion. From the Know-Nothing Movement of the 1850s, to the Palmer Raids of the 1920s, to the McCarthy era some three decades later, there are countless examples of when, like now, political animus has driven petty politicians and hate groups alike to target the most vulnerable among us.

Hate is always senseless and, ultimately, self-defeating. It starts out with hating religious beliefs  be they of Catholics, Jews, or Muslims  and along the way sweeps within its dreadful destructive reach refugees from countries as diverse as Ireland, Italy, China, Palestine and Syria, to name a few.

Hate unites the bonds of fear and ignorance for those who find perverse relief in the pain of others to make more palatable their own personal and political discomfort.

Hate is a virulent malady indeed, one that seems to travel with the passage of time.

Donald Trump is one such traveller.

Stanley L Cohen is a lawyer and human rights activist who has done extensive work in the Middle East and Africa.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Red Cross suspends some activities in Afghanistan after gunmen attacked a convoy in Jowzjan and killed six staff.

The International Committee of the Red Cross temporarily suspended some of its efforts in Afghanistan on Thursday, a day after gunmen killed six employees delivering aid to a remote northern region hit by heavy snowstorms.

A search operation was under way to find two charity workers still missing.

The head of the ICRC called the incident the worst attack against us in 20 years, but the group said it did not know who was responsible.

We will put our operations on hold for at least a week after our colleagues were killed in the attack last night, Thomas Glass, an aid worker and public relations officer with the ICRC, told Al Jazeera.

Weve been in Afghanistan for the past 30 years assisting people in need. We want to provide aid and help but not at the cost of our colleagues. So we need to know what happened before we restart our humanitarian efforts.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told Al Jazeera his group was not involved in the attack.

READ MORE: MSF driver killed in attack on convoy in CAR

The governor of Jowzjan province, Lotfullah Azizi, said the aid convoy was attacked by suspected Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) gunmen.

A massive snowstorm dumped as much as two metres of snow on areas of Afghanistan over the weekend, causing an avalanche that killed more than 100 people.

Jowzjan police chief Rahmatullah Turkistani said the ICRC workers bodies had been taken to the provincial capital.

These staff members were simply doing their duty, selflessly trying to help and support the local community, ICRC President Peter Maurer said.

Afghanistan is the Red Cross fourth-largest humanitarian programme in the world, and the attack follows a warning by the charity last month that mounting security issues made it difficult to deliver aid across the country.

READ MORE: Afghans expelled by Pakistan in dire need of aid

Gunmen in northern Afghanistan kidnapped a Spanish ICRC employee in mid-December, releasing him nearly a month later.

That staff member had been travelling with three Afghan colleagues between Mazar-i-Sharif and Kunduz when assailants stopped their vehicles. The local staff were immediately released.
Two dead and five wounded near Gaza-Egypt border after missile slams into a tunnel defying Israeli blockade.

Two Palestinian civilians were killed and five others wounded in an air strike that hit a tunnel in Gaza near the Egyptian border.

It was unclear who launched the attack on Thursday. A Palestinian official blamed Israel; however, a military spokeswoman denied any knowledge of the strike.

Ashraf al-Qedra, Gazas health ministry spokesperson, said in a statement the two men were martyred and five other people were wounded as a result of being targeted by an Israeli warplane along the Palestinian-Egyptian borders.

According to al-Qedra, the two men killed were identified as Hossam al-Sufi, 24, and Mohammed al-Aqra, 38.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said she was unaware of the attack, which happened pre-dawn between the Gaza Strip and Rafah on the Egyptian side of the border.

READ MORE: Fatah and Hamas to form unity government

The incident took place after at least three rockets were fired from the Sinai peninsula into Israels southernmost resort city of Eilat late on Wednesday.

The Israeli army said in a statement its missile defence system, known as the Iron Dome, intercepted the rockets, preventing any casualties or damage.

Israeli media reported a group affiliated with the Islamic State of the Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attack on Eilat.

Gaza has been under a decade-long siege imposed by Israel following Hamas election victory and subsequent takeover of the enclave in 2007.

Since 2013, Egypt has largely shut off its border with Gaza, blocking nearly 2,000 tunnels connecting Gaza with Rafah, stemming the flow of much-needed goods and resources.

Egypt recently eased some border restrictions with Gaza.
More troops and vehicles to be sent to Espirito Santo following deaths of over 100 people during week of police strike.

The Brazilian army has said that it will deploy more troops, armoured vehicles and military aviation to a southeastern state to fill a security vacuum where the police force has been on strike for a week.

A wave of violence and crime in Espirito Santo has claimed more than 100 lives so far, which is a major rise from the four murders recorded in all of January.

The announcement on Thursday came a day after Cesar Colnago, the state governor, said that the 1,200 soldiers who arrived earlier this week were not enough to help end the rampant unrest, which started after police left their posts on Friday in protest over wages and work conditions.

From now on, I have decided to reinforce ES with paratroopers, armoured vehicles and army aviation. The mission will be accomplished, General Eduardo Villas Boas, Brazils army commander, said via Twitter on Thursday.

Wave of muggings

Brazils Globo television network quoted the police union in Espirito Santo saying that more than 100 people have now been killed in a wave of muggings, carjackings and looting in the capital city Vitoria and elsewhere.

Relatives and sympathisers of striking officers are blockading police stations, and officers inside are deliberately making no effort to come out  leaving the city unguarded.

The website of the Colnagos office said talks had been held with the police, but with no result.

It also issued an appeal on Thursday for blood donors, saying stocks have been reduced to a minimum in the last few days.

The police want better conditions and higher salaries. A court declared the action an illegal strike and the state police chief has been replaced.

Meanwhile, there were continuing fears and rumours in Rio de Janeiro, Brazils second most populous city, that police could start a copycat strike on Friday.

Officials have said they are working on paying officers late salaries and that no strike is planned. However, persistent rumours on social media have struck a nerve.

State Governor Luiz Fernando Pezao told Radio Gaucha in an interview early Thursday that he had asked the federal authorities to put the army and elite National Public Security Force on standby, in case the situation deteriorates, Globo television reported.

OPINION: The fight for Brazils future

Rio has recently faced violent protests against austerity reforms, stretching police resources.

The crisis reflects nationwide budget crises in Brazil, blamed on corruption, which has faced a crippling recession for two years and is struggling to return to growth.

The country is also one of the most violent in the world, with heavily armed criminals battling both on the streets and in prisons.

Last month, clashes inside a prison near the northern city of Natal left 26 people dead, prompting the deployment of army troops.
US President Donald Trump has broken the ice with Chinese President Xi Jinping in a letter that said he looked forward to working with him to develop constructive relations, although the pair havent spoken directly since Trump took office.

Trump also issued belated well-wishes to China for the Lunar New Year, the most important holiday in the worlds most populous nation. He had been the only US president in recent years not to have issued greetings when the holiday fell on January 28, triggering speculation in China as to whether it was an oversight or an intentional slight.

A statement from the White House late on Wednesday said Trump wrote to Xi wishing the Chinese people greetings for the new year and the Lantern Festival that falls on Saturday.

President Trump stated that he looks forward to working with President Xi to develop a constructive relationship that benefits both the United States and China, the statement said.

READ MORE: Fake Donald Trump tweets filling up Chinese social media

The letter also thanked Xi for his congratulatory letter on Trumps inauguration and wished the Chinese people a prosperous Year of the Rooster, it said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China commended Trump for sending Lunar New Year greetings to the Chinese people and said cooperation between the two countries was the only option.

Wang Yiwei, a professor of international relations at Beijings elite Renmin University, said the letter suggested the new US administration wanted to signal the importance it attached to the US-China relationship, without risking being confronted on specific issues.





Trump has sent many messages that makes the world confused, like on the South China Sea and One China policy, so if he makes a phone call President Xi will ask What do you mean?, Wang said.

He wants to avoid this, so he just sends a letter for the first step.

Trump and Xi have yet to speak directly since Trump took office on January 20, although they did talk soon after Trump won the US presidential election in November.

The Foreign Ministry in Beijing said last week the two countries were remaining in close touch.

Trump has accused Beijing of unfair trade practices and currency manipulation, criticised Chinas military buildup in the South China Sea, and accused Beijing of doing too little to pressure neighbour North Korea over its nuclear and missile programmes.

READ MORE: Chinas Xi defends free trade in speech at Davos

He also upended four decades of diplomatic protocol by speaking by phone with Tsai Ing-wen, the president of Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory.

Beijing decried the phone call with Tsai and has rejected the other accusations. China has in fact been spending heavily from its pile of foreign currency reserves to prop up the value of its currency, which would make its exports less competitive.

The prospect of a military confrontation over the South China Sea had also been raised by Trumps chief strategist Steve Bannon when he hosted the conservative Breitbart News Daily radio show in 2015 and 2016.

Bannon said he envisioned the possibility of a US-China war over the strategic waterway within five to 10 years. China, which claims the sea virtually in its entirety, has been building man-made islands in the area and equipping them with airstrips and military installations.
Battle for Syrian city of al-Bab intensifies with 58 ISIL fighters killed as rebels and government troops converge.

Syrian rebels backed by the Turkish military have captured the outskirts of the ISIL-held city of al-Bab in northern Syria, the Turkish government and rebel sources said.

The advance threatens an important ISIL stronghold, whose fall would deepen Turkish influence in an area of northern Syria where it has created a de facto buffer zone.

The Turkish military said in a statement that 58 ISIL fighters had been killed in air raids, artillery fire, and clashes. Two Turkish soldiers were killed and 15 slightly wounded.

Syrian government forces also advanced on al-Bab from the south on Wednesday, bringing them into close proximity with their Turkish and rebel enemies in one of the most complex battlefields of the six-year-old conflict.

But Turkey said international coordination was under way to prevent clashes with the Syrian forces.

The al-Bab operation must be completed immediately in the period ahead  In recent days our special forces and the Free Syrian Army [rebels] have made serious progress, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told a news conference.

READ MORE: ISIL fighters besieged in Syrias al-Bab in Aleppo

In a sign of Turkish momentum and confidence, the government said its next target would be the Syrian city of Raqqa, de facto capital of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group, which is also under attack in its Iraqi stronghold of Mosul.

Al-Bab has been a major target of a Turkish offensive launched in northern Syria last August to drive ISIL away from the border and prevent further gains by US-backed Kurdish militia that are also fighting the group. The city is just 30km from the Turkish border.





A Free Syrian Army rebel commander, speaking to the Reuters news agency from the southeastern outskirts of al-Bab, said Syrian government jets and helicopters were visible to the west of his position, adding there was now an indirect frontline between the sides.

But an official in a military alliance backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said the city was being left to Turkish control, in what appeared to be part of a deal with Russia, Assads most powerful ally.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said clashes with the Syrian forces had been avoided.

As a result of coordination between coalition forces, the Turkish air force and Russia, necessary measures are being taken to prevent any unpleasant incidents or clashes, Yildirim said.

Assad has been backed in the war by the Russian air force and an array of Iranian-backed Shiite militias. The Syrian army advance towards al-Bab is aimed at preventing deeper Turkish advances and safeguarding the city of Aleppo, 50km to the southwest.

Progress is fast

A Syrian rebel fighter reached by Reuters said he was speaking from inside al-Bab where ISIL lines were collapsing.

Praise God, the progress is fast, he said. The operation is continuing.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based organisation that uses a network of contacts in Syria to monitor the war, said it was not yet clear if ISIL was on the ropes. It said at least six people had been killed and 12 more wounded in the latest shelling there.

ISIL is being fought by three separate military alliances in northern Syria, including the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which incorporate the Kurdish YPG militia.

US support for the YPG has angered Turkey, which views it as an extension of a Kurdish militia that is waging a rebellion in Turkey.

Turkish sources said President Tayyip Erdogan and US President Donald Trump agreed in a phone call overnight to act jointly against ISIL in al-Bab and Raqqa.

The White House said in a statement that Trump spoke about the two countries shared commitment to combating terrorism in all its forms.
Police seal El Nadeem Centre after two attempts to close it, claiming the rights group violated terms of its licence.

Egyptian authorities have closed the offices of a prominent human rights group that helps victims of violence and torture, according to the organisation and a police official quoted by the AFP news agency.

El Nadeem Centre for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture in Cairo was shut on Thursday.

About 15 policemen in official uniform with a group of civilians sealed three apartments in the building belonging to El Nadeem, Aida Seif el-Dawla, a co-founder of the nongovernmental organisation, told AFP news agency by phone.

We didnt violate any rules and the government has not provided any reasons for its closure decision.

Seif el-Dawla said the centre had filed a lawsuit against the order.

READ MORE: Al Jazeeras Mahmoud Hussein detained for more than 50 days now

A policeman said the centre had been closed for violating the terms of its licence, requesting anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the media.

Authorities have tried on two separate occasions to shut down El Nadeem Centre amid accusations by human rights groups that the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is stifling civil society groups.

Rights campaigners accuse the authorities of human rights violations, including forced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and illegal detentions.

Seif el-Dawla was banned from travelling to Tunisia on November 23, along with several other rights activists and lawyers who are not allowed to leave the country.

Strict NGO law

Egyptian and foreign NGOs operating in the country are governed by a strict law which allows the government to supervise their activities and finances.

In November, authorities froze El Nadeems assets for a week before the organisation submitted a document proving the centre is not subject to the law, El Nadeem said.

The organisation was registered with the health ministry and the doctors union as a medical clinic, Suzan Fayad, an El Nadeem co-founder, said.

Egypts parliament approved in November a new law to regulate the activities of NGOs, in a move that prompted fears of an intensified crackdown on such groups.
One year after TC Winston, the South Pacific looks seasonally wet but quieter

On the southwest Pacific island of Fiji, the town of Nadi reported 303mm of rain on Tuesday night. That is a lot, even for a Pacific island and, considering what happened here one year ago, potentially worrying as it indicates active weather.

Flash flooding and swollen rivers were the result of this rain, which was thankfully more of an annoyance than too damaging.

Nadi to Lautoka stretch under water. Travel safe or don't at all! #fiji #FijiNews PC: Davila. S pic.twitter.com/9bSPBW2BIF  Jacquee Speight (@jacqueespeight) February 7, 2017

Fiji was hit in February 2016 by Tropical Cyclone Winston, a major category 5 cyclone (that is at the top of the scale) which caused widespread destruction.

The official tropical cyclone season runs between November and April. During the last cyclone season, there were eight cyclones, one of which was TC Winston. The forecast issued by the Fijian Met Service for this season suggests as few as three tropical cyclones will pass through Fiji waters with one anticipated to reach Category 3 or above.

At the moment, there is one tropical depression near Fiji, the one that brought Tuesday nights rain. Nadis February average rainfall is, coincidentally, 303mm, representing 15 days of rain, not just one. It has rained since, a further 56mm, but the heaviest rain is a little to the east of the main island of Viti Levu.

Last Friday, the Nadi weather office issued a warning that flash flooding would occur in the following week because of a trough of low pressure sitting over the country. People were able to prepare by moving property and livestock out of low-lying areas.

This following week will see further spells of significant rain but, as yet, no tropical cyclones near Fiji.
Kenyas high court has said it would be unconstitutional to close the worlds biggest refugee camp, which houses more than 200,000 people who have fled war in neighbouring Somalia.

In a ruling on Thursday, the court said a government order to shut the camp, which would have sent the refugees back to Somalia from the sprawling Dadaab camp, was illegal.

Judge John Mativo, who issued the ruling, said Kenyas internal security minister had abused his power by ordering the closure of the camp, which borders Somalia, in May last year.

According to Mativo, the order had been given without consulting the people who would be directly affected by its implications, which was a violation of Kenyas constitutional right to fair legal proceedings.

Hence, the said decision is null and void, he ruled.

READ MORE: Forty percent of Somalis dont have enough food to eat

Mativo also said that the order was discriminatory in nature and went against international treaties that protect refugees from being forced to return to persecution, adding that the Kenyan government had failed to prove Somalia was safe enough for the refugees.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Amnesty Internationals Deputy Regional Director Michelle Kagari said a durable solution should be explored for Somali refugees.

This would include, for example, exploring options for Somalis to be integrated into local communities. It would also include exploring options to increase resettlement opportunities for Somali refugees, she said.

The ruling also blocked a government decision to disband the Department for Refugee Affairs.

Amnesty Internationals East Africa chief, Muthoni Wanyeki, hailed the ruling as historic.

He said: Today is a historic day for more than a quarter of a million refugees who were at risk of being forcefully returned to Somalia, where they would have been at serious risk of human rights abuses.

This ruling reaffirms Kenyas constitutional and international legal obligation to protect people who seek safety from harm and persecution.

The government had been planning to shut down Dadaab for more than six months. In June, Somalias ambassador to the US criticised the plan and said it would damage relations between Kenya and Somalia.

Many parts of southern Somalia remain under the control of al-Shabab militias and there are almost daily clashes between them and Somali government forces, and African Union peacekeepers, Al Jazeeras Mohammed Adow, reporting from the Somali capital Mogadishu, said.

If these people [refugees] were to be repatriated back here, they will be coming back to what is essentially a warzone.

The government had denied that it would be abandoning refugees, saying it had made arrangements with the Somali government to resettle them.

In November, the closure was delayed by six months after calls by foreign nations to postpone it on humanitarian grounds.

READ MORE: Somali refugees in Kenya fear being repatriated

Kenya says Dadaab has become a hive for the al-Shabab armed group, and that it is a drain on the economy.

Some refugees have voluntarily returned to Somalia in recent months, after pressure to close down the camp spread fear of being forcibly evicted among the residents of Dadaab.
Tony Jackson, Vice President for Education, and Director, Center for Global Education , at Asia Society, shares his thoughts on whether the travel ban meets the standards of global competence.

by guest blogger Tony Jackson

President Trumps recent Executive Order (EO) suspends the entry of refugees into the United States for 120 days, indefinitely stops admission of Syrian refugees, and for 90 days bans individuals from seven predominantly Muslim countries. The order has been hotly debated on political, legal, and moral terms. But for the moment, lets suspend realityever more popular these daysand consider the EO from a hypothetical perspective.

In a tweet justifying his actions to prevent terrorists from entering our country, President Trump said, Study the world! Just yesterday at gathering of law enforcement chiefs in Washington DC, Trump read aloud the Immigration and Nationality Act which defines the presidents power to stop legal entry into the US, noting, A bad high school student would understand that. But how good a student of the world is Donald Trump? How does the EO and the Presidents defense of it stack up against standards of global competence?

The Center for Global Education at Asia Society defines global competence as, the capacity and disposition to understand and act on issues of global significance. We have further defined four core capacities associated with global competence: investigating the world, recognizing perspectives, communicating ideas, and taking action. For each of these capacities, we have also established a set of standards (performance outcomes ) teachers can use to judge student work. Lets use this criteria to assess whether the EO represents globally competent work.

Investigate the world

Investigating the world focuses on whether the work explains the global significance of an issue, identifies and weighs the most important factual evidence addressing the question, and develops a clear position based on the evidence. President Trumps EO clearly identifies a major global issue. So called radical Islamic terrorism poses a real threat to the US and the world, evident, as cited in the EO, in the horrors of 9/11, which caused the death of 3,000 people.

But in the EO, President Trump views the problem from an exclusively American perspective. As Alex Nowrasteh at the conservative Cato Institute puts it, Trump is concerned with making American safe again, not with making other countries safe or with a global war on terrorism. A terrorist attack in another country doesnt kill Americans inside the United States and these threats are not what concern American voters...You can call this an America First weighting of terrorism offenses.

The specific threat identified in the EO is potential terrorists entering the country from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen. Here the EO gives no factual basis for singling out these countries, rather, a broad admonition that numerous foreign-born individuals have been convicted or implicated in terrorism-related crimes since September 11, 2001, including foreign nationals entering the United States after receiving visitor, student, or employment visas, or who entered the United States refugee resettlement program.

Data on terrorism present a different picture. According to Nowrastehs analysis , no immigrants or refugees from countries included in the Presidents travel ban have killed anyone in terrorist attacks on American soil in the last 40 years. Moreover, the chances of an American dying in a terrorist attack committed by a foreigner in the US stands at about one in 3.6 million. Nowrasteh concludes Trumps action to be a response to a phantom menace.

The EO fails against the standards of investigating the world. The work does not find and weigh credible evidence (from US or global sources) to draw a defensible conclusion in response to a global question.

Recognize Perspectives and Communicate Ideas

Student work that recognizes perspectives and communicates ideas shows a capacity to understand and weigh the credibility of perspectives on global issues other than ones own. It also shows an ability to communicate in ways that engage and persuade diverse audiences. Here, too, the EO falls far short of proficiency.

Notwithstanding the factual inaccuracy of claims that the United States is being besieged by terrorists from the seven predominantly Muslim countries singled out by President Trump, the EO provides no evidence of understanding why individuals and families from these countries, in fact, are coming to the US in the first place.

There is no documentation of the numbers of these people coming to the US to work, to study, or to flee years of war and privation, as in the case of Syria. There is no recognition that, for the most part, these people come to the US for the very same reasons immigrants have come in decades and centuries pastto seek the American dream of freedom, self-determination, and success through education and hard work.

Instead, what is portrayed is a picture of existing immigration policies that favor Muslims over Christians, which suggests duplicitous welcome for would-be terrorists while excluding those who would be more likely to successfully assimilate ... and to love us. Trump claimed to an interviewer from the Christian Broadcasting Network that Christians in Syria were horribly treated and under previous administrations, if you were a Muslim you could come in, but if you were a Christian, it was almost impossible. But in fact, the Pew Research Centers analysis of State Department data show that the number of Christian refugees entering the US in fiscal 2016 (37,521) was only slightly lower than the number of Muslim refugees (38,901).

The EO and Trumps explanations communicate no sense of understanding that Muslims and Christians may come to the US for similar reasons of economic opportunity and freedom from violence and persecution. It is a myopic view focused only on the perceived threat to the US from immigrants and refugees that stands in stark contrast to the tweeted commentary of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau : To those fleeing persecution, terror and war, Canadians welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength.

Take Action

Globally competent students take action based on their multi-dimensional investigation of global issues in a way that evaluates previous approaches, considers the consequences, and advances the common good. The EO does reference the Obama administrations policy to more heavily scrutinize individuals who have visited the seven predominantly Muslim countries as a national security precaution. But never before has US policy prohibited people of entire countries from entering the US. There would appear to be a strong case that such action is illegal. Legal scholars cite the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 , which states that no person can be discriminated against in the issuance of an immigrant visa because of the persons race, sex, nationality, place of birth, or place of residence. The Act was adopted to eliminate the prior practice of immigration quotas from specific countries, which then-President Lyndon Johnson called the harsh injustice of national-origins quota systems.

What will be the consequences of the EO, especially if the temporary restrictions become permanent and possibly expanded? There is certainly the possibility that some terrorists will be prevented from coming into the US. However, it will be extraordinarily difficult for this to be reliably measured given that so few terrorists have come as immigrants and refugees to date. Statistically, acts of terrorism are far more likely to be perpetrated by radicalized US citizens or permanent residents than individuals coming to the US with violent intent.

What has occurred is a further polarization of perspectives and more inflammatory rhetoric, hardly a dialogue for the common good. Irans Foreign Minister , Javad Zarif, condemned the order, saying It will be recorded in history as a great gift to extremists and their supporters, while anti-Islam political leader Geert Wilders tweeted: Well done... I would do the same. Hope youll add more Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia soon.

US officials, such as Republican Senator Ben Sasse worry that if we send a signal to the Middle East that the U.S. sees all Muslims as jihadis, the terrorist recruiters win by telling kids that America is banning Muslims and that this is America versus one religion.

The divide is playing out tragically closer to home, in our nations schools. A global education teacher in a rural California community wrote anonymously:

We have a small, but vocal group of students and staff members who are newly empowered by the politicization and normalization of right-wing extremism, and another group of our students, including immigrants and LGBTQ students and their allies, who are scared and outraged...I cant talk about expository writing and citing credible sources without students challenging the legitimacy of formerly mainstream media sources. The New York Times is now left-wing extremist propaganda in some of their eyes...I wonder if there will be blowback for me in terms of my career, because you better believe that my efforts globalizing my school are under close scrutiny.

President Trumps Executive Order, Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States, is a work of gross global incompetence. It fails to meet standards of global knowledge and understanding that would be expected of high school seniors, much less the worlds most powerful leader.

President Trumps actions since this executive order do not bring confidence to his level of global competence, either, from foreign policy gaffes like hanging up on the prime minister of Australia, to using the pejorative term bad hombres and threatening to send troops to Mexico in a phone call with the Mexican president. In the months to come, President Trump will inevitably become more deeply enmeshed in the real-world curriculum of complex international issues and evidence-based feedback from authentic global sources. One can only hope that his capacity to understand and act on issues of global significance will improve.

Connect with Tony and the Center for Global Education on Twitter.

Image on the left courtesy of UNESCO . Image on the right courtesy of the White House . Both sourced from Wikimedia Commons.
A project to build a new rail tunnel in London has turned into an archaeologists dream.

Artefacts dating back thousands of years have been discovered during the construction of the line, known as Crossrail, unearthing layers of the citys history.

Now, 500 of the most interesting objects are on display at the Museum of London, including a 16th-century bowling ball, ice skates made of animal bones and a Roman pot, which holds cremated remains.

London really is like a layer cake of history of the city from the Roman levels through the medieval, the only modern period into the more recent centuries, Jay Carver, lead archaeologist for Crossrail, told Al Jazeera.

READ MORE: London Science Museum charts 500-year history of robots

The construction of the 42km tunnel, which began eight years ago, is Europes largest engineering project.

By law, large-scale construction in London must have archaeologists on hand to sift through excavations.

Museum curators and historians are trying to use the project to better understand the way people lived in the past.

We can use a minute sample, even one tooth, and we can find out where an individual came from, what stresses they were under and how they died, Jackie Keily, curator at the Museum of London, said.

The Crossrail tunnel is due to open in 2018.
Qatar-based network calls for release of Mahmoud Hussein, who is being held in conditions that violate his human rights.

Al Jazeera journalist Mahmoud Hussein has been detained in Egypt for more than 50 days in inhumane conditions that do not meet even the minimum required by law.

Hussein, an Egyptian who lives in Qatar, was stopped, questioned and detained by the Egyptian authorities on December 20 after travelling to Cairo for a holiday.

He has said that he suffers constant mistreatment in detention, that he is being denied his legal rights, that he is being kept in an individual cell and that he is being denied enough food and clothing.

Human rights and media organisations have denounced his detention.

Al Jazeera has demanded that Egypt unconditionally release Hussein and condemned a court order that extended his imprisonment for 45 days.

His detention has been extended four times so far, with the latest order issued on February 5.



Al Jazeera condemns arrest of its journalist in Egypt

Journalism is not a crime, Al Jazeera Media Network said on Thursday.

The network condemns arresting and harassing journalists for simply doing their professional work  Free press and freedom of expression are fundamental to democracy.

International law broken

Hussein faces a fabricated allegation of disseminating false news and receiving monetary funds from foreign authorities in order to defame the states reputation.

Al Jazeera has rejected all the allegations against him and condemned those who forced him into false confessions made on video.

The network said it holds the Egyptian authorities responsible for his safety and wellbeing.

Al Jazeera also denounced a smear campaign against Hussein, which is being carried through local media outlets  a practice that violates international law.
Vessel carrying 2,300 tonnes of aid for persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority met by Buddhist protesters.

A Malaysian ship carrying 2,300 tonnes of aid for tens of thousands of persecuted Rohingya Muslims arrived in Yangon where it was met by Buddhist protesters.

Health workers and activists crowded onto the deck of the Nautical Aliya as it docked at Thilawa port near Myanmars commercial capital on Thursday carrying food, medical aid, and clothing.

Organisers of the aid shipment said they trust the Myanmar government to deliver the supplies as promised despite its record of discrimination.

We have to respect Myanmars sovereignty, said Razali Ramli, from the 1Putera Club Malaysia, which helped organise the shipment along with a coalition of non-government organisations. We hand over the aid in good faith.

Myanmars social welfare minister was among a delegation meeting the ship, which has been at the centre of a rare diplomatic spat with fellow ASEAN member Malaysia.

Outside the docking area, dozens of Buddhist monks and demonstrators waited waving national flags and signs reading: No Rohingya.

READ MORE: Hundreds of Rohingyas killed in Myanmar crackdown

We want to let them know that we have no Rohingya here, a Buddhist monk named Thuseitta, from the Yangon chapter of the Patriotic Myanmar Monks Union, told AFP news agency.

Myanmar denies citizenship to the million-strong Rohingya, despite many of them living on its soil for generations.

Buddhist nationalist groups are especially strong in their vitriol, rejecting Rohingya as illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh.





Hundreds of Rohingya have reportedly been killed in a brutal campaign launched by security forces in October, which the United Nations says may amount to ethnic cleansing.

The violence started after a series of attacks by armed men on border posts killed nine policemen.

Tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh, bringing harrowing tales of murder and sexual assault.

Weve documented atrocities, serious crimes that have been committed by Myanmars security forces, Matthew Smith, executive director of the group Fortify Rights, told Al Jazeera.

Were documenting killings, were documenting mass rape  throats being slit, bodies being thrown into fires, villages burned to the ground.

Myanmars treatment of the Rohingya has sparked criticism from Muslim-majority Malaysia in a rare spat between the Southeast Asian neighbours.

Myanmar initially refused to allow the aid ship into its waters and has barred it from sailing to Rakhines state capital, Sittwe.

READ MORE: UN  Rohingya may be victims of crimes against humanity

Al Jazeeras Yaara Bou Melhem, reporting from Yangon, said the aid will be unloaded and distributed by the government from there.

What we know is that a plane from here in Yangon will take the aid to Sittwe, which is nearest to the conflict zone  to distribute the aid among both Rohingya and Buddists, she said.

Theres no clear indication the aid will reach the Rohingya, because the area has been in lockdown since the renewed fighting began in October.

The delivery comes days after a blistering report from the UN accused Myanmars security forces of carrying out a campaign of rape, torture, and mass killings against the Rohingya.

Based on interviews with hundreds of escapees in Bangladesh, investigators said the militarys calculated policy of terror was likely to have amounted to ethnic cleansing.

For months, Myanmar has dismissed similar testimonies gathered by foreign media and rights groups as fake news and curtailed access to the region.
Chaos erupts in parliament as security forces drag opposition MPs trying to interrupt president out of the chamber.

South Africas parliament has witnessed chaotic scenes, with opposition MPs denouncing President Jacob Zuma as a scoundrel and rotten to the core because of corruption allegations, and then clashing with guards who dragged them out of the chamber.

The events of Thursday unfolded on national television as opposition legislators tried to stop Zuma from addressing the chamber, repeatedly insulting him and declaring him unfit for office.

In the surrounding streets of Cape Town, police and hundreds of military forces patrolled to guard against protesters who want Zuma, 74, to quit.

Security teams eventually were called into the chamber to remove red-clad members of the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters, some of whom threw punches and beat guards with plastic helmets.

Politicians from the Democratic Alliance, the countrys biggest opposition group, then walked out in protest.

READ MORE: Zuma calls for ANC unity, admits mistakes

Some members of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party heckled them as they left.

Finally, said Zuma as he started an annual address on the economy and other national matters.

Al Jazeeras Tania Page, reporting from Cape Town, said riot police had been deployed outside the parliament and stun grenades were heard going off nearby.

The parliament session was a chaotic, shambolic spectacle broadcast live on the national television for South Africans, she said.

Disruptions in parliament have become something of a ritual, but tonight it reached quite unprecedented levels because there was quite a high level of violence involved.

Rotten to the core

A politically weakened figure, Zuma has faced calls to resign even from factions of the ruling party.

Some ANC members blame Zumas scandals for the partys poor performance in local elections in August, in which it lost control of several key metropolitan areas.

Critics condemned an announcement by Zumas office that 441 members of the military would assist police in maintaining order during the speech and the opening of parliament.

READ MORE: South Africas ANC marks 105 years amid deep divisions

The military has previously deployed for the event, but the security operation was among the largest in recent years.

While at least one group of protesters scuffled with police who blocked their path, the streets were mostly calm before the speech, in contrast to the events later in parliament.

Zuma is rotten to the core, said Julius Malema, leader of the EFF.

Other opposition legislators described the president as a scoundrel and a constitutional delinquent.

https://twitter.com/NzingaQ/status/829758050542157824

The hours leading up to Zumas speech featured the pomp associated with the annual opening of parliament, when dignitaries walk on a red carpet and pose for cameras in an impromptu fashion show.

Zuma has been under scrutiny for an allegedly improper relationship with the Guptas, a business family of Indian immigrants that has been accused of meddling in top government appointments.

He has denied wrongdoing.

Zuma, who took office in 2009, also reimbursed the state more than $500,000 in a scandal over upgrades to his private home.

Journalists say they're not being allowed to cover what's going outside, EFF MP injured, stun grenades going off outside. #SONA2017  The Daily Vox (@thedailyvox) February 9, 2017

Alex Vines, the head of the Africa programme at Chatham House, told Al Jazeera that Thursdays brawl was indicative of the disillusionment thats growing of mainstream politics in South Africa.

The biggest single problem in South Africa is a crisis of leadership. South Africa needs coherent, consistent leadership to weather the challenges of globalisation, low commodity prices, and other issues that South Africa is facing, he said.

It makes the decision on who the next leader of the ANC is so critical and some of the politics that we saw in the parliament today is playing into that kind of narrative. There will be some in the ANC who will be a bit embarrassed, but rather pleased with what just happened.
Iran has stepped up its war of words with the US, with an influential adviser to the supreme leader threatening the Trump administration with dark days to come in case of a military attack on his country.

In an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera, Ali Akbar Velayati, foreign affairs adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said: Washington does not dare carry out its military threats against Iran.

The Americans know very well that Iran and its allies in the region would retaliate very hard. That will make America face dark days to come, he said.

In the past week, the US has imposed new sanctions on Iran over a missile test.





Velayati said Irans policies in the Middle East would not change, therefore [President Donald] Trump and the American administration must get their stuff together and leave this region completely because the people of this region feel alienated by their policies.

Velayati said the US effort to make Iran stop its missile programme with military threats amounted to worthless fantasies.

Without the slightest doubt, I can guarantee you that we will continue to develop our military programmes, and especially our defence missile programme, no matter what and at any cost, he said.

We do not have any worry about the US threats because America for the last 38 years after the Islamic revolution has not been able to do anything.

Relations between the US and Iran have deteriorated since Trump took office on January 20, promising a more aggressive line on what he views as Iranian belligerence towards US interests and allies.

Last week Michael Flynn, US national security adviser, accused Iran of violating a UN Security Council resolution which calls on Iran not to test missiles capable of delivering a nuclear weapon.

Playing with fire

Iran has confirmed it tested a ballistic missile, but denied it was a breach of a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers or UN resolutions.

Trump said Iran was playing with fire after the country dismissed his warnings over the missile test as unfounded and provocative.

In a post on Twitter, Trump said his administration would not be as kind to Iran as the government of his predecessor, Barack Obama.

Iran is playing with fire  they dont appreciate how kind President Obama was to them. Not me! Trump said.

READ MORE: US slaps new sanctions on Iran over missile test

Asked by a reporter if military action was a possibility, Trump said: Nothing is off the table.

The US later imposed sanctions on 13 Iranians and 12 companies.

Lawrence Korb, a former US assistant defence secretary, says Trumps team would probably prevent him from making irrational moves in the Middle East.

There are people like General [James] Mattis, who has a 40-year career in the military and General [John F] Kelly, who runs our department of homeland security  who we have to hope will prevent the president from doing things that his instincts lead him to, Korb told Al Jazeera from Washington DC.
UN says 12 million at risk of starvation amid war and more than $2bn is needed to stop disaster getting even worse.

Famine in Yemen is considered a real possibility this year. More than three million people  including 460,000 children  are acutely malnourished and the situation is deteriorating every day.

The UN says 7.3 million Yemenis do not know where their next meal is coming from. The crisis has been brought on by nearly two years of civil war. Iran-backed Houthis have been fighting a Saudi-led coalition.

At least 10,000 people have been killed. The death toll from hunger and disease is much greater. A child under the age of five is dying every five minutes.

The international community is being urged to find $2.1bn to help ease the situation. The majority of the population has only limited access to food and medicine. The UN has described the crisis as catastrophic and rapidly deteriorating.

What does it take to help millions of helpless people in a country ravaged by war?

Presenter: Sohail Rahman

Guests:

Mahjoob Zweiri  associate professor in contemporary history of the Middle East at Qatar University

Ahmed Alibrahim  Saudi affairs specialist

Emma OLeary  humanitarian access adviser in Yemen for the Norwegian Refugee Council
A group of protesters set up a table Wednesday at the Wells Fargo & Co. bank in Gainesville and began selling two types of water bottles.

For about 10 minutes, they attempted to sell bottles with oil water, which was really just water with black food coloring, for $1, and clean water for $100 at the bank, located at 104 N. Main St.

This is definitely not our first attempt and it wont be our last, said Joseph Ryan after employees at the bank asked them to leave.

The protesters stopped at the bank after marching from Turlington to the bank, a response after President Donald Trumps administration announced Tuesday its plan to approve the final permit for the Dakota Access Pipeline, said Ryan, an organizer of the protest.

Alan Alvarez Abee, a 20-year-old who declined to give her last name, makes a poster that reads "Solidarity with Standing Rock" in front of the Chemistry Lab Building on Wednesday afternoon. She and two other organizers with Mississippi Stand sought support from students on campus to join them in marching to Wells Fargo & Co.

Wells Fargo is one of 17 financial institutions that will contribute to the cost of the pipeline, wrote, Michael Gray, a spokesperson for the bank, in an email.

During the march, protesters carried signs that read, Lay off the frack pipe as they yelled, I stand with Standing Rock because water is life, through a megaphone.

The group stood on the corner of West University Avenue and South Main Street for about 30 minutes before Gainesville Police Officer James Franklin told them they needed to have a permit to protest using a megaphone.

Because the group didnt have one, the group headed toward the bank. The water bottles were to represent how water will not be free for long, Ryan said. Customers in the bank shot them strange looks.

Alan Alvarez Abee, a 20-year-old who declined to give her last name, leads a couple of protesters on Newell Drive to Wells Fargo & Co. Abee is holding a water bottle that she says contains the parts per million of oil allowed in our water by our government.

The goal was to create an uncomfortable situation for everyone to symbolize the uncomfortable feeling that may occur if Floridians no longer have access to clean water, he said.

Karrie Ford, who also organized the event, said she wanted to sent the bank a message.

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I just want to let Wells Fargo know that we see them, she said.

Abee, a 20-year-old who declined to give her last name, and Joseph Ryan, 24, lead a small group of protesters on University Avenue while chanting, "You can't drink oil, keep it in the soil." The group met up with another group of protestors at the Wells Fargo & Co. bank, located at 104 N. Main St., in an attempt to ask them to divest from energy transfer partners. The group also aimed to stand in solidarity with the Dakota Standing Rock Sioux tribe.
Citing a changing situation at the university, UFs director of Black Affairs will step down from her position next week.

Vee Byrd, who has held the position for the past four years, will leave her students Wednesday for a new job in Jacksonville.

Things are just changing at the university, and I just think its time for me to move on, she said.

Byrd will begin her new job, as associate director of student engagement for Florida State College at Jacksonville on March 6. She said shes looking forward to the new position because it will give her a chance to shape the colleges recently created program.

This is a new position for FSCJ too, so I get to create it, Byrd said. I get to lay a foundation, which is very unique and is rare in higher-ed for you to get to do that.

In September, Lloren Foster was removed as executive director of Multicultural and Diversity Affairs, which Black Affairs falls under. In that case, Fosters contract had expired and UF did not renew it.

While searching for a new job, Byrd kept her students, who call her mom and mama, in the loop. She insists on remaining in a group chat of Black Affairs student ambassadors even after she leaves UF.

Latosha Jackson, a 21-year-old UF tourism, event and recreation management junior, said Byrd helped her grow as a person.

Though Jackson will miss Byrd, shes happy her mentor is getting a new opportunity, she said.

Im happy shes leaving because she deserves better, better in the sense of a better position, and I just feel like this campus takes her for granted sometimes, Jackson said.

Khyra Keeley, a 20-year-old UF political science and African-American studies junior, met Byrd her freshman year. She said Byrd has always kept her students best interests in mind.

Keeley, of Jacksonville, said she hopes Byrd visits her in the city.

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Even if she wasnt going to my hometown, shes been somebody whos been important in terms of my personal growth on campus, so its inevitable, Keeley said. I told her she cant go anywhere and me not talk to her. Its not an option.

Vee Byrd
A masked UF student was tackled and handcuffed at UF on Thursday after stealing a money box containing more than $1,000 from Krishna Lunch.

University Police arrested Anthony Alexander Davila-Stirling, 21, a UF advertising junior, on charges of theft and wearing a mask in public, according to a police report released hours after the incident.

After waiting in line on the Plaza of the Americas at about 1 p.m., ostensibly to order food from the Krishna Lunch vendors, Davila-Stirling snatched a tan money box and sprinted away.

He didnt make it far. Another UF student, who witnessed the robbery, chased Davila-Stirling down and tackled him while two others helped hold him down until police could arrive.

David Malcolm, 18, and his roommate were slacklining on Plaza of the Americas when they saw Davila-Stirling run past them. They chased after him down, and Malcolms roommate tackled him onto the grass just west of Library West.

It was my roommate that caught him first, said Malcolm, a UF wildlife ecology and conservation and geology freshman. I just helped him hold the guy down.

Caitanya Long, 48, the general manager of Krishna Lunch, which has long served its vegetarian and vegan food to UF students and faculty on campus, said Davila-Stirling seemed like he was going to order food.

When it was his turn to step up to the table, however, Davila-Stirling  dressed in a dark hoodie and a ski mask with a pink skeleton on it  threw a black credit card onto the table the Krishna employees set up to take orders, seemingly as a way to distract them.

The card slid off the table, and an employee leaned down to pick it up. At that point, Davila-Stirling snatched the money box from in front of her and ran.

Thief! she yelled after him. Call the cops!

Lacie Rosser, an employee who was sitting behind the table with Long, said Davila-Stirling seemed suspicious while he was waiting in line.

I was watching him when he was standing in line, and I (had) a really bad feeling, the 26-year-old said.

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UF freshman Zachary Burr had finished his lunch and was talking to friends on the Plaza of the Americas when he saw Davila-Stirling sprinting with the money box.

I thought he was going to get away, the health science student said.

Burr, 18, said he held down Davila-Stirlings feet until police arrived.

With nowhere to go, Davila-Stirling didnt resist.

Once he was on the ground, he knew he messed up, and he wasnt getting out of it, Burr said.

Long said police arrived five minutes after Davila-Stirling was tackled. Davila-Stirling remains in the Alachua County Jail, as of press time, with no bond.

Long said Davila-Stirling didnt need to steal; she would have gladly fed him for free.

We are a peaceful organization, she said. We would have given him a lunch for free if he wanted it.

@merlkornfield

mkornfield@alligator.org
If youre looking for a valentine this year, Gainesville is a good place to start.

Trips To Discover, a digital travel magazine, revealed in an article Monday that Gainesville ranked No. 13 in a list of U.S. cities with the highest percentage of single people, said Megan Ribbens, a content strategist for the magazine.

If you look at the information as a whole, you do see a good number of them are cities that have a university in the vicinity, Ribbens said.

She explained that the company used data from the U.S. Census Bureau to calculate the percentage of unmarried people in each state, and then city.

Jonathan Mills, 21, said he wasnt shocked by the number of singles in Gainesville. As a realtor, he often shows homes to singles who move to Gainesville for work or school.

I dont see a lot of opportunity to go out and meet people other than through Tinder, Bumble and dating apps like that, Mills said.

With no valentine to dote on, Mills has only one plan for the day.

Like any true single would say, Im going to buy myself a nice dinner and bottle of wine and stay home with my dog, he said.
Vaccines are safe and effective and claims otherwise have been disproven by a robust body of medical literature, hundreds of state and national health organizations wrote in a letter to President Donald Trump this week.

In statements he made in his private life and on the 2016 campaign trail, Trump has been skeptical of vaccines. At one primary debate, Trump said autism has become an epidemic and that its gotten totally out of control. He believes that vaccines should be given on a different schedule. I am totally in favor of vaccines. But I want smaller doses over a longer period of time, Trump said.

Trump stoked concerns of vaccine supporters again after winning the election when vocal vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he agreed to chair a commission on vaccine safety and scientific integrity at the then president-elects request.

The letter, from organizations including the American Pediatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Medical Association, called for a redoubling of efforts at the national level in the area of vaccines:

Vaccines protect the health of children and adults and save lives. They prevent life-threatening diseases, including forms of cancer. Vaccines have been part of the fabric of our society for decades and are one of the most significant medical innovations of our time. Because of the introduction of mass vaccinations, smallpox was declared eradicated from the world in 1977. Polio, a disease that routinely afflicted 13,000 to 20,000 Americans every year in the United States before the availability of the vaccine, was officially eliminated from the Western Hemisphere in 1991. Globally, vaccines prevent the deaths of roughly 2.5 million children per year. And, data shows that just for children born in the United States in 2009, routine childhood immunizations will prevent approximately 42,000 early deaths and 20 million cases of disease with savings of more than $82 billion in societal costs."

You can read the whole letter here.

Photo: Nurses Fatima Guillen, left, and Fran Wendt, right, give Kimberly Magdeleno, 4, a whooping cough booster shot as she is held by her mother, Claudia Solorio, at a health clinic in Tacoma, Wash., in May, 2012. -Ted S. Warren/AP-File

Related reading on vaccines:

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A group of about 50 international students sought answers and support from faculty members at Santa Fe College on Wednesday.

Santa Fe President Jackson Sasser, alongside members of the Counseling and International Student Center, gathered to meet with the students in a show of support following President Donald Trumps travel ban.

Of the 300 international students attending Santa Fe, about 10 of them are from the seven countries affected by the ban.

One such student, who requested anonymity for fear of her safety, said she constantly feels judged by Americans for being Muslim. Before arriving in Gainesville two months ago and enrolling at Santa Fe, she ed from Syria to Qatar in 2011, escaping in time to avoid being caught in the middle of Syrias bloody civil war.

Friends and family members were not so lucky, becoming victims of the bloody battle. After hearing about Trumps executive orders barring the entry of citizens from seven Muslim-majority nations  and freezing the acceptance of Syrian refugees indenitely  she cried her eyes out.

My sister-in-law is giving birth, and my mom was supposed to take the plane today to be with her, she said. She had to cancel the trip.

While trying to get her drivers license, she said she felt scared and paranoid.

I was scared they would tell me they couldnt issue my license because Im Syrian, she said. It breaks my heart that we have to go through this.

While Angelica Suarez, the International Student Service Coordinator, talked to the students who gathered Wednesday, she cried and hugged the Syrian student.

We care for you, I care for all of you, she said. Youre here because youre open to learn. Dont lose hope.

Administrative officials offered students the chance to sign a directory information exclusion request, which will prevent the college from releasing any personal information or immigration status about the students except when required by law.

Fatao Ouedraogo, 21, stood up at the end of the meeting to express his concern about an experience when he asked his adviser how to earn financial support to pay for his tuition. He said the adviser told him he could go back to Burkina Faso if he couldnt pay for his studies.

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The United States is the first or second richest country in the world, and I come from one of the poorest countries in the world, the Santa Fe engineering student said.

Ouedraogo asked Sasser if it was possible to give a scholarship to people coming from countries in crisis, adding that international students pay three times more than in-state students.

Floridians have paid taxes all of their life, Sasser replied. Theres a reason for the difference.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the fact that the directory information exclusion request prevents the college from reporting any personal information or immigration status about the student, except when required by law.

Santa Fe College President Jackson Sasser speaks to more than 50 international students on Wednesday afternoon.
Americans have spent a lot of time fuming these past few weeks. I know I did. A flurry of executive actions by President Donald Trump saw the reinstatement of the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines, a press blackout and grant-freezing at the Environmental Protection Agency, a head-scratching reorganization of the National Security Council, a backward withdraw of funding for essential aid organizations in the developing world and a broad-stroked travel ban that at its best bars legal U.S. residents from returning home and at its worst sees America turning its back on its founding principles.

But many Americans also spent a lot of time cheering this week. After all, pipelines bring jobs, EPA grant money can be redirected to infrastructure projects that hasten economic growth, the NSC needs a shake-up in the way it crafts policy to deal with the complex threat of terrorism, funding for aid organizations may be better spent on domestic programs and allowing immigration from countries with interests hostile to our own while crafting immigration policy is akin to building a plane while flying it.

Full disclosure: I winced typing that second paragraph without qualifying it. But Id be doing a disservice to readers and myself by pretending there isnt some rationale to the arguments in favor of the policies I oppose. There are intelligent people across the political spectrum, and their numbers dont taper any more to the right than they do the left. Civil discourse depends on mutual acknowledgement of that fact, but today it seems such acknowledgement has eroded.

Look no further than the opening paragraphs of this piece to feel the disconnect for yourself.

If youre anything like me, the second paragraph isnt only misguided, but its angering, and I suspect the reverse holds true for my right-leaning counterpart. Youd have to be crazy not to see how obviously wrong that is! I hear my evil twin muttering under his breath.

Why must this be the case, though? To assume my opposition is crazy is to preclude any possibility of debate or compromise, and thus to excuse myself of the hard work both require.

During the election season, we on the left were particularly guilty of this mistake, to our own detriment. I wouldnt pretend to know the causes of Trumps election, but a plausible contributing factor seems to be a curt dismissal of the problems felt by swaths of rural America. So when voters in Mississippi cite concern over a looming threat of terrorism, rather than reach out, sympathize and engage them in debate about whether such a threat really looms, we rattle off a list of terror statistics and turn away derisively from those unwilling to acquiesce to our side.

After Trumps election, this trend has continued. The heels-in-the-ground objection with which we respond to unacceptable decisions (the appointment of a climate change denier to EPA chief, the withdrawal of funding from aid organizations essential for the reproductive health of whole regions, etc.) is being overextended to debatable ones (a border wall, the pipelines). While I categorically oppose both the former and the latter policies, I recognize they hinge on substantively different beliefs: the first, on science denial and an outdated view of womens rights; the second, on debatable differences in immigration and economic policy.

We have four years of this, and it isnt going to get easier. We cannot wait until a new president takes office to address our division; we need to deal with it now, and the first step in that process is understanding that smart people disagree with us for good reasons. It is possible to be both angry and fair, to advocate passionately for the policies we support without plugging our ears to their counterarguments. In doing so, maybe wed realize theres more value in celebrating and confronting our division than in eliminating it.

Champe Barton is a UF economics and behavioral and cognitive neuroscience junior. His column appears on Thursdays.

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A few months after Utah policymakers created an alternative pathway to teaching that would allow people with no teaching experience to take the helm of classrooms, some state lawmakers are looking to require educators to pass an exam to prove that they can teach before getting a full license.

Senate bill 78, which won unanimous approval from the Utah legislatures Senate education committee , would compel the state board of education to establish a teacher pedagogical assessment that is performance based and assesses an individuals pedagogical skills, but the bill would leave it up to the board to decide which test is best.

One former college president raved about the bill to the Deseret News .

I think this is a really important step to ensure that every single teacher who steps into a classroom in Utah is a highly effective teacher that can best support our children, F. Ann Millner, the president of Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, told the newspaper. Its kind of interesting weve not really had this in place for the teaching profession. Weve had it on the content side. Weve not had that on whats really important, their ability to teach.

But not everyone is happy about the proposed legislation. The states teachers union and some education school professors have expressed concern that the bill would create an unequal playing field for teachers certified through traditional teacher preparation programs and those who entered the classroom under the alternative certification plan created last summer. Teachers in traditional programs would be given the test after they completed their training, while alternatively certified teachers would have the benefit of years in the classroom before they had to take the test of teaching skills.

One group has to pass an assessment to receive a license ... but another group of teachers has up to two years in a classroom working with students before they must pass an assessment to retain a license. We have concerns about that, Sara Jones, the government relations director for the Utah Education Association, an affiliate of the National Education Association , told the Deseret News. If the standard is every educator should be ready to teach on day one, that standard should apply to every educator. We support that standard.
If you think the riots and marches are bad now, wait until President Trump gets a chance at filling a second or even third vacancy on the Supreme Court of the United States. The "nastiness," vulgarities, property damage, and violence we see now are nothing compared to what we will witness if the American left see the legality of their perverse sexual agenda threatened.

With the nomination of Justice Neil Gorsuch to fill the seat vacated as a result of the death of Antonin Scalia, liberals at every level of political involvement are already throwing a hissy-fit. After Trump chose Gorsuch, radical left-winger Michael Moore threatened Senate Democrats via his Twitter account, declaring, "This Supreme Court pick was Obama's to make and it was stolen by Republicans. Democrats had better block this and demand a nom we approve." Moore continued, "Senate Dems, let's be very clear: You will filibuster & block this SC nom or we will find a true progressive and primary u in next election."

When Democrat senator Chris Coons (Del.) hinted that he might not support a filibuster of Gorsuch, the response from liberal activists was swift and stern. Progressive Change Campaign Committee co-founder Stephanie Taylor warned Coons (and anyone like-minded):

There is zero appetite among the public for weakness from Democratic politicians. Especially after Republicans stole a Supreme Court seat, Coons and all Senate Democrats should join Sen. Jeff Merkley's filibuster of Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Gorsuch. That's the kind of backbone the public needs to see right now.

Upon Antonin Scalia's death, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told all of America that the election would decide Scalia's replacement. In other words, Democrats and their like-minded lackeys had a chance to show their strength in this matter in the November elections, and they failed (in historical fashion).

The idea that President Trump will get to fill multiple vacancies on the nation's highest court is becoming widely held. National Review's John Fund writes that the Trump administration is already preparing for a second vacancy. Fund reports on multiple sources that say there's at least an even chance that Justice Anthony Kennedy retires this year. There is real fear among liberals that this is indeed the case.

The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus implores Justice Kennedy: "Please don't retire." Of course, Marcus's piece is replete with references to the homosexual agenda and how important Kennedy was in weaving such perversion "into the social fabric" of our nation. Likewise, The Post's Monica Hesse recently reported that "[h]ordes of liberals want reassurance RBG's [Ruth Bader Ginsburg's] health is good." Hesse's piece quotes multiple liberals worrying over Ginsburg's health:

"I'm very interested in this." says Jeanette Bavwidinski, a community organizer in Pennsylvania. "I'm interested in what her daily regimen is. Like, what are you all feeding RBG? Is she getting enough fresh air? Is she walking? Is she staying low-stress? What is she reading? Is she reading low-stress things?"... "I kept thinking, you know, I could organize a bunch of gays," says John Hagner, a consultant for Democratic campaigns who lives in Washington. "I could organize the gays, and we would just make a protective circle around her at all times. We could help her get up and down the stairs. We got this."

While liberals worry over Kennedy and Ginsburg, the movement against Gorsuch is not limited to kooks like Michael Moore. Bloomberg reports that there are over 200 liberal groups across the U.S. organizing and mobilizing opposition to Gorsuch:

"We'll make sure the narrative makes clear he is out of the mainstream, is extreme and in many ways is to the right of Scalia," said Marge Baker, executive vice president of People for the American Way.

As I noted a couple of years ago, for liberals, it seems it's always about "the narrative." As has been demonstrated for decades now, liberalism is quite adept at creating "narratives"  i.e., making its own "truth," which can easily change as soon as it's advantageous. Such skill and flexibility are necessary when one needs political power to make sure the preferred notion of "truth" rules the day.

Remember, two of the pillars (as both Post pieces above well demonstrate) in the church of modern liberalism  abortion and the redefinition of marriage  were achieved through rogue judicial fiat via the Supreme Court of the United States. In these grave matters, liberals cannot rely on science and sound morality. They need the powerful arms of Big Government and compliant courts to give them what they cannot otherwise achieve. Even in a culture with as much rot as has ours, liberals rarely see their ideas adopted through elections or legislation. (Thankfully, it is harder to get ignorant, lazy, and selfishly motivated "sheeple" to the polls than those motivated by eternal truths and real patriotism.)

Thus, a liberal-dominated judiciary is paramount to the leftist agenda. Isn't it telling how comfortable leftists are with unelected officials dictating "from on high"? (As Andy McCarthy has long noted, the U.S. Supreme Court "operates more like an unelected super-legislature than a judicial tribunal.") One might think they prefer things this way.

This battle over the U.S. Supreme Court is not merely political. As is almost always the case in these matters (whether one wants to admit such or not), this is a spiritual battle, and one well worth having. Our elected (and non-elected) conservative leaders had better be ready for this fight. Millions of American Christian conservatives  many of whom had great pause voting for Mr. Trump  chose to (in my case) touch their screens in his favor because of what we hoped he would do when it comes to the courts.

In other words, the chief reason many of us voted for Mr. Trump and Republicans for the U.S. Senate is because of their role in the federal judiciary. I previously supported other GOP nominees who also gave me pause (McCain and Romney) for this reason as well. Other than the collapse of the Democratic Party, as The New York Times noted in late 2014, the chief legacy of Barack Obama is the reshaping of the federal judiciary (which, of course, resulted in the infamous Obergefell ruling). Among reversing many other things Obama "accomplished," this is another mess many Americans expect Donald Trump and the GOP to clean up.

Trevor Grant Thomas: At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.

www.trevorgrantthomas.com

Trevor is the author of The Miracle and Magnificence of America.

tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com
Six Afghan Red Cross aid workers have been killed in an ambush in the countrys north while travelling to a remote area to deliver humanitarian aid.





Three vehicles carrying eight International Committee of the Red Cross employees were travelling through Dasht-e Leili, a desert in Jowzjan province, when they came under fire, according to the provincial governor, Lotfullah Azizi. Three drivers and three other personnel were killed, and two are missing.





ICRC in Afghanistan

and said it was putting its activities across the country on hold while it assessed what had happened.





Its director-general, Yves Daccord,

as the worst attack against us since 20 years. We are all outraged and so sad.





The attack underscores the danger facing NGOs in Afghanistan. More humanitarian workers are attacked here

. Proportionally, in terms of attack per aid worker, only South Sudan is more violent.





Fifteen aid workers were killed in
In recent weeks, a bevy of dystopian novels have been creeping up the bestseller charts. On Tuesday, The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood was Amazons No. 1 book , bumping George Orwells 1984 down to third place after it held a spot at the very top of Amazons overall bestseller list last week. Other popular dystopian fiction follows close behind: It Cant Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis the 23rd overall bestseller on Amazon on Wednesday, and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley was 66th.

These talesset in the future with imagined economic or environmental collapse, authoritarian governments, or dysfunctional societiesarent new. 1984 was published 67 years ago; Brave New World came out in 1932. Both novels are classics often found on required reading lists for high school curricula.

But the uptick in sales is higher than normal. A spokesman for Penguin told CNN that reprints for a new school semester are not unusual, but the publishing company increased the reprint of 1984 to 75,000 copies last week. (The Handmaids Tale is coming to Hulu as a show in April , which could explain some of the books increased interest.) Another possible reason for the spike in dystopian reading? For some readers, it may offer understanding or reminders of the current political climate.

At President Donald Trumps inauguration, some teachers and students had hope for changes in Washingtons power dynamic under Trump, they told my colleague Andrew Ujifusa. Others were afraid Trump would aggravate political tension and division. According to The Hill, after Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway used the term alternative facts to describe the administrations overestimation of inauguration crowds, many social media users referenced Orwells doublethink from 1984 two opposing facts both pronounced true by the government.

On the plus side, teaching 1984 is really easy now (until its banned). Im not getting any of the when are we gonna use this? questions.  Francis Daulerio (@FDWrites) February 2, 2017

The resurgence of popular dystopian books is due in part to how people would talk about Trumps speeches as both a candidate and a president, said Claire P. Curtis, a professor of political science at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, who teaches dystopian thought. He would use phrases and ways of capturing what the United States was like that are not dissimilar from how these novels would describe a dystopian present.

And for teachers, many of whom have taught dystopian literature in classes for years, this reemergence of dystopian literature en masse means looking at the topic with fresh eyes.

Carolyn Geraci, a 7th grade reading teacher at Hamilton Middle School in Houston, is currently teaching A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury. Though the book is not strictly dystopian, Geraci is helping her students connect the text with the real world to build understanding of personal responsibility; how their words and actions can affect others; and how small effects can cause large changes.

We just elected a president that is making sweeping changes, Geraci wrote in an email to Education Week Teacher. Most of these changes are making people angry. People see the protests, hear the angry words, and wonder what will happen next. I think dystopian lit provides a way for people to think about the future, even if it is in a negative fashion. After reading, we can look around and say That will not happen here, to assuage our fears.

Geraci prefers short stories over novels when it comes to dystopian literatureones that fall into a social science fiction category and allow us to delve into our thoughts on social issues, she wrote. Her personal favorites are Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut and There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury. She has often taught the young adult novel The Giver by Lois Lowry, but also includes The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and The Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld.

If you are a high school English teacher and can get The Handmaids Tale into your syllabus, now would be a great time.  sarah maclean (@sarahmaclean) January 29, 2017

So what are some of the best ways teachers can incorporate dystopian literature into the classroom?

Curtis recommends posing the following questions to students to help them move from thinking about what is bad for them personally to what is bad in their community and country: If you had to name three problems facing our society, what would they be? If you had to image a world where problems were worse, what would it look like? And because dystopia is often connected to utopia and imagining what a better world would look like: A radically better world is one where___.

A few other book recommendations in addition to the classics:



Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, which critiques corporate culture (for high school)

by Margaret Atwood, which critiques corporate culture (for high school) Parable of the Talents and Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler, covering issues of race and class (high school)

and by Octavia E. Butler, covering issues of race and class (high school) Brave New Worlds anthology, a collection of dystopian short stories with authors such as Paulo Bacchi Galope, Orson Scott Card, and Ursula LeGuin (upper middle/high school)

anthology, a collection of dystopian short stories with authors such as Paulo Bacchi Galope, Orson Scott Card, and Ursula LeGuin (upper middle/high school) The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau (middle school)

A 2010 post about the rise of dystopian literature on Education Weeks former Book Whisperer blog by Donalyn Miller, a language arts teacher in Fort Worth, Texas, offers a reminder that students have loved exploring dystopian worlds for quite some timeand not because it may remind them of current events.

My students love these books because they love good stories, Miller wrote. Action-packed battles between good and evil forces, strange, futuristic worlds, protagonists who fight for whats right when the adults in their lives cant or wontits great storytelling stuff.

Source: Image by Flickr user Enokson licensed under Creative Commons
The Obama administrations effort to engage Iran remained a matter of suspicion until the 44th American president left the White House. Concerns began mounting especially after Obama turned his back on the 2009 uprising in parallel to the revelation of secret correspondence with Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

As more light is shed, the more we realize how far this relationship expanded. Known members of Irans lobbies and others enjoyed unprecedented access to the White House. This new knowledge calls for a complete overhaul of the corrupt U.S. foreign policy establishment.

Shocking Numbers

Through the course of the nuclear talks that rendered the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Obama White House welcomed a slate of different Iranian-American so-called experts and organizations who agreed completely over how Washington must engage in Tehran rapprochement.

Trita Parsi, President of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a known Iran-funded lobby, was reportedly welcomed in up to 33 meetings in the White House, from 2013 to 2016.

Seyed Mousavian, a former Iranian diplomat and head of its national security council, was hosted at the White House at least three times, the Washington Free Beacon explained.

Parsis record was second only to Jeremy Ben Ami, President of J Street, described as a strong advocate of the Iran appeasement camp, who visited the White House on 44 occasions.

And finally, one NIAC alumni, Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, National Security Council Director for Iran in Obamas White House, reached the point of obtaining daily access to the White House and promoting a pro-Iran regime approach.

President Obamas NSC Director for Iran, Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, apparently worked as a lobbyist for NIAC, according to Western Journalism.

Who is Trita Parsi?

Described as having links to the Obama White House's cheerleading of the narrative in support of the Iranian regime, Parsi, head of NIAC, was able to meet with several senior Obama administration officials in dozens of White House visits, according to the logs.

Ben Rhodes, Obamas deputy national security advisor, provided exclusive access to Parsi in private talks. He also arranged meetings with Colin Kahl, former Vice President Joe Bidens national security advisor.

Various sources also indicated Parsi meeting with other senior officials including NSC director for Iran.

One instance shows West Wing intern Solomon Tarlin, known to support J Street, signed Parsi into the White House.

However, Parsi is a figure who during the Bush administration dined with Irans former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, suggesting that he pursues the interest of the Iranian regime in its entirety, and not the so-called moderates.

Parsi was also pictured in conversation with the brother of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

Parsi is known to brag about his access to senior Iranian regime officials.

Few analysts in Washington have the access of Dr. Parsi to decision makers in Iran, he described in a bio.

NIAC

NIAC, a Washington-based lobbying organization founded by Parsi in 2002, focuses on influencing senior American officials and politicians. A piece written by Iranian dissident Alex Shirazi in the Daily Blaze sheds more light on NIACs intentions, serving completely in Irans interests.

NIAC was architected by the little known Namazi family in Iran, described as favoring political interests in the Islamic Republic.

Insight into NIACs background can be obtained from regrets made public by Carl Gershman, President of the National Endowment for Democracy. Gershman accused NIAC of misrepresenting its true nature.

 NIAC showed itself as a lobby organization, so we have nothing to do with them anymore.

Al Arabiya English cited the Atlantics Jeffrey Goldberg referring to Parsi as an individual who does a lot of leg-work for the Iranian regime. (Goldberg at one point retracted this description, but shortly afterward retracted his retraction.)

NIAC misleadingly presented its agenda as meeting U.S. national interests. The very regime NIAC sells is known for Death to America! mantras and killing at least hundreds, if not thousands, of American personnel.

NIAC goes as far as claiming to advocate human rights in Iran and civil rights in the U.S., insulting Americans by placing their country alongside the ruthless regime in Iran.

In fact, NIAC lobbies for a friendly U.S. relationship with the current Iranian regime and strongly opposes economic sanctions. All this goes while Iran state media describe NIAC as the "Iran lobby in the U.S."

NIAC and Parsi Exposed by Others

There has been abundant reporting about the true nature of NIAC and Trita Parsi.

Parsi admits that his group only has 2,500 to 3,000 members. Internal documents, uncovered by Lake, show that less than 500 people responded to a membership survey that the group put out last year. So, far from representing the views of any appreciable number of Iranian Americans, it is far more accurate to say that NIAC represents the views of Trita Parsi.

may be guilty of violating tax laws, the Foreign Agents Registration Act and lobbying disclosure laws, according to law enforcement authorities

 former FBI special agent in counterintelligence and counterterrorism Kenneth Piernick, said, It appears that this may be lobbying on behalf of Iranian government interests.

The report continues:

the groups acting director for policy, Patrick Disney, authored a memo last year in which he stated, I believe we fall under this definition of lobbyist. And according to other communications Lake obtained, Parsi himself used the word lobby to describe the purpose and mission of NIAC.

Parsi and Zarif

Released email records indicate close ties between Parsi and Tehran, especially through Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. Reports in this regard are quite vivid.

According to NIAC emails released under a lawsuit, in April 2006, Zarif, then Irans ambassador to the U.N., gave a copy of Irans 2003 offer for a grand bargain" to Parsi, subsequently released to the press and used in a campaign to prove Iran was ready for peace and dialogue. (For more information on Parsis role in providing a copy of Iranian offer to the press, read the Washington Post, Anti-War, and IPS reports.)

A few weeks later, Parsi launched the Iran Negotiation Project and began arranging meetings between Congressional members and Zarif. Then in his 25 October 2006 email, Parsi told Zarif about Congressional members who had decided to oppose George Bushs policy on Iran and requested a meeting.

A Deeper look into NIAC

Many within the Iranian-American community consider NIAC to be a de facto lobby for the Iranian regime. In 2008 as criticism against NIACs pro-regime activities mounted, NIAC and Parsi raised a defamation lawsuit against one of its critics, attempting to destroy him through the financial burden of a lawsuit and as a result silence all other critics.

In 2012 a court dismissed the lawsuit and sanctioned NIAC and Trita Parsi for abuses which included false declarations to the court, ordering them to pay $184,000 towards the defendants legal expenses.

This lawsuit forced NIAC to release some internal documents that turned out to be devastating. The Washington Times and many others published these documents.

NIAC claims to have a goal of preventing war between the U.S. and Iran. Critics, however, affirm NIACs lobby has always primarily focused on business and the peace mantle it wears is nothing but a face for its lobby efforts.

In a memo sent to Washington lobbyist Roy Coffee, Parsi explained the true nature of his efforts.

Back in 2002-03, Parsi used his access to the U.S. Congress to prepare reports about the latest developments regarding Iran and send the reports to Tehran.

Final Thoughts

This newly revealed White House log shows how the Obama administration bent over backwards in hosting advocates seeking Irans interests, and not that of America.

Allowing Parsi into the White House more than 30 times, despite his foreign policy positions being completely in line with the Iranian regime, provides intriguing insight into how far the Obama administration went to aid the mullahs, while they continued, and continue today, to describe America as the Great Satan.

The access provided to the likes of Parsi and NIAC provides all the knowledge needed about the true nature of the highly flawed nuclear deal sealed by the Obama administration with Tehran.

And this is only a tip of the iceberg of how far Obamas failed appeasement policy provided unprecedented access to NIAC, and to this end, the Iranian regime.

This signifies the necessity of the new Trump administration to completely overhaul agencies dealing with Iran, and to impose radical changes on Washingtons Iran policy altogether.
A September 2016 United Nations panel in Geneva decided the U.S. owed blacks reparations for a history of racial terror.

Ishaan Tharoor of the Washington Post notes:

In particular, the legacy of colonial history, enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism and racial inequality in the United States remains a serious challenge as there has been no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for people of African descent. Contemporary police killings and the trauma that they create are reminiscent of the past racial terror of lynching.

This UN action, of course, was followed by last Decembers resolution against Israeli settlements. Interestingly, in the same December time period, the UN could not bring itself to impose sanctions and an arms embargo on a South Sudan that is plunged into ethnic conflict in which thousands have already been killed. It seems the newer, anti-colonial, anti-West members suffer from a case of moral schizophrenia.

A thumbnail review of the real history of slavery is in order here. First, to be clear, there is no doubt many injustices and human tragedies have occurred throughout our history because of slavery; but that is true everywhere slavery has occurred. For a real accounting, thousands of slavery-related transactions that open the curtains on the history of slaves and the slave trade have been recorded and are available on a CDROM prepared by Harvard University. Two other worthy sources include Hugh Thomas The Slave Trade and Robin Blackburns The Making of New World Slavery.

Slavery became a worldwide phenomenon during the Middle Ages. The modern slave trade began and expanded early in the era, but the practice existed in some form or other from time immemorial. Under the Roman Empire, it was not a black-only phenomenon, but universal. Nevertheless, before the first millennium A.D., Middle Eastern Muslims were selling goods to African kingdoms. Those kingdoms were paying for those goods with human capital -- their own people, black people. Though Christians became involved in the slave trade somewhat later, Arab Muslim traders were probably first to hold blacks as slaves and as they ceded global dominion of the slave trade to Europeans later on. They also are estimated to have enslaved over a million European Christians in the barbary states of North Africa.

The 15th to the 18th centuries came and saw the Dutch and the Portuguese trading for and buying slaves from West Africa, notably from the Ashanti kingdom of present day Ghana. These slaves were the battle booty of the Ashanti to be traded or sold for export to either African colonies or the Americas. Warehoused in slave castles such as the El Mini Slave Castle (aka St. Georges Castle), among others, on the Ghanaian coast, they spent their last days in these human warehouses before going to who knows where or perhaps dying at sea. Even in the refurbished El Mini castle, the despair was easily imagined in the shadowed, windowless rooms and coastal humidity as I walked through those dungeons a few years ago.

The Dutch were probably the first to import slaves to North America. The buying and selling of sub-Saharan slaves and exporting them to the Americas is the source of the African-American slavery stereotype. But it was not a racial, black-hate thing; its that all the people of the sub-Sahara were black people.

If 12,000,000 Africans were sold to the Europeans mostly before 1776, before we were a nation, and 17,000,000 were sold or traded to Arabs, the question might be asked of the even-handed UN panel: Why all this focus on the United States? Our Founding Fathers grew up in a culture already embedded with slavery with a good many of them becoming slave owners, true; but they were also the leaders in beginning the abolition of the institution. Of course, presently, its politically correct among the left and also very dishonest to blame white Europeans and the U.S. for slavery and racism when it had been a worldwide, multi-peopled phenomenon. Its also convenient to omit that it was those same Western nations including our Founders who became repulsed by it and worked to end it. By the mid-1800s, the European nations had pretty much outlawed slavery and the U.S. was heading toward war over the issue. What largely ended slavery in Africa was those very African kingdoms becoming colonies of the European countries that had decided to end the practice. However, upon gaining independence through the 1960s and beyond, slavery often reappeared in these new African nations, some of whose tyrants would make a Western slave owner look like an old, friendly uncle.

A quick and rough overview accurately shows the Arabs to be among the original instigators while the Italians and the Portuguese developed the economics of it along with other Western European nations. All of it was facilitated by many different African kings.

Perhaps its not ironic, that with its Third World membership, anti-Western mental climate, labyrinthine bureaucracy, and Arabic instrumentation for actions against Israel, the UN is calling for these reparations to our blacks. Though our racial history is undeniable, also undeniable is that most racial woes here were caused by the party of history blackout -- the Democrats. Lets get that history straight -- a history with few teaching it and fewer knowing it. Somewhere its been said that one is a member of the Democratic Party by either decision, or deceit, meaning ignorance of their modus operandi. The Democratic Party is irrevocably and inextricably tied to the racial attitudes, policy, organizations, violence and lynching in this nations past while those more sympathetic Republicans, and particularly white men, are often referred to by that resurrected, hit-term, racist, the ne plus ultra label of the shrill and vitriolic left.

While the UN resolution is not binding and will probably be ignored, maybe that sinking vortex of tax money -- three billion dollars in 2015, more than 185 other nations combined -- needs to review history, too. Maybe the UN needs to be a little more generous with passing out the guilt instead of just blaming the U.S., the only nation to go to war with itself over slavery, losing 600,000 souls as a result. Given that slavery was endemic to Africa and still lingers there, was abolished by and in white nations, maybe we should look at Ghana and the Congo, too. Or maybe the Arabs.

Or, aside from all of those, maybe the Democratic Party should be responsible for those reparations if anybody should be. They could account for it by helping to cut the UNs funding.
In April 2016, a video by Hamas was exposed showing "hysterical children in the company of exorcising preachers. It is a humiliating and invasive rite practiced at the Al-Nil School in Gaza City." It is, however, hardly a surprise for people who have followed this never-ending child abuse, as this video exhorts the children to become "warriors" in the jihad or holy war against Israel and the infidels.

These children are taught to hate. Yet, when the French historian of Moroccan heritage, George Bensoussan, stated that "[i]t is a shame to deny this taboo, namely that in the Arab families in France, and everyone knows it but nobody wants to say it, anti-Semitism is sucked with mother's milk" he was put on trial for saying this."

As Khaled Abu Toameh explains "[Palestinian] children do not dream about becoming doctors, pilots or engineers; an entire generation of Palestinians, particularly those in the Gaza Strip, has been raised on the glorification of suicide bombers and anyone who kills a Jew."

In fact, "what is happening to the Palestinian people, who have forever been led by leaders who care nothing for their well-being, is a tragedy of national proportions." And, of course, the first victims are the children.

Since 1996, the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), under the direction of Itamar Marcus, has exposed the schoolbooks and propaganda material used to brainwash Palestinian children. In 2015 a report issued by PMW highlighted the Palestinian Authority's teaching its children to "reject Israel's right to exist, encourag[ing] them to view Jews as evil and direct[ing] them to embrace terrorist murderers as role models. This report exposes a world of demonization, incitement and hate that Palestinian children are urged to adopt."

When shown the hateful material emanating from the PA, then Senator Hillary Clinton "condemned the PA's messages to children and stated that the official PA TV broadcasts were 'a clear example of child abuse.'" In fact, the textbooks "do not give Palestinian children an education; they give them an indoctrination. When viewed . . . in combination with other media that these children are exposed to, we see a larger picture that is disturbing because it basically profoundly poisons the minds of these children."

Common themes running through the hate-filled messages include:

Israel has no right to exist.

Israel will disappear and be replaced by Palestine.

Violence -- armed struggle -- is legitimate to fight Israel.

Muslims must fight an eternal Islamic war against Israel.

Killers of Israelis are heroes and role models.

Martyrdom or death for Allah is the utmost honor.

Jews are monkeys and pigs.

Jews are enemies of Allah.

Jews are the most evil of creations.

Schools are named after terrorists and Hitler is honored. On January 20, 2017, young children on a PA TV children's program recited a poem promoting the escalation of violence: and recited "my rock has turned into an AK-47." On January 8, 2017 a "young girl chants at a Fatah rally north of Nablus, that '[d]eath is insignificant I love Palestine, blood is spilled for it."

In February 2017, a UN Watch report titled "Poisoning Palestinian Children" highlights the endless teaching and incitement to jihadist terrorism and anti-Semitism that is the foundation of teaching to Palestinian children. The report's graphic pictures expose "more than 40 Facebook pages operated by school teachers, principals, and other employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) which incite terrorism and anti-Semitism. It includes UNRWA staffers in Lebanon, Jordan, Gaza, and Syria." The potent examples in the report show teachers and staffers "celebrating the terrorist kidnapping of Israeli teenagers, cheering rockets being fired at Israeli civilian centers, endorsing various forms of violence, erasing Israel from the map, praising Hitler and posting his photo and overtly anti-Semitic videos, caricatures and statements."

Basically, the UNRWA is a terrorist training camp. The United States gave $380 million in 2015, the EU $136 million, the UK $100 million, and Canada $25 million. Even when UN Watch exposed similar cases last year, nothing was done and, in fact, a UNRWA spokesman "lashed out at UN Watch" for exposing the truth. Legal violations of the UNRWA, which are discussed in the report, the act of inciting terrorism, the public display of Facebook posts which celebrate radical Islamic terrorism, and the violation of internal United Nations policies are clear-cut reasons why UNRWA needs to be dismantled. Clearly, nothing short of this will make a difference.

Not content with poisoning children's minds in school, the Islamic world countenances more and more children marriages. In Iran, where the marriage age is nine years old, "the rate of child marriage is increasing exponentially in the Islamic Republic of Iran, [as well as] Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and even some Muslim communities in the West. The U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child has warned Iran over the rise in child marriages and for allowing sex and execution at age 9" according to Dr. Majid Rafizadeh.

Further depravity is demonstrated with the news that in the United Kingdom "a six-year-old girl with learning difficulties was removed from school and taken to marry an older man in Pakistan."

In Pakistan, "Pakistani lawmakers had to withdraw a bill aimed at curbing the practice of child marriage after a prominent religious body declared the legislation un-Islamic. The bill, which proposed raising the marriage age for females from 16 to 18, also called for harsher penalties for those who would arrange marriages involving children. Despite the laws in place, child marriages, particularly involving young female brides, are common in parts of the country. It's estimated that some 20 percent of the girls in the country are married before they turn 18."

What we repeatedly see is child abuse of the highest order and religiously endorsed pedophilia. It is endemic in the Islamic world and it is now rearing its ugly head in the West with no sign of abating.

If, as the Talmud states, "the world exists only because of the innocent breath of schoolchildren" then the world that the Islamists are creating and that the West appears to be ignoring, is a dire one, indeed. Mokher Sefarim Mendele, Yiddish storyteller, wrote that "children without childhood are a dark and fearsome spectacle." Children taught to be suicide bombers, young girls whose very bodies and souls are destroyed -- how can a society continue this ongoing assault on its young?

Children "deserve to be brought up valuing peace, but Palestinian children are being deprived of a peaceful future and are victims of their own leaders." The entire Islamic landscape is sacrificing its young and this depressing scenario must be halted if we are ever to truly live in peace and harmony where children's nightmares are stilled.

Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com
President Trump wants significant tariffs to help save U.S. jobs. What are the effects of these policies? An import tariff (or an import quota) slows or prevents the importation of goods and services into a country, making it similar to a wartime blockade. It seems silly to impose a blockade on oneself, but that is what tariffs and quotas do.

Tariffs and quotas hurt importers to the extent that importers' sales are lowered. However, the primary victim is the consumer, and the primary beneficiary is the producer  even the inefficient producer.

In a true free market, the consumer is king; producers must meet the demands, of consumers or the consumer will go elsewhere.

For example, assume you plan to purchase electronics this year. You plan to spend about $3,000 and will most likely purchase foreign-made products. If Congress imposes a 20% tariff, you must spend $3,600. Where will you get the additional funds to make your desired purchase? You need to reduce spending in other areas of your life to make up the difference. The areas where you decrease spending are hurt indirectly by the tariff that is intended to save jobs. At the same time, if a U.S. producer already sells similar products for $3,300, the producer can now charge $3,600 and get a windfall profit of $300 due to the tariff.

Due to import quotas and farm subsidies, sugar in the U.S. costs about double the world price. This is great for sugar producers, but how does it affect the rest of us?

First, consumers pay more than they should for sugar. Unfortunately, the cost per person is small, so the cost to lobby for the elimination of quotas or farm subsidies greatly outweighs the benefits to any individual. With billions at stake, it is well worth the effort of sugar producers to lobby for the continuation of these policies.

Second, according to Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute:

2. Approximately 987,810 people worked in sugar-using industries as of 2002. In contrast, there are 61,000 full-time equivalent jobs involved in the growing and harvesting of sugarcane and sugar beets. Studies suggest that the U.S. sugar program helps to maintain approximately 2,260 of these sugar industry jobs, many of which are growing and harvesting jobs, at an annual cost per job saved of $826,000. Therefore, the total economic cost to the U.S. economy of those jobs saved is about $1.9 billion per year. 3. For each one sugar growing and harvesting job saved through high U.S. sugar prices, nearly three confectionery manufacturing jobs are lost.

What jobs are lost due to these policies? Think about all the businesses that use sugar as a major ingredient  candy, cookies, and soda, for example. In Michigan, Life Savers moved production to nearby Canada, and Ferrara Candy expanded their operations in Canada and Mexico, but not the USA. Both were escaping high sugar costs. The maker of Oreos built a new facility and moved some production to Mexico, taking advantage of both lower labor rates and a lower sugar price.

Similarly, steel quotas and tariffs help save jobs in the steel industry, but how do the higher steel prices affect steel using industries?

Manufacturing jobs are falling and have been since the 1970s, but manufacturing output is near its all-time high. Before implementing tariffs, we should understand how many and what kind of jobs are lost because of trade compared to those lost to technology. It is impossible to know for certain, and there are studies that contradict each other. Don Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek explains this nicely.

If you believe that protectionist policies and "buy American" programs are good, you can implement them on your own. You are free to purchase products made in the USA without imposing tariffs and quotas on everyone. Tariffs and quotas reduce each person's freedom of choice. Every individual should be free to spend his money however he chooses.

We can easily see the jobs saved by tariffs and quotas. They are usually highly touted by the protected industries. Job losses caused by protectionist policies are much harder to identify. It is even harder to identify jobs that are never created because protectionist policies made starting or expanding a business too expensive.

President Trump should carefully consider both the seen and unseen impacts of his proposed trade policy.

Frederic Bastiat, who wrote about protectionism in "The Candlemakers' Petition," wrote, "Treat all economic questions from the viewpoint of the consumer, for the interests of the consumer are the interests of the human race."

Thomas Nichta lives in San Antonio. He is an ambassador for the Mises Institute. The views expressed here are his and not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.
On day one President Trump surprised business leaders gathered at the White House, declaring U.S. regulations out of control and in need of 75% or more reduction. A week later, he boldly signed an executive order requiring repeal of two old rules for every new one that government agencies implement.

The fact is that cutting regulations is as critical as tax relief in turning the U.S. economy around. The two are the holy grail to repatriate a large part of the $2.5 trillion in offshore corporate capital, stimulate domestic investment and create jobs -- all central to making America great again. And its economic growth and broadening the tax base that can -- in the longer run -- finance rebuilding U.S. infrastructure and the military without adding to deficits and national debt.

The Federal Register records regulations imposed on business. Its annual pages generally grow with every administration, with a 19% year over year increase in Obamas last year -- setting a record-breaking 95,000-plus pages. Professor Alan Dershowitz notes that, today the average professional commits three felonies a day without realizing it, thanks to the complex layers of regulation and legal requirements that have been built up over time. The Small Business Administration estimates the compliance costs of regulations may be upwards of $2 trillion a year -- an enormous hidden tax nearly six times greater than the aggregate $350 billion in corporate tax revenue collected annually by the IRS in recent years.

Executive orders provide temporary relief, but long term structural change is needed for the U.S. to free itself from the regulatory leviathan and permanently limit federal bureaucracies and their army of unaccountable regulators. Start with two statutory safeguards: 1) Congressional legislation that requires the delivery of $2 of regulatory cost reduction for every one dollar of new regulatory cost increase; and 2) Periodic Congressional reauthorization of regulations affecting industries and the economy -- with sunset provisions for those not reauthorized.

But perhaps most importantly in the long run is the need for a renaissance in understanding the appropriate scope and principles for regulation in today's free market information economy.

Toward this end, its worth evaluating and learning from the three regulatory laws that have had the most impact on the economy over the last 15 years: 1) The Sarbanes-Oxley Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act, which was signed into law by George Bush in 2002; 2) The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare or ACA; and 3) The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act -- the latter two signed into law by Barack Obama in 2010.

Sarbanes-Oxley was hastily passed by a unanimous Senate vote in July 2002 to prevent the next WorldCom and Enron -- both collapsing into bankruptcy in part because of accounting legerdemain. Its ostensible purpose was to improve corporate governance and prevent accounting fraud. But Sarbanes-Oxleys one-size-fits-all approach to structuring corporate boards, determining their duties and those of officers, and requiring granular internal controls and audits was overkill and violated the primacy of public companies to choose and implement best management practices.

Sarbanes-Oxley dramatically raised regulatory costs for U.S. public companies, and made them less competitive in world markets. And it diverted management away from innovation, while richly rewarding lawyers, accountants, and auditors. Small public companies and venture capital startups, which have typically generated more than 70% of new jobs in the U.S., were penalized more than large companies as compliance costs, starting at around $2 million annually, were spread over fewer heads and less revenue. In reaction, U.S. IPOs dramatically declined after the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley, resulting in reduced capital formation and job creation, with many start-ups choosing to stay private.

The aftermath of Sarbanes-Oxley also witnessed the advent of mega-billion-cap IPOs, such as Google and Facebook, whose late stage public offerings enriched the 1% insiders while providing less opportunity for the investing public. Ubers recent announcement that it will likely stay private may also be in part due to the unintended consequence of Sarbanes-Oxley, as company insiders enrich themselves with private stock sales, while avoiding public company red tape.

Sarbanes-Oxley was intended to improve corporate governance and safeguard the little guy. In practice, it has dampened innovation, hurt job creation, helped large companies relative to smaller enterprises, and facilitated the rich getting richer.

Obamacare provided a new health care entitlement for the uninsured, but it failed to improve the quality, choice, and cost of health care for the vast majority of Americans because it undermined free market mechanisms. In hindsight, it was ludicrous to pass health care reform that required billions in new spending that also limited options for participants and weakened competitive forces that cut prices and improve quality, while also forcing some providers to render services that violated their Constitutional first amendment rights. It also created a new hydra-headed government bureaucracy -- all while doing nothing to address the failures and insolvency of the parallel health programs of Medicare and Medicaid. Additionally, ACA was the first bill that was so complex and lengthy at 906 pages that very few Congressional members read it before voting on it. In the words of then-speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, we have to pass the bill so that you can find out whats in it.

What was in the ACA bill was a Congressional surrender of the function of legislation to unaccountable government agencies and commissions, a relinquishing of budgetary control through the allocation of large appropriations for vague expenditures, and the authorization of a bureaucratic explosion that created some 159 new government agencies and boards that have churned out some 30,000 pages of new rules and regulations -- all stemming from a 906-page bill that few in Congress ever read.

ObamaCare also hurt economic growth with its mandate on employers to provide health care coverage when payrolls exceeded 49 full-time employees. Many companies approaching that threshold responded by either replacing full-time with part-time workers or simply choosing to limit the companys growth.

If Sarbanes-Oxley and ObamaCare created new bureaucratic dysfunction and unaccountability, while emasculating beneficial incentives and constraints unique to private enterprise, Dodd-Frank went further. Passed in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, it eroded the rule of law by creating yet more new federal agencies to arbitrarily regulate whole sectors of the capital markets as well as large corporations. One creature of Dodd-Frank -- the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) -- was unleashed with no Congressional oversight or budgetary control.

At 2,300 pages, the Dodd-Frank bill was more than twice the length of the ObamaCare bill. It extends the same creeping regulatory socialism in the financial service industry as was imposed on healthcare. Now, more than six years since the law passed, 30% of the nearly 400 rules required by Dodd-Frank remain unfinished, while some 25,000 pages of new rules have been created.

But even after finalization, many of the Dodd-Frank guidelines -- such as the Volker Rule -- prove exceedingly difficult to interpret, requiring diversion of manpower and resources from profit-enhancing activity to profit-draining regulatory compliance. As with Sarbanes-Oxley, complex and costly financial regulations imposed by Dodd-Frank, have penalized the small and favored the large -- resulting in accelerated consolidation and closure of small and community banks and the credit they traditionally extend to small business. Ironically, the Dodd-Frank law that was supposed to eliminate the need for government bailouts has in fact enlarged the number and size of institutions now officially designated as too big to fail.

The key lessons from the problems and collateral damage from the three most significant regulatory laws passed in the last 15 years are self-evident. Congress should move forward on legislative action to repeal and replace ObamaCare and take statutory actions to correct the economically harmful parts of Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank. Looking forward, the Trump administration should enlist free market spokespeople and use the bully pulpit to develop a broad-based understanding about the appropriate scope and principles for regulation that can bring about limitations and lasting reduction.

What is underappreciated is that the free market system based on law is largely self-regulating, and relatively efficient in weeding out deficient, unsafe and excessively priced goods and services, as well as fraud and corruption. Government regulations should not be driven by crises nor be overly complex. The scope of regulation of a market economy properly understood should protect transparency, competition, private and public property and safety; promote individual and corporate accountability; assure level playing fields and provide for equal treatment of small enterprises; and most importantly, protect Constitutional rights and equal opportunity and penalty under the law.

In summary, the core lessons of the modern regulatory leviathan are: 1) that it cant keep up with complexity; 2) that solutions are not only tenuous, but invariably come with unintended consequences; and 3) that its unlikely to work because it is driven by politicians who are driven to raise money and solicit votes -- promising to fix problems by taking actions that help some constituents without acknowledging the expense to others and that generally interfere with the self-correcting nature of a free market system.

It may be counterintuitive, but as the economy continues to grow in complexity, trust in regulatory solutions should be tempered by more reliance on competition within the framework of existing laws. Applying new knowledge and best practices -- rapidly transmitted in an information-based market economy -- is likely to deliver better outcomes than new, ever-expanding and centralized government regulations.

Scott Powell is a senior fellow at Discovery Institute in Seattle. Reach him at scottp@discovery.org
Governor John Hickenlooper (D) of Colorado spent a few days in Cuba. He spoke about doing business with Cuba but not about human rights. This is a summary of his visit:

The governor of Colorado said on Sunday he believes the Cuban government wants to further improve relations with the United States under President Donald Trump, as he wrapped up a three-day visit to the Communist-run island nation. "They seemed eager for the chance to build a relationship with President Trump and have it be a constructive one," Governor John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, said of his meeting with Cuba's point person for U.S. relations, Josefina Vidal. He said in an interview that Vidal, director of U.S. affairs at the Cuban foreign ministry, and other foreign ministry officials "were cautiously optimistic." "They realize they have to wait and that the new administration has a lot of things going on. They understand things could change in some ways, but I didn't sense there was any fear or some sort of depression," the governor said. Hickenlooper, who traveled with a cultural and business delegation, was the highest-ranking elected U.S. official to meet with Vidal since Trump assumed office last month. Trump has said he wanted a better deal than that brokered by his predecessor, Barack Obama. On Friday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said a "full review" of America's foreign policy toward Cuba was underway.

Hickenlooper then said he didn't doubt that many innocent people were hurt in the early years of the revolution. He followed that by saying that most of those involved had passed away.

Really? I would love to tell Governor Hickenlooper that my mom, and my father's cousin, who spent 14 years in a political prison, are alive. There are lots of former political prisoners living in the U.S. And the repression in Cuba has not changed much, either, as we saw in the recent mistreatment of "Las Damas en Blanco," the ladies dressed in white who march every Sunday.

We hope President Trump reviews this misguided U.S.-Cuba policy. This is the same Castro regime we've all known for years.

P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter
The ability of the globalists who run the European Union to force more Muslim immigrants on their peoples is starting to collapse. Politically correct fantasies that Muslim refugees are just one generation away from embracing the secular culture of their hosts have crashed and burned, refuted by the experience of rampant sexual assaults on women and even little boys instead of gratitude for the shelter and support offered them. Islam teaches that Muslims are owed tribute by the kufrs (infidels) who have no moral right to exist on the same plane as Muslims, who are sanctified by Allah as the natural rulers of all who fail to convert.

I wish that the religious doctrines of Islam were different, equipping believers to cope with a society very different from theirs without feeling a loss of religious identity. But no amount of wishing will make it so, no matter what Angela Merkel thinks.

Chatham House, a think-tank with the deepest possible roots in the British establishment, undertook a massive poll of European countries  10,000 respondents in 10 separate countries  and found that majorities everywhere favor a halt to Muslim immigration.

Here is the summary chart:

As can be seen clearly, there is no contest. Chatham analyzes a few demographic breakdowns:

Support is also fractured by where you live. Of those living in rural, less populated areas, 58% are opposed to further Muslim immigration. Whereas among those based in cities and metropolitan areas just over half agree with the statement and around a quarter are less supportive of a ban. Opposition is also more prominent among 'left behind' voters, with nearly two-thirds of those who feel they don't have control over their own lives supporting the statement. Similarly, 65% of those Europeans who are dissatisfied with their life oppose further migration from Muslim countries. There is also some evidence that public opposition crosses political boundaries, with three-quarters of those who self-classify themselves as on the right of the political spectrum and more than a third of those on the left supporting a halt.

It is clear to me that those at the lower levels of society, who are most exposed to and most at risk of violence or economic displacement, tend to favor no more immigration. For good reasons of self-interest. So the Trump phenomenon is repeating itself in Europe, with ordinary people convinced that their elites do not have their best interests at heart.

Meanwhile, the Democrats and judicial left make a stand in favor of no particular special barriers to immigration from Syria and other failed states that cannot vet immigrants. They are heedless of the facts that impress themselves in ordinary citizens, as in Canada. The Rebel reports:

A 39-year-old Syrian refugee has been charged after several sexual assaults took place at the West Edmonton Mall World Waterpark this weekend. Officers say Soleiman Hajj Soleiman inappropriately touched girls while they were swimming. Police were called to the park at around 10:30 PM Saturday.



According to Global News, EPS spokesperson Scott Pattison said "The girls were very courageous in coming forward and talking to the lifeguard, that's not always the case."



Hajj Soleiman is a Syrian refugee and a father of six. He has been charged with six counts of sexual assault and six counts of sexual interference.

Scene of the crime.

Such incidents are too numerous to count in European countries hosting large numbers of Muslims.
All of us reading about President Trump's attacks on the overreaching judiciary are all thinking the same thing: are the attacks working? Thankfully, Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch confirms that they are.

Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, President Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court, privately expressed dismay on Wednesday over Mr. Trump's increasingly aggressive attacks on the judiciary, calling the president's criticism of independent judges "demoralizing" and "disheartening." The remarks by Judge Gorsuch, chosen by Mr. Trump last week to serve on the nation's highest court, came as the president lashed out at the federal appellate judges who are considering a challenge to his executive order banning travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries. The president called their judicial proceedings "disgraceful" and described the courts as "so political."

So the judiciary is demoralized and disheartened! That's just great! Then Trump's attacks are working. Perhaps left-wing activist judges will think twice in the future before trying to take over powers from the executive branch. I'm glad to hear Judge Gorsuch confirming the president's effectiveness!

What other emotions should Judge James Robart and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals be feeling?

1) Embarrassment. Judge Robart's argument that the state of Washington can sue on behalf of foreigners because Washington state would be indirectly affected by their exclusion is embarrassingly nonsensical. That would effectively give seven billion people the "right" to come to America. If I were a law clerk forced to write such a decision, I would feel ashamed, and glad my name wouldn't have to be on that opinion.

2) Shame. Similar to embarrassment. Any person with even a passing knowledge of the Constitution knows that regulations regarding entry into the country are one of the most obvious powers of the executive branch, in the area of national security, and anyone writing such an opinion outside the pages of Cracked Magazine should feel shame.

3) Fear. If another terrorist attack comes as a result of Judge Robart's open borders order, Judge Robart and the Ninth Circuit should legitimately fear that they will be blamed in the court of public opinion for the next attack. Because they will be directly responsible for it.

4) Surprise. Judge Robart and the Ninth Circuit should feel surprised. They think they are the final authority on all matters in the country, and all of a sudden, the presidency, a coequal branch, tells them they are not.

5) Nasal congestion, random incontinence, and a very itchy group rash. Stressful situations like this one often manifest as physical symptoms. Judge Robart is used to issuing criticism, not having criticism directed toward him. I wouldn't be surprised if the stress of the situation causes Judge Robart to suffer extreme nasal congestion for days, perhaps weeks. Nor would I be surprised if the entire Ninth Circuit got an itchy rash, on the exact same parts of their bodies.

Glad to hear from Judge Gorsuch that President Trump's efforts are working. President Trump must be pleased by the feedback!

Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com.
From one end of the country to another, Democrats and their activist allies have tried to outdo one another in painting an apocalyptic future for America under Trump.

They have referred to the president and his supporters as fascists so many times, you almost expect the Nazi flag to be unfurled at the next White House press conference. They have raised the specter of a Trump dictatorship, railed against Trump's "unconstitutional" executive orders, predicted that under Trump, women will be forced back into the kitchen  barefoot and pregnant  blacks and other minorities will lose their civil rights, gays will be forced back into the closet, public schools will be destroyed...

Yada, yada, yada.

To counter this, Democratic activists have been screaming for the party in Washington to block every move Trump makes. No matter how trivial or unimportant, the rioters and demonstrators have issued dire warnings that Democrats who don't oppose Trump will be challenged in the primaries.

So Hill Democrats have dutifully done their best to throw a monkey wrench into confirmation of Trump cabinet nominees. They have threatened to filibuster Trump's Supreme Court pick, Neil Gorsuch. They have promised to save Obamacare, block GOP tax cut efforts, and generally act as if they were in the majority.

Earth to Dems: Did you check the election results from last November?

Washington Times:

Let's review:  Given an opportunity to have real buy-in, with Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota considered for Mr. Trump's Cabinet, both interviewed and then withdrew.  After dragging out the Cabinet confirmations to the slowest pace in modern history, they are now 0-for-6, with Betsy DeVos and Jeff Sessions each being confirmed this week as education secretary and attorney general, respectively. Next up are Health and Human Services nominee Tom Price and Treasury Secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin, both of whom will almost certainly be confirmed within days despite Democratic opposition.  In the four hours after President Trump named his outstanding first Supreme Court appointment, Judge Neil Gorsuch, fully nine Senate Democrats pledged that they would not support a filibuster, bringing the White House to within one vote of the 60 votes needed to guarantee confirmation. I understand that many Democrats strongly oppose much of what Mr. Trump ran on and what he is delivering now that he is in office. I don't agree with everything he has done, although I strongly agree with most of it. But do Democrats really intend to vocally, aggressively and indiscriminately oppose everything the president says or does throughout the first term? Simply put, that's not sustainable. Like the boy who cried "wolf," Democrats may come to regret complaining about everything, because they may need actual, useful outrage at some future point. Many Democrats will read this and their answer will be, "But Republicans did it to President Obama!" This is partially true, but opposing Mr. Obama's unpopular agenda in 2010 and 2014 delivered sweeping electoral victories for the GOP in the midterms and ensured the House majority for what will likely be years to come. Opposing Mr. Obama was popular, as was fighting Obamacare, the $1 trillion-dollar stimulus bill, "cap-and-trade" energy policy and the Dodd-Frank financial reforms. Not only were Mr. Obama's policies unpopular, Republicans could argue that they objectively failed. It is true that President Trump's approval rating is historically low in the first month of his presidency, but an approval rating in the 40-43 percent range is not unfixable. If his policies begin to produce positive results for Americans, Democrats stand to lose a great deal politically. Indeed, Democrats are risking their political future by reflexively opposing Mr. Trump at every turn.

Part of the problem for Democrats is that they are far from united. No fewer than nine Democratic senators have come out in favor of giving SCOTUS nominee Gorsuch an up or down vote. In fact, at this point, it doesn't appear that the GOP Senate will have to employ the nuclear option to get Gorsuch confirmed.

You can already hear the wailing and gnashing for teeth in the Democratic hinterlands, but Hill Dems are facing a reality that their hysterical supporters fail to realize.

They don't have the numbers to oppose Trump on any significant issue as long as Republicans vote in a near unanimous bloc.

On the DeVos nomination for education secretary, there were two GOP defections. But Vice President Pence was able to break the tie and get DeVos confirmed. The GOP is having trouble getting its act together on Obamacare, but the party is slowly moving to form a consensus on what should be done about the law. Senior Republicans indicate that they expect to have a package they can start voting on in late spring.

Tax cuts are another issue that Dems might look to derail. But the White House is developing its own set of proposals and a strategy to pass them  something the Democrats lack entirely.

The bottom line is that Democrats are losing. And they will continue to lose for the foreseeable future, which will enrage their base, putting more pressure on Hill Democrats to hold the line against Trump. This will lead to more defeats, and the vicious cycle will continue.
The teachers unions fought a good fight. They lost. Mike Pence delivered the deciding vote yesterday to confirm Betsy DeVos to head the Department of Education. As with much of President Trump's agenda, the left is apoplectic. We get that. After having to endure eight years of Barack Obama's "fundamental transformation," we know what it means to be in the opposition party.

But herein lies the difference: while opposing Barack Obama, we never sought to destroy the institutions that served the general populace. The "radical left" has been on a tear since the day after the election. (See Berkeley, confirmation hearings, protests, judicial activism, etc.)

Teachers unions, and by extension teachers, are now faced with a choice: they can "help" lead, follow, or get out of the way. The objective is, first and foremost, the education of America's children. Make no mistake: teachers unions, as all unions, primarily serve the interest of their constituents: teachers. There is no harm in that, necessarily, up to the point where said interest coincides with the interest of students and parents.

The vast majority of teachers are caring and professional. I know many teachers who put in extra hours, pay "out of pocket" for supplies, and genuinely care for the well-being of their students.

Teachers unions, by contrast, care not a whit about "educational outcomes." For them, it is always "show me the money"  if only we had more money, we'd produce better outcomes. A recent study from the CATO Institute showed:

American student performance has remained poor, and has actually declined in mathematics and verbal skills, despite per-student spending tripling nationwide over the same 40-year period.

Unions generally, and teachers unions in particular, are appendages of the liberal establishment. Their contributions to the DNC and other liberal causes are legendary.

It's time to form parent-student unions. Parents and students need to reclaim their power in demanding the best product at the most efficient cost.

Betsy DeVos has proposed to promote school vouchers, dismantling the disastrous Common Core initiative, and charter schools, homeschooling, and school choice. As with any other Trump reform, the left sees the impending apocalypse. Leftists are prepared to fight the now confirmed DeVos to the death. If they care for "the children" as much as they care of their own interests, this is a mistake. Education reform is long overdue. We have fallen behind other industrialized nations, particularly in math and science.

The teachers unions will most certainly stand athwart any and all reforms.
Can You Sue Your Criminal Defense Lawyer?

When our finances and our freedom are on the line, we need our attorneys to be at their very best. Criminal defense attorneys are tasked with zealously advocating for their clients, making sure defendants receive the full protection of the law, and, in many cases, proving their innocence.

Obviously, criminal defense lawyers don't win every case, and a conviction doesn't mean the lawyer wasn't trying her best. But there are times when a defense attorney commits malpractice. So how can criminal defendants distinguish between a bad case and a bad lawyer? And what can they do about it?

Ineffective Assistance or Malpractice?

In the criminal context, there are two different ways to describe a bad lawyer: ineffective assistance of counsel and legal malpractice. While the two can go hand in hand, they are distinct legal claims. Ineffective assistance of counsel can be the basis for appealing a criminal conviction. If you can prove your attorney's mistakes or incompetence were the reason you lost your criminal case, you may be able to get your conviction overturned.

There are generally five bases for a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel:

Your lawyer made decisions without consulting you;

Your lawyer filed motions, responses, or notices late, or not at all;

Your lawyer behaved unprofessionally;

Your lawyer repeatedly failed to communicate with you; or

Your lawyer gets terminology or procedure wrong.

While some of these actions can also indicate legal malpractice, those claims are brought in civil court, where a client sues his lawyer for falling below the standard of legal professionalism.

Bad Lawyer Lawsuits

There are four essential elements to a legal malpractice claim based on negligence:

Your lawyer owed you a duty to provide competent and skillful representation; Your lawyer breached the duty by acting carelessly or by making a mistake; Your lawyer's breach caused you injury or harm; and The harm caused a financial loss.

Where legal malpractice claims in the criminal context get tricky is that third element. Essentially, you must prove that it was the lawyer's action or mistake, and not some other factor, that led to your conviction or losing your case.

If you think you've received substandard legal representation in a criminal case, contact a new lawyer to review your case.

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Betsy McCaughey, writing at the New York Post, suggests that "it's time to kill the 'fake filibuster,'" adding that doing so is not so much "going nuclear" as "going original."

McCaughey's "fake filibuster" refers to the fact that for most of our history, a filibuster brought Senate business to a halt, while current Senate rules allows other business to continue as the filibustered bill is put aside.

A closer look at reforming the filibuster is provided by California Republican congressman Tom McClintock in a recent issue of Imprimis.

McClintock brings up two changes that resulted in today's Senate filibuster rules. The first occurred in 1917, when a cloture rule allowed a two-thirds majority, at the time, to end debate, thus eliminating the ability of a small group of senators to continue a filibuster.

Even that rule change, however, didn't stop some filibusters, as described by American History Magazine:

The cloture rule provided a method for cutting off filibusters by a small group, but it was powerless against filibusters supported by more than a third of senators, which explains how Southern Democrats were able to use filibusters to kill every meaningful civil rights bill for the next 47 years.

The second rules change came about in 1970, when Democrat Senate majority leader Mike Mansfield set up a "two-track" system that let the Senate shelve a filibustered bill and move on, as McClintock recounts:

The filibuster thus entered the couch-potato world of virtual reality, where an actual speech is no longer required to block a vote. Today the mere threat of a filibuster suffices to kill a bill as the Senate shrugs and goes on to other business. The filibuster has been stripped of all the unpleasantness that discouraged its use and encouraged compromise and resolution. Whereas the filibuster prior to 1970 was designed to ensure debate, after adoption of the two-track system it mutated into a procedure that prevents debate. As a result, the greatest deliberative body in the world now has difficulty deliberating on anything of importance.

Hence McCaughey's "fake filibuster."

McClintock points out that between 1917 and 1970, there were 58 filibusters, while there have been 1,700 since 1970.

McClintock argues that the inability of the Senate to act, as the result of the filibuster, has created a legislative gridlock that has contributed to the "rise of the imperial executive."

He further notes that the Constitution creates "extraordinary majorities" for such things as treaties and veto overrides but that current Senate rules replace majority rule for ordinary matters with "an artificial threshold of three-fifths," thereby allowing one body of Congress "to be paralyzed."

George Washington is said to have observed over tea with Thomas Jefferson, "We pour our legislation into the senatorial saucer to cool it."

In that spirit of allowing the minority to be heard in debate while at the same time "restoring the Senate's ability to legislate," Rep. McClintock suggests a number of steps to improve the process.

The McClintock measures include eliminating the two-track system of filibuster, restoring the requirement that the filibuster stop all other Senate business, and requiring that "debate ... be germane" to the legislation in question, as well as several other parliamentary measures.

The McClintock piece considers Harry Reid's nuclear option of simply ignoring the rules a "shortcut to anarchy" and suggests instead that each two-year Senate session have the "constitutional authority" to adopt its own rules "by majority vote," regardless of past precedent.

Betsy McCaughey cuts to the chase on the filibuster rules, observing that all the Senate minority has to do now is threaten to "hold up a bill" or, as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is doing, threaten to hold up a Supreme Court vote:

But DC insiders talk about the 60-vote rule as if it were sacrosanct, the holy grail of democracy. Sorry. That's not the case.

McCaughey cites the framers and The Federalist:

The framers designated five circumstances requiring a supermajority: convicting an impeached president or other high officer, amending the Constitution, ratifying a treaty, overturning a presidential veto or expelling a member of Congress. That's the whole list, and passing laws and confirming nominees aren't on it. At the Constitutional Convention, the framers considered requiring a supermajority in the Senate to pass laws, but repeatedly rejected the idea. James Madison explained in Federalist No. 58 that it would give the minority control over the majority. The "principle of free government would be reversed." Requiring laws to pass two houses of Congress and giving the president a veto were better ways to promote wise lawmaking.

Consider that in the 86 years, or 43 Senate sessions, from the 1933 Roosevelt era through the current session, Republicans have held unified government  the House, the Senate, and the presidency  for exactly four sessions.

Consider further that the Democrats have used their 17 sessions of unified government, along with much of the remaining 22 sessions of divided government, to legislate the progressive agenda.

And consider that if Hillary Clinton had been elected president with a two-seat Senate majority, the Senate Democrats would very likely have gone full nuclear filibuster at the slightest hint of Republican objection to legislation or Supreme Court nominees, probably with the full support of their media brethren.

And consider, finally, Betsey McCaughey's observation on filibuster rules:

They protect career politicians more than the public: The 60-vote threshold dashes voters' hopes that an election can produce real change.

If the Senate is to "rise to this occasion," as McClintock puts it, of President Trump's historic victory and unified Republican government, the Senate must reform the filibuster rules, and, as McCaughey puts it, kill the fake filibuster.

McClintock quotes from Shakespeare:

There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, and we must take the current when it serves or lose our ventures.

Otherwise said as "strike while the iron is hot."
President Trump is being criticized for making critical comments of Nordstrom, which just dropped his daughter's product lines. Nordstrom claims that it is dropping her products due to economic reasons, but it is a big coincidence that Nordstrom, TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Neiman Marcus, and other retailers are dropping Trump products just as President Trump took office. The fact is that Nordstrom and other stores fear pressure from the left for selling Trump-branded products and so are proactively caving in to pressure. One wonders: if President Obama had sold an Obama-branded marijuana cigarette, would stores in California and Colorado be as quick to drop his product line when he became president? Probably not.

Predictably, the media are upset that Trump criticized Nordstrom for dropping his daughter's product line, calling it an "ethical dilemma." But the media saw no dilemma of any kind, ethical or otherwise, when President Obama and his henchman Eric Holder and his henchwoman Loretta Lynch went after the police forces of America and labeled them racist oppressors, feeding fuel to the fire to Black Lives Matter rioters everywhere and disincentivizing the police to do their jobs properly.

But you see, that was different, because that was about race and social justice. This is about Trump's products.

But taking a look at the list of corporate officers who run Nordstrom, I was a little surprised to find that of the top 13 officers, only one is a woman (predictably, human resources). That sounds more than a little sexist to me. What if Trump had criticized Nordstrom for being sexist? Would the media have minded?

And I couldn't help but notice that the three co-presidents of Nordstrom each make more than five million dollars a year in base compensation. I have to wonder how many times that salary is compared to the basic sales clerk who works at Nordstrom. Isn't that enormous gap only fueling inequality?

How do you feel about the media defending a company that marginalizes women and pays huge salaries at the expense of its workers? In light of that, isn't the media's hand-wringing over such a racist, sexist, classist mega-corporation a reflection of their own lack of moral virtue?

Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com.
In the remote Yakutia region of Siberia, more than a hundred kilometers inside the Arctic Circle, lies the small town of Verkhoyansk. Winter temperature here regularly drops to minus fifty degree Celsius. Its so cold that no one can stay outside for more than 15 minutes. The only way to protect oneself from the bitter cold is to wrap themselves up in skins and furs of animals, and keep moving.

Verkhoyansk was founded by the Cossacks back in 1638. Its location on the upper reaches of the Yana River is what gave the town its name Verkhoyansky roughly translates from Russian to the town on the Upper Yana. During the Soviet era, Verkhoyansk served as a place where political prisoners were sent to exile. Today, their descendants, as well as a few Yakut hunters, make up of the towns entire population of 1,300.

A concrete monument resembling a wooly mammoth head commemorates Verkhoyansk as the site of the Arctic Cold Pole. Photo credit: Becker0804/Wikimedia

Verkhoyansk is one of the most isolated towns in this region. There are no roads leading to this place. In winter, when the entire region has iced over, Verkhoyansk can be reached by following the course of the frozen Yana River, driving over the frozen marshes. In the summer, when the river has melted and the marshes has thawed, the only way to reach Verkhoyansk is by a helicopter.

Residents spend the winter pretty much in hibernation, avoiding going outdoors as much as possible. Homes are heated by wood fire and hot water pumped from the central heating plant that runs round the clock, all throughout the winter. Those forced to go outside warm themselves with wood fires in roadside huts and by keeping car engines running. Schools remain closed, but only when the temperatures drop below minus 55 degrees Celsius.

Despite the harsh winter, the summers are surprisingly warm with daytime temperatures over +30 C in June, July, and August, being not uncommon. Indeed, Verkhoyansk holds the distinction of having the greatest temperature range on Earth between summer and winterin excess of one hundred degree Celsius.

The lowest temperature recorded in Verkhoyansk was 67.8 C, recorded three days in a row in February 1892. On the other hand, on July 25, 1988, Verkhoyansk recorded a temperature of +37.3 C, yielding a temperature range of 105 C, which is the greatest temperature range in the world. Only Oymyakon and Yakutsk have recorded a temperature range higher than 100 C.

In fact, both Verkhoyansk and Oymyakon are close contenders for the title of the coldest inhabited place on earth, although Oymyakon is the only one that has been enjoying the media attention and benefitting from tourism. Located not far from the Kolyma highway, Oymyakon is always accessible to tourists by road, unlike Verkhoyansk. The town also has facilities such as hotels, and a local Gulag Museum as attraction.

Oymyakon has a recorded low temperature of 67.7 C, recorded on 6 February 1933, just barely higher than the Verkhoyansk figure of 67.8 C. However, the Oymyakon measurement is considered to be more accurate than the Verkhoyansk figure due to the use of a mercury thermometer rather than a spirit thermometer, which has a margin of error of about 0.2C just enough to keep the dispute alive.

Location of Verkhoyansk.

Photo credit: spblp.ru

Photo credit: visityakutia.com

Photo credit: unknown

Photo credit: zoxexivo.com

The lowest temperature ever recorded in Verkhoyansk is documented on a black granite plaque at the weather station in the town. Photo credit: ysia.ru

Photo credit: zoxexivo.com

Photo credit: zoxexivo.com

Sources: The Basement Geographer / Wikipedia / Spiegel / NY Times
Darkweb Child Porn Moderator Sentenced to 20 Years Behind Bars

This week a moderator for a major darkweb child pornography internet repository was sentenced to 20 years in prison, as well as lifetime monitoring upon release, for his involvement with the site, which is nothing less than shocking. David L. Browning, the convicted moderator, was required to delete anything from the site, Playpen, that did not relate to child pornography, including images, videos, and even discussions.

Browning is not the first Playpen-related conviction. A site administrator, Michael Fluckiger, was sentenced to 20 years just a few weeks ago, and another administrator, Steven Chase, is currently awaiting sentencing. In addition to these 3, there were 48 other individuals prosecuted as a result of their involvement with Playpen.

What Is the Darkweb and Deepweb?

Recently, the terms darkweb and deepweb have made news headlines as law enforcement have been catching up on the technology criminals are utilizing to stay hidden online. The deepweb simply refers to websites that do not get indexed by search engines, which means these sites won't turn up in a Google or Yahoo search.

Whereas the darkweb refers to places online that search engines cannot reach as they require users to have specific knowledge about how to access the site, and frequently require the use of specific encryption keys. While there are legitimate uses for both, these forms of communication continue to gain popularity among criminals, especially those that operate online.

Child Pornography Digital Sting

In 2015, the FBI located the Playpen servers in North Carolina. However, rather than immediately take the server down so site users could no longer access the illegal content, the FBI loaded their own malware that traced the IP addresses of the site's users. The Bureau allowed the server to run for another two weeks, just letting their malware gather information. As a result of the digital sting, the FBI made over 50 arrests.

Surprisingly though, several prosecutions were dropped over the concern that the source code of the malware would have to be released, which could allow sophistacted online criminals to gain the upper hand.

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Google has just made it possible for anyone to experience VR content through the companys Chrome browser. The Mountain View giant has achieved this by adding WebVR support to Chrome. That is, expanding what was already available to the beta version of Chrome to all versions of Chrome. Essentially, making it possible for anyone to experience VR content through the browser. At the moment, it does seem that the service is mainly only accessible to those who own a Daydream-ready smartphone and a Daydream View headset.

For those who do not own a Daydream View headset though, they can still check out VR content on their smartphone or desktop computer and make use of finger or mouse controls to interact with the content. Google has added that their mission is to make it possible for everyone to use VR in due course and on any device. As a result, the company is expected to be adding support for more headsets in the coming months, including the likes of Google Cardboard. If youre interested in checking out some VR content through Chrome, there are quite a few materials already available, though the company said that more VR-enabled sites will pop up soon enough. Those interested in wildlife can check out the Bear 71 interactive documentary. While Matterports library allows the viewer to tour more than 300,000 celebrity homes, museums canyons, iconic architecture, and more. Over two dozen VR films from Within are also available, from gripping tales set in various imaginary worlds to some interesting documentaries. Sketchfab offers more than one million interesting 3D scenes that you can check out, ranging from various anime and video game characters, to famous art, and so on. If playing around in a virtual environment is more to your liking, you can always try playing in the WebVR Lab from PlayCanvas.

As a result, there is a fairly decent amount of VR content now available and all of it is available through the Chrome browser on Android. A move which will likely not only increase interest in virtual reality, but hopefully will also increase adoption of the platform as well.

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Google has updated Play Movies & TV with a dark UI theme as part of their most recent app update, although this doesnt really seem to be a theme, rather the background color of the user interface is just switching from white to black. This might seem a bit strange as many of Googles other apps have a unified white background color to keep the designs between them as streamlined as possible, while still holding onto their own unique design elements. That being said, depending on how you feel about the color scheme, Googles new use of black for the background color might suit your tastes.

If you think about it, the black color for the background kind of makes sense. The app is about movies and TV, and when viewing a movie or watching TV you probably want it to be somewhat dark around the TV screen so you can watch things in a cinema-like fashion. Perhaps thats what this design change is attempting to mirror, and perhaps not. In either case, one thing is for certain and its that Google Play Movies and TV looks a whole lot more like Netflix now, as they changed their app to a black colored background and UI theme some time ago, and of course their themed color has always been red.

The app update seems to be rolling out to users as of right now though there is no telling how long it might take to reach all users, so youll just have to check and see if the update is available and download it if it is, or simply wait patiently for the update to hit your device if its not. The new black color can be seen throughout the app on the My Library pages and on the Watch Now page, and Google has completely gotten rid of the red action bar up at the top of the app. Whatever Googles reasoning for removing most of the red accent colors in the app, it does seem to put more focus on the content itself, as without the red there is less stuff to draw your attention away from what should be front and center, and thats the movies and TV content that the app contains. The app that has these changes should be version 3.22.
It seems like HMD Global is having a hard time keeping up with the Nokia 6 demand. As you probably already know, the company has been selling the all-new Nokia-branded smartphone through flash sales in China after it was released in the country last month, or at least it seems like they were. The Nokia 6 had been available through JD.com (JingDong Mall) several times now, but HMD Global says those were not flash sales, the devices went out of stock really soon after they were made available even though they were available for open purchase. This is a rather odd thing to say considering that the device was available for pre-registrations several times now. In any case, it seems like quite a few people are still looking to buy this smartphone, despite the fact HMD Global sent more stock to JD.com on several occasions. Luckily for those consumers who are still planning to buy the Nokia 6, it seems like HMD Global is planning to send additional units to HMD Global really soon.

The company says that they sent more stock to JD.com more than three times now, but that was nowhere near enough to meet the demand. The Chinese New Year is now behind us, and HMD Global promises that new units are coming really soon, they event stated that new supplies are coming in the coming days and weeks, so if youre interested in purchasing the Nokia 6 in China, you should definitely pay attention to the phones listing on JD.com, as thats the only place youll be able to purchase this smartphone in the near future, at least officially. The device is priced at 1,699 Yuan ($250) through JD.com, and many people would argue thats a solid price point for this handset, which has rather solid specifications despite the fact its fueled by an entry-level SoC.

The Nokia 6 comes with a 5.5-inch fullHD (1920 x 1080) display, along with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of native storage. The device is fueled by the Snapdragon 430 64-bit octa-core processor clocked at 1.4GHz, along with the Adreno 505 GPU for graphics. A 16-megapixel snapper is placed on the back of this phone, and an 8-megapixel shooter is available on the devices front side. Android 7.0 Nougat comes pre-installed on the Nokia 6, and there are two SIM card slots (2 x nano SIM) available inside of this phone. A non-removable 3,000mAh battery is also included here, and it comes with fast charging.
The Honor V9 will be announced on February 21st, the company just confirmed. Honor released this info through their official Weibo (Chinese social network) page, and the event will be held in Beijing. As you can see, the companys teaser image for this launch event is rather odd, as it features a swimmer and swimming on it, could this suggest that the Honor V9 will be water proof or water resistant maybe? Well, its possible. The Honor V9 is a direct successor to the Honor V8 which was announced back in May last year, and the phone already got certified by TENAA. Thanks to that listing, we not only know how will this phone look like, but are quite familiar with its specifications as well.

The Honor V9 is a metal-clad smartphone which will ship with a dual camera setup on the back, and next to those cameras, youll notice the LED flash. This handset will also come with a rear-facing fingerprint scanner, and it will rely on on-screen buttons, as it does not have a dedicated physical home key or anything of the sort. All the physical buttons are placed on the right-hand side of this smartphone, as you can see in the provided image. The companys branding is present on both the front and back side of this smartphone, and youll also notice that the devices SIM tray is located on the left. This will be a rather large smartphone, according to TENAA, it will launch with a 5.7-inch QHD (2560 x 1440) display. This handset will sport 4GB / 6GB of RAM and 64GB / 128GB of expandable native storage. The device will be fueled by the Kirin 960 64-bit octa-core processor, along with the Mali G71 octa-core GPU for graphics. Two 12-megapixel cameras will be placed on the back of this smartphone, and an 8-megapixel shooter will be included on the devices front side. A 3,900mAh non-removable battery will also be a part of this package, and fast charging will be available as well, of course.

Android 7.0 Nougat will come pre-installed on the Honor V9, along with Huaweis Emotion UI (EMUI) 5.0. There are two SIM card slots included here, and you will get 4G LTE connectivity as well, of course. This handset will measure 157 x 77.5 x 6.97mm, while it will weigh 184 grams. The Honor V9 is expected to land in Silver, Gold and Rose Gold color variants, and rumors are saying it will cost 2,299 Yuan ($334), well, the phones base model will.

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Melania Trump's Libel Suit: Being First Lady a 'Once-in-a-Lifetime' Business Opportunity

Before Donald Trump was elected president, there were many questions about the ethical conflicts he might face if he failed to divest himself from his many business ventures. After his election, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington even filed a lawsuit citing those concerns.

But perhaps those worried that business interests would invade the White House were worried about the wrong Trump. In a libel lawsuit against British tabloid the Daily Mail, Melania Trump appears to consider her role as First Lady to be a "unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to make millions of dollars.

Failure to Launch

Melania is suing Mail Media over its reporting last summer that a modeling agency for which she worked in the 1990s was also a high-end escort service. The Mail was allegedly quoting from a report in Suzy, a magazine from Mrs. Trump's native Slovenia, and has since retracted the story. That didn't stop the libel lawsuit, however, which emphatically claimed:

Plaintiff had the unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as an extremely famous and well-known person, as well as a former professional model and brand spokesperson, and successful businesswoman, to launch a broad-based commercial brand in multiple product categories, each of which could have garnered multi-million dollar business relationships for a multi-year term during which Plaintiff is one of the most photographed women in the world. These product categories would have included, among other things, apparel, accessories, shoes, jewelry, cosmetics, hair care, skin care and fragrance.

While the lawsuit doesn't name her now-president husband or the office specifically, the suggestion Melania was embarking on "a multi-year term during which [she would be] one of the most photographed women in the world" and ostensibly could have created new "multi-million dollar business relationships" indicates she saw her stint as First Lady as a money-making venture now scuttled by the Mail's report.

Fines for Libel

Melania is seeking "not less than $150 million" from the Mail along with an injunction barring the website from publishing or republishing the underlying claims. Considering the Mail already retracted the story (at the end of which it had already concluded, "There is no evidence to back up these startling claims made in Suzy magazine"), Melania's lawsuit might have more of a Streisand Effect than she intended.

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A new leaks shows what may be a 2017 model of the Sony Xperia XZ, which has been rumored to make an appearance from Sony at Mobile World Congress although it hasnt been referred to as the new Xperia XZ, merely as a flagship device, and its most recently been rumored that Sony will show off the phone behind closed doors and not at their press conference like originally thought. Alongside the leaked images, a rumor states that this Sony device also has 4GB of RAM, and if the leak is accurate and this is a 2017 version of the Xperia XZ with 4GB of RAM, then it would seem that Sony has bumped up the memory on the device as the original Xperia XZ that launched last year only has 3GB of RAM.

With an increase in RAM there are also sure to be other hardware improvements, such as more internal storage and a newer processor, which may or may not be the Snapdragon 835 depending on when Sony chooses to announced and launch the device, as Samsung reportedly has exclusivity on the Snapdragon 835 until their Galaxy S8 goes on sale. In todays leak you can see four different phones in one of the images, while in another shows the amount of RAM that is being used up along with the total amount inside of the phone.

The third image shows two phones standing upright, though these look like Xperia Z5 devices based on the colors which appear to be gold and green, two colors which are available for the Xperia Z5. The corners also appear to be rounded, and while all of the Xperia X series phones have rounded corners as well, save for the Xperia XZ, they dont come in these two colors so its worth mentioning that the images should be taken with a grain of salt. That being said its also possible that Sony could have changed up the design of these new phones a little bit, although that cant be known for sure until Mobile World Congress later on this month. Other notable details which suggest this may be a new Xperia XZ is the front-facing camera, which can be seen in the image that shows off the RAM, as the original Xperia XZ had a larger camera sensor to the left of the earpiece. This one appears to have a front-facing flash, whereas the original model does not, so this could be another change that Sony is making for a newer model. Keep in mind that these are unconfirmed leaks, and this could be an entirely different Sony device.
Highlight  Meizu brings a compelling package in the M5 Note, at a very low price

Meizu seemingly has a smartphone in just about every product category and every price range. The M5 Note is pegged as one of their cheaper models, but it still has quite a few tricks up its sleeve. The 32GB model (which is what we have) is about 999 Yuan, and that converts to around $145 USD, which makes it one of the cheaper smartphones on the market. But how does it stack up? Lets find out.

Specs

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Meizu, like many other manufacturers out of China, have opted to stick with a full HD panel on their smartphones, and theyve done that again here with the Meizu M5 Note. Theres a 5.5-inch 1080p panel here which equates to about 403 pixels per inch. Powering the smartphone is the MediaTek Helio P10 processor. This is an octa-core processor with four 1.8GHz Cortex-A53 cores and four 1GHz Cortex-A53 cores. This is paired with the Mali-T860MP2 GPU along with either 3GB or 4GB of RAM. There are three storage models, 16GB and 32GB options come with 3GB of RAM and then the 64GB model comes with 4GB of RAM. There is also a micro SD card slot that supports up to 256GB of additional storage.

When it comes to the camera, there is a 13-megapixel sensor on the backside of the Meizu M5 Note. This sensor has an aperture of f/2.2, phase detection autofocus, and dual-LED flash. The front-facing camera is a 5-megapixel shooter with an aperture of f/2.0. There is also a non-removable 4000mAh battery inside powering the show with Android 6.0 Marshmallow and Flyme 5.2 (Meizus own user interface).

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In the Box

Meizu doesnt offer a whole lot of goodies in the box with the M5 Note, which is pretty much expected since the device does cost just under $150 USD. But there is a SIM ejection tool, the necessary paperwork that comes with any smartphone, and then the wall adapter and a micro USB cable, since the Meizu M5 Note does indeed use a micro USB connector instead of a USB-C port.

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Hardware

Meizu released quite a few smartphones in 2016, and for the most part they all looked pretty similar. The M5 Note does look quite a bit different, but it does still share a lot of the design aspects of other products they released last year, like the Meizu PRO 6, MX6 and others. One of the big changes is the sides of the device. Instead of being slightly curved, the Meizu M5 Note has flat sides, which may have given them more room for a bigger battery inside, seeing as the M5 Notes battery is much larger than the PRO 6 which is one of the companys more powerful devices, but not their flagship, that title belongs to the Meizu PRO 6 Plus. It does still fit comfortably in the hand, and thats largely due to the fact that the display is only 5.5-inches. Another change here is the antenna lines. On the PRO 6 and MX 6, the antenna lines were basically the same as the iPhone 7 (which came out months later). This time around, the antenna lines are closer to the edge, and are straight. They still look fairly minimal, but also still exist.

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Another change, and its one many people will like, is the fact that the camera no longer sticks out. The camera now sits flush with the back of the M5 Note, which is likely another thing that helped Meizu cram a larger battery inside. The overall feel of the M5 Note is actually very comfortable. Despite the device still boasting a pretty large top and bottom bezel on the front, the device is still pretty compact. Meizu did also opt to keep the 3.5mm headphone jack  which is located on the bottom of the device and is to the left of the micro USB port with the speaker on the other side.

The power button is on the right side, and is just below the volume rocker, both of which are in a great position. Making it easier to use either button with ease, and not worry about readjusting your grip on the Meizu M5 Note to actually turn down the volume or even power off the phone. When it comes to build quality, there really isnt a whole lot to complain about here with the Meizu M5 Note. Its a very subtle looking device, its not showing off anything crazy, like some other phones. And it has all of the necessities too, like a headphone jack and a big battery.

Display

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Many people believe that 1080p displays belong on a mid-range smartphone these days. Well, this is a mid-range smartphone, but Meizu also uses Full HD panels on their flagships. The difference is that on devices like the PRO 6, Meizu uses an AMOLED display, instead of an IPS like here on the M5 Note. The M5 Notes display might not be as good, but for people looking for a cheap device, its still more than good enough. At 403 pixels per inch, its slightly lower than a good number of other devices out there, like the Huawei Mate 9, but by using a lower-resolution display it means that performance is even snappier and battery life is even better.

The display here isnt perfect on the Meizu M5 Note, but it is pretty good. It may not win any awards for being the best display, but during our time with the device, we really had no complaints with the quality of the screen. Sure blacks could have been a bit darker, but that is also one of the advantages to using an AMOLED panel over an IPS. One of the big issues that we see with smartphones in this price range is with the digitizer. For those that might be unaware, the digitizer lives under the display and it is basically what tells the device that you touched the display, and where you touched it. In cheaper devices, the digitizer is often of lower grade and has issues with response. Resulting in lag and sometimes just not registering your touches at all. But with the Meizu M5 Note, that is not a problem at all. In fact, when it came to lag, we had no issues with it.

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Performance

The Helio P10 is a pretty unknown processor in the West, but its pretty popular over in Asia. Many manufacturers use it in their mid-range devices. its basically like a Snapdragon 600-series processor, when it comes to performance. Paired with the Mali-T860MP2 GPU, it does offer some rather impressive performance, on a smartphone that is as cheap as the Meizu M5 Note. Weve been using the M5 Note for about a week as our daily driver, and other than a few slow-downs, the device kept up with heavy usage all week-long. Obviously youll notice some differences coming from a device with a high-end processor like the Snapdragon 820, but thats to be expected, since this is a slower clocked processor. The Helio P10 performed pretty well in day-to-day usage, it really only suffered in gameplay, which even then, it did pretty well.

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While the Helio P10 did suffer in gameplay, it was mostly only in high-end games with loads of high-end graphics. Occasional games will work just fine here. With 3GB of RAM, there is also plenty of space to keep all of your favorite apps and games open in the background. We never actually needed to clear our recents for more RAM. Which is something that is common on every smartphone, even those with less RAM, and that is due to the fact that Android handles RAM really well these days.

The performance on the Meizu M5 Note isnt the best, but youre not paying for top-notch performance here, so the M5 Note isnt really for heavy users (unless that doesnt include gaming). The M5 Note is more geared towards those that dont need a smartphone to do everything under the sun, and want to save some cash. The Helio P10 and 3GB of RAM (or even 4GB if you go with the higher-end model) is going to be perfect for most people, and definitely shouldnt be a deal breaker.

Fingerprint Sensor

Meizu has been using their physical home button as their fingerprint sensor for a few years now. Their home button is actually an all-in-one button. It acts as a back button, home button and fingerprint scanner. The fingerprint scanner is just as fast as you would expect from Meizu. You dont really notice any delay, but if you are using another device  particularly a Huawei device who are known for having blazing fast fingerprint sensors  you may notice a difference. Definitely not a deal-breaker though. The fingerprint sensor is fast and accurate. And thats really what matters. Additionally, since the Meizu M5 Note does run on Android 6.0 Marshmallow, it does also support the Fingerprint API that Google debuted. So you are able to authenticate yourself in apps that have support for that API. This includes using your fingerprint in the Google Play Store instead of typing in your password.

Speaker & Sound

Here on the M5 Note, youll notice that the speaker is on the bottom of the device, beside the micro USB port. This isnt the most ideal position for a speaker, but it has become the norm in the smartphone industry. This is largely because manufacturers are wanting to make phones with larger screens, but not a larger footprint. Which leads to making bezels as small as possible. That also means that putting speakers on the front of the device is pretty difficult. And having one on the back isnt a great idea either. So many are putting theres at the bottom of their device. Its a pretty good position, since you can still hear the sound, even if the device is sitting on a desk.

Now the actual quality from the speaker isnt all that great. It is definitely loud, but there are times where it can sound a bit tinny. Now, weve found in our time testing out this device that if you turn down the volume just a tiny bit, the sound actually sounds much better. And its still plenty loud, in most environments. Of course, the lows arent as bassy as you might expect from most smartphones in 2017, but its still more than capable. Lets also not forget that there is a 3.5mm headphone jack here, so you can plug in some good headphones and get some great sound too.

Network & Phone Calls

Just as a disclaimer here on this review, the Meizu M5 Note does not support 4G LTE networks in the US. That goes for most smartphones that are made for the Chinese market. We did get some time on 3G and HSPA+ networks on T-Mobile, but no 4G LTE. Which is to be expected, even if it is a bit of an annoyance. Having said that, the network connection seemed to have performed about as we had expected it too. It wasnt as fast as T-Mobiles LTE network is, but HSPA+ is still mighty fast. WiFi also performed the same as it has on other devices that weve used.

When it comes to phone calls, the Meizu M5 Note worked as expected. It was able to make phone calls, it didnt drop any, and users on the other end said that we were nice and clear. Not HD Voice clear, as that is not supported on the M5 Note, but still pretty clear which is still important. The Meizu M5 Note also does not support VoLTE, at least in the US.

Bands supported by the Meizu M5 Note include:

GSM 900, 1800, 1900

HSPA+ 900, 1900, 2100

FDD LTE 800, 850, 900, 1800, 2100, 2600

TD-LTE 2300, 2600

Benchmarks

On the Meizu M5 Note, we ran three benchmarks. These included AnTuTu, 3D Mark, and Geekbench 4. On AnTuTu, the device scored a 45,126 which was low enough to keep it in last place. Over on Geekbench 4, it scored a 687 in the single-core test and a 2129 in the multi-core test. Finally, over on 3D Mark it scored a 324. Keep in mind that this is a mid-range smartphone, so these are mid-range scores. You can check out the full score results in the gallery below.

Battery Life

The Meizu M5 Note has a pretty large battery, along with a very efficient SoC and a 1080p display. All of these ingredients make for some incredible battery life, and that is exactly what we got out of the M5 Note during our time reviewing the device. However, Meizus Flyme OS has messed around with the battery stats reporting (this isnt new actually), so when going into the settings to check your stats, you can only set it for a specific time-frame  3, 6, or 12 hours  instead of the entire battery cycle from the minute you unplugged it. Which means that the screenshots below dont show the entire battery cycle, in fact most of them dont even show half of them, since this phone does regularly last about two days on a single charge.

Due to the way battery stats are reported here, its tough to say how many hours on screen you can get with this device, but our guesstimate would be around 6-8 hours of on-screen time. Which is pretty good, considering our usage included loads of YouTube videos, using Snapchat (which is notoriously bad at sucking battery power) and more. For a smartphone with a 4000mAh battery, it actually performed better than I had expected. I might even say that it performed better than the Huawei Mate 9, which has the same size battery, although it does have a slightly larger display.

The big downside to having a large battery in a smartphone, is charging it. Luckily, most smartphone makers are now including a form of fast charging or quick charge (even if they arent using a Qualcomm chipset) into their devices. Making it easy to charge up these large batteries, faster than ever before. But not with the Meizu M5 Note. It charges at a normal speed. But its still fairly fast. And since it does last so long, I only plugged it in at night, and by the time I wake up, its fully charged. So theres no real complaints here, but it wouldnt hurt to add in some form of fast charging into devices like the M5 Note.

Software

When it comes to software, our review unit of the Meizu M5 Note is running on Android 6.0 Marshmallow, Flyme 5.2.11 OG and the October 5th, 2016 security patch, at the time of writing this review. Which means every aspect of this software is out of date. Meizu should have Flyme 6 on the Meizu M5 Note, but its not surprising that they dont, considering their newest flagship the PRO 6 Plus doesnt even have the update just yet. That is definitely something that Meizu needs to work on, is getting updates out faster, and keeping their phones up-to-date, even on a phone that is as cheap as the M5 Note, since it is still a very popular smartphone. Its worth noting here that Google Play Services were not installed when we unboxed the phone. This isnt uncommon for phones in China, considering Google is banned there, many people dont use it. But it is pretty simple to set up. Just jump into the Top Apps app on the home screen and youll see the Google Services Installer there to install it. It doesnt take more than a couple of minutes.

Weve already reviewed numerous devices from Meizu with Flyme 5 on-board, so theres not a whole lot that is new here for us. But for those unfamiliar with Flyme, the first thing youll notice is how colorful it is. Flyme 5 has plenty of colorful icons, as well as wallpapers. Which actually really help to make this 1080p display look even better. Like most user interfaces on devices coming out of China, theres no app drawer here. This is something that those in the Eastern part of the world seem to really like. But here on the Western side, not so much. But, that is fixable, seeing as all you need to do is download a third-party launcher from the Google Play Store and youre good to go.

One of the smaller, but definitely appreciated changes that Meizu made in Flyme 5 was moving the settings shortcut on up to the notification shade. Before this, youd need to leave the Settings shortcut on your home screen to get to it (now it just sits in a folder of stuff you never use that often). Now one of the cooler apps that Meizu has included is the Security app, although Im still puzzled as to why this isnt included in the Settings app. This app has all kinds of great features that youll want to use to keep your device in tip-top shape. This includes a cleaner, which will show you how much cache is on your phone, especially useful if you are in need of space. it also shows you junk files, redundant APKs and more. If youre phone is running a bit slow, you can use the Accelerator to speed things up a bit. This will mostly close apps from the background and keep them closed until you open them. You can whitelist apps here, so that they dont get closed. Theres also a power setting, which shows you the approximate amount of time that is left on your device, before it needs to be charged. This is estimated based on your usage. There are also different power modes there to help keep your phone going as long as possible. Again, its a bit weird that none of this is in the settings app as it should be.

Software on Meizu smartphones isnt necessarily bad. The only real issue we have is the fact that they are typically out of date, which does open up users to security risks. Especially when its still sitting on a security patch from October, when its now February. If Meizu can get updates out to their devices in a faster manner, then Flyme OS would be a great user interface. Sure it wont be everyones favorite, but it does add in tons of great features that even AOSP is still missing, as well as making their devices really stand out from the others that are on the market (like those from Xiaomi, Huawei and ZTE, also big names in China).

Camera

When it comes to the camera, the M5 Note actually is rather impressive. The backside houses a 13-megapixel camera, which is made by Sony and has a f/2.2 aperture. It actually takes some rather good photos. Now its important to note here that when it comes to pictures, part of it is the sensor, but often times the bigger factor is the post-processing software that Meizu has built. And it appears, at least to the naked eye, that Meizu has done a great job with the software here. Just about every picture I took with this phone came out pretty good. Now obviously something like the Galaxy S7, Huawei Mate 9 or another smartphone with a higher price tag, would do a better job. But given the hardware here, its really good. The background isnt overblown, pictures arent overly saturated, theres really not a whole lot to complain about. Even the shutter is lightning fast.

Now the actual interface of the camera app is also an important aspect. What good is there having a slew of features in the camera app, if no one knows where they are? Thats not the case with the M5 Note. You can choose modes from the button next to the shutter key. This includes Auto, Manual, Video, Beauty, Panorama, Light Field, Slow-mo, Scan, Macro and GIF modes. There is an HDR feature, but its an either on or off type of thing, theres no Auto HDR, and its actually in settings, so its not a simple toggle, like some of the other features here. Something that would definitely be nice to have. Of course, you also have all of your favorite filters available for making your pictures your own.

You can check out all of the picture we took with the Meizu M5 Note (even the bad ones) in the Flickr Gallery linked below. These are all in their original resolution and are un-edited, so you can truly see how good or bad they actually are.

The Good

Camera

Battery Life

Build Quality

The Bad

Outdated Software

Outdated Security Patch (5 months old, at the time of writing)

Micro USB connector instead of the newer USB-C

Wrap Up

The Meizu M5 Note is a pretty good mid-range smartphone. Its right on par with something like the Moto G4 that is available here in Western markets for around the same price. The M5 Note really shines in its build quality and battery life. Theres just not enough to be said for how good the battery life is on this phone, which is especially important for those that need their phone to last a full day, especially those that are heavy users. The only real issues we had with this device can all be fixed with software updates, so the future is looking bright for the Meizu M5 Note.

Should I Buy the Meizu M5 Note?

If you live in a country where the Meizu M5 Note supports all of the bands that you need for LTE, then definitely. Just remember that you get what you pay for  even though you get a whole lot for how little you pay for with the M5 Note.
Nokia filed for an Nseries trademark with the Chinese State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC), i.e. the agencys Trademark Office. The documents were spotted on the agencys website on Wednesday as the Finnish phone maker is apparently trying to trademark the terms N Series, Nseries, and other variations of the thereof. Some images of the documents filed by the company can be seen below.

The filing itself was likely made by HMD Global Oy, the new owner of the Nokia brand which just recently started reviving Nokia phones. The original Nokia Nseries hit the market back in 2005 with the Nokia N70, N90, and the N91. These devices and their successors had a rather large following so it isnt surprising that HMD Global is now interested in reviving the lineup that was replaced by Microsofts Nokia Lumia brand. While the original lineup consisted of devices running the Symbian, Maemo, and MeeGo operating systems, its reasonable to presume that any potential models that HMD Global may opt to release in the future will be powered by Android. For the time being, the company apparently only filed for a Nokia Nseries trademark in China, which may indicate that the revival of this lineup may start in China or even be limited to the Far Eastern country. HMD Global recently released the Nokia 6 exclusively in China, so it seems that the company will continue focusing on China for the time being.

That isnt to say HMD Global isnt interested in expanding its market presence to other territories, as well. After launching the Nokia 150 and the Nokia 150 Dual Sim feature phones in Germany in late 2016, some rumors suggested that the firm may be partnering with certain wireless carriers to bring more Nokia-branded devices to Europe. Finally, the Finnish phone maker is also expected to unveil an entire lineup of new devices at this years Mobile World Congress (MWC) thats scheduled to start in Barcelona in late February. HMD Global previously said its willing to spend $500 million on marketing the Nokia brand worldwide in the next three years, so its reasonable to presume that much more Nokia phones will be hitting the market in the near future.
OUKITEL has now confirmed that the company is preparing to release a new smartphone, dubbed the OUKITEL U16 Max. The Max naming seems fairly appropriate as the big selling points with this smartphone is that it will come with a big display, a big battery and a big level of memory. In fact, in terms of the display, OUKITEL has confirmed that the OUKITEL U16 Max will come equipped with a 6-inch display, making it the first 6-inch smartphone to come through from OUKITEL.

In terms of the rest of the basic specs, OUKITEL has yet to provide in-depth information on what can be expected from the OUKITEL U16 Max. However, the company has confirmed that the 6-inch display will make use of a 1280 x 720 resolution and a 5-point multi-touch panel. The display panel will be sourced from Japan Display Inc (JDI) and will be a Low Temperature Polysilicon (LTPS) display. Based on the information coming through so far, it does seem that the display is going to be one of the main driving forces behind the marketing approach for the OUKITEL U16 Max. Unfortunately, the only other confirmed details that have come through is that the OUKITEL U16 Max will come powered by an unnamed octa-core processor and that the smartphone will come running on the latest version of the Android operating system, Android 7.0 (Nougat).

Likewise, the details on availability are also a little limited at the moment, although OUKITEL is highly suggesting that the the OUKITEL U16 Max will become available sometime in February or March, At launch, it seems the smartphone will firstly be available via Aliexpress as part of an exclusive launch where the smartphone will be discounted as part of a flash sale and coinciding with an Aliexpress Anniversary celebration event. At the moment, OUKITEL has yet to provide any details or indications on the likely price of the OUKITEL U16 Max, although it should be expected that this will be positioned as an affordable smartphone, when it finally does hit the market. In the meantime, those who would like to keep up to date on the OUKITEL U16 Max and its availability or pre-sale launch will want to stay tuned to OUKITELs official website.
Samsung has launched its mobile payment service, Samsung Pay in the kingdom of Thailand today. According to the South Korean company, this move is in line with Thailands goal to transition into a cashless society. Vice President of IT and Mobile Communications at Thai Samsung Electronics, Wichai Pornpratang said at the launch that Samsung Pay has partnered with many financial institutions including MasterCard, Visa, KCC, Bangkok Bank, Citibank, Kasikorn Bank, KTC and Siam Commercial Bank. To make it easier for Thai users to purchase items during their daily routines via the cashless payment method, Samsung Pay is also supported by department stores and shops across the country.

Wichai Pornpratang went on to state that Samsung Pay allows users to add a wide variety of cards other than credit cards to Samsung Pay. This includes the Galaxy Gift Prepaid Card by MasterCard and a wide variety of membership cards, giving users a truly cashless solution. An early access release of the mobile payment solution was made available to select few users in the country back in October of 2016, and according to Samsung, it received positive feedback during the period. Samsung has been expanding its mobile payment solution in Asia recently, with the latest addition being Thailand, bringing the total number of countries with the mobile payment service to 10. Just recently, Samsung Pay was launched in neighboring countries such as Malaysia, Singapore and China. The service is expected to the hit the Indian market by the middle of the year.

While Samsung Pay is one of the best mobile payment solutions out there, it is only supported by a limited number of Samsung devices. This includes the Galaxy S7 family, Galaxy S6 family, Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A7. However, this might change if Samsung Pay Mini makes it to Thailand, as the app can run on any Android device running on Android 5.0 Lollipop and above. Devices will also have to come equipped with a HD display or better. Samsung Pay Mini supports most Samsung Pay features, including online payment and more. One feature which is available on Samsung Pay and not on Samsung Pay Mini, is the offline payment option.
Samsung and TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) have provided updates to their 7nm chip technologies at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) held in San Francisco, California. Both companies are busy designing and working towards producing smaller and smaller chips; current memory and processor chips are being manufactured at the 14nm to 16nm process size. The next move down will be to adopt 10nm chips, which is expected to be happening inside twelve months. To this end, TSMC is currently manufacturing 10nm chipsets for use in the next Apple iPhone 8, due out later in the year, and the 10nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 (shown above) is being prepared for a number of flagship Android devices.

For the ISSCC, both Samsung and TSMC demonstrated their development using a 7nm SRAM chip. TSMC detailed a test chip that could pass for a commercial part, and also explained that its manufacturing process was already producing healthy yields. During its presentation, Samsung demonstrated using extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology, but rather than to manufacture a chip, the process is instead being used to repair one. Samsung using EUV technology for a chip repair has led some in the industry to speculate that Samsung is years behind TSMC in developing its next generation 7nm chips. Samsung does not appear to be pushing into 7nm chip technology as rapidly as TSMC, but EUV technology is seen as being technologically superior and Samsung has already stated that it will be using EUV at some stages of its 7nm chip production runs. The industry believes that Samsung can decide to use more EUV lithography technology during its production and this will allow the South Korean company to market the chips as having a more advanced manufacturing process.

Nevertheless, industry analysts believe both Samsung and TSMC are making admiral advances. Each year, chipset designers and manufacturers are refining and improving the technology and one way that this is happening is by reducing the process size, and hence the overall size, of the chipset. The smaller the process size, the lower the voltage required to drive the chip, which means the lower the heat produced and power consumed by the chip. As the heat production and power consumption is proportional to the square of the voltage, a relatively small reduction in size could lead to potentially significant benefits elsewhere. Less heat and power is especially important to the mobile industry.
The FCC and 'Zero-Rating'

The phrase 'zero-rating' might sounds like the worst news a business can get from customers on Yelp. Instead, recent news coming out of the Federal Communications Commission might be the best that media companies offering sponsored data programs have heard recently.

Zero-rating actually refers to the practice of data carriers not counting certain data usage against their customers' caps, allowing some companies to pay those carriers to exempt their data. While net neutrality advocates and even the former FCC Chairman aren't fans of certain zero-rating plans, it looks like the new FCC won't mind.

Zero-Rating

Depending on who you talk to, zero-rating is either allowing ISPs to use sponsored content to pay for the costs of distributing and viewing data over their networks or allowing ISPs to discriminate against smaller content providers that can't afford to pay. As mobile carriers like AT&T and Verizon begun to buy up media companies package new data and media services, zero-rating has become more controversial.

In fact, former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, an Obama appointee, issued a report stating that AT&T's and Verizon's zero-rated video services may violate the FCC's Open Internet Order. As reported by the Verge:

In theory, sponsored data should be an even playing field, with providers bearing the costs and making the same charges regardless of who's footing the bill. But according to the report, AT&T treats the DirectTV [sic] partnership very differently from an unaffiliated sponsored data system, giving the service a strong advantage over competitors. "AT&T appears to view the network cost of Sponsored Data for DIRECTV Now as effectively de minimis," the report concludes. While AT&T still bears some cost for all that free traffic, it's small enough that the carrier doesn't seem to care.

Zero Problems?

Wheeler submitted the report to Congress just days before he left office, and it didn't take long for his Trump-tapped replacement to change course. New FCC Chairman Ajit Pai formally the report, saying the FCC "will not focus on denying Americans free data. Instead, we will concentrate on expanding broadband deployment and encouraging innovative service offerings." Pai also declared that the agency is closing the enforcement probes into the use of zero-rating packages by AT&T and Verizon.

While the new FCC may be focused on "free data," as the old saying goes, nothing in life is free. But now it might be hard to find out who is paying for your free data, or get content from those who aren't.

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Refugee Students Can Go to International School Under EEOA

As a political storm swirls around refugees in America, a federal appeals court gave comfort to refugee students at a Pennsylvania high school.

The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals said that the students -- some who had fled war and violence in Burma, Mozambique, Somalia, Sudan and Tanzania -- have a right to attend a high school that provides a better education for them. Citing the Equal Educational Opportunities Act, the court said the students do not have to go to an alternative school that did not help them overcome language barriers to their education.

Judge D. Michael Fisher, writing for the majority, said the refugee students were "flourishing" at McCaskey High School's International School. It would do them more harm to go to the Phoenix Academy, an alternative school that the local school district had mandated.

"Jockeying them back to Phoenix now would thus cause them greater harm, as the school district conceded during oral argument," Judge Fisher wrote.

Students With Limited or Interrupted Formal Education

The Lancaster school district had assigned the SLIFE students, who were 18 to 21 years old, to the for-profit Phoenix Academy for "accelerated recovery." But the students complained, saying the courses were too difficult because of their limited English. They had one remedial English class but took all their other subjects with native English speakers.

McCaskey, the local public school, has a program for English-Language-Learners called the International School. Students generally attend the program for a year, where they receive intensive ESL and "content-based ESL" for "sheltered instruction" in subjects such as math and science.

The American Civil Liberties Union, with help from the Education Law Center of Philadelphia and others, took the case for the students. The Justice Department, under Obama, also offered an amicus on their behalf.

"We recognize that a sound educational program has power to 'change the trajectory of a child's life,' while even a 'few months' in an unsound program can make a 'world of difference in harm' to a child's educational development," Judge Fisher wrote in affirming the trial court's injunction.

Overcoming Language Barriers

Maura McInerney, an attorney with Education Law Center, said the decision affirmed the right of immigrant and refugee students to a meaningful education that overcomes language barriers.

"Many immigrant students, particularly those newly arrived in the U.S. with limited prior education have unique and significant language needs that must be proactively addressed," she said in a statement. "They cannot languish in classrooms where they cannot access the curriculum."

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Liberal Politics from the Heart of Bluegrass Country
Known for his eclectic catalog of low budget cult flicks, legendary B-movie producer Roger Corman has helped to launch the careers of many celebrated Hollywood directors, including the likes of James Cameron, Francis Ford Coppola, Johnathan Demme, and Ron Howard. And in 1972, he teamed up with a young up-and-coming filmmaker by the name of Martin Scorsese. The resulting picture, 'Boxcar Bertha,' serves as a notable stepping stone for the now acclaimed auteur, presenting an interesting mishmash of Scorsese's emerging style and typical Corman-produced exploitation thrills -- blending spirited cinematic technique with a little bit of skin here and there.

Set during the Depression, the story focuses on a young woman, Bertha (Barbara Hershey), as she teams up with a union leader, Bill (David Carradine), following the death of her father. After the pair run into trouble with the law, they hit the road, form a gang, and start robbing trains, hoping to get back at a group of corrupt railroad managers. But a life of crime proves to be more than just frivolous adventure, and soon the couple's very lives are put into danger.

Only Scorsese's second feature length effort at the time, the film presents the now veteran director during his early, comparatively inexperienced days, leading to a predictably raw yet bold sense of style. Though they lack the more refined edge found in his future works, the film's potent aesthetic flourishes result in some lively camera and editing techniques, elevating the runtime's otherwise basic genre conventions.

An early fight scene is especially notable, employing some jarring cuts to create an unsettling rhythm with each punch. Likewise, Scorsese uses sudden cuts and key lines of dialogue to tie transitioning scenes together. For instance, in one sequence, Bertha meets a man named Rake (Barry Primus) and starts to teach him how to speak in a southern accent. As he tries to get the hang of pronouncing the word "dear," we quickly cut to the character saying the same word perfectly later on in the story, connecting the otherwise abrupt edit while efficiently speeding the plot along.

Various zooms, dissolves, and freeze-frames are peppered throughout the movie as well, heightening the action and romance. This all culminates in the film's powerful final shot. Taken from the vantage point of a moving train, the image features one character struggling to catch up on foot while the camera simultaneously struggles to keep them in the frame, dramatically remaining fixed as the character tragically recedes into the background.

Beyond the director's burgeoning stylistic prowess, the rest of the film offers a fairly standard train robber narrative, complete with some requisite exploitation conventions -- including intermittent nudity, a few fistfights, some shootouts, and even a car chase. From a purely scripting standpoint, these elements are all pretty mediocre and a little uneven but, again, Scorsese's cinematic approach helps to add a little visual subtext to the proceedings. Likewise, the cast turns in some solid performances, transitioning well between a playfully bumbling caper tone and a more serious mood once the stakes are raised and certain characters start to question the ethics of their criminal actions.

Decidedly rough around the edges but marked by a few compelling splashes of style, 'Boxcar Bertha' showcases a now legendary filmmaker on the cusp of fully developing his craft. While it lacks the sophistication and depth of Scorsese's later films, the movie represents an interesting approach to Corman exploitation flick sensibilities and a key career step for its director -- helping to pave the way toward subsequent 1970s classics like 'Mean Streets' and 'Taxi Driver.'

The Blu-ray: Vital Disc Stats

Twilight Time brings 'Boxcar Bertha' to Blu-ray on a single BD-25 disc that comes housed in a keepcase. Like all of the company's releases, the disc is a limited edition with a run of 3,000 copies. An insert with an essay by Julie Kirgo is included as well.
The displaced people fled from Mae Tha Wor area about five months ago, as a result of the fighting in the area between a splinter group of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), a joint force of Tatmadaw and its allied Border Guard Force (BGF).

Although the displaced villagers want to return home due to the unstable situation, they feared going back. Some who went back to their homes to check their plantations were also injured from landmine blast.

When they got here at first, there were a lot of donors. But now it has been over 4 months already  not just one week, 15 days or 3 months. So, at first, there were lots of donors but now not many, said Naw Tin Hla, head of Rations for Displaced Persons at displacement camps in Myaing Gyi Ngu.

The displaced people at Myaing Gyi Ngu camp have depended on the rations provided by private donors, and for their meals, they cooked together and shared the foods.

At our Kalawde [displacement] camp, we also have difficulties with rations. So, now because hundreds of refugees from Myaing Gyi Ngu area have moved to our area, we have difficulties with ration management. The government stated that they [displaced villagers] already returned to their villages. But, so far, they are afraid to go back. Instead, they have now move to our place, said Saw Moe She, who helped managing at Kalawde camp, in ParPon Township.

At the moment, more than 7000 IDPs are taking shelter at three camps in Myaing Gyi Ngu, Nawta-Hteetaykhee and Kalawde, according to a social rescue group assisting the displaced people at the camps.

The Mae Tha Wor area, where the fighting broke out, is located in east and south of [proposed] Hatgyi Dam project site, and the fighting was connected to the dam project, according to Karen Rivers Watch in September, 2016.

Translated by Aong Jaeneh
(ANSA) - Bari, February 9 - A 35-year-old Italian national of Albanian descent was placed under a two-year-long emergency surveillance program by police in Bari after investigators found pro-ISIS propaganda on his computer and smartphone.

The workman, who lives in the Puglia town of Noci, near Bari, published posts endorsing terror attacks and shared images and videos of terror attacks carried out by ISIS, investigative sources said. The sources said police found photos of the man with a machine gun and videos of prisoners' executions by ISIS on his computer and phone.

In addition, his electronic devices included posts praising the November 13 attacks in Paris and stating that Western governments are the real terrorists.

He had also reportedly used a version of a well-known video game called Assassin's Creed in which the original voices were replaced by others hailing ISIS and accusing the UK of destroying the first caliphate of the Ottoman Empire.

Investigators said they also found a video shared online by the man calling for the 'Islamic conquest' of Italy and another in which British radical Islamic preacher Anjem Choudary threatened Italy, announcing that ISIS fighters would 'conquer' Rome and impose Sharia law.

The man has reportedly agreed to enter the new program aimed at the social and spiritual rehabilitation of those not directly involved in criminal activity.

Under the program, he has been forbidden to leave his city of residence for the next two years with the withdrawal of his passport and documents that would enable him to leave the country.

He has also been ordered not to go online and has been placed under the spiritual supervision of the local Muslim community in Bari for a religious re-education plan.

photo: Bari's central police station
(ANSA) - Sanremo, February 8 - Audience figures during the first evening of the 2017 Sanremo music festival peaked twice at just over 16 million viewers, director of state broadcaster RAI 1 channel Andrea Fabiano said Wednesday.

The televised music bonanza attracted an average of 11.374 million viewers, 50.4% of the audience share.

The first peak of 16,131,000 viewers came at 21:40 local time, when Italian heartthrob actor Raoul Bova presented 26-year-old Elodie. The second peak of 16,113,000 viewers came during the homage to the rescue workers at the Rigopiano hotel where 29 people died following an avalanche triggered by earthquakes on January 18. The audience share peaked at 23:51 with 57.1% at the end of the performance by Ricky Martin, which also saw festival host and artistic director Carlo Conti dancing on stage.


Libya weighing highway to central Africa, deputy PM Investment opportunities in solar, oil and healthcare

(ANSAmed) - ROME, FEBRUARY 9 - Libya is thinking about building a highway connecting central Libya and central Africa, Libyan Government of National Accord deputy prime minister Ahmed Maiteeq said on Thursday.



He was speaking on the sidelines of a Rome forum on investment and development in the Mediterranean basin held by Ernst & Young that will continue on Friday, where he spoke to Italian foreign minister Angelino Alfano. ''This is a huge opportunity for investors,'' he said.



''There are large-scale investment opportunities in Libya, especially in the solar, oil and healthcare sectors. There are no problems as concerns liquidity but know-how is needed.'' ''Our aim,'' he continued, ''is the stability of the country, its security and economic recovery.'' (ANSAmed).




Italy and Tunisia sign 160 mln euros in contracts At EY forum in Rome in agriculture, environment and tech sectors

(ANSAmed) - ROME, FEBRUARY 9 - Italy and Tunisia on Thursday signed contracts worth 160 million euros, said Tunisian development, investment and international cooperation minister Fadhel Abdelkefi.



He was speaking on the sidelines of a forum on investment and development in the Mediterranean basin held by Ernst & Young that will continue on Friday. Abdelkefi, who was in Italy as part of the delegation under Tunisian president Beji Caid Essebsi, said that the agreements are in ''the agriculture, environment and new technologies sectors. We have also received donations and met with important Italian industrial enterprises that we would like to see set up shop in Tunisia,'' the minister added. A memorandum of understanding was also signed by minister of Tourism Selma Elloumi and Itlaian undersecretary Dorina Bianchi.



(ANSAmed).




ROME - Two Palestinians were killed and five others were wounded in raids carried out overnight on the southern part of the Gaza Strip at the border with Egypt, Israeli media reported Thursday, citing hospital sources.



According to Hamas, the bombings were carried out by Israel in response to rockets fired last night from the nearby Sinai peninsula against the town of Eilat, at least three of which were intercepted by the Iron Dome air defense missile system.



Israeli air forces have denied carrying out the raids.



Meanwhile an ISIS-linked group in Sinai has claimed the rocket attack against Eilat, the Jerusalem Post reported, quoting its partner publication Maariv.
PALERMO - A judge in Rome on Thursday ruled that Khadiga Shabbi, a Libyan university researcher convicted last week to a suspended prison sentence of one year and eight months for instigation to commit terrorist acts will remain at the Center for Identification and Deportation (CIE) in Ponte Galeria, Rome.



The woman's lawyers had appealed against an expulsion decree issued by the prefect of Palermo, seeking international protection for Shabbi on the grounds that a civil war is ongoing in Libya.



The judge will subsequently decide, based on the information provided by the migration office, whether to grant protection for the researcher and release her. Meanwhile, he has ruled for her to be held in the center as he awaits for a response, based on security reasons, according to judicial sources.



Shabbi was in Italy to study at the University of Palermo with a scholarship paid for by the Libyan embassy.



Her case dates back to December 2015, when Palermo prosecutors detained her following a request by DIGOS anti-terror police.



Shabbi was charged with promoting online propaganda in favor of Islamic fundamentalist groups and having many contacts with Libyan foreign fighters.



Prosecutors had sought a four-year jail term but a judge sentenced her to a suspended jail term of a year and eight months.



After her release, she was transferred at Rome's CIE under the prefect's expulsion order.


BEIJING - The Russia-China Investment Fund (RCIF) sold a portion of its stake for a large profit and played a significant role in the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Detsky Mir, the leading children's goods retailer in Russia, according to a press release on Wednesday.

The IPO is the first exit from an investment for RCIF, established by the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and the China Investment Corporation, according to RCIF's release emailed to Xinhua.

The release quoted Kirill Dmitriev, co-CEO of RCIF and CEO of RDIF, as saying that the IPO of Detsky Mir is a landmark transaction for the Russian market.

"Detsky Mir is an example of a fast-growing Russian company, which demonstrates impressive results and its growth will accelerate alongside the resumption of growth in the Russian economy," said Dmitriev.

The success of this deal confirms strong demand from international investors for public placements of top quality Russian companies. It has also opened the door for other Russian issuers looking at public markets, Dmitriev added.

Hu Bing, co-CEO of RCIF, said that RCIF remains the largest minority shareholder of Detsky Mir, whose IPO was an important event for the Russian equity market and revealed the high interest of foreign investors in Russian assets.

The investment in Detsky Mir is also an important success story for Chinese investors working in Russia and interested in investments in the country, Hu said.

"We intend to further implement successful projects and investment in Russia," Hu added.

Through the sale, RCIF has achieved a significant exit yield on an investment and has contributed to the increased liquidity of Detsky Mir's shares for new shareholders, according to the release.
Salai Ceu O Bik Thawng said, We have already made all preparations for that meeting. We assume that they deliberately did not give permission to hold this meeting so we issued a statement today.

The national-level political meeting is very important. Union Peace Conference has been held two times. In fact, it was held in January and the 21st Panglong Conference was held for the first time to welcome the new government led by Aung San Suu Kyi. We have held these conferences without dynamic and vibrant political dialogue. And in accordance with the political framework adopted (in the peace process) we must hold these national-level political dialogues. We believe that it will be meaningless to hold this Union Peace Conference for the third time without these national-level political dialogues.He added.

In their 6-point demand in the statement, Chin National Democratic Party expressed that they had already prepared for holding the national-level political dialogue (Chin) since November 2016 with Chin National Front (CNF), Chin political parties and Chin CSOs so they seriously and profoundly demand the Union Government to let them hold this dialogue at the earliest date.

The Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) authorizes ethnic organisations to hold national-level political dialogues in territories of signatories of the NCA. The outcomes of political dialogues will be presented to Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC) for approval and will be forwarded to the biannual Panglong Conference.
ANSAmed - Today's events in the Mediterranean

(ANSAmed) - ROMA, FEBRUARY 9 - The following are some of the main events scheduled for today in the Euro-Mediterranean area: ROME - EY Strategic Growth Forum Mediterranean (also on February 10). ROME - official visit by Tunisian president Beji Caid Essebsi ends.



BRUSSELS - European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker will be receiving Kosovo president Hashim Thaci. NAPLES/PERUGIA/NORCIA - EU Commissioner Corina Cretu will be visiting the Grand Pompeii Project with Culture Minister Dario Franceschini and will be taking part in a 'Dialogue wit Citizens' event with Minister for Territorial Cohesion Claudio De Vincenti and meeting with the presidents of the 8 ANCI regions (until February 12).



ANKARA - Visit by new Cia director Mike Pompeo.



SKOPJE - Meeting of Energy and Foreign ministers of the Western Balkans countries with Italian under-secretary for the Foreign Affairs Vincenzo Amendola.



(ANSAmed).




(by Salvatore Lussu)

BRUSSELS - Brussels has warned that it is giving one month to countries who don't comply with agreements to make progress on the reallocations of migrants before starting to discuss sanctions. Meanwhile, plans are awaited to halt the inflow of migrants from the central Mediterranean route. The warning concerns EU countries that have not respected agreements to host refugees leaving alone others on the frontlines, like Italy.



The vice-president of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, said that, ''it is unjust to leave all the weight on Italy and Greece: they must be able to count on the solidarity of other EU countries''.



The warning comes from the Commission: as of March, action could be taken with the opening of an infringement procedure for those failing to abide by quotas for the reallocation of asylum seekers. Eastern European countries like Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republican are mainly under observation after they failed to comply with Brussels' requests.



The objectives set by the Commission are 1,000 reallocations a month from Italy and 2,000 from Greece but so far the total number is of merely 12,000 reallocations accomplished.



''Important progress was made in the past few months - admitted the European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos - but more needs to be done and more quickly''.



According to the latest data provided by the interior ministry, a little over 3,200 migrants have been reallocated from Italy to European countries. Since the start of the year alone, in just over a month, over 9,300 migrants have landed in Italy. ''Reallocations are necessary - said Timmermans - and the engagement of all member States is necessary because border control alone is not enough''.


Migrants: Amnesty urges attention for trafficking victims Spokesman Noury, 'majority of victims from Nigeria'

(ANSAmed) - ROME, FEBRUARY 9 - The spokesman of Amnesty International Italia, Riccardo Noury, on Thursday urged Italy to pay more attention to human trafficking victims that arrive on its coasts.



''We ask for the immediate identification of victims upon their arrival, for assistance and protection and a system to welcome them that fights against their condition of vulnerability'', he said.



In particular, unaccompanied minors risk dispersion or can get involved in criminal rings or be exploited through their work, he said.



Noury explained that ''the country with the highest number of trafficking victims is Nigeria. Between 2014 and 2016 there were over 40,000 asylum requests presented by Nigerians, two-thirds of whom were women, and 72% of the applications were rejected''.



He also urged to pay attention to repatriation because human trafficking victims who should not return to their home country might be involved. (ANSAmed).




Not at all. It just seems like a lot of back-and-forth talk.

Yes. I'm growing very worried over what might happen.

If it keeps up, I might be a little more concerned.

I think there are much larger things to concern us as a country.

It's hard to tell; I can't take the leader of either country seriously.

Vote

View Results
A Globe and Mail poll of Canadians shows that 58% of the country wants PM Justin Trudeau's government to stand strong on NAFTA's terms, even if it means a trade war with the USA.



A majority of Canadians also oppose lowering Canadian corporate tax rates to match Trump's promised fire-sale.

Trade talks were the focus of a meeting Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland had Tuesday in Washington with House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan and other members of Congress. The discussions included dairy-market access, suggesting that Canada's protectionist "supply management" system could be on the table in the North American free-trade agreement renegotiations. Ms. Freeland meets with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday.

Canadians want Trudeau to stand up to Trump, even if it leads to trade war: poll

[Robert Fife and Adrian Morrow/The Globe and Mail]





(via Reddit)
Under the contract, Air Tahiti Nui will send nine Airbus A340 inputs for C-checks to the Abu Dhabi MRO facility of Etihad Airways Engineering. The project has already been initiated and will run until the end of 2019.



Jeff Wilkinson, chief executive officer of Etihad Airways Engineering, said: We are pleased to welcome Air Tahiti Nui to Abu Dhabi for heavy maintenance checks. Our MRO and design and engineering capabilities are expanding at a rapid pace and enabling us to offer an extensive range of industry leading aircraft maintenance and engineering solutions under one roof to customers from all over the world.



Raymond Topin, VP Operations of Air Tahiti Nui, said: We chose Etihad Airways Engineering to support us in maintaining our fleet based on their extensive experience and expertise and we are looking forward to a long-term relationship as we continue to enhance and expand our services.
Ahmed Al Ansari, Acting CEO, Dubai South said: " Lufthansa Technik, is the first company to begin operations at the newly opened Aerospace Supply Chain. The unique, first-of-its kind facility is designed to offer companies, in the MRO and aerospace industry, a multi-advantage edge given our strategic location and the synergistic aviation ecosystem that we are building at Dubai South."

Ziad Al Hazmi, CEO Lufthansa Technik Middle East, said: "We are extremely

proud to be the first company to begin operations at the newly opened

Aerospace Supply Chain in the Dubai South Aviation District. Having a key presence in the Aviation District has put us in a prime position as a leader in the aerospace supply chain sphere.

'The arrival of the GE90 inlet cowl from such a well-known customer such as Etihad demonstrates that our decision to invest here has been right. I am sure, that our growing list of technical services, including our AirframeRelated Component (ARCR) portfolio, AOG (Aircraft-On-Ground) support,landing gear and engine services and our local material support desk will also convince other customers to trust in our technical expertise."

Jeff Wilkinson, Etihad Airways Engineering CEO said: "We are delighted to grow our partnership with Lufthansa Technik and immediately start on the next stage of our journey.

Partnering with Lufthansa Technik complements our own business model, ensuring faster turnaround time of our off wing components."


AAR, the American service provider to airlines, OEMs and MROs worldwide, announced the opening of the warehouse during the MRO Middle East show in Dubai today.

AAR said has leveraged its partnerships with industry-leading OEMs such as Eaton, Unison, UTAS, Meggitt and Lord to stock the warehouse with a wide array of factory-new aircraft components that are powering aircraft in the Middle East, so when an operator has an aircraft on the ground, they can now get the needed part quickly.

We recognised a need in the region to improve support and reduce lead times for customers and to help our OEM partners better serve local operators while reducing their overhead burden, said Paul Richardson, AAR vice president of sales, Europe, Middle East and Africa.

The warehouse is a natural extension of AARs growing presence in the Middle East. AAR has a dedicated sales team based in the World Trade Centre in Abu Dhabi and has expanded its supply chain and airlift offerings in the region where both military and commercial aviation activity is growing.

AAR recently signed a multimillion-dollar contract to provide power-by-the-hour component inventory management and repair services to the hybrid airline Flydubai. On the government side, AAR provides tip-to-tail contractor logistics support for the Afghan C-130 fleet.


Qatar Airways Cargo has added an additional weekly frequency, operating on Fridays, from Basel to Doha and will launch two additional Airbus A330 freighter services from Brussels to Doha on Wednesdays and Saturdays commencing 15 February. These newly added frequencies take the cargo carriers total Pharma Express flights to nine per week.

Qatar Airways chief officer cargo, Ulrich Ogiermann said: Air cargo standards for handling time-and-temperature-sensitive commodities such as pharmaceuticals are becoming more stringent, especially with the stricter guidelines on temperature control requirements. At Qatar Airways Cargo, we understand the intricacies involved in safeguarding the integrity of temperature-sensitive commodities during shipment. Therefore, we are committed to offering our customers seamless cool chain air logistics as well as uncompromised service standards compliant with Good Distribution Practice (GDP) requirements. Our Pharma Express flights are launched to cater to the rapidly expanding pharmaceutical industry. We are extremely proud to be the only international air cargo carrier to offer dedicated Pharma Express flights to the worlds major pharmaceutical and healthcare industry hubs.
China's Ministry of Public Security said today that starting on Fridaytomorrowat one airport then at others, the government will begin recording fingerprints of each foreign visitor upon arrival. China is ramping up security along its borders, according to reports in state media.

From Reuters:

The fingerprinting of foreigners will be introduced at Shenzhen airport in the south from Friday, and it will then be gradually rolled out at other entry points around the country, the ministry said in a statement.

All foreign passport holders aged 14-70 will have to give their fingerprints, it said, without saying if other biometric data would also be collected.

The ministry said the regulation would strengthen immigration controls and increase efficiency.
A leaked draft presidential memo from the Trump administration would suspend the provisions in Dodd-Frank that limit US firms in sourcing their "conflict minerals" from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the trade in these minerals provides funding to warlords who target civilian populations for campaigns of terror.

Dodd-Frank contains a rule allowing the President to suspend the ban for national security. The memo indicates that Trump would invoke this rule, though without citing any specific national security basis for doing so.

Intel lobbied heavily against the ban on conflict metals from the DRC, and was part of an unsuccessful lawsuit against the rule, brought by trade groups, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable.



Human rights advocates  who had celebrated the conflicts rule as a major step forward  were appalled. "Any executive action suspending the U.S. conflict minerals rule would be a gift to predatory armed groups seeking to profit from Congo's minerals as well as a gift to companies wanting to do business with the criminal and the corrupt," said Carly Oboth, the policy adviser at Global Witness, in a statement responding to a Reuters article that first reported the move. "It is an abuse of power that the Trump administration is claiming that the law should be suspended through a national security exemption intended for emergency purposes. Suspending this provision could actually undermine U.S. national security."

Draft Presidential Memorandum Suspending Conflict Minerals Rule

[Document Cloud]

Leaked Trump Presidential Memo Would Free U.S. Companies to Buy Conflict Minerals From Central African Warlords [Lee Fang/The Intercept]
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ARTESIA POLICE DEPARTMENT

Feb. 8

SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY

2:17 a.m.  Officer dispatched to South Fifth Street and West Bullock Avenue in reference to suspicious activity.

ACCIDENT

3:05 a.m.  Officer dispatched to South First Street and West Texas Avenue in reference to an accident.

SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY

4:17 a.m.  Officer dispatched to the 800 block of North 15th Street in reference to suspicious activity.

5:19 a.m.  Officer dispatched to the 300 block of South 20th Street in reference to suspicious activity.

BURGLARY

5:43 a.m.  Officer dispatched to 306 N. 13th St. in reference to burglary.

GRAFFITI

7:08 a.m.  Officer dispatched to South 11th Street and West Bullock Avenue in reference to graffiti.

FRAUD

7:43 a.m.  Officer dispatched to the Public Safety Complex in reference to fraud.

Feb. 7

ARREST

10:30 p.m.  Joshua Sterling Beeman, 32, of Artesia, arrested on a district warrant.

BURGLARY

8:22 a.m.  Officer dispatched to 402 S. First St. in reference to burglary.

HARASSMENT

8:53 a.m.  Officer dispatched to the 1000 block of West Runyan Avenue in reference to harassment.

LARCENY

11:41 a.m.  Officer dispatched to 4000 W. Grand Ave. in reference to larceny.

PROPERTY INCIDENT

12:14 p.m.  Officer dispatched to 801 W. Cannon Ave. in reference to a property incident.

NARCOTICS

12:35 p.m.  Officer dispatched to the 3700 block of Lowell Avenue in reference to a narcotic incident.

BURGLARY

1:14 p.m.  Officer dispatched to 307 W. McArthur Ave. in reference to burglary.

ACCIDENT

3:26 p.m.  Officer dispatched to the 1800 block of West Centre Avenue in reference to an accident.

SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY

5:38 p.m.  Officer dispatched to Artesia General Hospital in reference to suspicious activity.

LARCENY

6:40 p.m.  Officer dispatched to 611 N. First St. in reference to larceny.

ALARM

7:43 p.m.  Officer dispatched to 1304 S. 22nd St. in reference to an alarm.

SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY

9:16 p.m.  Officer dispatched to Roselawn and Richey avenues in reference to suspicious activity.

9:36 p.m.  Officer dispatched to the 3500 block of West Smith Avenue in reference to suspicious activity.

Feb. 3

FRAUD

12:57 p.m.  Officer dispatched to 1911 W. Main St. in reference to fraud.

PROPERTY INCIDENT

3:31 p.m.  Officer dispatched to the Public Safety Complex in reference to a property incident.

ALARM

4:37 p.m.  Officer dispatched to 2307 W. Main St. in reference to an alarm.

SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY

7:21 p.m.  Officer dispatched to the Canyonstone Apartments in reference to suspicious activity.

7:40 p.m.  Officer dispatched to the 900 block of West Lolita Avenue in reference to suspicious activity.

8:56 p.m.  Officer dispatched to the 1200 block of South 15th Street in reference to suspicious activity.

10:45 p.m.  Officer dispatched to the 400 block of South 16th Street in reference to suspicious activity.

ALARM

11:46 p.m.  Officer dispatched to 210 N. Fifth St. in reference to an alarm.

EDDY COUNTY SHERIFFS OFFICE

Feb. 6

DOMESTIC

1:08 a.m.  Deputy dispatched to the 2100 block of Oak Street in reference to a domestic dispute.

LIVESTOCK

1:09 a.m.  Deputy dispatched to East Hermosa Drive and South Haldeman Road in reference to livestock in the roadway.

ALARM

1:31 a.m.  Deputy dispatched to 2793 N. First St. in reference to an alarm.

LIVESTOCK

7:26 a.m.  Deputy dispatched to U.S. 82, mile marker 142, in reference to livestock in the roadway.

DOMESTIC

11:50 a.m.  Deputy dispatched to Chimeso Road in reference to a domestic dispute.

PROPERTY INCIDENT

4:55 p.m.  Deputy dispatched to North 26th Street and East Cottonwood Road in reference to a property incident.

NARCOTICS

8:54 p.m.  Deputy dispatched to the 1800 block of West Quay Avenue in reference to narcotics.

TRESPASSING

9:52 p.m.  Deputy dispatched to the 1600 block of North First Street in reference to trespassing.

Feb. 5

LIVESTOCK

3:25 a.m.  Deputy dispatched to North 13th Street and East Cottonwood Road in reference to livestock in the roadway.

SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY

11:08 a.m.  Deputy dispatched to First and Main streets in reference to suspicious activity.

MISSING PERSON

12 p.m.  Deputy dispatched to the 300 block of South Rural 13th Street in reference to a missing person.

LIVESTOCK

3:29 p.m.  Deputy dispatched to North 26th Street and East Cottonwood Road in reference to livestock in the roadway.

WANTED SUBJECT

7:30 p.m.  Deputy dispatched to Lakewood Road in reference to a wanted subject.

ACCIDENT

7:50 p.m.  Deputy dispatched to East Atoka Road in reference to an accident.

LIVESTOCK

8:19 p.m.  Deputy dispatched to East Hermosa Drive and South Haldeman Road in reference to livestock in the roadway.

11:25 p.m.  Deputy dispatched to East Hermosa Drive and South Haldeman Road in reference to livestock in the roadway.

Feb. 4

VANDALISM

1:15 p.m.  Deputy dispatched to 9779 Hope Highway in reference to vandalism.

UNWANTED SUBJECT

10:12 p.m.  Deputy dispatched to the 1700 block of North Freeman Avenue in reference to an unwanted subject.

LOUD NOISE

10:14 p.m.  Deputy dispatched to the Ponderosa Trailer Park in reference to a loud noise.

Feb. 3

BURGLARY

3:59 p.m.  Deputy dispatched to 389 N. 26th Rural St. in reference to burglary.

5:35 p.m.  Deputy dispatched to 1904 Maple St. in reference to burglary.

ALARM

10:24 p.m.  Deputy dispatched to 1115 Camino del Llano in reference to an alarm.

ARTESIA MAGISTRATE COURT

Judge Daniel Reyes Jr.

Cruz Munoz, 24, of Artesia, scheduled to appear Feb. 15 for preliminary examination on charges of aggravated assault upon a police officer.

Fidel Baeza, 36, of Lake Arthur, scheduled to appear March 8 for pretrial conference on charges of battery against a household member.

Quana Solt, 43, of Artesia, scheduled to appear March 8 for pretrial conference on charges of possession of drug paraphernalia and an extradition hearing on charges of being a fugitive from justice out of Arizona.

Neomi Villegas, 42, of Artesia, scheduled to appear March 8 for pretrial conference on charges of larceny (over $250 but less than $500).

Guadalupe Jesus Ruiz, 23, of Artesia, scheduled to appear March 8 for pretrial conference on charges of unlawful use of a revoked license and failure to stop upon emerging from an alleyway.

Matthew Gonzales, 28, of Artesia, bound over to district court for competency hearing on charges of criminal damage to property and concealing identity.

Christopher Montes, 38, of Artesia, sentenced to 29 days in ECDC for failure to pay fines.

Fabian Ochoa, 34, of Artesia, scheduled to appear March 1 for pretrial conference on charges of battery against a household member, battery, interference with communications, and possession of drug paraphernalia, and a pretrial conference on charges of resisting, evading or obstructing an officer.

ARTESIA MUNICIPAL COURT

Judge Kaye L. Kiper

Martin C. Molina found guilty of failure to appear for sentencing. Total fines and fees $129.

Jacob M. Wooten found guilty of failure to appear on summons for failure to pay fines. Sentenced to 13-and-a-half days in the Artesia Detention Center.

Steven R. Hernandez Jr. found guilty of operators and chauffeurs must be licensed. Total fines and fees $54.

Michael D. Windham found guilty of failure to appear on summons for failure to pay fines. Defendant agreed to a payment agreement.

Mark A. Robbins found guilty of three counts of failure to appear on summons for failure to pay fines. Defendant agreed to a payment agreement.
Executives from the U.S. aviation industry will meet with so-called President Donald Trump on Thursday to talk about the declining infrastructure at airports around the country, maybe reforming our air traffic control system, how to destroy labor unions, trade agreements with foreign-owned airlines, and whatever other crazy shit pops into Trump's head while his lips are moving.

Maybe Trump will talk about Trump Airlines, and how great planes are.

Planes really are great.

Or maybe he'll bring up Ivanka's beef with Nordstrom's. Sad!

Will they talk about the Muslim Ban? No! Yes. Maybe. Who knows.

Nothing matters anymore.

From Reuters:

The session will include reforming the air traffic control system, Transportation Security Administration issues, user fees and regulatory burdens, a White House official told Reuters. The expected participants include the chief executives of Delta Air Lines Inc, JetBlue Airways Corp, United Continental Holdings Inc, Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings Inc, Alaska Airlines and trade group Airlines for America, along with top officials from FedEx Corp and United Parcel Service Inc, the official said. Also expected to attend are airport directors from Los Angeles, Chicago, Tampa, Washington, Buffalo, Nashville and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. American Airlines Chief Executive Officer Doug Parker, who called Trump's executive order on travel "divisive," is unable to attend due to a scheduling conflict with a conference he is hosting, company spokesman Matt Miller said.

PHOTOS: Donald Trump was greeted by the Azalea Trail Maids as he stepped off the plane in Alabama one Saturday in December 2016.
In the study, his team asked 39 female university students in Britain to dance alone to a drum beat. The researchers used a motion-capture system to track the womens moves. They animated each dancer as an avatar to try to make sure that only the dance movements  and no other physical features  would affect ratings. Then they recruited 57 men and 143 women to watch 15-second clips of the avatars and rate them each on a numeric scale. Hip movements were the key predictor of how positively a dancer was rated in this study.
Under Andreas Mitiseks artistic leadership, the 43-year-old company moved boldly into more productions of modern and contemporary work. It also began producing away from its sophisticated but hard-to-fill home base at the Harris Theater. During the last few years, COT also eliminated its debt, established a cash reserve of more than $850,000 (thanks largely to a MacArthur Foundation grant), and took in its largest gift ever, a $1.5 million donation from Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson.
The conductor and president of Bard College, himself an immigrant, in a New York Times Op-Ed: Not since the era of witch hunts and red baiting has the American university faced so great a threat from government.  What, then, are we, the leaders of our institutions of higher education, to do when faced with a president who denies facts, who denies science?
My staff of thousands has reminded me of an opinion piece that appeared a little more than a dozen years ago in the Oslo-based Norwegian newspaper VG. I had stashed it away and forgot about it. Notice the dateline: September 30, 2004. Since my piece never appeared in English, here it is  a little dated, but (leaning heavily on Thomas Frank, Louis Menand, and Michael Moore) a lot prescient. The headline that editor-translator Yngve Kvistad put on it still applies: Why Are Americans So Stupid?

The great American guessing game about who will be the next president of the United States has run into a little problem: the subversion of democracy in the land of the free, not by anarchists or terrorists but unknowingly by the mainstream electorate itself. This development, which was unimaginable until now, has the pundits, sociologists and polling experts working overtime to explain what has happened.

The theorist causing the greatest stir at the moment is Thomas Frank, the 39-year-old, Missouri-born, founding editor of The Baffler magazine, whose best-selling book Whats the Matter with Kansas? makes the case that blue-collar and middle-class Americans have been seduced to vote against their own best economic interests by the Great Backlash, which imagines itself as a foe of the elite.

The basic premise of the Great Backlash is that culture outweighs economics, a bait-and-switch Republican agenda mobilized around explosive social issues  such ABCs as abortion, buggery and creationism (or affirmative action, busing and Christ) on up the alphabet to gay marriage, gun control, school prayer, stem-cell research and so on  enabling arch-conservative reactionaries to be returned to office even when their free-market miracles fail and their libertarian schemes dont deliver and their New Economy collapses.

Frank points to the red state-blue state paradigm  a perpetual quasi-civil war promoted by the Great Backlash  that dominated the 2000 election and now seems inescapable. It was in the red states  out in the great plains, he writes, where ranchers struggled to feed their cattle and the nations farmers stare every day into the abyss of bankruptcy and destitution  that the Republicans racked up 80 percent of the vote.

But the Democrats, the party of the poor and defenseless, are complicit in the stunning paradox of voters deciding against their own best interests. Liberal Democrats have acted as enablers, allowing the manipulation of the electorate, partly because of their association with East- and West-Coast values, but mostly because theyve accepted the imposition of cultural wedge issues like gays and abortion so that material concerns are overshadowed.

The greater irony is not that Democrats have been painted into a corner as a tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show  as described in a famous TV commercial, which Thomas cites  but that the Great Backlash is actually designed not to win the cultural battles. Rather, the goal is to take offense, conspicuously, vocally, even flamboyantly, he asserts. The backlash is designed chiefly to arouse indignation and, by doing so, put voters into a rage that blinds them.

Yet there are further, equally strange ironies. In a recent piece of political analysis in The New Yorker, the cultural historian Louis Menand pointed out that it may be delusional to think that American voters  regardless of their cultural beliefs or their economic interests  actually care who gets elected. He cited one voter study from 1952 to 2000, which showed that when asked whether it mattered to them who won the presidency, between 22% and 44% of voters answered dont care or dont know.

Democracy in the land of the free has been subverted

not by anarchists or terrorists but unknowingly

by the mainstream electorate itself.

Consider this, too: Nearly 3 million Americans voted against Al Gore in 2000 because their states were too dry or too wet, Menand writes. Because of that years weather, those voters cost Gore seven states, any one of which would have given him the election. Further, according to Businessweek, only 55% of eligible voters participated in the 2000 election. This means that 138 countries with democratic elections rank above the U.S. in terms of voter turnout.

Menand notes that all of this may simply indicate three things: 1) The will of the people is essentially arbitrary because many more voters who do turn out respond to misinformation, manipulation and random personal associations than those who vote their economic interests. 2) Voters dont understand their interests, but merely reflect what the elites tell them. Therefore, democracies are really oligarchies with a populist face. Or 3) Voters may not be able to articulate their interests but they understand basic cues  shortcuts expressed by candidates  so it all comes out in the wash.

Finally, to believe Michael Moore  and this may be the greatest irony and most inexplicable paradox  there is no culture war among most Americans, despite the red state-blue state paradigm. Even if arch-conservative Republicans seek nothing less than ridding the planet of bleeding-heart, multiculturalists wherever they may be having gay sex, as Moore quips in his best-seller Dude, Wheres My Country?, many reliable polls have shown that opinions on various hot-button issues do not differ significantly between voters in red states and voters in blue states.

He cites a ton of those polls in his book, indicating that 85% agree with the goals of the Civil Rights movement; 85% support equal opportunity in the workplace for gays and lesbians; 83% of all Americans agree with the goals of the environmental movement; 80% believe in racial diversification for colleges; 80% believe in universal health care; 73% believe in gun control. Its why he devotes an entire chapter to the liberal paradise, his nom de pays for the U.S.

If Moore is correct, a better question than Whats the matter with Kansas? might be, Whats the matter with Thomas Frank? Better yet might be the question, Whats the matter with the U.S. electoral system? Even the novelist Mark Helprin, a dyed-in-the-wool conservative who writes columns for the right-wing opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal, recently wrote that in a Parliamentary system, George W. Bush would have been turned out of office long ago.

But as the system stands now, presidential elections do not necessarily reflect the popular vote. The American Electoral College operates on an indirect, state-by-state, winner-take-all basis. In other words, the victor who gets the majority of the popular vote in each state wins all the electoral votes for that state, regardless of how large or small the majority is. Thats why Al Gore lost the 2000 election (shenanigans aside), despite having won the popular vote by a significant margin.
In a Boing Boing post last December, I wrote that some asshole anti-Semites were planning a march to chase the Jews out of Whitefish, Montana. Well, some asshole anti-Semites didn't like the attention.

Look at how angry some Hitler enthusiasts got over my honest comments! I was sharing a quote from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) website!

The nazi assholes' rant isn't worth reading, all name-calling and anti-Semitic crap.

Nothing they wrote is remotely flattering, but they did choose a fetching image of my best friend, Nemo, and I. The rest of their outrage seems to have been pulled straight from my LinkedIn bio. I'm quite proud of the work I've done. In addition to publishing Boing Boing I have had some interesting jobs. It appears that some of my former consulting work really set them off:

WELL HOLY FUCK! CHECK OUT WHAT I JUST FOUND! Worthless Jew Fuck Jason Weisberger works for George Soros

"His diverse array of talents provided opportunities for him to serve in a consultative role for the following organizations: Associated Northcliffe Digital, the National Science Foundation, Panorama Capital and Soros Fund Management, LLC."

If I'm going to get picked on for being born Jewish, I might as well be associated with the biggest and baddest Judaic boogeyman around, Mr. George Soros. I do not work for him, however. I would gladly consult for them again, however.

While I'd normally just ignore this kind of thing, the site in question has a disclaimer, where they claim to be a PARODY site and nothing they write is to be taken seriously. However, they also offer a "complaint department" wherein they share a photograph of an apparently lynched black man, and threaten a woman who dared complain about their hate screed. These dual messages seem conflicted so I thought I'd both contact our pals at the ADL, and share it with you.

I firmly stand by my statement that neo-Nazis are assholes. I've heard from a number of people who live in (or know Jewish people who live in) Whitefish, Montana. I am assured they won't take any guff from these swine either.


Tata Steel UK has signed a definitive sale agreement to sell its Steels business to Liberty House Group.

Tata said in November that it had agreed to start exclusive talks for the sale with Liberty for 100 million.

London: Tata Steel has agreed a deal to sell of its speciality steel assets to metal processing firm Liberty House, the Indian group said Thursday.

Tata said in November that it had agreed to start exclusive talks for the sale with Liberty for 100 million ($126 million, 118 million euros). The unit employs 1,700 people in Britain.

On Thursday it said in a statement: "Tata Steel UK has today signed a definitive sale agreement to sell its Speciality Steels business to Liberty House Group for a total consideration of 100 million."

Last year, Tata decided to offload its loss-making British assets, blaming the move on a global oversupply of steel, cheap imports into Europe from countries including China, high costs and currency volatility.
Insolvency and Bankruptcy law that has been enacted deals with the corporate sector, LLPs and partnership firms.

New Delhi: A bill on addressing bankruptcy issues in the financial sector is ready and is likely to be introduced in Parliament soon, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das said today.

While the Insolvency and Bankruptcy law that has been enacted deals with the corporate sector, LLPs and partnership firms, there is another world of financial firms like the banks, the mutual funds or the non banking finance companies, he said.

"So as far as the financial sector entities are concerned, the Finance Minister has announced that the government will be introducing a Bill for resolution of financial firms...for which we have undertaken very extensive consultation the bill is ready, and it is ready to be introduced," he said.

Outlining the focus of the Budget 2017-18 at an event organised here by industry body Assocham, Das said, one of its objectives was strong fiscal focus.

"Finding that right balance is very important. You find that right balance...by targeting those sectors of the economy where you need to spend more and you target a certain level of debt to GDP ratio, that is the Government of India's borrowing or state's borrowing should be this much by this year," he said.

The FRBM committee headed by former revenue secretary N K Singh has recommended that the fiscal deficit of both the centre and states put together should be 60 per cent in 2023.

"So, although the committee had recommended 3 per cent for the next three years, the government decided to adopt 3.2 per cent and...is very much within the agenda of fiscal prudence because with 3.2 per cent the government will be able to reach 60 per cent debt to GDP ratio of the general government by 2023," he said.

Therefore, the government is very much within the fiscal path, he said but "you have utilised whatever opportunities are available within that fiscal path to spend more in sectors like infrastructure, health, education, rural development and agriculture".

On the H1B visa issue, Das said that so far India is not impacted by it despite apprehensions expressed in some quarters.
Pandey hopes there wont be much impact of Brexit on pharma exports in either Britain or Europe as the situation has stabilised.

Hyderabad: A senior Commerce and industry ministry official on Wednesday said that the Indian pharma exports in the current fiscal may witness a near double-digit growth similar to that of last year.

Speaking at the sidelines of BioAsia 2017 event, Sudhangshu Pandey, joint secretary, Commerce ministry said: Pharma exports have done better than many sectorial exports and we are in near double digit growth. Last month, growth has also been good it is about 8 per cent. So I see that despite overall contraction and slowdown, pharma exports doing relatively better. I dont think that it (double digit growth) would be possible.

Mr Pandey added: We should be some way between 8 to 10 per cent. That is what is the anticipation, the Indian Pharma exports stood at $16.9 billion in the last financial year, growing at 9.44 per cent with $5.7 billion to United States and $3.3 billion to Africa, as per the statistics supplied by Pharmexcil. The exports stood at $15.4 billion in 2014-15.

When asked about the possible impact of Brexit, Mr Pandey said that the effects have stabalised for now in regards to exports in Britain or Europe.
Lenovo's Yoga Book is the most striking personal computer I've seen in years. More than the original iPhone, or Sony's X505, or the Messagepad, here's technology that seems a few years ahead of schedule. It's compact, attractive and thinner than anything else that might be called a laptop. Imagine two hinged pieces of black glass, one of which glows with the internet and the other with Okudagrams, and you have the Yoga Book.

Inside is an Intel Atom x5 processor, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage space. There's a 10" 19201200 touchscreen, a micro-USB port, a mini-HDMI port and a real, honest-to-God headphone jack. It runs Windows or Android, and I tested it with the latter.

The keyboard is a completely flat, featureless panel that doubles as a trackpad and Wacom-style graphics tablet. The layout lights up on it, then turns off when it's being used with the pen. It's pretty and minimalist, every key's outline an etched white line.

This uncompromising design comes at the cost of performance, which aligns with Chromebooks more than "proper" laptops: this thing would get its ass kicked by a Surface Pro. But then again, it's less than half the price of one. In fact, at $500, it feels surprisingly inexpensive, especially given the premium materials and workmanship. This puts you in the right frame of mind: the Yoga Book is a sleek tablet with business benefits, not a business-class laptop.

That said, using the standard Google apps and a few downloaded from the Google Play store, I ran into no significant performance issues. Browsing, typing, mailing, editing (where work didn't involve graphics or video editing) went without a hitch or jag. The Yoga Book passes the "road warriors and grandmothers" threshhold of utility. Serious desktop apps on the Windows model may be another matter.

I'd opt for the Windows model rather than the Android one, though, even being $50 more expensive. Google's mobile operating system just doesn't quite feel right on a quasi-laptop device like this. Multitasking, on-screen keyboards showing up here and there, and various other mobile-device shibboleths constantly got in the way of my expectations.

Lenovo is readying a Chrome OS edition, which will surely be a better fit for those wanting to avoid Windows.

The best thing about the Yoga Book is the way the device integrates with the magnetic leatherette notepad that comes with it. This contains a dotted paper pad ($20 refills!) and a stylus/pen with interchangeable ballpoint ink tips.

In other words, you can simultaneously create physical and digital notesand art!simply by placing paper over the keyboard panel and getting to work. You can even close the machine inside-out, turning it into a fancy-looking notepad that's silently digitizing everything you do. People in meetings wouldn't even know it was a gadget, recording not only your scrawled notes but everything they're saying, for later.

I found it surprisingly pleasant to use for drawing and painting, too. It comes with Artrage and has good pressure sensitivity and acceptable latency. In fact, I really liked painting with it: the panel has a texture oddly akin to high-quality paper. Not rough, but with a bit of tooth, much nicer than smooth glass. You can't draw on the actual display, though, so the reference point for artists is still "Wacom Bamboo" rather than a Cintiq or iPad Pro.

The keyboard, though, is what brought me to a halt. There's no mechanical aspect to it at all, no tactility, no feedback. Typing on it is exactly like typing on a tablet's screen, albeit with a more complete and traditionally-spaced layout. If you like screen-typing, don't need a pro laptop and have $500 in your wallet, the Yoga Book is something you can fall in love with.

But for me, this one irreducible aspect of it, key to the whole device's clever spread of uses, means that I just couldn't get any work done.

Lenovo Yoga Book with Windows 10 [Amazon Link]
Most important scenes have been chopped off and the film now looks a pale shadow of its former self.

Mumbai: Hrithik Roshan's 'Kaabil' had recently became the first film to release in Pakistan after the crumbling of ties between the neighbouring countries following the terrorist attacks in Uri. However, Shah Rukh Khan's 'Raees' was not allowed to release reportedly for portraying Muslims in poor light.

And now Akshay Kumar also finds himself in a similar dilemma, with his film Jolly LLB 2 also being mercilessly been put under the knife. The Censor Board of Pakistan has reportedly been citing a negative portrayal of Kashmiri Muslims in the courtroom drama as the reason for the multiple cuts.

Pak daily Express Tribune quoted an official as saying, We are avoiding giving the film a censor clearance certificate. It could be banned from release in Punjab but we are still deciding its fate. The film has been approved for public screening after recommending several excisions. Now it is up to the distributors to release it or not. It has been cleared by the censor board.

Most important scenes have been chopped off and the film now looks a pale shadow of its former self.

Earlier the Bombay High Court had also called for four scenes to be deleted. The cuts were accepted by the producers.

Jolly LLB 2, a Subhash Kapoor directorial, stars Huma Qureshi, Annu Kapoor, Saurabh Shukla and Kumud Mishra, apart from Akshay.

The film is set to release on February 10.
Jolly LLB 2 has been in the news after the Bombay High Court appointed a team to review the film, keeping the CBFC outside the equation.

Anu Kapoor says it like it is. Playing the role of a lawyer and antagonist in the upcoming Jolly LLB 2, the actor speaks of the film rather nonchalantly; as opposed to other actors wax eloquent about whatever film in hand. The offers are not in numerous numbers, so I have to choose the appropriate ones from whatever comes to me. If the money and script are okay, then I go for it, says Anu explaining his choice of films. Ask him about the experience of working with Akshay Kumar and he continues, I hardly have any interaction with him in the film. Akshay Kumar is playing the hero and I am playing a so-called antagonist. I wont say anything since it was very professional environment on the sets. I did my job, and he did his, thats it.

Jolly LLB 2 has been in the news after the Bombay High Court appointed a team to review the film, keeping the CBFC outside the equation. What are his thoughts? These are legal hurdles. When a filmmaker tries to make a film or comment on the contemporary status of the country or running of the system, there are many people to raise objections and this is their right. I havent seen or read the documents where the honourable High court has given some kind of guidelines to the CBFC to review the film. But nevertheless, one thing is for sure that it is up to the government to make sure that guidelines are set in the proper manner in consultation with the court, judiciary system and Censor Board," he says.

Anus appearances in films these days are few, but he is not complaining. My fate has decided everything for me. Im not a guy wholl crib about the status of my career. I have to accept everything with grace, he signs off.
Police sources said that a red alert stands valid for all major towns of Kashmir Valley for next three days.

Srinagar: Security forces are enforcing a lockdown in parts of Jammu and Kashmirs summer capital Srinagar to hold back protests planned on the death anniversary of Parliament attack convict Muhammad Afzal Guru.

Guru, a resident of Doabgah suburb of Kashmirs north-western town of Sopore, was hanged to death in Delhis Tihar jail on February 9, 2013.

Though J&Ks Director General of Police, S.P. Vaid, said that no curfew as such has been clamped on any part of the Valley and that only mild restrictions are being enforced in few police stations areas of central Srinagar, huge contingents of CRPF and local police personnel with riot gear were at dawn fanned out to enforce security lockdown in areas considered as politically volatile.

At places in the heart of old Srinagar including Gojwara and Mashali Mohalla, Hawal, Concertina razor wire has been laid on the main roads and to block some side streets.

Police sources said that while a red alert stands valid for all major towns of Kashmir Valley for next three days, security restrictions have been ordered for seven police stations areas of Srinagar for Thursday and Saturday and for the City centre Lal Chowk and its neighbourhood for Friday.

Partial security restrictions have been imposed in some other equally sensitive parts of the Valley too. A report from Sopore said that hundreds of security personnel in riot gear are out on the streets as people in large numbers began visiting Gurus family in Doabgah early in the morning to share its sorrow and join a prayer meeting.

Elsewhere in the Muslim-majority Valley, the separatists call for a shutdown to commemorate the Guru execution is being obeyed widely by the people by suspending work. While shops and other businesses are closed, only skeleton transport services are plying on select routes. The rail services through the Valley have also been suspended as a precautionary measure, officials said.

A tight security umbrella has been put up especially around the summer headquarters of the United Nations Military Observers in India and Pakistan (UNMOIP) in Srinagars Gupkar Road in view of the call issued by an alliance of separatist leaders asking people to converge at it on Friday to demand plebiscite.

The alliance has also renewed the separatists demand that the mortal remains of Guru and those of pro-independence Jammu Kashmir National Liberation Front (JKLF) cofounder Muhammad Maqbool Butt be returned so that they are given a decent and befitting burial in the Valley.

Butt charged with murder of an Indian intelligence officer Amar Chand in Bomai area of Sopore way back in mid-1960s was also executed in Delhi Tihar jail in 1984 and like Guru his mortal remains were buried inside the prison premises.

Ahead of the Guru and Butt anniversaries, key separatist leaders have been placed under house arrest or detained in police stations. Some others including Muhammad Yasin Malik have gone underground. Also, the police has taken dozens of known or potential stone-pelters into preventive custody.

The restrictions called mild by the authorities in force in Srinagar are likely to continue through February 11 which is observed as black day" in Kashmir to mark the death anniversary of Butt.

However, a senior police official said that a review meeting would be held on each evening during these three days to decide on amount of restrictions to be imposed next day under Section 144 CrPc and any other measures as warranted by the ground situation.

On Wednesday, the police chief, Vaid, was in Srinagar to hold a meeting with senior police and State and Central security forces and intelligence agencies officials. He called for efficient measures for maintaining peace and order. He said that coordination was imperative to make such efforts successful while ensuring law and order in the State.

The safety and security of the people is our prime concern and every attempt of the elements inimical to peace would be foiled firmly," he said. He added that days of imposing curfews are gone and that instead innovative mechanism has been put in place by the law enforcing agencies to foil the ill designs of anti national elements".
He also clarified that Panneerselvam is neither his friend nor his foe.

Chennai: Jumping on the O. Panneerselvam bandwagon, Tamil film icon Kamal Hassan said the chief minister has not shown any signs of damage or incompetence so far and suggested that he should be allowed to continue since he is the tool to execute my democratic will.

The actor, who has always been outspoken about political and social issues, also took a dig at V.K. Sasikala staking the claim for the chief ministership, saying her friendship with late Jayalalithaa does not give her the boarding pass to the top post.

Just sticking around with somebody for long enough does not make you qualify for the profession. I am lawyers son and that does not make me go and argue a case in the court. I am an actor and I am trained for that, Mr Hassan said, when asked about his Opposition to Ms Sasikala.

He also clarified that Mr Panneerselvam is neither his friend nor his foe, the actor said the Chief Minister was the tool to execute his democratic will and people of the state should have the control on those who govern them.

Now we have a choice. Mr Panneerselvam has not shown any signs of damage or incompetence I dont know the qualifications of Sasikala and neither do the people of Tamil Nadu, the actor told English news channels. At one point, he also termed Sasikala as conglomeration of corruption and said she should respect the peoples views.

Noting that he was disturbed with the developments in the state, Mr Hassan pinned part of the blame on the citizens as he said the people have not been doing anything because we have been lazy.

Earlier, he also invited fellow actor R Madhavan to begin a discussion regarding the current conflict of interest between the ruling party.

@ActorMadhavan Please. Talk on crisis in TN. We have a voice with decibel levels not conducive to bad politics, you can also disagree. But do it loud please, tweeted Mr Haasan.

To this Madhavan replied in a series of tweets how the state needs to walk in the right direction. Sir we have always discussed how TN should be the BEST state in the world leave alone India. With the talent and potential we have we are.
Congress and other opposition parties on Thursday forced adjournment of Rajya Sabha twice demanding an apology from the PM.

New Delhi: Congress and other opposition parties on Thursday forced adjournment of Rajya Sabha twice demanding an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his remarks "insulting" his precedessors.

Besides Congress members, their AIADMK counterparts too were in the well of the House demanding that Tamil Nadu Governor C Vidyasagar Rao should discharge his Constitutional duty by swearing in V K Sasikala as the Chief Minister without wasting any further time.

Congress, CPI(M) and JD(U) raised the remarks Modi made during his intervention in the Motion of Thanks to President's address on Wednesday, saying the Prime Minister was "abusive" and used "insulting" language.

They said they were not given an opportunity to seek clarifications during the debate on Wednesday despite Chairman Hamid Ansari citing precedence and tradition of the House that gave members the right to seek such response after Prime Minister or a minister's statement.

With ruling benches countering them vociferously, Congress and other opposition party members trooped into the Well raising slogans demanding an apology from Modi, which along with slogan shouting by AIADMK members created a din, forcing Deputy Chairman P J Kurien to adjourn the House till noon.

Finance Minister and Leader of the House Arun Jaitley said ruling of the Chair cannot be challenged by a notice under rule 267 and rules gave government the right to reply to a debate but it does not provide for a reply to rejoinders.

While Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M) said Modi had used "abusive" language against his party's former general secretary, Anand Sharma (Cong) said the Prime Minister had insulted the memory of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Sharad Yadav (JD-U) said when he had sought to raise the issue of export duty on wheat and pulses import, Modi had said he would listen to him after his intervention was over.

Chairman Hamid Ansari had also reminded the Prime Minister of the tradition and practice of the House to allow clarifications from members but the same was not heeded to, he said.

When the House reassembled at noon, Chairman Hamid Ansari's call for taking up the Question Hour went unheeded as uproar by opposition Congress over Modi's remarks continued.
Ghaziabad: An eleventh-grade student of Dehradun Public School (DDPS) at Govindpuram, smuggled a gun to the school and shot a classmate over an argument on Wednesday.

According to a Hindustan Times report, the victim suffered a bullet wound to his waist and was hospitalised. The victim, however, is said to be out of danger.

The police said that the incident was the result of an argument between the victim and the shooters brother.

However, the father of the victim claimed that his son was first hit with belts by the accused and three of his friends at 11:25 am, before shooting him with a country-made pistol.

The accused was caught by teachers and school administration officials and was handed over to the police along with the weapon in question.

A case has been filed by the police against the minor accused for attempted murder.

There was only a single bullet fired from the weapon and the used cartridge was also recovered from the scene of crime inside the class. We have also recovered the weapon and will question the parents of the boy as to how they procured it, a police officer from Kavi Nagar police station was quoted as saying.

The three other eleventh grade students who apparently accompanied the accused were also included in the complaint.

Three of the accused were from Sikrod in Masuri, Ghaziabad while one was from Dasna Gate. The victim, however, hailed from a village in Dadri, Greater Noida.
The agitating jats are demanding reservation in government jobs and educational institutions.

Chandigarh: The Haryana government is treading cautiously this time as jat unions have once again intensified their agitation demanding reservation for the community. Last time, the Haryana government was severely criticised for mishandling the jat stir, which paralysed the state, as arson and violence took place throughout the state.

The fact that the Congress and INLD are supporting the agitation has further politicised the matter. The protests announced by All-India Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti, an umbrella organisation spearheading the quota campaign, is going on at 19 places across the state. Already, the agitation has entered its second week and protesters are threatening to intensify their stir. Taking a hard stance, jat leader Yashpal Malik, who is spearheading the present agitation, has said that they were willing to wait for reservation since the matter was sub-judice, but they wanted all other demands to be accepted immediately.

The agitating jats are demanding reservation in government jobs and educational institutions and rollback of criminal cases registered against several jat youth.

The demand also includes the release of those lodged in jail, compensation and government jobs to next of kin of those killed during the last years agitation.

Significantly, the Opposition Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and Congress have publicly announced their support. Senior leaders of both the Congress and INLD have visited the protest sites and even donated money to help them make arrangements and keep their makeshift kitchens running, prompting the ruling BJP to dub the protests as politically motivated.

The state government, which came across as ineffectual during the last years agitation, is wary of a repeat. However, not taking any chances this time, the state government has already issued a warning that JCBs (earth-moving machines) uprooting trees to block the roads would be impounded. The forest department has also been directed to arrange electric saws and tractors in case tress have to be removed. The other departments have also been asked to be on alert.

Last time, the police department was found lacking as they failed to control rampaging mobs.

Haryana Director General of Police K.P. Singh has warned that if anyone was found indulged in any illegal activity or causing loss to public property, action would be initiated against him. There is no shortage of police personnel and 7,000 Home Guards will be deputed with Haryana Police from January 26. Besides, adequate police personnel are being deputed in all districts. With the help of people and concerted efforts of police officers, there will be no need of extra force, Singh said.

It is worth mentioning that during the last years Jat agitation which turned violent as 30 people lost their lives and ,many cases arson loot were reported. The state government was also accused of mishandling the situation. The Parkash Committee report which was not made public by the government had indicted state police and bureaucracy for dereliction of duty.
Joshi said that Queen Padmavati (popularly known as Queen Padmini) was known for saving her honour by jumping into a pier.

New Delhi: The row over filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansalis upcoming film Padmavati echoed in Lok Sabha on Thursday when the BJP MP from Chittorgarh C.P. Joshi demanded tough legal action against the makers for portraying the Rajput queen in an objectionable manner.

Mr Joshi, while raising the issue during Zero Hour, said that Queen Padmavati (popularly known as Queen Padmini) was known for saving her honour by jumping into a pier when her kingdom was attacked by Alauddin Khilji, but the filmmaker has portrayed her as a lover of the attacker and is distorting history for the sake of fame.

I demand that filming the character in this manner be barred and tough legal action be taken for doing so, Mr Joshi said.

Last month, Mr Bhansali was allegedly roughed up by members of a Rajput community group, who also stopped the shooting of the film by damaging the sets at Jaigarh Fort in Jaipur, alleging that the director was distorting facts in the film which is about Alauddin Khiljis obsession with Rani Padmavati.
The accused has been caught on previous occasions trying to assault minors at the blind school, an officer said.

New Delhi: A 20-year-old visually impaired youth allegedly sodomised two visually impaired minors at a residential school in southeast Delhi's Amar Colony area, police said on Wednesday.

The incident was reported to the school authorities on January 1 but as the accused had apologised at that time no further action was taken.

But he again forced himself upon one of the victims on February 6 after which his parents approached the school principal who in turn complained to police.

A case under POCSO act for unnatural sex has been registered against the accused, a senior police officer said, adding the accused was arrested also.

The accused has been caught on previous occasions trying to assault minors at the blind school, the officer said.

In his statement, the 11-year-old victim claimed that the accused, who was his hostelmate, would often call him to his room and assaulted him on January 1 but as the accused apologised, the school authorities did not expel him.

But on February 6, when the accused again forced himself on the boy, his family approached the principal who approached police, he said.

It is suspected that the accused might have targeted other minors apart from the two cases that have come forward. The school principal is being questioned about the delay in reporting the matter, the officer said.

The victims are being counselled as well as other students to ascertain if anyone else was also targeted, he added.
The state ATS and Central probe agencies are jointly investigating the case.

ATS of Madhya Pradesh police officials carrying suspected members of the gang out of eleven allegedly supplying information to Pakistan's spy agency ISI, to produce in the district court in Bhopal. (Photo: PTI)

Bhopal: Eleven members of an espionage ring backed by Pakistans spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence was arrested from different parts of Madhya Pradesh Thursday.

The anti-terrorist squad (ATS) of the Madhya Pradesh police said the accused were running call centres using Chinese equipment and SIM cards to help the ISI spy on Indias military operations.

Among those arrested is a person from Satna, two from Jabalpur, three from Bhopal and five from Gwalior, ATS chief Sanjeev Sami told reporters.

We arrested a Satna-based man identified as Balram, the kingpin of the espionage ring, following tip-offs by two ISI agents, Satwinder and Dadu, he said.

The two ISI agents were arrested from RS Pura in Jammu in November last year on charges of sending strategic information to their handlers in Pakistan. Balram led us to 10 other people involved in the racket, Mr Sami said.

He said Mr Balram and his associates were operating several parallel telephone exchanges in various cities of MP, including Bhopal, Gwalior, Satna and Jabalpur, and outside the state. They helped ISI handlers keep in touch with agents in India by concealing their identities, Mr Sami said.

ISI used to deposit money in multiple accounts opened by Balram through hawala. Balram then used to disburse the funds to other members of the espionage ring, Mr Sami said.

The ISI men from Pakistan used the facilities to call military personnel in Jammu and Kashmir by posing as senior army officers and take details of strategic operations, the ATS chief said.

Hundreds of SIM cards have been seized from them. The role of employees of some telecom firms is under the scanner and more arrests will be made in the coming days, he said. The state ATS and Central probe agencies are jointly investigating the case.
Civil asset forfeiture is a perfectly foreseeable outcome of the overbroad War on Drugs: it allows the cops to seize your belongings and charge them  not you!  with being the proceeds of a crime. Then it's up to you to figure out how to prove that your cash, car, house, or other belongings are innocent, otherwise the cops get to keep your stuff and use it to fund their operations.

This is especially useful when it comes to amassing budgets to buy things that the cops don't want to ask for in public: that's why Chicago cops stole millions from mostly poor Chicagoans and blew it on surveillance gear (they did this in LA, too). It's hard to see how there'd be a surveillance gear industry without this legalized theft. The NYPD steals so much through forfeiture that it says just adding it up would break their computers (it's even worse in the Bronx).

It's an irresistible temptation. City attorneys invite the town cops to seminars on maximizing the haul of desirable goods, advising the police to keep a wishlist of cars and other material they'd like to steal, so they can be on the lookout for citizens in possession of same to seize from. It got so bad that the CBC issued advice for Canadian to help them avoid being robbed by American cops while on vacation.

The city and state authorities have used stolen funds to lobby against reforms in the forfeiture rules, but their behavior was so egregious that reform was inevitable. States including Montana, New Mexico, California and Nebraska reformed their forfeiture rules, then in 2015 Congress slashed the DoJ's budget, forcing the feds to end their complicity in forfeiture cases.

But Trump's official policy of putting a fox in every henhouse is about to hit forfeiture reform. He told a group of sheriffs that he will "look into" limits on forfeiture, because there is "no reason" for any such limits. He went on to offer to "destroy the career" of a Texas state senator who believed in limits on asset forfeiture.

Senators Konni Burton and Juan Hinojosa both offered statements in response. Here's Burton's (h/t CJ Ciaramella): I have never met with Sheriff Eavenson, nor even heard of him before yesterday. However, I take exception to his comments on asset forfeiture reform.

While I certainly want law enforcement to have the tools necessary to combat large criminal enterprises, we must be vigilant to safeguard the rights of everyday citizens from potential abuse. Do not be mistaken or misled: this is not strictly a law enforcement issue; this is a property rights issue.

Property rights are one of the foundational rights in any free society and the taking of property by government is no small matter. Requiring the government to secure a criminal conviction before permanently taking property from citizens is simply commonsense. We would not stand for anything less when it comes to our personal liberty or freedom; why should we allow our property to be taken so easily? And Hinojosa's: I do not know and have not met with Sheriff Harold Eavenson of Rockwall County. And quite frankly, I don't pay much attention to what President Trump says anymore. However, the asset forfeiture bills I have authored and co-authored will not interfere with our law enforcement agencies' ability to do their jobs. Instead, these bills are an important protection for Texans' property rights and civil liberties. I have taken an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and Texas and intend to do just that by protecting the rights of people and property.

Trump Says There's 'No Reason' To Scale Back Asset Forfeiture; Threatens Career Of Senator Backing Forfeiture Reform

[Tim Cushing/Techdirt]
WB CM continues attack on PM over note ban, says people havent accepted move.

Kolkata: Chief minister Mamata Banerjee once again slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modis demonetisation move and said that the BJP would be defeated in the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Goa and Punjab because the people have not accepted his autocratic decision.

She said that despite three months having passed since Mr Modi announced his decision to ban Rs 1,000 and Rs 5,00 notes on November 8, the economy was still reeling under its impact, and ordinary people were still facing enormous hardship.

In a series of tweets on Wednesday, she expressed her displeasure over demonetisation. Today, three months over. Restrictions and sufferings not over. #DeMonetisation, she tweeted. Citizens have lost economic freedom. When economic freedom is lost, a main freedom is lost. Only few rich capitalists are not suffering. Commoners, middle class, downtrodden, poorest continue to suffer, she further wrote.

The economy has slowed down tremendously. The nation is facing an acute economic crisis. How much longer? DeMo-ReMo derailed the nation. Visionless, missionless, directionless. Today three months #DeMonetisa-tion, she added on the social networking platform. Addressing Mr Modi, she tweeted, Modi babu, you are totally arrogant. You are responsible for 120+ deaths...

Participating in the discussion on the governors address to the House in the Assembly later, Ms Banerjee said, The demonetisation decision was not fully accepted by the common people. They have accepted it under threat. The BJP will lose the upcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh, Goa and Punjab.

Targeting the BJP government over its stand on black money, she added, I have come to know from media reports that all our party leaders will face arrest soon. But, we do not feel threatened. You can arrest all of us if you want. We are not bothered. It is as if you are threatening a child by saying keep shut or else Gabbar Singh will come.

On the recent land agitation at Bhangar, Ms Banerjee said that the state government was not at fault in the land acquisition for setting up the power grid there.

Out of 28 towers, 24 were erected already, Ms Banerjee said adding, The power grid will come up only if the villagers will want it. She also blamed rumour fulled the trouble at Bhangar.

The chief minister announced that her goverment would merge the public sector undertakings ran by it. Presently there are 90 such which will be reduced to 44. Jobs of the employees of those PSU which will be merged with others will be protected, she said.

Ms Banerjee also dismissed the possibility of difference of opinion between her government and state advocate general Jayanta Mitra who resigned on Tuesday. The chief minister stated that Mr Mitra tendered his resignation on May 19 after the Trinamul Congress came to power for second time. His resignation was not accepted then because the new government was just formed, she mentioned.

Ms Banerjee argued that she had requested Mr Mitra to continue for the time being to the post which he did. The media must re-check and cross check before writing any news. The report of his resignation due to difference of opinion with the state government is not correct.
The AIADMK is in the middle of a storm after V.K. Sasikala was chosen to replace O. Panneerselvam.

New Delhi: Union minister M. Venkaiah Naidu said on Wednesday that the Centre had no role to play in the internal developments of the AIADMK. He said Tamil Nadu governor C. Vidyasagar Rao was studying the situation.

This was after the Congress accused the BJP and the Central government of trying to unconstitutionally fish in Tamil Nadus troubled waters. Party spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said, They have no business to instruct the governor not to go to Tamil Nadu.

DMK MP Kanimozhi also sought the governors intervention in the matter even as she described the developments as shocking and one pushing Tamil Nadu into uncertainty, and said her party will not back any individual leader.

The AIADMK is in the middle of a storm after V.K. Sasikala was chosen to replace O. Panneerselvam.
Reports say SP-Congress alliance leading race in Uttar Pradesh.

New Delhi: With 48 hours left in the first phase polling in Uttar Pradesh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday launched a scathing attack against state chief minister Akhilesh Yadav. As for the reports reaching the BJP from the state, the SP-Congress alliance is leading the race at this juncture.

Addressing the BJPs Parivartan Sankalp Rally in Ghaziabad, Mr Modi alleged that the ruling SP government was sheltering and nursing crime and corruption and asserted that this UP election was about ending the 14-year exile of growth in the state. Mr Modi said this upcoming election was not a contest among parties, but a battle of vikas over vinash (growth over destruction).

The BJP has also been reaching out to the Jats, which are numerically strong in the western UP, which will be going to polls in the first phase. BJP president Amit Shah held a meeting on Tuesday with the Jat leaders and presented his party as the best bet for them, saying voting for the Ajit Singh-led RLD or any other party would not help their cause. The community had supported the BJP during last general elections but have been miffed with the central government over various agrarian issues.

In his nearly 45-minute address, the PM attacked the Akhilesh-led government on several fronts, including law and order.

When Akhilesh came, we felt he is young and educated and will try to do some good. Par nirash kar dia, paanch saalo ke andar UP ka vinash kar diya (But he has disappointed us, destroyed UP in five years), the Prime Minister said.

They keep attacking me, and accuse that I have not kept promises. I tell you, I will give answer to the public in 2019, but Akhilesh government must answer to the people as it had ruled it for the last five years... If you do not answer in Uttar Pradesh, how will you make it Uttam Pradesh, Mr Modi said, alleging that the law and order has failed as powerful people with protection of the ruling party are controlling police in their areas.

The Prime Minister also hit out at the SP government over several plans of the Centre which have not been adequately implemented in Uttar Pradesh. He also made a veiled attack on BSP supremo Mayawati, saying a favourite government official of the BSP supremo was now languishing in jail.

Union ministers Mahesh Sharma and Gen (retd) V K Singh, also Ghaziabad MP, earlier addressed the rally and attacked the SP government. The polling in the state will be done in seven phases between February 11 and March 8 and counting of ballots will take place on March 11.
Panneerselvam was expected to explain on his charge that he was 'forced and compelled' into tendering his resignation.

Chennai: As the power tussle in Tamil Nadu intensifies between of AIADMK General Secretary V K Sasikala and O Panneerselvam, all eyes are now on Governor C Vidyasagar Rao, who met O Panneerselvam at Raj Bhavan in Chennai on Thursday evening.

After the meeting which lasted fifteen minutes, OPS thanked all the MPs and MLAs who supported him. With Amma's blessings and wishes, I met the governor with top leaders including Madhusudhan, and explained to him the situation, Panneerselvam said. Truth will prevail. Good news will come soon, Panneerselvam said.

Panneerselvam reportedly explained his charge that he was forced and compelled into tendering his resignation to the Governor.

The Governor, sources say, has decided to wait till the Supreme Court delivers its verdict on the appeal filed by the Karnataka government against the acquittal of Sasikala and others in the Rs 66 crore disproportionate assets case.

Sources say the Governor may look into the allegations by the outgoing chief minister that he was forced into resigning. The Governor, a political veteran who had his humble beginnings in the RSS and had worked with veterans like former Prime Minister A B Vajpayee, is unlikely to rush into any decision.

Eminent jurist Soli S Sorabjee had opined that Governor Rao should defer the swearing-in ceremony till the verdict.

If needed, the Governor will also consult legal experts here on the options before him. Another view is that the Governor should wait for the fight within the ruling party to recede and then call the leader who commands majority to form government.

While Panneerselvam has declared he could prove majority on the floor of the House, Sasikala says she can be sworn-in as chief minister since she enjoys majority in the AIADMK Legislature Party.
Observers say that while the SP-Congress alliance may change the equation, it has to be seen if Congress votes will go in the kitty of SP.

Noida: The contest in Noida is being seen as a battle of prestige for BJP that has fielded Home Minister Rajnath Singh's son Pankaj Singh who is making his electoral debut in this crucial Assembly election in Uttar Pradesh.

Pankaj, 38, an MBA from Amity University, has been active in politics since 2002 and had been in ticket contention since 2007 Assembly election when he was almost set to make his debut from Chandauli, the home town of Rajnath.

BJP decided to field Pankaj this time in place of sitting MLA Vimla Batham, who had won the 2014 bypolls. The election in this seat is also important for Union Minister and local MP Mahesh Sharma who has considerable influence in the area with his chain of hospitals and NGOs.

In the 2012 Assembly election, Sharma had won the seat polling 77,319 votes and defeated the BSP candidate by a margin of 27,676 votes. SP's Sunil Choudhary got 42,031 while Congress' V S Chauhan had polled 25,482 votes and came fourth.

When Sharma vacated the seat, Batham won the by-election by polling 1,00,433 votes, defeating the SP candidate by 58,952 votes. Rajinder Awana of Congress had polled just 17,212 votes. The BSP did not contest.

The victory was credited to Sharma at that time. But it may not be such a smooth going for BJP this time following Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance and the high-pitch campaign by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav with his slogan of 'kaam bolta he' as a leader who delivers.

The SP has again fielded Sunil Choudhary, who had lost in 2012, and is hoping to wrest the seat by citing the development works in the area, including flyovers and Metro.

Several Union ministers have come to campaign for Pankaj, who is also going door-to-door with his wife to reach out to voters. A section of BJP unit feels that Noida was considered a safe seat and that is why the ticket was given to Pankaj, who is also state party general secretary.

It has, however, given fodder to BJP's detractors who have alleged that the party which had been vocal against dynastic politics has been forced to give tickets to kin of its prominent leaders.

Visiting the residential welfare associations, Pankaj is seen handing out his cards and promising to resolve all their problems even as he takes pains to dismiss the 'outsider' tag.

He also claims that Akhilesh government has been taking credit for the works facilitated by the Centre and promises that a BJP government in the state will punish the corrupt.

Noida, which is contiguous to Delhi, has an electorate of 4,28,259. In 2012 the voting percentage was 49.98 per cent.

Observers say that while the SP-Congress alliance may change the equation, it has to be seen if Congress votes will go in the kitty of SP. Also, BSP has been stronger than these two parties in the area.

There are over a dozen candidates in the fray including Brijesh of RLD and Jayaram Bansal of Shiv Sena.
The Congress on Thursday held parleys with the Left, DMK, SP and JD(U) to discuss its floor strategy.

New Delhi: The Congress on Thursday decided to boycott Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Parliament for the entire Budget Session if he didnt apologise for insulting former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday. Taking a jibe at Dr Singh, the PM said in the Upper House on Wednesday said that even though there were many scams during the UPA government, the former PM managed to remain clean, and that only Dr Singh knows the art of taking a shower with a raincoat.

The Congress on Thursday held parleys with the Left, DMK, SP and JD(U) to discuss its floor strategy. Further meetings will be held when the session resumes after a break on March 9. Congress spokesman Anand Sharma claimed that other Opposition parties will join us in boycotting the PM.

The first half of the Budget Session ended Thursday, and the second half will begin March 9. Proceedings were disrupted repeatedly in both Houses on Thursday as the Opposition demanded an apology from the PM for insulting Dr Manmohan Singh.

Defending the PM, a host of BJP ministers and leaders attacked the Congress and reminded them that Congress president Sonia Gandhi had described Mr Modi as maut ka saudagar (merchant of death) and other Opposition parties had likened him (Modi) to Hitler. For the BJP, fun, pun and repartee are part of parliamentary debate. As for fun, CPI(M) general secretary and Rajya Sabha MP Sitaram Yechury took a dig at the BJP and the PM, saying: Nobody has ever called the Prime Minister a fascist or Hitler in the course of the debate... although many of us do believe he has those tendencies.

JD(U) leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sharad Yadav felt the PM crossed the limits of decency. Former finance minister P. Chidambaram recalled that during the US presidential election campaign Donald Trump had attacked President Barack Obama in a vicious manner. Mr Chidambaram then pointed out: The day Trump was sworn in as President, he began his speech by saying: My fellow Americans, President Obama, President Clinton, President Carter, President Bush and millions of people who have gathered here.... The former minister reminded BJP members: That is the respect you have to show.

Earlier, during Zero Hour in the Lok Sabha, Congress leader in the House Mallikarjun Kharge tried to raise the issue but Speaker Sumitra Mahajan disallowed him, saying a matter relating to the other House cannot be raised. Congress members then trooped to the Well demanding an apology from the PM. As the Speaker continued with proceedings, the Congress members staged a walkout. In the Rajya Sabha, the Congress and other Opposition parties forced an adjournment of the House twice, demanding an apology from Mr Modi. The Congress members shouted shame, shame as its MPs lashed out at the PM for using abusive language against Dr Singh.
Arun Jaitley defends demonetisation, says cash encourages tax evasion.

New Delhi: The government accused the previous UPA dispensation of focusing on redistribution of resources without enhancing growth and productivity which had scared away investors and adversely impacted several macro-economic parameters.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley also said that the previous government had indulged in discretionary allocation of national resources, causing damage to the economy and the Modi dispensation did away with the practice as it learnt from their mistakes.

Our problem was that the UPA government, I am not saying from point of criticism but introspection if you look back, suffered on domestic policy on two fronts...

You (the UPA) did not realise time had come to end discretion and switch over to non-arbitrary mechanism for resources allocation. It was a fundamental mistake and we learnt from your mistake and corrected this, he said. He referred to 2G spectrum and coal block allocations which were shrouded in allegations of corruption during the UPA government.

Mr Jaitley said the fiscal deficit has been proposed at 3.2 per cent of the GDP for 2017-18 and will be further brought down to 3 per cent in the subsequent year.

Our effort is to have as much public expenditure as possible while managing fiscal deficit, he said.

Mr Jaitley said that demonetisation, coupled with the implementation of GST, will make India a single market instead of 30 different markets in the states, facilitating free flow goods and services throughout the country. He said that the cash leads to shadow and parallel economy in the country.

In Rajya Sabha, the Opposition described the Budget as a damp squib, deceptive and full of flowery and ornamental language to fool people.

Initiating the discussion on the General Budget, former finance minister P. Chidambaram termed the note ban as the most terrible decision and alleged that graft and black money have continued to thrive and large sections have been adversely affected by it.

Terming the Budget as a great disappointment, he estimated that 2016-17 will see a hit on GDP by 1-1.5 per cent and if very unlucky, then even two per cent and warned that this trend will spill over into 2017-18 also. Mr. Chidambaram said 75 per cent of all small and medium industries are closed because of note ban and quoted figures by the Sangh affiliate Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh.
Harish Rawat left his traditional seat in Kumaon hills, and is contesting from Kicha constituency.

Rudrapur: The Congress in Uttarakhand is facing a huge vacuum of credible faces in the important region of Terai, following the exit of top leaders such as Vijay Bahuguna, Shailendra Mohan Singhal and Yashpal Arya.

All three have joined the Bharatiya Janata Party. The Terai region is politically crucial as it comprises 29 of the 70 seats in the hill state. Any party winning a majority of the share here has a huge advantage of forming the government, more so because Uttarakhand has a small Assembly and a few seats can tilt the scale in favour of any political grouping.

This explains why chief minister Harish Rawat left his traditional seat in Kumaon hills, and is instead contesting from Kicha constituency in Udhamsinghnagar district, which falls in Terai region.

The region primarily comprises three districts  Udhamsinghnagar, Haridwar and Dehradun.

The move is not only being viewed as a confidence-building measure among people in the Terai region, and also to boost the Congress chances of winning a majority of the seats here.

The incumbent MLA from Kicha is BJPs Rajesh Shukla. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to hold a rally here on February 11. This has raised the stakes considerably for Mr Rawat, who has deputed his son Anand Rawat to camp in Kicha and look after the campaign.

In the 2012 Assembly elections, the Congress won two out of the nine seats in Udhamsinghnagar district, where Kicha is located.

Since the chief minister is contesting, the Congress wants to reverse the trend and add some heft to the overall tally.

While Rajesh Shukla is no mood to give up without a good fight, he is exuberant about Mr Modis rally. He said it will increase his winning margin.

The chief minister has run away from the hills and is seeking refuge in the Terai region. He will be taught a lesson this time for ignoring this region, Mr Shukla told this newspaper.

He said his father, Ram Sumher Shukla, was an aide of freedom fighter Govind Ballabh Pant.

Mr Shukla has deployed BJP heavyweights in Kicha to beat the chief minister. Bhagat Singh Koshiari and Lt. Gen. (retd.) Bhuvan Chand Khanduri, both former chief ministers of the state, have extensively campaigned for Mr Shukla.

The Congress camp is making the fight into a Mr Rawat against Mr Modi one. In the contest, Mr Rawat is a local boy while Mr Modi is an outsider.
The first phase of polling, which will take place on 73 Assembly seats spread over 15 districts, are extremely crucial for the BJP.

The RLD, which won only nine seats in 2012, could emerge as a dark horse in this phase since it has fielded rebels from various parties.

Lucknow: As the gateway to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections opens from western UP on Saturday when the first phase of polling takes place, major political parties wait with bated breath to watch the trend that is likely to have a rippling effect on the rest of the phases.

The first phase of polling, which will take place on 73 Assembly seats spread over 15 districts, are extremely crucial for the BJP.

Though the Bharatiya Janata Party had won only 12 seats in this phase in 2012, it is hoping for major gains due to polarisation of voters on communal lines.

The BJP, which seemed set to sweep the polls in the first phase, is now decidedly uncomfortable and the main reason for this is the shift of Jat votes to the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) on the issue of reservation.

The BJP has been trying to polarise votes on communal lines and revive the mood of the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, but issues such as triple talaq, Hindu migration and Ram temple have consolidated Muslims against the BJP, rather than Hindus in favour of BJP.

The revival of RLD in western UP has turned the electoral battle into a four-cornered contest with BJP facing the Bahujan Samaj Party, RLD and the Congress-Samajwadi Party alliance.

The only hope that the BJP has is a division of Muslim votes in the region, but that can work only if Hindus consolidate in favour of the BJP, which is facing a revolt in its ranks over ticket distribution and demonetisation.

The RLD, which won only nine seats in 2012, could emerge as a dark horse in this phase since it has fielded rebels from various parties. Most of them wield considerable clout in their respective constituencies.

For the SP-Congress alliance, the first phase will be a litmus test in ways more than one. The alliance, if it can get Muslim, could outdo the BSP in the final run and emerge as a major stakeholder in government formation.

The SP had won 24 seats in 2012 while the Congress got five. Both parties need to improve their tally for the alliance to continue beyond the elections.

The BSP faces a Herculean task of bringing back dalits into its fold. The party had won 23 seats in 2012, but in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, it lost its Dalit vote base to the BJP.
Boys are morely like to use condoms while telling females to use contraceptives while having sex

Teens received more education about sexually transmitted disease and sex but very few received information on birth control and contraceptive use. (Photo: Pixabay)

Young men who receive sex education before age 18 are more likely to use more than one type of contraceptive method during sex, such as a condom in addition to their female partners hormonal birth control, according to a small U.S. study.

The dual method significantly decreases the chances of contracting a sexually transmitted infection (STI) or having an unplanned pregnancy, said lead author Nicole Jaramillo, a public health researcher at San Diego State University in California.

This is especially important among adolescent males with the growing use of long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) methods among their female partners, she told Reuters Health. It is still very important to promote and educate about the use of condoms for STI prevention.

Jaramillo and colleagues looked at data from 539 heterosexual men, 15 to 20 years old, who answered the 2011-2013 National Survey of Family Growth and reported being sexually active. The survey asked whether they had received sex education about seven topics: STIs, HIV/AIDS, how to say no to sex, birth control methods, where to get birth control, how to use a condom, and abstinence, or waiting until marriage to have sex.

The survey also asked about contraceptive use during their last sexual intercourse, including whether they had relied only on female-controlled methods such as the pill or LARC, only on male-controlled methods such as vasectomy or condoms, had used a combination of contraceptive methods, or used no method.

Almost all of the men - 99 percent - said they had received sex education on at least one topic, and 19 percent said they had learned about all seven. Most learned about STIs (95 percent) and HIV/AIDS (92 percent). The least commonly taught topic was where to find birth control, with less than 42 percent of young men saying they had received instruction.

Most of the men, 91 percent, reported using a form of contraception. Condoms alone were used by almost 44 percent, almost 9 percent had relied on female-only methods and 39 percent used dual methods.Having learned about birth control methods and how to say no to sex were associated with dual contraception use. With each additional sex education topic a young man had been exposed to, his odds of using dual methods increased by 47 percent, researchers found.

This study allowed us to look at the different topics of sex education rather than grouping the topics as abstinence only versus comprehensive sex education, Jaramillo said. Sex education that focuses on a broad range of topics is the most effective form of sex education.

In the United States, STI rates have increased in recent years, Jaramillo added. In 2013, about 20 million people contracted an STI, about half of the cases among ages 15 to 24, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In addition, chlamydia, gonorrhea and primary and secondary syphilis cases rose to an all-time high in 2015, the authors write in Journal of Adolescent Health.

U.S. rates of STIs and unintended pregnancies are among the highest in industrialized countries, the study team notes. However, U.S. teen birth rates have dropped to an all-time low of 24 births per 1,000 women between ages 15-19, according to CDC data.

We know young men play a key role in making decisions about contraceptives, but not many reproductive health programs target them, said Jennifer Manlove, a reproductive health researcher at Child Trends in Bethesda, Maryland, who was not involved in the study.

We know from other research that high-quality programs are engaging, interactive and targeted toward the population, she told Reuters Health. Programs should highlight mens role in contraception.
The committee also suggested that if the drunk driver commits an accident, 'his action should not be construed as mere negligence'.

New Delhi: A Parliamentary panel on Wednesday recommended that necessary legislation be amended to include deaths due to drunken driving as "culpable homicide not amounting to murder" under Indian Penal Code (IPC).

"Drunken driving is a major cause of road accidents... This malady needs to be dealt with a firm hand... The government may amend the necessary legislation to include the deaths due to drunken driving as culpable homicide not amounting to murder," the parliamentary standing committee on transport, tourism and culture said in its report on Motor Vehicles Bill.

Section 304 of the Indian Penal Code says "whoever commits culpable homicide not amounting to murder shall be punished with [imprisonment for life], or imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to 10 years, and shall also be liable to fine..."

The committee also suggested that if the drunk driver commits an accident, "his action should not be construed as mere 'negligence', rather it should be treated as a pre-meditated commitment of a crime and the drunken driver should be made punishable under relevant provisions of IPC depending on consequences of the incident.

Noting that the method of testing alcohol in the blood of offender is not foolproof and the standard of breath analysers is not good enough to provide authentic reports, it recommended that the government go for testing machines of international standards.

The committee also found it appropriate to increase the penalty for offences of racing and trials of speed.

The government in August last year approved the much-awaited Motor Vehicle (Amendment) Bill 2016 that proposes hefty penalties for violation of traffic norms, including up to Rs 10,000 fine for drunken driving and Rs 2 lakh compensation for hit-and-run cases.

The Bill also has provision of up to Rs 10 lakh compensation in case of road fatality.

The proposals in the Bill are based on the recommendations of transport ministers from 18 states, which include penalties of Rs 1,000-4,000 for overspeeding.

As per the Bill, driving without insurance will be punishable with Rs 2,000 fine and/or 3-month imprisonment while driving without helmets will attract Rs 2,000 fine and 3-month suspension of licence.

The provisions also include that the guardian and owner will be deemed to be guilty in case of road offence by juveniles while registration of the vehicle will be cancelled.
Scrap and jewellery dealers of the area are being questioned in connection with the burglary.

New Delhi: Delhi police commissioner Amulya Patnaik is closely monitoring the investigation of the theft of Nobel Peace Prize replica and its citation from child rights activist Kailash Satyarthis Southeast Delhi residence.

He has been in touch with the Crime Branch and district police teams that are probing the matter and is keeping a close watch on the matter.

The Delhi police has taken this unfortunate burglary very seriously and the commissioner of police is closely monitoring the progress in this case. He has directed the Crime Branch also to get actively associated and has instructed teams from district and Crime Branch to nab the culprits and recover stolen materials as early as possible, said Dependra Pathak, JCP (southwest) and Delhi police spokesperson.

Three men have been seen in the CCTV footage gained from the residential area and the face of one of the accused is covered. Basis the CCTV footage, there are three-four theories that the teams are working on. Since the face of one of the accused was covered, it seems that the accused was a regular in the area and he covered his face so that he wasnt captured in the footage. There is also a possibility that he might have just covered his face as a precautionary measure to avoid detection, said another officer. The police is currently working on carving out the entry and exit routes of the accused and to decipher the exact motive and modus operandi of the accused. Through the questioning of people residing nearby and analysis of CCTV footage, it has been found that the burglary happened between 1 am and 4 am, the police said. Police is also working on the insider theory which means that someone who works in residential area or is a regular there might have leaked information about the houses that have ben unoccupied for the last few days, they added.

The burglars from the area and those who have recently been released from jail are being interrogated. Scrap and jewellery dealers of the area are being questioned in connection with the burglary.

Burglars allegedly decamped with the replica of the Nobel medal and the citation along with a host of other mementos from around the world and some jewellery from Satyarthis Kalkaji residence on Tuesday.

Satyarthi, who along with his wife is currently in Panama on the invitation of its President, will be returning on February 10.

Police had said that it appeared that the burglars had come with an intention only to rob jewellery as the other expensive items were left untouched. Two other houses in the same area as Satyarthis have also been broken into.

The child rights activist won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. He shared the prize with Pakistans Malala Yousafzai.

Satyarthi had presented his Nobel Peace Prize medal to President Pranab Mukherjee in January, 2015. The original medal has been preserved and is now on display at the Rashtrapati Bhavan Museum, his office said.
Decision means trial against actor Sooraj Pancholi can start in lower court; Jiahs mom to appeal.

Mumbai: Paving the way for the trial to commence against Bollywood actor Sooraj Pancholi for allegedly driving late actress Jiah Khan to commit suicide, the Bombay high court on Thursday dismissed a petition filed by Jiahs mother Rabia Khan seeking transfer of investigation into her daughters death to a Special Investigation Team (SIT).

Rabia had filed the petition challenging the chargesheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which said that Jiah had committed suicide. Ms Khan alleges that Jiah was murdered.

Jiahs body was found hanging from a ceiling fan in her flat at suburban Juhu on June 3, 2013. Initially, the local police investigated the matter and concluded that it was a suicide but Ms Khan was not satisfied with the probe because she believed Jiah was killed. Ms Khan had in her petition claimed that the injuries on Jiahs body clearly point to physical abuse. On her request, the high court in July 2014 had transferred the investigation to CBI, which filed chargesheet against Sooraj Pancholi holding him responsible for Jiahs suicide. However, unconvinced with the suicide theory, Ms Khan again moved the high court seeking formation of an SIT to probe if her daughters death was a murder. She also requested the HC to monitor the SIT investigation. The HC had stayed the trial in lower court as Ms Khans petition seeking an SIT probe was pending before it.

On Thursday, the division bench of Justice Ranjit More and Justice Dr Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi rejected Ms Khans petition and also removed the stay from the trial. As a result, the trial is expected to start soon.

Reacting to the rejection of her application, Ms Khan said, I got the news that our petition has been rejected. I have not read the order, it will be out in a couple of days  but I have been fighting for four years and I know what the truth is. She further stated, I dont want to say too much about the judiciary but I know there are higher courts and I will appeal for it. I will go and fight to the last. I will not give up because I know my daughter has been killed.

On the other hand, Sooraj Pancholis lawyer Prashan Patil welcomed the judgement. My client deserves a fair, free and expeditious trial because it (the stay on the trial) cannot go on endlessly. Speaking about filing of an intervention application in this matter in the high court, which was also dismissed, he said, We had moved the application because we wanted an expeditious trial, we wanted the stay to be vacated.

When we moved the application the court was kind enough to hold that if the court was against us (their prayer) only then they will hear us. The order did not go against us so there is no point (in hearing intervention application). Justice has been delivered, he further added.

Sooraj Pancholi was arrested for abetting Jiahs suicide on June 10, 2013, but released on July 2 the same year after the HC granted him bail.
The petition states that as per SC rules and constitutional rights, a woman complainant cannot be summoned by the police.

Mumbai: A 60-year-old couple has filed a writ petition in the Bombay high court seeking action against N M Joshi Marg police station officials for violating Supreme Court guidelines by calling the wife to the police station after sunset and making the husband-wife-duo sit till after midnight while recording their statement. The petition alleges that the womans statement was recorded in a detection room of the police station in the absence of any woman constable.

The couple had originally gone to the police station to file a complaint against the husbands employers who had allegedly entered the couples house forcibly and had taken them to their office and also threatened them. The writ was filed after the police station took their statement but refused to register an FIR which was later registered in Tilak Nagar police station.

The petition filed by Shraddha Bidaye, a retired scientific officer of Tata Memorial Hospital and her husband Rajan Bidaye through Advocate Mohan Tekawde have alleged that in December 2016 they had approached the N M Joshi Marg police station in Parel to file a complaint against Mr Rajans office colleagues who had allegedly forcefully barged into their house, dragged them to the office in Parel and made them sign on blank papers in the presence of senior company officials. The petition also alleged that Mr Rajans colleagues had taken away his personal laptop and pen drive and threatened him as he had expressed a desire to resign.

After the incident, the petition says that the couple approached the police and they were summoned to the N M Joshi Marg police station after 7 pm and their statements were recorded in the detection room for over five hours. The petition states, A senior citizen woman has been called at the police station at 7 pm and also directed to sit in detection room for recording the statement up to night till 12.10 am in the absence of any lady officer.

It is a violation of the fundamental rights of the petitioners and also its violation of the directions and guidelines of the several judgments of the Honble Supreme Court. The petition also goes on to state that an FIR was not immediately registered by the said police station and was eventually registered in a different police station on another day.

The petition states that as per SC rules and constitutional rights, a woman complainant cannot be summoned by the police.
Mr More vowed that his sister-in-law will emerge victorious. If given an opportunity in future, I will return to Shiv Sena only.

Mumbai: Taking serious note of widespread rebellion, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray has expelled 26 party activists, who have rebelled against the partys official candidates ahead of the Brihanmumbai municipal corporation (BMC) polls. They include several senior leaders like deputy leaders, present and former corporators. The party has taken action against them for rebelling against partys official candidates. Some of the expelled activists were partys key officials in their respective areas. They include deputy leader Dashrath Shirke, his wife and former corporator Shubhangi Shirke and former vibhagpramukh Sudhir More. His sister-in-law Snehal More has thrown a challenge to Senas official candidate Bharati Bavdhane in Ghatkopar (ward no 123). The party has also sacked former vibhagpramukh Mahesh Sawant, who is contesting against partys official candidate Samadhan Sarvankar, son of MLA Sada Sarvankar from Prabhadevi (ward no 194).

We wanted to send a strong message that nobody is above the party. These people were persuaded to withdraw nominations till the last day, but they defied party directives, said a senior Sena official.

Mr More vowed that his sister-in-law will emerge victorious. If given an opportunity in future, I will return to Shiv Sena only. I do not have any grudges against our party chief. But the second rung leaders have cheated the party and its activists, he said.

The other prominent leaders which have been expelled include corporator Manju Kumre, former corporator Mohan Lokegaonkar and others like Sunil More, Amol Naik and others.
Rows of basins, buckets, flower pots and more, made from used tyres, sold along the highway in Dimapur's Burma Camp area.

Dimapur: Rows of basins, buckets, flower pots and more, made from used tyres, sold along the highway in Dimapur's Burma Camp area, indicates that nothing goes wasted if one is creative.

Salim is a perfect example to that!

When he came to Nagaland 20 years ago without any work, Salim's earning livelihood was in a muddled.

However, things turned easier after he learnt the art of making buckets and basins from used tyres.

He said, "I came to Dimapur and learnt how to make basins and buckets from scrape or waste tyres. Somehow, I can manage my family today."

Today, he sits in his workshop near the highway with a small sharp knife, slicing the tyres and manufacturing his own products.

The price of the bucket ranges from Rs.100- 200, according to its size, while a basin costs around Rs.150-600. He easily earns Rs.400-500 a day, by making 10 buckets or basins for sale.

Like Salim, Mahamud Mazur Rahman also purchase scrape tyres for Rs.30-50 per piece and accurately slices them before he puts into shape. This way he feeds his family of six.

The recycled tyre products, though rugged in looks, serve well for rough use and is more durable than the classy company plastic tyres.

These recycle tyre buckets are basically used for fething water from well, basins for feeding domestic animals.

"Demands are more from the rural people who use it to pull water from their wells. They also purchase the basins to feed their domestic animals and to wash clothes," a seller says.

Special mention may be made here that every family in Dimapur digs their own well.

On that note, with increase in the number of automobiles, used tyres have caused serious threat to the environment, with government finding no obvious way out to dispose it.

Thanks to Salim and Rahman, they not only make a living for their own, but save the environment too.
It remains to be seen how Labour will decide to vote if its amendments are defeated, which seems likely.

Remarkably, the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, declared on Monday that he would be strongly opposed to the idea of US President Donald Trump addressing the British Parliament during his proposed, but as yet unscheduled, visit to London.

His declaration followed a weekend of anti-Trump demonstrations across the country, and polls suggesting that a majority of Britons are anyhow uncomfortable with the idea of a visit, at least for as long as the new US administrations supposedly temporary ban on immigration from certain Muslim countries remains in place.

In the wake of a visit to Washington, British Prime Minister Theresa May was widely pilloried for her hesitant and mealy-mouthed response to the ban  although she did not fare quite as badly as Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, whose silence on the matter was rewarded with a White House leak revealing that he had been at the receiving end of a crude ear-bashing from Trump for daring to suggest during a phone call that he expected the US to honour Barack Obamas pledge to accept as refugees 1,250 of the unfortunate souls whose lives Australia has cast into limbo on godforsaken Pacific islands.

May successfully manoeuvred to become the first foreign head of government to visit Trump as part of her campaign to prove that Britain would enjoy a privileged status at the global level following its EU exit. After her US visit she headed straight to Turkey for a tete-a-tete with another elected authoritarian, who agreed to purchase British fighter jets.

Back home, meanwhile, she suffered a minor judicial blow when the British Supreme Court dismissed government arguments for triggering Article 50, which formally sets in motion the tricky process of wriggling out of the EUs tentacles, without a parliamentary imprimatur.

The first vote last week went overwhelmingly the governments way, with official backing from the Opposition Labour Party, although several dozen of its MPs defied the party whip. A second vote is expected, with several amendments to the legislation, from Labour as well as the more or less unequivocally anti-Brexit Scottish National Party and the Liberal Democrats in play.

Not altogether surprisingly, the Brexit debate has sparked further disarray within Labours parliamentary ranks, with many of party leader Jeremy Corbyns allies deserting him, some even resigning from the shadow Cabinet, on the Brexit vote.

On the face of it, there is merit in the Labour leaderships stance that triggering Article 50 only endorses the popular will expressed in last years Brexit referendum, and that the partys energies will be devoted to securing the best possible terms for the disengagement, whereby Britain, for instance, guarantees residency rights to the more than three million EU citizens living and working in the country, and retains membership of the European single market.

At the same time, though, its hard not to empathise with an MP such as Tulip Siddiq, who cannot bring herself to vote in favour of triggering Brexit given that 75 per cent of her London constituents voted to remain in the EU, and commendably declared: I do not represent Westminster in Kilburn and Hampstead, I represent Hampstead and Kilburn in Westminster.

It remains to be seen how Labour will decide to vote if its amendments are defeated, which seems likely. It could choose to abstain, but that may only serve to reinforce the already widespread public perception of a disconnect between Westminster and the people it purports to represent, which is precisely the sense that has driven so many voters towards maverick outfits such as the UK Independence Party.

There is a growing chorus of opinion across the ideological spectrum pushing the line that the referendum result  52-48 in favour of Brexit  is not sacrosanct, and that it could legitimately be overridden by a parliamentary vote, if not right away then in the near future.

This is tricky. Sure, it can be conjectured that at least some of those who couldnt be bothered to vote would have done so had they known which way the result would otherwise go, thereby tilting the odds in the other direction. It may also be plausible to argue that, given the degree of false propaganda deployed (by both sides, mind you) during the campaign, a second referendum  or within the next few years  would yield a different outcome.

No one could seriously argue, however, for referendums to be revisited ad infinitum. But the only alternative surely isnt Mays recipe for a nation that aspires for a glory that vanished with its empire many decades ago, and ends up effectively as Little Britain, sans greatness or much influence. But any middle way remains elusive for the time being.

By arrangement with Dawn
The book happened to be published by a reputed firm, which also prints textbooks used in hundreds of schools in the country.

How do you teach prejudice to young people? Perhaps the easiest and most effective method is to have content in school textbooks that prejudice impressionable minds. Children instinctively trust textbooks. They believe what is written there. In most classrooms worldwide, textbooks also play a key role in what and how teachers teach.

Which brings me to a little story that popped up in the news last week and has fallen off the radar already amid exciting twists and turns in Tamil Nadus politics and in election-bound Uttar Pradesh. A chapter in a Class 12 sociology textbook in Maharashtra cites ugliness and physical handicap of a girl as one of the reasons behind the persistence of dowry in India, alongside the caste system, social prestige, compensation principle, etc.

The exact words, as reported in the media, are: If a girl is ugly and handicapped, it becomes very difficult for her to get married. To marry such girls, a bridegroom and his family demand more dowry. Parents of such girls become helpless and pay dowry as per the demands... It leads to a rise in the practice of the dowry system.

The story went viral on social media; activists and many enlightened citizens raised a stink; reporters questioned officials about the case. Last heard, the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education had said the matter would be looked into.

We have been here before. Here is a randomly selected sample of troubling lessons in Indian textbooks that grossly undermine efforts at building a more inclusive and gender-sensitive society.

In 2006, a textbook for 14-year-olds in Rajasthan compared housewives to donkeys. In 2012, a textbook for Class 6 students used all over the country created a ruckus when it was found it said people who eat meat easily cheat, tell lies, forget promises, are dishonest and tell bad words, steal, fight and turn to violence and commit sex crimes.

Cornered by reporters, the then director of the Central Board of Secondary Education said: We only recommend books for Class 9 onwards. Books are chosen by individual schools. There is no monitoring of the content of school books.

The book happened to be published by a reputed firm, which also prints textbooks used in hundreds of schools in the country.

In 2015, a teacher in Chhattisgarh drew public attention to a textbook for 15-year-olds that attributed growing unemployment in India after Independence to women taking to the job market. When quizzed by the media, the director of the State Council For Educational Research And Training said: Its a matter of debate. It was a writers view out of his experience. Its the teachers job how they explain things to students and ask students for their view on whether they agreed with it or not. If it had not been for the alertness of the teacher, the matter would not have reached the state womens commission.

So where does the buck stop and who takes the rap for poisoning the minds of young children?

After the initial brouhaha, the stories fade from public memory. In a country with a myriad faultlines, how serious are we in rooting out prejudice from textbooks? How does one undo the damage that has already been done to young girls and boys who have been reading such textbooks?

There are more questions than answers at this point. Arguably, the public discussion around curriculum in India is an old one. Textbook controversies are not confined to Maharashtra nor to gender issues. States ruled by the Left and the Right have come under attack from their critics at various points for trying to foist their ideology on young children by tweaking textbooks.

In 2005, academics across the country had expressed concerns about textbooks printed by private publishers. But no action was taken.

The National Council of Educational Research and Training has been tasked to weed out gender bias from textbooks. Its efforts have met with partial success. The first report on a gender audit of textbooks of Classes 1 to 5 was published in 2013-14. That report showed progress was made but stereotypes remained in some textbooks. Women continued to be shown in the all-too-familiar nurturing role or in traditionally acceptable professional careers of a nurse or teacher. Men, on the other hand, were shown in multiple professional roles.

It is perhaps not a coincidence that this week the principal of a Bandra-based government-run polytechnic college was also in the news for remarking that when women dress like men, they start thinking or behaving like them and their ovaries suffer as a result! The lady plans to introduce a suitable uniform for girl students who currently wear shirt and trousers, as the boys do.

Clearly, the gender bias that seeps into the school curriculum ends up giving credence to gender stereotypes.

It took a brutal rape case in New Delhi to highlight the urgency for a curriculum based on gender equity. The committee set up to reform the anti-rape law in the wake of this savagery recognised the need to examine what was being taught to young people right from early years. It recommended gender equality be integrated into the school curriculum.

But in 2017, we are still fighting gender bias and many other types of prejudices instituted in early childhood.

Textbooks can foster a spirit of unity or fuel divisions. They are not just founts of knowledge. They help shape social values, an understanding of ones history and the world. If we want young people to grow up gender-sensitive, tolerant and inclusive, we have to teach them young. The entry point has to be school textbooks without stereotypes and prejudices.
There is also a broad consensus among those who are not loyalists that the Congress has not done enough to win back people.

For a party in the running to form governments on its own in four of the five states that go to the polls, the Congress has been denied its share of the spotlight. Whatever attention has been paid is not due to the conclusion that the party has refurbished parts of its tattered image. There is also a broad consensus among those who are not loyalists that the Congress has not done enough to win back people. Indeed, since the electoral rout in 2014, little has rolled favourably for the party. It lost state after state, mostly in elections and an odd one in Arunachal Pradesh to machinations of the ruling BJP. There is also a perception that the party leadership too, and specially its first family, has done precious little to get the party back in business. A huge questionmark remains on Rahul Gandhis political future, and assessment varies on his hunger for political power and keenness to commit 24x7 to a profession that brooks no part-timers.

Despite this, the picture does not appear so bleak for the Congress. To begin with, it is the incumbent in Uttarakhand and Manipur with a fair chance to return to office. Opinion about the partys prospects remains divided in both states but few claim a rout is in the offing. In Punjab, the party is tipped to end up at least a worthy runner-up to the Aam Aadmi Party. A possible victory in Goa too will add to the jubilation. But the verdict in these states will pale into insignificance if the Congress returns its best performance in over a quarter-century in Uttar Pradesh. In 1989, the Congress won 94 seats (vote share 27.9 per cent) and thereafter its decline was steady. It never bettered its performance of 1991, when it secured just 46 seats with 17.3 per cent voteshare. The alliance with the Samajwadi Party and visible support for it indicates that the Congress stands a chance to return with its best performance since 1991. This would be a significant shot in the arm and enable it to mount a challenge to the BJP in other states  Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh initially, and the next parliamentary elections.

The decision to team up with the SP indicates to two significant developments. First, it points to a confident leadership, which does not shy from altering tack midway into the campaign. In July last year, the party anointed Sheila Dikshit as the partys CM face, and this has been effortlessly rolled back. The second key development is the quiet emergence of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as party tactician and chief negotiator. This is indicative of her ambition and commitment to be part of the efforts to pitchfork the Congress back on centrestage. Her refusal so far to campaign more actively should not be considered a final decision.

The Congress has been in decline since 2010. Much blame for this must be apportioned on Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi. As Prime Minister, the former needed to go beyond being a genteel chief executive who grieved about compulsions of coalition politics but did not act when corruption charges were levelled against colleagues. As Congress president, the latter displayed lack of ability to get the PM to act firmly and allowed the decline to become terminal. Mr Gandhi attempted to rectify the damage and declared in September 2013 that the ordinance to negate the Supreme Court verdict on convicted legislators was complete nonsense. But when no further support came, he beat a hasty retreat and could not emerge as the party boss. Entrenched groups publicise that Mrs Gandhi wants her son to take greater political responsibility but he displays disinterest. Mr Gandhi surely has several drawbacks like most, but no one can be expected to take greater responsibility without a corresponding increase in power.

From that standpoint, the ongoing Assembly elections point to an unambiguous change of guard. Whether her minimal involvement in decision-making and campaign stems from health reasons or is a ploy to ensure that her sons decisions become a diktat, Mrs Gandhi has taken a long stride in detaching herself from active politics. Wisely, Mr Gandhi has paid greater attention to UP than other states. The problem the Congress faces in Uttarakhand stems partly from the leadership not applying pressure on Harish Rawat to be more accommodative towards party seniors. Despite campaigning in the state, Mr Gandhis message to Mr Rawat is that this is primarily his battle. Similarly, in Punjab, Capt. Amarinder Singh made little effort to mount a united campaign and instead pursued old animosities. Mr Gandhis delayed declaration nominating him as CM candidate garners brownie points for him: if the party loses Mr Gandhi can plead that he tried his best. If the party secures a majority, he can claim it was due to a late surge after Capt. Amarinder Singhs selection.

The Congress cannot recover overnight. The party must regain lost glory step by step. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the partys decline began with UP and if it wishes to stage a comeback, increasing its presence in UP is a necessity. If it is a happy augury for the SP-Congress alliance, Mr Gandhi would have hauled the party one significant step. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra remains a strike weapon once again. No better proof of her enigmatic charm was evident than at a SP election office in western UP. As loudspeakers blared that Akhilesh Yadav was to address a public meeting the next day, it announced that she too would address the gathering, when there was no such plan! Surely someone with a greater draw than the UP CM is awaiting an opportune moment. Whether she is the proverbial brahmastra only time will tell, but clearly the point has been reached when the Congress needs to be paid greater attention.
Ciro Gomez Leyva said he received word about Saturday's purported attack in a handwritten letter from Guzman's sons.

Mexico City: A prominent Mexican journalist reported Wednesday that the sons of Sinaloa cartel kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman say they were attacked and wounded by a rival drug gang figure and onetime "top lieutenant" for their father.

Ciro Gomez Leyva said he received word about Saturday's purported attack in a handwritten letter from Guzman's sons that said they were with Sinaloa boss Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada at the time and he was also targeted.

Gomez Leyva said the letter accused Damaso Lopez, another alleged Sinaloa figure who is believed to be disputing for control of the cartel, of betraying them. The letter said they had come to a meeting organized by Lopez only to find he was not there, and gunmen suddenly opened fire and killed their bodyguards. Guzman's sons said they and Zambada escaped.

Guzman lawyer Jose Refugio confirmed to local media that the letter came from the sons.

"I was aware of that, I know about that letter and I know they wrote that letter," Refugio told Radio Formula. "But it was not delivered through me."

Mexican authorities did not immediately confirm or otherwise comment on the purported attack.

Guzman was arrested for the third time in January 2016 and finally extradited to the United States last month. Some have speculated a bloody turf war could break out to fill the power vacuum.

Last August, his son Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar was one of a half-dozen people kidnapped by armed men from a restaurant in the Pacific coast city of Puerto Vallarta. He was released not long afterward.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Lopez was indicted by a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, in 2011, accused of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and conspiracy to launder money.

When the indictment was unsealed on March 7, 2013, he was said to be 47 years old. At the time, the Department of Justice called him "a top lieutenant" for Guzman and the Sinaloa cartel.
If they don't want to cooperate, then they don't come in to the United States, US Homeland Security Secretary has said.

Kelly told Congress that the measure was one of several being considered to vet refugees and visa applicants from seven Muslim-majority countries. (Photo: Representational Image)

Washington: Foreign travellers visiting the US may have to hand over their social media passwords for background check, a move which could come as part of the effort to toughen vetting of visitors, US Homeland Security Secretary has said.

"We're looking at some enhanced or some additional screening," John Kelly told a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee.

"We may want to get on their social media, with passwords," he said.

"It's very hard to truly vet these people in these countries, the seven countries. But if they come in, we want to say, what websites do they visit, and give us your passwords. So we can see what they do on the internet," Kelly said on Tuesday.

"If they don't want to cooperate, then they don't come in" to the United States, he said.

Kelly told Congress that the measure was one of several being considered to vet refugees and visa applicants from seven Muslim-majority countries, the NBC News reported.

His comments came the same day judges heard arguments over President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily barring entry to most refugees and travelers from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Libya and Yemen.

Kelly, President Donald Trump appointee, stressed that asking for people's passwords was just one of "the things that we're thinking about" and that none of the suggestions were concrete.

Under the existing vetting process, according to Kelly, officials "don't have a lot to work with," relying on the applicant's documentation and asking them questions about their background.

"When someone says, 'I'm from this town and this was my occupation,' [officials] essentially have to take the word of the individual," he said.

"I frankly don't think that's enough, certainly President Trump doesn't think that's enough. So we've got to maybe add some additional layers. As well as asking people for their passwords," Kelly said he was looking at trying to obtain people's financial records.

"We can follow the money, so to speak. How are you living, who's sending you money?" he said.

"It applies under certain circumstances, to individuals who may be involved in on the payroll of terrorist organisations," Kelly said.
Unrest first erupted after a 22-year-old man was allegedly sodomized with a police officer's baton during an identity check last week.

The latest arrests on Wednesday night included three people who allegedly shot large fireworks at police, the prosecutors' office said. (Photo: Representational Image)

Paris: Rioters in the Paris suburbs aimed large fireworks at police and set fire to cars and garbage bins in a fourth night of unrest over the alleged rape of a young black man by police, authorities said Thursday.

Police made another 26 arrests overnight on Wednesday to Thursday as unrest continued to spread to more towns in Saint-Seine-Denis, a working class region northeast of the French capital with a large minority population.

Unrest first erupted Sunday night after a 22-year-old man was allegedly sodomized with a police officer's baton during an identity check last week. One officer was charged with aggravated rape and three others were charged with aggravated assault. The officers deny the allegations.

The latest arrests on Wednesday night included three people who allegedly shot large fireworks at police, the prosecutors' office said. It said shopping carts, garbage bins and cars were also set alight. No injuries were reported.

Video that apparently showed the young man's arrest circulated on the internet, showing him on the ground against a wall surrounded by four men, who appeared to be roughing him up.

President Francois Hollande visited the alleged victim, identified only by his first name, Theo, on Tuesday at the suburban hospital where he has been treated since the assault. The young man called for calm from his hospital bed, as did France's prime minister.

Authorities are wary of unrest in France's poor towns, remembering fiery 2005 riots that spread through France - beginning in the Saint-Denis town of Clichy-Sous-Bois, and hopscotching through social housing around the country.
The terrorists were killed near the Super Highway toll plaza outside Karachi after they opened fire on a police search party.

Karachi: Six terrorists apparently belonging to the banned Pakistani Taliban were killed in a heavy exchange of fire during a police raid in Karachi on Thursday.

The terrorists were killed near the Super Highway toll plaza outside Karachi after they opened fire on a police search party, senior police official Rao Anwar said.

"We had got an intelligence tip-off that some suspected terrorists were hiding out in the area surrounding the toll plaza on super highway and when I led a policy search party they opened fire on us and six of them were killed in the exchange of fire," Anwar said.

He said the identities of the slain terrorists were still being verified but they appeared to belong to the banned outfit of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.
by Bernardo Cervellera

The Hong Kong bishops optimism over a change in the method of appointing bishops and the function of the Patriotic Association. But it is unclear whether it is real change or just nominal, in words. Underground bishops are patriotic and love their country, but the Party is suspicious of them. Freedom in episcopal appointments is essential", but the bishops are not free to exercise their ministry. Patriotic bishops controlled in their visits with members of the universal Church. The "bugs" (hidden microphones) in a bishops office.

Rome (AsiaNews) - The latest article by Cardinal John Tong of Hong Kong on the relations between China and the Vatican has aroused joy and dismay. After the article published last August on "Communion of the Church in China with the universal Church", today he published a new chapter on dialogue between China and the Holy See entitled "The future of Sino-Vatican dialogue from an ecclesiological point of view ".



The joy comes from optimism combined with a sense of pragmatism (typical of the Chinese mentality) that dominates Card. Tongs writing. The cardinal believes everything can be resolved: the Pope recognized as the supreme authority of the Church; the Patriotic Association change (PA) from being an instrument of control with compulsory membership to becoming a "voluntary" organization; the reconciliation of 7 illicit bishops (there were 8 but one died on 4 January); the future recognition of underground bishops; "essential" religious freedom of the Catholic Church guaranteed by the government (to be kept separate from religious freedom - and in part political freedom - of Xinjiang Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists).

Dismay emerges from a deeper by reading of the various proposed solutions to the difficulties of the Church in China. Quite rightly Card. Tong states that the core problem is "ecclesiological" - the very Catholic nature of the Church, without which it cannot exist - in short the issue of the appointment of bishops. The freedom to open schools, the return of seized property to the Church (though it is required by Chinese law), being able to spread the faith, all of these are secondary issues. Card. Tong calls these expressions of "complete freedom" which, "realistically" the church can do without, at least for now.

A change only in words?

But the crucial question of the appointment of bishops is not clear, if not misleading. For Card. Tong "the Pope must remain the last and highest authority in naming the bishops" and "[a candidate's] election by a given local Church is only a way to express the recommendations of the local Bishops' Conference". However, in reality this would allow the Council of Chinese Bishops - primed by the Patriotic Association and the Ministry of Religious Affairs  to choose the candidate, leaving the Pope with only the final blessing: a little nod to "the highest authority." According to AsiaNews sources from China who are closely following the dialogue, the government actually wants the Pope to hold only a veto power, and one that must be "motivated." And if the reasons are not acceptable, the Council of Bishops has the right to proceed with the ordination of their chosen candidate anyway. It is hard to understand if what the Card. Tong expresses is a hope, or if it is a way of reading the present situation, with a change of words, saying that the Pope chooses the candidate, but in reality appointments are independent. And the cardinal himself admits that the agreement "on the appointment of Bishops will not differ much from the present practical ways used by both parties"!

The acrobatics of a "voluntary" Patriotic Association



This acrobatic use of words is also evident on the PA which states its power over the " self-nomination and self-ordination of bishops has been taken away, rendering it a patriotic association in its strict, literal sense: a voluntary, non-profit, patriotic and Church-loving organisation composed of clergy and faithful from all around the country ". It is not clear whether these words are a wish, a dream, a reality or just a linguistic fiction. Until now the PA is by statute a "voluntary" association, but all the official bishops are forced to join. Those who dared to step down  such as Msgr. Thaddeus Ma Daqin of Shanghai - were immediately put under house arrest. And even now that Msgr. Thaddeus Ma Daqin has been re-registered, he remains in forced isolation in Sheshan seminary, stripped- at least from the point of view of the PA - of the title of "bishop", since it identified him only as "Fr. Ma.

In addition, Card. Tongs words cannot remove the reality of the PA control over the life and ministry of bishops. Just try to meet with the Bishop of Beijing, he will send you away because he cannot meet a foreign priest without permission. Just try to talk to a bishop in the PA and he will insist on meeting you outside his office, outdoors, not to be heard by the "bugs" (hidden microphones) placed everywhere.

Underground bishops

From this point of view, the problem of freedom of the underground bishops is similar to that of the official bishops. Rightly Card. Tong writes that the government attitude towards the unofficial communities has changed a lot in recent years compared with the 1980s", but that does not mean that there is no control, there are no arrests, there are no unjustified suspicions of "anti- patriotism". And this even though underground bishops such as Msgr. Julius Jia Zhiguo, have devoted decades to the care of his people, the sick, abandoned children, working for and with people, an example of a true, absolutely non-violent patriot. The point is that this commitment renders him "suspect". Prof. Richard Madsen, a sociologist of religions, notes that the government nourishes the suspicion that there are "too many non-state actors" doing good works and so "the government might feel cheated out of the opportunity to 'help people' and 'control people' and this gives rise to a potential conflict "because the government demands patriotism, but the Communist Party demands total submission and does not want its totalitarianism obscured.



After all, for years underground bishops (and official) have proposed to the government that they be registered at the Ministry of Religious Affairs, but not the PA, which wants to build an "national church independent from the Holy See, but totally submissive to power of the Party. The same request was expressed by Card. Tong in his chapter on "the recognition of the Government of unofficial bishops", but the answer in all these years has always been a decisive "no". If it was a "yes" to this question, it would be the beginning of a new era in relations between China and the Vatican.

"Full freedom" and "necessary freedom"

The last section of the article is among the most intriguing. In it Card. Tong said that compared to the question of papal appointment of bishops, all other problems are secondary. This is true because the appointment of bishops touches the sacramental and dogmatic nature of the mystery of the Catholic Church. The problem stems from the fact that Card. Tong presents the method of appointment and election "sanatio" as a fait accompli, "this agreement - he says - is a major step forward. I have already outlined serious doubts about this method that appears, on face value, to be just a nominalist change of words rather than substance, and moreover a change that reduces the papal blessing to the sole function of something already decided elsewhere and by others.

Another concern is the reduction of the term "essential freedoms" to the appointment of bishops without worrying about the exercise of their function. It is true that the "ways of spreading the faith, of managing educational institutions, the limited restitution of property are not a threat or do not harm the nature of the Catholic Church in China". But is this still the case if a bishop must ask permission to meet his guests of the universal Church? If a pastor is forced to take time off for months from his diocese to undergo brainwashing on the religious policy of the government-party? If a bishop is obliged to participate in an illicit Episcopal ordinations, which lack papal mandate? If they are threatened with sanctions and serious impediments to the exercise of their ministry because they tried to meet their own brothers in the underground Church?



Perhaps this "essential freedoms" should be a bit wider, otherwise it becomes difficult to understand the difference between a situation that has been agreed upon and one that has not. And then - as official and underground priests and bishops often say - "all agreements should be put off until we have guarantees of true religious freedom."
by Card. John Tong

The Hong Kong Cardinal outlines the steps that hope to propel dialogue between China and the Holy See. Themes include the Pope's role in the appointment of bishops; A change of vision in the Patriotic Association; the possible integration of the underground bishops in the Episcopal Conference. A new article by card. John Tong, following a previous article published a few months ago on "Communion of the Church in China with the universal Church."

Hong Kong (AsiaNews) - Since my last article on The Communion of the Church in China with the Universal Church, which was published in the Hong Kong diocesan weeklies in August 2016, there have been many positive responses. I thank God and those who have commented on it. This inspired me to seek opinions from experts, who have concern for the Church in China, from both here and abroad, to further my theological discussion. After months of prayer and reflection, I now offer my view on several important issues related to the Sino-Vatican dialogue from an ecclesiological perspective. Please continue to pray for the Sino-Vatican dialogue.

The Core problem: Appointment of bishops

Over the past year, there have been frequent contacts between the representatives of China and the Holy See. A working group has been set up, through which both sides tried to resolve the accumulated problems. The core problem to be resolved is the appointment of bishops. After several rounds of dialogue, a preliminary consensus has reportedly been reached, and that will lead to an agreement over the appointment of bishops. According to Catholic doctrine, the pope remains the last and highest authority in appointing a bishop.

If the pope has the final word about the worthiness and suitability of an episcopal candidate, the elections of local Churches and the recommendations of the Bishops Conference of the Catholic Church in China will simply be a way to express recommendations.

It is said that the main concern of the government is whether the candidates are patriotic and not whether they love and are loyal to the Church. Therefore, it would be appropriate to say that the agreement will not exceed the present effective practice.

Follow-up matters

The Sino-Vatican Agreement on the matter of appointing bishops will be the crux of the problem and a milestone in the process of normalising the relationship between the two parties. However, it is by no means the end of the issue. Both parties will still need to continue the dialogue on the basis of the mutual trust developed, to resolve other problems one by one with patience and confidence. These problems have accumulated for decades. It would be unrealistic, if not impossible, to expect them to be cleared up overnight. The following are some of the problems that remain unresolved. The first is how to tackle the issue of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA). The second is how to deal with the seven illegal self-nominated and self-ordained bishops who have violated Canon Law.

The third is how to handle the issue of the more than 30 bishops from the unofficial community who are not recognised by the government. China and the Holy See have different interests. The Chinese government is concerned with problems on the political level, while for the Holy See, the problems are on the religious and pastoral levels.

Therefore, China and the Holy See will treat these differently in terms of their urgency. It can be said that in order to solve those three issues in good faith, it must be done without compromising our own principles and sincerity.

The future of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association

Many people who are concerned with relations between China and the Holy See think that the problem of the CCPA is like a mountain between them that is impossible to move.

Also, there are Church people who have repeatedly expressed concern that the issue of the CCPA was not mentioned in the Sino-Vatican dialogue and even think that Rome has renounced her doctrine of faith. Their reasoning is based on the principle of an independent, autonomous and self-run Church of the CCPA,1 and the implementation of the principlethe self-nomination and self-ordination of bishops.2 Thus, Pope Benedict XVI stated in his Letter to the Catholics in China that the CCPA is a government agency and such an entity is incompatible with Catholic doctrine.3

It may be said that the relationship between the CCPA concept of an independent, autonomous and self-run Church and the self-nomination and self-ordination of bishops is a relationship between theory and practice. Both of them are in fact the product of a distinctive political environment and pressure. They do not go to the intrinsic qualities of the Church of China, nor to her inner pursuit. Both the unofficial and the official communities of the Church in China are actively seeking and expressing complete communion and unity with the universal Church. Thus, even though some bishops who have been ordained without the permission of the pope, they still make every effort to explain to the pope afterwards and ask for his understanding and acceptance. Of course, if all the requirements are fulfilled, they will be absolved, accepted and probably be entrusted with the power to govern dioceses. The dialogue between China and the Holy See implies that changes have already taken place in Beijings policy on the Catholic Church. It will now let the pope play a role in the nomination and ordination of Chinese bishops. Beijing will also recognise the popes right of veto and that the pope is the highest and final authority in deciding on the candidates for bishops in China. Therefore, the Sino-Vatican agreement itself will enable the principle of self-nomination and self-ordination to go into history. In the absence of self-nomination and self-ordination, the CCPA would turn into a patriotic association in its strict, literal sense: a voluntary, non-profit, patriotic and Church-loving organisation composed of clergy and faithful from all around the country.4

Therefore, in my opinion, the future of the CCPA may reorient itself to encourage clergy and faithful to carry out social charities, actively start social services, and work on things of social interest.5

The question of the seven illegitimate bishops

Another obstacle to Sino-Vatican relations is the illegitimate bishops. The seven bishops (previous article said eight, but one died in early 2017), in accordance with the Code of Canon Law, are under the condition of excommunication. In three of the cases the Vatican has specifically announced that they are under excommunication, but the others are also under excommunication, the lifting of which is reserved to the pope. From the Holy Sees perspective, the difficulties with accepting these seven illegitimate bishops are, firstly, that their self-nomination and self-ordination constitutes a serious breach of Article 1382 of the Code of Canon Law, which stipulates: A bishop who consecrates someone a bishop without a pontifical mandate and the person who receives the consecration from him incur a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See; and secondly, some are accused of moral conduct problems.

The offences of self-nomination and self-ordination and of moral conduct problems are different. The proof needed to establish the offences is different too. The act of self-nomination and self-ordination is obvious to all and the offence is definite. However, the accusation of moral conduct problems calls for more obvious evidence. Given the unstable relation between China and the Holy See, the Holy See cannot send officials to China to investigate directly. Rather, it may require the Chinese official institutions to investigate. No doubt, it will take time. It is rumoured that the Holy See and Beijing have agreed to deal with the seven bishops offensive deeds separatelyfirstly, the problem of illegitimate consecration and secondly, other possible offences. Undoubtedly, this tactic is correct.

As a precondition for pardoning an illegitimately consecrated bishop, participants at the illegitimate consecration (including those offering and receiving it) need to show repentance.

The illegitimate act of consecration challenges the fundamental principle that the pope is to be the highest and final authority in deciding on candidates for bishops of local Churches.

Therefore, as a precondition for pardoning an illegitimate consecration, the offender must on his own initiative submit an application to the pope and show willingness to be in communion with the universal Church, asking pardon from the pope. According to reliable information, all of these seven illegitimately ordained bishops have already sent letters to the pope. They have expressed their willingness to submit themselves to the pope unconditionally and have pleaded for forgiveness. Given such an attitude of repentance, pardon for the penalty of illegitimate consecration is a highly probable outcome. Nevertheless, there is one thing that needs clarification. To pardon illegitimate nomination and consecration is not the equivalent of acknowledging the administrative right to govern a diocese. Granting or withholding administrative rights over a diocese depends on other requirements. For example, has there already been a bishop appointed by the Holy See in that diocese? Flaws in the morality of any of the accused bishops also needs to be considered. Only those who are in conformity with faith, morality and Canon Law can be granted the administrative rights to a diocese. Considering all these aspects, more time and patience will be needed from China and the Holy See before the problem of the seven illegitimately ordained bishops can be finally resolved.

Unofficial community bishops to be recognised by government

The most difficult problem in the Sino-Vatican dialogue is perhaps how to deal with the problem of the more than 30 bishops from the unofficial communities. The legitimacy of the government-sanctioned Bishops Conference of the Church in China depends on the inclusion of all legitimately ordained bishops in the entire Church in China, not just some of them. Therefore, in order to build a bishops conference with legality and authority, it is suggested that all the bishops from the unofficial communities be recruited as well. Naturally, this will require Beijings recognition of their identities and power to govern their dioceses as bishops. Undoubtedly, the Holy See will make such a request. Nevertheless, it is not certain how willing Beijing is to recognise their identity and the administrative rights of the dioceses of the bishops of the unofficial communities. It is hence a major subject of the dialogue for both parties from now on.

The problem of the bishops from the unofficial communities is not a deadlock. The unofficial Church community is the result of a special political and historical period. There was no mutual trust between the Holy See and Beijing, and this indirectly led to a lack of trust between the government and the unofficial community bishops, who insisted on the Churchs principles. Should there be an agreement between the Holy See and China on the appointment of bishops that will imply considerable mutual trust between the parties, the bishops of the unofficial communities would no longer be regarded as the opposition for insisting on religious principles. The government impression of them would improve. Moreover, the bishops of the unofficial communities of the Church in China are in fact examples of patriotic citizens. They only choose to act differently from their counterparts in the official Church communities according to their understanding of Catholic doctrine. As a matter of fact, the government attitude towards the unofficial communities has changed a lot in recent years compared with the 1980s. For most, only their identity and administrative rights to the dioceses are unrecognised. They can still devote themselves to pastoral work. As the mutual trust between Rome and Beijing stabilises and strengthens, the trust between the government and the bishops of the unofficial Church communities will develop.

The key to solving the problem of the unofficial bishops is trust between these bishops themselves and the government. Beijing will perhaps ask them to declare explicitly their positions on the Constitution of China, its laws and policies. As long as the government does not require an independent, autonomous, and self-run Church anymore, as well as the self-nomination and self-ordination of bishops, all these are not problems for them, since all of the bishops of the unofficial Church communities are good and patriotic citizens. They teach their followers to behave in the same way as well. Therefore, since Rome herself has established mutual trust with Beijing, she should strive to help develop the two parties mutual trust based on what has been achieved. It takes time and patience to establish mutual trust. It should be expressed through action as well. We should provide the Holy See, the unofficial community bishops and Beijing with enough time to deal with this problem in Sino-Vatican relations.

Waiting for entire freedom or holding firmly to the essential freedom

After years of dialogue and negotiation, both China and the Holy See have already reached a consensus on the problem of appointing bishops. The preceding paragraphs show that the agreement on the matter of the appointment of bishops between the Holy See and China could be considered a milestone in terms of the development of relations between both sides since 1951. Based on this agreement, the problems of the future of the CCPA, the legitimacy of the illegitimate bishops in the official Church community, the recognition of the underground bishops by Beijing and the establishment of the Bishops Conference of the Church in China are going to be resolved. From now on, there will be no more the crisis of a division between the open and underground communities in the Church in China. On the contrary, these two communities will gradually move towards reconciliation and communion on the aspects of law, pastoral care and relationships. The Church in China will work together to preach the gospel of Jesus on the land of China.

However, there is an unoptimistic voice about the achievement of the Sino-Vatican Agreement. Such a viewpoint states that the issue of the Catholic Church in China is not an individual issue; it is closely related to the problems of other ethnic groups and religions; for instance, the problems of Tibet, Xinjiang and the autonomy of nationalities. The Chinese government will not and cannot ignore those problems and only deal with those of the Catholic Church. If the Chinese government does not put forward a comprehensive plan to solve these problems, it will be difficult to deal only with the Catholic Church or to reach any essential agreement with the Holy See in order to protect the religious freedom of the Catholic Church. Therefore, according to the social and political situation of China today, it would not be easy for the Chinese government to ensure the rights of religious freedom for the people in China, given there is no clear picture of ensuring and implementing a true sign of religious freedom, such as the freedom to preach, the freedom to operate education institutions and the right of owning property. Even if the Sino-Vatican Agreement takes place, this kind of agreement is still meaningless. So, the Holy See should not act in haste to do it.

There is some confusion over the above-mentioned assertion. First of all, it is true that religious freedom for the faithful of the Catholic Church in China is closely related to the freedom and practice of the entire Chinese society. The improvement in the freedom of the people in China no doubt benefits the expansion of the religious freedom of the Catholic Church in China. However, it would be inappropriate to mix the problems of Catholics with the problems involving Tibet and Xinjiang. The problems that the Catholic Church comes across in China are immensely different from those of Tibet and Xinjiang. Tibet and Xinjiang are not simply problems of religious freedom, as they are more about the serious problems of certain separatists whose understanding of territory and the range of sovereignty as well as the interpretation of the relationships between ethnic groups are different from that of the Chinese central government. Therefore, they pursue separation and independence. The democratic transformation of Chinese society will perhaps, to a certain extent, weaken the will of some separatists to pursue separation and independence. It will not, however, drive the problem from its origin. Western countries, like Spain, Scotland and Northern Ireland do not have the problem of freedom. However, they do have problems of ethnic separatism and are also faced with the threat of terrorist attacks. The problems of Catholics are not problems of territory and sovereignty. The Chinese Catholic faithful are generally patriotic, good citizens, who are not willing to engage in political activity. They are people who will not threaten political and social stability, and the Chinese rulers understand this perfectly. Therefore, they will not put the problems of the Catholic Church and the problems of Tibet and Xinjiang together on the same level. The Chinese Catholics too should not compare their problems with Tibet and Xinjiang. Thus, it is not reasonable to assert that the solving of the problems of the Catholic Church in China depends on whether the problems of Tibet and Xinjiang can be solved or not.

As a religious institution, the Catholic Church in China is not political and has no political aspirations. She has no intention of taking part in any political institutions to participate in or advance the political progress of the Chinese society. She seeks to live and witness to her belief on the land of China. Therefore, the concern of the Holy See and the Catholic Church in China is whether there is room for freedom of religion for her to practice her belief.

The Catholic Church has her own particular administrative system, the hierarchy. The problems that the Catholic Church faces and those that other religions in China have both similarities and differences. When compared with other western countries, for all religions in China (including the Catholic Church in China), ways to spread the faith, found schools or implement the owning of property of the Church are insufficient. Compared with other religions in China, the Catholic Church has a distinguishing feature, which is the appointment of bishops. This is what other religions do not have. In the past, Beijing did not have much confidence in the Holy See, so she did not allow the Holy See appoint bishops of the local dioceses of the Church in China and she enforced the policy of self-nomination and self-ordination.

Other religions found in China do not share this feature. When Beijing handles this unique problem of the Catholic Church, she will not implicate other religions in it. She will not change her concrete policy towards other religions. This problem is just one that the Holy See and the Catholic Church in China want to solve urgently, whilst other religions are not concerned about it. Therefore, it is unreasonable to muddle the problems of the Catholic Church with those of other religions. They have no mutual implications.

Compared with freedom in other aspects, the freedom for the pope to appoint bishops is part of the religious freedom of the Catholic Church, which has originated from her fundamental doctrines. The lack of the ways to spread the faith, to establish educational institutions and to own Church property will not threaten or harm the nature of the Catholic Church in China, nor will it cause great harm to the nature of the Catholic Church.

If Beijing is now ready to reach an agreement on the appointment of bishops with the Holy See, the Church in China will enjoy an essential freedom, albeit it not complete freedom.

Since the Catholic Church in China can keep her Catholic traditions and be a Catholic Church in the true sense, how can it be said that the freedom for the Holy See to appoint bishops is not a true freedom of religion? And how could it be said that because the political environment does not favour the Catholic Church in China, allowing it to enjoy complete freedom in the ways of spreading the faith, to found schools and to recover her properties, the Catholic Church in China has to wait for a long time and the Holy See needs to give up on the present agreement with Beijing? If the Church gives up the present essential freedom, she may not gain more, but might end up losing all her freedom. The choices in front of us are either to embrace the essential freedom now and become an imperfect, but true Church, then struggle for complete freedom in the hope of moving towards a perfect Church, or we give up essential freedom and have nothing at all, and then wait for complete freedombut no one knows when this will ever happen. In fact, the moral principle of the Church teaches us to choose the lesser of two evils. Therefore, under the teaching of the principle of healthy realism that Pope Francis teaches us, it is clear which path the Catholic Church in China ought to take.

25 January 2017

The Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle

NOTES

[1] The Statutes of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (passed at the Seventh Assembly of Catholic Representatives in China in July 2004), Article 3 of Chapter 1; on the website of State Administration of Religious Affairs, issued in 2004.

http://www.sara.gov.cn/zcfg/qgxzjttxgjgzd/6427.htm

[2] The Regulations of Election and Ordination of Bishops in China under the government-sanctioned Bishops Conference of the Catholic Church in China, on the website of Catholic Church in China, issued in 2013.

http://www.chinacatholic.cn/html1/report/1405/570-1.htm

[3] Pope Benedict XVI, Letter to the bishops, priests, consecrated persons and lay faithful of the Catholic Church in the Peoples Republic of China, 2007, number 7.

[4] The Statutes of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (passed at the Seventh Assembly of Catholic Representatives in China in July 2004), Article 2 of Chapter 1; on the website of State Administration of Religious Affairs, issued in 2004.

[5] The Statutes of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (passed at the Seventh Assembly of Catholic Representatives in China in July 2004), Article 4 of Chapter 2; on the website of State Administration of Religious Affairs, issued in 2004.
Forty-eight hours after Trump and Erdogan spoke, Mike Pompeo made a surprise visit in Turkey. Washington and Ankara are trying to restore relations after the tensions of recent years. The extradition of Islamic preacher Gulen is an obstacle. Trump sends letter to Xi Jinping expressing hope for "constructive" relations between Beijing and Washington.

Istanbul (AsiaNews/Agencies)  CIA chief Mike Pompeo arrived in Turkey today. The main issues he will discuss with his Turkish hosts are countering the Islamic State (IS) group still active in Syria and Iraq, find new ways to end the Syrian conflict, and create safe zones for refugees.

The visit also aims at jumpstarting relations between Washington and Ankara, which deteriorated in the past three years due to frictions between former US President Barack Obama and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Pompeo arrives 48 hours after US president Donald Trump spoke on the phone to his Turkish counterpart. During the conversation, Erdogan asked Trump to stop US support for Kurdish forces in Syria. Ankara considers them close to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which it deems a terrorist organisation.

Analysts and experts note that the CIA chiefs hastily arranged visit could mean renewed US support for Turkey, once a staunch US ally in the Mediterranean and Middle East, especially with respect to Turkish efforts against terrorist groups, including IS.

During the visit, Pompeo and Turkish officials are expected discuss ways to coordinate efforts on the ground. The current situation is very fragmented with Washington supporting the Kurds on the offensive against Raqqa, the Islamic State stronghold in Syria, and the Turks supporting the Arab coalition moving towards the town of al-Bab, north of Aleppo.

The proposal to create safe zones for refugees and internally displaced persons will also be on the table. Turkeys request for extradition of Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen is also on the agenda.

Turkish authorities blame Gulen, who is in exile in Pennsylvania, of master-minding a failed coup in July 2016 in which 270 people were killed and thousands wounded.

Reacting to the coup, Turkish authorities have arrested more than 41,000 people, including teachers, soldiers, intellectuals, opposition politicians, businessmen, journalists, activists and ordinary citizens, as well as suspended or fired more than 100,000 public sector workers.

Meanwhile, the US is becoming active in its China file. Tensions between the two countries had risen after the new US president announced possible protectionist measures, spoke to his Taiwanese counterpart Tsai Ing-wen, and issued provocative statements over the South China Sea.

So far, Mr Trump has not yet personally spoken to Mr Xi but did call other world leaders; however yesterday, he sent a letter to Xi Jinping, his first direct approach to the Chinese leader.

In it, the US president thanked Mr Xi for congratulating him on his inauguration last month and said he looked forward to "constructive" relations.

The US leader also included his Lunar New Year greetings to the Chinese people and said that co-operation between the two countries was the only option.

This represents a shift from Trumps anti-Chinese rhetoric during the election campaign.
by Mario Bianchin

The "holy Samurai" was beatified on Tuesday. Out of the age of Japanese martyrs, "Takayama Ukon [. . .] presents the model of the testimony of life in Christ (martyrdom in fact), to which every believer in Christ is called. The PIME regional superior in Japan gives his thoughts about the new Blessed.

Osaka (AsiaNews)  The beatification ceremony of Justo Takayama Ukon, the holy samurai, a noble son of Japan and martyr in Christ, took place on Tuesday in Osaka.

Among the many martyrs whose splendid witness has blessed the Japanese Church, Takayama Ukon highlights the "lifelong martyrdom" as a journey in the path of the Lord Jesus, the new "Lord" to whom the holy samurai vowed everlasting allegiance.

Fr Mario Bianchin, PIME regional superior in Japan, sent his thoughts about the Blessed to AsiaNews, emphasising the new Blesseds "imitable holiness" for Japan and the world.

A Japanese Christian way of life

In his homily, Card Angelo Amato described Justo Takayama Ukon as "A Japanese model of Christian life for today, for all the world". The proclamation was made at a ceremony on Tuesday held in front of Osaka Castle. Some 10,000 people attended the event, including bishops and priests from around the world (especially Korea and the Philippines) as well as believers from all over Japan.

Known as 'the holy Samurai' (in fact, he was a daimyo or feudal lord), the new Blessed comes from an age long past, Japans so-called 'Christian Century', around 1600, when the Christian faith flourished for the first time in this extreme corner of Asia, the land of the Rising Sun, thanks to the work of Saint Francis Xavier.

His persona projects and therefore represents today a beautiful model of " imitable holiness," specifically for the Japanese, but also for the whole world. This is what makes the new Blessed a "gift" for the entire Church.

The cruel persecution that ended the first Christian springtime in Japan gave the young Church many holy martyrs, some well-known, like Saint Paul Miki and companions, crucified in Nagasaki in 1597 (Paul Miki came from the same city as Justo Takayama Ukon, Osaka). However, unlike the former, Takayama Ukon stands apart because of his "lifelong martyrdom", a journey in the path of the Lord Jesus, the new "Lord" to whom the new holy samurai swore everlasting allegiance.

This meant a lifelong martyrdom "for" Christ in faithful obedience to Him, in the darkness of faith that regularly turns into great light, the light that restores strength when giving oneself, rekindles hope in the heart, and revisits the soul with joy and peace on every occasion.

Takayama Ukon thus presents the model of the testimony of life in Christ (martyrdom in fact), to which every believer in Christ is called, and leads to kenosis, that is, the process of inner purification through giving oneself up and conform to the will of the Father, as did the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is in this sense that he also presents a model of "imitable" holiness that is also a viable model for the Japanese and for our times, because he offers his beautiful testimony whilst remaining within his Japanese and "existential" reality.

His is Pauls gradual discovery in the journey after Damascus, moved by the revelation that God is present in him (cfr. Gal. 1:16), the discovery that God loves him and gives him the Son so that the life of his One Begotten Son, the Lord Jesus, may come into existence in him (Paul). This is what every believer in Christ discovers.

By giving his inner consent to this revelation, our Blessed, as when Jesus "forgives" his persecutors, enters into the dynamic of love of God himself.

Inside the assembly that proclaimed him Blessed right in front of the Osaka Castle, a reminder of the world and society in which the new Blessed bore witness, I thought I detected the rise of the universal prayer of the Church making the Gospel the Good News, proclamation of salvation to all humankind even today, on its path.

May he be for the Church in Japan and the world an incentive of a new missionary impulse, based on the joy of the Gospel, the joy to discover ourselves as "brothers" because we are children in the One Begotten Son, through participation in His death and resurrection, seed of eternal life.
The goal is to undo the norm legalizing thousands of settlements in the Occupied Territories. Even the Israeli Attorney General judges it "unconstitutional" and is ready to testify against it. Israeli deputy minister reaffirms the "historical and legal rights to this land." Abu Mazen: An aggression against our people.

Jerusalem (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Israeli and Palestinian activists groups yesterday filed an appeal to the Supreme Court, in order to cancel the new (controversial) norm approved by the Israeli parliament that "legalizes" thousands of settlements in the Occupied Territories. In addition, Adalah and the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Centre (Jlac) have called an injunction that blocks the effects of the law pending a final verdict.



In recent days, Israel's parliament sanctioned the entry into force of the rule with 60 deputies out of a total of 120 in favor; 52 against. The new law provides that the Palestinian owners of the land will no longer have any right to the land; faced with expropriation, they will receive a sum of money or other land in different places.

The Attorney General of Israel, Avichai Mandelblit, has also slammed the law as "unconstitutional". And he added that he will not defend it in court and is ready to testify against it if it will be called upon to do so.



The so-called "regularization bill" voted by the Knesset states that the buildings constructed according to functional the principle of "good faith" and without knowing that the land belonged to private Palestinian citizens in the West Bank can be recognized by the government. In this way the Israeli executive claims the right to expropriate Palestinian land, compared with paltry compensation or displacing owners elsewhere.



To date there are over 600 thousand Jewish settlers living in about 140 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. International law considers these settlements illegal which Israel has always contested. At the same time there are 97 outposts also, which have never received official government approval.



According to reports from the NGO Peace Now the norm passed by Parliament retroactively authorizes 3921 new housing units in 72 settlements and 55 outposts, built on about 818 hectares of Palestinian land.



Yesterday, the Palestinian activist group Adalah and its Israeli counterpart Jlac submitted an appeal to the Supreme Court on behalf of 17 Palestinian towns and villages. It is a norm, underlines attorney Suhad Bishara, Adalah, which favors "the political interests of Israel as the Occupying Power" and benefit "of Israeli settlers."



The Supreme Court granted the government 30 days to respond. However, in a video message vice-foreign minister Tzipi Hotovely said that "Israel has historic and legal rights to this land" and the law "ensures a balance" between the right to "land" of the Israelis and "compensation" for the Palestinians.



In the past, the Supreme Court overturned laws that it considered against constitutional requirements. These included the order for the evacuation and dismantling  carried out last week  of the controversial Amona settlement because it was built right on private Palestinian land.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says the law is an "aggression against our people" which "we will challenge in international organizations." "What we want is peace - he added - but what Israel is doing is working towards a single state founded on apartheid."

In a statement the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem condemned the new law, branding it as "unfair and one-sided." Even the European Union has already expressed criticism and concern from the norm. The United States, before taking a position, is awaiting the pronouncement of the judiciary.
Ahmad Waqas Goraya went missing in early January only to reappear last week before fleeing to the Netherlands. Activists and international organisations blame his disappearance on the authorities. He now fears Islamic radicals even though he is abroad. Hundreds of liberal thinkers self-censor their online profile.

Islamabad (AsiaNews)  Ahmad Waqas Goraya, one of the five Pakistani activists missing since early January, has decided to speak publicly about his disappearance.

He came home last week along with three missing bloggers (a Rawalpindi professor had returned home earlier), and immediately fled to the Netherlands, where he had lived for about ten years.

Although he did not say who abducted him nor provide details about his captivity, he said, "We want a Pakistan with the rule of law."

Goraya, a 34-year-old blogger, went missing from Lahore on 4 January. Like the four others who were missing, he had expressed critical opinions on religious extremism and radicals in the government and military.

For this reason, activists and international organisations blamed his mysterious disappearance on the security forces trying to silence critical voices and spread a climate of terror in the population.

"I felt I would never come back, I would never see my son and family," he told Agence France Presse in a phone interview.

The intellectual strongly rejected accusations that he is a traitor, and rebuffed the blasphemy charges against him, stressing instead that he is a "true patriot. I have nothing against Pakistan.

Speaking about we wrote or said, "Nothing was against Pakistan, nothing was against Islam, I was critical of policies because I want to see a better Pakistan," he said.

He now fears that the violent campaign against him by Islamic extremists on radio and TV channels, who depict him as a blasphemer, could haunt him in Europe, where he fled.

His fears are not entirely unfounded. At least 65 people, including lawyers, judges and activists, have been murdered by vigilantes over blasphemy allegations since 1990, this according to the Center for Research and Security Studies.

Goraya noted that accusations against him are still found on Dutch social media frequented by Pakistanis, a fact that prompted him to seek police advice.

The activists abduction main impact is self-censorship by intellectuals. "Hundreds of our friends deactivated their (social media) accounts, their pages," Goraya said

Even the well-known liberal blog Roshni (light in Urdu) was closed despite the fact its administrator is based in London.
Casablanca (AsiaNews) - The step taken by the ulema of Morocco "is very important" because they decided not to literally "apply", but to "reinterpret" sharia, Islamic law, adapting it to the current environment, says Fr. Samir Khalil Samir, a Jesuit Islamic scholar of Egyptian origin, commenting to AsiaNews on the decision of the religious leader of the North African country to remove the death penalty for those who leave Islam.



"It is a very intelligent thing - continues the priest and scholar - on the other hand the same King Mohammad VI of Morocco is an open man and of great culture; his wife as well, Princess Lalla Salma, a graduate in computer science, she always appears in public without a veil and this is considered in many circles a scandal for the current era ".



In recent days, the Higher Council of Ulema, the most important religious authority in the country, has proposed a new interpretation of the past that overturns a fatwa, that apostasy must be punished with the death penalty. In a document entitled "The life of the ulema", Islamic experts propose a new amended version of the "ridda", according to which apostasy is punishable by death only if placed in the context of a "political" betrayal.



Morocco, therefore, switching to another religion is no-longer to be punished with the death penalty - although the scope of conversion remains a minefield and proselytism punishable by law - but only if it is an "alignment" with the "enemy" that threatens the homeland. A political conversion, rather than an element of faith.



In the text the Muslim scholars they point out that "the most accurate and consistent interpretation" of Islamic law and example of Muhammad "is that death for the apostate regards those who betray the Ummah". Revealing "secrets", they add, in what the international law "defines" as treason. "



Speaking to AsiaNews Fr. Samir, former professor at St. Joseph University in Beirut and current rector pro tempore of the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, welcomes the "reinterpretation" of the text made by Moroccan ulema. At the beginning of Islam, when the "Umma" [from the Arabic "umm", the mother] was the Muslim nation, the group of believers, those who rejected the faith actually "passed over to the opposite camp" and betrayed his Muslim homeland.



"The current problem in Islam - continues Fr. Samir - is that the imams take a word and apply it as it was, without assessing the context in which it was formed to understand its value. " And this is a process that must also apply to the Umma, apostasy and abandonment, today, of the Muslim faith for another religion.



"A text can only be understood by immersing it in its context - warns the student of Egyptian origin - and extrapolated from it, it may be wrong. What happens today is that you take a sentence or a word as such, rigorously applying it. Instead you have to assess how , when and where it was pronounced. This is the problem of the Islamic world: the inability to re-think their culture and tradition. "



The basic problem is the predominance of the Salafi and Wahhabi vision that takes and applies everything that was said or done at the beginning of 600, at the time of Muhammad (who died 632) to the letter. In fact, warns Fr. Samir, "it is not true that either, because they have not taken on the spirit of that era, but only its materiality, and they are imposing this on the Muslim world both through attacks and weapons (Salafis), and through money (Wahhabis) . Saudi Arabia and Qatar  he adds - buy people's thinking with their money. "



Today there are political and institutional organizations looking to modernize their societies and the context in which they are inserted. This is the case with the king of Morocco, as well as Egyptian President al-Sisi who "asked, unsuccessfully, the University of al-Azhar to cancel the norm of the so-called" divorce" in Islam, where a man only has to say the word "divorce" three times to repudiate his wife, without having to go to court. With all that follows from a legal point of view, child care and maintenance.

"Egyptian President Al-Sisi refered to the National Statistics Office data, 40% of the 900,000 marriages registered each year in Egypt end up, within five years after they began, with a divorce. To combat the problem, al-Sisi had proposed considering divorce legal only if it takes place in the presence of a religious representative authorized by the government to sanction both marriages and divorces. This request was rejected by al Azhar. We hope the situation changes, to give justice to thousands of abandoned women! "



"In the Islamic world - says Fr. Samir - there are personalities who seek change, but the clerical environment hampers this. Religious leaders always claim to have the last word. Then there are the Salafis and Wahhabi groups which with their money buy the public and mosques, only to have us believe that theirs is the true Islam. But is not so".



According to the priest and scholar the case of Moroccan ulema is not so isolated, "There are hundreds of thousands of people - he says  who want to change. The problem is that the power is in the hands of religious leaders, imams. And then there are the responses from universities such as Al-Azhar, which are manipulated and maintained by Saudi Arabia and traditional teaching and influence its decisions. There are millions of Muslims who do not want this, and many intellectuals who write and argue, but do not have the religious establishment on their side".



"Islam is experiencing the strongest crisis of the modern era - concludes Father. Samir - with absurd wars, divisions between Sunnis and Shiites, struggles always financed by the same people, who want to impose an Islam that is not Islam today.



"That is why the task of Christians is not to provoke or attack them, but to walk with them and say that Islam is not a retrograde faith in itself, but it is becoming one. Let's help them to think, so they may adapt the values  to the times. In particular, everything that touches human rights is sacred: to recognize the Universal Charter of Human Rights is a vital first step, and in particular Article 18 on 'absolute equality between men and woman! . "(DS)
Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, speaks to members of the media after participating in television interviews in the Russell Senate Office building rotunda in Washington, D.C., US, on Feb 8, 2017. [Photo/VCG]

WASHINGTON  Senate Republicans silenced Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren for criticizing colleague and Attorney General-nominee Jeff Sessions with the words of Coretta Scott King from three decades ago challenging his record on race.

Warren, whose name has been prominent in speculation about the 2020 presidential race, was given a rare Senate rebuke Tuesday night for impugning a fellow senator and she was barred from saying anything more on the Senate floor about Sessions, R-Ala.

The late-night dust-up quickly spawned the hashtag #LetLizSpeak that was trending on Twitter early Wednesday.

The Senate has been working around the clock since Monday as Democrats challenge President Donald Trump's nominees, although the party lacks the votes to derail the picks. Despite the rebuke of Warren, D-Mass., other Senate Democrats quoted from the King letter in speeches, among them Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio on Wednesday morning.

In the 1986 letter , Martin Luther King Jr.'s widow said Sessions' actions as a federal prosecutor were "reprehensible" and that he used his office "in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters."Democrats are portraying Sessions as a threat to civil rights, voting rights and immigration. Republicans have defended Trump's choice to be the top law enforcement officer as a man of integrity who will be an independent voice in the new administration.

A vote on Sessions was expected Wednesday evening.

The incident underscored that the partisan divide in the Senate has devolved into nearly unchecked rancor, with majority Republicans muscling through Cabinet nominees in committee by changing the rules. Democrats are under intense pressure from their liberal base to challenge the entire Trump agenda, especially his nominees.

Warren produced a three-decade-old letter in which Mrs. King wrote that Sessions, as an acting federal prosecutor in Alabama, used his power to "chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens.""Mr. Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens in the district he now seeks to serve as a federal judge," Mrs. King wrote.
"This is the great gift of God has given us: woman." "Exploiting people is a crime against humanity: it is true. But taking advantage of a woman is more than this: it is destroying the harmony that God wanted to give to the world. It destroys. "

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "Without women, there is no harmony in the world" and exploiting a woman "is to destroy the harmony that God wanted to give to the world, said Pope Francis in his homily at Mass celebrated this morning in Santa Marta.

Pope Francis was continuing his reflections on creation, the subject of the Readings for the past few days, taken from the Book of Genesis. The Lord had formed every sort of animal, but the man did not find a companion in any of them; he was alone. Then the Lord took a rib and created woman, who the man recognized as flesh of his flesh. But before seeing her, the Pope said, the man dreamed of her In order to understand a woman, it is necessary first to dream of her.

Often when we speak about women, the Pope said, we think of them in a functionalist manner. Instead, we should see women as bearers of a richness that men do not possess: women bring harmony to creation: When women are not there, harmony is missing. We might say: But this is a society with a strong masculine attitude, and this is the case, no? The woman is missing. Yes, yes: the woman is there to wash the dishes, to do things No, no, no! The woman is there to bring harmony. Without the woman there is no harmony. They are not equal; one is not superior to the other: no. Its just that the man does not bring harmony. Its her. It is she who brings that harmony that teaches us to caress, to love with tenderness; and who makes the world a beautiful place.

In his homily, the Pope considered three moments in Creation: the solitude of the man, the dream, and the destiny of both the man and the woman: to be one flesh. The Holy Father gave a concrete example: Once, during an audience, while he greeted the people, he asked a couple who were celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary, Which of you has had the most patience? And they looked at me, they looked me in the eyes  Ill never forget those eyes, eh?  then they turned and they told me, both together: We are in love. After 60 years, this means one flesh. And this is what the woman brings: the capacity to love one another. Harmony for the world. Often we hear: No, it is necessary in this society, in this institution, that here there should be a woman because she does this, she does these things. No, no, no, no! Functionality is not the purpose of women. It is true that women should do things, to do things as we all do. The purpose of women is to make harmony, and without women there is no harmony in the world. Exploiting persons is a crime of lese-humanite: its true. But exploiting a woman is even more serious: it is destroying the harmony that God has chosen to give to the world. It is to destroy.

Exploiting a woman, then, is not only a crime: it amounts to destroying harmony, the Pope said, referring also to the days Gospel story of the Syrophoenician woman. Pope Francis concluded his reflection with a personal note: This is the great gift of God: He has given us woman. And in the Gospel, we have heard what a woman is capable of, eh? She is courageous, that one, eh? She went forward with courage. But there is more, so much more. A woman is harmony, is poetry, is beauty. Without her the world would not be so beautiful, it would not be harmonious. And I like to think  but this is a personal thing  that God created women so that we would all have a mother.
Yoga Position Saves Man's Life

Man Trapped Underwater For Hours Saves His Own Life With A Yoga Pose

Long Story Short

An Aussie farmer has survived five hours underwater by adopting a yoga-like position and poking his nose out of the water for air.

Long Story

When you fall off a dam and get trapped underwater by three tonnes of machinery, there's only one thing to do  adopt "the cobra".

At least, thats what 45-year-old farmer Daniel Miller did after his excavator toppled off the collapsing dam, pinning him beneath the surface of a waterhole.

Daniel had been riding the excavator at his remote property 180 miles north of Sydney when the edge of the dam gave way.

He arched his back yoga-style to keep his nose above water for up to five hours (imagine the backache after wards) until a neighbour heard him shouting from 500m away.

"I was trapped and had to keep my head up above water using my arms, Speaking to Sydneys Daily Telegraph, he said, I guess it was the cobra position. I'm not a yogi but I guess you could say yoga saved my life... that and the will to live."

His wife described the incident further online: "He was trapped... with the weight of his excavator on his back, and with the boggy dam ground below him slowly slipping away.

RELATED: Why Women Love Men Who Do Yoga

"It was literally sheer mental strength and determination to survive that got him through. As well as being fit, strong and healthy. Nothing to do with luck.

The rescue crews said it lasted two hours, though Ms Miller maintains he was out there for five hours.

When the police arrived at the scene only his nose and forehead were above the water. They had to drain water and mud from the area before they could pull him free.

He travelled to a hospital in the nearby town of Newcastle to be treated for hypothermia and minor back injuries (presumably he had to be straightened out a bit after all the time).

As his wife wrote online: "Legendary effort from a legendary man."

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question

Are you fit enough to survive a emergency situation like that?

Drop This Fact

Yoga has grown into a $27billion industry in the US, but according to a 2012 report, only 17% of the people practising are men.
The Factory That Made Samsungs Fire-Catching Batteries Caught On Fire

Trending News: Samsungs Factories Are Catching Fire Now Too

Long Story Short

A factory fire at one of its facilities in northern China is adding to Korean electronics company Samsungs woes. In a hilarious twist (if you're not a Samsung stockholder), the factory in question happens to be the one that manufactured batteries for the companys disastrous Galaxy Note 7the ones that kept catching fire.

Long Story

In what can only be described as a glorious piece of cosmic kismet, the factory that manufactured the Galaxy Note 7 exploding batteries itself caught fire. The cause of the fire? Exploding batteries. Seriously.

No one was hurt in the fire at the Samsung SDI Co. facility at Tianjin on Wednesday, which was described as minor. But there are conflicting reports as to the cause of the fire.

Samsung pinned the origins of the fire on waste products, including discarded lithium batteries. But local fire personnel say the fire may have begun with batteries on the actual production line.

You will of course recall that these are the same type of batteries that had the unfortunate tendency to catch fire and/or explode, and that led to a massive, and massively expensive, recall last September. Its estimated that the product failure wound up costing Samsung $5.3 billion in operating profit.

The company says production at the Tianjin facility was not significantly affected.

SDI is one of two companies that supplied Samsung with the Galaxy Note 7 with faulty batteries, and both were blamed by the phone maker for the humiliating fiasco.

Nevertheless, SDI will be supplying Samsung with batteries for the Galaxy Note 8. The fire comes just after SDI announced that it had spent 150 billion won ($129 million) on increased safety measures.

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question

They say theres no such thing as bad publicity, but is that what Samsung is thinking now?

Drop This Fact

Its believed that Samsung will roll out the Galaxy Note 8 on March 29, barring catastrophe. But you never know.
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About Censored News Censored News is published by Brenda Norrell. Since 2006, Censored News has received more than 20 million pageviews. As a collective of writers, photographers and broadcasters, we publish news of Indigenous Peoples and human rights. Contact publisher Brenda Norrell: brendanorrell@gmail.com

From the publisher Censored News is published by Brenda Norrell, a journalist in Indian country for 40 years. Norrell created Censored News after she was censored and terminated as a staff reporter at Indian Country Today in 2006. She began as a reporter at Navajo Times during the 18 years that she lived on the Navajo Nation. She was a stringer for AP and USA Today and later traveled with the Zapatistas through Mexico. She has been blacklisted by all the mainstream media for 14 years. Contact brendanorrell@gmail.com

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The proposals from the consultation would have made profit distribution more complicated but also more robust. The distribution structure would have also shifted the culture from every man for himself, former partners said, but the plans did not get widespread support because it was bureaucratic and would have also quite severely impacted people at the top.

Day tried to boost capital contribution by 20% in 2012, but senior partners voted down the proposal. One source said the proposal which would have required junior partners to contribute capital, but get equity in return, was voted down by a majority of senior partners who would have been affected.

Senior partners reportedly asked Why should we take the hit? when its all personal greed and selfishness. One source, a junior SJ Berwin partner at the time, said a senior partner even said in his vote to reject the proposal that junior partners should be happy to even have a job.

Day, who resigned in 2014, is said to have tried again that year, but the proposal was much more minor. Days successor, William Boss, tried in 2015 to boost capital contributions by 50%, but the plans did not reach a formal vote. However, a former partner said that it was never really explained why the firms partners needed to contribute more capital. One of the main problems of legacy SJ Berwin  pointed out in the months before it folded  was its low capitalisation, which compounded cash and debt problems arising from the transactional nature of the business unit.

Administrators are now conducting investigations as they deal with whats left of the firm. In a statement, Andy Hosking and Sean Bucknall of restructuring and recovery firm Quantuma confirmed that investigations are ongoing. Hosking and Bucknall were appointed as joint administrators of the now-defunct business last month.
By Kara Perrow (nee Vine), Research Fellow and Group Leader of the Targeted Therapeutics Research Laboratory, University of Wollong

As children we are encouraged to dream big, and many young people  including young women and girls  aspire to a career in science.

While there are role models at the top tiers of science combating gender bias, the jump from PhD student to lead researcher may at first seem insurmountable for many women.

Students considering a career in science are told that competition for research funding is fierce, giving rise to short-term contracts and job insecurity. This sees scientists working overtime and weekends and that makes it harder to succeed if you are a female scientist and mother.

This outlook can leave students questioning their future in science. But there is a way to make a successful and rewarding career in science. Our own personal stories demonstrate this.

Our stories

When Amy Wyatt completed her PhD at the University of Wollongong (UOW), she looked abroad to answer the question of where to next? Amy tested out an alternative career in science communication but returned to academia because the pull of discovery in science was too exciting to ignore.

A fellowship sent Amy to Cambridge, UK, for two years and then back to UOW. With her science communication skills, Amy won the UOW iAccelerate pitch competition in 2015, a small grant competition for innovative ideas, before securing federal funding.

Martina also ventured overseas after her PhD to a complete postdoctoral stint in Germany, and later the United States. She too decided to return to UOW. She felt this was a good environment in which to establish her independence, rather than be in the shadow of more senior, well-established researchers in her field. A key factor was the support she received from her PhD supervisor, who advocated for Martina as she set up her own research group.

Kara worked with researchers in Sweden and Denmark before taking a postdoctoral fellowship at her hometown university, UOW. She chose to further her career alongside neuroscientists, chemists and materials scientists to build new collaborations beyond her realm of cancer biology and expand her program of research in drug targeting and delivery.

As three early-career researchers, we have guided students through their undergraduate and PhD studies, many of whom are promising scientists but they are doubtful that they will find a way to establish themselves as independent researchers.

If you, or someone you know, is considering a career in science, here are some important lessons we have learnt in how to make it work.

Call on support networks

Gender equity is a particularly sticky issue for science. The choice to raise a family may be judged as a disruption to research output when scientists are assessed for funding. This is the point where many women choose to leave academic careers. The global nature of science also necessitates regular long distance travel, which is difficult for those with family responsibilities.

A strong local support network can make the task of balancing young children and the demands of research more manageable. Family networks can offer assistance when travel or extended work hours are called for and a supportive, collegiate ethos between co-workers can encourage and boost young postdocs.









Robyn Gower/IHMRI





Use small grants as a stepping stone

Small institutional grants offered by universities to early-career researchers can provide funding to kick-start research when returning from parental leave.

Small grants also allow researchers to develop new projects and obtain preliminary results to be competitive in major funding schemes. For Amy, who is the lead investigator on a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) project grant on Alzheimers disease, internal funding allows her to pursue side projects and build a broad research program.









Paul Jones/UOW Media





Build diverse collaborations

A research institute with a healthy diversity of sciences can help young scientists make their mark through innovative projects. In our experience, when research diversity is paired with a collegial atmosphere that has researchers swapping ideas over coffee, unexpected collaborations can be fostered.

In her research, Kara designs drug delivery platforms to make sure that cancer drugs reach their target by encasing drugs in protective lipids that seek out breast cancer or immune cells, or producing drug-loaded scaffolds to implant for pancreatic cancer. Kara happens to share an office and work with a motor neurone disease (MND) research fellow, Justin Yerbury.

Combining their expertise in the fields of drug delivery and neuroscience, Kara and Justin won an ambitious grant from the US Department of Defense to improve drug delivery to the brain for MND. The idea for this research came about on a social mountain bike trip with Wollongong alumnus and friend, Darren Saunders.









Paul Jones/UOW Media





Find an advocate

Networking is fundamental to building a career in science so that researchers can exchange ideas and call upon advisers. Finding an effective mentor is important for up-and-coming researchers and their professional development.

But finding someone who is prepared to advocate on your behalf is invaluable. To have someone nominate them for opportunities gives emerging scientists the confidence to back themselves.

For Martina, it was her PhD supervisor who put her name forward when approached by international collaborators and said that she was the best person to speak to. Work from these collaborations led to her NHMRC project grant successes to study Group A Streptococcal bacterial infections. Martina now follows suit as a supervisor to raise the profiles of her students and postdocs.

This can be challenging, as the pervading message to early-career scientists is that you have to promote yourself, but we admire the leaders who build up those around them.

Diversity in the leaders that we promote can reveal new pathways for young scientists.

Advancing a career in science is challenging, especially for women. But it can also be deeply rewarding. We hope our experiences, and the lessons we learnt from them, can encourage and assist other young women to embark on a career of discovery in the sciences.

Clare Watson, research assistant and science writer at the University of Wollongong, assisted in the production of this article.

Amy Wyatt receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council.

Martina Sanderson-Smith receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council.

Kara Perrow (nee Vine) does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Originally published in The Conversation.
A large number of people in Australia support the idea of a Donald Trump-style ban on people arriving in the country from certain other nations, mostly Muslim, two new polls have found.Some 41% support a visa ban on people from Muslim countries entering Australia according to an Essential poll, while a Newspoll survey found 44% think there should be similar measures to Trump's executive order which banned people from seven countries.The United States ban, which is currently suspended while legal hearings take place, aimed to prevent people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalis, the Sudan, Syria and Yemen travelling to the country for 90 days.In the Essential survey 46% opposed a similar ban in Australia and 14% didn't know and in the Newspoll 45% were against a ban and 11% were uncommitted.But it is not a sudden new trend. The results of the two polls are broadly in line with an Essential poll from last September that found 49% of Australians backed a ban on Muslim migration, while 40% opposed the idea.There is no immediate likelihood of such a ban being introduced in Australia but there has been an increasing tightening of checks on people from some countries. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has stated that Australia has a non-discriminatory immigration policy but he has refused to denounce the Trump travel ban. He said that it is a matter for the US and not his job to comment.The One Nation political party in Australia has called for a ban on Muslim immigration. But there does not seem to be a big move in favour of such an outcome. Last September a Mapping Social Cohesion report that tracks attitudes on issues including immigration, multiculturalism, discrimination and politics, suggested those born abroad may be experiencing more negativity.The report also found that reports of discrimination have risen sharply to the highest level recorded since the Scanlon Foundation began the study nine years ago and one in five non-Anglo Australians born abroad reported discrimination in 2016 and a third felt they were being denied jobs or promotion because of their background.However, the study challenged the view that a negative attitudes toward Muslims is increasing. It found that there has been no significant shift in negative opinion towards Muslims which remains in the range of 22% to 25%.Support for multiculturalism has also remained high with 83% saying that multiculturalism has been good for Australia. 'There is a positive view of multiculturalism. Most people see multiculturalism as a two-way process of change, involving adaptation from Australian born and migrants,' said report author, Professor Andrew Markus of Monash University.Although the study did not ask specifically about Muslim immigration it did look at sentiment and a quarter of those surveyed said they had negative feelings towards Muslims, while 14.1% had 'strong' negative feelings, up from 11.3%. Just over 30% had positive or strongly positive feelings and about 40% were indifferent.
I had submitted EOI with 65 points and had received invitation for PR filing however I realized that there was some problem with Point calculation so I did not fill the application. Now I have corrected my documents. Since old invitation is still valid can I re-submit a fresh EOI?
CCMS said: The sponsor is the one who should be taking care of all this. It is absolutely not the correct procedure for the visa applicant to be involved in the sponsorship and nomination applications. I hope they are not making you pay for it, as that is illegal and may lead to sanctions. Businesses that do not have experience with the sc. 457 process are extremely foolish not to engage a professional.It is also quite foolish to lodge the sponsorship application without having all the supporting documentation in place.



In cases where the visa applicant's exisiting visa is likely to expire before the process is finalised, I usually lodge SBS,Nomination and Visa Application one after the other, without waiting for each stage to be approved first. Click to expand...

Hi, I think there is some misunderstanding - the company is not making me pay anything. I have been in the company for 1.5 years under 485 visa. I have mentioned to them that my visa will expire soon and I certainly would like to continue working here, which is why they are willing to help me by sponsoring.However, the company have never sponsored before and I feel that they are underestimating the documentations and processes!Being worried, I had came to enquire for help on behalf as you know, it is something that they have no obligations to help me..I agree that it will be better to lodge the applications one after another, but because its 3 months till my visa expiration, will the company be able to request for priority process in this case? Up till now, there is still no case officer assigned which makes them worry about the other 2 applications.My boss will be lodging the applications personally but he would like me to get more information about the process and report back to him to save time actually.
I fly to Australia in 8weeks, and it has been 1 week since i applied for the visa, i am traveling with family for 3weeks to Australia, my record is over 7 years old and i have never been sentenced to prison, just community hours and a fine. How long does it usually take to get the visa back now it is with VACCU?



Thank you
The Slovakian will join BMW as head of design operations, while his predecessor Karim Habib may move to Volkswagen.

BMW has confirmed that Jozef Kaban, the man behind the bullish look of the Bugatti Veyron and current head of design at Skoda, will become its new head of design operations, replacing Karim Habib. The 44-year-old Slovak will lead a team of designers responsible for the BMW brand, working under overall BMW Group design director Adrian van Hooydonk.

Skoda has thanked the designer for his work with the manufacturer, saying he has significantly influenced the design and emotionality of the brand. We would like to thank Jozef Kaban for his performance and wish him well in his future endeavours, a statement read.

Since joining Skoda in 2008, Kaban has completely revolutionised the manufacturers design ethos, earning many plaudits along the way. Kaban's credits feature the current range of Skoda models, including the Octavia, Fabia, new Kodiaq SUV, and the forthcoming second-generation Yeti.

A specialist in exterior design, Kaban studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, Slovakia, from 1991. In 1997, as a student supported by Volkswagen, he received a Master of Art degree from London's Royal College of Art. During his studies, he took part in a Skoda design competition, in which he came second, and was subsequently offered a job at parent company Volkswagen, initially as a junior assistant of design and later as an exterior designer.

After joining Volkswagen in 1999, Kaban penned the design for the original Bugatti Veyron EB16.4 under the direction of Volkswagens former head of design, Hartmut Warku. Kaban also designed the Volkswagen Lupo and Seat Arosa. Kaban moved to Audi in 2003, where he was made of head of exterior design before heading up design operations at Volkswagens Czech sister brand, Skoda, in 2008.

Kaban will take up his new position at BMW with the manufacturer showing a change in the direction of its styling of late. Cars like the bold new Range Rover Evoque-rivalling BMW X2 show a more individual approach, with a focus on the lucrative SUV market.

The new head of design for BMWs I and M sub-brands has also been announced: Domagoj Dukec, who has been with BMW since 2010. A new head of design for Mini is still being sought.

Kaban's predecessor, Karim Habib, meanwhile may join Volkswagen. Sources say Habib could become head of brand design at Volkswagen where former colleague Herbert Diess now works. Diess was previously at BMW with Habib as head of research and development (R&D). It's unclear where such a move would leave the current head of Volkswagen design, Klaus Bischoff, who was appointed under the Volkswagen Group's former overall head of design operations, Walter de Silva.

GREG KABLE
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The average fuel efficiency of light-duty cars, trucks, and SUVs reached 24.9 miles per gallon for the 2017 model year, which is a record high, even as the industry may have trouble meeting future standards, according to the EPA.
Photo of 2017 Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 courtesy of GM.

Chevrolet will sell its 2017 Colorado ZR2 off-road performance pickup for at least $40,995 to retail buyers when it arrives at dealer lots in the spring, General Motors has announced.

The Colorado ZR2 offers an off-road suspension system that incorporates a high-end damper technology, as well as front and rear electronic locking differentials that can be activated by the driver with the push of a button.

A 3.6L DI DOHC V-6 that makes 308 horsepower and 275 lb.-ft. of torque is the standard powertrain. The ZR2 is only available as a four-wheel-drive vehicle.
The 2017 Nissan Titan King Cab offers available 6-person seating, wide-opening rear doors and a rear seat delete option for commercial use with its flat floor and secure in-cab storage space. Photo courtesy of Nissan.

Nissan will offer King Cab versions of its 2017 Titan and Titan XD pickups, which allows Nissan to offer three cab options to buyers, along with the previously announced Single Cab and Crew Cab TItan models.

The King Cab Titan and Titan XD debuted during a media event at the Chicago Auto Show, which runs from Feb. 11 to 20. Nissan also brought a specially built Nissan NV Cargo X and two specially modified Titan PRO-4X models.

The King Cab arrives with two traditional doors and two wide-opening rear latching doors. It offers available six-person seating and an available rear seat delete option for commercial use with its flat floor and secure in-cab storage space. The seat delete option also removes the rear heater duct and rear roof-mounted assist grips and adds a flat rear load floor and rear wall finisher with tie-down hooks.

The new King Cab body features a roomy cab with a choice of front split bench seat or front bucket seats (standard on PRO-4X, optional on SV grade). A 60/40-split fold-down rear seat is also standard. Heated front seats are available with PRO-4X and SV grade, along with optional heated and cooled front seats on PRO-4X.

The Titan King Cab will be offered in 4x4 and rear-wheel drive and three grade levels  S, SV, and PRO-4X  with a standard 390-hp 5.6L Endurance V-8 engine and 7-speed automatic transmission. Titan King Cab offers an available maximum towing capacity of 9,420 pounds and maximum payload capacity of 1,640 pounds when properly equipped.

The Titan XD King Cab will be available in 4x4 and rear-wheel drive and three grade levels  S, SV, and PRO-4X. Titan XD King Cab can be powered by the 390-hp 5.6L Endurance V-8 engine with 7-speed automatic or Cummins 5.0L V-8 Turbo Diesel  rated at 310 hp and 555 lb.-ft. of torque  matched with a heavy-duty 6-speed Aisin A466ND automatic transmission. Titan XD King Cab offers an available maximum towing capacity of 12,510 pounds (diesel engine) and maximum payload capacity of 2,710 pounds (gasoline engine) when properly equipped.

As part of the American Titan lineup, the new King Cab was developed with core Nissan planning, design, engineering and manufacturing teams contributing from Tennessee, California, Michigan, Arizona, and Mississippi. The Titan and Titan XD King Cabs are assembled in Canton, Miss., with its V-8 engines assembled in Decherd, Tenn., and Cummins diesel engines assembled in Columbus, Ind.

All 2017 Titan and Titan XD models are covered by Nissan's "America's Best Truck Warranty"  featuring bumper-to-bumper coverage of five-years/100,000-miles, whichever comes first. Vehicles covered by the new warranty, which includes basic and powertrain coverage, include all V-8 gasoline and diesel powered models.
Business / Companies

by Staff reporter

ALBAN Chirume, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE), who was suspended this week for sanctioning a listed entity's cash call, despite reservations from the listing committee, could face the chop after falling out with the bourse's board.Chirume is being investigated over a litany of allegations, some of which are unrelated to the latest debacle, which involves Econet Wireless Zimbabwe's rights issue to raise US$130 million to pay offshore debts.A stockbroking source said Chirume was also being investigated for incompetence.The loans were guaranteed by Econet Global, the major shareholder in the company.The development comes as Econet's legal team has already prepared to defend any hostile move against its cash call, which was approved at an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) held against the ZSE board's instruction that the firm calls off the shareholders' meeting over a number of issues.Sources indicated that the working relationship between the ZSE board and its listing committee had irretrievably broken down due to alleged insubordination by Chirume.He allegedly ignored concerns raised by the listing committee over Econet's planned rights issue and proceeded to approve the telecommunications company's cash mobilisation initiative.Indications are that the telecommunications firm was likely to challenge the standing of the ZSE's board chairperson, Caroline Sandura, should the bourse refuse to accept the outcome of the EGM, which overwhelmingly voted in favour of the company's plans for the rights issue.Sandura has been accused by Econet of being conflicted in the case due to the fact that she is the company secretary for a rival, State-controlled telecommunications firm, TelOne.She had ordered Econet not to proceed with the EGM, saying her board wanted the mobile telecommunications firm to clarify a number of technical concerns.On Monday, Sandura's board sent Chirume on forced leave for allegedly approving the publication of a circular by the mobile telecommunications company to raise US$130 million through a rights offer.Some sections of the market were quick to link Sandura to the suspension of Chirume over the allegations of insubordination.A legal practitioner said while some acts of insubordination may not be serious enough to warrant dismissal, there were instances when this was too grave to warrant such action. For example, he said, instances when an employee is insubordinate to a superior in situations involving members of the public or external parties.The probe over Chirume appeared to have taken a trajectory that apparently sought to gather sufficient evidence to make dismissal an appropriate sanction, one insider indicated.But it would appear the battle may become protracted, particularly given concerns that Sandura may have, through her board's latest moves, sought to undermine Econet, the largest telecommunications firm by subscribers, a situation that would abet her own employer, TelOne, who last week rolled out a national broadband project under a US$98 million China Exim Bank facility.She denied this in an interview with the Financial Gazette.The project was granted national project status, meaning that components for the project would be imported duty-free.TelOne competes with Econet's sister firm, Liquid Telecom, a data, voice and internet protocol provider in eastern, central and southern Africa, which supplies fibre optic, satellite and international carrier services to Africa's largest mobile network operators, internet service providers and businesses of all sizes.Liquid Telcom also owns ZOL.At present, TelOne and Zol Zimbabwe are fiercely competing for WiFi market share in the country.There have been some unkind exchanges between Econet and the ZSE regarding the EGM.Econet said the ZSE board had no jurisdiction to deal with the approval of rights offers or the listing of securities on the bourse.Econet also alleged conflict of interest that stemmed from the fact that Sandura was employed by their competitor.Econet charged that the ZSE board had "no jurisdiction to deal with the approval of rights offer circulars or the listing of securities on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange".The company said it considered the ZSE board's notice "to be extremely disruptive and an infringement of the rights of the company and its shareholders".Sandura has dismissed reports alleging conflict of interest in this case, saying she has issued the ZSE statement on behalf of its board."I am not conflicted at all; this is a rights issue and TelOne is not involved with stock exchange issues. If I was (conflicted), I would have declared my interest and excused myself. TelOne is not at war with Econet at all and is not listed on the ZSE," she told the Financial Gazette.Sandura said the board had sent Chirume on forced leave to investigate why the circular was approved without the involvement of the listing committee."We want to understand the motives behind what transpired in the past two weeks. As ZSE, we want to be guided by transparency and fairness. We are not fighting Econet or him (Chirume), but we want answers to what has been happening. As regulator, we should set standards that do not compromise the integrity of the stock exchange. As investigations are being done, we cannot rule out unearthing other issues that are not in line with the stock exchange's best practices by those being investigated since they assumed office," she said.Chirume, who was appointed ZSE CEO in May 2013, will be receiving all his benefits while on forced leave.A source said the listing committee's concerns had been "completely ignored" by Chirume, who went on to approve Econet's proposals without question.This, the source said, had peeved members of the listing committee as well as the ZSE board.All resolutions at Econet's EGM were passed by an average of 74 percent votes, while 16,5 percent opposed the resolutions and 9,5 percent abstained.Taking out the Econet Global vote, the group said 56 percent would still have voted in favour of Econet's plans.Under the proposal, shareholders were to follow their rights by paying the subscription price of the shares and linked debentures directly outside Zimbabwe into the company's debt account with African Export-Import Bank.The ZSE board met on January 30 and directed the bourse's management to write to Econet advising them that Econet Global should not participate in the rights issue vote at the EGM.Econet Global will be the underwriters of this transaction.Sandura said Econet Global was a related party as the majority shareholder of the telecoms company, and therefore should not have participated in the voting process.
During the 2017 Chicago Auto Show, Mitsubishi Motors revealed a sneak peek on the Limited Edition version of the 2017 Outlander Sport. The vehicle had a load of features to die for.

The limited edition vehicle is fitted with an alloy fuel door. The vehicle has an 18-inch wheel and also has been fitted with fog lamps. The vehicle also has HID headlights, a rearview camera, and a nifty Limited Edition badge reported Motor Trend. The Outlander also had black door mirrors.

It is reported that the vehicle will be available in seven colors. When we take a peek inside the vehicle, we can see that the steering wheel, shift knob, and brake lever has a black fabric and red stitching. The pedals look cool as it is made of aluminum.

It might be a bad news for the rear passengers but the car has heated front seats. Apple CarPlay inside the car is what will entertain the passengers in the car.

There are reports that the 2017 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport Limited Edition will be available during this month. It is stated that the starting price of the vehicle will be $21,995, reported Detroit News.

"As the brand sales leader, Outlander Sport does an exemplary job of offering consumers unmatched value at an attractive price," said Don Swearingen, executive vice president and chief operating officer, Mitsubishi Motors. "We've now taken that approach one step further by integrating additional standard equipment and technology into the Limited Edition at a price point that is unprecedented within the broader CUV segment."

The release of the limited edition Outlander is one of the strategies of Mitsubishi Motors as they are slowly shifting gears and are planning to focus more on crossovers and SUVs at this time. The company's major shareholder, Nissan, renders a lot of support for the company to do this. It is rumored that Mitsubishi Motors is planning to make the announcement in Geneva.
The Apple Company has been building an electric vehicle supposedly an open secret in the automotive industry. They are pushing its team to start production of an electric vehicle as right on time as 2020. However, regardless of the possibility that it's true still a couple of years away from reality.

Google in connection to the fruit "apple" have devoured for many great years does not show up until page four. That is the manner by which vital Apple Inc. is. Still, to develop the company, Apple CEO Tim Cook needs to investigate new organizations. Vehicles, particularly digital ones, are the tough stage for versatile network and the information gathering that would result. Very little is thought about this dark operations joint wander with BMW, which is being produced in profound mystery, yet this comes from an inside source.

The company is generous to the point that it will spend a billion dollars on the venture and after that just leave if it sees no future. They may choose to scrap its auto effort or setback it if officials are discontented with the progress, as they have done before with other mystery projects, the people said. The auto group, which as of now has around 200 individuals, started increase enlisting inside the recent months as the company searched out specializes in technologies for batteries and robotics, said one of the people.

The current enlisting exertion at A123 started with Mujeeb Ijaz, a former Ford Motor Co. engineer who established A123's Venture Technologies Division, which concentrated on materials research, cell item improvement, and advanced concepts. He started in the American company in June and started enlisting direct reports from A123's venture technologies division, which he had headed.

Apple is great at creating innovation. However, automaking is, and will keep on being a blocks and mortar suggestion," Matt DeLorenzo, an expert at Kelley Blue Book, wrote in an email. "Apple will require an accomplice, maybe a Chinese manufacturer, with a framework if it will hit the five-year objective."
Everybody probably never heard of Anthony Jannarelly, but he's very popular when it comes to his works. His company, Jannarelly Automotive, a UAE-based automaker who revealed its retro-style Design-1 roadster prototype in Dubai. He was also the one who design the famous and the world's most expensive car, the Lykan Hypersport.

Jannarelly outlined its roadster with no such conclusion or even a lot of a windshield to talk about, yet customers have apparently asked for one. Furthermore, the response that Anthony Jannarelly concocted is somewhat innovative. Jannarelly Automotive is currently showcasing a surprising way to deal with its Design-1 roadster. The solution evidently includes a secure rooftop structure that, instead of folding in reverse as most do, is pivoted forward, not similar to the canopy seen on many military airplanes.

The car's doors will operate automatically of the side windows, which turns up with the rest of the roof structure. So getting in and out for either driver or passenger will apparently require opening the whole thing. That won't be so much of fun in the rain, but the car envisioned was more of a plaything than a day by day driver.

Also, the car highlights a tubular steel chassis with aluminum structural elements and a body that consists of a mix of fiberglass and carbon fiber. Powered by a 3.5-liter V-6 borrowed from Nissan that lies behind the two-seater cockpit.

Furthermore, the standard output of the car is 300 horsepower, but the French designer said that he is open to installing performance upgrades depending on the client's preference. The car's performance will depend on parts used, but the car's standard setup can go from 0-60 mph acceleration in just 4 seconds and a top speed of 135 mph.

Jannarelly first introduced some renderings of the Design-1 roadster late 2015. The vehicle has since made its world debut with its official launch held at the Dubai classic car dealer, Tomini Classics.
Maserati recalls over 50,000 in total of its line of luxury vehicles on two separate occasions. The first recall involved an electrical short-circuit and the second for a fuel leak, as issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Both vehicle issues could potentially lead to fire hazards.

According to the NHTSA, approximately 39,381 models of the 2014-2017 Quattroporte, Ghibli, and Levante were part of the first recall. These luxury vehicles were manufactured between June 1, 2013, and Dec. 31, 2016.

The report determined that earlier-mentioned three vehicles "may have been manufactured with an incorrect seat wiring harness layout." This would lead to the seat wiring harness to rub against the metal points found on the seat or seat frame assembly.

Autoweek reports that Maserati said in a note to its dealers: "Through normal seat adjustment operation, and over time, this can lead to an inoperative seat adjustment system, and in rare cases, a potential risk of fire due to an electrical short to ground between the seat wiring harness and the seat adjustment motor assembly."

Maserati's second recall is composed 10,897 2014-2015 Quattroporte and Ghibli of its luxury vehicles. Also, all these vehicle units could potentially contain 100% of the defect.

According to CNET, the defect in these vehicles is attributed to a fuel leakage at the fuel line quick connectors. This is due to an excessive peeling of the plastic fuel line end during the assembly process. Another cause of the leakage could be due to an insufficient cleaning of the lines during assembly.

In the first recall, Maserati will inform 2014-2017 Quattroporte, Ghibli, and Levante owners through a first-class email. In order to fix the vehicles in question, they will have to first inspect and then replace the wiring harness, when called for. The recall should start on March 21.

For the second recall, this could begin by the end of February. Owners of 2014-2015 Quattroporte and Ghibli vehicles should bring the units to their dealerships so that the affected fuel lines will be replaced, of course, free of charge.

Further, the Italian automaker has informed dealers to cease selling any of the earlier-mentioned affected units, just until the recall has commenced.

Maserati is in hot waters as these combined two separate recalls would total to over 50,000 vehicles in the United States, alone. And this is part of a growing number all over the world. Following 3 recalls last year, the Italian automaker recently recalled every model of the Levante S in the United States thanks to a transmission glitch.

This incident could potentially affect the brand's name and its reputation all the while trying to break into the luxury vehicle market. The question now is: When will all the recalls end?
It has been years since Lamborghini debuted the Urus concept. The Italian luxury car manufacturer is finally getting ready to begin production on its luxury SUV.

The Lamborghini Urus SUV. Stefano Domenicali, CEO of Lamborghini, has confirmed that the production of the Urus SUV will start in April of this year. Just like the Bentley Bentayga, the Urus will also be capable of going off-road.

About the Urus going into production, Domenicali said, "As you know, this is an entirely new process so the first few cars will be prototypes." He also added that the company's new SUV will keep the Urus badge when it finally goes into production. More details will be forthcoming with Domenicali telling Digital Trends, "I would say that in regard to the SUV, you will learn a lot of things in the next couple of weeks."

When production does start for the Urus, the company will initially build pre-series models as the process of producing the vehicle is an entirely new process. Domenicali has stated that 2017 will be a very big year for the Italian luxury car manufacturer and to not underestimate "the big step we're taking".

The Italian luxury car manufacturer had announced last year that the Urus will also come in a plug-in hybrid powertrain. This is in addition to the 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 which is standard.

The Urus going into production will double the current number of yearly deliveries of the company. It is expected to sell around 3,500 units when available.

Currently, all vehicle production is done at the company's only factory in Sant'Agata Bolognese, Italy. With the Urus' production already confirmed, the Italian luxury car manufacturer is looking into expanding its only car factory.

No other details have been made available about the Urus. With the vehicle going into production this year, it should be expected to be made available for sale sometime in the next year.
Nintendo President, Tatsumi Kimishima sat down with TIME magazine to discuss the plans regarding Nintendo Switch. In the interview, Kimishima expressed how the company is focusing on the Switch March 3 release and its future success.

When asked about the functions and features that owners will see once they boot their consoles on March 3, Kimishima ends up silent about it since Nintendo has not finalized everything yet. But, Kimishima explained that Wii U owners should not expect core apps for Switch.

Another surprising statement by Kimishima is Nintendo Switch lacking we browsers at launch. Even though the eShop will be fully operational, it is still very surprising knowing that it lacks on of the important features.

In other news, Remember the day when report claims Nintendo and Nvidia were working on a new console together? Also, Eurogamer's report regarding Nintendo Switch using Tegra X1? These reports arose a lot of speculations regarding the chipset the hybrid console will use. Apparently, ARM, the company who supplies Cortex CPUs used in Nvidia chipsets confirmed this allegation.

In a blog post, ARM says "See what Nintendo Switch has up its sleeve for March 3, powered by 4x ARM Cortex-A57." Yes, that says it all. Nintendo Switch will use Nvidia Tegra X1 as its chipset. Thinking it will use the latest Pascal architecture? The answer is no.

According to Nintendo Life, the silicon inside Nintendo Switch will feature some customization on the basic X1 rather than using a totally new offering. Well, this news is pretty familiar to everyone. But, this points out the official confirmation on what chipset the Switch will use.

Just for a quick refresher, the Tegra X1 has four Cortex-A57 cores that run at 2.0 GHz. Meanwhile, Nvidia's Tegra P1 exhibits two Denver2 cores plus four Cortex-A57 cores. So, do the math. Clearly, it is a shame Nintendo is powered on 2015 chipset models. The Tegra X1 is used on Nvidia Shield Android TV released on 2015.
Hawaii is a destination dreamed by most of the people. The state is best known for its good weather, perfect setting, magnificent views, beautiful blue waters, and exquisite cuisine.

According to US China News, more than eight million visitors come to the Hawaiian Island every year. Most noticeable are the billionaires who are in the market for their next vacation home. They spend large amounts of money to have a slice of paradise that they can call their own. However, tech elite Mark Zuckerberg brought a lawsuit against hundreds of Hawaiians in an effort to buy the islanders out of their parcels on his 700-acre oceanfront estate. Tech elite Mark Zuckerberg had to drop the lawsuit because he received multiple threats of protest outside his gates.

Business Insider reported that Mark Zuckerberg is not the only tech elite with a multimillion dollar estate. Tech elite Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, once owned an entire private island, but despite that, he also bought property on the Big Island of Hawaii. The property was move-in ready, with a 12,000 square foot main house, living quarters for employees, a private harbor, and a bridge that connects to a small island.

Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, also owns a property on the Big Island. His property contains around ten structures that overlook piles of black lava rocks and the Pacific Ocean. The PayPal co-founder has a property in Maui for which he spent whopping $27 million. The property is made up of four interconnected pavilions curled around a courtyard.

Tech elite Michael Dell, the CEO of Dell Technologies, owns the Raptor Residence. The tropical getaway comprises three lots atop the longest stretch of waterfront in Kukio. Even the richest people have a hard time topping Oracles Larry Ellison, who purchased the island of Lanai. Reportedly, Ellison bought 98% of the island because he wanted to experiment with environmentally sound ways to live.
News / National

by Staff reporter

THREE spouses of top Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) officials are accused of forming a private company, which they allegedly used to siphon money from the force's Kuyedza Women's Club.This emerged yesterday as suspended Assistant Commissioner Fortunate Chirara appeared at the Harare Magistrates' Court on a charge of stealing $500 from the club's coffers.In her defence, Chirara, through her lawyer, Sibonile Kamupira, told the court that Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri's wife, Isabel, Assistant Commissioner Justice Chengeta's wife, Miriam Maidei, and Support Unit Commissioner Mekia Tanyanyiwa's wife, Clara, formed a private company called Marblegold Enterprise (Pvt) Ltd, which they used to supply various materials to Kuyedza Women's Club.Chirara told the court that the $500, which she was alleged to have stolen, was actually withdrawn on Isabel's orders to facilitate the registration of Marblegold Enterprise.She further revealed that Isabel and Miriam were directors, while Clara was the secretary of the company in which they were all shareholders.Chirara, who was in charge of the Kuyedza Women's Club administration, told the court that she would receive instructions from senior police members' wives on various procurement orders.She also told the court that after registration of the company, Chihuri's wife approached her saying Marblegold Enterprise had been awarded a tender to supply cooking oil and that she needed $2 000 to acquire an AMA certificate and to produce a fake company payroll indicating that the company was operational.Chengeta told the court he was justified to stand in the dock as a State witness, as he was the head of police human resources and the club fell under his ambit in the ZRP.Chengeta, however, later admitted that the financial audit revealed no anomaly, but still insisted Chirara misappropriated the funds, which the audit team would reveal in court.The trial was postponed to February 21. Isheunesu Mhiti appeared for the State.
Choosing which airplane to build is something deserving of serious consideration. There are so many cool designs and differing capabilities, it can leave you scratching your head. Taking a systematic approach to selection can eliminate the pain and error from the process. Lets explore whats involved and how to get off to a good start.

Before we talk about what to build, we need to understand why you would like to build. What are your goals for building an airplane? Its very important that you are candid with yourself at this stage. Too many folks have rushed into projects without thinking it through, as demonstrated by the plethora of partially completed airplanes out there on the used market.

If you are building only to save money, you may not have the right motivation to actually finish the project. Most homebuilts are only worth the cost of materials, with no consideration for the time invested, thus any savings would be minimal over simply buying a flying example.

To build an airplane you must have a desire to work with your hands and learn. It will take large doses of perseverance and patience to see it through, but you can do it.

This is not to deter anyone from the dream of building an airplanequite the contrary. But the key to success is having all the information, so you can be adequately prepared. In other words, you need a real-world plan! The rewards will be well worth the effort.

No matter what kind of aerial conveyance you seek, there are two fundamental elements for selection that limits virtually everyone: cost and complexity. If you choose a machine beyond your budget, successful completion is unlikely. Similarly, if you opt to build something that is too complicated to build or fly, frustration and abandonment are likely to ensue. Setting good guardrails here will establish the foundation for the remaining decisions.

Mission Capability

So, what do you want to do with the airplane? As you are pondering this very important question, remember this key concept: All airplanes are compromises. The more multifaceted it is, the more you sacrifice in each of the given categories, as compared to a purebred. An extreme example is the various roadable airplane designs. They generally dont make great road vehicles or great airplanesrather they do an adequate job of both.

There are some good generalists. The wildly prolific RV series is pretty good at aerobatics, IFR cross-country cruising, and short-field workbut it cant touch a Pitts, Lancair, or Kitfox in their given specialties.

If you are already flying a similar aircraft, then you are fully aware of what you want or need. But many of us build with a dream in mind. It might be a dream to have the fastest, most efficient airplane on the block, or it might be to carry loads of cargo off a short, unimproved strip, or to fly local aerobatic flights. Take as much time as you need on this question because you need to be as accurate as possible.

Beware of mission creepthe tendency to keep bolting on goodies to expand your airplanes capabilities. Many builder/pilots have thought, if I just add this one more component, then I can do this with my airplane. But pretty soon, their beautiful machine can be overweight and over budget. In my case, I equipped my aircraft for IFR, but in three years of flying it, I have yet to file an IFR flight plan.

Research

Like virtually every aspect of construction, determining what to build requires research to obtain a good result. As you comb through the myriad of options, your focus should begin to narrow. Before I built my current kit aircraft, I was looking at opposite ends of the spectrum. I started out seriously considering a Pietenpol (plansbuilt). While I still love the classic parasol, Im happy with my final decision.

A good strategy is to write down what you plan to do with the airplane. Just eyeball it, and then rank each wish with a score from 1-10. Refer back to this matrix as you are going through the decision-making process.

Once you have picked which airplane you want to build, youre done, right? Not so fast! Youll still have to determine what modifications you might make or options you might add, if any. I dont recommend any deviations that alter the structure or flight characteristics.

Any changes, however minor, need careful consideration to avoid mission creep and its associated pitfalls. It can be really easy to let your imagination get the best of you, and suddenly, the obtainable becomes the impossible. The little things add up; they take time, money and, in most instances, they add weight, the nemesis of airplane designers.

RANK CAPABILITY or ATTRIBUTE

1 Four Seat Capacity

2 1000 nm + Range

3 Fast Build Option

4 Short Field or STOL Performance

5 Construction Type (Metal, Wood-Fabric. Composite, Steel-Fabric)

6 IFR Capable

7 200 mph + Cruise

8 Taildragger

9 Two Seat Capacity

10 Approved for Aerobatics

Controlling Costs

The budget you establish for your project needs to be carefully thought out. It can be very hard to account for all the unexpected expenses, so youll want to take a conservative approach. Over a five-year build, a good deal of money can leak out of your wallet if you arent careful. Your budget needs to allow for:

 Purchasing all the components, parts, and supplies needed to finish the project. This includes tools, educational expenses, and consumables.

 Unforeseen expenses. Most builders have to re-order or re-create something that they messed up. Also, there are considerations for modifications or additions that are much easier to do while the airplane is under construction. These will tug at your wallet, which is fine, but dont go overboard.

 Having enough money after the plane is complete to be able to fly it regularly. This means: insurance, monthly hangar rental, fuel, oil, and maintenance expenses. I have seen a lot of folks finish their pride and joy, only to be forced to sell it due to the realities of biting off more than they could chew financially.

How you accumulate the finances is up to you. Many builders pay for the kit as they are building it, rather than saving up the whole amount and delaying construction. This is obviously a personal decision, but it can be fundamental in selecting the aircraft you choose. Some kits must be purchased in one big lump. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the plansbuilt machine that literally starts with blueprints and raw materials; they are very inexpensive to start, but the trade-off is slow progress and complexity. There are no right or wrong answers, just considerations.

There is one constant in the budgetary arenait will cost more than you expect. If you dont like surprises, I would do a very detailed analysis of all the known costs, and then add, say, 15% to that number.

You need to give yourself plenty of room for life to throw you a curve ball. Lots of airplanes went on the market when fuel prices escalated because owners either couldnt pay or didnt want to pay for the added hourly expense. Take this into consideration when choosing your mount.

Time Management

Again, you need to be realistic. If you really think you can dedicate 40 hours a week to the project, work full-time, and keep up with family demands, you need to reconsider. Certainly if you are retired or work part-time you can make quick work of most projects out there. In any event, youll need to develop a ritual and stick to it. Make building a habit, right from the beginning. Just be sure to temper that with other demands on your time. I found it easy to give up TV and surfing the web in exchange for getting out in the garage and getting my hands dirty, but only after I did it consistently for several months. The key is to do something everyday, even if for just a short time.

One thing that motivated mesilly, but truewas maintaining an online log of my work. I invited friends and relatives to bookmark it so they could see where I was on the project. This provided inspiration, particularly when I received feedbackI couldnt let my audience down.

You need to be sure to find the balance between burning out, making progress, and not creating collateral damage with the rest of your obligations. Find this happy place and your project will be an experience youll cherish for the rest of your life. Fail to heed this warning and you wont complete itor worse. Remember, this is supposed to be fun.

Resources

As you move through the various stages of decision-making, youll need help. The more help you seek, the better the result. Obviously, the Internet is a great way to fill in the blanks and get information that we could only dream of obtaining a few years ago. Just heed this warning: Some online experts are ill-informed at best. Good sources are publications such as this one and the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) archives. Most designs have a specific support network you can also tap into for additional help and insight.

Be sure to get out there and talk to people. Seek out other builders and ask lots of questions. Go to events where homebuilders congregate; it is impossible to not come away more informed if you talk to people who have already blazed the trail.

Dont forget to reach out to companies that will be traveling with you on this journey. These include kit and plans providers, parts suppliers, insurers, and even lenders. You need to view these companies as partners and work with them early and often.

Conclusion

The good news is, we have literally thousands of choices; the bad news is, we have literally thousands of choices! Determining which airplane to build out of all the available options requires a great deal of introspection and self-awareness. The questions you must answer have to be carefully balanced against all of the internal and external variables, and honesty is key.

It is easy to agonize over a decision as immense as this, but it doesnt have to be a burden. In fact, it can be fun and very educational just going through the process. I promise the time and energy expended will pay off in the long run.

This article originally appeared in the February 2015 issue of Kitplanes magazine.

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9 February 2017 10:53 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Azerbaijans Defense Ministry has released footage of the elimination of the Armenian Armed Forces` diversion group .

A new diversion attempt by the Armenian militaries was prevented on the contact line of the troops on February 7. Azerbaijans Defense Ministry announced that the Armenian armed forces were shooting at the positions of the Azerbaijani army from different directions along the line of contact by using mortars, large-caliber machine guns beginning from 16:55 (GMT+4) February 7, the ministry said.

The Armenian armed forces tried to use the ceasefire as distraction, while carrying out a diversion in the other direction in the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh.

However, the Azerbaijani army detected Armenias actions in advance and retaliated. The Armenian side had to retreat, suffering losses, the ministry said, emphasizing that the Azerbaijani armed forces suffered no losses.

The footage shows Azerbaijani armed forces open fire at the Armenian diversion group, who then runs off in panic. The footage also shows the dead and wounded being transported away and a military vehicle being destroyed at the site.

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9 February 2017 16:58 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

The Armenian economy suffered a dramatic deterioration in 2016 due to rising borrowings and capital outflow. The picture is not pretty for 2017.

The volume of external debt seriously increased, unemployed jumped and migration further intensified, while the foreigners refused to invest in this poor South Caucasian country. Economists believe that the volume of Armenias external debt, which currently stands at $5.122 billion, may exceed 50 percent of GDP in 2017.

Ukrainian economist Alexander Okhrimenko, who is the President of the Ukrainian Analytical Center, is sure that the Armenian economy will continue to stand idle because of the unresolved Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

He noted that the economies of neighboring countries of Armenia and Azerbaijan - the sides to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict- differ considerably in terms of their potential. Okhrimenko said that the GDP per capita in terms of purchasing power parity in Armenia is by $10,000 less than in Azerbaijan.

Like many experts, he believes that the protracted Nagorno-Karabakh conflict does not give Armenia any opportunity to build normal business relations with its neighbors in the region. As a result, there is no possibility of economic cooperation. Armenia's economy is in self-isolation because of this conflict, the analyst said.

The expert went on to say that the share of industry in Armenia's GDP is decreasing, and other industries are not able to ensure the normal operation of the economy. Moreover, the trade balance of Armenia is negative; meanwhile, the national debt keeps growing. The national debt of Armenia is one of the highest in the world, Okhrimenko stressed.

The country also faces a big problem such as migration. The countrys population decreased by 12,100 people, or 0.4 percent, over the past year. Okhrimenko explains this with the fact that Armenia has no prospects. Given that Armenia has no future, it is clear that many people will try to go abroad, there is logic in this, the expert said.

He added that labor export is a profitable business for the Armenian authorities because the Armenian emigrants ensure currency inflow into the country.

Every year Armenia receives about $1 billion transfers, and this is more profitable for the ruling regime than exporting goods from the country, which does not even exceed $150 million, Okhrimenko said.

The Ukrainian expert also stressed that any military conflict is a dead end for a country. Wars have never brought economic success and prosperity; therefore, it is difficult to understand the logic of Armenia, that conducts senseless military conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh for more than 25 years, the analyst said.

The continuing aggression of Armenia against Azerbaijan, its territorial claims to neighboring countries pose serious obstacles to the expansion of regional cooperation. This policy leads to Armenia being locked out of all regional projects.

Azerbaijan has repeatedly announced that as long as Armenia does not put an end to its aggressive policy, its participation in any regional project will be impossible.

Azerbaijan's internationally recognized Nagorno-Karabakh territory became a conflict zone following Armenia's aggression in the early 1990s. As a result of Armenia's armed invasion, 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory fell under Armenia's occupation and over 1 million people turned into refugees and IDPs

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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9 February 2017 18:17 (UTC+04:00)

By Simon Zadek

Digital finance has turned out to be an unexpected revolutionary, simply by enabling low-cost financial inclusion. Thanks to new financial technologies (fintech), consumers can shop seamlessly, migrants can send hard-earned money to their families cheaply, small businesses can access credit in minutes through Big Data-driven profiling, and savers can shape their own investment destinies. But if fintech is to reach its potential to advance the global public good, another factor must be accounted for: the environment.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) recently published a report, Fintech and Sustainable Development: Assessing the Implications, exploring how digital finance can be leveraged for environmental gains. As the report points out, by reducing costs and boosting efficiency, fintech is already mobilizing green finance, enabling poorer people to access clean energy through innovative payment systems and facilitating green savings for rich and poor alike.

The Swedish start-up Trine, for example, enables savers in downtown Stockholm to fund distributed solar-energy systems in rural areas thousands of kilometers away. Kenyas M-KOPA is leveraging the hugely successful domestic mobile payments platform, M-PESA, to make clean energy available to poorer communities. Other experiments highlight the green potential of blockchain and cryptocurrencies.

The rewards of such initiatives could be substantial  for households, financial-services providers, economies, and the environment. With this in mind, a coalition of digital-finance companies, the Green Digital Finance Alliance, was launched at this years World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

One of the alliances founders, ANT Financial Services, has a mobile-payments platform with 450 million users in China alone. The organization is now working with UNEP to offer an experimental green energy app that rewards users for reduced carbon use.

Fintech is part of a broader digital revolution, which also includes Big Data, the Internet of Things, blockchain, and artificial intelligence. Such technologies enable us to record and trace the lifecycle of products  even money itself  thereby determining precisely how they were used, how they were financed, and what impact they had on the environment. So ANTs new green energy app translates financial-transaction data into implied carbon emissions. This approach, if extended across more payments platforms, could engage hundreds of millions of individuals in factoring carbon-savings into their daily lifestyle choices.

All revolutions carry unintended costs, and are susceptible to diversion, if not outright corruption. The fintech revolution is no different. Loss of privacy is the most obvious risk; indeed, despite efforts to create safeguards, it is all but inevitable. But there are also less visible risks, stemming from the disruption of existing markets. As the journalist and author Michael Lewis emphasized in his bestseller Flash Boys, the risks created by high-frequency trading on the financial returns of our lumbering, twentieth-century pension funds are far-reaching.

Another casualty will be regulation, at least for a while, as policymakers struggle to figure out how to manage an increasingly complex, dynamic, and virtual financial system. There is also a risk that the commoditization effects brought by speed and Big Data will undermine the conditions for sustainable development.

Though these risks cannot be eliminated, they can be mitigated. Regulators, in particular, will need to work fast to keep up, as best they can, in a fast-changing financial milieu. But their goal should not be only to protect against fintechs risks; they should also aim to guide it, so that it can reach its full potential. For example, fintech should be aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals  an effort that demands new standards, market innovation, and collaboration.

Countries worldwide should integrate digital finance into their sustainable-development financing plans. Coalitions like the Green Digital Finance Alliance can support these efforts, by mobilizing collective action on the part of financial institutions and their stakeholders.

Multilateral measures will also be important. This year, the G20, under Germanys leadership, will focus on building resilience, improving sustainability, and assuming responsibility for climate change  all areas where digitization must be part of the solution. Likewise, the G7, under Italys leadership, will explore how to finance green small and medium-size enterprises, taking advantage of fintech-powered innovations.

With the right approach, fintech can be harnessed to strengthen economies and societies, while helping to preserve the environment. Fortunately, this could well be the year that green digital finance comes of age.

Copyright: Project Syndicate: Greening Digital Finance

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9 February 2017 10:00 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend



The Lithuanian government is ready to introduce certain benefits and guarantees for Azerbaijani investors in order to attract them to economic zones, said Lithuanias Ambassador to Azerbaijan Valdas Lastauskas in his interview with Trend.



Today, there are Azerbaijani investments in the tourism sector of Lithuania. This is, firstly, the construction of hotels in the zones of business tourism, noted the diplomat.



Many Azerbaijani investors are interested in this type of activity, and benefits and guarantees are being considered for them.



Lastauskas said that Lithuania has five free economic zones, which may be interesting for Azerbaijani investors.



He noted that Lithuanias seven free economic zones are located in the countrys economic centers and offer excellent conditions for business development by providing ready industrial areas with necessary infrastructure supporting services and tax benefits.



The enterprises that will work in these zones are exempt from income tax for six years, and will pay a tax in the amount of 7.5 percent in the next ten years, said the diplomat.



He went on to add that those enterprises dont pay revenue taxes and real estate taxes.



Via Lithuania one can also enter the European market, and Klaipeda Seaport, railway lines, highways are a good opportunity for this, the ambassador said.



Azerbaijan also opens good opportunities for Lithuanian investors, Lastauskas said.



In May 2016, Baku hosted the meeting of representatives of railway agencies of Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Georgia and operators of the 'Viking' train project.



The Azerbaijan Railways CJSC submitted a letter on joining the Viking international railway project. The protocol was signed by all participants of the project. Azerbaijans Karvan Logistics was defined operator of the 'Viking' train through the countrys territory.



The diplomat noted that Lithuania supports this project and is doing everything possible to make this supply route of goods from the East to the West and from the South to West via the Baltic Sea and further to Scandinavia attractive.



"There are many players in the market, Lastauskas added. According to the statistics, the freight traffic among Western Europe, the Far East and China tripled from 2005 to 2015. It means that the flow will continue to increase.



The best conditions for the transportation of these goods should be offered, the ambassador added. In this regard, the project has good opportunities. The route covers several countries. A number of technical

issues, including those in the field of customs procedures, must be solved."



There are no obstacles for the development of cooperation in the economic sphere, the diplomat added. It is possible to improve relations in this field and increase the trade turnover level.



The diplomat said that the trade relations between Azerbaijan and Lithuania expanded and the trade turnover increased from 2011 to 2015.



"The crisis has affected the economic relations between Azerbaijan and Lithuania since 2016 and the trade turnover even slightly decreased, he added. But the main thing is that all main conditions for work are available. We have a good legal framework that protects investments and

joint projects. The cooperation between regions of the two countries is being more and more developed every year and it is beneficial for both countries."



There are many areas for cooperation, the envoy said, adding that the most important is desire and mutual interest.



Lithuania is glad that Azerbaijan and the European Union intend to soon start negotiations on a strategic partnership agreement. This will also expand opportunities of Lithuania as an EU member country for further strengthening of cooperation with Azerbaijan, he said.



The European Council adopted a mandate for the European Commission and the high representative for foreign affairs and security policy to negotiate, on behalf of the EU and its member states, a comprehensive agreement with Azerbaijan in November 2016.



The new agreement should replace the 1996 partnership and cooperation agreement and should better take account of the shared objectives and challenges the EU and Azerbaijan face today.



The agreement will follow the principles endorsed in the 2015 review of the European Neighborhood Policy and offer a renewed basis for political dialogue and mutually beneficial cooperation between the EU and Azerbaijan.

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9 February 2017 11:29 (UTC+04:00)

By Nigar Abbasova

The pharmaceutical industry of Azerbaijan is taking shape steadily as more foreign countries seek to enter the sector. VPS Healthcare Company became the latest company wishing to build a plant for manufacturing medicines in Azerbaijan.

The Abu-Dhabi based company signed a relevant MoU with Azerbaijan Investment Company on February 9. The document envisages cooperation of the sides in the sphere of joint production of medicines, which will meet all international standards.

Prior to the signing ceremony, Azerbaijani Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev met with the Director of the Healthcare Company Shamsheer Vayalil.

Mustafayev gave an insight in investment and business environment of Azerbaijan, saying that the work is underway to establish a sustainable pharmaceutical industry in the country.

Vayalil, in turn, said that Azerbaijan has a good potential for developing the sphere, noting that his company is highly interested in cooperation.

VPS Healthcare runs a fully integrated healthcare business and operates some 20 clinics, as well as 13 hospitals and recreation centers in different countries of the world.

The company plans to cooperate with Azerbaijan in the spheres of healthcare, management and production of pharmaceuticals, Mustafayev told reporters after the meeting.

We agreed to build a pharmaceuticals production plant in Azerbaijan and preliminary documents have been signed. After our experts make an in-deep analyses, they will hold other necessary negotiations on the construction of the plant, said Mustafayev.

In late 2015, the government announced that Azerbaijan will create its own enterprises that will manufacture medicines to cease dependence on imports.

A lions share of medicines is currently being delivered from abroad. Import of drugs increased some 20 percent in 2016 as compared to 2015, with some 80 percent of drugs being imported from the European countries and the remaining part falling to a share of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.

Within the next three years, a number of pharma plants are expected to be put in operation in the country. A groundbreaking ceremony for the Azerbaijani-Russian joint pharmaceutical plant Hayat Pharm was laid in early November 2016. The enterprise is planned to produce some 80 types of medicines, turning the country into a manufacturer of high-quality medicines within two years. Some $74 million will be invested in the project.

A foundation stone for the Azerbaijan-Iran pharma plant was laid in the Pirallahi Industrial Park early this year. The construction of the plant will take around a year and a half, while the plant will start producing 84 kinds of medicines in the third quarter of 2018. The major part of drugs is planned to be sold on the domestic market, while a certain part will be exported. The construction of the third pharmaceutical plant is planned to be launched in March 2017.

Besides, Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey, Cuba and some European countries are also interested in cooperation in such fields as healthcare services and pharmaceutical industry.

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Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova

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9 February 2017 15:13 (UTC+04:00)

By Nigar Abbasova

A consortium of French Societe Generale and BNP Paribas, as well as the French branch of the HSBC Bank has issued a credit worth 277 million for Azerbaijan.

The financial means will be used for the purchase of locomotives, which will operate on Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway road.

Azerbaijan Railways launched a long-term program for the sustainable renovation and modernization of its railways in 2006. The program included reconstruction of infrastructure and gradual switch from direct current to alternating current as well as gradual replacement of obsolete trains running on existing lines.

In this regard, in 2014, the authority signed a contract with Alstorm Company on the supply of locomotives, while the final agreement was reached in May 2015.

The total worth of the contract is 300 million.

Alstom will supply some 50 electric locomotives with 40 of them being freight and 10 dual voltage passenger locomotives. Delivery of the units is scheduled to begin by late 2017.

The AZ8A electric locomotives with the capacity to pull up to 9,000 metric tons at a speed of 120 km per hour are considered to be one of the most powerful in the world.

The BTK is expected to expand multi-modal transportation opportunities, ensure the growth of passenger and freight transportation and boost the transit potential of the regional countries.

Turkeys Transport Minister Ahmet Arslan earlier said that work on the 826km corridor would finish in mid-2017. By that time, the railway will be ready for the start of commercial services.

The peak capacity of the railway will stand at 17 million tons of cargo per year. At the initial stage, this figure will be one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo.

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Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova

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9 February 2017 18:04 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov voiced Azerbaijans interest in purchasing Russian civilian aircraft MC-21.

The minister, talking to Ria Novosti on February 9, said that representatives of Azerbaijans civil aviation participated in the presentation of the aircraft, and expressed the countrys interest in this plane.

The fleet should be renewed, but it is too early to talk about specific details, Mammadyarov said.

MC-21, which is also referred to as main plane of the 21st century, is assembled and developed by Russias Irkut Corporation, a part of the United Aircraft Corporation.

MC-21 is a family of new generation medium range single-aisle jets with wide-body aircraft comfort. The aircraft combine the latest trends in global aviation with Russia's experience in aerospace industry. The first test flight is scheduled for February-March 2017.

The Irkutsk Aviation Plant is planning to produce three versions of the MC-21, including the 150-seat MC-21-200, the 180-seat MC-21-300 and the 212-seat MC-21-400.

Alexander Rubtsov, the general director of "Ilyushin Finance Co." earlier said that Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) will sign a contract on the purchase of 10 aircrafts MC-21 in the first quarter of 2017.

The sides signed a memorandum of intent for purchase the aircrafts in June 2016, expiration date of the document is February 2017.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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9 February 2017 14:14 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Deweer Gallery presented the first solo exhibition of young and talented Azerbaijani artist Aida Mahmudova in Belgium.

This solo show also marks the beginning of the representation of the artist by Deweer Gallery, Azertac reported.

Mahmudova was born in Baku, Azerbaijan in 1982 and lives and works in Baku. She graduated from Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design in London.

Her paintings can be situated in the long Azerbaijani tradition of oil painting, especially in her attitude towards expressive and abstractive forms, her interest in the landscape and free use of color.

Mahmudova practices an intuitive form of painting that incorporates fragments of the real and erroneous traces of memory through an aggressive, almost performative and physical painterly act. The landscape-like paintings are dissected by forceful lines, an unexpected use of materials, intrusive forms and a strong depth of color, all of which emerge in an almost organic manner throughout her intense creative process.

The talented artist's sculptural installations and paintings have been shown at many international exhibitions. The most important include: Umwelt, YAY Gallery, Baku, Azerbaijan (2016), Elysium, Baku Museum of Modern Art, Baku, Azerbaijan (2015), Passing by, Leila Heller Gallery, New York, U.S. (2015) and Internal Peace, Barbarian Art Gallery, Zurich, Switzerland (2013).

She also participated in numerous group exhibitions such as the exhibition Vita Vitale in the National Pavilion of Azerbaijan at the 56th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy (2015), Candy mountains and oil coasts in the Perm Museum of Contemporary Art in Perm, Russia (2015), Love Me, Love Me Not at the 55th Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy (2013). She also took part in group shows at the Kunsthistorisches Museum Neue Burg in Vienna, Austria, in the MAXXI, the National Museum of 21st Century arts in Rome, Italy (2012-2013), the Multimedia Art Museum in Moscow, Russia (2012-2013) and at Philips de Pury & Company in London, UK (2012-2013).

Aida Mahmudova is the Founder and Creative Director of YARAT, which promotes the national art both in Azerbaijan and internationally.

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News / National

by Staff reporter

A VILE robber and rapist serving a 20-year sentence was yesterday back in court for allegedly violating a woman and recording the sickening sex attack on video.The man allegedly wore a condom to rape a second victim twice while she had her seven- month-old infant strapped to her back.Xolisani Nkala (30) of Bulawayo appeared before Regional Magistrate Mr Chrispen Mberewere who remanded the matter to February 22 after the accused alleged that he had not been served with court papers."In all fairness how can I stand trial without going through State papers? I'm not even aware of the allegations I am facing because I was framed," said Nkala.Prosecuting, Mr Simbarashe Manyiwa alleged that sometime in 2013, Nkala, who pretended to be a tout to lure his first victim, led a woman to a vehicle on the pretext that it was bound for Gwanda."The woman got into the vehicle and the driver drove off along Harare road. Realising that the route taken by the vehicle was not heading to Gwanda, she asked the driver who told her that he wanted to collect a spare wheel from an undisclosed place," said Mr Manyiwa."He drove along Harare Road until he reached Fort Rixon turn off. He then asked Nkala and the woman to disembark."He said Nkala took the woman to a nearby bush and demanded her phone and money threatening to kill her if she didn't comply."In fear, the woman gave Nkala R400 and her Nokia phone. He ordered her to undress and wore a condom before raping her once while recording the attack with a cellphone," said Mr Manyiwa.The woman reportedly walked back towards Bulawayo and was picked up by a motorist in Ntabazinduna who took her to the United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH) where she made a report at the police post.On the second count, Nkala allegedly met a woman at the City Hall in the Bulawayo Central Business District.Mr Manyiwa said he asked for her cellphone number and she gave him."He called her the following day claiming that he had secondhand clothes for sale. He asked her to meet him in town so that they could go to Ntabazinduna where the clothes were," he said.At Nhlambabaloyi, he allegedly led the woman, who was carrying a baby on her back, into a bush.Nkala allegedly forced her to kneel and raped her twice from behind.Mr Manyiwa said Nkala had been sent to two psychiatrists for mental examination.It is the State's case that both doctors confirmed that he was mentally stable and was a drama king who is good at feigning mental disorder.In court yesterday, Nkala made the gallery roar with laughter when he listed a string of political gurus that he claimed were his witnesses."I want to call my witnesses, they know better what happened in these cases. Avail for me Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko, Temba Mliswa, Dorcas Sibanda, Prince Sibanda, Joice Mujuru and Nelson Chamisa," he said."I'm not happy with the way these courts treat me. As it is I'm serving for a crime I didn't commit after being convicted by one of the magistrates. I won't plead to anything because I haven't seen those papers."Mr Mberewere told Nkala that he would not entertain his drama in court and would proceed with trial."You are not here for fun. You are here for your trial and your medical reports show that you are mentally fit to stand trial. This court will not look into what another magistrate did but will look at your current charges," he said."It's up to you to stand there and make fun or you behave and proceed with trial. You can't come here and start talking about politicians who have nothing to do with the matter at hand."
9 February 2017 14:31 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Belarus has fulfilled its obligations under the international treaty on rendering legal assistance when extraditing blogger Alexander Lapshin to Azerbaijan, Dmitry Mironchik, press secretary of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry, head of the Department of Information at the ministry, said on February 9, BelTA reported.

Extradition is a purely legal issue, said Mironchik. Treaties must be respected.

Lapshin was extradited to Azerbaijan from Belarus on February 7.

Earlier, the Supreme Court of Belarus rejected the complaint filed by Lapshins lawyer regarding his extradition to Azerbaijan.

Alexander Lapshin is a citizen of several countries and has had a criminal conspiracy with Armenians living in the occupied Azerbaijani territories. He also illegally visited these territories.

Lapshin is accused of violating Azerbaijani laws on state border in April 2011 and October 2012.

In order to promote the illegal regime created in the Azerbaijani territories occupied by Armenia, Lapshin presented Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state on his social media account, and supporting the independence of the unrecognized regime he made public incitements aimed at violating Azerbaijans territorial integrity on April 6 and June 29, 2016.

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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9 February 2017 17:53 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Baku is ready to take part in a Moscow meeting of Russian, Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement, but there are no suggestions on specific dates yet.

Azerbaijans Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov announced about this in an interview with RIA Novosti on February 9.

The idea was voiced when I was in Moscow. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov proposed to hold a trilateral meeting of the foreign ministers of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. I said that I'm ready, the minister said.

However, specific dates of the meeting were not discussed.

This will require coordination of schedules. We have not received a proposal for a specific date, but we give our fundamental consent, Mammadyarov added.

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. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.

Armenia still controls fifth part of Azerbaijan's territory and rejects implementing four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.

The minister further noted that Azerbaijan is concerned about the situation on the Metsamor nuclear power plant in Armenia and considers it outdated.

We and our regional partners always worry about the Metsamor NPP. It is quite outdated, like the Chernobyl option, Mammadyarov said.

He added that despite the fact that Rosatom [Russias national nuclear corporation] provides some extra money for the power plant, it is already out of date.

If something happens, not only Armenia but everyone will suffer, the minister added.

The construction of the Metsamor NPP began in 1970. After the devastating earthquake of 1988 in the town of Spitak, it was closed; but in 1995, despite numerous international protests, the Armenian government renewed the operation of the NPP.

The European Union insisted on closing the NPP offering 200 million Euro. Despite this, the NPP is still functioning as no alternative sources of energy exist in Armenia.

Many international ecologists and scientists also keep noting that the seismic activity of the area makes the operation of the nuclear power station in Metsamor an extremely dangerous enterprise.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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9 February 2017 10:17 (UTC+04:00)

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev made a phone call to President of the Republic of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko on February 8, Azertac reported.

The presidents highlighted successful development of bilateral Azerbaijan-Belarus relations. President Alexander Lukashenko`s official visit to Azerbaijan late last year was recalled with pleasure during the conversation. Successful implementation of the agreements reached during the visit was stressed.

They expressed confidence that relations in political, economic and other fields would continue to develop.

The heads of state exchanged views over the prospects of bilateral relations, and spoke of the future meetings at the presidential level.

President Ilham Aliyev extended gratitude to the Belarussian side and personally President Alexander Lukashenko for demonstrating a fair position and taking a resolute step to extradite Alexander Lapshin, who was charged under several articles of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan, to the country. President Ilham Aliyev described this step as compliance with the rule of law and international conventions, as well as a manifestation of friendly and strategic partnership between Azerbaijan and Belarus.

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9 February 2017 10:45 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Mexican Ambassador to Azerbaijan Rodrigo Labardini met with the Chairman of the Azerbaijani State Committee for Urban Planning and Architecture, Abbas Alasgarov.

The embassy reported that during the meeting, Alasgarov informed the envoy about the Committee, its history, as well as its functions.

He also spoke about the reconstruction and restoration works carried out in Azerbaijan in the last 10 years.

Labardini, in turn, provided his interlocutor with information about the capital of Mexico  Mexico city, that currently has 21 million inhabitants. He also mentioned the last stages and peculiarities of the city building in Mexico.

The diplomat stressed that the both countries could get reciprocal profit as a result from the collaboration between the bodies responsible for urbanization and architecture.

The parties expressed wish to establish and develop bilateral links in the city building sphere.

The growing economy of Azerbaijan is attractive for Mexico, while Azerbaijan also attaches importance to the development of relations with Mexico. Relations are actively developing in all directions, including culture.

The Azerbaijani State Customs Committee reported that the trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Mexico amounted to $19.03 million in January-September 2016, as compared to $20.76 million in the same period of 2015.

Azerbaijans export to Mexico amounted to $188,100 and import amounted to $18.84 million in the first nine months of 2016. This includes the sale of equipment for the oil industry, electronic appliances.

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9 February 2017 12:53 (UTC+04:00)

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev received the rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights on Azerbaijan, Alain Destexhe, Azertac reported.

Azerbaijan is one of nine Council of Europe member states currently subject to the Assemblys monitoring procedure, which involves ongoing dialogue with the authorities, regular reports and occasional debates on a states progress in honoring its obligations and commitments to the organization.

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9 February 2017 14:55 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

The Institute of Information Technologies (IIT) of the Azerbaijani National Academy of Sciences (ANAS) has launched scientific researches to study individual psychological aspects and psychometric analysis of Internet dependence of children and younger generation.



Work in this direction can be arranged, for example by means of questionnaires, the IIT told Trend.

The Institute stated that there are a number of methods, which can help to assess the level of Internet addiction.

Psychological disorders are measured by psychometric methods, according to the Institute, which said that Internet dependence in a certain sense, can be attributed to bad habits such as the dependence on tobacco, drug addiction, alcoholism, etc. and its necessary to apply appropriate methods of "treatment".

For example, if a person is in critical condition, then it is necessary to send him/her to a psychiatrist, if the situation is less severe, then to solve the problem through counseling, according to the IIT.

The Institute added that there are also preventative methods, such as holding preliminary consultations concerning the fact, for example, how much one can stay on the Internet and what negative consequences might be.

Currently, Internet addiction disorder, more commonly called problematic Internet use, is widespread. People in a certain sense, are living in a virtual reality, which often leads to physical and psychological disorders. Internet addicts mostly feel like strangers in a society and this can ultimately lead to suicide, according to the IIT.

Children start their acquaintance with high technology and the Internet from early infancy. Adults should realize both physiological and psychological danger of the Internet and all the means to access it. Indeed, the network may contain something that is absolutely not intended for children's eyes

Today, many countries are engaged in the study of this problem, the Institute says. There are countries where this issue is regulated by state programs, at the legislative level and advertising in the media, etc. In Azerbaijan, the study of the phenomena is still at an early stage.

As of July 2016, about 73.65 percent of Azerbaijani teenagers for the past 12 months used Internet for communication. Azerbaijan, with over 9.6 million people, where about 77 percent of the population has an internet connection, is committed to take measures on the safety of children in Internet.

Earlier, Teaching and Innovation Center of the IIT announced about creation of a center of child safety on the Internet, engaging in an intellectual analysis of the obtained information, thus playing an important role in solving this problem.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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9 February 2017 13:26 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

The State Committee for Refugees and IDPs, chaired by its Chairman, Deputy Prime Minister Ali Hasanov, held an extended meeting with the participation of the Committees staff.

The meeting exchanged opinions on the performance of tasks arising from the decree of the President Ilham Aliyev on establishment of unified monthly benefits for IDPs and persons equated to them, and the order on measures for the restoration of Jojug Merjanli village in Jabrayil region.

The recent presidential decree on determining a single monthly allowance for IDPs and persons equated to them is expected to considerably simplify a mechanism to compensate part of social need for people representing this category.



A monthly allowance of 36 manats ($19.21) shall be allocated for IDPs and those equal to them from January 1, 2017 instead of payments for food as well as communal and other services from the state budget for IDPs and those alike.

Hasanov stressed the need to strengthen the control in this sphere and prevent negative phenomena in the process of execution.

He added that there is a need to ensure soonest installation of meters at facilities inhabited by internally displaced persons.

Speaking about the work on restoration of Jojug Merjanli village, he said that the rebuilding work and relocating families is already underway.

In conclusion, he gave instructions to the relevant departments of the State Committee.

On January 24, President Ilham Aliyev ordered to restore Jojug Marjanli village in Jabrayil region of Azerbaijan, which was liberated from the Armenian occupation in April 2016 as a result of a successful counter-attack of the Azerbaijani Army.

Under the order, 4 million manats ($2.05 million) were allocated from the President`s 2017 Contingency Fund to the State Committee on Deals of Refugees and IDPs for the construction of 50 private houses, a school building and relevant infrastructure at the first stage.

More than 190 families out of 400 families, who once lived in the village, have already expressed desire to return to their homeland. The construction work in the village will begin soon, as first 50 families out of 190 will be settled in this village at the first stage.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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9 February 2017 18:15 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijan and France have discussed ways of developing the bilateral cooperation as Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov met with a delegation led by Jean-Vincent Place, French Minister of State for State Reform and Simplification, attached to the Prime Minister, member of the government, President of the Senate's Ecologist parliamentary group in Baku on February 9.

The ministers had an exchange of views on the current level of relationship and ways of advancing the bilateral cooperation between Azerbaijan and France.

Expressing satisfaction with his first visit to Azerbaijan, the French minister said that the goal of the visit is to get acquainted with the e-government and operative and transparent service system being successfully implemented in Azerbaijan in the framework of Open Government Partnership.

He added that the delegation held meetings in a number of government bodies of Azerbaijan for this purpose.

Minister Mammadyarov informed about the measures implemented in the country on the improvement of the e- government, increasing of transparency in service sector in the framework of Open Government Partnership.

Talking about the effective activity of ASAN Service model established in Azerbaijan in this regard, he emphasized that a number of countries show particular interest in this model.

The sides underscored the development of the bilateral cooperation in all fields, particularly economy, energy and culture. They noted the successful activities of French companies, especially Total in Azerbaijan.

The sides also expressed their conviction that the newly established French-Azerbaijani University in Baku will contribute to the expansion of cultural relations between the two countries.

The Azerbaijani minister also informed his counterpart about the latest status on the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. He stressed that as one of the Minsk Group co-chair countries, France has also to redouble its efforts in the settlement of the conflict.

During the meeting, they also discussed other issues of mutual concern.



Earlier, the French delegation was received by President Ilham Aliyev. Then, the sides highlighted the successful activity of Asan xidmt service and cooperation opportunities in this area.

ASAN Service center was created by the presidential decree in 2012. The Service which already has 11 centers across the country provides venues for state agencies to render their services in a uniformed and coordinated manner.

The service could reduce extra expenses and loss of time for many citizens, upgrade the level of professionalism, ensure a larger use of electronic services and increase transparency and strengthen the fight against corruption.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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9 February 2017 12:21 (UTC+04:00)

By Nigar Abbasova

Iran has increased its crude oil storage capacity by 10 million barrels through launching a new crude oil storage facility.

The Omid storage located close to the port city of Genaveh in southern province of Bushehr was commissioned on February 8, IRNA reported.

The facility was constructed by Irans private sector with investment of 280 billion rials (each USD makes 32,379 rials).

The project improves Irans oil storage and export capacity by 36 percent and consists of eight 1-million-barrel tanks, two 500,000-barrel tanks and four 250,000-barrel tanks.

The facility was constructed in an area of 100 hectares and will support oil exports from the southern Kharg Island Oil Terminal in the Persian Gulf.

Recently, Irans oil official revealed that the overall volume of the countrys oil reserves stood at 771.53 billion barrels, of which around 102 billion barrels would be recoverable at a rate of 24.6 percent.

Iran's in-place reserves of natural gas stand at 55 tcm, of which 33 tcm could be recovered at a rate of around 70 percent.

Currently, OPEC member Iran strives to increase oil exports in an attempt to regain lost share of the market due to the sanctions that were imposed in response to Iranian nuclear program.

The right to reach pre-sanction levels was the Islamic Republics main bargaining chip while pleading for an exemption from the OPEC producers supply-cut deal. Iran was given a leeway not to cut and its production was set at 3.797 million bpd as per the deal, below Tehrans ask for being allowed to reach 4 million bpd.

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9 February 2017 13:07 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Iran's Civil Aviation Organization inked on February 9 the first ever contract with Ireland on the expansion of aviation cooperation such as observing flight operation, continued flight eligibility, issuance of technical aid, repair and maintenance, IRNA reported.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was undersigned between Deputy Chairman for Standard at aviation organization Mohammad Javad Taghvaei and Irish Director General of regulations and flight safety Rolf James in Tehran.

The agreement includes the implementation of ICAOs Article 83 from the Convention on International Civil Aviation for Irish aircraft in Iran.

It is intended to provide better regulation and oversight of air safety in the case of international lease, charter or interchange of aircraft as ICAO describes it and consequently simplifies the procedures of the aircraft lease.

Reza Jafarzadeh, CAO.IRIs director of public relations said that in the framework of this agreement, Iran will be able to lease and operate Irish registered aircraft in an easier way.

Iran Aseman Airlines is now cleared to complete a lease-purchase contract with an Irish firm to acquire a total of 7 Airbus A320neo.

Iran has several private and public airline companies in operation, among which IranAir is the oldest one. The number of operational airports in the country is 46.

Earlier, the country signed a multilateral memorandum of understanding with German companies on the projects on development of its airports. The memorandum covers airport operations management, airport development, navigation infrastructures and consultation regarding commercialization of the airports.

Since sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic were lifted last year, Iran began to take steps to upgrade its air industry, revamp an aging airline fleet, equipment and airports.

When sanctions were eased in January after Iran certified that it had shelved its nuclear program, Tehran immediately opened talks with Boeing Co. and the European manufacturer Airbus to buy hundreds of aircraft. The deals represent the biggest commercial result of the nuclear accord.

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News / National

by Staff reporter

THE ruling Zanu-PF party has rubbished claims that it was behind the disintegration of the Zimbabwe People First (ZimPF) by infiltration after the party's leadership traded expulsions yesterday. In separate interviews conducted by The Herald yesterday, Zanu-PF leaders described ZimPF as a weak party formed from a weak foundation and would not stand Zimbabwean politics.ZimPF leader, Dr Joice Mujuru yesterday sacked seven top officials namely; Messrs Rugare Gumbo, Didymus Mutasa, Kudakwashe Bhasikiti, Luckson Kandemiri, Munacho Mutezo, Ms Margaret Dongo, and Retired Colonel Claudious Makova.Later in the day, the seven responded by also firing Dr Mujuru saying they were tired of her dictatorial tendencies. Zanu-PF national political commissar Saviour Kasukuwere said Zanu-PF had nothing to do with ZimPF squabbles, instead, he blamed ZimPF founders for forming a party out of anger.Kasukuwere said this had led to the party's disintegration before it was solid enough to stand a national election."We have always said ZimPF is a weak party, formed on a weak foundation with weak leadership and will not go anywhere," said Kasukuwere. He rubbished allegations that some of the leaders in ZimPF where actually Zanu-PF plants who had infiltrated the party resulting in repeated squabbles including the latest developments saying they were all Zanu-PF cadres who had infiltrated themselves."They all came from Zanu-PF, so they have infiltrated themselves. When you form a political party when you are angry, you do not get anywhere," said Kasukuwere.Zanu-PF Women's League deputy secretary Eunice Sandi-Moyo said Zanu-PF had nothing to do with Zim-PF's disintegration as it was too busy working to deliver on its promises to the electorate."We are too busy to infiltrate any party. We promised many things to the people and we are busy working on that," she said. She said it was in the public domain that those who started the ZimPF project were no longer able to sustain it, hence it had been embroiled in many squabbles including the latest expulsions.Sandi-Moyo however, said they were not expecting Dr Mujuru to expel anyone from her party since she also cried foul when she was expelled from Zanu-PF. She said her latest actions vindicated Zanu-PF as a party from expelling her when she was caught on the wrong side of the party's ideology."What this means is that (Dr) Joice Mujuru is acknowledging that if someone deviates from the party's ideology, they must be sacked. We are now vindicated as a party," she said.She also took a swipe at the expelled members saying they were an intolerant and impatient group of people experimenting with politics.Zanu-PF national youth leader Kudzai Chipanga said ZimPF proved that it was cold outside the ruling party likening the latest developments to miscarriage of a pregnancy.
9 February 2017 16:10 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

The European Union will soon let Ukrainians and Georgians visit the bloc freely.

A visa-free regime with the European Union (EU) for Georgia is expected to take effect from March29, and for Ukraine - June 12, Georgia Online reported wit reference to Rado Liberty reporter Rikard Jozwiak.

Earlier, the European Parliament, the European Commission, and the European Council decided on the date for the tripartite talks on the abolition of the visa-free regime for Ukrainian citizens.

Johannes Hahn , EU Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiation announced that Georgia should fulfill more than 40, and Ukraine more than 150, economic and political conditions of the EU, in order to achieve the complete elimination of entry visa.

Last year, the EU approved the completion of the legislative process of providing the citizens of Ukraine and Georgia with the visa-free regime with the EU member states.

The prospect of easier travel to Europe has been used by the pro-Western governments in Kiev and Tbilisi to win popular backing for painful EU-sponsored reforms.

Georgia, with only 3.7 million citizens, is an easier case for the EU but has been held hostage by the greater hesitation over Ukraine, which has 45 million people, and is stuck in a conflict with Russia.

Negotiations on visa liberalization for Ukraine and Georgia began back in 2008 as part of the Eastern Partnership Program. Georgia entered the practical phase of those talks in 2012 as it prepared for associate EU membership. Ukraine reached that stage in 2014. Ukraine abolished visa requirements for EU citizens back in 2005, and Georgia followed this example in 2006.

According to the Eastern Partnership Visa Liberalization Index prepared by the Visa-free Europe Coalition and the Stefan Batory Foundation, Armenia, Belarus, and Azerbaijan are the countries which are next in line to gain ratification of visa-free regimes.

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9 February 2017 17:30 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Kazakhstan, an energy rich Central Asian country, plans to increase hydrocarbon production through the expansion of the Tengiz field and increasing output from the Kashagan oil and gas field.

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev ordered to increase the volumes of oil production and refining at a meeting with Energy Minister Kanat Bozumbayev, the press service of Akorda reported.

The President emphasized the need to actualize projects in the sphere of producing and processing of energy commodities.

Oil production at Kashagan has started. Decision upon whether to expand the Tengiz field has been taken. In addition, we have handled the matter with Karachaganak. In this connection it is necessary to increase oil production and refining. To that end, we are carrying out modernization of three oil refineries, Nazarbayev said.

Tengiz, Karachaganak and Kashagan are the largest oil fields in Kazakhstan.

Tengiz, one of the largest fields in the world, is being developed by the Tengizchevroil consortium. The project's license area includes the Tengiz field and the Korolevskoye field, which is smaller, but has significant reserves. Recoverable reserves of the Tengiz and Korolevskoye fields are estimated between 750 million to 1.1 billion tons of oil. The total explored reserves in the drilled and non-drilled sites at the Tengiz field's reservoir stand at 3.1 billion tons, or 26 billion barrels.

Karachaganak is also one of the world's largest fields. Its oil and condensate reserves stand at 1.2 billion tons, and gas reserves exceed 1.35 trillion cubic meters. Roughly 45 percent of gas and 16 percent of oil produced in Kazakhstan are being extracted from this field.

Kashagan is a large oil and gas field in Kazakhstan, located in the north of the Caspian Sea. The geological reserves of Kashagan are estimated at 4.8 billion metric tons of oil. The total oil reserves amount to 38 billion barrels; some 10 billion out of them are recoverable reserves. Its natural gas reserves are over one trillion cubic meters. In autumn 2016 Kazakhstan launched oil production at the Kashagan field.

The President further noted the importance of conducting work on gas extraction and the countrys gasification, addressing the Balkhash thermal power plant construction, as well as energy facilities privatization.

In turn, the energy minister reported on the fulfillment of the energy production plan according to individual indicators, as well as the increase in the oil export by the end of 2016.

The oil production plan was 75.5 million tons; the actual amount is 78 million tons, the minister said, stressing that over-fulfillment observed due to production at Kashagan, where about 1 million tons of oil produced in 2016.

The minister added that oil exports increased to 62 million tons, of which 40 million tons were pumped by the Caspian Pipeline Consortium. For the first time the refined tar volume reached 325,000 tons due to stimulation by the state. Liquid gas production has increased by 136 tons,  Bozumbayev said.

The minister also spoke about liquid gas delivery expansion for the needs of motorists based on the agreement between producers and traders, condition of export electricity, plans for intensification of exploration and uranium mining decline prospects due to the unfavorable situation on the market.

Along with other non-OPEC producers, Kazakhstan agreed to cut its oil output to prop up oil prices and put an end to global oil glut. The country pledged to keep average monthly production at a 1.68 million bpd level within first six months of 2017.

Whether the country will agree to extend cuts to the second half of the year is still under a question mark, while the energy ministry of the country previously said that it is too early to talk about output reduction in the second half of 2017.

Kazakhstans proven oil reserves as of early 2016 stood at 30 billion barrels, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy.

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hypACT serum therapy for the regeneration of osteoarthritic bone and cartilage is entering clinical development

Krems an der Donau, Austria, February 09, 2017 / B3C newswire / --OrthoSera GmbH, an orthobiologics company developing serum-based solutions for musculoskeletal indications announces the closure of their Series B financing. All Series A investors teamed up with a family office and jointly invested in OrthoSera GmbH in order to fund clinical studies with hypACT. "We are very pleased with the continued support of our lead investor FastVentures, who together with Euroventures and Futurmed were instrumental in closing this oversubscribed financing round" says Bjorn Ehring, CFO of OrthoSera. "Futurmed has established a large portfolio of healthcare services investments in the region and their support signals OrthoSera's move into clinical development".

After the successful launch of BoneAlbumin in 2015, OrthoSera is introducing its next innovative serum-based product to the market. hypACT, a novel hyperacute serum has shown very positive effects compared to PRP and other blood derivatives in ex vivo osteoarthritic human tissues. This patent-covered serum extraction is currently being clinically administered in Europe with OrthoSera's CE-marked autologous hypACT Inject device. The initial indication of hypACT is regeneration of articular tissues, including cartilage and bone in the knee for the treatment of osteoarthritis patients. Clinical data is being gathered through a number of key opinion leaders in the field. "Serum therapies are on the rise and will be the next wave of orthobiologics in the coming years. OrthoSera has already shown with BoneAlbumin that serum addition has a very tangible clinical benefit in bone grafting, and we are thrilled to see how we can extend our therapeutic reach to the joint space with hypACT" says Dr. Zsombor Lacza, Founder and CEO.



About OrthoSera

OrthoSera GmbH is a commercial-stage regenerative medicine company with headquarters in Krems/Austria and subsidiaries in the US and Hungary. Serum-based approaches to treat various degenerative diseases like osteoarthritis is expected to become a game changer in the orthobiologics market. OrthoSera puts special emphasis on designing simple and affordable protocols allowing a wider patient population to benefit from their solutions. The first commercial product BoneAlbumin, an innovative albumin-coated bone allograft, is currently marketed in Europe with a special focus on dental and orthopedic indications.



Contact

OrthoSera GmbH

Dr. Marion Ettenauer

Dr.-Karl-Dorrek-Strae 23-29

A-3500 Krems an der Donau

+ 43 664 77 883 16206

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

www.orthosera.com
Opinion / Columnist

Dear Cabinet and Politburo membersCOMRADES, I think by now most of you know that in my whole life, I have never been on the losing side. I don't know what losing is like, right from my childhood right to this day.So I found myself in an awkward situation at the recent African Union (AU) 28th Ordinary Summit where the West successfully managed to bulldoze through a vote allowing Morocco to be re-admitted as a full member of the AU in blatant violation of the continental bloc's charter and founding principles.Morocco was rightly forced to resign from the then Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1984 under severe criticism from progressive leaders such as the late Samora Machel, the late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, Brother Kenneth Kaunda and other principled African leaders over its continued occupation of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (Western Sahara).Exactly 31 years later, knowing full well that most of the principled leaders are gone, the West, which is the primary beneficiary of the natural resources being plundered from Saharawi, managed to buy most of the AU's member States to vote for the re-admission of Morocco.This is what has infuriated me. Surely, how could we be forced to sit and vote side-by-side with a country that is occupying another African country on behalf of western imperialists? This is an abomination of untold magnitude.It is for that very reason that I have started consulting my peers in the region on the possibility of leaving the bloc en masse.For nearly three decades, the same West - which is plundering the Saharawi through their proxy, Morocco  has refused to conduct a United Nations-sanctioned referendum to allow the people of the Saharawi to choose between self-determination and becoming part of Morocco.Surely, we cannot remain part of an illegality like this. We just have to stand by our own principles just like we did with our membership to the useless Commonwealth.I know that there are some mischief-makers who have started drawing unbecoming parallels between the Saharawi-Morocco case and that of this criminal movement calling itself Mthwakazi. This a treasonous debate that, as a law-abiding citizen, I will not be drawn into. But the simple truth is that there are no similarities to draw between the two cases whatsoever  it is like comparing a jellyfish to a guitar!Talking about history, Cde Report is now getting the cat out of the bag telling all and sundry about Morgan's role during Gukurahundi! Don't the sages say those who live in glasshouses should never throw stones?Let us leave it there for now.Kindest RegardsYours SincerelyME AND CZ'S NOTEBOOKGoodCZ has made it very clear that he has no sympathies whatsoever for mobile phone networks the soothing bloodsuckers that have been fleecing poor Zimbos left, right and centre with impunity for many years.We are now being told that one of these companies, the one that most customers (especially the mobile data users) are always complaining bitterly about, is under investigation for possible tax-related crimes.This is good. Very, very good! The Shona sages have a saying zvaiwana gwarati kufura ivete!As a patriot, Dr CZ would rather have his money wasted by an irresponsible government, than losing it to individuals.You see, whether the allegations are true or false; in some cases those accused tend to deprive themselves of the benefit of doubt because of their atrocious track record.Here we are talking about the very same people, who a few years ago, in 2008 were selling SIM cards for anything up to US$250. If that very same SIM card is now being sold for US$0,50, what good reason can one give for selling it for that much then when the lines were being sold in US$, not Zim dollar equivalent? And they call it a blessing? Is that how God blesses people? These people have always ripped off Zimbos, so when a bigger creature pounces on them, they cannot count on our precious sympathies!Dr CZ has heard of some stories about some sisters that actually lost their v-rginity to some goons in exchange for these mobile phone lines - that was how precious these lines once became - how does one feel when they are now being given away for next to nothing?Country arrest!Some of Dr CZ's fans, who rely on him solely for facts, have been asking him to please tell them what charges the embattled Pastor Evan Mawarire was facing when he allegedly skipped the country and "fled" to the United States last year. They ask with sincerity if a private individual has to ask for permission from anyone to leave the country. Dr CZ had to educate them that there is something new in this country that is called being under country arrest (something equivalent to house arrest) a situation where one has to know on their own that the owners of the country don't want them to go anywhere. This was the condition under which Mawarire was when he decided to "flee". We hope this explanation suffices!Killjoy!Since the downgrading of Obert Mpofu to a rather obscure ministry that Dr CZ can't remember, we thought we could take a break from public officials who think their primary duty is to make life as hard as hell for the generality of Zimbos. We were dangerously wrong. Mpofu's job as a public killjoy (the opposite of public protector) has quickly been usurped with untold alacrity by Cde Dexter Nduna, the energetic Chegutu West Member of the House of Assembly.The brother should be appointed Prime Minister of this country because he has a solution for each and every problem in this country solutions that sadly start and end with further turning the screws on the hapless Zimbos.Remember the brother calling for a cancer tax? Instead of demanding that the government upgrades the country's dangerously narrow and dilapidated roads, he wanted all trees along the Bulawayo-Victoria Falls road to be cut down.Last year, he suggested that ministries should each be given a gold mine where the ministry workers would work to earn their upkeep.Now he has another hare-brained idea all cars should be inspected every year by the decrepit Vehicle Inspection Department for US$50 so that the cash-strapped government can pocket an extra several millions in addition to what it is already squeezing from the same motorists through traffic fines, layers of taxes and road user fees.Sometimes one wonders who is such a killjoy like this one representing in Parliament. Maybe it is high time government created a position for fundraiser general!One fan of Dr CZ suggested that before the vehicles are tested, the brother first gets tested himself because the devil in him makes Lucifer himself pinkish blue with envy.Inane!The reason that Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is giving to advance her possible candidature for the African National Congress presidency is so infantile. The reason  rather excuse  is simply that she is a woman! She is not giving South Africans any other excuse why they should entrust their future in her paws other than just that she is a woman. Being a woman will solve all South Africa's problems that is the reasoning according to Dlamini-Zuma who, despite long being divorced, still clings to that last name like a Savannah tick, yet she believes that all she has achieved came about because she was a woman! Being a woman is not a strength, but a weakness, exactly the reason why many candidates have lost elections, and for her infantile self to think of using that weakness as her only excuse to want to gun for the top office in that country shows that she is not someone who should be taken even half seriously. It is for that excuse that she is going to lose and lose dismally unless South Africans are silly as well and therefore looking for a false flower to decorate their public space.Effective debt collectionThis one came from one of Dr CZ's many Nigerian fans. Many who are struggling to collect their debts might need to try it:I called a married lady who owed me money, but she didn't pick my calls. I called over 10 times and still no answer.Knowing that her husband was not at home I sent her this message: "Hello Madam, I'm not calling for the money. I just wanted to tell you that some girls were fighting over your husband in town today. It was a big match and he just sat there watching. One of the girls managed to escape to his car and they drove off!" After a few minutes, she called, but I ignored the call.She kept calling and after 21 missed calls she sent a message: "Where was the fight? Where did they go? Do you know the girls? Please tell me, I am falling apart!" I didn't respond. After another round of five unanswered calls she sent another message: "I have your money! Please can we meet, so you tell me more?" I replied, "Okay, but you need to MPesa (mobile money) me the money so that I can pass by a petrol station and refuel then pick you up and take you to the girl's house!" Two minutes later, I checked my account balance and my money had been paid in full! I switched off my phone now am sleeping like baby!---------cznotebook@yahoo.co.uk
Where to find non-partisan ballot information Thank you for your non-biased bullet points explaining the three state ballot proposals in "A look at the three state...

Kautman-Jones endorses Davis Please support Meredith Davis in her re-election to the Genesee County Board of Commissioners - 8th District. I have had...
Missouris Information Technology Services Division supports 14 state agencies and about 40,000 employees across more than a hundred state offices. While those numbers were established, the number of devices on the network and their security status was not.

In 2012, Missouri State Chief Information Security Officer Michael Roling asked this question of his staff as they were about to complete a routine compliance audit: Exactly what devices are on our network, and are they all secure? Not having a clear answer to that question was a big problem.

As Roling explains, You cannot secure what you do not manage, so I wanted to see what was not managed and reduce risk by understanding what was happening on our network. The goal was to ascertain the status of all the devices on the network.

That included officially sanctioned, managed devices like HVAC systems and camera systems used by the Department of Corrections, as well as discovering devices on the network that were not sanctioned. We were surprised by the number of devices not managed, Roling recalls.

At the time of the audit, the IT Services Division was already in the process of reviewing solutions to this problem, but the findings of the audit demonstrated the urgency of applying for funding to address it. The first solution they considered did not meet their needs due to a lack of proper documentation about how it would be deployed on the network.

Finding a Solution to Meet the States Security Needs

Looking for another solution, Roling found ForeScout CounterACT in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Network Access Control. He reached out to the company to request a proof-of-concept evaluation at one of their agencies that had about 1,500 endpoints. The vendor deployed the system in a few hours, and it ran for 45 days, uncovering the devices that didnt meet compliance policies.

The agency that was evaluated was sold on the product, which was the key to moving forward because that agency was in charge of the funding. We planted the seed in that agency to highlight the success, Roling says. It worked.

At the time, Rolings team was building a case for a dedicated security budget. Among the items they were requesting was extending ForeScout to all state agencies. Getting the sign off on that took about a year.

Roling reports that a number of ForeScouts features contribute to the states security goals. For example, the continuous endpoint protection support ensures that endpoints are patched and up to date. The system also issues daily reports on compliance for machines, allowing his staff to be informed and take required action quickly.

Another benefit of this technology is that it plays well with other network security products via ControlFabric Architecture. What that means for him, Roling says, is that they dont have to make sacrifices when moving from one product to another.

For instance, the state had been using MobileIron but is transitioning to AirWatch. ForeScout accommodates both, making the shift work well without any loss of security features. It also makes it possible to automate tasks that analysts would otherwise have to handle.

Another example of integration is how ForeScout works with FireEye. When FireEye identifies malware on a machine, it communicates that directly to ForeScout, which immediately quarantines the machine. Since this happens automatically, staff members no longer have to drop what theyre doing to attend to the alert.

Weve been very pleased, Roling reports. Its a unique product that plays nicely with a security stack as complex as ours.
High school Senior Samantha Haapa has endured living conditions worse than many of us could ever dream of.

Start Right Now, a nonprofit dedicated to helping homeless teens

New facility opened on Wednesday

Expanding from Tampa to St. Pete

"It would get difficult on where and when we would be able to shower, and where and when we could go use the restroom," she explained.

When her mom gave birth to her baby brother, Samatha had to choose working over going to school, so she could keep food on the table.

"It was mentally stressful as I was trying to determine how we were going to make it work, because I thought it was my job to make it work," she said.

About a year ago, Samantha hit a turning point. A teacher from her high school introduced her to Start Right Now, a nonprofit dedicated to helping homeless teens with shelter, food, and resources to continue their education.

It's an effort that is now expanding from Tampa and into St. Petersburg. This new facility that opened on Wednesday, will be able to house an additional 50 students.

The facility has a brand new kitchen, study areas, classrooms, bedrooms, and a common space. It will begin housing female students next week, while the dorm for young men will open in August.

The organization is 100 percent funded by community donors.
Sen. Jeff Sessions was confirmed as the U.S. Attorney General Wednesday after another all-night debate by Democrats who fought the nomination.

Sessions confirmed as Attorney General on a vote of 52-47

Nelson voted against Sessions, Rubio voted for him

Sessions will be sworn in on Thursday

D.C. DIGEST: Latest News | Find your Congressman | Washington D.C. Calendar

Sessions, a Republican from Alabama, was an early supporter of President Donald Trump and is considered one of the most conservative in the U.S. Senate. He has taken a hard line on illegal immigration. He has also pledge to crack down on gun violence and the scourge of radical Islamic terrorism.

The final vote was 52-47. Among Democrats, only Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia voted for Sessions.

Republicans called him tough, but honest but fair and a good colleague.

However, Democrats question whether Sessions is too close to the president and will be able to act independently as his office is allowed in cases where Trump may have overstepped his bounds.

Democrats also worry Sessions is too weak on civil rights, and particularly voting rights.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, took to the floor Wednesday to voice his concern that Sessions will not fight efforts to block voting rights in Florida.

Nelson voted against Sessions confirmation.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, voted for Sessions Wednesday. He used his time on the floor of the Senate to talk about Russias human rights violations and growing presence in the world.

&amp;nbsp;

"I appreciate the friendship from my colleagues -- even those who, many of them who didn't feel able to vote for me," Sessions said to reporters. "They were cordial, and so we continue to have good relations and will continue to do the best I can."

Session's nomination is one of several that Democrats have fought because of concerns. It's caused uncharacteristic tension, even for a chamber that's been more and more polarized in recent years.

On Tuesday, Democrats held up the nomination with speeches. Republicans invoked a Senate rule to stop Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, from speaking against Sessions. Warren was reading a 1986 letter from civil rights activist Coretta Scott King opposing Sessions for a federal judgeship. McConnell said Warren impugned a senator (Sessions).

The move galavanized liberals across social media, who have used Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's words in rebuking Warren as a rallying cry.

"She was warned," McConnell said. "She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted."

On Thursday the Senate will debate Rep. Tom Price, the nominee for Health and Human Services secretary.

Sessions will be confirmed on Thursday.

Information from the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Saudi Arabia Has First Ever Women's Day, And Feminists Everywhere Rejoice

Saudi Arabia, ranked 134 out of 145 countries in the world for gender equality, just celebrated its first ever Womens Day.

From February 1st to the 4th, a gathering was held in the nations capital of Riyadh at the King Fahd Cultural Center. Mohammed Al-Saif, the general supervisor of the center, outlined the purpose of the event by stating, We want to celebrate the Saudi woman and her successful role, and remind people of her achievements in education, culture, medicine, literature and other areas.

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The three-day gathering featured speakers advocating for the expansion of womens rights and womens healthcare awareness. Among those speakers were Princess Al-Jawhara bint Fahd Al-Saud, who led a discussion about female education in the country, and Princess Adila bint Abdullah Al-Saud, who addressed the countrys heritage.

Although women were (finally) given the right to vote in 2015, Saudi Arabia is still the only nation in the world that does not allow women to drive or obtain a drivers license. Women are also legally obligated to have a male guardian  a father or brother to grant permission for her proposed life plans (i.e. school, work, marriage).

The event was intended for a female-only audience; however, outdoor activities were provided for husbands and children.

While the event may have thought to stir controversy and yield protests, Al-Saif claimed there were no efforts to end or challenge the gathering.

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Yet another example of strong women enabling each other across the globe.

Top Photo: Youtube

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- T. S. Eliot

Thoughts After Lambeth

"The World is trying the experiment of attempting to form a civilized but non-Christian mentality. The experiment will fail; but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time: so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization, and save the World from suicide."
Oregon Coast Under High Wind Warning, Flood Watch

Published 02/08/2017 at 6:29 PM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff





(Oregon Coast)  The National Weather Service (NWS) in Portland has issued many warnings and watches around the state, including flood watches and high wind warnings for the Oregon coast and coast range. Large swells along the ocean will translate to big waves battering the shores as well, which has brought a high surf advisory to the southern coast  but the northern half of the beaches will require caution.



The coast is looking at two to four inches of rain, the NWS said. High winds with gusts up to 65 mph along the beaches and headlands. Also, flooding is a possibility in the area. The valley is looking at one to two inches of rain with the possibility of flooding.

The high wind warning is in effect from 10 p.m. tonight through 10 a.m. on Thursday, with wind speeds growing to 35 mph up to 50 mph after midnight, and gusts up to 65 mph possible on beaches and headlands. The greatest impact will be in the overnight and early morning hours, the NWS said, between 3 a.m. and 9 a.m.

Localized power outages possible, the NWS said. Broken branches and tree debris on roadways, combined with heavy rain, may create hazardous driving conditions at times. A high wind warning means a hazardous high wind event is expected or occurring. Sustained wind speeds of at least 40 mph or gusts of 58 mph or more can lead to property damage.

Flooding is a big concern along the Oregon coast as well as much of the valley. A flood watch is in effect from now until late Friday for the majority of northwest Oregon and southwest Washington, including the coast range, the I-5 corridor, Cowlitz County and other areas.

The NWS is keeping a close eye on a variety of rivers, including the Nehalem in Clatsop and Tillamook Counties, the Wilson in Tillamook County and the Siletz in Lincoln County. Many rivers in in the Portland metro area and around inland towns such as Monmouth, Salem, Corvallis, Silverton and Dallas are at risk of flooding as well.

The NWS said rainfall totals today in the Oregon coast range are around one to two inches already.

The heaviest rain is expected overnight tonight, with totals of 1 to 3 inches, highest in the North Oregon Coast Range and South Washington Cascades, the NWS said. Snowmelt in the Coast Range and Cascades, especially below 2000 ft. elevation, will add to the runoff.

Those who live in areas prone to flooding should be prepared to take action, the NWS said. Landslide and debris flows are possible, with people and structures in canyons and near the mouths of canyons at an especially high risk.

Offshore swells will make for enormous waves on the beaches, prompting an advisory on the south coast (especially around Brookings). Beaches around Florence, Yachats, Newport, Lincoln City, Oceanside all the way up to Warrenton will be seeing combined seas of 18 feet tonight. On Thursday they get even larger at 21 feet, wandering up and down in height from 17 to 20 feet for the next day.

However, the timing of the waves is rather long, which means more impact at sea rather than on the beaches. Still, stay off jetties and smaller beaches, especially those with cliffs behind them that don't allow escape from the beach. Oregon Coast Lodgings for this event - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours

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The building with the circular facade where Calder Avenue and Phelan Boulevard diverges has a new owner.

Mobiloil Credit Union announced on Wednesday the purchase of the property at 3535 Calder Ave. The purchase was completed Monday, according to a news release.
The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus announced last month that The Greatest Show on Earth will be coming to an end after 146 years. The final show for their Circus Xtreme tour will be on May 7 in Providence, Rhode Island, and the Out of this World tour will end on May 21 in Uniondale, New York.

Through its history, the circus made several stops in Southeast Texas.
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Wes Anderson's sophomore film "Rushmore" once again put the city of Houston on the map in Hollywood, while also inspiring countless local filmmakers and actors.

Now, years later it's become one of the Houston-bred director's most-beloved films and it ushered in Bill Murray as the hipster icon we all know him as today.

RELATED: When 'Robocop 2' came to Houston

2018 will mark 20 years since the movie, filmed in and around the Montrose and River Oaks areas, saw wide-release. It made the rounds at fall film festivals and it had a limited run in December 1998 in New York City and Los Angeles and garnered the attention of Oscar voters.

Now Playing: Live inside cozy, perfect nostalgia on your next trip. Video: Travel & Leisure

Starring Jason Schwartzman as the precocious, oddly-mature high schooler Max Fischer and Murray as his would-be romantic nemesis, the film set the tone for the next two decades of Anderson films. It only cost around $10 million to make.

(Fun note: teenage werewolf Schwartzman had to wax his chest for a wrestling scene.)

Anderson's 1996 film "Bottle Rocket" with James Caan, Luke Wilson and Owen Wilson made him the darling of indie-film fans who were excited to see what else he had in him.

Murray was a fan favorite before "Rushmore," but his role as the morose Herman Blume seemed to ignite a mania about him we hadn't seen before.

RELATED: Houston wants to be a major film and TV production destination

He would star in Anderson's "Rushmore" follow-up "The Royal Tenenbaums" in late 2001. He's now been involved in eight Anderson films in one form or another. He will next be heard in Anderson's stop-motion "Isle of Dogs".

Houston kids were used as extras and nabbed bit parts in "Rushmore," making it a special one for locals. There are still stories running around about failed auditions and nuggets about the filmmaking process, which began in late 1997. Murray spent that Thanksgiving in Houston.

One of the most famous extras was Alexis Bledel, then just a hopeful young Houston thespian. Audiences would later get to know her as Rory Gilmore on "Gilmore Girls" three years later.

Another notable local extra was filmmaker Mark Armes, who is now a key member of the Free Press Houston and Day for Night festival and media empire. As a sixth-grader, he said he spent the shoot "drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes with Jason Schwartzman" according to a past interview.

The "Rushmore" crew spent roughly 50 days in production in Houston, wrapping in late January 1998.

RELATED: Director Richard Linklater needs your Houston photos, videos from the 1960s for a new movie

St. John's School, Lamar High School, North Shore High School, Delmar Stadium, the Forest Club and most prominently, Doug and Don's Barber Shop in the Heights were used as locations.

The cemetery where Max's mother Eloise Fischer is buried is the Hollywood Cemetery off North Main, just off I-45 North. Max's house was of course, just next door to the boneyard.

Murray's character stays at the Warwick Hotel, which was later revamped and re-branded as Hotel Zaza in 2007. His industrial pipe factory was located out in Baytown.

Craig Hlavaty is a reporter for Chron.com and HoustonChronicle.com. He's an intolerable native Texan with too much ink in his skin and too much brisket stuck in his teeth.
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In a world where almost everything can be bought from getting a ride from a stranger to having your groceries delivered  hiring someone to spoon you is one of the most unexpected services on the market.

And one San Antonio woman is a specialist.

Janet Trevino told mySA.com she is the currently the only professional cuddler in San Antonio and South Texas. The 37-year-old mother of four emphasized her services, which operate through Cuddlist.com, are completely platonic and non-sexual.

As you could easily imagine, Trevino said people are usually skeptical when she tells them about her profession.

"They don't believe me," she said. "They say, 'Oh no, it can't just be cuddling, it has to go to something more sexual.' But you can have a platonic and nurturing touch."

RELATED: Texas cuddle therapists challenge social taboos on touch, intimacy with snuggle sessions

Trevino said some customers have tried to "push the limits" of the session, but it has never gone so far that she had to cancel.

Cuddling is a full-time source of income for Trevino, who said she started last September.

In that time she has racked up a clientele of 50 people and more than 220 hours of cuddle time. Trevino noted that most of her clients are men, but she has worked with two women.

Each session lasts an hour and costs $80. Most weeks, she says, she works 13 to 20 hours. Trevino said one session lasted eight uninterrupted hours.

"It's very important that they experience touch," she said. "Touch is essential for healthy and living and they do experience a dramatic effect, I don't think we recognize how often we hold emotions in our bodies."

RELATED: Cuddlr joins ranks of Tinder, Grindr as platonic cuddling app for strangers

Trevino said some clients report that they have experienced well-rested nights of sleep and relief of chronic back pains as result of their visits.

"We hold memories in our muscles and our bodies, those emotions are there and a lot of people don't want to go there."

Aside from most of her clients being men, Trevino described some of them as being in relationships with little to no physical touch or retired military personnel who suffer from PTSD.

Trevino conducts screening calls with potential cuddling customers prior their meeting to ensure they are a match and the code of conduct for the non-sexual service will be followed.

"It's more than just spooning, you can sit and talk or watch a movie or dance," she said, adding that one client once requested to wrestle. "It could just be holding hands or sitting next to each other."

Cuddling takes place in a neutral room  in this case it's the living room of a home Trevino uses strictly for her work. Customers can opt for either the couch or a mat on the floor.

"It's about creating a culture of consent, I promise I won't do anything they're not comfortable with," Trevino explained. "I'm very conscientious and I ask before I touch a client, it's baby-stepping the whole process."

Trevino said she is able to maintain a relationship of her own, revealing that while her boyfriend trusts her, they do attend therapy.

mmendoza@mysa.com

Twitter: @MaddySkye
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Federal investigators say someone intentionally burned the mosque in Victoria, though they also said the evidence does not point to a "hate crime."

The Jan. 28 fire that burned the only mosque in the Texas city of Victoria, some 125 miles southwest of Houston, generated international media attention and more than $1 million in donations.

Community leaders said last week that they were praying the fire was an accident, but investigators said Wednesday that the fire was classified as "incendiary," meaning someone set it intentionally.

GENEROSITY: Texas synagogue offers use to Muslims whose mosque burned down

Shahid Hashmi, the mosque's president, said he was saddened by the news, but grateful for support from the local community. After the fire, local churches and the town's only synagogue offered to share their space for members of the mosque to worship.

Hashmi is preaching a message of forgiveness, though he also noted that "there is no way we will be able to ever forget."

"Individually, in our heart of hearts, we have forgiven him," Hashmi said. "But the law will take care of the punishment. We have nothing to do with that."

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, mosque leaders and Crime Stoppers have pooled $30,000 for information leading to the arrest and indictment of the person who started the fire, which did an estimated $500,000 in damage but did not injure anyone.

"Houses of worship are a sacred place in this country, and ATF is committed to devoting the necessary resources to solving this crime," said Fred Milanowski, the special agent in charge of the Houston Field Division.

If you have information about the fire, contact ATF at 1-888-ATF-FIRE (1-888-283-3474) or Crime Stoppers at 361-572-4200.

>>>Click through the gallery to see mosques in Houston
It took a historic tiebreaking vote from Vice President Mike Pence, but the Senate confirmed Betsy DeVos this week as education secretary. That vote is significant because if any of President Trump's Cabinet nominees would have been stopped, it would have been DeVos. But one by one, the president's nominations for Cabinet and other senior positions are moving forward.

That's not surprising since the Senate has 52 Republican members. Even if all Democrats and independents like socialist Bernie Sanders of Vermont vote against a nominee, Republicans can still unite and OK him or her. The two Republican votes against DeVos might be the most that any nominee receives.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia blocked the proposed merger between Indianapolis-based Anthem and Bloomfield, Conn.-based Cigna, the New York Times reports.

Here are six things to know:

1. Judge Jackson ruled the deal would yield higher prices for consumers and limit competition.

2. In her order, Judge Jackson said the merger would "diminish the prospects for innovation in the market. "

3. Cigna and Anthem have had squabbles pertaining to their merger, with Judge Jackson referring to the disagreements as "the elephant in the courtroom." In September 2016, news surfaced about the two companies accusing each other of breaching the acquisition agreement.

4. Anthem is set to pay Cigna a breakup fee totaling $1.85 billion as per the deal's terms if the merger does not come to fruition.

5. Anthem said the company plans to file a notice of appeal and request an expedited hearing of its appeal following Judge Jackson's decision.

Joseph R. Swedish, Anthem CEO, chairman and president, issued the following statement, "Anthem is significantly disappointed by the decision as combining Anthem and Cigna would positively impact the health and well-being of millions of Americans - saving them more than $2 billion in medical costs annually. "

6. The American Medical Association applauds the decision. Andrew Gurman, MD, AMA president, said, the following in a statement, "Today's ruling is an important victory for consumers. Coupled with the recent court-imposed injunction on the Aetna-Humana merger, the rulings demonstrate the vital role the U.S. Department of Justice and state attorneys general have in protecting patients and physicians from harmful mergers that substantially lessen competition in highly concentrated health insurance markets. The significant absence of health insurer competition in most markets is detrimental to patients and poses an important public policy problem. "
Biotechnology executives represent the latest industry speculating on how President Donald Trump's immigration ban will impact business, according to the Business Insider.

Here are four notes:

1. Nature Biotechnology published the letter, which 165 biotech executives signed, that details the industry's "deep concern and opposition to the executive order."

2. The letter says of the nearly 69,000 biomedical researchers working in the United States, almost 50 percent are born outside the nation's borders.

3. Many of the executives' colleagues feel the order gives the message that America is not accepting of any immigrants, even if the ban currently only applies to seven countries. The letter states, "Several among us have heard from employees about their deportation fears, how they do not feel comfortable leaving the country on business or how they now feel cut off from their family abroad."

4. The executive ban could have a major fallout in the biotechnology industry, the letter argues. The authors also state the industry is one that will play a crucial role moving forward in the 21st century.
The confirmation hearing for Seema Verma, President Donald Trump's pick to lead CMS, could happen "very soon," as the Office of Government Ethics nears an agreement, CG Roll Call reports.

Here are four highlights:

1. An HHS spokesperson said the ethics agreement with Ms. Verma would address any possible conflict issues.

2. CG Roll Call reports the Office of Government Ethics and Ms. Verma's agreement discussion could focus on contacts she made with CMS during her time as a Medicaid consultant. In 2013, Ms. Verma testified before the House's Energy and Commerce Committee's health panel about her clients in South Carolina, Maine, Nebraska, Iowa and Idaho.

3. When Ms. Verma spoke before the health panel in 2013, she detailed why she supported more state control of Medicaid programs, saying "These regulations disempower individuals from taking responsibility for their health, allow utilization of services without regard for the public cost, and foster dependency."

4. While many conservatives applaud Ms. Verma's selection, CG Roll Call reports Democrats may be wary of the pick over concerns of a reduced federal role in CMS' management. Ms. Verma played an active role in vice president-elect Mike Pence's ACA Medicaid expansion model, Healthy Indiana Plan 2.0.
Since its launch in 1965, Medicare has been one of the most influential programs for hospitals, health systems and other providers. Medicare has played a prominent part in various reform movements, including the shift from fee-for-service to value-based payment models, and the program's policies and reimbursement rates have acted as a catalyst for change nationwide.

The following list sheds some light on several facets of Medicare reimbursement, covering everything from the latest update to the Inpatient Prospective Payment System to mandatory bundled payment models.

Inpatient hospital reimbursement

1. Hospitals that fall under CMS' Inpatient Prospective Payment System agree to pre-determined rates to serve Medicare beneficiaries. More than 3,300 acute care hospitals and 430 long-term care hospitals receive payments under the IPPS.

2. Hospitals generally receive IPPS payments on a per-discharge or per-case basis for Medicare beneficiary inpatient stays. Discharges are assigned to diagnosis-related groups, which sort them by similar clinical conditions and procedures administered by the hospital during the stay.

3. CMS updates the IPPS each fiscal year. CMS released the FY 2017 final rule in early August.

4. Under the FY 2017 final rule, acute care hospitals that report quality data and that are meaningful users of EHRs will receive a 0.95 percent increase in Medicare operating rates.

5. That overall 0.95 percent payment increase reflects a positive 2.7 percent market basket update, a negative 0.3 percentage point update for a productivity adjustment, a negative 0.75 percentage point update for cuts under the ACA, a negative 1.5 percentage point documentation and coding adjustment as part of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 and an increase of about 0.8 percentage points to remove the adjustment to offset the estimated costs of the two-midnight rule.

6. Hospitals that do not submit quality data lose a fourth of the market basket update (2.7 percent), and hospitals that are not meaningful users of EHRs will be subject to a three-fourths reduction of the market basket update in FY 2017.

7. Under the two-midnight rule, which was introduced in the 2014 IPPS rule, CMS expected a decline in the number of long observation stays and an increase in the number of inpatient admissions. CMS proposed offsetting the cost through a 0.2 percent reduction in inpatient payments. The payment reduction was strongly opposed by hospitals and sparked lawsuits challenging the payment cut.

8. CMS removed this adjustment for FY 2017 and also its effects in FYs 2014 through 2016. "CMS believes the assumptions underlying the -0.2 percent adjustment were reasonable at the time they were made," wrote CMS in the final rule. However, in light of the unique circumstances surrounding this adjustment, the agency decided to remove it.

9. As part of the ACA, Medicare disproportionate share hospital payments will be reduced by 75 percent, or $49.9 billion, by 2019. CMS said in the FY 2017 final IPPS rule it will distribute nearly $6 billion in DSH payments in FY 2017, about $400 million less than in FY 2016.

10. In the FY 2017 final rule, CMS added four new claims-based measures (three clinical episode-based payment measures and one communication and coordination of care measure) for the FY 2019 Inpatient Quality Reporting Program and subsequent years.

11. CMS removed 15 claims-based measures for the FY 2019 payment determination and subsequent years in the final rule.

12. CMS made changes to the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program, which was established under the ACA, in the final FY 2017 rule. The agency added two condition-specific payment measures (one for acute myocardial infarction and one for heart failure) beginning in FY 2021 and a 30-day mortality measure following coronary artery bypass graft surgery beginning in FY 2022. CMS said the condition-specific payment measures capture payments for all care, including readmissions and subsequent cardiac events, across multiple care settings, services and supplies during the 30-day episode of care.

13. CMS made several changes to existing Hospital Acquired Conditions Reduction Program policies in the FY 2017 final rule, including changing the program scoring methodology from current decile-based scoring to a continuous scoring methodology.

Outpatient hospital reimbursement

14. Medicare's Outpatient Prospective Payment System provides payment for most hospital outpatient department services and partial hospitalization services administered by hospital outpatient departments and community mental health centers.

15. CMS updates the OPPS for each fiscal year. CMS released the FY 2017 final rule in November.

16. CMS' final 2017 OPPS rule implements site-neutral payment provisions of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015. Under Section 603 of the Bipartisan Budget Act, certain off-campus provider-based departments that began billing under the OPPS on or after Nov. 2, 2015, will no longer be paid for most services under the OPPS. Instead, beginning Jan. 1, 2017, these facilities are paid under the Physician Fee Schedule. However, services provided in a dedicated emergency department will continue to be paid under the OPPS.

17. Under the final rule, CMS put certain restrictions on off-campus PBDs that began billing under the OPPS prior to Nov. 2, 2015. The agency finalized a proposal requiring these departments to provide services and bill from the same physical address as they did Nov. 2, 2015, to be exempt from the site-neutral payment provisions. Exceptions will be made for off-campus PBDs forced to temporarily or permanently relocate due to extraordinary circumstances, such as a natural disaster, according to CMS.

18. In July, CMS proposed requiring off-campus PBDs to offer the same services as they did on Nov. 2, 2015, to be excluded from the site-neutral payment provisions. However, CMS chose not to finalize this proposal. "CMS will monitor expansion of clinical service lines by off-campus PBDs and continue to consider whether a potential limitation on service line expansion should be adopted in the future," the agency said.

19. In 2016, CMS provided preliminary guidance on provisions of the 21st Century Cures Act that affect site-neutral payment provisions of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015.The 21st Century Cures Act, signed into law by former President Barack Obama Dec. 13, revised the site-neutral payment policy enacted by Section 603 of the Bipartisan Budget Act.

20. The 21st Century Cures Act exempts facilities that had concrete plans in place to build a new off-campus outpatient department before Nov. 2, 2015, when the Bipartisan Budget Act was passed. The guidance clarifies that these facilities will be exempt from the site-neutral payment provisions in 2018 if they meet mid-build requirements.

21. To be exempted, the hospital must have had a binding written agreement in place before Nov. 2, 2015, for the actual construction of the off-campus department. To qualify for the exemption in 2018, the hospital must submit the required attestation and certification documents to its Medicare Administrative Contractor by Feb. 13, 2017.

22. Under the final FY 2017 rule, CMS increased OPPS rates by 1.65 percent. CMS arrived at the rate increase through the following updates: a positive 2.7 percent market basket update, a negative 0.3 percent update for a productivity adjustment and a negative 0.75 percent update for cuts under the ACA.

23. For 2017, CMS added seven measures to the Hospital Outpatient Quality Reporting Program for the 2020 payment determination and subsequent years.

Physician Fee Schedule

24. Medicare uses the Physician Fee Schedule to reimburse providers for covered physicians' services provided to Medicare Part B beneficiaries.

25. CMS updates the fee schedule each year. The agency issued its update to the 2017 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule in November.

26. The final rule requires reporting of postoperative visits for high-volume/high-cost procedures by a sample of practitioners in practices with 10 or more physicians. Reporting is required for services related to global procedures provided on or after July 1, 2017.

27. In the final rule, CMS finalized its proposal to expand eligible telehealth services. The additional codes include those for end-stage renal disease-related dialysis, advanced care planning and critical care consultations.

28. Through the final rule, CMS aimed to improve data transparency. Medicare Advantage organizations use a bidding process to apply to participate in the Medicare Advantage program. The bids reflect the organization's estimated costs to provide benefits to enrollees. Under the final rule, Medicare Advantage organizations are required to release data associated with these bids on an annual basis. CMS will also require Medicare Advantage organizations and Part D sponsors to release medical loss ratio data on a yearly basis to help beneficiaries make enrollment decisions.

29. CMS revised the methodology used to calculate geographic practice cost indices in the final 2017 rule. CMS adjusts payments under the Physician Fee Schedule to reflect local differences in practice costs using geographic practice cost indices. The agency will revise the methodology used to calculate GPCIs to increase overall Physician Fee Schedule payments in Puerto Rico. The updates will be phased in over 2017 and 2018.

30. In the final rule, CMS revised the billing codes to more accurately pay for primary care, care management and cognitive specialties. Among the changes are new codes to pay primary care practices that use interprofessional care management resources to treat patients with behavioral health conditions.

Home health reimbursement

31. CMS issued its Home Health Perspective Payment System final rule for 2017 in November.

32. Under the final rule, CMS estimates Medicare payments to home health agencies will be reduced by 0.7 percent, or $130 million, in 2017.

33. The estimated decrease is based on the following: a $450 million increase to the home health payment update; a $420 million decrease due to the rebasing adjustments to the national, standardized 60-day episode payment rate, the national per-visit payment rates and the non-routine medical supplies conversion factor; and a $160 million decrease due to the adjustment to the national, standardized 60-day episode payment rate to account for nominal case-mix growth.

34. About 3.4 million Medicare beneficiaries received home health services from approximately 11,400 home health agencies in 2015, the most recent year data is available.

Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act

35. In October, CMS released the final rule for the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, a landmark law that replaces the sustainable growth rate formula in determining physician payments under Medicare Part B.

36. MACRA's first performance year began Jan. 1. Providers  physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists and certified registered nurse anesthetists  who bill Medicare for more than $30,000 a year or provide care to at least 100 Medicare patients qualify for MACRA's Quality Payment Program.

37. Providers participating in the program can begin collecting performance data between Jan. 1 and Oct. 2. Regardless of when providers begin collecting data, it is due to CMS by March 31, 2018.

38. The data collected in the first performance year will determine payment adjustments beginning Jan. 1, 2019.

39. There are two pathways for provider participation in MACRA's Quality Payment Program: the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System, or MIPS, and the Advanced Alternative Payment Model, or Advanced APM.

40. MIPS is designed for providers in traditional, fee-for-service Medicare, while Advanced APM is for providers who are participating in specific value-based models.

41. Under MIPS, physicians will earn payment adjustments based on performance in four categories linked to quality and value. Payment adjustments in the first year will be neutral, positive or negative up to 4 percent. This will grow to 9 percent by 2022.

42. The final rule allows providers in the MIPS pathway to opt out of sending data to CMS in 2017. However, those who opt out will receive an automatic negative 4 percent Medicare payment adjustment in 2019. These providers can avoid the penalty by submitting data for just one quality measure or improvement activity.

43. Participation in an Advanced APM allows physicians to earn a 5 percent lump sum incentive payment each year from 2019 through 2024 and avoid MIPS reporting requirements and payment adjustments.

Medicare ACOs

44. Medicare offers several ACO programs, including the Medicare Shared Savings Program, the Pioneer ACO Model and the Next Generation ACO Model.

Pioneer ACO Model

45. CMS named the original 32 Pioneer ACOs in December 2011. First year performance data was released in July 2013, and nine Pioneers subsequently announced their departure from the program. While all 32 Pioneers improved quality and patient satisfaction scores in 2012, only 13 had enough savings to share in them with Medicare. Those 13 produced $76 million in shared savings.

46. The first two years of the Pioneer program were a shared savings arrangement. In year three of the program, those ACOs that showed savings over the first two years were eligible to move to a per-beneficiary per month payment amount, which was intended to replace much of the ACOs' fee-for-service payments with a prospective monthly payment.

47. By performance year four (2015), all but 12 Pioneer ACOs had dropped out of the program.

48. In 2015, eight of the 12 Pioneer ACOs generated savings and only six had enough savings to share in them with Medicare. The Pioneer ACOs generated more than $37 million in savings in performance year four.

49. Of the four Pioneer ACOs that generated losses in 2015, only one owed shared losses to CMS.

50. Only nine Pioneer ACOs participated in the model in 2016  the fifth and final performance year.

Medicare Shared Savings Program

51. Many ACOs, including some that exited the Pioneer program, have chosen to participate in the Medicare Shared Savings Program, which includes three tracks. Track 1 includes no downside risk, while Tracks 2 and 3 include some downside risk, according to CMS.

52. The MSSP requires a three-year commitment to care for at least 5,000 Medicare patients.

53. CMS named the first MSSP ACOs in April 2012. Of the 114 ACOs that joined the program in 2012, just 54 achieved savings during the first year, and only 29 had enough savings to share in them with CMS.

54. Of the 392 ACOs participating in the MSSP in 2015, which was the fourth performance year, 119 earned shared savings. The MSSP ACOs generated $429 million in savings in 2015.

55. In 2015, 42 percent of the ACOs that had participated in the MSSP since 2012 earned shared savings, compared to 37 percent of those that started in 2013 and 22 percent that started in 2014.

56. Ninety-one percent of MSSP ACOs in their second or third performance year improved overall quality performance in 2015.

Next Generation ACO Model

57. As part of HHS' goal to shift 50 percent of Medicare provider payments to alternative payment models by 2018, CMS Innovation Center unveiled the Next Generation ACO in March 2015.

58. The Next Generation program requires shouldering greater levels of financial risk than other ACO models, but it also offers a bigger payoff.

59. The high-risk, high-reward model is a demonstration program with three initial performance years and two optional one-year extensions. The program began Jan. 1, 2016, and will end Dec. 31, 2020.

60. Next Generation ACOs have the option to choose between two risk models  one with increased risk compared to the MSSP and another with full risk. In both the increased- and full performance-risk arrangements, the ACOs are shielded from some risk, as beneficiary expenditures are capped in the 99th percentile and aggregate savings and losses are capped at 15 percent of the benchmark to help buffer ACOs from the possible impact of outliers.

61. Next Generation ACOs qualify as Advanced APMs under MACRA beginning in the 2017 reporter year.

Track 1+

62. With an aim of pushing more small physician practices and rural hospitals to adopt risk, CMS unveiled its newest ACO offering  Track 1+  in December.

63. Track 1+ is offered in the MSSP and allows physician practices and hospitals to take on some downside risk, but limits exposure. The downside risk in Track 1+ is more limited than that of Tracks 2 or 3 of the MSSP.

64. Track 1+ will qualify as an Advanced APM under MACRA in 2018.

Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Initiative

65.Launched in 2013, the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Initiative is comprised of four broadly defined models of care, which link payments for certain services Medicare beneficiaries receive during an episode of care. Under the initiative, the episode of care includes services the patient receives during a 30- or 60-day period that are anchored to a set diagnosis-related group.

66. Model 1, in which the episode of care was defined as the inpatient stay in the acute care hospital, began in April 2013 and ended March 31, 2016. Model 2 covers acute and post-acute care up to 90 days after discharge. In Model 3 the episode of care is triggered by an acute care hospital stay but begins at initiation of post-acute care services, according to CMS. Model 4 encompasses all services provided during the inpatient stay.

67. Hospitals that spend less than the target price for the episode of care keep the savings achieved. A hospital is required to repay Medicare if the costs exceed the target price. Payments are reconciled retrospectively in the first three BPCI models and determined prospectively in the fourth model.

68. In September 2016, CMS released its second annual evaluation report for Models 2-4 of the BPCI Initiative. CMS said overall 11 out of the 15 clinical episode groups analyzed across Models 2, 3 and 4 showed potential savings to Medicare, although future evaluation reports will have more data to analyze individual clinical episodes within these and additional groups.

Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement Model

69. CMS showed it was serious about the transition to value-based models in July 2015, when it announced the Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement Model  Medicare's first mandatory bundled payment model.

70. The CJR program was originally slated to begin Jan. 1, 2016. However, after reviewing nearly 400 comments from the public on the proposed rule, CMS pushed back the program start date to April 1, 2016. The program ends Dec. 31, 2020.

71. More than 800 hospitals in 67 metropolitan statistical areas across the U.S. are participating in the five-year CJR program, which focuses on lower extremity joint replacements.

72. Under the bundled payment pilot program, acute care hospitals are held accountable for the quality of care they deliver to Medicare beneficiaries for hip and knee replacements from the time of surgery through 90 days after discharge.

73. Under the CJR Model, hospitals receive retrospective episode-based payments. Hospitals that spend less than the target price for the episode of care while meeting or exceeding quality standards keep the savings achieved. A hospital is required to repay Medicare if the costs exceed the target price.

74. Hospitals that fail to meet quality and cost targets in the first year of the CJR program are not responsible for any repayment to Medicare.

75. In December 2016, CMS finalized a rule that expanded the CJR Model to include additional surgical treatments for hip and femur fracture episodes. About 860 hospitals will participate in the hip and femur fracture bundles, which will be rolled out in the 67 MSAs already testing the CJR Model.

76. The expanded CJR program qualifies as an Advanced APM under MACRA.

Mandatory cardiac bundles

77. CMS finalized a mandatory bundled payment program for heart attacks and bypass surgeries in December 2016.

78. Under the final rule, acute care hospitals in certain markets will be accountable for the cost and quality of care provided to heart attack and coronary bypass patients beginning with hospitalization and extending 90 days after discharge.

79. Like the CJR Model, hospitals participating in the cardiac bundle will receive retrospective episode-based payments.

80. The heart attack and coronary bypass bundled payment model will be mandatory for hospitals in 98 MSAs. Approximately 1,120 hospitals will participate in the cardiac bundling model.

81. CMS also finalized a cardiac rehabilitation payment model in December, which will test whether a payment incentive can increase the utilization of cardiac rehabilitative services.

82. The cardiac rehabilitation payment model will be implemented in 90 MSAs, 45 of which were not selected for the heart attack and coronary bypass models. Approximately 1,320 hospitals will participate in the cardiac rehabilitation payment model.

83. The cardiac bundles begin July 1 and qualify as Advanced APMs under MACRA.

The Medicare Recovery Audit Contractor program

84. The Medicare Recovery Audit Contractor program's mission is to correct improper Medicare payments by identifying and collecting over- and underpayments.

85. The program was implemented nationwide for Medicare Parts A and B in January 2010.

86. Healthcare providers have the option to appeal recovery auditors' findings, and HHS' Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals administers hearings concerning denied Medicare claims. Claim denials that reach the third of five possible levels of the appeals process are brought before administrative law judges, who issue decisions regarding coverage determinations.

87. Due to a backlog in RAC appeals, OMHA temporarily suspended most new requests for administrative law judge hearings concerning payment denials in December 2013.

88. The backlog caused the RAC program to become the focus of litigation. In May 2014, the American Hospital Association; Baxter Regional Medical Center in Mountain Home, Ark.; Covenant Health in Knoxville, Tenn.; and Rutland (Vt.) Regional Medical Center filed a lawsuit concerning the backlog. They brought the matter to compel HHS to meet the statutory deadlines for administrative law judge review of Medicare claim denials.

89. The plaintiffs' legal claims were dismissed in 2014, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed the dismissal in February 2016. The appeals court remanded the case to the lower court, and instructed the court to "consider the problem as it now stands  worse, not better."

90. In December, Judge James Boasberg ordered HHS to incrementally reduce the backlog over the next four years. He ordered the agency to cut the backlog by 30 percent by the end of 2017; 60 percent by the end of 2018; 90 percent by the end of 2019; and to completely eliminate the backlog by Dec. 31, 2020.

91. HHS asked Judge Boasberg to reconsider the order. HHS said it would be impossible to reduce the appeals backlog on the schedule provided by the court without improperly paying claims, regardless of merit. In January, Judge Boasberg denied HHS' motion for reconsideration.

92. The American Hospital Association tracks RAC activity through its quarterly RACTrac survey. Since the AHA began the RACTrac survey in January 2010, more than 2,500 hospitals have participated.

93. In the third quarter of 2016, the most recent RACTrac results available, hospitals appealed 45 percent of all RAC claim denials. Sixty percent of those claim denials were overturned in the appeals process.

94. Forty-three percent of the 683 hospitals that participated in the RACTrac survey in the third quarter of 2016 reported spending more than $10,000 managing the RAC process. Twenty-four percent reported spending more $25,000 and 4 percent said they spent more than $100,000.

95. CMS awarded the next round of contracts for the RAC program in October 2016. The contracts were issued to Performant Recovery, Cotiviti and HMS Federal Solutions. The contractors review Medicare Part A and B fee-for-service claims for all provider types other than home health/hospice, prosthetics, durable medical equipment, orthotics and supplies. Performant Recovery also performs post-payment review of home health/hospice and DMEPOS claims nationally.

96. Under the ACA, CMS is required to expand the RAC program to Medicare Part C, sometimes called Medicare Advantage, and Part D prescription drug coverage. CMS already expanded the program to Part D and extending the program to Part C is still in the works.

97. For Medicare Part D, audit contractors identify over- and underpayments made to pharmacies and sponsors, which offer prescription drug coverage as part of a managed care plan or a stand-alone prescription drug plan. Any potential fraud findings identified during the auditing process are referred to the Medicare Drug Integrity Contractor.

98. CMS conducts Risk Adjustment Data Validation audits to validate the accuracy of diagnosis data submitted to CMS for payment by Medicare Advantage organizations and to recover net overpayments associated with inaccurate diagnosis data.

99. In December 2015, CMS issued a request for information on expanding the RAC program to Medicare Advantage. At that time, CMS said it audited about 5 percent of Medicare Advantage organizations contracts per payment year. "Our ultimate goal is to have all MA contracts subject to either a comprehensive or condition-specific RADV audit for each payment year," said CMS in the request for information.

100. To increase the percentage of Medicare Advantage organizations contracts that are subject to some type of RADV audit, CMS is considering contracting with a Part C RAC to perform comprehensive and condition-specific audits.

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Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy submitted his budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year on Wednesday, which includes a plan to allow municipalities to levy a property tax on nonprofit hospitals.

The budget plan, which aims to close a nearly $1.7 billion deficit in the upcoming fiscal year, would allow cities and towns to levy property taxes on any real estate owned by nonprofit hospitals, according to The Connecticut Mirror.

To offset the new tax, Gov. Malloy's budget proposal calls for $250 million in supplemental Medicaid funds for hospitals.

Nonprofit hospitals and health systems, including Yale New Haven (Conn.) Health System, criticized the governor's proposal.

"The Yale New Haven Health System already pays more than $200 million in taxes to the State of Connecticut, making us the state's single largest taxpayer  and we are a nonprofit health care provider," Vin Petrini, senior vice president of public affairs at Yale New Haven Health, told The Connecticut Mirror. "Levying property taxes on nonprofit hospitals is a dangerous precedent that we cannot support."

The Connecticut Hospital Association has vowed to fight any attempt to collect property taxes from nonprofit hospitals, according to the report.

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Expanded insurance coverage opportunities and healthcare jobs created under the ACA has helped alleviate some of the financial strain on the Indian Health Service, which has struggled with under-funding for years. Now, Republican lawmakers' pledge to repeal and replace the ACA puts those gains at risk, according to NPR.

The expansion of Medicaid is largely credited with improved coverage rates among Native Americans in states that chose to enact that part of President Barack Obama's signature health reform law.

In Montana, the unemployment rate on Native American reservations is at least double that of the rest of the state, according to the report, and many of those with jobs don't receive employer sponsored health insurance.

After Montana expanded Medicaid in 2016, about one in seven people on the Blackfeet reservation were covered by the federal program, while many more residents bought subsidized health insurance on the exchange.

"Now you've got an opportunity for American Indian people to truly have access to private insurance," said Mary Lynn Billy-Old Coyote, Montana's director of American Indian Health, according to the report. "You have access to greater networks of providers and specialists, and all the things we generally don't see."

Medicaid expansion also played a hand in the 3 percent growth in healthcare jobs in Montana last year, and schools, including tribal colleges, have begun offering more healthcare-related courses. With the fate of how the ACA will change under the Trump administration, it is yet to be known what will happen to Medicaid programs in expansion states and the coverage for those who depend on it.
Boston-based Partners HealthCare saw revenue increase in the first quarter of fiscal year 2017, which ended Dec. 31, but ended the period operating in the red.

Partners recorded a nearly 6 percent year-over-year increase in operating revenue, which climbed to $3.2 billion in the first quarter, according to recently released bondholder documents.

Revenue attributable to the system's hospitals and other providers increased to $2.6 billion in the first quarter of FY 2017, up 5 percent from the same period of the year prior. Premium revenue from Neighborhood Health Plan, the system's insurance division, jumped 9 percent year over year to $644 million in the first quarter of FY 2017, reflecting a 7 percent increase in membership.

However, Partners' total operating expenses outpaced revenue growth. The system's operating expenses climbed to $3.2 billion in the first quarter of FY 2017, up 6.7 percent from the same quarter of FY 2016.

Partners said the increase in expenses was due, in part, to a new hospital assessment in Massachusetts. On Oct. 1, Massachusetts imposed a $250 million annual tax on hospitals to help fund MassHealth, the state's Medicaid program. Partners took an $8 million hit on its operating income due to the assessment.

The system said higher pharmaceutical, pension and medical claims expenses also took a toll on its finances in the first quarter of FY 2017.

Partners ended the first quarter with an operating loss of $17.4 million, compared to an operating gain of $12.8 million in the same period of the year prior. Nearly all of the system's losses came from Neighborhood Health Plan.

Partners has reported significant losses attributable to Neighborhood Health Plan over the past three years due to higher pharmaceutical and medical claims costs associated with its MassHealth business and low reimbursement rates from the state. Partners has taken steps to help its insurance business regain financial footing.

"NHP and the state mutually agreed to a freeze on MassHealth enrollment in October 2016 to give management time to stabilize financial performance after experiencing significant operating losses due to an 80 percent increase in its Medicaid population over the past three years," said Partners Treasurer and CFO Peter K. Markell. "Because of the lag between utilization of services and the processing of claims, it will take some time for the membership freeze to impact NHP's results."

In 2016, Partners posted an operating loss of $108 million, of which $104 million was attributable to Neighborhood Health Plan.

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Researchers from North Carolina State University in Raleigh have developed a wearable sensor to measure an individual's skin hydration.

Led by PhD student Shanshan Yao, the researchers tested the sensor against a commercially available hydration monitor. The commercial monitor, which the researchers said uses multiple probes and costs more than $8,000, performed at the same level as their wearable sensor, which costs about $1.

The prototype sensor can be incorporated into an adhesive chest patch or wristwatch, both of which can transmit sensor data to a program on a laptop, tablet or smartphone. The researchers hope this invention can optimize the health of those who are at risk for dehydration  for example, athletes, firefighters and military personnel.
The Senate voted Wednesday evening to limit debate on Rep. Tom Price, MD, R-Ga., to 30 hours before taking a final vote on his nomination for HHS secretary, Politico reported.

If all the debate time is used, a vote will take place early Friday, according to the report. This is likely considering the decision to limit debate comes as more information is available about Rep. Price's potentially unethical stock trades during his time in Congress  something Democrat objections have focused on throughout the nomination process.

USA Today reported Wednesday Rep. Price often omitted trades or misstated timing on stock trade reports. These included his trades with Australian biotech company Innate Immunotherapeutics  which were highly debated during his two confirmation hearings  as well as his investments in medical equipment companies, according to the report.

USA Today obtained an unsigned statement from HHS indicating Rep. Price introduced legislation to maintain Medicare reimbursements for durable medical equipment one week before investing $15,000 in Blackstone, a company that would directly benefit from the legislation. A subsidiary of that company lobbied Congress to support the bill, according to the report.

Ethics lawyers told USA Today even if Rep. Price did not commit insider trading, he exercised bad judgment by trading in healthcare stocks so frequently. That frequency alone is enough to suggest an investigation may be necessary, they said, according to the report.

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A U.S. District Court judge sided with the Justice Department and blocked Indianapolis-based Anthem's proposed $54 billion acquisition of Bloomfield, Conn.-based Cigna on grounds the combined insurer would harm consumers and impede innovation.

Here are seven things to know about the decision.



1. Anthem said it will appeal the ruling. Officials said Thursday the insurer "promptly intends to file a notice of appeal and request an expedited hearing of its appeal to reverse the court's decision so that Anthem may move forward with the merger, which was approved by over 99 percent of the votes cast by the shareholders of both companies."

2. Cigna said it "intends to carefully review the opinion and evaluate its options in accordance with the merger agreement."

3. Judge Amy Berman Jackson filed the 12-page order Wednesday. She said the proposed merger would create one of the largest health insurers in U.S. history, but would also increase prices and hinder competition between national accounts  customers with more than 5,000 employees and often spread across two states  within the 14 states where Anthem operates Blue Cross Blue Shield licensed plans.

4. Judge Jackson also said the deal would "diminish the opportunity for the firms' ideas to be tested and refined, when this is just the sort of innovation the antitrust rules are supposed to foster."

5. The opinion referenced disputes between Anthem and Cigna, such as the two payers accusing each other of breaching their acquisition agreement, as evidence the deal would not enhance efficiency or save the companies billions as Anthem argued. Judge Jackson said disagreements between the insurers were the "the elephant in the courtroom." She added, "Anthem urges the court to look away, and it attempts to minimize the merging parties' differences as a 'side issue,' a mere 'rift between the CEOs.' But the court cannot properly ignore the remarkable circumstances that have unfolded both before and during the trial."



6. Under the payers' acquisition agreement, Anthem owes Cigna a $1.85 billion breakup fee.



7. The American Medical Association applauded the decision, calling it a victory for consumers. AMA President Andrew Gurman, MD, said the "AMA agrees with Judge Jackson's conclusion that Anthem's strategy of gaining size to strong-arm physicians would not have benefited consumers. Instead, it would diminish prospects for innovation in health care delivery and payment."
While pouring nearly $15 million into an IT project that ended up failing, the CDC, based in Atlanta, cut funding to Georgia health programs, including HIV prevention initiatives, according to an 11Alive investigation.

In 2010, the CDC hired the IT solutions company TrueTandem to build a program called S3P, which was supposed to provide CDC scientists a data-sharing platform where information, project proposals and studies could be shared widely. According to a statement provided to 11Alive by CDC spokesperson Kathy Harben, the agency wasn't aware of issues with the program until its attempted launch in January 2016. The CDC continued to fund the project through September despite the failed launch due to contractual obligations, according to Ms. Harben.

Of the nearly $15 million the agency invested in the project, $5.6 million of the funds cannot be repurposed.

"Investments in planning, prototyping, design, project management, training and other related activities will provide ongoing value," said Ms. Harben. "For example, the IT hardware and commercial software acquired to support the system will be repurposed for other agency IT needs."

The 11Alive investigators discovered the failed project while examining a March 2016 internal report from the CDC. In that report, agency staff categorized S3P as having "very little credibility" and "could be shut down."

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Meanwhile, the federal agency cut $781,000 from Georgia health programs in 2016, the majority of which were to be used for HIV prevention initiatives.

Nicole Roebuck, the director of AID Atlanta, was critical of the agency. Ms. Roebuck's HIV outreach program relies on federal dollars for 80 percent of its funding. She said funding for HIV prevention has seen significant declines in recent years. The cuts have come even though HIV rates in downtown Atlanta are comparable to those in some third-world countries.

William Perry, the founder of Georgia Ethics Watchdog, told 11Alive S3P's failure was a "colossal waste of money."

"They [the CDC] certainly hold accountable the groups they give grants to, so they themselves need to be held accountable and somebody needs to answer as to what happened and why and what the consequences are," said Mr. Perry.

Ms. Harben said no one at the CDC has been disciplined for the project's shortfall.

"CDC invests about $350 million a year in information technology and systems and has successfully developed and implemented more than 700 information systems that currently support the agency's science, public health and business support functions," Ms. Harben said in the statement.

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Medtronic plans to sell medical supplies unit, Bloomberg reports

Dublin, Ireland-based Medtronic is planning to sell a portion or all of its medical supplies business, unnamed sources revealed to Bloomberg. Medtronic is working with advisers to identify potential buyers. The division may be worth approximately $5 billion, the sources told Bloomberg.





Deloitte: Trends in global healthcare for 2017

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Dr. Roger Hartl most experienced Airo system surgeon in northeastern US

Roger Hartl, MD, has utilized Munich, Germany-based Brainlab's Airo system in more procedures than any other surgeon in the northeastern United States. Dr. Hartl first used the MRI navigation system in November 2014, and has since completed 200 procedures. The Airo system features a doughnut-shaped scanner, which captures a full spinal scan in 30 seconds.





Dr. Ronny Jackson will continue to serve as White House physician

President Donald Trump has decided to keep Ronny L. Jackson, MD, Former President Barack Obama's lead White House physician in his role. Dr. Jackson will follow the president as he travels domestically and overseas in case his medical expertise is needed. He is also the director of the White House Medical Unite, which cares for tourists or journalists who fall ill in the building.





Does race impact surgical approach to spinal fusion for cervical spondylotic myelopathy?

A new study published in Spine examines the difference in treatment between races for cervical spondylotic myelopathy. Non-white races, Hispanic, Pacific Islander and Native American patients were more likely to receive the posterior-only approach than white patients. The researchers found cervical spondylotic myelopathy patients who aren't white may have an increased mortality risk while patients with private insurance have a decreased mortality risk.





Medicaid block grants would reduce federal spending by $150B; 49 states would see less funding

Avalere found that capped Medicaid payments through the block grants or per capita caps could reduce federal spending on the program for many states. The block grants would likely reduce federal Medicaid spend by $150 billion over five years while the per capita grants would reduce spending by $110 billion. Read the projected reduction in federal Medicaid spending over the next five years for both block grants and per capita caps, here.





Spine surgery to hit $10.8B, neurostimulation to reach $5B in global spinal intervention market by 2021

The global spinal and neurostimulation intervention products market is anticipated to hit $15.8 billion by 2021, up from $12.6 billion in 2016, according to a BCC Research analysis. The spine surgery segment accounts for the largest market share and will likely reach $10.8 billion by 2021, growing at a 3.5 percent compound annual growth rate. The neurostimulation devices segment will see the most rapid growth at a 6.9 percent CAGR, reaching $5 billion in 2021.





A Utah city tops the list of most compassionate

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Canadas loans to Bombardier will help the C Series jet, which is part made in Belfast, and research and development for the Global 7000 business jet

A $372.5m (225m) Canadian government loan for aerospace giant Bombardier - which employs around 4,500 people in Northern Ireland - will give it time to secure more orders for its C Series jet, it's been claimed.

The Canadian government announced on Tuesday that it would lend the Montreal-based giant $372.5m to help its C Series passenger jet - the wings of which are made in Belfast - and for research and development in Canada on its Global 7000 business jet programmes.

A spokeswoman for Bombardier in Belfast said its staff also makes components for the Global 7000.

Bombardier has already received $1bn in funding from the regional government in Quebec, where the company is based. And the C Series programme also benefited from $350m in loans from the Canadian government when it was launched in 2005.

Bombardier last year announced job cuts of 1,080 over two years in its Northern Ireland operations due to difficult market conditions and weak sales of the C Series - which is trying to break into a market dominated by Boeing and Airbus.

But a spokeswoman for the company in Belfast yesterday said the Canadian cash would not change its job cut plans, which saw 630 people leave the company during 2016.

"We are continuing to execute our turnaround plan to transform our business," she said.

"This means we are taking the actions necessary to ensure we are competitive: improving our cost-structure and efficiencies."

The 2015 launch of the CSeries had been delayed by over two years and was around $2bn over-budget. Orders were also lower than expected, but morale was boosted last April when Delta Airlines placed an order for 125.

The CS100 jet finally entered service with Swiss Air in July last year, while the bigger CS300 also entered service with airBaltic.

Martin J Craigs, a former Bombardier official and chairman of Aerospace Forum Asia Hong Kong, said the loan was good news but did not bring a specific benefit to Belfast.

"Government loans are very welcome, but the customer is king and what the company needs is more orders at the right price," he said.

The company had first asked the Canadian government for $1bn 18 months ago and Mr Craigs said the smaller sum reflected the fact orders had picked up since the first request.

And economist Dr Esmond Birnie of the Ulster University economic policy centre said the money did buy the company time. "This loan assistance from the Canadian central government, over and above that already given by the Quebec provincial authorities, does buy a bit more time to win even more orders for the C Series," he said.

And he said there was nothing out of the ordinary in the government support.

"The manufacture of passenger aircraft is characterised by enormous up-front research costs and all the incumbent players, notably Boeing and Airbus, as well the increasing number of entrants from the emerging economies (eg Brazil and China) have benefited from state aids of some form or other," he added.

"That is why it was always very likely that Bombardier would be looking for a subsidy."

The Canadian government said it was "committed to keeping Canada at the forefront of global leadership in the aerospace sector" and described the loans as "repayable contributions" which will be made to the company over four years.
The Bank of England has dished out two fines after Japan's biggest bank failed to be "open and cooperative" about enforcement action from US authorities.

The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) has fined The Bank Of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU) 17.85 million and its broker arm MUFG Securities EMEA (MUS) 8.92 million.

It said BTMU had misled regulators in November 2014 when it was hit with a 315 million US dollar (250 million) penalty by the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) for pressuring a consultant to water down a supposedly objective report on its dealings with sanctioned countries.

The BTMU failed to tell the PRA about the fine until after the DFS made a public announcement.

Sam Woods, chief executive of the PRA, said: "We expect all firms to be open and straightforward in their dealings with the PRA.

"Where firms fall short of this expectation, we will enforce it."

The PRA said the Japanese bank's "inadequate system and controls for the communication of relevant information" was a factor in its failure to be open with the watchdog.

The enforcement action also had "implications" for the chair of MUS during the period, the watchdog said.

BTMU would have been fined 25.5 million and 12.75 million respectively, but was handed a 30% discount for agreeing an early settlement.

In a statement, BTMU and MUFG Securities EMEA said they had fully cooperated with the PRA investigation and regretted the "historic breaches".

" MUFG has taken decisive action to improve its information controls and intra-group communication on regulatory matters. MUFG is committed to conducting business with the highest levels of integrity and regulatory compliance and to continuing to improve its policies and procedures."
Tata Steel UK chief Bimlendra Jha said the deal was good news for Speciality Steels and for Tata's core business in the UK

Tata has signed an agreement to sell its Speciality Steels business to Liberty House Group for 100 million.

The business employs 1,700 workers making products for the aerospace, automotive and oil and gas industries, and has several sites in South Yorkshire.

Bimlendra Jha, chief executive of Tata Steel UK, said: "This is good news for Speciality Steels and for Tata Steel's core business in the UK.

"For Speciality Steels, which is largely independent of our European strip products supply chain, this is an important step forward in securing a future for the business under new ownership. Today's news also marks another important step forward in realising a more sustainable future for our Port Talbot-based supply chain in the UK.

"Like our former Scunthorpe-based Long Products business which we sold last year, we will be handing over a business which has been transformed following difficult decisions to restructure and re-focus on higher-value markets.

"Employees, trade unions and the management team have worked incredibly hard at Speciality Steels to improve its performance and I'm delighted to say that the business is now on an improvement track which will enable it to thrive in the future."

Roy Rickhuss, general secretary of the Community union, said the announcement wa s a "welcome step forward" in securing the future of the Speciality Steels business.

"However, this is not the end of the process and there is still work to do before the sale is completed. Community has been campaigning for months for longer-term certainty for these highly skilled jobs and we will now engage more directly with Liberty to understand their plan for the business.

"The steelworkers concerned produce some of the world's most advanced steel products and we will need to be convinced this sale is in their best interests.

"We also need to see the Government do more to help support the future of Speciality Steels and create an environment in which the whole UK steel industry can survive and grow."

Assets include sites in Rotherham, Stocksbridge and Brinsworth in South Yorkshire and centres in Bolton and Wednesbury, West Midlands.

Liberty said the deal secures the future of around 1,700 jobs directly, and thousands more in the supply chain.

It will make Liberty one of the largest steel and engineering employers in the UK with more than 4,000 workers at plants located across Britain.

Sanjeev Gupta, executive chairman of the Liberty House Group, said: "I am proud that we are acquiring a world-class business with a very skilled workforce and broad range of high-value products. It is one of only a handful of such operations in the world and I am confident it will flourish within our group.

"Fulfilling the next key stage of our Greensteel vision is incredibly exciting. We will now be able to melt scrap steel to create high-value-added products and I hope that, in due course, we will do so using renewable power."

Business Secretary Greg Clark said: "Acquiring Tata's Speciality Steels business in South Yorkshire and West Midlands, which manufactures high-quality steel for some of the UK's world-leading industries such as aerospace and automotive, is a great opportunity for Liberty House.

"I look forward to hearing more about their expansion plans which secures skilled jobs at the business into the future."

Gill Furniss, shadow minister for steel, said: "This deal is a hugely important and very welcome development for workers and the UK steel industry.

"1,700 highly skilled jobs in Tata's specialty steel business are now safe for the future, and I looking forward to seeing Liberty's innovative business plan for sustainable, high-value steel production in the UK.

"What we need now is the Government to show how its much-trumpeted Industrial Strategy will support the steel sector, a key foundation industry.

"I am not convinced they understand its value - in their 132-page strategy paper steel was mentioned only once."

Unite national officer Tony Brady said: "This is a welcome step which will begin to provide a degree of stability for our members in the speciality steel business.

"The workforce makes some of the most advanced steel in the world and has worked hard to secure the business's future.

"Unite is looking forward to working with Liberty to gain a greater understanding of its plans for the future of the business and ensure that it continues to go from strength to strength."

Mr Clark added: "We want to work with the steel industry on proposals to transform and upgrade their sector as part of the modern industrial strategy so we can build on our strengths and extend excellence into the future."
Actress Helen Flanagan is keen to see her former Coronation Street co-star Ryan Thomas make a comeback to the soap as her love interest.

Flanagan has returned to the ITV serial drama in her role as Rosie Webster after a five-year absence, and Thomas left the show in 2016 after playing Jason Grimshaw for 16 years in order to pursue a career in Hollywood.

During a fan Q&A on Twitter, she said: "I really miss @ryanjamesthomas - Rosie and Jason were such a good match!"

Thomas became a Corrie favourite as a womanising hunk, with storylines tending to revolve around relationships, including a romance with Flanagan's on-screen alter-ego Rosie.

Flanagan, 26, marked her return to the Manchester-based soap on Monday after leaving the show in 2012, becoming a first-time mother in the hiatus.

She had appeared in the soap since she was nine, having joined the cast in 2000.

The actress, who also made a name for herself as a reality star for a stint in the I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! jungle after her Corrie departure, said she feels Rosie has grown in the five years since leaving Weatherfield to pursue a modelling career in America.

Flanagan told fans: "She's more mature now - it's five years on. When she was younger she was a bit bitchy but she's got a good heart."

She said of her return: "I'm really, really enjoying it. So lovely to be back with my Corrie family - couldn't be enjoying it more!"
Death In Paradise star Kris Marshall bowed out of the BBC drama series on Thursday night, with his character quitting the Caribbean sunshine for the grey skies of London.

Marshall took over the lead role as DI Humphrey Goodman in 2014 after Ben Miller's DI Richard Poole, who had been the star since the series began in 2011, was killed off at a Cambridge University reunion at the start of the third run.

Father Ted actor Ardal O'Hanlon is the next person to pick up the baton of detective on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint-Marie, after his London-based DI Jack Mooney exchanged jobs with Goodman who chose to stay in the UK with old flame Martha (Sally Bretton).

In an emotional scene at the end of the BBC1 episode, Marshall's character told Bretton's: " There's no point in me being in the Caribbean if you're going to be over here. Where you are is where my paradise is."

He added: "I'd like to stay with you in London forever."

Meanwhile, the recently bereaved DI Mooney and his daughter Siobhan, played by Grace Stone, travelled to Saint-Marie for a holiday and were told when they arrived that they may be staying for longer.

Fans of the series tweeted their sadness at seeing Marshall leave the role.

A Twitter user called @MattDAngeloFans wrote: "I love Kris Marshall in this. Please don't leave. #DeathInParadise."

Another under the name @Catsmith_93 tweeted: "#krismarshall thanks for being fab, we'll miss you! @HumphreyGoodman #deathinparadise."

Some viewers thought that Marshall's exit from the show pointed to him being a contender for the next star of Doctor Who after Peter Capaldi quits the Time Lord character.

One person under the name @IAmJoshua_ tweeted: "Nice send off for Kris Marshall in #DeathInParadise. Reckon he'd make a cracking replacement for Peter Capaldi in #DoctorWho."

Another called @SilveryLioness tweeted: "I find it really coincidental that Kris Marshall leaves #deathinparadise just in time to occupy the TARDIS in #DoctorWho."

O'Hanlon will star in the final two episodes of this series, which continues on BBC1 on Thursday at 9pm.
After finding herself unable to cope with crippling depression, Newcastle woman Shonagh Walsh felt like taking her own life until she began sewing to use the costume-making skills taught by her grandmother. Lee Henry reports.

Those coping with depression and other mental health illnesses can often find succour, a sense of wellbeing and an outlet for fears and frustrations through creativity. For 23-year-old Shonagh Walsh, who has struggled with anxiety and clinical depression since her mid-teens, relief comes via the weird and wonderful world of cosplay.

Cosplay is, essentially, the act of dressing up as characters from films, novels, comic books and video games, and it is a vibrant and growing subculture here thanks to regular Comic-Cons.

To attend the popular Film & Comic-Con in Belfast's Titanic Centre in March, for example, is to fight your way through a crowd of creatively costumed kids and adults dressed as everything from exotic ninjas to superheroes and heroines such as Superman and Wonder Woman.

Shonagh, who hails from just outside Newcastle, Co Down, was naturally drawn to cosplay after spending her childhood engrossed in gaming, fantasy novels, comics and creativity.

"Growing up in the countryside, living so rurally, I didn't spend much time out with friends. Instead, I read every fantasy book I could get my hands on and once the internet came about, I would read manga (Japanese animation) comics online," she says.

"My sister Nicole, brothers Niall, Conor and I shared everything, so gaming wasn't a solitary thing, and we loved the classic games, which felt communal. We took turns playing levels and watching the others play. I've been an avid gamer ever since."

It was through her grandmother Nellie O'Neill that Shonagh developed an interest in sewing, stitching and costume design. When she finally discovered cosplay and decided to attend a convention, she created her first costume with the help of her beloved granny from curtains and cereal boxes.

"I was 17 and had never seen anything like it before," she recalls. "For those who don't know what cosplay is, I can see how it could be a strange concept, but essentially conventions are just big costume parties. It's quite a big hobby for lots of people.

"My granny was so excited to see me doing something creative, though looking back now my first costume was embarrassingly bad, made from cut and painted curtains and cut up Ugg boots. Nevertheless, I received a huge amount of love from fellow Comic-Con goers and I even won an honourable mention prize, which was a huge surprise for me."

By this stage in her life, she had already been prescribed medication to combat her clinical depression.

While primary school was a "joy", Shonagh experienced bullying while attending secondary school, and was forced to drop out of studying for her A-levels at Belfast Metropolitan College due to her condition.

Her negative perception of anti-depressants, however, meant that she routinely stopped taking courses of medication halfway through. It proved to be a damaging approach that she now regrets.

"I had the awful idea in my head that by taking medication, somehow it revealed that there was something wrong with me.

"The stigma that existed, and still exists, around depression made me feel inadequate, especially as a 17 to 18-year-old, when people are constantly telling you just be happy, that you have nothing to be depressed about.

"So every time I was put on medication, it wouldn't be long before I would stop. I reacted differently to every anti-depressant I was given.

"One type in particular made me feel like I had flat-lined. I went from being erratically happy to very emotionally sad. Another made me suicidal.

"With hindsight, it's so clear how wrong I was. I was fighting a battle I had already lost. Taking medication can be scary because it makes the depression feel real, but I was making life harder for myself by trying to do it alone, without any kind of assistance."

Aged 19, and having given up on education, Shonagh found herself unemployed and drifting. She confirms that this was the period during which her depression was most acute. She clung to cosplay as a positive, something that "kept me from falling to complete rock bottom".

She eventually found genuine respite and catharsis through counselling, having spoken with her GP and a dedicated counsellor specialising in mental health. Now, she believes that talking about her condition, and the chasms of darkness that seemed to swallow her up, ultimately saved her life.

"One day I came across a leaflet for a place called PIPS, the suicide awareness and prevention charity's Mind Your Mate & Yourself facility in Newcastle, and I walked in through the doors already crying and shaking, and asked to speak with someone.

"I knew if I didn't talk to someone I would probably do something to myself. The people there welcomed me and treated me like family. I can't stress enough how important regular contact and open dialogue can be in preventing suicide."

The Steps2Work programme gave Shonagh an opportunity to begin again. It was through the ongoing training and employment scheme that she found her true vocation when she was placed as an amateur costumer with the Belvoir Theatre Company in Belfast.

"It changed my life," she says.

"Prior to that, I had only made costumes for myself with no lessons other than spending time with my granny.

"I travelled up to Belfast every day and got to work on costumes for their production of The Little Mermaid. It felt amazing to watch the play and get the production brochure with my name on it. I realised that I could make my hobby a paying career.

"Unfortunately, I had to leave that placement as the health of my grandmother was deteriorating, as, in turn, was my depression. Belvoir Players were so very kind to me, though.

"They were aware of my mental health issues and were so accommodating that they even let me work from home so that I could spend more time with my grandmother during her final months. I could never express how grateful I am to them."

Nellie O'Neill passed away on January 21, 2015, having previously suffered with breast cancer.

Shonagh was devastated, and for a while stopped working.

"It made me sad that I no longer had her guidance, but I soon realised that the best way to be close to her in death was to never stop creating.

"By the end of February, I had enrolled in a fashion and costume course at Belfast Metropolitan College and that's when my life started to change for the better. I know my nan would be so excited and happy for me."

Today, she partially pays her way through college with extra-curricular work mending costumes for other cosplayers and even designing costumes from scratch. Having won various competitions at conventions across Northern Ireland over the past few years, her reputation as a cosplayer of some considerable skill is now well established.

"My second cosplay went slightly viral when a girl I met from a convention posted photos online. It received a best fantasy costume award, which still astounds me as it was probably my laziest cosplay ever," Shonagh laughs.

"My third costume, one of the few I'm most proud of, won joint first place at Ireland's largest convention next to someone who constructed a full Ironman suit, so that was pretty amazing for me, being only 18 at the time."

Shonagh is certainly not the only young adult who finds acceptance and a creative outlet through cosplay, with more events taking place here, mainly in Belfast.

"It is actually quite big in Northern Ireland and it's still growing here, as our community is very young," she explains.

"There are fantastic events like the MCM Comic-Con, Belfast Film & Comic-Con, Q-Con, Ulster University Mini Con, Heroes and Legends and more, and many cosplayers travel around Europe and the US to attend events.

"I have a huge amount of fun at conventions. I dress up and don't have to be me, I can forget my typical world worries for a while.

"People talk to me about common interests, which helps with my anxiety greatly.

"Cosplay has helped me in a lot of ways. When I started, I had huge stage fright and hated public speaking. Now that I'm invited as a guest, and asked to do talks about cosplay, I've got so much better at that. What was at first terrifying I'm now fairly confident with.

"No matter where you go in the world, or no matter what club you join, there are always going to be negative people who will be nasty. But at the end of the day, we're just a bunch of nerds in costumes just trying to have fun."
The Craigavon Crown Court jury in the case of west Belfast man Christopher O'Neill accused of murdering his baby daughter Caragh Walsh, have retired to consider their verdict in the four week trial.

O'Neill from Whiterock Road, denies murdering the three-month-old toddler who died on February 7, 2014, two days after being rushed to hospital from her Glasvey Park home in Twinbrook.

Trial judge Madam Justice McBride told the jury of eleven, 10 men and a woman, that their first duty, however long it took, was to bring in a unanimous verdict of guilty or not guilty.

Telling them they were under no pressure in reaching their decision, she however, warned them "not to rush to judgement" and that the case was important not only for the prosecution, but also for the defendant.

Earlier Madam Justice McBride provided a synopsis of the evidence for the jury, explaining to them, while their task was not an easy one, they should not allow it to overwhelm them.

The senior judge further explained that although they must follow all directions given to them on the law, evidential matters, and all issues of fact were for them solely to decide upon. She said that there was evidence from a number of medical experts, but even here it was a matter for them which aspects of that evidence, if any, they either accepted or rejected.

Madam Justice McBride said that in law the jury had three possible verdicts in this particular case, and set out what she termed an agreed "route to verdict" in helping them to understand the questions they must ask themselves before reaching their decison.

The first question they must ask, said the judge, was whether the prosecution had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Christopher O'Neill unlawfully killed Caragh Walsh, and if they answer, "No, then that would be the end of the matter and you find him not guilty".

However, should they answer "yes", the judge said they should go on to question two, had the prosecution proved that he intended to cause Caragh Walsh really serious bodily injury, and if "yes, you must convict".

Again if the answer was "no", they had to proceed to question three, which instructed them, if they were satisfied that the defendant by his actions intended to cause some bodily injury to Caragh, then they must acquit him of murder, but convict him of the lesser offence of manslaughter.

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However, if the answer to this question remained, "no", then the jury were told they must acquit O'Neill of everything.

It is the prosecution case that O'Neill, while he never intended to kill his baby daughter, he had lost it, having reached his limits with her crying, and snapped and in a rage assaulted or abused her leaving her with head injuries akin to those suffered in a high-speed crash.

However, the youngster's dad has always rejected those claims, and that far from attacking her in a rage, he had done all he could to save the toddler he dotted on when she awoke with a "sore cry" and ended up "barely breathing".

The jury has now retired for the day.
Lawyers in the case of a west Belfast father accused of killing his baby daughter have argued over the cause of the toddler's death three years ago this month.

The prosecution told Craigavon Crown Court in Co Armagh that 26-year-old Christopher O'Neill from Whiterock Road had lost his self-control and in a rage used considerable violence against three-month old Caragh Walsh.

Prosecution QC Toby Hedworth said it was not their case that O'Neill set out to murder baby Caragh, but that he had reached his limits and simply snapped, leaving her with injuries similar to those received in a high speed crash.

O'Neill, he claimed, was not prepared to say what happened before calling for help, because to do so "he would have to admit he was responsible for the murder of his baby, and that is the one thing, you may think, he is not prepared to do".

However, the defence in their final submissions to the jury of 10 men and one woman dismissed the claims as "utterly fanciful", "speculative", "sheer wishful thinking", and "full of inconvenient truths".

O'Neill, said Patrick Lyttle QC, was a loving, devoted caring father who had not lost it, but was looking after a sick child.

He did all he could for the daughter he loved, and was an innocent man who should be found not guilty of murder and even of manslaughter, he said.

Mr Hedworth began his submissions by saying that two days before her death in hospital on February 7, 2014, from a "catastrophic traumatic brain injury", baby Caragh, then in good health, was left alone in the care of her father in her Glasvey Park home in Twinbrook.

O'Neill, he said, up until then was a "demonstrably" good father. Since his daughter's birth, he had "stepped forward and played a full role in the care of baby Caragh and shouldered at least more than his fair share of night feeds". However, the prosecution lawyer then posed the question: "But was it too much?"

Mr Hedworth further suggested: "We all have our limits, and differing limits. Christopher O'Neill reached his limit and he snapped and perhaps only for the briefest of moments snapped... before dialling 999 and telling the operator that Caragh was not breathing."

Medical evidence from a pathologist and two consultants, he further claimed, showed that the youngster - at death's door when taken to hospital - was subjected "to handling that went way, way beyond accidental injury".

It was brought about by violent shaking, swinging by her limbs and indicative of assault, if not abuse, the court was told.

Mr Lyttle, for the defence, attacked the medical evidence, saying the prosecution had pointed to underlying bruising to the top of the child's head, which no longer formed part of the case, and should cause the jury some unease.

Baby Caragh, he argued, "was not swung by the arms or legs and her head was not hit off a wall or anything", and that even three hours after being admitted into hospital not one bruise was noted by paramedics, nursing staff or doctors "simply because they were not there".

Mr Lyttle, reading from agreed statements, pointed out that far from being a "well child", in the weeks before her death, the youngster's health was a cause of concern for the whole family. She had been suffering from difficulty in breathing which had, on at least one occasion, left her mother "scared".

O'Neill that morning was still a loving father who had not "lost it", was not under stress or strain, and had no motive to attack or injure the baby daughter he was "besotted with", he said.

The jury will retire today to consider its verdict.
A man whose palm print was allegedly found on a suspected getaway vehicle used in a mass sectarian murder of 10 workmen in Northern Ireland will not be prosecuted.

The region's Public Prosecution Service (PPS) said there was "insufficient evidence" to offer a reasonable prospect of convicting the individual arrested on suspicion of shooting dead the Protestant workmen in an outrage widely known as the Kingsmill massacre.

The victims were lined up on a country road in rural south Armagh and shot dead in a sectarian attack that was widely blamed on the IRA. Another man - Alan Black - survived despite being shot 18 times.

Michael Agnew, the PPS's Assistant Director of Central Casework, said lawyers had given "careful consideration to all of the evidence" and had applied the test for prosecution.

"We have concluded that there is no reasonable prospect of a conviction based on the available evidence and that the test for prosecutions is therefore not met," he said.

Mr Black said he was disappointed but understood and accepted the PPS's decision. No one has ever been convicted of the Kingsmill murders.

"I am disappointed obviously that no one has been held to account," said Mr Black.

The PPS move means a stalled inquest into the killings will now be able to resume.

Karen Armstrong, whose brother John McConville was one of those murdered, appealed to his killers to search their conscience and at least give answers to the coroner.

"John had been accepted for Bible college and was ready to serve the same God that the gunmen may believe in," she said.

"These men made a choice on 5 January 1976 that has fundamentally affected the families of John and his colleagues ever since.

"The perpetrators have had 41 years to reflect on this and may have had regrets."

It is understood a lack of Garda and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) records in regard to how the van was forensically handled upon its discovery near Dundalk in the Irish Republic was a factor in the PPS's decision.

Detectives who prepared a file for the PPS to assess had been unable to trace any documents indicating the exact time the vehicle was found the day after the January 5 attack, or where it was taken for examination, or even the precise location of the palm print position on the inside of the windscreen.

So while prosecutors did not perceive matching the print to the individual as an issue, the missing forensic records hampered the already difficult process of establishing when the palm might have been placed on the windscreen.

Evidence linking the van to the shootings was also circumstantial in nature. While the PPS did have two witnesses identifying the green Bedford van as being in the general vicinity both before and after the attack, the sightings did not place it directly at the murder scene.

The new inquest into the Kingsmill murders had only started hearing evidence last year when police made the dramatic announcement that they had apparently matched the print to an individual.

Months later a 59-year-old man was arrested in Newry, Co Down, on suspicion of the 10 murders and Mr Black's attempted murder.

The man, who had previous terror convictions, was released pending a police file being sent to prosecutors for assessment. It is understood he exercised his legal right not to comment during police questioning.

At a subsequent inquest hearing, a lawyer for the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said detectives believed the print belonged to the arrested man.

Mr Agnew announced the decision on Thursday.

"We are mindful of the disappointment that this decision will bring to the surviving victim and families of those who were killed," he added.

"Although 41 years have passed since this atrocity, we are conscious that their pain endures."

The textile workers were shot when their minibus was ambushed outside the village of Kingsmill on their way home from work.

Those on board were asked their religion, and the only Catholic was ordered to run away.

The killers, who had been hidden in the hedges, forced the 11 remaining men to line up outside the van before opening fire.

While the murders have long been linked to the IRA, the organisation itself never admitted responsibility.

The attack was seen as a reprisal for loyalist killings in the same area days earlier.

Responding to the PPS announcement, PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton said: " As prosecutorial decisions are a matter for the PPS, we will not be commenting further.

"PSNI remain committed to supporting the ongoing inquest, bringing offenders to justice and protecting the public."
Children all wrapped up on Portstewart Strand Beach on Tuesday afternoon.

A cold snap is coming to Northern Ireland with temperatures to drop and snow and sleet on the way.

Temperatures in the next few days will be up to 5C colder than normal at this time of year, forecasters have warned.

The Met Office has issued yellow warnings for ice in parts of Northern Ireland, Wales, south-west England and Scotland.

There will be widespread frost over the weekend, with showers on Saturday and Sunday and 5cm to 6cm of snow in the Grampians.

Send your weather pictures to digital.editorial@belfasttelegraph.co.uk

A spokeswoman for the Met Office said temperatures in the coming days will be lower than the average for the time of year.

Tonight, some parts of the UK will be between minus 3C and minus 4C (26.6F and 24.8F).

Friday will also be cold, with widespread frost overnight into Saturday. There may be snow on Sunday. The colder spell is due to easterly winds from Scandinavia.
The couple 30 years ago during their time in the UDR and RUC

It will be an immensely proud Sonia Copeland who accepts the chain of Deputy Lord Mayor of Belfast later this year. Her nomination is fitting testimony to the indefatigable first-time councillor, whom Ulster Unionist colleagues often describe as "a wonder woman".

It would be a brave person at City Hall who would attempt to list the number of panels on which the 58-year-old sits, and that workload will undoubtedly increase in June when Sonia, along with Alliance's Nuala McAllister, forges the city's first all-female civic leadership duo.

The donning of the robes, however, is unlikely to be attended by all members of the Copeland family.

Sonia and her husband, Michael, the former East Belfast MLA, went their separate ways in 2014.

Only now, three years later, can the popular politician bring herself to speak about the painful end to a marriage that lasted for 38 years, most of them happy ones.

Michael Copeland quit his Assembly seat in September 2015 amid a well-publicised and ongoing battle with depression which, alarmingly, included at least one attempt to take his own life.

His resignation brought a premature end to a political career that began in 2001 with his election as a UUP councillor in Castlereagh. He would later serve as the council's Deputy Mayor.

Prior to stepping down, the 62-year-old former UDR lieutenant strongly denied rumours of an "inappropriate relationship" that had been swirling around Stormont.

He conceded, however, that his illness had had a "dreadful" effect on his family - and that is one thing both estranged parties certainly agree on.

"He was depressed and his personality changed," explains Sonia. "I decided things could not go on.

"Michael and I had that 'it's not working' conversation - originally it was until he got himself together, but in my opinion he's still not well.

"He moved out. I don't think there's any chance that we'll reconcile; there's too much pain.

"My daughter, Sarah, is particularly devastated. Her and daddy were very close."

Sonia believes Michael's hectic schedule as an MLA contributed to the traumatic split shortly after the local elections in the autumn of 2014, when she was elected as councillor for the Titanic ward.

"Michael worked himself into the ground - he was a very active politician," she says.

"He also took too much of other people home with him.

"He never had time for outside interests. He never had time for his family, even.

"He lost sight of his family in it all. I think he became so immersed in other people's lives that it just overtook.

"But Michael has always been impetuous. He would not put one foot in and test the water - he would jump fully in."

Sonia, whose own parents split when she was 21, revealed that she and Michael still communicate, "but not regularly."

"I would hear from him for a couple of weeks and then there'd be silence for another couple of weeks... and then I'd wonder if he's okay," she admits.

"Having said that, I don't want to encroach on his private life."

Sonia admitted that it was "scary" being by herself after being married for almost four decades, and that she only recently started feeling like her old self again.

Up until now, it's hard to imagine her ever finding the time to feel lonely.

At the last count, the Ballygowan-based councillor was sitting on the People and Communities Committee, the North Foreshore Working Group, the Waterfront and Ulster Hall Committee, Licensing Committee, the East Belfast Area Working Group and she recently became chair of the Older People's Reference Group.

She is also a Belfast Harbour commissioner, secretary of the UUP's East Belfast Association, was recently appointed to the board of governors for Ashfield Girls' High School and acts as a volunteer counsellor for both Action Cancer and Marie Curie.

She was named Ulster Unionist Women's Council Woman of the Year in 2015, just one year into her first term as a councillor.

Her nomination for Deputy Lord Mayor was a hugely popular one within the party.

"After the separation from Michael, I had to pull myself together because I needed to be strong for the children, but also I needed to get my head into work," she explains. "The people had elected me and I had to step up to the mark.

"One of the reasons the separation brought great sadness for me was because Michael has a wealth of experience and he was a very good politician.

"I would have benefited greatly from his support then - and, I suppose, now, to share in the excitement of me going in as Deputy Mayor.

"There's no bitterness, just a real sadness. It's very lonely because I'm used to having someone there to support me when I need it.

"My council party colleagues, Peter Johnston and Jim Rodgers, have been great, and my family (father William, mother Anne and siblings Beverly, Mark and Adrienne) have been amazing, not to mention Sarah and Matthew."

Matthew (26), is a final year medical student at Queen's, while Sarah (30), who works for the Greater Village Regeneration Trust, added 'granny' to Sonia's long list of duties five years ago.

"My grandson, Harrison, is my life, my whole world," she says.

"He's in P1 and I love picking him up from school every day."

There was, however, one time when Sonia didn't think she'd live to see Sarah grow up, let alone get married and have a son.

When Harrison was around Sarah's age, Sonia was battling breast cancer - and at one stage believed she only had a month to live, shortly after giving birth to Matthew.

"The prognosis wasn't good," she recalls. "I originally thought it was a blocked milk duct, so there was a small lump, but by the time I had all my checks done it was the size of a beefy tomato.

"I overheard someone telling Michael that I had possibly only weeks to live. I was floored, and told Michael that I didn't want to see anybody until I had come to terms with it myself. I had my funeral all planned and I had written out what I wanted to happen.

"One of the things was for the children - who were then five months and two-and-a-half years old - to go to Lagan College (Northern Ireland's first integrated school), and in the end that's where they both went.

"But I'm a stubborn old bird and basically decided that I was going to fight it because I wanted to see them growing up."

Sonia, who had a mastectomy and then reconstructive surgery a number of years later, underwent gruelling chemotherapy and radiotherapy for six months, then unimaginable relief when finally given the all-clear.

"That experience brought me into counselling people with cancer," the councillor explains.

"I've been doing that for seven years. I do it between two and five hours a week."

Somehow, a few more hours of that week will have to be found for her new role as Deputy Lord Mayor but, as Sonia says: "It's a real honour to serve on behalf of the party for all the citizens of Belfast."

An exciting time too, with two women in the principal roles - possibly mirroring Stormont after next month's Assembly elections.

"I think that women politicians have gained more confidence in themselves now," says Sonia.

"If you'd have asked me 10 years ago if this was possible, I'd have said 'no way,' but you gain confidence in your work.

"And you're just as good as, if not sometimes better, than men. I think it's nice to have the balance.

"As a younger woman, I worked in a male-dominated police force where some thought my best place was at the fire, looking after the station duty officer and not out on duty.

"But that's all changed now and women are showing themselves and standing up and saying 'I can do this'.

"They're not afraid to stand up and speak out, and it's not unusual to see women in high authority now."

Sonia joined the RUC as a raw 18-year-old - and learned the hard way.

"In those days they called me a peeler's pup, because my dad was a policeman," she recalls.

"I served for 12 years and then had to come off with an injury. A girl had taken a nervous breakdown. She was like a wild animal and she pushed me, and I injured my lower back.

"I have a couple of discs that are wrecked and I lost my left kneecap (patella).

"It kept dislocating so they had to take it out, which has rendered me unable to run or get down or my knees.

"But I'm stubborn - I push myself. They tell me in the house that I flog myself like a horse. But I just don't let things put me down.

"After having cancer it has given me the impetus to push myself and achieve all the goals that I want to achieve before I depart this life."

Michael Copeland - who has no plans to return to politics and recently revealed to the Belfast Telegraph that he had joined the Belvoir Players amateur drama group - was of course renowned as a tireless public servant himself, but Sonia was quick to point out that she'd learned from her estranged husband's mistakes.

"My phone doesn't go off - it goes on to answer machine on a Saturday morning," she explains.

"If it's an important call, I'll answer it, but if it's something that can wait until Monday then let's do that.

"I think it's important that I have to look after my own mental state - and I have learnt that through what happened to Michael.

"Michael would have had two phones on the go; one in each pocket. But I think it's important to maintain a private life."

Although Sonia cites mental illness as instrumental in the demise of her marriage, she is well aware of how big a problem it is throughout Northern Ireland.

Indeed, she herself isn't immune to bouts of inner turmoil.

"It's awful and, for those affected by the Troubles it's worse than people realise," she says.

"For instance, my vehicle was shot at on the Springfield Road and the bullet burnt both my neck and a colleague's arm.

"I still have the odd flashback, which is scary. I would wake up screaming.

"Sometimes if I hear something that has happened to someone on the news, I have nightmares that night."

Nightmares are one thing, sweet dreams another.

And sweet dreams for Sonia Copeland do not, at the moment, include meeting someone else.

"Right now, I have found me and I have also found strengths that I didn't know I had," she says.

"And, right now, I am happy emerging."
A man who was charged with terrorism offences after travelling to Syria told police he returned home because he missed his grandmother, a court heard yesterday.

Eamon Bradley is alleged to have attended a terrorist training camp in a mountainous area along the Turkish border, receiving training in heavy weaponry and explosives.

He is additionally charged with possessing a grenade with intent to endanger life or cause damage to property.

The 28-year-old denies committing the offences, which are said to have taken place between March and October 2014.

A detective constable who interviewed the defendant told Londonderry Crown Court he had asked him if he had ever travelled to Syria.

When asked by defence barrister Brian McCartney QC why the Creggan man had returned home, the policeman said Bradley told him he had become disillusioned with the country and had told members of his family that "he had been missing his granny".

The detective constable added: "I am sure most terrorists like their grannies."

Later, one of the UK's leading experts in Middle Eastern conflicts told the trial that the group Bradley joined had no legitimacy in the country.

Dr Matthew Wilkinson, an expert in Islamic studies at University College London, was giving evidence on the seventh day of the trial.

The expert, a witness in the first prosecution case of its kind in Northern Ireland, converted to Islam after he left Cambridge University aged 21.

He told the court that he had also been an imam at a mosque in Norwich for approximately four years.

Dr Wilkinson said he had taken part as an expert witness in 22 counter-terrorism trials in the UK in the last four years.

He described Jaysh Al-Islam, which the defendant said he joined and fought with, as a mixture of various guerrilla groups which at the time of the alleged offences had 25,000 soldiers in its ranks.

Their primary objective was to overthrow the Assad regime and establish a State based on Sharia law, and its followers believed that soldiers killed in battle were martyrs.

Dr Wilkinson said that initially, when it came to power during the 1970s, the Assad regime brought political and economic stability to the country.

However, the ruling family later started to "use pernicious and horrible methods against local citizens".

During eight interviews with police following his arrest in November 2014 after he returned from Syria, the defendant said he joined Jaysh Al-Islam to fight against Islamic State and the Assad regime after he saw pictures of babies being taken from bombed buildings.

Mr McCartney told jurors the defendant went to Syria to help, not fight.

"Images of humanity being pulverised in the dust of Aleppo are what led him to go there," he added.

He added: "The images of babies being pulled out of rubble and images of Aleppo being pulverised, they were the images which brought him to Syria".

The trial continues.
Gardai seized a loaded firearm and canister of petrol from the car in inner city Dublin

Gardai investigating a bloody gangland feud have seized a loaded revolver and a canister of petrol from a car in Dublin's north inner city.

The discovery suggests another attack was imminent in the ongoing murderous fall-out between the Kinahan crime cartel and the Hutch gang, a Garda source said.

Two officers on foot patrol in an undisclosed area of the inner city became suspicious of two unoccupied vehicles parked in the neighbourhood.

During a search of the vehicles they uncovered the loaded firearm and canister of petrol.

After a major seizure of gangland guns last month, some of which were loaded, Detective Superintendent Tony Howard, of the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, said seizing loaded weapons means lives have been saved.

The latest find was made on Wednesday night.

A Garda spokesman said: "As part of on-going investigations into recent organised criminal activity in Dublin north city centre, gardai have seized two vehicles, a firearm and ammunition.

"While patrolling the area on foot yesterday evening gardai from Community Policing North Central Division, Dublin Metropolitan Area, were alerted to two unoccupied vehicles parked in the locality.

"Following a search of the vehicles a loaded firearm and a canister of petrol was recovered."

The revolver, ammunition and two vehicles have been sent for technical examination by Garda forensic experts.

No arrests have been made.

"Investigations are on-going," the Garda spokesman added.
Tory MP Jackie Doyle-Price hands over the results of the vote to a clerk as Theresa May and her ministers look on

MPs have given Theresa May their authority to formally begin Brexit in an overwhelming House of Commons vote.

The European Union (Notification of Withdrawal Bill) was approved at third reading, its final Commons stage, after Jeremy Corbyn ordered his MPs to back it.

But the Labour leader was unable to prevent the resignation of senior shadow cabinet minister Clive Lewis, who quit the frontbench to vote against the Bill in defiance of a three-line whip.

The legislation, which will give the Prime Minister the authority to begin exit talks under Article 50 of the EU treaties, was passed by 494 votes to 122, majority 372.

It will now have to pass through the House of Lords before Mrs May can invoke Article 50, which she has promised to do by April.

Two Ulster Unionist Party MPs voted in favour of the Bill: Tom Elliott (Fermanagh & South Tyrone) and Danny Kinahan (Antrim South).

Eight DUP MPs backed the Bill - Gregory Campbell, Nigel Dodds, Jeffrey Donaldson, Ian Paisley, Gavin Robinson, Jim Shannon, David Simpson, and Sammy Wilson.

Three SDLP MPs voted against the Bill. They were Mark Durkan, Alasdair McDonnell and Margaret Ritchie.

Independent MP Lady Sylvia Hermon also voted against it.

A total of 52 MPs rebelled against Mr Corbyn's orders and voted against triggering Article 50, up from the 47 who opposed the legislation at second reading last week.

Former chancellor Ken Clarke was again the only Conservative to vote against the Bill.

The simple two-clause Bill was passed without any changes after around 40 hours of debate in the Commons. The government saw off the threat of a significant Tory rebellion over the rights of EU citizens already in the UK.

Just three Tory backbenchers - Ken Clarke, Tania Mathias and Andrew Tyrie - rebelled to back a bid to make ministers unilaterally guarantee EU nationals' rights. The amendment put forward by Labour's Harriet Harman was defeated by 332 votes to 290, majority 42, after Home Secretary Amber Rudd sent a letter to Conservative MPs offering them assurances over the issue.

The government has said it will treat EU nationals' status as a priority in Brexit negotiations and seek to strike a reciprocal agreement to also protect the rights of British expats in Europe as soon as possible.

Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, who last week blamed a migraine for a failure to attend a vote on the Bill, backed the triggering of Article 50.

As Mr Lewis announced his resignation, Mr Corbyn appeared to leave the door open for his return to the shadow cabinet, remarking: "I wish Clive well and look forward to working with him in the future."

Asked if the comment meant Mr Lewis could return to the shadow cabinet at some point, a Labour source said they "wouldn't rule anything out".

Mr Lewis, touted by some as a potential future Labour leader, said he could not back the Bill given Norwich, in which his constituency lies, voted 56.2% to 43.8% to remain in the EU in June's referendum.

He said: "When I became the MP for Norwich South, I promised my constituents I would be Norwich's voice in Westminster, not Westminster's voice in Norwich.

"I therefore cannot, in all good conscience, vote for something I believe will ultimately harm the city I have the honour to represent, love and call home.

"It is therefore with a heavy heart that I have decided to resign from the shadow cabinet. It has been a privilege to work with Jeremy Corbyn and be part of the shadow cabinet. I will continue to support our party and our leader from the backbenches to the very best of my ability."

Mr Corbyn said: "I would like to thank Clive for his work in the shadow cabinet, which has underlined what an asset he is to the Labour Party and our movement."

A government source warned peers not to delay the Bill's progress through the Lords.

"The Lords will face an overwhelming public call to be abolished if they now try and frustrate this Bill - they must get on and deliver the will of the British people," the source said.

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron vowed the party's peers would seek to amend the Bill in the Lords, including another attempt to ensure a referendum on the final Brexit deal.

He said: "Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords will seek to make changes to the government's plans. Our goal will be to protect Britain's membership of the single market, protect the rights of EU citizens in the UK and to give the people the final say on Theresa May's deal."
The aftermath of the Hyde Park atrocity in 1982

The Hyde Park bombing which left four soldiers dead in 1982

Families of those killed in the 1982 IRA Hyde Park Bomb have been denied legal aid to bring their own prosecution against convicted IRA man John Downey.

Mr Downey (65) was accused of murdering four soldiers and injuring 31 in the July 1982 bombing.

The dead were 23-year-old Anthony Daly, 19-year-old Simon Tipper, another 19-year-old Jeffrey Young, and 36-year-old Roy Bright.

Seven horses were also killed and another that was injured in the blast, Sefton, was made a national hero.

In 2014 the case against him collapsed after it was revealed he received a letter of comfort in 2007 saying he was not wanted by any UK police force.

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Last year the families of those killed launched a legal campaign to take their own private prosecution against Mr Downey, but were refused funding.

However, a High Court judge ordered a review into the that decision saying there could be a "benefit to the public" to have Mr Downey stand trail.

On Thursday, The Daily Mail reported that the Legal Aid Agency for England and Wales had again refused the request.

The agency admitted that there was a "significant" interest to the public to take a case but the costs of funding the families case was "not proportionate to the benefits".

Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close The Hyde Park bombing in 1982 The Hyde Park bombing which left four soldiers dead in 1982 Hyde Park bombing The aftermath of the Hyde Park atrocity in 1982 / Facebook

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Mark Tipper, the brother of Trooper Tipper, told the paper: "This just causes further pain. The man we want to stand in court and answer for his actions was set free because of mistakes by our Government departments. The fact that another Government agency wont pick up the baton is another slap in the face to all of us."

Matthew Jury, of law firm McCue and Partners, which represents the families, added: "The state is willing to spend millions to investigate and prosecute UK veterans  many for actions they took combating terrorism.

"Yet, when it comes to the murder of four British soldiers, the Legal Aid Agencys position is that there isnt enough public benefit to warrant the cost of bringing their alleged killer to trial. This begs the question, when it comes to justice, is a soldier's life worth less?"

The on the run scheme process, agreed between Sinn Fein and the last Labour government, saw letters sent to republicans informing them they were not being sought by the authorities in the UK.

Police were asked to review the evidence to assess if they were either wanted or not wanted at that particular point in time.

Those who were not being actively pursued due to a lack of sufficient evidence received a letter from the government informing them of this.

Details of the scheme emerged after the collapse of a case against Mr Downey after he received such a letter in error.

The Belfast Telegraph has contacted the Legal Aid Agency and McCue and Partners for a comment.
The memorial to the three soldiers has been attacked on numerous occasions.

Flowers left at the memorial in Belfast yesterday to murdered soldiers Dougald McCaughey and Joseph and John McCaig

David McCaughey at the monument for the three Scottish soldiers murdered in the IRA honeytrap in 1971

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon's has offered an apology, the man behind the campaign for justice for the soldiers has said.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has apologised over comments made by one of her representatives that the IRA could be regarded as "freedom fighters," a justice campaigner has said.

John Mason sparked outrage when, in a Twitter exchange, he said some would regard the IRA as "freedom fighters" when asked to back a campaign for justice for three Scottish soldiers killed by the terrorist group in Belfast over 40 years ago.

He also hinted that the victims, Fusiliers Dougald McCaughey and brothers John and Joseph McCaig - aged just 17, 18 and 23 when they were shot dead in 1971 - might be somehow to blame for their tragic fates.

Initially he refused to withdraw his comments, calling them "general" and not directly linked to any one case. However, he later backtracked after party leader and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon faced calls to act.

Kris McGurk who runs the campaign for justice for the three Scottish soldiers said he has now received a personal apology from Mrs Sturgeon.

"She requested I rely her words to the McCaughey and McCaig family," he said in a Facebook post.

"I will quickly speak to all involved in the campaign before making any further moves."

The Scottish National Party has been contacted for a response.

Royal Highland Fusiliers John and Joseph McCaig along with Dougald McCaughey were off duty in a bar in Belfast's Cornmarket area when they were enticed into a car with the promise of meeting girls, in 1971.

They were taken to White Brae in Ligoniel, where they were shot by members of the Provisional IRA.

Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Memorial to the soldiers in White Brae Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph The memorial to the three soldiers has been attacked on numerous occasions. Flowers left at the memorial in Belfast yesterday to murdered soldiers Dougald McCaughey and Joseph and John McCaig / Facebook

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Their bodies were found by children playing the next day. To date no one has stood trial for their deaths.

Mr Mason, MSP for Glasgow Shettleston, became embroiled in the controversy after he was asked by a constituent to back a campaign to bring the republican killers of the soldiers to justice.

Refusing to "take sides" he said: "You say Irish murderers. Others say Irish freedom fighters. I support Scottish soldiers if they do good, but not if they do bad."

Following calls for an apology, Mr Mason said: "I deeply regret the offence and upset that has been caused to the relatives who lost loved ones and I'm extremely sorry that this has happened.

"I condemn and deplore all acts of terrorism."

The soldiers' families are fighting to have the killers - men they claim are known to police and security services - brought to justice.

Over the years a memorial to the soldiers in north Belfast has been repeatedly vandalised.
Police have detained four Islamic State suspects who were allegedly planning to carry out a "sensational" attack in Turkey and seized 24 suicide attack belts, officials said.

The latest detentions came as CIA chief Mike Pompeo arrived in Turkey to discuss the fight against the extremist group in Syria and Iraq, making his first overseas trip since taking office in the US.

The suspects were put under custody in an anti-terror operation in Gaziantep, near the border with Syria, according to the Gaziantep provincial governor's office.

Police found the suicide belts - made with 150kg of explosives and fortified with metal pieces - as well as two automatic rifles, 14kg of TNT and other materials during the operation, it said.

There were no details on the nationalities of the suspects, who were allegedly taking orders from high-level IS members in Syria.

One suspect was wanted for membership of a terror organisation, according to the governor's office.

Last year, Turkey suffered a series of deadly attacks carried out by IS or Kurdish militants and has stepped up anti-terrorism operations across the country.

Some 750 people with alleged IS links were detained in a major police sweep in 29 Turkish provinces last week.

A Turkish official said Mr Pompeo was to meet with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, as well as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim in Ankara.

The talks will include plans for a possible operation to retake the IS stronghold of Raqqa, said the security official.

Mr Pompeo's visit follows a phone call between US President Donald Trump and Mr Erdogan.

Turkey is hoping for a reset in relations with the United States that were strained under the Obama administration over Turkish demands for the extradition of a US-based cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who Turkey has accused of orchestrating a failed coup.

Turkey was also angered by US backing for Syrian Kurdish fighters, since it considers them terrorists because of their links to outlawed Kurdish rebels in Turkey.

Turkey, whose troops are currently trying to liberate the IS-held town of al Bab in Syria, is pressing for a joint operation with the US to recapture Raqqa without the Syrian Kurdish group's involvement.

The security official said that during talks with Mr Pompeo, Turkey would also seek greater US co-operation in Turkey's struggle against Mr Gulen's movement and the Kurdish rebels.

AP
Medical and first aid equipment being loaded on to containers at the St Vincent de Paul base in Ballymena yesterday for shipment to Aleppo

The first container of medical aid from Ireland is set for Aleppo.

Health trusts donated outdated equipment, and wheelchairs have been refurbished by inmates of Maghaberry Prison.

Bandages, walking frames, scanners and operating equipment are among other items in the pioneering shipment to war-torn Syria put together by St Vincent de Paul in Ballymena.

Charity regional president Aidan Crawford said: "Until recently it has been impossible to get aid into Aleppo due to the heavy shelling and bombing.

"However, we now have the opportunity to reach those most in need and are working with a charity in Syria who will distribute the aid when it arrives in about 25 days."

Mr Crawford said there are no working hospitals in Aleppo as all have been bombed, so they only have makeshift facilities to care for thousands of people.

He added: "There are also very few doctors as most have fled and those that remain aren't permitted by the government to buy any medical equipment."
Whenever commentators and politicians discuss the likelihood of the return of political violence to Northern Ireland, they tend to say the same things. The conditions are not the same now. Nationalists are no longer a minority discriminated against. The leadership of militant republicanism has redirected the energies of the movement towards politics.

Much of unionism is more secular-minded. It is no longer, for instance, essential that a minister should be a member of the Orange Order. And, aside from these things, many other changes have made life more comfortable and less stressful.

Unemployment isn't as high as it was when the last round of Troubles erupted in the late-1960s. Most homes now have central heating, so it is always easier to sit at home than to go out on the street to warm yourself up with a riot. And cheap flights and city breaks have given us access - for the time being - to a big, open Europe.

But there is one crucial factor in the collapse of order in Belfast and Derry in 1969 which is back with us. Successive public inquiries located the varied contributory factors to violence, but pointed to one huge failing in the state - and that was the inadequacy of the police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

Throughout the 1960s, there had been warnings. One was a massive riot - largely lost to the history books - in 1964, when Linfield supporters returning from Windsor Park across the Falls Road ran amok.

On Easter Tuesday that year, after beating a Catholic team, Distillery, hundreds of men returning to the Protestant Shankill Road spilled over into side-streets off the Falls Road and clashed with the police and attacked and taunted Catholic residents.

The fact that the Linfield supporters felt safe crossing the Falls Road at all illustrates a culture and climate of the time which is virtually incomprehensible today.

Five years later, there would be a peace line erected by the Army, a permanent barricade to separate these communities, each for its own safety from the other.

The RUC City Commissioner, Graham Shillington, witnessed the eruption of the riot and told his men later that he would not have believed it could have flared up so quickly had he not seen it himself.

There was further rioting in September that year after police removed an Irish tricolour from Republican Party campaign offices at 145 Divis Street.

The display of the flag was illegal, but even the police officer in charge in the area, later Chief Constable Jack Hermon, said the flag was set back from the window and only visible to passers-by "in a wholly Catholic area", therefore, by implication, unlikely to cause offence.

Jack Hermon described how the police were almost overwhelmed. He had had to organise his men to form battle lines and throw stones back at the rioters.

Accounts of later riots often made much of the fact that police lost control and behaved chaotically and brutally, but the core reality was that they were ill-equipped and ill-trained and that there was no reasonable excuse for this other than that their pliant leaders assured the government of the time that they could cope, when plainly they could not.

In that September riot, one constable got a foot caught in a drain from which the metal grating had been removed and was attacked by the mob, but was rescued by a group of older residents in Percy Street.

When Hermon visited one of those residents to thank her a few days later, he discovered that her family was republican and that her husband had served time for possessing ammunition. He hadn't known. He hadn't been briefed.

It's a small, but telling, example of the lack of preparedness for what would follow.

Yes, there were lots of panic stories about how the IRA was training for another uprising, but these were only told to political effect. No one really believed them.

And when the balloon went up in August 1969, the police misread and mismanaged the violence. They thought they were faced with an Easter Rising-type revolt. They were spooked by the sound of their own guns.

Police in Donegall Pass police station crouched inside their building, believing that they were under fire, though they weren't.

And the Army was sent in to restore order, because the RUC had been thrown into disarray by a couple of dozen IRA men, only a few of them armed, and hundreds of young people with petrol bombs.

Their masterplan for dealing with the riots was to deploy Shorland armoured cars, with Browning machine guns mounted on them. These had been built for open-field combat on the border, the idea being that they could scoot along country roads and fire over hedges.

Their first outing was in Divis Street; their first casualty a nine-year-old boy.

If you want to assess the danger of all this recurring in some form, then you can take assurance from the political progress, if you like, and the paltry campaign of the dissident republicans, but you cannot take comfort from the present state of policing.

The most important lesson learnt from that period has been lost and forgotten. What if the police had managed well enough in August 1969 and had not panicked into using machine guns against civilians? The trauma that took 30 years to work itself out of our system might never have arisen.

But both the IRA and the police thought they were fighting again in the style of 1964. And they were wrong.

The IRA had guns and used them, never believing that the police would strafe the whole road with tracer fire. But they did, because they couldn't think of anything else to do.

On Tuesday, the Belfast Telegraph reported on failings within the policing of Belfast. We reported claims by a senior officer that local people have given up on expectations that the police will deal with crime and are now turning to republican dissidents.

The Belfast Telegraph photographer Kevin Scott, asked on Twitter how he manages to get to incidents before the police, replied: "It's a bit hard not to be there first when it takes them a day to get there."

A concerned officer said that there were three problems facing the police in their efforts to deal with crime: they lacked the resources they need; response times are delayed; and the police are nervous about the danger of being attacked by dissidents.

They should be nervous. The danger is real.

But it can only grow if the police aren't up to the task of curtailing paramilitaries.

It is not always a strong police force that resorts to extreme violence. The past shows that brutality was the more likely resort of a weak one.
The government is to press ahead with plans to enable petty criminals to plead guilty online and receive a sentence through a computer.

A report from the Ministry of Justice has called for the system to be tested with non-prisonable offences, such as tram fare evasion, railway fare evasion and possession of an unlicensed road and line.

Under this proposal, defendants who opt in to the online procedure and plead guilty will be offered the option to accept a pre-determined penalty (including the payment of any appropriate compensation and costs), be convicted and pay the amount immediately, it reads.

Criminals wont actually be convicted by a computer algorithm.

As the report explains, This procedure will therefore only apply to cases which already generally require minimum involvement from magistrates and would otherwise be decided by a single magistrate on the papers without the need for a court hearing through the Single Justice Procedure (SJP).

We consider that it is in the interests of all court users to have clear-cut, wholly uncontested cases dealt with without any unnecessary delay, thus allowing magistrates more time to consider more complex cases.

The Ministry of Justice says defendants will need to enter personal data  such as their date of birth, prosecution Unique Reference Number and National Insurance Number  to confirm their identity, and says the system will be "designed to the highest standards of digital security".

It's also stressed that the online system is entirely voluntary, with defendants who opt out able to have their case dealt with via the SJP or heard in court instead.
Actor Liam Neeson investigated his faith during the filming of director Martin Scorseses Silence.

His examination found something more profound than religious facts on the Jesuit priest he plays.

Remarkably, he found Gods love.

I have had personal experiences of Gods love, beautiful and calming, all the things the Psalms talk about, Nesson told Patheos.com in an interview.

Based on the true-life character, Nessons character was trapped in Japan during the 17th century while spreading the message of Christianity. The film explains how two Jesuit priests Father Sebastian Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Father Francisco Garrpe (Adam Driver) went to find their colleague (Ferreira), who was being tortured because of his faith. As they made their pilgrimage, they encountered fierce hostility and violence while spreading the word of Christianity.

Initially, the Japanese believed that Christianity was a tenant of the Buddhist faith. When they realized that people were converting, the persecution started and believers went into hiding.

[Ferreira] believed that Christ would work through him and this gave him the freedom to learn the language and to serve the people in other ways that were meaningful.

Father Ferreira, however, was reaching faith crisis because he didnt understand why God wasnt answering him. He ultimately ends up recanting his faith while being tortured by the Japanese for five hours over a fire pit.

Nesson was not the only person who experienced a rekindling of faith.

Garfield unearthed something far greater than his character after investigating Christian theology.

What was really easy was falling in love with this person, was falling in love with Jesus Christ. That was the most surprising thing, said Garfield who spent a year with Jesuit priests.

Garfield considered himself an atheist but found a relationship with Jesus Christ while preparing for the film.

You make all these sacrifices in service of God, in service of what you believe God is calling you into, and even after all of that heart and soul, that humble offeringthat humilityeven after all of that someone is going to throw a stone and dismiss it. Its a wonderful, wonderful grace to be given, to be shown, he said.

For Nesson, he realized that Ferreiras idea of God was ultimately one of love, but this is what I choose to believe myself. I still believe in a God, you know, he said during a press conference.

If God were a stern master, I would have given up the faith long ago. God is love, love is God, said Nesson who was raised Roman Catholic in Ballymena, Northern Ireland.
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...WIND ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 9 PM EDT THIS EVENING... * WHAT...South winds 20 to 30 mph with gusts up to 55 mph. * WHERE...Portions of north central and northwest Ohio. * WHEN...Until 9 PM EDT this evening. * IMPACTS...Gusty winds could blow around unsecured objects. Tree limbs could be blown down and a few power outages may result. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... Use extra caution when driving, especially if operating a high profile vehicle. Secure outdoor objects. &&
For Immediate Release, February 8, 2017 Contact: Michael Robinson, (575) 313-7017, michaelr@biologicaldiversity.org

Maya Rommwatt, (503) 467-9471, maya@mexicanwolves.org Protestors Demand End to Gov. Martinez's Blockade on Wolf Releases Conservationists Flood Roundhouse Demanding New Mates for Closely Related Wolves SANTA FE, N.M. More than 250 people gathered at the state capitol this afternoon to protest roadblocks Gov. Susana Martinez has erected to saving endangered Mexican gray wolves from extinction. The boisterous crowd called on the governor to allow wolf releases from captivity into the wild to address the lack of unrelated mates. Under Martinez, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in May and obtained an injunction barring the federal agency from releasing wolves into the wild in the state. The federal government and conservation organizations have appealed that injunction, but while the appeal is being decided the Mexican wolf's genetic plight is worsening. Mexican wolves don't have the luxury of more time, said Michael Robinson, a conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups that organized today's protest. Gov. Martinez should reconsider whether she wants the extinction of the Mexican wolf to be part of her legacy. At last count, one year ago, the wolf population in southwestern New Mexico and eastern Arizona included just six breeding pairs. Results from a new count are expected this week. The genetic problems our wild wolves are experiencing could be solved by more releases, said Maya Rommwatt of Lobos of the Southwest, which maintains the informational website mexicanwolves.org. A majority of Gov. Martinez's constituents want the wolf recovery program to succeed. Because of a paucity of previous releases, as well as federal trapping and shooting of wolves on behalf of the livestock industry  including two wolves trapped last week in Arizona  each wolf in the population is related to every other wolf as if they were siblings. The inbreeding is resulting in smaller litters and pups that die before they mature. If this population is to survive, and the Mexican wolf as a subspecies to eventually recover, unrelated wolves from captive-breeding facilities must be released into the wild. Background

Scientists have been urging as far back as 2001 that the pace of wolf releases increase significantly, at first to prevent and now to ameliorate inbreeding. The reintroduction program began in 1998, and in three years the Clinton administration released 50 wolves from captive-breeding facilities. The Bush administration released 42 wolves, while the Obama administration, despite the wolves' worsening genetics, released just 10 individuals, the majority of which are now dead or back in captivity. In 2015, after conducting public hearings overflowing with wolf supporters, the Fish and Wildlife Service gave itself the authority to release captive-bred wolves into the Gila National Forest, but Gov. Martinez's injunction has temporarily invalidated that authority.



The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.2 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places. Lobos of the Southwest is a collaborative effort of concerned citizens and local, regional, and national conservation, scientific and sportsmen's organizations conducting online organizing to help save the endangered Mexican gray wolf.
For Immediate Release, February 9, 2017 Contact: Tierra Curry, Center for Biological Diversity, (928) 522-3681, tcurry@biologicaldiversity.org

Courtney Sexton, Center for Food Safety, (202) 547-9359, pr@CenterforFoodSafety.org Monarch Butterfly Population Drops by Nearly One-third Iconic Butterfly Has Declined by More Than 80 Percent in Recent Decades WASHINGTON The annual overwintering count of monarch butterflies released today confirms butterfly numbers fell by nearly one-third from last year's count, indicating an ongoing risk of extinction for America's most well-known butterfly. Scientists report that this year's population is down by 27 percent from last year's count, and down by more than 80 percent from the mid-1990s. This year's drastic decline is attributed in part to more extreme winter storms that killed millions of monarchs last March in Mexico's mountain forests, where 99 percent of the world's monarchs migrate for the winter. The monarch butterfly is still in really big trouble and still needs really big help if we're going to save this beloved orange-and-black wonder for future generations, said Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. A recent study by the U.S. Geological Survey concluded that there is a substantial probability that monarch butterflies east of the Rockies could decline to such low levels that they face extinction. Researchers estimate the probability that the monarch migration could collapse within the next 20 years is between 11 percent and 57 percent. In addition to threats from more frequent and harsher weather events, monarchs are still severely jeopardized by the ever-increasing pesticides used with genetically-engineered crops, destroying their habitat, said George Kimbrell, senior attorney at the Center for Food Safety. We will continue to do everything we can to ensure monarchs have a future. The butterfly's dramatic decline has been driven in large part by the widespread planting of genetically engineered crops. The vast majority of U.S. corn and soybeans are genetically engineered for resistance to Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, a potent killer of milkweed, the monarch caterpillar's only food. The dramatic surge in the use of Roundup and other herbicides with the same active ingredient (glyphosate) on Roundup Ready crops has virtually wiped out milkweed plants in the Midwest's corn and soybean fields. In the past 20 years, scientists estimate, these once-common, iconic orange-and-black butterflies may have lost more than 165 million acres of habitat  an area about the size of Texas  including nearly a third of their summer breeding grounds. Logging on the monarch's Mexican wintering grounds is also an ongoing concern. Scientists have also identified threats to the monarch during the fall migration including lack of nectaring habitat and insecticides. Background

Found throughout the United States during summer months, most monarchs from east of the Rockies winter in the mountains of central Mexico, where they form tight clusters on trees. Scientists from World Wildlife Fund Mexico estimate the population size by counting the number of hectares of trees covered by monarchs. Monarchs need a very large population size to be resilient to threats from severe weather events, pesticides, climate change, disease and predation. A single winter storm in 2002 killed an estimated 500 million monarchs, roughly five times the size of the current population. Concerns over the extinction risk of the monarch led the Center for Biological Diversity, the Center for Food Safety, the Xerces Society and renowned monarch scientist Dr. Lincoln Brower to petition the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2014 to protect the butterfly as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The Service is now conducting a review of its status and must decide on protection by 2019. In Canada, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife has recommended that the Canadian government list the monarch as an endangered species. Monarch butterfly migration is now recognized as a threatened process by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
Vodacom has announced that they will be working with Kaduna State in Nigeria to launch an ICT for development initiative. The project will support mass service delivery in healthcare, education and agriculture through the deployment of tailored ICT solutions to promote greater efficiency in each sector.

The first, SMS for Life 2.0, is a mobile technology-based healthcare program in Kaduna State which aims to improve the delivery of healthcare for citizens who access public health services as well as increase the availability of chronic or essential medication by monitoring drug stock levels. Vodacom is the technology partner for the initiative, which is a public-private partnership with Novartis and the Kaduna State Ministry of Health. Vodacom has started with the training and deployment of SMS for Life 2.0 in Kaduna, with over 250 facilities using the platform to date. The initiative will be implemented in all 36 states.

Vuyani Jarana, chief officer of Vodacom Business, says Vodacom is taking the lead in leveraging mobile technology to address healthcare, education and agricultural challenges in Africa. We see technology playing an increasing role as an enabler of economic development as governments on the continent are able to leapfrog developmental stages. Vodacoms critical role through its partnership with Kaduna State is to help improve service delivery in the region, supporting healthy, well-educated and economically active citizens.

Malam Nasir El-Rufai, Governor of Kaduna State, welcomes the progressive evolution of the partnership with Vodacom. The Kaduna State Government is delighted to apply technology to advance governance and the delivery of public services. Working with Vodacom, we seek to further enhance service delivery, improve data collection and strengthen accountability.

In addition Vodacom has also introduced a mobile school management solution in Kaduna State which provides real-time visibility of all management activities at schools. A school feeding programme module allows the State to monitor feeding programmes in schools to ensure that pupils on the programmes receive quality meals. The district office has access to real time reports on teacher and learner data through the application. The solution, which uses mobile phone and tablet technology, will be implemented in 4 000 schools across the State.

Jarana says that Vodacom has both the technology and the experience to increase access and improve delivery efficiency in health, education and agriculture services. The experience comes from private projects conducted across Africa over the last five years.

The next phase of Vodacoms partnership with Kaduna State will focus on agriculture by launching Vodacoms Connected Farmer platform in Kaduna. Connected Farmer is a cloud-based web and mobile solution which supports smallholder farmers registration and profiling. This enables them to be linked to financial institutions, agribusinesses, information, services and markets, all with an aim to increase their productivity.
The Cloud will make BI tools affordable and accessible to all

Using BI tools and their respective datasets can be an expensive proposition, especially when a small business wants to use it for market intelligence. But with the growth of the Cloud, this cost is expected to be gradually reduced in 2017.

Not only this, but the overall TCO is also expected to decline, at a fixed and steady point which will be affordable to all businesses and corporations. It is also expected that as end users examine the trends and create their storyboards from their Cloud-based BI tool, the use of social media will also grow equally in order to communicate with others. This includes the likes of YouTube, Twitter, Google Sheets and Google Analytics. Overall, the launch of BI into the Cloud will become known in 2017 as SaaS BI.

The BI and reporting tools will become one

Lets face the reality, the explosion of data will only continue to grow well into the future. As described previously in this article, it will permeate both our personal and professional lives. There is no way of escaping it, especially as it entrenches our smartphones via the usage of mobile apps, ads, and other such items.

Likewise, it is also expected that BI will play a critical role here when it comes to managing this growth in data. In this context, the use of BI is known as Embedded BI. For example, the BI tool will literally become embedded into the reporting/analysis tool into the various software packages that require them. This way, you can customise your dashboard in the way which will be most advantageous to you.

The Internet of Things (IoT) will become a big component of BI

Businesses and corporations alike can combine the principles of IoT with the data warehousing functionality which is available in the BI tool to gain much more useful insights into the buying patterns of their existing customer base [1] . From here, scientific extrapolations can then be made into the predictive buying patterns of customers for potential new products and services.

This will serve a huge advantage, as market research can now be conducted in real time, as opposed to using surveys or focus group interviews, which often have a time lag component associated with it.

2017 will be the year of discovering hidden trends [2 ]

Yes, corporations and businesses have a lot of datasets, and the mindset so far has been to find those trends which are the most obvious or which can be discerned without too much effort. But, with the sophistication of BI tools expected to take off in 2017, there will be a movement now in the market research departments of businesses and corporations to try and extract the hidden trends which are often very granular and difficult to discover in the first, or even second, phases of analyses.

Very often, when these trends are finally discovered, this is what gives the competitive edge to the C-Level executive and his or her management team.

It is not just the finance department which will be using BI tools

Breaking this popular myth, it will the operations and productions departments which will make heavy use of BI tools in 2017. For example, the usage of BI tools grew from 20% in 2008 to 53% in 2016 and is only expected to grow further [3 ]. It is also believed that BI tools will be used heavily in the research departments of the major banks both in the United States and in Europe.

One such example is the Northern Trust Bank. Traditionally, this financial institution relied on pre-dated, time series data sets in which to make balance sheet and income statement projections. But with BI tools, it is anticipated that projections can be made for both of these financial statements in real time, as the data sets become available and uploaded into the BI tools. This in a way, is also similar to that of data warehousing.
An urgent call to overhaul of the entire mental health care system in Gauteng has been made by the South African Society of Psychiatrists (SASOP), in response to the report issued by the health ombud on the deaths of mentally ill patients in the province.

Professor Malegapuru Makgoba, the health ombudsman, recently released a report on the circumstances surrounding the deaths of 94 psychiatric patients in the care of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) contracted by the Gauteng health department after ending its agreement with Life Esidimeni.

Failure to prioritise mental health

We are convinced that unless there is a particular and significant commitment by the political principals of the national and Gauteng departments of health to make the necessary resources and funds available now to restructure the system that it will not be possible to address the extent of the existing crisis.

The current situation is a direct result of accumulating years of neglect, delay and failure to prioritise mental health care services in Gauteng as well as in other provinces, says Professor Bernard Janse van Rensburg, SASOP president.

He says theres a need for the correct and differential licensing of NGOs  those that are able to provide safe residential care only, those who can provide psycho-social rehabilitative and nursing care services in addition, as well as those who can provide day-care services for patients, for example, residing with family members, or independently.

Dedicated teams

Of equal importance will be to capacitate all district hospitals, such as South Rand Hospital and others, in the different districts in Gauteng, to provide appropriate primary psychiatric services, including initial 72-hour assessment services.

Such community and district-based facilities must be supported by multi-disciplinary specialist community psychiatry teams, consisting of psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric nursing professionals, social workers and occupational therapists.

He says the dedicated teams must work closely with the specialist acute inpatient units in general referral hospitals, while all current specialist acute units on secondary or tertiary levels, must be equipped to provide at least 40 acute beds allowing for voluntary and involuntary mental health care.

Existing facilities under pressure

Currently, the three acute psychiatric inpatient units on the Wits academic circuit operate under significant pressure due to incomplete and delayed renovations. In some cases, patients are currently nursed in areas intended for half such numbers, as a result of all the respective construction projects now already being disproportionately delayed for several years.

Sterkfontein Psychiatric Hospital, for example, also experiences the impact on its staff and facilities of having to admit some of the ex-Life Esidimeni transfers, including a more extended waiting list of forensic observation cases.

The body also emphasises the need for the identification and costing of the required facility and staffing interventions that must be in place to ensure capacity and integration on different levels.

These components are being address in the existing policy of the National Mental Health Policy Framework and Strategic Plan 2013-2020, which SASOP supports in full since its publication in 2013. However, these principles now require realistic plans of action and the confirmed allocation of resources to implement integrated mental health care services in all regions.

The principles that need to be implemented include:

residential and day-care community-based facilities and programs providing a range of care-treatment-and-rehabilitation services with a full-time multi-disciplinary team available;

primary mental health care services in districts;

acute psychiatric units in secondary, tertiary and central general hospitals - back-to-back with specialist community psychiatry service; and

specialised psychiatric beds.

We believe that the remaining Life Esidimeni Hospital patients, currently still in unlawful NGOs, should in the interim actually be transferred back again to and accommodated in facilities such as those operated by Life Esidimeni, as a safe temporary holding space, until the detail and logistics of the implementation of a proper deinstitutionalisation process could be established.
Although many African countries' increased focus on strengthening their healthcare systems has led to significant gains in terms of improving health outcomes, the continent continues to struggle with huge challenges such as underfunding, dire shortages of healthcare professionals and a growing double disease burden that encompasses both communicable diseases (CDs) and non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

According to Dr Thomas Kowallik, CEO and country president of Novartis in South Africa, building effective healthcare systems in Africa poses huge opportunities for investors in healthcare in terms of issues such as the establishment of infrastructure, and developing technology and systems to provide effective, affordable and accessible medicines and healthcare services.

He was speaking at the 2nd Future Trends Forum in Africa hosted by the company in partnership with the University of Stellenbosch Business School.

Healthcare a priority for economic growth

Discussing Africas unique challenges and possible solutions, specifically around healthcare financing, and access to medicines, Professor Panos Kanavos from the London School of Economics (LSE) international health policy division in the department of social policy, emphasised that healthcare is top priority for economic growth by most countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

He cited achieving measurable results in terms of health outcomes to incorporate healthcare financing mechanisms that offer financial protection to patients against catastrophic healthcare expenditures due to ill health, strengthening governance through an enabling legislative framework and ensuring transparency and accountability and open communication with stakeholders.

In addition, he added that strengthening primary healthcare through a strong referral system, regulation of private health insurance (PHI) and health technology assessment (HTA) as well as economic evaluations to inform spending on technology, pharmaceutical and diagnostic aids, are crucial to improving population health.

Spending and mortality rates

Looking at achievements relating to increased healthcare spending per capita and reduced mortality rates in 10 African countries from 2004 and 2015, Kanavos presented research findings showing South Africa to be the top spender per capita on healthcare per year (rising from $80 per capita in 2004 to $540 in 2014).

However, it is one of the countries that has made the least progress to decrease mortality rates over the past decade (from 52,8 per 100,000 population in 2005 to 33,6 in 2015). In contrast, a country such as Rwanda spends only around $54 per capita (up from about $15 in 2005), but has managed to bring down its mortality rate from 77,7 per 100,000 population to 31 in 2015.

Among others, research showed that out-of-pocket spending on healthcare services are escalating, causing dire financial distress to patients in middle- and low income countries. In addition, nearly half of premature deaths in these countries are preventable, requiring urgent behavioural changes and disease awareness education.

Finance models for UHC

To effectively strengthen healthcare systems, Kanavos noted, will require strong stewardship from ministries of health (MoHs), healthcare financing reforms, and a focus on evidence-based medicine and public health to optimise allocation of scarce human resources. In addition, there is a need for innovative public-private partnership to streamline supply chain and ensure the procurement of efficient information technologies.

While the move towards universal healthcare coverage (UHC) should be encouraged, a myriad factors need to be considered before financing models to achieve this objective, Kanavos said.

These include the availability of resources, the reduction of out-of-pocket payments, pooling of revenue through various financing mechanisms, and the improvement of efficiency and equity in healthcare delivery. Up to 40% of healthcare resources are wasted owing to inefficient and inequitable allocation.

The development and implementation of universal healthcare coverage is a gradual process that is intrinsically linked to sustainable economic growth. He added that the selection of health financing mechanisms requires a careful balancing act.

Centralised systems

In his presentation, Kowallik pointed out that the successful expansion of services for HIV/Aids, TB and malaria has highlighted the inadequacy of existing services to deliver interventions for other health needs.

To address these challenges and speed up healthcare delivery, consideration should be given to changing systems based on the successful experiences of other countries.

This includes the implementation of centralised regulatory systems that will speed up medicine registration and access, the establishment of centralised hubs to improve supply chain management through mobile technologies, and a focus on patient education and healthcare partnerships.

For planning purposes, the collection of data on both CDs and NCDs are imperative while a bigger emphasis should be placed on improving the quality of primary healthcare, addressing medication compliance issues, implementing a structured approach to improve healthcare delivery, patient safety and rooting out drug counterfeiting, Kowallik said.
Gauteng Premier David Makhura has placed the Head of the Department of Health, Dr Tiego Selebano, on precautionary suspension in line with the recommendation of the Heath Ombudsman, Professor Malegapuru Makgoba.

The Gauteng Provincial Government on Wednesday said the Director of Mental Health in the department, Dr Makgabo Manamela, has also been served with a notice of intention to suspend her.

In line with the public service regulations, the Director has 48 hours to respond and give reasons why she should not be suspended.

The suspension and notice of intention to suspend have been effected in line with recommendations of the report released last week by Makgoba following the investigation into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of mentally ill patients in Gauteng, said the provincial government.

The report revealed that 94 mentally ill patients died after being removed from the Life Healthcare Esidimeni to 27 non-governmental organisations.

Makgoba investigated the matter at the request of Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi late last year. He was also requested to advise on a way forward.

Upon the release of the report, it was announced that Qedani Mahlangu had tendered her resignation as the Gauteng MEC of Health and a member of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature. Dr Gwen Ramokgopa was sworn in as a Member of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature and appointed as MEC for Health on Monday.

The Premier has appointed Dr Ernest Kenoshi as the Acting Head of Department of Health.

Dr Kenoshi is currently the CEO of Steve Biko Academic Hospital.

His long track record in public healthcare sector will assist in stabilising the department, strengthen its leadership and ensure the achievement of better health outcomes in the province, said the provincial government.

Meanwhile, the task team consisting of senior officials; specialists in the area of mental health: doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, occupational therapists; civil society organisations and family representatives, are continuing with their work to inspect the various NGOs that have patients who were transferred from Life Esidimeni.

Twenty NGOs have been visited so far and this process will be concluded by Friday. The team is also working towards identifying institutions that are well-equipped to care for the mental health patients in compliance with the Mental Health Care Act (2002).

During the inspection, the members of the task team are also checking and examining some of the patients. Family members are constantly engaged on these developments and have representatives in the advisory teams.

Premier Makhura has reiterated that he will continue to urgently implement the Health Ombudsmans recommendations without any reservation or delay.
Brand Intelligence firm marks its move from Sandton to the inner city by championing Johannesburg artists and raising funds for Malvern Primary School.

To celebrate its move from Sandton into Johannesburgs heartland, marketing research firm Ornico will be cutting the ribbon on its new inner city premises on Thursday, 23 February 2017, at 6pm for 6.30pm. As part of the celebrations, Ornico will host an auction of art to raise funds for Malvern Primary School which is situated on the corner of Jules and Frere Streets in Malvern, Johannesburg.

We are calling on clients, service providers and friends who helped Ornico grow, to celebrate this milestone event with us, said Ornico CEO, Oresti Patricios, adding: Marketers, brand owners, inner city neighbours, patrons of the arts and art lovers are all invited to take part in the auction to benefit education.

Ornico acquired the old Natal Bank Building situated at 90 Albertina Sisulu Road (cnr Harrison Street), in Johannesburg in January 2016. The building was provisionally declared a national heritage site in 1990, and is the oldest standing bank building in Johannesburg. Built immediately following the Anglo Boer War and occupied in 1903, the original construction cost of the building was 29,847. Just one block from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and the National Bank of the South African Republic, the Natal Bank overlooked the old market square, on what was then Market Street.

The building was empty, beginning to fall into a state of disrepair, and desperately needed refurbishment. Ornico has spent the last six months working with Sakhive Construction, a Jozi based construction and restoration company, to repair and renovate the site.

To commemorate the research firms move to this heritage site, Ornico will be holding an art auction and exhibition, called Bridges That Connect Us, featuring some of the citys top artists.

Ornicos clients include some of South Africas top brands, and we invite these brand leaders to meet some of Jozis most valuable and emerging artists. Join us at a unique inner city event, at this historic heritage venue, says Patricios. By supporting local, Jozi-based art and artists, we believe we celebrate Jozis unique culture and history. Art is a language that helps us understand each other, both in pain and in joy. It also creates opportunities for related endeavours, like design and innovation, and definitely contributes to economic growth through attracting cultural tourism and even encouraging investment, the Ornico CEO adds.

While the auction takes place on Thursday, 23 February, at 6pm with almost all of the artists present, the public will also be able to see the work. People who live, work and play in Johannesburg are also invited to view this art exhibition on Saturday 25 and Sunday 26 February 2017 from 9am to 3pm.

Artists participating in the exhibition and auction of artworks include:

Mbongeni Buthelezi: An internationally acclaimed artist, Buthelezi gained renown for brightly-coloured collages made from waste plastic. However, now he manufactures his own plastic in the specific colors and density he requires. Buthelezi studied as artist-in-residence in Germany and the USA, and has exhibited at the Melrose Gallery. His work is part of official collections, including the Museum for African Art in New York, Johannesburg Art Gallery and the Spier Collection.

Tshidzo Mangena: Working mainly in charcoal, acrylic and oil, Mangenas vibrant and unexpected colour combinations create works that are rich and emotive. Mangena is inspired by human emotion, and the beauty and the mystery of the African woman. Often his work reflects his love for jazz music and the grace and elegance of jazz instruments.

Solomon Omolayo Omogboye: Working mainly with charcoal, pastel, acrylic and oil on canvas, this Nigerian expat uses colours that explode with movement and emotion. His subject matter is as varied as life itself, ranging from pastel-illumined cityscapes to energy-infused portraits. He works from his own studio space in August House, JHB, which is one of the top artist colonies in SA.

Azael Langa: Benoni-born Langa won his first art competition in Grade 6, and discovered his calling studying art in high school. His works range from whimsical and surrealistic to moody impressionist pieces. Langa says that for him, art is a lifestyle. In his own words: My art is about socio-political activism and going about the subject I show the exploitation of the Average Joe; the corruption of the elite and bringing to the surface that which is out of sight, out of mind It is also about taking the intangible events, circumstances and becoming a mediator to the public. In some of Langas more controversial work he targets western icons and South African political figures.

Ndabuko Julukani Ntuli: Inspired by his grandfather, a painter and sculptor, Ntuli learned to paint at school and practiced while tending the family cattle in KwaZulu-Natal. His talent was recognised by the Johannesburg Art Foundation, where he was encouraged to hone his skills, especially in the art of oil painting using a palette-knife. He draws inspiration from rural and township life, drawing in traditional iconography and combining modern materials.

Johnnyguava: Born John de Gouveia, Johnny deals with self-discovery through his work. His creations use found objects, sometimes adding a comical twist to this serious conceptual base. Also trained as a professional photographer, the objects are removed from the environment they were found in and then transformed into pop-art images or collage, with themes that include decay and transformation.

Michael Tshepo Selekane: Born in the politically-charged 1980s in Uitvlag, rural Mpumalanga, Selekane was only encouraged to develop his latent talent in high school, when he moved to Mabopane to be with his mother. Later he was introduced to the Tshwaraganang Arts School in Mabopane, where he was exposed to various media, and developed oil paint techniques. A programme run by the Ifa Lethu Foundation, funded by Ausaid, was held at the centre, where Selekane was selected for further assistance and development. In a competition run by Ifa Lethu, Selekane won first prize for painting, and he gained the support of BHP Billiton. Further education at Tshwane University of Technologys Faculty of Arts was funded by the Ifa Lethu Foundation, and he has gone on to exhibit at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, the World Summit on Arts and Culture in Johannesburg and at various galleries across SA.

Dario Manjate Art: A graduate of one of the biggest and most vibrant community and professional printmaking facilities in Johannesburg  Artist Proof Studio  Manjates artistic skill includes oils, watercolour, acrylics, printmaking as well as the medium he is best known for  collage. Manjates love of art started in Alex, but was honed at Artist Proof Studio, and through various community projects such as Work To Win, an environmental awareness project which included several murals created to uplift his surrounding township community. The winner of the Freedom of Expression Art Competition (Gaulloises Blondes) in 1996, in Johannesburg, Manjates Curriculum Vitae includes many commissioned pieces by a variety of organizations and corporate companies. He continues to bring his unique approach to the formation of his collages and thus his work is sought after for its extraordinary qualities.

Nkhensani Rihlampfu: A painter, print maker and sculptor, Rihlampfu studied Fine and Applied Arts at the Tshwane University of Technology. He realised his B-Tech degree in 2011. Rihlampfus uncompromising work speaks to his experience of life in Johannesburg, as well as his understanding of power, spirituality and humanity. This has seen the artist win commissions for Constitutional Hill in Johannesburg and exhibit at Absas LAtelier, the Grahamstown Arts Festival, the Pretoria Art Museum, the Turbine Art Fair, as well as at Arts Alive and the Joburg-Joburg show. Rihlampfu now works from his own studio space in Johannesburg.

Cebo Simphiwe Xulu, aka @Mr_MediaX, is an emerging new-media artist who is attracting attention and interest following his residency at the Fakugesi African Innovation Festival, where he exhibited a set of playing cards called Mambokadzi  based upon African symbols and African queens  in collaboration with Vuyi Chaza and Regina Kgatle. Graduating from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal in 2011 with a BA Media and Visual arts degree, Xulu  who now calls himself Papichulo  is notable because of his use of technology in art. Xulu graduated in fine arts and media from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, but spent most of his varsity time learning how to live life as the (now deceased) popular underground comic, Mr Njejust. Since late 2013, I decided to bring all my mothers worst nightmares to life by trying to live life as an artist and entrepreneur in the creative industry. The nightmare continues to evolve into a beautiful dream, he says.

The auction and exhibition will be curated by Dawn Sarah McGee from MB Studio Community in collaboration with Nantu Palesa Phalatsi from Tshidzo Art.

The artists have agreed to donate a percentage of the auction sales to a fund for the Malvern Primary School. This is just a small start to what will be active, ongoing participation in the citys life, by Ornico, says Patricios. We will continue to support education and the arts, and look forward to meeting our neighbours, working with inner city partners and suppliers, and being part of Joburgs revitalisation going forward. We sincerely hope our associates, clients and business friends can join us as we mark this milestone of our journey, he adds.

Auction:

Date: 23 February 2017

Time: 6pm-9pm

Venue: Ornico City (Also known as the Natal Bank Building)

Address: 90 Albertina Sisulu Road (cor. Harrison Street)

Directions to Ornico City: http://bit.ly/ornico-city

Dress Code: Smart Casual or African traditional regalia

RSVP: http://bit.ly/brg_con

About Ornico:

Ornico provides reputation, media, advertising and brand research with a suite of products that includes Brand Intelligence across the African continent. It does this to help marketers and brand owners make sense of the flood of information that occupies traditional and social media.

By collecting and analysing media data across many channels, Ornico informs brand owners and marketing decision makers about the most important strategic decisions they'll ever make regarding their brands.

From editorial and advertising monitoring services, social media analytics to advanced brand research, Ornico provides a holistic and independent view of brand performance as reflected by television, radio, print media as well as social and digital media.




Brimstone Invest Corporation, which owns 85% of Sea Harvest's shareholding, has announced that it will list the company on the JSE, whilst simultaneously raising capital of up to R1.5 billion in private placement.

Sea Harvest has demonstrated strong growth in the last five years, with 59% of its revenues generated in hard currencies; Europe and Australia are its largest international markets.

Since taking control in 2009, Brimstone has invested R776 million in Sea Harvest, through additional capital and reinvested profits. Sea Harvest has invested considerably in new vessels and plant efficiencies and used capital to acquire control (56%) of Australian listed Mareterram in 2016.

Brimstone foresees significant growth potential from Sea Harvest and capital raised through the listing will help accelerate its growth trajectory.

The listing will add further impetus to transformation in South Africa and is strongly aligned with governments strategy to increase the number of black industrialists, says Fred Robertson, chairman of both Brimstone and Sea Harvest.

Sea Harvest will retain its black ownership credentials, with Brimstone continuing to own more than 50% of the company post-listing. Our long-term partnership approach has worked well and this will remain a cornerstone of our investment philosophy.

Capital raising will strengthen Sea Harvests balance sheet by repaying all company debt and providing the company with the additional capital to support growth both organically and acquisitively. Organic growth will come from margin enhancements by improving efficiencies and investing further in the business. Over the past two years, investments of some R300 million have been made in vessels and infrastructure with a corresponding increase in margins. This has also contributed directly to the creation of new jobs.

Importantly, the listing will allow Sea Harvest to attract and retain management and staff through the use of tradeable instruments. This will ensure that the interests of management and staff are aligned with those of Sea Harvests shareholders.

Sea Harvest has been a strong performer in our group and we expect the company, under the leadership of Felix Ratheb, to stretch capacity and capability. The company is energised and poised for growth, concludes Robertson.

Brimstone has established a track record of creating value in various ways for its shareholders over the years. Its role in the listing of Life Healthcare on the JSE and the significant value it created to all stakeholders is a fine example, says Mustaq Brey, Brimstone CEO.

The listing will be subject to approvals by the majority of Brimstone shareholders, regulatory approval by the JSE and any other regulatory consents that may be required. A general meeting of Brimstone shareholders will take place on 9 March 2017 to seek their approval for the listing.
The Fair Play Movement is bringing international experts to help stop the proliferation of the predatory trade practice of dumping worldwide. It has taken the South African EU Ambassador to task over the illegal dumping of chicken in South Africa.

An independent organisation, newly founded by Francois Baird, it has addressed a letter to Ambassador Marcus Cornaro to step into the corner of the anti-dumpers and help eradicate this scourge to trade.

Baird referred to the EUs publicly stated objectives to develop the South African industry and not create havoc in this market. The EU is all too aware of the threat that dumping creates and robustly defends its interest as in the recent case of the steel industry, the letter reads, referring to the EUs recent move to impose anti-dumping measures on steel products from China and Taiwan. You would expect us in South Africa to do no less, Im sure.

The EU has denied claims that it is dumping chicken in South Africa and has blamed the crisis on structural inefficiencies in the industry, among other things.

EU export prices confirm dumping

Baird quoted statistics compiled from data by SARS and LEI, the research institute at the University of Wageningen in The Netherlands, that showed that in 2013, the EU production costs for cut-up chicken portions was R25/kg, while in 2016, three years later, it was exporting to South Africa at R15/kg. That is 60% lower than your production cost was three years ago. Perhaps you could let me know how this is not dumping? Clearly it is.

Fair Play also challenges EU claims that the South African industry is not competitive. Are the subsidies of some 60 billion for EU farmers taken into account when you consider competitiveness and how much of this huge fund is made available to poultry farmers? South African poultry farmers get no government subsidies.

As a transitional economy, it is vital for South Africas indigenous industries to have every opportunity to develop and compete in a fair and open market.

Baird argues, EU chicken, by any definition, is being dumped here, is causing material damage to a key agricultural industry and is illegal.

Perhaps the ambassador is unaware, he says, that in South Africa, as opposed to Europe, the average worker supports as many as 10 dependents and that 1.3 million people are thus threatened with poverty; this in a country with one of the highest levels of unemployment in the world.

The official spokesperson for the Fair Play Movement, Ashoek Adhikari, has confirmed that the organisation was calling for the EU to get on board in its mission to take the dumpers out of the equation.

Job losses mount

The issue here is quite simple: even a little bit of dumping is illegal, and it is irresponsible to try to minimise its effects or place the blame elsewhere. The fact is that people who have lost their jobs, their livelihood, their ability to care for their families  and we stand on 5,000 and counting  cannot afford even the cheapest chicken, or any food. The movement is hoping for an agreement to an immediate stop to any further dumping of frozen chicken portions at below production costs, until an inquiry into its real effects is complete.

Finding its voice at the march last week in Pretoria, when the Food and Allied Workers Union, labour leaders, chicken industry bosses and hundreds of workers delivered a memorandum of protest to the EU, the Fair Play Movement sets out to untangle the conflicting claims that has come to characterise the crisis in the chicken industry.
The newly appointed chairman of Edcon said the retailer was too important to fail and would be turned around. Gareth Penny, who took up the position on Wednesday, said he was "confident we can continue to make progress in recreating a world-class retailer".

Penny, the former group CEO of De Beers, said Edcon, which is the largest clothing retailer in SA, had 45,000 employees, 9-million registered customers and was a major player in local malls.

"It will be got right," said Penny, who during his tenure at De Beers was instrumental in reshaping the world's largest diamond company.

The other board members are Bernie Brookes, Rhidwaan Gasant, Daphne Motsepe, Marti Murray, Grant Pattison and Keith Warburton. Brookes, who is CEO, is the only executive of the relatively small board.

Former Massmart CEO Pattison is the only nonexecutive with any significant retail experience, although it did not involve much exposure to clothing. Walmart has failed to make inroads in the local clothing market with Makro and Game failing to crack the market.

Analysts were generally unimpressed by the list of new directors. "It looks as though Bernie [Brookes] doesn't want to be challenged," said Sasfin analyst Alec Abraham.

But Penny said Pattison and Brookes had good hands-on retail experience and as a former chief financial officer of Clicks, Warburton would provide good financial back-up.

He said Motsepe, who is a former Absa executive, and Gasant, who is CEO of Rapid African Energy Holdings, would bring important perspectives to the board. Murray, an American and along with Brookes the only non-South African on the board, "has great experience in dealing with corporate challenges".

Penny said former Edcon CEO Steve Ross and former Woolworths top executive Andrew Jennings, who had been touted as candidates for the role of chairman, would play an advisory role to the company.

Jennings, who is South African, worked in Australia as a consultant for Brookes in his largely successful efforts to turn around leading Australian group Meyers.

The previous Edcon board also had limited retail experience and was dominated by bankers with a sprinkling of miners. As well as diamond retailing, Penny's experience includes mining and banking.

Penny said Brookes had done a good job since he took over in October 2015. "We've made progress but there is still a significant period ahead."

Source: Business Day
Reducing greenhouse gases is a commitment under the Paris Agreement, but the proposed carbon tax will not yield the desired results on its own. The delay in implementing the proposed legislation provides a great opportunity to come up with a better solution.

Ettiene Retief

Late last year, the National Treasury published the results of a study on the likely effects of the proposed new tax designed to reduce South Africas emission of greenhouse gases  the so-called carbon tax. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the study concluded the proposed tax would reduce our emission of greenhouse gases (33% by 2035), without significant impact on economic growth or jobs. However, the Treasury report has been criticised and claimed as fatally flawed.

The introduction of carbon tax is not surprising, considering the World Bank estimated that 15% of global emissions are subject to a tax or carbon pricing as at 2016.

The intended implementation date of the carbon tax has been postponed till early 2018. Understandably, the implementation of a carbon tax is complex, and needs to cater for many market segments.

The largest contributor to carbon emissions is the burning of fossil fuels. While it is intended that the carbon tax is not to affect the consumer of electricity until 2020, thereafter the costs will most likely be passed on to the consumer. Without a focus on alternative means to generate electricity, the consumer will have no choice than to either pay more, or use less.

The ideal model is where carbon tax incentivises companies to change behaviour and consumption patterns, effectively becoming less reliant on fossil fuels. At the moment there is little alternative available, and they come at a cost.

Why more time is good

Firstly, any modelling exercise is by definition limited by the assumptions on which it rests and the data projections it uses. The problem is exacerbated by the highly entrenched orthodoxies that characterise all thinking about climate change objectivity, it often seems, has been a casualty.

An equally compelling reason for spending a little more time and thought on formulating a strategy is that the experience of other countries is mixed, at best.

In Australia, for example, it appears as though confusion reigns despite emissions having been reduced. In 2014, a carbon tax was repealed in favour of an emissions reduction fund, and the environment and energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, announced on 5 December 2016 his department would undertake a review of the whole matter. Among the concerns, it seems, is the impact on power generation that has affected employment not only in the energy sector, but in energy-intensive industries.

Similarly, an academic study at Statistics Norway shows that high carbon taxes in that country have actually yielded only modest reductions in gas emissions. The study notes: This surprisingly small effect relates to the extensive tax exemptions and relatively inelastic demand in the sectors in which the tax is actually implemented. The tax does not work on the levied sources, and is exempted in sectors where it could have worked.

France has recently indicated that it is dropping plans to introduce a carbon tax for the moment, citing concerns about its ramifications and even constitutionality.

Supporting measures

I would argue that we should draw two main conclusions from all of this:

Legislation needs to be complemented by a set of supporting initiatives to build consumer awareness and to promote alternatives.

The aim of carbon tax is to reduce the amount of emissions created, and not mainly to expand the tax base.

Companies of all sizes need to be assisted in implementing alternatives or to effectively reduce dependence on fossil fuels, without significant loss of production or jobs. It requires a focused approach specific to the different sectors, with realistic time-frames.

The most significant impact could be made if we focus on shifting our reliance on burning fossil fuels to keep the lights on.

South Africa has made commitments to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. The real question is how best to live up to those commitments. Hopefully the budget speech will indicate that we will use the delay in implementing our carbon tax wisely to come up with an integrated strategy addressing the issues identified.
Look out, world! Theres a new cowboy in town.  Carolyn Brown, NYT Bestselling author

Barnes & Noble, iBooks and more, but we wanted to share an excerpt with you. Tangled in Texas, book two in Kari Lynn Dells Texas Rodeo series, is out now! You can buy it on Amazon





An unearthly screech sent Fudge wheeling away, snorting in alarm. There was a shouted curse, followed by a series of thuds from inside the barn. Heart thumping, Tori jogged across the yard, cut around the back corner of the barn and slammed into a hard male body.





He stumbled backward. Ouch! Shit!





Delon? She shook her head, dazed by the collision. What were you doing in my barn?





His hair stuck up in tufts on one side and his jeans were unbuttoned, gaping open. One ear bud dangled loose. He cast a baleful glare at the barn. I went in there to take a leak and something jumped me.





Oh, hell. Tori reached inside the door and flicked on the light. Sure enough, a pair of malevolent eyes gleamed from under the hay manger.





What is wrong with you? Tori demanded.





The cat curled a paw and gave it an insolent lick.





What is it? Delon asked.





She switched off the light. A cat.





Likea bobcat?





Like Garfield, she said. Only with homicidal tendencies.





Delon brows lowered. And you own this thing because





Pest control. She let her gaze slide down to his waist. You might want to close up shop.





He muttered another curse and wheeled around. As he bowed his head to zip and button, she saw the punctures on the side of his neck. Damn and double damn. The hellcat had drawn blood. She stepped close, lifting her hand just as Delon turned around. They came face to face, nose to nose. Surprise made her suck in a breathand a lungful of warm, healthy man. Clean and spicy, with a chaser of engine grease, a combination so uniquely Delon it made her head spin.





She should have stepped back. Instead, she touched his neck, feeling the sharp rap of his heartbeat under her fingers. Youre bleeding.





It smarts.





He raised his hand to cover hers. For a long moment they stood, locked in place, as tension revved like an engine from a low hum to a scream. Shed had her hands on him dozens of times at the clinic while she put him through his paces. Why should this be so different? But she felt the matching catch in his pulse, saw the heat build in his eyes. They were so close, and so alone, in this alley between the barn and the arena where no one could see. One step and Delon could have her pressed up against the wall, the way hed done the night he showed up fresh off a win at San Antonio, so fired up they barely got the front door closed





She jerked her hand free and stepped back. He stared at her for a beat, his rumpled hair falling over his forehead, those amazing eyes dark in a way they hadnt been back then. Full of shadows and stormsand desire. Current, or remembered? Best not to wonder.





Why are you here? she asked.





Fixing your tractor, remember?





She gave an impatient shake of her head. You said youd send a mechanic.





I did. He spread his hands to say Here I am , and the gleam in his eyes sharpened, as if he sensed

how her body clenched at the view. As long as youre here, you can give me a hand.





Her mind slipped again, into the quicksand of memories. Oh, shed given him a hand, all right. And a mouth. Andshe ground her teeth, irritated. Damn him, invading her space this way. She wouldnt have accepted the offer if shed known he planned to do it himself.





He paused at the door to the arena and glanced over his shoulder as he tucked the ear buds into his pocket. Coming?





Not lately, her body whispered. But if youve got a few minutes her body whispered.





Kari Lynn Dell is a ranch-raised Montana cowgirl who attended her first rodeo at two weeks old and has existed in a state of horse-induced poverty ever since. She lives on the Blackfeet Reservation in her parents' bunkhouse along with her husband, her son, and Max the Cowdog, with a tipi on her lawn, Glacier National Park on her doorstep and Canada within spitting distance. Her debut novel, The Long Ride Home, was published in 2015. She also writes a ranch and rodeo humor column for several regional newspapers and a national agricultural publication. is a ranch-raised Montana cowgirl who attended her first rodeo at two weeks old and has existed in a state of horse-induced poverty ever since. She lives on the Blackfeet Reservation in her parents' bunkhouse along with her husband, her son, and Max the Cowdog, with a tipi on her lawn, Glacier National Park on her doorstep and Canada within spitting distance. Her debut novel, The Long Ride Home, was published in 2015. She also writes a ranch and rodeo humor column for several regional newspapers and a national agricultural publication.




By 2050, the UN predicts that cities will somehow accommodate a massive 2.5-billion more people than the 4-billion that already live there. The big question is, where are they all going to go? How do we make sure these places are fit for the continued influx of people? By walking a mile in their citizens' shoes, could we simply replace imperfect cities with improved ones?

People must live and work somewhere. Given ructions in the world economy, evidence shows that more people believe their best bet for a better life is in cities. This is especially true in developing countries. And theyre right. According to the UN Habitat, urban areas generate 70% of global GDP.

Demand outstrips supply

With people sold on the idea of cities, where are they going to go? Existing cities have developed for good reason, but always piecemeal, forever behind the rising curve of practical need. Demand outstrips supply many times over.

Cities can expand upwards or downwards, but this is a finite solution. More often, cities sprawl sideways, the centres de-densifying in favour of suburbanisation.

Inhabitants often discover that, at the periphery, there is no public transport, forcing them into cars which worsens congestion, pollutes the air and ups the per capita carbon footprint. Life becomes stressful, with residents more prone to ill-health. New arrivals intent on bettering their lot face problems. Native inhabitants intent on protecting their advantages face problems. And no one is consulted about the change.

Is better urban governance part of the solution? City leaders do organise, driven by a worthy ambition to provide shelter for all citizens. However, they suffer the same fate as the citys infrastructure. They are unable to keep up with the real issues.

City leaders

The American academic Benjamin Barber, author of If Mayors Ruled the World, is optimistic. He sees city governance as the model for a post-national, interdependent political landscape. In his words, "The road to global democracy runs through cities." Its already happening. Mayors are meeting the challenges pragmatically and, by virtue of their semi-autonomous power base, are able to share these lessons with other mayors below the radar of national governments. By splicing out their citys good genes, they can be recombined elsewhere to beneficial effect.

South African urbanist Edgar Pieterse, though, is not so sanguine. City leaders are not adequately representative or responsive. He argues for the reinvigoration of civil society to include the everyday concerns of marginalised people, especially of cities in the developing world.

Alessandra Orofino, based in Rio de Janeiro, has the tools to enable that engagement. Shes the compelling force behind Meu Rio, a digital platform for grassroots civic participation. Her tools are being used to air local grievances, rally support and change policy in Rio. Her battle cry is, Its our city: lets fix it!

These efforts tackle symptoms. They do not reconcile clashes between old infrastructure and new technologies, or between native and newly arrived citizens. Is there a more radical solution? Is there a circuit-breaker to halt the downward development spiral?

Build new charter cities

Paul Romer, an American economist, thinks there is. In his view, attempting to expand existing cities is doomed, especially in developing countries. Instead, he thinks we should build new charter cities. Charter cities  cities that operate to their own set of special rules  have the unique quality of allowing experimentation by recombining good urban genes imported from more economically mature corners of the globe.

Modelled in part on Shenzhen in Southern China, his idea is that these experiments must be brand new, with the rules drawn up beforehand by the host country. That way, investors, companies, workers, and families actively opt into migrating there in preference to other cities. The infrastructure and public services are planned for 21st century conditions. Opportunity for citizens is equal. And if the experiment works, the rules can be adopted across the country.

Of course, success is in the detail. Setting rules that reform poor governance is a tall order. But by matching the common experience to expert knowledge, and integrating our findings with tech and good governance, perhaps we can walk the extra mile in citizens shoes  so that they dont have to.

This article originally appeared on Aurecons Just Imagine blog.
If the government and development stakeholders do not actively address obstacles facing women producers, addressing food insecurity faced by about 14 million South Africans (according to Stats SA), will remain a pipe dream. South Africa's women and children bear the brunt of poverty, however, women are a central factor in food security and the fight against hunger and malnutrition.

Kate HoltAusAID via Wikimedia Commons

GenderCC Southern Africa and the Land Access Movement of South Africa (LAMOSA) are kick-starting a number of provincial capacity-building workshops and information seminars around the country starting from 10 February 2017 in the Free Sate and North West province. The information seminars will also be conducted in Mpumalanga, and Gauteng, where women smallholder farmers will be highlighting the impact of climate change on them as farmers and the support they need.

Gender equality and women empowerment in agriculture

According to Dorah Marema, executive director of GenderCC SA, although progress has been made to recognise the role of women in agriculture, much more needs to be done to support women as primary providers of household food security. Women still do not receive the same level of support from societal institutions, then their male counterparts. We want to build understanding and partnerships for women which can influence policy and the status quo. In the end, it must be noted that this is not about women, but about society at large, Marema emphasized.

In 2015, GenderCC SA mobilised more than 3,000 women in South Africa to register their concerns and demands to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris, France.

Last year, GenderCC SA highlighted issues of gender equality and women empowerment in agricultural adaptation programmes and the need for access to finance at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP22) in Marrakesh, Morocco. Studies indicate that the success of increased agricultural production and food security on the continent rests largely in the hands of women farmers.

Lack of access to resources and land

Despite the critical role women farmers play in food security, they still face major constraints when it comes to accessing productive resources such as land, credit, technologies and information. Ignoring the potential and contribution of women in agriculture may come at a price for society, in terms of food insecurity and hunger.

LAMOSA, in partnership with GenderCC SA, women for Climate Justice, supported by Oxfam South Africa (OZA), organised small-scale farmers in Mpumalanga in January this year for a multi-stakeholder dialogue and information session on climate change. The event coincided with the former President Kgalema Motlanthe High-Level Panel on Assessment of Post-Apartheid Legislation and its impact on the lives of the poor. The small-scale farmers, including Khomotso Moseri of GenderCC SA made their submission to the panel on 16 and 17 January 2017.

Last year, LAMOSA led a successful Constitutional Court challenge against the South African government on behalf of landless communities to voice their disapproval of the timing of new land restitution claims, which they said disadvantaged thousands of previous claimants whose cases were lodged during the initial process but have still not been settled.

The government reopened its land claims process in 2014, allowing people who missed an earlier deadline for lodging claims for compensation to do so within the next five years. President Jacob Zuma signed into law the Restitution of Land Rights Amendment Act, which reopens the restitution claims process that closed at the end of 1998 and gives claimants five years - until 30 June 2019 - to lodge further claims.
Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced that the national minimum wage has been set at R20 per hour or R3500 per month for those that work a 40-hour week.

Those who work a 45-hour week will have their minimum wage set at R3900.

Briefing journalists at the Imbizo Centre in Parliament in Cape Town on Wednesday, the Deputy President said the new minimum wage will come into effect on 1 May 2018.

The Deputy Presidents briefing was aimed at providing details on the status of National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC)s Committee of Principals (CoP) discussions on labour relations and wage inequality.

The national minimum wage, which is a floor below which no worker will be paid, will significantly improve the lives of millions of low-paid workers and begin to address the challenge of wage inequality in our country.

At its introduction next year, South Africa will join several countries around the world that have implemented a national minimum wage as an instrument of economic as well as social development.

The social partners have agreed to set the national minimum wage at a level that has meaningful impact on the wages of the lowest paid worker, while minimising any negative impact on employment, he said.

In agreement

The Deputy President made the announcement as the country gears up to watch President Jacob Zumas State of the Nation Address on Thursday evening.

The Deputy President said social partners representing organised labour and civic society organisations at NEDLAC, signed agreements on measures to strengthen labour stability as well as to deepen the process of collective bargaining, as well as the modalities to introduce the national minimum wage.

He said all partners signed the agreements with the exception of the trade union federation COSATU, after they asked to be given some time to complete their own internal processes of consultation.

In fact, much more of reporting than consultation because I just spoke to the President of COSATU [Sidumo Dlamini] said no, it is not consultation, it is reporting to their Central Executive Committee (CEC), which is going to be meeting in two weeks time.

So they are also part of this process. They are on board if one can use that colloquial term with regards to the agreements that have been arrived at, he said.

The agreements that were signed on Tuesday represent a significant advance in our efforts as a nation and as people to address the challenges of wage inequality in our country as well as stabilising the labour market.

He said the agreements also power up the momentum to tackle inequality and poverty.

The agreements restore the dignity of all poor South Africans.

Moving towards a living wage

The Deputy President said 6.6 million workers were living on a living wage of under R3500 and that there is a need to begin a journey of improving the income of low-paid workers.

What we arrived at in terms of the national minimum wage is not a living wage. This forms a firm foundation of moving our country towards a living wage. It is a start. These agreements are a result of nearly two years of deliberations.

They are response by the call that was made by President Zuma.

In the declaration on wage inequality that was signed yesterday and on labour stability, social partners confirmed the principles that have underpinned deliberations which form the basis for the agreements that have been reached.

He said companies that cannot afford the national minimum wage can apply for exemption from government.

The Deputy President also said the minimum wage would be evaluated from time to time to assess its impact on jobs.
The bosses of SA's two largest locally based real estate companies are becoming increasingly concerned that political risks have increased in SA recently, placing pressure upon a sector that is trying to perform in a sluggish economy.

Estienne de Klerk, MD of the largest locally based listed real estate group Growthpoint Properties, said rumours of a cabinet reshuffle that could potentially see the removal of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and the growing possibility of a sovereign ratings downgrade for SA would scupper Growthpoint's local development plans.

"We can only control certain things and cannot anticipate all market shocks. We have to be cautious. There has been increased political uncertainty recently. Investors hear that the government could make policy changes or changes to its executive, which can affect their sentiment," said De Klerk.

"While we continue with our current local projects, there has been a downturn in demand for longer-term leases, especially in the office sector."

Evan Robins, the listed property manager of Old Mutual Investment Group's MacroSolutions boutique, said a sovereign ratings downgrade would affect Growthpoint's ability to fund new developments. "The risk would be that SA gets downgraded and this pushes bond yields up, which will result in lower listed property prices and higher funding costs.

"If a downgrade results in higher costs of capital for banks and higher yields, these will translate into higher borrowing costs for Growthpoint," he said.

Andrew Konig, CEO of SA's second-largest local property fund Redefine Properties, said a concern was that while business confidence had been weakened by political uncertainty, this would be prolonged in the lead-up to the ANC's 54th national elective conference in December.

"Property is a function of confidence and business and consumer confidence are low in our economy. The concern is that markets may overreact if a change is negative. Almost 25% of Redefine's shareholder base is offshore and many of those investors could walk away should a shock occur in favour of a market with a more attractive risk-reward balance."

Konig said Redefine had not curtailed any of its investment plans.

"We are not on an investment strike. We know we offer a good product, we engage with our staff and clients and we manage our debt. We are not going to sit back and be defeated," he said.

Source: Business Day
Cape Royale Luxury Hotel in Green Point, Cape Town has nabbed the title of Luxury Hotel Location of the Year in the Luxury Travel Guide Awards 2017 for the Africa and Middle East Regions.

A stones throw away from Cape Town Stadium and the Sea Point promenade, Cape Royale Luxury Hotel caters to the international market due to its prime location. The V&A Waterfront and Cape Town Convention Centre is also on the hotel's doorstep as well as some of Cape Towns best beaches which are a mere five kilometres away. Zenith Sky Bar on the rooftop allows guests to take in the panoramic views of the Atlantic Ocean and to top it all off, Casuarina Wellness Centre and Spa can be found at the hotel, together with an array of restaurants at its forefront such as Cafe Royale, SHEGO, Rustica, Osumo, Jewel of Africa, Simply Asia and Shift Espresso Bar.

We are fortunate to be in one of the best cities in the world, in my opinion, and the location of the hotel attracts guests from all over, explains Vincent Bouwer, revenue, sale and marketing manager at Cape Royale Luxury Hotel. With our five-star offering, designer suites, and pristine restaurants, guests can submerge themselves in the height of luxury.

The awards recognises key industry players in the travel and tourism industry from around the world and they explore the globe in search of excellence to identify the very best hotels, airlines, and tour operators.
The 39th Annual SAPICS Conference and Exhibition for Supply Chain Professionals will take place at Century City Conference Centre in Cape from 4-7 June 2017.

The event will see professionals from all disciplines of supply chain management including, but not limited to, logistics, planning, warehouse management, risk management, forecasting, demand management, and procurement gather to discuss the latest trends and models in supply chain management with both local and international experts.

People often think its necessary to travel across continents at vast expense to gather knowledge of best practices and network with global experts. With the SAPICS conference lineup we aim to have some of the best supply chain management experts from around the world in the same place at the same time, says Jenny Froome, general manager at SAPICS, a professional knowledge-based association that enables individuals and organisations to improve business performance.

Topics

Topics included in the multi-faceted conference programme range from managing and identifying supply chain risk to addressing the worrying shortage in skills in supply chain skills and addressing solutions to this global crisis. Demand planning, supply chain research, and warehouse management innovations will all be addressed.

Exciting developments in technology and services will be showcased at the exhibition and delegates will have the opportunity to schedule one-on-one sessions with international guest speakers.

In this currently turbulent economic climate, supply chain professionals face real challenges to maintain robust and agile supply chains which form the back-bone of industry, explains Froome. It is more important than ever for supply chain professionals to keep up to date with what is required to remain profitable in this unusual business climate  hence our conference theme Business Unusual.

Creating an opportunity for supply chain professionals from around Africa to access up-to-the-minute information on trends, solutions, and services to help build strong supply chains across the continent is what is the most sought after outcome from this event each year. If we can provide that  in a cost-effective manner that ensures maximum return on investment  then we will be happy.

For more, go to www.conference.sapics.org
Design Indaba has announced its collaboration with global homeware giant IKEA to create IKEA's first-ever exclusive, all-African collection, which will begin at Design Indaba Festival 2017.

Ravi Naidoo of Design Indaba has drawn from an extensive network of designers, architects and creatives from South Africa, Kenya, Senegal, Egypt, Angola, Ivory Coast and Rwanda to collaborate with IKEA around modern rituals and the importance they play in the home.

Marcus Engman of IKEA and Ravi Naidoo of Design Indaba with the group of designers set to create IKEA's first-ever exclusive, all-African collection.

The creative explosion, which is taking place in several cities around Africa right now, is something IKEA is curious about. We want to learn from this and spread it to the rest of the world. Working together with these designers and creatives gives us the opportunity to do so, says Marcus Engman, design manager at IKEA.

The selected designers will meet up with a group of IKEA in-house designers to work on the collection during the Design Indaba Conference in Cape Town 1-3 March 2017, ready to launch in 2019.

Its affirming for the worlds biggest furniture and homeware store to partner with Design Indaba to curate its first African collection and we have learnt so much from the collaboration to date  the designers and ourselves. The scale at IKEA is staggering, yet it is still true to its founding principles, with which we find such symmetry. It looks towards democratising design and is happy to be infiltrated by external ideas. In addition, we love its credo: a better everyday life for everyone. Now, urban Africa and our intrepid pan-continental group of reformers, thinkers, makers and activists will also inspire it. Cant wait for the launch, says Naidoo, founder of Design Indaba.

For more information, go to www.designindaba.com.
A new 'Community Help' feature provides a forum at the leading social network where assistance can be offered to victims of floods, earthquakes, fires or other kinds of natural or accidental tragedy, according to Facebook vice president of social good Naomi Gleit.

(c) Marcel de Grijs - 123RF.com

"In times of crisis, connecting is more important than ever," Gleit said.

Facebook launched Safety Check in 2014 as a way for members of the social network to let family or friends easily see whether they are unharmed after disastrous events.

Community Help now lets people find, or give, assistance such as food, shelter or transportation in the aftermath of a crisis.

"Safety Check has been activated hundreds of times, but we know we can do more to empower the community to help one another," Gleit said.

The feature was inspired by Facebook members using groups or posts at the social network to organize aid for people after disasters such as flooding in Chennai, India, in late 2015.

Community Help is being added to Safety Check initially in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and Saudi Arabia and will be expanded as it is refined, according to Facebook.

Safety Check is activated after Facebook receives alerts from global crisis reporting agencies and posts regarding the incidents spike at the social network. If an incident is a natural or accidental disaster, the Community Help tool will be triggered, Gleit said.
It's tough for a brand that's quite obviously Scottish to make its mark on local shores, but that's not to say it can't be done. Vongani Chinkanda, Diageo Reserve's marketing manager, explains how The Singleton's #MadeofTaste campaign uses collaboration and co-curation to its best advantage.

Chinkanda

Think of whisky and youll probably also see in your minds eye a set of slippers and a comfortable armchair in front of a crackling log fire with snow falling past the window. If its The Singleton of Dufftowns premium single malt whisky, however  The Singleton, to you and me  youll need to change that scene to include the sultry beat and bright lights of a SA nightclub.

Thats because the brand is making a name for itself locally with the millennial market, largely due to the success of its new #MadeofTaste campaign, which is gaining favour with the social media savvy. Its had over 25k views in just over a month on YouTube and a search for #MadeofTaste results in tweets and Insta pics aplenty from brand loyalists and recent converts from across the continent.

This also included an exclusive #MadeofTaste dinner hosted by visual artist Austin Malema  the man behind last years #CreditThePhotographer frenzy  to celebrate local tastemakers as part of its Taste Chronicles Series, held on 14 January. It proved so popular it was trending in the number one position on Twitter:

Taste is a constant state of consciousness, through this thing called life #madeoftaste pic.twitter.com/IyZmsMekwy  PUNK AND IVY (@PUNKANDIVY) January 14, 2017

Celebrated as a brand that appreciates and celebrates taste over badge, the #MadeofTaste campaign is now said to be setting international standards as it marks the brands move away from rigid whisky rules into a space of true appreciation for a distinctive taste.

Its embedded below so you can see what Im talking about:

Chinkanda says theyve already had a phenomenally positive response to the campaign, even though its still in its early days, so theyre even more excited to see where it will take the brand in the future. Chinkanda explains a little more about why the campaign works below:

1. Its certainly a striking ad. Explain the essence of the #MadeofTaste campaign.

Chinkanda: Made of Taste is actually quite simple: We aim to build awareness of The Singleton as the greatest-tasting single malt. But the campaign also allows us to go beyond just the obvious intrinsic values of our great tasting liquid and delve into a wider conversation in society about what is considered tasteful. It allows people to authentically own their definition and present their unique translation or take of what taste is to them. So we are sparking a conversation that spans across food, fashion, decor, art, music, photography and more. The list is endless.

2. What does the brand aim to achieve with the campaign, which has very obvious African cultural expressions?

Chinkanda: We want to get into the repertoires of whisky drinkers and even tantalising non-whisky drinkers into the brand through a unique, interesting and differentiated positioning. We pay homage to our authentically Scottish origins, however, we acknowledge and fully embrace the African context in which the brand operates. I believe that with this campaign we have melded the two and created something that has surprised and delighted people. We are extremely pleased with the response we have had so far. South Africans are embracing the brand and appreciating the position weve taken.

3. Why the need to move away from rigid whisky rules into a space of true appreciation for a distinctive taste? What are those rigid rules?

Chinkanda: Its really about demystifying the world of whisky and making it more accessible. While we acknowledge that whisky is a legendary category and the heritage lies in the backstory, we feel that it should not be shrouded in mystery and accompanied by strict rules of the correct or incorrect way to drink it. We love to say that we encourage people to drink the brand any way they prefer and mix it with any drink to their own personal preference.

4. Thats certainly an interesting take. Talk us through the importance of creating consumer experiences as a way to develop brand loyalty.

Chinkanda: Millennial consumers are collecting experiences the same way that previous generations collected possessions, therefore in order for a brand to grow we must connect with people in a way that resonates with them. If you allow consumers into your world and enter their world with authenticity and humility, you will build fans.

5. How does the consumer benefit from the campaign?

Chinkanda: We are taking a collaborative approach with this campaign, that is why we created the Taste Chronicles Series where we are working with six creative, authentic and discerning individuals who are co-curating events along with the brand to bring to life an experience where we can invite people to experience the brand in a different way. Our first curated event was hosted by Austin Malema, a young, exciting visual artist who is making a lot of impact in his craft. Our next event will be hosted by the maverick duo Punk n Ivy and we will also be collaborating with Rich Mnisi, I see a Different You, Nonku Phiri and Anthony Bila. At the heart of our brands guiding principles is collaboration; we team up with the most talented, like-minded crafts people to create unforgettable experiences.

Seems collaboration and co-curation definitely has its place in building brand loyalty. Visit The Singleton on Twitter and Instagram for more.
PARIS: Luxury goods maker Hermes said on Wednesday it booked record sales in 2016, thanks to strong demand in all regions, and Japan in particular.

Arnaud 25 via Wkimedia

Hermes' revenues rose by 7.5 percent to 5.2 billion euros ($6.0 billion) last year, the first time the group has passed the five-billion-euro mark.

"Once again, we outperformed the sector, we broke through the five-billion mark and growth was healthy, because it was essentially organic growth," boasted chief executive Axel Dumas in a conference call.

The leather goods and saddlery division reported a 14 percent increase in sales to 2.6 billion euros.

"All of our models were successful, we achieved higher growth than usual," Dumas said.

"Sales grew in all regions around the world, particularly in our own-brand stores," he continued.

Japan performed "exceptionally" well, despite the rise in the value of the yen. Sales also continued to increase in Asia and America, Dumas said.

France also performed well, "even if it was still impacted by weaker tourist numbers" in the wake of the series of jihadist attacks.

Hermes is scheduled to publish full details of its 2016 earnings on March 22, but it said that underlying profitability "should be slightly above 2015".

Looking ahead to the current year, Hermes did not provide any concrete forecast, but confirmed its "ambitious" sales growth target.

"I'm fairly optimistic because Hermes' fundamentals are good," CEO Dumas said.

"In a period of high uncertainty, it's difficult not to be cautious. But I think we'll do better than the sector," he said.

Source: AFP
The Financial Intelligence Centre Amendment (FICA) bill has been in limbo since parliament assented to it in May 2016. For months, it awaited approval from President Jacob Zuma. But in December last year, the president returned the bill to parliament, citing concerns over the constitutionality of a single clause that would allow inspectors to carry out searches without a warrant. Since then, President Zuma has been harshly criticised for its delay.

The South African Institute of Professional Accountants (SAIPA) itself deliberated the constitutional integrity of the clause and has submitted a letter to parliaments standing committee on finance outlining its reservations.

Ayanda Mabida, company secretary at the SAIPA says the institute acknowledges that FICA is essential to South Africa meeting its obligations as a member of the financial action task force, an intergovernmental body that sets standards for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and other abuses of the international financial system.

Lack of specificity

SAIPA has reservations on the warrantless searches, says Mabida. There are definite circumstances where offenders may leverage delays in obtaining a search warrant to tamper with or destroy crucial evidence. Rather, our concerns relate to the lack of specificity about the conditions under which warrantless searches can be executed.

In its current form, the amended clause threatens to violate Section 14 of the Bill of Rights, which states that everyone has the right to privacy, and not to have their person, home or property searched, their possessions seized or the privacy of their communications infringed.

To paraphrase the FICA amendment, an inspector may enter premises without a warrant, either with consent from the person in charge (provided theyre informed of their right to refusal), or if the inspector on reasonable grounds believes that a) a warrant would be issued anyway, and b) the delay in obtaining one would defeat the end (refer to FICA 32(b)).

According to Mabida, the term reasonable grounds doesnt adequately describe the extent of the limitation of the right as required by Section 36 of the Constitution. It could be abused and therefore infringe on the constitutional rights of those under investigation or anyone else.

Although a court may rectify such infringement after the fact, Mabida is adamant. It remains that a persons constitutional rights would already have been violated. On principle, no law should be passed that would permit this eventuality.

How should it be done?

Mabida highlights the Anton Piller order as a model of a well-defined legislation. One can be obtained promptly and allows authorities to carry out a search without prior notice, provided that an extremely strong prima facie case exists; the damage to the applicant would be drastic; and the offenders clearly possess relevant documents or items and could certainly destroy these before a warrant can be obtained.

Mabida concludes that South Africa must satisfy its responsibility to harden its financial systems, but not at the expense of its founding principles. In developing new legislation, we must ensure that even the most minor clause honours the constitution as our nations highest legal standard, and affords its people the protection described under the bill of rights.
Twitter is public, unfiltered, uncensored, and often an aggressive place. It can be harsh for software companies  especially the big ones  to combat the constant influx of negativity. It's also a platform with many loyal users.

Despite the falling stock prices it's retained its diehard user base impressively and continues to be the world's biggest microphone and a platform many people prefer over email or other kinds of private messages.

As a business with an image to uphold, you don't want to be without defence in such a huge public forum. You also don't want to exclude the segment of your user-base that prefers to communicate via Twitter.

The solution? For 65% of the top 20 SaaS (Software as a Service) companies, the solution is to use a Twitter account  dedicated or not  to directly speak to users, not just broadcast updates or content.

Does it work?

Due to the volatile public nature of Twitter, are these accounts set up with the idea of helping users, or just for damage control?

To find out, I analysed 12,844 tweets and did sentiment analysis on both the tweets received from users and the tweets from the companies.

Here's what I found.

SaaS customers use Twitter to vent their frustrations and ask questions

While it does vary massively by company, you can see that the majority of tweets from users are negative or neutral in sentiment.

What this means:

Negative tweets are exactly that: complaints and frustration.



Neutral tweets are questions: requests for support without emotional language.

Here's an example of a tweet with a negative score from a Dropbox customer:

And here's a neutral tweet from a New Relic customer:

So, now we know how customers use Twitter to interact with companies, what about how companies communicate with users?

Companies don't tend to actually solve problems over Twitter

The vast majority of tweets to companies are requests for support or customers venting their frustrations.

The traditional way to deal with a frustrated customer would be to help them resolve their issue but, as we'll see, that doesn't happen very often.

To analyse problem-solving abilities, another metric needs to come into play: objectivity.

Objective tweets are indications of hard information being given to a customer. In other words, a concrete solution.

Let's look at the percentages of objective (problem-solving) to subjective (apologies, acknowledgements, requests for more information, thanks) tweets by company:

The conclusion? Most companies don't offer concrete help to users over Twitter. The majority of interactions are either requests to take the conversation to a private channel (DMs, email), or apologies.

This can be further divided up to look at combinations of subjectivity and sentiment.

Subjective tweets aren't always a bad thing

Subjective tweets aren't always a bad thing: they can be damage control or the last word in a positive interaction.

Tweets that score subjectively but with positive sentiment are often the company rounding up a positive conversation with a user, like this:

Tweets that score subjectively but with negative sentiment are often the company doing damage control. Basically, apologising or trying to get the user to take their frustrations to a private channel and out of the public eye.

To put this in context, here are the percentages of subjective-positive tweets by company:

And here's the graph of subjective-negative tweets:

DocuSign, LinkedIn, and Marketo get the angriest tweets

Out of the analysed companies, none get as many frustrated users on Twitter than DocuSign, LinkedIn and Marketo.

This could be for a number of reasons, but the strongest correlation from my analysis is that they offer relatively little in the way of objective tweets:

That means that they don't often solve user's problems over Twitter. It could be because of poor support processes, or the drive to take angry users off Twitter and into direct messages where they can cause less of a scene. Either way, it goes to show that if you don't comply with what your customers want (e.g. support on Twitter, not elsewhere), your customers will be prone to get angry.

The other end of the scale

At the other end of the scale, the graph above also shows which companies are the most effective problem solvers, and how that it pays off:

Constant Contact and ServiceNow are the best problem solvers and get far less negativity because of it

Constant Contact and ServiceNow are, by a significant margin, the most regular tweeters of objective, helpful information to their customers. They're roughly twice as helpful as the third place, Salesforce, and over five times more helpful than the lowest scorers.

Their stellar efforts make an impact: they get far fewer negative tweets than the average company, which means less damage control is necessary by virtue of being helpful in the first place.

What your company can learn from this study

A concise breakdown of what you can take away from this study:

Twitter users choose Twitter because it's their preferred communications platform, or to publicly shame companies for bad experiences.



Users aren't looking to be pushed to direct messages or emails when they're asking for support over Twitter, they want the issue solved in a tweet.



Companies that offer solid solutions (objective tweets) are less likely to get negative reactions from customers.

ServiceNow and Constant Contact obviously have a solid process set up to support users over Twitter because they consistently behave in the way that gets the most positive reaction from users. They are, after all, companies that sell communications software.

In the end, the key takeaway is that Twitter users are tweeting, not emailing, companies for a reason. Don't ask them to take their conversation elsewhere, just create a support process that means your Twitter support team has an answer for every common question and can provide that answer in a link to a help article or in tweet form.
Controversial drunk-driving Judge Nkola Motata has handed South Africa's dodgy judges a disciplinary hall pass.

Thanks to his latest challenge - this time at the Constitutional Court - to a Judicial Service Commission conduct tribunal, action against other judges accused of misconduct is stymied.

Motata has asked the Constitutional Court to declare unconstitutional the convening by the JSC of a tribunal to examine his conduct.

The JSC has confirmed that no conduct tribunals will sit pending the outcome of Motata's Constitutional Court challenge.

"Judge Motata has challenged the constitutionality of the JSC Act, which includes the provisions establishing the tribunals. He has now challenged the decision of the Gauteng division of the High Court, [which dismissed] his application to have the JSC Act declared unconstitutional," said JSC spokesman CP Fourie.

This is Motata's final bid to have the tribunal created in 2013 to consider disciplining him disbanded.

He has been on special leave since he ran his Jaguar into the wall of a Johannesburg home in 2007 while drunk. He made racist comments at the scene.

Motata has asked the Constitutional Court to finalise his application urgently.

"The resolution thereof will open a gate to a number of cases currently pending against other judges as well," he said.

Constitutional law expert Pierre de Vos said Motata's chances of success were slim.

"He's trying to drag out the process."

Motata is expected to retire this year.

Because of Motata's challenge disciplinary proceedings against Judge Mabel Jansen, accused of racism last year, and Western Cape Judge President John Hlophe, accused of trying to improperly influence two Constitutional Court judges in 2008, are also on ice.

JSC secretary Sello Chiloane said it "goes without saying" that conduct tribunals for all judges are now held up.

Warren Freedman, a law professor at the University of KwaZulu Natal, said the delay in disciplining judges reflected poorly on the judiciary.

"If the judge is innocent, his name must be cleared and if there is a problem we must deal with it. We need an efficient and fast-working judicial system."

Geo Quinot, a law professor at the University of Stellenbosch, said it was important that the rules for disciplining judges be tested.

"The matter is deeply intertwined with the independence of judges. 'Who will judge the judges?' is a difficult constitutional question in all legal systems, not just ours. Rather than pushing ahead with conduct tribunals, it is a good idea [for the JSC] to wait, since a challenge has been raised."

De Vos agreed: "If [the JSC] goes ahead and Motata is successful, the other disciplinary processes would have been a waste of time. It's a cautious approach but not entirely absurd."

Jansen appeared before a judicial conduct committee last week, beginning the formal process of deciding whether a disciplinary tribunal should be appointed by Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng to examine her case.

She came under fire last year for a string of Facebook comments made public by the recipient, filmmaker Gillian Schutte.

The comments included that 99% of the criminal cases she heard were "of black fathers/uncles/brothers raping children as young as five years old".

An advocate, Vuyani Ngalwana, and the Johannesburg branch of Advocates for Transformation are calling for Jansen to be found unfit to hold office.

She apologised for her remarks and said they were taken out of context.

But Ngalwana told the Judicial Conduct Committee last week that her comments were "so racially prejudicial, and promote racial hatred and fear of black men, that I cannot imagine any context justifying [them] being made by a judge of the High Court".

Jansen has been on special leave since May.

Disciplinary proceedings against Hlophe, accused of trying to influence Constitutional Court justices, have been delayed for years.

A judicial conduct tribunal was ready to deal with the Hlophe complaint in 2013 but the two judges Hlophe allegedly approached, Bess Nkabinde and Chris Jafta, raised preliminary challenges against its constitutionality.

Their appeals failed before a full bench of the Johannesburg High Court, in the Supreme Court of Appeal and in the Constitutional Court.
The Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) could scupper Cell C's survival plans if it does not allow Blue Label Telecoms to use the mobile operator's spectrum.

Ratings agency S&P Global Ratings (S&P) cited on Tuesday the uncertainty over the use of spectrum as one of the reasons it had downgraded SA's third-largest mobile operator to the lowest junk rating.

Blue Label made an offer to acquire a 45% stake in struggling Cell C in October 2016 in a R5.5bn deal.

The ratings agency's decision comes at a time when the proposed transaction still hangs in the balance, with a deadline of 28 February 2017.

The deal is potentially lifesaving for Cell C, which has been battling with a large debt load.

In its statement, S&P said the delays in concluding the restructuring agreement, had led to a cash crunch in which Cell C had missed interest payments on its senior secured bonds as well as other unrated debt instruments.

The agency said there were also question marks over whether Icasa could restrict spectrum use as it did in the case of Vodacom and Neotel.

S&P said this issue had to be considered as part of a Cell C bankruptcy scenario.

Cell C would not be drawn on how the deal with Blue Label was progressing or how the downgrade would affect it.

"Cell C is currently engaged in a recapitalisation process, which is essential to delivering a sustainable capital structure for Cell C," a spokesperson said.

"As part of this process, various capital and interest payments to lenders have been deferred. This has no direct impact on the underlying business of Cell C and the operational performance of the company remains strong," the spokesperson said.

Blue Label Telecoms head of investor and media relations Michael Campbell said the deal was on track, but that more details would be revealed once the company released its results in two weeks' time.

"The market will have more clarity once the results are out. But we won't be commenting at this time concerning the announcement by S&P," he said.

An analyst at Frost & Sullivan Africa said she believed the downgrade would further hamper the planned restructure and prolong the liquidity problems.

"Uncertainty around spectrum allocation will impact the way forward for Cell C, in terms of monetary value of spectrum, and its transferability in the acquisition which, most likely, may be opposed by Icasa," said Frost & Sullivan Africa ICT senior industry analyst Naila Govan-Vassen.

The positives for Cell C in the medium to long term included a strengthening rand, which could lead to a price reduction and the ability to attract new customers, the firm said.

Icasa had not commented by the time of publication.
The African media landscape is changing fast. There is a proliferation of online streaming services, most notably Showmax and Netflix. The huge growth in smartphone penetration means that more people have access to media content than ever before. While TV, radio and outdoor remain the primary media, their audiences are faced with a plethora of new choices and formats. Many attempts at consolidated research have not been successful in this highly competitive space  for cost and political reasons.

Peter Searll

1. Major global players gathering momentum

Major players like Facebook and YouTube are now firmly in the media space, with Facebook Live levelling the playing fields to some degree among media generators. Anyone can now be a broadcaster and YouTube continues to accumulate content at an exponential rate.

2. Opportunities and fragmentation

Rapid fragmentation poses serious challenges to all those involved in the media space - media owners, buyers, advertisers and researchers. The multitude of opportunities is quite breath-taking, its necessary to stay wide-awake and keep abreast of these fast paced changes.

3. A new wave of electronic installations in OOH

OOH has always played a strong role in the African media landscape. Instead of static billboards, there is a new wave of electronic installations that - show multiple ads and can be customised for different audiences, at different times of the day, or day of the week. This ultimately lowers production costs and enables more rapid deployment of advertising messages. This gives OOH the ability to become more interactive with QRS codes and the like. Google has patented a system to show advertising in the virtual world - imagine searching in maps and seeing adverts in that space? Augmented reality opens a whole new world.

4. Influx of streaming and satellite entrants in TV

Television has become the main competitive media space. Satellite entrants and offers are coming thick and fast. Streaming services provide even more choice. Consumers can choose what they want to watch, when it suits them and where they want to anytime, anywhere, any device. These disruptors will affect rural areas less, but the urbanites - especially the youth - are embracing this freedom. Africa is still mobile first, but it is not far behind these well-developed trends in Europe and the USA.

5. Streaming is becoming the radio star

Radio streaming options play an increasingly important role - especially as data costs come down and Wi-Fi access increases. Radio via the web offers more engaged and new audiences.

6. Print is going online

Print is probably the hardest hit, with the biggest impact on magazines. Print newspapers are still widely read daily. However, digital production costs are much lower than print and more people are reading their news online.

7. Digital is the new black

Digital is a highly competitive arena, marked by innovation and a proliferation of new agencies. Content consumption is highly measurable, benefitting the owners, advertisers and buyers of ad stock.

8. The digital threat to traditional agencies and owners

Digital poses a huge threat to traditional agencies and media owners who are not innovating or coming to grips with its complexities. Increasingly, customer engagement is via digital and this is the biggest upside for these platforms.

9. Media agencies cant afford to snooze

Agencies desperately need to redefine their offerings to stay relevant and keep track with consumer trends and changes.

10. Combining the old and the new in market research

Market research innovation lies in combining traditional approaches with new ones. Africa is far from homogeneous and requires specialised insight in each market. On-line studies can reach the trendy, youthful and mobile-engaged population, but has limitations beyond that. Increasingly, sentiment analysis/social media mining provide clues as to what is going on. Serious work will be done to integrate media research from a traditional and new media consumption perspective.

Dashboards own mobile tracking app is a great tool for facilitating this aggregated media consumption view. However, we should also recognise the role that well-grounded market research can play in minimising risk of new market or product entry, as well as providing clear, insightful feedback of consumer preferences and the state of the market.
Twitter on Tuesday unveiled a new initiative to crack down on "abusive accounts," in the latest attempt by the social network to curb online harassment. The effort comes with Twitter and other social platforms struggling to keep up with online abuse, especially from anonymous accounts.

Image by 123RF

"We're taking steps to identify people who have been permanently suspended and stop them from creating new accounts," said a statement from Twitter engineering vice president Ed Ho.

"This focuses more effectively on some of the most prevalent and damaging forms of behaviour, particularly accounts that are created only to abuse and harass others."

Twitter seeks to foster a healthy exchange on public issues, but the messaging platform has also been used as a tool to harass or "troll" people, with perpetrators often creating new accounts after being suspended.

Former chief executive Dick Costolo acknowledged in 2015 that Twitter had lagged in dealing with online abuse, and that the situation had hurt its efforts to grow. "Making Twitter a safer place is our primary focus," Ho said in the statement.

"We stand for freedom of expression and people being able to see all sides of any topic. That's put in jeopardy when abuse and harassment stifle and silence those voices. We won't tolerate it and we're launching new efforts to stop it."

Another effort unveiled Tuesday will allow users to enable "safe search" which removes Tweets that "contain potentially sensitive content" and tweets from blocked and muted accounts, Ho said.

He added that Twitter's engineers are working on identifying "potentially abusive and low-quality replies so the most relevant conversations are brought forward." He said these tweets will still be accessible to those who seek them out. The changes are expected to roll out "in the coming weeks," he added.

Twitter has faced problems of harassment since its inception, and cracking down has been difficult because users can create an account anonymously with only an email account.

Source: AFP.
The next EnVision Bus Read more [...]
February 8, 2017

Along with moderates and Reformists, Iranian hard-liners are slamming US President Donald Trump, but the reason of their criticism is different. Moderates are worried that Trump may fulfill his electoral promise by tearing up the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), while hard-liners lash out at the current US government for not destroying the deal.

Hossein Shariatmadari, known for his hard-line positions, has criticized Trump for not scrapping the Iran deal.

Following two years of negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 (United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and Germany), the two sides reached a deal in 2015. During the talks, and after reaching the JCPOA, Iranian hard-liners repeatedly questioned the ability of Iran's negotiation team to stand up to the West.

During the US presidential election, Shariatmadari described Trumps promise to tear up the deal as the wisest decision. He said, The JCPOA is a golden document for the United States but is considered nothing except humiliation and a loss for Iran."

Shariatmadari, who is the chief editor of hard-line Kayhan newspaper, told Fars News Feb. 7, Trump was unaware during his presidential campaign what a big and windfall score the JCPOA has provided for the United States. That is why he had promised to tear up the JCPOA.

He added, Unfortunately, Trump has now come to his senses and has realized that his ex-pals [in the White House] swindled Iran. Therefore, not only is he unwilling to tear up the JCPOA, but he also announced that he will support [the JCPOA] completely.

Since the signing of the JCPOA in 2015, the hard-liners have been attacking the nuclear deal in order to disvalue it in the eyes of ordinary people in Iran, so that in the presidential election in May the moderates and Reformists would not be able to brag about the JCPOA as an achievement.

Meanwhile, Irans moderate President Hassan Rouhani addressed hard-liners concerns at the 34th Book of the Year Award ceremony on Feb. 7. Some believe that we should not talk and negotiate with world powers because they believe that they can trick us, but we heeded the political decree by the supreme leader and could continue the negotiations and reach an agreement that the new president of the United States cannot stand and calls the worst agreement in the history of the United States, Rouhani said.

He added, Of course, the nuclear agreement yielded a win-win result and it is in the interest of everyone and the region.

During the past few days, influential ayatollahs in the holy city of Qom, a center for Shiites, have defended the JCPOA and Iranian negotiators.

In a Feb. 6 meeting with Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Irans Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi praised the government for its nuclear achievements. The need for unity and solidarity inside the country especially regarding the JCPOA issue is a necessity.  We should not be the first to violate the JCPOA.

Moreover, on Feb. 6, Grand Ayatollah Abdullah Javadi Amoli commended the Iranian negotiation team and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif for defending Irans defensive capabilities. On the same day, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Vahid Khorasani urged the government to speak to the world in a soft tone based on Islamic principles and values.
Chattanooga firefighters pulled an unconscious man, Charles Allen, 75, from a submerged car near the Brainerd Walmart on Tuesday afternoon.

On Wednesday, Mr. Allen died.

Firefighters responded to a car accident shortly after 5 p.m. in which the vehicle was trapped in water at 490 Greenway View Dr. When firefighters from Station 13 arrived on the scene, they found a Cadillac completely submerged in a retention pond.



The fire department received the alarm at 5:07 p.m. and the first companies (from Station 13) arrived on the scene three minutes later at 5:10 p.m.

Battalion Chief Rick Boatwright said the firefighters with Squad 13 and Quint 13 believed the car was still occupied, so they immediately began a rescue operation. Battalion Chief Rick Boatwright said the firefighters with Squad 13 and Quint 13 believed the car was still occupied, so they immediately began a rescue operation.For their own safety, the firefighters tied ropes around themselves so that they could safely approach the vehicle. Chief Boatwright said the firefighters then attached a cable from Squad 13 to the car, and used the fire truck's winch to pull the vehicle onto its side, enabling the firefighters to gain access to the driver's side door and window. Once that was accomplished, the firefighters broke out the window and opened the door.





The firefighters then pulled the unconscious man out of the car and immediately began administering cardio pulmonary resuscitation before handing him off to paramedics with Hamilton County EMS. Two of the firefighters rode with the patient in the ambulance and helped to continue CPR on the way to Erlanger Hospital.





Chief Boatwright said it was a very tough situation for the firefighters, but they did an outstanding job under the circumstances. "They really had to think outside the box on this one," said Chief Boatwright. "The car was totally submerged so they knew they had to act quickly, and they did just that. We are all hoping and praying for a positive outcome for the patient."





The cause of the incident is under investigation by the Chattanooga Police Department. Firefighters with Squad 7 also provided assistance on the scene. Chief Boatwright said the Hamilton County Special Tactics and Rescue Services (STARS) was also called in to help, but the firefighters had already pulled the victim out of the car when they arrived.




The Chattanooga Police Department has arrested suspects attaching skimming devices to a local gas station pump (the Mapco at Highway 153 and Gadd Road). The suspects are suspected to be a part of a national organized crime ring involved in credit card data theft, police said.

Police said they were caught "red-handed."

Two suspects are in custody along with more devices and two laptops that are pending forensic examination.

Rafael De Los Rios, 36, was arrested on charges of vandalism, tampering with or fabricating evidence, possession of cocaine for resale.



Yoandy Cendeo Pena, 34, was charged with vandalism and tampering with or fabricating evidence.

Both are from Tampa.

Store officials said the tampering caused approximately $10,000 in damage to one pump and unspecified damage to another.

Police said an officer observed a large U-Haul truck pulled up to the gas pumps at the Mapco at 5500 Highway 153.

The officer observed an occupant of that vehicle manipulating the access door of the card reader for the gas pump.

As the truck left the area the officer was able to confirm that the red security tape had been cut, indicating the device had been tampered with.

Chattanooga Police were able to stop and detain the suspects and determine that they did not work for the Mapco.

Upon taking the two suspects into custody, several items were confiscated which could be used for "skimming" purposes to obtain credit card information.

The United Sates Secret Service was informed of the arrest and will be investigating the suspects for potential federal prosecution.
Blood Assurance will be holding two public blood drives in honor of Leonard Fant, longtime medical administrator and co-founder of Blood Assurance, Inc., who passed away on Oct. 6, at the age of 82. The blood drives will be held Tuesday, Feb. 14 from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. at the downtown Chattanooga Blood Assurance donor center and the Fort Oglethorpe Blood Assurance donor center.

Mr. Fant retired from Blood Assurance as CEO in 2009.
The 88-RGSDO has been established with League of Rakhine Students and Youth (LRSY), which was founded after the 88 Uprising in Burma, and former students and youths that went abroad including the All Burma Students Democratic Front (ABSDF).

Ko Khaing Sann Aung, a former officer-in-charge of the ABSDF (Arakan) who has been elected as general secretary of the 88-RGSDO, told the press that the organisation discussed issues on peace and stability of the Arakan State, regional development, cooperation with other allied organisations, national solidarity, cooperation with Arakan social organisations on issues concerning the lack of transparency in extracting Arakan natural resources, and cooperation for Burmas peace and the 21st Century Panglong Conference.

The 88 Arakan Generation Organisation took part in mediating the merger of the RNDP (Rakhine Nationalities Development Party) and the ALD (Arakan League for Democracy) at the Salween Conference. We consider this as a big accomplishment for our nationalism. We have also cooperated with the 88 Generation Peace and Open Society from Rangoon to expose the confiscation of farmlands in Ponnakyun. We have collected donations as much as we can for the Arakan people affected by war, fire, and flood, said U Than Naing, an advisory member of the 88-RGSDO.

According to him, the LRSYC was established before the 1990 Election, but it only strived for the unity of Arakan political parties without entering the election. Now, the 88RGSDO will uphold the policies of the ASYC and strive for the unity of Arakan political parties and unity of the Arakan people.

We, the 88 Rakhine Generation Organisation, have been indivisible with the public. We have been indivisible in the past and we will continue to be indivisible. We will always be indivisible in line with the public desire, expressed U Aung Thein, chairman of the 88-RGSDO.

The annual meeting of the 88-RGSDO was held from 4 to 5 January and a four-pointed statement has also been released.

The four points in the statement area  (1) to cooperate with the Arakan State government, Arakan State Hluttaw, political parties, allied social organisations, and international organisations for the peace and stability and development of the Arakan State, (2) to cooperate as necessary for the solidarity of the Arakan national people, (3) to urge respective government and companies to have transparency in the extraction of Arakan natural resources, and (4) join hands with ethnic brethren in cooperating in the union peace processes and the establishment of a future federal union.

The organisation has been restructured at the annual meeting with five advisors, fifteen central executive committee members, and nineteen members.
The case is that a Bingali woman named Mya Nanda Khin whose parents are not Myanmar citizens from Bu-thee-taung township was issued the national registration card No. 11/BaThaTa (Naing) 048157 on 3 February, 2016. As the issuance of the NRC to Mya Nanda Khin is illegal according to the section 19 of the 1982 Citizenship Law, U Aung Than Wai and group made lawsuit against U Win Lwin at the Sittwe Police Station.

U Kyaw Hla Tun, the attorney general of the Rakhine state, did not send the related lawsuit documents submitted by the accused as yet. Previously, he has already said to send advice on the related lawsuit documents within seven days for proceedings.

U Kyaw Hla Tun, the attorney general of the Rakhine state, has promised all of us  9-member group of the accused, the state chief minister U Nyi Pu, border affairs minister U Htein Lin and the chief police officer of the Rakhine state  to send legal advice on the lawsuit within seven days, U Aung Than Wai told Narinjara News.

In addition, U Aung Than Wai said, There were no legal suggestion for long time. The legal advisory teams authoritative persons themselves seem no respect on the rule of law. There is a regulation in the Penal Codes which says the legal advisory team must give suggestion immediately or within seven days when the working group for proceedings submitted the court case. To be frank, the state officials are backing up the defendant.

Concerning with the said case, the lawsuit was registered by case number (16/77/2016) at the Sittwe Myoma Police Station and the related case file has been reached at the state attorney general desk for about one month. The state chief minister promised that he will ask for the issued number of Mya Nanda Khins case when U Aung Than Wai met him on 5 December.

Although the Narinjara tried to call the Rakhine state immigration chief officer by phone, no one answer the call.

Translated by Zin Linn
Both meetings discussed the detention in December of 4 leading members of the Arakan Liberation Party/Army (ALP/ALA) and All Burma Students Democratic Front (ABSDF); the planned Union Peace Conference 21st Century Panglong (UPC 21 CP) in February; and the continued fighting in Kachin and Shan North that has displaced more than 100,000 people. (Some of the responses by the two has been reported in my journal, To Hopeland and Back: The 26th trip, 30 January 2017)

Following the meetings, the EAO leaders met in the evening to review them. I still remember what two of them said:

It is quite clear the two leaders are both in a tug-of war as well as collusion

The feeling that arose in me while talking to them was that: We are dealing not with one government, but two governments

The second remark, I think, is one of the reasons for why the year 2016 has passed without any promising results: Prime examples:

In October, the Kachin Independence Organization/Army (KIO/KIA) wrote an official request to Naypyitaw for an urgent meeting to discuss de-escalation of the war in the north. It took more than three months to get a response. And by the time it came, the situation in the north had become so deteriorated there is a question whether this long awaited meeting will take place at all.

It was the same situation with the 8 point (later 9 point) proposal of the 7 member alliance, the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), which was presented to Naypyitaw in July. Nearly 7 months have slipped by, but an agreement of substance has yet to be reached.

In comparison, under the previous government, the longest deadlock, 7 months, followed the meeting between the EAOs Nationwide Ceasefire Coordination Team (NCCT) and the governments Union Peacemaking Work Committee (UPWC) in August 2014. But the informal negotiations between the two sides had never stopped. Also, it was quite obvious the country at that time had one (or almost) single government. At least there was a friendly relation between the President and the Commander-in-Chief, as acknowledged by the latter himself.

Today things are different. However, the problem is not just about the relation between the two top leaders of the country, but also, I believe, how the EAO leaders are coping with it.

So far, the impression from the outside is that the EAOs are reacting differently to the two governments:

Some appear to be for joining forces with the SC and her NLD party against the military

Some others, meanwhile, seem to be advocating the other way round i.e. joining with the military against the SC and her party, the NLD

Yet there are others who see the two governments as birds of a feather and, being so, are against both

All three options, at least for the time being, are dangerous, as each is eying the EAOs suspiciously whether they would end up signing up with the other camp.

Which reminds me of a tale of a man with two wives which I had first heard some 30 plus years back.

A Thai friend who was visiting Gen Gawnzerng (1926-1991), leader of the Tai Revolutionary Council (TRC) asked him:

Friend: General, you have two wives, is that right?

Gawn: (smiles) Thats right. Why are you asking?

Friend: Do they live together under the same roof with you?

Gawn: No, of course not. They live in different houses in two different villages.

Friend: But, suppose they live in the same house, and share the same bed with you. Imagine you are lying between the two of them one evening. And, say, wife#2 is asking, Who do you love more, #1 or me? What will be your answer?

Gawn: (smiles widely) Thats easy. Ill say, I love you both equally.

Friend: But honestly do you think that answer will satisfy them? Remember, #1 is listening to you from the other side. Just imagine you are them. Will you buy that answer?

Gawn: Well, I give up. What in heaven then do I say to make both of them happy?

Friend: This is how. You are facing #2, right? You lift her chin with your one hand and the other hand, reaching out behind your back, hold #1s thigh, squeeze it, and say, I love you more, of course. Now, who isnt going to believe you?

Not surprisingly, a big hearty loud laughter followed.

No, I dont think the storys true. But suppose it is, then, it may very well be a classic example of how negotiators get out of tight spots.

The problem is that we in Burma/Myanmar are short of such skilled negotiators. Whats more, those few we have, we are not using them. Believe me, if we keep on going the same way we have been doing it the past ten months, 2020 will come and go, without any hope of peace in the country.

My message, therefore, to all leaders of the country, whether they be from the government, military, parties or EAOs, is that let us lose no time in finding/training qualified negotiators so there is peace in our land for our people, the sooner the better.
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Residents at The Lantern at Morning Pointe Alzheimer's Center of Excellence, Chattanooga, are showing their love for local puppies. The seniors at the memory care community made rope toys and packed gift bags, delivering the thoughtful treats to The McKamey Animal Shelter.



But before they left, the seniors spent much quality time with their furry and four-legged friends, exchanging compassion and comfort with their animal friends.



For years, Morning Pointe has partnered with local shelters and zoos as part of the Meaningful Day program, bringing the many benefits of pet therapy to the residents.



As part of the life enrichment program, Morning Pointe is partnering with local organizations to pay it forward, and giving residents the opportunity to put their lifelong talents and crafts to use for the greater good as part of a yearlong community service campaign.






Local education nonprofit The Chattery will host three free Know Your Government courses on the Federal, State of Tennessee, and City of Chattanooga and Hamilton County government.



The three classes will focus on how the government is structured, how bills, laws, and ordinances are passed, and how citizens can make their voices heard in the different levels of government. These classes are non-partisan and for informational purposes only.



Feb. 12 - Federal Government

Feb. 19 - State of Tennessee

Feb. 26 - Local Government (City of Chattanooga & Hamilton County)



The federal government course is taught by two Public Education Foundation Policy Fellows Bo Chamberlain and Jaime Petty.

Mr. Chamberlain teaches eighth grade American history at Signal Mountain Middle/High school. He is in his 15th year teaching and has also taught world geography and English.

Mr. Petty teaches sixth grade world history at Normal Park Museum Magnet School. He has several years of experience teaching high school government and economics courses.



The state and local courses are facilitated by Teo Valdes. Mr. Valdes is on the board of the Highland Park Neighborhood Association and teaches language classes for La Paz Chattanooga and the Chattanooga School of Languages. In the past he taught at the middle school, high school, and college levels and also has experience from the business world where he worked in Llearning and development.



All classes will start at 2 p.m. and take place at Archway on Glass, 2523 Glass St. Visit www.thechattery.org/yourgovernment for more information and to register.




On Wednesday, Tennessee State Rep. Andy Holt introduced legislation that targets, what he calls, predatory marketing tactics from the Tennessee Lottery.



"Last month, I raised concern over the way lottery commercials were being used in predatory ways to target Tennessee's most economically vulnerable citizens by encouraging them to purchase lottery tickets rather than life sustaining goods such as food," said Rep. Holt. "I have, very publicly, asked the Tennessee Lottery to ensure me (and the countless Tennesseans who are upset over these practices) that they would no longer run these types of ads.

The proposed legislation will seek to set up an independent commission to vet all lottery ads. "The legislation is still being drafted, but it will likely call for a independent commission made up of a marketing consultant, pastor, financial adviser and an addiction counselor who will vet all lottery ads to ensure they are not encouraging players, in any form or fashion, to play the lottery over the purchase of life sustaining goods/services; and must not market the lottery as a potential means to provide for financial well-being. The commission will be financed by lottery revenue," said Rep. Holt. Rep. Holt says that the legislation has strong bi-partisan support, noting that Senate Minority Leader Lee Harris is carrying the Senate version of the legislation. "I've had countless friends from both sides of the aisle approach me on this issue, and they absolutely agree that it's time for a change," said Rep. Holt. "I'm very thankful for Senate Minority Leader Lee Harris' support on the issue, and I look forward to working with him while we take a stand against this embarrassing stain on our state."

When the media asked them for comment, they had nothing to say, and they've said nothing to me. So, now we're introducing bi-partisan legislation to put an end to these damaging ads."Rep. Holt said research that highlights the fact that these ads target economically disadvantaged and minorities, which he says is shameful."A study in the Journal of Community Psychology found that lottery outlets are often clustered in neighborhoods with large numbers of minorities, who are at greatest risk for developing gambling addictions," he said. "As if that weren't bad enough, a 2011 paper in the Journal of Gambling Studies conducted a thorough review of available research on lotteries and concluded that the poor are still the leading patron of the lottery. Knowing all of this to be true, the State of Tennessee finds it appropriate to use these types of marketing practices. It's shameful."Rep Holt said he takes specific issue with three commercials that were aired over the holiday season."Tennessees government protected lottery is telling people who cant afford Christmas presents for their growing family to just buy lottery tickets instead of exchanging gifts because it will provide them a way to save for their child's college education, encouraging these same cash strapped families to buy a biscuits and gravy lottery ticket rather than actually feed themselves because, hey, once theyre magically rich theyll be able to feed their families. If you cannot sell a product without encouraging people to go hungry and skip Christmas, then you clearly have a desperate product on your hands."
Yoga East Studio, 7633 East Brainerd Road, will host a Community Yoga Event sponsoring the Pet Placement Center this Friday from 6:30-7:30 p.m.

"Come relax and unwind from the busy week with an hour long Yin/Yang class led by Denise Cooper and Elizabeth Ogle," officials said.

One hundred percent of the proceeds raised go directly to the Pet Placement Center. According to Yoga East Studio Owner Jennifer Dixon, with these monthly fundraising yoga classes, Yoga East has already raised over $250 so far and has partnered with the Pet Placement Center this quarter to raise funds for them through March.

Ms. Dixon adds that at the end of the quarter, a celebration event with Kitten Yoga will be announced for April. "Come help support the lives of area cats and dogs. Donations for shelter needs like dog and cat food, toys, and beds are also being accepted," she said.
The Botswana Peoples Party (BPP) has formally raised objections about the number of constituencies allocated to it during the just-ended opposition cooperation talks involving the four parties in the opposition coalition - Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC).

The party has been given four constituencies, while the BNF, BCP and BMD have got 22, 17 and 14 constituencies each in that order. In a letter written January 28th and signed by party secretary general, Otlaadisa Otlaadisa and addressed to the UDC secretary general, Ndaba Gaolathe, the party indicates that, it discussed the UDC-BCP cooperation talks and resolved that it was underrepresented regarding the number of constituencies allocated to it.

It is therefore on that breath that the committee has resolved to make a fresh request and or submissions as we hereby do, through you on our preferred additional constituencies, said the letter. Specifically, the party wants to be given Gaborone South which has been a BNF stronghold for many years until 2014 when the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) won it. Said the BPP, The rationale behind this request or submission is that our vice president, a capable man, is based in Gaborone. It is therefore appropriate in our view that as a senior member of both the Botswana Peoples Party and the UDC he has a constituency in Gaborone to contest.





The BPP explained that, should the BPP not be allocated a constituency in Gaborone or at least one major city, it will face certain death because, cities play a crucial role on the development of a political space. Mbaakanyi Lenyatso is the BPP vice president and stays in Gaborone. The party would like Francistown West to be given to it, so that, its president, Motlatsi Molapisi, who resides in Francistown, may have a constituency to contest in the second city. The constituency has been allocated to the BCP.

The BPP also wants Nata-Gweta, Mmadinare and Shashe West, all of which have been given to the BCP, to be allocated to it. As a bare minimum the BPP wants to be allocated eight constituencies. Efforts to ask for confirmation of receipt of the BPP letter from Gaolatle could not bear fruit as his cell phone rang unanswered.










The Salvation Army food pantry, located in its Social Services office, alerted administration that it is barely capable of putting together complete food boxes for a family. "We have odds and ends, cans here or there, but barely enough to put together three full meals in a food box," said Sandy Leavell, director of Social Services for The Salvation Army. "We desperately need the community to donate food."



The Salvation Army is asking the community to step forward and donate non-perishable food items. Items most needed are:



- Canned meat of any type: tuna, chicken, Spam, etc.;

- Tuna/Chicken Helper;

- Canned soup of all types: chili, ravioli, beef stew, chicken noodle, tomato, etc.;

- Pasta sauce;

- Pasta;

- Macaroni and cheese;

- Instant potatoes and/or rice side dishes;

- Dry rice; and

- Corn muffin or biscuit mix.



For a full list of items, visit: http://csarmy.org/donate_drives.asp. All items can be brought to The Salvation Army, 822 McCallie Ave. or to the Social Services Office, 2140 East 28th St. between 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.



Churches, businesses, or schools that would like to host a donation drive may contact Matthew Dodgins at 423-756-1023 . Monetary donations can be made online at www.csarmy.org, by calling 1-800-SAL-ARMY or by mail to: The Salvation Army, 822 McCallie Ave., Chattanooga, TN, 37403.
Almost 22 years ago, 50 unique, individual, and yet forever bonded souls participated in one official last act as the sum of a whole. When we graduated from Lookout Valley High School in June of 1995, most of us had known each other from the ages of daycare through all of our years of school. Some of us were, and still are fortunate enough to have been friends since birth. It seems like only a brief amount of time has passed, even though we are now screaming, like myself for example, literally, into our 40's. We always felt invincible. Powerful.

Even with our differences, we somehow were a mostly cohesive bunch. We always were there for each other. We are lucky to still be a part, albeit small parts, of each other's lives, mostly. Thanks to social media. Life happened to us all. Good and bad. We still know we can call on one another.

We have now started to experience loss. Things like tragedy aren't supposed to happen to us. It happens to other people, but not us. We never think it can come for one of us. We are wrong. Our invincibility was an illusion. We have now lost another dear friend. I think this is now the third out of the 50. Please, if I'm wrong, please correct me. Jodie, Joseph, and now Angie. That veil of power is quickly dissipating.

I last talked to Angie over Facebook Messenger in November. We talked about "getting together after the holidays" and catching up. She was so proud of and loved her children who I never got to meet. As I love and am proud of my husband that she had not yet met. We were going to rectify that, again, "after the holidays". Now we'll never get that chance. We lost that sweet soul of Angie's Wednesday. She will forever be etched in our hearts, like all those we have lost too soon and too young.

She was so selfless, that even in loss, as an organ donor, she not only will live on in our memories, but her gifts of life will help others to live. I know that whoever the lucky ones are that will receive a physical part of our friend will be blessed and hopefully, will feel as loved as our Angie.

Please make and take the time to reach out. If you love someone, tell them. Mend a misunderstanding or right that wrong. If you want to talk to an old friend, do it now. Live, laugh, love, dance, see that place you wanted to always visit. Eat dessert first. Be spontaneous. Be brave. Help others when and where you can. Be like Angela (Phipps) Zarzour. Be selfless.

Ricky Hendricks Smith

Lookout Valley

Graduating Class of 1995
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 09/02/2017 (2095 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After six years at the helm, Brandon city manager Scott Hildebrand has resigned from his position.

It has been an absolute pleasure leading and working alongside such an amazing group of people. I am very proud of our collective accomplishments over the last six years and feel that we have raised the bar with respect to our service to the community, Hildebrand stated in a press release.

I also want to thank Mayor Chrest and city council for all of their support and direction over the last number of years and truly believe they will continue to move this city forward in a thoughtful and meaningful way, always keeping our ratepayers top of mind.

File City manager Scott Hildebrand is shown during a 2013 city council meeting. Hildebrand, who has served as city manager since June 2011, has resigned and will leave Brandon at the end of next month to take a job in British Columbia.

Hildebrand took on the role in June 2011, after four years as McKenzie Seeds vice-president and general manager.

This community has been truly amazing, and I know for a fact that itll continue to grow and prosper with or without me, he said. Hildebrand plans to pursue an opportunity in the private sector in British Columbia.

Looking back at his time with the city, Hildebrand said he is particularly proud of the flood-fighting efforts in 2011 and 2014, as well as several internal initiatives relating to responsible budgeting, workplace safety, succession planning and the recent launch of an employee engagement strategy.

The City of Brandon staff are one of the most committed, dedicated, and customer service-focused groups I have ever worked with. Our team truly understands the meaning of our vision statement, Serving and Building Community, and deserves the respect of this community, Hildebrand stated.

Hildebrands last day at city hall will be Feb. 24, and will officially move on at the end of March.

Im just happy that we were able to get the budget passed and we have our financial plan set to go, Hildebrand said. We have our work plan and our projects and all of our initiatives are ready to go  the team is very capable.

Mayor Rick Chrest said Hildebrand will be greatly missed, and leaves behind big shoes to fill.

I can honestly  attest that he was a first-rate city manager for us, hes just got a tremendous combination of skills and talents and personal demeanour, and genuine leadership qualities thats been very good for us, Chrest said.

The citys personnel committee will appoint an acting city manager within the next few weeks, and a search for a replacement will begin.

Its a very important position for the city and the community and well be ensuring that we have a process that gives us access to the best candidates that we can, and that could be both internal and external, Chrest said.

 jaustin@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @jillianaustin
CHI Memorial has teamed up with the American Heart Association to support the Healthy For Good movement in Chattanooga through 2021.

"The movement encourages everyday Americans everywhere to make a commitment to their health, and will 'rally' Chattanooga residents to live healthier lives, 'inspire' them to make lasting changes, and 'unify' people around the simple idea that making a small change today can create a difference for generations to come.

"For more than 90 years, heart disease has been the number one cause of death for all Americans, yet 80 percent of cardiac events can be prevented through lifestyle changes and education. Throughout the year, the American Heart Association and CHI Memorial will host events and engage community members with outreach efforts that emphasize each wellness pillar of Healthy For Good: Add Color, Eat Smart, Move More, and Be Well," officials said.



CHI Memorial is proud to support the American Heart Association in its Healthy For Good movement. This focused effort confirms our ongoing commitment and dedication to the community for the prevention, education and treatment of heart disease and stroke, said Larry Schumacher, CEO, CHI Memorial and SVP, Operations, Southeast Division, Catholic Health Initiatives.



The partnership kicked off Thursday, Jan. 12 with the first Chattanooga Worksite Wellness Summit. The summit explored how companies can create a culture of health by learning the basics of worksite wellness  why it is essential, the impact of wellness in the company, and the key elements to include within the wellness plan.



Each year, the community will gather together to celebrate a year of healthy changes at the Tennessee Valley Heart Walk. This years event is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 28.

For more information on how to get involved with Healthy For Good, call Charlie Haddock at 423-763-4408.






February 8, 2017

On March 17, 2015, Selahattin Demirtas, the co-chair of the Kurdish-dominated Peoples Democratic Party (HDP), delivered the shortest speech in Turkish parliamentary history. We wont let you become an executive president, he proclaimed at his partys weekly parliamentary meeting, repeating the sentence three times. The HDP leader was addressing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose drive to install a presidential regime was already a major theme ahead of general elections in June of that year.

An advocate of a peaceful solution to the Kurdish problem, Demirtas led the HDP to a historic breakthrough in the elections. In the raucous campaign season, he stood out as a moderate figure with a sharp and witty intellect, often singing and playing saz during television interviews that defied Turkeys somber political culture. The peace process between Ankara and the Kurds was not yet officially dead, and the HDP, boosted by Demirtas charisma, managed to garner support from voters beyond its Kurdish base. While the HDP won 80 seats in the 550-member parliament, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its majority for the first time since 2002. Soon, however, the peace process collapsed and fighting resumed between the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the security forces. In five months time, Erdogans maneuvers led to snap elections that restored the AKPs parliamentary majority and weakened the HDP. Ankaras ensuing crackdown on the Kurdish movement culminated in Demirtas arrest in November 2016.

Leader of the third-largest party in parliament and once a presidential candidate, Demirtas now stands accused of being a terrorist. According to the prosecutors indictment, Demirtas serves on the political leadership wing of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), a PKK-led illegal organization accused of seeking to create an independent Kurdistan in Turkeys eastern and southeastern provinces, and is also a leader in the Democratic Society Congress, which is a legal umbrella group for Kurdish organizations.

The evidence the prosecutor presented includes telephone conversations between Demirtas and KCK members, an alleged KCK letter that mentions his name and a picture published in the press showing him in the company of KCK members.

In remarks to Al-Monitor, Demirtas lawyer, Mehmet Emin Aktar, described the charges as ridiculous, stressing that illegally obtained wiretaps cannot serve as evidence. Neither Demirtas nor the HDP aim to create an independent Kurdistan. On the contrary, their policies aim at embracing whole Turkey and [Kurdish] integration with Turkey, he said.

The bulk of the indictment pertains to demonstrations, rallies and other events Demirtas attended. He faces charges for taking part in celebrations of Nowruz, the traditional Kurdish new year, at times and places where the celebrations were banned, supporting a campaign for Kurdish-language education in schools, attending the alternative Friday prayers that Kurds held in the southeast several years ago, calling protests against curfews in Kurdish regions and attending the funerals of slain PKK militants.

What Demirtas was saying in the streets was the same of what he was saying in parliament. The charges against him breach [the principle of] parliamentary immunity, Aktar said.

Certain expressions Demirtas has used are also presented as incriminating evidence in the charge sheet. His description of military operations in the southeast as massacres and his referral to PKK members as guerrillas and to jailed PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan as a peoples leader are all deemed to constitute praise of crime and criminals.

The most critical accusation pertains to the 2014 events surrounding the Islamic States (IS) assault on Kobani, the Syrian Kurdish town across the Turkish border. In October that year, the HDP called on Turkeys Kurds to take to the streets to protest the assault and Ankaras failure to offer any help to the Kurds. The crowded protests degenerated into clashes between HDP supporters and Islamist Kurds, including IS sympathizers. The three-day unrest claimed 45 lives, including two police officers, and left about a thousand people injured. Yielding to international pressure, Ankara eventually opened a corridor for Iraqi Kurds to deliver assistance to Kobani.

In the charge sheet, Demirtas is accused of being responsible for and even inciting the deadly street violence.

His lawyer countered, During the unrest, Demirtas appealed for an end to the violence. Later, he even submitted a proposal in parliament for an investigation into the incidents. The proposal was voted down by AKP deputies. The perpetrators responsible for the deaths are yet to be found, and the cases have remained inconclusive so far. In other words, the state has failed to find the perpetrators of the murders but is holding Demirtas and other [HDP] deputies responsible for the incidents.

In the 500-page indictment, the prosecutor levels a total of 12 charges against Demirtas, including leadership of a terrorist organization, spreading terrorist propaganda and incitement, demanding up to 143 years in prison for the HDP leader.

Demirtas, for his part, has refused to answer the charges, holding Erdogan responsible for his arrest. I refuse to be an extra in this judicial farce, launched on Erdogans orders.  Only my people and voters can question me politically over my political activities, he wrote to the prosecutor.

While Demirtas and 11 other HDP lawmakers remain behind bars, Turkey is counting down to a referendum on constitutional changes designed to introduce the presidential system, to which Demirtas had vocally objected two years ago. The court has rejected Demirtas plea to be released and adjourned his trial to a date after the referendum, which is expected to take place in April. What is perhaps even more striking than the jail term sought for Demirtas is that Turkey is heading to a fateful referendum under a nationwide state of emergency, with a prominent opposition leader and lawmakers locked up in jail.
photo by American Society of Civil Engineers photo by American Society of Civil Engineers photo by American Society of Civil Engineers photo by American Society of Civil Engineers Previous Next

A new IMAX film challenges everyone to think differently about adjectives like fastest, strongest, and tallest, while inspiring a new generation to think about alternative career paths.

Dream Big: Engineering Our World celebrates the human ingenuity behind technological marvels large and small and shows how engineers push the limits of innovation in unexpected and amazing ways. From the Great Wall of China and the Acropolis to space exploration, Dream Big is packed with epic moments of engineering grandeur. Audiences will be thrilled by the dizzying views of cloud-tickling skyscrapers to white-knuckle trips rocketing alongside experimental vehicles.



When Dream Big premieres Feb. 17, at the Tennessee Aquarium IMAX 3D Theater, however , one the most-engrossing stories it depicts will take place just 39 inches off the ground and at speeds that would barely raise the eyebrows of a crossing guard.

Through the six-story lens of Chattanoogas biggest screen, viewers will watch 14 students from Houston High School of Science and Technology as they travel half the world away to compete in the 2015 World Solar Challenge Race in Australia.



Thousands of miles from their home in Houston, Ms., the students pit their solar-powered car, Sundancer, against the perils of a 3,000-kilometer (1,800-mile) race between Darwin and Adelaide. In the end, Sundancer won its vehicle class by covering 1,736 miles  341 miles farther than the next-closest competitor  at an average speed of about 40 miles an hour.



In the World Solar Challenge, we compete with extremely expensive cars, built by the best universities across the world, and we are simply a group of high school students with a car that costs less than most of the cars there, said Malik Lawrence, one of the Houston High students who competed in the 2015 race. After winning our division in the World Solar Challenge, I realized I could accomplish whatever I set my mind to.



Lawrence and four other Houston students featured in Dream Bigwill be in Chattanooga for the premiere of the film at the Tennessee Aquarium IMAX 3D Theater. They will share their experiences being part of a giant screen film while inspiring others to dream big. Our students realized that they can set, and achieve, really high goals for themselves, said educator Keith Reese, the Sundancer Team advisor. Dream Big is a reminder to everyone that the impossible is really possible; it just takes a determined effort. It also reminds us that no matter where you come from, or what limitations we might have, we are only limited by our own imagination.



The students triumphant victory  the first high school team to do so in the races history  is just one of many amazing moments inDream Big 3D, which features narration by Academy Award winner Jeff Bridges and bills itself as the first big-screen film to answer the call of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) initiative.



Through interviews with engineers and thrilling footage shot by veteran giant screen studio MacGillivray Freeman Films, Dream Big 3D showcases the passion that drives todays engineers and inspires the young minds that will solve tomorrows problems.



Teachers, museums, and parents are looking for ways to get kids not just exposed to but also really turned on by science and engineering, said Director Greg MacGillivray. We wanted to see if we could bring something new to that effort with an entertaining, visually spectacular film  that energizes kids of all kinds, including girls and minorities, to think about engineering as something that might be an exciting thing to do with their lives and their way to make a mark on the world.



According to the National Association of Manufacturers, 3.5 million manufacturing jobs will be available over the next decade, but two million may go unfilled due to a gap in required skills. A film like Dream Big 3D could be the inspirational spark that encourages more kids to pursue a rewarding career in one of these fields. The modern manufacturers of today need skilled people who can operate, maintain and troubleshoot their high-tech equipment, said Mary Beth Hudson, vice president and site manager for Wacker Polysilicon North America. To compete globally, Wackerand companies like Wackerneed an educated workforce to operate their plants successfully. This is why we support advanced technical training programs, and why we are working with our local educators to help students prepare for these rewarding career opportunities.



Dream Big 3D takes steps toward inspiring the next generation of problem solvers by showcasing abundant examples of creative engineering tackling complex issues. Viewers will watch bridge builders connect isolated villages in the Third World, see how twisted architecture can help a building defy the wind and root for a team of plucky high schoolers as they compete against groups from elite schools in a NASA-sponsored robotics competition.



The film was produced in partnership with the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Bechtel Corporation and is being presented locally by Wacker. Its premiere on Feb. 17 dovetails with Chattanooga Engineers Week, which runs Feb. 19-25 and which aims to raise public awareness about engineering and the contributions that engineers make to society. A complete schedule of E-Week activities in Chattanooga can be found online.



Dream Big 3D will be shown daily at the Tennessee Aquarium IMAX 3D Theater at noon and 4 p.m. with additional 7 p.m.screenings on Friday and Saturday. Tickets are $11.95 for adults, $9.95 for children (ages 3-12). For the best value, an IMAX Club Pass offers a year of unlimited screenings of all 45-minute IMAX documentaries and discounts for guest tickets, feature film tickets and concessions.



To purchase tickets or an IMAX Club Pass, visit tnaqua.org/imax.






Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 09/02/2017 (2095 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINNIPEG  Getting rid of red tape. Sounds like a good idea, right? Based on a promise made during the 2016 election, Manitobas Progressive Conservative government has recently embarked on a process intended to shrink the existing number of regulations and curb the introduction of new rules.

Regulation can be viewed as negative because it restricts freedom and adds costs to the economy. Others counter that regulation serves numerous economic and social purposes, including reduced risks to the environment, health and safety. While there are legal and technical issues involved, many regulatory actions involve value-laden judgments. This means, at least in part, what qualifies as good or bad regulation is in the eye of the beholder.

Any debate on the future of regulation must involve a wide array of organizations and individuals, not just those opposed to regulation. The process must be transparent, and the decisions to add or eliminate regulations should be based on the best available evidence, not simply on the ideological inclinations of the decision-makers.

On Dec. 6, the government launched a red-tape reduction task force. The task force is co-chaired by Carmele Peter, president of the Exchange Income Corporation, and by Shannon Martin, MLA for Morris and former executive director of the Manitoba wing of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB). The other members of the task force are from business and not-for-profit backgrounds. There is no representative of organized labour and no independent researcher who studies the regulatory process.

The mandate of the task force is to identify regulations that have a detrimental impact on businesses competitiveness and on the quality of not-for-profit services. Initially focused on four sectors of the economy, the task force was supposed to begin consultations in January. From the available public announcements, it appears the task force will operate through bilateral consultations with representatives of business, not-for-profits and local governments.

This is appropriate, but one wonders whether there are any plans for meetings with independent experts and interested members of the public.

To ensure wider public awareness and participation, the task force should post a discussion paper online and seek feedback. The paper should set forth the principles to be used in evaluating the regulatory process and its outcomes.

Heres what Id like to see: regulation should be effective, efficient, fair, precautionary, participatory, responsive, timely, transparent and accountable. Fulfilling such principles will necessarily involve trade-offs (for example, the need to balance efficiency with fairness), which is why the process should be transparent and inclusive.

The government expects the task force to develop an inventory of exiting regulations. The number will become the baseline for the government to make claims its reduced the regulatory burden by eliminating thousands of regulations. While an inventory would be useful, the baseline number should only be used as a starting point for debate, not an obvious indicator there is too much regulation.

Thats because some of the existing regulations are sought by the organizations they serve, thus they arent seen as a burden. As well, a number doesnt provide context: it doesnt reveal if regulations are dormant or not strictly enforced. Finally, what some people regard as a burden, others will regard as necessary protection against risks (for example, in ensuring the food we eat is safe or the contractors we hire are licensed).

The government somewhat pre-empted the work of the task force by announcing Jan. 24 it would introduce legislation this spring to apply a one-to-one rule to the process for adopting new regulations and eliminating existing ones. Beginning in 2017, any proposal for a new regulation must identify an existing regulation that will be dropped. In 2021, this will become a two-to-one rule.

The clear intention of the government is to halt regulatory expansion, force deregulation and require any future government with different ideas to amend the proposed legislation.

The Pallister government is concerned regulations make Manitoba businesses uncompetitive, a reasonable concern that should be approached in a careful, balanced manner. The government cites a CFIB study that claims red tape of all kinds costs Manitobas medium and small business $1.2 billion per year.

The CFIB admits it did not attempt to measure the benefits of regulation, in part because benefits can be intangible and are harder to measure than costs. However, if a comprehensive and balanced evaluation is to occur, there must be some analytical effort made to measure the benefit side of the regulatory coin.

Smart regulation has become the mantra for regulation-reform initiatives over the past several decades. Put simply, it involves moving away from traditional command-and-control regulation involving sanctions for non-compliance and relying instead on a mix of policy instruments selected on the basis of evidence about what works. Typically, smart regulation is less coercive. For example, it can involve self-regulation, voluntary initiatives and public reporting requirements.

Lets review regulation and eliminate rules that are outdated, ineffective or overly complicated, but lets do so in an open, inclusive manner.

 Paul G. Thomas is professor emeritus of political studies at the University of Manitoba. His column appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press earlier this week.
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 09/02/2017 (2095 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

U.S. President Donald Trump reacted badly to judicial rejection of his plan to cut off entry into the country for people from seven Muslim-majority countries. The so-called judge would be to blame if an immigrant or visitor from one of those countries did something bad, he fumed publicly.

As experience toughens his hide, Mr. Trump may learn to keep his temper better, for theres little doubt he and his administration will be butting heads with the legal system many times in the coming months  as do many administrations, both in the U.S. and Canada.

Former president Barack Obama had some successes and some failures when his measures were challenged in court. His health insurance law, the Affordable Care Act, for example, was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, but his attempts to give work permits to five million illegal immigrants and to appoint members to the National Labour Relations Board without Senate ratification were prevented.

A recent academic study estimated, despite all his training in the law, Mr. Obama won just half the time when his measures were challenged before the Supreme Court.

Stephen Harper, when he was prime minister, suffered a series of defeats in the Supreme Court of Canada. His attempt to close a Vancouver safe-injection clinic for drug addicts was blocked. His attempts to preserve the criminal laws against prostitutes were rejected. His bills aimed at increasing jail time for offenders were also thrown out. His plan to hold elections for members of the Senate and set term limits for them was found to be unconstitutional.

Late in his term of office, Mr. Harper tried and failed to appoint an ineligible judge to the Supreme Court, and as a result his appointee, Marc Nadon, was taken off the court.

Mr. Harpers public quarrel with Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin over the Nadon appointment didnt help him win over Canadian public opinion. He lost the 2015 election for many reasons, but when he invited Canadians to take sides between himself and the chief justice, the verdict was not going his way.

If the Obama and Harper records are any guide, President Trump may suffer many disappointments in court. He can probably improve his odds by seeking legal advice on his executive orders. He was warned against the Muslim migrants ban when the acting attorney general, Sally Yates, informed her department the ban was unconstitutional and could not be defended in court.

She was fired immediately, but courts that have looked at the matter since then have agreed with her. Mr. Trumps policy denies equal protection of the law to a category of people defined by religion and country of origin.

Mr. Trump contends his immigration measure was intended to protect Americans from terrorist attacks. But he protects no one when he takes measures that are unconstitutional. He creates only an appearance of activity.

The president of the United States, like the prime minister of Canada, governs within a framework of law, which limits the power of the authorities and protects the freedoms of the people. A president or a prime minister wastes time and effort by governing as though that framework did not exist. The framework of law does exist. It is not weakened by a presidents insults and verbal threats against the judges who uphold it.

Yet the system is only as strong as the men and women who take umbrage with questionable legislation, and demand that governments be accountable  not only to the people, but to the constitution that guides the law.

A recent New York Times piece suggests that more than a dozen Democratic attorneys general, governors and party operatives were involved in the legal onslaught against Trumps decree on immigration, which shut off entry to the U.S. from seven overwhelmingly Muslim countries.

If The Donald continues to churn out executive orders that lack a legal vetting process, there will be many further legal challenges to this administration. He would be well advised to seek legal advice and write executive orders that stand up better to judicial review.

However, based on Trumps penchant for going it alone  hes a billionaire businessman used to getting his way, after all  were not holding our breath. Keep in mind that a USA Today study found that Mr. Trump  before he took office  had been involved in at least 3,500 legal actions in federal and state courts during the last three decades.

While that doesnt make him an expert on law by any mean, hes certainly no stranger to the legal system, and he must have known that his executive orders would be challenged in the courts.

Perhaps he was hoping for a slightly longer grace period?

 Winnipeg Free Press and The Brandon Sun
Apple boss Tim Cook has told British Prime Minister Theresa May the technology giant is "very optimistic" about the UK's future after Brexit.

Mr Cook met the British Prime Minister at Downing Street this morning and referenced the company's plans to build a new UK headquarters at the redeveloped Battersea Power Station as proof of the company's support of the UK.

"We're doubling down on a huge headquarters in the Battersea area and we're leaving significant space there to expand," Mr Cook said.

"We're a big believer in the UK - we think you'll be just fine. Yes, there will be bumps in the road along the way but the UK's going to be fine."

Last year the iPhone maker revealed it would move 1,600 employees to the new campus in south London in 2021.

In a statement about the meeting, Apple said: "Tim had a positive meeting with the Prime Minister today, discussing Apple's continued investment in the United Kingdom.

"We are proud that Apple's innovation and growth now supports nearly 300,000 jobs across the UK."

Mr Cook also met mayor of London Sadiq Khan during his time in the capital, with Mr Khan tweeting he was "delighted" to welcome the Apple boss to "discuss talent, digital skills and Apple's investment in London".

Upon receiving an honorary degree from the University of Glasgow on Wednesday night, Mr Cook also voiced his opposition to President Donald Trump's immigration ban, saying: "If we stand and say nothing it's as if we're agreeing".

Apple has been among a host of technology giants who have voiced their concerns over the travel ban, which focuses on those with links to seven predominately Muslim countries.

Mr Cook has been chief executive of Apple since 2011, when he succeeded the company's late founder Steve Jobs.

Since then Apple has gone on to break profit and company sales records by introducing the Apple Watch, iPad Pro and several generations of the iPhone.
A joint effort between the Cleveland Police Department and Bradley County Sheriffs Office led to the solvability of an earlier morning burglary and the recovery of a stolen vehicle.

Sheriffs Office patrol deputies responded to a residence on Broomfield Road regarding a suspicious vehicle that was reported to the 911 Communications Center. Once deputies made contact with the vehicle, a male driver evaded deputies on foot. During the chase, the male ran into an occupied residence and was taken into custody after exiting. Further investigation discovered the vehicle that the male ran from was reported stolen earlier this morning to the Cleveland Police Department.



The male driver has been identified as Jeffrey Mackenzie Swallows, 20, who is the suspect of a burglary that was reported to the Cleveland Police Department earlier Wednesday morning. Most of the items stolen in the burglary have been recovered by Cleveland Police Department Detectives Bill Parks and Brian Stovall.



Mr. Swallows faces the following charges from both agencies: Bradley County Sheriff Office, evading and theft over $1,000; aggravated burglary Cleveland Police Department, aggravated burglary theft over $2,500, criminal trespassing.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny is in Warsaw today holding a bilateral meeting with Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo about the impacts of Brexit, writes Daniel McConnell, Political Editor in Warsaw.

Mr Kenny and the Irish Government are hoping to build support for Ireland to be given special recognition in the wake of Brexit and Warsaw is the latest capital city he is visiting.
Gerry Adams has said tonight's vote by the British Parliament on amendments to the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill, shows that "the British government does not care one iota for the people of the North."

The parliament voted against an amendment which said the British government must take the Good Friday Agreement into account when triggering Article 50

The amendment, proposed by the SDLP, was voted down by British MPs by 327 votes to 288, a majority of 39.

The Labour party, the Liberal Democrats, the SNP, Plaid Cymru backed the amendment, and they were joined by Independent Unionist Sylvia Hermon and former Conservative chancellor Kenneth Clarke.

The DUP, the Ulster Unionists and Ukip supported the Conservatives in voting against the amendment, along with five pro-Brexit Labour MPs, including Kate Hoey, a member of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee.

The European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill to pave the way for the formal Brexit process to begin under Article 50 of the EU treaties cleared the British House of Commons without being amended.

The Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams TD said it is time that the Taoiseach stopped playing junior partner to the British Government.

Mr Adams said: "Tonight, the Tory party voted down an amendment in the Article 50 debate which would have blocked any changes to the Good Friday Agreement.

"Two weeks ago, I learned that the Good Friday Agreement will be destroyed if the North is dragged out of the EU.

"This decision confirms my worst fears. The British government does not care one iota for the people of the North.

"An Taoiseach puts great faith in statements from the British Government; he did so again in the Dail today in response to questions from me.

"Tonights vote shows the short sightedness of the Taoiseachs approach

"Mr Kenny has to stop playing junior partner to the British Government. The Good Friday Agreement must be protected. That is his duty."

The Bill will now pass to the UK's House of Lords, where the stages - second reading, committee (when substantive amendments can be made) and third reading - are repeated.

The British Government could find life more tricky in the upper chamber, where the Bill will be introduced on February 20, because it does not have a majority.

Labour in the Lords has already said it will examine but not block the Government's Brexit plans, although some individual peers are likely to register their opposition.

But the Liberal Democrats are determined to guarantee a fresh referendum on the final deal, protect single market membership and guarantee the rights of EU citizens in the UK.

The party has 102 peers, compared with 253 Tories, out of a total 805.

The Bill is expected to complete its passage through the Lords by Tuesday March 7 but if peers have made amendments, it will return to the Commons, where MPs will debate whether to keep the changes or get rid of them.

This procedure, known as "ping-pong", would see the Bill repeatedly move between the Commons and the Lords until an agreement is reached on the final text.

Ping-pong seems the most likely stage for the Bill to be held up, as peers could become emboldened with time running out for the Government to hit its timetable of triggering Article 50 by April.

But members in both Houses will be acutely aware that appearing to frustrate the progress of the Bill would risk accusations that they are going against the will of the people expressed in last year's referendum.

And unelected peers have also been warned by a Government source that the Lords will face an "overwhelming public call" to be abolished if it attempts to frustrate progress.

The fact the legislation passed through the Commons without being amended also weakens peers' hands.
One person has been rescued by the LE James Joyce from a yacht that was taking on water.

The operation took place 16 nautical miles south east of Roches Point in Cork Harbour in difficult sea conditions this evening.
Update: Three candidates will be hoping to succeed Pat Hickey as President of the Olympic Council of Ireland later.

The three hoping to get the top job include Acting OCI president Willie OBrien, Swim Ireland CEO Sarah Keane, and Bernard OByrne, former CEO of the FAI and currently CEO of Basketball Ireland.
The Royal Air Force (RAF) scrambled jets from two of its airbases to "monitor" two Russian bomber planes that had flown close to British and Irish airspace.

An RAF spokesman said: "We can confirm that quick reaction alert Typhoon aircraft from RAF Lossiemouth and RAF Coningsby scrambled to monitor two Blackjack bombers while they were in the UK area of interest.
Two youths have been sent forward for trial accused of false imprisonment of a teenage schoolgirl who was allegedly bundled into a car in Dublin and taken away until gardai intercepted them.

The boys, both aged 17, faced separate hearings at the Dublin Children's Court on Wednesday and Thursday when they were served with books of evidence by the prosecution.

Judge John O'Connor notified them that if they intended to use alibis in their defence they must tell the prosecution.

The Children's Court has heard the schoolgirl appeared terrified when gardai rescued her and she had thought she was going to be raped.

Bail was granted to one boy, who is alleged to have been the driver of the car, however his co-defendant was denied bail today.

Judge O'Connor consented to the DPP's request to return them for trial to the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court where they will face their next hearing on March 3.

Earlier, Judge O'Connor viewed the CCTV evidence which he described as "chilling". He held that the case was too serious to be dealt with in the juvenile court and should go to the circuit court, which has tougher sentencing powers.

The juvenile court has heard that the schoolgirl was rescued by gardai after eye witnesses in a van raised the alarm and gave chase.

The video footage showed the schoolgirl being approached by another female and brought to a car parked nearby. It is alleged one teenage boy was the driver of the car and that the girl was forced into the vehicle by two males.

It was alleged there was a struggle and witnesses heard screams. The car sped off but was followed by witnesses while gardai were contacted and intercepted the car on the M1 in Dublin.

The teen who has been refused bail has an address in England and his parents listened to the proceedings with the help of an interpreter.

His co-defendant, another 17-year-old boy, is on bail and has an address in Ireland.

The youths cannot be named because they are minors and have not yet entered pleas to their charges.

The court has heard the girl now wants to withdraw her complaint however in the public interest the DPP wants the case to proceed.
Update 5.25pm: Tesco Ireland has responded to union allegations that the company was trying to force long-term workers out and branding the allegations "a campaign of myths and misinformation".

Responding to the union claims Tesco have released a statement this afternoon saying: "We operate in an intensely competitive market against non-unionised retailers who Mandate does not attack. We are further disappointed that Mandate continues to engage in a campaign of myths and misinformation to misguide our colleagues and damage our business impacting everyone who works for Tesco.

"Tesco also refutes claims by Mandate that 900 jobs have been lost. In the course of discussions in the WRC, we opened a generous voluntary redundancy scheme offering 5 weeks per year of service uncapped for anyone who didnt want to change, with average payouts of 105,000."

However, the company went on to suggest that Trade Union leaders "are urging union workers to shop in non-unionised stores".

Tesco Ireland said it "is shocked at the stance taken by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions on this company's dispute with Mandate.

"Tesco Ireland is the only food retailer to recognise Trade Unions in all of its stores and we are shocked that Trade Union leaders are urging union workers to shop in non-unionised stores."

"We believe the ICTU should use its authority to encourage Mandate to abide by the outcomes of the Labour Court and accept the Recommendation which the Union themselves had sought. That recommendation remains as the only solution to this issue."

Mary, who has worked at Tesco for over 20 years says long-standing workers have been badly treated.

She told Newstalk: "We've suffered and endured intimidation and bullying, not only ourselves - the two pre-1996s that's left - but the other staff as well. And it's still going on to this day.

"All we're asking for is to be left alone and all we're asking for is for everybody to support this strike."

Earlier: Unions allege Tesco is attacking jobs and trying to force long-term workers out of the company.

Staff are to begin a strike on Valentines Day in a dispute over changes to pre-1996 contracts.

Tesco Ireland are calling on the unions to accept a Labour Court ruling and say stores will remain open next week despite the strike.

A Tesco worker, who has worked in the store in Louth for more than 20 years, told Newstalk it has been a tough week asking her colleagues to support long term staff in their action.

For the last week and a half it has been the most horrendous work environment to work in. Weve had people being pulled in to little meetings and told you dont really want to vote for those two, do you?

Fortunately we have the support of our fellow colleagues.

The company, meanwhile, has called on Mandate to accept the Labour Court Recommendation and re-think its plan to damage the company with a strike.

In a statement it said: Tesco Ireland calls on Mandate to accept the Labour Court Recommendation and re-think its plan to damage the company with a strike. The call comes as the sixth store out of the small number balloted has rejected strike.

"Late last night, Tesco Santry voted overwhelmingly to reject the Mandate plan. We welcome the decision of these colleagues in Cork, Dublin, Louth, Waterford and Wicklow to reject Mandates strategy for strike and instead to protect the business and the jobs it supports.

"In a company of 14,500 staff, balloting less than one sixth of stores and being rejected by six of those requires Mandate to re-think its strike. Given the small number of stores being balloted and the small numbers of colleagues actually participating in the ballot, there is an urgent need for a re-assessment by Mandate. Less than half of colleagues in some stores balloted actually voted in favour of action.

"It is most unusual that Mandate is refusing to accept the Labour Courts Recommendation on flexibility changes to pre-1996 terms and conditions, a Recommendation which they themselves had sought. The Recommendation protects colleagues rate of pay with 90 per cent actually getting a pay rate increase under the Labour Court proposals."
2FMs night time comedy duo, Chris Greene and Ciara King, have shared their hilarious views on First Dates Ireland.

Settling down to watch tonight's episode, they discuss all things Coppers, GAA and the state of today's dating scene.

Things get a bit awkward when the subject of fanny flutters arise

They discuss what they hope to see in shows like First Dates, with Ciara hoping for a happpy ending, and Chris praying for a crash and burn situation for added entertainment.

You can see their reaction to this weeks best date on First Dates Ireland Extras after the programme airs tonight.

First Dates Ireland is on tonight at 9:30pm on RTE2 and is available to watch live and on-demand on RTE Player.
The parents of a British backpacker killed in India are contemplating flying out to meet the man accused of murdering their daughter amid claims he is willing to reveal "a secret" about her death to them.

Richard de Wit is accused of killing 24-year-old Sarah Groves who was stabbed more than 40 times while she slept on a houseboat in Kashmir in 2013.

It has emerged that Dutchman de Wit, who has converted to Islam in jail, has revealed he is willing to disclose some details about Ms Groves death only to her parents.

As the case heads for its 88th court hearing on February 16, Ms Groves parents, Victor and Kate, are willing to fly to India but are first seeking confirmation about the veracity of de Wits claims.

Mrs Groves, from Guernsey, said: "The problem we have is that its an arduous, unpleasant, horrible, costly journey. We dont want to go over there on a whim and find out that whatever he wants to tell us is nothing new.

"So we are trying every which way to find a way through this, and if we can have some form of confirmation first that what he is saying is genuine then we will be straight off.

"It can only be one of two things - that he knows what happened that night or that he was the one that committed that heinous crime, but its all conjecture."

Mrs Groves said she and her husband have had two or three conversations with de Wit at the courthouse and on the prison bus, and that she cannot be sure of the circumstances that led to her daughters death.

"A jail supervisor actually asked us if we thought Richard did it, and we just said, We dont know," Mrs Groves said. "There is so much circumstantial evidence.

"I have to allow logic to prevail and accept that he could have had a psychotic episode but at the same time he has never had a psychotic episode or displayed violence in prison."

Mrs Groves said she was shocked at the emaciated state she last saw de Wit in, adding: "He was a giant of a man who was built like an ox. I found it troubling to see him in the state he was in."

She also spoke of the devastating impact her daughters death had had and her deep wish to finally see justice prevail. She said: "I hope I live long enough to see it. Its devastated our family."

De Wit, who was also a guest on the houseboat on which Ms Groves died, has been detained for her murder, but the case has so far seen 87 court hearings without reaching trial.

He suffers from paranoia and had repeatedly sacked his legal representatives if he believed they had a connection with the Dutch government.

In the latest hearing earlier this month, de Wit was produced before the judge Rashi Ali Dar, who was told the defendant had been unable to find a new lawyer and the case was unable to progress yet again.

The judge also ordered a report on de Wits mental health. Ms Groves family has called on the British Government to apply diplomatic pressure to progress the case.
I love Chattanooga. Ive lived here since 1978 when I came here as an 18-year-old to attend Tennessee Temple University. I graduated, married my college sweetheart, was blessed with two sons (and now a beautiful daughter-in-law), started several businesses, and became engaged in our community. Ive seen Chattanooga transformed from a polluted little town over four decades ago to one of our nations great mid-sized cities. But with all the blessings that Chattanooga has to offer, there is a dichotomy between the transformation weve seen and the scourge that still remains in many parts of our city. We all know the scourge of which I speak.

The gangs.

The senseless killings.

The threats to our inner city families.

The unemployment that exists amongst our minority youth.

The crumbling infrastructure.

And more...

These heavy afflictions in our city are not new. But the inadequacy and incompetence of Chattanoogas mayor to respond to and resolve these blights is new. Chattanoogans have sat by for four years now, watching, waiting, hoping, and praying for an end to the scourge on our city. But as Mayor Berke floundered with one program after another, the lives of our citizens were being taken.

Young.

Old.

Some innocent.

Some not.

But all fellow citizens.

One after another.

Week after week.

Month after month.

Year after year.

And why? There are obviously many reasons for the lost lives. The hopelessness that many feel. The disintegration of the family. The inability to get a job. Failed violence reduction initiatives. And so much more.

While no one man or government can be held completely responsible for solving the entirety of these problems, there is no doubt that Mayor Berke has championed his ability to address these struggles. But his failed efforts could not be more glaring.

President Harry Truman famously coined the statement, The bucks stops here. His philosophy was one that affirmed that as the top executive of our land, if there were failures in some agency within his administration, or if the citizens of America were hurting, Truman acknowledged that he should be held accountable for such. Its a philosophy that more elected officials should embrace.

But whether elected officials do or not, the voters recognize the merits of Trumans philosophy. The buck truly should stop with our elected officials. And in Chattanooga, that is Mayor Andy Berke.



The scourge in our city has not improved during Mayor Berke's four years at the helm. To the contrary. These problems have worsened exponentially. Oh, theres certainly all the glamour and glitz that disguises our woes to a weekend visitor. But you and I know otherwise as we read the daily headlines.

So as we deal with the reality of the mayoral election, I would ask you to consider this illustration. If you invested your precious assets with a financial manager and four years later, your investment had diminished in value, as a result of the manager's decisions, you would terminate his services. Likewise, Mayor Berke was entrusted with a precious asset. Our city. Our streets. Our children. Our safety. Our infrastructure.

But four years later, his efforts, choices and decisions have taken their toll on every corner of the city and the families and citizens we love.

So I urge you. Resist the temptation to just go pull the lever for the incumbent, even though Americans are well known for doing such. Set our city on a new course. One that truly offers hope.

So here is my challenge to you. It is a simple one.

Sixty dollars. 60 minutes.

Let me explain.

Campaigns cost money. And too often elections go to the wealthy. There is no doubt that Mayor Berke is wealthy (which is not a bad thing, to be clear). He comes from a wealthy family and his campaign is the wealthy one. Just look at his coffers. At the end of 2016, Mayor Berke held in his political account $414,490. Meanwhile, Larry Grohns account stood at $12,097.

We should probably acknowledge that this may be a Goliath versus David campaign.

But fortunately we live in America, where the people can rule if they chose to. And they can overcome the elite and their wealth. So I would encourage you to do two things.

First, send $60 to Larry Grohns campaign. Most folks can do that. Some can do a lot more.

And then take 60 minutes to go vote for Larry Grohn, either during early voting (beginning Feb. 15) or on election day, March 7.

March elections are notorious for low turnout. The truth is that our city sees less than 18 percent of the registered voters turnout. That means that more than 90,000 voters will not even go to the polls. But you can change the course of history for Chattanooga with just $60 and 60 minutes.



If you will, then we can see our city turn the corner on the past. We'll begin to finally address our gang problem. We can halt the senseless killings. And well change from the hopelessness that many feel to a hopefulness as they see and realize new opportunities.

Chattanoogas future depends on you. Will you take the 60/60 challenge? If you will, better days are ahead.

Mark West

* * *

Is this the same Mark West that was charged with a firearm violation in 2012? The same Mark West who lives in Ooltewah, not Chattanooga?

Mr. West, if you are so concerned about the political leadership of the city of Chattanooga, why not move here and vote? Otherwise, you are just another "out of town" special interest entity trying to influence the outcome of an election for which you have no say in.

Those of us who actually live here can decide for ourselves, thank you very much. We certainly don't need someone who cannot follow the law himself advising us....



Renee H McLaughlin, MD

(Editor's Note: Mr. West says of the gun case: I travel frequently. I also have a Tennessee Handgun Carry Permit. On one occasion while headed to the airport, I inadvertently left a small handgun in the backpack that I carried with me everywhere. As I passed through the TSA checkpoint at the Chattanooga airport, obviously the handgun was detected. I immediately realized what had happened and cooperated fully and respectfully with the authorities. As I spoke with the TSA and law enforcement personnel in a cordial and respectful exchange, they informed me that I might be surprised to find out that this is not an exceptional occurrence. They acknowledged that businessmen on occasion forget that they've left their firearm in the briefcase or bag. So, while I accept full responsibility for what occurred, it was an inadvertent situation with no malice intended. When I had my "day in court" the matter was dismissed and is now fully expunged from my record.)

* * *

Renee H McLaughlin, MD, do you normally conduct background checks for the purpose of silencing or discrediting Chattanoogan opinion responses? I mean really listing an alleged charge as means to discredit the opinions of others. Did you bother to check to see if there was a guilty finding. Last time I checked, there is presumption of innocence until a finding of guilt.







On the other hand, what does an alleged charge have to do with the subject matter Mr. West has presented?







I was truly incensed by the snobbery of you calling down an opinion writer based upon alleged charges. Are you suggesting that only those with backgrounds that meet your standards are allowed to send in opinions?





Further, the city of Chattanooga is a Metropolitan Statistical Area due to population and its designation as a regional job hub. Many locals are heavily vested in business and financially in real estate, and therefore have active interest in great elected leadership.







Are you also suggesting that the families that have generational business in Chattanooga stay quiet? That is not going to happen.







Business and land owners in Chattanooga have always been involved in the city elections, and that is why Mayor Andy Berke has significant campaign contributions originating from Signal Mountain and Lookout Mountain zip codes. I just reviewed his campaign financial disclosure. In fact, the majority of Mayor Berke and his alt-left side kick Chris Anderson contributions have out of Chattanooga origination.





If you need copies of the financial disclosures, these are available online from the Hamilton County Election Commission.

April Eidson

* * *

Is this the same Renee H McLaughlin, MD who wrote into Chattanoogan.com (http://www.chattanoogan.com/2016/4/26/322951/We-Are-All-Different---And-Response.aspx) as published on April 26, 2016, and who lives in Chattanooga, not Bradley County? If you are so concerned about the political leadership of Bradley County, why not move there and vote?

Otherwise, you are just another "out of town" special interest entity trying to influence the views of an elected Bradley County commissioner for which you have no say in. Those who actually live there can decide for themselves, thank you very much. They certainly don't need someone who admonishes Mark West for doing the same thing that she herself does advising them.

Jeff Mader

* * *

Renee,

I guess when you cant dispute the facts at hand you go after the source. Maybe you missed your calling as a politician. Personally, I dont care if Mr. West is currently living in China as his opinion piece is 100 percent spot on in my eyes.

As for basically comparing Mr. West to a gang banging killer with no sense of right or wrong for a simple charge that has since been expunged, you have made yourself look petty and silly at the very least.

The bottom line is the infrastructure of our fair city is decaying to the point of disrepair as the majority of commuters see and feel on a daily basis and the rampant shootings and violence speak for themselves. Its sad that the truth hurts you so bad that you have to attack the messenger but I guess sometimes that is just the easy way out.

Chris Morgan

Chattanooga

* * *



After reading the other responses to the opinion of Mark West I have concluded that the real issue has not really been dealt with. I believe the Golden Boy, a.k.a. Mayor Andy Berke, is somewhat innocent as far as what has not happened in Chattanooga to make us a safer city. It could be because his grandfather and father, both good and successful men, have maybe not allowed Andy to fail and have carried the ball for him too long. I dont say this as fact, just opinion. Maybe Im just wanting to make an excuse for him. As far as for being a mayor, he has way out-punted his coverage and should have known with his limited skill sets that he was just not prepared for the job. Nothing to be ashamed of.

On the other hand, when you watch one of his campaign ads, made to make it look like he has made Chattanooga the city she is today, he has every right to be ashamed. He is riding on the backs of his predecessors. In all fairness the three who proceeded him were all experienced businessmen and that is why we have what we have today. I truly think Jon Kinsey and Bob Corker both served as a way of giving back to the city where they build their empires. They surrounded themselves with top notch people who could carry the bucket with them and get things done. They were not inwardly focused. Ron Littlefield was an administrator and had a real heart for the citizens, even the homeless. There is just too much stink in the air around Andy Berke for us to want to keep him in office until he finds a better jig.

I have known Larry Grohn since he and Carol came to Chattanooga. I played on a church softball team with Larry and he is an all out competitor. Whatever he does he takes seriously. He was a giver the day he came here, teaching children to play chess and setting up chess clubs for the kids who had an interest in it. He made sure that their life circumstances did not preclude them from being a part. He and Carol took money out of their own pockets to make sure everyone was included.

Ive watched Larry as he has served on the City Council. He serves with vim and vigor. He has the skill sets and wherewith-all to get us back on track and reduce the gang activity and crime that will be our downfall as a city if its not dealt with. If I wanted to live in Chicago I would move there. I love Chattanooga.

Larry Grohn does not need the job of mayor. Neither did Jon Kensey or Bob Corker. But oh my, I sure am glad they served. We will be saying the same thing after Larry Grohn takes over as mayor. Larry Grohn does not have a $400,000 war chest because its never been about the money for him. He is not for sale. Go over Mayor Berkes donors list and just ask yourself if they have contributed because they want thing to be better for you and me or is it so they get what they want? We have to stop the gangs and we have to stop the crime and it wont happen unless we the people show the powers to be that our hearts and our will are bigger than their pockets.

Please join me in voting for Larry Grohn and lets get going again.

J. Pat Williams

Chattanooga business owner for 47 years






Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is to meet US President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday.

A statement from the prime minister's office said the leaders "look forward to discussing the unique relationship between Canada and the United States of America and how they will continue to work hard for middle-class Canadians and Americans, together".

More than 75% of Canada's exports go to the US.

Of the 50 US states, 35 count Canada as their leading export market.

Mr Trump has vowed to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico.

Canada's foreign minister warned the Trump administration on Wednesday that her country will retaliate if the US applies new tariffs.

Chrystia Freeland visited US secretary of state Rex Tillerson on Wednesday.

AP
US President Donald Trump has insisted that comments by his Supreme Court nominee criticising his attacks on the judiciary were "misrepresented", even as Republican and Democratic politicians vouched for the veracity of the remarks.

Mr Trump's comments prompted a rebuke from Judge Neil Gorsuch, who said at a meeting with politicians that the president's remarks were "demoralising and disheartening".

Judge Gorsuch, who was nominated by Mr Trump last week to the nation's highest court, made the comments in meetings with senators after Mr Trump accused an appellate court considering his immigration and refugee executive order of being "so political".

Neil Gorsuch.

Over the weekend, the president labelled a judge who ruled on his executive order a "so-called judge" and referred to the ruling as "ridiculous".

Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal, of Connecticut, first relayed Judge Gorsuch's remarks on Wednesday following a meeting with the judge.

Mr Trump's own confirmation team for Judge Gorsuch later confirmed he had made those remarks.

But Mr Trump suggested that Mr Blumenthal had misrepresented Judge Gorsuch, tweeting early on Thursday: "Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie), now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?"

Mr Blumenthal, who served in the marine corps reserves during Vietnam, apologised in 2010 for saying he had served in Vietnam.

More broadly, Mr Blumenthal, a former state attorney general, argued on Thursday that Judge Gorsuch would need to go further to publicly condemn Mr Trump's attacks on judicial independence.

"He needs to condemn Donald Trump's attacks publicly and it needs to be much stronger, more explicit and direct than has been done so far," Mr Blumenthal said.

"Unless it is done publicly in a clear condemnation, it will not establish his independence."

Politicians from both parties quickly vouched for the veracity of the remarks the senator said Judge Gorsuch made.

Republican former senator Kelly Ayotte, who is helping with Judge Gorsuch's confirmation and was at the meeting, issued a statement saying Judge Gorsuch made clear he was not referring to any specific case.

But she said the nominee said he finds any criticism of a judge's integrity and independence to be "disheartening and demoralising".

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and senator Ben Sasse each confirmed that Judge Gorsuch made the same comments to them.

Mr Sasse told MSNBC's Morning Joe: "Frankly, he got pretty passionate about it," adding that Judge Gorsuch said any attack on the "'brothers or sisters of the robe is an attack on all judges'".

Fellow Connecticut Democratic senator Chris Murphy came to Mr Blumenthal's defence on Thursday, lashing out in a tweet directed at Mr Trump: "Ha! As a prosecutor, Dick used to put guys like u in jail. Now, u use your position to mock vets, he uses his to make their lives better."

Judge Gorsuch's comments came at the end of a week of meetings with members of the senate, which is considering his nomination.

His response may have been aimed at drawing a line of separation from the new president, who has been a politically polarising figure among Democrats in a highly charged partisan fight over the court.

The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals is weighing the appeal of Mr Trump's executive order on immigration, including a temporary travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries.

In a hearing on Tuesday, judges on the appeals court challenged the administration's claim that the ban was motivated by terrorism fears, but also questioned a lawyer's argument that it unconstitutionally targeted Muslims.

Mr Trump criticised the court that is considering his immigration and refugee executive order, telling a group of police chiefs on Wednesday that his immigration order was "done for the security of our nation".

He quoted from the portion of the immigration law that he said gave him the power to enact the ban, calling it "beautifully written" and saying: "A bad high school student would understand this."

"Courts seem to be so political and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do what's right," Mr Trump added.

"And that has to do with the security of our country, which is so important."

Since a lower court judge blocked the order last week, Mr Trump has assailed the decision, leading legal experts, Democrats and some Republicans to question whether the president's remarks might jeopardise the independence of the judiciary.

Others have expressed fears he may be attempting to use political influence to sway the courts.

In his speech, Mr Trump sought to link his comments about the court battle over his executive order to the law enforcement community in attendance.

"We have to allow you to do your job," he said.

"And we have to give you the weapons that you need, and this is a weapon that you need and they're trying to take it away from you."

The president has repeatedly said people are "pouring in" since the ban was put on hold and suggested that blocking the order would be dangerous for US citizens.

On Wednesday morning, he tweeted: "Big increase in traffic into our country from certain areas, while our people are far more vulnerable, as we wait for what should be EASY D!"

The administration has not provided any information to support his claims.

AP
A glass security barrier will be built around the Eiffel Tower to protect it from terror attacks.

The two-and-a-half metre high wall will replace metal fences put in place during Euro 2016.
Four members of a child sex grooming gang are facing deportation after losing a legal challenge in their battle to remain in the UK.

The men had appealed against moves by the British Government to strip them of their British citizenship, but their claims were dismissed on all grounds by the Upper Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber.

The ruling paves the way for the men, all of Pakistani nationality who acquired British citizenship by naturalisation, to be removed from the UK - but it is only the first stage in what could be a protracted process.

Among the group is Shabir Ahmed, the ringleader of a gang of men who preyed on teenage girls in Rochdale, plying them with drink and drugs before they were "passed around" for sex.

Ahmed is serving a 22-year jail sentence after being convicted of a string of offences including rape in 2012.

A previous hearing was told he had claimed his convictions were a conspiracy to "scapegoat" Muslims.

The other three claimants are Adil Khan, Qari Abdul Rauf and Abdul Aziz.

Shabir Ahmed (top left), Adil Khan (top right), Abdul Aziz (bottom left) and Qari Abdul Rauf.

The case centres on decisions by then British home secretary Theresa May proposing to deprive the men of their British citizenship on the grounds that it would be "conducive to the public good".

Handing down the judgment, Mr Justice McCloskey, president of the Upper Tribunal, said the cases were "of some notoriety", and described the crimes as "shocking, brutal and repulsive".

A summary of the ruling said: "The appellants were all many years older than their victims. In some cases girls were raped callously and viciously and in others they were forced to have sex with paying customers."

Judges dismissed five different grounds of appeal - including an argument by three of the men that the Government had failed in a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of their children.

The ruling also threw out a complaint of "disproportionate interference" with the men's rights as EU citizens and rejected claims concerning human rights laws.

The legal battle to deport the men could drag on for some time. There are further steps the British Home Office must complete and the men will be able to appeal at later stages in the process.

After formal deprivation orders are made, there will follow a removal decision or deportation order.

If that stage is reached, Justice McCloskey pointed out that it will "involve all of the formalities, procedures, rights and protections which decisions of this kind entail".

Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk called for the men to be deported to Pakistan "as soon as possible".

He said: "We welcome many people coming to the UK, to contribute, but if they break the law then they should lose their right to live here.

"Foreign-born criminals should not be able to hide behind human rights laws to avoid deportation."

The four can apply for permission to appeal against Thursday's decision. Applications can only be made on a question of law, and permission is granted in less than 10% of cases.

Ahmed remains in custody while the other three have been released on licence.

Khan, Rauf and Aziz were convicted of conspiracy and trafficking for sexual exploitation charges. Aziz was not convicted of having sexual intercourse with any child himself.
Lee University was awarded a Literary Arts Touring Grant from South Arts to host Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler for the 2016-17 Writers Festival.

Mr. Butler will read on Thursday, Feb. 23, at 7 p.m. in the Rose Lecture Hall located in the Helen DeVos College of Education on the Lee campus. The reading is free and open to the public, and it will be followed by a reception and book signing. He also will speak in an Encore class for senior adults on Southern literature during his visit to campus.

We are so glad that the Literary Arts Touring Grant has enabled us to bring to Lee an outstanding, contemporary American writer like Butler, said Dr. William Woolfitt, an English professor at Lee. Butler writes about the complex interactions between people of different cultures, about Americans who travel overseas and Vietnamese immigrants who relocate to the United States. His writing is poignant, humorous, and insightful.

Mr. Butler has published 16 novels and six volumes of short fiction, including A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain which won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. He served in the army in Vietnam from 1969-1972. He recently completed a 40-city book tour in support of Perfume River, his new novel.

Mr. Butlers writing explores topics such as empathy, human connection, identity, Vietnam, and the love between parents and children.

Along with the Pulitzer, Mr. Butler has been awarded the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature, Pushcart Prizes, and the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, among others. Mr. Butlers work has been translated into 21 languages.

Mr. Butler is a Francis Eppes Distinguished Professor at Florida State University. He has lectured at universities, spoken at conferences, and met with writers groups in 17 countries as a literary envoy for the United States. Mr. Butler has also hosted a live feed about his creative writing process.

Mr. Butlers reading is funded by South Arts in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Tennessee Arts Commission. South Arts was founded in 1975 to promote the Souths unique heritage and enhance the public value of arts. It strives to nurture a vibrant quality of life and artistic excellence in the South.

For more information about South Arts, visit http://www.southarts.org/.

For more information about the Writers Festival or Mr. Butlers reading, contact Dr. Woolfitt at wwoolfitt@leeuniversity.edu.


The National Trust has called on the ACT government to save the historic 1948 Switch Room at the Kingston Arts Precinct, saying its demolition appears to have been approved without proper public consultation.

The Switch Room, a small building near the Power House, has been used as accommodation for visiting artists to the glassworks.

National Trust spokesman Eric Martin outside the 1948 Switch Room, which is part of the planned Kingston Arts precinct redevelopment and is slated for demolition. Mr Martin has called for the heritage-listed building to be saved. Credit:Rohan Thomson

It is on the ACT Heritage Register, which says demolition "shall not be permitted, other than in exceptional circumstances, including circumstances in which the buildings are structurally unsound and beyond economic repair or where there are significant public health and safety reasons to warrant demolition" and unless there is no alternative.

While the Fitters' Workshop and Power House are to be preserved, the Switch Room is in line to be demolished to make way for a parking building as part of the redevelopment of the site surrounding the glassworks at the Kingston Foreshore.
It's the kind of old-school bakery with fresh cream in its butterfly cupcakes, beetroot in its salad sandwiches and a smile in its service.

After the bakers fire up the ovens at four in the morning, the regulars start trickling in from six - rowers and dragon boaters from nearby Lake Burley Griffin, in need of a coffee. And the regulars keep coming throughout the day, whether for a pie, a loaf of bread or a natter.

The Yarralumla Bakery's manager Scott Gorham says rent increases means the business is no longer viable. Credit:Jay Cronan

But after 33 years of trade the Yarralumla Bakery is set to close down, in just over a week, on February 18, the owners citing "unrealistic" rent demands from its landlord.

The landlord, through their lawyers, declined to comment.
Stressed electricity networks that cant guarantee supply have led to politicians advising people not to go home, but to go to the movies instead. Credit:Michael Mucci Mr McArdle said such alerts had become almost a day to day occurrence in South Australia but they are rare for NSW. "NSW still has a fair oversupply of thermal capacity." Saturday's peak demand would only ease back to 13,376 MW as the major heatwave extends its reach over the state. (See Bureau of Meteorology chart of Friday's expected top temperatures.) Gas would ease the transition to a renewables-based power system. Credit:Chris Ratcliffe

"The challenge is that Queensland is also going to be hot," Mr McArdle said. Wholesale power prices in Queensland have already been running at record-high levels for the month and the looming demand surge in both NSW and its northern neighbour will likely push them sharply higher in both states, he said. The market's price cap is $14,000 per megawatt hour. 'Catastrophic failure' AEMO's early warning to get additional supplies lined up for NSW contrasts with what South Australia's Energy Minister Tim Koutsantonis called a "massive, catastrophic failure" by the agency to predict his state's excess demand and take appropriate steps to avoid rolling blackouts on Wednesday evening.

AEMO issued another forecast "lack of reserve" on Thursday, identifying the need for "contingency capacity reserve" of 420 MW. The reserve was sought for 2pm-3.30pm and 6.30pm to 7.30pm, local time. About 40,000 households in South Australia were without power for about half an hour on Wednesday evening after the AEMO identified a 100-megawatt shortfall from local generation capacity and ordered "rotational load shedding". Much of the state had sweltered through temperatures that reached the low 40s, and similar heat is expected on Thursday, the Bureau of Meteorology said. Mr Koutsantonis told Radio National on Thursday the state had sufficient electricity capacity available, with about 250 MW of the Pelican Point gas-fired power station unused.

"Every South Australian has every right to be furious with the way our national electricity market is operating," Mr Koutsantonis told RN. "We're at the mercy now of national operators in a privatised market that operate on price signals rather than a public good." The largest owner of Pelican Point, French multinational electric utility company Engie, said half of the 490 MW gas-fired power plant had been operating since last June. The second unit at the plant unit, though, "is not able to provide a market response under the current rules of the National Electricity Market (NEM), unless directed by the market operator", a spokesman for Engie said. The spokesman said "a number of other market mechanisms" were available under the existing NEM design that would have allowed other jurisdictions the right to dispatch this capacity to support the system.

"To date these have not been utilised," he said, adding the company continues to "engage with all relevant stakeholders to make this capacity available". AEMO's response In a statement on Thursday, AEMO said it had issued "a number of market notices to all generators in the lead up to this instruction, requesting a market response to be provided due to increased demand as a result of the high temperatures in South Australia". "AEMO did not receive sufficient bids into the market to maintain the supply/demand balance in South Australia," it said. The operator said it had published market notices "forecasting a tightening supply/demand balance across South Australia and New South Wales over the coming days, and is working with the market to mitigate the need for further load shedding events".

'Crisis' Federal Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said the latest power failure in SA followed a series of similar events, including last September's total outage across the state after a freak storm. This time there was no tempest, but wind energy supplied just 2.5 per cent of the electricity in the state, underscoring the lack of reliability in South Australia's power sector, he said. "[Premier] Jay Weatherill has a crisis here," Mr Frydenberg told Sky News on Thursday, adding there would be a full inquiry into Wednesday's outages. Mr Frydenberg said the Labor-run states had "run ahead" of the market in setting renewable energy targets beyond the 2020 goal set at the Commonwealth level.

That target is for annual renewable energy sources to provide 33,000 gigawatt-hours per per by 2020, amounting to an expected share of about 23 per cent of Australia's electricity market by then. South Australia draws about 40 per cent of its power from renewable energy, mostly wind farms. It also has a power link to Victoria through which it can export or import supplies. "South Australia has been a basket case when it comes to energy policy and we've made the point that Jay Weatherill's big experiment as failed," Mr Frydenberg told another Sky program on Wednesday. Queensland has set a target of supplying 50 per cent of power from clean energy sources by 2030, a goal that federal Labor leader Bill Shorten endorses nationally. The Victorian goal is for 40 per cent by 2025. 'Retaking control'

Mr Koutsantonis said Wednesday's cuts were unnecessary and the state would be announcing steps it would take to avoid a repeat of the rolling blackouts. "The Premier and I have come to the conclusion now that the South Australian people expect us to retake control of own destiny," he told RN. "We are going to be intervening in the market from this day forward. We're not going to allow market forces and people who use electricity markets for profiteering to set our own future." Loading At a media conference on Thursday, Mr Weatherill said it was "galling to me to think there was sufficient thermal capacity in the system and it wasn't used".
People exercise at Coogee before the weather heats up. Credit:Peter Rae Most of the state's coast will endure a severe heatwave for the three days from Friday, with parts of the north-east facing extreme conditions, the Bureau of Meteorology said. (See chart below). Power blackout fears for NSW Nationally, debate over Australia's energy security was ignited by outages during a heatwave on Wednesday which cut electricity to 44,000 South Australian households.

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) worked to avoid a repeat in SA on Thursday and also issued alerts calling for additional generating capacity for NSW on Friday and Saturday. AEMO on Friday morning also issued alerts that Queensland may need additional power supply between 4.30-5pm, local time, which suggests that state may not be in a position to assist NSW in a pinch. The operator also signalled a potential supply shortfall for Saturday afternoon in NSW between 5pm and 5.30pm, local time, and called for "a market response". The minimum reserve available is 696 megawatts, below the trigger for calls of more supply of 700 MW Don Harwin, Minister for Energy, called on the public to help ease the strain: "The NSW government is doing everything we can to ensure a power outage is avoided but we encourage the community to reduce their energy use where possible". As of late on Thursday, AEMO was forecasting NSW electricity demand to reach as high as 14,700 megawatts by Friday afternoon, beating the record demand of 14,600 MW set in February 2011.

"It's going to be a big day," Allan O'Neil, an independent wholesale market analyst, said. The longer the heat lasts, "people are going to give up on any notion of trying to save on their energy bills", and will ramp up their air-conditioners, he said. Saturday will likely be hotter still, with 39 degrees forecast for the city and 45 degrees in western suburbs, the bureau said. Stronger sea breezes are now expected to limit Sydney's maximum on Sunday to 30 degrees, but western parts of the city should swelter again in 40-plus degree heat. NSW Health's Director of Environmental Health, Dr Ben Scalley, said people needed to keep hydrated, stay cool and avoid strenuous physical activity in the heat of the day. Signs of heat-related illness include nausea, vomiting, faintness and dizziness, loss of appetite, weakness, headaches, loss of sweating and reduced urine output. "People showing severe signs of heat-related illness should seek urgent medical attention through their GP or the emergency department at their nearest hospital," Dr Scalley said.

Beck Dawson, Chief Resilience Officer at a City of Sydney-hosted program, said the looming heatwave was probably the biggest test of the summer. "It shows us all the connections across the city", ranging from the viability of transport to schools and hospitals. "Such a long hot period of extreme temperatures across the country may have already killed many of our frailest people," said Associate Professor Adrian Barnett, senior research fellow at the School of Public Health and Social Work, Queensland University of Technology. Fire threat The state's fire crews are unlikely to see much relief as the bushfire threat builds across the state over the coming three days.

Most of the state will face very high fire dangers on Friday, with total fire bans in three southern NSW regions. As winds and temperatures pick up, fire risks will rise further on Saturday, Shane Fitzsimmons, Rural Fire Service Commissioner, said. "On Sunday, winds will continue to increase and if the forecast eventuates, we're likely to see catastrophic fire danger develop in some areas, including the Hunter," Mr Fitzsimmons said, adding that Sydney's threat level is likely to be at least severe if not extreme. NRL club doctors, meanwhile, have said they will cancel matches this weekend if they deem the baking heat is unsafe for players for the opening round of junior representative competitions and NRL trials. The NSWRL has moved some of its matches to start as early as 7.45am, while Canterbury and Penrith's twilight NRL trial at Belmore has been delayed an hour to avoid the hottest part of the day. NSW Police warned the public it was an offence to leave children, pets or the elderly in unattended vehicles, which could have deadly consequences.
Bathers on Coogee Beach early on Friday before scorching weather sets in over NSW. Credit:Peter Rae So far, it appears "localised load shedding," or rolling outages, had been avoided. Demand appears to have peaked in NSW at 14,108 megawatts, at 5.30pm, according Global-Roam, an energy software company. About 11,000 people were left without power on Friday afternoon after a blackout hit parts of the city's west at 4.40pm. However, power company Ausgrid said this was because of a fault on the local network, not load shedding. About 11,000 people were left without power on Friday afternoon in parts of the city's west. Credit:Peter Hannam

Power was restored to more than 10,000 people in parts of Strathfield, Burwood, Croydon and Homebush around 5.15pm. Ausgrid said it was working to restore power to the remaining 750 homes. Cuts begin AGL, one of the biggest producers, confirmed to Fairfax Media that it had cut some of its supply to the Tomago smelter in the Hunter Valley. The smelter accounts for about 12 per cent, or 950 MW, when operating at its peak. "To maintain the stability of the electricity system, AGL has agreed with AEMO that it will [reduce power to Tomago]," an AGL spokesman said. "If power to the smelter is not curtailed, schools, homes and other small businesses will suffer a loss of power at the peak periods of demand this afternoon."

Tomago started losing part of its supply by 3.45pm AEDT, a company official said. Each of its three aluminium potlines will go down for 75 minutes in consecutive periods, so that one potline is off at any one time. Matt Howell, chief executive of Tomago Aluminum, said the cuts to the potlines were unnecessarily long to maintain grid stability, with AEMO telling them that one hour per potline would suffice. Longer shutdowns - which allow AGL to sell any excess power at steeply higher spot prices - would also put the viability of the potlines at risk. "You have to ask AGL, why are they doing this?" Mr Howell said. The Australian Workers Union asked Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to intervene. "Tomago is in a precarious economic position and it cannot afford for AGL to cut power," Daniel Walton, Australian Workers' Union National Secretary, said. "For AGL to do so would be an unimaginable act of bastardy."

Hottest day in play Saturday could also be the state's hottest February day on record as an approaching front drags hot air southwards from central Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology said in a statement. Schools are beginning to respond to the predicted heat by cancelling sports events. Mr Harwin earlier called on residents to reduce electricity use, particularly during Friday's late afternoon peak when power demand may hit record highs. "Where you can please do your best to save energy - turn up your aircon to 26 degrees, adjust fridge temperatures, switch off unused electrical appliances and turn off lights where it's safe to do so," Mr Harwin said, adding that the government was also looking to cut usage where it can. Mr Harwin is at the Sydney offices of TransGrid, the operator and manager of the NSW high voltage transmission network, and plans to remain there through the afternoon peak, his spokesman said.

Overnight, the AEMO renewed its request for a "market response" for additional capacity for NSW and also called for more supply for Queensland for 4-5.30pm Friday, local time, implying that state won't be able to provide its southern neighbour in a crunch. Electricity consumption is already high, with the record NSW demand of 14835 megawatts a chance of being exceeded later today. (See live chart generated by Global-Roam below.) Scorching temperatures South Australia bore the early brunt of the heat, with power shortages on Wednesday evening triggering load shedding that blacked out tens of thousands of homes for about half an hour. Those cuts also reignited debate over the role of renewable energy, although locally available gas-fired power went unused.

The state avoided a repeat of the outages on Thursday even as the mercury climbed to as high as 48.2 degrees at Tarcoola, matching South Australia's record for February. That heat is shifting slowly eastwards and will push large areas of NSW into the 40s for three days from Friday. Bourke in the state's north-west may notch the highest temperatures, with 47 forecast for Saturday. For Sydney, Friday's top of 37.5 degrees was reached at Observatory Hill just before 4pm. That reading was the city's 10th day above 35 degrees this summer, beating a record of nine such days set in 1895-96. The tally may climb to 11 by Saturday, when 39 degrees is predicted for the city. More hot days increase the likelihood that Sydney will post its hottest summer after last month was its warmest single month and the previous month the second-warmest December in data that goes back to 1858.

Many sites across the city have exceeded 40 degrees, such as Penrith with 44.8 degrees. Saturday's top is expected to reach 39 degrees, while mid-40s will again be likely in western suburbs. Fire risks "Catastrophic" fire ratings, meanwhile, are likely for parts of NSW on Sunday. Such a threat level has been issued only once before in NSW - in 2013 - since national standardised ratings were introduced in 2009.

Friday's heat will place a "very high" fire threat in place for much of the state, as the mercury nudges 45 degrees or higher. (See bureau of chart below of predicted highs across south-eastern Australia.) For Sydney and most of the coast except for the Greater Hunter region, the fire threat is rated as "high" on Friday. Several southern districts of NSW have total fire bans in place on Friday. Hay Airport was the hottest place in the state, reaching 47.1 degrees at 2.20pm. Hospital alert

Westmead Hospital took proactive steps to protect its patients on Friday, after its emergency department recorded a spike in possible heat-related presentations during the December and January heat waves. Hospital general manager Andrew Newton said air-conditioning had been diverted from some clerical offices to clinical wards, and non-clinical staff were offered the opportunity to work from home to avoid travelling in the heat. "Our patients are quite vulnerable during these hot days, so we need to make sure we keep them as comfortable as possible and make sure we have plenty of cold water available," Mr Newton said. Over 1,100 people with possibly heat-related conditions presented to Westmead, one of the busiest emergency departments in the country, in December and January. There had been no serious heat-related conditions admitted to the hospital so far on Friday, suggesting the public was heeding NSW Health's repeated warnings to stay hydrated and out of the sun.

NSW Ambulance Superintendent Mark Gibbs has urged the public to use commonsense over the next fews days of soaring temperatures to stay out of hospital. Drinking plenty of water and make good use of shade, fans and air-conditioners can be the difference between remaining healthy and ending up in hospital," he said. "Anyone can be affected by dehydration or heat exhaustion; however the very young, the elderly and those with pre-existing medical conditions are typically the most vulnerable." "Besides taking care of yourself, try to keep an eye out for others as well. Check on your friends and family, and pets as well, said Superintendent Gibbs. NSW Ambulance advises people to be alert to the symptoms of heat exhaustion which include nausea and vomiting, fainting and dizziness, loss of appetite, weakness and/or headache.

Travel warning Emergency Services Minister Troy Grant said urged people who had planned to visit national parks or forested areas in the coming three days to change their plans, and for motorists to avoid using back roads.



"Weather conditions will gradually get worse from today through to Sunday. The most catastrophic likely weather will be centred around the Hunter, and will run from east to west right through to the central west of NSW," he said.



"If you have activities or trips planned to national parks, to forest or areas that are prone to potential fire, we ask you to change your plans and reconsider your movements.



"Take care when you are travelling throughout the state to use main roads in preference to back roads."



NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said NSW was in for a "very difficult next three days", with the worst conditions expected on Sunday.



"Catastrophic fire danger ratings are the worst conditions that we can experience when it comes to fire danger ratings. Typically that's where we see the worst of fire behaviour, the most aggressive and rapid spread of fire," he said.



"Under those sorts of conditions, it is unlikely, unless we are there very quickly and very early, that fires that take hold, we simply won't be able to suppress. Our focus turns very much to the saving of life, the saving of property and getting as many messages and warnings out as we can in light of the conditions."



He said firefighters had access to an additional two large air tankers, which would be positioned strategically around the state to respond to any blazes. Hospitals, homeless As Sydney and other centres toil through another heatwave, the number of heat-related emergencies is on the increase at the state's hospitals, NSW Health said. More than 1100 people presented to Westmead Hospital's emergency department with possible heat-related conditions in December and January alone.

The St Vincent de Paul Society, meanwhile, said people on low incomes and the homeless were particularly vulnerable during period of extreme heat. "During these incredible periods of hot weather there are more casualties than any other disaster or emergency. Dehydration, exhaustion and strokes can directly and indirectly result in death," Jack de Groot, the society's chief executive, said. "The sad reality is that low income earners have the highest energy costs because their homes are poorly insulated, and their fans are the cheapest to buy but are electricity guzzlers," he added. Loading Authorities have recommended people head to shopping centres, RSL clubs and other public places with air-conditioning if they can't stay cool at home.
Christian church leaders claimed on Thursday that 80 per cent of all applications for refugee status for Syrian and Iraqi Christians had been rejected, and that the vast majority of the federal government's 12,000 humanitarian refugee visas went to Sunni Muslims.

They urged the federal government to provide additional visas to persecuted minorities from Syria and Iraq, including Christians and Yazidis, whose lives had been shattered and homes had been destroyed.

Raghida Salibi, 64, (in the wheelchair) and her two adult children, son Wessam Ozon, 38, (holding flowers) and daughter Razan Ozon, 29, are among the newest refugees to arrive in Australia. Credit:Peter Rae

Canon Dr David Claydon, chair of the Barnabas Fund's persecuted minorities advocacy group, claimed the Minister for Immigration Peter Dutton's office had investigated the allocation of visas by the department's Melbourne office.

"There seems to be regular rejection [of Christian converts] by the Melbourne office," Dr Claydon said.
A newly aggressive Malcolm Turnbull has accused Labor of being "drunk on left ideology" as he blamed the rush to renewables for another serious blackout in South Australia, while defending his own emphasis on gas and coal-fired generation.

And the opposition has hit back, slamming the government's welfare cuts, and describing Mr Turnbull's hardened parliamentary presentation as an attempt to shore up his job.

Speculation flared briefly on Thursday over a series of one-on-one meetings Mr Turnbull has been holding with Coalition backbenchers this week.

Some of those meetings have lasted 30 minutes or so and others have been shorter. On Thursday night, the Prime Minister was due to host Queensland Coalition MPs at the Lodge for dinner.
"I'm starting to wonder whether there will be any real movement on economic policy, as opposed to random insults aimed at allies," Krugman says. [The New York Times] 2. Trump Julie Bishop and Chinese minister of foreign affairs Wang Yi. Credit:Sanghee Liu Australia's Foreign Minister Julie Bishop doesn't believe Donald Trump will tear up our free trade agreement. And China says Australia doesn't have to choose between it and the US. [Peter Hartcher/The Sydney Morning Herald] Trump has written instead of phoning China's Premier Xi Jinping and says he is looking forward to a "constructive relationship that benefits both the United States and China." [Ting Shi/Bloomberg]

China appreciates the letter and says "cooperation is the only right choice for China and the United States. [Xinhua] A nice feature here by James Bennett on whether the Indian Ocean could become the next South China sea. [ABC] And do cameras lie after all? A terrific scoop by Jim Pickard in the FT. Three days before the inauguration, Michael Gove, the former British secretary and one-time leadership contender published a behind the scenes piece about his exclusive interview with The Donald in Trump Tower, in Rupert Murdoch's influential British broadsheet The Times of London. [The Times]

But what this picture doesn't show is another person in the room. Guess who? Rupe himself, according to the FT report. [Jim Pickard, Matthew Garrahan/Financial Times] When I covered Rupert Murdoch's wedding to Jerry Hall in Fleet Street last year, guess who was one of the guests? Mr Gove. In other Trump related news: Kellyanne Conway may have broken key ethics rules by touting Ivanka Trump's fashion line. [The Washington Post] "Go buy Ivanka's stuff," Conway told Fox News in an interview from the White House on Thursday morning. [Reuters]

3. Aus politics Treasurer Scott Morrison is axing Kevin Rudd's $9 billion housing affordability scheme claiming it was a dud. [Simon Benson/The Australian] Liberal Party campaign director Tony Nutt. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Malcolm Turnbull wants to replace his chief of staff and the federal director of the Liberal Party Tony Nutt, who along with pollster Mark Textor, are being blamed (some might say hung out to dry) for the Coalition's one-seat win at the last election. [The Daily Telegraph]

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull during question time. Credit:Andrew Meares Now to what some in the media are calling Malcolm's "misogyny speech." David Crowe believes the "social-climbing" attack was a reference to Bill Shorten's two marriages - marrying up - and was unwise coming from a wealthy Eastern Suburbs dweller. [The Australian] But former Labor powerbroker Graham Richardson says Turnbull's attack was devastating and "Bill Shorten was flayed with a bull whip" as the PM dealt with every one of his weaknesses. [The Australian] Shorten knows many of his Labor colleagues were silently nodding along with Turnbull's attacks, says Michelle Grattan. [The Conversation]

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Uh-oh. Labor is taking comfort from the hostile reaction on social media to Turnbull's speech, reports Laura Tingle. [Financial Review]

The last prime minister to rely on the Twitter feedback loop was Julia Gillard. It was a very fast road to no-where. The Coalition should be relieved if Labor has not learned the lesson of that particular folly. Treasurer Scott Morrison with a lump of coal during question time. Credit:Andrew Meares Don't miss this wonderful sketch from James Jeffrey on yesterday's Question Time when Scott Morrison turned up with a lump of coal, for this particular line "[Barnaby] Joyce was unable to resist its siren call and quickly had it back in his hands, turning it over and over, staring into its darkness like the apes gathered around the alien monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey." [The Australian] An interesting story from Rosie Lewis who has talked to top Liberal donors who have no plans to put their money where defector Cory Bernardi's mouth is. [The Australian]

George Christensen, fond of making threats, is threatening to defect to One Nation if he doesn't get his way on a sugar dispute. [Renee Viellaris/ Courier Mail] And One Nation's Pauline Hanson is continuing the populist right's bizarre defence of Vladimir Putin, saying over MH17, "everyone has done something." [Amy Remenkis/Fairfax] Can someone explain why the Communications Minister Mitch Fifield is willing to join the latest Sam Dastyari/Pauline Hanson stunt? And the fringe party the Liberals once set out to destroy is now set to preference them second in Western Australia. [Rob Harris/Herald Sun]

4. Russia accidentally kills Turkish soldiers Russian President Vladimir Putin. Credit:AP Three Turkish soldiers were killed by a Russian airstrike in northern Syria. [BBC] While Russian President Vladmir Putin sent his condolences, note he blamed the accident on "incoordination" for the deaths. [Russia Today] Turkish-Russian relations had only just begun to warm after Turkey downed a Russian jet near the Syrian border two years ago.

5. France nuclear reactor shut down An image from November 2016 of the plant, operated by Electricite de France SA (EDF), on the English Channel shoreline in Flamanville, France. Credit:Marlene Awaad/Bloomberg A nuclear reactor in France has been shut down after a fire and an explosion but authorities insist there is no threat to the public. [Reuters] 6. Eiffel Tower A French soldier stands guard at Eiffel Tower in Paris. Credit:Getty Images
Health professionals, lawyers, teachers, child protection authorities and communities at risk must be better informed. They must also work together to help prevent female genital mutilation, which contravenes declarations including the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child .

The psychological trauma of female genital mutilation haunts many victims way beyond childhood and impacts their adult relationships. Credit:Stocksy

Our research found girls are presenting to paediatricians in Australia with female genital mutilation, but misconceptions about the practice are common and doctors want more information on how to manage this illegal practice .

Female genital mutilation or cutting is largely hidden in Australia and other high-income countries. Most people dont consider it a major issue. But our research shows it should be.

We found health professionals worldwide are poorly informed about female genital mutilation: why it is performed, and its relationship to culture rather than religion.

Our survey of Australian paediatricians, for instance, found 10 per cent had ever seen a child with female genital mutilation; few knew the procedure was done outside Africa; few routinely asked about or examined girls for female genital mutilation; or understood the World Health Organisation (WHO) classification types. Few had read local policy on how to manage girls presenting with female genital mutilation. Most had no relevant training and requested educational resources.

Some paediatricians had been asked to perform female genital mutilation, or for information about who would perform it.

Increasingly, we are learning some immigrants to high-income countries, including Australia, may have had the procedure or be at risk.

Of the girls with female genital mutilation who Australian paediatricians had seen, all were from immigrant families, mostly from Africa, and seen in refugee clinics. Two children had female genital mutilation performed in Australia. One child born in Australia was taken to Indonesia for the procedure, a country where as many as 49 per cent of girls under the age of 14 years have had female genital mutilation.
A council member of the Muslim community targeted by Robert Doggart of Signal Mountain says the threat in 2015 caused the annual youth camp to have to be called off.

Muhammad Clark said residents of the 68-acre Islamburg near Hancock, N.Y., learned of the threats soon after Doggart was arrested by the FBI in April 2015.

He said the camp was still canceled despite the arrest "because we weren't sure if there were others" still out there involved in the plot.

The witness said, "When you have other peoples' children coming there, it is very nerve-wracking."

Doggart is standing trial in Federal Court on terrorist threat charges.

A number of Islamberg residents have been sitting in on the trial being conducted by Judge Curtis Collier.

Under cross-examination by defense attorney Jonathan Turner, Mr. Clark said his family came to Islamberg from Brooklyn in 1985 when he was a teenager and when few Muslims were at the compound.

He said the property includes a mosque, school and cafeteria.

The witness said trustees of Islamberg include Hussein Adams, who heads the Muslims of America, and a female. He said community members make payments to the trustees each year so the taxes can be paid.

He said there is one entrance to the community and a number of No Trespassing signs.

Mr. Clark said of Hussein Adams, "He's an upstanding citizen I believe."

He said there are community meetings held at times with members able to debate and discuss topics of the day.

He said he met Sheikh Gilani, a Pakistani cleric who founded the Muslims of the America, and last saw him in 1989.

Islamberg has some two dozen buildings. He said he lives in a modular-type building.

His sister is Tahari Clark, an attorney who filed a lawsuit for the Muslim group against Doggart. It seeks monetary damages and a restraining order.

The government on Wednesday continued to play conversations Doggart had with various individuals while he was trying to raise enough "gunners" for the Islamberg attack.

He spoke with William Tint, a South Carolina man who was running for president on a patriotic platform at the time in early April 2015. Tint told him he was planning to drop Tom Lineaweaver of Pennsylvania, who Doggart had recently talked to, for his vice president. He said that was because Lineaweaver had come out as being anti-Israel.

Tint asked Doggart to take his place on the ticket, saying, "How do you feel about being my running mate?" However, Doggart showed little interest, focusing on the planned raid instead. He said it needed to be carried out prior to April 15 to get ahead of other potential militia raids going on that day.

Tint pledged that he would stand with Doggart at Islamberg, and he said he owned a military surplus store. He said he could outfit each gunner for about $750 and get weapons and ammunition at a reduced rate.

Doggart said he had a daughter in Easley, S.C., and would meet Tint when he went to see her. The FBI planned to arrest both men at the meeting, but it never took place. Tint later was charged with lying to the FBI, and he pleaded guilty to lying about the planned meeting with Doggart and to knowing about the Islamberg attack plan.

Doggart said while talking to Tint of the raid, "We have no choice. This is our nation and nobody is taking it from us."

He said of the Muslim community, "We're going to burn it down. If they start laying down fire at us we'll just have to take them out."
The study, which followed about 5000 adults over eight years, found those who grew up in a loving family with a positive school life had no more chance of developing problems than heterosexuals.

However, a new study by the Australian National University has found that it's not a person's sexual orientation which creates problems, but rather society's intolerance to it.

Grim statistics have previously linked sexual orientations other than heterosexuality with mental health problems and a higher suicide risk.

Being gay doesn't have to mean a life sentence of unhappiness.

Samuel Leighton Dore, seen here at age four, says his home life 'could not have been more ideal'.

Instead, childhood sexual trauma, risky health behaviours, smoking, a lack of positive support and negative social interactions pose more of a risk to people's mental health.

Samuel Leighton Dore's mother is a sexuality counsellor, and he describes his father as a "sensitive new-age man".

"My home life could not have been more ideal," he said. "I come from a very happy, strong, supportive family unit."

However, the 25-year-old from Newtown, who edits gay and lesbian website SameSame.com.au, said he was forced to seek psychological help after being "badly" bullied at school because of his feminine traits and long hair.
The state government is using taxpayer-funded telephone surveys to gauge residents' support for council mergers in parts of Sydney where the policy has become a political headache for the new premier.

The telephone surveys, which were commissioned by the Department of Premier and Cabinet, were conducted over the past week as the Berejiklian government considers whether to change its council merger policy.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian's cabinet met for the second time on Thursday, but it is not known whether council mergers were discussed.

Among the areas surveyed was Mosman, where dissatisfaction over a proposed merger with North Sydney and Willoughby councils is expected to hurt the government at the upcoming by-election for the seat of North Shore. The seat was vacated after the resignation of dumped minister Jillian Skinner last month.
Police have arrested a boy in relation to a bushfire on the Sunshine Coast that sparked an emergency situation and caused homes to be evacuated last week.

More than 10 fire crews battled a fire at Sippy Downs last Thursday, causing 23 people to be evacuated from their homes due to intense fire and smoke.

A bushfire at the Sunshine Coast has forced the closure of several roads. Credit:QFES

Police arrested a 13-year-old boy following their investigations into the fire today, with Detective Acting Inspector Daren Edwards issuing a warning of the dangers of playing with lighters and matches.

"With the hot temperatures we're experiencing on the Sunshine Coast it's important for everyone to realise fire is not a toy, it can endanger lives," Detective Acting Inspector Edwards said.
LNP member for Maroochydore Fiona Simpson has announced her resignation from shadow cabinet.

Ms Simpson said she had informed Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls on Thursday of her resignation, effective immediately, but she would continue in Parliament as the member for Maroochydoore.

Fiona Simpson has stepped down as opposition spokesperson for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships and Multicultural Affairs. Credit:Robert Shakespeare

"The decision to resign from the shadow cabinet has not been easy," she said.

"However I have made it so I can devote more time to caring for a seriously ill member of my family.
"As part of my research I was implementing 3D visualisation software packages. Then a couple of years ago I got hold of a virtual reality headset," Young says.

The idea for the company was born out of PhD research by its founders, Simon Young and Dr M. Hamdi Kan, at the University of Melbourne.

The start-up used an incubator to secure funding and could have applications in education and tourism.

Lithodomos  which means stonemason in Ancient Greek  develops virtual reality content that re-creates ancient architecture, allowing people to see what archaeological sites once looked like.

Lithodomos was born out of the founders' research at the University of Melbourne.

"I spent a few weeks working out how that all worked and imported one of my models, and 'hey presto' there I was, standing in an ancient city."

Young says the technology could have applications in tourism and education, and Lithodomos has been working with potential clients to find out how it can best be utilised. "We spent the last six months talking to tourism operators, museum directors and site excavation directors in Europe to get an idea of what they would like to see in virtual reality."

Lithodomos' first commercial project will be working with Spain's University of Cordoba and the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness to re-create part of the Roman settlement of Mellaria in the Guadiato Valley, in the country's north.

With both founders coming from an academic background, historical accuracy is what sets Lithodomos apart from its competition, Young says.
The days of TV journalists and photographers using helicopters to get a bird's eye view are fast fading. Drones, big and small, are increasingly being used to get stunning aerial images most of us thought were out of reach.

In fact, drones could well be the next "must-have" technological accessory for photographers. Each year we're thrown new models with more advanced cameras, better stability, and longer battery life  which has been one of the biggest issues for photographers. The machines already have their place in the kit bag for many wedding and event photographers, where height can really add to the occasion.

Drone-mounted cameras make it easier to capture images in difficult locations, like this ibis colony. Credit:Nick Moir

Consumer demand is almost as dizzying as the rate at which the technology has been improving. The value of the industry is set to balloon from $2 billion in 2016 to an estimated $127 billion by 2020, according to figures from consulting group PricewaterhouseCoopers.

But just how useful are drones? Fairfax Media photographers Nick Moir and Joe Armao use them, and agree that they had a growing place in their kit.
Labor has granted casino giant Crown a massive expansion of its Southbank site, in a deal reached behind closed doors to build Melbourne's tallest skyscraper.

Premier Daniel Andrews' nod for the 90-level tower came despite significant concerns expressed by the Planning Department to a smaller 2015 proposal for the site at 1 Queensbridge Street.

Crown's "One Queensbridge" tower will, at 322-metres high, eclipse the Eureka Tower by 25 metres.

The $1.75 billion skyscraper will have a luxury 388-room hotel linked to its gambling floor via a "sky bridge" over Queensbridge Street.
Labor's youth branch has been rocked by claims of sexual assault.

One Young Labor member has been barred from any future events run by the organisation, after another member identified him as their attacker shortly before the organisation's national conference in Canberra at the weekend.

It is understood the accused person was warned against going to the conference, which was attended by several hundred people.

A statement on a Queer caucus Facebook page says it came to light that a member of the caucus was "a survivor of sexual assault".
The mother of missing WA teenager Hayley Dodd says she will contest the upcoming state election as a candidate for Pauline Hanson's One Nation party.

Margaret Dodd has told WAtoday she will stand for the Liberal held seat of Scarborough at the March election.

The seat is currently occupied by Police Minister and Deputy Premier Liza Harvey.

"Yes its true," Mrs Dodd said.
Tennessee Senators Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander and Georgia Senators David Perdue and Johnny Isakson were among those voting to confirm President Donald Trumps nominee for attorney general, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL). The vote to confirm was 52-47.

Senator Corker said, Jeff Sessions was a widely respected member of the Senate for more than two decades and has great respect for the rule of law.

I was proud to support his nomination and look forward to the work he will do on behalf of our country.

Senator Alexander said, Jeff Sessions has been a friend and respected colleague for years and earned the opportunity to be attorney general through his significant service to our country as U.S.

Senator Perdue said, For the last two years, I had the privilege of working alongside Senator Sessions on critical judicial and legal issues facing our country.

"His knowledge and dedication to upholding our Constitution and the rule of law have been evident throughout his many years of public service. Senator Sessions extensive legal career as United States attorney and state attorney general, coupled with his experience as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, make him a natural fit to lead our nations Justice Department.

"I was proud to vote to confirm Senator Sessions as our new attorney general and I look forward to working with him to make our country safer for all Americans.
"I thought it was like speed, like amphetamines, but it was something completely different," he said. "You get this euphoric happiness that comes over you and nothing else can beat it. "Suddenly you're comparing everything else in the world to that feeling and nothing compares, not even your loved ones. Meth soon took over the young man's life. Mr Clark pulled himself away from friends and family and kept his habit hidden, relating mostly to other users like himself.

"I've had some meth where one bit of it kept me up for two nearly three days straight without sleeping, and I've had times where I stayed awake for four to five days without sleeping or eating," he said. "Among friends on meth we would discuss how much we hated it, but how much it had a grip on us. "Only someone who's touched meth can really describe this power and control that it has over your life." Mr Clark tried to battle his addiction several times, spending periods of six or eight months without consuming. But meth kept luring him back.

It was when he had his first psychotic episode that Mr Clark decided to finally break free. "I'd been on meth, and I went to go to bed and I laid down and I heard a voice as audible as talking to you," he said. "Straight out, I thought it was the voice of the devil. "It said to me 'I'm going to take your mind and you are never going to come back from it, you are going to lose your mind forever'." From then on, Mr Clark held onto his religious beliefs and started studying the process behind cooking meth and the effects of the drug in the body.

He followed the teen challenge program and sought help at Narcotics Anonymous. Despite relapsing on a few occasions, Mr Clark said the teen challenge program and his faith gave him the tools he needed to stay afloat and battle addiction. "It's like having a spell put on your life that you have to break; if you don't break the spell it's always going to be there trying to get you," he said. But he said that even now, after being clean for a long time, meth still haunted him in dreams. "I dreamed about meth yesterday," he said.

Mr Clark said he would like to become a mentor to educate young people about drugs and to assist them in their path to recovery. "I can say to an addict, I've been there and I know what it's like and there's a light, and there's freedom," he said. He said current legislation made it hard for an ex-user to become a counselor, but he wasn't giving up. "I think that more programs that are designed to empower an addict and help them and use them to help others is a massive part of success," he said. "There's nothing more satisfying than seeing people break free and people become themselves again.
New figures released by the RSPCA show more than 500 dogs were left in hot cars in WA last year as the agency confirms it has found the owner of a dog who died in a hot car at a beach on Australia Day.

The owner is now assisting the group with inquiries.

The mercury on Australia Day reached 42 degrees. Credit:iStock

The dog died after being left in a car on Australia Day at CY O'Connor beach in North Coogee.

The temperature in Perth on that day reached 42 degrees.
"So when Kate was brought in, this was going to be the first statement I had ever taken in my line of work.

"I happened this day just to be sent [to Palmyra Police Station] to relieve for the day because they happened to be short-staffed," Ms Hancock said.

But it has since been revealed her first statements to police were not believed by anyone at the station except for one graduate police officer, Laura Hancock, who was asked to interview Kate.

"The instructions I was given when Kate was brought to me... I was told that it was a bizarre story and to stitch her up for a false report. I will never forget those words... I have lived with those words for 30 years."

Despite her inexperience as a police officer, Ms Hancock knew Kate was telling the truth, and left the interview room several times to plead with other officers to take her seriously.

"Obviously at the time I met Kate, she was coming out of the most horrendous ordeal... she believed that there had been others and they had died and she was going to die had she not escaped, she was going to die and she was very emphatic with that," Ms Hancock said, recalling the interview.

"[She looked] drained, tired, very blank, very factual... little emotion at that point... the focus was, 'this is who they are, go get them', not, 'oh my god, this is what I've just been through, poor me'.

"She oozed the honesty."
Rafah, Gaza: Two Palestinians have been killed and five wounded in a pre-dawn Israeli air strike on the border between the southern Gaza Strip and Egypt.

The casualties occurred when Israeli war jets struck an underground smuggling tunnel with air-to-ground missiles early on Thursday local time, the Health Ministry in Gaza said in an emailed press statement.

Palestinians inspect the wreckage of a chicken farm in hit by an Israeli air strike on Shujaya, Gaza. Credit:Anadolu Agency

Israeli media quoted Israeli army officials as saying the air strike was retaliation for rocket attacks on Eilat that were launched from Sinai.

Overnight, radical militants in the Egyptian Peninsula of Sinai fired about seven makeshift rockets into southern Israel, according to an Israeli army spokesman, adding that Israel's Iron Dome defence system intercepted three rockets.
Australian man Thomas Keating has been formally charged with reckless driving causing death, after his partner was killed in a tragic jet-ski crash on the Thai resort island of Phuket.

Mr Keating arrived at Phuket police station on Thursday afternoon, supported by his family and the family of his girlfriend Emily Collie.

A picture of the couple posted by Thomas Keating on his Facebook on Monday night. Credit:Facebook/@tommy.keating.5

He was formally charged with reckless driving causing death and his passport was confiscated by authorities.

Ms Collie, 20, died on Sunday when her jet-ski and Mr Keating's jet-ski collided off Kata Beach.
Latest News Mortgage stress hits Australian households Learn seven ways to ease the interest rate burden, says broker

New investor strengthens Invoice Finance Group Partnership will provide funding, new products for SMEs

If youve had the chance to go to a rather dysfunctional aggregator PD day, its really horrendous, said Ross Laurenson.In an interview with Australian Broker, the mortgage veteran and newly appointed national sales manager for My Local Aggregator , spoke of how some aggregator personal development days can be a waste of time for brokers.Youll go and sit in a room for four to five hours. A banker will get up for 15 minutes and talk generically about why you should give all your business to them. Then after he sits down, someone else gets up and replicates exactly the same thing.Bringing his experience of running the Rosco Academy for mortgage brokers to his new role at My Local Aggregator, Laurenson hopes to provide a better alternative to the typical PD day by implementing better training methods.As you remember back in your school days, only the dorks ask questions while the cool guys sit up the back and think they know everything. So were trying to break that barrier down.Instead of just having training where we get half a dozen bankers to prattle on about their own products, we will identify a need and we will bring those brokers in to train them in that specific space.For the suburban broker with access to 600 products, the chances they will know everything about each one of those is pretty minimal, Laurenson said, since just keeping up-to-date about each loan is a fulltime job.The really skilled broker decides to drill down and become an expert in a specific space. That takes a lot of guts and courage for the broker to do that, and theyll struggle to identify how to do that.The important thing for the industry is to help brokers understand how to create a sustainable business through the right processes and resources, he said.I dont want to see 20,000 brokers diminished to only 12,000 brokers in three years because 8,000 people walked away due to lack of input, motivation or revenue. These people are good enough to invest their time and effort into the industry so someones got to take them by the hand and help them.
Latest News Mortgage stress hits Australian households Learn seven ways to ease the interest rate burden, says broker

New investor strengthens Invoice Finance Group Partnership will provide funding, new products for SMEs

Financial advisory firm Astute Ability Group and mortgage brokerage Home Loan Connexion have launched a collaboration, Astute Connexion, that aims to help brokers stop haemorrhaging clients to the banks.Mhairi MacLeod, founder and principal of Astute Ability Group, told Australian Broker that she and Tracy Kearey, managing director of Home Loan Connexion, had been discussing the partnership for around 12 months.We looked at a hole in Tracys business  she has 40 brokers with her that she manages and runs for home loans  and a hole in my business which is I dont do home loans.Broker surveys and roundtable discussions were held to ensure everyone was on-board. Several pilot programs were also held successfully at the end of last year with Astute Connexion finally holding its soft launch last Friday (3 February) to around 30 brokers in Brisbane.The partnership allows Home Loan Connexions brokers, who write home loans but dont do specialised lending, to access Astute Ability resources around these products. In this way, brokers can retain clients who may have otherwise been stolen by the banks when seeking niche lending products, MacLeod said.Lets bring it back in house and gel the two together. Weve stopped the haemorrhaging out of mortgage brokers and also given them cash flow. Theyve now got additional income and support for their home loan businesses while their clients are well looked after by Astute Connexion.Astute Ability Group will be in charge of running this collaboration with these brokers, she said.Its a perfect collaboration within the industry to keep it all within the industry.While the mortgage brokers involved are likely to focus on their home loan books, Astute Connexion gives them access to resources to form a more consistent income stream.Its really rats and mice stuff that would normally go to the bank because the brokers not doing it, MacLeod said. Things like your typical car loans. From that it branches out into business loans and personal loans.The brokers earning an income without having a heavy outlay of infrastructure such as staff and backend. Also, theyre not weighed down with having to have the extensive knowledge that my team has to pull a deal together, paint the picture to the lender and resource that lender to that particular scenario.When a mortgage broker passes on the contact details of their clients through Astute Connexion, these will be stored in a database that is flagged to that particular broker. This means clients will never be poached by anyone else, MacLeod promised.We remarket it to that client on the broker and the clients mission. We also send them updates on car, equipment, self-employed funding, etc so were doing all that backend for them. In a sense, its like a mini-aggregation within two groups.MacLeod said that Astute Connexion would love new brokers to join now that the launch has been completed.We would be more than happy to talk to any other brokers especially those who maybe have one or two man band shows that dont have the infrastructure that we already have in place. We can show them how it can work for them.
Latest News Mortgage stress hits Australian households Learn seven ways to ease the interest rate burden, says broker

New investor strengthens Invoice Finance Group Partnership will provide funding, new products for SMEs

The number of suburbs in Australia with a median property value of at least $1m has grown by 176% in the five years prior to December 2016.Researchers at CoreLogic have found that there was a total of 760 suburbs across Australia with a median value of $1m or more at the end of 2016. This figure has increased from 275 in 2011.The number of $1m suburbs for houses increased from 261 to 679 (an increase of 160%) while those for units shot up from 14 to 81 (a spike of 479%).Across the states, 70.3% of these $1m suburbs were in NSW while 16.7% were in Victoria  an increase from 60.4% in NSW and 15.3% in Victoria five years earlier.This year, affordability is going to become an increasing issue around the country, Cameron Kusher , head of research at CoreLogic, told Australian Broker. Our view is still that were going to see growth in 2017 in Sydney and Melbourne and thats going to push more suburbs into that $1m category.Another factor to consider is the high level of unit construction, particularly in Melbourne and Brisbane, Kusher said.Were already seeing the unit market in terms of growth lag behind houses. As more and more density comes into those inner city areas, I think its going to make houses more sought after and it will probably push more suburbs into that $1m median.While growth wont keep up pace with that of the past five years, Australia will have more suburbs with a typical value of $1m or more in 12 months time, he said.Capital cities accounted for 93.5% of all the $1m suburbs in 2011 with this figure increasing slightly to 93.6% in 2016.Sydney alone accounted for 57.8% of the $1m suburbs in 2011 and 65.4% in 2016. These figures also rose in Melbourne which accounted for 15.3% in 2011 and then 16.4% in 2016.While there were only 39 suburbs nationwide with a median value of $2m or more in 2011, this rose to 136 five years later (an increase of 249%). In 2016, 115 of these 136 suburbs were located in Sydney.Outside of the two major capitals, demand for lifestyle properties has been picking up, Kusher said, meaning that more areas in regional NSW, Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia may move above the $1m threshold.Were also seeing improvements in housing markets in Canberra in terms of growth so we could see some more $1m suburbs there. And although growth is pretty moderate, you might start to see more of those higher end inner city suburbs in places like Brisbane and Adelaide pushing up above $1m as well.
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The Muslim ban meets a Muslim band!

A vibrant musical opening next week will give a singing, dancing spotlight to a young Muslim refugee, who flees Somalias civil war and takes an epic journey along the lush east coast of Africa to Cape Town and ultimately to the United States. A Man of Good Hope, opening at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Feb. 15, is a story riddled with loss and violence, but it is an uplifting testament to the human spirit that stands in defiance of exclusionary politics, said one of the shows producers.

Its such a hopeful story, said Joseph Melillo. And given the backdrop of whats going on now with our government, it shows how people of a different race, of a different religion can give us a different understanding of happiness.

Somalia is one of the seven Muslim-majority countries included in President Trumps recent immigration ban, which gives the production additional resonance, said Melillo.

Its taken on a different kind of importance than I anticipated, said Melillo. When I scheduled this Obama was still president. Now it certainly has significance on a variety of levels.

The musical, based on the book by Jonny Steinberg, follows the true story of Asad Abdullahi, who starts the show as an 8-year-old refugee caught up in a civil war. Abdullahi flees from one village to the next in pursuit of a better life, with four actors playing the role as he evolves into a bright teen, a budding entrepreneur, and a man marred by his war-torn experiences.

His journey, which starts in Somalia and snakes down Africas east coast, is filled with a colorful cast of characters, as well as music that blends different African rhythms on the marimba  a mallet-struck wooden xylophone. The beats capture the vibe of the countries that Abdullahi travels through, said Melillo.

The music drives the story. It creates that beautiful musical sound that we associate with South Africa, he said. The story is a great celebration of humanity and its all done through music and dancing and singing. Its just a rich mix.

The production uses simple, abstract staging to render its different locations, using free-standing, closed doors to represent country borders, and performers holding up tires and a steering wheel to create a truck. The show is unlike anything else in the borough, said Melillo.

Its about an exuberant story about hope  showing that its not just a theory, its a fact, he said. We knew we had to bring this to Brooklyn. Theres nothing like this in New York City today.

A Man of Good Hope at BAM Howard Gilman Opera House [651 Fulton St. between Rockwell and Ashland places in Fort Greene, www.bam.org]. Feb. 1518 at 7:30 pm, Feb. 19 at 3 pm. $24$80.

Reach reporter Caroline Spivack at cspiv ack@c ngloc al.com or by calling (718) 2602523. Follow her on Twitter @carolinespivack.
Chattanooga Police officers responded on Tuesday to three separate robbery from person calls. In each incident the suspect and/or suspect vehicle description is similar.

At approximately 8:36 p.m., a man reported he was walking on Cherokee Boulevard when a white Hyundai approached.

The victim said a black male with a handgun exited the vehicle and demanded he hand over his belongings. The victim complied and fled on foot.

At approximately 8:58 p.m. police received report of a robbery from person at City Green Apartments (1730 Urban Trail). The female victim said she was approached from behind by a black male with a handgun who demanded she give up her belongings. The victim complied and fled on foot. The victim said she saw a white sedan with tinted windows leaving the parking lot.

At approximately 9:24 p.m. police responded to a robbery from person call at 495 Riverfront Parkway. The two victims, male and female, said they were running on the Riverwalk when they were approached by a black male with a handgun who demanded they give him their belongings. The victims complied, and the suspect fled on foot. He entered a white sedan with a similar description to the previous two calls.

Members of the Chattanooga Police Violent Crime Bureau are following all leads and ask any witnesses to call police immediately.



The suspect vehicle is described as a white, four-door Hyundai Sonata with tinted windows, plastic hubcabs (not rims) and a loud muffler.
Yardley Friends Meeting at 65 N. Main Street in Yardley will host the documentary Organic Roots on Friday, November 18 at 7 p.m. Join director Al Johnson for a showing of this film followed by a discussion of the last 50 years of this movement. Organic foods are part of our life today and a tool in our concern for...
latest news

October 31, 2022

Buddy TV

In November, there are hundreds of new and returning TV showsit can be overwhelming to try and choose what to watch. That's why we've selected some of the best options...
Arrow season 5 hasnt just made several references to the early glory days seasons of the show. The show has actually managed to maintain the quality of seasons 1 and 2. There has been no dip in episodes after the post-winter break as has become typical in the last two seasons. Arrow season 5 is well on its way to breaking into the three best seasons of the show. There is unfortunately a continuous and insidious issue in Arrow season 5, though, and her name is Susan Williams.

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Here Reporting for  Who Cares?!

There are a number of criticisms that Arrow fans can hurl at Susan. Her name is ranks right under Jane Doe in the most generic female names of all time. Even though she is in a relationship with Oliver, there is a shocking lack of any chemistry between the actors. (This critique has nothing to do with her keeping Oliver and Felicity apart and everything to do with the fact that Susan is just as interesting as watching paint dry when she is with Ollie.) These are the big problems. Its not even that Arrow keeps teasing that there is something shady going on with Susan but refusing to give more than scant details. The reason Susan doesnt work is that Arrow has given us no reason for her existence.

This problem is somewhat tied into the big hints Arrow has dropped about Susan, with no concrete answers, but there is an important distinction. It would be fine if Arrow was playing things coy with Susans intentions if it felt like the story was going somewhere. The story doesnt feel like it is moving forward. Or at least it doesnt feel like it is moving somewhere that Arrow hasnt been many, many times before.

Olivers Secret(ly Meaningless) Identity

The big reveal of Susans most recent spotlight episode, Bratva, had her discover that Oliver Queen and the Green Arrow are the same person. This would be a shocking and concerning twist  if Arrow was still in season 2 or 3. At this point in Arrows history it really isnt that damaging for anyone to find out that Oliver and the Green Arrow are the same person. The Green Arrow used to be a dangerous vigilante that wasnt very popular with the public. Oliver used to be a playboy that no one took seriously. Now neither of those things are true.

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Oliver is a pretty well liked figure in Star City as the Green Arrow and as the mayor. This is not season 3 when Arrow had a public witch hunt for the Green Arrow lead by Quentin Lance. After Oliver and the Green Arrow saved the city from Damien Darhk, exposing them as the same person is probably going to only make Olivers popularity soar with the people. There might be some legal issues but when the District Attorney is very likely Vigilante and the people of Star City are honoring the former ADA Laurel for her life as the Black Canary, none of this is going to matter. Arrow has teased Oliver being exposed as Green Arrow so much that it would probably be a relief for the audience and Ollie if the secret finally came out.

Lets assume, though, that Olivers secret coming out does end his career as mayor. If that happens Arrow really isnt losing anything. So far Oliver being mayor only feeds his real career of being the Green Arrow. Mayor Queen is serving the same dramatic function as Felicity hacking into databases or Diggles connection to ARGUS. It is an easy way to get missions and nothing more. Oliver has engaged in a few political matters as mayor but its pretty boring and simplistic. Fans want to see Oliver shoot arrows at criminals so thats exactly what Arrow focuses on the most. No one loves Oliver Queen because he is the mayor of Star City. Susan is really only threatening that life for Oliver. You cant have an antagonist where no one cares if she succeeds.

Susans other big uncovering, that Oliver has ties to the Bratva, may damage his public opinion. This is probably something the people of Star City deserve to know about their mayor. Susan has sat on this knowledge for so long though that if she does eventually reveal this to the public it will lose a lot of its bite.

In fact, the way that Susan is keeping all this information and not reporting on it makes it more likely that she is working with Prometheus or might actually be Prometheus herself. Susans behavior does not totally match up to a reporter or she would report this news. Susan being the real villain does not make things any better. Arrow loves its twists of having someone close to Oliver each season turn out to be secretly evil. Susan suddenly having ties to Prometheus wont be impactful, it will be expected. There is a chance that an overtly evil Susan might be more fun to watch but that wont make up for the bland version weve been getting for the past 12 episodes.

But what do you think? Is Susan a disappointing character? Why do you think she is not working? Can Arrow turn her character or story around or is it too late to fix? What is your theory on what she is really planning with all her dirt on Oliver?

Arrow season 5 airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW. Want more news? Like our Arrow Facebook page!





(Image courtesy of The CW)
Huws Gray has announced its charity partnership with Sepsis Trust UK for 2017.

The partnership will see the builders merchant raise awareness of the serious illness and will fundraise throughout the branch network to help support the charity.

Sepsis is a serious life threatening infection and the Sepsis Trust UK was founded in 2012 to reach out and bring together those who have survived, been bereaved by or encountered sepsis in every imaginable circumstance. They aim to save lives and improve outcomes for survivors of Sepsis by educating healthcare professionals, raising public awareness and providing support for those affected.

Huws Gray has experienced the force of Sepsis first hand after the sudden loss of company director, Elfed Hughes who died last year in May after a short battle against the infection. Mr Hughes was with Huws Gray for 24 years and played a major role in developing and monitoring certain departments, as well as playing a key role in the companys growth and management.

Terry Owen, managing director, of Huws Gray, said: Elfeds contribution over the 24 years he was with us was exceptional. His willingness to take responsibility combined with passion, determination and honesty made him a very special person. He is sorely missed by all of us here at Huws Gray.

We are delighted that we can partner up with Sepsis Trust UK to help raise awareness of this serious illness and raise essential funds to help the Trust invest in new technology to help fight the condition. As a company its fantastic for us to be able to do this in the memory of Elfed and well be pulling together as a company to do what we can.
Daylight saving time ends soon, but will it soon be the new normal?
I really wanted to teach history because I wanted to make it interesting, said Jason Paseur. My goal is to make history tangible.

Known as Mr. Paseur to his students at Trion High School in northwest Georgia, he uses personal experience to liven up his lessons. In the past, this has included bringing an antique loom into his classroom, where he uses it during lessons on the Industrial Revolution. He also takes his classes on the occasional field trips around the region that coincide with the curriculum.

This works well with teaching U.S.

Ive never been out of the United States until now, so this is going to help me to be able to teach U.S. history as well as world history next year, Mr. Paseur explained. This is going to really broaden my experiences to share in the classroom.

As a first-time deployer, he likes to explore the region to learn more about its culture. Whether its shopping at local souks or visiting museums, Mr. Paseur hopes to take this experience back to the classroom.

Where I live in northwest Georgia, a lot of people grew up camping with their parents, said Mr. Paseur. You kind of equate camping with skills that are passed down. Its interesting that their culture here promotes camping as way of not forgetting their past. Historically there were Bedouin tribes camping and going to various areas, so if I can somehow tie that into what my students do, they may remember what the term Bedouin means.

The same is also true at a more local level. His students are no strangers to seeing Operation Inherent Resolve on social media. In fact, several of his students follow the 386th AEWs Facebook page to see what hes doing. Being an active member of OIR will be beneficial in teaching U.S. history, said Mr. Paseur.

When I incorporate lessons in the classroom, I try to use experiences and descriptions to teach my students, Mr. Paseur said. Of course with todays technology you can almost bring them to certain places.

The knowledge and experience Mr. Paseur will share with his students wont fit on flashcards. Instead, students will hear his stories and will have a better understanding of the world around them. They might sit up a bit straighter at their desks, listen a bit more attentively and ask more engaging questions. More importantly, theyll be on the path to becoming more informed citizens, ready not only for their end-of-course exam but also for life outside the classroom walls.
is exploring commercial partnerships with other airlines and looking at routes in South East Asia to de-risk itself from the slowdown in West Asia business.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has decided that a commercial agreement between and its Malaysian part-parent, AirAsia Berhad, does not violate the law of the land.
February 8, 2017

Turkish-supported Syrian opposition groups met in Ankara last week at the request of the Turkish government, reportedly to determine a common position prior to the Feb. 6 talks on Syria in Kazakhstans capital, Astana, and the talks to be held under UN auspices scheduled for Feb. 20 in Geneva.

Another aim of the Ankara meeting was to select members of the opposition to be sent to the Geneva talks. Staffan de Mistura, the UNs special Syrian envoy, had called for these names to be furnished by Feb. 8, failing which he said he would select as inclusive a delegation as possible.

Ankara fears that the Syrian Kurds operating under the Democratic Union Party (PYD) may be given some form of representation in Geneva, and it is working hard to prevent this.

Western diplomats monitoring the Ankara meeting are suggesting that this gathering seems to have essentially been an exercise aimed at bolstering Turkeys position in Syria.

Ankara is alone in seeing the PYD and its military wing, the Peoples Protection Units (YPG), as terrorist organizations linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party.

Ankara was angered last week by the news that the US had supplied the YPG  which is operating under the banner of the Syrian Democratic Forces  with armored personnel carriers after President Donald Trump came to power.

This appeared to dash hopes that the new administration might have a different approach to the Syrian Kurds than the Obama administration. Although Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did finally have a phone conversation with Trump on Feb. 7, it was unclear exactly what they agreed on.

Those attending the Ankara meeting included Riad Hijab, the head of the High Negotiating Committee; Anas Al-Abdeh, who heads the Syrian National Coalition; members of the Turkmen Assembly; representatives from the Kurdish National Council, which Turkey supports against the PYD; and various members of the armed Syrian resistance, although it was not clear who they represented.

The meeting held at the Turkish Foreign Ministry was hosted by Undersecretary Umit Yalcin. There were no representatives from Saudi Arabia, Qatar or any other country that also supports Syrian groups backed by Ankara.

Looking at what came out of this meeting, it seems more like an effort by Turkey to steer the opposition against US and Russian plans for Syria, especially where these involve the Kurds, rather than trying to push the Syrian peace effort forward, a Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity due to his sensitive position, told Al-Monitor.

Ankara is deeply perturbed by Trump's proposal for safe zones in Syria, despite the fact that Turkey has been calling for such a zone in the north of the country for a long time.

Some see Trump's proposal as a prelude to granting the Kurds their own region. Ankara is also displeased by Moscows offer of autonomy for the Syrian Kurds under a unified Syria.

Turkey's Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) also reacted coldly to the draft constitution for Syria submitted by Moscow at the first Astana meeting, held Jan. 23-24 under the auspices of Turkey, Russia and Iran.

Turkey's ruling party opposes this draft not only because it proposes regional autonomy for various groups in a federated Syria but also because it supports a secular future for the country.

In a recent article for the pro-government daily Yeni Safak, Yasin Aktay, a deputy from the AKP and a foreign policy adviser to the government, wrote that Trumps safe zones proposal brought to mind the possibility of a zone controlled by the PYD. Referring to Russias draft constitution, he said this looked like an attempt to sabotage the positive atmosphere captured in Astana. Aktay said 90% of Syrians  regardless of their allegiances  would reject the Russian draft. Topics such as ridding the country of its Islamic character and an autonomous region for the Kurds are very serious matters, he said, arguing that promoting these would inflame the conflict in Syria.

Although there was no official statement by Turkey after the Ankara meeting, an unnamed Foreign Ministry source told the media that all participants had pointed out that bringing up the future administrative system of Syria  and attempting to start a discussion on issues such as a new constitution, autonomy or federalism  risk serving the purposes of those who pursue unilateral agendas.

He added that those pursuing such agendas were doing so at the expense of the territorial integrity of Syria, saying these groups should be barred from Syrian peace talks. The official was clearly referring to the PYD/YPG, which Ankara says is trying to use the confusion of the Syrian civil war for its separatist aims.

An opposition source, on the other hand, was quoted in the Turkish press as saying that members of the delegation to attend the Geneva talks had been selected at the Ankara meeting. Reflecting the animosity toward Moscow, he underlined that this delegation would comprise members of the true opposition in the field, and not persons Russia wants to see at the talks.

The upshot of all this is that Ankara is even more defensive today than it was in the past with regard to Russian and US plans for Syria, even though it appears to be cooperating closely with Moscow and has not allowed its anger with Washington to boil over into a serious diplomatic crisis between the two countries.

Verda Ozer, a foreign policy analyst for the daily Hurriyet, argued that there is little Turkey can do against these two superpowers other than try to maintain a delicate balance between them.

It might be possible to sit down at the table with Trump and work out a formula for reducing the area of influence of the PYD/YPG, while increasing cooperation with the Syrian regime and Russia, Ozer wrote in her column.

She indicated that this would entail sitting at the table with the Bashar al-Assad regime and reducing support for opposition groups backed by Ankara. Ozer added, however, that even with these steps, there is no guarantee that Turkeys plans will overlap with those of the US or Russia.

Soli Ozel, a lecturer in international relations at Istanbuls Kadir Has University, is even less optimistic. Turkey is unable to act in harmony with its established allies or with Russia  which it is thinking of using as a card against [its allies]  on a subject it considers of vital importance, Ozel wrote in his column for the daily Haber Turk. He pointed out that Washington was continuing to arm the YPG, despite Ankaras protests, while Moscow was inviting PYD representatives to Moscow even though Turkeys animosity toward this group is well-known.

Given its continuing inability to alter the course of events in Syria, diplomats fear that Ankara may have decided to play a reactive and obstructive role in the Syrian peace talks, rather than a positive and proactive one.

If this is indeed the case, it is not immediately evident that this will provide Ankara with what it wants. To the contrary, it could leave Turkey on the sidelines again, as the powers it is unable to match continue to determine developments in Syria.
The Daughters of the American Revolution will be hosting a military event for soldiers and sailors on Thursday, Feb. 23, from 6-9 p.m. at the Chattanooga Heritage House, 1428 Jenkins Road. Special guest will be First Lt. Radzyminski, who just returned from a ten-month tour in Iraq.Guests are asked to bring items to ship overseas, such as coffee, creamers, lip balm, hand sanitizer, wipes, lotion, sun screen, and snack foods. All items must be new and in the original packaging."Come sew and stuff hearts for our soldiers and sailors," organizers said.
On field, they might be arch rivals, but on Thursday e-commerce biggies Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal, came together on one single platform, voicing their concerns over Rs 400 crore of capital belonging to their sellers being locked every year under the regime.
Infosys chief executive Vishal Sikka rallied the company's employees to focus on execution of the company's strategy and asked them to not get distracted on questions over commitment to governance, integrity and values of the organisation.

Sikka justified his business decisions saying that Infosys's performance matched industry performance from 50 per cent down two years ago and held margins through efficiency and automation, helping better cash flow generation.
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For the past few days, IT major Infosys has been in the after the company's founders expressed concerns over transparency and corporate governance. They have questioned the compensation package of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Vishal Sikka and the severance package to its former chief compliance officer David Kennedy.
Ltd (UBL), Indias largest beer maker and majority-owned by Dutch firm Heineken, has said that its sales of the alcoholic beverage could drop by 40 per cent once the Supreme Court ban on liquor shops on highways comes into effect in April.
Amidst political confusion over who is going to form the government in Tamil Nadu, the state's acting Governor Vidayasagar Rao is expected to reach Chennai on Thursday afternoon.
Buddhist spiritual leader the arrived on Thursday on a two-day visit to Andhra Pradesh capital region Amaravati.

AP Assembly Speaker Kodela Sivaprasada Rao and Ministers P R Reddy and D Umamaheswara Rao received him at the Vijayawada airport in Gannavaram.

"This is my second visit to Amaravati and I am happy to be here," said, recalling his trip in 2006 to attend the Buddhist conclave 'Kalachakra'.

On Friday, he will be attending the inaugural session of Women's Parliament being organised by the AP Legislative Assembly at Pavitra Sangamam on the outskirts of Vijayawada.

"Making Amaravati the capital of new Andhra Pradesh is a welcome move and I wish it develops well on all fronts. This heritage city has undergone a lot of change over the years," said.

"The economy would flourish where there is peace," he added.

The Buddhist spiritual guru later visited the historic Amaravati village and conducted some religious rituals.

He also inspected the Dhyana Buddha project developed by the state government.
The central government on Wednesday said that the Indian has deployed doctors on-board Duronto trains on a pilot basis for a period of two years.

"A pilot project of deployment of doctors in Duronto Trains was undertaken for a period of two years," Minister of State for Rajen Gohain informed the Lok Sabha.

However, the Minister clarified that patients with serious ailments would be de-boarded for medical treatment as necessary equipments like ECG machines do not function properly on-board due to vibrations.

"Station masters of all stations have details of doctors, clinics and hospitals, both government and private, in the vicinity of the station, so that their services could also be availed, in emergencies," the minister explained.

"Ambulance services of both railway hospitals and state governments are utilised when required," he concluded.
The Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) Bill, 2017 which will provide these premiere institutions with the power to grant degrees is expected to be introduced in Parliament soon.

The Bill, recently cleared by the Union Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, could even be brought to the Parliament today, sources said.

The government has dropped a provision contained in an earlier draft as per which the President of India would be the Visitor of all the IIMs.

The government has favoured greater autonomy to IIMs and has provided more powers to the Board of these institutes.
NOTICE: The Hamilton County Registers Office did not publish this data. All information in the Registers Office is public information as set out in T.C.A. 10-7-503. For questions regarding this report, please call Chattanoogan.com at 423 266-2325. GI numbers, listed when street addresses are not available, refer to the location of transactions (book number and page number) in Hamilton County Register Office records.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam today insisted that he continued to be AIADMK treasurer and wrote to two banks in Chennai not to allow anyone else to operate the party's accounts.

In separate letters to the two banks, located at Mylapore area, he said that under the relevant party laws, he continued to be the AIADMK treasurer.

"In accordance with Bye law 20, sub-clause 5 in the party constitution in continuance of my appointment as treasurer of AIADMK party by puratchi thalaivi amma, I request you not to permit anyone else to operate our AIADMK party's current account without my written consent and instructions," he said in the letters.

The letters were addressed to the Chief Managers of Karur Vysya bank and Bank of India.

Panneerselvam further said that Rule 20 contemplates that the party General Secretary shall be elected by the party's primary members.

"Presently the post of General Secretary of AIADMK remains vacant as the appointment to the said post, which fell vacant upon the demise of puratchi Thalaivi Amma, is yet to be made in accordance with Rule 20 sub clause 2 of the said by law," he said in the letter.

Panneerselvam said office bearers like members of central executive committee, Deputy General Secretary, Treasurer and party Headquarters Secretary nominated by the General Secretary would continue to hold office till a new General Secretary is elected in accordance with relevant rules and bye laws.

Following his revolt against AIADMK General Secretary V K Sasikala last night, Panneerselvam was sacked as treasurer by his party leader, but the caretaker Chief Minister insisted that he continued to remain in the post.

He had even said that Sasikala was elected General Secretary under extraordinary circumstances and that elections to appoint a permanent General Secretary would be held soon.
In a remark likely to court controversy, RSS chief on Wednesday said every person born in India is a Hindu.

"Everyone born in the country is a Hindu-- of these some are idol-worshipers and some are not. Even Muslims are Hindus by nationality, they are Muslims by faith only," he said at an event in Baitul, Madhya Pradesh.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader is on an eight-day visit to Madhya Pradesh.

"Just as the English live in England, Americans in America and Germans in Germany, Hindus live in Hindustan," he said.

"It is no surprise if members of Rashtriya Muslim Manch conduct an 'aarti' of Bharat Mata because they are Hindus. They may have become Muslims by faith but they are Hindus by nationality," he added.

He also called upon people to rise above caste, religion and language.
Uber and Ola users in Delhi and Capital Region might have a hard time booking cabs Friday onwards, as thousands of drivers plan to go on strike. Thousands in New Delhi, Noida, and Gurgaon could be affected, after Hyderabad and Bengaluru saw similar strikes. Uber and Ola are cab-hailing apps.
Women activists on Thursday attacked Bhaben Saikia, who is the prime accused in the murder of a 23-year old woman employee of Infosys, while he was being escorted by the police in Pune.
prices are expected to rise by 5-7 per cent in July-September due to growing raw material prices and the possible implementation of the Goods and Services Tax, said an industry expert on Wednesday.

"Raw material prices like copper, aluminium and steel have been steadily rising for the last few quarters. The proposed GST bracket for us would be 28 per cent, which is disappointing for the industry. All these could lead to a price hike by up to 5-7 per cent in July-September," said Blue Star Ltd Joint Managing Director B Thiagarajan.

Talking about sales growth projections in the next financial year starting from April, he said the company should clock a 15-20 per cent rise in revenue from the room air conditioners segment in 2017-18.

"The industry grew by 20 per cent in October-December despite the demonetisation impact, so there is no reason to believe that growth in the summer season and thereafter would not be in double digits," he said at the launch of new inverter split range.

Thiagarajan also said the company would invest about Rs 3.5 billion over the next three years on two new manufacturing units in Jammu and Kashmir and Andhra Pradesh.
Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) said on Thursday that the proposed BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) credit ratings agency will help India bypass the problem of what it sees as unfair long-term sovereign credit ratings by Western agencies like Standard & Poors, Fitch and Moodys.
The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), an important programme of the Narendra Modi government, has spelt trouble for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG or cooking gas) dealers in the five poll-bound states, as the Election Commission (EC) has sought a clarification from many of them.
The government is planning a new mechanism to fast-track listing of state-owned companies, the aim of which will be to cut through inter-departmental red tape, and reduce the time between identifying companies and taking them to the bourses.
The front line in Indias war on cash is advancing. After people rushed to redeem cancelled currency at banks, authorities are now scrutinising the paper trail for signs of evasionand chasing suspects.
The Northside Neighborhood House will celebrate its 93rd anniversary in the community on Feb. 14. The organization started as a small settlement house, but has grown to serve thousands of neighbors in need each year, officials said. Today, they have two offices and three thrift stores but their mission remains the same: to provide a hand up not a hand out.In 1924, a group of local women who were concerned about the welfare of their neighbors opened a neighborhood center on the Northshore, said Rachel Gammon, CEO of the NNH.They wanted to help their neighbors become self-sufficient so they taught them skills like quilting and offered education programs for children and adults. While we have grown tremendously since 1924, we continue the legacy of our founders as we evolve to meet the needs of those we serve.Northside Neighborhood House serves neighbors in need from seven zip codes north of the river. Service is provided to the community through three programs: Emergency Direct Assistance (help with food, utility bills, prescriptions, and supplemental programs); Education for Children and Adults; and three Thrift Stores. The NNHs main office is located on the Northshore and they also opened an office in Soddy Daisy for neighbors living in North Hamilton County.Prior to opening this second site, many neighbors living in North Hamilton County didnt have the reliable transportation or resources to travel to our main office, said Ms. Gammon. We are thrilled to meet them where they are and provide assistance and educational opportunities.The Soddy Daisy location has a case management office to see clients who need emergency direct assistance services, a community space for partner organizations (like Youth and Family Development who provides rent assistance), and a thrift store that provides revenue for the office, while providing quality and affordable resources to neighbors, officials said.To better support neighbors, the NNH started the Healthy Families Program in 2014, thanks to a grant from BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee Health Foundation. The program offers free Cooking and Computer Classes and Family Dinner Nights. Cooking Classes teach participants how to shop for healthier foods and stretch their food dollars. Computer Classes are available to those who want to brush up on their typing or technology skills or need help developing a resume or searching for jobs. Family Dinner Nights provide local families with a warm meal and time to socialize with their families and one another. After dinner, a local expert leads a short workshop for parents with topics such as Child Safety and Handling Stress.To help celebrate their birthday, community members can make a donation to the NNH by visiting www.nnhouse.org/donate . They are also encouraging offices and civic groups to collect 93 items (such as toiletries, soup, and canned vegetables) for their on-site food pantry. To learn more about how you can help the NNH celebrate, follow them on Facebook by liking Northside Neighborhood House.
India will send an expert team to World Trade Organization (WTO) headquarters in Geneva next month to place its demands for a permanent solution to stockpiling foodgrains and the proposed trade facilitation agreement (TFA) on services.
Perhaps avenging former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's strident criticism of the note ban, Prime Minister on Wednesday launched a surprise attack on him, saying that politicians should learn from Singh how to maintain a clean image even after 35 long years of public life dotted with scams under his stewardship.

Replying to a debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President's address to the two Houses of Parliament, Modi also chose to attack another former Prime Minister of the Congress - Indira Gandhi.

In his one hour and 10 minutes speech, Modi also dismissed observations made by economists across the world about the November 8 move to demonetise higher value currency, saying the move is "unparalleled" and economists can never calculate its effects as such a massive decision "has not been taken before anywhere in the world".

Modi first cast aspersions on the scholarship of Manmohan Singh, a former RBI governor and an eminent economist, saying he (Modi) recently came across a book purportedly written by Singh, but found out that only the foreword was by "Doctor sahib" (Manmohan Singh).

"Looks like, even the speech Doctor Sahib delivered in the last session...," Modi said, just stopping short of saying anything further, but implying that Singh's speech lambasting the note ban was not his own.

The Prime Minister continued amid aloud protests by the Congress members: "For around 35 years, he (Manmohan) has had a say or a role in India's economic policy and decisions. In these 35 years, we heard of many a scam, but he has remained free of any blemish."

"There is a lot for us politicians to learn... so much happened he did not get even a taint. Only Doctor Sahab (Manmohan Singh) knows the art of bathing wearing a rain coat," he said in a jibe, resulting to a huge uproar from Congress benches.

The Congress MPs walked out at this point, though Manmohan Singh himself did not budge from his seat. A few senior Congress MPs including P. Chidmabaram, A.K. Antony and Karan Singh asked the former Prime Minister to come along and walk out, which he did.

Modi's attack comes after Singh on November 25, speaking in the Rajya Sabha during the Winter Session, termed the implementation of demonetisation a case of "organised loot and legalised plunder". Singh had also described the note ban exercise as a "monumental disaster" -- which Modi had listened to quietly, without any change of expression.

On Wednesday, Modi justified his attack on the former Prime Minister, saying he (Manmohan Singh) could have thought about "maryada" while using words like "loot" and "plunder" in the context of demonetisation.

"We have the power to pay back in the same coin," Modi said.

Earlier, the Prime Minister also targeted Indira Gandhi, saying the then former Prime Minister Gandhi never tabled the Wanchoo Committee report against black money in Parliament in the early 1970s.

"(Madhav) Godbole's book mentions it. Why did you not protest against him or take any action when he came out with the book? Were you sleeping at that time?" Modi asked, looking at the Congress MPs.

Speaking of demonetisation, Modi said that the economists' or the experts' opinions about the effect of demonetisation on the Indian economy being thrown around by the opposition had little weight as "they (economists) cannot give any accurate opinion about demonetisation".

"They have never seen it before, so how can they judge it. This is an unparalleled move. No such huge decision was ever taken anywhere in the world," Modi said.

He said the move created a "horizontal divide" in the society - that of neta versus public.

"Usually it is public versus the government whenever a tough decision is taken by a government. But this time around, it was government plus public versus others," Modi said.

He said that digitalisation of the economy could be difficult but to criticise this idea altogether, which he said opposition was doing, was ridiculous.

The Prime Minister said that institutions like the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and its Governor should not be dragged into a controversy.

Modi cited an extract from a book by former RBI Governor D. Subba Rao wherein he has expressed his displeasure with then Finance Minister P. Chidambaram's decision, and has accused him of treading in the exclusive territory of the RBI without even keeping him in the loop.

"We have not undermined RBI's authority, we have given it greater autonomy by amending the RBI Act," Modi said.

Opposition leaders including Sitaram Yechury of CPI-M and Sharad Yadav of JD-U tried to intervene at certain points while Modi was speaking but the Prime Minister told them to sit down and put their point later.

After the speech when Yadav and Yechury stood up to made their point, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi objected to it saying there was no tradition of putting up a point after the Prime Minister's reply.

The entire opposition walked out in protest one after the other, and the Motion of Thanks was adopted with almost the entire opposition benches vacant.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday said restrictions on cash withdrawal from savings accounts would be lifted by March 13, in two phases, considering the current pace of remonetisation.
The pre-poll alliance of the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) with Congress has over the past few days witnessed whirlwind election campaigning by their respective senior leaders in run up to the coming assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh.
Anant Geete gives away Export Awards says Exports can play a Vital role in Make in India campaign

Shri Ananth Geete, Union Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises today presented the Export Awards for the year 2014-15 at a function held in Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi. The event was organized by organized by CAPEXIL (Chemical and Allied Export Promotion Council of India), a non-profit making organization setup by the Ministry of Commerce, Govt. of India in 1958 to promote export of Chemical and allied Products from India. Speaking on the occasion, Shri Geete complimented CAPEXIL for its initiative in instituting the Awards with the objective of identifying and recognizing outstanding performers in various segments of Exports business activity. The Minister said export promotion can play a vital role in Make in India

Campaign.

CAPEXIL is an ardent advocate of exporters to the Government and the primary focus is to provide export assistance to its member exporters. CAPEXIL sends trade delegation to all major and developing markets around the world, showcases Indian exports all over the world through exhibitions, fairs.

The event was also addressed by Shri Ramesh K. Mittal, Chairman, CAPEXIL, Shri J. K. Dadoo, Additional Secretary and Financial Adviser in the M/o Commerce and Industry, Department of Commerce, Govt. of India and Shri Hari Narayan Rajbhar, MP Lok Sabha.
E-Bidding Process To Select Operator Started for UDAN Scheme

The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA), Government of India launched the Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS)-UDAN on 21st October, 2016. The e-bidding process has already been started to select airline operator for mounting RCS operations. A Regional Connectivity Fund (RCF) has been created to provide Viability Gap Funding (VGF) by the Government of India. The Central Government has imposed levy on some category of the scheduled domestic flights being operated in India to fund the RCF. No funds have been released to airline operator under the Scheme. Slot allocation is done as per Slot Allocation Policy.

The Airfare cap under RCS-UDAN for fixed wing aircraft ranges from Rs. 1420/- for 151 kilometers to Rs. 3500/- for >800 kilometers. MoCA has signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on RCS-UDAN with 16 State Governments / UTs to provide concessions as mentioned in the Scheme. The bidding process has already been started to select airline operators for RCS operations. Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has issued Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) for Scheduled Commuter Operations.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Civil Aviation Shri Jayant Sinha in written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.

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UM/MS
Presidents greetings on the eve of birthday of Guru Ravidasji

The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee has greeted fellow-citizens on the eve of birthday of Guru Ravidasji.

In a message, the President has said, On the auspicious occasion of the birth anniversary of Guru Ravidasji, I convey warm greetings and best wishes to all my countrymen.

Guru Ravidasji, was a great humanist and a religious reformer who dedicated his life for the establishment of a casteless society.

An embodiment of spiritual wisdom, he believed in the equality of mankind. Let us derive inspiration from the life and teachings of Guru Ravidasji and strengthen our efforts to achieve universal brotherhood and an equitable society."
Improvement of standards of higher education and upgradation of infrastructure is an on-going endeavour and the Central Government has been making a constant effort in this direction. The Central Government has launched several new initiatives viz. National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), Impacting Research Innovation & Technology (IMPRINT), Uchchatar Avishkar Yojna (UAY), Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN) & Global Research Interactive Network (GRIN) in the field of education for the qualitative development of education in the country. .

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The project Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds (SWAYAM) is intended to provide massive open online courses (MOOCs) to the students across the country and thereby expanding the reach of best quality education to students using the ICT tools. An Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA) has also been established to give a major push for creation of high quality infrastructure in premier educational institutions. .

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The UGC has issued guidelines for autonomous colleges during the 12th Plan Period for promoting academic excellence of autonomous college. Under this an autonomous college will have the freedom to determine and prescribe its own course of study and syllabi, use modern tools of educational technology to achieve higher standards and greater creativity. .

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The UGC undertakes maintenance of standards in teaching, research and quality assurance in Universities, Deemed to be Universities and Colleges through framing and notifying regulations, schemes and disbursing grants to the eligible institutions. The UGC has notified several regulations with a view to sustain and improve the quality of higher education and to undertake academic reforms such as the introduction of a semester system, the regular updating of curricula and Choice Based Credit Systems (CBCS). .

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The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) too has taken such measures by issuing the Regulations for Collaboration & Partnerships between Indian and Foreign Universities/Institutions in the field of Technical Education, Research and Training. It has also notified Regulations making accreditation mandatory for all technical institutions. AICTE has also launched Start-up Policy to promote students driven start-ups in AICTE approved Technical Institutions which also involves industry-academia interaction. .

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The Ministry also launched a scheme for research parks and start-ups and incubation centers within the Centrally Funded Technical Institutions. .

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Under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme of Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA), the overall quality of existing State higher educational institutions is sought to be improved by ensuring their conformity to prescribed norms and standards and adoption of accreditation as a mandatory quality assurance framework. Certain academic, administrative and governance reforms are a precondition for receiving funding under RUSA. .

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The Ministry of Human Resource Development, in consultation with University Grants Commission (UGC) has formulated draft UGC (Declaration of Government Educational Institutions as Institutions of Eminence) Guidelines, 2017 for 10 public institutions and draft UGC (Institutions of Eminence Deemed to be Universities) Regulations, 2017 for 10 private institutions. These institutions are proposed to be named as Institutions of Eminence. The selection of Institutions of Eminence shall be made only after the Guidelines and Regulations are notified. .

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This information was given by the Minister of State (HRD), Dr. Mahendra Nath Pandey today in a written reply to a Rajya Sabha question. .

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Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare delivers the 55th convocation address of IARI Students trained in agriculture to come to forefront for bringing Second Green Revolution,: Shri Radha Mohan Singh 11 varieties of rice, wheat, mustard and pulses released during the year 2016: Union Agriculture Minister

The Union Minster of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Sri Radha Mohan Singh has said that for bringing the second Green Revolution in the country, students trained in agriculture will have to come to forefront and devote their knowledge and skills to agriculture and farmers welfare. Shri Radha Mohan Singh stated this on the occasion of 55th Convocation of ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute in New Delhi, today.

Shri Singh said that due to the presence of Pusa Institute in Delhi, there has been continuous development of agriculture in the adjoining states like Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh and due to this reason, two more Indian Agricultural Research Institutes (Assam and Jharkhand) have been opened, through which holistic development of agriculture is taking place in the entire country. Shri Singh said that due to adoption of crop varieties developed by Pusa Institute, meaningful and multiple changes have been observed. Earlier, we were dependent on other countries for food grains, but now we are helping other countries by providing food security. Agriculture Minister applauded the agricultural scientists of the country, particularly the scientists of the institute, for this achievement.

Shri Singh said that with cultivation of wheat varieties developed by Indian Agricultural Research Institute in 10 million hectares, 50 million tonnes of wheat were being produced. The contribution of Basmati rice contributes about 22 thousand crore in agricultural export exchequer of about 1 lakh crore rupees and in this, the contribution of Basmati varieties developed by Pusa Institute is about 90%.

During 2016, IARI has released 11 varieties of different field crops such as rice, wheat, mustard and pulses.

Pusa Double Zero Mustard 31, a canola quality mustard, developed by the institute, is the first variety of high quality in the country having less than 2% Erucic acid and less than 30ppm glucosinolates found in oil-cake, which is conducive for human and animal health. He raised the hope that a state-of-art automated phenomics facility established by IARI would be useful to study the environmental stress. He said that this facility would be used in developing plants from which higher yield could be secured with less use of water and fertilizers.

Shri Singh said that ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), Pusa has developed an innovative, eco-friendly and cost-effective wastewater treatment technology through which waste water can be easily made pollution free and useful for irrigation purpose with less than 1% energy and less than 50-60 % investment and operational cost. The Minister expressed that this technology would be effective in checking the shortage of water and pollution of soil, ground water and food due to wastewater in future.

Agriculture Minister said that under the leadership of Honble Prime Minster Sri Narendra Modi, a number of agricultural and farmers welfare schemes had been stated to strengthen rural livelihood security besides promotion of food production. Prime Minister Crop Insurance Scheme, Prime Minister Agricultural Irrigation Scheme, Farm Mechanization Mission, National Agricultural Marketing, Rural Storage Scheme and Soil Health Card Scheme, are a few to mention. These schemes would be prove helpful in doubling the income of farmers. At the end, Shri Radha Mohan Singh extended greetings and congratulated the students, parents, teachers and all the people associated with the convocation program.

The Secretary, ICAR, Shri Trilohcan Mohapatra, dignitaries, scientists, students & innovative farmers were present on the occasion.

AK
A man who shot a Chattanooga Police officer numerous times at East Lake Courts in August 2015 was sentenced Thursday morning to 10 years in federal prison for being a felon in possession of a weapon.

Judge Sandy Mattice did not specify whether the sentence is concurrent or consecutive with any state time that Celvin "Squeaky" Houston may receive.

Houston had a recommended sentencing range of 30 years to life.

However, the judge noted that the maximum term for the gun charge was 10 years.

Houston in August 2015 pleaded guilty to the same charge. The earlier agreement was that Houston would serve seven years in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release. However, Judge Mattice rejected that deal because of the serious nature of the case.

Prosecutor Chris Poole said he had agreed to it because it was to be served consecutively to any state time. Amanda Dunn, the fifth attorney for Houston, said under the guidelines it would have to be concurrent.

Judge Mattice said he had no knowledge of what the state might do with the case, though he said there were indications that Houston might be tried there for attempted murder.

Prosecutor Poole said it was clear that Houston was attempting to kill Chattanooga Police Officer William McMillan in the incident March 12, 2013, at East Lake Courts. He said Houston hid behind a screen door and shot the officer, knocking him to the ground. He said he went toward him and shot him four more times until the gun jammed.

The prosecutor said since Houston has been in jail on the current charge he has been charged five times with aggravated assault and twice with having contraband in jail.

Officer McMillan was in the courtroom with several other officers and Police Chief Fred Fletcher.

Attorney Dunn said many of the charges against Houston have been misdemeanors. She said an aggravated assault conviction against him dates to 1995 when he was 21.

Houston also earlier agreed to plead guilty to attempted murder in Criminal Court. That term was to be worked out by the district attorney's office and defense attorney Dunn, who is Houston's fifth lawyer. But it never has due to issues about transferring the case between federal and state courts.



Officer McMillan was shot multiple times in the thigh, buttock and groin areas, a police report said.

At the time of his arrest, Houston had two additional warrants from a prior incident for attempted murder and aggravated robbery.

Houston has a lengthy criminal record, including a conviction in 2012 in state court for being in possession of a handgun with felony convictions. He got a two-year suspended sentence.

He got another two-year suspended sentence in 2004 when he was charged with unlawfully possessing a weapon.

The arrest report said Officer McMillan was responding to a call from an anonymous caller saying there were 30 people hanging out in the East Lake Housing area and they wanted them checked out.

As the officer walked up to the group, one of them pulled out a gun and began shooting at the officer, the report says.

During the investigation, officers learned that "Squeaky" was the person who shot the officer. Investigators found his cellphone at the scene.

They identified "Squeaky" as Celvin Houston and began to look for his associates, Alisha Houston and Moniek Johnson. They were brought to police headquarters.

Both said they had spoken with Houston and he told them that he "messed up by shooting an officer."

Attorney Dunn said Houston began drinking and using marijuana the morning of the incident and was highly intoxicated by the time of the confrontation with the officer.

At the close of the hearing, Houston went on a tirade, calling the judge unfair and saying the officer was shot because he is "a crooked cop."
The country is reeling from an ethical cancer that is overtaking the new administration, its cronies, and supporters who are willing to forgo standards of ethics in order to win victories on a slate of issues. This lapse in ethical standards may lead to far greater changes than just a policy platform. The road to a modern-day form of fascism starts with manipulating the media and dismissing election results  just as President has done.
Two Congolese working for have been freed five days after being abducted during a reporting mission, the Qatar-based broadcaster said.

The two men were kidnapped last Wednesday near Nyanzale in the south of the restive Nord-Kivu province and were freed on Monday, it said yesterday.

The zone in the Democratic Republic of Congo's turbulent east is notorious for kidnappings for ransom.

Al-Jazeera, however, said no money was paid for their release, explaining it was secured "through the work of the local authorities".

" is relieved that all men are safe and sound and would like to thank officials from the FARDC (the Congolese army) and the UN mission in DRC for their support in assisting in getting the two men released without paying for any ransom demands and assisting in escorting our staff to safety during this traumatic period."

Al-Jazeera's English service staffers who were with the men said their vehicle was attacked by armed men who took the two locals hostage but left three foreign journalists  a Briton, an Italian and a Kenyan  untouched.

One of the freed men said the kidnappers appeared to be Rwandan Hutu rebels associated with the Nyatura Mai-Mai, a local Congolese Hutu militia.

The man said both he and his colleague were "severely abused" by their abductors and were hospitalised in Goma, the region's main city, on Wednesday.

Nord-Kivu has been torn by violence and armed conflict for more than two decades.
British MPs on Wednesday overwhelmingly backed a bill enabling Prime Minister Theresa May to officially trigger and start negotiations for leaving the 28-member European Union.

The draft legislation was approved by 494 votes to 122, and now moves to the Lords, BBC reported.

May wants to trigger formal talks by the end of March.

She will do this by invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, but requires Parliament's permission before doing so.

The bill was tabled last month after the Supreme Court ruled that MPs and peers must have a say before Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty could be triggered.

It rejected the UK government's argument that May had sufficient executive powers to trigger without consulting the Parliament.
A majority of people from leading European nations would support a Trump-style ban on further migration from mainly Muslim countries, a poll data said.

An average of 55 per cent of those surveyed for London-based think tank, Chatham House, agreed that immigration from Muslim-majority countries should be halted, NBC news reported on Wednesday.

Majorities in all but two of the 10 countries polled supported a ban, ranging from 71 per cent in Poland to 53 per cent in Germany, 47 per cent in Britain and 41 per cent in Spain. In no country did the percentage that disagreed surpass 32 per cent, the report said.

The poll, carried out before President Trump took office, also found that the issue crossed the political spectrum  three-quarters of respondents in support of a ban self-classified as right-wing and more than a third said they were left-leaning.

Support for a ban was also higher among older Europeans than younger ones as less than half of all college graduates supported further migration curbs.
Japanese Prime Minister will propose new Cabinet level US-Japan talks on trade, security and macroeconomic issues, including currencies, when he meets US President Donald Trump on Friday, a Japanese government official involved in planning the summit said. Abe heads to Washington later on Thursday hoping promises to help create US jobs and bolster Japans military will persuade Trump to turn down the heat on trade and currency and stand by the decades-old alliance. In a situation in which security relations in the Asia-Pacific region are increasingly severe, it is very important to demonstrate the unshakeable US-Japan alliance at home and abroad, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference.
A few years ago, one of us (Ian) was lucky enough to be invited to visit the N.I. Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry in St Petersburg, Russia. Every plant breeder or geneticist knows of Nikolai Vavilov and his ceaseless energy in collecting important food crop varieties from all over the globe, and his application of genetics to plant improvement.
A US air raid in northern Syria has killed a top member who had close ties the terror network's late leader Osama bin Laden, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

Abu Hani al-Masri died in the drone strike in Syria's northwestern Idlib province last Saturday after air strikes killed 10 operatives near Idlib a day earlier, Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis announced.

Masri is alleged to have set up and run training camps in Afghanistan during the 1980s and 1990s. He "recruited, indoctrinated, trained and equipped thousands of terrorists," the Pentagon stated.

He also had close ties to fellow Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, who became Al-Qaeda leader when Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan by US forces in 2011.

"These strikes disrupt al-Qaeda's ability to plot and direct external attacks targeting the US and our interests worldwide," said Davis.

Al-Qaeda's influence in Syria operates largely through an affiliated jihadist group, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS), formerly called the al-Nusra Front.

JFS, which at one stage controlled most of Idlib province, was one of the groups excluded from the ceasefire negotiated by Russia and Turkey in December.

Intelligence suggests JFS's leadership structure is still intertwined with Al-Qaeda's.
In this file photo, Thousands of people protest against the US immigration policy of President Donald Trump at the United States embassy in Ottawa.
Volkswagen's diesel scandal took a rancorous turn today, when the board of directors denied news reports that former chairman Ferdinand Piech had given four members early warning about the US probe into emissions cheating.

The board issued a statement that the four members "rejected all assertions made by Ferdinand Piech as untrue." The reports from the Bild newspaper and Spiegel Online say Piech has told German prosecutors that he learned of the probe from an informant and asked Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn about it in March, 2015, then told the four.

Winterkorn has said he didn't learn of the problem until shortly before the US Investigators announced it in September, 2015. Investors are suing in Germany, saying didn't give timely notice of an issue that could affect share prices.
The workers of make unlikely revolutionaries. As a group, they are relatively wealthy, well educated and well connected.
Senator Bob Corker on Thursday convened a hearing on the broad challenges ahead for U.S. policy toward Russia, during which he cited the various threats to American interests from Russian actions in recent years, especially the invasion of Ukraine. The committee heard testimony from former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, USAF (Ret), and Julianne Smith, a senior fellow with the Center for New American Strategy.Today we must discuss the broad spectrum of issues that our country has with the Russian Federation and its behavior in recent years, said Senator Corker.As we have heard multiple times in this room, Russia violated the Budapest Memorandum when it invaded Ukraine  where it continues to occupy stolen land and enable combat operations that kill innocent civilians. I appreciated the comments last week from our new ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, who strongly condemned Russias role in the recent escalation of violence in Eastern Ukraine and insisted U.S. sanctions over Crimea would remain in place.In examining how to regain the initiative in the U.S. approach to Russia, he further emphasized the importance of restoring a credible U.S. deterrent so Moscow no longer exploits what it perceives as American weakness.Complete text of Mr. Corkers opening statement is available below:Since November of last year, this committee has tried to get witnesses from the prior administration to testify about a wide range of issues currently challenging the United States-Russian relationship.While the Obama administration did make officials available for classified briefings, they would not allow anyone to speak publicly about the strategic issues driving this relationship. By the way, that is not a criticism. It is an observation, and I know that they wanted to get everybody on the same page relative to things that led up to the election.But the point is its taken us a while to have a Russia hearing and were glad to be able to do that today.At the same time, the Trump administration continues the process of nominating its own people and establishing its own priorities, so [there are] not a lot of people in the Trump administration to testify today either.This committee turns to the expertise of previous government servants with deep knowledge of Russia. And Im going to welcome you properly in a moment but I just wanted to say thank you so much for being here today.Specifically, we have asked them here to discuss the overall state of our bilateral relationship and the elements of a successful strategy to defend American interests.Russia possesses not only the second most powerful military in the world  behind the United States in everything except nuclear weapons  but also a seat on the United Nations Security Council, where their veto can complicate much of what we try to do in the world.Just to amplify and say, the U.N. Security Council was set up to create stability around the world and those permanent members were put there because they were seen as a stabilizing force. Now Russia is a member of this. Obviously will continue to be. And has very much become a destabilizing force and has kept us from doing things around the world in unison that should be done.So, today we must discuss the broad spectrum of issues that our country has with the Russian Federation and its behavior in recent years.As we have heard multiple times in this room, Russia violated the Budapest Memorandum when it invaded Ukraine  where it continues to occupy stolen land and enable combat operations that kill innocent civilians.Just another report out recently regarding what is happening in Eastern Ukraine, the depravity that people are dealing with there. Again, solely by the Russians supporting the rebels there.I appreciated the comments last week from our new ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, who strongly condemned Russias role in the recent escalation of violence in Eastern Ukraine and insisted U.S. sanctions over Crimea would remain in place. I would note communications staff from the White House verified that was the administrations position.As the New York Times reported in October of last year, Russia has also developed ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCMs) that violate the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty  giving them a serious military advantage at the expense of international law. At some point, you wonder what the purpose is of a treaty that we know Russia has violated and in essence is in some ways abrogating.As we have seen on our own televisions and smartphones, Russia has joined the Syrian civil war on the side of the Assad regime  participating in the destruction of hospitals and schools and the targeting of civilians. The resulting instability contributed to the migration crisis and terror threat that has gripped Europe.I know General Breedlove has been there seven times since his retirement in May  not much of a retirement, I might add  but I know you will be able to shed light on that.These are only a few examples of ways in which Russian actions directly conflict with American interests. The entire list is longer, including the deployment of Russian forces into Georgia and Moldova; unprecedented efforts to interfere in our elections; and the increasingly hostile approach that the Russian government has taken to silence opposition politicians, a free and independent press, and civil society, in general.The sudden hospitalization of pro-democracy advocate Vladimir Kara-Murza, who testified here not long ago and continues to fight for his life, stands as a stark reminder of the risks borne by Russians when they speak out against an increasingly autocratic regime.Similarly, the Russian courts treatment of Aleksei Navalny begs questions about the democratic process under Putin.How we deal with Russia is going to be one of the major projects for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and is something for which he is ideally suited given his deep relationships and understanding of the geostrategic issues at play.Secretary Tillerson knows the dangers posed by Russia and the importance of restoring a credible U.S. deterrent so Moscow no longer exploits what it perceives as American weakness.With that, I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about how to address these problems in a way that moves our approach to Russia in the right direction.
India's equity are advising investors to stick to large cap funds and limit or avoid exposure to mid and small cap stocks in 2017 as the year is expected to be volatile.
The benchmark indices on Thursday settled the day marginally higher as banking stocks fell after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) kept its policy rates on hold and said it would shift its stance from "accommodative" to "neutral," signalling an end to any further rate cuts.
A Delhi court on Thursday allowed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to submit the list of witnesses and documentary evidences in a disproportionate assets case lodged against former Haryana chief minister O. P. Chautala.

The Delhi High Court earlier on Monday granted three weeks parole to Chautala, who was serving a 10-year jail term in the Junior Basic Training (JBT) teachers' recruitment scam case, on health grounds.

The court's order came after he had sought six months parole citing his poor health condition.

Earlier, the Delhi High Court had granted parole to Chautala to attend his grandson's engagement function.

The Indian Lok Dal (INLD) leader had sought permission to attend his grandson and MP Dushyant Chautala's 'roka' ceremony and the 'ring' ceremony to be held on January 2 and January 3.Chautala, his son Ajay Singh Chautala and three others, are serving jail term in the case.

On January 22, 2013, a trial court had sentenced 55 accused in the case.

Among those convicted were 82-year-old Chautala's then political adviser Sher Singh Badshami, the then Officer on Special Duty (OSD) Vidya Dhar, IAS, and then Primary Education Director Sanjiv Kumar, besides 50 others.

A total of 55 persons were convicted under the JBT scam for illegally recruiting 3,206 teacher in Haryana in 2000.The father-son duo, including two IAS officers, were among 55 persons convicted on January 16, 2013 by the trial court.

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Asserting that the current political scenario in Tamil Nadu is All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's (AIADMK) internal matter, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday said the government has nothing to do with it.

"The current political scenario in Tamil Nadu is AIADMK's internal matter. The government has nothing to do with it," Singh told ANI.

Even as political turmoil in the state is gathering further heat in Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister O Panneerselvam reached Raj Bhavan to meet Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao.

AIADMK General Secretary Sasikala Natarajan will meet the Governor at 7.30 pm on Thursday.

In a major development, the praesidium chairman of the ruling AIADMK E Madhusudhanan is reported to have switched over to the Panneerselvam camp.

He visited Panneerselvam at his residence this afternoon.

Tamil Nadu took a major turbulence when Panneerselvam emerged at the Jayalalithaa Memorial on Marina beach earlier on Tuesday night to reveal that he was forced to resign from his post and that he would fight, until his death, for democracy in the party.

Calling Sasikala as the "temporary general secretary", Panneerselvam earlier today said, "The Council can only appoint a temporary general secretary. Proper elections have to be held to elect a general secretary according to the party bye-laws. People are on my side."

However later in the day, Sasikala accused Panneerselvam of colluding with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), while adding that he would not be spared following his "betrayal".

"Our opponents are after us and spearheading whatever is happening today, but nothing can stop us from following Amma's path. Panneerselvam colluded with the party which Amma fought against. I could sense the acts of Chief Minister who completely connived with the opposition. We will give a big blow to the act of betrayal and disloyalty," Sasikala told his party members which were received with a rousing reception.
To cut down the number of traffic fatalities, drive less!

Researchers from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the US found a significant decrease in automobile travel is linked to decline in the number of traffic-related deaths, especially among young men.

The findings, published in the journal of Preventive Medicine, also revealed that at the same time, there was no increase in how active Americans were, meaning physical activity did not replace driving for many people.

Noreen McDonald wanted to analyse how the decline in driving time had affected two key areas: changes in physical activity and number of motor vehicle fatalities.

She found that while less driving did mean a decrease in deaths, it did not have an impact on activity levels.

Between 2004 and 2014, per-capita driving shrank by nearly 600 miles annually.

Young adults, millennials born in the 1980s and early 1990s, saw the largest decline.

"My analysis shows a drop in automobile travel from 2003 to 2014 with the largest decreases among young adults, particularly men," explained Dr. McDonald.

The study also found that auto travel decreased by 9.2 minutes per day from 2003-2014 and men aged 20-29 years saw the largest drop.

Consequently, motor vehicle fatalities showed significant declines among young men, but also across all ages.

"Fatalities to motor vehicle occupants dropped significantly during the study period, particularly among millennials," Dr. McDonald stated.

"Safer cars and better driving training could explain this decline, but the decrease could also be explained by the large and significant drop in driving. The challenge that we must all now work towards is how to maintain the safety record on American roads as population growth, low gas prices and an improving economy lead to more travel," Dr. McDonald noted.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Thursday informed that India has on Wednesday handed over the request for extradition of embattled business tycoon received from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to the United Kingdom High Commission.

"We have today handed over the request for extradition of as received from the CBI to the UK High Commission in New Delhi," MEA official spokesperson Vikas Swarup told the media.

Mallya left for the UK last year after facing heat for defaulting on loans worth Rs 9,000 crore.

Under the laws of extradition, a host country is expected to ship back a man wanted for a crime in his own country.

The Centre has signalled its intention to frame a law that stops loan defaulters from fleeing the country and another to seize the assets they leave behind.

Mallya  who has called his stay in the UK since last April a "forced exile"  has denied the charges against him.

The CBI last month filed charges against Mallya, his now defunct Kingfisher Airlines and nine other executives and bankers, alleging he dishonestly induced the delivery of property and illegally obtained pecuniary advantage  charges that can carry a sentence of up to seven years in prison.

In April last year, the Indian government cancelled Mallya's passport but despite a warrant for his arrest the UK turned down a request to deport him on the grounds that he had entered Britain with a valid passport.
In a major breakthrough, the Madhya Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) on Thursday busted an international call racket that allegedly helped ISI agents to spy on India's military operations.

"Two men were arrested in Jammu in November '16 for collecting and using information of strategic interests for espionage. They were being funded by a person in Satna. Five persons from Gwalior, three from Bhopal, two from Jabalpur and one from Satna arrested," MP ATS chief Sanjeev Shami told the media.

Shami said the accused converted internet calls to cellular network and acted as medium for overseas handlers to contact people in India.

"The arrested men are accused of supplying information regarding army and Air Force in Madhya Pradesh. Complicity of some employees of telecom companies also surfaced," he said.

In January, the Uttar Pradesh ATS had arrested 11 people who were running a similar exchange.

Gulshan Sen a resident of Delhi's Mehrauli who was arrested by Uttar Pradesh ATS last month is said to be a common link between the gangs of the two states.

The modus operandi was same.

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A Investigation Agency (NIA) special court on Thursday filed a chargesheet against two accused persons for indoctrination of Keralite youth to join ISIS.

The next hearing in the matter is scheduled to take place on February 17.

The NIA special court ordered framing of charges against arrested accused Areeb Ejaz Majeed for having conspired to carry out terrorist acts.

The case was registered on the basis of credible source information that four youth from Kalyan, Maharashtra, had gone to Iraq with a group on May 25, 2014, under the guise of performing Ziyarat (religious) tour.

Subsequently, they left the group without intimating the tour guide and the other pilgrims and went to Syria to join the ISIL, a banned terrorist organisation.

The family members of these youth had filed missing complaints as they had left without intimating anyone.

Out of the four youth, Majeed returned to India on the November 28, 2014, but was apprehended by the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), was later arrested by the NIA on November 29, 2014 after registration of the case.

Investigation by the NIA has established that Majeed and his three associates had joined the proscribed terrorist organisation, ISIL and had undergone training in guerrilla warfare.

After joining the ISIL, Majeed had participated in various terrorist acts, in Iraq and Syria and was injured on two occasions while performing Fidayeen attacks.

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The Trump administration has no plan to ban Pakistani citizens from travelling to the United States because Islamabad is providing the data they need to vet a visitor.

According to the Dawn, in recent briefings to various media outlets, White House officials also said the administration had no plan to add other countries to the list of seven Muslim countries whose citizens were barred from travelling or migrating to the US.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer explained that Afghanistan, Pakistan and Lebanon were among the countries which were providing the information needed to scrutinise travellers. But he warned that if this cooperation changed, these or other countries could also be added to the list.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), however, was more categorical in assuring the 40 non-designated Muslim countries that Spicer mentioned in his statement.

"Importantly, these seven countries are the only countries to which the pause on entry applies. No other countries face such treatment. Nor have any other countries been identified as warranting future inclusion at this time," the DHS said in a statement.

Another White House added that reports of banning travellers from other countries were just rumours. "There's nothing imminent that I'm aware of," the spokesperson added.

Other White House officials said that even the Obama administration had problems with the seven countries now facing the travel ban as they were not providing the data needed to scrutinise their citizens.

But a passage in the January 27 executive order leaves the option to expand the list open, causing worries and rumours across the Muslim .

"At any point after submitting the list described in subsection (e) of this section, the secretary of state or the secretary of homeland security may submit to the president the names of any additional countries recommended for similar treatment," it said.

But the DHS, while ruling out the possibility of expanding the list in the near future, said the aliens affected by the 90-day pause on travel were also getting "case-by-base exceptions and waivers, as outlined in President Donald Trump's executive order, "Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.

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Pakistan's Supreme Court on Thursday halted crushing operations at three sugar mills owned by the family of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Hearing a case related to the shifting of these mills from north to south Punjab, a three-judge apex court bench headed by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar ordered the temporary halt of crushing operations of the Ittefaq, Chaudhry and Haseeb sugar mills, reports the Dawn.

Lawyers representing the JDW Sugar Mills Ltd told the bench that the shifting of the sugar mills is an illegal move as per a 2006 Punjab government notification that not only banned the creation of new mills, but also the shifting of their locations.

Defence counsel Salman Akram Raja argued that a 2015 amendment in the 2006 notification, overseen by the Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, made provisions for the shifting of sugar mills from one point to another, although the creation of new mills remains illegal.

As the court ordered a halt in the mills' crushing operations, the defence counsel contended that such a move would render thousands of employees jobless and the mills' would lose Rs.380 million in revenue.

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State Rep Andy Holt (R-Dresden) announced that he will be filing legislation to strengthen Tennessee's lobbying ethics laws with respect to legislative receptions. Rep. Holt said, "Spending on legislative receptions (parties funded by lobbying organizations with exclusive invitations to members of the legislature) have recently reached an all-time high."

Rep. Holt said his proposal "will seek to protect taxpayers and strike back against a culture that has become notorious for its excesses."

He said, "We must balance the right of citizens to petition their government with some simple common sense.

He said the legislation is currently being drafted. He sai he "would like to give the subject the attention it deserves.

"This is not a knee-jerk reaction. I will be talking to my colleagues and any interested organizations to ensure that what we draft is fair and is an appropriate exercise of the power of state government."

The Senate sponsor of the legislation will be announced later this week, it was stated.
Six Afghan Red Cross aid workers have been killed in an ambush in the country's north by a suspected Islamic state gunmen, while travelling to a remote area to deliver humanitarian aid.

Three vehicles carrying eight International Committee of the Red Cross(ICRC) employees were travelling through Dasht-e Leili, a desert in Jowzjan province, when they came under fire, according to the provincial governor, Lotfullah Azizi.

According to the Guardian, three drivers and three other personnel were killed, and two are missing.

The ICRC in Afghanistan confirmed the killings and said it was putting its activities across the country on hold while it assessed what had happened.

Its director-general, Yves Daccord, described the incident as "the worst attack against us since 20 years. We are all outraged and so sad."

The ICRC vehicles were clearly marked when they were ambushed outside Turkman Qudoq village by militants carrying Kalashnikov rifles, said the provincial police chief, Rahmatullah Turkistani. He said a local delegation of elders was investigating the incident.

The attack underscores the danger facing NGOs in Afghanistan.

Fifteen aid workers were killed in Afghanistan last year in more than 200 incidents of violence, kidnappings and killings directed against humanitarian organisations, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha).

Northern Afghanistan in particular has become increasingly dangerous for aid workers. In 2013, militants shot and killed six employees of the French charity ACTED in Faryab. In 2015, nine Afghan staff members with the Czech organisation People in Need were shot in a guesthouse in Balkh.

In April 2015 the bullet-riddled bodies of five Afghan workers for Save the Children were found after they were abducted in the strife-torn southern province of Uruzgan.

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As many as six people have been arrested in connection with the Bihar Staff Selection Commission (BSSC) examination paper leak.

The paper was leaked on Monday late night, following which the exam was cancelled.

Secretary of Bihar Staff Selection Commission Parmeshwar Ram was detained by the Patna Police after a Special Investigation Team (SIT) found convincing evidence against him at his house.

The examination is conducted for appointment of clerks in the state government, the first phase of which was held last Sunday.

According to reports, the questions were leaked on WhatsApp, an online chatting platform as soon as the exam began at 11 a.m. on Sunday.

As many as 27 people have previously been arrested by the police for allegedly possessing electronic devices meant for helping candidates in writing the paper for second phase of the examination.

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Condemning Tamil Nadu Governor C. H. Vidyasagar Rao's act of delaying an appropriate decision in the ongoing Tamil Nadu political crisis, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy on Thursday said that the Congress is not attacking the governor so maybe they have influenced him for delaying swearing-in of All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhaga (AIADMK) General Secretary Sasikala Natarajan.

said the former's behaviour is deplorable in consistent with the Constitution.

Swamy while accusing the Congress Party for possibly influencing Rao, alleged that the latter is a central figure in the confusion going on in the state.

"The Governor's behaviour is deplorable in consistent with the Constitution. Now he should forget all those who have influenced him and go entirely by the constitution and swear-in Sasikala," Swamy said.

He further said that Rao should not think about the impact of judgment which is yet to be pronounced in the disproportionate assets case against All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhaga (AIADMK) General Secretary Sasikala Natarajan and should immediately sworn her as the new Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.

"Instead of doing his work the man runs away. He ran away to sDelhi, then went to Mumbai. He is also Governor of Maharashtra but crisis was in Tamil Nadu, why did he agree to take additional charge. He should have handed over this to the Centre," he said.

Amid the prevailing tussle for power in the state, Rao will finally arrive Chennai today.

However, MLAs from Tamil Nadu will, reportedly be landing in the capital to meet the President to solve the political crisis in the state, giving the situation another peculiar twist.

Ahead of a probable floor test to determine the majority in the House, Sasikala on Wednesday bused all 131 MLAs supporting her to an unknown location, fearing horse-trading.

Tamil Nadu politics took a major turbulence when the acting Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam emerged at the Jayalalithaa Memorial on Marina beach on Tuesday night to reveal that he was forced to resign from his post and that he would fight, until his death, for democracy in the party.

Calling Sasikala as the "temporary general secretary", Panneerselvam earlier today said, "The Council can only appoint a temporary general secretary. Proper elections have to be held to elect a general secretary according to the party bye-laws. People are on my side."

However later in the day, Sasikala accused Panneerselvam of colluding with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), while adding that he would not be spared following his "betrayal".

"Our opponents are after us and spearheading whatever is happening today, but nothing can stop us from following Amma's path. Panneerselvam colluded with the party which Amma fought against. I could sense the acts of Chief Minister who completely connived with the opposition. We will give a big blow to the act of betrayal and disloyalty," Sasikala told his party members which was received with rousing reception.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Gone are those days when people used to satisfy their gluttony with regular flavours of nachos.

Its time for nachos-lovers to go wild as nachos too have gone wild!

Hard Rock Cafe has come up with a whole new bucket nachos in its menu to kick-start their festival 'Nachos Gone Wild.'

Bringing together influences from across the world on your Nacho plates, the offering boasts of an exclusive mix of classic, authentic and quirky variations.

Have you ever imagined a combination of Shawarma and Nachos? Ever thought how heavenly it would be if Pizza, Pepperoni and Nachos came together? How about aloo, kabuli channa and all things desi being tossed together with Nachos? Doesn't sesame wantons Nachos laced with melted cheese sound interesting? Ever heard of Nachos whipped up with Apple and Walnut crumble?

Fusing innovation with some of the most in - demand flavours, the tantalizing line - up of Nachos include Pizzachos, Rodeo Nachos, Desi Nachos Chaat, Lebanese Nachos, Pepperoni Pizzachos, Tex-Mex Nachos and Oriental Nachos.

Dessert devours can satiate or treat their sweet tooth with the Apple and Walnut Pie Nacho crumble. Every pick on the menu has been paired with a uniquely crafted Margarita like the Mojitarita, Bulldog Margarita and Cranberry and Lychee margarita among others.

Commenting on the first of its kind Nachos festival, Jay Singh, co-founder, and executive director at JSM Corporation said, "It's all about creating unique experiences for its guests - be it food, drinks or music. We like to be the hub of innovation and our constantly striving to invent and experiment. We have belted out a long delectable slate of Nachos and Margaritas that are extremely distinctive and exciting. This is our little tribute to all the Nacho lovers out there!"

Expressing his views, Chef Cyrus Irani, culinary director at Hard Rock Cafe said, "With this new festival, we are certain that the way to a foodie's heart can be through some of our Nachos! After much trials and testing, the best ones have featured on the menu. Putting years of culinary artistry to use, every offering has been put together to make it the ultimate Nachos experience for our guests!"

Nacho freaks can head on to relish some never - tried - before Nachos at the live music destination. They might also be surprised to see their favorite one make it to the all year long regular menu!"

So people out there, go and munch the nachos of your choice.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Condemning Prime Minister Narendra Modi's raincoat remark against his predecessor Manmohan Singh, Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday said one should not attack anyone personally.

"Prime Minister Modi has used such wrong words against former prime minister. You can attack an institution or party or policies but one should not attack personally. He has commuted that blunder. I condemn his remark," Kharge told ANI.

Kharge further said that the Prime Minister had made the statement in Rajya Sabha adding, "I will consult others for seeking apology from him."

Prime Minister Modi yesterday provoked a walk out in the Rajya Sabha with his scathing attack on veteran economist Manmohan Singh.

Taking a dig at his squeaky clean record of 35 years of service as an economist, he accused the former prime minister of having a talent of 'bathing in raincoats', and getting away with the ugliest of scams.

"Dr. Manmohan Singh has played a significant role in the economic system of India. In the history of India it is rare to find a man who has had a such a long relationship with the economy of India, 35 years of 70 years of independence.", Prime Minister said in reply to the Motion of Thanks on the President's Address in Rajya Sabha today.

He further added that in 35 years of service, so many scams surfaced, yet it marked no stain on Dr. Manmohan as an economist.

"We leaders have so much to study as so much happened at the time, but there was not a single blot on him. This is a special skill Dr. Manmohan Singh excelled at and we should all learn this art of bathing in raincoat," he said.

However, the former prime minister maintained his trademark calm and chose not to respond to Prime Minister's statement.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The year gone by has thrown up the huge paradox of globalisation with much uncertainty created by nationalist-protectionist trends, while simultaneous developments at local levels, particularly in the energy sector, showed how interdependent the world is, a top Saudi Arabian expert said on Thursday.

"The sheer volume of unexpected events in 2016 overwhelming for the sheer twists and turns," former Chief Executive of Saudi oil major Aramco, Abdallah S. Jum'ah, said, while addressing the opening session of the World Energy Policy Summit here.

"Two aspects of the global geoeconomic environment are particularly striking. First, the high degree of uncertainty on the trajectory of recent developments," he said, referring to the difficulty in predicting whether policies and events during 2016 would have implications that are transitory or long-term.

"At the same time, significant developments at the national and regional levels, particularly in energy development, show how interdependent the world is," he added, giving the example of the volatility in global oil prices witnessed in 2016.

Highlighting the anti-globalising trends during last year that have increased the levels of uncertainty, Jum'ah cited the British vote to exit the EU (Brexit), the election of Donald Trump as US President with his declared intent to take America out of the UN talks on climate change, as well as the continuing war in Syria.

"The combination of uncertainty unleashed by recent developments along with global interconnectivity means that we are living through turbulent times," the Saudi expert said.

--IANS

bc/sm/vm

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In one of the biggest heists in Gurugram, more than 30 kg of gold was looted from a gold finance company by over half-a-dozen robbers on Thursday, police said.

The criminals stabbed two security guards when they offered resistance.

Seven to eight robbers struck at the Money Gold Rathnam firm. "Two masked men entered it and sprayed some paint on the CCTV cameras," a police officer told IANS.

Minutes later, five to six armed men with their faces covered barged in, cut off the wires of telephones and CCTV cameras and took the employees hostage. They escaped with over 30 kg gold.

Police put up barricades in the city in a bid to catch the criminals.

--IANS

pradeep/nir/mr

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Repeated terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, especially suicide bombings in capital Kabul, have angered citizens with many of them slamming the government over its failure to check militant activities, a media report said on Thursday.

In the latest terror attack, which occurred on Tuesday within the premises of the Supreme Court here, at least 20 people, all civilians, were killed and over 40 others injured.

"Condemning terrorist attacks after the killing of so many innocent people by militants is not the remedy," Kabul resident Mohammad Haroon told Xinhua news agency on Thursday.

Haroon believes that awarding "exemplary punishment, including publicly hanging the arrested terrorists" by government, can help to check terrorist incursion.

Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, the United Nations, the US, European Union, and several more nations and international agencies have termed the attack on the Afghan Supreme court as a "cowardly terrorist act" and condemned it in the strongest terms.

"Terrorists always kill people by conducting suicide bombings, roadside bombing and shooting but the government just condemns it; while hundreds of terrorists affiliated with the Taliban, Haqqani network, Al Qaeda and Islamic State groups have been held in prisons," another angry citizen said.

"The government should publicly execute the terrorists arrested by security forces instead of keeping them in jail."

Joining the demand for awarding capital punishment to terrorists, Tamim, 24, who was injured in Tuesday's attack, called upon the government to "execute all the arrested terrorists".

--IANS

ksk/dg

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Unable to rob an ATM, miscreants set the machine on fire in Haryana's Rohtak town on Thursday, police said.

The State Bank of India (SBI) ATM in Gandhi Camp area was targetted by robbers, who held the guard hostage and tried to break into the it.

"Having failed to take the money out, the thieves set it on fire in frustration," police officials said.

--IANS

js/ksk

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Bahrain is willing to increase its ties with Kerala in various sectors, Bahrain's Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa informed visiting Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

A statement issued by the office of Vijayan on Thursday night said that the Chief Minister also met with Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa who informed Vijayan that the Gulf nation has close ties with Malayalees.

The Crown Prince conveyed that they wish to have closer ties in sectors like culture, education, IT and health and for that a special fund would be set up.

Vijayan mooted the idea of setting up a bi-lateral Chamber of Commerce and also extended an invite to the rulers of the island nation to visit Kerala.

Vijayan reached Bahrain on Wednesday and was accompanied by Keralite businessmen M.A. Yusuf Ali and Ravi Pillai besides his special secretary and senior bureaucrat Nalini Netto amongst others during the meeting.

This was Vijayan's first visit to Bahrain after taking over as Chief Minister last May.

He is accompanied by his wife also.

--IANS

sg/rn

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Second Missionary Baptist Church, 2305 E. Third St., celebrates the 31st Black History Observance on Saturday at 6 p.m. in the multi-purpose room.

"This promises to be an inspirational, informative, and heart-warming celebration featuring some of our brightest youth sharing their perspective on the national and local theme: The Crisis in Black Education, A Legacy of Strength; A Future of Hope.

"We anticipate another sell-out attendance sharing in a soulful meal by Hudgins Catering, music by Mrs. Barbara Craigmiles of Olivet Baptist Church, and a panel of 10 teens speaking on 10 selected values in response to the educational crisis, as narrated by Minister Ronald Harris, chairman of the sponsoring group, Club #11 Ministry of Second. Of additional interest is the few dozen heritage-based door prizes awarded throughout the evening," organizers said.

The community is invited to attend. For more information, call the church at 423-624-9097. Dr. Ernest L. Reid, Jr. is the pastor.
Two days after Beijing again blocked the move to ban Jaish-e-Mohamed (JeM) Chief in the UN, India on Thursday hoped that China would eventually come around to accepting the view that it was not a bilateral issue with Pakistan but a matter of global terrorism.

"We don't view this as a bilateral matter between India and Pakistan but as an issue of global counter-terrorism. We hope that eventually, China will also come around to accepting this view," said Vikas Swarup, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson.

"This proposal was not moved by India but by three permanent members of the UN Security Council  the US, UK and France. It is our understanding that this was a classic counter-terrorism proposal meant to proscribe a dreaded terrorist leader whose organisation, the Jaish-e-Mohammad, has already been proscribed by the UN 1267 Committee," Swarup said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang on Wednesday, defended the block, saying "The purpose for China to place the technical hold is to allow enough time for discussion among relevant parties to reach a tenable decision widely accepted by the international community."

China blocked the US' move at the UN to have Pakistani militant declared as an international terrorist under the 1267 Committee of the Security Council.

Last year, China rejected thrice India's resolution to add Masood to the UN list of international terrorists.
Campaigning for the 73 assembly segments that go to polls in the first phase of the crucial Uttar Pradesh assembly elections on February 11 came to an end on Thursday evening.

All political parties threw in their best on the last day of canvassing to rally support for their respective candidates.

The star campaigners on Thursday included Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, state Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, his MP wife Dimple Yadav, Rajya Sabha member of the Samajwadi party Jaya Bachchan, Gorakhpur MP Mahant Yogi Adityanath, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, cine actress Naghma and former state minister and close Mayawati aide Naseemuddin Siddiqui.

Police officials, meanwhile, have braced themselves for the polls in the western Uttar Pradesh, which an official conceded would be tough.

A few incidents of poll violence, including an attack on BSP candidate and two murders, have already cast an ominous shadow on elections in the region as the place is already a communal tinderbox.

The Election Commission has said all preparations are in place for the elections. Chief Election Commissioner Naseem Zaidi has assured of best arrangements for the crucial phase of polling.

About 2.57 crore voters, including 1.17 crore women, will exercise their franchise in the first phase. Of the 2.57 crore eligible voters, over 24 lakh are in the age group of 18-19.

BJP leaders said they were confident of sweeping the region as they did in the Lok Sabha polls in 2014.

In the 2012 assembly elections, the Samajwadi Party and the BSP bagged 24 seats each. The BJP won only 11, RLD got 9 and the Congress secured 5 seats. This time, The Congress has allied with the SP.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Chief Election Commissioner Naseem Zaidi on Thursday assured full security to the people who migrated from Kairana in western Uttar Pradesh and were interested to cast votes in the February 11 assembly poll.

Talking to reporters in the state capital, the CEC also said that district magistrates and police chiefs have already been directed by the poll panel to ensure full security to such people.

Zaidi was in the state capital to review the preparations for the seven phase poll in Uttar Pradesh. The first phase of polling is scheduled in western UP districts on Saturday.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been raking up the issue of migration of Hindu families from Kairana and party chief Amit Shah has on many occasions made it amply clear that for his party, security and safety of such migrants remained a poll issue.

The Allahabad High Court has also recently asked officials to ensure the safety and security of people in this communally sensitive areas.

When asked about the repeated demands of the BJP to remove the state DGP Javeed Ahmad and the chief secretary Rahul Bhatnagar on charges of being very close to the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP), Zaidi said the poll panel was seized of the matter and action would be taken on the issue at an appropriate time.

--IANS

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The censor board has refused to clear a feature film based on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's development agenda. One of the grounds cited is the ongoing assembly elections in five states.

The producer of the medium-budget film, "Modi ka Gaon", Suresh Jha, who has co-directed it with Tushar A. Goel, is crying foul and charged the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) with discriminating against a movie due for release on Friday.

"Censor board officials informed us they found the film objectionable on three main counts. There is no way I can release it tomorrow (Friday). So I am considering moving the court," Jha told IANS.

"They have stipulated conditions which are so difficult to comply with that I might as well forget about releasing the film.

"The golden solution: 'Get a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and Election Commission... I think this must be the first time the PMO or EC are expected to preview a film and clear it before the CBFC certifies it," Jha said.

The CBFC said: "Submit NOC from PMO regarding Prime Minister's portrayal/references through a character in the film resembles... (The film portrays development plans, references to Pakistan's Uri attack, news and speeches related to the PM)."

It has also sought NOC from the EC "as elections are going on in various parts of the country and the film can be treated as promotional material for political campaigns".

The board also orally raised the issue of casting Vikas Mahante as Modi -- the CBFC has objected to the look-alike actor playing the title role, said Jha.

"The film is about Modiji's development agenda and his vision for transforming the country... How can I possibly portray all this with somebody who does not resemble him? If film-makers have to get clearances from other bodies, then what is the need for CBFC?" Jha asked.

He surmised that the CBFC is worried that the Modi look-alike might stoke a fresh row, with the opposition parties targeting the censor board for permitting its release.

Mahante's uncanny resemblance to Modi has made him a crowd puller in his own right and earned him the sobriquet "Modi from Mumbai".

The CBFC has also taken umbrage at a prominent side-character, "Pappu Bihari", in the film, saying the name should be deleted from the movie, including the songs.

Jha's much-anticipated 135-minute feature film completed shooting in December. He applied for CBFC certification in January.

Emphasising that the film was "not a biopic", he said he was planning a mega premiere with the Prime Minister himself.

The film was extensively shot in Mumbai, Patna and Darbhanga, detailing Modi's aim of making all rural and urban centres 'Smart Villages' or 'Smart Cities'.

--IANS

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan's non-profit medical research organisation has announced it will be investing $50 million in its first class of 47 disease investigators in an endeavour to help cure all diseases in our children's lifetime.

The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub (CZ Biohub), which aims to create a "planet without disease", funded 47 scientists, technologists and engineers working at University of Stanford, University of California - San Francisco (UCSF) and University of Berkeley -- which includes nearly 50 per cent women and 15 per cent underrepresented minorities.

"We're investing $50 million in this first class of investigators. This programme will provide five years of funding to some of the most innovative researchers," Zuckerberg was quoted as saying in a Facebook post on Wednesday.

"This first group includes a Stanford data scientist working to analyze massive quantities of genomic data, a doctor from UCSF looking at how malaria spreads, an engineer from Berkeley who is designing tools to better understand human biology, including a miniature foldable microscope, and more," Zuckerberg added.

Each of the CZ Biohub researcher will receive a five-year appointment and up to $1.5 million in funding to conduct life science research in their respective areas of expertise.

"CZ Biohub investigators share our vision of a planet without disease," said Joseph DeRisi, co-president of CZ Biohub and Professor at UC San Francisco.

"CZ Biohub Investigators will challenge traditional thinking in pursuit of radical discoveries that will make even the most stubborn and deadly diseases treatable," DeRisi noted.

--IANS

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The Congress on Thursday threatened to boycott Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the remaining part of the parliament Budget session if he didn't withdraw his "unacceptable" remarks against his predecessor Manmohan Singh that "only Doctor Sahab knows the art of bathing with raincoat on".

"We will boycott the Prime Mminister when he comes to the house. We will not listen to him. But, we will not assault the dignity of the office of the PM. At the same time, we will continue to protest," Anand Sharma, Deputy Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, told the media here.

Modi on Wednesday took the dig at Manmohan Singh, raking up the his speech during the winter session when he described the government's demonetisation move as a "monumental mismanagement" that might shave at least two per cent off India's economic growth rate.

Modi, alluding to Manmohan Singh's clean reputation while heading a "scam-riddled" UPA government, said in the Rajya Sabha, "There is a lot for us politicians to learn... Only Doctor Sahab knows the art of bathing wearing a raincoat."

The remark sparked ruckus in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, with Congress lawmakers staging a walkout during the Modi's speech and seeking apology from the Prime Minister.

"We know that he is an obdurate person. The PM is intolerant to criticism. He lives in denial. We have an arrogant person who occupies the chair of the PM. He has demeaned his office repeatedly by his choice of words and language," Sharma said.

"We have been urging the PM to desist from doing this. But he relishes using foul languages and insulting the Opposition. He has used language which is unacceptable in political debates. He has dragged the political debates to unacceptable depths."

--IANS

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A dreaded gangster, who was involved in an attack on Indian Mujahideen member Yaseen Bhatkal inside the Tihar Jail and other crimes of murder, attempt to murder, and arms trade, has been arrested, the Delhi Police said on Thursday.

According to police, Harsimaran, a resident of East Shalimar bagh, was carrying a reward of Rs 20,000 on his head. He was involved in 15 cases, including two murders in Burari and Mandir Marg areas here.

He was arrested on Wednesday night by a police team as he came to meet one of his associates in Shalimar Bagh area, a police officer said.

"Harsimaran raised his own gang and his gang members used to attack those not conceding to his extortion demands. He used to target property dealers and builders for extortion," Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Milind Mahadeo Dumbere said.

"He even picked up a fight with Indian Mujahideen member Yaseen Bhatkal to establish his hegemony inside the jail," he said.

"The accused and his accomplices, after his release from Tihar Jail on September 16, 2016, visited the Shamilar Bagh area residence of a builder, who did not pay up Rs 15 lakh extortion money. They terrorised the family and created a ruckus in the locality," Dumbere said.

Harsimaran had been on the run since, carrying a reward of Rs 20,000 on his head, the police said.

--IANS

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Rome, Feb 9 (IANS/AKI) Germany on Wednesday extradited to Italy an Eritrean accused of belonging to a people-trafficking gang that smuggled hundreds of people from Africa to Europe across the Mediterranean.

Fitiwi Negash arrived at Rome's Fiumicino airport under police guard aboard a flight from the German city of Frankfurt.

He was on an Interpol list of "most wanted" trafficking suspects and was among 24 Etritrean, Ethiopians, Ivoirians and Guineans targeted in April 2015 by a probe spearheaded by prosecutors in Palermo.

Negash played a key role in the trafficking gang's Italian operations and organised the transfer of migrants to various northern European countries after they arrived by boat in Sicily from North Africa, investigators said.

The alleged gang had bases in the Sicilian provinces of Agrigento and Catania as well as in the capital Rome and the northern city of Milan.

From Italy, the gang trafficked migrants on to Germany, Norway, Sweden and other countries, police said.

The gang organised the migrants' entire journeys from their villages to the Libyan coast and had affiliates in other European countries as well as in several African countries, according to investigators.

--IANS/AKI

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Former Prime Minster Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo was elected the new president of Somalia after the incumbent Hassan Sheikh Mohamud conceded his defeat after two rounds of voting.

Farmajo garnered 184 votes against his closest contender Mohamud who got 97 votes in the second round to emerge as winner. The third candidate, former president Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, got 45 votes, Xinhua news agency reported.

Farmajo, a former prime minister in Somalia's transitional federal government between 2009 and 2010, thanked the electoral teams and organisers of the election for the success of the process.

The former Prime Minister and university professor fought off a tough fight which featured 21 candidates vying for the next occupant of Villa Somalia in the next four years.

Farmajo who holds a US passport got his Master's degree in political science from the State University of New York at Buffalo and subsequently worked in New York State, including at the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority, the Erie County Division of Equal Employment Opportunity, and the New York State Department of Transportation.

He was appointed Prime Minister in 2009 by then President Ahmed to succeed current Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, who resigned from his post following a dispute.

--IANS

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Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) founder S. Ramadoss on Thursday urged Tamil Nadu Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao to "rescue" the AIADMK legislators housed in resorts and get their views individually on the party's chief ministerial candidate.

In a statement here, Ramadoss said when Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam can be forced to resign from his post, it is not difficult to pressurise ordinary legislator to extend support to AIADMK General Secretary V.K. Sasikala.

On Tuesday night, Panneerselvam told the media that he was forced to resign and propose Sasikala's name for the post of Leader of the AIADMK Legislature Party.

Ramadoss said Rao should take immediate action to "free the AIADMK legislators from their captivity".

Rao should also speak to the legislators individually and ascertain their views, and only after that he should decide whom to call to form the next government in the state, Ramadoss said.

Over 120 legislators belonging to the AIADMK have been ferried to a beach resort near here by the Sasikala camp as a measure to "protect" them from being poached by the rival camp led by Panneerselvam.

Their cell phones have been reportedly taken away and jammers installed so they cannot speak by telephones to anybody outside.

--IANS

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Townsend Atelier is offering five different one-week sessions for ages six through 16. Each session is thoughtfully designed and taught by our professional artists and art educators.

"Age appropriate, educational, and fun, each camp is chocked full of a variety of art techniques and materials ranging from painting to drawing, to sculpture to printmaking, and more. Our instructors include: Kristin Kendall, Jas Milam, and Carrie Pendergrass," officials said.



Campers will need to bring their own lunch each day.

All materials are included in the camp fee. Each session is from 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Monday through Friday, and held at Townsend Ateliers facility in the Arts Building, 301 East 11th St. in downtown Chattanooga. Sign up for one week or for more.To register, call 423-266-2712 or register on-line at www.townsendatelier.com SESSION I | ART-VENTURES: WET & DRYJune 12-16ages 6, 7, 8 yearsInstructors: Jas Milam and Kristin KendallCost: $250Some artists work with wet materials, some work with dry, and some go back and forth between the two. See where your favorite work zone is as you experiment with both. Each day, young artists will embark upon a different art-venture by creating both 2D and 3D artworks using tempera paint, watercolor, glue, sand, pencils, pastels or yarn. Young artists will have a nice portfolio of art to take home at the end of the week.SESSION II | ART HISTORY ALIVE!June 19-22 (M-Th)ages 9-12instructors: Kristin Kendall and Carrie PendergrassCost: $ 200Art history comes to life! Young artists will travel back in time and will learn interesting facts about famous artworks, artists, techniques, and periods in art from Baroque to Modern. Each day, they will create a different work of art using the style and media from different periods in art history . Using variety of techniques in drawing, painting, and printmaking, campers will have a nice portfolio of art to take home at the end of this four-day camp.SESSION III | MINI MASTERPIECESJune 26-30 (M-F)ages 6, 7, 8 yearsinstructors: Jas Milam and Kristin KendallCost: $250Masterpieces come in all shapes, sizes, and materials. Young artists will learn about the works of famous artists like Robert Motherwell, Louise Nevelson, Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Faith Ringgold, and more, to create their own mini-masterpiece using the styles and materials of these master artists. Painting, sculpture, drawing and collage will all be explored. Campers will have a nice portfolio to take home at the end of the week.SESSION IV | ART SCHOOL FOR A WEEKJuly 10-14 (M-F)ages 13-16 yearsinstructors: Carrie Pendergrass & Kristin KendallCost: $250Designed just for teens, young artists will experience the life of a student in art school, without the pressures of exams and grades! Students will study the application of multiple mediums including pencil, charcoal, clay, printmaking, acrylic, and oil paint. Historic and present day artists will be examined, and drawing from life and photos will be practiced. Students will gain valuable information about making art --from conception to creation, to the final steps of pricing and exhibition. At the end of the week, students will exhibit their works in an exhibition at Townsend Atelier.SESSION V | THE ORIGINAL SELFIEJuly 17-21 (M-F)ages 9-12instructors: Carrie Pendergrass & Kristin KendallCost: $250Throughout history, the self-portrait has been a favorite subject matter for artists. There is no better way to learn to draw faces than starting with yourself! Young artists will learn simple techniques and tricks of the trade to create successful self-portraits in a variety of media. Drawing from photos and from life, they will gain a solid understanding of themselves and of the human face. Expect to use your favorite mediums this week, learn creative ways to make your art stand out from the rest, and take home multiple pieces of which you can be proud.
A guilty verdict against Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy was upheld on Thursday for accusing a senior official of seeking to boost Prime Minister Hun Sen's Facebook popularity by buying fake "likes".

The Appeal Court upheld the Phnom Penh Municipal Court (PPMC)'s verdict against Sam Rainsy made on November 8, 2016, according to Presiding Judge Samrith Sophal.

Sam Sokong, the defence lawyer for Rainsy, said that the ruling was "unacceptable" and would file an appeal to the Supreme Court, Xinhua news agency reported.

The PPMC found Rainsy guilty for alleging that the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP)'s website administrator Som Soeun sought to inflate Hun Sen's Facebook popularity by buying "likes" originating in India and the Philippines.

The court ordered him to pay a fine of $2,500 in addition to $3,750 in compensation to Som Soeun.

Hun Sen publicly denied that he bought "likes" on his Facebook page.

The Prime Minister launched his Facebook page in September 2015 and has over 6.84 million likes, while Rainsy's page has only 3.66 million likes.

Rainsy, president of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, has been living in self-imposed exile in France since November 2015 to avoid a two-year prison sentence in a defamation case brought by Deputy Prime Minister Hor Namhong.

In December 2016, the PPMC also sentenced, in absentia, him to another five years in prison for conspiring to incite chaos in the country through posting fake documents on his Facebook page.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Gujarat Patidar leader Hardik Patel on Thursday reiterated that he had not joined any political party and would prefer to remain the face of the Patel community's agitation for reservation in government jobs and educational institutions under the OBC quota.

He said this referring to the news reports quoting Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray in Mumbai that Patel would be the face of Shiv Sena campaign in Gujarat assembly elections to be held later this year.

"I had gone to visit 'Matoshree' (residence of the Thackerays) in response to the invitation I was extended. I am too young to contest elections and, in any case, my only aim is to get benefit of reservation for my community," Hardik, 23, told reporters here.

He clarified he has no plans to join the Shiv Sena.

He was in Surat to mark attendance at the Crime Branch in keeping with his bail conditions in the sedition cases against him.

Patel was also in town to meet the injured member of his Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) Vijay Mangukia, who was beaten up for throwing ink at newly appointed Bharatiya Janata Party Yuva Manch (BJYM) leader Rutvij Patel recently.

Rutvij Patel was holding a road show in Surat about 10 days ago as a show of strength when he was showered with eggs, tomatoes, water pouches, itching powder and ink by unidentified miscreants.

Mangukia, who allegedly threw ink at him, was caught by BJYM workers and reportedly thrashed by them.

The PAAS had threatened to lay a siege to the police station on Thursday to exert pressure on the local police to arrest the NJP youth wing volunteers. The police said two persons have already been arrested in the case.

--IANS

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Vatican City, Feb 9 (IANS/AKI) The Pope on Wednesday urged prayers for "the conversion of hearts" of human traffickers, warning that they must answer to God for their crimes.

"Those who traffic human beings are ultimately accountable to God. Let us pray for the conversion of hearts," Francis tweeted.

His nine-language @pontifex account on Twitter has over 30 million followers.

--IANS/AKI

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GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd. (GHIAL), which operates the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) here, has won the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) Chairman's Order of Merit for its focus on environmental sustainability.

RGIA also received the honour for becoming the first airport in Asia Pacific in its category to become carbon neutral.

GHIAL received the award during the CAPA 12th Annual India Aviation Summit held in Mumbai on Wednesday, GHIAL said in a statement here on Thursday.

CAPA India is a leading specialist aviation consulting and research practice in South Asia, with the region's largest team of analysts and a portfolio of more than 125 advisory and research projects.

"We see this recognition by CAPA as a big endorsement of our focus on these critical aspects of our business. Recently, Level3+ Neutrality status was awarded to Hyderabad Airport by Airports Council International (ACI) under its Airport Carbon Accreditation program, which is a significant achievement for us," said G.K. Kishore, CEO, GHIAL.

"CAPA Award is a testimony to our sustained efforts towards environment protection through proactive energy conservation measures, generation of renewable energy (Solar), carbon sinking through extensive greenbelt and various other environment protection measures with the active support of the airport's stakeholders," he said.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Imam Bukhari, the Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid in Delhi, on Thursday appealed to his followers in the community to vote against the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, beginning February 11.

Addressing a press conference here, Bukhari said he would expect the Muslim community to vote for the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

He said the BSP had always maintained law and order in the state and fulfilled its promises towards the community.

Blaming the Akhilesh Yadav-led SP government for the troubles and insecurity among Muslims in the state, Bukhari also accused the Samajwadi Party of going back on its 2012 electoral promise of reservations for Muslims.

"I had met both Mulayam Singh Yadav and Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav over the issue but they did not pay heed to our demands," he said.

"Mulayam told Akhilesh to look into the matter but he did not listen," Bukhari added.

Taking a dig at the strained relations between the father and the son, Bukhari asked how can a person do justice to the state when he had humiliated his own father.

The development comes in stark contrast to 2012, when just before the elections to the state assembly, Bukhari along with Mulayam Singh Yadav had held a joint presser in a five-star hotel in Lucknow, wherein the Jama Masjid Imam had thrown his lot behind the SP and had asked Muslims to vote en masse for the SP.

--IANS

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The Ministry of External Affairs on Thursday rejected the annual report of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and questioned its credibility.

"We have rejected the US Commission on International Religious Freedom's annual reports in the past as well. We have serious doubts on their credibility," said Vikas Swarup, the official spokesperson of the ministry.

"The government does not see the locus standi of a foreign entity like USCIRF to pronounce on the state of Indian citizens' constitutionally protected rights. We take no cognizance of their report," he added.

The report, titled "Constitutional and Legal Challenges Faced by Religious Minorities in India" and sponsored by the USCIRF, says the religious minority communities and the Dalits face discrimination and persecution in India where hate crimes, social boycotts and forced conversion have escalated dramatically since 2014.

The report has been authored by Iqtidat Karamat Cheema, who is Director for the UK-based Institute for Leadership and Community Development.

The report says that there are constitutional provisions and state and national laws in India that do not comply with international standards of freedom of or belief, including Article 18 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights and Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

India should also not impose Hindu personal status laws on Sikh, Buddhist and Jain communities, but instead provide them with a provision of personal status laws as per their distinct religious beliefs and practices, the report says.

--IANS

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India and the US agreed to maintain the pace and momentum of their partnership, particularly their defence ties, after Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis spoke on the phone with his Indian counterpart Manohar Parrikar, a Pentagon spokesman said.

Spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said it was the "first conversation" between Mattis and Parrikar.

"Secretary Mattis committed to build upon the tremendous progress in bilateral defense cooperation made in recent years, underscoring the strategic importance of the US-India relationship and India's role in advancing global peace and security," Davis said.

Mattis and Parrikar, he said, also "affirmed their commitment to sustain the momentum on key bilateral defense efforts to include the Defense Technology and Trade Initiative".

--IANS

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India and the US have agreed to maintain the pace and momentum of their partnership, particularly in the defence ties, after US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis spoke over phone with Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, American and Indian officials said on Thursday.

Spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said it was the "first conversation" between Mattis and Parrikar.

"Secretary Mattis committed to build upon the tremendous progress in bilateral defence cooperation made in recent years, underscoring the strategic importance of the US-India relationship and India's role in advancing global peace and security," Davis said after the two leaders spoke on Wednesday.

Mattis and Parrikar, Davis said, also "affirmed their commitment to sustain the momentum on key bilateral defence efforts to include the Defence Technology and Trade Initiative".

The Defence Ministry in a statement in Delhi said the two leaders "expressed satisfaction at the progress in defence cooperation between India and the United States, especially in recent years and noted its significance in the regional and global context".

It said Mattis and Parrikar "emphasised the special significance and high priority placed by both countries to the relationship, and resolved to work together to further consolidate and expand this partnership in the future".

--IANS

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Eminent Indian jurist B.N. Srikrishna has urged Trinidad and Tobago to fully adopt the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as its final court of appeal rather than the Privy Council in London.

'What are you waiting for,' asked Justice Srikrishna, a retired judge of the Supreme Court, at a symposium hosted by the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago that was aimed at encouraging the government to suitably amend the Constitution to elevate the CCJ as the final court of appeal.

Noting that India had replaced the Privy Council as its final court of appeal by the Federal Court of India -- now the Supreme Court of India -- just two years after gaining independence from Britain in 1947, Justice Srikrishna asked: 'Why should a sovereign state allow its former master to be the final arbitrator?'

For several years now, there have been strong calls for the government of Trinidad and Tobago to disqualify itself from the Privy Council. This, however, requires consensus in parliament, which is not forthcoming.

Justice Srikrishna, then a relatively junior judge of the Bombay High Court, had come into the limelight when a panel headed by him painsakingly probed the 1993 serial blasts that rocked the city.

On his retirement from the Supreme Court in 2006, he headed the Sixth Pay Commission that revised the salaries and allowances of government servants, headed the probe into the violent incidents in the Madras High Court in 2009 and chaired a committee that studied the feasibility of carving a separate state of Telangana from Andhra Pradesh.

Speaking at the event, Jamaica-born Judge Patrick Robinson, now a member of the International Court of Justice at The Hague, said: 'Our colonial legacy has brainwashed us to believe we are not good. But the CCJ is as good as or better, and can fulfil all the needs of the region. The Privy Council must be weary of people from the Commonwealth.'

Justice Robinson said that the Caribbean people that should not doubt 'the greatness of our region'.

'Why would anyone doubt that a region has produced Hugh Wooding, Norman Manley, Telford Georges, three Nobel laureates -- Arthur Lewis for economics, Derek Walcott and Vidia Naipaul for literature; Elsa Goveia, CLR James, Bob Marley, Usain Bolt and Trinidad Carnival -- why would anyone doubt that a region with such a tradition of culture and greatness could produce a final appellate body that meets at the highest international standards of competence, independence and impartiality,' he asked.

Judge Robinson said that the CCJ was efficient in determining matters before it, pointing out that of 192 matters filed, 180 of them had been disposed of within one year.

He noted its accessibility to Caribbean citizens, the majority of whom cannot afford the 5,000 mile trip to the Privy Council which is, 'utilised by those who are relatively well off and those accused of murder who receive pro bono representation from English lawyers'.

The Jamaican continued that the best way to express sovereignty is through identity and self image.

'By far, the worst relic of enslavement, indentureship and colonialism is that they have left Caribbean people with a muddled sense of identity. We must not wait for others to liberate us from this complex. Marcus Garvey, a Pan African freedom fighter was right when he said, 'None but ourselves can free our minds'.'

'If the Privy Council has served Trinidad and Tobago well, the CCJ will serve it better,' Judge Robinson quipped.

Out of a population of 1.3 million in the country, some 44 per cent are of East Indian extraction, whose forefathers were sourced from India (principally from what is now Uttar Pradesh and Bihar between 1845 and 1917) to work on enhancing the agricultural capacity of the then colonial country.

(Paras Ramoutar can be contacted at paras_ramautar@yahoo.com)

--IANS

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The Bombay High Court on Thursday declined a plea for setting up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the death of Bollywood actress Jiah Khan.

The plea was filed by Jiah's mother, Rabia Khan, a British national, who had sought formation of an SIT to probe the causes leading to the death of her daughter on June 3, 2013.

Claiming that her US citizen daughter was murdered, Khan has also contested the investigators' version that Jiah allegedly committed suicide by hanging at her home in Sagar Sangeet Apartments in the posh Juhu area that evening.

A division bench comprising Justice Ranjit More and Justice Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi ruled that since the matter is already being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) there was no need to interfere.

Dismissing Khan's plea, the judges also disallowed an intervention application filed by actor Sooraj Pancholi seeking that he be heard as the trial court is yet to frame charges on the basis of the CBI chargesheet.

Initially, Mumbai Police had investigated the sensational case of the celebrity which was later transferred to the CBI.

Jiah, 25, left behind a note allegedly pointing a finger at Pancholi, her then boyfriend and son of actor-couple Aditya Pancholi and Zarina Wahab.

Later, Mumbai police had arrested Sooraj Pancholi on charges of 'abetment to (Jiah's) suicide' and he was later granted bail.

The CBI had concurred with Mumbai police that Jiah's death was a suicide and not a murder.

Khan had earlier moved the Supreme Court with a similar plea (seeking an SIT) alleging Pancholi was behind Jiah's death, but she was directed to approach the Bombay High Court.

At a previous hearing, Khan's counsel had submitted pictures of Jiah's body, the autopsy report and another report by experts in Britain who had stated the nature of injuries on the victim's body suggested the possibility of homicide.

Thursday's high court order is likely to pave the way for the trial to start in the lower court on the basis of the CBI chargesheet.

--IANS

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Tickets are now on sale for Songbirds Guitar Museum, the worlds largest private collection of rare, vintage guitars located in Chattanooga. The family-friendly, guitar-oriented, pop culture museum is located on the campus of the world famous Chattanooga Choo Choo.Museum Curator David Davidson says, The guitars in this collection are some of the finest in the world and many have never been seen in this format before. There is something here for everyone, from rock n roll to country to blues to jazz.Were looking forward to sharing it all with music lovers everywhere.After a sneak preview, iconic guitarist and top blues artist Joe Bonamassa posted to social media. Had a great day at The Songbird Guitar Museum in Chattanooga. Thank you fellas for the advance tour. It is simply the greatest guitar collection I have ever seen.Grammy-winning musician Vince Gill will curate select cases in the museum and appear in a campaign to introduce the museum to guitar enthusiasts and visitors to Chattanooga. He will welcome visitors via a giant LED screen at the entrance of the museum. Mr. Gill was named ambassador for Songbirds Guitar Museum in December.General admission tickets are $18.95 for adults, $11.95 for children ages five-12, and $15.95 for students (13+), seniors (65+) and military with a valid ID. Children four and under are free. Family packs are available. Visit www.SongbirdsGuitars.com to purchase tickets.Visitors may upgrade to an All Access pass to see the collections best and most valuable instruments  some as valuable as one million dollars. This personalized guided tour with a Songbirds Guitar Museum expert allows visitors to ask specific questions about the guitars, their manufacturers, and their previous owners, many of whom are well-known celebrities. The personalized All Access upgrade tour is available for an additional $19.95 per person.Songbirds Guitar Museum is housed in a 7500-square foot section of the historic Terminal Station in downtown Chattanooga. Famous for its role in transporting musicians to their performance destinations throughout the South in the early 20th century, the building has been restored and renovated to remain true to the original time period.
The Lok Sabha on Thursday was adjourned till March 9, marking the end of the first half of the Budget Session.

The budget session began on January 31 with President Pranab Mukherjee addressing the joint sitting of Parliament.

The General Budget, merged with Railway Budget for the first time in the history of independent India, was presented on February 1.

--IANS

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The first half of the Budget session ended on Thursday with the Lok Sabha working more than the allocated time, and the Rajya Sabha trailing just short of 100 percent. Both the houses witnessed protests over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's comments on his predecessor Manmohan Singh.

In the session that started with an address by President Pranab Mukherjee to a joint sitting of both houses, the Lok Sabha worked around 113 per cent of its allocated time, while the Rajya Sabha trailed -- working 97 per cent of the time decided.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar on Thursday also thanked the opposition parties for the cooperation.

The last day of the session before it went into near a month-long break saw protests from the Congress over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "bathing with a raincoat" jibe on his predecessor Manmohan Singh.

Modi on Wednesday said former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh knew the "art of bathing wearing a raincoat", and triggered an uproar in the Rajya Sabha.

The Congress had staged a walkout from the upper house following the comment, and staged protests in both houses on Thursday.

On Thursday, the Lok Sabha saw a brief adjournment during the question hour as Congress members raised the issue. In the zero hour, the lower house witnessed protests again but Speaker Sumitra Mahajan refused to allow the issue to be raised as it was related to the Rajya Sabha.

Congress, Nationalist Congress Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal members then staged a walkout from the lower house.

The Rajya Sabha meanwhile lost the whole of its proceedings in the first half, witnessing its first adjournment soon after it met at 11 a.m. till 12 noon, and then again when Chairman M. Hamid Ansari adjourned the house till 2 p.m.

The Upper House however took up a discussion on the general budget after that.

The session also saw opposition members protest demanding a probe in the death of E. Ahamed, president of the Muslim league and former Union Minister who had a heart attack in the central hall of Parliament right after the address of President Pranab Mukherjee to a joint sitting of both houses.

Congress members want a probe into Ahamed's death by a parliamentary panel. Trinamool Congress members meanwhile protested over alleged misuse of CBI against their party members in the two houses.

A debate on a Motion of Thanks to the President's address remained the highlight with both government and opposition using it as an opportunity to discuss demonetisation among other issues.

The opposition parties came together targeting the government over the demonetisation deaths. However, the issue did not find a mention in Prime Minister's reply to the debate in either of the houses.

The Lok Sabha on Thursday also concluded the debate on the general budget, which remains incomplete in the upper house.

Replying to the debate, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley stressed that cash in the economy has led to rise of corruption, justifying demonetisation.

"We were a high cash economy and this economy leads to tax evasion, corruption and a parallel economy. If you are a cashless society, crimes will still take place, but cash is the biggest facilitator of crime," the Minister said.

All together five bills were introduced in Lok Sabha - The Finance Bill, The Payment of Wages (Amendment) Bill 2017, The Specified Bank Notes (Cessation of Liabilities) Bill, 2017, The Indian Institutes of Management bill 2017, and The Repealing and Amending Bill, 2017.

Both houses passed The Payment of Wages (Amendment) Bill 2017 for cashless transfer of salaries.

The Specified Bank Notes (Cessation of Liabilities) Bill, 2017, or the demonetisation bill which formally make the banning of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes a law, was passed only in the Lok Sabha.

However, being a money bill, Rajya Sabha's approval would not be required.

Under Article 109(5), if Rajya Sabha fails to return a money bill to Lok Sabha within 14 days, it is deemed to have been passed anyway.

The second half of the Budget session, which will start on March 9 and conclude on April 12, will see the Finance bill being passed and also discussions on the Demands for Grant for different ministries.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said the Lok Sabha will discuss Railway, Defence, Coal and Agriculture ministries, while the Rajya Sabha will discuss Information and Broadcasting, Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions ministry, which comes under the Prime Minister, Railways and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises ministries.
Taking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his "bathing with raincoat" jibe, Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi said the remarks directed at former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh were an insult to the whole nation.

Addressing a rally here in the poll-bound state, Gandhi said Modi has a penchant for grabbing headlines and indulged in "laughter shows" inside and outside Parliament.

"Our Prime Minister Modi has this weakness of grabbing headlines. The day he isn't in the news, he doesn't get proper sleep. To get into headlines, be it inside Parliament or outside, he creates this laughter show of sorts," said Gandhi.

Modi on Wednesday said Manmohan Singh knew the "art of bathing wearing a raincoat", creating an uproar in Parliament with protests continuing on Thursday. Taking strong umbrage the Congress has demanded an apology from the Prime Minister.

"Modi is the first Prime Minister who can't speak with respect to his predecessors.

"Manmohan Singh worked as the Prime Minister for a decade. Modi's remarks are not a personal insult rather an insult to the entire nation because it was the people of this country who elected Manmohan Singh as their Prime Minister," said Gandhi.

The Congress leader also flayed Modi over demonetisation.

"Ninety-four percent of the black money is in real estate, bullion and in foreign banks. Modi, instead chose to attack cash. The cash attacked is not of the rich corporates and business houses, but of the masses, farmers, daily wagers.

"In the name of fighting corruption he put the people in bank queues," added Gandhi.
Rabat, Feb 9 (IANS/MAP) Madagascar's Senate President Honore Rakotomanana and Morocco's ambassador Mohamed Benjilany held a meeting to foster cooperation between the legislative institutions of the two countries.

During the meeting on Wednesday, held in the Madagascar capital Antananarivo, the two reviewed bilateral relations and Rakotomanana congratulated Morocco over its return to the African Union (AU).

The Malagasy official underlined that Morocco is a great country and an influential power in Africa, and its return to the AU will help spread its experience in terms of development for the benefit of Africa.

--IANS

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Myanmar authorities will investigate allegations made in a recent human rights report on the Rohingya Muslims based in Rakhine state, the Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.

The Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights' (OHCHR) report titled "Interviews with Rohingyas fleeing from Myanmar since October 9, 2016" is based on a report written by its delegation which visited Bangladesh from January 8 to 23, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Myanmar government considers the allegations very serious in nature and is also deeply concerned about the report, the ministry said.

As State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi also made it clear in her telephone conversation with OHCHR High Commissioner Price Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein on February 3, where there is clear evidence of human rights abuse and violation, the government will take necessary measures, the ministry said.

Myanmar also facilitated the visits of foreign diplomats, media and international experts including Yanghee Lee, Special Rapporteur of the situation of human rights in Myanmar, to the affected areas in Rakhine state, adding that international aid organisations are resuming humanitarian aid to affected areas in the state.

Three border outposts in Maungtaw, Rakhine state came under violent attack by armed men on October 9, 2016, in which nine policemen and five soldiers were killed.

--IANS

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The Union Health Ministry on Thursday said that it will reach out to nearly 34 crore children across India, including in private schools, as part of the National Deworming Day (NDD) initiative on Friday.

The children will be in the age group of 1-19 years in government and government-aided schools, anganwadis, and private schools across the country, the ministry said.

"Close to 34 crore children will be reached out as part of the National Deworming Day initiative on February 10. For the first time it will include private schools as well, unlike last year where we covered government schools as part of the project," said Union Health Secretary C.K. Mishra here.

He said that a mop-up day will be held on February 15, 2017, to deworm any child who could not be contacted on the National Deworming Day.

The NDD is being implemented through the combined efforts of Department of School Education and Literacy under the Ministry of Human Resource and Development, the Ministry of Women and Child Development and the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation.

As part of making the efforts effective, Union Health Minster J.P. Nadda has also sent letters to the Chief Ministers of all states/UTs and all members of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha for their assistance in key tasks related to NDD.

"Pre-school and school-based deworming programmes are globally recognised as a 'development best buy'. Deworming with the safe and beneficial Albendazole 400 mg tablet is an effective solution to controlling worm infections," said Mishra.

According to the ministry, India has the highest burden of worm infections in the world, with the WHO estimating in 2014 that over 22 crore Indian children aged 1-14 years are at risk.

Intestinal worm infections can act as a deterrent to children's growth and development, and can adversely impact performance in school, and livelihood potential later in life.

Under the NDD programme, a coordinated effort is rolled out across the country with tablets, communication material, and reporting forms delivered to the very last school and anganwadi well in time for the deworming programme.

Officials and functionaries at all levels are trained, including teachers and anganwadi workers, who are pillars of the programme.

This results in lakhs of anganwadi workers and teachers, who are trusted by the community, administering the deworming tablet to crores of children on a single day across the country.

"Deworming may have very few side effects and some children, especially those with high worm infections, might experience nausea, mild abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhoea, and fatigue. In line with the guidance from the Health Ministry, comprehensive adverse event protocols have been put in place," said Mishra.

"Apart from being dewormed, maintaining healthy and hygienic practices will help children and communities remain safe from worm infections," he added.

In the last three phases the ministry has reached out to nearly 40 crore children under the NDD.

--IANS

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Prime Minister Narendra Modis "bathing with a raincoat on" jibe against his predecessor Manmohan Singh triggered a political outrage on Thursday with the BJP defending the remark and lashing out at the Congress for disrupting Parliament proceedings over the row.

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi ridiculed Modi for his "penchant" to grab headlines and said the remark was an insult to the nation.

Addressing a rally in the poll-bound Uttarakhand, Gandhi said Modi was the first Prime Minister who can't speak with respect about his predecessors.

"Modi has this weakness of grabbing headlines. The day he isn't in the news, he doesn't get a proper sleep. To get into headlines, be it inside Parliament or outside, he creates this laughter show of sorts."

Gandhi said the remark was "not a personal insult rather an insult to the entire nation because it was the people of this country who elected Manmohan Singh as their Prime Minister".

Bharatiya Janaata Party President Amit Shah rallied behind Modi and targeted Manmohan Singh over a series of alleged scams in the previous Congress-led UPA government.

"What wrong did Modi say by pointing out that Manmohan Singh didn't take responsibility for any of the scams," said Shah, enumerating various scams during the UPA regime, at an election rally in the hill state.

Shah said the Congress Vice President himself had humiliated Manmohan Singh by shooting down a cabinet decision when the UPA was in power and asked him to recall Sonia Gandhi's "maut ka saudagar" (merchant of death) comment made against Modi during the 2007 Gujarat assembly elections.

The issue also resurfaced in Parliament with the Congress joined in by the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal satging a walkout from the Lok Sabha.

Raising the issue during Zero Hour, Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge said Modi's remark was unbecoming of a Prime Minister and "not good for parliamentary democracy".

Congress members also trooped near Speaker Sumitra Mahajan's podium and started shouting slogans against Modi and demanding his apology.

The Rajya Sabha also witnessed uproar over the issue with Congress members demanding Modi's apology.

Upping the ante, the Congress also threatened to boycott Modi in the rest of the Budget session if he didn't withdraw his remarks.

"We will boycott the Prime Minister when he comes to the House. We will not listen to him. But, we will not assault the dignity of the office of the PM. At the same time we'll continue to protest," Deputy Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma told reporters.

Senior BJP leader and Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad defended Modi's remark and slammed the Congress. He targeted Manmohan Singh for "allowing" scams from the "space to beneath the earth" during his decade-long prime ministership.

"Fun, pun, repartee, sarcasm, hot exchange of words are part of a healthy democracy. Why so much fuss about this," said Prasad.

"What wrong did Modi say? The entire Manmohan Singh regime witnessed a new low of corruption where we had scams in the space -- the Antrix-Devas, on air -- the 2G spectrum. On land, there was the Commonwealth Games scam, on water there was the submarine scam and beneath the earth -- the coal scam," the Law Minister said.

Union Information and Broadcasting Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu said Modi had actually complimented the Congress leader.

"The Prime Minister did not insult Manmohan Singh, he gave a compliment to him by saying that even after such a long public life he has had no taint."

Attributing the raincoat jibe to Modi's "peculiar imagination", CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said even if Manmohan Singh had risen up to respond to Modi, the Prime Minister in all likelihood would not have listened to him.

"There is a saying that in a street fight, a gentleman never wins because he cannot stoop to the level of the street fighter," said Yechury, attacking Modi for "destroying" the accountability to Parliament by refusing to answer members.

"The Prime Minister refuses to answer a single point raised in the debate, destroying accountability to Parliament and people. He has lowered the bar of parliamentary democracy to near-obscene levels. Fascistic demagoguery is no substitute for accountability."

--IANS

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Both houses of Parliament were on Thursday adjourned till March 9, marking the end of the first half of the Budget session.

The Budget session began on January 31, with President Pranab Mukherjee addressing the joint sitting of both houses of Parliament.

The Railway Budget, merged with the General Budget for the first time in independent India, was presented on February 1.

The Lok Sabha concluded the discussion on the Motion of Thanks to the President's Address on Tuesday, with Prime Minister Narendra modi replying to the debate.

The Rajya Sabha completed the discussion a day later.

On Thursday, before the two houses went for the month-long break, the Lok Sabha concluded its debate on the General Budget 2016-17, with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's reply.

As soon as the minister concluded his speech, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan adjourned the lower house till March 9, when the second half of the session will start.

The adjournment came suddenly, and even the Finance Minister did not realise it and stood up to respond to issues related to the new state of Telangana raised by some members.

Jaitley was then informed that the house has been already adjourned.

The Rajya Sabha also started the debate on the General Budget on Thursday which has not concluded as yet.

--IANS

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A Pentagon spokesman on Wednesday said that it was interested in leasing a "limited" amount of space at the Trump Tower in Manhattan to the Department of Defence.

The 68-story skyscraper, where President Donald Trump resides when he's not in the White House, boasts luxury amenities and sweeping views of the New York City skyline.

"The space is necessary for the personnel and equipment who will support the POTUS at his residence in the building," NBCnews quoted Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. JB Brindle as saying.

He said the Defence Department would work through "appropriate channels and in accordance with all applicable legal requirements" during the leasing process.

There is already a large contingent of Secret Service personnel who maintain a round-the-clock presence at the address, which accommodates both residential and commercial tenants, the report added.

Available commercial space there runs $80 to $100 per square foot - and a full floor can pull $1.2 million to $1.5 million a year, said Jared Horowitz, of the real estate firm Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, which leases commercial space at the building.

Any Pentagon rental is sure to raise questions of conflict as the federal government would be sending tax dollars to the Trump Organisation, which is run by the Trump family and owns the building.

--IANS

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At a time when there is talk of introducing prohibition across the country, a top Indian wine-maker says the concept has never worked and never will. Rather, efforts should be made to promote wine and beer to wean the people away from hard liquor.

"Some states have imposed prohibition in the past and the move has been a massive failure. When will the governments realise that to enjoy a social drink is not same as gulping down liquor," Rajeev S. Samant, CEO of Sula Wines, told IANS in an interview.

"If there are five million people in a state, out of which one million are alcoholics, that can't be a reason to tell one and all that you can't have drinks. Imposing a blanket ban is a stupid idea," he asserted, mincing no words.

Reinforcing his contention, he said that imposing prohibition also means the loss of thousands of crores of rupees in taxes, which help in raising infrastructure, providing medical facilities and education to the people and improving water resources, among others.

The only people to benefit from prohibition are the liquor mafias, who get a situation conducive to selling the same liquor at double and triple its price, he said. "Liquor sells before prohibition, it sells after prohibition... It's just that the beneficiaries change -- from the exchequer to liquor mafias."

Currently, prohibition is in force only in Gujarat and Bihar but in the case of the former, doesn't apply to visitors from other states. It's total in the case of the latter and even transit passengers found in possession of liquor can be arrested whether or not they halt in the state.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has, at times, spoken of the need for total prohibition but has not followed up on the idea.

Theoretically, prohibition is in force in Maharashtra as a "permit" is required for buying liquor. Also alcohol can only be served in "Permit Rooms", but this requirement is observed only in breach and not in practice.

Maharashtra was one of the states, as also Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan, among others, that flirted with prohibition but rescinded when they realised that the measure was doing more harm than good.

Prohibition of sorts is in force in Kerala with only five-star hotels permitted to run bars and the government reducing the number of liquor vends by 10 per cent every year. Restaurants are permitted to serve only wine and beer.

Little wonder, then, that Samat spoke in favour of wine and beer -- quite apart from the fact that he is the CEO of one of India's largest wineries.

"That way, we would be able to not just get rid of the problem of alcoholism, the excise revenue would also continue to flow in," he said.

Sula makes wines from the grapes grown over 200 acres owned by the company near Nashik and those grown over another 1,800 acres by contract farmers in other parts of the country, including Karnataka, where it has also set up a winery.

Samant, a graduate in economics and a post-graduate in engineering management from California's Stanford University, says he takes pride in the fact that they have been able to popularise wine culture in the country by making available local wine, at par with most of foreign brands, at much cheaper rates.

"We grow the raw material in Indian vineyards, process it at our own facilities here and in Karnataka, and all other related processes also take place within the country... That way, we are already pushing Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Make in India mission," the CEO of Sula Wines underlined.

While choosing a name for the brand, Samant was adamant he would not go for some tongue-twisting French-sounding name, unlike some other Indian brands, and simply went on to call it Sula -- part of his mother's name.

The "healthy beverage" company, as the CEO would like to call it, has captured over 60 per cent of the Indian wine market. Besides, it has also been able to generate huge employment opportunities -- in its vineyards, wineries and other ancillary units.

"When we started off in 1998, there was just one household in the entire area adjoining the vineyards with a working hand -- as a daily wage labourer at a petrol pump. But today, every household has a job, either in the vineyards or our wineries. This has given a huge boost to the economy of the region," Samant explained.

Before Sula, Nashik was mostly known among pilgrims on account of its temples, "but it goes to our credit that the city figures prominently on the global map today," said Samant.

(Nirmal Anshu Ranjan's visit to Nashik was at the invitation of Sula Wines for a cultural festival. He can be contacted at nirmal.r@ians.in)

--IANS

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CHI Memorial has been named a Screening Center of Excellence by the Lung Cancer Alliance for its ongoing commitment to responsible lung cancer screening. "Low dose CT screening for lung cancer carried out safely, efficiently, and equitably saves tens of thousands of lives a year," officials said. More than 700 low dose CT screenings were performed at CHI Memorial in 2016.



We are proud and honored to work with CHI Memorial as a Lung Cancer Alliance Screening Center of Excellence.

Their commitment to practice responsible lung cancer screening will lead to advancements in research and many lives saved. They are an example to follow, said Laurie Fenton Ambrose, LCA president and CEO.Designated Screening Centers of Excellence are committed to provide clear information based on current evidence on who is a candidate for lung cancer screening, and to comply with comprehensive standards based on best practices developed by professional bodies such as the American College of Radiology, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, and the International Early Lung Cancer Action Program for controlling screening quality, radiation dose, and diagnostic procedures within an experienced multi-disciplinary clinical setting.CHI Memorial is dedicated to providing the highest quality care. Low dose CT screening has shown to be the only proven method to detect lung cancer at an early and treatable stage. We are thrilled to be part of this elite group, setting an example for responsible screening practices across the country, said Krish Bhadra, M.D., board certified interventional pulmonologist, CHI Memorial Buz Standefer Lung Center.Screening guidelines for low dose CT screening are: 55-77 years old Smoked for 30 years (at least 1 pack/day)OR Quit within the last 15 years

Medicare pays for the low dose CT screening for those who qualify.



For more information about the low dose CT lung screenings, call 495-LUNG (5864).
Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Sitaram Yechury on Thursday said that the "raincoat" jibe at former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh probably came of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "peculiar imagination".

"I think the raincoat example came out of the peculiar type of imagination that the Prime Minister has," Yechury said half jokingly while speaking with reporters here.

Asked about his observation of Modi's attack on Manmohan Singh on Wednesday, Yechury said: "There is a saying that in a street fight, a gentleman never wins because he cannot stoop to the level of the street fighter."

He said that even if Manmohan Singh had risen up to respond to Modi's jibe, the Prime Minister in all likelihood would not have listened to him.

"In all likelihood, he (Modi) would have meted out the same response to Manmohan Singh which he did to Sharad Yadav and me. He told us to sit down, saying he would listen to us later. But that 'later' never came," Yechury said.

He said that usually when a speaker on the floor makes a direct reference to another member, that member has a right to intervene and put his point.

Earlier in the day, in a series of social media posts, the CPI-M leader attacked the Prime Minister, saying Modi has destroyed the accountability to Parliament by refusing to answer members.

"Prime Minister refuses to answer a single point raised in the debate, destroying accountability to Parliament and people," Yechury said in Facebook post.

"He has lowered the bar of Parliamentary democracy to near-obscene levels. Fascistic demagoguery is no substitute for accountability," he added. He also tweeted his disapproval of Modi's 'raincoat' comment.

On Wednesday, Modi in a jibe at Manmohan Singh said that the former Prime Minister had managed to keep a clean image himself despite the numerous scams during his term.

"For around 35 years, he (Manmohan) has had a say or a role in India's economic policy and decisions. In these 35 years, we heard of many a scam, but he has remained free of any blemish," Modi said.

"There is a lot for us politicians to learn... so much happened he did not get even a taint. Only Doctor Sahab (Manmohan Singh) knows the art of bathing wearing a rain coat," he said, resulting in a huge uproar from Congress benches.

The Congress MPs walked out at this point.

Opposition leaders including Sitaram Yechury of CPI-M and Sharad Yadav of JD-U tried to intervene at certain points while Modi was speaking but the Prime Minister told them to sit down and put their point later.

After the speech when Yadav and Yechury stood up to made their point, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi objected to it saying there was no tradition of putting up a point after the Prime Minister's reply.

The entire opposition walked out in protest one after the other, and the Motion of Thanks was adopted on Wednesday with almost the entire opposition benches vacant.

--IANS

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PMK leader S. Ramadoss on Thursday demanded a CBI probe into the death of then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa.

He was reacting to a statement by acting Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam on setting up a panel headed by a Supreme Court judge to investigate the circumstances that led to Jayalalithaa's death on December 5.

Ramadoss said in a statement that the Supreme Court had held earlier that it would appoint a sitting judge to probe issues of national security and not other issues.

He suggested that the correct approach would be to register a case by the Tamil Nadu government and handing it over to the Central Bureau of Investigation.

Jayalalithaa died on December 5 after being admitted in Apollo Hospitals for 75 days.

--IANS

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The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has suspended operations in Afghanistan after the killing of six of its employees by militants in northern Afghanistan.

ICRC's director of operations Dominik Stillhar said the operations of the global charity are on hold at the moment after Wednesday's attack, Khaama Press reported on Thursday.

The Red Cross official said that they needed to temporarily suspend aid activity to understand what had happened.

"We will do everything we can to maintain our response in Afghanistan," Stillhar further added.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the incident but local officials suspect that the aid workers were shot dead by loyalists of the Islamic State (IS) group, according to the report.

According to the ICRC, two of their workers were also abducted by the gunmen and there are no reports regarding their fate so far.

--IANS

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The Income Tax Department unearthed Rs 56 lakh in cash on Thursday from a trader based in Nellore town of Andhra Pradesh, said tax officials.

The money was seized during a survey operation conducted earlier in the day.

The cash recovered has since been deposited in Pradhan Manthri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY), according to a press release issued by the Principal Chief Commissioner of Income Tax, Vijayawada.

--IANS

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A Russian anti-submarine ship arrived in Pakistan for the Aman 2017 international naval exercises, the media reported on Thursday.

The ship, which set off from Oman's Salalah port, will take part in the exercises on Friday at the Pakistan Navy base at the Karachi port, Xinhua news agency reported.

The exercises, also to be joined by navy from eight countries, are aimed at enhancing efforts to combating piracy and protecting international trade routes, officials said.

--IANS

ksk/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Sao Paulo are close to signing Argentina striker Lucas Pratto, local media reported.

The Brazilian Serie A outfit has submitted a 10 million-euro ($10.69 dollars) bid to sign the 28-year-old from local rivals Atletico Mineiro, the Uol news outlet said on Wednesday, reports Xinhua news agency.

Atletico are understood to have already rejected an offer from Sao Paulo.

Pratto has scored 41 goals in 104 appearances for Atletico Mineiro following his 2015 move from Velez Sarsfield.

He has been capped four times for Argentina's national team, scoring two goals.

--IANS

gau/dg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Denouncing "money power" during elections, the CPI-M wants a limit set on overall expenditure incurred by political parties during elections.

"Limits on election expenditure have to be set if the role of black money in elections is to be curbed," former CPI-M General Secretary Prakash Karat wrote in the journal "People's Democracy".

An amendment in the Representation of People Act should be made to include expenditure incurred by the party on behalf of its candidates in the expenditure of the candidates, he said.

"All contributions of Rs 2,000 and above to political parties should be declared with details of the name of the donor and other details," Karat said.

"If electoral bonds are to be issued, then the party receiving them has to declare it with full details."

Karat also called for provision of State funding for recognised political parties in the form of publicity material, manifestos, fuel for transport and so on.

He sought strict action against those who donate black money to political parties and penalties on political parties for receiving such money.

In an article titled "Helping Big Money in Politics", Karat said neither the government nor the Election Commission were against big money flooding the political parties and the electoral system.

"Their only concern is that it should be done legitimately. Both the BJP and the Congress are for corporate funding of political parties. They do not want any limits to be set on the expenditure incurred in elections."

Karat said the steps proposed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to fund political parties "will not help curb the main problem of ... the enormous amounts of illegal or black money contributed to major parties".

"In fact the measures proposed are regressive and will not in any way stem the use of black money in and elections."

He said it would have been better to have provided that any donation of Rs 2,000 and above whether by cash, cheque or digital payment to be declared with the details as it is now in the case of Rs 20,000.

The concept of electoral bonds contradicts the very aim of evolving a transparent method of funding, Karat said.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Thursday rejected a notice by the AIADMK on Tamil Nadu Governor C.V. Rao asking to expedite the swearing in of General Secretary V.K. Sasikala as Chief Minister.

Soon after the Question Hour ended, Mahajan said she had received a notice of adjournment from AIADMK leader P. Venugopal.

"The notice is regarding the conduct of the Governor. This can't be discussed in the house. So I can't allow," Mahajan said, disallowing other notices of adjournment given by opposition members as well.

Maharashtra Governor Rao, who holds the additional charge of Tamil Nadu, is under attack from Sasikala supporters for apparently avoiding Chennai amid the political turmoil in Tamil Nadu.

Earlier, the AIADMK members created a ruckus, demanding an early swearing in of Sasikala.

Soon after the house met, the AIADMK members trooped near the Speaker's podium shouting slogans like "Save democracy in Tamil Nadu".

Venugopal wanted to speak from his seat but Mahajan ignored him and called for Question Hour to begin.

After a few minutes, Mahajan adjourned the house till 11.30 a.m amid the din.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Tamil Nadu Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao will meet acting Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam first and then meet AIADMK General Secretary V.K. Sasikala, an official said on Thursday.

"The governor has given appointment to Panneerselvam for 5 p.m. The appointment for Sasikala is at 7.30. Each person can bring along a maximum of 10 people," the official not wanting to be quoted told IANS.

Panneerselvam is expected to brief Rao about his resignation as Chief Minister.

On Tuesday night, Panneerselvam told the media that he was forced to resign.

Sasikala is expected to give the list of legislators extending support to her and stake her claim to form the government.

--IANS

vj/ksk/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Rome, Feb 10 (IANS/AKI) The Holy See is corrupt and the Catholic Church must weed out "ill" priests who sexually abuse children, Pope Francis said in an interview, excerpts of which were published Thursday by Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

"There is corruption in the Vatican. But I am in peace," Francis said in the interview with the new issue of Jesuit fortnightly magazine Civilta Cattolica.

"If there is a problem, I write a note to Saint Joseph and put under a statue of him that I have in my room," he said.

"I have the statute of Saint Joseph asleep, and he now reposes on a mound of notes!"

Reform is high on the agenda at meetings of the Catholic Church's cardinals, but not all of its members work are working for the same goals as him, Francis suggested.

"The same sailors in St Peter's boat can row in the opposite direction," he said.

Asked about the worldwide scandal of child sex abuse by clergymen that has rocked the Catholic Church, Francis said: "The Devil is clearly in action here to ruin the work of Jesus."

"But let's be clear: this is an illness," Francis stated.

The Catholic Church must root out paedophile priests and trainee priests through meticulous checks on their backgrounds and their "emotional maturity" the pontiff said.

--IANS/AKI

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
PLEASE NOTE!

Due to the March 23, 2020 NM DOH Public Health Order, These Event Listings Are Not Accurate!

All non-essential businesses are closed, public gatherings are prohibited!

(One day some of these events will be rescheduled or will resume, but they are not happening now!)
Re: Roy Exum: All About "Resisting"

Mr. Exum,

You start your article by lionizing a man whose crackdown on a protest lead to death and injury, go on to imply with your "professionally made signs" comment that the protesters are being paid or planted by special interests, and finish with a letter from an "Oregon resident" that suggests some Americans, by virtue of their youth or employment status, have more of a right to protest than others?

I figured you for a person that considered himself an independent thinker, but you've fallen into lockstep with the Trump circus, disseminating its conspiracies and lies without question.

Is it so hard for you to believe that millions of people would organize independently against this unique threat to our rights, our democracy, our education, and our safety?

Conservatives "behaved" when Obama was elected (a dubious claim for another discussion), not because they're classier or more mature or more tolerant than liberals, but because while they may disagree with Obama, he was never going to be an existential threat to democracy. To pretend that the unqualified, thin-skinned, unprepared, easily provoked and dangerously reactionary man that sits in our Oval Office with his finger on the nuclear button and an unrepentant white supremacist whispering in his ear is the same situation is either ignorant or willfully deceptive.

And to joke that the young or inexperienced or unemployed shouldn't have first amendment rights is despicable. Would you prefer we go back to only wealthy, white, land-owning men having a voice?

So yes, Mr. Exum. We have resisted, are resisting, and will continue to resist. The right to organize, dissent, and protest is an unshakable pillar in the foundation of American democracy, and we will always use it to fight for the country we love and the ideals we believe it was founded upon.

Ray Ingraham

* * *

In All About Resisting Feb. 7, Roy Exum worries that the masses are playing right into the hands of expert manipulators. Besides a convenient amnesia, a flexible code of ethics, and a strong tolerance of hypocrisy, apparently Exum has no sense of irony either.

He claims that " those who did not vote for [President Obama] still behaved and the great majority treated him with respect. Really? Does he not remember the you lie outburst at the State of the Union address. Where was the great majority of Republicans who reproached that lack of respect? Was it respect to plot total opposition to even policies and programs Republicans formerly supported when proposed by a President the majority of voters as well as the Electoral College elected? Twice?. Was it respect for Republicans to refuse to carry out their Constitutional obligations to advise the President on naming a Supreme Court Justice? Anyone who has been paying any attention could easily add to this list.

Exum reproachfully asks who are these Americans who are protesting today? Perhaps I missed his article decrying the decidedly raucous Tea Party protests at town meetings. Did I also miss his editorial that asked who are these Americans who voted for and support a man who is a self admitted sexual molester, who incited his supporters to violence against protesters, who attacked people based on their ethnicity, who defrauded students of millions of dollars at his so called university, who stiffed small business people who worked for him, who accepted the support of neo fascists, who used his charitable foundation for personal aggrandizement, who refuses to disclose his tax returns or possible conflicts of interests, who endorsed the torture of prisoners, who threatened to challenge the results of an election and jail his opponent, who lies with abandon and without embarrassment, who admires a ruthless dictator? Anyone who has been paying any attention could easily add to this list.

And Exum berates people who are protesting the actions of this person? This person who since taking office has done nothing but to cynically stoke the irrational fears of legitimately angry voters, who brings into his government the very people he promised he would reject, who populates federal departments and agencies with leaders manifestly unqualified for or hostile to their responsibilities, who challenges the legitimacy of our time honored institutions including the independent judiciary, who has politicized the security of the nation, who has gratuitously insulted foreign leaders including close allies. Anyone who has been paying any attention could easily add to this list.

Is from an Oregon resident at the end of Exums piece meant to confirm that his ruminations have some merit? Publishing unsubstantiated internet postings is hardly a way to inspire confidence in a journalists professional competence.

Ted Tumelaire

* * *

Mr. Exum's column "All About Resisting" struck me as an odd tell all. Considering what was written, one can deduce that the author knows little to nothing about the current resistance or the people involved. I found it a poor showing to essentially cite an internet meme and purport it to be 'mostly' true in painting a picture of us. Who are these Americans, Mr. Exum?

I need move past my outrage at the mere mention that we might be affiliated with the Russians and the absurd spin on that, considering that a piece of our objection is the filling of our highest office with nefarious aid from this country we have sanctioned. The president says he likes Vladimir Putin, a war criminal, and he continues to hide his financial ties. We are being lied to on a daily basis. One needn't be a Democrat, Republican, or, as you so kindly put it, a hired "Kook", to have a problem with that. So much of what is before us isn't even partisan politics.

Readers, do you have children? Grandchildren? Maybe you want them to breathe clean air and have clean water into their later years instead of watching environmental protections rolled back one by one to favor large corporations. Maybe you want to know what's in the food they eat. Perhaps you want them to learn humility, to treat people equally, and you teach them not to lie to you or others. What example do we have right now? Is that something to sigh, shake our heads and go along with? For many of us, no.

The protesters I know are some of the kindest, smartest, funniest, most thoughtful people you'll meet. We are workers, doctors, tradespeople, veterans, moms, dads, artists, writers, lawyers, grandparents, teachers, business owners, and on and on. We are just like you in that respect. The suggestion that we are all just raucous, uninformed young people who need telling "what's best" by yet another patriarch goes to the heart of what is acutely wrong here.

I used to think Chattanooga was a conservative city. Now I know who is among us. We are young, we are old, and not only do we march, write letters, make phone calls, educate ourselves, and put our money where our mouths are- we organize and we vote.

Kate Poland

* * *

When resistance takes the form of personal physical attacks and property destruction it then becomes anarchy. We see the same operations and tactics use by the Progs / Anti-Trumpers as Hitlers Brown Shirts did in Nazi Germany.

Its in these protest that we see Saul Alinskys tactics played out as they distort, deflect, deny, deceive and most of all demonize President Trump and those of us who support his effort of restoration of the United States to greatness.

As we investigate the so called grass root resistance protest we find that there is a massive infrastructure that can be traced back to groups supported, financed and directed by George Soros and other organizations with the one goal of destroying the United States as it was founded.

I find it funny as comparisons are made to Tea Party assemblies and its so called violent protest as most problems encountered were due to plants just as was proven at the greatest protest / protests this country has ever seen.

As Trump campaigned and millions made their way to his Make America Great rallies just remember it was in this true grass root movement that the silent majority roared.

Yes, I know Ill hear the he didnt win the popular vote argument but we will have to wait and see how the investigation goes, but just like most other things President Trump probably will be proven right.

Jay Reed

Falling Water

* * *

In this day and time, we are bombarded with news; some true and a lot of it false. With the society that has rendered us countless social media outlets, unscrupulous and vial televised media, it is impossible to discern fact from fiction.

I personally do not believe anything I hear; do not trust anyone on this planet; and only expect the worst from all inhabitants of Mother Earth.

There have been many wars; and humans will continue to have conflict until the end of time. It is inherent for us to self destruct. Each of us has convictions based on our limited knowledge of the truth. How we were raised, gender, color of our skin, and most importantly our religious beliefs. Each aspect determines who we are and how we interact with others.

Resist or go with the flow; our destiny has already been written.

Jack Varner

Chattanooga

* * *

The Pro Administration crew neglects to accept we elect a president to uphold and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States. When that person acts in a way that ripples with outcry around the world and then bullies members of the federal judiciary, he has crossed a line. It is the same line the former president crossed when he derided the Supreme Court in a State of the Union Address. Two wrongs dont make a right.

I will give any elected official benefit of the doubt as to their words and deeds. I have relief when a day goes by without a wince at words said or actions taken.The news of this month of a new presidency resembles more reality show than the reality and seriousness the job any countrys President entails.

As for resistance, where were the detractors to current resistance when a band of heavily armed people took over U.S. government property as their own. That did ensue with property destruction and loss of life. The current resistance should take heart to Michelle Obamas words, take the high road". I do respect the organic nature and grass roots. There is no corporate hand involved as some hiss. This resistance is like the last one. A whole bunch of folks with little knowledge of civics reacted with great energy to how they felt they were disrespected. Some learned from it and changed. Others went back to being socially unconscious. That same cycle will repeat itself here. The telling difference will be if folks now learn that change comes when good people are not silent and good people bring positive change for good for all. As for the judiciary that one guy says in caps see you in court, wasnt that a court he just saw them in?

Prentice Hicks






Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) might be at loggerheads at other times but together they picked holes in Finance Minister Arun Jaitleys defence of the governments demonetisation move. When Jaitley said that India had a high cash to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio of 12.2 per cent, TMC lawmaker Saugata Roy asked what the cash percentage was in markets like the US and Japan. Roy also asked how much money had returned to the banks since the note ban. When Jaitley said counting of notes would take some more time, CPI-Ms Mohammed Salim ured the FM to refer a Central Board of Direct Taxes report on the matter. Officials from the finance ministry passed a chit to Jaitley, who said in economies such as Sweden, Australia and the UK, the cash to GDP ratio was between two and four per cent. When Roy asked why the US data was not being cited, Jaitley said India couldnt be compared with that country.
With reference to the editorial, Wise caution (February 9), a major argument against reduction of repo rates is that banks do not pass much of the benefit to their lenders. While the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has reduced rates by 175 basis points during the last 18 months, banks have confined the transfer to about 50 per cent.
Around eight years ago, in the final years of George W Bushs presidency, it had become fashionable to talk about American decline. Audiences in the United States (US) and around the world lapped it up for their own reasons. Books were written about the topic. Talking heads discussed it on television. A telegenic young politician from Chicago used it as a backdrop for his election campaign. In New Delhi, as in other capitals, people began to seriously re-examine their foreign and economic policy orientations as they contemplated a post-American world.
Adding a new twist in the Tamil Nadu politics, Presidium Chairman E Madhusudanan Thursday met O Panneerselvam and extended his support. The development comes ahead few hours before Tamil Nadu governor is expected to reach Chennai.
He might not be anywhere close to rival V K Sasikala and her extended family in money power. However, Tamil Nadus caretaker chief minister, O Panneerselvam, and his family have seen their income and assets grow steadily during his four terms in the state assembly, in three of which he has held the post of CM at some point.
Acrimony marked the end of the first half of Parliaments Budget session, marked by bitterness between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress.
Two petitions were filed at Madras High Court asking the Court to direct and relieve the MLAs, who have allegedly kept by high command in a location near Chennai. However, the state ruling party has denied any such move.
The Congress on Thursday strongly criticised Prime Minister over his 'raincoat' barb against his predecessor Manmohan Singh and remarked it has disturbed not only the political parties but everybody.

Congress leader Manoj Jha said this is the moment when everyone should urge PM Modi to address his opponents in a more civilised way now hence.

"Maybe we are not politically aligned with each other, but we can never expect a person who is the Prime Minister of the country to lower the discourse to this level. History will bear witness to what contribution was made by Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister, as Finance Minister and in different other capacities. If you cannot respect somebody's contribution, at least learn to remain silent. By making such denigratory statements, you're only exposing yourself, Mr Prime Minister!," he said.

"We have been telling this to Mr Modi that he is a part of a chain that was initiated by Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, that has Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh. I have never seen a Prime Minister stooping so low in attacking his opponent. This is the time when we all should urge Mr Prime Minister. 'Elections will come and go. Please, learn to address your opponents in a more civilised way and expression. Because that is what India has always cherished and valued!'" he added.

Earlier, PM Modi on Wednesday provoked a walkout in the Rajya Sabha with his scathing attack on his predecessor and veteran economist Dr Manmohan Singh.

Taking a dig at his squeaky clean record of 35 years of service as an economist, he accused the former Prime Minister of having a talent of 'bathing in raincoats', and getting away with the ugliest of scams.

"Dr Manmohan Singh has played a significant role in the economic system of India. In the history of India, it is rare to find a man who has had a such a long relationship with the economy of India, 35 years of 70 years of independence.", Prime Minister said in reply to the Motion of Thanks on the President's Address in Rajya Sabha today.

He further added that in 35 years of service, so many scams surfaced, yet it marked no stain on Dr Manmohan as an economist.

"We leaders have so much to study as so much happened at the time, but there was not a single blot on him. This is a special skill Dr Manmohan Singh excelled at and we should all learn this art of bathing in the raincoat," he said.

The remark stirred an instant outrage, with leaders of Congress deciding to walk out amid the futile pleas of Speaker Hamid Ansari to maintain the decorum of the house.
Archeologists have discovered the 12th Dead Sea Scroll cave, which had hidden ancient Hebrew scriptures from the Second Temple period that were later looted by Bedouins in the middle of the last century.

The excavations in the cave on the cliffs west of Qumran, near the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, represent a milestone in Dead Sea Scroll research.

The excavators, including Oren Gutfeld and Ahiad Ovadia from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, are the first in over 60 years to discover a new scroll cave and to properly excavate it.

Excavation of the cave showed that at one time it contained Dead Sea scrolls. Numerous storage jars and lids from the Second Temple period (530 BCE and 70 CE) were found hidden in niches along the walls of the cave and deep inside a long tunnel at its rear.

The jars were all broken and their contents removed, and the discovery towards the end of the excavation of a pair of iron pickaxe heads from the 1950s (stored within the tunnel for later use) proves the cave was looted.

"Until now, it was accepted that Dead Sea scrolls were found only in 11 caves at Qumran, but now there is no doubt that this is the 12th cave," said Gutfeld.

"Although at the end of the day no scroll was found, and instead we only found a piece of parchment rolled up in a jug that was being processed for writing, the findings indicate beyond any doubt that the cave contained scrolls that were stolen," he said.

"The findings include the jars in which the scrolls and their covering were hidden, a leather strap for binding the scroll, a cloth that wrapped the scrolls, tendons and pieces of skin connecting fragments, and more," he added.

The finding of pottery and of numerous flint blades, arrowheads, and a decorated stamp seal made of carnelian, a semi-precious stone, also revealed that this cave was used in the Chalcolithic and the Neolithic periods.

This first excavation to take place in the northern part of the Judean Desert will help understand the function of the caves with respect to the scrolls, with the potential of finding new scroll material.

The material will provide important new evidence for scholars of the archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea caves.

"The important discovery of another scroll cave attests to the fact that a lot of work remains to be done in the Judean Desert and finds of huge importance are still waiting to be discovered," said Israel Hasson, Director-General of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

"We are in a race against time as antiquities thieves steal heritage assets worldwide for financial gain," Hasson said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Hamilton County Department of Education Elementary Schools are celebrating National School Counseling Week with a special event inspired by national movement, the Happiness Sprinkling Project.

The Happiness Sprinkling Project involves a group of people get together, wearing yellow. They gather at a busy spot where they will be seen by those passing by. They hold up signs, happiness signs. Signs that say things like, "You Are Awesome", Smile, and Be YOU . . . and watch the magic begin.

It is a simple way to spread happiness, kindness, encouragement, and fun,

Laura Lavigne, founder of the Anacortes Center for Happiness, created this event in May 2012 when a group of friends decided to bring joy to their town by holding encouraging signs while standing together on a busy street corner. The event is now held in the U.S. and Canada.

Join Wallace A. Smith Elementary will be participating Thursday from 2:50-3:20 p.m. and Ooltewah Elementary will participate Friday at 8:05 a.m.
There are 15 extradition requests pending with the UK government which are at various stages of execution, the Rajya Sabha was informed today.

Union Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh, in written reply to a question, also noted that during the British Prime Minister's visit nearly three months ago, she and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had agreed that fugitives and criminals should not be allowed to escape the law.

"As of February 4, 2017, there are 15 extradition requests pending with the UK government which are at various stages of execution," the minister said.

The two leaders had also expressed their strong commitment to facilitate outstanding extradition requests from both sides, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two persons were today arrested for allegedly stealing large sums of money from a petrol pump in Cossipore in the northern part of the city, the police said.

Sanjay Jaiswal (37) and Rahul Ghosh (26), both residents of Chitpur area were arrested for stealing Rs 1,36,000 from a petrol pump on Cossipore Road, a senior officer of the Kolkata Police said.

"Both accused visited the petrol pump riding a vehicle for filling fuel. On noticing that the cash chamber was unattended, they managed to steal the cash," the officer said.

The crime was noticed by the co-owner of the pump on CCTV after the duo left the fuel station, who then lodged a complaint with the Cossipore Police Station.

"The CCTV footages were sent to all corners including Bengal Police area following which the said vehicle was intercepted near Titagarh along with the two accused," the officer said.

The two accused were arrested and Rs 1,32,000 was recovered from them, he said adding, when produced at the Sealdah court, the two were remanded to police custody till February 14.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
There have been 21 incidents of flying objects being spotted near airports in 2016 and 2 such cases so far this year, the government said today.

Asked whether the government is aware of recurrence of incidents of flying objects being spotted near airports, including in Delhi, which poses a grave threat to airplanes, Union Minister Jayant Sinha replied in the affirmative.

"There have been 21 incidents in 2016 and 2 incidents in the current year so far," he said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

A standard operating procedure (SOP) for handling of sub-conventional aerial platform threats in the country has been issued by the home ministry.

In a separate written reply, the minister of state for civil aviation said no full body scanner is presently operational at the Indira Gandhi International Airport here.

According to him, a trial run test of whole body scanners was conducted at IGI Airport for performance evaluation from the security point of view and the trial run was made optional to passengers.

"The full body scanner works on the Millimeter Wave (MMW) technology and has privacy filters. It does not give out the exact body contours of a flier under inspection at the scanner, but puts out a generic mannequin figure depicting aberrations on an individual's body," he noted.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Six terrorists apparently belonging to the banned Pakistani Taliban were killed in a heavy exchange of fire during a police raid here today.

The terrorists were killed near the Super Highway toll plaza outside Karachi after they opened fire on a police search party, senior police official Rao Anwar said.

"We had got an intelligence tip-off that some suspected terrorists were hiding out in the area surrounding the toll plaza on super highway and when I led a policy search party they opened fire on us and six of them were killed in the exchange of fire," Anwar said.

He said the identifies of the slain terrorists was still being verified but they appeared to belong to the banned outfit of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In a first, an all-BSF air crew today flew its maiden helicopter sortie carrying Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju in Assam.

The country's largest border guarding force, which used to have a mix crew of IAF and Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) onboard its choppers till now, has now recruited retired air force pilots in its ranks.

Today's flight was made in a new Mi-17 V5 BSF helicopter that was purchased by the force in 2015.

"This is a significant achievement and shows the confidence and capability of managing its (BSF) resources and expanding the operational envelop of recently inducted modern Mi-17 V5 choppers," a Home Ministry statement said.

Till now, the BSF aircrafts were being operated by aircrew from the Indian Air Force, it said.

The BSF air wing was raised in 1969.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Arrested for his alleged involvement in the Rose Valley Group chit fund scam, Trinamool Congress MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay today approached the Orissa High Court for bail.

Investigating into the chit fund scam following Supreme Court's directions, the CBI had arrested Bandyopadhyay from Kolkata on January 3.

He is currently lodged in a special jail at Jharpada in Bhubaneswar, along with another TMC MP Tapas Pal, who was arrested by the central investigation agency earlier for his alleged involvement in the scam.

The CBI-designated court in Bhubaneswar and the Khurda District and Sessions Court in Bhubaneswar had earlier turned down Bandyopadhyay's bail applications.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Three fugitives were killed today as they tried to flee by boat from Bahrain to Iran following a prison break, the interior ministry said.

Those killed were prisoners who escaped in a January 1 prison break or their accomplices, it said.

Seven other people were arrested in connection with the storming of the Jaw prison, which set free 10 people serving long sentences for "terrorism", it added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Around 20 tonnes of beef being



transported to Mumbai from Malegaon was seized here and four persons were arrested in this regard, police said.

The beef, apparently meant to be exported to foreign countries, was seized from a truck which was intercepted at the Karegaon toll naka in Thane district last night, Kalwa police station inspector M A Patil said.

Four persons, including the truck driver, were arrested today in this connection, police said.

A case under relevant sections of IPC and that of the Maharashtra Animal Preservation (Amendment) Act was registered, they said, adding that a probe was on in the matter.

The Maharashtra government had earlier imposed a ban on beef after enactment of the Maharashtra Animal Preservation (Amendment) Act, banning the slaughter of bulls and bullocks, besides cows.

As per the Act, the slaughter may attract a five-year jail term and Rs 10,000 fine and possession of meat of bull or bullock could lead to one-year jail and Rs 2,000 fine.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Power regulator Bihar Electricity Regulatory Commission (BERC) will hold a series of public hearings from February 17 in various parts of the state, including the state capital to finalise the electricity tariff rate for financial year 2017-18.

During the hearing, various stake holders and power consumers of different categories will put forward their views, suggestions and objections during the hearing of power distribution companies' tariff petition.

A three member commission headed by S K Negi, a regulatory body entrusted with the job of fixing electricity tariff rate for all types of consumers, will hold a total of six public hearings in prominent five cities of the state.

Both North and South Bihar Power Distribution Company Ltd had in December 2016 filed a tariff petition before the commission seeking an increase of upto 100 per cent in the electricity tariff for 2017-18 in certain categories of power consumers.

Distribution companies have proposed the hike of 100 per cent for urban domestic consumers.

As per the tariff petition 2017-18 filed before the BERC, discoms want fixation of Rs 6.30 per unit against the existing rate of Rs 3.00 per unit for first 100 units while it sought Rs 7.50 against Rs 3.65 per unit for another 100 units (101 to 200 units).

Similarly, companies have proposed Rs 7.90 against existing Rs 4.35 for third slab of 100 units (from 201 to 300) while the companies want the tariff rate to be Rs 8.10 per unit against the existing rate of Rs 5.45 per unit for the fourth slab i.E. Units consumed above 300 units, petition said.

"The commission has announced a time-schedule to hold public hearings in different parts of the state. The hearing would start from February 17 from Muzaffarpur before concluding the hearing in the state capital on February 27 & 28," Commission's official said.

The Commission is likely to pronounce its tariff order by the end of March (2017) so that the new tariff regime is smoothly implemented from next financial year i.E. April 1, 2017.

The public hearing would be conducted in different divisional headquarters in order to receive feedback and suggestions from various stakeholders and power consumers residing in different parts of the state.

As per the schedule available on the BERC's site, the prominent towns/cities- where the commission would be holding public hearings on February 17 at Muzaffarpur along with Saran and Darbhanga division, on February 20 at Bhagalpur along with Munger division, on February 21 at Purnea along with Saharsa division, on February 23 at Gaya and on February 27 and 28 at Patna.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The war of words between ruling allies in Maharashtra turned bitter today with the BJP MP Kirit Somaiya daring Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray to disclose his financial status.

"I want to ask a direct question to Uddhav Thackeray. My question is to the godfather of this (BMC) mafia. You have pointed fingers at Kirit Somaiya, isn't it? Kirit Somaiya is ready to show all his and his family's financial statements, including cheque books and bank pass books and I-T returns to any CA which Uddhav Thackeray decides," he said.

Somaiya said neither he nor his family members have ever indulged in corruption and that he never parked black money illegally through bogus companies.

"Uddhav Thackeray, I challenge you. Sena MP Rahul Shewale and Uddhav Thackeray should submit to CA of their choice, all their financial documents and also those of their family members," the Mumbai North East MP told reporters at the BJP office here.

"That CA should audit those papers and put forth (them) before the public," he demanded.

Shewale, who represents Mumbai South Central seat, had recently alleged that Somaiya wanted the Mulund dumping ground cleared to favour a private developer.

BJP and Shiv Sena have been attacking each other relentlessly after Thackeray last month announced to contest upcoming civic elections, including BMC, solo without BJP.

Meanwhile, Shewale launched a counter attack terming Somaiya a "blackmailer chartered accountant" and dared him to probe his wealth or approach court.

"Somaiya is an infamous blackmailer CA. He himself should probe our wealth or else go to the court of law. I am an elected representative and I have submitted details of my wealth as per due procedure to Parliament. The wealth of Sena president Uddhav Thackeray too is known to all. Sena does not give any importance to Somaiya's challenge," the MP said.

He said the BJP MP has once again displayed his "ignorance".

"The action in respect of 'nullah safai' (de-silting of nallahs) was taken on the basis of my letter and not on Somaiya's complaint. He has once again tried to mislead by giving false information," Shewale added.

On the issue of Mulund and Deonar dumping grounds, the MP said the BMC commissioner has submitted an affidavit in the Bombay High Court stating the dumping grounds will be closed in phases.

He said BMC couldn't close the two dumping grounds as the BJP-led state government has not provided plot of land at Airoli and Taloja to the civic body. "Departments of Revenue, Urban Development as well as the district collector have not transferred the land in last one year," he claimed.

"We challenge Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to transfer the said lands to BMC before February 21 or else thousands of tonnes of garbage of Mumbai will have to be dumped before homes of Somaiya and city BJP president Ashish Shelar.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Cosmetology school owners from across the state have joined forces in an effort to get their schools included in Governor Bill Haslams proposed Tennessee Reconnect program.

As proposed, Tennessee Reconnect would provide a tuition-free community college education to any adult in the state who doesnt already have a degree.

"TCATs (Tennessee Centers for Applied Technology) have waiting lists of a year and a half or longer for their cosmetology programs," says Adam Brown, chair of the Tennessee Cosmetology School Owners Association and owner of Tennessee School of Beauty. "Private cosmetology school students can get their education, graduate and be working in their chosen career in that amount of time."

Mr. Brown adds that the need for skilled workers in the cosmetology industry is great right now. Employment of cosmetology workers, including barbers, hairdressers, nail technicians and estheticians, is projected to grow by 10 percent through 2024 according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

All student eligibility requirements for Tennessee Reconnect would be unchanged, including residency and FAFSA criteria. The TCSOA wants to include their institutions among the eligible schools for the program.

"Tennessee has a great opportunity to attract hundreds of thousands of adults to higher education," said Mr. Brown. "Tennessee Reconnect will provide dividends to our economy for years to come. Imagine how much greater those dividends will be if more quality educational institutions are included in the program."

To learn more about the Tennessee Cosmetology School Owners Association, visit www.tnbeauty.org.
Tata Steel today said it has signed a definitive agreement to sell Speciality Steel business in the UK to Liberty House Group for 100 million pounds (about Rs 840 crore). (FGN 21)



New Delhi: After cooking gas LPG, the government today made Aadhaar mandatory for availing subsidised foodgrains from the ration shops with a view to better target Rs 1.4 lakh crore subsidy under the food security law. (DEL 39)



Mumbai: Stocks drove into consolidation mode today in absence of fresh triggers as the Sensex remained marginally up to close at 28,330 ahead of release of key macro data tomorrow. (DEL 31)



New Delhi: Global brokerage firm Morgan Stanley today said it expects the Sensex to touch the 39,000 mark in a 'bull case' scenario by this December. (DCM 41)



Mumbai: Building on yesterday's massive gains, the rupee today soared by 34 paise to end at a fresh 3-month high of 66.85 against the US dollar on frantic selling of the American currency by exporters and banks. (DEL 41)



New Delhi: To make start-up listing platform more attractive, Sebi Chairman U K Sinha today said the regulator is willing to consider suggestions for possible changes in the norms for such companies. (DCM 108)



New Delhi: The Securities Appellate Tribunal has asked markets regulator Sebi to pass a fresh order in the matter pertaining to alleged duplication of 100 shares of Eicher Motors. (DCM 106)



New Delhi: WTO chief Roberto Azevedo today asked the member countries to "redouble efforts" to meet the deadline for finding the permanent solution for the food security purposes, a key area of interest for India. (DCM 102)



New Delhi: Markets regulator Sebi has sought clarification from the Special Investigation Team, set up by Supreme Court to check black money, regarding stricter norms for P-notes used by overseas investors. (DCM 101)



New Delhi: In the high-profile NSEL scam, capital markets regulator Sebi is readying to act against five brokers found to be involved in irregular activities even as it has ruled out any ponzi-angle or collective investment scheme in the trading model of the erstwhile spot exchange. (DCM 100)



New Delhi: Government has earmarked Rs 200 crore for 2017-18 towards reimbursement of MDR charges on payments of government dues of up to Rs 1 lakh by debit cards, a move to promote digital transactions.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
CBI has registered an FIR against Chief Manager of Bank of Baroda, Mandoli branch here and a private person for allegedly converting demonetised notes worth Rs 6.50 crore in contravention of rules.

The agency has alleged that Chief Manager S K Dogra had allegedly opened a current account of one Akash Arora nearly a month before demonetisation was announced without completing KYC formalities.

Two days after November 8, 2016, when Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes ceased to be legal tender, Arora allegedly deposited Rs 15 lakhs in the current account in old currency against which Dogra issued a fixed deposit (FD) of Rs 16 lakh, the FIR said.

On the basis of the FD, an overdraft (OD) account in the name of Arora was opened by Dogra with limit of Rs 15.20 lakhs on November 10, 2016. Arora allegedly used the OD account to transfer Rs 15 lakhs to Jain Abhushan same day.

This process was again repeated next day albeit with different amount, it said.

Between November 11 and December 29, 2016, Arora kept on depositing old currency totalling over Rs 6.50 crore which were credited to various companies, the CBI alleged.

According to the FIR, Rs 2.40 crore was transferred to



Dhampur Sugar Mills Pvt Limited, Rs 1.30 crore to Jain Abhushan, Rs 90 lakhs to Jindal Bullions, Rs 25 lakhs to Gogia Flour Mills Pvt Limited, totalling Rs 6.77 crores.

These amounts were transferred by Arora without having any business transactions with these companies, it alleged.

"Arora has acted as money mule and dishonestly got transferred demonetised currency notes by adopting such illegal activity with the active connivance of S K Dogra, Chief Manager, who by abusing his official position, has also allowed transactions in both the accounts -current account and OD Account simultaneously, in violation of Banker's Book of Instructions, 2012 of Bank of Baroda," the FIR alleged.

It said that such large cash deposits were allowed by Dogra despite Arora's account not being KYC compliant.

Dogra "falsely" informed Anti-Money Laundering Officer (AMLO) of the bank that these amounts have been credited to Sugar Mills as Arora was a wholesale dealer and his account was KYC compliant.

In his communication, Dogra did not inform AMLO that the money was being transferred to jewellers and with "dishonest intention" did not intimate these high value transaction to regional heads, as required by the Bank of Baroda procedures put in place last year, it alleged.

CBI said that Dogra connived with Arora and other unknown persons and by misusing his official position, he dishonestly exceeded the OD limit in the name of Arora and also allowed him to deposit the cash amount in the form of demonetised notes repeatedly.

He transferred the said funds to other person and companies on the request of Arora with the objective to defeat government policy pertaining to demonetising of high valued government currency notes, the FIR added.
China today "highly commended" Donald Trump's letter to Xi Jinping, saying interactions play an "irreplaceable role" in bilateral ties, even as it dismissed suggestions that the US President has snubbed his Chinese counterpart by not speaking to him so far after assuming office.

"Chinese side received the letter. We highly commend President Trump for expressing festive greetings to Chinese President and people," spokesman for China's foreign Ministry Lu Kang told a media briefing here.

Lu parried questions whether China consider it a snub as Trump has not so far spoken to Xi even though he dialled 18 world leaders after taking over office on January 20.

"There is no need for me to comment on this kind of remarks. Interactions between China and US play an irreplaceable role in bilateral ties," Lu said.

After becoming US President, Trump has spoken to nearly two dozen world leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, Trump has not yet spoken to Xi.

Trump wrote the letter to Xi who had written a congratulatory letter to him soon after he was sworn-in as US President.

"President Donald J Trump provided a letter to President Xi Jinping of China, thanking President Xi for his congratulatory letter on the occasion of President Trump's inauguration and wishing the Chinese people a happy Lantern Festival and prosperous Year of the Rooster," White House said.

In the letter, Trump said he looks forward to working with Xi to develop a constructive relationship that benefits both the US and China.

At the media briefing, Lu said that since Trump inauguration, the two sides are maintaining close interactions with each other.

To another questionwhether it was lack of respect and understanding on the part of Trump to not greet Xi and Chinese people on their New Year which began on February 28, Lu said "you are reading too much into that. You must understand the meaning of lantern festival in China."



Meanwhile, a report in state-run Global Times said that while Trump's letter to Xi is "encouraging" China "must focus on real actions".

"Since Trump has made a lot of provocative statements toward China, this letter is a good signal but we still need to observe his real actions," the daily website quoted Diao Daming, a research fellow at the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences as saying.

"After Trump was inaugurated as US president, he spoke with many countries' leaders but not China, which led some people to believe that he might intend to keep his distance from China and even raised concerns about future conflicts, even though his daughter appeared in the Chinese Embassy in the US on February 2 to participate in a Chinese New Year's celebration event," Chu Yin, an associate professor at the University of International Relations told the daily.

"He sent a letter rather than made a phone call, so Trump may still want to keep his distance from China, but a friendly signal is better than a provocation. China can take this as a chance to help Trump to shape his view on dealing with China which is good for both sides," Chu said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India should tell China that its repeated blocking of the move in the UN to designate JeM chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist will have consequences, a BJP member said in Lok Sabha today.

Calling the Chinese stand in the matter as a "decidedly unfriendly" act, former Home Secretary R K Singh said he wanted to draw the attention of government's strategists to "instruments" like India's vast market and banning of certain imports from the neighbouring country, which can be used to take on China.

"This is the third time China has blocked the move. This is a decidedly unfriendly act by China. We should inform China that this will have consequences," he said.

Noting that Jaish-e-Mohammad is already a proscribed terror group, Singh said Masood Azhar was responsible for Uri and Pathankot terror attacks.

Indian must tell China that friendship is "not a one way street and it takes two hands to clap," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
members today staged a walkout of the Lok Sabha protesting against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's dig at his predecessor Manmohan Singh in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.

Party Leader in the House Mallikarjun Kharge tried to raise the issue as soon as the Zero Hour began but the Speaker disallowed him, saying a matter relating to the other House cannot be raised.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar also said the issue cannot be raised in the Lok Sabha.

Whatever Modi has said about Singh is not good for parliamentary democracy, Kharge said before the Speaker cut him off.

With party president Sonia Gandhi looking on, members trooped into the Well demanding that the Prime Minister apologise for his remarks.

An irate Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said they were snatching away the rights of other members as they have got the chance to speak during the Zero after several days on Thursday.

Kharge said what Modi had said was an insult to the country.

With the Speaker continuing with Zero Hour proceedings, members staged a walkout.

Taking a dig at Singh, Modi had said he knew the art of taking bath wearing a raincoat as there were many scams during his government but he had remained untainted.
Protesting against the alleged assault on the Leader of Opposition Abdul Mannan, Congress and Left MLAs will boycott the Budget and hold a mock session tomorrow, even as they jointly protested outside the Assembly premises today.

"We have boycotted the house today and will continue with our boycott tomorrow. We along with Left MLAs will place our own budget tomorrow," Congress MLA Manoj Chakraborty said.

During the day, Congress activists staged protest rallies in various parts of the state. A road blockade was held and protest rally taken out by youth Congress activists in Kolkata's Esplande area.

The Left Front organised a protest rally in Esplande area in central Kolkata to protest against the alleged assault on Mannan.

Leader of Opposition in West Bengal Assembly Abdul Mannan was yesterday hospitalised after he had taken ill while being evicted by the marshall from the House which witnessed noisy scenes and a scuffle between Congress MLAs and the security staff.

Mannan was suspended by Speaker Biman Banerjee as he continued his protest with placards against the government for bringing West Bengal Maintenance of Public Order (Amendment) Bill, 2017 and termed it as "black law" while refusing to heed to the Speaker who asked him to wait for discussions on it.

The Speaker then asked Mannan, the Congress MLA from Champdani, to withdraw for the day but he remained defiant and was suspended.

As soon as he was suspended, Mannan sat in the Well of the House and the marshalls tried to forcibly evict him, leading to a scuffle between them and Congress members.

The Congress leader fell sick during the scuffle and was taken to a hospital in an ambulance.

(REOP CAL3)



Governor K N Tripathi, meanwhile described yesterday's incident in the assembly as "unfortunate".

"One sentence is enough. This is unfortunate", he told reporters when asked about the yesterday's scuffle in the house.

(REOP CES12)



State Youth Congress president Arindam Bhattacharya said "We will continue our protests. This is just a beginning. The TMC is trying to wipe out every sign of democratic protest through this bill."



Several Youth Congress and Congress activists were detained by the police during the day in various parts of the state.
Promising to bring development in Uttarakhand if voted to power, BJP president Amit Shah today alleged that corruption has reached its peak in the state under the Congress government as Harish Rawat "was the only chief minister" purportedly seen negotiating a "bribery deal in a sting operation".

"Rawat is the only chief minister in the country who was seen negotiating a bribery deal in a CD. Ministers are looting the state in the league of the liquor mafia and corruption under him has reached its peak," he said at a rally here in the poll-bound state.

The BJP leader was referring to the alleged sting operation on April 29 purportedly showing Rawat offering bribes to rebel Congress lawmakers to support him during a floor test in the Assembly.

Accusing Rawat of "always complaining" about Uttarakhand's lack of resources and difficult terrain rather than doing something for its development, Shah said the Chief Minister "lacks the determination" to take the state on the path of progress.

Charging the Chief Minister with always "looking for avenues to mint money", Shah said, "Harish Bhai where there is a will there is a way! You cannot do it because your attention lies somewhere else, perhaps on ways to make money."



Asking Rawat to "give up as he has run out of ideas", he said the BJP will develop Uttarakhand into a model state by setting up IT parks in the hills on the lines of New York and New Jersey.

Besides, the state's huge wealth of medicinal plants will be tapped to meet international demand, Shah said.

The BJP president also slammed Rawat for being "ungrateful" to the Prime Minister who had "gifted" 900 km all-weather 'chardham' roads to the state.

Claiming that the people of the state had made up their mind on uprooting a "corrupt" government, Shah said March 11 (counting day) will herald a new era of development in the history of Uttarakhand.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Lt Governor of Delhi Anil Baijal today met Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi to discuss issues related to the national capital.

The meeting was held in Mehrishi's office in North Block.

"There was a discussion on some matters," said the LG, without divulging further information.

Baijal is understood to have discussed certain issues regarding the Delhi government, official sources said.

Baijal, a 1969 batch retired IAS officer of union territories cadre, had served as Union Home Secretary under the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government besides holding key positions in other ministries.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Legal opinion on the proposed buying of government's residual stake in Hindustan Zinc Ltd (HZL) by Vedanta is expected within a month, the Mines Ministry said today.

The Supreme Court had last year restrained the government from going ahead with any further disinvestment of its stake in HZL.

Hindustan Zinc had submitted a proposal for buying the residual government stake.

"We are seeking legal opinion because there is a stay order by the Supreme Court," Mines Secretary Mines Secretary Balvinder Kumar told PTI.

"We feel that under this proposal of buying of shares although shareholding pattern will not change but it may amount to change in the status quo. So that is why we are taking a legal opinion on this issue," Kumar said.

When asked when is the legal opinion expected, the secretary said that "may be (it may take) about a month."



In 2002, the government sold 26 per cent stake in HZL for Rs 445 crore to billionaire Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta. The firm also acquired 20 per cent stake from the public. In 2003, it again acquired an additional 18.92 per cent in exercise of call option clause in shareholders agreement between the government and the firm.

The government now owns 29.54 per cent in HZL.

In October last year HZL CEO Sunil Duggal had said that there have been no talks on buy-back of the government's shares in the integrated zinc producer.

Chairman of mining giant Vedanta Resources, Anil Agarwal has time and again evinced interest in acquiring the government's remaining stake in HZL and aluminium maker Balco.

Earlier, Agarwal had said that stake sale of the government's remaining share in HZL and aluminium maker Balco can fetch it Rs 25,000 crore.

In a setback to the government, the Supreme Court had earlier restrained it from going ahead with any further disinvestment of its minority share in HZL, the management of which is under the control of a Vedanta subsidiary.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
German police in overnight raids arrested an Algerian and a Nigerian man suspected of planning an Islamist attack, authorities said today.

More than 450 officers took part in the mass raids targeting 12 locations, mostly in the central city of Goettingen in Lower Saxony state, they said.

Police investigating the fundamentalist Islamist community had acted on information pointing to "a possibly imminent terrorist attack", said the city's police chief Uwe Luehrig.

They detained the two men, a 27-year-old Algerian and a Nigerian, 23, who had both lived for some time in the city with their families.

Germany was hit by several attacks last year claimed by the Islamic State group -- the most deadly of them a December 19 truck rampage though a Berlin Christmas market that claimed 12 lives.

German security services say they consider some 550 known Islamists as potentially dangerous and capable of carrying out an attack.

German federal prosecutors, in charge of terrorism cases, have struggled with a flood of investigations against suspects and returned fighters from Syria and Iraq, magazine Der Spiegel reported last weekend.

Chief prosecutor Peter Frank urgently requested personnel support from Germany's 16 regional state services, complaining in a letter that his national-level service had "reached the limit" of what it could do, the magazine reported.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Here is the weekly road construction report for Hamilton County:

U.S. 27 (I-124) widening from I-24/U.S. 27 interchange to north of the Olgiati Bridge over the Tennessee River, including widening the Olgiati Bridge: Work on this project continues. The speed limit on U.S. 27 in the construction zone is 45 MPH. The contractor may have temporary lane or shoulder closures on U.S. 27 between 7 p.m.-6 a.m. On Wednesday, between the hours of 7 p.m.-6 a.m., the contractor will have a temporary right lane closure on U.S. 27 North from I-24 to Main Street to set Phase 1 beams for the new U.S. 27 Bridge over Norfolk Southern Railroad. Ramp traffic will not be affected. This work is weather permitting. As the project progresses, there may be short term temporary lane closures for the safety of the traveling public on city streets within the project area. Flaggers will assist with these closures and they will be properly signed in accordance with the Federal Highway Administrations Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. During Phase 1 of the U.S. 27 project, the contractor will be working on the northbound side of U.S. 27 on the bridges. Work will consist of demolishing and reconstructing the outside sections of the bridges along U.S. 27 North. Also on U.S. 27 South, they will be constructing a large retaining wall between the Olgiati Bridge and 6th Street. At least one lane will remain open in each direction on U.S. 27. THP will assist with traffic control on the project as necessary. Estimated project completion date is July 2019. For more info, visit the project website http://www.tn.gov/tdot/topic/US27-reconstruction-chattanooga. [Dement Construction Co., LLC/JM/CNP230]

SR 317 (Apison Pike) the grading, drainage and paving on from Old Lee Highway (LM 5.58) to SR-321 (Ooltewah-Ringgold Road) (LM 7.84): Work on this project continues. During this report period the contractor may have intermittent lane closures throughout the project from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Flaggers will assist with traffic control as needed. Estimated project completion date is May. [Wright Brothers Const. Co. /Pruett/CNN279]

SR-320 (East Brainerd Road) grading, drainage, installation of signals, construction of seven retaining walls and paving from east of Graysville Road to east of Bel-Air Road: Work on this project continues. During this report period, the contractor will have intermittent lane closures between 9 a.m.-2 p.m. This work may affect either direction of East Brainerd Road or side streets from Graysville Road to Hamlett Drive as the contractor installs road crossings and borings. On Thursday, Feb. 16, the contractor has scheduled to switch traffic onto the newly-constructed section from the west end of the project to the Hurricane Creek Road/East Brainerd Road intersection. The work will take place between the hours of 9 a.m.-3 p.m., weather and progress permitting. The contractor may have short-term lane closures to perform various operations on an as-needed basis. Flaggers will assist with traffic control as needed. Original completion date is June. Estimated project completion date is December. [Jones Brothers Contractors, LLC /Pruett/CNN383]

SR-153/SR-319 (Hixson Pike) bridge repair on Hixson Pike over SR-153: Work on this project continues. The outside lanes in both directions on the bridge on Hixson Pike over SR-153 are now closed. This lane closure will be in place until late November. During this report period the contractor may have intermittent lane closures on SR-153 from 9 p.m.-6 a.m. to do work under the bridge. If there are any temporary closures needed on SR-153 as part of this project, they will take place at nighttime on Sundays through Thursdays between 9 p.m.-6 a.m. and on weekdays between 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Flaggers will assist with traffic control as necessary during these temporary closures. Estimated project completion date is May 2018. [Mid-State Construction Co. /Micka/CNQ-941]

SR-58 miscellaneous safety improvements on SR-58 from Harrison Bay Road, (LM 12.86) to SR-60 (LM 26.19.): Work on this project continues. During this report period, the contractor will have intermittent lane restrictions from 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Flaggers will assist with traffic control as needed. Estimated project completion is May. [Superior Traffic Control, Inc./Pruett/CNQ319]

The tunnel cleaning of the McCallie Tunnel on U.S. 11 (US 64, SR-2), the Stringers Ridge Tunnel on U.S. 127 (SR-8), and the Bachman Tubes on U.S. 41 (U.S. 76, SR-8): The nighttime cleaning operation of McCallie Tunnels, Stringers Ridge Tunnel, and Bachman Tubes occurs normally on Wednesday and Thursday nights during the week with the 3rd Tuesday of the month. Work hours are between 8 p.m.-6 a.m. Tunnels will be closed during cleaning, and detours will be marked accordingly as each tunnel is cleaned. Contract completion date is June. [Diamond Specialized, Inc./Micka/CNQ174]
GOCL, a Hinduja Group company, today reported a 16 per cent decline in its consolidated net profit at Rs 5.04 crore for the quarter ended December, 2016.

The company had clocked a net profit of Rs 6 crore in the corresponding quarter of the last fiscal.

It said its consolidated turnover for the third quarter increased by 6.5 per cent to Rs 134 crore as against Rs 126 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal.

Its overall sales of the energetics and explosives division during the quarter rose to Rs 26 crore.

"IDL Explosives Limited (IDLEL), a wholly owned subsidiary of the company, has achieved a turnover of Rs 311 crore" for the third quarter, it said.

The mining and infrastructure division achieved service income of Rs 6 crore as against Rs 17 crore in last year due to adverse market conditions and regulatory environment in the metal mining sector, it said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Caretaker Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O on Thursday held a brief meeting with Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao amid the political uncertainty in the state and said that "good things will happen" but did not elaborate.

"We had a detailed discussion with Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao about all that is happening in Tamil Nadu... For sure, good thing will happen, dharma will win," he told reporters at his residence on returning from the Raj Bhavan.

The meeting came two days after revolted against All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) General Secretary Sasikala, claiming that he was forced to resign from the Chief Minister's post.

Accepting Panneerselvam's resignation, the Governor had on February 6 asked him to continue till alternative arrangements were made.

After his revolt, has maintained he was willing to reconsider his resignation if the people desired.

However, Rao's absence for the next two days from the state raised eyebrows with Sasikala's supporters demanding that she should have been invited to form the next government.

Rao, holding charge of Tamil Nadu in addition to Maharashtra, arrived in Chennai from Mumbai late this afternoon and gave appointments to Pannerselvam and Sasikala, who is slated to meet him around 7.30 pm.

Panneerselvam said he called on Rao along with senior leaders of his camp including, AIADMK Presidium Chairman E Madusudanan. He said they have the "blessings" of late Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.

He quoted a popular Tamil verse of nationalist poet Subramanya Bharathi, the import of which is "though dharma could be eclipsed by intrigue, it will be dharma which will triumph ultimately".

He, however, did not take any questions and merely gestured with folded hands when asked about his discussions with the Governor.

Panneerselvam, who has repeatedly asserted that he will be able to prove his strength on the floor of the House, has not yet disclosed the number of MLAs supporting him.
After cooking gas LPG, the government today made Aadhaar mandatory for availing subsidised foodgrains from the ration shops with a view to better target Rs 1.4 lakh crore subsidy under the food security law.

The government has given time to those not having the biometric-based unique identification number to apply for Aadhaar by June 30.

The government issued a notification to this effect but did stop short of saying that subsidised foodgrains will not be sold to anyone not having Aadhaar after June 30.

Under the National Food Security Law (NFSA), which has been completely rolled out across the country in November last year, the government provides 5 kg of foodgrains per person every month at Rs 1-3/kg to over 80 crore people.

"...The Department of Food and Consumer Affairs has issued a Notification under Aadhaar Act on February 8 which requires individual beneficiaries having ration cards under NFSA to furnish proof of possession of Aadhaar number or undergo Aadhaar authentication to receive subsidies under NFSA (i.E. Subsidised food grains or cash Transfer of Food Subsidy under NFSA)," an official statement said.

The notification would come into effect from February 8 in all states and UTs except Assam, Meghalaya and Jammu and Kashmir. This will also be applicable to all the new beneficiaries.

"Beneficiaries under NFSA who do not possess the Aadhaar number or are not yet enrolled for Aadhaar, but are desirous of availing subsidies under NFSA are required to make application for Aadhaar enrolment by June 30, 2017 and may visit any Aadhaar enrolment centre to get enrolled for Aadhaar," the statement said.

The notification has been issued since subsidised foodgrains under PDS and cash transfer of food subsidy under NFSA involves recurring expenditure from the Consolidated Fund of India, it added.

Till Aadhaar is assigned to the beneficiaries, the government said foodgrains would be provided on production of ration card and either Aadhaar enrolment ID slip or copy of his/her request made to state government for Aadhaar enrolment alongwith any of the 8 documents.

These are Voter ID Card, PAN, Passport, Driving License, Certificate of Identity with photo issued by Gazetted Officer/ Tehsildar on official letter head, address card having name and photo issued by Department of Posts, Kisan Photo Passbook and any other document as specified by State/UT Governments.

The beneficiaries can make request for Aadhaar enrolment by giving their name, address, mobile number with ration card number and other details with their fair price shop owners or through the web portal provided for the purpose by State/UT Governments.

(REOPENS DEL 39)



A senior food ministry official said a notification has been issued as the states were slow in linking Aadhaar card with ration cards despite giving several extension to expedite the process. The official said digitisation is essential to curb leakages and corruption in PDS and better targetting of food subsidy.

So far, 72 per cent of ration cards have been seeded with Aadhaar Cards. There are 23 crore ration cards, of which about 16.62 crore have been linked, while there are 5.27 lakh ration shops across the country.

The centre has asked the states to link Aadhaar number of beneficiary with the ration card or with bank account for cash transfer of food subsidy within thirty days after receiving the same, the statement said.

Govt provides direct cash transfer of food subsidy to the beneficiaries in Chandigarh, Puducherry and Dadra & Nagar Haveli.

A provision has been made that any member of eligible household listed in the ration card would be entitled to get the entire quota of subsidised foodgrains or cash transfer of food subsidy, if any one member of the household in the ration card fulfills the identification conditions in case Aadhaar is not yet assigned to all such members of the household.

The government said that the use of Aadhaar as identity document for delivery of services or benefits or subsidies simplifies the delivery processes, brings in transparency and efficiency and enables beneficiaries to get their entitlements directly in a convenient and seamless manner.

That apart, it said that Aadhaar obviates the need for producing multiple documents to prove one's identity.

"Aadhaar Act, inter-alia, provides that the central/state government while making expenditure from Consolidated fund of India for any subsidy, may require such individual to furnish proof of possession of Aadhaar number or undergo authentication," the statement said.

The Food Department of all the states and UTs should make wide publicity through media and individual notices through the district food supply office or fair price shops etc to make the beneficiaries aware of the requirement of Aadhaar under the scheme.

The states have been asked to advise beneficiaries to get themselves enrolled at the nearest enrolment centres available in their areas by June and a list of locally available enrolment centres should be made available to them.

States have been told to offer enrolment facilities for the beneficiaries.

In case there is no Aadhaar enrolment centre located in the respective block or taluka or tehsil, states are required to provide enrolment facilities at convenient locations in coordination with the UIDAI or the existing Registrars of UIDAI or by becoming UIDAI registrar themselves.

In the Budget for 2017-18, the government has earmarked Rs 1,45,338.60 crore for food subsidy in the next fiscal against Rs 1,35,172.96 crore in the revised estimate of this fiscal.
Government is considering a proposal to rename airports, a move that could ruffle feathers politically as many of the aerodromes are named after political leaders and known personalities.

"There is a proposal to rename airports... Cabinet is considering it," Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha said today.

"Let's see what decision is taken going forward," he said in response to a query on whether there are plans to rename airports.

There are around 75 operational airports in the country and many of them are named after personalities, including political leaders.

State-owned Airports Authority of India (AAI) manages 125 airports, including 18 international and 78 domestic aerodromes. Besides, there are 26 civil enclaves at defence airfields and seven customs airports.

While Indian aviation sector is poised for dramatic growth, Sinha said there are challenges of land and financing, among others, for expansion of airport capacity.

"We have to triple our airport capacity and by some estimates that would require, leaving aside the land, somewhere between Rs 2.5 to 3 lakh crore," he noted.

About Air India, the minister said transformation is underway at the airline. There is a need to improve customer services, restructure the balance sheet, strengthen corporate governance and professional management as well as optimise the routes, he added.

According to him, it should also be looked at how the carrier's non-core assets can be utilised optimally.

Speaking at an event of industry body Assocham, Sinha also expressed confidence that Air India would report operating profit in the current financial year.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Kerala based public sector undertaking HLL would establish around 100 Hindlabs in 33 districts of Maharashtra as part of expanding its Hindlabs chain of pathology and imaging facilities in the country.

HLL Lifecare Ltd (HLL), a 'Mini Ratna' PSU of the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has signed an agreement with the Maharashtra government in this regard, a company release said here today.

The agreement was signed by R P Khandelwal, CMD, HLL, Pradeep Vyas, Commissioner and MD, State Health Service and Sathish Pawar, Director of Health Services, Mumbai recently.

As part of the agreement, HLL, will establish around 100 Hindlabs in the 33 districts of Maharashtra for providing laboratory testing services to the public in nearly 2,300 government hospital centres under DHS, more particularly at the level of Primary Health Centres.

HLL will implement the project within a period of 90 days and commence the lab services to the general public.

The project will be monitored on real time basis by IT-enabled systems which track the details of patients' samples collected from the collection centre to the lab for testing and reporting.

The latest module of Laboratory Information System software will be used for the project to create an online dash board to view the current status of sample collection, testing and reporting from all the government hospital centres in Maharashtra.

"By implementing this project, diagnostic tests will be made available to the public in the remotest villages of Maharashtra. The state-of-the-art labs of HLL, equipped with sophisticated equipments, qualified manpower and IT-enabled support systems, will ensure the quality of laboratory investigations," Khandelwal said.

"The PHCs and rural hospitals have limited laboratory infrastructure for diagnostic tests. HLL is trying to bridge this gap by establishing laboratories near such hospitals with all the divisions like haematology, pathology, biochemistry, and microbiology," he noted.

HLL is implementing similar projects in states like Assam, Kerala and Odisha, partnering with National Health Mission.

Hindlabs offers more than 100 tests from the hospital centres, including the high end special molecular diagnostic tests, at rates much lower than market prices.

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From action, comedy, romance to drama, Akshay Kumar has tasted success in all genres of cinema but is yet to bag major awards for his work and the actor feels may be it is because he doesn't deserve one.

Last month, Akshay was ignored from the list of best actor nominees at Filmfare despite giving two major hits of 2016, including "Airlift" and "Rustom".

Hours after the announcement, the actor's fans took to social media to express their displeasure over the fact that he did not get a single nomination.

The 49-year-old actor got his first ever Filmfare award for playing a menacing character in 2001 hit suspense thriller "Ajnabee" but it was in the best negative role category. He then received best comic actor for "Garam Masala".

Asked if it was disheartening when he did not get a single recognition at this year's Filmfare, Akshay told PTI, "It's been years and years I've been in the industry I have never got it but it's ok. May be I don't deserve it."



When insisted that he does deserve the honour, the actor says, "No, I don't deserve it that is why I don't get it."



Post "Special 26" Akshay has given over six back-to-back hit films, including "Boss", "Holiday", "Gabbar is Back" and "Baby".

All these movies were either based on true-life events or had a social message and the actor says he likes working on films based on realism because it appeals to him.

"Sometimes it's deliberate that I work in the movies which has social message or based on realism but the most amazing part is that I'm offered such stories.

"There are many scripts floating in the market and many scripts I hear it also. Me and my team hear over two or three scripts everyday. It's not easy. But yes I like it when I get a social message kind of a film or a realism film, it appeals to me, so I do it."



Akshay is now set for the release of his courtroom comedy drama "Jolly LLB 2", based on the story of a lawyer who is fighting a case against the "state".

The movie embroiled in a controversy before its release for portraying lawyers in bad light.

The Bombay High Court even ordered that the film, which also stars Huma Qureshi, can be screened only after four controversial shots are removed from the movie.

Though, the actor says he respects the decision made by the court, he feels sometimes people file cases for no reasons.

"There are so many people who file cases just four days before the film gets released when the producer is vulnerable and soft. But court always understands and does justice."



Directed by Subhash Kapoor, the film will hit the theatres tomorrow.

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India today handed over to the UK an extradition request for absconding businessman Vijay Mallya who is facing cases of loan default and other financial irregularities.

"Today, we handed over the request for extradition of Vijay Vittal Mallya which we received from the CBI to the UK High Commission here. We have requested the UK side to extradite him to face trial in India," External Affairs Ministry Spokesman Vikas Swarup said.

Asserting that India has a "legitimate" case against Mallya, he said if an extradition request is honoured, it shows their "sensitivity towards our concerns".

"We have made the extradition request in prescribed format and it is for the UK to deliberate on the request and take further action," he added.

Swarup also said India is yet to make an extradition request for former IPL Chairman Lalit Modi.

Last month, a CBI court had issued a non-bailable warrant against Mallya in the Rs 720-crore IDBI Bank loan default case. Mallya, whose now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines owes more than Rs 9,000 crore to various banks, had left India on March 2.

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India today rubbished a report by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) that alleged escalation of hate crimes against minorities in the country, saying it has serious doubts on the report's credibility.

"We have rejected the USCIRF Annual Reports in the past as well. We have serious doubts on their credibility. Government does not see the locus standi of a foreign entity like USCIRF to pronounce on the state of Indian citizens' constitutionally protected rights. We take no cognisance of their report," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.

The USCIRF report alleged that religious minority communities and Dalits face discrimination and persecution in India where hate crimes, social boycotts and forced conversions have escalated dramatically since 2014 and asked the US to put human rights at the heart of trade and diplomatic interactions with India.

"India is a religiously diverse and democratic society with a constitution that provides legal equality for its citizens irrespective of their religion and prohibits religion-based discrimination," said USCIRF chair Thomas J Reese.

"However, the reality is far different. In fact, India's pluralistic tradition faces serious challenges in a number of its states," he said.

"During the past few years, religious tolerance has deteriorated and religious freedom violations have increased in some areas of India. To reverse this negative trajectory, the Indian and state governments must align theirs laws with both the country's constitutional commitments and international human rights standards," Reese said.

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India will soon despatch a team to Geneva to speed up the process of negotiations to find a permanent solution on food security even as WTO chief Roberto Azevedo asked member countries to "redouble efforts" to meet the deadline of December.

The issues figured in the discussions during a meeting between Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Azevedo here today.

She said India wants the procedure of finding a permanent solution to be completed on time and before the ministerial level meet in Argentina in December.

During the meeting, Sitharaman pressed for regular meetings to discuss this important issue. "This year, I want to see discussions happening in Geneva on this. We have already done enough groundwork... We can not start discussions from scratch," she added.

The issue will come up for discussion at the WTO's committee on agriculture in Geneva. The deadline to find a solution is December-end.

Finding a solution is important for India as it would help in smooth implementation of its food security law.

Azevedo said WTO has a clear mandated deadline for finding the solution by the upcoming ministerial meeting in Argentina.

"So, we must redouble our efforts to meet the deadline," he said, adding that the issue is important as this decision protects developing countries from legal challenges at WTO in connection with the governmental support for stockpiling of staple food at guaranteed prices.

He noted that it is particularly important for India, but "there is a lot of work to do".

"So, now what we are trying to do is whether by December, we can come up with a permanent solution for that," Azevedo told reporters here.

He also said the G-33 group of countries, which includes India, has submitted a proposal in this regard with the Geneva-based body.

However, "that proposal has not evolved over time and I am not sure whether convergence can be found on the basis of that proposal without further revisions".

At the Bali meeting, the members agreed on public stockholding for food security purposes.

In her meeting with Azevedo, Sitharaman said that unlike



the way "we (WTO members) went not well prepared for the Nairobi (meeting in 2015), I do not want to come unprepared to Argentina. This year, I want to see discussions happening in Geneva in such a way that details are worked out".

"In the course of 11th ministerial conference (in Argentina), you have these 11 months," she said, adding issues need to be discussed threadbare about the public stock holding for food security purposes.

"These are serious issues that we need to discuss threadbare," she said, adding it is not market distorting.

On the fisheries issue, she said no body should deny the policy space of India in protecting the rights of traditional fishermen.

On trade facilitation agreement in services, Sitharaman said the team which will be going to Geneva would work with the ambassador and ensure that the proposal is taken up at various stages.

On e-commerce, she said that the WTO "may have any number of papers...But they are not on agenda for me. I will join for talk but it can't be part of my agenda in the (coming) ministerial meeting because every country has a big churn as regards ecommerce".

It will not be proper for "us to attempt to either regulate or define or get into discussions about what constitutes e-commerce...It shall not be part of the agenda unless all of us agreed and many of us are experimenting on many things on that," the minister said.
Over 50 representatives from various sectors in the country, including online retail and technology firms, have met WTO chief Roberto Azevedo to discuss issues pertaining to global trade.

Azevedo, Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), met with Indian business leaders yesterday for discussions on future of global trading system at a round-table hosted by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), a statement said today.

ICC Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal and ICC Secretary General John Danilovich joined over 50 senior representatives from key sectors for the discussions that focussed on trade reforms to boost inclusive growth and other world trade developments, it added.

Mittal, who is also Chairman of India's largest telecom firm Bharti Airtel, asked participants to consider ways in which WTO could re-energise cross-border trade to drive job creation and development.

He also urged them to discuss the trade barriers they experience in their daily operations.

"It's clear that we must do more to make the case for global commerce. And also to ensure that the benefits of trade reach all parts of society," Mittal said.

The meeting featured a detailed briefing by Azevedo on the state of play of trade negotiations in Geneva, with focus on preparations for the next WTO Ministerial Conference to be held in Buenos Aires in December.

"It's vital that we -- the global business community -- do all we can to ensure that that Ministerial delivers tangible results to support trade and inclusive development," Mittal said.

The state of global trade was also central to discussion, particularly with ongoing concerns regarding the slow rate of global trade growth in recent years.

Azevedo said advancing multilateral trade negotiations was more important than ever and stated that the imminent entry into force of the Trade Facilitation Agreement would be an important boost to the global trading system.

Ahead of a meeting with Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Azevedo welcomed India's continued strong engagement in Geneva discussions and paid tribute to the country's leadership in the multilateral trading system.

Indicating that agriculture issues would be at the top of the agenda during his talks with Sitharaman, Azevedo acknowledged the importance of agriculture for India and highlighted some of the decisions that had been taken at the Bali and Nairobi Ministerial Conferences in this regard.

Azevedo said he was also looking forward to hearing more about India's Trade Facilitation in Services proposal - a key issue discussed with ICC business leaders, with strong support shown among the round-table participants for the Indian proposal, the statement said.

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Harmony Road TV continues its new season this weekend with a special program, hosted by award-winning songwriter Kenna Turner West. The episode includes music and video from The Browders with Waiting for You to Get Home, Say Amen, from Brian Free and Assurance, and High Road with Dont You Weep for Me,

The episode will also feature the broadcast premiere of the video from Cross Pointe, When the Hammer Fell, as well as a spotlight segment with one of gospels most successful new groups, Surrendered.

When asked about When the Hammer Fell, Bill Pitts of Cross Point said, This song was written by Barbara Lister Williams, (daughter of the late Mosie Lister). It tells the salvation story of how Christ came to save us. The hammer had to fall, for us to rise with Him.

Episode host Kenna Turner West has been the recipient of many awards, including Songwriter of the Year, Dove Awards and several number one tunes. Her love for the Lord shows through her infectious personality and wit, said officials. Viewers can learn more about Kenna on Facebook, and can reach out to her via email at kennawest@me.com.

Broadcasting on The Heartland Network, NRBTV, The WALKTV, WATC57 in Atlanta and several more outlets, Harmony Road TV is available to over 90 million homes weekly, across the nation and internationally. Information on networks and times can be found online at www.harmonyroadtv.com. Platforms include over the air viewing, cable systems, DirecTV, ROKU, Amazon Fire, online and mobile app. Viewers can email stations@harmonyroadtv.com for details.

Its exciting to continue our series of episodes produced at Mansion Studios in Franklin, Tn., said Roger Spears, Harmony Road TV executive producer. All the hosts bring something special to the program, and Kenna Turner West is no exception. This week we're honored to once again have a broadcast premiere video. Viewers will also enjoy learning more about one a gospels exciting new groups, Surrendered, on the Harmony Road TV Spotlight segment."

The episode was directed and edited by Rob Walls of Varnish Films. Rob Patz, of Coastal Media is also a producer at Harmony Road TV. Danny Joines of Online Media Studios provides the web presence for the show.
Seeking to enhance India's trade ties with Egypt, a 17-member business delegation has arrived here to participate in a seminar to scout investment opportunities in the country.

The Confederation Indian Industries (CII) delegation is led by Ajit Gupte, Joint Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India is in Egypt, at the invitation of Federation of Egyptian Industries (FEI).

The delegation members are drawn from various sectors including agri-business, infrastructure, chemicals, power, food industry and business services.

During their visit, the delegation will call on several Egyptian Ministers including Minister of Trade and Industry, Minister of Petroleum and Metallurgical Wealth, Minister of Electricity and Renewable Energy and Minister of Transport.

The three-day visit of the CII delegation is a part of the efforts to boost the trade relations between the two countries, spanning across diverse sectors.

They will also be meeting senior officials from General Authorities for Investment and Free Zones (GAFI) and Suez Canal Economic Zone Authority.

The delegation will attend India-Egypt Business Seminar organised jointly by the Embassy of India in Cairo, Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and Federation of Egyptian Industries (FEI).

The seminar will deliberate upon various trade and investment opportunities between India and Egypt. It will be attended by business persons from various Egyptian business chambers and government officials.

India has a significant economic presence in Egypt with over 50 companies and joint ventures and an investment exceeding USD 3 billion.

Indian entrepreneurs are optimistic about the long-term potential in Egypt and look forward to mutually beneficial win-win collaborations.

India is the ninth largest trading partner for Egypt, with 12th largest source for import and seventh largest destination for exports.

The government and business community in both the countries are working closely to promote and expand bilateral economic relations.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Seeking to improve trade ties with Egypt, a 17-member business delegation from India today attended a seminar here to scout investment opportunities in the largest country in the Arab world.

The seminar, organised jointly by the Embassy of India in Cairo, Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and Federation of Egyptian Industries (FEI), deliberated upon various trade and investment opportunities between the two countries.

"We are here to have some very friendly interaction between Indian and Egyptian businessmen to take forward what was outlined during the visit of President Sisi to India in September (2016), and the decisions reached between Sisi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to put greater emphasis on business to business cooperation," India's Ambassador to Egypt Sanjay Bhattacharyya said.

He said India has witnessed an unprecedented development over the last few decades due to the introduction of reforms and liberalisation of economy.

"Since we introduce the process of reforms and liberalisation in 1991, we have become the fastest growing economy in the world. This has happened because we created a favorable business environment," Bhattacharyya said.

He said India's business environment is competitive and efficient and carries the spirit of innovation.

"I would really wish and invite Egyptian companies to come to India and become part of the great success that we are enjoying," the Ambassador said.

He also asked Indian investors to invest in Egypt as the country was entering an exciting and new phase of reforms.

"There are huge opportunities in Egypt. It has the most intelligent and skilled manpower. You are going to be working with the brightest and the best," Bhattacharyya said.

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Mired in controversy centring around differences between its founders and the management, Infosys today denied any governance lapses and emphasised that its board is "fully aligned with the strategic direction" of CEO Vishal Sikka.

Taking a strong stand on issues -- purportedly raised by the founders -- such as CEO's compensation and severance pay of former employees, Infosys said while the board appreciates and respects inputs from the founders, it is committed to fulfilling its fiduciary responsibility to "act independently".

"The board is fully aligned with the strategic direction of Dr Vishal Sikka and is very appreciative of the initiatives taken by him in pursuance of this transformation," Infosys Chairman R Seshasayee said.

He further said: "Vishal and the board, while being pleased with the company's resumption of industry-leading performance on many parameters, are keen to further accelerate the progress and achieve even more shareholder value increase, on the foundation of sound governance."



Over the past few days, the Bengaluru-based firm has come under fire over purported differences between some of the founders and the Infosys board.

Infosys has maintained that all decisions were made "in the overall interest of the company" and that it has made "full disclosures" on all developments.

However, Infosys' former chief financial officer T V Mohandas Pai has recently said the board should give a detailed answer and not take shelter under "bland" statement that decisions were taken in the interest of the company, which further added to the speculations.

Defending the board, Infosys today said its team is independent and professional.

"The independent directors have no interest other than their commitment to enable this great institution that has been assiduously built by the iconic founders to succeed," it added.

Stating that the board appreciates and respects inputs from the founders, Infosys said the team is "committed to fulfilling its fiduciary responsibility to act independently and in the overall interest of the shareholders".

To formalise this process, the board has recently appointed Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas to receive various inputs from promoters and other key stakeholders, evaluate them and make recommendations to the board.

"This will be an ongoing process for some time. The company will take every step to uphold the standards of governance processes, of which the company has always been an exemplar," it said.

Besides, the board has full confidence in the leadership



of Seshasayee to steer this company in these "challenging times", Infosys' senior-most board member and Chairman of Nomination and Remuneration Committee Jeff Lehman said.

The Infosys founders, along with their family members, owned 12.75 per cent in the company at the end of December 2016, as per the data available on BSE.

Sikka has also written to employees asking them not to get distracted by speculations that question the company's commitment to "governance, integrity and values".

He asked them to keep a "sharp focus" on executing the company's strategy, which is bolstered by its services like Mana, Skava, Edge, Panaya and cloud services.

"...Let us keep a sharp focus on the execution of our strategy. Let us not get distracted by media speculation that is designed to stir up gossip or rehash old rumours or speculate on the unknowns, around visas, or anything that questions our commitment to governance, integrity and values, in order to generate headlines and create, in the words of The Wire, Eardrum Buzz," Sikka said in an internal mail.
The international Red Cross today temporarily suspended its activities in Afghanistan following an attack that killed six of its employees the previous day in a northern province.

According to Thomas Glass, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, the aid group's "activities are on hold" until next Tuesday or possibly longer.

The organization, he told The Associated Press, needs "to reassess how we can conduct our work" safely following yesterday's attack near the northern town of Shibirghan.

Glass described the assault as the "worst incident" for ICRC in 16 years in Afghanistan. The eight-person ICRC team was delivering livestock materials near Shibirghan, the capital of Jowzjan province, when the gunmen attacked their convoy.

"We are not planning to leave Afghanistan," he added. "We need to have a dialogue with all parties in the conflict about the security and safety of our staff."



No one has claimed the attack, but the provincial police chief, Rahmatullah Turkistani, said it was likely carried out by Islamic State militants, who have a presence in the area. The Taliban, who have been waging a 15-year insurgency against the Kabul government, denied involvement.

Earlier today, an Afghan official said NATO drone strikes killed 11 Islamic State militants, including two senior commanders, in the eastern Nangarhar province.

According to Mohammad Hussain Mashraqiwal, a spokesman for the provincial police chief, the two commanders killed in yesterday's strikes were Mohammed Omar Sadiq and Omar Farooq. Six people were also wounded in the airstrikes, he added. US Navy Cpt Bill Salvin, a military spokesman, confirmed that American forces conducted counterterrorism strikes in Nangarhar yesterday, without providing further details. An Islamic State affiliate has emerged in eastern Afghanistan as a rival to the much larger Taliban, and has carried out attacks targeting the country's Shiite minority and security forces.

In other violence today, a gunman shot and killed a member of the provincial council along with four of his bodyguards in norther Baghlan province, police spokesman Jawed Basharat said.

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Central crime station police here alongwith their counterparts from West Bengal have nabbed two members of a gang of robbers from Bihar.

The police also seized weapons including five automatic .32 foreign-make pistols and a country-made pistol alongwith ammunition with their arrest yesterday.

The gang had planned to strike at offices of Muthoot Finance, Mannapuram Finance and a few banks and jewellery shops in Visakhapatnam, police claimed. Those arrested were identified as Thakur Anurag Kumar Singh alias Jacky and Sunny Kumar Singh.

DCP (crime) T Ravi Kumar Murthy said two members of the gang, Sasanth Singh and Manoj Kumar, were arrested at Pusapatirega in Vizianagaram district and another member, Mukesh Prasadwas, was arrested at Rajamahendravaram.

Their questioning led the police to Jacky and Sunny who were arrested from RK Beach area in Vizag city yesterday.

The gang had committed an armed robbery at a finance company in Nagpur, Maharashtra, and made good with 30 kg of gold in July 2016, and looted the office of Manappuram Finance in December 2016 at Barrackpore in West Bengal and decamped with 30 kg of gold and cash, police said.

Kingpin of the gang Subodh Kumar Singh alias Kumar Gaurav was absconding, police said.

The gang members had planned to meet in RK Beach area today to carry out a robbery. Jacky and Sunny came here on January 29, purchased a motorbike and conduced recce of a few offices including Manappuram and Muthoot, the DCP said.

All the arrested accused were taken to Kolkata for further probe, he said.

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Electronics companies evaluating to invest in India for manufacturing are confused over government schemes and roadmap meant to boost local production, mobile industry body Indian Cellular Association said today.

They have also expressed concern over high taxes in India, it added.

"There can be no substantial investment in this environment where direct tax and dividend distribution tax is so high. Phase-wise manufacturing programme has not been carried forward.

"Numerous investors have expressed concern on this as well MSIPS (Modified Special Incentive Package Scheme)," ICA National President Pankaj Mohindroo told PTI.

He said that when competitive geographies China and Vietnam are levying taxes in the range of 0-10 per cent, the direct and dividend tax in India adds up to around 45 per cent.

Mohindroo said a number of investors have also expressed concern on government's move to cap subsidy outgo for electronics manufacturers under MSIPS to Rs 10,000 crore.

"Finance Minister has talked about investment of Rs 1.25 lakh crore in electronics manufacturing sector, which translates into an MSIPS outflow of Rs 31,250 crore. Investors are not clear on this since the maximum commitment amount under MSIPS has been notified as Rs 10,000 crore," Mohindroo said.

In July 2012, the Cabinet had approved MSIPS to provide a special incentive package to promote large scale manufacturing in the electronic system design and manufacturing (ESDM) sector.

The scheme provides subsidy for capital expenditure -- 20 per cent for investments in special economic zones (SEZs) and 25 per cent in non-SEZs.

Government in January capped outflow under MSIPS.

He said that 2017-18 is going to be the defining year for mobile industry where government support is required to achieve 500 million mobile phone production in India by 2020 as identified by Fast Track Task Force (FTTF) set up under the Ministry of Electronics and IT.

"This year we have target to increase local production to reach 290 million handset from 175 million. It cannot happen unless robust exports start," Mohindroo said.

He said that government has not given special incentives for boosting exports of mobile phones, which dominates electronic manufacturing segment.

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Union Minister of State for Agriculture Sudarshan Bhagat today lauded the effort of the Jharkhand government



in promoting cashless transaction



and said the state is a leading one in the country in the campaign.

Of the five deputy commissioners of the country felicitated by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi for promoting cashless transaction, two were from Jharkhand, said Bhagat.

They were deputy commissioners of Jamshedpur and Bokaro, he said while addressing the 3rd Digidhan Mela of the state here.

This shows that Jharkhand is far ahead in execution of the Prime Minister's Digital India mission, he said adding cashless transaction would help in checking black money and tax evasion in the country.

"Your cashless transaction would give major boost to development agenda of the Prime Minister," he said.

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In a major day light heist, seven armed men today allegedly looted gold and Rs 5 lakh in cash from Mannappuram gold loan branch at new railway road here, police said.

They also attacked with knife and injured a guard, Mukesh Kumar, and a customer, they said, adding they have admitted to a hospital with multiple stab wound and undergoing treatment.

According to police, posing as customer, seven persons entered the branch at around 11.30 AM and held hostage the four employees, including a woman, two guards and few customers.

They also sprayed foam on CCTV cameras to avoid being identified.

They forcefully took the keys of the store room from the employees, broke open the lockers and took away significant quantity of gold jewellries and cash, they said.

However, the police could not confirm the quantity of gold looted but sources said that it was more than 30 kgs.

Gurgaon Police Commissioner, Sandeep Khirwar, who rushed to the spot, said around seven to eight armed robbers entered in the private gold finance firm and looted some kilograms gold.

"Our forensic and crime investigating teams are probing the incident and have got significant lead despite robbers having tried to block CCTV cameras. The branch manager was asked to find out the actual quantity of gold jewelries looted," he said.

Meanwhile, in a statement, the company termed it an unfortunate incident and assured the affected customers that they will not be put to loss.

"The management of Manappuram Finance Ltd assures that the interest of our customers and security of their gold jewelry is our first priority. We confirm that the gold jewellery kept in the branch is fully insured and that the affected customers will not be put to loss on this account," a company spokesperson said.

The New Railway Road branch of the company was targeted by a gang of armed robbers who overpowered the security guard on duty and physically assaulted the branch staff before looting the gold. The company promptly alerted the police and all necessary information including CCTV footage from the surveillance cameras has been shared with them.

"The company uses a combination of security guards and electronic security to secure its branches across the country. An advanced centrally monitored electronic security system links all our branches to ensure that customers' gold is fully protected," the statement said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two girls, who were missing since 2014, have been found in Jaipur where they were living together for the past two-and-a-half years, police said today.

"One of the girls was from Delhi and the other a resident of Bharatpur in Rajasthan. They both had been missing from November 6, 2014," said DCP (Northwest) Milind Mahadeo Dumbere.

Yesterday, they were traced to Jaipur by a team from the Swaroop Nagar police station here. They were found staying at a rented accommodation in the city, he said, both were in their 20s.

The Delhi-based girl had moved to Jaipur to stay with her friend and they both took up jobs there. One worked as an accountant for a private firm and the other as tele-caller, Dumbere said.

Though the girls have been reunited with their families, they have expressed their desire to stay together despite their parents trying to convince them to go separate ways, said another police official, adding one of them guised herself as a boy by wearing jeans and loose clothes.

The father of the Delhi-based girl had registered a complaint at the Swaroop Nagar Police Station while the family of the other at Deeg Police Station in Bharatpur.

The Delhi girl, who was pursuing her graduation through correspondence from Delhi University and had left on the pretext of attending classes, held only on Saturday and Sunday, and went missing, the other official said, adding the families had alleged each other of abducting their daughters.

"The complainant (Delhi girl's father) believed that someone had abducted his daughter and during the investigation posters bearing information on the victim were pasted at prominent places. Information was also sent to SCRB, NCRB, Doordarshan, CRO and CBI in this regard," the DCP said, adding some mobile numbers were also scanned.

A cash reward of Rs 20,000 was also announced for anyone who could trace the girl, he said.

The DCP said during supervision of old cases, the SHO at Swaroop Nagar received information about the whereabouts of the girls and that they were residing somewhere in Jaipur.

Police found the landlord in whose house the two girls had stayed for some time and after taking him into confidence, they sought his help to trace the girls.

"Both the girls were brought to Delhi. While the Delhi girl was produced before the court for recording her statement under section 164 CrPC, the other girl was handed over to the Rajasthan Police," said Dumbere.

During interrogation, it was revealed that the Delhi girl used to visit her maternal grandmother at Bharatpur where she developed friendship with the other girl and both decided to spend their life together.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Russia's foreign ministry today condemned as a fabrication an Amnesty International report alleging up to 13,000 people were hanged in a Syrian government jail.

Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told journalists the report was "a false story that does not correspond to reality" and "a fake."



The damning report released Tuesday details mass hangings at one of Syria's largest detention centres near Damascus between 2011 and 2015.

Russia has backed long-time ally President Bashar al-Assad throughout the Syrian conflict and launched a bombing campaign in support of his regime in September 2015.

"This is yet another targeted act of provocation aimed at pouring oil on the fire of the dying-down conflict within Syria," she said.

The Syrian justice ministry has already dismissed the Amnesty report as "completely false" and intended to damage the country's reputation at international forums.

Zakharova rebuked Amnesty for publishing figures that she said were "the result of mathematical calculations on the basis of testimony of unnamed people."



"The leadership of this respected NGO should take a more serious approach to these extremely dangerous fantasies of its Lebanon subsidiary," Zakharova added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
photo by Tennessee Aquarium photo by Tennessee Aquarium photo by Tennessee Aquarium Previous Next

In the last eight years, Jane Corn has dedicated 4,000 hours  the equivalent of two salaried years  worth of volunteer service to the Tennessee Aquarium.

On Thursday, Tennessee Aquarium president and CEO Keith Sanford and education volunteer coordinator Beth Brellenthin recognized Ms. Corns volunteering record with a commorative pin.



The 70-year-old resident of Ringgold, Ga., is a retired veterinary technician. Her decision to volunteer at the Aquarium was motivated by a love of animals of all kinds and a simple desire for something to fill the time.



That she has now exceeded 4,000 hours came as something of a shock.



It kind of slipped up on me, Ms. Corn laughed, the blue and silver pin newly attached to her shirt lapel. I dont feel like Ive been here that long.



In all, the aquarium has an active pool of more than 500 volunteers, whose roles range from interacting with guests as docents to helping prepare food for the animals. In 2016, this volunteer force devoted about 64,000 hours of their time, the equivalent to almost 31 full-time positions and a combined service valued at more than $1.44 million.



Typically, an active aquarium volunteer contributes 150 to 200 hours of service a year. In 2016 alone, Ms. Corn volunteered more than 630 hours of her time.



Volunteers also typically work within a single aquarium department and usually for one day a week. Ms. Corns weekly schedule stretches across four days and three departments  forestry, husbandry and education  encompassing tasks ranging from working with songbirds and butterflies to assisting with the Gentoo and Macroni Penguins.



That rigorous schedule makes her something of an outlier in the aquariums volunteer community.



I would say one percent of volunteers might work in another department. Shes in the 0.001 percent, Ms. Brellenthin said. When I need her to do something, she just does it.



Whatever amount of time they chose to contribute, volunteers are integral to the smooth operation of the Aquarium. That some, like Ms. Corn, decide to devote so much of their time speaks well of both them and the aquarium, Mr. Sanford said.



We couldnt open each day without our volunteer force, he said. For somebody to hit a 4,000-hour milestone shows their dedication and sense of satisfaction. Its a win-win situation for the aquarium and for the volunteers.



Those interested in donating their time at the aquarium, whether as a docent, a diver or a day camp volunteer, can learn more about volunteering opportunities at tnaqua.org/volunteer-opportuni ties . Volunteers benefits include a 20 percent discount in aquarium or IMAX 3D gift shops, IMAX passes, a family membership (after three months of service), free individual aquarium admission, recognition events and more.



A new round of docent training is currently underway. The next eight-week training session begins at the end of August.
Nagaland Chief Minister T R Zeliang met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh in New Delhi this evening and informed him about the situation in the state in the wake of the election to Urban Local Bodies (ULB) with 33 per cent reservation for women.

Zeliang airdashed to Delhi following a request by the Home Ministry to meet Singh, CMO officials said here.

The Chief Minister explained to Singh about how the state government was determined to fulfil its Constitutional obligation of holding ULB polls with 33 per cent women reservation.

Nagaland Governor P B Acharya had today declared the entire process of elections to ULBs in the state as null and void.

Zeliang said he had initiated the election process after several tribal organisations expressed support to holding of ULB polls with the reservation and how they took an U-turn after the polls were announced, the officials said.

Photocopies of newspaper reports in this regard were handed over to the Union Home Minister.

Zeliang informed Singh about the hardships being faced by the people due to bandh called by the agitating bodies that are demanding he step down owning moral responsibility of the death of three persons in poll related violence.

CMO officials said the Union Minister flew to New Delhi from Lucknow and flew back to the Uttar Pradesh capital after meeting the Chief Minister at the airport.

Zeliang, who was accompanied by Roads and Bridges Minister Vikheho Swu, will return to Kohima tomorrow and is scheduled to meet several delegates of civil and tribal organisations.

Meanwhile, a candle light service was conducted throughout the state by tribal organisations in memory of those killed in ULB poll related violence.

Convener of agitating body, Nagaland Tribes Action Committee (NTAC) Kohima, K T Vilie said the souls of the departed persons will not be in peace till justice is delivered to the people with the resignation of the Chief Minister.

The Angami Youth Organisation (AYO) alleged that some government officials are doing official works outside office premises defying the bandh called on functioning of governmental activities.

In a release, the AYO cautioned these officials that they themselves would solely be held responsible for any consequences.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The navy on Thursday downplayed apprehensions over an international naval exercise being organised by Pakistan in the Arabian Sea this week, terming it as a "normal maritime activity" every nation was entitled to.

"This is an exercise hosted by Pakistanis once in two years. And 16 nations are taking part in it. It is a normal maritime activity any nation is entitled to," Sunil Lanba, Chief of Naval Staff, told reporters at the sidelines of a conference organised by the Maritime Foundation (NMF).

Pakistan is organising 'Aman-17' from February 10-14. Navies from Australia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Maldives, Russia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States are participating in the joint exercise.

A day after the IL 38 Long Range Maritime Reconnaissance aircraft (LRMRA) carried out a successful Anti-Ship Missile firing on a target ship in the Arabian Sea, Lanba said, all the LRMRAs with the will now have the ability to take on any ship.

The LRMRAs are used for surveillances, especially to keep a track on hostile submarines.

The P-8I Boeing aircraft with the navy also has similar capabilities, the official said.

Speaking at the conference titled 'The Blue Economy', Lanba emphasised on the need for a suitable policy and a legal framework for the and international level to address different aspects of the blue economy.

"Identify the differences between the existing and international laws and policies which should be amended or modified to include tenants of blue economy. For instance, suitable safeguards (are necessary) for fisheries management so that the practice conforms to the tenants of the blue economy.

"Science-based approach is also necessary for the development of the blue economy," he said, adding that high international cooperation was imperative if the concept of the blue economy had to take roots.

Blue economy refers to the use of the sea and its resources for sustainable economic development.

"India has also been cooperating closely with a number of countries such as Mauritius, Seychelles, Bangladesh and Australia to implement and harness the concept of blue economy," the Navy Chief said.
Market benchmark Nifty edged up 9.35 points to close at 8,778.40 in volatile trade on bouts of buying in key IT, realty and FMCG counters ahead of IIP data due tomorrow.

Sentiments were on the edge after RBI yesterday kept its policy rate unchanged while changing the policy stance to 'neutral' from 'accommodative'.

Markets opened positive, but later fell nearly 45 points before recovering in late session buying.

Overseas, Asian markets rose as investors grew more confident about China, world's second-largest economy.

European stocks were trading higher in their afternoon trade.

The NSE 50-share Nifty index opened higher at 8,795.55 and hovered between 8,821.40 and 8,724.10 before closing at 8,778.40, a marginal gain of 9.35 points, or 0.11 per cent.

It saw an intra-day movement of about 97.30 points.

Sector-wise, Media rose 1.84 per cent, followed by IT (1.61 per cent), Realty (0.95 per cent), FMCG (0.48 per cent) and Auto (0.34 per cent).

Also, midcap shares gained 0.44 per cent, while smallcap index rose 0.07 per cent.

However, the banking space continued to be bogged down by selling pressure, led by PSU Bank (1.02 per cent), Bank (0.47 per cent), Private Banks (0.42 per cent).

Metal index lost 0.71 per cent, Pharma 0.39 per cent and Commodities 0.22 per cent.

Major index gainers included Bharti Infratel (2.89 per cent), Tech Mahindra (2.19 per cent), TCS (2.04 per cent), Zee (2.02 per cent), Aurobindo Pharma (1.45 per cent) and Infosys (1.01 per cent).

However, Hindalco fell (2.80 per cent), Cipla (2.58 per cent), Tata Steel (2.29 per cent), NTPC (2.15 per cent) and Bank of Baroda (1.58 per cent).

A total of 801 scrips advanced, 849 declined while 78 remained unchanged. The total number of securities that hit their price bands was 117.

Turnover in the cash segment rose to Rs 23,431.97 crore, from Rs 22,189.16 crore yesterday.

A total of 13,505.86 lakh shares changed hands in 91,29,529 trades.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Narcotics Control Bureau sleuths have arrested a Nigerian for allegedly trying to smuggle into the country cocaine after "swallowing" 90 capsules filled with the party drug.

The man, identified as Okonkwoh M Tony, was apprehended a few days ago after he landed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) here from Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa.

He was admitted to a hospital by the sleuths of the Delhi Zonal unit of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB).

Officials said he has ejected 90 cocaine-filled capsules weighing 1.3kg in two days.

They said Tony had initially misled the sleuths saying he had come to India for business purpose while carrying a tourist visa.

"He was admitted to a hospital and after medical intervention, he ejected the drug-filled capsules. He told investigators that he had swallowed these at a guest house in Lagos and then reached Addis Ababa via Lome (Togo). He was apprehended as soon as he landed here from the Ethiopian capital," an official said.

The officials claimed Tony was supposed to hand over the drug capsules to another Nigerian national here, whom the agency has been trailing.

Tony has been arrested under provisions of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.

This is the fourth case of seizure of cocaine by the NCB in Delhi in the last one month.

They said the method of smuggling after swallowing the drug is not easy to detect as it is hard to identify any concealment inside the body.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today held detailed discussions with top government officials and industry representatives on the proposed tightening of the US visa regime and its impact on the domestic IT sector.

Secretaries from the ministries of external affairs, finance, telecommunication, electronics and IT, commerce as well as DIPP, besides representatives of industry chambers and Nasscom, were present.

"We had an interaction with the minister and exchanged views on rising trend of protectionism and anti-globalisation and the perspective of the industry...," Nasscom President R Chandrasekhar told PTI.

Sitharaman had earlier stated that India is closely monitoring the developments and is constantly in touch with the councillor office in the US.

Nasscom has said it will take a delegation of senior executives to Washington DC later this month to reach out to the new US administration including Senators on concerns around clampdown on visas and flow of skilled manpower.

The delegation will highlight and share information with the new US administration on direct jobs being created by Indian IT companies in the US, and contribution of Indian IT firms in making the US economy competitive.

The proposed overhaul of popular H-1B visa regime by US President Donald Trump has raised concerns among Indian IT firms, as any changes in the visa regime may result in higher operational costs and shortage of skilled workers for the USD 110 billion Indian outsourcing industry.

Indian IT sector, which contributes 9.3 per cent to the country's GDP, is one of the largest private sector employers at 3.7 million people.

The US accounts for nearly 62 per cent of the exports, while EU is the second largest market for the Indian IT services exporters contributing approximately 28 per cent.

Recently, a US legislation (Lofgren Bill) has been introduced that proposes doubling of the minimum wages of H-1B visa holders to USD 130,000. The current H-1B minimum wage of USD 60,000 was fixed in 1989 and has since remained unchanged.

Such protectionist stance by the US could also spell more trouble for IT firms that are already facing strong headwinds from currency fluctuation and cautious client spending.

The Ministry of External Affairs has said India's interest and concerns on the issue have been conveyed both to the US administration and the US Congress at senior levels.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Hitting out at Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis over comparing metropolis Mumbai with Patna, city Congress President Sanjay Nirupam today said that BJP had an inherent hatred for people from Uttar Pradesh as well as Bihar and targets them to conceal its alleged failures.

Talking to reporters, Nirupam alleged that BJP is yet come out of its Bihar Assembly poll defeat.

"Shiv Sena and BJP are trying to hide the failures of governance in Mumbai municipal corporation for the last two decades. When BJP doesn't have answers, they end up insulting Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Earlier too, Fadnavis had questioned Bihar's DNA. He has "baati chokha" with North Indians only for the sake of votes," Nirupam said.

He said that the two saffron parties were responsible for the ills troubling the city.

"To divert attention of the people, to cover up for their inefficiency and failures and to garner major media space ahead of the elections, these two parties are fighting against each other," he alleged.

The corrupt functioning of the civic body cannot be possible without BJP's support to Sena, he said alleging separate contests were "match fixing".

BJP President Amit Shah said the Sena-BJP are in a friendly fight for civic polls while Minister Chandrakant Patil has said both parties will come to together after the results, Nirupam recalled.

"BJP looks down upon people from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and targets them when things are not going its way. They have deep-rooted hatred for people from these two states. Fadnavis should withdraw his statement regarding Patna and apologise," Nirupam demanded adding that CM's comments have hurt people from the region.

"We are exploring legal options to take on the Chief Minister for his comments. Asking for votes is violation of a supreme court order against use of caste, region religion for seeking votes," he said.

Nirupam lashed out at Shiv Sena saying it lacked guts to pull down the BJP government in the state.

"BJP calls Sena a party of extortionists and Sena calls BJP a party of goons. Unfortunately, both parties are ruling the state and the Centre," he said.

Yesterday, addressing a rally in Mumbai, Fadnavis accused Uddhav Thackeray's party of "destroying" the metropolis, and claimed that in terms of development, Mumbai now stood in the same league with Patna ("Mumbai ka vikas dekho kitna hua..Patna ke sath lake khada kar diya.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Centre today said it has made no final recommendations on auctioning benami properties to fund houses for poor amid reports that a Group of Secretaries has suggested it to the government.

In a written reply in Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (HUPA) Rao Inderjit Singh said various Groups of Secretaries have been constituted to suggest new initiatives in the sector and make recommendations for job creation, harnessing the demographic dividend and meeting rising aspirations of weaker sections.

"No final recommendations have been made with regard to auction of benami properties for construction of affordable houses nor any time frame has been indicated," he added.

The Minister was responding to a query from Congress MP Kumari Selja who wanted to know if it was a fact the Group of Secretaries has recently recommended to auction benami properties for construction of affordable houses.

She had also asked whether the government has accepted the recommendations and by when these would come into force.

Last month, it was reported in the media that a Group of Secretaries has recommended the government to monetise confiscated benami properties for construction of affordable houses for the poor and lower middle class.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The government has not imposed any restriction on migration to Gulf countries, but it has advised Indians not to travel to Yemen, the Rajya Sabha was today informed.

It was done "in view of the security situation" in Yemen, said Gen (retd) V K Singh, Minister of State for External Affairs, in a written reply.

As the situation grew out of control following a civil war in Yemen, India evacuated 6700 people, including nationals of 41 countries, in April 2015 under 'Operation Raahat'. India also closed its embassy in Yemen after the operation.

In response to a sub-question, Singh said, the government is monitoring the situation arising from ongoing economic downturn in the Gulf countries and is working in close coordination with the governments in these states towards extending all possible assistance to Indian nationals abroad.

He said, a section of Indian workers presently facing difficulties in two major Saudi companies namely, Saudi Oger and the Saad Group are returning back to India.

"The process is nearing completion and 4,830 Indian workers have returned so far. The Saudi authorities are extending necessary support to the affected Indian workers of these companies including in waiver of fines on 'Iqama' (resident permit) related violations, providing exit visas and one way return tickets to India as well as transfer of sponsorship, wherever possible, on gratis basis," Singh said.

The minister said, the government has also taken several measures to safeguard the interests of Indian female workers migrating to Emigration Check Required (ECR) countries in view of complaints of exploitation and harassment of domestic sector workers by "unscrupulous" agents and employers in the Gulf countries.

As per the Emigration Act, 1983, (ECR) categories of Indian passport holders, require to obtain "Emigration Clearance" from the office of Protector of Emigrants (POE), Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs for going to some countries.

These countries are United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Malaysia, Libya, Jordan, Yemen, Sudan, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Syria, Lebanon, Thailand, Iraq (emigration banned).

"As per extant guidelines, the minimum age of ECR category female workers proceeding for overseas employment to ECR countries is 30 years. Their emigration for overseas employment is permitted only through the six designated state- run recruitment agencies or through the Foreign Employer registered on e-Migrate system.

"In case of Foreign Employer, attestation of work contract by the Indian Mission in the destination country and submission of a bank guarantee of USD 2500 is mandatory before the emigration clearance is granted by the Office of Protector of Emigrants," Singh added.

(Reopens DES-43)



Responding to a separate question, Singh said, the



government has evacuated 22,603 people in relief operations conducted in seven countries in the last three years.

The countries are: Ukraine (1000 people), Iraq (7000) and Libya (3750) in 2014, Yemen (6700), Nepal (4000) in 2015 and 153 from Sudan in 2016.

In response to another question, Singh said, the scheme for providing legal/financial assistance to Indian women cheated, abandoned or abused by overseas Indian spouses is in operation in 13 countries namely USA, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Singapore, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Sixteen women have been provided relief under this scheme over the last three years with UK alone constituting 14 cases.
At least four gelatin sticks were today found on the railway tracks near Taloja in Navi Mumbai, a day after a discarded overhead equipment was spotted lying on the rail lines in Raigad district, as authorities roped in security agencies to probe a series of suspected cases of sabotage.

The gelatin sticks were found near Taloja station on the Diva-Panvel route of Central Railway this morning by some gangmen. The development comes in the backdrop of three suspected acts of sabotage in the Mumbai metropolitan region in the last fortnight.

However, police denied the sabotage angle as far as the recovery of gelatin sticks was concerned, saying it could be an "act of mischief" as no detonator was attached to them.

Navi Mumbai Police Commissioner Hemant Nagrale said, "Some gangmen, while checking the railway tracks, saw the gelatin sticks around 9 am near Taloja station on the Diva-Panvel route. They informed the railway officials about it, who informed the police.

"The gelatin sticks look very old and discarded and they may not be live. No detonator was attached to them, so there is no possibility of them exploding on their own.

"Somebody might have played a mischief to create panic. This is the third such incident reported from the railway tracks of Navi Mumbai area in the last few days."



Nagrale said a case would be registered against unidentified persons under the Explosive Substances Act and Railways Act at Taloja police station.

In the wee hours yesterday, a six-foot-long discarded overhead equipment was found lying on the railway tracks between Jasai and Dapoli stations near Uran.

Around 3 am yesterday, an alert driver of a JNPT-bound goods train, coming from Ratlam in Madhya Pradesh, spotted the object and applied the brakes, resulting in a halt around 50 metres from the abandoned rail piece, a railway official said.

On January 24, a seven-metre-long rail piece, weighing around 400 kgs, was found on the tracks near Diva station adjoining Mumbai. The alert driver of the Madgaon-Dadar Janshatabdi Express had then averted a mishap by applying the emergency brakes. On February 6, a huge piece of rail rod was found on the tracks between Kalamboli and Taloja stations at Navi Mumbai in Raigad district.

The series of suspected sabotage incidents has sent the Railways and police authorities into a tizzy and central intelligence agencies and anti-terror units have been roped in to crack them.

"We have registered a case against an unknown person in the third suspected sabotage incident near Uran and we have informed agencies such as the ATS and IB in this connection," ACP, Panvel, Prakash Nilewad said.

Chief PRO of Central Railway Narendra Patil said, "In the



wake of these incidents, our staff is taking extra care. These discarded pieces were spotted as part of that."



Nilewad added that no arrest has been made in connection with the overhead equipment found lying on the railway tracks between Jasai and Dapoli stations yesterday.

A senior officer in the Mumbai Division of the Railway Protection Force (RPF) said, apart from stepping up patrolling along the tracks, their staff was extending all the support to the probe agencies.

"It would be a bit premature to jump to the conclusion that these are acts of terrorism or sabotage, but all the agencies, including the RPF, are leaving no stone unturned to nab those involved in these cases," the official said.

Although, no suspected case of sabotage has so far been reported from the Western Railway (WR), its officials say that they are taking all measures to prevent such incidents.

General Manager of WR GC Agrawal said, "So far, such cases have only been reported under CR, but it does not mean that it cannot take place in the WR areas. We have already taken serious cognisance of the cases and have held talks at the railway board level as everyone is concerned about them."



He said the departments concerned have been asked to remove the rail pieces lying along the tracks.

"Usually, we are not supposed to keep small rail pieces around the tracks. So, the departments concerned, including the engineering and stores sections, have been asked to look into the matter," said Agrawal.
Former Infosys CFO T V Mohandas Pai feels that the present leadership at the Bengaluru-based company is not focussed on creating shareholder value even as he reposed faith in CEO Vishal Sikka's leadership, saying there is "need for a strong chairman".

Pai, who served as a board member of Infosys from 2000 to 2011, also said it was a "mistake" on the part of N R Narayana Murthy to "focus on only founders becoming leaders (CEOs)" which led many people to quit the company.

"I am very saddened. All of us spent a major part of our lives building up this great company, and I am very saddened by what has happened," Pai, who is not a founder but spent 17 years with the company before quitting in 2011, told PTI.

Yesterday, Infosys defended the pay hike to Chief Executive Sikka and the severance package for two former senior executives, saying all decisions were made "in the overall interest of the company", amid reports of simmering differences between the CEO and its founders.

The reports said Infosys founders Murthy, Kris Gopalakrishnan and Nandan Nilekani had written to the board last month expressing their concerns over pay hike to Sikka, and the severance package offered to the two senior executives.

Pai, who served as CFO from 1994 to 2006, said: "The concern is that in the last five years, the focus (of Infosys leadership) has not been there, the leadership that we built up has left for various reasons, new leadership has come in and they are still not focusing on creating shareholder value.

"There is automation coming, which they are trying to face, they have got a good CEO (in Sikka), growth rates have come down, there is uncertainty, shareholders who have put trust in the company have not seen increase in the value in the last five years," Pai added.

He cited three top reasons for "the slide". One is "lack of adequate leadership as many people left because of Murthy's focus on only founders becoming leaders and that was a mistake". Second, "not changing the business model to face automation and change in the marketplace and (the change was) slow because of the leadership flux". Third, he said, was capital allocation and lack of capital efficiency, which are hurting the company.

Further, Pai said he had confidence in CEO Sikka's leadership, but "you need a strong chairman".

Without naming Infosys Chairman R Seshasayee, Pai said: "When you have a strong CEO, you need a strong chairman to balance... So, both can work together. Infosys always had a strong chairman. The chairman holds the company together."



Like Cognizant Technology Solutions, he suggested that Infosys should go in for a share buyback programme.

"They (Infosys) should have capital allocation strategy; they are sitting on Rs 40,000 crore of cash. They must use the money for shareholders either through buyback or something else. They are sitting quiet..."



Apart from buyback, Infosys needs to be energised which the CEO is doing, according to Pai.

"Communication to the market has to become better. They should improve their communication to the market and shareholders," he advised.

Pai is of the view that in the last one or two years, proper communication is lacking. "Because when you miss your numbers, you cannot go and say you are surprised," he said.

On reports that Murthy, Nilekani and Gopalakrishnan have suggested to the Board to take Pai, along with two others, back as board members, he said: "Nobody has spoken to me. It's something I will not be interested (in). I am not interested."



"That phase of my life is over, and I am doing exciting things, I need to spend more time on what I am doing. I don't want to go back to what I was doing," added Pai, currently Chairman of Manipal Global Education Services and Aarin Capital.
The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation invites Tennesseans to submit nominations for the third annual 2017 Sustainable Transportation Awards. The deadline to submit nominations is March 31.



The Awards recognize outstanding initiatives to improve the efficiency, accessibility, affordability, and sustainability of transportation systems in the State, consistent with ongoing efforts to improve the health and well-being of Tennesseans, provide for a strong economy, and protect our States natural resources.



The annual Sustainable Transportation Awards and Forum provides an opportunity to recognize key transportation achievements and innovations as well as to energize the discussion around what can be done next, said TDEC Commissioner Bob Martineau.



A panel of judges representing diverse interests will select award recipients based on the following criteria:



 Innovation: How the project utilized new thinking or creative approaches to meet a particular transportation challenge.



 Best Practices and Replicability: How the project demonstrates a transferable solution, such that others could adopt or implement similar programs or initiatives.



 Changes in Transportation Behavior: How a project worked to encourage or achieve changes in transportation behavior in order to make a transportation system more efficient.



 Improvements to Public Health and Safety: How a project creates improvements to public health, well-being, or safety in a given community.



Eligible entities include federal, state, and local governments; commercial, nonprofit, and industrial organizations; public and private institutions of higher education; and utilities. The entity must be located in Tennessee, and the project must have been completed in the last five years. All nominees must be in environmental compliance with TDEC. Self-nominations are encouraged.



In connection with Clean Air Month, TDEC, in partnership with the Tennessee Department of Transportation, will host a recognition ceremony and sustainable transportation forum on May 23-24 at the Downtown Nashville Public Library. The forum, entitled Navigating Toward a Livable Tennessee, will highlight local transportation planning and the pursuit of place-based policies and investments for improved transportation options in our communities.



The nomination form for the 2017 Sustainable Transportation Awards is now available at http://www.tennessee.gov/environment/article/energy-sustainable-transportation-awards-forum. Direct any related questions to Alexa Voytek in TDECs Office of Energy Programs at 615-532-0238 or Alexa.Voytek@tn.gov.
Police have busted a racket allegedly involved in adulteration of oil and lubricants after raiding a firm in Ambernath MIDC and arrested two persons, an official said today.

The arrested accused are identified as production manager Erric Advin Cilus (35) and supervisor Dighambar Trimukhe (40). Police are searching for the owners of the company.

The racketeers would sell spurious oil under a popular brand name to Gulf countries, said senior police inspector Nitin Thackeray.

Police seized finished goods, accessories and raw material collectively worth Rs 1,81,61,952 during the yesterday's raid.

Thackeray said the company used logo of popular oil company to sell the oil in market.

Police seized fake stickers of Gulf Oil Lubricants India Ltd besides filling machines and other accessories used in the fraud.

A case has been registered under various sections of the IPC.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A Yes Bank official has been arrested in connection with the Rs 3,700 crore online trading scam by a Special Investigating Team of Uttar Pradesh police.

Atul Mishra, a business relationship manager with the bank, is accused of helping the owners of the Noida-based firm that perpetrated the fraud in stashing around Rs 1,000 crore black money, for which he allegedly received a hefty kickback, said Western UP Special Task Force (STF) SP Rajeev Narayan Mishra.

The bank official, who was arrested from Ghaziabad yesterday, was today produced before a court here which sent him to judicial custody.

Anubhav Mittal, the main accused in Rs 3700 crore online trading scam, had been remanded in five-day police custody by a court here yesterday.

Mittal's firm allegedly owned two accounts in the Rajnagar branch of the bank where Mishra was posted.

Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (UP STF) had unearthed online trading scam and arrested Mittal and two others on February 2. UP DGP Javed Ahmed had also formed an SIT to carry out a probe into it.

The Enforcement Directorate's (ED) zonal office in Lucknow registered a criminal case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) based on an FIR of the UP STF to probe the alleged Rs 3,700 ponzi scam case perpetrated by seeking fake social media 'likes' from lakhs of gullible investors by Mittal's Noida-based firm.

The ED conducted searches and raids, in various UP cities, at the business and residential premises of the owners of the firm and seized incriminating documents, that reveal assets worth crores of rupees of the accused.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
An organisation which has been actively spearheading anti-Maoists protests in Chhattisgarh's Bastar region since the past one year ceased to exist after its dissolution was announced today by its members.

Significantly, the disbandment of Action Group for National Integrity (AGNI)comes days after the transfer of senior IPS officer S R P Kalluri, who had been reportedly supporting the outfit, from the post of Bastar Range IG.

However, no specific reason was given for disbanding the Jagdalpur-based organisation by its National Convener Anand Mohan Mishra.

Mishra, in a message on social media, said "In the view of current situation, the members of AGNI have unanimously decided to dissolve the organisation with immediate effect without any important reason."



"The organisation, since its formation, was representing the people of the region and has been working shoulder-to-shoulder with government and police. It has been protesting against the Naxalism in a peaceful and democratic way," Mishra told PTI.

"We were satisfied after delivering our role in the anti-Naxal movement. But now we have decided to disband it. Wishes and support of the members of AGNI will always be with security forces," he maintained.

Mishra rejected suggestions that Kalluri's transfer was the reason behind their move and dismissed speculation that AGNI members fear a Maoist backlash.

The AGNI has organised almost 15-16 rallies during the past one year across the Bastar region protesting against the Maoist activities and violence. One of them, called 'Lalkar' (challenge) rally, was convened by the outfit in Jagdalpur in September last year and attended by thousands of people.

Police officials of Bastar, including Kalluri, reportedly took part in these programmes.

Civil rights groups and some local journalists have dubbed the AGNIas another version of the anti-Maoist militia Salwa Judum, which was banned by the Supreme Court in 2011.

The members of AGNI also faced allegations of threateninglocal journalists and social activists, including Bela Bhatia, who was asked to leave Bastar.

However, Mishra rejected such accusations and claimed they are only against Naxals, who he said, have blocked the development of Bastar over the last three decades.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Six people were wounded today when a Palestinian man stabbed and shot at market-goers in central Israel, police said.

The attack in the city of Petah Tikva, outside Tel Aviv, was carried out by a Palestinian assailant, police said, calling it a "terrorist" attack.

Police said initial indications were the attacker, 19, was from the Nablus governorate in the north of the occupied West Bank.

The man was arrested uninjured while still carrying the gun, they added.

The wounded were taken to hospital, with none of their injuries described as life threatening.

The United Hatzalah medical group said one man was beaten by the crowd who had apparently mistaken him for the attacker.

Since a wave of violence broke out in October 2015, more than 250 Palestinians, 41 Israelis, two Americans, a Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese have died.

Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks, according to Israeli authorities, with others were killed during protests, in clashes or Israeli air raids on Gaza.

The rate of attacks has declined significantly in recent months.

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Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam today met Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao, amidst a political turmoil in the state following his revolt against AIADMK chief VK Sasikala.

Panneerselvam called on the Governor at Raj Bhavan here and held discussions with him for about 15 minutes, sources close to the chief minister said, adding that they were not aware of what transpired between the two.

The meeting comes in the backdrop of Panneerselvam saying he would withdraw his resignation from the post of chief minister, which he had tendered last Sunday, if required.

He had offered to quit as chief minister citing "personal reasons", following the election of Sasikala as AIADMK Legislature Party leader, paving her way towards the top post in the state.

Raising a banner of revolt on February 7, Panneerselvam had alleged that he was forced to step down for Sasikala to become the chief minister.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The European Union is blatantly anti-American and President Donald Trump's administration regards it with suspicion, a leading contender to be the US envoy to the 28-nation bloc said today.

Ted Malloch, whose potential appointment has prompted anger and alarm in Brussels, said he and Trump "have very similar views about Europe."



He said the US is "somewhat critical and suspicious" of the bloc, an economic and political union involving half a billion people.

"We would prefer, certainly in the Trump administration, to work with countries bilaterally," Malloch said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Trump has yet to appoint an EU envoy. But Malloch, a 64-year-old former UN diplomat in who teaches governance at England's Henley Business School, says he has been interviewed and vetted for the post.

Reports that he may get the job have outraged many EU politicians. Leaders of the Christian Democrat, liberal and socialist groups in the European Parliament took the unusual step of writing to EU leaders saying that Malloch should be denied accreditation if the US appoints him.

They accused Malloch of being on a mission "to disrupt or dissolve the European Union."



Malloch, an enthusiastic backer of Trump's "America First" policy, seems unperturbed at the cool welcome from Brussels. today, he declined to endorse British Prime Minister Theresa May's view that a strong, successful EU is in the global interest.

He said the EU's "blatant anti-Americanism" is "problematic."



"It has taken positions contrary to American foreign policy in the last eight years in any number of issues, whether it's on Israel, on the Middle East, on Iran, on some human rights issues," Malloch said. "There is a long and growing list of issues where U.S. Foreign policy differs from that of the EU."



Malloch watched with approval as Britons voted last year to leave the EU. He sees the Brexit vote and Trump's election as part of an international movement to reassert national sovereignty and strong borders. And he expects that, in the wake of Brexit, other EU countries will re-consider their relationships with the bloc.

"I think that democracy is a very healthy thing," he said. "It certainly was good for Britain."



Critics say Brexit, Trump and European populists are tapping into xenophobia and other dark forces. In France, presidential candidate Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Front says her country is in a fight for its "civilization" against the "two totalitarianisms" of globalization and Islamic fundamentalism.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Anti-Rohingya protesters gathered at a Yangon port today to meet a Malaysian ship carrying aid for thousands of refugees from the persecuted Muslim minority fleeing a bloody military crackdown.

Dozens of Buddhist monks and demonstrators waving national flags and signs reading "No Rohingya" congregated at the Thilawa port waiting for the ship to dock.

Hundreds of Rohingya are thought to have been killed in a brutal four-month campaign by security forces that the UN says may amount to ethnic cleansing.

Tens of thousands have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh bringing harrowing tales of murder and rape.

"We want to let them know that we have no Rohingya here," a Buddhist monk named Thuseitta, from the Yangon chapter of the Patriotic Myanmar Monks Union, told AFP at the docks.

Myanmar denies citizenship to the million-strong Rohingya, despite many of them living on its soil for generations.

Buddhist nationalist groups are especially strong in their vitriol, portraying them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Myanmar's treatment of the Rohingya has sparked criticism from Muslim-majority Malaysia, in a rare spat between Southeast Asian neighbours.

The Nautical Aliya set off from Malaysia last week carrying 2,200 tonnes of rice, medical aid and clothing along with hundreds of health workers and activists.

Part of the aid will be unloaded in Yangon and transported overland to the north of Rakhine state, site of the military crackdown.

The rest will be taken to Teknaf port in southern Bangladesh, where almost 70,000 Rohingya have fled since October to escape the violence.

Myanmar initially refused to allow the ship into its waters and has barred it from sailing to Rakhine's state capital Sittwe.

The government has also demanded that the aid be distributed to both Rohingya and Buddhist ethnic Rakhines.

The delivery comes days after a blistering report from the UN accused Myanmar's security forces of carrying out a campaign of rape, torture and mass killings against the Rohingya.

Based on interviews with hundreds of escapees in Bangladesh, investigators said the military's "calculated policy of terror" very likely amounted to ethnic cleansing.

For months Myanmar has dismissed similar testimony gathered by foreign media and rights groups as "fake news" and curtailed access to the region.

The UN's top official on preventing genocide, Adama Dieng, said this week that a government commission tasked with investigating allegations of abuse was "not a credible option".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Rana Daggubati hopes that "The Ghazi Attack", said to be the first ever Indian film to be based on underwater war, will pave way to more such movies in the future.

According to Rana, "The Ghazi Attack", which is India's first underwater war-at-sea film, will push other filmmakers to explore this genre.

"When 'Baahubali' happened, there was never a war film made in decades. Then we had two films that came, in one film 'Rudramadevi' I did a cameo, and other was 'Gautamiputra Satakarni'. It's important that somebody breaks that ice and it's important to break it correctly," Rana told PTI.

The actor worked very hard to put everything aesthetically correct in "The Ghazi Attack".

"With this film we knew it's the first underwater war film we were making. We had to make it aesthetically correct as we did not had a reference point," he said.

Not many are aware about the underwater tale of courage and patriotism of the men aboard Indian Submarine S-21 who destroyed the Pakistani submarine PNS Ghazi when it ventured into Indian waters to destroy the INS Vikrant.

"We consulted so many Navy people before we started shooting. It's the film that glorifies the Navy, giving them the due credit. It's a big incident that has happened in 1971 before the war," the Telugu star said.

"It's the first Naval submarine-based film in this country, the West has made so many films like that. We have the fourth largest Navy in the world and we don't have a film on the Navy which is quite surprising. We were happy to make one," he said.

Another challenge for the "Dum Maro Dum" actor was to get the VFX and CG (computer graphics) correct in the film so that the underwater action sequences look real.

"As nobody had done submarine water texturing before in India, it took time for us to work on it. Finally we have got a decent product (referring to film). Many people who have seen the film are happy and they did not expect this kind of visual effects," he said.

The film is up for release on February 17 and the makers launched the trailer on January 11. The "Baahubali" actor took time to release the first look of "The Gazi Attack" as he wanted everything to be in place.

"We were sure we did not want the look of the film to come out till the time we were confident and ready. We finished the film in mid-March (last year), by the time I saw the copy it was January. So it took a long time to get everything correctly," he said.

Also featuring Taapsee Pannu, Kay Kay Menon and Atul Kulkarni in the lead, the film has been made simultaneously in Hindi and Telugu and will be dubbed in Tamil.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
WTO chief Roberto Azevedo today asked the member countries to "redouble efforts" to meet the deadline for finding the permanent solution for the food security purposes, a key area of interest for India.

He said WTO has a clear mandated deadline for finding solution by the forthcoming ministerial meeting, which is scheduled in December in Argentina.

"So, we must redouble our efforts to meet the deadline," he said, adding the issue is important as this decision protects developing countries from legal challenges at the WTO in connection with governmental support for stock piling of staple food at guaranteed prices.

The Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) said it was particularly important for India but "there is a lot of work to do".

"So, now what we are trying to do is whether by December, we can come up with a permanent solution for that," Azevedo told reporters here.

He also said the G-33 group of countries, which includes India, has submitted a proposal in this regard with the Geneva-based body.

However, he said, that proposal has not evolved over time and "I am not sure whether convergence can be found on the basis of that proposal without further revisions".

For a permanent solution, India had proposed either amending the formula to calculate the food subsidy cap of 10 per cent, which is based on the reference price of 1986-88, or allowing such schemes outside the purview of subsidy caps.

Finding a solution is important for India as it would help in smooth implementation of its food security law.

Further commenting on India's economy, he said India is the fastest growing G20 economy and there are strong signals that would continue on this path.

"India is carrying out a wide range of reforms to improve and strengthen institutions. The demonetisation initiative to help formalise the economy is not just the example of the effort....," he added.

He also said that tax reforms and ease of doing business would help in attracting foreign investments.

"I would like to commend India's courage in pursuing all these reforms. They are not easy and these efforts are being recognised around the world," he said.

On India's proposal of a trade facilitation agreement



(TFA) in services, Azevedo said it is a positive proposal and "we can do more in terms of facilitating business".

"Services sector is the biggest contributor in the global trade...It is a right and a legitimate proposal and we welcome it. Now, we have to see how much interest it can raise among the members," he said.

He added that the proposal was well received but "members are still waiting for clarifications because it is still a conceptual paper. We need to get into more details".

India has floated the note saying the pact will reduce transaction costs by doing away with unnecessary regulatory and administrative burden on trade in services.

Talking about the global trade scenario, Azevedo said WTO expects the final figures for trade growth in 2016 to be around 1.7 per cent and that would be the slowest pace of growth since the financial crisis.

Raising concerns over increase in protectionism across the globe, he said inward looking policies or turning towards protectionism is not going to help.

On the contrary, he said, it will make things worse and dampen the prospects of economic growth everywhere including in India.

He also said India is seeing a transformative potential of technology with the IT products and services becoming increasingly important in the economy.

The WTO DG said country's should not reject this and instead "we must embrace them and we have to learn to adopt the new reality".

On the trade facilitation agreement (TFA) in goods, he said it will enter into force in the coming weeks.

It has huge economic benefits and globally the pact could boost exports by about USD 1 trillion every year.

If fully implemented, it would reduce trade cost by up to 13.9 per cent for India, he said, adding members should also work on the pending agenda of the Doha Round of talks.

About the forthcoming meeting of the WTO in Argentina, he said it is an important opportunity for WTO members to make further progress.

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Asked about the possible impact of the policies of the new US administration on WTO, Azevedo said he can not comment as America has yet to appoint missions for Geneva and US Trade Representative.

He further said the WTO members took a set of decisions on agriculture in 2015, including a recommitment to advance work on an agricultural special safeguard mechanism and a deal to abolish agricultural export subsidies.

"There is much more to do in order to reduce distortions in agricultural markets, but these were important steps forward," he said, adding that eliminating these export subsidies is the biggest reform in global agriculture trade for 20 years.

He felt that the next ministerial conference in Buenos Aires could be an important opportunity to make further progress.

"The debate at the WTO is very dynamic at the moment. Members are discussing how we can make progress in a wide range of areas - including on long-standing negotiating issues that are part of the Doha round," he said.

He added that many of the issues being discussed are of importance to India.

Further, he said work is also ongoing on a special safeguard mechanism for developing countries, which will help deal with import surges or price declines of food products that can harm domestic production.

"There is strong support for this, particularly from developing countries that are net food importers," he added.

On the WTO's Nairobi meeting in 2015, Azevedo said: "We do not want to repeat Nairobi. Nairobi (meet) for me was a disaster, despite the positive outcomes, but the process was terrible. I hope this time round, the members learn the lessons so that they negotiate and prepare the stage for what happens in Argentina.

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Azevedo said first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had described India as a country "on the verge of bold advance" and "I think it's fair to say that this vision is bearing fruit today".

India is now the fastest growing G20 economy, with GDP growth forecast at 7.2 per cent in 2017, he said, adding that there are strong signs that the country will continue on this path.

"India's commitment to stimulate growth and lift the poorest and most vulnerable is quite evident and must be praised," he said.

India is carrying out a wide range of reforms to improve and strengthen institutions, he said, adding that the demonetisation initiative to help formalise the economy is an "obvious example".

According to him, tax reforms will also make India an even more attractive destination for investments, besides leading to gains in scale and more effective supply chains.

"I think we are seeing India take its place on the world stage as a confident, dynamic country, which is ready to do business," he added.

"I think that these are all positive developments, especially in the current global context.
Markets regulator Sebi has sought clarification from the Special Investigation Team, set up by Supreme Court to check black money, regarding stricter norms for Participatory Notes (P-notes) used by overseas investors.

SIT had recommended a slew of measures including the need for Sebi to come up with stricter regulations on P-notes or Offshore Derivative Instruments (ODIs), which are often viewed as a route for channelising illicit funds.

Sebi chief U K Sinha said the regulator is taking all steps to prevent any misuse of ODIs.

"One or two things based on SIT recommendations have been already implemented by us. There are some issues on one or two points, for which we have written to them," he told PTI.

Suggesting there may be a change in rules governing P-notes, Sinha said that Sebi was in "advance stage of discussion" with the SIT on the issue of misuse of P-notes.

"We are regulating them. That is why the number (investments via P-notes) has come down. We will do whatever SIT asks us to do on it," said the chairman of Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).

P-notes are popular among foreign investors since they allow these investors to earn returns on investment in the Indian market without undergoing the significant cost and time implications of directly investing in the India.

These instruments are traded overseas outside the direct purview of the Sebi surveillance thereby raising many apprehensions about the beneficial ownership and the nature of funds invested in these instruments.

Concerns have been raised that some of the money coming into the market via P-notes could be the unaccounted wealth camouflaged under the guise of Foreign Institutional Investor (FII) investment, as per the Finance Ministry report.

Sebi on its part has been taking measures to ensure that P-notes are not used as conduits for black money or terrorist funding.

The markets regulator had earlier informed that the top five locations of end beneficial owner of ODIs were Cayman Islands, USA, UK, Mauritius and Bermuda.

According to Sebi data, the total value of P-notes investments in Indian markets plunged to Rs 1,57,306 crore in December-end from Rs 1,79,648 crore at the end of November.

The SIT, in its their report, had recommended that the information of beneficial owner with Sebi should be in form of individual whose Know Your Customer (KYC) information is known to the regulator.

"In no case should the KYC information end with name of a company. In case a company is the holder of P-notes/ODIs, Sebi should have information of its promoters/directors who exercise effective control over the company," it had said.

It is clear that obtaining information on beneficial ownership of P-notes is of crucial importance to prevent their misuse. Sebi needs to examine these issues and come up with regulations where the final beneficial owner of P-notes/ODIs are known, the SIT had recommended.

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Later speaking to reporters at the 11th Digital India the Sebi Chief said that over a period of time, the percentage of P-notes compared to royal foreign portfolio investments has been going down.

Besides, some of the large funds, who were leader in this area, have been forced to close down their business



"Its a good development. One of the reason for such development could be Sebi came out with norms in 2014 and the SIT made certain recommendations and we have implemented most of them," he said.

"In some of the recommendations, we have communicated our point to the committee and they have some sought data, obviously we have to be guided by whatever SIT decides finally," he added.
Xander Bastnagel, eighth grader at Belvoir Christian Academy, was awarded first place for an essay contest sponsored by the Chief John Ross Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Students were assigned the topic of "Celebrating a Century: America's National Parks". Xander's essay conveyed his experience to Badlands National Park in South Dakota. He received a small monetary prize for his achievement.
Turkey's military says three soldiers were killed in northern Syria in an "accidental" airstrike by a Russian warplane.

The military says 11 other soldiers were wounded in the friendly fire incident today. The Turkish soldiers were inside a building that was hit by a Russian aircraft, according to a military statement.

The statement said Russia expressed its sorrow and condolences for the incident while President Vladimir Putin called President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The incident comes after Turkey and Russia recently repaired ties that were strained by Turkey's downing of Russian jet near the border with Syria two years ago.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Asserting that the continuation of terrorist safe havens in Pakistan pose the "greatest threats" to stability in Afghanistan, a top American general and a powerful Senator have asked for a candid evaluation of the US' ties with Pakistan for success in the war-torn country.

Senator John McCain, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said during a Congressional hearing on Afghanistan that the fact remains that numerous terrorist groups operate within Pakistan, attack its neighbors, and kill US forces.

"Put simply, our mission in Afghanistan is immeasurably more difficult, if not impossible, while our enemies possess a safe haven in Pakistan. These sanctuaries must be eliminated, as Pakistani leaders have committed to doing," he said.

"The new administration must work with the Congress to determine what additional actions are necessary to ensure that the enemies we continue to fight in Afghanistan can find no quarter in Pakistan or any other country," McCain said.

One of the factors for succeeding in Afghanistan, he said, will require a candid evaluation of US' ties with Pakistan.

McCain, though, acknowledged thousands of Pakistanis have served and sacrificed their lives in the fight against common terrorist enemies.

Testifying before the committee, General John Nicholson, Commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said leaders of Taliban and Haqqani network enjoy freedom of actions in the safe havens of Pakistan.

"The Taliban and Haqqani network are the greatest threats to security in Afghanistan. Their senior leaders remain insulated from pressure and enjoy freedom of action within Pakistan safe havens," he said.

"As long as they enjoy external enablement, they have no incentive to reconcile. The primary factor that will enable our success is the elimination of external sanctuary and support to the insurgents," Nicholson told lawmakers.

Nicholson said of late Russia has become more assertive, overtly lending legitimacy to the Taliban to undermine NATO efforts and bolster belligerents using the false narrative that only the Taliban are fighting ISIL-K.

Similarly, neighbouring Iran is providing support to the Taliban while also engaging the Afghan government over issues of water rights, trade, and security, he said.

"Our primary mission remains to protect the homeland by preventing Afghanistan from being used again as a safe haven for terrorists to attack the US or our allies," he said.

Nicholson assessed the security situation in Afghanistan is a stalemate where the equilibrium favours the government.

"Leadership and countering corruption are two areas in which the ANDSF must improve to reduce casualties and increase military capability," he noted.

Nicholson also praised India's developmental assistance in Afghanistan.

"With over USD 2B development aid executed since 2002, and another USD 1B pledged in 2016, India's significant investments in Afghan infrastructure, engineering, training, and humanitarian issues will help develop Afghan human capital and long-term stability," Nicholson said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
South African President Jacob Zuma prepared to deliver his annual state of the nation address after deploying more than 440 soldiers to prevent a repeat of violent clashes outside parliament.

Zuma, 74, has faced growing criticism since his last address over a series of damaging corruption scandals, worsening unemployment levels and slowing economic growth.

In December, he beat back an attempt by at least four ministers to oust him from power, following local elections that delivered the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party's worst-ever results.

The president said the military deployment was to maintain "law and order" outside parliament in Cape Town, but the move was condemned by the main opposition Democratic Alliance party.

"The DA will not stand by and allow for the 'people's parliament' to be turned into a security-state show of force, meant to intimidate opposition both inside and outside of the ANC," it said in a statement.

Zuma's state of the nation address has been hit by regular protests in recent years.

In 2016, lawmakers from the leftist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) -- dressed in their uniform of red workers' overalls and hard hats -- noisily interrupted his speech before eventually being ordered out of the chamber.

Outside on the streets of Cape Town, police fired stun grenades to disperse angry protesters.

The city, a stronghold of the DA party, has been under a tight security clampdown this week.

The 2015 state of the nation address degenerated into chaos as protesting EFF lawmakers were violently evicted by bouncers.

The EFF, led by firebrand Julius Malema, has not said whether it will try to shout Zuma down this year, but it described the use of soldiers as a "declaration of war on citizens".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The catchy one liner "UP ko ye saath pasand hai" dotting the Uttar Pradesh skyline does not seem to be reflected on the ground as fledgling alliance partners SP and Congress are crossing swords in over a dozen Assembly seats.

"Yes, there are some seats on which candidates of both the parties are challenging each other. The issue will be resolved," SP Chief Spokesman Rajendra Chowdhury told PTI when asked to comment on the issue.

Even UP Congress chief Raj Babbar said the matter would be sorted out in a couple of days.

"Leaders of both parties will campaign in support of candidates declared by the alliance on the seats where nominees of both sides have filed their papers," he said.

But, political observers say that with only a day left for the polling for the first phase on February 11 the damage seems to have been done already with candidates of both parties already on the ground.

"The alliance is set to witness some unfriendly contest in these seats," they said.

The situation is worse in the Gandhi family pocket borough -- Amethi and Raebareli -- represented by Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi in Lok Sabha.

There are 10 assembly seats in Amethi and Raebareli.

In Raebareli's Sareni seat Ashok Singh (Congress) and Devendra Pratap Singh (SP) are challenging each other.

Likewise, in Unchahar Ajay Pal Singh (Congress) is facing cabinet minister Manoj Kumar Pandey (SP).

In Amethi, sitting MLA and Mulayam SIngh Yadav loyalist Gayatri Prasad Prajapati is in the fray on SP ticket, while Congress has decided to field Amita Singh there.

In Gauriganj seat too, confusion prevails with Congress candidate Mohd Naeem challenging Rakesh Pratap Singh (SP).

The UP PCC chief, however, made light of the issue saying, SP candidates had filed their nomination papers when it appeared that the alliance will not come through.

"At some places they wanted to withdraw, they could not do so due to uncertainty," he said.

A defiant Naeem, however, refused to withdraw his



candidature despite the seat-sharing pact between SP and Congress.

He had unsuccessfully contested the last assembly polls from Gauriganj on a Congress ticket.

Ameeta Singh, the present wife of Congress leader Sanjay Singh, too is all set to file her nomination as a Congress nominee from Amethi seat from where Sanjay's estranged first wife Garima Singh is contesting on a BJP ticket.

In state capital Lucknow, SP has already announced the name of senior minister and sitting MLA Ravidas Mehrotra for Lucknow (Central).

After the alliance, Maroof Khan of Congress also filed his nomination from the seat on the pretext of the high command's order.

Both Mehrotra and Khan are on campaigning spree and not ready to withdraw and the face off might help BSP turncoat Brijesh Pathak, who is contesting on BJP ticket.

From Zaidpur seat in Barabanki, Congress has fielded Tanuj Punia, son of former bureaucrat and Congress Rajya Sabha member PL Punia. Tanuj is facing SP's Ram Gopal Rawat, who was expelled from the party after refusing to withdraw.

In Kanpur, though Pramod Jaiswal, younger brother of former Union minister and senior Congress leader Sri Prakash Jaiswal, opted out from Arya Nagar (Kanpur) in favour of SP's Amitabh Bajpai but could not withdraw his papers and technically remains a candidate.

In Muzaffarnagar, the Election Commission has allotted party symbols to the candidates of both Congress and Samajwadi Party from Purkazi assembly constituency, the seat which was given to Congress.

In other seats like Baldev (Mathura), Gangoh (Saharanpur), Kol (Aligarh), Purkaji (Muzaffarnagar), Chandpur (Bijnor), Mahrajpur (Kanpur), Kanpur Cant and Bhognipur (Kanpur dehat) Congress and SP candidates are facing each other.

Both the allies are also facing strong rebellion from



those within the cadre who were aspiring for tickets but have been left high and dry under the seat sharing formula.

SP is facing a bigger challenge from its rebels, who are either fighting as Independents or from other parties in over 100 seats across the state.

When his attention was drawn to over ten seats where candidates of both SP and Congress have filed their papers despite forming an alliance, AICC General Secetary and in-charge of UP Ghulam Nabi Azad said SP candidates had filed their papers when they felt that the alliance will not take place.

Then there some places where they wanted to withdraw but could not due to uncertainity, he explained.

With the state in the midst of hectic electioneering, voters would be confused as to whom to elect and could cost both the alliance partners dearly, said analysts.

They said joint posters of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav might not send a message of unity unless ground realities were rectified.

Out of the 403 assembly seats, SP will contest 298 and Congress the rest 105.
Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, the men behind 'Scary Movie', 'Epic Movie', and 'Vampire Suck', have signed on to parody 'Star Wars' with their next film.

Friedberg and Seltzer will write and direct the Star Wars spoof named "Star Worlds Episode XXXIVE=MC2: The Force Awakens The Last Jedi Who Went Rogue", which is eyeing a Fall 2017 shoot, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Paul Hanson is producing the film alongside Broken Road Productions' Todd Garner.

"Jason and Aaron are a powerhouse duo who have proven time and time again that they are fully tapped into what audiences love," said Hanson.

"Their fearless take on pop culture has us beyond thrilled to tackle the world's most popular franchise with the two of them leading us into a galaxy far, far away," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Five policemen and several students were injured when two groups clashed during the elections to the students' union at a college in Islampur in Uttar Dinajpur district today.

"Several students were injured when two groups clashed during elections for their union at Islampur College. Five of our policemen who were sent to the college premises to control the fighting, were also injured," Uttar Dinajpur SP Amit Kumar Bharat Rathod told PTI.

Two rival factions of the students' union owing affiliation to the ruling Trinamool Congress at the college clashed over the election for the post of general secretary.

The Police said students clashed with wooden sticks and hurled bricks at each other following which a huge police force was sent to the collage premises.

"To control the situation and the students we had to fire tear gas shells... However, situation is normal at the moment," Rathod said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Continuing with its efforts to reclaim lost ground in the Indian passenger vehicles market, Tata Motors will soon launch compact sedan Tigor.

The company on Thursday announced that the Kite 5 concept, which was showcased at Auto Expo 2016, will be christened in .

"The is the next offering of the IMPACT design language and is targeted at young, talented and confident individuals who express their individuality with a unique style of their own," the company said in a statement.

Announcing the name, Tata Motors President, Passenger Vehicle Business Unit, Mayank Pareek said: "After Hexa, we are speeding towards our next market introduction, the which opens a new category of style and attitude in this segment."



While he did not share a timeline for the launch of the new model, Pareek said: "We will announce its commercial launch soon and are excited to see the IMPACT of the 'Styleback' on our customers."



The Tigor will compete with the likes of Maruti Suzuki Dzire, Honda Amaze, Ford Aspire and Volkswagen Ameo which are priced in the range of Rs 5.35 to Rs 9.55 lakh.

Tata Motors has set a target of being among the top three passenger vehicles manufacturer in India by 2019. It's hatchback Tiago has been received well in the market. It has also launched a new SUV Hexa.
Moody's Investors Service on Thursday said Tata Steel's operative performance has shown improvement on the back of government steps like import curbs besides company's greenfield expansion in India but kept its ratings unchanged.

The global ratings agency in February last year had downgraded credit ratings of by two notches to Ba3 from Ba1 on a weaker than expected operating performance in its key operating markets of India, Europe and South-East Asia on account of persistently weak steel prices.

" Ltd (Ba3 negative) and UK Holdings Limited's (TSUKH, B3 negative) ratings remain unchanged at this point in time. Although improving, credit metrics have yet to catch up with their respective rating categories," Moody's said in a statement.

Tata Steel reported a consolidated revenue of Rs 832 billion and consolidated underlying EBITDA of Rs 98 billion for April-December 2016 - a period representing the first nine months of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2017 (FY2017) - up 3 per cent and 90 per cent respectively from a year ago.

For the quarter ended December 31, 2016, the company's consolidated revenue of Rs 294 billion and consolidated underlying EBITDA of Rs 36 billion represented increases of 14 per cent and 4x respectively, reflecting the consistent improvement in performance, backed by an expansion of its Indian operations and a turnaround of its European EBITDA.

"We estimate Tata Steel's consolidated adjusted leverage of 7.9x as of December 2016, continuing to decline from 14.5x as of March 2016 and 10.2x as of September 2016. We expect that Tata Steel's consolidated earnings will continue to improve, such that leverage will fall towards 7.0x by March 2017, and approach 6.0x over the next 6-9 months," the statement said.

It said even at these improved levels, leverage remains high and "exceeds the 4.5x-5.0x needed to change the company's rating outlook to stable from negative."



Moody's said the improvement in Tata Steel India's (TSI) operating performance was driven by the various measures taken by the Government of India (Baa3 positive) to curb imports, and the positive momentum across global steel markets since April 2016, and also supported by the company's greenfield expansion at Kalinganagar that added 3 million tonnes per annum of crude steel capacity.

The steel giant's Kalinganagar plant crossed 1 million tonnes of hot rolled coil production since commissioning in May 2016, and the company upgraded its guidance for FY2017 to 1.5 million tonnes from the earlier 1.3 million tonnes.

"The additional capacity will help Tata Steel cater to a likely step up in demand over the next 12-18 months, driven by the increase in infrastructure spending, as outlined in India's recent budget," Moody's said.

Moody's said looking ahead, it expects the production



ramp-up phase of the Kalinganagar operations and the resulting absorption of fixed costs to translate into improvement in EBITDA/tonne over the coming quarters.

Moody's also pointed out that TSI's backward integrated operations - with 100 per cent captive iron ore supplies and 60 per cent captive coking coal supplies - position Tata Steel competitively, in a rising raw material price environment.

It said the continuation of the government measures to protect the domestic steel industry is imperative, especially with the global and regional overcapacity of steel.

As for the strong performance of Tata Steel's European operations (TSE), this result reflected the restructuring of the UK business, operational improvements on the back of cost reductions and improved market conditions, it said.

TSE revenue of Rs 380 billion during April-December 2016 was down 11 per cent from the same period the year before, because deliveries were impacted by the company's decision to reduce production volume in order to focus on higher value-added products in the UK, it said.

"Nevertheless, EBITDA turned positive, registering Rs 25 billion from negative Rs 7 billion in April-December 2015, reflecting the depreciation of the British pound relative to the Euro, a lower cost base in the UK, and more favourable market conditions," Moody's said.
Telecom operator is believed to be in talks to sell its entire stake in mobile tower company Viom Networks to American Tower Corporation for about Rs 4,000 crore.

" is in advanced stages of finalising a deal with American Tower Corporation (ATC) to exit Viom Networks. The deal is pegged at around Rs 4,000 crore," an industry source said.

Mails sent to and ATC did not elicit any response.

Tata Teleservices' stake in Viom Networks came down to 26 per cent after ATC acquired the majority stake in the company and merged its existing Indian business.

ATC bought 51 per cent stake in Viom, which owns and operates over 42,000 towers, from Tata Teleservices Ltd and SREI Infrastructure Finance for Rs 7,635 crore.

Tata Teleservices at that time owned 54 per cent of Viom, with Kolkata-based SREI Group of Kanoria family holding about 18 per cent with management control.

Singapore state investor GIC, Macquarie SBI Infrastructure Fund, Oman Investment Fund and India's IDFC Private Equity are other investors in the company.

Viom was formed in 2009 as a result of the merger of mobile towers of Tata Teleservices and Quippo Telecom  a unit under SREI Group.
The commerce ministry will soon despatch a team of officials to Geneva to speed up talks at WTO with an aim to find a permanent solution on food security.

Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also said the team will make sure India's proposal for trade facilitation agreement (TFA) in services gathers momentum.

The issues figured in the discussions during a meeting between Sitharaman and WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo here today.

"The team which will be going to Geneva will also see that TFA in services is taken at various stages so that it becomes part of the Argentina ministerial meeting," she told reporters here.

The official team, she said, will ensure "we take up both the issues".

She said India wants the procedure of finding a permanent solution on food security to be completed on time and that too before the ministerial level meet in Argentina in December.

During the meeting, Sitharaman pressed for regular meetings to discuss this important issue.

"This year, I want to see discussions happening in Geneva on this. We have already done enough groundwork on this. We can not start discussions from scratch," she added.

The issue will come up for discussion at the WTO's committee on agriculture in Geneva. The deadline to find a solution is December-end.

The minister also raised India's concerns related to e-commerce, special safeguard mechanism, fisheries and investments.

India is making a case for TFA in services in line with a similar pact in goods signed by WTO in 2014. It aims at expediting movement, release and clearance of goods as well as co-operation on Customs compliance.

On e-commerce, she said the issue should not become part of the ministerial meeting unless there is a consensus.

On investment pact, she clearly said: "I do not want investment to be part of the multi-lateral system... We want it to be part of the bilateral scheme of things.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is to meet with US President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday.

A statement from the prime minister's office today says the leaders "look forward to discussing ?the unique relationship between Canada and the United States of America and how they will continue to work hard for middle-class Canadians and Americans, together."



More than 75 per cent of Canada's exports go to the US Of the 50 US states, 35 count Canada as their leading export market.

Trump has vowed to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico.

Canada's foreign minister warned the Trump administration yesterday that his country will retaliate if the US applies new tariffs.

Chrystia Freeland visited US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson yesterday.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A New York school principal in an email to parents has controversially stated that the Trump presidency was more troubling than the 9/11 terror attacks, Vietnam and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

Steve Nelson's scorching missive managed to roil several parents at the Calhoun School, Manhattan, the New York Post reported.

The principal at the progressive Manhattan private school told parents in an email last week that the Trump presidency was more troubling than Vietnam, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the September 11 terror attacks and Watergate, the report said.

Nelson emailed a series of anguished ruminations on Donald Trump's ascent to Calhoun parents, simultaneously calling for non-partisanship while skewering the billionaire's policies.

In a message, Nelson, who also teaches journalism, noted his intimate familiarity with several recent catastrophes -- including 9/11.

"I watched soot-covered New Yorkers grimly trudging north on West End Avenue on September 11, 2001. I am more troubled now," Nelson wrote.

Elsewhere in the lengthy missive, Nelson acknowledged the theoretical need to avoid political bias in a school environment.

"One in my position must be scrupulous in avoiding partisanship," he said.

But, in the same message, he later asserted that "there are matters that transcend political diversity".

"The ways in which equity and equality are now threatened are deeply troubling, including the constitutionally suspect and arguably discriminatory efforts to restrict or prohibit immigration based on religion and/or ethnicity," he wrote.

Reacting to the Principal's message, a parent was quoted as saying, "It was inappropriate, it was offensive, it was condescending. This is a liberal school. So I guess that's the approach. But this was too much. To compare this to 9/11 -- I think that's just too much."



Another parent said she was not a Trump zealot but was still made uncomfortable by the outward display of political allegiance.

"I just think this went too far. I understand that this is a progressive school, but at a certain point you have to have some restraint," she said.

However, Nelson, who has been at the school for two decades and plans to retire this year, staunchly stood by his actions.

"I not only stand by the statement but I wouldn't mind it being published in full," he said.

Students at the West End Avenue school -- which counts actor Ben Stiller and comedian Jordan Peele as graduates -- eagerly backed their principal. Founded in 1896, Calhoun has an enrollment of 730 kids and prides itself on tackling thorny issues like racism head on.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Donald Trump has lashed out at department store chain Nordstrom for dropping his daughter's clothing line, again spotlighting the intermingling of the US presidency with Trump family businesses.

The public rebuke yesterday, which the White House later defended, called renewed attention to the potential tangle of business interests Trump brought with him on taking office last month.

In a tweet posted moments after he wrapped up an address to US law enforcement, Trump hit out at the high-end retailer for announcing last week it had decided to discontinue sales of Ivanka Trump's fashion line due to poor sales.

"My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by Nordstrom," Trump wrote. "She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!"



Since his surprise victory in the November presidential election, Trump has used his Twitter feed to lambast individual companies -- from General Motors to Boeing -- be it for off-shoring jobs or allegedly overcharging the federal government for aircraft.

But the latest tweet was different in that it sought to defend part of Trump's family business empire, which critics have said could be a source of profound conflicts of interest for the White House.

Trump made sure to give his message on Ivanka maximum reach by posting it both on his personal handle @realDonaldTrump and on the official account of the US presidency @POTUS.

Since his November victory, Trump has touted an effort to remove himself from running his business empire, transferring corporate control to his sons. But he has resisted divesting, as a government ethics watchdog had called on him to do.

Critics say the Trump businesses still pose a significant ethical quandary.

Further playing into the running debate, Pentagon officials said yesterday they were looking to rent space in Trump Tower, Trump's flagship Manhattan luxury building, to accommodate equipment and staff who accompany the president during his stays there.

That came on the heels of a lawsuit filed by Melania Trump in New York, which claimed that damaging rumors reported by a British tabloid had interfered with her "unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to earn millions of dollars due to her raised profile as first lady.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer yesterday defended Trump's Nordstrom tweet, saying the president was standing up for a family member.

"There's clearly efforts to undermine that name based on her father's issues or particular policies," Spicer told reporters.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
President Donald Trump's extended criticism of the judiciary prompted a rebuke from his nominee for the Supreme Court, who told a senator the president's comments were "demoralizing and disheartening."



Judge Neil Gorsuch, who was nominated by Trump to the nation's high court last week, made the comments Wednesday after Trump accused an appellate court considering his immigration and refugee executive order of being "so political."



Over the weekend, the president labeled a judge who ruled on his executive order a "so-called judge" and referred to the ruling as "ridiculous."



Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut first relayed Gorsuch's remarks on Wednesday following a meeting with the judge. Trump's own confirmation team for Gorsuch later confirmed he had made those remarks.

But Trump suggested that Blumenthal had misrepresented Gorsuch, tweeting early Thursday, "Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie), now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?"



Blumenthal faced criticism in the past for saying he had served in Vietnam. Blumenthal served in the Marine Corps Reserves during Vietnam. He apologized in 2010, saying he regretted his misstatements.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for clarity on how Gorsuch's comments were misrepresented. Gorsuch's comments came at the end of a week of meetings with members of the Senate, which is considering his nomination.

His response may have been aimed at drawing a line of separation from the new president, who has been a politically polarizing figure among Democrats in a highly charged partisan fight over the court.

Prior to the judge's meeting with Blumenthal, Trump criticized the court that is deliberating his immigration and refugee executive order, telling a group of police chiefs his immigration order was "done for the security of our nation."



He quoted from the portion of the immigration law that he said gave him the power to enact the ban, calling it "beautifully written" and saying, "A bad high school student would understand this."



"Courts seem to be so political and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do what's right," he added. "And that has to do with the security of our country, which is so important."



The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is weighing the appeal of his executive order on immigration, including a temporary travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries. In a hearing Tuesday, judges on the appeals court challenged the administration's claim that the ban was motivated by terrorism fears, but also questioned an attorney's argument that it unconstitutionally targeted Muslims.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two Palestinians were killed and five wounded overnight, the Islamist movement Hamas said today in Gaza, following a spike in tensions near the Egypt-Israel border.

The Gaza health ministry blamed an Israeli air strike. The incident comes after several rockets were fired Wednesday evening from Egypt's Sinai, which borders the Gaza Strip, at the Israeli Red Sea resort of Eilat.

The Israeli military however had not confirmed by today that it had carried out retaliatory strikes.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
At least two members of the People's Liberation Front of India (PLFI) were today killed during an exchange of fire between security personnel and rebels at Sorada forest in Sundergarh district of Odisha.

The incident took place early this morning when the members of the District Volunteer Force (DVF), Sundergarh Police, were on search operation in view of the ensuing panchayat polls in the area.

"At least two members of the PLFI died during the 30 minute encounter. We suspect some other rebels have also sustained injuries," IG, Western Range, R K Sharma told reporters.

"Circumstantial evidences suggest that some four to five members of the group were injured in the gun battle," IG said.

Two police officials also received minor injuries in the encounter, he said.

The police have seized huge amount of arms from the PLFI camp, the IG said.

Stating that the security forces had definite information about the movement of the PLFI cadre, Sharma said about 15 rebels were in the camp inside the jungle.

Sharma said the police team retaliated when the PLFI members opened fire on them.

The police recovered one AK-47, one point 303 rifle, seven single barrel guns, one revolver and one SLR, Sharma said adding that the police also seized three magazines of AK-47, 194 live cartridges, 45 mobile phones and one tablet, dresses, shoes, PLFI literature, some empty cartridges, medicines and other articles of daily use and food materials from the spot.

Sharma said the Odisha Police was in touch with its Jharkhand counterpart to establish the identity of the two slain PLFI cadre.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Taking on Narendra Modi over his "raincoat" remark, Shiv Sena President on Thursday said the Prime Minister had created "fizz" without soap.

"Though he wore a raincoat, (former Prime Minister) Manmohan Singh at least bathed using water. You (Modi) did not even use water to bathe everybody (in the country). You created fizz without soap," Thackeray said, in an apparent reference to hardships caused by the demonetisation.

The Sena leader was addressing a campaign rally here for Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation polls.

Referring to the former Prime Minister during a speech in the Rajya Sabha yesterday, Modi had said, "Dr sahab's image remained clean despite his government being mired in scams, as only he knew the art of bathing with his raincoat on."

Uddhav said had he not severed ties with BJP (for BMC elections of February 21) his photo too would have been there in posters with Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and Pappu Kalani (former MLA of Ulhasnagar who was accused of murder). I am relieved that I did not have to join the likes of Kalani," he said.

"We are accountable to people. Earlier BJP had faces like Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani. Now they have faces of goons. Now Kalani is with Modi and Shah on posters," he alleged.

The Sena chief also hit out at Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis who had said that Mumbai was on par with Patna in terms of the level of development.

"Mumbai is much progressed than any city. But Patna is also not a backward city. He (Fadnavis) has insulted both Mumbai and Patna. Mumbai has the highest share of tax collection for the Centre. This year Central government has got more than Rs 2 lakh crore through various taxes from Mumbaikar's pockets. I will demand Mumbai should get 25% share out of our collection," he said.
India can increase its "military pressure" on Pakistan using the alibi of "counterterrorism crusade" that may bring "other players" in the region, China's official media warned on Thursday, justifying Beijing's latest block on a proposed UN ban on JeM chief .

"India has its own reasons to have listed Azhar as terrorist. However, observers are also worried that under the defence of counterterrorism crusade, India can increase its military pressure on Pakistan, thus risking escalating tensions between the two countries," state-run Global Times said in an editorial.

It comes just a day after China defended its decision to block the US' proposal in the UN for designating Pathankot attack mastermind and JeM chief Azhar as a global terrorist, saying the "conditions" have not yet been met for Beijing to back the move.

"The India-Pakistan has been a thorny issue in South Asia for a long time and China is caught in the middle, given geographic and geopolitical proximity to the two," it said without mentioning China's all weather ties with Pakistan.

"The failure to bring the two on the path to peace underscores their different domestic and diplomatic trajectories. Any action the UN takes should assist the peace process rather than escalating tensions between the two countries," the editorial said.

Interestingly, the editorial can only be read in the print edition as internet link to it was blocked.

Projecting an enlarged role for Beijing in the tensions between India and Pakistan, it said "as a responsible power China must help maintain regional order".

It said China is aware that terrorism is a burning issue.

"China has also set up anti-terror mechanism with India but regional peace and stability will always be a priority," it said.

"Any India-Pakistan confrontation may bring other players into the region, which would complicate the situation," it said without naming "other players".

Significantly for China, the resolution to ban Azhar in the Al-Qaeda related 1267 Committee of the UN Security Council was moved this time by the US and backed by other UNSC permanent members like UK and France unlike last year when India moved the application which was backed by all members except China.

However, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang yesterday while defending China's technical hold, played down US move to directly moving the resolution for the ban on Azhar.

(Reopens FGN 16)



"Whoever submitted the request we believe all the members of the committee will act in line with regulations of the security council and its affiliations," he told the media.

He said the move has not met the conditions for a ban and needed consensus for approval.

In its editorial today, the Global Times, the ruling Communist Party of China's (CPC) tabloid, known for striking nationalistic postures said India has not produced enough evidence to back its case about Azhar's involvement in the Pathankot airbase attack which incidentally scuttled India- Pakistan peace process.

"Unlike Indian media's criticism of China's veto, Pakistan media reported that people in the country welcomed the news, which reflect deep divisions among the people in the two countries," it said.

"What is troublesome is some Indian media view China with prejudice and overtly interpret China's moves, especially after China and Pakistan hastened the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project," it said.

But at the same time it said China supports India's efforts to curb terrorism.

"India can work more to bring all the parties to reach consensus over the issue, instead of only blaming others for its failed attempts.
The US military has said that it had killed eleven Al-Qaeda operatives, including a veteran leader and suicide bombing pioneer, in a bombing raid in Syria.

The Pentagon said Abu Hani al-Masri, the Qaeda veteran, was one of those killed in the precision airstrikes near Idlib carried out on February 3-4.

Al-Masri was an early official in al-Qaeda, overseeing the group's training camps in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s as he worked with Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden and current leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

There "he recruited, indoctrinated, trained and equipped thousands of terrorists who subsequently spread throughout the region and the world," the Pentagon said yesterday in a statement.

They said he also helped found Egyptian Islamic Jihad "he first Sunni group to use suicide bombers in their terror attacks."



"These strikes disrupt al-Qaeda's ability to plot and direct external attacks targeting the US and our interests worldwide," said Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis.

The US has mostly focused its attacks in Syria on the Islamic State group. But in recent months, US forces have also launched several attacks against its al-Qaeda rivals.

Idlib province is largely occupied by the former Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, Fateh al-Sham, which has been allied to several Syrian rebel groups fighting the government.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Donald Trump has written to Chinese President Xi Jinping that he looks forward to forging a "constructive relationship" that benefits both countries, days after the US President accused Beijing of unfair trade practices, currency manipulation and military buildup in the South China Sea.

Trump wrote the letter to President Xi who had written a congratulatory letter to him soon after he was sworn-in as US President on January 20.

"President Donald J Trump today provided a letter to President Xi Jinping of China, thanking President Xi for his congratulatory letter on the occasion of President Trump's inauguration and wishing the Chinese people a happy Lantern Festival and prosperous Year of the Rooster," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said.

"President Trump stated that he looks forward to working with President Xi to develop a constructive relationship that benefits both the United States and China," Spicer said in a statement.

In Beijing, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, reacting to Trump's letter, praised it.

"We highly commend President Trump for expressing festive greetings to President Xi Jinping and the Chinese people," Lu told journalists, adding "cooperation is the only right choice for the two countries."



After becoming the US President, Trump has spoken with nearly two dozen world leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, Trump has not yet spoken to Xi.

In his media briefing, Lu parried questions whether China consider it a snub as Trump has not so far spoken to Xi even though he dialled 18 world leaders after taking over office on January 20.

"There is no need for me to comment on this kind of remarks. Interactions between China and US play an irreplaceable role in bilateral ties," Lu said.

British Prime Minister Theresa May was the first world leader to have met him in the Oval Office.

Later this week, Trump would be hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the White House. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also scheduled to meet him at the White House.

Trump has accused China of unfair trade practices and currency manipulation, harming the US economy. He has also criticised China's military buildup in the South China Sea and accused it of doing too little to pressure North Korea over its nuclear and missile programmes.

Trump, after his election, had stated that the 'One- China' policy on Taiwan is up for negotiation and that he is not fully committed to it.

China had hit back saying one-China policy which stipulates that Taiwan is part of Chinese mainland is "non-negotiable". China regards Taiwan as a breakaway province and insist all countries having bilateral ties with it to abide by the 'One-China' policy.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Updated: Man Shot Near Union Station By Amtrak Police Wednesday Night

By Rachel Cromidas in News on Feb 9, 2017 4:23AM



(Photo by via the Chicagoist Featured Photos pool on Flickr)

A 25-year-old man was shot near Union Station Wednesday night in the West Loop, in a shooting that involved an Amtrak police officer, according to authorities.

The shooting reportedly took place at 8:45 p.m. somewhere near the intersection of Canal and Van Buren streets in the West Loop. A Chicago Police Department spokesman told Chicagoist that CPD does not have information on the case to release, and referred us to Amtrak's police department. Amtrak police did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday night.

A source told the Sun-Times that an Amtrak police officer had fired at someone during a robbery, and the officer was not hurt in the shooting.

The man who was shot was hit in the left shoulder and taken to Stroger Hospital in serious condition, police said. According to the Sun-Times, police vehicles from CPD and Amtrak and Metra's police departments were on the scene and remained there as of 10 p.m.

Cash and narcotics were recovered from the scene, according to police.

The CTA was temporarily re-routing #60 buses due to street closures near the intersections of Canal, Van Buren, Jefferson and Jackson streets, according to CTA media.

This post has been updated.
Pakistan is hosting warships from 36 countries, including Russia, China and the US, in the Arabian Sea for a naval exercise beginning tomorrow.

Codenamed Aman-17, the five-day-long exercise will be held in the north Arabian Sea.

Russia has sent three ships for the exercise which, according to Pakistan Navy, is held every two years to raise awareness about naval affairs and improve coordination between different navies. Four ships from the US, and one each from Indonesia, Australia and Turkey will also participate.

Other participants of the exercise themed 'Together for peace' include China, Japan, Sri Lanka, the UK, and France.

Commander of the Pakistani Fleet, Vice Admiral Arifullah Hussaini said the exercise has helped navies to work together in eradicating terrorism, human, arms and drug trafficking.

He said Pakistani naval ships were also ensuring free sea trade in the Gulf of Aden.

"This region, the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea, is very important as well as complex. It is from here that the world's oil is transported," he added.

Asked about India focusing on increasing its naval assets, Hussaini said the Aman-17 exercise was aimed at promoting inter-operability and not at preparing for war.

Still, he said, Pakistan's navy can protect its waters and harbours. "We will ensure that our international interests are not jeopardised. We are not into escalating adventurism at sea. Pakistan is committed to international peace," he said.

He said such exercises have helped combat piracy in north Arabian Sea after Somali pirates caused lot of damage in the area.

A Pakistani naval official said warships from Russia, China and the US have arrived to take part in the exercise.

"Water salute was presented for the warships on reaching the Karachi port," he said, adding that it was mega event and the warships from 36 countries will take part in the exercise.

The exercise will feature ships, aircraft, helicopters, Special Operations Forces (SOF), Explosives Ordinance Disposal (EOD), marines and observers from different navies.

Pakistan has been organising such naval exercises since 2007 every alternate year. The current exercise is the fifth of the series and will be held from 10-14 February.

Previous four exercise were held in 2001, 2009, 2011 and 2013. In 2015, only international maritime conference was held.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Scientists have looked at the science of valve amps to explain why their rich, warm sound is more pleasant to the ears of so many rock musicians than cheaper transistors.

For many guitarists, the sound of an overdriven valve amp - think AC/DC's crunchy Marshall rhythm tones or Carlos Santana's singing Mesa Boogie-fuelled leads - can not be beaten, researchers said.

David Keeports, a physics professor from Mills College, California in the US, looked at the science of valve amps to explain why their sound is 'better' to the ears of so many guitarists.

"Although solid state diodes and transistors are cheaper, more practical, and technologically more advanced than glass valves, valves survive because so many guitarists are exacting about their tone, and prefer the sound a valve amp gives them," Keeports said.

"At its most fundamental level, this is because a moderately overdriven valve amp produces strong even harmonics, which add a sweetening complexity to a sound. An overdriven transistor amp, on the other hand creates strong odd harmonics, which can cause dissonance," he said.

Keeports explored the physics of why even harmonics enrich a sound, and why the timbre of the sound from a valve amp changes when a guitar is played more loudly.

He ran a 200 hertz (Hz) sine wave - a pure wave with a single frequency - through a small Bugera hybrid amplifier, featuring a valve preamp and a solid state power amp.

He then tested both 'sides' of the amp; first turning up the gain knob, which controls the valve preamp while the master volume knob (controlling the solid state power amp) was set low. He repeated the process with the preamp set low and the master turned up.

Using Logic Pro X music production software, he examined the resulting sound waves in both frequency and time domains.

"The output from the amp showed that a moderately overdriven valve preamp produced prominent 2nd and 4th harmonics at 400 and 800 Hz, and only a very weak 3rd harmonic at 600 Hz," Keeports said.

"For the solid state power amp, this pattern was reversed. All of this behaviour is consistent with the common claim about the harmonics that valve and solid state amplifiers produce. But the story is not quite so simple. Overdriving the valve preamp harder produces strong odd harmonics," he said.

"The shift towards odd harmonics at increasing gain is a characteristic of valve amplifiers that further explains their appeal.

"An electric guitar player can overdrive an amp two ways: by turning up the amp's gain control, and by attacking guitar strings more strongly," Keeports added.

The research was published in the journal Physics Education.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US President Donald Trump has told his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in a letter that he looks forward to developing a "constructive relationship" that benefits both countries, days after his remarks questioning the decades-old 'One China' policy riled Beijing.

Trump wrote the letter to President Xi who had written a congratulatory letter to him after he was sworn in as US President on January 20.

"President Donald J Trump today provided a letter to President Xi Jinping of China, thanking President Xi for his congratulatory letter on the occasion of President Trump's inauguration and wishing the Chinese people a happy Lantern Festival and prosperous Year of the Rooster," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said.

"President Trump stated that he looks forward to working with President Xi to develop a constructive relationship that benefits both the United States and China," Spicer said in a statement.

After becoming the US President, Trump has spoken with nearly two dozen world leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

British Prime Minister Theresa May was the first world leader to have met him in the Oval Office.

Later this week, Trump would be hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the White House. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also scheduled to meet him at the White House.

Trump, after his election, had stated that the 'One-China' policy on Taiwan is up for negotiation and that he is not fully committed to it.

China had hit back saying one-China policy which stipulates that Taiwan is part of Chinese mainland is "non-negotiable". China regards Taiwan as a breakaway province and insist all countries having bilateral ties with it to abide by the 'One-China' policy.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The IPO, which officials expect to value the oil producer at a minimum of $2 trillion, is the centerpiece of a Saudi Arabian government plan to transform the economy by attracting foreign investment and diversifying away from a reliance on oil.

Moelis will be the internal independent advisor, as part of a team preparing for the share offer and conducting regulatory discussions ahead of the roadshows and execution, the sources said.

A decision is expected by early next week on appointing international and local banks for preparatory work, they added.

Moelis's appointment is a big win for the bank, which itself went public less than three years ago, having been founded by veteran U.S. dealmaker Ken Moelis in 2007.

The Saudi Aramco mandate dwarfs previous IPO advisory roles, which include luggage maker Samsonite <1910.HK> on its $1.3 billion IPO in 2011 and last year's flotation of Extraction Oil & Gas , which valued the company at $3.23 billion.

But senior dealmakers at the bank, which has offices across the world, have been working on winning a role with Saudi Aramco for years, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The bank has an experienced team of advisers based in the Middle East, making its name in the region by advising the Dubai government on the $25 billion debt restructuring of conglomerate Dubai World in 2011.

Local and major international banks including Morgan Stanley , HSBC , Citi were among those that had been asked to pitch for an advisory position with Aramco three weeks ago, Saudi-based industry sources said last month.

Wall Street bank JPMorgan and independent boutique bank Michael Klein had already been picked to advise the country ahead of any listing.

Generally government work across the world is poorly paid, but banks often vie for the contracts simply to build a relationship with the state in the hope of getting future business.

The listing of Aramco is slated to take place in 2018, so the appointment of banks to run the share sale as lead managers and book runners is still some way off, the sources said.

Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said last week the company was evaluating concurrent listings on more than one exchange.

A Moelis spokesperson declined to comment and Saudi Aramco was not immediately available to comment.

(Additional reporting by Ron Bousso and Pamela Barbaglia in London, Bhanu Pratap in Bengaluru and Reem Shamseddine in Riyadh; Writing by Dasha Afanasieva; Editing by Greg Mahlich)

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(In third to last paragraph, corects last name to Jackson, not Berman)

By Diane Bartz and Caroline Humer

(Reuters) - A federal judge on Wednesday ruled against U.S. health insurer Anthem Inc's proposed $54 billion merger with smaller rival Cigna Corp, derailing an unprecedented effort to consolidate the country's health insurance industry. The U.S. Justice Department sued in July to stop Anthem's purchase of Cigna, a deal that would have created the largest U.S. health insurer by membership, and Aetna Inc's planned $33 billion acquisition of Humana.

On Wednesday, Judge Amy Berman Jackson of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued the ruling against Anthem's deal, saying that the merger would have worsened an already highly concentrated market and was likely to raise prices.

Last month, a different U.S. judge ruled against Aetna's proposed deal for Humana.

Government antitrust officials argued that both deals would lead to less competition and higher prices for Americans. The acquisitions would have reduced the number of large national U.S. insurers from five to three.

Jackson had separated the Justice Department's case into two trials. Her ruling focused only on the first one in which the Justice Department argued that the tie-up would hurt the ability of large national employers to get competitive rates for the health coverage they provide workers.

The second trial considered overlaps in the two insurers' business selling health benefits to individuals, and administering Medicare Advantage coverage to the elderly.

Anthem argued that there was enough competition because large companies with more than 5,000 employees often used multiple smaller players in the national market, but the judge disagreed.

"Regional firms and new specialized 'niche' companies that lack a national network are not viable options for the vast majority of national accounts, and they will not ameliorate the anticompetitive effects of this merger," Jackson wrote.

An Anthem spokeswoman and a Cigna spokesman both declined to comment on the decision.

PROTECTING CONSUMERS

Acting Assistant Attorney General Brent Snyder of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division said the ruling had prevented American consumers from facing higher health insurance premiums and less innovation.

Bill Baer, who was head of the Justice Department's antitrust division when it decided to sue to block both the insurance deals but has since left the agency, also hailed the decision. "Together with the decision on Aetna and Humana, this preserves five large national providers of critically important health insurance products," he said.

The fifth player, UnitedHealth Group Inc. was not involved in the deals.

Some Wall Street analysts expect all four of the companies to now move on, although Aetna and Humana have not committed to doing so. Their deal expires Feb. 15.

More deals may be in the offing, JPMorgan analyst Gary Taylor said in a research note. "Given Anthem and Cigna's pursuit of Humana in 2015, we think new potential combinations could emerge." He does not expect shares in either Anthem or Cigna to move given that investors had expected this ruling.

Cigna is entitled to receive from Anthem a $1.85 billion break-up fee if the deal fails to win regulatory approval, according to the merger agreement. The agreement also requires Cigna to have put forth its best effort on that front.

But Anthem and Cigna disagreed about the deal in court, Jackson wrote in her order, with Cigna refusing to sign off on Anthem's interpretation of how the companies could garner saving.

Anthem is the largest member of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and operates BCBS plans in 14 states. It and said it could apply its discounts to Cigna members while Cigna said its collaborations with doctors would save money.

Pre-merger integration was stalled and incomplete, the judge said.

(Additional reporting by Akankshita Mukhopadhyay and Dipika Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Bernard Orr and Leslie Adler)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
(Reuters) - Gold slipped from 3-month highs on Thursday on profit taking, but political risks from elections in Europe and worries over U.S. President Donald Trump's policies supported safe haven demand for bullion.

FUNDAMENTALS

* Spot gold dipped 0.2 percent to $1,238.90 per ounce at 0054 GMT. On Wednesday, the metal touched its highest since Nov. 11 at $1,244.67.

* U.S. gold futures rose 0.1 percent to $1,241 an ounce.

* Investors are concerned about the strong showing in the French presidential race of far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who has promised to take France out of the euro zone and to hold a referendum on European Union membership.

* Controversy over U.S. President Donald Trump's temporary travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries has recently boosted gold as a safe-haven asset.

* President Trump is planning to issue a directive targeting a controversial Dodd-Frank rule that requires companies to disclose whether their products contain "conflict minerals" from a war-torn part of Africa, sources familiar with the administration's thinking.

* U.S. consumers allocated the smallest amount of their annual household expenditure in 60 years to energy last year as electricity, gasoline and natural gas prices fell and energy efficiency improved, according to research.

* Prime Minister Shinzo Abe heads to Washington on Thursday hoping promises to help create U.S. jobs and bolster Japan's military will persuade President Trump to turn down the heat on trade and currency and stand by the decades-old alliance.

* Holdings of SPDR Gold Trust , the world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, rose 0.68 percent to 832.58 tonnes on Wednesday from Tuesday. Holdings rose for a sixth straight session.

* South African bullion producer Gold Fields is gearing up for an operation to capture and relocate a population of critically endangered chinchillas living around its Chilean mining project.

(Reporting By Nallur Sethuraman in Bengaluru; Editing by Richard Pullin)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
By Maytaal Angel and Devidutta Tripathy

MUMBAI/LONDON (Reuters) - Tata Steel UK has signed a 100 million pound ($126 million) deal to sell its speciality steel business to Liberty House Group, as the firm's Indian owner Tata Steel Ltd presses on with restructuring its European operations.

The deal, which is subject to regulatory clearances, secures 1,700 jobs, mostly in South Yorkshire in the north of England, Britain's largest steelmaker said in a statement on Thursday.

The speciality division is one of the world's biggest suppliers for the aerospace industry, with customers including Rolls-Royce, Boeing and Airbus.

"This is an important step forward in securing a future for the (speciality) business. Today's also marks another important step forward in realising a more sustainable future for our Port Talbot-based supply chain in the UK," said Bimlendra Jha, chief executive of Tata Steel UK.

The deal will make privately-owned Liberty House one of Britain's largest steel employers with 4,000 workers. The speciality business has the capacity to make 1.1 million tonnes of liquid steel a year from recycled scrap.

On completion of the deal, Tata Steel will employ some 9,000 people in Britain, around half of them based in Port Talbot, Wales, home to Britain's largest steelworks. For every steel job saved, around four jobs are retained in related sectors.

UK Business Secretary Greg Clark said: "I look forward to hearing more about (Liberty House's) expansion plan. We want to work with the steel industry to transform and upgrade their sector as part of the (government's) Industrial Strategy."

Tata Steel Ltd, India's biggest steelmaker by overall capacity, is in talks to merge its European operations, including its remaining British businesses, with Germany's Thyssenkrupp.

The success of the talks hinges on Tata getting regulatory approval to spin off its 15 billion pound pension scheme into a standalone entity, because Thyssenkrupp will not take on the British unit's pension liabilities in the event of a merger.

Tata Steel said it was seeking to develop a "structural solution for its UK pension scheme in the coming months", and it was also consulting employees on how to secure a sustainable future for its remaining British business.

The steelmaker's British employees have been balloted on closing the pension scheme to future accrual, with vote results due this month. But that is only the first step towards separation of a scheme that has 130,000 members.

Liberty House, part of the Gupta Family Group, expressed an interest in buying all of Tata Steel UK last year, before Tata Steel Ltd decided against a sale of the whole business in order to pursue a tie-up with Thyssenkrupp.

($1 = 0.7965 pounds)

(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy; Editing by Mark Potter and Adrian Croft)

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By Jessica Toonkel and Rishika Sadam

(Reuters) - Viacom Inc presented a plan on Thursday to turn around its business, focusing on six of its brands, and the entertainment company reported higher-than-expected quarterly earnings and revenue.

Shares of Viacom were up 5.5 percent at $44.37 in morning trading.

The company is giving top priority to its BET, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon and Nick Jr channels and its Paramount film studio, it said in its earnings release. Viacom will reorganize other brands to support those six.

"The flagship six is essentially the strongest entertainment pack you can get in the market," new Chief Executive Officer Bob Bakish said in a call to analysts.

By focusing on those brands, being more selective with content it licenses to online streaming services and looking for other ways to partner with distributors, the company expects to improve affiliate revenue.

The company expects U.S. affiliate revenue to rise by a low- to mid-single-digit percentage rate this year, executives said on the call.

This is the first major move by Bakish. The former head of Viacom's international business took over as permanent CEO in December after the Redstone family stopped exploring a merger of the company and CBS.

Sumner Redstone and his family own controlling stakes in Viacom and CBS through privately held movie theater company, National Amusements Inc.

For years, Viacom has contended with falling domestic ad revenues and poor ratings as younger viewers increasingly watch content online, while Paramount has suffered from a lack of box-office hits.

Bakish's efforts also come after a year of distractions for the company as the Redstones battled to maintain control, resulting in the departure of former CEO Philippe Dauman.

While Viacom reported higher-than-expected earnings and revenue for the first quarter ended on Dec. 31, U.S. ad sales fell 3 percent, in line with industry expectations.

The company said it would begin co-branding releases between its Paramount studio and some of its networks. For example, Nickelodeon and Paramount will do four films together.

Viacom will rename its Spike network "The Paramount Network" in 2018.

First-quarter revenue from Viacom's film business increased 24 percent to $758 million from a year earlier. Analysts had expected $678.8 million, according to market research firm FactSet StreetAccount.

The media networks business reported a 1 percent rise in revenue to $2.59 billion. Analysts had expected $2.54 billion, according to FactSet StreetAccount.

However, net income attributable to Viacom fell to $396 million, or $1 per share, from $449 million, or $1.13 per share, a year earlier.

Excluding special items, the company earned $1.04 per share, beating the analysts' average estimate of 84 cents, according to Thomson I/B/E/S.

Revenue rose 5.4 percent to $3.32 billion. Analysts had expected $3.18 billion.

(Reporting by Jessica Toonkel in New York and Rishika Sadam in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

(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.)
Donald Trump wants to build another wall. Not a physical wall to keep out illegal immigrants, like his proposed Mexican border project, but a virtual wall around the internet. And just as with Mexico, he wants the people behind the wall to pay for it.
This years Super Bowl commercials took a subtle but surprisingly strong political stance (kinda like Lady Gaga slipping in lines from a Woody Guthrie tune). Coke brought back the Its Beautiful ad campaign from 2014, with American imigrants from other nations singing America the Beautiful in their native languages. Air BnB made a plea for diversity with its #weaccept ad. Those went on the pile next to 84 Lumber, Budweiser and Audiall brands rabid Trump supporters now feel obliged to boycott. But they gave this years Super Bowl commercials a unexpected timeliness and made for some of the most memorable spots in the Big Game.

The Best:

84 Lumber, The Journey BeginsIts ballsy to spend all your money on a Super Bowl ad that doesnt even attempt to sell your product. But the folks at 84 Lumber felt the message The will to succeed is always welcome here was important enough to risk iteven when FOX banned the commercials ending for being too political. See it online for the full impact. The backlash from todays anti-immigrant crowd will be yuuuuge, but this is easily the most talked-about commercial of the night.

Budweiser, Born the Hard WayIt shouldnt be controversial to point out that Adolphus Busch and Eberhard Anheuser were immigrants. They were. So was pretty much everyone who ever started a beer company in America. But these are post-Trump times, and Buds sweeping tribute to the American Dream was seen by plenty as a shot across the bow of the current administration. Oh, well, Trumpies, theres always Coors. (Nope. German and Prussian immigrants.) Pabst? (German immigrants.) Hamms? (German as well.)

Audi, DaughterThe German auto company weighs in on gender equality (not normally a Super Bowl topic) with this spot featuring a young, female soap box derby racer. Its cute and makes a perfectly valid point. And it still pissed off a whole bunch of mens rights activists, who are still super busy calling everybody who attended the Womens March fat and unattractive.

Bud Light, Ghost SpudsThis was an unexpected, attention-grabbing piece of nostalgia. Its sad, maybe, to realize that 80s icon Spuds McKenzie is long dead. But its amusing to revisit the popular spokesdog in this amusing, party-centric twist on Dickens A Christmas Carol.

Honda, YearbooksBringing the dorky high school yearbook photos of various celebrities (Tina Fey, Robert Redford, Stan Lee, Viola Davis, among others) to life via CGI trickery as a way to inspire you to pursue your dreams was original and incredibly affirming.

The Worst:

Bai, Bai Bai BaiChristopher Walken reading random stuff (in this case pop song lyrics) in his creepy voice? Standard issue these days. Justin Timberlake goofing on 17-year-old *NSYNC song? Jeez, that sounds like a job for Joey Fatone. Equating Bye Bye Bye with Bai Bai Bai? Silly, really. Now I never wanna drink your stupid superfruit-infused water.
A Reporter Explains What Out-Of-Towners Keep Getting Wrong About Chicago Violence

By Chicagoist_Guest in News on Feb 8, 2017 8:00PM



Students from Parkside Community Academy participate in a march against violence through the South Shore neighborhood on June 21, 2016 in Chicago. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

By Evan F. Moore

Last year, I was contacted by a producer to appear in a documentary about Chicago.

The documentary was supposed to show what makes the city special to Chicagoans. He went on to say that my background as a journalist and Chicago native stood out to him. I have a unique take on things, he said, since I grew up and still live in the communities where the violence that often makes national headlines has taken place.

After running down a list of what he liked about my work, he asked me to take him somewhere relatively safe on the South Side.

After shaking my head in disbelief, I wrote back asking what his definition of safe was. I didnt hear back from him, but his associate offered a meeting at a coffee shop.

It was clear that the guy wanted to cover the violence in Chicago from a controlled environment. More importantly, he already had a preconceived notion about Chicago that he was going to use to shape his film.

I understand why people want to come to Chicago to document the violence here. After all, Chicago has a long history of itfrom Al Capone to Chief Keef. Chicago has always been considered sexy due to the violence. From the outside looking in, many media pundits, parachute journalists, and the people in the comment section in every media outlet known to man seems to believe that black and brown people on Chicagos South and West Sides are killing each other on a daily basis and no one in those communities seems to care.

They focus on the amount of deaths and shootings, but not the systemic issues that have festered over time. Thats where the meat of Chicagos problems are at.

Chicago is increasingly a talking point of white supremacists and conservative media. After all, Chicago is often looked upon as everything that can wrong when you let liberals run a big city. President Donald Trump recently threatened to send in the National Guard (or in his words, "the feds"), and recently discussed our city with a select group of black people. Previously, Trump falsely claimed that two people were shot during President Barack Obamas farewell speech in Chicago. He tweeted the numbers of shootings and killings in Chicago, along with calling our city War Zone, in meeting with black leaders at the White House.

As you may have noticed, our president, and those who chide our city from the outside, never mention how it's a small sample of hurt people in hurt communities that commit violent acts towards one another. That stance is willfully ignorant of the importance of investing in poverty-fighting practices and anti-gun policies that can help our communities in the long-run.

Some pundits seem to believe that if someone gets shot in Englewood, Pilsen, or North Lawndale then, based on their race and failure to locate themselves in a "quiet" neighborhood, they somehow had it coming.

But many of these neighborhoods are filled with people who are loving, law-abiding people. Many of them are cops, firefighters, teachers, attorneys, social workers, bus drivers, and journalists like myself, among others. If a documentary producer read my reporting, like he said he did, he would know that some of the shootings are happening in certain neighborhoods that are considered quiet. I covered a shooting in South Shore (my native neighborhood) where a stray bullet from a shootout ended up hitting two homes at the end of the block. When I went to the scene, the man who had a bullet hole in a window in his foyer told me that he lived on a quiet block. And I knew that to be the case, because I grew up six blocks away.

I think what national media, and even some local media, miss when looking at Chicago's violence, is that, if a shooting victim is from a neighborhood known for gun violence, or if they have a criminal record, they somehow got what they deserved. Read the comment sections of every media outlet in town for further ignorance on this point. The first comment usually says When will black people care about black lives? Thats a racially-loaded way of revealing that some white readers are the ones who dont care. Remember that some of the first forms of activism in the black community in Chicago were block clubs and in churches. Black people have a long history of giving a shit about their communities.

I believe the best way to document our citys violence is to be honest. Talk about the systemic issues. For example, for all the flak Spike Lee took for making Chi-raq, theres a scene in the movie that explains the complex relationship the black community has with the police and the gangs, which ought to be a starting point for anyone who is serious about documenting Chicagos problems: The gangs are in the communities. We know it, and the police know it. And much more people would get involved in fighting gang violence, but some of them fear retaliation from the gangs. Also, many of those folks wont go to the police because of the strained relationship they have with them.

For all of you would-be journalists and documentary producers, I say this: If you want to see the alley Tyshawn Lee was murdered in, just ask. If you want to see the spot on Pulaski Road where Laquan McDonald was shot 16 times by a police officer, just ask. If not, Im going to take you to a trivia night in Andersonville. And I would show them my native South Shore, where we'd stop by the South Shore Cultural Center (though, if you grew up in South Shore, you still call it the "Country Club.") And I'd show them the very inspiring MLK memorial in Marquette Park.

That may not be what you want but it is what you asked for: to see some of the places that are special to Chicagoans. Next time, keep it real.


The fashion lab was inaugurated by Sudhir Yadav, DG Prisons, Tihar Jail and Professor Nandita Abraham, CEO, Pearl Academy on Wednesday, in an event attended by Pearl Academy students and women inmates on Tihar Jail.

Yadav, who spearheads this enterprise, says that the rationale is to help the prisoners rehabilitate and reform, making their reintegration possible in the outside world once they are released.

The fashion lab will pave the way for many such skill development initiatives, he added.

The fashion laboratory, set up by Peal Academy, is equipped with all the essential facilities and tools such as specialized sewing machines, ironing machines and dress forms pattern tables with cork top, pattern making tools and others necessary for learning basics of design and construction.

The academy has formed a three month certification programme especially for Tihar and will conduct this course three times a year, with the capacity to train 20-25 inmates.

"We are happy to be a part of Skill India Mission and also in our small way, trying our best to contribute to the society by empowering these women to help them rebuild their lives," said Professor Nandita Abraham, CEO, Pearl Academy at the inauguration.

The initiative garnered support from the fashion fraternity of India and renowned fashion designer Rina Dhaka was also present at the launch. Dhaka commended the effort and said that knowledge of fashion will help inmates build skills for life and empower them to put food on the table.
India on Thursday handed over to the UK an extradition request for absconding businessman Vijay Mallya who is facing cases of loan default and other financial irregularities.

"Today (Thursday), we handed over the request for extradition of Vijay Vittal Mallya which we received from the CBI to the UK High Commission here. We have requested the UK side to extradite him to face trial in India," External Affairs Ministry Spokesman Vikas Swarup said.

Asserting that India has a "legitimate" case against Mallya, he said if an extradition request is honoured, it shows their "sensitivity towards our concerns".

"We have made the extradition request in prescribed format and it is for the UK to deliberate on the request and take further action," he added.

Swarup also said India is yet to make an extradition request for former IPL Chairman Lalit Modi.

Last month, a CBI court had issued a non-bailable warrant against Mallya in the Rs 720-crore IDBI Bank loan default case. Mallya, whose now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines owes more than Rs 9,000 crore to various banks, had left India on March 2.
US defence firm Lockheed Martin wants to push ahead with plans to move production of its F-16 combat jets to India, but understands President Donald Trump's administration may want to take a "fresh look" at the proposal.

With no more orders for the F-16 from the Pentagon, Lockheed plans to use its Fort Worth, Texas plant instead to produce the fifth generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that the United States Air Force is transitioning to.

Lockheed would switch F-16 production to India, as long as the Indian government agrees to order hundreds of the planes that its air force desperately needs.

Trump has criticised US companies that have moved manufacturing overseas and which then sell their products back to the US. In his first few weeks in office, he has pushed companies, from automakers to pharmaceutical firms, to produce more in the United States.

In Lockheed's case, however, the plan is to build the F-16 to equip the Indian Air Force, and not sell them back into the United States.

ALSO READ: Will the new City 2017 be a game changer for Honda in India?



Lockheed said it has been talking to Trump's transition and governance teams as well as the U.S. Congress for several months on its plans, including the proposed sale of F-16 planes to India, a spokesman told Reuters in Washington.

"We've briefed the Administration on the current proposal, which was supported by the Obama Administration as part of a broader cooperative dialogue with the Government of India," the spokesman said.

"We understand that the Trump Administration will want to take a fresh look at some of these programs, and we stand prepared to support that effort to ensure that any deal of this importance is properly aligned with US policy priorities."

India is expected to spend $250 billion on defence modernisation over the next decade, analysts say, and there is concern that a veto on making the F-16 in India would not only hit Lockheed, but also threaten other military contracts to come up in India for Boeing, Northrop and Raytheon.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment on the plan to build the plane in India.

ALSO READ: Why TCS on e-tailers doesn't make sense



NO THREAT TO US JOBS

Lockheed has said that moving F-16 assembly to India would create 200 engineering jobs in the United States to help support the production line in India.

It has also said that about 800 workers in the United States making the non-Lockheed parts for the F-16 would keep their jobs if construction shifts to India.

"We are offering to make the F-16 Block-70 aircraft with a local partner in India. This is an offer exclusive to India," Randall L. Howard, head of F-16 business development, told Reuters ahead of India's biggest air show beginning in Bengaluru next week.

In India, the F-16 is up against SAAB's Gripen combat aircraft, which the Swedish firm has also offered to make locally, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi drives a Make-in-India campaign to build a domestic aerospace industry and reduce costly imports.

The Indian government is expected to decide this year on which company will build a single-engine fighter plane, in collaboration with a local partner. A defence official said the process was at a very early stage.

The Indian air force alone needs 200-250 fighters over the next 10 years, its former chief Arup Raha said before he left office in December.

Defence ties between India and the United States have grown rapidly, with U.S. arms sales of more than $4 billion in 2012-15, mostly under government-to-government foreign military sales, upstaging long-term supplier Russia and even Israel.

Lockheed's executive director for international business development, Abhay Paranjape, said his team has met with representatives from 40 defence and aviation firms in India to help build the ancillary network for the aircraft assembly programme.

"We want to be prepared, that's why we started the ground work," he said, adding Lockheed has also scouted possible factory sites in India.

Lockheed has a joint venture with India's Tata Advanced Systems Ltd to make airframe components for the C-130J Super Hercules transport plane and the S-92 helicopter.

"The capability for building components exists here, it's been proven with the C-130s. The challenge now is to pick the right partners," Paranjape said.
The pharma-cum-healthcare major, Morepen Laboratories Ltd., has reported a yet another growth-filled quarter by registering a 23 per cent rise in its net sales in the third quarter (Q3) of fiscal 2016-17. The net sales increased to Rs. 134.05 crore in Q3 FY 2016-17 compared to Rs. 108.72 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal.

Sales from the domestic operations contributed majorly to the company's topline by registering a growth of 43 per cent at Rs.79.52 crore in Q3 FY 2016-17. Export sales, however, remained flat during the quarter at Rs. 54.53 crore, registering a marginal growth of 3 per cent.



The bulk drugs (API) segment continued to excel in the quarter by contributing 61 per cent to the company's total turnover. Total sales from bulk drugs during Q3 FY 2016-17 stood at Rs. 81.83 crore. The two bulk drugs viz. Montelukast (an anti-asthmatic drug) and Rosuvastatin (a Statin drug), outshined other bulk drugs by registering a growth of 74 per cent and 44 per cent respectively in the Q3 FY 2016-17.



The Dr. Morepen basket, representing Home-Diagnostics category, did well too during the quarter. The company cemented its leadership position further in this category. The two major products in this category i.e. BP monitors and Blood Glucose monitors, showed an impressive growth of 28 per cent and 18 per cent respectively in Q3 FY 2016-17. Sales of Blood Glucose Meters alone stood at Rs. 10.14 crore during the quarter. The gross revenue from this business rose to Rs. 18.29 crore in Q3 FY 2016-17 compared to Rs. 16.23 crore in Q3 FY 2015-16.

OTC (Over the Counter) products and Formulations also recorded excellent sales nos. for the quarter under consideration. Burnol and Lemolate excelled in the OTC segment by registering a growth of 22 per cent and 46 per cent respectively in their sales in Q3 FY 2016-17. Total sales from OTC products went up by 46 per cent in Q3 FY 2016-17.This was disclosed by Mr. Sushil Suri, Chairman and Managing Director, Morepen Laboratories Ltd. after the company's board meeting, which discussed and took on record the financial results of the company for the Q3 FY 2016-17. "This quarter, company's focus was to get better penetration in the domestic market, which is quite visible from fabulous growth in API segment, particularly Montelukast and Dr. Morepen OTC and Home Diagnostic segments. The growth in these segments had been very encouraging despite challenging market conditions," he said.Morepen's net profit during the quarter stood at Rs. 4.27 crore and EBIDTA at Rs. 14.94 crore. The cash surplus (i.e. EBDTA) was lower in the quarter by 12 per cent at Rs. 12.70 crore vis-a-vis corresponding quarter in the previous fiscal.The "Dr. Morepen" brand portfolio has recorded sales revenue of Rs.58.40 crore in the quarter under consideration as against revenue of Rs.43.03 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal, recording a growth of 36 per cent.During the nine months period ended December 31, 2016, Morepen Labs net profit grew by 18 per cent at Rs. 15.31 crore as against Rs. 13.01 crore net profit registered in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal. During the nine months period, net sales grew by 23 per cent at Rs. 388.53 crore. The total API business registered a growth of 24 per cent at Rs. 246 crore, Dr. Morepen Home Diagnostics business registered a growth of 24 per cent at Rs. 58.31 crore and formulations business 16 per cent at Rs. 21.56 crore.The sales revenue of Gluco Monitors and Blood Pressure Monitors in the nine months period increased to Rs.42.52 crore as compared to Rs. 31.11 crore in the corresponding period of previous fiscal, registering a growth of 37 per cent. Looking at increasing incidence of diabetic cases in India, this segment offers great opportunity for growth in the coming years. The company is targeting to touch a base of one million installations of Glucometers this year and sell up to 5 million strips every month.The entire "Dr. Morepen" brand portfolio has recorded sales revenue of Rs. 166.18 crore in the nine months period ended December 31, 2016, as against revenue of Rs. 124.57 crore in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal, recording a growth of 33 per cent.About Morepen Laboratories Ltd.Morepen Laboratories Ltd. is a 30-year old pharmaceutical and healthcare products company. The company went public in the year 1993 and is currently listed at both the Bombay Stock Exchange as well as the National Stock Exchange.Morepen is engaged in the manufacturing and sale of APIs/ Bulk Drugs, Home Diagnostics, Formulations and OTC products. The company's state-of-the-art manufacturing facility at Baddi (Himachal Pradesh) comprises a scientifically integrated complex of 10 plants, each with a specific product profile. The USFDA approved plant at Masulkhana is for manufacture of Loratadine, an anti-allergy drug - internationally known as Claritin. The new blockbuster drug Montelukast is also manufactured at this FDA approved site. The large and spread out manufacturing facility at Baddi manufactures latest and much in demand products like Atorvastatin, Rosuvastatin, Sitagliptin and others for regulated markets of USA and also for non-regulated markets across the globe.Morepen markets over 100 branded formulations under six major the rapeutic segments in the domestic market. It has WHO GMP facilities for manufacturing of Formulations. The company's manufacturing facilities are backed by a strong dedicated team of research and development (R&D) professionals who ensure stringent quality standards. In Home - Diagnostics business, Morepen has a formidable presence in Blood Glucose Monitors and Blood Pressure Monitors, which are imported by the company for sale in the domestic market. The company's OTC brands are being promoted under its wholly owned subsidiary Dr. Morepen Limited. Dr. Morepen's famous OTC product line, including Burnol, Lemolate, Sat-Isabgol, Fever-X, Pain-X and others, has a significant presence in the domestic market.
The new 2017 City sedan may change the fortunes of Honda Cars in India. The car manufacturer, which was once perceived as the epitome of premium motoring, today faces customer backlash in the country due to its localization drive and seems to have lost its sheen.

However, with the new version of City, the car maker would like to get its leadership back, which was lost in its ambitious localization drive -- a move to source parts and components from local market to cut costs -- which tarnished the brand's image among Indian customers.

Honda City, running into its fourth generation, will come in a refreshed avatar on the Valentine's Day and will be loaded with new bouquet of LED package, enhanced safety package and a new AVN system, among other new offerings.

Honda's flagship model has faced a complete rout from Maruti's biggest sedan Ciaz, which clocks an average monthly sales of 6000 units sales, while City trails with a much slender demand. However, Honda City, first introduced in January 1998, still remains the India's most popular sedan. It has a cumulative customer base of over 6.5 lakh and the current generation, since its launch in January 2014, has sold 2.24 lakh units in the country.

In comparison, Ciaz launched much later had sold 1,40,226 units and has taken a decisive lead to emerge as the most-sold sedan in 2016. "Ciaz started as an outstanding product with great looks, plush interiors and offers generous room and comfort. The introduction of Ciaz SHVS, with new infotainment features kept it ahead in its class. Today, it is the largest selling sedan in the A3+ segment," says RS Kalsi, Executive Director (M&S), Maruti Suzuki.

Honda, too, would like to replicate this success with the new City and get back its legacy in the sedan market.

"The City has been our most successful model ever since the start of operations in the country. It commands tremendous loyalty among customers and we are extremely excited to add another chapter to the success story of the model, with the launch of the new Honda City 2017," said Honda Car India president and CEO, Yoichiro Ueno.

Meanwhile, the pre-launch bookings are underway and so are the numerous recalls, which have further dented Honda's image in India.

Honda stands as the most pro-active company in India on safety and has recalled 579,582 of its cars on the sensitive airbag issue. The latest recall involved 41,580 units of previous generations of Jazz, City, Civic and Accord line-up. In a market like India, where most auto are shy of making recalls fearing strong customer backlash and brand dilution, Honda stands out for recalling most of its cars on issues of passenger safety. Though Honda is perhaps the most respected carmaker for its efforts, its cars have still have lost the touch. And the new City is an attempt by the car maker, to assure the customers on the strength, safety and performance of its cars.

The company that sells eight models in India -- Brio, Jazz, Amaze, Mobilio, City, BR-V, CR-V and the Accord Hybrid -- will have to make a comeback on its strong image of advanced automotive design and technology, if it wants to get its mojo back in the country.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) deputy governor on Wednesday joined the debate over creating a so-called "bad bank" to handle record sour assets in the nation's banks, saying it could help if "designed properly".

Banks in India had record stressed loans of $133 billion, or 12.34 percent of their total loans, as of last September.

About two dozen state-owned lenders, which own nearly 70 percent of India's banking assets, have an even higher stressed-loan ratio of 15.88 percent, according to data compiled by India's central bank.

In its economic survey released on Jan. 31, the finance ministry suggested setting up a bad bank that it said could be used to buy bad loans from the banks and deal with them through methods including conversion of debt to equity.

While the idea is not new, critics including former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan have questioned the need for it at a time when more than a dozen already existing companies buying bad loans have yet to make a significant dent.

"I don't think a bad bank just by itself will necessarily work, I think it has to be designed right," Viral Acharya, one of the four deputy governors in the RBI, said on Wednesday.

"The big piece of the problem is can you get the bank to sell the assets at the right price to (asset reconstruction companies) and private investors who want to come in ... I think that's going to be key," Acharya, a former New York University economics professor who joined the RBI last month, told a news conference after the central bank held rates.

"We're going to be thinking about what kind of design issues might help with that. But we think it is something designed properly could help."

One of the reasons cited for lower than expected bad loan purchases by asset reconstruction companies is the high price expectations by the banks, analysts say.

A slow legal process - India just last year enacted a bankruptcy law - is another factor that has been blamed for hindering the resolution of the bad loans.

Including "unrecognised" problem debts, total stressed loans in the system could be as high as $191 billion, or 16.6 percent of the total loans as of September, the finance ministry has estimated. For the state-run banks, nearly 20 percent of the loans are stressed, it said in the economic survey.
The Union Budget 2017 has struck a fine balance between being populist and bolstering private sector investments; with a special focus on infrastructure and affordable housing.

Measures such as infrastructure status for the affordable housing segment, tax benefits for developers and changes proposed in the long term capital gains tax are likely to boost the confidence of both investors and consumers, while augmenting transaction activity in the sector.

With the affordable housing segment finally getting the long-awaited infrastructure status, this is an important step to promote access to priority lending thereby, spurring supply of low-cost housing units across various cities in India. Relaxation in area measurement coupled with completion timelines to seek tax exemption are welcome steps for the industry. Further, the government has also increased allocation under the PMAY scheme. This will encourage home buyers and further boost participation from the private players.

In line with the last Union Budget, the main focus of the current budget continued to be on infrastructure development with a cohesive emphasis on rural infrastructure and rail development. Steps such as amendment of the Airport Authority of India Act to enable monetization of assets, development of airports under the PPP model, a new metro rail policy and the passage of an Act for dispute resolution in PPP infrastructure projects are expected to encourage private sector involvement in urban infrastructure creation. This will further enhance infrastructure availability in urban centers, thereby having direct fallout on real estate development.

Finance Minister has announced abolition of FIPB in order to encourage greater fund flows into the economy. However, the clear policy outline has not been finalized but this will be a positive step to liberalize FDI policy framework and ease regulatory hurdles in attracting investments.

Relief of 5% for assesses in the lower tax brackets is likely to result in greater tax inclusion and widening of the tax base, besides increasing the in hand disposable income of individuals. This will be a positive change, leading to an increased consumption and boosting demand for real estate as well.

Furthermore, the proposed changes within the capital gains tax will lead to an overall increase in transactions in the sector by easing the exit mechanism coupled with reducing holding periods. Small medium entrepreneurs and startups are also likely to benefit from the tax rebates, leading to more investments and employment in these sectors.

The Union Budget 2017 augurs well for the real estate sector, with segments such as housing, investments and logistics expected to benefit from the proposed provisions. The Government has been accommodative of the concerns of the real estate sector. The relaxation on long term capital gains, joint development agreements, tax rebates for builders will help reduce their tax liability.

Overall, the budget has been all encompassing and in addition to the above, has pledged relief for rural India, middle class taxpayers and small and medium-sized companies. With this, the Government has further strengthened its agenda of stimulating growth, providing relief to middle class, affordable housing, curbing black money, promoting digital economy, transparency of political funding and simplification of tax administration.
Ireland Smart Ageing Exchange (ISAX) yesterday announced the launch of Ingenuity, a new accelerator programme targeted at mature business owners aged over 50 who are seeking to scale-up their businesses. The programme is running in conjunction with DCU Ryan Academy and is sponsored by Bank of Ireland.



The one day a week programme spread over nine weeks is designed to specifically address the challenges facing business owners and includes workshops, bespoke mentoring and excellent networking opportunities. Bank of Ireland and ISAX are calling on ambitious entrepreneurs with fewer than 10 employees to take part in the Ingenuity programme.



ISAX offers a number of business programmes for entrepreneurs and business owners in the over-50s category. The Accelerator Programme is tailored for people with ambition for fast-growth, to scale up their business to an internationally trading company. It has been designed for entrepreneurs seeking to take their skills, experience and ambition to the next level.

The structure includes modules on funding sources, succession planning, and includes concepts and strategies on sustaining growth in a changing economy that will draw on the themes of innovation, scaling-up and sustainable growth. Participants will also have an opportunity to pitch to an audience of potential investors. It commences on 24th March 2017 in DCU Ryan Academy based in Citywest.



The programme has been launched after new research has shown that the increase in life expectancy coupled with the reduction in the size of the working population has meant that Irelands ageing demographic has become one of the key issues facing policymakers. There will be considerable change over the next 25 years when the number of people aged over 65 years will be over 1.3 million compared with 460,000 in 2006.



Self-employment and entrepreneurship offers many potential benefits for individuals and the economy in general. It is estimated that 25% of those who are self-employed in SMEs, which account for 99.7% of all active Irish business enterprises, are in the 50  64 age group.



Developed from research commissioned by ISAX, the Ingenuity Accelerator course is currently accepting applications. The advantages mature adults have over their younger counterparts is that they have built up a lifetime of industry knowledge and experience, and have forged a lifetime of connections and relationships. Barriers include the perception many people have that entrepreneurship is a young persons game, as well as technological change, such as social media.



Speaking yesterday, COO of DCU Ryan Academy, Niamh Collins commented, "There is a perception that entrepreneurship is a young persons game but the reality couldnt be further from it. We support an increasing number of mature entrepreneurs who are key players in Irelands business world. We look forward to welcoming the selected Ingenuity accelerator participants to the DCU Ryan Academy and to work with them to grow their business."

Source: www.businessworld.ie

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Gov. Rauner's Office Sent A Letter Home To CPS Parents, Too

By Emma G. Gallegos in News on Feb 8, 2017 8:25PM



Photo: Terry Spirek

Chicago Public Schools parents have received a flurry of letters from government officials sent home with their kids this week, each blaming one another for a shortfall that has led to the district freezing $46 million.

On Monday, students brought a letter home to their parents from CPS CEO Forrest Claypool that accused the governor of holding back $215 million in promised funding for the district. The letter says, "Governor Bruce Rauner, just like President Trump, has decided to attack those who need the most help."

The district has been trying to figure out what to do about a financial shortfall, given that it can no longer dip into its dwindling reserves or rely on credit, according to the Chicago Tribune. The district froze $46 million in nonpersonnel spending, which includes funds for things like textbooks, field trips and instruction materials. They have also imposed four unpaid furlough days on employeesa move that the district said will save $35 million and that also prompted the teacher's union to call for Claypool's resignation.

The Governor's office sent out a letter in response to Claypool's letter the next day, accusing the district of being mismanaged and "arbitrarily [creating] a crisis." Beth Purvis, Secretary of Education said that the state is happy to provide the money CPS needs for its schoolsas long as they agree to Rauner's program of pension reform.

Here is the letter from Claypool:



CPS' letter home to parents (WGN)



CPS' letter home to parents (WGN)

And here is the Governor's response:



Governor's letter home to parents

Related:

CPS Announces Another Wave Of Cuts, Blames Rauner & Budget Impasse
In a small factory in a suburb of Birmingham in central England, family-owned Brandauer manufactures a tiny metal component used in the control panel of a car airbag.

From raw material to electrical connector pin in the airbag of a finished car, it will travel between Britain and the European continent as many as five times during the production process -- without encountering any customs barriers.

But when Britain leaves the European Union, and likely the bloc's customs union, such cross-border supply chains could see substantially increased costs and time delays due to tariffs and administrative burdens.

The EU's customs union allows goods to circulate freely between member states without facing any duties, quotas or customs controls, and applies a common tariff at its external border to goods coming from outside the bloc.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has said she wants to have some kind of customs agreement with the EU in order to have trade that is "as frictionless as possible".

"Whether that means we must reach a completely new customs agreement, become an associate member of the customs union in some way, or remain a signatory to some elements of it, I hold no preconceived position," May said in a speech last month setting out her priorities for upcoming Brexit negotiations.

For the boss of Brandauer, a 155-year-old business which began life as a pen-nib manufacturer and now makes 8 million of the airbag components every month, the goal is clear.

"We do need tariff-free trading with the eurozone," Rowan Crozier told Reuters, speaking over the whir of the large machines nearby which suck in coils of metal at one end and spit out tiny precision-cut components at the other.

Crozier, who voted to remain in the EU, says the government has not provided enough information for him to predict what impact EU tariff barriers might have on the company, which employs 54 staff and produces parts used in everything from plumbing to kettles.

"We have to wait and see, I can't second guess what might happen. I don't think we have a plan from the government ... They have got a wish list. If they get 50% of what they want they will be doing well," he said.

"It is very difficult to plan for that ... It will affect our competitiveness, or our customer's competitiveness, which will then affect people's strategies of buying."

The copper alloy for the airbag part is made in Germany before being imported to Britain on a large coil where it is stamped into shape by a press at Brandauer's factory in Birmingham and then plated in a semi-precious coating at a site in nearby Coventry.

That material could face an import duty of 4.8% under World Trade Organization rules, if Britain does not agree a more favourable rate with the EU as part of a free trade deal.

It could then be hit with this duty again when the stamped copper is shipped back to Brandauer's customer in Germany where it is assembled into a control box and connector.

That control box part is sent around the world, including to a subsidiary back in Britain, to be finished off before it ends up in cars assembled on the European continent, including by VW and Fiat.

Safety airbags and their component parts could face average duties of 3.7%, while the final vehicles they are used in may then be hit by tariffs of up to 10% if they are sold to consumers back in Britain.

It is just one example of the many complex, cross-border supply chains which could be impacted by Brexit.

Analysis of the latest available data from the World Input-Output Database by Credit Suisse last year found that in 2011 around a third of UK exports to the EU were part of EU exporters' supply chains, a steadily rising proportion.

Future customs arrangements are among the top concerns of British manufacturers, according to industry body EEF, 80% of whose members are small businesses and many of whom are in supply chains to larger manufacturing firms.

"They are part of integrated supply chains sewn up in the ecosystem of seamless trade between the UK and EU countries," said Fergus McReynolds, director of EU Affairs at EEF, which is gathering information from its members on what elements of the current arrangement are most crucial.

"The priority remains as little change to our current trading relationships and as little disruption as possible to supply chains that are essential for the sector."

Crozier hopes the specialised nature of his business -- which operates within tolerances less than the thickness of a human hair -- means customers will pay any extra cost rather than look elsewhere, at least in the short-medium term.

The airbag connector pin, for example, is 1 millimetre thick and is made in eight sizes ranging from 20-40 millimetres long.

While day-to-day sales of existing products have remained busy, in some cases boosted by the weaker pound making them more competitive, the longer term is less predictable.

There can be a 4-6 year lead time between a customer enquiry and a product producing meaningful revenue for the company.

"Uncertainty is definitely driving a little bit of a slowing down," he said. "The half of the business which is about winning new orders, new customers ... it is those ones that people are becoming a little bit more cautious about."

One U.S. company who put an order on hold ahead of the EU referendum last June has not yet come back to say they will go ahead with it, despite the weaker pound making Brandauer much cheaper than their current supplier, he said.

Brandauer exports around a third of its 7.5 million pound annual turnover to China and 15% to the United States. Greater trade barriers in Europe could see it switch its focus away from trying to grow the 15 percent it exports to the EU.

"I think it is unlikely that it would affect current programmes but it would affect longer term strategy, no doubt," he said. "It is more about down the line ... it affects our children and our children's children, who knows what it means for them." (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie

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Prime Minister Theresa May won approval from parliament's lower chamber on Wednesday to trigger Britain's exit from the European Union, defeating attempts by pro-EU lawmakers to attach extra conditions to her plan to start divorce talks by March 31.

Lawmakers (MPs) voted 494 to 122 in favour of legislation giving May the right to trigger Brexit, ending days of intense debate. The bill now needs the approval of the upper chamber, in which May does not have a majority, before it becomes law.

The victory marks a significant step towards starting what is expected to be a complex and difficult two-year negotiation with the EU on issues such as trade, immigration and security that will redraw Britain's role in the world.

"We've seen a historic vote tonight," said Brexit minister David Davis. "A big majority for getting on with negotiating our exit from the EU and a strong, new partnership with its member states."

After surviving a minor rebellion from within May's Conservative Party that had threatened to undermine her authority and negotiating strategy, the law was passed without amendment and on schedule.

That raised expectations that the bill will enjoy an equally smooth passage in the unelected House of Lords, when its journey there begins in earnest on Feb. 20. The government wants to complete the legislative process by March 7.

Sources close to discussions in the upper chamber said they expected peers to keep pushing for parliament to have more say during the negotiating process. One source said that could mean a one-week delay to the law's final approval, but neither expected the process to endanger May's end of March deadline.

At times rancorous, the debate exposed two major faultlines running through Britain's post-referendum politics: the disconnect between strongly pro-EU Scotland and the rest of the country, and the division over Europe in the opposition Labour Party.

An opinion poll indicated on Wednesday that support for Scottish independence had risen since May came out last month in favour of Britain making a clean break when it leaves the EU.

Scottish National Party lawmakers repeatedly said in parliament they were being denied a voice in the Brexit process, which was fuelling demand for another independence referendum.

"The barracking by government members and the preventing of SNP MPs from speaking in this House play right into our hands and result in headlines saying that support for independence is surging," said SNP lawmaker Joanna Cherry.

As the final votes were being counted, SNP lawmakers sang Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" - the EU's anthem - in the debating chamber.

The law has also become a conduit for frustrations within the Labour Party, which has split over whether it should support May's vision of Brexit or try to block it to secure a different deal.

Labour's support is divided between more prosperous urban constituencies that generally favoured staying in the EU and declining industrial areas that strongly backed Brexit. To complicate things further, many pro-EU Labour lawmakers represent anti-EU areas.

Dozens of Labour lawmakers voted against the bill, defying their leader Jeremy Corbyn, who said they should support the law even though their attempts to amend it had failed. Several members of Corbyn's policy team resigned over the issue.

"I ... cannot, in all good conscience, vote for something I believe will ultimately harm the city I have the honour to represent, love and call home," said Clive Lewis, Corbyn's business spokesman, who quit moments before the vote. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie

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Utah senator Gene Davis, D-District 3, has sponsored a public lands bill that deals with state lands. On KVNUs For the People program on Tuesday, he said it creates a public policy whereby the state would lease its land rather than sell it.

He said the start of this came with the proposed move of the state prison. Developers approached the state saying the land the prison is on should be developed.

Davis explained, then the grounds the state fair is on (I) also heard developers say thats too valuable a ground. Lets move the state fair, or do away with it, one of the two. But the lands are just too valuable not to develop.

And thats when I came up with this idea that we should lease our land. That makes it, I believe, think a little bit more about the value of the land were doing and what its purpose is.

One of the concerns of the outdoor retail industry, in addition to land conservationists and environmentalists, is about how the state would manage public lands if more of them were under Utah jurisdiction. The worry is it would be sold off quickly to developers. Senator Davis was asked if his bill could play a role in long-term public lands management even on a larger scale.

I dont think well ever win a lawsuit that turns all of the federal land in the state of Utah over to the State of Utah. If that were to happen, and this happens to be that we adopt this as the policy of the state, it would slow down the sale of all of that land, yes, the senator said.

Large outdoor retail company Patagonia has already announced it was pulling out of the next outdoor retail show in Utah in response to Governor Herbert and state officials trying to overturn the newly-designated Bears Ears National Monument.
Seniors from four area high schools recognized as local Sterling Scholars.

Throughout the state of Utah, the annual Deseret News/KSL Sterling Scholar Awards recognize outstanding high school seniors each year who have made notable achievements in one of 14 academic and vocational categories including English, mathematics, social science, science, world languages, computer technology, skilled and technical sciences education, family and consumer sciences, business and marketing, speech/theater arts/forensics, visual arts, dance, instrumental music and vocal performance.

A Sterling Scholar is a high school senior who is publicly recognized and awarded for the pursuit of excellence in scholarship, leadership and citizenship in the State of Utah, the programs website explains. The Deseret News and KSL Broadcast Group developed the program especially to focus attention on outstanding seniors in order to recognize them publicly as well as award cash scholarships and tuition waivers from participating institutions.

Established in 1962, the Sterling Scholar Program is sponsored by Zions Bank. Nominees who are selected as winners at each participating high school complete an extensive portfolio highlighting their achievements and advance to regional judging.

The Logan and Cache County school districts are in the Sterling Scholar Programs Wasatch Front Region, North area. Logan, Mountain Crest, Ridgeline and Sky View high schools participate. Semifinal judging takes place for regional winners on Feb. 15, at Ben Lomond High School in Ogden.

Logan High School

Logan High is extremely proud of our Sterling Scholars this year, said Randy Cluff, Logan High Schools Sterling Scholar program coordinator. They are so talented and hard working. Many of them are already achieving at a professional level in their fields. From all academic areas to visual, musical and technical arts, our students excelbut are yet to reach their peak. They are our next generation of leaders and creative minds. Twelve of our 14 Sterling Scholars made it to semi-finals and we expect many of them to be on stage at the final awards ceremony later this school year. We sincerely congratulate our Sterling Scholars. Thank you for representing Logan High School so well!

{{tncms-asset app=editorial id=36d32d0a-ee5b-11e6-9c4f-4b56a0f117a5}}

From left: Andre Watson, Social Science; Ike Lyons, Computer Technology; David Kim, Mathematics; Raymond Li, Science; Emma Cardon, Instrumental Music; Kyle Ransom, Skilled & Technical Sciences Education; Keely Toledo, Family & Consumer Sciences; Kristina Carter, Vocal Performance; Diana Ortiz, World Languages; Madi Olsen, Business & Marketing; Victoria Stafford, Speech/Theater Arts/Forensics; Amylia Smith, Visual Arts; Winona Bhushan, English. (Not pictured, Shanae Larsen, Dance.)

Andre Watson, Ike Lyons, David Kim, Raymond Li, Emma Cardon, Kyle Ransom, Kristina Carter, Diana Ortiz, Madi Olsen, Victoria Stafford, Winona Bhushan and Shanae Larsen will advance to the semifinal competition next week.

Mountain Crest High School

Kimberly Sorensen coordinates the Sterling Scholar program at Mountain Crest High School.

Im so excited about the success our students have had this year with Sterling Scholars, she said. We are so proud of them, and the program is beautiful because it celebrates these strengths and it helps these students to think about how they might use this areawhether its mathematics, world languages, instrumental music, visual artsnot only to serve their communities but also for a future career. It kind of hones in on specifically what theyre going to do in their future. I love the Sterling Scholar program!

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Back row from left: Sabrina Ellis, Social Science; Emily Robinson, Dance; Hunter Watrin, Computer Technology; Mitch Adair, Mathematics; Sarah Daines, Instrumental Music; Michaela Leishman, Visual Arts; Caleb Newman, Speech/Theater Arts/Forensics.

Front row from left: Weston Miller, Business & Marketing; Cheyenne Brown, World Languages; Kirsten Jensen, English; Elizabeth Kenning, Vocal Performance; Kamille Osborne, Family & Consumer Sciences; Branson Fonnesbeck, Science.

Sabrina Ellis, Emily Robinson, Hunter Watrin, Mitch Adair, Sarah Daines, Michaela Leishman, Caleb Newman, Cheyenne Brown, Elizabeth Kenning and Kamille Osborne will advance to the semifinal competition next week.

Ridgeline High School

The Sterling Scholar program is a great opportunity for the students to compete statewide in one academic area, as well as exemplify their service and leadership skills, said coordinator Jennifer Whipple. These are amazing students who represent Ridgeline well.

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Back row from left: Carson Pate, Skilled & Technical Sciences Education; Logan Malmstrom, Business & Marketing; Joseph Henderson, Vocal Performance; Payton Thomas (not participating).

Middle row from left: Elizabeth Sweeten, English; Tia Luther, Instrumental Music; Audrey Heiner, World Languages; Jessica Rush, Visual Arts.

Front row from left: Brooke Jacobsen, Mathematics; Abigail Hamblin, Speech/Theater Arts/Forensics; Maleena Maxwell, Family & Consumer Sciences; Talia Roundy, Dance. (Not pictured: Wesley Allred, Social Science.)

Semifinalists from Ridgeline High School are Joseph Henderson, Elizabeth Sweeten, Tia Luther, Brooke Jacobsen and Wesley Allred.

Sky View High School

Our Sterling Scholars excel in their category and then you look at their community service and all the leadership theyre involved in and you wonder when they have time to sleep, said Faun Taylor, coordinator of the Sterling Scholar program at Sky View High School. They are dedicated, organized, extremely intelligent, and great community leaders who all deserve the spotlight. These kids are incredible! When you read their portfolios youre amazed at what theyve accomplished already, and theyre still so young. They make you feel like the future of the world is in really good hands. Every one of them are the cream of the crop.

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Top Row Left to Right: Madison Hancey, English; Hayden Christensen, Mathematics; Holly Lemon, Social Science; Sean Cameron, World Languages; Abbie Weight, Science.

Middle Row Left to Right: Marissa Barlow, Family and Consumer Sciences; Carter Martindale, Speech/Theater Arts/Forensics; Jamie Larsen, Skilled and Technical Sciences Education.

Bottom Row Left to Right: Christian Clarke, Vocal Performance; Madison Vanderwall, Instrumental Music; Josh Siler, Business and Marketing; Emme Lewis-Dance; Nathan Newell, Visual Arts.

Twelve of Sky View High Schools Sterling Scholars will advance to the next level.

A list of finalists in the 2017 Sterling Scholar competition will be published following semifinal interviews and judging on Feb. 15. Final judging takes place on March 2, at Sky Ridge High School in Lehi. The 55th Annual Deseret News/KSL Broadcast Group Sterling Scholar Awards Ceremony will be held on March 9, at the LDS Conference Center Little Theatre in Salt Lake City.
LOGAN  Hes no stranger to guns.

That is because Republican State Representative Lee Perry of Box Elder County is by profession a Utah Highway Patrol Lieutenant. Perry is a sponsor of two gun bills during the current session of the Utah Legislature. One makes it easier to carry a concealed weapon; the other makes it impossible for a person for a person convicted of domestic violence to own a gun.

Perry said while current law states a person convicted of domestic violence cannot have a rifle or a handgun, too often no one makes sure the firearms have been given up. Under Perrys Bill HB237 the convicted gun owner would have to come back to a judge within 72 hours to prove he has given up the firearms.

If you are a person who is not supposed to be buying guns and you try to buy guns, he said, were going to make sure if you try to buy a gun from any authorized dealer or vendor theyd have to do a background check that tells any law enforcement officer not only where you live but where you tried to buy the gun.

Perry said the other bill, HB112 would allow law-abiding citizens to be able to carry their handgun concealed if they wish without having a state permit to do so.
While the confrontation between militants and police in Grozny was only the fourth conflict-related incident in the republic during 2016, it demonstrates that ISIS still has the capacity to target Chechen security forces.

On December 17, 2016, a shootout in central Grozny between members of the terrorist organization known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and local security forces claimed the lives of three militants and one police officer. On December 18, a counter-terrorist operation (CTO) launched in the aftermath resulted in the death of four more insurgents, whereas four remaining members of a militant cell were arrested. Three police officers were killed and one injured.

BACKGROUND: The shootout in downtown Grozny took place soon after a group of three males attacked and killed a police officer in central Grozny. The assailants took the police officers weapon and vehicle. In the evening, the group was spotted in the city center and all three militants were killed during the exchange of fire with security forces. The following night, four members of the same cell disarmed and murdered a member of Chechen police in a Grozny suburb. The same night, four militants broke into the house of another police officer and left with his weapon after having failed to locate the house owner. In the afternoon, militants ambushed and killed a second police officer and, like in the previous case, took his weapon and vehicle. All four militants were killed, along with one member of the security forces, when the group was found in the outskirts of Grozny. By the end of the day, security forces had managed to round up four remaining members of the militant cell, including one female.

Following the confrontation, over a dozen male family members of the slain militants were apprehended by security forces. A number of protests were organized both by the families of the deceased police officers  demanding blood revenge  and by the families of the suspected militants, requesting the release of the detained relatives.

On December 28, a video clip showing 11 individuals pledging allegiance to the head of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was posted on ISIS-affiliated websites and on YouTube. During a 14-minute video, young men vow to attack security forces not only in Chechnya, but also in other parts of Russia, particularly in Volgograd. All militants slain on December 17-18 appeared in the recording. Since the militants had no firearms before their attacks on police (the men in the video were only holding knives), it seems that the cell did not receive direct material support from either Chechen insurgents or ISIS. Unlike most previous insurgent attacks on security forces in Chechnya, the militants of the Grozny cell were primarily interested in ambushing lone police officers and capturing their weapons, rather than attacking police patrols or armed convoys. The police investigation revealed that none of the militants was known to have links with armed groups in Chechnya or elsewhere. The group was allegedly receiving orders over the Internet from a Syria-based Chechen Islamist, identified as Zelimkhan Bakharchiyev.

IMPLICATIONS: In contrast to neighboring Dagestan, which lost 56 people as a result of armed conflict only during the fall of 2016, Chechnya remained relatively calm throughout the year. Aside from the December 17-18 confrontation, three other conflict-related incidents that took place in the republic were rather low-profile cases, with no casualties among the security forces. However, each of the previous armed incidents involved individuals pledging allegiance to ISIS and, in two cases, unrelated to the Chechen militant underground.

Two general observations emerge from these developments. First, following the effective crackdown on Chechen Islamists by Ramzan Kadyrovs security forces over the past ten years, members of Chechen militant groups tend to avoid confrontations with the police and prefer to retain a low profile. A number of Chechen militant leaders, who pledged allegiance to ISIS during 2014-15, were killed during special operations along with numerous killed or arrested rank-and-file members of militant groups. The return of Syrian Chechens  Chechen volunteers who travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight in the ranks of ISIS and other Jihadi groups  predicted by some analysts, has thus far had no notable effect on the security situation in the republic. Second, the December 2016 events in Grozny indicate that self-organized cells, possibly radicalized by online Jihadi propaganda and lacking a direct line of contact with either ISIS in the Middle East, or with the remnants of Chechen militants, seem to be the current trend in the republic. According to Chechen journalist Orkhan Jamal, interviewed by the Caucasus Knot, there are no active ISIS recruiters in Chechnya who would try to attract people with offers of financial or heavenly rewards. Rather, young men and women radicalize through social media and online propaganda.

After the Grozny CTO, security forces undertook a series of arrests of male relatives of the suspected militants. According to a source within the Chechen security forces, quoted by the Caucasus Knot, male relatives of slain insurgents were detained in order to protect them from blood revenge, which the families of the deceased police officers pledged to undertake. As reported by the Human Rights Analysis Center, over 100 people were held in custody for over two weeks. Most of the detained relatives were released by December 30. However, a large demonstration was organized in a village where one of the militants resided, demanding the eviction of the deceased militants family. The meeting was attended by officials from the Chechen Ministry of Interior and senior religious figures. The fact that broader circles of the Chechen public appear to support Kadyrovs policy of collective punishment against families of suspected militants is yet another worrisome trend in the republic. The events of December 2016 show that the principle of collective punishment, first officially endorsed by Kadyrov in 2014, continues to be applied in practice.

CONCLUSIONS: Attacks by Islamist militants on security forces close to New Years Eve have been a common occurrence in the North Caucasus. For example, militants conducted a large-scale operation in Grozny in early December 2014, whereas militants opened fire on residents of Dagestans city of Derbent in December 2015. The December 2016 incident differs from previous confrontations in that it was organized and implemented not by well-armed and trained members of the armed underground, but by self-radicalized individuals, possibly inspired by ISIS propaganda. The other possible conclusion to be drawn from the December attack is that despite its failure to invigorate experienced Chechen Islamists, ISIS still succeeds in its social media recruitment among the Chechen youth.

AUTHOR'S BIO: Huseyn Aliyev is a conflict and area-studies expert currently based at the School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies, University of Oxford. Huseyns recent publications appeared in Security Dialogue, International Security, Journal of Strategic Studies and Studies of Terrorism and Political Violence.

Image source: Christiaan Triebert on Flickr, accessed on February 3, 2017
Pakistans government has set March 31 as the deadline for all Afghan refugees living on its soil to leave the country or face deportation. Although it is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention or the 1967 Protocol, Pakistan has been a generous host to Afghan refugees, hosting up to 5 million Afghans at a time. Neither did Pakistan force them in the past to return to Afghanistan. This seems to have changed. For many refugees, returning to Afghanistan will not be a happy homecoming as the security and economic situation in the country remain dire.

BACKGROUND: Afghans have been fleeing the fighting in their country for almost four decades. A large number, mainly Pashtuns, fled across the border into Pakistan. While strong ethnic links between Afghan and Pakistani Pashtuns eased the integration of the refugees with the host population, conflicts  frequently violent  did erupt over employment, resources, control over the drug trade, etc. The costs of supporting a large refugee population were immense, although the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) shouldered the bulk of this burden. Still for decades, Pakistan did not force the refugees to leave. Their value as a strategic tool  it was from the Afghan refugee camps that Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence recruited thousands of fighters for the anti-Soviet jihad, and subsequently into the Taliban and other armed militias  probably motivated Pakistan to avoid forced repatriation.

The repatriation of Afghan refugees gathered momentum after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. While many returned voluntarily, there was an element of pressure as well. International donors and UN agencies saw the repatriation of refugees as a way to showcase the normalcy they had brought to Afghanistan. Refugees were therefore urged to return home. Repatriations have nevertheless slowed considerably since 2007, as the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan has prompted many refugees to reconsider their plans to return home.

However, since the end of 2014, the situation of the refugees in Pakistan has become extremely tenuous. Anti-Afghan sentiment surged in Pakistan following an attack on an army-run school in Peshawar by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, which is believed to operate from bases in Afghanistan, in December 2014. The government launched a crackdown on refugees. Rules for their continued stay in Pakistan were tightened, refugees homes were raided and they were denied jobs and homes. In December 2015, the government issued an ultimatum. Afghan refugees had six months to leave Pakistan or face deportation. The deadline has been extended twice since and the latest date is set for March 31.

IMPLICATIONS: Pakistan has set deadlines for Afghan refugees to leave also in the past. But these deadlines were long-term and rarely enforced. This time, Pakistans government seems serious. It is determined to send the refugees back to Afghanistan whether they want to leave or not, and regardless whether the situation in that country is conducive for their safe return. Its deteriorating relations with Afghanistan is said to be behind Pakistans new resolve.

Although bilateral relations warmed considerably when Ashraf Ghani became Afghanistans president in September 2014  Ghani even signed a pact with Pakistan to deepen co-operation between their intelligence agencies  the relationship soured within a year. Pakistans reluctance to support the Afghan peace process and its alleged continuing support for terrorist attacks in Afghanistan prompted Ghani to reach out to Pakistans arch-rival India, resulting in a sharp increase in Indias influence in Afghanistan. Much to Pakistans chagrin, Ghani revived a suspended request for Indian military hardware, which resulted in India supplying Kabul with attack aircraft. Additionally, Ghani came out in strong support of Indias surgical strikes on terrorist camps based in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and supported the Indian governments effort to isolate Pakistan over its support for terrorist attacks in other countries.

This is said to have reinforced Pakistans resolve to teaching Afghanistan a lesson by sending back the Afghan refugees, although Kabul is hardly in a position to support them financially.

Between July and mid-December 2016, over half a million Afghan refugees are said to have left Pakistan for Afghanistan. This is several times the number that left the previous year. Of the roughly three million Afghan refugees living in Pakistan, 1.6 million are registered and the rest are undocumented. Many of them came to Pakistan in the early 1980s. Several were born in Pakistan, married locals and have children who go to school in Pakistan. They have made a life for themselves in Pakistan and regard Pakistan as their home. Crossing the border into Afghanistan is hardly a homecoming for them. Importantly, the situation in Afghanistan is not conducive for the return of refugees. The security situation is precarious  2016 saw record levels of civilians killed, injured and displaced  as is the state of the economy. Much uncertainty over access to food, jobs and shelter awaits the returnees.

Unlike during the post-2001 period, when hope drew the refugees back to Afghanistan, the current exodus it is driven by intimidation, coercion, violence and ultimatums that they are subjected to in Pakistan. Afghan refugees are being forcibly repatriated to Afghanistan.

The 1951 Convention forbids refoulement, i.e. forcibly returning registered refugees. As a non-signatory to the 1951 Convention, Pakistan could claim that it is not bound by this provision. However, international customary law also forbids sending back refugees in any manner whatsoever to a place where they face the risk of persecution or threats to their lives. By sending back the Afghan refugees, Pakistan is violating their right to non-refoulement.

Interestingly, the UNHCRs extension of a US$ 400 aid package to registered Afghan refugees returning home is said to have encouraged Afghans to leave. While this repatriation program has been put on pause for some months, its likely revival on March 1, while providing returnees with some seed money to begin a new life in Afghanistan, is facilitating Pakistans forced repatriation of refugees. Human Rights Watch says that UNHCR will then be complicit in mass refoulement.

CONCLUSIONS: The ongoing repatriation of Pakistan-based Afghan refugees to Afghanistan is forced and therefore a violation of refugees right to non-refoulement. Rather than facilitate this repatriation, the UNHCR must do more to stop it, or at least slow it down, as the situation in Afghanistan is hardly secure. However, it will not be easy to convince Pakistan to do so especially as European countries that are signatories to the 1951 Convention are sending back Afghan refugees as well.

Since the regions geo-politics and Afghanistans bonding with India prompted Pakistan to forcibly repatriate the Afghan refugees, Pakistan is unlikely to rethink its decision in the near future. Much will depend on how the Afghan-India military relationship evolves. The Afghan refugees are staring at an uncertain future.

AUTHORS BIO: Dr. Sudha Ramachandran is an independent researcher / journalist based in India. She writes on South Asian political and security issues. Her articles have appeared in Asia Times Online, The Diplomat, China Brief, etc. She can be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Image source: United Nations Photo on Flickr, accessed on February 3, 2017
Man Charged With Hate Crime In Case Of Defaced Loop Synagogue

By Emma G. Gallegos in News on Feb 8, 2017 10:00PM



Stuart Wright (Chicago Police Department) smashed the window of a Loop synagogue and defaced the property with swastika stickers, according to police.

Stuart Wright, 31, was arrested Tuesday morning as he was leaving a residence in the 2100 block of South Loomis in Pilsen, according to a release. Police said he was identified from surveillance video that shows the crime as well as anonymous information from a tip line.

Wright was charged with one felony count of committing a hate crime against a synagogue and another felony count for criminal damage. The American Jewish Committee, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and Cardinal Blase Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago all spoke out against the incident, which happened just after midnight on Saturday.

The AJC praised the arrest on Wednesday. "This act of anti-Semitism was meant to threaten the community, but it brought together the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities with a renewed purpose to stand together against such hate, AJC Chicago Director Amy Stoken said in a statement. Our community has been heartened by the overwhelming show of solidarity and we will continue to stand together with the understanding that no one community is safe unless all communities are safe.

There's been an uptick in hate crimes and anti-semitism around the country and the city, including at the University of Chicago, Beverly and the South Loop.
4 Arrested During Protest Against Dakota Access Pipeline In Loop Bank

By aaroncynic in News on Feb 8, 2017 11:00PM



A group of water protectors chained together inside a Citibank branch in the Loop. Citibank is one of 17 banks that have provided funding for the Dakota Access Pipeline. Photo by Tyler Lariviere/Chicagoist.

Citibank is one of 17 banks that have directly funded the pipeline.

As a major funder of DAPL, Citibank is directly sponsoring the ongoing genocide of Native peoples and endangering the waters, lands and living communities of the entire Missouri River watershed, representatives of the group wrote in a press release sent out shortly after the activists chained themselves together inside the bank branch, at 69 W Washington St. Banks that fund fossil fuels are directly responsible for climate change - the social and environmental violence they perpetuate represents a clear example of ecocide.

About 2 dozen police at #CitiBank as activists are still chained together inside. #NoDAPL pic.twitter.com/nrvzhSIvqj  Tyler LaRiviere (@TylerLaRiviere) February 8, 2017

The action comes just days after several hundred people rallied in the Loop over the weekend to show their solidarity with indigenous peoples who have been fighting to keep the DAPL from pushing through the area of Standing Rock in North Dakota.

According to documents published by ABC in early November, a previously proposed route had the pipeline crossing the Missouri River north of Bismarck, ND, but that was rejected due to concerns raised by engineers over the potential contamination of drinking water. It was instead rerouted on lands belonging to indigenous peoples, who are concerned for the contamination of their drinking water. Activists nationwide, dubbed "water protectors," have been protesting both at the site and across the country for months.



A water protector is wheeled away on an office chair at a protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline at a Citibank branch in Chicago. The bank is one of 17 that has provided funding for the pipeline. Photo by Tyler Lariviere/Chicagoist.

On Tuesday, the US Army said it would cancel an environmental study and move forward with construction, according to the Chicago Tribune. Water protectors in North Dakota and their allies around the country have vowed to fight the move.

A Chicago Police Tactical Unit was dispatched to cut the chains that locked the activists together, who were then arrested and wheeled out on chairs.
White Supremacy Group Targets UChicago With Racist Posters

By Stephen Gossett in News on Feb 9, 2017 1:57AM



A white supremacist group put up several racist posters on the University of Chicago campus in recent days.

Identity Evropaa white-nationalist organization that makes a habit out of surreptitiously posting such imagery across the country before broadcasting their work on social mediatook credit on Monday for a targeting of University of Chicago. The black-and-white posters spotted on campus feature the group's usual handiwork: white marble statues with messages like Our Destiny Is Ours printed across.

In a Facebook post from Tuesday, university association Graduate Students United said they were tracking instances of neo-Nazi posters or hateful graffiti and noted that university community members had also encountered such examples:



Most recently, multiple members of the UChicago community have spotted posters from a group called Identity Evropa. A few posters appeared around Hyde Park in the last week or so, and then several were found on campus [on Monday]. The posters feature classical and neoclassical sculptures with slogans like "Let's become great again" and "Our future belongs to us," and the name of the group at the bottom."

At least 10 posters were found on campus within two weeks, between Jan. 27 and Feb. 8, according to Amanda Shubert of GSU.

Identity Evropa also claimed responsibility for one of their so-called #FlashTheCity campaigns in Chicago last July, which saw posters put up at the Bean, at the Lakefront Trail, at a CTA stop and other locationsthat is, until enterprising haters of fascism wasted no time in tearing them down.

The white-supremacist group self-identifies as an American-based identitarian organization dedicated to educating the people of European heritage about the importance of a Eurocentric identity. The group was founded by Nathan Damigo, who has links to the National Youth Front, among other white-nationalist organizations.

In December, a militant neo-Nazi group called Atomwaffen Division put up at least one poster of Adolf Hitler, emblazoned with swastikas, in the UChicago's Levi Hall.

Chicagoist has reached out the University of Chicago. This post will be updated as necessary.

[H/T DNAinfo]
Italy Archives

A delegation of Italian economic operators is expected in Cameroon from Sunday February 12, 2017, it has been disclosed.

Speaking at a press conference in Yaounde on Thursday February 9, 2017, the Ambassador of Italy to Cameroon, Samuela Isopi said the economic mission will offer an opportunity for Italian investors and Cameroonian businessmen to agree on some joint ventures.

We will have a very important seminar on the Italian model of small and medium size enterprises are organised in the form of cooperatives, the head of the Italian diplomacy in Cameroon explained.

She said the investors are from varied sectors including railway and sustainable development of African and Cameroonian cities.

According to the Minister of Trade, Italy is one of Cameroons most important trade partners.

Italy is amongst top five countries with which Cameroon trades, Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana told the press.

There is a litany of Italian businesses in Cameroon, among them chocolate-producer, Ferrero.

Cameroon and Italy signed five major cooperation agreements during a four-day visit of the Italian president, Sergio Mattarella to Yaounde in March 2016.

One of the agreements was the exemption of visas for holders of diplomatic and service passports between Cameroon and Italy.

Cameron has been enjoying diplomatic relations with Italy since 1962.

By Ernest NFORMI
John S. NJOYA, Fon of Bamunka Wilson MUSA

Information from Bamunka is a small village located in the North West Region along the ring road from Bamenda-Nkambe indicates that the Fon of Ndop-Bamunka His Royal Highness Fon John S. Njoya is nowhere to be found after some villagers stormed his Palace threatening to declare him persona non grata if those arrested in Ndop days back and ferried to Bamenda are not released.

Information from Bamunka is a small village located in the North West Region along the ring road from Bamenda-Nkambe indicates that the Fon of Ndop-Bamunka His Royal Highness Fon John S. Njoya is nowhere to be found after some villagers stormed his Palace threatening to declare him persona non grata if those arrested in Ndop days back and ferried to Bamenda are not released.

Report says after the burning down of some classrooms in Bamunka village, police arrested dozens of youths and kept them behind bars pending investigations. The people of Ndop subdivision with chief town Bamunka rose against the arrest, they came out in their numbers at the police station Wednesday demanding the immediate release of those arrested but were told that the youths were transferred at the Gendarmerie.

Men, Women and even children stormed the Gendarmerie brigade but were told that six of the youths have been taken to Bamenda.

Protesters have accused their Fon of siding with the government for what they termed illegal detention of the youths.

Gunshots were heard in Ndop as the local population vowed that those arrested must regain freedom.

The Governor of the North West region is alleged to have ordered for the release of those arrested but reports indicates the Fon has escaped to an unknown destination as locals have taken the palace hostage.

No official reaction has come from the Fon or from the Governor.

By Wilson MUSA
Debris of The Plank House Wilson MUSA

The people of Bepanda , a neighborhood in Douala Five Municipality ,were thrown into grief and bewilderment as a family of four all perished in a fire disaster.

Arnaud, a bike rider and father of the house, his wife Viginie and two kids (6 Years and 10 Months) were all asleep when the tragic incident occurred.

A neighborhood told reporters that they heard a loud noise around midnight breaking Thursday February 9, 2017 but thought it was a thief operating somewhere.

However one courageous woman decided to find out what was happening to their neighbors, as she dared to go out, she was met with unbearable heat emanating from the plank house ravaged by fire.

They only succeeded to save their items but could not find the couple and their kids.

Fire fighters only arrived the scene one and half hour later.

The bodies of the deceased have been deposited in a nearby mortuary.

The cause of the tragic fire incident has not been established as investigations take its course.
| BY Ricki Green |

Since 2000, the number of first-generation immigrants around the world has been on the up, and Australia is no different. According to the most recent Census data, around 50 per cent of people in Australia were born overseas, or have at least one parent born overseas. One in three Australians were born overseas.

China and Indias opening up to the world in particular has led to the two economies being recognised as global powerhouses. Misperceptions about these audiences are gradually disappearing, as marketers begin to realise the untapped potential of the affluent, youthful, tech-savvy and upwardly mobile groups.

MultiConnexions, Australias largest independent multicultural marketing and advertising agency, believe that while these developments continue to make diaspora communities highly attractive market segments in Australia, the success of any marketing strategy really depends on the diasporas mind-set. Culture, psychology and human behaviour are just some of the many factors that play a role in the identity of these audiences. For many new audiences in Australia, the home culture  be it Indian, Chinese or any other cultural background  continues to play an integral role in self-identity.

Says Sheba Nandkeolyar, CEO, MultiConnexions: A sense of self tends to remain, and cultural roots run deep. A strong understanding of these kinds of nuances, and a true respect and appreciation for different cultures in Australia is critical.

Nandkeolyar cites MultiConnexions client and private health insurer, Medibank, as a particularly successful brand catering to Australias diversity and different health insurance needs of its customers for better health.

The current Medibank Year of the Rooster 2017 Lunar New Year marketing campaign is in full swing and bringing the vitality of the rooster to life. In particular, the campaign artwork of the vibrant, bright and colourful rooster in a Chinese Folk Art style, combined with the Medibank logo has captured the Chinese and other Asian communities attention, along with the themes of a lucky, healthy and prosperous Year of the Rooster with Medibank.

Says Nandkeolyar: We are very pleased with the positive reception to the strategic campaign and Medibank messages during Lunar New Year. Language and cultural insights are essential in good marketing, and its great to see brands delivering to Chinese and other Asian communities in such a positive manner.

Medibank hopes that the strategic, culturally relevant and timely campaign will further engage and deepen the relationship Medibank has with Chinese and other Asian consumers.
| BY Ricki Green |

After working in New York City for 4 years, Alan Harca has recently moved back to Sydney and is now represented by In The Thicket.

Harca has an energetic and compelling visual style, mixed with dramatic storytelling finesse. He brings the same passion working with LeBron as he does crafting compelling real stories. Harcas background is an award-winning feature film and commercial editor, which is another talent he uses to build powerful stories, beautifully.

Says Stephan Renard, EP, In The Thicket: We are thrilled to have Alan on board. His international experience and creative energy is a great addition to our team.

Harca has worked with many global agencies, clients and notable celebrities for brands such as Nike, NFL, Vogue, Victorias Secrets, Hewlett Packard, BMW. Not only has he directed, he has produced alongside TV Networks such as Showtime, Netflix, FX and HBO on a wide range of commercial and online content.

Says Harca: Im delighted be back to Sydney and with In The Thicket. We have jumped right in on some exciting projects.

To inquire about Harcas availability for branded content or TVC work please contact Melissa Petryszyn at melissap@inthethicket.com.au.
| BY Ricki Green |

UNIQLO Australia is today launching its creative brand campaign, following the global reveal.

The Science of LifeWear campaign, which first launched in the US in August last year via Droga5 New York, highlights the companys relentless commitment to quality, functionality and style through LifeWear  innovative high-quality clothing that is universal in design and comfort and made for everyone, everywhere.

The initiative is an important next step for UNIQLO in its ongoing mission to become a truly global and inspirational apparel brand.

Through a series of brand and product films, plus supporting visual materials, The Science of LifeWear aims to ignite a dialogue on human attitudes toward clothing, observing how people live, behave and interact, asking through the lens of scientific curiosity, Why do we get dressed? Filmed in urban settings in Japan to reflect company origins and brand authenticity, the campaign style, tone and messaging all highlight the UNIQLO passion for understanding functional and emotional needs in clothing by people everywhere.

Says John C Jay, president of global creative, fast retailing, UNIQLO: By producing a global brand message from Japan, we are being authentic to our origin and who we are. We design simple, beautiful, high-quality everyday clothes that become the building blocks of your daily life. We constantly improve our LifeWear to help make your everyday life better. Our endless curiosity to explore the meaning of clothing is at the heart of our new campaign.

The global introduction of the LifeWear concept was a complex task. We needed a special strategic and creative partner who could understand and express the thoughtfulness of our brand and how our philosophy of innovation and simple made better could bring the best quality apparel to the largest number of people. As our partner, Droga5 spent significant time with us in Japan and the U.S. to engage with our culture. This first new step for UNIQLO is inspiring.
A Buzzy New Cocktail Bar Opened In Uptown Last Night

By Anthony Todd in Food on Feb 9, 2017 3:35PM



The sign for Larry's reflected in a mirror in the lobby of Lawrence House. Photo via Facebook.

Uptown isn't yet saturated with great bars and restaurants (Income Tax aside), so any opening is still pretty big news. Larry's, a new cocktail spot in the Lawrence House residential development, opened last night and is already getting plenty of buzz.

Lawrence House, if you're not familiar, is a Cedar Street redevelopment project on (where else?) Lawrence Avenue near Broadway. The building, which has undergone a massive renovation, offers trendy rental apartments, a super-stylish lobby and Heritage Outpost, a tiny, adorable coffee shop. In addition, the building was originally supposed to boast a location of juice bar Owen & Alchemy, though that's a no-go since the original location has closed.

Instead of juice, residents of Lawrence House (and their neighbors) got Larry's, a cocktail bar helmed by Wade McElroy and Jeff Donahue, two former employees of Heisler Hospitality (which owns bars like Sportsman's Club, Revel Room and Queen Mary Tavern). The spot, which looks like a classic Chicago lobby bar, serves up a menu of very of-the-minute drinks, including a frozen montenegro sidecar, a pony of High Life with a shot of fernet, and a "salted coffee old fashioned." Eater has the complete menu. Prices range from $6 to $14, which seems a little high for Uptown (Lincoln Square and Andersonville cocktail bars usually stay in the $10-12 range).

We'll definitely be visiting soon.

Larry's is located at 1020 W. Lawrence Avenue.
Last-minute voter guide: How to cast a ballot, top issues for Nov. 8

Tuesday is Election Day. Looking for a last minute guide for voting in the 2022 elections? Start here.
Northwestern Student Government Wants Frat Suspended During Sexual Assault Investigation

By Mae Rice in News on Feb 9, 2017 7:26PM



Northwestern Unviersity, via Wikimedia Commons

Northwestern University's student government has called for a fraternity to be suspended while the school investigates multiple reports of sexual assault on its premises. The Associate Student Government (ASG) has also called for the fratand any similar frat to be removed from campus if the investigation finds members guilty.

The ASG's statement, released Wednesday, comes as the university investigates multiple reports of drugging and sexual assault at the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.

The ASG is advocating a strong stance, which would hold fraternities at large, as well as individual members, accountable for sexual assault. The ASG's executive board wrote in their statement that due to "[t]he scale of this event [at Sigma Alpha Epsilon] and frequency of similar situations," they believe that sexual violence is a "systemic issue" in Northwestern's Greek systemone that needs to be tackled at an institutional as well as personal level.

"We believe the university must remove individuals from campus who are found responsible for sexual assault, as well as organizations that do not foster a safe, healthy environment free of sexual misconduct," they wrote.

Northwestern is still investigating the reported assaults at Sigma Alpha Epsilon on Jan. 21, as well as another anonymous report of a woman being assaulted and possibly drugged at an unspecified fraternity. Northwestern asks anyone with knowledge of these cases to contact the Title IX Coordinator at TitleIXCoordinator@northwestern.edu or call University Police at (847) 491-3456.

The University of Oklahoma's chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon made national news for its racist chant back in 2015.

See the ASG's full Facebook statement below:
Wednesday, February 8, 2017 at 8:56PM

Looks like bad press for the Samsung Galaxy Note7 is far from over. A fire broke out on Wednesday at one of the factories responsible for making the faulty batteries of the Galaxy Note7. The fire at Samsung SDI Co. in Tianjin, northern China happened at part of the facility where wasted materials were stored (these include faulty batteries). According to the local fire service who responded to the incident, the source of the fire was lithium batteries inside the production works and some half-finished products.

Samsung SDI spokesperson Shin Yong-doo tells Reuters the fire is minor and no casualties were reported. The factory is operating as normal without any impact on its production lines. As Apple Insider reports though, there were 110 firefighters and 19 trucks on the scene to put out the fire.
"We have requested a reconsideration of the Department of Environment's referral decision under the EPBC Act. We have also asked the Minister to emergency list Bruce Hall on the Commonwealth Heritage Register as a matter of urgency. Despite all efforts to avoid it, we may need to commence urgent legal action to stop demolition proceeding."
"The uncertainty is now having an impact on the APVMA being able to recruit regulatory scientists, we know that they're losing a large number of them and we expect to see that having an impact o the performance of the agency.
"I am not saying I support him for what he has done there, but overall, as a person, who is strong and stands up for his country [I do support him]," she said on Thursday.
Mr Fitzgibbon says the inquiry, which is to report by May, will focus on the APVMA move and will take a detailed look at risks to human and animal health, the profitability to the agriculture and fisheries sectors, chemical industries and Australia's trading reputation.
Tipster Said Suspected Synagogue Vandal Is Known White Supremacist: Prosecutor

By Stephen Gossett in News on Feb 9, 2017 9:14PM



Stuart Wright (Chicago Police Department)

Stuart Wright, 31, faces one felony count of committing a hate crime against a synagogue and another felony count for criminal damage. He allegedly vandalized the synagogue, at 16 S. Clark St., early on Saturday.

"We can't tolerate this behavior," Judge Donald Panarese Jr. said as he set bond, according to the Sun-Times.

Wright was apprehended in part due to a tip, according to police. The tipster said Wright is a known white supremacist; and Wright's fingerprints were a match with those taken from the stickers, prosecutors reportedly said on Thursday in court.

Authorities also found a pamphlet that read, "How to Own a N------," the Sun-Times reports.

Wright was arrested on Tuesday morning as he left a residence in the 2100 block of S. Loomis St.

The American Jewish Committee praised the arrest on Wednesday and championed the show of solidarity from other faiths shown in the wake of the incident. "This act of anti-Semitism was meant to threaten the community, but it brought together the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities with a renewed purpose to stand together against such hate, AJC Chicago Director Amy Stoken said in a statement. Our community has been heartened by the overwhelming show of solidarity and we will continue to stand together with the understanding that no one community is safe unless all communities are safe.
Raha presently serves more than 1,500 businesses as well as a number of smaller retail customers with fibre, satellite, WiMAX and Wifi. They also operate in over 150 hotspot locations across the country including the cities of Arusha, Moshi, Mwanza, Mbeya and Tanga.

Nic Rudnick, CEO, Liquid Telecom said: We are very pleased to announce that this transaction has received its final approval. The agreement enables Liquid Telecom to expand its footprint into Tanzania, a growing and dynamic African country.

The acquisition of Raha by Liquid Telecom will provide enterprises and wholesale customers with direct and faster access to networks across Africa. Tanzania becomes the latest market to be added to Liquid Telecoms large fibre network, presently the largest of its kind serving eastern, central and southern Africa.

With Liquid Telecom's support, Raha can explore new ways to increase connectivity within Tanzania as well as to the rest of the region. We will also benefit from the groups skills and expertise, helping us to achieve our vision of a more connected Tanzania, says Aashiq Shariff, CEO, Raha. Our rollout plans will allow us to extend fibre coverage to thousands of new customers and create hundreds of new jobs.
The Confucius Museum in Qufu, Shandong province - the birthplace of China's most famous sage - will be opened in the second half of this year, a local official said on Wednesday, describing it as the country's first comprehensive museum to focus on Confucius (551-479 BC) and his ideology.

A tableware item from the Yanshenggong Mansion. The title Yanshenggong was given to Kong Zongyuan, Confucius' 46th generation descendent, during the Song Dynasty (420-479). [Photo/Xinhua]

"Work on the exhibition center, the main building of the museum complex, has been completed, while detailed work on exhibition platforms and landscaping is underway," said Zhang Lizheng of the Qufu Culture Industry Park where the museum is located.

The museum complex, with a total investment of 700 million yuan ($102 million), consists of an exhibition center and six subordinate halls, covering a total of 57,000 square meters.

The museum is a cultural project showcasing Confucian teachings and relics collected by generations of Confucius, as well as a place to learn about traditional culture, said Yang Jinquan, deputy head of the Qufu bureau of cultural relics.
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AS Spring Festival finished, Wu Wei and his wife Gao Yaqing finally had a moment of relief after the busiest time of year in their store.

The couple run a pet store in Xining, capital of northwest China's Qinghai Province. They sell pet food, as well as offer grooming and daycare services for pets.

As pets are not allowed on Chinese trains, people leave their pets in daycare over the holidays.

Wu's store became a temporary home for over a dozen pet dogs during the holiday.

"The dogs are like family to me," said Gao, who has three dogs herself.

The couple opened the store in March 2016. The 110-square-meter store is called Naonao's Pet Store, after her pet dog Naonao, which means liveliness in Chinese.

"I hope the store can be a place full of life and energy," Gao said.

For Spring Festival, Wu and Gao served a Chinese traditional meal of dumplings stuffed with chicken, carrots, and cabbage for the dogs.

"I'm very happy seeing my dog enjoy the festival food," said Ning Dinghua, whose dog Dabai stayed at the store.

When sending her there, Ning brought Dabai's own cup, dog food, and snacks. He made daily phone calls to check on her.

"Dabai is very active, and I fear she may run away when taken out for walks," Ning said.

As soon as he returned to Xining, Ning went to pick up Dabai at the store.

"She quickly ran towards me and bounced around joyfully," he recalled.

Emerging sector

China has over 30,000 pet stores, about three times that of the United States, mostly in large cities, according to market research by the American Pet Products Association.

Like Wu, many pet stores experienced a boom during Spring Festival. Wu charges 40 to 60 yuan per dog, per day. Despite the large number of stores, strong demand in some cities drove up the price.

"A large dog can cost nearly 100 yuan per day (about US$14.6), more expensive than my kid's tuition fee in the kindergarten." read one online post.

In China, keeping pets is a growing trend. The pet dog population in China reached 27.4 million, ranking third in the world after the United States and Brazil, according to official statistics.

The growing pet population has brought new opportunities. The pet care market in China is valued at 97.8 billion yuan, with pet food and snacks, daily supplies and daycare services being the top three segments, according to a 2016 report by China's online pet community goumin.com.

In recent years, daycare provision has expanded beyond pet stores, clinics and daycare centers. Applications for families to find and become registered daycare providers have increased. Xiaogouzaijia, established in mid-2015, now covers 200 Chinese cities with tens of thousands of registered families.

"The booming pet care market reflects people's improved quality of life," said Lin Wenjun, a scholar from Nankai University. "With household income and pet care knowledge increasing, new products and services such as pet smart wearables, grooming and insurance are also emerging."
The official groundbreaking for a new baseball complex on Albuquerque's West Side was held last week. The complex, which will include 5 baseball fields in the first phase and 12 softball and little league fields in the second, will cover 82 acres and cost an estimated $17.8 million . The complex will be located on Arroyo Vista next to the Albuquerque Public Schools' football stadium. Mayor Richard Berry said the complex played a large part in the selection of Albuquerque as host of the 2019 National Senior Games . According to Councilor Dan Lewis, nearly $13 million of the projects funding will come from revenue bonds, originally meant for a Tesla battery manufacturing plant that was never built.

PED Proposes Changes to Teacher Evaluations, Student Testing Time

Robert Maestas

Last week, the New Mexico Public Education Department announced that it wants to reduce the amount of testing done by students and is supporting legislation to change the way it evaluates teachers. In the current teacher evaluation, student test scores make up 50 percent of the overall score. Education Secretary Hanna Skandera recommended dropping that value to 40 percent to lawmakers Monday. She also said PED wants to increase the number of exemptions in the attendance portion of the evaluation from three to five and offer targeted investments for teachers, including debit cards for classroom supplies and stipends for mentorship programs. PED is also looking to decrease the hours spent by students taking the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers test, or PARCC, by 2018. The size of the decrease has yet to be determined. Skandera said the decision to make the changes came after feedback was gathered during statewide community meetings as part of the New Mexico Rising tour. Albuquerque Teachers Federation President Ellen Bernstein says the changes are not enough, and that student performance should not be considered at all in teacher evaluations. The proposed changes will eventually become part of the state's plan for the Every Student Succeeds Act.
Chinese authorities will streamline the approval process for elderly care institutions to address challenges brought by the aging population.

The move aims to mobilize private funds to engage in elderly care services and reduce the costs of joining the sector, according to a circular jointly released by 13 departments, including the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Public Security.

The circular said that fewer application materials would be required to run elderly care institutions, and that registering real estate as elderly care institutions would be more convenient.

It urged for improved supervision and law enforcement, as well as a smooth complaints channel during the process.

Information on demand and supply should be updated in good time and social funds would be encouraged to invest in the sector.

There are currently more than 220 million people over 60 years old in the country, 16.1 percent of the population, with numbers growing.
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.

Care2 Stands With: humanitarians, animal lovers, feminists, rabble-rousers, nature-buffs, creatives, the naturally curious, and people who really love to do the right thing.

You are our people. You Care. We Care2.
Are you looking to study abroad in Germany? A number of German universities, research and funding institutions are visiting New Delhi (18-19 February) and Hyderabad (21-23 February) as part of the German Study & Research Expo India 2017.

Study in Germany

Germany has seen a record growth in the number of Indians studying and doing research there. In the past five years, this number has more than doubled. Germany welcomes bright minds from all over the world.

Why study in Germany?

Ahead of the Expo, German Ambassador to India, Dr Martin Ney, said: "Germany, the 'Land of Ideas', is a leading science nation that excels in research and development. So far, German scientists have received 80 Nobel prizes for their achievements. Germany is home to some of the oldest and best universities in the world. Germany offers excellent career opportunities for foreign graduates. Ambitious and talented young students from India are most welcome in Germany."

The Director of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Heike Mock, stated: "German universities with their top quality education, excellent research atmosphere and cultural ethos have struck a chord with international students. Today, Germany has established itself as a popular destination for higher studies and research. Indian students from the 2nd largest group of international students in Germany."

German Study and Research Expo

The Expo is aimed specifically at graduates and postgraduates and will present an excellent platform for one-on-one exchanges between students and experts. It will be open to all and will give visitors the opportunity to have an in-depth interaction with professors and representatives of German universities. Visitors will also have the opportunity to attend seminars on topics such as engineering studies, management studies, natural science studies, campus life, employment prospects and much more.

The following institutions will take part in the Expo:

University of Augsburg

Bavarian Universities (BayInd)

University of Bayreuth

Freie Universitat Berlin

Frankfurt School of Finance & Management

Heidelberg University

Hof University of Applied Sciences

Forschungszentrum Julich

University of Kaiserslautern

University of Cologne

Leipzig University

Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg

Technical University of Munich

Saarland University

Fachverband Deutsch als Fremdsprache

German House for Research and Innovation (DWIH)

German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)

Also Read: Ireland, A Hotspot for Study Abroad : Register for the Ireland Education Fair Now!
The final results of the merit listed candidates in Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) Assistant Commandant Examination 2016 has been released by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). Candidates can check the results on UPSC official website.

The exam was held on 26 June 2016 for the selection of eligible candidates in civil services.

How to check the UPSC CAPF Exam 2016 Results

Visit the official website of UPSC upsc.gov.in

Under the what is new section, click on the link ' Final Result: Central Armed Police Forces (Assistant Commandants) Exam., 2016 '

' A PDF file will be displayed on a new page containing the merit list of candidates

Click on the Pdf file and the results will be displayed

Pay attention to the details given and check your results

Save it to your computer and take a print-out for future reference

Since many people would be trying to access the results, the website would be working a bit slowly and might take longer to load. Candidates are advised to exercise patience and check their results.

The selected candidates will be appointed to the posts of Assistant Commandants (Group A) in the Central Armed Police Forces viz. Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF), Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB).

About UPSC

The Civil Services Examination (CSE) is a National level competitive examination in India, conducted by the Union Public Service Commission for recruitment to various Civil Services of the Government of India.

The Civil Services, also known as the UPSC exam is considered one of the toughest and prestigious competitive exams in India with success rate of just 0.1%. The examination is conducted to recruit officers for three types of services namely, All India Services, Central Services and State Services.

UPSC Combined Defence Services (CDS) Exam II Results Released
Theresa May (left) talks with Dalia Grybauskaite, President of Lithuania, on the sidelines of an informal EU summit on refugee issues in Valletta, Malta, on February 3 (XINHUA)

After months of enigmatic silence, British Prime Minister Theresa May has announced how her government plans to manage Britain's exit from the European Union (EU) following the nation's referendum on June 23 last year.

Between taking the helm of the ruling Conservative Party in August and mid-January, May responded to questions about this massive issue with the simple phrase, "Brexit means Brexit." Then, on January 17, she at last outlined what this actually means, and a white paper detailing the government's strategy followed on February 2.

After the shock outcome of the June vote, the consensus became that so many turned their backs on EU membership for two reasons: One was the perceived loss of control over who can enter the UK to live and work, as net inward immigration has put pressure on services and jobs for local people. The second was the perceived loss of sovereign power from the British parliament and the nation's law courts to the supposedly less-accountable European Commission and European Court of Justice. The mantra of the main groups agitating for the UK to leave the union was "take back control." In the minds of many, these considerations overruled the very clear risks that exiting the EU would have for the British economy and the UK's international standing.

A formidable task

May's government has to cope with competing pressures and demands. In two years they have to negotiate with 27 remaining members of the EU, one of the most complex political agreements ever achieved on terms that are seen as mutually palatable. The UK may have plenty of diplomatic experience, but its civil servants and politicians face a task never before undertaken. Its partners, meanwhile, have a vested interest in seeing the rest of the EU remain intact and thus want to avoid giving any impression that member states can be better off by exiting rather than staying in the union.

May's speech clarified two things. First, the UK will leave the EU's single market, because not doing so would require continued acceptance of the bloc's four internal freedoms--unrestricted trade and free movement of capital, goods and people. While the UK has no problem with the first three, it evidently has an issue with the fourth. Since 2005, the UK has seen 3.5 million people relocate from other parts of the EU into the UK. The Conservative government wishes to clearly limit future inward immigration and, in their own words, to reassert control over the UK's borders. Fierce debate continues over just how possible this will be and, even if it is achieved, whether it will really bring any benefits. However unpalatable it is for British politicians to say so, given the nation's falling birth rate and increasingly specialist labor demands, the need for net influxes of certain kinds of people is likely to increase rather than diminish in the years ahead. In the UK, public perceptions of inbound immigration are negative partially because they have been fed by a largely xenophobic press. But a simple solution is being proposed to a very complex problem. With British universities and firms needing to recruit international talent, the work permit scheme alluded to by May would need to be more complex and efficient than any of such arrangement in the past. This is ambitious, to say the least, and whether it will actually prove effective looks very uncertain.

The second issue relates to restoration of sovereignty to the British parliament and courts. At the heart of this will be the UK's departure from the European Court of Justice, which, while not an EU entity as such, is often blamed in sections of the British media for imposing diktats of bureaucrats in Brussels on the UK and, thereby, taking decision-making powers away from UK officials. Once more, perceptions are one thing, while reality is another. The EU, with its 20,000 or so functionaries, has been blamed for a raft of political, legal and other decisions apparently detrimental to UK interests. But whether or not it is really the source of problems is another issue. Much of the British press is fond of portraying the EU in ways that engender loathing and discontent. The sins attributed to the union, however, are far outweighed by the benefits it brings in terms of common rules and standards which facilitate the UK's engagement with its closest neighbors and security partners as well as its largest market.

Sovereignty is a grand thing. But, the desire to assert feelings of sovereignty in an era when so many problems, from climate change to global growth, increasingly need to be taken in concert with others causes one to wonder whether or not this represents a major contradiction. Within the EU, Britain has always maintained its sovereignty--testimony to this is the very fact that the UK was able to hold a referendum on its membership of the union. If exiting the EU leads to loss of market access and to a more marginalized UK with a declining economy, then defending feelings of sovereignty becomes less easy to understand. The bottom line is that on June 23, 2016, UK citizens were never offered the choice of separating from the EU with the consequence of being worse off. Most of those campaigning to leave claimed the precise opposite. Although who will prove right in this regard has yet to be determined, a vast majority of economists agree that Britain's decision to exit the EU has exposed the nation to extraordinary risk, with plenty of space for it to end up rich in sovereignty and poor in just about everything else.

In her statement, May was adamant that the UK would seek a bespoke, hybrid arrangement unlike those of states like Norway and Switzerland who are linked, but do not belong, to the EU. This will require innovative thinking and creativity by her political allies and by UK officials. More worryingly, it will also call for flexibility on the part of Britain's EU partners. At the moment, though, they are sounding impressively unified in making clear that whatever deal is achieved, the UK should not emerge apparently rewarded for turning its back in such an unambiguously explicit and direct way on its close allies and partners.

The China angle

For China, interpreting Britain's strategy is straightforward enough. The UK may appear to be a much more open investment environment for companies from China, albeit one delinked from European markets and therefore far less attractive as a possible gateway to the continent. Furthermore, the international influence of London's financial services sector stands to be significantly curtailed by the loss of its so-called passport rights, and this has the potential to put a dent in the city's ambition to take a leading role in the internationalization of China's currency.

For Chinese citizens looking to study or work in the UK, meanwhile, the situation will change. A Britain removed from Europe might offer more opportunities, or it could be less attractive; being less international and more parochial.

One thing is clear though: having become more isolated diplomatically, the UK will figure in Chinese political thinking as a much smaller and less important player.

Unfortunately, this particular attitude and what it will lead to were not even taken into consideration by many British voters on June 23, 2016. Whether they will be content to live with the consequences, we shall just have to wait and see, regardless of the British Government's attempt to clarify the road ahead, something not improved by the very generic contents of the February 2 white paper which only repeated, at greater length, the general lines of what May had said earlier.

The author is an op-ed contributor to Beijing Review and director of the Lau China Institute at King's College, London
This is the all-new 2018 Hyundai Elantra GT which just made its official debut at the Chicago Auto Show.



This is basically the North American version of the companys i30 hatchback, with Hyundai claiming the new model to be both lighter and stiffer than the model it replaces.

The new Hyundai Elantra GT will become available with two engine options, including an entry-level direct-injected 2.0-litre with 162hp that can be had with either a six-speed manual or automatic gearbox or -in the case of the GT Sport- a turbocharged 1.6-litre with 201hp with either a six-speed manual or a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic.

The new Elantra GT brings more to the North American shores for the 2018 model year, said Scott Margason, director, product planning, Hyundai Motor America. More space and features inside. More aggression and European flair outside. And more options under the hood. Im particularly excited to showcase the GT Sport, a true hot hatch.

Hyundai takes great pride in the new Elantra GT as it was developed and tested at the Nurburgring for its ride, handling and durability. The GT Sport model also gets a fully independent multilink setup at the rear over the torsion beam that equips the 2.0-litre model, 18-inch alloys and larger brake rotors front and rear.

Inside the new Hyundai Elantra GT gets a wealth of features, including an Infinity Premium Audio, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and wireless smartphone charging on top of the standard 8-inch infotainment system.

As for safety, Hyundai has also given their new model a range of clever driver assistance systems which include Smart Cruise Control with stop/start capability, Automatic Emergency Braking with Pedestrian Detection, Lane Keep Assist, Attention Assist, High-Beam Assist, and Blind Spot Detection with Rear Cross-traffic Alert.

Customers will also benefit from the addition of the latest version of the companys Blue Link remote start feature which now lets you control the rear defroster and heated side mirrors along the climate control and made the whole system compatible with Amazon Alexa-enabled devices.

The 2018 Hyundai Elantra GT will arrive at dealerships nationwide this summer.

PHOTO GALLERY

VIDEO
Unless a company is chasing lap records, produces an extremely heavy vehicle or simply wants bragging rights, very few cars require 700 hp. In most situations, half that figure is all that is needed to produce a thrilling car.



Evidently, no one told Netherlands-based racing firm Kroenenburg Autosport that.

The brand with a history of making ECUs for racing cars recently outfitted a custom off-road buggy with the five-cylinder turbocharged engine of an Audi TT RS. When combined with an anti-lag system and a host of other upgrades, a casual 700 hp is sent to the ground via all four wheels.

When the other-worldly beast was filmed testing on the dyno, it made leading supercars look tame, rocking back and forth and spitting huge flames during each and every gear change. Imagine locking a wild tiger in a tiny cage and youll get an idea of just how ferocious this buggy is. Where do we sign up?

VIDEO
A BMW driver lost control of his 5-Series and crashed into a pub in London, missing by just one meter a very lucky builder who was working inside.



The accident happened yesterday, with police saying that the BMW driver wasnt speeding but rather just lost control of his 5-Series when he drove through the front of the pub which was closed for renovation.

The pub was due to open in two weeks and the builder inside was working on the buildings plug sockets when the BMW ploughed through the building, after bouncing off a wall previously, Richmond and Twickenham Times reports.

Fortunately no one was injured and the driver was taken to hospital as a precaution, only to be released the same day.

The building on the other hand suffered the most apparently, with the damage deemed to be structural after an examination by engineers who deemed it unsafe. With that said, the pubs plans to open in two weeks might require a slight readjustment.

Photo Gallery

Photos MPSRichmond
With combined sales of 9,961,347 in 2016, the Renault-Nissan Alliance has approached the Volkswagen and Toyota groups that sold 10.175 million and 10.31 million cars respectively.



The number includes the sales figures of Mitsubishi Motors, which accounted for 934,013 vehicles globally, down 13 percent, following the acquisition of a 34 percent equity stake in the Japanese company.

Nissan delivered a record 5,559,902 cars and truck globally, up 2.5 percent, out of which 1,564,423 found new owners in the USA, and 1,354,552 were shipped to China, setting new records in both markets. Infiniti delivered over 230,000 units last year.

Group Renaults sales were up 13.3 percent to 3,182,625, with most orders coming from France  651,778, where the company held a 26.9 percent market share. Germany, Italy, and Spain contributed to this number, with 198,609, 190,610 and 170,272 sales, respectively, alongside Turkey, Brazil, UK, India, Russia, and South Korea, in this order.

The Alliance became the undisputed leader in zero-emission mobility, after delivering 424,797 electric vehicles throughout 2016. The Nissan Leaf remains the worlds best-selling EV.

The combination of Groupe Renault, Nissan Motors and Mitsubishi Motors creates a new force in the global auto industry. The strength of this innovative partnership that began 18 years ago has allowed us to improve our competitiveness, boost our growth and engage in the race for the vehicle of the future, said Chairman and CEO Carlos Ghosn.

PHOTO GALLERY
Lamborghini will showcase the first 350GT to be restored by their PoloStorico division at the Retromobile show in Paris.



Chassis 0121 is one of the first fifteen cars produced by Lamborghini and is also the first one that returned back to the company for a thorough restoration.

The bodywork and the interior required 1150 hours to be completed, with an additional 780 hours going into checking the mechanical and electrical components.

Lamborghinis PoloStorico division aims to maintain each cars originality as much as possible, with the restoration work involving the exclusive use of original Lamborghini parts, with some of them being specially reconstructed if needed.

The recreation of parts is further aided from PoloStoricos contact with the original historical suppliers and also having an archive with the original technical drawings and designs.

This particular 350GT had its engine cooling, braking and fuel system reworked, with the car even tested on a track to ensure it drives as good as it looks. The black leather of the cabin was refurbished with the period-correct procedures of the era, with the wooden steering wheel, the original accelerator, clutch and brake pedal being restored while maintaining their small signs of wear. Even the original radio still functions perfectly.

As for the paint, PoloStorico used the same techniques and formula as the original nitroacrylic color. The wheels were also restored and authenticated by the original supplier, Ruote Borrani with a set of Pirelli Cinturatos fitted, just as it was when brand new.

The Lamborghini 350GT made its debut in production form at the 1964 Geneva Motor Show and is powered by a 270hp 3.5-litre V12 engine mated to a five-speed ZF manual gearbox. The chassis employed independent suspension all around with the body was made from aluminum.

Lamborghinis PoloStorico currently features a spare parts warehouse that covers more than 70 percent of the brands classic car range and is the only place in the world where they can issue a certificate of authenticity on a classic Lambo.

PHOTO GALLERY
Zhangjiajie Global Geopark is located in the mountainous area of the western region of Hunan Province, China, with a subtropical humid mansoon climate. The outstanding landscape is dominated with more than 3000 peaks and pillars of quartz sandstone, which are rare in the world for their large number, height and fairly pure composition. In the long Chinese history, it has been honored as "the most fantastic mountain under heaven" and "a living Chinese landscape painting." [Photo by Zhao Zhendong/ China.org.cn]
McLaren officially announced the opening of a new chassis production facility, located in Sheffield, UK.



The new McLaren Automotive Composites Technology Centre will be tasked with the development and production of the next-generation carbon-fiber Monocell and Monocage chassis, leading to the creation of more than 200 jobs.

The new facility will be located close to the campus of the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre at the University of Sheffield and represents a 50 million investment.

With the addition of the new chassis facilities, McLaren targets cost savings of around 10 million when compared to the companys current costs and 100 million worth of benefits to the local economy.

The new factory will be housed in a 7,000 square-meter building set over four acres of land. McLaren is currently getting ready for the official reveal of the 650S successor which is reportedly going to be named the 720S.

The new McLaren supercar will be the first one to feature the second-gen Monocage carbon tub in its core, making it even lighter and better at the twisty stuff according to the company.

PHOTO GALLERY
Images showing the new mid-size SUV from Citroens DS luxury brand driving on the streets and with absolutely no camouflage have surfaced online, about a month after we spied a prototype winter testing.



The license plate of the undisguised car appears to read DS 7 Crossback. Whatever its called, we know it will be the brands first SUV sold in Europe and directly rival the Audi Q5 and BMW X4 as the French firm looks to tackle the big German three.

The image above from Citronfeng (thanks Motofilm!) reveals that the DS 7 SUV adopts an exterior design quite different from the companys existing fleet of models. Most notably, the front incorporates sharp new headlights rather than the more circular design of the DS 3. Additionally, we can see LED daytime running lights that have a slight curve to them as well as independent round fog lights.

Beneath the skin, it has already been confirmed that the new DS will be underpinned by PSAs EMP2 platform.

When it hits the market, it will also be the first DS model offered with a plug-in hybrid powertrain as well as the groups new 1.5-liter diesel delivering up to 130 hp. The petrol range will then be topped out by a 240 hp performance model.

Given the timing of these two photos, it seems quite likely that the DS SUV will debut at Marchs Geneva Motor Show.

Update 1: Reader Jean-Philippe tipped us off on a new set of images of the DS SUV posted on Citronfeng via Twitter user Frank

Update 2: New photos of the DS7 Crossback, including of the first of its rear end emerged online , courtesy of Worldscoop user Fabrice75  thanks to David for the tip!

Update 3: another round of pictures added

PHOTO GALLERY
Volkswagen has hit out at former chairman Ferdinand Piech after he claimed to have informed VW board members about diesel emissions cheating six months before the scandal broke.



The German marque strongly rejects Piechs claim and maintains that its top executives were unaware of the emissions issue prior to September 2015. Consequently, Volkswagen says it is considering possible claims against Piech.

The supervisory board of Volkswagen AG emphatically repudiates the assertions made by Ferdinand Piech as reported recently in the media. The board of management will carefully weigh the possibility of measures and claims against Mr Piech, the automaker said.

A German publication recently reported that Piech told ex-chief executive Martin Winterkorn and members of the supervisory board that U.S. authorities discovered the brands emissions cheat device as early as March 2015. Piech apparently received a tip-off from an Israeli security firm, says Reuters.

In a joint statement, former members of the supervisory board of VW, Bernd Osterloh and Berthold Huber echoed VWs sentiments saying The allegations are untrue. Had Dr Piech informed us, we may have been able to spare the company and its workforce from substantial harm. We now expect the management board to thoroughly evaluate whether steps need to be taken against Piech.

PHOTO GALLERY
Cartoon Brew: You did a film pilot, Zucchini, in 2010. Can you tell us about that? Why did you make that first?

Claude Barras: It was Robert Boner, the producer, who was responsible for the development of the project, who challenged me to convince him that a film for children that speaks about abuse using puppets with overdeveloped heads was a risky but original choice. Taking my inspiration from Creature Comforts and from the casting of Jean-Pierre Leaud as seen in the supplement to the dvd of The 400 Blows, I imagined the casting of Zucchini and I dealt with all of the stumbling blocks to the project head-on and with humor so as to defuse them, even with the child who wants to change the name of the main character because he thinks Zucchini sounds too girly and is nasty. I wanted a very realistic quality in the voice to contrast with the very simple visual. The big heads are obviously a way to facilitate the animation and to target the characters emotions in the master shot. The bright colors are meant to give a bit of joy and hope to the children in this story which begins very badly. Robert Boner was convinced but he retired in 2010 and passed the torch to Rita Production, which, using this pilot film, quickly found the financing for a Swiss-French coproduction. We were able to start work in 2012.

The films design possesses a beautiful sense of simplicity and minimalism. What are the reasons behind this minimalism, and how did you achieve it?

Claude Barras: Feel rich with the budget you have, that was the final lesson Robert Boner gave us as he retired. Regarding the minimalist aspect, simplifying is not weakening, but going to what is essential. I like this path which guided me from the writing of the script to the mixing of the film. I decided to convey the realism of the script through the voices and the light, not through the design. It has been shown in a number of studies that the more realistic a face, the more details and realism are needed in the animation in order for the viewer to believe it. So I chose to simplify to the maximum in order to convey the emotions very simply. My faces are like emoticons, they have such a simple aspect that the emotions rise to the surface simply by imperceptibly moving an eyelid. Its a very exciting and creative interplay for the animators.

I heard you did quite some research for the long arms, to see which positions were possible for the characters to do without them looking like an ape?

Claude Barras: I used the idea of overdeveloped heads with big eyes to focus on the emotions of the characters even in wide shot. The length of the arms was determined for the characters to be able to put their hands in front of their eyes so as not to force the animation too much. In order to reduce the Orangutan effect, we made arms with an aluminum wire armature, no elbow, so that they could be bent throughout the film to prevent having the hands too close to the ground in neutral position. But this anamorphosis resulted in surprises that also created a number of problems for the set designers and prop people. For example, when it involved designing a door or a window and deciding where to put the handles. Even when Simon takes his hat and throws it on the table, we had to make two sizes of hat that were changed during the animation so that the hat on the table was not disproportionate in size to the plates and other utensils.

What were other ways to express emotions besides the performance of the characters?

Claude Barras: I tried, in moments of emotion, to frame the reactions of the characters with rather long shots where the main action takes place off-screen, in the soundtrack. I gave Kim [Keukeleire], the head animator, indications on the emotional path of the characters, and she gave me suggestions on how to transcribe them in animation, which we tested in mime with the animators.

Unlike the recording of the voices, the shooting was not done in the order of the shots, but by set, by axis and by light. Consequently, my work was to communicate to the team the main idea of the shot, its emotion, and how it fit into the sequence, and also the emotion and the main idea of the sequence in the film. This was done so that the emotions could be translated into gestures that are correctly proportioned throughout the film. Kim did enormous preparatory work with the animators around the eyes and the hands. The animation is simplified to the maximum, but its appropriateness makes it possible to forget the simplification and leaves room for the viewers to identify with it in calmer moments. Once again, it is a form of minimalism that guided us.

Theres a fine combination of humor and sadness in the film. Fun and sad moments enhance one another. How did you balance those emotions out?

Claude Barras: Yes, that is what I liked in the book, which is written in the first person, a rather amazing monologue that speaks of sad things. But it was difficult to translate this story cinematographically. Morgan Navorro, a friend who writes novels for young people and who has a very good feeling for dialogue helped me for a time, but it is Celine Sciamma who finally found a way to mix humor and sadness with lots of tenderness and empathy. The key, she said, is to manage to think like a child and not to wonder how children talk. This jumble of childhood emotions is the scripts great success. We laugh in the sad scenes and we cry in the happy ones. When Celine had me read it, I realized I had quite a script in my hands and at that moment I felt great excitement mixed with great responsibility.

The voice acting in this film is very unique, especially the use of non-professional children. Tell me more about the recording process.

Claude Barras: We recorded for six weeks in our studio where we make short films, Helium Films in Lausanne, with children who were non-professionals. Our sound engineer, Denis Sechaud, had first sound-proofed the locations with foam panels and sheets in order to create interior or exterior dissonorities based on the sequences. We positioned two cameras in the two axes and filmed the children playing all of the scenes. Lynn Devillaz, our prop person, made foam props and installed a table or a swing, for example, based on the needs of each shot. This was more interesting than recording them standing in front of a microphone because, when you talk while standing up is not at all the same as when we think we are standing up while talking. In the interaction, we obtained an energy in the voices that is very specific, and the animators were delighted with it.

For the choice of children, Marie-Eve Hildbrand (who supervised all stages of the voice work, from casting to editing, including directing the actors) convinced me that I did not have to allow myself to be guided solely by their individual tonalities, but also by the cohesion of the group we were going to create. The children were chosen based on their differences in age and personality. They did not have to play a role, but rather remain themselves while putting themselves into the situations of the film. This method also helped me a lot in the production before storyboard. For example, when six children are around a table and are playing, we quickly knew whether or not they were positioned correctly, whether it was realistic. We were able to quickly visualize what we were going to film on the animation set later on. This method costs more at the start, but enabled us to save a lot of shooting time. The truthfulness of the story and the emotional authenticity of the characters owe a great deal to this.

My Life as a Zucchini almost feels like a short film, in terms of artistry and a modest kind of simplicity. Are there specific short animated films from the festival circuit that inspired you in certain choices for Zucchini?

Claude Barras: I grew up with a French stop-motion TV series by Serge Danot entitled Le manege enchante [The Magic Roundabout]. I also soon discovered Jiri Trnkas The Hand, in a program of short films shown on Sunday afternoon television. This made a real impression on me and I realize now that the idea of simplicity in the design of the puppets and in the sound track comes from these initial film experiences.

My taste for melodrama comes from another series that I admired: Heidi by Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki. Then, when I was studying illustration, I also admired La course a labime by Georges Schwizgebel, Tango by Zbigniew Rybczynski, Food by Jan Svankmajer and Milch by Igor Kovalyov. I am also a great admirer of the films of the French team of Catherine Buffdat and Jean-Luc Greco, particularly The Lost Bag, and also of Madame Tutli-Putli by Maciek Szczerbowski and Chris Lavis, Luis Cooks The Pearce Sisters and Lair de Rien by Cecile Milazzo.

For the gap between the realism of a melodramatic story and a simple and unconventional graphic style, I could also cite the pioneering work of David OReilly and his Please Say Something, of Frank Ternier with Le Diable en bouche or even the immense Creatures Comforts of Nick Park. And I would end with some classic animated feature films: The King and the Bird by Paul Grimault, Grave of the Fireflies by Isao Takahata, The Nightmare Before Christmas by Henry Selick and Tim Burton, Princess Mononoke by Hayao Miyazaki, Wes Andersons Fantastic Mr. Fox, Chicken Run by Peter Lord and The Wolf Children by Mamoru Hosoda.

What do you think is the charm of stop-motion animation?

Claude Barras: For me, stop motion is really the midpoint between fiction and animation and these sources of inspiration from real cinema are as important to me as those I have previously cited and they illustrate better than words my pronounced taste for marginal characters and melodramas. Freaks by Tod Browning, The 400 Blows by Francois Truffaut, The Elephant Man by David Lynch, Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders, Dead Man by Jim Jarmusch, Dogville by Lars von Trier, Spider by David Cronenberg, Amores Perros by Alejandro G. Inarritu, Time of the Wolf by Michael Haneke, The Host by Bong Joon-ho, Old Boy by Park Chan-wook, Children of Men by Alfonso Cuaron, Tomboy by Celine Sciamma, Two Days, One Night by the Dardennes brothers and the very recent and magnificent I, Daniel Blake by Ken Loach.

Stop motion is a concentration of the difficulties of fiction and of animation. Unlike digital animation, which makes it possible to improve each shot with multiple takes, in stop motion each shot is filmed only once, without the possibility of correction. Whether one or ten characters are on the screen changes nothing, the rule is that a single animator per set builds the shot image by image. So, the charm of this technique lies in the enjoyment experienced in collectively resolving this double difficulty which we create for ourselves from the outset, from the relationship between what is poetic and dangerous in real films and the materiality of the puppets. We find a creative magic and freedom which suddenly appears in the single take of each shot. This freedom is the result of the empathic intimacy between the animator and the puppet, Im convinced of it, and it is my role as the director that make the appearance of this creative magic possible with a good script, but also with puppets that the animators can play with easily in the time they are given for each shot.
Its getting hard to keep track of all of Warner Bros. Lego-branded movies. The Lego Batman Movie opens in U.S. theaters tomorrow, the first trailer for The Lego Ninjago Movie was just released, and now, Trolls director Mike Mitchell has signed on to direct the sequel to the film that started it all, 2014s The Lego Movie.

Mitchell becomes the movies second director. Rob Schrab (Community, The Sarah Silverman Program,) was the original director, but departed due to creative differences, according to the Hollywood Reporter, which first reported news of Mitchells hiring.

Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who wrote and directed the original Lego Movie, also wrote the first draft of the sequel, which has since been rewritten by Bojack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg, and then by Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son writer Matt Fogel.
Open letter to our Members of Parliament:

Millions of Canadians have responded to our Prime Ministers commitment to put an end to our destructive, confrontational, and unproductive governments, by adopting an electoral system that would be fair for all Canadians, and make every vote count.



A very intensive and inclusive national campaign produced a report that overwhelmingly recommended Proportional Representation.



Monsef, Gould, and Trudeaus lies do not change that.



Over the years, a succession of callous and insensitive Prime Ministers motivated by political greed have manipulated our colonial political system to where Canada today is ruled by one man, who has amply demonstrated he is willing to continue to allow our beautiful country to self destruct, as long as he wins the next election.



Having lived in a country with Proportional Representation and democratic governments for many years, I find it difficult to comprehend how public Trustees in good conscience can allow this to happen.



Hopes for reform were shattered when Harper became Prime Minister, as he immediately began the process of transforming the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) into a political control center.



It also became blatantly obvious he was not going to deliver on some very important commitments he made during the election, like the MPs will be free to vote the way the constituents want them to vote and we will elect our Senators.



Trudeaus campaign was based and won on the commitment not to use our Colonial first-past-the-post (FPTP) ballot ever again.



However, it has become obvious that Trudeau also does not want to change our electoral system, and that lying about it has become second nature to both.



As Members of the federal Legislature, your loyalty is to the people who elected you, not your party Leaders, who arbitrarily use Party Discipline to deny us our basic Human and Constitutional rights to have free and democratic governments.



Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Beverly McLachlin has also ruled that Each citizen is entitled to be represented in government.



As Members of our federal Parliament you do not have the legal or moral latitude to defy the Supreme Court of Canada.



You have also expressed publicly that changing the way our Parliament functions is more important than the way we elect our MPs, but that is not supported by logic.



As the first step in the process of gaining control of our Parliament, we need a Proportional ballot to make sure the parties get the representation in the Legislature that accurately reflects the popular vote.



As MPs you are our public Trustees, and you have a statutory obligation to make sure we use a proportional ballot in the next federal election.

Andy Thomsen
Five or six months ago Bombardier said they did not need Federal money; this week they got $372 million dollars in new Federal loans. Which is it need or greed?

Over the last 30 plus years they have received over $1.5 Billion in Federal Loans from Industry Canada and claim to have paid back $275 million - not even covering the interest! Additionally there are possibly a billion dollars or more in loans from other departments, agencies and Crown Corporations that are not disclosed. Most of these loans are conditional upon Bombardier being successful, and are forgiven if they do not meet targets. Bombardier does not disclose their repayments, even under FOI requests.

Somehow the targets are never met.

There are also Millions of dollars in loan guarantees paid out by taxpayers that are not traceable as they are paid out of many Federal Ministries. There are at least as much in loans to Pratt and Whitney under similar cloudy untraceable circumstances. It is time to quit donating to Corporate Bums.

The common denominator is a Liberal vote buying process, grants and forgivable loans. Another common thread is both companies have head offices in the Montreal area and 1,700 jobs there are valued far more than 30,000 jobs in, agriculture, fisheries, forestry, resource industries or even aero space in the rest of Canada.

With empty promises, Justin Trudeau has fulfilled the expectations of his constituency, the special interest groups. i.e. $10 Billion Deficit annually, Balanced Budget in 4 years, Transparency, Senate Reform, Electoral Reform, Ethics in Government, Environmental Standards, Revenue Neutral Tax Changes, Indigenous Peoples Rights, and on and on it goes, all alternative truths.

Promise anything to get elected, then just tax and spend wherever it seems a favour needs to be garnered or repaid. 14,000 new federal jobs in Gatineau/Ottawa, overpay civil servants $70 million and not recover it, unions placated with renewed higher benefits, unannounced in pre-election - $2 Billion plus in International Gifts to other countries, millions a month on selfie promotion travel across Canada and the world, a political pal helped out by allowing dumping of raw sewage, it is sickening. Increased spending and only $0.55 a month flows to Old Age Security for 20% of residents; cuts to Military personnel and equipment, National Security and Crime Prevention cuts and now increased taxes on working families. None of these were election promises!

Changing one promise might be leadership; breaking most of your promises says you pandered, patronized, mislead, deceived, misinformed and generally hoodwinked the electorate just like any Banana Republic Despot would do.

Shame on you Justin!

Doug Waines
Photo: Contributed

We are committed to ensuring that the 2015 election will be the last federal election using first past the post, Justin Trudeau said during the June 2015 election campaign.

What Mr. Trudeau proved himself today to be is a liar of the most cynical variety of politicians saying whatever it takes to get elected, NDP MP Nathan Cullen said on Feb. 1.

Ottawa has been in an uproar this past week over news from Prime Minister Trudeau that his promise on democratic reform will join the growing list of broken Liberal promises.

What is most alarming and disappointing about the announcement to abandon democratic reform is that the reason offered by the Liberals was that there was no clear consensus on how to move forward.

While not everyone supported the idea of electoral reform of those who did there was overwhelming support expressed for proportional representation and claims to the contrary are patently untrue.

Likewise there was also strong support for a democratic referendum on this question of electoral reform.

Curiously, the Liberal government spent millions on an online democratic reform survey, but deliberately left out asking questions of this very nature leaving many to speculate the fix so to speak, was set some time ago.

It is unclear where the Liberal government will go from this point as there has been a very significant outcry from many Canadians who did strongly support changes being made to our electoral process.

I mention this because recently we did see an example where the Liberal government did, in fact, hear the concerns of Canadians and responded accordingly.

As you may recall in last weeks report, I briefly referenced the potential for the Liberal government to make taxation changes that would see employer provided health and dental benefits become a taxable benefit.

Such a tax change could cost Canadians families over $1,000 a year or more and as a result many were strongly opposing this potential new tax grab. Fortunately, the Liberal government listened and the Prime Minister confirmed that health and dental benefits plans will not be treated as a taxable benefit.

I will applaud the government for listening to the concerns of Canadians on the important topic of not raising taxes.

Another concern I have been raising in Ottawa is related to recent changes to mortgage regulations. Last week at the Finance Committee, we heard from many expert witnesses on how newly proposed mortgage changes may adversely impact Canadians.

While many are aware of mortgage changes that raise the threshold to qualify for a mortgage, many were very surprised to learn that under the proposed changes those who want to re-finance an existing mortgage will find it more difficult to obtain financing due to less financing options and more than likely an increase to the mortgage rate.

The reason for this is under the new set of rules; Mortgage Insurers such as CMHC, Genworth, and Canada Guarantee will no longer be able to provide mortgage insurance for refinances.

This affects many of Canadian lenders who need to obtain the backing of mortgage insurance for all mortgages, regardless of the nature of the mortgage.

As the public servants involved could not provide a coherent reason for this punitive policy, a motion I put forward to have the Finance Minister appear before the Finance Committee was adopted thanks in part to some Liberal MPs voting in support.

I will provide a further update on this subject as it becomes available.

I welcome your comments and concerns and 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.
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New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Thursday.

New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English meets with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) on February 9, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

English, during the meeting, said New Zealand boasts several No.1s in China-ties, including the the first Western country supporting China's joining in the World Trade Organization, China's launching of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Belt and Road Initiatives.

The prime minister spoke highly of Chinese President Xi Jinping's speech at the 2017 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, which delivers important and positive messages to the world.

New Zealand is keen to support globalization and free trade side by side with China, English said.

He also vowed to boost high-level exchanges, launch the upgrading negotiation of the bilateral free trade agreement, and cooperations in sectors including infrastructure, humanities, tourism, education, science and technology, and judicial enforcement.

The New Zealand leader also welcomes Chinese enterprises to invest in his country.

The Chinese foreign minister said the Sino-New Zealand relation has displayed a model for cooperations between countries with different sizes and social systems.

New Zealand is among close partners from the West which meets the benefits of New Zealand and its people, said Wang.

He said the year 2017 marks the 45th anniversary of the establishment of the Sino-New Zealand diplomatic relations.

The two countries, through the organizing of anniversary activities, could boost high-level exchanges, consolidate mutual trust and implement the strategic partnership.

Wang said China and New Zealand are both advocates and practitioners of the free trade.

"Hand in hand, we should protect the international trade system, build the open economy, and try to start the upgrading negotiation of the free trade agreement," said the Chinese foreign minister.

He also expressed the wish that the two countries would join hands in connecting the Belt and Road Initiatives with New Zealand's infrastructure schemes.

Wang echoed English's calling for the enhancing of the mutual cooperations in sectors of humanities and judicial enforcement, which, according to him, will bring more substantial benefits to the two peoples.
Photo: Contributed

The Mayor of Penticton admits he was a bit relieved, to see the population results of the census released Wednesday.

The city saw 2.7 per cent of growth since 2011, now at a population of 33,761, which runs contrary to reports from B.C. Stats in recent years which estimated a population contraction.

Penticton grew at a pace slightly slower the the Regional Districts 2.8 per cent, but well behind Central Okanagan communities, with Greater Kelowna growing 8.4 per cent.

I think vibrancy doesnt equate to a number, it doesnt equate to a population number  Our focuses are liveable, sustainable, smart, connected and strong, Andrew Jakubeit said.

The mayor noted they are on the process of scaling back aggressive growth projections in their official community plan, which previously estimated they would be at 45,000 people by now. He said the city has not really focused on population growth until the last few years.

It's more on our radar, and the last few years weve seen record real estate sales, record construction so I would argue that a lot of the growth has been over the last two years.

With thousands of people flocking to the Central Okanagan, Jakubeit said they won't be changing their strategy and will continue to tout Pentictons lifestyle with its lack of traffic, lake culture and easy access to Apex Mountain.

He added that the city doesnt plan on trying to lure those living in Kelowna south.

If Kelowna grows, we still benefit  people come down here because we have the better concerts, or the better wineries, or a better arts scene. And people go to Kelowna because they have more shopping and other things, so it complements.

He did admit though, that it can be hard for Okanagan Valley mayors to band together and not get competitive at times, because at the end of the day it bolsters your tax base, which is your revenue source to operate.
Photo: Contributed

A vehicle has gone over the embankment off Highway 97 between Sun - Oka Beach and Kickininee Provincial Parks.

Emergency crews were called out at around 5:45 p.m. and were spotted descending into the gully beside the roadway and cliffs. The drop is estimated to be at least 30 feet.

One lane of Highway 97 was closed while emergency crews assessed the scene. Its not clear if anyone was injured in the crash.

Castanet will provide more information as it becomes available.

Send your news, photos and video to [email protected]
Photo: Contributed

Millions of foreigners visiting China each year will now have their fingerprints collected.

The country's Ministry of Public Security said in a statement Thursday that it will begin taking visitors' fingerprints as they enter and exit the country. The requirement will apply to most people between the ages of 14 and 70.

The policy will go into effect starting in Shenzhen, the southern Chinese city bordering Hong Kong.

Chinese authorities counted more than 76 million entries and exits by foreigners last year. The visitors were primarily from South Korea, Japan, the United States and Russia.

The ministry said the new requirement is "an important measure to strengthen entry and exit management" that matches policies in other countries.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has fingerprinted most foreign visitors since 2004.
Photo: The Canadian Press

A fire led to a blast in the machine room of a nuclear power plant on France's northwest coast on Thursday morning but there was no radiation leak or casualties, operator EDF said.

EDF said staff at the Flamanville plant in Normandy immediately brought the fire under control. The cause of the fire, in the No. 1 reactor building, was not immediately clear.

The machine room housing turbines that produce electricity is a non-nuclear area of the plant. There was no radiation leak as a result of the fire or blast, EDF said.

EDF said the plant's No. 1 reactor was subsequently disconnected from the grid  normal operating procedure in such circumstances.

Flamanville has two 1,300 megawatt reactors, the first in operation since 1985, and the second since 1986.
Photo: The Canadian Press

President Donald Trump's criticism of the judiciary prompted a rebuke from his nominee for the Supreme Court, who told a senator the president's comments were "demoralizing and disheartening."

Judge Neil Gorsuch, who was nominated by Trump to the nation's high court last week, made the comments Wednesday after Trump accused an appellate court considering his immigration and refugee executive order of being "so political." Over the weekend, the president labeled a judge who ruled on his executive order a "so-called judge" and referred to the ruling as "ridiculous."

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut first relayed Gorsuch's remarks on Wednesday following a meeting with the judge. Trump's own confirmation team for Gorsuch later confirmed he had made those remarks.

But Trump suggested that Blumenthal had misrepresented Gorsuch, tweeting early Thursday, "Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie), now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?"

Blumenthal, who served in the Marine Corps Reserves during Vietnam, apologized in 2010 for saying he had served in Vietnam.

GOP former Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who is helping with Gorsuch's confirmation and was at the meeting, issued a statement saying Gorsuch made clear he was not referring to any specific case. But she said the nominee said he finds any criticism of a judge's integrity and independence to be "disheartening and demoralizing."

Fellow Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy came to Blumenthal's defence Thursday, lashing out in a tweet directed at Trump: "Ha! As a prosecutor, Dick used to put guys like u in jail. Now, u use your position to mock vets, he uses his to make their lives better."

Gorsuch's comments came at the end of a week of meetings with members of the Senate, which is considering his nomination. His response may have been aimed at drawing a line of separation from the new president, who has been a politically polarizing figure among Democrats in a highly charged partisan fight over the court.

Prior to the judge's meeting with Blumenthal, Trump criticized the court that is considering his immigration and refugee executive order, telling a group of police chiefs his immigration order was "done for the security of our nation."

He quoted from the portion of the immigration law that he said gave him the power to enact the ban, calling it "beautifully written" and saying, "A bad high school student would understand this."

"Courts seem to be so political and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do what's right," he added. "And that has to do with the security of our country, which is so important."

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is weighing the appeal of his executive order on immigration, including a temporary travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries. In a hearing Tuesday, judges on the appeals court challenged the administration's claim that the ban was motivated by terrorism fears, but also questioned an attorney's argument that it unconstitutionally targeted Muslims.

Since a lower-court judge blocked the order last week, Trump has assailed the decision, leading legal experts, Democrats and some Republicans to question whether the president's remarks might jeopardize the independence of the judiciary. Others have expressed fears he may be attempting to use political influence to sway the courts.
Photo: Contributed

They will be painting the town red at SilverStar Mountain Resort next month to raise money for a group that works with special needs children.

On March 2, The Red Antler in the SilverStar village will be hosting a fundraiser for the North Okanagan Neurological Association.

The cocktail reception kicks off at 6 p.m. with silent auction tables, live music and a dinner.

Money raised will go toward The Clubhouse project, a $1.6-million facility that will allow NONA to meet the increase in demand.

NONA Child Development Centre provides services to more than 700 children and youth with special needs and their families each year.

The need for more space with appropriate resources is driven by the increasing number of children and youth who are diagnosed each year with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

NONA is grateful to partner with SilverStar Mountain resort to create awareness and raise money for a much-needed new facility in the North Okanagan. The new Clubhouse will serve the growing number of children and youth with special needs and in particular those on the autism spectrum.

Tickets are $100 and numbers are limited. Tickets can be purchased online.

Businesses can also help the cause by donating items for the silent auction with 100 per cent of all auction proceeds going to the Clubhouse project.

More information on The Build the Clubhouse Campaign can be found online.
Photo: Darren Handschuh

For winter-weary North Okanagan residents, relief is on the way  hopefully.

Environment Canada is calling for snow through the rest of today with accumulations of up to five centimetres of the white.

On Friday, there is expected to be some flurries, but the weekend will bring some relief.

According to weather forecasters, Saturday will see a mix of sun and clouds with a high of +5C.

Lows will dip down to -4C, but no snow is predicted after Friday.

Sunday and Monday are also expected to be cloudy with sunny periods and highs of +5C.
Photo: Contributed

Physicist Peter Mansfield, who won the Nobel Prize for helping to invent MRI scanners, has died at the age of 83.

The University of Nottingham released a statement from Mansfield's family on Thursday confirming his death a day earlier.

The London-born Mansfield joined the University of Nottingham in central England in 1964 as a lecturer in physics.

He shared the 2003 Nobel Prize in medicine with U.S. chemist Paul Lauterbur for their work developing magnetic resonance imaging, which uses magnetic fields and radio waves to generate 3-D images of the body's internal organs without potentially harmful X-rays.

In 1978, Mansfield became the first person to step inside a whole-body MRI scanner so it could be tested on a human subject.

Their work revolutionized the detection of disease.
Re: Tainted water: election issue



It is important to note that there is extensive coordination occurring between several government ministries and Interior Health Authority to make sure a science-based approach is taken to address the water quality issue for the area.

From comprehensive testing and analysis we know that a combination of factors is likely affecting the aquifer, with nitrate pollution coming from several sources. We also know there is no quick or easy fix, but that it is going to take multiple actions to improve water quality.

The Ministry of Environment has issued Orders to several local agricultural operations after water quality results and inspections concluded there are reasonable grounds to believe they are contributing to the high nitrate levels.

These Orders require agricultural operators to better manage agricultural waste through a variety of best practices, and to track the success of these actions.

An inter-ministry working group was established last year and continues to work collaboratively to conduct studies to determine nitrate sources and better understand the hydrogeology of Hullcar Aquifer. The working group is hosting another public meeting on March 3rd to discuss their latest work and answer questions from the community. Through these public forums and a regular newsletter, government is remaining engaged with the local community. Shuswap MLA Greg Kyllo will also be at the March 3rd meeting and we encourage residents to attend.

Finally, Id like to note that MLA Kyllo has remained closely engaged with the ministries of Environment, Agriculture and Interior Health as well as the community and local farmers and ranchers throughout this entire process. He has been a vocal advocate for the community and all Spallumcheen residents.

For more information on the Hullcar Aquifer and what government is doing, please visit: http://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/air-land-water/site-permitting-compliance/hullcar-aquifez

Mary Polak

Minister of Environment
Photo: Dustin Godfrey

The Okanagan Nation Alliance is looking to add a fourth spawning bed for various fish in the Penticton Channel.

In a letter to Penticton city council, ONA requested a letter of approval from City Hall for a grant request from the Okanagan Basin Water Boards Water Conservation and Quality Improvement grant program.

That grant would be in the amount of $10,000 and would fund the construction of the spawning bed over a few years.

Spawning Bed No. 4 will be designed, similar to previous beds, to provide high quality spawning habitat for sockeye salmon, steelhead, Kokanee and rainbow trout, the ONA letter reads.

Construction of Spawning Bed No. 4 will most likely be phased over a few years and could commence as soon as summer 2017, pending project approvals and funding.

According to the submission to council, salmon spawning in the area is critically low, largely due to the creation of the channel, which created very flat channel grade, low water velocities inadequate substrate material, and low egg-fry survival.

Council voted unanimously in favour of penning a letter of approval for the project.
I have found what I consider to be the perfect analogy to the president of the United States. I compare him to Ted Knight from the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Enough said!

Vern Boehlke
If you have just started your journey in an online casino or are looking for a new site to play,...
Michael Vadon

Historically, currently and hopefully in the future as well, Albuquerque has been, is and will be a culturally diverse city that welcomes immigrants. This message came from a couple of dozen speakers who attended the Feb. 6 Albuquerque City Council meeting. They supported the Council in reaffirming Burque as an immigrant-friendly city.

Welcome

Four Council members introduced a memorial reaffirming the city as an immigrant-friendly city. The memorial is symbolic. It says that since the rise of the Trump administrationand especially since an executive order sought to ban travel from seven Muslim countriesthere has been a sense of uncertainty and fear across the nation, affecting many aspects of our culture including the economy, including here in Albuquerque. The memorial aims to reassure the citys vulnerable immigrant communities that the city supports them and will have no tolerance for hate, discrimination, bullying or harassment; they should feel welcome to work, study, research, create and live here. The measure will be up for approval at the Feb. 22 Council meeting.

History

In 2000, under Democratic Mayor Jim Baca, City Councilors voted unanimously to declare our town an immigrant-friendly city. This measure barred the use of city resources to identify undocumented workers or aprehend people based on their immigration status. In 2009, Mayor Richard Berry campaigned on the premise that the city needed stiffer immigration policies and more involvement with federal enforcement. Once in office he set in motion a new policy that allows city law enforcement officers check the federal immigration status of everyone arrested. Democrats challenged the policy in 2010, but on a party line vote the majority Republican Councilors agreed with Mayor Berry. Ultimately, this means the city is not a sanctuary city, as that term has been used in recent national discussions about requiring local cops to work on behalf of federal immigration authorities, in addition to doing their civic jobs.

Palabras Publicas

Burquenos exercised their right to address their government leaders by speaking out during public comment. Peter Simonson, executive director of the New Mexico branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, reassured the Council that the 10th amendment to the US Constitution precludes federal officials from usurping certain civic powers. The 10th amendment protects local governments from the federal government commandeering law enforcement agencies to enforce federal policies. Archdiocese of Santa Fe Archbishop John C. Wester sent a couple of priests to implore the Council to be like Jesus and not reflect the policy and rhetoric of the Trump administration. Roman Catholic Priest Fr. Vincent Chavez said, Our great state seal shows an eagle shielding an immigrant under his wings. Fr. Vincent Chavez reminded us that the Great Seal of New Mexico is of an American Eagle with its wings shielding a Mexican Eagle with a snake in its talons. We walk together in hope, Fr. Chavez added.

Not all were in favor of welcoming and protecting local immigrants, as the last speaker said he was sick of sanctuary city talk and he hopes Trump pulls all funding from immigrant-friendly cities, readily speaking as a fan of inflicting economic sanctions on cities and states that resist Trump's declarations.

Property Crime Plan

City Councilors approved a $300,000 police department Property Crime Reduction Pilot Program staffed with 25 community reporting technicians and 10 public service aides to handle priority three property crime calls. Priority three calls include home burglaries, larcenies, vandalism, property damage, auto burglaries and theft when there is no suspect on scene. The technicians and aides will be trained to collect fingerprints, take photos, interview witnesses and testify in court. Adding these positions will free up patrol officers for higher priority calls. The pilot program will be in effect until the department hires more accredited officers.

Hey Santa Fe!

City Councilors approved a hefty list of priorities to send up to the state Legislature. The resolution lists initiatives providing for the health, safety and welfare of residents. Some of the priorities include: looking at alternatives to improve municipal revenue streams, amending the Public Employees Retirement Act to allow retired law enforcement officers to go back to work as cops while collecting retirement pay, purchasing a handful of open space properties, supporting 26 capital projects across the city, bringing back local government options for under 18 curfews and providing money to tackle the backlog of thousands of unprocessed sexual assault kits and many other priorities and projects.

More Homes

Councilors discussed a couple of bills to help keep roofs over low income residents. The two bills address $6.4 million in funding and will utilize money from the Workforce Housing Trust Fund. One of the bills, a $2.4 million project in the mid-Heights, was approved and will rehabilitate a 100-unit existing complex for senior and disabled citizens roughly near Lomas and Wyoming. Another $4 million will be up for approval at the next meeting after the Council works out a funding technicality. This chunk will go to build a new 110-unit affordable housing development project in the Downtown area.

Quick Hits

Councilor Brad Winter gave a shout out to all the sponsors, city staff and volunteers who worked for the success of the first annual City-sponsored Martin Luther King Indoor Track meet held on Jan. 14.

City Attorney Jessica Hernandez said there has been a glitch in the citys efforts to hire an outside agency to initiate an investigation into whether city employees edited raw police officer body cam video footage in police shootings and other public encounters. Hernandez said the company that was picked to do the investigation had some restrictions on the type of audits that it could do. Hernandez reported that, to be on the safe side, the city will need to find another auditor.
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Peter Dugal was way behind schedule getting to Bloomer on Feb. 26, 1960. So was the guy he was driving around at St. Pauls Catholic School after first stopping at a Bloomer cafe and getting a three pound pack of bologna.

The visitor had spoke earlier about farming issues in a downtown cafe in Chippewa Falls. Dugal, the chairman of the Chippewa County Democratic Party, introduced the speaker at the cafe and was in charge of driving him to a flurry of scheduled stops. Both men figured the stop in Bloomer wouldnt take long.

But when they got there, a crowd of 150 had gathered on a cold Friday to see the man Dugal was driving around.

Peter Dugal died Monday at age 88 at his home in Fort Collins, Colo. But for much of his life, Dugal lived in Cadott. Likewise, much of his life was devoted to getting Democratic candidates elected, such as the man he was driving around.

John F. Kennedy would later in 1960 be elected president of the United States of America. Thanks, in part, to the senators successful campaign for the Wisconsin primary in April 1960, where he defeated Minnesota senator and future vice president Hubert H. Humphrey.

Thats why Kennedy and Dugal were in Bloomer. Among Kennedys duties was to hoist a new 50-star U.S. flag on the schools flagpole, with the new flag having stars for Alaska and Hawaii, which had became states a year earlier.

The stop took longer than expected.

It took us 20 minutes to get out of there. That was the only press release of the day. It showed Jack Kennedy raising a flag at a Catholic School, Dugal said in a Jan. 14, 1966, interview with Charles T. Morrissey for the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.

Such a stop would not raise suspicions today, but in 1960, no Catholic had been elected president. Kennedy was a Catholic, and some complained Kennedy would take directions from the pope if he were elected.

Dugal told Morrissey that Kennedy thought the stop in Bloomer would be OK.

If I cant go into a school here in this country and raise an American flag, even if it is a Catholic one, its pretty .... They arent going to vote for me anyhow, Kennedy told Dugal.

And some didnt vote for the democrat. Including the priest at St. Peters, according to Dugal.

That priest, about a week or two before the actual election, got up before his parishioners and told them not to vote for Jack Kennedy, Dugal told Morrissey.

It worked out in the end. Kennedy defeated Humphrey by about 10,000 votes in the primary and carried Chippewa County by a 5,678-4,728 margin.

Kennedy would go on to defeat Republican Richard Nixon in the November election.

The president would be assassinated in Dallas on Friday, Nov. 22, 1963. He was only 46 years old.

Dugal would go on to work on the 1968 campaign of Kennedys brother, New York Sen. Robert Kennedy, who was also assassinated.

In later years, Dugal had trouble with his memory. But his interview with Morrissey forever cemented his link with the Kennedys.

Looking back on it, it was an experience of a lifetime. I dont imagine Ill ever have an opportunity like that again, Dugal told Morrissey.

Its too bad the ending was so sad.
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BLOOMER  Robert E. Bob Loew, 100, of Bloomer was called home to his Heavenly Father Feb. 6, 2017, at Dove Health Care, Chippewa Falls. He died peacefully as was his wish holding his daughter, Marys, hand.

He was born Aug. 5, 1916, in Chippewa Falls, to Ernest and Susan (Semanko) Loew.

He graduated 8th grade from St Johns Catholic School, Cooks Valley, and attended high school at Colfax and McDonnell in Chippewa Falls.

After high school, he traveled west with his good friends, Herman Dachel and Arnie Geissler. He spent time in North Dakota, Montana and Washington working on wheat ranches. He also worked in the apple orchards in Washington, picked oranges in California and helped build the Grand Coulee Dam. Then Uncle Sam called Bob to serve his country, which he was happy to do and spent two years in the Philippine Islands. Upon his honorable discharge from the U.S. Army, he returned home to Chippewa Falls and purchased farm land. His love of travel continued with family vacations in the station wagon.

He was a lifelong member of St. Peters Church, town of Tilden and American Legion Post #77.

Still the adventurous man, he invested in Lakeview Ballroom in Merrill, Wis. and that is where he met the love of his life, Louise Reinhardt. They were married June 2, 1951. They traveled to Oregon on their honeymoon to visit Bobs brother and family where he was offered a job with Hines Lumber Company. They stayed for a year and a half before returning to Chippewa Falls. He bought beef cattle for his land and started working for Peters Meat Packaging. After a few years, he took over his fathers dairy farm and continued to work at Peters until they closed in 1972.

He loved his land and animals and took wonderful care of the them. Bobs two sons took over the farms and he retired to Bloomer, still helping on the farms when needed well into his eighties.

Over the years, he enjoyed his hunting trips to Montana and Wyoming and his fishing trips to Canada with his friends. Later in retirement Bob and Louise spent eight winters in Apache Junction, Ariz., which he truly loved.

Bob is survived by his wife, Louise, of 65 years; two sons, Gary (Cynthia) Loew, and Ernest (Virginia) Loew, both of Chippewa Falls; two daughters, Linda (Paul) Caillier, Eau Claire and Mary (Dean) Hanson, Green Bay; 12 grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren.

He looked forward to times when they were all together.

He was preceded in death by his parents; two brothers, Romeo, in infancy, and Elmer Loew.

As an expression of sympathy, memorial contributions may be made to St. Judes Childrens Hospital or the American Legion Post #77.

The family would like to thank Dove Health Care of Chippewa Falls and St. Josephs Hospice, especially Aaron Whalen, RN, for their compassionate care, patience and humor during the care of our husband and father.

Funeral services will be held at 1:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 10, at St. Peters Church, Tilden. The Rev. Msgr. Mike Gorman will be the celebrant of the funeral Mass. Interment will be in the church cemetery at a later date. Military rites will be conducted by the Chippewa Falls Patriotic Council.

Friends may call from 11 a.m. until the time of services at 1:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 10, at St. Peters Church, Tilden.

Horan Funeral Home, Chippewa Falls, is in charge of arrangements.

Family and friends may express condolences online at www.horanfuneralhome.com.
If the law means anything, the Trump administration will succeed in overturning the so-called court ruling against its travel ban.

The nationwide stay of the ban issued by Judge James Robart, a Washington state-based federal district judge, is tissue-thin. It doesnt bother to engage on the substance, presumably because facts, logic and the law dont support Robarts sweeping assertion of judicial authority in an area where judicial power is inherently quite limited.

This doesnt justify President Donald Trump tweeting that Robart is a so-called judge. That slam earned Trump bipartisan blowback and may encourage other judges to tilt against Trumps ban in response to a perceived threat to the independence of the judiciary. But Robarts handiwork is shoddy and usurpatory, despite the fact that he is indeed a literal judge.

Even if you assume that the states of Washington and Minnesota have standing to pursue the litigation (Robart asserts implausibly that they face immediate and irreparable injury from the executive order, the heart of which is a three-month pause on most travel from seven countries), the stay falls down. It ignores our constitutional scheme and Supreme Court precedent, as the Justice Department brief seeking to reverse it persuasively argues.

First, Judge Robart is trespassing on a core executive responsibility. The exclusion of aliens is a fundamental act of sovereignty, the Supreme Court held in the 1950 Knauff case, inherent in the executive power to control the foreign affairs of the nation. The courts are not meant to second guess the executives conduct of foreign affairs, or intrude on its plenary power in this area. It is not within the province of any court, the court noted in that decision, unless expressly authorized by law, to review the determination of the political branch of the Government to exclude a given alien.

Second, its hard to get around the relevant federal immigration law, which says, 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.

This is as explicit and wide-ranging as it gets. When the president has such authorization from Congress, the Supreme Court held in the Youngstown Steel case in 1952, his authority is at its maximum, for it includes all that he possesses in his own right plus all that Congress can delegate.

Finally, aliens residing outside the United States have no right to come here. The Supreme Court held in the 1982 Landon case, an alien seeking initial admission to the United States requests a privilege and has no constitutional rights regarding his application, for the power to admit or exclude aliens is a sovereign prerogative.

Its not clear how Judge Robart expects opponents of the Trump ban to overcome these substantial and well-established obstacles. A more extensive and carefully reasoned decision by a Massachusetts-based district judge reached the opposite conclusion of his.

It is true that the ultimate source of the Trump executive order is his ill-advised call for a Muslim ban during the campaign. But the executive order, focusing on seven war-torn or hostile countries that had already been singled out for special scrutiny during the Obama administration, is manifestly not a Muslim ban.

Judge Robart may not like the Trump policy, but that doesnt mean that it is illegal or unconstitutional. His ruling is worthy of the generally unhinged opposition to President Trump. If the judge doesnt deserve the abuse that Trump heaped on him on Twitter, he produced what should rightly be considered so-called jurisprudence.
BASF acquired the private company Rolic AG headquartered in Allschwil, Switzerland. Both companies have agreed not to disclose financial details of the transaction. The transaction includes Rolics affiliates in Allschwil, Eindhoven, The Netherlands and Shanghai, China. Regulatory approvals are not required.

Rolic is an high-tech company with worldwide operations. The companys 110 employees develop and sell ready-to-use formulations and functional film products for the display and security industry against forgery as well as barrier materials and films.

We are excited to have the Rolic team join BASF. The acquisition is a further step that reflects BASFs strategic and long-term commitment to grow in the electronics industry, said Dr. Markus Kramer, President of BASFs Dispersions & Pigments division.

Our ability to deliver best-in-class technology solutions for next generation electronic devices and our local presence in all major markets are key success factors to respond to customer needs in this fast-moving, innovation-driven industry. We are convinced that bringing Rolics strong technology know-how and customer relationships together with BASFs market reach will create new opportunities for co-developing next generation LCD and OLED displays featuring higher resolution, more brightness and deeper contrast, said Dr. Lothar Laupichler, Senior Vice President of BASFs Global Electronic Materials Business.
Teams Perform Good Works Across India as Country Celebrates National Heritage Gospel for Asia-supported workers offer help and hope to needy communities to mark Republic Day



Contact: 972-300-3379, pressrelations@gfa.org, www.gfa.org/press



WILLS POINT, Texas, Feb. 9, 2017 /Christian Newswire/ -- As India celebrated its national heritage recently, some of the country's neediest people were given help and hope by teams supported by Gospel for Asia (GFA).



Photo: Gospel for Asia-supported women's workers help clean up a village in Central India as part of a series of community service efforts to mark India's Republic Day by sharing God's love in practical ways.



Hundreds of GFA-supported workers in different locations went out into their local communities after marking Republic Day  when festivities occur across the country  to share the love of Jesus through acts of kindness and compassion.



They gathered and disposed of garbage in slum areas, cleaned railway stations and other public areas, and distributed sleeping mats to those forced to spend their nights laying on the bare ground.



Many recipients were touched by how workers took time to reach out on one of India's three big national holidays, honoring the date on which the Constitution of India came into effect in 1950. Some of the groups took part in local flag-raising ceremonies, which occurred throughout India, along with countless celebrations.



"As we celebrated the rich cultural heritage of this country, we wanted to take the opportunity to demonstrate practically how very much God loves the people of India, and especially the poor and needy," said K.P. Yohannan, founder and director of GFA. "It was a tremendous privilege to reach out to so many people and receive such a warm welcome."



In Tamil Nadu, GFA -supported workers cleaned the area surrounding a busy railway station, prompting one person who witnessed their efforts to join in too. "Whenever you people work like this, please call me," she told them. "I would like to join with you all."



There was a similar response when GFA-supported women's workers visited some villages in Central India, where residents had allowed garbage to pile up near their homes, creating a stench and presenting a health hazard. The visitors gathered up all the rubbish and disposed of it.



"I feel guilty seeing you cleaning the surroundings of my house," said one woman who picked up a broom to help.



A local shopkeeper agreed, thanking the visitors and telling the women, "If all our community people worked in this manner, there would be no garbage in front of our homes."



Bus depot employees in Western India were so appreciative of the work done by a GFA-supported team that visited their location that they served refreshments afterward as a thank-you and later dropped the group back at its destination in one of the depot's vehicles.



Some of the helping-hand groups shared a community lunch with locals after completing their tidy-up efforts. Meanwhile, in Southwest India, GFA-supported workers gave out sleeping mats. "We were very happy to receive them," said one of the beneficiaries. "It's a basic need. It used to be difficult to sleep on the floor at night, but now we can do so comfortably."



The Republic Day activities were just one way GFA-supported workers are able to touch people's lives, said Yohannan. "We wanted them to know that they have not been forgottenthat they have value and are loved and cared for by God," he said.



GOSPEL FOR ASIA hasfor more than 30 yearsprovided humanitarian assistance and spiritual hope to millions across Asia, especially among those who have yet to hear the Good News. Last year, this included more than 75,000 sponsored children, free medical services for more than 180,000 people, 6,000 wells drilled, 11,000 water filters installed, Christmas presents for more than 400,000 needy families, and spiritual teaching available in 110 languages in 14 nations through radio ministry.

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John W. Rogers, Jr., CEO of Ariel Investments, in the Warren Buffett conference room at Ariel Investments in Chicago on Oct, 21, 2013. Rogers, a longtime proponent of greater corporate board diversity, worries that the effort to add women and minorities to corporate boards could move backwards. (Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune)

A new report is out and it chronicles one of corporate America's oldest epic fails: An inability to fill major corporate boards with more women and minorities  the very groups that are increasingly becoming consumer, commercial and social powerhouses.

As the Tribune reported this week, the nation's biggest corporations, including Chicago-area companies, have been slow to add these important representatives to their boards of directors, according to the Alliance for Board Diversity, a collaboration of four diversity organizations.

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Actually, to say "slow" is an affront to snails.

On top of this situation, there's another emerging concern: A fear that President Donald Trump's naming of the least diverse Cabinet in modern times will embolden CEOs to table or neglect their corporate diversity outreach.

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"It hasn't been a priority of this administration. I worry we could be going backwards  it's a real risk," says John Rogers Jr., the African-American CEO of Ariel Investments and a longtime proponent of greater corporate board diversity.

Still, lack of boardroom diversity is a problem that precedes Trump's rise to power.

Based on Securities and Exchange Commission data on 492 Fortune 500 companies, the Alliance for Board Diversity reports that in 2016 only 30.8 percent of board seats were held by women and minorities. Fortune 100 companies fared a little better, with 2016's 35.9 percent.

In both cases, the 2016 results were just slightly better than 2012's tally.

Considering the burgeoning financial prowess and expertise of the nation's women and minorities, I'd expect the representation to be much higher. But, at the current rate, it's going to take a decade or more to hit even a middling 40 percent mark.

What's up with this slow walk?

Unfortunately, it comes down to a failure of leadership and imagination at the top of the corporate pyramid.

When a company chairman or CEO is serious about recruiting more qualified women and people of color, and not just expressing a politically correct sentiment, chances are it's going to get done.

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So right from the start, a vow of diversity has to be made and followed up with action.

As important, there has to an openness or willingness to connect with people who may have traveled a different road to success than the current board or senior staff.

If you're a women or member of a minority group, chances are your shared life and business experiences are not going to be the same as a typical Fortune 500 CEO.

But that's what diversity is all about  bringing in qualified people who will help expand a company leadership's viewpoint and understanding of how the business fits into a changing world. As a result, it's essential that boards empower recruiters to find candidates that don't always have an MBA or a traditional corporate pedigree.

Instead, they should consider those from parallel universes, including nonprofits, academia, midsize and small businesses, family-owned companies, government, law firms and other service-sector enterprises.

Adding this expertise sends customers, shareholders and stakeholders an important message  U.S. companies are ready to conduct business in an increasingly global and multicultural 21st century.

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Unfortunately, Chicago-area companies have their diversity deficiencies, according to the Alliance for Board Diversity.

The report found that only locally based agricultural giant Archer Daniels Midland's 12-person board matched its criteria for having the broadest diversity.

Ariel's Rogers, who is on the boards of McDonald's and Exelon, stresses those local companies have long included minority and women board members.

Although far from scientific, I did a spot-check of the area's largest corporate boards and found there's often some women and minority representation, although the vast majority of board members are white males.

Undoubtedly, being a white male also has cache within the Trump administration.

For example, out of 15 Trump-proposed Cabinet secretaries, 12 are white males. That's compared with President Barack Obama's initial Cabinet of six white men out of 15 positions.

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There's no indication that President Trump is going to be changing his governing style anytime soon.

But national and local business leaders would be wise not to play follow the leader on this issue.

roreed@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @reedtribbiz
Illinois' new Secure Choice program, which is supposed to let 1.3 million workers save for retirement easily through their jobs at small companies, is being threatened by an attempt by Congress to roll back business regulation, according to Illinois Treasurer Michael Frerichs.

Secure Choice, which Frerich's office is in the process of launching, is supposed to be available to small-business employees in 2018. It would require small companies that employ more than 25 workers and don't offer 401(k)s or pension plans to make available individual retirement accounts that would be run by the state. The program is expected to open up retirement savings opportunities to a whole new group of Illinois employees.

But it depends on newly adopted U.S. Department of Labor rules that will relieve small businesses and the state of the threat of suits related to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. Wednesday, the U.S. House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions announced proposed legislation that would overturn those new Labor Department rules.

The rules were adopted last year by President Barack Obama's administration to help a handful of states  including Illinois and California  start new programs that would make it more palatable for small companies to accept the responsibility of offering workplace retirement plans. Some small-business groups have resisted offering retirement plans because of paperwork and legal requirements.

About half of the nation's workers do not have retirement savings plans like 401(k)s at work, and most people do not save for retirement if they cannot do it easily at their workplaces, according to research by the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

Frerichs says he expects the legislation, introduced by Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., and Rep. Francis Rooney, R-Fla., to reach the House floor next week and complicate the launch of the Illinois Secure Choice program if passed.

In a news release from the Education and the Workforce Committee, Rooney said he opposed the Obama administration's rule because "Hardworking Americans could be forced into government-run plans with fewer protections and less control over their hard-earned savings."

"The goal is to do away with Illinois' program," said Frerich. But rolling back the Labor Department rules doesn't do that outright. The state, Frerich said, has the authority to offer the program and the federal legislation will only make it more complicated for businesses. If the legislation passes, he said, businesses will no longer be given protection from ERISA, and that will mean employees will be free to sue their employers if they find fault with the retirement plans.

In an attempt to free businesses of such worries, Secure Choice was designed, under a law passed in Illinois in 2014, to put the state in charge of the retirement savings plans. If the federal rules were overturned, small companies would still be required to channel employee money from the workplace into the state-run investment program.

AARP said in a press news release Wednesday that "upending the (Labor Department) rule would have a significant chilling effect on states adopting workplace plans."

In a letter to Congress, AARP Executive Vice President Nancy LeaMond urged House members to vote against the resolution to overturn the Department of Labor rule. She noted that 55 million working Americans do not have a way to save for retirement regularly out of their paychecks, and if millions don't have adequate savings, taxpayers will bear the cost of people running out of money later.

gmarksjarvis@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @gailmarksjarvis
Enfamil infant formulais produced by Glenview-based Mead Johnson. The company'sliquid baby formula is at the center of a whistleblower lawsuit filed by a former compliance director. (Mead Johnson)

Baby formula allegedly vulnerable to spoilage is at the center of a whistleblower lawsuit filed by a former Mead Johnson Nutrition compliance director who claims she was eventually fired after raising concerns about packaging defects.

Linda O'Risky, who was a consultant and employee for Mead Johnson for more than 25 years, claims in a lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Chicago that the Glenview-based maker of pediatric food products "touted its hermetically sealed liquid formula as safer than powdered formula," but in reality, she alleges, the seals on the 8-ounce product were prone to leaking, making it easier for microorganisms and other contaminants to enter the packaging.

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The lawsuit says the Evansville, Ind., resident spent seven months in 2015 trying to persuade her managers to comply with Food and Drug Administration regulations and contacted the publicly traded company's "integrity concern hotline," but it alleges she was eventually excluded from meetings and shunned.

The lawsuit says the company later fired her, claiming it was due to a cost-cutting restructuring, but the suit alleges that unlike the 50 other Evansville workers who also lost their jobs, O'Risky's computer was immediately confiscated, she was told to leave the premises by noon, and she was escorted out of the building. O'Risky is alleging retaliations in violation of the Food Safety Modernization Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

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O'Risky claims that she learned of defective seals in March 2015, when she was copied on an email stating that Mead Johnson planned to reject nearly a million units of 8-ounce ready-to-use formula. She realized that those manufacturing dates were nearly two months earlier  suggesting there could be more products with a similar problem, the suit says. O'Risky knew from her role in analyzing consumer complaints that there had been an increased rate of complaints about the ready-to-use formula, her lawsuit alleges.

Mead began an inquiry, but O'Risky's lawsuit says that investigators "falsely claimed" a defective seal didn't constitute a food safety or FDA compliance problem since any spoilage resulting from a defective seal would be obvious.

"It became clear that senior management's hope was that the defective products would make their way through the marketplace without any major incidents of harm to consumers and without having to fulfill their legal obligations to report the known problem," the lawsuit says.

Mead Johnson, whose Enfa family of brands includes Enfamil infant formula, denied the allegations in the complaint.

"The company's main focus is  and has been for more than a century  the quality and safety of our products," spokesman Chris Perille said. "The packaging matter cited in the suit was thoroughly reviewed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and no action was required."

Mead Johnson also maintains an environment for its workers of "openness" and "respect" and didn't retaliate against O'Risky, he said.

Perille declined additional comment, citing the pending litigation.

O'Risky, who lost her job in November 2015,

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wants a jury trial and is seeking her job back, as well as two times back pay and compensatory and punitive damages, among other things.

Earlier this month it was reported that Mead Johnson might be acquired by Reckitt Benckiser for about $16.7 billion.

byerak@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @beckyyerak
President Trump staged another tweet attack on an American corporation on Wednesday, this time raking Nordstrom Inc. for the supposed crime of dropping his daughter Ivanka's fashion line.

At about 10:51 a.m. New York time, Trump tweeted, "My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!"

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This attack follows Trump tweets aimed at Boeing and Lockheed Martin, but there are a few especially notable aspects to it. First, it was entirely personal: The critiques of Boeing and Lockheed were at least ostensibly related to public policy  he was questioning the cost of Defense Department procurements from those companies. But there's no public policy aspect to whether Nordstrom continues to carry Ivanka's merchandise, only the question of how much lucre flows into the Trump family's pocket.

My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2017

Second, this tweet was particularly incoherent. What could Ivanka's being "a great person" have to do with Nordstrom's business decisions, even assuming for the sake of argument that it's true?

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Third, and perhaps most important from a business standpoint, the market impact of Trump's tweet was especially evanescent. The big retailer's stock took a hit around the time of the tweet, falling about 0.65% to $42.47 as trading volume soared from about 6,700 shares in the minute or so before the tweet dropped to roughly a half-million shares during the four minutes that followed. But the action was over soon thereafter; by 2:01 p.m. New York time, Nordstrom was back above its pre-Trump peak. The shares closed at $44.53, a gain of more than 4% on a day when the rest of the market was essentially flat.

With action like Nordstrom's stock saw on Wednesday, CEOs may hope their companies can attract a Trump tweet attack (Ycharts)

Nordstrom announced Feb. 2 that it was dropping Ivanka-branded shoes and handbags from its merchandise offerings starting with the spring season, which is starting now. The company attributed the decision to the brand's poor "performance," rather than to politics.

When Trump first started hectoring corporations by name via Twitter, we observed that his market-moving tweets were a scandal waiting to happen. There was the chance that a member of his inner circle clued in to his tweeting plans might try to trade ahead of them. Moreover, these off-the-cuff tweets signaled that Trump was insensitive to the fact that every word of a president "is parsed to the nth degree, every thought magnified to global significance, no matter how casual or careless."

Accordingly, while it's not uncommon for presidents to try to jawbone industries or even individual companies, it's very unusual for a president to settle personal scores with a corporation using his bully pulpit.

Outrageous. @nordstrom, others injured should consider suing, incl. under CA Unfair Comp Law, forbidding "any unfair biz act." I will help! https://t.co/Y18Lml3rXk  Norm Eisen (@NormEisen) February 8, 2017

This is something a father would say. It's not the type of thing a President of the United States should say. https://t.co/1l24LouFP0  Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) February 8, 2017

But the Nordstrom tweet appears to have eradicated the line between the public interest and Trump's interest. That's why it was termed "outrageous" in a tweet by Norm Eisen, a former chief ethics officer for the Obama White House and the co-founder of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Trump not only issued the tweet from his personal account, but retweeted it on his official @POTUS account.

Trump spokesman Sean Spicer illustrated the depth of the Administration's insensitivity to conflicts of interest in his defense of the tweet. Trump is "leading this country," he said at a press briefing Wednesday. "For people to take out their concern about his actions or his executive orders on members of his family, he has every right to stand up for his family and applaud their business activities, their success."

Criticism also came from the other side of the political divide, with Ari Fleischer, the former press secretary for George W. Bush, tweeting, "This is something a father would say. It's not the type of thing a President of the United States should say."

And as Kevin Drum of Mother Jones observed, there's an aspect of commercial favoritism to the Nordstrom's tweet that makes it especially inappropriate: Nordstrom's was not the only company that is dropping Ivanka's merchandise. So have Neiman-Marcus and at least four other retailers. T.J. Maxx, which earlier was reported to have dropped Ivanka merchandise, has said it has incorporated the products into its regular racks, but hasn't taken them out of inventory.

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Nordstrom's, as it happens, has been openly critical of Trump's immigrant travel ban. The company's three co-presidents  brothers Blake, Peter and Erik Nordstrom  issued a memo to employees observing that their company was founded by an immigrant, their great-grandfather John W. Nordstrom, and that today it employs thousands of first- and second-generation immigrants.

Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email michael.hiltzik@latimes.com.

Return to Michael Hiltzik's blog.

UPDATES:

12:58 p.m.: This post has been updated with a more complete quote from Trump spokesman Sean Spicer.

1:46 p.m.: This post has been updated with Nordstrom's closing stock price.

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3:08 p.m.: This post has been updated to clarify T.J. Maxx's marketing of Ivanka merchandise.
Sprint may be exploring a sale or merger, according to its parent company's CEO. (Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images)

Sprint's Tokyo-based parent company is willing to sell the Kansas-based wireless company, but it also may be up for buying T-Mobile or deal with other companies, its chief executive said Wednesday.

The comments came from Masayoshi Son, chairman of Sprint and CEO of SoftBank Group Corp. that owns more than 80 percent of Sprint's shares. SoftBank bought Sprint in 2013 and Son had hoped in 2014 to buy T-Mobile as well but was turned away by U.S. regulators.

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"Now, we may buy, we may sell, maybe simple merger," Son said, according to an interpreter's version of his remarks during SoftBank's quarterly meeting with analysts and investors in Tokyo.

Son acknowledged his 2014 effort to buy T-Mobile as well as his failed attempts to sell Sprint when a T-Mobile deal was blocked.

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"Nobody's going to buy it," Son said Wednesday of Sprint and its weak financial and competitive position in 2014. "So we had no choice but we had to turn it around by itself."

The turnaround is now in hand, Son said, allowing him to broaden SoftBank's options to include selling Sprint and looking beyond a straight T-Mobile deal.

"We may be dealing with T-Mobile. We may be dealing with a totally different company," Son said.

He also said Sprint could remain a standalone wireless operator in the United States because of the gains it has made since its failed push to acquire T-Mobile. Perceptions, he said, have not caught up with the reality that Sprint is no longer "a bottleneck" for SoftBank.

"There are so many options available, and we are looking into that. We are open for any options," Son said.

Wells Fargo Securities analyst Jennifer Fritzsche said Son's comments stirred questions from investors, particularly whether Sprint would be a seller.

"We don't know the answer, but it is hard for us to see Softbank taking a minority position in a combined entity given (that) the momentum in Sprint is only just being seen," Fritzsche wrote in a note to clients Wednesday.

Son's comments come as wireless industry analysts have speculated about Sprint making another run at T-Mobile as well as many other possible mergers. Potential deals, according to analysts, also could involve a cable company such as Comcast or Charter buying T-Mobile, Sprint or Dish Network.

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Sprint's chief financial officer also recently said that a merger of the smaller U.S. companies may be necessary to compete with the two large wireless companies, which are Verizon and AT&T.

Federal regulators serving in the Trump administration also may be more willing to approve big mergers.

The Kansas City Star | Tribune News Service
Unlike a good loaf of bread, which you can now get in many grocery stores, says chef Nancy Silverton, "there is only one way to get good focaccia, and that is to make it yourself." (Anne Cusack/Los Angeles Times)

We've all been there. You're in a foreign country, or a favorite restaurant here in town, eating something that you just love and wondering, maybe even worrying, "How will I ever make this at home?"

That's exactly what happened to me a few summers ago, on a trip to Matera, in southern Italy, when I tasted the area's signature tomato-and-roasted-pepper-topped focaccia.

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Until then, I was not a fan of focaccia. Those dense, cake-like squares of dry, flavorless bread, topped with rosemary if you were lucky, always seemed like a bad cliche -- something Italian American restaurants offered for their bread service as a way to appear authentic or simply to stick with a theme.

But I wanted to love focaccia. And when Joe Bastianich, who is a partner in Mozza and an Italian cuisine aficionado, asked me, "Why do you think nobody can make it here like it's made in Genoa and Puglia?" it wasn't long before I planned a trip to find out what he had in mind.

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My optimism was justified that day in Matera. This one was moist and chewy, with an irregular hole structure, and an oily, crunchy underside. The bread was delicious -- slightly sour and yeasty -- and the toppings were just a bonus. It was like a cross between really good bread and really good pizza, and it was love at first bite. All I had to do was copy it.

Fortunately, figuring out how to re-create foods, or my versions of them anyway, is my strength. I did it with bread after tasting the loaves baked by Acme Bread Co.; I did it with Oreo cookies, my guilty pleasure; I did it with pizza, using Chris Bianco's crust as my inspiration; and now I've done it with focaccia.

A lot of home cooks believe there are professional secrets to how certain foods are made, but what I have learned is that more often than not, the steps or ingredients that make a dish special -- whether it's gelato, ragu Bolognese or, in this case, focaccia -- are far simpler than we might imagine.

These techniques are usually not carefully guarded secrets. Particularly when it comes to rustic Italian cuisine, it's often just a matter of finding out how something is traditionally done, and making adjustments from there. The advantage pros have over most home cooks is experience to draw on. To replicate my Italian experiences of focaccia, I was able to use my knowledge of bread-making.

But the other thing I did, which anyone can do, is observe very carefully.

My first clues came when I visited a panificio, or bakery, in Conversano, in Puglia. Although I wouldn't be completely sold on focaccia for a few more days, I liked what I had there enough to ask if I could peek in the kitchen, where I saw three things that would change my focaccia-making world.

First, I saw that the focaccia was baked in a round cake pan. Until then, I had always baked focaccia in large rectangular sheet pans. But after seeing it baked in cake pans, I realized that by working with such an unwieldy lump of dough, I had been mishandling it and thereby taking the air out of it, which makes for a dense bread. Using the smaller pans means working with dough in a more manageable size and shape -- a simple thing that seems obvious in hindsight.

I also saw that the baker was cutting the dough into portions, immediately putting each in the pan in which it was going to be baked, and then leaving it there to relax for its second rise. This eliminated the step of shaping the dough in the pan, which, again, would de-gas it and make for a denser bread.

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The third and maybe most significant thing I saw was that the cake pans had olive oil in them, and not just enough to coat the pan, but a layer one-eighth to one-quarter inch deep. It was a substantial enough amount that the oil would be absorbed into the bottom crust, making it crunchy and flavorful.

Less than five minutes in this baker's kitchen, without asking a single question, and my focaccia had already improved exponentially.

When I got back to the Mozza kitchen and attempted to replicate that focaccia, I had only to work on the dough, which was the easy part. The more I experiment, the more I have come to see that all yeasted breads are more or less variations on a formula of flour, water, salt and yeast.

My pizza dough isn't far from my ciabattina, and this focaccia dough isn't far from my pizza dough. I start with that basic formula and because of my understanding of how bread and yeast works, I am able to tweak a few things to obtain whatever dough I want.

For this focaccia, I knew that I wanted it to be light with a lot of air holes, so I decided to start with the dough I use for a classic country white bread and go from there. There are different ways to achieve the air holes that I wanted, but the way I did it is to use a sourdough starter.

Those doughs begin with a sourdough starter, but since I assume that the average Angeleno does not keep a sourdough starter at home, for this article, I have created a quick overnight starter, called a sponge, or in Italian, a biga. This not only gives me the light bread with the irregular hole structure that I want, but it also imparts the mild fermented, sour flavor that I want for the focaccia.

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I also knew that to get those holes, along with the moist, chewy texture that I wanted, I needed to have a very wet dough, one with a higher ratio of water to flour. The method that I have used over the years in working with a wet dough is to fold the dough in the middle of its proofing time. Folding the dough strengthens it and makes it easier to handle; without this step, such a dough will ferment too quickly and collapse.

After making the dough, the next step in making focaccia is to dimple. In the past, when I'd made focaccia, I had found that the dimples almost disappeared when it was baked.

But in Italy, I noticed that the ingredients are not laid on top of the dough, which would weigh it down, making the focaccia heavy and one-dimensional. Instead, the toppings are pushed deep into the dough, so the bread bakes up around them. Not only does this make the focaccia really interesting to look at, it also results in a bread that is light-textured.

At Mozza when we press the toppings into the dough, we push ever so slightly outward, toward the edge of the pan. In so doing, we are killing three birds with one stone: embedding the topping into the dough, dimpling the dough and encouraging the dough toward the edges of the pan.

Baking the focaccia turned out to be almost foolproof. Having it in the cake pan, and having the oil in the cake pan, already eliminates so many of the potential pitfalls of focaccia. And unlike when you are working with pizza or bread, it is not essential to have a super-hot oven. Though as with pizza, I found that baking it for a short time directly on the floor of the oven helps to create the crispy crunchy underside.

If you've never baked yeast breads before, this focaccia is a good, safe place to start -- first because you have a very high probability of beautiful, delicious results.

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And second, because unlike a good loaf of bread, which you can now get in many grocery stores, unless you go to southern Italy, Genoa or Mozza2Go, there is only one way to get good focaccia, and that is to make it yourself.

For better or worse, there just aren't many things you can say that about anymore.

Nancy's basic focaccia dough

Total time: 3 hours, plus 12 to 24 hours resting time for the sponge

Servings: Makes 2 (10-inch) focaccia dough rounds

Note:

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This recipe requires the use of a stand mixer, 2 (10- by 2-inch) round cake pans and a digital kitchen scale. Cake yeast is available at cooking and baking supply stores, as well as at select gourmet markets. The sponge must be started a day in advance.

Focaccia sponge:

Scant 1/8 packed teaspoon cake yeast or 1/16 teaspoon active dry yeast

Scant  cup (3.71 ounces) water

1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons (3.04 ounces) bread flour

1. In a small mixing bowl (preferably plastic or ceramic), sprinkle the yeast over the water. Set the bowl aside for a few minutes to give the water time to absorb the yeast. Using a wooden spoon, stir in the bread flour until all of the ingredients are thoroughly combined.

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2. Cover the bowl tightly with a sheet of plastic wrap, then tightly wrap another piece of plastic wrap or twine around the perimeter of the bowl to further seal the bowl.

3. Set the bowl aside at room temperature (ideally 68 to 70 degrees) until the sponge becomes bubbly and thick, like the consistency of wallpaper paste (thicker than a pancake batter but thinner than dough), 12 to 24 hours.

Focaccia dough:

1 1/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons (11.04 ounces) water

1/2 cup plus scant 1 tablespoon (.39 ounce) olive oil, divided

Focaccia sponge:

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2 packed tablespoons plus  packed teaspoon (.39 ounce) fresh cake yeast or 1 teaspoons (.195 ounce) active dry yeast

2 tablespoons plus  teaspoon (.56 ounce) rye flour

3 1/3 to 3 2/3 cups (15 to 16.45 ounces) bread flour, more if needed

1 tablespoon (.39 ounce) kosher salt

1. About 3 hours before you are ready to bake the focaccia, place the water, scant tablespoon olive oil and sponge in the bowl of a stand mixer. Fit the mixer with a dough hook and, over low speed, add the yeast, rye flour and 15 ounces (3 1/3 cups) bread flour. Mix the ingredients over low speed for 2 minutes to thoroughly combine and form the dough.

2. With the mixer running, slowly add the salt, then increase the speed to medium. Continue mixing the dough until it is smooth and well-formed, and starts to pull away from the bowl, 6 to 8 minutes. Note that the dough will not pull so much that it "cleans" the bowl, but if the dough is too sticky and is not pulling away from the sides of the bowl at all, add a little more bread flour (a spoonful as needed at a time) to achieve the right consistency.

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3. While the dough is mixing, lightly grease a bowl large enough to hold the dough when it doubles in size with olive oil. When the dough is ready, turn it out of the mixer into the oiled bowl. Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and tightly wrap the perimeter of the bowl with kitchen twine or another piece of plastic wrap to further seal the bowl. Set the dough aside at room temperature (ideally 68 to 70 degrees) until doubled, about 1 hours.

4. Dust the work surface lightly with flour and turn the dough out onto the floured surface. Acting as if the round has four sides, fold the edges of the dough toward the center. Turn the dough over and return it, folded side down, to the bowl. Cover the bowl again with plastic wrap and set it aside at room temperature until it has doubled in volume, 50 minutes to 1 hour. (The dough will be puffy and will feel alive, springy and resistant. It will not collapse under the touch of your fingertips.)

5. Pour  cup olive oil into each of the cake pans, and tilt the pans so the oil coats the bottom evenly. Dust the work surface again lightly with flour and carefully turn the dough out onto the floured surface, taking care not to deflate the dough in the process. Divide the dough into two equal segments, each weighing approximately 18 ounces. Place the dough segments in the prepared cake pans and very gently pull the edges just to obtain a roughly round shape. Cover the pans with a clean dishcloth and set aside at room temperature until relaxed and spread to cover about half of the surface of the pans, about 30 minutes.

Olive and rosemary focaccia

Total time: 1 hours, plus cooling time

Serves: Makes 1 focaccia; each focaccia yields 8 slices.

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Ingredients:

1 risen focaccia dough

2 ounces low-moisture mozzarella, cut into generous -inch cubes

40 pitted Ascolana olives (or another large pitted green olive)

Olive oil for brushing

20 tufts fresh rosemary

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Scant  teaspoon Maldon sea salt, or another large flake sea salt

1. Heat the oven to 450 degrees. Remove the dishcloth from the top of one of the focaccias and, using your fingertips, gently tap down on the focaccia with about 5 light strokes to nudge it toward the edge of the pan; it still might not reach the edges, but don't worry.

2. One at a time, push the mozzarella cubes into the focaccia dough while simultaneously pushing outward to encourage the dough toward the edge of the pan, arranging the cubes evenly over the surface of the dough and pressing them so deep they are almost flush with its surface.

3. Do the same with the olives, arranging them in circular rows between the cheese cubes and pressing them down into the dough and slightly outward.

4. Brush the surface generously with olive oil, then press the rosemary tufts into the dough. Sprinkle over the sea salt. Set the focaccia aside until it is risen and puffed around the toppings, about 30 minutes.

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5. Place the focaccia on the center rack of the oven and bake until crisp and golden-brown, 30 to 40 minutes. The focaccia should have risen almost to the top of the pan, and the cheese will be crisp and browned.

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6. Move the pan to the bottom of the oven and continue to bake until the bottom crust of the focaccia is deep golden and crisp to the touch, about 5 minutes more.

7. Remove the pan from the oven and remove the focaccia from the pan to a wire rack (use a fork to gently lift and slide the focaccia out of the pan, careful of any hot oil that may still be at the bottom of the pan). Brush the surface of the focaccia once more with olive oil. Set the focaccia aside to cool slightly  or as long as you can resist it.

8. Transfer the focaccia to a cutting board. Halve the focaccia using a long knife, then cut one-half into 4 wedges (don't cut the other half until you are ready to eat it).

Each slice: 213 calories; 5 grams protein; 25 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram fiber; 10 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 3 mg cholesterol; 0 sugar; 470 mg sodium.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Silverton is founder of La Brea Bakery and chef and co-owner of Mozza restaurant both in Los Angeles. She is co-author of "The Mozza Cookbook," to be published in September.
The underground-dining world has become quite the fertile breeding ground for impressive restaurants; the stellar Elizabeth, the award-winning Fat Rice and Bonsoiree (the last sadly gone but dazzling in its day) all have their roots in underground dining. And now there is 42 grams, which opened in January in Uptown.

Sous Rising was the underground restaurant that gave the husband-wife team of Jake Bickelhaupt and Alexa Welsh their start; when they went legit, so to speak, the name changed to 42 grams. It stems from the notion (based on a doctor's research in 1907) that the soul weighs 21 grams; thus 42 grams represents two souls, united.

And that's sort of how the dining experience plays out here. There are assistant chefs and assistant servers, but the focus is on Bickelhaupt and his progressive cooking, and Welsh, the host presence who gives voice to each dish her husband sends out.

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Dinner is exceptionally intimate. There are but two areas, a communal table with 10 chairs and an eight-seat stainless-steel counter that looks directly at Bickelhaupt and his crew. The seatings are usually at 6 p.m. for the counter and 8:30 for the table. The two might overlap slightly, but for the most part, it's as though 42 grams is hosting two dinner parties each night. (On some nights, the restaurant will feature a 10 p.m. counter seating as well.)

Reservations are offered via prepaid tickets, a bit of a mini-trend in Chicago (see sidebar). The restaurant's website is easy to maneuver (usually) and includes a section of "last minute" seats if you're hoping to get in right away.

The dark chocolate and blood orange dessert at 42 Grams (Alex Garcia, Chicago Tribune)

Dinner, tax and gratuity cost about $200; 42 grams is BYO, so the wine is up to you. Whatever you might bring, the wine will be handled properly; 42 grams stocks beautiful stemware, and servers present and pour (and decant, when appropriate) with care. A few days ahead of your arrival, the restaurant emails red, white and even dessert wine suggestions, so first-timers won't be flying blind.

You may, however, be eating blind, at least a little bit. There's no menu at first; even the number of courses isn't revealed. "But you will get a menu at the end," Welsh announces, "so you don't have to memorize everything." As each dish is presented, Welsh delivers pithy, usually witty remarks regarding what's in front of you, and how best to eat it. (With Bickelhaupt's plates, the latter isn't always obvious, so Welsh's comments are invaluable as well as entertaining.)

It would be too extreme to describe Bickelhaupt's food as molecular, but he shows a fondness for sous-vide cooking, gelatinized liquids, solids rendered as powders and that sort of thing. A bit of trompe l'oeil is waiting as you arrive; the floral arrangements lining the counter (or table) contain crispy bits of Vidalia parchment and flax-tapioca chips as a shareable bread course (breaking bread and breaking the ice simultaneously).

Next up is a cocktail, of sorts; the Juniper Jump consists of a clear cube of gin gelee ("the Jell-O shot you couldn't afford in college," in Welsh's words), frozen rose water "snow," powdered hibiscus and a vivid green sphere of cucumber and lime juice. You essentially mix the "cocktail" in your mouth, keeping in mind that the ready-to-burst liquid sphere is an all-or-nothing proposition.

More than a dozen tastes are yet to come; standouts include a potato soup so rich in flavor it's like drinking liquefied fingerlings (a large dollop of caviar gives this dish a touch of luxury); a seafood salute to the late Charlie Trotter (in whose restaurant Bickelhaupt got his start) combining salmon nigiri with trout roe, powdered plankton and a few sips of dashi broth; and a vividly colored salad of beet macaron (never has the beet presence in a salad been so delicate) with mixed lettuces, microgreens, fromage blanc and a quail yolk surrounded by an "egg white" of roasted shallot vinaigrette.

Though 42 grams works hard to demystify its dishes, Bickelhaupt shows a fondness for ingredients that challenge in other ways. The current menu includes sea urchin, sweetbreads and foie gras -- acquired tastes that even some experienced diners have yet to embrace. (Welsh boldly assures guests that "this will be the best uni (urchin) of your life," and given the quality of the sea urchin -- the buttery creaminess I expected, but the just-plucked freshness was a revelation -- I'm disinclined to argue.)

The concluding courses show more of Bickelhaupt's playful side. There is a single-bite sweet, a white chocolate ball filled with kalamansi (Asian citrus) and topped with cherry blossom; a seemingly straightforward dark chocolate cremeux with crumbled pretzel and bourbon-maple ice cream (the surprises are the glassy sheet of blood orange and bits of hyssop that taste like bubble gum); and a cheese course consisting of pecorino foam and pecorino fondue, which you scoop with a pecorino crisp that Welsh likens to the "world's most sophisticated Cheeto."

The meal concludes with cappuccino; I won't reveal the surprise, except to say it is a fitting conclusion to a meal that began with a deconstructed cocktail.

It is difficult to know how good a restaurant can be based on one menu, even though I visited twice. But knowing that Bickelhaupt plans to break out a completely new menu in the next few weeks, I'm less worried about whether the chef can repeat his magic, and more eager to see what he'll do with ramps, morels and the like. That's a good sign.

Watch Phil Vettel's reviews weekends on WGN-Ch. 9's "News at Nine" and on CLTV.

pvettel@tribune.com

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Twitter @philvettel

42 grams

4662 N. Broadway

42gramschicago.com

Tribune rating: Three stars

Open: Dinner Wednesday through Sunday

Prices: Dinner with tax and tip: $203.68

Credit cards: A, DC, DS, M, V

Reservations: Tickets purchased online; required

Noise: Conversation-friendly
Satellite TV Network to Launch Educational Channel for Displaced and Impoverished Refugee Children in Middle East and North Africa SAT-7 ACADEMY Will Teach Recognized Values to 'Lost Generation'



Contact: Palmer Holt, 704-663-3303



NICOSIA, Cyprus, Feb. 8, 2017 /Christian Newswire/ -- A new 24/7 educational channel that will teach displaced and impoverished children from Syria and other parts of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) will start broadcasting this summer. The SAT-7 ACADEMY (www.sat7education.org) will help children learn internationally recognized values and address the problem of lack of education in the region, which is creating a "lost generation."



Photo: Children in this Middle East refugee community will soon be able to obtain an education via satellite TV through the SAT-7 ACADEMY channel, which will make its debut this summer. The new, 24/7 educational channel is being launched by SAT-7 Education and Development, organized in 2016 to leverage SAT-7's broadcast experience and audience acceptance to further educational and developmental initiatives.



The new service is being launched by SAT-7 Education and Development, organized in 2016 as a part of SAT-7 International to leverage decades of broadcast experience and audience acceptance to advance educational and developmental initiatives. It will provide education for millions of children displaced by conflict in Syria and other nations.



Even in areas not directly affected by unrest, many children aren't in school because of poverty or because they are female. The United Nations Development Program lists inadequate education as a key factor holding back the Arab World. More than 21 million Arabic-speaking children (one in five) are at risk of missing out on an education, while 13 million are out of school altogether.



"We are talking about audience sizes in the millions," SAT-7 Chief Executive Officer Dr. Terence Ascott says of the new channel. "But even if we were only able to impact the lives of a few thousand children, it would be worth it. One viewer can grow up to be a real instrument of change in their society. One of these children could even be the future president of his or her country."



SAT-7 ACADEMY aims to transform young lives: to bring children hope for their future; opportunities for work and further study; and the chance to participate, along with their teachers and parents, in positively transforming the Middle East and North Africa. In addition, educating children in modern viewpoints and perspectives can diffuse the appeal radical organizations hold for children from impoverished backgrounds.



Large number of viewers



Launched in 1996, the satellite broadcasting organization has brought quality programming in the Arabic, Farsi and Turkish languages to more than 15 million viewers in the Middle East and North Africa. Research in 15 MENA countries shows that television -- especially satellite TV -- is the most used and trusted source of information.



Research by a French-based communications company in 2014 revealed that nine in 10 residents prefer satellite reception for both pay-TV and free-to-air viewing. Television viewing is almost dominant among Syrians in the country and those who have fled to other countries.



Many Syrian refugees are already watching SAT-7's educational program, My School, which is broadcast on the SAT-7 KIDS channel five days a week. According to audience research carried out by the well-known research company, IPSOS, last year in 10 Arab countries more than 1.3 million children watched My School daily, or at least weekly. Since millions cannot attend school in their host countries, the SAT-7 ACADEMY will provide a life-changing opportunity for many children, parents and teachers.



"If we do not invest in education that teaches not only knowledge but tolerance, based on internationally recognized values, others will invest in teaching conflicting values," says Rita Elmounayer, SAT-7's deputy chief executive officer. "We have seen the result of that -- radicalism, extremism and insurgency. We need to act now to prevent this generation from becoming truly 'lost.'"



For more information about SAT-7 ACADEMY go to www.sat7education.org.



Since 1996, SAT-7 has brought quality Christian television programming via satellite to more than 15 million viewers throughout the Middle East and North Africa. With international headquarters in Cyprus and six channels, SAT-7 broadcasts in Arabic, Farsi and Turkish, enabling viewers to watch within the privacy of their own homes. For more information, visit www.sat7usa.org.



To schedule an interview with an official from SAT-7, contact Palmer Holt at (704) 663-3303 or pholt@paragoncommunications.net.

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The wedge salad, a hunk of iceberg drenched in blue-cheese and ranch dressings and dotted with crispy pork belly, cherry tomatoes and a couple of massive onion rings, is over-the-top indulgence. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)

Maple & Ash might not be the best steakhouse in Chicago, but it's close. And it's certainly the most fun.

This is a restaurant that doesn't so much turn its back on steakhouse conventions as it celebrates them, although certainly with a wink and nudge. Steaks are impaled with color-coded, plastic-cow doneness tags. Amid such standards as shrimp de Jonghe and French onion soup (both nicely rendered), there's a bone-in ribeye (often referred to as a cowboy steak) called the "bone-in cowgirl." Indecisive diners can say, "I don't give a f*@k," which is the name (printed on the menu) for the $145 chef's-choice option.

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The menu also makes a few sly references to its Gold Coast location, in the heart of the guys-on-the-prowl district known affectionately as the Viagra Triangle. Seafood towers are labeled "semi-pro" and "baller." Optional steak toppings are labeled "arm candy," and, up until a recent menu redesign, side dishes were called "escorts."

"It's fun," said executive chef Danny Grant. "We're not taking things too seriously; (we're) letting our hair down a bit and trying to make people happy."

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There is serious restaurant cred behind all the silliness. Principals include Jim Lasky, founder of the venerable Hunt Club (Maple & Ash occupies much of the former bar's space); and David Pisor, developer of the Elysian Hotel (now the Waldorf Astoria). Other partners include Brian O'Connor, who was general manager of Ria, the Elysian's two-Michelin-star restaurant; Grant, who was Ria's executive chef; and Belinda Chang, who earned The Modern (in NYC) a James Beard wine-service award in 2011.

Bone-in ribeye is often called cowboy steak; here, it's a bone-in cowgirl. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)

The restaurant itself is beautiful. You enter at street level and pass through the downstairs lounge (serving lunch and dinner daily, and open late) and take an elevator to the dining room, which is awash in heavy draped fabric, a distressed-wood ceiling and linen-draped, candle-topped tablecloths. A looping chandelier, resembling a pearl necklace, hangs from the ceiling. The look is luxe and contemporary (especially with Depeche Mode piped through the speakers), and the kind of atmosphere in which patrons dress up on a Wednesday.

The pampering starts the moment you're seated. Before you have a chance to glance at the menu, a waiter will arrive with your "amuse booze," a two-ounce house cocktail of gin, lemon and vermouth (shaken and poured tableside, of course). Moments later, there's a bowl of olives, a plate of two-year-old Wisconsin white cheddar and another plate of radishes, sea salt and ash-strewn butter. (Buttered radishes will never be my thing, but I get that it's a thing.)

Most of what you'll eat here emerges from the kitchen's coal-fired oven or open hearth grill. From the former come the roasted seafood platters, which typically include brown-butter oysters, smoked scallops, prawns, clams and the like. Even dedicated raw-bar aficionados will warm up to this presentation. The baked-in-coals French onion soup is superb; the shrimp de Jonghe will remind you why this dish was a mandatory menu item once upon a time; and the wedge salad, a hunk of iceberg drenched in blue-cheese and ranch dressings and dotted with crispy pork belly, cherry tomatoes and a couple of massive onion rings, is over-the-top indulgence.

Over the top describes some of Grant's side dishes, too; he likes cramming his plates and bowls full, then adding a bit more. The potato gratin is dubbed "Baked and Loaded," and includes a bottom layer of braised short rib under the potato puree, raclette cheese, bacon lardons and crisped shallots, topped with black-truffle Madeira jus. The mac and cheese is a thing of beauty, the bacon-tossed pasta coated with Gruyere, comte and mascarpone cheeses. And just to prove I can always find something to gripe about: The roasted mushrooms, though wonderfully fragrant, were a bit tough and woody.

Some steaks here are dry-aged, some wet-aged. The bone-in ribeye is better than the boneless version, and the steak frites, a gentle 10-ouncer with fries and garlic aioli, is the sleeper; it's an excellent steak, and only $28. Non-beefy options include a boneless pork chop that's the equal to any I've had, and first-rate lamb chops with black-truffle jus.

The apple tart looks sophisticated, but tastes like the best dessert Mom ever made. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)

Pastry chef Kelly Tamm offers some nifty desserts, including a $19 "Sundae Service" that consists of a huge mound of ice cream and a tower of accompaniments to add as you choose (apparently customers have really taken to this). There's a yummy pavlova of grilled pineapple, coconut sherbet and graham cracker, in a sort of ice cream sandwich presentation. My favorite is the caramel-apple tart, an individual tart that has apple, frangipane, caramel sauce and chopped nuts. It looks like a golden baked rose, and it tastes like your childhood. Wonderful.

The wine program is as amazing as you'd like it to be. The restaurant invested (heavily) in a Coravin system, which dispenses wine without disturbing the cork, allowing Chang and her cohorts to offer by-the-glass pours from virtually any bottle in their cellar (which can get pricey, but beats committing to a single bottle). Not surprisingly, then, the wine matches to the "I don't give..." menu are terrific.

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Service was exemplary on my visits, but I was so obviously recognized at the door that I might as well have been wearing a flashing "critic" sign. I will say I noticed some nice service efforts being made at other tables, however. There aren't many sad faces in this place.

"We're a steakhouse, and yet we're not," Grant said. "I honestly can't wait for springtime, when we'll be using all these amazing products coming in."

Looking forward to it.

8 W. Maple St.

312-944-8888

mapleandash.com

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Tribune rating:   

Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. >

Open: Dinner daily; downstairs open lunch and dinner daily

Prices: Entrees $18-$54

Credit cards: A, DC, DS, M, V

Reservations: Strongly recommended (not accepted downstairs)

Noise: Conversation-friendly

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Other: Wheelchair accessible; valet parking

Ratings key:     outstanding;    excellent;   very good;  good; no stars: unsatisfactory. The reviewer makes every effort to remain anonymous. Meals are paid for by the Tribune.
Marchesa, a sultry restaurant and Champagne bar, is aiming for a May opening in River North.



Principals Kathryn Sullivan Alvera and Jason Clark helped create Narcisse, Domaine and Prosecco, so they understand River North. And sultry.



Occupying the former home of Crofton on Wells (535 N. Wells St.), Marchesa will offer distinct dining and drinking environments on three levels. The basement will be a limestone-lined wine cave; the street-level space will include the main kitchen and dining room, chef's table and a chinoiserie-inspired main bar, including a fireplace seating area. Upstairs, a private-dining room will be designed to resemble an ornate Paris apartment.



"We don't want it to be fussy," said Alvera. "We call it 'casual opulence.' You don't have to get dressed up, but we want you to feel comfortable if you do."



Mark Sabbe, formerly of Mercat a la Planxa, will oversee a menu that seesaws between rusticity and refinement. Options will include ratatouille, paella Valencia and braised goat, but also truffles, Petrossian caviar and jamon Iberico.



"We're bringing back the idea of continental food, covering various regions," Alvera said. "That opens up a huge canvas to work on; our sommelier (John Cressman) is going nuts, so to speak"



Cressman's substantial wine list will offer Old World and New World wines by the glass, half bottle, bottle and magnum; using a Coravin system, Marchesa will feature glass pours of high-end wines. Champagne will be a prominent feature; Alvera said the plan is to saber a bottle of Champagne every night at midnight.



If all holds to plan, Marchesa will open almost 20 years to the day that Alvera opened Narcisse.



Phil Vettel is a Tribune critic.
The nearest CTA rail station, Green Line Cermak-McCormick Place, is two blocks away from McCormick Place. One-way fare is $2.25, with trains about every nine minutes. (Phil Velasquez / Chicago Tribune)

Traffic, construction, confusing GPS directions from your smartphone? All of these obstacles might be faced when getting to McCormick Place for the 2017 Chicago Auto Show, but fear not. Take your time, create a plan and save time, money and aggravation along the way.

If you have an iPhone, be wary of the pre-loaded Maps app, which won't display accurate results for the Chicago Auto Show, leading you instead to places such as the city of Chicago Auto Pound or Chicago Auto Center if you're not paying attention. Be sure to search "McCormick Place" for more accurate options, including routes that might add about five minutes to your commute but will allow you to avoid the construction on Lake Shore Drive. Google Maps provides faster, local routes particularly if you're coming from the south. For example, Google Maps recommends exiting at the 35th or 31st Street exits and taking 26th Street toward King Drive, a route that clocks in at around 12 minutes after exiting the Dan Ryan Expressway.

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The official 2017 Chicago Auto Show app links its directions tab to Google Maps, and refreshes to account for changing traffic patterns.

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Plugging in the exact addresses of McCormick Place's various parking garages is also helpful. There are three parking lots to choose from: Lot A, 2301 S. Prairie Drive, is $23 for up to 16 hours. Lot B, at 3050 S. Moe Drive, is a $15 flat rate. Lot C, at Fort Dearborn Drive, is a $23 flat fee. There are no in-and-out privileges at any of these lots. All McCormick Place lots are $10 after 6 p.m. While recommended directions for reaching individual lots include taking Lake Shore Drive, the alternate route of using Congress Parkway to work your way to the largest lot, A, seems simplest if you're already in the city. Take Congress to Michigan Avenue, turn right to head south, then turn left on Cermak Road to head east. Cermak will turn into King Drive, and the signage will lead you the rest of the way.

The 109th Chicago Auto Show takes over McCormick Place for 10 days beginning Saturday. The show brings nearly 1,000 kinds of vehicles from 36 automakers. Here's a quick look at 10 must-see 2018 models. (Jemal R. Brinson / Chicago Tribune) (Tribune Graphics/Chicago Tribune)

Millennium Park Garages on Columbus Drive offers free shuttle service to and from McCormick Place on Saturday and Sunday and Feb. 18, 19 and 20. On those dates, the parking rate at Millennium Park is $18 for 12 hours with validation, which will be provided as you exit the shuttle. Parking can be bought in advance at a cheaper $15 rate online, a special during the Auto Show. The entrance is on South Columbus between Monroe and Randolph streets. The free shuttle stops at 10- to 15-minute intervals at the Lower Randolph Street pedestrian exits.

If driving sounds like too much of a headache, there are plenty of public transit options that'll bring you as close as it gets to the front door.

The nearest CTA rail station, Green Line Cermak-McCormick Place, will drop you two blocks away. One-way fare is $2.25, with trains about every nine minutes.

The No. 3 King Drive bus runs on Michigan Avenue, and will drop you right at McCormick Place's main entrance. The No. 21 Cermak bus also stops at McCormick Place. One-way fare is $2.

The Metra Electric District line toward University Park, or the South Shore Line seems to be easiest, with stops inside McCormick Place. Metra will bring you directly to level 2.5 of McCormick Place's Grand Concourse in the South Building. The South Shore, which typically provides only rides to McCormick Place on weekends, will stop select weekday trains, running about once an hour. Metra's weekend pass, with unlimited rides Saturday and Sunday, is $8, while Metra Electric's one-way fare to McCormick Place costs from $3.50 to $7.25.

If money, along with traffic, is the least of your worries, McCormick Place has designated Uber and Lyft drop-off points. Prices vary by distance, time of day and demand in the area so prepare yourself for a surcharge if you take this route. You can also turn your visit to the 2017 Chicago Auto Show into a getaway of sorts and book a night or two at McCormick Place's Hyatt Regency.

The Auto Show package is $204 per night and includes two tickets to the Auto Show per day booked. The Auto Lovers package is $229 per night and also includes two tickets to the show per day, along with $40 in food and beverage credits.

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jroti@chicagotribune.com

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2017 Chicago Auto Show at a glance







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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)
Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra like to do things differently.

At the start of a five-city North American tour in New York this week, one of their ideas was to have incognito chorus members sing the finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony from within the audience.

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Wednesday night at Chicago's Orchestra Hall, they settled for atypical seating onstage that brought timpani upfront to where a violin soloist might stand. And  surprise!  the displacement made more visual than aural difference in Beethoven's First and Fifth symphonies.

In the top half of the concert, there often was the sense that Fischer, as opposed to Richard Goode, soloist in the Beethoven Second Piano Concerto, had not quite taken the measure of the hall's acoustics and thereby failed to convey subtleties of tone and dynamics. But then you realized from things Fischer has said about Beethoven  check out his remarks on YouTube  that his is not a particularly subtle view of the composer, favoring as it does theatrical, outsized expression over self-communing.

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Goode, on the other hand, is one of the least theatrical pianists around. And on Wednesday his smooth, meticulous delivery  apart from tiny slips in the first movement  showed him completely "inside" how Beethoven was responding to Mozart, whereas the ensemble's approach was more external, and generalized. Only at the end of the second movement did soloist and orchestra come together expressively to achieve a rare and telling stillness. Otherwise, Goode went his way with varied touch and color while the orchestra eschewed the playfulness of delicate fantasy in favor of direct and less fine-toned support that was occasionally a bit blunt.

The success of the Cleveland Orchestra a few weeks ago at achieving supremely refined string sound in Beethoven was not repeated. Nor did it seem desired. Fischer loves the bigness of Beethoven as well as his vitality. A whitened, slightly rough string tone was part of Fischer's approach to the program-opening First Symphony in primary colors. He may even have intended the beefy sound overall to indicate a temperament fundamentally at odds with the aristocratic music-making that preceded Beethoven.

In any event, the drama of the Fifth Symphony brought a higher level of identification. There Fischer indulged to the full Beethoven's power and grandeur. The zeal with which the orchestra made the transition from third to fourth movement was characteristic of the whole. It was a performance of strong but not forced moods that came to real jubilation. It additionally eliminated the need for an encore.

Alan Artner is a freelance critic.

ctc-arts@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @chitribent

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Watch the latest movie trailers.

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)
The Harris Theater for Music and Dance on Thursday announced Paul Organisak has been appointed its new president and CEO.

Organisak comes to the Harris in Chicago from Pittsburgh, where he served jointly as vice president of programming for the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, and executive director of the Pittsburgh Dance Council; his programming experience there included dance, music, Broadway-style shows and cabaret, according to the announcement.

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The appointment is effective immediately. Organisak replaces Michael Tiknis, who was the Harris president and managing director since 2004. Tiknis announced in Feb. 2016 he would leave at the end of the year. Harris chairwoman Alexandra Nichols said at that time the theater would conduct a nationwide search for a new leader. The formal name of the position is the Alexandra C. and John D. Nichols President and Chief Executive Officer Endowed Chair.

The Harris Theater is an indoor 1,525-seat venue in Millennium Park (at 205 E. Randolph St.) that opened in 2003, with subscription seasons of local and internationally touring dance, music and performing arts; more information at www.HarrisTheaterChicago.org.
Out of every 1,000 women who undergo mammography, about 100 will be called back for additional imaging due to something seen on the scan, experts say. (Ben Edwards / Getty Images)

The trauma of receiving a false-positive result from a mammogram may lead many women to delay or skip their next screening, a new study finds.

A false-positive result means that an aberration on a mammogram looks like it might be cancer. But after tests  such as added imaging or biopsy  it turns out to be benign.

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In the meantime, the patient may go through distress and various procedures, and decide to delay or skip her next mammogram.

That's a potentially fatal mistake, breast cancer experts said, because detecting tumors early can save lives.

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"Unfortunately, for women over age 50, just skipping a mammogram every other year would miss up to 30 percent of cancers," said Dr. Stefanie Zalasin, a breast imaging specialist in New York who reviewed the new findings.

The new study was led by Firas Dabbous, manager of patient-centered outcomes research at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Ill.

His team examined data on more than 741,000 screening mammograms conducted on nearly 262,000 women in the Chicago area. The study found that slightly more than 12 percent of the mammograms ended up yielding a false-positive result.

While 15 percent of women who had received a negative result on their mammogram did not have a subsequent mammogram in the database, that number increased to 22 percent for women who'd received a false-positive result.

And among women with more than one mammogram in the database, those with a negative result from the first mammogram were up to 36 percent more likely to undergo another screening within the next three years, compared to those who had a false-positive result on their first mammogram, the researchers said.

Also, the average delay in having a second mammogram screening was 13 months for those who had a false-positive result on their first mammogram, Dabbous' group noted.

Delays and skipped mammograms could have a real impact on a woman's health, the study authors added. They found that the risk of being diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer over the next four years was 0.4 percent among those who had a false-positive result and 0.3 percent for those who had a true negative result. That difference is statistically significant, the researchers said.

The study was published in February in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

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The findings suggest "that we need to more actively encourage women who have a false-positive result from a screening mammogram to adhere to routine screening mammography recommendations, because it has been shown to reduce breast cancer mortality," Dabbous said in a journal news release.

Zalasin agreed. She said that prior research has shown that "women who have had a false-positive mammogram are actually at greater risk for subsequently developing breast cancer. This is why it is extremely important that women continue annual screening mammography, even if they have had the experience of having a false-positive mammogram in the past."

Dr. Kavita Patel specializes in breast imaging and directs the Imaging Center at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. She stressed that the vast majority of mammogram findings that require a callback turn out to be benign.

According to prior research, Patel said that out of every 1,000 women who undergo mammography, about 100 will be called back for additional imaging due to something seen on the scan.

About 61 of those 100 women "will have the additional imaging and find that nothing is wrong," Patel said. Nineteen of the women will undergo a biopsy and only five will be diagnosed with breast cancer, she said.






Ald. Willie Cochran, shown in December 2016, made an unexpected appearance at a special preview screening of "The Obama Years: The Power of Words," a new Smithsonian Channel film about former President Barack Obama. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)

Chicago Ald. Willie B. Cochran isn't the kind of guy to let a little thing like a federal indictment stop him from enjoying a night on the town.

So Cochran  indicted in December for allegedly stealing tens of thousands of dollars from his 20th Ward charity and using the loot to gamble and pay for his daughter's education  made an unexpected appearance Wednesday night at a special preview screening of "The Obama Years: The Power of Words," a new Smithsonian Channel film about former President Barack Obama.

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Understandably, the 64-year-old wasn't too keen to discuss his legal troubles, beyond insisting, as he has before, that he is "absolutely" innocent.

But he did volunteer to Chicago Inc. that he was likely the only person in the room of smartly dressed Democrats and creative types who could boast that the former president had once acted as his lawyer  at least, sort of.

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Back in the early 1980s, when Cochran was a Chicago cop serving on the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corporation, Obama "was our young attorney, and Valerie Jarrett was the chairwoman of the board," Cochran said of Obama, who attended Harvard Law School and trained as a lawyer.

"I've learned so much from him and the people around him," he added at the event at Comcast's Studio Xfinity in Lincoln Park.

Today, Cochran is ably represented by one of the best and most prominent defense attorneys in town, Tom Durkin. But would he swap Durkin for Obama if he could?

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Cochran wasn't biting. "Listen, it was a great lesson," he said. "It was a great experience to know (the Obamas) at that level and to have a relationship with them is something that was very encouraging."

Perhaps not the first endorsement Obama would have sought out but heartfelt, nonetheless.

Smithsonian Channel filmmakers picked the oratorical highlights of Obama's career for their movie, including his 2004 Democratic National Convention speech, his responses to the tragic shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School and at Emanuel AME Church, and his Selma address on the 50th anniversary of the famous civil rights march, and, as an example of his use of humor, his address at the 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner.

Curiously omitted from that last speech was arguably the most memorable and consequential section: his evisceration of Donald Trump's birtherism, often speculated to be the moment that a humiliated Trump vowed to take the White House as revenge.

Smithsonian Channel senior vice president of production, Charles Poe, told Inc. that the moment was not included in the film because it was "too political" for the Smithsonian.

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kjanssen@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @kimjnews
On Aug. 4, 2016, U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush was pulled over in Bronzeville. He was let go without a ticket being issued, but later filed a complaint with IPRA alleging racial profiling. This video contains body cam footage from one of the officers that Rush filed the complaint against. (Source: CPD)

On Aug. 4, 2016, U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush was pulled over in Bronzeville. He was let go without a ticket being issued, but later filed a complaint with IPRA alleging racial profiling. This video contains body cam footage from one of the officers that Rush filed the complaint against. (Source: CPD) (Chicago Police Department/Chicago Tribune)

Chicago police have cleared two officers of wrongdoing over allegations leveled by U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush that he had been racially profiled during a traffic stop last summer on the South Side, a police spokesman said Thursday.

Chief spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the department's Bureau of Internal Affairs found that the two Wentworth District officers acted properly because they had probable cause to make the stop. Earlier that day, officers at roll call had been told to be on the lookout for high-end vehicles because of a rash of thefts throughout the South Side.

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The officers stopped Rush, who is black, in his Lexus RX after learning from a police dispatcher that its license plate was registered to a different vehicle, according to Guglielmi.

Later Thursday, Rush told the Tribune he complained to the Police Department to stand up for people in his community who have gone through "similar harassment" from police.

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"There was no rhyme or reason for them to stop me," he said.

The approximately 7 1/2-minute video  obtained by the Chicago Tribune through a Freedom of Information Act request  shows that throughout the stop, the officer and Rush spoke to each other in calm tones. However, at about six minutes into the video, Rush challenges the validity of the stop.

He asked for the officer's name and star number, saying, "This is my district, and I have never been so embarrassed and humiliated."

"Well, you shouldn't be embarrassed, I mean, we're ..." a female officer said in a reassuring tone.

"Don't tell me what I should be," Rush responded without raising his voice. "I am what I am. What's your name?"

Rush filed a complaint against the officers the same day, alleging he had been pulled over without legal justification because of the color of his skin. The female officer is Hispanic, and her partner is white.

Guglielmi said internal affairs investigators recently closed the case with a ruling of "unfounded."

"The video footage from this traffic stop provides a firsthand look into the professional actions of Chicago police officers that occur throughout the city every day," Guglielmi said. "It also displays the value of body-worn camera technology that allows us to ensure investigations are guided by the facts, provide officers due process, and protect the civil rights of every Chicagoan."

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Rush's maroon Lexus SUV has an Illinois license plate "1" with the words "U.S. Congressman" displayed in smaller letters.

But another "1" vanity plate is registered to a Cadillac owned by a man who lives on the Near North Side, according to Illinois secretary of state records.

Guglielmi couldn't say if the police dispatcher mixed up the two "1" plates, leading the officers to think Rush's Lexus had the wrong plate displayed.

In the Tribune interview, Rush said the traffic stop "infuriated" him because the officers misread the plate despite it identifying him as a congressman and then "compounded their mistake" by telling him the plate was registered to a Cadillac.

"I know how a black man driving a Cadillac is interpreted in our community," he said.

"Here I was on a bright, sunny afternoon driving, not breaking any laws, in a late-model car," he said. "I am honestly not only well-known, well-recognized, high-profile in my community, but I'm also 70 years old with a gray beard. I don't commit crimes, and folks who look like me at my age do not commit crimes."

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The stop took place shortly before 3 p.m. Aug. 4 in the 4700 block of South King Drive.

"Pulling you over because your plates aren't matching the car," the female officer told Rush after she walked up to his driver's side window, according to the video from her body camera.

"How are my plates not matching the car?" Rush asked.

"Your plate is coming back to a Cadillac," the officer replied.

"I never owned a Cadillac," Rush told her in an incredulous tone.

"OK," she said.

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"My name is Congressman, U.S. Congressman Bobby Rush. And this is a government-leased vehicle," he told her.

The officers then walked back to their police SUV. When they returned to Rush's vehicle, his tone had changed to a more irritable one.

"I am a sitting member of Congress," he told her. "I have been driving in this vehicle here for years. Just, those are U.S. Capitol plates, all right?"

"I understand that," the officer replied.

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Rush then told the officer how "embarrassed and humiliated" he was because of the stop.

"I'm pulled over by Chicago Police Department, all right?" he said. "And I've been a member of the City Council for nine years and a congressman for almost 30 years. ... I've never been so embarrassed in my life."

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Rush was let go without a ticket. About an hour later, he filed a complaint about the alleged racial profiling.

The onetime co-founder of the Illinois Black Panther Party has been in Congress since 1993, representing parts of the South Side and Cook and Will counties. He was a Chicago alderman for a decade before that. He lost a race for Chicago mayor in 1999.

An ordained Baptist minister, Rush handily defeated Barack Obama in a primary challenge for the congressional seat in 2000, the former president's only electoral loss.

jgorner@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @JeremyGorner
Chicago Police Department radio traffic from the night Darius Pinex was shot and killed following a traffic stop in the Englewood neighborhood by Officers Raoul Mosqueda and Gildardo Sierra in January 2011. (Chicago Tribune)

Officer Raoul Mosqueda donned his dress uniform last week and joined Mayor Rahm Emanuel and top Chicago police officials at a graduation and promotion ceremony at Navy Pier.

Mosqueda, a 10-year department veteran, was celebrating his appointment to field training officer, a post that would position him to train rookie cops.

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In a decision made public Thursday, however, police disciplinary authorities recommended he be fired for allegedly lying in court about his fatal shooting of Darius Pinex  a case that cost the city millions of dollars in a legal settlement and proved an embarrassment for Emanuel's Law Department.

In its 34-page report, the Independent Police Review Authority pointed to serious discrepancies between a police dispatch recording and the accounts repeatedly given by Mosqueda about the events that led to the shooting. The city settled a lawsuit in December from Pinex's family for about $3.5 million.

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Just days after top police officials congratulated Mosqueda on his new appointment as a field training officer, he was stripped of his police powers earlier this week after the department had received the IPRA report, said police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.

The following dashboard camera video released by the Indpendent Police Review Authority shows the traffic stop the night Darius Pinex was shot and killed in the Englewood neighborhood in January 2011. (IPRA) (Independent Police Review Authority/Chicago Tribune)

Mosqueda could not be reached for comment.

The case illustrates the persistence of the city's problems with law enforcement and oversight more than a year after the release of a video of an officer shooting Laquan McDonald 16 times sparked outrage and promises of reform.

Mosqueda and his partner fired into a moving car at a man who had not displayed a weapon  the kind of questionable decision seen in numerous other shootings and a tactic sharply criticized in the recent report on the city's police by the U.S. Department of Justice.

In addition, Mosqueda is only the latest of several Chicago police officers recently accused by disciplinary authorities of lying to cover up the facts of a problematic shooting.

Darius Pinex was fatally shot by Chicago police in January 2011. (Family photo)

The damage from Mosqueda's statements spread beyond the Police Department during the court fight over the Pinex family's lawsuit as a veteran city attorney resigned hours after a federal judge found he intentionally concealed the recordings from the family's lawyers. A Tribune investigation last year detailed how the department has routinely failed to turn over potential evidence in police misconduct lawsuits.

Then, with IPRA days from closing the case, the Police Department appointed Mosqueda to field training officer  first revealed in a front-page Tribune story.

Now police Superintendent Eddie Johnson has 90 days to decide whether to seek to fire Mosqueda.

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Pinex's mother, Gloria, who was furious when Mosqueda was appointed to train other officers, said Thursday she was "delighted" that he could face dismissal.

"He didn't deserve to wear the badge," she said.

Gloria Pinex talks about the death of her son Darius Pinex, who was shot and killed by a Chicago police officer in 2011. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune) (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)

IPRA's report did not call for his dismissal, but spokeswoman Mia Sissac confirmed that the agency has recommended he be fired.

IPRA found there wasn't enough credible evidence to conclusively determine whether the shooting itself violated policy. Any effort to fire him over the shooting would likely have faced a strong challenge because the famously sluggish IPRA took more than six years to investigate, going beyond the five-year statute of limitations to punish an officer for using excessive force.

An attorney for the Pinex family, Steve Greenberg, said in a written statement that he hoped the recommendation would have "a chilling effect on the serial lying that is all too common" among police.

Asked about Mosqueda's appointment as a field training officer, Guglielmi has said top police officials have little control over who becomes a trainer, citing limitations imposed by the police union contract.

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In the incident in January 2011, Mosqueda and his partner, Gildardo Sierra, boxed in the car driven by Pinex, exiting with guns drawn. The officers alleged Pinex, who had a history of drug arrests, refused orders and threw the vehicle in reverse, hitting a light pole and then gunning the car forward. Mosqueda fatally shot Pinex in the head, though Sierra also opened fire, records show. Investigators found a gun beneath the driver's seat, police reports showed.

Mosqueda later reported that they stopped the car because they heard a police dispatch saying it was involved in an earlier shooting. At the trial over the Pinex family's lawsuit, however, a recording emerged that contradicted Mosqueda's testimony. The officer had claimed the dispatch had matched Pinex's vehicle, but the recording didn't match the specifics of his Oldsmobile Aurora and didn't mention any shooting, raising doubts about the lawfulness of the traffic stop.

In its report, IPRA concluded that Mosqueda lied on three occasions  during his initial statement to IPRA investigators, at a deposition for the lawsuit and then on the stand at trial. Even after the trial, Mosqueda stood by his version while giving another statement to IPRA investigators in September, the report said.

In addition to finding that Mosqueda lied, IPRA held that the recordings cast doubts on the probable cause for the traffic stop and ruled that it was legally unjustified.

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Meanwhile, the shooting marked the third involving Sierra  two of them fatal  in less than six months in 2011. Last year, IPRA ruled the other fatal shooting unjustified, though the decision had little practical effect, because Sierra resigned in 2015.

Mosqueda's case is not the first in which IPRA took so long to make a decision that it lost the opportunity to recommend discipline for a potentially unwarranted use of force. The agency last year allowed the statute of limitations to expire in an excessive force allegation against Lt. Glenn Evans, who has been the subject of dozens of citizen complaints.

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The IPRA investigation into Mosqueda was nearing the five-year mark in December 2015 when the agency's chief administrator, Scott Ando, resigned and Emanuel replaced him with Sharon Fairley in the fallout from the video showing Officer Jason Van Dyke shooting McDonald 16 times as the teen walked away from police.

Emanuel's administration is in the process of replacing IPRA with the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, which is intended to have more funding and wider authority and will also be run by Fairley at its start.

In nearly a decade of investigating hundreds of police shootings, IPRA has ruled that six shootings  three of them fatal  violated policy. Four of those rulings have come in the 14 months since Fairley was appointed.

dhinkel@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @dhinkel
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An Amtrak police officer shot and wounded a man near Union Station on Wednesday night, but officials were releasing few details about it.



The officer shot the 25-year-old man in the left shoulder around 8:45 p.m. in the 300 block of South Canal Street, authorities said. He was taken in serious-to-critical condition to Stroger Hospital.



An Amtrak representative said the officer was not injured and referred questions to Chicago police.



Neither Amtrak nor Chicago police would say whether a gun was recovered from the wounded man. Police did say cash and drugs were found on him.



Canal Street between Van Buren and Harrison streets were blocked off late Wednesday as police investigated the shooting just down from Union Station. Officers also taped off a small area in front of the station near Canal and Jackson Boulevard.



Check back for updates.
Four people protesting the Dakota Access pipeline were arrested Wednesday when they sat down and chained themselves together in a Loop branch of a bank that is one of the lenders financing the project, according to activists.

The four were arrested on suspicion of criminal trespass after entering the property in the first block of West Washington Street a little after 3 p.m. and then refusing to leave, according to a police media notification.

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People involved with Illinois Water Protectors, a group that works in the Chicago area to build opposition to the pipeline, said in a statement that a group of people had entered the Citibank, 69 W. Washington, "to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline and the push by the Trump administration to grant the final permit without regard to tribal and public consultation."

Video from the scene showed that four people who stayed in the bank after they were asked to leave had sat down and chained themselves together before Chicago police SWAT officers arrested them.

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The Army on Wednesday granted the developer of the oil pipeline formal permission to lay pipe under a Missouri River reservoir in North Dakota, clearing the way for completion of the disputed $3.8 billion project.

The Standing Rock Sioux tribe, which is concerned a pipeline leak could pollute its drinking water, has vowed to challenge the Army's decision in court.

The stretch under Lake Oahe is the final large chunk of work on the 1,200-mile pipeline that would carry North Dakota oil through the Dakotas and Iowa to a shipping point in Illinois.

Citibank is one of the lenders on the project, according to statements on the Citgroup, Inc. website. In a statement released Jan. 30 to "stakeholders," Citibank said that the situation with the pipeline has "the attention and focus of our senior executives."

"We understand that many stakeholders believe that banks should withdraw the project loan," according to the statement. "However, we have signed a contract to provide the loan and cannot terminate this contract unilaterally."

The Associated Press contributed.
The FBI released this photo of a car that could have been involved in the suspected abduction of an Illinois couple. (FBI)

A person was taken into custody following the possible abduction of an Illinois couple from a home about 140 miles west of Chicago in rural Erie.

The FBI announced the arrest early Thursday. It said the couple was found alive and in good health.

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On Wednesday, federal agents, along with the Whiteside County sheriff's office, had asked for the public's help in the investigation of the possible abduction of a man and a woman.

They did not release details about what happened, but they believed whoever possibly abducted the couple did so for financial reasons, according to a news release.

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Agents searched a two-tone silver Chevrolet Caprice that could have been involved, according to the release.

Check back for updates.
In a video posted to YouTube on Feb. 2, 2017, Heather Mack confesses to the 2014 murder of her mother, Sheila von Wiese-Mack, while they were on vacation in Bali, Indonesia. (YouTube)

In a video posted to YouTube on Feb. 2, 2017, Heather Mack confesses to the 2014 murder of her mother, Sheila von Wiese-Mack, while they were on vacation in Bali, Indonesia. (YouTube) (Youtube/Chicago Tribune)

BALI, Indonesia  A Chicago-area woman imprisoned in Indonesia for killing her mother has retracted statements made in YouTube videos that her boyfriend, also convicted in the same case, was innocent.

A statement released by Heather Mack and her lawyer Yulius Benyamin Seran on Wednesday said the assertions in the videos were false and recorded under pressure. The statement said Mack, 21, was reading words written by her boyfriend Tommy Schaefer, formerly of Oak Park.

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In a series of three videos posted last week, Mack, who grew up in Oak Park but most recently lived in Chicago, says Schaefer was trying to protect her when he confessed to striking her 62-year-old mother, Sheila von Weise-Mack, in the head with a metal fruit bowl.

Mack's statement said the video was uploaded to YouTube by someone who deliberately created an account in her name.

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Bali prison warden Tonny Nainggolan said authorities were investigating who recorded and uploaded the videos. He said neither Mack nor Schaefer had admitted to producing or uploading the videos and blamed each other.

The two were convicted in April 2015 of premeditated murder, which carries a maximum penalty of death. Schaefer was sentenced to 18 years in prison while Mack, who gave birth during the trial, received a 10-year prison sentence.

Von Wiese-Mack, of Chicago, was the widow of highly regarded jazz and classical composer James L. Mack, who died in 2006 at the age of 76.

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Schaefer testified at his trial that von Wiese-Mack was angry when she learned about her daughter's pregnancy and tried to strangle him, prompting him to strike her with a metal fruit bowl.

In the videos, Mack said she plotted to kill her mother herself because Schaefer refused to help find someone who would kill her mother for $50,000.

"After that I got this new savage idea in my head that I wanted to kill her in a hotel room because she killed my father in a hotel room," she said. "We were going to Bali, then I began to plot."

Mack, the composer, died in a hotel room in Athens, Greece, after suffering a pulmonary embolism, according to his Chicago Tribune obituary.

Prosecutors said the two discussed killing von Weise-Mack in text messages, but in the videos Mack said she took Schaefer's phone when he was asleep and sent text messages to her own phone.

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"Tommy's an innocent man," Mack said. She said he helped her stuff the body in a suitcase and clean up the murder scene only because she threatened to tell police that he committed the crime.

Associated Press
Keith Cooper, 49, of Country Club Hills, talks about being granted an Indiana gubernatorial pardon on Feb. 10, 2017. His attorney Elliot Slosar is at left and his wife Nicole Cooper at right. Newly elected Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb granted Keith Cooper a pardon for a 1996 armed robbery that ended in a shooting. It is believed to be that state's first gubernatorial pardon based on actual innocence. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)

The new governor of Indiana on Thursday pardoned a wrongfully convicted Chicago-area man who spent nearly a decade in prison for an armed robbery and shooting, marking what experts say is the first time in that state's history a gubernatorial pardon was granted based on actual innocence.

Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb said he had thought about Keith Cooper and the campaign promise he made to pardon him every day since he took the oath of office about one month ago. Cooper's request had remained in limbo for nearly three years, and now-Vice President Mike Pence left the Indiana governor's office without acting.

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The Tribune was the first to profile the confounding case in March 2015. Since then, several national media outlets have chronicled Cooper's quest, leading to an online petition campaign with more than 100,000 signatures and an active social media following.

"I'm overwhelmed," Cooper, a forklift driver from Country Club Hills, said Thursday. "I'm at a loss for words."

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Cooper, now a 49-year-old grandfather, had three young children when he began serving a 40-year prison term for a 1996 armed robbery in Elkhart, Ind., that left one of the victims clinging to life with a gunshot wound.

The Indiana Court of Appeals overturned a co-defendant's conviction and ordered a new trial in December 2005. Prosecutors dropped charges against the man, Christopher Parish, before his second trial began. Parish eventually was awarded a $5 million federal civil rights settlement.

Cooper was given the choice of a new trial before the judge who had convicted him or being released as a convicted felon. He opted to go home in 2006 to his wife and children, who at times were homeless and lived in shelters while he was in prison, Cooper said.

After his release, Cooper said, he put his legal ordeal behind him until 2008 when a recent college graduate working on the co-defendant's lawsuit while interning at a prominent Chicago wrongful-conviction law firm put the pieces of the puzzle together. Elliot Slosar said he wanted to uncover the truth. Several years later, it was Slosar who called Cooper on Thursday to deliver the good news.

"He was very emotional," said Slosar, a Loevy & Loevy attorney. "This is a historic day for Keith, the other victims in his case and for all citizens in Indiana."

Keith Cooper speaks during a Feb. 3, 2014, Indiana Parole Board hearing. (Courtesy of Eliot Slosar of Loevy & Loevy) (Courtesy Of Eliot Slosar Of Loevy & Loevy/Chicago Tribune)

DNA evidence long ago pointed to another man as the shooter, and the victims and former prosecutor who helped convict him now say Cooper is innocent. In March 2014, after the victims recanted and made an impassioned plea on Cooper's behalf, the Indiana Parole Board unanimously recommended that Pence grant the pardon.

Still, in a September 2016 letter, Pence's general counsel told Cooper he first must pursue all possible judicial options before the governor will act on the pardon request. The move essentially allowed Pence, then a Republican vice presidential candidate, to avoid ruling on Cooper's claim of innocence until a new Indiana governor took over in January.

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Holcomb cited the state parole board's support for the pardon, along with the backing of the prosecutor and witnesses in the case. During a gubernatorial debate before the election, Holcomb  then the Republican lieutenant governor  pledged to swiftly pardon Cooper if elected.

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"Keith Cooper has waited long enough and is deserving of a pardon," Holcomb said in a statement Thursday.

Cooper, who has remarried but remains friends with his ex-wife, said one good thing came out of his time behind bars. He went in a high school dropout and emerged with a college associate degree and certificates of achievement in hospice care and prison ministry.

"I did get an education," he earlier told the Tribune, "and that's something that can never be taken back from me."

Besides the robbery conviction, Cooper had asked to be pardoned for battery he committed in custody. Cooper said he broke a man's jaw in self-defense during an attempted sexual assault in jail. Holcomb said he declined to act on the battery because Cooper has admitted his guilt.

cmgutowski@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @christygutowsk1
Dividing the Lakefront Trail into separate paths for cyclists and pedestrians to help ease congestion and reduce collisions moved a step forward Wednesday when the Chicago Park District board approved a $1.7 million contract for engineering and design services.

The approval of the two-year, $1.7 million contract with AECOM, a Los Angeles-based engineering design firm with offices in Chicago, follows a $12 million donation from billionaire Ken Griffin to fund the completion of the split for the entire Lakefront Trail, which is expected to be completed in 2018.

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Safety on the trail, which is heavily used in the summer with an estimated 100,000 people per weekend day, has long been a concern for users of the path.

Under the contract with the Park District, covered by Griffin's donation, AECOM would develop renderings, participate in community meetings, prepare cost estimates and create plans for rerouting trail users during construction. Additionally, the company would look at landscape design, conduct utility surveys and identify whether any sewer, water or electric lines may have to be relocated. AECOM also provided lead engineering services for the new runway at O'Hare International Airport, 31st Street Harbor and the pedestrian bridges at 41st and 43rd streets that connect to the lakefront.

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The Park District anticipates starting construction this spring on full trail separation and expects Griffin's gift to cover the cost of the entire project, spokeswoman Jessica Maxey-Faulkner said in an email.

"The bicycle trail would accommodate primarily patrons using the (lakefront) park to bike to work or bike through the park without having to weave in and out of slower-paced walkers and joggers," according to a Park District document. "The pedestrian trail would be designated for people using the park for walking, jogging and pushing strollers."

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Some segments of the 18-mile-long Lakefront Trail from Ardmore Avenue on the north and 71st Street on the south already have separate paths for cyclists and pedestrians.

The trail near Fullerton Parkway has had two separate paths since November 2015, part of a bigger project to add six acres of parkland along the lakefront and install a concrete sea wall to protect the shoreline.

In March 2016, the city said it planned to extend separate trails from Fullerton south to Ohio Street and divide it between 31st and 51st streets. Some work on the south leg of the trail began last summer, and separation has been completed from 31st to 35th streets.

The North Side stretch from Fullerton to Ohio was expected to be trickier to design because there's not much room in some areas for separate spaces for cyclists and pedestrians. For example, the Lakefront Trail over the narrow Diversey Harbor bridge will be a single path, Maxey-Faulkner said.

The section of the Lakefront Trail from Ohio Street beach to just south of the Chicago River, known as the Navy Pier flyover, is under construction and will have separate lanes along one path for cyclists and pedestrians.

lvivanco@chicagotribune.com

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Police are searching for a 68-year-old man who has been missing since late Wednesday in the Marquette Park neighborhood. (Provided by Chicago Police Department)

Police are searching for a man with epilepsy who was last seen late Wednesday in the Marquette Park neighborhood on the South Side.

James Harland, 68, was reported missing just after midnight Thursday. He was least heard from about 11:15 p.m. Wednesday, Chicago police said.

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He was last heard from while he was in the 6300 block of South California Avenue, but he could also be near the 2800 block of South California Boulevard in Little Village.

He has epilepsy and is missing all of his fingers, police said. He is described as a black man who is 5 feet 6 inches and weighs about 160 pounds, police said. He is bald and was last seen wearing jeans, a red jacket and black gym shoes.

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Anyone with information about Harland's whereabouts is asked to call Area Central Detectives at (312) 747-8380.
A Chicago police officer was injured early Thursday while responding to a call of a man slumped over the wheel of a car in the Heart of Chicago neighborhood, police said.

Officers were called to the 2300 block of South Hoyne Avenue around 3:55 a.m. and tried to make contact with the driver, police said. The motorist became startled and pressed on the gas pedal, police said.

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One of the officers was injured by the car's door, police said. The officer was taken in good condition to Stroger Hospital.

Information about the motorist was not immediately available.
These handguns were being processed as potential evidence in the gun storage vault in the Chicago Police Department's Homan Square facility on Jan. 26, 2017. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)

Nearly one-sixth of Cook County gunshot victims suffering serious injuries were not treated at trauma centers, according to a study by the University of Illinois at Chicago. But some local emergency medical services directors say the study is misleading.

Lee Friedman, associate professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at UIC School of Public Health and one of the authors of the paper published in JAMA Surgery, found that the majority of patients who needed to be treated at a trauma unit ended up there, but about 16 percent were treated at community hospitals.

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"On a local level on the West and South side of Cook County, there's a lot of room for improvement, and the main thing is in southern Cook County," Friedman said. "In the southern third of our county, there are no hospitals with trauma units at all south of 100th Street. There's a very large proportion of people in the county who don't have the access, and the community hospitals are picking up the slack."

Although the University of Chicago plans to open an adult trauma care center at its Hyde Park campus in 2018, it is still more than a 7-mile drive for patients who are south of 100th Street.

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In 2016, Chicago had 784 homicides and 4,367 shootings, much of that violence concentrated on the South and West sides, according to Tribune data. This year, shootings are up about 8 percent from 2016, and homicides are down about 20 percent.

The UIC study used information gathered from outpatient and inpatient data from the Illinois Hospital Association, which is "almost a complete census" of all the patients who go into emergency rooms in the state, Friedman said.

During the five years studied from 2009 to 2013, there were nearly 5,000 firearm-related injuries in the county that were serious enough for treatment at a trauma center. Of those injuries, 18 percent were first treated at a nontrauma center and 10 percent of those were transferred to one of the county's 19 designated trauma centers.

The study calls for "better regional coordination," especially when it comes to transfers between hospitals with trauma centers and community hospitals.

Friedman suggests that hospitals establish signed agreements between facilities, set up protocols, and improve communication between trauma hospitals and community hospitals. This can lead to more awareness, partnerships for rehab and other outpatient services, and emergency preparedness.

However, EMS medical directors from Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Stroger Hospital, Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, University of Chicago Medical Center and Mount Sinai Hospital disagreed with the study, saying they follow guidelines that meet the national standard in EMS trauma triage, and the data used to complete the study lacks specifics about patients who drove themselves to nontrauma centers as well as patients transported by EMS.

"Additionally, the author's lack of knowledge of EMS policies and protocols cause them to reach incorrect and misleading conclusions," four medical directors wrote in a joint response to the study. "We recommend that researchers interested in EMS triage should attempt to collaborate with their local EMS provider agencies, administrators and medical directors in an attempt to learn how EMS systems actually function and to base their research on the most accurate data available."

For many hospitals, communication between facilities is a built-in part of treating trauma patients. Dr. Ryan Sullivan, a trauma and critical care surgeon at Mount Sinai Hospital, said the trauma center, which is classified as the highest tier of trauma care, has transfer and communication plans that are essential to their relationship with dozens of community hospitals. Sullivan also emphasized that the conditions under which a patient is transferred is "algorithmic."

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"Pretty much every hospital that doesn't provide any service has a transfer agreement in place with another hospital in the city," Sullivan said.

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Friedman defended the study, saying that the researchers were aware of hospital protocols and examined the limitations of their data. He wrote that the key policy issue was coordination and communication between hospitals rather than the training of EMS service providers.

Friedman said he believes the number of gunshot victims treated at community hospitals will increase because hospitals with trauma centers will be inundated with patients and have to divert some, making communication key.

There's been a steady closure of trauma units nationwide for the past 15 years because a large part of the population is uninsured, driving up costs, Friedman said.

He also noted that a potential repeal of the Affordable Care Act will increase financial pressures on trauma centers.

"We might see an escalation or rapid increase in the closure of trauma units, which will affect poor communities more than wealthy communities," Friedman said. "Our disparity is only going to get worse."

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gwong@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @GraceWong630
Is the biggest chunk of vacant land on Chicago's lakefront, once home to U.S. Steel Corp.'s legendary South Works mill, finally going to get developed and become a vibrant link in the city's renowned chain of shoreline parks?

As Frank Livak, a 64-year-old former machinist at the mill, fished Tuesday along the site's enormous slip, he voiced skepticism about a Spanish housing developer's nascent plan to build as many as 12,000 homes there.

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"You got a hell of a lot of vacant lots" already in the neighborhood, Livak said.

Anyone familiar with the litany of big plans and bigger flops for the South Works site, which sprawls from 79th Street on the north to 91st Street on the south, is likely to echo Livak's doubts.

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It's been nearly 25 years since the 1992 closing of the mill, which once employed thousands of people and served as a lifeblood for the neighborhoods around it. Just about all that remains of the demolished mill are unused rail lines and massive concrete walls, roughly 30 feet high and 2,000 feet long. Cranes would lift the raw materials for making steel from ore boats docked in the slip and deposit them between the walls.

The list of failures is long. A plan to build a Solo Cup factory on the site fizzled about 10 years ago. So did a $4 billion plan, by Chicago-based McCaffery Interests and Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel, which envisioned more than 13,000 homes and a 1,500-slip marina. After parting ways with McCaffery, U.S. Steel put the parcel up for sale last year.

Now, a joint venture led by Barcelona Housing Systems, which makes modular housing, is reportedly closing in on a purchase of the 430-acre property.

The firm's website describes plans for 12,000 homes, to be built in four phases of about 3,000 homes each. Renderings show homes laid out in a hollow-square patterns with green spaces in the middle. There would be a marina along the slip, new parkland along the lakefront and plazas interspersed among the modest houses.

While the bird's-eye view renderings look rough, almost mechanical, as preliminary plans often do, the local alderman insists this is no pipe dream.

"I think it's very real," said Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza, 10th. "It's not just going to be a big Mariano's sign in the middle of a field saying 'Mariano's coming soon.'"

At this early stage, details are hard to come by. Calls to the North American office of Barcelona Housing Systems in San Francisco were not returned. Real estate brokers Cushman & Wakefield, which rebranded the site as 8080 Lakeshore after being hired by U.S. Steel to sell the parcel, also did not return calls. A spokeswoman for U.S. Steel declined to comment.

Yet some details are trickling out.

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Barcelona Housing Systems wants to build a factory to make the components of the houses on the site, Garza said. She was impressed by the firm's construction techniques, which do not place houses atop concrete foundations but bolt them into the ground. BHS' modular houses are put together like Legos and are expected to be relatively inexpensive.

And the alderman does not expect buried residue from the mill to pose health and safety problems.

"I grew up in this neighborhood. I'm OK," she said. "I don't have two heads."

A visit Tuesday revealed that, despite the lack of new building construction since 1992, the site is less isolated than it once was.

Cars now course through the parcel's western side, riding along a 4-year-old section of Lake Shore Drive that is an attractive boulevard rather than an intimidating expressway.

Another boulevard at 87th Street extends eastward to the appropriately named Steelworkers Park, which brings visitors close to the massive concrete walls along the slip and offers expansive views of Lake Michigan. In addition, the site is less than a 10-minute drive from the planned Obama Presidential Center, which will be built in Jackson Park.

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In short, there's a nice collection of public spaces percolating here. But that's just a beginning. If Barcelona Housing Systems buys the site, many questions should be on the table:

Will its modular houses be durable? Will they offer architectural variety or resemble the monotonous housing complexes that have proliferated in recent years in China?

Will the firm make good on its promise to urbanize the site rather than turn it into a series of suburban-style enclaves? And will it make creative use of the concrete walls along the slip, putting distinctive cultural facilities like a South Works museum there, not just the usual shops and restaurants? Garza said Barcelona Housing Systems plans to save and reuse the walls.

What recreational activities, like a continuation of the Lakefront Trail and new climbing walls, would be included to draw people from throughout Chicago and the suburbs? And will the new development be economically inclusive, rather than gentrified, making room for continued use by fishermen like Livak?

If a marina is built, "we ain't going to be able to fish here no more," the former U.S. Steel machinist predicted.

bkamin@chicagotribune.com

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Mayor Rahm Emanuel, shown in January, responded again to President Donald Trump repeatedly bringing up Chicago violence while the mayor was a guest Feb. 9, 2017, on WGN-AM 720. Its sad that a president is ill-informed and continues to repeat things, Emanuel said. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday said it's "not a good thing" for the country if people don't take seriously what a president says.

The comment came as the mayor appeared on WGN-AM 720 and responded again to President Donald Trump repeatedly bringing up Chicago violence. "It's sad that a president is ill-informed and continues to repeat things," Emanuel said on "The Steve Cochran Show," before repeating his argument that violence is up in many American cities that Trump doesn't speak about publicly.

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The mayor suggested that at some point, Trump was given bad advice that the best way to deal with violence is simply for police to get tougher. He reiterated Chicago would like federal aid in specific areas, including gun prosecutions and funding for mentoring programs, but said Trump's hurting his own credibility by saying things that aren't true.

"My thing is, it's helpful to have a president as a partner. I know the difference between not and having that partner," he said. "We're ready. But let's be actually informed about what the problem is, and then we could be informed about what the solution is, and not just kind of repeat stuff that's not only not true.

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"But actually, it's not helpful if people basically across the country say, 'Ah, it's the president,' and just shrug as if it's not serious. That's not a good thing for us as a country if people don't take what the president's saying seriously," the mayor said. "And that's, you know, you're allowed to have your own opinion, obviously. You just can't have your own facts."

Emanuel said he doesn't know why Trump focuses so often on Chicago. "You're asking me to try to figure out what's going on in this president's head? I can't do that for you," the mayor said during the radio interview.

For more than a year, Trump has time and again talked about the problem of violence in Chicago. In less than three weeks in office, he's turned to the topic five times.

The latest came Wednesday, when Trump told a conference of police chiefs and sheriffs that immigrants in the U.S. illegally are driving up crime.

"You have to call the federal government, Homeland Security, because so much of the problems  you look at Chicago and you look at other places. So many of the problems are caused by gang members, many of whom are not even legally in our country," Trump said.

Trump offered no evidence for his claim. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said she doesn't "know anyone in Chicago who believes" immigrants living here illegally cause Chicago's gang problems.

"Unfortunately, the difficulties that we have are homegrown. They are not a function of illegal immigrants," she said.

jebyrne@chicagotribune.com

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Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, D-Chicago,is sponsoring legislation that would eliminate a so-called trigger provision in state law that automatically would make abortion illegal in Illinois if the abortion rights ruling Roe v. Wade is overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

SPRINGFIELD  Pushing back against Republican President Donald Trump, one Democratic state lawmaker is sponsoring legislation aimed at protecting Illinois women's access to abortion services.

The plan from State Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, D-Chicago, would eliminate a so-called trigger provision in state law that automatically would make abortion illegal in Illinois if the abortion rights ruling Roe v. Wade is overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. The proposal also would allow women with Medicaid and state employee health insurance to use their coverage for abortions.

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Feigenholtz said her effort is a direct response to Trump, who has said he would appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade.

Before the court decision, abortion in Illinois was illegal unless the mother's life was at stake. A law passed in 1975  two years after the case  says that while abortion is now legal, the state would return to its former policy if the decision is ever reversed or modified.

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"We really have to protect Illinois women and make an affirmative statement as a General Assembly that says Illinois is going to be a state where abortion is safe and legal no matter what happens with the Supreme Court and Donald Trump," Feigenholtz said.

The legislation is part of a broader agenda announced Wednesday by House and Senate Democrats that represents resistance to Trump in the legislature their party controls. Democrats detailed their fears that he'll push to weaken women's rights, and they protested the president's executive order banning immigrants and refugees from some Muslim-majority countries.

The abortion legislation cleared an Illinois House committee Wednesday despite concerns from some Republicans that the plan would remove a section of the 1975 law that says an unborn child is a human being from the time of conception and has a right to life.

"I think we have the responsibility to recognize that even an unborn child is a human being," said Rep. Sheri Jesiel, R-Winthrop Harbor. "We have that responsibility as a culture. We have that responsibility as a state. By striking that from the language, we do not do that."

The proposal has far to go before becoming law. It still needs a full House vote, Senate approval and a signature from Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner. Rauner avoided talk about social issues while campaigning but has since signed off on legislation that requires doctors who refuse to perform abortions for moral reasons to give patients information on where they can get the procedure elsewhere. That law is now before the courts.

Other efforts announced Wednesday call for paid sick time, paid family medical leave and access to free feminine hygiene products for students in grades 6-12. The group emphasized that more legislation could come up during session as it discusses other issues and the impact of the state budget impasse on women.

Sen. Melinda Bush, D-Grayslake, said she is hoping to build on momentum from last year, when she successfully rolled back the sales tax on feminine hygiene products. Her new focus centers on legislation that seeks to prevent tailors, dry cleaners, hair salons and barbers from charging men and women different prices for the same services.

"I want to make sure that women are not being discriminated against for services," Bush said.

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Under the proposal, businesses would be required to display a price list for their 15 most popular services, along with a sign informing customers about the state's anti-discrimination policy. Sellers would also have to provide a complete written price list to customers upon request. Businesses that violate the policy could wind up with a $1,000 fine.

"Women have had the vote for 100 years, and there are still pieces of women's rights that we just have to be paying more attention to," Bush said.

hbemiller@chicagotribune.com
President-elect Donald Trump and Todd Ricketts, a co-owner of the Chicago Cubs, shake hands as Ricketts leaves the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster clubhouse in Bedminster, N.J., on Nov. 19, 2016. (Carolyn Kaster / AP)

Welcome to Clout Street: Morning Spin, our weekday feature to catch you up with what's going on in government and politics from Chicago to Springfield.

Topspin

Chicago Cubs co-owner Todd Ricketts has been pressed for details about his fundraising efforts for two groups by three Democratic U.S. senators who will consider his nomination to be the No. 2 official at the Commerce Department.

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The senators, Tom Udall of New Mexico, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Edward Markey of Massachusetts, wanted to know more about the potential for conflict of interest through his involvement with the groups.

One group is Future45, a super political action committee that by the end of 2016 had spent nearly $25 million against unsuccessful White House candidate Hillary Clinton. The total was reported by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which noted that Ricketts' father, Joe Ricketts, gave the group $1 million in September. He is the founder and former CEO of TD Ameritrade.

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The other organization is the 45Committee, a "dark money" group that does not list donors but spends money to advocate for the election or defeat of candidates, though not in coordination with the candidate or their campaign.

The senators noted the 45Committee was devoting millions of dollars to TV ads to boost the prospects of President Donald Trump's Cabinet nominees, naming Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., for U.S. attorney general and Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., for Health and Human Services Department secretary. Sessions was confirmed Wednesday by the Senate.

The 45Committee spent more than $18 million against Clinton and more than $3 million in support of Trump, the Center for Responsive Politics said.

The senators, in a letter dated Tuesday, said many news stories and other sources indicated that Todd Ricketts led the two groups and raised funds for them.

The senators said the Commerce Department "has wide jurisdiction and power over the American economy, business and communities, from international trade to domestic manufacturing to wireless spectrum and coastal fisheries." The department "can positively or negatively impact individuals' jobs and companies' bottom lines," the senators said.

"If nominees and officials to the highest positions at this department are raising and spending money for partisan political causes without disclosing their donors, the opportunities for conflicts of interest and abuse of power are vast and far-reaching," the senators said.

The senators said they needed to understand Todd Ricketts' leadership roles with the two groups to evaluate possible conflicts of interest and whether he would need to recuse himself from certain matters at the department.

The senators also asked Todd Ricketts for all donations in the past five years that he or his family has made to politically active nonprofits known as 501(c)(4) groups.

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A Ricketts spokesman could not be reached for comment.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., also sits on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, which has not yet announced when it will hold a confirmation hearing on Ricketts. (Katherine Skiba, reporting from Washington)

What's on tap

*Mayor Rahm Emanuel is set to give an afternoon speech on infrastructure.

*Gov. Bruce Rauner is in Peoria for a late morning minority business event, and in Chicago for an evening celebration of the Chinese Lunar new year.

*MSNBC's Chris Hayes is scheduled to host a "town hall" discussion on Chicago violence.

*The Illinois House and Senate are in session for the last day of the week.

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*The Illinois Campaign for Political Reform in a morning news conference will call for a system in Illinois that would give some candidates access to public money if they raise lots of small donations.

What we're writing

*Kennedy enters 2018 Illinois governor's race, ripping Rauner for causing 'economic chaos'.

*Fissures surface in Illinois Senate over far-reaching budget framework.

*Illinois Democrats push back against Trump on abortion.

*Preckwinkle says she's 'deeply troubled' by Trump's Obamacare stance.

*Trump blames Chicago crime on gang members 'not even legally in our country.'

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*In response to firefighter's death, Emanuel pushes tighter building code enforcement.

*Republicans cry foul over CPS chief's letter to parents.

*O'Hare runway plan helped spread noise around, might be renewed.

*House bill aims to increase pharmacy safety, draws fire.

*Unions tell CTA: Port-a-potties unacceptable for bus, rail workers.

What we're reading

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*A look at Speaker Michael Madigan's long history in Illinois (with an interesting anecdote about an index card). *Aldi announces $1.6 billion renovation that will include Chicago-area stores.

*The Chicago Bears just had their worst record since the 1970s. Ticket prices are going up.

From the notebook

*State worker paychecks: House Democrats on Wednesday pushed ahead with legislation aimed at ensuring state workers continue to get paid during the budget impasse. The plan, which cleared a committee and now goes to the full House, appropriates money for state employee salaries through June 30, the end of the budget year. Lawmakers are trying to push the bill to prevent a disruption in pay after Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan asked a St. Clair County judge to dissolve an order that kept paychecks going out the door despite the lack of a budget. A hearing is set in that case for next week.



Republicans questioned whether the bill appropriates enough money to cover paychecks for the rest of the year. Sponsoring Rep. Sue Scherer, D-Decatur, acknowledged their concerns, saying some agencies did not respond to requests about how much money they would need to cover salaries. But Scherer said she would prefer to move the bill along, adding that lawmakers could come back and approve additional funding as needed.



We cant have people suffering because were holding up deadlines because an agency didnt get back with us, Scherer said.



But Republicans contend both parties should work together on a bill now and not rush the process.



We need to be certain that these figures are right, and with an issue as important as this, it shouldnt be a partisan issue, said Rep. Sara Wojcicki Jimenez, R-Leland Grove. (Haley BeMiller) *County email measure watered down: The Cook County Board on Wednesday approved a watered-down proposal aimed at making sure official government business done on private email accounts is subject to requests filed under Illinois open records law. Gone from the ordinance proposed by Commissioner Larry Suffredin was a requirement that all county employees do official electronic business only through their county-issued email accounts. Also missing: a ban on using texts to do that business and a rule against also using social media, unless its to broadcast information to the general public. Instead, the measure requires that elected officials and their top staff agree to provide emails about county business if its subject to the Illinois Freedom of Information Act. It also gives a county working group until April 17 to come up with a policy related to email, text and social media use by council officials and workers. Well see what they get on April 17 and then well take appropriate action at that point, Suffredin, D-Evanston, said after the vote. The whole idea here today was to make sure that people understand what communications are subject to the requests, he said, pointing to the difficulty of setting a policy to cover thousands of officials and employees working at various locations throughout the county. The overall goal for us to know where any governmental communication takes place and have it available if it is necessary, either for FOIA or for litigation  or for whatever else we may need. Suffredin first proposed the stricter policy in March, only to meet with resistance from officials who said they were worried about others seeing personal communications with family and friends. Such communications are not subject to open records requests. Suffredin said. Nevertheless, several commissioners continued to expressed those concerns Wednesday, prompting Suffredin to say, Were not trying to be the mind police here. (Hal Dardick) *How they voted on Sessions: Illinois' two Democratic senators on Wednesday voted against the confirmation of Sen. Jeff Sessions, President Trump's pick for U.S. attorney general. Sen. Dick Durbin said in a statement that the nation needs "an independent Attorney General willing to defend our Constitution and stand up for whats right. I voted against Sen. Sessions because I did not have confidence he could serve as the independent attorney general." Sen. Duckworth said in a statement that she worried Sessions' record meant he'd be a "rubber stamp for the president." Sessions was confirmed 52-47.

Follow the money

*Read the paperwork Chris Kennedy filed to set up his campaign fund here.

*Track Illinois campaign contributions in real time here and here.

Beyond Chicago

*Senate confirms Sessions as attorney general.

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*Trump criticizes Nordstrom for dropping his daughter's clothing and shoe line.

*Supreme Court nominee Gorsuch calls Trump criticisms of judges "demoralizing," senator says.

*Yemen to U.S.: No more ground missions after last month's raid.
Turkey-backed-opposition fighters advance on the western outskirts of the northern Syrian city of al-Bab in a bid to enter the city and retake control of it from the Islamic State on February 9, 2017. (Saleh Abo Ghaloun / AFP/Getty Images)

MOSCOW  A Russian airstrike in northern Syria killed three Turkish soldiers and wounded 11 more, senior Russian officials confirmed Thursday evening, in a friendly fire incident that could test the shaky coordination between the two countries in the fight against the Islamic State.

The attack occurred Thursday morning near the northern Syrian town of al-Bab. Turkish forces are launching an offensive to retake the town from the Islamic State.

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Russia and Turkey both quickly took steps to limit fallout from the incident. Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed condolences to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a telephone call and said the strike took place due to poor coordination, according to a Kremlin spokesman. The Russian Defense Ministry, which confirmed the incident, said the strike was meant to hit Islamic State targets.

The deaths added to a heavy toll suffered by Turkish troops embroiled in an increasingly complicated and bloody fight to help Syrian rebels capture al-Bab from the Islamic State. Five died on Wednesday, and the latest deaths bring the number of Turkish soldiers killed in the two-month battle to more than 60.

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In a short statement, the Turkish armed forces said Russian officials had expressed their "sadness and condolences" and added that "investigation and studies related to the event will be carried out by both sides."

Moscow and Ankara appeared close to the brink of war in late 2015 after Turkish jets shot a Russian warplane out of the sky over Turkey's border with Syria. But Putin restored relations with Erdogan after a coup attempt nearly unseated the Turkish leader.

The two countries have increased their coordination in Syria, where Turkish-backed rebels have sought to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad, a Moscow ally. Along with Iran, the two countries hosted talks in Kazakhstan last month to manage a cease-fire between rebel factions and the Syrian government.

Protesters burn a photo of Russian President Vladimir Putin in front of the Russian embassy in Amman, Jordan, while demonstrating against Russian airstrikes in Aleppo on December 13, 2016. (Jamal Nasrallah / EPA)

Last month, Russia and Turkey announced that they would begin coordinating strikes against the Islamic State.

The two countries have maintained warmer relations despite dramatic incidents, including the assassination of Russia's ambassador to Ankara in December by a lone gunman who yelled "God is great!" and "Don't forget Aleppo, don't forget Syria!"

In recent days, rebel and Turkish reinforcements have been converging from the north on the outskirts of al-Bab for what rebel commanders said is expected to be a major push to eject the militants.

Meanwhile, Syrian government forces have also been advancing on the town from the south, setting up a race for control of al-Bab between Turkish-backed forces and those loyal to Assad.

Russia has been providing air support to both sides as they advance. It was unclear whether the errant strike Thursday was conducted in support of Syrian or Turkish operations there.

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The attack also coincided with reports of the first direct clashes between Syrian forces and Turkish-backed rebels on the outskirts of al-Bab, threatening to turn the battle into a three-front, international war. Photographs posted on social media by rebel groups showed rebels driving an armored vehicle said to have been commandeered from government forces.

It was not immediately clear whether the skirmishes would develop into a more serious confrontation between Turkey and Syria. If they do, the Russian-Turkish alliance could be at risk, and the United States, which has also been providing air support to the Turkish-backed offensive, could find itself drawn more deeply into Syria's war.

Turkey accelerated its offensive on al-Bab on Tuesday night, at roughly the same time as President Donald Trump held his first telephone call with Erdogan, according to Syrian rebel commanders.

Erdogan is hoping to persuade U.S. military commanders to partner with the Turkish-backed force fighting in Syria - rather than arm Syrian Kurdish fighters linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, which Turkey considers a terrorist group. The ground force would be used in a final assault on the Islamic State's self-proclaimed capital in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa.

Trump's advisers have been skeptical about a plan to arm the Kurds, but have not ruled it out.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, wrote a letter to President Barack Obama in 2015 that accused the United States of bringing the attacks upon itself, calling them a "natural reaction" to "destructive policies."

Even though the 18-page letter was penned in 2015, it was only recently sent to the White House during the final days of Obama's presidency after its delivery was ordered by a military judge at Guantanamo Bay, according to a report in the Miami Herald, which published the letter Wednesday.

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Mohammed, who is in the midst of a series of pretrial hearings, is one of the handful of remaining detainees at the U.S. military's prison in Cuba. He starts the letter by calling Obama an "evildoer" and says it is beneath him to address the letter directly to the 44th president.

Some of the highlights from the letter are below.

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On U.S. foreign policy:

"You have escaped from being prosecuted for your own brutal and savage massacres against the American Indian and your crimes in Vietnam, Korea, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden and Latin America; and for your support for the Chinese dictator, Chiang Kai-shek, and Mexico's dictator, Santa Ana. But Allah helped us to defend ourselves and attack your most significant military and commercial targets in your land for your crimes in our lands. You can keep your military bases in Japan, Germany, Italy and elsewhere, but Muslim land will never accept infidels' army bases in their land."

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 40 United Airlines Flight 175 approaches the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York as the North Tower burns after it was struck by American Airlines Flight 11 on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. (Kelly Guenther/The New York Times)

On Palestine:

"You have been killing Muslims in Palestine for 60 years: expelling more than 4 million Palestinians; destroying their homes, schools, mosques and markets by supporting Israel militarily, economically and politically; and by protecting all of their crimes through the U.N. Security Council. In return for those 60 years, Allah aided us in conducting 9/11, destroying the capitalist economy, catching you with your pants down, and exposing all the hypocrisy of your long-held claim to democracy and freedom."

On the media and Abraham Lincoln:

"You and your mass media are experts in distorting the facts and coloring things to deceive your nation and hide your crimes. As President Abraham Lincoln said, 'You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.' It was not we who started the war against you in 9/11; it was you and your dictators in our land."

On the war in Iraq:

"You turned Iraq into a blood-soaked canvas. Did your predecessor find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? No, but they found an excellent site for the largest American embassy in the world, built to serve the employees of the oil companies that profit from the oil-rich resources of the Iraqi people, profits that flow to the lobbyists and pressure groups who hold the keys to your office. Did your predecessor find any evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and al-Qaida as your intelligence and secretary of state erroneously claimed? You and your allies have broken Iraq into a thousand pieces."

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On civilian casualties:

"May Allah have mercy upon Sheikh Osama bin Laden, a man of morals and principles, in war and in peace. He succeeded in targeting New York City, the capital of your economy, without destroying any schools, hospitals, retirement homes or churches, nor any residential area in a city with a population of over 8 million. Compare this with the conduct of the U.S. Air Force, where 100 percent of the victims of many of their bombardments were children, e.g., the 12 children killed in Kunar Province while they were collecting firewood, the 23 women and children killed in Yemen, and those killed at a wedding ceremony in Nangarhar Province. Moreover, Nader Nadery of the U.N. identified only 80 civilians killed in night raids by U.S. Special Forces in 2010 in Afghanistan, but the true number is probably over 400."

On the bin Laden raid:

"The entire world watched your morals in that when you made a decision to kill Sheikh Osama bin Laden without trial and watched the lawyer-president make a decision to throw his body in the sea."
Senior defense and intelligence officials have cautioned the White House that a proposal to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization could endanger U.S. troops in Iraq and the overall fight against the Islamic State, and would be an unprecedented use of a law that was not designed to sanction government institutions.

Defense and intelligence concerns have been expressed at the highest levels over the past several days, as the White House was preparing to roll out an executive order dealing with both Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the Muslim Brotherhood, according to administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive matter.

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The order would direct the State Department - in charge of the designation process - to move toward declaring them terrorist organizations.

A senior White House official said the order was still under active consideration as part of the new administration's determination to take a hard line against Iran, but the official acknowledged concerns. "I don't think it's so much Defense and intelligence; I think it's ourselves," the official said.

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"There are so many second, third and fifth order of facts with every decision, as we see it, and so I think that this is an area where, rightly so, we have to be very smart. . . . This all has to do with [Iran's] behavior. What we have to do is figure out what are the right things to consider. We consider a lot of things. What we actually decide to do is different."

White House enthusiasm for the directives was high at the end of last week, with plans to release them as soon as Tuesday. But over since then, national security agencies, still smarting from White House failure to vet last month's immigration order with them before President Trump signed it, warned against a repeat of the criticism and chaos that ensued.

Asked about the order at Wednesday's White House briefing, press secretary Sean Spicer declined specific comment, saying that "there is no one who can question the president's commitment to fully attacking and addressing the threat that we face from radical Islamic terrorism. . . . the first step is knowing and proclaiming who the enemy is."

Designating the IRGC - a force of more than 100,000 that fields an army, navy and air force, in addition to wielding significant economic power - would mark the first time the Foreign Terrorist Organizations law has been applied to an official government institution. Created by then-supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after the 1979 revolution as a counterweight to the suspect loyalties of the Iranian military, the IRGC is both the revolution's guardian of internal security and a conventional fighting force that has been deployed overseas, including in Iraq and Syria.

The IRGC, including its Quds Force, the elite international operations wing, and a number of IRGC-affiliated companies and individuals, were placed on a sanctions list by the Treasury Department in 2007 for terrorist activities and support. The proposed Foreign Terrorist Organization designation by the State Department, however, would have far broader impact on the ability of Iranians to travel and access the international financial system.

Although former President Barack Obama's administration considered taking such action, it ultimately decided that was "not useful," according to a former senior national security official

This former official and others also noted that Iran is already one of three countries, including Syria and Sudan, that the United States has labeled state sponsors of terrorism, a designation that brings its own strict sanctions.

The FTO has until now been applied only to "non-state actors," including groups such as al-Qaida and 60 others currently on the list. One official said designating the IRGC was comparable in scale and complication to a foreign power declaring the military of another country a terrorist organization.

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The designation also prohibits any "material support" or other kinds of contact with the sanctioned entity, an issue that arose when Obama's State Department attempted to address the problem of the Mujahedeen Khalq, known as the MEK, an anti-Khomeini Iranian group that relocated to Iraq after the 1979 revolution and was placed on the FTO list in 1997.

The Shiite-dominated government friendly to Iran that took over Iraq after the U.S. invasion there rejected the group, which was then placed under U.S. protection despite its terrorist designation. The MEK was removed from the FTO list, following congressional pressure from hardline anti-Iran lawmakers, in 2012.

A similar effort is now underway in Congress to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization, with legislation introduced last month by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

While there is no love lost between the Defense Department and the IRGC, Defense officials worry that designation could affect indirect contacts the U.S. military maintains with Quds Force-organized and maintained Shiite militias in Iraq.

Many of those groups include Shiite fighters who regularly attacked U.S. forces occupying Iraq until the end of 2011, when the U.S. military withdrew. While there were initial problems when the Americans returned, beginning in 2014, to help Iraq combat the Sunni Muslim Islamic State, they have found themselves on the same side against the militants.

While the two forces now operate in close proximity to each other, especially in and around the major offensive now underway in Mosul, there has been tacit agreement, negotiated through the Iraqi government, to keep their distance and avoid clashes. The concern is that any upset in that tenuous arrangement could undermine the counterterrorism war, possibly even leading to renewed Shiite attacks against U.S. forces, officials said.

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A new move against the IRGC would also likely buttress the position of internal Iranian hardliners against President Hassan Rouhani, whose government negotiated the 2015 Iran nuclear deal with the United States and other world powers. Preserving Rouhani, with presidential elections due in May, is unlikely to be a priority for the Trump administration, however, which has called the agreement a "bad deal" that has encouraged Iran's malign behavior in other areas. Last week, the administration imposed new sanctions against 25 Iranian individuals and entities in response to a ballistic missile test that it said contravened the nuclear agreement.

Terrorist designation of the Muslim Brotherhood, a religious and social movement founded nearly 100 years ago in Egypt, would pose different problems.

Experts disagree on what this would accomplish, noting that the Brotherhood is not a single organization but a broad, transnational movement of Sunni Muslims whose individual factions differ widely in both goals and activities in different nations.

In Egypt, where Trump is seeking a stronger relationship, the current military government overthrew an elected Muslim Brotherhood government in 2013, calling it a terrorist organization. Other U.S. allies, including Turkey, consider it a legitimate political organization; in Jordan, the Muslim Brotherhood party makes up 10 percent of the Parliament.
"The number of officers shot and killed in the line of duty last year increased by 56 percent from the year before."-- President Donald Trump, remarks to the Major Cities Chiefs Association, Feb. 8, 2017

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This claim jumped out at us for two reasons: Trump has a tendency to exaggerate criminal justice statistics and previously cited an incorrect statistic about police fatalities.

During Trump's July 2016 acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, Trump had claimed that "the number of police officers killed in the line of duty has risen by almost 50 percent compared to this point last year."

As we wrote at the time, that was inaccurate. The number of law enforcement officers killed on the job had increased 8 percent in July 2016 compared to July 2015. The total number of officers killed in shootings, however, had increased 78 percent. After our fact-check, his campaign reached out to clarify how they measured the data - and we pointed out the weaknesses in their calculation.

So we wondered: Did Trump get the facts right this time? Turns out, he did.

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The Facts:

On Feb. 9, Trump signed an executive order to create "new federal crimes, and increase penalties for existing federal crimes, to prevent violence against federal, state, tribal and local law enforcement officers."

Statistically, it's safer to be a police officer today than it was in the 1970s. The number of police fatalities peaked in 1974 with 280 deaths, following nationwide riots in the late 1960s and at the beginning of the crack epidemic. It spiked to 241 officer deaths in 2001, due to the 71 officers who died on 9/11. Experts who track law enforcement fatalities say improvements in training and lifesaving equipment and technology have lowered the overall number of police officers dying in a given year.

The number of officers shot and killed in 2016 was 64, out of 135 total fatalities. Thats an increase of 56 percent from 2015, largely spurred by deadly ambush attacks by gunfire. (We previously explored the facts underlying ambush-style killings and traffic-related deaths of police officers.) Note: In an earlier version, we incorrectly identified the number of officers shot and killed.

These figures are based on preliminary data from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, a nonprofit that tracks officer deaths in real time. The final numbers will be released by the end of February.

Two high-profile ambushes unfolded in Dallas and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, both in July 2016. A sniper, specifically looking to kill white officers, killed five in Dallas. That was the deadliest day for police officers since 9/11. Ten days later, a gunman opened fire on police officers in Baton Rouge and killed three.

In 2016, 21 officers died from ambush attacks - more than double the average from the previous decade, according to The Washington Post's analysis.

The surge in gunfire deaths in 2016 was the largest on record, and the percentage of officers killed by gunfire in 2016 was the highest in more than two decades, The Post found.

Some of the ambushes took place during domestic disturbance calls, which accounted for 14 police deaths in 2016.

"The biggest takeaway [from 2016] is the fact that ambushes spiked up to 21 deaths - a number we hadn't seen in a number of years," said Steve Groeninger, spokesman for the memorial fund.

Law enforcement are improving training for situational and spatial awareness to minimize the likelihood of ambushes, especially during domestic disturbance calls, Groeninger said.

"You can't plan for, 'When is someone going to surprisingly attack me?' but you can train for, 'How can I position and conduct myself in a way that, if someone were to attack me, I can survive it?' " Groeninger said.

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The Pinocchio Test:

Trump's grim statistic seemed too remarkable to be correct: The number of officers shot and killed in the line of duty in 2016 increased by 56 percent from the year before.

But the figure is solid. Last year was a notable year in police deaths, largely due to the number of police officers who were shot and killed in ambush attacks across the country. In 2016, 21 officers were killed in ambush attacks - more than double the average from the previous decade. The number of officer deaths by gunfire in 2016 was the largest on record.

Trump previously used officer fatality statistics incorrectly, and we wrote about it. Now, he's corrected the statistic, using the most recent facts available to describe increases in officer deaths in 2016. We notice when politicians correct their talking point and make an effort to get it right. We commend Trump's staff for describing this figure accurately in the president's prepared remarks, and award Trump the rare Geppetto Checkmark.
If you listened to Chicago Public Schools CEO Forrest Claypool, Gov. Bruce Rauner's "Trumpian" tactics are to blame for the latest round of chaotic budget cuts at CPS.

I find it strange that Claypool referred to the Illinois governor as "Trumpian" because Donald Trump's primary tactics are to create chaos and crisis while engaging in finger-pointing. And I know of no one in Chicago who better epitomizes the tactics of manufactured chaos and crisis accompanied by finger-pointing than Claypool. The latest manifestation of that chaos: the $46 million CPS "spending freeze"  cuts  he announced Monday.

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While Rauner deserves his share of the blame for the state's failure to rescue our students from this perilous circumstance, it is not Rauner's mismanagement that brought us to this crisis. That responsibility lies with Claypool, his recent predecessors, the Chicago Board of Education  and Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who appointed them all. They've had six years to get CPS out of this situation, yet they continue to create financial chaos year after year and point the finger at Springfield for failing to rescue Chicago's children from the chaos they've created.

Unfortunately, CPS' track record of fiscal recklessness has given Rauner the ammunition he needs to justify his neglect of Chicago's students. We need to take that ammunition away from Rauner.

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Toward that end, we must enact an educational funding package that gives struggling districts around the state  including CPS  the funds they need for their students, while at the same time imposing financial transparency requirements and legal restrictions that severely limit CPS' ability to waste and misuse those funds.

For example, in January CPS proposed more than $500 million in spending on privatized facilities management, and just before that put forth a plan to borrow as much as $840 million while refusing to tell the public what it planned to spend the money on until after the bonds went to market. Any aid to CPS must include strict transparency and spending limitations. This is how we reign in and circumvent the blame game Claypool and Rauner have been playing at the expense of our schools, our educators and the children and families they serve.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel speaks to the media regarding a veto of $215 million in state pension funding for CPS by Gov. Bruce Rauner during a news conference at Curie Metropolitan High School on Dec. 2, 2016, in Archer Heights. (Alyssa Pointer/Chicago Tribune)

(Alyssa Pointer/Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)

Inaction in Springfield is no excuse for inaction in Chicago. If Emanuel is going to insist that the state dedicate significantly more revenue to Chicago schools, then he needs to insist that our city do the same. Occasional infusions of tax increment financing in response to the demands of educators and parents is not enough. Our schools need consistent and reliable revenue.

As a result, a state funding package should be conditioned on the city of Chicago coming through with revenue solutions of its own, such as reinstating a corporate head tax, as about a dozen Chicago aldermen proposed in July. This revenue could be raised by the city and transferred to CPS. If some in the business community don't like that solution then they should propose an alternative that compels them to contribute their fair share to the revenue streams that fund our schools. Otherwise, the mayor needs to inject himself with a dose of political courage and do what needs to be done. If he won't, we need to develop a state funding proposal that makes city revenue solutions a condition of state aid.

City Hall needs to practice what it preaches to the state and fund our children's education. Should the city continue to neglect its schools, then we need state intervention that conditions increased state funding on increased city funding. That intervention should include spending and transparency requirements that take away Rauner's excuse for neglecting CPS and its students.

Troy LaRaviere is president of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association.

Related articles:

Wake up, Illinois. You're surrounded.

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Will Madigan and Rauner act like statesmen or Illinois politicians?

City Hall's CPS blame game: Why isn't Claypool pounding on his fellow Democrats to fix their fiasco?

Kennedy enters 2018 Illinois governor's race ripping Rauner for causing 'economic chaos'
Responding to Japan's 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt took an executive action that, like President Donald Trump's visa restrictions, aimed at frustrating a potential underground of enemy agents.

But while Trump's Executive Order 13769 produced an immediate backlash, Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 was virtually unchallenged long after he signed it on Feb. 19, 1942. Yet it led to the incarceration of more than 110,000 Japanese people living on the West Coast on the theory that some might've been saboteurs or spies.

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"I can still picture it to this day: to come in like cattle or sheep being herded in the back of a pickup truck," recalled Peter Ota of his internment at a camp in Santa Anita, Calif.

A Tribune correspondent was present when internees arrived at another California camp. "Japanese men, women and children, rich and poor alike, poured in a steady stream into this newly established internment center tonight as buses shuttled back and forth from the railroad station at Lone Pine Village," he wrote. "One old lady carried a bundle wrapped in a soldier's overcoat which she said belonged to her son, now serving in the United States army."

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Government photographers documented the internment camps, and when their work was exhibited in 1992, a critic was struck by a haunting image. "A World War I veteran, wearing his old uniform, (is) being taken to the camps," she noted. "His contorted face is a study in pride and pain."

Among the few to question the constitutionality of the interment program was the Tribune:

"Two-thirds of the interned Japanese are American citizens," the newspaper observed in an editorial. "On what theory can an American citizen be locked up, with or without trial, because of his race?"

A sign declaring "I am an American" is displayed in a store window in Oakland, Calif., in March 1942. It was placed there Dec. 8, 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japan. The store was closed following orders to people of Japanese ancestry to evacuate from certain West Coast areas. (Library of Congress)

That question was answered by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1944. The case involved Fred Korematsu, who had plastic surgery hoping to look Caucasian, and went into hiding. When caught, he claimed to be a victim of racial prejudice. "Korematsu was not excluded from the Military Area because of hostility to him or his race," the justices ruled, 6 to 3. But "because the properly constituted military authorities feared an invasion of our West Coast."

In fact, there was reason to fear. The attack on Pearl Harbour crippled the Pacific Fleet, leaving the West Coast vulnerable. And when Germany declared war on the U.S., Nazi submarines sank merchant vessels off the East Coast virtually at will. Japan quickly conquered the Philippines, and its American defenders were force-marched to unspeakably brutal prisoner-of-war camps.

Japan's Radio Tokyo claimed that American POWs had "an almost normal life" while Japanese-American internees were mistreated. The U.S. countered that it was the other way around, as reporter Capt. M.M. Corpening wrote in a Tribune article: "Americans interned by the Japanese should receive good treatment in return for the consideration being shown Japanese evacuees interned here in California."

In another article, Corpening reported that the son of a Los Angeles department store owner and his bride, having been transported to a camp in Santa Anita, "were turning the trip into a honeymoon."

But few, if any, Americans found Radio Tokyo credible. Most were in no mood to make a fuss about Japanese-Americans' internment in hastily converted facilities, even if they suspected the government was painting a rosy picture.

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Korematsu recalled of the detention camp he was sent to: "Jail was better." Ota carried indelible images of the Santa Anita camp, which during peacetime was a horse racing track. He described them to Studs Terkel, an interview the Tribune reprinted.

"My sister and I were fortunate enough to stay in a barracks," Ota said. "The people in the stables had to live with the stench."

Noriko Sawada Bridges' parents were strawberry farmers in Santa Ana. The internment order forced them to abandon their crop, hastily sell or lose their possessions and join other families at an assembly point. "We weren't even told when we got on the bus we were going to any specific place," she told the Tribune in 1992. Their destination was a camp on an Indian reservation in Arizona. Each internee got a sack and was told to fill it with straw to make a bed.

When detainees rioted in a California camp, the Tribune attributed it in an editorial to coddling by do-gooder camp administrators. "No other country in the world," the Tribune lamented, "has turned over the custody of dangerous and disloyal persons to left-wing social workers."

Residents of Japanese ancestry are moved from the Los Angeles area in April 1942 before eventual resettlement in war relocation centers. (Library of Congress)

Some detainees were anything but disloyal, and enlisted in the 442 Regimental Combat Team, a Japanese-American unit of the U.S. Army that earned a staggering number of medals on European battlefields.

Still, according to contemporary newspaper reports, some detainees' loyalty was questionable. On the first anniversary of Pearl Harbor, a riot pitted pro-Japan internees against pro-America internees in one camp. At another camp, 650 internees renounced their American citizenship  though their motivation wasn't mentioned in the Tribune's account.

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Equally murky is the case of Tokyo Rose, as GIs dubbed Iva Toguri, who was born in Los Angeles, died in Chicago and was the first America woman convicted of treason. Stranded in Japan when World War II began, she was tossed out of her relatives' house for being too American  the same quality that landed her a DJ slot at Radio Tokyo. Her program was beamed to GIs on Pacific battlefields. Management envisioned her sultry voice as demoralizing to U.S. troops. Supposedly she said that while they were fighting and dying, other Americans back home were romancing their wives.

After the war, Toguri claimed she dropped hints to her listeners that she was satirizing Japanese propaganda. Nonetheless, she was tried for treason, stripped of her American citizenship and imprisoned for six years. The American members of her family had been interned, after which they relocated to Chicago where a Japanese community was growing. Detainees could be released on condition that they settle inland, and upon her release from prison, Toguri joined them.

Immediately after the war, those who had been in the camps rarely talked about it. They were busy restarting their lives with meager resources. Those still in the camps, mostly elderly people, were given $25 and a train ticket to their pre-war hometowns. Not much awaited them. Homes and businesses were gone, and racial epithets greeted them.

But in the 1960s and 1970s, a younger generation began asking their elders about the camps.

A young student posed a tough question to Mary Tsukamoto, his teacher and a former detainee: "What did my grandpa do wrong that they put him in prison for so long?" That jolted her into joining the "Redress Movement," a grass-roots campaign for financial compensation and an official apology.

Manzanar street scene, winter, Manzanar Relocation Center in 1943. (Ansel Adams / Library of Congress)

Meanwhile, historians and journalists brought a critical eye to the evidence. In 1976, Ronald Yates, the Tribune's Tokyo correspondent, interviewed several witnesses in Toguri's treason trial. One told him, "Along with other government witnesses, we were told what to say and what not to say." Another recalled, "We were told that if we didn't cooperate, Uncle Sam might arrange a trial for us."

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After those revelations, President Gerald Ford pardoned Toguri, who operated an Asian gift store on Belmont Avenue until her death in 2006. Similar irregularities in the Korematsu trial caused the verdict to be vacated, and a congressional commission concluded in 1983: "Not a single act of espionage, sabotage or fifth column activity was committed by an American citizen of Japanese ancestry or by a resident Japanese alien on the West Coast."

Under President George H.W. Bush, each living internee was awarded $20,000 and received a letter of apology.

"I think the idea of being interned because you are suspected of being disloyal or a military threat to this country is a very profound stigma," former internee William Hohri told a Tribune reporter in 1990. "You begin to wonder if something is wrong with you. What happened to us was not our fault. That's why the apology is so important."

rgrossman@chicagotribune.com

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Four things to fear now that Jeff Sessions is attorney general
Jeff Sessions has now been confirmed as attorney general, and this vaults him to a position in American life that is unique. Perhaps more than any other person, Sessions stands at the nexus of many of the potential plot lines that we should fear most about the Trump presidency.

Here are the possibilities we need to worry about. President Donald Trump's refusal to divest in his business holdings creates the possibility of untold conflicts of interest and even full blown corruption on an unprecedented scale. The hostility of Trump and Republicans to a full, independent probe into Russian meddling in the election may mean there will never be a full public accounting of what happened, which could make a repeat more likely.

Trump's year of lies about voter fraud, and his campaign vows of explicit persecution of minorities, could signal further voter suppression efforts, weakened civil rights protections, and the use of state power against Muslims and undocumented immigrants in draconian or discriminatory ways. Trump's well documented authoritarian impulses could conceivably tip him into genuine authoritarian rule, in which, for instance, the power of the state is turned against critics or political opponents.

Sessions is now in a unique position to facilitate and enable  or, by contrast, to act as a legal check on  all of these possibilities, should they metastasize (or metastasize further) into serious threats to vulnerable minorities or, more broadly, to our democracy. Here are the things to fear:

1. Sessions' loyalty to Trump. Steve Bannon has said: "Throughout the campaign, Sessions has been the fiercest, most dedicated and most loyal promoter in Congress of Trump's agenda." The question is what this will loyalty will mean for the new attorney general's independence from the Trump White House.

The Post notes this week that Sessions has "repeatedly declined to say whether he would recuse himself from an investigation" that involves Trump campaign associates and Russian electoral interference. His handling of the specter of Trump corruption is also a big unknown.

2. The possibility of more voter suppression efforts and weakened civil rights protections. If Trump does join with congressional Republicans to push more voter suppression efforts on the national level, the attorney general might be at the center of that. The Justice Department could refuse to enforce key remaining provisions of the Voting Rights Act, or launch crackdowns on voter fraud that are designed to purge voter rolls, harming real voters.

Meanwhile, it will bear watching whether the Sessions Justice Department guts the department's Civil Rights Division or scales back the department's focus on police misconduct. Civil rights groups are already alarmed by the Trump Justice Department's decision to delay cases involving a challenge to a Texas voter ID law and a push to reform the Baltimore Police Department.

3. Crackdowns on Muslims, undocumented immigrants, and even critics. The Trump Justice Department is already aggressively defending Trump's immigration ban in court. The discriminatory intent of this seems obvious already. But if it were to be extended and expanded to more Muslim majority countries, the Justice Department would then be clearly defending what is, in effect, a Muslim ban. Meanwhile, the Justice Department might have a hand in a revived registry for people from Muslim-majority countries, which remains possible. And Justice Department lawyers will opine on the legality of any other policies that might target Muslims.

Meanwhile, Sessions is an ardent opponent of reasonable immigration reforms that would create paths to legalization for undocumented immigrants and favors restrictions on legal immigration as well. Sessions is expected to lead Trump's charge against "sanctuary cities" that decline to cooperate with federal deportation efforts, and there are multiple other ways in which Sessions could influence legal proceedings to maximize deportations. Separately, The Atlantic's David Frum has floated a scenario in which Justice Department antitrust actions function as a way to pressure or harass news organizations, though that seems remote.

4. Sessions' worldview. All of the above admittedly represent dire scenarios, and we do not know if anything like them will actually materialize. However, Sessions is also at the center of another big storyline, one that is centered on enduring questions about the true nature of Trumpism itself. The unknown is whether Trumpism will fulfill the worst fears of its critics and function as a blueprint for a Trump agenda that is not just anti-globalist in economic terms and driven by justifiable skepticism about immigration, but rather one that is fundamentally ethno-nationalist or white nationalist in orientation.

It's hard to say how or whether we will know this is happening, if it does, but ultimately the aggregation of various individual initiatives may add up to a clear indicator. Bannon has declared that Sessions "has played a critical role as the clearinghouse" for the "policy and philosophy" at the core of the "populist nation-state policies" otherwise known as Trumpism, and that he has been "at the forefront of this movement for years."

Sessions is now in a remarkably good position to help translate this "philosophy" into reality. And we may now see what that philosophy actually looks like in the real world  for better or, more likely, for much, much worse.

Washington Post
resident Donald J. Trump reacts after Rex Tillerson, seated, signed an appointment affidavit after being sworn-in as Secretary of State by Vice President Mike Pence as Tillerson's wife Renda St. Clair looks on, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 1, 2017. (Michael Reynolds / POOL / EPA)

Because we don't think we've done so before, let us use the words "quiet" and "successful" in a sentence that references the Trump White House:

Two of President Donald Trump's Cabinet picks got off to  here it is  quiet, successful starts in their positions, reinforcing the notion that business-as-has-been-customary just might be a viable expectation for elements of this peripatetic administration. Stay with us here:

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Do you recall all the Obama Cabinet members who pushed back at the president when he overstepped his role? Neither do we. Not a lot of iconoclasts in that group. Some of Trump's Cabinet members, though, appear independent enough to get in his face when he oversteps his role, or foments bad policy. Two in particular have gone their own way in recent days.

Defense Secretary James Mattis calmed fears on a visit to Japan and South Korea, signaling to those key allies that their tight relationships with the U.S. will continue. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sounded effusive, and relieved, to meet with Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general. "I was very encouraged to see someone like you who has substantial experience, both in the military and in security, defense and diplomacy, taking this office," Abe said.

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You could take Abe's comment as a dig at Trump, who obviously doesn't have previous experience of that kind. On the campaign trail, Trump questioned the U.S. defense alliance with Japan and South Korea, and he has not settled smoothly into the role of being commander in chief. The president appears oddly  and wrongly  accepting of Russia's Vladimir Putin, treating him like an intriguing new neighbor instead of a dangerous geopolitical adversary. Meanwhile, Trump had a needlessly snippy phone exchange with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over an agreement to resettle a group of Australian-held refugees here.

Stepping in to address ruffled feathers Down Under was newly installed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who talked to his counterparts in Australia as well as in Japan and South Korea. Those conversations seemed to go well. As one Australian headline put it: "Rex Tillerson cleans up Donald Trump's mess in Australia, Japan and South Korea."

The days of judging Trump's presidency have barely begun. There have been some serious missteps (the Mexican wall and immigration executive orders), some sober decisions (telling Israel to hold it on West Bank settlements), plus a whole lot of venting by the president, much of it on Twitter. He's lashed out at federal judges, Democrats, Nordstrom, polling, the news media  and that's just in the last few days. The president can't hold back, or simply won't.

We dislike this impetuous behavior. It's often a distraction and often damaging to the country's civic discourse at a time when Trump should be trying to unify Americans. Nevertheless, most of his verbiage barely lasts a news cycle before it's edged out by something else he says.

Ultimately what is most important is Trump's policy agenda  national security, jobs, immigration, trade and the like. Which raises the question of who will help achieve his goals, and rein him in when he veers off. Some of that guidance should come from his Cabinet, which is still taking shape.

We've liked Mattis and Tillerson, the former Exxon CEO, from the start. They are strong leaders and able administrators who appear willing to speak their minds to the president. They aren't like the many technocrats from government and academia who, in other Cabinets, have been mesmerized and ultimately overwhelmed by process. Mattis and Tillerson instead have long records of meeting goals, of achieving results, of finding solutions. That's precisely what many Americans say they haven't seen from Washington.

We supported Betsy DeVos for education secretary because of her passionate advocacy of the charter school movement and other student-centered (as opposed to employee-centered) priorities. We have concerns with Trump's newly confirmed attorney general, Jeff Sessions, because of his too-strict views on such issues as immigration and voting rights. But that doesn't automatically make the long-tenured Alabama senator an enabler of the president's worst impulses. Trump's executive order on immigration might have gone smoother if Sessions had been confirmed and advised him.

Trump, a political outsider, was elected to shake up the status quo. Many voters wanted a different kind of leader, so we should expect some unorthodox results.

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But he's been given the world's most challenging job and needs wisdom  if not his own, then that of his White House aides and, yes, his Cabinet. Ladies and gentlemen, be prepared to challenge him.

Join the discussion on Twitter @Trib_Ed_Board and on Facebook.

Related articles:

Four things to fear now that Jeff Sessions is attorney general

Donald Trump's war on his own credibility

Crying wolf over Neil Gorsuch

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Parents, know this: Betsy DeVos won't keep teachers from helping your kids
Chicago Public Schools CEO Forrest Claypool sent a letter home with city schoolchildren comparing Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner to President Donald Trump for no reason other than to demonstrate to the kids how not to act like a grown-up. It's always a learning moment with Chicago politicians.
Chance The Rapper performs at The Budweiser Made In America Festival in Philadelphia. Sturgill Simpson and Chance the Rapper are set to perform at the Grammys this Sunday. (Michael Zorn / AP)

From nabbing discounted tickets to theater productions around the city to couching it for the latest season of "Girls," here's what we're up to this weekend.

MAKE RESERVATIONS

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Weekend goal No. 1: Figure out what you're doing for Valentine's Day. That's next Tuesday, in case you missed it. Whether you're looking for a romantic dinner downtown or an anti-love party, this is your official reminder to make a plan, buy tickets, call ahead for reservations, round up the troops, whatever you need to do. If all else fails, a stockpile of wine will do the trick, no matter your relationship status.

GOODBYE, RESTAURANT WEEK. HELLO, THEATER WEEK.

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Chicago Restaurant Week comes to an end today, Feb. 9, making way for Chicago Theater Week, which spans Feb. 9-19 and boasts more than 100 productions. Similar to Restaurant Week, the 10-day event offers discounted tickets and the appreciated excuse to get out and see something you might not otherwise see. Tickets go for $15-$30, sometimes less, and include productions from more than 250 local theater companies. Spots such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Steep Theatre, The Second City and Goodman Theatre are all involved. There are comedies, dramas, musicals and dance performances ready for the taking at choosechicago.com.

Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. >

'GIRLS' AND GRAMMYS

Ease Sunday scaries on the couch with two must-watch shows on Feb. 12. The Grammys airs at 7 p.m. on CBS and the sixth and final season of "Girls" premieres at 9 p.m. on HBO, providing hours of mindful material. Plus, it's scientifically proven that Chance the Rapper and Hannah Horvath make Mondays a tad more tolerableespecially since that's what everyone at the office will be talking about.

ALL ABOUT ALEC

Someone might want to make sure Donald Trump doesn't have access to a TV this weekend. The president's nemesis and impersonator extraordinaire Alec Baldwin will be hosting "Saturday Night Live" on Feb. 11, which means more camera timeand more of that famous blond wig. This raises a few questions. Will we get an entire Trump-themed episode? Who will guest star? And, perhaps most importantly, will World War III start over Twitter? Tune in to find out. And if that isn't enough Baldwin for you, the actor will be heading to Chicago in April for Chicago Ideas Week's spring series. The event, "In Conversation: Alec Baldwin Beyond the Screen," will take place April 11 as part of the Curiosity Series. Tickets for the event, being held at Athenaeum Theatre, will go on sale to the general public March 2. The cost is $40 and includes a copy of Baldwin's memoir, "Nevertheless."

START YOUR ENGINES

Perhaps you're in the market for a souped-up fuel-efficient dream car. Or maybe you're just wondering why so many of your Facebook friends are checking in at McCormick Place. We can answer both quandaries in three words: Chicago Auto Show. The nation's largest auto show returns to Chicago on Saturday through Feb. 20 with tickets ranging from $7-$13. Scope out new technology, sign up to test drive cars and enjoy DJs spinning throughout the event. From Acura to Volvo, manufacturers bring their latest and greatest for your ogling pleasure. No time this weekend? Head back for Women's Day on Feb. 15 and Hispanic Heritage Day on Feb. 17. 10 a.m.-10 p.m. daily.

@morgancolsen | mcolsen@redeyechicago.com
In a city where there are quite possibly too many good restaurants and bars, no date night should end in blank stares and empty stomachs. We enlisted the help of Chicago chefs to breathe new life into your next night out. From restaurant recommendations to cant-miss happy hour deals, here's where the pros go.

(Anjali Pinto )

Sarah Grueneberg || Oysters and jazz

"When we're not at home cooking up some pasta from the pantry, my fiance Jaime and I will head to Shaw's Oyster Bar for date night. It's such a fun, classic Chicago atmosphere. We'll go on nights with live jazz, have ice-cold martinis and enjoy some of the best oysters in Chicago. If we leave room, we'll order the lobster roll and clam chowder. Whether we stay at home or dine out, we'll typically have a nightcap of whiskey or bourbon from our at-home bar." Sarah Grueneberg, Monteverde

Austin Baker and Cristy Alvarado || Cozy Italian hideout

"Our favorite date spot is this tiny little alcove in the waiting area at Nico [Osteria]. I think it's meant for drinks outside the bar area, but we squeezed into it one date night and had dinner side by side. We now consider it our little spot. We also like My Pi deep-dish pizza in bed." Austin Baker and Cristy Alvarado, Joy Hospitality (WonFun and 2Fun Chinese, Bar Marta)

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Brian Jupiter || Low-key romance

"There's no shortage of great restaurants in Chicago for date night, but because my wife and I are always on the go with our 2-year-old, we tend to go for more low-key spots. I got lucky with a lady who loves Dancen's fire chicken and rice balls as much as I do. They don't mess around over there, and it's solid for date night." Brian Jupiter, Frontier

Boeufhau (Abel Uribe / Chicago Tribune)

Mindy Segal || Brasserie getaway

"My husband and I often have date night at Boeufhaus. We love the restaurant and treat it as our romantic getaway in the city. He is the cook in the family, and we love being at home drinking wine and making dinner together. My husband doesn't like celebrating Valentine's Day because he says every day is Valentine's Day being married to me." Mindy Segal, Mindy's Hot Chocolate

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Heather Terhune || Belly up at the bar

"Chefs work on the weekends, so date night usually happens on Sundays and Mondays or after 9 p.m. during the week.  I don't like to wait in lines, which is why I usually end up eating at the bar in most places. You can get the full menu and don't get interrupted by your server every 5 minutes. It's more laid-back. Some of my favorite places in Chicago are Monteverde, Momotaro, GT Fish & Oyster, Maude's [Liquor Bar] and Mindy's Hot Chocolate." Heather Terhune, The Kimpton Journeyman Hotel

Aaron Cuschieri || Dining for a deal

"As far as date night goes, you can never go wrong with Le Bouchon's half-priced bottles of wine on Monday nights. On Tuesday date night, we like Au Cheval. We'll go in around 5 p.m., put our name on the waitlist and walk across the street to RM Champagne Salon for dollar oysters. We'll order a dozen oystersor twoa glass of wine and hang out there until we get the text to come back to Au Cheval." Aaron Cuschieri, The Dearborn

Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. >

Sandra Holl || No reservations

"Date nights are a rarity for us. When we do venture out without our daughter in tow, we tend to forgo reservations and dine at the bar. Dining at the bar is a great way to get into any restaurant that is difficult to get a reservation, and bartenders have good insight into what menu items are not to be missed and great wine, beer and cocktail pairings." Sandra Holl, Floriole Cafe & Bakery

Cold Storage (Anthony Souffle / Chicago Tribune)

Jennifer Jones Enyart and Brian Enyart || Progressive dinner

"We love to head to Cold Storage for their dollar oyster happy hour special, where we proudly polish off at least two dozen oysters. We then walk to Maude's for a glass of wine and share a few small plates before ending our night at home with a manhattan in hand. Either that, or we stay in and make pasta together. It takes a while to make, so it's our chance to catch up." Jennifer Jones Enyart and Brian Enyart, Dos Urban Cantina

Gabino Ottoman || All that and dim sum

"If you're feeling adventurous, head to Cai in Chinatown. They've got that dumpling game on point! Follow that up with some milk tea with tapioca at Joy Yee. My girlfriend and I also have this corny Valentine's Day tradition where I make heart-shaped meatballs with spaghetti and we pair [it] with a bottle of Old Grand-Dad Bonded bourbon. Boom, son!" Gabino "Bino" Ottoman, Saint Lou's Assembly and Moneygun

Zachary Walrath || Meat cute

"Being from the Midwest, both my girlfriend and I are definitely meat eaters. Tango Sur is our sure bet as long as we are willing to wait sometimes. If not, soju and Korean barbecue at San Soo Gab San or Chicago Kalbi are a good time." Zachary Walrath, The Florentine

Moneygun (Photo courtesy of Clayton Hauck for Moneygun)

Bruce Finkelman || Dancing then Dusek's

"My wife and I start our date nights at Moneygun for a few cocktails, the aiming oil to prepare us for dancing lessons at Duet Dance Studio. Then we go to Dusek's Board & Beer in Pilsen as my reward for dancing." Bruce Finkelman, 16" on Center

Bill Kim || Cultured and cozy

"Date night with my wife is usually an all-day plan since I typically have only one day off a week. We start off with a walk to our favorite place for breakfast, Stax Cafe on Taylor Street, followed by a visit to a museum or the movie theater. We love going to any restaurant and sitting at the bar, no reservations required. The bar is the best place to sit because you get to sit very close to your significant other. Some of our favorite places to hang out, eat and drink are Vera, El Che Bar and La Sardine." Bill Kim, Belly Q and Urbanbelly

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Catherine De Orio || Show off

"Since my job requires me to dine out frequently, when I have a date night with my husband, instead of heading to a restaurant as the main event, we like to go to a performance at the Lyric Opera followed by champagne, martinis and some sweets at the bar at The Sarah and Peer Pedersen Room on the main floor of the opera house. Otherwise, we walk to Monteverde and see if we can score two seats at the bar for some wine and bitesit's always a fun and convivial atmosphere." Catherine De Orio, "Check Please"
A car crashes into an Aurora chiropractic clinic, which was just wrapping up repairs from the last time this happened. (Hannah Leone \ Aurora Beacon-News/Chicago Tribune)

By the time the Olson family got back from Hawaii, where their 9-year-old daughter Ava is currently fulfilling her Make-A-Wish dream, the crew at the chiropractic clinic owned by Dr. Kenneth Olson in Aurora wanted to have completed repairs from a December incident that saw a car drive into the facility.

On Dec. 8, a 79-year-old woman driving a 2013 Mercedes pulled into a front parking spot but did not stop, instead crashing into the Pure Health building on the 2100 block of West Galena Boulevard.

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Just shy of two months later, on Monday, the employees' good efforts to fix up the clinic were overwhelmed when another car  this time a 2002 Toyota Camry driven by an 82-year-old woman who had just finished an appointment at the clinic -- came smashing through the glass wall. The woman had mistakenly put her car in drive and her foot on the gas pedal, sending it over the curb, across the sidewalk and through the wall at about 1:44 p.m., said Aurora police spokesman Dan Ferrelli.

A car crashed through the glass wall of Pure Health chiropractic clinic in Aurora Monday, the second time in less than two months a car has crashed into the building. (Beacon-News / Hannah Leone)

Erica Bartelmey said she was in the break room, about to enjoy an after-lunch coffee, when chaos broke out.

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"That's when I hear a very similar crash to what we heard a couple months ago," Bartelmey said. "And one of my coworkers screaming - and ran up front and realized it had happened again."

The timing couldn't be much worse: The clinic was in the final phases of the rehab from the December wreck, Bartelmey said. Flooring work was going to start Wednesday and they'd just finished painting over the weekend, she said.

"We have a team of troopers that are so adaptable at getting the job done," Bartelmey said.

The clinic reopened just a few days after the last crash and they're hoping for a similarly quick turnaround this time too, she said.

Olson himself was in Hawaii when he got the call from Bartelmey, who bore the news that the clinic, once again, had been struck by a car.

"I was in shock," Olson said. "It's surreal."

No tickets or citations were issued in either crash, police said.

A car crashed through the glass wall of Pure Health chiropractic clinic in Aurora Monday, the second time in less than two months a vehicle has crashes into the clinic. On the right, the clinic is still partially boarded up from a December crash. (Beacon-News / Hannah Leone)

Once through the wall Monday, the Camry struck a 42-year-old employee who had been sitting in an office on the other side of the wall, Ferrelli said.

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Co-workers said it was the same woman who was pinned against the back wall of her office and trapped inside the room during the last crash.

"The first time she was trapped in the office the paramedics had to get her out," Bartelmey said.

This time, she was in between a chair and a cabinet, and one of the clinic's doctors was able to pull her out safely, Bartelmey said.

"It's been a lot here," Bartelmey said.

Paramedics took the employee to an Aurora hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, Ferrelli said. The driver refused treatment, he said.

When Olson heard what happened his first concern was that everyone was OK, he said.

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A car crashed through the glass wall of Pure Health chiropractic clinic in Aurora Monday. (Beacon-News / Hannah Leone)

"I'm thankful again there's not serious injuries," Olson said, adding he was sure it would still be very emotional for the woman "who has now been trapped twice."

"The rest is just stuff," Olson said. "It can get rebuilt. What's important is family and love, and that's where we are going to try to put our attention."

Along with the crashes at his office, Olson has been dealing with a much worse situation at home. On Nov. 3  the day after the Cubs won the World Series, Olson pointed out - he learned his daughter Ava had a Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma brain tumor, a rare cancer with a low survival rate, he said.

A family member quickly created a GoFundMe online fundraiser, "Ava's Warriors," writing that as Kenneth Olson and his wife Jodi scrambled to find ways to deal with the tragic news, they would have to take significant time away from work as they sought the best care for their daughter.

The next month, the first car crashed through Pure Health, an insurance claim Olson said will be more than $100,000, not including a separate lost revenue claim. And then came Monday's crash.

"I just keep going, why, you know, why is this happening?" Olson said. "And I don't know that there's ever going to be an answer to that."

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Pure Health has been in practice for 17 years and in its current location since 2008, Olson said.

Brea Eden, who works at the clinic, said while Olson hasn't sought out publicity, people have rallied around the family, with hundreds braving the cold to run a 5K fundraiser on a recent weekend.

"They have so much love and support from the community," Eden said.

For now, the Olson family  Kenneth, Jodi, Ava and 11-year-old Max  are trying to make good memories in Hawaii, Kenneth Olson said.

Ava is doing well clinically right now, so she's been able to do all the activities she wanted, Olson said.

Monday afternoon, the family was getting ready for an ATV tour into the foot hills on one of the islands, he said.

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The family has been on a trip to Hawaii through Make-A-Wish of Illinois, confirmed Marketing Director Ryan Blackburn.

"It's been an interesting course and I guess that's kind of where we're at," Olson said. "How you get through it is refocusing on what's significant in your life. For us that's faith, family and love. As long as everybody is safe and OK we are just going to do what we have always done, which is be committed to helping people."

As of Tuesday afternoon, the GoFundMe effort had raised $45,661 of its $50,000 goal. To donate: https://www.gofundme.com/avas-warriors

hleone@tribpub.com

Twitter @hannahmleone
A 54-year-old Geneva man remains in Kane County Jail on $500,000 bail accused of sexually assaulting a woman while armed with a knife.

Howard S. Flint is charged with aggravated criminal sexual assault, sexual assault, aggravated unlawful restraint, aggravated assault, intimidation and domestic battery. Prosecutors allege Flint was armed with a knife that had a six-inch blade when he attacked the woman inside a Westhaven Circle home around 1:30 p.m. Feb. 2, according to court documents and Geneva police. The woman received medical treatment.

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Geneva Police Cmdr. Julie Nash said there were no records of previous calls to the residence.

Flint is scheduled to return to court Feb. 16. If he posts bond, Flint is prohibited from having contact with the woman. He would also be required to wear an alcohol-monitoring device, court documents state.

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Dan Campana is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News
A former Aurora street gang member has been resentenced to 50 years in prison for his role in a 1990 murder.

Michael A. Luciano, 44 of Mesa, Ariz., and formerly of Aurora, was sentenced Wednesday by Kane County Associate Judge Linda Abrahamson to 50 years in prison for the Halloween 1990 murder of 24-year-old Albert Gonzalez of Aurora.

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Luciano was convicted Nov. 7, 2008, of first-degree murder. Prosecutors presented evidence during the trial that at about 7:20 p.m., Oct. 31, 1990, Gonzalez was shot to death through a window as he stood in his home on the 300 block of Grove Street in Aurora. The shots were fired from a grassy hillside adjacent to railroad tracks that were across the street from the home, prosecutors said. Two other people in the house suffered gunshot wounds, but survived. Michael Luciano, along with his father, gang leader Angel "Doc" Luciano, ordered the shooting, handed out the murder weapons before-hand and collected them afterward, according to prosecutors.

Two others were convicted and sentenced in connection with Gonzalez's murder.

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In January 2009, Michael Luciano was sentenced to life in prison in the case. The life sentence was mandatory under Illinois law at the time because he had previously been convicted of murder. Luciano was convicted in February 2008 of first-degree murder in the June 29, 1989, shooting death of 20-year-old Willie Arce of Aurora. He was sentenced to 38 years' imprisonment.

Luciano was 17 years old at the time of both murders.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2012 ruled in Miller v. Alabama that mandatory life sentences given to juveniles are unconstitutional. As a result, Luciano's cases were returned to the trial court for resentencing.

The 38-year sentence for Arce's murder stands, making Luciano's total sentence of imprisonment 88 years.

According to Illinois law, the prison sentences are to be served consecutive to one another. Luciano is eligible for day for day sentencing because the murders were committed prior to Illinois' Truth in Sentencing law, prosecutors said.

Both cases were part of the multi-jurisdictional Operation First Degree Burn cold-case sweep indicted by a special grand jury in June 2007. Dozens of gang members and former gang members were indicted in nearly two dozen cold-case murders following investigations by the Aurora Police Department and the FBI.

"Michael Luciano was a leader in a violent street gang at a time when street gangs notoriously kept the citizens of the city of Aurora on edge," Kane County State's Attorney Joe McMahon said in a press release. "Despite his young age, he was a violent criminal who murdered two people.

"When the citizens of Aurora began to push back against the gangs, he fled the community where he had inflicted so much damage and thought he would escape accountability," he said in the release." But as we've seen so many times, the past has a way of catching up to criminals. Good police work uncovered the truth, and he was brought to justice. An exceptionally long prison sentence is the only way to protect the citizens of Aurora and this state from him."
The Oswego Village Board has decided to have two fireworks displays in July - one to coincide with the closing ceremony of the Vietnam Moving Wall that is coming to the village and another to celebrate the nation's independence.

Trustees this week discussed four options that included moving the annual Fourth of July fireworks show a day earlier in tribute to Vietnam veterans and their families. The Vietnam traveling memorial will be on display in Prairie Point Community Park from June 29 to July 3, with events planned for each day.

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Trustees decided on a compromise to have fireworks shows on both July 3 and 4.

Trustee Joe West, a Vietnam veteran, agreed to spearhead fundraising efforts to cover the additional $5,000 cost to cover a night of fireworks July 3. Trustee Judy Sollinger agreed to help.

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A Village Board decision in 2015 to move the fireworks show to July 3 sparked a backlash of criticism from residents used to having their family gatherings on July 4.

The village's intent was to extend the holiday weekend because July 4 landed on a Saturday that year. Trustees in 2016 voted to make July 4 the permanent day for the village's fireworks display.

"It's a great compromise," Village President Gail Johnson said after the decision to have two nights of fireworks.

She said the compromise avoids disrupting people's annual holiday gatherings.

"We also know that we took a lot of flak the last time we changed the date of the fireworks. We do not want to disrupt parties and celebrations. This way we can honor our veterans and our nation's independence," Johnson said.

Oswego Village President Gail Johnson. (Gail Johnson)

Local veterans and community leaders have arranged to bring the three-fifths scale replica of the Vietnam Memorial to Oswego from June 29 through July 3. The local Vietnam Wall committee approached the village about hosting fireworks to coincide with the memorial's closing ceremony July 3.

Committee co-chairman, Dave Krahn, a lifelong Oswego resident, gave a presentation to the board this week about the wall's visit. Krahn said the committee expects the memorial wall will draw approximately 150,000 to 200,000 people to Oswego over five days.

"It's a double-win for Oswego," Krahn said Wednesday. "There are going to be so many people coming to the village.

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Krahn said they were prepared to accept the village's fireworks decision no matter the outcome.

"We understood moving the fireworks a day earlier a couple of years ago was controversial. We thought we would make the request to have the fireworks to cap the closing ceremonies," he said. "We believe the fireworks will be a wonderful tribute to the men, women and families who sacrificed so much during the Vietnam War and were never recognized for it."

West issued a request for private and corporate donations for the July 3 fireworks.

"We went through a lot during that time," the U.S. Marine veteran said. "I have been to Washington, D.C., to see the Vietnam Memorial Wall and it is impressive when you see the names of those who died in the war."

Donations for the July 3 fireworks can be made to the Village of Oswego with "July 3 Veterans Fireworks" on the subject line and sent to Oswego Village Hall, 100 Parkers Mill, Oswego, IL 60543.

The public is also invited to two fundraising events to help cover the $50,000 cost to bring the memorial to Oswego. The Oswego Police Department Explorers Post 3525 and the Kiwanis of Oswego are hosting a pancake breakfast from 8 to 11 a.m. Saturday at Oswego High School, 4250 Route 71. Another fundraiser, "Operation Salute & Boogie," will be held from 6:30 to 10:30 p.m. March 31 at the Fox Valley Kickers Club in Oswego. The night will feature music by the Stingrays, a silent auction, door prizes and appetizers. Tickets are $30 person and $50 for a couple. All proceeds from both events benefit the Vietnam Moving Wall in Oswego. For information, go to Vietnam Wall Oswego 2017 on Facebook.

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Linda Girardi is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News
Take things in stride: I know a lot of people didn't like former President Obama, but when people said things about him, he took it in stride. He went about his business while trying to make America better. All our beliefs are not the same, but we have to get along. President Trump has to forget about the media and not react. Did we ever see Obama react when "Saturday Night Live" did skits about him? He probably sat back and laughed. Trump must think late night shows are reality. He needs to grow thicker skin and make Americans happy.

Looking into the future: This is the Amazing Psychic, I predict that Melania Trump will divorce Donald, and the Democrats will take over the Congress in 2018 and force investigations.

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Riled about Republicans: I have two comments. The Democrats believe in welfare for society because the Republican policies put in place are meant to keep the working people under their thumbs. The 99 percent will no longer stand for that just as we haven't for the past eight years. We should not sit back and watch how Republicans do it. For over 30 years, we have watched how Reaganomics and the trickle-down theory do not work. The Democrats and Independents will stand up and call President Trump out on every issue that is not in line with how Americans want to live their lives.

Living in fear: Donald Trump says the world's a scary place. He's right  it's scary because he's president.

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Fight for women's rights: Women worldwide are so upset about President Trump. They are marching and demanding their rights. Not one says anything about marriage and raising children. Perhaps this is why gay marriage is so prevalent today. The human race has 100 years before it becomes extinct from sexual orientation confusion.

Bring Americans together: I get it when all the President Trump supporters say that Hillary Clinton voters are angry about Trump's win. I also get it that Clinton won by 3 million votes. That has never happened before in the history of our election. During his inauguration, Trump reached out only to the voters who voted for him. He didn't reach out to all of America. That's what all former good presidents did. The president is the commander in chief whose duty is to bring all Americans together and make them feel at ease. We cannot have a divided America. I get it that people are angry about interference in our election. That never happened before. There needs to be sanctions on Russia and make sure it never happens again.

County motto: Kane County passed a motto of "In God We Trust," but heaven forbid we should have a treatment center here.

Doubts about America: I don't know about you, but when I hear, "Let's make America great again," it sounds like we are going backward instead of forward. Isn't America great now?

Musing about mayoral candidate: Rep. Linda Chapa LaVia is running for mayor of Aurora while she is supposed to be down in Springfield serving the people. Does she get paid for her job in Springfield, or does she deny the wages while she's campaigning? Chapa LaVia was given a fundraising dinner at $1,000 a plate. What does she donate to charity? What does she do for Aurora? Her signs are right on top of the road. Why does she get to break the law with her signs?

English instead of Spanish: I have been shopping at a Mexican food store on Summit Street. I love it there. It's very clean, and I like the food. However, the bakery and the deli don't have signs in English. I've mentioned this, but they ignored me. I think it would be nice since we are in the United States if they would put things in English.

Stand up to Trump: The Republicans in Congress are showing they are spineless when it comes to standing up to Donald Trump.

Harping about march: I read everything about the march by women, but what is their complaint? I don't understand. It's actually an anti-Trump march. What has the man done? He has only been in office a short time. I think the march was a farce.

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Brawl at the mall: I want to talk about teenagers hanging out at the mall. I remember what happened in Aurora. Why do kids want to hang out at the mall? Malls are for shopping. The manager should make rules that teenagers should not be there without their parents. Teenagers should be home doing homework.

Freedom of beliefs: Every day religious leaders interject their spiritual beliefs about political affairs of the day. Our political leaders claim spiritual influences guide them and nothing is wrong in them doing so. Freedom of speech is vital to our society, and if actors want to use their celebrity to voice their beliefs then more power to them. It's like I sometimes say, "If you can't join them, beat them at their own game."

Trump tax returns: I am trying to figure out why people think President Trump should release his tax returns. That is nobody's business. I wouldn't do it either.

Help people in need: We're arguing back and forth about how many people were at the inauguration. Who cares? Do something for the country. Go down south and help those poor people who voted for you in southern Georgia, Texas and New Orleans. They have no homes because of some of the worst storms in history. Help these people out. You have better things to do than measure how many people watched you become the president. Do something for the people as you promised. We were told that Trump was going to take care of America. Let's do it. I want to support my president whoever he or she is, but I can't support them until they do the right thing. The right thing is to forget about signing bills and executive orders. Give the people in the south some help.

Troubled by Trump actions: The president wants to tax people for taking jobs outside of the United States. It's a good idea, but who does it hurt? It hurts Americans. Will he tax his children who are running his businesses that he supposedly gave up? His name is still on there. He is still liable. If you start putting a tariff on companies that move outside the United States, guess who gets the burden when products come in? The American people get stuck with paying that money. What about all these companies who hire people outside of the United States? Think about the times when you call for customer service and you get someone in Mexico or India. Slippery slope.

Remarks about parks: I'm getting a kick on how the people that run Aurora want to turn any vacant land into a park. Ever notice how many parks in town have nobody using them? Perhaps people are afraid of getting caught in a gang-related shootout. These parks are maintained by well-paid park district or city workers at the taxpayers' expense. In addition, what do you think is going to happen to all the huge derelict buildings in downtown Aurora? Nobody wants to buy them. Wake up, people. Aurora is becoming a ghost town.

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Plea to celebrities: For all the celebrities who are bashing President Trump, I have a suggestion. The borders are wide open for you to leave. Take advantage of this, and let it be a one-way ticket.

Coping with Copley: This is about what should or shouldn't be done with the old Copley Hospital in Aurora. Linda Chapa LaVia has been downstate for many years but was never interested in what was going on. Now she has all the answers. Why doesn't she let other people handle this? Why was she the only one pictured with the priest? There were oodles of people standing behind her, but I guess they don't count. Perhaps Linda Chapa LaVia and Michael Madigan could pay for the rehab of Copley or tear it down to make another park.

Bummed about beggars: The streets of Aurora are full of walking moochers. They stand outside businesses to beg. I came out of a grocery store on Lake Street, and a woman asked me for $5. I walk out of Walgreens on Union Street, and they hit me up for money. Then they go next door to McDonald's restaurant and beg the drive-up patrons. This goes on all year. Aurora is becoming skid row.

Extreme vetting: How about extreme vetting for Donald Trump and his cabinet?

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.
Former Stevenson High School superintendent and principal Rick DuFour is pictured in a 2001 staff photo. DuFour died Wednesday at the age of 69, Stevenson officials announced recently. (Stevenson High School / Handout)

As former colleagues reflect on Rick DuFour's contributions to Stevenson High School, they've been reminded about the former superintendent and principal's work to transform the once rural district into one of the state's top performing high schools.

DuFour spent 19 years at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, working as principal for nearly eight years before being named district superintendent in 1991. He remained Stevenson's superintendent until his retirement in 2002.

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On Wednesday, Stevenson officials announced that DuFour, who had cancer, died earlier in the day at age 69 while at his home in Virginia.

District board member Merv Roberts, who has worked on the Stevenson board for 36 years, thought back to something he said during DuFour's retirement party to explain the former educator's contributions to Stevenson.

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"I said, 'Well, I think Stevenson is going to be a better place when Rick leaves,'" Roberts recalled. "And you could see the stunned look on people's faces. ... What I meant when I said Stevenson would be a better place was that because he built a culture of leadership."

DuFour's son, Matthew DuFour, said the family moved into the Stevenson school district long before the district earned the reputation of being one of the best high schools in the state. But his father worked tirelessly and believed in Stevenson teachers' ability to make the high school one of the better ones in Illinois.

He applied that aggressive approach even after his cancer diagnosis, Matthew DuFour said. He documented his two-and-a-half-year battle with cancer in an online journal at CaringBridge.com, Matthew DuFour said.

The son plans to publish the posts in a book later this year and donate sale proceeds to the organization Stand Up To Cancer, Matthew DuFour said.

"When my father was diagnosed with cancer, all of our hearts were broken," Matthew DuFour said. "But rather than retreat into bitterness, sadness or isolation, Rick DuFour soldered on and in a very public way."

To better understand Rick DuFour and his achievements at Stevenson, Roberts and other school officials said residents simply need to look at Stevenson's progress as a school in the years after DuFour retired in 2002.

Superintendent Eric Twadell said in a statement that DuFour often would remark after seeing Stevenson improve as a school each year in his retirement that he "may have been the weight that was holding Stevenson back."

"We know, of course, that it is just the opposite," Twadell said. "Rick led the effort to build the culture of continuous improvement and growth that continues to characterize our school today."

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Stevenson also earned numerous accolades during DuFour's tenure at the school, according to district spokesman Jim Conrey.

The school earned "Blue Ribbon" awards from the U.S. Department of Education in 1987, 1991, 1998 and 2002, Conrey said. The Illinois State Board of Education gave its first "Excellence Award for Learning Communities" to Stevenson in 1998, he said.

The U.S. Department of Education also later said Stevenson was "the most recognized and celebrated high school in the United States in the 1990s," Conrey said.

A native of Kankakee, DuFour initially worked as a teacher and administrator in suburban Batavia and West Chicago after graduating from Illinois State University in 1969, according to Stevenson officials.

After his 19-year career at Stevenson ended, he wrote and co-authored numerous books and articles for publications covering the education industry. He also helped teach educators and administrators through a group called Solution Tree, based in Bloomington, Ind.

Reflecting on DuFour's work at Stevenson, district board president Bruce Lubin said he remembered how DuFour was the real driver behind a successful $25 million referendum in 1994 that led to the construction of a classroom building, although DuFour asked him to chair the committee organizing the project.

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Now a 16-year board member, Lubin said he was thankful to have worked with DuFour.

"He allowed me to think I was the chairman, but he ran it," Lubin said. "He had a great vision for where he wanted the school to be."

And DuFour knew how to turn his vision for Stevenson into a reality, Roberts said.

The longtime board member said the school continues to earn numerous recognitions and accolades, including being ranked as one of the top high schools in Illinois and also the nation in several publications such as U.S. News and World Report.

"Most people liked to talk about stuff but when he found something that he thought would work, he just did it. People have good ideas, but they don't know how to make them work. He'd find a way," Roberts said. "He continues to inspire us."

rwachter@pioneerlocal.com

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Twitter @RonnieAtPioneer
The waiting continues for Hinsdale-Clarendon Hills Elementary District 181 and three other governing bodies that had referendums passed in November 2016 to generate additional funds.

The delay is because the DuPage Election Commission had a required legal notice about the referendums published 33 days prior to the Nov. 8 election. The election code states such notices must be published in a local newspaper at least 10 days, but not more than 30 days, prior to a regular election.

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"It was sent out to not miss that window, without knowing the exact date of publication," said Patrick Bond, the attorney for the election commission. "It was an oversight that it didn't say anything about publishing on a specific date."

Along with District 181, Salt Creek Elementary District 48, the Bloomingdale Park District and Helen Plum Library in Lombard held referendum notices published too soon.

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The situation may be resolved if Gov. Bruce Rauner signs SB 3319, which amends the Elections Code to extend the 30-day period for the Nov. 8 election to 35 days, making publication of the legal notice fall within the valid time frame.

The bill passed the Illinois General Assembly Jan. 10 and was sent to governor Jan. 19. It becomes law when signed by the governor or by statute if it is not returned by the governor within 60 calendar days, which is March 20.

Bond said a declamatory judgment action, asking a judge to rule that the early publication of the legal notice did no harm, has been discussed. However, no action on been taken, pending the governor's decision on SB 3319.

"There's been no indication that he's not going to sign it, and, generally, we would have gotten some word if that was the case," Bond said.

"It would be up to the four bodies involved with this to decide if they still wanted to go ahead with a declamatory judgment action, and that would be done to make sure there are no challenges down the line, if the governor signs it or it becomes law by statute."

District 181 finds itself with an additional challenge, which, coincidentally, could be resolved March 20.

A lawsuit challenging the validity of the successful November referendum for a new Hinsdale Middle School was filed by five Clarendon Hills residents is schedule to be heard March 20 in front of Judge Bonnie Wheaton in DuPage Circuit Court.

"Our legal counsel has advised the district that a decision on the case may be made immediately after the arguments are presented, but the judge may take time to prepare her ruling," said District 181 superintendent Don White. "It is possible that either we as the defendant or the plaintiffs will seek an appeal process based on the judge's ruling. Therefore, this process could continue into the spring."

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The successful referendums effected are District 181's $53.3 million bond sale for a new Hinsdale Middle School, District 48's $8 million bond sale to fund repair work on its school buildings, a $9.9 million bond sale by the Bloomingdale Park District to repair and improve three existing facilities, and a tax rate increase to pay for a new library building in Lombard.

John Correll, superintendent of District 48, said the district planned to have repair work completed this summer. However, the work may be delayed a year because the district has had to wait to sell bonds.

"We just want to fix up our school buildings," Correll said, adding costs of the repairs and of the bond sale could increase by the time the district is able to sell bonds and begin repair work.

cfieldman@pioneerlocal.com

Twitter @chuckwriting
The Cook County Electoral Board removed from the ballot the name of a long serving board president of Hazel Crest School District 152 1/2 because of a past felony conviction.

In a unanimous decision Friday, the three-member board dropped from the ballot Dean Barnett, a 16-year school board member who also is now serving as board president of the two-school, 1,000-student district. He had been convicted of an "infamous" felony crime  receipt, possession and sale of a stolen vehicle in 1993 when he was 17, officials said.

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The electoral board officers cited in their decision the case of Kenneth Williams, the former Thornton Township School District 205 board president who was removed from his seat in 2013 and again in 2014 for a prior felony conviction  in that case, forgery  and then struck from the ballot in 2015 for the same reason.

"The (Williams) cases make it clear that, read together, the School Code and the Election Code bar anyone convicted of an infamous crime from running for a seat on a school board," the board wrote in its decision.

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Barnett's lawyer, James P. Nally, argued at Friday's hearing that because the section of the Code of Criminal Procedure that defines an infamous crime had been repealed, there was in essence "no definition of an 'infamous crime' to determine whether [Barnett] would be fit to hold office on a school board," according to the board's decision.

The board, however, wrote that Nally's argument was unpersuasive, and cited numerous past cases in Illinois that broadly defined "infamous crime" as any felony that is "inconsistent with commonly accepted principles of honesty and decency, or involved moral turpitude."

"The crime of felony receipt, possession and sale of a stolen vehicle for which Candidate has been convicted is an 'infamous crime' because it is inconsistent with commonly accepted principles of honesty and decency," the board opined.

Max Solomon, the attorney for Barnett's objector, was familiar with the board's 'infamous crime' argument, having been part of Williams' legal team that argued unsuccessfully in 2014 that he should be eligible to hold office despite his felony conviction.

Now, on the other side of things, he relied on the same court decisions that sunk his former client to successfully challenge Barnett's candidacy.

Solomon said he believes that under the court's broad definition of "infamous crime," all felony crimes are in fact "infamous," and thus disqualify convicted felons from seeking or holding public municipal office unless they receive a pardon from the governor.

The same is not true, however, for offices created by the Illinois Constitution, including statewide offices like senator and representative. By law, candidates for the state Senate and General Assembly can run for and hold office in Illinois even after being convicted of a felony and serving a prison term.

"The wisdom of that is another thing to be discussed," Solomon said of the higher standard that lower offices are held to in Illinois, "but as far as current laws are concerned, any category of felony, as far as I see it, would bar a potential candidate from holding public (municipal) office."

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Nally declined to discuss his arguments before the court, but said in a statement that Barnett would appeal the electoral board's decision.

"My client has honorably and respectfully discharged his duties as a member of the Hazel Crest School District 152 1/2 school board for the last 16 years. He understands and respects the electoral process, including the Cook County Electoral Board decision that finds his candidacy in jeopardy," the statement reads. "We are currently reviewing the legal options that are available to us, which will include an appeal to the circuit court."

Solomon, who lost an appeal with Williams in 2015 arguing the same issue, said he believes it would be an uphill battle for Barnett to get back on the ballot.

"It's going to be very tough," he said. "I don't see how he's going to be able to overcome the standing law. Essentially, he'll be going back to the same court to tell them to overrule their own court authority of the past three years."

Despite getting knocked off the ballot and being found ineligible to hold municipal office, Barnett will likely be able to serve out the remainder of his current term, Solomon said.

The state's attorney's office could file a quo warranto action challenging Barnett's right to hold public office, but with just a few months left to serve, that appears unlikely.

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"I don't anticipate [the state's attorney's office] doing that because he has two to three more months to serve out for the remainder of his term in office," Solomon said. "I think this is just going to die out, and he's going to serve out his term and won't run for office anymore."

The state's attorney's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It's unclear why Barnett, who has been a convicted felon for the entirety of his school board tenure, did not have his candidacy challenged until this election cycle.

Tesha Gray, the resident who challenged Barnett's candidacy and who also is running for a seat on Hazel Crest's school board, could not be reached for comment.

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

Solomon said he didn't believe the challenge to Barnett was sparked by any recent discovery that he had a felony conviction, but was rather a result of the publicity that Williams' removal from office in 2013 and again in 2014 received.

"The Kenny Williams case was so huge  it was in the papers, it was in the news, it was in the school district  so I think people were not conscious of this kind of dynamic before the Kenny Williams case," he said.

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With more people now aware that felons are barred from holding municipal office in Illinois, community members, especially ones seeking election, are beginning to challenge officeholders with criminal histories, Solomon said.

"The criminal background of such a potential candidate is now fair game," he said. "If anyonemay suspect or have knowledge of someone's background, they, of course, use it against the person. I think Dean Barnett is just the aftermath of Kenny Williams."

The Board of Elections did not immediately respond to a request for the names of any other candidates running this cycle who are being challenged on the same grounds as Barnett.

zkoeske@tribpub.com

Twitter @ZakKoeske
Illinoisans are fleeing the state in record numbers. Homeowners pay the highest property taxes in the nation. And high-need residents are suffering under budget priorities that don't put them at the front of the line.

Why?

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A simple truth explains the root of this pain: Politicians do not bear the cost of government. In fact, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle grow more and more powerful as the size of state and local government increases.

To varying degrees, the power bases of both parties depend on the status quo. Both sides would come under fire for taking on necessary spending reforms.

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First, let's look at the Illinois Democrats. Under the direction of Illinois House of Representatives Speaker Mike Madigan, the Democratic political operation has functioned in a similar fashion for decades. The party's power base is composed of state workers, public-sector unions, trial lawyers and some social service providers. The foot soldiers of Chicago's political machine make up the remainder.

Most Illinoisans are familiar with that hierarchy and its consequences.

The Republican power base, however, is less understood. Stereotypical suburban households and titans of industry come to mind. But that doesn't paint the whole picture.

Illinois is home to the most units of government in the nation at nearly 7,000. And while some may talk a big game on spending reform, many Republican lawmakers rely on the support of those duplicative local governments in their districts.

Here's why that poses a problem: Local reform must be a major component of any state budget plan. The pain felt by homeowners comes at the local level, and it's forcing families to move beyond Illinois' borders.

Changing a culture of local government overspending will be difficult. It requires aggressive consolidation. It requires freezing property taxes and limiting the ability of local governments to raise revenues. It requires reforming the state subsidies that block accountability and fuel excessive spending. And it requires empowering local leaders to balance their budgets without the burden of costly Springfield mandates.

Real property tax reform requires all of those things.

But politicians on both sides of the aisle are reluctant to throw their weight behind the whole package, because those reforms strike at the heart of bloated local government.

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Take the Local Government Distributive Fund, or LGDF. This state fund is made up of $1.3 billion in income tax money that the state hands out to local governments with no strings attached.

Local leaders say this money is used to help keep property taxes low. But that argument doesn't hold water in a state with the highest property taxes in the nation.

They also say it's a pillar of basic services, such as public safety. That's a convenient excuse. In reality, this money enables reckless spending habits propped up by the state. Practices, such as pension spiking, sick leave accumulation and pension "pickups" are rampant in the Land of Lincoln.

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

Money from the LGDF also enables local governments to pay the state-mandated prevailing wage for work on public projects. The costs this requirement entails are astonishing.

The average annual compensation package for workers receiving the prevailing wage in Cook and Sangamon counties is over $110,000. Meanwhile, private-sector workers in those counties take home median earnings of $34,990 and $34,521, respectively.

Local governments are even spending taxpayer money to lobby against taxpayer interests.

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When a statewide property tax freeze proposal was gaining steam in the General Assembly in 2015, government agencies across the state paid out more than $9 million to lobbyists who killed reform efforts, according to data obtained via Freedom of Information Act requests.

And yet, most Republicans still won't touch programs like the LGDF. Doing so requires taking on the mayors, township supervisors, highway commissioners, park district officials and legions of others who have staked their hopes on multibillion-dollar tax hikes as a way out of the budget mess.

More Illinois politicians must move beyond political convenience, and muster the courage to ease that suffering. The path of least resistance won't cut it anymore.

Austin Berg is a writer for the Illinois Policy Institute. He wrote this column for the Illinois News Network, a project of the Institute.
Northwestern University is investigating reports that at least three students were sexually assaulted and may also have been drugged at fraternity houses in recent weeks. (Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune) (Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)

Northwestern University's student government organization on Wednesday called for the immediate suspension of multiple campus fraternities after multiple women were allegedly sexually assaulted in the fraternity houses earlier this year.

Northwestern's Associated Student Government in a statement asked that the Illinois Psi-Omega chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon and other unidentified fraternities on campus be suspended immediately while the investigation into the alleged assaults continues. The Associated Student Government also asked that, if found responsible, the fraternities be removed from campus indefinitely.

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"We believe the university must remove individuals from campus who are found responsible for sexual assault, as well as organizations that do not foster a safe, healthy environment free of sexual misconduct," reads the statement, which is posted on the Associated Student Government Facebook page.

The Associated Student Government represents the undergraduate students at Northwestern University, officials said.

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Christina Cilento, ASG president, said the group's leaders took a stand before the investigation was complete because the severity of the situation was conveyed through two university emails to the entire student body.

"Those fraternities have created an environment on campus that we feel is unsafe," Cilento said. "We don't get an email about every single sexual assault on campus."

Northwestern administrators on Monday issued a security alert after receiving reports that as many as four female students were possibly given a date rape drug at a Jan. 21 event at the SAE house, according to Chicago Tribune reports. Two of the women said they were sexually assaulted after receiving the drug.

The university received a second allegation last week of a woman being sexually assaulted after receiving a date rape drug at a different fraternity house, according to Tribune reports.

Officials have not said which fraternity is allegedly involved in that attack.

Northwestern is required by federal law to warn students and staff about alleged crimes on campus if they pose "an ongoing threat to the campus community," according to Tribune reports.

Northwestern Interfraternity Council said in a statement on the group's Facebook page on Wednesday that leaders plan to start a task force involving diverse voices from across campus to help evaluate "risk management, sexual assault, hazing, drugging and toxic masculine culture, and membership development, recruitment, and values," in fraternities, among other topics.

Brandon Weghorst, SAE spokesman, said the fraternity is committed to cooperating during the investigation.

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"Sigma Alpha Epsilon certainly wants to work with university officials and the campus community as we move forward following the allegations that came to our attention about our chapter," Weghorst said.

gbookwalter@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @GenevieveBook
A protest march at Northwestern University in Evanston on Feb. 9, 2017, ends with a poem by Langston Hughes, read by an Iranian doctorate student. (Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune) (Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune)

A rally and march at Northwestern University in opposition to President Donald Trump's immigration ban was one of dozens taking place at college campuses across the country Thursday.

More than 200 NU students, instructors, staff members and Evanston resident backers marched in the north suburb Thursday in support of immigrants and against proposed federal immigration restrictions.

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Demonstrations were also planned on the University of Illinois Chicago and Urbana-Champaign campuses, at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and at other colleges and universities, from California to Massachusetts, a move organizers called one of solidarity.

The rally at Northwestern started on campus outside University Hall and moved down Sheridan Road where a rally was held on the steps of the Technological Institute.

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The protesters carried signs with slogans that included "Ndivisible" (with a big purple "N") and "I am Iranian/I am a physicist/#IamNU," among others.

Demonstrators braved a windchill temperature that hovered around zero. And while their chants echoed those heard in recent protests around the country  like "no hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here"  the Northwestern rally focused especially on the effects that immigration restrictions might have on campus.

"Our learning is enriched by having people from all over the world here," said Ngozi Nezianya, 29, a third year graduate student in law and business, as he marched up Sheridan Road. "We are a country of immigrants, founded by immigrants. It's important we stand up for them."

Paymun Zargar, an NU doctoral student and a spokesman for the NU demonstration, said that the Trump administration's recent executive order restricting immigration for some people from seven predominantly Muslim nations has impacted a number of students and professors at the university.

"His (Trump's) executive order has stranded a number of students and professors abroad," Zargar said.

Fay Rosner, a Northwestern advisor and French teacher, said she marched to support the students who turn to her for help.

One student of color recently told her about being pulled aside for extra inspection before boarding an airplane  the first time that had ever happened to the student, said Rosner, 58.

Other students are immigrants or the children of immigrants and worry about what might happen to them or their families if the proposed restrictions are enforced, she said.

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"When they're feeling this enormous stress in the world, it affects them," Rosner said. "They feel it in a very real way."

President Donald Trump issued an executive order Jan. 27 that barred entry into this country for some people from seven predominantly-Muslim nations.

But parts of order are currently on hold after a federal judge in Seattle on Feb. 3 ordered a stay.

Both Northwestern and Evanston officials have promised protection for immigrants.

"We will take all the necessary steps to protect our faculty and students, particularly international students," said Ravi Shankar, director of the international office at Northwestern.

Evanston Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl touted the city's "welcoming city" status, which prohibits Evanston police from holding undocumented immigrants for immigration authorities after a stop. Exceptions include those convicted for serious crimes or already sought on an arrest warrant, according to language in a recent sanctuary ordinance the city adopted.

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Police also cannot ask crime victims or witnesses about their immigration status, the ordinance reads.

Tisdahl reminded Northwestern students that while they are uniquely affected by immigration restrictions, they are in a unique situation to fight those proposals.

"Get on the phone tonight. Call your parents. Call your great-aunt Sally," Tisdahl said. "You need to pledge to me you're going to push all the cities you come from to pass welcoming city ordinances."

Rustin Golnabi, 22, is a second-year doctoral student in material science and co-organizer of Thursday's the rally. His parents immigrated from Iran and he was born in the United States, he said. He worries what might happen to them but has been encouraged by the campus response.

"At first there was a feeling of loneliness and despair and fear," Golnabi said.

Recently though, "you become hopeful because you see how much support there is out there."

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gbookwalter@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @GenevieveBook
The Writers Theatre building received a National Honor Award for Interior Architecture from the Chicago-based American Institute of Architects in January. (Daniel I. Dorfman / Pioneer Press)

As Writers Theatre celebrates its 25th anniversary and wraps up its first year in its new 36,000-square-foot building in downtown Glencoe, the theatre company and the structure have received awards in recent weeks.

In January, the Writers building  designed by the Studio Gang design team - received a National Honor Award for Interior Architecture from the Chicago-based American Institute of Architects, according to an AIA statement.

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The building, which opened to the public in February 2016, includes two performance areas with a main theatre that seats 250 people, and a smaller space with seating for 99.

"The main theater employs innovative staging and seating configurations that both enhance the intimacy for which Writers is known and opens up new opportunities for exciting actor entrances and exits, fully immersing audience members in the performance, almost as if they were on the stage with the actors," the statement said.

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Also in January, Writers announced the building received LEED Gold Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council for deploying environmental sensitive methods in construction and ongoing usage.

Finally, at the Feb. 2 Glencoe Village Board meeting, trustees unanimously passed a resolution honoring the quarter century existence of Writers, noting how far the company has come since its 1992 start with productions in the back of a downtown Glencoe bookstore.

"The Village of Glencoe is greatly honored to be the home of Writers Theatre and recognizes its tremendous importance and immeasurable contribution to the Glencoe community," Village President Larry Levin said as part of a proclamation.

Levin added that a representation of the Writers building will be on the vehicle sticker the village sells to residents this year.

Daniel I. Dorfman is a freelancer for Pioneer Press.
Kendall Bruns loved pizza when he was growing up, whether it was from a national chain, the local Cincinnati chain where he had his first job, or the mom and pop pizza parlors in his home city. When he was older and traveled more, he always sought out the city's best pizza places to try their takes on the dish.

After graduating from the Art Academy of Cincinnati, Bruns did design work for the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Contemporary Arts Center. As he learned how to put a museum exhibit together and market it, he decided to combine those skills and his passion by founding the U.S. Pizza Museum.

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"I just thought pizza was a topic that deserved a museum and that I could do it," Bruns said. "I tried to research the [pizzerias] that had been around the longest and ones that still were prominent today or ones that had any other specific innovation. I tried to use examples that would tell the story of how pizza actually evolved and became popular."

Bruns debuted his collection of pizza menus, boxes and memorabilia in April 2016 at the Chicago Pizza Summit. It doesn't have a permanent home, instead appearing online at www.uspizzamuseum.com and in pop-up exhibits like the one running through March 31 at the Niles Public Library District. The exhibit showcases Chicago pizzerias, chronicling the evolution of the city's iconic deep-dish style. Pizza first appeared in Chicago's Little Italy neighborhood in the '30s and '40s in its traditional street-food form, but was transformed in 1943 by the founders of Pizzeria Uno.

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"They were aware of the pizza that was available in Little Italy and wanted to do something more substantial," Bruns said. "People say they wanted to appeal to a robust Midwestern appetite, but I think they wanted to make it more like a meal and less like and appetizer."

Their innovation was to create a pizza with a butter crust and lots of cheese, sausage and sauce that was baked for a long time in a pan. Most of Chicago's other major deep-dish purveyors were connected to Pizzeria Uno. Chef Alice May Redmond worked in the kitchen and helped Sam Levine and Fred Bartoli open Gino's East in 1966. Rudy Malnati was a bartender and manager at Uno and was credited with helping craft the deep-dish recipe. His son, who also served as a manager there, went on to open Lou Malnati's and Lou's half-brother opened Pizano's. Bruns details this history in his displays, though he warns visitors that the truth of deep dish's evolution isn't fully known.

"A lot of this is information that people from the different pizzerias tell as their origin story," Bruns said. "You never know how much they're putting their own spin on things. Everybody wants to be the people that invented everything."

The library is also hosting a variety of events as part of the exhibit's run. Bruns will give a presentation on the history of pizza at 7 p.m. Feb. 9 in honor of National Pizza Day. Other events include a demonstration of how to make pizza dough with the owner of Paulie Gee's Logan Square on Feb. 18, a pizza snack food taste-off for teens on March 4 and a celebration of Pi Day for kids in kindergarten through fourth grade on March 14.

U.S. Pizza Museum exhibit and I Love Pizza event series

When: through March 31

Where: Niles Public Library District, 6960 W. Oakton St.

Admission: Free

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Information: 847-663-1234; nileslibrary.org/pizza
Highland Park High School senior Jasmine Lardizabal spoke of her appreciation for the military sacrifices made by her father and grandfather in an audiotaped essay that captured first place in a regional VFW Voice of Democracy scholarship competition.

Q: Do you recall when you truly started to appreciate their military service?

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A: I started to appreciate my father's service when I lived in the Philippines and he was on sea duty with the Navy. Though he rarely visited me during this time, I grew to know that he was working hard not only for my family, but for our country. I only recently came to appreciate my grandfather's service in the Army during World War II. He passed away a couple of months ago, and I regret not asking him more about it when he was alive.

Q: Have you moved around a lot as a military kid? Did you ever resent it?

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A: My family and I have moved nine times because of my dad's job. Though it was difficult for me to adapt to my surroundings when I was little, I've learned to use it to my advantage by making a diverse group of friends, immersing myself in different cultures and using the obstacles as an opportunity to improve myself.

Q: Was the move to Highland Park a big transition?

A: I arrived in Highland Park in August of 2015 and it was definitely a big transition. We moved from Guam, where I attended a (defense department) high school with 500 students, to a public school with roughly 2,000 students.

Q: What are your own plans for the future?

A: I hope to follow in my father's footsteps by serving in the Air Force as a physical therapist to war veterans. I have devoted myself to serving others, not just because I want to fulfill my civic duties but also because I love to move and I want to help those who lack the ability to do so.

Q: How did you happen to learn of the VFW Voice of Democracy competition?

A: I'm constantly trying to lessen the burden of college costs for my parents. When I read in my school's daily announcements that the Veterans of Foreign Wars had a competition, I felt motivated to be a part of it.

Q: What kind of things do you like to do just for fun?

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A: I've always loved to dance, whether it's in a class with strict ballet technique or at home when I'm wearing pajamas and trying to lessen my worries from school. I also love watching movies, whether it's a comedy, horror, or classic film.
The citizens' group working on a school reorganization plan for North Shore School District 112 hopes to present a proposal to the school board this summer despite abrupt changes in district leadership and a high degree of turnover on the school board.

With school board campaign season about to shift into high gear, the Reconfiguration 2.0 panel plans to convene focus groups in February and conduct a survey in March as well as host community forums. The group also is planning a direct mailer that will be sent district households explaining the "State of the District" through graphics and why change is needed.

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Former Superintendent Michael Bregy, who convened the panel following the failed referendum, left abruptly mid year for a job in California. Two retired school superintendents, Jane Westerhold and Edward Rafferty, were hired Feb. 3 to share superintendent duties through mid 2018. Assistant Superintendent Jennifer Ferrari also will be leaving in mid March.

The April 4 school election also could bring three or four new members to the school board. Five of the nine school board candidates currently serve on the Reconfiguration 2.0 Team.

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During two meetings with the school board this week, leaders of the citizens' group outlined their schedule for the coming months. Under the tentative timetable, the group would unveil its school reorganization plan in late June or early July to allow time for the proposal to be fleshed out with cost estimates and explained to the community before a school board vote. The school board would need to authorize a referendum in December for the question to appear on the ballot in March of 2018.

According to the timetable, LINK Strategic Partners will conduct two focus groups with about 12 to 15 constituents each on Feb. 22 and Feb. 23. Input from the focus groups would be used to finalize the questions to be asked during a survey conducted between March 7 and March 16. Based in Washington, LINK specializes in community engagement during heated controversies at the local level.

Several school board members were concerned the district was taking a step back in the process by asking constituents' views about keeping all 12 school buildings open. A Superintendent Citizens Finance and Facility Advisory Committee, known as SCFFAC, looked at the issues between late 2012 and early 2014 and concluded the district should downsize from a dozen to perhaps six or eight schools. Surveys completed during a series of community sessions in early 2014 showed strong support for reducing the number of school buildings.

"Isn't there something we should be saying affirmatively to move this along?," asked Karla Livney, a District 112 board member.

Livney contended the new community engagement effort should start from the premise that 12 schools is not an option.

"We can't keep all 12 schools open, and we don't have a lot of time. We are trying to get this on the ballot," said Livney, who is stepping down after the April 4 election.

She stressed that every group that has examined the issue in depth has reached that conclusion, and many voters won't take the time to become that informed.

Board President Samantha Stolberg voiced reservations about "dangling the carrot" of keeping all 12 schools open during the engagement process, which could further erode trust when the district is unable to follow through.

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"You have to be patient for the process to play out," said Art Kessler, a member of the Reconfiguration 2.0 steering committee who addressed the school board Feb. 7. "We are moving this along without putting that stake in the ground," he said, referring to the declaration suggested by Livney.

Other leaders of the 2.0 group also expressed a willingness to follow the process recommended by LINK Strategic Partners, which has experience in bringing school referenda to fruition.

"We are starting from where people are at," said Raphael Labrador, another member of the steering committee. "Where people are at may be disappointing to us, but (starting there) is a really critical part of the process that we are hiring (the consultants) to do."

School officials and study groups have long acknowledged the fiscal and educational impracticality of keeping all 12 school buildings open. However, the first attempt to rally voter support for a district-wide reorganization soundly failed last March in a high-turnout election. The $198 million ballot question included a controversial plan to consolidate all fifth through eighth grade students at a single middle school in southwest Highland Park.

kberkowitz@pioneerlocal.com

@KarenABerkowitz
Every week for almost 12 years I have written a column about something positive or uplifting or interesting happening within our own community. For some reason, in the last week, the community programs I have attended have had a common theme: mindfulness.

I attended a meditation talk at the Hinsdale Public Library and just recently returned from the community speakers series, where author and mindfulness expert Kristen Race, Ph.D., spoke on mindful parenting. In the weekend between those two happenings, I was on a spiritual retreat with other women from our church where quiet and meditation were emphasized.

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Breathe. Slow down. Don't react  respond instead. These were the messages. Breathing is a critical tool to achieving peace of mind, and breathing can give you the three minutes or five minutes or 10 minutes that you may need to calm down. And, for parents, breathing and gratitude are fantastic parenting tools, especially for parents of teens.

"I define mindfulness as paying attention to the present moment with kindness," said Race, speaking to several hundred parents Feb. 7 at The Community House.

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Race, who has written "Mindful Parenting: Simple and Powerful Solutions to for Raising Creative Engaged, Happy Kids," is a parent and is particularly interested in the effect of stress and of mindfulness on the brain. Mindfulness, she said, can improve your relationships, your parenting, your work and your health in general. In fact, it is possible even to rewire your brain to be more effective, an opportunity to bring the brain and mind back into balance, she said.

"It doesn't take a lot of time to make a big difference," she said.

Ideally, parents use mindfulness tools into practice when their children are young, before the teenage years, so both teen and parent already know how to use them.

People who use mindfulness techniques do not float on clouds or experience nonstop joy but rather have given themselves a chance to take a break, to calm their brains, and to move their thinking from the primitive part which is purely instinctual to the front part of the brain, so that they can respond rather than react.

Race called this PBR, where those initials stood for Pause, Breathe, Respond. Other suggestions Race made include trying to connect with your children rather than direct them, and while there are times when they must be directed, there are other times when you can connect. When does your teen want to talk? Can you listen without judgment and react with curiosity and empathy?

Race said to engrave the good. In other words, make it a family practice to find good things and to be grateful. Our brains can have a negative bias, but try and correct that by thinking about three good things every day.

Last, she said, embrace mistakes. Mistakes give our children the very useful skills of grit and resilience. Learn from mistakes so you can try again and to make tolerable stress from toxic stress and to know that our mistakes and failures do not define us. "What mistakes did you learn from today?" is something you can ask your children.

"The teenager of today is not the adult of tomorrow," Race said.

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That bears repeating: The teenager of today is not the adult of tomorrow. I wish someone had told me that; our time together during his teenage years could have been a lot calmer and less stressful. The Community House offers mindfulness programs, courses for middle school girls and morning sessions in mindfulness for moms. Visit www.thecommunityhouse.org for more information.

Happy to Be Me

The Robert Crown Center for Health Education will present its excellent luncheon program for pre-teen girls, Happy to Be Me, on Feb. 25. The focus is this program for girls and an adult caregiver  mom, aunt, grandmother  is developing self-esteem. In some studies, quite a few high school girls endure sexually crude jokes and are touched inappropriately. And, social media and "regular" media continue to perpetuate unrealistic expectations for girls in terms of their physique and what is defined as pretty.

Chicago Sky player Betnijah Laney will will be the featured speaker. The luncheon will be held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m at the Carlisle in Lombard. Tickets are $50 a person. For more information or to buy tickets, visit www.robertcrown.org or phone 630-325-1900.

Parent Network
Jacob Blum, 19, formerly of Lake Villa, who died of a stab wound to the chest on the night of July 16, 2013, in Waukegan. (Blum family)

Remaining composed throughout about an hour of emotional testimony, Jeffrey Blum on Thursday described in detail the night his 19-year-old son, Jacob Blum, was fatally stabbed in the Waukegan motel room in which they were staying.

His words highlighted the third day of the testimony in the trial of Kevin Curtis, 29, charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the death of Jacob Blum, formerly of Lake Villa, who died from a stab wound to the chest, according to authorities.

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Jeffrey Blum, his youngest son, Jacob, and middle son, Kevin, were staying at a Red Roof Inn on Belvidere Road the night of July 16, 2013, following a day of working as mobile salesmen in Lake County for the Windy City Meats facility in Gurnee.

Under questioning by Assistant State's Attorney Daniel Kleinhubert, Jeffrey Blum said that after a long day of work, he returned to his motel room at about 10:30 p.m. to find Jacob and Kevin in the room, as well as a co-worker, Kevin Curtis.

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He said shortly after he arrived, Kevin Blum left the room to make a phone call, Jacob was lying on one bed watching a movie and Curtis was sitting on the other bed "cleaning his (finger) nails with a knife."

Blum said he went into the bathroom to clean up and shave, leaving the door open, when he heard Jacob scream, "What the (expletive), Kevin!"

"I heard Jacob screaming," Blum said, stating that he immediately left the bathroom to find Jacob rushing toward him "with blood gushing out of his chest."

Blum said he directed Jacob to the door and told him to get to the motel lobby because he was bleeding badly, and then saw Curtis coming toward him with a bloody knife.

"In my opinion, he was coming for me next," Blum testified, saying he then grabbed Curtis by the wrist, removed the knife from his hand and dragged him down to the floor, holding him by the arm so that he couldn't leave.

He said after about five minutes, Kevin Blum returned to the room and tackled Curtis off of his father. Blum added that he grabbed the knife and a scissors on a nearby table to clear the room of weapons and headed out of the room and toward the lobby.

Blum said he was met by Waukegan police officers who told him to "drop the weapons," and that he then put the knife and scissors on a chair in the lobby and was allowed to go to his wounded son.

He said he saw Jacob lying in a small dining area near the lobby with motel employees, and that paramedics had just arrived.

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"There was blood everywhere in the dining area," Blum said. He said his son was lying on the floor, and at one point tried to sit up, causing blood to pour from his chest.

"He said 'I'm not going to make it,'" Blum said. "I told him, 'Let these (paramedics) work on you  these are the ones who are going to save you.'"

But Blum said that after his son had briefly tried to sit up, he was losing color and turning gray. "He was on his last legs."

Blum said emergency workers put Jacob on a gurney to transport him to the hospital. He added that he never saw his son alive again.

Prosecutors said Jacob Blum, after losing a lot of blood and suffering a collapsed lung from the stab wound, went into cardiac arrest in the ambulance and was pronounced dead at Vista West Medical Center in Waukegan.

Earlier in the trial, prosecutors and police said Kevin Curtis and Kevin Blum were removed from the room by police and handcuffed after the stabbing. Curtis was treated for a cut to his hand and then taken into police custody.

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Kevin Blum and Jeffrey Blum were taken to the police department where they made statements before Jeffrey Blum was notified that Jacob had died. Blum testified he was "frantic, extremely concerned that my son was not going to make it" while providing a written statement.

Kleinhubert asked Blum how he felt when he was told Jacob had died.

"I broke down," he said, adding that he then had to tell Kevin Blum that his brother had died.

Blum was asked whether he could identify Curtis in court. He pointed to Curtis sitting at the defense table with his attorneys and described the shirt he was wearing.

During further questioning, Blum was asked whether Curtis said anything when the two were struggling in the hotel room after Jacob had left. Blum replied that Curtis "was concerned" about the police coming "and said he had nothing else to live for."

Blum testified that when previously asked by their employer to help Curtis, he and his sons had sometimes allowed Curtis to stay with them at prior hotels, but that it was made clear to Curtis he could not stay overnight with them at the Red Roof Inn.

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During cross examination by defense attorney Kevin Malia, Blum was asked if he remembered telling a detective that Curtis had stayed with them at the Red Roof Inn on previous evenings. Blum responded that he did not recall that.

Assistant State's Attorney Scott Turk said in opening statements Tuesday that Jacob and Kevin Blum had told Curtis he could come up to the room to use the phone and try to make arrangements for the night, but could not stay there with them.

Turk also said in his opening statements that witnesses had heard Jacob Blum say after he was stabbed that he was attacked by Curtis.

Blum testified that he and his sons were staying in motels to be closer to work while they searched for a new permanent residence. He said he and his children's mother had previously divorced and he had left her Lake Villa home. For a while, he said, Jacob and Kevin Blum had lived with him in a small apartment in Volo before the three decided to stay in motels as they sought a new residence closer to work.

Malia said in his opening statements that "Kevin Curtis is absolutely innocent of these charges," and that the case against Curtis is "based on speculation and assumptions."

Attorneys said they expect to trial to conclude Friday after the defense presents its case and closing arguments are made.

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Officials said that if convicted by the jury, Curtis faces a mandatory sentence of 20 to 60 years in prison.

jrnewton@tribpub.com

Twitter @jimnewton5
Listings are subject to change. Please call the venue in advance. To submit items to the calendar, go to newssunonline.com/community.

Monday

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Rotary Club of Highland Park/Highwood: Join in fun community service projects and fellowship. Now accepting donations at every meeting for Moraine Township Food Pantry! 11:30 a.m. Monday, Highland Park Country Club, 1201 Park Ave. West, Highland Park, Donations accepted for Moraine Township Food Pantry, 847-562-1099

Lake Shore Men's Club: Weekly meeting and guest speaker. Menu includes bagels, cream cheese, lox, sliced cheeses, vegetables, fresh fruits, cake, juice and coffee. Speakers present at 9:30 a.m. on broad range of interesting topics. Women are always welcome. 8:30 a.m. Monday, Lakeside Congregation, 1221 Lake Cook Road, Highland Park, $15, 847-383-5460

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How to Survive and Thrive in a Job Interview: This is presented by: John M. Orr, Ph.D., president of Rogala and Orr, Inc. Wouldn't it be great if you knew exactly what a hiring manager would be asking you in your next interview? This program helps you better recognize and understand the range of interview questions and techniques employed by companies. You can develop the ability to answer even unexpected questions. 1:30 p.m. Monday, Career Resource Center, 40 East Old Mill Road, Lake Forest, Free CRC members; $20 non-members, 847-295-5626

The Soil Food Web- What You Need to Know: Dr. Rex Bastian shows how soil microorganisms play a very important, but under appreciated role in plant culture. We will learn how soil organisms form complex food webs and how these food webs function to help our plants. 7 p.m. Monday, CrossLife Evangelical Free Church, 431 West Austin Ave., Libertyville, free, 847-772-2186

Knights of Columbus Bingo: Knights of Columbus is having weekly bingo as a fundraiser to help support Santa Maria church and the community. Knights of Columbus is a nonprofit family fraternal service organization. 6:45 p.m. Monday, Santa Maria Del Popolo Catholic Church, 116 N. Lake St., Mundelein, free, 847-566-8213

Mundelein and Vernon Hills Rotary Club: Weekly meeting to discuss community service projects and fellowship. Meetings are held at the restaurant each Monday. 12:15 p.m. Monday, Dover Straits, 890 E. US Highway 45, Mundelein, free, 847-949-1550

English as a Second Language class: Township High School District 113 is offering a free English as a Second Language class. Registration is requested. 9 a.m. Monday, 9 a.m. Wednesday and 9 a.m. Friday, North Chicago Public Library, 2100 Argonne Drive, North Chicago, free, 847-689-0125

Valentine's Day Craft: Make various Valentine's Day crafts and boxes for Valentine's Day. Also, there will be story time and refreshments. Registration is requested. 3 p.m. Monday, North Chicago Public Library, 2100 Argonne Drive, North Chicago, free, 847-689-0125

Tuesday

Chair Yoga: Experience safe yoga movements and poses that build awareness of your body and breath. This three session series leaves participants relaxed and refreshed. All fitness levels are welcome. 2 p.m. Tuesday, Antioch Public Library, 757 Main St., Antioch, free, 847-395-0874

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Camera Club: Share an interest in photography, of any level with programming that includes speakers, friendly contests and field trips. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Lake Forest Place, 1100 Pembridge Drive, Lake Forest, free, 847-744-0610

Families Anonymous: This is a 12 Step fellowship for the families and friends who have known a feeling of desperation concerning the destructive behavior of someone very near to them, whether caused by drugs, alcohol or related behavioral problems. Any concerned person is encouraged to attend our meetings, even if there is only a suspicion of a problem, on Tuesdays from 7:30-9 p.m. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Libertyville Civic Center, 135 W. Church St., Libertyville, free, 847-918-7157

Lake County Retired Teachers Association: Our speaker this month will be Mr. Curtis Dorsey, speaking on African culture. Mr. Dorsey is a longtime resident of Lake County, an educator, an administrator and someone who will certainly give us many insights about that part of the world and share with us what he has learned. We invite all retired educators to attend, no reservations are needed so join us in meeting old friends and making new ones. 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, Lambs Farm, 14245 West Rockland Road, Libertyville, $16, 847-362-4636

Advocate Condell Medical Center Bereavement Group: This is a support group for widows, widowers, significant others or anyone grieving the death of someone close. The group meets every Tuesday, except for the fifth Tuesday of the month at the Daycare Center, Building 700, Solarium 11048, adjacent to the West Tower and the Conference Center. For additional information contact: matthew-j.holmes@advocatehealth.com. 7 p.m. Tuesday, Advocate Condell's Intergenerational Daycare Center, 700 Garfield Ave., Libertyville, free, 847-816-4585

Technology Tuesday Brown Bag Series: Attend this series of four workshops and learn how to use technology to protect and grow your business. Bring your lunch and join us! 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, College of Lake County - Southlake Campus, 1120 South Milwaukee Ave., Vernon Hills, $75 for series of four workshops, 847-543-2033

Essential Technology for Small Business: This session, designed to help business owners cut through the flood of technology decisions a small company has to make, focuses on simple, cost effective technologies that make your life easier and business run more smoothly. 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, College of Lake County  Southlake Campus, 1120 South Milwaukee Ave., Vernon Hills, $25, 847-543-2033

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Wednesday

Parkinson's Support Group for Caregivers: Individuals who are involved in the care of someone with Parkinson's can meet others who face similar challenges, gain emotional support, and discover ways to relieve caregiver stress. Led by Nina Afremow, L.C.S.W. For more information, call Nina Afremow. Noon Wednesday, Weinberg Community for Senior Living, 1551 Lake Cook Road, Deerfield, free, 847-236-7853

Deerbrook Park Toastmasters Club: Improve public speaking, communication and leadership skills. The Club meets the first and third Wednesday of every month. 6:45 p.m. Wednesday, Deerfield Public Library, 920 Waukegan Road, Deerfield, free, 847-537-6438

Zumba Fitness Classes with Live Drummers: Zumba Fitness Class led by Melissa Kerpel, Kate Wettergren & Ruben Zapata. Licensed Zumba instructors, AFAA group exercise certified, CPR certified. For more info: www.melissazumba.com and 312-961-8484. 6:30 p.m. Wednesday and 6:30 p.m. Saturday, JCYS Lutz Family Center, 800 Clavey Road, Highland Park, $10/drop-in OR punch card ($35/5 classes, $70/10 classes), 312-961-8484

Tarot Readings at Re-Invent Gallery in Lake Forest: Madelyn Sergel of Contemporary Tarot offers tarot readings every Wednesday at the Re-Invent Gallery in Lake Forest. Both by-appointment and walk-in readings are available Wednesdays, scheduled appointments between noon and 2 p.m. and walk-ins 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Readings range from 5-10 minutes to 20+ minutes, depending on the question and number of cards used. Tarot reading gift certificates are also available. Noon Wednesday, Re-Invent Gallery, 202 E. Wisconsin Ave., Lake Forest, $15-$50; To schedule a reading, e-mail madelyntarot@gmail.com., 224-419-5119

New Interior Design Trends: Local design experts weigh in on the hottest trends you'll be dying to try this season. See what's new and what small changes can make a big impact in your home from your kitchen and bath to flooring, tile, window treatments and lighting. See samples of the newest materials in each category. Registration is required. Please call or visit the library's website at www.eapl.org to register or for more information. 7 p.m. Wednesday, Ela Area Public Library, 275 Mohawk Trail, Lake Zurich, free, 847-438-3433
Lake County transportation officials are moving forward with plans to add or lengthen turn lanes at Wadsworth Road and Lewis Avenue in Beach Park. (Yadira Sanchez Olson / Lake County News-Sun)

Details on a construction project aimed to improve traffic flow at the intersection of Wadsworth Road and Lewis Avenue were presented at a public meeting hosted at the village of Beach Park Tuesday.

The three-phase project, with an estimated cost of $3 million, is nearing the end of phase one, which includes collection of residents' input and presentation of data that shows how improvements at the intersection will accommodate safety and future traffic demands.

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On Tuesday, charts and aerial photos were used by representatives of the Lake County Division of Transportation as they answered questions from residents who use those roads.

The proposed improvements would add right turn lanes in both directions on Wadsworth and longer left-turn lanes on Lewis, easing the flow of traffic in all directions at that intersection.

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Officials said that LCDOT's preliminary data shows that in the year 2040, the intersection would operate on a level E on a level of service scale that goes from A to F, meaning close to the worst possible scenario for congestion.

Lake County transportation officials are moving forward with plans to add right turn lanes on Wadsworth Road and lenghthen left turn lanes on Lewis Avenue where the two roadways cross in Beach Park. (Yadira Sanchez Olson / Lake County News-Sun)

"If we didn't do anything and traffic continues to grow as it's projected, the level of service will eventually fail, and it will pretty much be gridlock," said Tom Somodji, project manager at LCDOT.

On Wadsworth, right turn lanes into the nearby Kenneth Murphy Elementary School would be added, as well as a two-way left turn lane between the school entrance and Bernice Terrace.

Safety improvements would include pedestrian signals and push buttons at the intersection, as well as a municipal sidewalk and a multi-use path along Wadsworth Road and Lewis Avenue for connectivity to the Robert McClory Bike Path.

The plan is to connect the McClory Path to Murphy Elementary, which will then be connected to Oakcrest Elementary School.

Somodji said LCDOT is working with the Illinois Department of Transportation, the Waukegan Port District, the Federal Aviation Administration, the village of Beach Park and the city of Waukegan, since the work will affect traffic alongside Waukegan National Airport.

Adding that county sales tax revenue will be used to fund the project, Somodji said that in the spring, LCDOT will be applying for a federal grant for an 80/20 split of the cost with the IDOT.

The village of Beach Park will be a partner payer with LCDOT for the multi-use paths and sidewalks.

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Depending on the federal dollar amount granted, Beach Park would pay a preliminary number of $400,000, said Jon Kindseth, Beach Park village administrator.

"We think this will help with school traffic, and we're looking forward to the pedestrian facilities," Kindseth said.

Beach Park resident Peter Porett, who attended Tuesday's meeting, said he likes the plans for a right turn lane onto Lewis from Wadsworth. A year ago, Porett said, he was in an accident when a vehicle exited a gas station located at that intersection.

"I'm glad they're doing something about that tight spot, especially because so many school buses have to pass there," Porett said.

The second phase of the project will see contract plans and right-of-way acquisitions of sections that include the property along the gas station and other businesses on and across that strip of the road, officials said.

The final phase will be construction. Somodji said that's targeted to start in 2019-20.

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Also related to improvements on Lewis, the Lake County Board approved contracts last month to resurface the road south of that intersection due to years of traffic obstacles, such as potholes.

According to county documents, the work includes a $4.3 million project to resurface Lewis from Wadsworth to 20th Street, replacing traffic signals at 27th and 33rd Streets. Farther south, Lewis will be resurfaced from 14th Street to Belvidere Street at a cost of $660,712.

Yadira Sanchez Olson is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.
For something different this Valentines Day, consider gifts for your honey, at Nortons USA, 400 Lageschulte St., Barrington. They have a selection of locally raised honey, as well as other bee-themed items. Practical gift givers may opt for red socks, Pendleton blankets or flannel shirts. They also have a youre intoxicating bottle opener or a heart-shaped coffee scoop made out of zinc. (Norton's USA)

Valentine's Day is about making loved ones feel special, which can be hard to do with the same old candy and flowers year after year.

Lake County offers a variety of unique options to make this year's holiday different.

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In Barrington, Norton's USA is a specialty gift shop that features only products made in America. Located at 400 Lageschulte St., owner Deborah Leydig said there are a number of bee-related items "for your honey." In addition to a selection of locally raised honey, there are also photo frames with "the bees knees" and other items.

There is also a heart-shaped bottle opener and matching coffee scoops, both made out of zinc. Prices range from $21 to $26.50, and can be found on http://www.nortonsusa.com.

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"There are very few bottle openers made in America," Leydig said. "You need them for all the craft beers, and (we) have one that's in the shape of a heart that says 'you're intoxicating.'"

For the practical gift-giver, there are also red Pendleton blankets, red socks and "the best flannel shirt made in America," she said.

"Who can't use a warm pair of socks in Illinois?" she said.

Nothing says "I love you" like a big block of cheese, and Caputo's Cheese Market, 231 E. Wisconsin Ave., Lake Forest, has thousands to choose from, including fresh mozzarella made on-site, according to http://www.caputocheesemarket.com.

It is easy to create a romantic adventure by starting a meal with a variety of cheeses paired with wines. Wine Enthusiast magazine suggests Gouda with merlot; brie with chardonnay; Gorgonzola with port; mozzarella with sauvignon blanc; and cheddar with cabernet sauvignon, according to the magazine's website, http://www.winemag.com.

The Glunz Family Winery, based in Paso Robles, Calif., has a tasting room at 888 E. Belvedere Road., Suite 107, Grayslake. Friday through Tuesday, it will offer 20-percent off its reserve cabernet, normally priced at $35, and its reserve zinfandel, normally priced at $28, according to Karen Weinert, a tasting room spokeswoman. The grapes are grown and harvested at the California vineyard, she said.

Wine and cheese not only work as an appetizer, they can also be served as dessert, as is common in Europe, especially when served with fresh fruit and chocolate. Glunz's raspberry wine is used in Tipsy Truffle, made by Uniquely Sweet, 888 E. Belvedere Road, Suite 106, Grayslake, which is next door to Glunz's tasting room, according to owner Linda Scholz. She recommends the dark chocolate sea salt English toffee with red wine, she said.

Before getting to desert, there are several ways to bring a meal as a gift. Stop at R&V Italian Market, 13801 Laurel Drive, Lake Forest, for ingredients to cook at home, or prepared meals and sauces ready to heat and eat, or fully cooked dinners ready to serve, according to spokeswoman Laurie Bianchi.

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The market offers ready-to-go or customizable gift baskets that can be made on the spot, or in advance, by calling 847-816-6468, she said. For Valentine's Day, it is featuring a heart-shaped lasagna dinner for two that includes Caesar salad, fresh bread and butter and choice of desert, including tiramisu, red velvet cake, cookies, strawberry shortcake and cannoli, she said. It can be ordered as late at Tuesday morning and costs $45, she said.

They also have a large heart-shaped thin crust pizza with one topping for $15.95.

In Elgin and Crystal Lake, Nick's Pizza and Pub has a "Mi Amor" pizza during the month of February that includes olive oil, chicken, American bacon, mozzarella, cheddar, onion, green pepper and a drizzle of Nick's ranch sauce, according to www.nickspizzapub.com. Prices range from $13 to $23 and can be ordered online and picked up at either 856 Pyott Road., Crystal Lake; or 990 S. Randall Road, Elgin.

Erin Gallagher is a freelance reporter for the News Sun.
A 52-year-old Naperville woman has been sentenced to three years in prison after being found guilty of drunken driving for the fourth time.

Ruth M. Duhig, of the 1300 block of Crab Apple Court, was pulled over about 6:40 p.m. Oct. 15 when a Naperville police officer saw her driving erratically on West Ogden Avenue, according to police reports. Her blood alcohol level was 0.18, more than twice the legal limit.

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In addition to the prison term, Duhig was also sentenced to two years of mandatory supervised release following her release and ordered to pay $2,867 in fines and court costs, court records said.

Duhig was previously arrested for DUI in October 2015, May 2004 and on a third occasion not included in her court file. She was sentenced to jail time in two of the cases.

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Duhig was being held in the DuPage County Jail on Wednesday pending her transfer to the Illinois Department of Corrections.

wbird@tribpub.com
Illinois State Board of Education Board Chairman James Meeks, left, and State Superintendent of Education Tony Smith, right, thank Curt Bradshaw, of Naperville, for his service on the state board the last four years. Bradshaw left the board in January 2017. (Handout / Illinois State Board of Education)

Curt Bradshaw says what he learned serving Indian Prairie School District 204 helped him when he was called to a position on the state's education board.

When Bradshaw began serving in the public school arena with District 204, his daughter was a baby and his son was 3 years old. A dozen years later, Grace is a middle schooler, Noah is in high school, and Bradshaw been with the Illinois State Board of Education for four years.

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The Naperville resident said it was time to give up public service and spend more with his family.

"It's been a true honor to serve local schools," said Bradshaw, who stepped down from the board last month.

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Like those who serve on local school boards, members of the Illinois State Board of Education volunteer their time.

"It's a big responsibility and burden, and it should be. It's constantly on my mind," he said of working to improve education across the state.

Bradshaw, who works in the investment management industry and earned his MBA from the University of Chicago, cut his teeth in public education as a District 204 school board member.

"Those four and a half years with the state board, I looked at it as a means to extend upon the seven and a half years I was with 204," Bradshaw said.

Bradshaw was tapped for the state position by Gov. Patrick Quinn in fall 2012.

During his District 204 tenure, three years of which he served as board president, Bradshaw oversaw a 1.4 point increase in students' average ACT score, construction and completion of Metea Valley High School in Aurora, and an increased credit rating that placed the district in the top 10 percent nationally.

Those ACT scores goals he helped establish continued to improve after he left the District 204 board, and Indian Prairie test scores rank among the top in the state.

Current District 204 Board President Lori Price said she served with Bradshaw on the board for about a year and a half.

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"When he was appointed, we were proud to have someone from District 204 represented on the state board," Price said.

She confirmed the goals established while he was on the board continue today.

"I believe this was something he introduced to the ISBE board as well, or tried," Price said.

"While on the ISBE board, Curt was always very receptive to sharing how our district and districts like ours would be impacted by state decisions with ISBE," she said. "He promptly responded to our concerns and questions as well."

Superintendent Karen Sullivan said having a local voice in Springfield was helpful.

"We appreciate Curt's dedication to students while he served on our local school board and the state board. His background in finance and his passion for student achievement was a benefit to all students," Sullivan said. "It was wonderful to have a familiar contact at the state who we could reach out to with concerns or questions."

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As economically and culturally diverse Indian Prairie is, Bradshaw said he wasn't prepared for how disparate school districts are in Illinois.

"We are a very large and very diverse state. There is a wide spectrum from Chicago schools to districts in southern Illinois. They all have different needs and different approaches," he said.

Bradshaw said he tried to bring the same financial and goal-setting expertise he applied in District 204 to the state board.

"We were able to set a list of goals to go for meaningful progress," Bradshaw said. Although, "as a state we move at a slow pace," he added.

The longtime District 204 resident, who graduated from Hill Middle School in Naperville and Waubonsie Valley High School in Aurora, also said he's always maintained the state should set the standards for public schools to achieve. But it's up to the individual school districts and communities to create the curriculum to meet those standards, he said.

"I'm a believer in having a high and common bar that our kids can get over," he said.

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Even though he's worked on school funding reforms that have fallen short in Springfield, Bradshaw said he's "hopeful" and "optimistic" the state will be able to find a new funding formula to benefit all students in the state.

He said such a plan needs to be "simple, equitable and outcome focused."

"It is really a hard subject," said Bradshaw, of the differing interests of school districts in the state.

Just the cost of educating a student is big factor, he said. Comparing per pupil costs of students in the Chicago suburbs to those in Southern Illinois school districts is challenging, he said.

Everyone agrees more funding is needed for schools with larger populations of students from low-income families, but "how do you even define poverty," he said, because it's different from one part of the state to another.

"Hopefully they'll get there," Bradshaw said.

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subaker@tribpub.com

Twitter @SBakerSun1
The Park Ridge Park District is moving ahead with planned renovations to Maine Park's Leisure Center.

The park board of commissioners on Jan. 26 approved construction bids from Waukegan-based Happ Builders Inc., totaling $1.4 million. The park district received a Park and Recreation Construction program grant of $1.6 million to be used to pay for the renovations, park district officials have said.

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The board also approved asbestos removal bids totaling $71,250 at its Feb. 2 meeting.

According to park district officials, the first phase of renovations planned at the Leisure Center, which was originally built as an elementary school, will include:

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 Creation of two preschool classrooms for the Wildwood Nature Center's programming and four single-user restrooms in an area of the building that formerly housed the park board meeting room and two offices.

 Creation of two multipurpose rooms in the same wing of the building where additional offices were previously located. Park District spokeswoman Margaret Holler said these rooms will be used for programs and will also be available to rent for private events, like birthday parties.

 Turning the art studio into a dance studio, which will connect to an existing dance room next door. New hardwood floors will be installed in both rooms, Wolf said, and there will be some asbestos abatement. Holler said there are no current plans to add another art studio at Maine Park and existing art classes have been relocated to Centennial Activity Center.

 Reconstruction of the main office area, which will result in some additional offices for staff, Wolf said.

The administrative offices that had existed inside the Leisure Center were relocated to Wohlers Hall at Prospect Park last year, freeing up space and leading park district officials to suggest a remodeling plan to create programming space.

Wolf told the board last month that he expects the first phrase of work to begin "within the next few weeks."

The second phase of the project is slated to start in May, with completion by mid-July, Wolf said. Work will include:

 Renovation of existing restrooms, which will also make them accessible for users with disabilities.

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 Replacement of boiler room pipes, controls and other equipment. Wolf said the boiler tanks themselves are in good condition, despite being installed in 1958, and he expects them to remain viable for at least another 30 years.

 Improvement to the preschool wing's office area. A main office, copy room and music room for private lessons will be created and an additional security door added "to limit entry to the wing" while preschool classes are in session, Holler said.

Commissioner Mel Thillens also questioned park district staff about the possibility of additional security in the building.

"District 64 is spending a fortune on secured vestibules where you can look into the vestibule and see who is coming in the building before you buzz them into the second door," Thillens said. "Can we do that?"

Thillens was referring to a proposed, multimillion-dollar vestibule plan Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 administration has recommended, but has not been approved by the board of education for all school buildings. Washington School is the only building to have had a new vestibule and attached office added last year.

Wolf said the park district is adding keyless entry and locking systems to all exterior doors at the Leisure Center, in addition to the security door to the preschool wing.

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"These doors are set to lock themselves at a certain time," Wolf said. "We'll have a lot more flexibility once we have these systems in place."

"We're trying to secure [the building] more than it is," added Park District Executive Director Gayle Mountcastle.

jjohnson@pioneerlocal.com

Twitter: @Jen_Tribune
Gov. Eric Holcomb announced Thursday he will grant a disaster declaration for East Chicago to help address issues at the U.S.S. Lead Superfund site  a request Vice President Mike Pence, the former governor, denied.

Mayor Anthony Copeland had previously requested a disaster declaration from Pence, but it was denied in December. Holcomb agreed to increase state assistance to the city, according to the governor's office, and help residents of the Calumet neighborhood affected by lead and arsenic contamination.

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"After months of local and state action to meet the safety, health and housing needs of these East Chicago residents, I'm declaring this disaster emergency in hopes that we can accelerate, coordinate and focus local, state and federal efforts and resources where they will have the greatest benefit," Holcomb said in a statement.

Holcomb asked Copeland to submit a list of resources he thinks the city needs to deal with the relocation and cleanup efforts.

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Pence's administration denied the request, according to a Dec. 14 letter city officials released Jan. 18, citing a series of services the state had supplied to city officials to assist residents at the U.S.S. Lead Superfund site. City officials said then that Copeland would submit a new request to Holcomb.

"Given the level of coordination among federal, state and local agencies, the state resources provided to date and the resources available under the federal Superfund program, the issues described within your letter are being addressed without the need for a disaster emergency declaration," wrote Mark Ahearn, Pence's general counsel, in a letter to Copeland. "Should new needs arise, we recommend that they be managed on a case-by-case basis to determine the best course of action."

Copeland, in his request for the declaration, said the city needs more resources to address ongoing issues at the Superfund site as the city cannot handle all the cost itself.

"The residents of my city, my staff, other local officials and I have been laboring under conditions which are not of our making, but which cry out for help," Copeland wrote to Pence on Dec. 1.

Copeland noted, in the letter, that Indiana code defined a disaster as "being an occurrence or imminent threat of widespread severe damage, injury, loss of life or property damage from a utility failure, public health emergency, blight or other public calamity."

The resources of East Chicago are strained to the "point of breaking," Copeland wrote, and resources from the state are needed to adequately respond to the continuing crisis.

Sen. Joe Donnelly, who joined with Rep. Peter Visclosky, D-Merrillville, Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., and former Indiana Republican Sen. Dan Coates to push federal officials to provide clarity on plans to address the relocation of West Calumet residents and remediate the contaminated neighborhood, applauded Holcomb's action.

"I want to thank the governor for recognizing the gravity and seriousness of the situation in East Chicago, and I look forward to combining state and federal resources to help the residents living in the neighborhoods impacted by the Superfund site," Donnelly said, in a statement. "It is vitally important that we keep our focus on assisting the impacted families in East Chicago."

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Holcomb's declaration came as a series of bills are pending in the Legislature to leverage additional resources for East Chicago and its residents.

A series of proposals, put in by members of the Lake County delegation, aim to provide financial assistance to the city and school district; push for clean up and testing efforts; and better assist residents being forced to relocate because of contamination at the U.S.S. Lead Superfund site.

clyons@post-trib.com

Twitter: @craigalyons
The Hobart Sanitary & Stormwater District Board is voicing its opposition to a proposed state Senate bill that would exempt churches, schools and farmland from stormwater fees.

The board voted 3-1 to pass a resolution expressing its opposition to proposed Senate Bill 502 and to send a letter to legislators.

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The bill, sponsored by Republican Sens. Aaron Freeman, of Franklin Township, and Blake Doriot, of New Paris, would prohibit municipalities and counties from assessing stormwater fees to any property where religious services are regularly held, that belongs to a school corporation and is used for educational purposes, or that is assessed as agricultural land for property tax purposes.

It was referred to the Committee on Utilities.

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Sanitary & Stormwater District Board president Bob Fulton called the proposed bill "pandering of the worst kind," saying it makes the legislature look good while forcing municipalities to make up the revenue loss on the backs of residents and other users.

"Some of the largest buildings we have and some with the largest impervious surfaces are ones that this bill would serve," Fulton said.

The fee is used to pay for drainage problems in the city.

City engineer Phil Gralik said that while the bill would only affect a handful of properties in the city now, the number could potentially grow substantially.

He pointed out that you can be ordained as a minister on the internet for $50 and get out of paying that fee.

"It's a small amount now, but we could have hundreds, even thousands, more churches pop up. It's happened in other cities," Gralik said.

Board member David Hill cast the lone dissenting vote, saying he was opposed to the resolution for a number of reasons.

He said there are six schools and about six churches in the city.

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"Show me the numbers by how much money we would lose. I'm not convinced it's that much," Hill said.

He also said that, as commander of the local American Legion Post, he can attest that nonprofits are operating on very tight budgets.

Fulton responded that none of the affected entities are receiving special rates from companies that provide their other utilities.

He said the state considers the stormwater fee a backdoor tax, but he said it is in fact a fee.

"We've been advised by the state that we need more fees to pay for everything," Fulton said.

Karen Caffarini is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
A letter being mailed to Munster water customers lets them know there's nothing wrong with the water in town.

The letter is a sort of punishment for the town not having filed a quarterly water quality report with state and federal environmental agencies, officials said.

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The letter states the water quality test was not conducted in the first quarter of 2016 "due to turnover in personnel in the Public Works Department." Water quality tests before and after that period showed levels well above compliance, Town Manager Dustin Anderson said.

Munster was required to mail the notice to all residences or face fines from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, with whom the water quality reports are filed.

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Anderson said IDEM notified the town of the missing report in June 2016, and that it cost $650 to mail the letter to 8,500 homes.

Councilman John Reed said town officials thought it best to get out in front of the issue before the letters were sent.

"It was an oversight and a huge disappointment to the town manager," he said. "There is no excuse. It was flat out missed."

Reed said unnamed employees would face reprimands over the matter but no one would be terminated. He said he's unaware of any calls from residents to town hall expressing concerns over water quality or the omission of a testing period.

Residents with questions can contact the Munster Water Department at 219-836-6971.

Jim Masters is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
Residents voiced a mixed bag of reactions for the City Council and for embattled Mayor James Snyder, who skipped the Tuesday council meeting.

Snyder later said he was visiting a friend in a hospital during the meeting, but immediately after the meeting, one of his staffers passed out written statements on city letterhead to local media.

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The residents' comments seemed to show a city increasingly rattled by the contentious relationship between the mayor, the council and Clerk-Treasurer Chris Stidham.

"I feel there's an injustice here tonight," complained resident Edna Maturkanich, a regular at council meetings. "It's like you're roasting the mayor, and he isn't even here. It's like you guys were having a field day tonight. I know James Snyder, and I know he's innocent."

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The council suspended rules requiring a second reading of an ordinance and voted to strip Snyder of his position on the Portage Utility Services Board and the chairman's job he holds. A second ordinance eliminating the position's salaries was expected to be heard again Thursday night, after Councilman John Cannon, R- 4th, voted against suspending the rules.

Other residents criticized the mayor for not showing up and for recent controversial actions, including a trip to Washington, D.C. where the mayor took two police administrators for a conference and the inauguration of President Donald Trump, mostly on the taxpayers' dime.

Last November, Snyder was indicted on federal public corruption charges.

Snyder, who left last month's council meeting about five minutes after opening the meeting, did not notify Council President Mark Oprisko, D-at large, or any other officials of his absence, Oprisko said.

"He's the chairman of this board," Oprisko said. "He should've had enough respect to call me or someone else on this board to get out of their seat and take over the meeting."

Immediately after the meeting, a Snyder staffer passed out a signed, written statement from the mayor dated Feb. 7. Snyder accused the council of "behaving in a way of presumption of guilt, which is the opposite of what America, Indiana and any decent citizen believes."

In the statement, Snyder also wrote his administration has "saved the City millions of dollars in waste, fixed more roads, buildings and infrastructure than any administration and have rejuvenated the pride in Portage."

Stidham said the council's actions had little to do with the indictment "and everything to do with" the mayor's efforts to pay his legal fees with utility services board funds last year.

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Snyder's prepared statement also bothered Stidham.

"The council meeting happens at same time forever and ever and ever," Stidham said. "(Snyder) came for five minutes last month and left, and this month he didn't even bother to show up. Yet, the rest of the city's eight elected officials made it a priority. He should've been here doing his job"

Cannon, the only Republican on the council, who describes himself as a longtime friend of the Republican mayor, called said he and his colleagues have "aged 20 years in five days."

"This has been a tough night for me, but some things have to be done, because the public trust us to do a job," Cannon said.

Michael Gonzalez is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
A day after the Portage City Council voted to remove Mayor James Snyder from the chairman's position on the Utility Services Board, the board on Wednesday hired Chicago-based law firm Faegre, Baker and Daniels to look into the matter.

Snyder later said he did not know how much the legal work will cost the board.

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The action stems from Tuesday's City Council action, which not only removes Snyder from the Utilities Board, but also eliminates the $30,000 salary that comes with it. The move came after Snyder and City Council President Mark Oprisko debated a variety of topics, from Snyder's use of a board-leased SUV to comments made to local media.

The council was expected to vote Thursday night on a proposed ordinance to delete the $30,000 salary.

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"I feel the ordinances are completely invalid," said Snyder, who handed out city letterhead with parts of a state statute prohibiting legislative bodies like city councils from eliminating or reducing elected officials' salaries in the same year those bodies pass such ordinances.

"It's very clear you can't punish a mayor by taking away his salary."

Last September, Snyder tried to get the board to use utility funds to pay $93,000 in legal fees to law firms representing Snyder in a federal investigation. The firms returned the checks, and the board has not returned to the issue since Snyder's indictment last November on public corruption charges.

The board is made of four mayoral appointments, including the mayor himself, and three council appointments, including Oprisko, who is the board's vice chair. Oprisko was the sole board member to vote against hiring the law firm.

Another council appointee, Mark Hasza, also approved hiring the law firm.

"I figured (Snyder) would do something like that because he needs the (chairman salary) to pay his bills," Oprisko said of Snyder's idea to hire an outside law firm. "I'll talk to the (city) council. We'll do what it takes to get (Snyder) off this board."

The on-record exchange between Oprisko and Snyder began when the mayor defended his use of a board-leased 2016 Chevrolet Tahoe, at a rate of $867 a month for five years. The agreement with Enterprise Fleet Management ultimately will save the board money in the long run, Snyder said.

Snyder dismissed criticism of his use of the vehicle as "commentary without fact and touted the importance of city leaders driving attractive, practical vehicles.

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Oprisko described the lease as an "exorbitant" cost, and the exchange took off from there.

The men bounced across Snyder's indictment, the board's issue of $93,000 in checks for the federal investigation, the mayor's absence from Tuesday's city council meeting and Snyder's controversial trip to a mayor's conference and President Donald Trump's inauguration last month in Washington, D.C.

The board did complete some official business. City Engineer John Hannon, of Great Lakes Engineering, was awarded a raise of $15 an hour, raising his rate to $125 per hour for utility services work.

The new contract also gave raises to a project engineer, a senior designer and more staff.

Michael Gonzalez is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
A Foley, Minn., man who may have suffered a medical emergency while driving his semitrailer Thursday morning died after losing control of the truck and crashing, police said.

Indiana State Police spokeswoman Sgt. Ann Wojas said in a release that John A. James, 57, was driving with a family member westbound on the Indiana Toll Road in Porter County when he went off the roadway toward the left. He traveled through the grassy median across both eastbound lanes and through a guard rail on the south side before falling down an embankment, and coming to rest up upright against some trees, the release said.

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A responding trooper started chest compressions on James until emergency medical personnel arrived, but he was pronounced dead at the scene by Porter County Coroner Chuck Harris, the release said. An autopsy will be scheduled, Wojas said.

There was no information immediately available on James's passenger.

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The Liberty Township Fire Department, Porter EMS, Precision Towing and the Porter County Coroner's Office assisted the ISP.
Hinsdale village officials are preparing to oppose a developing plan to widen Interstate 294 that could move a sound wall west into backyards and village parks.

The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority started planning more than two years ago to reconstruct and possibly widen the central Tri-State Tollway. One option being considered is widening the tollway from four lanes to five in each direction from O'Hare International Airport south to 95th Street, officials said.

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Village President Thomas Cauley, Jr., said he met with Robert Schillerstrom, the chairman of the tollway authority, about how the reconstruction plan would affect Hinsdale.

If one lane is added in each direction, the sound wall that lines the highway on the west would be moved 12 to 15 feet farther west which could encroach on the backyards in the Woodlands neighborhood and of Hinsdale village parks, Cauley said.

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The tollway authority also is considering adding two lanes in each direction, which would have "disastrous effects" on the residents, Cauley said.

It would take away much of the parkland in Woodland, Brook, Veeck and Peirce parks, Cauley said.

The public is invited to a meeting about the tollway plans at 7 p.m. Feb. 27 in the Village Board Room at Memorial Hall, 19 E. Chicago Ave.

In addition to the loss of open space, the village fears the loss of tax revenue.

The oasis which spans the tollway would have to be shut down during construction, Cauley said. The village receives more than $540,000 per year in sales tax from the restaurants in the oasis, which is 11 percent of the village's total sales tax, he said. Losing that tax revenue would mean the village would have less money to repairs streets and sewers, Cauley said.

Another problem Cauley anticipates if the expressway is widened is more noise because more traffic, including trucks, will be able to move through the area at the same time.

Joelle McGinnis, the tollway press secretary, did not respond directly to questions about the plans the tollway authority is considering and when a decision will be reached.

Western Springs Village President William Rodeghier said Schillerstrom met with him and village manager Patrick Higgins last summer or early fall "to basically explain what they were planning to do."

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Higgins has continued to meet with tollway representatives to stay apprised of the project, Rodeghier said.

The tollway has sufficient land on the east side to add a lane without taking any village or residential property in Western Springs, Rodeghier said.

His main concern is the plan to rebuild the BNSF railroad bridge, which goes along Spring Rock Park in Western Springs, and the disruption the construction will cause.

"As far as I understand it, they will build a temporary bridge on the south side of the tracks," for the trains to use during construction, Rodeghier said.

An embankment leading to the detour bridge, called a shoofly, must be built, too.

"I don't know how far east the embankment will go on the north edge of Spring Rock Park," Rodeghier said.

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"It's not going to be done overnight. They are building a bridge and a railroad embankment," Rodeghier said. "That might take a year. That is going to affect everything . . . and we are going to have all the trucks coming through."

He was less concerned with noise.

"The noise is there already. And they have done a pretty good job of insulating us with the sound wall," Rodeghier said.

Construction is never easy to go through, but Rodeghier said he is glad the tollway authority is including village officials in the planning process.

"The tollway has been very cooperative," he said. Tollway officials asked, "what do you need from us, what are your concerns," Rodeghier said.

"The important thing is getting as much information as we can about what is going to happen and when, so we can inform our residents and be prepared," Rodeghier said.

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Indian Head Park village administrator John DuRocher said about 10 days ago, he and Village President Tom Hinshaw met with Schillerstrom, who showed them the agency's plans.

DuRocher said they did not see a negative impact on Indian Head Park, which borders the tollway to the east between Plainfield and Joliet roads.

"We are still reviewing the plan," DuRocher said.

Richard Wronski contributed to this report.

kfornek@pioneerlocal.com

Twitter @kfdoings
By Tongyu Zhang

Chinas State Council has issued a circular stating the governments intentions to further open the economy and boost foreign investment. The circular is part of the effort to build Chinas so-called new open economic system, with measures focusing on streamlining government administration, improving regulations, and reducing institutional transaction costs to create a favorable business environment for foreign investment. The circular is in keeping with the sentiment backed by President Xi Jinping, who has recently released statements defending globalization, and should be seen as a positive signal by the Chinese government to facilitate the opening-up of the economy.

While this infers a more accessible investment environment, complex global economic and political trends, in addition to Chinas ongoing economic restructuring, may mean that foreign investors in China will face a challenging year filled with uncertainties. Furthermore, the circular does not set any concrete policies, but rather points to a general direction for the implementation of the measures, which may require some time to be realized.

Further strengthening the opening-up

The first part of the opening-up measures put considerable emphasis on relaxing restrictions on foreign investment in service, manufacturing, and mining industries. It also suggests to relax restrictions in telecommunications, internet, culture, education, transportation, and other fields. The following table categorizes the different fields and the extent of their relaxed restrictions.

In addition, for foreign cooperation in oil and natural gas projects, the regulatory system has changed from an examination and approval system to a record filing system.

Note that some of the changes to the restrictions mentioned above, namely those that shall be liberalized and eliminated, can be found in the latest draft of the Catalogue of Industries for Guiding Foreign Investment, which has been published for seeking opinions.

The measures also emphasize foreign-invested entities role in innovation and manufacturing industry upgrading in China, by encouraging cooperation between domestic and foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) on research and development activities and easing the resident and business policies for foreign high-level talents.

Fair competition environment

The circular calls for creating a fair and competitive environment. Business licenses and qualification applications of FIEs will be examined with the same standards and processing timetables as those for domestic-invested enterprises. Domestic and foreign-invested enterprises should also get equal access to participate in Chinas standardization reform and government procurement in order to enhance the openness and transparency of the countrys investment environment.

RELATED: Pre-Investment and Entry Strategy Advisory from Dezan Shira & Associates

This eye-catching modification is the method of expanding FIEs financing channel, which allows FIEs to list on the Chinese stock market, including main-board, SME board, GEM board, and new third board, as well as issuing bonds and other debt financing instruments. However, considering the weak performance of the Chinese stock market last year, the effects of such opening-up measures may not be seen in the short term.

Attracting foreign investment

In order to attract foreign investment, local governments will be allowed to form favorable policies to support foreign-invested projects that can facilitate employment, economic development, and technology innovation, and reduce the costs for the investment and operation of FIEs. Support will be provided to the central, western, and northeast regions for undertaking industrial transformation of foreign investment. For example, FIEs in supported industries in western regions will enjoy preferential tax policies.

Observations

With 20 measures covering various aspects of foreign investment promotion, the document has inevitably been interpreted from several different perspectives. In a statement issued just after the release of the circular, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) highlighted the tendency of foreign-invested manufacturing enterprises to relocate abroad. To answer this, the NDRC emphasizes the measures to boost foreign investment in the manufacturing sector, indicating that the Chinese government has put the restructuring and transition of the manufacturing industry as a main priority. Meanwhile, investors in the market are concerned more about the potential financial sector reform. However, both Bloomberg and Reuters have maintained a cautious attitude when reporting the measures, especially with the countrys recent control of capital outflow, which seems to be at odds with the measures. Thus, it is critical for foreign investors to analyze the policys implications based on their own conditions and perform a proper strategy accordingly.

Another noticeable feature of the circular is that the responsibilities of each measure have been divided to related government departments, intending to improve their implementation. Therefore, if an entity is interested in a particular measure, it may be able to find more information by contacting the local corresponding government departments.



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An Introduction to Doing Business in China 2017

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Navigating HR Audits in China

Recent changes in Chinas labor market have underscored the importance of having both an efficient HR system and a satisfied and reliable workforce, and the HR audit is a useful tool to ensure this. In this issue of China Briefing magazine, we provide a guide for conducting HR audits in China. We analyze why the HR audit is especially important for foreign companies operating in the country, and then detail the different HR audit models and procedures that are available to firms.
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Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli on Wednesday underscored the importance of keeping economic data accurate and authentic, suggesting that those who fake data should be held accountable.

The central authorities require authentic and reliable economic data, Zhang said during his visit to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

He called for a comprehensive and traceable accountability system to punish those responsible. Falsification of data should be taken into account in officials' performance rating.

Zhang urged local authorities and relevant departments to strengthen coordination and put statistical reform guidelines into action.

Liaoning Province admitted in its annual report at the plenary meeting of provincial lawmakers in mid-January that there had been false economic statistics from 2011 to 2014.

China's statistics at the national level are "authentic and reliable," and the government will resolutely deal with fake economic data, Ning Jizhe, head of the NBS, said in response to the news in January.
The U.S. drilling ship JOIDES Resolution is docked at a port in Hong Kong, south China, Feb. 8, 2017. Dozens of scientists from different countries are set to start an expedition to the South China Sea, to explore the formation of the sea as part of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP). In the first of two expeditions, 33 scientists from China, the United States, France and other countries boarded the drilling ship on Wednesday. [Xinhua/Zhang Jiansong]

Dozens of scientists from different countries are set to start an expedition to the South China Sea, to explore the formation of the sea as part of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP).

In the first of two expeditions, 33 scientists from China, the United States, France and other countries boarded the U.S. drilling ship JOIDES Resolution on Wednesday, which was docked at a Hong Kong port.

The scientists will explore the lithosphere extension during the continental breakup, by drilling four sites to a depth of 3,000 to 4,000 meters in the northern area of the South China Sea. The study will contribute to understanding how marginal basins grow.

China has 26 scientists from top Chinese universities and research institutions on the expeditions, the most of any participating country.

Since joining the IODP, China has played a major role in two previous expeditions to the South China Sea in 1999 and 2014, respectively. Scientists collected samples through deep-sea drilling, for studying climate change and basin formation in the South China Sea.

A total of 66 scientists from 13 countries will participate in the expeditions (Expedition 367 and 368), lasting four months.
China's top legislator Zhang Dejiang on Wednesday demanded improvements to the quality of legislation passed by the legislature.

Zhang, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), made the remarks when presiding over a seminar on the annual NPC Standing Committee report for deputies in Beijing.

A total of 10 NPC deputies expressed their opinions on the report and the work of the NPC, concluding that the NPC Standing Committee exercised its duties earnestly in the past year and had many achievements.

Zhang said efforts should be made to give more play to deputies and clear the channels of opinion to take the work of the NPC to a higher level.

Deputies present proposed better supervision of local government debt, new legislation on national defense and better implementation of laws on cultural activities.

The opinions and suggestions offered by the deputies should be studied carefully, Zhang said.

He stressed the NPC and its Standing Committee should uphold the authority of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee with comrade Xi Jinping as the core with concrete actions.

Efforts should be made to ensure the policies and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee will be effectively implemented in the NPC work, and to greet the 19th National Congress of the CPC with outstanding achievements, Zhang said.

He called for upholding the notion of people-centric development, solving outstanding issues that concern deputies and the people, and increasing the people's sense of gain.

Zhang said he hoped that the NPC deputies could grasp the sentiments of the people and pool their wisdom.

The fifth annual session of the 12th National People's Congress, the country's top legislature, will open on March 5 in Beijing.
Authorities in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on Wednesday revealed an investigation into a banquet where pangolin was served, which caused a public outcry.

On Monday, the screenshot of a microblog post about Guangxi officials inviting investors from Hong Kong to eat pangolin at a reception went viral on Sina Weibo. Officials from the Guangxi Investment Promotion Agency have been accused of hosting the banquet.

The regional commission for discipline inspection said only one official was involved in the "private" banquet.

According to the commission, Guangxi hosted an investment tour for a group of Hong Kong entrepreneurs in July 2015. After the tour, some "individual members of the group" took part in a personal banquet at the canteen of a local private enterprise.

The only official at the banquet was Li Ning, a former official with the regional work committee of higher education. Li was arrested on suspicion of corruption in May 2016.

"No members of the Guangxi Investment Promotion Agency took part in the banquet," the commission said in a statement.

Authorities are still investigating whether pangolin was consumed at the banquet, according to the commission.

Pangolin is an endangered animal under state protection in China.
The People's Liberation Army does not want a war in the South China Sea, but will not be afraid of one if it knocks on China's door, the military has said.

An editorial published on Tuesday on the PLA Daily's website said the Chinese military is not afraid of "demons" and "intimidation", adding that the PLA dares to "show its sword" and has a proven record of safeguarding national interests.

It invoked China's determination and victory in the Korean War as well as the Chinese government's warning toward the United States' escalation in the 1960s during the Vietnam War.

"In the past, the PLA produced numerous miracles in wars, despite being outnumbered by enemies or having inferior weapons compared with those of its adversaries. Today, our troops are well equipped and high-spirited ... Facing risk-takers, the PLA, which owns DF series ballistic missiles, will show them that we are ready for a war and we do not fear wars," the article said.

In another article published on the same website on Wednesday, the writer blasted "some US politicians" for believing that lasting superiority over China and the Asia-Pacific will ensure the US' "global leadership", saying that playing tricks with China in the South China Sea is unreasonable and dangerous.

The article also suggests that the US should focus on its domestic issues instead of "interfering elsewhere" if it wishes to become "great again".

The articles came after recent claims from senior US officials threatening to take hard-line measures against China over issues relating to the South China Sea.

Shao Yongling, a professor of military strategy at the PLA Rocket Force Command College, told China Daily that the remarks show the Chinese military's determination and capability of safeguarding the country's sovereignty and interests anywhere.

"They also show that we are well prepared for contingencies. I believe these remarks are more like warnings than threats. They aim at telling the US that we will not tolerate negative actions that compromise our interests," she said.

Shao added that the PLA Rocket Force will definitely be mobilized if there is a large joint operation in the South China Sea and that Chinese ballistic missiles are capable of covering all of the sea.

Li Li, a military equipment expert at PLA National Defense University, said recent moves by the US, such as sending the littoral combat ship USS Coronado to the South China Sea, indicate that the new US government will not relax its interference in the region and it does not want to see the recent improvement in relations between China and other nations in the region.

"However, no matter what measures the US plans to take, we will never abandon our sovereignty, interests and rights in the South China Sea," she said.

Yang Xiyu, a researcher of Asia-Pacific security affairs at the China Institute of International Studies in Beijing, told China Central Television that some US politicians are hoping that military pressure will intimidate China in the South China Sea, but this has repeatedly turned out to be useless.

He said that the stronger the PLA is, the less willing the US will be to launch a war against China.
The disciplinary authority in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has launched a probe into the case of a "pangolin dinner", after a newly discovered social media post went viral online.

A controversial microblog post in 2015 about an official banquet has been dug up by netizens, sparking public outrage with regards to eating endangered animals and putting local officials in serious trouble.

Weibo user Al_cal, later identified to be the son of a clock tycoon in Hong Kong, posted on his Weibo account that he'd been hosted by local officials in Guangxi to a banquet that included a pangolin dish.

Al_cal's microblog post on the pangolin banquet has sparked public outrage with regards to eating endangered animals. [Photo: Weibo]

"Thanks to the hospitality of Director Li and Secretary Huang for inviting me to their office and cooking pangolin meat for us," wrote Li Jiahe in July 2015, when he was on a research trip in south China with a Hong Kong delegation. "This is the first time that I had it, and I find it very delicious."

The post also includes pictures from the alleged banquet, including the pangolin dish and a group photo of Li with several government officials. All of his posts were later deleted after wide online circulation.

In response to the extensive public attention, Guangxi Investment Promotion Agency, which was hosting the Hong Kong delegation, said that they cannot recognize any of its leaders or employees among the diners in the photo. It also claimed that there is no senior official surnamed Li or Huang when the post was published on July 15, 2015.

The current Party secretary of the agency, named Huang Wenbiao, is said to have been in Singapore at the time and was only appointed to the job on July 21.

According to a written statement issued on Feb. 8, the Hong Kong business delegation revealed that all the members were having group buffet dinner during their visit in Guangxi between July 8 and 10, and Li did not return to Hong Kong with rest of the group. "The alleged pangolin dinner was Li's personal involvement and the delegation has nothing to do with the case."

The investigation is still underway.

The Chinese pangolin, one of the eight species of pangolins, has been heavily hunted and trafficked for its meat and scales, which are believed to have medicinal qualities.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature listed the Chinese pangolin as "critically endangered" in 2014 on the basis of predicted decline of up to 90 percent over the next couple of decades.

Late last year, Shanghai customs officials seized more than 3 tons of pangolin scales - the largest pangolin seizure in China's history, officials said.
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Over 247,000 person-times of Chinese tourists visited Vietnam in January 2017, up nearly 68 percent year-on-year, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO) on Wednesday.

Among the one million person-times of foreign arrivals in Vietnam during the month, Chinese tourists accounted for about 25 percent.

The number of Chinese visitors was 2.7 times as many as those from Americas and the same as those from Europe and Oceania together, said GSO.

In 2016, Vietnam welcomed over 10 million person-times international tourists while Chinese tourists accounted for nearly 2.7 million person-times, marking the record growth from the market.

Data by the GSO in the past five years shows that each year, the number of Chinese tourists to Vietnam accounted for 20-25 percent of total foreign arrivals, registering the biggest market.

Vietnam targets to welcome 11.5 million person-times of foreign tourists in 2017.
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Islamic Hamas movement's militant group, Al-Qassam brigades, said Wednesday that it has received new offer for a prisoner swap deal with Israel.

Qatari Al-Jazeera news network reported that a high ranking leader in Hamas militant group said that the brigades leadership "received lately different Israeli offers via regional and international mediators to hold a prisoner swap deal in return for it's incarcerated soldiers in Gaza."

The leader, whose name was not mentioned, said that "the figures and formula presented by Israel so far do not meet the resistance group's minimum requirements," highlighting that "there is no truth to the Israeli reports about the swap being in return for commercial facilitations."

This is the first announcement by Al-Qassam officials about swap deal offers with Israel after the Egypt brokered prisoners swap in 2011, which witnessed the release of Israeli soldier captured in Gaza for almost five years in exchange for over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, most of whom were arrested again.

This announcement came after a Hamas security delegation met with Egyptian officials in Cairo. The visit was the first since the ousting of former Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi in 2013.
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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Wednesday that the situation in the country is moving in a way desired by Damascus and Moscow, according to state news agency SANA.

The president made the remarks during his meeting Wednesday with a delegation of the Russian Duma, during which the president praised the Russian stances and "sacrifices" made during the war on terror in Syria.

He underscored the importance of the Russian role, whether in Syria or on the international arena, "in the face of the Western schemes which aim to dominate the sovereign and independent countries fighting for the interests of its people."

Assad also stressed that his government is determined to defend Syria and to move forward in the efforts of establishing reconciliations, "because it's the most effective way toward ending the war and reaching a peaceful solution."

The Russian delegation members stressed their country's support to Syria in the war on terror, and to render the needed humanitarian assistance to the war-torn country.

Russia stepped into the Syrian conflict to aid the Syrian government forces in September 2015, succeeding to prop up the forces of President Assad in the face of tens of rebel groups, most of which are backed by the Western and regional countries.

Moscow has also succeeded to make alliance with Turkey regarding the war on the terrorist groups in Syria, mainly the Islamic State (IS) group, and recently managed to jointly broker a ceasefire with Turkey in Syria that went into force on Dec. 30.

Several breaches were reported, but the truce was highly valued as a way toward reaching a political solution to the long-standing conflict.
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The parliamentary bill empowering the British government to begin the formal process of leaving the European Union completed its passage Wednesday night in the House of Commons.

British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street for Prime Minister's questions at the House of parliament in London, Britain, Feb. 8, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

Prime Minister Theresa May's government succeeded in crossing the final crucial hurdle with 494 votes to 122.

May sat in the chamber alongside her Brexit ministers as the historic result was announced by deputy speaker Lindsay Hoyle.

It now goes to the unelected House of Lords for further scrutiny before being sent to Queen Elizabeth for royal assent.

Scottish Nationalist MP Alex Salmond criticized the process and accused the government of railroading the legislation through parliament in a "disgraceful fashion".

He said this was the first time a bill of great constitutional importance had been passed in this day since the Defense of the Realm Bill prior to the World War I in 1914.

Having won Wednesday night in the Commons, where a string of amendments were defeated, it almost guarantees that May will be on course to tell Brussels within weeks to start the EU exit process.

May's government only introduced the briefly worded bill into parliament last week, determined to see it fast-tracked through the parliamentary process.

It has meant members of parliament sitting until midnight on some occasions to complete a series of debates.

Attempts by the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) to ensure the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh could have a vote on Brexit, as well as a call by the minority Liberal Democrats for a second national referendum, each failed, as did a string of proposed amendments by the main opposition Labor party.

In the final vote, the result indicated that some Labor MPs had defied an instruction from their leader Jeremy Corbyn to vote in favor of the Article 50 bill.

A number of his shadow cabinet members have already resigned, and more may quit as a result of the vote.
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Former Prime Minster Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo was elected the new president of Somalia after the incumbent Hassan Sheikh Mohamud conceded his defeat after two rounds of voting.

Former Prime Minster Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo was elected the new president of Somalia. [Photo/Xinhua]

Farmajo garnered 184 votes against his closest contender Mohamud who got 97 votes in the second round to emerge as winner. The third candidate, former president Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, got 45 votes.

Farmajo, a former prime minister in Somalia's transitional federal government between 2009 and 2010, thanked the electoral teams and organizers of the election for the success of the process.

The former PM and university professor fought off a tough fight which featured 21 candidates vying for the next occupant of Villa Somalia in the next four years.

Farmajo who holds a U.S. passport got his Master's degree in political science from the State University of New York at Buffalo and subsequently worked in New York State, including at the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority, the Erie County Division of Equal Employment Opportunity, and the New York State Department of Transportation.

He was appointed prime minister in 2009 by then president Ahmed to succeed current Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, who resigned from his post following a dispute.

He however had a short stint as prime minister before he was forced out in UN-sponsored talks in Kampala, Uganda following a rift between President Ahmed and the Speaker of Parliament.

In 2011, Farmajo founded a new political party, the Somali Justice and Equality Party, also known as Tayo where he served to date as secretary general.
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A Kenyan government official has appreciated China's effort in protecting wild life, saying China's trade ban on ivory will bring positive effects on elephant protection in East Africa.

Judi Wakhungu, cabinet secretary of Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, told Xinhua on the sidelines of the 60th anniversary event of the East African Wild Life Society (EAWLS) that cooperation with China in protecting wild life "has grown from strength to strength," noting that China is very much involved in wild life protection, donating equipments and expertise.

"Most recently, we have seen the Chinese president announcing the trade ban of ivory, and that is going along with conserving wild life," she said.

Dismissing criticisms that the construction of the Mombasa-Nairobi railway has damaged wild life protection, Wakhungu said that the project has taken wild life protection in consideration from scratch.

"For example, the Mombasa-Nairobi SGR is specially designed to accommodate animal passages culverts as well as bridges for animals. The SGR design also has a protective fence to animals out of harm's way," she said.

Chinese Ambassador to Kenya Liu Xianfa echoed Wakhungu's words, saying China pays great attention to cooperation in wildlife protection, such as assisting the law-enforcing outfits from both China and Kenya to destroy a huge ivory smuggling criminal gang, donating wildlife protection equipment and materials to Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), and providing training opportunities to strengthen technology, cooperation and experience sharing in wild life protection.

EAWLS Executive Director Julius Kamau thanked China for its generous support, and said the organization will continue cooperation with China in wild life protection.

Established in 1961 through a merger of the Kenya and Tanzania Wildlife Societies (both formed in 1956), the EAWLS is a membership-based non-government organization that seeks to enhance the conservation and wise use of the environment and natural resources in East Africa for the benefit of current and future generations.
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US President Donald Trump said in a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping that he looks forward to working with Xi to develop a constructive bilateral relationship that benefits both the US and China.

US President Donald Trump has sent a message to Chinese President Xi Jinping, wishing the Chinese people a happy Lantern Festival, which marks the last day of the Chinese New Year holiday, as well as a prosperous Year of the Rooster. [Photo/Xinhua]

According to a White House statement on Wednesday night, Trump has sent a message to Xi, wishing the Chinese people a happy Lantern Festival, which marks the last day of the Chinese New Year holiday, as well as a prosperous Year of the Rooster.

Trump also thanked Xi for his congratulatory message on the occasion of Trump's inauguration last month.
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South Korean Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, who is serving as acting president, rose to the second place in recent presidential survey, benefitting from former UN chief's withdrawal from the presidential bid.

According to a Realmeter poll released on Thursday, Hwang garnered 15.9 percent in the opinion poll this week, up 3.5 percentage points from the previous week.

The result is based on a survey of 1,508 voters conducted from Monday to Wednesday. It has a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.

Hwang moved to the second spot for the first time as he emerged as the best hope in the conservative bloc after former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon declared his drop in the run for presidency last week.

Ban, whose second, five-year term in the top UN post terminated at the end of last year, returned to South Korea on Jan. 12, and conducted a de-facto presidential campaign by making a nationwide tour and meeting politicians and ordinary citizens.

On Feb. 1, Ban abruptly announced his withdrawal from the presidential race as his approval rating dropped after the lunar New Year's holiday due to his mistakes during the actual campaign trail and his alleged involvement in corruption scandals surrounding his younger brother and nephew.

In the absence of Ban, Hwang emerged as an icon in the conservative camp, which is struggling to regain public support following the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye.

Hwang is former justice minister and now serves as an interim president, forming a personal image of stable manager amid the political unrest.

Approval scores for Hwang, however, are far behind Moon Jae-in, former chief of the biggest opposition Minjoo Party whose approval rating gained 2.0 percentage points to 33.2 percent this week.

Moon kept the top spot in opinion polls for the sixth consecutive week.

Ahn Hee-jung, the governor of South Chungcheong province who is affiliated with the Minjoo Party, logged 15.7 percent in support scores, slightly below the prime minister's 15.9 percent.

Support for Ahn increased for three straight weeks as the governor shares the same political support base as the former UN chief's in the Chungcheong province. Ban's withdrawal eventually divided his support base into Hwang and Ahn.
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A British court has been told that a Chinese student who moved to Britain to further her education was beaten to death by her obsessed barman boyfriend, according to the Daily Mail newspaper.

24-year-old Bi Xixi, was killed by Jordan Matthews, 23, in what was described in court as a 'vicious, sustained and prolonged attack'.

Matthews has admitted manslaughter but has denied murder, telling the police that he had 'been horrible' to Bi, after he saw a message from another man on her mobile phone.

The court in Cardiff heard that Bi Xixi was a very talented student who spoke four languages, and had moved to Oxford as a teenager to further her education.

She was studying for a master's degree in international business in Cardiff when she fell for Matthews - who had a black belt in karate - showering him with gifts.

But after their relationship began, Matthews allegedly began beating Bi and forcing her to miss lectures.

Born in east China's Nanjing city, she was reportedly the daughter of a former CEO of Yurun, the 112nd of Fortune Brand of China, according to the This is Great Britain official weibo social media account.

The court was told Matthews was a violent controller who easily became jealous.

The day before her death Bi Xixi traveled to London to see a friend who noticed bruising on her face. When she returned to Cardiff, she was picked up by Matthews. At home, they argued over messages he found on her phone.

The court was told that Bi died as a result of the multiple blunt force injuries.

The trial is expected to last up to three weeks.
President Xi Jinping received a letter from Donald Trump on Wednesday, in which the US President said he looked forward to working with the Chinese leader "to develop a constructive relationship" that benefits both countries.

The letter conveys the reassuring message that bilateral relations are still on the right track despite the speculation that has arisen with Trump's victory in the November election, and his breaking of long-held norms and practice that used to guide bilateral ties - on Taiwan, the South China Sea and trade.

Fueling the tensions has been the belligerent attitude of some of the members of the Trump administration, which has increased concerns that a military confrontation is in the cards. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, for instance, has suggested China's access to its islands in the South China Sea might be blocked, while Steve Bannon, the chief strategist in Trump's team, said he believed that the US would go to war with China within five to 10 years during a radio broadcast last year.

Against this backdrop, the letter, though terse and issued nearly three weeks after Trump's inauguration, is still a positive signal, as it suggests that reason still prevails in the White House. Although it is still too early to conclude Trump no longer seeks to antagonize China, this show of goodwill will to some extent minimize the possibility of antagonistic rhetoric being turned into policies or actions that will set the two giants on a collision course.

China consistently holds that cooperation, rather than confrontation, is the only choice for the two countries, and that both should try to manage and control the disputes and sensitive problems that exist between them.

The fact that their shared interests far outweigh their differences determines that if there is a clash between them, "both will lose and both cannot afford that", as Foreign Minister Wang Yi said earlier this week during a visit to Australia.

The US seems to echo this sentiment. US Defense Secretary James Mattis, during a visit to Japan last week, emphasized the importance of giving diplomacy priority in solving the disputes in the South China Sea, raising hopes that the sea will not necessarily become a flashpoint for conflict.

In his letter, Trump also wished the Chinese people a happy Lantern Festival and prosperous Year of the Rooster. This may help to end speculation that Trump made an intentional slight by being the only US president in recent years not to have sent greetings at the Chinese Lunar New Year.
A mineworker looks at a train loader at the Rio Tinto West Angelas iron ore mine in the Pilbara, northwest of Perth, Australia. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Rio Tinto Group will pay a much higher dividend than expected and buy back $500 million of shares after the world's second-biggest mining company reported its first gain in annual profit since 2013.

Higher iron ore prices boosted underlying profit by 12 percent to $5.1 billion in 2016, London-based Rio said on Wednesday.

The dividend fell 21 percent to 170 cents a share, reflecting a new policy aligning the payout to earnings.

"What a difference a year makes," Peter O'Connor, an analyst at Shaw & Partners Ltd in Sydney, said. "It's been a long grind back from the global financial abyss that Rio slumped into."

The global mining industry is rebounding from a downturn that forced some of the top producers to sell assets, cut costs and rein in spending after years of over-investment bloated balance sheets and left markets oversupplied.

Iron ore, Rio's main profit driver, surged 81 percent last year as Chinese stimulus supported local steel output, leading to higher demand for overseas ore.

Bloomberg
BEIJING - A new central document on natural areas in need of protection demonstrates China's desire for environmental progress.

Demarcation of the exact boundaries of natural areas with important ecological functions will be completed by the end of 2020, according to the document released Tuesday by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council.

The regions include those important to water and soil conservation, biodiversity, wind-breaking and sand fixation, as well as ecologically fragile zones prone to soil erosion, desertification and salinization.

Functions and acreage will be maintained, and their protected status will remain in place indefinitely, the document reads, describing the strategy as a "lifeline guaranteeing ecological security."

Evolution of the concept

The Chinese phrase "hongxian" (red line) is frequently used in China to describe a limit that should not be crossed.

In 2005, Guangdong province used the phrase to demarcate areas for protection in a document on the environment of the Pearl River Delta.

"The Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) started to explore the environmental red line scheme in 2012," said Lu Jun, deputy head of the Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning.

A document on overall reform released in November 2013 listed "drawing up the environmental red line" as a major task.

Clear definition of the red line in environmental protection was given in the Environmental Protection Law that was amended in 2014 and went into force in 2015.

To guide local governments in drawing the red line, the MEP compiled a handbook in 2015, without setting any timetable.

Existing local practices

Most provincial level regions have already started the work. Ten provinces, including eastern China's Jiangsu and Jiangxi, have already published their plans.

Qiangyuan district of Ji'an city, Jiangxi province, has put about 23 percent of its total area within the red line.

The most stringent controls will be implemented in the restricted area and no project unrelated to environment protection will be allowed, said Wang Zhaorong, deputy head of the local environment protection bureau.

In the environment versus economy trade-off, Zixi county in Jiangxi made a similar decision, saying no to some 100 industrial projects involving total investment of more than 30 billion yuan ($4.4 billion) during the last three years.

With fiscal revenue of a mere 600 million yuan, Zixi is determined not to pursue growth at the cost of its environment.

Future prospects

At present, China has more than 10,000 protected natural areas covering about 18 percent of the country, including nature reserves, forests, geological parks and drinking water sources. Those areas are frequently used for other purposes, causing some severe environmental degradation.

As current boundaries are unclear and ineffectively managed, specifying the exact boundaries and reinforcing supervision are crucial to the security of China's environment.

Lu Jun compared the environmental scheme to a similar approach in protecting arable land. The country will retain a minimum of some 1.2 million square kilometers of arable land regardless of other land use requirements.

Drawing up a clear line for natural space is only the first step in effective management. The new guidelines asked Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, and regions along the Yangtze River Economic Belt to draw up their red line by the end of 2017, while other areas should complete the task before the end of 2018.

By the end of 2020, the demarcation of the border and calibration of the protected regions should be completed and the fundamentals of an environmental protection red line system will be established.

By 2030, the red line strategy will be firmly in place, the environmental function of the areas defined and national environmental security guaranteed, according to the document.

Local government officials will be held accountable for violations of the red line policy and damage to the environment.
The 17th annual Yabuli China Entrepreneurs Forum is running from Wednesday through Saturday in Yabuli, Heilongjiang province.

Some influential figures are attending the forum, and will share their outlooks and insights on the "economic transition and entrepreneurial innovation" as China's economy has entered the stage of a "new normal".

The forum founded in 2001 is one of the most influential Chinese business platforms for the exchange of ideas.

Feng Lun
A logo of Ant Financial is displayed at the Ant Financial event in Hong Kong, China, Nov 1, 2016. [Photo/Reuters]

There's speculation that Ant Financial Services Group is in talks to raise over $3 billion (20.6 billion yuan) to bankroll its overseas expansion.

US tech media publication The Information reported on Thursday, citing a source close to the matter.

The finance affiliate of e-commerce behemoth Alibaba Group is likely to raise the amount ahead of an initial public offering, with the timetable of the latter undisclosed, the report said.

Since its establishment in 2004 as a PayPal-like online payment platform, Ant Financial has expanded into a financial technology empire offering services ranging from small loans and credit rating to investment products.

Rumors about the fundraising plan come as Ant Financial continues a buying spree, with US money-transfer company MoneyGram its latest purchase. The $880 million deal is expected to reshape the international payments landscape.

The fintech giant's acquisitions over the past two years also include EyeVerify, a US biometric authentication tech startup, and a significant stake in India's largest mobile payment and e-commerce platform Paytm, according to Reuters.

Last year, Ant Financial raised $4.5 billion at a reported $60 billion valuation, making it China's most valuable fintech company.

Company president Eric Jing earlier told China Daily that Ant Financial hopes to replicate its success in China in the wider world, and has a goal of boosting user numbers to two billion within 10 years.
Bike-sharing startup bluegogo displayed the sample bike in Beijing on Nov 23, 2016. [Photo by Ouyang Shijia/China Daily]

Chinese bike-share startup Bluegogo, which had planned to fill San Francisco's public bike racks with rental bicycles, is seeking permits after drawing backlash from city leaders.

The Beijing-based company has recently faced resistance in its first US marketSan Francisco, which is home to other share-economy innovations like Uber, Lyft and Airbnb.

Different from other bike-share programs, Bluegogo's bikes are equipped with smart locks and GPS systems, which allow riders to locate and unlock the bikes using their smartphones and leave them at any public bike rack without locking. The service costs only 99 cents per half hour.

The company had planned to launch the program last month, but city leaders vowed to impound their bicycles and fine the company if they went ahead without permission.

City officials, who have referred to Bluegogoas a "rogue" company, were worried that the company would dump tens of thousands of bikes that would clutter public sidewalks. Bluegogo does not reveal how many bicycles it plans to deposit in the city.

At a press conference on Jan 18 supervisor Aaron Peskin, said: "Every single time, these arrogant tech companies ask later for forgiveness, or ask later for permission. This is the first time where San Francisco has gotten ahead of the curve."

Ilya Movshovich, Bluegogo's vice-president of US operations, told China Daily in an email: "We'd still really like to come to an agreement with the city regarding the use of public racks." "We last met with the city on Jan 25 and are still waiting to hear back on what permits might be needed. In the next week, we will be bringing out more bikes to be housed at our rented-out stations."
An employee stands next to a logo of Toshiba Corp in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, November 21, 2012. [Photo / Agencies]

The Toshiba Corp said it is discussing an optimum solution for its semiconductor business, after media reports said the tech giant would sell a minority stake in its computer-chip business to some bidders.

SK Hynix Inc, Foxconn Technology Group and Western Digital Corp are among bidders participating in Toshiba Corp's sale of a minority stake in its computer-chip business, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter. Toshiba declined to comment on this issue.

James Yan, research director at Counterpoint Technology Market Research, said: "The bidders such as SK Hynix and Western Digital hope to expand market share and enhance competitiveness in the semiconductor and chip industry, especially the storage sector."

Yan added that Foxcoon expects to diversify its businesses and move into chip design and manufacturing to increase its profitability.

In January, Toshiba announced it would be splitting off its memory business into a single business entity by March 31 to draw the attention of possible investors. The move will lead to further growth of the business and maximize the corporate value, said a statement issued by Toshiba.

Toshiba is considering an injection of third-party capital, and will make an announcement when specific capital measures are decided, according to the statement.

The Nikkei financial daily reported that Toshiba will sell a roughly 20 percent interest in the unit for about 200 billion yen to 300 billion yen ($1.78 billion-$2.67 billion) while retaining a majority stake.

In 2015, Toshiba sold its white goods business to Chinese leading home appliances manufacturer Midea Group. It sold its medical unit to Canon Inc for nearly $6 billion last year. The Japanese company's two biggest businesses are nuclear reactors and semiconductors.

According to research firm IHS, Toshiba has about 20 percent share in the global NAND flash memory chip market, ranking second after Samsung Electronics which had a 35 percent share.

The Tokyo-headquartered conglomerate is still recovering from a $1.3 billion accounting scandal two years ago. Selling a stake in its profitable memory chip would help Toshiba cope with losses from its nuclear arm.
Consumers check out smartphones of Chinese brand Lenovo at a shop in Nairobi, Kenya. [Photo / Agencies]

Africa, with a population second only to that of the Asia-Pacific region, is ready for the smartphone evolution that will bring ubiquitous internet access.

Nearly half of the 1.17 billion-strong African population had mobile phone plans by the end of 2015, making up 6 percent of the global mobile revenue, according to the latest data from GSM Association, an organization of global mobile operators.

The report, released in November in Tanzania, showed that this is a 70 percent increase from just five years ago. More importantly, smartphone sales now account for 23 percent of the mobile phone market.

"Africa is the next big potential battleground for mobile phone vendors in coming years. As 4G becomes available in more African counties, the demand for smartphones will grow," Tarun Pathak, senior analyst at Counterpoint Research, said.

According to him, Africa, with feature phones included, is now a bigger mobile phone market than the US, and it will surpass Europe in next few years, as the local telecoms infrastructure improves.

The GSM Association also predicts the spectacular growth in mobile demand should give rise to 730 million individual African subscribers by 2020.

The trend is not lost on the minds of senior executives. Chinese companies have extended their presence to the African continent, in the hope of establishing a beachhead.

Oppo Communications Corp cracked the market in 2015, with an initial focus on North Africa where people generally have higher incomes than in other parts of the continent. Huawei Technologies Co Ltd has opened offices there, and handsets made by relatively new players like Xiaomi Corp are also available in the continent now.

Wambui Monicah, a mobile phone retailer in Kenya, said he is now selling Chinese brands including Tecno, Oppo and Lenovo.

"I expect more Chinese brands to enter the Kenyan and African markets. There are so many opportunities," he added.

But still, the market is dominated by low-end gadgets. In the third quarter of 2016, the African market grew by 6 percent year-on-year, mostly driven by the rising demand for feature phones rather than smartphones, data from Counterpoint suggest.

Xiang Ligang, a smartphone expert and the chief executive of telecom industry website cctime.com, said the unstable political conditions in some African states and low incomes are still major obstacles.

Yu Lan, a translator who has been working for a Chinese construction firm in Angola, a western African country, for three years, said local brands are still preferred among Angolan people.

"But I have noticed an increasing number of them are embracing Huawei and Xiaomi handsets," she added.
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Surrogacy will continue to be banned in China, and violations will be punished, China's top health authority announced on Wednesday.

The announcement follows recent discussions on whether to allow surrogacy in China to facilitate the second-child policy.

"Surrogacy is a complex matter involving legal, ethical and social issues, and Chinese health regulations ban medical institutions and staff from performing surrogacy in any form," National Health and Family Planning Commission spokesman Mao Qun'an said at a news conference in Beijing.

"We will continue to severely punish surrogacy violations and ensure that people have access to safe, regulated and effective assisted reproductive technology services."

Most other countries and regions also ban surrogacy in all forms and punish institutes and personnel engaged in the practice, Mao said.

However, experts cited in a recent People's Daily report recommended that authorities consider allowing the limited use of voluntary surrogacy in cases of couples who have been unable to have children.

Surrogacy has been a topic of public discussion since China adopted the second-child policy at the start of 2016, in view of the dwindling workforce and a rapidly aging population. All couples are now allowedand encouragedto have two children.

The policy change has made another 90 million women eligible to have a second child. But half of them are over 40 years old, which means they face higher pregnancy risks, according to the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

Wang Aiming, head of the gynecology department at Navy General Hospital in Beijing, said that although surrogacy could bring ethical problems and health risks, it should not be entirely prohibited.

"Although it is banned in China, there is still a great need for surrogacy for people such as those who are too old or those who suffer from severe diseases, such as cervical cancer," she said. "Some of them have sought surrogacy overseas and spent a lot of money, and still have not succeeded in having babies."

Wang said, however, that lifting the ban hastily would result in many problems, such as some medical institutes or staff failing to strictly follow regulations, leading to profiteering.

"I think even if surrogacy were allowed in the future, it should be done only in a few certified institutions to control the risks," Wang said.

Xie Guoao, CEO of Uyixing, an invitro fertilization service provider in Beijing, said that since demand for surrogacy is increasing in China, lifting the ban could be risky because legislation and regulations guiding it are lacking.

Last year, the company helped arrange nearly 100 Chinese customers to have babies through surrogates in the US and Russia, he said.

A gay man in Beijing, who declined to be named, said the government should ease the ban on surrogacy.

"There is already a black market in China and the rich even go abroad to arrange surrogacy," he said.

Destinations such as Thailand, the Philippines and the US have become popular among gay couples seeking surrogacy services.

Some gay men who cannot afford to get a child through surrogacy might marry a woman just to have a baby, he said. "That's unfair and tragic for such women."

The All-China Women's Federation did not comment when reached by China Daily on Wednesday.

Chen Mengwei contributed to this story.
Chinese top legislator calls for better quality legislation

Xinhua | Updated: 2017-02-09 07:19

BEIJING - China's top legislator Zhang Dejiang on Wednesday demanded improvements to the quality of legislation passed by the legislature.



Zhang, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), made the remarks when presiding over a seminar on the annual NPC Standing Committee report for deputies in Beijing.



A total of 10 NPC deputies expressed their opinions on the report and the work of the NPC, concluding that the NPC Standing Committee exercised its duties earnestly in the past year and had many achievements.



Zhang said efforts should be made to give more play to deputies and clear the channels of opinion to take the work of the NPC to a higher level.



Deputies present proposed better supervision of local government debt, new legislation on national defense and better implementation of laws on cultural activities.



The opinions and suggestions offered by the deputies should be studied carefully, Zhang said.



He stressed the NPC and its Standing Committee should uphold the authority of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee with comrade Xi Jinping as the core with concrete actions.



Efforts should be made to ensure the policies and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee will be effectively implemented in the NPC work, and to greet the 19th National Congress of the CPC with outstanding achievements, Zhang said.



He called for upholding the notion of people-centric development, solving outstanding issues that concern deputies and the people, and increasing the people's sense of gain.



Zhang said he hoped that the NPC deputies could grasp the sentiments of the people and pool their wisdom.



The fifth annual session of the 12th National People's Congress, the country's top legislature, will open on March 5 in Beijing.
Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli urged local governments on Wednesday to improve the credibility of statistics, because falsified data can mislead policymakers in their plans for economic development.

Zhang called for local governments, especially at the provincial level, to improve their accountability in compiling data.

He said officials face demerits in their performance evaluation, which would deny them promotion, if they are found responsible for fake statistics.

Zhang stressed the need to enhance law enforcement and make good use of merit systems for companies and individuals to raise their awareness of authenticity and integrity of public data.

His comments were made during a visit to the National Statistics Bureau and followed Liaoning province's admission in its annual government report in January that it falsified statistics from 2011 to 2014.

The province had inflated fiscal revenue statistics by about 20 percent and faked some other economic data during those four years, People's Daily reported in January.

"Shouldering the weight of the shame we have brought on ourselves, we have removed the exaggerated data and corrected the 2015 fiscal figures, while trying hard to make all the other economic statistics accurate since 2016," said Chen Qiufa, governor of Liaoning.

The province had 219.9 billion yuan ($32 billion) of fiscal revenue in 2016, a year-on-year rise of 3.4 percent.

Liaoning is aiming for 5 percent fiscal revenue growth this year, according to its annual report.

Three days after Liaoning's falsified data revelation, NBS chief Ning Jizhe said at a news conference that the national statistics are reliable. China's GDP grew by 6.7 percent in 2016.

Zhou Muzhi, a professor of economics at Tokyo University, suggested local governments give up exclusively pursuing economic growth and pay more attention to environmental and social welfare to achieve more balanced development.
An artist's impression of the newly-built Confucius Museum in Qufu, Shandong province. [Photo/Xinhua]

The Confucius Museum in Qufu, Shandong province - the birthplace of China's most famous sage - will be opened in the second half of this year, a local official said on Wednesday, describing it as the country's first comprehensive museum to focus on Confucius (551-479 BC) and his ideology.

"Work on the exhibition center, the main building of the museum complex, has been completed, while detailed work on exhibition platforms and landscaping is underway," said Zhang Lizheng of the Qufu Culture Industry Park where the museum is located.

The museum complex, with a total investment of 700 million yuan ($102 million), consists of an exhibition center and six subordinate halls, covering a total of 57,000 square meters.

The museum is a cultural project showcasing Confucian teachings and relics collected by generations of Confucius, as well as a place to learn about traditional culture, said Yang Jinquan, deputy head of the Qufu bureau of cultural relics.

Construction of the museum started in 2013, but was disrupted due to financial issues and discussions over how to present the essence of Confucian thoughts and teachings in the most accurate way.

Local government statistics show that by the end of last year, a total of 380 million yuan had been spent on the museum.

Yang Chaoming, head of the Confucius Research Institute in Qufu, said the museum is of great importance.

"Currently, people learn Confucian teachings mainly from textbooks and at the Confucius Temple. At the museum, visitors will be able to gain a more in-depth understanding about Confucius and his teachings via images, modern technologies and relics related to the sage," said Yang Chaoming, who is also a member of the provincial political advisory body.

Yang Yitang, an expert on Confucian studies at the Jining bureau of cultural relics, said, "About 350,000 Confucius-related relics and archives that now rest in storerooms will be better protected and presented to the public, helping experts and tourists to learn about the sage."

Teachings of Confucius, an educator and philosopher, deeply influenced later Chinese generations. He was the first Chinese to set up private schools and enroll students from all walks of life.

The government of Shandong is exhibiting the work of Confucius to promote traditional Chinese culture.

Guo Shuqing, governor of Shandong, said in his government work report at the ongoing sixth session of the 12th Shandong Provincial People's Congress, the province's top legislature, that Shandong will continue to promote the essence of traditional Chinese culture, completing construction of the Confucius Museum and opening it to the public this year.
Police have busted a human trafficking ring, rescuing 32 Vietnamese women who were sold in rural areas of China, the country's top police authority said on Wednesday.

The Ministry of Public Security issued a statement saying that 75 suspects had been apprehended and nearly 130,000 yuan ($18,900) seized.

The ring engaged in the trafficking of women under the guise of soliciting workers or tourists from Vietnam, the ministry said.

It operated in Yunnan province, which borders Vietnam, abducting women and transporting them to other regions in Chinese hinterland provinces, such as Henan, Anhui and Jiangxi, to be sold.

The ring was uncovered after a case involving several abducted women was cracked at a railway station in Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, in September 2015.

The ministry began a massive operation with police from seven provinces joining forces, and the traffickers were arrested after police had collected sufficient evidence.

According to the ministry, the traffickers sold the women in places where it was unlikely that they would be recognized and made transactions in remote locations.

An official with the ministry's criminal investigation division said the ministry will continue to crack down on human trafficking, especially along borders.

The incident is the latest in a string of major human trafficking cases over the past few years. In 2015, police rescued 177 Myanmar women and children, arresting 37 people involved in the case.

The women and children were smuggled to Yunnan province and then sold to rural families in Henan and Shandong provinces for between 50,000 and 80,000 yuan each.
A pregnant teacher in Henan province reportedly asked her students' parents to fill in for her while she was away on maternity leave, sparking outrage.

Wang Baolan, a female teacher at No 2 High School in Zhumadian, was accused by some parents of shirking her responsibility of watching over students doing homework during their daily after-school class.

According to some parents, they were asked to take turns to cover for Wang after the Spring Festival holiday, with parents unable to do so having to pay 300 to 600 yuan ($45-$90) to those who did.

Parents who opposed the arrangement exposed the incident to media, with one saying it is unfair for parents to be expected to do the teacher's job and even pay for her absence.

Another parent, who declined to give his name, said: "Many parents were opposed to the arrangement, but didn't know what to do. Some had to leave after the Spring Festival holiday as they work in other cities, and it's impossible for them to show up at their children's after-school class."

However, the school said that the decision was made by the school's parents' committee and that the teacher didn't know about it.

"Our school had arranged for a substitute to stand in for Wang Baolan," said Wang Wei, director of the school's administrative office.

"But some parents were worried that their children's learning would be affected as the new teacher wouldn't know the students, so they came up with the idea of taking turns to attend the after-school class, with those who could not make it paying some money as compensation," he said.

Wang Wei added that the school and Wang Baolan had asked the parents' committee to refund the 7,000 yuan collected.

"We strongly oppose the parents' committee's actions," Wang Wei said, adding that the school will strictly follow the national rules to avoid any arbitrary charges.

Zhu Shuyuan, a resident of Zhumadian whose child is a junior middle school student, said that because most teachers at primary and middle schools are female, a shortage of teachers is common, particularly after a number of female teachers have become pregnant following the second-child policy.

"Female teachers have the right to take maternity leave, but schools should make arrangements so that students are not affected," Zhu said.

Qi Xin in Zhengzhou contributed to this story.
The identity of a Hong Kong businessman who attended a dinner event in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region in 2015 at which pangolin meat was served has been confirmed.

Calvin Lee Ka-wo

The organizing committee of a Hong Kong entrepreneurs' investment mission to Guangxi released a statement via local media, saying Calvin Lee Ka-wo's personal actions have nothing to do with the mission.

Lee Ka-wo is the son of a former chairman of a watch company. His post on Sina Weibo was published on July 15, 2015, including photos and text reading: "Bureau Chief Li and Secretary Huang invited us to the office in Guangxi to cook pangolin. It was my first time eating it and it tasted great."

The statement said the group was on an organized business trip from July 8 to 10 and all members had only eaten standard buffets.

"No one had dinner alone. The mission returned to Hong Kong on July 10. Calvin Lee Ka-wo chose to stay in Guangxi for a private tour with his friends. That is when the dinner involving pangolin meat occurred. It has nothing to do with the mission," the statement said.

The statement urged Lee Ka-wo to seriously reflect on his misbehavior.

Beijing News quoted an anonymous source from Guangxi Investment Promotion Agency as saying that Lee Ka-wo was a member of the investment mission in 2015.

But the source denied that Bureau Chief Li and Secretary Huang are local officials.

"After this dinner was exposed, we checked the photos and confirmed that none of our staff were seen in the photos," the source told Beijing News. "We also sent the photos to another 14 investment promotion bureaus within the autonomous region to find out who Li and Huang are. The result was that they are not officials or anyone who works for the bureaus."

However, the Guangxi discipline inspection commission said on Wednesday that one government official attended dinner with Lee Ka-wo, adding that the official, Li Ning, from the region's education department, was arrested in May on charges of accepting bribes.

The pangolin dinner was reported to the State Forestry Administration after being exposed online. The regional forestry administration said they have launched an investigation into the issue.

Chinese pangolin is a second-class national protected species, with its consumption strictly prohibited.
Province: Majority of people support new regulation

Despite a backlash from scholars, the people of Heilongjiang, the northeastern province that grows more than 10 percent of China's grain, appear to be standing united on its ban of genetically modified crops.

Starting in May, farmers will be prohibited from planting GM crops, according to a provincial regulation released in December. Observers have said the ban will hinder the development of biotech, while others have questioned its legality.

Lu Hao, governor of Heilongjiang, said at a provincial economic meeting in December that the province should not be afraid of controversy and that by issuing the ban, more people will notice what efforts the province has gone to in order to develop non-GM food and protect food safety.

China has, so far, not planted any GM grain, although no national law bans the planting or import of GM crops. Some legal experts have suggested the province does not have a legal basis to issue such a ban.

However, Li Qixiang, an official with the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Heilongjiang People's Congress Standing Committee, said the regulation has a sound basis among the province's residents.

In October, the committee conducted research in 13 cities and found that 91.5 percent of people interviewed objected to GM crops being planted in Heilongjiang, he said.

Huo Shulin, 65, a farmer in Suihua city's Fengshou village, said he had never considered planting GM grain in his 34-year career. "People love the conventional Heilongjiang rice. We must keep it the way it is," he said.

Ma Shouyi, a researcher of the Heilongjiang Academy of Land Reclamation Sciences, conceded that the old-fashioned way of planting cannot compete with genetically modified varieties, as the latter is becoming the trend in agricultural biotech. But he is still uncertain about the risks involved in using GM seeds.

Song Kui, president of the Heilongjiang Contemporary China-Russia Regional Economy Research Institute, said the provincial ban will benefit China's agricultural cooperation with Russia, which has become a growing business under the Belt and Road Initiative.

In July, Russia also set up a law that bans planting, producing and importing GM crops. Heilongjiang has established cooperative farms in Vladivostok, Russia, selling conventional agricultural food, which Song said has earned positive feedback in the local market. Some products were sold back to China, too.

Liu Chunming, director of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences' Institute of Crop Sciences, said any discussion of GM crops should not ignore the fact that China still faces potential challenges to food safety.

Twenty percent of the world's population lives in China, but the country has just 7 percent of the world's arable land - a basic fact Liu said he hopes people keep in mind before jumping to a conclusion.

He cited the fact that China imported more than 80 million metric tons of soybeans last year, most of which were genetically modified. A great percentage of the soybeans were turned into animal feed or ingredients of processed food, including edible oil.

"GM food is not the only way to boost food production," Liu said. "But simply giving it up may not be the wisest decision."

Contact the writers at chenmengwei@chinadaily.com.cn
The man who set off a bomb at Shanghai Pudong International Airport in June, slightly injuring four passengers, said during a court hearing on Wednesday that he did so to draw public attention to people like him.

"As migrant workers, we have low incomes and women of our age will never give us an opportunity for love and marriage. I wanted a change, and I chose to die," Zhou Xingbai, a 29-year-old native of Southwest China's Guizhou province, said during the hearing at Shanghai No 3 Intermediate People's Court.

Prosecutors filed charges against Zhou, who has been a migrant worker in Guangdong and Jiangsu provinces since he graduated from high school in 2006, of endangering public safety by causing an explosion.

Zhou set off a homemade explosive device in three beer bottles at a check-in counter in Terminal 2 on June 12. The blast created public panic and several flights were affected.

He attempted to cut his throat, but was stopped.

Zhou was allegedly addicted to online gambling and was heavily in debt. Prosecutors said that he wrote on his social networking platform that he was going to do something "really crazy".

Zhou said during the hearing that he made the explosive device with firecrackers in his dorm in an electronics factory in Jiangsu. He had never been to the Shanghai airport.

He said he chose Terminal 2 rather than Terminal 1 because "the latter is more crowded and I feared that many people would be injured and that it might trigger a stampede."

He also said that he chose to roll the bottles on the ground rather than throw them so people would have time to run away.

Zhou pleaded guilty in court and apologized to those injured in the attack.

Prosecutors said Zhou should receive a jail term of between seven and eight years, with the court yet to issue a verdict.

zhouwenting@chinadaily.com.cn
Expert: Beijing will not tolerate negative actions that compromise its interests

The People's Liberation Army does not want a war in the South China Sea, but will not be afraid of one if it knocks on China's door, the military has said.

An editorial published on Tuesday on the PLA Daily's website said the Chinese military is not afraid of "demons" and "intimidation", adding that the PLA dares to "show its sword" and has a proven record of safeguarding national interests.

It invoked China's determination and victory in the Korean War as well as the Chinese government's warning toward the United States' escalation in the 1960s during the Vietnam War.

"In the past, the PLA produced numerous miracles in wars, despite being outnumbered by enemies or having inferior weapons compared with those of its adversaries. Today, our troops are well equipped and high-spirited ... Facing risk-takers, the PLA, which owns DF series ballistic missiles, will show them that we are ready for a war and we do not fear wars," the article said.

In another article published on the same website on Wednesday, the writer blasted "some US politicians" for believing that lasting superiority over China and the Asia-Pacific will ensure the US' "global leadership", saying that playing tricks with China in the South China Sea is unreasonable and dangerous.

The article also suggests that the US should focus on its domestic issues instead of "interfering elsewhere" if it wishes to become "great again".

The articles came after recent claims from senior US officials threatening to take hard-line measures against China over issues relating to the South China Sea.

Shao Yongling, a professor of military strategy at the PLA Rocket Force Command College, told China Daily that the remarks show the Chinese military's determination and capability of safeguarding the country's sovereignty and interests anywhere.

"They also show that we are well prepared for contingencies. I believe these remarks are more like warnings than threats. They aim at telling the US that we will not tolerate negative actions that compromise our interests," she said.

Shao added that the PLA Rocket Force will definitely be mobilized if there is a large joint operation in the South China Sea and that Chinese ballistic missiles are capable of covering all of the sea.

Li Li, a military equipment expert at PLA National Defense University, said recent moves by the US, such as sending the littoral combat ship USS Coronado to the South China Sea, indicate that the new US government will not relax its interference in the region and it does not want to see the recent improvement in relations between China and other nations in the region.

"However, no matter what measures the US plans to take, we will never abandon our sovereignty, interests and rights in the South China Sea," she said.

Yang Xiyu, a researcher of Asia-Pacific security affairs at the China Institute of International Studies in Beijing, told China Central Television that some US politicians are hoping that military pressure will intimidate China in the South China Sea, but this has repeatedly turned out to be useless.

He said that the stronger the PLA is, the less willing the US will be to launch a war against China.
A Taohuawu New Year woodcut print of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) on display at a Taohuawu nianhua exhibition held in Suzhou, Jiangsu province in November. [Photo/Xinhua]

Elderly craftsmen fear for future of their art, a part of China's intangible cultural heritage that is fast disappearing

Spring Festival is supposed to be a joyous occasion, but it has left Fang Zhida, 83, anxious. Days before the Lunar New Year, he locked himself in his studio to focus on an ancient folk art.

Taohuawu New Year woodcut prints, or nianhua, are a type of traditional art that people put on their doors to ward off evil and express good wishes for Chinese New Year.

But in recent years, business has been poor, leaving Fang worried that his beloved craft may eventually die out.

The craft was born on Taohuawu street in Suzhou, Jiangsu province.

It involves a craftsman drawing a sketch on a piece of paper before carving it on to a set of boards and painting it. The print is complete once the boards are pressed onto a piece of paper or other surface.

The art, which dates back more than 350 years, was added to China's intangible cultural heritage list in 2006.

Fang began learning nianhua at age 14, and describes it as the love of his life.

Since 2004, he has been teaching the traditional printing technique at the Taohuawu Woodcut New Year Print Society. Four students are chosen every two years, with 28 students graduating so far.

"It is important that we introduce the art to the young and pass it down," he said.

From painting to woodcutting and printing, it can take as little as a week or as long as a year to finish a single piece, and if any mistakes are made then the whole thing must be redone from scratch.

"Printing one piece after another all day long can be very tiring," Fang said.

"So, you must be really interested in it, be hardworking, and you need to handle loneliness very well."

Some of Fang's students are building on the master's techniques and looking to innovate to appeal to a wider audience.

Fu Xiangpeng, 31, has designed a series of products with New Year prints on them, such as fans, plates and lucky red envelopes.

"We hope the products will be popular, but we must not lose the essence of the art," Fang said.

In 2006, a museum was opened that aims to preserve the art. Wang Zude, 77, serves as its senior adviser.

He encourages his students to innovate and create new prints, teaches nianhua on weekends and tells primary school students stories about it.

"Kids love stories, and the stories behind the art help shape a sense of our own cultural identity," Wang said.

In 2012, he designed a series of New Year prints for the 12 zodiac signs, to appeal to a younger audience.

Suzhou No 1 Middle School has offered selective courses teaching local traditional art, such as New Year prints and Kunqu Opera, since 2010. Students from the United States have come to learn at the school every summer since 2014.

Wishes and worries

Fang's biggest wish is to teach as many students as he can.

"A New Year print craftsman now earns around 50,000 yuan ($7,270) a year, not enough to make a decent living," he said.

Of the 28 students Fang has taught in the past decade, only 10 have chosen to continue with the craft, and in Suzhou, only about a dozen craftsmen are still in the trade.

When exhibitions are held at home and abroad, few people show interest in actually learning the art, Fang said.

"It is more important that we attract more people to learn it and devote themselves to Chinese cultural heritage," he said.

According to the local heritage protection office, half the inheritors of intangible cultural heritage are now older than 65.

"Our own awareness of our culture should be raised to better protect and pass down intangible cultural heritage," said Wang Yan, deputy director of the office.

A local regulation came into effect in Suzhou this week to preserve endangered intangible cultural heritage.

A national project is also under way to collect historical materials and build archives for 100 folk arts, including Taohuawu New Year printing and Thangka, or Tibetan scroll painting.

"We must pass down the arts that our ancestors gave us," Fang said.
GUIYANG -- Police in Southwest China's Guizhou province have seized a large amount of equipment and 900 kilograms of raw materials for drug production and arrested more than 30 suspects, police said Thursday.



In July 2015, police in Guizhou's provincial capital Guiyang began to investigate the activities of a drug gang headed by a suspect surnamed Li. The gang operated a drug lab in a remote village in north China's Hebei Province.



In October 2016, police raided the lab and arrested Li and five other suspects. They also confiscated over 900 kilograms of raw materials and equipment. A major member of the gang, surnamed Zhang, however, evaded capture and fled the scene.



On Feb 1 this year, the police were tipped off that Zhang had resurfaced in Guiyang and was in the process of setting up another lab. Zhang had also secured sales with drug dealers in Malaysia.



Zhang and 30 other suspects were arrested in Guiyang on Feb 7.
Some couriers from jd.com at work during Spring Festival holidays, Taicang, Jiangsu, Feb 3, 2017. [Photo/VCG]

Spring Festival has traditionally been a slack season for e-commerce enterprises, but consumers' shopping habits have undergone big changes in recent years. One of the best examples of this new trend is a Beijing man who bought 200 gold bars with 570,000 yuan ($829,700) online this year.

It is the biggest online transaction for retailer jd.com, an employee told Beijing Morning Post on Wednesday.

Alcohol, seafood and fruit were the top three categories with the largest sales during the holiday. Fresh food, including fruit, vegetables and meat and seafood, were bestsellers, with nearly a fourfold increase in sales, while imported fresh food was up 14 times last year's sales.

Sports and outdoor products are becoming more popular as more and more people choose to go on holiday at Spring Festival. The number of people placing orders was almost double the number last year.

Sales of baby care products have also doubled, believed to be due to the second-child policy.

Online orders from county-level cities and townships surpassed those from first-tier and second-tier cities, while sales from those two parts were similar.

One difference in shopper behavior from normal periods is the disappearance of the peak ordering time usually from 10 pm to 11 pm as that is a time for family parties or recreational activities during Spring Festival. The morning peak from 10 am to 11 am did not change.

All orders were ensured by non-stop delivery services. There were more than 300,000 couriers still working during the holidays this year, according to Alibaba's logistics arm, Cainiao Network. Compared with last year's 120,000, it means a real boost in delivery capacity.

Couriers are handsomely paid for working during the holidays with one courier from jd.com in East China's Jiangxi province earning 16,194 yuan in half a month.
BEIJING -- China said overseas NGOs are welcome to carry out friendly exchanges and cooperation in China.

Efficient and convenient services will be provided for overseas NGOs and their legitimate rights and interests will be protected, according to a statement from the overseas NGO management office under the Ministry of Public Security (MPS).

So far, authorities in Beijing, Shanghai and South China's Guangdong province have issued registration certificates to 32 representative offices of NGOs from outside the Chinese mainland, according to the MPS.

Registration services for overseas NGO representative offices became mandatory from Jan 1, as a new law on overseas NGOs took effect the same day.

To support the process the MPS, which is responsible for registration, has released a registration guideline, set up registration counters at provincial-level police authorities and launched a supporting website.

Registration records of some overseas NGOs, which were previously kept at the civil affairs and industrial and commercial authorities, have also been transferred to the new authority in charge.

The MPS and other authorities have held a number of meetings with representatives from overseas NGOs as well as delegates from the European Union to China and foreign embassies and consulates, to listen to their suggestions on the new process.

In Shanghai and Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, police have given foreign diplomats and representatives of overseas NGOs demonstrations of the new procedures.

Adopted by the top legislature in April, 2016, the new law requests all NGOs outside the Chinese mainland to secure approval to operate on the mainland.

The MPS said it will continue to improve the new service.
China will start to collect fingerprints and capture facial images of foreign passport holders entering China at selected ports beginning on Friday to tighten border security, a source in the Ministry of Public Security said on Thursday.

Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport will be among those using the new policy before it is rolled out in other areas.

Border control authorities nationwide will fingerprint all foreign passport holders ages 14 to 70 by the end of the year. In addition to fingerprints, biometric data will also be collected, said the ministry source, who requested anonymity.

Fingerprint collection devices have been installed at the Shenzhen airport, and signs indicating the new policy have been put up to inform foreign travelers, the source said.

People holding diplomatic passports or beneficiaries of reciprocal agreements will not be required to provide fingerprints.

The move is an important way to strengthen entry and exit control, the source said.

Collecting and storing the fingerprints of arriving foreigners is already an international practice in many other countries, including the United States and Japan.

Authorities will ensure that the new system is efficient and does not result in unnecessary delays, the ministry said.

"Fingerprinting foreigners can significantly reduce the number of people entering China illegally with other people's passports. They may look like the pictures on the passports, but their fingerprints will never match the passport holder," said Zhang Jie, a professor at People's Public Security University who specializes in the study of exit and entry policies.

For regular travelers, the new system will shorten the time spent at border control because their identities can be quickly confirmed based on fingerprint information stored in the system, she said.

China has been focusing on further strengthening national security, and investing in the new system is a part of it, she said, adding that people entering China illegally are likely to work illegally and even get involved in criminal activities.

Foreign passport holders exited and entered China 76.3 million times last year, an increase of 47 percent from 2015. About 14.2 million who entered gave the reason as tourism, up by 72 percent from the previous year, according to data released by the ministry on Thursday.

Border control authorities also caught 2,705 people exiting or entering China illegally last year, the ministry said.

"I don't mind having my fingerprints collected at border control, because it is pretty common now," said Michael Gall, a UK citizen who works in Beijing.

"I just hope authorities can inform foreigners in advance and let us know when busier airports in Beijing and Shanghai will implement the new policy."

Contact the writers at cuijia@chinadaily.com.cn
A scene from A Chinese Odyssey [Photo provided to China Daily]

Film A Chinese Odyssey, a Stephen Chow classics, will be rereleased in a longer version on the mainland in spring.

The 1995 fantasy film, divided into two parts, influenced a generation of Chinese and established the Hong Kong-based actor as the "king of comedy".

In the new version, the film's second part, Cinderella, inspired by the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West, has been re-edited to add 11 minutes to the original 99.

Western Movie Group, which owns the copyright, said vast footage from the films shooting in the 1990s, was discovered in a warehouse.

Zhang Yifeng, the group's deputy general manager, said many interesting scenes had been edited out because the trend in China back then was to watch roughly 90-minute films.

The group's digital team took more than three months to repair 150,000 frames and re-edited it in high resolution.

Related:

'Soul Mate' leads 2017 Hong Kong Film Award nominations

Oscar awards organizers call for artistic freedom, no US barriers
A Chinese film festival that will travel the length and breadth of Britain was announced Wednesday in Manchester.

Manchester Airport, along with Chinese company Hainan Airlines, is launching the festival to celebrate movies and culture from China.

Each event is free of charge, and everyone that attends will go into a competition to win a pair of flights to Beijing direct with Hainan Airlines.

Starting in Manchester on Feb 22, the Chinese film festival will run until April 11 and take place in 12 British cities. Films being shown include Hero, Operation Mekong and Call of Heroes.

A spokesman at Manchester Airport said "Hainan Airlines started its direct service from Manchester to Beijing four times a week in June last year, and the festival has been arranged to showcase the vibrant culture of China, which thanks to the route, is much closer and accessible for British residents."

The route makes Manchester the only airport outside of London with a direct service to the Chinese mainland, taking just 10 hours.

Patrick Alexander, head of marketing at Manchester Airport, said "We are pleased that Hainan Airlines are headline sponsors of Manchester Airport's first ever film festival, where we will showcase Chinese culture to a range of people across the UK."

"Since the start of our direct service to Beijing, China is now within touching distance of so much more of the UK population," the airport official added.

The festival will extend to London, Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield, Leicester, Preston, Birmingham, Nottingham as well as Edinburgh, Glasgow and Belfast.

Each of the screenings will be free. And there will be competitions among viewers for chances to win flights from Manchester to Beijing.

Related:

Longer 'Chinese Odyssey' coming to theaters in spring

'Soul Mate' leads 2017 Hong Kong Film Award nominations
A tableware item from the Yanshenggong Mansion. The title Yanshenggong was given to Kong Zongyuan, Confucius' 46th generation descendent, during the Song Dynasty (420-479).[Photo/Xinhua]

The Confucius Museum in Qufu, Shandong province - the birthplace of China's most famous sage - will be opened in the second half of this year, a local official said on Wednesday, describing it as the country's first comprehensive museum to focus on Confucius (551-479 BC) and his ideology.

"Work on the exhibition center, the main building of the museum complex, has been completed, while detailed work on exhibition platforms and landscaping is underway," said Zhang Lizheng of the Qufu Culture Industry Park where the museum is located.

The museum complex, with a total investment of 700 million yuan ($102 million), consists of an exhibition center and six subordinate halls, covering a total of 57,000 square meters.

The museum is a cultural project showcasing Confucian teachings and relics collected by generations of Confucius, as well as a place to learn about traditional culture, said Yang Jinquan, deputy head of the Qufu bureau of cultural relics.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi takes questions from the press during a news conference on the sidelines of the two sessions on Tuesday. [Photo by Feng Yongbin/chinadaily.com.cn]

Top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi's call for "American friends" to "brush up" on World War II history may not ring any bells with Washington, because, unlike then, the two countries today are not fighting shoulder to shoulder against a common enemy.

Instead, they find themselves pitted against each other in a murky, yet nonetheless increasingly touted, narrative about the transfer of global leadership.

US President Donald Trump's isolationist "America First" inaugural address and Chinese President Xi Jinping's pro-globalization speech in Davos seem to have indelibly reinforced that narrative for some.

And the impression that a rising China is seeking to take the United States' place at the head of the global table has lent credence to warnings the two countries will be caught in the Thucydides trap, which in turn has fueled attempts to identify potential flashpoints.

The South China Sea is a popular candidate in this regard.

However, while Wang's remarks on the South China Sea were not meant as a tailored response to the underlining of diplomacy first by US Defense Secretary James Mattis, their remarks together point to a shared interest in crisis prevention.

While Mattis essentially excluded military moves on Washington's part, at this point at least, the core message of Wang's reference to history and emphasis on Beijing's persistent peacemaking with other stakeholders is clear: There is no reason for conflict between China and the US in or over the South China Sea.

Given its indirect, informal nature, such interaction may not suffice to eliminate, or even substantially de-escalate, the tensions and worries that have arisen with the narrative of looming conflict. But it is of far-reaching significance for Beijing and Washington to exchange vows not to seek confrontation at such a critical juncture.

The most sensitive part of the narrative of impending conflict is misreading China's national strength and its alleged desire to supersede the US, an allegation that defies the repeated emphasis by Chinese leaders they have no desire for global dominance.

Harvard professor Joseph Nye has cautioned Trump to be wary of the Kindleberger trap, the impression that China seems too weak rather than too strong, as well as the Thucydides trap, triggered by the impression that China is too strong. His warning deserves serious attention because it reminds us of the importance of a reality check.

This is something that is more imperative than ever if the emerging narrative is not to be misguided by perceptions that turn it into a self-fulfilling prophesy.
THE MUNICIPAL government of Jinan, East China's Shandong province, not satisfied with the city's status as provincial capital, recently called on the entire province to give the city more support in order to make it the leading city in the province in terms of GDP as well. Beijing News commented on Wednesday:

It is natural for Jinan to be ambitious in terms of its economic strength since it is the provincial capital. However, it is wrong for it to call on the entire province to support its ambition.

According to the national statistics bureau, 15 cities in Shandong were on the list of China's 100 cities with the largest GDP in 2016. Among these cities, Qingdao ranked highest, at 12th on the list, while Jinan at 21, ranked third among the province's cities.

But the development of Shandong's cities is well balanced. This is good. In many Chinese provinces and autonomous regions, the capital's development is often more advanced while blocking the development of other cities.

That Qingdao is the leading city in Shandong is due to it being at the forefront of the market economy, and it is home to a number of leading Chinese brands including Haier, Hisense, and Tsingtao Beer.

It is admirable that Jinan wants to make its economy stronger and improve its status, but that should be based on its own efforts.

To do well in this regard requires the comprehensive deepening of reform. Capital cities could be bigger and stronger, but not by being blindly greedy about their development. They need to be self-reliant.
Wu Feng, owner of a Tesla Model X, is the first to install the new plate in Shanghai, on Dec 1, 2016. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT has said it will cut subsidies to new energy vehicles by 20 percent this year from 2016 levels, and urged local governments not to offer subsidies that exceed 50 percent of those provided by the central government. Changjiang Daily commented on Wednesday:

The authorities started subsidizing new energy automakers eight years ago to expand the production and sales of electric cars, plug-in hybrids, and fuel-cell cars. The total amount of subsidies that have been provided reached 33.4 billion yuan ($4.81 billion) by the end of 2015. As a result, the country has become the world's largest market for new energy vehicles.

For sustainable growth of the industry, government support was necessary in the initial stages, but the manufacturers of new energy vehicles must now focus on innovation and quality. Thus it is right for the government to raise the threshold for new energy automakers to receive subsidies, which are set to be phased out by the end of 2020.

Providing auto companies with generous subsidies at the expense of taxpayers will likely make them less motivated to provide quality products, and in some cases it has led to cheating. Seven new energy vehicle makers have been found to have falsely claimed subsidies for electric cars that were either unfinished or installed with sub-par battery cells. Without doubt, they will be barred from an official catalogue of recommended vehicle types that qualify for subsidies.

The fact is, the seemingly booming new energy vehicle market has failed to bring about any major technological breakthroughs. The quality and overall performance of Chinese new energy cars have not notably improved either.

A revamp of the industry's subsidy policy is therefore timely. But perhaps the authorities could draw some inspiration from the burgeoning car-hailing market, where competition is basically kept at satisfactory levels. Service apps subsidized both passengers and drivers in the very beginning, mainly to nurture the market in the early stages. They then cut the subsidies and let the market take over.

This approach could also work out in the new energy car market. Lessening restrictions on purchasing electric cars in big cities should be worth a try.
A worker assembles a robotic arm at a factory in Foshan, Guangdong province. [Photo provided to China Daily]

With consumption already contributing to about two-thirds of China's GDP growth, it is not surprising to see a huge shopping spree before and during Spring Festival, the single most important holiday for Chinese.

In recent years, Chinese online retailers have created special shopping days like "Double 11" and "Double 12" to promote sales in the periods between traditional holidays.

That China's biggest e-commerce giant Alibaba registered a record sale of 120.7 billion yuan ($17.78 billion) during its annual Singles Day shopping festival on Nov 11 last year speaks volume of the success of its innovative idea of a 24-hour shopping frenzy for consumers.

However, what impressed me most during this Spring Festival was the unprecedented convenience some Chinese e-business giants offered to consumers; they not only promised timely delivery but also actually delivered on time.

When I traveled back to Wuhan, Central China's Hubei province, for my family reunion right before Lunar New Year's Eve, the heavy smog engulfing the city forced the family members to buy an air-purifier as soon as possible. I hesitated for a while before making an online purchase, because many online retailers had stopped delivering goods before the holidays. Yet, to our surprise, JD.com, another Chinese e-business giant, delivered a huge box on our door the next morning, allowing us to enjoy the Spring Festival holiday with clean air.

I am not sure how much extra cost the e-retailer would bear for ensuring such timely delivery during the holiday. For instance, it may have to pay triple the usual amount to the courier. But as a consumer, I was not only happy to meet the urgent need for an air-purifier but also impressed by the company's effective implementation of the bold idea of timely delivery during Spring Festival, a move which few others have even thought of.

The courage to explore new business ideas that others may find outrageous or can hardly imagine explains why online shopping has been booming in China.

China's total retail sales in 2016 increased 10.4 percent year-on-year to 33.23 trillion yuan ($4.83 trillion). And it was a key driving force behind the second-largest economy's 6.7 percent year-on-year growth last year. But even more spectacular is the growth of online sales in China, 26.2 percent year-on-year to 5.16 trillion yuan.

It is unrealistic to expect the amount of online sales to continue to rise at the current pace. But it is possible that Chinese e-commerce giants will further expand their market shares through more innovative business models, technological application and marketing campaigns to boost overall consumption growth in the country.

A video recently released by Amazon demonstrated the new concept of convenience stores featuring artificial intelligence-powered technology that eliminates checkouts, cash registers and, more importantly, queues.

For many traditional brick-and-mortar retailers in China struggling to cope with intensified offline and online competition and changing spending patterns, the new business model that Amazon intends to introduce may be bad news. But for China's thriving e-businesses giants, this is a good time for learning. In fact, e-businesses' recent talk of the need to develop both online and offline retail suggests they are beginning to embrace this new change to make consumption even more convenient.

With China's per capita GDP reaching $8,000, still below the world average of about $11,000, not to mention the US' $57,000, the country has ample room for consumption growth in the coming years, which will benefit the most innovative businesses the most.

The author is a senior writer with China Daily.

zhuqiwen@chinadaily.com.cn
Students read textbooks at a primary school in Luoyang, Central China's Henan province, Sept 1, 2015. [Photo/IC]

Winter vacation has become the third semester for students of primary and middle schools in cities. A Chinese Society of Education survey shows Chinese parents have invested more than 800 billion yuan ($116.5 billion) in primary and middle school students' extracurricular classes. And many people believe students are overburdened by studies during vacations because of parents who make irrational choices and institutions that offer extracurricular classes only to make profits.

But blaming only parents and "special" institutions for the current situation, without reforming the education sector, will not alleviate students' study burden.

Forcing children to attend many extracurricular classes may not be good for their healthy development. But since the distribution of educational resources is highly unbalanced in China with key primary and middle schools accounting for a bulk of the resources, parents who can afford to pay have no choice but to send their children to extracurricular classes fearing that they may not be able to get admission to key primary and middle schools, and eventually fail to enroll in colleges.

The economic output of social training institutions in China reached 800 billion yuan last year, and training classes for the primary and middle school courses accounted for a majority of the overall output. But the promotion of social training institution alone is not to blame for that.

The massive market for training classes for the primary and middle school courses has developed to meet the unreasonable demands of extracurricular classes because of the unbalanced distribution of compulsory educational resources and the senior high school entrance examination and national college entrance examination. So the exam-oriented education system is to equally blame for the current situation.

The education authorities always require local primary and middle schools to reduce the burden of exams and homework on students. But only when the exam-oriented education system is reformed can parents stop sending their children to extracurricular classes and not fear that they might lose the competitive edge in future competitions.

Some so-called experts suggest schools hold only half-day classes to reduce students' education burden, but suggestions such as these are what sound like music to the ears of social training institutions.

It is ironic that education authorities advice parents not to focus on their children's academic scores and tell schools to lower students' academic performance requirements, but continue to admit students to high schools and colleges on the basis of their entrance exam scores.

There is no reason to doubt the good intentions of the education authorities when it comes to reducing students' burden. But administrative regulations and restrictions can only reinforce administrative power while hardly achieving the original goal.

One reason for the unbalanced distribution of educational resource is that the administrative authorities oversee the process. For instance, almost every given area has some "super" senior high schools that by default get a majority of the local educational resources and good students. These schools, which aggravate the unbalanced distribution of educational resources in local areas, are always supported and promoted by local administrative authorities because they add weight to their political achievements.

It is difficult to reform the senior high school and national college entrance exams mainly because the education authorities are unwilling to delegate their power to other agencies. The separation of admission and exam scores would require the education authorities to delegate the power to evaluate exam scores to social professional agencies, and the independent right of running a school to the school officials, and to give students the right to choose the school or college they want to get admitted to. And all this can be achievedand students' education burden can be reducedonly when the exam-oriented education system is thoroughly reformed.

The author is deputy director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute.
Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a keynote speech at the opening plenary of the 2017 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 17, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

What can the world expect from China amid the increasing uncertainties facing globalization?

In sharp contrast to US President Donald Trump's inaugural speech on Jan 20, which centered on the United States and trumpeted protectionism, President Xi Jinping's speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January focused on the world and advocated globalization.

Encouraged by the election of Trump who advocates anti-globalization and pro-protectionism, as US president, right-wing forces and populist leaders are trying to consolidate their political positions in several European countries and thus pose a threat to globalization, global governance and multilateral cooperation.

By pursuing protectionism, populism and unilateralism, Trump has created uncertainties for the international community and global trade. And facing a Trump-led US that is hell-bent on shirking its responsibilities as the world's sole superpower, the international community is increasingly looking to China for guidance and leadership.

Speaking in Davos, Xi emphasized that China has greatly benefited from globalization. But, he said, China has also made huge contributions to global trade and governance, and its economic development has created immense opportunities for the world. For instance, China's fast-growing economy has been a principal driver of global growth, and the interactive development it pursues with other countries has promoted a balanced global economy.

Besides, by alleviating poverty on an unprecedented scale, China has contributed to inclusive global growth and its continued efforts to deepen reform and opening-up have played a big role in building an open world economy.

Many may see Xi's remarks in Davos as a revelation of China's ambition to become the most powerful country in the world. But the fact is, the remarks reflect China's efforts to follow the trends of the times and resist the adverse currents, in order to forge a peaceful and prosperous global environment.

China does not have any intention of leading the world by itself. On the contrary, it seeks to work with other countries to make the world a better place. Despite its notable economic and social progress, China is still a developing country and it should not shoulder global responsibilities beyond its capability.

That China has taken some initiatives to fulfill its international responsibilities does not mean it will abandon its policy of "keeping a low profile"; it means China is making more active efforts to maintain its global presence commensurate with its national strength.

Amid the "rise" of the East and "fall" of the West and increasing uncertainties facing globalization, China will continue following its decades-long policy of not aspiring to be a world leader.

However, it should try to strike a strategic balance vis-a-vis the global situation. To begin with, China should try to strike a balance between domestic and foreign strategic tasks, according priority to deepening reforms at home and promoting equity and justice globally. It also needs to strike a balance between the pursuit of growth and maintaining domestic stability. These two are equally important tasks in these times of chaotic global situations.

To promote globalization and better global governance, China should also try to strike a balance between its responsibilities and rights; it should not only fulfill its responsibilities as a big developing country but also continue to make efforts to have a bigger say in international institutions.

Moreover, keeping a low profile does not mean China should always remain passive. It has to strongly respond to false charges and react against provocative moves by other countries.

China should also maintain a balance between struggle and cooperation. To offset the threat posed by the anti-globalization moves and hegemonic behaviors of the Trump administration, China needs to strengthen crisis management and launch targeted countermeasures. And it should make efforts to deepen cooperation with the European Union and other BRICS countries, in a bid to increase the number of friendly countries that will help boost globalization and promote better global governance.

The author is a senior researcher in world politics at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.
A clerk counts 100 yuan banknotes at a branch of China Construction Bank in Nantong, East China's Jiangsu province, Sep 21, 2016. [Photo/VCG]

China's foreign exchange reserves dropped to $2.99 trillion in January, falling below the $3 trillion level for the first time since early 2011.

Reserves of $3 trillion were claimed to be the psychological bottom line for investor confidence by some people, who thought dipping below that would cause investors to panic.

However, there is no need to worry, given that China's increasingly diversified foreign exchange basket at a time of a weak dollar has helped maintain its foreign exchange stability and there is no possibility of large-scale capital flight.

The central bank cites the supply of foreign exchange funds as one of the main reasons for the recent decline in the country's foreign reserves. This gets to the point, as there is usually an increased demand for foreign currencies during Spring Festival because many people visit overseas destinations during the holiday, which began in late January this year.

Data from travel number cruncher ForwardKeys indicates that the number of Chinese who made overseas trips in January grew by 9.8 percent year-on-year. Stricter requirements on purchasing the $50,000 annual foreign exchange quota released in January may have also prompted some to go ahead with the purchase.

That the country's foreign reserves are below $3 trillion should not be a source of worry. A decline of $12.3 billion is not big, and the targeted responses the central bank has made to the yuan's exchange rate fluctuations indicate that it has sufficient means to deal with short-sellers of the yuan.

Any fluctuations of a country's foreign exchange reserve within a certain range are normal, and China's current reserves, although below $3 trillion, are still the world's largest. In a complex and changeable economic and financial environment at home and abroad, one should not artificially set a "psychological limit" for China's foreign exchange reserves.
US President Donald Trump speaks while signing executive orders at the White House in Washington January 24, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

WITH the Trump White House, America and a global economy will enter a highly divisive period  as evidenced by the debate about his economic, trade and infrastructure plans.

As long as Republicans sustain some unity in and between the White House, the Senate and the House of the Representatives, Trump will benefit from an unprecedented execution power.

To get the economy back on track, Trump's economic objective is to create 25 million new jobs in the next decade, return to 4 percent annual economic growth, lower and reform US tax codes. But truth to be told, the growth objective will be undermined by his own trade, tax and immigration policies.

To former President George W. Bush, American security meant that "either you are with us or against us." US economy has the same significance to Trump  his trade policy is an extension of his domestic economic policy.

The Trump administration's "America First" mantra is predicated on a withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and a renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). If Canada and Mexico cannot see Trump eye to eye in the coming talks, the President will simply give notice of the US intent to withdraw from NAFTA.

The new White House intends to crack down all nations that violate trade agreements, as the Trump team sees it.

Working together with his top trade executives  who are vehemently against free trade and tend to hold strong anti-China views  Trump has already targeted the biggest US deficit contributors, particularly China, Japan, Canada and Mexico.

The new White House's trade initiatives have major consequences not just internationally, but for US domestic economy.

According to US Treasury data, major foreign holders of US treasury securities  China, Saudi Arabia and Russia  have reduced their holdings by almost US$250 billion since last March. The effect of foreign selling of US treasuries looks like the kind of foreign liquidation that Washington has feared for years. It is also adding to the Fed's challenges.

Here's the dilemma: If Trump will trigger a US$1 trillion debt tornado, which is required by his infrastructure program, when the Fed hopes to accelerate tightening with three new 25 basis points rate increases in 2017, he can no longer rely on the Fed to ease and thus to monetize the debt issuance.

Trump needs trade wars to keep US dollar lower than the Fed would like.

Vicious nationalism

Nevertheless, as world trade and investment have plateaued, globalization has ground to a halt. As a result, the proposed Trump tariffs increase the potential of elevated global risks.

There is a historical precedent. In 1930, the US Congress passed the notorious Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which sharply raised the cost of foreign imports. While it seemed to work initially, it soon caused other nations to retaliate, which paved the way for the Great Depression and, eventually, for another world war. Such precedents should make us all cautious.

In the coming months, most Trump initiatives  including the administration's proposed tax cuts, trade policy, manufacturing plans, infrastructure investment, stricter immigration, climate change reversals, balancing power games, military spending and so on  are likely to contribute directly or indirectly to elevated global risks.

The early signs suggest that the Trump administration will, at least initially, shun sober realism and walk the talk. And that, unfortunately, translates to a series of potential shocks to a world economy that can only bear so much.

Dan Steinbock is the founder of the Difference Group and has served as the research director at the India, China, and America Institute (USA) and a visiting fellow at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and the EU Center (Singapore). For more, see http://www.differencegroup.net
British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street for Prime Minister's questions at the House of parliament in London, Britain, Feb. 8, 2017. The British House of Commons on Wednesday night passed the Brexit Bill which gives the British government the power to begin the formal process of Britain leaving the European Union. [Photo/Xinhua]

LONDON - The parliamentary bill empowering the British government to begin the formal process of leaving the European Union completed its passage Wednesday night in the House of Commons.

Prime Minister Theresa May's government succeeded in crossing the final crucial hurdle with 494 votes to 122 -- a majority of 372.

May sat in the chamber alongside her Brexit ministers as the historic result was announced by deputy speaker Lindsay Hoyle.

It now goes to the unelected House of Lords for further scrutiny before being sent to Queen Elizabeth for royal assent.

Scottish Nationalist MP Alex Salmond criticized the process and accused the government of railroading the legislation through parliament in a "disgraceful fashion.

He said this was the first time a bill of great constitutional importance had been passed in this day since the Defense of the Realm Bill prior to World War One in 1914.

Having won Wednesday night in the Commons, where a string of amendments were defeated, it almost guarantees that May will be on course to tell Brussels within weeks to start the EU exit process.

May's government only introduced the briefly worded bill into parliament last week, determined to see it fast-tracked through the parliamentary process.

It has meant members of parliament (MPs) sitting until midnight on some occasions to complete a series of debates.

Attempts by the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) to ensure the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh could have a vote on Brexit, as well as a call by the minority Liberal Democrats for a second national referendum, each failed, as did a string of proposed amendments by the main opposition Labor party.

In the final vote, the result indicated that some Labor MPs had defied an instruction from their leader Jeremy Corbyn to vote in favor of the Article 50 bill.

A number of his shadow cabinet members have already resigned, and more may quit as a result of the vote.

Before the result was even announced it was reported that Labor's shadow business secretary Clive Lewis resigned from Corbyn's shadow cabinet, saying he could not vote in favor of the Brexit bill.

Under parliamentary convention in Britain a minister or shadow minister disobeying the leadership is expected to resign or be fired. The vote will add to the ongoing civil war within the Labor Party that erupted after Corbyn's election as leader.

During a day of intensive debates, MPs failed by 332 votes to 290 to ensure EU nationals lawfully resident in Britain on the date of last June's EU referendum would have the right to stay in Britain.

Another vote called for Britain to remain as a member of Euratom, the European Atomic Agency Community. This was also lost with a vote of 287 in support and 336 against, another victory f

Brexit Minister David Jones had confirmed during the debate that Britain leaving the EU also meant leaving Euratom.

But he added that the government wants to maintain successful cooperation with the EU and says this will be a matter for negotiation with Brussels.

On the residence rights of EU nationals in Britain, Jones said the government recognizes issue is extremely important and will addressed as a matter of priority.

As MPs were voting, a group of MPs burst into song in the chamber of Commons where even applause if frowned upon. The choir was silenced by an order from Deputy Speaker Lindsay Hoyle.
US Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) testifies at a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for Sessions to become US attorney general on Capitol Hill in Washington, US January 10, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

WASHINGTON - The US Senate voted on Wednesday to confirm Republican Senator Jeff Sessions as the next attorney general of the United States.

The Alabama senator is known for his tough stance on immigration enforcement and his early support of President Donald Trump who nominated him for the job.

Sessions was confirmed by a 52-47 vote.
US Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch smiles during his meeting with Senator Claire McCaskill on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, February 8, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

WASHINGTON - Donald Trump's nominee for the US Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, on Wednesday described the president's Twitter attacks on the judiciary as "demoralizing" and "disheartening," a spokesman for Gorsuch said.

Spokesman Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist hired by the White House to help guide Gorsuch's nomination through the US Senate, confirmed that Gorsuch used those words when he met Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal.

Trump, who took office on Jan. 20, took to Twitter over the weekend to condemn the Friday night order by Judge James Robart that placed on hold the president's Jan. 27 temporary travel ban on people from seven countries and all refugees.

The administration appealed that ruling to a three-judge federal appeals panel, which is due to decide the issue this week.

Trump called Robart a "so-called judge" whose "ridiculous" opinion "essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country."

US presidents are usually hesitant to weigh in on judicial matters out of respect for a US Constitution clause ensuring a separation of powers between the executive branch, Congress and the judiciary.

Trump nominated Gorsuch on Jan. 31 to succeed Justice Antonin Scalia on the nine-member court. Scalia died a year ago this month. Blumenthal is a member of the Judiciary Committee that will hold a confirmation hearing on Gorsuch's nomination.

"As the nominee of a President who has viciously attacked the independence of the judiciary and declared multiple litmus tests for justices, Judge Gorsuch has a special responsibility to reassure the American people that he will be an open-minded and independent jurist," Blumenthal said in a statement.

"If he wants the American people to believe that he is truly independent, Judge Gorsuch must tell them in no uncertain terms that President Trump's attacks are not just disappointing - they are abhorrent and destructive to our Constitutional system - and he must condemn them publicly," Blumenthal's statement said.
Somalia's newly-elected President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo addresses lawmakers after winning the vote at the airport in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, February 8, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

MOGADISHU - Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, a dual US-Somali citizen and former prime minister, was sworn in as Somalia's new president on Wednesday after lawmakers voted behind the secure blast walls of the capital's airport.

Celebratory gunfire erupted across Mogadishu at his victory, after a security lock-down in the seaside city aimed at deterring attacks by the al Shabaab Islamist group which had threatened to derail the Western-backed election process.

"President Farmajo," residents shouted in the streets, using his popular nickname "Farmajo" which was used during the vote count. Many Somalis are best known by their nicknames.

Outgoing President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, whose administration faced public and Western criticism for corruption scandals, conceded defeat as it became clear he could not win in a third round of voting.

"This is a victory for Somalia and the Somalis," the new president told members of parliament shortly after taking the oath of office in a hall on the airport compound, which is surrounded by concrete barriers and guarded by African peacekeeping troops.

The voting process, which lasted months, began with 14,000 elders and regional figures choosing 275 members of parliament and 54 senators, who then had to choose among 21 candidates.

Pervasive corruption is one of the biggest complaints among ordinary Somalis and Western donors. Rival candidates accused each other of buying votes. Anti-corruption group Marqaati said tens of thousands of dollars changed hands in campaigning.

Western donors had said the voting process was far from perfect but marked a modest step forward from 2012 when just 135 elders picked the lawmakers, who then chose the president.

The threat from Islamist al Shabaab rebels, who regularly launch attacks in Mogadishu and elsewhere, meant the government and its Western backers scrapped a plan to give each adult a vote because of the challenge of securing polling stations.

As well as tackling the Islamist insurgency, the new president also has to deal with a severe food crisis in parts of the country, a young population demanding jobs and empty state coffers.

Born in 1962, Mohamed was prime minister from 2010 to 2011, when he slashed the size of the cabinet and was credited with appointing technocrats. He quit during a power struggle between the then president and parliament speaker.

One of his main campaign promises was to halt corruption in the aid-dependent nation. "If I become a president, Somali government officials will not misuse revenue," he said in one speech.

Abdirashid Hashi, the director of Mogadishu-based Heritage Institute for Policy Studies who served in Mohamed's cabinet, said the new president had a popular touch and was "not clannish or corrupt" in a nation where clan rivalries usually dominate politics.

He said the new president was a US citizen who backed Republicans, the party of President Donald Trump. "If a Somali politician could make headway with the Trump administration, he might have chance make a go of it," he said.

In the 1980s, the new president worked as a diplomat in the Somali embassy in Washington and lived in the United States for several years after that, including a period working for the New York State Department of Transportation.
COLUMBUS  A 22-year-old Lincoln man who was linked by DNA evidence to the scene of a 2015 criminal mischief incident in which a Columbus mans car was damaged pleaded guilty Wednesday in Platte County Court.

Jackson Bemis pleaded to criminal mischief-$500 to $1,500 in connection with a July 12, 2015, incident in which the defendants blood and partial fingerprints were found inside the city mans 2014 Chevrolet Malibu in a local neighborhood.

The forensic evidence was submitted for testing to the Nebraska State Patrol Crime Laboratory, which in December matched the blood to Bemis DNA sample. Bemis has a 2016 conviction for theft by unlawful taking.

On Wednesday, Judge Frank Skorupa scheduled Bemis for sentencing March 15 in county court.

The criminal mischief charge is a Class I misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Bemis was initially facing a felony criminal mischief charge stemming from the 2015 incident in which the victim reported that his vehicle was damaged when a suspect attempted to steal the stereo system and video screen.

The victim also reported someone stole a specialized knee brace made for his daughter while she was rehabilitating an injury, Columbus Police Officer Jeffrey Black wrote in his probable cause statement supporting the defendants arrest.
TEHRAN - Russia and Iran will sign an agreement on visa-free travels of the nationals by group tours, Russian ambassador to Iran Levan Dzhagaryan said on Wednesday.

The agreement will be signed during the visit of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to Moscow in March, Dzhagaryan was quoted as saying by semi-official Fars news agency.

The citizens of both countries will take advantage of visa-free trips in group travels organized by tours containing 5-25 passengers, he said.

"We believe this agreement is particularly important because it will significantly increase the flow of tourists both from Iran to Russia, and vice versa," he added.
US President Donald Trump sent President Xi Jinping new year's well wishes on Wednesday, four days before the end of China's Spring Festival celebrations.

The White House said the president had written his Chinese counterpart wishing the Chinese people a happy Lantern Festival and prosperous Year of the Rooster.

Trump wrote Xi to thank him for a congratulatory letter and to express his hopes of developing a constructive relationship that benefits both the United States and China, according to a briefing from the White House Office of the Press Secretary.

The Lantern Festival, which falls on Saturday this year, is a Chinese festival celebrated on the 15th day of the first month. It marks the final day of the traditional Spring Festival celebrations.

Exactly a week ago  on the fifth day of the month, also an important day during the Spring Festival, Trumps daughter, Ivanka, visited the Chinese embassy in Washington for the first time with her 5-year-old daughter, Arabella Rose Kushner, to participate in the embassys Chinese Spring Festival celebration.

Yuan Zheng, a senior researcher on US foreign policy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, noted that Trump had met or called leaders of many other major countries recently in the new year before he wrote to Xi, and the belated greeting itself will serve its purpose.

Frankly speaking, Trump has drawn fire on himself because of domestic issues such as immigration, and he has flared hostility against him overseas, Yuan said.

At this moment, writing to Xi and pledging a constructive tie with Beijing showcases that stabilizing US-China ties at this difficult moment is of greater significance for Trump, Yuan said.

Yuan said he believed the letter is like a make-up effort. The new US president has broken the tradition of sending New Year greetings to people of Chinese origin in the US during their most important festival.

A report released by a bipartisan task force of prominent China specialists on Tuesday in Washington suggested that Trump meet with Xi early in his administration to establish a foundation for effective communications at the highest level.

The report, US Policy Toward China: Recommendations for a New Administration by the Asia Societys Center on US-China Relations and the University of California San Diegos 21st Century China Center, also called on Trump to stick to the US long-term standing one-China policy.
From left: US Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney; Zhang Qiyue, China's consul general in New York; Maurice Greenberg, chairman of C.V. Starr; and supermarket magnate John Catsimatidis pose for photos at the Black and White Panda Ball on Wednesday at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York. The ball was held to raise funds to bring two pandas to Central Park by 2020. Hezi Jiang / China Daily

The guests wore black and white with a purpose at the Waldorf on Wednesday: to raise funds to build a panda pavilion in Central Park.

Zhang Qiyue, China's consul general in New York, entered the ballroom in a black qipao. The legendary 85-year-old model Carmen Dell'Orefice posed for photos in white gown and black scarf.

US Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, a longtime panda proponent, wore a black dress with white polka dots and shook every guest's hand, including one lady who had to take off her panda gloves.

Maloney has been determined to bring two pandas to New York since she visited Chengdu, Sichuan province, home of the giant pandas, in 2012.

"Pandas represent joy, love and friendship. It's a symbol of good luck, which our city can use more of," she said to guests at 45 tables in the Skylight Roof at the Waldorf Astoria New York hotel, where guests enjoyed dinner while videos of panda bears played continuously on big screens.

Maloney, together with Wall Street businessman executive Maurice R. Greenberg, Chinese fashion icon Yue-Sai Kan and billionaire Gristedes supermarket-chain owner John Catsimatidis, established the nonprofit group The Pandas Are Coming to NYC last year to raise private funds for the panda project.

The project has received support from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Calling the Big Apple "the perfect setting to welcome these beautiful, iconic black and white bears", Cuomo said he hopes the pandas get a habitat with unlimited supplies of bamboo, fish and fowl.

Maloney announced that the organization has started an international competition for the design of the panda pavilion, and Chinese American architect I.M. Pei will sit on the decision-making committee.

hezijiang@chinadailyusa.com
MANILA - Postmen in the Philippines will play cupid this Valentine's Day through its "love express" delivery campaign, said the Philippine Postal Corporation (Philpost) on Thursday, adding it is accepting flowers, chocolates and "real" greeting cards for personal delivery this Valentine's Day.

The Philpost will revive the so-called "singing kartero," wherein people can pay 2,000 pesos (40 U.S. dollars) for a mailman to deliver a bouquet of roses, a greeting card and serenading the recipient with her favorite theme songs -- a romantic Filipino courtship tradition to express a man's love and admiration even on a distance.

Philpost said postal patrons can avail of themselves of the flowers and chocolates that the mailman will deliver to their loved ones.

It also announced that it is issuing a limited edition of Valentine's Day personalized stamps that lover's can use to send their Valentine's card and love letters. "With the popularity of taking selfies, one can now have their selfies printed on stamps for 17 pesos (0.34 U.S. dollars) each," the Philpost said.

"Love is in the air-mail, sealed and to be delivered by your friendly postman," the Philpost said.

The Philpost said its Manila Central Post Office will open its postal counters to receive flowers and other special items that people can buy to send to their loved ones from Feb. 8 until Valentine's Day.

Aside from flowers and chocolates, it said love-senders can also pick from its array of gifts like greeting cards, stuffed toys, cakes and other Valentine novelties.

A team of letter carriers called the Express Elite Force, will deliver these gift items via Domestic Express Mail Service on Valentine's Day to clients within Metro Manila and nearby areas, the Philpost said.

Philpost also launched its Facebook promo dubbed "Pusuan Me Bes," wherein those clients who avail of the singing telegram and domestic express mail packages will have a chance to win a dinner for two worth 2,000 pesos (40 U.S. dollars). All they have to do is take a selfie with the singing mailman and post it on the official Philpost Facebook, and the entry that gets the highest number of "likes and loves" at noon on Valentine's Day will win, the Philpost said.

Despite our modern technology, such as the use of text messaging, e-cards, the Philpost said it is more romantic to express your love through the sending of flowers, chocolates and Valentine's card.

Philpost is encouraging Filipinos to use the snail mail to express their true love during special occasions like Heart's Day.
It's the week after Lunar New Year and British shopping-mecca Bicester Village is heaving with Chinese tourists laden with bags of discounted designer goods and scrambling to get some last-minute shopping done during the final days of the Spring Festival vacation.

Shoppers share a moment in Bicester Village.

Located in Oxford shire, more than 90 km from central London, the outlet shopping hub is said to be the second-most-visited destination in the UK among Chinese visitors, behind Buckingham Palace.

Around 80 percent of Chinese tourists to England visit the retail park. Recent data provided to China Daily by Bicester Village operator Value Retail shows that China was the top contributing non-EU market at Bicester Village in 2016, representing 41 percent of the total tax-refunded spend. In December, tax-refunded sales to people from China were up by 22 percent year-on-year.

Data for Spring Festival sales is still being collated, but analysts predict a significant year-on-year bump, driven by bargain-hunting "Brexit tourists" taking advantage of favorable exchange rates.

Bicester Village caters to its valued Chinese customers well beyond the outlet's walls. Mandarin signage on display at London's Marylebone station directs passengers to Bicester Village Station. When the train pulls in, Chinese language messages ring out over the intercom, letting shoppers know it is time to disembark.

Most retailers provide services tailored to Chinese shoppers. At Vivienne Westwood, for example, two of the four floor staff speak Mandarin, and the shop accepts Chinese payment system Union Pay at the till. A floor assistant at Ralph Lauren said: "I speak with people in Cantonese every day- being able to speak Cantonese was a big plus in the job interview."

Discounted goods recently taken of the rails at retailers' brick-and-mortar stores, as well as special outlet-only products are available in the shopping village, and, throughout Spring Festival, several of the 130 stores in the retail park offered discounts of up to 20 percent to shoppers who used a special Chinese New Year app.

Carrying marked-down goods from Ralph Lauren, Wendie Ho said Bicester Village is well-known in her native Hong Kong.

Ho said: "Asians love shopping, and with all the brand names you have available here, people are going to come."
Events and stories coming up in the next few days

Museum of Childhood marks the Year of the Rooster

The V&A Museum of Childhood on Cambridge Heath Road in London will host a range of performances, in both music and dance, on Saturday in celebration of Chinese New Year. Artisans will also conduct workshops for visitors of all ages, during which they will demonstrate how to make a Chinese opera mask, the way to create costumes and techniques for writing calligraphy.

Winning Chinese New Year short film set to be named

People can see films shot for a competition during London's Chinese New Year celebrations on Saturday at screenings at the China Exchange on the capital's Gerrard Street. Lantern Festival Screening: London's CNY Documentaries will feature short movies produced for the Doc in a Day: Chinese New Year project, a 36-hour filmmaking event organized by the London Documentary Network.

German symphony orchestra to perform in Shanghai

Guerzenich Orchestra Cologne, a German symphony orchestra based in Cologne, will perform at Shanghai's Grand Theatre on Tuesday. The orchestra traces its origins to 1827. It began public performances in 1857. In 1986, the orchestra took up residence at the Koelner Philharmonie.

Aerospace scientists gather in Beijing to talk robotics

The International Conference on Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering will be held in Beijing on Friday. The conference will bring together leading global researchers, engineers and scientists. They will discuss topics including mechatronics and robotics, automotive engineering and fluid mechanics. The conference has been organized by the software company SciencePlus.
Marine Le Pen, French National Front (FN) political party leader and candidate for the French 2017 presidential election, attends the 2-day FN political rally to launch the presidential campaign in Lyon, France February 5, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

PARIS - After Brexit and the election of Donald Trump as US president, eyes are on France where voters will choose their next president amid public discontent and high terror alert in the European country.

Could Trump's victory serve as a boon to France's far-right candidate Marine Le Pen from the National Front?

"The impossible has suddenly become possible," Le Pen told thousands of supporters in Lyon, France's third-largest city, kicking off her campaign on Sunday.

"Other countries have shown us the way. The British have chosen Brexit and the United States has chosen their national interests," Le Pen told her followers.

However, BVA pollster analyst Erwan Lestrohan believed that Le Pen might enjoy a boost in ratings but could not win the presidency.

Providing support for Lestrohan's remarks, an Opinionway poll published on Wednesday showed that French independent centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron would easily beat Le Pen in the race.

An Opinionway poll for Les Echos newspaper and Radio Classique showed that in the first round of voting scheduled for April 23, Macron, a former economy minister, would get 22 percent of the vote, behind Le Pen's 25 percent. But in the decisive second round, Macron would beat Le Pen 66 percent to 34 percent, the poll showed.

Under fire over his wife's fake job, embattled conservative contender Francois Fillon, a front-runner until two weeks ago, will not be able to enter the second round.

Experts believed that the surprise that happened in the US election is not expected in France because the two electoral systems are different.

"In the United States, the presidential election has only one vote, which Donald Trump won. In France, the presidential election has two rounds. This allows the voters of non-finalist candidates to choose one of the two qualified to block the other," Lestrohan told Xinhua.

Continued terror threats and rising risks of immigration crisis give a boost to Le Pen, who embraces protectionism. However, the 49-year-old lawyer does not have a strong majority and enough solidity to win the presidential run-off, said Lestrohan.
LONDON  Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, former party girl and a god-daughter of Prince Charles, was found dead at her London home on Wednesday. She was 45.

The prince said in a statement that he and his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, were "deeply saddened" by news of her death.

Model Tara Palmer-Tomkinson wears a creation by Philip Treacy at his Autumn/Winter 2006 show during London Fashion Week in London, Britain February 16, 2006. [Photo/Agencies]





"Our thoughts are so much with the family," he said.



The cause of death was not immediately clear, though Palmer-Tompkinson revealed last year that she had been diagnosed with a brain tumor.



Palmer-Tomkinson was a fixture on the international social stage throughout the 1990s. She was regularly photographed partying with the rich and famous, and helped fuel her reputation as a wild child with regular media appearances.



She appeared on television shows including the first series of the reality knock-out show "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here" in 2002, in which she came in second.

Known by Britain's tabloids as "T-P-T," her entertaining life contained as many lows, including public meltdowns, as it did highs.



She had a highly publicized, and reportedly very expensive, cocaine habit that led to the collapse of her nasal septum, which had to be surgically repaired.



In revealing her brain tumor late last year, she said she had been diagnosed in January after being treated for a benign growth on her pituitary gland.



She told British media: "I'm not the person I was, I'm much calmer. I don't go to places like Ibiza because the party world scares me."Her parents, Charles and Patricia Palmer-Tomkinson, are said to be close friends of Prince Charles and other members of the royal family. She is descended from land-owners and Olympic skiers  her grandfather, uncle and father all competed at multiple Olympic Games.



She attended the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton wearing a kingfisher blue ensemble that included a hat commentators said was designed to deflect attention from her damaged nose.



This story has been corrected to show that Prince William married Kate Middleton (later the Duchess of Cambridge), not the Duchess of Cornwall.




New Zealand's Prime Minister Bill English (L) meets with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Auckland, New Zealand, Feb 9, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

New Zealand is keen to make joint efforts with China to support free trade and boost globalization, the country's Prime Minister Bill English said on Thursday while meeting with visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

The prime minister spoke highly of President Xi Jinping's speech at the 2017 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, adding the speech delivered important and positive messages to the world.

He also vowed to launch upgraded negotiation of the bilateral free trade agreement and cooperate with China in sectors including infrastructure, humanities, tourism, education, science and technology, and judicial enforcement.

New Zealand boasts several No.1s in ties to China, including the first Western country to support China's joining the World Trade Organization and China's launch of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Belt and Road Initiatives, English said.

The New Zealand leader also welcomed Chinese enterprises to invest in his country.

The Chinese foreign minister said the China-New Zealand relationship is a model for cooperation between countries with different sizes and social systems.

Wang said China and New Zealand are both advocates and practitioners of free trade.

New Zealand is among the close partners from the West that meets the benefits of New Zealand and its people, Wang said.

Noting that the year 2017 marks the 45th anniversary of the establishment of China-New Zealand diplomatic relations, Wang said that the two countries could boost high-level exchanges, consolidate mutual trust and implement the strategic partnership.

"Hand in hand, we should protect the international trade system, build the open economy and try to start the upgrade in negotiation of the free trade agreement," the Chinese foreign minister said.

He also expressed the wish that the two countries would join hands in connecting the Belt and Road Initiatives with New Zealand's infrastructure schemes.
Somalia's newly elected President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo addresses lawmakers after winning the vote at the airport in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, February 8, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

MOGADISHU - The United Nations (UN) and Africa Union (AU) have pledged their support for the newly elected Somalia president to help tackle daunting challenges that await his government.

In separate statements issued in Somalia on Wednesday night, the UN Assistance Mission in the country (UNSOM) and the Special Representative of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission (SRCC) for Somalia congratulated former Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo on his election as Somalia's new president.

In his statement, SRCC for Somalia, Francisco Caetano Madeira appealed to the newly elected president and all leaders to work together in uniting the country by pursuing reconciliation to enable Somalia to tackle the political and socioeconomic challenges.

"I appeal to the new government that will be formed, to use the next four years in office, to enhance reconciliation and unity. The African Union remains committed to supporting you in your efforts to stabilize the country," Madeira said.

The AU envoy also lauded the Somalia National Security Forces and AMISOM for their commitment and hard work which provided an environment suitable for the successful completion of the electoral process.

Madeira said the last couple of months, leading to this momentous day, have no doubt been challenging for Somalia in its effort to bring peace and stability.

"The electoral process journey was intricate, requiring negotiations and compromises to overcome the challenges that once appeared insurmountable," he said.
COLUMBUS  Columbus City Council members heard the same complaint over and over Monday night.

The young father who moved to town for a job about a year ago and was forced to send his children to live with relatives in California while he stayed at a local hotel during his house search.

A local banker who crashed with his parents for two weeks while looking for an apartment after moving back to his hometown.

Local human resources managers who struggle to fill open positions because prospective employees cant find a suitable place to live in Columbus.

It is a huge issue for us, said Angie Houser, the HR manager at Archer Daniels Midlands corn-processing plant. We see it every day, whether its hourly or salaried people.

Houser was among a group of people who shared their personal experiences with the local housing shortfall, which she said has been a problem throughout her 10 years at ADMs local plant. The company hired an electrical engineer last week who cant find a place to rent, she told the city council.

Kim Schumacher, the HR manager at Cargills Columbus location, faces the same challenge.

Schumacher, who told the council she recently lost an electrical engineer applicant because of the housing crunch, said the lack of available and affordable housing here makes it extremely difficult to recruit workers.

Im finding myself recruiting farther and farther away. It used to be I had to sell Columbus, now Im having to sell the state of Nebraska, said Schumacher, referencing a tight housing market that forces prospective employees to look for homes in other communities.

Bryan Chochon, a Lakeview High School graduate and vice president and lender at Great Plains State Bank in Columbus, has first-hand experience with that process.

He spent eight years in banking in Colorado before returning to Columbus about a year ago and moving into an apartment following a brief stay with his parents.

Chochon said there are a couple of factors working against the city when it comes to housing. Developers often take a hit on houses since construction costs can exceed appraised values, he said, and the average price of new constructions over the past two years is around $275,000  well above what many first-time homebuyers are looking for.

Theres obviously not a lot of entry-level housing happening, Chochon said.

The 32-year-old said this shortfall needs to be addressed to meet the current demand for workers, as well as attract younger generations and higher-paid professionals looking for a place to settle down.

City council members made a move in that direction Monday night by voting to allow local sales tax revenue to support work force housing projects through the citys economic development plan.

That plan, which was approved by voters in 2006, has allocated one-tenth of the local 1 percent sales tax, up to $300,000 annually, to an economic development fund since April 2007.

Typically, that money is loaned to businesses looking to start or expand operations in Columbus, but the Nebraska Legislature amended the rules last year, adding work force housing to the list of acceptable uses. This includes both single-family housing and market-rate multifamily housing that address a local shortage.

Connie Hellbusch, chairwoman of the Citizens Advisory Review Committee, which reviews requests for economic development money before making recommendations to the city council, said this financial assistance will be used to encourage more housing development in Columbus, but a majority of the funds will still go to business projects.

The citys economic development fund has a current balance of $1.97 million, which can be spent through March 2022. Because of the large balance, city officials decided to stop funneling a portion of the local sales tax revenue into that account beginning April 1, when the voter-approved extension of the 1 percent sales tax begins.

Schumacher called Monday nights vote the first step in addressing the local housing shortfall, saying Cargill is also willing to partner with the city on other initiatives to tackle the problem.

Its not something were just looking for the city to solve, she said. Its a problem that we have to (solve) together.

Rich Jablonski, the only city council member to oppose the change, did so because housing wasnt part of the economic development plan approved by voters. He believes they should have a say in the matter.

A couple of local rental property owners also spoke against the amendment, arguing that it will create an uneven playing field among developers.

Pat Sackett said he and his family spent 30 years buying and maintaining properties the right way, without government assistance.

We never asked for government help, he said. We never expected government help.

Sackett, who blamed the citys higher rental rates on property taxes and water and sewer fees, referred to the economic development plan as a form of socialism.

Each time you subsidize apartments you kill the small guys, and you make it more difficult for us to continue our business, he told the council.

The economic development money will be available to local and out-of-town developers  both large and small  and city officials have previously said theyd prefer to see it used by Columbus developers.

John Curry, another local rental property owner, dismissed the perceived housing shortfall entirely.

Columbus problem is not a shortage of housing, its a shortage of good-paying jobs, he said.

He threw the economic development program under the bus, calling it a failure while pointing to companies such as Apogee, Katana Summit, Maine Plastics and Central American Foods that received thousands of dollars in sales tax money then closed their doors.

Bonnie McPhillips sees things differently.

The director of Columbus Housing Authority, which serves mainly low- to moderate-income families, senior citizens and those with disabilities, said she receives half a dozen calls each day from people seeking local housing while the waiting list for rental assistance and open units at Heritage House continues to grow.

We hear from many of those folks their frustration and how difficult it has been to find housing in Columbus, she said.
The return of the remains of Chinese soldiers from the Republic of Korea, as scheduled, displays a willingness by both countries to push forward ties amid difficulties caused by the planned deployment of a US anti-missile system in the ROK, Chinese observers said.

Defense Ministry officials from China and the ROK will meet on Wednesday and discuss the return, by the end of March, of the remains of more than 20 Chinese People's Volunteer Army soldiers who died in the Korean War, according to Yonhap News Agency.

The handover, the report said, may help to smooth a currently tense China-ROK relationship due to the United States and ROK's decision to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system in the ROK by the end of the year.

However, Chinese observers stressed that while the handover of the remains is welcomed, the humanitarian gesture alone will not diminish the underlying cause of the tension.

Beijing has repeatedly voiced its opposition to the deployment of THAAD, saying it harms the strategic security of China, since the system's radar can cover parts of the country.

Under a handover agreement signed by China and the ROK in 2013, officials from the two countries consult with each other every year on handing over remains found in the ROK.

From 2014 to 2016, the ROK has returned the remains of 541 Chinese soldiers.

Wang Junsheng, a researcher of Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the move, which embodies the friendship between civilians, shows that the willingness of the two countries to develop bilateral relations has not changed.

However, he added, China's opposition to THAAD is firm.

Da Zhigang, director of the Institute of Northeast Asian Studies at the Heilongjiang Academy of Social Sciences, said the ROK may be hoping that the return of the remains will itself help ease the tension.

"China's position will not change unless the ROK stops the deployment of the anti-missile system," Da said.

He suggested that the ROK should initiate diplomatic or defense talks between the two countries, "if it indeed hopes to ease the strained ties".
Contents of this Article:

The phrase May you live in interesting times is often  and incorrectly  described as a Chinese curse. Although there is in fact no equivalent Chinese phrase, for companies manufacturing in China, these are interesting times indeed.

This very long post aims to provide an overview of the challenges of manufacturing in China, as well as strategies for minimizing risks and maximizing opportunities. It outlines the administrative and regulatory requirements, process and production challenges, and specific cultural and market-specific risks.

I am writing this post after fielding dozens of requests over the years to put together in one place ALL of the basics necessary to manufacture in China successfully. In this post, Ive tried to include everything that is relevant close to 90 percent of the time, while not bogging you down with the things that happen ten percent of the time, or less.

Every business and company is different, however, and the information and advice offered here is intended to alert business managers to the legal considerations specific to the China manufacturing environment; it is not intended to serve as a replacement for bespoke legal advice. You may be the company that actually needs legal help with what I describe above as things that happen ten percent of the time, or less.

But no matter what your situation, I urge you to reach out to me if youd like to discuss your specific circumstances or feel you need some help in protecting your company against your China manufacturers.

China Manufacturing Challenges

Manufacturing in a foreign country can offer significant benefits  especially in terms of cost  but when the mountains are high and the emperor (thats you, the client) is far away (), problems can arise. The best way to reduce the likelihood of having problems with your China product suppliers is to recognize that most China manufacturing problems stem from something the product buyer failed to do to prevent the problem. In other words, it is mostly up to you to reduce your risks.

But what exactly should you do to protect yourself when manufacturing overseas? Start with these six basic measures:

Use a Good Manufacturer

If you do not know how to find a good manufacturer, pay someone who does. At the very minimum, make sure the company you will be using to make your products actually exists and is licensed to engage in the business for which you will be paying it. If you cannot afford to do these things, you should not be manufacturing overseas. Not kidding.

Use Good Manufacturing Agreements

Good contracts ensure that your China manufacturer knows what is required of it and what will happen to it if it does not meet those requirements. More than half of the overseas manufacturing contracts our international manufacturing lawyers see are worthless because they were written by someone who either does not know manufacturing or does not know international law, or both. Many are worse than using no contract at all.

Use Detailed Contracts

Overseas factories that engage in contract manufacturing tend to do exactly what you tell them to do. This means you need to clearly convey what it is that you want them to do, and that means your instructions and specifications should be detailed and in their language. Be overly specific.

Visit the Factory

Either your own people or a third-party quality control company should pay regular visits to your factory. Doing this allows you to make sure your factory understands what you want and lets them know that you are serious about making sure you get it. It also humanizes you and tells them that you really do care and are not just putting things down on paper to look good to your own buyers or to abide by some regulation somewhere.

Inspect Your Products

Perform regular product inspections appropriate to the product you are having made.

Register Your Intellectual Property

If you have intellectual property (IP) worth protecting (and nearly every manufacturer does), make sure you do everything you can within reason to protect it wherever you are manufacturing your products and wherever you sell your products. This means trademarks, patents and/or copyrights.

Intellectual Property Rights Protections

Register Trademarks in China

The Chinese trademark system is complicated: idiosyncratic, highly regimented, and overseen by capricious examiners.

So why not register China trademarks via the Madrid System for the International Registration of Marks?

The one-size-fits-all Madrid application makes registering a trademark in China seem easy. Really easy: all you have to do is check a box marked China. As a result, Madrid applicants are lulled into a sense of complacency, but all too often the result is a rejection that could have been avoided with a national application in China. Madrid applications are supposed to be cheap and quick, but fixing Madrid problems after the fact is neither.

Trademark prosecution in China is highly mechanical; for the vast majority of applications, you file an application, wait 18 months, and at the end of that time your trademark is either registered or rejected. (A slight oversimplification, but not by much.) For this reason, the meaningful work for Chinese trademark applications occurs before the application is filed.

First of all, it is essential to conduct a pre-application trademark clearance (a.k.a. a trademark screening) to assess the trademarks registrability. Is the mark inherently distinctive? Does it run afoul of Chinas statutory prohibitions on trademarks? Does it conflict with any preexisting trademarks?

Next, assuming the screening results dont scare you away, you must determine which class(es) to file in and the specific products or services (items) to be covered by the mark. This is a lot trickier than it sounds because the Chinese Trademark Office (CTMO) divides each Nice classification into a unique system of subclasses. For purposes of trademark registration, each subclass is treated discretely: a trademark for one item in a given subclass covers all items in that subclass, but is not effective on items in any other subclass.

When you file a China national application, you determine the subclasses that you want your application to cover. But when you file a Madrid application, your list of items goes straight to a CTMO trademark examiner, who will decide from your list which subclasses the items should go in without consulting you. This lack of consultation, combined with the examiners often-tenuous grasp of English (or French or Spanish), means that imprecise descriptions of items can lead to problems of both overinclusiveness and underinclusiveness.

It is possible to perform a pre-application screening before filing a Madrid application, and it is possible to craft a description of items in a Madrid application that will conform to the Chinese subclass system. But this requires working with an experienced China trademark attorney or agent, and it will cost nearly as much and take nearly as much time as a national application. In other words, you lose all of the advantages of the Madrid System, but keep all of the disadvantages.

Finally, even if your Madrid System trademark is registered in China without a hitch, you may still have trouble enforcing your rights. Upon registration, the only formal certificate for Madrid System trademarks is the one issued by WIPO. China does not issue its own separate trademark certificate. In theory, this should not be a problem, because the WIPO certificate should be sufficient to enforce your trademark rights under Chinese law. In practice, Chinese bureaucrats and e-commerce customer service reps generally could care less about Chinas WTO obligations. Much of the time, before they will lift a finger against an infringing factory or website, they will demand a copy of a CTMO-issued Chinese trademark certificate. It is easy enough to request a Chinese trademark certificate based on a WIPO registration, but it takes another three to five months to get one. That can feel like an eternity when your trademark is being knocked off.



Register Design Patents in China

A design patent in China is generally analogous to a design patent in the U.S. or a Community design in the EU and it covers novel product designs that (1) incorporate shapes, patterns, and/or colors, (2) are rich in aesthetic appeal, and (3) are fit for industrial application. China registers design patents without conducting a substantive examination of the design patent application and so it does not take much at all to secure one. Substantive examinations only occur if a third party challenges a patents validity after registration. A design patent applicant need only submit an application to SIPO that satisfies the procedural requirements, particularly with respect to proper formatting of documents and drawings.

As a result, in many circumstances companies must register a design patent on their product(s). If they dont, someone else will and then they find themselves having to challenge that patent in China (which is relatively expensive and time-consuming) or just walking away from China.

Even though many of the design patents in China are nothing more than slight modifications of existing product designs, they still can have substantial value because their owners can sue for patent infringement and register the patent(s) with China Customs and have counterfeit or copycat products seized at the border. Even if you do not think your design is novel enough to be patented, there is a first-mover advantage to your filing for a China design patent simply because your design patent will be valid until successfully challenged by a third party. A Chinese design patent grants its holder exclusive use of the aesthetic features of a product, not its functioning portion. In other words, the patent is on how the product looks; its external appearance.

What though, does it really mean to have a China design patent?

A typical design patent case starts with a phone call from a Western company telling us a Chinese company (usually a company it already knows and usually either its manufacturer or a competitor) just contacted the Western company (or the Chinese company that makes the Western companys product) and said the Western companys product violates the Chinese companys China design patent. The Chinese company then threatens to sue the Western company (and/or its Chinese manufacturer) for patent infringement damages and to block any of the Western companys infringing product from leaving China.

Though China Customs frequently blocks products from leaving China due to trademark infringement claims, blocking products due to a design patent claim is considerably less common. China Customs generally requires a party seeking to block a product from leaving China to post a substantial bond, which then becomes available to the party whose product has been blocked by customs. Many more companies are willing to bear this risk to stop trademark infringing products from leaving China than are willing to take this risk for a design patent claim.

Whats the best way to nip design patent hijacking? Register your design patent first, before anyone else can do so. If you want to be sure to avoid your products being held up at the Chinese border on an IP claim, you should secure both a trademark and a design patent.



Registering your IP with China Customs

China Customs will block products that infringe on China IP from entering or leaving China. The leaving China part is why it is 100% essential that you register your IP in China even if all you are doing in China is having your products made there. The leaving China part is also why it usually makes sense for foreign companies that have registered their IP in China to also register that IP with China Customs.

Even though manufacturing in China is on the decline, China still manufactures way more than any other country in the world and it is still by far the world center for product counterfeiting. If you register your IP in China, then also register that IP with China Customs, you will have positioned yourself to be able to block counterfeit versions of your products from leaving China for anywhere in the world.



China NNN Agreements

We love NNN Agreements for China. They are fast, cheap, easy, telling and effective.

If in the course of conducting business in China, you are going to reveal anything (e.g. to partners, suppliers) that you do not want made public, you should consider an NNN Agreement. If you are going to be showing your products, prototypes or designs to a Chinese factory, you should consider an NNN Agreement. If you do not want your Chinese manufacturer competing against you with your products, you should consider an NNN.

But the most important thing you need to know about China NNN Agreements is that they really should not be an NDA; they should be China-specific NNN Agreements, because Western-style NDA agreements do not work for China, and most of the time, using one is worse than having no protection at all.

NDA agreements prohibit your Chinese counterparty from disclosing your secrets. They do not stop them from competing against you or going behind your back to your customers or clients or to anyone else. To prevent these behaviors, you need a China NNN (non-use, non-disclosure and non-circumvention) Agreement.

1. Non-Use

Non-use requires your factory to agree not to make use of your idea/concept/product in a manner competitive with you, the disclosing party. The critical point is that this obligation arises by contract. This protection is not based on abstract property rights arising under intellectual property law. The prohibition protects you not because your concept is classified as some form of intellectual property such as a trademark, copyright, patent, mask work or even a trade secret. The factory is prohibited from using your work because it executed a contract that prohibits it from using your work. Getting a factory to sign a contract with a non-use provision means there is no need to look outside that contract to other areas of law for you (and Chinas courts) to be able to control the behavior of the Chinese factory.

2. Non-Disclosure

The next element of an NNN Agreement is non-disclosure. This is the core of an NDA, or Non-Disclosure Agreement. Surprisingly enough, you need not be terribly concerned with having your Chinese counterparty disclose the information you want kept secret to an unrelated third party. This is because Chinese companies usually have no interest in letting others in on their good thing. If they want to use your concept, they want to use it for their own purposes, not to disclose it to others.

But if you prohibit a Chinese factory from making direct use of your concept, the Chinese factory now has a problem. The clever Chinese entity will not directly breach your non-use prohibition; it will simply disclose your information to someone in its corporate group, then accurately claim it has not breached the non-use prohibition because it is not the one making use of your protected information.

For this reason, it is important you understand the type of group with which you are dealing, and you must make clear in your NNN Agreement that disclosure is specifically prohibited within the group, and that if there is any infringement by any member of the group, the factory that signed your NNN Agreement and made the disclosure is fully liable. Often, some education of your Chinese counterparty on this issue is required, because Chinese companies often do not consider disclosure to a member of their own group as violating a non-disclosure prohibition.

3. Non-Circumvention

Finally, you need to deal with non-circumvention. The Chinese factory knows you are purchasing the product at the China price, then adding a margin and selling it at a profit in the foreign market. In this situation, it is only natural for the Chinese factory to work to obtain a list of your customers to whom they can sell your product at the China price. After going through your customer list, they start marketing your product to the rest of the world. What would your customers do if offered your product for 50% less? In many industries (especially those where quality and servicing is critical), most customers would say no. But in many other industries  including consumer products  they quickly and almost uniformly say yes.

Note also that if you have not registered your brand name and/or logo as your own trademark in China, there is nothing to stop your Chinese manufacturer from putting your brand name and/or logo on these very same products and selling them into any country where you do not have a corresponding trademark.

This is circumvention, and you must prohibit circumvention by contract. There is no other way to do it. A good NNN agreement is your only protection.

Finally, we always do our China NNN Agreements in both English and Chinese. We make the Chinese version the official one, and the English version just a translation for our English-speaking clients. Making them in Chinese means that the Chinese courts will be able to better understand them and enforce them more quickly. It also takes away the other sides argument that it did not know what it was signing.





Should You Register Your Copyrights in China?

Copyrights are automatically protected in China under the Berne Convention, but to be able to sue quickly for a copyright violation and to have full copyright protection in China, it almost always makes sense to file your copyrights there. Just as in the United States and the E.U., you need only submit a small portion of your software code to secure copyright protection on the entire program.

Writing a Manufacturing Contract

Some of the important considerations, issues and questions to consider when drafting a China manufacturing agreement:

Decide if the agreement with your manufacturers will be exclusive or nonexclusive. Decide the manufacturers obligations to sell. There are basically two alternatives. The manufacturers are obligated to produce product under any purchase order you submit and their failure to produce at the agreed price would be a default. You would then almost certainly be required to purchase a minimum amount of product during a specified time period. This approach is best if you want to guarantee supply and you want to hold your manufacturers to their price commitments.

Or, obligate your manufacturers to produce product only for those purchase orders it accepts. In other words, they will have the right not to accept purchase orders, at their discretion. The advantage of this to you is that it will not require you to purchase any specific amount of product. The disadvantage is that there is no guarantee of supply and there is no way to hold your manufacturers to any price commitment.

Decide whether or not you want to identify specific ports of delivery. If you will have multiple ports and delivery locations in some of the countries where you will be receiving your product, the port/delivery location should be specified in the purchase orders rather than the manufacturing agreements. Decide on payment terms, e.g. payment 30 days after shipment, or 30 days after inspection. If you will provide for payment 30 days after shipment, you will need to determine when you will inspect the product. It is best to have inspection before payment, but this is not always practical. Decide on a warranty period. Decide on trade secrets/IP protection provisions, e.g. a monetary penalty for breach that might be both a lump sum penalty and a percentage of sales penalty. These penalties should be large enough to cause concern for the manufacturer, but not so large as to scare them into not signing. Decide on tooling provisions that may provide for a series of lump sum penalties. Manufacturers commonly refuse to return tooling and the most effective way to control this is to provide for a significant lump sum penalty for such a refusal.

Additional considerations in drafting a manufacturing contract include:

Product Testing: Where and how will you test your product? Will you do you own independent testing in China or will you wait until you receive the product in your home country? Will you require the Chinese factory to test and then provide you with test results? If you will do your own independent testing in China, it is important to set out the testing procedure in writing.

Manufacturing Set-up Costs:Your factory may ask you to pay in advance for some of the manufacturing set-up costs. Though this is normal, it is important to clarify those costs and then get them in writing.

Product Pricing: You will want to lock in your costs, especially in consideration of your factorys understandable desire to be protected from increases in the costs of materials. The normal way pricing is done for this kind of item in China is as follows:

The product price is fixed for a set period, say, one year. The Chinese manufacturer takes the price risk during this time, both for changes in component prices and for RMB/USD exchange rate risk. It is easiest if the manufacturer builds in the cost of items from the approved suppliers and takes the risk of price changes. Often a manufacturer will calculate that amount at cost+ to cover the risk and to cover the costs of advance purchasing and warehousing.

If your manufacturer is not willing to do the above, the quoted product price from them is not really a fixed price and it can change over time. The risk in this situation depends on the integrity and reputation of the manufacturer. Some Chinese manufacturers will double or triple their prices after production has started and after you are trapped into using them as your manufacturer. Reputable manufacturers typically will only raise their prices when there has actually been a material change in component prices.

Product Packaging Costs: It should be made clear who has responsibility for packaging design, production, and payment. It should also be made clear how packaging costs will be included in the final cost of the product. It is important to get these costs agreed and in writing.

Manufacturing Contract Duration: What will be the term of this agreement?

The Three Main Types of Manufacturing Contracts

Most manufacturing contracts involve one of three different types of manufacturing arrangements: Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM), Contract Manufacturing (CM), and Original Design Manufacturing (ODM). These three different arrangements influence various legal issues inherent to overseas manufacturing.





Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM)

In this arrangement, the buyer purchases from a factory a product that is already being manufactured by that factory. The product buyer then packages this product with its own trademark and logo. The buyer and the factory may agree to certain cosmetic changes (color, shape, minor added features) that further customize the product for the buyer.

In an OEM arrangement, the intellectual property (IP) rights are usually clear: the buyer owns its branding (trademarks, logos and packaging) and the factory owns the product. Difficulty arises once the product is customized. Who owns the IP once the buyer has made changes to the product? An OEM agreement can provide clarity here. Usually, the buyer seeks to restrict the factory from using the customization in selling the base product to third parties.



Contract Manufacturing (CM)

In this arrangement, the buyer has a fully developed product design. Traditionally, this design was of a product that had been previously manufactured by the buyer. More recently, the product is a new design being manufactured for the first time overseas. In a CM arrangement, ownership may seem simple: the foreign buyer owns all the IP, both in design and branding, and the factory owns nothing. In practice, however, the division is not always so clear. For example, your factory may change your products design and use those design changes to modify its own products it sells in direct competition with your products. Difficulties exist in every contract manufacturing project, and they can be resolved with a clear, written agreement.



Original Design Manufacturing (ODM)

As external manufacturers are becoming more technically competent, foreign buyers have started entering into arrangements in which their overseas factories do some or all the product design work. There are many variations on this approach. In its most fundamental form, the foreign buyer provides drawings and a specification sheet, and the overseas factory does the rest of the work in consultation with the buyer.

In an ODM arrangement, the obvious question is: who owns the design of the product? Both the foreign buyer and its overseas factory may claim ownership of the design using conflicting arguments. The overseas factory will agree to make the product on an exclusive basis for the foreign buyer, but the foreign buyer does not have the right to have the product made by a third-party factory. This position can come as a bad surprise to the foreign buyer, particularly when its overseas factory suddenly announces it will be doubling the price for manufacturing the product.

These issues can get even more complex when the product incorporates or is based on technology clearly owned by the overseas factory. In this context, the factory will often state that the buyer can go anywhere it wants to manufacture the buyers own portion of the product design, but no third-party factory can make use of the factorys proprietary technology in the manufacturing process. Consider this case for a foreign buyer that has spent considerable time and effort to develop a product design only to learn after a year that its overseas factory has decided to terminate the manufacturing agreement.

There is no simple default answer to these difficult issues; the only way to resolve them is to draft a detailed written ODM agreement in advance, setting out a path to resolution that is fair to both sides. The legal default in most countries will favor the position of the factory. Absent a clear agreement on how to proceed, the foreign buyer will lose pretty much every time.

China Manufacturing Contracts

Product Development Agreements

Foreign companies that outsource their product manufacturing to China often co-develop their products with Chinese manufacturers. In some cases, the foreign company has completed its product development and the Chinese manufacturers only involvement is in setting up to manufacture the product in high volumes. In other cases, the foreign company side has only a general product idea and the Chinese manufacturer is tasked with turning the foreign companys napkin scribblings into a viable commercial product. Sometimes both the Chinese manufacturer and the foreign company contribute technology and know-how so the final product is a blend of both parties contributions.

The product development stage is the highest risk stage for foreign companies manufacturing in China, yet it is also the stage most neglected by foreign companies. Foreign companies will use NNN agreements in the factory search stage and they will use OEM agreements for the production stage, but they rarely use product development agreements.

This is a big mistake that often leads to one of two disasters for the foreign company.

The first disaster can occur when the Chinese manufacturer does not charge the foreign company anything for the product development work. In these situations, the Chinese manufacturer often will claim that any intellectual property in the developed product is its own and will generously offer to make the product on behalf of the foreign company at price, payment, quantity, quality and delivery terms chosen by the Chinese manufacturer. No matter how outrageous the pricing or other demands from the Chinese manufacturer, there is little the foreign company can do because it waited until development was finished before even considering who would end up with its IP.

The second disaster stems from foreign companies not considering the procedural issues necessary for successfully developing a product. Foreign companies far too often mistakenly assume that Chinese manufacturers can develop any product within the tight timeframes and close tolerances required by modern business. This often leads to the following:

The product is never completed or never works properly.

The product is not completed until after the market opportunity has passed.

The product cost ends up being far higher than projected.

The only good way to address the above product development risks is with a product development agreement enforceable in China. A good product development agreement covers the period between the NNN agreement stage when you are figuring out which Chinese manufacturer to use and the OEM agreement stage when you have already selected your Chinese manufacturer and know exactly what you will have manufactured.

A good product development agreement generally includes provisions addressing the following:

The product to be developed. The technologies the foreign company and the Chinese manufacturer will contribute. Who will provide the product specifications and in what form. Who will own the IP rights to the resulting product. Who will pay for product development costs? Who will pay for the molds and tooling? Setting of milestones. Chinese manufacturers often agree to do the development work, but fail to do so in a timely manner. Your product development agreement should provide incentives for your Chinese manufacturer to meet milestones and a penalty if it does not.

Chinese manufacturers usually prefer to cover all of the costs of product development because they want to own the resulting product and foreign companies far too often go along with this, without realizing this likely means the Chinese manufacturer will end up with the product and its related IP.

China Manufacturing Risk Management

A China Manufacturing Compliance Checklist

If you have familiarized yourself with the applicable Chinese laws and your business has done its utmost to comply with those laws, the odds of your company getting into legal hot water in China are low. We have helped countless foreign companies deal with China compliance failures, and very rarely have we concluded that our client was singled out for no good reason. Even when our client had done nothing wrong, we could still understand why the Chinese government had initially thought otherwise.

On top of this, the foreign companies we represent have become much savvier in realizing the need to remain in compliance. It has truly been years since any of our clients have excused their non-compliance by claiming everyone is doing it. And yet we still get plenty of calls from companies that make this excuse after they have been caught operating illegally. Guess what  in China like pretty much everywhere else in the world  this is no excuse.

But what exactly should you be doing now to ensure you are in compliance with Chinese laws?



Corporate Compliance

Are your companys activities still covered by the scope of business used during its registration? If you registered as an import/export company and you now own a factory, you should make some changes. Is your business in a different location from what is listed on your business license? That requires a change also. Is the person listed as your companys legal representative still with your company and still the person you want in this position? What about the general manager? The supervisor? Have there been any changes to the parent company?



China Employment Compliance

Chinas employment laws are complicated, localized, and pro-employee. Make sure you have appropriate written employment agreements with all of your employees in China, domestic and foreign. Review and update your employee manual (a.k.a. Employer Rules and Regulations). Review and update all other employment-related documents, from offer letters to severance agreements and everything in between. Make sure you otherwise stay in compliance: are all of your non-Chinese employees work permits and residence permits up-to-date? Have you secured approval from the local labor bureau for any employees under a non-standard working hours system? Have you secured all necessary renewals for such employees? Are you paying into the appropriate social insurance accounts for each employee?



China Tax Compliance

It is sometimes necessary to engage a competent local accounting firm. Your accountants must of course understand Chinese tax law, but they should also have at least a rudimentary understanding of your home countrys tax laws as well. For instance: make sure your transfer pricing is current and accurately reflected in your contracts and that your profit margins are high enough to keep Chinas tax authorities at bay.



China IP Compliance

We frequently get calls from foreign companies doing business in China that have let their China IP registrations fall into disorder (or never organized their IP in the first place). Most of the time, it is my law firms China IP lawyers who spot the problem. Even if you registered everything appropriately when you first came to China, have you kept up with newer products/services or brands? Are you registering design patents before you release your products? Are you keeping sufficient evidence of trademark use to fend off a non-use cancellation? Have you properly drafted and registered any trademark license agreements? Are you taking full advantage of Chinas trademark system to protect your brand name, slogans and logos?



China Contract Compliance

Many foreign companies do business in China in a way that makes it all but impossible for them to enforce their contractual rights. Do you have written agreements with all your major sources and clients? Are you using a lawyer to draft your design/manufacturing/licensing/purchase/etc. agreements? Are these agreements in Chinese? Enforced under Chinese law?

Spend the time now on the above to avoid having to spend a lot more time later.



Protecting Yourself from Scammers

What can you do to help prevent China factory problems? The quick answer is to know your factory before you contract with them and especially before you send them any money. The way to know your factory is to do due diligence on them. The bare minimum due diligence on your potential China manufacturing partner should include the following:

Obtain the Chinese manufacturers actual Chinese company name. This can then be verified by comparing it with the companys business license. Check with the official Chinese government registry to see if your Chinese manufacturer has actually been registered as a Chinese company. Check your Chinese manufacturers capitalization to see if it is sufficiently large enough and well-funded enough to handle your proposed deal. Check the Chinese companys corporate officers and shareholders to see if they have any conflicts of interest by owning other companies. This is quite common and often explains why they are insisting on you using certain sub-suppliers. Check the Chinese companys current operational status: Open, Irregular Operations, or Revoked. We have found that clients potential Chinese business partners had been placed on the irregular operations list by their districts Market Supervision and Administration Bureaus. The reasons for a company being flagged as such are often because of financial difficulties and mismanagement. You do not want to do business with such a company, because the consequences of a company being flagged as having abnormal operations include: Banking accounts and activities restricted or frozen.

Services and licensing provided by government bureaus restricted or prohibited.

Administrative penalties imposed. For example, a failure to notify the Bureau of a change in registered address carries a fine of RMB 10,000 to 100,000.

The individuals in charge of the company restricted. Additionally, if the company has been flagged for three years, it will be placed on the list of companies that have seriously violated the law.

We are seeing many more Chinese manufacturers on the irregular operations list than previously. Worse than that, we are also seeing more Chinese manufacturers showing up on the operations revoked list. Make sure the Chinese government has authorized your Chinese manufacturer (per its business scope) to do the type of business it is proposing to do with you. Companies in China must specify their intended business scope in their articles of association, and this scope is subject to approval by the government registration authorities and if a Chinese company exceeds its scope, it is operating illegally. Check the history of the Chinese manufacturer with which you might do business. Most fake companies do not bother to create a business history. If a company does not have a history you can verify, you should seriously consider walking away. Find out what property and IP your Chinese manufacturer owns. Companies that own property and/or IP are much less likely to scam you than those that dont. Check your Chinese manufacturers litigation history and whether and how often it has been in trouble with the government. A company that is constantly getting fined by the government and/or constantly getting sued by its product buyers is not a good company with which to do business. Have a good and China-specific manufacturing contract with your Chinese manufacturers. If the Chinese company formally declares bankruptcy (which does happen) and if it has some assets left (which also does happen) and if you have a China-centric manufacturing contract you at least have a chance at getting some or all of your money back. Pay as little as possible until your product has arrived and been quality-checked. One of the best things you can do to reduce your China product buying risks is to delay all or almost all payment until after you have confirmed delivery of conforming product. But few Chinese manufacturers will agree to this, and even fewer Chinese manufacturers that intend to scam you will do so. Use common sense. If a manufacturer seems too good to be true, it probably is not. Red flags: Insanely good proposed pricing

Unrealistic promised delivery times

Few questions to you about the details of the work

Unresponsive to your questions to them

Your Manufacturer Is Your Likeliest Competitor

In deciding to manufacture in China, you will essentially be educating your Chinese manufacturer in how to compete with you. And guess what? It is perfectly legal for your Chinese factory to copy your products unless you have a contract forbidding that. It is also perfectly legal for them to use your brand name in China (or even to register your brand name as its own trademark) if you have not registered your brand name as a China trademark.

Years ago, it was common to do business in China without a contract. Before China had modern trade laws and courts that were able to handle business disputes, this informal approach made sense because there was no alternative.

To pursue a claim successfully against a Chinese company, there must be a written contract between the parties, executed by both parties in accordance with the Chinese law requirements. Unlike in the U.S. or the E.U., Chinese courts rarely allow for proving the existence of a contract by putting together pieces evidenced by scattered POs, invoices, emails and desperate phone calls. The court will insist on a written agreement that unambiguously names the parties and provides the basis for the agreement.

Additionally, the contract must be enforceable in China. As a practical matter, Chinese courts incredibly rarely enforce foreign judgments, and it can be quite difficult to get them to enforce a foreign arbitration award. A contract enforceable in China must meet the following basic standards:
COLUMBUS  Nebraska150 Celebrations largest project is coming to Columbus sometime this year.

The city is one of 42 stops for Truckin Through Nebraska: A Mobile Childrens Museum."

The museum, created under the guidance of the Omaha Childrens Museum, also will make stops in Albion, along with Central City, Madison and Wahoo.

We wanted to make sure to hit places where we would be one to two hours away from every Nebraska child, said Regan Anson, executive director of Nebraska150 Celebration.

Truckin Through Nebraska will be a hands-on childrens museum created as part of the celebration of Nebraskas 150th year of statehood.

The mobile museum will tour from April through September, visiting 42 communities in the state.

A specific date for the Columbus stop has not been determined yet, but Anson said the committee should have that finalized in a couple weeks.

Were still working on logistics for a majority of the communities, Anson said. So much goes into the mapping out of the route. Theres a lot that goes into the travel and a lot of details to work out.

The museum will be contained in a state-of-the-art doublewide trailer specifically designed for traveling museum exhibits. The trailer, which will be handicapped-accessible, includes GPS tracking and WiFi and will be climate-controlled.

The museum, with exhibits both inside and outside the trailer, will be geared toward children ages 5-12, but all ages are welcome. Admission is free and open to the public.

A list of the exhibits, along with a brief description of each one, and other information about the museum can be found at the museums webpage, ne150.org/museum/.

Some of the details of the museums travels are known. Plans are for the tour to begin in early April at the Omaha Childrens Museum, an appropriate starting point, Anson said.

The Omaha Childrens Museum helped us build the museum, Anson said. They helped design the exhibit. They have been instrumental and invaluable in guiding us through this process.

Other known location dates are North Platte for the Nebraskaland Days parade on June 17 and Grand Island for the Nebraska State Fair, which runs from Aug. 25 to Sept. 4.

The museum will also be in Lincoln for A Salute to the Good Life, a celebration that marks the conclusion of festivities set for Sept. 22-23 at Centennial Mall.

Anson said finding an ideal date for each stop will be challenging.

There are a lot of festivals in June and July, she said. Were not going to make everything.

More information about the Nebraska150 Celebration can be found at ne150.org, on Facebook at facebook.com/nebraska150 and on Twitter, @ne150.
She married Robert L. Warnke on Oct. 29, 1948. For many years, she and Bob were part of the Closter community, initially running the Closter store with her sister Elsie while Bob worked as a trucker. Together, Tena and Bob later established his own heavy equipment business. They were active members of the North Branch church and for many years she provided support and care to her parents residing in Albion. In 1973, Tena and Bob relocated to Florida where they opened their home to visiting family and friends. After Bobs death in July 1999, she returned to her hometown of Albion, where she quickly established her place in a community she loved and became an active member of Zion Lutheran Church. Always quick to offer her help and ready to go, she was well known to family and friends as someone who could be counted upon to provide a ride to doctor appointments, shopping or other events. She found great pleasure in a good book, playing bridge with friends, traveling with family and friends, including a long-awaited trip to Germany to visit family and see her parents ancestral homes, and simply spending time with loved ones.
(Photo : Philippine Navy) The Philippines' Panatag Island or Scarborough Shoal.

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China has rewarded Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte's fawning solicitude by sending dredging ships to the vicinity of the Philippine-held Scarborough Shoal only 230 kilometers from the Philippines' main island of Luzon in preparation for building a man-made island inside Philippine territory.



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Building a man-made island inside a country's exclusive economic zone is considered an act of war.



The Philippines' defense secretary Delfin Lorenzana told media that China is trying to build an island on a reef near Scarborough Shoal that will eventually encompass the entire shoal. Panatag Island is the Filipino name for Scarborough Shoal.



He said such a move would be totally "unacceptable," a warning that carries only two options: the Philippines' begging China to stop (which China won't), or the Philippines' anti-American president Rodrigo Duterte begging the United States to help him (which anti-China U.S. president Donald Trump probably will). Trump has vowed to counter any Chinese attempt to tighten military control of the South China Sea.



The former option is considered the likeliest for Duterte, who has often been accused of being a communist.



"They encroached," said Lorenzana about a 2012 confrontation against China at Scarborough Shoal, which saw the China Coast Guard evict Filipino fishing boats from the traditional fishing grounds.



"They occupied three islands there (in the Spratlys) plus they are trying to get Scarborough. So to us that is unacceptable.



"If we allow them, they will build. That's very, very disturbing. Very much (more) disturbing than Fiery Cross because this is so close to us."



Fiery Cross is one of the Philippine-claimed reefs China has illegally seized.



Lorenzana said China's reclamation of Scarborough Shoal was intended to secure its complete control of the South China Sea.



"That could be their strategy to counter any superpower that would encroach on South China Sea because they believe South China Sea is -- that's like their lake to them -- theirs," he noted.



A military outpost at Scarborough Shoal will place Chinese fighter jets and missiles within easy striking distance of U.S .forces stationed in the Philippines.



The Americans have previously said that China's building a manmade island on Scarborough Shoal is a "red line" that might trigger U.S. military intervention.



"The American, that's their red line," said Lorenzana.



"Red line meaning you can't do that there, so they (China) did not do it. If we had a strong military presence (in the South China Sea), we can stop them but we don't.



"I am still hoping in the future some reasonable guy there in Beijing will come to see the light that this is ours. That is shooting for the moon but who knows?"



Duterte has angered the United States in the past by insulting former U.S. president Barack Obama as an idiot for opposing Duterte's murderous drug campaign that has seen Philippine police murder over 7,000 Filipinos since July 2016.



Without the United States as an ally, the Philippines -- because of Duterte's stupidity in alienating its long-time friend -- has no choice except to allow China to reclaim the Scarborough Shoal. Duterte has long claimed the Philippines alone can't fight China.



He spurned the U.S. to avoid angering China, forgetting it's only the fear of U.S. military power that prevents China from militarizing the entire South China Sea.



Standing by and doing nothing while China commits an act of war will inflame Philippine nationalism and intensify the opposition to Duterte, whose administration is insanely focused on its war on the poor it calls a drug war.



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Tagschina, Scarborough Shoal, Philippines, Luzon, Rodrigo Duterte, Reclamation, manmade island, Delfin Lorenzana, United States
(Photo : Getty Images) The Philippines' defense secretary believes that China will likely built a reef on Scarborough Shoal in South China Sea.

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China will likely try to build a reef on the Philippines' coast, Delfin Lorenzana, Manila's defense secretary, said in an interview on Tuesday.



Lorenzana believes that Beijing would eventually claim the disputed Scarborough Shoal, noting that China has already created some islets and reefs in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea and installed military facilities on many of them.



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Experts suggest that if Beijing will do the same installations on the Scarborough Shoal, then China would gain a strategic and effective military dominance on the disputed waters. And this is something that the US would also not easily accept.



"If we allow them, they will build. That's very, very disturbing. Very much [more] disturbing than Fiery Cross because this is so close to us," Lorenzana said, commenting on one of the Philippine-claimed reefs China has built on.



The Scarborough Shoal, which is located just 230 kilometers (143 miles) away from the Philippines' main island Luzon, sits in a very strategic position. Seen as a last physical resort, an outpost has been stationed at the Scarborough Shoal, where it would put Chinese fighter jets and missiles at a striking distance from US forces in the Philippines.



Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that Pentagon will now allow any Chinese access to the territorial waters, in which many analysts suggested that this could be an act of war. Lorenzana, on the other hand, finds this "very troubling," noting that the Philippines would likely become the battleground in case conflict broke out.



Lorenzana also said that the Philippines would try to "manage" the disputed islands with China as the two countries would also work on other security problems including the continuous abduction of sailors and attack of vessels by Islamic State militants and Abu Sayyaf.



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TagsDuterte, South China Sea, Scarborough Shoal, spratly islands, china
(Photo : Lithuanian Armed Forces) Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite (left) and German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen welcome the first German troops to Lithuania.

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Germany has deployed soldiers of its "Bundesheer" (the German Federal Army) to Lithuania as part of NATO's push to better defend the three Baltic States, which Russia will attack first should a new European War erupt.



The German infantry, which arrived Feb. 7, will form part of a 1,200-strong NATO multinational battalion that will also include French, Dutch and Belgian troops. NATO plans to deploy four of these multinational enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) battalion battle groups throughout the Baltic States. Commanding this eFP battalion is Lt. Col. Christoph Huber of the Bundesheer.



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The United States in January began deploying the first contingent of a US. Army brigade combat team to Poland. This entire unit will number over 3,500 well-trained troops of the U.S. Army 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, U.S. 4th Infantry Division (3-4 ABCT).



3-4 ABCT is one of the best trained frontline units in the U.S. Army. Over the next few months, 3,500 men of 3-4 ABCT; 87 M1A2SEPv2 Abrams main battle tanks (the latest version); 144 M2A3 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFVs), 18 M109A6 Paladin self-propelled howitzers and 2,500 other vehicles will be deployed to Poland.



Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite hailed the German battalion's arrival, and said the deployment emphasizes NATO strong unity.



"Never before has Lithuania hosted military forces of such size and integrity. It sends a very clear and important message to all that NATO stands strong and united," she said.



"NATO deterrence protects peace."



German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, who was also present at the arrival of the German troops, said the deployment showed that Lithuania is not alone.



NATO and the U.S. have been confronting Moscow's imperial expansionism since the strategic Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, controlled by Ukraine, was seized by Russia in March 2014. Russia has since tried to seize eastern Ukraine and has made no secret of its intention to invade the Baltic States to expand further into Europe.



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TagsGermany, Bundesheer, German Federal Army, Lithuania, NATO, Russia, Baltic States, enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) battalion, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen
(Photo : Getty Images) An aircraft carrier known as the Varyag is berthed at Dalian Shipyard on August 1, 2011 in Dalian, Liaoning Province of China. The Soviet-era aircraft carrier is being rebuilt for scientific research and training purposes.

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China's production of its second aircraft carrier is taking shape, UPI reported, showing photos of the vessel's ongoing construction in the port city of Dalian.



The vessel, likely to be named after a Chinese port city "Shangdong," will be the first indigenous carrier from China. Although local media reported that the vessel is slated to be finished on the first half of this year, no official timeline from the government has been released yet.



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China confirmed last December that it will make its second carrier and at the same time showed off the capabilities of its only operational carrier, the Liaoning. While the first aircraft carrier will be used for training missions, the second one is for patrolling of the disputed territorial waters of the South China Sea. "It will be used to tackle the complicated situations in the South China Sea," South China Morning Post wrote.



According to Business Insider, the Chinese carriers display a ski-slope design. Such design inhibits the carrier from launching heavy bomb-and-fuel-laden planes, thus their efficacy and range are very limited. However, Taylor Mavin, a graduate student in international affairs from US San Diego, noted that these soviet-designed carriers are ideal for coastal defense and not seaborne power projection.



Even though the second carrier is still on its progress, China announced that it is already planning to build its third aircraft carrier in the future. "The Chinese Navy is expected to own a third aircraft carrier strike group, capable of safeguarding territorial sovereignty and maritime rights," military expert Liang Fang said.



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TagsAircraft carrier, Liaoning, South China Sea, Chinese Aircraft Carrier, Shangdong aircraft carrier
(Photo : PLA) PLAGF tanks on parade.

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In a show of bluster and bravado, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) declared it doesn't want to fight a war against a newly assertive United States over the South China Sea but won't back away from one either.



An op-ed in the PLA website said the PLA isn't afraid of "demons" (the U.S.) and "intimidation" (from the U.S.). The PLA said it will dare to "show its sword" again if provoked.



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As proof of its willingness to fight the U.S., the PLA harkened back to the Korean War (1950-1953) where the Chinese People's Volunteers battled the U.S., South Korea and a coalition of 16 member states of the United Nations to a military stalemate.



The Korean War ended in an Armistice on July 27, 1953 that only ended the fighting. North and South Korea remain technically at war.



The PLA also cherished its role in the Vietnam War where it supplied the weapons and supplies that allowed communist North Vietnam to defeat the United States and its ally, South Vietnam, in 1975.



"In the past, the PLA produced numerous miracles in wars, despite being outnumbered by enemies or having inferior weapons compared with those of its adversaries," said the op-ed.



"Today, our troops are well equipped and high-spirited ... Facing risk-takers, the PLA, which owns DF series ballistic missiles, will show them that we are ready for a war and we do not fear wars."



A different op-ed criticized "some U.S. politicians" (U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, for example) for believing that lasting superiority over China in the Asia-Pacific will ensure America's "global leadership," and said playing tricks with China in the South China Sea is unreasonable and dangerous.



The op-ed suggested the U.S. focus on its domestic issues instead of "interfering elsewhere" if it wishes to become "great again," a dig at U.S. president Donald Trump's campaign slogan.



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TagsPeople's Liberation Army, PLA, United States, South China Sea, Chinese People's Volunteers, Korean War, vietnam war
(Photo : Nicolas Asouri - Pool / Getty Images) Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (L) meets China's President Xi Jinping (R) at the Great Halll of the People In Beijing, China.



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Tensions between China and the US continue to rise over the South China Sea as both countries flex their muscle militarily.



Although the People's Liberation Army (PLA) said that it does not want to engage in war, it will certainly not back down if a threat arises at its doorstep, China Daily reported.



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According to an editorial published on the PLA Daily website, the PLA said it would confront "demons" and "intimidation" head on.



It added that the Chinese military was willing to "dare its sword," as it has a proven track record in protecting the nation's interests.



China does not seem to be threatened by the US government's current stance on the South China Sea dispute.



In fact, the PLA cited China's determination during the Korean War, as well the recalcitrance it displayed against the United States during the Vietnam War in the 1960s.



"In the past, the PLA produced numerous miracles in wars, despite being outnumbered by enemies or having inferior weapons compared with those of its adversaries," the editorial said.



"Today, our troops are well equipped and high-spirited...Facing risk-takers, the PLA, which owns DF series ballistic missiles, will show them that we are ready for a war and we do not fear wars," it added.



In a separate article posted on the same website, the author argued that the US' attempts to play tricks with China in the South China Sea "is unreasonable and dangerous."



Meanwhile, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has called on the US to "brush up on its history" regarding the disputed waterway, according to The Independent.



Wang was reacting to earlier comments made by the Trump Administration on the South China Sea row.



US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson remarked during his Senate confirmation hearing that China should not be given access to island it built in the area, as the White House pledged to protect "international territories" in the strategic waters.



However, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter called for sobriety, as he emphasized that the US should utilize diplomacy when dealing with China on the South China Sea row.



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TagsUS, china, US-China relations, China US South China Sea
(Photo : CASC) CH-3 UCAV (above) and FT-1 PGB.

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China has revealed the weapons wish list its subservient ally, Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, plans to buy from it at very advantageous terms, and is recommending aging weapons to fit this small budget.



Philippine defense secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the Philippines will acquire the weapons and equipment through a $14 million grant from China, adding the Philippines is prepared to spend $500 million more for this military hardware.



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Lorenzana said the Philippines submitted its wish list three weeks ago to Chinese ambassador to the Philippines Zhao Jianhua. Among the weapons favored by Duterte are non-satellite precision guided munitions (PGMs); unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) or armed aerial drones and an unspecified type of boat, probably a fast attack craft.



Lorenzana said Duterte doesn't want guided missiles, which are far too expensive. He also said Duterte preferred PGMs because these smart bombs or missiles will reduce civilian casualties (or collateral damage) compared to using iron or "dumb" bombs.



"We asked for many things -- boats, drones," said Lorenzana.



He pointed out that If China approves the $14 million grant, a government representative will go to China to negotiate the deal.



"We haven't gone there (to send a representative) because we just gave them the list. So if they can supply the equipment, that's when we will go," said Lorenzana.



The website of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) that published a story about Duterte's wish list also recommended a few weapons that might give Duterte and the "cash strapped" Philippines more bang for the buck.



It recommended the CH-3 UCAV and the "FT PGB" family of Precision Guided Bomb kits, both of which aren't top of the line but within the small Philippine budget.



The CH-3 UCAV belongs to the CASC Rainbow (Cai Hong) series Chinese UAVs developed by the China Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics, which is part of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC). It has a range of 960 km and can stay airborne for 12 hours.



China has supplied CH-3s to Nigeria along with 100 kg YC-200 guided bombs and AR-1 air-to-ground missiles. AR-1 is designed specifically for UCAVs such as the CH-3 and CH-4.



AR-1 is a derivative of the HJ-10 helicopter-borne anti-tank missile. It carries a 10 kg warhead and has a range of 10 km. It uses either inertial or satellite guidance.



FT PGB is a family of Chinese built PGM kits developed by China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), a subsidiary of CASC. It's an upgrade kit to modernize gravity bombs with precision guidance using either an inertial guidance module or a satellite guidance module.



FT is similar to the U.S. Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) from which it's derived.



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Tagschina, Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, weapons, Delfin Lorenzana, Zhao Jianhua, precision guided munitions, unmanned combat aerial vehicles, CH-3 UCAV, FT PGB
Ukrainians are again facing aggression from Russia, initiated by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Christian blogger Warren Throckmorton asks whether U.S. evangelicals will step in to help.

In a post titled Do Evangelical Leaders Still Care about Ukraine? Throckmorton recalls a short time ago when evangelicals spoke out about Putins actions toward Ukraine and called out President Obama for seemingly being unwilling to confront Putins aggression toward Russias neighbor.

However, now evangelicals seem to be remaining silent while President Trump also allows Putin to bomb Eastern Ukraine.

Trump has been accused for some time of being too friendly with Russia, although he alleges that having a diplomatic relationship with Putin is an asset for the U.S.

Paul Kengor of Grove City College and The Center for Vision & Values notes that The Putin-likes-me attitude of Trump is a fatal conceit, and its something that Donald Trump should have learned from watching two terms of Barack Obamas naive statements and attitude toward the Russians. It is also the polar opposite of Ronald Reagans statements and attitude toward the Russians.

Throckmorton writes that if evangelical leaders still care about the plight of the Ukrainian people I hope they will use their clout with Trump in order to educate him about the dangers of trusting the Russian leader, especially given his recent actions. If anything, Trumps rhetoric is more in lines with a desire to Make Russia Great Again than #MAGA.

Photo courtesy: Thinkstockphotos.com

Publication date: February 9, 2017
At least seven tornadoes tore across eastern Louisiana on Tuesday, leading Governor John Bel Edwards to declare a state of emergency. The twisters caused extensive destruction throughout the state and damaged hundreds of homes. International Christian relief organization Samaritan's Purse was on the ground just hours after the storm.

A Samaritan's Purse Disaster Response tractor-trailer is now on the way, and the organization is mobilizing volunteers to provide relief to New Orleansan area where Samaritan's Purse responded less than 12 years ago after Hurricane Katrina.

"Tuesday's storms hammered eastern Louisiana, leaving hundreds of families reeling from tremendous loss," said Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan's Purse. "We want to show the love of Jesus Christ by reminding families they are not alone and helping them recover from these devastating tornadoes."

ABC News reports that, although there have been no tornado-related deaths, there have been 31 injuries reported. In New Orleans Parish, 9,400 people are without power. Tornadoes were also reported in Mississippi.

The nationwide network of Samartian's Purse volunteers will help families clean up after the storm. Teams will use skid-steer loaders, chainsaws and other equipment to clear debris and remove fallen trees. Volunteers will also assist homeowners by covering damaged roofs with tarp and helping them recover personal belongings.

Courtesy: Samaritan's Purse Press Release

Photo courtesy: Thinkstockphotos.com

Publication date: February 9, 2017
Betsy DeVos was confirmed by the Senate to head the nations Department of Education on Tuesday with a close vote of 51 to 50.

DeVos confirmation is being called as one of the most contentious ones yet, as it required an unprecedented tie-breaking vote from the president of the Senate, Vice President Mike Pence. This marks the first time that a Vice President was called to break a tie in a confirmation vote for a Cabinet position.

The Secretary of Education received more attention than most of her predecessors, and her nomination had been highly controversial. She received much criticism for her performance during the confirmation hearing in January, in which she had difficulty answering many questions about education policy.

DeVos critics also point to her lack of experience in public education  neither she nor her children have attended public schools  and her lack of professional experience in education and politics as reasons she is unqualified for the position.

DeVos is also known to be an advocate of charter schools and vouchers.

Maria Ferguson, the executive director of the Center on Education Policy, told The Atlantic that DeVos garnered negative attention because she represented every negative aspect of what people feel [education] reformers are: white, entitled, wealthy, send their kids to private school.

And when she finally took the stand and had the opportunity to tell the world who she was, she did a very bad job of it, Ferguson added, referring to the confirmation hearing.

Supporters of DeVos argue that Democrats feel threatened by the changes she will bring to the education system as an outsider. For instance, Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee was quoted by the New York Times as saying that DeVos led the most effective public school reform movement over the last few years.

Meanwhile, responses from the Christian community have also been mixed.

On the one hand, some like Ralph Reed, the founder and chairman of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, defend DeVos. In an op-ed for Fox news, Reed described DeVos as a convincing and passionate advocate for the cause of school choice and greater parental control over how and where their children are educated.

In her worldview, education dollars should follow the student to the best available school whether it be a traditional public school, charter school or private school, Reed said.

Rev. Robert Sirico of Action Institute pointed to DeVos Christian faith, and told CBN News that DeVos is a solid evangelical Christian, and that she is orthodox in her beliefs and personal commitment to Jesus Christ.

On the other hand, her opponents, including more than 2,700 alumni of DeVos alma mater Calvin College, say that they havent been convinced that she is qualified. The Calvin alumni signed a letter listing four main concerns they have with DeVos, including her advocacy of and financial contributions to religious and charter schools, among others.

DeVos attends Mars Hill Bible Church, a non-denominational church in Grand Rapids. She attended Holland Christian High School before attending Calvin College, where she graduated with a degree in business administration and political science.

At a gathering of Christian philanthropists in 2001, DeVos said the she and her husband hope to confront the culture in which we all live today in ways which will continue to advance Gods kingdom, not to stay in our own safe territories.
home US 100 evangelical leaders decry Trump's travel ban in Washington Post ad

Over 100 evangelical leaders across the U.S. have signed their names onto a letter published in a full-page advertisement to express their dismay over President Donald Trump's executive order that temporarily bans refugees.

The advertisement, which was published in the Wednesday edition of the Washington Post, was sponsored by World Relief, one of nine organizations that are authorized to resettle refugees in the U.S.

"As Christian pastors and leaders, we are deeply concerned by the recently announced moratorium on refugee resettlement. Our care for the oppressed and suffering is rooted in the call of Jesus to 'love our neighbor as we love ourselves,'" the evangelical leaders wrote, as reported by The Christian Post.

"In the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), Jesus makes it clear that our 'neighbor' includes the stranger and anyone fleeing persecution and violence, regardless of their faith or country," it continued.

Signatories of the letter include Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, bestselling Christian author Max Lucado, pastor Eugene Cho of Quest Church in Seattle, Wheaton College professor Ed Stetzer, and Open Doors USA President David Curry, The Christian Post reported.

According to World Relief, over 500 evangelical pastors and ministry leaders have signed the actual letter that will be delivered to Trump.

"This executive order dramatically reduces the overall number of refugees allowed this year, robbing families of hope and a future. And it could well cost them their lives," the letter went on to say.

While the Trump administration has reiterated that the temporary travel ban is meant to allow the review of the refugee vetting process, World Relief has maintained that there is no problem with the vetting system, which takes a minimum of 18 months for applicants to clear.

The executive order, which restricts travelers from seven majority-Muslim countries for 120 days and indefinitely bars the admission of refugees from Syria, was suspended by U.S. District Court Judge James Robart last week.

On Tuesday, a three-judge panel at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments for and against the travel ban as the court considers whether to lift the suspension on Trump's executive order.
home US CBS poll: Majority of Democrats consider Islam, other religions equally violent

A new poll has revealed that a majority of Democrats believe Islam is no more violent than other religions.

As many as 66 percent of Democrats have said that Islam is just as violent as other religions, and nine percent believe that it is less violent. Merely 14 percent have said that Islam encourages violence more than the other religions.

Among Republicans, 25 percent believe that the Islam encourages the same amount of violence as other religions while 63 percent said that it is more violent than other faiths. Only 2 percent believed that it is less violent.

The CBS poll, which was conducted on Feb. 1a2 among 1,019 adult respondents, came after President Donald Trump issued an executive order temporarily restricting refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S.

The results indicated that 85 percent of Republicans approve of the temporary ban, and an equal number of Democrats disapprove. Sixty-eight percent of Republicans believe that the travel ban would make the U.S. safer from terrorism, while 63 percent of Democrats said that the country will be less safe.

Trump had suggested that the government might prioritize Christian immigrants who want to enter the U.S., but the poll results indicated that even American Christians do not agree with the president's plan.

Only nine percent of American Christians believe that priority should be given to their fellow believers, while 87 percent said that religion should not be a factor in deciding which immigrants can be admitted to the country.

Meanwhile, a separate poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports has found that a majority of Democrats believe that Muslims are being mistreated in the U.S., but fewer believe the same thing about Christians in the Islamic world.

As many as 56 percent of Democrats have said that Muslims are being mistreated in America, but only 47 percent think that Christian are being persecuted in Muslim-majority countries.

Among Republicans, 22 percent believe that Muslims are being mistreated in the country while 76 percent said that Christians are being oppressed in the Islamic world.

The Rasmussen poll of 1,000 likely voters also indicated that 49 percent believe that Islam encourages violence more than any other religions, and 71 percent have said that Islamic religious leaders need to increase their efforts to highlight the peaceful beliefs of their faith.
LINCOLN -- A report released this week indicates Nebraska would be less affected by a trade war with Mexico than many other Midwestern states, but two of the state's top economists don't agree.

President Donald Trump has said he plans to renegotiate terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico. He also has floated the idea of a 20 percent tax on Mexican imports to help pay for his proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico board.

Experts have said either one or both of those proposals could lead to a trade war with Mexico, which is the U.S.'s third-largest trading partner.

The report from personal finance website Wallet ranked Nebraska 22nd, barely in the top half of states that might be affected by trade issues between the U.S. and Mexico.

Among the state's ranking higher than Nebraska were Missouri (Eighth), Iowa (10th), Illinois (13th), Kansas (18th) and South Dakota (19th).

WalletHub said it looked at five factors to come up with the ranking: exports to Mexico as a share of total state exports, exports to Mexico as a share of state GDP, imports from Mexico as a share of total state imports, imports from Mexico as a share of state GDP and share of jobs supported by trade with Mexico.

Creighton University economist Ernie Goss said he did not agree with the ranking, noting that nearly 20 percent of Nebraska's exports go to Mexico, considerably more than Kansas, Iowa or Illinois.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln economist Eric Thompson, who heads up the Bureau of Business Research, said the fact that the report does not consider the potential effects on the transportation industry means it "may be underestimating the impact on Nebraska."

Thompson said any regulatory changes limiting trade with Mexico or any other country will reduce economic growth in at least two ways: increasing the price and lowering the quality of goods available to purchase in the U.S. and reducing the productivity and competitiveness of American industry by disrupting global supply chains.

A third possible impact would be reduced overseas demand for exports if countries retaliate against U.S. trade regulations with regulations of their own.

To see the full WalletHub report, go to: https://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-affected-by-trade-war-with-mexico/31888/.
home World ISIS keeps records of how many slaves each jihadist owned

Newly discovered documents have revealed that the Islamic State kept records of the number of slaves owned by each of its fighters.

The documents obtained by the Washington Post list each militant's name, country of origin, country of residence, date of birth, blood type, and weapons specialties. Additionally, the forms also include a section listing the fighters' number of wives and children, as well as the number of slaves each one owned.

The papers also suggested that many of the terror group's foreign recruits are now refusing to join the battle in Iraq, and some are trying to flee the region.

The documents, containing details of 14 "problem" fighters from the Tariq Bin Ziyad battalion, were found by Iraqi forces after they captured an ISIS base in a neighborhood in Mosul last month.

In November, Iraqi forces discovered documents, posters, and other printed materials highlighting the terror group's rules regarding slaves, beard length, and giving of alms.

One leaflet stated that senior ISIS clerics are responsible for distributing female captives to its fighters. Non-Muslim women can be taken as concubines, and militants are allowed to own two sisters, but they can only have sex with one. It also indicated that the militants are not allowed to share a concubine.

"Pre-pubescent girls can be taken as concubines. You cannot have penetrative sex but you can still enjoy them," read the leaflet.

A former ISIS captive has revealed that ISIS has abused over 6,500 women and girls as young as nine.

Nadia Murad, a Yazidi woman who was captured by the extremists when she was 19 in August 2014, said that she was raped by 12 different men.

"They separated any woman over nine years old and were enslaving them they forced us to change our religion and they did everything they wanted to us," Murad recounted. "We were subjected to crimes to their hands that nobody can mention what they did for us," she added.

She said that her sister was also captured along with her, but ISIS executed their mother because she was considered "too old."

Murad was able to escape from captivity after three months, and she has since fled to Germany. She has been traveling around the world to raise awareness about the plight of Yazidi women captured by ISIS.
home US Planned Parenthood rewards clinics with pizza parties for meeting abortion quotas

Former Planned Parenthood staffers have revealed that each clinic has to meet a certain abortion quota each month and that the abortion organization uses incentives like pizza parties and paid time off to motivate its employees to achieve their monthly goal.

In an interview with Live Action President Lila Rose, former Planned Parenthood manager Sue Thayer disclosed that each clinic has a goal for how many abortions were done, and the ones that did not perform abortions had a goal for the number of abortion referrals.

She said that the abortion provider has implemented "corrective action plans" for the facilities that are 10 percent below the quota.

Thayer narrated that she trained her staff to encourage women to choose abortions, and they would try to schedule an abortion appointment before the pregnant woman leaves the clinic.

"We would say things like, 'Your visit today is X number of dollars. How much are you going to put towards that?' If they said, 'I am not able to pay today,' then we would say something like, 'Well, if you can't pay $10 today, how are you going to take care of a baby? Have you priced diapers? Do you know how much it costs to buy a car seat?'" Thayer recounted.

Thayer explained that the employees can be rewarded with pizza parties and two hours paid time off if the clinic consistently meets the quota. If the facility hits the goal three months in a row, the manager could become the "center manager of the month" and have lunch with the upper management in Des Moines, she said.

Marianne Anderson, who served as a nurse for over two years at a Planned Parenthood in Indianapolis, said that she sometimes felt like she was "more of a salesman" because of the quota that her clinic has to meet.

"[W]e were constantly told that we had quotas to meet to stay open. Like I said, I felt more like I was selling abortions sometimes than treating people," she said.

The interview with former Planned Parenthood employees is part of a series of investigative videos released by Live Action. The pro-life group has spent $500,000 in a digital ad campaign to release the videos to the public and to put pressure on lawmakers to consider legislation that would strip Planned Parenthood of its annual federal funding.
home World South African pastor makes congregants drink water laced with rat poison for 'healing'

A South African pastor has come under fire after he made his congregants drink water laced with rat poison for "nourishment and healing."

Light Monyeki, the pastor of Grace Living Hope Ministries in Soshanguve in Pretoria, reportedly mixed Rattex rat poison with water and drank the concoction himself before he gave it to the congregants.

The church noted on its Facebook page that the pastor made the congregants drink the poison so that they could "show forth their faith." The pastor referred to a highly addictive drug called nyaope, which is made up of ingredients ranging from low-grade heroin, dagga, rat poison and detergents containing chlorine and ammonia.

"As [the pastors] was [feeding the congregants] he said, 'we do not need to proclaim faith because we are believers. If nyaope boys can smoke Rattex for more than 8 years, who are we? Death has no power over us.' Then he declared life from above upon the water mixed with Rattex; and spoke nourishment unto bodies and healing unto the sick," the post read.

After the pastor's declaration, the congregants voluntarily ran to the front to have a drink of the concoction, according to The Citizen.

Monyeki is just one of several controversial pastors who have used bizarre methods during church services.

In 2014, Pastor Lesego Daniel of Rabboni Centre Ministries made his followers drop to the floor and eat the grass on the ground, telling them that it will "bring them closer to God."

In 2015, Pastor Penuel Mnguni of the End Times Disciples Ministries in Soshanguve made the members of his congregation eat rocks and snakes, claiming that they have been turned into bread and chocolate.

In November, Lethebo Rabalago of the Mount Zion General Assembly in Limpopo was seen in photographs spraying his followers with Doom pesticide to cure various ailments.

Last month, Prophet Bongani Maseko of Daveyton's Breath of Christ Ministries was shown in pictures making his congregation drink what appeared to be engine cleaning fluid.

Thoko Mkhwanazi-Xaluva, the chairperson of Commission for Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Religious, Cultural and Linguistic Communities, called on religious leaders to rally together to put a stop to the controversial practice she described as "reckless" abuse of Christianity.

She said that pastors should allow their churches to be regulated in order to prevent similar incidents.

"Doctors have a peer review body, so do lawyers, so they know they can't do anything unacceptable. Why should it be different with them (pastors)?" she remarked.
home World Trump administration condemns arrest of two Christian pastors in Zimbabwe

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has raised concerns over the human rights situation in Zimbabwe following the arrests of two prominent pastors who have protested against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's regime.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Embassy in Zimbabwe's capital of Harare issued a statement condemning the arrest of Pastors Evan Mawarire and Philip Patrick Mugadza, News 24 reported.

Mugadza was arrested last month after he "prophesied" that Mugabe would die before the end of the year. He was charged with "criminal insult," as well as undermining the authority of the president. He is facing six months imprisonment or a fine of $200 if convicted.

Mawarire, the founder of the #ThisFlag movement, was arrested last week when he made a surprise return to the country following a self-imposed exile in the U.S. He was charged with subverting a constitutionally elected government, and he could face 20 years' imprisonment if convicted.

On Wednesday, a judge ordered Mawarire to be released on a $300 bail. The pastor was ordered to surrender his passport and report to the police twice a week.

U.S. embassy spokesperson David Mcguire described the arrests of the two men as "unwarranted."

"The US government unequivocally believes in the basic right of freedom of speech and calls on the government of Zimbabwe to respect the human rights of all Zimbabweans which are enshrined in the constitution," said Mcguire.

"We believe that the basic right of Zimbabweans to freedom of speech - be it in public, through print media or social media - should be protected within and outside Zimbabwe's borders," he added.

In response to the statement, an official from the Mugabe administration criticized the U.S. government, saying it is quick to accuse other nations of human rights abuses every time its attempt at regime change is thwarted.

Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Permanent Secretary George Charamba said that whoever issued the statement was not competent to talk about the human rights situation in Zimbabwe.

He asserted that the statement came from an official appointed by former President Barack Obama whose future is uncertain in the new administration.

"Whoever that person is, is a left over from a terrible era. Is it because this person is their agent?" he said. "He thinks he can boss over us. They can go and hang on a banana tree," he added.
home World U.N. committee denies accreditation to Christian persecution charity

A United Nations committee has voted to deny the accreditation of religious advocacy group Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) after deferring the group's application since 2009.

In 2009, CSW applied for consultative status with the U.N.'s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), but the application was continually deferred, hampering the group's opportunities to promote the freedom of religion. The status would allow the group to attend meetings at key human rights advocacy platforms such as the Human Rights Council and General Assembly.

The United Nations Committee on Non-Governmental Organisations, which is comprised of 19 U.N. member states, recently voted 11a4 against CSW's application, with one abstention and three absences.

The four states that voted in favor of CSW's accreditation were USA, Greece, Uruguay and Israel. Some of the countries that voted against the application included China, Sudan and India, which had track records of persecution against Christians.

Other countries that opposed CSW's accreditation were Cuba, Pakistan, South Africa, Iran, Sudan, Turkey, Venezuela and Nicaragua. Russia abstained while Azerbaijan, Guinea and Mauritania were absent. CSW has already expressed plans to appeal the decision.

CSW has recently urged China to put an end to the human rights abuses against Christians and stop the use of torture against prisoners.

CSW's Kiri Kankhwende told Premier News Hour that the group will not be silenced by the countries that voted against the accreditation.

"A lot of [these countries] are dead set against us but we're not going to silence our voice in criticising them either," she said.

Kankhwende said that the charity is hopeful that it will stand a better chance of receiving the consultative status when the case is brought before the wider committee. She noted that the group would only need about 56 percent of the wider committee to vote favorably in order to get the accreditation.

CSW's Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas was not pleased with the decision, but he expressed his gratitude to the countries that voted in favor of the application.

"It is deeply concerning that the UN Committee on NGOs, the very entity which is tasked to facilitate NGOs access to the UN, is instead actively blocking civil society access to the UN," said Thomas.

"We believe that this decision is effectively an attempt to silence CSW and undermine the promotion of freedom of religion or belief within the UN system," he added.
Ab Fab Star Joanna Lumley Fronts Bishop Of London Appeal

Actress and celebrity Joanna Lumley stars in a new film to launch the Richard Chartres Fund, a campaign to raise money in memory of the retiring Bishop of London after 21 years in charge.

The Absolutely Fabulous star narrates the short video showcasing different projects across the Diocese of London, held up by Church leaders as the most successful area in terms of church growth.

"Since Richard Chartres' appointment as Bishop of London in 1995, the city has changed beyond recognition," she says.

"From the dawning of the 21st century, to the dotcom crash and the emergence of the digital revolution to mourning those we lost on 7/7; from stock market highs to catastrophic lows; from the fear of the riots to the excitement of the Olympics, the last 22 years have certainly been memorable."

"Throughout these tumultuous times Richard Chartres has helped Londoners navigate unpredictable events, provided a challenge to injustice and a consistent and dependent booming voice of truth."

Lumley was raised a Christian but described herself as a "pagan" in an interview in 2012.

"I think I'm a pagan, but a believer in all. I kind of believe in the trees. Do you know?" she told the Radio Times magazine.

"I think most of us are curious. Which is why religion is so important to people. We all want to find out "What's it all about, Alfie?" before we book out completely," she said at the time.

"I was brought up as a Christian  first in India, in a house which had all these masses of Buddhist images, in a country where Hinduism reigned  and then in the Far East where the call of the muezzin [the Islamic call to prayer] was heard every morning.

"I'm a fellow traveller with all these faiths, but I haven't got a personal tradition.

"The message I would take from the story of the flood as God's punishment is that we are all responsible for behaving properly on the planet. Look after it, because it could go badly wrong."

In the video she says: "Today presents tremendous challenge and opportunity.

She went on: "As inequality increases the church must respond."

The fund launched as Chartres retires aims to raise 1.4million for church growth across the capital.
Anglican Evensong To Be Celebrated For First Time Ever In Vatican

For the first time ever Anglican evensong will be celebrated at St Peter's Basilica, the heart of the Catholic church.

The Archpriest of St Peter's gave permission for the unique event, due on March 13, in a recent meeting with Archbishop David Moxon, director of the Anglican Centre in Rome. The gesture comes on the 500th year of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the Cathedral door in Wittenburg, sparking the Protestant reformation.

The move "reflects the deepening bonds of affection and trust between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church," a statement from the Anglican Centre read.

Last year Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury celebrated Vespers together at the Basilica of San Gregorio al Celio in Rome.

On top of that 19 pairs of Anglican and Catholic bishops from dioceses across the world were sent out in joint mission, in a symbolic act of unity.

The event marked 50 years since the Anglican Centre was set up in Rome to improve ecclesiastical relations.

The invite for evensong is set for March 13 as it is the nearest date available to the feast of St Gregory the Great, patron of Anglican-Catholic relations. Gregory was the Pope who commissioned St Augustine to evangelise Britain in 595. He went on to become the first Archbishop of Canterbury.

Merton College Choir, Oxford, will provide the music for the evensong.
Archbishop Of Canterbury Slams Government As It Abandons Plans To Help Lone Child Refugees

The Archbishop of Canterbury has attacked the government's backtrack on its commitment to help thousands of lone refugee children in Europe.

The Most Rev Justin Welby joined other senior Church of England bishops in strongly criticising the move after just 350 children were welcomed to the UK, rather than the 3,000 expected.

In a forthright statement on Thursday, the leader of the CofE warned against the "worrying trends we are seeing around the world" and spoke out against "seeing the movement of desperate people as more of a threat to identity and security than an opportunity to do our duty".

He said: "We cannot withdraw from our long and proud history of helping the most vulnerable."

The Home Office's low key announcement on Wednesday said the scheme to resettle unaccompanied child refugees under Lord Dubs' amendment to the 2016 immigration bill would stop at the end of March.

Immigration minister Robert Goodwill said 200 children had arrived so far and another 150 would follow before the end of March. But he said no further places were available with local authorities.

In an unusual direct intervention Welby said he was "saddened and shocked" by the statement.

"Our country has a great history of welcoming those in need, particularly the most vulnerable, such as unaccompanied children," he said.

Announcing the end of the Dubs' programme Goodwill insisted the government had never committed to a figure and said it would always be dependent on the number of local authority places available.

But Welby joined the Bishop of Croydon, Rt Rev Jonathan Clark and others insaying the backtrack "does not meet the spirit of the commitment" given last year.

"To end the scheme now, when such a small proportion have actually entered the country, is regrettable," Welby said. "Local authorities, who are bearing the costs of the resettlement, must be given the resources and time needed to meet our original commitment."

Welby called on the government to reconsider and work with church groups to offer refugees sanctuary.
Bishops Condemn Government As It Abandons Plan To Help Child Refugees

Church of England bishops are among those voicing dismay after an understated government announcement said it will end the commitment to provide safety to thousands of lone refugee children in Europe.

The scheme came in under Lord Dubs' amendment to the immigration bill last year and aimed to help some of the estimated 90,000 unaccompanied child asylum seekers across Europe.

But a Home Office announcement said the programme would end in March after just 350 were brought to the UK under the scheme.

Immigration minister Robert Goodwill said 200 children had arrived so far and another 150 would follow before the end of March. But he said no further places were available with local authorities.

A further 700 unaccompanied children have arrived in the UK under separate EU-wide legislation.

Senior Anglican bishops joined a chorus of outrage over the announcement with the Bishop of Durham, the Rt Rev Paul Butler, calling it "deeply disappointing", according to the Guardian.

He said: "Those who worked hard for this understood that the government was committing to up to 3,000 children. The need has not diminished. The survey of local authorities was undertaken several months ago and should at least have been redone before such a decision was made. I hope that the government will reconsider."

Bishop of CroydonJonathan Clark accused ministers of fuelling human trafficking.

"It appears that the government may also be working on outdated information from local authorities as to how many places they will provide  there are plenty of local authorities now saying they could provide for more children," he said, according to the Guardian.

"This appears to be a deliberate decision of will by the government rather than being forced on them and runs against the spirit of Lord Dubs's original amendment.

"But most importantly there is a crying human need from children who will otherwise get into the hands of traffickers. By refusing to help those children you are in effect helping the trafficking industry."

A legal challenge to the government's handling of the Dubs process has already been launched by Help Refugees, a charity working with refugees in Europe. The judicial review will be heard on Friday into whether officials consulted local authorities properly about how many children could be housed.

Announcing the end of the Dubs' programme home office minister Goodwill insisted the government had never committed to a figure and said it would always be dependent on the number of local authority places available.

But Bishop Clark said the amendment had originally proposed 3,000 be accepted and although this was not put into legislation, "ministers signalled that the Government would abide by the spirit of the original amendment.

"There is a huge question over how about 400 is in the spirit of 3,000," he said.

Christian Aid, a humanitarian charity, also condemned the decision and said it sent a worrying message.

Head of advocacy Tom Viita said: "After Trump's refugee ban in recent weeks, it is shocking to see the UK sending out another deeply worrying message to the rest of the world. Theresa May and her government need to be pulling Trump up, rather than following him downwards.

"The international community, the UK included, needs to find a fair way of sharing responsibility for people forcibly displaced from their homes. We are experiencing global displacement on a level not seen since the Second World War. Poor countries are hosting most people in dire need and here we are once again, one of the richest countries in the world, attempting to shirk responsibility."
Christian Hip-Hop Artist Censored By Southern Baptist Retailer Says White Evangelicals Don't Understand Black Culture

A popular Christian hip-hop artist whose album was dropped by the Southern Baptist retailer LifeWay Christian Stores after customer complaints has said that white evangelicals fail to understand black culture.

The artist, Amisho Baraka Lewis, who goes by the better known stage name Sho Baraka told the Washington Post that his album released last October and called 'The Narrative' had been dropped by the retailer because of explicit language.

Baraka said he agrees with the publisher that sex is intended for within marriage, but added that its customers merely aren't used to how an artist like him articulates that point of view.

Baraka called LifeWay's decision 'typical of the Christian industry', adding that it points to a larger problem among American evangelicals, who are three-quarters white, when it comes to African-American culture.

According to the Baptist News, Lifeway similarly refused to sell the Christian author Rachel Held Evans's book A Year of Biblical Womanhood because it contained a word deemed to be explicit.

Before that, it stopped selling DVDs of The Blind Side, a secular film chosen for promoting Christian values, after complaints about its use of street language and ethnic slurs.

The story comes just days before Southern Baptist churches across the nation observe Racial Reconciliation Sunday on February 12.

Baraka told the Washington Post that despite conservative outcry over political correctness, both sides want to censor voices that don't fit their narrative.

'The moment someone like me communicates something like this, who's the one being censored now?' he asked.

The Southern Baptist Convention was founded by slave-holders in 1845 and largely supportive of segregation before the civil rights movement.

It apologised for its past mistreatment of African Americans in a resolution passed on its 150th anniversary in 1995.

In its resolution, the Convention pledged 'to eradicate racism in all its forms from Southern Baptist life' and to pursue 'racial reconciliation in all our relationships, especially with our brothers and sisters in Christ.'




1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
Church Buildings Are Criminally Underused. It's Time To Throw Open The Doors

Church buildings come in all shapes and sizes. From the dramatic Gothic Cathedral to the humble pre-fab chapel, church buildings are, more often than not, at the heart of their communities.

Even churches which don't own their own buildings often find themselves meeting in places right in the heart of where people live  schools, community centres and even buildings which belong to other churches.

Because of our Christian history, churches often have prime locations  in city centres, in the heart of residential areas, alongside other key civic institutions such as town halls and schools.

This makes it all the more disappointing to learn that buildings belonging to churches are lying unused for much of the week. A new report from the Centre For Theology & Community (for whom I have worked) has researched how much are buildings are actually in use. Assets Not Burdens: Using Church property to accelerate mission takes a snapshot of one London borough, Islington, and looks into how church buildings from all denominations are used.

It's quite discouraging to learn the bare statistics. Church halls are empty 57 per cent of the week, church worship spaces are empty 69 per cent of the week and church meeting rooms are empty 75 per cent of the week. This is disappointing on a number of levels.

First, it means that the chance of us having interactions with people from the local area are low. Second, it means that more often than not, people will see a closed or even locked door on a church building. Third, it means we're missing out on income which could be ploughed back into mission.

So, what's going on here? Why aren't more of our churches flinging wide the doors and welcoming in community groups, charities and small businesses to use their spaces? Well, many of them are. The report acknowledges that, "Nearly every church uses its buildings to benefit the community, either by providing church-run activities or hosting the activities of other organisations." It also says that some larger churches are setting a good example and have staff who manage their halls and other buildings.

The real problem lies with those churches who don't have the capacity to do this. Too often, buildings are seen as burdens, swallowing time, money and effort. Marketing and managing church spaces can seem like too much of a demanding task  especially with so many competing pastoral and spiritual challenges. The report argues that this needn't be the case, though.

It says the main barrier to opening up buildings is how they are viewed. "The solution lies in recognising their potential for mission," it says, "which leads to church growth. We need a change of mind set."

With this in focus, the report highlights several case studies of churches large and small which have creatively used their spaces. It showcases the example of KXC, a church which has opened up one of its buildings for use as a co-working space  meaning freelance workers and small businesses have a base to work from. The church then has interactions with a whole group of people it wouldn't necessarily have come across  all while receiving some rental money from the project.

It isn't just for large churches though. The report says there are options to provide the capacity smaller churches lack. "We propose a new enterprise-based approach," it argues, "a pilot social enterprise which would help these churches to market and manage their spaces and get them into greater use, whilst generating an income for the church as well."

The approach has met with a warm reception from different branches of the Church. Bishop Dr Joe Aldred is a leading voice in the Black Pentecostal church. He said Christians must, "beware buildings becoming mausoleums, objects of worship, places of pietistic retreat, or even places of exclusive cultural retreat," while he suggested churches should be looking at innovative solutions: "All the resources which churches accumulate are intended by God to be put to use in the service of God and the mission of God in the world.

For his part, The Bishop of Worcester, Rt Rev John Inge said a creative approach to church buildings fits with the Church of England's, "vision to see Christians using their buildings 'to love our neighbour' as well as to worship God."

So, the challenge is laid down, and hopefully it's one that many will rise to. Churches can use their buildings better to facilitate mission and bring in much-needed income. Everyone's a winner.
Come, Holy Spirit: Archbishop Of Canterbury Urges Prayer For Evangelism

There is a "move of the Spirit going on", according to the Archbishop of Canterbury  and it's centred on prayer.

Speaking at the launch of the 2017 Thy Kingdom Come prayer campaign, he referred to the astonishing success of last year's initiative.

Expected to involve around 5,000 people, it was supported by 20 times as many - around 100,000.

The campaign involves encouraging individuals, families and churches to pray for evangelism between Ascension and Pentecost, May 25 to June 4. This year more resources have been produced and "beacon" events planned at cathedrals and other venues to attract large numbers of people.

Archbishop Justin Welby said at Lambeth Palace this morning: "When the wind of the Spirit is blowing, hoist the sails."

He said Thy Kingdom Come was not a Church of England event, "any more than someone who starts an avalanche can say, 'That's my avalanche.'"

The initiative has been adopted by the World Methodist Conference, the Salvation Army and the Roman Catholic Church, and at a meeting in Istanbul earlier this week Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew gave it his blessing.

Welby said: "Everyone is doing it their own way. Just pray, between Ascension and Pentecost, for the work of the Spirit, that we will see God opening people's hearts to receive the good news of Jesus."

He spoke of the importance of relying on God and "knowing you haven't got what it takes to do something". He reflected movingly on an experience two years in a refugee camp in the Democratic Republic of Congo where all support had been withdrawn, describing it as "a most terrible place".

He described spending time in a tent with disabled children who had been abandoned by their parents, a place of "absolute horror"; when he came out he was asked by the local bishop to speak some words of encouragement. Feeling he had nothing to say, he quoted the verse "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, the today and forever."

"They all started singing and applauding," he said. "I thought, Oh, that's God doing that. I was going to give practical solutions, but they wanted someone to remind them that God doesn't change."

He said: "None of us have the resources to bring people to faith in Jesus Christ. The cupboard is bare. But the task is set before us by Jesus himself, who says, 'You are my witnesses.' We are to be Jesus in the world."

Welby said: "I cannot remember anything I've been involved in when I have sensed so clearly the work of the Spirit."

He concluded: "We pray many prayers not knowing how they will be answered. But when we pray, 'Come, Holy Spirit', we know he will move in a way that points people to Jesus Christ."

Resources for the campaign can be found on the Thy Kingdom Come website, including a Pledge2Pray page showing an interactive map which lights up the locations throughout the world where prayer is taking place.
Donald Trump's National Security Adviser Bares Plan To Win Global War Against Radical Islam

How to crush radical Islam?

U.S. President Donald Trump has long vowed to put an end to the global threats posed by Islamic terrorists but has not presented yet a detailed plan of action.

Earlier, Trump ordered his National Security Adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, to work with the U.S. Defense Department and other security agencies to draft a comprehensive plan to not only defeat the Islamic State (ISIS) on the battlefield but "delegitimize its radical Islamist ideology" as well, and submit the plan to him by the end of this month.

Flynn has not submitted the plan yet but has actually laid out the details of such a plan in his 2016 book, "The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies," the New York Post reported.

In the book, the 33-year Army veteran drew a plan to combat radical Islam on a broad front, including the use of informational warfare.

Flynn proposes discrediting the "evil (religious) doctrines" that motivate jihadists, including the belief of Islamic rewards for martyrdom or suicidal terrorism. In this regard, Flynn calls for the use of psy-ops and counter-propaganda to be carried out not just by federal government agencies but also through "our schools, media and social networks."

Flynn says the government may have to draft digital media giants such as Google, Facebook and Twitter to help "wage ideological warfare" against radical Islam.

The retired general also wants to use radio and TV to conduct psychological warfare against Islamist extremists.

But before this plan can be implemented, he says the government has to get rid of the political taboo of tying Islamic violence to the religion of Islam, including the Quran, which Flynn says is being used by terrorists and jihadists as a manual of warfare.

"If we can't tackle enemy doctrines that call for our domination or extinction," Flynn writes, "we aren't going to destroy their jihadis."

Meanwhile, Flynn warned Iran last week after it tested a medium-range ballistic missile on Jan. 29, hinting of a possible military action if such act is repeated, The Daily Beast reported.

"As of today (Feb. 1), we are officially putting Iran on notice," Flynn said, without elaborating what the U.S. would do if Iran fired another missile.

Relatedly, MSNBC has reported that Trump is trying to "quell an uprising within his own defense and foreign-policy team," with Flynn at the centre of the dispute, quoting The Wall Street Journal.

The news outlet noted that Flynn has long clashed with the intelligence-community establishment over the U.S. fight against global terrorism.
Hope And Struggle For Iran's Underground Christians: 'A Persecuted, Vulnerable Church'

The Church in Iran is vulnerable, faces great opposition, and is also experiencing "unprecedented growth". Stories of hope are emerging amid a time of great challenge. Christian Today spoke with the London based group that's leading the way in equipping Iran's underground church leaders.

A story of hope

The story of Narineh illustrates the kind of "radical change of heart" that is taking place in Iran. The story, which you can read at length here, tells of Feridoon, a man sentenced to death after he killed a man called Afshin. Afshin's family for a time only felt "anger, hatred and pain", and demanded Feridoon's execution. Narineh mediated however, and met often with Feridoon and Afshin's family, sharing the love and grace of Christ with both.

For a while, Narineh's efforts seemed in vain. However:

"Two days prior to the execution, Afshin's family experienced a radical change of heart. Through Narineh's witness and their watching the Jesus film, the Holy Spirit touched their hearts. They decided to visit Feridoon in prison. There, they told Feridoon that they forgave him. Then they went to the prison office and requested that Feridoon be set free and not executed. There were no dry eyes in the room. No one could understand the grace Afshin's family showed toward Feridoon."

The family said: "Thanks be to Christ! He is the one who helped us show mercy and it was Christ who wanted us to find new life."

As the account writes: "New life" truly flowed into Afshin's house that afternoon. At Narineh's invitation, all those present committed themselves to Christ. Hatred melted away, replaced by love, grace and forgiveness. Today, both families lead house churches."

The challenges of growth

This story comes from an underground church network in Iran. Christian Today spoke with "S" from Pars Theological Centre, a seminary that trains the network's leaders.

"We do hear a lot of remarkable, dramatic stories that really take us by surprise." she said.

"S" describes the Church movement in Iran as "experiencing unprecedented growth," with Iran being at the "eye of the storm" of Muslims turning to Christ across the region.

The church is growing at a rapid rate, but with this comes serious concerns about the depth of growth and discipleship particularly among new converts. There are also sparse resources and leaders to equip and shepherd this growing movement. Many of the Christian leaders who operated in Iran 10 or 20 years ago have since been arrested or forced to leave the country.

This has resulted in the spreading of varieties of distorted teaching and practice including misunderstandings of the Trinity, and extreme forms of authoritarian leadership and control.

Pars aims to combat this leadership and discipleship deficit, providing the Iranian Church the guidance and proper training that it needs to flourish.

"We operate like a seminary. We exist to provide leadership development and theological education to the underground Christian movement in Iran. The way we do that is quite complicated," "S" says.

Pars Theological Centre currently serves about 300 students, most of which are inside Iran. The remainder reside in the 15 other countries to which the Iranian diaspora has spread, including, in particular, Turkey.

Pars doesn't have a residential seminary in Iran. No Christian seminaries exist in Iran, having all been shut down. Persian-speaking churches are illegal, meaning Christians are forced underground.

Pars began its work in 2010 as a response to this situation. The seminary uses a "hybrid approach" in its education. One such element is an online learning programme, where students access academic courses which include webinars, video lectures, and tutors for each course. The seminary also expends much of its resources in translating English theological literature into Farsi. Pars organises mentors who meet with the students and support them in their personal and spiritual growth/ development.

The seminary also organises what it calls "formation conferences", that gather small groups of students and teachers for up to 10 days, offering face-to-face fellowship, prayer and teaching that would be otherwise impossible. Pars has hosted 40 conferences in the last 4 years. "S" describes it as "Quite a logistical challenge," but notes that "so far all have come and gone safely, which is amazing."

Constant opposition

In 2016 there were 193 arrests of Christian believers, many of which were involved in serving Iran's house churches. In the same year 60 of Pars' students had to take a leave of absence because they were arrested or were connected to arrests in their church networks. Just two weeks ago, four students were arrested and had to leave Iran, when released.

The most common charge accompanying Christian arrests is one of "acting against national security".

"S" describes religious freedom in Iran thus: "There is no freedom for religious minorities who convert from a Muslim background. They experience a great deal of discrimination and are under constant pressure and heavy restrictions. They lose their jobs, are thrown out of colleges and universities, and are even put into jail."

The situation for the house-church movement in Iran is clearly complex, being at once vibrant and fast-growing, whilst also facing internal problems and much opposition.

As "S" describes it: "There's so much growth. But it's also a persecuted, vulnerable church that needs our help."
How Can Churches Hope To Witness To Christ When They Are Left Empty For Days On End?

Churches are failing to witness effectively to Christ because they are allowed to lie empty for much of the week, along with church halls and meeting rooms.

Churches could be meeting and serving their neighbours better while also bringing in much needed finance, according to a new report.

Church buildings, halls and offices sit empty for much of the week and could be put to better use the research says. Not only could churches be making more money (an estimate says that in London, that could mean around 60,000 extra per year) but also, having more people through the doors would directly benefit the churches' mission and outreach.

The report, Assets Not Burdens: Using church property to accelerate mission, by the Centre For Theology & Community, calls for a change in the way churches use their buildings. It says: "There is enormous potential for each denomination to make greater use of its buildings, which would have a missional and a financial benefit."

The research has been welcomed by a number of Anglican Bishops and Pentecostal leaders such as Bishop Dr Joe Aldred from Churches Together In England, who says: "It should encourage churches that in making more and better use of their buildings they will make more friends and perhaps more money too.

Research in the London Borough of Islington showed that church halls are empty 57 per cent of the week, church worship spaces are empty 69 per cent of the week and church meeting rooms are empty 75 per cent of the week.

Though larger churches often have staff who can manage property which belongs to the church, smaller congregations struggle with the capacity to use their buildings effectively. The report acknowledges this and suggests a central system for booking and managing property could be developed.

Commenting on the report, the Bishop of Worcester, John Inge says: "Church buildings should never be silent mausoleums but always vibrant centres of service at the heart of their local community." He goes on: "The report's analysis, theology and call to action fit squarely within our own vision to see Christians using their buildings 'to love our neighbour' as well as to worship God."
Is Divorce An Unforgivable Sin? Billy Graham Answers

Even Christians suffer from unhappy marriages, and many of them have ended up in divorce. But does God, who upholds the sanctity of marriage, allow divorce?

World-renowned evangelist Billy Graham said divorce is not part of God's original plan for marriage, but unfortunately, it has now become a reality. Despite this fact, Graham said divorce should not be treated casually by couples, nor should it be a quick escape from their problems.

"This doesn't mean divorce is the unforgivable sin (which it isn't), nor does it mean God can't bring healing to those who have been hurt by divorce (for He can). But it does mean that divorce almost always brings with it a host of negative emotions and practical problems that are not easily erased," Graham wrote on his website.

But if divorce is an inevitable reality, Graham said couples should accept the situation and make sure that their children would not get in the middle of their separation. "Don't constantly bring up the past with your children or argue with them; it seldom changes anything," he advised.

Even if children act out negatively due to the divorce, Graham said their parents must do all they can to keep in touch with them and let them know how much they are loved.

Graham wishes that churches could do more to help the youth understand the responsibilities that go with marriage, so that the pitfalls that lead to divorce would be minimised. But for now, he said Christian couples who are going through a difficult time should believe in the healing power of God's love.

Earlier, Graham said complete fulfillment in marriage can never be realised if couples live outside of the life in Christ. Every Christian home is built in Jesus, and with Him in the middle of every marriage, couples can enjoy mutual love, trust, and respect.

"Prayerful consideration of God's Word is most important," he said. "A proper relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ can permit one to live with a sense of peace and security."
Israel Houghton Credits Wife Adrienne Bailon For Helping Him Live With No Regrets

Worship leader Israel Houghton might have made a lot of mistakes in his life, but he is nonetheless grateful for everything that has happened to him.

"I literally could say I have no regrets," Houghton said on BET's newest episode of "Lift Every Voice" on Super Bowl Sunday, according to The Christian Post. "I have a lot of things that I wish I had done differently given the opportunity to redo it, but that would have changed everything, and I am very content with where I am today."

Falling in love with his wife, "The Real" host Adrienne Bailon, really helped Houghton embrace this fresh perspective in life. He said his wife encouraged him and demanded honesty in their relationship right off the bat, so "that's where our friendship really became something special," he said.

For her part, Bailon said that honesty is quite important for her. In her past relationships, Bailon said her honesty was not looked at in a positive light, but things changed when she started a new one with Houghton. Unlike other guys she dated in the past, Houghton valued her enough to uphold her honesty.

"I'm almost too honest for my own good, in this case it actually benefited me. If I had never been that way, we would never be this way," she said.

Meanwhile, Bailon is harnessing her honesty to discuss one of the hottest topics in America right now: President Donald Trump's so-called "Muslim travel ban."

She earlier posted on Instagram a video showing an Iranian-American couple crying while waiting for their relative at the Los Angeles International Airport. But before they could reunite, their relative had to be rerouted back to Iran because of Trump's immigration order.

"My heart breaks watching this video. Pray for our country. Pray for the world," she captioned it.

The post has already been removed, according to Faith Wire, but the link to it made on her Twitter account (@AdrienneBailon) still remains. In it, she shared an applicable Bible passage from Leviticus 19:33-34. It reads, "When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat... "
Liam Neeson Urges Unity In Northen Ireland, Calls For Protestant And Catholic School Integration

Actor Liam Neeson is leading a campaign to unite Northern Irish school children from Protestant and Catholic backgrounds, who are traditionally taught separately.

93 per cent of children in Northern Ireland are taught at schools that are predominantly Protestant or Catholic. Just 7 per cent of schoolchildren  about 22,000  are taught in integrated schools, as BBC News reports.

"As Northern Ireland moves forward from division, who do we look to for a future we can share?" said Neeson, 64, in a video released yesterday, by the Integrated Education Fund.

"We look to our children for the future, so why do we continue to educate them apart: different religions, different backgrounds, different schools?" he says.

"There is another way," he adds.

"Protestants and Catholics, other beliefs and none, learning and working together every day."

The actor urges parents to further the cause of school integration by registering their support on the Integrate My School website. An integrated school needs to attract at least 30 per cent of its students from their community's minority area.

Some schools are not officially integrated but utilise "shared education" programmes, where children from different schools work in joint classes and projects. Complete, formal integration requires a ballot of the school's parents to determine if they favour integration or not.

Neeson was raised as a Roman Catholic, but grew up in a predominantly Protestant town. He plays a Jesuit priest in the recent Martin Scorsese film 'Silence'. Speaking recently about the film and his own faith, he said: "God is love, love is God."

"Together we can build a better society for everyone," Neeson says in the video.

"Most people agree that educating children together is a better way forward for our society - it's time to turn our aspiration into reality."
More Than 500 Evangelical Leaders Warn Trump And Pence Over Refugee Ban

More than 500 evangelical pastors and ministry leaders representing every state in the US have signed a letter published in yesterday's Washington Post expressing grave concern over Donald Trump's refugee policy.

The letter comes as Trump's executive order banning refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries makes its way through the courts.

It was coordinated by World Relief, one of nine agencies nationally authorised by the US State Department to resettle refugees.

"We live in a dangerous world and affirm the crucial role of government in protecting us from harm and in setting the terms on refugee admissions. However, compassion and security can coexist, as they have for decades," says the letter, addressed to Trump and the Vice President Mike Pence.

"While we are eager to welcome persecuted Christians, we also welcome vulnerable Muslims and people of other faiths or no faith at all. This executive order dramatically reduces the overall number of refugees allowed this year, robbing families of hope and a future."

The letter notes how thousands of local American congregations have welcomed newly arrived refugees of all faiths through the Refugee Resettlement Program and how these churches and other ministries still have the desire to welcome many more.

"As Christians, we have a historic call expressed over two thousand years, to serve the suffering. We cannot abandon this call now," it states.

Signatories include the authors Tim and Kathy Keller, senior pastor Bill Hybels and author Lynne Hybels, Northland Church senior pastor Joel Hunter, National Association of Evangelicals President Leith Anderson, New York Times bestselling author Ann Voskamp, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary President Daniel Akin, and Open Doors USA President and CEO David Curry.

"It is not new for the church to use its voice on behalf of those who have none. It is part of our historic call and identity. And for nearly four decades World Relief has helped thousands of churches and tens of thousands of volunteers express that call by welcoming refugees. This letter is evidence that the church will not abandon its calling to serve the most vulnerable," said World Relief President Scott Arbeiter.

Ed Stetzer of Wheaton College added: "Christians have always spoken up for the vulnerable. I hope the Trump administration hears our concerns that we have a safe and compassionate refugee policyand our confidence that we can continue to do both."

Lynne Hybels said: "For some people, embracing refugees is a political issue. For me, as a Christian, speaking up for and caring for refugees is more an act of worship and obedience to a God whose Kingdom is global and whose 'mercies are new every morning.' On a personal level, my life has been profoundly enriched by the courageously resilient refugees I've known in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as in Illinois and Michigan. I hope many more American Christians will be able to enjoy the rewards of such mutually transformational relationships."
Shocking And Sad: Why We Should Be Angry About Closing Our Borders To Lone Child Refugees

There are stories that nations like to tell themselves. The 'imagined community' tells a story about who it is, where it has come from, and where it is going.

Sometimes, this story is harmless and self-deprecating. The British? Why we're the bumbling, apologizing, tea-sipping chaps. We're Hugh Grant. We can bake, though. We're Mary Berry.

Sometimes, we'll get bold and make the story more inclusive. It isn't just about white, middle-class, English, suburban safe-ness. Sometimes we'll be daring and declare our favourite meal is Chicken Tikka Massala! How multicultural. How sensitive. How right on.

Other times, we'll tell ourselves a dangerous, deluded fantasy.

When the hour came, we tell ourselves, we alone stood against the scourge of fascism. We alone came to the aid of the persecuted peoples of Europe. We alone were a safe haven for Jewish people fleeing Hitler's gas chambers. We alone had the ethical integrity to say no to Nazism and racism.

It isn't that there aren't parts of this last point that are true. But it's dangerous because it's far too simplistic a picture.

Before the Americans entered the Second World War, we were almost alone in Europe in standing up to the evil of the Third Reich. But we stood alongside Russia. We also could not have prevailed were it not for the countless soldiers from countries which had been subjugated and colonised by Britain over the previous 300 years.

The 89,000 South Asian forces who were killed have been all but forgotten. The 134,000 who came from British colonies in the Caribbean and elsewhere to fight a war very far from home whose contribution has barely been recognized. The many millions of people who longed for their own freedom across the British Empire but put their dreams on hold to pull together and fight the Nazis.

How were many of them repaid? Over a million perished in the calamitous British partition of India. They became victims of British response to the Mau Mau uprising. They were treated as second class citizens when they answered the UK's call for workers in the post-war period  victims of institutional as well as casual racism.

None of this is to say that we should only be ashamed of our country. Like any imagined community, the UK has a mixed history and should be proud of the tolerance, pluralism and religious freedom which have been hard won over the generations.

We must, however, be realistic. We should now, rightly, look back with horror that more was not done to protect Jews fleeing from the Nazis. 'So much more could have been done to support the Jews  especially as the British knew what was happening in Nazi Germany,' argues one scholar. 'Many refugees were well treated, but many weren't. There is a degree of complacency about our recent past so it's important to dispel that myth.'

This complacency is what should drive us on today as we digest the horrific news that the British Government has opted to close a route into the country for unaccompanied child refugees. Last year the Dubs Amendment, fought for by Lord Dubs - himself a child refugee from Nazi persecution - alongside churches and other faith groups, was agreed. It said 3,000 lone child refugees would be resettled in the UK. Now it seems the government has backtracked  after only 350 were accepted.

What depth of craven moral cowardice is this? Have we learned nothing from our shameful failures of the past? The Home Secretary claims it is 'due to fears it was encouraging people traffickers'. Critics have been quick to dismiss this fear  the Archbishop of Canterbury chief among them. The Most Rev Justin Welby described himself as 'saddened and shocked' in a strong statement about the decision.

For such a careful diplomat as Welby to use this language shows the true extent of the feeling that exists on this issue. Welby, who recently reflected on the depths of the depravity of the Holocaust during a visit to Auschwitz, expresses better than most public figures the deep moral convictions at the heart of the Gospel.

It is our duty as Christians to call our country not to cave in to the obscene and selfish pressure to keep child refugees out. We tell ourselves a lie if we imagine that our story as a nation is universally good. It absolutely is not. But at our best, we can aspire to being a truly moral force for good in the world.

Not if we keep child refugees out. We fail not only them, but ourselves. We belittle ourselves by responding to such suffering with such indifference. Edmund Burke's old saying is almost worn out from overuse. Yet it bears repeating on this most inauspicious day for our country. He is reputed to have said: 'The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.'

We can start by signing the Citizens UK petition on the issue, writing to our MPs, joining in with Bishops and other faith leaders in calling on the government to reconsider. Most important we mustn't close our eyes. Not now. Not ever.

Follow Andy Walton on Twitter @waltonandy
Page Content



The opinion was drawn up at the CoR's initiative, with the aim of contributing to the European Union's ongoing review of the European Consensus on Development. The Consensus, which was adopted in 2005, is being revised and updated to reflect the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2016-30 agreed by the United Nations in 2015.

Jesus Gamallo Aller (ES/EPP), the director-general for external relations for the regional government of Galicia, said: "The United Nations has recognised that cities and regions must be given a bigger role if we are to bring hundreds of millions out of extreme poverty and to improve the life chances of everyone. Local governments provide many of our most basic services, they can help identify and remedy problems, and we cannot have peaceful and well-governed societies if we do not try to tackle inequality and social problems in our cities. And, as we know, the world is becoming more urban. A fast-urbanising world requires more urban responses to development challenges. The EU is the leading provider of development aid, and it should lead in the process of mobilising local governments to contribute to the meeting the UN's targets. That is why we decided to write this opinion."

Mr Gamallo Aller, who drafted the opinion for the CoR, said that the EU should promote alliances between local and regional authorities. He said this should be part of a broader shift in the way the EU cooperates with partners in other parts of the world. The opinion calls on the EU to involve lower-level governments more in its support for development outside Europe, to work more with regional and multilateral organisations and to engage more with "South-South" initiatives established between partners in the globe's poorer, southern hemisphere.

The opinion suggests that the EU should involve local and regional authorities in the framing and implementation of development programmes. It also argues that the EU could make coordination, integration and flexibility easier by making greater use of direct budget support  the transferring of funds directly to recipients' budgets  and of EU Trust Funds, to which EU member states, international organisations and private donors can opt to contribute.

The opinion states that "the ordered management of migration must be one of the aims of development action" by the EU ""in order to slacken the pressure of uncontrolled migration flows". That statement complements another set of recommendations adopted on 8 February, on the EU's emerging migration partnerships in the Middle East and Africa. The opinion on migration partnerships , which was drafted by Peter Bossman (SI/PES), the Ghanaian-born mayor of Piran, supports the partnerships but stresses that they must not divert funding from development aid. "We need to ensure that these partnerships reinforce the UN's development agenda, rather than jeopardise it," Mr Bossman said.

In July 2017, the CoR, together with the European Commission, will host a meeting  the Assises of Decentralised Cooperation for Development  with local and regional authorities from developing countries to explore how to develop city-to-city and region-to-region cooperation on issues such as climate action, economic development and migration. This will be the fifth time that this biennial meeting has been held. The CoR also facilitates cooperation between EU and non-EU cities and regions by matching requests and offers of support.

The UN's SDGs are universal in application and therefore set targets that the EU's member states should achieve within their own borders. The CoR will address the implications of the UN SDGs for the EU's local and regional authorities in an opinion that is currently being drafted by Franco Iacop (IT/PES), president of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Regional Council.

Notes to editors:

Jesus Gamallo Aller (ES/EPP) is the long-serving director-general for external relations and relations with the European Union in the Regional Government of Galicia. He is director of the Galicia-Europe Foundation. A lawyer by training, he has also worked at the European University Institute in Florence and as a professor of public administration.

The CoR's opinion on the " New European Consensus on Development " calls on EU member states to honour the target they have set themselves of dedicating 0.7% of gross domestic product to overseas development aid, which it said would remain a "crucial" source of funding for the poorest countries. At the same time, the CoR backs the EU's move "beyond aid" by blending public and private, domestic and international funding to promote development. The opinion argues that the far-reaching, cross-cutting nature of the universal targets agreed in the UN Sustainable Development Goals  which, for the first time, apply to economically developed as well as developing countries  should oblige the EU to pursue consistency across policies such as humanitarian aid, trade, regional integration, health, energy, fisheries, science and technology, migration and the European Neighbourhood Policy.

The CoR and the European Commission will host the 5th Assises of Decentralised Cooperation for Development in Brussels on 10-11 July. The CoR also works with local and regional authorities in the EU's eastern and southern neighbourhoods to address shared challenges through political meetings, policy recommendations, and the exchange of best practice. During the CoR's plenary on 8-9 February, a group of Libyan mayors and officials visited Brussels and Mechelen as part of a study visit focused on financial management. On 22-23 February, CoR members will meet counterparts from the Middle East and North Africa for discussions that will focus on migration and Libya. The centrepiece of the gathering, in Valetta, will be the annual plenary meeting of the Euro-Mediterranean Regional and Local Assembly (ARLEM), which was created by the CoR in 2010.

Contact:

Andrew Gardner

Tel. +32 473 843 981

andrew.gardner@cor.europa.eu
Trump's Supreme Court Nominee Calls President's Twitter Attacks On Judges 'Demoralising' And 'Disheartening'

President Trump's conservative Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil M Gorsuch has called Trump's attacks on US judges 'demoralising' and 'disheartening'.

The comments followed Trump's increasing aggression toward the US judiciary following their opposition to his controversial Muslim travel ban. Trump's executive order banned any immigrants from seven majority Muslim countries from entering the US.

When a Seattle judge blocked the president's order last week, Trump called him a 'so-called judge' and insisted the 'ridiculous' block would be overturned.

Trump later tweeted: 'Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system.'

Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 5, 2017

An appeal to reinstate the ban was made by the White House, but was rejected by the U.S. federal appeals court. Trump later decried the rebel judges as 'disgraceful' and 'so political'.

The comments were judged by critics to be a dangerous overreach of the executive branch, and an undermining of judicial independence and oversight.

Judge Gorsuch, made his comments in a private conversation on Wednesday with Connecticut Democrat Senator Richard Blumenthal, in which he called Trump's attacks on the judiciary 'demoralising' and 'disheartening', as the New York Times reports.

The comments were confirmed by Gorsuch's spokesman Ron Bonjean, and then by Blumenthal. 'In fact, Judge Gorsuch specifically said, "You should feel free to mention what I said about these attacks being disheartening and demoralizing,"' Blumenthal told MSNBC. This prompted a tweet from President Trump, who accused Blumenthal of misrepresenting what Gorsuch said.

Sen.Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie),now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2017

Other sources confirmed Gorsuch's concern about the President's remarks, as CNN reports. Former GOP Senator Kelly Ayotte said today that Gorsuch has told senators that 'he finds any criticism of a judge's integrity and independence disheartening and demoralizing.'

However, according to Ayotte, Gorsuch 'could not comment on any specific cases and that judicial ethics prevent him from commenting on political matters.'

Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska also confirmed Gorsuch's criticism, speaking this morning on MSNBC.

Sasse said that Gorsuch 'got pretty passionate' about the issue, particularly when he was asked about Trump's 'so-called judge' tweet.

'This is a guy who welled up with some energy. He said any attack on any brothers or sisters of the robe is an attack on all judges. He believes in an an independent judiciary,' Sasse said.

Gorsuch, who is 49, was nominated for the Supreme Court by Trump last week, in a conservative selection that delighted many evangelicals. Trump said then that Gorsuch was 'as good as it gets'.
Waiting For The One? What I learned On HTB's Dating Course

As #NationalMarriageWeek Begins, Here's What I Learned On 'The Dating Course'

Yesterday marked the beginning of #NationalMarriageWeek. It's also one week till Valentine's day, which means many may have love and relationships on the brain. For many of course, that means this week is also a bad time to be single. Who needs a hashtag and a week of lurid love-themed festivity to remind them that they're completely alone?

It just so happens that over the last few weeks Holy Trinity Brompton church in London has been running The Dating Course. The course describes itself as "for anyone who is single or in a relationship who wants to explore how to date well." Why can dating, especially for Christians, be so hard? How can we do it better?

Joseph Hartropp had a chance to attend the course, partly for journalistic purposes, but also because he's having a terrible time with online dating and doesn't want to be alone forever. Here's what he learned.

You might meet someone

I rather enjoyed the Dating Course. I'll admit, the thought of it did not thrill me at first. As with most things in life, my Mum practically forced me to go.

"You might meet someone!" she declared, as she actually says anytime I think about leaving the house.

A gathering involving many Christian guys and girls talking about love and dating does sound like it might feel just a little awkward and intense. When I arrived, I was welcomed with the song "Marry That Girl (I'm Gonna Marry Her Anyway)". Not intense at all.

To give credit to the course, they addressed the awkwardness early on, and immediately sought to put people at ease. The course speaker, HTB pastor Will van der Hart, is friendly, funny, and full of genuinely refreshing insight. Here is some of what I learned from the course.

Lets (not) talk about sex

The well-attested Christian preoccupation with sex and marriage was addressed immediately. Mercifully, though surprisingly, van der Hart made it clear that we wouldn't be talking about sex and marriage. They can be unhelpful distractions, he says. There is however, "an assumption that those who come want to share their life with someone." So, we can accept the fact that we're all here because we're looking in the direction of long term commitment, without ringing wedding bells every time we mention the possibility of a date. It's a thoughtful, much needed dosage of what they call "chill". I appreciated that.

Define the relationship?

Van der Hart had fun exploring the different definitions we can give to dating. Hanging out? Seeing each other? In an intentional relationship? When does "dating" begin? There comes a time for every couple when one must "define the relationship", or #DTR. The course used a definition coined by van der Hart: "Investing in an attractional relationship with a view to determining its suitability for deeper commitment."

It doesn't exactly roll of the tongue, and it sounds a little bit like dating as imagined by an unfeeling robot, but is actually quite good when you think about it. What might stand out there is the word "attractional". Van der Hart was keen to emphasise that attraction is both godly and important. You're allowed to find someone attractive, and for looks to play a role in that. Of course, true attraction hopefully runs deeper than just ticking off a visual checklist (or swiping left or right on Tinder), but it's also okay to not be physically attracted to someone.

It's not you, it's me

Dating is about you and another person, but the "you" part is quite essential. The course reminded me how much our approach to dating will be so bound up with our own insecurities. One crucial point made was that you mustn't see dating as a fix for your own insecurities. If you have low self-esteem, that won't be improved by getting into a relationship. In fact, dating and relationships will only aggravate your insecurities as they place you under the spotlight, and you find yourself confronted with your own character.

Although Hollywood, and often Church culture, can place great emphasis on finding a relationship to make you happy, it's important to remember that dating cannot "fix" you. Everyone is broken, and marriage is just two broken people getting together, still being broken.

Van der Hart said that getting "date ready" is about establishing self esteem, not expecting the date to be your source of confidence. He warned us to avoid disastrous cliches such as "you complete me", and "I couldn't live without you." It's Christian faith, and the profound value of identity in God, that gives you the self confidence you need.

Dating isn't biblical

Dating isn't biblical! That may surprise you! It's an obvious but crucial point: dating is nowhere to be found in the Bible, nor in human history, until sometime in the 18th century. Most marriages in human history have been arranged ones, and dating, van der Hart says "is what happens when you have to arrange your own marriage." Instead, he said, we can use Biblical principles as we date and relate, such as emphasis on character formation. For example, Van der Hart invited us to make certain promises to ourselves as we date. "Honour every person that you date, and leave them better off." I like that. I envisage a sort of benevolent Casanova, though that may not be what he meant.

Not 'The One'

Christians were reminded not to overspiritualise dating, or use God to manipulate one's partner. You can forget the classical notion of "the One", which van der Hart described as "a set of chains that weigh you down", binding you with the paralysing fear that you haven't married your true magical counterpart. In general, we were warned never to say "God told me I'm going to marry you," an approach that ends up using the divine as a cruel tool, in a way that's almost impossible to argue with.

Keeping it real

The sessions (I went to two of the three) were thoughtful in their embrace of the awkward humanness of dating. The last session took on crucial questions about when you know it's time to really commit to a relationship for the future, or why and how you might go about breaking one off. It reminded us not to expect perfection from a relationship, and to be prepared for hard work.

The course balanced secular and biblical foundations well, in a way that recognised the essential value of Christian faith, without feeling like an exclusive Christianese sermon.

The course is a great idea, was excellently done, and is set to return in the Autumn. I might even be a little inspired by it all. Now I just need to go on an actual date.

You can follow @JosephHartropp on Twitter.
White Supremacist David Duke Celebrates Appointment Of Jeff Sessions As Attorney General

Last night Jeff Sessions was confirmed by the US Senate as Donald Trump's attorney general, a move that was celebrated by former KKK wizard David Duke as "taking America back".

The Alabama Senator was confirmed last night by a vote of 52-47 in the Senate. Sessions, who will now be in charge of the US justice department, has faced repeated allegations of racism, making Trump's selection arguably his most controversial yet.

Sessions was an early supporter of Trump's bid for the presidency. He is an conservative Republican, with clear stances against abortion, immigration, and same-sex marriage. He is also known for his tough stance on criminal justice and in line with Trump's self-appointment as "the law and order candidate."

"By your appointment tonight, I have been given a real challenge. I'll do my best to be worthy of it." Sessions said after the vote.

On Tuesday, Senator Elizabeth Warren was silenced for attempting to criticise Sessions in a Senate hearing on his nomination. Warren attempted to read out a letter from Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King. King wrote the letter in 1986 to oppose the appointment of Sessions to the position of federal judge.

The letter includes the allegation that Sessions "used the awesome powers of his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters."

Warren began reading the letter, which read: "Mr Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens," at which point she was interrupted by Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell.

McConnell accused Warren of impugning Sessions' character, and Warren was then forbidden to speak for the rest of the Senate discussion.

David Duke, a white nationalist and former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan made clear his enthusiasm about the confirmation. When Sessions was originally picked in November, Duke praised Sessions for publicly opposing "the massive, institutionalized racial discrimination against white people called affirmative action."

Following Session's confirmation, Duke tweeted:

Law & Order, welcome back...

Sessions has called allegations that he was a supporter of the KKK "damnably false", but was criticised when he joked that he thought the Klan were OK until he heard they smoked marijuana.

Actor Chris Evans registered the frustration of many when he tweeted in repsonse to Duke's praise of Sessions: "If David Duke...thinks you're right, then you are unequivocaly wrong."
Christies to unveil Los Angeles flagship in April

The 5,400-square-foot, two-storey space designed by wHY is set to become an exciting new hub for collectors in the heart of Beverly Hills

In April 2017 Christies will open a new 5,400-square-foot, two-storey flagship location in Beverly Hills, California. This exciting move is in response to growing demand among Los Angeles-area collectors for greater access to buying and selling opportunities, fine-art advisory and appraisal services, private selling exhibitions, auction highlight tours, and art-related estate and wealth-management services. A team of highly respected specialists working across Christies major collecting categories will call this new location home, supplementing the companys long-standing San Francisco presence, and dramatically increasing the companys influence on the West Coast. The expansion of our West Coast footprint is a key growth initiative for Christies in 2017, says Guillaume Cerutti, Chief Executive Officer. With its vibrant community of major collectors, artists, tastemakers and cultural institutions, southern California has been an important market for Christies for nearly four decades and is now one of our most active regions for new buyers. With this new flagship, we are opening our doors to even greater engagement with LAs vibrant arts community and creating a dynamic convening space for both emerging and established collectors.

Open a larger version of this image An artists impression of the new Christies flagship in Los Angeles  wHY and Kulapat Yantrasast



To design its LA arts space, located on North Camden Drive near the corner with Wilshire Boulevard, Christies engaged wHY, the interdisciplinary design team known for collaborating with important local clients such as the Marciano Art Foundation, CalArts, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, as well as top artists and collectors. wHYs design for Christies wraps the two-storey, street-level space with an undulating curtain of pearlescent white aluminium, creating an elegant and timeless exterior that speaks to the history and quality of the companys 250-year-old brand.

Between Los Angeles and San Francisco, Christies now leads the auction market in depth and breadth of local expertise and advisory services on the West Coast Brook Hazelton, President, Americas
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The new 2018 Ford Expedition, unveiled in Texas, is the "smartest" version on the market.

As introduced in Dallas at Ford Center at The Star, the new large SUV has more than 40 features to help the driver and enhance passengers' comfort.

These features include technology to make it easier to pull in and out of parking spaces and a 360-degree camera to help drivers see what's on all sides of the vehicle, the company said in an announcement.

BRONCO REDUX: Ford announces return of Bronco SUV and Ranger pickup to U.S. plant

A wireless charging system allows users to place mobile devices on an integrated charging pad, rather than plugging them into a charging outlet, making the Expedition the first Ford vehicle with this capability.

The new model also comes ready to provide a wi-fi hotspot to connect up to 10 devices at the same time, from as far away as 50 feet from the vehicle, the company said.

Its new sunroof spans two rows of seats, which Ford said is not offered by any competitor.

VEHICLE ENVY: The coolest cars you can't get in America

(Story continues below.)

Since more than half of Expedition customers say towing is important, the new model offers "pro trailer backup assist," to make it easier to back a trailer.

The 2018 Expedition is the first full-size SUV with a second-row seat that tips and slides, allowing easier access to the third row without having to first remove a child safety seat

The new Terrain Management System lets drivers choose among four modes for the best handling - normal, sport, tow/haul and eco mode.

Set to arrive this fall, the new model will be built at Ford's Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville.
A woman who had been reported missing is in critical condition after authorities said she shot herself in front of them.

The woman, who has not been identified, was reported missing about 5:45 p.m. Wednesday from a home in the 7300 block of Spring Cypress, Harris County sheriff's deputies said.
It's the closest thing we'll get to "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." A new job being offered in England is looking for a chocolate and cocoa beverage taster.

Mondelez is best known for its cookies, chocolate and gum. The multi-billion dollar company holds several brands, including Oreos, Chips Ahoy!, Toblerone, Trident and Stride.
The healing process from sexual assault is deeply personal and varies by individual, but a rape survivor and the man who raped her have teamed up to share their story in order to bring light to the social issue.

Thordis Elva was raped in 1996 at 16 years old by Tom Stranger, her boyfriend at the time. After over 20 years, the pair has teamed together to talk candidly about their individual experience's of the rape during a TED Talk in San Francisco in October. The two of them are also co-authors of a book being released in March titled "South of Forgiveness," which tells the tale of what they both call "the darkest moment of their lives."
Preservation Houston has announced its 2017 Good Brick Award winners, given to people and organizations who restore older homes and buildings, often finding new life for a structure that had been used for something dramatically different.

In addition to 10 awards given, Preservation Houston will also honor Gerald D. Hines with its President's Award. Hines, a businessman and philanthropist, is the founder and chairman of Hines, an international real estate company headquartered in Houston.
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WASHINGTON  Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch told Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., that he found President Donald Trumps attacks on the judiciary to be demoralizing and disheartening, Blumenthal said Wednesday.

The conservative Denver-based federal appeals court judge uttered those words in a courtesy call to Blumenthal, who as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee will get to question Gorsuch at his upcoming confirmation hearing.

I told him it was more than disheartening, and that he has an obligation to make his views clear to the American people, Blumenthal said on a conference call with reporters after the 40-minute meeting in his Senate office. `Its not about politics but of judges to make decisions independently and without political interference.

The president has a history of intemperate statements about judges. During the campaign, he said a judge presiding over a lawsuit against him couldnt be fair because the judge was Mexican  even though the judge, who is of Mexican-American descent, was born in Indiana.

More recently, Trump has taken aim at the judges presiding over a stay on his executive order temporarily barring travel to the United States by refugees and citizens of seven Muslim-majority nations.

I don't ever want to call a court biased so I won't call it biased, and we haven't had a decision yet, Trump said Wednesday, the day after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco weighed the stay issued by a lower court judge. But courts seem to be so political, and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to . . . do what's right.

Blumenthal said he suggested to Gorsuch during the meeting that Trump could or should be held in contempt of court.

He didnt take position on contempt, said Blumenthal, a former Supreme Court clerk, Connecticut U.S. attorney and state attorney general. But he didnt disagree.

Gorsuch is a conservative jurist and professed admirer of Justice Antonin Scalia, whose seat Gorsuch would be taking. Scalia, who died suddenly a year ago, was a conservative icon on the court.

Blumenthal said he would not take a position on confirming Gorsuch until after the Judiciary Committee hearing.

But Blumenthal said he continued to have serious and deep concerns about Gorsuch and whether he would respect court precedents such as Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

Gorsuch, Blumenthal said, avoided getting pinned down on controversial issues by saying he could not comment on matters that might come before the court.

I was disappointed that he was not more forthcoming and specific in a number of his responses to important questions, Blumenthal said.

dan@hearstdc.com
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Unanimous commitment from cities and regions to move towards a sustainable and circular water-smart society

The European Committee of the Regions (CoR) has adopted unanimously an opinion on effective water management with a set of recommendations that contribute to the ongoing water legislation review at the EU level. The own-initiative opinion focuses on domestic water management, i.e. water quality, the shortage of fresh water and flood defences. Rapporteur Cees Loggen (NL/ALDE) is member of the Executive Council of the province of North-Holland.

The European Committee of the Regions strongly believes that water management is a capital-intensive policy area in which major investments must be made. To support innovation, local leaders recommend an EU water innovation action agenda to encourage Member States and local governments to facilitate water innovation projects and to reduce administrative burdens to facilitate access to EU funds.

Cees Loggen (NL/ALDE) , rapporteur of the adopted opinion on " Effective water management system: an approach to innovative solutions ", stated: "As climate change affects water management, consistency and coherence is necessary between these two policy areas. Climate change can, for example, lead to more intensive rainfall, floods and contamination of drinking water. Good water management is therefore as important as the threats of climate change on the environment." He also pointed out that "In the longer term, the challenge will be to successfully meet the desired water quality objectives and deal with the impact of rising sea levels and the scarcity of fresh water." Over the last 15 years, floods have led to at least 25 billion euros worth of insured damage. In 2014 alone, the estimated damage amounted to almost 5 billion euros. According to EC projections, the total annual damage is to be five times greater in 2050."We must accept that there are considerable uncertainties in predicting climate change and its impact on water management. The challenge lies in making sensible decisions that do justice to what we wish to preserve now, but that also provide sufficient scope for tackling uncertain future challenges in order to manage the source of life" added Loggen.

The European Committee of the Regions calls on the European Commission (EC) to shift towards adaptive policy-making within the area of water policy, as part of the upcoming review of the Drinking Water Directive, of the Water Framework Directive and the possible review of the Urban Waste Water Directive. The EC should consult local and regional authorities to ensure any future proposals are in the best interests of regions and cities, supporting their competencies rather than reducing them.

While we acknowledge the very ambitious Urban Water Agenda 2030 set up by the Leeuwarden Cities and Water Conference in February 2016 and we certainly encourage cities across Europe to sign up to it, local governments must remain free to manage water policies and decide for themselves whether or not to follow the agendas recommendations, added Cees Loggen.

The CoR encourages Member States and local and regional governments to include in their water policies the concepts of "green infrastructure" and "natural water retention measures" (NWRM), as an alternative to traditional grey structural measures. The European Committee of the Region also supports a reduction of water scarcity and a further increase in water efficiency by prioritising water demand management and water efficiency in irrigation, buildings and in the energy sector. Local and regional leaders are calling for further support of water metering across all sectors and users, as well as encouraging infrastructure investment to address water loss through leakages. Over-extraction should also be tackled through revision of permits.

The water sector has a great economic value for the EU: the European water sector consists of 9 000 active small and medium-sized enterprises which provide 600 000 jobs in utilities alone, according to European Commission.

Notes to editors:

Click here for more information on the European Innovation Partnership on Water.

Click here for more information on the Urban Water Agenda 2030.

Contacts:



Diandra Vanigioli

Tel. +32 (0)2 282 22 99

diandra.vanigioli@cor.europa.eu

David Crous

Tel. +32 (0)470 881 037

david.crous@cor.europa.eu
College students, the professionals of making magic happen minutes before deadline, came out in full force Tuesday when Ellen DeGeneres gave Longhorns at the University of Texas at Austin just a few hours to throw together a Beyonce costume for tickets to the Grammy's.

The TV host announced the contest early Tuesday via Twitter. Packs of "pregnant" pillow bellies and "Single Ladies" leotards filled the UT campus as representatives for The Ellen Show picked winners for the tickets. Even Bevo got in on the Bey buzz.
The bad news - depending on how you look at it - is that Super Bowl LI is over. The good news is that 2017's social season is just revving up.

Two storied institutions have black-tie celebrations on the books. Houston Ballet Ball chairmen Anne and Albert Chao will honor Ann Trammell during an "Enchantment"-themed evening at the Wortham Theater Center on Feb. 25.
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WestWay Park Technology Center isn't the first satellite campus in the Lone Star College System, but it's the first of its kind.

And it's on schedule to open in spring 2018, according to Kim Hubbard, LSC-CyFair dean, and Deana Sheppard, vice president for student learning.

Hubbard said, "LSC-CyFair currently has two satellite centers. This additional satellite center, which will focus only on IT and Visual Communication, will allow us to provide specialized training in these programs to ensure our students are properly prepared for the ever evolving industry demands of these two fields. An example of the uniqueness of this center is that we will house an instructional Data Center to train our network students in this area of IT."

Sheppard said, "Within our system it will be very unique center. It's very different from we've what ever done."

But she added that the concept is not unique to community colleges in general and cited The Gateway Technical College with eight campuses/centers, in Wisconsin as an example of what she meant.

Hubbard said the center will house LSC Corporate College programs in Oracle, Lean Six Sigma, Project Management, Cisco and training in oil and gas industry principles.

Sheppard said the district conducted an extensive site search for the satellite campus, including land on which to build, until officials found the building at 5060 Westway Park Blvd. in Houston. Located east of the West Sam Houston Parkway and between Tanner and Clay Road, Sheppard called the location "just perfect." "It seemed like a perfect fit for us."

Added Hubbard, "The location of this center will provide easy access for students within our district, for businesses and organizations located off the Interstate 10 Energy Corridor and those located in downtown Houston."

The LSC-Westway Park Technology Center building was purchased for $15.5 million, said Jennifer Olenick, Lone Star College vice chancellor of finance & administration. "The construction manager at risk request for information estimated an additional $13.5 million for renovations, of which, the board has approved $7.2 million in December 2016. The project is still underway so final project costs are not yet known," added Olenick.

Hubbard said it is funded by the 2014 bond election and the General Obligation Bonds Series 2015A.

Project architects are BRW-Brown Reynolds and Watford and construction manager at risk is Satterfield & Pontikes.

While the building has about 130,000 square feet, only 50,000 square feet will be used initially.

Sheppard said the 50,000 square feet fits current program needs. More space may be needed as time passes and programs grow, she said. Some discussion also mentioned the option of subleasing space to tenants, she said.

"There's plenty of room for growth," Sheppard added.

Hubbard said, "Our program curriculum teams will work with our System Workforce Council and our respective advisory councils to conduct constant industry analyses on an annual basis to project program growth as well as to identify new programs. During this phase we are reviewing various opportunities for usage of the additional 80,000 square feet.

"The initial phase of occupation for the building will allow us to move programs that we currently offer at the LSC-CyFair main campus to the new location, and add six programs."

Hubbard identified those programs as Microsoft Academy, Computer Security, Computer Forensics, Mobile Applications Development, Web Design and 3D Animation.

"We are expecting enrollment to continue growth with the new spaces located at WestWay Park and with the addition of our six new programs. Vacated spaces at the LSC-CyFair main campus will be used to allow enrollment growth through program expansions and by adding instructional space."

Sheppard said, "We intentionally designed the center to prepare students for real work business interactions. Students won't feel like they're in the classroom but it will feel like they're at work."

Collaborative spaces have been created in hallways.

"Students will work together like in the real world," she said. Students also will learn "soft skills" that will make the transition from academia to a place of business when they get a real job, she said.

Hubbard said, "LSC strongly believes in fully preparing students for entry into the workforce. WestWay Park Technology Center was built with this mission in mind.

"By providing a 'real-world' business simulated environment, we are training students to understand the importance and seriousness of working in an organization that is business-based and goal-oriented. The design of WestWay Park will strategically train students in an educational institution that essentially treats daily activity like the daily interactions of a business with the hope that students will forget they are in a classroom. Students will graduate with the innate ability to work in any business as a skilled professional in their industry."
Seeking to better contain a rampant stray animal population, Harris County plans to build a new facility at its overburdened animal shelter.

The county is spending $600,000 - including an $180,000 grant from the Petco Foundation - to build a facility where strays can be held for short periods of time before being transferred to other non-profits or shelters in the region, state or county.

Officials hope the move can help relieve the county's animal shelter on Canino Road, which sees an average of roughly 25,000 animals per year and is routinely over capacity. Many have to be euthanized.

The transfer facility is expected to save the lives of more than 3,100 animals a year.

"We are very excited that our Harris County officials will augment the Petco Foundation's generous gift to build a permanent facility that will increase capacity and allow our shelter to save more homeless pets," said Umair Shah, the executive director of Harris County Public Health, that oversees the shelter, in a statement.

Strays have long been a problem in the Houston region, and both the county and city of Houston shelter, BARC, are routinely over capacity.

A 2010 survey of Houston-area households conducted by the University of Texas School of Public Health found "stray dogs and cats" to be the most frequent neighborhood problem reported by residents surveyed, beating out crime, drinking water and dumping, among other problems.

The problem with stray animals has come under particular scrutiny in recent months, when jurisdictional differences between BARC and Harris County came to the forefront.

Last year, county shelter employees refused to pick up and euthanize a German shepherd mix that lay dying from a gunshot wound across the street from the complex. The neighborhood is served by Houston's BARC shelter, located seven miles to the south.

In response, Harris County Judge Ed Emmett in October organized an "animal summit" with Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, hoping to better coordinate resources between the city, county and other private groups like the SPCA. Emmett said there are more such meetings in the works.

Meanwhile, the county is moving forward with the construction of a new animal shelter funded by a $24 million bond measure voters approved in November 2015.

The revamped shelter to be constructed at the current location will have more space, a public education arm to promote responsible pet ownership and a dedicated center for pet adoption.

That shelter is still in the planning stages, and county officials expect to begin construction "toward the end of the year," said Martha Marquez, spokeswoman for county public health and environmental services.

The transfer center is funded in part by the grant from the Petco foundation, and was slated for completion last fall. It was initially conceived as a trailer, but county commissioners decided in January to add the additional funds and make the building a permanent facility, Marquez said, hence the need for additional funding.

Construction on the transfer facility is expected to begin in the summer, Marquez said, and take about 10 months to build.
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WASHINGTON  In a reminder of what could have been, presidential also-rans Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders went head-to-head Tuesday night in a nationally televised debate on Obamacare, mauling each other over a law that President Donald Trump has vowed to end.

The match-up between the conservative Republican and liberal Democratic runners-up was the ideological clash many of the party faithful on each side would have liked to see in the 2016 general election, but didn't.

For Cruz, the CNN debate also represented his most significant return to the national stage since his disastrous speech last July at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, where he was booed for failing to explicitly endorse the GOP nominee.

But in a sign that the U.S. senator from Texas is not fading away, he was booked to represent the "repeal" side of the argument over former President Barack Obama's namesake health care overhaul. Sanders, the self-described "democratic socialist" U.S. senator from Vermont, advocated for preserving the law that has extended coverage to some 20 million Americans.

As producers of the 90 minute debate might have hoped, there were sparks before a live audience at George Washington University.

"Bernie and the Democrats want government to control health care," Cruz said. "I trust you, and I trust your doctors."

Sanders' rebuttal: "When Ted talks about choice, here's your choice: You got cancer, you go to your doctor and the insurance company says we're not going to cover it. We can't make money on you."

While Cruz cited the rising premiums and lessening choices under Obamacare, Sanders pointed to the millions of working class people who would lose coverage if the law was repealed. "That's rationing," he said.

To a woman with breast cancer who said Obamacare had saved her life, Cruz assured her that all the Republicans replacement plans now under consideration would prohibit insurance companies from cancelling insurance for people who are sick. "All of them protect people in your situation," he said.

Sanders argued that there's a loophole in that GOP's promise of continuous coverage. "You're a good lawyer and you use words well," Sanders said. But, he noted, the promise not to "cancel" does not guarantee coverage to those who don't already have insurance.

Sanders also said the Cruz's assurances ran counter to the rhetoric of his presidential campaign, where he often vowed to repeal "every word of Obamacare."

"I said hundreds of times on the campaign trail, 'Yes, we should repeal every word of Obamacare,'" Cruz said. "But if you listen to the next sentence, I always said we're not done yet with health care reform."

Although the debate was cast in terms of whether or not to repeal the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, it came at a time of increasing uncertainty in Congress about fulfilling one of Trump's key campaign promises.

While some, like Cruz, have pressed for immediate repeal, Trump and some Republican leaders have suggested that overturning the law should wait on a replacement plan that would not disrupt the health insurance market and leave millions of Americans uninsured.

In an interview Sunday with Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, Trump appeared to quash any notion of a quick replacement to the law, saying "maybe it'll take till sometime into next year."

"I would like to say by the end of the year, at least the rudiments," Trump added, "but we should have something within the year and the following year."

Meanwhile, two of the top Republicans in Texas said this week they are working on a much faster time frame  at least for the repeal effort. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady of The Woodlands said he expects to begin moving repeal legislation by the end of March.

Texas U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, the chamber's No. 2 Republican, has said that under the fast-track process called reconciliation repeal legislation could come up "hopefully in the next 30 days or so." But he has also suggested that the replacement could be a step-by-step process, rather than "one piece of legislation."

Democrats have questioned whether the Trump administration actually has a well-formed replacement plan in place, something that Trump was said would have to occur "essentially simultaneously" with repeal.

"The truth is Republicans are absolutely in a panic," Sanders said.

Given some of the more popular aspects of the current law, particularly the guarantee of health coverage regardless of pre-existing medical conditions, some in Congress also have begun to talk about "repairing" the law, rather than the sort of full repeal advocated by Cruz and others.

But for Cruz and other lawmakers facing voters in 2018, the issue should be settled sooner rather than later. "Everyone agrees there is an urgency to the promises we made," he said. "Should Congress move swiftly to repeal Obamacare? Absolutely."
A 26-year-old Houston man was arrested and charged with murder Wednesday, the same day that police say he allegedly shot and killed a man on the city's southwest.

When police responded to a shooting call about 12:30 p.m. Wednesday in the 3400 block of Wuthering Heights, Houston paramedics were already treating 27-year-old Dimarcues K. Ballard, of Houston. The shooting victim was pronounced dead at the scene.
It's hard to check the news without seeing yet another student-teacher sex scandal in Texas.

Unfortunately, the phenomenon isn't just another media craze, it's an issue that even has Texas education officials concerned.

In 2014, the Texas Education Agency noted that the number of investigations opened in order to look into inappropriate relationships had jumped from 141 in 2009-2010, to 179 in 2013-2014, a 27 percent increase.

IN TEXAS: Ex-Austin teacher pleads guilty to sex with teens, won't have to register as sex offender

The news release that announced the increase pointed the finger at social media, explaining that "over recent years, electronic communication (such as cell phone, text messaging, email, instant messaging, blogging, or other social network communication) has provided a private method to contact students during and after school hours."

In 2016, that number reached 222 cases, a growing trend which prompted the TEA to ask for $400,000 from the state in order to handle and investigate more cases, reported the Star Telegram.

IN TEXAS: Student accused of blackmailing teacher after alleged sexual relationship

Recently, the Austin American-Statesman examined these numbers more closely and found that between January 2010 and December 2016, 686 teachers in Texas lost their teaching license due to allegations of impropriety with a student, according to information they acquired from the TEA.

In the Houston-area's ten largest school districts, roughly 60 teachers lost their licence following impropriety with a student.

The newspaper's database of these cases allows users to search districts where and when these incidents occurred.

HOUSTON-AREA: Woodlands music teacher accused of sexually assaulting children

Click through above to see some of the teacher-student relationships that resulted in charges in the Houston-area's largest school districts.
A Tarrant County jury on Thursday sentenced a Mexican woman to eight years in jail a day after convicting her of two counts of illegal voting by a non-citizen. She will also have to pay an $8,000 fine.

During the trial, prosecutors showed that Rosa Maria Ortega -- a 37-year-old Mexican national who public records show has lived in the Dallas area since she was 15 -- falsely claimed U.S. citizenship on a voter registration form and voted five times between 2004 and 2014, according to a news release from the state attorney general's office.

Ortega testified in court on Wednesday that when she voted she did not understand the difference between rights accorded to citizens and legal residents, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

"I didn't have the study, the guidance, the education," Ortega testified. The Star-Telegram reported that she told jurors she thought state officials would tell her if she was not allowed to vote. However, the Tarrant County voter registration form clearly states that non-citizens should not register to vote.

"If I knew, everything would have been done the correct way," Ortega said in court, according to the Star-Telegram. "All my life I was taught I was a U.S. citizen."

Tarrant County prosecutors worked with lawyers from the office of the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton.

"This case shows how serious Texas is about keeping its elections secure, and the outcome sends a message that violators of the state's election law will be prosecuted to the fullest," Paxton said in the release. "Safeguarding the integrity of our elections is essential to preserving our democracy."

The issue of voter fraud has driven changes to laws across the country, including in Texas, where a recent voter ID law was partially struck down by a federal appeals court last year. The court ruled that it violated the Voting Rights Act by disproportionately affecting blacks and Hispanics. The U.S. Supreme Court last month declined to hear the state's appeal of that ruling.

Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, claimed without support last year that "voter fraud is rampant." PolitiFact Texas ruled that statement false and said that in reality voter fraud "remains extremely rare."

The fact-checking organization cited a chart provided by Abbott in 2013, when he was attorney general, that showed 18 voter-fraud convictions from 2002 through 2012. As a comparison, Texans cast about 72 million ballots in state and federal elections from 2000 to 2014, according to the Texas secretary of state's online record.

However, PolitiFact Texas also ruled against a Democratic U.S. representative from Texas, Eddie Bernice Johnson, who in 2013 claimed that "voter fraud is non-existent in Texas."
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Committee of the Regions to move up another gear in consulting citizens on Reflecting on Europe throughout the EU

Ahead of the 60th anniversary of the Rome Treaty and in the context of growing disaffection toward the European project, EU's cities and regions have pledged to shoulder their share to achieve greater involvement of the citizens in shaping a new path for the Union. Following a debate on Europe's future with a delegation of 200 young Europeans, members of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) today adopted a resolution marking the launch of an extensive citizens' consultation process on "Reflecting on Europe" throughout the EU. The outcome of this wide-ranging initiative will feed into the CoR's contribution to the upcoming political discussions on the future of the Union.

Opening the debate in plenary session, CoR President Markkula stressed that, " In todays challenging times, anniversaries such as the 60 years of the Rome Treaty and the 25 years of the Maastricht Treaty should be an opportunity to have an honest debate about Europe. But the time has come to go beyond talking and listening: we have to act. We want action and we want it now. This is what people, including the younger generations, want from Europe and what we wanted to signal with today's 'youth amendment'. We need a European Union where citizens feel their voice really counts and individuals feel safe to follow their dreams. We want to rebuild a European Union for and with the citizens ".

Thanks to a close cooperation with the European Youth Forum and the Model European parliament , today's debate on the future of Europe greatly benefitted from the ideas and opinions of about 200 young Europeans who actively took part to the plenary work. Their participation follows up from the "youth citizens' dialogue" on "how to rebuild trust in the EU with the help of regions and cities" that was organised during the Youth Opinion Festival ( YO!Fest ) on 7 February in Maastricht with CoR's representatives from all political parties.

As part of its contribution to the wider political reflection on the future of the EU, CoR members adopted a resolution endorsing the idea of launching an extensive consultation process of "Reflecting on Europe", mostly in the form of citizens' dialogues and town hall debates at local level, to collect citizens' concerns and make these voices heard at EU level. This "bottom-up" exercise has become even more relevant following a formal request from European Council President Tusk to the CoR to send its position on its Reflections on Europe through the voice of cities and regions. The CoR position, whose adoption is planned in 2018, will draw from the consultation's outcome and will be prepared by CoR President Markkula and First Vice-President Lambertz.

Mr Lambertz was eager to emphasise that " Special expectations are attached to special occasions, such as this year's anniversaries of the Rome and Maastricht Treaties. Europe is going through particularly hard times, facing a multitude of crises. We need to transform current scepticism into hope and this is a mission in which we, as local and regional representatives close to the citizens, can make a valuable contribution. This resolution shouldnt be another document that gets lost in digital files. It should trigger a process of reflection about the future of Europe that leads to concrete results ".

In their resolution, EU's local and regional leaders also call for:

 a Europe able to restore citizens' confidence in the European project;

 a Union that provides effective and prompt solutions to the major common challenges that cities, regions and states cannot tackle by themselves, such as increasing EU's competitiveness, strengthening cohesion, securing a safe space for all, addressing the migrants and refugees' crisis, tackling climate change, combatting unemployment and fighting against terrorism;

 a Europe which recognises the importance of ensuring young people's specific needs and open dialogue between peoples of all generations.

Background

The CoR initiative to consult the European citizens about Europe directly at the grassroots has already been up and running, with 27 local events on "Let's talk about Europe" having been organised by the CoR, its members and local and regional partners, in 13 EU countries in 2016, with an overall participation of over 3,200 citizens.

This exercise will be intensified throughout 2017 with about 70 local events to be further organised across all the Member States.

The Committee is also encouraging regional and local councils to hold their own debates, including in their own institutional bodies, to further ensure that citizens' are heard during this time of reflection.

More information on the CoR initiative on "Reflecting on Europe" .

Photos from the plenary session can be downloaded for free from our Flickr gallery .
AUSTIN -- Special prosecutors assigned to Attorney General Ken Paxton's criminal securities fraud case asked the court for a change in venue Thursday, arguing the attorney general's communications team has spent the better part of two years tainting the jury pool.

In a court filing in the 416th Judicial District in Collin County, prosecutors said Paxton's communications team has blitzed social media over the last 22 months to "vilify, malign, and defame" the special prosecutors assigned to try the case, the court and individuals who say they fell victim to Paxton.

"Team Paxton's 22-month siege against these principals has not merely been waged in the media, in the court of public opinion, and, by importantly, in the hearts and minds of Collin County citizens who will receive a jury summons in this case," read the filing.

Paxton is scheduled to face felony securities fraud charges in criminal court in Collin County May 1 for failing to disclose to investors he was making a commission from a North Texas technology company. He was a state legislator at the time. He also landed a lesser felony charge for failing to register as an investment adviser and is facing similar charges in federal civil court.

In a sharply worded filing, the special prosecutors argue Paxton's "posse of spokesmen, supporters and surrogates" have "embarked on a crusade clearly calculated to taint the Collin County jury pool." The filing cites several lawsuits by Paxton's supporters, including two suits against prosecutors and a third against the court to stop paying the prosecutors.

The filing also points to radio ads critical of two investors Paxton convinced to invest in Servergy, Inc., a leak of a confidential work product of the Texas Rangers by a Paxton ally, a YouTube video of Paxton contending the charges are politically motivated, and political pressure put on county leaders by the Collin County legislative delegation to cut funding for prosecution of the case.

Paxton's legal team fired back.

"Ken Paxton, like all Texans, has the right to be tried in the county he was charged in," said Dan Cogdell, a lawyer on Paxton's legal defense team. "The special prosecutors have filed a 60-page pleading trying to thwart that right. That these prosecutors are somehow painting themselves as 'victims' of some nonexistent conspiracy is extremely telling."

Paxton was charged in Collin County in 2015, less than a year after he assumed office of Attorney General. the filing, special prosecutors Brian Wice, Kent Schaffer and Nicole DeBorde asked Judge George Gallagher either grant the motion to change the venue, or opt to change the venue on his own.
The latest victim of our politically polarized nation: the 22-year-long marriage of a California couple.

Gayle McCormick, a retired prison guard, left her husband after he told her he was planning to vote for Donald Trump, according to a report by Reuters.

McCormick describes herself as a "Democrat leaning towards socialist" so when her husband mentioned his political preferences last year, she decided it was a "deal breaker."

"It totally undid me that he could vote for Trump," McCormick told Reuters. "I was incensed. I said, 'I can't believe that somebody that I would be married to would vote for someone whose track record is so obviously poor in terms of civil liberties, his feelings about women, how he treats people in general.'"

The 73-year-old woman has since separated from her husband and has started a new life in Bellingham, Wash.

When you look at the numbers, it's perhaps surprising we don't hear more stories like McCormick's. According to a CNN/ORC poll conducted in November after the 2016 election, 80 percent of Americans believed the country is more divided on major issues than it has been over the past several years.

A more recent poll conducted by Reuters/Ipsos found that 13 percent of respondents claimed to have ended a relationship because of issues related to the election. Sixteen percent said they had stopped talking to a close family member or friend, and 17 percent admitted to blocking someone on social media.

Perhaps as an effort toward reconciliation, McCormick's husband reportedly ended up writing in "Newt Gingrich" on his ballot in November.

That move may have earned him points. McCormick told Reuters that although they no longer live together, the couple doesn't have plans to formally file for divorce and they're even planning a vacation together.
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.
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We can solve the problem of fake news. This was the proposition brought to a lively panel of six experts Wednesday night for a debate hosted by the Daily News Innovation Lab in collaboration with NYC Media Lab. The conversation managed to breathe new life into an overwrought subject, if only to remind the audience of the stakes.

The six were divided into two teams, for and against the proposition, to conduct a classic debate moderated by Justin Hendrix, NYC Media Labs executive director. Each side was given equal time to defend their sides:

The For Team

Humans can learn. Up first, Jane Elizabeth, a senior manager at American Press Institute, gave a vote of confidence for the human race. Just as weve been able to fight smoking, enforce the wearing of seatbelts, and encourage handwashing, we should be able to educate a population to reduce harm. Solving the fake news problem, she said, is not the same as eliminating it.

Remember spam? Next up, Dean Pomerleau, co-director of the Fake News Challenge, pragmatically reminded the audience of a darker time when email inboxes were cluttered with spam. Today, fewer than one in 1,000 spam messages get through. Fake news is similar to spam, just on Facebook rather than Gmail. We will develop technology that detects fake news early, and filters it outin fact, we are already working on it.

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The moral imperative. Sally Kohn, CNN commentator, rounded out the optimism by setting the stakes: We have to solve fake news, for the sake of democracy and truth. Weve dealt with larger problems than fake news in the past, she said, and if we created the internet, we should be able to fix it. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter: We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.

We can, we will, and we must solve fake news, Kohn said, and if we dont think we can, then we wont.

The Against Team

An information war. Its an old problem, said Melissa Ryan, an expert in digital campaigns, and one that encompasses many different types of information: conspiracy theories, hoaxes, propaganda, etc. People have been trying to solve it for many years, but in the age of social media, it has become militarizedand it is a powerful weapon indeed. According to BuzzFeed, the top fake news stories generated more activity on social media than the top 19 legitimate outlets combined. And it didnt end with the US election; Germanys Angela Merkel is now the target of more than 500 fake news stories. Only when we move past the concept of solving the problem, Ryan said, can we deal with it.

Fake news is only a symptom of a diseased industry. Fake news is solvable if you define it narrowly, said David Carroll, associate professor of media design at Parsons School of Design at The New School. But the root of the problem is the business model. The system of ad tech privileges capturing attention over spreading truth. As long as Google and Facebook profit from clicks, there is no incentive to fix the problem. In the meantime, said Carroll, fake news could topple the EUwhich is, by the way, the last bulwark against the invasion of privacy. Fake news, in the end, constitutes a totalitarian attempt to demolish truth as a power play.

Technology will only get more powerful. The final speaker, CEO and founder of betaworks John Borthwick, struck the Orwellian note. Social media was built for sharing family photos, he said, and now these same (inherently biased) algorithms are filtering news in the same way. Clicks and notifications produce dopamine. Photoshop-like audio technology is being developed that can make it sound like an individual has said something they havent. We have entered a subjective reality already, Borthwick said. Quoting Orwell: Its a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.

Ultimately, the debate achieved what debates do best: Laying out the stakes of the problem, but giving listeners a fighting spirit. By a show of hands at the beginning, the audience appeared to be slightly more pessimistic than optimistic about whether we can solve the fake news problem. But by the end, the tables had turned. Orwell was a warning, said Kohn in her closing statement, but Jefferson was an aspiration.

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Nausicaa Renner is digital editor of CJR.
A new Pew Research Center report out today shines new light on how people read and use online information. The report, How Americans Encounter, Recall, and Act Upon Digital News, surveyed 2,078 online news consumers twice a day for a week to get a clearer picture of how people get their news, whether they know where it came from, and what they do with in once theyve read it.

By a statistically insignificant margin, the most common way for people to get their news is still by visiting a news organization directly. In these cases, findings showed that people are more aware of the source of the news, and theyre less likely to share it with others.

However, when people get their news through social mediaor from friends via email or texttheyre less likely to remember the source, and theyre more likely to share it online or send it to friends. Notably, 10 percent of those surveyed who clicked on a news link named Facebook as a specific news outlet when asked for the source of a piece of news. That gels with previous research, such as that conducted by Victoria Rubin, Yimin Chen, and Niall Conroy of the University of Western Ontario, which suggest that social media sites erode the value of a news organizations reputation by decontextualizing news from its source.

According to the Pew report, the actions people take after consuming news varies from speaking about with it a friend, searching for more information about it, sharing it online or via text and email, bookmarking it for later, or commenting on a story. The findings of this study are in line with previous Pew studies that show that most news is shared verbally.

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Trending: Headlines editors probably wish they could take back

Additionally, the follow-up actions taken online tend to remain within the digital arena in which the news originated. For example, news found on social media is more likely to then be shared on social media sites, while news that comes through search engines is more likely to lead to additional search activity. The number of people who are likely to share a story on social media at all, no matter where they came across the news, is relatively low at just 10 percent.

Over the past year, concern about fake news has intensified as the amount of political misinformation has increased. Indeed, political news was by far the most popular type of news consumed during the week studied (February 24 to March 1, 2016), which included Super Tuesday. However, Pews findings showed that people are generally more aware of where political news comes from than for news on any other topic except business, likely because people are more likely to get political news directly from a news organization.

More takeaways from the report:

People access news and act on it differently according to what the news is about. For example, people are more likely to seek out business news by going directly to a news organization, while science news was generally found via search engine, and community news was mostly found on social media.

In cases where people specifically sought out news, they were less likely to act upon it. For example, business and sports news top the list of topics that consumers specifically seek out, but is near the bottom of the list of news that inspires follow-up action. People were more likely to act upon news on the topics of community and health.

Age and gender also play a role in how people get their news. Younger and female online news consumers are more likely to get their news through social media, while older and male consumers are more likely to seek it out directly from a news organization.

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Shelley Hepworth , formerly a CJR Delacorte Fellow, is Technology Editor at The Conversation in Australia. Follow her on Twitter @shelleymiranda.
Look past CNNs posse of pundits for a moment, and its Real News branding carries weight. Nevertheless, the font of centrist journalism has become a favorite punching bag for the Trump administration and its right-wing media machine, a universal stand-in for the crooked media. And an onslaught this week pushed the networks PR shop into the fray, drawing new attention to the role media brand enforcers might play in the presss high-profile rhetorical battle with the Brander-in-Chief.

These oft-maligned creatures are welcome reinforcements and, possibly, replacements in the supremely public Trump-media shouting match over the very definitions of real and fake news. President Trump discredits the journalistic enterprise wholesale, but also entire media companies as failing or dishonest, among the other exclamatory or free-associative insults. Businesses have every right to defend their brands from such attacks. Its also why they employ flacks in the first placeto do what reporters cannot and, oftentimes, should not.

Ritualistic chest-thumping on social media has become a favorite journalistic pastime under the new administration. But in Trumps game of media truth-or-dare, he is the only player with a choice, leaving the press a fuddy-duddy calling for traditional decorum. Instead of huffing and puffing on Twitter each time Team Trump cries fake news or the like, reporters might consider allowing communications professionals to play the role of paladin in this arena.

Take how the CNN PR shop exposed fork-tongued White House aides in a set of skirmishes over the past week. In the wake of the faux devastation wrought by the Bowling Green Massacre, the fake terrorist attack that Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway repeatedly misspoke about, the network declined an offer to have Conway on its Sunday show. CNN wanted the vice president on air instead. Whats more, a spokesperson explained to The New York Times, the organization had serious questions about her credibility. Welcome to the club.

RELATED: Analyzing Donald and Melania Trumps relationship through photos

When Conway tweeted on Monday that she was actually the one who declined CNNs offer, the networks flacks fired back with a message that would be retweeted 10,000 times: [Conway] was offered to SOTU on Sunday by the White House. We passed. Those are the facts. Nary a 140-character fact-check has smelled so sweet.

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The next day, minutes after White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer suggested that the network had walked back its comments on Conway, CNN PR responded with what we in the business call a fire tweet. Its ammunition was understatement, its aim true.

A CNN spokeswoman didnt want to say much when I asked her about such widely shared public pushback, offering only that we are simply correcting the record. Network President Jeff Zucker similarly took a harder line on Trump in a recent New York magazine interview in late January, arguing that for the president to have an adversarial relationship with [CNN] is a mistake.

Chris Cuomo, in his interview with Sen. Blumenthal, never asked him about his long-term lie about his brave "service" in Vietnam. FAKE NEWS!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2017

@realDonaldTrump . @ChrisCuomo did address that point at the start of his interview. https://t.co/JWJEAshv1y Those are the facts.  CNN Communications (@CNNPR) February 9, 2017

Of course, there are less noble reasons for media companies to posture themselves aggressively toward the president in general, and his anti-media invective in particular. Since the election, Slate has sold its premium memberships as a way for readers to check Trumps power. Vanity Fair advertised itself as the magazine Trump doesnt want you to read soon after a mid-December insult, reportedly adding 13,000 new subscribers within 24 hours. Even the more staid ProPublica monetized a White House insult, to date selling more than 2,200 T-shirts sporting the rallying cry, Were not shutting up.

Such positioning, grating when carried out by journalists, is to be expected from flacks. They also employ a method. After Trump recently tweeted about his other favorite target, the failing New York Times, referring to its dwindling subscribers and readers, the companys corporate PR team counterattacked swiftly from its own account.

The policy weve come to agreement on is that we will respond only on rare occasions to tweets where there is an obvious factual inaccuracy of a corporate nature, Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy writes in an email. So, subscription numbers, or when Trump falsely claimed in November that the Times had apologized to readers for its political coverage.

Such protocol is eminently more measured than the rapid-response hyperventilation that so many journalists from across the media exhibit on Twitter. We dont have a specific policy on how our journalists individually should or should not react to the Presidents criticism beyond the general rule that online behavior should be appropriate for a Times journalist, Murphy writes. Obviously, individual journalists do not speak for the institution.

It seems like a sensible rule for social media. But with all the talk of norms being broken in the Trump Era, let me propose a new one: Just dont. I, too, appreciate fast-twitch snark and well-placed puns. I, too, enjoy basking in attaboys from my own filter bubble of rootless cosmopolitan media types. But think twice before you tweet. When it comes to legitimizing the press, the best case journalists can make is, well, journalism. When Trump lashes out, meanwhile, its time for the PR professionals to earn their keep.

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

David Uberti is a writer in New York. He was previously a media reporter for Gizmodo Media Group and a staff writer for CJR. Follow him on Twitter @DavidUberti.
Why are so many news organizations expanding into Australia? What is the state of health journalism as Obamacare hangs in the balance? Why were so many journalists talking about CNN anchor Jake Tappers interview with Kellyanne Conway on Tuesday?

We discuss that and more this week on The Kicker, where Im joined by CJR Editor and Publisher Kyle Pope, Delacorte Fellows Pete Vernon and Shelley Hepworth, and Trudy Lieberman, a correspondent for CJRs United States Project. Subscribe via iTunesStitcher RSS FeedSoundCloud



SHOW NOTES

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

David Uberti is a writer in New York. He was previously a media reporter for Gizmodo Media Group and a staff writer for CJR. Follow him on Twitter @DavidUberti.
A bill that would roll back a provision in the states public records law that Sioux Falls, S.D., used to keep secret the details of a settlement over faulty siding at the Denny Sanford Premier Center is scheduled to be considered Wednesday.

Supporters argue the measure would improve transparency across South Dakota by barring the state and local governments from entering into confidential settlements without a court order. Sioux Falls in 2015 announced it would be reimbursed $1 million under the settlement with contractors over the bulging panels but didnt provide details, citing in part a confidentiality agreement.

Republican Rep. Greg Jamison, the bills main sponsor, said he watched what happened with the settlement as a Sioux Falls city councilor and thought it didnt seem right. It spurred a lot of speculation about what was really happening and created a perception of wrongdoing when there might not have been any, he said.

I saw the problems it created in our community, and coming to Pierre  this is my chance to change it, Jamison said. Good, bad or ugly, the public has a right to know.

Argus Leader Media sued after the city declined to give access to documents related to the settlement. A lower court sided with the city, and the newspaper appealed. Arguments before the state Supreme Court were held in January. Its unclear when the court will issue a ruling.

A spokeswoman for Sioux Falls said in an email that the city wouldnt comment on the bill because it may impact pending litigation before the high court.

Jamison said his measure is intended to add trust and accountability to government. Its set to be heard in the House Judiciary Committee.

Dave Bordewyk, general manager of the South Dakota Newspaper Association, said taxpayers should always have an understanding of where their money is going. He said that such settlements fly in the face of good government and transparency.

The South Dakota Municipal League opposes the bill. Executive director Yvonne Taylor said that not being able to offer confidentiality can force municipalities to go to trial, which costs the taxpayers money.

If we can settle these things, wed rather do that and not go forward with a full trial, Taylor said.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Mississippi officials announced Tuesday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has approved aid to governments in Forrest, Lamar and Perry counties following a Jan. 21 tornado, as a hard-hit university announced it would have to demolish five buildings following the storm.

The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said the public recovery money can be used to remove debris, repair government facilities and take emergency protective measures. Besides governments, certain nonprofit organizations such as electrical cooperatives are also eligible.

State officials said earlier that Mississippi had to show $4.2 million in damage to public facilities to win such a declaration.

FEMA typically reimburses governments for 75 percent of the cost of work, with state and local governments splitting the remainder. Nonprofits must pay the full 25 percent.

The federal government earlier approved aid to individuals in Forrest, Lamar, Perry and Lauderdale counties, making them eligible for assistance up to $33,000. That earlier approval also included money to reduce hazards statewide.

The Jan. 21 twister killed four people and injured dozens as it moved across Lamar, Forrest and Perry counties before dawn, damaging or destroying hundreds of structures. Lauderdale County was approved for individual assistance for a separate tornado that hit that day.

William Carey University, a Baptist institution, was among the hardest hit. The school said Monday that it has already demolished two buildings and will knock down three more including Tatum Court, the oldest structure on campus.

Spokeswoman Mia Overton said Monday that the Baptist university still plans to start its spring trimester on Feb. 20. By then, officials say, eight dormitories housing 739 students will be open.

They also say a number of classroom and administrative buildings will be open, including the schools library. However, William Carey says some classes will continue to meet off-campus or online.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The tornadoes that struck southeastern Louisiana on Tuesday injured about 20 people, destroyed homes and businesses, flipped cars and trucks, and left about 10,000 customers without power, but no deaths were reported, the governor said.

Gov. John Bel Edwards took an aerial tour and made a disaster declaration before meeting with officials in New Orleans. The worst damage was in the same 9th Ward that was so heavily flooded in Hurricane Katrina.

Edwards, a Democrat, said he was heartbroken to see some of the same people suffering again, and promised that the state will provide the affected citizens with the resources they need as quickly as possible.

He said seven parishes were hit by tornadoes in an afternoon of tumultuous weather across southeastern Louisiana.

Hatchet-wielding firefighters walked up and down the debris-strewn Chef Menteur Highway after the storm, looking for anyone missing or trapped. Their primary search came up empty, and a secondary search was planned to make sure and to better assess the damage.

Edwards said he called in the Louisiana National Guard to police and secure the area, and urged people to stay away.

This is not a time to sight-see, he said.

The storm ripped apart homes, toppled a gas station canopy, snapped tall power poles and flipped a food truck upside-down. It left shards of metal hanging from trees, and trapped a truck driver as power lines wrapped around his cab.

The wall of severe weather also delivered heavy rain and hail to Mississippi and Alabama.

Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the White House was monitoring the weathers impact, and that President Donald Trump would be reaching out to local and state officials.

Yoshekia Brown lost everything to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Now shes lost everything again: Three-quarters of her home in eastern New Orleans collapsed.

Sister, your house is gone, her brother told her as she drove home.

She didnt believe it until she saw it herself.

I lived in between two blighted properties. One of those would have been gone before my house, she said. Its just gone. Like the movie Twister.

Luckily her 2-year-old son and three dogs have survived, and her home was insured. She said shes not sure what to do next, but said something good has to come from this.

Outside the heavily damaged Royal Palms Motel, Malcolm Ballard, 65, was left homeless by the tornado. His room was ransacked; the furniture and carpet soaked after the door and windows blew open.

Kevin Ballard, 56, came to check on his older brother, but his own injuries turned out to be worse, with cuts and bruises on his head and neck, after an auto repair shop he was in collapsed around him.

I was standing in front of the building at first and I seen something black, twisting, Kevin Ballard said. Tires and everything fell on the back of my neck and head.

The Baton Rouge area also got hit. Ascension Parish Sheriffs spokeswoman Allison Hudson says three people suffered minor injuries and several homes and some other buildings were damaged in the historic part of Donaldsonville, about 20 miles southwest of the capital.

In Killian, just east of Baton Rouge, the mayor said several houses were destroyed and several others damaged, but an elderly couple suffered the only injuries he knew of: One a broken leg, the other a broken arm.

How you manage to get blown completely across the street with cinderblocks flying and no worse than a couple broken limbs  apparently the good Lord was looking after them, said Mayor Craig McGehee.

(Associated Press contributors include Jeff Martin in Atlanta and Janet McConnaughey and Chevel Johnson in New Orleans.)
housing-values-akron.jpg

The city of Akron is trying to boost population and increase property values. Here are the current median housing values across Akron's 24 neighborhoods.

(City of Akron)

AKRON, Ohio -- Akron wants to add residents, in part by branding and promoting neighborhoods based on unique history or culture.

"Historic branding can be a really great tool," Segedy said. "I don't think we've done nearly as much as we could have in the past."

The Planning to Grow Akron report brainstorms how to combat the city's shrinking population and tax base by boosting marketable housing to attract people with middle-to-high incomes.

Here are some strategies:

Add signage and art that honors Akron's history in

Create historic districts to help residents get funding to improve their properties and raise their home values. Guidelines would be flexible enough that residents could realistically make the improvements, Segedy said.

Brand what's unique in each small business district. For example, Temple Square in North Hill, like other districts in the city, was a key destination on the street car line.

The city wants to encourage businesses to invest in the neighborhoods surrounding them.

Officials also want developers to build new homes on in-fill lots, where abandoned houses have been torn down.

To that end, the tool topping the list in the city's report is its city-wide residential property tax abatement program.

What do you think? What makes your neighborhood unique?

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AKRON, Ohio - An Akron man pleaded guilty Thursday to shooting another man to death during a drug deal.

Darien Mingo, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the Dec. 19, 2015 shooting death of Erick Hunt Sr., the Summit County Prosecutor's Office said in a news release.

Mingo's sentencing is scheduled March 10 in Summit County Common Pleas Court.

Hunt, 47, and a friend went to buy crack-cocaine from Mingo at an apartment on West Long Street in Akron, court records show. The three began to argue, and Mingo shot Hunt four times, prosecutors said.

Mingo told investigators that Hunt tried to rob him, and that he shot Hunt in self-defense, court records show.

Hunt ran outside the apartment and collapsed in the street, police said. Paramedics took him to Cleveland Clinic Akron General, where he died.

Mingo turned himself in after the shooting, police said.

If you'd like to comment on this story, visit Thursday's crime and courts comments section.
Fireworks, Wolf Drive: A 29-year-old Brook Park resident who ignited fireworks was arrested at about 4:40 p.m. Jan. 20 after police learned he was a wanted man.

Neighbors on a nearby street had complained about the fireworks, which included bottle rockets and M-80's. Police traced the fireworks to a Wolf home, where they found a large box filled with various types of fireworks. A second man, 25, was also setting off the fireworks, which police confiscated.

Disorderly conduct, Smith Road: A Brunswick woman, 32, was arrested at about 11:20 p.m. Jan. 28 after she caused a disturbance inside Whisker's Pub, 5771 Smith.

The woman was drunk and picking fights with other bar patrons. Police later learned that she was wanted in Middleburg Heights.

Theft, Smith Road: A power washer, propane tank, flat-screen TV and tools were reported stolen at about 7:10 p.m. Jan. 25 from an unlocked detached garage and an unlocked van parked in a driveway.

Criminal damaging, Brookpark Road: Police are looking for a Toledo man, 24, who broke a hotel-room window at America's Best Value Inn, 14043 Brookpark.

The hotel called police at about 12:10 p.m. Jan. 23 about the broken window. The man had been a guest at the hotel. Management didn't realize he had broken the window until after he checked out.

Theft, Snow Road: Prescription medication and $120 in cash were reported stolen at about 9:40 a.m. Jan. 25 from a room in Howard Johnson Inn, 16644 Snow. The victim suspects a "friend."

Operating a vehicle under the influence, Smith & Snow roads: A Brook Park man, 31, was arrested at about 7:30 p.m. Jan. 29 after he caused a vehicle collision.

The man was drunk and ran his Hyundai into the rear of another car, which was stopped at a red light. The second car was pushed into the rear of a third car. Someone hurt their knee in the accident but police were not more specific. The injured person refused treatment.

Operating a vehicle under the influence, Remora Road: A Cleveland man, 29, was arrested at about 11:20 p.m. Jan. 27 after police saw him driving a Ford Ranger on only three wheels and a rim.

Police later learned the man had left the scene of a vehicle collision earlier that day in Cleveland. Also, his driver's license had been suspended.

Overdose, Brookpark Road: A Brook Park man, 61, was taken to Southwest General Health Center in Middleburg Heights at about 2:15 p.m. Jan. 25 after he overdosed on heroin.

The man's girlfriend called police after he passed out on the bathroom floor. Police revived the man by giving him Narcan, a heroin-overdose antidote.

To comment on this story, please visit the crime and courts comments page.
Donald Trump Immigration Ban

President Donald Trump, center, with Vice President Mike Pence, left, and Defense Secretary James Mattis, right, watching, signs an executive action on extreme vetting at the Pentagon in Washington, Friday, Jan. 27, 2017.

(Susan Walsh/AP Photo)

U.S. District Judge Dan Polster

BRATENAHL, Ohio -- A longtime Cleveland federal judge hinted that President Donald Trump's recent attacks on the judges hearing challenges to his executive order on immigration were disheartening.

U.S. District Judge Dan Polster made the comments during a speech Wednesday night to the civil rights committee of Cleveland's Anti-Defamation League without mentioning Trump's name. He noted that comments like the ones that the new president made this week could be dangerous.

"This is serious business, because you start calling into question the legitimacy of someone, that undermines the whole system, all right?" Polster said in response to a question on whether he was worried about the judiciary's status under Trump.

Polster, an appointee of President Bill Clinton who has been on the bench since 1998, was invited to the meeting to share his recent experience as a visiting judge in Las Cruces, New Mexico near the U.S.-Mexico border.

Speaking in a penthouse in Bratenahl to a small group that included suburban mayors, attorneys and city officials, the judge chose his words carefully as he spoke for about 10 minutes on the subject, mindful of the position he holds and that reporters were in attendance.

He said a public office holder in one government branch who makes those types of comments "calls into question his or her own legitimacy."

"I think to say it publicly, that's his right," Polster told the crowd. "But it calls into question, and some might even say forfeits, his or her own legitimacy. So I'll leave it at that. It's an important question, but that's how I feel."

Trump harshly criticized Washington state federal Judge James Robert and a California federal appeals court. Robart, a George W. Bush appointee, placed a stay on the president's executive order on immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries last week. The appeals court heard arguments Tuesday on the executive order.

The appeals court challenged the administration's claim that the ban was motivated by terrorism fears but also questioned an attorney's argument that it unconstitutionally targeted Muslims.

Trump labeled Robart a "so-called judge" in a tweet over the weekend and referred to the ruling as "ridiculous." On Wednesday, he slammed the appeals court, telling a group of police chiefs that his immigration order was "done for the security of our nation."

He quoted from the portion of the immigration law that he said gave him the power to enact the ban, calling it "beautifully written" and saying "a bad high school student would understand this."

Criticism of Trump and his surrogates' comments has been fierce. Even Judge Neil Gorsuch, Trump's nominee for an open U.S. Supreme Court seat, called the president's comments "demoralizing and disheartening."

Polster said Wednesday that "I've said many times that the Constitution never sleeps and our branch is on it." He said he still feels the American system of government is the best in the world and was set up by the founding fathers because "they were fearful of a president who might want to be a king or dictator."

But he said all federal judges take their roles seriously and he doesn't see any of them backing down based on pressure from the executive branch.

"I don't believe there's a single federal judge who would be intimidated by anybody," Polster said. "We took an oath to support and defend the Constitution and it means a lot. And I think that oath means even more today."

Polster stressed to the group that he did not think it was improper for anybody to criticize a judge's actions.

But "when you call into question the legitimacy of a federal district court judge, that's a line that shouldn't be crossed," he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
LAKEWOOD, Ohio -- A 2-year-old girl was in her parents' home when her father shot and killed her mother, according to a 911 recording and Lakewood police.

Jason E. White, 38, is being held without bond in Lakewood City Jail after the Tuesday morning shooting. He faces an aggravated murder charge and his case was bound over to a Cuyahoga County grand jury after a hearing Wednesday in Lakewood Municipal Court.

Police found Stacy A. White, 36, dead on a bed in the bedroom of the home on Plover Street near Madison and Halstead avenues.

Police released the 911 recording Wednesday after White's initial court appearance. In it, a man who describes himself as White's father tells a dispatcher that his son shot his wife.

"He's there, and he's got a gun," he said.

He also said that his son used a Glock .40 in the shooting and that he had a shotgun in the home. The grandfather told the dispatcher that he was going to take his granddaughter back to his home.

"The side door is open, OK?" the man said to the police dispatcher.

The child was not hurt and is currently in her grandparents' custody, Lakewood police Sgt. Jim Ward said.

Assistant City Prosecutor Andrew Fleck requested that White be held without bond calling him a risk to the community. Lakewood Municipal Court Judge Patrick Carroll agreed.

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CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Director Raoul Peck gave a great honor to the eloquent novelist, poet, playwright and civil rights activist James Baldwin when he set out to make the documentary "I Am Not Your Negro."

Baldwin died in 1987 of stomach cancer at the age of 63, before he could complete what he thought would be his literary masterwork, "Remember This House."

It was meant to be a personal and historical treatise on black-white American race relations, tied to Baldwin's experience with three iconic black American leaders: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. All three were assassinated before they reached the age of 40.

In "I Am Not Your Negro," Peck has gone a long way toward accomplishing Baldwin's final mission. Narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, the movie uses only the words written by Baldwin in his unfinished manuscript, and copious film clips of the writer and his three controversial subjects, to create a fascinating and compelling narrative of African-American history from the Civil War through the civil rights movement and into the Black Lives Matter protests of recent years.

The scope and historical through-line of this documentary should make it required viewing at high schools nationwide. Peck provides a searing and frightening look into what race relations were like in the 1950s, '60s and '70s, right up until the death of Tamir Rice here in Cleveland in 2014.

Peck's documentary is exhaustively researched and uses entertaining clips from movies, music and television talk shows from five decades to examine the tenor and tone of how American popular culture dealt with and also avoided the "Negro Question," as it was called at the time, which haunts our headlines and neighborhoods to this day.

Peck shows images from the 1890 massacre of Native Americans at Wounded Knee, South Dakota; the vicious attacks on protesters during the civil rights marches in Selma and Birmingham, Alabama; the 1965 Watts Riots in Los Angeles; and the beating of Rodney King in 1991.

"I Am Not Your Negro" is a thoughtful and provocative look back on the troubling story of race relations in this country, examined through the prophetic lens of Baldwin's early essays and other examinations of racial discrimination in the land of the free.

To quote Baldwin: "The story of the Negro in America is the story of America. It is not a pretty story."

REVIEW

I Am Not Your Negro

Who: Documentary about James Baldwin directed by Raoul Peck. Narrated by Samuel L. Jackson.

Rated: PG-13.

Running time: 95 minutes.

When: Opens Friday.

Where: Cedar Lee Theatre, 2163 Lee Road, Cleveland Heights.



Rated: A
The deadline to sign up for this free community event that is open to all is Nov. 16.

Kennebunk Post

"We need to invest in our kids," said resident Brenda Robinson. "That's how we keep graffiti out of Waterhouse Center and mischief out of the downtown on Saturday night."
Heavy equipment at work at Escondida mine, of Australian BHP Billiton, in Antofagasta, on May 4, 2013.

BHP Billiton has begun halting operations at its Escondida copper mine in northern Chile, the world's largest, ahead of a planned strike on Thursday, a union leader told Reuters on Wednesday.



The company has said it plans to stop production at the mine during a strike, which the union has warned could be lengthy, potentially affecting global supplies of a metal used in everything from construction to telecommunications.[see story]



"Right now the sulfide leaching plant has stopped, the electrowinning B1 and B2 plants have stopped and the other plants are stopping and what they (the company) are going to do is stockpile (copper)," said Patricio Tapia, the president of Escondida Union No.1.


Gold prices fell Thursday, edging away from three-month highs, after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would give an announcement regarding taxes in the next few weeks.

Spot gold was down 0.6 percent at $1,234.11 an ounce, having struck its highest since Nov. 11 at $1,244.67 in the previous session. U.S. gold futures erased earlier gains, settling $2.70 lower at $1,236.80.

"Lowering the overall tax burden on American business is big league ... that's coming along very well. We're way ahead of schedule, I believe. And we're going to announce something I would say over the next two or three weeks that will be phenomenal in terms of tax," Trump said at a meeting with airline executives.

Gold has risen more than 1 percent this week as Trump has fought to enforce his temporary travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries and as far-right leader Marine Le Pen launched her bid for the French presidency.

Also pressuring gold prices were U.S. data, which pointed to a stronger economy, increasing the likelihood that the Federal Reserve will raise U.S. interest rates. The data showing rising U.S. wholesale inventories and an unexpectedly low number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits also pushed up the dollar and U.S. bond yields.

A stronger dollar makes gold more expensive for holders of other currencies, while higher yields increase the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding bullion. Higher interest rates would lift yields further.

"If people were betting on the Fed being more relaxed and rates being lower for longer, this (data) has muddied that picture," said Robin Bhar at Societe Generale. With gold striking $1,244.67, its highest since Nov. 11, on Wednesday, some investors had turned cautious and were cashing in their bets on higher prices, Bhar said.

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen is due to appear before U.S. senators and members of Congress on Jan. 14 and Jan. 15, when she will be quizzed about the U.S. economy.

Gold has risen by about 10 percent from a mid-December low as political risk in Europe and the United States has driven demand for bullion as a safe haven. Those worries were fueled on

Those worries were fueled on Thursday by official data that showed Germany's trade surplus climbed to a record high in 2016, setting the scene for conflict between Berlin and Washington after Trump's top trade adviser last week accused Berlin of exploiting a "grossly undervalued" euro to gain trading advantage.

Adding support to prices, SPDR Gold Trust, the world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, increased its bullion holdings for a sixth day on Wednesday.

"We see gold as relatively underpriced, given the rally in commodities and high level of political uncertainty," said Hamza Khan at ING. Khan said that gold could rise as high as $1,350 an ounce before too long, having seen jumps of $10 a day.
Aircraft sit on the tarmac at Hong Kong International Airport in Hong Kong, China on Mar. 6, 2016.

The Civil Aviation Department (CAD) has been accused of a safety cover-up concerning its controversial air traffic management system (ATMS).

In a late-night statement on Wednesday, the aviation regulator confirmed that the much-criticized system was involved in six separate safety incidents last month which were not previously disclosed to the public, following a report by news agency FactWire.

Civic Party lawmaker Jeremy Tam Man-ho, who is also a pilot, hit out at the department for not being honest with the public. Tam previously helped whistle-blowers reveal a number of problems stemming from the HK$1.56 billion system.

More from the South China Morning Post:

Hong Kong's new air traffic control system overcomes teething pains to handle Lunar New Year surge

Trump abandoning one-China policy 'exceedingly dangerous'

Trump urged to push Beijing on Hong Kong's autonomy

The incidents, known as "loss of separation"  a minimum distance for aircraft to reduce the risk of mid-air collisions  were reported to have occurred between January 13 and 30. The department classified them as "minor incidents" and "minor technical incidents."

The days spanned the Lunar New Year holiday, one of the busiest travel periods.

Earlier, the department had praised the reliability of the system over the holiday, during which record flight activity was recorded and air traffic services were maintained in a "safe and efficient manner".

Since the commissioning of the ATMS in November, it has developed a series of glitches including aircraft disappearing from radar, aircraft that did not exist appearing on radar, and the duplication of flight symbols on screens confusing controllers.

Further serious problems have overwhelmed the radar system and caused departing flights to be delayed.

A CAD spokeswoman said following an investigation there was "no evidence" to suggest that the six incidents were related to the new air traffic management system. She said other factors to consider included inclement weather and human factors.
The initial public offering for tequila maker Jose Cuervo is at least four times oversubscribed, four sources said on Wednesday, pointing to a high-end pricing for the first Mexican IPO since Donald Trump won the U.S. presidency.

Two of the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said pricing of the 476.6 million share offer was expected to be at the upper end of the 30 to 34 peso guidance range.



A 34 peso pricing, combined with a 15 percent "overallotment option" could allow the oldest continuously-producing tequila company to rake in upwards of $900 million.



The official pricing is due to be released later on Wednesday. Jose Cuervo, which is also the world's biggest tequila maker, could not immediately be reached for comment.



The company, officially known as Becle, put its IPO on hold twice last year, as Trump's march to the White House gathered strength, sending the peso currency to a series of record lows.


The U.S. Senate votes on confirming Jeff Sessions as attorney general on Wednesday night after the contentious final hours of debate about his qualifications.



The Republican-controlled Senate will likely confirm the GOP senator from Alabama as the United States' top law enforcement official after a day of partisan wrangling. The Republican Party holds 52 seats in the 100-member chamber and needs a majority to clear Sessions.

Sessions, 70, is an immigration hard-liner who has served in the Senate since 1997 and was among the first members of Congress to endorse President Donald Trump as a candidate. He previously was Alabama attorney general and a U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Alabama.

Democrats have raised concerns about racism accusations that partly cost Sessions a federal judgeship in the 1980s, as well as fears that he could try to restrict voting rights or fail to check Trump's policies if they test the bounds of the law. Republicans have defended Sessions' long history as a public official, arguing that he defended voting rights and saying racism accusations are unfounded.

Recent tension in the Senate over Trump's Cabinet nominees boiled over late Tuesday when Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., tried to read a 1986 letter by the widow of Martin Luther King Jr. criticizing Sessions. Coretta Scott King raised concerns about Sessions' history and qualifications during the confirmation process for a federal judgeship, which he did not get.

Senate Republicans rebuked Warren, cutting her off from debate, for attempting to read the letter. They invoked a rule aiming to bar senators from impugning their colleagues.

Democrats rallied around Warren, and several other Democratic senators read the letter Wednesday without GOP objection. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., defended the decision.

"Sen. Warren was giving a lengthy speech. She had appeared to violate the rule. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted," McConnell said.

Warren told MSNBC on Wednesday that Democrats lacked numbers to block Sessions. But she added that "we are the party of opposition, and that is our job" to oppose him.
Whole Foods Market said Wednesday it will close nine stores in the second quarter as it abandons its goal to open 1,200-plus stores.

"We're going to continue to grow, but I think we're going to be a more disciplined growth company than we have been in the past," John Mackey, co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods, told analysts on the company's first-quarter earnings call.

Mackey called the closing of the nine stores a "difficult but prudent decision" and said the company will now have more targeted site selection and "continued moderation in ending square footage growth." He said these moves together will "result in a healthier bottom line, increased cash flow and higher returns."

Still, the Texas-based company also said it welcomed 14 new stores in the first quarter, including two outlet relocations.

Mackey added the retailer remains "optimistic about the future growth potential for our 365 format but we want to see how this next round of stores perform before getting more aggressive."

The natural and organic foods grocer said that comp sales in the fiscal first quarter ended Jan. 15 experienced some weakness around the election time and added that the current second quarter will be impacted by a calendar shift in Easter.

Meantime, the CEO said the company has seen stability in comps over the last three quarters with "modest traffic improvement from Q4 to Q1. During the quarter [ending Jan. 15], we saw wide swings in comps on a weekly basis as is frequently the case in Q1 due to weather and holiday shifts."

In particular, he said Whole Foods experienced "a strong start for the first 5 weeks" of the first quarter, then indicated that "comps dropped off sharply in the pre- and post-election weeks." Also, the CEO said the company "showed nice lifts over Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks."

The company's second quarter also is expected to be impacted by the shift in Easter from Q2 last year to Q3 this year.

Finally, the CEO said the competitive landscape continues to be "very dynamic" and added that there remains uncertainty about how long the deflationary environment will continue. As a result, he said the company was resetting comp guidance for the full fiscal year.

"What has become clear is that we don't want to compete in the race to the bottom as consumers have ever-increasing choices for how much and where they shop," he said.
The number of countries assigned the top 'AAA' rating by credit ratings agency Fitch has slunk to a 13-year low with no improvement expected in the coming two years.

Only eleven countries currently hold the coveted highest rating which compares to a peak of 16 sovereigns in the period from 2004  2009, according to a press release from Fitch Ratings on Thursday.

This accounts for less than a tenth of Fitch's global sovereign portfolio by number of companies and equates to two-fifths of global government debt outstanding. The corresponding figure a decade ago reached as high as 48 percent.

"We have concerns about high government debt in a number of advanced economies," James McCormack, global head of sovereign ratings at Fitch, told CNBC via email.

"As debt levels have risen in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, ratings have come down.

"This is the primary reason why many downgraded advanced economies have not yet been upgraded, despite the reduction in government bond yields.

"In essence, the ratings' view and the markets' view have diverged, with ratings more focused on the deterioration in sovereign fundamentals."

Of the countries still holding 'AAA' status, none has a Negative Outlook, implying it would be unlikely for a downgrade to occur within the next two years. Conversely, none of the sovereigns holding 'AA+' status, which sits one tier below the top rung, have a Positive Outlook, meaning an upgrade over the same time frame would be equally unlikely.

Little movement tends to be seen at the 'AAA' level with an average of 97.5 percent of nations over the past 20 years maintaining their status if they began the year in the top rating tier.

Australia is the only country within the past decade to have joined the top ranks, securing its upgrade in 2011. In the most recent seven year period following the financial crisis, six countries have lost 'AAA' status.

Those alongside Australia in the top bracket comprise Canada, Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States.

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Ant Financial, the affiliate which runs the Chinese payment service Alipay, is in talks to raise around $3 billion in debt to fund international investments and acquisitions, a source close to the matter has told CNBC.

The Chinese financial technology firm is raising the money in dollars rather than renminbi so it can fund the $880 million purchase of U.S. , as well as other international companies, the source said.

"It is market practice for a globalized company like Ant Financial to raise debt in USD," a spokesperson told CNBC, without confirming the amount being raised.

Debt issuing is essentially borrowing money and differs from equity financing where investors may take a stake in the company. Ant Financial's last year, which CNBC reported, valued the firm at around $60 billion. This was raised in renminbi from a number of Chinese investors, but now raising the debt in dollars will make it easier for Ant to make overseas acquisitions.



The company has been on a drive to internationalize over the past year, expanding into Europe, the U.S. and other parts of Asia. As part of this move, it has invested in a number of companies including Thailand's Ascend Money and .



Ant Financial could go public as early as this year, although , a source previously told CNBC.
Apple CEO Tim Cook visited the University of Glasgow on Wednesday to be awarded an honorary doctorate and for a chat with students. During a question-and-answer session, one audience member asked Cook to tell them what the future looks like.



He responded by talking about the way that information is published and disseminated in the digital age and how consumers need to be more wary of what they read and hear.



"The world is going through an enormous change. We used to watch three or four people tell us the news, and generally speaking most of us trusted that  now you are growing up in an environment where everyone is telling you the news and everyone is trying to influence your opinion on something," Cook said.


was founded by the son of an immigrant and the company wouldn't exist without immigration, chief executive Tim Cook told students in Scotland on Wednesday, restating his strong opposition to President Donald Trump's controversial executive order. Last month, Trump issued an executive order temporarily banning entry to the U.S. for citizens of seven Muslim-majority nations. The order has since been challenged and suspended in the U.S. courts after the state of Washington successfully got the ban overturned. In addition to this, the technology industry has to Trump's order. Over 100 tech companies, including Apple, were named in an amicus brief in support of the state of Washington.

Cook told a group of students at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, where he was awarded an honorary doctorate of science, about the ban affecting Apple's employees and the broader country. "If we stand and say nothing, it's as if we're agreeing," Cook said. "Apple would not exist without immigration. This is a huge issue for us  we stand up, we don't sit in silence."

The Apple CEO also referenced the late founder Steve Jobs, who was the son of Abdulfattah Jandali, who was born in Syria.

"Steve was the son of an immigrant. Our company has immigrants in it that are key to the innovation of our company. Our company depends on diversity  diversity of thought, and people generally have diverse views  it's the tapestry of getting people with all different backgrounds and all different point of views that are able to create the best products," Cook said.



Apple CEO Tim Cook delivers the keynote address during Apple WWDC on June 8, 2015, in San Francisco, California. Getty Images
The protests from Silicon Valley and other corners of Corporate America over President Donald Trump's temporary immigration ban is putting two unrelated issues together, said billionaire Steve Ballmer, former Microsoft CEO and the son of an immigrant.



Three federal appeals court judges may decide as early as Thursday whether to reinstate Trump's executive order, which temporarily suspended travelers from seven mostly-Muslim countries from entering the U.S.

Ballmer, appearing on CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Thursday, sees the debate over the ban as conflating two separate issues.

"One issue is specifically to what should or shouldn't be the situation with respect to seven countries. I think that set of checks and balances is going on," Ballmer said.

"The other issue, which is mostly unrelated, is what should our immigration policy look like for high-skilled workers," who can be important for technology firms and other companies to fill specialized jobs? Ballmer said.

"I'm the son of an immigrant. I do believe there's value to having immigrants come into the country," said Ballmer, whose father was an immigrant from Switzerland.

"And on the other side," he continued, "I do believe it's important to have reasonably secure borders. And I'm glad that dialogue is playing out."

In the CNBC interview, Ballmer also said Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey should focus full-time on the ailing social media brand. Dorsey is also CEO of Square. Ballmer is a major holder of Twitter stock.

 Associated Press contributed to this report.

Correction: This story was revised to recast the headlines to more accurately summarize Ballmer's comments. It also corrected the name of the other company headed by Dorsey. It's Square.
A critical provision of the House Republicans' tax plan is facing more resistance in the GOP-controlled Senate.

Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., urged his colleagues Wednesday to reject the so-called border adjustment tax. The proposal would put a 20 percent tax on imports into the U.S. while making exports tax-free. Under the House plan, it would coincide with slashing the corporate tax rate from the current 35 percent to 20 percent.

Perdue argued in a letter that the tax is "regressive, hammers consumers and shuts down economic growth."

The Congressman previously served as the CEO of Dollar General , a company that imports heavily. U.S.-based retailers, which are largely in the business of importing goods made in Asia and selling them to Americans, have been outspoken in their opposition to the border-adjusted tax.

More expensive imports could mean higher prices for consumers, but some economists have argued that effect could be offset by a stronger dollar, which makes those imports less expensive than they would be otherwise.

"For sure, the tax code needs substantive change, but when Congress combines good ideas with bad ideas into a single sweeping bill, the bad ideas become law. This proposed border adjustment tax is a bad idea and should not become a permanent part of our tax code," Perdue wrote.

Disagreement over the border-adjustment tax poses one possible roadblock to House Republicans as they attempt to pass tax reform later this year.

Other Republican senators including Mike Lee of Utah and John Cornyn of Texas have also expressed skepticism about the border-adjustment tax.

The White House has appeared to warm to the idea somewhat, floating a 20 percent tax on Mexican imports as a possible method to pay for a border wall on the U.S.-Mexico border that could cost $15 billion or more.
How should start-ups prepare for the next four years of President Donald Trump? Buckle up, said venture capitalist Bradley Tusk.



"We're going to have four fairly bumpy years," Tusk told CNBC at the StrictlyVC speakers series in San Francisco on Wednesday night.

In the weeks since Trump took office, Tusk has received a slew of inquiries from concerned portfolio company CEOs and clients. In response, he created a "basic intellectual framework on when to engage or not engage" with the Trump administration, and a president who is not afraid to tweet at companies, singling them out for praise or punishment.

Tusk, who was an early investor in Uber, advises companies on how to navigate challenging regulatory environments.

Start-up CEOs should not feel compelled to take a stance on every issue, he said.

Though internal pressure and a public backlash forced Uber CEO Travis Kalanick to step down from Trump's advisory council, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has managed to position himself close to Trump without facing the same pressure.

"In some ways he [Musk] is probably picking his spots and saying 'There may be a time when I have to do what Travis did, and really speak up and take some sort of action, but let me do it on issues that are really impactful to my business,'" he said. "Realizing where you're relevant and where you're not is really important."

Musk may decide to stand up to the government on environmental issues, whereas immigration was a more personal and critical issue to Kalanick and Uber, he said.

Tusk is also a former aide to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and has advised Fortune 500 tech and media companies including Alphabet's Google, AT&T and Walmart.

"There is a bit of irrational fear  'Oh, well I don't want to make Trump mad'  it depends on what you do," he said. "If you're Apple  at the end of the day  what is he going to do to them? The answer is nothing really," said Tusk.

"This notion that you have to capitulate in some way just because you're worried about getting tweeted at is a little silly," he said.

But one company which he suggests might be vulnerable is Amazon .

"If the Justice Department chose to do to Amazon what they did to Microsoft in the 1990s, even though Amazon would probably win at the end of the day, like Microsoft it is so bruising, so expensive, such a distraction, that you want to avoid that if you can."


The White House is considering a top official at Fannie Mae to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to two people familiar with the discussion.

Brian Brooks is currently the mortgage financing giant's general counsel and has close ties to Treasury secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin. Brooks represented several of the investors in Mnuchin's purchase of failed subprime mortgage lender IndyMac for $1.6 billion in 2009. The bank was renamed OneWest, and Brooks joined the company as vice chairman.

He left the bank for Fannie Mae in 2014, shortly before OneWest was acquired by CIT Group.

Brooks is among several names being considered for the top job at the agency, which was founded to protect consumers from abuse by financial institutions.

A White House spokesman said last month that the administration had met with former Rep. Randy Neugebauer  a vocal critic of the CFPB  about serving as director. Also on the short list is Todd Zywicki, an economist at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, according to the sources.

Still, any discussions remain preliminary. The term of the current CFPB director, Richard Cordray, does not end until 2018, though opponents of the agency are pushing to have him removed earlier.

Though the director is a political appointee, the CFPB is an independent agency  which means the White House has limited authority to make changes at the top. Currently, the president can fire the director only for inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance.

But a recent ruling by the D.C. Circuit Court found that the agency's structure is unconstitutional. (The CFPB is appealing that decision.) Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas is expected to propose legislation soon that would allow the president to dismiss the director of the CFPB for any reason, according to a memo obtained by CNBC.

Advocates for the agency have vowed to fight any changes from Capitol Hill or the White House. Brooks could also face a rocky road to Senate confirmation for his ties to OneWest. Democrats and consumer groups have attacked Mnuchin for his leadership of a bank that faced accusations of discrimination and aggressive foreclosure practices. At OneWest, Brooks oversaw the bank's fair lending programs.

"Foreclosures happen in an economic crisis. But OneWest was different," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who helped establish the CFPB. "It quickly gained a reputation as a foreclosure machine  OneWest was notorious for its belligerence and for its cruelty."
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A decision by the United States to pursue a new breed of nuclear weapons could push China to reconsider its decades-long atomic policy, according to experts.

The U.S. Defense Department recently received a recommendation that the government develop tactical nuclear weapons with "low yield" results that can be deployed within smaller battlefield areas. Tong Zhao, an associate in the Carnegie Endowment's Nuclear Policy Program based in Beijing, told CNBC Wednesday that this more flexible form of weapon would lower the threshold of nuclear use. "This will be seen by China as evidence of U.S. contemplating first use of nuclear weapons in a future crisis and will encourage China to consider pursuing similar capabilities that may undermine the no-first-use policy," he said in an email. China's "no-first-use policy" means Beijing only demands the capability to ensure the launch of a nuclear missile, after being hit first by an enemy nuclear strike.

Getty Images | Xinhua News Agency

U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on January 27, requiring Defense Secretary James Mattis to review America's nuclear prowess.

Zhao said U.S. plans to pursue a global missile network, initiated by the Obama administration, may be viewed by China as a threat to its own small deterrent and could mean a switch to a "launch-on-warning" policy, whereby China would retaliate before enemy missiles hit land. "The new U.S. administration seems very much devoted to developing and deploying a massive global and layered missile defense network that protects not only U.S. homeland, U.S. allies, and friends, but also U.S. bases and troops wherever they are located or deployed. "To make sure that there would be enough Chinese nuclear weapons to survive a U.S. first strike and not be neutralized by U.S. missile defense, China may have an increasing incentive to adopt the launch-on-warning posture," he said.



Getty Images | ChinaFotoPress
Italy could have snap general elections as soon as June with three of the four major parties vying for power tapping into increasing anti-euro sentiment in the country.



Formerly one of the single currency's pioneers, many Italian voters believe the euro is to blame for the country's economic downturn since its launch in 1999.



"I would say Italy are probably the most disenchanted in Europe by the single currency," Michael Hessel, political economist at Absolute Strategy Research, told CNBC on Thursday.



"The net majority think their future is better outside the European Union, although not by much I mean, Italian voters don't trust the EU but they trust their own national institutions a lot less," he added.



Populist surge



Concerns over the future of the European Union (EU) have increased as a result of rising populism throughout the continent with several key elections ahead. The final round of the French elections takes place in May, just weeks before Italian citizens are potentially due to cast their vote, with far-right leader Marine Le Pen leading in the polls.



Opinion polls suggest Le Pen, who has campaigned to take France out of the single currency, would lose out to an establishment candidate. However, investors are increasingly anxious the wave of populism associated with the U.K.'s vote to leave the EU as well as the election of U.S. President Donald Trump could boost the electoral chances of populist candidates with anti-euro campaign pledges.



Italy's constitutional court amended aspects of its electoral law in January which raised the chances of early elections this year and ultimately made it harder for an anti-establishment party to secure power. The latest opinion polls suggest the ruling Democratic Party (PD) and Five Star Movement (5SM) are on around 30 percent of the vote, well short of the 40 percent threshold required by Italy's constitutional court to automatically form a majority.



Hessel argued that the markets seemed to underappreciate the importance of the constitutional reform as it would likely hold 5SM back should elections take place in the summer.



All things to all men
Check out which companies are making headlines before the bell:

 The company reported adjusted quarterly profit of 37 cents per share, matching estimates. Revenue beat forecasts, but Coke gave a weaker-than-expected full-year 2017 outlook. Coke's results continue to be impacted by a strong dollar, and the company saw its seventh straight quarterly revenue drop.

 Twitter beat estimates with adjusted quarterly profit of 16 cents per share, 4 cents a share above estimates. Rrevenue fell short, however and the social media company also gave a current-quarter adjusted earnings outlook that falls far short of analysts' forecasts. Twitter saw its slowest quarterly revenue growth since going public.

 Viacom came in 20 cents a share above estimates, with adjusted quarterly profit of $1.04 per share. Revenue also beat forecasts. Viacom announced its Spike network would be rebranded as the Paramount Network, as well.

 The drugstore operator came in 4 cents a share above estimates, with adjusted quarterly profit of $1.71 per share. Revenue fell short of forecasts, however. The company's bottom line results were helped by strong performance in the pharmacy benefit management operation.

 The parent of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and KFC reported adjusted quarterly profit of 79 cents per share, 5 cents a share above estimates. Revenue was short of consensus, however, and the same-store sales increase of 1 percent was short of the 1.7 percent estimate.

 The tobacco producer beat estimates by 2 cents a share, with adjusted quarterly profit of 62 cents per share. Revenue also beat estimates.

 The doughnut shop chain reported adjusted quarterly profit of 64 cents per share, 3 cents a share above estimates. Revenue also topped forecasts, and Dunkin' increased its quarterly dividend by 7.5 percent.

,  Anthem's proposed $54 billion deal to buy Cigna was blocked by a judge's ruling. The Justice Department had sued to block both this deal and purchase of . Anthem issued a statement saying it would appeal the ruling.

 Whole Foods matched Street estimates by reporting adjusted quarterly profit of 39 cents per share, but the grocery chain's revenue fell short of forecasts. The company also cut its full-year sales and earnings outlooks. Whole Foods is seeing the impact from increased competition, and it announced it would close nine stores, as well.

 UPS increased its quarterly dividend to 83 cents per share from 78 cents.

 The airline reported a 4 percent increase in revenue passenger miles in January.

,  The drugmakers won a stay of an order that would have blocked the two companies from selling their cholesterol drug Praluent in the United States. Sales had been blocked after won a trial in which it accused the two companies of infringing its patents.

 PayPal has been subpoenaed by the Justice Department, which is seeking information on the payment service company's anti-money-laundering program.

 Cree said the planned $850 million sale of its Wolfspeed Power unit to German chipmaker Infineon Technologies might not be allowed to proceed, because of U.S. government security concerns. The lighting components company did not specify the nature of those concerns.

 The exchange operator increased its quarterly dividend by 10 percent to 66 cents per share.

 The automaker will shut down production at its California assembly plant for a week, as it prepares to start production of its Model 3 sedan. Tesla is hoping to start production of the Model 3 in July.

 Kellogg is changing its delivery model for its branded snacks, switching those products to the warehouse model it uses for its other offerings. Kellogg had been distributing snacks directly to stores.

 Wells Fargo will likely eliminate annual bonuses for some of its top executives for 2016, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. That follows last year's sales practices scandal, and CEO Timothy Sloan and CFO John Shrewsberry may be among those affected. Sloan took over as chief executive from John Stumpf in the weeks after news of the scandal became public.

 Boeing won a 39-jet order from Singapore Airlines that included 20 of its 777 jets and 19 of its 787 jets.
Airline CEOs visited the White House on Thursday to meet with the president and discuss the air traffic control system and aging airports.

President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with airline industry executives, including Deborah Flint (L), CEO of Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA); and Myron Gray (R), President of US Operations at UPS, in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, February 9, 2017.

Gordon Bethune, former CEO and chairman of Continental Airlines, said on CNBC's "Power Lunch" the best way to fix aviation infrastructure in the country is by making the air traffic control system more efficient and "thereby saving billions of dollars of people's time and money."



He suggested a plan to privatize the system similar to other countries like Canada.

David Vernon, a Bernstein senior research analyst, said, "If you do modernize the air traffic control system, you can kind of cut down the spacing between the planes" for taking off and arriving into airports.

Vernon said this makes it easier for airlines to reduce their operating costs by squeezing in more flights with their existing fleet, thus the carriers can earn more money and choose to either pass on their profits to customers by lowering ticket prices or use the money to grow.
Insurance stocks rose sharply Thursday as a memo circulated by Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, said proposed legislation would no longer deem those companies "too big to fail."

In the years after the financial crisis, the Financial Stability Oversight Council, a consortium of regulators, labeled AIG , MetLife and Prudential as "systemically important" to the economy  meaning a failure of one of those companies would have far-reaching effects.

But Hensarling's memo, obtained by CNBC, listed among other things a commitment to "remove remaining nonbank SIFI references."

Large banks, it appears, will still fall into that category, which carries hefty regulatory costs, strict government oversight and the need to carry excess capital in order to avoid being bailed out in a crisis.
Intel told investors on Thursday that it expects lower margins in its data center business, a day after announcing a multi-billion dollar investment at the White House.

At its investor meeting on Thursday, Intel's VP of its data center group, Diane Bryant, said its data center profit margins would drop over time to the low-to-mid 40 percent range,down from their historical norms between 45 and 50 percent. Shares briefly fell nearly 2 percent in heavy volume, before recovering, last down about 1.5 percent.

The company's data center business sells products to enterprises and cloud computing providers to use in their data centers. It's been a critical contributor to Intel's growth: in 2016, data center revenue amounted to $17.2 billion, up 8 percent from the previous year; the only faster-growing segment was its much smaller Internet-of-Things segment, where revenues grew 16 percent to $2.6 billion.
Martin Shkreli, the controversial pharmaceutical executive and accused securities fraudster, is again asking a judge to let him travel outside New York to speak at a university event.

This time, the 33-year-old Shkreli, who is free on $5 million bond, wants to go to Harvard University to discuss "investing," according to a Facebook post.

In a letter to U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto in Brooklyn, New York, filed in court Wednesday, Shkreli's lawyers say he wants to travel to Massachusetts next Wednesday for a "speaking engagement at Harvard University," and return to New York the following day.

The lawyers said federal prosecutors don't oppose that request, just as they didn't object to his requests last month to travel to two other university speaking events. Neither of those events actually ended up happening, though, because of a backlash about his appearances.

Matsumoto's permission, which ended up being granted Thursday, is needed because Shkreli's travel is restricted as part of the conditions of his release bond, which he posted after being indicted on charges of defrauding his former pharma company Retrophin . Those conditions normally bar Shkreli from traveling outside the confines of New York City, Long Island and several counties north of the city.

The group that asked Shkreli to speak this time is the Harvard Financial Analysts Club.

"Martin has been invited to speak at Harvard and so long as he does not discuss his pending case, it's fine with me," his lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, told CNBC.

"We hope the court will approve his travel request," Brafman said. "Whatever else one might say about Martin, nobody doubts his brilliance. Having a young brilliant man speak to a group of brilliant young men and women is a natural fit."

Shkreli announced his planned appearance at Harvard in a Facebook post last Friday.

"I'll be giving a discussion on investing at Harvard University on February 15th at 8:30pm. Open to students!," that post said.



Matsumoto last month approved Shkreli's prior request to travel to California and New Jersey for speaking gigs at colleges, and to Washington for President Donald Trump's inauguration.



Shkreli's appearance in mid-January at the University of California, Davis, with fellow Internet provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos was canceled after angry protests surrounding the event, which was to be hosted by the Davis College Republicans.

Shkreli actually was in Davis by the time the event was canceled.

He also was planning to speak this Saturday to the Princeton Entrepreneurship Club. But that gig was canceled right after it was announced in mid-January by the club itself after backlash over the event.



"As we began planning this event last year in November, we knew it would be polarizing, as Mr. Shkreli is a widely criticized and controversial figure," the club said in a Facebook post last month. "However, from his recent acts of sexual harassment and atrocious comments on Twitter, and his subsequent suspension from the platform this week, he has definitively shown he is lacking in character and not the type of person E-Club wants to bring to speak or be associated with our organization."

The club was referring to Shkreli's suspension last month by Twitter for harassing a female journalist.

Shkreli has said he believes he was suspended for "being a Republican," and during an interview on Fox Business Network compared his tweet that had shown his image edited in to appear as if he were lounging with the journalist on a couch to something a "12-year-old would hang in his locker of her beautiful face."

Shkreli, on his Facebook page, has been promoting a Feb. 20 event in New York City dubbed "An Evening with Martin Shkreli."

"Martin will discuss investing, healthcare and politics in a presentation/lecture format for one hour and will take questions," an online notice of that event says. "He will do his best to accomodate [sic] photographs. He may play tracks from his unreleased music collection."



The notice calls Shkreli, "one of America's most successful young entrepreneurs."

Shkreli is accused by Brooklyn federal prosecutors of defrauding Retrophin of millions of dollars to repay investors in his hedge fund whom he likewise was accused of ripping off. He has denied the charges, and is expected to go on trial in late June.

Shkreli first gained public notoriety in the summer of 2015 when news broke that his then-new pharma company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, had hiked the price of a drug used to treat a parasitic condition in pregnant women, babies and HIV patients by more than 5,000 percent, from just $13.50 per pill to $750 per pill.

On Wednesday, CNBC reported that Shkreli was involved in a new software company in New York named Godel Systems that is trying to raise $1 million through a debt offering. Another named executive officer and director of the company is Kevin Mulleady, who has been affiliated with Shkreli at at least three prior companies, including his hedge fund, Retrophin and Turing.

When asked about Godel Systems on Thursday, Brafman said, "Godel has nothing to do with pharmaceuticals. Other than that it would be premature to further discuss this project."
Bottles of Jose Cuervo Tradicional are arranged for a photograph at the Tequila Cuervo La Rojena S.A. de C.V. distillery plant in Guadalajara, Mexico.

The initial public offering for Mexico's Jose Cuervo raised more than $900 million, the company said on Thursday, as the world's biggest tequila maker launched the first IPO in the country since Donald Trump won the U.S. presidency in November.

Shares in Cuervo, which were priced at the top of the expected range at 34 pesos, jumped by more than 8 percent after markets opened in Mexico.

The stock later pared some initial gains and was trading up by 4.9 percent at 35.7 pesos per share.

Including the overallotment option, the IPO raised about 18.64 billion pesos ($912.6 million), Cuervo said.

With 30 percent of the global tequila market, the Cuervo business, officially known as Becle SA de CV, is controlled by Mexico's Beckmann family, which will remain the majority shareholder of the company.

Last year, the company put the IPO on hold twice, as Trump's march to the White House gathered strength, sending the peso currency to a series of record lows.

Trump has threatened to slap a hefty tax on products Mexico sends to the United States to pay for a border wall, as well as tear up a joint trade deal with Mexico.

Still, investors expressed strong interest in the IPO, citing Cuervo's strong dollar-based earnings and saying demand for tequila is not heavily dependent on prices.

Started by Jose Antonio de Cuervo in 1758 before Mexican independence from Spain, Cuervo says it is North America's oldest continuous producer of spirits.

Aranda, a subsidiary of Singapore state investor Temasek, said it would take a 20 percent stake in the listing, helping to put a floor under the IPO.

Lorenzo Gonzalez, managing director for Mexico & Andean Region at Temasek, said Mexico was an important market and that the Singapore investor looked forward to partnering with Cuervo.

"The consumer sector, including food and beverages, is also a good proxy for our wider global investment themes, which include transforming economies and the growth of middle income populations," Gonzalez added.

The company announced the pricing of the IPO early on Thursday after previously setting a price range of between 30 to 34 pesos for the shares.
Participants in the Medicare for All Rally in Los Angeles California on February 4, 2017.

That tally is more than 34 percent higher than the 85,690 enrollments seen on the exchange last year.

MNSure, the state-run health exchange for Minnesota, on Thursday reported that 114,810 people signed up for private individual insurance plans sold on that marketplace by the close of enrollment this week.

Obamacare sign-ups on Minnesota's insurance marketplace sharply spiked upward this year, providing more evidence for the claim that Trump administration actions caused lower enrollment on the federal health exchange.

"We are enrolling people at historically high levels," said MNsure CEO Allison O'Toole. "When more Minnesotans are covered, our state is healthier and our economy is stronger."

Minnesota's tally was helped, at least partially, by a one-week extension in the enrollment deadline the exchange granted. That extension was offered in light of the passage of a state law in late January that gave more than 125,000 residents an automatic 25 percent reduction in their insurance plan premiums if they faced significant premium hikes this year.

But even before that extension, MNSure was seeing dramatic growth in sign-ups for 2017 plans.

However, even as the state's Obamacare marketplace gained customers, there was a steep drop in the total number of people covered by the individual insurance market in the state. That market comprises both individual plans bought on MNSure  the only place that qualified low and middle-income customers can get federal subsidies that lower their monthly premiums  and plans bought outside of that exchange.

"Today there are 30 percent fewer Minnesotans buying health insurance on their own than this time last year," the Minnesota Council of Health Plans said Thursday. "While MNsure's announcement today that 114,810 people bought these policies through the state's marketplace, fewer purchased health insurance directly from health plans. Total enrollment is just under 190,000, down from 270,400 in March 2016."

Jim Schowalter, president of the Minnesota Council of Health Plans, said, "MNsure is getting a bigger share of a smaller pie,."

"While it's great that more people are getting help from the federal and state governments to pay their monthly premiums, the fact that so few people have signed up is alarming," Schowalter said. "The bad news is that fewer people will be helping to pay for really high medical bills" incurred by remaining customers, he said.

Sign-ups on the 12 Obamacare insurance exchanges run by states and the District of Columbia now have, as a group, handily beat the performance of the federal exchange HealthCare.gov, which serves residents of 39 states. Seven of the 12 state-based markets reported increases in enrollment compared to last year.

Enrollment on the state exchanges, which now stands at above 3 million, is up about 2.4 percent over last year's tally, according to the leading Obamacare tracking site ACASigups.net. The final tally from Vermont, which has yet to report its results, would add to that, albeit very slightly.
Peer-to-peer lending is growing up, and Wall Street is looking for a bigger piece of the action.

The burgeoning business, also known as marketplace lending, involves private loans between lenders and borrowers, usually arranged through websites such as Prosper, Lending Club and SoFi, along with a growing array of other entrants to the field. Investors like the loans for the yield they provide, and individuals and business people enjoy the ease of going to a site and being able to procure funding relatively quickly.

But as the industry is growing, so are its funding needs. That's where big Wall Street banks are stepping in.

P2P platforms increasingly are bundling loans together and selling them off to institutional investors as "asset-backed securities."

If that term is familiar, it's because the practice was at the center of the financial crisis, where Wall Street combined loans  often mortgages  into exotic packages and then shipped them off to yield-hungry investors. They became an ugly symbol of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, but asset-backed securities (ABS) never went away, and the instrument, part of an industry practice known as securitization, is now proving valuable for the P2P industry.

Total ABS issuance for 2016 in peer lending came to $7.62 billion, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence analyst Eric Turner. In the grand scheme of things, the figure doesn't sound like much for a banking industry that has $16 trillion in total assets.

However, the practice of ABS issuance in the marketplace lending arena began only around 2013, when the total was a meager $257.1 million. That means issuance is about 30 times what it was just four years ago. The 2016 total also represented a 72.4 percent increase over the previous year.

As the industry expands, so will loan securitization.

"As the market has proven resilient in the face of headwinds, the use of securitization is unlikely to slow down, and 2017 stands to be another record year for deals in the space," Turner said in a research note. "The continued need for capital at (traditional) lenders, coupled with the entry of new lenders in the space, will help fuel increased offerings for the year."
OPEC members appear to be complying with agreed production cuts, but Saudi Arabia is overcompensating for some of its fellow oil producers.

The OPEC deal, agreed late last year, requires 10 member states to reduce their collective output by 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) starting from January 1.

S&P Global Platts, which monitors monthly OPEC production, released its latest survey earlier this week and found members achieved 91 percent of their required cuts for the month of January, or 1.14 million bpd.

"OPEC spent much of the last half of last year talking up this deal. We wanted to see whether they were actually going to walk the walk and not just talk the talk," Herman Wang, OPEC specialist at S&P Global Platts, told CNBC.

"The 10 members that were required to cut production under this deal have achieved 91 percent, 1.14 million bpd, of cutting from October levels, which was where this deal was benchmarked from."




The future of Greece in the euro zone is once again in doubt as creditors and Athens cannot agree on debt relief for the troubled economy.

The outspoken German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble told the German broadcaster ARD that in order to cut its debt, Greece would have to leave the euro zone.

Similar calls were made across the largest euro economy, where elections will be held after the summer. The German pro-business party FDP (Free Democratic Party) also said Thursday that Greece should leave the euro zone and then receive debt relief.

The question of debt relief has been the biggest sticking point in the course of the third bailout program, totaling 86 billion euros ($92 billion). The International Monetary Fund has pressured European creditors from the start to make the Greek debt more sustainable. But European leaders are reluctant to offer Athens significant relief before the program comes to an end next year and not before they have overcome the heavy political calendar.

"Germany has been against giving something significant before the election and the end of (the Greek bailout) program," Athanasios Vamvakidis, global head of G10 forex strategy at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, told CNBC over the phone.

Greece has already received some short-term measures that alleviate its debt burden, but at the moment it is stuck in negotiations with creditors, who refuse to provide significant relief for the medium to long-term without Athens legislating measures that will ensure financial stability after the bailout program.

"The German pressure is part of these negotiations," Vamvakidis noted. "There will be more headlines, more risks (that Greece will leave the euro) until Greece runs out of money. This is when they will reach an agreement."
The upcoming French presidential election gets investors more concerned by the day.



As the ballot approaches in late April, the outcome appears more unpredictable after the surprising Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump, one analyst told CNBC that France is the current big concern.

The center-right candidate Francois Fillon was until recently set to become the next president of France, based on opinion poll results. However, since allegations that he had misused public funds emerged  which he has rebuffed saying he has been a victim of "media lynching"  he has lost ground to the independent Emmanuel Macron.

"I am a little bit more worried about France, perhaps, what Fillon has done recently or what's come out has not been helpful, and the French are good for a revolution," Lothar Mentel, chief investment officer, at Tatton Investment Management told CNBC on Thursday.

The political landscape is as divided. An opinion poll released Thursday showed that Marine Le Pen, the far-right candidate would win the first round with 24 percent of the votes, followed by Macron with 21 percent and Fillon in third place with 20 percent.

According to Mentel, given the many elections across Europe, the situation "needs to be watched," though overall he doesn't believe that voters will follow the populist route when heading to the polls.

"The election of Trump has perhaps created headwind for the populist because the Europeans are a bit shocked by what's coming out of the U.S. at the moment and I sense that they don't really want to follow down that route," Mentel told CNBC.

"Certainly those 10 to 15 percent who have always bought into that (populist rhetoric) think it's great but the rest, the swing voters who may have gone with the populist last year, I think aren't going with them anymore, particularly in Germany," he added.


As far as leaks out of new U.S. President Donald Trump's administration go, the saying "when it rains, it pours," might be appropriate.

Last week alone, potentially embarrassing details concerning telephone calls with the Australian Prime Minister and Mexican President, as well as allegations that Trump's Supreme Court nomination process was being stage managed, saw the cold light of day.

Since the tempestuous U.S. election cycle last year, demand for SecureDrop, one of the primary encryption platforms employed by news outlets to securely facilitate leaks has "absolutely exploded," according to Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation which is behind the tool.

"It's hard to name a news organization that has not gotten in touch with us about installing SecureDrop in the past six weeks," Timm told CNBC via e-mail.

The platform, used by the New York Times and the Washington Post among others, is currently subject of the Guardian's pinned tweet and has been adopted by national broadcasters in Canada and Norway.

SecureDrop's growing popularity is representative of a sea change in the media industry, with leak-based and investigative journalism being foregrounded.

Timm described how "the Trump administration has been leaking at a record pace" and "media organizations are much more willing to actually call lies 'lies.'"

By way of explaining the spike in interest in SecureDrop, Timm outlined his view that there was a "general fear that Trump could turn the U.S.' surveillance on the press," alongside unrest bubbling away within the government itself.

According to Timm, SecureDrop faces little other competition in the U.S. The tool is open source, though he detailed that the Freedom of the Press Foundation did "sign large news organizations who can afford it up to support contracts."

Another encryption platform that has seen its popularity jump is Signal, a messaging app which facilitates communication shielded by end-to-end encryption. BuzzFeed and other media outlets reported in early December that daily downloads of the app had increased 400 percent since the U.S. election.

Moxie Marlinspike, founder of Open Whisper Systems which is behind the platform, told CNBC via e-mail that: "The U.S. surveillance infrastructure expanded greatly under Obama, and there are many people who feel uncomfortable or at risk with Trump inheriting control over the largest, most invasive, least accountable surveillance apparatus in history."

Marlinspike did point out that the Trump transition team also used Signal. Like SecureDrop, the software is open source and Marlinspike hoped that such practice would "ideally  just become the new normal." Google, Facebook and its subsidiary Whatsapp also moved to adopt end-to-end encryption last year.

But for Tom Felle, a lecturer in digital journalism at City University in London, the pick up in encryption software is nothing new, and is instead a "trend that has been building in the last eight to nine years" as journalists need to "protect sources and whistleblowers in the digital era."

Commenting on the rocky relationship between the media and the new Trump administration, Felle did add that there was a "worry in newsrooms as to how to cover fake news." He said that while there were "no grave investigations into Trump as yet," the proliferation of leaks coming out of the new government was "an early example of what will be an interesting four years."

Nonetheless, the media's mass employment of encryption software may well contribute to this.

Timm asserted that, "I don't think it's impossible that a combination of leaks, and whistleblowers and investigative journalism eventually lead to the downfall of Trump."

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European stocks are the cheapest they've been relative to their U.S. counterparts in nearly 40 years, and they have more upside potential for profit growth, making them an attractive buy even with looming political risk, according to analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

The analysts made a bullish case Thursday to buy Europe, based on the idea that corporate earnings there have bottomed and are set to see double-digit growth for the first time since 2010. On a price-to-book basis, Europe is the cheapest it has been to the U.S. in nearly 40 years. European equities have seriously underperformed U.S. stocks over the past nine years, with the total return index for MSCI U.S. beating MSCI Europe by 105 percent in dollar terms from the trough in 2008. That said, the political situation looks shakier on the Continent, with a number of elections this year. The most concerning by far is the French election. Nervousness about that vote, as well as Greece's interminable debt crises, have put pressure on bond yields recently.

Nationalist candidate Marine Le Pen, who has become increasingly popular in France, has said she would take the country off the euro. That could lead to the breakup of the entire euro zone  France is its second-biggest economy, after Germany  and would mark a tremendous blow to Europe considering that Britain voted to leave the European Union last June. The Netherlands also has a March election, where another nationalist candidate is leading, but it is France that has been the big concern. The first round in the French presidential election is in April, and the second round is in May. "That's clearly the downside risk. I think if Marine Le Pen was elected  it would call into question the integrity of the euro zone," said Ronan Carr, BofA European equity strategist. Carr does not expect Le Pen to win, however, and either of the other two candidates are seen as positive for the markets, since they both would be reformists and pro-euro zone.

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"I think it's quite conceivable we're sitting here in May and the markets find the outcome quite bullish. Between now and then the markets could be choppy, kind of like we saw with some of the political events we saw last year," he said. "Ultimately, I think once we work through the uncertainty the backdrop is very strong." German and possibly Italian elections are expected later in the fall. There could be further volatility then. "On the other hand, if and when current political risks stabilize, it could set the stage for European valuations to recover," according to the analysts' report. Carr said while Greek bonds have been under pressure, he expects "an 11th-hour resolution" of its current debt issues. European stocks should also benefit from the reflation trade  the boost U.S. markets are seen getting from lower taxes and new government spending on infrastructure  which has been driving U.S. stocks since President Donald Trump was elected. Corporate Europe derives nearly half its earnings from outside the European economy, so the earnings upturn is tied to global growth, the analysts said. Bank of America expects European earnings growth of 11 percent in 2017 because of the recovery in commodities, low margins and a currency tail wind. The analysts expect growth of just 9 percent in the U.S., and for 2018, earnings growth is expected to be 8 percent in Europe, versus 6 percent in the U.S. Based on one-year forward price-earnings, MSCI Europe trades at 14.7 percent, a 17 percent discount to the MSCI U.S. at a 17.8 times.
Toshiba has received an offer as high as 400 billion yen ($3.6 billion) for a 19.9 percent stake in its flash memory business, with other bids as low as 200 billion yen, a person directly involved in the deal told Reuters.

Suitors include rivals SK Hynix and Micron Technology , and financial investors like Bain Capital.

The Japanese conglomerate was seeking to raise around 300 billion yen from the stake sale, said the source, who declined to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
"Go buy Ivanka's stuff, is what I would tell you. I'm going to. I hate shopping and I'm going to go get some myself today," Conway told "Fox and Friends."

Trump alleged that Nordstrom treated his daughter "unfairly," renewing concerns that he is using his platform to affect his family's business interests. Conway raised even more ethical issues after criticizing Nordstrom's decision and saying that people can "see through" the company's intentions.

In a Fox News appearance, Conway responded to President Donald Trump's Twitter attack on Nordstrom on Wednesday for saying it plans to stop selling Ivanka Trump's products. The chain faced backlash from some consumers for selling Ivanka Trump-branded products amid concerns about her father's policies. It said its decision was based only on business considerations.

Top Trump aide Kellyanne Conway sparked ethics concerns Thursday when she said on national TV to "go buy" products made by the president's daughter's brand.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee ranking member Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., wrote a letter to committee chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, asking him to refer Conway for possible disciplinary action. Cummings and outside government ethics watchdogs said Conway's comments could violate a federal rule barring employees from endorsing a product.

"This appears to be a textbook violation of government ethics laws and regulations enacted to prevent the abuse of an employee's government position," Cummings wrote. "Since the Committee has direct jurisdiction over the ethics laws applicable to White House employees, I request that the Committee make an official referral of this matter to the Office of Government Ethics and request that it report back to the Committee as soon as possible with its findings."

Chaffetz later said Conway's comments "were clearly over the line." Cummings wrote that the Office of Government Ethics has the ability to "review potential violations and recommend discipline ranging from suspension to loss of pay to removal."





White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Conway "has been counseled on that subject," without saying exactly what that meant.

According to Reuters, when asked in an interview on Fox News on Thursday evening how she had been counseled, Conway replied: "I'm not going to comment on that."



She said she was aware of the letter from Chaffetz and Cummings and that it

was being reviewed internally.



"I'm just really happy that I spent an awful lot of time with the president

of the United States this afternoon and that he supports me 100 percent," she

added, according to Reuters.

Outside ethics watchdogs also criticized Conway's comments on Thursday. Norm Eisen, a former top ethics lawyer for President Barack Obama, told MSNBC that the statement broke the law "pure and simple."

Conway's comment "isn't just gross and unethical but it's illegal," tweeted Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard Law School. Larry Noble, general counsel for the Campaign Legal Center and former Federal Election Commission general counsel, also said that Conway may have breached the law.

Here is the text of the provision that critics said Conway may have violated:

An employee shall not use his public office for his own private gain, for the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise, or for the private gain of friends, relatives, or persons with whom the employee is affiliated in a nongovernmental capacity, including nonprofit organizations of which the employee is an officer or member, and persons with whom the employee has or seeks employment or business relations. The specific prohibitions set forth in paragraphs (a) through (d) of this section apply this general standard, but are not intended to be exclusive or to limit the application of this section.

The global reach of the Trump family's businesses has led to unprecedented concerns that it could use the office for personal gain. Trump did not divest from his businesses, but by law the president has more protection from conflicts of interest than other federal employees.

While the Trump Organization said Ivanka Trump stepped down from her roles there, she licenses her name to merchandise manufacturers, who then sell products at stores like Nordstrom and Macy's, according to The New York Times. It's not clear if she still receives royalties from her clothing licensing.





Reuters contributed to this article
President Donald Trump on Thursday slammed Sen. John McCain on Twitter for criticizing the recent U.S.-led raid in Yemen in which a Navy SEAL died.

The Arizona Republican, who was briefed on last month's mission, told NBC News on Wednesday that he cannot call it a success "when you lose a $75 million airplane and, more importantly, an American life is lost." In a series of tweets Thursday, Trump argued that McCain "talking about the success or failure of a mission" only "emboldens the enemy."

Trump: Sen. McCain should not be talking about the success or failure of a mission to the media. Only emboldens the enemy! He's been losing so....

...long he doesn't know how to win anymore, just look at the mess our country is in - bogged down in conflict all over the place. Our hero..



..Ryan died on a winning mission ( according to General Mattis), not a "failure." Time for the U.S. to get smart and start winning again!

McCain's office in a statement: "Senator McCain will continue to execute his oversight duties as Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and support brave men and women serving our nation in uniform."

McCain, who was a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, came under attack by then-candidate Trump in July. "He's not a war hero. He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren't captured," Trump said.

On Wednesday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer argued that "anyone who undermines the success of that raid owes an apology and [does] a disservice" to Chief Petty Officer William "Ryan" Owens, who was killed in the mission.

The raid, which the administration said was meant to extract intelligence from an al-Qaeda camp, led to a firefight, according to NBC News. One of the people killed was an 8-year-old American girl, the daughter of U.S.-born al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki, according to NBC. Al-Awlaki was killed in a 2011 U.S. drone attack.
As U.S. investors  everyone from Wall Street to Main Street to Washington  sit transfixed at the machinations of the Trump administration, it would be wise to remember there are other events taking place in the world that merit our attention.

There has been, of late, a brisk "flight to quality" trade going on in U.S. Treasury bonds and in gold, reflecting not only concern about certain Trump administration policies but also about events in the world at large.

With little fanfare, and scant mention, Greek bond yields have been soaring of late, as Athens and the International Monetary Fund argue about the terms of the most recent Greek bailout and whether or not Greece is adhering to the agreement.

In addition, Greece faces a large debt payment upcoming, which if not met, could trigger Grexit 3.0!

Speaking of exits, with the French presidential election looming on the horizon, there are mounting concerns that France's alt-right candidate, Marine Le Pen, may win the election. She is running on a platform that includes pulling France out of the European Union, showing a Trumpian distaste for multilateral agreements and globalization.

French bond yields are rising, as well, as investors are taking precautions against an event that would, no doubt, weaken France's economic and financial standing on the continent.

Rather ironically, the entire notion of the European Union, which has its roots in the 1957 Treaty of Rome, was designed to halt German aggression by linking, specifically, Germany and France's economic future together.

World leaders who planned the post-war world believed that if the core of Europe  France, Germany and the surrounding countries  did well together, Germany would be unlikely, or certainly less likely, to launch a third and more destructive global war.

Farther away, China is spending quite a bit of money in an effort to support its currency, the yuan. The defense of the Chinese currency  through capital controls, price fixing and other measures  shows just how weak China's economy is internally, despite what Chinese officials proclaim to the external world.

The Wall Street Journal has a telling pictorial essay on the shipbuilding "rust belt" in China, illustrating the massive overcapacity in an industry on which China had based a large part of its growth.

This also flies in the face of President Trump's claims that China is purposely devaluing its currency to sell more exports abroad. To the contrary, China, which hopes to make the yuan one of the world's quasi-reserve currencies, has been propping it up so that it can be used in a basket of international currencies that make up part of the IMF's proxy currency, the so-called "Special Drawing Rights," or SDR.

So while we have much to consider here at home, from the court battle of the immigration and refugee ban; the apparent waning ability of Congress to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act; the prospects for tax reform; deregulation; infrastructure spending and other domestically focused measures, there are some emerging developments outside the U.S. that could rattle markets in the near future.

U.S. stock indices have not had a move as large as 1 percent since the election. If any one of these external events, which are not currently being closely monitored, except by the professional investing class, individual investors may be taken by surprise, if the market suddenly swoons.

Forewarned is forearmed, as they say.

This is a forewarning!

Commentary by Ron Insana, a CNBC and MSNBC contributor and the author of four books on Wall Street. Follow him on Twitter @rinsana.



For more insight from CNBC contributors, follow @CNBCopinion on Twitter.


FUBU founder Daymond John only agreed to film the first season of ABC's "Shark Tank" as a way to get a meeting with the legendary television producer Mark Burnett. He was convinced the show itself would flop.

"I never thought that 'Shark Tank' would exist. Ever. I thought it was going to be a failure," says John, who addressed the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit. "Nobody wants to listen to five business men and women talk! Who wants to watch that?"

"I said, 'Okay, I will go out there and shoot the show, but I need to be able to pitch Mark Burnett three of my ground-breaking television ideas if I do,'" says John.

The entrepreneur behind the $6 billion urban street-wear brand got his meeting with Burnett, the producer behind the hit shows "The Apprentice" and "Survivor."
Columbia author's poetic memoir models grieving process

No one reader will recognize every detail of "Three-Penny Memories," but the book no doubt touches some part of nearly everyone's experience.
As if Microsoft didn't have enough irons in the fire concerning Windows 10, now come rumors of a new desktop experience for Windows 10 devices codenamed Andromeda. This all sounds very similar to a Google project to do the same thing and by the same name.

The news comes once again from the new favorite source of Microsoft leaks, Twitter user WalkingCat, who said "So Google's rumored Andromeda is a hybrid OS designed for hybrid devices, and MS Andromeda is the same thing, hard to believe its [sic] coincident."

Microsoft calls Windows 10 a truly universal OS because it is used across all of its devices, but the shells are different between the desktop, mobile devices, HoloLens, Xbox and IoT. But with Andromeda, Microsoft is apparently bringing a new desktop experience to Windows 10 that will reflect the changes to its Continuum interface for phones in Windows 10, such as a full-featured task bar, toast notifications and an updated Action Center. Microsoft previewed these features at the Ignite 2016 show in September.

This is not unlike Andromeda, a more well-detailed Google project. Andromeda is rumored to be a merging of its Android and ChromeOS operating systems. Android has worked well on smartphones and tablets while ChromeOS has been a success on Chromebooks.

Andromeda from Google would be a merging of ChromeOS into Android, giving the mobile platform the cloud-centric ChromeOS platform, an adaptable interface and touch gesture support, so it will have one combined operating system for mobile devices and laptops. This could finally get Android on the desktop, something Google has not been able to do, and likely spell the end of ChromeOS as a separate entity.

So it seems Microsoft (and Google) is slowly making its operating system completely adaptive across all devices; smartphone, console, tablet, IoT and PC. We've already seen reports of the Composable Shell (CShell), an adaptive shell in Windows 10 which will allow the OS to adapt to the device its currently running on. Now it's reportedly working on a UI that does the same thing.

The question now is the timeline for disclosure. The Build 2017 conference in Seattle is in May, which would be the ideal time for Microsoft to show off CShell and Andromeda. By that time, Redstone 2, aka the Creator's Update, of Windows 10 will be out and the company will be moving on to the next major milestone, Redstone 3. That is expected for a late fall release.

So I'll repeat what I said earlier about CShell: it looks like Microsoft is poised to succeed where Apple failed in making one unified operating system across every device.
Cynicism is easy. All it takes is an external target and a cutting turn of phrase. It will always be easier to slam someones original idea than it is to build your own. Apple ignores the cynical. So should we all.

Turn on, Drop in, Tune out

Apple CEO Tim Cook received an honorary degree from the country of Scotland's Glasgow University last night. During the ceremony he discussed numerous topics, including the current U.S. administration. ("We'll speak up even when our voices shake.).

He also shared one of Apple's essential secrets, as reported by The Independent:

"The other thing about todays environment is the world is full of cynics. You have to tune them out. If not they become a cancer in your mind and in your thinking. You begin to think you cant or that life is negative. The truth is, even if it doesnt seem like this all the time, there has never been a better time to be alive than today. Its the best time. My advice is to tune out the cynics even if they are sitting next to you."

Tune them out

If you think about it, tuning out cynicism has been part of Apple's D.N.A. since it began when Steve Jobs sold his car, Steve Wozniak sold his calculator and both men began on their mission to get a computer into the hands of everyday people.

Mobile tech (including dumb mobiles) now reaches at least 77 percent of humans alive on this planet today, and iPhone sets the bar for what these devices can achieve.

The Apple co-founders crazy dream is being realized.

Look back on Apples history and it seems that only when the company has fallen into cynical thinking have its fortunes collapsed. How else would you characterize those dreadful years when it almost died?

On his return, Steve Jobs kicked out the cynics and put the creativity and optimism into the driving seat.

And it worked

When it comes to Apple coverage, cynics are everywhere. From the birth of the Mac to the arrival of the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, cynics have slammed its every move. Look at the brouhaha around the iPhone 7 headphone jack. This cynical negativity amplifies Apple's errors and minimizes its achievements.

Apple knows that despite all that cynicism, it has built industry leading customer satisfaction levels competitors can't match.

It knows that for every angry customer amplified in a critical media, it has nearly a hundred happy ones who are silent.

How does it achieve this? It tunes out the cynics to carve its own creative path. It strives to stay positive. That's a lesson for the times, if you think about it.

Cynicism is retrograde

Think about that time when you were in school and you wanted to learn more about Coretta Scott King. Did you? If your parents were cynical about such matters you may have skipped the topic, and if you did it is possible you will pass similar cynicism to your children.

Thats a shame.

Those who dont imagine a better world seldom improve it. "Here's to the Crazy Ones," was a mission statement, not a recruitment campaign for incompetence, delusion, or a faded picture of some fictional status quo.

Imagine if Apple had believed the cynics who a few years ago were telling us that mobile had hit its peak? Or if it abandoned its dream of annual iPhone improvements in order to keep releasing the same product? Yes, wed be buying iPhone 4 for around $10 (we already can), but what else?

Don't stop believing

Cook's company shrugs off the cynics in order to continue to define the next generation in mobile. (NB: It doesnt need to dominate OS share to achieve this).

In the next generation iPhone we can predict the company will weave together the important building blocks: Social, Cloud, IoT, Analytics, and Mobile (SCIAM).

Apple will apply itself on figuring out how it can apply the latest technologies to resolve challenges real people in the real world face.

Its success in achieving this so far has enabled it to build a great business. iPhone users love the product, recommend it. Even now, 16 percent of Samsung's churn went to Apple. Consumers aspire to have an iPhone.

Where next?

Cynics dismiss Apple, slam its 'lack of innovation', and criticize Cook.

It doesnt matter.

It doesnt matter because, just like Windows Vista, the golden towers of reactionary cynicism are going to disappear into the sands of forgotten history.

I think Apple is in a great position to extend its reach across a much wider section of the smartphone market with three, or perhaps four models of iPhone: The iPhone SE 2, iPhone 7S and 7S Plus, and (expensive, advanced and radically redesigned) iPhone 8 Pro.

These products will widen its share, and with the support of its soon-to-ship AR solutions, will see Apple build profoundly strong positions across the fast-growing APAC regions in which it has been investing so much energy. Have you seen how popular AR and VR is becoming there? Mobile devices are computers.

Better yet, in a decade or so youll be able to get smartphones as good as these for just a few dollars, and Apple will have helped enable, its founders mission of: Computers for the rest of us. Despite the cynics who said it couldn't.

Tune out the cynics. It doesnt matter if your voice shakes.

Google+? If you use social media and happen to be a Google+ user, why not join AppleHolic's Kool Aid Corner community and join the conversation as we pursue the spirit of the New Model Apple?

Got a story? Drop me a line via Twitter. I'd like it if you chose to follow me there so I can let you know when fresh items are published here first on Computerworld.
The days of debate on the Article 50 Bill ended with a flurry of votes on proposed amendments tonight, all of which were rejected, and ultimately with the Bill itself passing third reading by a margin of almost five to one.

Given that the hype beforehand had been that up to 27 Conservative MPs might rebel on one or more amendments, it was pleasing to see that tonight there wasnt even a rebellion as large as yesterdays seven.

The largest Conservative rebellion came on New Clause 57, which attempted to pre-emptively guarantee the residency rights of EU citizens in the UK, and that was limited to three MPs  Ken Clarke, Tania Mathias and Andrew Tyrie. In that division, they were outweighed by six Labour MPs who voted with the Government: Frank Field, Kate Hoey, Kelvin Hopkins, Rob Marris, Graham Stringer and Gisela Stuart.

On a few other amendments Clarke found himself the lone rebel, a role to which he seems to have resigned himself.

When the third reading vote came, he reprised it once more  joining 52 Labour MPs who chose to rebel against Corbyns three-line whip on the matter. The sight of the Opposition splintering is a reminder of how well the Government whips have done to first keep a lid on and then shrink the threatened Tory rebellion.

Two battles now lie ahead. The first, long expected, is the progress of the Bill through the House of Lords. Some EU enthusiast peers will no doubt now try to amend the Bill but they will have a harder time of it now that the Commons has approved it unamended, further adding to the already strong democratic mandate for leaving the EU.

The second battle will be within the Labour Party. Corbyns position was already confused, but its getting worse. Opposition frontbencher Barry Gardiner was on BBC News after the vote and attempted to argue that he was strongly opposed to the Brexit that he had just voted for. The sight of Tim Farron punching holes in this line will not improve the mood in the Parliamentary Labour Party. Nor will the news that Clive Lewis preferred to resign as Shadow Business Secretary rather than follow Corbyns three-line whip.

The loss of Lewis is a blow to Corbyn personally, as he was once viewed as a reliable Corbynite and even as a possible heir apparent. Factionally, it will raise concerns among the already somewhat paranoid inner circle that Lewis is planning a challenge, now that he has aligned himself with the many Labour members who are yet to accept the referendum result.

In terms of party management, it also adds to Corbyns existing frontbench headache following the loss last week of three other Shadow Cabinet members for the same reason. With the vast majority of Labour MPs opposed to him, numerous people already sacked or resigned from the Shadow Cabinet and a very limited pool of loyal supporters, he is already suffering from a lack of talent in his team. Who else is left for him to appoint to fill the vacancies left by Maskell, Butler, Stevens and now Lewis? At least Diane Abbott loyally followed her leader into the Aye lobby tonight, unlike last week, but that looks like very cold comfort indeed.
Garvan Walshe is a former National and International Security Policy Advisor to the Conservative Party. He is CEO of Brexit Analytics.

The following speech transcript was obtained from a parallel universe where Jeremy Corbyn resigned as Labour leader following the EU Referendum.

Mr Speaker, today we vote on the most important piece of legislation to come before this House since at least the European Communities Act, if not since the Ernest Bevins Bill that gave this country its finest institution, the National Health Service.

That Act was the culmination of years of work, involving serious inquiry, and, it must be admitted, major contributions during the National Government of which the party opposite was a part. That level of thought, debate and scrutiny was what produced an institution that has stood the test of time, even as our society has changed.

In 1972, the Bill taking us into the European Union was debated far more extensively in this House than this short Bill has been. Not only that  not only that  the government of the day saw fit to produce several white papers to explain how entering the European Communities would be made to work.

Yet this time, on what must be, at least as equally important an occasion I see the Hon members for Woking and Harwich & North Essex shaking their heads. Do they really wish to deny that a Bill to leave the EU is at least as important as the one to enter it? I thought not, Mr Speaker.

Yet this time, we have been given just six days  six days  to debate leaving the EU. And while I appreciate that the Vice President of the United States might think God took only six days to make the world, even he would agree with me, I am sure, that we mortals should devote a little longer to thinking about how we should extricate ourselves from the European Union.

We do so with extraordinarily little knowledge about the Governments plans for the negotiations that passage of this Bill would instigate. Last week they published what they term a White Paper.

It was finished, the time stamp on the PDF file tells us, at 4.37 in the morning.

We hear much of this Prime Ministers deliberate style, and how it contrasts with her predecessors Essay Crisis personality. I dont know about the rest of you, but when I finished my essays at 4.37AM it was usually because of an excess of something other than deliberation.

The Governments document contains obvious errors, like getting the number of days of paid holiday to which employees are entitled wrong. Make no mistake, we are the party of workers rights, but I would be interested to how many of those seated on the Government benches campaigned to leave in order to increase the burden on employers.

But most extraordinary is the slapdash argument by which the Government justifies its policy. It was Edmund Burke who said in this very House,

I feel an insuperable reluctance in giving my hand to destroy any established institution of government, upon a theory

Burkes case was that major changes to established institutions should only be made to remedy real, practical failures in their operation. One might think that a Conservative Government would pay heed to this principle. One might even think that the Hon member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (whose superb biography of Burke I commend to the Prime Minister) would insist on its application as a condition for remaining in ministerial office. What one would not expect is for a British Government White Paper  even one finished at 4.37AM  to contain the following:

Whilst Parliament has remained sovereign throughout our membership of the EU, it has not always felt like that.

I repeat:

it has not always felt like that.

So here we have a Conservative government throwing out an established institution not upon a theory, but upon a feeling. And, I may add, a feeling it just baldy asserts without providing evidence, and which was decisively shown to be baseless by the Supreme Court. Indeed, the very fact we are here debating a bill to notify the United Kingdoms intention to leave the EU shows that Parliament has remained sovereign throughout.

My party recognises the result of the referendum. Though, like the Prime Minister, I campaigned to remain (and I would like to take the opportunity to pay tribute to my predecessor, the Rt Hon member for Islington North, for his sterling work in that regard), I voted for there to be a referendum, and it would be perverse to ask the people for their views only to ignore them.

But we cannot forget, as members of what is still somewhat incredibly called the Conservative and Unionist party do, that Northern Ireland and Scotland voted to remain, or, that London and Manchester, or people under 50  the people who will have to make Brexit work for all of us in the coming decades  voted to stay in the European Union.

Britain is not, and I dare say that my husbands former constituents, most of whom did vote to leave would agree, a direct democracy. Our job in this House is not to mechanically carry out the referendum result without thinking of its effects, but to implement it in a way that preserves their interests.

The Governments plans for Brexit do no such thing. They fall short in four areas. The first, and most obvious, is our economic relationship with the EU. It is our largest trading partner. Our businesses are configured to export to it. Their supply chains stretch across Germany, France, Ireland and the Netherlands, not New York, Virginia, Illinois and New Mexico.

In time, some of our trade could no doubt focus on countries outside the EU. But trade is easier with countries nearby, and it is to us completely perverse to give up certain trading relationships with our nearest neighbours, on the hope of making new ones across thousands of miles of ocean. Indeed, figures published yesterday by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research demonstrate that if we are unable to negotiate a free trade agreement with the EU  an outcome the Prime Minister is willing to contemplate when she says no deal is better than a bad deal, our trade with the EU would fall by 30 percentage points, and deals with emerging markets and so-called Anglosphere countries would only increase it by five percentage points.

She wants, Mr Speaker, to cut our total trade by a quarter, thats 180 billion less, and that will lead to job losses in every constituency in the country.

The second issue, Mr Speaker, is a matter of rights. Rights that we currently have to live, work and open a business across the EU. You might think the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom would put retaining those rights at the heart of her negotiating aims. She talks about protecting the rights of people who have moved in the past. Fine if you already live in Spain or France. But what if you want to move there? She wont fight for your right to do so. At the moment, our children have the automatic right to work in 28 European countries. She will restrict them just two: the UK and the Republic of Ireland.

Third, there is the National Health Service. Leave won, its strategy director assures us, because of its assertion that by leaving the EU we would be able to spend an extra 350 million a week on the NHS. The fashionable term to describe that assertion, and I hope this is not unparliamentary, Mr Speaker, is as an alternative fact. All of us see the pressure the NHS is coming under after six years of Tory Chancellors and Tory Health Secretaries, because even as demand rises because of our ageing population, spending on health care, as a proportion of GDP, is not keeping pace. The public finances are being squeezed extremely tight.

Just two days ago, the Institute for Fiscal Studies warned that taxes would need to rise by 34 billion a year, just to keep things are they are. Id advise the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to begin writing a note. My Hon Friend, the member for Birmingham Hodge Hill, will be happy to help him.

Fourth, let me address the matter of the devolved assemblies. Their leaders, like us on this side of the House, accept that we are leaving the European Union. But this Government  this English Government  has chosen not to take their views into account. This attitude poses serious risks to the integrity of the UK, and we cannot endorse it.

Finally, I want to address the Governments naive optimism, which has already been shown to be disastrous. The Prime Minister thought at first we would stay in the bits of the EU we wanted while maintaining absolute control of immigration. Its now clear this cannot be done.

The Hon gentleman shouts at last, immigration from a sedentary position. His point is quite right. It is on immigration that the Government has gone furthest from realism. It is quite true that leaving the EU allows us to exercise more control over our immigration policy. But the extent of that control is inversely proportional to the depth of our trade agreements with other countries. There is a balance to be struck, and the Government shows no evidence of even understanding there is a balance, let alone striking it in the right place.

Though we think it is right to implement the decision made in the referendum, we cannot support the Governments attempt to invoke Article 50 at this stage. Our support is conditional on four tests. We should begin negotiations trying to stay in the Single Market, not abandon it as a negotiating goal at the beginning. We should should fight for British citizens rights to live and work in Europe, not give them up in advance. As the campaign was won on the basis that there would be 350 million a week more to spend on the NHS, we will not support invocation until the health budget is increased to give effect to the promise. Nor do we think we should notify our intention to leave the EU until a compromise that protects the interests of the devolved regions of the UK has been achieved.

We cannot, Mr Speaker, support the kind of Brexit the Prime Minister is proposing. Hers is an extreme Brexit, pessimistic about the kind of relationship we can have with Europe, and naive about what we can persuade the rest of the world to give us. Its driven by ideology rather than the practical interests of the British people. If she comes back to this House with a Brexit plan that meets our four criteria, she will have shown the realism that these tough negotiations will require, and we will then provide our support. But until that is done, in the interests of the United Kingdom, the duty of Her Majestys Loyal Opposition, is to oppose.
James Frayne is Director of communications agency Public First and author of Meet the People, a guide to moving public opinion. The focus of this column is Theresa Mays conservatism for ordinary working people.

2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the Bolsheviks October Revolution and ever since Eisenstein immortalised it in film in 1927, the West has become fascinated with the art of Russian propaganda.

This has become more intense since Russia was implicated by US intelligence in activities said to have helped Donald Trump into power. So, how good is Russian propaganda?

Russia excels at two things. Firstly, at the tactical level, Russia has demonstrated expertise in hard-edged diplomacy and intelligence. Secondly, at the strategic level, Russia has come to excel in in the straightforward denial of Western moral superiority.

Vladimir Putin has been consistent in public comments that, for all Western claims to be operating for a higher purpose, they have caused the main problems in the world. In an article in the New York Times in 2013, he wrote: Millions around the world increasingly see America not as a model of democracy but as relying solely on brute force, cobbling coalitions together under the slogan youre either with us or against us.

A recent FT article suggested the Russian satellite channel RT takes a similar approach: Where Russias domestic TV wildly twists the news, RT draws instead on an old Soviet device known as what-aboutism  as in, Russia is not so bad, you see, because western countries have committed misdeeds too, so why arent we talking about those?

Its not hard to see where Russian expertise in the first area comes from. Technology changes but Russia has long prioritised intelligence operations, and the secret state has been part of Russian Government since before the October Revolution. But where does Russian expertise in the second come from?

Some wrongly believe Russia has always been a master of propaganda. Despite the mythology, Russian propaganda has been wildly overrated since the Second World War. While its unlikely the USSR wanted to convert the world to communism, they did want to secure their own countrys future by tying their near-neighbours into a Soviet orbit. Here, they failed spectacularly.

But there was a time when Russia led the world at propaganda  and this period gives us a window into what Vladimir Putin might be thinking. This was the roughly twenty years between the October Revolution and the outbreak of the Second World War.

Led by the great German propagandist Willi Munzenberg and supported by East and Central Europeans like Karl Radek and Otto Katz, Munzenberg ran a massive network of supposedly independent, third party groups whose job was to raise questions about the morality of the West and to soft-sell the benefits of the USSR.

While Russia has not deployed third party groups in such a way, the narrative they have been pushing is ultimately the same as Munzenbergs: youre no better than the rest of us  youre probably worse.
The idea that this country ought to prioritise admitting refugees gathered in Calais was always a flawed one. As I wrote on this site last April, the Government has opted for a far preferable approach by helping people in refugee camps in the Middle East, and bringing the most needy to the UK directly from those camps. Doing so ensures that those helped are those in the most dire circumstances, and removes any temptation for them to risk their lives by putting themselves into the callous hands and rickety boats of people smugglers. Had Angela Merkel taken that approach, many fewer people would have drowned in the Aegean and the Mediterranean  her decision not to was motivated by good intentions, but has proved disastrous nonetheless.

Under great pressure, the Government eventually agreed to another policy, under the Dubs Amendment to the Immigration Act 2016. That Amendment made it law that the UK should make arrangements to relocate to the United Kingdom and support a specified number of unaccompanied refugee children from other countries in Europe.

There were some riders added on to assure against various concerns that had been raised. First, the exact number would be determined by the Government in consultation with local authorities, lest local authorities became unable to handle the number of children who arrived. Second, to remove any perceived incentive for refugees currently in the Middle East to embark on a perilous journey, the Government decided that refugees would have to have been in Europe before 20th March 2016 in order to be eligible.

Yesterday, in a statement by Robert Goodwill, and today, in a further statement by the Home Secretary, we learned that the Government will take a total of 350 unaccompanied children this financial year under the scheme, in addition to hundreds admitted from France as part of the agreement to close the Jungle and others brought directly from the region under the existing Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme.

Goodwills statement has been met with uproar  in part because of the somewhat sneaky tactic of making it at a time when all eyes were on the Article 50 debate. Yvette Cooper said the Government had cancelled the Dubs scheme after it had been running for less than six months, and reneged on Lord Dubs goal of admitting 3,000 children.

Cooper is incorrect on the facts. Goodwills statement didnt say that the scheme had been cancelled  the amendment remains law, after all. He made no reference at all to repealing the amendment, still less disobeying it. The Home Secretary reiterated today that the scheme is neither cancelled nor closed.

What it comes down to is a question of numbers. While its certainly the case that Lord Dubs and others wanted 3,000 children admitted, the amendment itself doesnt specify that figure. For practical reasons, it requires a number to be set in consultation with local councils based on the available capacity to house and care for unaccompanied child refugees  a not inconsiderable job. Had the Government admitted 3,000 child refugees only for council services to break down due to being overloaded, Cooper would rightly be on her feet in the House accusing the Government of failing to follow the law and endangering vulnerable children.

It may be that councils are being too reticent about the help they can give, or that Government should do more to press and aid them in making space available. It wouldnt be the first time that central Government has passed blame on to local government, after all, and Rudd, Goodwill and Javid should ensure this 350 genuinely is the absolute maximum.

But we also shouldnt get carried away. Given Lord Dubs personal history, as one of the children rescued from the Nazis by the Kindertransport, it is inevitable that some are now drawing comparisons between that rescue effort and the Governments capping of the numbers under this scheme. Its emotive, and it sounds fitting, but its inappropriate. Those fleeing ISIS, Assad, Russian bombardment and the other horrors of the Syrian civil war deserve our help  but none of those threats are present in France, Italy or Greece, where the Dubs Amendment operates. This country is already operating a true Kindertransport for the modern age, bringing children and other refugees directly out of danger in Syria and the surrounding refugee camps.

Unaccompanied child refugees undoubtedly are in danger in some European countries  the danger of abuse, of homelessness, of kidnap and trafficking. That is horrific, and the answer to it lies morally and legally with those of our European neighbours who currently host them.

Ultimately, Britain has limited money and care spaces for unaccompanied child refugees. We must do the most and best that we can with those resources, and that means making hard choices about our priorities. We could choose to prioritise rescuing children from the incompetence or callousness of the French, Italian and Greek authorities  but that would mean less money and fewer spaces to rescue children directly from the slaughter in the Middle East. Taken together, that doesnt look or feel like the right choice.

By all means we should be outraged at the betrayal of children whom Paris, Rome and Athens fail to care for. By all means we should help them if we can. But it would be wrong to assuage that outrage in a way that means offering less help to other children who are often in even greater need. Cooper should target her anger at our European neighbours and insist they do their bit, not at the Home Office for doing what it can.
CORNWALL, Ontario  Some of the best pizza shops in town will be competing to see who can provide the most delicious taste at the eleventh annual Kinsmen Pizza Party on Friday, March 31.

This year, the annual event will be taking place at the Best Western in the Cabaret Room at 6 p.m.

Every year, more than 200 guests get to reap the benefits of this pizza tasting competition between eight different competitors.

This year, bragging rights for the best pizza in Cornwall will be fought over by Pizza Pizza, Louis Pizza, Milanos, Bobbys Place and more contestants that will be announced in the coming days.

Since the event began it has raised over $150, 000 for causes in the Cornwall community.

This year, the money raised at the event will be used to support local organizations who are unable to get funding for certain projects from other sources.

Some of the beneficiaries of the Kinsmen Pizza Party are organizations like Big Brothers Big Sisters Cornwall, the Boys and Girls Club, Koala Place as well as some individual recipients.

Tickets are $25 per person or $200 for a table of eight and are available through Scotiabank.
CORNWALL, Ontario  In the wake of President Donald Trumps travel ban, local lawyer, Gordon Scott Campbell has recently promised to provide free legal counsel to those impacted by the ban.

The ban, which was proposed last month, is expected to prevent seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US for 90 days, including Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. The executive order also paused refugee admissions into the US for 120 days, while completely denying entry to Syrian refugees.

In attempts to pacify some of the current global issues, Campbell took to twitter with a remarkable proposition, stating that for the next 90 days, he would be offering free immigration law consults to anyone affected by the current travel ban. Being about the only immigration lawyer in these parts, I felt a sort of moral responsibility to help, said Campbell.

The tweet generated an international response, with people reaching out from the seven affected countries, as well as the United States. Weve certainly had a lot more inquiries lately, said Campbell. Ive received quite a few emails from people in the United States concerned about their status, and how long it may last.

While the responses were mostly positive, some were concerned about the pressing nature of more local issues. Many Canadians have concerns regarding immigration, said Campbell. In terms of the resources they bring, we have to admit that this is fundamentally critical to our country, and is necessary to solve other issues.

The promised consultations will allow Campbell to review the clients background in detail, which would normally come at a cost. For the next 90 days, were willing to waive these fees with individuals, said Campbell. The purpose is to explore the ways people can legally come to Canada.

Campbell says its a matter of connecting with people and helping them to realize their options.

Theres a warm feeling when people respond positively to this kind of thing, said Campbell.
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Lucas Todescos celebrated Yalu iOS 10.2 jailbreak has made some Apple Jailbreaking fans happy except perhaps for the ones who own an iPhone 7 or 7 Plus. However, all that stands to change with word that a new version will be out soon.

If so, this should be good news for folks yearning for a Yalu iOS 10.2 jailbreak for the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. But as before, there is a catch and this is that the tool will be semi-untethered, Telegiz reported. For those who are unaware of what this means, each time an iPhone is rebooted, owners will have to repeat the jailbreaking process for it to be in effect.

Another thing worth pointing out is that folks who have already upgraded to iOS 10.2.1 can no longer use the Yalu iOS 10.2 jailbreak tool. Todesco reiterated this before so folks who failed to heed his warning may have to wait for an iOS 10.2.1 jailbreak  assuming that one does come out soon. If not Todesco, Pangu is still a group that folks are following.

The Chinese hacking group recently announced that they do have something in the works so it would be best to see if they finally have one to offer. Pangus last working jailbreak was for iOS 9.3.3 and they havent really shown any breakthrough with iOS 10. Most folks right now are wondering what iOS 10.2.1 brings. The update is expected to bring the usual bug fixes and patches, but Forbes claims that it also brings new problems.

Among the problems listed include the Touch ID, screen brightness bugs, and Bluetooth connection problems. Hence, Apple could be busy working out a fix, hinting of a potential iOS 10.2.2. Another thing worth noting is that once a device is upgraded to iOS 10.2.1, they can no longer revert to iOS 10.2. The Cupertino company has stopped signing meaning those who upgraded can do nothing but wait for a fix.

See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare
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In December, Ryan Wagner was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer a week after his wife found out she was pregnant with their son. Wagner thought it was just a stomach bug at first. People diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer are usually given five years to live.

The couple from Illinois decided to create a Facebook page to update family and friends about his health. Miles was born in August 2014. At 8-weeks-old, Miles already had his first seizure.

Miles was rushed to a nearby hospital then had to be transferred to Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago. Doctors found he had kidney failure and diagnosed him with a rare genetic condition called primary hyperoxaluria. They didn't know they would need the Facebook page two years later to find a kidney donor for their toddler, Miles.

The family turned to their Facebook page for help as Miles needed both a liver and kidney transplant. Miles immediately started dialysis as the condition caused organ damage.

KRMG reported that Miles luckily received a liver from a deceased donor last January, but the family was still in search for a kidney. Six months after his liver operation, doctors said he was finally strong enough for a kidney transplant. But waiting on a list could take six years.

According to Fox News For the second time, they were lucky to find Wagner's former classmate, Elizabeth Wolodkiewicz who saw the post and volunteered. Miles and Wolodkiewicz had the same blood type and underwent successful surgery on Monday.

The two are now recovering at the Northwestern Memorial Hospital. The family thanked the dialysis nurses and technicians who they said have become like family to them.

They also mentioned the Floor 20 and PICU nurses who have taken good care of Miles. Along with doctors, surgeons, family, friends Team Ryan, Abby (Miles' liver donor) and Liz (Miles' kidney donor).

See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare
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An infant that needed a life-saving heart surgery was temporarily banned from coming to the US by President Donald Trump's immigration orders. After the ban, the Iranian infant and his family arrived on Tuesday at a Portland hospital.

Four-month-old Fatemeh Reshad's parents were told that she needed at least one urgent surgery to correct serious heart defects. Fatemeh's uncle, Samad Taghizadeh, a US citizen and resident of Portland shared that Iranian doctors said it was extremely necessary for her to get surgery or she will die.

The family set out to Dubai for an appointment to get a tourist visa. Unfortunately, it was canceled after Trump's executive order that banned entry to people from seven countries with Muslim majorities.

A judge from Seattle issued a temporary restraining order on the ban. Dr. Laurie Armsby, interim head of the Division of Pediatric Cardiology at OHSU Doernbecher Children's Hospital said their tests have confirmed the baby's diagnosis and the urgent need for treatment. U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, helped in getting the waiver for the baby's family, as were New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and immigration attorneys.

The Guardian reported the waiver was granted last week. Amber Murray, the family's attorney said Fatemeh's condition required quick surgery that convinced her parents to seek treatment in the US. Fetemeh would have a 20 to 30 percent chance of success with surgery in Iran. The family chose Portland because it was the nearest to their relatives and of the know expertise in treatment of the heart condition by OHSU doctors.

Portland immigration attorney, Jennifer Morrissey said "This was truly a team effort to beat the clock, given the medical and legal hurdles Fatemeh was facing."

According to US News, the infant's heart condition had resulted in injury to her lungs but there is time to reverse this process said Dr. Armsby. The treatment would begin with a cardiac catheterization, followed by a five to six-hour surgical procedure performed by Dr. Irving Shen, a nationally respected expert on Fatemeh's condition.

See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare
Watson wrote his paper about the proposed amendment, noting that nobody had ever put a time limit on it, so technically, after nearly two centuries, it could still be ratified. The class TA gave him a C, insisting that nobody cared about an obscure old amendment proposal about congressional salaries and that the idea that it could still be ratified was crazy, no matter how much "evidence" he dug up. Watson appealed to his professor, who told him the same thing.

Now, a C grade is the kind of mark most of us aspire to see one day, but Watson took it as an insult. There was only one way to prove that he was right, and that was to ratify the hell out of that amendment. Watson began calling up state legislatures to convince them that the amendment was a good idea, and they turned out to be a lot more interested than his teachers had been. The first state Watson convinced was Maine, with others quickly following suit. In 1992, the amendment was ratified by the requisite three-fourths of states and officially became the 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, 202 years after it was presented to Congress.

Gregory Watson

Apparently, simply doing the extra credit work was asking too much.

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When someone tracked down Watson's old professor to ask for her opinion, she said that she didn't even remember Watson, but was proud to have inspired him. "Inspired" isn't quite the right word, here. "Inspited" would be better. Somebody ask the Germans; we're sure they have a term for it already.
Dani Pedrosa and MotoGP team-mate Marc Marquez travelled straight to Indonesia from Sepang, where a quick PR tour culminated in the Repsol Honda launch in Jakarta.

Crash.net sat down with Pedrosa, a 29-time MotoGP race winner and triple title runner-up, moments after he had left the stage.

The Spaniard had improved from 13th on day one at the Sepang test to finish a close fourth fastest, as he and Marquez worked on evaluating the latest Honda engine - a process that also requires significant work on the single electronics...

Crash.net:

Dani, you've had quite a wild reception here for the past few days, especially during the factory visit. You've been in MotoGP a long time so does that kind of thing still surprise you?

Dani Pedrosa:

Of course, of course. It was a unique thing because - like you said - we've had many, many experiences with fans; many different moments in many different countries. But here, yesterday, was surreal. Firstly, to see the huge factory, but more than that to see all the employees together. Because it was almost 3,000 people screaming and wanting to have a picture! I've never had so many people at once like that. Amazing.

MotoGP is still surprising you off track, how about on track? What is it that keeps you coming back and pushing to the limit?

Dani Pedrosa:

It's the aim to always improve, to win, and to test yourself. To push yourself all the time. That's the spirit I feel inside.

Crash.net:

You showed, most recently at Misano, what you can do when the bike is working for you - what sort of 'character' do you like from a MotoGP bike?

Dani Pedrosa:

Well I would say I like a bike that is more-or-less stable, because my riding style suits the way of repeating the same line and hitting the same points lap-after-lap. Being really consistent, in the way of riding and for that you need a stable machine.

Obviously, it's no secret that I am very light, so I use quite a soft shock at the rear, but not as soft on the front suspension. Because I still have to battle with the best braking guys. But my front suspension is not as hard as them because I am not as big, so I cannot [use my body to] put the same weight over the wheels as they can.

I can't transfer my weight [forward and back] in the same way they do, so I need a softer bike to transfer the weight; I need the bike to pitch more for itself. But obviously, the G-force and the speed is the same, so you still need to have a [stiff] spring.

Crash.net:

The type of Michelin tyre available played a big role for you last year, how is the new 'fatter' Michelin front? Is it more to your liking?

Dani Pedrosa:

Yeah, the new tyre has a bit more grip and there was a bit more feeling with it. The fact that it's fatter - we still have to judge better, because leaning the bike into the corner was a bit slower. So that is not one of the strongest points of the new tyre, but the fact there was more grip and more feeling turned out to be why, I think, there were less crashes at the Sepang test. I'm not sure if it was the new asphalt or the new tyre, but we didn't see as many crashes. So now we need to go to different tracks and check again.

Crash.net:

The other big change last year was the move to single 'unified' electronics, how is the level of performance?

Dani Pedrosa:

The level of performance with the electronics is not high as before, but I also believe the strategy of each bike or team is different for this unified software and this effects the performance differently.

Like we started in a not-so-good level at the Sepang test because of that basically, but could improve during the test. Instead, for example the Ducatis, they started already with quite a high pace.

So I would say it's a little bit like 'hiding'. Some tracks benefit for one [kind of electronic strategy], some tracks can benefit for others, depending on how the bike is reacting to the conditions.

Crash.net:

Honda also had to do a lot of work on the new electronics at the start of last season, does it make it easier that you've been through that process once?

Dani Pedrosa:

Not really! But basically what we've learned is to put a lot more focus on that area. Because we were focussing more on different parts of the bike and we didn't expect that to be such a big difference, compared to our rivals; the strategy we use, how we use the electronics. So we learned that we need to focus a lot also in that part of the machine.

Crash.net:

Now you almost need to get the electronics sorted out first, before you can look at other parts of the bike?

Dani Pedrosa:

Basically, I would say yes. Because most of the strange behaviours we have on the bike are coming because maybe [the electronics] are not completely set-up in that sector of the track. And then we have movement, or we have more wheelie, or power feeling.

Crash.net:

The single electronics are staying but the winglets are gone. You were one of the riders who clearly thought they were dangerous, what do you make of the new Yamaha fairing?

Dani Pedrosa:

I've seen some pictures and clearly it looks more safe than having a 'blade'. The other issue is the feeling of riding with it, but I can't speak about that obviously.

Crash.net:

We saw at Sepang that Marc is considering a thumb-operated rear brake, is that something you are interested in?

Dani Pedrosa:

I have tried it once. It's not a bad idea if you get used to it, I think Dovizioso is the one using it already in MotoGP. But I didn't test it long enough to really learn how to use it and see the benefit of it.

Crash.net:

Finally Dani, at this early stage, how do you see the balance between the manufacturers?

Dani Pedrosa:

It looks like all manufacturers have raised their performance, but not only the bike itself in the corners - with electronics for example - but with the engines also. It looks like in the straight, from the speeds at this test - the Ducati was still ahead, but the Yamaha was fast, the Suzuki and the KTM is already fast in a straight line also.

So it looks like all manufacturers are getting to a good level and providing good performance from their bikes, which raises every team.

Crash.net:

Thanks Dani.

Dani Pedrosa:

You're welcome.
: Legislation to divide jurisdiction of the nation's largest federal appellate circuit has been introduced in both houses of Congress this year. Barnini Chakraborty of Fox News reports that the Senate bill, introduced by Senators Jeff Flake and John McCain would leave Oregon, California, Hawaii, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands in the 9th Circuit, and put Nevada, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Arizona and Alaska in a new 12th Circuit. A House bill introduced by Rep. Andy Briggs and four other Arizona Republicans would leave Washington in the 9th Circuit. The current circuit presides over 20% of the U.S. population and 40% of the nation's land mass. Because of its size, according to Senator Flake, it can take the court 15 months to hand down a decision.: With over a killing a day in Baltimore so far this year, the city's mayor announced "We've got a crime problem in our city." The city suffered a record 344 murders in 2015 and another spike in violent crime over the first six months of last year, according recent FBI statistics . Luke Broadwater & Allison Knezevich of the Baltimore Sun report that while the Mayor has authorized the hiring of an additional 100 police officers to patrol the city, some believe that restoring pro-active policing will be necessary to reduce the violence. John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor Peter Moskos, a former Baltimore police officer, noted that a Justice Department report on policing in Baltimore released last Summer contained nothing about preventing crime. He believes that officers need to be allowed to "confront criminals again. What's been harmful is the idea the police shouldn't enforce quality-of-life issues.": Sacramento police arrested parolee David Hamilton Tuesday, for the burglary and rape of a 48-year-old mother of two. Bill Lindelof of the Sacramento Bee reports that Hamilton entered the victim's home through a window and raped her in her bed at knifepoint. The victim was able to text a relative to call 911. Police arrived just as Hamilton was entering the bedroom of one of the children and arrested him. In another story, LIndeof reports that habitual felon Jerry West was convicted Tuesday for sexual assaults, robberies, kidnapping and carjackings involving four women in August and September of 2015. West, who had two priors for carjacking, was nonetheless armed and back on the streets to commit these new crimes. Under California's groundbreaking alternative sentencing policies 66% of the state's largest cities had increased violent crime last year, according to the FBI's Preliminary Uniform Crime Report for 2016.
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Accenture Buys Endgame's U.S. Federal Services Business

Jimmy Sheridan

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In another move towards its goal of building a build a $1 billion security practice, Accenture struck a deal to acquire the federal services business of Endgame, Inc., a threat-detection company.

"By adding Endgames federal services team, Accenture Federal Services can better equip our clients to identify and eradicate malicious attacks faster and more effectively," David Moskovitz, Accenture Federal Services' chief executive said in a statement.

Following the close of the deal, Endgames federal government services business will be tucked into Accentures Federal Services group, boosting the companys federal security organization with an additional team of highly skilled cybersecurity professionals.

[Related: Accenture Continues All-Out Security Offensive With Intent To Buy 270-Person Services Firm]

The acquisition is expected to close following regulatory review and other customary closing conditions. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Arlington, Va.based Endgame specializes in proactive cyber defense, offering services that help companies test and diagnose vulnerabilities in their cybersecurity plans. This acquisition itself builds off of an agreement that Accenture made with Endgame back in March, when the Dublin-based solution provider bought a minority share of Endgame and began reselling some of its security solutions.

As a part of the acquisition of Endgames federal government services business, Accenture has agreed to reinforce its existing agreement with the company by reselling its endpoint detection and response (EDR) platform. "We see this as a natural evolution of our existing strong services partnership with Accenture that provides them with the ability to expand their cybersecurity services while Endgame focuses on accelerating growth of our EDR platform," Nate Fick, CEO of Endgame said in a statement.

Since August 2015, Accenture, No. 2 on the CRN SP500 list, has bought a minority stake in Israeli cybersecurity company Team8 and it has acquired Arlington, Va.-based Fusion X; Houston-based industrial IoT security specialist, Cimation; Israeli cybersecurity company Maglan; Arlington, Va.-based Defense Point Security LLC; and the French identity and access management company, Arismore.

In June, Accenture unified its cybersecurity lines of business into a dedicated, standalone practice and hired former Deloitte executive Kelly Bissell to lead it. Since then, the company has hired former Fidelis CSO, Justin Harvey, to lead the companys incident response practice and Former CIA executive Ira "Gus" Hunt to lead of its federal cybersecurity practice.

Accenture has predicted its cybersecurity organization would bring in well over $1 billion in annual revenue, more than the $500 million to $1 billion the company previously brought in from security-related services. This would be accomplished, the company said, by addressing industry-specific vulnerabilities and growing Accenture's presence in such areas as mobile security and in traditional governance, risk management and compliance (GRC) consulting.
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Dell EMC Reveals U.S. Distribution Changes: Ingram Gets EMC Back; Arrow, Avnet, Carahsoft Unlock Dell Enterprise

Michael Novinson

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Dell EMC has restored Ingram Micro's EMC relationship in the United States and extended all or part of Dell's heritage enterprise portfolio to Arrow, Avnet and Carahsoft.

Ingram Micro still employs a lot of the talent that drove the Irvine, Calif.-based distributor's success with EMC before it severed ties with Ingram in April 2015, according to Kirk Robinson, Ingram Micro's senior vice president of go-to-market. Ingram Micro plans to shift its existing EMC resources back into place, Robinson said, and hire the certified engineers and other talent to be the dominant Dell EMC distributor.

"When the relationship ended with EMC, we were their 'Distributor of the Year' because we were consistently outperforming Arrow and Avnet," Robinson told CRN. "We're going to build that playbook back out, and we're going to raise the bar even higher."

[Related: Arrow Snags $350M of Channel Business From Competitors, Lands Dell Enterprise Portfolio]

Ingram Micro's go-to-market efforts will initially leverage the distributor's business intelligence capabilities and target new solution providers that are not reselling EMC today, Robinson said. Once channel partners are allowed to switch distributors again, starting in August, Robinson said Ingram Micro will pursue restoring relationships with its former EMC partners.

"Customers have been coming to us and asking, 'When are you going to get EMC back?'" Robinson said. "When the gate opens up, we're going to go back to working with all of the accounts that we were performing with when we were [EMC] Distributor of the Year."

Arrow enjoys a commanding lead in EMC distribution market share in North America, and looks forward to extending conversations with its existing EMC partner base from data center storage and backup to Dell's heritage compute and networking platforms, according to Ben Klay, vice president and general manager of Arrow's infrastructure systems group.

"We think this opens us some new markets to us," Klay told CRN. "It's not every day we get to expand the portfolio like this."

Klay said Arrow had built its dominant market position around EMC by employing a dedicated compensation model, where the distributor's EMC team only got paid when EMC products were sold.

Tech Data no longer enjoys the distinction of being the only distributor carrying Dell and EMC's entire product line in the U.S. now that EMC has restored ties with Ingram Micro.

But Tech Data's comprehensive capabilities across both Dell EMC's value data center and emerging technology practice as well as its volume PC, mobile and entry-level server business are unparalleled in the industry, according to executive vice president and chief operating officer Rich Hume.

"We have strength in both, and we aren't coming from a cold start," Hume told CRN. "The relationship has existed across all of those areas for a good period of time, and we do business with all three Dell Technologies companies [Dell, EMC and VMware] at scale."

That relationship will be bolstered in the next few months when Tech Data's $2.6 billion acquisition of Avnet Technology Solutions (TS) closes, which Hume said will amplify the distributor's capabilities around EMC's security, analytics, and hyper-converged infrastructure practices.

Avnet TS has been an EMC partner for more than 15 years and believes Dell's acquisition of the vendor will open up new opportunities, the company said in a statement. The distributor did not immediately address how it will benefit from adding Dell's enterprise portfolio to its line card.

Synnex will continue distributing Dell's legacy client and enterprise products, and, along with Ingram Micro, had been one of only two distributors offering the vendor's U.S. federal program, according to Reyna Thompson, vice president of product management for Synnex's ConvergeSolv Secure Networking Group.

Thompson said in a statement that Synnex offers a dedicated sale Dell ruggs rep to all 20,000 of its reseller accounts, differentiating themselves from peers who service resellers from the 'next available person' in the queue.

Synnex has a dedicateded computing specialist on staff, Thompson said, and also maintains an exclusive program that offers networking resellers access to MDF, demo gear, asset buyback programs, call campaigns and weekly inventory reports.

Executives from Dell and Carahsoft were not immediately available for comment. Carahsoft had been serving legacy EMC partners exclusively in the U.S. government space and is now authorized to also sell Dell's Compellent storage line to federal customers.

Platte River Networks moved all of its Dell direct business to Ingram Micro two years ago and has benefitted greatly from Ingram's marketing and training funds and continued education offerings, according to David DeCamillis, vice president of sales and marketing for the Denver-based company.

DeCamillis said Ingram Micro's partner community was shocked when EMC dropped the distributor in North America two years ago and isn't surprised that Dell came in and reversed that decision.

"Ingram really knows how to deal with reseller partners," DeCamillis said.
Security, Virtualization, Cloud Most Lucrative IT Certifications

Solution providers looking to hit the jackpot should pursue certifications in IT security, virtualization, cloud computing, Microsoft Windows, business and networking.

That's according to information gathered for the 2017 IT Skills and Salary Survey, conducted by Cary, N.C.-based business training and certification company Global Knowledge. Certifications must have at least 115 survey responses and be currently available to appear on the Global Knowledge list.

All but four of the top 15 certifications pay more than $100,000, and two of the four that don't are less than $1,000 shy. Six of the certifications that appear on this year's list didn't make it last year, and last year's top-paying certification has fallen to third on this year's list.

Below are the best-paying certifications of 2016.
The use of dark and deep as adjectives to describe anything on the web conjure up feelings of fear and anxiety. Those outside of the security industry are fascinated by -- yet tentative of -- this mysterious digital abyss where criminals live in anonymity, plotting and colluding in unimaginable ways.

Flashpoint Alex Kassirer

So, who, in her right mind, would want to spend her days working in the deepest fissures of the digital world? Alex Kassirer, that's who.

Featured as one of the amazing women in security, Kassirer, senior counterterrorism analyst at Flashpoint and on-air analyst for NBC is the epitome of girl power.

I don't know what drives her to wake up in the morning knowing that she is destined to interact with some of the most alarming and illicit characters in creation.

Yet still, I can't help but feel this absolute sense of envy that she is able to do the work that she does. It feels so important and empowering. If I could rewind 25 years, I would want to be Kassirer when I grow up.

So, for all those young ambitious security newbs who are wondering which path in the industry is right for you, perhaps a glimpse into the work of Kassirer might inspire you to travel the path to counterterrorism analyst.

When Kassirer talks about scouring the dark web, she's referring to the ability of analysts to monitor and embed themselves into both the areas that aren't searchable and into the deep areas of the internet that require credentials for access.

"Keeping tabs on terrorists requires an understanding of the landscape and the individuals themselves. These actors congregate and communicate, which requires me to be agile. Jihadists are constantly shifting and finding new areas to operate in, so I have to be agile and flexible enough to pivot with these actors," Kassirer said.

The monitoring of terrorists allows analysts like Kassirer to communicate with the criminals so that she can gain insight into their plans and techniques. "We are monitoring and listening and having an ear to the ground as they talk so that we are able to understand how they think," she said.

The criminals they are monitoring are a diverse group that range from jihadists and nation state actors to fraudsters and cybercriminals. It's tantamount to being an undercover detective.

That all sounds like a fascinating way to earn a living, though I can't imagine the skills required to qualify for such a position. "There are some underlying skill sets that are applicable across the board, but you do need certain skills depending on what type of analyst you want to be," Kassirer said.

She leads the counterterrorism desk, and said, "Theres another layer of specialized skills each analyst needs depending on the area of expertise. There are necessary linguistic capabilities because one of the greatest difficulties is maintaining credentials."

In order to earn those credentials, analysts like Kassirer need to understand how those she monitors operate and speak. Being an analyst and monitoring those areas are basic in one sense but specific depending on the area in which you work.

In her counterterrorism role, "Arabic is the prominent language. I learned modern standard Arabic in school, but if I just knew that I wouldn't understand what they are saying," Kassirer said.

That level of vernacular comes from experience and being in these environments and being able to imitate the groups you are trying to be a part of. "To be able to understand how they speak on a deeper level comes with reading a lot of ISIS and Al Queda literature," Kassirer said.

Then, an analyst has to go through the vetting process to be welcomed into the group. "The vetting varies depending on the forum. Most of the time it's answering simple questions, sometimes they are religious questions. There are some groups that are closed for new registration, so to get around that hurdle you need to know the admin or someone in the forum to vouch for you," Kassirer said.

While there's a part of me that wishes I could -- just for a moment -- feel what it's like to be her for a day, I'm not sure that I would be able to sleep at night. Kassirer though, is cut from a different cloth. She's able to sleep quite soundly despite all that she sees in the deep and dark web.

Send your notes of admiration to Facebook.
Monarch Beverage, Indiana's largest distributor of beer and wine, said they were victimized by scammers targeting W-2 records this week, affecting more than 600 employees.

However, the situation went from bad to worse after an internal investigation revealed that the company was also hit in 2016.

On January 24, someone posing as Phil Terry, Monarch's CEO, emailed an employee requesting copies of everyone's 2016 W-2 forms. Believing the request to be legitimate, the employee complied. The scammer's success was discovered on February 1.

An investigation was launched immediately, and that's when the second attack was discovered. In April of 2016, someone posing as Terry requested 2015 W-2 records, which were delivered as asked.

"Monarch Beverage discovered on February 1, 2017, that it was the victim of a ruse to gain unauthorized access to the companys employees W2-forms, a statement given to CBS4 said.

"As soon as company officials discovered the loss of data, the company alerted law enforcement, including the FBI, local police, the IRS, the Indiana Attorney General and the Indiana Department of Revenue. We deeply regret that this has occurred and we offer our sincerest apologies to everyone affected. Any current or former employee who may be affected has been provided with three years of credit protection services through Experians ProtectMyID"

Last week, another Indianapolis business was successfully targeted by W-2 scammers, impacting nearly 4,000 taxpayers.

The scams, also called BEC (Business Email Compromise) attacks, are Phishing attacks that exploit the trust relationships within a given business.

It isn't a technology problem though, it's a people and policy problem. Scammers are hoping to interact with organizations and people where sending such sensitive records via email is routine. Once that's accomplished, all the scammer has to do is convince the victim the request is legitimate, which usually only requires a spoofed email address and name.

As reported on Monday by Salted Hash, the IRS issued a new warning to businesses earlier this month about W-2 scams, urging them to stay alert. Monday's report also contains a number of updates, as new BEC victims were identified.

So far, more than 30,000 people have been affected by these scams across 31 different incidents.

In addition to the updates in Monday's story, Corsicana Independent School District reported that they were victimized by scammers on February 1; Verc Enterprises said someone spoofed a district manager's email address and requested W-2 records on January 21; and Adventist Health Tehachapi Valley says that about 250 current and former employees were affected after scammers obtained their W-2 records.

Salted Hash and Databreaches.net are keeping a running list of BEC attacks this year, updating it as often as possible. The list is being maintained by Dissent at Databreaches.net.

Update:
ANSONIA  An argument over violence in Connecticut led to a father shooting his son in the stomach, according to police.

But long-standing family issues probably contributed, the arrest warrant affidavit reveals.

Dustin Softleigh, 23, is recovering from the gunshot wound, but surgeons at Bridgeport Hospital were unable to remove the .380 Winchester slug lodged in his hip, the affidavit states.

His father, Dennis Softleigh, 47, of Central Avenue, faces charges of first-degree assault, unlawful discharge of a firearm and carrying a firearm under the influence of alcohol and drugs.

He told Ansonia police he fired at his son in self-defense.

His lawyer, Susan Red of New Haven, declined comment on the charges.

Neighbors told police they often heard loud arguments coming from the apartment, according to the affidavit.

Both Dennis Softleigh and his ex-wife told police they were assaulted by their son in the past, police said. Dennis Softleigh said his son was diagnosed with a bipolar disorder and had stopped taking medication, the affidavit reads.

The incident began about 7 p.m. on Jan. 17, according to the affidavit filed with the court by Detective Kristen Hunt.

In it Hunt recounts a lengthy investigation which included interviews with witnesses, neighbors, Softleigh, his son and the boys mother.

The son, who is bipolar and has been diagnosed with an assaultive behavior, told police his father drank some vodka and orange juice and smoked marijuana with him and his friends, police reported. When they began debating which towns have higher crime rates and the difficulty of stunt videos on You Tube, the father and son began exchanging insults.

Dustin told his father he would knock him out, according to the affidavit. The son recalled hearing his father say he was not going to get beaten down again before the gun went off.

Police found a .380 bullet casing on the kitchen floor, a loaded Taurus .380 handgun  for which Dennis Softleigh had a valid pistol permit  a box of Winchester bullets and a Mossberg shotgun under a bed.

Softleigh, who is employed as a computer technician with Hearst Corp., is free on $50,000 bond pending his Feb. 21 arraignment in Milford Superior Court.
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Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal has became the latest target of President Donald Trumps Twitter wrath, after the president trolled the Democratic lawmaker over misrepresentations of military service during the Vietnam War.

Trump was upset that Blumenthal divulged Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuchs disappointment with Trumps attacks on the judiciary following the presidents recent travel ban on seven Muslim-majority nations.

Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told media outlets Wednesday that Gorsuch said Trumps words had been disheartening and demoralizing. Trumps confirmation team for Gorsuch verified the nominees comments.

Then, at 6:57 a.m. Thursday, Trump returned fire on his favorite platform: Twitter.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie), now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him? Trump tweeted.

Blumenthal sought to avoid revisiting a 2010 flap over his military record Thursday.

This issue is way bigger than me and even Judge Gorsuchs nomination, Blumenthal told Hearst Connecticut Media. It involves independence of our judicial system.

Blumenthal, the heir apparent to retiring Sen. Chris Dodd in 2010, was dealt a significant blow when The New York Times reported he had said he served in Vietnam when he had not. Blumenthal served in the Marine Corps Reserve during the Vietnam War, but did not see combat.

The story was planted by the campaign of Blumenthals Republican opponent, wrestling mogul Linda McMahon, who Blumenthal recently introduced in a positive light during her Senate confirmation hearing to lead the Small Business Administration.

In select company

Now Blumenthal joins a long list of Trump Twitter foils, from Crooked Hillary Clinton and Lyin Ted Cruz to Madonna and the dishonest media. The new president is perhaps more at home in the Twitterverse  140 characters at a time and #hashtags  than in the White House.

For Gods sake, somebody take his phone away, said Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, a Democrat. When he does things like that, he looks terribly, terribly small. It doesnt do anything for him except give some childlike relief.

But Republicans say Blumenthal, a Harvard- and Yale-educated lawyer and former U.S. attorney, has an unrivaled command over his words, and engaged in a pattern of dishonesty about his Vietnam service.

Thats a cross he has to bear, said Angel Cadena Jr., an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran of the Marines who is from Shelton and ran unsuccessfully for Congress last year. He brought it on himself.

Another Marine, who was wounded in the second battle of Fallujah in Iraq in 2004, came to Blumenthals defense.

He never said that he was in a unit that was in Vietnam or that he was in combat, said Mike Zacchea, of Brookfield, who received a Purple Heart and two Bronze Stars for his heroism. Like many veterans, Im sensitive to this phenomenon of stolen valor.

Zacchea was Blumenthals guest last year for the final State of the Union address of President Barack Obama. Ironically, he serves on a veterans advisory panel of the Small Business Administration, the agency McMahon will lead if confirmed by the full Senate.

It is true that reservists were just as reviled as those who served in the war during Vietnam, Zacchea said. It is not incorrect for Senator Blumenthal to say Vietnam veteran. Its more accurate to say Vietnam-era veteran. 

Zacchea, who was recently elected as Brookfields Democratic Town Committee chairman, compared the presidents Twitter salvo against Blumenthal to Trumps public feud last summer with the Gold Star parents of a Muslim U.S. Army captain killed in Iraq. He said Trump shouldnt act holier than thou.

Obviously, Donald Trump is a draft dodger, Zacchea said. I really believe that Donald Trump doesnt know anything about veterans.

Blumenthals GOP detractors in Connecticut gave Trump plaudits for his candor, saying that for too long the senator has gotten a free pass on misrepresentation of his military service.

 Richard Blumenthal deserves to be publicly shamed on a national level, said Andy Wainwright, a Republican State Central Committee member from Stamford and alternate Trump delegate to last summers GOP national convention.

Additional instances of Blumenthal misstating his military record were discovered by Hearst Connecticut Media at the time, including his remarks during a 2008 Veterans Day Parade in Stamford.

I wore the uniform in Vietnam and many came back to all kinds of disrespect, Blumenthal was quoted by The Advocate, a Hearst newspaper.

During a May 18, 2009, military board tribute to veterans in Shelton, Blumenthal was quoted by the Connecticut Post as saying, When we returned from Vietnam, I remember the taunts, the verbal and even physical abuse we encountered.

Blumenthal, who won re-election last November in a landslide, has long maintained that he was careless with his words but did not intend to mislead his constituents.

I have covered this issue exhaustively and frequently, he said Thursday.

Blumenthals colleague, Sen. Chris Murphy, rallied around his fellow Democrat.

This is textbook Donald Trump, Murphy said. Any time the news is bad for him, he distracts people away from the issue at hand by engaging in personal insult.

Former U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays, who inflamed fellow Republicans last year when he voted for Hillary Clinton, said Trumps Twitter rants are beneath the office of the presidency.

It strikes me as being so juvenile, said Shays. How hes referring to Congress, the two other branches and the courts is not only disrespectful, its harmful.

Shays said Trump needs to learn to respect the checks and balances of government.

Hes not a dictator, Shays said.

nvigdor@hearstmediact.com; 203-625-4436; http://twitter.com/gettinviggy
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Matthew Badger, father of the three girls killed in a tragic 2011 Christmas Day fire in Stamfords upscale Shippan neighborhood, has died.

The Lily Sarah Grace Fund said Matthew Badgers family announced his death on Thursday, but the cause was not disclosed. Badger, 51, of New York City, co-founded the organization in April 2012, five months after he lost his daughters.

In a public post on her Facebook page, Madonna Badger, the girls mother and Matthews former wife, said his death was sudden.

He was a wonderful man with a generous heart, she wrote. He was an amazing Dad to his girls, Lily, Sarah and Grace. His death was sudden and peaceful. He is with his children and his parents and his brother, Mark. Please send him light and love. My heart is broken. But also joyous that they are together.

The massive blaze at the home of Madonna Badger that killed Lily, 9, her 7-year-old twin sisters Sarah and Grace, and their grandparents, Lomer and Pauline Johnson, prompted lawsuits by the girls parents against the city of Stamford, which immediately demolished the charred home and carted away the debris without notifying the family.

Matthew and Madonna Badgers separate civil suits allege improper inspection of remodeling work at the 2267 Shippan Ave. home; a failure to identify the contractor lacked a Connecticut license; and that it tore down the house earlier than warranted and removed debris to destroy possible evidence.

Its unclear whether Matthew Badgers case, which was slated for trial in April, would continue. Calls placed to the Badgers lawyers were not immediately returned, and city offices were closed on Thursday due to a snowstorm.

Court records show Matthew Badger offered to settle his lawsuit for $17 million, but the city declined. Last year, he settled with two contractors who worked on the house.

Authorities said the fire began after Madonna Badgers then-boyfriend Michael Borcina  who was overseeing the renovation  left a bag of fireplace ashes in a mudroom on Christmas Eve. The pair were the only survivors of the blaze.

Robert Cambria, executive director of the nonprofit, which supports the arts in underfunded public schools, said Matthew Badger was very, very passionate and committed to making a difference in the lives of children all over the country.

In a Facebook post Thursday afternoon, the foundation said it was deeply saddened by Matthew Badgers death.

While our hearts are broken, we are honored and committed to carrying on Matthews legacy. LSG will continue to transform public elementary schools into child-centered learning environments that meet the needs of all learners while preparing creative 21st-century global citizens.

Staff writer Angela Carella contributed to this report.

noliveira@stamfordadvocate .com
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WATERBURY - A judge has refused to throw out a class action lawsuit against Griffin Hospital on behalf of more than 3,100 former patients who may face HIV or other blood-borne diseases as a result of hospital employees using the same insulin injection pens on patient after patient.

In an 18-page decision, Superior Court Judge Linda Lager ruled that it will be up to a jury to decide whether the Derby hospital is liable for the alleged negligent actions of its staff in the case.

(The complaint) alleges that over a lengthy period of time Griffin improperly administered insulin to its insulin dependent diabetic patients by using single patient multidose insulin pens in a manner that violated the standard of care, the judge wrote. A central question to all the putative claims is the applicable standard of care.

Stamford lawyer Ernest Teitell, who filed the lawsuit, declined comment on the judges decision.

In accordance with our hospital policy, we respectfully decline to comment on ongoing litigation, said hospital Spokesman Christian Meagher.

No trial has yet been set in the case.

On May 16, 2014, Griffin Hospital CEO Patrick Charmel sent a letter to 3,149 former patients stating: It has identified the possibility that insulin pens ordered for patients hospitalized between Sept. 1, 2008 and May 7, 2014, may have been misused.

Insulin pens are injector devices that contain a multidose vial of insulin. The pens are intended for single person use only and are designed to allow for the delivery of multiple doses. The hospital offered free testing encouraging former patients to come in within the next 30 days.

Hospital officials later said five nurses had been linked to the misuse of the pens and would be re-educated.

But the lawsuit claims that as many as 11 hospital employees were involved in using the same insulin pens on patients. It states that in some cases, employees improperly removed the patient identification labels affixed to the pens and then administered the same pen to other patients.
State officials and parent advocates gave different versions Tuesday of how often, and why, the Department of Children and Families takes custody of children with severe behavioral health problems  and whether the practice should continue.

Advocates, including a group of adoptive parents, told the Legislatures Committee on Children a proposed bill to prohibit DCF from requesting, recommending or requiring parents relinquish their custodial rights when seeking mental health treatment for their children is needed to stop a practice known as trading custody for care. The bill, drafted by state Rep. Rosa Rebimbas, R-Naugatuck, was prompted by an October C-HIT story that described DCFs use of uncared for custody petitions against parents who could not manage their children at home and insisted on specialized residential care.

In testimony Tuesday, DCF Commissioner Joette Katz said the agency resorts to taking over custody only in rare cases in which parents refuse to take their children home from inpatient settings or will not cooperate with clinician-recommended in-home or community-based treatment services.

We disagree with the notion that DCF requires parents to completely relinquish custody of their children to receive suitable behavioral health care, Katz said. She acknowledged that the agency has sharply reduced the number of children it places in residential treatment.

Maureen ONeill-Davis, leader of a parents group called Family Forward Advocacy CT that is lobbying for the proposed bill, said parents seeking intensive residential care should not have to give up rights to their children. She and other parents described being told by DCF and court workers that the only way to access specialized out-of-home care was to relinquish custody. Most of the parents said they had exhausted in-home services provided through DCF and were left on their own to manage children who were a threat to the safety of siblings and other family members.

We dont want to give up our children, said ONeill-Davis, of Torrington. (But) we are told that if you forfeit custody, they will get your child the care they need.

ONeill-Davis said DCF has a responsibility to provide high-level mental health care to unstable children that should remain separate from its role as a child-protection agency. The parents group has alleged that financial considerations are prompting the custody-for-care pressure, as DCF reduces funding for children not legally in its care and limits residential placements. DCF officials have denied that funding plays any role.

DCF has said that uncared for/specialized needs petitions removing parents custody are used only as a last resort, in cases where parents cannot provide appropriate care for their children.

Judicial department data show the state has used the petitions to take custody of more than 860 children over five years - or an average of three children a week.

Steven Hernandez, executive director of the Connecticut Commission on Women, Children and Seniors, said the agency has heard from parents who have been coerced into giving up their parental rights in order to secure residential mental health care. He urged the committee not to buy into mythologies that difficult parents were to blame.

Sometimes it is expedient to have a family that is asking too many questions out of the way of decision-making, he said. There are many causes that could lead down that expedient road.

Several parents who support the proposed bill said a key problem underlying the custody issue is that DCFs in-home treatment services are not sufficient to help severely troubled children. Tracy E. Schulz, a retired state Capitol police officer from Manchester, said she and her husband were unable to access appropriate services for their grandson through DCFs Voluntary Services program, which provides mental health services. The program offered many meetings that were fruitless, visits to our home that were unnecessary, as our grandson was in a sub-acute care facility, and no offer of services that we were asking for, she said.

Katz said DCF provides an array of mental health services to thousands of children not in state custody and is abiding by national best practices in relying on in-home and community-based care. The department approves facility-based care for a small number of children in the Voluntary Services program, she said.

DCF lawyer Barbara Clare insisted that the agency would never require parents to fully terminate their parental rights in order to secure care. She said the custody issue was usually triggered by parents, who, because of their own issues they simply want the child put someplace and not to come home until theyre fixed. . . Thats not how treatment works, she added.

Custody only comes into play in a tiny, tiny percentage of cases where there is disagreement over whether the child needs outpatient or residential treatment, she said.

State Child Advocate Sarah Eagan said her office supports the proposed bill as a way to prevent the filing of custody petitions due solely to the childs specialized mental health or disability support needs. She noted that state law specifically provides that commitment to (DCF) shall not be a condition for receipt of services or benefits from the agency.

It is imperative that state systems do not inadvertently require children and families to submit to juvenile court proceedings where there are no concerns of parental unfitness or medical neglect, Eagan said. Urgent solutions need to be found so that parents can appropriately access needed mental health and developmental support services.

State Rep. Noreen Kokoruda, R-Durham, said she was concerned that connecting custody to care, in any way, would deter people who really do need help, but dont want to give up custody of their children.

This story was reported under a partnership with the Connecticut Health I-Team (www.c-hit.org).
Cuba 2017 International Book Fair opens in Havana

Submitted by: Juana

Culture and Traditions

Havana

Society

02 / 09 / 2017



The Cuba 2017 International Book Fair will be inaugurated this Thursday at 9 AM at its traditional venue of the San Carlos de la Cabana Fortress, overlooking Havana bay and it will run through the 19.

The event, dedicated this year to Cuban intellectual Doctor Armando Hart Davalos and with Canada as the Guest Country, will gather over 5 thousand Cuban and foreign guests and over 700 new titles.

Over 4 million books will fill the stands scattered through the different halls of the ancient fortress where hundreds of thousands of Cubans will have the opportunity to find works of every genre and style.

Authors, editors and publishing houses from 46 nations will attend the event; deliver keynote speeches, lectures and exchange with the audience and representatives of the Cuban book industry.

There will be special tributes to the late Cuban revolution leader Fidel Castro, including the premiere of documentaries, chats and the launching of 24 titles related to him.
We must rethink the U.S. response to infectious disease. Here's why.
Tory backbencher Sir Simon Burns, 64, has publicly described Speaker John Bercow, 54  accurately some think  as a stupid, sanctimonious dwarf.

Yet he supports Bercows opposition to President Donald Trump being invited to address Parliamentarians, saying the Speaker was reflecting the view of a significant number of members of Parliament.

Explaining previous rows with Bercow, he explains: They were clashes of personality.

Simon Burns is said to be a huge fan of Hillary Clinton, even sporting a watch with her face on it

Theres another factor.

Burns was a fervent supporter of Trumps election rival, Hillary Clinton. He even wears a watch with Hillarys face on it, reports my source.

How sad.

Prince Albert of Monaco remarked in a New York interview about then presidential candidate Donald Trump: Its dangerous to have someone like this running for office, someone who can have people believing climate change is all a conspiracy. Albert, 58, has since sent a letter to President Trump congratulating him on his victory.

Stephen Fry hosts the Baftas on Sunday, despite a row at last years ceremony when he joked that award-winning costume designer Jenny Beavan looked like a bag lady.

Stung by social media comments, Fry, 59, later insisted he was quitting Twitter.

Stephen Fry and his husband Elliott Spencer are back in the UK and Fry is back on Twitter, after quitting dramatically

His toy boy husband, Elliott Spencer, 29, announced that they were leaving for a new life in America. Now Frys back in the UK, back on Twitter and back at the Baftas. Arent we fortunate?

While his rebellious MPs waited anxiously between votes on Tuesday night to see if their amendments had got through (they didnt), Jeremy Corbyn enjoyed drinks with his older brother, weather forecaster Piers, 69  who voted to leave the EU  and Brexit-supporting Labour MP Kate Hoey in Parliaments Pugin Rooms.

It looked like a Leave supporters knees-up, says my source. Maybe it was.

Unlike so many of her subjects, the Queen isnt impressed by famous-for-being-famous types.

She doesnt do celebrity, Prince William has observed. So she was unmoved by the reported flattery directed at her by David Beckham in his pursuit of a knighthood. Or the earlier sucking-up by creepy, royals-worshipping entertainer Sir Jimmy Savile.

The Queen isnt impressed by famous-for-being-famous types, according to her grandson Prince William

The latter did succeed with Margaret Thatcher, who nominated him for a knighthood despite advice from then cabinet secretary Sir Robin Butler that this would not benefit the honours system in the eyes of the public.

On Saviles 80th birthday Prince Charles sent him gifts and a note saying: Nobody will ever know what you have done for this country, Jimmy. This is to go some way to thanking you for that.

Nick Cleggs pushy wife, Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, 48, the Spanish firecracker, responds indignantly to being called Mrs Clegg in a letter from the organisers of International Womens Day.

As well she might! International lawyer Miriams annual salary of 500,000 is almost double that presently earned by the Lib Dems unsuccessful, 50-year-old former leader.
Another week, another catalogue of waste, corruption and betrayal to be listed under the heading Overseas Aid.

Monday: Amid Britain's social care crisis, it emerges that our embassy in Beijing is begging groups to apply for cash from a 1.3billion aid pot, funded by UK taxpayers... to look after the elderly in booming China!

Tuesday: A report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies finds that spending on adult social care in Britain fell by 6 per cent between 2009-10 and 2015-16  while the foreign aid budget rocketed by 44 per cent to a blistering 12.24billion in 2015.

Wednesday: Claims of fraud involving British aid are found to have quadrupled since 2010-11 to nearly 500 in the current financial year  and fast rising.

Our embassy in Beijing is begging groups to apply for cash from a 1.3billion aid pot, funded by UK taxpayers, to look after the elderly in China (stock photo)

But is it any wonder that the DfID fails to make proper checks on recipients, when ministers are bound by a ludicrous law compelling them to spend 0.7 per cent of our national income on aid?

The truth is they simply can't get rid of your money fast enough. Which is why they shovel bucket-loads to corrupt regimes  and lorry-loads more to any agency willing to spend it for us.

At the best of times, this would be the economics of the madhouse. At a time like this, when the Government has to borrow every penny it spends on aid, while Britain's elderly are neglected and the NHS is on the point of meltdown, it is simply indefensible.

Yes, this paper understands why Theresa May, with so many battles to fight, is reluctant to open another front against MPs who defend the 0.7 per cent target because it makes them feel virtuous.

But the day must come when Parliament sees sense and scraps this egregious liability. It won't be a moment too soon.

BOTTOM OF THE CLASS

Could there be any more crushing indictment of education in England than the finding that bright teenagers from poor backgrounds lag two-and-a-half years behind their affluent contemporaries in core academic subjects?

Indeed, the Sutton Trust finds the gap even wider among bright working-class girls, who trail three years behind in reading and science.

Such is the waste of talent caused by a system, paradoxically obsessed with social engineering, which neglects the crucial primary school years in its drive to increase numbers at universities.

Will the education 'Blob' never grasp that a child who can't read, write or add up comfortably by 11 is condemned to a life-sentence of under-achievement?

BBC boss James Purnell, 46, (pictured) pledges to eradicate 'elitism' from documentaries

AUNTIE'S NEW ELITISM

With lofty condescension, BBC boss James Purnell pledges to eradicate 'elitism' from documentaries (though what a former career politician knows about making television programmes is anyone's guess).

To back his case, he cites the Corporation's 2017 remake of Kenneth Clark's 1969 series, Civilisation  to be renamed Civilisations in the plural, which presumably means it will give equal billing to non-Western cultures.

'It won't be the Auntie that dispensed culture from on high,' he says. 'It will be much more a thoughtful friend, prodding us to keep our resolutions, helping us ask and find answers.'

Yes, erudite Lord Clark was certainly an elitist  though that didn't stop Civilisation becoming a smash hit in 60 countries.

But isn't the new-style, 'we-know-best', politically correct BBC every bit as elitist in its way, constantly prodding us to reach its own liberal-Left conclusions?

Indeed, does anyone better epitomise that elitism than Mr Purnell himself, the New Labourite who slid effortlessly from the Cabinet into his top job at the 'politically impartial' BBC?
Via the Edmonton Journal: Alberta adds two medical examiners in part to help with opioid deaths. Excerpt:

The province is hiring two more medical examiners as it copes with a growing population and a worsening opioid crisis.

The announcement came Wednesday as Statistics Canada released census data showing the provinces population grew by 11.6 per cent from 2011 to 2016, the highest growth rate in the country. That means more deaths to investigate and the short-staffed medical examiners office has been struggling to keep up.

The increase in the population obviously comes with an increase in the overall number of deaths. Its a steady sort of parallel relationship, said chief medical examiner Dr. Elizabeth Brooks-Lim.

In 2014, one per cent of the offices cases took longer than nine months. In 2015, that number rose to 1.75 per cent.

Adding to the workload was a Supreme Court ruling in July that set caps of 18 months for criminal cases before the provincial courts and 30 months for superior courts from the time charges are laid. Cases can be stayed if the cap is exceeded, so medical examiners have to prioritize those cases.

The Wednesday announcement  bumping the number of medical examiners from eight to 10  was made at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, where the province said its investing $1 million per year. Of that, $790,000 will be used to pay for the additional medical examiners.

When the hiring is completed, the province will have five medical examiners in Calgary and five in Edmonton. Another medical examiner is set to join the Calgary office in April to fill a previously vacant spot. The money will also fund a research officer who will be tasked with managing data and sharing it with other government departments, like Alberta Health. The remaining funding will be spent on supplies and services.

Renovations at the office of the medical examiner have also wrapped up. The $20.6-million, multi-year project included construction of a larger toxicology laboratory, expansion of the autopsy space and morgue and installation of improved biocontainment equipment for handling hazardous materials.
A beauty blogger who turned to make-up to cover up his teenage acne has become the new male face to front a L'Oreal campaign.

Jake-Jamie Ward, 25, has built up a successful YouTube empire thanks to his makeup tutorials aimed at men, published under the name The Beauty Boy.

L'Oreal were so impressed by Jake's efforts to end gender stereotypes in the beauty industry they decided to welcome him into the brand's family. He will now rub shoulders with Oscar winner Helen Mirren and former X Factor judge Cheryl.

Jake became frustrated by the fact that cosmetics are mainly aimed at a female market and hopes that his work with L'Oreal will help change this.

He said: 'I clearly remember standing in the makeup aisle at Boots, being surrounded by advertisements featuring only women and initially this made me feel wrong and ashamed of myself for even entertaining the idea of using cosmetics to boost my own self-esteem.

'I very quickly I realised that I wasn't alone and that I wanted and needed to make a change to the industry.'

Scroll down for video

Jake-Jamie Ward has been announced as the face of L'Oreal's latest campaign for the Infallible Total Cover range

Promoting the Infallible Total Cover range Jake will feature on campaign posters in Superdrug and Boots stores nationwide as well as starring in the 'Hero' video advert along side former X Factor winner Louisa Johnson.

Having launched a viral campaign #MakeupIsGenderless Jake is finally seen his effort to normalise men's cosmetics recognised in the nationwide campaign.

His efforts have received endorsements from TOWIEs Georgia Kousoulou and world famous makeup artist Charlotte Tilbury.

MALE STARS WHO LOVE MAKEUP Actor Johnny Depp (left), singer Adam Lambert (centre), and rock star Pete Wentz (right), all wear makeup Many male stars no longer limit their use of cosmetics to when they're on stage or on set. Plenty of celebrity men like to dab on concealer or enhance their eyes with a little 'guy-liner' in everyday life too. Actor Johnny Depp is no stranger to an edgy look, eschewing the red carpet go-to of most other A-list actors - black tie - in favour of leather, hats, a ponytail, and copious amounts of jewellery. That extends to his face too - he's regularly spotted wearing eyeliner to rival that of his most famous character, Captain Jack Sparrow. Musician and actor Adam Lambert, and Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz both favour a goth aesthetic that includes liberal amounts of eye make-up. Advertisement

Having launched a viral campaign #MakeupIsGenderless Jake has finally seen his effort to normalise men's cosmetics recognised in the nationwide campaign

Jake will feature on campaign posters in Superdrug and Boots stores nationwide as well as starring in the 'Hero' video advert

L'Oreal were impressed with Jake's efforts to end gender stereotypes in the beauty industry and wanted to welcome him on board their beauty campaign

Speaking of his campaign Jake said: 'Twelve months ago I set out on a mission to prove makeup is and always will be genderless.

'I dedicated every spare second I had to raising awareness in the hope that one day future generations could grow up freely in a world whereby makeup could be enjoyed by all sexes without question or judgement.'

Jake became frustrated by the fact that cosmetics are mainly aimed at a female market and hopes that his work with L'Oreal will help change this.

He continues: 'The makeup market was so predominantly aimed at women... men feel excluded from the excitement, fun, confidence and creativity that makeup can bring.'

Jake began using makeup at the age of 19 when he began to suffer from acne and desperate to find a solution went shopping for a foundation which is when he first clocked the gendered advertising.

Kate Moss' favourite makeup artist Charlotte Tilbury (left) has expressed her admiration for Jake, as has TOWIE star Georgia Kousoulou (right

He explained: 'I began having terrible acne breakouts, it knocked my confidence so badly that there were days when I didn't even want to leave the house.

'So one day in the hope I could restore my confidence I thought sod it Im going to try makeup.'

He has since gained a loyal following of 16,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel where he offers tips to both men and women.

Jake is keen to encourage other young men to approach the beauty bench and not to be deterred by stereotypes.

He adds: 'If youre experimenting with makeup for the first time: be brave, lead by example, be you and be happy.

'Dont be bound by ancient stereotypes no longer relevant in todays society.

'Makeup gives me the confidence to walk down the street with my head held high. Makeup has changed my life.'
A television anchor who lost two of her triplets after they were born premature said she still 'dreads' being asked whether her surviving child has any siblings.

Stacey Skrysak, 36, said she struggles explaining her family's situation to strangers so much that she sometimes pretends that Abigail, who died shortly after birth, and Parker, who passed away at just under two months, are still alive.

The WICS anchor, who lives in Springfield, Illinois, with her husband Ryan, also 36, and their surviving daughter Peyton, three, wrote on her blog that it is 'the question I dread the most'.

Heartbreaking: TV anchor Stacey Skrysak, 36, pictured with her late son Parker, says she dreads being asked whether her surviving daughter Peyton, pictured right, has any siblings

Devastating: The WICS anchor from Springfield, Illinois, pictured with Peyton and husband Ryan, 36, lost two of her triplets, Parker and Abigail soon after they were born

Skrysak said there is 'no handbook' for coping with questions about her late son and daughter and finds it is sometimes easier not to mention her 'children in heaven'.

Three-and-a-half years on from the birth and death of her two children Skrysak said she is still vulnerable to being struck by grief unexpectedly.

'I love all three of my triplets, but society is often uncomfortable with the taboo subject of child loss.

'One mention of Abby and Parker usually brings up a look of sadness and pity, as the stranger tells me they are so sorry for my losses,' she said.

Skrysak told how often she is left in tears as the stranger 'awkwardly walks away.'

Recently she was pleasantly surprised when Peyton saved her from answering the uncomfortable question when asked by a woman they did not know in a grocery store.

Fearful: She said being asked whether Peyton, pictured as a baby, has any siblings is 'the question I dread the most'

Struggle: Skrysak, pictured at work with Peyton, said there is 'no handbook' for coping with questions about her late children

But when the lady asked Peyton whether she had any siblings she replied before her mother could intervene.

She said: 'As I opened my mouth and began to answer no, Peytons soft voice trumped mine. Without any hesitation, my daughter answered proudly, Yes! Parker and Abby."

'How is it possible for a heart to swell with pride, while at the same time ache with so much sadness?'

It marked the first time that her daughter had talked about her siblings without assistance.

But when the lady assumed that 'the other kids must be at home with dad' Skrysak said she simply 'nodded and smiled'.

She added: 'Being a parent is the most difficult job you can have, but thanks to the grocery store encounter, I know that Im doing the best that I can.'
When Saskia Hampele found out that more than 49,000 homeless women don't have access to pads and tampons every month, she knew she needed to help.

The ex-Neighbours star was heartbroken when she learned that women were taking old socks from laundromats, crumpling up newspapers or even using dead leaves to control their monthly flow.

Saskia, now based in Los Angeles, thus made it her goal to find a way to give homeless women access to free tampons.

That is how the idea for Gift Box, a tampon subscription service, was born.

Ex-Neighbours star Saskia Hampele (right) has launched a new tampon subscription service, dubbed Gift Box, to help provide feminine sanitary care to thousands of homeless women

Saskia has partnered with homeless shelters and refugees to distribute the tampons and has already raised more than $45,000 thanks to a Kickstarter campaign

The idea behind this 'tampon company with a heart', as Saskia calls it, is simple.

For every box of tampons bought through Gift Box, a box will be donated to a woman in need.

Saskia has partnered with homeless shelters and refugees to distribute the tampons and already raised more than $45,000 thanks to a Kickstarter campaign.

For every box of tampons bought through the Gift Box subscription service (pictured), a box will be donated to a woman in need

Gift Box could mean a guaranteed supply of tampons for the Melbourne Period Project, which donates feminine care products to homeless women and trans men in Victoria.

Donna Stolzenberg, the project's director, said Saskia's efforts have been a 'huge relief' for the not-for-profit.

Stolzenberg said it will also no doubt be a relief for the homeless women who have to go to extraordinary lengths to try and manage their periods.

'Women are reusing and rewashing tampons and pads, using newspaper or their own clothing wadded up,' she told Mamamia.

'People are stealing clothes off washing lines.'

And despite their efforts, these substitutes often do little to control menstruation and can even lead to infection.

Saskia never expected to become a spokesperson for periods, but said she couldn't be happier about her new passion project.

Saskia was inspired to start the company when she learned that more than 49,000 homeless women don't have access to pads and tampons every month

'In the past six months, I've spoken about periods and tampons more than I have in my life,' she said.

'I'm suddenly in this whole new world of entrepreneurship, which feels really great.'

The cost of a Gift Box is the same as competing brands, and the tampons are made from 100 percent organic cotton by a certified manufacturer in Europe.

To ensure the product was ethical and fair-trade, the tampons are also packaged in recycled kraft paper boxes.

More than 125,000 tampons will be donated in Gift Box's first shipment, but Saskia said she has only just begun.

If I truly had it my way, feminine hygiene would be free because lets face it  getting your period is not a choice,' she said in a video for the service.

'I cant wait for the day when every female has access to tax free, affordable sanitary care. But until that day I think giving one for one is a pretty good start.'
Leading Australian parenting expert and father of six girls, Justin Coulson, has explained why he's decided to ban his children from doing homework.

As one of the 'hot topics' discussed by parents and teachers each year, Dr Coulson said that while most parents 'endorse' homework, few enjoy it and many teachers are not 'fond of the extra work.'

'Surprising to many parents (and teachers) is the growing body of evidence that indicates that homework for primary school-aged children is not helpful and may actually have a negative impact on their learning outcomes,' he explained on his blog.

Leading Australian parenting expert and father of six girls, Justin Coulson (not pictured), has explained why he's decided to ban his children from doing homework

'As a result, until my children's school banned homework, I actually banned my children from doing homework before high school.'

While Dr Coulson said he didn't believe homework was the 'devil,' he doesn't think it's making a 'helpful difference for most kids in primary school.'

In the letter Dr Coulson sends to the school each year, he explained that while he was happy to have his daughters in the classroom, he had an 'issue' with homework.

'Barring two exceptions which we'll mention in a moment, we do not encourage homework in our home,' the letter reads.

Justin Coulson (pictured) is a leading Australian parenting expert and father of six daughters - his full letter can be read here

One of the first reasons is scientific - the fact that for young children (under 14 - 15), 'there is no scientific research which supports the inclusion of homework in their after-school activities.'

'In many studies the relationship between homework and "learning" (often defined as grades or standardised test scores) is negative,' he explained.

Dr Coulson also said that homework may add to the workload of teachers and creates stress for his children.

'It might be tough for teachers, but I believe it's even tougher for children, even when only in small amounts,' he wrote.

'And research has demonstrated that it "overwhelms struggling kids and removes joy for high achievers."'

Some research has also found a direct relationship between homework and depression and anxiety.

As one of the 'hot topics' discussed by parents and teachers each year, Dr Coulson said that while most parents 'endorse' homework, few enjoy it and many teachers are not 'fond of it'

Other reasons Dr Coulson gave include homework creating an extra burden on parents, creating family conflict and 'diminishing the time kids have for other activities.'

They can usually adapt pretty well when they turn 14 or 15 without having 8 years of practice.

He also said homework is 'generally not inspiring' and that it doesn't 'prepare kids for "later".'

'They can usually adapt pretty well when they turn 14 or 15 without having 8 years of practice under their belt before it all starts,' Dr Coulson wrote.

'Our three oldest children bear testament to that,' he added, explaining that homework is actually 'driving kids away from learning.'

'In many studies the relationship between homework and "learning" (often defined as grades or standardised test scores) is negative,' he explained

How do you make sure your children get the most out of reading? Dr Coulson's tips for reading to kids: * Reading matters and it predicts success down the track * Read slowly and much slower than we might want to after an exhausting day * Pause and ask what things mean * Help children identify words as they start reading and go back and read sentences again so they have a chance to fix any mistakes * Make it an enjoyable experience and read books they are interested in Advertisement

However, the parenting expert does believe that reading and projects are helpful and strongly encourages reading every day after school and before bed.

'Our other form of "acceptable" homework is related to projects from school that interest the children. We actively encourage research, projects, and especially writing speeches and stories,' he continued.

Dr Coulson concluded his letter by saying that while his children often completed their homework anyway, he would not be 'actively encouraging' it.

'We believe that it will make things easier for everyone and assist in the well-rounded positive developmental outcomes for our children,' he wrote.

Dr Coulson does acknowledge that homework has helped kids who were struggling 'excel or catch up' and understands that 'some kids just love doing homework' and doesn't suggest they should stop.

Dr Coulson does acknowledge that homework has helped kids who were struggling 'excel or catch up' and says that 'kids who just love doing homework' shouldn't stop

'So all in all, if your kids are doing ok in primary school, they don't need it. If they want to do it, thats up to you. If they don't, it would seem they don't need it,' he said.

'If your kids are struggling, talk with your teacher. Consider your individual circumstances. And listen to your child.'

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, Dr Coulson said that while he has had overwhelmingly positive responses from parents and teachers, he has encountered teachers who have disagreed with his stance.

'They have mostly been supportive and if not of the letter, of what I am doing with my kids,' he said.

'In instances where they were upset my response has been to inform them that I think it is the height of institutional arrogance to tell me how to raise my children at home.

'So all in all, if your kids are doing ok in primary school, they don't need it. If they want to do it, thats up to you. If they don't, it would seem they don't need it,' he said

Why shouldn't children start homework in primary school? Dr Coulson's response: Some parents have said to me 'They may as well get used to it in primary school... they have to do it in high school anyway.' My child's going to be driving at 16, should I put them behind the wheel now to 'get them used to it'? Of course not! This is a ridiculous way of thinking, we should let them be children. These kids have had a long six or seven hour shift and giving them homework after a big day is like saying 'Okay now let's do two hours of overtime.' It's unfair. Advertisement

'Most people do have a positive experience however and as a result have happier children and a happier family.'

Dr Coulson also said that while his daughters all love doing homework, they understand priorities.

'They absolutely love it and it drives me crazy,' Dr Coulson said.

'But I make it clear that there are things that take precedence like going for a swim in the afternoon or having afternoon tea together and enjoying family time.'

Dr Coulson's advice for parents wishing to take a similar stance is to form a 'partnership' with the teacher.

'It's important to state how much we appreciate their work and that while parents might not be experts, they have come across a letter that aligns with their philosophy on homework,' he advised.

'Ask for the teacher's support and most of them will be amenable. If not, we need to say "okay we clearly see this issue differently and I'm not going to be doing homework with my kids" and ask if they are happy to leave it at that.

'Avoid adversarial interaction - in the end this is about helping children and helping them to be happier and achieve better outcomes.'


Just over five years ago, a Sydney mother was visited by police and social workers and given an ultimatum: leave your abusive husband or risk losing your children.

Pregnant and with a 10-month-old daughter, Jen Armstrong made the decision to leave.

With the help of family, she found a place to stay - but the soon-to-be mother of-two was struggling to get back on her feet both psychologically and financially.

Though she also had the support of local charities, police officers and social workers, the 35-year-old says it was a shower gel that really helped her get back on her feet.

A changed woman: Just over five years ago, a violent relationship had left Jen Armstrong a 'shell'. Now, she's a NSW Woman of the Year, mother-of-three and charity founder

'When I received a pack of items to help out with the birth of my son, I got a Nutrimetics body wash,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'I still remember using that and thinking how am I going to do this? Ive got another kid on the way, Ive already got a little baby, Im struggling to pay rent, to buy nappies and I didnt know how I was going to do it.

'But just for five minutes each morning or night, to spend time by myself with this lovely body wash - that theres no way in hell I could have justified spending 20-30 dollars on at that point in time - it just made me think "okay, Im doing the right thing".'

While fruity shower gel may seem like a basic household item to some, Jen explained for her, it was crucial in regaining a sense of self.

Success! After getting back on her feet, Jen founded the Beauty Bank, which gifts brand name cosmetics and toiletries to those who have fled domestic violence situations

'With domestic violence, its not just about getting hit, the main thing is power, control and the erosion of self-confidence,' she said.

'My self-confidence was nothing  I was always doubting whether I had made the right decision.

'This was just a bit of self-care, and its superficial, but it was the first thing that started rebuilding my self-confidence.'

When she got back on her feet, Jen wanted to give back to women who were in the same situation she had been in - and she thought back to the shower gel.

Giving back: The idea came to Jen after a gift of expensive body wash helped her feel like things would be okay when she first left her husband. A Beauty Bank bag (pictured) contains essentials, but includes face care, a gift, perfume, and has an average value of $235

In 2013, she founded the Beauty Bank, a charity which makes bags full of brand name shampoo, shower gel, moisturiser, sanitary items, dental care items, perfume and a small gift for those who have escaped domestic violence situations.

'It's bloody tough to get out, but you can do it,' Jen explained.

'Little things to help take the stress off, like the Beauty Bank - are so helpful.

'You cant dodge your periods each month, and sometimes you cant find $10 to buy tampons or pads. Its ridiculous, but its the truth of it.'

Soon after the Beauty Bank was formed, Jen met Denise Dolan, a local retiree.

Helping hand: As the Beauty Bank grew, Denise Dolan (left) came on board to help out and has slowly taken over operations

The two chatted in 2013 after Denise came to drop in some items for donation, but it was a chance meeting in a supermarket that brought the pair together.

Now, Denise runs the charity, helping to bring in donations and doing much of the behind the scenes work, and the two count each other as close friends.

According to the bright-eyed volunteer, last year the Beauty Bank made 1785 bags, each with an average value of $235.

They are created with care for women, men and teenagers.

'Domestic violence isn't just mum or dad - and it is men as well, though it's predominately women,' Denise said.

Not just for women: The Beauty Bank makes bags for men and teenagers as well. Pictured above is a men's pack

She said it's important to note the bags are not distributed as crisis packs, and usually arrive when the recipient has started to get back on their feet. Everything inside is full sized and brand new.

'A lot of the time our donations come from that third drawer down, where someone has given you something, and its really nice, but youre never going to use it,' she said.

The Beauty Bank stores its donations in a shared warehouse in the Sutherland Shire, and puts the bags together in a minuscule room in Caringbah.

Cramped conditions: The Beauty Bank runs out of a tiny room in Sydney's Sutherland Shire and stock is kept in a nearby shared warehouse.

Boxes of goods line the walls in order to make the most of the limited space, and high-end products peep out of almost every one.

'We call them our life's little luxuries gift bags,' Denise laughed.

She said the bags were more than just a helpful booster, they could also be a powerful comfort.

'We do it because we know its making someone else feel valued, and like there are people who care,' she said.

'We dont know them, but we care about the situation theyve found themselves in. and hopefully we can help them get on with their life a bit more.'

Organisation: To conserve space, products are kept in tubs along the walls, and a bag is packed on the desk at the end of the room

Something for everyone: As well as the basics, such as shampoo and toothpaste, each bag contains a small gift

The bags come in all shapes and sizes, and depend on donations. Denise said while generally they use printed calico bags, the Bank had once been gifted a large shipment of handbags and were able to fill those with the beauty products.

'We never get to meet our clients, but a social worker came back to us and said shed been to take goods out for another charity and just before she was leaving, she said to the lady oh by the way, this is for you and handed over a Beauty Bank bag,' she said.

'The lady just burst into tears and said I thought that was your handbag  Ive been admiring that the whole time youve been here".

'She didnt even know there was more inside.'

Getting it done: Denise (pictured with a Beauty Bank bag) says while ideally the items are delivered in a nice handbag, if there are none available they use printed calico bags

Currently, the Beauty Bank works only through social workers to service an area from Newcastle to Wollongong and out as far as Camden.

More than 20 volunteers host drop off points throughout the area, and drive the donations to the charity's Sutherland Shire base.

For Jen, the success of the Beauty Bank is just one of many things she's achieved since fleeing her violent relationship.

Moving on: Since leaving her husband and rebuilding her life, Jen has enrolled at university, will soon begin a job in logistics at the Marcs Institute and has become a foster mother as well as mother to two children of her own

Now a mother of two as well as one foster child, Jen was named NSW Woman of the Year in 2016.

She is studying a Bachelor of Business and Commerce, Advanced Business Leadership and majoring in Sport Management at Western Sydney University, and was awarded a scholarship to attend a conference at Harvard University.

Formerly the operations coordinator at the Cronulla Sharks stadium, she recently left the role to undertake a logistics role at the Marcs Institute at WSU.

'Five years ago, I was pregnant and I was a shell of who I was,' she said.

'Today, Im about to hand over my NSW Woman of the Year crown, and I've been able to do so many other amazing things.

'I wouldnt have imagined I would be able to do any of this five years ago. 'Back then I was just thinking how am I going to get through this week.'
A woman has opened up about her collection of 'haunted' dolls, which she claims allow her to talk to the dead.

Adelaide resident Karina Eames, 38, told that's life! magazine that her fascination with the unusual hobby began after she received an antique baby doll as a gift for her 34th birthday.

One night after she placed the doll beside her bed, the former kindergarten worker said she felt 'children's fingers' on her foot.

Ghost whisperer: Karina Eames (pictured) claims she can talk to the dead through her dolls

'I was both excited and scared as the fingers moved up my leg,' she told the magazine. 'I wondered if my sons, Caleb and Jacob had sneaked into my room. But there was no one there!'

Following the incident, the mother of two became convinced the doll was haunted and created a Facebook page Karina's dolls with soul so other people could share their own experiences.

From there, Ms Eames began collecting other antique dolls - through which she said she had been able to communicate with spirits.

We are family: Ms Eames now has more than 700 antique dolls of which she claimed 100 have 'spirit attachments'

Scary baby: 'I love having so many possessed dolls living with me,' she said. 'My house will always be happily haunted'

Ms Eames' story appears in this issue of that's life! magazine

'Now I take my dolls to paranormal lock-ins so other people can experience what we have,' she said. 'Sceptics are my favourite.'

During one so-called lock-in, she said she recorded the voice of a little girl saying 'You are pretty'.

'One man jumped out of his skin, and when we listened back we could hear a child skipping away,' she said, claiming the man told her: 'I'm a believer now'.

Ms Eames now has more than 700 antique dolls of which she claimed 100 have 'spirit attachments'.

Now she and a paranormal investigator friend are planning to find out more information about them before giving them away with a 'CD of the proof'.

'I love having so many possessed dolls living with me,' she said. 'My house will always be happily haunted'.
Melbourne-based Instagram star Phil Ferguson - aka Chili Philly - recently arrived in Sydney to launch his first solo exhibition, Crochet Social.

The 24-year-old creative is known for his food-focused comical crochet creations that have seen him amass more than 140,000 followers on Instagram.

The goofy artist recently created three 'Sydney specific' pieces and posted snaps of three iconic Australian items on his page.

Happy little Vegemite: Melbourne-based Instagram star Phil Ferguson - aka Chili Philly - recently arrived in Sydney to launch his first solo exhibition, Crochet Social

Have yourself a Gaytime: 'So I got to make three hats and here's the first! One of our most popular ice creams in Australia, a Gaytime, here at Sydney's famous Bondi Beach!' He wrote

Feeling coco! 'Here is a LAMINGTON in front of the Sydney Opera House!' He wrote next to a snap of himself posing outside the iconic landmark

The first? A Golden Gaytime.

'So ever since I've been going in and out of Sydney, I've always wanted to do a Sydney specific series of work!' Mr Ferguson wrote on Instagram.

'So I got to make three hats and here's the first! One of our most popular ice creams in Australia, a Gaytime, here at Sydney's famous Bondi Beach!'

'Footy finals': He also created a number of looks to celebrate the 'footy finals' including a pie and sauce and a sausage

'Looking goon and feeling fine': He also created a hat that looked like a goon sack

The second cartoonish hat was a tribute to the famed lamington.

'Here is a LAMINGTON in front of the Sydney Opera House!' He wrote next to a snap of himself posing outside the iconic landmark.

The final hat was inspired by Vegemite - the talented crochet artist wearing the unique creation as he posed in front of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Mr Ferguson created all of the looks in just 'a few days.'

'Thank god it's fries-day': Mr Ferguson poses in his unique chip inspired creation

Rain-beau: In 2016, Mr Ferguson also posted a photo of himself in a rainbow hat to celebrate Mardi Gras

He also created a number of looks to celebrate the 'footy finals' including a pie and sauce and a sausage and earlier, a goon sack.

In 2015, Mr Ferguson told Daily Mail Australia his first ever piece of work was a burger inspired by a fast food tuck shop in Melbourne.

'From that point onward I thought about how to do food hats,' the 24-year-old - who studied art at Perth's Curtin University - said.

Supporting charity: Mr Ferguson also designed a tampon hat to support his friends campaign that saw feminine hygiene products being donated to homeless women

Macaron madness: Desserts are also a favourite of the Melbourne-based artist

'[Food] has been the most accessible thing people can relate to and it will stay that way until I'm bored.'

Mr Ferguson also said only a special occasion would persuade him to do the elaborate pieces and that he had received nothing but a positive response online.

'It's really crazy how it's taken off,' he said.

'The main reason I started uploading is because I had just moved to Melbourne and it would be way for me to meet other art people.

Chili Philly: Crochet Social is on at the Australian Design Centre until the 15th of March.
Former catwalk model Victoire Dauxerre has criticised the fashion industry for recruiting models in their teens so that they're easier 'to manipulate'.

Victoire, 23, from Paris appeared on Good Morning Britain on Thursday to discuss how her career as a model had caused her to develop anorexia following pressures to lose weight.

Speaking to Ben Shephard and Kate Garraway on the ITV breakfast show the model said that she believes agents purposely scout younger girls who are easier to control.

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Former catwalk model Victoire Dauxerre appeared on Good Morning Britain on Thursday where she criticised the fashion industry for deliberately scouting teenage girls

She said: 'They are really clever - they scout you when you are 15-16-17 because then of course it's easy to manipulate you.'

The former model turned actress now wants to see an age limit of 18 implemented in catwalk modelling.

She added: 'I think we should ask designers to change it to ask models to be a size ten I think all models should be 18 of course when you are 15-16 you are skinny you don't have your women's curves.'

Victoire revealed that agencies promise teenagers a glamourous future in order to attract them to the industry.

Speaking to Ben Shephard and Kate Garraway Victoire said that scouts targetted girls as young as 15 because they are 'easier to manipulate'

Victoire says that she is keen to an age limit of 18 implemented in catwalk modelling

She continued: 'I never dreamed to have it (this career) but it happened just like that. The scout director told me 'you are the next Claudia Schiffer' and you're going to become a star.

'From the outside you think its all beautiful you're going to earn a lot of money you're going to travel all around the world and become one of the most beautiful women on the planet but actually you are really mistreated'.

Victoire revealed that when she first entered the industry she was encouraged to lose weight immediately.

She said: 'It is really viscous actually they never tell you you have to lose weight but when I had my first meeting with my agency they told me you are a size 6 but they told me you have to be a size zero to fit into the clothes for fashion week.

Victoire has previously revealed how the pressure to lose weight saw her eat just three apples a day and cans of Pepsi Max as her eating disorder left her with the skeleton of a 70-year-old

'So they take your measurements and actually around the hips I had to be 34 so I had to lose two stone in two months.'

Victoire has previously discussed how her career as a model saw her starve herself in order to slim down for jobs.

She admitted to starving herself on just three apples a day and cans of zero-calorie Pepsi Max to become one of the fashion world's most sought-after names.

She records her experiences in a new memoir lifting the lid on the pressure to achieve a super-skinny frame explaining how she weighed just seven stone when the likes of Dior, Chanel and Alexander McQueen were booking the 5'10 teenager.

After being scouted at the age of 17, she earned 10,000 in eight months flying all over the world, but her eating disorder has left her with lasting health problems and at one point she was told she had the skeleton of a 70-year-old.

She would take laxatives and enemas after eating and did not menstruate for six months while starving herself as a model, something she claims has left many of her friends permanently infertile.

Miss Dauxerre (pictured now) said agents literally 'applauded' her as she became even more dangerously underweight

In a new memoir lifting the lid on the pressure to achieve a super-skinny frame, Victoire Dauxerre (pictured now at the age of 23 and a size 10) explains how she weighed just seven stone at the height of her career

She is a different woman to the one who would take laxatives and enemas, pictured at her thinnest, after eating and did not menstruate for six months while starving herself as a model

And while she was literally 'applauded' as she became even more dangerously underweight, she was also told to shave her arms and thighs, which had become hairier as a natural response to keep the body warm after severe weight loss. But she was so unhealthy that the hair on her head started to fall out.

Now a size 10, Miss Dauxerre, who was once named as one of the top 20 models in the world, has broken the 'code of silence' on the quietly encouraged starvation that she claims models are still forced to endure today.

'It is pernicious. They don't tell you 'you have to lose 22lbs in two months'. What they say is 'you need to be this size to fit into the clothes, otherwise you don't get any work'. Then each time you come back into the agency and you are skinnier they literally applaud you,' she said.

And despite being at the height of her success, flying all over the world working in the glamorous industry, she was far from happy. 'I just wanted to vanish so that it would all be over,' she said.

Miss Dauxerre was just 17, finishing school, and had recently come out of a relationship when she was spotted on the streets of Paris by a scout who told her she could be the next Claudia Schiffer.

Miss Dauxerre (pictured, left, at her thinnest and, right, now) was also told to shave her arms and thighs, which had become hairier as a natural response to keep the body warn after severe weight loss

She described how she had to starve herself on just three apples a day, pictured on a shoot, and cans of zero-calorie Pepsi Max to become one of the fashion world's most sought-after names

Her new memoir, Size Zero - My Life as a Disappearing Model - has already rocked the fashion world and is due for release in February. Left: Miss Dauxerre at her thinnest when she was a model

The model has penned Size Zero - My Life as a Disappearing Model, which is out on February 9

The model, from Paris, is pictured at her thinnest whilst on a casting. She has shared the images in her new memoir

She signed with one of the premiere agencies in the business, Elite, when she was already thin but says she felt a silent pressure to drop even more weight, going to extreme measures to do so.

Miss Dauxerre believes that agencies deliberately pick young, teenage girls because they are more impressionable and less likely to stand up to the dangerous demands of the industry.

She added: 'They take you on when you are at your most fragile - 16 or 17. They want the bodies of little girls.'

Keen to impress and 'naive', Miss Dauxerre, who was top of her class at school, also wanted to succeed in modelling and considered dropping weight an achievement so applied her considerable willpower to it.

MailOnline has contacted Elite and is awaiting comment.

Eating three apples a day and drinking Pepsi Max, which has no calories and helps to suppress hunger, Miss Dauxerre (pictured recently) regularly hallucinated and passed out

Mis Dauxerre (pictured recently) said that during shoots, models would be treated like 'a piece of fish at the market', never spoken to directly and referred to by their age and nationality

The model is pictured in hair and makeup on a photoshoot during the height of her success

The model, left and right, at her thinnest, blames the designers, who 'dictate our image of beauty', and described how during castings they would be treated like 'a piece of fish at the market'

Although seemingly unaware at the time of what she was doing to her own body, she recalls worrying that a fellow model might die after seeing her, looking like 'an invalid', green, and with her eyes glazed over

She explained how there were always elaborate catering spreads at the shoots, as there still are today, but it's all a facade and the models are expected not to touch them

Eating three apples a day and drinking Pepsi Max, which has no calories and helps to suppress hunger due to the bubbles, she regularly hallucinated and passed out so she could fit into sample size zero outfits.

She has said fashion designers 'dictate our image of beauty', and described how during castings they would be treated like 'a piece of fish at the market', were never spoken to directly and referred to by their ages and nationalities.

She is now a much healthier weight - a size 10 and weighing around nine stone

And during 'seedy' night castings, the teenage Miss Dauxerre - who was a virgin at the time - recalls being stood backstage in nothing but a thong. 'They wanted you to be sexy on the catwalk but at the same time they wanted you to have the body of a girl. It was so f***ed up,' she added.

Although seemingly unaware at the time of what she was doing to her own body, she recalls worrying that a fellow model might die after seeing her, looking like 'an invalid', green, and with her eyes glazed over.

There were always elaborate catering spreads at the shoots, as there still are today, but it's all a facade and the models are expected not to touch them, she claims - and it's all due to a silent pressure that still exists.

'Girls on the runway would say I'm lying. But they can't say anything. There is a code of silence,' said Miss Dauxerre, who successfully campaigned for a law against size zero models in France - but it has made little difference to the thin faces of fashion.

While it has left her with a difficult emotional relationship with food, she is now a much healthier weight. A size 10 and weighing around nine stone, she proudly boasts that she does not have a pair of scales in her home.

Size Zero - My Life as a Disappearing Model, by Victoire Dauxerre, will be published by William Collins on February 9.

For more information on eating disorders visit B-eat.co.uk
Queen Maxima didn't let plummeting temperatures prevent her from making a sartorial splash in Germany today.

The Dutch Queen stayed snug in a taupe cape with a perfectly coordinated selection of accessories, including a warm scarf, gloves and a jaunty pillbox hat, on a visit to the European Energy Exchange in Leipzig with King Willem-Alexander.

Once she was safely inside the 45-year-old, who is nearing the end of her state visit to Germany with her husband, removed her cape to reveal a striking turquoise coat dress with statement sleeves.

Queen Maxima visits a neighbourhood in Leipzig and laughs with the crowd who are all wrapped up warm for the cold weather

Queen Maxima is pictured above on her visit to the European Energy Exchange (EEX) which took place during the royal couple's tour of Leipzig

The knee length number perfectly matched her long turquoise earrings.

She finished off her look with a brooch on either side of her dress and t-bar heels.

The mother-of-three has obviously been keeping an eye on the latest trends as her dress featured popular statement sleeves.

The Queen kept her makeup simple, opting for smoky eye makeup and nude lips, and styling her hair in soft waves.

The Dutch royal made sure she was dressed appropriately with large cape, scarf, hat and gloves as she mingled with the crowds

Proving she is a woman of the people, she took her time to stop and talk to the people that had gathered to see her

Queen Maxima shook hands with the locals who had come out to see her and made sure she took her time with each person

The royal is pictured bending down so that she can shake hands with a younger member of the well wishers who had waited for her arrival

The couple spent another day in Leipzig today where they visited the European Energy Exchange, the neighbourhood management Leipzig Gruenau and the Spinlab of HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management.

Maxima and her 49-year-old husband seemed unfazed by the cold weather, and took their time to meet the children who had gathered to greet them.

Queen Maxima was seen smiling, waving and later laughing as she stopped to talk to them as they waved their flags.

Queen Maxima of the Netherlands greets children as she visits buildings from the GDR times and smiles at the warm welcome she receives

Once inside, Maxima removed her cape and spoke to somebody at the Spinlab of HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management

King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima visit the Spinlab of HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management during their time in Leipzig

The Queen looks at her husband as they near the end of their four day state visit to Germany

The couple are pictured at the HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management, which was formerly known as Handelshochschule Leipzig

Maxima, dressed in turqouise, looks on as she is shown a device at the private business school based in Saxony

The royal couple make sure that they are wrapped up for the cold weather, with the Queen finishing off her outfit with a pair of t-bar heels

King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima at the reception at the City Hall during their visit

King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima visiting the European Energy Exchange (EEX) in Leipzig

Queen Maxima raises a glass while at the reception at the City Hall during their visit in Leipzig

The 45-year-old smiles as she toasts Saxony governor, Stanislaw Tillich at the reception

Queen Maxima is pictured taking a sip from her glass in a moment of relaxation during the visit

The royal couple Queen Maxima and King Willem-Alexander are all smiles at the event in Leipzig

Queen Maxima, dressed in turquoise, takes a moment to herself during the busy day at the City Hall

The Dutch royal couple , King Willem-Alexander, left, and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, right, listen to Saxony governor, Stanislaw Tillich, in the old town hall in Leipzig

Queen Maxima Of The Netherlands, accompanied by Prof. Andreas Pinkwart of the HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management, talks to a young entrepreneur during a visit to the Spinlab

King Willem-Alexander And Queen Maxima Of The Netherlands arrive at the Spinlab - a former cotton spinning mill now home to a startup accelerator, where young entrepreneurs collaborate with cultural institutions

The young entrepreneur shows Queen Maxima and Prof. Andreas Pinkwart something on his laptop

ueen Maxima Of The Netherlands has her photo taken by a young entrepreneur during a visit to the Spinlab

King Willem-Alexander And Queen Maxima Of The Netherlands arrive at the Spinlab today

Queen Maxima Of The Netherlands talks to young entrepreneurs during her visit

Queen Maxima at the reception at the City Hall during their visit in Leipzig clutching some flowers

Prime Minister of German State of Saxony Stanislaw Tillich, Spinlab CEO Eric Weber, King Willem-Alexander, Queen Maxima Of The Netherlands and Alte Spinnerei CEO Bertram Schultzepose for a photo in front of the Spinlab

Prime Minister of German State of Saxony Stanislaw Tillich, Spinlab CEO Eric Weber, King Willem-Alexander, Queen Maxima Of The Netherlands and Alte Spinnerei CEO Bertram Schultzepose stand together for pictures
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The frozen fields of North Dakota and Manitoba have become the new Mediterranean. Via CBC News Manitoba: Border town holds emergency meeting on influx of asylum seekers. Excerpt:

The surge of refugees walking across the U.S.-Canada border into Manitoba to seek asylum has prompted an emergency meeting in the border-town of Emerson, Man.

Community members, local politicians, border security and law enforcement officials were scheduled to gather at the town hall at 1:30 p.m. CT.

According to Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), 403 people entered Canada near the town in nine months last year, up from 340 in the 2015-16 fiscal year and 68 in 2013-14.

Last weekend, 22 people made the journey  19 on Saturday and three on Sunday  according to the RCMP.

Emerson MLA Cliff Graydon called the large group that arrived on the Saturday unprecedented and said constituents have reached out to him with concerns about safety.

"They're very, very concerned about the refugees coming at this time of year and walking across the field when it's 35 with the wind chill, and are they dressed properly and so on and so forth," he said.

A pair of Ghanaian refugees who made the journey on foot in December were so badly frostbitten they lost most of their fingers.

"They don't want to find anybody froze to death out there," Graydon said. "That's the big concern to the local people."

On Thursday, Emerson-Franklin Reeve Greg Janzen told CBC News his main concerns are safety and security. Graydon said he expects those issues will come up at the meeting.

"I believe that meeting  will identify the concerns of the people, and I believe that the RCMP and the CBSA will both be encouraged to step up monitoring at least in the area of the community," he said.
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A new exhibition is celebrating some of the most iconic images from the past century of fashion as Conde Nast opens up its photography archive to the public.

Spanning across the past 100 years the photographs capture some of the most accomplished works of Cecil Beaton, Irving Penn, Helmut Newton and Mario Testino.

Produced by the Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography the exhibition, accompanied by a book, looks at the early work by such luminaries as Horst P. Horst, Erwin Blumenfeld, David Bailey, Guy Bourdin, Corinne Day, Deborah Turbeville and Slve Sundsb as it appeared in the pages of the Conde Nast magazines.

An exhibition celebrates one hundred years of fashion photography at Conde Nast. Pictured: Slve Sundsb captures this intriguing image for a Spring/ Summer edition of Love

The collection of images selected by curator Nathalie Herschdorfer see the sharp contrast in photographs from the early 20th century including the black and white images of Edward Steichen took what were probably the first fashion photographs in 1911, to the modern day.

Just twenty years after Steichen's first portraits of models debuted we see John Rawlings playing with new concepts with his portrait of a woman's head bursting from the pages of the magazine proving lightyears ahead of its time.

Clifford Coffin's eye for composition saw him produce a visually interesting photograph of four bathers sat in the sand dunes in the June edition of Vogue, 1949.

One of the more jarring images, but also one of Vogue's most famous, is one of a group of four women in a bath house taken by Deborah Tuberville in 1975

Peter Lindbergh plays with gender with a portrait of four models in drag for a 1989 edition of Vogue Italia

One of the more jarring images, but also one of Vogue's most famous, is one of a group of four women in a bath house taken by Deborah Tuberville in 1975. The abstract narrative of the photograph is typical of Vogue's 'cutting edge' approach to fashion.

As we move into the modern day Peter Lindbergh plays with gender with a portrait of four models in drag for a 1989 edition of Vogue Italia.

Reflective of the magazine's youthful audience in image taken by Sebastian Kim for Teen Vogue in 2011 sees two brightly dressed models in sportswear in a playful editorial image.

Clifford Coffin's eye for composition saw him produce a visually interesting photograph of four bathers sat in the sand dunes in the June edition of Vogue, 1949

Reflective of the magazine's youthful audience in image taken by Sebastian Kim for Teen Vogue in 2011 sees two brightly dressed models in sportswear in a playful editorial image

Edward Steichen took what were probably the first fashion photographs in 1911 and his style showcases classic elegance as seen in this photograph taken for American Vogue in 1923

For many fashion photographers it was the editors and art directors at Conde Nast publications, such as Edna Woolman Chase, Diana Vreeland and Alexander Liberman, who launched their careers.

Since his earliest days as a publisher in the very first years of the 20th century, Conde Nast was a gifted talent scout. By surrounding himself with great artists, he placed Vogue, in addition to his other magazines (most notably Vanity Fair and Glamour, as well as the foreign editions of Vogue), at the forefront of the photographic avantgarde.

The Conde Nast studios in New York, Paris and London were laboratories of creativity, employing artists eager to capture and show off the gems of haute couture.

Just twenty years after Steichen's first portraits of models debuted we see John Rawlings playing with new concepts with his portrait of a woman's head bursting from the pages of the magazine proving lightyears ahead of its time

City shots of women in New York are a familiar theme in the pages of Vogue with these photos taken by Constantin Joffe (left) and Norman Parkinson (right) proving visually similar

This bold photograph taken by Mike Aldridge featured in the pages of Vogue Italia in the September edition 2002

Two models showcase their bronzed bodies as they model the latest swimwear in a photo taken by Albert Watson in 1977

This abstract image sees a woman become her own earring with the help of photoshop form a 2002 issue of French Vogue

This creative collaboration has kept fashion photography  and Conde Nast  innovative and often challenging but always able to capture the style of the day.

With unprecedented access to the Conde Nast archives in New York, Paris, London and Milan, the curator Nathalie Herschdorfer has gathered original prints as well as pages from the actual magazines to provide a unique opportunity to see the work of over eighty photographers right at the outset of their careers who went on to become the biggest names in the history of fashion photography.

For further details of the exhibition please visit the Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography website.

Guy Bourdin captures the classic Parisian style in this black and white photograph taken in 1955 for French Vogue

This unusual 'frosted' photo sees the model concealed behind the red cross taken by Erwin Blumfeld for Vogue US 1945
Belgium's Queen Mathilde stood out from the crowd in a striking striped dress on a visit to a university today.

The royal, who was in Liege to meet students at the Haute Ecole Libre Mosane, sported a slim-fitting black and orange number, and accentuated her waist with an orange leather belt that matched her bag and heels.

The Queen, who was greeted with a pretty bouquet of flowers, was learning more about the Cote a Cote project, which focuses on future teachers training to work with young adults facing difficult social situations.

Queen Mathilde of Belgium, pictured above, visits the Haute Ecole Libre Mosane in Liege where she is given a bouquet of flowers

The project is part of the Queen's 'Each One Teach One' foundation.

The 43-year-old monarch wore her blonde hair swept back from her face, to reveal a striking pair of statement earrings.

A pair of orange suede block heels completed her distinctive look.

Queen Mathilde visits the project Cote a Cote of the Haute Ecole Libre Mosane which focuses on future teachers and their role relative to young adults in difficult social situations

The queen of Belgium looks animated as she talks about the project which is a part of the queen's "Each One Teach One" foundation

The Belgian Queen is mother to Princess Elisabeth Therese Marie Helene, Duchess of Brabant, Prince Gabriel Baudouin Charles Marie, Prince Emmanuel Leopold Guillaume Francois Marie, and Princess Eleonore Fabiola Victoria Anne Marie with her husband King Philippe.

But she was solo today as she attended the event at the university.

Mathilde looked animated as she spoke to the budding teachers, and was snapped happily posing for a group photo.

The trendy royal wore a burnt orange and black dress and teamed it with a bright orange belt and crocodile skin-inspired handbag

The royal didn't shy away from having a group photo with them all where she stood out in her burnt orange and black dress and bright accessories

The queen stood out at the front as everybody gathered around her for a group photo on the staircase

Queen Mathilde listens intently as somebody else in the project speaks about their experiences
Big Little Lies actress Kathreen Khavari used her outfit to send a powerful message against Donald Trump's travel ban at the show's premiere Tuesday night.

The star wore a simple black dress to Los Angeles' Chinese Theater, with the words 'My Iranian immigrant mother teaches your kids how to read' written across it in white letters. She told the DailyMail.com her mother was 'frightened' about the possible backlash at first, but ended up being touched by her daughter's gesture.

Khavari, who has an Iranian passport, has spoken out against Donald Trump, including his measures affecting Muslim people. The president's travel ban closes US doors to travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries, including Iran.

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Strong stance: Big Little Lies actress Kathreen Khavari used her outfit to send a powerful message against Donald Trump's travel ban at the show's premiere Tuesday night

Mother-daughter duo: The actress cited her mother (pictured with her in a previous Instagram snap) as an example of why immigrants should not be banned from the United States

The actress' strong stance against Trump's travel ban came while the measure remained temporarily blocked. The administration, however, has appealed to have the ban reinstated.

Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon and Shailene Woodley also attended the premiere of HBO's Big Little Lies, which will premiere next week.

'I decided to wear the dress because since Trump's inauguration, I've seen him implement dangerous policies and hand over power to dangerous people (see: Steve Bannon),' Khavari told the DailyMail.com.

'He's not making our country or this world better, it's getting worse by the second.'

Star-studded cast: Laura Dern, Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley, Zoe Kravitz and Reese Witherspoon (from left to right) also attended the premiere on Tuesday night

One of her Instagram posts, in which Khavari shared a picture of her own outfit, read: 'Last night's red carpet look brought to you by the threat of a fascist America.'

'[Shouthout] to @merrrrrrrm for teaching me that acrylic paint looks great on clothes. Thanks to all the friends and family who encouraged the message & look, and to @alanaoyam who first planted the seed in my head to put my platform to good use.'

Khavari previously shared an archive picture of her parents in Scotland, when they were about to emigrate to the US. Her mother was pregnant with her when the photo was taken.

'Initially my mom was frightened about me wearing [the dress] to such an event,' Khavari said. 'She was afraid of the backlash. But I had to do it. We can't allow ourselves to be scared into silence. Later when she saw the whole dress (I didn't show it to her until I was at the premiere), she was really touched.'

Emigrating: Khavari previously shared this picture of her parents in Scotland, as they were about to move to the US. Her mother was pregnant with her at the time

Sending a message: The actress has spoken out against Donald Trump, including when it comes to the president's policies that target Muslims

Passport photo: Khavari once posted this picture of her Iranian passport on Instagram, explaining that Golbarg wasn't her first name but had been picked for the document

The actress, who plays Samantha in HBO's Big Little Lies, also posted a tender snap of herself with her mother last year, wishing her a happy birthday and paying tribute to 'the lady who took my dad out of town during Senior Prom so that I could go with my boyfriend and have a house party without pops knowing.'

Her career has seen her explore the theme of cultural identity in the past. In an online short film, Khavari played a woman who watches counter-terrorism-themed Homeland, only to dream that she has become a terrorist, sending her mind into panic.

All grown up: Woodley, 25, plays a single mother in HBO's new show, which is set to premiere next week and focuses on three mothers of first-graders

Reunited: Zoe Kravitz, who starred with Woodley in the Divergent movie series, plays the new wife of Witherspoon's character in Big Little Lies

Twinning: Witherspoon's daughter Ava (right) attended Tuesday night's premiere along with her mother, who plays one of the three leading roles in the show

The actress said at the time that her previous agent would only send her out to audition for terrorist parts, including one that involved playing a terrorist staying undercover as a prostitute.

She decided that if she wanted to play more diverse roles, the only way to do so was to cast herself - and that's how she ended up playing 11 different characters in the short movie.

'While I gave myself a chance to play, I also intended to show the world that identity is shaped by so much more than ethnic origin or the country in which ones parents were born,' she wrote for the Huffington Post in 2014.

'Identity is complex, fluid, and can be ever-changing. Pigeon-holing a person or a group of people is not only damaging to humanity, but its beyond boring. Hopefully well figure that out eventually.'
Bella Heathcote may be in a seven-year relationship with her fiance Andrew Dominik, but she understands how heartbreak can make you 'do some pretty crazy things'.

The 29-year-old Australian actress tapped into her inner angst for her role as Christian Grey's troubled ex-submissive, Leila Williams, in the film adaptation of Fifty Shades Darker, and she admitted she found similarities between her and the character.

'Im just a psycho myself,' she joked to Cosmopolitan.com about getting into Leila's mind-set. 'I dont know ... it was a weird experience. It was weird  OK, maybe alarming  how much common ground I found with her in a way.'

Thriller: Australian actress Bella Heathcote plays Christian Grey's troubled ex-submissive, Leila Williams, in the film adaptation Fifty Shades Darker

Going for it: The 29-year-old said she loved taking on the 'completely unhinged' character (left) who stalks her ex and his new girlfriend Anastasia Steele (right)

'I loved playing Leila, taking on [a character] who's completely unhinged,' she added. 'I saw her as a girl whos grief-stricken and she just doesnt have the tools to cope. Grief and heartbreak, it makes you do some pretty crazy things.'

In both E.L. James' erotic trilogy and the film adaptations, Christian's submissives are all brunettes, and Bella colored her hair a chocolate brown to play the scorned woman who stalks her ex and his new girlfriend Anastasia Steele.

In the extended trailer for the film, she is seen pointing a gun at Dakota Johnson's character Ana, asking her to 'tell me what you have that I don't'.

Finding common ground: 'Grief and heartbreak, it makes you do some pretty crazy things,' Bella said

Back at it: Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson reprise their roles as Christian and Anastasia in the Fifty Shades of Grey sequel. They are pictured in a scene from Fifty Shades Darker

The film was directed by James Foley, the man behind the 1996 movie Fear, and Bella said the thriller aspect is what excited her most about Fifty Shades Darker.

One of her favorite scenes to film was one where she sneaks into their apartment and creepily stands behind their while watching them sleep.

And while Leila is clearly disturbed, the actress pointed out that her character's obsession with Christian, who is played by Jamie Dornan, is somewhat relatable.

Glittering girl: Bella stunned in a gold lame dress at the film's premiere in Los Angeles last week

Devoted: Bella has been in a relationship with her director fiance Andrew Dominik, 49, for seven years

'Leila goes off the deep end, yes, but you can understand that insecurity around your ex's new girlfriend, or finding out that theyre seeing someone else and losing your mind. Everyone goes through that,' she explained.

The blonde beauty recalled being broken up with before her shift at a free-standing pie stand, and while she was crying in the storage unit, customers were trying to get her attention.

Although she can relate to the pain and suffering of a break-up, Bella sought inspiration from social media stalking instead of actual stalking to prepare for the role.

Pretty in pink: Bella struck a pose before heading to an event last month

New look: The actress dyed her hair chocolate brown and wore hair extensions to take on the role of Leila

'I just pushed myself down the other end of the spectrum a bit,' she said. 'Like, you know, physically stalking as opposed to Instagram stalking, which was kind of great. Leila puts my Insta stalking into perspective.'

Bella declined to say whether or not the film features flashbacks of Christian and Leila's relationship, but she did note that she had a great time working with Jamie and Dakota, who put her 'immediately at ease'.

As for the characters' penchant for S&M, Bella said she wouldn't be against spicing it up a bit for her 10-year anniversary with her boyfriend, joking it would be 'hilarious' and 'an anniversary treat'.
When a mother of two boys found out she was finally pregnant with a baby girl, it was simply more than she could handle.

Fashion blogger Egreis Gjergjani is mom to little boys Gio and Charlie with her husband Jeremy, so when she found herself pregnant for a third time, she was sure she would be welcoming yet another boy.

The Kansas-based couple decided throw a gender reveal party in honor of their third child, which included a cake baked with either pink or blue inside, to be revealed as they cut into it.

Happy mom: Fashion blogger Egreis Gjergjani stars in a new viral video that shows her collapsing with emotion upon learning she is having a baby girl

Big moment: The video shows Egreis nervously holding out her hand as her husband Jeremy cuts into their gender reveal cake

In a video filmed of the big moment, Egreis is seen holding one of her boys in her arms and her husband cuts into the cake.

Visibly nervous, the mom is holding out her hand and refusing to look at the cake as it's being cut.

'Okay, here it comes,' says Jeremy, as he lifts the slice into her hand, revealing the pink cake within the icing.

Disbelief: When she looks down at the cake she immediately begins to scream

Too much: She lets the cake fall to the table and she puts down her child as she squeals

Bumping along: The mom of two boys was fully expecting to be welcoming another son

The couple's friends at the party see the color first as Egreis is still hesitant to look down at her hand. They begin to gasp and scream.

Finally, she looks down at the cake, and immediately begins to scream.

The drops the slice of cake like a hot potato and realizes she is shaking too hard to hold up her son, quickly lowering him to the floor.

She puts a hand to her mouth as she screams and eventually ends up lowering herself to the floor, squealing and sobbing.

Down she goes: She sinks to the ground as she screams and sobs while others at the party laugh happily

Going big: The business owner shared the video on Instagram, where it has been viewed 750,000 times

'Are you happy or sad, honey?' one of the guests asks her.

'I thought it was gonna be a boy!' she sobs, later asking: 'Is it for sure?!'

The hilarious clip was too funny not to share, so Egreis posted it on Instagram, writing: 'And I'll end up as a meme somewhere. Fml! We're having a GIRL!!!!!'

The video has already been viewed 750,000 times in just three days as well as gained more than 50,000 likes.
She has a reputation for being one of the best-dressed royals in Europe.

And on Thursday, Queen Letizia of Spain showed off her style credentials once again as she stepped out in her favourite Hugo Boss dress for an engagement in Madrid.

Letizia, 44, wore her beloved 528 lambskin leather number with a fitted blazer as she joined her husband King Felipe VI for a visit to the National Center for Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CNIC) in the Spanish capital.

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Queen Letizia of Spain showed off her style credentials once again as she stepped out in her favourite Hugo Boss dress for an engagement in Madird

Looking every inch the stylish royal, the mother-of-two teamed her form-fitting dress with a pair of patent court heels and a cross-body bag, adding a slick of berry lipstick.

The elegant royal, known for her love of a high street bargain, has worn the dress on at least four separate occasions.

Set up in 1999, the CNIC, a leading international research centre, is dedicated to understanding cardiovascular health and disease and translating this knowledge into improved patient care.

The style icon, pictured in October 2015, has worn the elegant get-up on several occasions including a solo tour of Vienna in 2014 and for a meeting of the Royal Council on Disability

Letizia paired the 528 lambskin leather dress with a fitted blazer as she joined her husband King Felipe VI for a visit to the National Center for Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CNIC)

Looking every inch the stylish royal, the mother-of-two teamed her form-fitting dress with a pair of patent court heels and a cross-body bag, adding a slick of berry lipstick

Elegant: Queen Letizia of Spain was once again immaculately put together when she attended the Expansion newspaper's 30th anniversary at the Palace Hotel in Madrid, Spain on Tuesday

Yesterday, Letizia was was once again immaculately put together when she attended the Expansion newspaper's 30th anniversary at Madrid's Palace Hotel.

The 44-year-old royal looked incredible in a simple and sophisticated black dress with pretty lace detailing on the sleeves.

The demure, knee-length skirt boasted a subtle applique pattern and was set off with simple stilettos.

Letizia ensured her hair and make-up took centre stage, sweeping her brunette tresses up into a slick braided updo.

Classic look: Letizia ensured her hair and make-up took centre stage, sweeping her brunette tresses up into a slick braided up-do with a simple and sophisticated black dress

Royal outing: Letizia was flanked by her husband King Felipe VI of Spain at the celebrations. Her show-stopping dress featured embellishment and pretty lace detailing on the sleeves

She completed her glamorous look with a striking pair of chandelier earrings, and a slick of shimmery red lipstick.

King Felipe VI was also in attendance, joining his wife to celebrate the publication's landmark anniversary.

The Spanish royals have had a whirlwind few weeks of official engagements following their return to royal duties after the Christmas break.

Letizia, who is mother to Princess Leonor, 11 and Princess Sofia, nine, wed Felipe, 49, in 2004.

Striking: She completed her glamorous look with a striking pair of chandelier earrings, and a slick of shimmery red lipstick as she joined her husband King Felipe VI

Braided beauty: Letizia ensured her hair and make-up took centre stage, sweeping her brunette tresses up into a slick braided updo

Joint outing: Letizia, who is mother to Princess Leonor, 11 and Princess Sofia, nine, wed Felipe, 49, in 2004. The Spanish royals have had a whirlwind few weeks of official engagements

Close to her heart: The Expansion newspaper event was no doubt close to former journalist and newsreader Letizia's heart. The royal married into the Spanish monarchy in 2004

She married into the Spanish monarchy following a successful career as a journalist and newsreader.

She was previously married to Alonso Guerrero Perez, a writer, but the pair divorced after just a year and by 2003 Letizia had announced her engagement to Felipe, then the Prince of Asturias.

King Juan Carlos abdicated in 2014 in favour of his 48-year-old son, now King Felipe VI.
Out of the country with the lowest obesity rate in the world - a plus-size superstar has risen.

Naomi Watanabe, 29, a comedian and TV star in Japan, not only boasts six million Instagram followers, but has also been a cast member on Japanese SNL, a judge on X-Factor Japan and is even known as the 'Beyonce of Japan' for her bang-on impression of the pop diva.

And while her infectious smile and bubbly personality is the biggest part of her success, she is also well known for tipping the scales at 220 pounds - almost twice the weight of the average Japanese woman.

Happy girl: Plus-size comedian and social media star Naomi Watanabe, 29, is a huge star in her home country of Japan

Changing ways: The star weighs 220 pounds, which is almost twice the weight of the average woman in the country

Only 3.6 per cent of Japanese women are considered to be obese - in comparison to 34.9 per cent of American women - but Naomi still believes these women should be able to love and feel good about themselves.

In a recent interview with the Washington Post, Naomi revealed that her goal is not to 'change other peoples minds,' but rather 'to help change the minds of bigger women'.

With this goal in mind, Naomi has happily aligned herself with various plus-size brands and movements trying to spread awareness and fuel acceptance of pocchari, which translated as 'marshmallow girls' .

She also has her own clothing label, PUNYUS, which is the equivalent to 'chubby'.

Making faces: Naomi got her big break after performing an impression of Beyonce on TV

Strike a pose: Naomi has since become the face of plus-size in Japan and even has her own fashion label

It's a controversial position to be in, to say the least, in a country where there are government-mandated waistline limits for citizens over the age of 40 - 33.5 inches for men and 35.4 inches for women.

Those who do not meet the requirements are required to attend classes in nutrition and exercise, and companies whose employees are not up to standard risk millions of dollars in fines.

While Naomi does hope to raise the confidence of plus-size women like herself, she also wants to encourage body positivity for all - such as the many in Japan at risk of eating disorders.

She got her start as a comedian aged just 18 and at 21 rocketed to fame after performing a hilarious Beyonce impression on TV.

Poking fun: Japan has an obesity rate of just 3.6 per cent - in comparison to 34 per cent in the United States

All smiles: Naomi hopes to boost confidence among all women - not just those who are plus

A celebration: Naomi told Washington Post that she is already seeing a difference in confidence among Japanese women

By 2013, she was becoming the face of the plus-size scene by hitting the cover of the country's leading plus-size magazine La Farfa.

Since then, Naomi tells Washington Post, she has seen marked improvement in both acceptance of women of varying body types as well as in the confidence of those women.

'Japanese women are changing, and there are loads more women who can express themselves and many fewer women who just say yes to everything like before,' she said.

'I see more women becoming superstrong and confident, and it helps me grow, too.'
William and Kate are known to steal the limelight when the royal family appear in public together.

But tonight Prince Charles, 68, was the star of the show as he mingled with celebrities at the Invest in Futures fundraising event for The Princes Trust at London's Savoy hotel.

The royal was seen laughing uproariously with actors Damian Lewis and Joan Collins, while Pixie Lott and her mother and sisters lined up eagerly to shake hands with him.

The Prince of Wales laughs uproariously with actor Damian Lewis at the annual Prince's Trust 'Invest In Futures' reception at The Savoy Hotel in London

A glamorous Joan Collins and actress Joely Richardson looked delighted to be chatting to the royal host

The Prince of Wales poses for a photograph with guests including Alexander Armstrong (right), Helen McCrory (third from right), Damian Lewis (second from right) and Pixie Lott (fourth from left)

Billions star Damian and his wife Helen McRory looked to be getting on famously with the prince and neither could contain their laughter as they shared a joke with the royal.

Joan Collins was looking typically glamorous in a black diamante studded dress, as she joined Joely Richardson for a chat with the royal host.

Prince's Trust ambassador Pixie Lott made it a family affair, bringing along her mother and sister who were eager to line up for a handshake with the royal.

Actor Jeremy Irons and comedian Alexander Armstrong were also seen mingling among the guests.

Bond actor Colin Salmon shakes hands with Prince Charles during the glittering event

Actor Jeremy Irons (right) was among the many celebrity guests at the event that's expected to raise millions for The Prince's Trust

Actress Felicity Kendall greeted the Prince with a small curtsey as they shook hands

The Invest In Futures is the main fundraiser for the Princes's Trust and aims to generate vital monies to go towards getting thousands of young people into jobs, education or training.

Previous years have seen celebrity performers such as Bryan Adams and Gary Barlow take to the stage during the evening, with celebrity comperes such as Stephen Fry and Sir Ben Kingsley.

Last year's event marked the start of The Princes Trusts 40th anniversary year and raised 2.1 million in just one evening.

The Prince of Wales speaks to Pixie Lott, her mother Beverley Lott and sister Charlie-Ann Lott

Actress Helen McCrory (centre) who is married to Billions star Damian Lewis looked glamorous in a plunging red dress

Prince Charles was in high spirits as he laughed and chatted with guests including actor Colin Salmon

The programme was launched in 2005 by Michael Marks CBE and has raised more than 16m for The Prince's Trust.

Prince Charles began The Princes Trust in 1976 and he has said: 'You can see how it is possible to turn young peoples lives around and give them self-confidence, self-worth and self-esteem.'

The Princes Trust has funded well over an estimated 500,000 projects and programmes involving young people in the past 40 years.
Julia Stephenson (pictured on the Greek island of Rhodes) describes herself as 'glamorous' and 'privileged' - like Tara Palmer-Tomkinson

My phone rang as I was waiting for the limousine to whisk me off to the first of the evening's glitzy parties. I picked it up expecting yet another congratulatory call about the four-page spread on yours truly in Hello! magazine that day.

There had been many such calls. I was the toast of the town and felt as if I had the world at my feet.

It was a close family member on the line, someone with whom I'd spent all my holidays as a child. He was furious because I'd mentioned him en passant in the article.

This, he said, was 'the final straw'. I was bringing the family into disrepute. He harangued me without pause for ten minutes and then hung up.

My world imploded. Before that phone call I'd been floating on cloud nine, feeling fabulous. Now I was 'despicable', 'superficial' and 'dragging the family name through the mud'. His words were ringing in my ears. I slumped on my sofa completely devastated, and then cancelled my night out.

At that moment, I would have given back everything  the designer dresses, the glamorous nights, the glossy magazine spreads and each and every wealthy boyfriend  to regain the love and approval of my family.

For, like Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, I was caught up in the intoxicating whirl of life as an It-girl. If there were a league table, I was definitely Woking FC to Tara's Manchester United, but nonetheless we were glamorous, privileged, well-connected  and famous mostly for being famous.

Ms Stephenson wrote that, like Tara Palmer-Tomkinson (pictured), she was caught up in the intoxicating whirl of life as an It-girl

This was the Nineties. Princess Diana was in her prime and a slew of young Sloane Rangers swept along in her wake. In the past, they would have been debs, but in this egalitarian age they had been rebranded It-girls.

I had the right credentials: I was a pretty blonde, dating a marquess and with aristocratic connections (I'm a cousin of Lord Sam Vestey of the Vestey food empire).

The stock market was booming and London, fuelled by fat-cat City bonuses and excesses, hummed. Greed was good. Flash was fab. And we It-girls were more fabulous than most. Or so we were told.

In truth, it was a superficial, hedonistic life of excess, false values and false friends. I had never been so unhappy.

So, how did I find myself there? I was older than most of them at 30, but recently divorced from my husband of seven years and, like many people coming out of a marriage, I was searching for fulfilment.

I had started writing my first book, Pandora's Diamond, and my publishers decided my unique selling point, given my background, was 'It-girl writes novel'.

Desperate for my book to be a success, I signed up to the PR agency M&M Management. Tara was another of their famous It-girl clients.

Martine Montgomery, the doyenne of M&M, was more than happy to take me on. She was thrilled with my aristocratic connections and the handsome marquess I was dating, with his stately home in the centre of London (which we nicknamed Paddington Palace).

Desperate for her book to be a success, Ms Stephenson (pictured) signed up to the PR agency M&M Management where Tara was another of their famous It-girl clients

Very soon, my fax machine was whirring with invitations.

I was interviewed by all and sundry and frequently photographed for the gossip columns 'sharing a joke' with many well-known men and women about town.

My book launch, held at Paddington Palace and attended by the cream of fashionable London, was a dazzling success.

Yes, I knew fewer than a quarter of the people there but, fuelled by pink champagne and quail eggs, I was everyone's best friend, lavishing air kisses on folk I'd never met before and whom I would never see again.

Socialites such as Henry Dent-Brocklehurst, co-heir to Sudeley Castle in the Cotswolds, his wife, Lili, and Beverley Bloom and her brother, Baron, heirs to a property empire  who made a startling entrance in a bright yellow Aston Martin  smiled for the paparazzi.

And then, halfway through the party, Tara materialised, glamorous and self-assured in a slinky, chocolate-coloured slip.

She was on a three-line whip from Martine, who pushed us together for the all important photo-op that would hopefully guarantee coverage in the next day's papers. Tara's face was set in a glazed smile and I knew she didn't really want to be there.

We didn't exchange a single word and once the photographers were satisfied, she was whisked out the door and on to the next party in her packed schedule.

I later learned the agency was often paid for our personal appearances at premieres, launches and openings but, back then, I was so naive and lacking in confidence that I was flattered to be asked.

We were from a generation and family background in which girls were brought up with low expectations that didn't extend much beyond a good marriage and becoming a mother.

After a childhood of being seen and not heard and years spent at boarding school, suddenly being the focus of attention was intoxicating.

Of course, I can't speak for Tara, but I know that for people with insecurities and self-doubt, publicity can become an addictive drug that bolsters confidence and reassures them of their place in the world.

The hunger for validation, I suspect, was a common characteristic of It-girls. Many people seek fame to fill some void in their lives, but however much attention they receive, it's never enough.

My family abhorred the publicity that surrounded me. They thought it scandalous to be in the newspapers for any reason other than your birth, marriage and death.

Ms Stephenson (pictured) wrote that she was definitely Woking FC to Tara's Manchester United

To my eternal shame, I was so busy at that book launch greeting the great and not-so-great that I didn't even talk to my mother  the one person who had actually read my novel. She told me afterwards she left the party in tears. And after the launch, there was a constant round of promotional parties for anything and everything  from new shampoos to the opening of a chi-chi restaurant.

It was exhausting and began to feel increasingly pointless. My boyfriend loathed this superficial merry-go-round, but when I ignored invitations, Martine was . . . well, let's just say she wasn't happy.

'Tara manages to attend four parties a night,' she screamed down the phone. 'What's wrong with you?'

Tara had the pick of the invitations. If she couldn't attend a photoshoot or interview, Martine sent me instead  desperately talking me up to the client who might not have a clue who I was.

The agency did, though, get me heaps of publicity, which translated into book sales, and I got the green light for a second novel.

It was then that the publicity began to focus more and more on my family. The fact I was a vegetarian and patron of the animal rights charity Viva!, while the Vestey family fortune was largely built on the Dewhurst butcher empire, was too irresistible for the media to ignore.

Martine's piece de resistance was organising a double-page spread in Tatler magazine in which I appeared completely starkers  except for a body-painted apron  and holding some veg to promote my beliefs.

My family, particularly my grand- parents, Sir Derek and Lady Phyllis Vestey, whom I loved very much, hit the roof. My father was incandescent and our relationship was frosty for a long time.

The stress played havoc with my health, and for me that was the turning point. My so-called friends had no time for an invalid, but thankfully my family did and for that I am eternally grateful. I count my blessings that I was never into drink or drugs. Had I been, goodness knows how my story might have ended.

When I look back at photos of that time, I know the reality behind those air-brushed faces and collagen-enhanced smiles. So often I was feeling utterly lonely and insecure.

My life today bears no resemblance to that giddy, pointless existence as an It-girl. I have been in a relationship for 12 years and keep busy running a dog sanctuary, Chimney Farm, in Surrey.

I look forward to nothing more than a quiet night with a good book and a hot bath.

Recently, I was out walking my dogs when I bumped into a self-styled Italian prince who had come to my book launch all those years ago.

As we reminisced, he said: 'That night you looked like a princess. Your wonderful family, the aristocratic boyfriend, the designer dress, all your society friends  and you had just published a novel . . . yes, you were the girl with everything. Oh, how everyone envied you!'

I'm not too sure he understood when I told him it was one of the bleakest times of my life. But it was.
Lynsey spent 15 days with her still-born son Rory before saying goodbye for good

Every parent expects to be woken up during the night by the cries of their baby. But after putting their five-month-old daughter in the cot at the end of their bed, Jodie and Matthew McAtamney-Greenwood had to survive those dark hours with a terrible, aching silence.

At 6am, when they went to lift Trinity out of her cot, there were none of the usual coos. Only complete stillness.

Trinity, who was born with an underdeveloped heart, had suffered a cardiac arrest three weeks before. On the date of her death in August 2015, she was one of at least 15 babies who died that day in the UK just before, during or within six months of birth.

Yet despite the agony, Jodie and Matthew still believe that taking her lifeless body home the day before her funeral  in a specially cooled bassinet that preserves infants bodies  helped them begin to come to terms with their loss.

It was incredibly hard watching her lying lifeless in her cot when, a few weeks earlier, shed been rolling on her side and playing with her little hands, says Jodie, 25.

This time, we put her into her cot in a wicker basket that was fitted with a cooling pad to keep her body cold, so we could spend more time with her. Now, instead of being warm and rosy-cheeked, she was not frozen but was cool to the touch, as if shed been taken for a walk on a winters day.

All night, I sat up in bed watching her, thinking Maybe, youll surprise us and open your eyes, yet knowing that wasnt going to happen. But as painful as it was, Im still so glad that Trinity was home with us for that last night. Its where she belonged.

Just a few years ago, babies who died were usually spirited away by medical staff, who said it was for the best. And as recently as the 1980s, some mothers never saw their stillborn child because it was seen as kinder not to allow them to bond in the first place.

But thanks to changing attitudes to child bereavement, as well as the CuddleCot  which contains an electric cooling system attached to a mat to keep the body temperature low  mothers are taking their babies home to care for them in the days before their funerals.

Often concealed in bassinets to give the appearance of a living baby sleeping, CuddleCots enable parents to spend time with their child before their final parting. The baby can be held, dressed and taken for walks like a living child.

Many people were surprised, though, when the widespread use of the devices was revealed last week.

It came to light when 21-year-old Charlotte Szakacs and her husband Attila, 28, from York, told how they had used the equipment to care for their daughter Evelyn for two weeks after she died due to a chromosome disorder a month after birth.

Lynsey Bell and her husband Mark, who also have three other children, kept their stillborn son Rory with them for two weeks so they could say proper goodbyes to him

So, are parents simply being allowed to live in denial? Or, as macabre as this sounds, can delaying the inevitable decay of a babys body  and allowing families to say goodbye in their own time  help them deal with their loss?

The evidence is that it does indeed help. A recent review of the research in the journal Birth found that removing a child from its parents too early leaves them not only unable to process their grief, but with the gnawing feeling that their child never mattered.

As result of such findings, 92 per cent of British hospitals offer CuddleCots to bereaved families.

A growing number of hospices and funeral homes also supply the cots, which were launched six years ago by a Midlands company and cost about 1,500 each.

Erica Stewart, a bereavement support specialist at stillbirth and neonatal death charity Sands, says: In years gone by, keeping the babies away was seen as a way to protect the mothers, who were often told to go home and try for another child.

Charlotte and Attila Szakacs with their desperately ill daughter Evelyn

Thanks to advances in psychology and counselling, we know that when parents have good bereavement care and can stay with their children, it has a positive impact on their future mental health.

Some parents can stay with their baby for up to a month, says Erica, as there is no immediate deadline for burial nor any infection risks from the body of a newborn baby.

It normally just comes to a natural end, with the parents knowing when its time to say goodbye, she says. That time spent together can help any mother  whether they have lost a baby at birth or several months afterwards. There is no hierarchy in grief.

Jodie, a lifeguard from Chessington, Surrey, knows the pain of both only too well. She lost her first daughter, Serenity, in April 2014, when, for unexplained reasons, she died in the womb.

A refrigerated bassinet allowed Jodie to keep Serenity with her in hospital for three days.

Then, with unbearable poignancy, after she and husband Matthew donated a CuddleCot for other families in memory of their daughter, they used one again when their second daughter, Trinity, died from an unrelated heart defect.

We do wonder: Why us?  says Jodie. There is no answer, so we just have to live each day as it comes.

With Serenity, I didnt want to see her for 12 hours because I didnt know what to expect. But when I held her, I found it comforting because, though she was dead, she was still my baby to care for.

Lynsey pictured with her children Daisy, 10, Max, 7 and Poppy, 4, said that having Rory for those extra four days gave them closure

With Trinity, it was different because I got to see her smile, sing her nursery rhymes and make silly voices to make her laugh.

The family were on a trip to Wales when Trinity died suddenly. Jodie visited her childs body every day at the hospital mortuary, but on the night before her funeral, she decided to bring her daughter home.

She was in the white wicker basket she was going to be buried in the next day. We had our friends and family come and spend time cuddling her. I held her a lot, because it was the last hug she was ever going to have.

Its hard to imagine such agony. Yet Jodie believes having her daughter home again was invaluable.

It helped because I would have felt guilty if she hadnt spent the last night where she belonged, she says. I would still rather have that memory of her at home than the memory of seeing the hospital staff trying to resuscitate her.

Mark and Lynsey, pictured in June last year

Nursery nurse Lynsey Bell agrees. When her son Rory died in August 2014 during childbirth, she and her husband Mark changed his nappy, washed him, sang to him, cuddled him and read him stories for the 18 days until his funeral.

The day before the service, they took him to Lynseys parents home, where he was at their side for their final night together.

People are so wrong if they think parents are playing mummy and daddy with dead babies  its not like that at all, says Lynsey, 33, from Newcastle upon Tyne.

Were not living in some fantasy world. We know the baby is no longer there.

But having Rory for those days helped give us closure. By the time we said goodbye, we knew every last inch of him. You want to take in every little ounce of them because you know youre never going to see them again. That time is precious because its all we have.

Psychologist Dr Deborah Davis, author of Empty Cradle, Broken Heart: Surviving The Death Of Your Baby, agrees.

Parents get to be parents, and express their love in physical ways, such as admiring features, bathing, dressing and sleeping with their little one, she says.

Setting their own pace offers parents a sense of control, which can minimise the trauma of letting go.

So it was for Josie Pavey after her daughter, Billy-Rose, died aged six months in December 2012.

When Rory died in August 2014 during childbirth, Lynsey and Mark Bell changed his nappy, washed him, sang to him, cuddled him and read him stories for the 18 days until his funeral

At first, Billy-Rose was not expected to survive her birth. At 34 weeks pregnant, Josie, a healthcare training consultant from Frome, Somerset, was told her baby was suffering from hydranencephaly, a condition in which the brain is not fully formed.

In an almost unimaginable stroke of misfortune, when her partner Ben learned the news, he suffered a fit, banged his head and went into a coma. He died a week later, seven weeks before Billy-Rose was born in June 2012.

It made Josie, 45, all the more determined to make her short time together with her daughter as memorable as possible. Every day, she catalogued her tiny childs life, giving her a new experience, whether it was putting her feet on the grass or smelling flowers.

Billy-Rose died of pneumonia in Josies arms on December 14, but Josie was still determined to give her little girl her first Christmas.

Given her own room at the funeral home, Billy-Rose was put in a CuddleCot and Josie visited her every day, decorating the room with her toys.

It may sound morbid, but I wanted that Christmas with her, says Josie. When your baby dies and you wake up every morning to find they arent there, its like falling into an abyss.

So I looked forward to visiting her and spending more time with her, chatting or holding her hand.

On Christmas Day, I opened her presents for her. I read her a new book, Guess How Much I Love You?, and my family came to visit.

That little bit of extra time helped me to get used to the fact that Billy-Rose was gone. It doesnt take away the pain, but it does make that transition a bit more gentle. I kissed her every day she was alive. When I kissed her in death, her skin was like marble.

It helped me acknowledge she was not there any more and that I had to let her body go. I still look back on it as a beautiful time.

Mel Scott, an occupational therapist from Somerset who organises bereavement training days, says allowing parents time with their dead babies helps them come to terms with the loss.

The day before the service, they took him to Lynseys parents home, where he was at their side for their final night together

Mel, 37, who lost her son Finley in 2009, found it helped to be able to bathe, dress and read to him after his death. However, when he started to change physically, Mel knew it was time to let him go.

The fact that he had changed, that his face and nails had become purple and black, helped me recognise he was gone. It was the only thing that made seeing his coffin go into the dirt bearable.

Until you have been in that position, you dont know how you would respond. The important thing is choice. When your baby dies, you feel as if every choice has been taken away.

Even now, I have countless parents contacting me via my charity, Towards Tomorrow Together, to say they arent able to heal because they didnt get to bathe, dress or kiss their baby.

Those regrets hurt so much for many years after the loss.

Josie Pavey with Billy-Rose, who died aged six months in 2012

For Corporal Michael McLeod , 27, and Jillian, 28, who lost their first baby, Lucy, at 30 weeks on December 27, the pain of her loss is still raw  but they believe the three days they spent with her at home before her funeral will, in time, make it easier.

When Jillian came round from anaesthetic after an operation to try to save her and her unborn child, one of her first fears was that someone would try to take her lifeless baby away.

But Michael says he is grateful that he and his wife were able to keep their child with them until Jillian was ready to let her go.

Lucy was brought to me in a blanket while Jillian was still in surgery, says Michael. I was blown away by how perfect she was. She was so tiny, 3lb 11oz, and she looked just like me.

At first, Jillian was confused. When Id made sure she understood that Lucy had passed away, I brought her over.

For five days, they kept Lucy with them. Then, on December 31, the couple took Lucy home.

Michael says: We took Lucy straight up to her nursery, where we laid the CuddleCot in the crib Id put together a few days before.

We didnt want to pick her up too much because we knew her body needed to stay cool. Most of the time we kept her in her nursery  but I never closed the door or turned off the light. I didnt want her lying in the dark.

Michael says that that time at home with Lucy helped them to recognise when to let go.

You could see from the bruising and discoloration that was developing on Lucys body that it was time to say goodbye, he says.

Though the heartache was incomprehensible, for us that time with Lucy was invaluable.

To help Michael raise money for more Cuddlecots, go to www.facebook.com/lucysstar/
Bristol Palin is expecting her third child this spring, but the proud mom is enjoying some quality time with her baby girl Sailor Grace while she is still the youngest child in the family.

The 26-year-old took to Instagram on Wednesday to share an adorable photo of her one-year-old daughter sitting in her highchair, covered in sauce, writing: 'My baby girl!'

However, her husband Dakota Meyer got far more political the following day when he posted a snapshot of himself wearing a camouflage 'Hillary For Prison 2016' hat.

Not letting go: Bristol Palin's husband Dakota Meyer shared a photo of himself wearing a 'Hillary For Prison 2016' hat on Instagram Thursday evening

Too cute: The day before, Bristol, 26, posted a photo of the one-year-old daughter Sailor Grace covered in sauce while eating in her highchair

'It's never too late. #america,' he captioned the image, which takes a hit at the Democratic nominee.

Bristol's mother Sarah Palin feverishly stumped for President Donald Trump, and during the 2016 election the then-Republican presidential nominee pledged to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton.

However, Donald immediately had a change of heart after the election, and while he said he has no intention of prosecuting her, it looks like Dakota is having trouble letting go of the idea.

Meanwhile, Bristol's most recent photo sees their little girl chowing down on pasta, leaving sauce on her cheeks, chin, lips, and the bottom of her nose.

Getting ready for a sibling: Bristol, who is pregnant with her third child, can be seen watching Sailor as she gives her baby doll a bottle

'My boys': Bristol and Dakota recently struck a pose in the car with Tripp, her only child with her ex-fiance Levi Johnston

Sailor is usually dressed in stylish outfits, and luckily, she was wearing a bib, which was also covered in the remains from her meal.

Bristol and Dakota announced in December that they were expecting their second child together, and it looks like their little girl is ready to be a big sister.

Earlier in the week, the mom posted a heartwarming snapshot of herself sitting behind Sailor while she was giving her baby doll a bottle.

The precious tot was focused on the task, proving that even though she is only one year old, she will certainly enjoy having a younger sibling.

Proud stepfather: Dakota took to his Instagram page last week to post a snapshot of his stepson Tripp playing with a toy gun in the foyer of their home

Baby on the way! Bristol is expecting her third child  her second with Dakota  this spring

Bristol also has an eight-year-old son Tripp, her only child with her ex-fiance Levi Johnston, and she recently posted a picture of her and Dakota in the car with her little boy.

'My boys!' she captioned the image, which sees Tripp showing off the candy he is eating.

Dakota is a proud veteran of the US Marine Corps, and the Medal of Honor winner is recently revealed that he is thrilled to see that his new stepson may one day follow in his footsteps.

The 28-year-old took share a photo of Tripp carefully taking aim with a toy assault rifle while decked out in a camouflage hat and sweatshirt.

'I couldn't be prouder to be his stepdad!' Dakota captioned the image of Tripp.
Surgeons are hoping to carry out the UK's first NHS liver transplant with a live donor.

The Scottish Liver Transplant Unit is seeking permission to carry out the procedure in which a healthy individual donates part of their liver.

The operation is controversial because of the risk to donors but health chiefs are keen to press ahead because of a shortage of organs being donated after death.

The process means that the donor and recipient share the healthy organ and both halves should then regenerate within a matter of weeks.

A spokeswoman for NHS Lothian said: "It is being discussed and it is in the process of being evaluated, but we are not expecting live donor liver transplantation to come in before 2005."

It is thought the pressure for change has come from relatives eager to donate part of their own organs to help a loved one.

If it gets the go-ahead the unit in Edinburgh would set up an advocate team to ensure that transplant volunteers were medically and psychologically fit.

The team could include a consultant psychologist, an independent medical assessor, a social worker, and a transplant expert.
A single blast of radiotherapy could spare thousands of breast cancer patients weeks of gruelling treatment, NHS officials said yesterday.

High-powered intrabeam radiotherapy, delivered during surgery while a patient is under anaesthetic, takes just 30 minutes.

It would save women with early-stage breast cancer up to six weeks of daily trips to hospital for lower-strength conventional radiotherapy.

High-powered intrabeam radiotherapy, delivered during surgery while a patient is under anaesthetic, takes just 30 minutes

The intrabeam method delivers radiation directly into the tissue, rather than the whole breast, at the same time as surgeons remove a tumour  avoiding follow-up treatments.

Officials at health watchdog Nice yesterday issued draft guidance recommending the technology for use on the NHS, saying it could make a major difference to quality of life for breast cancer patients.

But they stressed that doubts remain over whether the intrabeam approach is as effective as external radiotherapy at stopping the cancer returning.

Nice said the technique should be used only at the six NHS hospitals that already have the right machines, and that more research is needed to establish risks and benefits.

CHILD SURVIVAL RATES UP Four in five children who get cancer will survive for at least a decade, figures show. Under two in three (63.7 per cent) English under-14s diagnosed with cancer in 1990 could expect to live for ten years after diagnosis. But ten-year survival for youngsters diagnosed in 2015 is predicted to be 82.4 per cent, experimental data from the Office for National Statistics shows. It said increases in survival are likely to be because of improvements in treatment and care. Dany Bell, of Macmillan Cancer Support, said: Its fantastic that more children are surviving cancer. But it is vital that they get the support they need during and after their treatment, potentially for many years. The most common cancers in children are leukaemia and brain cancer. Advertisement

The watchdogs Professor Carole Longson said: This is a promising new way of providing radiotherapy but the evidence needs to develop and the committee therefore recommended that its use is carefully controlled and accompanied by gathering additional information on its clinical effectiveness.

Hospitals with the machines include three in London, one in Essex, one in Cornwall and one in Scotland. Each device costs 435,000 to buy and 35,000 a year to maintain.

Around 75 per cent of the 54,000 women in Britain diagnosed with breast cancer each year have surgery to remove the tumour  and afterwards receive radiotherapy to ensure the cancer does not return.

Intrabeam is not suitable for all breast cancer types, and may not always be appropriate for women under 50.

But for those who can benefit, trials have reported it has fewer side effects than conventional radiotherapy, with less pain, swelling and change in breast appearance and texture.

Officials at health watchdog Nice yesterday issued draft guidance recommending the technology for use on the NHS, saying it could make a major difference to quality of life for breast cancer patients

This is because most of the radiation is absorbed by the internal tissue that had surrounded the tumour, rather than healthy tissue directly beneath the skin.

Dr Emma Pennery, of Breast Cancer Care, said: Just travelling to hospital every day can be exhausting, and the potential side-effects can feel like the final straw  For many with early breast cancer, being offered just one dose of radiotherapy alongside their surgery will be a huge relief.

Baroness Delyth Morgan, of Breast Cancer Now, added: If shown to be as effective as standard treatments, intrabeam could offer certain patients an alternative option, reducing the doses they require and lessening the side-effects they experience, which would be invaluable.
An contraception app that uses body temperature to track a woman's menstrual cycle has been given the seal of approval.

Natural Cycles records daily temperature and uses an algorithm to plot fertility on a calendar.

In a clinical study of 4,000 women in 2016, it was claimed to be as effective as the contraceptive pill.

Now, German-based regulator Tuv Sud has approved it as a Class IIb medical device - the same level as acupuncture needles and blood bags.

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Natural Cycles records daily temperature and uses an algorithm to plot fertility on a calendar

The app is believed to be the first software of its kind to be certified as a contraception alongside condoms, the pill and intrauterine devices (IUDs).

Dr Elina Berglund, who created the app with her husband Dr Raoul Scherwitzl, said: 'Women around the world are interested in exploring effective non-hormonal, non-invasive forms of contraception.

'And now they have a new, clinically verified and regulatory approved option to choose from.'

A growing number of wearable devices and software have appeared that focus on female health and fertility, but none have previously been certified as clinically viable.

'Our high quality clinical studies, together with the required regulatory approvals, means we can provide women everywhere with a new option for contraception,' Dr Berglund added.

'Natural Cycles allow women to better understand their bodies so they can make choices that are right for them.'

In a clinical study of 4,000 women in 2016, it was claimed to be as effective as the contraceptive pill (pictured husband and wife Dr Elina Berglund and Dr Raoul Scherwitzl who created the app)

The app is believed to be the first software of its kind to be certified as a contraception alongside condoms, the pill and intrauterine devices

Natural Cycle uses a woman's temperature to predict the days of the month when she is at her most fertile.

On these, red days, the app advises a couple use a condom to reduce the risk of becoming pregnant.

HOW TO USE THE APP In just three steps, a woman can discover if she is at risk of becoming pregnant. Measure your temperature with the NaturalCycles thermometer, as soon as you wake up

Enter your reading into the NaturalCycles app

Check your fertility: green day = 99.9 per cent safe and red day = use a condom Advertisement

In the days leading up to ovulation, a woman's body is flooded by oestrogen, which cools the body, compared with the post-ovulatory stage.

During that second stage of the menstrual cycle, after ovulation, the hormone progesterone warms the body, raising its temperature.

The two phases are separated by ovulation day - when a woman is at her most fertile - when the body's temperature rises between 0.2 and 0.45C.

Currently, uncontrollable mood-swings, spontaneous bouts of crying even a loss of libido are common complaints of the Pill.

There have also been associated risks with strokes, with a 2016 study published in the British Medical Journal suggesting that third generation pills raise the chance of a serious blood clot four fold.

But the drugs safety watchdog, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, said contraceptive pills are 'very safe, highly effective medicines' and a review had confirmed the risk of blood clots with all contraceptives is small.
Having dense boobs increases a woman's risk of developing breast cancer, new research suggests.

Those who don't have much fatty breast tissue are twice as likely to have the deadly disease, scientists discovered.

And it is now deemed the biggest possible indicator of the disease - even more so than family history, experts claim.

Experts claim dense tissue makes tumours harder to spot on mammograms - and that women should seek other screening alternatives.

Women who have more dense breast tissue than fat are twice as likely to develop cancer, according to a new study

Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, examined data on more than 18,000 women with breast cancer.

A further 184,000 women of the same age without any cancer signs were also assessed.

Each woman was placed into four categories of breast density: almost entirely fat, mostly fat, moderately dense and predominantly dense.

Then, they looked at several known risk factors, including weight, family history of the disease and having a first baby after the age of 30.

They calculated that 39 per cent of breast cancer cases before the menopause could have been prevented if they had less dense tissue.

The findings were the same for slightly more than a quarter of post-menopausal sufferers.

Experts claim that dense tissue makes tumours in the breasts harder to spot on mammograms

Study author Dr Natalie Engmann said: 'Our findings suggest that because breast density is a strong, common risk factor that can be modified.

'Reducing the number of women with dense breasts may prevent a substantial proportion of breast cancer cases.'

Breast tissue is composed of milk ducts and glands, dense breast tissue and fatty tissue - sometimes referred to as non-dense.

Mammograms determine whether or not someone does have dense breasts - making tumours much harder to detect.

This is because fat is transparent on a scan of a breast, but dense tissue is solid and can make it difficult to see through.

It is estimated that around 60 per cent of younger and slightly under half of older women have dense breasts.

But there isn't much someone can do to reduce their density, according to previous research.

One drug, tamoxifen, reduces cancer risk and lowers density - but it comes with serious side effects.

Gaining weight tends to add fatty tissue to the breasts and lower density - but obesity is a risk factor of several cancers.
Moving the clocks forward and back can make pregnancy riskier, scientists have warned.

Women undergoing IVF are more likely to have a miscarriage if they have it during the spring or fall, new research suggests.

Experts believe it is due to the slight changes that daylight savings time has on the circadian rhythm - the body's internal clock.

The one-hour difference has previously been reported to increase the risk of heart attacks, but this study was the first of its kind to assess its impact on fertility.

Changing the clocks forward and back can make pregnancier much riskier, scientists claim

Researchers evaluated its impact on 1,654 IVF patients between 2009 and 2012 who had previously had a miscarriage.

They were separated into three groups depending on the timing of their embryo transfer - when the embryo is placed into the uterus.

Led by Boston University Medical Center, they found they had a greater chance of suffering a second loss if their embryo transfer occurred 21 days after the clocks went forward in Spring.

This was in comparison to the patients whose embryo transfers well outside of the window, the study published in Chronobiology International found.

Women undergoing IVF are more likely to have a miscarriage if they have it during the spring or fall, new research suggests

The same findings were applied to those patients who underwent the treatment in the three-week time frame after the clocks went back in the fall.

Lead researcher Dr Constance Liu said: 'To our knowledge, there are no other studies looking at the effects of daylight savings time and fertility outcomes.

ENDLESS SUMMER? Campaigners have previously sought a permanent British Summer Time in order to save energy and increase the time available for leisure in the evenings. An attempt was made by backbench MPs to change BST but The Daylight Saving Bill 201012 was not passed by the House of Commons. Opponents pointed out that in the north this would have social disadvantages including for instance, the problem that in the far north-west of Scotland sunrise would occur at about 10.00am in the middle of winter and over much of the north small children would have to travel to and from school in darkness. Source: Royal Museums Greenwich Advertisement

'We knew that we were researching an uncharted field, and it was important for us to understand the effect a one-hour change had on patients undergoing IVF.'

The researchers say the findings could potentially help the 50,000 couples who use assisted fertilisation to start a family each year.

However, they added that more research was needed to confirm the link.

The news comes just weeks after it was claimed that thousands of British women are having IVF unnecessarily when they are able to have a child naturally.

Professor Siladitya Bhattacharya, from the University of Aberdeen, said the problem is couples expecting to start their family 'on demand'.

While experts also warned that IVF clinics are using 'highly misleading' success rates to advertise their services.

A study by the University of Manchester found that many centres are cherry-picking their results to provide a false sense of hope to couples.

Many are using their pregnancy rates to attract those desperate for children - despite this not being the figure of importance.
A 56-year-old father has became the youngest man in Britain to have a double mastectomy.

Giles Cooper, 56, was diagnosed in 2014 with breast cancer - the same disease that killed his father and uncle.

Just 350 men are diagnosed with the form of cancer annually, compared to the 55,000 women that suffer from it each year.

But in a desperate attempt to save his own life, the chartered surveyor had the operation that left him without nipples.

He is now urging other men to check themselves regularly for lumps to prevent any unnecessary deaths.

Giles Cooper, 56, was diagnosed in 2014 with the same strain of breast cancer which killed his father and uncle

Mr Cooper, who lives in Conderton, Gloucestershire, lost his father, Stephen, 77, to breast cancer in 2004.

Two years later, Mr Cooper's uncle, Christopher, also died at the same age from the disease.

He said: 'My father was part of the generation that did not talk about medical problems. You had to be dying before you went to a doctor.

'People simply didn't sit round the table and talk about these things. By the time he discovered that he had the cancer it was far too late.

'I didn't really want to talk to him about it because there was so little chance of him surviving.

'When my uncle died alarm bells started to ring. It acted as a warning to me.

The chartered surveyor had the operation to save his own life and is now urging other men to check themselves regularly for lumps

After their deaths, he had regular check-ups but in August 2014 he discovered a small lump.

Doctors discovered it was actually grade 2 invasive cancer which had spread to both breasts.

MEN'S DOUBLE MASTECTOMY RATES Men are increasingly having both of their breasts removed - known as a double mastectomy - after being diagnosed with cancer, according to a study last year. Researchers analysed data involving more than 6,000 men who had mastectomies as a result of breast cancer from 2004 to 2011. They found that more than three quarters of men have a single breast removed and a fifth have surgery that just removes the tumor from the affected breast. The procedure is often used to eliminate the chance of cancer returning in the unaffected breast. Advertisement

Mr Cooper added: 'Fortunately when I was diagnosed with cancer it was an early enough stage that it could be treated.

'But if I'm being honest, if I hadn't had that awareness of the disease from my father and uncle, then I probably wouldn't have noticed until it was too late.

Weeks later he went under the knife to have a double mastectomy at Cheltenham's Nuffield Hospital.

The procedure left him without nipples and a sizeable scar that runs from one side to the other.

Mr Cooper, who lives with his wife, Nicola, 51, said: 'I decided to have the double mastectomy because I was still relatively young and I didn't want to be facing the same problem in five or ten years' time.

'I think the anaesthetist summed it up when he said just before I went under, that it was the first time he'd put to sleep a man for this op in 20 years.

'The disease is rare and I was told I am the youngest patient in Britain to have undergone a double mastectomy.

Mr Cooper, who lives in Conderton, Gloucestershire, lost his father, Stephen, 77, to breast cancer in 2004

Two years later, Mr Cooper's uncle, Christopher, also died at the same age from the disease

'In my family I have had my father and his brother both die from breast cancer, which is very rare.

'But for me to have had it too, for there to have been three cases in one family, is unheard of globally.'

After his operation, he underwent radiotherapy took the anti-oestrogen drug Tamoxifen to reduce the chances of the cancer returning.

He is also being offered genetic testing, to predict the likelihood of his children Freddie, 24 and Lottie, 22, developing the disease.

I was told I am the youngest patient in Britain to have undergone a double mastectomy Giles Cooper, 56

Men aren't usually offered breast reconstruction but they can have their nipples reconstructed surgically or tattooed on.

Mr Cooper is donating blood samples to the charity to help them discover more about the disease.

He added: 'Part of the problem is that some men simply don't realise that it's possible to have breast cancer, because they think they have "man boobs" instead of breasts.

'If I walk into the pub and tell people that I've had breast cancer, they fall off their bar stools.

'Just from talking to people and telling them my story, people have stopped me and said "oh, I didn't realise male breast cancer was a problem, that's really useful to know".

'It's only 350 or so men that are affected every year, but it's a huge kick in the teeth to those 350 families, especially given that the prognosis is significantly worse for men with breast cancer than it is for women.'
Cancer patients will miss out on the next generation of lifesaving medicines because prices are spiraling out of control, a leading British scientist warned.

Professor Paul Workman accused pharmaceutical giants of charging the very highest prices the NHS can bear.

He said soon the NHS will not be able to afford these soaring price tags, some of which have already reached 80,000 a year.

NHS rationing watchdog NICE is already having to routinely reject cutting-edge cancer medicines for use on the NHS because of cost.

In the last month alone two revolutionary breast cancer treatments  Kadcyla, for which Roche charges 72,000 a year and Palbociclib, which Pfizer prices at 38,000 - have been given draft rejections by NICE because of cost.

Professor Paul Workman said pharmaceutical giants are charging the very highest prices the NHS can bear (stock)

When drugs are combined to mount twin attacks on tumours  an approach which is currently being trialled for lung and skin cancer drugs - the price of the most expensive treatments are projected to hit 127,000 a year.

Professor Workman, chief executive of the Institute of Cancer Research in London, said pharmaceutical companies have got used to big profit margins, meaning they charge as much as they can.

Writing in the scientific journal Cell, Professor Workman called for a new business model for drug development.

He said universities researching new drugs should team up with small private enterprises, rather than huge drug firms, to keep costs down.

Professor Workman said: 'It's essential that we find ways of making sure that patients can benefit from the very latest, highly innovative cancer treatments.

'It just won't be possible for healthcare systems like the NHS to afford the newest and best cancer drugs if prices continue to rise as rapidly as they are now  let alone to be able to cover the cost of new combination treatments made up of several different drugs.

'If we're to end this era of 80,000 cancer drugs, we're going to have to make some radical changes to the whole way drugs are discovered and developed.'

Professor Workman, who co-wrote the piece with leading scientists from Netherlands and the US, called for a 'radical' change that would 'disrupt' the status quo.

NHS rationing watchdog NICE is already having to routinely reject cutting-edge cancer medicines for use on the NHS because of cost (stock)

At the moment when academics discover new drugs their universities usually sell the licence to pharmaceutical companies, which conduct clinical trials and take the drug through regulation to market.

It just won't be possible for healthcare systems like the NHS to afford the newest and best cancer drugs if prices continue to rise as rapidly as they are now Professor Workman, chief executive of the Institute of Cancer Research in London

But as part of this deal the firms are able to charge what they want.

Professor Workman said companies often fail to pass on savings in research costs and usually price new cancer treatments at whatever they feel the market can bear.

Instead, universities should target smaller companies, in return for agreeing to cap the price at which the drugs are eventually sold.

Big drug companies insist their prices are justified by the huge outlay on logistics, administration and researching medicines which never come to market.

But if universities take the burden of the research risk, and small companies are used for logistics and production, costs could be cut, the authors said.

'I believe the solution is for an increasing proportion of drug discovery to be driven forward by academic scientists,' Professor Workman said.

BREAST CANCER DRUG REJECTED A revolutionary drug considered 'the closest thing to a cure' ever developed for breast cancer is set to be rejected for use on the NHS, officials announced last week. Experts said the decision highlights a serious problem at the heart of England' s drug appraisal system - and called for an urgent overhaul of the NHS drugs watchdog. Palbociclib halts the most common form of breast cancer in its tracks, freezing the growth of aggressive tumours. This delays the need for gruelling chemotherapy, enabling women to lead normal lives for years at a time. Advertisement

'And in addition we need academic organisations to become braver at moving new treatments into clinical trials and onto the market  increasingly by working in partnership with companies in creative new approaches rather than limiting their partnerships to the traditional pharmaceutical industry model.

'It's important that in the new models we create we have sufficient expertise, experience and resources to ensure that drugs are progressed both intelligently and rapidly so that cancer patients can receive drugs as quickly as possible, as well as at affordable prices.'

British drug companies defended their record. Dr Rebecca Lumsden, head of science policy at the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, said: 'Making a new medicine requires considerable time, investment and expertise.

'The global pharma industry spends around 88billion a year on research and development to bring new treatments to patients.

'This means there are 1,919 cancer, 401 diabetes, 208 HIV/AIDS and 563 cardiovascular drugs in development today.

'We welcome the opportunity to work with all partners to develop new models that could bring drugs to patients faster.'
What You Dont Know by JoAnn Chaney (Mantle 12.99)

What You Dont Know

by JoAnn Chaney (Mantle 12.99)

Clearly inspired by the real case of the notorious Seventies American serial killer John Wayne Gacy  though here the murders take place in Denver rather than Chicago and the 33 victims are girls, not young men  this outstanding dark debut by American Chaney asks a fascinating question: what happened next?

It is seven years since the Gacy-like character, Jacky Seever, was convicted and sent to death row. Now, one of the cops who caught him is in disgrace in the local police department, the female reporter who covered the killings is selling cosmetics in a mall and Seevers wife is universally scorned as a monster who must have known about his crimes.

Then, a series of copycat killings break out, and the detective and reporter are sucked back into the horrors of bodies buried in the space beneath the respectable suburban house of a pillar of the community who used to dress up as a clown to entertain children. It paints an absorbing, graphic portrait of the dangers of getting too close to evil, and is breathtaking from the first page to the last.

Blue Light Yokohama by Nicolas Obregon (Michael Joseph 12.99)

Blue Light Yokohama

by Nicolas Obregon (Michael Joseph 12.99)

A refreshing debut from a Spanish-born, London-based writer so fascinated by Japan that hes taken a true crime from that country as the basis of his novel.

It introduces the perceptive Inspector Iwata, partly trained in the U.S. and newly transferred to Tokyos homicide department, where he is assigned a cold case  the murder of a family of four in their home by a killer who went on to eat ice cream, surf the web and paint a black sun on the master bedroom ceiling, using one of his victims forefingers, before disappearing in broad daylight.

The case so disturbed the previous investigator that he apparently threw himself off the citys Rainbow Bridge in despair.

Iwata is assigned a bitter female assistant inspector, Noriko Sakai, who does not believe in diplomacy, and has fallen foul of the eternally polite police hierarchy as a result.

It quickly emerges that a cult may have a role in what looks like a ritual killing, while the police do not seem overly anxious to solve it. Let us hear more from the troubled, engaging Inspector Iwata.

Purged by Peter Laws (Allison & Busby 12.99)

Purged

by Peter Laws (Allison & Busby 12.99)

A Baptist minister with a taste for the macabre, Laws brings his theological training and interest in the occult to bear in this engaging debut featuring former minister Matt Hunter, now a professor of the sociology of religion, who sometimes assists the police with what appear to be religiously motivated crimes.

Hunter has taken a sabbatical to write a book and is spending part of the time with his architect wife, Wren, and their two children in an idyllic cottage in the beautiful village of Hobbs Hill while she pitches for the contract to renovate the local church.

Things are not what they seem, however, as the village is awash with wooden crosses, while it transpires that the energetic pastor is someone Hunter trained alongside.

Then a girl goes missing, and the sinister side to the community emerges from the shadows. Written in a neat, self-mocking style, Laws has created the agnostic cousin of James Runcies likeable Canon Sidney Chambers, and he is sure to return.
Love Like Salt by Helen Stevenson (Virago 8.99)

Love Like Salt

by Helen Stevenson (Virago 8.99)

Almost a year after Helen Stevenson told her parents she was expecting, she had to tell them the baby, Clara, had been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis.

Her mother, who hated to acknowledge illness of any kind, refused to admit that Claras condition was serious. Helen didnt realise it, but her mother was in the early stages of dementia.

In this memoir of remarkable courage and beauty, she weaves together her experience as a daughter and mother with the story of how she and her family moved to France and, after seven bittersweet years of acceptance and rejection, returned to England.

Stevenson is a writer and musician, and her memoir is distinguished by its ravishing prose and sensitive understanding of the role that loss, misfortune and grief play in the stories of our lives.

Dont You Leave Me Here by Wilko Johnson (Abacus 9.99)

Dont You Leave Me Here

by Wilko Johnson (Abacus 9.99)

The great Wilko Johnson found fame in the Seventies with his band, Dr Feelgood, and later with Ian Dury And The Blockheads.

Thirty years on, he charmed a new generation of fans with his charismatic appearance in Julien Temples 2009 documentary, Oil City Confidential. A role in Game Of Thrones followed, as the terrifying royal executioner, Ser Ilyn Payne.

In 2013, Johnson was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and told he had less than a year to live.

He embarked on a farewell tour, but backstage at a gig, he met a photographer who also happened to be an oncologist. After heroic surgery, he woke to find his death no longer imminent.

Gloriously eccentric, mordantly funny and fiercely observant, this autobiography is that rare thing, a memoir by a brilliant musician who writes as well as he plays.

Caught in the Revolution by Helen Rappaport (Windmill Books 9.99)

Caught in the Revolution

by Helen Rappaport (Windmill Books 9.99)

Petrograd in 1916 was a cosmopolitan place, home to a sizeable population of Americans, British and French. But the atmosphere was ominous.

The city was weary of war and feelings against Tsar Nicholas II was rising.

In early 1917, the Duma (government) warned Nicholas of imminent revolution and, as Army regiments mutinied and the mob released prisoners from the notorious Krestovsky prison, he was persuaded to abdicate.

For her vivid account of the Bolshevik Revolution, Helen Rappaport draws on the experiences of the foreigners who saw it at first-hand.

Among them were the journalist Arthur Ransome (later the author of Swallows And Amazons) and the imperturbable, Eton- educated British Ambassador, Sir George Buchanan.

Most radical of all was the elegantly dressed suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst, who intrepidly travelled to Petrograd, just as most other expatriates were fleeing, to organise the women of Russia.
PICASSO'S BRAIN

by Christine Temple (Robinson 14.99)

Were always told about the importance of creativity in business as well as in art. Education experts battle over whether our system fosters it or crushes it, parents hammer away with baby Einstein apps, sullen teenagers suddenly create a viral YouTube channel unlike anything else.

Sometimes genius flickers and dies; or its associated with addictive or tragic temperaments, something to be scared of.

Creative genius: Picasso with lover Dora Maar in 1937. This exhilarating book scuttles happily between art history, neuroscience, curious anecdotes and poignant insights

This exhilarating book  subtitled The Basis Of Creative Genius  scuttles happily between art history, neuroscience, curious anecdotes and poignant insights.

Being written by a scientist, it is a deeper investigation of human creativity than any amount of romantic, social or educational waffle.

Christine Temple, a neuropsychologist and collector of Picasso prints, died in 2014, her book almost ready.

In an admiring foreword, the art dealer Frederick Mulder CBE assures us that she would have corrected flaws. Even if there are any, they would not dent my delight.

Woven through the book is the story of Picasso: as a child in Barcelona, he traced decorative Moorish arabesques in the sand and practised drawing animals without lifting the stick once.

Perhaps he pulled some genetic advantage from his family: a grandfather was a skilled glovemaker and musician, two uncles painted, his father taught art.

Picasso hit a genetic jackpot and that the gift passed down the family is evident in his daughter, jewellery designer Paloma, and his photographer son Claude.

Temple moves sideways from this to neuroscience: we know that some discernable genetic conditions make psychologists tests more difficult.

She illustrates this with the one where they ask you to finish a sentence with an improbable word  The captain went down with the sinking . . ? for example, and you are told not to say ship.

Some people can easily come up with daffodil or marmalade: others, with a particular genetic marker, cant.

If genes can cause such a difference, it follows it is not unusual for creative, sideways-jumping minds to run in families in different forms: eight of the 13 children of Sigmund Freuds grandson, the painter Lucian, are artists or writers.

It is not simple, though: multiple genes must come together and there are other factors such as nurture and richness of environment. Picassos childhood was vivid and active.

Woven through the book is the story of Picasso: as a child in Barcelona, he traced decorative Moorish arabesques in the sand and practised drawing animals without lifting the stick once

A sobering fact is that the brains of animals raised in zoos are 20 to 30 per cent smaller than those of animals raised in the wild; the same occurs in abused and neglected children, who lose some of the vital ability to make connections within the brain.

For visual artists, left-handedness is useful, as they are demonstrably better at mental rotation, seeing things from other angles.

I remembered a friend, the painter Frieda Hughes, who injured her dominant arm in the middle of a huge portrait and blithely said I just flipped my brain over and carried on with the other, so deeply engaged was she in the task.

Temple homes in, too, on the sense of playfulness Picasso never lost. Right into old age he joined in childrens games, collected pebbles, made cutouts and kept a huge pile of masks and funny hats in his home.

Visitors would sometimes have to choose a disguise and wear it for most of the day. He would make frog noises with cutlery at dinner and then feign surprise.

This free-spirited frivolity, though, is counterweighed by the emphasis on his intelligence: he wrote that one can see the intelligence in each of Manets brushstrokes. . .[or] when one watches Matisse draw.

Equally important were persistence, perseverance, hard work and an ability to ignore distraction.

The scientist goes into the brain activity involved: a balance between a lack of inhibition in playfulness and a fierce ability to cut out distraction. The creative genius remembers and links massive amounts of information, but screens out irrelevance.

Phew! Some observations are heartening, though. Temple throws doubt on the romantic idea of critics such as Clive Bell, who gushed that Picasso and Virginia Woolf belonged to another order of beings . . .their mental processes were different from ours.

Not quite so. They may have advantages, but steadiness of purpose and dedication is a great part of genius, too.

And there are distinct kinds of creativity: in some scientists and novelists, it might involve little more than seeing the next step in an already unfolding chain, but in others, there are great, strange leaps.

Memory is important, yet not all memory champions are all that bright. Concentration is vital, the ability to look hard and deeply encode every image or idea (a bit worrying in this social media age  how many creatives are frittering themselves away on Twitter?).

Another fascinating point is that Picassos work went through numerous styles and periods  Surrealist, Cubist, Blue, African  and several media.

That makes you a bit thoughtful about some of the one-trick ponies of modern Britart, who do the same thing over and over again.

The chapter on mad artists should be read by all foolish pretenders who believe that mental disorder, social ineptitude, drink or drugs are creative forces.

These things occur, as they do in uncreative spirits, but there is no hard evidence that they help.

The most extensive study, Rothenbergs at Harvard, concludes that there was no associations at all between creativity and mental instability.

The one characteristic across the board in the creative people was that they all had a strong drive and motivation to be creative, and did not simply want to be effective or competent.

As for bipolar disorder, evidence suggests it is the close relatives of sufferers who are more likely to have an advantage . . .

There is more, and every page is fascinating. Did you know that if you offer babies different pictures  even if you screen out colour  they nearly always keep returning to Picasso?
The amazing story of the man who cycled from India to Europe for love

by Per J. Andersson (Oneworld 12.99)

As Valentines Day approaches and thoughts turn to a romantic gesture, heres one that makes all others look puny.

Pradyumna Kumar, known as PK, was an Indian street artist working in a square in New Delhi when, just after 7pm on the evening of December 17, 1975, a blonde Swedish backpacker called Lotta gave him 10 rupees to draw her

Pradyumna Kumar, known as PK, was an Indian street artist working in a square in New Delhi when, just after 7pm on the evening of December 17, 1975, a blonde Swedish backpacker called Lotta gave him 10 rupees to draw her.

He was so captivated by her loveliness that his hands wouldnt stop shaking, so he offered to show her around the city.

They were both aged about 20. Lotta, whose family were landed gentry, had been oddly obsessed with Asia since girlhood.

PKs parents had been told by the local snake charmer, when he was still a baby, that he would marry a girl from far, far away and that her family would own land. The relationship seemed predestined. Soon, they fell hopelessly, sweetly, chastely in love.

Lotta had to return to her home town, near Gothenburg. She promised to come back quickly, but her mother wouldnt let her, insisting that she complete her course as a music student.

So PK took a decision, refusing to be intimidated by the geographical divide, even though he was so hazy about Europe he thought Swedes came from Switzerland.

The title of this charming book rather gives away what happened next. Desperate to be reunited with Lotta, but with no chance of raising the air fare or mustering enough for a car, PK embarked on an epic bicycle journey through Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey.

In Istanbul, he sold his bike and continued by train to Sweden, where he lives to this day. After nearly 40 years, PK and Lotta are still happily married with two grown-up children. That monumental journey changed his life. And yet it was far from the most daunting challenge he had ever faced.

PK grew up in eastern India, in a remote village on the edge of the rainforest said to have inspired Rudyard Kiplings Just So stories.

But he was born into a family of so-called Untouchables, those blighted Indians considered social pariahs under the countrys hidebound caste system. He went to a local school, but was forbidden from mixing with the other pupils, so he had to follow lessons from the veranda. At mealtimes, the cook was careful not to let his ladle so much as brush PKs bowl.

PKs talent for drawing won him an art scholarship to New Delhi (pictured, stock image). But the money covered only his education

PKs talent for drawing won him an art scholarship to New Delhi. But the money covered only his education. Pretty soon, penniless and scarred emotionally by his Untouchable status, he decided to end it all. He lay down by a railway track determined to throw himself in front of a train, and might have done, had Indias train drivers not been on strike.

After that tragi-comic moment, things took a dramatic turn for the better. PK sketched Valentina Tereshkova, the Soviet Unions first female cosmonaut, who was being paraded through the New Delhi streets in an open-top car.

He hadnt a clue who she was, but when he thrust his drawing into the car, she asked to meet him.

That unlikely encounter soon yielded others, leading all the way to a commissioned portrait of the prime minister, Mrs Gandhi.

PK had achieved celebrity as an artist, but he was still an Untouchable, compelled to scrape a living on the street. Then came the whirlwind romance with Lotta and the impulsive decision to fulfil the snake charmers prophecy and head west  on a womans bike costing 60 rupees (half the price of a mans bike).

It was a journey repeatedly facilitated by the kindness of strangers, but also fraught with danger and pitfalls.

At the frontier with Pakistan, the police aggressively turned him back, but melted when he drew flattering portraits of them.

Again and again, PK was nothing if not resourceful. In Kabul, he befriended an Australian woman who slept with an embassy official to get him a visa.

At the West German border, curtly informed that he would be deported, he tearfully and winningly appealed to their sense of romance.

In Copenhagen, he almost had second thoughts himself when he saw a young couple French kissing  in India, someone would have yelled at them and pulled them apart.

But on he went, finally arriving in Gothenburg on May 28, 1977. He and Lotta were married in 1979, two years to the day after the completion of his 7,000-mile journey across continents, lasting almost five months  all in the name of love.
Emerging market investors don't seem to have been put off despite the advent of Donald Trump's presidency.

Investment firm Ashmore, which specialises in these regions, surprised shareholders with a strong update for the six months to December 31.

The business, which manages 42.5billion of assets, saw net revenue shoot up 24 per centto 144.1million over the period, boosted by a strong dollar.

Ashmore netted 21.6million in performance fees and said pre-tax profits had almost doubled to 121.5million.

Threat: Emerging market investors don't seem to have been put off despite the advent of Donald Trump's presidency

In a bullish update, the firm said it expected strong performance in 2017. After years of savers pulling money out of emerging markets, Ashmore expects sentiment to continue improving.

Stockbroker Numis said it was more cautious about how quickly funds would flow back into the region over the short-term and said the investment case was not strong enough to rate the stock a 'buy'.

However, Ashmore shares advanced 5 per cent, or 16p, to 335p.

The FTSE 100 climbed 0.6 per cent, or 40.68 points, to 7229.50  the first time it has finished above 7200 in three weeks.

Mediclinic International was the highest riser of the day, gaining 2.5 per cent, or 20p, to 825.5p after Investec increased its target price.

St Ives continued its fall after announcing the previous day that Harper Collins would not renew its contract with the business when it ends in June.

STOCK WATCH - hVIVO Life sciences business hVIVO plunged after disappointing results from clinical tests. The firm, which is focused on respiratory and infectious diseases, was testing a nasally administered drug that aims to prevent colds. But it failed to significantly improve symptoms compared with a placebo. Numis said further analysis was needed  it was unclear whether the results were because of an issue with the drug or with the dose. hVIVO said the new study would inform future development of the treatment. Shares fell 18pc, or 41.5p, to 190p

The marketing and printing company was down another 4.4 per cent, or 2.75p, to 59.75p.

Meanwhile, Carpetright carried on climbing after revealing earlier this week it had returned to growth. Shares soared 8 per cent, or 16.5p, to 224.75p.

Smith & Nephew promised stronger performance in 2017 after revenue grew just 1 per cent last year.

The medical equipment firm, which makes wound care and hip implant products, reported full-year revenue of 4.67bililon and operating profit of 801million.

Weaker sales in China and the Gulf states had hampered growth, although there was an improvement in emerging markets at the end of the year.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch said Smith & Nephew had slightly missed expectations but product launches and robotics were likely to drive growth.

The firm has already completed its first total knee procedures using a robotics surgical product that it acquired in 2015. Shares were off 0.3 per cent, or 3p, at 1198p.

BHP Billiton's board has approved 1.8billion of spending for its share in the Mad Dog oil field in the Gulf of Mexico.

BHP holds a 23.9 per cent interest in the field, while BP holds 60.5 per cent and Union Oil Company of California the remaining 15.6 per cent.

Phase two of the project will see the existing field extended to include a new production facility, which is expected to produce up to 140,000 barrels a day when output begins in 2022.

BHP shares lost 0.3 per cent, or 3.5p, to 1338p, while BP edged up 0.6 per cent, or 2.75p, to 458.7p.

Pennon Group said it was on track to deliver a decent set of results for the year. The environmental infrastructure firm provides water and waste management services to 150 councils.

George Salmon, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: 'The investment case for Pennon is a simple one: the water business churns out regular growth and its waste management division, Viridor, adds the potential for a bit extra.'

Austerity and lower prices have been a challenge for Viridor this year, but the division is still on track to bring in 100millio of profit for the year. Shares surged 3.5 per cent, or 28.5p, to 845p.

Water Intelligence soared as it revealed revenue growth exceeded expectations, including at its newly acquired UK-based business NRW Utilities.

The US firm, which provides leak detection services, said revenue for the year was 9.7million, up from 7million the previous year.

Shares leapt 8 per cent, or 10p, to 135p.
U.S. immigration enforcement agents and detention center guards have released detainees by mistake, sexually harassed immigrants in custody, defecated on hotel floors during foreign trips and tried to order prostitutes with their government cell phones, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.

An investigation has found 497 officers working for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) - the Homeland Security agency responsible for detaining and deporting illegal immigrants - were accused of misconduct in just two years.

Officers allegedly abused detainees, left their weapons inside prison toilets, fell asleep on the job and deported immigrants without permission, or by accident.

Other agents were caught watching porn on their taxpayer-funded cell phones, while another was found to be in an illicit relationships with a detainee.

A watchdog group said the allegations are 'disturbing' and has urged Trump and his Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to do a better job at vetting future employees.

An investigation has found 497 officers working for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) - the Homeland Security agency responsible for detaining and deporting illegal immigrants - were accused of misconduct in just two years (file picture)

It is the latest scandal to hit ICE - the government body Donald Trump mistakenly claimed endorsed him during his campaign.

During three of the debates he said ICE had given him their backing but he had actually been given support from the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council - a union representing 5,000 federal immigration officers and law enforcement support staff who look after 34,000 immigrants awaiting deportation in 180 facilities across the country.

The shocking document, obtained by a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, lists all the disciplinary cases, but it does not identify the employees or go into further detail about punishments.

That means some of those found guilty of serious misconduct could still be working at the agency.

A watchdog group said the allegations are 'disturbing' and has urged Trump (left) and his Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly (right) to do a better job at vetting their future employees

DailyMail.com also found that guards investigated for their misconduct were sometimes given lenient punishments.

Only 12 of the guards investigated were fired for their behavior, 14 resigned and 16 chose early retirement.

But 121 were given suspensions - some as little as 24 hours - and 83 were just given counselling.

In 125 cases, officers were given 'reprimands', while no action was taken in 102 cases.

Five of the investigations involved agents' shocking behavior while on official business abroad.

On September 19, 2013, an immigration enforcement agent was suspended for driving a government vehicle drunk on overseas business in Accra, Ghana.

Two months later, in December 2013, an agent was suspended for trying to use his government-issued Blackberry to solicit a prostitute in Bangkok, Thailand.

In February 2014, an agent was accused of driving a government vehicle while drunk in Mexico City, Mexico.

In December 2014, two guards were given reprimands after they were found out to be in a sexual relationship with another guard at an outpost in the US Embassy in Kingston, Jamaica.

In February 2015, an ICE employee was suspended for defecating in a hotel hallway during an official trip to Port of Spain in Trinidad and Tobago.

BUNGLING BORDER OFFICIALS 2013 FEBRUARY: A border guard in Casa Grande, Arizona, was fired for sexually harassing subordinate employees and creating a hostile work environment. APRIL: One official in Houston, Texas, avoided any punishment for selling bundles of Cuban cigars, when the economic sanctions against the communist nation were still in place, and the practice was illegal. MAY: An official in Charleston, South Carolina, resigned after he forged medical records. JUNE: An officer in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was only suspended for one day after they were arrested for a DUI. AUGUST: A detainee in Moore Haven, Florida, accused a guard of sexual misconduct. The accused was given a 'letter of reprimand' as a result. SEPTEMBER: An immigration enforcement agent was suspended for driving a government vehicle drunk on overseas business in Accra, Ghana. NOVEMBER: An agent in Los Angeles decided to retire after he was caught using a government-issued gun during a road rage incident. NOVEMBER: Two agents in Maricopa, Arizona, were given a seven-day suspension for falling asleep while escorting a detainee, while another two officers from the same office were given a reprimand for executing a search warrant at the wrong house. DECEMBER: An agent from York County, Pennsylvania, was fired for leaving a gun in the bathroom of a prison. The document does not say whether they did it deliberately or by accident. DECEMBER: An agent was suspended for trying to use his government-issued Blackberry to solicit a prostitute in Bangkok, Thailand. 2014 JANUARY: A guard was given 'formal counselling' after a detainee managed to escape while they were being deported from Clark County, Nevada. The foreigners were eventually apprehended in Las Vegas. FEBRUARY: An agent was accused of driving a government vehicle while drunk in Mexico City, Mexico MAY: A guard was arrested for public intoxication at Valley International Airport in Texas. JULY: An agent was given written counselling after he allegedly released a detainee by mistake. OCTOBER: Another ICE employee was accused of being drunk at work in Fresno, California DECEMBER: Two guards were given reprimands after they were found out to be in a sexual relationship with another guard at an outpost in Kingston, Jamaica 2015 FEBRUARY: An ICE employee was suspended for defecating in a hotel hallway during an official trip to Port of Spain in Trinidad and Tobago FEBRUARY: No action was taken when a foreigner was released from detention by mistake. APRIL: A guard was only given written counselling after he was caught drinking alcohol while on duty. MAY: A guard was suspended when the same thing happened in Brownsville, Texas Advertisement

In December 2014, two guards were given reprimands after they were found out to be in a sexual relationship with another guard at an outpost in the US Embassy in Kingston, Jamaica (exterior walls pictured)

Jessica Vaughan, the Policy Director at the Center for Immigration Studies, told DailyMail.com it is essential for misconduct to be punished

'It's always disturbing when mistakes like this are made, or when people show bad judgment, especially those in a law enforcement position, and when their behavior is harmful to others.

'These incidents must be investigated, and the Office of Professional Responsibility must have the independence and funding it needs to do the job impartially and fairly.

'Certainly the Trump administration should examine these outcomes and make sure that if there is a move to hire a lot more people into enforcement positions, that they are able to vet people properly to try to minimize the chances of this behavior, and that when it is found, it is dealt with.

'Some of these incidents are very clearly big problems, like when detainees escape, or employees use government phones to hire prostitutes.

ICE spokesman Sarah Rodriguez told DailyMail.com that allegations of misconduct are taken very seriously and are investigated thoroughly.

'ICE employees are held to the highest standards of professional and ethical conduct,' she said in a statement.

'The agency takes all allegations of employee misconduct very seriously and responds appropriately based on investigative findings.

'ICE upholds DHS standards for integrity and professionalism by ensuring that its Office of Professional Responsibility impartially investigates allegations of employee misconduct and by using those investigations to take appropriate corrective measures.'

Other investigations into ICE by DailyMail.com have uncovered that border officials use private jets to fly immigrants back to their home countries - costing the taxpayers $300,000 every day.

In February 2015, an ICE employee was suspended for defecating in a hotel hallway during an official trip to Port of Spain (pictured) in Trinidad and Tobago

The agency spent $116 million in 2015 to transport 235,413 people in the United States illegally back to their home countries.

More than 40 per cent of those who had violated visa restrictions were convicted criminals while more than 1,000 were identified as gang members.

The ICE revealed to DailyMail.com that the average cost of every immigrant in 2015 was $12,213.

The cost includes identifying the immigrant, apprehending them, placing them in a detention center, their process through immigration court and their subsequent removal.

More documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request also found that housing an alien in the US' biggest immigration center in Dilley, Texas, costs more than a night's stay in the nearest five-star hotel.

Jesse Lerner-Kinglake from Just Detention International, a group campaigning to end all sexual abuse behind bars, highlighted the troubling accusations of guards sexually assaulting detainees.

He told DailyMail.com: 'These reports of staff sexual misconduct paint a depressing picture of US immigration detention facilities. And it's especially chilling to think how much longer the list of infractions would be if detainees felt safe reporting sexual abuse.

'The good news is that the Department of Homeland Security's Prison Rape Elimination Act standards provide a roadmap for protecting all immigration detainees.

'The incoming Trump Administration must make adopting these rules a priority.'
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Galcos Soda Pop Stop is no ordinary shop.

Tall and stout glass bottles are stacked, filling aisle after aisle. There are 700 different kinds of soda  all colors and flavors imaginable from cucumber to mint julep, rose to lavender  from independent producers across the world.

At the back of the store an old metal machine churns out carbonated water so customers can make their own flavor fizzy drinks.

Owner John Nese, 73, likes to experiment too. Hes always on the look-out for a new flavor to add to his repertoire.

Although soda is the latest incarnation for the family-run store which opened its doors in 1897 as one of the first Italian groceries in Los Angeles, it is a great love of Neses life. Ever since he followed his father to work earning $3 a week for the privilege, he has loved fizzy pop.

The man is an expert. He sources flavors from across the world  evident on the labels in languages from Japanese to German on display in his store and by the variety of people who visit his store from all over the globe  and can explain in detail why glass bottles are better than plastic.

And boy is he enthusiastic.

Oh my goodness there are so many good flavors and people get to taste them, Nese says with an easy laugh, clad in his uniform of shorts and a red apron.

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The Willy Wonka of sodas: John Nese loves recommending new flavors to customers and has become a destination for fizzy pop enthusiasts

A rainbow of flavor: Nese poses with some of his 700 flavors of hard-to-come-by sodas including Mr Q.Cumber

Man at work: Nese is pictured in his office, wearing his traditional work outfit of shorts and a red apron - and always a smile on his face

He began stocking independent brands after a turning point came in his business. Hed been feeling the pressure as other small independent stores went out of business and was visited by a Pepsi salesman who tried to sell him a pallet of the cola for a price that meant he would only make $30 profit for selling hundreds of bottles.

And so Nese sought alternative producers, and started stocking 25 little brands that were selling soda pop in glass bottles and still using cane sugar.

If you are going to go broke you might as well do something that is fun, he adds with a remarkably jovial tone.

What I found was as more people started coming in, they would share a memory of their first soda pop. It was really fascinating.

Over the next 17 years, Nese would go from 25 brands to 250 and now proudly boast that the store offers 700 unique flavors.

Galco's in downtown Los Angeles now has a reputation for stocking sodas from independent bottlers across the world

The American dream: Nese, now 73, is the second generation to own Galco's and first went there as a child when he followed his father to work

WHY GLASS BOTTLES TRUMP PLASTIC AND CANS - AND WHY CANE SUGAR IS BEST I prefer everything in glass and cane sugar. You can taste the difference between cane sugar and high fructose corn syrup. It is a night and day difference. Just as crucial as sugar type in sodas comes the importance of packaging and according to Nese, they should almost always be in glass bottles. Nese said: The way something goes in glass is the way that it comes out and it has a two to three year shelf life. You put anything in plastic or cans and it leaks. That is why everything is over carbonated. I have aluminum cans here and they are empty and they have never been opened but they used to be full. Where did it go? Well they are eating right through the aluminum.' Advertisement

Ranging from 99 cents to four dollars a bottle, these fizzy drinks are often impossible to find elsewhere making it the go to spot for tourist and soda aficionados.

Today, Galcos Soda Pop Shop almost exclusively sells the carbonated drink  with the exception of some hard-to-find wines, meads, sakes and beers and the occasional chocolate bar or candy.

Nese says he pioneered the selling of several now popular craft pops.

Manhattan Special, a popular soda made from roasted coffee beans operating out of Brooklyn, New York, began trending after the Highland Park store owner offered them in his aisles.

Hes also worked closely with Dublin Bottling Work based in Dublin, Texas who was one of the original bottlers of Dr. Pepper.

When the Vice President of Orca Beverage came from Mukilteo, Washington to see his bottled drink Moxie on the stands, he got emotional seeing his product doing so well.

He told me how it does his heart so good to see Moxie out here. I said: You dont have to worry about it, I sell it. I dont store it and people have been looking for it and cant find it.

The soda pop connoisseur wont admit to having a favorite flavor but he loves making suggestions for customers  even though they dont always yield positive results.

He said: This lady came in and she is like What is your favorite root beer? and I never said which was my favorite but I was like you should try this one I think it is pretty good.

She came back two weeks later and she was like it was the worst root beer she had ever tasted. Well, everyone has different taste so what are you going to do?

A wonderland of flavors: Galco's started life as one of LA's first Italian grocery stores, but was revamped to focus on soda when independent shops began to struggle

Requests for strange flavors are common but Nese promises that shoppers wont find anything too unconventional in his inventory.

Im not interested in selling any weird flavors. I will sell you an old flavor that no one knows about that has been time-proven.

But I am not going to sell you a bacon flavored or something like that, you are going to buy it one time and youll never buy it again.

So I go out and Ill show them a spruce beer. It doesnt have a wide audience but the reactions are really great.

One guy came in and he was like This is my new favorite soda! Two weeks later another guy comes in and he says Oh my god, this is the closest thing to Turpentine!

With each individual flavor, Nese has had to instill a clever way of making sure customers keep coming back even if they dont like the taste of a particular bottle.

Buy one bottle, if you dont like it you never have to see it again. If you like it we have more on the shelf, he said. People want to try different things. People dont want to be locked in. And when you come here as soon as you walk in there is a sign right in front of you that says freedom of choice.

With drinks from all over the world, Nese has found that he has a very dedicated base of customers as well as people across the globe seeking to find a new or familiar taste.

My father very early on told me to get a book and have people sign in when they come in, said Nese who as of yet hasn't gotten it.

I was like: Oh Pop this is going to be over soon. Well we are working on our 17th year of doing this and everybody is following us.

He also gets calls from customers to thank him for recommending new flavors.

A LIFETIMES LEGACY: HOW JOHN NESE STARTED WORKING AT GALCOS WITH HIS FATHER WHEN HE WAS A CHILD  AND NEVER LEFT

The love of his life: John F. Niese in 1952 aged nine at what was then his father's Galco's store in downtown Los Angeles

Galcos has a proud legacy. Originally named Galcos Grocery  after co-owners Galioto and Corto Passi  the shop opened its doors in 1897 and is one of the first Italian grocery stores in Los Angeles.

In 1940, Neses father Louis became part owner of the store with Corto after selling newspapers in the storefront as a young boy. His son followed in his footsteps.

I was about seven or nine years old and I asked my father if I could come to work with him. I made three dollars a week but it was fun,' he said.

He spent a majority of his time working at the store. He got a scholarship for the University of Southern California for his work in the food business but after graduating with a degree in history, Nese made his way back to his childhood love.

When I came back my father said, Well I guess you are going to go to one of those big stores now, and I said: No, Pop! I prefer to work here, he said laughing.

I said: Pop, if I go to work in a big store, the first thing they are going to do is put me in a cubicle somewhere and I will be there for the next 30 years and I dont want to do that.

When I walk in here I can hear the motors running, the lights buzzing. You have good days and you have bad days but no two days are ever the same. You always have something different to do.

He just looked at me, shook his head and he says "Youre a damn fool! All you are going to do is make a living," and I said OK just like that and I started working here.

By 1980, Nese was running the store with his father and today manages the store with the help of three close staff members.

Man and boy: Nese's father Louis began selling newspapers at the front of Galco's when he was a child. he later became part owner and Nese, aged one, left, and four, right, followed him into the industry

A DESTINATION FOR SODA CONNOISSEURS: WHERE THE SHELVES ARE LOADED WITH MINT JULEP, MR Q. CUMBER, SWEET BLOSSOM AND ROSE

One of Neses most memorable relationships in the industry came in the form of a Pennsylvanian brewer named Paul Bowser who owned Natrona Bottling Company in Harrison Township.

The two were first connected when a woman came into the store looking for a mint soda that Nese didnt have in stock.

A few weeks later this fella calls and he says Hi, there is a lady out in your neck of the woods and she is wanting to buy a couple of cases of my mint soda but I dont sell cases. I sell pallets and she says maybe we could do some business together and that is how that got started.

Pauls mint julep was one of the more popular sellers but not for a conventional reason.

When Nese visited his friends company in Pennsylvania, he was surprised by what he saw next  testimonials from people undergoing chemotherapy who all claimed drinking the soda helped them keep food down.

Until his death in 2008, Paul was a key figure in helping soothe Neses innovative spirit.



When he couldnt find a seller of the long-lost Delaware Punch, the shop owner turned to his new-found friend in hopes he knew of someone who sold the drink.

Nese said: Im like Paul if I could get a truckload of Delaware Punch Id buy it right now.

He goes Oh I knew the guy that owned that company, he stopped by to see me in 1939 and he wanted me to bottle that stuff and I figured if it didnt have a bubble, it couldnt be too good. Let me look around for you.

He calls back a few days later and he says Hey John, didnt find Delaware Punch but I got the formula will that work.

And with that Pennsylvania Punch was launched and Neses thirst for finding even more uncommon types of carbonated drinks was far from being quenched.

But he wouldnt have to look far as a Romanian brewer named Illie from Global Beverage Enterprises, Inc approached Nese with an offer he couldnt refuse.

He sent the samples of his rose soda, and sweet blossom, and I tasted them and I go The American public has never tasted anything like this. This is really good.

It was Illies next creation that really set the standard for Galcos.

All the flavors: (left to right) banana, mint julep and almond cream soda. 'It taste like a Jolly Rancher Banana. Wow,' said Nese

A taste sensation: Shirley Temple soda pop to Dublin Original and Lemmy lemonade (from left to right)

Brace your taste buds: A pinot noir soda, hot ginger beer, the sell-out Mr Q.Cumber and huckleberry flavor Americana (left to right)

Unable to sell his cucumber drink to distributors, the soda specialist informed Nese that because he couldnt prove that it sold, other retailers wouldnt give him a chance.

Nese had other ideas and put Mr. Q Cumber on the shelves. It sold out immediately

He said: We were the only ones in the United States selling it for five years.

At the end of the five years it came up on how to sell more and so they put it in the Soda of the Year Competition and it won and the runner up was Coca Cola Sprite Green.

Here is Illie from Romania and he is just mixing all these flavours and he beat out Coca Cola who has millions of dollars. Hooray for Illie, I am so happy for him. That really makes me feel good.

And with all of his drink alchemists rushing to show the store owner their experiment, Nese isnt worried about coming up with new kinds.

Hes currently stocking two grape flavors from the Republic of Georgia.

A whole lotta pop: Nese poses with some of the 700 flavors he stocks at Galco's

It's all about freedom of choice at the Soda Pop Stop: Aged 73, Nese is at Galco's 95% of the time

Old school: In his trademark red Galco's apron, John Nese poses with boxes and bottles of some Galco's favorites

I TELL EVERYONE, I DONT GO TO WORK, I GO TO PLAY: STILL WORKING ON THE AMERICAN DREAM AT AGE 73

So what next for John Nese and his store? Despite his age, he has no plan of slowing down. His daughter Noelle, a chiropractor, helps keep the store up-to-date with a website and helps manages the social media accounts.

Nese still runs the day-to-day of Galcos and is in the store about 95 percent of the time. It is his pride and joy, the legacy of all the hard work his family has put into building on the American dream.

Im 73 right now and I dont plan to retire. Ive seen what happens to retired people. Pretty soon they have a lot of problems, he said. My grandchildren said they were interested in coming into the business but they said I had to work until I was 90.

Working is not working. I tell everybody, I dont go to work I go to play and that is how I view what I do. It is a very creative thing.

And part of that play is the store's 'soda creation station' - a soda machine that doesnt dispense pop at all. Instead, it gives out carbonated water which customers can then fill with and add their own flavors from a wall of more than 100 different types of syrup.

I wanted to do something where people can make their own sodas, said Nese, laughing. Everybody has an idea of what they would like.

We just charge by the bottle and then you come up to the register and put eight to nine pumps in and if it doesnt come out right, give yourself another pump and you can do what you want to do. It isnt just with little kids but it is with adults and everybody. It is your soda.

The syrup is made up of cane sugar while the bottles used are made of glass, supporting the shopkeepers desire to provide the healthiest option for drinking pop.

The Soda Pop Stop creation station: Visitors are invited to make their own flavors by adding a choice of 100 syrups to carbonated water

Back to basics: I wanted to do something where people can make their own sodas, said Nese

Cherry cola to go: Nese puts the final touches on his custom - and quickly - made soda

Tastes good: Nese samples his own cherry cola
A woman convicted of fraud has posed as a 'battling single mother' for 18 years to live in a public housing commission unit and earn welfare, despite her husband earning $1 million a year.

Rebecca Khodragha married Khaled in an Islamic ceremony in 1991, but their wedding was unregistered and the pair have been living in a Punchbowl housing commission in Sydney's south-west since 1999.

Documents reveals Khaled registered his electrical contracting business to the Punchbowl apartment, raking in $1 million each year, 7 News reported.

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Rebecca Khodragha married Khaled in an Islamic ceremony in 1991, but their wedding was unregistered

Ms Khodragha has claimed rental subsidy since they have lived in the unit.

The couple also own two other properties, a Lakemba unit and a Greenacre house, in Sydney's south-west and have two sons.

'They're not just cheating the taxpayer, they're cheating people in need,' Housing NSW spokesperson Paul Vevers told 7 News.

Mr Vevers said they will be seeking all the 'many thousands of dollars in rent' she 'should have paid' in her years at the housing commission flat.

The pair have been living in a Punchbowl housing commission in Sydney's south-west since 1999, despite Mr Khodragha earning $1 million a year

After a tip off from the public, Ms Khodragha was prosecuted and found guilty of two counts of fraud.

She was sentenced to three months' home detention, but is appealing the decision.

According to Housing NSW, 60,000 are waiting for public housing.

'There's no perfect answer here but the Government is determined to try and house as many people waiting for social housing as possible,' a spokesperson said in a media release.
A former Roman Catholic priest who spent more than a decade in a Massachusetts prison for raping an altar boy and was featured in the movie Spotlight has been arrested on 29 counts of gross sexual misconduct dating to the 1980s.

Boston police and US Marshals took 74-year-old Ronald Paquin into custody on Wednesday near a hospital in the city's Jamaica Plain neighborhood stemming from his indictment in Maine on charges involving two boys under age 14.

Paquin is expected to appear in a Massachusetts court on Friday, where he is charged as a fugitive.

According to court documents, the incidents occurred between November 1985 and October 1988 in Kennebunkport, Maine.

Former Roman Catholic priest Ronald Paquin, 74, pictured left before he was defrocked and right in court in 2002, has been indicted on 29 counts of gross sexual misconduct

Art imitating life: The 2015 film Spotlight featured a scene in which an actor playing Paquin (right) admits to Rachel McAdams, portraying Boston Globe reporter Sacha Pfeiffer (left), that he 'fooled around' with children

Paquin, freed from prison in 2015, was a central figure in the Boston archdiocese's sex abuse scandal, which was exposed by the Boston Globe's celebrated investigative journalism unit known as Spotlight.

In 2002, he pleaded guilty to raping an altar boy after admitting to sexual misconduct to Globe reporter Sacha Pfeiffer when she came knocking on his door a year earlier.

Freed in 2015 after serving a decade in prison, Paquin, pictured above in an old mugshot, was a central figure in the Boston archdiocese's sex abuse scandal

The exchange between Pfeiffer and Paquin was dramatized In the 2015 Academy Award-winning film Spotlight using dialogue that was taken directly from what the ex-priest told the reporter.

'Sure, I fooled around. But I never raped anyone, and I never felt gratified myself,' an actor portraying Paquin tells Rachel McAdams, who portrayed Pfeiffer.

Although former Rev Paquin was convicted of raping one boy, several other people accused him of molesting them.

He was defrocked by the Vatican in 2004.

At sentencing, Paquin expressed remorse through his lawyer and said that as a teenager, he was abused by a priest.

Paquin admitted to molesting a boy from 1989 to 1992 while assigned to St John the Baptist in Haverhill parish, starting when the boy was 12.

The clergyman received a sentence of 12 to 15 years in prison, and he completed his sentence in May 2015.

He was released in October of that year after two experts who examined him determined he was no longer sexually dangerous to the community.

The Associated Press typically doesn't identify victims of sexual assault unless they come forward publicly.

Keith Townsend, of Seabrook, New Hampshire, told the Globe he's one of the two victims in the new indictment. He said the abuse started when he was about 8 or 9, in Massachusetts and at a camp in Kennebunkport, Maine.

Townsend said he contacted Maine authorities after learning of Paquin's release from prison in Massachusetts.

Boston's priest sex abuse scandal was exposed by the Boston Globe's celebrated investigative journalism unit known as Spotlight, whose exploits were featured in the eponymous movie that won an Academy Award

'When I found out he was released, I thought it was an outrage,' Townsend said.

The 42-year-old man, who spent years battling drug addiction, reached a $140,000 settlement with the Boston archdiocese in 2010 stemming from the abuse he had endured as a child.

Speaking to Seacoast Online, Townsend described Paquin as an evil 'predator' who would ply his young victims with drugs, alcohol and pills before raping them.
An drunk man seeking revenge set fire to a fireworks shop in north-west China on January 21.

The fire caused a gigantic explosion in the shop and damaged over 30 motorcycles from a neighbouring store.

The man later confessed his actions to the police and has since been detained.

Shocking: The shop assistants were still working inside when the man set off the fireworks

According to Hua Shang Daily, the 40-year-old surnamed Li was the owner of Xi Li Lai Fireworks shop in Hanzhong, Shaanxi province.

He had his fireworks confiscated a few days before the blaze after being found in breach of storing explosives.

He had been storing 300 fireworks in side the store.

Following the seizure of the fireworks, they were temporarily moved to Qinfa Fireworks.

On January 21, Li became intoxicated and entered Qinfa Fireworks to purchase 30 yuan (3.50) worth of explosives.

He then lit the explosives and set them off in the shop.

Surveillance footage shows the moment the shop's employees are forced to flee the scene.

Li bought a pack of fireworks at the shop for 3.50 and later set fire as vengeance for his loss

Sparks of fireworks caused a chain effect and soon lit up the rest of the explosives in the shop

The fire engulfed the fireworks shop burning the roof and damaging another nearby store

Giant blaze: Firefighters helped to put out the fire in under two hours in north-west China

The giant blaze ripped through the shop, burning the rooftop and setting motorbikes from the premises next door.

Mr Zhang, a night-shift security guard witnessed the accident and reported it to police. He said: 'The explosions are really loud and I can't hear anything on the phone standing 65 feet away!'

He recalled the moment Li lit the fireworks: 'He stayed until the fireworks in the shop started to explode.'

Firefighters attended to the scene and put out the blaze. They also moved the motorbikes and unlit fireworks to a safer location.

The fire was brought under control after two hours.

The motorbike shop's owner Mrs Huo said the fire damaged around 30 motorbikes with the loss estimated to be around 70,000 to 80,000 yuan (8114 - 9273).

Li went to the police station and pleaded guilty for the crime. He said: 'I was drunk and I had no idea this would cause such a big incident.'

According to the police, there were no injuries sustained. Both the fireworks shop and the motorbike shop are calculating their losses.
A small Oklahoma town is echoing the story line of the 1984 movie 'Footloose' by canceling a Valentine's Day dance because of an arcane city ordinance enforcing a strict moral code.

The organizer canceled the dance in Henryetta, population 6,500, because it would have taken place 300 feet from a church, in violation of an ordinance that forbids dancing within 500 feet of a place of worship, according to KTUL.

The dance was to have been at Rosie LaVon's Marketplace on 115 South Fifth, which hosts weddings and parties, but dance host Robbie Kinney realized that an ordinance forbade the cavorting, so she posted on Facebook asking if the ordinance had been overturned and, if so, when.

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The quaint town has been the scene of controversy after a party organizer cancelled a Valentine's Day dance because of an arcane city ordinance

The dance's venue was across the street from this church on South Fifth in Henryetta

The dance was supposed to have taken place at Rosie Lavon's, above, before it was abruptly cancelled due to an archaic ordinance

Apparently, it had not. Mayor Jennifer Clason looked it up and there it was in black and white: no dancing within 500 feet of a church.

'The ordinance says no dancing allowed, it's illegal,' Kinney told KTUL.

Despite the police chief, Steve Norman, saying he had no interest in enforcing this particular law, and the town's mayor calling it an 'antiquated ordinance' that no one had ever thought to overturn, Kinney decided to cancel anyway.

Dance host Robbie Kinney didn't feel she could still have the dance after discovering the strict law forbidding gyrating near a church

The town's mayor, Jennifer Clason, said the rule was old and no one paid any attention to it

Kinney says people began attacking her 'character' and 'past' on Facebook, but the law's the law - especially since her husband is the city attorney.

'Laws are laws, and we're going to abide by them. We can't pick and choose what laws we uphold,' she said.

Clason says city councilors will consider abolishing the ordinance during their Feb. 22 meeting.
William Christopher Gibbs, 27, drove himself to a hospital saying he had ricin on his hands

A Georgia man who drove himself to a hospital saying he had been exposed to ricin has been arrested as the FBI says his car tested positive for the deadly toxin.

William Christopher Gibbs, 27, drove himself to a hospital in Morganton last week claiming that he had ricin on his hands, Fannin County Sheriff Dane Kirby told WAGA.

A field test conducted by the FBI of the car driven by Gibbs found traces of the toxin inside his vehicle.

Kirby said Gibbs has been jailed on reckless conduct and probation violation charges. It's not clear whether he has a lawyer.

On Friday about 100 law enforcement officers in HAZMAT suits swarmed the Morganton neighborhood.

'All of the sudden a whole host of law enforcement vehicles showed up in our parking lot, somewhere between 30 to 40 vehicles. And around 100 law enforcement individuals,' said Morganton Mayor Mike England.

A field test conducted by the FBI of the car driven by Gibbs (above) found traces of the toxin inside his vehicle. Kirby said Gibbs has been jailed on reckless conduct and probation violation charges

U.S. Attorney John Horn said the 4th Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team of the Army National Guard and the Cherokee County Fire Department were in Fannin County to make sure everything was safe.

Prosecutors say the FBI has 'identified no evidence that any poisonous or toxic substances have been dispersed or that the public is at risk' in the case.

Ricin is found naturally in castor beans. When purified, even a very small amount of it can kill, as there is no antidote to treat ricin poisoning.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, effects from ricin exposure usually show up within a day.

'The major symptoms of ricin poisoning depend on the route of exposure and the dose received, though many organs may be affected in severe cases,' the CDC says.

The deadly toxin has been used in acts of terrorism and weaponized in war for decades.

Ricin is found naturally in castor beans (file above). When purified, even a very small amount of it can kill.

It's unclear how Gibbs came in contact with toxin, but the FBI is investigating.

According to Gibbs' Facebook profile, it appears as though he is a member of the Georgia Church of Creativity C.A. and is a self-identified 'White Racial Loyalist.'

A caption on one of his profile photos from his Facebook account reads: 100 years from now when someone finds one of these trees thay (sic) will know that there was once a White Race.

Creativity is a white separatist, white supremacist movement that was originally known as the Church of the Creator.

It was founded in 1973 by Ben Klassen, a former one-time state legislator in Florida, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

The basis of the group was to promote 'what it sees as the inherent superiority and 'creativity' of the white race.'

The Creativity Alliance is categorized by the SPLC as an active neo-Nazi group in Georgia.
Boris Johnson (pictured in Downing Street this week) was born in New York

Boris Johnson has given up his US citizenship in a move that could save him tens of thousands of pounds in tax.

The Foreign Secretary, who was born in New York, renounced his dual nationality at the end of last year.

The move emerged in a routine list released by the US Treasury Department.

Two years ago, when he was London Mayor, Mr Johnson said he intended to surrender his citizenship to prove his 'commitment to Britain'.

He told the Sunday Times it was 'an accident of birth that has left me with this thing. I've got to find a way of sorting it out'.

He insisted he was going to ask the then-US ambassador, Matthew Barzun, to explore what steps he had to take to give up his American nationality.

The Conservative politician - who was born in Manhattan in 1964 and holds a US passport alongside a British one - complained that it was a 'laborious business, they don't make it easy for you'.

The decision came after Mr Johnson was apparently hit with a sizeable tax bill by the US authorities.

American citizens have to pay capital gains tax on overseas transactions, and he was said to have been charged up to 100,000 after selling a house in London.

Asked at the time whether he would settle the bill, Mr Johnson was quoted as saying: No, is the answer. I think, it's absolutely outrageous. Why should I?

'I think, you know, I'm not a  I, you know, I haven't lived in the United States for, you know, well, since I was five years old.'

However, he later reportedly paid up.

On a tour to the US to publicise a book in 2014, Mr Johnson joked that his American status meant he was 'technically' able to become President.

He was also said to have been mistaken for Donald Trump.
Egyptian Abdullah Reda al-Hamahmy was shot five times outside the Louvre in the heart of Paris

A man who attacked four soldiers with a machete outside the Louvre in Paris has said he was not following ISIS orders, but did want to damage artwork.

Egyptian Abdullah Reda al-Hamahmy, 29, was shot five times in the stomach last Friday outside the landmark museum.

He shouted 'Allahu Akbar' - Arabic for 'God is the greatest' during what French President Francoise Hollande described as a terrorist attack.

Hamahmy was carrying spray paints in his backpack, and told police he planned to damage paintings in the museum in order to 'avenge the Syrian people'.

Among the famous paintings held at the art gallery in the heart of the French capital is the Mona Lisa, although this is kept behind glass.

The museum is also home to priceless artworks including the Venus de Milo statue, one of the most famous works of Greek sculpture, and works by artists including Caravaggio, Michelangelo, Raphael and Rembrandt.

Eugene Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People, depicting the French Revolution, is one of the most iconic paintings

The Venus de Milo (pictured, left) and the Mona Lisa (right) are among the masterpieces on display at the Louvre

Eugene Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People is one of the best known artworks in France, and is on display at the Louvre

Hamahmy has been in hospital since the attack and late on Tuesday his police custody was lifted as his health had 'greatly deteriorated'.

A source close to the investigation told Reuters that though he sympathised with Islamic State, Hamahmy said he had not been given instructions by the group and had not formally sworn allegiance to it.

He is being held on suspicion of seeking to carry out terrorist acts and involvement in criminal terrorist conspiracy, and a formal investigation will begin once his health allowed.

The suspect was shot five times in the stomach after attempting to attack four soldiers with a machete

The area around the Louvre museum in Paris was evacuated, and a huge security operation was launched on Friday morning

The source said the suspect had made two money transfers of 3,000 and 2,000 euros to a fellow Egyptian in Poland in the days immediately before the attack.

In the moments before the attack, Hamahmy - who arrived in France eight days earlier - posted a number of pro-ISIS tweets.

Among the 12 tweets, posted between 9.27am and 9.34am French time, was one stating: 'In the name of Allah... for our brothers in Syria and fighters across the world.'

Hamahmy had reportedly arrived in France from Dubai on January 26, and investigators believe he posted tweets voicing support for ISIS in the build-up to the attack

Minutes later he referenced ISIS. The Twitter account has since been suspended.

His father has protested his innocence, and said the father-of-one, whose wife is pregnant, was in France for a business trip.

Reda El-Hamahmy, a retired police general, told AFP he had been constantly in touch with his son who worked as a sales manager in Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates.

'He went on a company trip and when it was over visited the museum. He was supposed to leave on Saturday,' Hamahmy said.

'He is a simple guy. We all love him,' he added, saying he had not detected any signs that his son had been radicalised.

And he continued: 'The French government's account is not logical. He was 1.65 metres tall (five foot five) and attacked four guards? And in the end they found nothing in his bags.'
The City of Los Angeles agreed Wednesday to pay $1.5million to the family of a mentally ill black man who was shot and killed in 2014 by Los Angeles police during a struggle over an officer's gun.

The settlement in a civil rights lawsuit brought by the family of Ezell Ford, 25, came two weeks after prosecutors said the two Los Angeles Police Department officers acted lawfully and in self-defense when they shot and killed Ford in August 2014.

In 2014, a group of people at Paradise Baptist Church discuss the police shooting of 25-year-old Ezell Ford. The city of Los Angeles will pay $1.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the family of Ford

Ezell Ford, above, was said to have schizophrenia and other mental illnesses and was unarmed at the time of the shooting

More than a year ago, a police oversight board found the officers had no legal reason to stop Ford, violating department policy.

The Los Angeles City Council approved the settlement with Ford's family on Wednesday with a 10-2 vote. Federico Sayre, an attorney for Ford's family, said they were relieved the settlement was finalized after significant opposition from the officers' union.

Protesters (pictured in August 2015) chant for Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck's firing during a Los Angeles Police Commission meeting in downtown LA

Civil rights activist Najee Ali bites his lips while holding a portrait of Ezell Ford

Los Angeles prosecutors said Officers Sharlton Wampler and Antonio Villegas were in fear for their lives when they shot Ford on August 11, 2014, as Ford struggled with Wampler over the officer's holstered gun.

The shooting happened days after that of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and led to a series of Black Lives Matter protests in Los Angeles.

Authorities said the officers had approached Ford, whose family has said he struggled with an array of mental illnesses, after seeing him in a known gang area, but said Ford walked away and the officers believed he was trying to discard an illegal substance.

Ezell Ford's mother, Tritobia, sheds tears while speaking at a news conference about her son

A mural and memorial for Ezell Ford, a mentally ill black man who was shot in August 2014

Prosecutors said Wampler had placed his hands on Ford's shoulders before Ford spun around and grabbed the officer at the waist. Ford fell to the ground with the officer and the two started tussling as Ford tried to grab Wampler's gun from the holster on his waist, prosecutors said.

Villegas shot Ford twice during the struggle, but Ford continued to fight with Wampler, Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey said last month.

Wampler was eventually able to retrieve his backup weapon, which was affixed to his bulletproof vest, reached around Ford's body and shot him once in the back, she said.

After prosecutors reached their determination in the case, Ford's mother, Tritobia Ford, told reporters there would 'be no justice' for her son. She said the officers 'just got away with murder.'

The officers' union decried the city council's decision to settle the case, arguing the city should have fought the 'baseless civil suit.'

'This fiscally irresponsible pattern of settling civil claims, in spite of legal and investigative findings supporting police officers' actions, is sending the wrong message to trial lawyers that the city's treasury is nothing more than an ATM,' said Craig Lally, the president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League.

'I don't think the police union ever believes police officers do anything wrong,' Sayre said in response to the union's statement.

The shooting took place only a few days after the shooting of Michael Brown in Missouri and sparked BLM protests

The Los Angeles Police Commission ruled in June 2015 that the officers had no reason to stop and question Ford, and that violation of department policy led to an altercation that ended with Ford's death.

The commission found that Wampler was unjustified in shooting Ford and Villegas was wrong to draw his weapon but acted appropriately in firing it because he believed Wampler's life was in danger.

The officers have been on administrative duty since the shooting.

During the state's decision not to press charges against the officers, District Attorney Lacey said: 'This was not some officer who deliberately took out a gun and said, 'I'm going to shoot Mr Ford.'

'This was a struggle on the ground, for a couple of minutes, that was very tense.'

She said one of the most compelling witnesses told investigators they heard an officer shouting, 'Let go of my gun!'

Lacey said she called Ford's mother on Tuesday morning before her office released the report on the shooting.

She said Ford's mother was very upset when she informed her they would not be bringing criminal charges against the officers.
City officials in California were warned about the Oakland 'Ghost Ship' warehouse more than 22 times in the years leading up to the deadly fire that killed 36, it has been revealed.

Police officers shut down a 'drug-fueled' rave at the warehouse nearly two years before the blaze and continuous complaints flooded in about the property in the 30 years leading up to the tragedy.

At least one person told the police in 2015 that there were squatters living inside.

The information in documents released on Wednesday reinforces the notion that officials did not act on resident and neighbor complaints about noise and safety hazards.

About 50 people were gathered on the second floor of the warehouse for a concert on December 2, 2016 when a fire broke out, killing 36 people in the 'death trap' venue.

About 50 people were gathered on the second floor of the Oakland warehouse for a concert on December 2, 2016 when a fire broke out, killing 36 people

City officials received at least 22 complaints about the Oakland 'Ghost Ship' warehouse, pictured after the blaze, and the surrounding properties over the course of 30 years

At least one person told the police in 2015 that there were people living inside. The Oakland fire chief said city records indicated it was vacant and inspections were not carried out

Officials have said they had no idea the building was used as a residence.

But on February 2, 2015, a person called the police claiming to be locked out of the warehouse and told a responding officer that 'this is a warehouse that is also an illegal shared housing.'

The officer reported that the issue was resolved and left, the documents reveal.

Building records released previously and the documents provided Wednesday show some city officials were aware of activity inside the warehouse.

The records show Oakland police officers responded to several landlord-tenant disputes in recent years.

What's more, an officer reported shutting down an 'illegal rave with drug and alcohol sales' on March 1, 2015.

After leaving, the officer returned 20 minutes later to escort people from the warehouse who initially refused to leave. The officer noted no citations were issued.

Records show that over the past 30 years, Oakland code enforcers received at least 22 complaints about the warehouse and its surrounding properties.

The complaints cited blight, abandoned cars, trash, old tires, rodents and transients living on the property.

And less than three weeks before the fire, Oakland city inspectors received complaints about the warehouse being remodeled into residences.

Another complaint was lodged on November 14 about an illegal interior building structure, records show.

A building inspector who went to the warehouse left after being unable to get inside and later sent a request to the owner to gain entry.

Victims: The lost of the warehouse tragedy. Top row L-R Donna Kellogg, Nick Gomez-Hall, Travis Hough, Nicole Siegrist aka Denalda Nicole, Chelsea Faith Dolan, Barrett Clark. Second row from top: Feral Pines, Micah Danemayer, David Cline, Chase Wittenauer aka Nex Iguolo, Pete Wadsworth, Jonathan Bernbaum. Third row from top: Ara Jo, Cash Askew, Sara Hoda, Draven Mcgill, Michela Gregory, Johnny Igaz. Fourth road from top: Alex Ghassan, Hanna Ruax, Edmond Lapine, Em Bohlka, Jennifer Kiyomi Taouye, Jenny Morris. Fifth row from top: Ben Runnels, Alex Vega, alana Kane - Jennifer Mendiola, Amanda Allen (Kershaw), Griffin Madden, Joey Matlock aka Joey Casio. Bottom row: Vanessa Plotkin, Nicholas Walrath, Jason McCarty aka Jalien Adrian, Billy Dixon, Wolfgang Renner, Michelle Sylvan

On February 2, 2015, a person called the police claiming to be locked out of the warehouse and told a responding officer that 'this is a warehouse that is also an illegal shared housing'

Officials also removed graffiti and debris from outside the building in 2014, and paramedics responded to several calls for help in 2015 and 2016, even though there is no indication that firefighters or paramedics entered the warehouse as a result.

Despite these incidents, Oakland Fire Chief Teresa Deloach Reed said there are no records showing her department had inspected the building.

She said city records indicated the warehouse was vacant and did not require fire-safety inspection like occupied venues. Reed is on leave for an unspecified reason.

More than 600 pages of documents were released on Wednesday, although names and several pages of the police report were redacted.

Oakland police spokeswoman Johnna Watson declined comment.

Mayor Libby Schaaf has said improving communications between city departments is one of the reforms she is working on since the nation's worst building fire in 13 years.

Derick Ion Almena (left), 46, leased the 'Ghost Ship' warehouse. Almena was raising his three children with his wife, Micah Allison (right), inside the warehouse

Derick Almena, the man who operated the Ghost Ship, was arrested in January 2015 and charged with possession of stolen property. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and agreed to make restitution.

His defense attorneys issued a report in January claiming the fire started in an adjacent building. Oakland fire officials have yet to announce the cause of the blaze.

No other citations appeared to have been issued. Almena did not return a phone call or reply to a text seeking comment.

The fire broke out December 2 during a dance party and quickly ripped through the cluttered warehouse, which had been converted to artists' studios and illegal living spaces.

Former residents said the warehouse was a death trap with few exits, piles of driftwood and a labyrinth of electrical cords.

Photos of the interior showed a hodgepodge Bohemian scene of Tibetan prayer flags, Christmas lights and scores of wooden statues of Buddha, the virgin Mary, Jesus Christ, elephants and dragons that sat atop pianos and turntables.

Former residents said the warehouse (pictured) was a death trap with few exits, piles of driftwood and a labyrinth of electrical cords

'DEATH TRAP' WAREHOUSE HAD SUFFERED A PREVIOUS FIRE Shelly Mack, who lived with the art collective two years ago, said she was there when a generator exploded, and residents were forced to rush and douse the flames. Thankfully, on that occasion, the residents were able to extinguish the blaze before it spread. But Mack, who says she paid $700 a month to live at the ramshackle warehouse, plus a $700 deposit and $700 for 'improvements, claimed that no repairs or renovations were ever carried out during the several months she stayed there 'It's a good example of people taking advantage of people because they had no other options,' Mack, a tech sales worker and jewelry maker, told the AP. 'People make businesses off scamming people online when they're looking for a place.' Mack said that power supplies were simply stolen from neighboring properties while the place was often unheated and freezing cold. Another former tenant Ralphy Manzana said Ghost Ship residents' pleas for owner Derek Ion to fix 'the electric, or not to run the generator inside next to the butane stove' were met with laughter. 'I was supposed to be there on Friday but ended up feeling sleepy and staying in, I'm so thankful for my life,' Manzana added. Advertisement

The ground floor had RVs and nooks used as living spaces that were rented out to tenants, while the upstairs had space for concerts.

Acquaintances and local authorities described repeatedly confronting Almena about what they believed were unsafe and unsanitary conditions at the warehouse.

The city did not release 911 recordings or dispatch calls that were requested by the media outlets.
A childcare centre in Adelaide neglected to inform the parents of a five-year-old boy that he was allegedly assaulted by his carer.

An Adelaide court heard that a colleague at the eastern suburbs childcare centre, which cannot be identified for legal reasons, allegedly witnessed Peter John Gill fondling the boy.

The 51-year-old worked as a carer for 15 years and is on trial at the District Court after being charged with aggravated indecent assault, ABC News reported.

Peter John Gill, 51, was allegedly seen fondling a boy, 5, at an Adelaide childcare centre

The colleague reported the alleged incident to her superior.

The court heard Gill was allegedly seen taking photographs of the boy on a mobile phone.

Prosecutor Mark Norman alleged the boy suffered a series of incidents but the centre never told the parents about the fondling.

The court heard the childcare centre and parents went to the police independently.

'The childcare centre never raised it with the family  it appears the first time the family discovered the childcare centre complaint was by the police,' Mr Norman said.

The prosecution alleged the boy first told his grandmother that a childcare worker touched his genitals.

The child then told his parents who went to the police.

His mother told the court of several instances where Gill would give her son too much attention, which made her feel uncomfortable.

She told the court she was seconds away from breaking up a hug between the two as it went on for an 'uncomfortable amount of time'.
A former New Zealand private schoolboy who is facing the death sentence in the United States travelled there to pursue a rap career because his friends led him on about how good he was, it has been revealed.

Clinton Forbel Thinn, 29, from Auckland, was arrested in San Diego, California, in June last year after allegedly taking part in a botched bank robbery.

He has s been held at the George Bailey Detention Facility since  and is now facing a first-degree murder charge over a fatal incident in the maximum security prison.

But a friend of the former student of Auckland Grammar School, where tuition costs NZ$21,750 (AUD $20,611) per year, claims Thinn only went to America with dreams of a rap career because friends lied to him about his talents.

Clinton Thinn (pictured) is facing the death sentence in the United States, but he had travelled there to pursue a rap career because his friends led him on about how good he was

He often posted videos of himself rapping under the pseudonyms BigMac and Richochet Rocket.

One clip, shared by Thinn on his Facebook page, shows him stumbling as he attempted to rap during the two-minute clip.

Lyrics featured in the clip include 'You might think my rhymes are amateur, C4 ... damage ya.'

'He was led on by a lot of his friends that he was a good rapper,' a friend who met Thinn when they attended Selwyn College in Auckland, told the New Zealand Herald.

'When really, people were just leading him on, it was just funny for us to watch. That was his motive to go to the US.'

The friend also said he did not understand why Thinn, who came from a wealthy family, would rob a bank when he came from a wealthy family.

Thinn had inherited a great deal of money when his mother died several years ago, the friend said.

It has also emerged that Thinn was living off the money his mother left him after she died

Friends say Thinn pledged allegiance to the white supremacist Aryan Brotherhood prison gang

He had used money to buy an apartment in the city and also owned a Mercedes.

But over the years, the former classmate said Thinn had dealt with personal issues and had been let down by the people around him.

Another friend described Thinn's behaviour as 'pretty crazy', telling the Herald he's an 'odd character'.

That friend said he was not aware of Thinn's travel plans and he only realised he had gone to California when he started sharing pictures on his social media.

Another claimed Thinn had ended his relationship with his girlfriend shortly before leaving for the US.

Former schoolmates of Thinn's have told Daily Mail Australia Thinn pledged allegiance to the white supremacist Aryan Brotherhood gang in prison before the fatality that led to his murder charge.

Thinn posted videos of himself performing rap on his social media pages before his arrest. Pictured right, MP Nikki Kaye, whose mother is in a relationship with Thinn's father, described the situation as 'difficult'

A friend say he travelled to California (pictured, at Universal Studios Hollywood) to become a rapper because his mates had led him to believe he was good

One friend, who asked not to be identified, said he had been 'picked on' in the prison, which houses 1,800 inmates, because of his accent.

'It's shocking a fellow student at a prestigious school has ended up there,' he said.

'I wish him the best. Hopefully, he can be deported back home and get the help he needs.'

Thinn's stepsister, New Zealand MP Nikki Kaye, has also spoken out about the case, describing it as 'sad and difficult'.

The Cabinet Minister's mother is in a long-term relationship with Thinn's father.

Thinn was arrested after he allegedly stormed a Chula Vista bank with a flare gun and a hammer.

One friend said Thinn bought an apartment and a Mercedes with the money his mother left him

The 29-year-old has been held at the George Bailey Detention Facility (pictured, file photo) since June last year

He is accused of firing two shots at a bullet-proof divider that six bank workers were behind, according to NBC.

However, no one was injured and he was arrested at the scene.

Thinn is charged with five counts of attempted robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, carrying a loaded firearm and making a threat to cause death or grievous bodily harm as well as murder, according to the San Diego Sheriff's Department.

If convicted, he faces a minimum of 25 years in jail or the death penalty. His bail has been set at US$2 million (AUD$2,620,400).

He is due in court in February for charges relating to the bank robbery and in March for the murder charge.
Barnaby Joyce has criticised Bill Shorten for being a 'hypocrite' who is trying to create a class war in a scathing attack, just one day after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull lambasted the Opposition leader for being 'a social climbing sycophant.'

The Deputy Prime Minister launched a second round of insults at Mr Shorten in Parliament on Thursday, agreeing with Mr Turnbull's claims the Leader of the Labor party is a 'parasite' who is in the pocket of Melbourne's elite.

Mr Joyce said he would prefer the leader of the country to have have money and success rather than someone 'with the arse out of their pants who has never made a buck,' according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

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Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce (pictured) launched a second round of insults at Bill Shorten in Parliament on Thursday, criticising the Opposition leader of being a 'hypocrite' who is trying to create a class war

Mr Joyce's tongue lashing comes one day after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull launched an extraordinary attack on Mr Shorten during Prime Minister's Question Time (pictured)

'The thing about Mr Shorten is he's such a hypocrite, because we all know he spends his whole life swanning it with Solly Lew and Richard Pratt and flying round in their jets and good luck and God bless him but don't go to the despatch box, Mr Shorten, and start this confected outrage of you and the working man as if you're Clark from the coal mine in Wales. You're not.'

'He couldn't run a pie shop and the thought of him running the country fills me with dread,' Mr Joyce said.

Mr Joyce's tongue lashing comes one day after Mr Turnbull launched an extraordinary attack on Mr Shorten during Prime Minister's Question Time.

'There was never a union leader in Melbourne that tucked his knees under more billionaire's table than the Leader of the Opposition,' Mr Turnbull said, to cheers from the Liberal benches.

He also called Mr Shorten a 'social climbing sycophant.'

During the heated session, Mr Turnbull also joked that the Labor Party thinks 'manual labour is a Mexican bandit', adding: 'Most of them have never done a day's work in their life.'

He went on to accuse Mr Shorten of 'sucking up to millionaires.'

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (pictured) called Mr Shorten a 'social climbing sycophant,' much to the delight of the backbench

Mr Joyce (pictured) - who laughed through Mr Turnbull's rant - agreed with the prime minister's claims Mr Shorten is a 'parasite' who is in the pocket of Melbourne's elite

'He likes harbourside mansions, he's yearning to get into Kirribilli House - because somebody else pays for it,' the prime minister said.

'Just like he loved knocking back Dick Pratt's Cristal and looked forward to living at the expense of the taxpayer, this man is a parasite and has no respect for the taxpayer.'

He claimed Mr Shorten craved to live 'in luxury at the expense of the Australian taxpayer', adding: 'This man is a parasite.'

The heated exchange was prompted by a Labor motion condemning Mr Turnbull for 'being so out of touch that his hopelessly divided government punishes family, pensioners, carers and new mums while giving a $50billion handout to business and big banks'.

Mr Shorten had quizzed Mr Turnbull on tax changes for working families while cutting business taxes when the prime minister came back swinging.

'How can the Prime Minister stand there and pat himself on the back for attacking the living standards of one million Australians?' he had asked.

In an extraordinary attack at Prime Minister's Question Time, Mr Turnbull accused Mr Shorten (pictured) of being in the pocket of the liberal elite in Melbourne

Mr Turnbull claimed Mr Shorten craved to live 'in luxury at the expense of the Australian taxpayer'

During the heated session, Mr Turnbull also joked that the Labor Party thinks 'manual labour is a Mexican bandit'

Mr Shorten later added: 'Mr Harbourside Mansion is attacking the living standards of more than one million Australians. Tough on pensioners, soft on banks'.

But Mr Turnbull shot back: 'There was never a union leader in Melbourne who tucked his knees under the tables of more millionaires than Bill Shorten.'

The prime minister labelled Mr Shorten a 'social-climbing sycophant if ever there was one.'

'There has never been a more sycophantic leader of the Labor party than this one, and he comes here and poses as a tribune of the people.'

He went on to accuse Mr Shorten of selling out union members by allowing employers to bring in cheaper, foreign workers.

'This bloke has no consistency or integrity. He cannot be believed,' the prime minister said.

'He said he is against 457 visas, well he knows more about them an anyone. He is the Olympic champion.'
The first historically accurate illustration of Mr Darcy, created by artist Nick Hardcastle, based on research commissioned by channel Drama to celebrate Jane Austen Season

Colin Firth made many a female viewer swoon with his portrayal of Mr Darcy as a chiselled, dark embodiment of sexy broodiness.

But the heartthrob from Jane Austens Pride and Prejudice would have had a pale complexion with powdered white hair, sloping shoulders, a pointy chin and a long nose, and a physique which was more ballet dancer than beefcake, research by two leading academics has found.

Based on their findings, what is claimed to be the first historically accurate portrait of the fictional character was created, and can be revealed today.

John Sutherland, Lord Northcliffe Professor Emeritus of modern English literature at University College London, and Amanda Vickery, Professor of Early Modern History at Queen Mary University of London, spent a month on the project.

In their research paper, they note how Austen artfully withholds full description of the most eligible man in her fiction and gives her readers only a terse insight into what the 28-year-old Fitzwilliam Darcy looked like in the novel, which was written in the 1790s but not published until 1813.

Austen wrote: Mr Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien, and the report which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year.

Based on evidence of fashions of the time, the professors said he would have had a full head of loose, mid-length hair as was the popular male style of the era.

Addition of white powder was something of a status symbol, and Mr Darcy is clearly well to do as his 10,000 a year would be the equivalent of 500,000 nowadays.

The historically accurate depiction of the heartthrob is a little different to the man most associate with the character - Colin Firth, above

Another important marker of social significance was complexion, as it depended on good health.

Mr Darcy would have had smooth, unmarked skin and must have escaped the ravages of small-pox. Odds-on he was as pale as marble, with something of the classical statue, the researchers said.

Military officers of the time would have had a tan as their profession was outdoors but for civilian men, pallor indicated a man did not work.

The British upper classes of the time were also renowned for having pale skin, long oval faces, long noses, small mouths and pointy chins, they said, and the square jawed hero is virtually unknown at this period.

The paper added: A real gentleman carried himself like a gentleman, not an awkward, clumsy clod. A young gentlemans training aimed at cultivating gracefulness, often through dancing lessons.

Naturally Darcy would be able to dance, ride, and fence. These were all activities which developed the thigh and calf muscles.

A fine leg was an index of virility. Women looked out for a well-defined calf muscle, and strong thighs on horseback. Spindle shanks were a sign of ebbing manhood, likely impotence.

The Regency fashion of tight breeches and cut away coats guaranteed a mans thighs and calves were exposed to the female gaze. Buckskin clung to a mans musculature like a second skin, leaving nothing to the imagination.

The researchers said Austen's genius was to allow each generation to infuse Darcy with their own fantasy of masculine beauty

It was all about the legs. The six pack was unknown and square shouldered bulk was the mark of the navvy not the gentlemen.

Chests were modest and shoulders sloping. The general effect was one of languid, graceful length not breadth. More ballet dancer than beef-cake.

The research was commissioned by digital TV channel Drama to mark its Jane Austen season, which begins on Sunday (Feb 12).

The researchers also noted Mr Darcy may well have smelt of musk or flowers as perfumes were unisex in the period.

He is likely to have been about 5ft 11in, above the average male height for the time thanks to his good breeding, but still a little shorter than actor Firth, who is 6ft 1in.

They said that by not describing what Mr Darcy looked like in detail, Austen was being a smart novelist as its sometimes what you dont describe that can fly the story off the page into the readers imagination.

Referring to the famous scene from the 1995 television adaptation when Firths Darcy dived into a lake to cool his ardour for Elizabeth Bennet only to emerge in a soaking white shirt, they added: Austens genius was to allow each generation to infuse Darcy with their own fantasy of masculine beauty.

Colin Firth in his wet shirt tells us a lot more about the 1990s than the 1790s.
A computer repairer is fuming after receiving the same damaged Apple product from Australia Post twice.

Paul, 57, from Maryborough, Victoria, ordered two of the same Macbook Pro screens to repair a customer's broken laptop in November and both arrived at his business cracked.

He told Daily Mail Australia he was actually in awe as to how Australia Post could manage to crack the screens twice despite the products being bubble wrapped, covered in foam and cardboard, and marked fragile.

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A computer repairer has documented receiving two of the same Macbook Pro screens cracked upon delivery by Australia Post

The Maryborough man, Paul, had them delivered to repair a customer's broken Macbook Pro

He claims Australia Post staff would've had to be quite rough in order to cause the damage two times in a row

The packages were bubble wrapped with foam and cardboard, and marked as fragile

'I was fairly annoyed the first time, it was a no-no, the packaging had fragile all over it,' he said.

'This can flex a fair bit without breaking. How that could've broken again is beyond me.'

Paul was so shocked he decided to conduct an experiment by dropping a home-made iron onto the acrylic plastic screens where they were not damaged at different heights - 30cm, 60cm, 1m and 1.3m.

The product was not damaged at 30cm, 60cm or 1m, but at 1.3m the iron left a large dent and crack on the screen, which cost about $20 each.

He uploaded the footage to video-sharing site YouTube.

'This is fairly conclusive evidence that Australia Post are rough. I mean to be able to cause that sort of damage that is just unacceptable,' he said in the video.

'It took a lot to break it - takes a lot to smash something like that.'

The Macbook Pro screens are about $20 each and made out of acrylic plastic - Paul claims they are quite sturdy and can bend without breaking

Paul claims he opened the second package at the Maryborough post office in late November to find the screen cracked again.

'They actually added extra foam and cardboard and the second time I opened it in front of the people at Australia Post I couldn't believe it was broken.'

Paul claims he was told by a customer service representative that he could apply for a refund by filling out a form.

He is now in the process of obtaining a full refund from the supplier through Australia Post, 'even though the supplier wasn't the one at fault,' he said.

However the damage was never brought to the post office manager's attention, who could have assessed the packaging.

Australia Post does not offer a fragile or 'do not bend' service and senders are responsible for packaging.

The video follows a week of controversy for Australia Post, with a parliamentary committee releasing the salaries of top Australia Post executives, revealing managing director Ahmed Fahour was paid $5.6 million last year - 10 times the $507,338 salary paid to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

He is the highest paid man in the Commonwealth's service, earning significantly more than his counterparts.

'Australia Post in my opinion has a bad track record and for any CEO it is an exorbitant amount - it is outrageous for any CEO or business to be earning that much money,' Paul told Daily Mail Australia.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Australia Post for comment.

Paul was so shocked he decided to conduct an experiment by dropping a home-made iron onto the acrylic plastic screens at different heights - 30cm, 60cm, 1m and 1.3m

The product was not damaged when he dropped the iron at a height of 30cm

The product was not damaged when he dropped the iron at a height of 60cm

The product was not damaged when he dropped the iron at a height of 1m

But at 1.3m the iron left a sizeable dent and crack in the screen
A couple who had been planning their dream holiday for months had a shadow cast over the trip after Tigerair cancelled their flights hours before it was due to depart.

Andrew Baum and Mia Auckland were packed and ready to fly from Adelaide to Bali on January 11 of this year. However at 3.30am that morning they received a text message notifying them that their flight had been cancelled.

Desperate to go ahead with their travel plans, the couple were forced to buy replacement tickets with another airline which left them $2,000 out of pocket, and now they want to be compensated.

Andrew Baum and Mia Auckland, from Adelaide, had their Tigerair flights to Bali cancelled the morning they were due to fly out

'Once we found out the flights weren't going ahead, the earliest they (Tigerair) could offer us to get there was four days later,' Mr Baum told Daily Mail Australia.

'That's more than a quarter of our holiday gone.'

'I thought it was a joke, and then I obviously panicked,' Ms Auckland told The Advertiser.

Mr Baum said instead of their original flight which would have taken them direct to Bali from Adelaide in six hours, they had to stopover in Melbourne and Singapore before reaching the Indonesian island a day late.

'We ended up losing one day of accommodation.'

Tigerair refunded the cost of their original tickets - a sum of roughly $1,000 - about a week after they left for Bali, and have since sent them a $150 voucher each.

They were left $2000 out of pocket after buying new tickets and want to be compensated

However booking new flights left the couple $2,000 out of pocket, and they said the voucher wasn't adequate compensation.

'When you have to book flights at the last minute going anywhere they're much more expensive,' Mr Baum said.

'Luckily we were able to draw money from different accounts and borrow some money, so we were in a better boat that other people who may not have been able to afford it.

'We just want to be reasonably compensated for out-of-pocket expenses - we don't want to fly with them again.'

A Tigerair spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia the airline 'sincerely apologises sincerely for the inconvenience caused'.

'Our main priority has been to work with customers affected by this matter.

'All affected customers in Bali were offered an alternate solution to travel home at Tigerairs cost, while all affected customers in Australia will receive a full refund for their bookings, with the majority already processed.

'We are also offering vouchers for future travel on the Tigerair network to affected passengers as a gesture of goodwill.'
TRENTON, N.J.  Cats would keep their claws under a bill that would make New Jersey the first state to prohibit declawing.

The measure, which cleared the lower chamber of the Legislature last month, bans onychectomies and flexor tendonectomies on a cat or any animal unless a veterinarian deems them medically necessary. Sponsors in the state Senate are reviewing possible changes, and its not clear when it will move forward.

The practice, often undertaken to prevent cats from shredding furniture or injuring humans or other pets, is already banned in several California cities and in nearly 20 countries. A similar bill died in New York last year.

Declawing is a barbaric practice that more often than not is done for the sake of convenience rather than necessity, the bills sponsor, Democratic Assemblyman Troy Singleton, said in a statement.

An onychectomy involves amputating the last bone of each toe. A flexor tendonectomy involves severing the tendon that controls the claw in each toe, so that the cat keeps its claws but cannot flex or extend them, Singleton said.

Under the bill, vets who declaw cats other than to address a medical condition would face a fine of up to $1,000, a term of imprisonment of up to six months, or both. A violator would also be subject to a civil penalty of $500 to $2,000.

The American Veterinary Medical Association, which represents more than 89,000 veterinarians, does not support having lawmakers tell doctors what to do and does not agree onychectomies are barbaric.

However, the group said its not medically necessary in most cases or even that frequent these days.

Its a surgical procedure that has complications that go with it, said AVMA animal welfare division director Dr. Cia Johnson. The group believes declawing should be considered only if the claws pose a risk to the owner and attempts to modify behavior have failed.

Scratching is part of a normal feline behavior, and owners can positively reinforce it by providing them with posts, boxes and carpets.

Cat owners should frequently trim their cats nails, and veterinarians can also place nail caps on to minimize damage, Johnson said.

The AVMA does not recommend tendonectomies.
Jeremy Clarkson's ratings on his Amazon show are far lower than the audience he pulled on the BBC

Sacked Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarksons ratings have plunged in his new car show on a subscription only service, figures released today suggest.

The Grand Tour, which also starred his former BBC co presenters James May and Richmond Hammond, was watched by just 2.3m UK viewers on the Amazon Prime Video in December.

This was down on the 5.8 million who tuned into the trios last episode of Top Gear, broadcast on BBC2 in June 2015.

But analysts still hailed The Grand Tour a success after it became the UKs most watched subscription only streamed programme and attracted a raft of new subscribers to Amazons video services, many of them a different target audience from existing viewers.

The 160million globetrotting motor show was first broadcast in November 2016, a year and a half after Clarkson was fired by the BBC for punching a Top Gear producer.

May and Hammond subsequently left the show too and joined Clarkson in signing for Amazon.

The trio of Clarkson, Hammond and May left the BBC after Clarkson was sacked for punching a producer

Clarkson reportedly earns 10 million a year for doing 12 episodes of The Grand Tour which are set in a tent in a different location around the world.

Hammond and May are each said to earn 7.2million.

The programmes Mad Max style opening segment, which includes 150 custom cars and six jet planes, as well as acrobats and stilt-walkers, was said to have cost 2.5 million to make.

The Grand Tour is available to subscribers of Amazon Prime Video, at a cost 5.99 a month, or annual subscribers to the Amazon Prime delivery service, which is 79 a year.

The 2.3million viewing figures for December were compiled by global market research company GfK, from a survey of viewers who fill in a diary of what they watch every day and give ratings for shows.

The survey also found that 55 percent of The Grand Tour viewers said it was better than Top Gear, and 45 percent said it had exceeded their original expectations.

Viewers gave it an average of 8.6 out of ten, the most for any Amazon original show.

Chris Evans and Matt le Blanc were the hosts of the subsequent series but Evans quit after ratings dropped

Crucially, it is believed to have encouraged more people to subscribe to Amazon Prime Video, who were different from existing viewers, GfK said.

Christopher Smith, Senior Research Executive in GfKs brand and customer research division, said: Our analysis proves that the high production costs for The Grand Tour are paying off, with viewers of the show agreeing that Amazons investment has been worth it.

Top Gears viewing figures peaked at 8 million in 2007 under Clarkson.

After sacking Clarkson and losing his Top Gear co presenters, the BBC replaced the trio with a line-up including Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc, but Evans quit following disappointing viewing figures.
Alexander Blackman (pictured) was given a life sentence in 2013

Alexander Blackman was suffering from a mental illness when he shot a wounded Taliban fighter, prosecutors admitted last night.

In a huge boost to the jailed Royal Marine's hopes of justice, the Crown said it accepted the view of psychiatrists that his mind was disordered.

He must now wait to see whether his murder conviction will be substituted for one of manslaughter.

At the end of his appeal hearing yesterday judges said their decision would 'take some time'  but they appeared to rule out a retrial. Sergeant Blackman's wife Claire left the Royal Courts of Justice to huge cheers from hundreds of ex-Marines and supporters.

Three leading psychiatrists diagnosed an 'adjustment disorder'  a recognised mental illness they say muddled her husband's mind when he pulled the trigger.

The hearing was told that soldiers went 'feral' when abandoned by their commanders in Afghanistan. Sgt Blackman's were 'shockingly bad', worsening his mental state.

The Crown had rejected the psychiatric diagnosis. But when prosecutor Richard Whittam was asked yesterday if this was still the case, he replied: 'It seems to me that the evidence is unequivocal that he has an adjustment disorder.'

The QC said the Crown did not feel the condition was severe enough to excuse shooting the mortally-wounded insurgent in 2011.

Sgt Blackman  known at his original military trial as Marine A  was given a life sentence in 2013, later cut to ten and then eight years.

Regimental Sergeant Major Stephen Moran told yesterday's hearing it was essential for morale and discipline that officers understood the daily difficulties of their troops and were not remote figures.

His wife, Claire Blackman (pictured), left the Royal Courts of Justice to huge cheers from hundreds of ex-Marines and supporters

'It can lead to a loss of control and loss of discipline by a soldier,' he said. 'If he is feeling isolated and if he is getting hammered by the enemy at the same time, he can go into survival mode and essentially become feral.'

Experts told the court that poorly-led soldiers were ten times more likely to have mental health issues.

The absence of 42-year-old Sgt Blackman's commanders made his mental state worse, according to the man who took over as his chief, Colonel Oliver Lee.

He condemned the performance of Lieutenant Colonel Ewen Murchison, who led Sgt Blackman's unit for most of its 'tour of hell' in Helmand province.

The Lieutenant Colonel visited Sgt Blackman's remote and vulnerable outpost, Checkpoint Omar, only once or twice during the six-month tour, the court heard.

Col Lee said he would have visited 12 times over such a period. Major Aaron Fisher, who led Sgt Blackman's J-Company, apparently went only every ten days to two weeks.

In a witness statement, Col Lee, who resigned his commission in disgust over the Marine A case, said: 'At the heart of these factors is my view that the leadership and oversight of Sergeant Blackman by his commanders Lieutenant Colonel Murchison and Major Fisher was shockingly bad, and directly causal to Sergeant Blackman's conduct.'

Sgt Blackman's QC, Jonathan Goldberg, called this 'an extraordinary indictment by one senior colleague of another'.

Mr Goldberg told the court: 'It hardly needs a psychiatrist to point out that the conditions under which Blackman was serving at Checkpoint Omar were ripe for mental illness or breakdown, if any conditions anywhere in the world could be.

'Why should it come as any surprise? This is not some banker taking the Tube to the City each morning and complaining of a stressful job. This is not only a matter of psychiatry we suggest but of common human experience.'

He said it would be a 'grave miscarriage of justice' for the court to ignore 'such uncontradicted and reputable fresh evidence' from the psychiatrists.

The barrister submitted that it was 'plain as a pikestaff' that one expert Dr Philip Joseph was right when he told the court it was a question of 'manslaughter not murder', adding: 'The safety of the conviction is inevitably not safe.' The unprecedented case is being heard by five of Britain's most senior judges  Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, Lord Justice Leveson, Lady Justice Hallett, Mr Justice Openshaw and Mr Justice Sweeney.

His wife has publicly spoken outside the Royal Courts of Justice as people continued to protest for 'justice for Marine A'

They have been told that Sgt Blackman was 'not Rambo' and that his split-second mistake was caused by a temporary numbing of his 'moral compass'.

Yesterday afternoon the Lord Chief Justice concluded the hearing by saying: 'We will take time to consider our decisions. If it is quashing the conviction then we will have to reconvene in relation to the sentence.'

If the judges do decide to commute Sgt Blackman's murder conviction to manslaughter, they will resentence him.

He is serving life for murder, with a minimum of eight years in prison.

Under manslaughter, it could be a shorter sentence than eight years  even to the extent that he would be freed immediately on the basis of the three years already served.

If the judges substitute his murder conviction for manslaughter, it would be on the basis that Sgt Blackman accepted he had 'intended' to kill the insurgent  something he has previously denied.

Mr Goldberg told the court that the Marine would accept this responsibility with whatever consequences it entailed.

The judges are expected to deliver their ruling next week or the week after.

Marine's home for six months: Squalid camp in the most dangerous square mile on Earth

By Sam Greenhill, Chief Reporter for the Daily Mail

This is the exposed and squalid camp which Sergeant Alexander Blackman and his men constantly feared would be overrun by the Taliban.

With no roof, a grenade could be lobbed over at any time and there was not even a lock on the gate.

There was little to stop insurgents sneaking in at night to 'slit their throats', Jonathan Goldberg QC told yesterday's appeal hearing.

Fly-blown Checkpoint Omar had no running water, no cooking facilities and no refrigerator, despite the suffocating 50C heat. Accommodation and living quarters consisted of broiling hot metal shipping containers.

Absurdly for a supposedly secure British base  deep in Taliban country  the makeshift surrounding wall was so low that anyone passing on a tractor could peer into the camp.

This is the exposed and squalid camp which Sergeant Alexander Blackman and his men constantly feared would be overrun by the Taliban

The remote outpost was home to Sgt Blackman and the 15 or so Marines he commanded for six hellish months. They rarely saw their superiors, and it was judged too dangerous for visits from the padre.

They were so undermanned they had go on gruelling patrols twice daily, instead of once, in countryside littered with Taliban mines known as improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

It was described as the 'most dangerous square mile on Earth' and a 'breeding ground' for mental health problems. Documentary maker Chris Terrill, who was embedded with another group of Marines less than three miles away, told the Royal Courts of Justice: 'Each step of each man was potentially his last, without exaggeration.'

He said hidden bombs 'were everywhere and everyone knew that detonation would mean either death or loss of lower limbs and genitalia  the signature injuries of the Afghan war'.

Mr Terrill said his patrol once found the remains of a Marine killed by the Taliban, who had strung his severed legs in a tree and booby-trapped them.

He said: 'The Taliban  always trying to goad the Marines  knew that they always searched for all the remains of their comrades to include them in the coffin returning to the United Kingdom. We all knew likewise that the fate of any man captured by the Taliban was to be skinned alive, scalping, castration and crucifixion.'

Mr Goldberg told the court: 'These patrols are ghastly. Sergeant Blackman is man who is a loner anyway  and in a lonely situation. He's on his own in a ghastly place, leading young men under his command.

'They are undermanned so they are having to do two patrols a day. The terror that one must have, knowing that every step could be your last.'

He added: 'It hardly needs a psychiatrist to point out that the conditions under which Blackman was serving at Checkpoint Omar were ripe for mental illness or breakdown.

'Every man has his breaking point  even the toughest, and even the best.'
Audrey Hepburn's eldest son is being sued by the charity he helped establish in her name because, it says, he is interfering with its attempts to raise money for children.

The Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund sued Sean Ferrer on Wednesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, saying that he had spent the last four years becoming increasingly 'hostile' to its use of Hepburn's intellectual property (IP).

It says he 'seeks to entirely control, limit and prohibit' the use of the IP unless it pays a 'significant portion' of money raised to another charity of his choice, 'or to simply preclude' it from using the IP at all, The Hollywood Reporter wrote.

Audrey Hepburn's eldest son, Sean Ferrer (right) is being sued by the charity he and his half-brother founded after he allegedly tried to stop it from using Hepburn's dresses in exhibitions

Ferrer and half-brother Luca Dotti started the charity in 1993, the year their mother died of cancer, as Hollywood for Children, hoping to continue her enthusiasm for helping kids.

That was to be achieved largely by exhibiting her clothing - some created by famed fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy - which the brothers jointly own.

In 1998 they gave the charity, which supports children's centers Los Angeles and New Orleans hospitals, its present title. But ten years later, the suit claims, things began to go wrong.

The crux of the problem is that both brothers equally own Audrey Hepburn's IP - including her image and former possessions - and previously agreed that they each have 'unrestricted unilateral authority' to license it out to third parties.

The suit says that became an issue after Ferrer ran into financial difficulties in 2008 and 2009 due to a divorce and real-estate troubles, according to Variety.

In 2012 he stepped down from the board, leaving Dotti as the chairman, but the following year he ordered the fund to stop using Hepburn's IP - specifically the use of her dresses - in its fundraising, the suit says.

It claims that Ferrer then took control of the charity's online accounts, and started up a new site and emails without Dotti's consent.

Ferrer and half-brother Luca Dotti (pictured) have equal rights to Hepburn's intellectual property; the suit alleges Ferrer is demanding money raised in exchange for allowing exhibitions to occur

He then threatened potential exhibitors in China, Korea and Australia with lawsuits if they hosted his mother's items in fundraising exhibitions for the charity, the suit says.

That allegedly resulted in the Australian exhibition being postponed and the Korean one canceled.

The suit also alleges that Ferrer tried to get Hubert de Givenchy to falsify a donation letter regarding the dresses he made.

The fund is suing Ferrer for intentional interference with contractual relationships, and seeking damages.

It is also demanding an injunction to stop him from registering any domain names based on Hepburn's name, and and to stop him interfering with the Fund's partners.

Attorney Steven E Young says that if the court does not 'definitively [declare] the rights, obligations and duties as between the Fund and Ferrer with regard to the use of the Hepburn IP' the charity will be jeopardized.

Emails and a phone message left for Ferrer's attorney Wednesday were not returned.

Hepburn had Ferrer in 1960 with then-husband Mel Ferrer, whom she divorced in 1968.
Theresa May yesterday signalled a climbdown over changes to school funding which have sparked a bitter backlash from rural MPs.

Ministers have drawn up a new funding formula, which calculates how much schools receive, in a bid to make it fairer.

Under rules which date back to the last Labour government, some schools in urban areas currently receive thousands of pounds per pupil more than those in rural areas.

Theresa May yesterday signalled a climbdown over changes to school funding which have sparked a bitter backlash from rural MPs. Ministers have drawn up a new funding formula, which calculates how much schools receive, in a bid to make it fairer

But when the new proposals were published last months, they caused fury among Conservative MPs whose local schools are set to lose out.

Mrs May was confronted in the Commons over the plans by former shadow Europe minister Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs.

At Prime Ministers Questions he told her schools in Trafford are among the 40 worst-funded in the country.

But he added Perversely, the draft funding formula would actually cut funding to Trafford schools, not increase it.

When she reviews the draft proposals, will she please look for a new formula that guarantees that all the worst-funded areas see an increase in funding, not a cut?

Mrs May said it was an important matter, adding: The current system of funding is unfair, not transparent and out of date.

I want a system that supports our aspiration to ensure that every child has a good school place.

Last week Sir Hugo Swire, MP for East Devon, said all the areas secondaries would end up worse off. Mrs May listened to concerns and said she would look closely at the responses to a consultation on the reforms.

She added: In looking at these reforms, I can assure him that we want to get this right, which is why we are consulting and why we will look closely at the responses to the consultation.

Last week Sir Hugo Swire, MP for East Devon, said all the areas secondaries would end up worse off. Mrs May listened to concerns and said she would look closely at the responses to a consultation on the reforms.

In the City of London the average cash per pupil each year is around 8,500, while in Shropshire it is just 4,402.

Last week Sir Hugo Swire, the MP for East Devon, said in the Commons: If these proposals are adopted, the historically underfunded constituency of East Devon will have 15 primary schools that gain while 20 lose out, and all our secondary schools will lose out. That is clearly neither fair nor acceptable.
A kind angler who paid thousands of dollars to take a lonely fisherman on the trip of a lifetime has slammed claims he was cashing in on the widower's heartbreaking story.

Ray Johnstone, 75, felt so alone after his fishing buddy died that he placed an advert on Gumtree seeking a new friend to head out to the water with him.

Mati Batsinilas, 22, rose to the occasion and dished out on an all-expenses paid trip for Mr Johnstone, flying him from Adelaide to Moreton Bay, Queensland, and putting him up for three nights.

Mr Batsinilas and his friends took him on a tour of Stradbroke Island and struck up a great friendship as they reeled in some massive fish.

But now the generous angler has faced claims he only took the pensioner on the trip to promote his fishing business - something he hotly disputes, not just because he doesn't even own one.

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Mati Batsinilas took Ray Johnstone, 75, on the fishing trip of a lifetime after the lonely pensioner's friend died

But now the generous angler has faced claims he only took the pensioner on the trip to promote his fishing business - something he hotly disputes, not just because he does not even own one

Mr Batsinilas was dogged with claims by Dom Knight for News.com.au on Thursday that he only took Mr Johnstone out fishing because it was 'an opportunity to showcase their brand in the national media'.

It particularly took issue with Mr Batsinilas and his family wearing clothes emblazoned with the name of his Facebook group, Bats Fishing, which he and his friends use to post pictures of recent catches.

The column also suggested that the elderly man find a fishing buddy who will 'take him out without a camera crew'.

Mr Batsinilas hit back in anger, telling Daily Mail Australia that he doesn't own a fishing company and has no reason to promote one.

'I've got nothing to promote. Never once have I owned a fishing business. I'm a carpenter,' he said.

'I did this out of goodwill and nothing else. I've not received one dollar for help with this, apart from my close family and friends.'

He added that fishing brands had offered him gear for the trip but he had turned them down.

'It's a waste of time article because everyone knows me and they know it's not true,' he said.

Mr Batsinilas hit back with fury after reading the article on Thursday morning

Mr Batsinilas' and his friends took Mr Johnstone on a tour of Stradbroke Island and struck up a great friendship as they reeled in some massive fish

Ray Johnstone, 75, felt so alone after his fishing buddy died that he placed an advert on Gumtree seeking a new friend to head out to the water with him

Mr Batsinilas was dogged with claims by Dom Knight (pictured) for News.com.au

'I got annoyed. They tried to make me look like I was doing it to a boost a fishing company which we don't have.

'We're just a bunch of mates who show off what we catch on Facebook  no money.

'We only support small businesses owned by our mates on our clothes,' Mr Batsinilas added, saying that most of the logos are for his friend's tackle business and for a fishing magazine he occasionally writes for.

'I spent over $2,500 for flights, food and fuel for the boats for Ray, possibly even more. It doesn't even faze me to look at my bank balance because it wasn't about that,' he added.

The new friends managed to reel in a number of massive whiting at Stradbroke Island after Mr Johnstone flew in from Adelaide.

They snapped multiple selfies and Mr Johnstone was pictured beaming as they boarded the boat and set sail.

Elderly widower Ray Johnstone found a fishing buddy to replace a deceased friend after his heartbreaking Gumtree ad went viral

He posted on the online classifieds site last week seeking a fellow lonely angler to enjoy regular days out in waters around Adelaide

Mr Johnstone was flown to Brisbane for the all-expenses-paid fishing expedition and returned home to Adelaide earlier this week.

'I offered him a holiday away - and not just for fishing, but to get away and relax,' Mr Batsinilas told the ABC.

'I said from the beginning to Ray that we would get there and that I would commit to it and do it.'

Mr Batsinilas said the weather was perfect for their outing and said it was incredible to see the elderly man smile.

On Tuesday, the angler posted a photo of himself, Mr Johnstone and his entire family and thanked the public for the 'kind words'.

'I just want to thank everyone for their kind words and remind you all that this was a family effort, not just mine,' he wrote.

On Tuesday, the 22-year-old angler posted a photo of himself, Mr Johnstone and his entire family and thanked the public for the 'kind words'

The great-grandfather left his contact details so potential buddies could organise to meet up and 'see if we could get along with each other'

Mr Johnstone had posted on Gumtree's classified ads section last week seeking a fellow lonely angler.

'What I want is a fishing mate in a similar position to myself who also wants someone to go fishing with,' he wrote.

The former toolmaker and quality control officer said he usually went fishing from land and had all the gear, but was happy to head out on the water.

He even offered to pay all the ramp fees if his new mate had a boat, in addition to splitting petrol, bait and other costs.

Mr Johnstone's ad, including a photo of himself and picturesque shots of his favourite fishing spots, was viewed more than 15,000 times.

The great-grandfather of nine left his contact details so potential buddies could organise to meet up and 'see if we could get along with each other'.
Stephen Beer is one of those who say the church will use its position to address the issues of excessive executive pay

The Church of England has told Britains biggest firms it will fight bosses who hand themselves bumper pay deals.

The Church Investors Group  which looks after 17billion  wrote to bosses of the biggest 350 firms to warn it would not tolerate executive pay out of kilter with that of ordinary employees.

It follows figures showing pay for FTSE 100 chief executives rose from an average of 1million in 1998 to 4.3million in 2015.

Stephen Beer, of the central finance board of the Methodist Church, said: Church investors have long sought to address excessive executive pay.

Through the letter we have reminded companies of our concerns and asked for further information about how internal pay differentials are monitored and incorporated into executive pay policies.

The Church Investors Group, whose members include the Church of England, represents 59 related charities and groups. It has a track record of standing up to high pay and taking a stance against companies it feels are not acting in the interests of consumers.

It previously sold off its stake in payday lender Wonga at the insistence of the Archbishop of Canterbury and it has committed to cut investments in fossil fuel companies.

Last year, the fund, which invests in blue-chips including BP, Vodafone and HSBC, voted against nearly two-thirds of company pay reports. The Church wrote to FTSE 350 firms last week informing them of the voting policy it will use at annual general meetings.

It also covered issues such as the number of women on boards and climate change.

Theresa May recently said corporate pay was excessive and has issued a green paper with ideas to control it.

Companies face a backlash as consumers fight back against the elite which they feel have profited from austerity.

Crucially many of the biggest firms have binding pay votes, meaning if shareholders reject them the company is obliged to alter board members deals.

Some of the biggest names in the FTSE 100 suffered revolts by shareholders last year.

Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP and Britains best-paid boss, received a total payout of 70.4million in 2015. Bob Dudley, of oil giant BP, saw his pay packet of 13.8million rejected by shareholders.

Meanwhile the boss of Reckitt Benckiser, Rakesh Kapoor, saw his pay almost double to 23million last year.

A binding vote on director pay occurs only once every three years and means shareholders must approve the remuneration package.

Experts have warned of a shareholder spring 2.0 with so many companies set to face disgruntled shareholders over their pay packages.

The Church will not stand alone against boardroom fat cats as a group of fund managers is understood to have agreed to work together to tackle excessive boardroom pay.

Aberdeen Asset Management, Investec Asset Management, Standard Life Investments and M&G Investments are believed to be among 13 firms looking at the issue.

US investment giant BlackRock, which manages 4trillion of assets, has written to bosses warning it would vote against proposals for executive pay or pensions perks. Stefan Stern, of The High Pay Centre think-tank, said: There is a clearly a moral issue to executive pay which we shouldnt shy away from and you would expect the church to speak out on that.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has launched another scathing attack on Labor Leader Bill Shorten, the day after he dressed him down in Parliament.

Mr Turnbull labelled the Opposition Leader a 'fake' on Thursday, claiming even his own colleagues believe he has 'no integrity'.

The PM's latest personal attack on Mr Shorten comes a day after he accused him of being a 'sycophant' and a 'parasite' in an angry tirade in Parliament on Wednesday.

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Prime Minister Malcolm Tunrbull, seen here in Canberra amid debate about the Family Tax Benefit cut, has launched another scathing attack on Bill Shorten

Mr Turnbull labelled the Opposition Leader (pictured) a 'fake' on Thursday

On Wednesday Mr Turnbull launched a blistering attack on the Labor leader in Parliament

'He doesn't have a fair dinkum bone in him,' the Prime Minister said outside Parliament House on Thursday.

'He wants to play the man of envy but he's been a sycophant to the billionaires of Melbourne for years and years, everyone knows that.'

Mr Turnbull also accused Mr Shorten of not having the character to be prime minister, and said he lacked the integrity to lead the Labor Party.

'The people who know him best are his own colleagues, they know he is a fake, he has no integrity, he has no consistency,' the PM said.

Mr Turnbull's initial attack has won favour with his coalition MPs and some cross benchers.

'It reminded me of Julia Gillard's misogyny speech. It was up there,' crossbench senator Nick Xenophon said.

'He is a fake, he has no integrity': Mr Turnbull said of Mr Shorten on Thursday

Bill Shorten visited the CIT Trade Centre in Canberra, brushing off Mr Turnbull's attack

The PM is seen here speaking to young families at Parliament House

'I'm sure it's going to go viral if it hasn't already.'

Labor MPs, unsurprisingly, had a different view.

'We saw the big dummy spit as the silver spoon got spat across the dispatch box when he was questioned about his attack on families,' opposition backbencher Rob Mitchell said.

'What we've seen is a prime minister who said to Australians yesterday if you're not a billionaire you're not worth s**t.'

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce thoroughly enjoyed Mr Turnbull's performance, taking a dig at Mr Shorten latching onto the 'Mr Harbourside Mansion' jibe at the prime minister.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce also took a swipe at Mr Shorten on Wednesday

Mr Turnbull accused the Labor leader of being a 'sycophant' and a 'parasite' in an angry tirade

If he had a choice between someone running the country with 'the arse out of their pants who has never made a buck' or someone who had actually got ahead, he'd back the latter.

'We're not going to have Mr Shorten going out there, bucketing on us and just keep on taking it on the chin everyday,' Mr Joyce told ABD radio.

Labor senator Sam Dastyari coined it the 'know-your-place speech'.

'You have Lord Turnbull of Wentworth sitting there and dictating to everybody else,' told reporters, adding the prime minister was obsessed with Mr Shorten when he should be passionate about education and schools.

Mr Shorten has brushed off the barbs, saying he felt sorry for the prime minister.

'The drums are beating in the corridors of Canberra about whether or not he will remain as Liberal leader and I think he is showing pressure,' he told 7.30.
Grieving families whose loved ones were killed in the IRA Hyde Park bombing have been refused legal aid to bring a private prosecution against the chief suspect.

In a ruling that has sparked anger, the Legal Aid Agency threw out the families bid for 317,000 of taxpayers money to fund their fight for justice.

The agency said it would be a waste of public funds to haul John Downey before the courts.

The Legal Aid Agency threw out the families bid for 317,000 of taxpayers money to fund their fight for justice against chief suspect John Downey, above

IRA man Downey, 65, is accused of murdering four soldiers and injuring 31 in the July 1982 blast  one of the terror groups most notorious mainland atrocities.

The attack killed four members of the Royal Household Cavalry on their way to a Changing of the Guard ceremony.

Seven horses also died but another, Sefton, survived and became a national hero. A nail bomb containing 25lb of explosives was hidden in a car and detonated by remote control as the troopers rode past.

Lance Corporal Jeffery Young, 19, Squadron Quartermaster Corporal Roy Bright, 36, Lieutenant Anthony Daly, 23, and Trooper Simon Tipper, 19, died.

But the case against Downey collapsed in February 2014 after a catalogue of blunders by police and prosecutors. That forced the appalled families to attempt to bring a private prosecution.

People lay floral tributes at the scene of IRA Hyde Park bombing, 1982. The families will not be able to use public funds for a private prosecution

Sefton, the horse injured in the IRA Hyde Park bombing, became a national hero after seven horses died

In March last year, the director of the Legal Aid Agency, Shaun McNally, dealt them a blow by ruling out funding their case against Downey  claiming it was not in the public interest.

Last October a High Court judge ordered a review of that decision, arguing that putting the alleged killer on trial could be a real benefit to the general public. But now the agency has rejected stumping up the cash, despite admitting the case had significant wider public interest. It said the costs of funding the families case was not proportionate to the benefits  effectively a waste of money.

Mark Tipper, the brother of Trooper Tipper, said: This just causes further pain. The man we want to stand in court and answer for his actions was set free because of mistakes by our Government departments. The fact that another Government agency wont pick up the baton is another slap in the face to all of us.

HOW OMAGH BOMBING VICTIMS WERE BETRAYED TOO... UNTIL THE MAIL STEPPED IN Families of the Omagh bombing victims were told they would not qualify for legal aid to launch a successful civil action against four Real IRA terrorists. The blast in August 1998 was the biggest single act of bloodshed during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The death toll was 29 including a woman pregnant with twins. When the criminal justice system had failed to bring the killers to justice two years after the atrocity, the families approached the Mail for help. Readers responded magnificently to this newspapers appeal, helping raise 1.2million towards the landmark case for damages. Days before the fifth anniversary of the attack, the Government agreed to find the extra 800,000 needed to bring the action to court. In 2009 a Belfast judge ruled that convicted IRA leader Michael McKevitt, Liam Campbell, Seamus Daly and Colm Murphy were behind the atrocity. They were ordered to pay 1.6million in damages to relatives of the victims  although the relatives are still pursuing the compensation. Advertisement

Downey, from Donegal, was due to stand trial at the Old Bailey, but the convicted IRA terrorist was told he would not face prosecution when he mistakenly received a letter saying he was not wanted

Downey, from Donegal, was due to stand trial at the Old Bailey, but the convicted IRA terrorist was told he would not face prosecution because he mistakenly received a comfort letter  nicknamed a get out of jail free card  sent to 187 on-the-run paramilitary suspects saying they were not wanted by police.

The letters were issued after a secret deal between members of Tony Blairs government and IRA leaders under the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. The 317,000 needed to fund a private prosecution is a drop in the ocean compared with the millions the Police Service of Northern Ireland is spending on a witch-hunt by investigating up to 1,000 ex-soldiers, now in their 60s and 70s, as part of a re-examination of every British Army killing during the Troubles.

Matthew Jury, of law firm McCue and Partners, which represents the families, said: The state is willing to spend millions to investigate and prosecute UK veterans  many for actions they took combating terrorism.

Yet, when it comes to the murder of four British soldiers, the Legal Aid Agencys position is that there isnt enough public benefit to warrant the cost of bringing their alleged killer to trial. This begs the question, when it comes to justice, is a soldiers life worth less?
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer insisted on Wednesday that the counter-terrorism raid in Yemen that reportedly left roughly 30 people dead was 'absolutely a success' even though a top Republican lawmaker says otherwise.

Spicer said that casting aspersions on the raid amounted to doing a 'disservice' to the Navy SEAL who died in the operation, but Republican Senator John McCain isn't budging from his assessment that the raid in Yemen wasn't a success after he was criticized by the White House.

Just five days after taking the White House, President Donald Trump signed off on the Navy SEAL team mission in Yemen targeting al-Qaeda leaders and intelligence that President Obama had previously passed on.

A Navy SEAL died in the raid. Innocent civilians, including children, were also killed in the raid.

Three other US service members were wounded.

McCain says any operation where a $75 million airplane is lost, a Navy SEAL is killed, and there are multiple casualties, including women and children, 'cannot be labeled a success.'

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer (left) insists that the raid in Yemen that left a Navy SEAL and numerous Yemenite civilians dead was 'absolutely a success' even though Senator John McCain (right) says that the operation 'cannot be labeled a success'

On Tuesday, McCain was quoted as saying the mission - the first major military decision ordered by President Donald Trump - was a 'failure,' but a day later he appeared to soften his assessment.

His remarks came after White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the operation was a 'huge success' and that anyone who questions the success of the Yemen operation is doing a 'disservice' to the life of Navy SEAL Ryan Owens.

McCain recalled a failed 1970 mission to rescue US service members held in North Vietnam.

'Many years ago when I was imprisoned in North Vietnam there was an attempt to rescue the POWs,' McCain told Politico.

'Unfortunately, the prison had been evacuated but the brave men who took - risked their lives in an effort to rescue us prisoners of war were genuine American heroes,' McCain, who chairs the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, said.

The White House has not publicly announced the news and neither has President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi (pictured). Yemen's ambassador to the US has said in an interview the country's cooperation should not come 'at the expense of the Yemeni citizens and the country's sovereignty'

'Because the mission failed did not in any way diminish their courage and willingness to help their fellow Americans who were held captive. Mr. Spicer should know that story.'

'Any connection between success or failure and the heroism of men and women who serve, there is none,' he says.

According to White House insiders, Trump reportedly agreed to the operation after he was told the former president 'wouldn't have been bold enough' to go for the 'game-changer', CNBC reported an official saying.

The raid - which Trump labeled a 'success' - left a SEAL Team 6 member and an eight-year-American old girl dead on January 29 and caused outrage in the Middle Eastern country.

Chief Petty Officer William 'Ryan' Owens (left), a 36-year-old from Illinois, was killed along with eight-year-old Nawar al-Awlaki (right), also known as Nora, in the botched raid on January 29

Although the White House has not publicly announced the news, Yemen's ambassador to the US said the country's cooperation should not come 'at the expense of the Yemeni citizens and the country's sovereignty'.

Trump flew to Delaware to be present and honor the first military casualty of his presidency, Chief Special Warfare Officer William 'Ryan' Owens, as the SEAL's body was returned to US soil on February 1.

Despite the Trump's administration labeling the mission as a 'success' on Tuesday US military officials told Reuters, however, that Trump approved his first covert counter-terrorism operation without sufficient intelligence, ground support or adequate backup preparation.

He ordered the attack after Obama had deferred the decision to the 45th president.

The purpose of the mission was to recover laptops, cell phones and other intelligence that would help battle Al Qaeda groups in the region.

Spicer said the operation gained 'an unbelievable amount of intelligence' in the raid 'that will prevent potential deaths or attacks on American soil.'

The Defense Department denies allegations that the day's true purpose was aimed at the high-ranking terrorist and Al Qaeda leader Qassim al-Rimi.

In the attack, Owens was killed in the raid on a branch of al Qaeda, in al Bayda province, which the Pentagon said killed 14 militants.

The White House denies that the secret target of last week's Navy SEAL raid was al-Qaeda's head operative in the Arabian Peninsula, Qassim al-Rimi. He is still alive and has taunted Donald Trump in an audio recording released Sunday

Al-Rimi said: 'The White House's new fool has received a painful blow at your hands in his first outing on your land.' Pictured: Debris following the raid

The 8-year-old daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, a militant killed by a 2011 US drone strike, was also one of the dead.

Medics at the scene said about 30 people, including 10 women and children, were killed.

The president of Yemen voiced concerns about the raid according to the country's ambassador to the United States, Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak, reported The New York Times.

He said in an interview with Al Jazeera: 'Yemen's government is a key partner in the war against terrorism.

He also said Yemen's willingness to work with America should not come 'at the expense of the Yemeni citizens and the country's sovereignty'.
Dramatic footage shows the moment police swooped on a knife-wielding suspect outside a busy commuter station in London.

Witnesses reported sightings of a man holding a 'massive knife' outside Ealing Broadway Station at around 8pm on Wednesday.

Police rushed to the scene and grabbed the suspect, who was arrested on suspicion of possessing an offensive weapon.

Dramatic footage shows the moment police swooped on a knife-wielding suspect outside Ealing Broadway station in west London on Wednesday evening

Footage shows numerous police holding the suspect down as crowds surround the operation by the station in west London.

The video also pans around to sirens from more than one emergency vehicle flashing in the dark.

The footage was posted on social media by witness Gemma Pollard, who said: 'Seven police cars and undercover outside Ealing Broadway NatWest. Man with massive knife.'

She told the Mirror Online: 'I was by NatWest Ealing Broadway when two police cars arrived.

The footage (pictured) was posted on social media by witness Gemma Pollard, who said that up to seven police cars (right) arrived to deal with the threat

'There were already undercover officers with a man detained, a further five police cars arrived and we realised the man had a butchers knife on him.

She added that he was taken away  which was confirmed by police  after officers restrained his legs.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: 'We were called just after 8pm to Ealing Broadway station due to concerns for a man in possession of a knife.

'He was arrested on suspicion of possession of an offensive weapon and taken to a west London police station.'
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GKTodays Current Affairs Today Section provides latest and Best Daily Current Affairs 2021-2022 for UPSC, IAS/PCS, Banking, IBPS, SSC, Railway, UPPSC, RPSC, BPSC, MPPSC, TNPSC, MPSC, KPSC and other competition exams.      !

The report titled The Adaptation Gap Report 2022: Too Little, Too Slow  Climate adaptation failure puts world at risk was released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). ContentsAbout the Adaptation Gap ReportWhat is adaptation?What are the key findings of the AGR 2022?What are the reports recommendations? About the Adaptation Gap Report The Adaptation ..

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The Union Education Ministry released the detailed report on Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) 2021-22 on school education of India. ContentsAbout UDISEAbout UDISE+UDISE+ 2020-21 report dataUDISE+ 2021-22 report data About UDISE Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) was initiated in 2012-13. It is one of the largest Management Information Systems on ..

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1. Who is the head of the panel set up to strengthen the assessment and accreditation of higher educational institutions? [A] K Radhakrishnan[B] Kasturi Rangan[C] Amitabh Kant[D] V K Paul Show Answer Correct Answer: A [K Radhakrishnan] Notes:The Central Government has set up a high-level panel to strengthen the assessment and accreditation of higher educational ..

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Here are Todays News Headlines by GK Today for November 5, 2022 ContentsINDIAECONOMY & CORPORATEWORLDSPORTS INDIA  President Droupadi Murmu inaugurates and lays foundation stone for various Central and State govt projects in Sikkim  Centre constitutes panel for strengthening assessment and accreditation of Higher Educational Institutions, headed by Dr. K. Radhakrishnan of IIT, Kanpur ..

Month: Current Affairs  November, 2022

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1. Which of the following countries are members of Indo-Pacific Economic Framework? Philippines Brunei Fiji Vietnam Malaysia Taiwan Choose the correct answer using the codes given below: [A] Only 1, 2, 3 & 5[B] Only 2, 4, 5 & 6[C] Only 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5[D] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 Show ..

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US News and World Report, an American media company, released Best Countries 2022 ranking recently. ContentsWhat is US News and World Reports Best Countries 2022 rankingHow did India perform in this report?How did the other countries perform? What is US News and World Reports Best Countries 2022 ranking The Best Countries 2022 ranking evaluated 85 ..

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A Sydney real estate agent, 23, has been charged after allegedly renting a safe house to Rebels bikie associates including the man accused of executing underworld figure Pasquale Barbaro.

Enfield real estate agent Christopher Polley was arrested on Wednesday and charged with perverting the course of justice and allegedly hindering a 15-month long investigation into criminal activity of the Burwood chapter of Outlaw Motorcycle Gang (OMCG).

It is alleged Mr Polley was aware the Concord retail property was being used as an alleged safe house by Rebel bikies. It it is further claimed Polley lied to officers to protect the tenant,7 News reports.

Sydney real estate agent Christopher Polley, 23, has been charged after allegedly renting a safe house to Rebels bikies including the man accused of executing underworld figure Pasquale Barbaro

The address had caught the attention of the NSW gangs squad's Strike Force Raptor, which began investigating the activities of the Burwood chapter of the Rebels in November 2015.

The real estate agent had been interviewed twice by officers about a possible safe house during the investigations.

During a raid at the property in September, police found 13 firearms, ammunition, ballistic protection, an electronic stun device, methylamphetamine, MDMA, and items consistent with drug supply.

Senior Rebels bikie Abuzar Sultani, 27, and 30-year-old associate Viliami Finau, were charged over the seized items.

Sultani is alleged to have played a large part in gang activity over the past three years and is accused of executing Barbaro, who was shot on an Earlwood footpath in November.

It is alleged Mr Polley was aware the Concord retail property was allegedly being used as a safe house by Rebel bikies (Pictured: accused shooter Abuzar Sultani)

Sultani is alleged to have played a large part in gang activity over the past three years and is accused of executing Sydney underworld figure Pasquale Barbaro (pictured), who was shot on an Earlwood footpath in November.

The Concord address had caught the attention of the NSW gangs squad's Strike Force Raptor, which began investigating the activities of the Burwood chapter of the Rebels in November 2015 (stock image)

Polley pleaded not guilty at Burwood Local Court (pictured) during his first court appearance on Wednesday

Polley was charged on Tuesday with perverting the course of justice and hindering an investigation, with police alleging he provided false and misleading statements on two occasions.

He pleaded not guilty at Burwood Local Court during his first court appearance on Wednesday.

Bail was not applied for and was formally refused, Polley's case will return to court on April 5.

His profile was removed from the Elders Inner West website on Wednesday.

'Chris Polley is well on his way for embarking on a successful career in real estate,' an online biography read.

It listed Polley's 'frequent communication and friendly demeanour' among his strong points.

'He firmly believes in doing things properly the first time and always gives that little bit extra to achieve results beyond his clients' expectations.'




Elderly people who are told they qualify for home care are having to wait up to a year for their first visit from a carer, shocking figures revealed last night.

A survey of councils revealed many vulnerable people routinely face delays of more than six months before they get the help they need with tasks such as washing, dressing, cleaning and cooking.

Under one authority, the delay for delivery of an adult social care package stretched to longer than a year.

The waits faced by older people, usually those with serious health and disability problems, were revealed in a survey conducted by ITV News.

Some elderly people (stock photograph) are now having to wait for up to a year to get their first home visit from a carer

At the same time, separate figures revealed extraordinary delays in discharging patients from hospitals into nursing homes. Almost three quarters of hospitals in England have had patients wait for more than 100 days to be discharged, even though they are medically fit to leave, a study suggests.

A third report from the Institute for Public Policy Research think tank yesterday concluded that Britain needs to recruit 1.6million health and social care workers in the next five years.

With the care system said to be facing a 2.6billion black hole, council leaders last night demanded the Prime Minister draw up a new solution to the crisis.

Among the 80 councils that provided information for the ITV investigation, more than half admitted that there are delays of more than a month between a package being agreed and the point that it starts. In one case in North Somerset the delay stretched to 377 days.

In all, during a single week last December, 2,351 vulnerable and mainly elderly people in England were waiting for a care package they had been promised to start

Spending on social care has fallen, according to the latest independent analysis, by six per cent to 16.4billion in the year to this spring. Local councils have made sweeping cuts in the numbers of people who qualify for free care or help at home.

This has had a knock-on effect for the NHS, with delayed discharges from hospital  known as bed blocking  soaring 142 per cent in the past six years.

Around 134,000 NHS bed days are now lost each month because no suitable nursing accommodation can be found for patients who are well enough to be discharged, according to a BBC survey. One 62-year-old patient spent 449 days waiting to be discharged by Mid Yorkshire Hospitals.

Under one authority, the delay for delivery of an adult social care package stretched to longer than a year (stock photo)

The details, gathered under the Freedom of Information Act, suggest reasons for delays included a lack of home care, nursing home places and support for stroke patients.

Of 62 hospital trusts in England that provided information on delayed discharges over the past three years, 45 said they had experienced patients languishing in hospital for more than 100 days, the BBC reported.

One patient at the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Trust waited 342 days for a care home placement.

The Government last night blamed councils, pointing to a large difference in bed-blocking figures between authorities.

A spokesman said: 'Elderly patients should never be in hospital unnecessarily, which is why this Government is determined to make health and social care more integrated. We have provided councils with up to 7.6billion of dedicated funding for social care over the course of this parliament.

'But this is not solely about money. There is a 30-fold difference between the best and worst performing councils on delayed discharges but certainly not a 30-fold difference in funding.'

Izzi Seccombe, of the Local Government Association, said the care system was facing a funding gap of 2.6billion by 2020. 'Only genuinely new additional government funding will give councils any chance of protecting the services caring for our elderly and disabled and ensure they can enjoy dignified, healthy and independent lives,' she said.
The U.S. Senate voted to confirm Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions as the next attorney general of the United States on Wednesday after fierce opposition from Democrats including Sen. Elizabeth Warren as many question if he can serve as the nation's top law enforcement officer independent from President Donald Trump.

The Alabama lawmaker was confirmed by a narrow 52-47 vote after several of his former colleagues staged a second all-night debate to share their opposition of his nomination over his civil rights record to become the 84th attorney general of the United States.

Trump took to Twitter shortly after Sessions was confirmed on Wednesday evening to say congratulations.

Sessions, who spent more than two decades in the Senate, is expected to be sworn into the position on Thursday morning by Vice President Mike Pence.

The Republican majority who voted in favor of Sessions for the position was joined by just one Democrat - Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

Sessions voted present, and when the tally was announced many senators broke into extended applause for their colleague.

Trump has harangued Democrats for slow-walking his nominees, blasting their unprecedented obstruction as a 'disgrace.'

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The U.S. Senate voted to confirm Republican Senator Jeff Sessions (above in January) as the next attorney general of the United States on Wednesday in a 52-47 vote

President Donald Trump took to Twitter shortly after Sessions was confirmed on Wednesday evening to say congratulations

He appeared particularly angered by the delay on Sessions, who as attorney general would wield enormous power regarding the administration of justice, including on the issue of voting rights.

Sessions, widely seen as an inspiration for Trump's anti-immigration policies, is just the sixth of 15 cabinet members to be confirmed, in addition to the cabinet-rank positions of CIA director and US ambassador to the United Nations.

Sessions takes charge of the Justice Department and its 113,000 employees, including the 93 US attorneys throughout the country.

He steps in amid a swirling legal debate over Trump's most controversial White House action to date, an executive order temporarily blocking all refugee arrivals and immigration from seven mainly Muslim countries.

The genteel Sessions, who like the president is 70, was an early loyal Trump supporter who became a pivotal figure in his campaign and transition team.

He was a US attorney for the southern district of Alabama from 1981 to 1993, before serving two years as the state's attorney general. He won a seat in the US Senate in 1996.

But in 1986 his career was almost derailed when a US Senate panel rejected his nomination for a judgeship amid concerns over past comments he made about blacks, and over remarks that appeared sympathetic to the Ku Klux Klan.

Sessions (above), widely seen as an inspiration for Trump's anti-immigration policies, is just the sixth of 15 cabinet members to be confirmed, in addition to the cabinet-rank positions of CIA director and US ambassador to the United Nations

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said earlier Wednesday that he can only hope Coretta Scott King would have supported Sessions' nomination to be attorney general

Earlier Wednesday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer came to the defense of Sessions saying he hoped Coretta Scott King would have supported Trump's choice of Sessions to be Attorney General  after Republicans voted to silence Warren when she read a letter during a floor speech from MLK's late widow bashing Sessions.

Spicer addressed the simmering controversy just hours after the GOP-led Senate voted to rebuke Warren by finding her in violation of a rarely enforced rule that prohibits speakers from impugning another senator after she quoted a letter King wrote in opposition to Sessions for a federal judgeship in 1986, when he was under fire for alleged racism.

The late Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter has said his vote against Sessions, who later got elected to the Senate from Alabama, is a vote he regrets.

'Like the late Arlen Specter, I can only hope that if she was still with us today, that after getting to know [Sessions] and to see his record and his commitment to voting and civil rights, that she would share the same views that Sen. Specter did,' Spicer told reporters Wednesday.

'We have a lot of respect for her and the sacrifices that she made and the sacrifices that frankly she endured in her life,' Spicer said, when asked about the floor fight over sessions and the political tumult that followed the decision to silence Warren.

He said he 'respectfully disagree with her assessment of senator Sessions then and now,' calling his record on civil and voting rights 'outstanding.' He added: 'I would just hope if she were still with us today that she would share the sentiments of former Senator Specter.'

King wrote a letter to the Senate in opposition to Sessions, saying: 'Mr. Sessions' conduct as a US Attorney, from his politically-motivated voting fraud prosecutions to his indifference toward criminal violations of civil rights laws, indicated that he lacks the temperament, fairness and judgment to be a federal judge.'

Warren read from that letter, only to be stopped by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and rebuked by a vote of the Senate.

Warren has made the most of her situation after Republicans rebuked her for impugning a fellow senator  racking up online views of her speech that got shut down and rallying fellow Democratic senators to her cause.

Warren earned a rare rebuke by the Senate when the Republican majority found her in violation of a rarely enforced rule that prohibits speakers from impugning another senator when she quoted Coretta Scott King on the Senate floor.

Sen Elizabeth Warren earned a rare rebuke by the Senate for quoting Coretta Scott King on the Senate floor

After Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky interrupted her and the Senate voted to shut down her speech on a party line vote, Warren took to other means to get her view out.

Her speech had been viewed 3 million times online Wednesday morning. A new hashtag, #LetLizSpeak, was trending online as the late-night speech and the rare rebuke was broadcast and rebroadcasted on cable TV.

Warren, who is considered a 2020 presidential contender after sitting out the 2016 race, also took to the airwaves for TV interviews, where she was able to air her criticisms of Sessions for his record on voting rights.

King's letter criticized Sessions' record on voting rights when he was up for a federal judgeship that he failed to get.

She also quoted the late Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy, who said of Sessions at the time: 'He is, I believe, a disgrace to the Justice Department and he should withdraw his nomination and resign his position.'

Democrats have also been making hay out of the way Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell shut her down.

'She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted,' McConnell said.

#ShePersisted became another trending topic on Twitter.

Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile weighed in as well. 'It's a sad day in America when the words of Martin Luther King Jr.'s widow are not allowed on the floor of the United States Senate,' she said. 'Let Elizabeth Warren speak.'

DON'T IMPUGN ME FOR GOING ON TV: Warren participates in a TV interview Wednesday after getting silenced on the Senate floor

Warren ran afoul of the chamber's arcane rules by reading a 30-year-old letter from Dr Martin Luther King's widow, Coretta Scott King (right) that dated to Sen Jeff Sessions' failed judicial nomination three decades ago

Senators sent out supportive tweets, and some of them read the same words that Warren did on the floor, this time without getting shut down.

'I sincerely hope this anti-free speech attitude is not traveling down Pennsylvania Avenue to our great chamber,' said Senate minority leader Charles Schumer of New York.

Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico was among some of Warren's male Democratic colleagues who read from the letter on Wednesday without getting the same rebuke.

The Massachusetts Democrat ran afoul of the chamber's arcane rules by reading a 30-year-old letter from Dr Martin Luther King's widow that dated to Sen Jeff Sessions' failed judicial nomination three decades ago.

The chamber is debating the Alabama Republican's nomination for attorney general, with Democrats dropping senatorial niceties to oppose Sessions and Republicans sticking up for him.

Top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell (pictured) invoked the rules. After a few parliamentary moves, the GOP-controlled Senate voted to back him up

Quoting King technically put Warren in violation of Senate rules for 'impugning the motives' of Sessions, though senators have said far worse stuff. Now, Warren is forbidden from speaking again on Sessions' nomination. A vote on Sessions (pictured) is expected Wednesday evening

King wrote in 1986 that when acting as a federal prosecutor, Sessions used his power to 'chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens.'

Quoting King technically put Warren in violation of Senate rules for 'impugning the motives' of Sessions.

And Warren was reading from a letter that was written 10 years before Sessions was even elected to the Senate.

Still, top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell invoked the rules. After a few parliamentary moves, the GOP-controlled Senate voted to back him up.

'She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted,' McConnell said on the Senate floor.

Now, Warren is forbidden from speaking again on Sessions' nomination. A vote on Sessions is expected Wednesday evening.

'They can shut me up, but they can't change the truth,' Warren later told CNN's Don Lemon.

Democrats seized on the flap to charge that Republicans were muzzling Warren, sparking liberals to take to Twitter to post the King letter in its entirety.
A high school student was fatally shot by a police officer after hitting a man on the head with a hammer and then advancing on the officer with a board in his hand, say police.

Senior Alex Christopher Davis, 18, got into an altercation in a man's home around 4:30pm Tuesday on Jackson County Road 60 in Pisgah, Alabama, according to AL.com.

A Jackson County officer arrived at the scene to find a man bleeding from the head from an apparent hammer blow and Davis knocking out the victim's car windows.

The victim said he ended up in an altercation with Davis, who he said he didn't know, after Davis and another man fought, according to WHNT.

Pisgah High School student Alex Davis was fatally shot by a deputy after an altercation

Authorities say Davis hit a stranger over a head with a hammer and then advanced on the sheriff with a board in his hand

The officer said he tried to subdue Davis with a stun gun, but it had no effect on him. When Davis advanced with a board in his hand on the cop, the sheriff's office says he resorted to deadly force. Davis was pronounced dead on the scene.

Sheriff Chuck Phillips said that Davis had a history of 'problems' though he did not elaborate and it was unclear if drugs or mental illness was involved.

The teen's bus driver, Melissa Morgan Rosalie, said Davis 'always greeted me with a big smile and told me he loved me,' according to WAFF.

The shooting took place on Jackson County Road 60 in Pisgah

The teen's body will be taken to a forensic science lab.

Davis was reportedly a senior at Pisgah High School and his Facebook page says he worked at Hollister Co. and on a farm.
A young woman misdiagnosed as having a 'temper tantrum' died just hours after she was forcibly removed from a Sydney hospital and made to wait for a taxi in the gutter outside.

Michelle McIlquham died of meningitis on May 19, 2009  aged 28 - she had been rushed to Bankstown Hospital following a seizure.

Then when she started 'rocking back and forth, covering her ears and screaming' the doctor on duty decided her symptoms were a tantrum.

Michelle McIlquham died of meningitis on May 19, 2009  aged 28 after being misdiagnosed with 'having a tantrum'

She was sent home where she died just hours later. Her devastated mother Maureen McIlquham still questions the actions of the hospital staff that night and wonders if her daughter would have been treated differently if she wasn't disabled.

'[The doctor] put in her notes, on her discharge notes, that Michelle had a temper tantrum that was more upsetting, that she wasn't sick, she had a temper tantrum, it was because she had an intellectual disability,' Mrs McIlquham told ABC's 7.30 Report.

According to the coroner's report Michelle's discharge papers read: 'the impression is of a tantrum brought on by unrelieved pain and distress from otitis media.'

The doctor acknowledged the 28-year-old was suffering from a middle-ear infection but discharged her without doing further tests, despite the young woman not responding to pain relief medication.

The doctor invoved has relatives with intellectual disabilities, the coroner's report revealed, and had used her 'familiarity with some of the behaviours of her own relatives in her thinking about Ms McIlquham's signs and symptoms'.

Mrs McIlquham remembers her daughter as 'intelligent and bright and charming' but the coroners report found the doctor couldn't see past the woman's disability.

'I told the doctor she wasn't always like (non verbal) this, but I don't think they believed me,' she told the Blue Mountains Gazette.

'It's got to stop. If something doesn't change then more people are going to die and young people are going to die,' Mrs McIlquham said.

'She could speak for herself, but by the time we saw a doctor she wasn't talking, she was in pain and so tired.'

The McIlquham's were sent home from the hospital at 4am, after security were called to make them leave the building.

The concerned mother knew something was wrong so had stayed but left once the doctor brought in security.

'She was reluctant to move. She had to be assisted out of bed and to be placed in a wheelchair to leave the department for the taxi-rank,' the coroner found.

Her devastated mother Maureen McIlquham, right, still questions the actions of the hospital staff that night and wonders if her daughter, left, would have been treated differently if she wasn't disabled

Seven hours later Michelle's sister found her unconscious. Her lips were blue and she couldn't be revives.

An ambulance rushed her to hospital but she pronounced dead at 11.58am.

The coroner recommended a number of changes in the practices, clinical policies and guidelines of the hospital.

These guideline recommendations include patients with developmental disabilities should be reviewed by a senior doctor before being discharged.

In 2013 soon after the findings were made public hospital general manager Chris Leahy confirmed many of the coroner's recommendations had been put in place.

'I would like to offer my deepest sympathy to the McIlquham family,' Mr Leahy told Newslocal.

Researchers at UNSW found people with an intellectual disability are twice as likely to die from something avoidable as the general population.

One in three deaths in people with an intellectual disability are avoidable, according to the research. Half a million Australians live with an intellectual disability.
BBC radio chief and former Labour cabinet minister James Purnell, pictured, has pledged to ban 'elitism' from programmes

A BBC boss has pledged to banish elitism from the broadcasters programmes.

The Corporations radio chief James Purnell, a former Labour cabinet minister, said it would no longer dispense culture from on high  instead taking the position of a thoughtful friend in a bid to broaden its appeal to viewers and listeners.

The move will see the remaking of Kenneth Clarks popular Civilisation series to move away from the idea of audiences being dictated to by a single expert.

In a blog post, Mr Purnell argued that the BBC should modernise by helping audiences to find answers themselves, rather than lecturing them from a position of authority.

The BBC that turns a hundred [in 2022] will have come a long way from its beginnings. It wont be the Auntie that dispensed culture from on high, he wrote.

It will be much more of a thoughtful friend. Prodding us to keep our resolutions, helping us ask and find answers.

'Just as any friendship, it will be mutual. With our audiences asking the questions, helping choose and curate, reflecting and taking part.

He added: We cant turn the clock back and we would not want to even if we could. We can try, though, to get the best of both worlds ... Expertise, without the elitism.

The 295,000-a-year BBC executive has himself benefited from a certain amount of elitism in the past.

In 2013 the BBC controversially named him director of strategy and digital without ever advertising the position.

Last year it did the same again, anointing Mr Purnell as director of radio and education without advertising the role, even though he had no radio broadcasting experience.

The Oxford-educated former politician had previously served as secretary of state for culture, media and sport, and later as work and pensions secretary, under Gordon Brown.

Mr Purnells declaration would mark a major shift for the BBC, which describes its remit as being to inform, educate and entertain.

He said it means that major series like Civilisation belong to a bygone era.

The 1969 documentary series outlined the history of Western philosophy, literature and art, and is fondly remembered by viewers as one of the BBCs seminal productions.

But Mr Purnell, 46, who was born the year after it aired, said the BBC would now tackle the same subjects in the opposite manner, as it revisits the series, which will be presented by historians Mary Beard, Simon Schama and David Olusoga

He wrote: [We have] Civilisations  inspired by Kenneth Clarks seminal documentary series, but in many ways the opposite of the original.

'Rather than a single view of civilisation, we will have three presenters.

Rather than looking at Western civilisation, we will look at many, and question the very concept of civilisation.

Mr Purnell said new film Paterson, pictured, in which Adam Driver plays a bus driver who writes poetry, is an example of how 'culture and knowledge are for everyone'

And, in a somewhat ironic move, Mr Purnell further laid out his plans for a war on elitism with references to an obscure film and the late Cambridge English literature professor FR Leavis.

Learning is not just a means to an end, he said. Its about meaning  about asking and answering the big questions.

'Not in an FR Leavis kind of way  theres no canon, no set texts, nobody is handing down tablets of stone.

Later, Mr Purnell explained his position by discussing Paterson, an art house film by the director Jim Jarmusch.

He said: In Paterson, a ten-year-old girl meets ... a bus driver who writes modernist poetry. A bus driver who likes Emily Dickinson!, she shouts in delight but also unintended slight.

Why shouldnt a bus driver like Emily Dickinson? Culture and knowledge are for everyone.

Mr Purnell also highlighted rising concerns about fake news, adding that the BBC can be a trusted guide through [the] abundance of information  and that todays media is the greatest educational resource the world has ever seen.
Animal rescue officials said on Wednesday that veterinarians are performing reconstructive surgery to fix the nose of a dog who was found brutally disfigured last month.

Baron the Rottweiler was found weeks ago in Detroit with his ears and nose cut off as well as cuts in his tail, according to WJBK-TV.

Animal rescue services are offering a $40,000 reward to anyone with information leading to the arrest of those involved in the dog's abuse.

The dog was rushed to the MHS' Mackey Center for Animal Care in Detroit and is being treated by the shelter's veterinarian staff.

Dr. Bryden Stanley of Michigan State University Veterinary Medical Center is performing operation.

Baron (above), a Rottweiler, is undergoing reconstructive surgery on his nose and tail. The Michigan Humane Society is offering a $2,500 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whomever mutilated him after he was found in southwest Detroit last month

'It appears that someone purposely maimed this poor dog, which has caused it a great deal of suffering,' said Mark Ramos, one of MHS' lead cruelty investigators to Fox 32.

'This kind of cruelty is unacceptable. We need to be a voice for these animals and as a community we need to speak through our strong actions to make sure this doesn't happen again.

The animal remained at the Mackey Center as staffers monitored his health and determine the best course of treatment, said Kathy Bilitzke, the societys communications director.

The tan Rottweiler was found last month with its ears and nose cut off

Meanwhile, MHS is working with a coalition of rescue groups to canvass the area where he was found and distribute fliers seeking tips to find whoever hurt him, she said.

Anyone with information is urged to call the MHS hotline at (313) 872-3401 and help find the person responsible.

The cash reward will be paid if a tip leads to an arrest and conviction.

Anyone wishing to donate to the Michigan Humane Society can visit their website.
The parents of missing Madeleine McCann have been challenged by Portugal's highest court over their insistence they had nothing to do with their daughter's disappearance.

Kate and Gerry McCann have always claimed they were innocent of any wrongdoing despite former police chief Goncalo Amaral's allegations Maddie died in their holiday flat and her parents faked her abduction to cover up the tragedy.

But Portuguese Supreme Court judges who ruled last week against their last-ditch appeal over Mr Amaral's 2008 book 'The Truth of the Lie' said the lifting of their status as 'arguidos' - or formal suspects - did not mean they were innocent.

Kate and Gerry McCann (pictured in 2014) have always claimed they were innocent of any wrongdoing despite former police chief Goncalo Amaral's allegations Maddie died in their holiday flat and her parents faked her abduction to cover up the tragedy

Madeleine was three years-old when she disappeared from a holiday apartment in Praia de Luz, Portugal, on May 12, 2003

The statement came in the court's 76-page ruling on the McCann's fight against another court's decision to reverse their 2015 libel win against the former detective.

The couple were left facing a huge legal bill and the prospect of being sued by Mr Amaral, who led the initial hunt for Madeleine when she vanished, after being told last week the Supreme Court had gone against them in a ruling which was not made fully public until yesterday.

Judges made it clear in their decision their job was not to decide whether the McCanns bore any criminal responsibility over their daughter's disappearance and it would be wrong for anyone to draw any inferences about the couple's guilt or innocence from their ruling.

But they added: 'It should not be said that the appellants were cleared via the ruling announcing the archiving of the criminal case.

'In truth, that ruling was not made in virtue of Portugal's Public Prosecution Service having acquired the conviction that the appellants hadn't committed a crime.

'The archiving of the case was determined by the fact that public prosecutors hadn't managed to obtain sufficient evidence of the practice of crimes by the appellants.

'There is therefore a significant, and not merely a semantic difference, between the legally admissible foundations of the archive ruling.

'It doesn't therefore seem acceptable that the ruling, based on the insufficiency of evidence, should be equated to proof of innocence.'

The McCanns were told their 'arguido' status had been lifted on July 21 2008 when the Portuguese probe into Maddie's disappearance was shelved, three days before the controversial book was published

Highlighting the McCanns' Tapas Nine friend Jane Tanner's much-questioned sighting of the suspected 'abductor', they added: 'It's true that the aforementioned criminal inquiry ended up being archived, namely because none of the apparent evidence that led to the appellants being made 'arguidos' was subsequently confirmed or consolidated.

'However even the archive ruling raises serious concerns relating to the truth of the allegation that Madeleine was kidnapped.'

The McCanns were told their 'arguido' status had been lifted on July 21 2008 when the Portuguese probe into Maddie's disappearance was shelved, three days before the controversial book was published.

The former detective was ordered to pay the couple 430,000 by a Lisbon court in April 2015 after they won round one of their lengthy judicial battle.

Mr Amaral got that ruling - and a ban on selling his book - overturned on appeal in April last year.

The decision by Lisbon's Court of Appeal sparked the Supreme Court fight which was resolved last Tuesday.

The Supreme Court judges said the McCanns claimed the book and a TV documentary based on the book would have damaged the honour and good name of any 'innocent person who had been cleared through the shelving of the criminal investigation.'

It is believed the McCanns are discussing the possibility of taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Madeleine was three years-old when she disappeared from a holiday apartment in Praia de Luz, Portugal, on May 12, 2003.

British police have spent more than 10 million looking for Madeleine.

A spokesperson for the McCann's did not want to respond to request for comment last night.
A Liberal Party candidate in a marginal seat has revealed his girlfriend worked as a stripper.

Michael Trout was a divorced father of four daughters when he met Donna Nicholson two years ago.

'It's not the sordid way people would probably think,' he told Daily Mail Australia on Thursday.

Liberal candidate Michael Trout with his girlfriend Donna Nicholson, who worked as a stripper

Donna Nicholson now works as a yoga teacher in Cairns, after previously working as a dancer

Mr Trout said the couple had decided to reveal her past as a stripper at Covergirls Gentlemen's Club in Cairns to protect her from a potential smear campaign as he tries to win back his old job as a politician.

'I just wanted to take the heat out of any innuendo and also to protect my partner,' he said.

'She is an amazing woman and if the story came out the wrong way that could be destructive to her and that is the reason why Donna and I decided we would come out and express our love.'

They met in February 2015, a few weeks after Mr Trout had lost his northern Cairns seat of Barron River to Labor.

Michael Trout and his girlfriend Donna Nicholson met at Holloways Beach in Cairns

Ms Nicholson had also just retired as a dancer to focus on being a yoga teacher in the tropical far north Queensland city.

The 53-year-old former Liberal National Party MP was walking along Holloways Beach when his future girlfriend, now 44, recognised him.

'It's a dog-friendly beach. I walk along that beach very, very regularly,' Mr Trout said.

'She was walking the opposite way to me. We just got chatting and she didn't tell me her whole world.

'So we exchanged numbers.'

Donna Nicholson has flexibility and strength as a yoga teacher in Cairns

They moved in together six months later.

He didn't think the revelation would turn off conservative Christian voters.

'I'm a knockabout guy, I don't mind a beer. I'd rather get this out of the way,' he said.

'What people want are candidates and members of parliament that are very open and true to themselves.'

Mr Trout, who divorced in 2010, won his seat in 2012 but lost it three years later.

Labor holds the Barron River electorate by a slender 3.1 per cent margin, with an election tipped to be held across Queensland later this year.
A woman who escaped the clutches of serial killers David and Catherine Birnie has revealed she only survived because she gained her captors' trust by watching Rambo and listening to Dire Straits with them.

Kate Moir was only 17 when she was kidnapped by two of Australia's most prolific killers after she accepted a lift from the couple after a night out with friends in Perth in November 9, 1986.

She endured a sleepless night being chained up in the couple's Moorhouse Street home and was repeatedly raped before she managed to flee to safety.

Thirty years on, Ms Moir gave her first television interview and spoke to Channel Seven's Murder Uncovered about how she saved herself from the same fate as the couple's other victims.

Scroll down for video

Kate Moir (pictured) was the notorious serial killer couple's fifth victim, but survived after escaping through the bedroom window

She told the program the couple had forced her to call her parents to tell them she was fine  with Catherine holding a knife to her throat while David listened to the conversation on another phone.

Ms Moir said she had hoped her parents would not be convinced by the story she told them  that she had gotten too drunk and stayed with a friend  but they did and fell asleep.

She also revealed when David left for work on the morning of November 10, she figured her odds of survival were now 50-50.

A conversation with Catherine after the woman laughed at a report of Denise Brown's disappearance in the newspaper convinced Ms Moir the couple had murdered the woman.

David Birnie (pictured in 1987) hanged himself in prison in 2005 but Catherine Birnie (right) remains behind bars

Ms Moir escaped through the window of the Birnies' Moorhouse Street home (pictured)

'She said, "You think a big girl like that could look after herself", and you couldn't tell from the photo that she was a big girl,' Ms Moir said.

'So I knew for a fact that they'd killed Denise Brown.'

But she didn't want to die so she didn't ask any questions  but when David returned from work, he revealed his intention was to kill her.

She said in order to win Catherine's trust, she was compliant and nice  and watched Rambo and listened to Dire Straits.

The Birnies murdered Sussannah Candy, 15, Denise Brown, 21, Mary Neilson, 22, and Noelene Patterson, 31 in the weeks prior to Ms Moir's abduction

'I managed to become friends with her enough that she let me go outside with her and her guard got down,' Ms Moir added.

And when there was a knock at the door later, Catherine ordered Ms Moir to go to her room and stay quiet  but forgot to chain her to the bed.

Ms Moir (pictured as a teenager) gave police enough details to arrest the couple

Ms Moir saw her chance to escape  and went to the window, where she quietly broke the lock on it to push it open and flee.

She ran to neighbouring homes and banged on doors for help, but when she got no response, she headed to a vaccum cleaner store and a found a man outside.

'I ran up to him and said I've been raped, please take me inside and call the police,' she said.

Ms Moir was taken to Palmyra police station, where she was interviewed by Laura Hancock, the only female officer on duty at the time.

Ms Hancock was 22 at the time and told Murder Uncovered tMs Moir's was the first statement she had taken as she only recently become a police officer.

She also revealed police treated Ms Moir's story  that the Birnies had other victims and that she would have been killed had she not escaped - as bizarre and had told Ms Hancock to 'stitch her up for a false report'.

Laura Hancock, the rookie female officer who interviewed Ms Moir after her escape, said police didn't believe her story at first

But Ms Moir was able to provide enough details  including the couple's address and phone number  for police to go and arrest them and discover the buried remains of their victims.

The couple were convicted of the murders of Sussannah Candy, 15, Denise Brown, 21, Mary Neilson, 22, and Noelene Patterson, 31.

David Birnie hanged himself in prison, but Catherine remains incarcerated.
Surgeon Raghu Ram awarded 2016 B C Roy Award

Published: February 9, 2017

Dr P Raghu Ram, President of Association of Breast Surgeons of India was awarded prestigious Dr B C Roy national award for outstanding service in the field of socio-medical relief for 2016.

The award will be conferred on him by President Pranab Mukherjee on the occasion of the Doctors day observed every year on 1st July.

He is claimed to be the youngest surgeon ever from the Telugu states (Andhra Pradesh and Telangana) to receive this award. The award recognises Dr Rams significant contribution towards improving the delivery of breast health care in India. Besides, it also recognises his efforts for creating the much needed awareness about importance of early detection of breast cancer in Telugu states through a number of initiatives.

About B C Roy Award

The BC Roy Award is the highest recognition for medical practitioners in India.

It was instituted by the Medical Council of India (MCI) in 1976 in memory of renowned physician and former West Bengal Chief Minister Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy.

The award is bestowed annually 6 categories viz. statesmanship of the Highest Order in India, eminent medical person, medical man-cum-statesman, eminent person in philosophy, eminent person in arts and eminent person in Science.

Month: Current Affairs - February, 2017

Category: Awards, Persons & Places in News

Topics: Awards  B C Roy Award  Medicine  Persons in News  Public health  Raghu Ram

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Lettuce, courgettes and cabbage have disappeared from supermarket shelves across the country over the last week, with some shops going so far as to ration the vegetables.

But environment minister Lord Gardiner of Kimble told the House of Lords there is 'certainly no crisis' and pointed out the shortage didn't affect cos lettuce, which he said was 'even better' than the iceberg variety.

He said: 'The only shortage will be of iceberg lettuce which we think will be for about a few months and there is a wonderful variety called cos, which is even better.

Sainsbury's: There is a vegetable shortage in some Sainsbury's stores as shelves are left bare. But environment minister Lord Gardiner of Kimble said there was 'certainly no crisis'

Morrisons: The cost of an iceberg is now up to 1.17 - they are normally as cheap as 40p. Lord Gardiner pointed out that the shortage did not affect cos lettuce which was 'even better' than iceberg

Hands off our veg! Security guards surround boxes of courgettes at a warehouse in Bristol

'In fact, I was pleased only this morning to hear that cauliflowers from Cornwall are coming on to the market so we have a great opportunity again to buy some British vegetables.

'The UK has a highly resilient food industry with effective supply chains, providing wide consumer choice.

'The diversity of food supply from domestic and international sources allows for alternative products to be used when required.'

Bad weather in Spain and Italy has meant that vegetables from the Mediterranean have been in short supply.

According to one expert, UK retailers are getting just 40 to 60 per cent of produce they would normally receive from Spanish producers.

Morrisons: A notice in a Bristol store read: 'We are sorry that the recent extreme weather in Spain is affecting supply'. Bad weather in Spain and Italy has meant that there are vegetable shortages in supermarkets across the country

Sainsbury's: In Sale, Greater Manchester, stocks of several salad products were depleted. Just two courgettes remained, at a staggering 1.90 each

Opposition spokesman Baroness Jones of Whitchurch said: 'He will have seen the news reports of empty shelves in supermarkets, with the crisis expected to last until the spring.

'And meanwhile prices have trebled, in part because it costs more to fly vegetables from the USA and Egypt than it does to bring them overland from Spain.'

Lord Gardiner said officials had been discussing the issue with retailers and argued the situation was improving and there were 'other sources of supply from the Americas which are coming in'.

Morrisons: Shelves were empty at a Morrisons store after the supermarket imposed a limit of three heads of broccoli and three iceberg lettuces per customer throughout its 492 stores

Tesco: A notice in a Tesco store stated that it has started limiting bulk purchases of iceberg lettuces to three per person

He added: 'But I would say it is a time when we should reflect on using our own wonderfully nutritious British vegetables and... in the last few years food prices have fallen by 7.4%.'

Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Parminter said half the vegetables eaten in the country were imported, including native crops like cauliflowers, and called for the Government to tackle the decline in home-grown veg.

Later, as peers vied to ask a question, Lords leader Baroness Evans of Bowes Park ruled: 'I think it is only fair we hear from the Greens on this particular subject.'

Green Party peer Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb said she had written a report back in 2008 at the request of the then mayor Ken Livingstone on how to make London more sustainable with its food supplies and offered to forward a copy to the Government.

Lord Gardiner said he would and added: 'I am sure the paper... endorses the importance of having lower food miles which means they come from this country.'
This vile video shows maggots wriggling around inside an egg a shopper claims to have bought from Aldi.

The gross footage shows several larvae crawling around inside an egg that appears to have cracked inside the pack.

The sickening discovery was found inside a pack of a dozen extra large free range eggs from Lodge Farms.

This vile footage shows maggots wriggling around inside an egg a shopper claims to have bought from Aldi

The shopper had purchased the eggs from an Aldi store in Cranbourne, Victoria, News.com.au reported.

An Aldi Australia spokeswoman said an investigation had been launched and claimed it was an 'isolated incident', with no other eggs affected.

Aldi's independent food scientist Skye Blackburn encouraged shoppers to check their eggs before buying them.

She also said 'extreme heat' this summer had increased insect activity.

It is the third time that maggots have been found in food bought from Aldi supermarkets in Victoria in just over a week.

On Wednesday, a video surfaced showing maggots inside beef that a family were about to eat.

The sickening discovery was found inside a pack of a dozen extra large free range eggs from Lodge Farms

A video filmed by the disgusted Aldi customers shows several larvae crawling around the cooked meat.

A spokesman for the supermarket insisted that the matter was an isolated issue.

They said they launched an investigation after becoming aware of the video, which features Brannans Butchery Butterflied Beef with BBQ Mustard Sprinkle that was bought from a store in Victoria.

The spokesman added that the vacuum-sealed product was purchased on February 4 and refrigerated and cooked the following evening.

'Upon being notified of the matter, we immediately contacted the customer and commenced a high-priority investigation with our supplier,' the spokesman told Daily Mail Australia.

'We can confirm that this is an isolated issue, with no other complaints received by our customer services department.'

Aldi said its meat products are produced in 'industry-leading facilities with a high-level of quality assurance processes in place.'

'This includes a processing room refrigerated to approximately four degrees, a temperature level which does not support fly/larvae development,' the spokesman said.

The family claim they found maggots inside the meat after cooking it and sitting down for dinner

The spokesman added that the video has been examined by Skye Blackburn, an independent Entomologist and Food Scientist.

Ms Blackburn believes it is unlikely that the contamination occurred during the manufacturing or distribution process.

'By viewing the video supplied and noting the fly larvae are freshly hatched, it is most likely that the eggs had been laid after this meat had been cooked, and the heat of the meat has accelerated the hatching of the eggs,' she said.

'Heat allows eggs the potential to hatch within minutes of being laid. Due to higher than average temperatures we're experiencing at the moment, it is common for the lifecycle of insects to occur more quickly.'

She added: 'If the meat had been contaminated before cooking, it would be very unlikely that the eggs and larvae would have survived the cooking process.'

She explained that fly larvae generally cannot survive temperatures above 60 degrees Celsius.

The revolting discovery came just days after a woman found live maggots inside chicken tenders she bought from Aldi.

Tooradin man Bill Johnson told 3AW that his daughter and her friend were eating the tenders bought from the supermarket giant when they found the fly larvae crawling inside their meal.

Mr Johnson's daughter made a video as the cooked chicken tenderloin was split open, and small yellow specks could be seen wriggling inside.

'This was what was found inside a chicken tender,' Mr Johnson says.

'They are still moving as you can see'.

Mr Johnson said they had recently purchased the Farmwood brand of chicken tenders from the Casey Central Aldi store in Victoria.

A Victorian woman was left traumatised after discovering live maggots in her chicken tenders during her meal

An Aldi spokesman confirmed to Daily Mail Australia at the time that this was an isolated incident with no further complaints made.

'Upon being notified of this matter, we immediately contacted the customer and commenced a high-priority investigation with our supplier,' he said.

And Ms Blackburn said it was extremely unlikely that the contamination occurred during the manufacturing or distribution process.

'I have taken a look at the video supplied and believe it would be extremely unlikely that the larvae of the fly would survive the cooking and freezing process associated with producing this product,' she said.

'Furthermore, the larvae of the fly in the video looks to be approximately just two days old and given this product was manufactured on 12th December, 2016, it would be almost impossible that this would have happened during the manufacturing process.

'The larvae also appear to be moving very quickly, which indicates they are quite warm and therefore have not been in a fridge or freezer previously.'
A far-right activist's shocking rant on Channel 4 News has caused outrage among viewers.

Former BNP member Jack Buckby told student Barbara Ntumy 'I hope you don't get raped' while debating the issue of whether Britain should allow more Syrian refugees into the country.

The activist, who stood in the by-election for murdered MP Jo Cox's seat last year, was discussing the 'alt-right' with the member of the National Union of Students Black Students' Campaign.

Former BNP member Jack Buckby told student Barbara Ntumy 'I hope you don't get raped' while debating the issue of whether Britain should allow more Syrian refugees into the country

Buckby produced a refugee application form and said: 'You know what, put your money where your mouth is  Syrian refugees application form.

'Take one home, take in a Syrian refugee. I hope you don't get raped.'

There were gasps in the studio and the comment seemed to anger many on social media as well.

Jennifer McGee wrote: 'Jack Buckby is vile watching #channel4news on +1 and shocked at hearing him say "I hope you don't get raped" talking about Syrian refugees.'

Another user posted: 'Literally cannot believe what I've just seen, did he just say "i hope you don't get raped" on national live tv what the fuck channel 4 news'

Rhammel Afflick said: 'Jack Buckby honestly said "take in a Syrian refugee, I hope you don't get raped".... sorry?'

The activist, who stood in the by-election for murdered MP Jo Cox's seat last year, was discussing the 'alt-right' with the member of the National Union of Students Black Students' Campaign

There were gasps in the studio and the comment seemed to anger many on social media as well

He made the shocking remark after saying that he wanted to deport 'people who are drain on society'.

But when Ntumy responded 'who gets to decide who is a drain on society', Buckby accused her of 'faux outrage'.

Bucky stood in the Batley and Span by-election for anti-imkigration Liberty GB  despite all major political parties not contesting the seat following Jo Cox's murder by extremist Thomas Mair.
Authorities in Alabama have identified the skeletal remains of a 23-year-old man who went missing nearly two years ago.

Derek Washington was reported missing near Birmingham almost two years ago.

Last month, a squirrel hunter stumbled upon skeletal remains in Jefferson County and alerted authorities.

The hunter then notified Jefferson County sheriffs, who ordered a forensic investigation of the remains.

The medical examiners issued a report saying that the remains belonged to a male between the ages of 18 and 28.

Derek Washington (above), 23, was reported missing near Birmingham almost two years ago. His remains were positively identified on Tuesday by Jefferson County coroners

The report said that the remains were positively identified on Tuesday as those of Derek Dewayne Washington of Birmingham, Alabama.

Washington, a father of two young girls, was reported missing in April 2015.

Authorities are now proceeding with a homicide investigation.

Washingtons mother, Jessica Jackson, said that her son was last seen with people whom he knew.

We have heard over 15 stories but none panned out, she told AL.com.

I am praying that my son is on the run and not dead, but it is a possibility he could be.

Jackson said that until a few months ago she would occasionally field anonymous phone calls, but those calls eventually stopped.
A sinkhole the size of a backyard swimming pool has opened up in Sydney's exclusive eastern suburbs, blocking traffic, cutting power and interrupting personal training sessions.

Kristy Mirzikinian had a sinking sensation of a different kind when the giant hole opened up outside her home in the harbourside suburb of Point Piper - 500 metres from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's home.

'My personal trainer has come, my electricity is off and now I don't know what to do,' said Ms Mirzikinian in her blue gym gear and clutching a Mercedes Benz umbrella.

Kristy Mirzikinian had a sinking sensation of a different kind when the giant hole opened up outside her home in the harbourside suburb of Point Piper

It's a problem only a gym-clad blonde in Point Piper could have and her response could not have been more perfect.

'Honestly I'm in shock. I'm in shock right now because I've come home and there's a massive hole opposite my house," Ms Mirzikinian said on Wednesday.

A gas line ruptured on Wentworth Street when a large part of the footpath collapsed and washed away earlier in the day after about half a month's worth of rain pelted the city on Tuesday.

Rainwater streamed into the sinkhole, undercutting the earth underneath the road at the edge of the hole.

A Woollahra Council spokeswoman said a small hole was reported on Tuesday evening at the site and emergency services were called early on Wednesday as the sinkhole opened up.

Four properties on the affected side of the road were then evacuated by police.

The sinkhole has been made safe by geo-tech engineers, the spokeswoman said.

However the occupants of the home immediately affected by the hole, measuring about 15m by 3m and about 2m deep, were not at home on Wednesday, she said.

'My personal trainer has come, my electricity is off and now I don't know what to do,' said Ms Mirzikinian in her blue gym gear and clutching a Mercedes Benz umbrella

The Point Piper local (right) in happier times: pictured with Roxy Jacenko (left) at a 2016 Melbourne Cup luncheon hosted by the PR Queen

A woman looks into a sinkhole which opened up in the suburb of Point Piper in Sydney on Wednesday

A worker inspects the sinkhole that appeared after heavy rain outside a property located near Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's residence in Point Piper

Rubbing shoulder with Sydney's elite: Ms Mirzikinian (right) pictured with Roxy Jacenko (left) and Emma Steel (centre)

Standing in her driveway opposite the sinkhole, Ms Mirzikinian said she noticed a gas leak on Tuesday afternoon.

'We did smell a gas leak in the afternoon and the guys came and they were banging around, breaking down the concrete,' she said.

'Basically we woke up and it was like this.'

The six bedroom, eight bathroom mansion closest to the sinkhole has been listed for auction online.

The real estate agent representing the property refused to comment whether the large hole in front of the house would affect the price or auction date.
A Melbourne man went to extreme lengths to get some privacy from his neighbours.

Photographer James Penlidis was outraged to discover the new house built next door to his home in Bentleigh and overlooking his bedroom, living room and backyard didnt have frosted windows as promised.

In protest, he decided to do all of his household chores  including painting, cooking and cleaning  completely naked. He even rode an exercise bike in his yard in the buff.

And his unusual campaign worked like a charm as it took just six days for frosting to appear on the windows.

Photographer James Penlidis decided to do everything naked in a bid to get some privacy

No one wants to see a hairy Greek guy with it hanging out, Mr Penlidis told the Moorabbin Glen Eira Leader.

Im having fun with it rather than blow up. [The neighbours] were looking out the window, saw me starkers and backed off like a bungee jump.

He added that his decision to strip off was intended to demonstrate how residents who are unprotected feel when dealing with development near their homes.

While he conceded it is legal for the windows to be clear since they were 3m away, he called them an invasion of privacy - and many shared his sentiments on social media.

He was outraged to discover the new house next door to his didn't have frosted windows as promised

In protest, he did his household chores, including cleaning the gutters and painting his house, completely naked

The council and the builders have lied to me, Mr Penlidis wrote in a post on his Facebook page on January 30.

The new Chinese owners who built next door to me do not have frosted windows as promised.

They look straight into my living room, bed room and back yard. Tonight I will be drinking martinis naked while looking up porn.

I will do this every night until the windows get frosted.

His supporters branded him a champion and even suggested other activities he could do nude, including yoga and ping pong.

His unusual campaign worked as it only took six days for the windows to get frosted

Mr Penlidis got a lot of support after he wrote about his issue in a post on Facebook (above)

Mr Penlidis said a council worker had verbally promised him that there would be frosted windows before the plans were approved.

But a spokesman for Glen Eira Council insisted that a private building surveyor had determined the level of protected the property needed and that the single dwelling in a residential zone didnt require a planning permit.

Developers do not receive preferential treatment over resident, the councils planning director Ron Torres told The Leader.
Hillary Clinton was spotted arriving at her daughter's home on Wednesday night.

The former Democratic presidential nominee pulled up at Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky's Manhattan home with the Secret Service in tow around 6.30pm.

She only stayed for a half hour before leaving around 7pm.

Clinton was seen at the home not long after it was revealed that her son-in-law had quietly shut down his hedge fund Eaglevale Partners back in December.

The decision to shutter the fund came just a few weeks after Clinton lost the election to president Donald Trump.

Clinton has kept a relatively low profile since her election loss in November, possibly planning her rumored comeback. This week, she recorded a video for the MAKERS Conference - focused on womens leadership - saying 'the future is female'.

A number of Clinton allies told Politico that she is waiting out the Democratic National Committee chair election in February, which is shaping up to be a rematch of the Clinton versus Bernie Sanders Democratic primary war.

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Hillary Clinton was spotted arriving at her daughter's home on Wednesday night with Secret Service in tow

The former Democratic presidential nominee pulled up at Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky's Manhattan home around 6.30pm

Clinton was spotted greeting a man outside the home's entrance. She only stayed for a half hour before leaving around 7pm

Last month, Clinton began looking at a series of reports to examine what went wrong as she and Bill Clinton figure out what's next for the couple who have dominated their party's politics for 25 years.

And Clinton's detractors can take comfort in knowing that the former secretary of state, senator and first lady  nor her ex-president husband  will likely ever appear on a ballot again.

Bloomberg reported that Mezvinsky and his partners are now working to return what money is left in their fund to investors, including Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd C. Blankfein.

He has kept a low profile ever since Clinton's loss, but was photographed by DailyMail.com heading out with his wife Chelsea on Wednesday, shortly before Hillary arrived at the home.

Mezvinsky, who was seen taking a call outside his home on Wednesday, and his wife are now both without a full-time job.

Clinton was seen at the home not long after it was revealed that her son-in-law Marc Mezvinsky (left) quietly shut down his hedge fund Eaglevale Partners back in December. He and his wife Chelsea (right) were spotted on Wednesday arriving at their home earlier in the day

Chelsea was photographed hugging an unidentified man outside her apartment building on Wednesday

It was revealed last May that Mezvinsky suffered a huge loss after trying to bet on the revival of the Greek economy, forcing him to shut down one of his hedge funds.

He and his partners, former Goldman Sachs colleagues Bennett Grau and Mark Mallon, raised $25 million from investors to buy up bank stocks and debt from the struggling nation.

That fund however has lost 90 per cent of its value, investors with direct knowledge of the situation told The New York Times, and was closed.

Eaglevale Partners was started in 2011 by Mezvinsky and his partners, with their former boss, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd C. Blankfein, one of the first investors.

Another is leading financier, Marc Lasry, co-founder of $13 billion hedge fund Avenue Capital, where Chelsea worked after graduating from Stanford.

Mezvinsky, who was seen taking a call outside his home on Wednesday, and his wife are now both without a full-time job. It was revealed last May that Mezvinsky suffered a huge loss after trying to bet on the revival of the Greek economy

'I gave them money because I thought they would make me money,' Mr Lasry told The Times last year, after investing $1 million in Eaglevale and urging a relative to do the same.

Mezvinsky was long gone from his job at Goldman in October 2013 when his mother-in-law Hillary was paid to give a speech to executives at the company during a technology conference in Arizona.

She was reportedly paid $225,000 for that appearance.

Mezvinsky and his partners had written to clients in 2014 to declare confidence in their 'Hellenic Opportunity' fund, predicting that Greece was on the path to a 'sustainable recovery'.

By that point they had collected $25 million but stopped taking money by the end of that year when it became clear the country's economy would collapse without a massive Eurozone bailout.

Eaglevale said in a letter in February 2015 to investors that year that they had been 'incorrect' to bet on Greece and that is why the company had lost money two of the three years prior. Mezvinsky was seen on a weekday jog last week

The failure is a huge personal blow to Mezvinsky, who is also the son of political figures, albeit less well known that his wife's famed parents. Mezvinsky was seen going for a weekday jog in the middle of the afternoon last week

The Wall Street Journal reported in February 2015 that Eaglevale said in a letter to investors that year that they had been 'incorrect' to bet on Greece and that is why the company had lost money two of the three years prior.

The main fund dropped 3.6% in 2014, gained just 2.06% in 2013 and lost 1.96% in 2012.

The failure is a huge personal blow to Mezvinsky, who is also the son of political figures, albeit less well known that his wife's famed parents.

His father, Edward Mezvinsky, represented Iowa's 1st congressional district in the US House of Representatives for two terms in the 1970s and his mother, Marjorie Margolies, represented Pennsylvania from 1993 to 1995.

Ed Mezvinsky pleaded guilty to 31 charges of felony fraud in 2001 and spent five years in federal prison after he admitted scamming his friends and family out of $10 million in a Ponzi scheme.

Shortly after starting Eaglevale, Mezvinsky and Chelsea moved into a $10 million New York City apartment opposite Madison Square Park.

The four-bedroom, 5,000-square-foot apartment is one of only four residences in the building, which despite the low occupancy rate still has a full-time doorman.

The apartment's hallways stretch a full city block and it has two dishwashers, two washer and dryers, dressing rooms with double-sided vanity mirrors and two massive walk-in closets.

The apartment's current value is closer to $15 million.
Australian stand-up comedian Lawrence Mooney has described the moment he helped administer CPR to an audience member who died at one of his shows on Wednesday night.

The TV host told Triple M's Grill Team he heard a thump at the back of the room about halfway through his Sydney Comedy Festival gig but thought it was a drunken reveller and joked about it.

'Someone had hit the ground so I of course was getting stuck into them saying "Oh yeah I remember my first beer too mate,' Mooney told the radio program.

Australian stand-up comedian Lawrence Mooney has described the moment an audience member died at one of his shows

'I get off the stage and this bloke is in big trouble, he's collapsed and they were working on him, they were doing CPR. It was full on, chaotic scenes.

'The lights come up and they empty the venue and there's a guy fighting for his life, so they call the ambulance so there's four people working on him, but sad to say he didn't make it - a bloke died at the scene,' he said.

Mooney believes the man was in his 60s and attended the show with his partner.

He said things went full steam ahead as he helped perform CPR on the man while waiting for ambulance services to arrive.

Mooney at the Goldfield Arts Centre with a cut-out of Russell Crowe for Dirty Laundry Live

The audience member, in his 60s, collapsed. Mooney described how he had to help perform CPR on him

'It was very confronting. It was all hands on deck. I was standing there, I know CPR, so people were taking shifts because you really have to get stuck in when you do CPR, and they worked on him for about 40 minutes and that was it.'

'I couldn't believe it. It was very surreal stuff when someone dies right in front of you,' he told the breakfast show.

Mooney is an actor, writer, radio personality and the former host of Dirty Laundry Live on ABC TV. He also created the sitcom pilot Moonman.

Brooke Satchwell and Lawrence Mooney present an AACTA Award

Dirty Laundry Live host duties: Mooney waits on the red carpet at Miranda waiting to talk to Cara Delevingne about her movie Paper Towns




The severe heatwave heading for Sydney on Friday could cause blackouts across the city as residents crank up their air conditioners to help them sleep through extremely humid nights.

The Australian Energy Markets Operator is urgently demanding an additional supply in anticipation of a shortfall as the heatwave brings temperatures reaching 45C in what could be the three hottest days in February on record for NSW, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.

AEMO has predicted a 19-megawatt shortfall in the NSW region, which largely gets its energy supply from coal and gas, on Friday evening.

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The severe heatwave heading for Sydney on Friday could cause blackouts across the city as residents crank their air conditioners to help them keep cool as temperatures reach a sweltering 45C

The Australian Energy Markets Operator is urgently demanding an additional supply in anticipation of a shortfall at 5pm as the heatwave brings what could be the hottest three days in February on record for NSW

The heatwave (pictured) that began in Adelaide on Wednesday has made its way to Melbourne before heading to Sydney on Friday

It comes after 40,000 people in Adelaide lost power on Wednesday night as the heatwave sent temperatures soaring to 42C.

Overwhelming demand for electricity forced South Australian Power Networks to start 'load shedding' in order to conserve power, plunging parts of the state into darkness shortly before 7pm on Wednesday.

SA Power Networks said the blackouts only lasted half an hour, but thousands of people were forced to swelter through the heat with no air-conditioning.

The heatwave will bring 'exceptionally hot' temperatures to NSW from Friday until Sunday in what meteorologists say is the 'final big hurrah for heat in the Sydney area'.

Temperatures are predicted to reach 36C in Sydney on Friday and 44C in the western suburbs, but residents will have no relief overnight thanks to high humidity levels.

'The tropical air will make people feel more uncomfortable at night than during the day because the moisture will stick to their skin and make them feel like they cannot cool down,' a BOM spokesman told The Daily Telegraph.

'Relative humidity will get into the 90s overnight, but during the day, when the temperature warms up, it will be much less,' he said.

Just to make matters worse, temperatures will climb higher on Saturday with 39C in the city and 45C in the west.

Temperatures in north-west Victoria are expected to tip 45C on Thursday

The temperature rose to 31C overnight in Melbourne (pictured) and is expected to hit 37C in the city by the end of the day

Weatherzone Meteorologist Rob Sharp told Daily Mail Australia there is a good chance temperatures in Richmond and Penrith will break records during the heatwave.

'For Richmond the current record is 43.7C and Penrith is 45C. The current forecasts are for 43C on Friday and Saturday but on Saturday in particular we believe it could be a hotter than that,' Mr Sharp said.

The records for Richmond and Penrith were set in 1977 and 2004, respectively.

'The three day run from Friday to Sunday for western Sydney is likely to be the hottest three consecutive days in February on record,' Mr Sharp said.

'It's not the hottest summer run on record, although that cannot be ruled out yet.'

It comes as Sydneysiders are mopping-up after half a month's worth of rain pelted the city in one day on Tuesday, with the SES responding to 250 calls.

Thursday will be one of the state's hottest days yet this summer for Melbourne

Mildura and other rural towns in north-west Victoria will take the brunt of the heat as the temperature reaches a scorching 45C

The heatwave is the result of hot air being pushed south from central Australia by a wind shift

The heatwave will continue to move north on Thursday night and areas of the north-west and north-east will see simmering temperatures in the low to mid 40s until Saturday

Victoria has already experienced the heatwave with temperatures on Thursday expected to reach 45C in some parts of the state.

The temperature rose to 31C overnight in Melbourne and is expected to hit 37C in the city by the end of the day, making it one of the state's hottest days yet this summer.

The city's southern suburbs were forecast to get relief with a cool change between 1pm and 2pm.

'We are going to see relief in the southern suburbs in the early part of this afternoon, but because the change is quite slow moving and is not a very strong change, we are not going to see the relief in northern parts of Victoria, or even the northern suburbs of Melbourne, until late in the day,' Senior meteorologist Claire Yeo told The Age.

Mildura and other rural towns in north-west Victoria will take the brunt of the heat as the temperature reaches a scorching 45C, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

Much of Adelaide was plunged into darkness when power supplies were cut due to overwhelming demand on Wednesday

SA Power Networks announced the Adelaide blackout on Twitter

WHAT IS THE 5 DAY WEATHER FORECAST FOR AUSTRALIA? Sydney Thursday: Max 29, increasing sunshine Friday: Max 36, sunny Saturday: Max 39, sunny Sunday: Max 38, mostly sunny Monday: Max 26, possible shower Melbourne Thursday: Max 37, mostly sunny Friday: Max 26, mostly sunny Saturday: Max 28, late shower Sunday: Max 19, possible shower Monday: Max 19, clearing shower Brisbane Thursday: Max 30, possible shower Friday: Max 32, clearing shower Saturday: Max 36, mostly sunny Sunday: Max 38, sunny Monday: Max 37, late shower Adelaide Thursday: Max 41, sunny Friday: Max 39, mostly sunny Saturday: Max 37, mostly sunny Sunday: Max 25, mostly cloudy Monday: Max 25, cloudy Advertisement

The heatwave is the result of hot air being pushed south from central Australia by a wind shift, senior BoM meteorologist Dr Chris Godfred told the ABC.

'We've had this fairly stagnant mass of air over the interior of the continent  the winds have turned northerly so some of that very hot air is now going to move across Victoria,' he said.

'The entire state gets a bit of a taste of the furnace.'

Portland and Warrnambool in the state's south-west will dodge the heatwave's intensity with temperatures only reaching the mid to late 20s thanks to a cool change.

The heatwave will continue to move north on Thursday night and areas of Victoria's northwest and northeast will see simmering temperatures in the low to mid 40s until Saturday, Dr Godfred told ABC.

Sydney to sweat through the weekend - as record heat is predicted for the western suburbs

Social media took to Twitter to complain about the Adelaide blackouts on Wednesday

'Blackouts when it is 41.6C aren't ideal,' one Twitter user posted online on Wednesday

Temperatures may rise above 45C in western Sydney this weekend as a heatwave is expected to set a new record for the hottest three days in February ever on recorded

Sydney temperatures will begin to climb into the late 20s on Thursday before reaching 39 in the city and at least 43 in the western suburbs on Friday



The state has issued burn bans in central regions, including Mallee and Wimmera, and a health alert was released on Thursday morning, encouraging people to stay cool by drinking water and avoid being in the sun for long periods.

Australia's extreme weather conditions will only worsen, according to a report released by the Climate Council.

The council predicted a rapid rise in extreme heat right across the country.

The report suggests Darwin will experience 265 days a year of 35C heat and Brisbane will suffer through two months of temperatures at 35C by 2090.

Climate Council issues diagram comparing heatwaves between 1950-1980 and 1981-2011

The report also issued a map comparing heatwaves between 1950-1980 and 1981-2011.

A drastic change in the number of hot days was predicted.

Meanwhile, Australia's western coastline has been lashed by wet weather since the beginning of the week, forcing the Perth metropolitan to issue a flood warning on Wednesday.

Twitter users flocked online to complain about the impending heatwave

Meteorologists said the heatwave is the 'final big hurrah for heat in the Sydney area'

Scorching temperatures have seen people flocking to the sea to seek a reprieve from the heat

People are flocking to the water to escape the extreme heat - as temperatures soar to record highs

'As much as stepping into the sun and instantly burning to a crisp reminds me of home, can it stop now?' Caz wrote on Twitter

The Swan River and Avon River are both expected to flood on Thursday, prompting the Department of Fire and Emergency Services to warn people to stay out of the rivers and avoid floodwaters.

Drivers are also urged to be careful on the roads.

Marble Bar Police released footage of a truck being swept away in the flood waters in Telfer on Saturday.

Cars are pictured engulfed in flood waters during the unprecedented rain episode



It comes a week after a campervan was swept away by flood waters in the middle of the night, sending two tourists fleeing to safety, scrambling to the roof of a toilet block in the middle of the night.

While heavy rainfall and floodwaters threaten parts of Western Australia, a bushfire emergency warning was issued for the outer south-east of Perth.

The warning was issued for part of Bedfordale in Armadale on Wednesday.

Weather tracker Higgins Storm Chasing called the impending heatwave 'hell on earth in Australia'
The sons of notorious drug kingpin 'El Chapo' were reportedly wounded in an attack they blamed on a one-time rival of their father.

Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman is being held in a maximum security prison in New York after he was extradited last month.

Mexican journalist Ciro Gomez Leyva said he received a handwritten letter from Guzman's sons describing Saturday's purported attack.

They said they were with Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada, the boss of the Sinaloa cartel their father used to run, and he was also targeted.

The journalist said the letter accused Damaso Lopez, another alleged Sinaloa figure, of betraying them.

The sons of notorious drug kingpin 'El Chapo' were reportedly wounded in an attack they blamed on a one-time rival of their father

DRUG RIVAL CHARGED WITH MURDER Federal prosecutors in North Dakota have their sights set on bringing one of El Chapo's one-time rivals to the US to face charges. In court documents unsealed Tuesday, authorities say Juan Francisco Sillas-Rocha was a top lieutenant for the Arellano Felix cartel, which smuggled cocaine, marijuana and other drugs into the US and competed against the Sinaloa cartel led by Guzman, once considered the most wanted man in the world. Authorities have described Sillas-Rocha as a prolific hit man responsible for killing 20 to 30 people a month during the cartel's heyday in Tijuana. Sillas-Rocha was arrested six years ago in Mexico, but his federal case in the US had remained sealed from public view until this week. Sillas-Rocha, known as 'Ruedas' or 'Wheels' is charged with three counts, including conspiracy to commit murder for a continuing criminal enterprise. Advertisement

The letter said they had come to a meeting organized by Lopez only to find he was not there, and gunmen suddenly opened fire and killed their bodyguards.

Guzman's sons - who were not named by the journalist - said they managed to escape with Zambada.

Guzman's lawyer Jose Refugio confirmed to local media the letter came from the sons.

He told Radio Formula: 'I was aware of that, I know about that letter and I know they wrote that letter. But it was not delivered through me.'

Mexican authorities did not immediately confirm or otherwise comment on the purported attack.

Guzman was arrested for the third time in January 2016 and finally extradited to the United States last month.

The notorious kingpin escaped twice from prison in Mexico, once in a laundry basket and most recently through a tunnel in his cell.

He has complained about his condition in custody at the maximum security prison and said he has been denied marital visits and is largely being kept in solitary confinement.

He has pleaded not guilty to charges he ran the world's largest drug-trafficking organisation during a decades-long career.

He faces life in prison if convicted.

Guzman was arrested for the third time in January 2016 and finally extradited to the United States last month

El Chapo's sons they were with Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada, pictured, the boss of the Sinaloa cartel their father used to run, and he was also targeted

Some have speculated a bloody turf war could break out to fill the power vacuum.

Last August, his son Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar was one of a half-dozen people kidnapped by armed men from a restaurant in the Pacific coast city of Puerto Vallarta. He was released later.

According to the US Department of Justice, Lopez was indicted by a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, in 2011, accused of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and conspiracy to launder money.

When the indictment was unsealed on March 7, 2013, he was said to be 47 years old.

At the time, the Department of Justice called him 'a top lieutenant' for Guzman and the Sinaloa cartel.
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Veteran Liberal senator Ian Macdonald has threatened to cross the floor to oppose the axing of the Life Gold Pass that gives free business class travel for retired politicians.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Thursday introduced a bill to the lower house to establish a new expenses watchdog.

A bill to immediately axe one of the most generous retirement perks for federal MPs - the life gold travel pass - was also introduced.

But it's unlikely to have the support of Senator Macdonald, a backbencher on a salary of $200,000 a year.

Senator Ian Macdonald (pictured) railed against the axing of the lucrative perk on Thursday

Mr Macdonald (left, right) appears unlikely to support the Turnbull Government

Mr Macdonald railed against the axing of the perk on Thursday, telling Parliament he would oppose the government.

He said he had told a party-room meeting it was time someone stood up for politicians, insisting they were not 'particularly well paid'.

'It's about time our leaders, all of our leaders ... started just emphasising how much work politicians do, how much commitment most of the people who sit in this parliament have,' he said.

'Most parliamentarians, those on this side, would have done infinitely better financially staying in their legal practice, staying in their business.'

Senator Macdonald intends to move amendments to both bills, but will still support the new watchdog even if his proposed changes are rejected.

He attempted to have the gold pass legislation referred to a Senate inquiry to give those affected by the changes a say, but the move was rejected by the upper house.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's move is believed to be popular with voters

Mr Macdonald said the perk was unlikely to relate to him because he would probably die before he quits Parliament

Senator Macdonald said the retrospective changes would affect a small group of elderly former parliamentarians who served with far fewer conditions and pay than current politicians, and the gold pass was part of the deal.

'They are entitled to what was agreed upon. It should not be taken from them,' he said.

'At least let these people come in and have their say.'

The senator later told 2GB's Ben Fordham: 'I'm 71... I'll probably leave Parliament in a box.

'But even if I do, after 27 years of flying 7 hours to and 7 hours from Canberra the last thing I want to do is to get on an aeroplane.
A man accused of murdering two children in Bowraville in the early 1990s has walked free from court after being bailed until his next appearance in August.

The man, who can't be named for legal reasons, faced Newcastle Local Court on Thursday for a brief bail hearing.

Dressed in a maroon shirt tucked into black pants, the man did not speak during the hearing and refused to comment to reporters as he left court.

A man who has previously been cleared of killing two Aboriginal children has been charged with their murders once again. Victims Evelyn Greenup (left) and Clinton Speedy-Duroux (right) above

Police allege the man murdered four-year-old Evelyn Greenup sometime between October 4, 1990 and April 27, 1991, in Bowraville on the NSW mid-north coast.

He also allegedly murdered Clinton Speedy-Duroux between February 1 and 18, 1991, also in Bowraville.

The two children were among three Aboriginal youths from the hinterland town killed within a five-month period from 1990 to 1991.

Colleen Walker, 16, also died in mysterious circumstances but no one has been charged over her death

No charges have ever been laid in relation to the disappearance of 16-year-old Colleen Walker.

Her body has never been recovered but articles of her clothing were found weighed down with rocks in the nearby Nambucca River several months after she disappeared.

Under bail conditions set down by Magistrate Robert Stone, the alleged double-murderer must live at his home in the Hunter Region until his next court appearance on August 10.

He is banned from contacting any prosecution witnesses and must personally notify the police officer in charge of the case if he changes address or intends to travel interstate.

Among the victims' family members in court on Thursday was Clinton's father, Thomas Duroux.

Speaking outside court, Mr Duroux thanked police and said he was happy to be seeing his son's alleged killer facing court.

'You've just got to keep fighting and keep going - that's all we can do,' he told reporters.

'I'm really glad it's come to this. It has been a long battle and hopefully we will get there.'
After spending $23million to buy the biggest home in Washington, D.C., Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos seems to be ready to make some changes to the mansion.

A renovation truck was spotted outside of the billionaire's 27,000 square-foot home on Wednesday along with a van belonging to a company that installs elevators.

Bezos purchased the home, which is located in one of Washington's most elite neighborhoods, last year in October.

The 53-year-old can count President Obama and his family, and first daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, presidential adviser Jared Kushner, as neighbors in the affluent Kalorama area.

Remodeling?: After spending $23million to buy the biggest home in Washington, D.C., Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos seems to be ready to make some changes to the huge home.

A renovation truck was spotted outside of the billionaire's 27,000 square-foot home on Wednesday (above)

In addition, a van belonging to a company that installs elevators was also spotted outside of the massive house on Wednesday (above)

Bezos, who lives with his wife McKenzie (pictured together right) and their four children in Seattle, had made in clear when he bought the Washington Post in 2013 that he wasn't planning to relocate

The billionaire, who became the second richest person in the world this year, bought the former Textile Museum to turn it into a pied-a-terre in the city for himself and his family, the Washington Post reported.

But Bezos, who lives with his wife McKenzie and their four children in Seattle, had made it clear when he bought the Washington Post in 2013 that he wasn't planning to relocate.

'I won't be leading The Washington Post day-to-day,' he told Forbes at the time.

Bezos slipped into second place on the Forbes 400 this year, after adding $20billion to his fortune as Amazon stock soared 46 per cent, overtaking Warren Buffett who dropped to third place for the first time in 15 years.

The Amazon founder purchased the home last October for $23 million in cash as it's the biggest home in the city (pictured) located in one of Washington's most elite neighborhoods

Bezos can count the Obama family and first daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, as neighbors when he moves into the affluent Kalorama area (pictured while it was being used as a Textile Museum)

The Amazon founder is now only behind Microsoft founder Bill Gates as the richest person in the world.

The former Textile Museum sold on October 21 to a cash buyer for $23 million. In public documents, the buyer was described as the Cherry Revocable Trust.

And rumors about the identity of the billionaire buyer had been swirling ever since.

The property at 2320-2330 S Street NW, which currently spans two historic mansions, was home to the Textile Museum for almost a century before it moved to George Washington University's campus in 2013.

Textile Museum founder George Hewitt Myers commissioned John Russell Pope, architect of the Jefferson Memorial, to design his home at 2320 S Street NW in 1912.

Textile Museum founder George Hewitt Myers commissioned John Russell Pope, architect of the Jefferson Memorial, to design his home at 2320 in 1912 which was later used as a museum (pictured)

The property at 2320-2330 S Street NW, which spans two historic mansions, was home to the Textile Museum for almost a century before it moved to George Washington University's campus in 2013

The adjacent mansion was designed by noted Washington architect Waddy Butler Wood.

Both properties, which are on the National Register of Historic Places, were sold together in May 2015 for $19 million.

They were put back on the market in 2016 at $22 million. And Bezos bought it in cash for one million over the asking price in October 2016.

The property is based in Kalorama, one of Washington DC's most elegant neighborhoods.

Barack and Michelle Obama are moving into a $5.3million home in Kalorama, so 15-year-old Sasha Obama can finish out high school at the Sidwell Friends School.

The property is pictured while it was still being used as a Textile Museum in 2009 - before the exhibits were relocated to the new museum on George Washington University's campus

The property, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, was sold with the neighboring mansion in May 2015 for $19 million

Construction permits obtained by TMZ show the home will also be outfitted with an upgraded electrical system as well as a cat walk over one staircase.

While the stately home is situated just off the street, Secret Service will be guarding the property and an enhanced security system will be installed.

The Obamas are leasing the house from Bill Clinton's former press secretary Joe Lockhart and his wife Giovanna Gray, who works for Glamour magazine.

The home, built in 1928 with nine bedrooms and eight and a half baths, is tastefully decorated in a white, beige and grey palette.

Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, moved to Washington DC to put them closer to the president.
Coles has said it will limit the number of items at self-serve checkouts to 12, just months after police announced a crackdown on supermarket shoplifting.

The Australian supermarket giant will trial a 12-item limit on self-scanning checkouts across multiple outlets with a staff member watching the lanes at all times, the Courier Mail reported.

'We have found customers with small baskets can generally complete their shopping faster by using self-scanning check-outs,' a Coles spokesperson said.

Coles has said it will limit the number of items at self-serve checkouts to 12, just months after police announced a crackdown on supermarket shoplifting (stock image)

The Australian supermarket giant will trial a 12-item limit on self-scanning checkouts across multiple outlets with a staff member watching the lanes at all times

Shoppers with more than 12 items could use traditional lanes, the supermarket said.

This comes four months after police launched a crackdown on the thefts of expensive food items at stores as the rise of shoplifting at self-checkouts continues.

In October New South Wales Police said it was working closely with the retail industry to reduce incidents of shoplifting at retail giants like Coles and Woolworths.

The retailers have had enough of being targeted by customers who lie about what they're purchasing to get a discount or who try to avoid paying at all.

In some instances supermarkets have discovered they have been selling more carrots and the like than they had in stock, because they were being passed off as more expensive items such as avocados.

'People think it's opportunistic and that they'll get away with it, but our statistics don't tell us that,' Detective Superintendent Chapman said.

Detective Superintendent Murray Chapman spoke about the crackdown on shoplifting at self-checkouts

Shoplifting costs the Australian retail industry $4.5 billion a year (stock image)

'No matter how small you think it is, even if it's an avocado and you're saving $2, it's still shoplifting.

'It's still stealing, it's still a crime and if we catch you or you get caught, you will be charged.'

NSW Police received over 22,000 reports of shoplifting in the last financial year, Detective Superintendent Chapman said, and he pledged they would be working with retailers over the summer to stop it happening more often.

It is still a major problem, with National Retailers Association Chief executive Dominique Lamb stating that shoplifting costs the Australian retail industry $4.5 billion a year.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Coles for comment.
The hunt is on for a man who allegedly raped a woman on a beach in Melbourne on Saturday night.

Police say the 31-year-old woman was running along the foreshore on Beaconsfield Parade between Fraser Street and Langridge Street at Middle Park beach at around 11pm to 11.30pm.

She was allegedly grabbed from behind by an unknown man and forced face down into the sand before she was sexually assaulted.

A digital image of a man wanted by police after a woman was sexually assaulted while running at Middle Park beach on February 4

A man and a woman came to the victims aid along with two other men wearing white shirts.

The attacker, who was wearing a dark coloured hooded jumper, fled the scene.

He is described as Caucasian, 178 centimetres tall, medium build with light-coloured eyes and light-coloured hair.

A digital image of the man has been released.

Investigators want to speak to the four Good Samaritans who helped the victim and any witnesses in the area at the time of the incident.

An information caravan will be set up on Beaconsfield Parade opposite Fraser Street from 5pm to 9pm on Thursday.

Contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or submit a confidential crime report at www.crimestoppersvic.com.au.
To foster any child takes an extraordinary amount of selfless love and devotion. But one man in Los Angeles has taken on an even more monumental role: caring for the city's dying children.

Mohamed Bzeek is that man: A devout Libyan-born Muslim who has spent the last 20 years giving hope and comfort to children no other person would touch - ten of whom have died.

'The key is, you have to love them like your own,' Bzeek told the Los Angeles Times. 'I know they are sick. I know they are going to die. I do my best as a human being and leave the rest to God.'

Hero: Mohamed Bzeek came to the US in 1978; he has been fostering terminally ill children for 20 years, even after having a disabled son, Adam, in 2007, and the death of his wife in 2013

Bzeek, 62, moved to the US from Libya as a college student in 1978. He began fostering children in 1989, and in 1991 he experienced his first death.

The girl had been affected in the womb by pesticides sprayed on her farm-worker mother, and her spine was so deformed that she had to wear a full body cast.

She was in his home for just a year when she passed away. Bzeek still has a photograph of the girl lying in her coffin, surrounded by flowers.

Another child - a boy who had to be admitted to hospital 167 times and died aged eight - was born with short-gut syndrome and couldn't eat food.

I know she cant hear, can't see, but I always talk to her ... She has feelings. She has a soul. She's a human being Mohamad Bzeek, on his current, severely disabled foster child

Nevertheless, Bzeek would sit him down at the table with a bowl and spoon so that he could feel like part of the family.

Now, Bzeek is caring for a girl who was born with encephalocele, which left her mentally and physically underdeveloped - and with parts of her brain protruding from a hole in her skull that had to be surgically removed.

She is blind and deaf, paralyzed in her arms and legs, and suffers seizures every day.

She spends at least 22 hours of every 24 on feeding and breathing tubes.

But Bzeek keeps a vigil, day and night, over her tiny body, to make sure she has as much comfort as he can give her.

'I know she cant hear, can't see, but I always talk to her,' he said. 'I'm always holding her, playing with her, touching her.  She has feelings. She has a soul. She's a human being.'

Comfort: Bzeek is currently caring for a paralyzed blind and deaf girl, 6. She needs medical care 22 hours a day, but he stands vigil, and provides comfort with a touch

Doctors gave up hope on the girl, who is not being named due to confidentiality laws, when she was two years old.

She is now six.

That, says Dr Suzanne Roberts, the girls pediatrician at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, is entirely thanks to Bzeek, who is now something of a legend in the local community.

'If anyone ever calls us and says, "This kid needs to go home on hospice," there's only one name we think of,' said Melissa Testerman, who places children into foster care.

'He's the only one that would take a child who would possibly not make it.'

He's the only one that would take a child who would possibly not make it Dr Suzanne Roberts, local pediatrician

But Bzeek might not have found this calling had it not been for his former wife, Dawn.

The couple met through a mutual friend in the 1980s, by which time - inspired by her grandparents, who also fostered children - she had already started taking in kids.

She became so well known, in fact, that statewide task forces would seek her input on improving foster care, along with doctors and policymakers.

Bzeek joined her in caring for children - including the girl who was affected by pesticides in the womb - and by the mid-1990s they had decided to focus on terminally ill youths.

They kept the work up even when their son, Adam, was born in 1997 with brittle bone disease and dwarfism.

Adam - now studying computers at college - grew up fully aware of how short his sibilings' lives would be, and was taught to find joy in every small moment of happiness.

Happiness doesn't last forever, however. Around 2000, Dawn began to have seizures that would leave her housebound for days.

The added stress tore their marriage apart; they split in 2013, and she died around a year later.

Carer: Bzeek is the only man local authorities can turn to when a terminally ill child needs to be fostered. 'I do my best as a human being and leave the rest to God,' he said

Bzeek tears up when he thinks of his wife. She was always stronger than him when children passed away, he said.

But he has carried on, helping the most helpless of LA's children, and inspiring those who know him.

They include Roberts, who knows just how much Bzeek's current charge - tiny, crippled, deaf and blind - needs his care.

'When she's not sick, and in a good mood, she'll cry to be held,' Robers said. 'She's not verbal, but she can make her needs known.

'Her life is not complete suffering. She has moments where shes enjoying herself and she's pretty content, and it's all because of Mohamed.'
A 21-year-old woman who was swept to her death after a dam's flood gates opened was seen taking photos with three other women reportedly holding selfie sticks just minutes before the water began to rise.

Student Rachael Louise De Jong was swimming with friends at the Waikato River in New Zealand on Monday when a five-minute warning for the dam gates rang out.

The group of young women clambered on to a rock in the middle of the rapids in a bid to stay safe from the rising water, but they quickly became stuck.

German tourists Katrin Taylor and Kevin Kiau, who were on a viewing platform in the Aratiatia Dam area, said they saw the four women stuck on the rock with selfie sticks in their hands when the sudden onslaught of water began, stuff.co.nz reported.

Two German tourists, Katrin Taylor and Kevin Kiau, were on a viewing platform in the Aratiatia Dam area and could see four people standing on a submerged rock

Rachael Louise De Jong, 21, drowned after the Aratiatia Dam floodgates were opened, sending water surging down the spillway where she was swimming with friends

As the waters began rising, the two tourists watched as the girls tried to jump to a nearby rock where a man was standing.

'We saw the first girl made it. The guy pulled her in. The second girl jumped and made it safe as well  the guy pulled her in,' Ms Taylor told stuff.co.nz.

'The third girl, she jumped but the water was washing her away so the guy grabbed her.'

Ms Taylor said the man and the third woman were washed away.

'There was still one girl left in the middle of the river. I'm not sure if she tried to jump, or the water was already too high, but she was gone pretty quick without making it to the safer rock, to the larger one,' she said.

Two women were left stranded on the rock, left to fear the fate of their friends.

Tragically, 21-year-old Rachael Louise De Jong did not survive the accident.

Touching tributes from devastated friends and family describe a constantly smiling, bubbly woman who was loved by many

'You can live a lifetime and never meet another person that has such a profoundly positive effect in your life,' just one of the dozens of hearfelt tributes for the 21-year-old

Touching tributes from friends and family described a constantly smiling, bubbly woman who was loved by many.

'I am honestly lost for words hearing yesterday that we have lost you. The most beautiful girl inside and out I have ever met, just gone like that,' one friend wrote.

Ms De Jong's heartbroken brother also expressed his grief over the loss of his beloved sister.

'Not only was she an inspiration to us all, she was my best friend, and the most perfect sister I could ever have asked for. I can't even begin to describe how much I'm going to miss you, and how incredibly unfair it is that you have been taken far, far too soon,' he said.

'You never spoke a bad word of anyone, and you had such an infectious smile that could cheer anyone up. There's not enough words in the world I could use to describe you. I love you so much Rachael, rest easy.'

'Our thoughts are with Rachael's family and friends at this extremely difficult and sad time. AUT extends our sincere condolences.'

The Aratiatia Rapids pictured when the spillway is open. As the waters began rising, the two tourists watched as the girls tried to jump to a nearby rock where a man was standing

Mercury Energy, the company that operate the spillway, confirmed there was a warning siren before the dam's gates were opened at midday.

During summer, the gates open four times a day at 10am, 12pm, 2pm and 4pm, Stuff reports.

'Mercury's thoughts and condolences are with the De Jong family during this difficult time, they told Daily Mail Australia.

'The drowning is a real tragedy and Mercury is working with relevant organisation's to review safety processes in the area.'

'The spillway is opened approximately 1,200 times a year, for operational management on the Waikato River and for tourism viewing purposes.'

There are signs around the area warning people not to swim as well and fences and harsh terrain to prevent swimmers from accessing various areas.

'There are safety mitigations warning of the dangers of entering the active spillway area and a bylaw prohibits people from being in the spillway and downstream vicinity.'

Ms De Jong's death has been referred to the Coroner.
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A powerful, fast-moving storm swept through the northeastern U.S. on Thursday, making for slippery commutes and leaving some residents bracing for blizzard conditions and more than a foot of snow.

Commuters in the densely populated region awoke to windblown snow - less than 24 hours after enjoying spring-like temperatures - and faced slick highways. Fifty million people from Maine to Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., have been affected the storm.

Forecasters said Thursday's weather had the potential to be the most powerful storm that some areas have seen in a mostly snow-free winter.

So far, one person has died as a result of the storm. Miguel Gonzalez, a 59-year-old doorman was killed after he slipped and crashed through a glass door in NYC.

Police say Gonzalez had just finished shoveling snow outside his building at 333 East 93rd Street at 9.30am when he hit an icy patch while going down the stairs to the lobby.

Gonzales, a resident of Bridgeport, Connecticut, fell head-first into the glass entrance door, shattering it and slashing his jugular vein in the process.

Scroll down for video

 Slide me  Just yesterday, New Yorkers enjoyed unseasonably warm weather. But temperatures dropped overnight as the nor'easter moved into the region. Astor Place in Manhattan pictured on the left on Wednesday and on the right on Thursday

 Slide me  ATLA on Lafayette St in New York City is now covered in snow, but was clear on Wednesday

 Slide me  The weather was quite a change from Wednesday, when New York City experienced record breaking 62-degree heat. On the left, a man walks the streets in short-sleeved t-shirt on Wednesday, but New Yorkers were trudging through the streets this morning

 Slide me  Spot the difference: In less than 24 hours the cold spell swept NYC. Above a sidewalk is seen left on Wednesday and, right, today

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 Slide me 

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A woman walks in the snow along waterfront of the Brooklyn Bridge Park, February 9, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City

A man makes his way through wind and snow past the Oculus of the World Trade Center Transportation Hub on Thursday in New York City

A pedestrian walks through Times Square during a winter storm, February 9, 2017 in New York

Waves pound the shore at along Lynn Shore Drive as a storm hits February 9, 2017 in Lynn, Massachusetts. The storm is expected to hit the Boston area with up to twelve inches of snow

A man walks across the Brooklyn Bridge in the snow, February 9, 2017 in New York City

Several hundred people take part in a snowball fight on Boston Common during a winter nor'easter snow storm

The Commonwealth Mall as a winter storm bears down on February 9, 2017 in Boston, Massachusetts

Freak accident: Manhattan doorman Miguel Gonzalez, 59, was killed when he fell head-first into the glass entrance door at 333 Est 93rd Street, shattering it and slashing his jugular vein

CURRENT SNOWFALL TOTALS New York City - LaGuardia Airport: 9.5 inches Danbury, Connecticut: 6.4 inches Newark, New Jersey: 7.7 inches Albany, New York: 6.8 inches Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania: 10.8 inches Montague, New Jersey: 10.2 inches Farmingville, New York: 9.4 inches Concord, New Hampshire: 8 inches Portland, Maine: 8 inches Boston: 3 inches (As of 3:30pm) Advertisement

All public schools in New York City, Philadelphia and Boston have been closed today and the weather is also causing travel chaos. With the storm expected to last into the night in Boston, classes have also been cancelled there for Friday.

More than 4,000 flights have been cancelled for the day, in addition to more than 5,500 delays. The vast majority of the cancellations were at New York-area airports.

New York's LaGuardia Airport and New Jersey's Newark appeared to be the hardest hit with more than 400 flights cancelled each. JFK Airport and Boston Logan also had more than 350 cancelled flights.

At JFK Airport, snow was falling at a rate of three inches an hour for back to back hours Thursday morning, causing the FAA to issue a ground stoppage at the airport just after 11am. The ground stoppage was called off three hours later.

Hundreds of departures from Logan International Airport in Boston have been cancelled, as were dozens more at Rhode Island's T.F. Green. Most flights at Connecticut's Bradley International have also been cancelled.

A woman carries an umbrella as she walks past the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), February 9, 2017 in New York City

A man poses next to the snow-covered Raging Bull sculpture in the Financial District, February 9, 2017 in New York City

A family plays in the snow in Washington Square Park, February 9, 2017 in New York City

Pedestrians make their way across the Brooklyn Bridge, February 9, 2017 in New York City

A woman pulls a child on a sled as they cross a street during a winter storm in New York on February 9, 2017

A man clears snow from a path in Brooklyn Bridge Park, February 9, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City

A woman makes her way to a runway show through inclement weather during Fashion Week in New York, Thursday

A person runs across a snow-covered area in front of the Katyn massacre statue on Thursday in Jersey City, New Jersey

Aworker shovels snow in Times Square during a winter storm. People in Manhattan woke up to a blanket of snow on Thursday

Pedestrians maneuver the slush and snow in New York's Times Square during the morning commute on Thursday

Vehicles on Interstate 278 drive in the snow during the morning rush hour on February 9, 2017 in New York City. Following a day of 60 degree temperatures, New York City is expected to receive significant snowfall throughout the day on Thursday

A man makes his way through wind and snow past the Oculus of the World Trade Center Transportation Hub on Thursday in New York City

A person shields itself from falling snow with an umbrella on Thursday in Jersey City, New Jersey

A fast-moving storm is causing travel chaos for the morning commute in the Northeast. Above, the view near the Holland Tunnel in New Jersey Thursday morning. The tunnel connects New Jersey to Manhattan

A man clears snow from a walkway on February 9, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City

A delivery man rides a bike through the snow and wind on February 9, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City

A Port Authority of New York and New Jersey truck plows snow near the Holland Tunnel approach during a snowstorm on Thursday in Jersey City, New Jersey

Vehicles are seen at the toll bridge of the Holland Tunnel as snow covers the road during a snowstorm on Thursday in Jersey City, New Jersey

People walk across a snow-covered intersection behind American flags in Hoboken, New Jersey on Thursday, February 9, 2017

Pedestrians maneuver the slush and snow in New York's Times Square during the morning commute on Feb. 9, 2017.

A pedestrian make his way through the snow and wind on February 9, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City

A young girl enjoys the snow as the New York schools are closed due to the snowstorm. New York City is expecting to be coated with 8 to 12 inches of snow, the brunt of it falling during the morning commute

New York City is expecting to be coated with 8 to 12 inches of snow, the brunt of it falling during the morning commute

People walk their dogs in the snow on February 9, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City

FLIGHT CANCELLATIONS Total delays for Wednesday: 5,502 Total cancellations for Wednesday: 4,026 Airports with the most cancellations LaGuardia (New York) - 428 Newark (New Jersey) - 410 JFK (New York) - 371 Boston Logan - 365 Philadelphia - 115 Advertisement

In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio held a press conference just after 11am to update residents on the situation. He said that 2,300 vehicles were out on the streets salting and plowing the snow in 12-hour shifts.

The worst of the snow in the city is expected to stop between 12 and 1pm, but the area will remain on a winter storm warning until 6pm - when the snow is expected to cease completely.

De Blasio asked residents not to drive if possible, because street conditions are too dangerous. Subways and buses are running normally, but with some delays.

The National Weather Service predicted that the Boston area and eastern Maine could get 12 to 18 inches of snow, New York City could see 10 to 14 inches and the Philadelphia area four to eight inches.

Near whiteout conditions are possible, with the snow expected to fall at a clip of 2 to 4 inches per hour at its peak.

People brave high winds at Red Rock Park as a storm hits February 9, 2017 in Lynn, Massachusetts

Waves break over the sea wall along Winthrop Parkway as a storm hits February 9, 2017 in Winthrop, Massachusetts. The storm is expected to hit the Boston area with up to twelve inches of snow

A man collects clams on Revere Beach as a storm hits February 9, 2017 in Revere, Massachusetts

A man pushes his bicycle past firefighters at as a snowstorm begins on Thursday in Wellesley, Massachusetts

A group has a snowball fight on the Boston Common as a winter storm strengthens on February 9, 2017 in Boston, Massachusetts. A snowstorm has been forecast with up to a foot of snow in a large swath of the Northeast today

While the snow cancelled and delayed flights for some, others had a whale of a time enjoying a snowball fight in Boston

People sheild themselves with a sled as they walk down Clarendon St. as a winter storm bears down on February 9, 2017 in Boston, Massachusetts

A snow plow clears an area on Boston Common in Boston, Massachusetts, as a winter storm bears down on Thursday February 9

A man walks several dogs through the snow on Boston Common as a winter storm strengthens in Boston, Massachusetts

Zach MacGregor, of Framingham, Massachusettts, clears snow from a sidewalk as a snowstorm begins on Thursday in downtown Wellesley, Massachusetts

Snow falls at the Metro North Greenwich train station on February 9, 2017 as winter storms hit the area in Greenwich, Connecticut

A man walks down the middle of the street in downtown Greenwich,Connecticut on February 9, 2017 as winter storms hit the area

A train conductorlooks at the snow at the Metro North Greenwich train station on February 9, 2017 as winter storms hit the area in Greenwich, Connecticut

Officials also are warning of high winds, coastal flooding and power outages.

The National Weather Service has issued a blizzard warning for all of Long Island until 6pm Thursday. A similar warning was issued for Massachusetts' Cape Cod and parts of Boston's South Shore through 8pm.

State offices were closed in New Jersey, and government offices in the Delaware, Bucks, Chester and Montgomery counties outside Philadelphia were shuttered Thursday.

Governors in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts are urging people to stay off the roads to keep them clear for plows and emergency vehicles.

A snowman sits in a park on February 9, 2017 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A snowstorm has been forecast with up to a foot of snow in a large swath of the Northeast today

A person walks in the snow with an umbrella as winter storm conditions begins during the early morning on February 9, 2017 in Philadelphia, PA

Schools were also cancelled in Philadelphia Thursday morning. Above, a woman carries her two dogs in a car during the storm on Thursday

Conditions were slightly slushier in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Thursday morning

A Marywood University student walks among a snow-covered campus in Scranton, Pennsylvania on Thursday

A hill newly covered in snow is reflected in the Wissahickon Creek in Philadelphia on Thursday

William Rutecky clears a spot in front of his home after a snow storm in Palo Alto, Pennsylvania, on Thursday, February 9, 2017

A deer stand on a hill newly covered in snow at the Wissahickon Valley Park in Philadelphia on Thursday

Howard Avenue was mostly clear after a snow storm blanketed Pottsville, Pennsylvania, on Thursday, February 9

Residents clear the snow on Carmalt Street in Dickson City, Pennsylvania on Thursday, February 9, 2017

A man clears snow from Dilworth Park during a winter storm in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Thursday, February 9, 2017

Tina Rutecky cleans off her vehicle after a snow storm in Palo Alto, Pennsylvania, on Thursday morning, Feb. 9, 2017

US postal worker Daniel DeCusace tries to clear the snow from his truck in Warwick, Rhode Island, as a major snowstorm hits

Anna Holzinger, 14, feeds the horses at Smithbridge Stables in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, on Thursday

Rhode Island state police reported little traffic on the roadways and no major accidents. Connecticut state police say they have responded to about 30 accidents; no serious injuries have been reported.

Earlier Thursday, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker said state police were reporting some crashes and spin-outs, but no serious problems.

Baker also said there were reports of minor coastal flooding and several thousand power outages.

The Boston-area transit system that was crippled by a series of powerful storms two winters ago is urging commuters to be patient and check online for service alerts.

Men try to push a stuck motorist from the roadway during a snowstorm on Thursday, February 9, 2017, in Marlborough, Massachusetts

Manny Duarte is caught in the snow storm as he walks up Purchase Street in New Bedford, Massachusetts, as heavy snow starts falling across the region

The snowstorm is already causing significant power outages in Rhode Island.

Utility company National Grid reported that around 12,000 customerse were without power in the state Thursday afternoon .

Neighboring Massachusetts reported a few thousand outages, and Connecticut a few hundred around noon.

Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo said National Grid crews were working to restore power.

Elsewhere in New England, New Hampshire saw two feet of snow in some areas.

The National Weather Service said Merrimack had 14 inches of snow Thursday afternoon. Manchester had 11 inches, and Concord had 7 inches with more snow on the way.

A worker uses a snow thrower to clean a parking lot during a snowstorm, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017, in Framingham, Massachusetts

Postman John Gomes fights the wind and heavy snow as he makes his way down Rotch Street in New Bedford, Mass., Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017, as heavy snow sweeps across the region

A group has a snowball fight on the Boston Common as a winter storm strengthens on February 9, 2017 in Boston, Massachusetts

People sled on the Boston Common as a winter storm strengthens on February 9, 2017 in Boston, Massachusetts

Cars drive down Beacon St. as a winter storm strengthens on February 9, 2017 in Boston, Massachusetts

Laurie Wiles, a supervisor in dining services at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts clears the snow off of her car on Thursday, February 9, 2017, at the end of her shift during a winter storm which brought a foot of snow to the area. Wiles said that when she drove to work at 5am, the snow had not yet begun and the 'roads were bare'.

Pedestrians wait to cross the street at the intersection of Route 2 and Holden Street in North Adams, Massachusetts during a winter storm Thursday, February 9, 2017

A pedestrian crosses the street at the lonely intersection of Main, Ashland and Eagle Streets in North Adams, Massachusetts during a winter storm Thursday, February 9, 2017

Postal carrier Marc Daniell walks on the road as the sidewalks get covered by snow while delivering mail in a snowstorm, Thursday, February 9, 2017, in West Brattleboro, Vermont

Christine Stack and her daughter, Carina Stack, 6, wear goggles while walking during a snowstorm on Thursday, February 9, 2017, in Portland, Maine

Hundreds of schools were closed for the day, and most flights at the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport were canceled as the storm made its way through New Hampshire.

Gov. Chris Sununu took a ride in a plow truck before delivering his budget address to the Legislature. He said more than 500 plow trucks were working.

He said the greatest concerns for those who must drive are whiteout conditions, wind gusts and deep snow.A storm warning was in effect through 10pm for all counties except Coos.

Muddy Creek Falls located in Garrett County, Maryland on Thursday Feb. 9, 2017. There have been years when the falls freeze solid and ice climbers take advantage of the frozen water fall

A Maryland State Highway snow plow leaves the Finzel salt barn in Finzel, Maryland on Thursday February 9, 2017. Several accidents were reported on interstate 68 in Garrett County

Maine was also getting more snow than expected.

The National Weather Service says the town of Berwick had recorded 12 inches of snow Thursday afternoon, with hours to go before the snow moves on.

The windblown-snow was bad enough that Gov. Paul LePage ordered state offices closed at noon.

Justin Arnott from the National Weather Service says the storm tracked farther north, meaning the snow is moving farther inland while the coast bears the brunt of the storm. He said there will likely be eight to 12 inches from Auburn to Augusta before the storm ends. He said there will be lesser amounts to the north.

Boston and Providence are expected to get the brunt of the storm, with 12 to 18 inches of expected snowfall

Parts of the Northeast - including Long Island and Cape Cod - are even under blizzard warnings today, thanks to high winds that rae mixing with the storm

Washington, DC is also experiencing the storm, but it will be a mix of rain and snow further south

Temperatures plummeted 15 to 30 degrees on Thursday, after much of the Northeast experienced record-breaking warm temperatures

The winter storm is causing travel chaos at airports, with the most delays and cancellations at New York City airports

Terminal C at Logan International Airport is nearly empty as winter storm conditions begin during the early morning on February 9, 2017 in Boston, Massachussets

Cancelled flights are listed on a screen at Logan International Airport as winter storm conditions begin during the early morning on February 9, 2017 in Boston, Massachussets

Crews plow snow at Logan International Airport as winter storm conditions begin on February 9, 2017 in Boston, Massachussets

Stranded travellers sit beneath a sign displaying cancelled flights in a nearly empty Delta Airlines terminal at New York's LaGuardia Airport during a powerful winter storm in New York City, U.S., February 9, 2017

A security guard walks outside of the Delta Airline Terminal at New York's LaGuardia Airport during a powerful winter storm in New York City, U.S., February 9, 2017

Thunderstorm has already been reported in Upstate New York and experts say that the conditions are right for it later in New England.

In Lower Manhattan, intrepid, bundled-up commuters carefully navigated snow-covered sidewalks. The blowing snow stung any exposed skin.

Sam Lopresti, of Jersey City, New Jersey, warm and dry in his workplace, said he'd been pleasantly surprised that his early-morning train trip to Manhattan had gone smoothly.

'I fully expected the MTA and PATH to curl into a ball and say, "Don't hurt me!"' joked Lopresti, an actor and barista.

Lopresti said weather forecasts had escalated from 'a run of the mill snowstorm to an apocalyptic deal.

Pedestrians walk in the snow and wind on February 9, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City

A man shovels snow on Thursday in the Brooklyn borough of New York City

A pedestrian makes his way through the snow and wind on February 9, 2017 in New York, United States

Residents in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn shovel snow. New York City is expecting to be coated with 8 to 12 inches of snow, the brunt of it falling during the morning commute

Bike messengers work in the snow on Thursday in New York City

Drivers cars are stuck on RT 347 during a blizzard that hit the metro area on February 9, 2017 in Hauppauge, New York

Drivers cars are stuck on RT 347 during a blizzard that hit the metro area on February 9, 2017 in Hauppauge, New York

Drivers cars are stuck on RT 347 during a blizzard that hit the metro area on February 9, 2017 in Hauppauge, New York

A man rides his bike in the snow on Smith Street, February 9, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City

It's was slow-going on New Jersey's highways as rain turned to snow across the state, leading to a reduction in speed limits and more than 100 accidents reported.

The speed has been reduced to 35 mph Thursday along the 122-mile length of the New Jersey Turnpike.

The New Jersey State Police says troopers have responded to 145 crashes and 148 calls to assist motorists since midnight.

The state Transportation Department says it has more than 2,300 plows and salt spreaders on the highways. But it's tough for them to gain ground as the heavy, wet snow continues to fall.

Accumulations range from 10 inches in Montague Township, 5  in Belvidere and 2 inches in Bridgewater.

Tourists take pictures at the snow-covered Central Park during a winter storm in New York on February 9, 2017

A woman walks in the snow and wind in Manhattan on February 9, 2017 in New York City

A snowplow drives through Times Square as snow falls in Manhattan, New York, U.S. February 9, 2017

A couple walks through a snow-covered path at Pier A Park, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017, in Hoboken, N.J. A powerful, fast-moving storm swept through the northeastern U.S.

A truck moves through the snow of The Northern State Parkway as a blizzard hits the New York Area on February 9, 2017 in Islip New York, New York

A person walks in Times Square as snow falls in Manhattan, New York, U.S. February 9, 2017

A train arrives as commuters head to work at the Huntington train station as a blizzard hits the New York Area on February 9, 2017 in Huntington, New York

Commuters climb the snow filled stairs as they head to work and workers clean at the Huntington train station as a blizzard hits the New York Area on February 9, 2017 in Huntington, New York

The storm largely spared eastern Pennsylvania, where it was expected to deliver up to eight inches in the Philadelphia area.

By mid-morning, though, it had largely wound down, leaving about three inches downtown. Some outlying areas like Bucks and Chester counties saw four to five inches.

The National Weather Service cancelled its winter storm warning for the area.

AccuWeather senior meteorologist Paul Walker said that while the snow is over for much of Pennsylvania, windy cold weather will persist, with blowing snow.

These dog owners didn't let the snow get in the way of their morning walk in New York City's Tompkins Square Park on Thursday

A girl takes a tumble on the street near Astor Place in New York as men work to clear the pavements of snow

In Manhattan's East Village this morning a man can be seen, left, walking through Tompkin's Square Park, and right, a man tries to clear the pavements of snow

Thursday's storm is expected to last six to 10 hours, said Carl Erickson, a senior meteorologist with AccuWeather in State College, Pennsylvania

New York City residents woke up to snow Thursday morning, as a fast storm moves through the region. Above, a view of Manhattan's Upper East Side

The storm comes a day after much of the Northeast enjoyed a brief glimpse of spring, with temperatures hitting 60 degrees in some places. Record high temperatures were set in Philadelphia, New York City and Baltimore.

The storm started as rain early Thursday in eastern Pennsylvania and northern New Jersey before changing over to snow.

The first flakes started falling in Boston just before 8am, and fewer people were on the roads than on a normal weekday.

Thursday's storm is expected to last six to 10 hours, said Carl Erickson, a senior meteorologist with AccuWeather in State College, Pennsylvania.

The snow is expected taper off by the early afternoon in the Philadelphia and New York City areas, but New Englanders should brace for snowfall through the evening commute.
Police made several arrests as protesters blocked vans from leaving a US immigration office in Phoenix last night, fearing that a mother of two on board was being deported.

The protest surged at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility after Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos was taken into custody during a routine check-in with the agency.

Dozens of immigration activists blocked the gates surrounding the office near central Phoenix in an apparent effort to stop several vans and a bus from leaving.

The activists said it was an attempt by President Donald Trump's administration to deport undocumented immigrants who had previously not been a priority for deportation under the Obama administration.

Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos is locked in a van that is stopped in the street by protesters outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility late on Wednesday in Phoenix

Garcia de Rayos produced a video before her arrest expressing her fear of deportation

She appeared on the screen with her husband, who is also an undocumented migrant and her and two US-born children Angel, center and Jacqueline, right

ICE officials confirmed Garcia de Rayos was being detained as part of a removal order, adding she had a prior felony conviction for criminal impersonation.

She was arrested in 2008 when she was caught using a fake Social Security number during a raid on a water park where she worked.

One of the conditions of her punishment was to check in with the agency once a year. This time she was taken into custody.

Garcia de Rayos apparently was in one of the vehicles, which are used to transport people in ICE custody to detention centers, or to Arizona's border with Mexico for deportation.

Protesters took to Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters Wednesday to block the deportation of a Mesa mom who was ordered deported during an immigration check-in

Activists blocked the gates surrounding the office near central Phoenix in an effort to blcok several vans and a bus. Police moved in and arrested several people

A protester locked himself to the van carrying Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos that is stopped by protesters outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility

Police officers amassed at the facility as protesters continued to block access, chanting 'Justice!' and 'Power to the people, no one is illegal!'

Cops posted on Twitter that they arrested about seven protesters, but they added that most of the protesters were peaceful.

'Besides the few people engaged in criminal acts, most people out here are peaceful and exercising their rights properly,' police said. 'Everyone remains safe so far. Hoping for continued cooperation and no more criminal conduct.'

According to the Los Angeles Times, Garcia de Rayos arrived in the US aged 14 and was arrested on December 16, 2008 following a raid on the Golfland Sunsplash leisure center in Mesa, Arizona by the Maricopa County sheriff's department.

Garcia de Rayos was arrested in a major clampdown ordered by the hard-line sheriff of Maricopa County in Arizona Joe Arpaio who may be facing criminal charges himself over his controversial immigration patrols before he lost his position in January following an election

The raid, sanctioned by hard-line sheriff Joe Arpaio, targeted employers who knowingly employed undocumented migrants.

Authorities found Garcia de Rayos had been using a false Social Security number and she received a felony conviction.

In 2013, a court ordered her deportation.

Her arrest came just days after the Trump administration broadened regulations under which some people will be deported.

'We're living in a new era now, an era of war on immigrants,' Ms. Rayos's lawyer, Ray A. Ybarra Maldonado, said after leaving the building that houses the federal immigration agency.

Ms. Garcia De Rayos is currently being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) based on a removal order... Relevant databases indicate Ms. Garcia De Rayos has a prior felony conviction dating from March 2009 for criminal impersonation. ICE SPOKESMAN

The protests carried on late into the night and included several people who bound themselves to one of the vans while others sat in front of a closed gate, blocking anyone from leaving.

Police posted on Twitter that they arrested about seven protesters, but added that the demonstration was mainly peaceful.

'Besides the few people engaged in criminal acts, most people out here are peaceful and exercising their rights properly,' police said. 'Everyone remains safe so far. Hoping for continued cooperation and no more criminal conduct.'

By 1am today, less than two dozen protesters stood in the dark outside the building talking quietly, with just a handful of police looking on.

The protesters said they initially succeeded in stopping the vehicles from leaving, but said they later left the grounds by another exit. They didn't know if Garcia de Rayos had still been aboard.

Users on social media have had conflicting opinions on whether the round-up was justified

Puente Arizona, an immigrant advocacy group, said Garcia de Rayos came to the US.as a 14-year-old and now has two children. She was arrested on Wednesday while reporting to ICE, which she has done every six months since she was arrested nine years ago.

According to KTAR, Garcia de Rayos was arrested in 2008 during a workplace raid and was later convicted of felony identity theft for possessing false papers.

Despite her conviction, she was allowed to live in Arizona and checked in with ICE officials every six months.

In a tearful video interview uploaded before her detention, Garcia de Rayos and her family spoke of the trauma they face by the threat facing them.

She lives in Mesa with her husband and two teenage children, a daughter, Jacqueline, and a son, Angel.

A spokeswoman for ICE told MailOnline: 'Ms. Garcia De Rayos is currently being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) based on a removal order issued by the Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review which became final in May 2013.

'Relevant databases indicate Ms. Garcia De Rayos has a prior felony conviction dating from March 2009 for criminal impersonation.'
Dozens gathered outside the Army Corps of Engineers offices in Los Angeles on Wednesday after the agency said it will clear the way for completion of the disputed $3.8 billion North Dakota pipeline project.

Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) received final permission from the Army to proceed with a crossing of the Missouri River in southern North Dakota.

The stretch under Lake Oahe is the final big chunk of work on the 1,200-mile pipeline that would carry North Dakota oil through the Dakotas and Iowa to a shipping point in Illinois.

ETP had hoped to have oil flowing through the pipeline by the end of 2016, but construction was stalled while the Corps and the Dallas-based company battled in court over the crossing.

Dozens (pictured) gathered outside the Army Corps of Engineers offices in Los Angeles on Wednesday after the agency said it will clear the way for completion of the disputed $3.8 billion North Dakota pipeline project

Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) received final permission from the Army to proceed with a crossing of the Missouri River in southern North Dakota. The stretch under Lake Oahe is the final big chunk of work on the 1,200-mile pipeline

ETP had hoped to have oil flowing through the pipeline by the end of 2016, but construction was stalled while the Corps and the Dallas-based company battled in court over the crossing

The Standing Rock Sioux tribe, whose reservation is just downstream from the crossing, fears a leak would pollute its drinking water and is likely to file a legal challenge to the Army's decision to grant an easement.

Public opposition has drawn thousands of people to the North Dakota plains, including high-profile political and celebrity supporters.

Large protest camps popped up near the site, leading to several violent clashes and some 600 arrests.

But ETP says the pipeline is safe and operations could begin as early as June.

David Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe said Wednesday that the tribe may have exhausted legal options to stop the project.

'We're running out of options, but that doesn't mean that it's over,' Archambault II, told Reuters in a telephone interview. 'We're still going to continue to look at all legal options available to us.'

The US Army said it had granted the final permit for the pipeline after an order from President Donald Trump to expedite the project. The army owns the land through its Corps of Engineers.

The Standing Rock Sioux tribe, whose reservation is just downstream from the crossing, fears a leak would pollute its drinking water. But ETP says the pipeline is safe and operations could begin as early as June

Native American tribes and climate activists have vowed to fight the pipeline, fearing that it will also desecrate sacred sites. Supporters say the pipeline is safer than rail or trucks to transport the oil

Native American tribes and climate activists have vowed to fight the pipeline, fearing it will desecrate sacred sites and endanger drinking water. Supporters say the pipeline is safer than rail or trucks to transport the oil.

The opposition sensed victory last year when the administration of Barack Obama, delayed completion of the pipeline pending a review of tribal concerns and in December ordered an environmental study.

But those fortunes were reversed after Trump took office on January 20.

Trump issued an order four days later to expedite both the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) and to revive another multibillion-dollar oil artery, Keystone XL.

The Obama administration had blocked that project in 2015.

On Wednesday, some 350 people also converged in lower Manhattan, hoisting signs such as 'Water is Life,' 'Dump Trump' and 'Respect Native Sovereignty'.

'This isn't just a Native American problem, this isn't just an issue over race, this goes way beyond that,' said Matene Strikefirst, who said he is a member of the tribe of Ojibwe and Dakota.

'We need to get over our dependence on fossil fuels; we need to ensure drinking water for everyone,' he added.

On Wednesday, some 350 people also converged in lower Manhattan, hoisting signs such as 'Water is Life,' 'Dump Trump' and 'Respect Native Sovereignty'. A demonstrator is pictured holding a sign outside the White House in DC

Another 100 (pictured) gathered near the White House, denouncing Trump, who issued an order four on January 24 to expedite both the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) and to revive another multibillion-dollar oil artery, Keystone XL

Another 100 gathered near the White House, denouncing Trump.

'We know there is going to be bloodshed,' said Eryn Wise, spokeswoman for the International Indigenous Youth Council.

'This is cultural genocide,' said Linda Black Elk, a resident of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.

The permit was the last bureaucratic hurdle to the pipeline's completion.

The tribe said on Wednesday it would attempt to use a 'legal battle and temporary restraining order' to shut down pipeline operations.

But Wayne D'Angelo, an energy and environmental lawyer with Kelley Drye & Warren in Washington, said he believed the Trump administration was on 'pretty solid legal ground'.
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A 22-year-old Australian man has been charged over the death of his girlfriend following a tragic jet-ski accident in Thailand.

Tommy Keating walked hand-in-hand with the parents of Emily Jayne Collie, 20, and his family as they arrived at the police station in an extraordinary act of forgiveness.

The young man was formally charged with careless driving, causing death. It's reported his passport has also been confiscated.

The charge comes after his late girlfriend was killed when their two jet-skis collided during their dream holiday on Sunday afternoon near Kata Beach in Phuket.

Her grief-stricken parents Ian and Sally Collie have told authorities no one was to blame over their daughter's death - as they prepare to bring her body home.

Scroll down for video

Tommy Keating, from Victoria, walked hand-in-hand with the parents of Emily Jayne Collie and his family outside a police station in an extraordinary act of forgiveness

The 20-year-old woman was killed when her jet-ski collided with her boyfriend during their dream holiday on Sunday afternoon near Kata Beach in Phuket

The 22-year-old man was charged with reckless driving, causing death on Thursday

The charge comes after Ms Collie, 20, was killed when their two jet-skis collided on Sunday

The 20-year-old woman died after she suffered severe injuries near Kata Beach in Phuket

In a heartbreaking statement via the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ms Collie's parents said it was a 'tragic accident'.

'We are in the midst of grieving through the sudden loss of our precious daughter Emily,' her parents Ian and Sally Collie said.

'We do not believe anybody was at fault. In particular, we do not place any blame on Tom Keating, who we care about very much and who we know loved Emily deeply.

'We are all heartbroken beyond words, and at this extremely sad time we wish to be together with our family, with Tom, and with other loved ones to grieve and celebrate Emily's life.'

It comes after the young woman's parents pleaded they didn't want to press murder charges against their daughter's boyfriend.

Mr Keating, who will have to stay in Thailand for up to a month, could face a two-year suspended sentence - meaning he will escape jail, 7 News reported.

Tommy Keating described Emily Jayne Collie as the most beautiful girl he had ever met

Ms Collie's parents have arrived in Thailand to bring their daughter's body home - as they urged authorities not to charge her boyfriend over her death

Mr Keating suffered minor injuries and broke down in tears in the ambulance on Sunday

A photo of Tommy Keating and his girlfriend Emily Jayne Collie, which he posted to his Facebook page along with an emotional tribute

The tragic news comes after the grief-stricken boyfriend paid tribute to his 'beautiful girl' in an emotional Facebook post.

'I love you so much Emily and I wish I could just bring you back into my arms,' Mr Keating wrote in his heartbreaking Facebook post.

'I'm so broken and I know I'll never never be able to mend.

'I'll always be your boy and you'll always be my girl! We had so many plans for our future Emmy.'

Mr Keating described his girlfriend as 'My beautiful girl' and said Ms Collie was 'taken too soon'.

'I love you to bits baby and I promise I'll never stop and you'll always have my heart!' he wrote.

'You where such an inspiration to myself and many others! The most beautiful girl I've ever met! Inside and out!

'Fly high up there Emmy I know you'll always be looking down on me and everyone you loved.

'Rest easy Emily I'll never forget you.'

Part of Mr Keating's emotional Facebook tribute to his girlfriend, Emily Jayne Collie

Ms Collie was pulled unconscious from the water and was treated by lifeguards on the beach before she was pronounced dead

Ms Collie is pictured being treated by lifeguards on the beach at Phuket in Thailand

Two jet skis are pictured parked in front a police station in Phuket, Thailand

Ms Collie was pulled unconscious from the water and was treated by lifeguards on the beach before she was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital.

Mr Keating said strong sunlight reflected off the sea and made it impossible to see her jetski, leading to the crash just off Kata Beach in Phuket.

Ms Collie of Victoria was a student at Charles Sturt University and went to Goulburn Valley Grammar School in Shepparton

She and Mr Keating crashed into each other about 4.45pm local time on Sunday, local media reported.

Ms Collie died after suffering severe neck and shoulder injuries, The Age reported.

Mr Keating suffered minor injuries and broke down in tears in the ambulance.

An onlooker, Prapai Navarak, said the boyfriend was crying but there was nothing anybody could do.

'It was so sad to see. Nobody could do anything. The woman's husband was crying. I am shocked,' Mr Navarak said.

Mr Keating's cousin, Sean Lyon Smith, said the couple had been in a relationship for about two years and had gone to Thailand on a 'dream holiday'.

Ms Collie, of Victoria, was a student at Charles Sturt University and went to Goulburn Valley Grammar School in Shepparton, according to her Facebook page.

A spokesperson confirmed the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was providing consular assistance to Ms Collie's family.
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Snow has fallen in Britain today after temperatures plunged to -5C overnight in conditions which were colder than Iceland.

Eastern areas, including Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Northumberland and East Anglia, were covered with a dusting of snow as showers moved westwards.

Forecasters predict 2.5 inches of snow could fall over the weekend in eastern parts with an icy blast forcing temperatures down to lower than in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik which was 5C earlier this morning.

Himayalan Mountaineer Alan Hinkes OBE is pictured walking beside an ice encrusted fence on the Pennine Way in Cumbria today

Eastern areas, including Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Northumberland and East Anglia, were covered with a dusting of snow as showers moved westwards today

Eastern areas, including Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Northumberland and East Anglia, will be covered with a dusting of snow as showers move westwards throughout the morning

A salt spreader makes its way along the M62 near Warrington today ahead of forecasted freezing overnight temperatures

A biting wind will drive through the country forcing temperatures down 5C colder than the average for the time of year with much of Britain remaining at 1-2C today (thick morning fog in London)

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A biting wind will drive through the country forcing temperatures down 5C colder than the average for the time of year with parts of Britain remaining as low as 1-2C today.

Met Office warnings have been issued for ice in parts of South West England as well as Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Alex Burgill, Met Office forecaster, said: 'Showers around the coast at the moment and as we go through the day will move further inland - that's where the sleet and snow will be.

'It will push in from the east and move further westwards. There will be a few light snow slurries but we are not expecting much in lower levels which will see a light dusing. Eastern parts and on higher ground will see a couple of centimetres.

'Snow at moment is across eastern Scotland, eastern England and as far as East Anglia. London is more likely to see snow tomorrow.

'It will feel cold today and more so tomorrow with temperatures really struggling in central and eastern parts.

'There will be highs of 1-2C, with a biting wind so it will feel much colder.'

Age UK has urged older people to take precautions in the cold weather to keep themselves 'safe and well'.

Temperatures are struggling, with London dropping from 7C today to 4C. The North East coast, including Newcastle, will see temperatures of 3C with rain and sleet.

This evening, some parts of the UK will be between -3C and -4C. Friday will also be cold, with widespread frost overnight into Saturday. There may be snow on Sunday, with higher ground seeing as much as 6cm (2.4in).

The Met Office said the colder spell was due to easterly winds from Scandinavia. 'It's going to be on higher ground that we see any of the showers turn into show,' Ms Sillitoe added.

Age UK said cold weather can have a 'devastating impact' on the health of older people, causing increased blood pressure and raising the risk of chest infections.

DOG OWNER CRAWLED ACROSS A FROZEN LAKE TO RESCUE HER PET DOG AFTER IT FELL THROUGH ICE Alice Wardill spotted the dog walker edging across the frozen pond to rescue dog Freddie after he became trapped in the icy water A dog owner crawled across a frozen lake to rescue her pet dog after it fell through the ice during a recent cold spell. Alice Wardill spotted the brave dog walker edging across the frozen pond to rescue dog Freddie after he became trapped in the icy water. The 78-year-old had gone to Connaught Water, in Chingford, Essex, for a walk with husband Peter, 80, and disabled son Paul, 56, on January 27. Alice said: 'We were at Connaught Water as usual at around 12pm when we heard a woman shout 'no Freddie'. The dog ran onto the ice and then fell into the water where it had melted. 'We really thought he wouldn't get out, and then we saw her crawling on the ice - first on her front and then she got on her knees. At one point I couldn't watch, I thought she would fall. 'The dog was flailing around but she pulled him by his collar and crawled back to safety. 'She was very brave, and it was Freddie's lucky day - she got him very quickly. 'It was so cold he would have died if she hadn't rescued him.' Alice said by the time the fire brigade had arrived, the woman had already jumped in her car and taken Freddie home. Alice took photos of the woman trying to rescue her dog from the frozen lake in Chingford, Essex during a previous cold spell Advertisement

A farm building in Teesdale, County Durham, was surrounded by snow after wintry showers fell over higher ground

A motorist carefully drives along a snow lined road in Teesdale this week as temperatures dropped below freezing again

Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, said: 'The cold weather can be really challenging for older people, particularly those who are more vulnerable because of pre-existing health conditions or who are living in housing that is difficult and expensive to heat.

'It can also be an especially lonely time, if older people feel it is too cold to go out and about. With the weather set to take a turn for the worse, we are urging people to check our advice to make sure they are doing everything they can to protect themselves against the cold weather.

'We'd also urge people to keep an eye on their older family members, friends or neighbours when the weather is particularly bad. Picking up some shopping for them or just popping in to check they're okay and having a friendly chat can be a real help at this time of year.'

Monday of last week was the coldest night of the year so far, with -10.1C recorded in Braemar, Aberdeenshire. The coldest UK temperature of 2016 was -12.4C at Kinbrace, while in 2015 it was -13.7C at Loch Glascarnoch.
Cuban doctors arriving in Miami this week are the last of many who applied for visas under a recently scrapped US policy that had long welcomed doctors from Cuba who defected while on assignment in third countries.

Doctors arriving this week in Miami under the now-canceled policy called the Cuban Medical Professionals Parole said they're relieved to be arriving despite uncertain times for immigrants under the Trump administration. But they're anxious about colleagues left behind.

'I still can't believe it. Pinch me. Pinch me. I can't believe I am here,' Yoandri Pavot, 35, said after arriving Monday at Miami International Airport holding a small American flag. 'I wish they would give the ones left behind a chance because they are also fighting for freedom.'

The program - started in 2006 by then-President George W Bush - allowed Cuban doctors, nurses and other medical professionals to defect to the United States while on their government's mandatory assignments abroad.

Cuban health worker Veidy Diaz, center, is greeted by family and friends as she talks on the phone after arriving at Miami International Airport. She was part of the group of Cuban health workers that traveled from Colombia after being allowed entry to the United States

uban doctors Yerenia Cedeno, left, and Carlos Amigo, right, gather their belongings after arriving at Miami International Airport from Colombia. They and other Cuban doctors arriving in Miami this week under the now-canceled Cuban Medical Professionals Parole policy

Pavot said he had applied after the Cuban government dispatched him to a crime-ridden area of Venezuela, where many co-workers were attacked.

The waning administration of President Barack Obama canceled the doctors' policy January 12.

It also eliminated the better-known 'wet foot, dry foot' policy that gave any Cuban who makes it to US soil a path to become a legal resident.

The moves lined up with Obama's push for a more normalized relationship with communist Cuba.

But doctors who already applied for visas before January 12 are being allowed in, and the final wave of those accepted are arriving on flights to Miami this week, said Julio Cesar Alfonso, director of a nonprofit that helps Cuban doctors resettle in the United States.

On Monday, a few walked through glass doors past Customs to loud cheers and hugs from close and distant relatives carrying flowers and balloons. They cried and took photos.

Alfonso said 20 professionals arrived on Monday and more are expected on flights this week.

Amigo, right, is surrounded by the media after arriving from Colombia at Miami International Airport. The outgoing administration of President Barack Obama cancelled the Cuban Medical Professionals Parole policy on January 12

Amigo arrives in Miami as part of a group of Cuban doctors who were allowed to enter the United States through Miami International Airport. Doctors who applied for visas under the now-canceled policybefore January 12 are being allowed in

Some critics of the doctors' policy have said it amounted to a more than decade-long brain drain for Cuba.

But proponents said the doctors were forced by the Cuban government to toil overseas under often-grueling conditions and deserved to be liberated.

The repeal of the 'wet foot, dry foot' policy was welcomed by many in the Cuban exile community who accused certain recent arrivals of abusing privileges by claiming federal benefits and then traveling back to Cuba.

But many of the same criticized the cancellation of the medical defectors program; they're urging the Trump administration to restore it.

Under the policy, qualifying medical professions could immediately apply for work permission and apply for residency after one year.

President Donald Trump has not established what, if anything, will change regarding Cuba policy.

Press Secretary Sean Spicer said last week the administration is reviewing its position with Havana.

Cuba's doctors abroad program has earned praise from the World Health Organization for responding to the Ebola outbreak in Africa and to natural disasters such as Haiti's 2010 earthquake.

Yet its critics are fierce.

The final wave of those accepted on the policy are arriving on flights to Miami this week> pictured above, Cuban doctors take a photo as they prepare to travel to Miami from El Dorado airport in Bogota, Colombia

Twenty professionals arrived on Monday, and more are expected throughout the week. Pictured above, Cuban doctors wait in line El Dorado airport in Bogota, Colombia

President Donald Trump has not established what, if anything, will change regarding Cuba policy. Pictured above, Cuban doctors prepare to travel to Miami from El Dorado airport in Bogota, Colombia

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican US representative born in Cuba, said the Cuban doctors worked under 'modern-day indentured servitude' and that the defector program was 'undermining the Castro regime by providing an outlet for Cuban doctors to seek freedom from forced labor'.

Some critics also say the Cuban government exploits medical professionals abroad by taking away most of the wages paid by foreign governments and using the funds as a source of hard currency for the island.

Alfonso said hundreds of doctors are currently stranded in Colombia, after deserting their missions in Venezuela, and many didn't manage to apply in time.

'It's really sad that Obama left that legacy with the Cuban community, favoring the Havana regime and crushing the hopes of a group of professionals who want to be free,' he said.

Yerenia Cedeno, a 28-year-old general practitioner, said she deserted her mission in Venezuela because of violence and meager pay that sometimes wasn't enough to buy food.

Although she had applied for a visa before January 12, she thought her chances of reaching the US were slim once the program was canceled.
Trainee nurse Penny Hargreaves (pictured) would take cocaine occasionally

A trainee nurse died after a two day drug binge snorting lines of cocaine that were laced with a dangerous veterinary medicine used to treat horses.

Penny Hargreaves, 21, from Blackburn, would usually only take cocaine occasionally whilst out drinking with friends - but died after a party binge when she unwittingly shared a contaminated batch.

On October 4 last year the university student died after snorting lines of cocaine at her home without knowing it had been mixed with Levamisole, a drug vets use to kill parasitic worms in horses and cows and which can cause skin rot.

At first Miss Hargreaves appeared to suffer no ill effects from the drug but later that night the student was found dead in bed by her sister Hannah with her mobile phone next to her.

A medical cause of death was given as cocaine use.

At her inquest in Blackburn, coroner Michael Singleton condemned recreational drug use as an 'act of crass stupidity' and added her was 'blown away' by the number of people who took cocaine without knowing what it was cut with.

He said: 'It is my fervent hope that out of this tragedy, those other people that were there reflect upon this and think "there but for the grace of god", go forward and learn from it because I do not want to be sat here at another inquest into the death of a young person who has got everything to live for because of an act of crass stupidity.

During a 36 hours party binge Miss Hargreaves (pictured left and right) agreed to share a batch of the drug bought from a local dealer. She snorted lines of cocaine at her home without knowing it had been mixed with Levamisole which vets use to kill parasitic worms in horses

The 21-year-old had been partying at a nightclub and later confided in her sister that she ahd taken cocaine

'Please, please, please don't let Penny Hargreaves have died in vain. Learn from what has happened.

'This was a very, very tragic death of a young girl who had her whole life in front of her. Penny had cocaine in her system and she had snorted several lines of cocaine. '

He added: 'I do not find it my place to pass any judgement on how people live their lives in this court - but I have to say I find it incredible that people rely on others to identify what drugs they are purchasing.

'Those who take cocaine do not want to take an overdose of cocaine but young people do not know what they are taking and I find it staggering that you would want to do something that potentially is going to kill you.

'It absolutely blows me away that people would be doing that - taking something that has the opportunity to kill them.'

Miss Hargreaves had a history of epilepsy. She returned home from her nursing course in Leeds because it was believed the stress was causing her condition to get worse.

The night before her death Miss Hargreaves went out to a nightclub with her sister and a group of friends.

The student was found dead in bed by her sister Hannah with her mobile phone next to her. A medical cause of death was given as cocaine use

That night Miss Hargreaves drank six vodka lemonades - and then confided in her sister Hannah that she had taken cocaine.

Hannah a graphic design student said: 'Penny wasn't a regular drug user, it was more of an impulse.

'She didn't really like drugs, it was just after a couple of drinks she would say "oh I could really go for some coke now." It wasn't an addiction it was recreational.'

At 2.30am, Miss Hargreaves got home with her friends and they agreed to purchase three grams of cocaine costing 100 between them. The drugs were laid out on a plate on the table and racked up into lines.

At her inquest in Blackburn, coroner Michael Singleton condemned recreational drug use as 'acts of crass stupidity' saying he was 'blown away' by the number of people who took cocaine without knowing what was in it

The inquest heard Hannah, who shared the house with Miss Hargreaves, got back at about 5am to see her sister still up and her friends there.

She said she herself didn't take any cocaine and went to bed instead with her boyfriend after they ordered a takeaway.

WHAT IS LEVAMISOLE? Levamisole is used to treat parasitic worm infections Levamisole is a medication used to treat parasitic worm infections. It was originally used to treat worm infestations in both humans and animals but is now most commonly used in livestock. Once used as a topical cancer treatment, the medicine has since been banned for use in humans after it was found to cause the death of healthy skin tissue, sometimes resulting in livid, purple wounds. In 2014 a Government report claimed four fifths of all cocaine smuggled into Britain was laced with the drug. It has become a common additive because it is thought to intensify the 'high' by releasing dopamine in the brain, it also acts as a cheap bulking agent and is difficult to recognise. Potential risks of levamisole-laced cocaine include neutropenia, agranulocytosis, arthralgias, retiform purpura, skin necrosis, and fever. Advertisement

The group stayed up throughout Sunday before leaving on Monday morning. Miss Hargreaves was later found dead.

When asked about the last time she saw her sister, Hannah said: 'She was happy and she was laughing. She didn't seem like she was under the influence of alcohol or drugs. She was happy she could walk in a straight line and she was talking properly.

'She didn't seem like a typical drunk person. She seemed happy and cheerful. I heard her on the Sunday evening when her friends left but I never actually saw her.

'I could hear her, she was very distinct in the way she walked she was heavy on her feet when she walked in the house. I heard her speak as well as she had a distinct voice.'

Friend Kevin Wilkinson said he went to purchase the drugs.

He said: 'The cocaine got put out on a plate on the table and racked up for everyone to have. It was cut into lines. I left at around 9.30 or 10am on the Monday.

'On Sunday we bought loads of beers and got really drunk. Penny was with us. She was drinking the beers and snorting the cocaine.

'She was bubbly and chirpy and couldn't do enough for anyone type of thing. She was the one who was up in the kitchen saying to us "why are you all sat down for".'

The coroner asked Mr Wilkinson if he knew what he was buying.

The night before her death Miss Hargreaves had been at a nightclub with a group of friends. When they got home they agreed to purchase three grams of cocaine costing 100 between them

He said: 'Are you a pharmacist? No? Then how did you know what you were buying. You purchased bags of white powder from someone who was at best a drug dealer and at worst a fraudster, which you believed was cocaine.'

Dr Muamar Al-Mudhaffer a Consultant Histopathologist said Miss Hargreaves' cause of death was cocaine use and added he could find no signs of an epileptic fit in his post mortem examination.

She also had therapeutic levels of anti-epileptic medication in her blood, along with alcohol and paracetamol.

Miss Hargreaves who had a history of epilepsy had been a nursing student at university

Dr Al-Mudhaffer added: 'It is likely that she had taken cocaine in the hours leading up to her death for it to still be in her blood. Cocaine has side effects of increasing heart rate and palpitations, which can cause a heart attack.

'The reaction to cocaine is unpredictable. There is no safe level of cocaine because it can trigger sudden cardiac arrest, a raise in blood pressure and cause death. The evidence of alcohol would have prolonged the effects of cocaine in her system.

'If the toxicity report came back negative, or there was no evidence of drug use then it would be more likely to be a sudden unexpected death in epilepsy.'

Despite the post-mortem result, the coroner recorded an open verdict saying death was 'unascertained' and could have been caused by Miss Hargreaves having an epileptic fit in her sleep.

Miss Hargreaves' family declined to comment at the inquest.

In a statement at the time of her death they said: 'Penny was taken from us due to epilepsy. She has left this life and gone to the next but has left a million raindrops of love that touched us all.

'She touched the hearts of everyone that met her. She was full of consideration and compassion and had a love of life.'
A Russian newspaper has claimed victims of domestic abuse should be 'proud of their bruises'.

A column in Komsomolskaya Pravda, one of the country's most popular papers, has said that women should 'find solace' in the fact that women who suffer domestic violence are more likely to give birth to boys.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on Tuesday which decriminalises domestic violence, sparking allegations his government is 'trivialising' the problem.

Victims of domestic violence are more likely to give birth to boys, a Russian newspaper has stated

The article, by writer Yaroslav Korobatov, stated: For years, women who have been smacked around by their husbands have found solace in the rather hypocritical proverb, If he beats you, it means he loves you!

However, a new scientific study is giving women with irascible husbands new grounds to be proud of their bruises, insofar as women who are beaten, biologists confirm, have a valuable advantage  theyre more likely to give birth to boys!

He cites research by controversial evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa, who in 2005 published an article called 'Violent men have more sons'.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the law on Tuesday, prompting widespread criticism

The new Russian law reduces battery of a relative to a civil offence instead of a criminal one in first instances, when the victim suffered no serious harm.

British Prime Minister Theresa May yesterday hit out at the new legislation, telling Parliament: 'We see this as a retrograde step by the Russian government. Repealing existing legislation sends out absolutely the wrong message on what is a global problem.'

And human rights group Amnesty International described the move as a 'sickening attempt to trivialise domestic violence'.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said the legislation sent out the 'wrong message' on a global problem

Those who support new legislation, including members of Putin's United Russia party, say they want to protect parents' right to discipline their children and to reduce the state's ability to meddle in family life.

They say anyone who inflicts serious physical harm will still be criminally liable.

But critics say the move is a step backwards which will exonerate 'tyrants in the home' and discourage victims from reporting abuse.

Each year, about 14,000 women die in Russia at the hands of husbands or other relatives, according to a 2010 United Nations report.

In a statement on its website, the Kremlin said Putin had signed the law after it was approved by both chambers in Russia's parliament.

The State Duma, or lower house of parliament, passed the bill in January in its second of three readings by 385 votes to two.
A woman has died after two supposed Muslim holy men carried out a fake exorcism on her by tying her upside down to a tree and beating her with sticks.

Nazar Hussain, from Sajjadabad in Punjab, Pakistan, took his wife Suriya Begum to nearby Naurangabad for spiritual healing, where two fake holy men, known as pirs, told him that his wife required exorcism.

The fake spiritual healers, identified as Amaanullah and Abdul Hameed, then set upon Suriya, tying her to a tree and beating her with sticks.

The woman died in Dera Ghazi Khan (file photo), a city in Punjab, Pakistan

The men then continued with the fake exorcism by tying her upside-down and throwing smoke at her as she screamed in pain, Geo TV reports.

Hussain claims he tried to stop the 'exorcism' after he watched his wife screaming in agony, but both of the fake holy men refused to stop.

Suriya was taken to hospital in Dera Ghazi Khan in a critical condition, but doctors pronounced her dead upon arrival.

According to police, the body is due to undergo a post-mortem examination, after which the suspects are set to be arrested.

In May last year an 'exorcist' raped and tortured a 16-year-old Pakistani girl for four days to 'rid her of demons' - and then told her mother 'evil spirits' broke the teenager's neck.

The girl, named locally as Sara, was taken to the man by her mother, who believed the exorcist, or 'pir', would cure her stomach and psychiatric problems.

But instead, her daughter was returned to her dead, with the exorcist blaming it on the 'djinn', or evil spirits, who had possessed her.
Dramatic footage shows the moment a tornado tore through buildings in Louisiana, sending debris flying into the air.

David Collet got terrifyingly close to the eye of the storm as he captured the tornado sweeping past his work place in New Orleans East.

The roof of a nearby building was ripped off as the tornado left a trail of destruction.

Dramatic footage shows the moment a tornado tore through buildings in Louisiana, sending debris flying into the air

Mr Collet, who was working in the Starlight Studios warehouse, is heard shouting 'Watch your back' as a plank of wood flies towards them, before the workers run for cover.

A series of tornadoes tore through Louisiana on Tuesday, devastating homes and injuring at least 28 people.

More than 16,000 house were left without power as at least seven tornadoes hit the state.

NASAs Michoud Assembly Facility, which is close to where the footage filmed by Mr Collet was shot, was among the buildings damaged by the tornadoes. Only minor injuries were reported.

Mr Collet is heard shouting 'Watch your back' as a plank of wood flies towards him and his colleagues (left). He was working in the working in the Starlight Studios warehouse, near NASAs Michoud Assembly Facility

Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot said: 'The teams at the Michoud Assembly Facility are working diligently to recover from the severe weather that swept through New Orleans Tuesday and damaged the facility.

'We are thankful for the safety of all the NASA employees and workers of onsite tenant organizations'.

The first confirmed tornado hit the town of Killian, in Livingston Parish, at around 11am, destroying two homes and injuring two people.

The most damaging attack occurred just before 11.30am, when a large tornado touched down in New Orleans East, 60 miles from Donaldsonville.

At least 25 people were injured and swathes of property torn up in the neighborhoods between Dwyer Road and Chef Menteur Highway.
There is 'insufficient evidence' that a 22-year-old man was raped with a police truncheon when he was arrested by four officers last week, a police insider claimed on Thursday.

Instead, the police say the victim's trousers 'slipped down on their own' and an officer's truncheon went up his anus by accident, causing a four-inch gash in his rectum.

Violence has spread across Paris following claims that the victim, named Theo, a youth worker and talented footballer with no criminal record, was assaulted with a truncheon when he was arrested by four police officers in the Paris suburb Aulnay-Sous-Bois.

But a police source told The Local that an internal police inquiry has not found evidence that the expandable truncheon was purposefully put up Theo's anus.

French President Francois Hollande visited the victim, named Theo, in hospital, where he has undergone emergency surgery

The video clip showed him on the ground against a wall surrounded by four men in the suburb of Aulnay-Sous-Bois. But a police source said video shows an officer 'applying a truncheon blow horizontally across the buttocks with a truncheon' and Theo's trousers 'slipped down on their own'

Shock has gripped France after a video, apparently showing the youth worker's arrest last Thursday, circulated on the internet.

The video clip showed him on the ground against a wall surrounded by four men in the suburb of Aulnay-Sous-Bois.

But a police source told The Local video of the scene shows a police officer 'applying a truncheon blow horizontally across the buttocks with a truncheon' and Theo's trousers 'slipped down on their own'.

Investigators said they took into account 'the questioning of the victim and the (police officers), eyewitness accounts and CCTV recordings'.

Following the incident, Theo required emergency surgery to repair the four-inch gash in his rectum caused by the expandable truncheon. He also suffered head trauma.

Investigators, however, concluded that 'there are insufficient elements to show that this was a rape'.

Protests have been held calling for justice for Theo, who was allegedly raped with a truncheon last Thursday

A car dealership and a nursery school were set alight during a third night of rioting in the French capital on Monday

The officers have been suspended during the inquiry, with one under formal investigation for suspected rape and three others for unnecessary violence.

Police said that the neighborhoods have quieted after several nights of rioting over Theo's arrest.

On Monday 17 people were arrested after rioting, which saw a nursery school and a car showroom set alight.

In a neighboring suburb, 28 people were detained for 'throwing objects, lighting fires and violence'.

In northwestern france, in Nantes, 20 people were arrested during a demonstration of about 400 people in support of Theo.

Theo himself has urged people to stay calm while the investigation took place telling residents of Aulnay 'not to go to war'. He claimed he was assaulted after police told him to stand against a wall.

Following his visit, Hollande tweeted praising the young man's dignity, and said he believed justice would be served

Police said they were looking for drug dealers at the time of the incident.

Hollande visited Theo on at the Aulnay hospital, where he is being treated following the attack.

After his visit, the French President tweeted that the victim had 'reacted with dignity and responsibility', and trusted that justice would be served.

He is understood to have been at Theo's bedside for around half an hour.

In an interview with BFM television, Theo outlined what happened to him on Thursday.

He said: 'I saw him with his baton. He rammed it into my buttocks on purpose. I fell onto my stomach, I had no strength left.'
A British tourist has been told he could lose his entire foot after suffering a minor scrape on the bottom of a Caribbean hotel pool.

Stewart Vine has already had his little toe and the side his left foot amputated and been forced to give up work as a finance manager.

But five months on he has been fitted with an inflatable boot because the wound has still not healed and he may need to have his entire foot removed.

The 55-year-old (left) was on a 2,500 week-long British Airways package to Antigua with wife Sarah (right) when the incident happened

The 55-year-old was on a 2,500 week-long British Airways package to Antigua with wife Sarah when the incident happened.

Three days into the holiday he cut his foot on a sharp object in the bottom of the pool at the three-star Jolly Beach Hotel.

Stewart, from Cullercoats, North Tyneside, said: 'I was in the pool and cut my foot on something. I thought it was very innocent.

'I never found out what it was but I know it was sharp on the bottom of the pool.

'I got out of the pool and didn't think it was that serious. It was just a scrape, it wasn't a deep cut. It was fairly innocuous.'

Stewart Vine has already had his little toe and the side his left foot amputated and been forced to give up work as a finance manager

Stewart put Savlon antiseptic cream on the open wound and thought nothing more of it.

But two days later he came down with a fever during a romantic meal with Sarah and returned to their hotel room where he collapsed.

He added: 'The sheets were wringing with the sweat that had come off me. I thought it was sun stroke at first.'

Despite his condition Stewart said he felt well enough to board the 8pm flight home two days later and took paracetamol to ease the pain.

He said: 'The flight took off and within an hour I was feeling very ill and began to vomit.

'My wife tells me that she awoke and saw me making jerking movements as though I was having some sort of seizure.

'I was babbling but not making sense and having rigors. My wife is a nurse and she thought I was going to die.'

The couple say Stewart had to be given oxygen during the flight and part of the medical equipment indicated he had a major infection.

Three days into the holiday he cut his foot on a sharp object in the bottom of the pool at the three-star Jolly Beach Hotel

When they landed at Gatwick Sarah took the wheel for the long drive home to the North East but after being delayed by traffic she diverted to Leicester Royal Hospital.

They checked him and let him go - on condition he went straight to the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle-upon-Tyne which he did.

That hospital transferred him to Newcastle's Freeman Hospital where doctors said they had no option but amputate his little toe and part of his left foot.

Stewart added: 'I've now lost my job through all this. The doctors were saying that I should have six months off but I just could not do that.

'The experience has affected us massively and we don't want to fly anymore. There is still a chance I could lose my foot.'

Stewart put Savlon antiseptic cream on the open wound and thought nothing more of it

When they landed at Gatwick Sarah took the wheel for the long drive home to the North East but after being delayed by traffic she diverted to Leicester Royal Hospital

British Airways said: 'We are very sorry to hear that Mr Vine has been so unwell following his injury and are speaking to him while we investigate his concerns.'

Sarah, who has a daughter called Holly, 19, said: 'We have always loved our holidays, that's what we work so hard for but I feel like we have had that taken away from us.

'It was like watching my husband thinking he could die. The infection levels in his body were massive.

'It was a holiday to go away and just enjoy being together in the sun. It has affected us massively.'

The couple are now planning to take legal action.

British Airways said: 'We are very sorry to hear that Mr Vine has been so unwell following his injury and are speaking to him while we investigate his concerns.'

The Jolly Beach Hotel did not respond to a request for comment.
Police have foiled a plot to launch a terror attack on European soil after they arrested six suspected Islamists and seized two dozen suicide belts in raids in both Turkey and Germany.

Officers in central Germany detained two known Islamic extremists as part of an investigation into a possible terror attack plot.

Meanwhile, in Turkey, police today seized 24 suicide belts and detained four suspected Islamic State members, the Turkish state news agency said.

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Officers in Gottingen, central Germany detained two known Islamic extremists as part of an investigation into a possible terror attack plot

Police display seized weapons and an IS flag at a press conference following the raids

Police in Germany said the men - a 27-year-old Algerian and a 23-year-old Nigerian, whose names have not been released - were detained dawn raids this morning in and around Goettingen in central Germany.

Police said both men live in the city and have long been part of the Salafist scene there. Salafists are ultra-conservative Islamists.

About 450 police officers searched twelve properties as part of the operation, including eleven buildings in the city of Gottingen and a house in Nordhessen.

Goettingen police chief Uwe Luehrig said officers took swift action after information about a possible attack plan came to light.

'We had, in my assessment, absolutely no other option,' Luhrig said

The operation came after German police arrested three men in Berlin on suspicion of having close links to ISIS militants and planning to travel to the Middle East for combat training

Seized items, including a machete, are displayed during the news conference in Goettingen

Lower Saxony's Interior Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) described the raids as a 'very important blow to the scene', Zeit reports.

The minister praised the 'successful action'. It shows once again the determination of the security authorities in the fight against Islamic terrorism in Lower Saxony. One was 'well prepared and well prepared'. Nevertheless, the 'struggle against this dynamic movement' will continue to demand a lot from the authorities.

Last week, Pistorius told the Lower Saxony parliament that the fight against Islamic terrorism was a top priority for the state government and the Lower Saxony security authorities.

'Thanks to the rigorous investigation carried out by all the parties involved, it was possible to quickly and consistently intervene and prevent a specific danger,' he said.

Head of the Goettingen police, Uwe Luehrig, said police had 'absolutely no other option' but to carry out the raids

A glass door of Frankfurt's Bilal mosque is smashed following early morning raids in the federal state of Hesse earlier this month

'I would like to express my sincere thanks to all those who have prepared this mission and have been directly involved in the project. '

The latest detentions in Turkey came as CIA chief Mike Pompeo arrived in the country to discuss the fight against the extremist group in Syria and Iraq, making his first overseas trip since taking office.

Police found the suicide belts - made with 150 kilograms of explosives and fortified with metal pieces - as well as two automatic rifles, 31 pounds of TNT, mobile phones that could be used as detonators and other materials during an anti-terror operation in Gaziantep, near the border with Syria.

There were no details on the nationalities of the suspects, who were allegedly taking orders from high-level IS members in Syria. One suspect was wanted for membership in a terror organisation, according to the Gaziantep provincial governor's office.

This photo, provided by the Gaziantep Governor's Office, shows packs of explosives and other material seized from terror suspects

Police detained four Islamic State group suspects who were allegedly planning to carry out a 'sensational' attack in Turkey and seized 24 suicide attack belts

The suspects were being questioned by prosecutors on Thursday, an official at the governor's office said. He said the four led police investigators to a field and other locations where the explosives and other material were hidden.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government regulations that bar civil servants from speaking to journalists without prior authorization.

Video of the operation provided by the governor's office showed a sniffer dog with a handler in a field and officials unearthing various explosives and other objects. In another shot, an official is seen removing an automatic weapon, wrapped in plastic, from what appeared to be a gap on the side of a building.

Last year, Turkey suffered a series of deadly attacks carried out by IS or Kurdish militants and has stepped up anti-terrorism operations across the country. Some 750 people with alleged IS links were detained in a major police sweep in 29 Turkish provinces last week.

German anti-terror police have arrested two suspected jihadists amid fears they were plotting an attack (file picture)

Less than a week ago, German anti-terror police arrested a suspected jihadist amid fears he was plotting an attack.

The Romanian man, 21, was held at Frankfurt airport in western Germany, before officers seized written notes and electronic storage devices from his home.

Karlsruhe police said in a statement that the man was arrested amid fears was planning to travel to his homeland to prepare an attack.

Just days before, police in the country arrested a Tunisian man suspected of planning a terror attack after 1,100 officers raided mosques and businesses across the country.

The 36-year-old was detained in Frankfurt in Germany's Hesse state after anti-terror units targeted 54 properties.

Germany remains on high alert after a series of jihadist attacks on its soil in the last 12 months.

In December an ISIS fanatic killed 12 when he drove a lorry through crowds of revellers enjoying a Christmas market in Berlin.

Months earlier, in July, a teenage Afghan refugee attacked passengers on a train in Wuerzburg with an axe and knife, wounding five before being shot dead.
A man was injured in an apparent acid attack at an east London station this morning.

Passengers at Barking station told of their horror after witnessing the fight at around 8:30am this morning.

Commuters said the two men, who are believed to know each other, clashed on the platform before the liquid was thrown.

Police are investigating a fight at Barking Station in east London, in which acid was thrown

One passenger wrote on Twitter: 'Fight with something like ammonia being thrown... they were on the platform fighting but no one dealt with it!'

'One of them climbed on and they cancelled [the train].'

Witness Steve Thomas wrote on Facebook: 'I was on the train when it was cancelled at Barking and the police put the suspect in handcuffs. Only looked to be a teenager to me.'

A spokesman for British Transport Police said: 'Officers have been called to Barking rail station today following reports of an assault.

'A man was attacked by someone who threw what is believed to have been a corrosive substance at him. The call came into police at 8.24am.

'Officers are at the scene alongside paramedics from the London Ambulance Service who are treating the victim.

'We are in the early stages of the investigation but early indications suggest the victim and offender may have been known to each other.'
Four members of a child sex Grooming gang are facing deportation to Pakistan after immigration judges rejected their appeals against their British citizenship being revoked.

Ringleader Shabir Ahmed, Adil Khan, Abdul Rauf and Abdul Aziz, all from Rochdale, had their cases thrown out.

The men had appealed against moves by the Government to strip them of their British citizenship.

Paedophile Shabir Ahmed, 63 - the ringleader of the Rochdale gang (left) and Taxi driver Abdul Aziz, 41, (right) both appealed the decision to strip them of their citizenship

But their claims were dismissed on all grounds by the Upper Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber.

The ruling paves the way for the men, all of Pakistani nationality who acquired British citizenship by naturalisation, to be removed from the UK.

Ahmed was convicted in 2012 of being the ringleader of a group of Asian men who preyed on girls as young as 13 in Rochdale, plying them with drink and drugs before they were 'passed around' for sex.

He was given a 19-year sentence at Liverpool Crown Court in May 2012 for a string of child sex offences, including rape.

He was also jailed for 22 years, to run concurrently, in July 2012 for 30 rapes against another victim.

Taxi driver Rauf, 47, a father-of-five, was released on licence in 2015 after serving half of a six-year sentence for trafficking a girl, aged 15, in the UK for sex, and for having sex with the youngster himself.

Abdul Rauf (left) and Adil Khan (right), were the other two men who now face deportation back to Pakistan after failing in their appeals

Handing down the judgment, Mr Justice Bernard McCloskey, president of the Upper Tribunal, said the cases were 'of some notoriety', and described the men's crimes as 'shocking, brutal and repulsive'.

He dismissed five different grounds of appeal - including an argument advanced by three of the men that the Government had failed in a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of their children.

The ruling also dismissed a complaint of a 'disproportionate interference' with the men's rights as EU citizens and rejected claims concerning human rights laws.

Despite the ruling, the legal battle to deport the men could drag on for some time.

There are further steps the Home Office must complete and the men will be able to appeal at later stages in the process.

The four can apply for permission to appeal against Thursday's decision.

Mr Justice Bernard McCloskey launched the damning attack about the gang's solicitors, Nottingham-based firm Burton and Burton, in an immigration tribunal

Applications can only be made on a question of law, and permission is granted in less than 10% of cases.

Ahmed, known as Daddy, previously took his case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) claiming that his all-white jury was biased  a breach of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, guaranteeing a fair trial.

But judges in Strasbourg unanimously threw out his case, insisting that there was 'simply no proof' jurors acted improperly.

Earlier this week Justice McCloskey, Britain's most senior immigration judge has criticised taxpayer-funded lawyers of being 'cavalier and unprofessional' in helping them in their bid to stay in the country.

He launched the damning attack in response to the appeal against their deportation, ordered by then-Home Secretary Theresa May in 2012.

Justice McCloskey made the comments about the gang's solicitors, Nottingham-based firm Burton and Burton, in an immigration tribunal.

Justice McCloskey said: 'The conduct of these appeals has been cavalier and unprofessional. The rule of law has been weakened in consequence.'

The judge also threatened the legal team with disciplinary action, warning them their actions could be in contempt of court.

He added: 'Scarce judicial and administrative resources have been wasted in dealing with repeated unmeritorious requests by the Appellants' solicitors for an adjournment.'
A furious crowd threw a woman suspected of killing a two year old boy on a bonfire after an angry mob stormed a police station in Brazil.

The 30-year-old woman was dragged outside after the 500-strong group broke down the doors to her cell.

She was being held on suspicion of starting a fire which claimed the life of a toddler.

The horrific footage shows the woman being dragged by her hair before being thrown onto the fire

A five-year-old child, named Marlon Buzaglo Campos, also suffered serious burns in the blaze, Globo reports.

Cars around the police station in Novo Aripuana were set alight, and the suspect was dragged by her hair onto the roaring flames.

Overrun officers had to call for backup during the raid, which saw the woman seriously injured.

A 500-strong mob gathered outside the police station where the suspect was being questioned

The mob set cars alight outside the police station before throwing the woman on the fire

Amazonas Civil Police said in a statement: 'Police reinforcement arrived following the events of this Tuesday.

'The Civil Police requested reinforcements from the Military Police Command (CPM), which sent a troop of full military police in Borba, a municipality 151 km away from the capital, and eight other police officers of the Command Special Police (CPE) of Manaus, by means of a chartered aircraft.

''On Wednesday members of the Special Rescue and Assault Task Force (Fera) and an expert from the Institute of Criminalistics (IC) began an investigation into the event.'

The woman suffered burns in the attack, which was filmed as an angry mob stormed the police station

Overwhelmed officers had to call for backup, and have now launched an investigation

The lynched woman had been arrested on Monday on suspicion of breaking into and setting fire to a house in which there were seven people inside including three children.

The woman had been questioned but had not yet been charged before the locals rampaged through the 73rd Interactive Police Department building to find her.

Civil Police said that the suspect had been taken to hospital to receive treatment and would be returned to a new police station with a secret location to avoid further attacks before questioning over the first incident could resume.
The fiance of Helen Bailey has claimed he was blackmailed for half a million pounds by a pair of mystery kidnappers after they snatched the author.

Ian Stewart was accused of being a 'liar' after telling a jury the Electra Brown writer had been taken by two menacing former business associates of her first husband.

The 56-year-old claimed he spoke to his panicked bride-to-be over the phone and was subjected to a series of demands by her alleged tormentors.

After the 51-year-old vanished, Stewart alleged he was confronted by one of the thugs - Nick - who threatened his captive fiancee and two sons.

But, cross-examining him at St Albans Crown Court, prosecutor Stuart Trimmer said: 'You are, without doubt, a complete liar.'

Ian Stewart is on trial for murdering his fiancee, the children's author Helen Bailey. He told the court today that a tattooed man kidnapped her

Stewart is on trial accused of plying his fiancee with sedatives before murdering her in a plot to inherit her vast fortune.

Stewart told St Albans Crown Court that, days after the unknown pair allegedly took Ms Bailey, Nick returned.

He said: 'He spun me around and put his arm around my neck and said: "I don't think you understand how serious this is, if you tell the police or anyone you won't see Helen again".

'He said: "This is what happened to Helen".'

Stewart claimed that when Nick - described as a tall, bald man with a London accent - arrived, he handed him a phone.

He told the court: 'Quite early in the morning, Nick came to see me, and I asked where Helen was, and he handed me a phone.

'I said "hi" and Helen said, "I love you, I'm sorry about everything".'

Ms Bailey's body was found at the couple's home. Stewart says she was kidnapped

Appearing to break down, Stewart said: 'I said, "it's not your fault, I love you too".

'Helen said, "I need my phone, it is on my desk, give it to them, do what they say".'

He told the court he later met tattooed 'Nick' in a hotel bar on the eve of his holiday to Majorca in June 2016.

He said: 'He said "If you don't give us what we want by the time you get back, we want more compensation".

Stewart, pictured in a court sketch from a previous hearing, denies murder and disposing of his fiancee's body

'I asked him what that meant and he said "half a million pounds".

'I said I haven't got that money and he said "No, but we know you have got power of attorney".'

Stewart was given power of attorney over Ms Bailey's affairs several years before she died, his trial has previously heard.

He continued: 'I said I can't use power of attorney and he said "You're going to have to think about that".

'He said "If you tell anyone, you'll not only not see Helen again, but you will be visiting Jamie and Oliver in hospital".'

Jamie and Oliver are Stewart's two adult sons, who were living with the couple when Ms Bailey disappeared.

Stewart was asked how the bodies of Ms Bailey and her dog, Boris, came to be in the cesspit beneath the garage of the couple's home.

He replied: 'I can only think Joe and Nick put it there at some point, it was either on that day they came to see me or when I was in Broadstairs or when I was in Spain.'

Mr Trimmer said: 'The logical conclusion is that it was either them or you?'

'That is the the only conclusion to be drawn, I guess,' Stewart replied.

Earlier in the trial, several of Ms Bailey's husband's closest business partners said they had never heard of either Nick or Joe.

On the day Ms Bailey disappeared, April 11 last year, Ms Bailey's bank account was accessed and a standing order to an account she shared with Stewart increased to 4,000. It is alleged he carried out the transaction.

Police found the author's body in a cesspit beneath a garage behind the couple's home

Several days later, an attempt to log in to her account was made but not finished.

Stewart told the court: 'I just wondered if money was coming out of her account.

'One account I knew she would have access to was the Barclays account, I then realised you need your bank card to do that and the pinsentry thing.'

He claimed police had told him to check the accounts after he informed them of her disappearance.

The defendant, of Royston, Hertfordshire, denies murder, preventing a lawful burial, fraud and three counts of perverting the course of justice.

Three months after she suddenly vanished, Ms Bailey was found, alongside her beloved dachshund Boris, in a cesspit below the couple's garage.
Martin Luther King Jnr's niece has accused Senator Elizabeth Warren of 'playing the race card' in her attempt to criticize Jeff Sessions on the floor of the Senate.

Dr Alveda King, who is an evangelical preacher and former Georgia state representative, said she would pray that Sessions and Warren would be able to heal their differences.

Dr King, whose father AD King was the slain civil rights leader's brother, publicly supported Donald Trump in the run up to last year's presidential election.

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Dr Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King, accused Senator Elizabeth Warren of 'playing the race card' by trying to read her a letter written by her uncle's widow Coretta Scott King, which lobbied against Jeff Sessions being made a federal judge in the 1980s into the senate record

Senator Elizabeth Warren attempted to read a letter written about Senator Jeff Sessions written by Coretta Scott King 30 years ago to stop him being appointed a federal judge into the Senate record but was blocked by majority leader Mitch McConnell

Jeff Sessions, pictured, faced criticism over his time as attorney general in Alabama

Senator Mitch McConnell, pictured, blocked Warren from continuing with her letter

King revealed on MLK Day that she had voted for Trump.

On Tuesday evening, Warren tried to read out a letter written by Coretta Scott King, the preacher's widow, which was highly critical of Sessions, but was blocked by the Republican majority led by Mitch McConnell.

Warren later explained her decision. She said: 'This is about Coretta Scott Kings letter and thats all this is about. She wrote a powerful letter about an important moment in history that directly involved Jeff Sessions and is directly relevant to the question of whether Jeff Sessions ought to be the attorney general of the United States - and Mitch McConnell didnt want me to read that letter.'

Responding to Warren's criticisms of Sessions, King told Fox Business Network's Neil Cavuto: 'In that letter [Coretta Scott King] would be referring to some of [Jeff Sessions'] comments. However, she would agree today that he of course ended some [school segregation and] he worked to prosecute members of the KKK.

'Its almost like a bait and switch, stir up the emotions, in the name of King - and my name is Alveda King play the race card, which she was attempting to do.

'We are taking a look at many things that Mrs. Coretta Scott King said, Martin Luther King Jr, my daddy A.D. King. But our family - we are peacemakers, we bring people together we do not divide people.'
A bomb squad defused an arsenal of phosphorus grenades and bombs which were discovered near a primary school.

Locals were told to stay indoors when the explosives were found by a digger driver on a building site in Trowbridge, Wiltshire.

The anti-tank grenades, which were issued to the Home Guard during the Second World War, were made safe by Army officers at around 12.30pm on Thursday morning.

Locals were told to stay indoors when the explosives were found by a digger driver on a building site in Trowbridge, Wiltshire

The anti-tank grenades, which were issued to the Home Guard during the Second World War, were made safe by Army officers at around 12.30pm on Thursday morning

At first it was thought just a few devices had been unearthed but on closer inspection further grenades were found.

The grenades were found alongside crudely-made bombs which were simply glass bottles containing explosive liquid. They were carefully placed in a builders' waste skip before they were detonated.

The blast sent a sheet of flame into the sky and the explosion rattled the windows of nearby houses.

The fire service waited for the vapour to burn off before reopening Wingfield Road earlier today.

At least fourteen glass bottles were found by digger driver Ian, whose surname was not given, on the site opposite John of Gaunt School.

He said earlier: 'I was clearing a site where houses are going to be built when I saw flames coming out of the ground.

'There was a really nasty smell too but I wasn't worried because I was in my digger.

'I quickly covered the bottles with clay but there's still a chance there might be an explosion and the bomb squad are on their way.'

At least fourteen glass bottles were found by digger driver Ian, whose surname was not given, on the site opposite John of Gaunt School

Wiltshire Police said the bomb squad had planned to carry out a controlled explosion at around 8.30pm last night but it was put back because 'far more devices have been found than first thought'.

A police spokesman said earlier: 'The devices have been placed in heavy clay soil and will be destroyed in a skip, which is likely to cause a large amount of smoke.'

'The Royal Logistics Corps bomb disposal squad is on its way to Trowbridge from Tidworth to investigate.'

A 100-metre cordon was established round the scene by police officers.

The Home Guard, which was made up of men too old or too young for the regular Armed Forces, were fondly known as 'Dad's Army'.

Their role in defending Britain against Nazi Germany was made famous in the classic sitcom Dad's Army starring Arthur Lowe and John Le Mesurier.
A former Westpac manager has been jailed for six months after he used fake documents to secure loans in an investment scam, including a 30-year mortgage for a 98-year-old woman.

Gold Coast bank manager David St Pierre, 46, was sentenced to serve six months in jail at Southport District Court on Wednesday for his role in the scheme.

The multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme unravelled after the mortgage was granted to a 98-year-old who had dementia, the court heard.

Former Westpac manager David St Pierre has been jailed for six months after using fake documents to secure loans in an investment scam (stock image)

The former Westpac home finance manager pleaded guilty to three counts of dishonestly using his position to gain advantage.

The court heard St Pierre colluded with the director of an investment firm to produce fake income documents for 11 clients - mostly pensioners - in order to obtain them loans.

The money from the loans was then invested in the firm after the clients had been promised returns of 12 to 20 per cent.

In total, nearly $4 million in loans was obtained from Westpac with $3.28 million being lost when the firm was liquidated in February 2011.

The court heard St Pierre's final victim was a 98-year-old woman with advanced dementia living in an aged care home.

St Pierre was sentenced to six months jail at Southport District Court (pictured) on Wednesday. The court heard he colluded with the director of an investment firm to produce fake income documents for 11 clients - mostly pensioners - in order to obtain them loans

St Pierre used six fake documents to falsely show she earned $3,700 per month, allowing her to be granted a $450,000 loan of which $440,000 was subsequently invested in the company.

Crown prosecutor Bruce Mumford QC said St Pierre's actions were 'calculated and determined' and he knew the people obtaining loans couldn't repay them.

'It's a serious breach of trust,' Mumford said.

'He already knew these borrowers wouldn't meet the serviceability (requirements).'

St Pierre's lawyer Christopher Wilson QC said his client had hit financial difficulties following the 2008 global financial crisis and needed the commissions he earned through each loan.

St Pierre's lawyer Christopher Wilson QC said his client had hit financial difficulties following the 2008 global financial crisis and needed the commissions he earned through each loan. Mr Wilson said St Pierre didn't believe the false documents would create much risk

Mr Wilson said his client was unaware of the company's fraudulent status and believed it was a 'prosperous' business.

'He didn't believe the false documents would create much risk,' Mr Wilson said, adding his client had been sacked by Westpac in 2011 after 23 years' service and subsequently been declared bankrupt.

'Some people benefit from their frauds, he has not.'

Judge David Kent QC said St Pierre's experience in the banking sector should have warned him the firm's promised returns were unrealistic.

'He was either dishonest or extraordinarily reckless,' Judge Kent said.

St Pierre was given a three-year jail sentence but will be eligible for release in six months if he provides a $1000 recognisance.

He will also be placed on a three-year good behaviour bond on his release from prison.

The court heard Westpac was not pursuing repayment from the victims for the monies lost in the scheme.
The self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks sent a letter to Barack Obama during his last days in office to tell him September 11 was a direct result of American 'oppression and tyranny'.

The 18-page letter to 'the head of the snake, Barack Obama,' was written by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused 9/11 mastermind.

He has been held at the prison at Guantanamo Bay since 2006 after being captured in Pakistan in 2003.

During an interrogation in 2007, he confessed to being behind the 9/11 attacks.

Terror mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed sent a letter to Obama days before the ex-President left office calling him 'the head of the snake'

The chilling letter is dated January 8, 2015, but only reached the White House in the final days of Obama's presidency.

In it, he wrote: 'It was not we who started the war against you in 9/11; it was you and your dictators in our land.'

He said God was on the side of the hijackers that fateful day when planes were sent crashing into the Twin Towers in New York, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

The attacks that shocked the world killed 2,996 people and injured more than 6,000 others.

He wrote: 'Allah aided us in conducting 9/11, destroying the capitalist economy, catching you with your pants down, and exposing all the hypocrisy of your long-held claim to democracy and freedom.'

Listing many grievances over America's 'brutal and savage massacres' from Vietnam to the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Mohammed focused his rage on the plight of Palestinians and US support for Israel and the 'occupier Jews.'

'Your hands are still wet with the blood of our brothers and sisters and children who were killed in Gaza,' he wrote in the opening paragraph.

Defense attorney David Nevin provided a copy of the letter, which has not yet been posted on the US military's website for Guantanamo proceedings.

He told AFP that Mohammed began writing it in 2014.

The chilling letter is dated January 8, 2015, but only reached the White House in the final days of Obama's presidency

Along with the letter, Mohammed sent a 51-page manuscript entitled 'Shall I Die when the Crusaders Carry out the Death Sentence? The Truth about Death.'

It was illustrated with an image of a noose.

Mohammed, who faces a potential death sentence for allegedly masterminding the plane hijackings, said he was not afraid of dying.

'I speak about death happily!' he wrote.

Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003 and held at a secret CIA prison site overseas.

In the letter, he explained that 'if your court sentences me to life in prison, I will be very happy to be alone in my cell to worship Allah the rest of my life and repent to Him all my sins and misdeeds.'

He added: 'And if your court sentences me to death, I will be even happier to meet Allah and the prophets and see my best friends whom you killed unjustly all around the world and to see Sheikh Osama Bin Laden.'
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A photographer managed to capture an epic chase that saw a cheetah hunt down a gazelle - before its prey was cruelly stolen by hyenas.

Keith Crowley, 56, from Hudson, Wisconsin in the US travelled to the Ndutu plains in Tanzania last month with the hope of photographing the endangered carnivore.

His pictures show the cheetah stalking its prey before chasing down the female Thompson's gazelle. The mother eventually manages to snare her prey - only to have the carcass stolen from the mouths of her cubs by Spotted Hyenas.

Keith said: 'It was thrilling to see the raw speed and stealth of such iconic animals. I saw two other kills before this one, but this is the only one where the gazelle ran towards me, it was incredible.

'Cheetahs are in a precarious situation right now as their habitat dwindles and I went to Ndutu specifically to see them in their natural element before they are gone.

'Witnessing four different kills, and the interaction between the cubs was an unforgettable experience. I feel incredibly lucky to have seen the things I saw in Tanzania.'

Keith Crowley, 56, from Hudson, Wisconsin in the US travelled to the Ndutu plains in Tanzania to photograph cheetahs

He managed to capture on camera an epic chase that saw a cheetah hunt down a Thompson's gazelle

The cheetah stalked and then chased the gazelle before eventually pouncing on her and killing her

The speedy gazelle did her best to get away from the cheetah but she was ultimately no match for the fearsome predator

The pair raced across the savanna but it was the ferocious cheetah who was victorious in the end

The mother cheetah was out on a hunting mission to provide food for her young cubs

Photographer Keith managed to capture the stunning shots as the gazelle ran towards him - with the cheetah hot on her heels

Cheetahs are becoming increasingly difficult to spot in the wild, as they are becoming more and more endangered as their habitat dwindles

After the epic chase, the mother cheetah eventually managed to snare her unfortunate prey
Donald Royce, 76, of Lehigh Acres, Florida, was arrested on Saturday and charged with aggravated battery

A 76-year-old newlywed in Florida told police that he shot his wife in the buttocks after she refused to consummate their marriage - more than half a year after their wedding.

Donald Royce, of Lehigh Acres, admitted to deputies from the Lee County Sheriffs Office that he shot his 62-year-old wife after an argument over sleeping arrangements. The couple married in August after being together for six years.

He was arrested on Saturday following the incident and charged with aggravated battery.

The newlyweds roommate said she heard two gunshots, and when she went to see what happened, Royce turned the gun on her. She then convinced Royce to let her call paramedics.

When deputies arrived, Royce told them: I shot her and the gun is in my room.

He later told deputies that he meant to just scare his wife by shooting into a mattress and he never intended on shooting her.

Royce admitted to deputies from the Lee County Sheriffs Office that he shot his 62-year-old wife after an argument over sleeping arrangements at their home (pictured above). The couple married in August after being together for six years

Royce told deputies he became upset after he accidentally shot her in the buttock and hip.

The woman was taken to Lee Memorial Hospital, where she was treated for gunshot wounds.

She is now recovering at home, and told FOX 4 that the whole situation has been a nightmare, adding that she didnt think her husband was capable of such violence.

The woman said she wants people to know that violence against women is never OK.

Royce is being held at the Lee County Jail on a $100,000 bond. His next court appearance is scheduled for March 6.
Jeremy Corbyn today said he would be prepared to meet Donald Trump - but not in Britain.

He repeated calls for the US President's state visit to the UK to be cancelled in the wake of his controversial travel ban but stopped short of saying he would snub any meeting with the controversial billionaire.

The Labour leader said he had wanted to show President Trump around Finsbury Park Mosque in his north London constituency 'so he could understand multicultural society'.

But he has now declined that invitation due to President Trump's executive order banning anyone from seven majority-Muslim countries entering the US.

Jeremy Corbyn, pictured on BBC Breakfast this morning, said he would be prepared to meet Donald Trump - but not in Britain

Downing Street has refused to buckle to calls to cancel or postpone President Trump's planned state visit to the UK later this year.

More than 1.8million people signed a petition for the state visit to be cancelled because it would embarrass the Queen, while thousands took to the streets in cities across the UK to protest against President Trump's travel ban.

Today Mr Corbyn reiterated demands to put-off the state visit, telling the BBC: 'We should also be not rolling out the red carpet to him.'

He was repeatedly asked whether he would be prepared to meet President Trump if his visit does go ahead. As leader of the opposition Mr Corbyn would be invited to the state dinner with President Trump and First Lady Melania.

Jeremy Corbyn said he had wanted to show President Trump, pictured with First Lady Melania, around Finsbury Park Mosque in his north London constituency 'so he could understand multicultural society'

Jeremy Corbyn, pictured on BBC Breakfast this morning, repeated calls for the US President's state visit to the UK to be cancelled in the wake of his controversial travel ban but stopped short of saying he would snub any meeting with the controversial billionaire

Dodging the question, Mr Corbyn said: 'When he was a candidate somebody said would I meet him and I said I thought it would be very useful for him to come to the mosque in our constituency so he could understand something about multicultural society.

'Now, I don't know if he's going to want to do that.

Asked again whether the would you meet the President, Mr Corbyn finally said: 'I think it would be right to meet the President of the USA but I think it would be wrong for him to come here.'

Mr Corbyn is facing major trouble in his party today after 52 Labour MPs defied his orders to vote against Brexit last night.

His close ally Clive Lewis quit the Shadow Cabinet, becoming the fourth to resign in order to rebel against Mr Corbyn, who ordered MPs to back triggering Article 50 - the formal mechanism for leaving the EU.

He became the fourth to resign from the shadow cabinet in the last fortnight.

A further 14 frontbenchers voted against the party line last night but have yet to resign or be sacked.

Mr Corbyn became embroiled in a furious row with the BBC over claims he was on his way out as leader, and even accused the broadcaster of 'fake news' as he desperately tried to get Labour back on track after the Brexit Bill shambles.

In a car-crash interview, the veteran left-winger bizarrely insisted the party was 'united' despite 52 MPs defying his orders to vote against the historic legislation last night.

Struggling to control his temper, Mr Corbyn denied that the dramatic decision by shadow business secretary Clive Lewis to resign rather than vote in favour of triggering Article 50 was a 'disaster'.
The woman at the centre of a Channel Seven sex scandal has released internal emails between network executives about a controversial deal with drug dealing Schapelle Corby and her family.

Amber Harrison, former executive assistant to Seven West Media CEO Timor Worner, took to Twitter on Thursday night to post the private information - the latest release in her feud with the company.

In an email from 2014, board members discuss a story relating to the Corby family entitled 'A mother's desperation'.

'We got Mercedes' signature late last night. So very close,' Sunday Night producer Mark Llwellyn said.

The email was sent just two days before Mercedes' sister Schapelle Corby was due to be released from a Balinese prison.

Former executive assistant Amber Harrison (pictured) took to Twitter on Thursday night to post private emails sent between executives

'We got Mercedes' signature late last night. So very close,' the leaked email said

She also posted a private email sent during federal police raids at the Channel Seven office.

'Australian Federal Police search warrant today on Seven premises,' commercial director Bruce McWilliam sent to the Seven West Media board in 2014.

'Apologies for typos as feds r in my office and doing it on blackberry [sic].

'Please note it isn't an offence to pay money. The authorities are entitled to go after the payee.'

The email was sent just two days before Mercedes' (left) sister Schapelle Corby (right) was due to be released from Balinese prison

The AFP raided Channel Seven offices on February 18, 2014, under laws banning ciminals from profiting from their crimes.

The raid reportedly stemmed from an alleged $25,000 payment the network sent to Mercedes Corby, Schepelle's sister.

The email appears to show Mr McWilliam assuring Channel Seven had not done anything wrong for allegedly paying the sum of money to the Corby family.

'AFP search warrant today on Seven premises... 'please note it isn't an offence to pay money. The authorities are entitled to go after the payee,' the email said

The leaked emails are the most recent online spray in an ongoing war between Ms Harrison and Channel Seven, where she was embroiled in a sex scandal with CEO Tim Worner.

A spokesman for Channel Seven told The Age on Thursday night 'those emails relate to the AFP matter which was settled successfully in court and successfully gained an apology from the AFP'.

Seven also always denied they paid Mercedes Corby for the exclusive interview which was broadcast on the network's Sunday Night.

The screenshotted emails confirm Ms Harrison still holds onto sensitive information belonging to Channel Seven.

The leaked emails are the most recent online spray in an ongoing war between Ms Harrison and Channel Seven

'Just a quick note to thank you for whatever it is that you do to make these increasingly frequent trips to Crown more enjoyable,' it reads

The Twitter rampage comes just two days after Ms Harrison posted a series of love letters sent to her by Channel Seven's CEO Tim Worner, during their months long affair.

'Dear Amber,' began one note from Mr Worner dated February 14.

'Just a quick note to thank you for whatever it is that you do to make these increasingly frequent trips to Crown more enjoyable.

'It's like I really am somebody all of a sudden. Quite a weird feeling.

'But I could get used to it. Thank you again.'

'The creativity and flair that you brought to the proceedings made for a first class experience,' it read

'We are really pleased to advise that you have been recommended for a special bonus payment in recognition of your exceptional performance,' it reads

Seven West Media CEO Tim Worner (pictured) arrives for the Seven West Media annual general meeting in Sydney

In another letter, dated August 5, Mr Worner praised her for the 'creativity and flair' she brought to a conference. 'It was a super effort,' he wrote.

'Thank you for everything you put into it.

'I know you are such a fashion Nazi and hence this little gift was a no brainer to go with your uggies'.

Ms Harrison also took to Twitter this week to hit back at the network after the concluded Mr Worner was in the clear following an independent investigation into his company credit card spending.

The report found there were no irregularities in Mr Worner's corporate credit card use.

Seven West Media CEO Tim Worner spotted getting coffee in Manly

In a statement released to the Australian Stock Exchange on Friday, Seven cleared Mr Worner of misconduct following an independent investigation.

'The board has addressed all the issues that have been raised and is confident that Mr Worner will continue to run the company in the interests of all shareholders,' the company said in a statement.

Ms Harrison claimed the independent investigation incorrectly found Mr Worner innocent.

'Evidence ignored of taxi receipts to arrive and leave my house your CEO expensed on corporate card. Texts confirm times,' she wrote on Twitter on Sunday.

'Evidence ignored of taxi receipts to arrive and leave my house your CEO expensed on corporate card. Texts confirm times,' she wrote on Twitter on Sunday

'Channel Seven demands my silence under legalities of two contracts they won't honour so instead I've joined Twitter to chat to Jeff Kennett,' Ms Harrison said

The Seven West board said there were no grounds to take any further disciplinary action against Mr Worner, beyond the action which was taken in 2014 when the company became aware of his affair with Ms Harrison.

'The Board is aware that there were a number of communications that passed between Mr Worner and Ms Harrison that were of a highly personal nature that used language and expressed concepts that the board finds totally objectionable.

'However, the Board is of the view that the communications were consensual, personal and private in nature and were only disclosed as a result of a breach of express confidentiality obligations'.

The company statement finished: 'The board has addressed all the issues that have been raised and is confident that Mr Worner will continue to run the company in the interests of all shareholders.'
Ellie Mayling, 19, started feeling sick after eating barbecue chicken from a restaurant

A teenager almost died after confusing the symptoms for sepsis with food poisoning caused by dodgy chicken.

Ellie Mayling, 19, from Burntwood, Staffordshire, started feeling sick after eating barbecue chicken from a restaurant.

But it wasn't the meal which caused the illness - instead the rare blood infection sepsis.

The college student was rushed to hospital and placed into an induced coma to allow her body to fight off the condition which can prove fatal.

Shortly after waking from the coma, Ellie's index finger started to turn black and she was warned she could lose her hand.

Ellie's first symptoms included feeling cold and suffering from a bad headache.

She said: 'I had eaten some BBQ chicken at a local pub and it was later that day that I started to feel sick and drowsy.

'I threw up a few times throughout the day and night and I assumed it was food poisoning or a sickness bug.

'I'm so lucky I survived, I never imagined I actually had a life threatening infection.

'Doctors were unable to confirm why I got sepsis.'

Ellie recalled turning blue and fainting in her bathroom, before waking up in hospital.

The college student was rushed to hospital and placed into an induced coma to allow her body to fight off the condition which can fatal

She said: 'After a few hours, my mum noticed a rash on my arm and I had a stiff neck, which she thought was meningitis.

'Before she called the doctors it was too late, I had already fainted on the bathroom floor and my lips and nose turned blue.

'I was absolutely terrified and the next few weeks were horrific, I had to go into intensive care before I was placed into an induced coma due to blood poisoning.

'Doctors came to the conclusion that I had sepsis due to my blood being so badly poisoned.'

Ellie's entire family were advised they may have to say their final goodbyes as her blood pressure was dangerously low.

She was placed on heavy medication before being put into a coma.

Ellie's body recovered but then a few days later she started to notice something strange on her hand.

Ellie said: 'When I woke up from the coma I started to feel better.

'It wasn't until a few days later that I started to notice my index finger turning black, I had never seen anything like it before.

Ellie's entire family were advised they may have to say their final goodbyes as her blood pressure was dangerously low

'I remember the doctor saying to me that some people with sepsis do lose limbs, so I started panicking, not only about my finger but if other parts of my body would be affected too.'

'I couldn't move my finger and I was in absolute agony, it just got more and more black and my family were so worried.

'There was nothing I could do apart from wait to see what happened.

'After a few months the tip of my finger swelled to the point that it fell off, I was fortunate not to lose too much of my finger or any other limb.'

Ellie is still suffering symptoms from sepsis, and knows that it could return at any point.

She said: 'I still have short-term memory loss from the sepsis but I've recovered a lot now, I'm hoping to go to university next year and become a teacher.

'I'm fully aware that the sepsis may come back at any point, but it's something I just have to live with.

'I hope my story can raise awareness for other people suffering with symptoms from sepsis, and they visit the hospital earlier to prevent this horrible disease causing any harm.'
Dale Smith, 27, died instantly after diving into shallow water while drunk, breaking his neck. The father-of-four from Grimsby stripped off and bell-flopped off Cleethorpes Pier in July

A young father died from a broken neck after belly-flopping into shallow water 'just for a laugh', an inquest heard.

Dale Smith, 27, jumped into the water with his brother Joshua from a slipway near to Cleethorpes Pier, North East Lincolnshire, after a night out last year.

An inquest into his death heard that Mr Smith had overheard someone talking about 'skinny dipping' and decided to go in himself.

Joshua said: 'We both got stripped off. Dale dived in and I went in after him.

'I could not tell how deep it was. It was cold. There were a few people about. It was just for a laugh.'

But Joshua described how Mr Smith had slipped and ended up belly-flopping into the water.

He told the inquest that the next thing he saw was his brother floating face down.

Mr Smith was pulled out of the water by his while his girlfriend, Natasha Harvey, rang emergency services.

Two doormen from a nearby nightspot also ran to his aid.

The post-mortem examination found Mr Smith died instantly from a broken neck.

Assistant coroner for Grimsby and North Lincolnshire, Jane Eatock, concluded the death was by 'misadventure'.

Coroner Jane Eatock concluded that the death was caused by 'misadventure' adding that it was 'tragic to lose someone at such a young age'. Mr Smith's brother and girlfriend were out with him when he died, his brother Joshua pulled him ashore while his girlfriend Natasha called emergency services (family and friends pictured gathered to remember him)

Explaining to relatives, she said: 'In a sense it is an accidental death by putting himself in harm's way.'

She passed her condolences to the relatives and said: 'It is tragic to lose someone at such a young age.'

The level of alcohol in his system was estimated to be around between two and three times the drink-drive limit.

'That impairs your ability to think sensibly and rationally', the assistant coroner added.

In tribute, Joshua described his brother as a loving father to his four children and a hard-working man.

He worked at a soup production factory on the Europarc business centre as a supervisor, a job he held for three years.

Joshua, who had been taught to swim by Mr Smith, said: 'He liked a drink at the weekend. There was never a dull moment with him. I always looked up to him.

'He liked being in and around water. Many years ago he had jumped into water and broke his arm.'

Mr Smith's newborn nephew, born 13 weeks ago, has been named Isaac Dale Robin Dixon in his uncle's memory.

Mr Smith's blood alcohol levels were between two and three times the drink-drive limit. He was described by his brother as 'a loving father-of-four and a hard-working man'. He had worked for three years at an industrial park as a supervisor (family and friends pictured gathered to remember him at Cleethorpes beach)

Following the hearing, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency said: 'The Coastguard would like to encourage everyone to enjoy our British coastline safely.

'Be responsible about alcohol consumption and go to a life-guarded beach.'

She added: 'We always urge people to have fun but stay safe when out enjoying our beautiful beaches and coastlines.

'Jumping from piers, cliffs, rocks or other structures into the sea can be very dangerous.

'The depth of the water can dramatically change with the tide, and what was a deep pool at lunchtime might be a shallow puddle by teatime.

'You don't know what hazards may be lurking under the surface until you are hurt or worse.'
A man whose palm print was allegedly found on a suspected getaway vehicle used in the 1976 Kingsmill massacre will not be prosecuted.

The ten victims were lined up on a country road in rural south Armagh and shot dead in a sectarian attack that was widely blamed on the IRA. Another man survived despite being shot 18 times.

A 56-year-old man was arrested last year and detectives said they believed a palm print found on the windscreen of a van thought to have been used in the massacre.

But Northern Ireland's Public Prosecution Service have now said there is 'insufficient evidence' to offer a reasonable prospect of conviction.

These was the scene where ten Protestant workmen were lined up and shot in an attack blamed on the IRA. Forty years on, a man arrested over the incident will not be prosecuted

It is understood a lack of Garda and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) records in regard to how the van was forensically handled upon discovery was a key factor in the PPS's decision.

Prosecutors could apparently not find documents indicating exactly when the vehicle was found, or where it was taken for examination, or even the precise location of the palm print position on the windscreen.

So while prosecutors did not perceive matching the print to the individual as an issue, the missing forensic records meant they were unable to rule out that the palm might have been placed on the windscreen well after the shootings.

While the PPS did have two witnesses identifying the green Bedford van as being in the general vicinity both before and after the attack, the sightings were not close enough to the scene to provide strong circumstantial evidence.

Michael Agnew, the PPS's Assistant Director of Central Casework, said lawyers had given 'careful consideration to all of the evidence' and had applied the test for prosecution.

'We have concluded that there is no reasonable prospect of a conviction based on the available evidence and that the test for prosecutions is therefore not met,' he said.

The men who died were John Bryans, Robert Chambers, Reginald Chapman, Walter Chapman, Robert Freeburn, Joseph Lemmon, John McConville, James McWhirter, Robert Samuel Walker and Kenneth Worton

The textile workers were shot when their minibus was ambushed outside the village of Kingsmill on their way home from work.

Those on board were asked their religion, and the only Catholic was ordered to run away.

The killers, who had been hidden in the hedges, forced the 11 remaining men to line up outside the van before opening fire. Alan Black was the sole survivor.

The suspected getaway vehicle was left abandoned across the Irish border and the palm print was subsequently recovered days later.

No-one has ever been convicted of the murders, which have been widely blamed on the IRA, even though the organisation never admitted responsibility.
Alison Taylor saw four midwives, a hospital doctor, her GP and a trainee GP over a period of 16 days before she collapsed and died

A father-of-three whose wife died after seven different medics misdiagnosed her blood clot as cramp has received a six-figure payout from the NHS.

Alison Taylor, 29, was told she could not have an ultrasound at a hospital, which would have saved her life, because it was a weekend.

The nurse feared she was suffering from deep vein thrombosis (DVT) after the birth of her daughter Yvie-Mae on March 15, 2010.

Shockingly, she saw four midwives, a hospital doctor, her GP and a trainee GP over a period of 16 days before she collapsed and died on March 31.

An inquest found the young mother died from a pulmonary embolism caused by DVT in one of her legs which was caused by her pregnancy.

Alison's husband Darren Taylor, 39, said his wife 'knew something was wrong' after she gave birth to Yvie-Mae, who is now six.

She was referred to Leicester Royal Infirmary on March 20, 2010 but the doctor who saw her didn't follow the hospital's guidelines on investigating suspected DVT.

Alison - who worked at the same hospital in the childrens' outpatients ward - was also told ultrasound scans were not provided at weekends.

Darren has now received a substantial payout from the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust after winning a medical negligence claim.

The removal worker said the seven-year legal battle had left him unable to grieve.

Darren, who lives in Braunstone, Leicester, with his and Alison's three children Ellise, 14, Christopher, 12, and Yvie-Mae, added: 'I am relieved this is all over.

'It has been a long, hard seven years but I am happy we have got the NHS to own up and the trust says lessons have been learnt.

'Alison was a healthcare assistant so she was very aware of the risks of DVT. But the doctors seemed quite dismissive of her symptoms.

'When we went on the Saturday we were told they couldn't do a scan because it was a weekend.

'I later found out she would have had a scan straight away if we had gone to the A&E department.

'If they had done what they were supposed to do Alison should be here now. The apology they wrote isn't worth the paper it is written on.

'Alison worked at that hospital and you think they would have looked after one of their own.

'It has never been about the money but we have been unable to grieve for seven years while this went on.

'Now me and the children can at least try to move on and remember her in the way she deserves.'

Darren and Alison Taylor's children pictured from left to right: Christopher, Yvie-Mae and Ellise

An inquest held in December 2011 heard Alison was referred to the hospital five days after giving birth by her community midwife when she complained of cramps and swelling in her right leg.

She was admitted to the maternity unit where she told midwives she was worried she could be suffering from a blood clot.

But registrar Dr Vijay Kumar Kalathy discounted DVT as a diagnosis when he examined her ten minutes later.

Alison also went to see her family GP Dr Philip Hussey on the day she died but he gave her painkillers after misdiagnosing her with cramp.

Later that night Darren found his wife collapsed in the bathroom of their home in Syston, Leics., and she died in hospital.

Recording a narrative verdict, Assistant Deputy Coroner Robert Chapman said a scan at the hospital could have saved her life.

Mehmooda Duke, from Moosa-Duke Solicitors which represented Darren, said: 'Mrs Taylor was a victim of medical negligence.

'After her death her family continued to be victims of the hospital's refusal to admit that they caused Mrs Taylor's death.

'After a long and weary legal battle for justice the hospital finally admitted that its failure to do a blood test, and perform a scan resulted in Alison's death.

Alison was referred to Leicester Royal Infirmary on March 20, 2010 but the doctor who saw her didn't follow the hospital's guidelines on investigating suspected DVT

'Had a scan been done on March 22, 2010, it would have shown the DVT and a fatal pulmonary embolism would have been avoided.'

University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust have since apologised and said changes have been introduced as a result of the tragic death.

Ian Scudamore, consultant obstetrician and clinical director for women's and children's services, said the trust extended its 'heartfelt condolences to Mr Taylor and his family for their loss'.

He added: 'DVTs are very difficult to diagnose clinically and Alison was considered at low risk of developing a DVT.

'However, there were opportunities during her care to carry out investigations and start treatment that may have resulted in a different outcome for Alison.

'While no amount of money will make up for the loss of Alison, we do however hope that the settlement will bring some security to Mr Taylor and their three children.

'In reviewing the care provided to Alison it has highlighted changes that were necessary to improve the diagnosis of, and treatment for, DVT related to pregnancy.

'As part of these changes we have improved our guidelines and the service has been extended to allow doctors access to ultrasound scans at the weekend should they suspect a DVT.'
President Donald Trump attacked Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal on Twitter Thursday, just hours after the senator revealed private comments by Trump's Supreme Court pick that were critical of Trump's own attacks on judges.

Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut made headlines Wednesday night when he said Trump's Supreme Court pick, judge Neil Gorsuch, agreed with his own substantial concerns about the president's slams on judges  including one who ruled against Trump's new immigration order.

'He said very specifically that they were demoralizing and disheartening and he characterized them very specifically that way,' Blumenthal said following his meeting with Gorsuch.

It was a stunning critique of the president's conduct from the man seeking confirmation to a lifetime appointment to the nation's highest court.

But the White House says Gorsuch's statement is being misrepresented - the judge wasn't tweaking the president, he was making a general statement about the independence and integrity of the judicial branch.

President Donald Trump went after Senator Richard Blumenthal on Twitter a day after the senator revealed that judge Neil Gorsuch (pictured) found Trump's attacks on the judiciary 'disheartening'

Richard Blumenthal (left and right) (D-CT) claimed judge Neil Gorsuch said Trump's attacks on the judiciary were 'demoralizing and disheartening'. Trump, in response, said Blumenthal falsely claimed to have served in Vietnam when he was stationed domestically while serving in the Marine Reserves (right)

President Trump went after Blumenthal on Twitter Thursday

The comment by Gorsuch was confirmed by the Supreme Court nomination team to DailyMail.com Wednesday night, and it was seconded by a Republican in the Senate, but it nevertheless spurred Trump to respond.

Trump hammered Senator Blumenthal in a tweet Thursday morning meant to shred Blumenthal's credibility following the revelation.

'Sen.Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie),now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?' Trump tweeted.

He hit Blumenthal again at an invitation-only luncheon at the White House, saying in response to a reporter's question, 'His comments were misrepresented and what you should do is ask Sen. Blumenthal about his Vietnam record which didn't exist.'

The pushback brought up a troubling part of Blumenthal's record. While running for the Senate in 2010 while serving as the attorney general of Connecticut, the New York Times revealed that Blumenthal had claimed he served 'in Vietnam' when addressing veterans' groups.

In one example, Blumenthal said to a group in 2008, 'We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam. And you exemplify it. Whatever we think about the war, whatever we call it  Afghanistan or Iraq  we owe our military men and women unconditional support.'

Senator Richard Blumenthal says Gorsuch told him Trump's Twitter attacks on judges such as US District Judge James Robart (pictured)- the 'so-called' judge who halted his immigration order - were 'disheartening'

Blumenthal got multiple deferments from the war, joining the Marine Reserves in 1970 but was stationed in Washington and never served in-country.

He apologized in 2010 and got elected anyway.

'At times when I have sought to honor veterans, I have not been as clear or precise as I should have been about my service in the Marine Corps Reserves,' Blumenthal said in a 2010 statement. 'I have firmly and clearly expressed regret and taken responsibility for my words.'

He continued: 'I have made mistakes and I am sorry. I truly regret offending anyone,'' Blumenthal added. 'I will always champion the cause of Connecticut's and our nation's veterans.'

Trump himself got five Vietnam-era draft deferments due his educational pursuits and one due to bone spurs in his foot, the New York Times reported during the campaign.

Gorsuch has not talked publicly about his comments, despite a plea from Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, according to The Hill, that he own up to them in a show of independence rather than 'whisper' them to a senator.

The judge's administration-appointed spokesman, Ron Bonjean, Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, and Gorsuch's Senate 'sherpa' Kelly Ayotte all told CNN that Gorsuch stood against attacks on judges.

Ayotte's statement cast Gorsuch's remarks as much broader than Trump, however, and his spat with the travel ban judge.

'Judge Gorsuch has made it very clear in all of his discussions with senators, including Senator Blumenthal, that he could not comment on any specific cases and that judicial ethics prevent him from commenting on political matters,' she said.

'He has also emphasized the importance of an independent judiciary, and while he made clear that he was not referring to any specific case, he said that he finds any criticism of a judges integrity and independence disheartening and demoralizing.'

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer read Ayotte's statement aloud during his daily briefing as he explained to a series of reporters asking about the dust up that Gorsuch's remarks were, as the president said, being misrepresented.

'So there is a big difference between commenting on the specific comments that have been made in the tweet, and his general philosophy about the judiciary and his respect for his fellow judges,' Spicer asserted.

Spicer tried to argue that Gorsuch told lawmaker 'he doesn't like attacks in general on the judiciary. It was a very distinct argument that he was making.'

'He literally went out of his way to say I'm not commenting on a specific instance,' the White House official argued in the course of the conversation - even though Gorsuch hasn't personally spoken out about the issue at all.

President Trump went after CNN host Chris Cuomo for his interview with Blumenthal Thursday morning. Cuomo brought up Trump's Twitter attack about Blumenthal's military service but didn't follow up when Blumenthal ignored it

Trump also directed a missive at Arizona Senator John McCain, who has emerged as a frequent Trump critic

Blumenthal responded to Trump's attack Thursday morning  though he turned down a chance to revisit his Vietnam misrepresentations when asked about the hit by CNN's Chris Cuomo as he opened an interview.

'Theres no question that Judge Gorsuch said to me that he found these attacks on the judiciary by the president to be disheartening and demoralizing,' Blumenthal said. 'In fact his spokesperson after the meeting confirmed it. He made the statement more than once. In fact, he has made that same statement to a number of my colleagues, including senator Schumer.'

Blumenthal continued: 'Telling me that he finds these attacks to be demoralizing or disheartening behind closed doors is not enough. He needs to make that statement publicly and condemn this attack on the independence of the judiciary.'

The immediate effect of the online and on-air battle had the potential to boost Gorsuch by featuring his willingness to stake out an independent position distinct from Trump  or so some Democrats feared.

'Blumenthal is inadvertently doing WH's bidding here,' tweeted Brian Fallon, a former spokesman for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. 'A true stand for judicial independence' would be breaking with Gorsuch on Trump's immigration order, he wrote.

Later on Thursday, Trump turned his fire on Cuomo.

'Chris Cuomo, in his interview with Sen. Blumenthal, never asked him about his long-term lie about his brave "service" in Vietnam. FAKE NEWS!' Cuomo had referenced the misrepresentations, but never followed up after Blumenthal ignored it.

The White House says Gorsuch's statements are being misrepresented - the judge wasn't tweaking the president, he was making a general statement about the independence and integrity of the judicial branch

Republicans have been venting that Blumenthal immediately revealed what happened following his meeting with Gorsuch, although most have not doubted the veracity of what Blumenthal said.

'I don't speak for the president. I don't tweet for the president. What I know, I have no reason to doubt senator Blumenthal. I have no reason to doubt the spokesman for Judge Gorsuch about what was said,' Republican Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado told CNN.

But he said it was 'highly unusual for a senator to hold a press conference and discuss the entirety of a meeting.'

In the comments that kicked off the imbroglio, Blumenthal said Wednesday: 'I said they were more than disheartening and I said to him that he has an obligation to make his views clear to the American people, so they understand how abhorrent or unacceptable President Trump's attacks on the judiciary are,' he added, CNN reported.

Trump this weekend went after a district court judge who issued a stay of his immigration order  setting up a process that could land the order before the Supreme Court.

'The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!' Trump tweeted.

The comment was confirmed by the Supreme Court nomination team.

Trump blasted judge James Robart after a ruling that put a temporary stop to his immigration order

Donald Trump in High School photo 1964. Mr Trump never served in the armed forces. He was sent to the New York Military Academy to iron out his wayward behavior

Federal district judge James Robart, a George W. Bush appointee, issued a stop to Trump's immigration order last week while it is being adjudicated.

The order had the effect of reopening immigration from a group of seven majority-muslim nations that were deemed a threat.

The issue is certain to arise in Gorsuch's confirmation before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Top Democrats are already making an issue of whether he can be independent from Trump.

Trump also drew widespread criticism during the primary for going after judge Gonzalo Curiel, who had ruled against him in a Trump University fraud case he ultimately settled after paying $25 million to students who claimed they were defrauded by the offer of real estate classes.

Blumenthal said he brought up Trump's attacks on judges and that Gorsuch 'didn't disagree with me on that point.'

'I said to him if a litigant before your court  and the President of the United States is in fact a litigant right now in the immigration ban cases  said what President Trump said, you would hold him in contempt of court,' he added.

Earlier on Wednesday, Trump said that he never meant to surprise the world with a sudden travel ban on January 27, but 'law enforcement people' persuaded him to make the move without any advance warning.

'I said, 'Let's give a one-month notice',' the president recalled in a speech to a group of police chiefs and sheriffs from large U.S. metropolitan areas. 'But the law enforcement people said to me, 'Oh, you can't give a notice. Because if you give a notice, you're going to [find it] really tough in one month from now or in one week from now'.' 'I suggested a month. Then I said, 'Well, what about a week?'' Trump continued.

'They said, 'No, you can't do that, because then people are going to pour in before the toughness goes on'.'

Trump claimed his law enforcement advisers told him that America would see 'a whole pile of people perhaps  perhaps  with very evil intentions coming in' if they knew travel restrictions were pending.

Instead, he now says the United States faces the same kind of exposure to terrorism after a federal judge put his plan on hold.

Gorsuch also met with Senate Demoratic leader Charles Schumer and reportedly gave similar assurances. But after his meeting with Gorsuch, Schumer said, 'The judge today avoided answers like the plague.'

GOP Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas publicly criticized Trump for the twitter attack Wednesday.

'Judge Robart, like every other judge in the federal system, is confirmed by the Senate after having been appointed by the president. He's a judge. He's not a so-called judge,' he said bluntly, appearing on CNN.

'I would say he wrote a so-called opinion, that didn't offer a single legal reason for his conclusion,' he added.

'And again I think it's best not to personalize these disputes. I understand the president is frustrated that this judge in Seattle has stayed his order. I don't think that was the right decision. But I would probably focus on the merits of the case itself, and have confidence in his victory on appeal  because I think he should have confidence in his victory,' he added.

Trump also criticized a federal Ninth Circuit Appeals Court that took up the immigration order Tuesday night.

'A bad high school student would understand this. Anybody would understand this,' he said, following a dramatic reading of a portion of the law Wednesday.

'I listened to a bunch of stuff last night on television that was disgraceful. It was disgraceful,' Trump fumed.

'Because what I just read to you is what we have. And it just can't be read any plainer or better. And for us to be going through this!'
The chairman of Australia Post will be hauled before a Senate committee to justify his chief executive's $5.6 million salary.

Ahmed Fahour's $4.4 million salary and a $1.2 million bonus were revealed in documents released by a parliamentary committee this week despite the government-owned business trying to keep under wraps.

Board chairman John Stanhope will have to explain the multi-million dollar salary of his CEO at a Senate estimates hearing in coming weeks.

Australia Post chief executive Ahmed Fahour's (pictured) $4.4 million salary and a $1.2 million bonus were revealed in documents released by a parliamentary committee this week

On Wednesday, Malcolm Turnbull said the pay package was 'too high' after it was found Mr Fahour was earning 10 times as much as the Prime Minister.

Communications Minister Mitch Fifield has urged the board to give more rigorous consideration to remuneration packages and be conscious of community expectations.

'All of us who are employed in the service of the community are rightly accountable to the Australian public,' he told Senate question time on Thursday.

'The Australian community deserves high levels of accountability and transparency from Government enterprise.

Chairman John Stanhope (file image) will have to explain the multi-million dollar salary of his CEO at a Senate estimates hearing in coming weeks

'And that the board takes executive remuneration into account when seeking to reduce operational costs.'

His comments comes just days after Mr Turnbull said he acknowledged Mr Fahour had a big job overseeing a large government-owned entity, which had improved its operating business.

'In my view, I say this as someone who spent most of his life in the business world before I came into politics, I think it is a very big salary for that job,' Mr Turnbull said.
Apple boss Tim Cook has told Theresa May he is 'very optimistic' about the UK's future after Brexit.

Mr Cook met the Prime Minister at Downing Street this morning to discuss the company's plans to build a new UK headquarters at the redeveloped Battersea Power Station as proof of the company's support of the UK.

'We're doubling down on a huge headquarters in the Battersea area and we're leaving significant space there to expand,' Mr Cook said.

'We're a big believer in the UK - we think you'll be just fine. Yes, there will be bumps in the road along the way but the UK's going to be fine.'

Theresa May has hosted Apple chief executive Tim Cook, pictured in Downing Street today, at No 10 for private talks on her Brexit plans

Apple boss Tim Cook today visited a primary school in north London as part of his trip to the UK to discuss Brexit with Theresa May

Last year the iPhone maker revealed it would move 1,600 employees to the new campus in south London in 2021.

In a statement about the meeting, Apple said: 'Tim had a positive meeting with the Prime Minister today, discussing Apple's continued investment in the United Kingdom.

'We are proud that Apple's innovation and growth now supports nearly 300,000 jobs across the UK.'

The 56-year-old (centre) chatted to children at Woodberry Down Community Primary School

After the meeting Mr Cook visited a primary school in north London.

The 56-year-old chatted to children at Woodberry Down Community Primary School in Harringay, which is part of the New Wave Federation group of schools that have incorporated Apple's iPad and related software into lesson plans.

Its students learn basic coding through Apple's Swift Playgrounds software and work with the company's GarageBand music app as part of their lessons.

'Technology has moved on considerably,' Mr Cook said.

'It gets kids a lot more engaged because they're living in a digital world. We're all living in a digital world.

'This school has done an unbelievable job of integrating it.'

The school is part of the New Wave Federation group of schools that have incorporated Apple's iPad and related software into lesson plans

Students learn basic coding through Apple's Swift Playgrounds software and work with the company's GarageBand music app as part of their lessons

Mr Cook was photographed sweeping into Downing Street this morning and was said to have held 'positive and useful' talks with the PM.

Mrs May's 'global Britain' strategy was boosted last year by Apple's announcement it would set up a huge new headquarters in London at the redeveloped Battersea Power Station.

The lavish plans raised hopes Apple could abandon its base in Ireland and shift its European operations to Britain in what would be a huge coup for London - and the Treasury.

The iPhone and iPad developer was slapped with a vast bill by the European Commission after Brussels ruled against a low corporate tax deal agreed between Apple and Ireland last year.

Mr Cook said: 'Technology has moved on considerably. It gets kids a lot more engaged because they're living in a digital world. We're all living in a digital world'

Mr Cook, pictured leaving No 10 after his talks, was said to have held 'positive and useful' talks with the PM

Revealing details of the meeting, Mrs May's official spokesman said: 'It was a meeting with the Prime Minister.

'It was a very positive and useful discussion. You have seen Apple has made a recent announcement about investment in the UK.

'There was a conversation around that, the importance of Government and business on digital skills going forward which is going to be a huge part of the future industry.

'And touching on what the Prime Minister outlined in our plans for negotiating EU exit.

'It was a chance for her to reiterate and welcome Apple's investment in the UK.'

The spokesman would not comment on whether Donald Trump's immigration summary or how Mr Cook responded to the Brexit plans.

Apple announced in September it would create a new London headquarters inside the 9billion Battersea Power Station development for up to 3,000 staff.

The Grade II listed building on the Thames with its iconic towers is key a feature of south London's skyline. It is being refurbished by a Malaysian-led consortium.

Mr Cook and his team were pictured leaving Downing Street this morning following his talks with Mrs May

The tech giant will occupy six floors - about half a million square feet of office space - in the central boiler house of the former coal-fired power station.

Apple, which insists it pays all taxes due in Britain, will become the largest office tenant in the new-look Battersea Power Station development.

In 2015 it sparked fury after revealing that it paid only 11.8million in British corporation tax the previous year  despite raking in profits estimated at almost 2billion.

It will take up around 40 per cent of the office space and spreading staff across six floors and employees will be relocated from various London offices in 2021, Apple said.

Apple has around 1,400 office staff in London working across nine sites and another 1,100 working in its UK stores.

The redevelopment of Battersea Power Station, pictured in December, is one of the biggest building projects currently underway in the capital

Once complete, Apple will occupy six floors - about half a million square feet of office space - in the central boiler house of the former coal-fired power station. Pictured: Computer generated projection of the revamped Battersea

Announcing its plans last year, it added that it was a 'great opportunity to have its entire team working and collaborating in one location while supporting the renovation of a neighbourhood rich with history'.

Rob Tincknell, chief executive of Battersea Power Station Development Company, said: 'We are delighted that Apple has chosen to make Battersea Power Station its home in 2021.

'It is testament to our fantastic building and the wider regeneration of the 42-acre site which offers a carefully curated mix of homes, businesses and leisure amidst extraordinary open spaces and new transport links.

'It has always been our clear objective to create one of London's most thriving new communities and this commitment from Apple will undoubtedly help us achieve our goal.'
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for rocket fire on the Israeli resort of Eilat, launched from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.

During the attack, four projectiles were fired into southern Israel, where three were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system, according to the Israeli Defence Force's Southern Command.

The Israeli army said Wednesday evening's rocket fire did not cause any casualties or any damage to property.

A total of 11 people were treated for shock in Eilat's Joseftal Hospital following the attack, including an Australian tourist, four holidaymakers and half a dozen local residents, the Jerusalem Post reports.

The lone missile that was not intercepted fell into open ground short of the town.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility after four projectiles were fired into southern Israel

'Thanks to God alone, a military platoon fired several Grad rockets yesterday' towards Eilat, the jihadists' Egyptian affiliate said in a statement circulated on social media.

The incident came just hours after a mortar reportedly fell in the Golan Heights in the Levant, near the Syria border fence. The missile did not cause any known causalities or damage.

The IDF said that in response, it had struck a target in the northern Syrian Golan.

Three of the missiles were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system, according to the Israeli Defence Force's Southern Command

Islamic State has waged a deadly insurgency against Egyptian security forces in the Sinai, but attacks on Israel from Egyptian territory are rare.

In 2011, assailants who came from the Sinai killed eight Israelis in a triple ambush north of Eilat, after which pursuing Israeli forces killed seven attackers and five Egyptian police.

In 2013, four jihadists were killed by an Egyptian air strike as they were about to fire a rocket at Israel, according to the Egyptian military.

A total of 11 people were treated for shock in Eilat's Joseftal Hospital following the attack, including an Australian tourist, four holidaymakers and half a dozen local residents

In 2014, two Israeli soldiers on patrol were wounded by unidentified men who fired an anti-tank weapon from the Sinai during an attempted drug-smuggling operation, according to the Israeli military.

And in 2015, rockets fired from Sinai hit southern Israel without causing any casualties, in an attack that IS claimed responsibility for.

The Iron Dome has not intercepted rockets bound for Eilat since 2014, when it stopped missiles during the fighting with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, code-named Operation Protective Edge by the IDF.

The system is designed to intercept and destroy short-range missiles fired from distances of 2.5 miles to 43 miles away, whose trajectory would take them to a populated area.
Preston Kelley, 23, was arrested Monday on extortion charges in Alabama

A northern Alabama man is accused of scheming to extort money from his grandmother by faking his own kidnapping.

Preston Kelley, 23, texted his grandmother a disturbing photo on Monday, said Lauderdale County Sheriff's Office investigator Lt. Brad Potts.

The photo appeared to show Kelley, who lives in Florence, Alabama, just miles from the Tennessee border, bound and beaten in a wooded area in Tennessee.

Authorities say Kelley told his grandmother to send $1,000 or else he would be killed.

The frightened woman contacted investigators, who concluded that Kelley wasn't in Tennessee and the whole episode was a hoax, Potts said.

'Through the investigation we determined he was just trying to get money from his grandmother,' Potts told WAAY.

Investigators say Kelley texted his grandmother pictures of himself bound and beaten, demanding a $1,000 ransom in a fake kidnapping scheme

During questioning, Kelley maintained he had actually been kidnapped, Potts said.

Kelley is married and attended Coffee High School in Florence, according to information on Facebook.

After a brief investigation, Kelley was arrested later Monday in Lauderdale County and charged with first-degree extortion.

He is being held in the Lauderdale County Detention Center on a $1,000 bond.
Donald Trump's state visit to Britain is expected to take place in June, according to the chief of Scotland Yard.

Met commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe also raised concerns about mass protests against the US president and suggested thousands of police officers will need to be on duty.

The comments - the strongest hint yet at the timing of the historic visit - come amid a major backlash over Mr Trump's travel ban on nationals from seven mainly-Muslim countries.

Theresa May extended an invite to the US commander-in-chief when they met at the White House last month.

Theresa May invited US president Donald Trump for a state visit when she went to the White House last month

The Prime Minister has since dismissed calls for her to cancel the honour, despite large demonstrations on the streets of major cities.

Speaker John Bercow launched an excoriating attack on the President this week, branding him 'racist and sexist' and declaring that he would not give him permission to use Westminster Hall for an address to both Houses of Parliament.

The remarks, in response to a motion signed by more than 160 MPs, were greeted by cheering and clapping from Labour, SNP and Lib Dems in the chamber.

But they sparked fury among many Tories who complained Mr Bercow had breached the traditional impartiality of his role and was intruding on international politics.

Speaking on LBC radio today, Sir Bernard said: 'First of all, I think President Trump is coming around June, thats the plan.

'At the moment, people are concerned there will be lots of protests. There have been protests already. We've had about 20,000 people about 10 days ago at Whitehall  all very peaceful.

'Ive no doubt, as the days pass, well make assessments on what's going to happen, so we cant definitely say there will be huge amounts of problems.

'No doubt well put a lot of officers out there and keep them safe and make sure everything goes well. If there is a few thousand officers, its likely to be quite a bit of money.'

Stressing that he had no final confirmation of the visit date, Sir Bernard added: 'We are just waiting to hear all the details be fleshed out.

'State visits, usually there are two a year, and usually we get about six months' notice, but occasionally it has been far shorter notice than that, and we have just got to get on and do it.'
Armed robbers were foiled after raiders targeted an off-licence run by a former Kurdish special forces soldier.

Dramatic CCTV footage shows the moment storekeeper Shikha Mahsum blasted a gunman in the face with an animal repellent spray.

The fearless shop owner described hearing the attacker's gun 'click' but failing to fire as he faced down the raider.

The man had burst into the store just before midnight on January 9 armed with a handgun.

Fearless shop owner Shikha Mahsum described hearing the attacker's gun 'click' but failing to fire as he faced down the raider

A man walked into the shop in Walsall, West Midlands brandishing a pistol and pointed it at the head of another man

He first pointed the weapon at the head of another staff member before waving it in Mr Mahsum's face, over the shop counter.

But the quick-thinking shopkeeper, who took two bullets fighting Saddam Hussain's troops in Iraq, grabbed the spray from under the counter.

Weapons-trained Mr Mahsum then blasted the gunman directly in the face, before chasing the would-be robber out the door of the shop in Walsall, West Midlands.

The store was named for the six-month siege of Kobani in northern Iraq, when Kurdish fighters backed by air strikes defeated a large Islamic State force.

Asked if the robber had picked the wrong shop, 39-year-old Mr Mahsum replied: '100 per cent, yes. 100 per cent the wrong shop.

He went on: 'Kurdish shop? A million times, the wrong place.'

Shikha Mahsum (left), pictured with relatives Karwan (middle) and Shawan (right) in 1996 when Shikha was serving in the Kashmir Special Forces

The gunman then points the pistol at the shopkeeper, causing him to instantly grab for the spray

The shopkeeper ducked behind the counter and reached for the spray, then blasted the gunman directly in the face (shown) before chasing him out of the Kobani off-licence

Describing the incident, he added: 'I said "Get out - don't do a stupid thing". He turned the gun on my face, and said "Give me the money".

'I went mad, I had my head down under the counter, looking for a hammer, or anything, and straight away I see the dog spray. I use it, and chase him.

'He was like a little child, running off and going out. That's it.'

Mr Mahsum explained that as a Kurdish peshmerga he had been taught to handle an AK47 from the age of 11 and was used to being shot at.

He moved to the UK 16 years ago, having been shot battling Saddam's forces in Iraq.

Another of his brothers survived twice being shot in the throat while another was blinded in one eye fighting the dictator's soldiers in the 1990s.

Weapons-trained Mr Mahsum then blasted the gunman directly in the face, before chasing the would-be robber out the door of the shop in Walsall, West Midlands

Mr Mahsum, whose shop has been open a year, added: 'When I was playing football, Saddam Hussain was bombing us - we just kept playing football.

'I've been in jail, I joined the Peshmerga, so that kind of thing doesn't make me scared. I know the guy is thinking he could get whatever he wants here.

'But as my dad always advised me, dying is better than surrender or being a hostage.'

He said: 'Even kill me or shoot me, it doesn't matter, they're not going to taste my lollipop.'

Despite being threatened with a gun, staff chased the assailants as they drove off in a getaway car.

West Midlands Police has now released footage of the attempted robbery in a bid to trace the culprit, and two other accomplices.

Anyone with information is urged to contact Det Con Maley by calling police on 101 and quoting reference 20WS/7007D/17.
Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni has warned Europe not to take a 'destructive' approach to the Brexit negotiations.

At a joint press conference with Theresa May in Downing Street, Mr Gentiloni said the two years of negotiations would be difficult but said they should be tackled in a 'friendly' manner.

In a further win for Mrs May, her Italian counterpart said he was eager to secure a deal on reciprocal rights for expats after Brexit.

The Prime Minister attempted to strike a deal on the issue ahead of the main Brexit talks but was blocked by Germany's Angela Merkel.

Mrs May welcomed the 'constructive' talks over a working lunch and vowed to assist Italy on its G7 agenda, including on the migration crisis, due to be discussed at a summit in the spring.

At a joint press conference with Theresa May in Downing Street, Mr Gentiloni said the two years of negotiations would be difficult but said they should be tackled in a 'friendly' manner

In a further win for Mrs May, Mr Gentiloni said he was eager to secure a deal on reciprocal rights for expats after Brexit

Mr Gentiloni cancelled a trip at the last moment last month after being admitted to hospital for a heart operation.

Speaking alongside Mrs May in Downing Street, the new Italian premier said he had 'respect' for the Brexit decision.

He said: 'The negotiations will not be easy and we also know we need to show a constructive and friendly approach.

'There is absolutely no point in having a destructive negotiation between the EU and the UK.

'Obviously we will do this in the hope of fostering the unity of the 27 countries.'

France has warned Britain must face consequences for leaving the European Union while others have said there is no way for the Brexit deal to offer terms as good as membership.

He said was eager for the remaining 27 countries to come together to strike the 'best possible' deal with Britain.

On the rights of Italians in Britain and Britons in Italy, Mr Gentiloni said there would be 'very fair treatment'.

Mrs May announced a new programme of regular UK-Italy summits to strengthen the bilateral relationship between the two countries

Mrs May announced a new programme of regular UK-Italy summits to strengthen the bilateral relationship between the two countries.

She said: 'I believe that today we have laid the foundations for continuing the strong and successful relationship between our two countries  and I look forward to working with you, Prime Minister, on your G7 agenda and on the UN Security Council this year, and on shaping a new partnership between Britain and the EU that is in the interests of us all.'

The two leaders were dined on a starter of wild mushroom soup with butternut tortellini followed by a main of shoulder of Cornish lamb with a dessert of pistachio and olive oil cake with a rhubarb sorbet.

The working lunch focussed on Brexit ahead of the start of the official negotiations expected to finally begin next month.

Theresa May is hosting Italian premier Paolo Gentiloni, pictured together today, for lunch in No 10 in the latest round of her pre-Brexit diplomatic offensive

Mr Gentiloni will also meet with Chancellor Philip Hammond and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.

Ahead of the talks, Mrs May's official spokesman said: 'We are extremely close allies with an extremely close bilateral relationship.

'The Prime Minister will obviously be setting out her vision for a global Britain in the future.

'I'm sure they will also discuss Brexit and the negotiations that lay ahead of us.

'Italy is president of the G7 and I am sure it will be discussed in terms of how we can make the global economy work for everyone and I can imagine they will touch on shared interests in foreign affairs.'

A working lunch between the two leaders is set to focus on Brexit and the official negotiations expected to finally begin next month

Mrs May and Mr Gentiloni will give a press conference this afternoon and the Italian premier will also meet with Chancellor Philip Hammond and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson

Mrs May is planning to invoke Article 50 of the EU treaties to officially begin the two year Brexit process next month.

The talks moved a step closer last night as laws handing her the authority over timing cleared the Commons by a landslide.

The European Union (Notification of Withdrawal Bill) was approved after around 40 hours of debate during which the Government saw off a series of attempts to change it to safeguard against a 'hard Brexit'.

The legislation will allow the Prime Minister to begin exit negotiations under Article 50 of the EU treaties, which she has promised by April, once it passes through the House of Lords.

Jeremy Corbyn's decision to order his MPs to back the simple two clause Bill ensured a smooth passage in its final Commons stage, where it was passed by 494 votes to 122 - a majority of 372.

But the Labour leader's authority was called into question after senior frontbencher and ally Clive Lewis quit the shadow cabinet to defy a three-line whip and vote against the Bill.

As MPs passed through the division lobbies for what many saw as a momentous vote, anti-Brexit Scottish National Party MPs whistled and sang the official EU anthem Ode To Joy, before being told off by Deputy Speaker Lindsay Hoyle.
Funeral directors have warned mourners to stop taking selfies next to caskets.

Quebec's corporation of funeral directors says it is trying to put an end to the tasteless trend which sees photographs of dead bodies splashed on social media.

There are 'strict rules' in place at parlors across the region to stop the spread of casket selfies but mourners must take it upon themselves to refrain, it says.

'There won't be a 'selfie police,' Dennis Desrochers told Radio Canada, as he explained how directors were debating how best to educate mourners on appropriate behavior.

'Funeral directors in Canada have warned mourners to stop posing next to caskets and at memorial services

Funeral directors in Canada have warned mourners to stop posing next to caskets out of respect for the deceased's relatives. The tasteless trend continues to grow and now sees some mourners applying a face swap filter with their dead loved ones (above)

'In many funeral parlours we have very clear rules around limiting selfies or we tell the public that the families don't want selfies,' he said.

The trend has has swept social media in recent years, with scores of inappropriate Instagram and Twitter pictures appearing under the hashtag 'funeral' or 'wake'.

Most limit their photographs to mirror selfies of their appropriately solemn outfits.

Some take it further, posing next to their loved one's open casket while paying their respects.

The trend is not limited to mourners. One funeral director in Texas sparked fury among clients after posing with their dead relative's closed caskets to promote his business on social media.

The tasteless trend has swept social media recently. Above, a man poses with next to his grandmother's open casket

'Yeah I'm sick': One unidentified man posed with his grandmother in a funeral snap (left) while another simply told Instagram followers '#funeralselfie' as he shared his photograph (right)

Another Instagram user posed with her late pet while digging its grave

Others limit their photographs to mirror selfies of their solemn outfits. One Mexican social media star sparked fury last year by taking a selfie inside the church (right)

The trend also spawned the Selfies at Funerals Tumblr page.

It argues that because President Barack Obama posed for a smiling selfie with Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning Schmidt and former British prime minister David Cameron at Nelson Mandela's funeral service, regular mourners should feel no shame in taking their own photographs.

'Obama has taken a funeral selfie, so our work here is done,' Tumblr creator Jason Feifer said of it.

A brother and sister pose for another selfie at their grandfather's funeral. Sharing it online, one of the siblings celebrated their 'good genes'

One Instagram user showed off his funeral look, snapping a selfie while wearing sunglasses at his cousin's memorial service (left). Another man took to the social network to thank the florist which provided blooms for his grandmother's funeral (right)

Feifer told ABC in Australia the youngsters taking the photographs were merely exploring new photography.

In a 2015 survey, 80 percent of youths taking part agreed it was inappropriate to take selfies at funerals.

There are more than 300,000 photographs on Instagram labeled under the hashtag 'funeral' and more than 1,000 under '#funeralselfie'.

They account for a small portion the 20 billion plus shared since the app launched in 2010.

The self-proclaimed Queen of Versailles Jaqueline Siegel attracted controversy by taking photographs of her daughter Victoria's casket after her funeral in 2015
Camryn Zelinger, 32, was taken into custody at work at the Encore High School for the Arts in Riverside, California, on Monday

A mother of a 14-year-old girl who was allegedly molested by her married female teacher has described finding the sexts on her daughter's phone.

Camryn Zelinger, 32, was arrested at the Encore High School for Arts in Riverside, California on Monday.

The girl's mother told KTLA she contacted police on Friday with the allegations of the months-long relationship after finding messages from Zelinger on her teen's phone.

'I'm a nosy mother. I grabbed her phone and I looked at texts from this teacher, sexting my baby over the phone, over the texts - just all this stuff,' she said.

Police said their investigation found there had been inappropriate physical contact and communications between Zelinger and the student.

Authorities confirmed one of the ways they had been communicating was via text message.

Zelinger, who recently married her husband, was booked on suspicion of lewd or lascivious acts with a minor and annoying or molesting a child under 18.

Zelinger, who was recently married, has been charged with suspicion of lewd or lascivious acts with a minor and annoying or molesting a child under 18

Police said their investigation found there had been inappropriate physical contact and communications between Zelinger and the female student

The mother of the girl said she knew something was wrong before she found out about the alleged abuse.

'She wouldn't tell me, she was too afraid. She kept saying, "Nothing, mom, nothing, mom".'

She said her daughter eventually told her Zelinger had been allegedly molesting her 'first period, eighth period, all throughout the day'.

The victim is a gifted singer and plans to make a career out of it, the Press Enterprise reports.

Police said Encore High School for the Arts has fully cooperated with the investigation.

Zelinger is no longer employed at the school, which serves students grades 7-12.

Parents said Zelinger, who was recently married, said she would send requests to other teachers to remove the female student out of class so the pair could spend more time together.
Germany is set to speed up its processes for removing failed asylum seekers - but controversy has flared up over deporting people to war-torn Afghanistan.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, who hopes to be re-elected in September, is set to discuss a series of measures with leaders of Germany's 16 state governments.

She faces a backlash from voters over the influx of migrants into the country, but will also have to fight state leaders reluctant to send people to Afghanistan.

Angela Merkel is set to speed up the process for removing failed asylum seekers from Germany amid a voter backlash

Among the proposals being discussed are setting up national 'deportation centres' to streamline expulsions, financial incentives for those who return voluntarily, and heightened pressure on countries that refuse to take back their nationals.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere called on state leaders to get behind a 'joint effort' with the national government to send back people who do not qualify for refugee status or political asylum.

He said that while the number of people being granted safe haven from Syria and other war zones had risen sharply, so had the number of those who do not qualify for such protection.

An Afghan returns to Kabul after being deported from Germany where his asylum application was rejected

'That is why we need to carry out more repatriations and deportations,' he told ARD public television.

Last year Germany repatriated or expelled around80,000 rejected asylum seekers, out of a total of more than 200,000 who had failed to gain official refugee or asyulm status.

On the diplomatic front, Germany is planning to raise pressure on countries that refuse to take back their nationals or slow the process with red tape.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere says Berlin needs to carry out more repatriations

Berlin has stepped up talks especially with North African countries since December's deadly jihadist attack on a Berlin Christmas market, blamed on a Tunisian man, Anis Amri, who should have been sent back long before the attack.

Since that attack, which claimed 12 lives, Germany also announced reforms to make it easier to expel foreign nationals considered potentially dangerous extremists by police.

Merkel's government is under pressure to act as the migrant influx has boosted a right-wing populist and anti-immigration movement, and the number of far-right hate crimes against foreigners has soared.

Berlin has stepped up talks especially with North African countries since December's deadly jihadist attack on a Berlin Christmas market

But she also faces increasing opposition against attempts to send Afghan nationals back home, despite Berlin's insistence that parts of the country are relatively safe.

Since December, Germany has sent back some 60 Afghan nationals on two charter flights to Kabul, under an agreement signed between the European Union and Afghanistan in October.

But five German state governments have decided to halt most expulsions to Afghanistan, according to media reports, citing the worsening instability in the strife-torn country.

Five German state governments have halted expulsions to Afghanistan because of instability

With the Afghanistan security situation 'very worrying', Rhineland-Palatinate state 'is only sending back criminals and dangerous extremists', state integration minister Anne Spiegel said Tuesday.

The United Nations reported in early February that civilian casualties in Afghanistan peaked in 2016, with nearly 11,500 non-combatants - one third of them children - killed or wounded.
Jackie O turned down a marriage proposal from a besotted British lord because she saw him 'like a brother' and he was too entwined in her 'world of past and pain', letters have revealed.

Jackie Kennedy wrote to David Ormsby Gore - the 5th Lord Harlech and one of JFKs most intimate confidantes - explaining how marrying him would stop her finding 'healing and comfort'.

She penned the rejection letter five years after JFK's death as she sailed on the yacht of Aristotle Onassis, a shipping magnate who became her second husband.

Jackie O turned down a marriage proposal from besotted Lord Harlech (pictured together in 1966) because she saw him 'like a brother', letters have revealed

Jackie wrote to David Ormsby Gore - the 5th Lord Harlech and one of JFKs most intimate confidantes - explaining how marrying him would stop her finding 'healing and comfort'. The letters are among a collection (pictured) which have been found on the Harlech family estate

Lord Harlech had recently lost his wife in a car crash and was said to have proposed to Jackie while they were on holiday together in February 1968.

She wrote: 'You and I have shared so many lives and deaths and hopes and pain - we will share them forever and be forever bound together by them.

'If ever I can find some healing and some comfort, it has to be with someone who is not a part of all my world of past and pain - I can find that now - if the world will let us.'

Jackie and her Lord Harlech had a deep friendship, which was cemented through grief after the president's assassination in 1963.

They then grew even close following the death of Lord Harlech's wife Sissy in May 1967.

At the time, rumours of romance between the pair swept through Washington, with one leading US newspaper proclaiming him The Man Most Likely To Win Jackie.

But, when he proposed, she replied: 'We have known so much & shared & lost so much together - Even if it isn't the way you wish now - I hope that bond of love and pain will never be cut.

'You are like my beloved beloved brother - and mentor - and the only original spirit I know - as you were to Jack.

'I just wanted to tell you all that love has so many different way.'

In a letter in which she explains her feelings, she tells him: 'I just wanted to tell you all that love has so many different way' (pictured)

Jackie and her Lord Harlech had a deep friendship, which was cemented through grief after the president's assassination in 1963, and wrote to one another often (pictured)

In another, Jackie offers Lord Harlech comfort about the death of his wife.

She wrote: 'Your last letter was such a cri de coeur of loneliness - I would do anything to take that anguish from you. You want to patch the wounds & match the loose pairs - but you can't because your life won't turn out that way.'

The letters are part of a 19-strong collection which have been unearthed after being hidden away in two locked government dispatch boxes for 40 years at the Harlech's family estate at Glyn Cywarch, in Gwynedd, Wales.

The discovery is poignant, coinciding with the year of the 100th anniversary of JFKs birth, as well as the film Jackie, for which its star Natalie Portman has been nominated for an Oscar.

Matthew Haley, Bonhams Head of Fine Books and Manuscripts in the UK, said: 'For decades, biographers have speculated on the precise relationship between Jackie Kennedy and David Ormsby Gore.

The letters show how close the pair were to marriage. She wrote to him about several different subjects (as shown above)

'These letters now show without doubt how close they came to marriage and why Jackie decided to marry Onassis instead.'

He added: 'The correspondence has been sitting in two official red Government despatch boxes for more than 40 years.

'The keys were nowhere to be found and in the end we had to call a locksmith to slice through the locks. It was one of those astonishing moments when you can't quite believe what you're seeing.'

David Ormsby Gore was born in 1918 and educated at Eton and New College Oxford.

The discovery of the letters (pictured) is poignant, coinciding with the year of the 100th anniversary of JFKs birth, as well as the film Jackie

Elected to parliament in 1950, he held a number of Government Ministerial positions in the Foreign Office, but resigned in 1961 in order to take up the post of British Ambassador to the United States until 1965.

He became the 5th Lord Harlech on the death of his father in 1964, but died in 1985 from injuries sustained in a car crash. Senator Edward Kennedy, Jacqueline Onassis and other Kennedy family members attended his funeral.

The friendship between the families dates back to the 1930s, when JFKs father Joseph was US Ambassador to Britain.

Jackie later said her husband used to claim that Ormsby-Gore was the brightest man hed ever met.

The archive of letters, which includes personal correspondence from President Kennedy and from British Prime Ministers, Harold Macmillan, Sir Alec Douglas-Home and Harold Wilson, will be sold by Bonhams on March 29 in London

A year after Jackie married her new husband, Lord Harlech married Pamela Colin, an US journalist who bore an uncanny resemblance to Jackie.

Ten years later, when she lay dying of cancer in her New York apartment, Jackie is said to have spoken of her regret that she did not accept Lord Harlechs proposal.

The archive of letters, which includes personal correspondence from President Kennedy and from British Prime Ministers, Harold Macmillan, Sir Alec Douglas-Home and Harold Wilson, will be sold by Bonhams on March 29 in London.

They have been given an estimate of 100,000 to 150,000 and are among a number of family heirlooms being auctioned off during the sale.
Hey so this is a video that I need to make. A lot of times since I've been a kid I've heard 'the truth sets you free, the truth sets you free,' and I never understood but I'm Heather Mack, I wanna be set free. I don't want to live in a lie anymore.

When I was 10, my mother killed my father in a hotel in Athens, Greece. Two weeks before I came to Bali, I found out that she killed my father and I made it up in my heart in my mind, my soul, in my blood, in the oxygen running through my body that I wanted to kill my mother.

First, I asked Tommy Schaefer to help me find somebody to kill my mom $50.000 and he said no. After that, I got this whole new savage idea in my head that I wanted to kill her in a hotel room because she had killed my father in a hotel room.

We were going to Bali so I began to plot, I began turning off Tommy's phone, taking Tommy's phone when he was asleep. This started in Chicago. Texting myself, having fake conversations and then deleting them before he could see them.

I did that because part of me knew that with this plan of killing my mom in a hotel, that she might... I might get arrested. I didn't want to get arrested by myself in a different country so I came to Bali and I told Tommy that he was going to come here for a vacation with my mother and I and that she knew about it.

And in reality, I stole her credit card and bought him a ticket without her knowing about it.

I trapped him here and that is what I regret. I don't regret killing my mother, and as evil as that may sound, that's my reality. If somebody killed Stella, I wouldn't regret killing them either but I regret bringing Tommy into it.

I regret being selfish. I regret trapping an innocent person into this because it was my battle, my mother, it was my father. It was my mother, it was my father, it was my battle. I'm sorry to Tommy Schaefer for trapping him.

We came to Bali, my mom found out. I killed her myself and then I told Tommy that if he did not help me clean the room and get rid of the body, that I would tell the police that he did it, that I would pay money to get him arrested.

So he helped me clean. He ran with me, in the court the same thing happened. My lawyers and I, because of the fact that if I get money, if my article that I was charged with was not that I'm the one that killed her, I'm still entitled to the money and therefore I can pay the lawyers more. So we told Tommy together, my lawyers and I, that if he didn't take the blame in the court, that he would get the death penalty.

So he lied in the court because of me, my motivation for doing this was myself. It's from inside of me and it's my battle. It wasn't Tommy's. Tommy is an innocent man and an even more innocent man is Ryan, Tommy's cousin.

I don't even know how hegot involved in this or why the FBI involved him because he had absolutely nothing to do with any of it. He's innocent. I don't know if he wanted to sell a better story or what the FBI was on but Tommy ad Ryan are innocent, I'm not.

The only thing Tommy is not innocent of is hiding the body. And the only reason he did that is because of me.

Because it was so burning and so deep in my heart, my plan, that I didn't think. I involved him, I hurt him and I hurt Stella and I am sorry Tommy Schaefer, I'm sorry. I love you.

I really love you and if I could go back I would do it myself and I'm sorry that everyone who ever knew you now thinks you're a murderer when you're not.

I'm sorry you won't be able to get a job, I'm sorry everybody thinks that you're some crazy killer. This is the truth and whoever is watching this, don't hate Tommy.

He's innocent. I'm not. I love you Tommy.
Senator Daylin Leach, D-Montgomery had strong words for President Trump's joking comment about 'destroying' a Texas lawmaker's career

A Pennsylvania state senator had strong words for President Trump after he joked about 'destroying' a Texas lawmaker's career over their plans to change asset forfeiture laws.

Democrat Daylin Leach, who represents Montgomery, posted on Twitter and Facebook: 'Hey! I oppose civil asset forfeiture too.

'Why don't you come after me you fascist, loofa-faced s***-gibbon!!'

He wrote the profanity-laden message after the President's remarks from a meeting with county sheriffs on Tuesday were released.

During the meeting, Trump told a Texas sheriff they could 'destroy' the career of a state lawmaker trying to reform asset forfeiture laws.

Law enforcement can use the powers to take cash and property from individuals suspected of committing a crime, even if they aren't charged or haen't been found guilty of a crime.

Critics say police abuse the rules as a funding source, but others say Mexican cartels would benefit if cops didn't have the power.

During the meeting, a Texas Sheriff, Harold Eavenson, criticized an unnamed state senator who believes police shouldn't receive forfeiture money unless a case ends in a conviction.

Trump responded: 'Who is the state senator? Do you want to give his name? We'll destroy his career'.

The sheriffs then burst into laughter.

Leach, who is also an opponent of civil asset forfeiture, took to social media to tell the President how abhorrent he found the joke.

Scroll down for video

Senator Daylin Leach, D-Montgomery, tweeted: 'Hey @realDonaldTrump I oppose civil asset forfeiture too. Why don't you come after me you fascist, loofa-faced s***-gibbon'

During the meeting (pictured), Trump told a Texas sheriff that they could 'destroy' the career of a state lawmaker trying to reform asset forfeiture laws that critics say police abuse as a funding source

This came after a Texas Sheriff, Harold Eavenson, criticized an unnamed state senator who believes police shouldn't receive forfeiture money unless a case ends in a conviction. Trump responded: 'Who is the state senator? Do you want to give his name? We'll destroy his career,' to laughter among those in the meeting (pictured)

Leach's spokesman, Steve Hoenstine, said in a statement to Philly News that the senators post was justified.

'President Trump blithely talked about destroying the career of a man who disagreed with Trump on a policy issue,' he said.

'Then Trump laughed about it, which is just what you'd expect from someone who gets his kicks firing people on national television.

'Trump just continues to undermine democratic norms, America's system of checks and balances, and the general principle of human decency.

'Senator Leach is mad as hell about it, as you can see from his tweet.'

In an interview with Yahoo News, Hoenstine said: 'He (Leach) says what he thinks, and he's really angry in general about what Trump's doing'.

Referring to Trump, he added: 'He makes the comment, and then everyone in the room laughs, and it's just so gross'.

On Thursday morning, Leach tweeted again about the President, saying: 'New bill requires psychiatrist at WH. Great idea! Maybe they could also require the guy with the nuclear codes to carry a straight jacket'

He also noted that the colorful posts were 'not a surprise,' as Leach paid his way through law school performing stand-up comedy and runs his own social media accounts, according to Yahoo.

Senator Leach has remained active online, retweeting people who are posting about his comments, and engaging with other Twitter users.

On Thursday morning, he tweeted again about the President saying: 'New bill requires psychiatrist at WH. Great idea! Maybe they could also require the guy with the nuclear codes to carry a straight jacket.'

President Trump was entertaining county sheriffs Tuesday at the White House when the exchange between he and a Texas sheriff occurred

President Trump was entertaining county sheriffs at the White House on Tuesday when the exchange occurred.

He took the opportunity to repeat one of his most well-known campaign promises, that he would secure the country's southern border.

'We're committed to securing the border,' Trump said. 'We're going to be building a wall.'

When it was his turn to speak, Eavenson, who is next in line to become president of the National Sheriff's Association, spoke of a bill that he believed would aid Mexican drug cartels.

'There's a state senator in Texas that was talking about legislation to require conviction before we could receive that forfeiture money,' Eavenson explained.

'Do you believe that?' Trump responded.

'And I told him that the cartel would build a monument to him in Mexico if he would get that legislation passed,' Eavenson said.

Eavenson told the Dallas Morning News that he appreciated Trump's position on the issue.

'He was making a point about how much he opposed that kind of philosophy,' he said. 'I appreciated what the president said. I can assure you that he is on our side.'
Walter Swinburn suffered a fatal head injury after falling about from his bathroom window

Walter Swinburn, one of the most renowned jockeys of his generation, fell to his death from his bathroom window, an inquest heard.

The 55-year-old suffered a fatal head injury after falling about 12 feet from his bathroom window in Belgravia, central London.

Coroner Dr Shirley Radcliffe found that Mr Swinburn died as the result of an accident on December 12 last year.

He rode Shergar which won the Epsom Derby by a record 10 lengths in 1981.

Mr Swinburn was found by his father in the basement courtyard of his luxury maisonette on Monday, December 12 last year.

Police and ambulances crews were called to the apartment but he was pronounced dead at the scene at 12.49pm.

Westminster Coroner's Court heard the three time Derby winner, nicknamed 'The Choirboy' because of his boyish looks, suffered from post-traumatic epilepsy following a horrific fall during a race in Hong Kong in 1996.

It was not possible to establish whether this had contributed to the fall.

Swinburn on Shergar which he won the Epsom Derby on in 1981, he had a further two event victories later in his career

The inquest was attended by his father, former Irish champion jockey Wally Swinburn, 69.

Walter was prone to falls following the 1996 accident, which almost killed him, and he was prescribed high doses of two anti-convulsant drugs, the inquest heard.

On December 12 last year his father became concerned about his son before he found him in the courtyard, the hearing was told.

Wally found the property was locked from the inside but managed to get in and found the bathroom window open.

PC Daniel Scott, who attended the scene, said there were no signs of any disturbance within the flat.

In the bedroom, which adjoined the bathroom, officers found a towel on the floor with vomit in it.

PC Scott said: 'There was no indication of third party involvement.

'CID had visited the scene and determined it was non-suspicious.'

However from the pictures in the bathroom Coroner Dr Shirley Radcliffe was puzzled as to how the divorced father-of-two managed to fall out the window.

She said: 'He had epilepsy and was prone to falls.

'The alternative is that he jumped out the window, but there is absolutely no evidence this is even remotely the case.

'One has to assume he somehow has fallen through the window.

'If he was maybe standing on the bath to the window or he had an epileptic fit, it is difficult to be sure. But that seems to be the most likely explanation.'

Toxicology showed he had normal levels of his prescribed anti-convulsants and alcohol levels equivalent to two glasses of wine, which the Coroner said showed 'he was clearly not intoxicated'.

However Wally told the coroner: 'I have a theory how he fell out the window.

'I believe he was trying to shut the window. The window was very stiff and he would have to have knelt on the window sill itself to get his hand out.

'It was very stiff, I've tried to close it, and I think he has just lost his balance and fallen out.'

He added: 'He would have these epileptic fits, and I have witnessed once or twice and afterwards he would be very shaken and would often vomit.

'And I think that's what has happened, and that's why there was vomit in the towel and he would have been very shaky and very weak.'

Returning her verdict of accidental death, the Dr Radcliffe said: 'It seems to me there is little doubt this tragic death was due to an accident.

'I will record that he died from head injuries after he was found at his flat where he had fallen from his bathroom window.'

Walter Swinburn rode Shergar which won the Epsom Derby by a record 10 lengths in 1981

Speaking outside court Walter's brother Michael Swinburn, a Newmarket-based racehorse breeder, said: 'It was a tragic accident which is what we thought.

'This has been a big shock to everybody. The inquest has brought some closure.'

Asked about the family's response to the outpouring of grief from the racing world, he said: 'We couldn't believe it.

'We want to thank everyone for their messages of support and there kind response.

'The racing world is a close community and it was a just a great response.'

Swinburn went on to win the Epsom Derby twice more after the 1981 win, in 1986 with Shahrastani and Lammtarra in 1995, before his horror fall in 1996.

He retired from racing in 2000, before taking up training in 2004 and becoming a racing pundit on Channel 4.
President Donald Trump tore into Arizona Sen. John McCain this morning, claiming that the former prisoner of war has been 'losing so long he doesn't know how to win anymore.'

McCain and Trump have never seen eye-to-eye on foreign policy, and the Republican senator has been especially critical of the president's first special op, a raid in Yemen on an al Qaeda affiliate.

The White House has repeatedly said the assault was a 'success,' even though a Navy SEAL and an eight-year-old American girl died in the crossfire.

'While many of the objectives of the recent raid in Yemen were met, I would not describe any operation that results in the loss of American life as a success,' McCain rebutted. The senator first said the incursion was a 'failure' but toned down his remarks.

Trump said Thursday morning that McCain should keep his opinions to himself - criticism of the operation 'only emboldens the enemy!'

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President Donald Trump restarted a feud with Arizona Sen. John McCain this morning, claiming that the former prisoner of war has been 'losing so long he doesn't know how to win anymore'

McCain and Trump have never seen eye-to-eye on foreign policy, and the Republican senator has been especially critical of the president's first special op, a raid in Yemen on an al Qaeda affiliate

Trump said Thursday morning that McCain should keep his opinions to himself - criticism of the operation 'only emboldens the enemy!'

Trump slammed the senator, who chairs the upper chamber's Armed Services Committee, in a trio of Thursday morning tweets that said: 'Sen. McCain should not be talking about the success or failure of a mission to the media. Only emboldens the enemy!

'He's been losing so.......long he doesn't know how to win anymore, just look at the mess our country is in - bogged down in conflict all over the place.

'Our hero....Ryan died on a winning mission ( according to General Mattis), not a "failure." Time for the U.S. to get smart and start winning again!'

Ryan is the SEAL who died in the operation, William 'Ryan' Owens.

Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer claimed negative assessments of the raid that reportedly killed 30 people, including some civilians, did a 'disservice' to the Navy SEAL - and McCain should apologize.

McCain isn't budging. He told news outlets after Spicer's briefing with reporters that he knows what a 'failed' mission looks like, all too well.

'Many years ago, when I was imprisoned in North Vietnam, there was an attempt to rescue the POWs. Unfortunately, the prison had been evacuated, but the brave men who took risked their lives in an effort to rescue us prisoners of war were genuine American heroes,' he recalled.

'Because the mission failed did not in any way diminish their courage and willingness to help their fellow Americans who were help captive. Mr. Spicer should know that story.'

He concluded, 'Any connection between success or failure and the heroism of men and women who serve, there is none.'

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer (left) insisted that the raid in Yemen was 'absolutely a success' - and criticisms do a disservice to the fallen SEAL. McCain reminded Spicer that he was a POW - and knows what a failed op looks like all too well

Trump approved the covert op in Yemen just five days after taking the White House, that targeted al-Qaeda leaders based on intelligence that President Obama's administration had previously passed on.

Three U.S. service members were wounded in the onslaught, along with eight-year-old Nawar al-Awlaki, known as Nora. The daughter of American terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki, Nora was a United States citizen.

Spicer insisted on Wednesday that the counter-terrorism raid was 'absolutely a success'.

McCain says any operation where a $75 million airplane is lost, a Navy SEAL is killed, and there are multiple casualties, including women and children, 'cannot be labeled a success.'

On Tuesday, the former prisoner of war was quoted as saying the mission was a 'failure,' but a day later he appeared to soften his assessment in saying that it was not a 'success.'

According to White House insiders, Trump reportedly agreed to the Jan. 29 operation after he was told the former president 'wouldn't have been bold enough' to go for the 'game-changer', CNBC reported an official saying.

Military officials also told Reuters that Trump approved the counter-terrorism operation without sufficient intelligence, ground support or adequate backup preparation.

William 'Ryan' Owens (left), a 36-year-old from Illinois, was killed along with eight-year-old Nawar al-Awlaki (right), also known as Nora, in the botched raid on January 29

Trump ordered the attack after Obama deferred the decision to the 45th president while the American government awaited a moonless night to strike.

The purpose of the mission was to recover laptops, cell phones and other intelligence that would help battle Al Qaeda groups in the region.

Spicer said the operation gained 'an unbelievable amount of intelligence' in the raid 'that will prevent potential deaths or attacks on American soil.'

The Defense Department denies allegations that the day's true purpose was to kill high-ranking terrorist and Al Qaeda leader Qassim al-Rimi. The AQAP leader emerged this week to taunt Trump as a fool' in an 11-minute video.

Along with 14 militants, Owens and al-Awlaki were killed in the raid on a branch of al Qaeda, in the al Bayda province. Nora was the daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, a militant killed in an equall controversial U.S. drone strike in 2011.

Trump flew to Delaware to honor the first military casualty of his presidency as the SEAL's body was returned to US soil on February 1.

The White House denies that the secret target of last week's Navy SEAL raid was al-Qaeda's head operative in the Arabian Peninsula, Qassim al-Rimi. He is still alive and has taunted Donald Trump in an audio recording released Sunday

Al-Rimi said: 'The White House's new fool has received a painful blow at your hands in his first outing on your land.' Pictured: Debris following the raid

Reports of additional dead civilians led to outrage in the Middle Eastern country. Yemen on Wednesday revoked permission for the United States to run special ops.

Medics at the scene said about 30 people, including 10 women and children, were killed.

Yemen's ambassador to the United States said the country's cooperation should not come 'at the expense of the Yemeni citizens and the country's sovereignty.'

The president of Yemen voiced concerns about the raid according to the ambassador, Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak, The New York Times reported.

He said in an interview with Al Jazeera: 'Yemen's government is a key partner in the war against terrorism.
President Donald Trump restarted a feud with Arizona Sen. John McCain this morning, claiming that the former prisoner of war has been 'losing so long he doesn't know how to win anymore.'

Trump said negative commentary like McCain's 'emboldens the enemy.'

McCain and Trump have never seen eye-to-eye on foreign policy, and the Republican senator has been especially critical of the new president's first special op.

The White House has repeatedly said the raid on an al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen was a 'success,' even though a Navy Seal and an American girl died in the crossfire.

'While many of the objectives of the recent raid in Yemen were met, I would not describe any operation that results in the loss of American life as a success,' McCain rebutted.

President Donald Trump restarted a feud with Arizona Sen. John McCain this morning, claiming that the former prisoner of war has been 'losing so long he doesn't know how to win anymore'

Trump said negative commentary like McCain's 'emboldens the enemy'

McCain and Trump have never seen eye-to-eye on foreign policy, and the Republican senator has been especially critical of the new president's first special op

Trump hit back at the senator, who chairs the upper chamber's Armed Services Committee, in a trio of Thursday morning tweets that said: 'Sen. McCain should not be talking about the success or failure of a mission to the media. Only emboldens the enemy!

'He's been losing so.......long he doesn't know how to win anymore, just look at the mess our country is in - bogged down in conflict all over the place.

'Our hero....Ryan died on a winning mission ( according to General Mattis), not a "failure." Time for the U.S. to get smart and start winning again!'

Ryan refers to the Seal who died in the operation, William 'Ryan' Owens.

Yesterday White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer claimed that criticisms of the raid that reportedly killed 30 people - including some civilians - did 'disservice' to the Navy SEAL - and McCain should apologize.

McCain isn't budging from his assessment that the raid in Yemen wasn't a success.

Just five days after taking the White House, President Donald Trump signed off on the Navy SEAL team mission in Yemen targeting al-Qaeda leaders and intelligence that President Obama had previously passed on.

A Navy SEAL died in the raid. Innocent civilians, including children, were also killed in the raid.

Three other US service members were wounded.

McCain says any operation where a $75 million airplane is lost, a Navy SEAL is killed, and there are multiple casualties, including women and children, 'cannot be labeled a success.'

Spicer insisted on Wednesday that the counter-terrorism raid was 'absolutely a success'.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer (left) insists that the raid in Yemen that left a Navy SEAL and numerous Yemenite civilians dead was 'absolutely a success' even though Senator John McCain (right) says that the operation 'cannot be labeled a success'

On Tuesday, McCain was quoted as saying the mission - the first major military decision ordered by President Donald Trump - was a 'failure,' but a day later he appeared to soften his assessment.

His remarks came after White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the operation was a 'huge success' and that anyone who questions the success of the Yemen operation is doing a 'disservice' to the life of Navy SEAL Ryan Owens.

McCain recalled a failed 1970 mission to rescue US service members held in North Vietnam.

'Many years ago when I was imprisoned in North Vietnam there was an attempt to rescue the POWs,' McCain told Politico.

'Unfortunately, the prison had been evacuated but the brave men who took - risked their lives in an effort to rescue us prisoners of war were genuine American heroes,' McCain, who chairs the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, said.

The White House has not publicly announced the news and neither has President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi (pictured). Yemen's ambassador to the US has said in an interview the country's cooperation should not come 'at the expense of the Yemeni citizens and the country's sovereignty'

'Because the mission failed did not in any way diminish their courage and willingness to help their fellow Americans who were held captive. Mr. Spicer should know that story.'

'Any connection between success or failure and the heroism of men and women who serve, there is none,' he says.

According to White House insiders, Trump reportedly agreed to the operation after he was told the former president 'wouldn't have been bold enough' to go for the 'game-changer', CNBC reported an official saying.

The raid - which Trump labeled a 'success' - left a SEAL Team 6 member and an eight-year-American old girl dead on January 29 and caused outrage in the Middle Eastern country.

Chief Petty Officer William 'Ryan' Owens (left), a 36-year-old from Illinois, was killed along with eight-year-old Nawar al-Awlaki (right), also known as Nora, in the botched raid on January 29

Although the White House has not publicly announced the news, Yemen's ambassador to the US said the country's cooperation should not come 'at the expense of the Yemeni citizens and the country's sovereignty'.

Trump flew to Delaware to be present and honor the first military casualty of his presidency, Chief Special Warfare Officer William 'Ryan' Owens, as the SEAL's body was returned to US soil on February 1.

Despite the Trump's administration labeling the mission as a 'success' on Tuesday US military officials told Reuters, however, that Trump approved his first covert counter-terrorism operation without sufficient intelligence, ground support or adequate backup preparation.

He ordered the attack after Obama had deferred the decision to the 45th president.

The purpose of the mission was to recover laptops, cell phones and other intelligence that would help battle Al Qaeda groups in the region.

Spicer said the operation gained 'an unbelievable amount of intelligence' in the raid 'that will prevent potential deaths or attacks on American soil.'

The Defense Department denies allegations that the day's true purpose was aimed at the high-ranking terrorist and Al Qaeda leader Qassim al-Rimi.

In the attack, Owens was killed in the raid on a branch of al Qaeda, in al Bayda province, which the Pentagon said killed 14 militants.

The White House denies that the secret target of last week's Navy SEAL raid was al-Qaeda's head operative in the Arabian Peninsula, Qassim al-Rimi. He is still alive and has taunted Donald Trump in an audio recording released Sunday

Al-Rimi said: 'The White House's new fool has received a painful blow at your hands in his first outing on your land.' Pictured: Debris following the raid

The 8-year-old daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, a militant killed by a 2011 US drone strike, was also one of the dead.

Medics at the scene said about 30 people, including 10 women and children, were killed.

The president of Yemen voiced concerns about the raid according to the country's ambassador to the United States, Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak, reported The New York Times.

He said in an interview with Al Jazeera: 'Yemen's government is a key partner in the war against terrorism.

He also said Yemen's willingness to work with America should not come 'at the expense of the Yemeni citizens and the country's sovereignty'.
A married couple allegedly targeted two of their 16-year-old daughter's friends and tried to entice them into having sex for money.

Anuj and Leslie Chopra were arrested in Ottawa County, Michigan on Wednesday accused of soliciting the teenagers for paid sex.

Police became aware of the multiple sex crime allegations when a concerned parent informed a sheriff's deputy about the couple's behavior.

Leslie Chopra, pictured, and her husband Anuj were arrested on Wednesday in Ottawa County, Michigan, after being accused of soliciting two teenagers for paid sex

Authorities do not believe the sexual acts were carried out with the two teenagers, who have been identified to authorities.

Anuj, 41, is accused of trying to get the teens to meet in a hotel room for sex so he could film it.

His 42-year-old wife Leslie allegedly used Snapchat to distribute sexually explicit materials to a 16-year-old boy who she tried to entice into having sex with her.

Investigators examined several electronic devices related to the case and said the couple exchanged thousands of sexually-charged messages within the last month.

Anuj, 41, pictured, was charged with human trafficking after he allegedly tried to get the teenagers to meet in a hotel room for sex so he could film it

Anuj was charged with human trafficking, while his wife was charged with distributing sexually explicit materials to minors and using a computer to commit a crime.

Police say the couple met the victims through their 16-year-old daughter.

The couple surrendered to authorities on Wednesday and were released on bond.

Police are still investigating.
Famed sportscaster Bob Costas has announced he is stepping down from his role as prime-time host of NBC's Olympics coverage, where he will be replaced next winter in South Korea by Mike Tirico.

Costas has been the on-air concierge to NBC's Olympics 11 times, starting in 1992. He warmed up as the late-night host in Seoul in 1988.

Costas, 64, told Today Show host Matt Lauer, he's not retiring from the business, but entering the 'Tom Brokaw phase' of his career. Brokaw, the former NBC Nightly News anchor, is a commentator at big news events and makes documentaries.

Stepping down: NBC's veteran sportscaster Bob Costas, (pictured in 2014 at the 24th Annual Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame Awards) is stepping down as the prime-time host for the Olympics, and will be replaced by Mike Tirico (right) next winter in South Korea

On-air legacy: Costas has been the on-air concierge to NBC's Olympics 11 times, since 1992 and has won 27 Emmy Awards, more than any other sportscaster in history

Costas said it means he will 'show up when it's appropriate for me to show up.'

The Olympics role requires the host to set the stage for the night's telecast, guide viewers on switches to different venues, handle news if it breaks and conduct on-air interviews.

It was a job popularized by ABC's Jim McKay in the 1970s. Costas paid tribute to McKay in making his announcement Thursday on the show.

'I was lucky because I was surrounded by tremendous colleagues  and we kept getting the rights to it,' Costas said.

Passing down the torch: The 64-year-old made the announcement on Thursday during the Today Show with Matt Lauer, NBC tweeted a photo of the two

Costas revealed his favorite Olympics memory was in Atlanta in 1996 when Muhammad Ali, despite his Parkinson's disease, was a surprise torchbearer who lit the flame at the stadium

Tirico was considered the heir apparent for the role since he was hired by NBC from ESPN last year. Costas said it was his choice to leave and although the decision denies him a victory lap in Pyeongchang in 2018, his most recent Winter Olympics memory may not be that pleasant.

Bob Costas pictured watching batting practice before an MLB game in 1980. The sportscaster said it was his choice to step down, but he is not retiring

In Sochi, Russia, in 2014, Costas was sidelined for six days because of an eye infection.

He said his favorite Olympics memory was in Atlanta in 1996, when Muhammad Ali, despite his Parkinson's disease, was a surprise torchbearer who lit the flame at the stadium.

'Somehow even in that condition he was just as charismatic and magnetic as he's always been,' Costas said.

Costas and Tirico, 50, have a tie that goes way back. Tirico said he was someone he 'grew up idolizing' and went to Syracuse University 'in large part for college because Bob did.'

Tirico was the first recipient of a scholarship in Costas' name. The former ESPN sportscaster debuted with NBC as part of its team in Rio last summer.
Gloria Williams, 51, pleaded not guilty to kidnapping on Thursday

Gloria Williams, the woman who stole a baby from a Florida maternity ward and raised the child as her own for 18 years, pleaded not guilty to kidnapping on Thursday.

The 51-year-old took Kamiyah Mobley from her mother's arms from the hospital in Jacksonville, Florida, hours after she was born in 1998.

She raised her as Alexis Manigo in South Carolina but was charged with kidnapping in January after a DNA test proved the teenager was the biological daughter of Craig Aiken and Shanara Mobley who had been searching for her for years.

Alexis made an emotional appeal to authorities not to lock Williams up earlier this year, describing her as a good mother who provided her with everything she ever needed.

It's not clear whether she was in court on Thursday to watch Williams deny the charges.

'I understand what she did was wrong, but just dont lock her up and throw away the key.

'She was a great mother... I will always love her,' she said in an appearance on Good Morning America earlier this year after her arrest.

Williams had her first court appearance in January where a judge set her bail to $503,000.

On Thursday, she pleaded not guilty to kidnapping and interference with custody.

Earlier it was revealed she had suffered a miscarriage the week before taking Alexis from her parents at the University Medical Center in Jacksonville.

She took Kamiyah Mobley from the maternity ward in 1998 and raised her as Alexis Manigo (above together) in South Carolina for 18 years until January this year when a DNA test proved she was not her biological daughter

Alexis reunited with her biological parents Shanara Mobley and Craig Aiken in January this year

Kamiyah's kidnapping sparked a nationwide manhunt (sketch of the woman who took her, right) and prompted hundreds of anonymous tips but she was never found as a baby

Investigators say she posed as a nurse and befriended Alexis's birth mother Shanara who was just 16 at the time.

She took the baby away from her teenage mother under the pretense that she had a fever and vanished without a trace, police say.

It sparked a nationwide manhunt and prompted hundreds of anonymous tips she was never found as a child.

It's not clear what prompted the revelation that Alexis was in fact not Williams' biological daughter in January this year.

Jacksonville County Sheriff's Office said the teenager had a hunch she may have been adopted but hasn't revealed what prompted her suspicion.

The department has also been tight-lipped over claims the teenager may have known she was adopted for two years before the case was made public.

Alexis is standing by the woman she calls mom . She cried as she was jailed in January, poking her hands through her holding cell to tell her: 'I love you mom'

Alexis said while what Williams did was wrong, she was raised not wanting for a thing and didn't want to see her locked up

Williams was charged with kidnapping and interfering with custody in January (above)

Alexis was initially vocal about her familial history, appearing on CNN and Good Morning America to discuss it.

She went on an angry Facebook rant against Charles Manigo who wept on television after discovering claiming to have been surprised by the revelation she was not his biological daughter.

'He did nothing,' she wrote, chipping away at claims he'd provided child support and helped her get ready for her senior prom.

Alexis met up with her biological parents in January. The reunited family posed for a photograph which she later shared online.

Williams will appear again before court on April 5.
Ministers decided cap the number of orphaned Syrian children coming to the UK at 350 to stop fuelling people trafficking routes.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd said the so-called Dubs amendment that opened Britain's doors to unaccompanied Syrian children was acting as a pull factor for an increasing number of children trying to reach Europe, which exposed them to traffickers.

Yesterday's decision to close the scheme caused uproar, and today the Archbishop of Canterbury said he was 'saddened and shocked' at the decision.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd said the so-called Dubs amendment that opened Britain's doors to unaccompanied Syrian children was acting as a pull factor for an increasing number of children trying to reach Europe, which exposed them to traffickers

But despite the growing chorus of protest, Theresa May stood by the decision, insisting the Dubs route was only one of a number of routes by which Britain was resettling vulnerable children, adding that the Government's approach towards refugees is 'absolutely right'.

It was expected the Dubs scheme would resettle up to 3,000 people in the UK but the Government announced that just over 10 per cent of that figure will be taken in.

Today the Archbishop of Canterbury said he was 'saddened and shocked' at the Government's decision to close the Dubs amendment scheme to resettle child refugees

Two hundred children have been brought in under the scheme but it will close after another 150 are settled in the UK, it was announced.

Cash-strapped councils had told the Government they lacked the resources to take in more child refugees.

Ms Rudd suggested local authority funding had to be considered in deciding how many child refugees could be settled under the programme.

Defending the decision after an urgent question was called in the House of Commons today, Ms Rudd insisted: 'I am clear that when working with my French counterparts, they do not want us to indefinitely continue to accept children under the Dubs Amendment because they specify, and I agree with them, that it acts as a draw. It acts as a pull.

'It encourages the people-traffickers.'

And speaking at a press conference in Downing Street following talks with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, Mrs May said the Dubs scheme was only one of a number of routes by which vulnerable children from war-torn Syria can find sanctuary in the UK.

The Prime Minister said: 'We have been seeing quite a number of children and families being resettled here in the United Kingdom.

'I think what we are doing in terms of refugees is absolutely right, on top of course of the significant financial support and humanitarian aid we are giving to refugees in the region of Syria - a commitment of 2.3 billion, the second biggest bilateral donor.'

Speaking at a press conference in Downing Street following talks with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, left, Mrs May, right, said the Dubs scheme was only one of a number of routes by which vulnerable children from war-torn Syria can find sanctuary in the UK

UK SCHEMES THAT WILL STILL GIVE CHILDREN HOPE The so-called Dubs Amendment was designed to allow unaccompanied children living in EU refugee camps without any family links to Britain to come to the UK. Youngsters can still come to Britain under several other measures, however. Under the Dublin Regulation, they can apply to enter the country if they are in an EU refugee camp and have family here. Britain also accepts children fleeing war-torn states outside the EU. The country has accepted 4,400 individuals directly from Middle East camps under an international programme to help displaced Syrians, half of whom are children. Laws to allow unaccompanied children without any relatives in Britain to enter the UK came after a campaign spearheaded by Lord Dubs, who fled the Nazis as a child. The legislation did not specify a figure but campaigners and politicians originally called for 3,000 children to be accepted. Ministers now say arrivals will stop in March once they reached 350. Advertisement

But Archbishop Justin Welby reacted furiously to the decision to end the Dubs amendment scheme.

In a lengthy statement today, he said he had believed ministers were 'committed to welcoming up to 3,000 children under this scheme' and it is 'regrettable' such a small proportion have been given sanctuary in Britain.

His intervention piles further pressure on the Government, which has been heavily criticised by Lords and MPs in Parliament after it quietly announced the cap of lone child refugees being brought to Britain.

Mr Welby said: 'I was saddened and shocked to read in the ministerial statement released yesterday that only 350 children will be received under the regulations in the Dubs amendment.

'Our country has a great history of welcoming those in need, particularly the most vulnerable, such as unaccompanied children. '

He said refugees 'are treasured human beings' who 'deserve safety, freedom and the opportunity to flourish', and he hopes the Government will reconsider the decision.

There were angry scenes in the Lords when Home Office minister Baroness Williams of Trafford denied the scheme had been closed.

Labour's Lord Dubs, who spearheaded the amendment, said he was puzzled by the claim and accused ministers of breaching their own commitments by 'arbitrarily closing down' the scheme.

Tory Lord Cormack said concern over the Government's stance was not confined to the Labour and Liberal Democrat benches.

Liberal Democrat Baroness Sheehan said it was 'palpably faulty' to suggest local authorities had reached the 'end of the road' with the scheme and accused the Government of being 'disinterested in taking any more'.

But Lady Williams said this was 'absolutely wrong' and urged local authorities or community groups willing to help to contact the Home Office.
A mother-of-two has been charged in connection with a child pornography and bestiality case that has also landed a fire department clown behind bars.

US Marshals arrested Melissa Skelton, 36, in Oklahoma on Friday on charges of child sexual abuse and conspiracy to commit sexual abuse for allegedly allowing former Muskogee firefighter Zackery Perry, 30, to molest a six-year-old girl in her care.

According to police, Skelton's name came up while they were investigating Perry, who was arrested in late January on felony counts of aggravated possession of child pornography, publishing, distributing or participating in obscene material, child sexual exploitation and crimes against nature involving his dog.

Second arrest: Police in Oklahoma have arrested Melissa Skelton, 36 (left), on charges of child sexual abuse and conspiracy to commit sexual abuse for allegedly allowing former Muskogee firefighter Zackery Perry (right), 30, to molest a six-year-old girl

Disgraced: Perry, a former Muskogee firefighter, was arrested in January on counts of aggravated possession of child porn, child sexual exploitation and crimes against nature

Police say they have found photos showing the young victim standing naked in Perry's kitchen.

Skelton also allegedly took pornographic photos of herself and the six-year-old girl and sold them to Perry.

In the wake of Skelton's arrest, Perry is now facing additional charges of human trafficking, child sexual abuse and conspiracy to commit child sexual abuse. the new criminal counts will be forwarded to the district attorney for review.

Entertainer: Perry had been part of the fire departments Clown Society, performing under the stage name Scooter (pictured in makeup) at events catering to children.

Perry joined the Muskogee Fire Department in August 2014 and was part of the departments Clown Society, performing under the stage name Scooter at events catering to children.

Firefighters involved with the non-profit group dress up as clowns and put on skits to teach kids about fire prevention.

Police launched an investigation into Perry after getting a tip on January 5 from a mother who claimed the firefighter had asked her to provide him with photos of her eight-year-old daughter, from the neck down, on social media app Kik, according to Norman Transcript.

The 30-year-old was taken into police custody the following day on suspicion of sending messages and videos containing child pornography.

The same day, police served a search warrant at Perry's home on Haskell Boulevard and seized various electronic devices, among them four computers, eight smartphones, cameras, as well as three pairs of girls' underwear and a girls shirt, reported Tulsa World.

According to a probable cause affidavit, cited by the paper, a search of Perry's cell phones turned up 1,378 images and videos depicting child pornography.

The divorced mother-of-two was arrested after her name came up during the Zackery Perry investigation. Skelton is suspected of renting out the 6-year-old to Perry and selling him homemade child porn

The document went on to say that investigators also recovered photos, videos and text messages on the suspects device suggesting that the 30-year-old 'had been involved in or facilitated the recordings of sexual acts between an adult female and a dog.'

Some of the images and texts recovered from Perry's devices eventually led police to Melissa Skelton, reported the station News on 6.

According to a probable cause affidavit filed in connection to Skelton's arrest, the divorced mother-of-two from Stillwell, Oklahoma, let Perry take a 6-year-old to Muskogee for the night in exchange for a fee between November 2015 and December 2016.

Following his arrest, Perry was put on administrative leave before resigning on January 11.

Perry and Skelton are both being held in the Muskogee County Jail without bond.

They are due back in court on February 21.
Tennessee politician Dennis Powers (pictured) is pushing to create a special tax-free sales weekend for guns and ammunition

A Tennessee politician is pushing his state to create a special tax-free sales weekend for guns and ammunition.

The bill was filed on Wednesday by Republican Representative Dennis Powers, and calls for a 'Second Amendment sales tax holiday'.

The proposed sales would be held on the first weekend of September every year, the bill reads.

'In addition to the exemption in subsection (a), there is also exempt from the tax imposed by this chapter any firearms and firearms ammunition, if sold between 12:01am on the first Friday of September and 11:59pm the following Sunday,' Powers' proposal states.

'The exemption provided by this subsection shall be known as the "Second Amendment Sales Tax Holiday."'

The document then goes on to outline just what weapon could be picked up at a bargain prices over the would-be 'Black Friday' for killing devices.

The proposed sales would be held on the first weekend of September every year. Pictured are guns on sale in a store

Powers' (pictured with Rick Santorum) bill calls for the sales weekend to be known as the "Second Amendment Sales Tax Holiday"

'"Firearm"... includes a shotgun, rifle, pistol, revolver, BB guns, or muzzleloaders,' the bill states.

'"Firearms ammunition"... includes shots, bullets, cartridges, and shotgun shells.'

Knoxville station WBIR reports Tennessee already has a sales tax holiday at the end of the summer that's meant for back-to-school shopping.

The station also reported Louisiana and Mississippi each hosted sales tax holiday weekends on guns last year.

If the bill is passed, the first sales weekend would be this year.
It was an unlikely showdown that took an even less likely turn.

Bev Stefanidakis has captured the bizarre moment a 1.5 metre goanna managed to escape her pet dog by hitching an unwitting piggyback on the pooch's back.

Staffy Bella caught the reptile trying to snatch eggs from the family's chicken hutch in Yandina, Queensland, when the dog gave chase around the yard.

A goanna seeks shelter from a dog chasing it down by clinging onto the canine's back

But the lizard threw a spanner in the works by seeking shelter on the dog's back, clinging on for dear life with its claws, reports 9 News.

'I was just petrified, I didn't know what to do. I thought, 'How am I going to get this thing off'?' Ms Stefanidakis said.

While deciding how she would tackle the affair, she did what any reasonable by-stander would do whipped out her phone and captured the spectacle.

Thankfully things resolved peacefully when Bella sat down and the lizard scurried off.

Ms Stefanidakis said it wasn't the first time a cold-blooded trespasser had helped itself to their family eggs.

'We've had a few around here before, I just try to get the eggs first,'

The dog caught the reptile trying to snatch eggs from the family's chicken hutch
Winters arent as bad as they used to be, I remember my Dad saying. It would snow so much that drifts would cover the fences. When the sun melted the top of the snow during the day and it froze overnight, we would ice skate on the snow and over the fences all the way to school.

Unlike my Dad, I didnt ice skate, ride horseback or walk uphill both ways to school but rather rode a bus from the farm. However, that didnt stop me from having my own snow story for my kids: I remember when it snowed so much that drifts would close down our gravel road. It was so bad that they had to bring in bulldozers to open the roads back up.

Another snow story occurred in the late 70s when we lived in northeast Missouri, and the state road between Canton and Monticello drifted shut for about a mile. There was so much snow that the state maintenance crew could only clear a one-way path with snow walls towering above the cars. Drivers with CB radios would shout out that they were coming through. If two cars met, one  hopefully the better driver  would have to back out.

At least for now, winters arent as bad as they used to be. While it is sometimes hard to predict and stay ahead of the winter weather, our state, city and county highway employees do a good job keeping our roadways and bridges open and safe for travel.

We have become accustomed to getting in our vehicles and driving to wherever we want. We just assume there will be a road to get us there, we fully expect it to be passable and hopefully smooth, and we anticipate it to be a safe journey. And for the opportunity to freely use the roads and bridges in our state highway system, the average drivers daily cost is less than the price of a small cup of coffee at McDonalds (not senior coffee for which I am now eligible!).

To confirm the average daily cost, you may need to first go to McDonalds and then do some calculations by using the numbers on page 3 of the Citizens Guide to Transportation Funding in Missouri on the Missouri Department of Transportations (MoDOT) website, www.modot.org.

While you are there, check out the wealth of information in the Citizens Guide about how Missouris transportation is funded in the state and what the money is used for. You will learn that MoDOT has the 7th largest highway system in the country but ranks 47th nationally in revenue per mile. Information shows that the current 17-cents-per-gallon state fuel tax was last increased in 1996 but has the purchasing power of only 8 cents today.

In the guide you can learn how we compare with other states, what the current highway conditions are and where the priority needs are for improvements. You will even find a unique calculator that will estimate how much you personally pay each month in transportation taxes and fees and indicate where that money is being spent.

During the coming months, the need for additional transportation funding in Missouri will be a subject of discussion by our state policymakers, and I urge you to become as informed as you can. The Citizens Guide from MoDOT is a good place to start.
A woman has died after she was hit by a train apparently while trying to run across the tracks to another platform.

Ambulances and police were called to Barnt Green station in Worcestershire shortly before 7am this morning, where two people are said to have tried to cross the tracks.

It is thought one of the two, a man, made it across but a woman who was with him was hit and died at the scene.

A train going through Barnt Green Station struck a woman who was on the tracks this morning

Commuter Anne O'Neil was on the train which struck and killed the woman this morning.

She has 'no idea' why the woman was on the tracks, but said the driver of the 6.50am train from Worcester to Birmingham New Street is 'shaken'.

She said: 'I was on the train that struck this woman.

'I have no idea why she was on the line, but the poor driver of our train was very shaken and upset.

A West Midlands Ambulance Service spokesman said: 'On arrival, crews discovered a woman who had been seriously injured following a collision with a train.

'Unfortunately it quickly became apparent that nothing could be done to save her and she was confirmed dead at the scene. Early indications suggest the incident was a tragic accident.

It is believed the woman and a man were trying to cross the tracks to the opposite platform

A spokesman for British Transport Police said: 'There was a second person involved.

'They did not receive any injuries but were seen on the tracks at the same time.'

'The death is not believed to be suspicious at this time. A file will be prepared for the coroner.'

Train services between Bromsgrove, Birmingham and Lichfield Trent Valley were affected, with rail operator London Midland urging passengers to check their journeys before travelling.
A boy had a lucky escape after throwing a firework down a manhole - and causing a gas explosion.

The youngster, who had been roller-skating with a friend nearby, lit the single banger before putting it in the sewer entrance in Nanchong City, south-west China.

Footage shows the boy still crouched down when it explodes, with the manhole lid shooting into the air.

A boy had a lucky escape after causing a gas explosion by throwing a firework down a manhole

The boy, who has not been identified, is thrown to the ground by the force of the explosion.

He manages to get back on his feet, skating away while holding onto his head.

No serious injuries were reported, but the police are expected to visit the child's parents about the dangerous stunt.

The curious youngster is believed to have seen the trick demonstrated before and decided to try to re-create it himself.

A number of similar incidents in the past have proven fatal, with authorities urging parents to watch over their children.

The youngster, who had been roller-skating with a friend nearby, lit the single banger before putting it in the sewer entrance in Nanchong City, south-west China

Footage shows the boy being thrown to the ground when it explodes, with the manhole lid shooting into the air
Commercial space flights could launch from the UK in just three years under new Government plans to conquer the final frontier.

Science Minister Jo Johnson said draft space laws would be published within weeks and announced 10million of grant funding would be made available to space firms.

The Government is bidding to win a slice of a growing 25billion global market in space flight and wants a working space port up and running by 2020.

Commercial space flights, potentially for rockets such as SpaceX pictured launching from Cape Canaveral, could launch from the UK in just three years under new Government plans to conquer the final frontier.

Possible locations include Newquay airport, Cornwall, Llanbedr airport in Snowdonia, Prestwick airport, near Glasgow, the RAF base at Leuchars near St Andrews, Stornoway airport on the Isle of Lewis and Campbeltown airport, in Scotland.

Mr Johnson said: 'Space flight offers the UK the opportunity to build on our strengths in science, research and innovation.

'It provides opportunities to expand into new markets, creating highly-skilled jobs and boosting local economies across the country. That is why it is one of the key pillars of our Industrial Strategy.

'We want to see the UK space sector flourish, that is why we are laying the groundwork needed for business to be able to access this lucrative global market worth an estimated 25 billion over the next 20 years.

'The call for proposals I announced today, together with a new, dedicated Space flight Bill, will help make our space ambitions a reality.'

Mark Nisbett, a space sector specialist at consultants RSM, said Britain had good geography for a space port.

He said: 'Todays announcement adds further impetus to the growing space sector in the UK, which today supports 250bn of output across the economy as well as 38,000 direct jobs.

'It also outperforms the wider economy in terms of both productivity and growth.'

British interest in space flight spiked last year when Tim Peake (pictured) became the first UK-funded astronaut in space

Peake spent six months in orbit aboard the International Space Station, including an almost five hours space walk

He added: 'UK businesses such as Orbital Access, and global groups such as SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, are already pushing ahead with their plans and todays announcements will help them and others looking to make UK commercial space flight a reality.

Bids for the grant funding must be submitted to the UK Space Agency by April 15.

To be considered for a grant, joint enterprises or vehicle operators and potential space ports should propose an outline business plan on how they intend to launch small satellites or sub-orbital flights, including space tourism, microgravity flights or space planes, from the UK by 2020.

British interest in space flight spiked last year when Tim Peake became the first UK-funded astronaut in space.

He spent six months in orbit aboard the International Space Station, including an almost five hours space walk.
A top U.S. Army commander says he needs a 'few thousand' more troops in Afghanistan and complained that Russian involvement is complicating things in the war-torn country.

General John Nicholson testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday saying additional forces were required to properly train and advise the Afghan military so they can eventually operate independently.

Nicholson didn't provide an exact number but told the panel extra troops could come from the United States or from other countries that are part of the American-led coalition in Afghanistan.

Scroll down for video

U.S. Army commander General John Nicholson testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday saying more troops were needed in Afghanistan (pictured)

There are currently about 8,400 U.S. troops conducting counter-terrorism operations against insurgents and training the Afghans.

Nicholson said he's discussed the need for more troops with Defense Secretary James Mattis and General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Nicholson also said Russia's meddling in Afghanistan is proving to be problematic.

Moscow has been publicly legitimizing the Taliban by asserting the militants are fighting Islamic terrorists while the Afghan government is not, according to Nicholson.

He said this is a 'false narrative'.

Nicholson said the Afghan security forces have cut the number of Islamic State fighters by half and reduced the territory the extremists hold by two-thirds.

Nicholson said additional forces were required to properly train and advise the Afghan military (above) so they can eventually operate independently

The Russians recently invited members of the Taliban to Moscow for meetings about the country's future but didn't include representatives from the Afghan government, according to Nicholson.

He said representatives from China, Pakistan and other regional countries also were invited

'A peace and reconciliation process should be Afghan-led,' the general said.

The conflict in Afghanistan is its 16th year, making it America's longest war.

Nicholson described the security situation in Afghanistan as a 'stalemate', but he said the 'equilibrium favors the government.'

He also said the greatest weakness of the Afghan security forces is poor leadership. He said positions of seniority within the Afghan army and police are awarded through a system of patronage instead of merit.
Ronald Coyne (pictured) has been named as the student who tried to set fire to a 20 note in front of a homeless man

The mother of the University of Cambridge student who was filmed trying to set fire to a 20 note in front of a freezing homeless person tonight described her son's actions as 'thoughtless and cruel'.

Ronald Coyne was seen holding the money after a shocked passer-by watched him allegedly attempt to burn the banknote in front of a vagrant in the early hours of February 2.

Mr Coyne, a distant relative of Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, was named as the student in the video by the Cambridge University Conservative Association (CUCA).

He was expelled from the group after footage of the prank was seen by hundreds of students when it was shared on Snapchat.

During the video, it shows Mr Coyne, who went to Stewart's Melville - a top Edinburgh school - struggling to set fire to the note while the cameraman pans to the homeless person who is stood outside a Cotswold outdoor clothing shop in Cambridge city centre.

Mr Coyne, from Livingston, West Lothian, can be heard saying 'some homeless shelter' before the video cuts out.

Sandra McLaughlin, 46, the mother of the Pembroke College law student, has said she could not understand her son's behaviour.

His mother said her son spoke to his family following the event and confessed that he had done 'something very stupid' and 'felt really bad about it'.

Speaking from their family home in Livingston, she said: 'I don't recognise that behaviour in my son.

The video shows a homeless man (pictured) standing in Bridge Street in Cambridge city centre clutching what appears to be a sleeping bag

Ronald Coyne, wearing a white bow tie and tails, appears to attempt to burn a 20 note in front of the homeless man

'I don't really know why he's done something so thoughtless and cruel.

'It's completely out of character. He did two years of volunteering at Stockbridge shelter homeless shop in Edinburgh when he was still at school.

'It's very surprising. We're just a normal family. We're not toffs, he's not a toff.

'He's been a hard-working student who is very, very lucky and aware of the privilege he has to study at Cambridge.

'It's been stressful. I'm starting to panic because I can't get a hold of him.

'He spoke to us after the event and said he'd done something very stupid and felt really bad about it.

'He went out a few nights later around Cambridge with one of his friends to do the homeless run and give out tea, coffee and sandwiches to them.

'And this was before the press and ourselves caught on to what he'd done.

'He's obviously known what he's done himself. It's baffling. I've no idea. It's not part of his make-up.

'He's a quiet boy, he wasn't a wild teenager, he was in chess club at school.'

His father, Ronnie Coyne, runs an oil and engineering company, and wrote online that he was 'so proud' of his son after he got accepted to Cambridge.

He wrote: 'Congratulations to my son Ronald Coyne for achieving his tough conditions for Cambridge. I'm so proud of him.'

An extract from his yearbook at Stewart's Melville - where annual boarding fees go up to 21,903 - said he voted 'yes' in the independence referendum.

A spokesman for the CUCA told MailOnline: 'The CUCA committee became aware of serious allegations against Ronald Coyne late last week concerning his private behaviour.

'There is no room for people who behave like that in our association, any other university association, or frankly our university.

Mr Coyne (pictured) went to the Stewart's Melville school in Edinburgh and this is an extract from his yearbook

Mr Coyne (pictured) is a first year law student at Pembroke College and was a member of Cambridge University Conservative Association

'This disgusting and abhorrent behaviour occurred completely independently of CUCA, and did not take place before or after any CUCA event.

'His resignation was immediately demanded and we determined the appropriate response to be to permanently revoke his membership and bar him from all future events, which we did on Saturday.'

Mr Coyne is also believed to be a member of the student Union and the Law Society. He has deleted his Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn profiles, and his Instagram is now set to private.

Nicola Sturgeon's office said he was not a 'not a direct relative' of the First Minister or her husband but a senior Scottish government source confirmed to the Guido Fawkes blog that he is a 'distant' relative by marriage.

He is believed to be the nephew of the First Minster's sister-in-law's ex-husband.

Speaking to student newspaper The Tab, a Cambridge resident who claimed they saw the Mr Coyne soon after the incident said: 'I was blocked from getting into my college as some chap in white tie was being excluded by the porters.

He was expelled from the CUCA after video of the prank was seen by hundreds of students when it was shared on Snapchat. Mr Coyne is also believed to be a member of the Student Union and the Law Society

'I saw the videos of what he did the next morning, and am utterly shocked and appalled that someone would do such a thing.

'I'm sure I speak on behalf of the student body when I say that we condemn such actions.'

It is rumoured that burning a 50 note in front of a homeless person is one of the initiation ceremonies of Oxford's notorious Bullingdon club.

White tie is the most formal dress code and is usually reserved for high profile events such as state dinners with the Queen, Nobel Prize ceremonies and Magdalene May Ball.

Some members of the CUCA are known to regularly wear white tie to official dinners.

Ex-cabinet minister Ken Clarke is a former chairman, while ex-chief whip Andrew Mitchell and Lord Speaker Lord Fowler are both still Honorary Vice-Presidents.

The Honorary President is prominent historian Andrew Roberts, author of 'Napoleon the Great'.

A Cambridge University spokesman said: 'The University is committed to respecting the rights and dignity of all members of our community.

'We expect our students to treat others with respect, courtesy and consideration at all times, and the University takes allegations of unacceptable behaviour very seriously.

'We do not comment on individual cases.'

Do you know Ronald Coyne? Email Abe.Hawken@mailonline.co.uk
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway has been 'counseled' after urging Americans to buy Ivanka Trump products during a TV interview that she herself said was a 'free commercial' for the president's daughter.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer addressed the issue hours after Conway delivered a TV interview where she promoted Ivanka Trump's products, following Nordstrom's decision to stop carrying her products.

'Kellyanne has been counseled and that's all we're going to go with,' Spicer said when asked about the shilling during the daily White House briefing.

'She's been counseled on that subject and that  that's it,' he added sheepishly.

Spicer didn't provide further information on who might have provided counsel to Conway, but he may have been referring to White House lawyers or other government officials who provide guidance on ethical conduct.

But House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said counsel was not enough, calling what Conway did 'wrong, wrong, wrong, clearly over the line, unacceptable'.

The Utah Republican congressman said he will join with Democratic Oversight Leader Elijah Cummings to ask the Office of Government Ethics to review the matter. Chaffetz also said he will write a formal letter to the White House lodging his irritation.

'It needs to be dealt with', Chaffetz said in an interview with The Associated Press. 'There's no ifs, ands or buts about it.'

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told Americans, 'Go buy Ivanka's stuff is what I would tell you' in an interview conducted from the White House

Conways interview raised extremely serious concerns, according to the letter by Chaffetz and Cummings.

Conways statements appear to violate federal ethics regulations, which prohibit actions that imply a government endorsement of the personal activities of another person, the lawmakers wrote, citing ethics regulations.

The letter noted the offices authority to review the matter and inform the employees agency, adding that in this case, there is an additional challenge, which is that the President, as the ultimate disciplinary authority for White House employees, has an inherent conflict of interest.

For this reason, we request that you use authority that Congress granted to you under the Ethics in Government Act of 1978  to recommend to the lead of the officers or employees agency that appropriate disciplinary action (such as reprimand, suspension, demotion, or dismissal) be brought against the officer or employee.

Conway had urged Americans to 'buy Ivanka's stuff' during a televised interview from the same briefing room space Thursday morning, in an overt pitch meant to help president's family's business from a top government official.

Conway was responding to questions about Nordstrom's decision to dump Ivanka Trump's clothing line while facing a boycott movement that picked up steam after the president's immigration order, after the president blasted the move online.

'Go buy Ivanka's stuff is what I would tell you. I hate shopping. I'm going to go get some myself today,' Conway, who is a counselor to the president, told Fox & Friends Thursday morning.

Then she vouched for the quality of the items being taken off the shelves of the high-end retailer.

Cheap: Clearance and sale items from Ivanka Trump's brand line of shoes and accessories are seen in a Manhattan Nordstrom Rack store in January (above)

Nordstrom did not mention the #GrabYourWallet boycott when it announced its decision

'It's a wonderful line. I own some of it. I'm going to give a free commercial here. Go buy it today, everybody. You can find it online,' she said.

Her unabashed marketing for the president's daughter's product line came despite the provision of federal law that bars government employees from pitching products.

According to one section of the Code of Federal Regulations, 'An employee shall not use his public office for his own private gain, for the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise, or for the private gain of friends, relatives, or persons with whom the employee is affiliated in a nongovernmental capacity, including nonprofit organizations of which the is an officer or member, and persons with whom the employee has or seeks employment or business relations.'

The Code of Federal Regulations says federal employees can't offer 'the endorsement of any product'

Conway's statements drew a rebuke from the Republican chairman and top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee

The lawmakers urged a government ethics official to recommend appropriate 'disciplinary action'

Another section dealing with federal employees states that 'an employee shall not use or permit the use of his Government position or title or any authority associated with his public office in a manner that could reasonably be construed to imply that his or the Government sanctions or endorses his personal activities or those of another.'

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington immediately filed a complaint with the Office of Government Ethics.

Conway was scheduled to appear on Fox for a live interview at 7 pm Thursday on Trump's first 100 Days, where she was likely to have to clean up the comments, which caused an immediate uproar.

Conway said Thursday morning she had 'visited' with the Ivanka Trump Wednesday, and appeared to keep alive the possibility of her joining the White House.

'This is a very successful businesswoman twice,' she said, referencing her work as an executive for the Trump Organization, which she relinquished after her father won the presidency.

Go buy Ivanka's stuff is what I would tell you. I hate shopping, I'm going to go get some myself today.'

'On the side she developed another fully unbelievably entrepreneurial wildly successful business that bears her name and I think she's gone from 800 stores to 1,000 stores or a 1,000 places that you can buy' Conway said. 'You can certainly buy her goods online,' she added, in another pitch.

'She's just in a very good place. She's an incredibly confident creative talented woman who also supports her father's presidency and realizes there are bigger issues that he's going to tackle if she decides and it works for her family and she comes inside the White House here she knows people like Dina Powell and me will be working with her to work to help on women empowerment, women and girls,' Conway said, referencing another White House aide.

She went after the chain indirectly by saying 'executives' were going after 'the most prominent woman' in Trump's circle.

'I do find it ironic that you've got some executives all over the internet bragging about what they've done to her and her line and, yet, they're using the most prominent woman in Donald Trump's  you know, most prominent  she's his daughter, and they're using her, who has been a champion for women empowerment, women in the workplace to get to him,' said.

President Donald Trump (left) came to the defense of his eldest daughter Ivanka Trump (right) whose clothing line was dropped by Nordstrom last week

President Donald Trump lashed out this morning at Nordstrom for dumping his daughter Ivanka Trump's clothing and shoe line

'I think people could see through that.'

Fox co-host Steve Doocey introduced the interview spot by saying Conway was doing the interview from the White House 'because we've got some lousy weather here in the northeast.'

Ethics expert Rich Eisen, who was a to ethics lawyer in the Obama White House, responded to the pitch. 'It is an example of why Donald Trump and his family needed to step away, needed to make a more definitive break,' he told MSNBC.

'And I think it's an abuse of the office of the presidency. He's putting the bully in the bully pulpit.'

Whether Conway could actually be sanctioned for violating ethics rules is uncertain. She could be subject to loss of pay  but that determination would be made by the White House.

Don W. Fox, former general counsel of the Office of Government Ethics, told The Washington Post that 'Conway's encouragement to buy Ivanka's stuff would seem to be a clear violation of rules prohibiting misuse of public office for anyone's private gain.'

He called her plug 'jaw-dropping to me,' adding: 'This rule has been promulgated by the federal Office of Government Ethics as part of the Standards of Conduct for all executive branch employees and it applies to all members of the armed forces as well.'

But enforcement is typically left to the official's agency, which in Conway's case means the White House would have to decide whether to sanction her for promoting the product line of the president's daughter.

A lawyer told the paper a typical federal employee who broke the rule could face a multi-day suspension from work and loss of pay.

President Donald Trump lashed out at the retailer Nordstrom on Wednesday morning for dumping his daughter's clothing line.

'My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by Nordstrom,' the president wrote. 'She is a great person  always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!'

The tweet came at 10:51 a.m., 21 minutes after the president's daily intelligence briefing was to start, and was later retweeted by the official @POTUS White House account.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer defended President Trump's comment later in the day, saying that he was responding to 'an attack on his daughter.'

Spicer also implied that the Seattle-based retailer made the decision to drop Ivanka's line because they did not agree with President Trump's ban on immigrants from seven Muslim-majority nations entering the country.

But on Wednesday Nordstrom revealed in a statement to DailyMail.com that Ivanka was personally told about its decision in early January - weeks before the travel ban.

'To reiterate what we've already shared when asked, we made this decision based on performance,' read the statement. 'Over the past year, and particularly in the last half of 2016, sales of the brand have steadily declined to the point where it didn't make good business sense for us to continue with the line for now.'

The statement went on to read: 'We've had a great relationship with the Ivanka Trump team. We've had open conversations with them over the past year to share what we've seen and Ivanka was personally informed of our decision in early January.'

In his press conference today, Spicer went on to justify Trump's tweet. 'He has every right to stand up for his family and applaud their business activities, their success,' said Spicer.

'So, look, when it comes to his family I think he's been very clear how proud he is of what they do and what they've accomplished. And for someone to take out their concern with his policies on a family member of his is just, is not acceptable. And the president has every right, as a father, to stand up for them.'

Spicer was later asked how Ivanka could be targeted seeing as she made the decision to step down from her eponymous fashion company last month, just before moving to Washington DC.

'I think there's clearly a targeting of her brand, and it's her name still out there. So while she's not directly running the company, it's still her name on it,' said Spicer.

'And there's clearly efforts that  to undermine that name based on her father's positions on particular policies, that he's taken.'

Spicer went on to state: 'This is a direct attack on his policies and her name. And so that  there's clearly an attempt for him to stand up for her, because she is being maligned, because they have a problem with his policies.'

He also stated that Trump was free at the time he sent the tweet this morning and not still in his intelligence briefing, which had begun 21 minutes earlier at 10:30am.

Nordstrom's shares took a brief dip shortly after Trump made his tweet, but then climbed two points by the day's close, possibly as a result of the attention he gave them.

Nordstrom's shares took a brief dip after Trump's tweet, but finished the day two points up

That breaks the trend made by previous Trump tweets that saw stock for Lockheed Martin, Toyota and General Motors dropping after being blasted by the president.

Kimberly Whitler, a marketing professor at the University of Virginia, told The Washington Post that since Trump can't withhold government contracts - as he could with Lockheed Martin - or affect the whole industry - as he can with cars - his latest tweet packs less of a punch.

And, she says, people might just be getting used to his fiery rants.

'At some point, with the velocity of Trump's tweets, it's likely that investors may become more 'numb' to his tweets and react in a more muted fashion,' she said.

The presidents of Nordstrom sent an email criticizing President Donald Trump's ban on immigrants from seven nations entering the United States just days before the retail giant announced they had dropped Ivanka's clothing line.

In the note, brothers Peter, Erik, and Blake Nordstrom told employees of the company that they would do all they could to help those who might be impacted by the ban while celebrating the many things the immigrant community have contributed to the retailer over the years.

The Nordstrom brothers also pointed out that the company was founded by an immigrants, their great grandfather John.

Two days later, the Seattle-based retailer announced that they would no longer be carrying Ivanka Trump's line of clothing, handbags, shoes and accessories.

A spokesperson for Nordstrom told Dailymail.com, 'We sent the email to our people to offer support and services if they were affected by the order.

'The decision to move away from the Ivanka Trump brand for the upcoming season was made as a result of the brand's business performance over the past year. For us, the two decisions were not related.'

The retailer then further clarified by revealed they had informed Ivanka of the decision in early January

Bargain bin: Ivanka shoes were being sold at Nordstrom Rack for close to 50 percent off, which seemed to confirm that sales were down

The company previously released a statement explaining why they made the decision to drop Ivanka's line.

'We've said all along we make buying decisions based on performance. We've got thousands of brands  more than 2,000 offered on the site alone,' a statement from the company read.

'Reviewing their merit and making edits is part of the regular rhythm of business,' it continued. 'Each year we cut about 10 percent and refresh our assortment with about the same amount.'

'In this case, based on the brand's performance we've decided not to buy it for this season,' the statement said.

Not mentioned was the #GrabYourWallet boycott that may also have had a hand in Nordstrom's decision to cancel ordering any more of Ivanka Trump's line.

The #GrabYourWallet campaign targets companies that do business with the Trump family, letting consumers know where not to take their dollars if they are against some of the statements President Trump has made about women in the past.

Additionally, it names companies whose board members donated to President Trump's campaign.

The campaign was started in response to the now infamous 2005 Access Hollywood hot mic audio that was released back in October in which President Trump was caught bragging about sexually assaulting women and detailed his attempt to bed a married television personality.

That has caused headaches for companies like L.L. Bean, which saw its name added to the boycott because one family member donated to a Trump-aligned political action committee.

The chairman of the board begged off the boycott, saying the large Bean family doesn't hold a political stance.

Its name remains on the list.

The president tweeted his support for them as well.

'Thank you to Linda Bean of L.L.Bean for your great support and courage. People will support you even more now. Buy L.L.Bean,' Trump tweeted in January.

So far, Nordstrom remains part of the boycott, as organizers say the retailer won't be let off the hook until all the existing Ivanka Trump products sell out.
The mother of a nine-year-old girl shot dead during a home invasion says she doesn't believe that the shooter meant to kill her daughter.

Alexandrea 'Sissy' Thompson died after being shot in the chest when at least three men who broke into her family home in the Mount Auburn neighborhood in Cincinnati, Ohio.

'He didn't come in there and intend to shoot and kill a nine-year-old kid,' Sissy's mother Amber Caudell said of the shooter to the Cincinnati Inquirer.

Amber Caudell, (left) the mother of Alexandrea 'Sissy' Thompson (right), shot dead during a home invasion has begged her daughter's killers to come forward

But she is urging the men to come forward and 'take the blame'.

'I think they had a plan in mind and it didn't turn out how they planned and Sissy was killed,'' she said. 'They need to turn in the person who did this. Someone needs to come forward. Someone has to talk.'

The nightmare began on January 18 when at least three men came to the door asking for marijuana and money, according to Sissy's father Alex Thomson.

When another one his daughters refused and tried to close the door, they barged in, he said.

Thompson said that he had been upstairs playing computer games when he heard his daughter call out 'Daddy.'

Amber Caudell said she is sure that it 'wasn't the shooter's intention' to kill her daughter

Alex Thompson, the father of a nine-year-old girl who was shot dead ,was also injured in the struggle

'I turn to the other side and I see the guy covering her mouth with a gun to her head,' he said.

Thompson said he saw his moment, and attempted to wrestle the gun out of one of the intruder's hands, hoping that his daughter would run out of the room.

'I was trying to defend her and defend myself,' said Alex.

Instead, she ran behind her father, according to her aunt.

'She was behind her dad. She was probably scared,' Alexandrea's aunt told Cincinnati.com. 'She ran behind him instead of running away.'

Thompson was shot in the hand, arm and abdomen, and it's believed the bullet that struck Alexandrea may have gone through her father's body first, her aunt said.

The incident occurred when three men arrived at the family's Mount Auburn house around 5.30pm on January 18

Her father Alex Thompson had been struggling with three gunman who burst into their Mount Auburn house when they opened fire

Police said at least three men, wearing ski masks and brandishing handguns, were seen leaving the home, by witnesses who said they left in a white two-door car that was possibly a convertible.

But Caudell, who does not live with her ex Alex, has questioned his version of events and says she does not believe the home invasion was random.

'I want to know what happened on that third floor. I emailed the detective and told them I want to know exactly what happened up there,'' she said between tears. 'None of this makes any sense to me.'

Cincinnati Police are continuing to investigate but no arrests have yet been made.

An award for information leading to an arrest is currently set at $17,000.

'I just want them to catch my daughter's killer. I want to know who did this and why,' Thompson told 5 WLWT. 'She's an angel, sweetest thing on earth,' her father said. 'If you met her, she left a print on you. You will always know her and remember her.'

'Was this random or did they have the wrong house,' Thompson said. 'Who tries to rob somebody who's got nine kids.'

After the shots were fired, Alexandrea's older sister ran to where the shooting happened and picked up her sister. Alexandrea (left and right) was bleeding and 'breathing real hard' as her 15-year-old sister cradled her, her aunt said

After the shots were fired, Alexandrea's older sister ran to where the shooting happened and picked up her sister.

Andrea told the Enquirer that Alexandrea was bleeding and 'breathing real hard' as her 15-year-old sister cradled her. 'She took her last breath in her sister's arms,' she said.

The fourth-grader was pronounced dead at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

Her father was taken to University of Cincinnati Medical Center where is listed in critical condition, according to WLWT.

Alexandrea's classmates remembered her 'welcoming' personality on a poster board after learning of her death. This note was left at the makeshift memorial in front of the family's home

A makeshift memorial (pictured) was placed on the steps of her family's home. The community gathered together after the shooting and several faith leaders are hoping to raise at least $9,000 toward a reward for information leading to an arrest

Alex Thompson's mother, Catherine Thompson, told the Enquirer, that her granddaughter 'was a very sweet, adorable child'. 'She was so adorable.'

Alexandrea was described as a bright leader at her charter school, Mount Auburn International Academy.

Students, faculty and staff struggled to understand how the little girl with the big grin who gave strong hugs, will never come to school again.

Claudia Ehrle, the school's interim director, called Alexandrea a natural leader: 'She led by example.'

Her classmates remembered her 'welcoming' personality on a green poster board after learning of her death.

Some wrote, 'I love you sissy,' while others said, 'you will always have a special place in my heart'.

Grief counselors were at the school Thursday for any of its 431 students who needed to talk.
After Monica Crowley bowed out of a White House position due to plagiarism charges, a man named Michael Anton was given the job, as senior director of strategic communications at the National Security Council.

But past writings may haunt Anton too, as the Weekly Standard uncovered that he wrote a number of essays through the 2016 campaign cycle using the pen name Publius Decius Mus.

Publius argued that Islam is 'incompatible with West.' He defended President Donald Trump's anti-immigrant stances, while suggesting diversity creates 'weakness, tension and disunion.'

When Trump decided to use the slogan 'America First,' Publius said the members of the 'America First Committee'  some of whom were anti-Semites  who argued against the U.S. going to war against Nazi Germany were 'unfairly maligned.'

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Michael Anton (center), the senior director of strategic communications at the National Security Council, wrote a series of essays under a pen name last year

The most well-known piece penned by Publius Decius Mus  the name of a Roman consul who rode ahead of his men and sacrificed himself in battle  was titled 'The Flight 93 Election,' referring to the fourth hijacked plane on Sept. 11, which passengers wrangled back from the terrorists before crashing it in a field in Western Pennsylvania.

In the essay, which the New Yorker called the 'most cogent' case for Trump, Publius likened the election of the businessman to the passengers charging the cockpit 'the consequences were possibly dire, but the consequences of inaction were surely so.'

Anton lambasted what he called 'house-broken conservatives,' who are OK with the status quo, as they 'spend at least several hundred million dollars a year on think-tanks, magazines, conferences, fellowships, and such, complaining about this, that, the other, and everything.'

All this while the country drags leftward.

Trump, he argued in the essay that appeared in the Claremont Review of Books in September 2016, was the only one of the Republican candidates willing to disrupt this conservative business-as-usual.

'Trump, alone among candidates for high office in this or in the last seven (at least) cycles, has stood up to say, I want to live. I want my party to live. I want my country to live. I want my people to live. I want to end the insanity,' Anton wrote.

He also argued that Trump's positioning on the issues of immigration, trade and war were correct.

Conservatives like Ross Douthat of the New York Times responded by suggesting that Publius was downplaying the fact that Trump's election could damage both the country and the conservative movement.

'Id rather risk defeat at my enemies hands than turn my own cause over to a incompetent tyrant,' Douthat wrote.

Other essays written by Publius were more out of the mainstream.

The Huffington Post found an essay Publius published in March, headlined 'Toward a Sensible, Coherent Trumpism,' in which the writer spends 1,000 words defending the original 'America First committee' suggesting it represents only 'an alleged stain on Americas past.'

Anton had frank feelings about immigration and diversity, suggesting the country was not a 'nation as immigrants,' as it's often described, but a 'nation of settlers, who later chose to admit immigrants, and later still not to, and who may justly open or close our doors solely at our own discretion, without deference to forced pieties.'

Diversity, he said, was not the nation's 'strength.'

And Islam, he argued, was not a 'religion of peace.'

'It's a militant faith that exalts conversion by the sworn and inspires thousands to acts of terror  and millions more to support and sympathize with terror,' Anton wrote.

In the piece, Anton both acknowledged that Trump may have gone too far calling for a widespread Muslim ban, as the candidate did in the aftermath of the San Bernardino terror attack, but also praised the Republican for his efforts to limit Muslims coming into the United States.

'Islam and the modern West are incompatible,' he wrote. 'Only an insane society, or one desperate to prove its fidelity to some chimerical "virtue," would have increased Muslim immigration after the September 11 attacks.'

'Yet that is exactly what the United States did,' Anton continued. 'Trump has, for the first time, finally forced the questions" Why? And can we stop now?'

Anton has worked for a number of bold-faced names on the right.

He worked as a speechwriter and press secretary under New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump's top surrogates.

From there he went to work at President George W. Bush's White House in 2001, as a communications aide for the National Security Council.

That job was made even bigger by the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, the Weekly Standard pointed out.

Anton was among those making the case for war against Iraq, with his team responsible for Bush's line in the president's 2003 State of the Union address, 'The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.'

That intelligence was later proven as false, but the United States indeed went to war with Iraq.

From the White House, Anton worked as a speechwriter for media mogul Rupert Murdoch under the News Corp umbrella, before working at Citigroup and the investment firm BlackRock.

He entered the Trump White House and was outed by the Weekly Standard last week.
Vladimir Putin has personally apologised after a Russian air strike accidentally killed three Turkish soldiers while trying to hit ISIS targets in Syria.

The leader of the Kremlin phoned Turkey's president Tayyip Erdogan to say sorry for the bombardment that was meant for terrorists in Al-Bab.

Bombs were dropped on Turkish troops in an incident of friendly fire and as well as the three who died, 11 other soldiers were injured.

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The aftermath of the air strikes which killed three Turkish soldiers in Al-Bab in Syria

A soldier in camouflage gear assesses the damage from the bombs being dropped in Syria

Two fighters from the Free Syrian Army stand next to an armoured pickup truck, one carrying a machine gun, near the town of Bizaah northeast of the city of Al-Bab

Vladimir Putin (left) has called Tayyip Erdogan (right) to apologise over the air strike mishap

The Kremlin confirmed on Thursday that Russian war planes had accidentally killed its allies, the RIA news agency reported.

Turkish-backed Syrian opposition fighters resumed a major offensive inside the city on Thursday, a day after they broke through IS defences in its remaining stronghold in Aleppo province.

Russia's defence ministry issued a statement following the apologetic phone call, which read: ' Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation with President of the Republic of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

'They continue to exchange views on key aspects of the crisis in Syria in the context of the joint fight against international terrorism.

'Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences over the tragic incident of the deaths of several Turkish soldiers near the town of Al-Bab.

'It was agreed on enhancing coordination on the military side in Syria during operations against militants and other extremist organisations.'

A map showing who controls areas of north-western Syria. The darkest colour shows Islamic State (ISIS), yellow is the People's Protection Units (YPG) and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), green is the Free Syrian Army and the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), brown is Assad's Syrian Army and the National Defence Force (NDF) and the red regions are being contested

The statement went on to discuss a ceasefire deal between the two countries and Iran relating to violence in Syria.

They also talked about Russian-Turkish trade cooperation and a meeting that was scheduled for next month.

The meeting is set to involve the top brass from each of the two countries.

It was reported on Monday, the Islamic State group is 'completely besieged' in Al-Bab after forces loyal to Syria's regime cut off a road into the jihadists' last major stronghold in Aleppo province.

Syria's army and its allies advanced towards the northern Islamic-State held city on Monday, cutting off the last main supply route that connects to militant strongholds further east towards Iraq.

Islamic State militants are now effectively besieged in the area, by the army from the south and by Turkish-backed rebels from the north, as Damascus and Ankara race to capture the largest IS stronghold in Aleppo province.
Mahmudur Rohman (pictured), 46, ran a company which allegedly sold more than 100 tonnes of cheap turkey meat to businesses instead of halal lamb

A meat company duped restaurants into buying cheap turkey which they marketed as halal lamb, a court has heard.

Dutch Bangla Direct Ltd allegedly sold more than 100 tonnes of turkey to takeaways and shops who thought they were buying red meat at a competitive price.

A court head how the firm paid between 1 and 1.50 per kilo for the meat - which was not halal-certified - which they then sold as lamb for between 4.75 and 7 per kilo.

It is alleged the scam - which prosecutors say was discovered during the horse meat scandal - netted the now defunct meat wholesaler company 250,000 in profit.

The firm's boss Mahmudur Rohman, 46, has now gone on trial with three other men at Leicester Crown Court.

They are accused of conspiring to defraud customers by making false representations about the type of meat being sold between 2013 and 2014.

Today, during the opening of the trial, jurors were told food tests discovered turkey DNA in dishes which were supposed to be lamb.

The court was told how Trading Standards discovered the alleged fraud during an investigation into the national horse meat scandal in 2013.

Prosecutor Kevin Barry said: 'It's alleged these four defendants conspired together to commit fraud in relation to the dishonest supply of turkey meat which they pretended was lamb.

'They were supplying shops and restaurants in the East Midlands and beyond. The operation was on a grand scale, involving 100 tonnes of turkey.

'The cost of turkey is very much lower (than lamb) and profits generated from deceiving customers was in the hundreds of thousands of pounds.'

He told the court they also forged documents, mis-labelled and mis-desribed food and attempted to get a witness to lie on their behalf.

The court heard Rohman was the sole director of the Peterborough-based firm which was 'the front or conduit to carry out their fraudulent activity'.

Mohammed Anwarul Hoque (left) and Kamal Rahman (right) are accused of duping businesses and shops into thinking they were buying halal red meat rather than non-halal turkey

He is on trial along with Kamal Rahman, 54, Mohammed Anwarul Hoque, 56, and his 25-year-old son Mohammed Zunaid Hoque.

The jury were told the three men acted as sales and delivery men for Rohman.

Mr Barry, prosecuting on behalf of Trading Standards, added: 'Rohman placed substantial orders with European suppliers of turkey meat but sent it out as lamb, sometimes with false labels.

'He would often use the three co-defendants as salesmen and deliverymen.

'Mohammed Anwarul Hoque had considerable face-to-face contact with customers and received thousands of pounds from Dutch Bangla.

Mohammed Zunaid Hoque is also on trial over the alleged scam

'His son, Mr Hoque junior, assisted his father in establishing customers and supplying them with meat, and he lent himself to the fraud, knowingly selling turkey as lamb.'

The court heard Dutch Bangla Direct Ltd imported 116 tonnes of turkey, mainly from Germany, between October 2012 and November 2014.

Mr Barry told the jury the firm paid between 1 and 1.50 per kilo for the meat which they then sold as lamb for between 4.75 and 7 per kilo.

He added: 'The estimated turnover was between 500,000 to 800,000 generated by selling turkey as lamb and more than half of that would have been profit to Dutch Bangla.

'Turkey meat at wholesale level commands much lower prices and by selling turkey as lamb the defendants were able to charge around double of what it was actually worth.

'And they were still able to undercut rivals' prices for lamb so it looked more attractive to the customer. '

He added: 'It wasn't halal certified and the (European) suppliers to Dutch Bangla didn't claim it to be halal certified.'

The court heard Rahman offered a restaurant owner money to lie to Trading Standards about the source of suspect meat 'to corrupt the investigation into the scam.'

The four defendants all deny the conspiracy charge as well as a charge of selling food which was not the substance demanded by the customer and selling food labelled with a false description.

Rahman, of Peterborough, also denies intending to pervert the course of justice.

Hoque senior, from Leicester, denies possessing a false halal certificate for the use of fraud and five counts of Food Safety Act breaches.

Hoque junior, of Oadby, and boss Rohman, of Peterborough, both deny five counts of Food Safety Act breaches.

Rohman also denies forgery, possessing an article for use in fraud, selling food with a false description, failing to have in place adequate systems and procedures to provide food traceability to the authorities and failing to notify the authorities of premises where food production, processing or distribution was taking place.

The trial continues.
Associate Commissioner Patrick Mullins presented the county's 2017 Air Quality Closeout report when the St. Francois County Commission met in regular session Tuesday at the county courthouse annex in Farmington.

In 2008, the Southeast Missouri Air Regional Planning Commission's Air Quality Committee was established. The Air Quality Board is comprised of elected officials, industry representatives, concerned citizens and representatives for local schools and serves St. Francois, along with seven surrounding counties.

According to Mullins, there are two ozone air quality monitors  one in Ste. Genevieve County near the city of Bonne Terre and the other in Perry County near the unincorporated community of Farrar.

"On July 6, 2015, the St. Francois County Commission sent a letter to the EPA director asking EPA to maintain the standard of 75 parts per billion (ppb)," he said. "That since has changed. The EPA has lowered the value number. The new standard is 70 ppb, down from the 2008 standard of 75 ppb."

Mullins pointed out that the present design values are 66 ppb at Bonne Terre and 67 ppb at Farrar.

"So where does that leave us?" he asked. "Both monitors were under the air standards. The Department of Natural Resources will be recommending that the existing St. Louis Metropolitan Area  including Franklin, Jefferson, St. Charles and St. Louis counties, as well as the city of St. Louis  be designated as a 'nonattainment area' under the National Ambient Air Quality Standard."

Mullins told the commissioners that it is to the county's advantage to keep its "attainment" designation.

"Attainment simply means that we do not have any restrictions on air quality," he said. "By being classified as 'non-attainment,' directly, the regulations imposed would result in costs to local business, industry and governments. Indirectly, the simple fact of designation would make economic development more difficult. One of the main arguments for St. Francois County is that it is not creating large amounts of ozone. This has been and will continue to be our main argument."

Mullins stressed the importance of St. Francois County residents doing what they can to promote good practices and help keep ozone from forming.

"That means we need to continue our efforts to educate our citizens on those things we have been talking about for several years now," he said. "One of those things is to not 'top off' gas tanks. They should stop at the click when pumping gas. Use the automatic nozzle and not try to 'round up' to the nearest dollar or fill the tank to the brim.

"Doing this can cause spills and even the smallest spills put more stuff into the air than fueling your car. Also, overfilling can actually damage some of the automatic vapor recovery systems in modern cars and replacing the charcoal canister can be really expensive."

Mullins told the commissioners he intends to continue attending the once-a-month air quality meetings held in Perryville.

Also during the meeting, County Clerk Mark Hedrick presented the county's 2017 sales tax report which shows that receipts for the year totaled $1,562,565.13. This is an increase of $102,072.22, or 6.99 percent, over 2016's sales tax receipts which totaled $1,460,492.91.

In other action, commissioners held a bid opening for April election supplies and authorized bidding for road projects. The commission also proclaimed Feb. 5-11 as Thank a Farmer Week and authorized the Road & Bridge Department to sell a cab and trailer as surplus property.

Presiding Commissioner Harold Gallaher reminded attendees that county and state offices will be closed Monday, Feb. 13 in recognition of Lincoln's birthday.

The county commission's next meeting is set for 10 a.m. Feb. 14.
Ledesma, 49, tried to pin her fatal mistake on a colleague in the intensive care unit

A flustered nurse who killed a patient when she gave his the wrong type of blood after confusing his name has been spared jail.

Lea Ledesma, 49, made a series of errors which led to the death of Ali Huseyin, 76, at London Heart Hospital on May 7 2014.

The grandfather was recovering from a successful heart bypass when she gave him type AB blood instead of group O. He died the same day.

Ledesma tried to pin her fatal mistake on a colleague in the intensive care unit.

The senior nurse at the London Heart Hospital confused the patient with another man with a similar name on the same ward - Irfan Hussain.

Ledesma, of Stevenage, Hertfordshire, denied manslaughter by gross negligence, but was convicted last December.

At Southwark Crown Court today, she was handed an 18-month sentence suspended for two years.

She will also have to carry out 300 hours of unpaid work over the next year.

Dozens of family members and supporters, including former colleagues, wept and hugged her as she left the dock.

Wiping back tears, they consoled each other and told her 'your light will always shine', 'we appreciate your goodness', while others shouted out 'amen' and 'all is good'.

Sentencing her, Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith said: 'He was a much loved husband, father and grandfather.

'A very considerate family man whose death has devastated his family, particularly his wife, who feels so alone without him after all these years.

'The omissions and actions that led to Mr Huseyin's death essentially took place over a quarter of an hour. It is still a mystery to me as to how and why you came to behave in the way that you did.

'Your criminal negligence caused his death.'

But he added: 'I have received references and letters from an enormous number of people. Fellow nurses, line managers, doctors and consultants and I suspect that a large number of those are in court today.

'They all paint the same picture of a committed, dedicated hard working nurse.

'Everybody talks about how reliable you are, how competent and how helpful. Two have described you as the mother of the unit. Another says how you were always prepared to go the extra mile for your patients.

'This period of negligence was about as out of character as can be.

'There has already been very considerable punishment in this case and it can be suspended.'

Mr Huseyin had been taken to the intensive care unit at the hospital for a heart bypass operation on May 6 2014.

The surgery had been carried out without complications, and he was transferred to the unit to recover, where Ledesma was in charge of his care.

Daniel Jones, from the CPS, said: 'Lea Ledesma made inexcusable errors which ultimately cost the life of a patient in her care'

On his first night in intensive care, Ledesma had carried out a successful blood transfusion, before finishing her shift and handing over to a colleague.

Overnight, the patient was given another blood transfusion.

Ledesma returned to work the next morning, and a doctor decided Mr Huseyin needed another transfusion.

Ledesma was asked to collect the blood from a dispensing machine, by entering the unique patient code.

On the morning, Ledesma scribbled down what she thought was the right code for Mr Huseyin on her hand before going to the machine.

But she wrote down Mr Hussain's code by mistake.

When accessing the blood, there still should have been enough checks to stop the wrong blood being transfused into Mr Huseyin, the court was told.

On dispensing the blood, a barcode belonging to the relevant patient was shown, which would have revealed the blood was not suitable for Mr Huseyin.

Ledesma then noticed that the name on the blood bag did not match the details of her patient.

However she assumed that the patient may have another name so continued.

Mr Huseyin was conscious at this time, and Ledesma asked him for his date of birth - which would have confirmed it was the wrong blood.

But when he told her the information, Ledesma was looking at the wristband on his arm instead of the blood.

Ledesma then saw the unique patient number did not match and told a senior colleague who advised the transfusion should not be carried out using that blood, and she should check to make sure the details had been recorded correctly.

Ledesma went to a computer to check the details - but did so against the wrong records.

Believing she had the right blood, she carried out the transfusion at about 10:40am.

Mr Huseyin was blood group O while the blood being transfused was blood group AB.

Shortly after the transfusion Mr Huseyin's condition began to deteriorate and he was rushed into surgery.

Ledesma did not confess she had transfused the wrong blood until an hour later.

The senior nurse at the London Heart Hospital (pictured) confused the patient with another man with a similar name on the same ward - Irfan Hussain

At first she tried to cover up her mistake, claiming she had taken information left by her colleague who had looked after Mr Huseyin during the night, and said it was that nurse who had given the wrong blood.

But she was found to be lying after staff checked the records.

Ledesma also claimed she had checked the details of the blood from the machine and said they matched with Mr Huseyin's records.

But she eventually admitted she had been distracted and flustered by the patient's worsening condition, and may have not checked the details thoroughly.

Surgeons battled to save his life but Mr Huseyin died later that evening.

In mitigation Anthony Metzer, defending, said: 'There is no doubt that she accepts the series of errors she made.

'This is a grandmother now, a woman nearly aged 50 whose career is in ruins.

'This will live with her until her own dying day.'

Daniel Jones, from the CPS, said: 'Lea Ledesma made inexcusable errors which ultimately cost the life of a patient in her care.

'The hospital had a number of systems in place designed to prevent such incidents happening but Ledesma failed in her duty to carry out the necessary checks.

'Ledesma initially tried to lay the blame elsewhere but the evidence put forward by the prosecution showed she had been grossly negligent in her actions.'
A horrifying video shows a hitman gunning down his victim on a busy city street.

The CCTV footage from the city of Vladikavkaz, capital of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, south-western Russia, shows a well-lit city street in the evening.

A black Range Rover pulls up and parks by the pavement and a man walks over to it.

A hitman can be seen approaching the car from the left side. He comes close to the man standing near the Range Rover, and shoots at him once.

The victim falls to the tarmac and the killer shoots at him twice more.

Sparks fly where one shot misses and ricochets off the pavement.

It takes the hitman about six seconds to fire at his victim. He can be seen threatening the Range Rover driver with his gun in the left corner of the video before running away.

The victim can be seen lying on the ground writhing in pain.

Sparks flied as the shots ricocheted off the ground as the hitman approaches the victim

While the victim writhes in agony the assassin appears to threaten the Range Rover driver

The victim in the Russian city was rushed to hospital where he is in a serious condition

Someone gets out of the Range Rover and, helped by a passer-by, gets the victim into the car.

The victim identified as Tedeev D. was rushed to the hospital and is said to be in a serious condition.

Police say they have identified the hitman but have yet to detain him. The investigation is ongoing.
Khalid Mir had to be tied up after becoming abusive and throwing drinks around

A drunk and abusive airline passenger faces jail for spitting in the face of a flight attendant after being tied up for the protection of other passengers.

Magistrates heard cabin crew were forced to place a mask over the mouth of Khalid Mir after restraining him on a seven-hour Emirates flight from Dubai to Birmingham.

Mir, who had been downing duty-free vodka, was strapped to a seat after hurling drinks over passengers and airline staff following a row with a woman sitting in front in him.

The 39-year-old, of, Saltley, Birmingham, eventually spat at a female crew member who tried to give him a drink through a straw, calling her a 'dirty white'.

The married father pleaded guilty at Birmingham Magistrates' Court to being drunk on an aircraft and failing to obey the lawful command of the jet's pilot, Alan McIntosh.

Opening the facts of the offences, prosecutor Colin Phillips said Mir became disorderly and began swearing just 30 minutes after take-off from Dubai at 2.50pm on November 17 last year.

Mr Phillips said of Mir: 'He became involved in an altercation with a female passenger and this became an issue which required the flight crew's attention.

'As a result of the defendant's inability to calm down at the request of the cabin crew, he was issued with a formal warning by the captain of the aircraft.

'However, the defendant's behaviour was still threatening and disorderly and it was eventually felt necessary to restrain him at the back of the aircraft.

'He was tied into a seat with his hands and feet tied and it was decided to place a mask over his mouth for other people's protection.'

After the restraint, the court heard, a female member of the crew noted that Mir was using his tongue to attempt to remove the mask.

The incident occured during a seven-hour Emirates flight from Dubai to Birmingham (file image)

In a statement read to the court, the crew member said: 'When it was my turn to check on him, I gave him drinks through a straw. He spat in my face when I was only three feet away. I was disgusted.'

Mir, who was arrested when the flight arrived in Birmingham, has more than 50 previous convictions, including drug-related matters and 25 theft and kindred offences committed between 1991 and 2013.

Magistrates ruled that the maximum six-month sentence available to them was insufficient and committed Mir for sentence at Birmingham Crown Court on March 8.

Mir covered his head with a jacket as he left court on unconditional bail.
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Barack Obama may have left politics behind for the time being - but his social media-famous photographer is not staying silent.

Pete Souza, who spent eight years following the former President as his official photographer, has been sharing pictures on Instagram that appear to be mocking Donald Trump over his more controversial moments so far in the Oval Office.

One of the first signs of Souza's feed skewing political was him sharing a 2015 photograph of Obama talking to a young refugee girl wearing a head-scarf at a Dignity for Children Foundation classroom event. He posted it on January 29 - two days after Trump signed his controversial travel ban executive order.

Another post that followers could easily read between the lines of was shared last Thursday, showing Obama laughing it up with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and New Zealand's then-leader John Key at last September's ASEAN Summit.

Barack Obama's White House photographer has been highlighting moments from the 44th President's time in office to mock Donald Trump. This picture shows Obama with a young refugee, and it was posted online just two days after Trump signed his travel ban

Pete Souza shared this picture of Obama with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (middle) and New Zealand's ex-PM, John Key (left), just hours after it was reported Trump hung up on Turnbull

This picture shows Obama meeting with his 'top advisors' in the Oval Office, and all three people with the President are women. Trump's inner-circle - including Steve Bannon - has been heavily criticized

Just hours earlier, news of Trump's confrontation call with Turnbull spread - which reportedly ended with the former reality television host hanging up on the Australian PM.

Souza poked fun at Trump quite clearly with another picture, showing Obama happily chatting with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto over glasses over tequila in 2013.

And in one of the more blatant examples of trolling, Souza shared a picture of Obama sat in the Oval Office, along with the caption: 'I like these drapes better than the new ones. Don't you think?' The red drapes behind Obama in the picture have since been replaced by gold ones - a staple of Trump's gaudy style.

Souza was able to give an incredible, inside look into Obama's administration and family life during his presidency.

He frequently shared intimate pictures of the First Family, as well as the President during some of the signature moments from his time in power.

The veteran photographer had White House experience before signing on with Obama, having previously worked with Ronald Reagan.

Obama is seen in this picture from 2013 having a chat with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto over a glass of tequila. Nieto and Trump have clashed over the president's plan to build a wall along the border between the two countries

In a not-so-subtle troll, Souza posted this picture on January 31 of Obama and Joe Biden with their Supreme Court pick who went unconfirmed, Merrick Garland. Trump announced Neil Gorsuch as his pick to fill the spot many Democrats believe Garland should have received on the same day

The day after Trump's inauguration, Souza posted this picture of Obama in the Oval Office. Trump has since taken the red drapes down, and in his signature gaudy style, replaced them with golden ones

Barack Obama talks about American energy while his official photographer Pete Souza stands in front the podium at Prince George's Community College in Largo, Maryland, March 15, 2012

Souza posted this picture of the former President at a Baltimore City public school on Tuesday - the same day Trump's controversial pick for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, was confirmed. Critics of DeVos have said she could be bad for public schools across the country. DeVos is planning a massive shake-up of schools, which could have a huge impact on Obama's push for universal pre-k schooling

Souza was able to give an incredible, inside look into Obama's administration and family life during his presidency. The Blair House referenced in the caption is the president's guest house and where presidents usually stay before the inauguration. Trump will likely spend less time there than any other president
A woman has bravely recounted how she overcame a childhood of being gang raped, sexually abused by family members and trafficked.

Jessa Dillow Crisp, who is now 29 and lives in Denver, Colorado, only broke free from traffickers in 2010.

Her abuse started aged 10 in her home country of Canada where she was molested by members of her own family.

As a child, she was made to pose for pornographers, had to perform degrading sex acts and was raped in front of the cameras.

She was then sold to various pimps and friends of her family who abused her.

Speaking to MailOnline, she said: 'I was brought up in Canada and the physical abuse, emotional abuse, mental abuse, and sexual abuse to include child pornography and sex trafficking was done in suburban neighborhoods, local brothels, and hotels.

'Although the abuse was perpetrated onto me and although I had no choice in the matter, I spent my childhood thinking I was bad, shameful, and that something was wrong with me.

'My abuse and trafficking started before the age of 10 and my family was definitely involved. Sadly, as I work with survivors I am finding out that "familial trafficking" is very common.'

She continued: 'The physical abuse, emotional abuse, mental abuse, and sexual abuse set me up to be a passive victim when the child pornography started, which is a normal response when one is groomed into a trafficking situation.

'After the child pornography started, that is when the trafficking started with me being sold to people in the neighborhood. Shortly after that, I was then taken to different pimps who sold me.

'Eventually my trafficking progressed into a deeper and darker evil where I was taken overseas for the sole purpose of being trafficked. It was not only terrifying, but during that time I often wondered if I would survive.'

Speaking to the charity Global Citizen, she added: 'I remember the smells, the sights, and the tastes of slavery. The horror can't be put into words, neither can the brothels I was taken to or the men and women I was forced to service.

'There was gang raping. Police officers were some of my buyers and multiple times I was handcuffed, raped, and told that if I told anyone I would be put in jail.

'If I couldn't trust even the police, how could I trust anyone?'

But she said her terrifying ordeal got worse.

'I had somebody very close to me tortured and she eventually died in front of my eyes', she recounted.

The 29-year-old revealed how she was attacked by police officers, as well as family members

She recalled how someone 'very close to her' was tortured and eventually died in front of her

At her lowest point, she said her life changed when she met a woman who worked with survivors of sex trafficking at the age of 21.

She gave her a piece of paper with her number on and told her to contact her.

Ms Dillow Crisp finally plucked up the courage to ring her and called her from under a pile of blankets hiding from her pimps.

'She explained to me that my future did not have to be built upon the trauma that had happened to me', she recalled.

The woman helped her get to the airport, onto a plane and into a safe house for women who had experienced human trafficking.

After breaking free from the terrifying world of sex trafficking, Ms Dillow Crisp enjoys hiking Colorado's mountains with her husband John

But after finding peace in the US, she had to return to Canada because her visa was only a six-month tourist permit.

Tragically, on her return, she was befriended by a female pimp when the Vancouver safehouse she was staying in closed.

She told MailOnline: 'She was very kind and I had no inkling during that time that she was going to traffic me, I just knew that there was a kind lady who was paying attention to me when I needed help and was all alone.

'She said, "Jessa, I see sexual abuse in your eyes." I thought I had found a friend.'

'After building an exclusive relationship with me, she took me back to her home where she broke my will and trafficked me during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.'

She added: 'Because of my past abuse and my past trauma I was just so vulnerable to people taking advantage of me again and I thought, "What's wrong with me, what have I done?"

'After that second trafficking experience it was almost impossible for me to trust anyone. I was a slave once again.'

After being subjected to sexual abuse and trafficking during her childhood, Ms Dillow Crisp is now happily married and living in Colorado with husband John (pictured on their wedding day)

But after falling into the horrifying world of sex trafficking once more, she managed to escape a second time and return to the US.

'I was terrified of the unknown, frightened that I would be hunted down by my pimps and abusers', she said.

After returning to the safehouse in the States, the director there encouraged her to enrol at college.

The 29-year-old graduated with a BA in clinical counseling and is currently working on an MA in clinical mental health counseling as a step toward a psychology doctorate in clinical psychology where she hopes to specialized in trauma recovery.

She has a GoFundMe account which can be found here.

When she is not working, she enjoys hiking Colorado's mountains with her husband John, and is an aspiring photographer.

'I refused to let the evil of my past win', she told Global Citizen. 'Instead my pain has a purpose now.'
Named: Jonathan Gay, 51, was identified as the suspect who was caught on video being arrested in Philadelphia after allegedly taking a stolen cab on a naked joyride through a crowded park

A former Philadelphia auctioneer has been arrested and charged with carjacking, driving under the influence and assault after he was caught on camera taking a stolen taxi on a joyride while naked.

Jonathan Gay, 51, was identified on Wednesday as the person who allegedly carjacked a cab in Philadelphia on Monday afternoon and drove it through a crowd of people at the busy Rittenhouse Square before crashing it into a curb.

Gay was charged with robbery of a motor vehicle, theft, DUI, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment.

Cab driver Michael Emanuel, 42, said he was dropping off a customer in the 2000 block of Locust Street at around 3.20pm when a man approached the rear passenger side and dragged the 49-year-old woman out of the car by her hair.

When Emanuel stepped out to intervene, the suspect, later identified as Gay, took off all his clothes, jumped into the driver's seat and took off.

He drove through the crowded park, hitting two parked cars and an oncoming vehicle before crashing into a curb, police said.

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This screenshot from a video recording shows the moment police arrived to arrest Gay, seen lying naked on the ground, after he crashed the carjacked taxi

Cab driver Michael Emanuel got out from the car when Gay approached the passenger side and started attacking his customer. The man then took off his clothes and stole the taxi

Video by BLT Films

A video recording of the incident captured the sound of the cab tires squealing and pedestrian Kyra Howell made a run for it, telling 6ABC: 'I honestly saw my life flash before my eyes.'

Brandon Thompson, who saw the cab weaving through the park, heroically chased the vehicle down on his bike, NBC reported.

When the cab finally crashed into the curb near the intersection of 18th and Walnut streets, Thompson tried to yank the car keys out of the ignition while other Good Samaritans pulled Gay from the car.

Video footage showed the naked man pinned the ground as a large crowd gathered around him.

Thompson said: ' He was completely nude. He had nothing on him but what God gave him.'

Another eyewitness, Josh Schonewolf, told Philadelphia Magazine that Gay appeared 'all red and naked and crazy' when he was pulled from the taxi.

Video footage of the incident captured the sound of the cab tires squealing (above) and pedestrian Kyra Howell made a run for it, saying: 'I honestly saw my life flash before my eyes.'

Gay was then taken into police custody and transported to the hospital to be treated for minor injuries, ABC reported.

The woman whom he allegedly attacked is expected to be okay. No other injuries were reported.

Gay is being held at Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility on $5,000 bail pending his preliminary hearing on February 23, reported Philly.com.

Court records indicate that Gay, formerly a licensed auctioneer with the renewed Freeman's Auctions in Philadelphia, was on probation at the time of Mondays incident stemming from a 2016 case involving charges of aggravated assault, theft, receiving stolen property and making terroristic threats.

The most serious counts against Gay were ultimately dismissed but he was found guilty of theft. He later appealed conviction, and the case is scheduled to go to trial later this year.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange could be evicted from the Ecuadorian embassy in London if right wing presidential candidate Guillermo Lasso is victorious in his country's upcoming election.

Lasso, of Ecuador's Creo-Suma alliance, has said that if he wins the election, he will 'cordially ask Senor Assange to leave within 30 days of assuming a mandate.'

He told The Guardian the Ecuadorian people have been paying a cost 'we should not have to bear'.

He is behind ruling party candidate Lenin Moreno in the opinion polls ahead of the first round of voting on February 19.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange speaks from the balcony of the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where he has spent the last four years

Guillermo Lasso has said he will ask Julian Assange to leave the embassy within 30 days if he is successful in Ecuador's election

Mr Assange has been living inside the embassy for more than four years, believing he will be extradited to the US for questioning over the activities of WikiLeaks if he leaves.

He has been questioned about a sex allegation in Sweden, which he denies.

A member of Mr Assange's legal team told the Press Association: 'Ecuador as a state has domestic and international legal obligations to protect its refugees from persecution which it has shown significant courage in upholding.

'Assange faces life imprisonment or death in the United States over his publishing work. The US Department of Justice states that its 'national security' case against Mr Assange remains 'active and ongoing'.

'The United Nations has twice found within the last year that Ecuador's position in relation to Mr Assange is correct.'

A year ago a United Nations working group found that Assange was being 'arbitrarily detained' by the UK and Sweden

Assange may soon have to leave the embassy where he has lived since June 2012

The WikiLeaks founder this week made a fresh appeal to the UK and Swedish authorities to 'restore' his liberty.

He spoke out a year after a United Nations working group found he was being 'arbitrarily detained' by the UK and Sweden.

He said that one year on, neither government has complied with the UN's findings.

Mr Assange said: 'I call on the UK and Sweden to do the right thing and restore my liberty. These two states signed treaties to recognise the UN and its human rights mechanisms.

'Their governments accepted the jurisdiction of the working group in my case, the world's peak legal body for cases of arbitrary detention. At no time in the 16-month process did they withdraw.

'They lost, appealed and lost again. This refusal to respect the umpire's decision comes at a terrible cost.

'Other states can now illegally detain Swedish and UK citizens with effective impunity and the UN human rights system more broadly is imperilled.'
She apologized on social media, claiming she accidentally posted the photo

She posted it on Snapchat, saying: 'If I can't unsee this then you can't either'

In place of jail, she hoped for counseling and anti-bullying courses

Dani Mathers, 29, could face up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine, if convicted of

Prosecutors have insisted they will not go easy on Dani Mathers, the former Playboy playmate who took a photo of a naked, 70-year-old woman in a gym and posted it on Snapchat.

The model has asked Los Angeles City Attorneys not to send her to jail, saying she will undergo counseling and anti-bullying courses instead.

She also said that she would go around to schools and talk about how harmful bullying is.

But prosecutors scoffed at her attempts at mercy, claiming that she never apologized to the victim in person, TMZ reported.



If convicted, she faces up to six months in jail for invasion of privacy, and a $1,000 fine.

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Cruel photo: Playboy model Dani Mathers has pleaded not guilty to an invasion of privacy charge stemming from this Snapchat post mocking a 70-year-old woman in a gym shower

Mathers' lawyer Tom Mesereau requested that the defendant be eligible for a deferment program.

But the City Attorney's office argued she isn't eligible due to the nature of the crime, reported the New York Daily News.

The attorney's office wrote: 'She should face the consequences of her cruel and criminal act.'

They have not made it clear whether they will seek a jail term.

Sorry: Mather's attorney said the 29-year-old woman 'very much regrets' what happened

Contrite tweet: Mathers acknowledged in July her 'mistakes' in the context of the gym incident

Mathers sparked widespread outrage after she shared the naked photo on Snapchat in July with the derisive caption: 'If I can't unsee this then you can't either.'

She later apologized for body-shaming the elderly gym member and deleted her social media accounts.

Mathers has since resumed tweeting, sharing on Friday photos of her dog and her Thanksgiving treats.

The gym, LA Fitness, reported the posting to police and revoked Mathers' membership.

Detectives began investigating after the LAPD received a report of 'illegal distribution' of the image after the photo went viral.

Mathers' attorney entered a plea of not guilty in November to the misdemeanor count on her behalf, City News Service reported via NBC Los Angeles. She was not required to attend.

LA Fitness reported the posting to police and revoked the membership of the blonde beauty (second right), pictured here in October at a charity event in Los Angeles

Outside the courtroom, defense attorney Tom Mesereau said Mathers 'very much regrets' what happened.

'She apologized for her behavior and we're looking forward to resolving this case in a very fair manner,' he said.

'Her behavior is appalling and puts every member at risk of losing their privacy,' Jill Greuling, an LA Fitness executive vice president, said at the time.

The woman in the naked photo was identified only by her age and it was not clear if she knew she was being photographed in the shower.

The model first apologized for the Snapchat post in July, tweeting: 'I'm sorry for what I did... I need to take some time to myself now to reflect on why I did this horrible thing.'

Mathers later claimed in an online video that she accidentally posted the photo publicly.

'I just want to acknowledge a photo that I accidentally posted,' she said in the clip posted to her Snapchat Story. 'It was absolutely wrong and not what I meant to do.'

Mathers (second right) was Playboy's Miss May in 2015. The photo above shows her alongside (L to R) Miss September 2012 Alana Campos, Miss February 2008 Michelle McLaughlin, 2013 Playmate of the Year Raquel Pomplun, Miss March 2013 Ashley Doris and Miss June 2004 Hiromi Oshima

'I chose to do what I do for a living because I love the female body and I know body shaming is wrong, that's not what I'm about and this is not the type of person I am.

'The photo was taken as part of a personal conversation with a girlfriend and because I am new to Snapchat I didn't realize I had posted it, and that was a huge mistake.

'I know I have upset a lot of people out there but please believe me this is not the type of person that I am.

'I have never done this before and I will never do this again, you have my word.'
The father of a Florida teenager facing a felony weapon possession charge for taking a gun off his suicidal friend at school said he was 'heartbroken' by the state's decision to charge his son.

William Caldwell, 16, was arrested at Booker T. Washington High School in Pensacola, Florida, on Tuesday for bringing a firearm to school property.

The charge is a third degree felony which carries a maximum jail term of five years if William is tried as an adult, a decision which is due to be made by a judge on Friday.

William took the gun off his friend on February 3 after he threatened to kill himself on campus. He took it home with him for the weekend then brought it back to school on Tuesday, February 7, with an empty chamber to return to the boy.

Another girl who knew of the suicide plot told staff William not had the gun and he was arrested after showing police the weapon in his backpack.

William's ex-marine father Jeff spoke briefly on Thursday to confirm that his son had been released from custody but said he was devastated by the state's decision to move forward with the case.

'No good deed goes unpunished,' he told DailyMail.com, adding that William was a 'good kid' who was trying to make sure no one got hurt when confiscated the gun.

Jeff Caldwell said he was 'heartbroken' the state had decided to prosecute his 16-year-old son William (left together when he was younger and right more recently) with felony weapons possession after he took a gun from a suicidal friend at school to stop him from hurting himself

'William is a good kid of strong moral values. He is well regarded by his peers and adults that know him.

'His intent was to get no one in trouble,' Mr Caldwell, who works at the Navy's Puget Sound Shipyard in Washington, said.

His mother, Michele, said he was 'very scared'. The family is waiting to find out whether he will be tried as an adult or minor.

She said the boy he was trying to protect is safe and that he and his parents are 'very concerned' that William could be punished for stepping in.

The boy was taken to a hospital for a mental health evaluation after the incident and is not facing any charges.

Police arrested the teenager after a female student told staff she knew he had the weapon on Tuesday.

She too knew about the suicidal boy's plan to kill himself and said he'd shown her his weapon in their first period class.

School police hauled William out of class and took him to be questioned where he immediately admitted to having the gun, opening up his backpack to show them the weapon.

In a report obtained by DailyMail.com, officers recalled how he told them that he took the weapon off the suicidal boy during sixth period, near the end of the day.

William was arrested at the Booker T. Washington High School in Pensacola, Florida, on Tuesday where he told police he had the gun with him and showed it to them

William, 16, is considered a minor in Florida but was charged with a felony. He faces a maximum sentence of five years in jail or a $5,000 fine

Although William is a juvenile, he is facing a felony weapons possession charge (pictured above in his arrest report) punishable by up to five years in jail

William had taken the silver and black handgun (similar to one shown above) off of his suicidal friend the previous week. He planned to return it to him with the chamber empty when he was arrested

'Caldwell began to spontaneously state that (the other boy) told him at the beginning of school on February 3, 2017, that he had a gun with him and planned on killing himself before school started.

'Caldwell said that when he saw him during sixth period, he took the gun's magazine and then he took the gun away from him.'

He had taken the gun home with him for the weekend and left it there until Tuesday when he brought it back to campus.

Mr Caldwell (pictured on his wedding day to William's mother Michele with William, front, and their other sons present) said his son was 'a good kid' and had 'strong moral values'

The suicidal boy corroborated the account, telling officers that he had brought it to school and planned to kill himself but didn't want to harm anyone else.

He was take for a mental health evaluation, the outcome of which is not clear.

Pensacola Police Department would not answer any questions on the case on Thursday, telling DailyMail.com it was staying quiet while the investigation continued.

The school also refused to comment, deferring questions instead to the school district's deputy superintendent who was not immediately available.

William's mother mother Michele said his first court appearance 'didn't go well'.

The family are church-going and have at least one other son, Carson. The state's attorney did not respond to requests for information about the case on Thursday morning.

William, who was released from Escambia County Jail and is now at home, is next due to appear in court on Friday.

He has been suspended from school for 10 days as per Florida's zero tolerance policy against guns on campus.

If you or anyone you know is seeking confidential support, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24/7 at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
Dolphins are being strapped into tiny crates so that they can be transported by aeroplane to perform in travelling circuses where they are made to jump through hoops of fire.

Shocking footage of the animals being packaged into boxes was taken in Indonesia by campaign group Jakarta Animal Aid Network (JAAN), which is part of the Asia for Animals (AfA) network.

Scooped out of water and strapped into a wooden container barely the size of their body, the traumatised live dolphins are loaded into the darkness of a plane's hold.

Shocking footage of dolphins being packaged into crates was taken in Indonesia by campaign group Jakarta Animal Aid Network (JAAN)

Animal lovers worldwide have been left outraged after the organisation made the footage public, and are already demanding an end to the cruel practice.

Indonesia is the last country in the world to still host traveling dolphin circuses, with three companies believed to own more 70 dolphins between them.

The creatures are plucked from the wild to endure a miserable life of performance, which will ultimately kill them.

In the wild, dolphins can expect to live up to 50 years, while those in the circus have much shorter lifespans.

JAAN and the Dolphin Project suspect the dolphins are dying when they are as young as five-years-old, with circus owners simply replacing them with new animals when they perish.

The highly intelligent mammals often succumb to a premature end due to the stress of performance, travel and noise from crowds; their captivity and lack of social relationships; and the unsuitable pool water they are kept in.

Local activists say there are facilities available in the country to rehabilitate the dolphins and release them back into the wild.

Despite the obvious cruelty of transporting a dolphin by plane for a traveling circus, neither the airline nor the circus has broken any Indonesian laws.

The traumatised live dolphins are loaded into the pitch darkness of a plane's hold to travel as part of a circus

Animals Asia's Animal Welfare Director Dave Neale said: 'People are quite rightly outraged by the fate of dolphins in aquariums. Even the biggest pools are totally unsuitable for these animals, but what they suffer in traveling circuses is unparalleled.

'The performance pool is far too small but even this must be a welcome relief compared to how they travel. The crates the dolphins are boxed into are barely the size of their body.

'What a bewildering, stressful and horrific experience for an animal which naturally roams hundreds of miles with family and extended social group.

Three circus companies are believed to own more 70 dolphins between them

'Once the nightmare of air travel ends, the dolphin's only reward is to jump through hoops of fire in a tiny pool in exchange for food while surrounded by loud music. To subject dolphins to a life like this is nothing short of extreme cruelty, it is little wonder they die so terribly young.'

In 2013, after pressure from animal rights campaigners, then Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan promised to put an end to the practice.

However, in the years since not a single dolphin has been confiscated, and campaigners are now calling on the airline to stop transporting the animals.

JAAN has called on airline Sriwijaya Air to end what the organisation describes as 'its appalling business agreement with an industry built on suffering.'

The group has launched a petition in an attempt to put pressure on the airline to stop transporting the creatures.

Thousands of people worldwide have put their names to the cause and have shared the petition on Facebook.

Pia Sandgren wrote: 'This is so awful. Can you imagine yourself laying in a box like that and what a torture it must be? Poor poor dolphins I wish I could save them.'

Joanna Smallridge said: 'I just can not understand how anyone can think that this is an acceptable thing to do. What is wrong with some human beings?'

And Clare Hankey added: 'So sad and so cruel. Nothing surprises me any more, don't understand how anyone can find this acceptable. Why can't these animals just be left alone in the wild?'

Mail Online has approached Sriwijaya Air for comment.
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Former Royal Logistics Corps officer Peter Atilla (pictured) had just travelled home after spending six months in Afghanistan

A soldier was today cleared of rape after a jury decided he was sleepwalking at the time.

Gulf war veteran Peter Atilla, 46, claimed he was suffering from sexsomnia, the rare medical condition of having sex while asleep.

The court heard Atilla had no memory of undressing and having intercourse with the sleeping woman.

She accused him of rape the next day and when arrested Atilla told police: 'Maybe I was sleepwalking.'

Atilla had just flown back from Afghanistan after a six-month tour of duty supporting the SAS in dangerous situations.

The court heard he was still in 'action mode' when he went to bed with the woman, agreeing they would only cuddle.

But she was woken by her crying baby in the night and found she was naked with Atilla on top of her 'sweating and with his eyes wide open'.

Renowned sleep expert Dr Chris Idzikowski told the court: 'He has just come back from a high combat situation, he was still in action mode.

'This could have come through in his sleep.

'I've seen other soldiers who behaved in an untoward way in intimate situations on the first night home from Afghanistan.'

Atilla was known to shout out 'Get Down' in his sleep but had never shown of signs of sexsomnia before or after he was accused of rape.

But he had a history of urinating in laundry cupboards and closets in the night without realising it.

The court heard sexsomnia is extremely rare with just 95 cases recorded worldwide.

Atilla's sleep behaviour was monitored over two night at a specialist centre before the trial.

Experts discovered he stopped breathing in his sleep, ground his teeth and talked, all signs that he could be a sexsomniac.

Atilla, 46, (pictured) was cleared by a jury after they heard him claim he was suffering from sexsomnia

Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court heard Atilla knew the woman, a former soldier, before he volunteered for a six-month tour of duty in Helmand Province.

They met up on the day he returned and she let him share her bed on the condition they didn't have sexual intercourse.

Atilla told the court: 'I put my arm around her for a cuddle, that was allowed.

'After that I rolled over and went to sleep.

'I went down in the morning and she accused me of rape. I had no memory of it.'

The court heard the cuddle may have been enough to spark the act of sexsomnia so soon after returning from being in a warzone.

The woman went to police three years later after her night with Atila brought back memories of being sexually assaulted as a child.

She broke down in tears when the jury returned a not guilty verdict after 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court (pictured) heard Atilla knew the woman before he volunteered for a six-month tour of duty in Helmand Province

Judge Richard Twomlow said the evidence was some of the 'most unusual' ever heard in a courtroom.

Atilla, of Northampton, had a 'distinguished career' during 26 years in the Royal Logistics Corps where he was a Warrant Officer.

But he stayed on as a reservist and volunteered to go to Afghanistan in late 2012 supporting the SAS. He also worked with the United Nations Peacekeeping Force.

In a testimonial to the court his commanding officer Lt Col Michael Crawley said: 'He was engaged in an exceptionally challenging task with Special Forces in Afghanistan.

'He has terrier like determination and was our go-to person who can achieve anything he sets his mind to.

'He is utterly reliable - I trust him implicitly.'
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Thursday that White House press secretary Sean Spicer has the 'full confidence' of President Donald Trump even as she admitted the White House was seeking 'additional help' in the communications area.

She talked up Spicer  who holds the title of both press secretary and communications director  in an interview on Fox News after the administration has stumbled in its initial weeks both on policy rollouts and communications.

'The truth is Sean Spicer is our Press Secretary and will continue to be,' Conway said on 'Fox and Friends.'

'He has the President's ear and his full confidence,' she continued. 'Im in there every day meeting with them on any range of issues before Seans press briefing and we have a communications director in Sean Spicer also. I mean this man has been doing two jobs,' she explained.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway pushed back on reports that President Trump is displeased with White House press secretary Sean Spicer, saying Spicer has the president's 'full confidence'

'He has the President's ear and his full confidence,' Conway said of White House press secretary Sean Spicer, who began his tenure by tearing into reporters

'I think he is doing an excellent job, frankly, as both,' she said, providing her own endorsement of Spicer's performance. 'But if we can get additional help for communications, I think that would alleviate some of the idea that this man is doing two jobs.'

'But hes got the full faith and confidence of the President,' she said.

Then she blasted reports to the contrary as 'completely false.'

'I have talked to the President, Ive talked to Sean Spicer and theyre just false,' she said.

CNN reported on Tuesday that President Trump 'is disappointed in Spicer's performance during the first two weeks of the administration,' citing a source familiar with internal communications.'

Politico reported that White House chief of staff Reince Priebus is having difficulty filling the communications director post, and that two people had turned it down.

The article noted the travails during the campaign of officials charged with coordinating the message delivery by campaign surrogates for Trump  in party due to Trump's heavy hand in steering his own messaging.

That is completely false, also' Conway said, pushing back on such reports.

'I know people who are interested in the job, actually, as I stand here. Theyve reached out to us and I think that we'll be either interviewing or deciding what to do in that regard.'

'But, look, I think communications is important to any President of the United States  thats as an obvious point. But to this President, it's exceptionally important, because is he a TV expert himself. He had the number one show on NBC when the apprentice came out. He is - I have been in the room with him many times when he is about to do a TV hit or record something at length and he knows right away the camera angles and the visuals. I mean thats who he is,' she said.

Spicer began his tenure by lacing into reports on his first full day in the job over reports about crowd sizes at the inauguration.

He has made some stumbles since, including citing a nonexistent terror attack in Atlanta three times in the past two weeks, ultimately claiming on Thursday that he 'clearly meant Orlando.'

The president is reportedly furious that Saturday Night Live had a woman play the press secretary and feels that it makes him look feeble.

Trump was uncharacteristically silent about this past weekend's show, having repeatedly attacked the program in the past on Twitter for Alec Baldwin's impression of him.

According to insiders, this is a sign of how uncomfortable Trump is with the merciless lampooning of Spicer by McCarthy who played him as unhinged and easily rattled.

Politico reported White House insiders have said they worry now for Spicer's 'longevity' in the image conscious world of the Trump White House.
A property lawyer who fired off letters to relatives of her husband's mistress describing the woman's 'bizarre sexual practices' has been allowed to stay in the profession.

Katherine Simpson, 49, sent details of her husband Jonathan's antics with the woman to the victim's brother, sister-in-law and her former partner.

Mrs Simpson, of Winchester, Hampshire, described her as a 'chavvy woman from Southampton' with 'fake boobs' before sending the letters.

The solicitor, a former partner at Pemberton Greenish since 1993, was convicted of stalking alongside her barrister husband after a trial at Southwark Crown Court last June.

Katherine Simpson (pictured with her husband Jonathan) sent details of his antics with the woman to the victim's brother

She was handed a curfew and a restraining order after being described as more of a 'victim' due to the affair.

Mr Simpson was given six months in jail suspended for a year, along with a year-long restraining order and a mental health treatment requirement.

Mrs Simpson was fined 1,000 at a misconduct hearing before the Solicitors' Disciplinary Tribunal in central London.

She appeared in all black and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue as the case was formally opened.

Andrew Bullock, for the Solicitors Regulation Authority, said: 'The allegations relate to a course of conduct extending between January 1 2015 and March 10 2015.

'She was sentenced for the offence on June 20 2016 and made subject to a restraining order and also made subject to a curfew.

'What had happened, in essence, was that Mrs Simpson's husband had an affair which has ended and he has persisted in contacting the other woman, resulting in a restraining order being made against him.

'What Mrs Simpson is doing is contacting third parties associated with the other woman in the hope of desisting the other woman from making a complaint that her husband has breached the restraining order.'

Mr Bullock told the tribunal that 'the trial and her behaviour has attracted extensive publicity and that publicity has referred to her status as a solicitor.'

He also read from one of the letters Mrs Simpson sent to an associate of the woman, which read: 'She must have known that, as a lawyer, I would take this matter in my own hands.

'I am not impetuous like my husband. I strike at the right moment.'

Mr Bullock said: 'You may think that the fact that Mrs Simpson was deploying her status as a lawyer in one of the letters which ultimately led to her conviction is a matter relevant to your deliberations.'

Mrs Simpson (pictured) was convicted of stalking alongside her barrister husband after a trial at Southwark Crown Court last year

He added that her conviction was for 'disreputable conduct in the most literal sense of the word and conduct that, moreover, which was apt to make her look ridiculous in the eyes of the world at large.'

Mr Bullock added that she was 'well known in the field of lease-holding and enfranchisement.'

Mark Milliken-Smith QC, representing Mrs Simpson, said her conduct was 'wholly unrelated to the performance of her professional duties, which have remained at all times to be of the highest standard'.

He said Simpson's early admissions 'demonstrated her genuine remorse and contrition for all that has led her to this hearing'.

Mr Milliken-Smith said: 'Her shame in doing so [appearing before the tribunal] is palpable.'

He added: 'The primary motivation for the misconduct is plainly in order to protect the respondent's family from the very real threat that she perceived.

'Had it not been for the actions of her actions of her husband in the 18 months beforehand, this offence would not have happened.'

Mr Milliken-Smith told the panel that, on conviction, Simpson had served a three-month 'de facto suspension' from Pemberton Greenish, where she has worked for 24 years.

She had been asked to resign as a partner on the agreement that she could return to the firm as a consultant on a fixed contract, where she still works.

He said she had 'already served a very significant punishment in respect of her professional career'.

Mr Milliken-Smith added: 'To impose any further period of suspension would be, in our opinion, wholly disproportionate.'

He also told the panel that Mr Simpson had 'returned to the familial home last night.'

The panel heard Simpson had monthly earnings of 9,500 and that Mr Milliken-Smith and his instructing solicitors were working on a pro bono basis.

Panel chair Paul Housego said: 'This is a wholly exceptional case.

'While the offence itself was a serious offence, there were extreme circumstances, none of which were the making of the respondent.

'This was clearly out of character. It was a reactive and misguided attempt to protect her family.

'There was inevitably some damage to the profession, which must be marked by the tribunal.'

But he concluded that it would be 'disproportionate to interfere with the right of the respondent practice' and imposed a 1,000 fine.

She sobbed and hugged her solicitor after the verdict was handed down, while a friend in the public gallery said: 'It's all over now.'

Simpson was also ordered to pay costs of 5,039.84.

Mrs Simpson, of Winchester, Hampshire, (pictured with her husband) admitted a single charge of professional misconduct

Mr Simpson was sending his mistress flowers after being told by police not to contact her while his wife was ringing her to shout 'c***' down the phone repeatedly.

After the affair ended abruptly, he attempted to contact the woman and was given a harassment notice and restraining order after trying to call from a pay phone.

Mrs Simpson then sent graphic letters to the woman's family as part of a 'fact-finding mission' in order to 'see an end to the restraining order'.

The letters claimed the woman tried to get pregnant after sex with Mr Simpson and said her 'orifices were penetrated without protection.'

Mrs Simpson explicitly wrote that she wanted the woman to drop the restraining order and that she 'stay out of Winchester'.

The letter added: 'If she agrees or chooses to meet these requests she will find all her problems over.'

In a rant covertly recorded by police, Mrs Simpson described her as a 'chavvy woman from Southampton' with 'fake boobs' and labelled her boyfriend a 'thug' who should be kept in a cage.

In the footage, Mrs Simpson could be heard saying: 'This woman is a chavvy woman from Southampton with fake boobs - we shouldn't be mixing with people like that.

'Lying to the police is something we do not do, certainly not in our echelon of society.'

Passing sentence, Judge Alistair McCreath said: 'You did it, I accept, because you were worried that he would be the subject of complaints in respect of the restraining order and you sought to protect him and to support him.

'But what you did was utterly misguided.'

Mrs Simpson described herself as 'more victim than offender' and claimed she had endured an '18-month period of living hell'.

Mrs Simpson admitted a single charge of professional misconduct.
The bruised body of Scarlett Keeling was found on a beach in Goa in 2008

Two men who were cleared of the rape and murder of a 15-year-old British girl in India will return to court after the country's Central Bureau of Investigation announced it would appeal the decision.

Samson dSouza and Placido Carvalho were acquitted of charges of rape and culpable homocide of Scarlett Keeling in September last year.

It was alleged they had drugged her, raped her and left her unconsious on a beach in Goa.

The Guardian reports that the CBI has now decided to appeal the ruling, saying the judge did not apply 'her judicial mind both on points of law and on facts of the case'.

Fiona MacKeown, Scarlett's mother, told the paper: 'Im exhausted by it all. I want it to be over. I want the courts to do the right thing and investigate this properly.

'I want to know who murdered Scarlett and why, but I dont believe that will ever really happen.'

She also admitted being on the verge of bankruptcy from flying back and forth to India.

Vikram Varma, Ms MacKeown's advocate, said a conviction was likely.

Scarlett's mother, Fiona MacKeown, right, admitted she is nearly bankrupt as she flies back and forth to India in the continuing case of her daughter's death, left

He said: 'I do think theres a good chance of us getting a conviction of culpable homicide not amounting to murder against both men, but we cannot hope to get a conviction of murder because the case was so badly handled by the local police at the start.'

The bruised body of 15-year-old Scarlett was found on the popular Anjuna beach in the north of the small Indian tourist state of Goa.

Samson D'Souza, 36, and Placido Carvalho, 47, were both cleared of plying her with drugs, raping her and leaving her unconscious on the beach where she subsequently drowned in September last year.

As the investigation into the death got underway, a key witness, Briton Michael Mannion, known as 'Masala Mike' initially spoke of seeing D'Souza lying on top of Ms Keeling on the beach shortly before she died.

Placido Carvalho one of two Indian defendents in the case of the rape and death of Scarlett. He was cleared but will return to court in two to three months

Samson D'Souza was also charged and cleared of the rape and murder, but the Indian investigation bureau will appeal the acquittal

In a press conference in Goa, Ms Keeling's mother Fiona MacKeown said Mr Mannion had 'pulled out' of testifying 'at the last minute' and that she now held the London carpenter 'partially responsible for this lack of a guilty verdict'.

Ms MacKeown and her family were on a six-month holiday to India when she, Ms Keeling and her other daughters went on an excursion to the southern state of Karnataka, but Ms Keeling later returned alone to attend a party.

Her body was found on the morning of February 18, 2008.

Police alleged that D'Souza and Carvalho plied Ms Keeling with a cocktail of drink and illegal drugs, including cocaine, before sexually assaulting her and leaving her to die by dumping her unconscious in shallow water where she drowned.

They denied all of the charges, claiming that the teenager died an accidental death after taking drugs of her own volition.

The appeal could last up to 18 months and could begin in just two to three months.
Jeff Sessions was sworn in as America's top law enforcement officer on Thursday, promising to back up President Donald Trump's actions on immigration and crime with renewed energy from the Department of Justice.

Sessions, a former U.S. senator from Alabama, cited 'the threat of terrorism' and said rising crime rates are ' a dangerous permanent trend that places the health and safety of the American people at risk.' He also defended Trump's contention that unchecked immigration is a threat that requires action.

'You've said something that I believe and I think the American people believe,' Sessions said to the president, 'that we need a lawful system of immigration, one that serves the interests of the people of the United States.'

'That's not wrong, that's not immoral, that's not indecent,' he said.

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President Donald Trump watched Thursday as Vice President Mike Pence administered the oath of office to Attorney General Jeff Sessions

Sessions, who resigned his U.S. Senate seat to take the top Justice Department job, defended Trump's views on immigration, crime and terrorism

Sessions resigned his Senate seat shortly after his colleagues approved him on a 52-47 vote that broke largely along partisan lines.

He was the first member of the Senate to endorse Trump when he ran for president.

Sessions also contributed to the Trump campaign's policy shop, sending top aide Stephen Miller to work for the billionaire political upstart.

Miller, 31, is now in charge of the White House's domestic policy development.

The Sessions confirmation, followed by Thursday's swearing-in by Vice President Mike Pence, was marred by an all-night debate staged by Democrats as a stalling tactic, putting off a final vote for 30 hours.

Ultimately one Democrat, Joe Manchin from the deep-red state of West Virginia, joined the Republicans in voting for him. Sessions himself abstained from casting a ballot on his own nomination, recording his vote as 'present.'

Sessions, widely seen as an inspiration for Trump's anti-immigration policies, is just the sixth of 15 cabinet members to be confirmed, in addition to the cabinet-rank positions of CIA director and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Sessions takes charge of the Justice Department and its 113,000 employees, including the 93 U.S. attorneys throughout the country.

He steps in amid a swirling legal debate over Trump's most controversial White House action to date, an executive order temporarily blocking all refugee arrivals and immigration from seven mainly Muslim countries.

Sessions was the sixth of 15 cabinet members to be confirmed, in addition to the cabinet-rank positions of CIA director and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations

The genteel Sessions, who like the president is 70 years old, was a U.S. attorney for the southern district of Alabama from 1981 to 1993, before serving two years as the state's attorney general. He won a Senate seat in 1996.

But his career was almost derailed in 1986 when a Senate panel rejected his nomination for a federal judgeship amid concerns over past comments he made about blacks, and over remarks that Democrats called sympathetic to the Ku Klux Klan.

The late Pennsylvania Democratic Senator Arlen Specter said before he died that his vote against Sessions that year was one he regretted.

Trump used Thursday's photo-op with Sessions to sign three executive orders aimed at combating drug cartels and violent crime, including attacks on police officers.
It looks like he prefers being the big spoon!

A heartwarming photograph has gone viral after a newly adopted pit bull named Russ cuddled with Kayla Filoon as she did her homework on the couch.

Filoon, who attends Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, fell in love with the dog even though he was underweight and had a bloody tail, a kennel cough, an eye infection and patchy fur.

Kayla Filoon shared the adorable photo of her dog, Russ, cuddling her. She told the Dodo: 'He didn't want to lie anywhere else.'

Filoon, who fell head over heels with the dog, Russ, described it like a fated love story and swiftly adopted him the day after she first saw him sitting calmly in his kennel

Russ was underweight and had a bloody tail, a kennel cough, an eye infection and patchy fur. But the stray pit bull was affectionate and Kiloon said it was love at first sight

Filoon was walking dogs at a local animal shelter when she met Russ, a stray who was sitting quietly in his kennel.

When she returned, it seemed like he had barely moved, and Filoon was struck by his calm nature while other dogs at the shelter were riled up.

Once she brought him out to play, however, Rsss 'would not stop cuddling with me', Filoon told Today.

The next day, she returned to the shelter to spend more time with the pit bull, and he sat in the car as she drove to Chil-fil-A to buy him some treats.

Filoon, who fell head over heels with the dog, described it like a fated love story.

As the song Sky Full of Stars played on the car radio, she was touched by the lyrics 'I'm gonna give you my heart' and said: 'I actually cried. I knew it was meant to be.'

Filoon acted swiftly and brought Russ home, fearing he might be euthanized given the overcrowding at the shelter and his poor health.

Filoon was struck by Russ' calm demeanor in contrast to the other dogs at the shelter, which she said were riled up

Filoon feared Russ might be euthanized given the overcrowding at the shelter and his poor health

Russ's love for his owner has since won over thousands of fans online

Filoon giving Russ a medicated bath to help with his itchy skin and patchy fur

His affectionate nature has won over thousands of fans online.

One photo, taken by her friend, has already been shared more than 50,000 times on Facebook, and fellow dog-lovers commented on the remarkably cute picture.

Filoon told the Dodo: 'There was a whole other sofa open, and we had his bed on the floor, but he didn't want to lie anywhere else.

'So he ends up positioning himself, and I look down, and I think, "Oh my gosh, look at him."'

Russ may have only been with Filoon for two weeks now, but she said: 'The bond that we have is incredible. He does not leave my side.'

Russ has since gotten over his cough and Filoon makes sure to give him medicated baths to help with his itchy skin.
Amazing footage captures pilot's eye view of Russian jets in action, days after President Putin put the country's air force on high alert.

Just like a dramatic scene in an action film, the slick video shows the impressive Su-25s merging together in a tight formation as they fly in low over a snowy landscape.

A close-up of a pilot is seen before the man fires missiles down to a target below. The war game saw the units shoot down 30 aircraft.

Amazing footage captures pilot's eye view of Russian jets in action, days after President Putin put the country's air force on high alert

Just like a dramatic scene in an action film, the slick video shows the impressive Su-25s merging together in a tight formation as they fly in low over a snowy landscape

The newly released footage follows the announcement on Tuesday that Russia is readying itself for war - the latest in a series of drills amid tensions with the West.

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that the drills will check the air force's readiness and its ability to repel an enemy aggression.

Shoigu told military officials that special emphasis will be given to practicing the deployment of air defense systems.

The manoeuvres are the latest in a steady series of war games intended to strengthen the troops' readiness.

Russian news agency Tass revealed today that air defence units in Moscow and Russia's Central Industrial District have been put on high alert.

A Russian MOD statement said: 'As the combat crews of radar stations and antiaircraft missile systems detect unidentified aerial targets, air defence patrol fighter jets will be scrambled to classify them or notionally destroy them.'

A close-up of a pilot is seen before the man fires missiles

They missiles whizz through the air trailing a cloud of smoke as they head down to a target below

The war game saw the units shoot down 30 aircraft

However, Britain too has been forced to be watchful. An unspecified number of Typhoon aircraft were called to monitor two Russian Blackjack bombers which flew near British airspace earlier today.

The incident is the latest example of Russian jets flying near to Britain, often as a way of testing the response time of their British counterparts.

'We can confirm that quick reaction alert Typhoon aircraft from RAF Lossiemouth and RAF Coningsby scrambled to monitor two Blackjack bombers while they were in the UK area of interest,' a Royal Air Force spokesman said in a statement.

The newly released footage follows the announcement on Tuesday that Russia is readying itself for war - the latest in a series of drills amid tensions with the West

Separately, the French air force said two of its Mirage military aircraft escorted the two bombers down the French coast before handing over to Spanish military planes.

A French official said the incident was the fourth time Russian fighters had been intercepted on the French coast over the past two years, a period of tension between Russia and western European countries related to the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine.
Jodi Ecklund, 33, of Merrimack, NH, had a Glock .9-mm and a M4 assault rifle locked in her apartment with her after the argument with her boyfriend Jason Martin

A New Hampshire woman barricaded herself in her apartment after assaulting her boyfriend for telling her that her spaghetti dinner was 'OK'.

Jodi Ecklund, 33, of Merrimack, New Hampshire, had a Glock .9-mm and a M4 assault rifle when she locked herself in her home after the argument with her boyfriend Jason Martin.

He called police around 2:35pm on Saturday, February 4, when he said Ecklund went 'bipolar' on him, reported NH1.

Martin told police that before fleeing Ecklund punched him in the face and arm. She locked the door after he left.

Officers from the Merrimack Police Department arrived shortly after to Ecklund locked in her home, warning officers she would kill them and hurt herself if they entered after her.

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Officers from the Merrimack Police Department arrived shortly after to Ecklund locked in her home, warning officers she would kill them and hurt herself if they entered after her. When they first approached the apartment, they could hear her screaming and telling them to get the f*** out of there, according to court documents

When they first approached the apartment, they could hear her screaming and telling them to get the f*** out of there, according to court documents.

Ecklund began destroying items inside the apartment as the standoff continued through Saturday afternoon, reported New York Daily News.

She hurled some of Martin's possessions out of a window into the parking lot below.

After several hours, authorities were able to enter and arrest the woman.

She has been charged with six felonies, including criminal mischief, criminal threatening and reckless conduct, and three misdemeanor counts of domestic violence.

Police also brought her to the hospital for evaluation. She pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor offenses, but in the time before her release or trial police have agreed that Eckland must complete a mental health treatment program.

She has been placed on a $25,000 cash bail, which could be converted to credit if accepted into a 28-day program (or one similar to) Hampstead Hospital for inpatient health and substance abuse treatment, reported NH1.

The bail would be given back as cash once she was either discharged or completed the program.
A woman who has spent 40 years searching for her dad has finally found him - homeless and living in a dump.

Their emotional reunion was captured on live television with the pair meeting face to face after four decades apart.

Kira Khorolskaya, from the village of Chkalovo in north-western Russia, lost her father, Vladimir Bolotin, when she was just five years old.

A woman who has spent 40 years searching for her dad has finally found him - homeless and living in a dump. The emotional reunion was captured on live television with the pair meeting face to face after four decades apart

Kira Khorolskaya, from the village of Chkalovo in north-western Russia, lost her father, Vladimir Bolotin when she was just five years old.

The only link she had to him was a black and white photograph taken in 1943, during World War II.

Her husband, Pavel Khorolsky, had heard a report about a homeless man living in terrible conditions at the rubbish dump on the other side of Russia in the city of Sevastopol.

After a picture of of Bolotin was circulated, Khorolsky recognised him and pushed his wife to make contact to see if he was her father.

Khorolskaya was reunited with Bolotin on live TV after a DNA test proved he was her father.

The only link she had to him was a black and white photograph taken in 1943, during World War II

Her husband, Pavel Khorolsky, had heard a report about a homeless man living in terrible conditions at the rubbish dump on the other side of Russia in the city of Sevastopol. After a picture of of Bolotin was circulated, Khorolsky recognised him and pushed his wife to make contact to see if he was her father

Khorolskaya was reunited with Bolotin on live TV after a DNA test proved he was her father

The emotional reunion shows the man, cleaned up in a blue shirt with a white beard, coming onto the stage using a walking stick. The pair embrace and he reveals he had been tricked out of losing his home by realtors

The emotional reunion shows the man, cleaned up in a blue shirt with a white beard, coming onto the stage using a walking stick.

The pair embrace and he reveals he had been tricked out of losing his home by realtors.

Khorolskaya vows that her father would not live on the streets again and she later moved him into her home.

The loving grandfather now helps Khorolskaya to raise her daughter, Liza.

She said the pair love playing chess together and are making up for lost time.
The first British woman to fight ISIS in Syria has told of how she put up an 'incredible fight' when the terror group attacked her base this morning.

Kimberley Taylor, who left Merseyside to join Kurdish forces battling ISIS 18 months ago, says she was woken by the onslaught somewhere near the militants' de-facto capital, Raqqa.

'Wake up call this morning at 4am when ISIS attacked our base,' the 27-year-old wrote in a remarkable Facebook post.

On the front line: Maths graduate Kimmy Taylor, the first British woman to travel to Syria to fight ISIS, has revealed her base was attacked by ISIS militants this morning

Under attack: Miss Taylor (far right), who left Merseyside for the Middle East 18 months ago, says she was woken by the onslaught somewhere near the terror group's de-facto capital, Raqqa

Onslaught: 'Wake up call this morning at 4am when ISIS attacked our base.' 27-year-old Miss Taylor, pictured, wrote on Facebook

She went on: 'We put up an incredible fight for three hours. Just two friends slightly injured.

'I'm so proud to call these people my comrades. We fight with unconditional resistance. I won't go into details about the attack because it super gory.'

The maths graduate who enrolled in the Women's Protection Unit, an all-female Kurdish military unit, said four of her friends were killed in another attack on a nearby base.

Miss Taylor added: 'You gave your lives for peace, democracy, and humanity. Your memory will live on in the revolution.'

The former University of Liverpool student, who turned down a place at Sandhurst, has spent the past 11 months training with the women - learning Kurdish, weaponry and battlefield tactics.

She went to the frontline of battle in October as part of the push towards ISIS stronghold Raqqa.

Died fighting: Maths graduate Miss Taylor, who has enrolled in the Women's Protection Unit, an all-female Kurdish military unit, said four of her friends were killed in another attack on a nearby base

Sacrifice: 'You gave your lives for peace, democracy, and humanity. Your memory will live on in the revolution,' she wrote as her unit prepares to advance on ISIS in Raqqa

Rest day: Miss Taylor, pictured eating ice cream on the Syrian border, has spent the past 11 months training with the women - learning Kurdish, weaponry and battlefield tactics

Miss Taylor, who goes by Kimmie and also the nom de guerre Zilan Dilmar, told Matt Blake for The Guardian: 'I'm willing to give my life for this.

'It's for the whole world, for humanity and all oppressed people, everywhere.

I'm willing to give my life for this. It's for the whole world, for humanity and all oppressed people, everywhere Kimberley Taylor

'It's not just [ISIS's] killing and raping. It's its systematic mental and physical torture on a scale we can't imagine.'

Miss Taylor, a left-wing activist who spent her 20s travelling in Africa, South America and Europe, was motivated to fight against ISIS after her Syrian friend's village was ransacked by their troops.

And when ISIS kidnapped and enslaved 5,000 Yazidi women in Sinjai massacre of August 2014, she felt she had to help.

She said: 'I was torn apart at the conditions refugees from Syria and southern Iraq were living under. In that moment, I made a promise to myself that I would commit my life to helping these people.'

Miss Taylor now works with Women's Protection Units (YPJ) of female Kurdish fighters in Syria

Miss Taylor announced to her Facebook friends that she was heading to the front line last month

Miss Taylor, whose Facebook page says she lives in Al Hasakah, Syria, quit her second degree in political science at Stockholm University to work for a Swedish socialist newspaper in northern Syria.

She became captivated by the Kurdish female fighters' ideology of Democratic Confederalism, a mixture of anti-capitalism and feminism.

Miss Taylor now works for the media team of the Kurdish People's Protection Units, taking videos and photos of the battles, but she also fights when her unit comes under attack.

Her father Phil, a 57-year-old former teacher, said he was worried for his daughter's safety but proud of her for standing up for her beliefs.

Miss Taylor, a self-styled revolutionary who joins between 50 and 80 other Brits fighting alongside Kurds, is determined to help bring about the final defeat of ISIS.

She said: 'Raqqa is ISIS's capital city in Syria and they won't give it up without a fight.'

The University of Liverpool graduate has spent the past 11 months training with the women fighters, learning Kurdish, weaponry and battlefield tactics

The self-styled revolutionary, who joins 20 other Brits fighting alongside the Kurds, is determined to help bring about the final defeat of ISIS

Miss Taylor now works for the media team of the Kurdish People's Protection Units, taking videos and photos of the battles

Raqqa is the terror group's stronghold but ISIS still holds significant territory in Syria.

It seized Palmyra and its ancient ruins on December 11 and has maintained its grip on ever since.

It has gone so far as to threaten the government's position at the strategic T4 air base in central Syria, but the military has so far stood up to the test.

The group has seized and destroyed several natural gas fields and facilities, with consequences for the national economy for years to come.

The extremists also stepped up their campaign for Deir el-Zour, which has been under siege since 2015, and, for a nervous two weeks in January, forced the U.N. food agency to abandon its air drops out of safety fears.

The U.N. estimates more than 90,000 civilians are trapped inside and government troops and loyal militias are fighting back.

Miss Taylor, pictured in Rojava, northern Syria, now works for the media team of the Kurdish People's Protection Units, taking videos and photos of the battles

With the U.N. planning to convene peace talks in Geneva on February 20, hopes for success hinge on the intentions of the three powers closest to the conflict - Turkey, Russia, and Iran - who together pledged to guarantee the tenuous cease-fire.

And nowhere will their intentions crystallize more clearly than in al-Bab, where each side has a stake - Turkey fighting alongside the Syrian rebels, and Russia and Iran backing the Syrian government and allied Shiite militias.

The outcome in al-Bab - whether it is ultimately taken by the government or the rebels, and whether the front between the two sides stabilizes or dissolves into all- out warfare - will set the direction of future talks and any settlement.
Two men have been jailed and ordered to work in an animal shelter when they get out for torturing a cat that was later found dead and having their abuse recorded.

Larry Rostchild, 43, and Laderrick Rostchild, 24, were both sentenced after appearing in a Moss Point, Mississippi, court on Tuesday.

The 43-year-old pleaded guilty to simple abuse, and was ordered to 30 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.

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Larry Rostchild (right), 43, and Laderrick Rostchild (left), 24, were both sentenced after appearing in a Moss Point, Mississippi, court on Tuesday for animal cruetly

His 24-year-old nephew was found guilty of aggravated animal abuse, and was sentenced to six months in jail and a $2,500 fine. It is the harshest possible penalty that can be handed down for the charges.

Municipal Judge Keith Miller also ordered both men to complete 200 hours of community service at the Jackson County Animal Shelter, according to WLOX.

They have just 72 hours from when they are released to report to the shelter to start their work.

A third person, 23-year-old Karmen Coleman, has pleaded not guilty to rendering criminal assistance.

Laderrick Rostchild (left) was given the harshest possible penalty after his court appearance. His uncle (right) was also sentenced to jail

In the video of the abuse, boiling water can be seen being poured on the cat (left), as the animal desperately attempted to escape the cage it was locked in (right)

Coleman posted a shocking video of the abuse on Facebook in December last year, which showed the cat being trapped in a cage and having boiling water poured on it.

The cat could be heard crying in agony as it was scolded. The poor animal was then found dead, buried under a house in December - the day after the abuse took place.

Tests carried out on the cat found it suffered thermal burns over the majority of its body, according to the Sun Herald.

Animal experts said the cat appeared as though it was someone's pet.
A doorman clearing snow on the Upper East Side in Manhattan Thursday morning was killed in a freak accident when he slipped and crashed through a glass door, slicing open his throat.

Police say Miguel Angel Gonzalez, 59, had just finished shoveling snow outside his building at 333 East 93rd Street at 9.30am when he hit an icy patch while going down the stairs to the lobby.

Gonzales, a resident of Bridgeport, Connecticut, fell head-first into the glass entrance door, shattering it and slashing his jugular vein in the process.

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Miguel Angel Gonzalez (pictured with his wife Elena) was killed when he slipped and crashed through a glass door

Freak accident: Manhattan doorman Miguel Gonzalez, 59, was killed when he fell head-first into the glass entrance door at 333 Est 93rd Street, shattering it and slashing his jugular vein

Gonzalez was shoveling snow outside the residential building on the Upper East Side when he slipped and fell down the stairs

The president of the victim's labor union said Gonzalez, who was married with children, had worked many year at the building, which is owned by Mt Sinai Hospital and is used to house nurses and doctors

The mortally wounded doorman was rushed to Metropolitan Hospital, where he was pronounced dead from deep cuts to his neck and head an hour later.

According to law enforcement sources speaking to DNAInfo New York, the shards of glass sliced the man's neck open from his ear to his throat, resulting in heavy bleeding.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio referred to the deadly accident as a 'very sad situation' during a press conference addressing the city agencies response to Thursdays snowstorm.

The mayor added that this incident should serve a reminder to people to be very careful while shoveling snow.

Gonzalezs is the first reported New York City death related to the Noreaster, which was expected to dump a foot of snow by late afternoon.

Gonzalezs is the first reported New York City related related to the Noreaster, which was expected to dump a foot of snow by late afternoon. A resident is pictured shoveling snow

A resident crosses the street during a snow storm in Brooklyn, New York, on Thursday

Hector Figueroa, president of Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, where Miguel Gonzalez was a member, issued a statement to WABC saying the 59-year-old doorman had worked on the Upper East Side for many years.

Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife and children and all those who knew and cared about him, including his coworkers and the residents of the building, Figueroa stated in part. Our union family will do all we can to support Miguel's family in this difficult time.

The residential building on East 93rd Street is owned by Mt Sinai Hospital and is used to house nurses and doctors.

One tenant tearfully recalled to NBC New York that Gonzalez always had a smile on his face and was known to local residents as 'Uncle Mickey.'

Friends of the deceased family man told CBS New York he had only recently sold his house in Connecticut and was planning to retire in Puerto Rico next year with his wife, Elena.
Pennsylvania State University has indefinitely halted fraternity and sorority parties where alcohol is available because of the recent death of Timothy Piazza, 19 (pictured)

Penn State has indefinitely halted fraternity and sorority events where alcohol is available after a 19-year-old engineering student plunged to his death.

Timothy Piazza was found dead at the bottom of the stairs to the basement at Beta Theta Pi on Friday morning.

University officials said the suspension was also a response to growing allegations of hazing, sexual assault and other misconduct.

Damon Sims, its vice president for student affairs, and the Penn State Interfraternity Council acted jointly to stop all alcohol-related social activities 'until further notice.'

The decision followed the death Saturday of Timothy Piazza, 19, of Lebanon, New Jersey.

Investigators said members of Beta Theta Pi fraternity told them Piazza, a sophomore, was intoxicated when Piazza fell down a stairwell during a party late Thursday night. According to his obituary, Piazza was studying engineering.

Police said members of the fraternity didn't call for help until about 12 hours later.

The fraternity was suspended immediately after the death.

Investigators said members of Beta Theta Pi fraternity (Penn State chapter pictured) told them Piazza, a sophomore, was intoxicated when Piazza fell down a stairwell during a party late Thursday night. Police said members of the fraternity didn't call for help until about 12 hours later. The fraternity has been suspended

Penn State said Sims told fraternity leaders the moratorium will remain until they agree to change their policies and practices.

The university announced Wednesday that Damon Sims (pictured), its vice president for student affairs, and the Penn State Interfraternity Council acted jointly to stop all alcohol-related social activities 'until further notice'

The alcohol moratorium at the privately owned chapter houses on the main campus in State College will be enforced by spot checks of public areas by university officials and the Interfraternity Council.

The school held a candle light vigil on Sunday night on the Old Main part of the university's campus.

The event's Facebook page says: 'His time here was brief but impactful. We wish to honor him as a beloved son, brother, friend, and Penn Stater.'

Questions still linger following Piazza's death.

The coroner ruled his death accidental after his body was found on Friday morning at the fraternity house, but investigators are now looking for video evidence from inside the house to substantiate fraternity brothers' claims, reported CBS News.

Piazza joined the fraternity recently, and members allege he was intoxicated and fell down the stairs at 11pm on Thursday night.

University administrators are looking into whether the group violated codes of conduct, according to CBS.

Piazza is pictured (right) with one of his fraternity brothers at Dance Marathon. The school said Sims told fraternity leaders the moratorium will remain until they agree to change their policies and practices
This is the incredible moment that the record holding 'Limbo Queen' shimmied under an SUV holding two trays of drinks without spilling a single drop.

Shemika Charles, 23, is so agile that she can go under cars, airport seats and can even limbo just eight and a half inches from the floor - which is about the height of a beer bottle.

In her latest stunt, Charles not only proved she could limbo - but she also had some excellent balancing skills too.

This is the incredible moment that the record holding 'Limbo Queen' shimmied under an SUV holding two trays of drinks without spilling a single drop

Shemika Charles, 23, not only proved she could limbo - but she also had some excellent balancing skills too in her latest stunt (pictured)

A video shows the self proclaimed Limbo Queen - wearing a skin tight red, Lycra suit - shimmying under a silver Toyota SUV with two silver trays with three cups balanced precariously on each.

But Charles made it look easy as she casually leaned back, in one appeared to be a car showroom, and shuffled underneath, emerging from the other side in a matter of seconds.

The 23-year-old, who hails from Trinidad and Tobago but now lives in Buffalo, New York, also made headlines last month when she wowed travelers at Philadelphia airport by limbo dancing underneath an airport bank of chairs.

A video shows the self proclaimed Limbo Queen - wearing a skin tight red, Lycra suit - shimmying under a silver Toyota SUV with two silver trays of drinks

Charles made it look easy as she casually leaned back, in one appeared to be a car showroom, and shuffled underneath

She emerged from the other side without spilling a drop of the drink

Video of her feat quickly went viral after it was posted on Twitter.

Shemika, who calls herself the 'Limbo Queen', started practicing her skill when she was 14. She took after her mom Sherrie, who was a limbo dancer for 16 years - though Sherrie could only ever get down to three feet.

'I saw that I had a really unique talent for it,' Shemika said. She continued to improve as she got older, which has involved practicing for 'around six hours a day' for the past four years.

In 2010, she set the Guinness World Record during an appearance on Live! With Regis and Kelly, where she limboed eight and a half inches from the floor - which is about the height of a beer bottle.

In 2015, she set her second world record, bending herself to walk under a car. Though the bottom of the car was measured at about nine inches above the ground, unlike a limbo bar, its surface is not even and the height is not consistent.

Like mother, like daughter: Shemika takes after her mother (in yellow), who was a limbo dancer for 16 years

Shemika Charles became an online hit last month after a video surfaced of her slipping under a bank of chairs at Philadelphia airport

The 23 year old, who is also a two-time Guinness World Record holder for limbo dancing, made fellow passengers' jaws drop when she completed the move

'It does take a lot of concentration, a lot of balance, a lot of breath control,' she said, adding that she was proud of herself for reaching her goal.

In addition to being able to give a previously unheard of answer to the question 'how low can you go?', Shemika can also do other 'tricks' while shimmying under a bar. She can spin circus plates in both of her hands and from her mouth while limboing, as well as limbo blindfolded with her hands full.

The performer said that when people see what she can do, they are both amazed and intrigued - but perhaps no one is more in awe than her chiropractor, who she sees once a week to have her hips realigned.

'She really is amazing - like a freak of nature,' said Dr. John Przybylak, though he warned that if she is not careful about sticking to her strict training routine, she could get 'a little bit hurt'.

Not that she's letting up on practicing, anyway. But Shemika did admit that even if limboing does one day affect her health, she still won't stop.

Especially because she still has more records she wants to set, including for backwards limbo and distance traveled while limboing.

How low can she go? The Buffalo, New York, native set her first record when she limboed at the approximate height of a beer can, eight and a half inches

Skeleton-defying tricks: The 22-year old has to visit her chiropractor often and stick to a strict practice schedule so she doesn't get hurt

Limbo queen: Shemika can also limbo while wearing a blindfold and balancing plates in her hands
Kellyanne Conway, the president's top-ranking female adviser, went off on a former Democratic senator this morning for saying that women know to slap on their lipstick before they go to battle against their male colleagues in the Senate.

'Lipstick? Had no idea this is the key to female empowerment and leadership. Imagine if a @GOP had said this,' Conway tweeted in response to Barbara Mikulski's comment on CNN.

Mikulski, a retired Maryland senator, made the remark as she backed up Hillary Clinton, a former New York senator, and Elizabeth Warren, a current Massachusetts lawmaker who Republicans silenced after she spoke out against former Sen. Jeff Sessions.

'Once you're a woman in the Senate, you know that you have to square your shoulders, put your lipstick on, and fight on,' Mikulski stated.

Kellyanne Conway, the president's top-ranking female adviser, went off on a former Democratic senator this morning for saying that women know to slap on their lipstick before they go to battle against their male colleagues in the Senate

Mikulski, a retired Maryland senator, made the remark as she backed up Hillary Clinton, a former New York senator, and Elizabeth Warren, a current Massachusetts lawmaker who Republicans silenced after she spoke out against former Sen. Jeff Sessions, on CNN

The GOP-led Senate voted to rebuke Warren on Tuesday by finding her in violation of a rarely enforced rule that prohibits speakers from impugning another senator after she quoted a letter Coretta Scott King wrote in opposition to Sessions for a federal judgeship in 1986, when he was under fire for alleged racism.

The letter said: 'Mr. Sessions' conduct as a US Attorney, from his politically-motivated voting fraud prosecutions to his indifference toward criminal violations of civil rights laws, indicated that he lacks the temperament, fairness and judgment to be a federal judge.'

Warren read from the document only to be stopped by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and rebuffed by her Senate colleagues. She was not allowed to speak from the floor again during the discussion on Sessions' nomination.

Warren has made the most of her situation  racking up online views of her speech that got shut down and rallying fellow Democratic senators to her cause.

Her speech had been viewed 3 million times online Wednesday morning. A new hashtag, #LetLizSpeak, was trending online as the late-night speech and the rare rebuke got broadcast and rebroadcast on cable TV.

Warren ran afoul of the chamber's arcane rules by reading a 30-year-old letter from Dr Martin Luther King's widow, Coretta Scott King (right) that dated to Sen Jeff Sessions' failed judicial nomination three decades ago

Hillary Clinton helped Warren to raise awareness. 'I think Hillary is resting, she's reflecting on what she wants to do. But like once you're a woman in the Senate, you know that you have to square your shoulders, put your lipstick on, and fight on,' Mikulski said in response

Hillary Clinton helped Warren to raise awareness. Clinton shared a video of Warren on her Twitter account, telling her 13.1 million followers in the caption: ' "She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted." So must we all.'

The 'nevertheless, she persisted' portion of the statement came from McConnell's statement on Warren's disobedience. Soon, it too had become a statement of the resistance.

Clinton has made only a handful of public appearances since she lost the presidential election to Trump, though she's been spotted at her local grocery store, at dinner and in the woods by her fans.

In response to New Day's Alisyn Camerota asking if Clinton was 'dipping a toe' into politics with the tweet and plotting her next move, Mikulski made the statement that offended Conway.

'I think Hillary is resting, she's reflecting on what she wants to do. But like once you're a woman in the Senate, you know that you have to square your shoulders, put your lipstick on, and fight on,' the recently retired senator said. 'I believe that Hillary is analyzing how she can once again make best use of her incredible talents, encourage others to be part of the political process...and I was encouraged to hear the tweet.'

Mikulski argued on the program that the measure senators used to punish Warren for speaking harshly on the floor about one of her colleagues, Sessions, the senator from Alabama until he was sworn in this morning as attorney general, is rarely invoked and its use against Warren was unfair.

Quoting King technically put Warren in violation of Senate rules for 'impugning the motives' of Sessions, though senators have said far worse stuff. Sessions was eventually confirmed as attorney general, giving up his Senate seat

The rule was created to stop fist fights in the early days of the Senate, after lawmakers 'had a little too much bourbon, and would say violent vulgar things about each other,' Mikulski stated.

'None of that was occurring - Sen, Warren was reading from a historic record.'

Mikulski wouldn't accuse her former colleagues of outright sexism in response to prodding from Camerota but she said: 'I think whenever women stand up, and particularly reading now a letter from a woman of color, they're told to shut up and sit down.

'And it was inappropriate. They've never used it,' she said.

Generalizing, Mikulski said she sees 'a pattern of behavior' in society. Women who have the same job should be expected to follow the same rules. And yet, she said, 'They're applied differently to us.'

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham defended his party on Wednesday, saying Warren's slap down was 'long overdue' and she 'is clearly running' for president in 2020.

Mikulski scoffed at him on CNN and accused him of demeaning Warren, who is considered a likely 2020 candidate, in the absence of a justified line of attack.
Britain's roads are becoming 'increasingly congested' as drivers have travelled 320 billion miles in a year (file photo)

The internet shopping boom has made roads more congested than ever, official figures reveal.

A huge increase in delivery vans is causing gridlock and longer delays for motorists.

Provisional figures released by the Department for Transport yesterday show traffic has hit record levels, exceeding the previous pre-recession peak.

In total 320.5billion vehicle miles were travelled across the UK last year, up 1.2 per cent from the previous year.

Traffic on motorways and rural A roads is at a record although it was broadly stable on minor roads in towns and cities.

The increase has been driven by a surge in the number of vans delivering groceries and other goods to households, as well as a rise in lorries.

The extra traffic was described last night by the Department for Transport as good news for the economy.

But the figures will also be a headache for Chancellor Philip Hammond who has already earmarked 1.3billion to tackle the traffic problem.

Apart from congestion causing misery for motorists, Mr Hammond has warned that it is holding back the economy, with people spending more time in traffic jams and less time at work.

Britons have had a growing love affair with internet shopping. We spent an estimated 130billion online last year, up 16 per cent on the previous year.

This has been fuelled by the rise of internet giants such as Amazon while a growing number of households also have their groceries delivered.

Van traffic has risen almost five times faster than car traffic, and vans clocked up a record 48.5billion miles last year  a 3.4 per cent increase. Heavy goods vehicles were up 2.8 per cent while car traffic rose just 0.7 per cent.

Over the last five years, van traffic has jumped by 17.2 per cent, almost a fifth.

According to the Department for Transport, vans and light goods vehicles have been the fastest growing traffic type over the last four years, increasing on average by 4.1 per cent a year.

The Commons Transport Committee is looking at the rise of white vans as part of a wider investigation into worsening congestion on roads.

It is also looking at badly planned roadworks, the increase in minicabs and the construction of more segregated cycle lanes.

Van traffic is also up by 3.4 per cent, which AA president Edmund King blames on a boom in internet shopping (file photo)

Committee member Will Quince warned traffic could get worse unless action is taken. He said: The increase in traffic is almost certainly driven by online shopping. The drive for more convenience means internet shopping will continue to increase and more vans will be needed to deliver goods to homes.

Mr Quince suggested that delivery companies need to work more smartly  such as delivering later in the evening when roads are quieter and people are at home to collect their goods.

Amazon is trialling the use of drones to deliver parcels after a test run last December.

Motoring group the RAC said the latest figures lay bare just how increasingly congested our roads are becoming.

Spokesman Nick Lyes said: 'Motorists, who are paying in excess of 40billion a year in overall motoring taxation, will find it incredibly frustrating that they are having to deal with clogged up roads.

Congestion and longer journey times are ranked fourth in a list of the biggest concerns among motorists, according to the RAC

Figures in October revealed congestion for motorists has risen by 40 per cent in four years, with drivers spending an extra 12.4 hours in traffic a year.

London is the worst affected part of the country, according to traffic experts Inrix, with the average driver spending 101 hours, or 12 working days, in traffic last year and average vehicle speeds of 7.4mph  slower than a horse-drawn carriage in the 18th century.

But the AA said the Governments latest figures show drivers are restricting their local journeys due to rising fuel prices and spiralling parking costs.

It also pointed out that although the steady rise of internet shopping has contributed to the boom in traffic, the increase in home delivery means households are taking fewer journeys to the shops.

A spokesman for the Department for Transport said: We are investing a record 23billion to get traffic moving and reduce delays.
A young man charged over the death of his girlfriend in a horror jetski crash has pleaded guilty to a charge of recklessly causing death.

Tommy Keating, 22, and Emily Jane Collie, 20, were in Thailand on Sunday when the jetskis they had hired collided near Kata Beach in Phuket, killing Ms Collie.

On Thursday Mr Keating walked into the police station hand-in-hand with his late girlfriend's family, before pleading guilty to the charge, the ABC reported.

'Thomas pleaded guilty,' Superintendent Sanya Thongsawad told the broadcaster.

The young man was formally charged with careless driving, causing death. It's reported his passport has also been confiscated.

Mr Collie's grief-stricken parents Ian and Sally Collie have told authorities no one was to blame over their daughter's death - as they prepare to bring her body home.

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Tommy Keating, from Victoria, walked hand-in-hand with the parents of Emily Jayne Collie and his family outside a police station in an extraordinary act of forgiveness

The 20-year-old woman was killed when her jet-ski collided with her boyfriend during their dream holiday on Sunday afternoon near Kata Beach in Phuket

The 22-year-old man was charged with reckless driving, causing death on Thursday

The charge comes after Ms Collie, 20, was killed when their two jet-skis collided on Sunday

The 20-year-old woman died after she suffered severe injuries near Kata Beach in Phuket

In a heartbreaking statement via the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ms Collie's parents said it was a 'tragic accident'.

'We are in the midst of grieving through the sudden loss of our precious daughter Emily,' her parents Ian and Sally Collie said.

'We do not believe anybody was at fault. In particular, we do not place any blame on Tom Keating, who we care about very much and who we know loved Emily deeply.

'We are all heartbroken beyond words, and at this extremely sad time we wish to be together with our family, with Tom, and with other loved ones to grieve and celebrate Emily's life.'

It comes after the young woman's parents pleaded they didn't want to press murder charges against their daughter's boyfriend.

Mr Keating, who will have to stay in Thailand for up to a month, could face a two-year suspended sentence - meaning he will escape jail, 7 News reported.

Tommy Keating described Emily Jayne Collie as the most beautiful girl he had ever met

Ms Collie's parents have arrived in Thailand to bring their daughter's body home - as they urged authorities not to charge her boyfriend over her death

Mr Keating suffered minor injuries and broke down in tears in the ambulance on Sunday

A photo of Tommy Keating and his girlfriend Emily Jayne Collie, which he posted to his Facebook page along with an emotional tribute

The tragic news comes after the grief-stricken boyfriend paid tribute to his 'beautiful girl' in an emotional Facebook post.

'I love you so much Emily and I wish I could just bring you back into my arms,' Mr Keating wrote in his heartbreaking Facebook post.

'I'm so broken and I know I'll never never be able to mend.

'I'll always be your boy and you'll always be my girl! We had so many plans for our future Emmy.'

Mr Keating described his girlfriend as 'My beautiful girl' and said Ms Collie was 'taken too soon'.

'I love you to bits baby and I promise I'll never stop and you'll always have my heart!' he wrote.

'You where such an inspiration to myself and many others! The most beautiful girl I've ever met! Inside and out!

'Fly high up there Emmy I know you'll always be looking down on me and everyone you loved.

'Rest easy Emily I'll never forget you.'

Part of Mr Keating's emotional Facebook tribute to his girlfriend, Emily Jayne Collie

Ms Collie was pulled unconscious from the water and was treated by lifeguards on the beach before she was pronounced dead

Ms Collie is pictured being treated by lifeguards on the beach at Phuket in Thailand

Two jet skis are pictured parked in front a police station in Phuket, Thailand

Ms Collie was pulled unconscious from the water and was treated by lifeguards on the beach before she was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital.

Mr Keating said strong sunlight reflected off the sea and made it impossible to see her jetski, leading to the crash just off Kata Beach in Phuket.

Ms Collie of Victoria was a student at Charles Sturt University and went to Goulburn Valley Grammar School in Shepparton

She and Mr Keating crashed into each other about 4.45pm local time on Sunday, local media reported.

Ms Collie died after suffering severe neck and shoulder injuries, The Age reported.

Mr Keating suffered minor injuries and broke down in tears in the ambulance.

An onlooker, Prapai Navarak, said the boyfriend was crying but there was nothing anybody could do.

'It was so sad to see. Nobody could do anything. The woman's husband was crying. I am shocked,' Mr Navarak said.

Mr Keating's cousin, Sean Lyon Smith, said the couple had been in a relationship for about two years and had gone to Thailand on a 'dream holiday'.

Ms Collie, of Victoria, was a student at Charles Sturt University and went to Goulburn Valley Grammar School in Shepparton, according to her Facebook page.

A spokesperson confirmed the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was providing consular assistance to Ms Collie's family.
At least 75 percent of the people living illegally in the United States will be subject to deportation under President Donald Trump's new executive orders, an immigration expert said.

Simply hopping the border could get an immigrant kicked out, suggested Robert Mortensen, a retired career U.S. Foreign Service officer, writing for the right-of-center Center for Immigration Studies.

Mortensen, whose writing was first reported on by the Washington Examiner's Paul Bedard, pointed to three key provisions in Executive Order 13768, which could impact the broad swath of illegal immigrants living in the country.

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President Donald Trump promised as a candidate he would make illegal immigration a big part of his White House tenure

One immigration expert believes that 75 percent of people living in the United States illegally could be deported

First, the order prioritizes the removal of immigrants who 'have committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense.'

Mortensen points out that this could apply to border hoppers as anyone entering the United States without passing through an official border crossing has committed a criminal misdemeanor.

That could account for 6 million people, says the Los Angeles Times.

Next, the executive order targets individuals who 'have engaged in fraud or willful misrepresentation in connection with any official matter or application before a government agency.'

Illegal immigrants who have fraudulently obtained Social Security numbers for their I-9 forms, which the Los Angeles Times says could be as many as 8 million people, could fall under this umbrella.

Finally, the executive orders targets those who 'have abused any program related to receipt of public benefits.'

This, notes Mortensen, could apply toward individuals receiving Welfare or food stamps.

Illegal immigrants who border hopped could be subject to deportation, according to one conservative immigration expert's reading of a Trump executive order

There's no accurate reporting of how many people living in the United States illegally take advantage of social programs for the poor.

The Center for Immigration Studies is a conservative think tank that pushes for low immigration numbers.

Mortensen notes in his writing that Trump's executive order 'destroys the myth' of the 'law abiding illegal alien,' as anyone who comes illegally into the United States 'routinely commit[s] multiple felonies and other serious violations of American law when they enter the country, get jobs and obtain benefits reserved for citizens and legal residents.'

The former Foreign Service officer, clearly in support of Trump's actions, pointed to the fact that for years advocates of illegal immigration talked about how individuals paid payroll taxes.

Mortensen said this indicated that they had falsified a Social Security number.

'The advocates of illegal aliens apparently never thought that the federal government would hold illegal aliens accountable for their crimes, otherwise why would they have highlighted their criminal activities in an attempt to show that they are law abiding citizens?' he mused.




E.K.'s brother Eddie Carter said he suffered similar abuse, and was only fed bread and water, but was transferred away from the family five years ago

issues and 'We just got tired of it'

When asked why they'd locked him away, Cynthia replied that E.K had

Cynthia and Richard Kelly kept their adopted son, named only as E.K. in court documents, for up to 23 hours a day in their basement,

The adopted parents of a 14-year-old boy, who weighed just 47 pounds when he was hospitalized three months ago, was kept locked in a concrete basement for 23 hours a day with barely enough food to survive, according to police.

Cynthia and Richard Kelly were arrested and charged with aggravated child abuse after they brought their sick and starving adopted son - referred to only as E.K. in police reports - into a medical center when he was just hours away from death.

The teenager was less than half the weight of a healthy 14-year-old boy, and was suffering from malnutrition, dehydration, acute respiratory distress, shock, hypothermia and hypothyroidism, Alabama.com reports.

Carter and his brother's adoptive parents Richard and Cynthia Kelly, of Helena, have been charged with aggravated child abuse

The couple received $500 a month from the state to help care for their son, under a program to supported adopted parents of children with special needs.

Helena Police Chief Pete Folmar testified to the squalid conditions the boy was kept in in court on Wednesday.

The boy was locked in the concrete basement with no access to a bathroom, and little more than a box-spring mattress, blanket and pillow, an algebra text book, a draw with a few clothes clothes - and some diapers.

There were also surveillance cameras trained on the box springs. While the camera no longer worked, the foster parents made E.K. think they were still on and that they were watching him at all times, Folmar testified.

The police chief said that E.K. would be fed just once a day, and that the meals were always different from what the family were enjoying upstairs.

E.K.'s brother Eddie Carter, 18, who revealed that he too was kept in the basement before he was removed from their home and adopted by another family, described how he had been fed nothing but bread and water.

'They would say, 'Jesus survived off bread and water, so you can too,''' he said. 'It was like a torture method. They were upstairs eating pizza and Chinese, and I'd be eating bread and water.'

Authorities said the boy spent much of the past two years locked in the basement of his Alabama home (above, file photo)

Cynthia and Richard Kelly adopted the brothers through a Christian agency around seven years ago.

The couple are currently being held in jail on $1 million bail. A plea to reduce their bail on Wednesday was rejected. If found guilty, they could face up to 20 years in jail.

Cynthia, who home schooled the children, claimed they had forced E.K. to live in such shocking conditions because he had behavioral issues and claimed he had threatened to harm the family.

They also didn't want to let E.K. as she was worried he would 'break things' in their home.

When asked if she had sought help for her foster son, Cynthia claimed that no-one believed them.

'I'll be honest with you,' she told the police chief, 'We just got tired of it.'

Speaking out: Eddie Carter, 18, has revealed in a recent interview that he had been locked up in a basement and deprived of food while in the care of his adoptive parents

The Kellys also claim the reason they failed to provide a carpet or even a mattress to their adopted son was because he was 'destructive' and would destroy them.

The family also lived with their 19-year-old daughter Tamara Kelly and her boyfriend. Friends noted that while the couple had lots of pictures of Tamara dotted round their home, there were none of E.K.

Another recalled a time when the Kellys had thrown a party to celebrate their daughter's cheer competition, and ordered lots of pizza for their guests. When they noticed a couple of slices were missing, they grilled E.K. who denied taking them.

But the friend noticed the boy, who was discovered suffering from severe and chronic nutritional, had stuffed a couple of the slices in his pockets.

The Kellys argued that E.K. had been allowed to be an extra in a movie shot in Birmingham in 2013, while their lawyers argued that someone locked up in isolation for 23 hours a day would have behavioral problems that would ring alarm bells.

But police argued that the movie and cheer party took place before E.K. was locked away for two years.

The case came to light on November 12 when Richard Kelly took the teen to Shelby Baptist Medical Center saying he had been ill for a week. He weighed just 47lbs.

Within hours, the boy was airlifted to Children's of Alabama where he had to be placed on a respirator for a week.

The 14-year-old has since been released from hospital and placed in a therapeutic foster home for children with emotional challenges.

Carter tried to visit E.K. in hospital but was told his brother wasn't yet ready for visitors. But he pledged to wait for him.

'We'll be all right, and I don't have to worry about anybody ever hurting my brother again,'' Carter said.

Carter said he was 11 years old and his brother was about seven when the Kellys adopted them through a Christian agency after spending years bouncing from one foster home to the next.

The two brothers entered Alabama's foster care after their mother was stripped of her parental rights for some unspecified reason. Having been deprived of parental guidance, Carter emerged as his brother's protector and caretaker, changing his diapers, making sure he was well-fed and healthy.

'When he was sleeping, I'd check his chest to make sure he was breathing,'' Carter told Al.com. 'My little brother was like my golden egg. I just had to keep him safe. It was my main goal not to be separated ever.'

When Richard and Cynthia Kelly agreed to adopt both siblings, Carter said he thought it was their 'big break' - a chance to have a normal family life like other children.

But Carter said within months, their adoptive parents began locking him up in the basement for long periods of time without access to the most basic necessities as punishment for minor infractions.

'It gets to that point where you're like an animal, well, you kind of feel like an animal,' Carter said.

He recalled that the longest stretch was a couple of months trapped in the pitch-black cellar with no light, no bathroom and only little to eat.

Whenever he needed to relieve himself, Carter said he would do so in the corner. After a while, the entire basement reeked of urine.

Carter developed a nervous habit of chewing his lips until they bled. To punish him, he said, Richard and Cynthia would pour salt into the open wounds.

The couple (pictured several years ago) received $500 a month from the state to help care for their son, under a program to supported adopted parents of children with special needs

The 18-year-old described how he would hear his adoptive parents laughing and going about their day upstairs while he was locked in the basement.

'You're down there and nobody knows you're down there except the people in the house,' he said.

When Eddie began acting out at home, the Kellys had him removed 18 months after his adoption. The teen says he was upset to part with his younger brother but was not overly worried for his well-being because he had never seen their parents mistreat the younger boy.

After going from one treatment program to another all over Alabama, in 2013 Carter was adopted by Arizona rapper Nick Carter, known by his stage name, Murs.

At one point, Murs and Eddie drove down to Alabama to check up on his younger brother, but Eddie never got out of the car and only caught a glimpse of his sibling lurking in the doorway. He noted the boy appeared 'really skinny,' but he thought nothing of it at the time.

It was not until he learned of the 14-year-old's rescue and the Kellys' arrest on abuse charges last month that the awful truth was revealed to Carter.

'The things that happened to me when I was there, you just say a prayer and keep your head up high and hope that same thing doesn't happen to someone you really love and care about that you know is still there,' he said.

'To see it did happen is very disheartening. Your brother is all you have. I blame myself.'

Police in Helena launched an investigation into the alleged abuse after the Kellys took the ailing, malnourished teenager to the hospital.
Alin Apopei, 27, killed his girlfriend Denisa Silma at their home in East Ham, London, but is claiming diminished responsibility

A 'jealous' boyfriend who played peek-a-boo with police then screamed 'I am Sparta' after killing his girlfriend has been accused of faking mental illness to avoid jail.

Alin Apopei, 27, and his sex worker girlfriend Denisa Silma, 25, had sex moments before he almost decapitated her with a knife at their shared flat in east London.

The entire attack was recorded on a voicemail message, in which he can be heard saying 'I'm going to kill you now', to which she replies 'oh my God'.

It is alleged that he attacked her after she threatened to leave him and officers found a suitcase on the bed next to her dead body inside a wardrobe in their bedroom.

After being arrested, Apopei laughed hysterically, rapped in Romanian, asked what his own name was and used a blanket in his cell to play 'peek-a-boo' with an officer.

But a friend of the couple, originally from Romania, today told the court that he had once promised to kill her if she left him and fake mental illness to avoid jail.

The friend said the row started when Denisa asked what would happen if she left him as they discussed the lyrics of a song playing on a car radio on August 23 2015.

Prosecutor Zoe Johnson QC said: 'Denisa told him he would go to prison and his life would be ruined. He replied, "if I go to prison, I will pretend I'm mad. They will put me in hospital and I will get free from there".'

Police arrived at the house they shared in East Ham, east London, to find the couple's bedroom covered in blood and a packed Union flag suitcase on the bed.

Denisa's body was found lying half-inside a wardrobe covered with a large red towel.

Apopei had sex with her seconds before the attack, jurors were told, and the sounds of sexual activity can be heard on the voicemail recording.

The couple were heard arguing in their bedroom by one of their housemates who also saw Denisa go upstairs with a suitcase decorated with a Union flag.

Prosecutors believe Apopei killed his girlfriend between 2.05pm and 2.20pm on 30 July 2015.

Denisa's body was discovered when the owner of the house was persuaded to check on her 18 hours later at about 8.15pm.

Apopei was arrested at around 6am the following morning, and told police 'I have been walking for hours'.

PC Emma Mathias was one of the officers tasked with monitoring Apopei in his first 24 hours in custody.

In her notes, she recorded him saying: 'It's not me. I was playing. It's been hard to stay calm.'

The court heard Apopei fled the scene after the attack. Miss Silman's body was discovered when the owner of the house on this street (pictured) was persuaded to check on her

He then took his shirt off and began crying hysterically, before shouting: 'If I had been a murderer they wouldn't have guarded me this way. I can't choose who I want to be.'

Apopei then began rapping in Romanian, the court heard, interspersed with maniacal laughter.

At one point he shouted 'I killed her' while kicking the walls of his cell.

SUSPECT'S 'MENTAL' MOMENTS IN CELLS The murder suspect accused of faking mental illness to escape jail for killing his own girlfriend appeared mentally unsound in the cells, the court heard. PC Emma Mathias was one of the officers tasked with monitoring Alin Apopei in his first 24 hours in custody. In her notes, she recorded him saying: 'It's not me. I was playing. It's been hard to stay calm.' He then took his shirt off and began crying hysterically, before shouting: 'If I had been a murderer they wouldn't have guarded me this way. I can't choose who I want to be.' Apopei then began rapping in Romanian, the court heard, interspersed with maniacal laughter. At one point he shouted 'I killed her' while kicking the walls of his cell. In her notes, PC Mathias wrote: 'The lights were turned on and he starts laughing, at 3.39am he asks what his own name is and starts laughing. 'A minute later he asks if he can go outside.' At one point she recorded Apopei pulling the blanket off the bed and putting it over his bed to try and play peek-a-boo with her. He then shouted 'This is Sparta' before ranting as to why he had not yet been released, saying 'You can only keep me here for 24 hours'. Apopei repeatedly stripped naked, dressing himself when he was asked by officers, only to strip off again. At one point he tried to turn a paper cup into a telescope to peer at his guards, and asked for a game of rock paper scissors. He was charged with murder later that day. Advertisement

In her notes, PC Mathias wrote: 'The lights were turned on and he starts laughing, at 3.39am he asks what his own name is and starts laughing.

'A minute later he asks if he can go outside.'

At one point she recorded Apopei pulling the blanket off the bed and putting it over his bed to try and play peek-a-boo with her.

He then shouted 'This is Sparta' before ranting as to why he had not yet been released, saying 'You can only keep me here for 24 hours'.

Apopei repeatedly stripped naked, dressing himself when he was asked by officers, only to strip off again.

At one point he tried to turn a paper cup into a telescope to peer at his guards, and asked for a game of rock paper scissors. He was charged with murder later that day.

Apopei denies murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility, but is allegedly faking mental illness to avoid prison.

Jurors were told Apopei and Denisa, who are both originally from Romania, met in June or July 2014 and lived together in a room in a shared house in Eversleigh Road.

Denisa was a sex worker, the court heard, and may have been supporting Apopei on her earnings.

He drove her to appointments with men and designed her adult web page.

But the pair had a tempestuous relationship, the court heard, and would frequently break up and get back together again.

Apopei was often violent to Denisa, and had threatened to kill her on many occasions.

On another occasion, Apopei allegedly crashed his car into Denisa's car before dragging her out and repeatedly threatening to kill her.

He also attacked her when she was on holiday with a friend in Italy after making a surprise visit to Milan on Valentine's Day, the court heard.

Ms Johnson said: 'It is the prosecution case that the defendant deliberately and viciously stabbed Denisa to death because he was enraged and jealous at the prospect of Denisa finally leaving him.

The Old Bailey heard Apopei fled the scene after the attack. Miss Silman's body was discovered when the owner of the house was persuaded to check on her

'It was, we suggest, no coincidence that she was packing her suitcase when she was stabbed to death.'

'During the attack by the defendant on Denisa, it appears that the defendant's phone was activated - whether accidentally or deliberately is not known,' Miss Johnson said.

'It appears that the defendant dialled his half-sister and that call went to her voicemail facility and was subsequently recovered.'

The cause of death was given as multiple incised wounds to the neck and chest.

Ms Johnson said: 'The evidence is overwhelming that the defendant is responsible for killing his girlfriend.

'We anticipate that the critical issue for you to decide in this case is whether the defendant's responsibility for the killing is diminished because of a mental illness from which he was suffering at the time.'

She said psychiatrists disagree over the issue, but added: 'The prosecution case is that there is no defence available to the defendant. This was a killing committed in anger and jealousy.'

Apopei denies murder. The trial continues.
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A truck driver has died after high winds blew his truck off the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.

The man, identified as Joseph Chen, 47, of Greenville, N.C., was driving southbound on the 23-mile bridge and tunnel complex linking the Delmarva Peninsula with Virginia Beach when the horror wreck occurred at around 12.30pm.

Gusts of wind up to 40mph are believed to have knocked the white tractor-trailer out of its lane and through the steel railing on the bridge, a bridge official told 13News.

The truck plunged over the edge of the bridge into the wind-whipped whitecaps of the 45-degree water below.

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The white tractor-trailer is believed to have been blown out of its lane and through the steel railing on the bridge

A truck driver died after heavy winds swept his tractor trailer off the 23-mile bridge-tunnel between Virginia Beach and the Delmarva Peninsula

The Navy helicopter crew descended to rescue the driver at around 2pm, successfully managing to get him into the craft

Traffic halted as onlookers rushed to spot the driver and call for help.

Authorities say that the driver was spotted alive on top of the cab's truck minutes later, where he waited desperately for help.

Navy fliers with the Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 2, based out of nearby Naval Station Norfolk, happened to be on hand in a MH-60 S Sikorsky Knight Hawk.

'They were on a routine training flight and saw the wreck,' Naval Air Force Atlantic spokesman Mike Maus told the Virginian-Pilot.

As the truck sank cab-first beneath the wind-tossed sea, the Navy helicopter crew descended to rescue the driver at around 2pm, successfully managing to get him into the craft.

Vehicles sit on the road by a missing section of guard rail along a segment of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel where a tractor-trailer went over the southbound side at the 15-mile marker

The truck was still submerged late Thursday, having reportedly floated up to a mile away from the bridge

A Navy helicopter plucked a driver from the roof of the floating vehicle, but he later died, authorities said

The hero crew raced toward Sentra General Hospital in Norfolk, but the driver died in the air before they could reach waiting doctors.

Officials have not yet confirmed the cause of the accident.

Traffic on the bridge was closed in both directions for about two hours, until reopening at 2.30pm.

The truck was still submerged late Thursday, having reportedly floated up to a mile away from the bridge.

Chen was due to celebrate his 10-year anniversary with his wife in April, according to The Virginian-Pilot.

Ten vehicles  seven trucks and three cars  went over the side of the bridge complex between 1964 and 2011, according to the Virginan-Pilot. Only one person survived.
Harvey Theodore Kneifl was charged with sexually molesting at least six girls

A 70-year-old school bus assistant was charged with sexually molesting at least six girls, ages three to five, according to a criminal complaint.

Harvey Theodore Kneifl, helped young children, many of whom have special needs, into their seats as a bus assistant in Woodbury, Minnesota.

An investigation was launched after a four-year-old told her parents Kneifl rubbed her genitals, and video footage showed him touching several young girls over their clothes, according to the criminal complaint cited by KTSP.

Kneifl, who was immediately placed on administrative leave, was arrested and charged with six counts of second-degree sexual assault.

The father of the four-year-old girl notified police on February 4, sparking an investigation that uncovered other alleged victims.

The girl said a substitute aide, later identified as Kneifl, rubbed her leg on her way to school the previous day. He also rubbed her genital area several times, the criminal complaint said.

Video footage showed Kneifl touching six girls, and investigators are looking into whether there are any additional victims.

Three of the six girls were interviewed at a facility for young victims of sexual abuse, and all three said Kneifl touched their genitals, KARE11 reported.

Kneifl told authorities he believed he could become closer to the children than their parents, and seemed to think he was showing the girls affection, according to the complaint.

Kneifl, helped young children, many of whom have special needs, into their seats as a bus assistant in Woodbury, Minnesota (file photo)

He 'admitted that he likes to tickle, poke and hug the children, that he puts his hands on the girls' thighs rubbing them,' according to the complaint.

'He denied rubbing any of the genital areas, claiming he make the girls feel good because "they come from a hard life and likely do not get any sort of affection at home,'" the complaint stated.

The South Washington County Transportation Company, which runs the school buses, is cooperating with the police.

Kneifl was placed on administrative leave, and Superintendent Keith Jacoby notified all of the parents in the district.

The school district conducted a background check on Kneifl before he was hired, and the 70-year-old does not have a previous record.
Fadwa Alaoui was denied entry into the US after agents at the Canadian border interrogated her about her religion and thoughts about Donald Trump

A Muslim woman was turned away at the US-Canadian border after she was interrogated by agents about her religion and her views on President Trump.

Fadwa Alaoui, who is a Moroccan-born Canadian citizen, said she was traveling to Vermont with her cousin and children but were stopped at the Highgate Springs crossing.

Fadwa and her family had their photographs and fingerprints taken and were questioned for 45 minutes.

She told CBC that US border patrol agents asked her about her religious practices, which mosque she attends, and the 'kind of discussions' she hears at the mosque from the imam.

Alaoui, who is from the Montreal suburb of Brossard, said she was also asked if she knew anything about the recent shooting in Quebec City and if she knew any of the victims.

'I felt humiliated, treated as if I was less than nothing. It's as if I wasn't Canadian,' she said on Wednesday.

Fadwa said she planned to spend the day shopping and celebrating the end of her five-year-old son's chemotherapy in Burlington, Vermont.

Fadwa was travelling with her son (pictured) and cousin to Burlington, Vermont, and planned to spend the day shopping and celebrating the end of her five-year-old's chemotherapy

Donald Trump signed the executive order two weeks ago, banning migrants from seven Muslim countries from traveling to the US, but Morocco was not on the list.

Alaoui said she had traveled to the US several times before to visit her parents and brother without any trouble.

Border agents also asked her what she thought about the president's policies and even asked to see Alaoui and her cousin's cell phones.

After searching through her phone, agents found Arabic videos of daily prayers.

'They said, "You're not allowed to go to the United States because we found videos on your phone that are against us,"' Alaoui told CBC.

She was turned away after four hours at the border.

Border agents at the Highgate Springs crossing (pictured) asked to see Alaoui's cell phone and asked her about her thoughts on Donald Trump

Alaoui said she was planning to visit her parents in Chicago during spring break, but is now hesitant to make the eight-hour drive, in fear she will get turned away again.

She added that she hopes Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will discuss the issue with President Trump.

A spokesman for US Customs and Border Protection told the news site in an email that the agency 'does not discriminate on the entry of foreign nationals to the United States based on religion, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation.'

He also said formal complaints can be made on the website by those who felt they were wrongly denied entry.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has claimed some of the refugees who have fled the war-torn country are 'definitely terrorists'.

It is thought around 4.9million Syrians have left since the outbreak of the civil war in 2011.

The news comes as UK Prime Minister Theresa May defended the country's commitment to aiding refugees, claiming 2.3billion was being spent on humanitarian aid.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, pictured, has claimed some of the millions of refugees to have left his country are 'definitely' terrorists

It is thought around 4.9million Syrians have fled the country since the outbreak of the civil war in 2011 (file picture)

Speaking to Yahoo News from his office in Damascus, President Assad said some of those who fled his country were 'definitely aligned with terrorists'.

He told Yahoo: 'Those terrorists in Syria, holding the machine gun or killing people, they [appear as] peaceful refugees in Europe or in the West.'

The President said he 'could not estimate numbers' but added 'you don't need a significant number to commit atrocities', referencing the 19 hijackers involved in the September 11 attacks in the US.

On bringing the refugees home, he added: 'For me, the priority is to bring those citizens to their country, not to help them immigrate.'

President Assad also said he would 'not take sides' on Donald Trump's ban on admitting refugees from his country.

Mr Assad added he could not estimate the number of 'terrorists' among the refugees but said 'you don't need a significant number to commit atrocities' (file picture)

Meanwhile, Mrs May defended a cap on allowing unaccompanied child refugees into the UK after it was revealed the Government would only accept 350.

Speaking at a Downing Street press conference, Mrs May insisted the Government's approach was 'absolutely right', pointing to separate schemes which will resettle 20,000 Syrian refugees from camps in the region over five years as well as reuniting migrant children with families in the UK.

'We have been seeing quite a number of children and families being resettled here in the United Kingdom,' said the Prime Minister.

'I think what we are doing in terms of refugees is absolutely right, on top of course of the significant financial support and humanitarian aid we are giving to refugees in the region of Syria  a commitment of 2.3 billion, the second biggest bilateral donor.'

It comes as Prime Minister Theresa May has been criticised over a cap on the number of unaccompanied child refugees being admitted to Britain. Pictured are some of the children who arrived in Britain late last year

The decision to impose a cap was announced on Wednesday by immigration minister Robert Goodwill, who said 200 children had already arrived and councils had indicated they had capacity for only 150 more.

But the Archbishop of Canterbury has criticised the decision and said he had believed ministers were 'committed to welcoming up to 3,000 children under this scheme' and it was 'regrettable' that such a small proportion were being given sanctuary.

'I fear that this week's decision does not meet the spirit of commitment that was given during the passage of the Immigration Act last year,' he said.

'I very much hope that the Government will reconsider this decision, and work with church groups and others to find a sustainable and compassionate solution that allows those most in need to find sanctuary in our country.'
A baby born with four legs and two penises has had a successful operation to remove the extra appendages.

The baby boy, who is yet to be named, was declared a 'gift from god' by mother Lalitamma, 23, after she gave birth on January 21 in Karnataka, India.

He was born with polymelia, a rare condition where a child is born with extra limbs.

A baby born with four legs and two penises has had a successful operation to remove the extra appendages. He was born on January 21 in Karnataka, India

The boy's mother and father, Lalitamma, 23, and Chennabasava, 26, initially didn't want him to have an operation. His mother said they were poor and couldn't afford medical bills. Pictured, the baby after surgery

He was transferred to a hospital 94 miles away in Bellari on Sunday to have the operation. The boy now has two legs. Pictured, the baby boy and his mother and father

His mother and father, Chennabasava, 26, initially didn't want their second child to have the operation as they wanted to raise him as he was.

She had said her family was poor and could not afford medical treatment.

But the pair changed their mind and the baby had surgery 94 miles away in Bellari.

The couple also have a three-year-old boy who has no known medical conditions. The baby was called a 'Gift from God' by his mother

The baby's mother agreed to treatment after talking to medical staff and family members.

After successful surgery, the boy now has two legs.

The couple also have a three-year-old boy, who has no known medical conditions.

Dr Virupaksha T. attended the 4.23am birth and said that it was a 'normal' delivery.

He immediately made arrangements for a transfer to the Vijayanagara Institute of Medical Sciences (VIMS).

Dr Virupaksha added: 'I referred the family to VIMS. I spoke to the surgeons there on Sunday, and they told me that the baby was being kept under observation. I hope the infant becomes normal.'

Dr Divakar Gaddi, who was looking after the baby at VIMS, said last month: 'A team of surgeons is looking into the baby's condition. It is a very challenging case for us.'

Speaking last month, mother Lalitamma said: 'The doctors and members of my family advised me to take the baby to VIMS for advanced treatment. Now, I am hoping he becomes normal.'

The baby's mother agreed to let him have surgery after talking to medical staff and family members. He has not been named yet

Dr Virupaksha T, who attended the baby's birth said: 'I hope the infant becomes normal'
At least 31 people appear to have voted more than once in Michigan, a state-wide audit has found.

State election officials said Thursday that they're sending the voters' names to the attorney general's office for possible prosecution.

The audit found that 31 people cast absentee ballots and voted in person on November 8.

Fourteen of the alleged double-ups were in Detroit.

At least 31 people appear to have voted more than once in Michigan, a state-wide audit has found. Pictured is a ballot in Oakland County, Michigan

The state said it's likely that Detroit poll workers weren't given an updated list of voters who had already used an absentee ballot.

However, the state's Bureau of Elections found no pervasive fraud in Detroit. The audit instead revealed human error resulted in a conflict between the number of ballots cast and the number of voters in some precincts.

The bureau released a statement outlining how it plans to fix the issue going forward.

'To correct the problems identified in the audit, Bureau of Elections staff will work collaboratively with city officials to better train Election Day precinct workers beginning with the Aug. 8 city primary election,' it read, before going on to explain exactly what the errors were.

State election officials said Thursday that they're sending the voters' names to the attorney general's office for possible prosecution. Pictured are voters in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on November 8

The audit found that 31 people cast absentee ballots and voted in person on November 8. A worker is seen taking out votes for a recount in Oakland County on December 5

'Failing to properly use the electronic poll book, which the city began using in 2011, including failing to record voters when they were issued ballots, or when a ballot was spoiled and a voter was issued a new one.

'Leaving counted ballots in the tabulator bin at the end of the night instead of placing all ballots in a sealed container.

'Incorrectly recording or issuing provisional envelope ballots, which are used when a person doesnt appear on the precincts voter list and needs to provide ID and/or proof of residency. The person votes the provisional ballot, which is then placed in an envelope, and then has six days to show he or she is a properly registered voter.'

The bureau's director Chris Thomas told WWJ it was a 'very small number'.

However, Michigan's Bureau of Elections found no pervasive fraud in Detroit. Pictured are ballots being counted in Waterford, Michigan

Donald Trump has made voter fraud an issue both during the campaign and since the election

'It didnt swing any statewide election,' Thomas told reporters in Lansing on Thursday.

He then said the recount - which was eventually halted by a federal judge - went well before it was brought to a stop, considering how quickly it was called for and rolled out.

'I mean, the idea of doing a statewide recount in eight days I would have like sent off as sort of a bizarre fantasy, in terms of the ability to get that done,' Thomas said.

'But Im here to report that we would have gotten that done.'

Voting twice, or even attempting to do so, is a felony in Michigan.

Donald Trump has made voter fraud an issue both during the campaign and since the election - even claiming more than three million people voted illegally against him.
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These stunning images of early Victorian life are some of the earliest photographs ever taken.

The complete works of William Henry Fox Talbot - hailed as the British father of photography - have been brought together on a new website launched by the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford.

The free site has been launched in time to celebrate the anniversary of the pioneer's birthday, which was February 11, 1800.

The catalogue features more than 1,000 early Victorian photographic images, and is expected to grow to 25,000 images by 2018.

Professor Larry J Schaaf, project director for the Talbot Catalogue Raisonne, said: 'There has been nothing like this before in the history of photography.'

 Slide me  These stunning images of early Victorian life are some of the earliest photographs ever taken. Pictured: The Royal Exchange, London in 1844 and in 2017

 Slide me  The complete works of William Henry Fox Talbot - hailed as the British father of photography - have been brought together on a new website launched by the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford. Pictured: Trafalgar square

 Slide me  The free site has been launched in time to celebrate the anniversary of the pioneer's birthday, which was February 11, 1800. Pictured: Queen's College, Oxford

Lacock Abbey in 1844. The abbey in the village of Lacock, Wiltshire, England, was founded in the early 13th century by Ela, Countess of Salisbury

The Botanic Garden, Oxford in 1842. The Oxford Botanic Garden is the oldest botanic garden in Great Britain and one of the oldest scientific gardens in the world

View of the Boulevards at Paris, May 1843. This is one of more than 1,000 early Victorian photographic images in the collection

This picture shows the view of Westminster from the Hungerford Market in London across the Thames in June 1841

A posed shot at Lacock Abbey shows Talbot bringing together family, servants and collaborators for his photograph

Talbot also liked to take photographs of inanimate objects. This one is of glasses on three shelves, taken in June 1844

Titled The Open Door, [wide shadow], April 1844, this is one of Talbot's most instantly recognisable images, taken at his home Lacock Abbey
A former South Carolina police officer caught on video punching a man while arresting him has been charged with assault.

Leroy Hair, 29, of Summerville, turned himself in on Wednesday morning, was put in jail on a charge of third-degree assault and battery and then released shortly thereafter.

The misdemeanor carries up to 30 days in jail.

James Terry III was stopped for speeding on November 15 in North Charleston and was handcuffed and put into a patrol car after becoming belligerent, authorities said.

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Former South Carolina Police officer Leroy Hair, 29, of Summerville, (left) faces up to 30 days in jail for punching James Terry III (right) while arresting him. The November incident was caught on video

Hair was a backup officer who arrived to the scene in the parking lot of a shopping mall on Rivers Avenue.

Police stopped Terry for going 76 miles per hour in a 35-mph zone.

The video shows him pulling Terry across the backseat to the edge of the frame.

Terry's attorneys say that's when the officer punched him repeatedly in the face.

North Charleston police arrested Terry in the parking lot of a shopping mall for speeding

Hair said Terry spit on officers as they tried to arrest him, according to News 2.

The North Charleston Police Department fired Hair in December for 'unnecessary or excessive use of force'.

State investigators found that Hair 'willfully and unlawfully strike and punch, victim James Terry III about his face'.

Hair went before a bond court judge on Friday and was granted bond at $1,087. His lawyer Edward Phipps pointed out that his client has no criminal background.

'[Hair's] married with children,' Phipps told The Post and Courier during an afternoon bond hearing.

Though other officers used force against Terry during the arrest, Hair is the only one to face discipline, said police spokesman Spencer Pryor.

Terry hasn't filed a lawsuit, but his lawyers are looking into it.

One of his lawyers, David Aylor, complimented the investigation by state law enforcement but told The Post and Courier that it left more questions than answers.

Video captured Hair pulling Terry across the backseat of a patrol car to the edge of the frame

Terry's attorneys say that's when Hair punched their client repeatedly in the face

'However, this pattern of excessive force showed by police departments across the country can no longer be viewed as isolated occurrences.

'We welcome the opportunity to bring incidents like this to light for the betterment of society', Aylor said.

The North Charleston Police Department has long been troubled by by accusations of excessive force and unfair practices.

Most prominently, former North Charleston police officer Michael Slager faces a retrial this year on a murder charge in the shooting death of Walter Scott.

Nearly two years ago, Slager was caught on video fatally shooting Scott in the back as he ran from a traffic stop.
After a San Francisco appeals court of three judges unanimously ruled to not reinstate Donald Trump's travel ban, his defeated election rival, Hillary Clinton took a jab at the president.

The former secretary of state tweeted '3-0', noting the judges' unanimous call.

Soon, Kellyanne Conway, Trump's campaign manager, hit back at Clinton with a stinging reminder of her defeat in the presidential election.

'PA, WI, MI,' Conway, an advisor to Trump in the White House, said in a message of her own. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan are the states that were supposed to secure Clinton's presidency but went red.

Just minutes after the ruling, Trump also ashed out on Twitter with an all caps message.

'SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!' Trump wrote.

The panel of three judges from the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to block a lower-court ruling that suspended the ban and allowed previously barred travelers to enter the U.S.

An appeal to the US Supreme Court seems likely and would put the decision in the hands of a divided court that has a vacancy.

Trump's nominee, Neil Gorsuch, could not be confirmed in time to take part in any consideration of the ban.

The president also spoke to reporters in the West Wing and called the judges' ruling a 'political decision'.

He reiterated that he would appeal: 'Its a very very serious situation so we look forward to seeing them in court,' he said, according to NBC News.

The president also told NBC News that the ruling didn't undercut his new presidency.

'No this is just a decision that came down but we're going to win the case,' Trump said.

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Shortly after the decision was announced, President Donald Trump announced the government would be repealing the decision in a tweet using all caps

President Donald Trump's defeated presidential rival Hillary Clinton, trolled the president tonight with a tweet noting the judges' unanimous call

Trump's campaign manager hit back with a stinging reminder of Clinton's electoral defeat. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan are the states that were supposed to secure Clinton's presidency but went red

President Donald Trump has used Twitter over the last few days to try and encourage the three judge panel to rule in his way. They didn't.

The three judges from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals: (left to right) Judge Richard Clifton, Judge William Canby and Judge Michelle Friedland

The three judges from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in their decision that they believed the government, which includes Trump's White House, was unlikely to win an appeal.

The appeals panel said the government presented no evidence to explain the urgent need for the executive order to take effect immediately. The judges noted compelling public interests on both sides.

U.S. District Judge James Robart (pictured) ruled last Friday to suspend President Trump's travel ban

'On the one hand, the public has a powerful interest in national security and in the ability of an elected president to enact policies. And on the other, the public also has an interest in free flow of travel, in avoiding separation of families, and in freedom from discrimination.'

The court rejected the administration's claim that it did not have the authority to review the president's executive order.

'There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy,' the court said.

While they did not rule on the actual merits of the states' argument that the travel ban was intended to target Muslims, the judges rejected the government's claim that the court should not consider statements by Trump or his advisers about wishing to enact such a ban.

Considering those remarks, the judges said, falls within well-established legal precedent.

The decision also said that the states suing, Washington and Minnesota, had standing in the case because their public universities were suffering harm from the executive order, which was preventing scholars from the seven countries from coming in.

David Pearce, left, and his daughter Crissy Pearce hold signs outside of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, Tuesday

The White House is seen as the 9th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals rules not to reinstate President Donald Trump's travel ban

The judges wrote that they believed Washington and Minnesota raised serious allegations about religious discrimination in the ban.

'Bottom line, this is a complete victory for the state of Washington,' Washington's Attorney General Bob Ferguson said at a press conference held shortly after the ruling dropped.

'We are a nation of laws and as I've said, as we have said, from day one that those laws apply to everybody in our country and that includes the president of the United States,' Ferguson added.

Following the announcement, Kellyanne Conway, White House counselor, told Fox Newss The First 100 Days: We are fully confident now that we will get our day in court and have an opportunity to argue this on merits. We will prevail.

She said President Donald Trumps travel ban is legal because its written in a 1952 statute that the president has great authority over America's national interests and security.

Conway added that the purpose of the order is to temporarily suspend travel from seven countries - Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Sudan and Somalia - that don't have adequate vetting procedures.

If we can argue that on the merits and people really look at that statute ... we'll get a different result.

The appeals court was looking at a lower-court ruling that suspended the ban and allowed previously barred travelers to enter the U.S.

An appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is possible, though the White House could also keep the case in the 9th Circuit and have it heard 'en banc,' by all the judges.

US District Judge James Robart in Seattle issued a temporary restraining order halting the ban last week after Washington state and Minnesota sued. The ban temporarily suspended the nation's refugee program and immigration from countries that have raised terrorism concerns.

Temporary setback: Kellyanne Conway, White House counsellor, (pictured on Thursday evening) said they were 'fully confident' that they 'will prevail'

Justice Department lawyers appealed to the 9th Circuit, arguing that the president has the constitutional power to restrict entry to the United States and that the courts cannot second-guess his determination that such a step was needed to prevent terrorism.

The states said Trump's travel ban harmed individuals, businesses and universities.

Citing Trump's campaign promise to stop Muslims from entering the U.S., they said the ban unconstitutionally blocked entry to people based on religion.

Both sides faced tough questioning during an hour of arguments Tuesday conducted by phone  an unusual step  and broadcast live on cable networks, newspaper websites and social media.

It attracted a huge audience.

The judges hammered away at the administration's claim that the ban was motivated by terrorism fears, but they also challenged the states' argument that it targeted Muslims.

'I have trouble understanding why we're supposed to infer religious animus when, in fact, the vast majority of Muslims would not be affected,' Judge Richard Clifton, a George W. Bush nominee, asked an attorney representing Washington state and Minnesota.

Only 15 per cent of the world's Muslims are affected by the executive order, the judge said, citing his own calculations.

'Has the government pointed to any evidence connecting these countries to terrorism?' Judge Michelle T. Friedland, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, asked the Justice Department attorney.

The lower-court judge temporarily halted the ban after determining that the states were likely to win the case and had shown that the ban would restrict travel by their residents, damage their public universities and reduce their tax base.

Robart put the executive order on hold while the lawsuit works its way through the courts.

After that ruling, the State Department quickly said people from the seven countries  Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen  with valid visas could travel to the U.S. The decision led to tearful reunions at airports round the country.

The ban was set to expire in 90 days, meaning it could run its course before the court would take up the issue. The administration also could change the order, including changing its scope or duration.
Parents often show their love and affection to their children in different ways. In China, food is apparently the common answer.

The country's social media have been flooded with pictures taken by young people to show the enormous amount of food their parents made them bring back when they returned to their own home after the Lunar New Year gathering.

Children were given huge piles of fruits, dairy products, vegetables, dried food, dumplings, meat, homemade cooking sauces, among others. One web user was even given a whole pig, reported on Huanqui, an affiliation to People's Daily Online.

You won't go hungry! Chinese people have been sharing pictures on social media showing the amount of food their parents give them after Lunar New Year celebrations

Pictures can be found under popular hashtags such as 'luggage with love', 'fridge with love' and ' the taste of love' on social media platform Weibo

All you can eat! One person had 300 dumplings and another had trouble closing the car boot

Time to pig out! One web user was even given a whole pig which had been butchered and frozen and many others found their fridges completely stuffed

Popular hashtags such as 'luggage with love', 'fridge with love' and 'the taste of love' have emerged on Weibo, a Chinese social media account, to capture the phenomenon.

Hundreds of pictures were shared, which showed Chinese people's suitcases, cars and fridges filled to the brim with food given by their mums and dads.

The importance of food in Chinese culture is inevitable. Parents seem to worry that their children will have no time to go out for grocery shopping once they return work after a week-long national holiday.

Eat more! Worried parents prepare food for their children to bring back so they won't starve

Full of love: Parents fill a car with food and drinks for their children who live in another city

Chinese parents often worry that their children would skip meals or not have enough to eat

Good or bad? Some web users said they were feeling pressured by their parents' love

Some web users, however, have left comments saying they were feeling pressured by their parents' love.

One Weibo user 'superMario_zyf', who had received over 300 dumplings from her parents, posted: 'I had steamed dumplings for breakfast, egg fried dumplings for lunch and deep fried dumplings for dinner.'

'But I still have a whole tray of fresh dumplings in the fridge,' she added.

One 41-year-old man made the headline last week after taking out more than 15kg (33 pounds) of pancakes from his suitcase while checking in his luggage at the Nanjing airport.

The man, named Zang Tao, lives in Chengdu and he was about to fly home from Nanjing where his parents live, according to Huanqiu.com, an affiliation to People's Daily Online.

The big pile of pancakes had been prepared by the man's mother, who worried that her son might starve.

Onlookers and airline staffs were surprised as he explained that his 76-year-old mother spent seven hours making the pancakes.

The man has been nicknamed 'Uncle Pancake' on Chinese social media. He had to pay for excessive baggage because of the weight of the pancakes.

Zang Tao, 41, took out more than 15kg (33 pounds) of pancakes from his suitcase when he checked in his luggage at Nanjing airport. The food had been prepared by his mother

Mr Zang had to pay for excessive baggage because of the weight of the pancakes

His mother also made him 10kg (22 pounds) of marinated vegetables and 5kg (11 pounds) of dried radish.

Hundreds of millions of Chinese people travelled back home during the seven-day Lunar New Year holiday last week. For many, this is the only time in the year they get to see their family.

Parents prepare food for their children to bring back so they can have a taste of home for as long as possible.
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If you take a trip to the Terracotta Warriors in China's Anhui province, you'd be in the right country but definitely in the wrong place.

Copy-cat world landmarks are a frequent occurrence in China that are now on the rise with many tourists being fooled.

One site taking fake landmarks to the extreme is a tourist area in Anqing City, China's Anhui province, reports Huanqiu, an affiliation of the People's Daily Online.

A fun day out: Copy cat landmarks such as this one in Anqing City are incredibly popular in China

The site contains hundreds of replica warriors and soldiers: According to a guide, the site is a full-scale copy

Good fake: According to a tour guide, the copycat is an exact full-scale replica of the statues in China's Shaanxi province

Copy-cat: Replicas of terracotta sculptures from soldiers to horses are exhibited in Anqing City, China's Anhui province

Popular with the tourists: The site has become a tourist attraction on its own and is great for those unable to travel to Xi'an

Replicas in the pit: The copies are based on the original soldiers and horses which were discovered in Xi'an in the 70s

The site in Anqing City, China's Anhui province is a full scale replica of the first pit based in Xi'an some one thousand kilometres away.

The site in Xi'an has three pits, with the first pit being the largest.

According to a tour guide at the centre, the size matches that of the original in Xi'an.

However entry to the fake site is a little cheaper at 120 yuan (13.92) while admission to the real warriors is 150 yuan (17.40).

A bit of a bargain: Entry to the replica site costs 20 yuan (13.92) while admission to the real warriors is 150 yuan (17.40)

They look familiar! A full-scale replica of terracotta sculptures from warriors and horses of the No.1 Pit

Not bad fakes: Copy cat landmarks such as this one in Anqing City are incredibly popular in China

The real Terracotta Warriors and horses pictured in Xi'an, northwestern China's Shaanxi province (File photo)

WHAT ARE THE TERRACOTTA WARRIORS AND WHY WERE THEY BUILT One warrior from China's famous Terracotta Army in Xi'an The Terracotta Army is a form of funerary art buried with the First Emperor in 210 to 209 BC and whose purpose was to protect the emperor in his afterlife. Arguably the most famous archaeological site in the world, it was discovered by chance by villagers in 1974, and excavation has been on-going at the site since that date. An extraordinary feat of mass-production, each figure was given an individual personality although they were not intended to be portraits. The figures vary in height according to their roles, with the tallest being the generals. Current estimates are that there were over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which are still buried. Since 1998, figures of terracotta acrobats, bureaucrats, musicians and bronze birds have been discovered on site. They were designed to entertain the Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the founding emperor of the Qin Dynasty, in his afterlife. They are of crucial importance to our understanding of his attempts to control the world even in death. Advertisement

Apparently, Emperor Qin's Terracotta Army is not the only famous Chinese relic that has been replicated by its own countrymen.

Different versions of the Great Wall of China, an ancient fortification, have popped up across the country. Fake sections of the UNESCO-protected fortress have been spotted in the cities of Wuhan, Nanchang, Shenyang, and Jiangyin.

People's Daily Online reported in 2015 that many tourists thought they were on the real Great Wall of China while in fact they were climbing a 2.5-mile-long replica version of the historic fortification. The real Great Wall of China is estimated to be at least 13,170 miles long.

Huaxi, which is billed as the richest village in China, also has its own version of the Great Wall for residents to enjoy.

In addition, there are countless numbers of fake Pyramids, Taj Mahals and Tower Bridges in the country. Beijing even has a theme park devoted to fake landmarks.

While Shenzhen in the south of the country also has something similar.

Tourists reportedly thought they were on the real Great Wall while they were climbing a replica in Nanchang (pictured)

Is it the real deal? Tourists visit a replica of the Great Wall in Huaxi village, Jiangyin City

Now that's fancy: A replica of Tiananmen Square stands in Huaxi village, known to be China's richest village

A replica of the Shanghaiguan Pass, a section of the Great Wall of China stands in China's richest village

The fake Great Wall (left) is located in Nanchang and is some 13,000 miles than its original (right)

Presidential: A girl stands in front of a copy of the White House (left) while the original stands in Washington DC (left)

Tourists sit on the fake Pyramids in Shenzhen (left) which are based on the original Pyramids which are based in Egypt

A college in China has a mock up of the Arc de Triomphe for a gate (left) while the original stands in Paris, France (right)

Now that looks familiar: A replica of London's Tower Bridge is located in Suzhou, eastern China's Jiangsu province

Looks a bit French! A replica of the Eiffel Tower is seen in China's Shandong province despite the original being in Paris

Smaller than the original: A woman walks past the replica Mount Rushmore in Chongqing, China's Sichuan province
NASA astronaut Andrew Feustel, along with two Russian Roscosmos astronauts, have undergone a three-day winter training session in a forest at the Russian Space Training Centre in Star City, Moscow.

The three astronauts went to the Russian forest to train for a future mission to the International Space Station in 2017 or 2018.

During the training, they built a hut which astronauts training at the camp last year also did using a parachute from their landing capsule.

Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev, and Sergei Prokopyev, and NASA astronaut Andrew Feustel (L-R) practice their skills in a winter survival camp in preparation for an ISS flight in 2017 or 2018. The team are only given the equipment they would land in if their ship blows off course as it descends. Here, shelters made from parachutes can be seen.

Sometimes, the astronauts' landing capsule can blow off course, causing the crew to find themselves in hostile environments where it could be days before they are rescued.

So NASA astronaut Andrew Feustel, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergei Prokopyev and Oleg Artemyev also trained using a landing capsule at the survival camp.

The centre, run by the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), is in a closed town where the legendary cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin trained.

Ms Mitch Karunaratne, who has previously taken pictures of Star City, said it is 'still the main space training centre for all international cosmonauts and astronauts visiting the space station as well as the centre for the Russian space programme.

'It is located about 30 miles [48 kilometres] east of Moscow, set within a deeply wooded area and it doesn't appear on any maps or have road signs.

During the training, they built a hut which astronauts training at the camp last year also did using a parachute from their landing capsule

'It is a "closed" town - and very tricky to get access to and has a heavily guarded border and access is for residents and space trainees.'

The centre was established in the 1960s and was originally called the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre.

Since then it has trained at least 400 astronauts - or cosmonauts as they are called in Russia - from more than 30 different countries.

While cooperation on the ISS looks set to continue, it's possible that the next stage of space exploration - aimed at eventually putting someone on Mars - will be hit by deteriorating relations between the West and Russia . The parachutes from the capsule are used as building materials for a simple structure.

Sometimes, the astronauts' landing capsule can blow off course, causing the crew to find themselves in hostile environments where it could be days before they are rescued - so every team of astronauts has to undergo a brutal survival training course.

Ms Mitch Karunaratne, who has previously taken pictures of Star City, said the town is located about 30 miles [48 kilometres] east of Moscow, set within a deeply wooded area and it doesn't appear on any maps or have road signs. Here, the team learn how to use flares to alert rescue crews where they are - and ward off wild animal attacks.

'All personnel involved in the Soviet and Russian space programme, and their descendants have the right to live here,' Ms Karunaratne said.

'It houses both space training installation buildings, as well as accommodation, shop, church and a school.

'Yuri Gagarin's family still live here.'

Ms Mitch Karunaratne, who has previously taken pictures of Star City, said it is 'still the main space training centre for all international cosmonauts and astronauts visiting the space station as well as the centre for the Russian space programme

Russian Cosmonaut Sergej Prokopyev, centre, talks with NASA astronaut Andrew J. Feustel a three-day winter training in a forest at Russian Space Training Centre in Star City, outside Moscow, Russia

A landing capsule rests in snow in a winter survival camp where two Roscosmos cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut are practising their skills in preparation for an ISS flight in 2017 or 2018

Ms Karunaratne said inside the complex there were several life-size mock-ups of the International Space Station used for training.

One is even submerged in a swimming pool where cosmonauts can practice their space walks.

In January 2016, a Russian appraisal named the US as one of the threats to Russia's national security for the first time, a sign of how relations with the west have deteriorated in recent years.

Ms Mitch Karunaratne, who has previously taken pictures of Star City, said: 'It is a "closed" town - and very tricky to get access to and has a heavily guarded border and access is for residents and space trainees'. Here, the team collect wood to build fires to keep them warms in the freezing temperatures.

The centre was established in the 1960s and was originally called the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre. Since then it has trained at least 400 astronauts - or cosmonauts as they are called in Russia - from more than 30 different countries

Relations between Russia and the West reached a low after Russian forces annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in March 2014.

The US and the European Union have since imposed wide-ranging sanctions against Russian individuals and companies.

But the ISS is one of the rare areas of US-Russian cooperation that has not been hit by the Ukraine crisis.

Ms Mitch Karunaratne, who has previously taken pictures of Star City, said the centre has a complex with several life-size mock-ups of the International Space Station used for training. 'One is even submerged in a swimming pool where cosmonauts can practice their space walks,' she said

NASA astronaut Andrew Feustel, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergei Prokopyev and Oleg Artemyev (L-R) practice their skills in a winter survival camp in preparation for an ISS flight in 2017 or 2018. The ISS is one of the rare areas of US-Russian cooperation that has not been hit by the Ukraine crisis

While cooperation on the station looks set to continue, it's possible that the next stage of space exploration - aimed at eventually putting someone on Mars - will be hit by deteriorating relations.

Beyond 2024, when the work on the ISS is set to end, as the situation stands now it seems unlikely that the two sides will agree on any major projects.

And experts say that without international cooperation, dreams of flying a manned mission to Mars will struggle to take off, or face lengthy delays at the very least.
A non-profit group in the US is keeping tabs on unsolved murders across the country  and their software can spot unnoticed trends to reveal a possible serial killer.

Known as the Murder Accountability Project, the open-source website uses data from federal, state, and local governments.

Theyve so far compiled details on more than 600,000 homicides, and as its available for free online, anyone can access the data to look for connections in unsolved cases.

A non-profit group in the US is keeping tabs on unsolved murders across the country  and their software can spot unnoticed trends to reveal a possible serial killer. Known as the Murder Accountability Project , it uses data from federal, state, and local governments. Stock image

THE MURDER ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT Known as the Murder Accountability Project, the open-source website uses data from federal, state, and local governments. The site can be used by both police and the public, and includes two major FBI datasets: the Uniform Crime Report from 1965 to the present, and the Supplementary Homicide Report from 1976 to the present. With this, you can search historical cases, or find cases based on geography, the type of victim, method of killing, and the timeframe of killing. Advertisement

Founded by retired news reporter Thomas K Hargrove, the group is working to make sure the thousands of unsolved homicides in the US each year are accounted for.

'America does a poor job tracking and accounting for its unsolved homicides,' the organisation says on its website.

'Every year, at least 5,000 killers get away with murder.

'The rate at which police clear homicides through arrest has declined over the years until, today, about a third go unsolved.

'As a result, more than 222,000 Americans have perished in unsolved homicides committed since 1980  more than the combined death toll of all U.S. military actions since World War II.'

The easy to use tool allows people to look at trends among these cases.

Homicide investigators may find this site useful in testing theories about murders in their community, the site explains.

The Supplementary Homicide Report data available at the Search Cases tab is especially useful to test theories about suspects who may have killed across multiple jurisdictions or within the same jurisdiction over a period of time.

The Murder Accountability Project was founded by retired news reporter Thomas K Hargrove

Through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, the group has gathered information on 638,454 homicides  including 23,219 that hadnt been reported to the FBI  from 1980 through 2014, Bloomberg reports.

Hargrove, formerly an E.W. Scripps journalist, began working on the algorithm in 2008, working with a Supplementary Homicide Report found in the FBIs Uniform Crime Report.

At first, he tried to create a system that would spot commonalities between unsolved cases to suggest the same murderer.

Then, he tried another tactic  reverse-engineering the algorithm, using the well-known case of Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer.

The killer has confessed to murdering 48 women in the Seattle area over a period of roughly 20 years, according to Bloomberg.

After trying out a number of options for a cluster analysis, the researcher settled on geography, sex, age group, and method of killing.

After trying out a number of options for a cluster analysis, the researcher settled on geography, sex, age group, and method of killing. Results of the Green River Killer are shown. The bar chart on the left reveals two-thirds of cases were unsolved, the site explains

And, the algorithm pulled up the Green River Killer.

It also revealed 77 unsolved murders in Los Angeles and 64 unsolved murders of women in Phoenix.

The LA cases, he learned, were linked to several killers police were pursuing, including the Southside Slayer and the Grim Sleeper, Bloomberg reports.

Now, years later, the effort has blossomed into the Murder Accountability Project, a tool that can essentially crowdsource murder.

THE 'GARY' KILLINGS In 2010, Hargroves analysis revealed a troubling trend of killings in Gary, Indiana, with 14 unsolved murders of women aged 20-50  all the result of strangulation. Police never replied to his emails, despite the attached source material showing what hed found, Bloomberg reports. But, four years later, police discovered the body of 19-year-old Afrikka Hardy in a room at Motel 6, and phone records led them to a 43-year-old suspect named Darren Deon Vann. After his arrest, Vann took police to abandoned buildings where hed hidden six more bodies  and later, he mentioned hed been killing since the 90s, Bloomberg reports. But, as the prosecution moves through the courts, no one involved can discuss it or speculate on whether the victims noted in Hargroves 2010 tip may have been killed by Vann. Advertisement

America does a poor job tracking and accounting for its unsolved homicides, the site explains.

Every year, at least 5,000 killers get away with murder.

'The rate at which police clear homicides through arrest has declined over the years until, today, about a third go unsolved.

The site can be used by both police and the public, and includes two major FBI datasets: the Uniform Crime Report from 1965 to the present, and the Supplementary Homicide Report from 1976 to the present.

With this, you can search historical cases, or find cases based on geography, the type of victim, method of killing, and the timeframe of killing.
As astronomers find ever more powerful ways to look for life elsewhere in the universe, one leading researchers has warned we should be careful what we wish for.

Lucianne Walkowicz, an astrophysicist at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, told NBC News that in fact, making contact could be catastrophic for the human race.

'There's a possibility that if we actively message, with the intention of getting the attention of an intelligent civilization, that the civilization we contact would not necessarily have our best interests in mind,' she said.

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Lucianne Walkowicz, an astrophysicist at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, said making contact could be catastrophic - but could also 'accelerate the ability to live quality lives on Earth'. 'If aliens visit us, the outcome could be much like when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans,' Stephen Hawking said in a recent interview.

'On the other hand, there might be great benefits.

'It could be something that ends life on Earth, and it might be something that accelerates the ability to live quality lives on Earth.

'We have no way of knowing.'

Stephen Hawking also believes we're playing a dangerous game by trying to contact them.

The physicist believes if aliens discovered Earth, they are likely to want to conquer and colonise our planet.

'If aliens visit us, the outcome could be much like when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans,' he said in a recent interview.

But co-founder and former director of the Seti Institute, Jill Tarter, doesn't think this will be the case.

She argues any aliens who have managed to travel across the universe will be sophisticated enough to be friendly and peaceful.

'The idea of a civilisation which has managed to survive far longer than we have...and the fact that that technology remains an aggressive one, to me, doesn't make sense,' she said.

Basic protocols for first contact were put in place in the 1980s, but these are merely guidelines, rather than an action plan for dealing with alien contact.

Seth Shostak, who leads efforts to detect radio signals from extraterrestrial civilisations, says that more needs to be done to put an action plan in place.

He says our current response to aliens 'would be like the Neanderthals having a plan in case the US Air Force showed up,'.

Stephen Hawking (left) and billionaire Yuri Milner (right) have their sights set on finding alien life. Now, the first results from a $100 million 'Breakthrough Listen' mission to uncover signals from ET have been released

Mr Shostak is a senior astronomer at the Seti (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in California, where researchers are working to detect radio signals from outer space.

In the 1990s, Mr Shostak chaired a committee that prepared a 'post-detection protocol' for researchers listening for alien transmissions.

But these have remained largely unchanged since then, and are seen as guidelines, rather than a definite plan for dealing with alien contact.

Seth Shostak, who leads efforts to detect radio signals from extraterrestrial civilisations, says that governments have taken little interest in updating the guidelines, and that more needs to be done

Mr Shostak told Live Science that the guidelines say: 'If you pick up a signal, check it out ... tell everybody ... and don't broadcast any replies without international consultation.'

But the protocol has no force of law, and Mr Shostak says that the United Nations has taken little interest in updating them.

He said: 'The US government has shown no interest in SETI research so far.

'It's not a government program, so they have nothing to do with it. I would love to see some interest from them, but I never have.'

In 1997, a SETI false alarm was set off by a signal from a European satellite, but the only response was from journalists.

Mr Shostak said: 'We thought it was possibly the real deal.

'I kept waiting for the Men in Black to show up  they didn't. I kept waiting for the Pentagon to call. I kept waiting for the White House to call. They didn't call. But The New York Times called.'

While detecting radio signals is not as extreme as physically encountering spaceships on Earth, Mr Shostak said that neither situation has a plan.

BREAKTHROUGH LISTEN Breakthrough Listen is a search for intelligent life using two of the world's most powerful telescopes. It was launched in January with the aim of scouring one million of the closest stars to Earth for faint signals thrown out into space by intelligent life beyond our own world. Huge satellites, such as the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation's (CSIRO) are being used to detect radio signals from space Scientists taking part in the $100 million are also scanning the very centre of our galaxy along with 100 of the closest galaxies for low power radio transmissions. Breakthrough Listen will collect data over a 10-year period. Search capacity will be 50 times more sensitive, cover 10 times more of the sky, 5 times more of the radio spectrum, and at speeds 100 times faster. Advertisement

He said: 'Some people asked me at a conference last week, 'What plan does the military have to deal with aliens should they land?' And I said, 'I don't know  but to the best of my knowledge, they don't have a plan.''

Others have expressed concerns about how we would communicate with aliens.

But Mr Shostak believes that making a good first impression would be key.

'I've been to several conferences where people discuss whether we should tell [aliens] all the bad things about humanity, or just the good things, and that sort of thing,' he said.

'To me, that would be like the indigenous people of Australia seeing Captain Cook coming over the horizon in his ship, then saying, 'We're going to have a couple of conferences to discuss what we're going to talk to these guys about, and what language we'll use'  [but] it doesn't matter.'

Humans have been broadcasting news for years, in the form of television and radio signals.

Mr Shostak said: 'Those signals have been going out into space since the Second World War, so we've already told them we're here.'
In 1945, the US army detonated the first nuclear test bomb at a site in New Mexico, releasing shards of radioactive glass onto the ground in the process.

Researchers have now found an unexpected use for the glass - they are using it to understand how the moon formed 4.5 billion years ago.

Minerals in the glass show surprisingly similar properties to lunar rocks, and suggest that when the moon formed, it contained very little water.

In 1945, the US army detonated the first nuclear test bomb at a site in New Mexico, releasing shards of radioactive glass onto the ground in the process

THE GIANT IMPACT THEORY Many researchers believe the moon formed after Earth was hit by a planet the size of Mars billions of years ago. This is called the giant impact hypothesis. The hypothesis claims the moon is debris left over following an indirect collision between our planet and an astronomical body approximately 4.5 billion years ago. The colliding body is sometimes called Theia, after the mythical Greek Titan who was the mother of Selene, the goddess of the Moon. Advertisement

The findings provide new evidence to support the 'giant impact theory' of the moon's formation.

Researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, examined the chemical composition of zinc and other volatile elements in glass formed under the extreme temperatures from the 1945 plutonium bomb explosion.

Test samples of the green-coloured glass, known as trinite, were collected between 10 and 250 metres from ground zero at the Trinity test site in New Mexico.

The glass closest to the detonation site was found to have very little volatile elements, such as zinc, compared with samples collected further away.

And the zinc that was present was enriched with less-reactive isotopes, which are forms of these elements with different atomic mass, but the same chemical properties.

This suggests that volatile elements were 'dried out' close to the explosion.

Professor James Day, who led the study, said: 'The results show that evaporation at high temperatures, similar to those at the beginning of planet formation, leads to the loss of volatile elements and to enrichment in heavy isotopes in the left over materials from the event.

'This has been conventional wisdom, but now we have experimental evidence to show it.'

Researchers examined the chemical composition of zinc and other volatile elements in glass formed under the extreme temperatures from the 1945 plutonium bomb explosion

Previous studies have suggested that similar chemical reactions took place when the Earth and a large Mars-sized body collided, producing debris that ultimately formed the moon.

The new study found similarities between trinite and lunar rocks, in that they are both have little volatile elements, and no water.

This provides new evidence to support the 'giant impact theory' of the moon's formation.

The new study found similarities between trinite and lunar rocks, in that they are both have little volatile elements, and no water. This provides new evidence to support the 'giant impact theory' of the moon's formation

The trinite formed at the New Mexico site formed from the heat produced as the nuclear reactions took place.

This study's findings show that volatile elements undergo the same chemical reactions in extreme temperatures in space.

Professor Day said: 'We used what was a history-changing event to scientific benefit, obtaining new and important scientific information from an event over 70 years ago that changed human history forever.'

The Giant Impact theory claims the moon is debris left over following an indirect collision between our planet and an astronomical body approximately 4.5 billion years ago
An underwater volcano erupting near Tonga could birth a temporary island, new satellite images show.

Photos of the eruption reveal a plume of turquoise colour bursting from the dark blue sea.

The discolouration is likely caused by gas, rocks and volcanic fluid firing from the volcano.

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An underwater volcano erupting near Tonga could birth a temporary island, new satellite images shows. Photos of the eruption show a plume of turquoise colour (pictured) bursting from the darkness of the sea

HOW DO UNDERWATER ERUPTIONS FORM ISLANDS? Underwater volcanoes frequently create new islands in the Tonga area. Most erode some time after formation, but some are permanent. The volcanoes form when tectonic plates move over 'hot spots' in the ocean where underground rock melts to form magma. This magma rises to the surface and becomes lava. The lava rapidly cools, solidifies, and builds mounds which break the surface of the ocean. Advertisement

The sheer force of the eruption may have also thrown sediment up from the ocean's floor.

The eruption likely began around January 23, according to other images captured by Nasa satellites.

'It may continue for some days or weeks, and an island may form temporarily,' said Dr Martin Jutzeler, a University of Tasmania geologist who studies underwater eruptions.

'However, new volcanic islands are easily eroded by wave action.'

The erupting volcano was stumbled upon by University of Auckland geologist Dr Murray Ford.

Dr Ford was reviewing satellite images of a young island near Tonga when he spotted a turquoise plume in the ocean.

That plume was coming from a seamount located 20 miles (33km) from Tonga's main island of Tongatapu.

Underwater eruptions are relatively common in the area, which is part of the Tonga-Kermadec volcanic arc and the Pacific Ring of Fire.

This plume appears to have originated from a seamount that geologists call 'Submarine Volcano III'.

It has shown signs of activity in 1911, 1923, 1970, 1990, and 2007.

The discolourisation is likely caused by gas, rocks and volcanic fluid firing from the volcano. The sheer force of the eruption may have also thrown sediment up from the ocean's floor

Dr Murray Ford was using satellite imagery to study a new island near Tonga when he spotted a turquoise plume in the ocean. That plume was coming from a seamount located 20 miles (33 kilometers) from Tonga's main island of Tongatapu

UNDERWATER VOLCANOES Almost 70 per cent of our planets crust is produced at mid-ocean ridges  where Earths tectonic plates are moving apart. As the plates move away from one another, magma fills the space in between them, forming huge underwater volcanoes. These are so remote that they can only be studied with special submarines or deep-sea robots and, as such, little is known about them, or their eruptions. Advertisement

Nasa warns that underwater volcanic eruptions can pose a hazard to ships.

'Ash from volcanic eruptions on land are a well-known threat to airplanes, and underwater eruptions can likewise pose a hazard to ships,' it said in a statement on the new island.

'Some underwater eruptions produce rafts of light, porous rock called pumice that float on the sea surface and can clog ship engines.'

Underwater volcanoes form when tectonic plates move over 'hot spots' in the ocean where underground rock melts to form magma.

This magma rises to the surface and becomes lava.

The lava rapidly cools, solidifies, and builds mounds which break the surface of the ocean.

Most islands produced by volcanic eruptions erode some time after formation, but some are permanent.
Australian dolphins may be chewing on blowfish to get high.

The dolphins have even been caught by researchers passing blowfish around to share with their friends.

Blowfish are brimming with the toxin tetrodotoxin, found in their skin, flesh and internal organs, which is lethal to most predators, including humans.

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Australian dolphins may be chewing on blowfish to get high. The dolphins have even been caught by researchers passing blowfish around to share with their friends (pictured)

NORWEGIAN REINDEER TAKE MAGIC MUSHROOMS Norwegian reindeer have been caught getting high off of psychedelic mushrooms that grow naturally in their forest habitats. Motorists in Norway last year spotted reindeer acting strangely on the side of the road. Locals described the reindeer as 'giddy' and 'totally unafraid of humans,' reported Norwegian Broadcaster NRK. Unni Fjellheim, who owns a herd of Norwegian reindeer, claimed that the reindeer 'pure and simple get high on the mushrooms they're eating.' She said the reindeer eat mushroom to build fat and protein reserves for the winter. Advertisement

But for dolphins, at small doses the drug can have a narcotic effect and is used as a recreational drug.

The dolphins will often keep the blowfish alive to ensure its toxins last longer.

Researcher Krista Nicholson from Murdoch University, Perth, monitors dolphins living in the coastal waters off of nearby Mandurah.

She told the Mandurah Mail that there are many examples of dolphins interacting with blowfish in this way across the globe.

But the theory that dolphins use blowfish to get high is disputed.

Some experts suggest that the toxin only makes the dolphins feel numb.

Ms Nicholson says that the dolphins she observes have been spotted passing around seagrass or crabs as part of normal, playful behaviour.

Blowfish are brimming with the toxin tetrodotoxin, found in their skin, flesh and internal organs, which is lethal to most predators, including humans. But for dolphins the drug can have a narcotic effect and is used as a recreational drug

Those caught sharing a quick blowfish hit could actually just be using the fish to play.

Ms Nicholson claims that a calf born last year that she had spent a lot of time observing had taken a special interest in chewing and throwing blowfish.

Just last month she saw the dolphin swimming belly-up and repeatedly throwing an inflated blowfish into the air.

Huubster let the blowfish loose several times, only to recapture it and toss it into the air again.

Researcher Krista Nicholson from Murdoch University , Perth, monitors dolphins living in the coastal waters off of nearby Mandurah, and has spotted the blowfish behaviour several times in the dolphins that she studies

BBC documentary Dolphins - Spy in the Pod captured dolphins getting buzzed off of a live blowfish in 2014.

It was the first time that apparent recreational drug use had been documented in dolphins.

The program's executive producer John Downer noted at the time that the dolphin were put into a trance-like state: 'Hanging around with their noses at the surface as if fascinated by their own reflection.'

And dolphins are not the first animals to be caught using drugs.

Norwegian reindeer have been caught tripping on psychedelic mushrooms that grow naturally in their forest habitats.

Motorists in Norway last year spotted reindeer acting strangely on the side of the road.

Ms Nicholson claims that a calf born last year that she had spent a lot of time observing had taken a special interest in chewing and throwing blowfish. Just last month she saw the dolphin swimming belly-up and repeatedly throwing an inflated blowfish into the air (pictured)

Locals described the intoxicated reindeer as 'giddy' and 'totally unafraid of humans,' Norwegian Broadcaster NRK reported.

Unni Fjellheim, who owns a herd of Norwegian reindeer, claimed that the reindeer 'pure and simple get high on the mushrooms they're eating.'

She said the reindeer eat mushroom to build fat and protein reserves for the winter.

And Vervet monkeys in the Carribean steal cocktails from human tourists.

There are gangs of the monkeys on the Caribbean Island of St Kitts that regularly raid the local beach bars for cocktails to satisfy their thirst.

The cheeky boozers first arrived on the island 300 years ago with slaves from West Africa who were shipped there to work in the rum industry.

They developed a taste for alcohol from eating fermented fruits on forest floors.
Many people think of traditional caravans and even elaborate weddings when they think of Irish travellers.

But the roots of their way of life have not been clear until now, mainly owing to a lack of documented evidence on their history.

New research suggests that Irish travellers are as genetically different to Irish settlers as the Spanish, and could be given their own ethic status.

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Irish travellers are as genetically different to Irish settlers as the Spanish, and could be considered their own ethic group. Researchers at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, investigated the link between travellers and other populations (stock image)

WHAT WAS THE GREAT FAMINE? Experts believe that travellers genetically diverged from the rest of the Irish population between 200 and 420 years ago. This runs contrary to a popular hypothesis that places their origins during the Great Famine of 1845 to 1852. The Great Famine was a period of mass starvation, disease, and emigration in Ireland between 1845 and 1852. It is sometimes known as the Potato Famine because it was caused by potato blight which destroyed the crop that one third of the population relied upon. During the famine around one million people died and the same number emigrated, causing the country's population to plunge by up to a quarter. Advertisement

Researchers at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, set out to investigate the relationship between travellers and neighbouring populations.

The authors believe that the Irish travellers diverged from the rest of the population in Ireland at least eight generations ago, assuming each generation to be 30 years.

The findings support calls for Irish travellers to receive some form of ethnic status in future, study lead-author Professor Gianpiero Cavalleri said.

'We think this is a nice piece of evidence for that complex debate,' he told the Irish Times. The research group 'would be supportive of some form of ethnic status'.

Travellers may now be considered as genetically different from settled Irish populations as the Spanish, he said.

The traveller community within Ireland consists of between 29,000-40,000 individuals, representing 0.6 per cent of the total population.

If the size of the small traveller population is taken into account, then they are as genetically similar to the settled Irish as the Scots.

'Travellers cluster with the Irish but they are very definitely distinct from the Irish,' Professor Cavalleri said.

The authors believe that the Irish Travellers diverged from the rest of the population in Ireland at least eight generations ago, assuming each generation to be 30 years. The findings provide support for Irish Travellers receiving some form of ethnic status in future (stock image)

'There is a considerable genetic distance between them.'

Experts believe that travellers genetically diverged from the rest of the Irish population between 200 and 420 years ago.

This runs contrary to a popular hypothesis that places their origins during the Great Famine of 1845 to 1852.

But Professor's study adds clarity to the long-held debate over the genetic origins of travellers.

Professor Cavalleri and his colleagues compared genetic data from 42 Irish traveller individuals with 143 European Roma, 2,232 settled Irish, 2,039 British, 5,964 European and 931 individuals from the rest of the world.

His team found that the Irish traveller population has an ancestral Irish origin, closely resembling the wider Irish population, with no particular genetic link to the European Roma.

'We think this is a nice piece of evidence for that complex debate,' lead-author Professor Cavalleri said. The research group 'would be supportive of some form of ethnic status' (stock image)

Travellers may now be considered as genetically different from settled Irish populations as the Spanish, Professor Cavalleri said. If the size of the small traveller population is taken into account, then they are as genetically similar to the Irish as the Scots (stock image)

While the study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, is interesting from a ethnic and historical perspective, it could also have implications for disease mapping within Ireland.

The authors note that their paper could lead to a better understanding of the degree of homozygosity in the traveller population.

Homozygosity is the number of identical forms of the same genes in the population.

The paper could also help researchers to identify the drift to rarer variants of genes within the Irish traveller population.

Understanding these genetic shifts could shed new light on disease mapping in Ireland.
Time could almost be up for a species of penguin being driven to extinction, according to new research.

African penguins search large areas of ocean off the coast of southwest Africa for signs which usually indicate an abundance of prey.

But over-exploitation of fishing stocks, warming seas and changing salinity now lead the young birds into an 'ecological trap', forcing them to search in the wrong places to find food.

Over-exploitation of fishing stocks, warming seas and changing salinity could spell the end for the African penguin. New research by the University of Exeter suggests breeding is 50 percent lower due to an ecological 'trap'

African penguins look for areas of low sea temperatures and high chlorophyll-a, which indicate the presence of plankton and the fish which feed on it.

But climate change and industrial fishing have depleted fish stocks in these areas.

What were once reliable cues for prey-rich waters are now leading youngsters, leaving colonies for the first time, to feed in seas devoid of fish.

And they are not adapting to the man-made changes caused to their environment, the new study warns.

The study, which was published in the journal Current Biology, used satellite trackers on 54 juvenile penguins from eight colonies covering the species' breeding and feeding grounds off the coast of Namibia.

Small changes in the temperature and salinity of the waters in the area, known as the Benguela ecosystem, have caused the species to move their feeding ground hundreds of kilometres to the east.

The changes are decimating numbers, with computer models suggesting breeding is 50 percent lower than if the birds were able to escape the 'trap'.

The African penguin, previously known as the jackass penguin, is already listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature

THE STUDY Juvenile African penguins look for areas of low sea temperatures and high chlorophyll-a, which indicate the presence of plankton and the fish which feed on it. The study used satellite trackers on 54 juvenile penguins from eight colonies covering the species' breeding ground off the coast of Namibia. Small changes in the temperature and salinity of the waters in the area, known as the Benguela ecosystem, have caused the species to move their feeding ground hundreds of kilometres to the east. The changes are decimating numbers, with computer models suggesting breeding is 50 percent lower than if the birds were able to escape the 'trap'. Advertisement

Research Fellow Dr Richard Sherley, of the Environment and Sustainability Institute at the University of Exeter, led the study.

He said: 'When the young of this endangered species leave the colony for the first time, they travel long distances, searching the ocean for certain signs that should mean they have found an area with lots of plankton and plenty of the fish that feed on it.

'But rapid shifts caused by climate change and fishing mean these signs can now lead them to places where these fish, the penguins' main prey, are scarce with impacts on their survival - a so-called 'ecological trap.'

'Protecting the penguins, and other species, from falling into similar ecological traps will require better action to account of the needs of predators in managing fisheries and concerted action to tackle climate change.'

Research Fellow Dr Richard Sherley, of the Environment and Sustainability Institute at the University of Exeter, who led the study

The African penguin, previously known as the jackass penguin, is already listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

It said the species is 'undergoing a very rapid population decline' which shows 'no sign of reversing.'

Dr Sherley added: 'The penguins still move to where the plankton are abundant, but the fish are no longer there.

'In particular, sardines in Namibia have been replaced in the ecosystem by lower-energy fish and jellyfish.

'Climate change and fisheries are transforming the oceans, but we don't have a complete understanding of their impact.

'Our results support suspending fishing when prey biomass drops below certain levels, and suggest that mitigating marine ecological traps will require major conservation action.'
The strange blobs only lasted a few seconds, and are a few miles across

was the 'blue blobs' which have never been seen before

For years, their existence has been debated - elusive electrical discharges in the upper atmosphere that sport names such as red sprites, blue jets, pixies and elves.

But an astronaut has confirmed the displays do exist, capturing stunning footage of them from the International Space Station.

New findings have been published which suggest that the electrical discharges may unsettle the chemistry of the stratosphere, with possible implications for the Earth's radiation balance.

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Blue discharges and jets are examples of a little-understood part of our atmosphere. But Andreas Mogensen has managed to captured the incredible phenomenon on camera

WHAT ARE THE DISPLAYS? Red sprites are electrical bursts of light that occur above highly active thunderstorms. They only last a few milliseconds and are relatively dim compared with other lightning. The late experimental physicist John Winckler accidentally discovered sprites, while helping to test a new low-light video camera in 1989. They show up red at higher altitudes and fade to blue at lower heights. Blue jets are enormous bursts of electrical discharge spiking upward from storm clouds in the upper atmosphere. They emerge from the electrically-charged cores of thunderstorms and rise up to 30 miles upwards in the shape of a cone. Advertisement

The stunning footage was captured by Andreas Mogensen, an astronaut from the European Space Agency (ESA), during his mission on the International Space Station in 2015.

Mr Mogensen said: 'It is not every day that you get to capture a new weather phenomenon on film, so I am very pleased with the result  but even more so that researchers will be able to investigate these intriguing thunderstorms in more detail soon.'

Denmark's National Space Institute has now published the results, which include a video recorded by Mr Mogensen as he flew over the Bay of Bengal at 28,800 km/h.

Some of the most notable findings suggest that the discharges appear to play a crucial role in the exchange of gases between the troposphere and the stratosphere.

Until now, researchers thought that sprites were red because of nitrogen interacting with electricity in the upper atmosphere.

But the new study suggests that sprites actually release a comparably large amount of serveral oxides of nitrogen in the upper atmosphere.

In the paper, the authors write: ' They underscore that thunderstorm discharges directly perturb the chemistry of the stratosphere with possible implications for the Earth's radiation balance.'

Mr Mogensen aimed for cloud turrets  pillars of cloud extending into the upper atmosphere  and shot a short video showing 245 blue flashes.

Blue discharges and jets are examples of a little-understood part of our atmosphere.

Electrical storms reach into the stratosphere and have implications for how our atmosphere protects us from radiation.

Other images were presented last year at the European Geosciences Union meeting in Vienna.

'We wanted to see what happens above a thunderstorm,' said Olivier Chanrion of the Danish National Space Institute in Lyngby.

'What we see is that at the top of the cloud in what we call the 'turrets', there is incredible activity.'

Mogensen saw sprites, called C-sprites, that create red-coloured tendrils more than 50 miles (80 km) above the ground.

Upwards lightning is normally caused by a preceding flash moving from the cloud to Earth, and involves a bolt moving from the ground to the clouds

They last for just a few milliseconds, making them incredibly hard to capture on camera.

Named after Shakespeare's mischievous sprite Puck, from A Midsummer Night's Dream, sprites are caused by irregularities in the ionosphere - a region of Earth's upper atmosphere.

They show up red at higher altitudes and fade to blue at lower heights.

A stunning light show featuring 'blue blobs' (shown), upside down lightning, red sprites (above the blue blob) and mile-long jets, were captured over Earth

Mogensen also recorded the first blue jets to ever be captured on film from space. Blue jets are enormous bursts of electrical discharge spiking upwards. Pictured is a blue jet forming

WHAT IS UPWARDS LIGHTNING? Upwards lightning is normally caused by a preceding flash moving from the cloud to Earth, and involves a bolt moving from the ground to the clouds. The preceding flash causes an electrical field change, which allows an upward positive leader to originate from a tall object like a building or wind turbine. During winter snow storms, it is possible for tall objects to initiate upwards lightning without preceding flashes. Upwards lightning is very rare - estimates suggest less than one per cent of lightning travels in an 'upwards' direction. However, this phenomenon captured on video appears to have been jets in the upper atmosphere, and not the same type of upwards lightning described here. Advertisement

Mogensen also recorded the first blue jets to ever be captured on film from space.

Blue jets are enormous bursts of electrical discharge spiking upward from storm clouds in the upper atmosphere.

They emerge from the electrically-charged cores of thunderstorms and rise up to 30 miles upwards in the shape of a cone.

But the blue blobs were the biggest surprise.

They only lasted a few seconds, and were a few miles across.

'They were dancing over the top of the cloud, and we called them glimpses,' says Chanrion.

'We sometimes saw around 100 glimpses per minute, and we think they're integrated between the top and bottom layers of the cloud.

'But it's only a first step and we need to find out more.'

Mogensen took four videos and 160 images from the ISS.

The footage of the storms was shot over Costa Rica, Mexico, Eastern India and Thailand.

Mr Mogensen aimed for cloud turrets  pillars of cloud extending into the upper atmosphere  and shot a short video showing 245 blue flashes

'We used forecasts to decide which storms would be of interest and sent him messages telling him where to point his camera,' says Chanrion.

Torsten Neubert from the Danish National Space Institute also displayed images of upside-down lighting taken in India by Rajesh Singh of the KSK Geomagnetic Research Laboratory.

The images show jets of lightning, as long as 11 miles, branching out from the top.

Upwards lightning is normally caused by a preceding flash moving from the cloud to Earth, and involves a bolt moving from the ground to the clouds. The preceding flash causes an electrical field change, which allows an upward positive leader to originate from a tall object like a building or wind turbine

'They only last around 20 to 40 milliseconds,' says Neubert, who likens a thunderstorm to a battery wedged between two conductors  Earth and the ionosphere.

These rarely seen, highly charged meteorological events are known as gigantic jets, and they flash up to the lower levels of space, or ionosphere.

While they don't occur every time there is lightning, the electrical fingerprints are far larger than their downward striking cousins.

This graphic shows where different weather phenomenon form in Earth's atmosphere. Elves, sprites and blue jets have all be seen from the cupola in the space station by astronauts 249 miles (400km) above Earth

It appears from the amount of electricity discharged by conventional lightning and gigantic jets is comparable.

But the gigantic jets travel farther and faster than conventional lightning because thinner air between the clouds and ionosphere provides less resistance.

Whereas a conventional lightning bolt follows a six-inch channel and travels about 4.5 miles down to earth, gigantic jets recorded by the scientists contain multiple channels.

Scientists are still not completely sure what conditions or what types of storms are conducive to gigantic jet formation.
Cybercriminals are using 'invisible' malware to attack banks across the globe.

Passwords and financial data have been stolen from more than 140 banks and other enterprises in 40 countries using the organizations' own software.

The digital strikes targeted computers that operate automatic teller machines, letting hackers 'push money out of the banks from within the banks'.

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Passwords and financial data have been stolen from more than 140 banks and other enterprises in 40 countries - giving hackers the power to control systems that operate automated teller machines

THE INVISIBLE HACK The hackers used 'invisible' malware that is designed to disappear after it's installed on a server and is programmed to rename itself once the computer is rebooted, which is how it was able to go undetected for months. The code hides in the memory, invisibly collecting the passwords of system administrators so that the attackers could remotely control the victim's systems. Cybercriminals have since attacked more than 140 banks, telecommunication companies and government organizations in 40 different countries, it is believed. Advertisement

The malware hides itself in the computer's memory to avoid detection, and researchers say they have no idea who is behind it.

'It is not known who is behind the attacks, Kaspersky Labs, who discovered the exploit, said.

'The use of open source exploit code, common Windows utilities and unknown domains makes it almost impossible to determine the group responsible  or even whether it is a single group or several groups sharing the same tools.'

The code hides in the memory, invisibly collecting the passwords of system administrators so that the attackers could remotely control the victim's systems.

'The ultimate goal appears to have been access to financial processes,' said Kaspersky.

'What's interesting here is that these attacks are ongoing globally against banks themselves,' Kaspersky Lab expert Kurt Baumgartner told Ars Technica.

'The banks have not been adequately prepared in many cases to deal with this.'

Baumgartner went on to say that those conducting the attacks are 'pushing money out of the banks from within the banks' by targeting computers that operate automatic teller machines.

The digital strikes targeted computers that operate automatic teller machines, allowing hackers 'push money out of the banks from within the banks', according to the security experts who discovered it.

The invisible malware, discovered by Kaspersky Lab, was found to be injected into networks using the system's own administrative and security tools.

Once installed, the malware disappears and renames itself when the computer is rebooted - allowing it to go undetected for months.

The US, France, the UK, Ecuador and Kenya are the top five nations affected by the hack, with the US being hit the hardest with 21 incidents.

And Kaspersky Lab has yet to determine if the attacks were carried out by a single group or if it they were conducted by 'competing hacker gangs', according to Ars Technica.

HOW IT WORKS The invisible malware, discovered by Kaspersky Lab, was found to be injected into networks using the system's own administrative and security tools. The attack uses only legitimate software: widely available penetration-testing and administration tools as well as the PowerShell framework for task automation in Windows. Unlike most other attacks, it drops no malware files onto the hard drive, but hides them in the memory. This combined approach helps to avoid detection by whitelisting technologies, and leaves forensic investigators with almost no artefacts or malware samples to work with. The invisible malware, discovered by Kaspersky Lab, was found to be injected into networks using the system's own administrative and security tools. Once installed, the malware disappears and renames itself when the computer is rebooted The attackers stay around just long enough to gather information before their traces are wiped from the system on the first reboot. Kaspersky Lab, which found the malware, was notified about an unexplained code found inside the memory of a domain controller. With further investigation, researcher found that the code had been inserted into memory using PowerShell commands and the PowerShell scripts were hiding deep in the Windows registry. Kaspersky Lab also explained that the digital criminals used Mimikatz to steal administrator passwords and remotely controlling machines and systems. Advertisement

The known groups that have the most similar approaches are GCMAN and Carbanak/a>.

'We identified the use of one of the same tools on banks, meterpreter, in GCMAN incidents,' Baumgartner told DailyMail.com.

'In the case of Carbanak, we have observed them using similar toolsets against banks, deploying native windows system administration and legitimate remote administration tools to function on bank victim networks.'

Kaspersky Lab was notified by a bank's security team in 2016 after an unexplained Meterpreter code was detected inside the memory of a domain controller, which uncovered this digital disaster.

The US, France, the UK, Ecuador and Kenya are the top five nations affected by the hack, with the US being hit the hardest with 21 incidents. Known groups that have the most similar approaches are GCMAN and Carbanak/a>

With further investigation, researcher found that the code had been inserted into the computer's memory using PowerShell commands and the PowerShell scripts were hiding deep in the Windows registry.

Kaspersky Lab also explained that the cybercriminals used Mimikatz to steal administrator passwords and remotely control machines and systems.

'The determination of attackers to hide their activity and make detection and incident response increasingly difficult explains the latest trend of anti-forensic techniques and memory-based malware,' said Sergey Golovanov, Principal Security Researcher at Kaspersky Lab.

'That is why memory forensics is becoming critical to the analysis of malware and its functions.'

'In these particular incidents, the attackers used every conceivable anti-forensic technique; demonstrating how no malware files are needed for the successful exfiltration of data from a network, and how the use of legitimate and open source utilities makes attribution almost impossible.'

Kaspersky Lab has yet to determine if the attacks were carried out by a single group of if it was conducted by 'competing hacker gangs. But the are sure that the whoever is behind the hack is still active

The attackers are still active, so it is important to note that detection of such an attack is possible only in RAM, the network and registry  and that, in such instances, the use of Yara rules based on a scan of malicious files are of no use.

Details of the second part of the operation, showing how the attackers implemented unique tactics to withdraw money through ATMs will be presented at the Security Analyst Summit in April 2017.
New technology could transform your iPhone into an iPad.

Apple has published a patent describing a flexible input-output display made of a mesh-shaped stretchy material with integrated sensors and haptic feedback.

In addition to its own devices, the firm sees the technology being used for a range of applications, including smart clothing, smart windows, vehicles and furniture.

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Not only could this technology transform iPhones into iPads, but the firm sees it being used for a range of applications, including smart clothing, smart windows, vehicles and furniture

HOW DOES IT WORK? Apple could be building a flexible input-output display with integrated sensors and haptic feedback using a mesh-shaped stretchy material. omponents like OLEDs, conductive trace materials and input mechanism would be arranged in a grid-like format. The firm would thin out or completely remove the underlying polymer substrate layer, which would leave a mesh-like structure covered with components. Apple believes that this arrangement is properly designed to handle deformations, like wrapping around a user's wrist without breaking in the process. Advertisement

The patent, titled 'Electronic Devices With Soft Input-Output Components' was filed in October 2016 and first spotted by Apple Insider.

To enhance the flexibility, the patent describes arranging components like OLEDs, conductive trace materials and input mechanism in a grid-like format.

And Apple has designed its own process that could bring the technology into the real world.

The firm would thin out or completely remove the underlying polymer substrate layer, which would leave a mesh-like structure covered with components.

Apple believes this specific arrangement is properly designed to handle deformations, like wrapping around a user's wrist without breaking in the process.

Moreover, sensors such as 'touch sensors, force sensors, temperature sensors, accelerometers, and other sensors, and vibrators or other devices for providing haptic feedback' could be added to the design, which would eliminate the need for top bezels.

Flexible devices are not a breakthrough, as Samsung revealed it was working on a phone that folds in two like a book.

Dubbed 'Foldable Valley', the device is expected to take advantage of bendy plastic screens being developed by Samsung's display division.

The patent describes a system for building an input-output display with integrated sensors and haptic feedback using a mesh-shaped stretchy material

The South Korean tech giant has previously said it will launch foldable devices in 2016 and trusted rumor blog SamMobile reported that anonymous sources claim the device is currently being tested in China in 2015.

However, it is obvious that it was just hearsay - for now.

The source, who claimed to have in-depth knowledge of the device, said it is being developed under the codename Project Valley.

And they added that two versions of the phone are being tested - one with a Snapdragon 620 processor and another with a Snapdragon 820.

A new patent suggests Apple is working on a flexible display (pictured is an artist impression). It would be made with stretchable material, allow your iPhone to turn into an iPad

Moreover, sensors such as 'touch sensors, force sensors, temperature sensors, accelerometers, and other sensors, and vibrators or other devices for providing haptic feedback' could be added to the design, which would eliminate the need for top bezels

Elsewhere, the device is rumoured to have 3GB of RAM, a microSD card slot and a non-removable battery.

Samsung told MailOnline it doesn't comment on rumour or speculation.

Samsung has been teasing bendable screens for years and at CES in 2013 revealed a flexible Oled screen called Youm.

The firm said at the time it could make high-resolution screens on extremely thin plastic, instead of glass, so it could be bent without shattering.

However, a notebook style phone would need to bend at a very sharp angle and would need to withstand considerable wear and tear, leading some commentators to suggest the rumour should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Samsung was rumored to be working on a new handset that folds in two like a notebook. A screenshot from a conceptual video showing what the device may look like is pictured

In 2014, LG showed off a working 18-inch Ultra HD screen (pictured) that uses a special film instead of plastic as backing to allow screen to be rolled into a tight tube for transport. At the time, it said it could make its debut in 2017

In 2014, LG showed off a working 18-inch Ultra HD screen that uses a special film instead of plastic as backing.

This allowed the screen to be rolled into a tight tube for transport. At the time, the company said it could make its debut in 2017.

In May 2016, it debuted a a concept ultra thin 'wallpaper TV' less than 1mm thick, and at four lbs (1.9kg) it is so light it can be attached to the wall using just magnets.

At IFA, a demonstration showed an LG employee pulling the screen away from the wall and bending it, to prove it carries on working.
Baja California may be the world's third-longest peninsula, but it's largely unknown in Europe. It's just across the U.S.-Mexico border, close to Tijuana and the line of President Trump's contentious wall.

But the vast majority of Baja's resorts are strung along what's known as The Corridor, a 20-mile stretch on the southern tip that connects party central, Cabo San Lucas, to the far more attractive town of San Jose del Cabo, with its missionary church, pretty streets and artisan galleries.

Fun in the sun: Cabo San Lucas, at Baja's southern tip, is the party capital of the region

It is a favourite among Hollywood stars, so holidays here don't come cheap. But, as we are celebrating a special occasion, I've booked us into the aptly named One&Only Palmilla, which my hard-to-please wife instantly judges 'the best hotel we've ever stayed in'.

Breathing a sigh of relief that its exquisite Mexican hacienda-styled rooms, two sandy beaches on the Sea of Cortez (between the 800-mile long peninsula and mainland Mexico), pools, seafront restaurants, spa, friendly staff and gracious lifestyle meet with her all-important endorsement, we head out to explore.

Whale of a time: Marine life - such as humpbacks - and humans love to frolic off the Baja coast

These waters are home to more species of whale and dolphin than anywhere else on earth. And nearly as broad a species of humans choose to holiday here, ranging from squeaky-clean Jennifer Aniston and George Clooney (who used to own a villa nearby, next to Cindy Crawford's) to bad boys such as Sean Penn and Charlie Sheen.

But the real stars of the Baja show are the 350 warm, sunny days a year, the desert landscape and the treasure-filled sea.

The 6,000 ft-deep Sea of Cortez was named 'the aquarium of the world' by Jacques Cousteau because of the sea lions, turtles, whale shark, dolphins and whales that romp here between December and March.

Even in September, when we visit, there's plenty to spot on a day boat trip out to Espiritu Santo, part of a Unesco World Heritage site comprising 244 islands and coastal areas.

The first sign of marine life we spot is a floating plastic Coke bottle. When Jaime, our marine biologist guide, tuts and grabs for it, the bottle darts out of reach, pulled by a 2lb dorado or dolphin fish.

Local men, Jaime explains, use plastic bottles as rods with gut, hooks and bait attached. 'This fish was stronger than the fisherman and got away,' he says.

Unfortunately, it is too bloodied and exhausted to be returned to the sea and finds its final resting place that lunchtime when it is served to us as sashimi sushi on tacos with ceviche (marinated raw fish), guacamole and beer on an idyllic castaway white beach.

The highlight of the boat trip comes at Les Isoles, where we don fins and mask and snorkel through a rainbow of tropical fish guarding an underwater canyon that splits the island in two.

Private playground: The One&Only Palmilla has two sandy beaches on the Sea of Cortez

Across the divide, adult sea lions, some 9ft long, sunbathe on rocks. Fortunately for us, their pups are eager to show off, performing an aquatic dance before accelerating towards us, then veering off to pirouette, belly-up and slip away.

The Mexican dazzle continues on land when we visit our nearest town, San Jose Del Cabo, on the evening of Independence Day.

As we sit in the main square, Plaza Mijares, in the heart of the historic colonial district sipping margaritas, the sunset performs a golden symphony over the two towers of the mission church as a band plays and women in cantilevered, brilliantly coloured dresses dance. When we return several days later, the locals are just as friendly, warm and helpful and confirm what a safe destination San Jose is compared with some other parts of Mexico, now off the tourist map.

Our visit to Cabo San Lucas, at the southernmost end of The Corridor, proves less memorable and we quit its characterless Luxury Avenue Mall and glittering ubiquitous marina in a matter of minutes.

Romantic retreat: The exquisite Mexican hacienda-style resort is perfect for special occasions

Our visit, however, is redeemed by our second boat trip, this time out to Land's End, where the vast Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Cortez meet.

Our skipper, Valentine, points out the heaped golden sands of Lovers' Beach before informing us its sister beach on the Pacific side of the promontory is known as Divorce Beach because 'if a couple swim there, they'll definitely separate because they'll die!' There are dangerous currents and often pounding waves coming in from the ocean.

Spending a week in Baja, it is easy to see why the peninsula has become so popular with honeymooners and LA celebrities. Book your own special anniversary here before the rest of the world catches on.
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Whether you're planning the ultimate amorous getaway, a once-in-a-lifetime honeymoon or want to splash out on Valentine's Day, nothing quite says romance like a private island escape. If you have a lot of spare cash.

Secluded hideaways in Venice, Maine and the Seychelles offer couples the chance to indulge in spa treatments and barefoot luxury under the stars. While more active partners can castaway on the rugged private isles of Indonesia and Fiji to be wooed by nature-filled adventures.

From the Maldives to Australia, MailOnline Travel has rounded up some of the world's most seductive private island boltholes that you're sure to fall in love with.

Coco Prive, Kuda Hithi island, the Maldives

Coco Prive is a fantasy island in the Maldives offering couples a dreamy backdrop to enjoy laid back adventures such as diving, snorkelling and catamaran trips together

Lovers can also indulge in treatments at the all-day spa, then be serenaded by the sounds of the Indian Ocean in the dining area, which overlooks the water. Above, a view from a villa which has an infinity pool and day bed

Luxury rental website Le Collectionist recommends that guests watch a romantic movie 'with your feet in the sand and stars above your head' in the resort's jungle cinema

Your own slice of paradise: The island is only available for private hire and features one main building with a master suite and five other villas if you want to wake up to a different view every morning

Coco Prive is a fantasy private island in the Maldives offering a dreamy backdrop for holidaymakers to enjoy laid-back activities such as diving, snorkelling and catamaran trips together.

Couples can also indulge in treatments at the all-day spa then be serenaded by the sounds of the Indian Ocean in the dining area, which overlooks the water.

Luxury rental website Le Collectionist recommends that lovers watch a romantic movie 'with your feet in the sand and stars above your head' in the resort's jungle cinema.

The island is only available for private hire and features one main building with a master suite and five other villas if you want to wake up to a different view every morning.

There is a chef on hand and the island is around 40 minutes by speedboat from Male.

Price available on request.

Dolphin Island, Fiji

If adventure is at the heart of your relationship then the rugged territory of Dolphin Island's Bouma National Park may be the thrill you're looking for to get your pulses racing

Guests must access the island by boat, which is a 20-minute journey from Viti Levu and there is a chance they'll spot dolphins en route (left). Each suite is designed to blend into the tropical aesthetic (right)

The 14-acre Fijian retreat is home to rare birds and plants living among its rainforest, beach and waterfalls. Above is the resort's pool, which guests will have to themselves as the island is hired for exclusive use

Couples are advised to take a tour with a local guide to discover its rivers and acres of wilderness (right). No need to reserve a sunlounger on the beach as you'll have it all to yourselves

If adventure is at the heart of your relationship then the rugged territory of Dolphin Island's Bouma National Park may be the thrill you're looking for to get your pulses racing.

The 14-acre Fijian retreat is home to rare birds and plants living among its rainforest, beach and waterfalls.

Couples are advised by Le Collectionist to take a tour with a local guide to discover the island's rivers and acres of wilderness.

Guests must access the island by boat, which is a 20-minute journey from Viti Levu, and there is a chance they'll spot dolphins en route. After pulling into a wooden pontoon, castaways stay in a tropical cabin.

Dolphin Island can be rented from 5,770 per night.

JW Marriott Venice Resort & Spa, Isola delle Rose, Italy

Guests can take a break from sight-seeing and instead explore the hotel's 16 acres of landscaped grounds or unwind by the rooftop bar and pool and four restaurants

The hotel is just 20 minutes from St Mark's Square by motorboat and offers panoramic views across the water of the romantic city

A sanctuary away from the tourist throngs in Venice, JW Marriott Venice Resort & Spa can be found on the private island of Isola delle Rose.

It's just 20 minutes from St Mark's Square by motorboat and provides panoramic views across the water of the romantic city.

Offering the best of a city break and a relaxed island resort getaway, guests can take a break from sight-seeing and instead explore the hotel's 16 acres of landscaped grounds or unwind by the rooftop bar and pool and four restaurants.

Doubles from approximately 270.

Amanwana, Moyo Island, Indonesia

Wildlife lovers can castaway under canvas on the 36,000 hectares that comprise the private Moyo Island in the Flores Sea

Couples can bed down in one of 20 safari tents located in the rainforest or on the shore with inquisitive macaques and deer as their neighbours

Guests staying on the Indonesian island can spend their days snorkelling, exploring or take a catamaran trip

There is a chance for couples to reconnect while dining al fresco on the beach (right) or in the open air massage area (left)

Wildlife lovers can castaway under canvas on the 36,000 hectares that comprise Moyo Island in the Flores Sea.

Couples can bed down in one of 20 safari tents located in the rainforest or on the shore with inquisitive macaques and deer as their neighbours.

There is a chance for partners to reconnect while dining al fresco on the beach under the stars. Or they can indulge together at an open air double spa treatment area, which has a soaking tub and massage tables.

Guests staying at the hideaway can spend their days diving, snorkelling and exploring or take a catamaran trips.

Rates for an ocean tent start from 658 per room per night plus VAT and including full board.

Inn at Cuckolds Lighthouse, Maine, US

Secluded bolthole: Nothing quite says romance like the thrill of staying in a lighthouse with just the horizon and crashing waves between you and the rest of the world

After a short ride from Maines Southport Island, holidaymakers can cross a gangplank and discover the contemporary suites at the Inn at Cuckolds Lighthouse in Maine

Nothing quite says seclusion and romance like the thrill of staying in a lighthouse with just the horizon and crashing waves between you and the rest of the world.

After a short ride from Maines Southport Island, holidaymakers can cross a gangplank and discover the contemporary suites at the Inn at Cuckolds Lighthouse in Maine.

Guests can take a bracing walk along the coves, go kayaking or fly kites.

Doubles from 325, or 910 per night for the whole island (sleeps four).

Six Senses Zil Pasyon, Seychelles

Recently opened, Six Senses Zil Pasyon is located on Felicite, a private island that boasts dramatic rocks and white sand beaches

For spiritually attuned partners there are a number of holistic spa treatments and meditation to indulge in, inspired by local and African therapies

Water babies will fall in love with the villas, which each feature a pool and some have bath tubs overlooking the water

Recently opened Six Senses Zil Pasyon is located on Felicite, a private island that boasts dramatic rocks and white sand beaches.

Water babies will fall in love with the luxury villas, which each feature a pool and some have bath tubs overlooking the water.

For spiritually attuned partners there are a number of holistic spa treatments and meditation to indulge in, inspired by local and African therapies.

The Private Travel Company offers seven nights at the resort from 5,395 per person including breakfast, return flights from the UK, transfers to and from the hotel, and the use of a UK airport lounge.

Como Parrot Cay, Turks & Caicos

A-listers flock to this glamorous private island as it ticks all the boxes for couples keen to celebrate their love in style

Guests can indulge in 'his and her' Jacuzzis and couple's massages in a spa cottage followed by a candelit dinner

A-listers flock to this glamorous Caribbean private island as it ticks all the boxes for couples keen to celebrate their love in style.

Romantic highlights include the chance to indulge in 'his and her' Jacuzzis and couple's massages in a spa cottage followed by a candelit dinner.

Bedrooms have four-poster beds and private sun decks but if you can find the strength to drag yourself off the sun bed there is a mile long beach, a jogging trail through a plantation, a sunset cruise and kayaking tours in the wetlands to keep the excitement burning.

Makepeace Island, Australia

A hideaway that woos the rich and famous, lovers can stay on this heart-shaped island on Queensland's Sunshine coast

The idyllic setting, which overlooks the canals, offers wine tasting and sunset cruises. And if you don't want any company, the whole island can be booked out exclusively

Hidden away upstream from Noosa, Makepeace Island is Richard Branson's home in Australia and can accommodate up to 22 guests across three two-bedroom villas

A hideaway that woos the rich and famous, partners can declare their love by staying on this heart-shaped island on Queensland's Sunshine coast.

Hidden away upstream from Noosa, Makepeace Island is Richard Branson's home in Australia and can accommodate up to 22 guests across three two-bedroom villas.

But for couples the idyllic setting, which overlooks the canals, offers wine tasting and sunset cruises. And if you don't want any company, the whole island can be booked out exclusively.

Makepeace is offered on an exclusive sole use booking basis with a minimum stay of two nights. Island exclusive use costs 1,983 a day, plus 357 per adult a day which includes meals, transfers and activities.
If you are planning on taking an overseas holiday this year, its not just the flights, ferries, trains and accommodation that need arranging.

A host of other things need checking and sorting out before you go away, and by tackling the preparations well ahead you will often save yourself a good deal of trouble and money.

Get covered

Fred Mawer has all the advice you need to ensure your travels go smoothly

A key element of travel insurance is the cancellation cover, so make sure you have a policy in place as soon as you book your holiday. Ignore insurance policies offered as an add-on to your booking by airline websites and holiday companies  youre likely to find cheaper and better cover elsewhere.

This is especially true for older travellers and those with pre-existing medical conditions, for whom it can be hard to get reasonably priced cover (or sometimes any cover at all). Companies specialising in travel insurance for the older and those with medical conditions include Avanti (avantitravelinsurance.co.uk), Premier Cover (premiercover.com), Saga (saga.co.uk) and Staysure (staysure.co.uk).

The general rule is that if you travel abroad more than twice a year, annual policies work out cheaper than single-trip ones. However, bear in mind that if you are over 65 or with a hard-to-insure medical condition, annual travel insurance can be very expensive.

Healthy precautions

If youre off to an EU country or Norway, Switzerland and Iceland, make sure you have a European Health Insurance Card (ehic.org.uk)  and if you already have one, check the expiry date. Though the EHIC is no substitute for travel insurance, it entitles holders to state medical treatment on the same basis as locals, often for free or at reduced cost. For now, the arrangement is unaffected by Brexit.

If youre heading further afield, you may require vaccinations (see fitfortravel.nhs.uk). Dont leave it to the last minute: some jabs are needed six weeks before travel. The cost of inoculations can add up: its often cheaper to get them administered through your GPs practice.

Travel documents

Check when your passport is due to expire. A British passport does not need to be valid beyond the date of your departure when visiting EU countries.

However, for some other countries such as China, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates, you need at least six months to run on it  check the Foreign Office travel advice (gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice).

Always try to avoid the stress and extra cost of renewing your passport at short notice; you should allow three weeks for the standard passport renewal service.

If youre off to an EU country or Norway, Switzerland and Iceland, make sure you have a European Health Insurance Card

Allow time, too, to obtain visas where needed: for example, applying for a tourist visa to Russia is a convoluted process that can take ten working days.

On the road

If youve booked your flights and villa or hotel for a spring or summer break, reserve your car hire now.

During peak periods in prime holiday spots such as the Spanish costas, Balearics and Algarve, car rental rates shoot up for late bookings  just like air fares.

When searching on a price-comparison website such as travelsupermarket.com, always try to stick to deals offering full to full fuel policies to avoid getting ripped off for petrol.

And instead of purchasing a rental companys extortionate excess-waiver insurance policy, buy a stand-alone one  its bound to save you a small fortune. See moneymaxim.co.uk/compare-car-hire-excess-insurance for options.

Airport planning

Train fares to the airport are usually much cheaper if you book long ahead. On the Heathrow Express travelling on a weekend, for example, a single costs 5.50 when booking at least 90 days in advance, compared with 22 bought from a ticket machine on the day of travel.

With airport parking, book ahead even if only by a day or a few hours  though prices can fall further if you reserve weeks in advance. For example, at Manchester Airports long stay car park, a weeks parking without pre-booking costs 102, while booking a day ahead I was quoted 46, and a month ahead 36.

Holiday Extras (holidayextras.co.uk) is the best one-stop shop for deals for airport parking and airport hotels (book stays well in advance for best rates). It has seen a dramatic rise for meet and greet parking. You hand over and pick up your car near the airport terminal, so it is quicker and less hassle than self-parking, but the extra cost can be minimal.

Staying in touch

Mobile roaming charges have come down massively in other EU countries over recent years, and are due to scrapped altogether this coming summer. But the cost to make and receive calls and use data is still sky high in many other countries.

Minimise the expense by signing up to a roaming package before you go away  or, better still, switch to Three (three.co.uk). With its Feel At Home arrangement, the operator allows customers to roam at no extra cost to their UK plans in an ever-growing number of countries  42 at the last count, including several popular destinations beyond Europe such as the US, Australia and New Zealand. (Note that Feel At Home doesnt apply to Three Essential plans).

Money matters

With the right cards in your wallet you can avoid the all-too-common rip-off charges for making purchases and obtaining cash from ATMs when youre abroad. Get a Halifax Clarity Credit Card (halifax.co.uk): unlike most of its competitors, it imposes no foreign-usage exchange rate fees. And sign up for a Caxton FX pre-paid currency card (caxtonfx.com), which doesnt charge for cashpoint withdrawals.

If you want to get some foreign currency before you go abroad, again forward planning will reap savings. Airport bureaux de change offer much better rates when you pre-order your currency, while travelmoneymax.com highlights the best deals for currency on the high street and for delivery.
Katy Perry unveiled a global scavenger hunt Wednesday where adventurous fans can hear her new song Chained to the Rhythm before it officially drops Friday.

The 32-year-old pop diva - who boasts 226.5M followers - provided a map where her devoted KatyCats could track down disco balls that stream the single.

People have already tweeted finding their 'golden tickets' at locations in London, Los Angeles, Raleigh, and Chicago.

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New look: Katy Perry unveiled a global scavenger hunt Wednesday where adventurous fans can hear her new song Chained to the Rhythm before it officially drops Friday

Other disco balls have been pinpointed in Paris' Moulin Rouge, Brooklyn's McCarren Park, and Tokyo's Shibuya 109.

Perry's disco and reggae-tinged track was crafted by Max Martin and Sia, and it'll appear on her fifth studio album - the follow-up to the 2013 record Prism.

The newly-blonde Women's March protester is scheduled to debut Chained to the Rhythm onstage LA's Staples Center at the Grammy Awards airing Sunday on CBS.

Marketing gimmick: The 32-year-old pop diva - who boasts 226.5M followers - provided a map where her devoted KatyCats could track down disco balls that stream the single

'It's a headbanger!' People have already tweeted finding their 'golden tickets' at locations in London, Los Angeles, Raleigh, and Chicago

'My baby found it!' Other disco balls have been pinpointed in Paris' Moulin Rouge, Brooklyn's McCarren Park, and Tokyo's Shibuya 109

'Find me': Perry's disco and reggae-tinged track was crafted by Max Martin and Sia, and it'll appear on her fifth studio album - the follow-up to the 2013 record Prism

Beyonce, Adele, Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga, The Weeknd, and Daft Punk are among the other performers for the highly-anticipated ceremony hosted by James Corden.

On the personal front, the Rise hitmaker and 13-time Grammy nominee celebrated one year of dating her British boyfriend Orlando Bloom in January.

Ready to roar! The Women's March protester is scheduled to debut Chained to the Rhythm onstage LA's Staples Center at the Grammy Awards airing Sunday on CBS (pictured Nov. 5)

Excited? Beyonce, Adele, Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga, The Weeknd, and Daft Punk are among the other performers for the highly-anticipated ceremony hosted by James Corden
They recently returned from a Costa Rica family trip.

And on Wednesday, sisters Kim, Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian stepped out for lunch at Cafe Vega in Sherman Oaks, California.

Kim, 36, led the fashionable pack in her curve flattering velvet bottoms, adding a henley top and a motorcycle jacket.

Absolutely flawless: On Wednesday, sisters Kim (pictured) and Kourtney Kardashian stepped out for lunch at Cafe Vega in Sherman Oaks, California

Khloe, 32, wowed in jeans with a skintight sheer mesh turtleneck bodysuit and a matching camisole beneath.

Older sister Kourtney, 37, soon followed; the svelte star showed off her gym honed frame in skinny jeans with a nude bodysuit and a patterned duster coat.

The stylish siblings arrived for their family lunch date at the Mexican restaurant as the Keeping Up With The Kardashians cameras rolled.

Kim tucked her fitted bottoms into matching ankle boots, adding a low-cut top.

The dark haired beauty rocked a leather jacket, which featured a graphic element on the back.

So pretty: Khloe, 32, wowed in jeans with a skintight sheer mesh turtleneck bodysuit and a matching camisole beneath

Stunner: Kourtney, 37, donned denim with a nude bodysuit and a patterned duster coat

So gorgeous: The flawless Keeping Up With The Kardashians starlet added a leather jacket, which featured a graphic element on the back

Goddess: Kim tucked her fitted bottoms into matching ankle boots, adding a low-cut top

The beauty, who put her derriere on display in the curve hugging bottoms, finished off her flawless look with large reflective sunglasses.

She pulled her dark brunette locks back into a center-parted and sleek ponytail.

Kim chose to keep her makeup to a minimum, wearing a touch of blush with clear lip gloss.

Hourglass: The beauty, who put her derriere on display in the curve hugging bottoms, finished off her flawless look with large reflective sunglasses

Amazing lady: She pulled her dark brunette locks back into a center-parted and sleek ponytail

Glowing: The beauty opted for minimal makeup for her outing with her siblings

On Snapchat, Khloe revealed that her lace up denim bottoms are from season two of her Good American line.

Khloe's covered up her ample backside in the not-yet released bottoms, adding clear Yeezy season two Lucite heels.

The Revenge Body With Khloe Kardashian host, who co-founded Good American with Emma Grede, wore a cream camisole beneath her see-through bodysuit.

On Snapchat, Khloe revealed that her lace up denim bottoms are from season two of her Good American line; seen arriving to lunch on Wednesday

Wow: Khloe's covered up her ample backside in the not-yet released bottoms

So chic: Khloe added clear Yeezy Season Two Lucite heels to her daytime ensemble

Khloe wore diamond earrings and rings for a sparkling touch.

The statuesque beauty wore her blonde locks in a ponytail with smokey brown eye shadow on her lids.

Kourtney showed a hint of her cleavage in the low-cut bodysuit; the flesh-colored one-piece put her trim frame on full display.

Curves ahead: The Revenge Body With Khloe Kardashian host, who co-founded Good American with Emma Grede, wore a cream camisole beneath her see-through bodysuit

All that glitters: Khloe wore diamond earrings and rings for a sparkling touch

The mother of three opted to wear medium wash bottoms from Khloe's denim company Good American.

She wore the Good Legs Raw STG Hem, which retails for $169 USD.

She hit the pavement in pointed heels, adding layered gold chokers and red lipstick; the stunner wore her long tresses pulled back into a ponytail.

Sizzling: Kourtney showed a hint of her cleavage in the low-cut bodysuit; the flesh-colored one-piece put her trim frame on full display

Showstopper: The mother of three opted to wear medium wash bottoms from Khloe's denim company Good American

Views: She hit the pavement in pointed heels, adding layered gold chokers and red lipstick; the stunner wore her long tresses pulled back into a ponytail

Fabulous and fit: Kourtney stunned in her chic ensemble for lunch

Malika Haqq arrived to the lunch with Khloe; the Kardashian's close friend wore ripped denim with an olive jacket and lace up boots.

Malika, who is Khloe's best friend, slung a Gucci handbag on one shoulder.

Following their lunch together, Khloe and Kourtney shared a sweet hug before getting back in their cars.

Kim was seen heading out of the eatery soon after.

Time to head home: Kourtney and Khloe were later seen leaving the restaurant

Family first: Following their lunch together, Khloe and Kourtney shared a sweet hug before getting back in their cars

What a stylish bunch: The group were seen waiting for their cars outside the eatery; from left: Kourtney, Malika Haqq and Khloe

Close behind: Kim was seen heading out of the eatery soon after

Homebound: Kim was seen gettin g into her car and leaving Casa Vega

Khloe took to Snapchat soon after she reunited with her sisters.

The blonde stunner showed off Kourtney's Good American jeans in one clip posted to her social media account.

She also posted a close up view of her own lace up bottoms from her denim company.

Good choice: Malika Haqq arrived to the lunch with Khloe; she wore ripped denim with an olive jacket and lace up boots

Playful: Khloe took to Snapchat soon after she reunited with her sisters; seen using a filter from the social media app that digitally adds ears and whiskers

Nice pair: The blonde stunner showed off Kourtney's Good American jeans in one clip posted to her social media account; Kourtney's feet and legs pictured

Love for her sisters: Kourtney blew a kiss to Khloe as she filmed her for her Snapchat
She's the busy mother-of-two who stars as Katarina Chapman on Home and Away.

And Pia Miller was spotted on Tuesday in Sydney's Palm Beach, the set of the long-running television series, in character as Summer Bay's glamourous resident constable.

The 30-year-old filmed action scenes where she appeared to be part of a drug bust sting involving Jackson Heywood's popular character, Brody Morgan.

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Screen siren! Pia Miller was spotted on Sydney's Palm Beach, the set of the long-running television series Home And Away on Tuesday, dressed in character as Summer Bay's glamourous resident constable

The Chilean-born beauty donned her NSW police uniform with her hair in a bun and a fitted cap to shield her face from the Northern Beaches sun.

She held onto her pistol and practiced various moves with it before shooting her intense scenes.

Her makeup artist ensured she was ready for the camera and was seen taking her own photos of the actress before filming.

Preparation: Her makeup artist ensured she was ready for the camera and was seen taking her own photos of the actress before filming

Training: She held onto her pistol and practiced various moves with it before shooting her intense scenes

Protected: The Chilean-born beauty donned her NSW police uniform with her hair in a bun and a fitted cap to shield her face from the Northern Beaches sun

Despite the seriousness of the scene, the brunette stunner appeared to break into a smile as she chased after actor Caleb Alloway, who's set to play Will Zannis.

The bearded Ipswich-born actor, 31, was dressed in a blue t-shirt, buttoned long-sleeved shirt, khaki pants and sneakers as he attempts to run from pursuing police.

In one image, he is seen gazing up at Pia and another actor, believed to be a new character played by Rohan Nichol, as they push him to the ground and handcuff him.

Having fun: Despite the seriousness of the scene, the brunette stunner appeared to break into a smile as she chased after actor Caleb Alloway, who's set to play Will Zannis

Busted: The bearded Ipswich-born actor, 31, was dressed in a blue t-shirt, buttoned long-sleeved shirt, khaki pants and sneakers as he attempts to run from pursuing police

Gotcha: In one image, he is seen gazing up at Pia and another actor, believed to be a new character played by Rohan Nichol, as they push him to the ground and handcuff him

Working: Rohan, who had a small part on the series in 2004, is rumoured to be playing the head of the Astoni family, who will make their debut on the show in June

Rohan, who had a small part on the series in 2004, is rumoured to be playing the head of the Astoni family, who will make their debut on the show in June.

Jackson Heywood, one of the town's drama-filled Morgan brothers, wore a long-sleeved grey and white t-shirt as his character ran from law enforcement.

The scruffy hunk, who ended his high-profile romance with the late Robin Williams' daughter Zelda last year, reportedly sees his character become addicted to drugs.

On the run: Jackson Heywood, one of the town's drama-filled Morgan brothers, wore a long-sleeved grey and white t-shirt as his character ran from law enforcement

Caught up: The scruffy hunk, who ended his high-profile romance with the late Robin Williams' daughter Zelda last year, reportedly sees his character become addicted to drugs

Intense: The storyline goes the Morgan brothers' parents were murdered by an illegal drug syndicate, so Brody's rumoured addiction is seen as a surprising development

The storyline goes the Morgan brothers' parents were murdered by an illegal drug syndicate, so Brody's rumoured addiction is seen as a surprising development.

The actors appeared to be in good spirits as they returned to film the show's astounding 29th season.

It is the the most awarded TV program at the Logies, with a total of forty-six wins.
She lost her husband, actor Andy Whitfield in 2011 to non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma.

Now, the Spartacus star's widow, Vashti Whitfield, has opened up about looking for love again as a single mother to the couple's two children.

The 43-year-old Sydney-based beauty revealed in an interview with Who magazine, that she's very conscious of who she brings into her kids' lives, especially after her youngest, nine-year-old daughter Indigo, asked: 'When are we getting a new daddy?'

Moving on: Vasti Whitfield has opened up about looking for love again as a single mother-of-two, following the death of her husband, Spartacus star Andy Whitfield in 2011

Beloved husband and father: The 39-year-old passed away after a battle with non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma

'If she sees a male figure or somebody else's dad and she really likes him, she'll come up and say, very matter-of-fact, "When will we be getting another daddy?

'"When will you be getting married again? Because I'd really like us to have another daddy",' the brunette beauty recalled.

The mother-of-two also said she wants someone who will be inspiring for her 11-year-old son Jesse.

'When a parent loses their partner, it is part of the grieving process to meet somebody and go, "Would that person be a great parent to my children?",' she added.

'When will we be getting another daddy?': Nine-year-old Indigo once asked her mother outright, when she plans to marry again but the single mother says she's conscious who she brings into their live

Missing her man: The now 43-year-old spoke about he need to feel connected to someone after her husband's death before realising it's OK to miss them

However, in Vashti's memoir about her grief following the Australian actor's death, she admits there was a time soon after where she craved 'the need to feel connected that physically being with somebody might give you'.

She likens her behaviour to that of her teen years, before meeting Andy but later realised she was allowed to miss her husband and be OK with that.

Previously, at a screening for the documentary Be Here Now: The Andy Whitfield Story, about his battle with the disease, Vashti told Daily Mail Australia: 'We get to hang out again for two hours and I get to see him as a father and the moments I shared with the love of my life,'

In the magazine interview, the mother-of-two said the kids have not yet seen the film as she wants them to remember their father for more than that.

'We get to hang out again for two hours': The widow says she enjoys watching the documentary Be Here Now: The Andy Whitfield Story, about his battle with the disease and the last 18-months of his life as it gives her her husband back briefly

About her relationship with Andy, Vashti said she knew he was the one from when they first met.

'Finding a handsome man to snuggle to is never hard...' she said.

'But finding compatibility... takes patience and trust... It's not about the six pack, we were meant to be.'

She said it was love at first sight when they met in London's Shoreditch in 1998.

Love at first sight: Vashti said she knew Andy was the one from when they first met in London's Shoreditch in 1998

'From that moment it was love,' says Vashti adding, 'We laughed and got on brilliantly.

'But he was coming out of a long-term relationship and I wasn't interested in this handsome man who wasn't what I went for so we hang out with a bunch of combined friends for a few months,' before calling them both 'soulmates.'

The pair wed in 2001 and moved to Sydney, before he fell ill in 2010, at the height of his acting fame thanks to appearing in the first season of Spartacus.

Loved up couple: The pair wed in 2001 and moved to Sydney, before he fell ill in 2010, at the height of his acting fame thanks to appearing in the first season of Spartacus
If you thought Darth Vader's interrogation of Han Solo was brutal, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Dame Judi Dench has been caught on camera grilling Daisy Ridley in an attempt to get her to spill Star Wars script secrets.

The hilarious clip was uploaded by Josh Gad, who's been trying to get The Last Jedi spoilers from his Murder On The Orient Express co-star for weeks.

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Forcing her: Dame Judi Dench has been caught on camera grilling Daisy Ridley in an attempt to get her to spill Star Wars script secrets

Twice before, the Frozen star shared Instagram clips of conversations with the 24-year-old, as he invited her over to his trailer to discuss their current film, before not-very-smoothly attempting to trick her into giving up insider info.

'Josh I'm not answering any of your Star Wars questions,' she irritably tells him in the latest video, uploaded on Wednesday.

'No. No Daisy you're not. Your answering her Star Wars questions,' he says, before turning the camera on the shawled and stoic-faced screen legend.

'Have you been tested for Midichlorians? Is Snoke Palpatine? Are you the Last Jedi? What's the deal with Reylo?' Dame Dench interrogates a stunned Daisy. 'Why don't you answer my damn questions?'

Spoiler alert: The hilarious clip was uploaded by Josh Gad, who's been trying to get The Last Jedi spoilers from his Murder On The Orient Express co-star for weeks

Interrogation: 'Have you been tested for Midichlorians? Is Snoke Palpatine? Are you the Last Jedi? What's the deal with Reylo?' she interrogates a stunned Daisy. 'Why don't you answer my damn questions?'

Just like Gad's last attempts, Daisy gives nothing up.

The first time he invited the unsuspecting actress was two weeks ago, to ask her 'an important question about today's scene.'

'Who are the last Jedi? 'cause is it one, or more than one? I need it in order to figure out what we're doing on the train today.'

Rolling her eyes, the Brit shrugs him off, telling him she can't ask about Frozen 2.

Not giving up: Twice before, the Frozen star shared Instagram clips of conversations with the 24-year-old, as he invited her over to his trailer to discuss their current film, before not-very-smoothly attempting to trick her into giving up insider info

IT'S A TRAP! The first time he invited the unsuspecting actress was two weeks ago, to ask her 'an important question about today's scene'

Touche: Rolling her eyes, the Brit shrugs him off, telling him she can't ask about Frozen 2

Breaks character: She storms out looking annoyed... but breaks into a smile before slamming the door

'I'll tell you that Olaf is in Frozen 2,' he offers before continuing: 'Is it plural? is it more than one Jedi? Is it ominous? It sounds ominous does something happen to you and Mark or just Mark? Are you a Jedi?

'Answer my damn question Daisy. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to raise my voice,' he says before she storms out looking annoyed... but breaks into a smile before slamming the door.

A week later he called her to his trailer again to apologizing for trapping her.

'I was a little bit angry, it was uncomfortable,' she admitted, as Josh handed her a doctored script director Kenneth Branagh' had asked them to practice'.

Sorry: A week later he called her to his trailer again to apologizing for trapping her

Suspect: Josh handed her a doctored script director Kenneth Branagh' had asked them to practice' - which contains lots of Star Wars related questions

'Who do you think is the murderer on the Orient Express, the train that we're on right now?,' Josh read from the not-very-convincing-sounding screenplay, before prompting Daisy to answer: 'I don't know, but you're not asking the right questions

'Well what would you have me ask, Daisy? Or whatever you character is... and then you say...'

'Who are Rey's parents; am I a Jedi; is Fin paralyzed from the waist down,' an irked Daisy recited.

Family matters: 'Who are Rey's parents; am I a Jedi; is Fin paralyzed from the waist down,' an irked Daisy - who plays Rey in the Star Wars saga - recited

'And then it says 'you answer honestly' he prompted hopefully, before she stormed out again.

The trio star alongside Branagh in his remake of the classic Agatha Christie Hercule Poirot mystery, along with Penelope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Johnny Depp and Michele Pfeiffer, set for release on November 22.

Meanwhile Gad, Dench and every other Star Wars fan must wait another 23 days after that until Episode VIII is finally released.
Robbie Williams surprised the host of Italy's Sanremo Music Festival by snogging her on stage.

The pop star, 42, has always had a cheeky streak and he made sure he stole the show by planting a kiss on the lips of 55-year-old Maria De Filippi.

Her co-host Carlo Conti could only watch on as the pair shared the intimate moment in front of a live audience.

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Pucker up: Robbie Williams, 42, surprised the host of Italy's Sanremo Music Festival by snogging her on stage on Wednesday night

Robbie was a special guest on the second night of the festival, which is said to have inspired the Eurovision Song Contest.

Ever the showman, he took to the stage a black suit adorned with blue jewels and silver studs.

The hitmaker sported a large quiff and looked to be in fine spirits for his performance, smiling and waving to the audience throughout.

Showstopping: The pop star has always had a cheeky streak and he made sure he stole the show by planting a kiss on the lips of 55-year-old Maria De Filippi

Well, that escalated quickly! The pair first shared a customary peck on the cheek

Getting along famously: Robbie placed his arm affectionately around the hosts shoulders

Cheeky chappie: Robbie was a special guest on the second night of the festival, which is said to have inspired the Eurovision Song Contest

Flash: Ever the showman, he took to the stage a black suit adorned with blue jewels and silver studs

Third wheel: Maria's co-host Carlo Conti could only watch on as the pair shared the intimate moment in front of a live audience

Seemingly enjoying the taste of A-list talent, Maria then went to kiss Hollywood star Keanu Reeves, who took to the stage with a bouquet of flowers.

The John Wick star also performed on the bass guitar, much to the delight of the audience.

Meanwhile, Take That fans are set to be in for a treat as Gary Barlow will feature in Robbie's latest music video.

A source told The Sun: 'Robbie is going to cause mayhem among Take That fans when his video is released.

Showman: The hitmaker sported a large quiff and looked to be in fine spirits for his performance, smiling and waving to the audience throughout

New lease of life: Last year Robbie complained of burnout, but he looked reinvigorated for his Italian performance

Kiss me quick: Seemingly enjoying the taste of A-list talent, Maria then went to kiss Hollywood star Keanu Reeves, who took to the stage with a bouquet of flowers

Multi-talented: The John Wick star also performed on the bass guitar, much to the delight of the audience

'He shot it on Monday at a flat in Shoreditch in east London. Its for Mixed Signals, the song Brandon Flowers gave him. Gary was obviously more than happy to get involved with it.

'They talk all the time and have got all sorts of plans for new Take That stuff, but they knew this would be a way to whet our appetites.'

Robbie's wife Ayda is also set to feature in the video.

The Angels singer is also keen to try and crack America one more time, having failed to make an impression stateside with his pop career.

He told the Daily Star: 'Nobody knows who I am. I can look at them and they can look at me.

'I get to stare at them and they get to stare at me, but they don't star because they don't know who I am. I don't like this. I want to change this.'

After a spell living in LA, Robbie now lives back in the UK with Ayda, however, he longs to return.

He said: 'Now I have changed my mind and I really regret it.'

Pleased to meet you: Keanu held Maria's hands as he gave her a peck

Sartorially in sync: Robbie and Maria's outfits complemented each other's perfectly
It's been hot in Sydney lately, but the temperature surel went up when Home And Away hunks James Stewart, Matt Little and Scott hit Palm Beach on Tuesday.

The actors were on location in Palm Beach, the iconic setting known to viewers as Summer Bay, and things got steamy when they stripped down for surfing scenes.

It was a muscle bonanza as James, Matt and Scott Lee filmed shirtless shots on the beach in their boardshorts, before taking a dip for surfing scenes.

Dripping! It's been hot in Sydney lately but the temperature sure went up when Home and Away hunks James Stewart, Matt Little and Scott hit Palm Beach on Tuesday

James wore a pair of tropical shorts decorated with hibiscus flowers and showed off his tanned, muscular physique as he showered after being in the water.

He took a sensual looking shower, smiling as water ran down his chest and and dropped off the edges of his shorts, pooling around his tanned legs.

The youthful-looking 41-year-old had earlier filmed some high octane surfing scenes, with a cameraman shooting from the water as James conquered the waves.

He showed deft skill on the board, doing a series of stunts as a cameraman called Roger, along with a 'safety' named Luke, kept an eye on him.

Cooling off: James took a sensual looking shower, smiling as water ran down his chest and and dropped off the edges of his shorts, pooling around his tanned legs

Swim time: Matt was also seen leaving the water after a dip, wearing grey board shorts and his long hair plastered back off his face. The buff actor, who plays VJ Patterson on the soap, jogged out of the waves with sea water sliding off his impressive pecs and washboard stomach

It's this big! The boys appeared to be discussing the logistics of their surf scene

Hunks: Scott appeared also put on a gun show, filming shirtless scenes alongside Matt, wearing no more than a pair of black and white shorts

Matt and Scott had a go on the pale blue surfboard as well, and seemed to get a bit of a battering when the tide picked up at the famous surfing and tourist spot.

Matt was also seen leaving the water after a dip, wearing grey boardshorts and his long hair plastered back off his face.

The buff actor, who plays VJ Patterson on the soap, jogged out of the waves with sea water sliding off his impressive pecs and washboard stomach.

Stunt man! The youthful looking 41-year-old had earlier filmed some high octane surfing scenes, with a cameraman shooting from the water as James conquered the waves

Expert: The actor made the extreme sports scenes look easy

That's going to look awesome! A camera man was in the water shooting

Got the shot! The cameraman battled waves to get perfect footage of James' skills

Awesome dude! James was a natural as he took some impressive barrels

We want a go! Scott and Matt had a go on the blue surfboard too

Choppy: The actors seemed to get a bit of a battering when the tide picked up at the famous surfing and tourist spot

Caught one! Matt looked stoked when his buddy Scott caught a good wave

Scott appeared also put on a gun show, filming shirtless scenes alongside Matt, wearing no more than a pair of black and white shorts.

The hunky 23-year-old flexed his biceps and six pack after stripping off a sleeveless grey hoodie before taking to the water for his own surfing scenes.

Watching the boys from the beach were actresses Anna Cocquerel and Olivia Deeble, who stood on shore drinking from colorful milkshake cups.

What a show: Watching the boys from the beach were actresses Anna Cocquerel and Olivia Deeble who held massive drink cups with bright designs

Smile! Newcomer Anna wore a simple white tank that hung low over her denim shorts and was seen filming a scene in which she and Matt take selfies on a smart phone

New in town: Anna is playing a new character, one of two sisters from the Astoni family who have just moved to Summer Bay, and she's no doubt checking out the local talent

Say cheese! Anna snaps a few pictures of herself on shore

VIP treatment: Olivia, who joined the cast last year as Raffy Morrison, and Anna got some touch ups between scenes from the crew

Anna is playing a new character, one of two sisters from the Astoni family who have just moved to Summer Bay, and she's no doubt checking out the local talent.

Olivia joined the cast last year as Raffy Morrison, who is related to the Morgan family.

The teens were dressed in summery outfits, with Olivia in a bright red shirt with a cartoon character on the front, swimmers underneath and multicolored shorts.

Toweling off: James dried himself down after his shower having had an epic surf

Dry land: Jackson Heywood and Caleb Alloway were also on the beach location shoot, but appeared to be having far less fun than the rest of the cast who had been in the water

She had her pale blonde hair in a half up do' and completed the bright boho look with several bracelets.

Newcomer Anna wore a simple white tank that hung low over her denim shorts and was seen filming a scene in which she and Matt take selfies on a smart phone.

The pair are seen joking and posing for pictures, implying there may be a friendship or a spark between the characters.

He showed deft skill on the board, doing a series of stunts as a cameraman called Roger, along with a 'safety' named Luke, kept an eye on him nearby

Calm waters: Scott filmed some surfing scenes on flat water awaiting a wave

Jackson Heywood and Caleb Alloway were also on the beach location shoot, but appeared to be having far less fun.

Both fully clothed, there appeared to be an tense exchange between their characters Lachie Cladwell and Will Zannis.

The long running soapie, which has been on air for 29 years, returned to screens this week after a summer hiatus.
They were said to have been set upon in a viscious gang brawl during filming in Tenerife last week.

But Chloe Sims and Georgia Kousoulou weren't about to let their ordeal hold them back on Wednesday, as they bravely returned to London for the social scene.

Not long since returned from their overseas filming for ITVBe, the girls didn't seem to sport any long-lasting physical injuries when they stepped out for a Rimmel event.

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Bouncing back: Chloe Sims joined her co-stars for a night out in London on Wednesday night, as the group headed to a Rimmel party after reports that they had been attacked last week in Tenerife

Party pair: Georgia Kousoulou and Chloe Lewis were also at the party, appearing to have no long-lasting damage from the incident

Chloe and Georgia, both dressed in black, were accompanied by TOWIE co-star Chloe Lewis for the beauty event.

After their ordeal last week, the duo were said to be 'nursing injuries' though there were no signs of lasting damage on Wednesday.

According to reports in The Sun on Monday, the pair had been left shaken by a vicious late-night brawl in fast food restaurant McDonald's.

Girls' night: The trio partied at Conduit Street for the beauty event

Accompanied by Liam Gatsby, Tommy Mallet and two other members of the production team, the group found themselves caught up in a fight.

Having shot scenes at the Papagayos nightclub around the corner, the cast and crew members were said to have decided to swing by the fast food eatery on the way back to their hotel.

But a group who were also in the restaurant allegedly 'started' on the group and became extremely aggressive.

All black: Chloe chose to shroud her shape in all black from top to toe

Three's the magic number: Chloe was all smiles as she cosied up to Chloe L and Georgia at the bash

Work it: Chloe opted for a maxi dress teamed with a pair of towering boots and a suede leather jacket

Blonde bombshell: She wore her long peroxide locks pulled back into an immaculately styled ponytail

Where to next? Chloe, Chloe L and Georgia all hopped into the same taxi as they left the bash

The Moroccan men are said to have approached the Essex group at 3AM for no apparent reason, getting antagonistic with the men and the women.

Although the precise details are vague, the newspaper reports that they are 'shaken and nursing injuries' after the altercation - suggesting that things got physical.

A source told the publication: 'While waiting for their food, the men got aggressive and started shouting in Spanish, before a full-on fight broke out once they left the restaurant.

'The girls were screaming after being laid into by the thugs as Tommy and Liam tried to fight back.

A not-so-Happy Meal! Chloe and Georgia were 'left badly shaken' after being attacked in frightening late-night ordeal in a Tenerife McDonald's while filming TOWIE last week

A Big Mac please... hold the violence: Having shot scenes at the Papagayos nightclub round the corner, the cast and crew members were said to have decided to swing by the fast food eatery to satisfy their hunger on the way back to their hotel

Police were called and the thugs ran off, but everyone involved was left badly shaken.

Despite normally having security on hand during trips abroad for filming, there was no-one there to protect the cast from any interfering members of the public, hence the severe outcome of the tiff.

The crew and cast had been shooting abroad since last Sunday and are now back in the UK.

MailOnline has contracted ITVBe for further comment.

Unprotected: Despite normally having security on hand during trips abroad for filming, there was no-one there to protect the cast from any interfering members of the public, hence the severe outcome of the tiff

Special edition: The crew and cast had been shooting abroad since last Sunday and are now back in the UK

A TOWIE spokeswoman said: 'Thankfully the group were able to get to the safety of the hotel with no one seriously injured'

A TOWIE spokeswoman said: 'Our cast and crew were subject to an unprovoked attack following a night out in Tenerife.

'Thankfully the group were able to get to the safety of the hotel with no one seriously injured.'

Clearly over it, Chloe was seen in Essex on Monday morning, getting back to normality after her brief sun-drenched getaway.
He's never been shy to showcase his eclectic sense of fashion.

And former Big Brother contestant Tim Dormer, 32, certainly turned heads as he attended the Fifty Shades Darker premier event in Sydney this Wednesday.

Clad in a 1980's inspired black satin suit, the curly-haired socialite was spotted on the red carpet alongside his model pal Abbie Weir.

Style statement! Former Big Brother contestant Tim Dormer, 32, certainly turned heads as he attended the Fifty Shades Darker premier event in Sydney this Wednesday

Tim completed his look with a white shirt, which he left untucked and unbuttoned at the top to reveal a glimpse of chest.

He also accessorised his look with a series of long necklaces, bracelets and two chunky rings.

Meanwhile, Abbie, who found fame after competing on Australia's Next Top Model, embraced the evening's BDSM-inspired theme by donning a racy, sheer top.

Sassy in satin! Clad in a 1980's inspired black satin suit, the curly-haired socialite was spotted on the red carpet alongside his model pal Abbie Weir

The leggy blonde's bra was visible through a see-through spotted top, which was tucked into a leather miniskirt.

The 20-year-old model paired the outfit with knee high boots and a simple clutch bag.

The sighting comes after Tim revealed that he is in a same-sex relationship with model Ash Toweel.

A sheer delight! The leggy blonde's bra was visible through a see-through spotted top, which was tucked into a leather miniskirt

Racy: The 20-year-old model paired the outfit with knee high boots and a simple clutch bag

Hot new couple! The sighting comes after Tim revealed that he is in a same-sex relationship with model Ash Toweel

In an interview with Who magazine last December, the bubbly reality star said he's 'always been fluid in his sexuality'.

Tim, who now lives with Ash in an apartment in Sydney's Bondi, said he has 'finally found love' and first knew there was something 'special' between the pair when they took a 'spontaneous' weekend away together in Byron Bay in 2014.

Recently, the pair admitted to KIIS FM's Kyle and Jackie O that they have indulged in threesomes during their relationship and that Tim has kissed women while still dating Ash.

Fluid sexuality: In an interview with Who magazine last December, the bubbly reality star said he's 'always been fluid in his sexuality'

'We've been at events before and Ash has gone to the bathroom and I've been making out with a chick,' said Tim.

'I just get carried away,' he said, before insisting kissing was harmless and wasn't considered cheating.

'Were both open to checking out the chicks,' Tim added.
In an interview with The Kyle & Jackie 'O' Show, he famously proclaimed that he didn't know who Kylie Minogue was prior to meeting her and beginning their romance, which ended last week.

But according to claims made by his co-star Vinnie Jones, British actor Joshua Sasse may have had his sights set on the pop star long before they met.

In light of this, Australian radio host Kyle Sandilands has playfully proposed that the 29-year-old Brit will be 'banned for life' from appearing on his radio show.

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Banned? Kyle Sandiland and Jackie 'O' Henderson playfully declared a 'ban' on actor Joshua Sasse, who claimed in an interview with them that he didn't know who Kylie Minogue was before they met

In an O News segment on Thursday's program, Jackie 'O' Henderson reported the news that Joshua's Galavant co-star Vinnie Jones has claimed: 'Joshua was moving into her hotel the night before she came - on purpose.'

Jackie then told listeners: 'But the thing is, Joshua, you know, famously proclaimed on our show that when he met Kylie, he didn't know who she was.'

'I'm not really a fan of popular culture, so frankly I didnt really know who she was,' the 29-year-old Brit said of his now ex-fiancee back in an interview with KIIS FM in November.

'I didnt really know who she was,' The British actor said on the KIIS FM show previously, despite claims from his co-star Vinnie Jones that he planned to make a play for the pop star before they met

Jackie then played back another piece of audio from another interview with Joshua, where he once again acted very blase about his fiancee's star status.

Recalling meeting Kylie on the set of his ABC drama, Joshua said: 'They were like "Oh, Kylie's coming on," and I was like, "Okay," and they said, "Aren't you excited?" and I was like, "Well yeah, but I mean, I don't really know who she is. I'm not really her demographic.'

This prompted Kyle to declare playfully: 'What a little b**** - he's banned for life!'

'What a little b**** - he's banned for life!' Kyle Sandilands joked after realising that the Galavant star had seemingly tricked them

But a producer informed the shock jock that they had 'just put in a request' for another interview with Joshua, but offered to 'retract' it.

'No, no, lift the ban,' Kyle said playfully.

'We'll ban him to his face at the end of the interview,' Jackie said.

Kylie met Joshua, who is 20 years her junior, in September of 2015 and the couple announced their engagement just six months later.

'We'll ban him to his face at the end of the interview,' the shock jocks decided to 'lift the ban' after their producer informed them that the actor may be appearing in another interview soon

But the pint-sized star confirmed the split via Instagram on Friday, following reports that she'd become suspicious of his relationship with his No Tomorrow co-star Marta Milans.

Sharing a photo of a beautiful sunrise, the former Neighbours star wrote: 'Thank you for all your love and support throughout this recent chapter of my life. Thank you now for your love and understanding with the news that Josh and I have decided to go our separate ways.

'We wish only the best for each other as we venture towards new horizons.'
She was forced to pull out the Atomic Kitten show in Perth on Tuesday when she was struck down with a mystery illness.

But Kerry Katona was back to her best the following evening, rejoining her fellow pop stars for a nostalgia filled concert in Adelaide despite battling with the after-effects of her ailment and back pain.

The 36-year-old star powered through her dance routines alongside fellow original member Natasha Hamilton and honorary Kitten Michelle Heaton.

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Back to her best! Kerry Katona was back to her best the following evening, rejoining her fellow pop stars for a nostalgia filled concert in Adelaide

Kerry appeared a little stiff in a video shared by close friend Michelle, but performed like a total pro.

She took to Twitter to update her fans on her progress, posting beautiful sunrise shots as she prepared to jet off to the next location.

Atomic Kitten are touring Auckland, Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Sydney, performing their nostalgic pop classics alongside East 17, S Club and B*witched.

It is not known whether Kerry was forced to pull out of the show due to her ongoing back problems or another illness.

Sharing her back pain woes with her fans, Kerry teased last week month: 'Having work done on my back really hoping it will be ok by the time I fly!'.

On form: Kerry appeared a little stiff in a video shared by close friend Michelle, but performed like a total pro

Girl power: The 36-year-old star powered through her dance routines alongside fellow original member Natasha Hamilton and honorary Kitten Michelle Heaton

The lovable blonde later posted an in-flight selfie as the girls headed Down Under last week, alongside the caption, 'Smiling through the pain with my bad back!'

The girls have been joined by Liberty X star and close friend Michelle Heaton for the trip, since third member Liz McClarnon is not participating.

Liz previously revealed she wouldn't be joining the girls on tour because of her phobia of flying.

She said during an appearance on Lorraine last year: 'It's never been a favourite thing of mine, even all the way through the band, I've always gone, "Oh I hate this I hate this I hate this."

New line-up: The girls have been joined by Liberty X star and close friend Michelle Heaton for the trip, since third original member Liz McClarnon is not participating

Powering through: It is not known whether Kerry was forced to pull out of the show due to her ongoing back problems or another illness

'And when things ended [with the band], I was like, "I'm not gonna do it anymore". Do you know what? I just don't like it.'

Earlier this week, Kerry apologised profusely for missing out and insisting she'd be back on the stage the next night.

Taking to Twitter, the songstress praised her bandmates for going on without her as she revealed she was feeling 'poorly'.

She posted: 'Wow I hear the girls did a great job at the gig! Sooo gutted at how poorly I feel and i wasn't there to see you all!'

The show must go on! Natasha and Michelle - who is filling in for Liz McClarnon on the tour - still performed for the crowds in Kerry's absence

She now appears to be on the mend, however, as when asked by a fan if she would be back on the stage for Wednesday's show, she responded: 'I sure am my darling feeling a wee bit better xxx'

Kerry added: 'To everybody in Perth I can't apologise enough for letting you down!! I'm so upset with myself as I've never missed a gig before! #sick.'

Sharing a sad selfie, she wrote: 'I am on the mend!!! But my god... really wasn't a pretty site last night! (sic)' .

Under the weather: Taking to Twitter, the 36-year-old songstress praised her bandmates for going on without her as she revealed she was feeling 'poorly'

Feeling better: Kerry now appears to be on the mend, however, as when asked by a fan if she would be back on the stage for Wednesday's show she insisted she would be

Apologies: She apologised to her fans for letting them down as she said she was so 'upset with herself'

Feeling blue: Sharing a sad selfie, she wrote: 'I am on the mend!!! But my god... really wasn't a pretty site last night!'

Taking to Instagram after the show, Natasha shared a video of the pair performing which she captioned:

'So....thrown in at the deep end tonight but me & Michelle loved tonight's gig in #Perth, the crowd welcomed us with open arms:)

'thank u all so much for making such a memorable night x'

Born to perform: Natasha Hamilton shared a clip of herself on stage performing to the packed out stadium without her bandmate Kerry at her side

Working the crowds: Natasha and Michelle still put on a killer show for the crowds

Despite storming the stage, Michelle revealed that she too wasn't feeling 100 percent, as she shared a sad selfie from her bed on Tuesday.

Taking to Twitter, she posted a picture of herself snuggled up in bed and sipping on a cold and flu remedy.

She wrote: '1.20am in Perth .. can't sleep .. up at 5am to fly to Adelaide.. have a bit of a sore throat & cold.. lemsip time..'

The ladies' night appeared to be far tamer than the wild day they had on Thursday.

Following a daytime drinking session on Auckland's Waiheke island, the trio were spotted in a cab, which was forced to pull over so Michelle could be sick on the street.

Feeling feverish: Despite storming the stage, Michelle revealed that she too wasn't feeling 100 percent, as she shared a sad selfie from her bed on Tuesday

Overdone it: Their night was tamer than Thursday where after a daytime drinking session, the trio were spotted in a cab, which was forced to pull over so Michelle could be sick

Back on stage: The trio are touring alongside B*Witched, S Club 3, East 17 and Liberty X this month across Australia and New Zealand




Kate McKinnon has landed another high profile role - that of beloved Mrs. Frizzle in the Netflix reboot of The Magic School Bus.

The streaming service announced the casting news during a press event in New York on Wednesday.

The SNL and Ghostbusters star will give voice to the headmistress who drives the bus and takes her students on magical field trips to explore science.

New gig: Kate McKinnon has landed the role of Mrs. Frizzle in the Netflix reboot of The Magic School Bus

Beloved role: The character, voiced in the original animated television series by Lily Tomlin, is a headmistress who also drives the school bus and takes her students on thrilling field trips

The original animated series aired on PBS from 1994 to 1998 and Lily Tomlin gave voice to the original Mrs. Frizzle.

It was based on the popular series of books of the same name that sought to engage children in the world around them and bring their science curriculum to life.

At Wednesday's event, Netflix also announced it intends to produce and release 1,000 hours of original programming.

That's compared to about 600 hours of original content in 2016.
She was picked for her Hollywood profile, but Maggie Gyllenhaal was putting her style credentials on trial at Berlinale Film Festival on Wednesday.

Selected to serve on the film jury, the 39-year-old met with fellow members at the Hotel Mandala ahead of the awards this week.

Maggie wowed with her sartorial flair, picking out a bold floor-length number for the first official photocall.

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Dressed to impress: Maggie Gyllenhaal looked typically stylish as she arrived for the Berlinale International Film Festival at Hotel Mandala on Wednesday

The dress, ankle-length with long sleeves, featured an ornate, bejewelled collar, which was fastened with a colour pop pink bow.

And even though the dress was a conservative one, it featured a keyhole at the neckline that flashed through to her undergarments.

It was a typically kooky look for the actress and gave off autumnal vibes with bold, yellow flowers throughout.

Chic: She teamed her ankle-length dress with boots in deep chocolate brown

She certainly outdressed her contemporaries, who included Julia Jentsch and Dora Bouchoucha Fourati.

Paul Verhoeven, Wang Quan'an, Olafur Eliasson and Diego Luna will also serve on the jury in 2017.

The diverse bunch represent Tunisia, Iceland, Germany, Mexico and China, as well as the USA.

Group shot: (First row, L to R) Maggie accompanied Paul Verhoeven, Julia Jentsch as well as (2nd row, L to R) Wang Quan'an, Olafur Eliasson, Diego Luna and Dora Bouchoucha Fourati for the International Jury photo call

There will be eighteen films in the bear competition over the next 10 days, until the festival finishes on February 19.

Over this period, 399 films will be shown and stars including Penelope Cruz, Hugh Jackman, Catherine Deneuve, Richard Gere and Robert Pattinson are expected to attend.

R-Pattz is expected to walk the red carpet for James Grays The Lost City Of Z, while Penelope is the star of Spanish production The Queen Of Spain.
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It's the unofficial kickoff to New York Fashion week, known to draw the hottest stars in Hollywood - featuring faces from the acting, fashion and music world alike.

And as ever the dazzling celebrities pulled out all the stops for the amfAR New York Gala on Wednesday night as the stars convened to help raise funds for the one of the worlds leading nonprofit organizations dedicated to the support of AIDS research, with a bevy of superstars leading the masses to throw their support behind the cause.

Leading the beauties was Adriana Lima, 35, went braless from beneath a sheer keyhole - making for a risque look - while she was joined by fellow supermodels Heidi Klum, Alessandra Ambrosio and Barbara Palvin.

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March of the models: Leading the beauties was Adriana Lima, 35, went braless from beneath a sheer keyhole - making for a risque look - while she was joined by fellow supermodels Heidi Klum, Alessandra Ambrosio and Barbara Palvin (left-right)

Adriana was joined by a legion of supermodels as she strutted her stuff along the red carpet to pull her very expert poses in her sizzling gown, which left very little to the imagination due to its sheer material.

In a bid to steal the spotlight, she opted against wearing a bra from beneath the keyhole gown which featured a gaping hole at the front falling from a poloneck and long billowing bell sleeves.

Her sheer skirt featured a dramatic train, a red carpet essential at such a dazzling bash, while the sheer material flashed her high-waisted knickers from beneath - meaning her endless legs were on display while also being boosted by her staggering, peep-toe heels.

In-keeping with her gothic ensemble, she wore her raven tresses in sleek lengths cascading over her shoulders while her make-up was dramatic as her almond shaped eyes were emphasised with a smudge of eyeliner while rounding out the look was a slick of bold vampish lipstick.

Oh my! Adriana was joined by a legion of supermodels as she strutted her stuff along the red carpet to pull her very expert poses in her sizzling gown, which left very little to the imagination due to its sheer material

Long train! The gorgeous Victoria Secret model's lacy number had long sleeves and a gorgeous cape that extended far beyond the end of the dress

It don't matter if your black or white: Adriana posed on the red carpet hot on the designer heels of her fellow Victoria's Secret angel Alessandra, who looked phenomenal in a white gown with a slashed leg

Out and a pout: Alessandra dropped her pout as she stuck out her tongue for a silly selfie

Alessandra wowed in white as she opted for a simple yet classic shape to help ensure her sensational figure did all the talking - while shunning the cardinal legs or cleavage rule in the racy gown.

The bustier detailing on the gown boosted her perky cleavage,while the pillar base to the gown boasted an incredible slashed detail along the length of her endless legs.

A single strap extended over her shoulder, with a dazzling finish, which coordinated with her iridescent, pearly heels - simple in design but perfect for highlighting her tanned and toned legs to perfection.

Her lengthy tresses were worn in a sleek dead straight style to help show off her dramatically dolled up face, as she contrasted the white gown with her shockingly smokey eye make-up and drooling diamond earrings.

Stunning! Heidi proved her fashion veteran status as she wowed at the event in a slinky black gown made dramatic with stunning orange, purple and sequinned appliques across the front

Up close and personal: Heidi locked lips with Naomi from within the event

What a line-up! Heidi and Alessandra sat alongside Donatella Versace, Naomi Campbell and Zoe Kravitz (left-right)

Say cheese: Naomi grabbed a moment for a selfie with Heidi

Fill me up Heidi! The German beauty was acting as something of a waitress as she topped up Zoe Kravitz's glass

Heidi proved her fashion veteran status as she wowed at the event in a slinky black gown made dramatic with stunning orange, purple and sequinned appliques across the front.

Her slashed gown gave a flash of her endless legs as she gave a hint of her incredibly perky assets through the pieced together front which gave a cheeky hint of her braless chest.

From within the bash, the 43-year-old German beauty was on hand to pose with all the fashion favourites, including Alessandra, with whom she shared a table, and Adriana who both preened and pouted for snaps.

Back in black: From within the bash, the 43-year-old German beauty was on hand to pose with all the fashion favourites, including Alessandra, with whom she shared a table, and Adriana who both preened and pouted for snaps

Earlier in the evening, Heidi posted a behind the scenes look as she prepared for the black-tie evening

Meanwhile Barbara, who was recently linked to F1 ace Lewis Hamilton, went for an extremely similar look as she sizzled in a chic gown adorned with a variety of contrasting sheer materials.

She too went braless from beneath the gown, as she flaunted her perky cleavage from beneath a keyhole, which sat beneath a thick choker detail, in a near-identical form to her cohort Adriana. Beneath her tiered sheer skirt she wore tiny knickers which flaunted her barely-there lingerie.

The 23-year-old Hungarian beauty kept her make-up minimal, in a bid to keep her dewy complexion natural and glowing, while her tresses were styled into a slicked back style with long lengths flowing down her back.

As she was rubbing shoulders with the creme da la creme of New York society, jewels were a must, so the stunning star pulled on dazzling diamond earrings in a teardrop shape.

Black beauty: Meanwhile Barbara, who was recently linked to F1 ace Lewis Hamilton, went for an extremely similar look as she sizzled in a chic gown adorned with a variety of contrasting sheer materials

Cheeky! She too went braless from beneath the gown, as she flaunted her perky cleavage from beneath a keyhole, which sat beneath a thick choker detail, in a near-identical form to her cohort Adriana. Beneath her tiered sheer skirt she wore tiny knickers which flaunted her barely-there lingerie

Who's who? The striking pair opted for extremely similar ensembles

In keeping with the monochrome themes of her contemporaries was Scarlett Johansson, although the 32-year-old beauty opted for androgynous chic in a stunning tuxedo with cleavage flashing white lapels.

She added to the theme of the look with her chic pixie crop which was swept into a side-parting with volume-boosting blonde highlights worked throughout - while the short length helped her diamond earrings stand out.

The minimal make-up look helped emphasise her natural good looks - with her plump pout outlined with a clear gloss and her eyes drawn out by a fluttering set of false eyelashes.

Reaching the masses: Storming the stage at the event, Scarlett Johansson gave an impassioned speech dedicated to her close friend who died of AIDS, while also detailing how her mother Melanie taught her about the male and female friendships

Suited up: In keeping with the monochrome themes of her contemporaries was Scarlett Johansson, although the 32-year-old beauty opted for androgynous chic in a stunning tuxedo with cleavage flashing white lapels

Storming the stage at the event, she gave an impassioned speech dedicated to her close friend who died of AIDS, while also detailing how her mother Melanie taught her about the male and female friendships.

She explained that her mum had a friend called Tony who became a part of their family after they grew close. Later on the Tony's partner died of AIDS in the midst of the crisis in the mid-Eighties. She revealed: 'My mother struggled to come up with the right word to describe their relationship, because those kinds of relationships never molded to some kind of prefabricated description...

'They're the kind of magic felt between two people who find each other and don't expect or need anything from each other. And even though they may be worlds apart in some ways, in all the ways that matter, they just fit.'

With two men: The Lucy star was flanked by Kevin Robert Frost and Kenneth Cole

Big reveal: She explained that her mum had a friend called Tony who became a part of their family after they grew close. Later on the Tony's partner died of AIDS in the midst of the crisis in the mid-Eighties

An injection of fashion royalty was thrown into the mix when Donatella Versace swept the red carpet alongside Naomi Campbell - with both legends looking equally sensational.

The pairing of the stars was perfect for a picture ready snap as Naomi's bold orange gown coordinated nicely with Donatella's shimmering nude number - in her classic corseted top and billowing base.

Naomi, 46, was determined to make a statement in her slashed gown as she showed off her ageless physique due to the endless split extending along her legs while her perky cleavage was displayed beneath the push-up top.

Versace boss Donatella looked incredible in her sequinned gown which boosted all her best bits, with the nipped in waist highlighting her slender figure.

Dream team: An injection of fashion royalty was thrown into the mix when Donatella Versace swept the red carpet alongside Naomi Campbell - with both legends looking equally sensational

A fine pair! The pairing of the stars was perfect for a picture ready snap as Naomi's bold orange gown coordinated nicely with Donatella's shimmering nude number - in her classic corseted top and billowing base

A dazzling duo: The women proved their fashion prowess in their dazzling gowns

Sizzling: Naomi, 46, was determined to make a statement in her slashed gown as she showed off her ageless physique due to the endless split extending along her legs while her perky cleavage was displayed beneath the push-up top

Oops! Naomi suffered a wardobe malfunction as part of her jewellery flew away

Nickelodeon actress Victoria Justice went for full on drama as she sizzled in a phenomenal sheer Marchesa gown complete with a sweeping train and a lace detailing beneath intricate red floral appliques.

The ornate detail on the dress made for the perfect showstopper, with the bustier top teasing a glimpse of her perky cleavage, while the chiffon overlay cascaded off the chest and nipped in at her waist.

Adding a 3D feel was the red rose adornments which stood out against the sizzling red backdrop. She boosted her senorita style with her cascading dark locks and smokey eye make-up.

As if the over the top gown, complete with a train, was not enough, she also pulled on a dripping diamond necklace which stood out boldly in the frame of her raven locks and tanned skin.

In full bloom: Victoria Justice looked like a stunner in her black Marchesa gown with pink flowers all over it

Diamonds are forever: The Victorious star had on a diamond necklace that was no doubt from sponsor Harry Winston

Don't trip! The dramatic dress had a long train that could not have been easy to walk in

Paris Hilton, 35, was evidently ready to steal the show as she wowed in an exquisite gold pleated number with a billowing hemline and flattering nipped in waist secured with a gold plate belt.

Treating the red carpet as her very own stage, she twisted around to show the backless detail on the gown while she wore her tumbling blonde locks in waist length tresses falling from a centre parting. She later upped the Hollywood glamour of the ensemble with the addition of a fur coat.

Iman, 61, who lost her husband David Bowie last year, looked phenomenal in a silk red gown which clung to every inch of her age-defying physique - complete with tiny waist and ample assets.

Golden girl: Paris Hilton, 35, was evidently ready to steal the show as she wowed in an exquisite gold pleated number with a billowing hemline and flattering nipped in waist secured with a gold plate belt

She looks like an Oscar statuette: Treating the red carpet as her very own stage, she twisted around to show the backless detail on the gown while she wore her tumbling blonde locks in waist length tresses falling from a centre parting. She later upped the Hollywood glamour of the ensemble with the addition of a fur coat

Wow! Paris' look was typically eccentric and over-the-top as she stole the show in her golden getup

Are you fur real? She later peeled on a plush coat as she added even further to the sensational look

The silken material of the gown tumbled to the floor in a fishtail hem while the back of the dress draped at the back. She appeared to go braless underneath the ensemble, making for a shocking addition.

The model wore her shoulder-length chestnut brown hair wavy around her face and picked a lipstick that fully matched the dress. Her ageless complexion was a feature of the ensemble in itself.

She took time to pose with designers Kenneth Cole and Zac Posen who both looked dapper in their black-tie attire for the ultra-exclusive event, proving her self to be a jewel in the fashion world's crown.

Storming the stage: Iman, 61, who lost her husband David Bowie last year, looked phenomenal in a silk red gown which clung to every inch of her age-defying physique - complete with tiny waist and ample assets

She's ageless! The silken material of the gown tumbled to the floor in a fishtail hem while the back of the dress draped at the back. She appeared to go braless underneath the ensemble, making for a shocking addition

Stunner: She took time to pose with designers Kenneth Cole and Zac Posen who both looked dapper in their black-tie attire for the ultra-exclusive event, proving her self to be a jewel in the fashion world's crown

Nice heels! Zoe Kravitz had on lovely silver shoes with a snake theme that went well with her white gown

She looks like Belle! Justin Bieber's discovery Madison Beer was elegant in their beige wonder

Oh my... Her breathtaking gown occupied a mass of space both in and out of the event

Madison Beer looked incredible in a floor sweeping gown complete with a dramatic hemline and plunging neckline which enhanced her perky cleavage and tiny waist.

Zoe Kravitz looked incredible in a slinky powder blue slip dress, which showed off acres of cleavage before draping into an open back with delicate dazzling detailing.

Her bleached tresses were scraped into a low chignon to best show off her stunning features on her naturally glowing complexion. The sparkling shoes she paired with her look perfectly coordinated with her ensemble.

Edgy fashion: Diane Kruger opted for an edgy style with her color blocking mini sequenced dress

Fabulous from every angle: The pretty gown was given an edgy touch with her chunky black heels

Making history: She took the stage at the bash as she introduced Hollywood legend Robert DiNiro to give a speech

Fashionable friends: Diane grabbed some of the fashion greats for snaps, including Heidi, Zac Posen and Donatella

Diane Kruger opted for an edgy style with her color blocking mini sequined dress, while giving the getup an raunchy feel by seemingly going underwear free beneath the look.

She recently cut her hair short and wore the newly-chopped tresses in a deep side part with most of it glamorously swept to one side of her stunning face - making for a rock chick feel to her chic look.

The German star, who introduced Robert Di Niro to the stage at the bash, opted for dark, smoky eyes to pump up the drama of her ensemble and left her lips neutral.

Catching the train: Amber Valleta, 42, showed up for the event in a similar hue, combining a beautiful lilac with gold and black

Stunning swirl: The fabric swirled around her chest, sculpted beautifully and wrapped around her shoulder and torso to create a silky, side-swept train

Hello there! Donatella certainly made the rounds as she greeted yet another star in the form of Amber

Amber Valleta, 42, showed up for the event in a similar hue, combining a beautiful lilac with gold and black.

The fabric swirled around her chest, sculpted beautifully and wrapped around her shoulder and torso to create a silky, side-swept train.

The 16-time American Vogue cover model topped off the look with dainty, dangling earrings, a pill-box purse and a simple open-toed, ankle strap heel.

South African-Canadian model and dietician Maye Musk, 68, who is also the mother of Elon Musk, showed up in a yellow frock with a leopard print coat over her shoulders, accessorized with bright gold earrings and purse to match.

Thrice as nice: (L to R) Hilary Rhoda wore black, Chloe Sevigny stood out in red, and Zuri Tibby pulled off a sheer number

Golden girl: South African-Canadian model and dietician Maye Musk, 68, who is also the mother of Elon Musk, showed up in a yellow frock with a leopard print coat over her shoulders, accessorized with bright gold earrings and purse to match

Earlier in the evening, Heidi posted a behind the scenes look as she prepared for the black-tie evening.

The Project Runway host showed her smokey eyes as her makeup artist did her magic on the already beautiful model.

Heidi appeared to be multi-tasking as she got her makeup done by trying to take a phone call, while at the same time taking the selfies with her opposite hand.

Theme: Models Rachel Hilbert and Zuri Tibby were another two who caught the black memo

Love me like you do: Winnie Harlow linked up with Ellie Goulding

Working: Ellie was the special guest performer for the event

I need your love: She looked fab in a black leather skirt and white blouse

Legs eleven: Ellie was surprisingly low-key for her turn at the lavish event, as she bizarrely performed in a billowing white shirt with a leather mini skirt - in an ensemble better suited to a night out than a lavish gala

An improvement: When she entered the event however, she was sporting a much more dazzling ensemble comprising of an enkle length peach gown with sparkly adornments

Sheer delight: Ellie looked just peachy in her Jenny Packham ensemble

The Foundation for AIDS Research paid tribute to actress Scarlett and Artistic Director Donatella for their longstanding amfAR work and the fight against AIDS, where the annual gala was presented by Harry Winston.

The evening, now in its 19th year, was hosted by actor, writer, and director Lena Dunham, featured dinner, a live auction, honoree tributes, and a musical performance by Ellie Goulding.

Ellie was surprisingly low-key for her turn at the lavish event, as she bizarrely performed in a billowing white shirt with a leather mini skirt - in an ensemble better suited to a night out than a lavish gala.

When she entered the event however, she was sporting a much more dazzling ensemble comprising of an enkle length peach Jenny Packham gown with sparkly adornments.

Two's company: Heidi looked on as as Naomi and Donatella took a selfie

Oh my! Naomi locked lips with Heidi outside the bash after they both bundled into their fur coats

Blue steel: Ricky Saiz and Chloe Sevigny nabbed seats next to each other
She is one of the night's big honorees.

And Scarlett Johansson certainly looked to be all business as she arrived to amFAR on Wednesday night in New York.

The 32-year-old, however, made sure to flash plenty of cleavage in the attire as she opted to not wear a bra or blouse under her chic suit.

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Suited and booted: Scarlett Johansson certainly looked to be all business as she arrived to amFAR on Wednesday night in New York

Perhaps more provocative than her lack of a bra was the absence of her wedding ring.

She was alleged to have split from husband Romain Dauriac after she was previously pictured without her wedding ring.

The pair - who raise two-year-old daughter Rose Dorothy together. were seen earlier this week arriving at JFK airport.

Taking the plunge: The 32-year-old, however, made sure to flash plenty of cleavage in the attire as she opted to not wear a bra or blouse under her chic suit

Perhaps more provocative than her lack of a bra was the absence of her wedding ring

Insiders told People magazine that 'they've been separated since the summer.'

Shortly after came reports that it was Scarlett who ended the relationship according to a report from Us Weekly.

'Scarlett initiated splitting up and made the decision,' according to a source for the publication. They went on to explain that 'she felt like they didn't have much in common as far as lifestyle.'

Star power: The actress posed up with Kevin Robert Frost and Kenneth Cole

One of the honorees: The amfAR New York Gala unofficially kicks off New York Fashion week and honors individuals who have helped raise awareness of HIV/AIDS

Guest of honor: ScarJo was one of the honorees on the night, along with Donatella Versace

Hear me out: She took to the podium to address the gathered guests

The actress began dating Romain in 2012 and they got engaged in 2013.

They married in secret at The Ranch At Rock Creek in Philipsburg, Montana in October 2014 shortly after the birth of their daughter.

'They were really laid back and friendly and almost always had the baby,' an insider tells E! News at the time.

The amfAR New York Gala unofficially kicks off New York Fashion week and honors individuals who have helped raise awareness of HIV/AIDS.
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They're the glamorous Aussie newlyweds who tied the knot last year and who always look enviably loved up.

But Daniel MacPherson has admits his relationship with Zoe Ventoura is 'challenging' as the pair of actors are so often travelling for work.

'The first year of marriage was challenging for us in a lot of ways exactly because of the travel,' Daniel said in a candid interview in this week's issue of WHO magazine.

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Trouble in paradise: Daniel MacPherson has admits his relationship with Zoe Ventoura is 'challenging' as the pair of actors are so often travelling for work

The former Neighbours star however explained that the pair have become good at coping with spending time apart.

'We're just really good at it. We can operate independently,' he revealed, adding that the pair have a policy where they can demand that 'times up' and 'hop on a plane' back to one another.

Travelling and work have kept the actor and his 35-year-old wife from planning to start a family for now.

Too busy? Travelling and work have kept the actor and his 35-year-old wife from planning to start a family for now

The magazine reports that the 36-year-old says 'kids are still a way off' as considering 'filming schedules' leaves them wondering 'when and how' they'll 'fit in parenthood.'

The couple are now based in Los Angeles and are close to other ex-pats like the Hemsworth brothers.

On New Year's Eve, they partied at an enviable bash attended by Miley Cyrus, Liam and Chris Hemsworth and Chris' wife, Elsa Pataky.

Friends: The couple are now based in Los Angeles and are close to other ex-pats like the Hemsworth brothers

Daniel also posed for a snap with Luke and Liam Hemsworth in Venice Beach to raise awareness for the Polished Man charity initiative.

The couple may be struggling with some elements of distance however they looked utterly smitten at the G'Day LA event in Hollywood in January.

Zoe and Daniel have just passed their one year wedding anniversary after being married in Noosa in November last year.
They both suffered heartbreak at the hands of Georgia Love on The Bachelorette last year.

So it's no surprise Jake Ellis wasn't afraid to weigh in on Sam Johnston's new-found romance with Bachelor star Noni Janur.

Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail Australia this week, the Queensland-based star admitted that, while he doesn't know whether the pair have started dating, they would certainly be a match made in heaven.

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'They're both very laid back people': Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail Australia this week Bachelorette star Jake Ellis admitted that Sam Johnston and Noni Janur would be a great couple

'I've known Noni for a long time, from back in the Gold Coast and I am very close with Sam,' he explained.

'I spoke with Sam the other day and he's playing it pretty close to his chest.

'They're both very laid back people. Very chilled and relaxed so I think they would make a good couple,' he continued.

Jake has partnered with crowd-sourced delivery service Go People for a Valentine's Day collaboration, which will see him travel around Sydney delivering roses to lucky recipients.

Will you accept this rose? Jake has partnered with crowd-sourced delivery service Go People for a Valentines Day collaboration, which will see him travel around Sydney delivering roses to lucky recipients

Locking lips! Earlier this week, fans were sent into meltdown after photos showing Sam and Noni kissing at the beach emerged

'Being a finalist on the Bachelorette meant that I received my fair share of roses but unfortunately I never got to give one out,' he said in an official statement.

'This Valentine's Day, we're changing all that. By working with Go People, I'm looking forward to handing out as many roses as possible. It's going to be a lot of fun.'

Fans can enlist the Bachelorette hunk for the day by registering here.

Flirty encounter: The pair first sent tongues wagging during their flirtatious display captured on camera at the Maxim Hot 100 party in November

Earlier this week, fans were sent into meltdown after photos showing Sam and Noni kissing at the beach emerged.

The pair first sent tongues wagging during their flirtatious display captured on camera at the Maxim Hot 100 party in November.

The two were seen giggling together, with Sam even seeming none-too-impressed with a man in a pink shirt who planted a kiss on Noni's cheek during the festivities.

Hot new couple alert! Earlier this week, fans were sent into meltdown after photos showing Sam and Noni kissing at the beach emerged

In December, NW magazine reported the lovebirds had been together for months, with an alleged insider spotting them getting close at North Bondi Fish.

'They were perched at the bar, rubbing each other's thighs quite intensely,' the source said.

'Noni was so into it... At one point, they were so all over each other, I almost spat out my food!' they added.
The first trailer for Dear White People has been unveiled  and not everyone is pleased.

The Netflix series - which satirizes race relation in an Ivy League college - is a sequel to the 2014 film of the same name.

And within minutes of the 30-second clip debuting on YouTube on Wednesday, the comments section was jam-packed with angry views... even more than usual.

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It's satire people! The First trailer for Netflix's new series Dear White People was unveiled on Wednesday... and attracted 17 TIMES more dislikes than likes on YouTube

In the teaser, Samantha White - played by Logan Browning - can be heard behind the mic of her eponymous radio show.

'Dear white people,' she opens as Strauss's Blue Danube Waltz plays to shots of preppy-looking Caucasians cheesily grinning at the camera.

'Here's a list of acceptable Halloween costumes: pirate, slutty nurse, any of our first 43 Presidents,' she advises, stopping short of Barack Obama.

'Top of the list of unacceptable costumes: me.'

DJ: In the teaser, Samantha White - played by Logan Browning - can be heard behind the mic of her eponymous radio show

Adressees: 'Dear white people,' she opens as Strauss's Blue Danube Waltz plays to shots of preppy-looking Caucasians cheesily grinning at the camera

Take notes: 'Here's a list of acceptable Halloween costumes: pirate, slutty nurse, any of our first 43 Presidents,' she advises, stopping short of Barack Obama

She is referring to the 'African American themed party' that takes place in the fictional Winchester University, which culminates in a riot in the preceding film.

Indeed, the montage then quickly shifts to partying pictures of white people in blackface, drinking and posing with guns.

Despite being a satire, the comments section was quickly flooded with furious outbursts, accusing Netflix of anti-white racism, with many claiming they were going to cancel their subscriptions.

Within hours of going live, the video had just 2,000 likes, and more than 35,000 dislikes.

Nope: 'Top of the list of unacceptable costumes: me.' She is referring to the 'African American themed party' that takes place in the fictional Winchester University, which culminates in a riot in the preceding film

Not very PC: Indeed, the montage then quickly shifts to partying pictures of white people in blackface, drinking and posing with guns

Uh-oh: Within hours of going live, the video had just 2,000 likes, and more than 35,000 dislikes

'I am utterly repulsed that a company that would air a program that judges me simply based on my skin color. I have never judged anyone in such a way and I hoped no one would judge me in this way either,' one wrote. 'A truly sad day in America. I hope that Netflix will come to it's senses.'

'I have cancelled my Netflix account and will continue until this racist bullsh** is taken down,' wrote a second.

'So you want to best racism...with more racism? Have fun with your tanking numbers Netflix,' commented a third.

Angry: Despite being a satire, the comments section was quickly flooded with furious outbursts

Pot: There were mainly two types of comment, one being attacks on Netflix for being racist

Director Justin Simien faced the same knee-jerk reaction to the film's title when it was first released.

'The truth is, my film isn't about "white racism" or racism at all,' he said at the time. 'My film is about identity.

'It's about the difference between how the mass culture responds to a person because of their race and who that person understands themselves to truly be. All explored through the microcosm of a success oriented Ivy League college.'

The first ten episodes, which are written by Simien, will debut on Netflix on April 28
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Paris Hilton has been in the fame game for 20 years.

But the 35-year-old socialite turned reality star turned DJ still has a few tricks up her sleeve.

And when hitting the amfAR affair Wednesday night that honors individuals who have made outstanding contributions to HIV/AIDS awareness, she pulled off a new wonder. The beauty managed to show off her legs even though she was clad in a long, heavy gold gown.

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Check out my leg: Paris Hilton has been in the fame game for 20 years. But the 35-year-old socialite turned reality star turned DJ still has a few tricks up her sleeve

The wind had its way: And when hitting the amfAR affair Wednesday night the beauty managed to show off her legs even though she was clad in a long, heavy gold gown

When walking into the event, the dress pulled back exposing her thigh.

Inside the event when on the red carpet she had a more subdued look as the slit was closed.

Also at the event was Adriana Lima who looked stunning in a plunging black gown as she lead the pack of gorgeous celebrities walking the red carpet.

She looks like an Oscar statuette:Inside the event when on the red carpet she had a more subdued look as the slit was closed

The rear view: Paris was clearly enjoying the chance to show off her full-skirted frock

Like a Barbie doll: The Beverly Hills/Manhattan native looked flawless with perfect makeup and hair, later donning a furry coat to leave the bash

Gal pal: Paris posed up a storm with fellow attendee Anna Cleveland who wore a provocative split satin dress with thigh high stocking with lace trim

Paris has been very busy with her DJ career that has taken her from Las Vegas to Ibiza.

In 2015 she told Billboard: 'There are so many rumors out there. People who think that I don't play live. There are so many haters that make up so many stories. But anybody who comes and sees a show and watches behind the booth will see I know exactly what I'm doing. I've been training so hard for the past five years.

'I think I've really improved myself. Because I'm Paris Hilton, people assume, "Oh, she's just this rich girl." They don't understand that I've actually been going to raves since I was 15 years old. I love music. I love entertaining people. I love partying. I love having a good time and having people around me have a great time. So I feel like DJing is kind of perfect for what I do.'

Adriana Lima looked stunning in a plunging black gown as she lead the pack of gorgeous celebrities walking the carpet for the annual amfAR charity event in New York City Wednesday

Long train! The gorgeous Victoria Secret model's lacy number had long sleeves and a gorgeous cape that extended far beyond the end of the dress

A new pal: Lima and Candice Huffine looked as if they had coordinated their outfits

The gorgeous Victoria Secret model's lacy number had long sleeves and a gorgeous cape that extended far beyond the end of the dress.

She wore her dark hair straight with a deep part to the side for a glamorous finish.

The stunning model has dark liner around her eyes to really make them pop, but it was her red lips that were the focal point on her pretty face.

Suited up: Scarlett Johansson wore a black and white tuxedo with a white clutch and black heels

With two men: The Lucy star was flanked by Kevin Robert Frost and Kenneth Cole

Scarlett Johansson wore a black and white tuxedo with a white clutch and black heels.

The Lucy star was flanked by Kevin Robert Frost and Kenneth Cole.

Victoria Justice looked like a stunner in her black Marchesa high-low gown with a corseted bodice in black tulle and lace with 3D floral embroidery.

The dramatic dress had a long train that could not have been easy to walk in.

In full bloom: Victoria Justice looked like a stunner in her black Marchesa high-low gown with a corseted bodice in black tulle and lace with 3D floral embroidery

Diamonds are forever: The Victorious star had on a diamond necklace that was no doubt from sponsor Harry Winston

Don't trip! The dramatic dress had a long train that could not have been easy to walk in

And she wore her long locks down and wavy.

Paris Hilton, 35, chose a long gold gold for her appearance at the event.

Iman, 61, who lost her husband David Bowie last year, looked a fraction of her actual age in a gorgeous silky red gown.

Getting it white again: Alessandra Ambrosio nailed glam in this white dress with matching heels and black nails

The subtle crisscross pattern hugged her curves in all the right places and showed off her outstanding figure.

The model's wore her shoulder-length chestnut brown hair wavy around her face and picked a lipstick that fully matched the dress.

She took time to pose with designers Kenneth Cole and Zac Posen who both looked chic in their black-tie attire for the ultra-exclusive event.

Nice heels! Zoe Kravitz had on lovely silver shoes with a snake theme that went well with her white gown

She looks like Belle! Justin Bieber's discovery Madison Beer was elegant in their beige wonder

She's ageless! 61-year-old Iman, who lost her husband David Bowie last year, looked a fraction of her age in a gorgeous silky red gown

The gorgeous model took time to pose with designers Kenneth Cole and Zac Posen who both looked chic in their black-tie attire for the ultra-exclusive event

Diane Kruger opted for an edgy style with her color blocking mini sequenced dress.

The German film star, who recently cut her hair short, wore it in a deep side part with most of it glamorously swept to one side of her stunning face.

She opted for dark, smoky eyes to pump up the drama of her ensemble and left her lips neutral.

Thrice as nice: (L to R) Hilary Rhoda wore black, Chloe Sevigny stood out in red, and Zuri Tibby pulled off a sheer number

Edgy fashion: Diane Kruger opted for an edgy style with her color blocking mini sequenced dress

Heidi Klum looked her usual perfect self with her blonde hair in loose waves parted down the center.

Her legs were front and center in the dramatic black dress with a thigh-high slit.

The colorful embroidered detailing on the front of the dress added an element of drama that otherwise would have made it a simple black gown.

Stunning! Heidi Klum looked her usual perfect self with her blonde hair in loose waves parted down the center

The colorful embroidered detailing on the front of the dress added an element of drama that otherwise would have made it a simple black gown

Earlier in the evening, Heidi posted a behind the scenes look as she prepared for the black-tie evening.

The Project Runway host showed her smokey eyes as her makeup artist did her magic on the already beautiful model.

Heidi appeared to be multi-tasking as she got her makeup done by trying to take a phone call, while at the same time taking the selfies with her opposite hand.

Earlier in the evening, Heidi posted a behind the scenes look as she prepared for the black-tie evening

The amfAR New York gala honors individuals who have made outstanding contributions to HIV/AIDS awareness.

The event has taken place since 1998 and has become on of NYC's biggest events for AIDs research in the world.

Hosted by Girl's star Lena Dunham, this year's event will honor Scarlett Johansson and Donatella Versace for their contributions.

Ellie Goulding will be the special guest performer for the event.
Jason Derulo has blasted American Airlines for racism following an incident at Miami airport Wednesday during which police officers were called.

In a video obtained by Dailymail.com Derulo explains what happened in the moments leading up to the incident which he calls 'a racial issue'.

The recording artist and his entourage demanded the plane be turned around and go back to the gate when he was told by a friend they were going to be charged $4,000 for 19 pieces of luggage that had to be loaded onto a separate flight.

The 27-year-old singer said that as he and his friends were disembarking, the captain came out and began cursing at them and ordering them off the plane.

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Jason Derulo has spoken out about an incident with American Airlines which he is claiming is a 'racial issue' after he was met with 15 policemen after demanding a plane he was on be turned around in Miami

'It's a racial issue': Derulo claims the captain cussed him out and said 'I want these motherf***ers off my plane now' even though he asked to get off the plane

'He was kicking us off the plane, when it was us that asked to get off the plane. I was like, "Listen, sir, you're not going to talk down to me; Im not your son. Dont talk to me in that tone of voice."'

The star said he and his group were then met with 15 police officers, which he said was 'obviously embarrassing' for him as he's a public figure.

After police officers asked him for his ID Derulo said he started filming to Instagram live because he 'wasn't going to let nothing go down'.

At this point the Talk Dirty hitmaker said everyone realized who he was and there was a 'gear change'.

'The tone changed because of who I am,' the singer said.

'It's not okay, you can't treat me a way because I'm a celebrity and because I have a social platform'.

Not okay: The singer asked to get off the plane after another friend called him and told him they would be charged $4,000 for a ticket and his 19 pieces of luggage which had to go on a separate flight

The star said he and his group was then met with 15 police officers, which he said was 'obviously embarrassing' for him as he's a public figure

'If I was the average Joe I might have been in handcuffs.'

'That's why it feels like a racial issue.' Derulo said.

'I just want everybody to be treated with respect. At the end of the day, you get what you pay for. Im not asking for anything extra, Im not asking to be taken care of.'

Meanwhile a police report filed by the Miami-Dade PD paints a different picture.

According to People an airline employee reportedly told police that while checking in Derulo and his group 'smelled of marijuana and were getting aggressive'.

The report also stated that Derulo and his friends refused to give their IDs to airline staff when they disembarked and initially refused to hand ID to police when they were asked.

'I just want everybody to be treated with respect. At the end of the day, you get what you pay for. Im not asking for anything extra, Im not asking to be taken care of.'

'If I was the average Joe I might have been in handcuffs,' Derulo claimed that the tone changed once staff and police realized who he was

Before boarding the plane the singer and his entourage had arrived to catch a flight to Los Angeles but were told their baggage couldn't be loaded onto the same flight they were traveling on.

Shortly after the plane left the gate for the runway, one member of the group, who had stayed behind to take a later flight with the luggage, called Derulo to tell him they were going to be charged for both the ticket and the bags.

He subsequently posted a photo of an AA employee and wrote: 'I spent millions on your airline throughout the past ten years between myself and my entire staff but have still experienced racial discrimination today at Miami airport!!!'

Derulo went on: 'Called 15 police officers on me as if I'm a criminal! It's not ok that when you find out who I am the gears change! F*** that!! I want answers.'

Not happy: Jason also blasted the airline on social media Wednesday accusing the airline of racial discrimination

spoke out: The singer, who claimed to have spent millions of dollars with AA, posted this message to Instagram and also vented about his treatment in a video that he shared with TMZ

In a selfie video posted by TMZ later, Derulo claims he was cussed out by the plane's pilot and that despite his status as a Concierge Key holder, the airline wanted $4,000 to ship his 20 bags on a separate flight.

However, American Airlines has since clarified that as an elite customer, Derulo could check three bags for free - but since he was traveling in a group and left the bags behind while he and seven friends took the scheduled flight, the airline wouldn't check everyone's luggage on the ticket of the one entourage member who stayed behind to travel with the bags.

Miami-Dade police however, told the local ABC affiliate 10 News that they responded to requests from American Airlines twice.

The first time they responded to an incident at the ticket counter. The second time they responded to the gate, but when they got there a representative for the airline told them there wasn't an issue.

No arrests were made and the group continued on to Los Angeles, according to police.
Geoffrey Edelsten has spoken of how he felt learning about reports that his estranged wife Gabi Grecko was paid to perform sex acts on now-disgraced New York Police officers.

Speaking to YahooB of the reported 'mile-high' orgy, the 73-year-old businessman said: 'I found that horrific.'

'I found out in some interview that she was a prostitute before I met her, which she never had divulged,' he continued.

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'I found that horrific': Geoffrey Edelsten has spoken of how he felt learning about reports that his estranged wife Gabi Grecko was paid to perform sex acts on now-disgraced New York Police officers

Earlier this week Gabi, who currently lives in New York, announced that she had plans to return to Australia.

Meanwhile, Geoffrey has reportedly taken out an AVO against Gabi.

He was seen outside police headquarters in Melbourne on Thursday, apparently there filing paperwork.

Wearing a black eyepatch, Edelsten told a Today Show reporter he wanted Grecko, who he was briefly married to in 2015, arrested if she came to Australia.

Revalations: 'I found out in some interview that she was a prostitute before I met her, which she never had divulged,' he continued

Last week Gabi revealed that she plans to return Down Under this year, however she took to social media on Thursday to shut down the suggestions she would be returning.

Edelsten told Nine News she would be 'stupid' to return to Australia.

Following the controversial 'mile-high sex romp' reports last year, Geoffrey told Daily Mail Australia: 'I can't believe I married a prostitute. She deceived me and made herself out to be something she isn't.'

'I can't believe I married a prostitute': Following the controversial 'mile-high sex romp' reports last year, Geoffrey told Daily Mail Australia: 'I can't believe I married a prostitute. She deceived me and made herself out to be something she isn't'

Unhappy: The pair were briefly married in 2015 and Geoffrey went on to tell Daily Mail Australia 'I'm disgusted by the lies Gabi told me. I asked her if she was ever involved in prostitution and she always said no'

He went on to add: 'I wish I never had anything to do with her - she makes me feel sick. The sooner we get divorced he better.

The pair were briefly married in 2015 and Geoffrey went on to tell Daily Mail Australia: 'I'm disgusted by the lies Gabi told me. I asked her if she was ever involved in prostitution and she always said no.'

Gabi, 27, took to social media herself and posted a cryptic video response to the reports and said: 'I can say today has been an incredibly scandalous day, but we all have a past.'

She continued: 'And all of us who never gave up on our dreams have done everything possible to hustle in order to get the things we want in our lives.'

'We all have a past': Gabi took to social media to share a cryptic response to the reports she engaged in mile-high sex romp with NYPD officers last year

Cryptic: The 27-year-old pouted at the camera and said 'all of us who never gave up on our dreams have done everything possible to hustle in order to get the things we want in our lives'

Pouting at the camera she continued: 'And you should never be ashamed of that everyone has a past, what's your past?'

Gabi appeared to be in the back of a taxi as she filmed the short video and was dressed in a heavily embellished dress, provocatively lifting her finger to her lip at one point.

The controversy started this week when she spoke of how she was hired to engage in a mile-high sex romp with two New York police officers in 2013.

'It doesn't sound like something she would be involved in': Gabi Grecko's estranged husband Geoffrey weighed in on claims she was paid to engage in a mile-high sex romp

Gabi was quoted in the New York Post as having been paid to perform sex acts on now-disgraced NYPD Deputy Inspector James Grant, since-fired Detective Michael Millici and three other men during a private flight to Las Vegas in 2013.

'They all seemed really comfortable to take their pants off in front of each other and laugh about it. It's like they'd done this before', she told the publication.

Details: It comes after Gabi was quoted in the New York Post as having been paid to perform sex acts several policemen during a private flight to Las Vegas in 2013

'They all seemed really comfortable to take their pants off in front of each other and laugh about it': Gabi described several lewd acts performed with now-disgraced NYPD Deputy Inspector James Grant, since-fired Detective Michael Millici and three other men

'I didn't think it would be as extreme as it was': She also revealed that Grant and Millici jokingly wielded a pair of handcuffs during the in-flight orgy

She also revealed that Grant and Millici jokingly wielded a pair of handcuffs during the in-flight orgy.

'I didn't think it would be as extreme as it was, but then because I obviously couldn't get off the plane, I had to do what they were telling me', she allegedly later admitted.

Geoffrey and Gabi are alleged to have met through dating website SugarDaddy.com in 2014 and enjoyed a brief marriage in 2015, with the pair tying the knot in June before breaking up five months later.

At the time, Gabi claimed that Geoffrey had fallen in love with his long-term secretary, a claim Geoffrey has strongly refuted.

Scandalous: In March 2016, Gabi posed with a Geoffrey Edeslten look-alike on the front cover of US Magazine 'Girls And Corpses'

Since the high-profile split between the Celebrity Apprentice Australia co-stars and couple, Gabi has since moved back to her native USA.

There, she signed on to the same talent agency as famed porn star Jenna Jameson.

In March last year, Gabi posed with a Geoffrey Edeslten look-alike on the front cover of US Magazine 'Girls And Corpses'.

She has also created hype on social media this month when she posted to Instagram a photo of herself apparently performing in an adult movie.
It was a stylistic move of sheer jean-ius.

For Bar Refaeli flaunted her generously sized bust by teaming a denim jacket with a skimpy bra at the Tommy Hilfiger Spring 2017 Women's Collection event in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

The professional clotheshorse seemed more than a little proud of her sizzling post-baby form as she struck a pose at the thrilling showpiece occasion.

Good jeans: Bar Refaeli turned heads in double denim at Tommy Hilfiger Spring 2017 Women's Collection event in Los Angeles on Wednesday

The 31-year-old Israeli was looking back to her best in her Rolling Stones denim jacket, tight jeans and Tommy bra.

She rounded off her look with a pair of towering stilettos.

The fact she was wearing a Stones jacket was somewhat amusing, as it was reported back in 2014 that she split from her now husband Adi Ezra after he accused her of suggestively dancing with Mick Jagger while attending one of the group's parties as she enjoyed her 29th birthday.

It is hard to believe the beauty, who previously dated Leonardo DiCaprio, gave birth to her first child last August.

And it seems more may be on the way, for she married megarich Israeli market trader Adi in September 2015, and says she plans to have 'a big Jewish family' with him.

Simply the bust: The shapely clotheshorse flaunted her impressive assets in a Tommy bra

Lick it up: Bar is reportedly such a big fan of the Rolling Stones she indulged in raunchy dancing with Mick Jagger at her 29th birthday party

Golden girl: She rounded off her look with a pair of hooped earrings

The model made her thrilling return to the spotlight when she appeared at Moet & Chandon's Christmas in November bash in Madrid, Spain.

She took great delight showcasing her phenomenal post-baby body by slipping into a fitted black dress just months after giving birth to her first child.

Featuring a plunging drawstring neckline, the dress allowed the actress and model to flash a pleasingly ample amount of cleavage.

Her generously-sized charms and knockout body also saw her win a spot modelling Agent Provocateur spring/summer 2016 collections.

Back in black: She made her post-pregnancy return at the Moet & Chandon's Christmas in November bash in Madrid

Massive: It was hard not to stare at the busty beauty's large hooped earrings
As blended families go, they are a pretty high profile one.

And Yolanda Hadid and both her ex-husbands proved that it is possible to all get along as they showed up to support Gigi Hadid at the Tommy Hilfiger LA Show Wednesday night.

Not only were they all there but Gigi's father Mohamed Hadid and her step-father David Foster even posed for photos together.

Proud mama: Yolanda Hadid, 53, headed to the Venice Beach boardwalk in Los Angeles in time for her daughter Gigi's rehearsal for the Tommy Hilfiger fashion event Wednesday

Pals not rivals; Both of Yolanda's ex-husbands also showed up for the runway show and David Foster and Mohamed Hadid proved there's no bad feelings by posing together for photos

Multi Grammy-winning music producer Foster split from the Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills star in December 2014 after four years of marriage.

Yolanda's marriage to multi-millionaire property developer Hadid ended in 2000 after six years together.

Hadid, 68, is the father of her daughters Gigi and Bella and son Anwar and following her separation from Foster she reverted to calling herself Yolanda Hadid.

The Dutch-born beauty, 53, has supported her daughters' desires to embark on modeling careers themselves and was seen earlier in the day arriving for the runway show's rehearsals at Venice Beach.

Dressed to kill: Yolanda, a former model and reality star, donned tight black leather pants with heeled ankle boots and a black turtleneck sweater along with a leopard print jacket

Showing support: Multi-millionaire property developer Hadid, 68, kept it casual in jeans and a blazer and was accompanied by girlfriend Shiva Safai, 30

Little brother: Anwar Hadid, 17, opted for a grunge look as he posed for photos with dolled-up girlfriend Nicola Peltz, 22

Son Anwar, 17, showed up to watch the fashion show with new girlfriend, actress and billionaire Nicola Peltz, 22.

His father was accompanied by his much younger girlfriend Shiva Safai, 30, while Foster, 67, who's recently been linked romantically with Christie Brinkley, was solo.

No doubt they all applauded heartily as Gigi, 21, took center stage as the star of the Tommyland Spring 2017 runway event packed with top tier models.

Hilfiger's music festival-inspired event on Venice Beach is the designer's first-ever show outside New York.
They've been best friends for years and first struck up a friendship as models in the 1980s.

And Cindy Crawford, 50, reuntied with fellow supermodel Gail Elliott, 50, in Sydney on Thursday.

The glamorous pair cut stylish figures as they shopped at Double Bay and went for lunch at harbourside restaurant Catalina, before going boating with with Cheyenne Tozzi.

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Girl's day! Supermodels and best friends Cindy Crawford (R) and Gail Elliott (L) reunited in Sydney on Thursday for shopping and boating

They haven't changed a bit: Cindy and Gail are seen here modelling together for Revlon

Cindy strolled the luxury retail strip of Transvaal Avenue in comfortable flat sandals paired with a loose knee-length black dress.

She sported an oversize silver timepiece by OMEGA, the watch maker brand who flew her out to Australia for a promotional trip.

Her trademark thick locks were worn in a wavy style and she shielded her eyes from the summer sun in designer shades as she held her phone in her hand.

Model behaviour: She landed at Sydney International Airport on Monday and has caused quite a stir on her first Australian visit in a decade

Camera ready: Her trademark thick locks were worn in a wavy style and she shielded her eyes from the summer sun in designer shades as she held her phone in her hand

British-born Gail meanwhile, also dressed in a flowing black frock and beige leather sandals.

She had her dark locks out over her shoulders and covered her face with aviator shades.

The pair perused the exclusive items inside one of the upmarket stores, which advertised designer brands like Louis Vuitton, Hermes and Prada.

She's still got it! Cindy strolled the luxury retail strip of Transvaal Avenue in comfortable flat sandals paired with a loose knee-length black dress

Expensive taste: The pair perused the exclusive items inside one of the upmarket stores, which advertised designer brands like Louis Vuitton, Hermes and Prada

Close: Gail is seen here with Cindy in an Instagram snap as they mucked around for the camera. Cindy served as bridesmaid to Gail at her wedding to Joe Coffey in 1997

After their Double Bay shopping trip, the statuesque beauties headed to Catalina restaurant in Rose Bay, which overlooks Sydney Harbour, for a midday meal.

They then went boating on the harbour with Australian model and personality, Cheyenne Tozzi.

Gail and Cindy have modelled together before and have known each other since the 1980s.

Cindy served as bridesmaid to Gail, at her wedding to Australian Joe Coffey, in the US in 1997.

It is unknown how long Cindy is in Australia for.

'Sydney is incredibly beautiful and we have friends here,' Cindy described to The Daily Telegraph on her last visit.

Ravishing: After her Double Bay shopping trip, the statuesque beauty headed to Catalina restaurant in Rose Bay, which overlooks Sydney Harbour, for a midday meal

Greetings: Cindy gave one gentleman a kiss on the cheek at Catalina

Stylish: Cindy wore an Omega watch and is in Australia for the brand

Flashing those pins! Cindy showcased her famous figure as she walked about

She referred to her husband Rande Gerber and children Kaia and Presley, who are yet to be seen with her on this trip.

Her ambassador duties for OMEGA while she's in town include a black-tie dinner in her honour plus additional promotional duties.

She has represented the brand since 1995, celebrating a 22-year partnership in 2017.

'Sydney is incredibly beautiful and we have friends here,' she described on her last visit
She's the gorgeous wife of Chris Hemsworth.

And Elsa Pataky has jetted off to the Dominican Republic, where she's been shooting for Glamour Spain.

Sharing an Instagram snap from the picturesque setting for the photo shoot, the 40-year-old wrote: 'Pool time!'

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Sizzling hot! Elsa Pataky cut a flawless figure as she enjoyed a dip in the pool during a photo shoot for Glamour Spain

The Fast & Furious 7 star struck a pose in the water, with her blonde locks tied up into a loose bun.

Elsa's complexion looked flawless, with a hint of pink blush swept across her cheeks while a pair of sunglasses shielded her eyes.

The mother-of-three showed off her decolletage in a strappy black swimsuit.

On location: The 40-year-old was seen posing in a sultry shoot, set in the picturesque Dominican Republic

In extra snaps shared on her Instagram story, the Spanish beauty was seen posing on the pool's edge while a photographer snapped away.

A short clip showed the stunning tropical setting for the shoot, which appeared to be a luxury resort.

Behind Elsa stood palm trees and white sands, as well as straw beach huts.

Life's a beach: Another snapshot shared via the star's Instagram story showed her beautiful tropical surroundings

It's no secret Elsa is in fabulous shape, having shared photos from her workouts via social media in the past.

Last week, the Byron Bay native showed off her fitness prowess in a shot taken mid-workout.

Flaunting her toned arms in a singlet and exercise tights, Elsa posed while performing squats and kettlebell lifts.

Fit mama! It's no secret the Spanish actress has an enviable body, and she's recently revealed she will be releasing her second fitness book

In a blog post penned for Glamour Spain, Elsa revealed she enjoys working out at two gyms in Los Angeles, including the iconic Gold's Gym.

'One of the things I like best about LA is that if you like sport and a healthy lifestyle, its all very easy to do here,' she said in part of her post, adding that she's 'up for anything' with her training.

Elsa - who has previously released a fitness book called Intensidad Max in 2014 - said her time in Los Angeles has motivated her to do another book.

Muscle mum: In a blog post penned for Glamour Spain, Elsa revealed she enjoys working out at two gyms in Los Angeles

'My time in LA has inspired me for my new fitness book that will come out soon,' she said.

'My dear confidants, I hope one of your New Years resolutions is to continue to get fit and to lead a healthy lifestyle,' she added.

Elsa is known for her flawless bikini body and in November, revealed to OK! Magazine about how she keeps in shape and her favourite healthy juice recipe.

'An apple, a carrot, some celery with the green leaves, a lemon without the peel,' she begun listing the ingredients.
She spent the evening surrounded by the world's most beautiful women.

And yet Alessandra Ambrosio still managed to stand out at the Annual amfAR New York Gala on Wednesday night.

The 35-year-old looked magnificent in a floor-length single-strap white gown.

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A bit of all white: Alessandra Ambrosio managed to stand out at the Annual amfAR New York Gala on Wednesday night

The low-cut piece showcased the models statuesque shoulders and arms, while the thigh-high split teased her equally shapely pins.

She matched the dress with delicate white ankle-strap heels, and accessorized with diamond rings and matching dangly earrings.

The Victoria's Secret staple was keen to show the split off, channeling Angelia Jolie as she did so.

Wow: The 35-year-old looked magnificent in a floor-length single-strap white gown

Sculpted: The low-cut piece showcased the models statuesque shoulders and arms, while the thigh-high split teased her equally shapely pins

Leg up: The Victoria's Secret staple was keen to show the split off, channeling Angelia Jolie as she did so

Just before heading out, the Brazilian beauty posted one last Instagram shot checking herself out, captioning it: 'Last looks ... before @amfar #Nyc #bts'.

Adriana Lima, Scarlett Johansson, Victoria Justice, Paris Hilton, Iman, Zoe Kravitz, Diane Kruger, Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum were just some of the beautifully famous faces that turned out for the event.

The amfAR New York gala honors individuals who have made outstanding contributions to HIV/AIDS awareness.

Gorgeous: She matched the dress with delicate white ankle-strap heels, and accessorized with diamond rings and matching dangly earrings

Stunning: Alessandra and fellow Heidi Klum made quite the striking pair

The event has taken place since 1998 and has become on of NYC's biggest events for AIDs research in the world.

Hosted by Girl's star Lena Dunham, this year's event honors Scarlett Johansson and Donatella Versace for their contributions.

Ellie Goulding was the special guest performer for the event.

Models galore: The duo posed for selfies with Naomi Campbell
A week ago Osher Gunsberg teased fans with hints that he may be headed to South Africa by posting a jungle themed video to Instagram.

The short clip has the I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here logo in the corner but when fans asked the radio host if he was heading in, he answered, 'haha I'm not on it'.

It turns out that may have been a little fib as Osher will fly out to South Africa on Friday, a day after announcing on the Stav, Abby & Matt with Osher radio show that he was indeed appearing on the reality series.

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I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! Osher Gunsberg is said to be hosting trials for the contestants as well as broadcasting his HIT 105 radio show from the location for a week

The Bachelor host is said to be hosting trials for the contestants as well as broadcasting his HIT 105 radio show from the location for a week.

He leaves early Friday morning and is expected to arrive on Sunday, but it's unclear when episodes featuring the TV personality will begin to air.

Osher teased out the announcement during his breakfast radio slot, first saying that he would not be making it to work the next day.

'Guys... there's a possibility that I'm not going to make it to the show tomorrow...' he told his co-hosts.

The 42-year-old revealed, 'I have to fly out of Brisbane unexpectedly early today. I've actually got to go overseas for something...'

Flying out: The 42-year-old revealed, 'I have to fly out of Brisbane unexpectedly early today. I've actually got to go overseas for something...'

Jungle bound: Osher finally quelled the suspense by announcing, 'I've been called to go and pay a visit...to Chris and Julia in the South African jungle!'

Are cockroaches vegan? Osher's strict vegan diet may not go well in the jungle especially if he's called upon to host tucker trials that sometimes involve insects and other gory foods

Abby and Matt took guesses as to what he was up to, with Abby hoping it was Bachelor related while Matty made jokes about drug smuggling.

Osher finally quelled the suspense by announcing, 'I've been called to go and pay a visit...to Chris and Julia in the South African jungle!'

Osher also made the announcement on Instagram in a black and white video prompting glee from fans, some of whom had already guessed his secret.

'Yes I knew it !! Can't wait to see you,' wrote one fan while another added, 'Yay!! Love that show and you will be a great addition'.

Pitching in: Osher's appearance on the show will go down a treat as his Instagram tease promoted several fans to chime in that they were excited to see the former VJ in the jungle

The vegan already dropped a hint on Instagram a week ago indicating that despite claiming it was 'unexpected' he may have known that the gig was coming up.

Osher's appearance on the show will go down a treat as his Instagram tease promoted several fans to chime in that they were excited to see the former VJ in the jungle and disappointed when he at first denied he was taking part.

One fan wrote, 'I can not wait to watch you. You make such interesting convo, these peeps won't know what's hit them!'

Incoming: One fan wrote, 'I can not wait to watch you. You make such interesting convo, these peeps won't know what's hit them!'




They've been spotted gallivanting around town for some time now.

So it wasn't surprising when Kristen Stewart and rumored girlfriend Stella Maxwell were both seen Wednesday at the Tommy Hilfiger fashion show in Los Angeles.

The Twilight star rocked her typically too-cool style, looking messy yet sexy as she graced the show in Venice Beach to support Stella, who was walking at the event.

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Cheering on her girl: Kristen Stewart showed up to support 'girlfriend' Stella Maxwell at Wednesday's Tommy Hilfiger fashion show held in Venice Beach, California

During her exit, the American Ultra actress sported heavy liner around her eyes while covering her greasy locks in a dark beanie.

The 26-year-old talent dressed down for the star-studded event, wearing simple canvas sneakers with a faded hoodie and skinny jeans.

She looked like one tough cookie, seen wearing a padlock necklace with a white V-neck before leaving the beach-side fashion show with her gal pal.

Welcome to Tommyland: The Belgian beauty walked the runway with tons of talent, seen here with Hailee Baldwin, Bella Hadid and Joan Smalls at the front of the pack

Working hard! Stella looked stylish as she left the event wearing an outfit that was straight from the runway

'Girlfriend' Stella left shortly thereafter, embracing the Tommyland vibes in her straight-from-the-runway outfit.

The Belgium born model looked long in striped pants with a mid-length rise that she paired with a western-looking belt buckle. She also adorned herself with a collection of chunky rings on her hands.

As she left the event, the Victoria's Secret angel flaunted her tan tummy in a red crop paired with a comfy bomber jacket.

Walk on by: Stella looked long and lean in a sporty red top and striped pants during the beach side fashion show

Right behind: Kristen was right behind Stella as they left the fashion show

Casual chic: The Into The Wild actress left with her lady friend who was modelling during the fashion show

Striped pants: Stella showed her lean legs in striped pants from the Tommy Hilfiger collection

Together again! After their stylish evening, the pretty pair were spotted with each other

She hit the pavement in cowboy style boots with buckles before making her final exit after her day at work.

Although neither party has confirmed the relationship, Kristen and Stella have been nearly inseparable over the past months.

Kristen is fresh from her SNL appearance last weekend, where she referred to herself as 'so gay' in the opening monologue and later shared a steamy kiss with comedian Vanessa Bayer for a skit.

Hanging out: Kristen and Stella were hanging out together in a hotel lobby before the show

Stylish pair: Stella and Kristen are both fashion fans

Showing support: Kristen wrapped an arm around Stella as they crouched down together

Rare smile: The Twilight star smiled while getting cozy with Stella
In most cases it is illegal to take a Gamble in California.

But thankfully this was not the case when Kris Jenner flaunted her toyboy lover Corey at a Tommy Hilfiger show in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

Indeed the Kardashian matriarch seemed to be having a great time showing off her much younger lover at the star-studded event, which marked the launch of the designer's Spring 2017 Women's Collection.

What a Corey on: Kris Jenner showed off her much younger lover Gamble at a Tommy Hilfiger show in Los Angeles on Wednesday

Cougar Kris, 61, looked good for her age in a black denim shirt, trousers and boots.

Her 36-year-old beau, who once served as one of Justin Bieber's lackeys, looked smart as a button in a blue Tommy pullover, jeans and boots.

She recently likened herself and Corey to Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, dismissing rumours they had gotten married.

Kris said: 'I love Corey, I dont think Im ready to get married again right now but hes such a huge part of my life.

'I'll probably end up like Goldie and Kirk.'

Put your hand up if you have a toyboy: Kris was having a great time at the exciting event

The new Goldie: Kris has compared her relationship with Corey to Hawn's with Kurt Russell

Drinking at the Fountain Of Youth? Kris, 61, looked ageless as she posed on the red carpet

One key difference between the coupling is age. Hawn is a mere six years older than her man, while Kris, who is worth an estimated $40 million, is a quarter of a century Corey's senior.

The glamour couple have long since ironed out their differences over wages.

It was claimed at the end of 2015 he thinks she should pay up more for his appearances on her hit E! show.

But that was soon resolved, and the pair seem to be happier than ever, with Corey recently going so far as to mead his much older lover's trotters as they flew home after a break in Costa Rica.

The couple have been dating for nearly three years, since her split from husband Bruce Jenner, who subsequently transformed into her new persona Caitlyn.

A model guest: She took great delight in cuddling up to Jasmine Sanders and Joan Smalls
History is repeating itself in the famous Australian Curry-Kenny clan, with Lisa and Grant's son Jett growing up to be a hunky heartthrob just like his famous father.

The 21-year-old hunk was the spitting image of his Ironman father as he strolled shirtless across the sand on the beach at Alexandra Headland on the Sunshine Coast last month.

Jett, who works as a lifeguard and competes in surf competitions at the popular beach, surely turned heads as he paraded his sculpted physique in a pair of navy budgie smugglers.

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Like father, like son! History is repeating itself in the famous Australian Curry-Kenny clan, with Lisa and Grant's son Jett growing up to be a hunky heartthrob just like his famous father

At one stage, Jett was spotted chatting to his father, 53, who revealed his similarly sculpted chest and age-defying good looks by going shirtless in a pair of black board shorts.

The famous sportsman completed his look with a gold chain necklace.

Holding an oar in one hand, Jett was also seen sharing a joke with a group of male friends on the beach.



Hearttrob alert! The 21-year-old hunk was the spitting image of his Ironman father as he strolled shirtless across the sand on the beach at Alexandra Headland on the Sunshine Coast last month

Daring to bare! Jett, who works as a lifeguard and competes in surf competitions at the popular beach, surely turned heads as he paraded his sculpted physique in a pair of navy budgie smugglers

Fun in the sun! At one stage, Jett was spotted chatting to his father, 53, as well as gang of male pals

What's his secret? Grant revealed his similarly sculpted chest and age-defying good looks by going shirtless in a pair of black board shorts

Bling: The famous sportsman completed his look with a gold chain necklace

Jett was later seen speeding off on his moped to meet his mother and her new partner, Elvis impersonator Mark Anthony Tabone, for dinner at a local Mexican restaurant.

'Jett loves to party and go out with his mates, but his parents have raised him well  mum, dad, and his sisters Jaimie and Morgan, plus his half-sister Trixie, are still his number one,' a source told Daily Mail Australia.

'Despite their incredibly public marriage breakdown, Grant and Lisa have raised a very nice young man. They are very proud of Jett, and rightly so.'

Iconic: Grant made headlines back in 1980 when he won both the Australian Junior and Open Iron Man Championship on the same day at age 16

Hunks ahoy! Jett was seen chatting with a handsome pal as they carried their oars down the sand

Jett appeared to be on lifeguard duty for part of the day, but didn't mind stopping to enjoy a chat with a mystery brunette.

He was also seen catching some waves with a blonde girl wearing a black string bikini.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, an insider confirmed: Jetts a young lad playing the field at the moment. Why wouldnt you? But there are plenty of ladies lining up to go out with him.'

He seems to have a particular interest in a girl who often comes out, all dolled up, to say hello to him while hes keeping watch out between the flags. Were all interested to see who hell settle down with.

A hit with the ladies: Jett appeared to be on lifeguard duty for part of the day, but didn't mind stopping to enjoy a chat with a mystery brunette

Who's that girl? He was also seen catching some waves with a blonde girl wearing a black string bikini

On the prowl? Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, an insider confirmed: Jetts a young lad playing the field at the moment. Why wouldnt you? But there are plenty of ladies lining up to go out with him'

Sporty: The blonde beauty seemed to be in her element as she rode the waves on her colourful board

Who's the lucky girl? He seems to have a particular interest in a girl who often comes out, all dolled up, to say hello to him while hes keeping watch out between the flags,' said the insider

In fact, it's Lisa, 54, who is beginning to propel her son to the level of superstardom she and her ex-husband have enjoyed since they were in their 20s.

'It was mum's idea  it usually is,' Jett confessed last year to the Courier Mail about his fledgling modeling career.

'She just sent in some photos and got an email back and it went from there. I just go with what's going on, and I was like, 'Why not?''

Hitting the road: Jett was later seen speeding off on his moped

'Jett loves to party and go out with his mates, but his parents have raised him well': A source told Daily Mail Australia that despite his wild lifestyle, Jett always makes sure he puts family first

However, despite the agency's eagerness to represent him, the youngster said he isn't keen on doing international shows.

'I think I'll try to steer away from the catwalk stuff,' Jett admitted. 'I think I'm too laid-back for that.'

The Sydney-based agency reportedly jumped at the chance to sign the hunky Ironmen, citing his 'down-to-earth' aesthetic and 'confident personality' as definite draw cards.

Genetically blessed! Jett recently signed with Vivien's Model management

Mother knows best! 'It was mum's idea  it usually is,' Jett confessed last year to the Courier Mail about his fledgling modeling career

'He epitomises the healthy, cheeky and fun young male that his age group looks up to,' Vivien's manager Georgia Barcay told the publication.

'With his background and family heritage in lifesaving and surf competitions Jett will do really well with our surf wear clients.'

Meanwhile, Lisa Curry remains in the South African jungle as she competes on I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here!

Home is where the heart is! However, despite the agency's eagerness to represent him, the youngster said he isn't keen on doing international shows

The complete package: The Sydney-based agency reportedly jumped at the chance to sign the hunky Ironmen, citing his 'down-to-earth' aesthetic and 'confident personality' as definite draw cards
Bridget Malcolm caught the eye as she walked the red carpet on Wednesday night.

The Perth beauty looked stunning in an extravagant Alex Perry gown as she attended the annual amfAR New York Gala.

The 25-year-old's outfit showed off her shoulders and abs as she posed for photos upon arrival at Cipriani Club on Wall Street.

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Talk of the town: Bridget Malcolm caught the eye as she walked the red carpet on Wednesday night

Bridget's dress, fresh from Sydney designer Alex's latest collection, featured a sheer panel across her midriff.

The ruffled black number flowed to the floor as the Victoria's Secret model accessorised with a black choker.

Exuding beauty with minimal make-up, Bridget wore her blonde locks in a bun.

Homegrown: The Perth beauty looked stunning in an extravagant Alex Perry gown as she attended the 19th annual amfAR New York Gala

Ab-solutely fabulous: The 25-year-old's outfit showed off her shoulders and abs as she posed for photos upon arrival at Cipriani Club on Wall Street

The professional poser worked her magic on the red carpet, oozing class as she made her way into the event.

The Australian model was in esteemed company, with fellow models Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum in attendance as well as film star Scarlett Johansson.

The amfAR Gala unofficially kicks off New York Fashion Week and honors individuals who have helped raise awareness of HIV/AIDS.

Day job: The professional poser worked her magic on the red carpet, oozing class as she made her way into the event

Blonde beauty: Bridget's dress, fresh from Sydney designer Alex's latest collection, featured a sheer panel across her midriff

Star-studded: The Australian model was in esteemed company, with fellow models Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum in attendance as well as film star Scarlett Johansson

Last week, Bridget was strutting her stuff at the David Jones Autumn/Winter Collection Launch in Sydney.

Taking to the runway at St Mary's Cathedral, the beauty stole the show ahead of brand ambassadors Jesinta Campbell and Jessica Gomes.

Bridget, who is based in Los Angeles, was the event's star attraction alongside fellow supermodel Karlie Kloss.
Iman proved that 61 was nothing but a number as she sizzled in a sexy scarlet gown at the amfAR New York Gala on Wednesday night.

The legendary Somali supermodel - rocking David Webb jewelry - looked sensational while clad in a sleeveless, bias-cut crimson creation by Zac Posen.

Make-up artist Porsche Cooper made sure the make-up mogul looked flawless and hair stylist Oscar James coiffed her side-parted wavy bobbed wig.

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Diva! Iman proved that 61 was nothing but a number as she sizzled in a sexy scarlet gown at the amfAR New York Gala on Wednesday night

Icon: The legendary Somali supermodel - rocking David Webb jewelry - looked sensational while clad in a sleeveless, bias-cut crimson creation by Zac Posen

Glam squad: Make-up artist Porsche Cooper made sure the make-up mogul looked flawless and hair stylist Oscar James coiffed her side-parted wavy bobbed wig

Iman was escorted to the glizy AIDS benefit by none other than her 'dear friend' - the 36-year-old designer of her dress.

'Just wow!' Manhattan-born Posen gushed on Instagram.

'Thank you @the_real_iman for having me as you date tonight to the @amfar #amfarnewyork gala tonight! You are stunning inside and out!!'

The regal 5ft9in beauty - born born Zara Mohamed Abdulmajid - was also joined at Cipriani Wall Street by Brooklyn-born shoe designer Kenneth Cole.

GBF: Iman was escorted to the glizy AIDS benefit by none other than her 'dear friend' - the 36-year-old designer of her dress

Manhattan-born Posen gushed on Instagram: 'Just wow! Thank you @the_real_iman for having me as you date tonight to the @amfar gala tonight! You are stunning inside and out!!'

Sandwich: The regal 5ft9in beauty - born born Zara Mohamed Abdulmajid - was also joined at Cipriani Wall Street by Brooklyn-born shoe designer Kenneth Cole (L)

Longtime supporter: Iman served as 'Event Chair' and presenter for the charitable organization, which has amassed more than $17M in their fight against the global epidemic

Iman served as 'Event Chair' and presenter for the charitable organization, which has amassed more than $17M in their fight against the global epidemic.

The grieving widow made sure to wear her 'David' nameplate necklace in honor of her third husband David Bowie, who passed away from liver cancer at age 69 a year ago.

'I'm wearing it until my death,' the multi-lingual stunner vowed to GMA back in September. 'I'm holding up. I'm holding up...It's been a tough year but I'm holding up.'

Their 24-year marriage produced one daughter - 16-year-old Lexi - and she also has a 38-year-old daughter Zulekha with second husband, Spencer Haywood.

'I'm wearing it until my death': The grieving widow wore her 'David' nameplate necklace in honor of her third husband David Bowie, who died from liver cancer at age 69 a year ago

The multi-lingual stunner told GMA back in September: 'I'm holding up. I'm holding up...It's been a tough year but I'm holding up' (pictured in 2013)

Teenager: Their 24-year marriage produced one daughter - 16-year-old Lexi - and she also has a 38-year-old daughter Zulekha with second husband, Spencer Haywood

British fans of the Grammy-winning legend can score a Ziggy MOJO souvenir cover at the March 7 Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars screenings happening in UK cinemas.

Meanwhile, Iman keeps busy running her 22-year-old cosmetics company as well as her IMAN Global Chic clothing line for HSN.

The day after President Trump implemented his since-halted travel ban, the proud Muslim celebrated her emigration to the States in 1975.

The Kenzo x H&M brand ambassador - who boasts 1.2M followers - wrote: 'I am the face of an immigrant! Hard working, job creating and tax paying! #immigrant.'

Keeping his memory alive: British fans of the Grammy-winning legend can score a Ziggy MOJO souvenir cover at the March 7 Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars screenings happening in UK cinemas

Groundbreaker: Meanwhile, Iman keeps busy running her 22-year-old cosmetics company as well as her IMAN Global Chic clothing line for HSN
They're the founders of a website devoted solely to swimwear.

So it's no surprise that bikini-clad besties Natasha Oakley and Devin Brugman documented their secrets to the perfect swimwear shoot during a recent trip to Fiji.

Posting on their joint YouTube account on Wednesday, the pair shared a behind-the-scenes video as they went in search of the perfect pictures in Savusavu, revealing they shoot as many as 50 suits in a single day.

Bikini bible: Natasha Oakley (L) and Devin Brugman (R) documented their secrets to the perfect swimwear shoot during a recent trip to Fiji

After arriving at their luxury resort, Tash gave viewers an insight into how the genetically-blessed pair go about getting the shots they need for their website, A Bikini A Day - on which they post new swimsuit pictures daily.

Tash said: 'We shoot 40 or 50 suits at once so we can spread them out over an entire month, and we'll shoot once a month.'

Keeping their hair natural and 'beachy', Tash also says makeup is kept to a minimum when they head out on a shoot.

Lifting the lid: Posting on their joint YouTube account, the pair shared a behind-the-scenes video as they went in search of the perfect pictures in Savusavu, revealing they shoot as many as 50 suits in a single day

Working hard: With a mountain of bikinis to model, time was of the essence and the 26-year-old revealed her and Devin's workload during their time in Fiji

With a mountain of bikinis to model, time was of the essence and the 26-year-old revealed her and Devin's workload during their time in Fiji.

She said: 'The best lighting is always in the morning or the afternoon, so over the whole week that we're here we'll be shooting every morning and afternoon.'

The pair, who were also modelling samples of their own bikini line, took it in turns to shoot pictures of each other, while their entourage included another photographer.

At one point in the video, Tash and Devin are surrounded by bikinis after laying them out on the floor of their hotel room.

Floordrobe: At one point in the video, Tash and Devin are surrounded by bikinis after laying them out on the floor of their hotel room

Job done: After a week of posing on beaches, in hammocks and other idyllic spots around the island, the bronze beauties were delighted with the outcome, Devin exclaiming 'it's exactly what we want'

After a week of posing on beaches, in hammocks and other idyllic spots around the island, the bronze beauties were delighted with the outcome, Devin exclaiming 'it's exactly what we want'.

However, Tash didn't lift the lid on their editing process after admitting last year that she retouches her photos during an interview with The Daily Telegraph.

She said: 'I think that everyone is doing that (retouching) because of what they see in the media.

'I think with the general population are just trying to follow exactly what they see with pictures being edited.'
Natasha Oakley regularly flies to exotic locations around the world for work.

And her jet-setting lifestyle appears to have made the Sydney-born model lose her Aussie accent.

The 26-year-old, who lives in Los Angeles, sounded as though she'd lost all trace of her previously recognisable Australian voice during a video uploaded to her YouTube page on Wednesday.

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Speech! Natasha Oakley's jet-setting lifestyle appears to have made the Sydney-born model lose her Aussie accent

The founder of A Bikini A Day was filming a video diary from a recent trip to Fiji when a very English-sounding Natasha was heard.

The blonde beauty left Australia a few years ago after moving to Hawaii, where she met her best friend Devin Brugman.

After two-and-a-half years in Maui, Natasha left the tropical island alongside Devin to start a new life in Los Angeles.

Have a word: The 26-year-old, who lives in Los Angeles, sounded as though she'd lost all trace of her previously recognisable Australian voice during a video uploaded to her YouTube page on Wednesday

Homegrown: The founder of A Bikini A Day was filming a video diary from a recent trip to Fiji when a very English-sounding Natasha was heard

The entrepreneur, who also lived in Florida for three years during her childhood, has since found success with A Bikini A Day, launching her own range of swimwear.

Devin and Natasha travel the world modelling for some of the biggest names in swimwear, a part of her job she embraces with open arms.

During an interview with Perth Now in 2015, the beauty admitted she never misses home.

Globe trotters: Devin and Natasha travel the world modelling for some of the biggest names in swimwear, a part of her job she embraces with open arms

Bessies: The blonde beauty (L) left Australia a few years ago after moving to Hawaii, where she met her best friend Devin Brugman (R)

'I think Devin is much more of a homebody than I am,' she said.

'She loves to have long periods at home and when we do travel a lot and are away for a month or more she does get a bit homesick whereas I'm quite the nomad and never feel that way, ever.'

Since launching her brand in 2012, Natasha has seen A Bikini A Day take-off on social media, with the official account currently boasting 641,000 followers on Instagram.
He's spent the past few weeks in a sling after shattering his elbow.

So Richard Madeley seemed to be making the most of having two functional arms as he picked up a mountain of dry cleaning in London on Wednesday.

Struggling slightly with the bundle of clothing, the 60-year-old television presenter battled on as he ran his errands in the capital.

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No arm done: Richard Madeley seemed to be making the most of having two functional arms as he picked up a mountain of dry cleaning in London on Wednesday

Looking downcast, the husband of Judy Finnigan donned a padded navy jacket and relaxed jeans.

Richard was no doubt pleased to have two functioning arms after undergoing surgery last month.

The former This Morning host had to have a two-hour operation to insert titanium plates after shattering his elbow slipping on ice.

Ouch: Richard has spent the past few weeks in a sling after shattering his elbow last month

Richard kept fans updated on progress throughout on Twitter, posting: 'They say there's a 1st time for everything. So today I broke my arm falling on ice!Went down hard+smashed it! Op tomoz. 'Sigh'....

'Lucky it was the left one and weirdly it's still pretty functional,' he added. 'But as Lennon said: "Life's what happens when you're making other plans."'

The star then underwent surgery under general anesthetic to fix his arm, leaving him in a great deal of pain.

'2-hr op to put screws+plates in me arm,' he tweeted. 'Local anaesth didn't take so needed a general.Huge thanks to theatre team and ward nurses.Onwards!'

Walking wounded: Struggling slightly with the bundle of clothing, the 60-year-old television presenter battled on as he ran his errands in the capital

Low-key look: Looking downcast, the husband of Judy Finnigan donned a padded navy jacket and relaxed jeans with a thin white scarf slung around his neck

Holding it down: Richard was no doubt pleased to have two functioning arms after undergoing surgery last month to have titanium plates inserted into his elbow

Days after the incident and post-surgery, Richard was in a reflective mood, writing: '3days now as one-armed bandit after shattering left elbow.

'Hardest things;laces+watch strap.But BOY,does a broken arm hurt! UlnaUlnaUlna!!!'

Richard later cut a rather bizarre figure during a stroll through London sporting a tissue up up one nostril as he brandished his bandaged arm.
His most recent endeavour, Taboo, has reportedly cost him more than a pretty.

But Tom Hardy didn't look to have a care in the world as he enjoyed a night out in Hollywood on Wednesday with his pal, Lukas Haas.

The 39-year-old Taboo star cut a relaxed and hirsute figure as he emerged into the evening air following a meal at the Madeo Restaurant in West Hollywood.

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Taking it easy: Tom Hardy didn't look to have a care in the world as he enjoyed a night out in Hollywood on Wednesday with his pal, Lukas Haas

Tom, whose company has seen its monetary reserves plunge to 696,980, looked positively relaxed as he enjoyed an evening out with his fellow thespian.

Heading to the celeb-popular haunt, Tom was instantly recognisable as he and Lukas enjoyed some lads' only time.

Dressing down in his trademark casual manner, the London-born star donned a brown lumberjack shirt, black tee and bootcut denim jeans.

The boys are back in town! Tom, 39, and his The Revenant co-star, 40, both opted for casual ensembles as they headed to the Madeo Restaurant in West Hollywood

The Dark Knight Rises star rounded off his casual look with a pair of rugged walking boots and a black cap perched atop his head.

Tom cut a rugged figure indeed as he sported a bushy beard which appeared suitably wild and wiry.

Lukas, 40 - who starred in The Revenant alongside Tom and Leonardo DiCaprio - went for an equally dressed down look.

Not a care in the world: Tom, whose company has seen its monetary reserves plunge to 696,980, looked positively relaxed as he enjoyed an evening out with his fellow thespian

Casually does it: Dressing down in his trademark casual manner, the London-born star donned a brown lumberjack shirt, black tee and bootcut denim jeans

Sturdy and reliable: The Dark Knight Rises star rounded off his casual look with a pair of rugged walking boots and a black cap perched atop his head

The Californian native rocked a zip-up hoodie, jeans, trainers and a trucker hat pulled over his long hair.

The duos outing came as it was reveaked that Tom's financial woes have apparently spread to his company 33 1/3rd, with its reserves plunging from 2.8million in 2015 to 696,980 in 2016, according to The Sun's Dan Wootton

A source told the publication: 'Tom is a big spender and these figures prove that. It takes some serious investment to give away more than 2 million in 12 months.

Rugged: Tom cut a rugged figure indeed as he sported a bushy beard which appeared suitably wild and wiry

'He can take the hit': The duo's outing came as Tom's financial woes look to have spread to his company 33 1/3rd, with its reserves plunging from 2.8million in 2015 to 696,980 in 2016, according to reports

'Toms career is riding high and he isnt short of offers so he can afford the hit.

'He has enough cash to keep himself comfortable, and of course there is a chance he may have simply shifted the money from one account to another.'

MailOnline has contacted a representative for Tom and is awaiting comment.

The news followed hot on the heels of the heels of the news that his latest TV project Taboo has so far struggled to recoup its 10.4million budget, falling 2million shy of breaking even.

Taboo is a sumptuously rich eight-part period drama set predominantly in early 19th century London.

Created by Hardy and his father Edward, the actor plays the leading role of James Keziah Delaney - a tormented soul with a mysterious past who returns to London following a 10 year stay in Africa.

Compelling: Taboo is a sumptuously rich eight-part period drama set predominantly in early 19th century London

As he battles the powerful East India Company, the Prince Regent and the American government for ownership of a small trading post on the American/Canadian border all sorts of violence and treachery unfold.

Speaking to the Mail On Sunday's Chris Hastings, Hardy said he was delighted to be playing a complete ba***rd.'

He described Delaney as mercurial, intuitive, shamanistic, traumatised, noble, immoral, ethical, opportunistic, brazen, primal, mercenary, calculating and brilliant.

He means business: Created by Hardy and his father Edward, the actor plays the leading role of James Keziah Delaney

We wanted to create a period drama that felt like an event. We hoped to do this not only with the writing, but visually as well', the handsome actor added.

With the series produced by Ridley Scott's Scott Free Productions there is, unsurprisingly, a cinematic feel to the drama.

And with the likes of Jonathan Pryce and Michael Kelly among the cast there is plenty of top supporting talent to accompany Hardy's Hollywood might.
With her perfect bone structure and plump pout, she never looks less than stunning.

And now, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley has outdone herself in a series of sizzling new shots for Paige Denim's spring 2017 campaign.

The 29-year-old British model goes topless with her back to the camera in one shot, sporting just a pair of tight jeans.

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Going topless: Rosie Huntington-Whiteley goes topless with her back to the camera in a series of sizzling new shots for Paige Denim's 2017 campaign

Another shot features Rosie posing against a wall, showing off her slender figure in a sleeveless black denim jumpsuit with a striped choker.

She sticks to black while striking a pose in a pair of clinging leather trousers teamed with a frilled long sleeved top and a plunging neckline.

The new images come as rumours continue to swirl that Rosie is expecting her first baby with boyfriend Jason Statham.

The Transformers star has recently been spotted in loose fitting clothing while placing her hand over her tummy.

Last month, sources told the Daily Mail that the blonde beauty is 'indeed pregnant and ... has been calling in clothes to suit her changing figure.'

She wore black denim! Rosie sported a sleeveless jumpsuit in another sizzling snap

Hell for leather: Rosie sported a pair of clinging trousers and a frilled long sleeved top

Rosie, who's been seen in films such as Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Mad Max: Fury Road, has opened up in the past on her thoughts about starting a family with her 49-year-old actor beau.

Speaking to The EDIT in 2015, Rosie said, 'Having a family is something I think about for sure, and whether I'd live here in America or in England. But it's not always as simple as that.'

She continued, 'I have no idea what will happen, but it'll be interesting to find out, right? And nothing will be perfect, I'm sure.'

Lounging about: Rosie sported a patterned off-the-shoulder gypsy style top

Meanwhile, the star is clearly excited about the latest Paige collection which she helped design.

'I think for me, it was all about building and making this versatile, easy, on-the-go, everyday collection, where the pieces could be mixed in and worn in different ways,' she told Vogue.

'Everything feels like it should be something thats a part of a basic wardrobe, but with a little twist.'
Shes a notable absentee from the glittering array of talent that makes up this years BAFTA nominations, but Isabelle Huppert made up for that particular loss with a triumphant display at the 32nd Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

The French actress, 63, enjoyed a winning appearance both on and off the red carpet while attending the annual Californian ceremony on behalf of her latest film, Elle.

Opting for a heavily embellished, ice-blue top and mismatched peach skirt, Isabelle ensured she caught the eye during her appearance at the ten-day event, which celebrates the very best of international cinema with films from 50 countries.

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Striking: Shes a notable absentee from the glittering array of talent that makes up this years BAFTA nominations, but Isabelle Huppert made up for that particular loss with a triumphant display at the 32nd Santa Barbara International Film Festival

Completing her look with a pair of emerald green strappy heels, Isabelles bold ensemble caught the eye as she mingled with fellow guests in the coastal suburb's Arlington Theatre.

The veteran star of more than 100 films and TV productions was on hand to accept the 2017 Montecito Award for her acclaimed, Oscar nominated role in director Paul Verhoevens latest movie.

'Shes one of the greatest actors ever, and her legacy to cinema is unparalleled,' SBIFF Executive Director Roger Durling said of her nomination in January.

Thank you: The veteran star of more than 100 film and TV productions was on hand to accept the 2017 Montecito Award for her acclaimed, Oscar nominated role in director Paul Verhoevens Elle

Eye-catching: Opting for a heavily embellished, ice-blue top and mismatched peach skirt, Isabelle ensured she caught the eye during her appearance at the ten-day event, which celebrates the very best of international cinema with films from 50 countries

Upbeat: Isabelle was in high spirits as she chatted with guests including Scott Feinberg

'Any film that includes Ms. Huppert is without a doubt immediately worth watching. She elevates any work  shes elevated cinema. Its overdue to celebrate this giant.'

Previous recipients of the prestigious award, named after one of Santa Barbara's most picturesque areas, include Sylvester Stallone, Jennifer Aniston and Oprah Winfrey.

Jeff Bridges, Denzel Washington, Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling, Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams are also expected to collect awards before the festival closes on February 10.

Centre of attention: The actress also gave a talk at the annual Californian event

Incoming: The French star commanded attention as she made her entrance at Santa Barbara's Arlington Theatre

Finishing touches: Completing her look with a pair of emerald green strappy heels, Isabelles bold look caught the eye as she posed for photos outside the venue

Isabelle will also be in contention for an Oscar at the 89th annual Academy Awards after being nominated in the category for Actress in a Leading Role.

But her presence will be notably absent on Sunday evening when the BAFTA Awards get underway at London's Royal Albert Hall due to the timing of the film's release in the UK.

The film, a psychological thriller based on author Philippe Djian's 2012 novel Oh..., was not released in time to be considered for nomination.

In good company: Isabella was joind on the red carpet by SBIFF Executive Director Roger Durling

Success: Isabelle will also be in contention for an Oscar at the 89th annual Academy Awards after being nominated in the category for Actress sin a Leading Role
Tara Palmer-Tomkinson was tragically found dead in her home on Wednesday.

And since the devastating loss a bevy of tributes have flooded in for the belove It Girl, with the latest homage being paid by the Loose Women panel on Thursday's episode of the show.

Leading the nods to the star was Janet Street Porter as she praised the late socialite, before her co-stars, including Ruth Langsford and Gloria Hunniford, echoed her sentiments in a gushing display.

It emerged that Tara's body was discovered at her luxury west London apartment by her cleaner - as a close friend revealed that she had relapsed into 'a dark place' in the weeks before her death.

The Portuguese cleaner, who is in her 30s, arrived at the socialite's west London flat at around 1.30pm on Wednesday and was heard crying by builders renovating the apartment below.

Minutes later an ambulance arrived with several paramedics, followed by three police cars. Undertakers took the former model's body away yesterday evening.

It later emerged that builders had heard a 'loud bang' coming from the apartment last Friday, but had not heard any other noises following that incident.

Saddened: Tara Palmer-Tomkinson was tragically found dead in her home on Wednesday

A tribute: Devastated Janet Street-Porter laid bare her emotions

Sad times: And since the devastating loss a bevy of tributes have flooded in for the belove It Girl, with the latest homage being paid by the Loose Women panel on Thursday's episode of the show

Fond memories: Janet looked back on their joyous times fondly

The revelation comes as a friend appeared on This Morning to claim the socialite had relapsed 'into a dark place'.

As investigations continue around the stars death, tributes have flooded in, with Janet, who revealed she knew Tara 'very well', weighing in: 'I knew Tara because I met her out at parties. She was such a lovely, lovely person, I dont remember one time where she didnt make me laugh.

'She was a bubbly person who lifted up a room. Yes, she had problems with drugs, but, really, she just struggled to live up to the reputation she was given of it girl.

In depth: 'She was a bubbly person who lifted up a room. Yes, she had problems with drugs, but, really, she just struggled to live up to the reputation she was given of it girl'

Stunning: Leading the nods to the star was Janet Street Porter as she praised the late socialite, before her co-stars, including Ruth Langsford and Gloria Hunniford, echoed her sentiments in a gushing display

'She just wanted to find a man and play the piano at home! Ill never gorget going out to lunch with her, and we drove down Piccadilly in an open top car. How Tara is that?'

Co-star Linda Robson recalled appearing alongside the star in Celebrity Fame Academy, which Tara went on to win: 'She was a lovely person, and she worked so hard. She was so generous, she said to me: "Your skins a bit dry", and then came back with all these creams.'

Gloria Hunniford added: 'I interviewed her a few times. We know she had documented problems with drugs but she always turned up straight as a razor. The title of It Girl was a lot to live up to'.
They are the nearest thing to a royal couple America has ever seen.

So when telling the story of how the First Family of the US were introduced to the British monarch, it's important to get the casting just right.

Producers on the next series of the Netflix smash hit The Crown - which will document Queen Elizabeth II's reign over six seasons - have hired Michael C. Hall and Jodi Balfour to portray President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jackie Kennedy.

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New addition: Producers on the next series of the Netflix smash hit The Crown - which will document Queen Elizabeth II's reign over six seasons - have hired Michael C. Hall to play President John F. Kennedy

Production on the new run has already begun shooting and Hall and Balfour are in the UK filming now.

Claire Foy will make a triumphant return to the show as the Queen, alongside Matt Smith, who plays Prince Philip.

The episode concerns a visit the Kennedys made to London in June, 1961. The visit was considered tricky and sensitive because, back then, divorcees were not invited to state dinners at Buckingham Palace.

Jackie had wanted her sister Princess Lee Radziwell, then on her second husband, to attend. The Queen was furious but reluctantly agreed.

Second coming: Claire Foy and Matt Smith will return to their roles as Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip in the new season, which will document the monarch's reign in the 1960s

History repeated: The episode concerns a visit the Kennedys made to London in June, 1961

Spitting image: Jackie will be played by actress Jodi Balfour (above in Bomb Girls)

The episode will show that the Queen was clearly annoyed with Jackie Kennedys behaviour and the two didnt get on particularly well.

However, when Jackie confided to the Queen that she found being on public view exhausting, the Queen confided to her: One gets crafty after a while and learns how to save oneself.'

The two women met again nine months later, but it was just the two of them and the visit was less frosty.

One of the production executives told Mail Online that once Hall - best known for her role in Dexter - has been through hair and make-up, 'he bears an uncanny resemblance to JFK'.

The Crown has become a huge hit for Netflix with the drama winning top awards at the Golden Globes and at the Screen Actors Guild awards, plus Best Actress in the TV categories at the Globes and SAGs for Foy.
She had been watching her rumoured girlfriend Stella Maxwell strut down the catwalk at the Tommy Hilfiger fashion show in Los Angeles.

And Kristen Stewart looked a little weary as she was spotted leaving the afterparty with both Stella and their model pal Hailey Baldwin on Wednesday night.

The low key pair were spotted hanging out with a crowd of friends outside the Barlo Kitchen and Cocktails venue in Venice Beach.

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Legs eleven: Hailey sported knee-length black boots and a mini skirt as she chatted on the phone following the Tommy Hilfiger after-party on Wednesday night

Me and my girl: Stella was spotted having an animated conversation while Kristen stood with a group of friends after the party

Sporting a pair of sunglasses, leather trousers and Doc Marten's style boots, Stella crouched on the pavement having an animated conversation while Kristen perched next to her.

The Twilight star rocked her typically too-cool style, sporting heavy liner around her eyes while covering her greasy locks in a dark beanie.

The 26-year-old talent dressed down for the star-studded event, wearing simple canvas sneakers with a faded hoodie and skinny jeans.

In the middle of a conversation: Hailey chatted on the phone as she was joined by a group of friends

Sitting on the sidewalk: The couple have not confirmed or denied the dating rumours

Not quite all black: She accessorised with a padlock necklace which she wore over a white V-neck

Catching up: Stella chatted away to a male friend while Kristen looked a little partied out

She accessorised with a padlock necklace which she wore over a white V-neck.

The pair were accompanied by model pal Hailey who also walked the show before changing into a pair of knee-high boots, black mini skirt and leather jacket.

Her blonde hair was worn parted and in a low ponytail as she chatted on her phone surrounded by a group of friends.

Hair brushed and parted: Her blonde hair was worn in a low ponytail as she chatted on her phone surrounded by a group of friends

Fast friends: Although neither party has confirmed the relationship, Kristen and Stella have been nearly inseparable over the past months

Big crowd: Hailey and Stella both walked the show with Kristen cheering on the sidelines

Hanging out: Earlier, Kristen and Stella were spotted hanging out together in a hotel lobby before the show

The Twilight star had earlier been watching her reported partner on the runway embracing the Tommyland vibes in her straight-from-the-runway outfit.

The Belgium born model looked statuesque in striped pants with a mid-length rise that she paired with a western-looking belt buckle. She also adorned herself with a collection of chunky rings on her hands.

Although neither party has confirmed the relationship, Kristen and Stella have been nearly inseparable over the past months.

Rare smile: The Twilight star smiled while getting cozy with Stella

Stylish pair: Stella and Kristen are both fashion fans

Showing support: Kristen wrapped an arm around Stella as they crouched down together

Casual pair: Kristen and her gal pal looked extremely low key following the show

Together again! After their stylish evening, the pretty pair were spotted with each other

Whilst Kirsten has never publicly confirmed her relationship with Stella, the pair's relationship has been the subject of speculation since May last year when they were spotted leaving the Met Ball together.

Whilst they have kept their reported romance low-key, the pair have also been spotted kissing and out together on several occasions.

They are believed to have started dating in December, shortly after Kristen made her first public outing with then-girlfriend St. Vincent.

Casual chic: The Into The Wild actress left with her lady friend who was modelling during the fashion show

Cheering on her girl: Kristen Stewart showed up to support 'girlfriend' Stella Maxwell at Wednesday's Tommy Hilfiger fashion show held in Venice Beach, California

Working hard! Stella looked stylish as she left the event wearing an outfit that was straight from the runway

Back in July, Kristen Stewart came out as bisexual when she gushed about her then-girlfriend Alicia Cargyle to Elle magazine: 'I'm just really in love with my girlfriend,' she said.

'We've broken up a couple of times and gotten back together, and this time I was like: "Finally, I can feel again."'

Kristen is fresh from her SNL appearance last weekend, where she referred to herself as 'so gay' in the opening monologue and later shared a steamy kiss with comedian Vanessa Bayer for a skit.
He's a regular face on both the F1 podium and the front row at the major fashion shows.

So it was no surprise to see Lewis Hamilton showing off his own unique sartorial streak in a very colouful jacket as he headed to the Tommy Hilfiger show.

Taking in the American designer's latest creations in Los Angeles, the 32-year-old F1 ace cut a distinct figure as he mingled with the likes of Natasha Bedingfield at the Tommyland bash.

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A BOLD look: Lewis Hamilton showed off his own unique sartorial streak in a very colouful jacket as he headed to the Tommy Hilfiger show

Lewis, who drives for Mercedes AMG Petronas, looked to be enjoying some time away from the pit lane.

Sauntering into the show with a swaggering stride, the British F1 ace looked to have put together his best West Coast-inspired ensemble.

Lewis opted to team a bold pink and olive bomber jacket, which featured floral print sleeves, with a white tee.

Fashionable friends: Taking in the American designer's latest creations in Los Angeles, the F1 ace, 32, cut a distinct figure as he mingled with the likes of Natasha Bedingfield at the bash

Sticking to a casual theme he wore a pair of ripped white jeans, before finishing his look off with a pair of matching high-top trainers with colour-accented soles.

He accessorised his look with a white cap and a pair of oval-framed sunglasses, despite the overcast weather.

Strolling into the event with a rather burly friend, Lewis took his place on the FROW before mingling with other guests at the after-party.

Colourful choice: Lewis opted to team a bold pink and olive bomber jacket, which featured floral print sleeves, with a white tee

The white choice? Sticking to a casual theme he wore a pair of ripped white jeans, before finishing his look off with a pair of matching high-top trainers with colour-accented soles

Fancy seeing you here: Lewis mingled with pals Kris Jenner and Corey Gamble at the event, as well as Tommy and his wife Dee Ocleppo

Chatting away: Lewis looked to be in high spirits as he chatted to the designer and his wife

Runway wonders: The summery collection all features Tommy's trademark flair for bold colours and eye-grabbing patterns

Running into fellow Brit Natasha Bedingfield at the event, the two friends greeted each other with smiles.

And she wasn't his only pal at the event, as both Kris Jenner and her boyfriend Corey Gamble.

Of course, the man of the moment, Tommy, was also in attendance with his wife Dee Ocleppo.

Tommy's latest collection was modelled by rising supermodels Gigi and Bella Hadid, whilst their BFF Hailey Baldwin was also another model to make a mark on the show.
Every round is a sartorial face off - battle of the gowns for the two female panellists.

So Amanda Holden illustrated her determination to stand out from the crowds alongside her stunning co-judge Alesha Dixon as they headed to the Manchester rounds of Britain's Got Talent on Thursday.

The 45-year-old former actress wore an eye-wateringly tight pink dress ahead of the initial rounds, as she flashed more than expected, while the stunning Mis-Teeq songstress, 38, opted for a striped mini.

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Look at me! Amanda Holden illustrated her determination to stand out from the crowds alongside her stunning co-judge Alesha Dixon as they headed to the Manchester rounds of Britain's Got Talent on Thursday

Amanda looked stylish in her pink gown which boasted layers of ruffled scalloped lace while sticking to her figure with a second skin tightness.

She later pulled on a coordinating jacket over the top although fought to show off her assets by pulling the waist of the coat back with her hand on her hip.

Determined to flash as much as she can, the underlay on her dress featured a racy slashed detail in an aysmettric line, meanings she flashed her thighs.

The blonde beauty wore a pair of staggering heels with a thin strap which helped boost her height and lengthen her legs to perfection.

Stunners: The 45-year-old former actress wore an eye-wateringly tight pink dress ahead of the initial rounds, as she flashed more than expected, while the stunning Mis-Teeq songstress, 38, opted for a striped mini

Pretty in pink: Amanda looked stylish in her pink gown which boasted layers of ruffled scalloped lace while sticking to her figure with a second skin tightness

Give us a twirl! The star looked sensational as she worked every inch of her blush pink ensemble

Girls wanna have fun: The duo shared a joke as they cuddled up for sappers

Stunner: Adding a racy addition into the ensemble, the thin knit of Alesha's bright dress showed a flash of her lingerie underneath

Legs eleven: She boosted her already statuesque height with the addition of strappy heels which lengthened her legs and added to the sensational look

Crowdpleasers: The pair looked thrilled as they waved happily to the crowds

She wore her blonde tresses in coiffed curls which skimmed her shoulders in length, while she wore a heavy face of make-up ahead of her spot on-screen.

Masses of eyeliner drew out her eyes while her plump pout was highlighted by a slick of lipgloss. She rounded out her outfit with dazzling jewels.

Her younger counterpart looked incredibly in her brightly coloured mini, which was thigh-skimming in length and flashed the entirety of her pins.

Adding a racy addition into the ensemble, the thin knit of the bright dress helped flash her lingerie underneath.

She's a handful: Amanda seemed gleeful as she made sure everyone's eyes were focused on Alesha's behind

Girl power: The pair posed up a storm on the Union Jack carpet

Here comes the blushing star: Amanda's pink coat billowed behind her as she strutted down the red carpet

Leg it! The star certainly showed off one of her outstanding assets - her killer pins - as she climbed into her flashing ride

Mandy and Alesha! The blonde took the wheel of the vintage car as they arrived at the auditions in Manchester

Easy Riders: Alesha smiled as she let Amanda take control

Where's Alesha? There was another man in the passenger seat while Amanda got

She boosted her already statuesque height with the addition of strappy heels which lengthened her legs and added to the sensational look.

Also there were the show's hosts, Ant and Dec.

The comedy duo didn't get quite the glam entrance the girls got; they arrived by rickshaw.

Still, despite putting in some hard leg work, the pair were in high spirits as usual - waving to fans once they parked on the red carpet.

Legwork: Also there were the show's hosts, Ant and Dec

Here come the boys: The comedy duo didn't get quite the glam entrance the girls got; they arrived by rickshaw

High five: Still, despite putting in some hard leg work, the pair were in high spirits as usual - waving to fans once they parked on the red carpet

Taxi for two? Stephen Mulhern, who presents spin off show Britain's Got More Talent, was on hand to drive the elderly around on a mobility scooter

Tired out? The pair smiled but looked a little bit out of breath

Amanda and Alesha have been jetting around the country in luxury of their boss Simon Cowell's private plane.

They have stepped things up in the style stakes this year, even before they really indulge in their seriously knockout gowns for the live shows.

Last year, Amanda caused a commotion when she sported a particularly daring white number, which was completely split at the sides.

Look familiar? A puppeteer arrived with a doll that looked strikingly like Amanda herself

Uncanny: The puppeteers had more than just Amanda up their sleeves - Ant & Dec were the next to be whipped out

Puppet master: Alesha was the next BGT celeb to be replicated in puppet form

Take a wild guess: It wasn't hard to decipher who this particular puppet was made in the likeness of

No strings attached: Rounding off the troupe of puppets was David Walliams

Meet... : The stars of the show were sure to chat to those waiting along the red catpet

...And greet: Amanda grinned for selfies with onlooking BGT fans

After the wardrobe choice, which even prompted some viewers to complain, she admitted Simon wasn't particularly impressed with her antics.

She said: 'I got up and Simon said, "You're barely wearing anything and I can see everything!"

'I wasn't going to wear the white dress and my stylist persuaded me. I put it on and Chris initially said, "Mandy, that looks really good.' Then I turned to the side to put my earrings on and he yelled, '"F****** hell!'"

Fashionably late: Simon and David arrived in rather romantic horse-drawn carriage

Here come the boys: The pair made their way onto the red carpet grinning from ear to ear

Lapping it up: Simon and David seemed delighted at the fanfare they received

Will you be my valentine? David looked as though he had something to ask Simon
Kourtney Kardashian, 37, met up with her former flame Justin Bieber, 22, on Wednesday night.

But instead of heading to a restaurant or nightclub together, this time the duo met at pastor Rich Wilkerson Jr.'s church service in Los Angeles.

The rendezvous comes after model Bella Banos claimed she's romancing Kourtney's ex Scott Disick.

Former flame: Kourtney Kardashian, 37 and Justin Bieber, 22, reunited on Wednesday to attend a church service in Los Angeles

Kourtney looked glam for the occasion with full makeup and black heels but wrapped up in an oversize coat to conceal her outfit.

Justin arrived in a puffy bomber jacket and tan pants as he waited at a gate to be let in.

The KUWTK star's outing with the Canadian pop star comes as it seems her rumored reconciliation with the father of her three children has come to an abrupt end.

This week brunette beauty Bella claimed to InTouch Weekly she was the woman Scott, 33, had sneaked into his hotel in Costa Rica during a vacation with the Kardashians.

The reality star looked glam but concealed her outfit in an oversize coat as she was seen at pastor Rich Wilkerson Jr.'s church service

After security told Kris Jenner and Kim Kardashian where he was and that he was with a woman, the duo confronted him and his actions, triggering an argument that ended with Scott jetting out of Costa Rica.

Scott was then pictured enjoying the company of several scantily clad women in Miami in the days following.

New reports on Wednesday claim Kourtney rejected Scott's secret proposal of marriage while in the lush Central American destination.

Celeb favorite: Wilkerson Jr. was the pastor who officiated Kim and Kanye's wedding in Florence in 2014

The Canadian crooner was last spotted with Kourtney last month as they headed to The Peppermint Club in West Hollywood together

A source has said the E! reality star is 'done' with him and that Scott was 'embarrassed, upset and angry,' after Kourtney rejected his proposal.

Meanwhile the last time Kourtney and Justin were spotted together was in January when they headed to the Peppermint Club in West Hollywood.

At the time it was reported that Kourtney was no longer interested in the star romantically as she wanted to focus on her relationship with ex Scott.

A source told People that the famous two 'hung out together with friends, but didn't spend the night together. Kourtney is still serious about making things work with Scott.'

Rendezvous: Kourtney and Justin are reportedly just friends but were rumored to have had a fling which began in August 2015

TIming is everything: Kourtney hung out with Justin just after model Bella Banos spoke out claiming she's romancing her ex Scott Disick

Bachelor life: Scott has been pictured enjoying the company of several women in Miami in the days following his trip to Costa Rica with the Kardashians where he is said to have proposed to Kourtney

The source added: 'They chatted, had fun but that was it. Kourtney is finished hooking up with Justin.'

Kourtney and Justin have hung out together sporadically dating back to August 2015.

Justin addressed the rumours in 2015, telling The Bert Show: 'I'm being used, man. What can I say?...No, no, but for real, shes great. I've known [the family] for years.'

Kourtney and Scott have three children together: son Mason, seven, Penelope, four, and Reign, two.

They split up in July 2015 after a nine-year relationship.
The lead character in the popular manga and its spin-off video games and TV series is a female Japanese cyborg, Major Motoko Kusanagi.

So critics were quick to point out Hollywood 'whitewashing' when Scarlett Johansson was cast for the part in Ghost In The Shell rather than an Asian actress last year.

Now the 32-year-old has spoken out about her role in an interview with Marie Claire, published online on Wednesday.

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So fierce: Scarlett Johansson has spoken out about the Hollywood 'whitewashing' controversy surrounder her casting as cyborg, Motoko Kusanag, portrayed as Japanese in the hit manga

'I certainly would never presume to play another race of a person,' the star told the magazine.

'Diversity is important in Hollywood, and I would never want to feel like I was playing a character that was offensive.'

Scarlett is also aware that the movie is likely to turn into a blockbuster series given the size of its fan base - and she's ready to take on the challenge.

Hot stuff: This is how fans of the manga are more used to seeing the Asian character

Backing her: The manga's publishers support the 32-year-old's choice for the role. Scarlett said: 'Diversity is important in Hollywood, and I would never want to feel like I was playing a character that was offensive'

'Having a franchise with a female protagonist driving it is such a rare opportunity. Certainly, I feel the enormous pressure of that - the weight of such a big property on my shoulders,' the Avengers star said.

As Screenrant pointed out, the character is a cyborg that does not actually have an ethnicity, freeing up the casting.

And the choice of the actress has been supported by Sam Yoshiba, director of international business for publisher Kodansha. which owns the rights to the property, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Suited up: Scarlett was among guests at the amfAR New York Gala that kicked off New York Fashion Week at Cipriani Wall Street on Wednesday

' I think Scarlett Johansson is well cast,' he said. 'She has the cyberpunk feel. And we never imagined it would be a Japanese actress in the first place.

'This is a chance for a Japanese property to be seen around the world.'

Ghost In The Shell is due out in the US March 31.
Rachel McCord gave Venice quite an eyeful on Wednesday morning.

The 26-year-old aspiring model was seen having a very steamy photo shoot on the beach in Venice, CA.

She clearly gained inspiration from the iconic Super Bowl Carl's Jr. commercials.

Cheeky: Rachel McCord had a very steamy photo shoot on the beach in Venice, CA on Wednesday

The blonde beauty was seen sipping on a fizzy drink while munching on a burger, all while rolling around in the sand.

The sister of 90210 star AnnaLynne wore a very minuscule black halterneck bikini.

The simple, classic bikini had gold detailing on the corners of her bottoms and on the halterneck part of her top.

Model: She gave Venice quite an eyeful on the beach

Inspiration: She clearly gained inspiration from the iconic Carl's Jr. commercials that recently aired at the Super Bowl

She styled her dark blonde tresses in a messy side part with beach waves as she smouldered for the camera.

The McCord List blogger is also an aspiring author and motivational speaker.

She's made a few appearances on TV including a role in Disney's comedy series Victorious.

Thirsty? The blonde beauty was seen sipping on a fizzy drink while munching on a burger, all while rolling around in the sand

Teeny, tiny: The sister of 90210 star AnnaLynne wore a very minuscule black halterneck bikini

Classic: The simple bikini had gold detailing on the corners of her bottoms and on the halterneck part of her top

She has returned to acting with satire, A Mini Movie.

It is a short comedy on Hollywood Film Credits and will be directed by William Hoehne Jr. and Wilhelm Von Hohenzollern.

Meanwhile, Rachel's sister AnnaLynne is still in the acting game since her 90210 days.

The blonde beauty is due to star in a thriller later this year called Breaking Evil.

She will play the lead, Sam, alongisde Chris Daughtry in this Brett Hudson directed film.

Hungry? The blonde model was seen nibbling on the burger during the shoot

Beach style: She styled her dark blonde tresses in a messy side part with beach waves as she smouldered for the camera
She's not going to win Master Chef anytime soon.

But Kim Kardashian put forth a good effort when she went into the kitchen to make her dear friend and editor-in-chief of CR Fashion Book, Carine Roitfeld, a celebratory salad.

Kim, 36, posted a spoof video to Instagram Thursday making the delicious feast because the former editor-in-chief of Vogue Paris had just reached one million followers on Instagram.

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Master Chef? Kim Kardashian put forth a good effort to make her dear friend and editor-in-chief of CR Fashion Book, Carine Roitfeld, a celebratory salad posted to Instagram on Thursday

The Keep Up With the Kardashians star begins her video with a short explanation about what was going to happen next.

'I wanted to make her a cake, but I don't have any of the ingredients,' she explained. 'But I do have the ingredients to make a salad, so I'm going to make her a celebratory salad.'

Kim, who has a bit of a funny bone, then went on to seductively put together a salad.

She appears to be spoofing a 2010 Carl's Junior ad she starred in at the time.

Explanation: The reality star explained she didn't have the ingredients to make a cake, so a salad would have to do

Getting it ready: She started by putting mixed greens in the bowl

Lemon zest: She then cut up tomatoes into large chunks and drizzled a little lemon juice on top

The reality star appears to have very little kitchen skills as she reaches into the refrigerator for the ingredients and starts cutting up some of the vegetables, adding them to the bowl.

Instead of taking the time to cut the veggies into little pieces the mother of two puts huge chunks of tomatoes on top of mixed greens.

She then places a whole cucumber, simple broken in half, on top of the inedible salad and starts drizzling it with an overload of creamy white dressing.

Not cutting them up? She then breaks a cucumber in half

And places the entire thing on top of the salad

Too much? The 36-year-old finishes it off drizzling it with an overload of creamy white dressing

Kim seductively licks the dressing off her finger while looking directly at the camera.

As Kim flips her hair, basking in the success of her creation, green lettuce rains down on her.

She then cheekily lights a single candle, places it on top of the salad, and then blows out another one.

'Happy one million!' she exclaims at the end of the video.

Yum! Kim tastes the fruits of her labor as she seductively places her finger in her mouth

Happy one million! A candle is placed in the celebratory meal for her good friend

The duo have been friends for quite some time, ever since Kim's fashionista hubby Kanye introduced the two in Paris.

The reality star admitted she 'didn't know too much about fashion' when her husband Kanye West introduced her to the tastemaker.

According to Kim, Kanye 'told me her [Irreverent] book should be my fashion bible and one day she would dress me.'

Fast friends: Kim and Carine became close in 2013 after Kim landed the cover of Carine's third CR Fashion Book (pictured in 2013)

It became a 'dream come true' when the Selfish author landed the coveted cover of Carine's third CR Fashion Book in 2013.

Kim was eight months pregnant when she was styled by Riccardo Tisci wearing a gold grill with Karl Lagerfeld shooting.

'She was brave,' Roitfeld told Time Out London back in 2013.
While fans are still trying to guess if they were a couple or just collaborating on a new track, seems this pair's sweet music may have skipped a beat.

Jennifer Lopez and Drake are reportedly cooling their jets a little on their new romance.

E! News reports, the 47-year-old hitmaker and 30-year-old rapper are going their separate ways, at least temporarily.

Love cost a thing? Jennifer Lopez and Drake (pictured December) are reportedly cooling their jets a little on their new romance

A source told the website: '[They] have taken some time apart, not because they don't want to be with each other, just because their schedules started getting insane.'

But all is not lost for J Lo and her Fake Love beau: 'J Lo and Drake are still talking, so people should know they are not in any means angry or that some incident happened. It mainly had to do with timing,' the source added.

'They have just cooled things off a bit and it's not as fast as it was in the beginning. They very well may go to dinner tomorrow or in a month. They are in each others' lives, just doing their own thing now.'

The pair are certainly very busy at the moment as Drake is currently in Europe and England on his Boy Meets World Tour while Jennifer is back in Las Vegas, Nevada, for her Jennifer Lopez: All I Have concert residency at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino.

No time: A source said, '[They] have taken some time apart, not because they don't want to be with each other, just because their schedules started getting insane'

Not all over: The source said the pair 'have just cooled things off a bit' but are still in each others lives. J Lo is seen here backstage of her Las Vegas show this week

Drake is expected back in the US this weekend for Sunday's Grammys where his love interest is also expected.

While many have been skeptical about their romance from the get go, fans who did believe that they were an item started to question what was going after Jennifer posted a cryptic note on her Instagram this week.

Jennifer posted a picture of the quotes: 'Timing is everything. If it's meant to happen, it will, and for the right reasons.'

Something wrong? While many have been skeptical about their romance from the get go, fans who did believe that they were an item started to question what was going after Jennifer posted a cryptic note on her Instagram this week

A lot on: The pair are certainly very busy at the moment as Drake (pictured Monday) is currently in Europe and England on his Boy Meets World Tour while Jennifer is back doing her Jennifer Lopez: All I Have concert residency at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino

The pair were first linked back in early December when the Canadian rapper was spotted at two of the Love Don't Cost A Thing star's Vegas concerts.

Drake then shared a snap of him and the songstress cuddled up together.

The pair were then seen enjoying date nights at celebrity hotspots in Los Angeles including the place to scene Catch LA which is akin to going public in Hollywood circles.

Royalty: attended a winter wonderland themed fake prom at the end of December where Drake's pal Young Empire Music Group CEO Jas Prince captured the moment the pair were crown prom king and queen on Snapchat

They then attended a winter wonderland themed fake prom at the end of December where Drake's pal Young Empire Music Group CEO Jas Prince captured the moment the pair were crown prom king and queen on Snapchat.

Drake and J Lo were seen dancing and shared a kiss on the lips at the event.

Adding fuel to the fire, Rihanna - Drake's long term on again off again love - reportedly deleted Jennifer off Instagram.
She was the epitome of red carpet glamour on Thursday night.

German supermodel Toni Garrn looked sensational as she posed for the cameras on the red carpet of the 67th Berlinale International Film Festival in Berlin.

The blonde 24-year-old tossed her hair playfully around as she smoldered in a floor-length gown.

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Golden Garrn! Supermodel Toni leads the red carpet glamour for the Django premiere at the 67th Berlinale International Film Festival in a striking floor-length gown

Stunning: The star looked as if she were dripping in molten gold as she showcased her svelte frame in the ensemble

The star looked as if she were dripping in molten gold as she showcased her svelte frame in the ensemble.

The dress - by Boss - featured a pair of thin back straps at the shoulders, and cascaded beautifully down the model's lithe frame, all the way to the floor, where it trailed ever-so-slightly in a liquid-effect.

Toni adorned her neck with a thin gold choker and wore a delicate gold bracelet on her right wrist, elaborately wrapped around and connected to a ring on her finger.

She carried a rectangular black clutch and wore her full blonde locks loosely around her shoulders, tumbling over one side of her face.

Enjoying herself: The star looked as if she were dripping in molten gold as she showcased her svelte frame in the ensemble

Goldilocks: She carried a rectangular black clutch and wore her full blonde locks loosely around her shoulders, tumbling over one side of her face

Female boss: The dress - by Boss - featured a pair of thin back straps at the shoulders, and cascaded beautifully down the model's lithe frame, all the way to the floor, where it trailed ever-so-slightly in a liquid-effect

Golden girl: Toni adorned her neck with a thin gold choker and wore a delicate gold bracelet on her right wrist, elaborately wrapped around and connected to a ring on her finger

The Calvin Klein and Victoria's Secret model practically looked make-up free, her creamy skin and lips looking totally natural and flawless.

The Hamburg native looked thrilled to be at the premiere of the film, which was also being attended by Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Maggie opted for a loud pink gown, also floor-length, but of a very different style.

Flawless: The Calvin Klein and Victoria's Secret model practically looked make-up free, her creamy skin and lips looking totally natural and flawless

Shimmering: The blonde 24-year-old tossed her hair playfully around as she smoldered in a floor-length gown

Into the spotlight: The German supermodel looked sensational as she posed for the cameras on the red carpet of the 67th Berlinale International Film Festival in Berlin

Strike a pose: The model was born in Hamburg and discovered at the age of 13

Sultry: Used to the glare of the flashing camera bulbs, Toni stopped and posed before hitting the screening

Pink lady: Maggie Gyllenhaal opted for a loud pink gown, also floor-length, but of a very different style

The American actress wore the loose-fitting dress, which fell effortlessly off her frame to the ground and trailed slightly.

It featured puffed sleeves and an intricate black embellishment from the top half of it down the skirt to the floor.

The black swirls and lines stood out in stark contrast to the pink fabric and the neck of the gown was high, finished off with a ruffled effect.

Maggie wore a silk grey and purple flower on her lapel, as a final statement item.

The 39-year-old wore her brunette tresses up on her head so as not to interfere with the shade or impact of the dress.

Pretty in pink: The American actress wore the loose-fitting dress, which fell effortlessly off her frame to the ground and trailed slightly

One of a kind: The intriguing gown featured puffed sleeves and an intricate black embellishment from the top half of it down the skirt to the floor

The main event: Django is a French drama film about the life of Django Reinhardt, directed by Etienne Comar

Vintage: The black swirls and lines stood out in stark contrast to the pink fabric and the neck of the gown was high, finished off with a ruffled effect

Making a statement: Maggie wore a silk grey and purple flower on her lapel, as a final statement item

Django is opening the festival this year.

The movie is a biopic about the jazz legend Django Reinhardt and stars Reda Kateb as the guitarist and composer.

The film follows Reinhardts harassment by the Nazis and his subsequent flight from German-occupied Paris in 1943.

Sharing a joke: Maggie laughed with Mexican actor and director Diego Luna who looked smart in an all-black suit and tie ensemble

Demure: The 39-year-old wore her brunette tresses up on her head so as not to interfere with the shade or impact of the dress

Members of the international jury: pictured are (L-R) Netherlands director and screenwriter Paul Verhoeven, Tunisian producer Dora Bouchoucha Fourati, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Festival director Dieter Kosslick, German actress Julia Jentsch, Chinese director and screenwriter Wang Quan'an, Diego Luna and Dannish artist Olafur Eliasson

Cosmopolitan: Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and German actress Sibel Kekilli arrived on the red carpet together

'Django Reinhardt was one of the most brilliant pioneers of European jazz and the father of Gypsy Swing,' said Berlin festival director Dieter Kosslick. 'Django grippingly portrays one chapter in the musicians eventful life and is a poignant tale of survival.'

The movie not only premieres at the festival but also takes part in the competition.

The 67th Berlin International Film Festival runs from February 9 to 19.
Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is pregnant with her first child.

The actress, 29, made the announcement by sharing a picture of her sizeable baby bump in a bikini snap on Instagram on Thursday evening.

The image, which was taken by her fiance Jason Statham, 49, shows the beauty kneeling on the sand in a tropical paradise with her hand resting on her back.

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Mum-to be: Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, 29, is pregnant with her first child

She wrote beside the picture: 'Very happy to share that Jason and I are expecting!! Lots of love Rosie x  Photo by @jasonstatham'

Unsurprisingly, fans were quick to congratulate the couple, who have been together since 2010, taking to Instagram in their droves to leave their comments.

Rumours had been swirling since the turn of the year that Rosie was expecting for some time, but she had stayed tight-lipped until now.

The Mad Max star has regularly been pictured in recent months covering her stomach and her latest bikini snap indicates she's reasonably far along with her pregnancy.

Congratulations: The actress made the announcement by sharing a picture of her sizeable baby bump in a bikini snap on Instagram on Thursday evening

The stir around the Victoria's Secret model kicked off earlier this year when she posted a shot of herself clad in a baggy poncho for her 6.7 million followers on Instagram.

She captioned the post, 'Here's to fresh starts and exciting prospects for the new year. Wishing everyone a happy and healthy 2017.'

Shortly thereafter, sources told the Daily Mail that the blonde beauty is 'indeed pregnant and ... has been calling in clothes to suit her changing figure.'

Rosie, who's been seen in films such as Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Mad Max: Fury Road, has opened up in the past on her thoughts about starting a family with her 49-year-old actor beau.

Loved up: She wrote beside the picture: 'Very happy to share that Jason and I are expecting!! Lots of love Rosie x  Photo by @jasonstatham'

Speaking to The EDIT in 2015, Rosie said, 'Having a family is something I think about for sure, and whether I'd live here in America or in England. But it's not always as simple as that.'

She continued, 'I have no idea what will happen, but it'll be interesting to find out, right? And nothing will be perfect, I'm sure.'

Three years prior, Rosie, who's been involved with The Transporter star Statham for about seven years, told Elle UK there would come a time in her career when motherhood would take priority over modeling.

'I always see myself working, but definitely being a mum will be a big part of me,' she said. 'I think there is naturally a point where you think, "I dont care about myself as number one any more." I want to care about other things.'
She's successfully transferred her skills from the studio to the silver screen.

So naturally, Rita Ora was ready for her close up on Thursday night, as she helped premiere Fifty Shades Darker in London.

The 26-year-old looked remarkably taut when the cameras flashed in Leicester Square, and she entered wearing a show-stopper gown.

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Taut: Rita Ora looked remarkably taut for her appearance at the Fifty Shades Darker premiere in London on Thursday night

Rita wore her hair pulled back into a high ponytail, thus highlighting her youthful visage.

She was made up to perfection, with highlighter accentuating her high cheekbones and only light make-up to complement her pretty eyes.

The red carpet gown was an understated choice for Rita, who is known for her outlandish fashion choices.

Ready for her close up: Rita looked remarkably line-free on the red carpet

Bombshell: Rita looked absolutely smoking on her red carpet appearance

Baby Rita: Back in the day, Rita was known for a much more playful image, now she's gone full-on Hollywood

Give us a wave: The singer was full of energy as she arrived on the red carpet in London

Understated: Her red carpet dress was a more understated fashion choice

Navy in colour, the dress featured a keyhole at the bust to serve up an eyeful of underboob.

It was high in glamour, featuring a bejewelled design right across the bust, where the neckline was cut into a halterneck.

Musician Rita is back to reprise her role of Mia in the second film of the Fifty Shades franchise.

Mia is the sister of central character Christian Grey, but fans will remember that Rita was mercilessly ridiculed for having only three lines in the final cut of the first film.

Enjoying her moment: Rita is back to play Christian Grey's sister in the film

She's back: The musician has successfully transferred her skills into acting

Check her out: The stunning pop star was in her element on Thursday

Little help: Though the dress was low maintenance, Rita need a little help

Rita's fanbase are no doubt hoping to see the actress in a more substantial part, this time around.

In the Fifty Shades series, Jamie Dornan plays the part of Grey, an enigmatic billionaire with a penchant for BDSM.

Meanwhile, actress Dakota Johnson plays Anastasia Steele, an ingenue who falls into Greys world of weirdness.

Fifty Shades Darker hits UK cinemas on 10 February.

In the spotlight: Stunning Rita shimmered with her glittering bodice

Sparkle and shine: Rita didn't let the cold deter her on Thursday night

Almost an oops: Rita returned to her London home with quite an eyeful on display

Busty: She'd been wearing a show-stopper gown to the premiere of Fifty Shades Darker

Easy does it: She'd hinted that she was turning in for an early night when she arrived home
New York Fashion Week is well underway in Manhattan and Jessica Hart was seen getting amongst the action this week.

The 30-year-old Seafolly model attended the Hvn by Harley Viera-Newton launch at Bergdorf Goodman on Tuesday.

Sporting a retro-style floral print dress, the blonde beauty showed off her slender frame as she checked out this season's hottest designs.

Fashionista: New York Fashion Week kicked off in Manhattan this week and model Jessica Hart was seen getting amongst the action

The baby blue dress frock cinched in at the waist and fell at the knees to showcase her shapely pins.

She paired the elegant look with black pointed-toe heels and a chic square-shaped clutch.

Her luscious locks were worn loosely and neatly parted at the centre and her barely there makeup consisted of bronzer, eyeliner, mascara and lip balm.

Retro chic: The 30-year-old Seafolly model attended the Hvn by Harley Viera-Newton launch at Bergdorf Goodman on Tuesday. Sporting a retro-style floral print dress, the blonde beauty showed off her slender frame as she checked out this season's hottest designs

Radiant: Her luscious locks were worn loosely and neatly parted at the centre and her makeup consisted of bronzer, eyeliner, mascara and lip balm

The former Victoria's Secret model flashed her trademark gap-toothed smile as she posed for snaps.

Since getting discovered at age 15, Jessica has walked on international runways and featured in endless fashion campaigns for the likes of Marc Jacobs and Rag & Bone.

Despite her glamorour lifestyle, she recently revealed that her job isn't as easy as it seems, as it requires gruelling days and long flights.

'We work really long days': Jessica recently opened up about the downsides of modelling

She also told Stellar magazine that she doesn't know how many bikinis she owns, but estimates that it must be at least 100.

'We have very early call times and work really long days. I mean, we start at 4.30 in the morning and finish at around 7pm,' Jessica said.

'Thats definitely the hardest part, especially on top of jet lag.'

Body of work: Since starring as the face of Seafolly, the model has gone on to to flaunt her physique for a number of big name brands

The leggy blonde, who first rose to fame as the winner of Dolly Magazine's model search in 2000, also quipped that she didn't know how many bikinis she owned.

She confessed to still having some swimsuits worn on her very first Seafolly photo shoot back in 2010.

'How many bikinis do I own? Oh god. I dont know. I literally still have Seafolly bikinis from the first time I shot with them. I dont get rid of many, so I have a lot  like at least 100,' Jessica said.

'At least 100': The leggy blonde, who first rose to fame as the winner of Dolly Magazine's model search in 2000, also quipped that she didn't know how many bikinis she owned

Since starring as the face of Seafolly, the model has gone onto to flaunt her physique for a number of big name brands, most recently lingerie label Triumph.

Jessica revealed to MailOnline earlier this month that modelling was often solitary work.

'I got scouted at 14 and thrown into the industry. I had to learn quickly. I had no idea what Vogue magazine was or Chanel,' she said.

'You've got to be a tough cookie': Jessica revealed to MailOnline earlier this month that modelling was often solitary work

'You've got to be a tough cookie. Can be a little lonely at times but ultimately the best experience. I've learnt so much. I couldn't imagine it any other way.'

Jessica grew up in Victoria, but is now based stateside in New York City for employment.

She has made a name for herself in the United States modelling for popular lingerie brand Victoria's Secret.
He has long been the quick tempered culinary expert helping guests live out their gourmand fantasies but this time he is not on-board the love boat.

Veteran Below Deck star Ben Robinson has ruled out returning to the Bravo show this season.

While the 36-year-old has been a mainstay of the program, he told The Daily Dish he was taking a break from sailing the high seas for a while on Thursday.

Taking a break: Veteran Below Deck star Ben Robinson (pictured during his secind season) has ruled out returning to the Bravo show this season

The chef said: 'I've decided to take a break from the show this season. I will continue to focus on my career as a chef and holistic nutritionist, and I'll have a lot of exciting news on these fronts soon!'

Ben who has stared on both Below Deck and its spin off Below Deck Mediterranean.

The star just wrapped season four of the show and has said he is never saying never to returning.

The Englishman said: 'The door is always open for Below Deck, and I wish the crew all the best with the upcoming season.'

Change of focus: The 36-year-old (pictured 2016) said, 'I've decided to take a break from the show this season. I will continue to focus on my career as a chef and holistic nutritionist, and I'll have a lot of exciting news on these fronts soon!'

Last sail: The star just wrapped season four of the show and has said he is never saying never to returning. Pictured (l-r) Trevor Walker, Kate Chastain, Sierra Storm, Ben, Captain Lee Rosbach, Nico Sholly, Kelley Johnson, Lauren Burchell, Emily Warburton-Adams

New year, new Ben: the chef has been focusing on creating healthy organic menus

Reality Tea has claimed there were some negotiation issues with Bravo, but the star made no comment about that.

In the last season, Ben fell for younger English rose, Emily Warburton-Adams.

The chef and the 21-year-old stewardess are still going strong working together on Ben's private chef business and also often star in a YouTube cooking show.

Love boat: In the last season, Ben fell for younger English rose, Emily Warburton-Adams

Up in the air: It is not clear if without Ben, Emily will return to the series which follows a yacht crew as they entertain the rich and wannabe famous

It is not clear if without Ben, Emily will return to the series which follows a yacht crew as they entertain the rich and wannabe famous.

When DailyMail.com asked Emily's rep they said the star was focusing on her own brand as well as a number of other projects but was rather cryptic as to whether that included Below deck.

Her rep said: 'Emily's primary focus is on her English Emily brand and her charity work with GirlGains, United Village Transformation, and Feast it Forward.

'Should any other opportunities be presented to her, she would certainly take them into consideration, along with other opportunities that she is currently being presented with.'

Team Bemily: The chef and the 21-year-old stewardess are still going strong working together on Ben's private chef business and also often star in a YouTube cooking show

'Emily continues to support her boyfriend Ben on his career goals, just as he supports her in hers. Their relationship continues to move forward with the love that blossomed on Bravo's Below Deck series.'

The cast may also be without another longtime member Kate Chastain as last year she was charged with attacking her girlfriend.

Kate has maintained her innocence and claimed she was in fact the victim but her case remains before the Florida Court.
She's the model with a business portfolio said to be worth upwards of $10 million.

So it is no surprise Jennifer Hawkins was all smiles as she took a moment to relax on the set of her latest commercial for Mount Franklin.

The 33-year-old has been an ambassador for the bottled water's Lightly Sparkling brand since 2012 and she posted a promotional shot to her Instagram on Thursday.

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Ethereal: Jennifer Hawkins was all smiles as she took a moment to relax on the set of her latest commercial for Mount Franklin

The statuesque stunner looked radiant as she reclined in a director's chair, flaunting her slender long legs in a billowing long white skirt with a high split.

She paired it with a matching white crop top and wore her luscious blonde locks out around her shoulders.

An elegant gold bracelet, her wedding rings and an additional gold band completed the natural feel of the shot.

Businesswoman: The 33-year-old has been an ambassador for the bottled water's Lightly Sparkling brand since 2012 and she posted a promotional shot to her Instagram on Thursday

The former Miss Universe's supporters immediately took to her Instagram comment section to show their admiration.

'Wish I looked this good drinking Mount Franklin!' one gushed.

'Even though you have stylists and hair and makeup artists, you just have such an unbelievably natural beauty and confidence that radiates from you,' another said.

Entrepreneur: She's the model with a business portfolio said to be worth upwards of $10 million

'Even though you have stylists and hair and makeup artists, you just have such an unbelievably natural beauty and confidence that radiates from you,' one fan said

This month marks five years since the blonde beauty signed on with the brand.

The head of Coca-Cola Amatil Brands, Belinda Brennan, said the model being 'proudly Australian, positive, and vibrant' made her a perfect ambassador.

'It is a great natural and healthy beverage option,' Jen described of the product.
She stars in the hot new Fox spinoff 24: Legacy.

And fans of the original 24 series could be in for a treat, with actress Miranda Otto teasing Kiefer Sutherland's return as Jack Bauer this week.

The 49-year-old Lord of the Rings star said 'never say never' when asked about the possibility of Keifer appearing on her show.

Dropping hints? Fans of the original 24 series could be in for a treat, with actress Miranda Otto teasing Kiefer Sutherland's return as Jack Bauer this week

'Kiefer's gone on to do another show, you know, he's being the President [on Designated Survivor],' she told The Sydney Morning Herald.

'I mean, it's a never say never situation. You never know whether he might appear at some stage down the track, I don't know.'

The Brisbane-native plays Senator's wife Rebecca Ingram in the American series, which she believes is a show that will resonate with viewers.

Coming back? 'Kiefer's gone on to do another show, you know, he's being the President [on Designated Survivor],' Miranda told The Sydney Morning Herald. 'I mean, it's a never say never situation. You never know whether he might appear at some stage down the track, I don't know'

New gig: The Brisbane-native plays Senator's wife Rebecca Ingram in the American series, which she believes is a show that will resonate with viewers

'The show takes on the changing nature of terrorism and what's happening in the world today,' she said.

The show also stars actors Corey Hawkins, Teddy Sears and Jimmy Smits.

The actress, who recently told Elle magazine that she considers Lord of the Rings to be a career highlight, said she makes a conscious effort to diversify her acting roles.

Current affairs: 'The show takes on the changing nature of terrorism and what's happening in the world today,' she said of the American series

'Usually I end up looking for something completely different to who I last played,' she told the publication.

'But there is just a spark that's lit when I read a script or character I want to play.'

And when it comes to getting into character, the Queen Victoria Building ambassador said she makes sure to do extensive research prior to filming.

'Research, reading and rereading, imagination and some space to let it cook. I also love the costuming. Things become much clearer for me once I work on the costume,' she said.
She came in tenth place on the latest season of Celebrity Big Brother.

But Jessica Cunningham was in a firm first place when it came to the fashion stakes while out in London on Thursday evening.

Making her entrance to a celeb party at hotspot Tramp, the former The Apprentice finalist looked fabulous in a little red strappy dress.

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CBB reunion: Jessica Cunningham wows in a little red dress as she joins former housemates Angie Best and James Jordan - plus his wife Ola - for a glitzy London bash

Miss Scarlet: Jessica Cunningham was in a firm first place when it came to the fashion stakes while out in London on Thursday evening

The figure-hugging number complimented the reality star's curves perfectly and was cut just above the knee.

She wore some strappy heels on her feet and didn't seem fazed by the February chill as she sauntered down the street into the party.

Jessica wore her raven locks loosely around her shoulders.

She looked to be freshly bronzed, painting her lips a shade of clay pink, and complimenting the colour of her dress with some bright red nail polish.

Seeing red: The figure-hugging number complimented the reality star's curves perfectly and was cut just above the knee

Co-stars: Jessica and Angie seemed to be chummy - despite the fact Jessica made no secret of the fact that she was attracted to Angie's son Calum, who was also in the CBB house with them

Angie knows Best: The glamorous former WAG looked as stylish as ever in sparkling back and silver leggings, knee high velvet boots and a navy blue cardigan

She wore some intricate earrings, and two bangles and a chunky rose gold bracelet around her left wrist.

Joining her at the party was fellow Celebriry Big Brother alum, Angie Best.

The glamorous former WAG looked as stylish as ever in sparkling back and silver leggings, knee high velvet boots and a navy blue cardigan.

The pair never actually crossed paths in the CBB house, as Jessica entered on the night Angie was evicted.

Little black dress: Perhaps a little more sensible than Jessica, the dancer and former I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! contestant walked into the party with a large winter coat over her shoulders

Joining the party: Also in attendance was James Jordan - another former housemate - who was joined by his wife Ola, who wore a cute black dress and matching heels

Some like it tight: James wore his trademark tight turtleneck and blazer, accompanied by black skinny jeans

Beautiful in black: She kept her blonde locks loose and clutched a black bag, to match the rest of her ensemble

But they seemed to be chummy - despite the fact Jessica made no secret of the fact that she was attracted to Angie's son Calum, who was also in the house with them.

Also in attendance was James Jordan - another former housemate - who was joined by his wife Ola, who wore a cute black dress and matching heels.

Perhaps a little more sensible than Jessica, the dancer and former I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! contestant walked into the party with a large winter coat over her shoulders.

Doing the rounds: Lizzie Cundy strutted into the event, wearing a rather revealing number

When opportunity knocks...: Lizzie couldn't help but place herself strategically in doorways around the party for a few extra Kodak moments

Wrapped up: Another famous face to rock up was Anthea Turner; who was only seen briefly as she got out of her car and hurried into the party

She kept her blonde locks loose and clutched a black bag, to match the rest of her ensemble.

James wore his trademark tight turtleneck and blazer, accompanied by black skinny jeans.

Another famous face to rock up was Anthea Turner; who was only seen briefly as she got out of her car and hurried into the party, wrapped up in black coat, clutching a clutch with the word Hooray emblazoned loudly across the front of it.

Hooray: Anthea wrapped up in black coat, clutching a clutch with the word Hooray emblazoned loudly across the front of it

Not amused: Jess Impiazzi - who has been on Ex On The Beach a couple of times - was also there, with her rugby player fiance Denny Solomona

Eye-popping: If one beach-themed reality star wasn't enough, Zara Holland was also at the event

Doing the usual celebrity party rounds, Lizzie Cundy strutted into the event, wearing a rather revealing number.

Her dress was floor-length and sleeved - but practically see-through apart from the portion that covered her torso.

Made from cream lace, the dress showed off the WAG's curves.

Perky: The disgraced Miss Great Britain and subsequent Love Island participant looked to have compared notes with Lizzie as she sported a similar semi-sheer ensemble in black and gold

Show me the funny: Bobby Davro popped along, keeping it pretty casual in comparison to his co-celebs

Party on: Breakfast TV star Eamonn Holmes was there, and seemed to have substituted his wife Ruth Langsford with fellow ITV personality Kate Garraway, who wore a long dark green and black number

She complimented it with a silver bag and a gold choker around her neck.

Lizzie couldn't help but place herself strategically in doorways around the party for a few extra Kodak moments.

She and Jessica seemed to have been together before the event, as they were also snapped getting ready for the party - which was being hosted by White Management.

While Jessica had kept it casual in a white shirt and slate skinny jeans, it seemed that Lizzie was dressed up already in a silver and black mini-dress.

Old buddies: Eamonn and Angie posed for the cameras as Angie made her way out of the venue

Beach ready: Jess strutted along in a summery tropical print dress, swinging her Louis Vuitton bag alongside her with gusto

Jess Impiazzi - who has been on Ex On The Beach a couple of times - was also there, with her rugby player fiance Denny Solomona.

She strutted along in a summery tropical print dress, swinging her Louis Vuitton bag alongside her with gusto.

And if one beach-themed reality star wasn't enough, Zara Holland was also at the event.

Girls night: Lizzie and Jessica seemed to have been together before the event, as they were also snapped getting ready for it

Just doing my face: Jessica looked to be having a right old time as she tried out some new lippy

Smart casual: Jessica kept it casual in a white shirt and slate skinny jeans as she prepared for her night out

The disgraced Miss Great Britain and subsequent Love Island participant looked to have compared notes with Lizzie as she sported a similar semi-sheer ensemble in black and gold.

Careful not to fade into the background, Zara's outfit was tremendously low cut, showing off her buoyant assets.

Morning TV star Eamonn Holmes was there, and seemed to have substituted his wife Ruth Langsford with fellow ITV personality Kate Garraway, who wore a long dark green and black number.
James Corden's star continues to rise.

Corden, 38, was snapped in Los Angeles on Thursday taking part in the ceremonial rolling of the red carpet ahead of Sunday's 59th annual Grammy Awards.

The Carpool Karaoke funnyman takes over hosting duties from LL Cool J, who had led music's biggest award ceremony the past five years.

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In the limelight: James Corden, 38, was snapped with (left to right) Recording Academy President Neil Portnow, Grammys executive producer Ken Ehrlich and and CBS exec Jack Sussman on Thursday in Los Angeles

Grateful: The English comedian told Variety he was 'the luckiest man in the world' to be tapped as host of the high-profile show

Rising: With his pop culture relevance, Corden is one of the biggest breakout stars in show business in recent years

The breakout CBS late night star hosted the Tony Awards last summer and was announced as Grammys host in November. He told Variety this week: 'The truth is it isnt about me. Its about the artists. Im the luckiest man in the world. Its the best job you could ever imagine.'

Neil Portnow, CEO and president of the Recording Academy, said that the British comic's was in part selected on the strength of his trademark bit, Carpool Karaoke, in which Corden rides in cars with music stars, singing their trademark tunes.

'Thanks to Carpool Karaoke, weve all been on some incredible rides with James, and The Recording Academy couldnt be more excited to welcome his passion and enthusiasm for music, both as an entertainer and a fan, to the Grammy stage on February 12,' Portnow said.

On the way: The surging entertainer was snapped in Santa Monica, California early Wednesday

Nice ride: Corden was seen getting out of the luxury sports vehicle he was driving in

On the move: The English funnyman smiled as heavy fog filled the air on the LA morning

Turning point: The enduring success of Corden's Carpool Karaoke bit helped him snag the coveted gig, which has been held by LL Cool J the past five years

Collaborative effort: The late night host high-fived the show's organizers after rolling out the red carpet

Ready to please: Corden shared a few words with Ken Ehrlich, the show's executive producer

CBS CEO Leslie Moonves, speaking with Esquire in a recent profile of Corden, said that the late night host's consistent ability to go viral with the bit has separated him from his peers.

'You look at the [TV ratings] and they're fine, they're fine,' Moonves told the magazine. 'But you look at what he's doing online and it's phenomenal.

'And that has become, in the late-night world, more important than anything.'

Good times: The British funnyman has welcomed legendary Elton John on the segment on multiple occasions

Widely-seen: Corden's bit with pop star Justin Bieber generated more than 105 million views

In the piece, the network head addressed rumors that with Corden's overwhelming success, he could be flipped with Stephen Colbert to fill David Letterman's former 11:30 p.m. slot.

'Look, I'm very fortunate, I got two very successful guys, and they're very successful in different ways,' Moonves said, adding that 'the Internet has changed' the landscape

'By and large, the guy who's better known gets the 11:30 slot, but for James's success it doesn't matter,' Moonves said. 'It's almost an old way of thinking.'

Shake-up? Corden said he was embarrassed by rumors he and fellow CBS host Stephen Colbert (left) might be swapped as result of Colbert's sluggish start

Corden said the whispers of a potential swap seem 'sort of silly' to him, and he finds them 'slightly embarrassing'

'I really love' Colbert, he said, adding, 'I really don't think there's any substantial evidence at all' in regards to a swap.
US says it killed veteran Qaeda leader in Syria

The US military said Wednesday that it had killed eleven Al-Qaeda operatives, including a veteran leader and suicide bombing pioneer, in a bombing raid in Syria.

The Pentagon said Abu Hani al-Masri, the Qaeda veteran, was one of those killed in the precision airstrikes near Idlib carried out on February 3-4.

Al-Masri was an early official in al-Qaeda, overseeing the group's training camps in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s as he worked with Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden and current leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The US military says that it killed eleven Al-Qaeda operatives, including a veteran leader and suicide bombing pioneer, in a bombing raid in Syria MC3 Bobby J. Siens (US NAVY/AFP/File)

There "he recruited, indoctrinated, trained and equipped thousands of terrorists who subsequently spread throughout the region and the world," the Pentagon said in a statement.

They said he also helped found Egyptian Islamic Jihad "he first Sunni group to use suicide bombers in their terror attacks."

"These strikes disrupt al-Qaeda's ability to plot and direct external attacks targeting the US and our interests worldwide," said Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis.

The US has mostly focused its attacks in Syria on the Islamic State group. But in recent months, US forces have also launched several attacks against its al-Qaeda rivals.
Top tightrope walker in Florida Wallenda circus fall

Five acrobats, including some from the famous Wallenda family, were injured Wednesday, police said.

The accident took place in Sarasota, on Florida's west coast, and Nik Wallenda, the group's leader, was not hurt, said Sarasota County Fire Chief Michael Regnier.

Wallenda was reportedly practicing a human pyramid trick with the group -- atop a high wire.

Tightrope walker Nik Wallenda's previous exploits include the highest blindfolded walk and walking across the Grand Canyon Brad Barket (GETTY IMAGES/AFP/File)

At least two Wallenda family members are believed to have been hurt, according to US media.

Known for jaw-dropping stunts, the 38-year-old has walked over the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls.
Trump sends letter of thanks to China's Xi

President Donald Trump has sent a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping, the White House said, weeks after receiving a letter of congratulations from the leader of the Asian giant.

Beijing has been on tenterhooks waiting for a contact from the billionaire president, who seems set to take a hard line against the Asian giant on a wide range of issues from trade to security.

During his campaign, Trump repeatedly attacked Beijing for "stealing" American jobs and has threatened to slap it with massive tariffs.

President Donald Trump has told Chinese President Xi Jinping that he looks forward to developing "a constructive relationship that benefits both the United States and China" DENIS BALIBOUSE (POOL/AFP/File)

In his missive, Trump said he looked forward to developing "a constructive relationship that benefits both the United States and China," spokesman Sean Spicer said in a statement Wednesday.

The billionaire politician has already had phone conversations with more than a dozen foreign leaders since he was inaugurated last month.

His decision to send a letter, rather than call the head of the world's second largest economy, could be read as a snub, raising questions about how willing Trump is to engage with a country that he has accused of "raping" the United States.

It is not clear if or when he will dial Xi up.

But Lu Kang, a spokesman for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, still praised the letter at a regular press briefing on Thursday.

"We highly commend President Trump for expressing festive greetings to President Xi Jinping and the Chinese people," Lu said, adding "cooperation is the only right choice for the two countries."

Just after winning the November election, Trump provoked Beijing's ire by accepting a congratulatory call from Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen.

Washington cut formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979, recognizing the Communist mainland rulers in Beijing as the sole government of "One China."

Under the terms of the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, Washington maintains an ambiguous approach to the island, keeping trade ties and selling Taipei weapons.

But the law does not recognize Tsai as a head of state, and China was infuriated at what it saw as a breach of protocol in Trump's acceptance of her call.

In December, Trump told The Wall Street Journal that "everything is on the table, including One China," suggesting that Beijing could save the policy by negotiating a trade deal with him.

In the shadow of this exchange, Chinese officials were anticipating a conciliatory message from Trump, according to Song Guoyou, an expert in China-US relations at Fudan University in Shanghai.

Trump took "a long time to learn the real importance of the volatile relations between China and the US," Song told AFP.

But he said the letter is "a very good sign" that Trump and his team will "take a pragmatic attitude toward China."

In recent weeks, Chinese social media users have expressed indignation at Trump's lack of engagement with Xi, particularly during last week's Lunar New Year holiday.

The outrage was somewhat mollified last Wednesday, when Trump's daughter Ivanka and her Chinese-speaking toddler attended a Lunar Near Year celebration at the Chinese embassy in Washington.

Taiwan diplomacy Gal ROMA, John SAEKI (AFP)
Indonesia accepts Australian apology over military row

Indonesia said it had accepted an Australian apology after teaching materials deemed offensive to Jakarta led to a partial suspension of ties, as the neighbours sought to end their latest row.

The dispute erupted last month when the Indonesian armed forces announced it was putting military cooperation with Australia on hold after the materials were found at an Australian army base where Indonesian forces were training.

After initially announcing a full freeze, Indonesia later insisted the suspension was only partial and applied to joint language training.

Indonesian Military Chief Gatot Nurmantyo (R) and Chief of Australian Army Angus Campbell meet in in Jakarta on February 8, 2017

The materials, which were spotted by a visiting Indonesian officer, contained comments deemed offensive on subjects including the Papua region's independence movement and Indonesia's state ideology known as Pancasila.

It was just the latest row between the neighbours, whose relationship has been beset in recent years by disputes over Jakarta's execution of Australian drug smugglers and Canberra's hardline policy of turning migrant boats back to Indonesia.

In a bid to resolve the row, Australian Army Chief Angus Campbell visited Jakarta on Wednesday to meet with Indonesia's military chief Gatot Nurmantyo.

Campbell offered an apology, said that Australia was suspending the Indonesian language education programme to make improvements, and insisted all personnel involved in the incident had been punished, according to a statement from the Indonesian military.

Nurmantyo accepted the apology and noted that in an era of global competition, unity and friendship are a necessity, said the statement released late Wednesday after the talks.

The partial military suspension will stay in place for now. Nurmantyo will report to Indonesian President Joko Widodo on whether he believes full ties should be restored, the statement added.

Earlier Wednesday, Indonesian Security Minister Wiranto played down the row, insisting their relations were "very strong" and noting Widodo planned to visit Australia later this month.

The minister, who goes by one name, said "small incidents" should not "rattle the good relations between the two countries".

There have been tensions between the neighbours' militaries in the past.
Chinese police probe endangered pangolin banquet

Chinese authorities are investigating whether government officials feasted on endangered pangolins, considered the most trafficked mammal on earth, at a banquet after posts about the meal drew outrage on social media.

The animal's brown scales are made of nothing more than keratin -- the same substance as fingernails -- but are highly prized in Vietnam and China where they are misleadingly touted as having medicinal properties.

Police are investigating whether the "scaly anteater" was indeed consumed at a banquet in the southern province of Guangxi, the Xinhua state news agency reported late Tuesday.

The Pangolin, an endangered species, is considered the most trafficked mammal on earth, with its scales highly prized in Vietnam and China Jekesai Njikizana (AFP/File)

A post from 2015, which recently resurfaced on the Chinese social media site Weibo, claimed that Guangxi officials invited investors to eat the animal, which is listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Several photos showed an abundant feast, along with the user's observation: "It was my first time eating [pangolin]...I've already fallen deeply for the wild taste!"

In China, the pangolin is under state protection. Eating it is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

A World Wildlife Fund survey published in September found a reduced market for pangolin meat in the country. But the scales continue to be illegally sold.

"These days the quality that stands out most in our officials is wickedness," one Weibo user said about the banquet incident.

"This is how they will become extinct," another said. "Shame!"

The Guangxi Investment Promotion Agency was initially suspected of hosting the banquet, but a regional disciplinary commission cleared the organisation of any wrongdoing.

The commission told Xinhua that only one official attended the private event.

The pangolin is the most hunted animal in the world and an estimated one million have been plucked from Asian and African forests over the past decade.

Steve Blake, the acting chief China representative for the nonprofit WildAid, said he is encouraged by the progress the country has made on curbing pangolin trade.

"This isn't the first time there has been a surge in interest about the pangolins on Chinese social media," Blake told AFP, adding that the "impressive" public outcry would be good for building awareness of the issue.
Judge blocks Anthem-Cigna health insurance mega-merger

A US judge blocked Anthem's plan to merge with Cigna, saying the merger of the health insurance titans would bode ill for competition in the market.

Anthem's plan to take over Cigna in a deal valued around $50 billion was opposed in court by the Department of Justice with backing from eleven US states.

"Plaintiffs have carried their burden to show that the effect of the acquisition may be to substantially lessen competition," US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said in a written ruling handed down late Wednesday in Washington.

Anthem's plan to take over Cigna in a deal valued around $50 billion was opposed in court by the Department of Justice with backing from eleven US states Aaron P. Bernstein (Getty/AFP/File)

Anthem took the lead in defending the merger, arguing that any anticompetitive effects would be outweighed by efficiencies generated, according to the judge.

"Anthem is encouraging the court to ignore the risks posed by the proposed constriction in the health insurance industry in the relevant market on the grounds that consumers might benefit from the large size of the new company in other ways at the end of the day," Jackson said in the ruling.

"But this is not a cognizable defense to an antitrust case; the antitrust laws are designed to protect competition."

A US judge in Florida last month blocked Aetna's proposed $37 billion acquisition of rival health insurer Humana, ruling the combination would stifle competition in the health sector.

US District Judge John Bates upheld the essential arguments of antitrust regulators who sued to block the deal, saying that combining two of the big five American health insurers would harm consumers.

Anthem and Cigna are the second and third largest US medical insurance carriers, and combining the companies would have created the largest in the country.

This merger would have stifled competition, harming consumers by increasing health insurance prices and slowing innovation aimed at lowering the costs of healthcare," acting DOJ assistant attorney general Brent Snyder said in a released statement.

Both mergers would have redesigned the health insurance landscape, but were opposed by US authorities convinced they would cripple competition while sending people's medical costs racing skyward.

Anthem in July of 2015 announced that months of negotiations had resulted in an agreement to buy Cigna, paying partly in cash and partly in shares in a deal valued at more than $54 billion at the time.
China villages cheer Robin Hood-like hero in spring festival

Carrying the golden statue of a revered ancient general, villagers in eastern China dash wildly through waterlogged fields in a mud-spattered celebration of a local rebel adored for stealing from the rich to give to the poor.

Spurred on by the roar of firecrackers and cheers of families crowded on muddy banks, teams of men splash through the quagmire, in a centuries-old ceremony that is part of the lead up to China's Lantern Festival on February 11.

It is a time for colourful ceremonies in the coastal province of Fujian, where the Hakka people have held on particularly strongly to their folk traditions.

Villagers carry a golden statue of an ancient Chinese general in the village of Juhe in China's Fujian province as part of a centuries-old ceremony that takes place in the lead up to the Lantern Festival on February 11 Johannes EISELE (AFP)

At the centre of the celebrations is the solemn-faced gilded effigy of Guan Gong, a Chinese general who lived nearly 2,000 years ago during the Eastern Han dynasty and has been granted god-like status.

But he is not the main focus of the festivities.

For villagers here Guan Gong acts as a stand-in for a local rebel king named Zhang Lian, akin to a Robin Hood figure, who looted riches and helped the poor.

He rose up in 1560 against the corrupt Ming empire, which used its massive army to impose heavy taxes on local peasants.

After two years of fighting, the government crushed the insurrection, leading the hero to flee to Indonesia, where legend has it he eventually became king of the southeastern island known today as Sumatra.

Seeking to honour him without upsetting the emperor, Ming dynasty peasants paid tribute to an image of Guan Gong instead.

Local families pray to the statue, light incense and sacrifice chickens, before carrying it down to the field.

Villagers on Wednesday ran through the flooded fields to the point of collapse and then splashed water on the statue and each other in the winter morning chill.

Stomping about in the mud is also a way to "awaken" the farmland for the coming spring and express hopes for a good harvest year.

Hu Sheng, one of the men carrying the statue in a bamboo litter, told AFP that he travelled to the ceremony every year from the southern city of Shenzhen where he works.

"Everyone respects Guan Gong. I must come back for this because I hope he will bless me and my family this year, and I want everyone to have a good harvest, he said.

An effigy of Guan Gong, a Chinese general who lived nearly 2,000 years ago during the Eastern Han dynasty and has been granted god-like status, is carried during a festival in the village of Juhe Johannes EISELE (AFP)

Villagers in Juhe in China's Fujian province carry a golden statue of an ancient general who, like Robin Hood, is celebrated for stealing from the rich to give to the poor Johannes EISELE (AFP)

The festival where a statue of an ancient Chinese general is carried over the muddy fields is also a way to "awaken" the farmland for the coming spring and express hope for a good harvest year Johannes EISELE (AFP)
World's biggest refugee camp in Kenya to stay open

Kenya's High Court on Thursday blocked the government's decision to close the Dadaab refugee camp -- the world's largest -- and force Somali refugees to return home.

Judge John Mativo ruled that the plan to shut down the camp was unconstitutional, violated Kenya's international obligations and amounted to the persecution of refugees.

Dadaab is home to some 256,000 people, the vast majority of them Somalis who fled across the border following the outbreak of civil war in 1991. Many have lived there ever since.

Part of the eastern sector of the IFO-2 camp in the sprawling Dadaab refugee camp Tony Karumba (AFP/File)

The government unilaterally decided to close the camp in May last year, saying it was a terrorist training ground for Shabaab Islamist militants based in Somalia.

But Mativo ruled that a "decision specifically targeting Somali refugees is an act of group persecution, illegal, discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional".

The shutdown was ordered without proper consultation of people affected by the decision, in violation of the constitutional right to fair legal proceedings, he said in his ruling.

"Hence the said decision is null and void," he said.

He also blocked a government decision to disband Kenya's Department for Refugee Affairs.

But the government later cautioned that it aimed to "strongly" appeal the ruling.

"We as a government have the cardinal responsibility of providing security for all Kenyans," a statement said. "The camp had lost its humanitarian nature, and had become a haven for terrorism and other illegal activities.".

Mativo also said the forced repatriation violated the 1951 United Nations Convention on refugees.

- Security threat? -

He was ruling on a challenge to the shutdown filed by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights and rights group Kituo Cha Sheria.

Amnesty International's East Africa chief Muthoni Wanyeki hailed Thursday's outcome as "historic".

"Today is a historic day for more than a quarter of a million refugees who were at risk of being forcefully returned to Somalia, where they would have been at serious risk of human rights abuses," Wanyeki said.

"This ruling reaffirms Kenya's constitutional and international legal obligation to protect people who seek safety from harm and persecution."

The government caught refugees, aid groups, the United Nations and Kenya's Western partners offguard last May when it announced plans to shut down the huge camp near the border, citing security concerns.

Since sending troops into neighbouring Somalia in 2011, Kenya has come under repeated attack from Al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab militants.

The government has presented Dadaab as a security risk, saying Somali Islamists inside the camp planned the Shabaab attacks at Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall in 2013 and the Garissa university attack in 2015, though it has not provided evidence.

Authorities initially planned to close Dadaab at the end of November, but delayed the shutdown until May 2017 at the request of the UN refugee agency and against a backdrop of growing accusations of forced refugee returns to Somalia.

The sprawling Dadaab complex near the border with Somalia currently houses some 256,000 people compared to 320,000 in mid 2016.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says the numbers have dwindled thanks to voluntary repatriations as well as resettlement in the Kakuma camp in northwest Kenya.

In September, Human Rights Watch warned in a report that the repatriation of Somalis violated international standards and that refugees were returning home involuntarily to face persecution and hunger.

Medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) on Thursday welcomed the ruling as "a very positive step".

It urged the government to consider "alternative solutions to long-term encampment on such a large scale," including resettlement to third countries or to smaller camps in Kenya, or integration in Kenya.

The Dadaab refugee camp is home to some 256,000 people

Kenya's High Court has voided a government decision to close the Dadaab refugee camp Tony KARUMBA (AFP/File)
Bangladesh orders work begin at proposed Rohingya island

Bangladesh has ordered construction to start at a desolate island where it wants to relocate tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees, an official said Thursday, despite warnings the site is uninhabitable.

The move comes as Human Rights Watch described as "ridiculous" claims by Bangladesh that shifting the Rohingya to a barren island prone to monsoonal flooding would improve their living conditions.

Bangladesh is seeking international support for its plan to relocate the Rohingya to Thengar Char in the Bay of Bengal, an idea that caused outcry when first mooted in 2015.

Bangladesh is seeking international support for its plan to relocate the Rohingya to Thengar Char in the Bay of Bengal, an idea that caused outcry when first mooted in 2015 STRDEL (AFP/File)

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina deployed an aide to the remote island Wednesday, who ordered construction begin on a jetty, helipad and visitor facilities, the government official overseeing administration of Thengar Char told AFP.

"He asked that those structures were built promptly, so visitors could have easier access to the island," said Rezaul Karim, the official who accompanied the prime minister's aide to Thengar Char, told AFP.

"He asked that construction be completed within the next 15 days."

Karim could not provide a timeline for when the proposed relocation would begin.

The government estimates 400,000 Rohingya refugees are living in Bangladesh, including nearly 70,000 who have arrived since October fleeing violence in Myanmar's western Rakhine state.

Most of those who fled to Bangladesh live in squalid conditions in refugee camps in Cox's Bazar district, which borders Rakhine state and is home to the country's biggest tourist resort.

Last month, Bangladesh established a committee comprised of state officials in coastal districts to oversee the plan, and ordered authorities to help identify and relocate undocumented Myanmar nationals to the island.

Dhaka has urged the international community to back the proposal, describing it as "temporary" and claiming the Rohingya would have better access to humanitarian assistance.

The proposal has been slammed by rights groups, who have urged Bangladesh to drop its plan to populate the undeveloped 6,000-acre (2,430-hectare) island with refugees.

"The Bangladesh government is making the ridiculous claim that relocating Rohingya refugees to an island with absolutely no facilities that is deluged at high tide and submerged during the monsoon season will improve their living conditions," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, in a statement late Wednesday.
Chipmaker Infineon says US could block Wolfspeed deal

German semiconductor giant Infineon has said its proposed acquisition of US computer chip specialist Wolfspeed has run into opposition from US regulators over security concerns.

The German firm had announced last year that it planned to buy Wolfspeed from US group Cree for $850 million (800 million euros) to boost its position in radio frequency and power solutions, but it said the deal now looks unlikely to go ahead.

"The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) informed Infineon and Cree that the transaction poses a risk to the national security of the United States," the German company said in a statement late Wednesday.

Infineon's acquisition of US computer chip specialist Wolfspeed has run into opposition from US regulators Christof Stache (AFP)

Since the US body did not propose any remedies that might alleviate those concerns, "there is a considerable risk that the transaction, as agreed, is not going to close".

Cree, in a statement of its own, said both sides were exploring ways to address the US concerns, but warned that there was "no assurance" that even a revised deal would be approved.

No details were given about the nature of the security fears, but it comes as US authorities have shown a growing willingness to halt deals they believe could pose a national security risk.
Five infected with HIV at Chinese traditional medicine hospital

At least five patients at a traditional Chinese medicine hospital in China were accidentally infected with HIV, officials said Thursday, as authorities moved to censor online discussion over the incident.

A technician at the Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine re-used a tube employed in an earlier medical exam for an HIV-positive patient, the province's health and family planning commission said in a statement on its official website, calling it a "severe violation of procedure".

The local centre for disease control confirmed that five patients were infected, it added, without offering further information about the total number of patients the technician may have exposed to the virus.

At least five patients at a hospital in China were accidentally infected with HIV, officials say Noel CELIS (AFP/File)

The government body had been notified of the situation by the hospital on January 26. It did not explain why no statement was issued in the interim period, nor did it specify when the infections occurred.

It was not clear what those who were accidentally infected were originally being treated for.

As of Thursday afternoon, the hospital's website had been taken offline. No hospital representatives could be reached for comment.

Most Chinese-language media reports about the accidental HIV infections had been deleted by Thursday afternoon, leaving only the short government statement in online circulation.

Many critical comments on social media had been removed.

"It's really a disaster. I can't imagine the accident happened in one of the best hospitals in Hangzhou," said one of the few posts still remaining on the Twitter-like Weibo platform.

One user "shocked" by the incident noted that posts about it were rapidly being deleted and that major Chinese news outlets had disabled comment and forwarding functions on their online reports.

Calling the censorship disgusting, the user added: "I think people have the right to know the truth."

In a 2015 report China told the UN that it had 501,000 cases of HIV/AIDS as of the end of 2014.

News of the accidental infections comes days after China announced plans to double the number of AIDS patients it treats with TCM as part of a broader push to increase the use of the ancient practice in the country's medical system.
Tata Steel agrees deal to sell UK assets

Tata Steel has agreed a deal to sell of its speciality steel assets to metal processing firm Liberty House, the Indian group said Thursday.

Tata said in November that it had agreed to start exclusive talks for the sale with Liberty for 100 million ($126 million, 118 million euros). The unit employs 1,700 people in Britain.

On Thursday it said in a statement: "Tata Steel UK has today signed a definitive sale agreement to sell its Speciality Steels business to Liberty House Group for a total consideration of 100 million."

Sanjeev Gupta's Liberty House has agreed to buy Tata Steel's speciality steel assets Justin Tallis (AFP/File)
Trump hits back after criticism by Supreme Court nominee

Donald Trump lashed out Thursday at a Democratic senator who revealed that the president's own Supreme Court nominee had called Trump's attacks on the judiciary "disheartening" and "demoralizing."

Having blasted a federal judge who temporarily blocked his controversial immigration decree -- calling him a "so-called judge" -- Trump renewed his attacks Wednesday on the appellate court panel currently weighing his ban on refugees and visitors from seven mainly Muslim countries, calling the judges "so political."

Judge Neil Gorsuch, nominated last week to fill a key vacancy on the Supreme Court, criticized Trump's stance during a meeting with Senator Richard Blumenthal, in remarks that were later confirmed to AFP by a spokesman for Gorsuch.

US Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch (R) meets with Senator Richard Blumenthal on February 8, 2017 ALEX WONG (GETTY/AFP)

Trump, however, zeroed-in on Blumenthal.

"Sen.Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie), now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?" Trump wrote on Twitter Thursday.

Blumenthal served during that period in the US Marines, but was never deployed to Vietnam, despite claims he made when he was running for the US Senate in 2010.
EU to give 'virtually bankrupt' Gambia 225 mn euros

The European Union announced aid worth 225 million euros ($240 million) for The Gambia on Thursday as President Adama Barrow warned that the nation was "virtually bankrupt" due to economic mismanagement by the former regime.

The EU froze assistance to The Gambia in December 2014 over the dire human rights record of ex-president Yahya Jammeh, whose security services were accused by rights groups of extrajudicial killings, torture and forced disappearances.

Barrow's victory over Jammeh in December's election is seen by foreign donors as a new chance for human rights and the rule of law to be better respected in the tiny west African nation.

Adama Barrow's election victory is seen by foreign donors as a new chance for human rights to be better respected in The Gambia CARL DE SOUZA (AFP/File)

Neven Mimica, European Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development, hailed "a peaceful democratic change in The Gambia" and said the bloc was "fully committed to engage with President Barrow and his government".

Immediate financial assistance of 75 million euros would target food insecurity and unemployment and help improve the nation's roads, the European Commission said in a statement.

A further 150 million euros would be disbursed following a future visit by an EU delegation, it added.

Barrow said in a speech at the signing of the aid deal that The Gambia had just two months of foreign exchange reserves left, and described "an economy that is virtually bankrupt and in need of immediate rescue".

"Most public enterprises are debt-ridden and underperforming including the energy sector," he said, adding that youth unemployment had rocketed.

Specific funding worth 11 million euros will go towards creating jobs for young people in a nation that currently sends the highest per capita number of migrants across the Mediterranean to Italy.

"To stem the current migration trend, it is crucial to step up job creation and create more meaningful income opportunities at home," said Trade Minister Isatou Touray.

Jammeh is accused by Gambians of land grabs and taking over businesses for his personal gain, while new Interior Minister Mai Fatty alleged last month the ex-president took $11 million from state coffers before heading for exile in Equatorial Guinea.

Foreign Minister Ousainou Darboe said human rights concerns would be "speedily addressed" by the new administration, and that the process of rejoining the International Criminal Court would begin soon.
Moscow condemns 'fake' Amnesty report on Syria mass hangings

Russia's foreign ministry on Thursday condemned as a fabrication an Amnesty International report alleging up to 13,000 people were hanged in a Syrian government jail.

Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told journalists the report was "a false story that does not correspond to reality" and "a fake."

The damning report released Tuesday details mass hangings at one of Syria's largest detention centres near Damascus between 2011 and 2015.

Amnesty International alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity had been committed and were likely continuing at the Saydnaya prison near Damascus Yoav LEMMER (AFP/File)

Russia has backed long-time ally President Bashar al-Assad throughout the Syrian conflict and launched a bombing campaign in support of his regime in September 2015.

"This is yet another targeted act of provocation aimed at pouring oil on the fire of the dying-down conflict within Syria," she said.

The Syrian justice ministry has already dismissed the Amnesty report as "completely false" and intended to damage the country's reputation at international forums.

Zakharova rebuked Amnesty for publishing figures that she said were "the result of mathematical calculations on the basis of testimony of unnamed people."
Russia air strike 'accidentally' kills 3 Turkish troops in Syria

Three Turkish soldiers were "accidentally" killed and 11 wounded on Thursday when a Russian air strike targeting jihadists in Syria hit a building where the troops were deployed, the Turkish army said.

With Moscow and Ankara cooperating ever more closely on Syria, President Vladimir Putin quickly reached out to Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan to express condolences and promise better future coordination.

The Russian plane had been seeking to hit targets of Islamic State (IS) jihadists but "by accident three of our heroic soldiers were martyred when a building was bombed where our units were," the Turkish army said in a statement.

BULENT KILIC (AFP)

It said that of the 11 injured, one was badly wounded.

Putin contacted Erdogan to express his "sadness and condolences," it added.

"Russian officials have said that the incident was an accident," the army said, adding an investigation is being carried out by both sides.

- Fight for Al-Bab -

In Moscow, the Kremlin said Putin had offered Erdogan his condolences and that the leaders had "agreed to enhance military coordination" in the fight against IS in Syria.

It said the incident took place in the flashpoint IS-held town of Al-Bab where both countries have been conducting air strikes.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russian strike took place on Thursday morning due to a "lack of agreement of coordinates during strikes by the Russian air force."

Both sides appeared keen to move on from the incident, as was the case when an off-duty Turkish policeman shot dead Russia's ambassador to Ankara Andrei Karlov on December 19 in a crime that shocked both countries.

Then, Ankara allowed Russian investigators to work in Turkey and also gave the slain ambassador the honour of a ceremony on the tarmac of Ankara airport before his corpse was airlifted back to Russia.

The Russian defence ministry said Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov and Turkish counterpart Hulusi Akar had in a call "agreed on closer coordination of joint actions".

Turkey had on August 24 began an unprecedented campaign inside Syria against IS and Kurdish militia which initially made rapid progress but has become mired in a deadly fight for the IS held town of Al-Bab since December.

The incident came with new CIA chief Mike Pompeo in Ankara for talks with Turkish officials on issues including Syria, on his first foreign visit since the inauguration of US President Donald Trump.

The fight for Al-Bab has been by far the bloodiest yet of Turkey's incursion inside Syria but the authorities have vowed to press on until its capture despite a mounting casualty toll.

Before Thursday's casualties were reported, the Dogan news agency said 66 Turkish soldiers have now been killed in the Syria operation since it began in August, mostly in attacks by IS.

- Revival in ties -

Turkey and Russia have been on sharply opposing sides in the Syria conflict, with Moscow supporting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad but Ankara pushing for his ouster as the key to peace.

Relations reached a dangerous low in November 2015 when Turkish warplanes shot down a Russian fighter jet over the Syrian border.

But a normalisation deal was reached over the summer and the two sides have been working ever more closely over the Syrian conflict.

They secured a deal to evacuate Syrians from Aleppo after the city was retaken by Assad backed by his Russian allies.

The two sides have since backed a process in the Kazakh capital Astana to search for peace to end the almost six-year civil war in Syria.

And Russian jets have on occasion carried out air strikes in Al-Bab in support of the operation.

Separate operations by Turkey and Assad's forces, backed by Moscow, has trapped the jihadists inside Al-Bab which has been besieged since Monday when Syrian forces cut off a road leading into the town.

There has been concerns of the risk of accidental contact in the busy skies above Syria although these have usually surrounded Turkey and Syrian regime forces.

Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said Wednesday Turkey had been coordinating with Russia to avoid any risk of contact with the Syrian regime forces.
Palestinian opens fire in Israeli crowd, four wounded: police

Six people were wounded Thursday when a Palestinian man stabbed and shot at market-goers in central Israel, police said.

The attack in the city of Petah Tikva, outside Tel Aviv, was carried out by a Palestinian assailant, police said, calling it a "terrorist" incident.

Police said initial indications were the attacker, 19, was from the Nablus governorate in the north of the occupied West Bank.

Israeli security forces have been on heightened alert since a wave of violence broke out in 2015 AHMAD GHARABLI (AFP/File)

The man was arrested uninjured while still carrying the gun, they added.

The wounded were taken to hospital, with none of their injuries described as life threatening.

The attack was reminiscent of a far bloodier one in June 2016 in which four people died during a shooting at a popular Tel Aviv market.

A police spokesman said in a video from the scene that the assailant opened fire seemingly at random before stopping and running away.

He was then pursued by civilians who succeeded in "neutralising" him.

"Police arrived very quickly and took his weapon from him," the spokesman said.

The Magen David Adom medical agency said in a statement it treated three people with bullet wounds and a man who was stabbed in his upper body.

An MDA medic described the scene upon arrival as "chaos," while a police video showed a bus with a single bullet hole in its windscreen.

The United Hatzalah medical group said another man was beaten by the crowd who had apparently mistaken him for the attacker.

Last month four Israeli soldiers died after being run over by a truck in Jerusalem.

Since a wave of violence broke out in October 2015, more than 250 Palestinians, 41 Israelis, two Americans, a Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese have died.

Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks, according to Israeli authorities, with others were killed during protests, in clashes or Israeli air raids on Gaza.
Top Trump aide faces probe after Ivanka brand plug

A key aide to Donald Trump was facing possible investigation after pitching the clothing line of the president's daughter Ivanka on television, with top lawmakers from both camps denouncing a major ethics breach and urging "disciplinary action."

Speaking with the White House seal clearly visible over her shoulder, Kellyanne Conway gave Ivanka Trump's clothing a rave review during a Fox interview early Thursday, urging shoppers to "go buy Ivanka's stuff."

"This is just a wonderful line," she said. "I own some of it. I fully -- I'm going to give a free commercial here. Go buy it today, everybody. You can find it online."

Kellyanne Conway, a top aide to President Donald Trump, gave Ivanka Trump's clothing a rave review during an interview with the Fox network, an apparent breach of ethics rules TIMOTHY A. CLARY (AFP/File)

Conway was clearly channeling the anger expressed a day earlier by the president himself, when he tweeted that Ivanka had been "treated so unfairly" by Nordstrom, an upscale department store chain that dropped her fashion brand.

But to Washington traditionalists, Conway's direct pitch from the White House for a product line sold by the president's child seemed a jaw-dropping -- and possibly illegal -- misuse of presidential prestige.

Democrat Elijah Cummings and Republican Jason Chaffetz -- both lawmakers on the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which Chaffetz chairs -- led calls for Conway to face rebuke.

"Conway's statements clearly violate the ethical principles for federal employees and are unacceptable," the congressmen said in a letter to the federal ethics chief, Walter Shaub, requesting that he recommend "appropriate disciplinary action" against her.

"What she did was wrong, wrong, wrong," said Chaffetz on Twitter.

The Office of Government Ethics, which Shaub heads, separately said it had been "receiving an extraordinary volume of contacts from citizens about recent events."

Without mentioning Conway by name, it said it was reaching out to the appropriate government agencies who would decide whether to pursue the matter -- the established protocol when the OGE learns of "possible ethics violations."

- 'The law is clear' -

Conway said the Trump team was "aware" of the lawmakers' letter and was "reviewing that internally."

She also told Fox News she had spoken with the president about the incident and that he "supports me 100 percent."

"All I can say, at some point in your life, you ought to have a boss who treated me the way that the president is treating me today."

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Trump's aide had been "counseled" over the issue, without providing more detail.

"Kellyanne Conway's White House Infomercial," as it was dubbed in a scathing New York Times editorial, again fanned debate over the unprecedented level to which the new president -- despite his protestations to the contrary -- has mixed politics, business and family, raising questions about conflicts of interest.

For Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group which filed a separate complaint, "the law is clear" on such matters.

"This is just another example of what looks like a disturbing pattern of this administration acting to benefit the businesses of the president's family and supporters."

- Boycott calls -

Since his election in November, Trump has targeted a series of American multinationals by name (General Motors, Ford, Boeing, Lockheed and others) for moving production overseas or for allegedly overcharging the government.

But his tweet targeting Nordstrom marked the first time he had complained directly about the business interests of one of his adult children. The tweet appeared both on Trump's personal account and on that of the presidency, @POTUS.

The Nordstrom group, with 350 stores in the United States and Canada, has repeatedly denied any political motive to its dropping of Ivanka Trump's clothing line, saying it was motivated purely by "performance" considerations. Sales had fallen, particularly in last year's second half.

But products carrying a Trump brand, including Ivanka's, have been boycotted by critics of the new president, leading to his complaint of a political motivation behind Nordstrom's move.

TJX Companies, which operates the clothing store chains TJ Maxx and Marshalls, told AFP on Thursday it had instructed store employees no longer to display Ivanka Trump products separately.

"The communication we sent to TJ Maxx and Marshalls in the US instructed stores to mix this line of merchandise into our racks, not to remove it from the sales floor," a spokesperson told AFP.

A sign advertising Ivanka Trump products outside the Willard InterContinental hotel in Washington, DC Brendan Smialowski (AFP)

The Nordstrom group, with 350 stores in the United States and Canada, has repeatedly denied any political motive to its dropping of Ivanka Trump's clothing line, saying it was motivated purely by "performance" considerations JOE RAEDLE (Getty/AFP)
Music giant Universal signs deal for Prince vault

The estate of Prince, who long battled the music industry, announced a deal Thursday with the world's largest label group Universal to release much of the pop icon's vast catalog.

Under the deal, Universal gained rights to the fabled vault of unreleased music that Prince kept in his Paisley Park estate in Minnesota where he died in April.

Universal is also taking control of 25 albums that Prince released on his own NPG Records imprint from the mid-1990s, when he wrote "slave" on his cheek and changed his name to the unpronounceable "love symbol" to fight his contract with Warner Brothers.

Universal gained rights to the fabled vault of unreleased music that Prince, pictured in 2011, kept in his Paisley Park estate in Minnesota where he died in April 2016 BERTRAND GUAY (AFP/File)

Universal said, without further detail, that it will obtain rights in the United States to "certain renowned Prince albums from 1979 to 1995" -- the star's emblematic era when he topped the charts with "Purple Rain" and other works.

The deal for the early catalog would mark a major blow to Universal's rival Warner, which had reconciled with Prince in 2014.

Warner had already announced that it will reissue "Purple Rain" accompanied by a full second album worth of unreleased material.

"Prince was one of the greatest musical talents of all time -- an incomparable genius as a performer, recording artist and songwriter," Lucian Grainge, the chairman and chief executive of Universal Music Group, said in a statement which did not disclose the deal's value.

L. Londell McMillan, the star's longtime lawyer who represented the estate, voiced confidence that Universal -- which earlier reached a separate deal for Prince's songwriting rights -- was "passionate about presenting Prince's music with a holistic vision that celebrates his iconic status."

Prince died at age 57 from an accidental overdose of powerful painkillers. He did not leave a will or have children, throwing his estate into confusion.

His estate also appears to have sealed deals to bring Prince's music to major streaming sites such as Spotify, which has been running advertisements ahead of Sunday's Grammy Awards in the color purple.

Prince was a staunch critic of labels and later the internet, describing corporations as putting artists into virtual slavery.
In Miami, Valentine flowers under the magnifying glass

With Valentine's Day around the corner, US customs inspectors are rolling up their sleeves for the unromantic task of scrutinizing millions of imported flowers to keep out both bugs and drugs.

Cut flowers are a $15 billion industry in the United States and with two thirds of them imported, mostly from Colombia, it's Valentine's rush hour at Miami International airport, the hub of the massive operation.

Millions of flowers at a time are kept in a refrigerated warehouse, motors humming to guarantee a stable 1 C (34 degrees F), often despite sweltering subtropical heat, as the flowers are inspected, cleared and shipped.

Agriculture specialists from the US Customs and Border Protection inspect a shipment of flower stems on February 8, 2017 at the Miami airport, to keep pests and plant diseases from entering the US and harm local agriculture Leila MACOR (AFP)

"It's a very busy time of the year for us and we have to be very careful," said Migdalia Arteaga, spokeswoman for agriculture at the US Customs and Border Protection (CPB) agency.

Their approach is not high-tech but seems to work: inspectors grab a bunch, hang it upside down and smack it a few times to see if any insect or other stray stowaway material, drops out.

Even under the magnifying glass, most of the flowers turn out to be problem free.

But sometimes the whacking turns up a ride-along insect.

"This is one of the most important missions that we have," said Arteaga. "Protecting the nation against pests, that can get to the ecosystem and destroy it or cause havoc," she warned.

Traffickers in the past have been known to hide drugs in the flood of flowers by injecting them right into flower petals, Arteaga said.

In such cases, customs does not seize the drug-laced plant, but lets it be delivered -- and busts the person at the receiving end.

But keeping out the tiny bugs is just as serious a matter, explains Christopher Maston, the customs authority's port director for Miami.

"It only takes one exotic plant pest to inflict tremendous damage on domestic agriculture, which is a trillion dollar industry," he said. "Our agriculture specialists represent a front line in protecting America."

And so biologists and entomologists toil day and night, moving heaven and earth to move a mountain of 500 million roses through Miami, ahead of the February 14 holiday.

"During that period our agriculture specialists at CBP will find roughly 1,800 plant pests," said Maston. "That sounds like a lot but it's relatively low."

Valentine's Day accounts for a quarter of annual cut-flower sales in the United States, according to the American Society of Florists -- rivalled on the calendar only by Mother's Day.
US appeals court poised to rule on Trump travel ban

A US court will rule Thursday on whether to reinstate President Donald Trump's executive order closing US borders to refugees and nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries, in a major legal test of his controversial law-and-order agenda.

The ruling from the federal appeals court in San Francisco on the contentious ban, which was issued on January 27 with no prior warning and suspended a week later, comes just three weeks into Trump's presidency.

The order sparked travel chaos and was met with condemnation by immigration advocacy groups.

The ruling from the federal appeals court in San Francisco on the contentious ban, which was issued on January 27 with no prior warning and suspended a week later, comes just three weeks into Trump's presidency Frederic J. Brown (AFP/File)

But the Republican leader has blasted its suspension, labelling the Seattle federal judge who issued it as a "so-called judge" and branding the courts "disgraceful" and politicized.

A spokesman for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said the ruling would come before the end of the day.

Trump's decree summarily denied entry to all refugees for 120 days, and travelers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days. Refugees from Syria were blocked indefinitely.

Trump and other top administration officials have argued it is needed to keep out Islamic State and Al-Qaeda fighters migrating from Middle East hotspots, insisting time is needed to implement stricter vetting procedures.

In a hearing Tuesday, the judges appeared skeptical of the White House's defense of the sweeping order, which critics say was aimed at Muslims in violation of US law.

Echoing Trump, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly -- who is in charge of enforcing the immigration ban -- has said the courts do not understand the threat the country faces.

"In their world it is very academic, almost in a vacuum. In their courtrooms, they are protected by people like me," Kelly told lawmakers.

- 'New era' of justice -

Earlier in the day, Trump defended his hardline policies, which have run up against legal checks and balances, as he declared a "new era of justice" in America and swore in his attorney general Jeff Sessions in the Oval Office.

The property mogul-turned-president also signed three executive orders designed to burnish his law-and-order credentials.

"We face the menace of rising crime and the threat of deadly terror," said the Republican leader, doubling down on his dystopian vision of America.

"A new era of justice begins and it begins right now," he said.

The rate of violent crime in America's 30 largest cities rose slightly last year, but remains near historic lows, according to the Brennan Center, an independent think tank.

Trump's tough talk belies a political and legislative agenda that has been beset by missteps and legal challenges.

The blowback from Trump's outbursts over the travel ban suspension showed no signs of abating, after his own Supreme Court nominee described the president's comments as "disheartening" and "demoralizing."

Opposition Democrats echoed those criticisms, but also suggested the nominee, Neil Gorsuch, was trying to smooth his nomination by appearing as an independent voice.

- Popular support -

Trump has been able to demonstrate a steady level of support from Republicans in Congress, who have almost unanimously backed his key administration appointments.

Late Wednesday, the Senate voted 52-47 to approve Sessions, after Democrats stalled for weeks on a nominee whose civil rights record has come under intense scrutiny.

While being sworn in, Sessions echoed Trump's view of the urgency of tackling violent crime.

"We have a crime problem. I wish the rise that we're seeing in crime in America today was some sort of aberration or blip" but, Sessions said, it is a "dangerous permanent trend."

Trump signed an order creating a task force on violent crime and another to tackle crime directed at law enforcement officials.

Those measures drew criticism from across the ideological spectrum.

"President Trump intends to build task forces to investigate and stop national trends that don't exist." said Jeffery Robinson of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The third presidential order tasks officials with looking at how the United States tackles organized crime syndicates.

Trump's message may be criticized by experts, but it appears to be resonating with supporters.

Trump won the election last November with 46 percent of the popular vote, and the RealClearPolitics average of polls shows his job approval at about that level, with the split largely along Republican-Democratic lines.

Trump on Wednesday trumpeted a Morning Consult-Politico poll showing 55 percent voter approval for his immigration ban, with 38 percent disapproving.

Previous studies -- which the president dismissed as "fake news" -- had shown a majority of Americans opposing the measure.

Trump also cited the poll published Tuesday by London's Chatham House think tank showing 55 percent support across 10 European countries for a freeze on immigration from Muslim countries.

US President Donald Trump stands alongside US Attorney General Jeff Sessions after Sessions was sworn in, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, February 9, 2017 SAUL LOEB (AFP)
Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews protest military service

Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews demonstrated on Thursday in Israel against compulsory military service with more than 30 arrested, AFP photographers and police said.

For several days the ultra-Orthodox, who represent about 10 percent of the Israeli population and live in compliance with a strict interpretation of Jewish laws, have been protesting in locations across the country.

The demonstrations were apparently triggered by the arrest of an ultra-Orthodox youth who refused to attend an army recruitment post to enrol in military service.

Israeli policemen arrest an ultra-Orthodox Jew during a protest against Israeli army conscription, in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood of Jerusalem, on February 9, 2017 AHMAD GHARABLI (AFP)

"Police units arrested 31 suspects involved in disturbances in Jerusalem and Bet Shemesh," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said in a statement, referring to two major protests.

The demonstrators formed a human chain and chanted "Nazis" at the policemen, with police using a hose to scatter them, the AFP photographers said.

Military service, two years and eight months for men and two years for women, is compulsory for most Israelis, with the exception of Israeli Arabs.

The ultra-Orthodox are exempt if studying in yeshivas (religious schools), though the issue is controversial with secular Israelis and attempts have been made to remove the exemption.

Either way they must register at the recruitment office but some, inspired by rabbis hostile to any cooperation with the Israeli authorities, refuse to and are considered deserters.

The conscription of the ultra-Orthodox is regularly the source of clashes with the police.

Some of the ultra-Orthodox view military service as a source of temptation for young people who then leave the closed world of prayer and religious study.

Ultra-Orthodox women are exempt if they request and can perform civilian service.
Tunisia hands Ben Ali new jail term for corruption

Tunisian ex-president Zine el Abidine Ben Ali and his wife, already convicted in absentia several times, have been issued new 10-year prison sentences for corruption, authorities said Thursday.

They were found guilty Tuesday by a court in Tunis in a case involving "administrative and financial corruption", said prosecution spokesman Sofiene Sliti.

Ben Ali, who ruled Tunisia with an iron fist for 23 years, has been living in exile with his wife in Saudi Arabia since fleeing during the 2011 revolution.

Former President of Tunisia, Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, pictured in 2009, has been living in Saudi Arabia in exile with his wife since fleeing during the 2011 revolution FETHI BELAID (AFP/File)

The case also saw two other officials convicted, including a former minister for the environment who was jailed for five years and another ministry official was sentenced to three.

A relative of the exiled president's wife, Leila Trabelsi, was also sentenced to three years in prison.

A ministerial source said the case related to the "commercial use" of the Club Elyssa, in the grounds of a state-owned nature park in the suburbs of Tunis.

Trabelsi used to organise social gatherings at the club.

In November, the venue hosted the first public hearings of the Truth and Dignity Commission on human rights violations during six decades of dictatorship.

Since Ben Ali and his wife fled, they have been convicted in several cases, mostly for corruption.
Taiwanese woman sentenced for shark-fin haul in Costa Rica

A Costa Rican court has sentenced a Taiwanese business owner to prison over a fishing haul of illegally hacked-off shark fins destined for sale abroad, officials and environmentalists said Thursday.

The businesswoman, identified by her last name of Tseng, was ordered to spend six months behind bars. The verdict was handed down Monday by the court in the western port city of Puntarenas.

It was the first criminal sentence in the country against the practice of shark finning, which involves slicing off a shark's fins before dropping the live fish back in the sea. Unable to swim effectively, the wounded creature faces a grim future: suffocating, starving or being eaten.

Shark fins fetch a high price in Asia, where they are often used in soups served on special occasions CHAIDEER MAHYUDDIN (AFP/File)

Shark fins fetch a high price in Asia, where they are often used in soups served on special occasions.

Tseng's was "a historic sentence," said Gladys Martinez, lawyer for the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA).

Her case began in October 2011, when her fishing boat, the Wan Jia Men 88, was found with 151 sharks aboard. Their fins had been chopped off.

She was initially acquitted in 2014, but the matter went to appeal, and the Puntarenas court this week found her responsible for damage to Costa Rica's natural resources.
Germany to 'speed up deportation' of failed asylum seekers

Germany, which has taken in over one million asylum seekers since 2015, on Thursday announced plans to speed up the deportation of those denied refugee status -- but controversy flared over sending people back to war-torn Afghanistan.

Chancellor Angela Merkel -- who faces a re-election bid in September amid a voter backlash over the mass influx -- won agreement from leaders of Germany's 16 state governments on a repatriation plan, which she said would "quickly" be drafted as a proposed law.

"What we discussed today were the necessary conditions for us to be able to continue to be a country that welcomes those seeking protection", she told reporters after the meeting.

An Afghan returns to Kabul after being deported from Germany where his asylum application was rejected WAKIL KOHSAR (AFP/File)

Expediting the process of repatriation for failed asylum seekers "will, critically, give us the possibility of accepting people who are in emergency situations", she said.

Among the planned measures is the establishment of national "deportation centres" aimed at coordinating federal and state operations. Financial incentives will also be offered for those who return voluntarily under the plan.

Germany also wants to increase pressure on countries which refuse to take back their national or hamper the process with red tape.

It has stepped up talks, especially with North African countries, since December's deadly jihadist attack on a Berlin Christmas market, blamed on a Tunisian man, Anis Amri, who should have been sent back long before the attack.

Since that attack, which claimed 12 lives, Germany also announced reforms to make it easier to expel foreign nationals considered potentially dangerous extremists by police.

Thursday's deal lays out rules to speed up deportation for those who attempt to hide their real identity or commit crimes. The Federal Office for Migration (Bamf) will also have the right to consult the mobile phones of asylum seekers if their identities cannot be clearly determined, said Hesse regional president Volker Bouffier.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, who had urged state leaders to sign on to a "joint effort", warned that while the number of people being granted safe haven from Syria and other war zones had risen sharply in Germany, so had the number of those who do not qualify for such protection.

"That is why we need to carry out more repatriations and deportations," he told on ARD public television.

Last year Germany repatriated or expelled some 80,000 rejected asylum seekers, out of a total of more than 200,000 who had failed to gain official refugee or asyulm status.

- Instability in Afghanistan -

Merkel's government is under pressure to act as the migrant influx has boosted a right-wing populist and anti-immigration movement, and the number of far-right hate crimes against foreigners has soared.

But she also faced increasing opposition at the state level against sending Afghan nationals back home, to an increasingly dangerous environment.

Since December, Germany has sent back some 60 Afghan nationals on two charter flights to Kabul, under an agreement signed between the European Union and Afghanistan in October.

But five German state governments have decided to halt most expulsions to Afghanistan, according to media reports, citing the worsening instability in the strife-torn country.

Merkel argues that though it was "not easy" to send Afghans back home, those denied asylum could be sent back to certain regions that were safer.

The United Nations reported in early February that civilian casualties in Afghanistan peaked in 2016, with nearly 11,500 non-combatants -- one third of them children -- killed or wounded.
Scott, Senate's sole black Republican, defends Sessions

WASHINGTON (AP)  Sen. Tim Scott, the Senate's lone African-American Republican, on Wednesday offered a personal and passionate defense of Sen. Jeff Sessions, President Donald Trump's embattled choice for attorney general.

Scott, a South Carolina conservative, noted the racist messages he had received since announcing his support for Sessions. He spoke of his personal experiences in introducing the Alabama Republican to African-American pastors at a racial forum in Charleston.

And he read the statements of black Alabama Democrats vouching for Sessions, who as attorney general will be the nation's top law enforcement official.

Attorney General-designate, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., leaves his office on Capitol Hill in Washington early Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2017. The Alabama Republican appears headed toward confirmation by a nearly party-line vote after Democrats harshly criticized him for being too close to Trump, too harsh on immigrants, and too weak on civil rights. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Scott said the South is still working through racial differences and said "Jeff Sessions has earned my support and I will hold him accountable if and when we disagree."

Scott read messages in which he was called an "Uncle Tom"  and worse  and said that "as I read through some of the comments of my friends on the left, you will wonder if I ever had an experience as a black person in America."

"I just wish that my friends who call themselves liberals would want tolerance for all Americans."

Scott speaks on the floor less often than many senators, but has previously given a series of speeches on race, including one last summer recalling his numerous experiences getting pulled over by police, often simply for driving a late-model car in "the wrong neighborhood."

He said liberals are quick to jump to conclusions about the actions and motives of others when it comes to matters of race.

"Too often, too many  particularly on the right  are found guilty until proven innocent on issues of race, issues of fairness," said Scott, one of three African Americans in the Senate. "I just wish that my friends who call themselves liberals would want tolerance for all Americans."

The other African Americans in the Senate are Democrats Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California.
Canada warns Trump administration over talk of US tariffs

TORONTO (AP)  Canada's foreign minister has warned the Trump administration that Canada will retaliate if the U.S. applies new tariffs.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said Wednesday from Washington that her government strongly opposes any new possible tariffs and would respond.

She says they would be mutually harmful. More than 75 percent of Canada's exports go to the U.S. Of the 50 U.S. states, 35 count Canada as their leading export market.

Trump has talked about renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Freeland visited U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday. She met with House Speaker Paul Ryan and Sen. John McCain and Sen. Bob Corker on Tuesday.
Indonesia military accepts Australian apology for insult

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP)  The Indonesian military has accepted an apology from Australia's army chief over a purported insult to Indonesia's state ideology that caused a spat between the two countries.

An Indonesian military statement released late Wednesday after Australian army chief Lt. Gen. Angus Campbell met with Indonesian military head Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo said the Australian Defense Force would sanction personnel involved in the incident. It quoted Campbell as saying the sanctions would affect the careers of those penalized.

Indonesia's military partially suspended cooperation with its Australian counterparts in early January. The rift developed after an Indonesian military officer raised concerns in November about teaching materials for army language training at a special forces facility in western Australia.

Indonesian media reported that Pancasila, the state ideology based on five principles including a unitary state and belief in one God, was renamed "Pancagila," in effect calling it crazy in Indonesian, in laminated training materials.

Referring to the incident, Nurmantyo said in the statement that Indonesians have died to defend Pancasila. "Especially for the soldiers, it is very sensitive and it hurts us," he said.

The neighboring nations, though close partners in areas such as trade and counterterrorism, have long had a turbulent relationship.

Tensions have repeatedly flared over Australia's policy of turning back boats to Indonesia that are carrying asylum seekers from other countries. Indonesia's use of the death penalty, which Australia opposes, has also strained ties, particularly in 2015 when Indonesia executed two Australians for drug crimes.

In 1999, the relationship suffered one of its most serious blows after Australia led a U.N. military force into the former Indonesian province of East Timor following a bloody independence ballot.

Nurmantyo said the results of Australia's investigation into the Pancasila incident would be discussed with the defense and foreign ministers and then reported to President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo.
Rapper DMX inspires homeless group in surprise visit

PHILADELPHIA (AP)  Rapper DMX gave a group of Philadelphia men advice during a surprise appearance at a homeless support group meeting.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports (http://bit.ly/2lmLQfr ) the rapper, whose given name is Earl Simmons, stopped by to speak to members of the nonprofit Ready, Willing & Able Philadelphia Wednesday night. RWA provides men with housing and full-time jobs to help combat homelessness and addiction.

DMX reached out to Councilman Kenyatta Johnson Wednesday morning to arrange the visit. He's currently in town for Meek Mill's Friday concert at the Wells Fargo Center.

FILE - In this Saturday, Oct. 1, 2011, file photo, DMX performs during the BET Hip Hop Awards in Atlanta. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported the rapper, whose given name is Earl Simmons, made a surprise appearance at a homeless support group meeting to speak to members of the nonprofit Ready, Willing & Able Philadelphia on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2017. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)

The Yonkers native, who has battled drug addiction at various points in his life, reminded the men to keep faith in God and remain tenacious. DMX capped the meeting by playing pool and eating dinner with members of the organization.

___
Roberts, judiciary's leader, silent on Trump criticism

WASHINGTON (AP)  President Donald Trump's unusually personal criticism of federal judges has drawn rebukes from many quarters, including from Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, but not much from the judges themselves.

The leader of the federal judiciary, Chief Justice John Roberts, has himself been a target of Trump's attacks. But Roberts has refused to comment on Trump's remarks, including recent criticism of judges who are dealing with the president's executive order on immigration.

And that's not likely to change, even if the tweeter in chief keeps up his attacks on judges. Bolstered by lifetime tenure, independent judges should not respond to criticism, no matter how harsh or that its source is the president, said a former judge, a law school dean and a constitutional law professor.

Supreme Court Justice nominee Neil Gorsuch meets with Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2017, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Judges "should basically give the tweets the attention they deserve, which means they should be ignored. This is basically a childish tantrum from someone who didn't get his way. And the judiciary should go about its business and decide cases, including cases involving him," said Vanderbilt University law professor Suzanna Sherry.

Trump's style may be different and his language more coarse, but the comments themselves are not the "threat to judicial independence that some commentators have made them out to be," said University of Pennsylvania law school dean Theodore Ruger.

Former U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell said judges would find themselves in unfamiliar territory "if they start critiquing the Twitter feed of the president."

Among sitting judges who have commented in some way is Gorsuch, who has been meeting on Capitol Hill with senators who soon will consider whether to confirm him to the Supreme Court.

On Wednesday, Gorsuch said he found the president's attacks on the judiciary "disheartening" and "demoralizing," according to Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.

Trump took to Twitter to question the veracity of Blumenthal's account, but Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., each confirmed that Gorsuch made similar comments to them.

Sasse told MSNBC's "Morning Joe," ''Frankly, he got pretty passionate about it," said Sasse, adding that Gorsuch said any attack on the "'brothers or sisters of the robe is an attack on all judges.'"

Former Sen. Kelly Ayotte, a Republican who is helping with Gorsuch's confirmation and attended the Blumenthal meeting, issued a statement acknowledging that Gorsuch said he finds any criticism of a judge's integrity and independence to be "disheartening and demoralizing." But Ayotte said the nominee also made clear he was not referring to any specific comment.

Also Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Dan Polster said during a speech in Cleveland that questioning the legitimacy of a federal judge is a line that shouldn't be crossed. Polster, a nominee of President Bill Clinton, did not mention Trump by name, according to a report on Cleveland.com.

Polster said that a public office holder who makes those types of comments "calls into question his or her own legitimacy."

Roberts was the first judge to incur Trump's wrath. During the presidential campaign last winter, Trump called the chief justice "an absolute disaster" and "disgraceful" mainly for the two opinions Roberts wrote that preserved President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

Next in Trump's sights was U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who was presiding over fraud lawsuits against Trump University. In June, Trump called Curiel "a hater of Donald Trump" who couldn't be fair to him because Curiel is "of Mexican heritage" and Trump had proposed building a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border.

Last week, Trump called U.S. District Judge James Robart a "so-called judge" after Robart imposed a temporary halt on Trump's executive order barring people from seven predominantly Muslim countries from coming to the United States. On Sunday, Trump renewed his Twitter attacks against Robart: "Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!"

On Wednesday, he said the "courts seem to be so political," in reference to the three federal appeals court judges who are considering the administration's plea to enforce the order.

Trump is not the first president to object to court decisions or to opine about how a court should rule, said Paul Collins, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Obama used his 2010 State of the Union message to assail the Supreme Court's Citizens United campaign finance ruling, with several justices in the audience. Obama also delivered a lengthy pitch for his health care law while the court was weighing the case in 2015.

With the exception of John F. Kennedy, every president since Dwight Eisenhower has been critical of some Supreme Court decisions, said Collins, drawing on research he did with co-author Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha of the University of North Texas.

But past presidents did not make their displeasure known by "attacking judges ... or by questioning the decision such that there's a possibility of undermining faith in the judicial system," Collins said. "I get this uncomfortable sense that the president may be trying to lower confidence in judges in anticipation of defying a ruling."

Ruger said Roberts, as the head of the judicial branch of government, or another justice might feel compelled to speak up about the importance of an independent judiciary if the attacks continue.
Malaysian ship with aid for Rohingya arrives in Yangon

YANGON, Myanmar (AP)  A Malaysian ship carrying 2,300 tons of food and medicine to help members of Myanmar's persecuted Muslim Rohingya minority arrived in Yangon on Thursday as rights groups accuse the army of mass killings, rapes and other crimes targeting the ethnic group.

The "Food Flotilla for Myanmar" arrived following a sweeping counterinsurgency campaign in Rakhine state, where most of the estimated 1 million Rohingya live. Last week, U.N. human rights investigators said it was "very likely" that Myanmar forces were guilty of crimes against humanity in the crackdown.

Organizers of the aid shipment say they trust the Myanmar government to deliver the supplies as promised despite its record of discrimination.

Boxes with images of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak containing aid for Rohingya are piled up on a Malaysian ship upon arrival at Thilawa port in Yangon, Myanmar, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. The "Food Flotilla for Myanmar" carrying 2,300 tons of food and medicine to help members of Myanmar's persecuted Muslim Rohingya minority arrived in Yangon as rights groups accuse the army of mass killings, rapes and other crimes targeting the ethnic group. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

"We have to respect Myanmar's sovereignty," said Razali Ramli, from the 1Putera Club Malaysia, which helped organize the shipment along with a coalition of non-government organizations. "We hand over the aid in good faith."

The Rohingya have long faced official and social persecution in Myanmar, a majority-Buddhist country. Most do not have citizenship and are regarded as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, even when their families have lived in Myanmar's Rakhine state for generations.

The conflict has been simmering for years but there are worrying signs that it is escalating into an armed insurgency, according to a recent report by the International Crisis Group.

The army launched its most recent crackdown in October following attacks on guard posts near the Bangladesh border that killed nine police officers. According to ICG, the border attacks were coordinated by a new insurgent group calling itself Harakah al-Yaqin, or the Faith Movement.

Organized by a network of Rohingya in Saudi Arabia and bankrolled by wealthy donors, the militant group is drawing Muslims disillusioned and desperate from years of disenfranchisement by the Myanmar government, the report said.

The government has denied abuses and has blocked independent journalists and aid workers from visiting the military's operation zone in Rakhine. On Wednesday, the country's leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, said a government-appointed commission on Rakhine will investigate some of the recent accusations of abuse.

"Where there is clear evidence of abuses and violations, the government will take necessary measures," she said in a statement carried by the country's state-run newspaper.

When Malaysia first proposed the flotilla in December, Myanmar officials said they would turn it away. In January they said they'd permit the vessel, but that it had to dock in Yangon instead of Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine.

Malaysia, which has a Muslim majority, is an outspoken critic of Myanmar's treatment of the Rohingya. Last month, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak slammed Myanmar for letting the abuses continue.

On Thursday, dozens of Buddhist monks protested outside the port where the aid ship arrived, denying that the ethnic group Rohingya even exists. Many in Myanmar refer to the Rohingya as Bengalis, suggesting they belong in Bangladesh.

"We can accept if the ship is coming to help the Bengalis and we are not trying to stop the donation," said Win Ko Ko Lat, the leader of Myanmar Buddhist Nationalists Network. "But we want them to know that there is no Rohingya in Myanmar. This is our campaign."

A detailed report released last week by the U.N.'s human rights agency alleging widespread killing and rape by Myanmar government security forces has intensified international concern about the Rohingyas' plight.

On Wednesday, Pope Francis appealed for prayers for the Rohingya ethnic minority.

"These are good people, peaceful people," Francis said. "They're not Christians, but they're good, our brothers and sisters. And they have been suffering for years. They've been tortured and killed, simply because they are continuing their traditions, their Muslim faith. Let us pray for them," he said.

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AP writer Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, contributed to this report.

A Malaysian ship with national flags arrives at Thilawa port in Yangon, Myanmar, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. The "Food Flotilla for Myanmar" carrying 2,300 tons of food and medicine to help members of Myanmar's persecuted Muslim Rohingya minority arrived in Yangon as rights groups accuse the army of mass killings, rapes and other crimes targeting the ethnic group. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

A Myanmar port worker holding a flag watches a Malaysian ship at Thilawa port in Yangon, Myanmar, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. The "Food Flotilla for Myanmar" carrying 2,300 tons of food and medicine to help members of Myanmar's persecuted Muslim Rohingya minority arrived in Yangon as rights groups accuse the army of mass killings, rapes and other crimes targeting the ethnic group. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Myanmar protesters hold banners outside Thilawa port where a Malaysian ship arrived, in Yangon, Myanmar, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. The "Food Flotilla for Myanmar" carrying 2,300 tons of food and medicine to help members of Myanmar's persecuted Muslim Rohingya minority arrived in Yangon as rights groups accuse the army of mass killings, rapes and other crimes targeting the ethnic group. The monks protested, denying that the ethnic group Rohingya even exists. Many in Myanmar refer to the Rohingya as Bengalis, suggesting they belong in Bangladesh. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Myanmar Buddhist monks holding religious flags stand during a protest outside Thilawa port where a Malaysian ship arrived in Yangon, Myanmar, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. The "Food Flotilla for Myanmar" carrying 2,300 tons of food and medicine to help members of Myanmar's persecuted Muslim Rohingya minority arrived in Yangon as rights groups accuse the army of mass killings, rapes and other crimes targeting the ethnic group. The monks protested, denying that the ethnic group Rohingya even exists. Many in Myanmar refer to the Rohingya as Bengalis, suggesting they belong in Bangladesh. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Win Ko Ko Lat, a leader of the Myanmar Buddhist Nationalists Network, stands along with Buddhist monks during a protest outside Thilawa port where a Malaysian ship arrived, in Yangon, Myanmar, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. The "Food Flotilla for Myanmar" carrying 2,300 tons of food and medicine to help members of Myanmar's persecuted Muslim Rohingya minority arrived in Yangon as rights groups accuse the army of mass killings, rapes and other crimes targeting the ethnic group. The monks protested, denying that the ethnic group Rohingya even exists. Many in Myanmar refer to the Rohingya as Bengalis, suggesting they belong in Bangladesh. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Malaysian officials stand on the deck as a Malaysian ship arrives at Thilawa port in Yangon, Myanmar, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. The "Food Flotilla for Myanmar" carrying 2,300 tons of food and medicine to help members of Myanmar's persecuted Muslim Rohingya minority arrived in Yangon as rights groups accuse the army of mass killings, rapes and other crimes targeting the ethnic group. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)

Myanmar protesters hold banners outside Thilawa port where a Malaysian ship arrived, in Yangon, Myanmar, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. The "Food Flotilla for Myanmar" carrying 2,300 tons of food and medicine to help members of Myanmar's persecuted Muslim Rohingya minority arrived in Yangon as rights groups accuse the army of mass killings, rapes and other crimes targeting the ethnic group. The protesters deny that the ethnic group Rohingya even exists. Many in Myanmar refer to the Rohingya as Bengalis, suggesting they belong in Bangladesh. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)
Polish official highlights security, Russian aggression

WARSAW, Poland (AP)  Poland's foreign minister said Thursday that it is a priority for his country to strengthen cooperation between the U.S. and Europe in the area of security and that he is concerned about the "aggressive policies of Russia in Eastern Europe."

Witold Waszczykowski made his remarks during a traditional yearly address to parliament. Among those in the audience were President Andrzej Duda, Prime Minister Beata Szydlo and foreign diplomats.

He said despite Russian polices he still sees a role for dialogue.

Poland's Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski,right, delivers a speech to stress the need to strengthen the region's security and prevent a further disintegration of the European Union, in parliament in Warsaw, Poland, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Waszczykowski also said Poland's ties are changing with Belarus, the authoritarian state on Poland's eastern border, noting that there have been more visits and meetings with Belarusian officials. The goal is to develop cooperation in trade and economy.

It marks a shift in Poland's foreign policy under the conservative government, which believes that the earlier policy of shunning Belarusian leaders while supporting democratic opposition groups was ineffective.

Waszczykowski also touched on Brexit, saying his government is making it a priority to protect the rights acquired by the hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens living in the U.K. and to put Polish interests on the agenda in discussions on the shape of the EU post-Brexit.

He said that Poland would play a constructive role in those discussions.

"The priority of the government is to repair the European Union, not to dismantle it," he said.

But the head of the main opposition party said the current foreign policy was "shortsighted, irresponsible, chaotic."

Grzegorz Schetyna of the pro-EU Civic Platform party, foreign minister in 2014-15, said the current course is squandering the achievements of previous governments, for example though neglecting close cooperation with Berlin and Paris in the so-called Weimar Triangle and turning toward Hungary which, he said, is "opening Europe up to Russia."

Poland's Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski,right, delivers a speech to stress the need to strengthen the region's security and prevent a further disintegration of the European Union, in parliament in Warsaw, Poland, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
In Sweden, television team convicted of human smuggling

STOCKHOLM (AP)  Three employees with Swedish broadcaster SVT have been sentenced to community work after being convicted of human smuggling for bringing a 15-year Syrian boy to Sweden during the 2015 migrant influx that swept across Europe.

The Malmo's District Court said Thursday it was "obvious the SVT team helped for purely humanitarian reasons."

Reporter Fredrik Onnevall, his cameraman and interpreter were making a documentary on the migrants when they met an unaccompanied minor in Greece who wanted to go to Sweden. They wanted to document his trip by car, ferry and train.

Before the court, Onnevall admitted paying for a car rental and knowing the boy had false papers. In Sweden, the then-15-year-old boy was granted permanent asylum.
Kremlin: no Ukraine 'deal' with US possible

MOSCOW (AP)  Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman is rejecting suggestions that the Kremlin and the Trump Administration may try to negotiate a deal over the war in eastern Ukraine.

Last week saw a surge in fighting between government forces and Russia-backed separatist rebels. The fighting, which killed more than 30 people, came amid concerns that President Donald Trump's stated desire to improve relations with Russia could lead to lifting of U.S. sanctions against Russia connected to its interference in Ukraine.
Kosovo oppos'n lawmaker detained for disrupting parliament

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP)  Kosovo police say they have taken into custody an opposition lawmaker wanted for questioning over suspicions of disrupting the parliament with the use of tear gas.

A statement Thursday said Aida Derguti of the Self-Determination Movement has been taken to the court in the capital, Pristina.

For a year opposition lawmakers used tear gas, blew whistles and threw water bottles to prevent the parliament from approving a border demarcation deal with Montenegro deal and another one with Serbia that gives more powers to ethnic Serbs in Kosovo. Street rallies by opposition supporters routinely turned into violent clashes with police.

The opposition is concerned Kosovo would lose land and sovereignty, which the government denies.
UK's foreign secretary renounces US citizenship

LONDON (AP)  Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who was born in New York, has renounced his American citizenship.

Johnson's name appeared on a U.S. government list Wednesday of people who had given up their citizenship last year.

Johnson had called his dual nationality an accident of birth, and had described American tax laws as being outrageous. He had previously settled a U.S. capital gains tax bill for the sale of a London home before going on a U.S. tour in 2015

British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson arrives for a meeting of EU foreign ministers at the EU Council building on Monday, Feb. 6, 2017. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)
Members of UK sex grooming gang face deportation to Pakistan

LONDON (AP)  Four men convicted of grooming girls for sex in a case that fueled racial tensions in Britain face deportation to Pakistan after a judge on Thursday upheld a government decision to strip them of British citizenship.

The ruling by an immigration tribunal clears the way for the men, all of Pakistani nationality, to be removed from Britain. They acquired British citizenship by naturalization.

They were among nine men of Pakistani and Afghan descent convicted of luring girls as young as 13 into sexual encounters using alcohol and drugs. They were based in Rochdale, in northern England.

Among the four facing deportation is ringleader Shabir Ahmed, sentenced in 2012 to 22 years in jail. The other three are Adil Khan, Qari Abdul Rauf and Abdul Aziz.

Ahmed, who was convicted of rape as well as other charges, remains in custody, while the other three men have been released on license to serve their sentences outside of jail.

Khan, Rauf and Aziz were convicted on conspiracy and trafficking for sexual exploitation charges. Aziz was not convicted of having sexual intercourse with any child.

The judge at the hearing in the upper tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber, Mr Justice Bernard McCloskey, described their crimes as "shocking, brutal and repulsive."

His decision rejected claims concerning human rights laws and a complaint of "disproportionate interference" with their rights.

The case centers on a decision by Prime Minister Theresa May, when she was home secretary, to strip the men's citizenship "for the public good."

The five victims of the gang who gave evidence in the 2012 trial were all white, and spoke of being raped, assaulted and traded for sex, being passed from man to man, and sometimes being too drunk to stop the abuses.

The men, ranging in age from 22 to 59, used various defenses, including claiming the girls were prostitutes.

The decision on Thursday was the first step in what could be a drawn-out process, and the Home Office must fulfill a number of steps before the men can be lawfully deported. The four men can apply for permission to appeal the judge's decision.

McCloskey told the hearing that the road to removing the men from Britain "involved all of the formalities, procedures, rights and protections which decisions of this kind entail."

Rochdale lawmaker Simon Danczuk said the four men who appeared at the tribunal on Thursday should be deported to Pakistan as soon as possible.

"Foreign-born criminals should not be able to hide behind human rights laws to avoid deportation," Danczuk said.

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9 killed when US sub hit Japanese fishing ship remembered

HONOLULU (AP)  Families and friends of nine people killed when a U.S. Navy submarine accidentally rammed into a Japanese fishing ship off Hawaii 16 years ago remembered their loved ones at a ceremony Thursday.

Those killed were on board the Ehime Maru, a training vessel for fisheries students from Ehime, Japan. The submarine's rudder sliced into the ship's hull some 6 miles offshore.

"From critical sadness Ehime and Hawaii united to form a special bond, with a commitment to work towards the beneficial exchanges of goodwill, friendship and understanding," Hawaii Gov. David Ige told more than 100 people gathered for the ceremony.

Tatsuyoshi Mizuguchi, whose son, Takeshi, died aboard the Ehime Maru, bows his head in front of the memorial during the 17th anniversary memorial ceremony for the Ehime Maru at Kakaako Waterfront Park, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017, in Honolulu. Families and friends of nine people killed when a U.S. Navy submarine accidentally rammed into a Japanese fishing ship off Hawaii 16 years ago remembered their loved ones at a ceremony Thursday. (Jamm Aquino/The Star-Advertiser via AP)

This year's ceremony carried special significance under Buddhist custom because it marked the start of the 17th year since the deaths  a special time for healing and remembrance.

Buddhist tradition counts the moment of death as the first year of passing.

A Navy investigation found the USS Greenville's captain had rushed through mandatory safety procedures while demonstrating an emergency surfacing drill for the benefit of civilians touring the submarine.

The report said the captain didn't want the submarine to be late returning to Pearl Harbor with the 16 guests.

The Navy uses the Ehime Maru accident as a case study to teach prospective submarine officers what not to do.

It prompted the service to change the way squadron commanders monitor their submarines with the hope that supervision will prevent future collisions.

Family members of the children who died aboard the Ehime Maru, a training vessel for fisheries students from Ehime, make a floral tribute with lei during the 17th anniversary memorial ceremony at Kakaako Waterfront Park, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017, in Honolulu. This year's ceremony carried special significance under Buddhist custom because it marked the start of the 17th year since the nine deaths  a special time for healing and remembrance. (Jamm Aquino/The Star-Advertiser via AP)

Tokihiro Nakamura, left, governor of Ehime Prefecture, presents a wreath during the 17th anniversary memorial ceremony for the Ehime Maru at Kakaako Waterfront Park, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017, in Honolulu. Families and friends of nine people killed when a U.S. Navy submarine accidentally rammed into a Japanese fishing ship off Hawaii 16 years ago remembered their loved ones at a ceremony Thursday. (Jamm Aquino/The Star-Advertiser via AP)

Uwajima Fisheries High School students observe a moment of silence in memory of nine people killed when a U.S. Navy submarine accidentally rammed into the Ehime Maru, a training vessel for the fisheries students, 16 years ago off Hawaii during a ceremony Friday, Feb. 10, 2017, at the memorial of the accident at the school in Uwajima, Ehime Prefecture, Japan. The submarine's rudder sliced into the ship's hull some 6 miles offshore. This year's ceremony carried special significance under Buddhist custom because it marked the start of the 17th year since the deaths  a special time for healing and remembrance. (Tetsuo Hiroyama/Kyodo News via AP)

Families and friends of nine people killed when a U.S. Navy submarine accidentally rammed into the Ehime Maru, a training vessel for fisheries students from Ehime, Japan, 16 years ago off Hawaii offer leis during a ceremony Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017, at the Ehime Maru Memorial at Kakaako Waterfront Park in Honolulu. The submarine's rudder sliced into the ship's hull some 6 miles offshore. This year's ceremony carried special significance under Buddhist custom because it marked the start of the 17th year since the deaths  a special time for healing and remembrance. (Mikako Kubo/Kyodo News via AP)

Uwajima Fisheries High School representatives offer paper cranes folded by all the school students in memory of nine people killed when a U.S. Navy submarine accidentally rammed into the Ehime Maru, a training vessel for the fisheries students from Ehime, Japan, 16 years ago off Hawaii during a ceremony Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017, at the Ehime Maru Memorial at Kakaako Waterfront Park in Honolulu. The submarine's rudder sliced into the ship's hull some 6 miles offshore. This year's ceremony carried special significance under Buddhist custom because it marked the start of the 17th year since the deaths  a special time for healing and remembrance. (Mikako Kubo/Kyodo News via AP)

Families and friends of nine people killed when a U.S. Navy submarine accidentally rammed into the Ehime Maru, a training vessel for fisheries students from Ehime, Japan, 16 years ago off Hawaii offer prayers during a ceremony Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017, at the Ehime Maru Memorial at Kakaako Waterfront Park in Honolulu. The submarine's rudder sliced into the ship's hull some 6 miles offshore. This year's ceremony carried special significance under Buddhist custom because it marked the start of the 17th year since the deaths  a special time for healing and remembrance. (Mikako Kubo/Kyodo News via AP)

FILE - In this Feb. 9, 2011 file photo, flowers and lei are placed on the Ehime Maru Memorial at Kakaako Waterfront Park Ehime Maru Memorial Service at Kakaako Waterfront Park in Honolulu. The families of nine people killed when a U.S. Navy submarine rammed into a Japanese fishing ship off Hawaii 16 years ago are set to remember their loved ones. The families will attend a ceremony Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017 on a Honolulu hill overlooking the ocean where the vessels collided. (AP Photo/Eugene Tanner, File)

FILE - In this Feb. 18, 2001 file photo, a blue tarp covers the damaged area of the USS Greeneville docked at Pearl Harbor as it undergoes repairs in Honolulu. The submarine's rudder and port side were damaged after it collided with a Japanese fishing vessel Ehime Maru nine miles south of Oahu on Feb. 9, 2001. The families of nine people killed when the submarine rammed into a Japanese fishing ship off Hawaii 16 years ago are set to remember their loved ones. The families will attend a ceremony Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017 on a Honolulu hill overlooking the ocean where the vessels collided. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian, File)

FILE - In this Dec. 26, 2016 file photo, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, center, and delegation bow at the Ehime Maru Memorial at Kakaako Waterfront Park in Honolulu. The memorial is dedicated to the victims of a 2001 deadly collision off the coast of Hawaii between the Ehime Maru, a fisheries training vessel, and a U.S. naval submarine. The families of nine people killed when the submarine rammed into the ship off Hawaii 16 years ago are set to remember their loved ones. The families will attend a ceremony Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017 on a Honolulu hill overlooking the ocean where the vessels collided. (AP Photo/Marco Garcia, File)

FILE - In this Dec. 26, 2016 file photo, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, center, and delegation bow at the Ehime Maru Memorial at Kakaako Waterfront Park in Honolulu. The memorial is dedicated to the victims of a 2001 deadly collision off the coast of Hawaii between the Ehime Maru, a fisheries training vessel, and a U.S. naval submarine. The families of nine people killed when the submarine rammed into the ship off Hawaii 16 years ago are set to remember their loved ones. The families will attend a ceremony Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017 on a Honolulu hill overlooking the ocean where the vessels collided. (AP Photo/Marco Garcia, File)
Israel protests Belgium PM's meeting with critical groups

JERUSALEM (AP)  Israel has reprimanded Belgium's ambassador over the Belgian prime minister's meetings with liberal Israeli groups critical of the government's policies.

Israel's Foreign Ministry says Ambassador Olivier Belle appeared Thursday for the reprimand, took note of it and transmitted the complaint to Brussels.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the measure after visiting Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel met with members of the human rights group B'Tselem and Breaking the Silence, a group of former Israeli combat soldiers who criticize Israeli policies in the occupied West Bank.

Many Israeli leaders have portrayed the latter group as traitors, in part because their reports and lectures are often aimed at foreign audiences.
Prosecutors seek maximum sentence for alleged cyber bully

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP)  Dutch prosecutors on Thursday sought the maximum possible sentence  nearly 11 years  for a man charged with cyberbullying dozens of young girls and gay men and who is also wanted in Canada for his alleged involvement in a high-profile online abuse case.

In an emotional closing statement, prosecutor Annet Kramer urged judges at a court in Amsterdam to sentence the 38-year-old suspect, identified only as Aydin C., to 10 years and eight months in prison, saying he subjected some of his victims to years of emotional abuse.

"To do justice in any way to the gravity of the facts, and the refined way in which the suspect systematically put his own interests far above those of his victims, the prosecution believes that there is no room to impose anything other than the maximum sentence," Kramer told judges at a high-security Amsterdam courthouse, according to a written copy of her statement.

In Canada, C. faces a separate trial in the cyberbullying of Amanda Todd, a 15-year-old girl who drew global attention to online abuse when she posted a YouTube video recounting her ordeal. She later took her own life.

In that case, C. faces charges including extortion, possession of child pornography and attempting to lure a child online. A Dutch court has approved the suspect's extradition following his trial in Amsterdam. He has appealed that decision and denies involvement in any cyber bullying.

Todd brought cyber bullying to mainstream attention in Canada and around the world in 2012 by posting a video in which she told her story with handwritten signs, describing how she was lured by a stranger to expose her breasts on a webcam.

The picture ended up on a Facebook page made by the stranger, to which her friends were added. She was repeatedly bullied, despite changing schools, before finally taking her own life weeks after posting the video

In his Dutch trial, the man faces more than 70 charges linked to the alleged abuse of 34 young girls and five gay men.

Prosecutors allege that the suspect used aliases on online chat sites to portray himself as a woman or boy to befriend his victims. He would persuade them to strip in front of their webcams and then use the images to blackmail them, according to prosecutors, threatening to post the images online if they did not perform more sex acts in front of their webcams.

Kramer used her closing remarks to pay tribute to Todd's mother, Carol, who watched parts of the trial.
German town stops playing kids' song after vegan complains

BERLIN (AP)  A town in Germany has stopped playing a popular children's song about a fox who steals a goose after a complaint from a vegan.

Limburg's town spokesman Johannes Laubach told the dpa news agency Thursday a local woman had asked the mayor to remove the tune from the town hall's mechanical carillon.

Laubach said the mayor had temporarily granted her request. The carillon  a series of bells  has a repertoire of 33 tunes, including 15 German children's songs, that are played several times a day.

The Frankfurter Neue Presse newspaper reports the woman was upset by being reminded of the song's words  "the hunter's going to get you with his gun," rather than by the fox's theft of the goose.

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Air Force test-launches Minuteman missile from California

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP)  The Air Force says an unarmed Minuteman 3 missile has been launched from California's central coast in the latest test of the intercontinental system.

The missile blasted off at 11:39 p.m. PDT Wednesday from Vandenberg Air Force Base northwest of Los Angeles.

The Air Force says the missile carried test re-entry vehicles that headed for a target area 4,200 miles away to the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean.

The Air Force routinely uses Vandenberg to test Minuteman missiles from bases around the country.
Woman pleads not guilty in case of kidnapped Florida baby

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP)  A South Carolina woman accused of taking a baby from a Jacksonville, Florida, hospital and raising the child as her own has pleaded not guilty to charges of kidnapping and interference of custody.

The Florida Times-Union (http://bit.ly/2lnXhDR ) reports 51-year-old Gloria Bolden Williams was in court Thursday morning. She's been in jail since her Jan. 13 arrest and faces life in prison if convicted.

Authorities say Williams took baby shortly after she was born on July 10, 1998. She raised the child in Walterboro, South Carolina, under the name of Alexis Manigo.

Court records say Williams told the girl more than a year ago that she was given the name Kamiyah Mobley at birth. The teen told a friend who contacted the Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

The girl met her birth parents last month.

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German court convicts far-right politician over arson attack

BERLIN (AP)  A German court has convicted a far-right politician for burning down a building intended as housing for refugees.

The Potsdam court sentenced 29-year-old Maik Schneider, a member of the National Democratic Party , to eight years imprisonment for arson Thursday.

The dpa news agency reports that Schneider was given an additional prison term of 18 months for separate offenses.

FILE - In this Aug. 26, 2015 file picture police officers and their sniffer dog examine the ruins of a burned out gym in Nauen, Germany. A German court has convicted a far-right politician for burning down the building intended as housing for refugees. The Potsdam court sentenced 29-year-old Maik Schneider, a member of the National Democratic Party, to eight years imprisonment for arson Thursday. Feb. 9, 2017. ( Nestor Bachmann/dpa via AP,file)

Another defendant, who wasn't identified by dpa, also was sentenced to eight years for the arson. Four other people received suspended sentences ranging from eight months to two years.

The attack in August 2015 destroyed a gym in the village of Nauen, about 15 kilometers (9 miles) west of Berlin.
French court: Dating site can keep promoting infidelity

PARIS (AP)  Dating site Gleeden can keep singing the praises of cheating, a French court ruled Thursday in throwing out a complaint from a federation of Catholic families that the site's business model is immoral and illegal because it encourages extramarital affairs.

A Paris civil court said that promoting infidelity in advertisements wasn't unlawful because adultery isn't a criminal offense in France and that cheating on one's spouse is a private matter.

"It is a victory of freedom of speech over religious bigotry," Caroline Mecary, the lawyer for Gleeden, told The Associated Press. "The plaintiff sought to use legal proceedings to promote a reactionary and conservative vision of the couple and the family, but the court was not fooled."

The Gleeden web site is displayed on a computer screen in Paris, France, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. A French court has thrown out a complaint by a federation of Catholic families that dating site Gleeden's business model is illegal and anti-social because it encourages extramarital affairs. (AP Photo/Laurent Rebours)

Mecary said the case was the first of its kind to be brought to a French court.

Gleeden, a website founded by two French businessmen in 2009 with headquarters in New York, is mainly for married women and men looking to date other married people. It claims to be a world leader in the market of online extramarital dating, with a presence in more than 150 countries.

The National Confederation of Catholic Family Associations had asked the court to ban Gleeden from referring to extramarital relations in its communications and to say that the contracts between the website and its 3 million users were unlawful and void, which would have hampered the very activity of the dating site.

The French Catholic association had accused Gleeden of helping people commit adultery and break one of the obligations of marriage. The dating site was also seen by the group as promoting "anti-social behaviors" for business purposes.

But the court ruled that the federation was not eligible to file a complaint because the legal issues around infidelity only can be raised within a private marital relationship and because cheating on one's spouse doesn't always rise to a civil violation.

"The reference to infidelity cannot be characterized as unlawful action since the breach of the duty of fidelity does not necessarily constitute a fault," the ruling said.

Gleeden says its users are responsible adults and that no ads or websites can convince people to cheat on their spouses if they are not already willing to do so.

"The site addresses demands, but doesn't create them," the company said in its pleadings.

Mecary said the federation's complaint showed a willingness to undermine France's traditional secularism.

"What would have been said had the complaint been filed by an association of Muslim families?" she said.

The Catholic association, which claims 35,000 families as members, has yet to decide whether to appeal Thursday's ruling. It's lawyer, Erwan Le Morhedec, said he thinks there is legal grounds for an appeal.

"Freedom of speech, especially in the advertising field, has legal limits," he told The AP in a phone interview.
Glenn Close revisits 'most challenging role I've ever had'

NEW YORK (AP)  Returning to reprise one of her most iconic stage triumphs was relatively easy for Glenn Close. All she had to do was go to her closet.

The actress keeps and stores most of her old costumes, including all the glorious ones she last wore playing the delusional former film star Norma Desmond in "Sunset Boulevard." So for a new version of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical for London last year, she volunteered to dig them out, including all the wigs. She even had Desmond's chimpanzee puppet.

Most people can't fit into their clothes from five years ago. But Close, 69, who is wiry with close-cropped white hair, had few problems putting on elegant dresses more than two decades later.

FILE - This Nov. 2, 2015 file photo shows Glenn Close during a photo call for the musical "Sunset Boulevard" in London. Close is reprising her Tony-winning role as Norma Desmond in the English National Opera's stripped-down revival of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP, File)

"Some of the ones, I have to say, had to be altered a little bit. It's not like I'm the same size I was 22 years ago," she said, laughing. "I have to say not hugely, but enough."

Audiences will get to see her in them on Broadway as Close brings "Sunset Boulevard " to the Palace Theatre with a 40-piece orchestra. She won a Tony Award in 1995 as Desmond but hasn't checked her off her bucket list, calling it "one of the greatest stories ever written."

"I'm always in for a challenge and this is the most challenging role I've ever had in my career. It's physically challenging, it's musically challenging, it's emotionally challenging," she said. "It keeps you really alive."

"Sunset Boulevard," based on the Billy Wilder film, tells the story of a faded film star who recruits a young writer to help relaunch her career, with disastrous results. It has the immortal line, "All right Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up" and the songs "With One Look," ''As If We Never Said Goodbye" and "Perfect Year."

The latest version took London by storm under the direction of Lonny Price, who has stripped down the show, tells it from the point of view of the young writer and sets it in an abandoned soundstage. He asked Close to be as natural as possible.

"Really, it's a middle-aged woman fighting for life, in her career and in her personal life. So I think it's more human and, I hope, more emotional in some ways," Price said. "I think you may admire it less and love it more."

Close was last on Broadway in 2014 in a revival of the play "A Delicate Balance." Her film and TV roles include "Dangerous Liaisons," ''Air Force One," ''Fatal Attraction" and "Damages."

She said the poignancy of Norma's story hasn't diminished as Hollywood continues its love affair with youth. "A woman who gets older has a harder time finding great parts  great parts that match the power they have. That's never going to change," she said.

Michael Xavier, who plays Close's love interest, is making his Broadway debut and calls it a "complete dream come true." He used to blast and sing "Sunset Boulevard" songs in his bedroom when he was 15 years old.

Now he finds himself in one of four Lloyd Webber musicals simultaneously playing on Broadway  joining "The Phantom of the Opera," ''Cats" and "School of Rock." It's a feat only matched by the great Richard Rodgers.

"I think the reason Andrew Lloyd Webber endures is because he's such a fantastic composer. The music is so resonate. It captures the essence of the story," said Xavier.

For Lloyd Webber, landing Close again was a coup because he thinks she adds a special dimension to the role: "She is and has been a screen goddess. So you kind of get the thought, 'Oh yes, she could have been a silent movie star.' It's all there."

Close joked that there was another reason she was chosen: "I had the monkey."

____

Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits
No credible threat found after American flight diverted

ST. LOUIS (AP)  A threat that caused an American Airlines flight to be diverted to St. Louis has been deemed not credible by law enforcement, though the incident prompted an FBI investigation and use of bomb-sniffing dogs.

Flight 534 left Columbus, Ohio, and was heading for Phoenix when it landed at Lambert Airport at 8:14 a.m. Thursday. The FBI says the pilot decided to divert the plane, but spokeswoman Rebecca Wu declined to say what specifically led to that decision.

The 113 passengers and five crew members were taken by bus to the terminal while dogs examined the plane and baggage. Wu says there was no credible threat.
Brazil state transfers public safety operations to army

SAO PAULO (AP)  The southeastern Brazilian state of Espirito Santo has turned over security duties to the army as it tries to solve a police crisis that has led to a wave of violence and at least 100 deaths.

The decree authorizing the transfer was published Wednesday in the state's official gazette.

The killings in the state capital of Vitoria and other cities erupted as friends and family of military police officers blocked their barracks over the weekend to demand higher pay for the officers.

Erlita Pereira Goncalves shows police and photographers the casings of bullets she said were used to kill her son Nelson Eduardo in Vitoria, Espirito Santo state, Brazil, Thursday, Feb 9, 2017. Goncalves said her 30-year-old son was shot dead by attackers who broke into their home and killed him in front of her. (AP Photo/Diego Herculano)

Brazil's Military Police force patrols the nation's cities and is barred by law from going on strike.

The union representing civil police officers said 101 people have been killed since police stopped patrolling the streets Friday night. The state government has not released a death toll.

Some buses circulated for a few hours Thursday morning, but union officials ordered them off the streets after union leader Walace Belmiro Fernaziari was shot dead near a bus terminal.

The union said gunmen threatened two bus drivers, telling them they would set fire to buses that circulated.

At least two buses have been torched over the past six days in the state capital of Vitoria and several stores have been looted. Some shopping malls opened for a limited number of hours. Schools remained closed and medical services at public hospitals were interrupted.

CORRECTS SPELLING OF "ERLITA" - Nelson Eduardo Conclaves lays in a pool of blood as a neighbor stands over him in Vitoria, Espirito Santo state, Brazil, Thursday, Feb 9, 2017. According to his mother Erlita Pereira Goncalves, her 30-year-old son was shot dead by attackers who broke into their home and killed him in front of her. (AP Photo/Diego Herculano)

CORRECTS SPELLING OF "ERLITA" - Erlita Pereira Goncalves stands in shock after watching her son get shot to death at their home in Vitoria, Espirito Santo state, Brazil, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. Goncalves said her 30-year-old son Nelson Eduardo Conclaves was shot dead by attackers who broke into their home and killed him in front of her. (AP Photo/Diego Herculano)
French farmer faces risk of prison for helping migrants

PARIS (AP)  Cedric Herrou remains defiant ahead of a court ruling that could see him jailed for sheltering illegal migrants.

The French activist who was put on trial for helping migrants without authorization to enter, travel through and remain in France had more people from Africa staying on his farm Thursday.

"The more they pressure us, the stronger we are," Herrou told The Associated Press as he prepared for the verdict expected Friday.

FILE - In this Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2017 file picture, Cedric Herrou, a French activist farmer who faces up to five years in prison as he goes on trial accused of helping African migrants cross the border from Italy, waits outside the Nice courthouse, southern France. Cedric Herrou remains defiant: Ahead of a court ruling that could see him jailed for sheltering migrants, the French activist has more arrivals from Africa staying on his farm. (AP Photo/Claude Paris, File)

Herrou's case has brought attention to Europeans who have resisted the anti-migrant sentiment stewing on the continent and are offering food, lodging or other aid to people arriving illegally from impoverished or war-torn countries.

There has been a notable outpouring of support in the Roya valley in the French Alps, where Herrou has taken in dozens of migrants over the past year.

He has called it an act of humanity and not a crime, and says it is his civic duty to keep helping the migrants.

On Thursday, he still had teenagers from Sudan and Eritrea staying in caravans on his farm.

The court could sentence him to up to five years in prison and 30,000 euros ($32,000) in fines if a guilty verdict is delivered.

Lucia Palermo, a 36-year-old artist from the Italian border town of Vintimiglia, was among several people that demonstrated in support of Herrou last month.

"I'm concerned by the fact that if we show solidarity with a European, there is no problem. But if you show solidarity with a migrant ... it's a problem. This concerns me a lot," Palermo said.
Trudeau to visit Trump in Washington on Monday

TORONTO (AP)  Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is to have his first meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday.

The White House said the leaders will discuss "strengthening the relationship" between their countries.

"Strong Canada-U.S. ties help the middle class in both our countries," Trudeau tweeted Thursday. "Monday, I'll meet @realDonaldTrump in D.C. to keep working for that goal."

FILE - In this Nov. 29, 2016 file photo, Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau holds a press conference at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa, Ontario. On Monday, Feb. 13, 2017, President Donald Trump will welcome Trudeau to the White House. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP, File)

Trump has said he wants to discuss his plan to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement, which involves the United States, Canada and Mexico. Trump has said NAFTA puts U.S. workers at a disadvantage.

The meeting is crucial for Canada as the country is heavily reliant on the U.S. for trade. More than 75 percent of Canada's exports go to the U.S. Of the 50 U.S. states, 35 count Canada as their leading export market. There are fears Canada could unintentionally be sideswiped as Trump negotiates with Mexico.

Trump's refugee and immigration ban may also come up in the discussions with Trudeau.

After Trump signed the executive order pausing entries to the U.S. from seven Muslim-majority nations, Trudeau tweeted that Canada welcomed people fleeing persecution, terrorism and war. Trudeau said "diversity is our strength."

Trudeau's top spokeswoman said then the prime minister was looking forward discussing Canada's immigration and refugee policy with Trump.

Three of Trudeau's top cabinet ministers already have been meeting with U.S. officials in Washington.

Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau said from Washington on Thursday that there's always an opportunity to improve on NAFTA.

"Those who are here understand that this is a key relationship we have with the United States and the figures are there to back that up," Morneau said.

Canada's foreign minister warned the Trump administration on Wednesday that her country will retaliate if the U.S. applies new tariffs. Chrystia Freeland visited U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday after meeting with House Speaker Paul Ryan and Sens. John McCain and Bob Corker on Tuesday.
Top-selling Greek daily Ta Nea suspends publication

ATHENS, Greece (AP)  Greece's long-dominant Lambrakis Press has suspended publication of top-selling daily Ta Nea due to acute financial problems which prevented the purchase of newsprint.

Ta Nea's sister-paper, weekly To Vima, said on its website Thursday an issue of Ta Nea might be printed Saturday, provided the necessary funds are procured. It was unclear whether To Vima would be printed Sunday.

Greece's media have been particularly badly hit by the country's financial crisis.

Lambrakis Press, which includes magazines and a radio station, had its assets frozen by creditor banks.

Ta Nea and To Vima have been highly critical of Greece's left-led government, and accuse it of an inimical stance that contributed to the group's downfall.
McDonald's is planning to launch a crab sandwich in the San Francisco Bay area.

The fast good giant says the sandwich consists of snow crab meat mixed with mayonnaise and served with tomato and lettuce on a sourdough bun.

It says it worked with San Francisco chef and former 'Top Chef' contestant Ryan Scott to create the sandwich.

McDonald's announced on Feb. 9, 2017, that it is testing a crab sandwich in four San Jose, California, restaurants. If successful, it plans to offer the meal at 250 Bay Area restaurants later this year

It's currently being tested in four restaurants in San Jose, California.
US judge finds that Rwandan man was active in 1994 genocide

KIGALI, Rwanda (AP)  A U.S. federal judge has found that a Rwandan man actively participated in the country's 1994 genocide.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Linda Reade in Iowa on Wednesday ruled that Gervais Ngombwa mobilized and incited members of his extremist party to exterminate ethnic Tutsis.

More than 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by Hutu extremists in the genocide.

Rwanda's prosecution spokesman Justin Nkunsi welcomed the ruling Thursday. He said Rwanda's government has petitioned the United States to extradite the 56-year-old Ngombwa.

Ngombwa, who also has been convicted of immigration fraud, now faces more than 10 years in prison.
Teacher wins Berlin compensation case over Muslim headscarf

BERLIN (AP)  A German court has ruled that a teacher who didn't get hired by a Berlin elementary school because she was wearing a Muslim headscarf will receive 8,680 euros ($9,250 dollars) in compensation for discrimination.

A higher labor court judge said Thursday that wearing the headscarf wouldn't have led to tension at the school. The plaintiff, who wasn't identified, had appealed an earlier ruling by a court which had rejected her case. City education authorities can appeal the latest ruling.

Berlin has a so-called neutrality law which says teachers, police officers and judicial employees shouldn't wear religious clothes.
Peter Mansfield, Nobel winner for work on MRI, dies at 83

LONDON (AP)  Physicist Peter Mansfield, who won the Nobel Prize for helping to invent MRI scanners, has died at the age of 83.

The University of Nottingham released a statement from Mansfield's family on Thursday confirming his death a day earlier.

The London-born Mansfield joined the University of Nottingham in central England in 1964 as a lecturer in physics.

FILE - In this Oct. 6, 2003 file photo, British Nobel Prize winner Peter Mansfield poses for a photograph, in Nottingham, England. Physicist Mansfield, who won the Nobel Prize for helping to invent MRI scanners, has died at the age of 83, it was reported on Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. (David Jones/PA via AP, File)

He shared the 2003 Nobel Prize in medicine with U.S. chemist Paul Lauterbur for their work developing magnetic resonance imaging, which uses magnetic fields and radio waves to generate 3-D images of the body's internal organs without potentially harmful X-rays.

In 1978, Mansfield became the first person to step inside a whole-body MRI scanner so it could be tested on a human subject.

Their work revolutionized the detection of disease by revealing internal organs without the need for surgery.

"Few people can look back on a career and conclude that they have changed the world," David Greenaway, vice chancellor of the University of Nottingham, said. "In pioneering MRI, that is exactly what Sir Peter Mansfield has done, he has changed our world for the better."
The Latest: Openings end in Bundy standoff trial in Vegas

LAS VEGAS (AP)  The Latest on trial in Las Vegas for six defendants accused of illegally wielding weapons to block a federal roundup of states' rights advocate Cliven Bundy's cows in April 2014 (all times local):

11:50 a.m.

Opening statements are done and testimony begins Monday for six defendants accused of conspiracy and illegally wielding weapons to block a federal roundup of states' rights advocate Cliven Bundy's cows in April 2014.

Supporters and critics of defendants on trial at the federal courthouse gather Monday, Feb. 6, 2017, in Las Vegas. Jury selection began Monday in Nevada for the federal trial of six defendants accused of taking arms against federal agents herding cattle off public land near Nevada cattleman and states' rights advocate Cliven Bundy's ranch in April 2014. (AP Photo/John Locher)

A prosecutor on Thursday showed photos of each of the six with a rifle, and cast them as having answered Bundy's call to "do whatever it takes" to prevent federal agents from confiscating his cattle.

Defense attorneys told the jury that no one planned an armed standoff with federal Bureau of Land Management agents.

Defendant Todd Engel, serving as his own lawyer, said sure, he had a gun.

But that's legal, he said, and he didn't threaten anyone.

No shots were fired, but the incident reverberated across the West amid an ongoing debate over federal management of vast tracts of public land.

____

10:45 a.m.

Defense lawyers for six men accused of illegally arming themselves in a standoff with federal agents over a roundup of rancher Cliven Bundy's cows say their clients were simply standing up for their beliefs.

The group went on trial in federal court in Las Vegas on Thursday.

Prosecutors say they brought weapons from Idaho, Arizona and Oklahoma to mount a massive armed assault against federal officers in Nevada.

Defendant Todd Engel is serving as his own attorney. He told jurors that he never threatened agents and couldn't conspire with anyone because he arrived in Nevada hours before the standoff.

No shots were fired in the April 2014 standoff, but the incident reverberated across Western rangeland amid the ongoing, heated debate over what critics call federal overreach in the management of vast tracts of public land.

___

10 a.m.

Prosecutors have begun opening statements in Las Vegas in the case against six defendants accused of illegally wielding weapons to block a federal roundup of states' rights advocate Cliven Bundy's cows nearly three years ago.

A chief deputy U.S. attorney is telling a jury Thursday that the men brought weapons from Idaho, Arizona and Oklahoma to Nevada and conspired with Bundy to mount a massive armed assault against federal law enforcement officers.

Defense attorneys are expected to cast their clients as citizens who were only exercising their constitutional free speech and weapon rights.

No shots were fired in the April 2014 standoff near Bunkerville, 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas.

But the incident reverberated across Western rangeland where Bundy is revered by backers for declaring that the property belongs to the people, not the federal government.

____

1:25 a.m.

Trial is opening in Las Vegas for six defendants accused of illegally wielding weapons to block a federal round-up of states' rights advocate Cliven Bundy's cows nearly three years ago.

A U.S. District Court jury will hear Thursday from prosecutors saying the six men deserve prison for conspiring against the government  and from defense attorneys casting their clients as citizens who exercised constitutional free speech and weapon rights.

No shots were fired in the April 2014 standoff near Bunkerville.

But the victory of self-styled militia over federal rangers reverberated across Western rangeland where Bundy is revered by backers for declaring that property belongs to the people, not the government in Washington, D.C.

This trial will also be a preview for trials upcoming for Bundy, four sons and six other defendants.

FILE - In this April 12, 2014, file photo, the Bundy family and their supporters fly the American flag as their cattle is released by the Bureau of Land Management back onto public land outside of Bunkerville, Nev. A federal judge in Nevada is considering crucial rulings about what jurors will hear in the trial of six defendants accused of stopping U.S. agents at gunpoint from rounding up cattle near Cliven Bundy's ranch in April 2014. (Jason Bean/Las Vegas Review-Journal, via AP, File)

FILE - In this April 11, 2015, file photo, Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy speaks with supporters at an event in Bunkerville, Nev. A federal judge in Nevada is considering crucial rulings about what jurors will hear in the trial of six defendants accused of stopping U.S. agents at gunpoint from rounding up cattle near Cliven Bundy's ranch in April 2014. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

Brand Thornton blows a horn in support of defendants on trial at the federal courthouse, Monday, Feb. 6, 2017, in Las Vegas. Jury selection began Monday in Nevada for the federal trial of six defendants accused of taking arms against federal agents herding cattle off public land near Nevada cattleman and states' rights advocate Cliven Bundy's ranch in April 2014. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Carol Bundy, left, wife of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, speaks with supporters outside of the federal courthouse, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017, in Las Vegas. A jury begins to decide Thursday in Las Vegas if six men who wielded weapons to block a federal round-up of cattleman Cliven Bundy's cows in 2014 were citizens exercising constitutional free speech and weapon rights or armed insurrectionists who conspired against the government. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Trump to reaffirm security commitment to Japan PM

WASHINGTON (AP)  President Donald Trump will reaffirm America's commitment to its security alliance with Japan when the nation's prime minister visits the White House on Friday, a senior U.S official said.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe arrived in the U.S. on Thursday, landing at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. At the summit, he will be seeking reassurance from the new president on the U.S. role in Asia, while offering job-creating Japanese investment in the United States to shore up economic ties. Abe will be only the second foreign leader to meet with Trump since the Republican took office last month.

The official said the Trump administration is upholding the U.S. position that its defense treaty with Japan applies to East China Sea islands disputed by Japan and China  a stance opposed by Beijing. The president is expected to speak on that subject, the official said.

The official briefed reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss planning for the trip. Abe is hoping to build a rapport with the former reality TV star, whom he met in New York in November, shortly after Trump's election victory upended U.S. politics.

Their Oval Office meeting Friday will be followed by a joint press conference and a working lunch. Trump will then host Abe and his wife at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida. The pair are scheduled to play golf on Saturday.

Trump's "America First" rhetoric and campaign trail demands that allies pay more for their own defense sowed doubts in Tokyo about the new administration's commitment to an alliance that has underpinned security in the Asia-Pacific since the end of World War II and which Abe has sought to strengthen.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis allayed many of those concerns during a trip last week to Japan and South Korea. Both countries host tens of thousands of U.S. forces  seen as a deterrent against the nuclear threat from North Korea and China's growing assertiveness.

The economic side of the U.S.-Japan relationship is more uncertain.

One of Trump's first actions as president was to withdraw the U.S. from a 12-nation, trans-Pacific trade agreement that was negotiated by the Obama administration and strongly supported by Tokyo.

Trump has also criticized Toyota Motor Corp. for planning to build an assembly plant in Mexico, complained Japanese don't buy enough U.S.-made cars, and accused Japan of engineering its monetary policies to help Japanese exporters, although Tokyo denies manipulating its currency.

Japanese companies are already major employers in the U.S., and Japanese officials say they are hammering out a job-creation package of infrastructure investments to propose during Abe's visit. Japanese media have reported key areas of investment may include building high-speed trains, joint development of robotics, artificial intelligence and space technologies and ramping up imports of U.S. natural gas in Japan and elsewhere in Asia.

Abe has said that Japan may be open to a bilateral trade deal with the U.S., which is Trump's preference, but reaching such a deal would be political difficult. Japan logged the second largest trade surplus with the U.S. last year, similar to the surpluses of Germany and Mexico, but far smaller than China's.
Lawmaker: UK Speaker should quit for criticizing Trump

LONDON (AP)  A British lawmaker is trying to oust the House of Commons Speaker over comments criticizing U.S. President Donald Trump.

Speaker John Bercow said this week that Trump should not be allowed to address Parliament when he pays a state visit to Britain. Bercow cited Trump's migrant ban as well as the U.K.'s "opposition to racism and to sexism."

Bercow's intervention was highly unusual because those in his position are expected to remain above Parliament's partisan fray.

FILE - A Wednesday, June 4, 2014 file photo of Britain's Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow as he walks through Central Lobby before Britain's Queen Elizabeth II delivered the Queen's Speech at the State Opening of Parliament at the Palace of Westminster in London. The Speaker of Britain's House of Commons says he strongly opposes letting U.S. President Donald Trump address Parliament during a state visit to the U.K. John Bercow said Monday, Feb. 6, 2017, that he would have opposed the invitation even before Trump's temporary ban on citizens of seven majority-Muslim nations from entering the U.S. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, Pool, File)

Although Bercow belongs to the governing Conservative Party, he has been criticized by some Conservative lawmakers.

Lawmaker James Duddridge filed a no-confidence motion in Bercow, saying he had "overstepped the mark."
Texas whopper: $4 billion bond set for man in murder case

KILLEEN, Texas (AP)  They say everything is bigger in Texas. It's now safe to say that applies to bail.

Bell County Justice of the Peace Claudia Brown set Antonio Marquis Willis' bond last week at a whopping $4 billion in the Dec. 22 killing of another man at a home in Killeen, about 55 miles north of Austin.

County sheriff's Deputy Chief Chuck Cox said he's never heard of such a high bond, the Temple Daily Telegram reported (http://bit.ly/2knLEss ). The highest amount he had previously seen was $1 million.

Willis' lawyer, Billy Ray Hall Jr., said he's confident the amount will be lowered when Hall makes the request to a state district judge. Hall said he wasn't certain it would be lowered to the point where Willis could afford to post the amount and leave jail until his next court hearing.

Another lawyer, Michael White, said bond is designed to protect the public and ensure a defendant appears in court. It's not meant to be a punitive measure, he said.

"This justice of the peace is abusing the bail process in an attempt to make a name for herself, as opposed to setting a reasonable and affordable bond as required by law," White said. "It makes a mockery of the process and a fool of her."

Lawyer Jeff Parker said the $4 billion bond could be challenged as unconstitutional. The Constitution's Eighth Amendment protects against cruel and unusual punishment and specifically refers to protections against excessive bail or fines.

The Associated Press left a message at Brown's office Thursday asking why she set such an expensive bond. She was elected to her position in November.

Willis, 25, is charged with first-degree murder in the killing of Donte Samuels.
Syria war seethes despite cease-fire

BEIRUT (AP)  Syria's fronts are on fire despite a cease-fire reached in December between the rebels and the government.

Though the two sides sat face-to-face in the Kazakh capital of Astana a month later, the government has pressed offensives against rebels around the capital, Damascus, and recently escalated its air campaigns in Homs and Idlib.

The war's January toll  some 2,000 dead, about a third of them civilians, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group  is the lowest it has been in four years. But that may be because the government wrapped up operations for Aleppo, the country's largest city, last year.

This photo released online on Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017, by the website of the al-Qaida-linked Fatah al-Sham, an anti-government militant group, shows fighters from the al-Qaida-linked Fatah al-Sham Front, preparing to attack government checkpoints in the Homs province, Syria. The war's January toll  some 2,000 dead, about a third of them civilians, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group  is the lowest it has been in four years, but that may be because the government wrapped up operations for Aleppo, the country's largest city, last year. Arabic, bottom, reads: "Preparing the advance fighters before launching the assault on the Tayr and Akeedi checkpoints." (Fatah al-Sham via AP)

Rebels, for their part, struck at government positions in central Hama province, though they have been mostly occupied by infighting in Idlib that calls into question the direction of their insurrection.

In the midst of all this, the Islamic State group has renewed its crusade for the remote eastern city of Deir el-Zour, while holding onto the culturally cherished site of Palmyra. At the same time, Turkish troops and the rival Syrian military are both closing in on the IS-held town of al-Bab, as U.S.-backed Kurdish forces bear down on the extremist's self-declared capital, Raqqa.

Though small and out of the way, al-Bab is shaping up to be the weather vane for the rest of the conflict as the U.N. plans to convene Syria peace talks in Geneva on Feb. 20.

The government and rebels have converged on the town with clashes breaking out between the two sides for the first time on Thursday. Separately, a Russian airstrike killed three Turkish troops in what Russia said was an accident. It is now up to Turkey, Russia and Iran to demonstrate whether they can mediate a stable outcome for the town, or whether the front will dissolve into open warfare. Turkey is backing the rebels and has deployed several thousand troops to fight the Islamic State in al-Bab, while Russia and Iran support the government's side.

Here's a look at the fighting around Syria:

DAMASCUS

Despite a rebel ultimatum delivered in Astana against further aggression around the capital, Syrian government forces along with Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group pressed on with an offensive against rebels holding Damascus's primary water source, and defeated them one week later. About 2,000 rebels, opposition activists and their families chose exile from the Barada valley rather than remaining under government authority.

This has become the hallmark of the government's strategy  to squeeze its opponents through siege then offer them exile. Hundreds of thousands have fled their homes from bombardment across the country, with thousands more fleeing to northwestern Idlib province instead of submitting to government rule. Opponents call the strategy "forced displacement."

Government forces have also intensified their assault on the eastern Ghouta region outside Damascus. Home to some 400,000 people, the area has hardly seen a day without fighting since the rebels expelled the government in 2012. The government justifies its attacks, saying those areas include fighters from the al-Qaida branch in Syria, although the rebels deny that.

Rebel factions are fighting back with tank, artillery, and other heavy weapons fire.

IDLIB

This province in northwestern Syria is now almost entirely under rebel control and has been overwhelmed by hundreds of thousands of people displaced by fighting there and elsewhere.

But it is hardly safe. Multinational aircraft are constantly raiding the province, striking al-Qaida-linked rebels as well as civilian positions. U.S. coalition aircraft are believed to have killed more than 100 al-Qaida-linked fighters on the last day of Barack Obama's presidency, according to the Pentagon, while government or Russian aircraft are believed to be behind a string of raids on the provincial capital, also called Idlib, that killed at least 26 civilians and more than a dozen militants earlier this week, according to the Observatory.

Rebels, meanwhile, are fighting one another in the province as they divide into competing camps over whether to engage in the diplomatic process in Geneva and Kazakhstan. On the one side are groups aligned with the al-Qaida-linked affiliate, Fatah al-Sham, while on the other are an array of Western- and Turkish-backed rebels, led by the ultraconservative Ahrar al-Sham.

CENTRAL SYRIA

Pro-government forces have intensified their bombardment of al-Waer, the only enclave for the opposition in the country's third-largest city, Homs. Nine people were killed in shelling and airstrikes on Wednesday, according to local activists. Osama Abu Zeid, a resident, said he believes the government is trying to force the neighborhood to surrender and activists like him into exile.

Rebels, meanwhile, are raiding towns and villages loyal to the government in neighboring Hama province.

ISLAMIC STATE TERRITORY

The Islamic State group seized Palmyra and its ancient ruins on Dec. 11 and has maintained its grip on it ever since. It has gone so far as to threaten the government's position at the strategic T4 air base in central Syria, but the military has so far stood up to the test. The group has seized and destroyed several natural gas fields and facilities, with consequences for the national economy for years to come.

The extremists also stepped up their campaign for Deir el-Zour, which has been under siege since 2015, and for a nervous two weeks in January forced the U.N. food agency to abandon its air drops due to safety fears. The U.N. estimates more than 90,000 civilians are trapped inside. Government troops and loyal militias are fighting back.

With the U.N. planning to convene peace talks in Geneva on Feb. 20, hopes for success hinge on the intentions of the three powers closest to the conflict  Turkey, Russia and Iran  who together pledged to guarantee the tenuous cease-fire.

And nowhere will their intentions crystallize more clearly than in al-Bab, where each side has a stake Turkey fighting alongside the Syrian rebels, and Russia and Iran backing the Syrian government and allied Shiite militias.

The outcome in al-Bab  whether it is ultimately taken by the government or the rebels, and whether the front between the two sides stabilizes or dissolves into all-out warfare  will set the direction of future talks and any settlement.

This frame grab from video provided by Baladi News Network, a Syrian opposition media outlet that is consistent with independent AP reporting, shows Turkey-backed Syrian opposition fighters fire their weapons during clashes with Syrian troops and pro-government gunmen, near the northern Syrian town of al-Bab, Aleppo province, Syria, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. The war's January toll  some 2,000 dead, about a third of them civilians, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group  is the lowest it has been in four years, but that may be because the government wrapped up operations for Aleppo, the country's largest city, last year. (Baladi News Network, via AP)

This photo released online on Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017, by the website of the al-Qaida-linked Fatah al-Sham, an anti-government militant group, shows fighters from the al-Qaida-linked Fatah al-Sham Front, attacking the government's Tayr checkpoint in the Homs province, Syria. The war's January toll  some 2,000 dead, about a third of them civilians, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group  is the lowest it has been in four years, but that may be because the government wrapped up operations for Aleppo, the country's largest city, last year. Arabic, bottom, reads: "Targeting the Tayr checkpoint with medium weapons, causing injuries." (Fatah al-Sham via AP)
Democratic mayor deflects calls for sanctuary city status

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP)  A push for Connecticut's biggest city to declare itself a sanctuary for immigrants has touched a nerve at City Hall.

Bridgeport's Democratic mayor, Joe Ganim, says the city wants to protect its most vulnerable residents but he says cities, suburbs and other communities should work together on the issue.

Ganim has expressed more optimism than others from his party about President Donald Trump. He has resisted calls to declare Bridgeport a sanctuary city, a designation embraced by San Francisco, New York and other cities even as Trump threatens to withhold their federal funding.

FILE - In this Monday, Feb. 6, 2017, file photo, Ann McCarthy, of Fairfield, attends a rally to make Bridgeport a sanctuary city outside City Hall in Bridgeport, Conn. Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim seized on the presence of the Fairfield resident at the protest and held his own demonstration across the city line at the Fairfield rail station. On social media, he posted a photo of himself with a sign declaring "Make Fairfield a Sanctuary City!" (Brian A. Pounds/Hearst Connecticut Media via AP)

So when a Fairfield resident rallied at Bridgeport City Hall this week, calling upon the city to declare itself a sanctuary, Ganim staged his own protest at the Fairfield rail station. A photo he posted on social media shows him with a sign declaring "Make Fairfield a Sanctuary City!"

In an interview Thursday, Ganim said Bridgeport is a welcoming city but the sanctuary city title is divisive.

"People recognize the title 'sanctuary city' is not one that necessarily has to be adopted by the city of Bridgeport," he said. "We're a welcoming city. We're a supportive city. We're a city of immigrants."

The Fairfield resident, Ann McCarthy, was singled out by Ganim after the Connecticut Post ran a photograph of her at the Bridgeport rally. In a statement to the Post, she said she works in Bridgeport at the Child and Family Guidance Center, which provides mental health support to thousands of children and families, mostly from poor and minority groups. Many clients, she said, are terrified of deportation.

"We are seeing first-hand the crippling anxiety endured by our clients around heightened fears of deportation," she wrote to the newspaper.

Ganim said the issue is a sensitive one partly because the suburbs in wealthy Fairfield County do not face the challenges Bridgeport does as home to high numbers of poor and vulnerable residents, hospitals and courthouses.

"Bridgeporters, like anybody, resent people out of town telling us what to do," he added.

Ganim got to know Trump in the early 1990s during an earlier stint as mayor when the billionaire real estate developer was pursuing a project in Bridgeport. The mayor has said he could work with the Republican president on issues such as infrastructure.

But the Bridgeport City Council might yet take a stand against Trump. It is weighing a proposal that would prevent local police from acting as immigration agents and would bar the use of city facilities to detain immigrants for deportation.

FILE - In this Monday, Feb. 6, 2017, file photo, people participate in a rally to make Bridgeport a sanctuary city outside City Hall in Bridgeport, Conn. Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim has questioned how much of the demand is coming not from inside his city but rather the neighboring, more affluent suburban towns. He held his own demonstration across the city line at the Fairfield rail station, and posted a photo of himself on social media with a sign declaring "Make Fairfield a Sanctuary City!" (Brian A. Pounds/Hearst Connecticut Media via AP, File)
Macklemore didn't submit latest album to Grammys

NEW YORK (AP)  Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, the mainstream rap duo that swept the rap Grammys in 2014 and received backlash after besting Kendrick Lamar, didn't submit their latest album for contention at the 2017 Grammy Awards.

A person close to the nomination process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not allowed to publicly talk about the topic, said Macklemore & Lewis didn't submit "This Unruly Mess I Made" when submissions were due last September.

The album, the group's second, was released last February. Like Macklemore & Lewis, Frank Ocean also didn't submit his two latest albums for Grammys.

FILE - This June 23, 2016 file photo shows Ben Haggerty, left, and Ryan Lewis, of Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, on NBC's "Today" show in New York. The mainstream rap duo that swept the rap Grammys in 2014 and received backlash after besting Kendrick Lamar, didnt submit their latest album for contention at the 2017 Grammy Awards. (Photo by Christopher Smith/Invision/AP, File)

Representatives for the rap group and the Grammys, which will be presented Sunday at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, didn't immediately reply to emails seeking comment.

In 2014, Macklemore & Lewis won best rap album for their multiplatinum debut, "The Heist"; best rap song and rap performance for the crossover pop hit, "Thrift Shop"; and best new artist.

The group almost didn't compete for those rap honors after the Recording Academy's rap committee felt the duo should compete for pop awards instead because of their mainstream breakthrough, which included No. 1 successes with "Thrift Shop" and "Can't Hold Us." Another single, the same sex anthem "Same Love," peaked at No.11 on the Billboard Hot 100.

But that decision was later overturned, and Macklemore & Lewis went on to win big in the rap categories, beating out Lamar, who walked away empty-handed that year. But drama ensued a day after the Grammys when Macklemore said Lamar's "good kid, m.A.A.d city" should have won best rap album instead of "The Heist."

The Grammys spectacle was at the center of the group's latest album title  called "This Unruly Mess I've Made"  and Macklemore was part of the conversation about contemporary white artists appropriating black culture, along with Iggy Azalea and Miley Cyrus. On "White Privilege II," from "This Unruly Mess," Macklemore raps about a white person's position in society with black people fighting injustice, and even namechecks Azalea for appropriating black culture, along with himself.

"This Unruly Mess" didn't make a splash on the charts or on streaming platforms like "The Heist." It only sold 382,000 units (based on a combination of album sales, song sales and on-demand audio streams) according to Nielsen Music. ("The Heist" sold a combined 4.3 million units). The album's first single, "Downtown," did reach No. 12 on the Hot 100 and featured Eric Nally, Melle Mel, Kool Moe Dee and Grandmaster Caz.

Nominees for this year's best rap album include Drake, Chance the Rapper, Kanye West, De La Soul, DJ Khaled and ScHoolboy Q.
Military police shoot tear gas during violent Rio protest

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP)  Military police in Rio de Janeiro are shooting tear gas to quell a violent protest outside the state legislature.

The protesters are denouncing a proposal to privatize the state's water and sewage company.

Several protesters with covered faces began vandalizing buildings next to the legislature Thursday, and some threw rocks and gasoline bombs at police.

Demonstrators holding fireworks as weapons stand behind a barricade during clashes with police as they protest the state government in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. The protesters are denouncing a proposal to privatize the state's water and sewage company. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Police shot gas at the protesters and walked through the streets in formation.

Several protests in front of the legislature have become violent in recent months. The state of Rio de Janeiro is mired in a deep financial crisis. Thousands of state workers are being paid months late. Legislators are considering several austerity measures, and now the privatization of the public utility.

A riot police fires towards demonstrators during a protest against the state government in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. The protesters are denouncing a proposal to privatize the state's water and sewage company. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

People break into a store during clashes with riot police at a protest against the state government in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. The protesters are denouncing a proposal to privatize the state's water and sewage company. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Anti-government demonstrators clash with riot police during a protest against the state government in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. Military police in Rio de Janeiro are shooting tear gas to quell a violent protest outside the state legislature. The protesters are denouncing a proposal to privatize the state's water and sewage company. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Anti-government demonstrators clash with riot police during a protest against the state government in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. The protesters are denouncing a proposal to privatize the state's water and sewage company. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
Official: Military force of UN mission will likely go soon

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP)  The multinational military component of the United Nations' lengthy peacekeeping operation in Haiti will likely be phased out soon, said a senior official with the world body.

Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous, who has been in Haiti for days leading an assessment of the much-criticized mission, told reporters at the U.N. base in Port-au-Prince that a rotating military force is "likely to disappear in the relatively near future."

"I think that when we look at the situation in this country compared to what it was a few years ago, we have made a lot of progress. Security is not perfect, but I think it is much better," he said.

However, Ladsous stressed that current talks are focusing on a "reconfiguration" of the operation here since 2004 and not a "complete erasure" of the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti, which is known by its French acronym MINUSTAH.

Ladsous believes there's still work to be done, including building up the country's justice system and fighting corruption. His assessment reports will be sent to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who has to make recommendations to the U.N. Security Council for decisions about a future U.N. presence by March 15.

The Security Council is expected to make its decision in April. It's been drawing down the multinational force in Haiti for years.

U.N. peacekeepers arrived here in 2004 to achieve order following a bloody three-week uprising that toppled then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Over 12 years later, nearly 5,000 troops and police are deployed at an annual cost of some $346 million.

For years, the U.N. force provided the only real security in Haiti, fighting gangs and cracking down on kidnappers. But there's been significant focus on professionalizing and beefing up the Haitian National Police, which now has about 14,000 officers for a nation of roughly 11 million people.

But it's also been one of the U.N.'s more beleaguered peacekeeping missions, facing intense scrutiny for years. Some peacekeepers have been accused of rape and other abuse, of using excessive force and of inadvertently introducing cholera because of inadequate sanitation at a base used by troops from Nepal. Haiti has grappled with the globe's worst outbreak of the waterborne disease ever since and it is now considered endemic, meaning it is an illness that occurs regularly.

This week's visit by the U.N.'s peacekeeping chief comes as U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley has made reform of peacekeeping operations a top priority. Diplomats have recently told The Associated Press that Haiti was one operation Haley has spoken about winding up.

Ladsous said he had no comment about recent critical comments from Washington officials.

"All this will be the subject of very thorough discussions in the near future," he said.

___
Puerto Rico nationalist unexpectedly returns after term cut

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP)  A Puerto Rican nationalist who is the last of his group still serving time for his role in a violent struggle for independence for the U.S. territory unexpectedly returned to the island Thursday to serve the remainder of a sentence commuted by outgoing President Barack Obama.

Oscar Lopez Rivera disembarked from an American Airlines jet that landed in the capital of San Juan and was placed under house arrest at his daughter's apartment. He was originally scheduled to be released from prison in Terre Haute, Indiana on May 17.

"Most prisoners go to halfway houses," said U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, who had requested and helped secured the transfer of the 74-year-old Lopez. "He got to go home to be with his daughter. That's pretty unusual."

Supporters hold up a sign during a press conference to welcome home Puerto Rican nationalist Oscar Lopez Rivera on the day he returned to San Juan, Puerto Rico, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. Rivera unexpectedly returned to the island on Thursday to serve the remainder of a sentence commuted by outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama, according to the San Juan mayor's office. (AP Photo/Carlos Giusti)

Gutierrez said the warden agreed to Lopez's transfer on the condition that it would be discreet. He and others including San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin picked up Lopez in Indiana before dawn on Thursday and flew with him to Puerto Rico.

"I didn't think it would be this easy," Gutierrez said.

Lopez's arrival was kept secret until just hours before his plane touched down, which angered supporters.

"They wanted to deprive him of a hero's welcome," said Mady Pacheco, 64, who brought her 4-year-old niece to the airport. "I wanted her to witness this historic moment."

Lopez had been sentenced to 55 years in prison after he was convicted on one count of seditious conspiracy, and he was later convicted of conspiring to escape from prison in Leavenworth, Kansas. He served nearly 13 years in solitary confinement, and Obama commuted his sentence last month.

Federal officials did not immediately respond to questions about the reason for his unexpectedly early release.

Lopez was a member of the ultranationalist Armed Forces of National Liberation, which claimed responsibility for more than 100 bombings at public and commercial buildings during the 1970s and '80s in New York, Chicago, Washington and other U.S. cities. The group's most notorious bombing killed four people and injured more than 60 at New York's landmark Fraunces Tavern in 1975. Lopez was not convicted of any role in that attack, but some still hold him responsible because of his ties to the ultranationalist group.

His daughter, Clarisa Lopez, said there were no victims as a result of her father's actions.

"He's never killed anyone," she said. "My father was not accused and he did not participate."

Some Puerto Ricans opposed his early release, saying that they were pained by it.

"He does not represent the Puerto Rican community and many of us in the island are disgusted and rebuff his actions," said Evelyn Aimee De Jesus.

Juan Segarra, who was a member of the ultranationalist movement and was pardoned by former U.S. President Bill Clinton 13 years ago, clutched a Puerto Rico flag as he waited for Lopez at the airport.

"Finally! I can't describe my emotions," he said as he held back tears. "I spent 17 years in prison. I know what this family reunion is like."

Lopez's friends have said he wanted to spend time with his daughter and granddaughter and establish a think tank that will work on such problems as climate change, the economy and the island's political status.

Lopez's attorney, Jan Susler, said he will remain under house arrest until May 17. She said he's not allowed to talk to the media or to anyone with a criminal record, including other nationalists who served time.

Jan Susler, lawyer of Puerto Rican nationalist Oscar Lopez Rivera, celebrates his return to Puerto Rico during a press conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. Rivera unexpectedly returned to the island on Thursday to serve the remainder of a sentence commuted by outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama, according to the San Juan mayor's office. (AP Photo/Carlos Giusti)

Clarisa Lopez, daughter of Puerto Rican nationalist Oscar Lopez Rivera, left, sits with Congressman Luis Gutierrez, center, and Speaker of the New York City Council Melissa Mark Viverito as they hold a press conference on the day Rivera returned to San Juan, Puerto Rico, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. Rivera unexpectedly returned to the island on Thursday to serve the remainder of a sentence commuted by outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama, according to the San Juan mayor's office. (AP Photo/Carlos Giusti)

Clarisa Lopez, daughter of Puerto Rican nationalist Oscar Lopez Rivera, holds a press conference on the day he returned home to San Juan, Puerto Rico, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. Rivera unexpectedly returned to the island on Thursday to serve the remainder of a sentence commuted by outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama, according to the San Juan mayor's office. (AP Photo/Carlos Giusti)
The FBI has returned a painting to its rightful heirs, 80 years after a German Jewish art owner was forced by Nazis to sell his entire collection.

Agents returned a 17th century oil painting by a Dutch master to representatives of the Dr and Mrs Max Stern Foundation during a ceremony at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York.

The recovery of Jan Frans Verzijls Young Man As Bacchus marks the 16th piece of Sterns collection that investigators have been able to return to the foundation since recovery efforts began in the late 1990s.

FBI agents unwrap "Young Man As Bacchus" by Jan Franse Verzijl (Mary Altaffer/AP)

While the painting had survived several generations of exile, it was seized by agents at a New York City art fair in 2015 after Italian gallery owners unaware of its past consigned it for sale, said Michael McGarrity, who heads the FBIs New York field office.

In 1936, the Nazis forced scores of Jews such as Stern to liquidate their assets, including art, at a fraction of their values because of their heritage, an act that US courts have since ruled amounts to theft.

Recovering the art has been a painstaking process, in no small part because the art world is notoriously secretive and many current art owners inherit pieces from older generations, sometimes unaware of their provenance, experts said.

Laws recognising the theft also vary among countries, and artwork sometimes does not emerge into public view for decades, they said.

The states Department of Financial Services has a six-person Holocaust Claims Processing Office that tracks down art, insurance claims and bank accounts raided by the Nazis.

Maria Vullo, the departments superintendent, said the latest paintings recovery is but a small symbol of justice to those who suffered in the unspeakable horrors of the holocaust.
Donald Trump has been rebuked by his nominee for the US Supreme Court for his extended criticism of the judiciary.

Judge Neil Gorsuch told a senator the US presidents comments were demoralising and disheartening.

Judge Gorsuch, nominated by Mr Trump to the nations high court last week, made the comments after the president accused an appeal court considering his immigration and refugee ban order of being so political.

Mr Trump also labelled a judge who ruled on his executive order a so-called judge and referred to the ruling as ridiculous.

Judge Gorsuchs comments came at the end of his first full week of meetings in the Senate, which is considering his nomination.

His response may have been aimed at drawing a line of separation from the new president, who has been a politically polarising figure among Democrats in a highly-charged partisan fight over the court.

"This has been the most transparent Supreme Court selection process in the history of our country." - @POTUS #JusticeGorsuch pic.twitter.com/bt3DCyppC4  The White House 45 Archived (@WhiteHouse45) February 1, 2017

Before the judges meeting on Capitol Hill, Mr Trump slammed the court that is deliberating his immigration and refugee executive order, telling a group of police chiefs that the immigration order was done for the security of our nation.

He quoted from the portion of the immigration law that he said gave him the power to enact the ban, calling it beautifully written and saying a bad high school student would understand this.

Courts seem to be so political and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do whats right, he said. And that has to do with the security of our country, which is so important.

Judge Neil Gorsuch

The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals is considering the appeal of his executive order on immigration, including a temporary travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries.

In a hearing on Tuesday, the courts judges challenged the administrations claim that the ban was motivated by terrorism fears, but also questioned a lawyers argument that it targeted Muslims unconstitutionally.

Since a lower-court judge blocked the order last week, Mr Trump has attacked the decision, prompting legal experts, Democrats and some Republicans to question whether the presidents remarks might jeopardise the independence of the judiciary.

Others have expressed fears he may be attempting to use political influence to sway the courts.

Judge Gorsuch joined the criticism in a meeting with Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.

Mr Blumenthal, a former state attorney general, said Judge Gorsuch described the presidents comments about the judiciary as demoralising and disheartening and Judge Gorsuchs confirmation team validated the judges comments.

Mr Blumenthal told reporters that he had told the judge he would need to condemn Mr Trumps attacks on judicial independence publicly.

It needs to be a strong condemnation and that kind of public condemnation is important to establish his independence, Mr Blumenthal said. Otherwise, the American public will conclude that he is more likely to be a rubber stamp.
A man whose palm print was allegedly found on a suspected getaway vehicle used in the Kingsmill massacre will not be prosecuted.

Northern Irelands Public Prosecution Service (PPS) said there was insufficient evidence to offer a reasonable prospect of convicting the individual arrested on suspicion of murdering 10 Protestant workmen in the 1976 outrage.

The ten victims were lined up on a country road in rural south Armagh and shot dead in a sectarian attack that was widely blamed on the IRA. Another man survived despite being shot 18 times.

No prosecution of man whose print allegedly found on suspected Kingsmill getaway van. Botched RUC+Garda records key factor in PPS decision.  David Young (@DavidYoungPA) February 9, 2017

Michael Agnew, the PPSs Assistant Director of Central Casework, said lawyers had given careful consideration to all of the evidence and had applied the test for prosecution.

We have concluded that there is no reasonable prospect of a conviction based on the available evidence and that the test for prosecutions is therefore not met, he said.

It is understood a lack of Garda and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) records in regard to how the van was forensically handled upon discovery was a key factor in the PPSs decision.

Prosecutors could apparently not find documents indicating exactly when the vehicle was found, or where it was taken for examination, or even the precise location of the palm print position on the windscreen.

So while prosecutors did not perceive matching the print to the individual as an issue, the missing forensic records meant they were unable to rule out that the palm might have been placed on the windscreen well after the shootings.

Karen Armstrong holds a photograph of her brother John McConville who was killed in the Kingsmill attack (Brian Lawless/PA)

While the PPS did have two witnesses identifying the green Bedford van as being in the general vicinity both before and after the attack, the sightings were not close enough to the scene to provide strong circumstantial evidence.

The already long-delayed inquest into the Kingsmill murders was again put on hold last year with the dramatic announcement that detectives had apparently matched the print to an individual.

Three months later a 59-year-old man was arrested in Newry, Co Down.

The man, who had previous terror convictions, was released pending a police file being sent to prosecutors for assessment.

At a subsequent inquest hearing, a lawyer for the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said detectives believed the print belonged to the arrested man.

Alan Black, the sole survivor of a sectarian massacre of 10 protestant workmen in 1976 (Niall Carson/PA)

Mr Agnew announced the decision on Thursday.

We are mindful of the disappointment that this decision will bring to the surviving victim and families of those who were killed, he added.

Although 41 years have passed since this atrocity, we are conscious that their pain endures.

We have informed the families this morning of our decision and the reasons for it, and have offered to meet with them to answer any further questions that they may have.

Beatrice Worton (second right), whose son Kenneth was among those killed (Niall Carson/PA)

We are also conscious that inquest proceedings are currently adjourned to allow for any criminal matters to be concluded and accordingly have advised the coroner of this decision.

The textile workers were shot when their minibus was ambushed outside the village of Kingsmill on their way home from work.

Those on board were asked their religion, and the only Catholic was ordered to run away.

The killers, who had been hidden in the hedges, forced the 11 remaining men to line up outside the van before opening fire.
World number one Andy Murray warned Roger Federer to avoid deep-fried Mars bars after the 18-time grand slam champion accepted an invitation to play in Scotland for the first time.

Murray will host Swiss ace Federer in his second exhibition event, Andy Murray Live, at the SSE Hydro in Glasgow on November 7.

And the 29-year-old Dunblane star had some light-hearted advice for the 18-time grand slam winner when he attends.

Excited to announce that Roger Federer will join Andy Murray for 'Andy Murray Live 2017' presented by SSE on Tues 7th November. #AMLive17 pic.twitter.com/tvcT0EaOM4  Andy Murray Live (@AndyMurrayLive) February 9, 2017

Murray said: Dont try the fried Mars bars. I tried one of them for the first time last year and it was horrific. Stay away from them.

The 2016 event raised 300,000 for Unicef, the childrens charity which is once again a beneficiary, and Young Peoples Futures, a Glasgow-based childrens charity.

All proceeds will go to charity, with a second, local charity partner to be announced in the near future.

Federer won his 18th grand slam title in Melbourne last month aged 35, beating long-time adversary Rafael Nadal in a final few had predicted at the start of the tournament.

A deep fried Mars bar (Danny Lawson/PA)

Murray made an early exit, beaten by Germanys Mischa Zverev.

Federer returned from a long spell out injured and a self-imposed absence, and Murray hinted he too might take more rest to aid longevity.

Its incredible what he did in Australia after such a long break, Murray added.

We play so much, a lot of the year. Sometimes coming to events fresh can have some huge advantage.

Visit https://t.co/Nc2ceAI0ky for more information and details on how to get tickets for #AMLive17 pic.twitter.com/BmxTkAh738  Andy Murray Live (@AndyMurrayLive) February 9, 2017

Him and Rafa were both coming back from a pretty significant period of time out and they both played extremely well.

Maybe thats something we can all learn from moving forwards.

Federer accepted Murrays invitation after the Scot agreed to play at the Swiss own charity event in April.

The exhibition event in Zurich takes place after Murrays scheduled participation at tournaments in Dubai, Indian Wells and Miami.

Murray anticipates Federers involvement will increase interest in his own event.

The first exhibition in Glasgow sold out in 48 hours and sales of the 10,800 tickets were expected to move even faster after they were made available on Thursday.

Murray added: I saw a little video where he was wearing a kilt when he was announcing that I was going to play in his event over in Switzerland.

Hes returning the favour in November. Its really good hes doing it.
The Prince of Wales has celebrated the enduring humanity of Holocaust survivors as his own efforts promoting tolerance and understanding were recognised with an international award.

Following in the footsteps of world figures like Pope Francis and German chancellor Angela Merkel, Charles was presented with the honour from the International Auschwitz Committee (IAC).

The Prince had gathered more than a dozen Holocaust survivors and their families for afternoon tea at St Jamess Palace in his role as patron of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and at the end received the statue.

The Prince of Wales is presented with the Statue of Remembrance, awarded by the International Auschwitz Committee (Justin Tallis/PA)

With far-right politicians gaining in popularity in Europe, Marian Turski, vice-president of the IAC and himself a survivor of Auschwitz, said before he presented the award: Today we have this message  we the survivors  you never should give up fighting xenophobia, prejudices, racism, anti-Semitism.

You should never give up fighting the humiliation of people  in order to save their dignity.

The IAC has been awarding the statue since 2010 to public figures who speak out worldwide for human rights and stand up against intolerance and anti-Semitism.

It is an upside down letter B, a reference to the same letter from the infamous motto above the gates of Auschwitz concentration camp  Arbeit Macht Frei, work sets you free.

The Prince of Wales with Auschwitz survivor Susan Pollack (Justin Tallis/PA)

When prisoners were forced to build the sign they chose to invert the letter in a spontaneous act of courage and defiance.

Mr Turski added: The people marching every day through the gate they were inspired by it, their spirits were raised.

As Charles moved among the tables chatting to Holocaust survivors he sat down next to Susan Pollack, 86, who had received an MBE from the Prince last year for her work giving testimonies about her experiences to schoolchildren.

The Prince of Wales speaks to Auschwitz survivor Ivor Perl (Justin Tallis/PA)

Born in Hungary in 1930, she was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in May 1944. Her mother was later murdered and her brother had to work in the gas chambers.

Mrs Pollack worked as a slave labourer before narrowly escaping death at Bergen-Belsen.

Among those who perished at the concentration camp were Anne Frank and her sister Margot who died a few months before British troops walked through the gates and liberated those interned on April 15 1945.

After chatting to Charles she described the importance of survivors being recognised by national figures: Were getting such wonderful support from Prince Charles, from our Queen, and that gives us so much confidence, for me personally, and a feeling of security, feeling that youre living in a safe country, where tolerance and support is a permanent feature.
Australian to surrender to Thai police after deadly jet ski accident

PHUKET, Thailand, Feb 8 (Reuters) - An Australian man is expected to surrender to Thai police on Thursday following the death of his girlfriend in a jet ski accident on the tourist island of Phuket.

Emily Jayne Collie, 20, died on Sunday after her jet ski collided with one being ridden by her boyfriend, Thomas Keating, as they approached the beach.

"Tomorrow, he will report himself to the police and will be charged with carelessness, causing death to another," said police officer Chalit Thintharnee.

Collie's relatives, including her parents, arrived at a Phuket hospital on Wednesday to identify her body, which will be sent back home to Australia this week.

They also met police, who promised to work with tour operators to prevent similar accidents.
HIGHLIGHTS-The Trump presidency on Feb. 8 at 9:50 P.M. EST/0250 GMT

Feb 8 (Reuters) - Highlights of the day for U.S. President Donald Trump's administration on Wednesday: CABINET A bitterly divided U.S. Senate confirms Republican Senator Jeff Sessions as the next attorney general after strong pushback from Democrats concerned about his record on civil rights. Hillary Clinton and other Democrats flock to support U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren for criticizing Trump's nominee for attorney general after being silenced by Republicans on the Senate floor. IMMIGRATION Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, describes as "demoralizing" and "disheartening" the U.S. president's Twitter attacks on a judge who suspended Trump's travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries, a spokesman for Gorsuch says. COMPANIES Trump blasts department store chain Nordstrom Inc for dropping his daughter Ivanka's clothing line, prompting critics to accuse him of misusing public office to benefit his family's sprawling business empire. Intel Corp chooses the Oval Office to announce a $7 billion investment in a new Arizona semiconductor factory, a move it says would create 3,000 new jobs when the plant is up and running. U.S. aviation executives will discuss the industry's aging airports and air traffic control reform when they meet with Trump on Thursday, sources familiar with the matter say. INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Trump sends a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping saying he looks forward to working with him "to develop a constructive relationship" that benefits both countries, the White House says. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will propose a new Cabinet-level framework for U.S.-Japan talks on trade, security and macroeconomic issues including currencies when he meets Trump on Friday, a Japanese government official involved in planning the summit says. Canada opposes the idea of the United States imposing new border tariffs and would respond to any such move, the country's foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, says after her first meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Senior U.S. senators call for the right to review any move the White House might make to ease sanctions on Russia, amid mounting concern in Congress -- and among U.S. allies -- that Trump will be too conciliatory toward Moscow. SECURITY Trump and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan agree in an overnight phone call to act jointly against Islamic State in the Syrian towns of al-Bab and Raqqa, Turkish sources say. The Trump administration is considering a proposal that could lead to potentially designating Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, U.S. officials familiar with the matter say. (Compiled by Bill Trott, Jonathan Oatis and Peter Cooney; Editing by Bernard Orr and Sandra Maler)
White House defends move to curb regulations

WASHINGTON, Feb 8 (Reuters) - The White House defended the president's executive order to U.S. agencies to rescind two government regulations for every new rule introduced, after several advocacy groups filed a lawsuit on Wednesday challenging the Trump administration over the move.

The National Resources Defense Council, Communications Workers of America, and Public Citizen said in their lawsuit that the Jan. 30 order would harm the public.

They said it would "block or force the repeal of regulations needed to protect health, safety, and the environment, across a broad range of topics - from automobile safety, to occupational health, to air pollution, to endangered species."

The White House defended the order, saying that it was part of the administration's efforts to help companies create jobs and that the groups are making assumptions about the order's impact.

"The lawsuit presumes a lot of outcomes that are wildly inaccurate," White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters at a daily press briefing. He added that over-regulation has hurt economic growth and that reviewing regulations should be welcomed.

The order does not apply to most of the financial reform rules introduced by the Obama administration or to rules mandated by statutes.

Republican President Donald Trump's order is a part of his party's larger effort to undo many of the actions of former President Barack Obama, a Democrat who left office last month after two four-year terms.

In Congress, conservative lawmakers have already moved to stamp out five Obama-era rules on corruption, the environment, labor and guns.

Companies have lauded the effort to deregulate, saying it will help boost their businesses and the larger U.S. economy. On Wednesday, Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp, whose chief executive has backed Trump's efforts, said easing rules will make it easier to do business in the United States.

In addition to Trump, Wednesday's lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia named federal departments and agencies, particularly those with jurisdiction over environmental, transportation and energy issues.
Power outage fuels growing Australian energy debate

By Melanie Burton and Sonali Paul

MELBOURNE, Feb 9 (Reuters) - A power outage during a searing heat wave in South Australia state has worsened a row with the federal government over energy security and the state's heavy reliance on wind and solar power.

Australia's energy market operator cut power to about 40,000 homes and small businesses in the state for about half an hour on Wednesday when it was 41 Celsius (106 Fahrenheit) as electricity use spiked up as people returned home from work, but the wind died down.

The incident came just months after a major blackout hit the state, which is heavily dependent on wind and solar power, and followed a string of smaller outages and power price spikes which have sparked reviews of the national electricity market and Australian energy policy.

The federal government blames South Australia for failing to secure reliable power supplies while it has rushed into promoting renewable energy, putting major businesses at risk.

BHP Billiton's Olympic Dam copper mine, the state's biggest power user, was forced to stop production for two weeks last September after the state-wide blackout, while Alcoa's Portland aluminium smelter was recently crippled by a power outage.

"We can't afford to go the way South Australia has, which has the most expensive and the least reliable electricity in Australia. Bad for jobs. Bad for business. Bad for families," Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told his cabinet's energy committee on Thursday.

Wind drives more than a third of South Australia's electricity supply, which has led to the closure of coal-fired plants and some gas-fired capacity and raised the risk of outages when there is low wind or limited power from neighboring states.

South Australia, however, blamed the rules around how power is dispatched by the national market operator for disrupting supply. A gas-fired plant owned by French firm Engie, had surplus capacity on Wednesday which the market operator chose not to call on.

"They made a decision that it was easier and cheaper to load shed than it was to turn on generation. Now that is unacceptable," South Australian Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis told reporters.

To help ease the crisis, the state is considering building a new interconnector with neighbouring states and looking to encourage construction of new back-up power capacity.
Brazil court says Rio governor should step down over campaign financing

RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 8 (Reuters) - An electoral court in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday ordered Rio de Janeiro state governor Luiz Fernando Pezao and his deputy to stand down, accusing them of offering state contracts to attract financing for a 2014 reelection campaign.

The court said in a statement that the order would not take effect until Pezao and Vice-Governor Francisco Dornelles had exhausted the appeals process, something likely to take some time in Brazil's complex judicial system.

Press aides to the governor said that the men would appeal the decision, which comes as Rio de Janeiro state is struggling with a budgetary crisis triggered by a collapse in oil prices and Brazil's deepest recession in decades.

The court ruled that Pezao's administration had awarded sizeable state contracts to companies that contributed generously to his campaign to win a new four-year term.

Rio de Janeiro state is home to much of Brazil's offshore oil industry. The state payroll expanded sharply during the country's commodities-fuelled boom earlier this decade, wrecking state finances when oil prices collapsed.
Bahrain says foils attempt by suspects in jail break to flee to Iran

DUBAI, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Bahrain said on Thursday it had foiled an attempt by "terrorist fugitives" wanted in connection with a January prison break to flee by sea to Iran.

Security forces foiled the "trafficking" attempt in a dawn operation, a statement published on the interior ministry's Twitter account said.

"Preliminary joint investigation indicates the fugitive boat was heading to Iran," the message said, adding further details would be announced later.

The ministry said in January that one policeman was killed when armed men attacked Jau prison in Bahrain, freeing several convicted inmates, describing the incident as a terrorist act.

Thousands of mainly Shi'ite Muslim Bahrainis are in jail on charges ranging from participating in anti-government protests to armed attacks on security forces in the Western-allied Gulf kingdom, where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is based.

Bahrain earlier this month executed three men convicted in the death of three policemen, including an Emirati officer, in a 2014 bomb attack. Bahrain accuses non-Arab Iran of fanning unrest and supporting militants involved in armed attacks in the island kingdom. Iran denies any involvement.
PRESS DIGEST - Bulgaria - Feb 9

SOFIA, Feb 9 (Reuters) - These are some of the main stories in Bulgarian newspapers on Thursday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

-- A total of 18 parties and nine coalitions have registered with the central election commission for the early parliamentary elections on March 26, the commission said. Some 25 formations  18 parties and seven coalitions, took part in the snap elections in 2014 (Standart, Trud, Monitor)

-- Interim Prime Minister Ognyan Gerdzhikov has dismissed several senior state road infrastructure officials, saying criminal negligence must be penalised. A lamp has fallen off the ceiling of a busy tunnel, hitting a car and killing a woman next to the driver along Hemus motorway in northern Bulgaria on Sunday (Trud, 24 Chasa, Monitor, Standart)

-- Temporary restrictions on traffic in certain areas of the capital and a reduction of the maximum speed to 30 km/h along with free-of-charge public transport on the days with peak levels of pollution with fine dust particles are some of the measures envisaged by Sofia Municipality within the framework of the programme for improving the quality of air in Sofia, Mayor Yordanka Fandakova said (Standart, Monitor)

-- Interim Transport Minister Hristo Aleksiev has dismissed the heads of two state-owned companies in the railway sector. State company BDZ has been in financial turmoil for years, struggling to find millions worth of debt and to improve deteriorating services (Monitor, Standart, Trud)
Nissan sees smaller yen losses, braces for possible U.S. trade rule changes

By Naomi Tajitsu

TOKYO, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Nissan Motor Co forecast on Thursday a smaller-than-expected full-year hit from the yen's strength as it sees the currency stabilising, and said it would be ready to deal with any changes to U.S. trade policy.

Japan's second-largest automaker could be exposed if U.S. President Donald Trump raises tariffs on U.S. auto imports from Mexico, where it produces more than 800,000 cars annually, dwarfing production in that country by other Japanese automakers.

Nissan exports roughly half of its Mexican output to the United States, a key market where it also has production plants.

Global automakers have come under pressure as U.S.-bound auto exports have riled Trump, who has criticised compatriot Toyota Motor Corp and other automakers for not locally producing more cars sold in the United States.

Japan's automotive exports are likely to be high on the agenda when Japanese Prime Minister Shinto Abe meets with Trump for summit talks in Washington on Friday.

"There is likely to be changes in U.S. trade policy and these may have many pluses and minuses for us," Nissan Corporate Vice President Joji Tagawa told reporters at an earnings briefing. "We will deal with them as they come."

Nissan, which has an 18-year alliance and cross-shareholdings with France's Renault, posted a weaker-than-expected operating profit of 163.5 billion yen ($1.46 billion) for the third quarter, weighed down by higher marketing costs, and a stronger yen.

While vehicle sales rose in North America, its biggest market, third-quarter operating profit in the region tumbled 72 percent from a year ago as the automaker ramped up incentives to sell more cars in the United States, where competition is fierce.

The overall profit decline from a year ago comes despite an improvement in domestic sales as a result of strong demand for the latest versions of its new Note compact hatchback and Serena van models which were launched last year.

Nissan maintained its forecast that the yen would average around 105 yen to the U.S. dollar in the year to March, and left its forecasts for full-year net profit and operating profit unchanged.

Tagawa said that signs that the yen had found its footing after months of volatility suggested that the full-year currency hit to operating profit may be smaller than the 250 billion yen budgeted in May.

"The dollar/yen rate averaged around 106.6 yen through the end of the third quarter ... if the current rate holds around the same level, we could suffer a smaller full-year currency loss," Tagawa said.

Nissan has enjoyed brisk sales in North America, particularly due to strong demand for its Rogue sport utility vehicle (SUV) in the United States, where vehicle sales rose 5.2 percent during the quarter.
Greece to award contract for new Crete airport this year- minister

ATHENS, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Greece expects to award a contract this year for a new airport on Crete, its infrastructure minister said on Thursday, paving the way for the debt-laden country's biggest greenfield project in almost a decade.

Greece has made several attempts to build the airport since 2010, but the country's debt crisis made it difficult to attract investors.

India's GMR Infrastructure in a joint venture with Greek construction group GEK TERNA last year submitted the sole bid to build and operate the new airport at Kasteli.

"The first phase (of the tender) is coming to conclusion and consequently, we will have a winner this year," Christos Spirtzis told parliament.

The new airport, worth an estimated 850 million euros ($909.50 million), will replace the ageing Heraklion airport, the second-biggest in Greece in terms of 2015 traffic, handling nearly 6 million tourists a year.
Australian man charged in fatal jet ski accident in Thailand

PHUKET, Thailand, Feb 9 (Reuters) - An Australian man was charged by Thai police on Thursday following the death of his girlfriend in a jet ski accident on the tourist island of Phuket.

Emily Jayne Collie, 20, died on Sunday after her jet ski collided with one being ridden by her boyfriend, Thomas Keating, as they approached the beach.

"We have charged him with causing death to another through carelessness," Police Colonel Sanya Thongsawad told reporters.

Keating, 22, had reported to a police station accompanied by his relatives and members of Collie's family.

Keating was not detained, but police said he could not leave Thailand until the court process was completed.
DEALTALK-Via Varejo's imminent sale highlights risks in Brazil appliance market

By Tatiana Bautzer

SAO PAULO, Feb 9 (Reuters) - French retailer Casino Guichard Perrachon & Cie plans to auction off a controlling stake in Brazil-based appliance chain Via Varejo SA in March, although prospects for a buyer are far from certain, given the industry's myriad problems.

Other Brazilian appliance retailers trying to sell themselves face similar obstacles as some investors say their traditional playbook of brick-and-mortar outlets with lots of floor space and slow inventory turnover looks increasingly unsustainable.

Casino has held preliminary, non-binding talks with about half a dozen potential bidders since Via Varejo formally went on the block in November, two people familiar with the plans said. Chile's SACI Falabella and Brazil's Lojas Americanas SA were among the companies that participated in that round of talks, the sources said.

Whatever the outcome, old problems could await Via Varejo's new owner as Brazil's No. 1 appliance chain wrestles with the burden of oversized stores, tight credit and an aging business model during Brazil's worst recession ever.

Casino, Falabella and Americanas declined to comment.

Without changes to that business model, Casino could struggle to find a buyer for the 43 percent stake it holds in Via Varejo, and efforts by other chains to sell themselves and end years of over-borrowing and internal conflicts could also prove fruitless, investment bankers and industry players say.

Aside from Via Varejo, other potential takeover targets include Brazil's No. 2 appliance chain, Sao Paulo-based Maquina de Vendas SA, which has failed attract a minority partner for the past two years, another person with knowledge of the matter said. Smaller rival Eletrosom SA filed for bankruptcy protection in September and is also looking for a buyer, a fourth person said.

Maquina de Vendas and Eletrosom declined to comment on speculation about their sales.

All three retailers, some of which also sell home furnishings, are coping with the aftermath of debt-fueled expansion binges that were based on the past government's promises of stable, rapid economic growth.

When a record budget deficit and a decline in global commodity prices put the brakes on Brazil's economy, their plans collapsed, margins narrowed and costs spiked. The largest appliance chains reacted by firing staff and closing stores.

"There is an urgent need to revamp the industry's business model," said retail consultant Eugenio Foganholo, pointing to stubbornly high costs and lack of integration between online and brick-and-mortar operations as major problems.

Revenue at Brazil's top two appliance chains declined more than 20 percent last year, and Via Varejo has been losing money for two years.

Privately held Maquina de Vendas fired 30 percent of its staff and closed 15 percent of its stores as part of a sweeping debt restructuring. Via Varejo has cut about 15,000 jobs, or 20 percent of its workforce, and closed 9 percent of its stores nationwide in the past two years.

"A further restructuring, more store closing and staff dismissals might be needed in order to make these companies attractive for potential buyers," said the third person, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the processes.

CASINOS STRATEGY

The product of the 2009 merger of Brazil's leading appliance chains, Via Varejo has suffered from frequent management reshuffling, rifts with partners, and even accounting scandals.

For Casino, selling the chain would help reassure investors about Chief Executive Officer Jean-Charles Naouri's plan to focus on supermarket retailer GPA, through which it controls Via Varejo. Standard & Poor's decision to cut Casino's debt ratings to junk last year has heaped further pressure on him to improve Brazilian operations.

To attract stronger interest from global retailers or buyout firms, Casino knows it must demonstrate improvements in Via Varejo when it reports fourth-quarter results on Feb. 23, the first two people said. Viva Varejo posted a loss of about $60 million in the first nine months of last year.

According to the second source, who has knowledge of the Via Varejo sale process, Casino also held talks with U.S. retailer Best Buy Co Inc, France's Groupe Fnac SA and China's Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

Buyout firms Carlyle Group LP, Cambuhy Investimentos Ltda and Advent International Corp were also approached, the person added.

The companies declined to comment.

Likewise, Maquina de Vendas has struggled with integration problems since it was created through a series of mergers between 2008 and 2011.

Efforts to sell a minority stake to private equity firm Kinea Investimentos Ltda, which is backed by Itau Unibanco Holding SA, foundered last year due to disagreements during due diligence procedures, said a person with knowledge of this process.

DOWNSIZING STORES

Elsewhere in the sector, chains that have reduced their store count, increased their digital footprint or taken advantage of their rivals' woes are gaining market share, although analysts said such progress could be short-lived.

Magazine Luiza SA, Brazil's No. 3 appliance chain, has stood out because of its ability to expand digital and e-commerce operations even as it reshaped its brick-and-mortar stores, Itau BBA analyst Thiago Macruz said.

Bradesco BBI analysts wrote in a recent client note that the stores have floor space up to 80 percent smaller than rivals and lower costs, helping the retailer offset some of the recession's effects.

Last year, Magazine Luiza was the only appliance chain that opened any stores.
Bashed French bonds bounce back, yields fall to 2-week low

By Dhara Ranasinghe

LONDON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - France's benchmark borrowing costs fell back below 1 percent for the first time in two weeks on Thursday, as fears about the political risks it faces gave way to a sense that recent selling of French debt had gone too far.

Investor nerves jarred by the strong showing of far-right leader Marine Le Pen's ahead of this spring's presidential election helped send the spread between French bond yields over German ones to multi-year highs this week.

As French bonds recovered ground on Thursday so did other euro zone bonds that have suffered from heightened political risks and worries about an unwinding of European Central Bank stimulus.

Analysts said a build-up of short positions on French bonds - essentially a bet that their value will decrease - had reached a point that further negative news was needed to justify more selling.

"We're in an environment where political risk is pretty much at the forefront and we're not going to get any decisive news on that for a number of days," said Orlando Green, European fixed income strategist at Credit Agricole.

"There is an element of people closing out of their positions and pausing for thought."

In addition, the view that the ECB is unlikely to unwind its bond-buying stimulus in an environment in which political risks remain elevated may have helped a recovery in euro zone bonds generally, analysts said.

ECB President Mario Draghi said this week that no policy tightening was coming as growth was still weak and faced risks. He meets German Chancellor Angela Merkel later on Thursday.

France's 10-year bond yield fell 4 basis points to a two-week low of 0.96 percent, pulling the gap over top-rated German peers down from four-year highs.

The moves in French bond yields this week have been eye-catching.

On Monday, they soared to near 17-month highs at 1.16 percent as investors fretted about the most unpredictable presidential election race in decades in the euro zone's second biggest economy.

But that move started to unwind on Thursday and yields fell almost 11 bps -- the biggest one-day fall since December 2015.

Most other euro zone bond yields were down 1-6 bps.

Italian and Spanish bond yields fell about 5 bps each, with Italian yields hitting a two-week low at 2.17 percent .

In Germany, 10-year bond yields pulled away from Wednesday's 2-1/2 week lows as demand for safe-haven German debt ebbed.

Analysts said renewed worries about Greece were also exacerbating investor jitters over euro zone stability.

Two-year Greek bond yields rose to around 10.09 percent , their highest level since June last year.

Greece's bailout programme is being held up by a dispute over the country's fiscal targets. The International Monetary Fund argues that a primary fiscal surplus target of 3.5 percent of gross domestic product cannot be met without massive debt relief or further austerity measures that would hurt growth.

Germany, which faces national elections in September, opposes any discussion of debt relief before Greece reaches the bailout target.

"Tapering concerns and political risks have been the main drivers of bond spreads in the euro zone, worries about Greece could become the third pillar of that move," said Martin Van Vliet, senior rates strategist at ING.
Bangladesh says stopping Rohingya militants, allowing "helpless" refugees

By Krishna N. Das and Serajul Quadir

DHAKA, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Bangladesh is working with Myanmar security forces to stop Rohingya Muslim militants crossing their shared border, but will continue to allow women, children and the elderly to seek shelter there, a top government official said.

Around 69,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh to escape violence in Buddhist majority Myanmar since October, straining relations between the two neighbours who both see the stateless Muslim minority as the other nation's problem.

Despite those tensions, H.T. Imam, political adviser to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said Bangladesh had handed over two Rohingya militants caught sneaking into its territory in October, and was continuing to cooperate with Myanmar to prevent more from doing so.

"Those who are absolutely helpless - women with children and the elderly - we will give them temporary shelter," Imam said in an interview on Wednesday. "We are doing this at a heavy cost. It's a crisis that has been forced on us. They are citizens of Myanmar and must be taken back."

About 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims live in Myanmar's Rakhine state, where they face restrictions on their movements and are denied citizenship. Many Myanmar Buddhists regard them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Myanmar's military launched what it describes as a counterinsurgency operation in northwestern Rakhine in October. A United Nations report last week said soldiers have committed mass killings, gang rapes and arson.

REFUGEE INFLUX

Bangladesh is already host to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees, and says the latest influx has strained its limited resources.

Officials, including Imam and Foreign Minister A.H. Mahmood Ali, met diplomats from countries including the United States, Saudi Arabia and Myanmar in Dhaka on Sunday to address the crisis.

Bangladesh is seeking funds for its much-criticised plan to relocate new and old refugees from Myanmar to an isolated and undeveloped island in the Bay of Bengal called Thengar Char - which floods at high tide. They are currently sheltered in the coastal district of Cox's Bazar.

"The foreign minister requested for international help and also for taking the Rohingya population," Imam said. "Bangladesh has a serious political, economic and financial problem because of the influx."

Underscoring Bangladesh's commitment to press ahead with the island plan, the prime minister's military secretary, Major General Mia Mohammad Zainul Abedin, visited Thengar Char on Wednesday.

The general asked the local administration to set up a helipad, jetty, deep tube well for drinking water and other infrastructure to make the island liveable, a local official said.

New York-based Human Rights Watch has urged Bangladesh to drop the island plan, which it called "cruel and unworkable".

The crisis erupt after nine Myanmar police officers were killed in coordinated attacks on border posts on Oct. 9.

Refugees started to trickle across the border soon after that, but many were initially turned back by Bangladeshi border guards. Imam said they were later allowed to come in after Prime Minister Hasina intervened on humanitarian grounds and at the request of the international community.

Over the past five months Hasina has twice spoken with Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who leads Myanmar's government, to work out ways to send back the refugees that Bangladesh calls "undocumented Myanmar nationals".

"The PM also sent a special envoy to Yangon," Imam said. "We are trying to engage them as much as possible. We suggested joint border patrols, joint border watch. Our border guards keep regular contact so that there is no cross-border militancy."
Russian bombing in Syria mistakenly kills three Turkish soldiers

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Daren Butler

AMMAN/ANKARA, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Russian air strikes on Thursday accidentally killed three Turkish soldiers during an operation against Islamic State in Syria, the Turkish military said, highlighting the risk of unintended clashes between the numerous outside powers in a complex war.

"During an operation by a Russia Federation warplane against Islamic State targets in the region of the Euphrates Shield operation in Syria, a bomb accidentally hit a building used by Turkish Army units," the Turkish military said in a statement. Eleven others were wounded.

The Kremlin also said Russian President Vladimir Putin had called Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and expressed his condolences, blaming the incident on poor coordination between Moscow and Ankara.

Besides Russia and Turkey, the foreign powers embroiled in Syria's increasingly convoluted six-year-old war include members of a U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State as well as Lebanon's Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed militias.

Russia is a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while Turkey supports the rebels who oppose him. In 2015, Turkey shot down a Russian air force jet that it said had crossed into Turkish airspace, though Moscow denied any incursion.

The two countries have since repaired relations, and the Kremlin statement on Thursday said the two leaders had agreed to step up military coordination against Islamic State.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence also expressed condolences for the Turkish casualties in a call with Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, in which they discussed cooperation in the fight against terrorism, Yildirim's office said.

CLOSING IN ON AL-BAB

Turkish-backed Syrian rebels pursued a major offensive against the IS-held Syrian city of al-Bab, 30 km (20 miles) south of the border with Turkey. The advance risks putting them in direct conflict with Syrian government forces who are closing in on the city from the south.

A rebel commander said fighters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), working with Turkish commanders, were moving forward from territory near the western gates of al-Bab, which they had stormed on Wednesday.

"The battles began a short while ago to complete what had been achieved yesterday," said a commander of a leading FSA group fighting in al-Bab, who requested anonymity.

The capture of the town would deepen Turkey's influence in an area of northern Syria where it has created a de facto buffer zone. It launched its Euphrates Shield operation in August, backing Syrian rebels with special forces, tanks and aircraft to sweep Islamic State from its border area and stop the advance of a Kurdish militia.

Al-Bab is a major economic hub for the militants and lies on a key crossroads for the region north of Aleppo. Syria's army secured a string of villages on the southern edge of the city on Thursday, state media said.

The Turkish military said it had killed 44 militants in aerial and artillery strikes and clashes in northern Syria. Five Turkish soldiers were killed in the clashes, the private Turkish news agency Dogan said.

The Turkish-backed rebels said clashes took place for the first time with the Syrian army in the Abu Zandayn village south west of al Bab, where they were advancing.

The army aided by Iranian-backed militias made rapid gains in recent days from the south of the city seizing more than thirty villages from the militants, bringing them close to their Turkish and rebel enemies.

The army also secured a new string of villages on the southern edge of the city on Thursday and army units were now clearing out hundreds of mines and explosives planted by the militants in these villages, state media said.
Having fled fighting, Iraqis and Syrians learn to code

By Emily Wither and Girish Gupta

ERBIL, Iraq, Feb 9 (Reuters) - At a training course in northern Iraq, people displaced by the wars in Mosul and neighbouring Syria are learning how to code.

Some are already being sought by global companies even though they live in sprawling, dusty camps near Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish region, not far from Islamic State's last major stronghold in Iraq.

The students come from regions seized by the Sunni militants in 2014 when they swept through parts of Iraq and Syria, and from other areas hit by Syria's civil war.

The New York-based group overseeing the Iraq Re:Coded project has started a training course in a residential house in Erbil, funded by the United Nations Development Program.

Many students are highly educated but find no jobs in their fields as the flood of displaced people made employment scare.

"I was so sad to leave my studies and I worried about my future," said Joory al-Aamed, 27, who fled Damascus with her family in the middle of a computer engineering degree. "Re:Coded gave me a new hope to plan for my future."

The project teaches everything from English language and web basics to object-oriented programming. It follows the curriculum of New York's Flatiron School and is overseen by New York University.

'HERCULEAN TASK'

Re:Coded is looking to place students at foreign companies and major Iraqi firms, while some are seeking further education, including computer science degrees.

But it faces spiraling costs and is struggling to retain students who must also dedicate time to more short-term needs such as feeding their families.

"Even with the best of intentions, bringing world-class higher education to displaced people - and connecting them to meaningful employment - is a Herculean task," said Thomas Hill, a professor of global affairs at New York University who oversees the project.

In Erbil, 26-year-old Gabe Jackson is enthusiastic about his role as a teacher.

The former legal researcher became disillusioned with the large corporations he was working for in New York and did not feel able to make any positive impact on the world.

So last year he took the Flatiron course, before heading to northern Iraq in January to pass on all he had learned.
Blog Hinangai

While there is much discussion in Guam about the economic benefits of increasing the islands military presence, the damages/dangers that they represent are rarely mentioned. This blog, a supplement to the Peace and Justice for Guam Petition, is meant to counter that by providing information about the US military in Guam, with the hopes of steering policy away from a dangerous unilateralist course to more sustainable notions of regional development and a strengthening international solidarity.
USDA cuts wheat, corn stocks view on firm exports, ethanol output

By Mark Weinraub

WASHINGTON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - U.S. wheat supplies were seen shrinking below market estimates as the export outlook brightened despite ample global stocks and a firm dollar that had been seen as a brake on overseas demand, the U.S. Agriculture Department said on Thursday.

Domestic corn stocks also were seen falling below the government's previous outlook as ethanol makers ramped up production, USDA said in its monthly supply and demand report.

U.S. wheat ending stocks for the 2016/17 marketing year were pegged at 1.139 billion bushels, down from the January estimate of 1.186 billion bushels and below market forecasts that ranged from 1.145 billion to 1.211 billion bushels.

Domestic corn ending stocks were lowered to 2.320 billion bushels from 2.355 billion.

The USDA left its outlook for 2016/17 domestic soybean ending stocks unchanged at 420 million bushels. It also held its forecast for U.S. soy exports steady at 2.050 billion bushels despite a fast pace of shipments through January.

"Competition from expected record South American exports will limit U.S. shipments to well below last year's record level this summer," USDA said in the report.

The government left its estimate of soybean production in Brazil unchanged at 104.00 million tonnes, close to market forecasts. It cut its forecast for the Argentine soybean harvest to 55.50 million tonnes, down from 57.00 million tonnes a month earlier.

Analysts, on average, had expected the report to show Argentine soybean production at 54.54 million tonnes and Brazilian soybean production at 104.08 million tonnes, according to a Reuters survey.

On the global front, USDA's estimate of world wheat ending stocks was cut to 248.61 million tonnes from 253.29 million tonnes. USDA cited a cut to harvest expectations in India and Kazakhstan as the reason for the drop.

World corn ending stocks were lowered to 217.56 million tonnes from 220.98 million tonnes, with usage by China, the top consumer of the yellow grain, raised to 231.00 million tonnes from 227.00 million tonnes.

World soybean ending stocks were lowered to 80.38 million tonnes from 82.32 million tonnes, mostly due to the reduced forecast for the Argentine harvest.
L'Oreal eyes Body Shop sale as revenues, profits rise

PARIS, Feb 9 (Reuters) - L'Oreal raised on Thursday the possibility of selling iconic British beauty products company The Body Shop, as the French cosmetics group posted higher sales and profits.

L'Oreal said in a statement that it had decided to "explore all strategic options regarding The Body Shop's ownership in order to give it the best opportunities and full ability to continue its development."

L'Oreal added that no final decision had been taken on The Body Shop, which was founded in 1976 by Anita Roddick.

L'Oreal reported that 2016 sales had risen 2.3 percent from a year ago to 25.84 billion euros ($27.55 billion), slightly ahead of the mean average forecast for sales of 25.75 billion euros according to a Reuters consensus conducted with Inquiry Financial.

Earnings per share for 2016 also rose 4.6 percent.
U.S. corn, wheat stocks view cut on bigger exports, ethanol -USDA

By Mark Weinraub

WASHINGTON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - U.S. wheat supplies were seen shrinking below market estimates as the export outlook brightened despite ample global stocks and a firm dollar that had been viewed as a brake on overseas demand, the U.S. Agriculture Department said on Thursday.

Domestic corn stocks also were seen falling below the government's previous outlook as ethanol makers ramped up production, USDA said in its monthly supply and demand report.

Chicago Board of Trade soft red winter wheat futures <_0W:_> dipped briefly after the report was released before quickly returning to positive territory. Corn <_0C:_> eased to session lows but recovered most of their losses.

U.S. wheat ending stocks for the 2016/17 marketing year were pegged at 1.139 billion bushels, down from the January estimate of 1.186 billion bushels and below market forecasts ranging from 1.145 billion to 1.211 billion bushels.

Domestic corn ending stocks were lowered to 2.320 billion bushels from 2.355 billion.

The USDA left its outlook for 2016/17 domestic soybean ending stocks unchanged at 420 million bushels. It also held its forecast for U.S. soy exports steady at 2.050 billion bushels despite a fast pace of shipments through January.

"Competition from expected record South American exports will limit U.S. shipments to well below last year's record level this summer," USDA said in the report.

Soybean futures <_0S:_>, which had been trading close to unchanged ahead of the report, turned sharply lower.

"I think this knocks a little wind out of the sails for now. People who were buying soybeans on the hopes of a bullish report are pulling back a little bit," said Ted Seifried, analyst at the Zaner Group.

The government left its estimate of soybean production in Brazil unchanged at 104.00 million tonnes. It cut its forecast for the Argentine soybean harvest by 1.50 million to 55.50 million tonnes.

Analysts, on average, had expected the report to show Argentine soybean production at 54.54 million tonnes and Brazilian soybean production at 104.08 million tonnes, according to a Reuters survey.

On the global front, USDA's estimate of world wheat ending stocks was cut to 248.61 million tonnes from 253.29 million tonnes. USDA cited a cut to harvest expectations in India and Kazakhstan as the reason for the drop.

World corn ending stocks were lowered to 217.56 million, with usage by China raised to 231.00 million tonnes from 227.00 million tonnes.

World soybean ending stocks were lowered to 80.38 million tonnes from 82.32 million tonnes.
Britain says concerned by conviction of Russian opposition leader Navalny

LONDON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Britain said on Thursday it was concerned by the conviction of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

"We are concerned at the conviction handed down to Russian opposition politician, Alexei Navalny," a spokesman for Britain's Foreign Office said. "The judgement once again raises questions about the selective application of the rule of law in Russia."

"The conviction of Mr Navalny reflects a worrying trend in Russia where the space for public debate and legitimate opposition is shrinking ever further, and where political activists and civil society are facing increasing pressure," the spokesman said.
Chile algal bloom kills 170,000 salmon, raising concern

SANTIAGO, Feb 9 (Reuters) - An algal bloom killed some 170,000 salmon in recent days in Chile, the world's second-biggest exporter of the fish after Norway, as they were being transported by boat, raising concern about an industry that was devastated by an outbreak last year.

The current algal outbreak is not located near any of the salmon farms that dot southern Chile's coastline but has infested sections of the shipping lanes used by producers, the government's fisheries Sernapesca body told Reuters on Thursday.

Harmful algal blooms happen when the normally occurring aquatic plants grow out of control and produce toxic effects on fish.

Live fish being transported by local producers Australis Seafoods and Nova Austral were infected and killed earlier this month. The boats, which recirculate ocean water into the tanks to keep the fish alive as they are transported, inadvertently passed through the infested waters, Sernapesca said.

"Warm weather and little rain were some of the reasons for the algae bloom last year, and Chile has experienced some of the same weather this year," broker Pareto said.

Last year, an algal bloom killed up to 20 percent of Chile's farmed salmon, some 25 million fish, pushing prices higher globally.

Part of the fish being transported were headed for harvest and others were tiny smelts that were going from fresh water to cages in the ocean.
U.S. VP Pence heralds "new day" in relations with Turkey - Turkish PM's office

ANKARA, Feb 9 (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Mike Pence told Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim it was a "new day" in Turkish-U.S. relations in a phone call on Thursday to discuss cooperation in the fight against terrorism, Yildirim's office said in a statement.

Pence also expressed his condolences for the death of Turkish soldiers fighting against Islamic State in the northern Syrian city of al-Bab, the Turkish statement said.
Committed to enhancing customer engagement, Hameedia is ensuring this years Valentines Day is extra special by offering amazing discounts and exciting opportunities for 20 couples to go on super dates that will be the most memorable yet. This is a testimonial to Hameedias commitment to reward its customers for their loyal support and to make this special occasion last a lifetime.

All customers have to do is pick a scratch card upon their purchase at any Hameedia outlets, which will hold a discount percentage of 20%, 30% or 40% off. Upto 50% discount is offered if customers use that scratch card in the Red Ribbon Corner of the store. The most thrilling part of the Valentines Day promotion is that any customer making a transaction over Rs. 1000 at any Hameedia outlet during the Valentine promotion period will be entitled to a super date where 20 lucky customers will be entitled to a super date via a raffle draw.

Expressing his sentiments on the special promotion, Fouzul Hameed, Managing Director, Hameedia says, Valentines Day is a special occasion when loved ones affirm their love for each other, making it the ideal occasion to celebrate. We are offering our valued customers a unique opportunity to save big with fantastic offers whilst simultaneously treating 20 lucky couples to a fantastic super date on the special day.

This Valentines Day, Hameedia is encouraging customers to visit its stores and select singular clothing and accessories to enhance their look and feel special on this important day, when loved ones come together to celebrate their bonds. Hameedia extends the opportunities for customers to select from a diverse range of menswear options that will leave a lasting impression on their special ladies.

Hameedia offers customers an unmatched shopping experience by having its sales teams standing by to advise and help customers the look and fit that flatters them the most. The stores have ample fashionable options for both men and women to shop for their special day.

Hameedia, established in 1949, has grown to become a household brand in Sri Lanka. Renowned for high quality, custom tailoring and ready-made clothes for gents, the Hameedia multi-brand retail stores house a collection of quality menswear brands including Le Bond, Envoy, Signature, Raymond, Lee and adidas to name a few. Hameedia also prides itself on offering exceptional standards of service to ensure that clients enjoy a positive and personalized experience at each store. With a network of over 30 outlets across Sri Lanka, Hameedia has also been growing its presence globally with outlets in the Maldives and Australia.
The Government intends to go in for a referendum with the consent of all parties including the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) on the new Constitution, Leader of the House Lakshman Kiriella told Parliament today.

He came out with this remark when joint opposition MP Wimal Weerawansha questioned about a statement made by Foreign Affairs Minister Mangala Samaraweera that the government would go for a process of devolution of power.

The MP claimed the minister had made such a statement to the foreign media.

Mr. Kiriella said the government will not go for federalism while Parliament's approval would be sought for all aspects of the constitution including the devolution of power.

Nothing would be done without the approval of the House" he added. (Yohan Perera)
What this country needs immediately is far-reaching reforms in education from preschool to higher education including university and tertiary education.

The Court of Appeal decision on January 31 (2017) notwithstanding, anti SAITM protests continue on the streets and are given much coverage in media.



The Inter University Student Federation (IUSF) and the GMOA live on these protests. Within universities SAITM has been turned into a battle cry between competitive political groupings in establishing dominance over the student population.



The present political leadership of the IUSF is compelled to keep up the heat in keeping out their political rivals at bay. So is the GMOA leadership that wants to maintain their unethical and immoral hold over the health sector.



The whole campaign against SAITM is without any common sense, any rationale and without any sanity.



IF private medical colleges are to be protested against on the basis of allowing undue privileges for rich students, then the Kotalawala Defence Academy (KDA) that sells medical degrees for money should also be protested against.



The Act 16 Exam should be scrapped for students who go abroad, spend dollars out of our foreign earnings and come back with foreign medical degrees.



They should not be recognised for Health Department appointments for they usurp opportunities that should go to medical doctors passing out from State universities.



But none of it is being talked of. None of it is protested against. Thus the question, why only SAITM?

The most popular argument against SAITM is about its quality. Even the SLMC is known to have manipulated the recommendations of its own fact finding committee under Chairman Prof Carlo Fonseka, who told media he was not interested in another job at his age, but took over the Chairmanship two weeks later on January 2nd 2012 for no other reason but to please President Rajapaksa.



Quality cannot be compromised and is an accepted norm. That then should apply to State universities as well.



What quality is there in Rajarata University to turn out medical doctors? Quality is not only about clinical facilities. It is also about the availability of qualified permanent academics. It is about the quality of laboratories and libraries as well.



In fact all Sri Lankan universities are ranked below 2,000 with Colombo University ranked 2171 in the world.



That therefore is the best out of the bad lot.

The KDA is ranked 9,938 (webometrics.info/en/Asia/Sri%20Lanka%20) in world rankings but its medical college is officially recognised and is ironically accepted by the GMOA and the IUSF without any fuss.



We have an SLMC that gave all recognition to the KDA medical faculty and has registered and recognised medical degrees from over 40 foreign faculties (As at 08 Feb. 2017) whose standard was never questioned.



Among them are foreign universities that cannot have any quality based on their ranking among world universities (Grodno State Medical University of Belarus ranked 5,566).

The GMOA has never opposed or protested against such registrations. Perhaps the IUSF is clueless about these.



The SLMC itself has to be restructured. As it is, medical doctors dominate the whole SLMC giving the GMOA an ugly presence within it, without its label.



The SLMC thus remains a politically manipulated council. It was proved beyond doubt when Prof Carlo Fonseka was appointed its Chair by then Minister of Health Maithripala Sirisena, for purely President Rajapaksas political need, despite protests by health sector trade unions.

Such manipulations would continue in the SLMC as long as its present constituting method is allowed.



In contrast the British General Medical Council (GMC) is constituted by 12 members, 6 lay and 6 medical members, all appointed following an open and independent appointments process.

These lay members as they are termed, are all highly reputed professionals from other disciplines and represents the civil society.



Absence of similar lay members appointed through an open and independent process has made the SLMC a lopsided and manipulated council.



Within such politically manipulated and influenced decision making, this grossly unjust political opportunism and sectarianism have eclipsed major issues in education and made them almost irrelevant.



Education in Sri Lanka has to be shaken up from the bottom itself and taken through serious, far reaching reforms. Education has to be democratised, its content upgraded and updated in terms of syllabi and curricula, the quality of the class room and teaching improved and modernised and school administration made efficient without bureaucratic constraints among most other issues. Society has to be drawn into a serious broad based discourse on education policy and reforms in drafting a White Paper on national education.



Privately paid education is just one aspect within such a national policy. Privately owned SAITM per se is therefore no issue and is very wrongly projected by those who havent even read the Sessional Paper 24 of 1943 that is commonly called Kannangara Educational Reforms adopted by the State Council then.



Kannangara Reforms are not about providing free education. It is a total distortion to say Kannangara Reforms were all about providing education free and to hail Dr. Kannangara as Father of Free Education.



He is in fact the Father of National Education. In a country that had no national education policy, the whole purpose of reforms as recorded in the Sessional Paper 24 aims at establishing a common formal education system nationally with a common curriculum with standard national examinations for all pupils.

It says:

The secondary school should not permit their curricula to be dominated by examinations at all, but in so far as examinations determine the course of studies, they should be Ceylon examinations based upon local needs and conditions (Sessional Papers XXIV - p/47 for more details)

Equally important is the vision of the Special Committee on Education in Ceylon chaired by Dr. C.W.W Kannangara that has never been matched by any post-Independent effort in reforming and improving education.



Not even by the Prof. Ousmund Jayaratne Committee in 1972 that turned all universities into a single University of Sri Lanka.



Since independence, national education as designed and fashioned by Colombo based Sinhala educationists have completely violated and polluted the Kannangara vision spelt out as:

Our fundamental need is to weld the heterogeneous elements of the population in to a nation. The existence of peoples of different racial origins, religions and languages is not peculiar to Ceylon, and history shows that it is by no means impossible to develop a national consciousness even among a population as diverse as ours. There is, indeed, a large common element in our cultures already, and under the stimulation of educational development the notion of national unity has been growing among us. In planning the future of education in Ceylon we should strive to increase the common element and foster the idea of nationhood.(ibid / p-10)

For such purpose(s), the Special Committee agreed and decided education has to be for all and thus should be established as a Right.



At its final session of deliberations which was the 89the session, State Council member from Wattegama, Abeyratne Ratnayake proposed the State should fund education to enable the poor to have formal primary and secondary education and was adopted.



Thus State funded education is what is interpreted now as free education, which in fact is not free. It only meant, where parents cannot afford the cost of education, the State would take over the cost of education with tax payers money.



Most importantly, State funding of education that included the famous Central College programme as well, never proposed closing down or taking over of privately owned and managed schools that then totalled over 1,100 including Buddhist schools for girls and boys.



Thus right to education was guaranteed with tax payers money where parents could not afford to pay. Even after Madam Bandaranaikes Government took over private schools in 1962 that were State assisted, we still have around 44 private schools, that prepare students for the G.C.E O/L and A/L exams, who are also eligible to enter State universities, along with pupils from Government owned schools.



Apart from such paid for education, that the GMOA and the IUSF say is commodifying education in a free market economy, they accept International Schools run by private companies without grudging. These International Schools that have absolutely no standards laid down and are outright commercialisations of formal education outside the national education system that Kannangara Reforms established, go without any protests. What this country needs now is not a decision on SAITM or on any other privately owned educational institutes.



What this country needs immediately is far reaching reforms in education from preschool to higher education including university and tertiary education.



Clearly the National Institute of Education is a waste of tax payers money. They have over decades proved that they were not resourceful enough to plan and propose any worthy changes to education.

Nor have the academics and their Federation of University Teachers Association (FUTA) that used the slogan of six percent for education to hype their struggle for better salaries that had by then hit a low.



Since then FUTA is only interested in Grade One admissions to popular schools. No teacher trade union raises issues on the crisis the country is facing with a rusted, screeching education system.

Education, like all other national requirements, cannot be carried through with patchwork whether in blue, green or red. It is reason why there has to be a social dialogue for national educational reforms.

A dialogue that can raise issues about content and quality in State universities, in teacher training faculties, in school administration, in school curricula, in both school and university syllabi and with many more issues and areas in education.



Outside such dialogue SAITM remains a tasty bite for ugly sectarian and political opportunists.
President Maithripala Sirisena will summon all stakeholders involved in the SAITM Medical College issue for a decisive discussion to resolve the crisis, Minister Mahinda Amaraweera told Parliament today..

He said the President would summon the Higher Education Minister, Health Minister and other stakeholders for a meeting within a few days.

It is the duty of those who oppose SAITM to stop their protests and resolve the issue through dialogue" the Minister said.

The minister said there is a potion of poor children studying in SAITM and they should be allowed to study and become doctors.

He added that it was essential to rectify the shortcomings in the process that was followed in establishing the Malabe Medical College.(Yohan Perera)
An army soldier was killed and another injured when the Yal Devi train crashed into their vehicle at Ariyalai in Jaffna this morning, Police said.

The victim was a soldier attached to the Iyakachchi Army Camp. The injured soldier was admitted to the Jaffna Hospital. (Sithum Chaturanga)
Donald Trump is newsmaker extraordinary. It is no exaggeration to say that from the day he assumed office on January 20, not a single morning passes without a breaking news item connected to him being flashed across the TV screen as we switch on to CNN. There is little rest for news hunters hounding him. Controversial is perhaps the most used word in news items about him.

Besides his extraordinary newsworthiness, he has become the pivot of international politics, as though world politics revolves around him. Rarely do we read an international political or economic analysis where Trump or the unpredictability associated with his policies is not mentioned. Almost all analyses point to the uncertainty if not chaos he has created in international affairs. Guessing the trajectory of his policies is not a matter for political pundits alone. It is increasingly becoming a job for psycho analysts.



One of the perilous uncertainties is Trumps Iran policy. Will he start a war with Iran? Or is the hostile rhetoric just hype? Whatever it is, a dangerous situation is developing in the Persian Gulf amidst a war of words between the two countries, especially in the wake of two missile tests carried out by Iran.



That Trump will turn hostile toward Iran was evident even during his campaign, but many dismissed his anti-Iran rants as a political gimmick. They are wrong. Trump appears to be gearing for a clash with Iran. Since he took office, he has been accusing Iran of being the main state sponsor of terrorism. In the wake of the Iranian missile test, he tweeted this week Iran is playing with fire - they dont appreciate how kind President Obama was to them. Not me! He has also blamed the Iranians for an attack carried out by Yemens Houthi forces on a Saudi military vessel.

In another tweet he said, Iran, #1 in terror and questioned how the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran was ever signed.



As has been with many of the Trump charges, the allegation that Iran sponsors terrorism does not stand a fact check. The mainstream US media, which are usually fast to point out the factual errors in Trump statements, for obvious reasons, would not say that Iran has not been associated with any of the terrorists activities since the 9/11 attacks and more so after the United States 2003 Iraq invasion that subsequently paved the way for terror groups such as ISIS to emerge.

Given the US medias hostility towards Iran since the hostage crisis of 1979 and given their pro-Israeli prejudice, their silence or suppression of facts is not unexpected.



So Trump and his team have a freehold on Iran-bashing. Under a normal or establishment US president, a real shooting war between Iran and the United States may appear far-fetched, given the disastrous consequences of such a war and Irans ability to strike back. But with Trump at the helm, predicting war or peace is like playing Russian roulette.



US Defence Secretary James Mattis is an avowed anti-Iranian. He believes that Iran is the single most enduring threat to stability and peace in the Middle East. Trumps National Security adviser Mike Flynn has already put Iran on notice in response to the Islamic Republics January 29 missile test, which the Trump administration saw as a violation of the Obama era nuclear treaty. Ironically, Trump, during his campaign, vowed to dismantle the treaty which the United States and five other world powers signed with Iran.



So it came as no surprise when Trump seized on the Iranian missile test to issue a series of warnings to Iran and slap fresh sanctions. Just as Trump, Israel and Saudi Arabia also blamed Barack Obama for the Iran deal, in terms of which some sanctions on Iran were lifted in exchange for Iran shelving its nuclear material enrichment programme. Interestingly, despite Trumps anti-Muslim credentials, Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies view Trump as a friend because of his anti-Iran stance. Some of them even have welcomed the travel ban on the people of seven Muslim nations.

Iran, however, hit back by denying visas to US wrestlers who wanted to take part in a competition in Iran and launched another missile test last week, in addition to conducting a military exercise and further cutting down transactions in dollars.



In a further rub, Irans spiritual leader Ayatollah Khamenei in a speech this week scorned Trump. He said: We are thankful to (Trump) for making our life easy as he showed the real face of America. He (Trump) says You should be afraid of me. No! The Iranian people will respond to his words on February 10 (the day on which Iran celebrates the victory of the 1979 Islamic revolution) and will show their stance against such threats.



Reacting more hawkishly to the second Iranian missile test, White House spokesperson Sean Spicer warned the Iranian leader, Theres a new President in town and the administration would not sit by to allow the Islamic republic to pursue its military ambitions.



I think the Ayatollah [Irans Supreme Leader] is going to realise theres a new President in office. He {the new US president} will continue to take action as he sees fit.

However, the White House acknowledged the missile test was not a direct breach of the 2015 nuclear pact though it violates the spirit of the deal. Then why is this anti-Iran onslaught?

Iran should have exercised restraint in responding to Trumps tangled tweets.



It should try to sustain the process which it together with the United States had put in motion during the Obama administration to improve relations. Instead, Iran resorted to diplomatic or political populism to respond to Trumps warnings. Iran should have displayed diplomatic magnanimity and shunned action or rhetoric to provoke Trump. It should not play into Trumps hands and give him an excuse to start a war with Iran or dismantle the nuclear deal or, on the pretext of fighting Iran, implement his outlandish plan for America  a plan that undermines human rights, democracy and liberal and moral principles.



Perhaps, Iran, by confronting Trump, wants to prompt him to take the United States on the path to ruin?

However egregious the double-standards-ridden US foreign policy has been and however horrendous its war crimes record, the United States contribution towards the progress of humanity by way of discoveries and inventions in the field of science, medicine and technology is so voluminous that the rest of the world is heavily indebted to it. Besides, the ongoing protests against Trumps travel ban on Muslims from seven nations are a testament to the American peoples resolve to stand by moral principles. It is heartening to note that the good people are no longer silent to let evil to thrive.
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is introducing an export version of the Heron TP, the largest member of the Heron family of remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS). The new version retains the gross takeoff weight (5.4 ton) and strategic capabilities of the TP  operational ceiling of 45,000 ft, mission endurance of 30 hours, but halves the payload capability of the TP, limiting the maximum payload capacity to 450 kg.  the same as the payload of Heron I.

IAI is unveiling the new Heron TP-XP at the Aero India 2017 airshow in Bengaluru. The introduction of this strategic platform is India comes after a long delay in export approval of Heron TP to India since New Delhi has not approved the MTCR regime. The introduction of Heron TP-XP will enable IAI to expand its UAV offering to more customers. Following the MTCR approval by India last June, and the completion of the first flights of Rustom 2  Indias indigenous MALE UAV  in November last year, the Indian market is more recipient to competitors, which the new version is positioned to meet.

The Heron TP-XP introduces air supremacy at a higher level than currently exists in India, Shaul Shahar, IAI Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Military Aircraft Group told Defense-Update. With an emphasis on double flight speed, high altitude, and enhanced payload capability. This system is the latest derivative of the Heron TP, considered to be one of the worlds leading UAVs. The possibility of offering the Heron TP-XP opens up additional opportunities by allowing us to expand the range of solutions we can offer to our customers.

Compared to other Heron family platforms, Heron TP-XP offers a more efficient multi-mission and multi-payload platform that is more suitable for strategic missions. It is designed to operate at very long range, using an integral satellite link and is and is capable of operating in extreme weather conditions. One of the main advantages of Heron TP-XP is its ability to cruise above the commercial traffic, at altitudes of up to 45,000 ft. This. As the TP version, Heron TP-XP uses triple redundant avionics, automatic take-off and landing and meets NATO and other accepted world standards and complies with STANAG 4671. These capabilities make Heron TP / TP-XP uniquely capable to coexist in crowded, commercial airspace.

The main difference between Heron TP and TP-XP is the TPs large internal cargo bay carrying up to one tonne of payload, which is the reason its export is limited as it exceeds the limitations imposed by the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). To clear volume for these large payloads, the TPs satellite terminal is placed in a dome above the fuselage. Heron TP-XP has a more slender design, with satellite antennae integrated inside the 14-meter long fuselage and a smaller internal payload bay. However, the large fuselage and huge wings (26 m span) provide more than adequate space for the installation of multiple payloads that may comprise electro-optical, radar and electronic surveillance missions. Since maximum fuel can be carried with full payload Heron TP-XP can perform all missions with maximum payloads at the maximum endurance.
A dangerous Pakistani spy (known in underground circles as Agent Kabootar), who had been apprehended by security personnel after it was seen behaving suspiciously at the border, as escaped from the clutches of law enforcement.

Thanks to the utter negligence of the Rajasthan police, this dangerous terrorist has escaped. This spy, whose capture took 2 complete hours by officers in the Sriganganagar district, escaped after a head constable lifted its cage to examine it.

Photo: Wikipedia

According to a Scroll.in report, the police have informed intelligence agencies about the bird, which reportedly carried a tag saying 5547 Janbaz Khan along with a phone number. Witnesses claim that the pigeon flew back towards Pakistan.

But our sources have uncovered information about this dangerous Pakistani spy and we present to you, exculsively, the details of what this Agent has been doing since its escape.

Early after its escape from the clutches of the law, the pigeon tried to masquerade as a piece of toast.

The spy pigeon appeared on the news trying to spread its terrorist propaganda.

The pigeon has been seen trying to recruit more spies into a terrorist cult.

At one point it took a break and decided to chill to some good old fashioned gangsta rap.

But after that, it went back to causing disruption in the lives of innocent civilians.

Beware, though. The pigeon continues to spy.

And it is sending intel to Pakistan.

This is one dangerous bird.
Two recent signals have led analysts to believe that Pakistan is rethinking its decades-old strategy of using terrorism against India as an instrument of state policy.

First, the new Pakistan chief of army staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa, unlike his India-obsessed predecessor General Raheel Sharif, is seen as less confrontational. Ceasefire violations have reduced significantly since General Bajwa took charge on November 29, 2016.

Snow, however, rather than any dovish policy change is the key factor. Terror infiltration has not reduced significantly, leading credence to the belief that Pakistans policy of bleeding India by a thousand cuts remains unaltered.

Sanctions

The second signal comes from the White House: Pakistan was warned through diplomatic channels last month that it could be subjected to international sanctions aimed at stopping terror financing. A rattled Islamabad placed Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) founder and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) mentor Hafiz Saeed under house arrest to mollify the Trump administration.

The JuD meanwhile quickly changed its name to Tehreek Azadi Jammu & Kashmir (TAJK) to escape sanctions. Pakistan is mortally afraid of being sanctioned by the US and its allies under the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). That would cut terror financing vital to terrorist groups like the LeT. Islamabad may not be in imminent danger of being put on the FATF blacklist (from which it emerged only two years ago) but another terrorist attack on Indian soil traced back to the ISI could tip the balance.

A rattled Islamabad placed Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) mentor Hafiz Saeed under house arrest to mollify the Trump administration.

Leopards though dont change their spots. Pakistans interior ministry said defiantly: Pakistan does not need any certification or endorsement from India over the recent actions it has taken in relation to Hafiz Saeed. India has constantly been using Saeeds political activities as a tool to malign Pakistan. The international community should take note and understand that Pakistan is a democratic society where the judiciary takes free, independent and transparent decisions.

Saeeds arrest (which only amounts to protective custody in a safe house) citied an old UNSC resolution (1267 of December 2008), adopted following the 26/11 terror attack on Mumbai. The Bush and Obama administrations turned a blind eye to the UNs $10 million (Rs 67 crore) bounty on Saeeds head. Pakistan hopes the Trump administration will do the same. It might be right.

Defence secretary James Mad Dog Mattis last week in Tokyo called Iran the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world. Pakistan was not mentioned. That would have pleased Islamabad which has run circles around successive US administrations for nearly 20 years.

Shia Iran is locked in a battle with Sunni Saudi Arabia for primacy in the Middle East. The Islamic State (ISIS) received early funding from Saudi Arabia and Qatar before ISIS turned on the Saudi royals, vowing to unseat them.

Pakistan is part of the Saudi orbit. General Raheel Sharif heads the proposed 39-country Islamic Military Alliance (IMA) to fight Islamist terror. Shia Iran, Syria and Iraq are notably absent from the coalition.

Quagmire

By targeting Iran as the principal source of terror, the US defence secretary has given Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, both founts of global terror, a free pass. Islamabads relief though could be shortlived. While James Mattis is Iran-focused, others in the Trump administration, including National Security Advisor General Michael Flynn, know the danger Pakistan poses.

On Tuesday, February 7, the US moved a proposal in the UN to designate Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar a global terrorist. China again blocked it. A concerted bid to name Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism floundered under the Obama White House which flatly refused to consider it.

Congressman Ted Poe, chairman of the sub-committee on terrorism, tabled a bill in September 2016 to designate Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism. The bill got nowhere. That could now change. Trump is serious about Islamist terrorism and especially defeating ISIS. The recapture of Raqqa, ISISs de facto headquarters in Syria, is taking longer than expected. The battle for Mosul in Iraq too is stuck in a quagmire.

Strategy

As the Trump administration turns its attention east of Iran, it will have to deal with Pakistans terror role in Afghanistan and India. Sensing the danger to its transactional friend, China has sent vice foreign minister Cheng Guoping, in charge of external security and terrorism, to Islamabad. Beijing has finally recognised that Pakistans terror factory poses a threat to its Muslim province Xinjiang in the northwest as well as to work on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in Balochistan.

With pressure mounting from Washington and Beijing, Pakistan will be forced to recalibrate its strategy on India. It may reduce terror attacks outside Jammu & Kashmir but continue funding and arming militants in the Valley under the umbrella of freedom fighters. The JuDs new name, Tehreek Azadi Jammu & Kashmir, is a clear indication of this new strategy.

For India, three responses are necessary. First, liaise closely with the White House to sanction Pakistan. Second, improve the armed forces and paramilitaries working conditions and equipment. Third, do not be seduced into an early resumption of talks following a few cosmetic arrests of Hafiz Saeed and other JuD/LeT terrorists.

There may be a brief lull in terror attacks against India but for the Pakistani army old habits die hard. Do not trust. Verify.
The international community has largely ignored the political situation regarding the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar. The Rohingya have been systematically disenfranchised and persecuted in their home state of Myanmar, having been denied the rights of citizenship, worship, marriage, and education.

Since 2012, the Rohingya has been subject to numerous acts of violence by the Buddhist majority leading to hundreds of deaths, destruction of property, and a mass exodus of Rohingya with estimates stating that around 100,000 are living in internment camps and a further 200,000 residing in unofficial camps in Bangladesh.

In 2013, mosques and Muslim owned businesses were destroyed by a 300-member mob in central Myanmar in a series of violent episodes through out the years.

A woman holds her child at a refugee camp for Rohingya outside Sittwe. (Reuters photo.)

On January 11 (2017), Myanmars new political leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, sent a special envoy to Bangladesh to discuss the political situation regarding the persecuted population that she deems foreign and prefers to call Bengali rather than Rohingya. This was following the events of October 9, 2016, when Rohingya militants attacked a Myanmar border post, killing nine police officers.

This led to a brutal crackdown by the state with reports stating that there have been summary executions, arbitrary arrests and rape in the operation. In defense of these accusations, Aung Win, Chairman of a Rakhine state investigation has pleaded innocence by stating that soldiers would not rape Rohingya women due to the belief that they are very dirty.

In the last three months of 2016, 65,000 Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh for safety, following the military crackdown by the Myanmar forces, but have been met with further hostility in Bangladesh. Bangladesh has refused to register the Rohingya population within their borders as refugees, and uses troops to guard the border to stem the flow of the persecuted population.

Bangladesh believes that Rohingya refugees are responsible for the deteriorating law and order in the countrys south-east. Furthermore, economic concerns have also come to the fore as 33,000 Rohingya refugees live in two camps near Coxs Bazar, a tourist resort city with a beachfront that is prized by the state.

33,000 Rohingya refugees live in two camps near Coxs Bazar, Bangladesh.

The Rohingya situation has also exacerbated tensions between the two states, Bangladesh and Myanmar, with reports indicating that the Myanmar navy has shot at Bengali fisherman. With tensions flaring, the decision by Aung San Suu Kyi to send a special envoy is encouraging. Myanmars deputy minister of foreign affairs, Kyaw Tin, visited Bangladeshs capital Dhaka in an attempt to encourage further cooperation between the two states.

However, the visit did not bring any concrete results as the Bangladesh government expressed that Myanmar should take a holistic approach for developing a comprehensive mechanism for sustainable repatriation of its nationals to their home in Rakhine State at the earliest. An official quoted the Prime Minister specifically stating to the envoy that Myanmar needs to take back your own people home.

In the meantime, Bangladesh has been receiving numerous criticisms of relocating refugees to the remote uninhabitable island of Thengar Char that rights groups have said risks the creation of a humanitarian catastrophe. The impetus by the Bangladesh government behind these actions is to prevent the "intermingling of the refugees and the Bangladeshi population. Rohingya refugees who have been living in Bangladesh for multiple years have stated that they would rather risk the dangerous sea voyage to Indonesia or Malaysia rather than be relocated to the island.

A political solution to the situation is unlikely to be found anytime soon as the Rohingya refugees continue to suffer in their current condition. As of November 21, 2016, humanitarian assistance to the area has been completely cut off and international organisations such as UNICEF have argued that thousands of children are in danger of being starved or risk death from a lack of medical care in Myanmar.

The United Nations and Human Rights Watch have called for an investigation into the violence in the area, with the latter calling on the government of Myanmar to allow the UN to assist the government with their present predicament.

The UN investigation, led by high commissioner for human rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, stated that the gravity and scale of these allegations begs the robust reaction of the international community. The report found that security forces members sometimes beat, raped or killed people in front of their relatives with the intention of humiliating and instilling fear.
Even as the media gives its undivided attention to the turf war between VK Sasikala and O Panneerselvam in Tamil Nadu, a far bigger story is unravelling in Mumbai  something that can have massive ramifications for rule of law and democracy.

A division bench of the Bombay High Court is hearing an appeal filed by self-styled godwoman Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, accused in the Malegaon blast case of 2008, challenging a sessions court order that had rejected her bail.

The NIA, which is probing the case, has shockingly told the court that it has no objection if the court grants bail to the terror accused.

This in a way corroborates with what Rohini Salian (who was a special public prosecutor in the case) exposed not only in the public domain, but also in an affidavit before the Supreme Court that she was asked to "go soft on 2008 Malegaon blast accused".

Pragya Thakur has been photographed with several senior leaders of the BJP, including Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Chauhan and Rajnath Singh.

She went on record to state that ever since the central government changed in 2014, there has been a "clear shift" in the stand against these terror accused who have been openly defended by the BJP and RSS leaders.

Sample this: The current Union home minister, and perhaps the most powerful man in the government after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said this while he was the BJP chief  I personally believe that there is a huge conspiracy behind these happenings (the Malegaon investigations) and do not forget that Maharashtra has a Congress-NCP coalition government and this could be part of the conspiracy. This possibility cannot be ruled out. Rajnath Singh said that in an interview to former editor-in-chief, The Indian Express, Shekhar Gupta.

On Pragya Thakur, a former ABVP national executive member, Singh gave a virtual clean chit saying, Im not ready to believe that Sadhvi Pragya Thakur is a terrorist until there is enough evidence against her."

Incidentally, Thakur has been photographed with several senior leaders of the BJP, including Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Chauhan and Rajnath Singh himself.

Imagine if a Muslim leader made such a statement in favour of an Indian Mujahideen or an ISIS terror accused? What would the media say?

And this despite the fact that several cases against Muslims for their alleged involvement in terrorist activities have been "dismissed" by the courts after 10-15 years. The Akshardham terror case of 2002, wherein all six convicts were acquitted by the Supreme Court after nearly 12 years, is one of the examples.

Rajnath Singh's "conspiracy theory" line on the right-wing terror accused was parroted by almost all BJP leaders. This despite the fact that it was top cop Hemant Karkare (who died fighting terrorists during the 26/11 Mumbai attacks), who headed the Maharashtra ATS that had unearthed the link between right-wing groups and the Malegaon blasts. Any attempt by the BJP to raise such conspiracy theories are a direct assault on the integrity and commitment of Karkare.

Besides, former home secretary and current BJP MP RK Singh had also come on record to state: "Yes, during investigations we have found names of at least 10 persons who have been associated with the RSS at some point or the other."

The question is simple  If right-wing terror (which I do not and will not label as Hindu or saffron terror) is a work of political conspiracy, as Rajnath Singh suggested, then why did the BJP make RK Singh an MP? He has not retracted that conclusion and stands by it. Clearly, he was a part of the said "conspiracy" too.

Now, the NIA reports to the MHA headed by Rajnath Singh, whose view on terror accused such as Pragya Thakur, is evidently sympathetic. Can the NIA be expected to conduct its investigations and prosecutions independently?

To make the NIA even more pliable in a rare move, the Modi government gave a second extension of one year to IPS officer Sharad Kumar by re-employing him as director general of NIA for a period of one year.

In effect, he has been hired on a contract, which is unprecedented. Is there a shortage of capable IPS officers who can head the NIA?

Going by the brief perhaps, Sharad Kumar in mid-2016 declared the decision of the NIA not to charge Pragya Thakur was justified as "there was insufficient evidence against her".

He added: "The only material evidence against her was the motorcycle (registered in her name) on which the bomb was kept." This stand is baffling and a complete U-turn from the earlier stand of investigating agencies in the case.

How can agencies reach two different conclusions on the basis of the same evidence merely because a government changes?

Just imagine if this is the stand of the NIA in Thakur's case what precedent it will set.

Let's assume a scenario  a boat registered in Pakistan is used for a terror attack in India. Will the NIA consider the boat (registered in the name of someone in Pakistan) to be insufficient evidence to link Pakistan with the attack?

In addition, stringent MCOCA charges were also dropped so that the various confessional statements recorded by the Maharashtra ATS could be discarded as evidence by the NIA.

In many cases such as the Ajmer Dargah blast case, which was allegedly planned by RSS activist Aseemanand (as per his confession before a magistrate in 2010, something that cannot be assumed to be under pressure or coercion), dozens of crucial witnesses began turning hostile since the change in government at the Centre in 2014.

This in turn would weaken the prosecution's case against the entire network of right-wing terror involving Sangh parivar activists  be it the Mecca Masjid blast, the Samjhauta Express blast or the Malegaon case.

The NIA chief once again justified witnesses turning hostile by saying that he has "no control over the memory of witnesses" which had "weakened over time".

Aseemanand, is the same person who has been photographed with Narendra Modi, when he was the chief minister of Gujarat. Imagine if a Muslim terror suspect was photographed with a leader of the Congress party  what would the media say? Would the media not demand that the leader be investigated?

In June 2016, coming down heavily on the NIA for not investigating the role of Pragya Thakur properly in the 2008 Malegaon blasts case a special court threw out the NIA chief's contentions and observed there were reasonable grounds to believe that the charges against her were prima facie true and went on to reject her bail plea.

Drilling holes in the NIA "clean chit" the court added that at this prima facie stage "the fact of the ownership of the motorcycle cannot be ignored nor could the evidence of Thakurs complicity with accused Kalsangra in executing the blast".

Notwithstanding that the NIA brazenly gave yet another clean chit to Sadhvi Pragya, an accused in the Sunil Joshi murder case.

Sunil Joshi, yet another RSS functionary, was a suspect on the run and was murdered in Dewas. He was believed to be a key link in all these right-wing terror cases. Hence, the matter was given to the NIA in 2011.

Three years later, the government changes and the NIA files a chargesheet before the court that there was no such conspiracy and eventually enabled Thakur to get an acquittal in this case just a few days ago.

Despite what the special NIA court said in June 2016 and also earlier orders rejecting bail to Thakur, the NIA has said in response to an plea filed by the terror accused before the Bombay High Court that it has no objection to granting bail to her.

This means that the NIA, India's premier investigating agency to combat terror, is okay with an accused (that the special NIA court believes to be prima facie involved in a terror attack) walking free.

What is even worse is the fact that the Bombay High Court in January this year granted bail to three accused in Pune's Moshin Shaikh murder case justifying that the men affiliated with the right-wing Hindu Rashtra Sena were provoked and committed the murder in the name of religion.

This sums up how the entire system seems to be pitted against justice when the victims are Muslims and the perpetrators of terror are those affiliated with Sangh Parivar (I still refuse to label any terrorist as a Hindu or saffron terrorist just like I reject the term Islamic terror) but the moot question here is: will the courts, investigating agencies go out of their way to defend, justify and rescue terror accused?

If this is repeated in Thakur's case, there is no doubt in my mind that the faith of the common man, and particularly the victims of Malegaon blast, in the entire system and in rule of law will be completely shaken.

It is for India to decide which road it wants to take. One where we distinguish between good terrorists (like Thakur and Mohammad Akhlaq's killers, who are given bail or honoured by a Union minister placing the tricolour on them ) and bad terrorists just like Pakistan once did to its own detriment? Or we want to be a country which truly believes that terror has no religion and political affiliation?

I am hoping that the Bombay High Court will follow in the footsteps of the US courts who have shown in standing up against president Donald Trump's ban.

Thakur's bail plea is not an ordinary appeal  it is an most important battle for the Indian democracy against religious fanaticism.
NOW ENROLLING Pre-School  Grade 8 Featuring: Small Class Sizes for all Grades with Dynamic Educators and Curriculum CALL FOR A TOUR 541-766-8313 ASHBROOK INDEPENDENT SCHOOL 4045 SW Research Way  Corvallis, OR 97333 Foreign Languages, Art, Drama, Physical Education, Music Extended Day and Study Hall Programs Strong School-Parent Involvement Character Education Program www.ashbrookschool.org
This log includes incidents in which there might have been a public disturbance or a risk to the public. Information comes from the Corvallis Police Department, the Benton County Sheriffs Office and Oregon State Police. It does not include all calls for service. The status of incidents might change after further investigation. Locations are approximate. People arrested or suspected in crimes are considered innocent until proven otherwise.

Corvallis Police Department

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 8

DUII: 1:59 a.m., 300 N.W. Third St. An officer responded to the McDonald's parking lot for a report of a drunk driver. A Benton County sheriff's deputy reported that he observed a vehicle driving the wrong way on Northwest Fourth Street before entering the McDonald's parking lot and approaching the drive-through window. The Police Department officer arriving on scene reportedly saw the vehicle driving the wrong way on Third Street before initiating a traffic stop. The driver, Kevin Lee Emineth, 52, no address listed, was charged with DUII. Emineth reportedly had a blood alcohol content of 0.15 percent.

TUESDAY, FEB. 7

TRESPASS: 7:08 a.m., 500 Southeast Lilly Avenue. A woman reported that she woke up to voices in her yard and found two men in the backyard holding a shovel that she had left lying on her porch. The woman reported that she yelled at them and the men responded "we are the police. We are here to help" before going over the fence and leaving with the shovel. The woman described the suspected thieves as white men, one wearing a red hoodie, the other wearing a black hoodie. Officers arriving on scene were unable to locate the men.
Dollar General is expanding into Linn and Benton counties, and a grand opening for the company's Philomath store at 658 Main St. is planned for 8 a.m. Saturday.

The Philomath store, which is already open, is the second Dollar General for the mid-Willamette Valley. In November, the chain opened a store at 340 N. Third St. in Harrisburg.

The citizens are very happy with it, as is the city. Its a good development, said Brian Latta, Harrisburg city administrator.

Dollar General has applied for a store in Sweet Home on the south side of the 1900 block of Main Street, and that is going through the permitting process.

The company also is considering a store on North Second Street in Jefferson, said corporate spokeswoman Crystal Ghassemi.

Based on our current timeline, we expect to have a final decision on the property by mid-summer, she added, in an email.

Philomath Mayor Rocky Sloan said he thinks the business will be awesome for his city.

Theyll serve a great little need. They have some grocery items in there, and were lacking a grocery store in town. Its another option, and its on the way home for a lot of people, he added.

The Philomath grand opening will include free prizes and special deals. The first 100 adult shoppers will receive a $10 Dollar General gift card and the first 200 shoppers will get a Dollar General tote bag.

Representatives of Dollar General also had previously contacted Brownsville and Monroe officials, and the company had proposed a store in Scio, but then withdrew its application. The company doesnt have any active plans for those cities, Ghassemi said.

Dollar General is a discount retailer, but all of its everyday essential items arent priced at $1. The stores typically include food, housewares, seasonal items, cleaning supplies, basic apparel and health and beauty products.

The Philomath and Harrisburg stores are about 9,000-square feet.

According to the company, traditional Dollar General stores employ about six to 10 people, depending on the need.

In a news release last week, Dollar General announced that it planned to add 1,000 stores and approximately 10,000 jobs across the country in 2017. That would account for roughly a 9 percent increase to the companys workforce and mark the largest one-year hiring spree by Dollar General in its 78 years.

That anticipated growth would put the company at roughly 130,000 workers, up from 72,000 workers in 2008, the news release states.

For more information on Dollar General, including jobs, go to www.dollargeneral.com.
At the start of the Corvallis Chamber of Commerce February Lunch Forum, Cooper Whitman, the president and CEO of the chamber, joked that economic forecasts are a bit like blind javelin throwers  theyre not very accurate, but everyone has to pay attention.

Patrick OConnor of the Oregon Employment Department acknowledged that economists like him are better at dissecting the past, but said people always want to know whats in the crystal ball.

So he discussed the future for the mid-Willamette Valley and the state.

Oregons economic growth is predicted to outpace the nation in 2017, but be slightly slower than 2016 figures, OConnor said, citing numbers from the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis. Last year, there was 2.8 percent non-farm job growth in the state, and thats targeted to be 2.4 percent this year.

The United States had job growth of 1.7 percent in 2016, and thats expected to slip to 1.2 percent, OConnor said.

Oregon is projected to be growing twice as fast as the nation. Thats not a new trend, he said.

Oregon has outpaced U.S. job growth over the last 40 years, but experiences more of a roller coaster. We grow faster, but when the recessions come, they hit us harder.  When the U.S. catches a cold, we catch pneumonia here in Oregon, OConnor said.

The reason for the wild fluctuations, he added, is that Oregon remains a major manufacturing state that exports many products.

Population growth thats faster than the national average also has led to more job growth for Oregon, OConnor said.

For Linn and Benton counties, the next decade should bring job gains in health care, agriculture and timber and construction  though the latter industry likely wont recover to where it was at before the recession, OConnor said.

The job market for Benton County has been strong during the past two years, with companies competing for workers and wages rising.

Linn County was slower to join that trend, as it was hammered by the recession compared to the Corvallis area. Benton Countys economy, thanks to tremendous job growth at Oregon State University, was somewhat insulated from manufacturing job losses during the downturn, OConnor said.

He added that the Corvallis area has been steadily losing manufacturing jobs since the mid-1990s, and thats led to a significant drop in wages relative to the United States  and wages have been declining across the country, as well.

Weve seen more low wage jobs growing and middle wage jobs disappearing, OConnor said. Thats also been happening nationwide since the 1980s.

Tom Nelson, economic development director for the Corvallis-Benton County Economic Development Office, also spoke at the forum.
The deadline to apply for the 2017 Willamette Angels Conference is Feb. 24.

Startup company owners who are interested in applying for the competition can do so on the conference website, willametteangelsconference.com/.

The application includes a $125 fee, though companies that apply before Feb. 13 will pay an early-bird fee of $95.

The Willamette Angels Conference is an investment conference that connects startups with angel and venture investors.

Submitting a plan to the conference gives startup companies the opportunity to reach investors, gain fundraising experience and secure investment dollars.

Throughout its eight years, the conference has invested more than $3 million in startup businesses, according to a news release.

Last year, the Willamette Angels invested $1.2 million in startup businesses. That included $300,000 to Willamette Angels Conference co-winner Code3Simulator, based in Corvallis, and $100,000 to conference co-winner Agility Robotics, based in Albany.

The Willamette Angels Conference is produced in partnership by the Corvallis Chamber of Commerce and Oregon RAIN (Regional Accelerator & Innovation Network) and supported by the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce and the Corvallis-Benton Economic Development Office.

Over the past two years the Willamette Angels Conference has substantially increased investors, funding and applicants, said Marc Manley, executive director for Oregon RAIN, in the news release.

Cooper Whitman, president of the Corvallis Chamber of Commerce, and co-organizer of this years WAC, said that the event showcases regional startups and their innovative accomplishments.

It allows startups in the mid-Willamette Valley to demonstrate that our small area of the state has real potential for global impact through entrepreneurs and new businesses, Whitman added, in the news release.

The conference is scheduled for noon to 5 p.m. May 11 at the Whiteside Theatre in Corvallis. Through April 28, tickets are $90, $65 for chamber members and RAIN alumni. After then, tickets are $110 or $85 for chamber members and RAIN alumni.

The featured speaker for the Willamette Angels Conference is Eric Breon, founder and CEO of Vacasa, the second-largest U.S. technology-enabled vacation rental company.

Breon will discuss the origins of Vacasa, its rapid growth and his personal advice for entrepreneurs.

In addition to the conference, the Willamette Angels will offer a free pitch clinic on March 10.
Lebanon leaders were right to pull the plug on the city's attempts to be designated as a so-called "Blue Zones" demonstration community: The program might well have been beneficial to Lebanon, but serious questions continued to linger about what precisely the community would have been buying for an $800,000 investment.

In the absence of clear answers to those questions, the city made the right call to withdraw.

And Lebanon citizens are on the right track when thinking about to use the resources already in their town to help build a more healthful community.

The Blue Zones Project stems from research National Geographic led more than a decade ago to try to determine why some communities are healthier than others.

Researcher Dan Buettner traveled the world and found five regions where, statistically, people lived longer and healthier lives than their counterparts elsewhere. They turned out to be in Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Icaria, Greece; and among a population of Seventh-day Adventists in Loma Linda, Calif. In all of those regions, people had a much higher rate of longevity and fewer instances of illness, dementia and other health problems than elsewhere in the world.

Common features in those five communities included regular exercise, moderate calorie intake, a purpose in society and an emphasis on family and community connections.

The Blue Zones project developed to see whether those features could be replicated elsewhere.

So far, Klamath Falls is Oregon's only Blue Zones demonstration community. But a Lebanon steering committee had been working hard to get the city named as Oregon's second.

The problem was, the further that Lebanon proceeded down the Blue Zones path, the less clear it became exactly what selected communities would receive as benefits  or, just as important, exactly how high the price tag would be.

Finally, at a meeting last week, Blue Zones representatives told the Lebanon steering committee that Lebanon was one of three "finalist" communities, and that all three needed to pledge $200,000 for 2017 and $300,000 for the next two years to receive the finalist designation.

That prompted this week's decision by the committee to withdraw Lebanon from consideration.

It was the right call.

Maybe the Blue Zones investment would have paid off for the city in the form of innovative, engaging programs meant to improve the health of everyone in the community. (It is generally true that investments in preventive health tend to pay off in decreased medical and social costs down the road.)

But as Shelley Garrett, president of the Lebanon Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Center, noted, every dollar spent on the Blue Zones is one that is no longer available to help existing nonprofit organizations, especially those that already are hard at work to make Lebanon a healthier community.

And the fact of the matter is that Lebanon already has taken big strides in improving the health of the community. It helps, of course, to have a medical school located in the city in the form of the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific-Northwest  and it especially helps that the school has, from the very first, been very active in outreach efforts to Lebanon citizens.

But even before the medical school opened, Lebanon volunteers were hard at work helping to build a healthier community: Just look, for example, at the sterling work an organization such as Build Lebanon Trails has done.

The point is that this decision to back away from the Blue Zones pitch doesn't push Lebanon back to square one in an effort to create a healthier community. In fact, the Blue Zones effort may have helped the community bring some of its existing resources into focus; surely there already is plenty of opportunity here, with no need on anyone's part to turn Blue. (mm)
PVH Corp. operates as an apparel company worldwide. The company operates through six segments: Tommy Hilfiger North America, Tommy Hilfiger International, Calvin Klein North America, Calvin Klein International, Heritage Brands Wholesale, and Heritage Brands Retail. It designs, markets, and retails men's, women's, and children's apparel and accessories, including branded dress shirts, neckwear, sportswear, jeans wear, performance apparel, intimate apparel, underwear, swimwear, swim-related products, handbags, accessories, footwear, outerwear, home furnishings, luggage products, sleepwear, loungewear, hats, scarves, gloves, socks, watches and jewelry, eyeglasses and non-ophthalmic sunglasses, fragrance, home bed and bath furnishings, small leather goods, and other products. The company offers its products under its own brands, such as Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, Van Heusen, IZOD, ARROW, Warner's, Olga, Geoffrey Beene, and True&Co., as well as various other owned, licensed, and private label brands. It also licenses its own brands over various products. The company distributes its products at wholesale in department, chain, and specialty stores, as well as through warehouse clubs, mass market, and off-price and independent retailers; and through company-operated full-price, outlet stores, and concession locations, as well as through digital commerce sites. It markets its products to approximately 40 countries. PVH Corp. was founded in 1881 and is based in New York, New York.
Oregon State Police Senior Trooper James Halseys efforts to catch wildlife poachers will get a bit easier starting today, thanks to an infrared monocular donated by the Mid-Willamette Chapter of the Oregon Hunters Association.

Ken McCall, field director, and Deanna Pittman, treasurer for the 400-member chapter that encompasses Linn and Benton counties, said the $5,000 tool will be presented at the groups 7 p.m. meeting tonight at the Old Armory Building in downtown Albany.

P & R Technologies of Portland gave us a generous $800 discount, Pittman said.

The unit is a lightweight and rugged military-grade monocular. Its thermal core provides a 50-percent increase in magnification compared with other units of its kind.

McCall has been an Oregon Hunters Association member since 1986. Pittman has been with the group for about six years. There are now 10,000 members represented in 27 chapters. The Mid-Willamette Chapter formed in 1992. Meetings are held the second Thursday of each month at the Old Armory Building.

My uncle, Harold Eller, got me involved, McCall said. He was one of the first members of the Emerald Valley Chapter. We are an Oregon-centered organization and our four major sponsors  Les Schwab, Nosler, Leupold and Benchmade  are all Oregon-based companies.

The groups core values all focus on conservation, McCall said.

Our chapters devote thousands of dollars and volunteer hours to all kinds of wildlife conservation projects, he said. We do everything from removal of noxious weeds, to meadow development, installing watering systems in dry areas of the state and planting trees and shrubs that are beneficial to wildlife.

OHA also helps fund production of deer and elk decoys and offers rewards in poaching cases. We are currently offering a $16,050 reward concerning the shooting of a big horn sheep last year in the Columbia Gorge, McCall said.

McCall said former President Teddy Roosevelt was a hunter/conservationist and the accumulation of public lands came about as part of his philosophies.

The group is also concerned about how this winters snowfall is affecting wildlife, especially in eastern Oregon. McCall said the Oregon Hunters Associations Wildlife Fund has committed to purchasing up to $20,000 worth of feed to help with the cause.

There is deep snow and there is a crust of ice on top of it, McCall said. Its very difficult for cows and wildlife to walk in this and to find food.

Pittman said the local chapters annual banquet fundraiser will be held April 22 at the Lebanon Boys & Girls Club. Doors open at 4 p.m. In addition to a prime rib dinner, there will be live and silent auctions, a raffle and games.

Someone in the family has to be an OHA member, Pittman said. Annual dues are $35 per year and memberships can be purchased at the door.

The banquet is limited to 250 people. Memberships can be sent to OHA, P.O. Box 1706, Medford, OR 97501 or visit www.oregonhunters.org.

Memberships include a years subscription to Oregon Hunter magazine, which is published six times per year, and the annual Oregon Hunters calendar that features 12 color photos of Oregon game animals.

To learn more about the OHAs Mid-Willamette Chapter, call 541-602-1819 or visit "Mid Willamette Chapter- Oregon Hunter's Association" on Facebook.
RICHMOND  The House of Delegates Education Committee on Wednesday rejected a Senate attempt to weaken legislation requiring Virginia residents to fill the top leadership positions on university governing boards.

The day after crossover at the General Assembly - when each chamber takes up legislation approved by the other side - the committee voted to make the Senate bill conform with the House version.

House bill (HB1402) by Del. R. Steven Landes, R-Augusta, requires both the rector and vice rector, or chair and vice chair, to be residents of the state. The change is necessary to increase accountability of boards, Landes said.

The Senate approved an amended version of the same bill (SB907) by Sen. Scott A. Surovell, D-Fairfax, that mandates a residency requirement for only one of the top two positions.

Landes, chairman of the Education Committee, stood by the need for the original intent of the proposal, which was revised by the Senate with the either-or amendment from Sen. Thomas K. Norment Jr., R-James City.

"At a minimum, it's a modest measure just to make sure that the chief officers of boards of visitors are Virginia residents to make sure there's that connection and accountability," Landes said after the meeting.

Boards should be "accountable not only to the universities that they're serving but also to the citizens of Virginia," he said. "If you're a Virginia resident, obviously you understand the concerns and pressures, especially regarding affordability and costs of higher education."

The residency rule would apply only to the position of president for Virginia Military Institute's board, which has three vice presidents who also chair committees.

The legislation also contains a grandfather provision for current board members holding leadership positions.

Currently, just one such position among the state's governing boards is held by a non-resident. The vice rector for the College of William & Mary, H. Thomas Watkins III, lives in Lake Forest, Ill.

But Landes said the legislation is necessary and had been requested by former members of boards who had served with non-Virginians holding leadership roles.

He also said he has heard that "in the past and going forward" some out-of-state members have sought the key positions.

"This just makes sure we have a policy in place going forward," he said.

Also Wednesday, the committee heard results of a poll assessing views on K-12 and higher education from Robyn McDougle, interim executive director of the Commonwealth Educational Policy Institute at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Among the findings, the poll of 806 Virginians found a narrow majority, 54 percent, would be willing to pay higher taxes in order to drive down costs of higher education through need-based financial aid.

That prompted a response from Del. Richard P. "Dickie" Bell, R-Staunton, who said he hears such views from his constituents.

"They say that until it's time to do that," he said. "Then they break out the pitchforks because they don't want to do that."

The poll also found that 74 percent want college administrators to spend privately raised, non-taxpayer sources of available funding on reducing tuition and fees.

By comparison, only 15 percent preferred a focus on expanding teaching faculty and resources to provide access to more students and 7 percent preferred a focus on building new facilities to attract the highest quality students.

McDougle said after the meeting that the question about how universities use non-tax dollars was "coincidentally timely" to the controversy over the University of Virginia's Strategic Investment Fund, which is worth about $2.2 billion.

The question was drafted well before the poll was taken in November, she said, but "then clearly there was a lot of attention about non-tax dollars."
Throughout my life, Ive been drawn to rivers, near and far, and their ever-diverse characters. The allure of small streams strikes me strongest. Without the pretense of exorbitant volume, the small stream affords an opportunity for intimacy. The fish are rarely discriminatory. The puzzle of fishing all but totally dissolves into the babbling of nature, leaving only the stimulus of running water and an interactive relationship with the Earth to remain. An infatuation with small streams is a romantic profession of that thing we fish for that isnt a fish.

Its true that some are richer than others, but these rambling odes vein nearly every county of beautiful country Ive come to know. With them come their peoplethose whose lives are transected by running water. Charged with assembling my own church, those are the souls Id recruit as my body.

One such stream flows like liquid sapphire through scrubby ranch country in an arid mountain valley of southwestern Montana. I remember fondly the day I met that river and discovered that a four weight and a handful of grasshoppers were exceptional tools for acquainting myself with its numerous wily browns.

As I approached the water for the first time, a working landscape churned atop the high banks. It was obvious that the river belonged to somebody else. And though I believe that we, as American citizens, own access to these places, I will yield spiritual ownership, believing they would do the same for me. For I have a river of my own.

Mine is a modest tributary stream on the outskirts of my college town, where I can be ankle-deep in 15 minutes after leaving my apartment and catch a dozen wild trout in a half hour and be back at school for dinner. Its modest flow has diluted soul-crushing heartbreak and disabling intellectual strain. It has inspired ideas, taught me lessons, and mortared friendships. It has become a part of my identityand I was beginning to recognize my new Montanan acquaintance as a part of someone elses.

And so like the river itself, I took newfound interest in pondering the stories of the people who call these waters foreign to me theirs.

Behind me, the rancher from an adjacent property climbed down into the creekbed to celebrate the end of another work day and the flight of the grasshoppers, calloused hands toting an old fly rod.

In the dirt parking lot where I ditched my car, a group of college friends, now graduated and geographically dispersed, reunited over beers and the intoxicating, nostalgic reformation with their home water. Some brought their kids. Some wished their fathers could be there.

From the Main Street fly shop in the next town drives a guide and shop owner on the evenings he can afford. He invests his time on the bigger rivers with his clients, but yearns for the simple, soul-refreshing joys of wading alone the small creek that dissolves the stress and struggles of small business ownership into something worth it.

Im familiar with the feelings. For all who share a romantic relationship with rivers have stories of a common chord.

Not long into my first drift on that Montanan creek, a surface assailant sucked down my grasshopper. A quick hook set turned the water to froth, as a brown pushing two feet attempted to execute evasive maneuvers in inches of water.

I netted the muscly brown and was pleased by the justifying congruency of the size of the fish and the intangible spirit of the creek. To call the fish mine, I thought a bit selfish. Instead I found comfort in the opportunity to tangle with the same fish that have flavored the lives of others like me. With a fervent hand, I pulled the brown from the net and let his tail slip through my fingers back into the creek, shaking the hands of those from whom it was borrowed.

As the last crimson peel of sunlight was extinguished from the creeks surface, the grasshoppers yielded their right to crackle to the fall of dusk and the amplified volume of running water and an acoustic strum.

Climbing over the bank, I identified the source of the song. She strummed guitar and on a dusty fence rail by the river, skin bronzed from a life in the elements of a Montana summer, blue eyes shimmering in sharp contrast. We exchanged a few warm words as night encroached. In her tone it was obvious that she could hear the rivers song, and was doing her best to reflect it. And in that I wished to know her. But judging from her serenade to the river, it was clear that, at least a part of her, I already did.
LONDON - England - The tragic loss of socialite celebrity Tara Palmer-Tomkinson brings a tear to the meandering hills of Peru from which she had partaken with so much gusto.

Her it-girl status was her own undoing, here was this privileged person snorting 400 worth of cocaine up her nostrils daily, indulging in crack and meth, until her septum nasi disappeared, seared by years of ravage to the white stuff. Tara Palmer-Tomkinson fucked like a rabbit and had an insatiable nymphomaniac appetite for debauchery, for this alone she should be inducted into the halls of the ever grinding loins, for it is to the service of Bacchus that she will be remembered.

Obviously Royal connections open doors, and many were opened for this hip gyrating mistress of carnal purgatory, as her chaotic membrane befuddled and torn skimmed through the societal walls much like excrement is pumped through bubbling sewer pipes furnished with well-paid ghost writers.

Hell o

The higher echelons of English society can be as cruel as the lower, and here was this wild eyed maiden on cocaine looking for approval but would never find it. Such is the standoffish harsh nature of the English aristocratic class that parental affection is rarely shown to children leaving them in perpetual limbo for the rest of their sorry loveless lives. Tara was a lost child only looking for some kind of love which she never was to find, looked down upon by the higher ranks as an eccentric curiosity and laughed at by the grimy lower half.

Society should embrace the eccentrics but sadly these days they are scorned more than anything else. The spirit of Dionysian plenty can only follow this misunderstood creature to the depths of depravity and absolution.

And up upon yonder, Tara whooshes into the eternal universal maelstrom, perhaps to be denied entry into the VIP lounge will be the final insult for this tempestuous everlasting misfit.
Transcription

1 From the Field The Massachusetts Plastics Industry: A regional perspective ROBERT FORRANT The concentration of 62 plastics firms in central Massachusetts and elsewhere in the state shows that the plastics sector s ability to succeed is driven by many of the same factors that have enabled metalworking and other manufacturing sectors to keep operating in Massachusetts despite an overall decline in manufacturing. Introduction The Fall 2003 issue of Benchmarks introduced a series of articles on manufacturing clusters in the Commonwealth, focusing on how metalworking s resiliency in Massachusetts grew out of a broad-based technical infrastructure, access to highly skilled workers and purposeful linkages between firms in the cluster. In the long run, the synergies between metalworking companies and their customers medical equipment makers, telecommunications manufacturers, aerospace firms are critical for the state to maintain some level of manufacturing vibrancy. Sustainable growth requires 2005 VOLUME SEVEN ISSUE MASSACHUSETTS BENCHMARKS

2 a research agenda and continuous innovation, which builds upon a set of well-coordinated relationships between enterprises in the particular industry cluster. This issue examines how the same view applies to the plastics cluster, which consists of firms that manufacture plastics products and those that provide inputs to such firms, including precision mold makers, machinery builders and raw materials suppliers. While figures on firms and employment vary from one data source to another, in 2004 the state s plastics cluster contained approximately 735 firms and 26,000 employees, with total sales of roughly $4.4 billion. Those figures are significantly lower than those reported in 2002 by the Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI), which placed employment and shipments at 36,737 and $7.5 billion respectively ( These discrepancies likely stem from variations in the definitions used for the sector (a hazard when doing this sort of work) and from a pronounced slump in manufacturing in the Commonwealth since But even with this decline, the plastics cluster still comprises an important manufacturing concentration in several parts of the state. For example, there are 62 plastics firms in the Leominster-Fitchburg-Gardner area, a figure that jumps to 90 when Clinton and Worcester are included. With related mold makers, machinery builders and materials makers included, the five communities contain 130 firms and almost 5,000 jobs. Industry trends: From combs to cell phones For years, Massachusetts plastics companies mainly stamped out sunglasses, combs, lawn chairs, buckets, dishware, ghastly pink flamingos and McDonald s Happy Meal toys. Today, firms design and produce sophisticated products, such as cellular phones, laptop computer casings, medical devices and parts for Internet storage devices and other high tech products. Firms also use leading-edge new materials developed at the state s world-class research centers at UMass Lowell and UMass Amherst. Statewide, employment rose slowly but steadily in the 1990s and shipments climbed over the decade from $4.5 billion to $8 billion before beginning Today, firms design and produce sophisticated products, such as cellular phones, laptop computer casings, medical devices and parts for Internet storage devices and other high tech products. to slide in Companies are in three distinct market segments: packaging, including plastic bags for food processors and foam packing materials; specialty products for the aircraft, computer, medical and telecommunications industries; and high-volume commodity products, such as cosmetics tubes, cutlery, dinnerware and disposable bowls and cups. According to SPI, plastics is the nation s fourth largest manufacturing industry in terms of shipments, behind motor vehicles and equipment, petroleum refining and electronic components and accessories. It is difficult to get precise figures on plastics employment because trade associations and industry databases employ slightly different definitions of the industry. With that proviso, we can make some observations. According to the SPI, Massachusetts had the seventh largest concentration of plastics and plastics-related companies in the nation in the late 1990s, well behind California and Ohio, which ranked one and two. SPI reported that the Commonwealth had 41,779 jobs in 2001 and 36,737 jobs in 2002 in the expanded cluster. Using a narrower definition that calculates only jobs in companies that utilize raw materials and make things, Massachusetts ranked 12th in employment in the late 1990s and 14th in 2004, with close to 22,000 jobs, placing Massachusetts behind North Carolina (40,715 jobs), Tennessee (29,992), Wisconsin (29,973), and Georgia (25,468). Employing the most people are Ohio (88,555) and California (84,674). For 2002, plastics industry shipments in Massachusetts totaled $7.5 billion compared to Texas ($33.3 billion), California ($26.8 billion), and Ohio ($21.6 billion). According to SPI, plastics is the nation s fourth largest manufacturing industry in terms of shipments, behind motor vehicles and equipment, petroleum refining and electronic components and accessories. Though plastics companies and supplying industries shipped $393 billion in 2002, disturbing trends, due largely to global trade, are present. Generally speaking, original equipment manufacturers want their injection molded parts producers relatively close by to hold down shipping costs and to make MASSACHUSETTS BENCHMARKS VOLUME SEVEN ISSUE 2

3 The Massachusetts Plastics Industry: Input-output diagram Source: Robert Forrant design changes easier to facilitate. Thus, as automotive, appliance and high-tech manufacturers continue to invest in new plants overseas, negative trends in employment and shipments from the U.S. are likely to continue. In 2003, the United States had a nearly $2 billion trade deficit in resins shipped and a $900 million trade deficit in plastics machinery. The trade deficit in plastic products was $20.2 billion in 2003, compared to $16.9 billion in 2002 and $5.8 billion in Canada was the biggest source for imports, followed by China and Japan (SPI). The fastest growth of resin (raw materials) exports was to China, indicating that its trade in finished products to the United States will increase in the coming years. Reflective of this, imports from China jumped almost 16 percent from 2002 to These global trends make it imperative that economic policy makers in Massachusetts vigorously support University of Massachusetts and industry-related research in nanoscience, biodegradable polymers for the links that can be formed between plastics firms and the medical devices, Internet-related devices, biotech and machinery building industries. Absent an aggressive effort, the state s plastics industry will without doubt continue to suffer from the ongoing realignment of global manufacturing expertise VOLUME SEVEN ISSUE MASSACHUSETTS BENCHMARKS

4 Where are the firms? While significant numbers of plastics firms remain in Greater Pittsfield and Greater Springfield, the greatest concentration of plastics employment is in central Massachusetts (especially the Fitchburg- Leominster area), which has 31 percent of the state s plastics employment, followed by Greater Boston and the Pioneer Valley, each of which contains about 20 percent of total plastics employment. In addition, there is an important group of metalworking firms producing molds, tooling and machinery for the industry. North-central Massachusetts has about 200 firms in the plastics cluster, including several firms that produce molds and machinery. While most of these firms are not totally dedicated to servicing the plastics industry, they will be hurt by any weakening in plastics. Regional plastics employment in Massachusetts, 2000 Percent of state total plastics employment (includes plastics-related firms) Source: Dun & Bradstreet MarketPlace Plastics-related Employment Benchmarks Regions, third quarter 2004 degree of product diversification, which has helped insulate the region from steeper employment contraction. Berkshire Boston Metro Cape & Islands Central Northeast Pioneer Valley Southeast Total MA Plastics-related employment includes plastics firms and companies providing molds, machinery and materials to the industry. Source: Dun & Bradstreet MarketPlace Business Employment 1,132 5, ,914 3,365 5,000 2,438 25,643 The average Massachusetts firm involved in the plastics cluster has about 35 employees, with most firms employing from 21 to 50 workers. A high percentage of firms originate in Massachusetts, indicating a commitment to the region and a substantial process of start-ups and spin-offs based on local entrepreneurial skills. A 1998 statewide survey by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative found that the top markets for plastics firms included the automotive/transportation, electronics, medical and packaging and bottling industries. There was also a large number of custom processors who produced small quantities of a part on demand. Across the state, there remains, at least for now, a high The long-run success of plastics firms is predicated on three factors: their ability to develop new products; their capacity to work with new materials; and their ability to train a new generation of workers to utilize advanced technologies. With the exception of a handful of large firms, the region s plastics companies export very little, and the smaller the firm, the less likely it is to do so. According to the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, fewer than 10 percent of sales went to markets outside the United States in the late 1990s. For example, the customer base of Greater Leominster firms is concentrated in New England and along the East Coast, with a significant concentration in Massachusetts and Greater Leominster. Medical suppliers, electronics firms, and auto manufacturers are important group customers MASSACHUSETTS BENCHMARKS 2005 VOLUME SEVEN ISSUE 2

5 Geographic distribution of plastics firms in Massachusetts (includes plastics-related firms) Source: Dun & Bradstreet MarketPlace The long-run success of plastics firms is predicated on three factors: their ability to develop new products; their capacity to work with new materials; and their ability to train a new generation of workers to utilize advanced technologies. For commodities producers, the threat from low-cost imports is severe for those who turn out disposable forks and spoons. For specialty producers in the medical and telecommunications fields, the challenge is to be able to engage in rapid new product development, produce using state-of-the-art materials and to work to extremely high quality and delivery standards. Success is contingent upon the ability of these firms to tap into a network of service providers and a rich constellation of production partners. Industry support structure The ability to form relationships to access research and engineering expertise is crucial to plastics firms as materials and processes evolve and as environmental concerns pressure the industry to develop biodegradable materials. Across the state, some 150 companies build machines and produce molds, tools, dies, instruments and controls for plastics firms. But these plastics-related enterprises are usually not considered when local, state and federal policies are constructed to support the plastics industry, despite their vital role in the success of plastics firms. As plastics firms themselves grow, they cause growth within the support sectors; but if plastics firms stagnate, so too will other sectors within the cluster. For example, most plastics firms in the state engage in injection molding. Because access to high quality molds produced by precision machine shops is essential, interactions between plastics firms and mold makers are vital. Any weakening of the Commonwealth s mechanical engineering and machining skill base will thus have negative implications for the plastics industry. Within an approximately 60-mile radius of Leominster are more than a dozen education and training institutions that offer or have the potential to offer services to plastics firms in materials development, mold analysis, nondestructive material and product testing, product design and workforce education. The University of Massachusetts, with two campuses with plastics research and process engineering capabilities, plays an important role within the plastics industry support structure. The Amherst campus Center for Research on Polymers, which is one of the leading such centers in the world, conducts important basic research on new materials. At Lowell, the largest accredited plastics engineering department in the country hosts the Biodegradable Polymers Research Center. Faculties from both campuses receive substantial National Science Foundation funding and both centers obtain financial support from industry partners. Along with these university programs, education and training and development support come from a range of institutions including the Nypro Institute, Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical High School in Fitchburg, Mount Wachusett Community College, Fitchburg State College, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the National Plastics Center and Museum and the Twin Cities Community Development Corporation. Access to a rich technology transfer and education and training infrastructure is important to plastics firms. Firms in demanding markets faced with intense global competition are compelled to push ahead with product improvements and new products as fast as possible. They inevitably encounter organizational and technical problems that a wellcoordinated infrastructure of firms and institutions can help to resolve. Concluding thoughts National and international competition in high-tech manufacturing and services is of major concern to the Commonwealth. Regional, sustainable growth in the plastics industry requires a consistent focus on knowledge creation, enterprise development and industrial innovation. At the start of the 21st century, Massachusetts ranked second to California in the production of optical instruments (116 firms to 48) and semiconductor machinery (121 firms to 23), and third in computer and peripheral equipment manufacturing (590 firms to 103) and it ranked in the top three states in the nation in the number of firms in these sectors per million 2005 VOLUME SEVEN ISSUE MASSACHUSETTS BENCHMARKS

6 population. How has the Commonwealth done this? Michael Porter, who has focused his attention on answering the question of where competitive advantage comes from, answers that it is created and sustained through a highly localized process (1990, 9). In The New Competitive Advantage, UMass Lowell Professor Michael Best summarizes Porter: For Porter, firms are not the source of competitiveness. Instead, firms derive their competitive advantage from their home base environment. (2001, 8). The development and diffusion of skills through movements of skilled workers within and across industries represents an example of how networks serve as vital learning systems in regional economies. This behavior helps us to understand the historical existence and persistence of certain types of firms and skills in a particular region. Such is the case with plastics. Similarly, the Connecticut River Valley s nineteenth and early twentieth century success as an industrial center were two historical continuities: the region s ability to design and build machine tools and related accessories in partnership with final goods producers, and the large numbers of skilled machinists in the Connecticut River Valley (Forrant, 2001). Goods producers enjoyed a competitive advantage over other regions that lacked access to these sources of innovation. A trip to the National Plastics Museum in Leominster reveals the historical continuities that can help us account for the persistence of a cluster of plastics firms there, despite the more general manufacturing malaise across the Commonwealth. References: Asheim, B "Industrial Districts as 'Learning Regions': a Condition for Prosperity," European Planning Studies, 4, Best, M The New Competitive Advantage: The Renewal of American Industry. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Best, M., and R. Forrant "Creating Industrial Capacity: Pentagonled Versus Production-led Industrial Policies," in Jonathan Michie and John Grieve Smith. eds., Creating Industrial Capacity: Towards Full Employment. New York: Oxford University Press, Browne, L. and S. Sass "The Transition from a Mill-Based to a Knowledge-Based Economy: New England, ," in P. Temin, ed., Engines of Enterprise: An Economic History of New England. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Forrant, R "Neither a sleepy village nor a coarse factory town: Skill in the Greater Springfield Massachusetts Industrial Economy," Journal of Industrial History, 4, Hekman J. and J. Strong "The Evolution of New England Industry," New England Economic Review, March-April 1981, Keeble, D. and F. Wilkinson "Collective Learning and Knowledge Development in the Evolution of Regional Clusters of High Technology SMEs in Europe," Regional Studies, 33, Porter, M The Competitive Advantage of Massachusetts. Cambridge: The Monitor Group. ROBERT FORRANT is a professor in the Department of Regional Economic and Social Development at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. MASSACHUSETTS BENCHMARKS VOLUME SEVEN ISSUE 2
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1 High and extra high voltage cables with synthetic insulation

2 Global e xper t in cables and cabling sy s tems

3 S u m m a r y Introduction 4 H i g h a n d e x t r a h i g h v o l t a ge c a b l e s The evolution of HV and EHV cables with synthetic insulation 5 An outline history of developments 6 Project engineering for HV cable links 7 Examples of the range of HV and EHV cables with synthetic insulation 8 Production tools kv cable technology 10 Checks and tests 11 References 12 Accessories 13 Services 15

4 4 I n t r o d u c t i o n P o s i t i o n o f Ne x a n s S w i t z e r l a n d Nexans Switzerland is Switzerland s foremost cable maker and supplier. It manufactures, distributes, fits and installs a comprehensive range of products for underground, submarine and aerial installations: high, medium and low voltage power cables copper or optical fiber telecommunications cables Nexans Switzerland supplies high and very high voltage power cables and accessories, optical fiber cables, optical waveguide and special cables for the international market. Nexans Switzerland has three production centres: the Breitenbach site the Cortaillod site the Cossonay site. special cables for many applications power and telecom accessories connection equipment. Its services range from the supply of cables to the implementation of complex turnkey products, including development, engineering, construction work, system technology, laying, installation and project financing.

5 T h e e v o l u t i o n o f H V a n d E H V cables wit h synt hetic insulation T h e C a b l e s The greater demand for energy requires the implementation of installations designed to support increasingly higher voltage and power levels. This is why Nexans Switzerland Ltd has developed cables with synthetic (or dry) insulation for voltages up to 420 kv and crosssections that can be larger than 2000 mm 2. aluminium sheath composite sheath C o n d u c t o r s I n s u l a t i o n Sheat hs For conductor cross-sections larger than 1000 mm 2, segmented conductors must be produced to reduce considerably their resistance to alternating current by reducing the skin effect. Higher service gradients require better insulation qualities. These materials should be perfectly clean this is particularly important, as their long-term performance can be considerably affected, even by microimpurities. Precautions to ensure cleanliness should be taken both during the production of raw materials and throughout the entire cable fabrication process. At high gradients, synthetic insulation is sensitive to the presence of moisture. It is therefore essential to avoid any contact with water or steam during fabrication processes and also during line operation. The cross-linking operation must be carried out in the absence of humidity, either on a catenary line in an inert atmosphere, or on a horizontal line (MDCV process). For all cables, the external protection is provided by a polyethylene sheath. Over this insulation, the application of a waterproof metallic sheath, which also acts as a screen, is generally required. This sheath can be made of unwelded extruded aluminum or lead, or of welded or glued copper or aluminum. Nexans Switzerland Ltd uses all these techniques with complete mastery.

6 An outline histor y of developments D e v e l o p m e n t s f r o m t o t h e p r e s e n t d ay Since the introduction of cross-linkable synthetic insulation, production and control techniques have gone through a whole series of development steps Implementation of a cross-linking catenary line Delivery of the first HV cables with dry insulation Introduction of the triplehead extrusion process Delivery of the first 150 kv extruded insulation cable Modification of the catenary line for nitrogen cross-linking Delivery of the first 220 kv cable with XLPE insulation Construction and start-up of a laboratory for measuring partial discharges up to 480 kv Production of the first 275 kv cable with XLPE insulation Implementation of a 2 nd cross-linking line for large conductor cross-sections and thick layers of insulation Production of the first 400 kv cable with XLPE insulation Delivery of the first 400 kv cable with XLPE insulation abroad Production of the first XLPE Cable 220 kv with a cross-section of 2500 mm 2 Delivery of the first 400 kv cable with XLPE insulation in Switzerland

7 Pr oject engineering for HV cable link s D e v e l o p m e n t p l a n Cause and nature of operations Effects Intervening parties territorial planning increased demand connection of heavy users network plan network calculation power flow determination customer P r e - s t u d y p l a n decision to reinforce network preliminary feasibility study pilot study choice of connection type : underground, overhead or mixed technical solutions customer Nexans Study Impact study collaboration with other departments : engineering offices, industrial departments, etc. choice of connection type : underground, overhead or mixed drawing up of specifications customer Nexans notice to municipal authorities and landowners P r o j e c t choice of definitive run definition of laying parameters preparation of contractor s file customer Nexans measurement of line length O f f e r s definition of possible cable types or variants calculation of the cross-section according to voltage, power and civil engineering parameters distribution of partial lengths preparation of requests for offers and contract tenders for materials and contractors cost of civil engineering work cost of installation and set-up, schedule and details customer Nexans grounding system Authorizations file for the authorities concerned handling of possible objections building authorization customer inspectors Nexans

8 E x a mples o f t h e r a n ge o f H V a n d E H V c a b l e s w i t h s y n t h e t i c i n s u l a t i o n 45 kv EPR insulation 60 kv XLPE insulation 150 kv XLPE insulation 500 mm kv XLPE insulation 2000 mm kv XLPE insulation 800 mm 2

9 Pr oduction tools HV Extrusion line Aluminium press HV laboratory

10 kv cable technology E H V c a b l e s w i t h P P L P a n d X L P E i n s u l a t i o n For 420 kv cables, there are currently two alternatives to traditional fluid oil impregnated paper insulation : cables with PPLP insulation, consisting of three-layer laminated paper and polypropylene tapes, formed into ribbons and impregnated with oil. extruded cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE) insulation cables which, with the progress of the techniques used in the manufacturing of basic materials and above all for installation, have achieved the reliability level required for use in extra high voltage (EHV) networks. For connection projects at 420 kv, exhaustive tests have been successfully carried out for both XLPE and PPLP cables. The main features of these two types of cables are compared below. P P L P a n d X L P E i n s u l a t i o n PPLP Insulation For extra high voltage (400 kv and higher), new types of tapes made of PPLP (Poly Propylene Laminated Paper) are used. They have the advantage of combining the traditional application technology used for impregnated paper cables with the excellent electrical and dielectric properties of synthetic insulators. PPLP is a three-layer insulation consisting of a polypropylene (PP) sheet laminated between two sheets of paper. PP improves the quality of the insulation, while the sheets of paper ensure the circulation of oil between the layers. Compared with paper insulation, PPLP has a higher breakdown strength and above all lower dielectric losses. PPLP insulation, which was introduced at the end of the 80 s, is still limited to cables to be used at a voltage of 400 kv or higher. This is due on the one hand to its price, which is higher than the price of paper, and on the other to the increasingly generalized use of XLPE insulation for voltages up to 220 kv and 400 kv. XLPE Insulation Cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE) was introduced in the 70 s. It was initially used for medium voltage cables, but is now used as insulation for extra high voltage cables (EHV). Its use at voltage levels of 400 kv and higher requires, of course, sophisticated state-of-the-art technology. In particular, we should mention : the rigorous selection of insulating and semi-conducting materials, which must be of a very high purity level, the checking of filtering during application, three-layer extrusion (internal semi-conductor, insulation and external semi-conductor) using a single tool, the obtention of perfectly smooth insulation semi-conductor interfaces, protection of the insulation against the penetration of moisture, stringent electrical tests to detect any faults.

11 11 Check s and tests F r o m c h e c k s o n m a t e r i a l s... The materials used in the construction of EHV cables are subjected to very stringent quality control checks, both before and after production. Plastics, metals and tapes all undergo electrical resistance tests and measurements of their dielectric or mechanical properties. For all these tasks, reliable and fast measurement equipment is required. Considerable investments have been made to equip our materials test laboratories with the most modern equipment, such as thermal analysis instruments, tensile strength apparatus, optical microscopes, infra-red spectrometer, chromatograph, among others. These exacting checks enable us to reduce to a minimum the presence of undesirable matter and to guarantee the quality of our cables.... t o e l e c t r i c a l t e s t s The quality of high voltage cable links is highly dependent on the rigorous nature of the tests carried out on the cables and their accessories. The more stringent these tests are, the lower is the risk of failure during operation. The principal tests are as follows : Routine tests to evaluate production quality. After-laying tests to check the quality of assembly of accessories after installation and to simulate cable operation and rapidly provide information on cable efficiency after prolonged periods of use. Accelerated ageing tests to simulate working life and to provide information within a short time frame on their behavior in long-term use. Type tests to validate a type of construction, for either cables or accessories. Special tests undertaken in the case of major design changes. Diagnostic tests to highlight any degradation phenomena in the line in service and to provide information on the residual cable life.

12 12 Refer ences P r e s t i g i o u s p r o j e c t s 1990 The first 420 kv cable was installed in Switzerland with XLPE insulation connected to the network at the "Bassecourt" substation of the Bernese Electricity Company. This substation was connected to Laufenburg and France by 380 kv overhead lines. The copper conductor cross-section was 1200 mm Various installations of desalination plants were set up along the coast of certain Arab countries. The most important one amongst them is supplied with cables and accessories from Nexans Switzerland Ltd, formerly Cortaillod Cossonay Cable. We supplied 5 sections of 400 kv cable, with XLPE insulation and a corrugated aluminium sheath Nexans Switzerland Ltd, was awarded an important contract by PowerGrid, a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore Power, to supply and install 230 kv XLPE power cables, 2'000 mm 2 with a corrugated aluminium sheath and accessories. This contract was the first of its kind to be awarded by PowerGrid in Singapore. The project consisted of two cable routes with a total cable length of about 53 km Cleuson Dixence project, Switzerland. With a waterfall of 1883 m, Pelton turbine of 423 MW, alternator of 35.7MVA/pole, this Power Station sets 3 world records. Nexans Switzerland Ltd, manufactured and installed 9 x 400 m, 400 kv XLPE cables, 800 mm 2 with a corrugated aluminium sheath and accessories for connecting the three transformers located in the rock-cave to the switching station, across the Rhone river Through Nexans France, Nexans Switzerland has won a contract for the supply of 70 km of XKDAlT cable, 1 x 2000 mm 2, 161kV for Taiwan Power, in Taiwan Nexans supplied and installed 5 XAluWT cable circuits, 1 x 400 mm 2 and 1 x 630 mm 2, 230 kv and kv cable circuits on an industrial site in Dearborn in the United States Following a mechanical accident, the gas pressure cables of the 130 kv Foretaille Chene sublake linking section operated by Services Industriels de Geneve, were damaged in November Nexans Switzerland replaced the sublake link with a length of 3200 m by cables of the XDAluT type in a record time of 3 months between the order and commissioning Following a fire in the access tunnel to the "El Cajon" power plant in Honduras, two oil-filled 220 kv cables were damaged. Nexans replaced 2 circuits with a length of around 1000 m by XAluWT cables 1 x 500 mm 2, 220 kv. This project was completed in just 3.5 months between the order date and commissioning Nexans Switzerland laid two sublake links for Societa Elettrica Sopracenerina in Lago Maggiore. For each link with a length of 2200 m, three cables of the XDAluWET type, 1 x 300 mm 2, 60 kv were run in PE tubes previously installed on the lake bed Nexans completed a 230 kv (5,500 m of XAluWT, 1 x 4000 mm 2 ) cable installation and a 132 kv installation (24 km of XDFcuCuT, 1 x 630 mm 2 ) for two customers in Spain When the extension of the Chicoasen power station near Tuxtla in Mexico was decided to add a further 3 generators (each of 310 MW) to the 5 generators already in service and bring the total capacity to 2430 MW (practically one third of the total production in Switzerland), Nexans developed, manufactured, installed and tested the 3x 400 kv cable links kv type PoAluWET 1 x 400 mm 2 Cu - from the transformer to the starting point of the overhead lines. With this project, Nexans once again confirms its high levels of expertise in project and installation engineering When Transelectrica (the national Romanian electricity transmission company) issued an international invitation for the restoration of a 220 kv circuit and a 400 kv circuit connected to the same transformer and building up a crucial part of the operating system of the "Portile de Fier" (doors of steel) power station, Nexans won the contract. In collaboration with a local company and within an ambitious completion date, Nexans removed the existing oil-filled cables and replaced them with synthetically insulated cables with a higher power rating 400 kv type XDCuTAluWET, 1 x 630 mm 2 Cu and 220 kv type XKDAlT- Tsc, 1 x 1000 mm 2 Cu Nexans Suisse began to expand into China in 1997, in partnership with an integrator, within the framework of the Da Yuan Du hydro-electric power station project in Hunan province, for which a system of 110 kv XLPE cables was supplied and installed. Further projects followed, in which Nexans Suisse had the same responsibilities for the supply of complete cabling systems and for the on-site supervision of the installations: the first 220 kv XLPE cables for the Zheng Jiang power station were supplied in early 2003; and since 2005, almost 30 km of cables, in particular 220 kv cables with a copper cross section of 2500 mm 2, for the supply of sub-stations in Peking in anticipation of the 2008 Olympic Games. Over a period of 10 years, no fewer than 21 circuits in total have been installed throughout the country.

13 13 Accessor ies O u t d o o r s e a l i n g e n d s w i t h p o r c e l a i n i n s u l a t o r The concept of the sealing end with porcelain insulator has a long-term experience with paper insulated cables of more than 60 years. The sealing end includes a premolded slip-on stress cone. C o mposite i n s u l a t o r s f o r v a r i o u s a p p l i c a t i o n s Outdoor sealing ends wit h composite insulat or As an alternative, customers worldwide ask more and more for synthetic insulators. Such insulators are composed of a fibreglass reinforced epoxy tube with two aluminium flanges and insulated by silicone sheds. Thousands of composite insulators have been installed since 1980 by our companies, some of them are in service under very severe conditions, at the full satisfaction of their users. Special advantages are low weight, excellent seismic, mechanical and pollution performances as well as no explosion risk. D r y t y p e o u t d o o r s e a l i n g e n d s Since 20 years, Nexans offers slip-on dry type outdoor sealing ends, which don t need any oil or gas filling. A monobloc version available for voltages up to 145 kv, offers many additional advantages like: no risk of leakage; no environmental effect easy handling quick installation

14 14 G I S s e a l i n g e n d s / Tr a n s f o r m e r s e a l i n g e n d s For the connection of HV cables to transformer or gas insulated switchgears, Nexans manufacturing programme includes adequate terminations. The GIS sealing ends are designed in accordance with IEC standard, either according to item 7.1 for fluid filled terminations or item 7.2, Type A for dry type terminations. J o i n t s Nexans prefabricated high voltage joints ( kv) are basically composed of a premolded elastomer joint body, and an outer casing. For the 72 kv Level, a cable joint with premolded, factory expanded joint body is available. Outer protections for joints are available in different versions : copper tube and a robust PE covering. Shield brake facilities are integrated, factory made and factory tested. MOP : Medium Outer Protection consisting of a synthetic, rigid cover. LOP : Light Outer Protection made of heat shrink components. HOP : Heavy Outer Protection casing consisting of a strong Tr a n s i t i o n j o i n t s When paper insulated HV cables have to be connected to synthetic insulated cables, a so called transition joint is needed. Nexans has developed a concept which guarantees a high reliable and compact connection for HV cables of different technologies. Various a c c e s s o r i e s a n d t o o l s Where special equipments are required for the proper installation of HV Power Accessories, Nexans offers such tools, as well as the various accessories to complete a cable installation, such as cable screen disconnecting systems, surge arrestors, cable clamps, etc.

15 15 Ne x ans Switzer land A n e x p e r t a n d c o mpr e h e n s i v e s e r v i c e Nexans Switzerland provides a wide range of services to its customers, extending from engineering to cable laying and installation. Working to the instructions of experienced teams of engineers, highly qualified fitters install cable systems all over the world. Laying and installation materials which are optimized in every respect, together with measuring and testing instruments for every need, permit the implementation of all kinds of installations under the best possible technical and commercial conditions. Cables delivered and installed by Nexans Switzerland guarantee a reliable service for many years. Based on its extensive experience with low and medium voltage cables, Nexans Switzerland offers its clients an expert partnership to solve problems and implement practical solutions.

16 G l o b a l e x p e r t i n c a b l e s a n d c a b l i n g s y s t e m s Nexans Switzerland Ltd 2, rue de la Fabrique CH 2016 Cortaillod Phone. 41(0) Fax 41(0)
I am a retired newspaperman. I am 69 and live in Poca, WV, with my wife of 45 years, Lou Ann. We grew up in Cleveland. Three kids. Grandfather.

More on who I am is here.

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Blue America had never even seriously considered endorsing a presidential candidate. Until Bernie came along-- and we started a Draft Bernie campaign long before he announced he would run-- all the presidential candidates seemed too horrible to ask people to spend their hard-earned money supporting. So we never did. But Bernie is our kind of candidate-- for ordinary working families and against the self-serving Establishment. Who could want anything more.

But now Tim Murphy is reporting in Mother Jones that the self-serving Establishment wants Bernie's 2.8 million donor mailing list. Presumably Chuck Schumer hopes to use it to get Bernie supporters to send money to garbage right-leaning senators like Joe Manchin (WV), Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Joe Donnelly (IN), Claire McCaskill (MO), etc. And maybe some low-info donors among those 2.8 million could be tricked into it. Maybe-- but I doubt many would, especially coming from Schumer and the DSCC.

In an interview with the Huffington Post in December, former Labor Secretary Tom Perez, a front-runner in the election for Democratic National Committee chair, said he wants "to learn from Senator Sanders about how he did it." At a DNC chair debate in January, another candidate, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), whom Sanders has endorsed for the DNC job and who is widely seen as someone who can heal the party's SandersClinton divisions, pledged to try to obtain the email list for the party if he wins. "We're gonna call on everybody to give all the resources they have," Ellison said. "We're in an emergency situation."





Democrats have made no secret they covet Sanders' list, which Sanders controls through his Senate campaign and the political non-profit he founded, Our Revolution. The decision on what to do with it rests with Sanders. "Our Revolution won't be giving over the list," says the group's president, Jeff Weaver, who was Sanders' presidential campaign manager. Sanders, for his part, has mostly stayed quiet about the future of the list, which one Democratic consultant referred to as his "precious." He told the Washington Post in January that he would "cross that bridge" when he comes to it. "There has been no discussion with the DNC about use of the list," says Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs.





Campaigns and political action committees regularly purchase supporter lists from other organizations, as a shortcut to raise money and recruit volunteers. Large, lucrative lists can become valuable commodities in the campaign marketplace. (President Barack Obama's presidential campaign rented his list to Organizing for Action for $1.2 million in 2015.) But former Sanders staffers and consultants scoff at the demand for the list. They way they see it, clamoring for access misses the point. The list wasn't the campaign's secret weapon; Sanders was.





"They keep thinking it's the list," says Becky Bond, who as a senior adviser to Sanders helped build the candidate's national organizing operation. "It's so crazy. It's like someone who buys a $12,000 bicycle and thinks they can win the Tour de France."





"At the end of the day, it's not like there's something magical about Bernie's email list-- anyone can build an email list with the right investments, and you can also get millions of people on an email list," says Michael Whitney, who was an architect of Sanders's digital fundraising operation while working for the progressive consulting firm Revolution Messaging. "The thing that differentiates Bernie's from any other email list has been that there is a message of people being in this together, and there was a message of empowerment."





That may sound like campaign-strategist bluster, but in Sanders' case there's some truth to it. Sanders needed small-dollar donors because he was campaigning against the politics of big-money, and supporters opened up their wallets in response to his assault on the well-heeled corporate and political establishment. His fundraising pitch and policy platform were in sync in a way that most campaigns can't match.





The Democratic National Committee, which can accept up to $33,400 in donations from individuals annually-- roughly 12 times the limit for a specific presidential or congressional campaign-- doesn't work like that. It has traditionally banked its funds via the high-dollar fundraisers Sanders so despised. (Sanders supporters also came to loath the DNC itself, which they accused of tipping the scales in favor of Hillary Clinton during the primary.) Detaching Sanders' list from his message, Sanders backers argue, would diminish what made it so valuable. "Bernie Sanders' list isn't an ATM machine and just handing it over to the DNC might raise a little bit of money, but it won't produce a fraction of what it's capable of," says Tim Tagaris, who was Sanders' digital fundraising director for the campaign. "They still need to figure out the PIN."





The fear among Sanders alums isn't just that the DNC can't recreate the magic. It's that the party will sap his supporters' energy with the kinds of gimmicky pitches the Sanders campaign swore off. Democrats often "treat their email lists as Chicken Little, 'sky is falling,' trying to con money out of people, whereas Bernie took steps to actually bring people together and have messaging that they were a part of it and treat people with respect," Whitney says. As an example of what he and other Sanders supporters are afraid of, he points to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which peppers its email list at the end of each month with passive-aggressive "final notice" emails, warning them that their "membership" in the party will expire if they don't donate immediately.





"They're straight up lying to people to get money," says Melissa Byrne, the digital director for Sanders' New Hampshire primary campaign, who is now running for vice-chair of the DNC. She opposes renting the Sanders list to the party because she fears doing so will deepen the cynicism with which many Sanders supporters view the party establishment. The list is "not something you just say, 'hey, hit export,' and then upload. People would feel like they were being disrespected. They would feel like they weren't being valued."





Still, these Sanders staffers don't think the DNC is a lost cause. They just think the solution is for the party to build its own Bernie list. It would require whoever takes over the DNC to be transparent with supporters about where the party was getting its money from and what its goals were. And it would require some concrete structural changes within the organizationfor instance, by prohibiting donations from lobbyists, as Ellison has proposed. But if it plays its cards right, the cracks just might open. The recent fundraising success of the ACLU, which raised more than $25 million over three days after President Donald Trump announced his travel ban, speaks to the success an established organization can have with in the Trump Era.





So far, the leading candidates for DNC chair have both hinted at a more Sanderseque approach to fundraising. Ellison's platform promises to set a goal "that low-dollar contributions from everyday Americans account for 33% of revenue." (That's about half as much as Sanders' campaign.) Perez promises to "encourage and prioritize small-dollar fundraising," but he has not set a target percentage.





Or maybe there's a compromise waiting to be struck. As one former Sanders digital staffer joked in an email, noting that Sanders, via email appeals, had raised more money directly for Democratic candidates than any other politician in 2016, "Maybe the DNC should turn their list over to Bernie?"
Ruben Kihuen and Dean Heller-- 2018 Senate opponents?



There really was only one feasible way to stop Betsy DeVos from being confirmed-- Nevada. Nevada is a swing state tilting Blue. Obama won it against McCain in 2008 (55-43%) and against Romney in 2012 (52-46%). This past November, Hillary took the state's 6 electoral votes against Triump 537,753 (47.9%) to 511,319 (45.5%). On the same day, Nevada elected Democrat Catherine Cortez Mastro over Republican Joe Heck 520,658 (47.1%) to 494,427 (44.7%) and ended the Republican hold on two of the state's 4 congressional districts by electing progressive Ruben Kihuen and centrist Jacky Rosen in the Las Vegas area. How are they doin'? Take a look at these two charts from ProgressivePunch that examine lifetime crucial vote scores. As you can see, Ruben is tied for #1 (in the entire Congress) with another progressive champion, Pramila Jayapal. Also note though, that Jayapal's district is solidly blue, while Kihuen's is more of a swing district. He beat a Republican incumbent, Cresent Hardy, to win the seat. The second chart shows the records of 4 very mediocre centrist politicians with crap scores tucked neatly between two of the most right-wing Blue Dogs in Congress, Jim Costa (CA) and Collin Peterson (MN).









please click on these two charts to read them





Jacky Rosen is in the middle of that ugliness-- with the kind of voting record that Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy drool over-- Democrats who vote with the GOP more than with their own party on crucial issues. Ruben scores an A; Jacky an F. Why bring this up so soon? Let's go back to that DeVos confirmation vote for a moment. Nevada's Republican senator Dean Heller tries painting himself as some kind of a mainstream conservative, not a radical or extremist like most of his GOP Senate colleagues. But when it came to saving public education-- despite thousands of pleas from Nevadans-- he didn't follow Republicans Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski across the aisle; he voted by rote with the GOP to confirm a profoundly unqualified and dangerous nominee. And his seat is up in 2018.





The Democrats don't have a very deep bench in Nevada and there has already been speculation that the party might draft either Ruben or Jacky. "Either?" The stand-out progressive with the best record in the House for resisting Trumpism or the mediocre backbencher who has already voted more with the GOP than with the Democratic Party. There is one sure way the Democrats can guarantee another 6 year term for Dean Heller-- nominee Jacky Ruben as his opponent.





Yesterday evening the Senate voted to confirm the execrable racist, Jeff Sessions, as Attorney General. Again, Dean Heller stuck with his party and voted for the racist to become Attorney General. It didn't take long for Ruben Kihuen let Nevadans know he doesn't agree. "The confirmation of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General," he told the Nevada media, " is a troubling development for the progress made by our nation's justice system. His history of racism, opposition to voting rights and immigration reform makes him an unacceptable choice as Attorney General. History will not look kindly on Senate Republicans who continue to rubber stamp Ppresident Trump's controversial and unqualified cabinet nominees, even going so far as to silence Senator Elizabeth Warren's opposition on the Senate floor. They should be ashamed of themselves." And by "they," he no doubt had Dean Heller foremost in mind.





Although Beto O'Rourke, the popular Democratic congressman from El Paso, is likely to take on Ted Cruz, most of the 2018 Senate contests will involve red-state Democrats defending their seats-- unattractive, anti-progressive Democratic incumbents like Joe Manchin (WV), Joe Donnelly (IN), Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Claire McCaskill (MO), Jon Tester (MT)... If Trump turns out to be the disaster he appears to be so far-- and if the Republican Congress continues to enable his crazy agenda-- there are two flippable Republican-held Senate seats up for grabs, Jeff Flake's in Arizona (very tough) and Dean Heller (tough but feasible with a good candidate, i.e.- not Jackie Rosen or some other timid, tepid Republican-lite hack).





As we've been saying, though, the real battle to stop Trump in 2018 is for the House. The Democrats need a net gain of 24 seats to oust Ryan and his horrible chairmen from power. And the Democrats can do it, as we've been explaining





We've also talked about defending some seats where Democrats were elected where the voters also went for Trump. Several good Democrats are sitting in these Trump districts -- like Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01), Matt Cartwright (PA-17), Rick Nolan (MN-08) and Dave Loebsack (IA-02)-- and these seats will need to be vigorously defended from the Trumpists. Most of the Trump districts Dems, though are just worthless Blue Dogs and New Dems from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party and don't merit any help at all. Congressional Democrats are better off without garbage incumbents like Josh Gottheimer (NJ-05), Ron Kind (WI-03), Tom O'Halleran (AZ-01), Cheri Bustos (IL-17), Collin Peterson (MN-07), Sean Patrick Maloney (NY-18) and... Jacky Rosen (NV-03).





This week the NRCC has released their first list of seats they plan to target in 2018 . They have 36 on their list, which is kind of funny (although I have admit that the DCCC's first list was kind of funny too , including absurd "targets" like Martha Roby, French Hill, Richard Hudson and Alex Mooney, whose seat Trump just won 65.8-29.4%). The same way the DCCC is focussing on Republican-held seats that Hillary won, the NRCC is focussing on Democratic-held seats that Trump won, the ones we refer to as Trump district Dems. "That segment of the list," wrote Alex Isenstadt, "is heavy on blue-collar districts in the Midwest, which Republicans believe will be especially fertile political territory in the Trump era. It includes two Democrats who were not heavily targeted by the GOP in 2016: Reps. Dave Loebsack, a veteran incumbent from southeastern Iowa, and Ron Kind, who is from west central Wisconsin and ran unopposed in 2016 while Trump carried his seat by more than 4 percentage points." These are the 36 seats the NRCC is targeting:
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Crabbing in NY

Recreational Crabbing

New York State has hundreds of miles of shoreline that provide abundant crabbing opportunities in the Marine and Coastal District, including the Hudson River and it's tributaries. Crabbing is an inexpensive family fun activity that all ages can participate in.

No permit or license is required to recreationally crab in New York.

Visit Saltwater Fishing Regulations for information about size and possession limits before you go crabbing.

Take or possession of egg-bearing crabs is prohibited.

Review the NYS Department of Health's New York State Blue Crab Cooking & Eating Guide (leaves DEC website) before you cook and eat your crabs.

Recreational Crabbing Gear

One method to catch crab is by using a baited handline and dipnet. Drop a bait (oily fish or raw chicken leg) tied to a length of string into the water. If the crabs are there, you will see your line go tight. If you retrieve the line slowly, you can scoop the crab up with your dipnet.

Another method is to set a collapsible trap or non-collapsible crab pot baited with oily fish such as menhaden or mackerel. Crabs will climb into your trap in search of the bait. Simply retrieve the trap and collect your crabs. Please note that there are certain rules you must follow when setting non-collapsible crab pots.

Crab Pot Rules

1. If a pot is marked with a buoy it must be clearly visible and attached to the pot with sinking line. The buoys must be marked with fluorescent or reflective material. The buoy must also be marked with contact information such as a phone number.

2. Do not set pots within 25 feet of designated navigation channels.

3. Non-collapsible crab pots must have:

Escape panel that's at least six by four inches in length and height.

Terrapin Excluder Devices (TEDs) fastened inside each funnel entrance of the crab pot to reduce the size of the funnel opening to no larger than 4-3/4 inch by 1-3/4 inch. These must be used in pots set in rivers, tributaries, creeks and canals on the south shore and bays and harbors on the north shore.

View the interactive map for more information about where TEDs are required

Terrapin Excluder Devices

Diamondback terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin) are found in the local bays and estuaries of the marine district. This turtle species plays an important role in maintaining the health of saltmarsh ecosystems that many of our other marine species rely on. Unfortunately, terrapins enter crab pots in search of food. Once inside a crab pot, terrapin cannot find the exit; they cannot surface or breathe, and they drown inside. Installation of TEDs on crab pots keep terrapins out and let blue crabs in. Do your part to help diamondback terrapins by installing TEDs on all the entrances to your pots.

A small number of TEDs (provided by The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and Seatuck Environmental Association) will be available to crab pot fishers on a first come/first serve basis at no cost. Please contact us at 631-444-0444 or NYBlueCrab@dec.ny.gov for more information.

For more on this topic, view TNC's "Save the Terrapins" video (leaves DEC website).

Citizen Science

We are asking for the assistance of recreational crabbers in reporting their crab harvest using the Recreational Blue Crab Survey and reporting any tagged crabs you may encounter to the Blue Crab Tagging Program.

The information you provide will help us better manage the New York blue crab fishery.



Commercial Crabbing

A commercial crab permit is required to harvest blue crab commercially in New York. The commercial crab fishery is a limited entry fishery. For more information about the commercial crab permit, please visit the Marine Permits and Licenses page.

Size limits and gear restrictions exist for the blue crab fishery. For more information about specific blue crab management measures please visit the Commercial Limits for Lobsters, Crabs & Whelk page and be sure to review the crab pot regulations (link leaves DEC's website) page before setting your crab pots.

Please note: Any person who is the holder of a marine commercial crab permit is required to submit a Vessel Trip Report (VTR) for each commercial fishing trip taken. For more information, please visit the Vessel Trip Reports page.

We are asking for the assistance of commercial crabbers in reporting any tagged crabs you may encounter to the NYSDEC Blue Crab Tagging Program page.

Marine Mammal Take Reduction Plans

Commercial trap/pot fisheries, including crab species, are required to follow the rules and regulations in the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan, visit the Marine Protected Resources webpage for the requirements.

Other Crab

Other species of crab that are commonly harvested for food include the lady (calico) crab, and the rock crab. Green crabs and mole crabs are commonly harvested for use as bait. Be sure to visit our Saltwater Fishing Regulations page before you go crabbing to learn the daily possession limit for these species.

Invasive Species

Invasive species are non-native species that are introduced to our waters. The introduction of these species causes or is likely to cause harm to the ecosystem. These species can spread rapidly and compete with native species of marine life.

Some examples of invasive crab species include the Chinese mitten crab (Eriocheir sinensis), and the dungeness crab (Cancer magister). If you capture an invasive species, do not release it. Instead photograph the crab and note the location and date of capture, then call 631-444-0444 to report it.

Remember, never release any non-native animal or plant into the wild. This includes marine animals bought from a market or pet store. For more information about marine invasive species, visit the Marine Invasive Species webpage.





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Airline had set up a five-member committee to investigate the allegations, besides reporting the matter to the aviation regulator.

Mumbai: Acting on aviation regulator DGCA sorders, Air India has taken off flying duties its operations department head for skipping the mandatory pre-flight medical test.

The orders to remove Air India Executive Director (Operations) Capt A K Kathpalia from flying duties were issued by the DGCA flight safety department yesterday, they said.

"In compliance with the DGCA orders, Capt Kathpalia will not be assigned any flight to operate any more," airline sources said.

The airline had set up a five-member committee to investigate the allegations, besides reporting the matter to the aviation regulator, Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

The probe was necessitated after the airline's pilots union ICPA brought it to the notice of the management. The complaint was received from the Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) that a senior executive pilot had evaded pre-flight medical test in the last 25 days at Delhi airport, the sources said.

Rule 24 of Aircraft Rules prohibits crew members from taking any alcoholic drink 12 hours prior to the commencement of a flight and it is mandatory for him or her to undergo an alcohol test both before and after operating a flight.

Any crew member who tests positive in the pre-flight medical check or refuses to take a breath-analyser test is required to be taken off flying duty for at least four weeks and the airline is required to initiate disciplinary proceedings.

"It has been brought to our notice that one of the executive directors, who is a pilot, has been evading pre-flight medical test, endangering the safety of the passengers and crew members.

"We hereby request you to kindly investigate into this gross violation of DGCA Civil Aviation Requirement by procuring the pre-flight medical record and all CCTV footage in dispatch and pre-flight medical room at Delhi," the ICPA had said in its complaint while seeking "strict" action against the erring pilot.
Mumbai: Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla has emerged as a top choice for head of combined entity even as talks of Idea Cellular and Vodafone merger were still at initial stages, according to a report in Mint.

The newspaper cited people in the know as saying that the unified entity would have 12 directors on its board, three each from Idea and Vodafone and six independent directors. "Birla appears to be a unanimous choice," newspaper quoted one source as saying.

Idea Cellular, country's third largest telecom operator in terms of subscriber base; and second Vodafone, British telecom giant, are in preliminary talks to make a combined telecom operator to take on Relaince Jio.

Bharti Airtel retains its numero uno position on the telecom landscape.

Jio, that has Mukesh Ambani-led energy behemoth Reliance Industries as its parent, last year disrupted India's telecom market with launch of free data and free voice call services. Jio has extended the free offer beyond its initial 90 days' period till March 2017.

Jio's launch forced top three telecom companies, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular, to explore ways to survive in the sector. The merger talks were started as both Idea and Vodafone don't want to lose out on subscriber base.

Interestingly, Idea Cellular has a deeper outreach in rural telecom circles whereas Vodafone boasts off a robust urban subscriber base mostly ensconced in metros like Mumbai. Based on a recent estimate, Vodafone's India arm was valued at Rs 50,000 crore, a figure much higher than Idea's market valuation of Rs 39,000 crore.

The coming together of the two key players in telecom sector would create a Rs 1 lakh crore worth telecom operator.

For a combined entity both Idea and Vodafone will have to work out a parity mechanism for making them equal partners in terms of value of equity holdings. Presently, Malaysia-based Axiata holds a 20 per cent stake in Idea Cellular.
New Delhi: Japan's SoftBank Corp has booked an investment loss of 39.28 billion yen (USD 350 million) on its investments in India, including those in cab-hailing firm Ola and e-commerce company Snapdeal.

In the earning statement for nine months ended December, SoftBank wrote off 39.28 billion yen in the value of shares in its Indian investments, which include Ola and Snapdeal.

"Gain or loss arising from financial instruments at FVTPL comprises mainly of changes in fair value of preferred stock investment including embedded derivatives, such as ANI

Technologies and Jasper Infotech in India, designated as financial assets at FVTPL (Fair Value Through Profit or Loss)," SoftBank said in the earnings statement.

The new set of numbers are lower than the loss recorded by SoftBank in November last year. It had booked an investment loss of 58.14 billion yen (USD 560 million) for the six-month period ending September 30, impacted by appreciation of Japan's Yen against the local currency.

SoftBank had led a USD 210-million investment in Ola and USD 627 million in Snapdeal in October 2014. It made follow-on investments in both firms. The Japanese firm has so far invested close to USD 2 billion in India and earlier this year it stated that it is looking to scale up investments to USD 10 billion in next 5-10 years.
Shares of United Breweries were trading at Rs 800.85 per scrip on BSE, up 0.04 per cent from previous close.

New Delhi: United Breweries has reported 31.94 per cent decline in net profit to Rs 48.49 crore for the quarter ended on December 31, 2016, due to the impact of demonetisation and lower income.

The company had posted a net profit of Rs 71.25 crore for the corresponding period of the previous fiscal. Total income from operations stood at Rs 2,230.86 crore for the quarter under review, up 1.20 per cent, as against Rs 2,204.3 crore for the year-ago period, United Breweries said in a BSE filing.

"Third quarter was adversely impacted by demonetisation, which resulted in both UBL and industry volume down 8 per cent..The unfavorable market conditions combined with impact of demonetisation, excise duty increases in several states and pressure on cost of materials consumed, resulted in drop in UBL's earning and profit," the company said.

Yesterday, the board of United Breweries asked Vijay Mallya to step down as its non-executive chairman following a Sebi order which barred the embattled businessman from holding directorship in any listed company.

In an e-mail to Mallya, United Breweries' Company Secretary Govind Iyengar said that in the absence of any stay or vacation of the Sebi order, the "board is compelled to request you to step down from the board" with immediate effect.

A copy of the e-mail along with extracts of the minutes of the board meeting has been submitted by the company to the BSE.

"The independent directors along with other directors present at the meeting held on February 6, 2017 had resolved not to send the notices and agenda relating to board meetings and/or other privileged information to Vijay Mallya till such time he obtains stay of the Sebi order," the company added.

The board deliberated on the matter and also reviewed the legal opinions obtained in this regard. Last month, Sebi had banned Mallya and six former officials of United Spirits Ltd (USL) from securities markets in a case related to illegal fund diversions, while probe is on into the role of auditors and change of control at the company.

Mallya and the six others were also restrained from holding directorship in any listed company. Earlier, in September 2016, coming out in support of the Mallya, the United Breweries management had said he would continue as UBL chairman despite reports that ED had attached his shares in the firm.

Shares of United Breweries were trading at Rs 800.85 per scrip on BSE, up 0.04 per cent from previous close.
The fiscal 2017-18 will see a very big change in allocation of mining leases. (Photo: Representational Image/AFP)

New Delhi: Government today said 2017-18 would be the most important year for the mining industry as leases of around 300 mineral blocks would be auctioned during the fiscal.

"In 2017-18 nearly 300 mining leases should be put on auction by different states," Mines Secretary Balvinder Kumar said during an event.

Stating that some of the states have very large number of mining leases, he said that Karnataka alone has about 100 odd leases which would be put on auction.

"The fiscal 2017-18 will see a very big change in allocation of mining leases," he said.

So far, around 21 mining leases have already been auctioned and these mineral blocks have a cumulative resource value of around Rs 94,000 crore, he added.

The Mines Ministry has already facilitated the auction process extending support from IBM and GSI and various PSUs such as MSTC, MECON, MECL and SBICAP.

Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Odisha are among the states preparing for auction of mineral blocks like iron ore, limestone and bauxite in the next financial year, the government had earlier said.

The blocks to be available for auction in future which are being explored under National Mineral Exploration Trust (NMET) or by GSI or by MECL are being explored by entities under the New Exploration Policy.
The United States has once again condemned Russias actions in Ukraine, following an escalation in fighting between government forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Speaking publicly for the first time before the United Nations Security Council, U.S. Permanent Representative to the U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley deplored the fact that the United States must repeatedly condemn the aggressive actions of Russia:

It is unfortunate because it is a replay of far too many instances over many years in which the United States representatives have needed to do that. It should not have to be that way. We do want to better our relations with Russia. However, the dire situation in eastern Ukraine is one that demands clear and strong condemnation of Russian actions.

Eastern Ukraine is not the only part of the country suffering from Russias aggressive actions. Ambassador Haley pointed to Russias occupation of Crimea and called for its immediate end:

Crimea is part of Ukraine. Our Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns control over the peninsula to Ukraine. The basic principle of this United Nations is that states should live side-by-side in peace.

Full and immediate implementation of the Minsk agreements, which the United States continues to support, she said, is a clear path to restoring peace in Ukraine.

The Minsk agreements require the disengagement of forces and withdrawal of heavy weapons from both sides of the contact line. This is the formula for a sustainable cease fire. Pulling back forces and taking heavy weapons out of this area will save lives. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Special Monitoring Mission must also be granted full, unfettered access.

Ambassador Haley noted that both Russia and Ukraine supported the Security Councils unanimous call on January 31 to return to a ceasefire. It is the first time in years that this Council was able to come together on Ukraine, she said. The United States expects that those who can influence the groups that are fighting  in particular, Russia  will do everything possible to support an end to this escalation of violence.

The United States stands with the people of Ukraine who have suffered for nearly three years under Russian occupation and military intervention, said Ambassador Haley. Until Russia and the separatists it supports respect Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity this crisis will continue.
New Delhi: The government is looking atraising retirement fund body EPFO's investment in exchange traded funds (ETFs) to 15 per cent from existing 10 per cent, Union Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya said today.

"We will discuss enhancement of raising proportion of investment in ETF from 10 per cent to 15 per cent in our next Central Board of Trustees (CBT) meeting to be held next month. After that we will hold discussions with stakeholders and our ministry will take a final decision," Dattatreya told reporters at a press conference here.

In the Budget speech, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced that EPFO will increase its investment in ETF to 15 per cent, he said, adding "so we have taken some steps".

The Minister further said the Employee Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has already invested Rs 3,000 crore in the first tranche of the Central Public Sector Enterprise ETF and returns on EPFO investment into equities are coming around 8.7-8.8 per cent annually.

In September 2016, the Labour Ministry had doubled EPFO's investment limit in ETFs to 10 per cent. At present, the EPFO corpus stands at Rs 8.70 lakh crore.

Earlier, speaking at the event organised by industry body Assocham, Dattatreya said as part of labour reforms, the government would introduce two important bills relating to wages and industrial relations in Parliament in March for simplification and rationalisation of the labour Laws.

"Next week at the inter-ministerial meeting under the chairmanship of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, we will take the final decision and after that we will go to the Cabinet," he said, adding that in March (the second leg of Budget session), "both the bills would be introduced and I am hopeful it would be passed".

According to the statement, he also said all 43 labour laws would be codified into four broad categories. Dattatreya said with the codification of labour laws, the industry would see an end to the red tape and inspector raj while the welfare of workers would also be ensured.
New Delhi: Over 50 representatives from various sectors in the country, including online retail and technology firms, have met WTO chief Roberto Azevedo to discuss issues pertaining to global trade.

Azevedo, Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), met with Indian business leaders yesterday for discussions on future of global trading system at a round-table hosted by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), a statement said today.

ICC Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal and ICC Secretary General John Danilovich joined over 50 senior representatives from key sectors for the discussions that focussed on trade reforms to boost inclusive growth and other world trade developments, it added.

Mittal, who is also Chairman of India's largest telecom firm Bharti Airtel, asked participants to consider ways in which WTO could re-energise cross-border trade to drive job creation and development. He also urged them to discuss the trade barriers they experience in their daily operations.

"It's clear that we must do more to make the case for global commerce. And also to ensure that the benefits of trade reach all parts of society," Mittal said.

The meeting featured a detailed briefing by Azevedo on the state of play of trade negotiations in Geneva, with focus on preparations for the next WTO Ministerial Conference to be held in Buenos Aires in December.

"It's vital that we -- the global business community -- do all we can to ensure that that Ministerial delivers tangible results to support trade and inclusive development," Mittal said.

The state of global trade was also central to discussion, particularly with ongoing concerns regarding the slow rate of global trade growth in recent years.

Azevedo said advancing multilateral trade negotiations was more important than ever and stated that the imminent entry into force of the Trade Facilitation Agreement would be an important boost to the global trading system.

Ahead of a meeting with Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Azevedo welcomed India's continued strong engagement in Geneva discussions and paid tribute to the country's leadership in the multilateral trading system.

Indicating that agriculture issues would be at the top of the agenda during his talks with Sitharaman, Azevedo acknowledged the importance of agriculture for India and highlighted some of the decisions that had been taken at the Bali and Nairobi Ministerial Conferences in this regard.

Azevedo said he was also looking forward to hearing more about India's Trade Facilitation in Services proposal a key issue discussed with ICC business leaders, with strong support shown among the round-table participants for the Indian proposal, the statement said.
New Delhi: Land and real estate should be brought within the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime and consumer durables should be taxed at the lowest slab to make the new indirect tax regime consumer friendly, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said today.

The Minister assured industry chambers that he would take up the aforesaid issues in the forthcoming GST Council meeting as keeping land and real estate being outside purview of GST and that higher taxation slab for consumer durables would kill its basic purpose, a PHD Chamber release said.

Addressing a seminar on GST, Sisodia said dual control of GST also defeated its intended objectives and sought more intense consultations on the issue in future course of GST Council, arguing that the objective of the GST should be consumer and traders oriented and it should not entirely aim at raising taxation with higher rates.

"I fought tooth and nail for inclusion of land and real estate within the ambit of GST but somehow there couldn't be an absolute consensus on the issue at number of GST Council Meetings of all the States Finance Ministers because of obvious reasons," Sisodia said. "Consumer durables such as TV, Mobiles, electric appliances and host of similar such articles should not be taxed luxuriously.

That is our view and we will continue to articulate them whenever necessary in the interest of Aam Aadmi though the GST tax rates have yet to be finalized," he said.

CBEC Chairman Najib Shah asked the industry not to keep seeking exemptions under the GST regime as most of such exemptions would go away after it is put in place. The Chairman also clarified that the anti-profiteering clause in GST Law is there as an enabler and industry should not read too much on it, promising that post GST host of indirect taxes would subsume in it making the new law user friendly, the statement said.
Vijay Mallya has been living in the UK after he left country on March 2 last year.

Mumbai: The Government has started extradition process of founder of Kingfisher Airlines Vijay Mallya with the UK establishment, ET Now reported. Mallya who has been living in a self-imposed exile in the UK after he left the country on March 2 last year has defaulted on loan payments.

The news channel quoted Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) as saying, "Handed over the request for extradition of Vijay Mallya to UK High Commission."

Mallya has been living in the United Kingdom in a self-imposed exile after he left the country on March 2 last year on a diplomatic passport he had held as a Rajya Sabha member. His Rajya Sabha membership was later annulled by government through a process.

With this the official process of extradition of the embattled liquor baron has begun. Mallya was declared a proclaimed offender by a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act or PMLA Court in Mumbai.

PMLA court pronounced this after Mallya failed to appear before law enforcing agencies on several occasions in defiance of bailable and non-bailable warrants issued against him.

He was also declared a wilful defaulter by a group of banks led by State Bank of India who had loaned money to now grounded Kingfisher Airlines. Mallya who ran the now defunct KFA has failed to repay the loans plus interest.

Mallya owes Rs 9,000 crore that includes interest payments to a consortium of banks led by SBI that recently won a favourable order at Debt Recovery Tribunal in Bengaluru. The DRT after weeks of hearing the matter delivered its judgement allowing the banks to start recovery of the loan money from Mallya.
According to the data by the Association of Mutual Funds in India a net sum of Rs 53,817 crore has been invested in mutual funds in the month of January.

New Delhi: Investors have pumped in nearly Rs 54,000 crore into various mutual fund schemes in January, with liquid, income and equity funds attracting the most of the inflows.

With this, total inflows has reached Rs 3.67 lakh crore in the first ten months of the current fiscal (2016-17). In comparison, Rs 1.84 lakh crore was invested in various mutual fund products during April-January period of 2015-16.

"Investors may have seen the volatility of the current fiscal as a positive to average out costs. Retail investors also appear to have become savvier, using liquid schemes to either earn higher returns or to run Systematic Transfer Plan (STPs) into equity funds to average costs," said Srikanth Meenakshi, the COO of Fundsindia.com, an investment portal for mutual funds.

"Apart from equity, inflows into debt funds have risen. Deposit rates have been falling, resulting in lower returns for investors. Falling rates help debt fund returns as yields instruments rally, which could have additionally helped draw in investors," Srikanth added.

According to the data by the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi), a net sum of Rs 53,817 crore has been invested in mutual funds in the month of January. The latest inflows have been mainly driven by contribution from liquid, income and equity funds. Liquid or money market fund category attracted Rs 28,588 crore in January, while income funds saw net inflows of Rs 10,541 crore.

Equity and equity-linked schemes saw inflows of around Rs 4,880 crore. Liquid and money market funds invest mainly in money market instruments like commercial papers, treasury bills, term deposits and have a lower maturity period and do not have any lock-in period.

An income fund emphasises on current income, either on a monthly or quarterly basis, as opposed to capital appreciation. Such funds usually hold a variety of government, municipal and corporate debt obligations, preferred stock and dividend-paying stocks.

Total assets under management (AUM) of all the active 43 active fund houses soared to a record Rs 17.37 lakh crore at the end of January this year, from Rs 16.46 lakh crore at December-end 2016.
Mumbai: Akshay Kumar finds himself in a strange dilemma, one that Shah Rukh Khan very recently had to face. While SRKs Raees got banned in Pakistan, Jolly LLB 2 might not exactly be drubbed to that extreme. However, according to reports, the film has mercilessly been put under the knife. The Censor Board of Pakistan has reportedly been citing a negative portrayal of Kashmiri Muslims in the courtroom drama as the reason for the multiple cuts.

Pak daily Express Tribune quoted an official as saying, We are avoiding giving the film a censor clearance certificate. It could be banned from release in Punjab but we are still deciding its fate. The film has been approved for public screening after recommending several excisions. Now it is up to the distributors to release it or not. It has been cleared by the censor board.

Most important scenes have been chopped off and the film now looks a pale shadow of its former self.

Earlier the Bombay High Court had also called for four scenes to be deleted. The cuts were accepted by the producers.

Jolly LLB 2, a Subhash Kapoor directorial, stars Huma Qureshi, Annu Kapoor, Saurabh Shukla and Kumud Mishra, apart from Akshay.

The film is set to release on February 10.
Mumbai: Naved Shaikh aka Naezy is one story that acts as a source of inspiration to hundreds of aspiring rappers in India. Born in the slums of Mumbai, Naezy first found his true calling when he was a teenager struggling with finding clarity in life.

Now, he is not only an established rapper but also the subject of renowned Director, Zoya Akhtars, next film called Gully Boy. Ranveer Singh, who plays Naezy in the film, will be trained by the rapper.

I have been working on this project for the past 18 months. Zoya first heard of me while she was editing Dil Dhadakne Do (2015) and saw the video of my song, Aafat. She was surprised that Mumbai slums have so much talent. Our first meeting was at Blue Frog in Lower Parel (shut down last August) where we were performing for MTV Indies (off air since last September). A common friend, Ankur Tiwari, arranged a few more meetings, revealed Naezy to a tabloid.

Not just that, the Director has even requested Naved to oen a few dialogues for the film. The dialogues are in Hindi and English, but once we are on board, we will help turn it the way we speak. She also intends to retain some of my original tracks in the film. Ankur will supervise the music, he said.

So does he approve of the casting?

I like the guy. We worked together for a song in Hey Bro (2015). He is a versatile actor and I have no doubts that he can effortlessly play an emperor in Padmavati and a rapper in this film, he added.
Actress Parvathy, who rose to fame with her excellent performances in Poo, Maryaan and Charlie (Malayalam), is currently shooting for a Malayalam film titled My Story, alongside Prithviraj Sukumaran.

'In the recent past, we witnessed actresses Aishwarya Rajesh and Regina Cassandra making their Bollywood entry with Daddy and Aankhen 2 respectively. Following this suit, Parvathy is all set to step into the Hindi film industry with a yet-to-be-titled flick, helmed by director Tanuja Chandra of Dil Toh Pagal Hai fame. According to sources, the actress is paired opposite Irrfan Khan in this romantic travelogue.

The film is about the lead pair discovering their love for each other during a road trip. However, the Bangalore Naatkal actress was unavailable for a comment. We hear that the actress has already joined the shoot in Bikaner. This untitled movie will also be shot in the picturesque locations of Rishikesh and Gangtok.
After completing her graduation in fashion designing and even dabbling in beauty pageants and TV commercials, Kannada actress Ruksar Mir who will make her Telugu debut with Showtime, got her first film offer with the Kannada film Katte. What more? Her performance was appreciated by everyone.

So impressed were people, that she was offered another film opposite Vinay Rajkumar, grandson of legendary actor Dr Rajkumar. I learnt a lot from that film, says Ruksar. After the film released last year, Telugu filmmakers were in awe of her work and approached her for Showtime.

When S.S. Rajamouli sirs cousin, S.S. Kanchi approached me for the Telugu film, I was in Delhi. After I returned to Bengaluru, they auditioned me and I got selected, says Ruksar about her Telugu debut.

Interestingly, director S.S. Kanchi auditioned several girls for the same role before zeroing in on her. Before the project, I was informed about the background of the director and the family. I know that Keeravani sir is a great music director and he was really impressed with my work, shares Ruksar.

Describing the film as a thriller, she says, I play a girl from todays age. She is open in her thinking, and is mature and confident. The subject deals with the happenings in her life and her relationships. This is my first Telugu film and I am not aware of the language, but the team was very cooperative. They gave me the dialogues and scenes a week before the actual shoot. Kanchi sir briefed me about my role and told me that he wanted an intense performance from me, she says. She adds that she just followed the director.

While doing this film, Ruksar also signed another Telugu film Akatayi. Its a new team, but the story is very good as it is a family entertainer, says Ruksar. The character I am playing in this film is in contrast to my Showtime character. I play an intense character in Showtime, while here I play a college-going student, she says.

Ruksar confesses that she never imagined that she would land in Hyderabad for a film. I was just 12 years old when I visited Hyderabad on a school trip and took a picture at RFC. I never imagined that one day, I would come to the same place for my film, reveals the actress.

Ruksar likes to dance. Unfortunately in all my films, I didnt get a chance to dance. I hope in my next film, I will get the chance to dance a lot, she says. All the Telugu actors are good and I hope I get a chance to work with all of them, she says, adding, Every industry is producing good films and all of them are coming up with amazing stories. I am open to any industry. My aim is to do decent films.
Pawan Kalyan and Anna were clicked after landing at the airport in Boston

In a very rare appearance  probably the first time ever  actor Pawan Kalyan was spotted with wife Anna Lezhneva at the Boston airport as the couple flew to the US to attend the India Conference 2017 at Harvard University, where the actor will be speaking.

Pictures of the couple clicked at the Boston Airport have been doing the rounds since early Thursday morning. The couple was accompanied by producer Sharrat Marar, whos a close aide of the actor. The conference will take place on February 11 and 12.

The actor will stay in the US for five days from February 9, when hell be meeting several important people other than speaking at the conference.
The United States is deeply concerned over the recent spike in violence in eastern Ukraine around Avdiyivka.

Since January 28, the Special Monitoring Mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE, has reported a dramatic increase in fighting in eastern Ukraine, including attacks with weapons banned by the Minsk agreements signed in 2014 and 2015.

The fighting has caused dozens of Ukrainian military casualties and at least 50 civilian casualties. It has also left approximately 17,000 civilians, including 2,500 children, without water, heat, or electricity.

The UN Security Council expressed its "grave concern" over the "dangerous deterioration" in eastern Ukraine and called for an immediate return to a ceasefire regime. Security Council members also expressed their full support of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.

Nearly 10,000 people, more than half of them civilians, have been killed in Ukraine since the fighting erupted in the spring of 2014 when the Russian military moved to occupy Ukraine's Crimean peninsula. Russias occupation and attempted annexation of Crimea was preceded by months of pro-Western protests in Ukraines capital of Kyiv, which ultimately prompted Ukraine's pro-Russian president to abandon his position and flee the country.

In response to Russias aggression against Ukraine, the United States, the EU, and a number of other countries applied targeted sanctions against Russian individuals, businesses, and officials. These sanctions remain in effect nearly three years later.

To avert a larger humanitarian crisis, the United States calls for an immediate, sustained ceasefire and full and unfettered access for OSCE monitors.

The U.S. also reaffirms its support for full implementation of the Minsk agreements to end the violence in eastern Ukraine and calls for an immediate end to the Russian occupation of Crimea.
Bengaluru: The ongoing measles rubella (MR) vaccination drive once again proved that the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) is totally out of sync with majority of private educational institutions in the city. Though the drive has been taken up jointly by the DPI and the Health Department, some 30 schools, all CBSE/ ICSE affiliated, have given it thumbs down, saying they were not informed about the drive in advance. The DPI has now issued a notice to all these schools.

As per the instructions issued by the state government, MR vaccination is compulsory at all schools. DPI sources said that most private schools in the city are not interested in the initiative and are not allowing the health department to hold the vaccination drive on their campuses. The schools have been citing lack of permission from parents to vaccinate their children.

Sources said that however, all the state syllabus schools are taking part in the drive following the directions issued by the state government. Mr D. Shashikumar, general secretary, Karnataka Associated Managements of English Medium Schools, said all the schools have joined hands with the health and education departments for the successful implementation of the project.

But most of the CBSE/ICSE schools are yet to take a final decision on allowing vaccination of their students as none of the government agencies tried to educate them over the importance of this drive. The principal of an ICSE school said that though vaccination is very important, the government cannot impose it on schools without any meeting or discussion. The parents have told us that they have already vaccinated their children against MR. The need of the hour is consultation and awareness drive. But government agencies are not ready to take up all these. Instead, they want to impose everything and that has led to confusion," he said.

The DPI has issued notices to 30 schools for not participating in the drive. But schools are expected to use feedback from parents to counter the notice. Weve requested parents to ensure that their children are vaccinated. Vaccination can be done anywhere, including PHCs and anganawadis. Schools cannot be held responsible, said a principal.

Government denies rumours

On day 1 of the measles rubella vaccination drive, 16 cases of mild anxiety were reported among the schoolchildren. "But few anti-social elements used the social media to spread fear among parents in Mysuru and Chamarajnagar. But state government agencies are also using social media effectively to counter such claims and clear all the doubts about the drive. We are uploading interviews with parents and children on government portals and social media pages to create awareness," said a Health Department official
New Delhi: New York remains Indians' first choice for a vacation, topping the charts of favourite tourist destinations for the second year running, a study has found.

According to the study conducted by Kayak, a travel search engine, New York, Dubai and London were the top three most searched travel locations by Indians. The trend has changed slightly for the first half of 2017 with Bangkok replacing London. The study is based on online search queries submitted by people in the country.

It also suggested that more Indian tourists, compared to the previous year, are considering locations like Amsterdam, Athens and Male to satiate their

wanderlust. "We saw a lot of interest being built for destinations like Amsterdam, Athens and Male becoming popular. These three key destinations garnered over 283 per cent, 185 per cent and 117 per cent increased volume in search queries respectively," says Abhijit Mishra, Country Manager India, Kayak.

The travel study said that most Indians begin their journeys on Friday, and travellers from Ahmedabad stayed longer on vacations on average. "Travellers from Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Hyderabad displayed a longer average trip duration as compared to travellers from Pune and Jaipur.

"The average travel duration for Ahmedabad was 11 days, followed by Mumbai and Hyderabad with an average travel duration of 8 days," it said. Travellers from Kolkata like to plan their vacations over a month in advance compared to other planners across the country.

"Travellers from Kolkata made bookings 45 days prior to the trip, which was the longest lead time to travel. Bookings from Jaipur and Hyderabad showed a relatively less number of days, with an average of 24-25 days prior to their trips," the study reported.
The prosecution version created "doubt" on the genuineness of the investigation as the police claimed that the 13-year-old girl was repeatedly sexually assaulted by her father, while the victim takes a firm stand that her perpetrator was her class teacher. (Photo: Representational Image)

New Delhi: The lapses by cops in probing a sexual assault case of a minor allegedly by her teacher inside the classroom, have drawn flak from a Delhi court which has directed senior police officers, the school principal and several teachers to appear before it.

The prosecution version created "doubt" on the genuineness of the investigation as the police claimed that the 13-year-old girl was repeatedly sexually assaulted by her father, while the victim takes a firm stand that her perpetrator was her class teacher at a government school here.

"All these aspects need to be deliberated upon. There appears to be total lack of supervision on part of superior officers of the district in flagrant violation of the 'Sakshi' guidelines promulgated by the Supreme Court. This is a very serious lapse," Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Yadav said.

The court directed then DCP (outer district), concerned ACP, SHO and other officials of Aman Vihar police station to be present before it on February 14, to explain the position.

It also directed the investigating officer of the case to bring before it all the teachers and principal, who had signed a letter containing alleged confession of the girl's father that he had repeatedly sexually assaulted the minor.

The court noted that the letter was purportedly prepared by accused teacher Manoj Rathi in the presence of some teachers and was later brought to the notice of the principal.

"Either the document was a forged one or if it was a genuine document then as per the mandate of Section 21 of POCSO Act, all these persons should have reported the matter to the police.

"Yet no action in the matter was taken against the accused (teacher), other four teachers as well as the principal in whose notice the facts had come. The matter has not been investigated from the angle as to whether this letter was fraudulently prepared so as to create a defence by the accused in connivance with other teachers," the court observed.

The incident occurred in August last year when the girl, a Class V student of an MCD school in Aman Vihar, posed a query to the teacher who asked her to meet him alone later.

The girl said in her complaint that the teacher allegedly molested her and when her parents came to school next day to complain about his conduct, he threatened them and took thumb impression of the child's father on a blank paper.

Later, the teacher allegedly wrote a confession letter on behalf of the girl's father that he had repeatedly sexually assaulted his daughter and got signatures of other colleagues.

The girl's father had alleged that he was thrashed by the accused and his colleagues and asked not to contact school authorities or police in the matter.

Later, a case was registered by the police against the accused teacher under provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

The court, in its order, noted the alleged confession letter was within the SHO's knowledge who "illegally ignored" it and did not carry out the legal procedure.

"It is also apparent from the case diary that SHO had pressurised the IO to file the charge sheet against the accused showing him without arrest. This aspect creates doubt about the fairness of the investigation in the matter.

"Particularly in the light of consistent statements of child victim with regard to commission of sexual assault upon her by the accused as it finds mention in the complaint, her statement before the magistrate and the proceedings which took place before Child Welfare Committee," the judge said.
Ballari: In an interesting development, former DySP of Kudligi Anupama Shenoy was quizzed by the CID police, who are investigating former excise minister H.Y. Meti's sex CD case, here on Wednesday.

While there is no clarity on the connection between Ms Shenoy and the Meti sex CD case, the former police officer arrived at the Government Guest House for questioning. Ms Shenoy later told the media that she was questioned for about 20 minutes by CID Deputy Superintendent of Police Ravi Shankar mainly based on the media reports.

Ms Shenoy said she was asked whether she knew Ms Vijayalakshmi, who is in the sex tape, and Mr Meti. I told them that I don't know them personally.

The ex-DySP was asked whether she was using the sex tape, in collusion with RSS leaders Santosh and Kalladka Prabhakar Bhat, and releasing it through Ballari-based RTI activist Rajashekhar Mulali to get back her previous police job. I said no to all these questions," she said.

Most of the questions posed to her were based on media reports which she claimed were 'false' and 'concocted'. She reiterated that the Facebook account that has her name is not her own.

It is learnt that the police are trying to find out who filmed the CD and other aspects related to the case. The police have also questioned RTI activist Rajashekhar, who exposed the episode, leading to the resignation of Mr H.Y. Meti.

The incident has witnessed a lot of twists and turns with the victim initially denying the incident and later claiming that she was threatened to do so. Even, Mr Meti's gunman Subhash Mugalkod, who was allegedly instrumental in filming the incident to blackmail the minister, too has gone underground and is yet to be traced.
The incident took place at Lotus Lap Public School on Wednesday afternoon. The student J. Sri Teja, 12 was sent to a hospital for medical treatment. (Representational image)

Hyderabad: A school teacher allegedly beat up a Class VI student for pulling another students bag at LB Nagar. The student suffered injuries including a fracture on his finger. The victims father alleged that the teacher used a thick stick than a normal cane to beat his son.

Police booked a case against the teacher. The incident took place at Lotus Lap Public School on Wednesday afternoon. The student J. Sri Teja, 12 was sent to a hospital for medical treatment.

My son and another student in his class were pulling a bag between themselves while the teacher Shailaja was there. She got angry and hit both the students. My sons hand and finger got swollen. He is now in hospital, there must be a fracture on his finger. Doctors are examining, said J. Venkat, father of Teja.

Principal did not listen: Dad

J. Venkat, father of the student Sri Teja said that when he went to lodge a complaint with principal Gopal Reddy he did not listen He then went to the Saroornagar police station and lodged a complaint. Police booked a case against the teacher Shailaja. The kids palm is swollen. We sent the kid to hospital and issued an FIR, said Inspector S. Lingaiah. The police is yet to arrest or question the teacher.
Hyderabad: Two Class VI students went missing from the hostel of the Word & Deed School in Hayathnagar. The room in which the kids were staying was found empty in the morning. Searches for them in surrounding areas were fruitless. Epuri Pavan Kumar, 12, and Katika Prabhu, 13, were staying in the hostel at Hayathnagar.

Some students saw them leaving the hostel at around 8.30 am. But they did not come to the school, a police officer from Hayathnagar said. Officials of the school searched several places in surrounding areas. They also checked with parents of the children. One of the missing students is from Maheshwaram and the other student from Nampally in Nalgonda. Later, warden B. Chinna Raju approached the police and filed a complaint. Police launched a search. The police is also investigating if the kids were kidnapped or lured by an adult.
Hyderabad: A car driver allegedly raped a 17-year-old girl at Humayun Nagar and threatened to ruin her life. The driver, Y. Lakshman, 25, who was a friend of the victims father, used to visit her house frequently. One day, Lakshman took the victim to the Vijayanagar colony park and raped her there. The suspect also clicked her photographs and blackmailed her to keep the incident secret. Police arrested Lakshman on Wednesday. The victim is a polytechnic student.

The victims father, who filed a complaint with the Humayun Nagar police, said the sexual assault took place on December. 23. Lakshman lured the girl when her parents were not at home. The suspect and the victim's father work in the same company as drivers. As Lakshman was her father's friend, she went with him to the park nearby when he invited her. The victim alleged that he raped her in the park, said inspector S. Ravinder of Humayun Nagar.

After the incident, Lakshman asked the victim to keep it a secret. He threatened that he would ruin her life using the pictures he clicked. After weeks, the girl was found brooding over something. Her mom found that there was something different in the girls behaviour. When they repeatedly inquired with her, the victim said that she was raped by Lakshman, said the inspector.

The park was deserted as it was evening and no other visitors were there, the victim said. The victims father then approached the police and filed a complaint. Police launched a search for Lakshman and arrested him. After the arrest, Lakshman claimed that he and the victim were in love. Police booked a case against Lakshman for rape and criminal intimidation. He was also booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (Pocso).
Srinagar: Security forces are enforcing a lockdown in parts of Jammu and Kashmirs summer capital Srinagar to hold back protests planned on the death anniversary of Parliament attack convict Muhammad Afzal Guru.

Guru, a resident of Doabgah suburb of Kashmirs north-western town of Sopore, was hanged to death in Delhis Tihar jail on February 9, 2013.

Though J&Ks Director General of Police, S.P. Vaid, said that no curfew as such has been clamped on any part of the Valley and that only mild restrictions are being enforced in few police stations areas of central Srinagar, huge contingents of CRPF and local police personnel with riot gear were at dawn fanned out to enforce security lockdown in areas considered as politically volatile.

At places in the heart of old Srinagar including Gojwara and Mashali Mohalla, Hawal, Concertina razor wire has been laid on the main roads and to block some side streets.

Police sources said that while a red alert stands valid for all major towns of Kashmir Valley for next three days, security restrictions have been ordered for seven police stations areas of Srinagar for Thursday and Saturday and for the City centre Lal Chowk and its neighbourhood for Friday.

Partial security restrictions have been imposed in some other equally sensitive parts of the Valley too. A report from Sopore said that hundreds of security personnel in riot gear are out on the streets as people in large numbers began visiting Gurus family in Doabgah early in the morning to share its sorrow and join a prayer meeting.

Elsewhere in the Muslim-majority Valley, the separatists call for a shutdown to commemorate the Guru execution is being obeyed widely by the people by suspending work. While shops and other businesses are closed, only skeleton transport services are plying on select routes. The rail services through the Valley have also been suspended as a precautionary measure, officials said.

A tight security umbrella has been put up especially around the summer headquarters of the United Nations Military Observers in India and Pakistan (UNMOIP) in Srinagars Gupkar Road in view of the call issued by an alliance of separatist leaders asking people to converge at it on Friday to demand plebiscite.

The alliance has also renewed the separatists demand that the mortal remains of Guru and those of pro-independence Jammu Kashmir National Liberation Front (JKLF) cofounder Muhammad Maqbool Butt be returned so that they are given a decent and befitting burial in the Valley.

Butt charged with murder of an Indian intelligence officer Amar Chand in Bomai area of Sopore way back in mid-1960s was also executed in Delhi Tihar jail in 1984 and like Guru his mortal remains were buried inside the prison premises.

Ahead of the Guru and Butt anniversaries, key separatist leaders have been placed under house arrest or detained in police stations. Some others including Muhammad Yasin Malik have gone underground. Also, the police has taken dozens of known or potential stone-pelters into preventive custody.

The restrictions called mild by the authorities in force in Srinagar are likely to continue through February 11 which is observed as black day" in Kashmir to mark the death anniversary of Butt.

However, a senior police official said that a review meeting would be held on each evening during these three days to decide on amount of restrictions to be imposed next day under Section 144 CrPc and any other measures as warranted by the ground situation.

On Wednesday, the police chief, Vaid, was in Srinagar to hold a meeting with senior police and State and Central security forces and intelligence agencies officials. He called for efficient measures for maintaining peace and order. He said that coordination was imperative to make such efforts successful while ensuring law and order in the State.

The safety and security of the people is our prime concern and every attempt of the elements inimical to peace would be foiled firmly," he said. He added that days of imposing curfews are gone and that instead innovative mechanism has been put in place by the law enforcing agencies to foil the ill designs of anti national elements.
AIADMK MLAs being taken in a bus by the party office bearers after being addressed by party general secretary V.K. Sasikala on Wednesday (Photo: DC)

Chennai: The AIADMK MLAs owing allegiance to General Secretary VK Sasikala were herded into luxury buses on Wednesday and were parked in safe places in luxury hotels and bungalows to prevent defection.

After the meeting of MLAs that ended at around 1 pm, the MLAs were asked to board buses after being told that they have to travel to New Delhi to be paraded before the President of India and were taken to luxury hotels on the outskirts of the city. While some MLAs were taken to the bungalow of PWD Minister Edappadi K Palanisamy, others were taken to a luxury hotel in Kovalam owned by a senior leader of AIADMK.

Sources said a few MLAs were not even allowed to use their mobile phones initially, but they were allowed to do so later. The MLAs were taken care of by the Sasikala camp, the source said.

Finally, their trip to New Delhi did not materialise after news came from Mumbai that Governor CH Vidyasagar Rao was coming to Chennai on Thursday.
Remarkably, the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, declared on Monday that he would be strongly opposed to the idea of US President Donald Trump addressing the British Parliament during his proposed, but as yet unscheduled, visit to London.

His declaration followed a weekend of anti-Trump demonstrations across the country, and polls suggesting that a majority of Britons are anyhow uncomfortable with the idea of a visit, at least for as long as the new US administrations supposedly temporary ban on immigration from certain Muslim countries remains in place.

In the wake of a visit to Washington, British Prime Minister Theresa May was widely pilloried for her hesitant and mealy-mouthed response to the ban  although she did not fare quite as badly as Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, whose silence on the matter was rewarded with a White House leak revealing that he had been at the receiving end of a crude ear-bashing from Trump for daring to suggest during a phone call that he expected the US to honour Barack Obamas pledge to accept as refugees 1,250 of the unfortunate souls whose lives Australia has cast into limbo on godforsaken Pacific islands.

May successfully manoeuvred to become the first foreign head of government to visit Trump as part of her campaign to prove that Britain would enjoy a privileged status at the global level following its EU exit. After her US visit she headed straight to Turkey for a tete-a-tete with another elected authoritarian, who agreed to purchase British fighter jets.

Back home, meanwhile, she suffered a minor judicial blow when the British Supreme Court dismissed government arguments for triggering Article 50, which formally sets in motion the tricky process of wriggling out of the EUs tentacles, without a parliamentary imprimatur.

The first vote last week went overwhelmingly the governments way, with official backing from the Opposition Labour Party, although several dozen of its MPs defied the party whip. A second vote is expected, with several amendments to the legislation, from Labour as well as the more or less unequivocally anti-Brexit Scottish National Party and the Liberal Democrats in play.

Not altogether surprisingly, the Brexit debate has sparked further disarray within Labours parliamentary ranks, with many of party leader Jeremy Corbyns allies deserting him, some even resigning from the shadow Cabinet, on the Brexit vote.

On the face of it, there is merit in the Labour leaderships stance that triggering Article 50 only endorses the popular will expressed in last years Brexit referendum, and that the partys energies will be devoted to securing the best possible terms for the disengagement, whereby Britain, for instance, guarantees residency rights to the more than three million EU citizens living and working in the country, and retains membership of the European single market.

It remains to be seen how Labour will decide to vote if its amendments are defeated, which seems likely. It could choose to abstain, but that may only serve to reinforce the already widespread public perception of a disconnect between Westminster and the people it purports to represent, which is precisely the sense that has driven so many voters towards maverick outfits such as the UK Independence Party.

There is a growing chorus of opinion across the ideological spectrum pushing the line that the referendum result  52-48 in favour of Brexit  is not sacrosanct, and that it could legitimately be overridden by a parliamentary vote, if not right away then in the near future. This is tricky. Sure, it can be conjectured that at least some of those who couldnt be bothered to vote would have done so had they known which way the result would otherwise go, thereby tilting the odds in the other direction.

The only alternative surely isnt Mays recipe for a nation that aspires for a glory that vanished with its empire many decades ago, and ends up effectively as Little Britain.



By arrangement with Dawn.
Itanagar: A total of 549 elected panchayat members, mostly from Congress, joined Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday at Seppa in East Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh in presence of Chief Minister Pema Khandu who expressed hope that all panchayat leaders across the state would join BJP before February 20.

Khandu himself had joined the saffron party and formed a BJP government in the state on December 31.

Welcoming these panchayat leaders of East Kameng into the party, Khandu said after BJP formed the government in the state on December 31, it was decided that all elected

panchayat members across the state were needed to join BJP.

"Our government's joining the BJP will not be complete till all panchayat leaders repose faith on the party and join it voluntarily," he said and expressed hope that all elected

panchayat members in the state will join the party before February 20.

BJP formed the government in Arunachal on December 31 with 33 MLAs of Peoples' Party of Arunachal (PPA) led by Khandu joining the party. Khandu had broke away from Congress along with 42 lawmakers in September last year and joined PPA.

Praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Minister Kiren Rijiju for their concern for Arunachal Pradesh,

Khandu said, during his three interactions with the PM, Modi had given him specific directions to take each and every scheme of the government to the grassroot.

"Our grassroot is the panchayati raj leaders," he said.

Rijiju, Union Minister of State for Home, was also present on the occasion.

In his address, Rijiju called upon the panchayat leaders to cooperate with the state government and said that he would be the bridge between the central government and the state government.

Rijiju praised Khandu back saying he is the youngest chief minister of the state and his ideas were fresh.

He also asked those who joined the party today to work for strengthening the governments both at the Centre and in the state.
New Delhi: India on Thursday hit out at China for its remarks that there was no consensus over the US' proposal to ban Pathankot attack mastermind and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Masood Azhar at the UN, saying if there is a change in the Chinese position, there will be a consensus as well.

External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup also said the matter has been taken up with the Chinese Ambassador in Delhi and a similar demarche is being made in Beijing.

Observing that the proposal was not moved by India but by three permanent members of the UN Security Council - the US, the UK and France, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup described it as a "classic counter-terrorism proposal" and hoped that China will also come around to accept this view.

"It is our understanding that this was a classic counter- terrorism proposal meant to proscribe a dreaded terrorist leader Masood Azhar whose organisation the Jaish-e-Mohammad has already been proscribed by the UN 1267 Committee.

"We don't view this as a bilateral matter between India and Pakistan but as an issue of global counter terrorism. We hope that eventually China will also come around to accepting this view. Obviously, if there is a change in the Chinese position, there will be consensus also," he said.

India's sharp reaction came a day after China defended its decision to block the US-initiated proposal in the UN for designating Azhar as a global terrorist, saying the "conditions" have not yet been met for Beijing to back the move.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang had also told a media briefing in Beijing that his government resorted to this move to allow the "relevant parties" to reach a consensus.

"We put out technical hold after we had several rounds of consultations with India. We hope relevant parties have enough time to consult with each other to make sure that the decision made by the Committee will be based on consensus representing the broad international community," he said.

Swarup also said the proposal was submitted on January 19 after induction of four new members to the UN Security Council.

China has put a "hold" on the US-initiated proposal, which comes barely weeks after India's bid to get Azhar banned by the UN was scuttled by Beijing last December. This has prompted India to take up the matter with the Chinese government.
Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge speaks in the Lok Sabha in New Delhi. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: Congress members on Thursday staged a walkout of the Lok Sabha protesting against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's dig at his predecessor Manmohan Singh in the Rajya Sabha yesterday.

Party Leader in the House Mallikarjun Kharge tried to raise the issue as soon as the Zero Hour began but the Speaker disallowed him, saying a matter relating to the other House cannot be raised.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar also said the issue cannot be raised here.

Whatever Modi has said about Singh is not good for parliamentary democracy, Kharge said before the Speaker cut him off.

With party president Sonia Gandhi looking on, Congress members trooped into the Well demanding that the Prime Minister apologise for his remarks.

An irate Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said they were snatching away the rights of other members as they have got the chance to speak during the Zero after several days today.

Kharge said what Modi had said was an insult to the country.

With the Speaker continuing with Zero Hour proceedings, Congress members staged a walkout.

Taking a dig at Singh, Modi had said he knew the art of taking bath wearing a raincoat as there were many scams during his government but he had remained untainted.
Despite the Legislative Assembly tabling a bill that bans commercial establishments on roads measuring 40 feet, they continue to thrive in residential areas. The move may have had the backing of every RWA across the city. The Palike claims to have sent out over 12,000 individual notices. But residents say no change has taken place on ground. The traders rule.

Once a pensioners paradise, Bengaluru has seen its peace destroyed over the years with its roads growing increasingly burdened with traffic. While most Bengalureans retired to the peace of their homes in the past to escape the noise of its commercial hubs, today they have been robbed of even this luxury as traffic has been growing steadily on the streets and bylanes of their neighbourhoods as well thanks mainly to the many commercial establishments that have mushroomed in their midst.

Sadly, a 2012 interim High Court order prohibiting commercial use of buildings in residential areas is being largely ignored with commercial spaces still available for rent in several neighbourhoods. And although the BBMP made it clear in a 2015 circular that the mixed zone concept applied only to residential localities with over 40 feet wide roads, no one seems to be listening to it either.

Read | Guest column: Commercial establishments have flouted norms

Visit Koramangala, the citys start-up hub, and its apparent the BBMP's diktat is being widely flouted with many buildings in its residential parts blatantly advertising space for commercial use. Things are no better in upmarket Indiranagar. Once a largely peaceful locality, its quiet has been ruined by the many commercial establishments dotting its residential areas.

While the BBMP sat back and let the situation deteriorate, several residential welfare associations plunged into the battle to save their localities quiet and now coming under pressure, the BBMP has finally cracked the whip against illegal commercial establishments in residential areas, asking them to voluntarily shut down by a December 6, 2016 public notice. It has gone on to issue individual notices to shop owners as well.

Not waiting for the BBMP or BDA to act, around 17 Resident Welfare Associations have begun installing boards in their localities saying commerical use of buildings in residential areas is prohibited by a High Court order and a BBMP public notice of December 6, 2016. More such boards are expected to come up in the city.

But going by the RWAs, the notices dont seem to have scared anyone either.

Says Mr Nitin Sheshadri, a member of the Koramangala 3rd block Resident Welfare Association, "The health wing of the BBMP has served notices to several commercial units , but even today you find many buildings in residential areas ready to offer space for commercial use."

Ms Swarna Venkataraman, vice-president of the Indiranagar 1st Stage League, too laments that the public notice has made little difference. "We dont see any difference in the situation before and after the notices were issued by the BBMP. Nothing has changed. There is not even a hint of the commercial units shutting down in our residential areas. In fact many of the old homes are being demolished to make way for commercial buildings. The BBMP needs to act fast to stop this," she warns.

Most commercial units seem to believe the BBMP is unlikely to enforce its notice, in her view. Their attitude is we look for alternative space only when the BBMP comes knocking at our doors, asking us to shut operations," she adds ruefully.

Points of (dis)order

Based on a High Court order to curb illegal commercial establishments in residential areas, the BBMP issues a public notice on December 6, 2016, asking all illegal commercial units to move out of residential areas.

Later, the civic agency begins issuing individual notices to commercial units in these areas .

The BBMP council unanimously decides to set up a committee to go into the pros and cons of commercial establishments operating in residential areas and submit a report to the state government on the issue.

RWAs have now begun installing boards in their localities saying commercial activity is prohibited in these areas.

Schools operating in residential areas will be considered commercial

Even schools operating in residential areas will not be spared, according to BBMP commissioner, Manjunath Prasad. "Schools are not charity organisations. They charge a fee for enrolling children and are therefore commercial" he noted, adding, Although some people may find it convenient to have schools operating close to their homes, they cause a great deal of inconvenience in residential areas and will also be served notices. They may be spared only if they are operating in a space earmarked by the BDA for schools. 

BBMP is setting up a committee to look into the issue

In its battle to curb commercial establishments in residential areas, the BBMP has already issued over 12,000 individual notices to their owners asking them to explain their presence in these localities.

BBMP commissioner, Manjunath Prasad points out that the BBMP council too has unanimously decided to set up a committee to look into the issue. Although the committee has not yet been set up, our operation to shift commercial units from residential areas is on based on the High Court order. We have already issued over 12,000 individual notices and quite a few of the shop owners have replied to them, he reveals, adding that in their responses to the notices, some units have claimed they had set up shop in the area before the High Court order and a few others have maintained their presence in the localities goes back to before the Revised Master Plan of 2015 was amended.

"Our health officers, who were entrusted with the task of issuing notices, will collate the replies received. We will hold a meeting to discuss the responses to the notices and decide on the next course of action, the commissioner assures, also underlining that trade licences that come up for renewal in residential areas will not be entertained at any cost.
New Delhi: India has filed a mercy petition with Qatar for two nationals who were awarded death penalty by the Supreme Court there for allegedly murdering a woman four years ago, External Affairs Ministry said on Thursday.

Indian mission in Doha has filed a mercy petition on Wednesday with Qatar Foreign Ministry regarding the death penalty of Subramanian Alagappa and Chelladurai Perumal for further action, MEA Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.

The court in Qatar had recently rejected a plea by the Indian Embassy to overturn the death penalty awarded to the duo, both in their 40s, but commuted the life term awarded to the third accused, Sivakumar Arasan, to 15 years jail term.

Subramanian hails from Villupuram. Perumal is a resident of Virudhunagar in Tamil Nadu.
Chennai: Jumping on the O. Panneerselvam bandwagon, Tamil film icon Kamal Hassan on Wednesday said the Chief Minister has not shown any signs of damage or incompetence so far and suggested that he should be allowed to continue since he is the tool to execute my democratic will.

The legendary actor, who has always been outspoken about political and social issue and quite active on Twitter off-late, also took a dig at V K Sasikala staking the claim for Chief Ministership saying her friendship with late Jayalalithaa does not give her the boarding pass to the top post.

Just sticking around with somebody for long enough does not make you qualify for the profession. I am lawyer's son and that does not make me go and argue a case in the court. I am an actor and I am trained for that, Mr Hassan said, when asked to comment on the popular support for OPS and opposition to Sasikala.

He also clarified that Mr Panneerselvam is neither his friend nor his foe, the actor said the Chief Minister was the tool to execute his democratic will and people of the state should have the control on those who govern them.

Now we have a choice. Panneerselvam has not shown any signs of damage or incompetency I dont know the qualifications of Sasikala and neither do the people of Tamil Nadu, the actor told English news channels. At one point, he also termed Sasikala conglomeration of corruption and said she should respect the peoples views.

Noting that he was disturbed with the developments in the state, Mr Hassan pinned part of the blame on the citizens as he said the people have not been doing anything because we have been lazy.

Earlier, he also invited fellow actor R Madhavan to begin a discussion regarding the current conflict of interest between the ruling party. @ActorMadhavan Please. Talk on crisis in TN. We have a voice with decibel levels not conducive to bad politics, you can also disagree. But do it loud please, tweeted Mr Haasan.

To this Madhavan replied in a series of tweets how the state needs to walk in the right direction. Sir we have always discussed how TN should be the BEST state in the world leave alone India. With the talent and potential we have we are.
BENGALURU: Alleging a breakdown in law and order machinery, leader of Opposition in the Legislative Council, K S Eshwarappa, taunted home minister Dr G Parameshwar on Wednesday about interference in his department, and urged the minister to assert himself in the government.

Speaking on the motion on thanks to the Governor's address in the Upper House, the leader raked up the issue of an increase in incidents of sexual harassment, and charged that the government had failed to check them. The people had lost confidence in the home minister for his failure to curb such incidents. The reason, however, could be interference and meddling in affairs of the department by others, he added.

On release of funds to Karnataka for drought relief projects, Mr Eshwarappa charged that the previous UPA government hardly released funds despite submission of memorandum seeking funds worth crores of rupees. The current NDA government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced a grant of Rs 1782 crore which would be released after the budget session of parliament. It was not right on the part of the state government to blame the Union government on all issues. The state government should take the lead in waiver of crop loans of farmers without depending upon Union government, he added.

About the welfare of SCs/STs, he took social welfare minister H Anjaneya to task for not spending even 30 per cent of funds of the total Rs 9000 crore. Of the total Rs 9000 crore released, Rs 6000 crore had been spent.
Mumbai: A corporator of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena was arrested on Thursday by the police for allegedly sending a lewd message to a 34-year-old woman.

Sudhir Jadhav, the accused, surrendered at Dadar police station after an offence was registered against him on a complaint by the woman, a police official said.

Jadhav had allegedly sent a lewd message to the complainant through WhatsApp.

Police booked him under section 354 of IPC (outraging a woman's modesty).

After coming to know that case was registered against him, Jadhav himself surrendered before police, said Sunil Deshmukh, Assistant Commissioner of Police.

He was subsequently produced before a court which released him on bail bond of Rs 7,000, the ACP said.
New Delhi: Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were on Thursday locked in fiery exchanges inside and outside Parliament over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "raincoat" jibe at his predecessor Manmohan Singh with the main opposition party joined by others pressing him to apologise for the "insulting" remark.

BJP on its part said Congress had no moral right to preach or give sermons to others and instead demanded it apologise to Parliament and the prime minister for calling him names. BJP President Amit Shah also reminded Rahul Gandhi of the kind of term his mother had used against Modi, an apparent reference to 'Maut ke saudagar'(merchant of death) remark made by Sonia Gandhi when he was Gujarat Chief Minister.

Congress and other opposition parties forced adjournment of Rajya Sabha twice demanding an apology from Modi over his remarks "insulting" his precedessors even as its Vice-President Rahul Gandhi told a poll rally that the Prime Minister had lowered the dignity of his office.

Congress, CPI(M) and JD(U) raised the remarks made by Modi in his speech in the Rajya Sabha during the debate on the Motion of Thanks to President's address yesterday, saying the PM was "abusive" and used "insulting" language.

Modi had said that one should learn the art of "bathing with a raincoat on" from Manmohan Singh as there was not a single taint on him despite so many scams having taken place during his regime.

"He has dragged political debate to new low... he was abusive... we will oppose him," Anand Sharma(Congress) said.

Deputy Chairman P J Kurien said the issue regarding Modi's remarks was a closed chapter as far as the Chair is concerned.

"I cannot reopen a discussion which is concluded... there are so many other ways of raising (your concerns)," he said.

Digvijay Singh (Congress) raised strong objections to Modi's remarks against Manmohan Singh and another former PM Indira Gandhi and demanded they be expunged. Congress members were seen protesting in the aisle, raising "shame, shame" slogans.

Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram while initiating the discussion on the 2017-18 General Budget in Rajya Sabha criticised Modi over the words he chose to attack his predecessor, saying he should remember that the Chair he sat on was used by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and even Atal Bihari Vajpayee and hence he should use right language.

"The Prime Minister's office is not an ordinary one. Great honour is associated with it. So by targeting his predecessor in that manner the prime minister has lowered the dignity of his office," Rahul said addressing an election rally in Almora in poll-bound Uttarakhand.

Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu hit out at Congress for obstructing proceedings in both Houses, and said the opposition party had no moral right to preach or give sermons to others and demanded that it apologise to Parliament and the prime minister for calling him names.

Naidu told reporters that the opposition, particularly Congress, should tender an apology for obstructing Parliament and for making uncharitable remarks against the prime minister, "not only now, but also earlier".

He said the Congress leaders called Modi names umpteen number of times, using all "absurd and cheap words".

"Let them not teach or preach 'pravachan' (sermons) to others," he said.

"They (Opposition) called him (the PM) 'Hitler', 'Mussolini', 'Gaddafi'. They made all sort of meaningless remarks against the Prime Minister. It is a shame. They are not able to understand the reality, creating issue out of non issues, why should the Prime Minister apologise?" Naidu asked.

BJP also fielded Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to launch a sharp attack on Congress, especially its top leaders Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, saying it is no longer a conventional political party representing certain ideology but a "conglomeration believing in divinity and devotion to a family".

Defending Modi's dig, Prasad said "fun, pun and repartee" are part of parliamentary debate and suggested that

Congress was using Singh as an "useful expendable" outsider like many top leaders outside the Gandhi family.

"We are very very disappointed by what the PM said yesterday. I do not think in the history of Indian parliamentary democracy, we have ever heard the PM insulting his predecessor in such a manner using bathroom analogy. This is simply not heard of (before)," Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said outside Parliament.
Bijnor: "No whiff of BJP in air, let alone a storm," Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday said as he hit back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his jibe at the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance for the state assembly polls.

During an election rally in Aligarh on Sunday, PM Modi had remarked that the BJP "storm" had forced Chief Minister Yadav to desperately seek the help of anything, "even a pole", to retain power.

Addressing a rally here, Akhilesh hit out at Modi, saying, "Not a whiff of BJP is to be seen in the air, they are talking about a wave."

Training guns against arch-rival BSP, he cautioned the minority community voters against voting for the Mayawati-led party, which he said has thrice formed government in the state with support of BJP.

On tie-up with Congress, he said, "If hearts are big, friendships can last long. SP has a big heart and has given more seats to Congress."

He also said that if SP retains power in UP, it would work on improving law and order in the state.

UP will go to polls in seven phases between February 11 and March 8, while the counting of ballots will take place on March 11.
The five-and-a-half year old boy was taken away from his NRI parents by Norwegian authorities last year. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: Aryan, son of a Norway-based NRI couple, who was allegedly taken into custody by the Norway Child Welfare Department on frivolous complaint of abuse, may soon be returned to parents.

Sources said, Aryan will be very soon reunited with his parents.

The five-and-a-half year old boy was taken away from his NRI parents by Norwegian authorities last year.

In wake of the allegations made by an Indian couple, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on December 23 last year said the embassy in Oslo has taken up this issue and added that External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj is personally monitoring the case.

"The Ministry is fully aware of the issue and our embassy in Oslo is following up the matter. Our Ambassador has already established contact with the father who is a Norwegian citizen as is the child. The Mother, however, happens to be an Indian passport holder. Following the custody by the Norway child welfare services, legal proceedings are currently underway regarding the continuation of such custody," MEA official spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.

Swarup said the Indian embassy remains fully prepared to engage with local authorities to impress upon them that this is a humanitarian issue and the separation of a child from his parents is a matter of distress to the entire family.

However, the Norwegian Embassy in New Delhi said child welfare cases are handled in accordance to the Norwegian Child Welfare Act and the Act applies to all children in Norway

"The Norwegian authorities are dealing with the case with complete sensitivity and awareness Norway Embassy," the authorities said.

Anil Kumar, the father of the five-year-old, said the Child Welfare Department of Norway took custody of his son on December 13 at 9.30 a.m. from his kindergarten school without informing them.

He further said that four policemen took his wife into custody and she was interrogated for three hours.

This is the third case since 2011 when children have been taken away from their Indian-origin parents by the authorities in Norway on grounds of abuse.

In 2011, a three-year-old and a one-year-old were separated from their parents, prompting the then UPA government to take up the issue with Norway. The Norwegian court later allowed the children to be reunited with their parents.

In December 2012, an Indian couple was jailed on charges of ill treatment of their children. Later, they were sent to their grand parents in Hyderabad.
New Delhi: The Indian Navy on Thursday downplayed apprehensions over an international naval exercise being organised by Pakistan in the Arabian Sea this week, terming it as a "normal maritime activity" every nation was entitled to.

"This is an exercise hosted by Pakistanis once in two years. And 16 nations are taking part in it. It is a normal maritime activity any nation is entitled to," Sunil Lanba, Chief of Naval Staff, told reporters at the sidelines of a conference organised by the National Maritime Foundation (NMF).

Pakistan is organising 'Aman-17' from February 10 to 14.

Navies from Australia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Maldives, Russia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States are participating in the joint exercise.

A day after the IL 38 Long Range Maritime Reconnaissance aircraft (LRMRA) carried out a successful Anti Ship Missile firing on a target ship in the Arabian Sea, Lanba said, all the LRMRAs with the Indian Navy will now have the ability to take on any ship.

The LRMRAs are used for surveillances, especially to keep a track on hostile submarines. The P-8I Boeing aircraft with the navy also has similar capabilities, the official said.

Speaking at the conference titled 'The Blue Economy', Lanba emphasised on the need for a suitable policy and a legal framework for national and international level to address different aspects of the blue economy.

"Identify the differences between the existing national and international laws and policies which should be amended or modified to include tenants of blue economy. For instance, suitable safeguards (are necessary) for fisheries management so that the practise conforms to the tenants of the blue economy.

"Science based approach is also necessary for development of blue economy," he said, adding that high international cooperation was imperative if the concept of blue economy had to take roots.

Blue economy refers to the use of the sea and its resources for sustainable economic development.

"India has also been cooperating closely with a number of countries such as Mauritius, Seychelles, Bangladesh and Australia to implement and harness the concept of blue economy," the Navy Chief said.

Lanba said India had always been a maritime nation, but it "lost focus" in the past.

"We had become land-centric and (with a) continental mindset, which had shifted now. India as a nation...our destinies linked to the ocean. That is why, there is a renewed focus on maritime," he said.

Emphasising on the sea lanes of the Indian Ocean Region, known as the economic highways and critical to the global economy, Lanba said as the strategic and economic values of these sea lanes increase, the challenges entailing them will also rise.

"To address these challenges, it is imperative that the navies and maritime agencies of different countries join hands to anchor collective security, stability and sustained growth for the entire region.

"The Indian navy will continue to accord greater focus to enhance collective ability of countries in Indian Ocean region to monitor and secure the maritime zones," Lanba said.

Speaking at the conference, Union Minister for Skill Development Rajiv Pratap Rudy emphasised on organising an international skill conference on blue economy and maritime activities, in which aspects like skilling retired navy personnels could be discussed.

This could further be taken up with the Skill Development Ministry, he said.
Chennai: The two of us have come to save the two leaves and strengthen the hands of Annan (O. Panneerselvam, caretaker CM), expressed V. C. Arukutty, the AIADMK legislator representing Kavundampalayam in Coimbatore. He rushed to Chennai on Tuesday evening after he learnt the CM took up meditation on Marina where late CM Jayalalithaa was laid to rest.

The first MLA to pledge support to Panneerselvam was K. Manickam from Sholavandan (Madurai district). They are not alone. Within 24 hours Mr. Panneerselvams house became the epicenter of a largest ever congregation of his supporters, which also included partys Rajya Sabha MP V. Maithreyan, veterans like P. H. Pandian, actor-director K. Bhagyaraj and several other dignitaries. Former actor-legislator Arun Pandian and former state minister Natham Viswanathan too conveyed their support in person.

The flurry of activity at the official residence of Panneerselvam who claims immunity to his treasurers post in the AIADMK, as it was conferred upon him by his mentor Amma, appeared to be unending. While AIADMK chief V. K. Sasikala, waiting to be sworn in as next CM of TN, has the decisive numbers (of MLAs) on her side, Mr Panneerselvam seems to have the support of his well-wishers and public.

This is just the beginning. Many legislators and MPs will support him. Annan will prove his strength on the floor of the Assembly and will emerge victorious, said Arukutty, amidst the shouts of women cadres and large number of men who raised slogans in support of Panneerselvam.

The courtyard turned into a venue of a rally and perhaps in the recent years never have the police permitted public and mediapersons inside the CMs house without restraining them. Once could feel the throb of struggle here. A large number of men clad in the familiar stripes on their dhotis carrying Jayalalithaa or Deepas photos, demanded Panneerselvam to don the mantle of party general secretary too, and carry out Ammas rule. A bull, usually kept at the backyard, was brought and tied near the big gates leading to the house, apparently signifying the CMs efforts in facilitating jallikattu.
Rampur: BJP president Amit Shah on Thursday claimed the people of Uttar Pradesh would suffer if the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance came to power as the two 'Shahzadas' (princes), Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi had failed to keep even their parents happy.

Launching a scathing attack on the SP chief and Congress vice-president, Shah claimed, "Ek se maa paareshan hai aur ek se baap dukhi hai (The mother of one is worried and the father of the other is upset.)"

Addressing a rally at Bilaspur town in this district, he claimed, "If the alliance led by these two Shahzadas (princes) form government, they would not be able to deliver and the people would be exploited."

"One is attached to those politicians who have looted the entire nation for six decades, while other is responsible for looting the state in the last five years. Now their hidden agenda is to make Uttar Pradesh bankrupt by adopting disruptive policies," Shah alleged.

Even after Akhilesh took over as the president of Samajwadi Party "no reform is visible as everybody there is comfortably ensconced in their positions and the situation in the outfit is same", he claimed.

In response to Rahul Gandhi's question as to what the Modi government had done for the people so far, Shah shot back, asking, "What has Congress done during its 60 years of rule?"

"We assure that if BJP comes to power in UP, sugarcane dues will be cleared and credited to the bank accounts of the farmers," he said.

The BJP national president also advised the "critics of the party" to keep an eye on the development schemes launched by the Modi government which, he claimed, shall bring a "revolutionary change" in economic, social and political lives.

On the claim by some youths claim that they did not get laptops from the Akhilesh government after they "disclosed their religion", Shah said, "This harms the secular atmosphere of the state."
Mathura (UP): Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday said rural areas of the state will get round the clock power supply after the Assembly polls.

"At present, power supply in urban area is 22 to 24 hours and in rural area, it is 14 to 16 hours. However, after the Assembly election, 22 to 24 hour supply would be ensured in rural areas as well," he said at an election rally in Kosi town of Chhata assembly constituency here.

He said 108 ambulance type services would be introduced for cattle.

The Samajwadi Party leader also promised opening up of more sugar mills and milk plants in the constituency. Akhilesh hit out at the Modi government over demonetisation and its "failure to rein in black money hoarders".

"No compensation was announced by the Centre for those who lost their lives while standing in serpentine bank queues in the wake of demonetisation. Nevertheless, the SP government has given Rs 2 lakh each to the deceased's families," he said.

The first phase of the crucial Assembly polls will begin on February 11. The ruling Samajwadi Party has entered into an alliance with Congress for the state polls.
Chennai: An AIADMK legislator has alleged that party general secretary Sasikala Natarajan forced MLAs to sign four blank sheets of paper, ahead of the emergency meeting she called on Wednesday morning.

According to a report in NDTV, K Manickam, the AIADMK legislator from Sholavandan, said, We had no idea about the agenda of the meeting. We were told on Saturday that it was a routine meet to discuss constituency issues. We were shocked when O Panneerselvam announced his resignation suddenly.

Manickam is one of the 5 legislators who has now publicly come out in support of Chief Minister Panneerselvam.

Manickam alleged that all the legislators had to sign blank sheets in much the same manner as our signatures were collected after Amma's death.

Panneerselvam on Thursday met Tamil Nadu Governor CH Vidyasagar Rao, who finally flew in to Chennai in the evening. The acting CM is expected to explain to the Governor his allegation that Sasikala forced him to resign from the post.

Sasikala, who has carted off 130-odd AIADMK MLAs to a resort, is scheduled to meet the Governor at 7:30 pm along with 10 legislators.
Kolkata: In a rare move, Assembly Speaker Biman Banerjee suspended Leader of the Opposition Abdul Mannan for two days on Wednesday, sparking a ruckus in the House that left him ill and in hospital. When the Houses marshall Debabrata Mukherjee and deputy-marshall Bholanath Mukherjee went to execute the Speakers order to take Mr Mannan out of the Assembly, Mr Mannan decided not to leave his seat.

A scuffle then ensued between security personnel and MLAs from the Congress and the Left, who tried to prevent the marshalls from forcibly taking the Congress legislator of the House. Both sides accused each other of attacking them. It was during this scuffle that Mr Mannan fell ill. A desk at the Opposition bench, where Mr Mannan was sitting, was damaged during the 30-minute-long tug of war. Equipments on the desk, including microphones and voting machines, were broken.

The Congress MLA was later carried by Opposition legislators out the House while staging a walk-out. He was seen writhing in pain. Mr Mannan was whisked away in an ambulance to the GD Hospital & Diabetes Institute, a private hospital in central Kolkata where he has been admitted to the intensive care unit.

A doctor from the hospital, Sukumar Mukherjee, said, When Dr Mannan was brought here, his blood pressure was high and his heart was completely blocked. He also suffered some external injuries in his left leg. He needs to undergo a temporary pacemaker implantation. The cardiologists will decide when the implantation will be done. Dr Mannan was advised earlier to undergo the implantation due a partial blockage in his heart, he added.
Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam today insisted that he continued to be AIADMK treasurer and wrote to two banks here not to allow anyone else to operate the party's accounts.

In separate letters to two banks, located at Mylapore area, he said that under the relevant party laws, he continued to be the AIADMK treasurer.

"In accordance with Bye law 20, sub-clause 5 in the party constitution in continuance of my appointment as treasurer of AIADMK party by puratchi thalaivi amma, I request you not to permit anyone else to operate our AIADMK party's current account without my written consent and instructions," he said in the letters.

The letters were addressed to the Chief Managers of Karur Vysya bank and Bank of India.

Panneerselvam further said that Rule 20 contemplates that the party General Secretary shall be elected by the party's primary members.

"Presently the post of General Secretary of AIADMK remains vacant as the appointment to the said post, which fell vacant upon the demise of puratchi Thalaivi Amma, is yet to be made in accordance with Rule 20 sub clause 2 of the said by law," he said in the letter.

Panneerselvam said office bearers like members of central executive committee, Deputy General Secretary, Treasurer and party Headquarters Secretary nominated by the General Secretary would continue to hold office till a new General Secretary is elected in accordance with relevant rules and bye laws.

Following his revolt against AIADMK General Secretary V K Sasikala last night, Panneerselvam was sacked as treasurer by his party leader, but the caretaker Chief Minister insisted that he continued to remain in the post.

He had even said that Sasikala was elected General Secretary under extraordinary circumstances and that elections to appoint a permanent General Secretary would be held soon.
Chennai: AIADMK general secretary VK Sasikala on Thursday staked claim to form the government during a 40-minute meeting with Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao, who arrived in the city this afternoon.

Couple of hours after caretaker Chief Minister O Panneerselvam visited Rao, Sasikala called on the Governor and gave him a letter containing the names of MLAs who elected her as AIADMK Legislature Party Leader, and requested him to invite her to form the government.

However, the Governor's response is not immediately known.

Sasikala arrived at 7.25 pm at the Raj Bhavan and left after a meeting that lasted about 40 minutes.

Attired in her signature green saree, Sasikala this evening visited the memorial of Jayalalithaa, accompanied by hundreds of supporters, including some senior ministers, prior to her meeting with Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao.

A teary-eyed Sasikala placed before the memorial a big closed envelope believed to be the list of MLAs who have endorsed her candidature for the top post.

She offered rose petals and kneeled at the memorial. Her supporters also joined Sasikala in prayers with folded hands.

At 5 pm, Panneerselvam had called on Rao and after a brief meeting told reporters that "good things will happen and dharma will triumph".

The Chief Minister is now meeting his supporters at his Greenways Road official residence.

Sasikala was elected Legislature Party Leader on February 5, paving the way for her becoming the chief minister.

Subsequently, Panneerselvam raised a banner of revolt on February 7, along with his supporters.

He currently has the support of leaders like former Ministers KP Munusamy, Natham R Viswanathan, Rajya Sabha MP V Maithreyan and a few sitting MLAs.
Hyderabad: Two TS ministers, T. Harish Rao of the irrigation department and Jogu Ramanna of forest department, have recommended the transfer of a forest official who had unearthed scams involving saw mills.

The official was on deputation with Vigilance department and had submitted a report that led to unearthing of illegal saw mills being run in Sangareddy, Siddipet and Medak districts with the connivance of local forest officials.

The official, deputy forest range officer Kahder Vali had earlier worked as the anti-Poaching squads head in Hyderabad. There too, he was instrumental in nabbing poachers .

Documents available with this newspaper show that around 30 saw mill owners from these districts submitted a petition to irrigation minister T. Harish Rao from Siddipet  asking for the transfer or shifting of Khader Vali from vigilance department at Sangareddy to the Khammam forest wing  his parent department. Harish Rao has endorsed the suggestion.

Jogu Ramannagaru pls examine and do needful, reads a note forwarded to Mr Jogu Ramanna. After receiving the same, Mr Ramanna, the minister for forest and environment, sent a note to principal chief conservator of forests, P.K. Jha, saying: Please take action immediately for cancelling the deputation of the deputy forest range officer.

The move came after Telangana forest department has started the process of disciplinary action against 20 forest officials, including two divisional forest officers and six forest range officers, after they ignored the widespread presence of unauthorised saw mills within their jurisdiction.

The stern action has been initiated following a report by the TS vigilance and enforcement department which was actually the work of Mr Khader Vali.

Unauthorised saw mills use wood from the nearest forest reserves, causing major habitat loss. Also, the Supreme Court has issued a blanket ban on them.

When contacted P.K. Jha, the head of the forest department of Telangana said: The issue of file of the transfer the forest official didnt come to my notice so far.

Meanwhile, an official from the states vigilance and enforcement department praised Mr Valis work. Mr Vali had done commendable work regarding the saw mills case. In fact he is working on encroachments case too, the official said.
Nearly one-third of ATMs in the city are facing cash shortage since February 1 due to variety of reasons.

Hyderabad: Since salary day, one-third of ATMs in the city are again running dry due to huge withdrawals, irregular cash uploads by agencies and slow recalibration of hardware. The RBI had increased the cash withdrawal limit at ATMs and from savings bank accounts from February 1 to Rs 24,000.

An RBI official said that the software in all the 1,500 ATMs in the GHMC limits had been recalibrated before the Sankranti. But there are hardware issues with nearly 25 per cent of ATMs. The maintenance agencies have to replace the trays in ATM for dispensing new currency notes.

Federation of Bank Employees secretary M.S. Kumar blames this on the shortage of manpower. The cash withdrawals have increased since the first week of this month. Though the nodal branches of banks have been supplying sufficient cash, ATM maintenance agencies were not able to replenish cash to match the demand due to the shortage of manpower and vehicles, he said.

Before the demonetization, he said the ATM agencies used to visit all the ATMs every day to fill some amount of cash. Now, the agencies are focusing on ATMs that witness higher demand, while neglecting others, he said.

An official from an ATM maintenance age-ncy said, Due to higher demand from ATMs located at prime areas, the cycle of regular visits was disturbed.

For replenishing cash, we need trained staff along with private security guard. We cant recruit such staff immediately, leading to staff shortage. While we get the status of every ATMs cash position, we rush to specific ATMs on the instructions of the bankers, he said.

Meanwhile, customers are complaining about some banks continuing the per-transaction cash withdrawal limit, though they have increased the daily limit.

Though RBI allowed customers to withdraw Rs 24,000 per week without any daily limit, it let banks set a daily limit as per the cash availability.

While some banks are allowing customers to withdraw Rs 10,000 per day, they have not upgraded the cap imposed on withdrawal per transaction, which forces customers to make multiple transactions to withdraw Rs 10,000.

According to Ch. Sujatha from Boduppal, I withdrew Rs 10,000 in three transactions as the ATM was not dispensing more than Rs 4,000 in a transaction. With this, I exhausted free transactions limit at ATM. When I withdrew cash next day, I was charged Rs 20 for the ATM use.
Hyderabad: Political developments in Tamil Nadu over the past few days resemble, in many ways, the drama that had played out during the August 1984 coup by Nadendla Bhaskara Rao against Chief Minister N.T. Rama Rao in Andhra Pradesh.

The caretaker Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, O. Panneerselvam, has ordered the Chennai police and the director general of police to find out where MLAs owing allegiance to his rival, Sasikala Natarajan, are being held. Sasikala had earlier this week bussed MLAs to secret locations across Chennai to prevent poaching.

Nadendla Bhaskara Rao, who was the AP Chief Minister for just 30 days (August 16 to September 16, 1984) before NTR was reinstated, had done something similar to get hold of Telugu Desam MLAs supporting NTR after the camp returned from Karnataka to Hyderabad  ahead of a show of strength in the AP Assembly.

Before the Karnataka trip, all 160-plus TD MLAs were taking shelter at Ramakrishna Studio at Golconda crossroads, under the surveillance of Chandrababu Naidu, Venkaiah Naidu, and Jaipal Reddy.

Deccan Chronicle records reveal how Nadendla Bhaskara Rao demanded the release of MLAs loyal to Chief Minister N.T. Rama Rao in 1984. Almost 10 years later, son-in-law Chandrababu Naidu managed his own coup

Bhaskara Rao was desperate to somehow get the MLAs to come outside so that he could convince them to vote for him. He called Hyderabad City Police Commissioner K. Vijayarama Rao and East Zone DCP K. Aravinda Rao (now retired DGP) to raid Ramakrishna Studio and somehow get the MLAs out.

DCP Aravinda Rao indeed went into Ramakrishna Studio and started asking the MLAs whether they were being held captive there, or were there willingly. All the MLAs told him they were there of their own free will and supported NTR. Aravinda Rao was therefore, unable to serve the purpose for which he had been dispatched by Bhaskara Rao.

A furious Bhaskara Rao then ordered the transfer of both Vijayarama Rao and Aravinda Rao and appointed Roddam Prabhakara Rao (also now a retired DGP) as the new Police Commissioner.

And almost 10 years later, it was N.T. Rama Raos turn, in August 1995, to try and win back MLAs after a coup in his own family, in which a majority of TD MLAs backed son-in-law Chandrababu Naidu.

The MLAs were holed up in Viceroy Hotel for almost a week. NTR, who was still the Chief Minister, did not order a police raid on the hotel. Instead, he went to the hotel himself along with wife Laxmi Parvathi, on his Chaitanya Ratham (his famous campaign vehicle), and made fervent appeals to his MLAs from the entrance of the hotel. Police did not allow NTR to go inside the hotel despite repeated requests and NTR returned home without adding to his strength and lost out to Chandrababu Naidu.
This is being done to reduce the total power consumption in the city. (Photo: Representational Image)

Hyderabad: Hoping to reduce the citys power consumption  especially during the notorious mid-summer crisis  the GHMC is handing out energy-efficient fans and LED tubelights for low prices, at its office.

The corporation will sell these items to you provided you have an Aadhaar card and a general identification card. This is being done to reduce the total power consumption in the city.

Ninety-watt bulbs, 20 watt tubelight and energy-efficient fans are being sold at lower rates to conserve energy. With the purchase of these essentials, 50 per cent of the load will be reduced, Srinivas Chary, executive engineer of the GHMCs electrical wing, said.

He added: Domestic and commercial units are the highest energy consumers. There are 23 lakh families in Greater Hyderabad and if every family uses these essentials, the city will save 300 megawatts in the system. We are targeting four bulbs, two tube lights and two fans for every family.

The GHMC has teamed up with Efficiency Services Limited, a central government agency, for the Ujjala project  it has subsided rates and put these energy-saving essentials on sale. The limit per family is 10 bulbs. Every sale will be recorded on the website. The ID card is mandatory as the GHMC does not want any citizen to resell the items.

GHMC says Rs 80/sq ft to paint city walls

Want the city walls to be painted and made bright and colourful? Contact the GHMC. The corporation has finalised a standard rate of `80 per square feet for getting walls painted. The GHMC has empanelled artists who will undertake the work at the rate. The corporation invited citizens, offices and NGOs to avail the service and get public places colourfully painted.
CHENNAI: Support continued to pour in for caretaker Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam for the second day on Thursday and top leaders in the AIADMK extended their support to him, while public continued to throng his official residence where the slogan OPS for CM grew louder. AIADMK presidium chairman E. Madhusudhanan, who is number 2 in the party, was among the prominent personalities, who conveyed his support in person. Calling on Panneerselvam at the latters Greenways Road residence, Madhusudhanan said, in order to protect the AIADMK, everybody should join hands with OPS (Mr. Panneerselvam).

He did not want the party to go into the hands of a single family,. Madhusudhanan, flanked by Panneerselvam and partys Rajya Sabha MP V. Maithreyan, said, amidst a celebratory mood of the crowd that had gathered. We welcome him with gratitude, a visibly jubilant Pannerselvam said and hailed Madhusudhanan as a tall leader who had worked for the party since the founding days of AIADMK alongside its founder M. G. Ramachandran.

The chairman presidium later accompanied the Chief Minister to the Raj Bhavan. Quoting apopular Tamil verse of nationalist poet Subramanya Bharathi, Panneerselvam said, though dharma could be eclipsed by intrigue, it would be dharma, which will triumph ultimately. After his Tuesdays Marina meditation, Panneerselvam had said after Amma died, they (V. K. Sasikala camp) said Madhusudhan will become the general secretary. I agreed to become the Chief Minister only when they said Madhusudhan will become the general secretary. He claimed thaa Madhusudhan was threatened and pressurised not to take up the post.

A former party Parliamentarian K. C. Palaniswamy said that the AIADMK is now under the control of Tamil Nadu caretaker Chief Minister. Several leaders, including Maithreyan, former power minister Natham Viswanathan and former local administration Minister K. P. Munusamy were among those who welcomed Madusudanan, were among Panneerselvams expanding flock.
Chennai: Scores of legislators, including six women MLAs, from Tamil Nadu assembly, who were believed to have been attracted to the Sasikala camp, are enjoying their stay at a beach resort in Kuvathur on East Coast Road, sources said. On Thursday evening there was a special karagattam organised for the MLAs staying in the resort, insiders said. After karagattam, there was also screening of a movie in the evening, an AIADMK man who is familiar with the situation told this newspaper.

The MLAs reached the resort on Wednesday night and are staying there since. Though they are allowed to enjoy all the facilities  floating restaurant, bar, beach among other things  coordinators of the sponsored picnic had asked the MLAs to use the mobile phones only under their supervision. One MLA, reportedly furious over the fact that they were not allowed to use his mobile phone, walked out of the resort. He went back only after an actor-turned-MLA came out and pacified him.

Insiders also noted that the MLAs were trying to strike a deal with the coordinators. We dont know what the deal is. But they were talking about 50 per cent now and rest later, added the insider. One of the party men who interacted with the reporters claimed that there are enough legislators in the resort needed to prove the majority for Sasikala. The resorts have rooms with daily charges ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 9,000. The presence of MLAs in the resort and restrictions around the neighbourhood has irritated some of the villagers in the area.
Hyderabad: The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday issued a public notice under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) taking possession of the properties of AP Opposition leader Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy and his companies, his house and the building hosting the YSR Congress headquarters at Lotus Pond in Banjara Hills, in connection with the quid pro quo investments case.

The EDs Hyderabad zonal office stated in the notice that the provisional attachment order issued in June 2016 was subsequently confirmed by the Adjudicating Authority in November. It was alleged that companies owned by Mr Reddy received bribes as investments for the favours done by his father, the then chief minister of AP, the late YSR.

ED bars property transfer

The ED notice said: We have taken possession of properties which shall be at the disposal of the Enforcement Directorate until further order and the properties shall be kept intact by all the concerned for the further proceedings under the PMLA.

The ED has prohibited and restricted until further order transferring or charging in any manner and it is prohibited to receive the properties by purchase gift, mortgage, pledge or any other means.

An ED official said, We have issued notice for possession and 10 days time will be given to them as per the procedure. High Court also mentioned that notice has to be given. Those concerned may come and represent or produce documents related to rental agreements if any and any other issues pertaining to the properties. The properties include those in Lotus Pond. We will act further after the notice period ends.

Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy and his family continue to live in the Lotus Pond residence and YSRC headquarters. YSRC MP and Mr Jagan Mohan Reddys auditor V. Vijay Sai Reddy said, The High Court has already issued a stay regarding the fixed deposits possession. We will approach the court regarding this notice on the immovable properties. Immovable properties cant be taken into possession without giving time as per the rules.

On December 21, 2016, the Hyderabad High Court had granted stay on the provisional attachment of properties of one of the companies, Bharathi Cements. Mr Jagan Mohan Reddys counsel had argued that there is a statutory period of 45 days time to avail of legal remedies against the order of the adjudicating authority.

The ED told the court that for taking possession of immovable properties, it would issue notices to the petitioners and give them an opportunity to avail of legal remedies under the Act. The judge had said that the status quo shall be maintained with regard to the fixed deposits.
Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan on Thursday held a meeting with committees constituted by the governments of the two states on issues related to AP Reorganisation Act.

Hyderabad: The governments of TS and AP have reached agreement on division of electricity and Secretariat employees. The two governments also reached agreement on sharing of funds of nine corporations listed in Schedule IX of the AP Reorganisation Act.

Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan on Thursday held a meeting with committees constituted by the governments of the two states on issues related to AP Reorganisation Act.

Ministers T. Harish Rao and G. Jagadish Reddy, along with government adviser G. Vivek and principal finance secretary N. Ramakrishna Rao represented TS, while AP was represented by ministers Yanamala Ramakrishnudu and K. Atchannaidu, government Chief Whip Kalava Srinivasulu and principal secretary (SR) L. Premachandra Reddy.

At the meeting the two states agreed to resolve the issue of 1,250 electricity employees. It was decided that managing directors of TSTransco and APTransco will discuss the issue and submit a report within one week.

As many as 1,250 AP native power employees working in TS have not been given any postings. Now, the two MDs have been given the responsibility of finding a solution.

Some Secretariat employees, who had given the option to work in TS were posted in AP. Similarly, some had opted to work in AP but were posted in TS. The two governments on Thursday agreed to exchange these employees.

The two governments also agreed to share the funds of nine corporations on the basis of population basis.

Corporations like Vaddera, Uppara and others have assets worth about Rs 100 crore. These assets would be shared in the ration of 58:42. Sharing of assets of other corporations would be taken up in subsequent meetings.
The suspect-cum-neighbour is identified as S. Tashvanth (22), working in an IT firm. In fact, he had contacted the Police Control Room and reported the missing case pretending that he was very concerned about it.

Chennai: The missing case of a 7-year-old girl from her residence near Mangadu was closed Wednesday when her burnt mortal remnants were recovered near Anakaputhur where her corpse was disposed of by her neighbour who sexually abused her before killing her.

The suspect-cum-neighbour is identified as S. Tashvanth (22), working in an IT firm. In fact, he had contacted the Police Control Room and reported the missing case pretending that he was very concerned about it.

Preliminary investigations revealed Tashvanth lured the girl with his pet dog to his second floor apartment where he sexually assaulted the child. He then gagged her, killing her in the process. Using petrol, he burnt her body in the bushes by the roadside in Anakaputhur.

On Sunday evening, the girl went missing while she was playing alone in her apartment complex. Her parents who returned from the market with the girls younger brother preferred a formal complaint with Mangadu Police. A team led by Ambattur DCP R. Sudhakar was formed to crack the case.

Footage from surveillance cameras suggested the girl was last seen playing in the parking lot of the apartment complex. The needle of suspicion fell on Tashvanth who returned to the apartment on Sunday without the travel bag that he had left with.

Tashvanths alibi of attending a relatives wedding on Sunday evening fell through since cops accounted for his presence at his residence at the same time. He even gave interviews to news television channels on the missing child along with her parents. Tashvanth actively participated in the investigation imagining it might help him get away with the crime by tracking its progress. However, his involvement came to light during the sustained interrogation on Tuesday night.

He later showed us where he had disposed of the body. He was brought back to the apartment to brief the cops as to how the crime unfolded, said a senior police official privy to the investigation.

He was living with his parents and his brother in the present apartment for the past 2 years, and is working in an IT firm in Mylapore. The deceased child was a Class II student of a private school in the vicinity and had moved into the apartment complex 6 months ago. He was booked under provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
AIADMK general secretary V.K. Sasikala greets the party workers at the AIADMK headquarters on Wednesday. (Photo: N. Sampath)

Chennai: Madras High Court on Thursday declined a plea for an urgent hearing of Habeas Corpus petitions which alleged illegal detention of 130-odd ruling AIADMK MLAs, after the Tamil Nadu government said the legislators were staying at the MLAs' Hostel and "free to move around".

A bench comprising Justice M Jaichandren and Justice T Mathivanan rejected the plea after the Additional Public Prosecutor, appearing for the government, informed that the MLAs who attended the AIADMK Legislature Party meeting were staying in the MLAs' Hostel here and free to move around.

Petitioners social activist Traffic Ramaswamy and PMK functionary K Balu, who alleged that the MLAs were under illegal detention, sought urgent hearing at 2.30 pm of their HCPs seeking to set at liberty the legislators.

The bench sought to know the need for urgent hearing when a categorical submission has been made that the MLAs were staying in MLAs' Hostel.

They would hear the matter if it was brought before them in normal course, the Judges said.

Besides, if the petitioners were still of the view that the MLAs were under detention, they could file a PIL, they added.

Earlier, Ramaswamy in his submission alleged that 130-odd

AIADMK MLAs, who elected party General Secretary V K Sasikala as the Legislature Party leader recently, were under detention and sought a direction to set them at liberty.

Balu said AIADMK MLA R T Ramachandran of Kunnam constituency in Ariyalur District, had gone missing since attending a party meeting a couple of days ago. He claimed the MLA was not accessible by phone also.

Both urged the bench to take up their Habeas Corpus petitions for release of the MLAs as urgent matter.

Responding to this, the Additional Public Prosecutor denied any unlawful custody of the MLAs.

He submitted that all the party MLAs were in their accommodation at the MLAs' Hostel in the city and they were absolutely free to move around.
New Delhi: Hitting out at Congress for obstructing proceedings in both Houses, BJP on Thursday said the opposition party had no moral right to preach or give sermons to others and demanded that it apologise to Parliament and the Prime Minister for calling him names.

"Congress has no moral right to teach us or preach us or give sermons about parliamentary etiquette and standards, said Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu told reporters.

"Congress needs to ponder about its conduct of creating disturbances when the PM is addressing the House. They should, in fact, apologise to the House for their conduct. They need to apologise to the people, Parliament and PM," he added.

He said the opposition, particularly Congress, "should tender an apology for obstructing Parliament, the Prime Minister for not showing respect to the him, for making running commentary and also for creating disturbances, for making uncharitable remarks against the Prime Minister, not only now, but also earlier".

He said the Congress leaders call names to the Prime Minister umpteen number of times, using all "absurd and cheap words".

"Let them not teach or preach 'pravachan' (sermons) to others," he said.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said, "They should apologise not only to BJP, but the entire country. We showed them the mirror from our side, unmasked Congress and hence, they are not able to digest it."

"They (Opposition) called him (the PM) 'Hitler', 'Mussolini', 'Gaddafi'. They made all sort of meaningless remarks against the Prime Minister. It is a shame. They are not able to understand the reality, creating issues out of non-issues, why should the Prime Minister apologise?" Naidu asked.

He said Modi was doing "a great job" and he had made "a very meaningful and constructive intervention" in the House.

Naidu said the Prime Minister of India is an institution, as he is "the most popular" Prime Minister of the country and "is respected not only in India, but worldwide".

Congress, which ruled the country for 50 years, is "not able to digest the defeat and then they are trying to create obstructions" in the progress of the country.

Taking a jibe at Congress, he said, "Of all how they got two great champions of parliamentary democracy -- AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi and Robert Vadra -- to teach us about parliamentary etiquette. Let them ponder about what they have done."

Replying to a debate on the Motion of Thanks on the President's Address in the Rajya Sabha, Modi took a jibe at former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, saying one should learn the art of "bathing with a raincoat on" from him as there was not a single taint on him despite so many scams taking place during his regime.

An enraged Congress had yesterday taken strong exception to the "raincoat" jibe and staged a walkout and demanded an apology from him. Congress also disrupted the proceedings in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday and protested in the Lok Sabha.
Lucknow: Campaign in the first of seven-phase Assembly elections ended on Thursday in 73 seats of western Uttar Pradesh where Prime Minister Narendra Modi staked his all in the fight against SP-Congress alliance and BSP making it essentially a triangular contest.

Urging the voters to end the 'vikas ka vanvas' (exile of development) and projecting demonetisation as an attack against corruption, Modi and BJP accused SP and BSP of plundering the state over the years and targeted the SP-Congress alliance, saying the two had come together to save themselves.

Joining hands with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav led the SP assault, as party patriarch Mulayam kept away following family feud, with the two scions taking on Modi over "suffering" of common man due to note ban and his "unfulfilled" promise of 'acche din'.

Akhilesh also reached out to voters on his "performance", claiming his government had taken up development works like Metro and expressways.

The seats are spread over 15 districts of western Uttar Pradesh, including riot-scarred Muzaffarnagar and Shamli. BJP leaders like Yogi Adityanath and Sangeet Som raised the issue of an alleged exodus of Hindus from some areas and accused the SP government of favouring a particular community.

In the last election, SP and BSP had bagged 24 seats each and BJP had 11 out of the 73. The saffron party is hoping to improve its tally as it had bagged 71 out of 80 seats in the state in the 2014 general election, but the SP-Congress tie-up has added a new dimension to the contest.

The region is also a stronghold of Rashtriya Lok Dal of Ajit Singh which had bagged nine seats while the Congress had got only five.

The Muslim-dominated areas in the belt will be an acid test for BSP chief Mayawati, who is banking heavily on Dalit-Muslim vote bank. The region was once BSP's favourite hunting ground.

In her rallies, Mayawati accused the Modi government of interfering with the personal law of Muslims and ending reservations for backward communities in jobs. She targeted Akhilesh government over the law and order situation and cautioned Muslims time and again that if they wanted to defeat BJP, they should not waste their votes by backing SP-Congress alliance.

As the campaign peaked, BJP stepped up its attack on the SP-Congress alliance terming it as a "theatre of the absurd".

Bodi Modi and BJP president Amit Shah hopped from one rally to another asking voters to choose between development agenda of BJP and those who give shelter to criminals, indulge in vote bank politics and encourage land and mine mafias.

Modi asked people to "rid the state of SCAM - S for Samajwadi (party), C for Congress, A for Akhilesh (Yadav) and M for Mayawati",

Irked over the acronym, Akhilesh Yadav in his rallies told the electorate that SCAM actually stood for 'Save the Country from Amit Shah and Modi'.

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi hit back at Modi saying a wrong doer sees scam in everything. He said "S infact stands for 'service', C for 'courage', A for 'ability' and M for 'modesty'."

Rahul harped on the issue of note ban and attacked Modi, saying, "Demonetisation has hurt the poor most".

The campaign saw stray incidents of violence with supporters of archrival SP and BSP clashing in Hathras district in which one person was killed and five others were injured.

In another incident, two bullet-riddled bodies, one identified as the brother of an RLD candidate, were found in a mango orchard near Khurja in Bulandshahr district.
Bulandshahr: Taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi said on Wednesday, that the United States elected Donald Trump as President, but India had a "Trump" in the form of Narendra Modi two-and-a-half years ago.

Addressing an election rally at the Government Polytechnic Ground in Uttar Pradesh's Bulandshahr yesterday, he also raked up the Prime Minister's decision to ban 500-and 1,000-rupee notes, saying all sections of society suffered losses due to the Centre's demonetisation move.

"The United States of America had recently elected Donald Trump in the seat, but India had a Trump in the form of (Narendra) Modi two-and-a-half years ago," he said.

Claiming that farmers were unable to buy fertilisers, seeds for potato sowing due to demonetisation, he alleged that many people died in the long queues to get their currency notes exchanged "but the government at the Centre never bothered to make any ex-gratia payment to the persons who suffered."

The Congress leader said that in order to encourage artisan and small manufacturers, items made from any particular town across India, the item should bear the name of that town. Elaborating on it, he said, ceramic items made by Khurja potteries should carry the mark 'Made in Khurja' instead of 'Made in India'.

Later addressing a rally in Ramlila Ground at Raoli Road in Muradnagar town of Ghaziabad district, Rahul termed as "a joke with the emotions of poor public" Modi's promise, during 2014 Lok Sabha polls, that every citizen would get Rs 15 lakh in his bank account as a part of his share from black money which is deposited in Swiss banks by politicians and businessmen.

On demonetisation, he said only the poor and middle class people were standing in queues outside the bank and ATMs, and the PM was saying that the step has been taken to eradicate corruption from the country.

"Not a single millionaire or any suited booted person were standing in queue outside the banks to deposit or withdraw money. Only farmers, labourers, poor and middle-class people were there with their hard-earned money," he said, while campaigning for SP-Congress joint candidate Surendra Goel.

He alleged during his two-and-a-half year rule, the PM has waived the loan of Rs 1.10 lakh crore of 60 families.

"These 60 families owe Rs 6 lakh crore to banks. All these families possess 60 per cent money of the country and bearing the advertisement expenditure of Narendra Modi and made him prime minister." he claimed and said 'Gharibon ka paisa kheechon, aur amiron ko seenchon' (Snatch the poor man's money and giving it to the rich).

Rahul said PM must understand that only six per cent cash money is related to corruption. "Remaining 94 per cent black money is invested in real estate, lands, gold and deposited in Swiss banks. Why PM did not bring the black money back to India from Swiss banks?" he said.

Accusing Modi of not recovering loan from businessman and liquor baron Vijay Mallya, who has a debt of Rs 1,200 crore and staying in London, he alleged PM never intended to recover even a single penny of loan from him.

"Why PM has not tabled the list (of black money holders) in Parliament which has been handed over by the government of Switzerland to India? Why he is not making it public?" he said.

The Congress leader said if SP-Congress government is formed in UP, the coalition will work for poor, unemployed youths and workers and provide them loans to establish their business and industries.
Bengaluru: Hitting out at the Congress government in Karnataka calling it "ineffective" and "life less", Opposition BJP on Thursday said Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has lost a "golden" opportunity to provide good governance.

Alleging that the administrative system has collapsed, Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly Jagadish Shettar said "lackadaisicalness" has engulfed the government.

Speaking during the motion of thanks to the Governor for address, he said government has completed more than three-and-half years but there was very less progress and "lackadaisicalness has engulfed both the Chief Minister and the government he heads."

"Static sense has prevailed over this government," he added.

In a direct attack on the Chief Minister, Shettar said he had lost a golden opportunity to provide good governance as it enjoyed full majority.

"He had a fantastic opportunity as the government enjoyed majority and there was a weak party high command.

Targeting the administration by calling it inefficient, Shettar questioned the treasury benches about holding review meeting about government programmes at the district level, and said Chief Minister only undertakes flying visits.

He also said the posts of parliamentary secretary and Presidents of Boards and Corporations with cabinet rank were being given to MLA's to pacify them, and questioned as to why public money is being utilised for it.

"Place a report before this house about the functioning of parliamentary secretaries attached with each Ministry and how it has benefited the administration and the effective functioning of the Ministry," he added.

Noting that there is lack of coordination between the officials and Ministers, he alleged that officials are not listening to the Ministers and this has lead to incidents of open confrontation between ruling party MLAs and officers.

Speaking on the law and order issue, he said there was lawlessness in the state and women are not feeling safe with repeated incidents of rape and molestation.

He also alleged that there is corruption at every level of the administration, transfers have become a business and honest officials don't have place in this government.

Shettar also alleged that government machinery was being misused for personal and party purposes by citing at an incident where allegedly a Congress party workers meet was held in the garb of a government function by utilising government funds in Belagavi district, and demanded strict action against those responsible.
New Delhi: It was a day of walkouts in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday as Prime Minister Narendra Modi intervened during the reply to the motion of thanks to President Pranab Mukherjees address to the parliament.

First, Congress members staged a walkout after Mr Modi took a dig at former prime minister Manmohan Singh. Taunting Dr Singh on his silence over scams in the United Progressive Alliance government, Mr Modi said, Only Dr Manmohan Singh knows how to take bath wearing a raincoat.

Staring at the empty opposition benches, he said that if they breached decorum, they should have the courage to listen to the response as well.

Taking on his predecessor for criticism against demonetisation, Mr Modi said, In this country, perhaps there will be hardly anyone from the economics field who has had dominance on the countrys financial affairs for half of the countrys 70 years of independence.

Out of 70 years, for 30-35 years, he has been directly associated with financial decisions. So many scams occu-rred. We politicians have a lot to learn from Doctor Sahab. So much happened, there is not a single blot on him. Doctor Sahab is the only person who knows the art of bathing in a bathroom with a raincoat on, said Mr Modi.

The Congress reacted angrily to the comments and staged a walkout in the midst of Mr Modis reply to a debate on motion of thanks to the Presidents address.

The motion was later adopted by the House after negation of all the 651 amendments. Members of the CPM, CPI, TMC and the JD(U) also staged a walkout after the reply, complaining that they were totally unhappy with Mr Modis statement.

People support demonetisation: PM

As Congress members created uproar and staged a walkout, a visibly angry Modi said, If you cross the limits of decorum, then you should have courage to listen to the response. We have the capacity to pay in the same coin. We do so within the limits of decorum and boundaries of the Constitution. They (Congress) dont want to accept the defeat in any form. How long will it continue? The person who held such a high post, used the words loot and plunder in the House.

Mr Singh, while speaking in the Rajya Sabha during the Winter Session, had castigated the Prime Minister over demonetisation, saying its implementation was a monumental management failure and a case of organised loot and legalised plunder.

He said while 125 crore countrymen are making efforts to come out of inner malaise of black money and corruption, Congress and other opposition parties are standing against it. Usually government and public are face-to-face on issues but this is such a decision where government and people are together, Mr Modi said.
Jaipur: Karni Sena on Thursday demanded a review of the reservation system in the country and called for a mass meeting on the issue by all social organisations.

"The reservation should be reviewed overall. The review does not mean finishing up the reservation but an honest assessment of it," the outfit's founder patron Lokendra Singh Kalvi told reporters here.

Kalvi said top RSS leaders have in recent times given a statement on the reservation issue and a meeting should be convened by all the social organisations.

"There should be a historic mass meeting on the issue. We are ready to support the RSS leaders in their statement and every social organisation should come together on this," he said.

Karni Sena last month had protested against filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali's upcoming movie "Padmavati" demanding that no distorted historic fact with regard to Rani Padmavati should be included in the film.

The Sena members had also resorted to violence during the shooting of the film at Jaigarh fort here on January 27 prompting the filmmaker to pack up from here.
Chennai: In a show of strength, AIADMK general secretary V K Sasikala will meet Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao and stake claim to form government in Tamil Nadu, while Chief Minister O Panneerselvam will be meeting Rao separately to "apprise" him of the prevailing situation in the state.

"10 senior ministers are going to go with Chinnamma (Sasikala). All the MLAs are ready to go. It is, however, the decision of the Governor (to meet or not to meet all the legislators). The Governor is very positive, he has not raised any apprehensions," School Education Minister K Pandiarajan said.

"We have an official appointment at 7.30 pm. We will be staking our claim. There are no problems. There is no need to raise any problems," he told reporters here.

Sources in Panneerselvam's camp said the Chief Minister is scheduled to meet the governor at 5 pm on Wednesday and "apprise" him of the prevailing situation in Tamil Nadu.

Pandiarajan, answering questions on the rebellion of Panneerselvam, said it was wrong to say that he was forced to resign from his post.

"There was no pressure. There is no truth in it. Talking of coercion is laughable," he said.

He added, "Panneerselvam was all along with us when all the decisions were taken. No decision was taken by overruling him. Now, if he wants to take a different stand, it is his choice."

He said it was Panneerselvam who had proposed Sasikala's name for the post of party general secretary.

"To claim now that her appointment was not as per law is unadulterated opportunism... it is the height of hypocrisy," he said, adding all the general council members, including Panneerselvam, unanimously chose her.

AIADMK spokesperson CR Saraswathi had on Wednesday claimed that the ruling party has the support of 131 party legislators and they had attended the meeting chaired by Sasikala to discuss the fallout of the revolt by Panneeselvam.
Mumbai: Going against the established notion that states like Delhi, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal have stopped the Modi wave in the country, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday said that his party first stopped the wave in Maharashtra during 2014 Assembly polls.

He was referring to the first break in the Sena-BJP alliance in 2014 after which BJP won 122 seats  little short of the majority and Sena won 63 alone. Taking a dig at the BJP that has attracted flak from all quarters for taking goons in the party, Uddhav said he was glad to break the ties else his photo would have appeared with another goon Pappu Kalani on the BJP poster's.

In an interview given to this publication, Uddhav said he recalled how the BJP broke the alliance with Shiv Sena in 2014 when his party was not emotionally prepared. But despite the favourable atmosphere for the BJP, Shiv Sena managed to stop the landslide victory for the BJP in the state. He even criticised BJP over criminalisation of politics and expressed confidence in coming back to the BMC on its own.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis compared Mumbai with Patna do you agree with that?

It was shocking. On what grounds did he compare Mumbai with Patna? In fact they tried to malign Mumbais image and your definition of Patna is a bad city. You have hurt sentiments of Mumbaikars by connecting it with Patna. You have said Patna is bad and hurt their feelings too.

When will you break alliance?

Let the BMC polls get over. I am getting shocks every day. I am glad that I broke the alliance else my photo would have been printed with Pappu Kalani. This would have been horrible situation for Sena. Modi, Amit Shah and Pappu Kalani and my photo. There is uneasiness everywhere. We had some expectations about BJP that this party is different than others and therefore we remained in alliance with them for 25 years. They believed in sadhanshuchita (morality). but now it has become party of goons. It is shocking. They are allowing goons in the party. I would not be surprised if Dawood Ibrahim shares their dais and if he goes to BJP he can become Dawoodachari! So what are you making Mumbai? Patna?

Has the BJP become so desperate to take anyone without checking his background?

It is because they do not have a party cadre.

Is this the only reason why the Sena is not going with BJP?

No, there are other reasons also. The BJPs demand for the seats was too high. We have done really good work for Mumbai. If you see earlier speeches by BJP during inauguration or laying foundation stone of the ceremony, they all praised us and BMC. Now you have turned because we were not ready to give the seats they demanded and suddenly Mumbai has become the worst city.

Will there be mid term polls in the state if you break the alliance at the state government?

Let the BMC polls get over first. Because, the BMC polls are directly related to lives of Mumbaikars. It is a question of the facilities they are getting. So, at present, I am not interested discussing or envisaging the state politics. I am not saying everything is fine in Mumbai. But you cannot ignore the works done by us. I can proudly claim that we have gone ahead step by step in last 20 years.

Recall the situation 20 years back. Even if you see our hoardings and their hoardings you will realise that we have highlighted the works done by us. But they have claimed the works done by Congress like metro rail, Chhatrapati Shivaji memorial, Dr Ambedkar memorial, Balasaheb Thackerays memorial. You criticise Congress then why do you show the works by the party and not by you.

Actually, the state government is the authority for all these projects and the BMC has nothing to do with it. We have gone beyond the memorials. We have built dam to quench the thirst of Mumbaikars, we have started medical college, truma care centre, given tabs to the students. What you have done?

Why the BJPs manifesto is being criticised?

So far, the Vachannma was always prepared by us and BJP just used to send pictures of its leaders to be printed on it. We used to get so many photos that it was a tough task to accommodate them all. What do we show the promises or the photos? It was the only participation they had in Vachannama. Now they are struggling with it. You take their manifesto and ours and compare. We have stick to the BMCs works. But they have given some promises for which the budgetary provision has been made by us already. They have said to complete Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs). But we have already laid foundation stone for the STPs without help of the Centre and the state.

A delegation of Sena ministers met the CM demanding loan waivers to farmers?

Yes they met the CM. I would say this is a troublesome period for all. After good rainfall last year, the farmers were really happy and hopeful to get good crops. But demonetisation destroyed everything. The farmers were the worst affected due to it. Their zilla banks were not allowed to transact. So, Sena raised the issue before the Centre and demanded complete loan waiver to the farmers. But the BJP is fraud that they have forgotten acche din and promised loan waiver in Uttar Pradesh, the state that the BJP would not be winning. The BJP did not get elected in any of the state elections after Lok Sabha. They lost Delhi Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry. In Assam they win but it was an unfortunate situation and the people had no option there. The people do not want Congress and BJP too.

Do people need a third front?

They need regional parties in their states. You see in many states, the people have votes for the third front. I want that there should be some minimum common programme on which the regional parties should come together. We are original regional party unlike BJP. We are connected to the soil here. This is my wish and lets wait for the regional parties to react on it. Mamata Banerjee had called me some time back and told me to be in touch with you. In Goa we are in alliance with Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Paksha which is local there. We are contesting on only four seats there. We have a face and thoughts and if other similar parties are coming together then why not make an alliance with them.

It has been alleged that BJP is trying to separate Mumbai. Do you agree?

No one can dare to break Mumbai. We have already warned them. They will try to lessen importance of Mumbai. We have drawn the Centres attention that a few offices of the central government were shifted out. The city gives the highest revenue of two lakh crore to the country. So, where does the money go? I told them to give us 25 per cent of it which comes out to be Rs 50,000 crore to the state and Mumbai. We do not need smart city funds which I refused. We need our share in proportion with the contribution.

Did you take revenge from BJP for breaking the alliance with Sena in 2014 Assembly polls?

No, not revenge. We had alliance for 25 years. It was not just a political alliance but had emotional relations with Atal Bihari Vajpayeeji, Advaniji and also with their families. We and even our families evolved relations with each other. That all sanskar we had for 25 years and hence we never wanted the alliance should break. But they brutally broke the alliance. We were not prepared emotionally during the Assembly to break alliance. The Lok Sabha polls were just over and we had only three-four months. We fought and stopped their wave in Maharashtra first after which their fall started. The BJP lost in Delhi, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal every state. Then nobody had dared to challenge Modi when we stopped them first here.

I still went in alliance because we fought with the same thought of opposing Congress. If something was going to happen good then we should stay together without much complaints. But we have always worked as watchdog on the government. We have always pointed out discrepancies in the government. It was not for my personal benefit but for the people.

Why did you meet Hardik Patel?

He wanted to meet me. Modi comes here, Sharad Pawar comes here then what is wrong if Hardik comes to meet me? If Narendra Modi can hug Nawaz Sharif then what is wrong in Hardik Patel meeting me? He is just 23 years old boy and he is good. I have not forged any alliance with him. But you declare him anti-national. On the other hand you help to terrorist Burhan Wanis brother. How can you ask me question for meeting Hardik Patel?

Do you have a soft corner towards BJP?

I had a soft corner about the original BJP of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advanis..It also had leaders like Pramod Mahajan, Gopinath Munde. The leaders had some ideology and thoughts. If you see Ataljis speech it was never dishonest, there were no chunavi jumlas. It used to be straight from the heart. I still have Ataljis speech in my phone. There was mithas (sweetness) in his speech. They were cultured leaders.

Do you mean to say that Shah and Modi do not belong to the same culture?

Do you think so? We always look at that one face as the face of the nation. But if that face looks arrogant then the peoples feeling about the country may get affected. One could be upright but he should not be arrogant.

You shared good relations with the CM but now you said that you do not have so?

I was shocked after he started lying. I was always expected that would speak truth because he was always participated in the inauguration works by the BMC and praised us then. At least do not speak lie if you cannot speak truth. He wants to save his chair. He is personally a good man but he has to protect uparwale ki marji (top party leadership in Delhi). He has to do what uparwala says. If the uparwala says lie then the CM has to lie.
Lakhimpur Kheri: BJP firebrand leader Yogi Adityanath on Thursday dubbed Samajwadi Party's "Kaam Bolta Hai" slogan as a "publicity gimmick", even as he questioned the ruling party's decision to contest the upcoming state polls in partnership with Congress.

"Their (Samajwadi Party) 'kaam bolta hai' (work speaks) slogan is a publicity gimmick. If its work was enough, why is it contesting on less than 300 seats? Moreover, why did SP wrap a dead snake like Congress around its neck?" he said at an election rally here.

After days of frantic negotiations, Congress and Samajwadi Party had forged a pre-poll alliance to contest the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. While the SP decided to contest 298 seats out of the total 403 seats, Congress agreed upon 105 seats.

Accusing both SP and BSP for having pushed the state to lawlessness, anarchy and corruption, Adityanath said, "UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav says his 'kaam bolta hai', but I want to know which work. You claim construction of roads in villages but it was funded by BJP-led NDA at the Centre."

"You (Akhilesh) claim of revamping rural power supply, but this too was funded by the Centre under Deendayal power scheme," he said.

The BJP MP from Gorakhpur also accused the ruling party of withdrawing cases against those who indulged in terrorist activities.

Accusing SP and BSP of practising minority appeasement, he said, "Today there is a race between these two parties as to who can give more tickets to Muslims."

Adityanath lauded the BJP regime at the Centre for sanctioning the PoK surgical strikes.

"BJP had promised that once it was in power, it would never allow Pakistan to cast an eye of malice on India. The surgical strikes by the Army proved it.

"Although terrorism should not be associated with any community or caste, but if such activities are carried out in the Indian borders, it would be dealt with strictly and witness the same fate as of Osama Bin Laden," he said.

The controversial BJP leader also compared the state with the mythological character of 'Draupadi', asking the people "not to sit silent in a democracy when Uttar Pradesh was getting stripped off development and works were being halted."
New Delhi: All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Thursday slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his raincoat remark on his predecessor Dr Manmohan Singh and questioned the formers role in the 2002 Gulbarg Society massacre when he was Gujarats chief minister.

Read: Only Manmohan Singh knows art of bathing with raincoat on: Modi in RS

Owaisi took to his twitter handle to condemn the Prime Minister for his comment. If ex PM MMS was wearing raincoat in Bathroom may I ask PM Modi what where you wearing CM Gujarat when Ehsan Jafri & others where butchered (sic), Owaisi tweeted.

An outraged Congress on Wednesday staged a walkout from the Rajya Sabha when Prime Minister Modi trained guns on Singh, accusing him of letting corruption run free under his nose but managing to steer clear of any charges.

Dr. Manhmohan has played a significant role in the economic system of India. But during the most corrupt regime in the nation, there was not a single corruption charge against him. This art of taking bath wearing a raincoat must be learnt from Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister said, setting off cries of outrage by the Congress.

However, the former prime minister maintained his trademark calm and simply chose not to respond to questions over the Prime Ministers statement.
BENGALURU: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah took BJP members to task in the Legislative Council on Thursday for not supporting him when he appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to waive farm loans.

During question hour, Mr. Siddaramaiah said Mr Modi did not respond when he pleaded for waiver of farm loans. I requested the Prime Minister to contribute 50 per cent of the total amount of loans to be waived. When I made the request, state BJP leaders did not speak a word, he added.

In Karnataka, farmers have borrowed agricultural loans to the tune of Rs. 52,000 crores of which Rs. 42,000 crores were from public sector and commercial banks, and the rest from agriculture co-operative societies. If state government take a decision to waive loans it would help only 20 per cent of farmers. Therefore, the Union government must take a call on writing off the loans of remaining 80 per cent of farmers, Mr. Siddaramaiah added. .

He said that when BJP leader Jagadish Shettar occupied the post of Chief Minister, he took a decision to waive agricultural loans, and his decision was implemented by the Congress government. Now, however, the state government was rendered helpless in view of the stand adopted by the Union government.

Irked by his remarks, BJP leaders alleged that the state government had not disbursed loans to farmers.
New Delhi: The Congress on Thursday decided to boycott the Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi in Parliament during the entire Budget Session if he did not apologise for insulting former Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.

Taking a jibe at Dr Singh, the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday said that even though there were many scams during the UPA regime, the former Prime Minister managed to remain clean. Only Dr Singh knows the art of taking shower with a raincoat, he had said.

The Congress on Thursday held parlyes with the Left, DMK, SP and JD(U) to discuss floor strategy. Further meetings will be held when the session resumed after the break. Congress spokesp-erson, Mr Anand Sharma claimed that other Opposition parties will join them in boycotting the Prime Minister. The first half of the Budget Session which ended on Thursday will resume on March 9.

A list of abuses that Congress members have used for PM Modi, at Parliament on Thursday. Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu read out the list before the media. (Photo: PTI)

Proceedings were disrupted repeatedly in both the Houses of Parliament on Thursday as the Opposition demanded an apology from Prime Minister for insulting Singh.

Defending the Prime Minister, a host of BJP ministers and leaders attacked Congress and reminded that Congress president, Mrs Sonia Gandhi had described Mr Modi as maut ka saudagar (merchant of death) and other Opposition parties has likened him (Modi) to Hitler.

As for fun, CPM general secretary and Rajya Sabha MP, Mr Sitaram Yechury took a dig at the BJP and Prime Minister saying, Nobody has ever called the Prime Minister a fascist or Hitler in the course of the debate. Although many of us do believe that he has those tendencies.

JD(U) leader and Rajya Sabha MP, Mr Sharad Yadav felt that the Prime Minister, crossed the limits of decency.
Chennai: The Tamil Nadu Governor CH Vidyasagar Rao on Thursday bought time from chief minister, O. Panneerselvam and AIADMK General Secretary, V K Sasikala to decide on their demands saying he would get back to them after consulting legal experts.

While Mr Panneerselvam demanded that the Governor should allow him to prove his majority on the floor of the House since many MLAs are kept under captive custody and their signatures of support to Sasikala were forged, Ms Sasikala staked her claim to form the government by submitting the long list of MLAs supporting her.

Reports said the Governor, in his communication to the Centre late on Thursday night, called the situation in Tamil Nadu fluid and that claims by both sides need to be verified.

Sources said the Governor gave a patient hearing to both leaders who met him separately after he arrived from Mumbai Thursday afternoon and told them that he would get back after studying the situation and consulting legal experts.

While Mr Panneerselvam declared after his meeting with the Governor that dharma will finally emerge victorious and good will happen as he had explained the real situation to the Governor, Ms Sasikala did not address the media after she led a delegation of senior ministers, including Dindigul Sreenivasan and D. Jayakumar to the Governor and staked her claim. Her relative and former MP, TTV Dinakaran was also present at the meeting.

Chinamma met Governor at the Raj Bhavan and handed over documents relating to her election as leader of the AIADMK Legislature Party, a statement from the party said without elaborating. Party sources said they she submitted a letter of support from 134 MLAs to the Governor and requested him to swear-in Ms Sasikala as Chief Minister immediately.

Before heading to the Raj Bhavan, Ms Sasikala paid an emotional visit to Jayalalithaa memorial on the Marina Beach and paid her respects by placing the list of MLAs before it.

Sources in the OPS camp told Deccan Chronicle they insisted that the Governor should allow the chief minister to prove his majority on the floor of the House since many MLAs have been forced to sign the letter under duress. They also alleged that many MLAs have been kept under captive custody by the Sasikala camp for the past two days and many want to escape and come to their side.

They also produced MLA Shunmuganathan who is alleged to have told the Governor that he was forced into a bus by Sasikala camp and that he escaped from their clutches.

AIADMK Rajya Sabha V Maitreyan, who has taken OPS' side, said the Governor should allow us to prove our majority in the Assembly.

Many MLAs may be with them, but their hearts are with us. The only place where the MLAs can act according to their conscience is the Assembly, he said.
New Delhi: Differences seem to have surfaced between allies Samajwadi Party and the Congress two days before the first ballot is cast in the high-stake Uttar Pradesh Assembly election on February 11. The SP is upset with the Congress for releasing a separate but similar manifesto.

On Thursday, the SP made it clear that the alliance needs to have a Common Minimum Programme (CMP) if it came to power in the state, indicating that issues raised and promises made in the Congress manifesto have already been accomplished by the Akhilesh Yadav government.

Most of the points in the Congress manifesto have already been delivered by the Akhilesh government, Kironmoy Nanda, Rajya Sabha MP and close associate of Akhilesh Yadav, told this newspaper.

Clearly hinting that the Congress will be treated as a junior partner in the alliance, Mr Nanda said, SP is capable of getting a simple majority on its own, but we have allied with Congress to cross the 300 mark. He made it clear that if the alliance came to power, it has to have a CMP.

Elections to the 403-member UP Assembly is to be held in seven phases, starting February 11. In the current UP Assembly, the SP has a strength of 224 and the Congress 28.

The Congress manifesto, released on Wednesday, focussed on youth, farmers and Dalits and virtually copied some of the welfare schemes the Akhilesh Yadav government had launched.

The Congress has promised free bicycles to girl students, grants to Scheduled Caste youth to start businesses, interest-free loans to minorities, reservation within reservation for Other Backward Classes and loan waivers to farmers.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has already given effect to similar schemes, including cycles to labourers, and scholarships to girls.
Karachi: On November 8, 2016, over 128 million citizens of the United States voted to elect their 45th President. Since then, over a billion persons across the world have searched for ways to reverse that decision. They have taken to the streets, they have written columns that would dwarf Trump Towers, they have tried to thwart an invitation for a state visit to the UK, the Speaker of its House of Commons wants to deny him permission to address a joint session of the Houses of Parliament, and some countries like Iran would like to reciprocally ban his entry into their country. But like Britons who woke up from the nightmare of a pro-Brexit vote to discover that they were in fact living one, the nightmare of a Trump victory has become the daymare of his presidency. Is President Trump just another dumb blonde with a bouffant hairstyle? Or is he an American incarnation of President Boris Yeltsin  the Russian populist leader with the DNA of an autocrat?

Many have forgotten the events of 1991 when Yeltsin rose to the roof of a tank outside the Parliament building in Moscow (it was also known as The White House). They might just remember what happened afterwards. Yeltsin spawned a shiver of shark oligarchs who appropriated the countrys wealth; he attempted to dissolve the Supreme Soviet Parliament and set aside the Russian Constitution, he stifled political opposition, and given more time would have comm-itted what even his vice-president in a moment of despair called economic genocide. It took eight years to remove President Boris Yeltsin. If there is a Pakistani leader who could be identified as a parallel of the Trump model (President Trump may not relish the analogy), it would be our President, later Prime Minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto: elected, popular, charismatic, media savvy, contemptuous of all authority other than his own, and a leader determined not just to disturb but to repudiate the status quo. Within months of taking over in 1972, President Bhutto had nationalised industry, diluted the bureaucracy with lateral entrants, ravaged his opponents, and created a fiefdom that had no separate smoking area for dissident voices.

President Trump, with the first presidential executive orders issued within days of assuming office, has made clear that he intends to be a bull with no respect for crockery. It took a man of his singular daring to declare war in his inaugural address on Washingtons establishment from the very steps of its Capitol Building. Not that previous Presidents have not challenged the government. Republican Ronald Reagan once held that the government was not the solution  it was itself the problem. And Democrat Bill Clinton told his America that the era of big government (was) over. President Trump, like President Bhutto, in one fell swoop has taken on the establishment, the bureaucracy, and the judiciary. Bhutto waited some months before attacking the Pakistan armed forces. Trump has yet to cross the Potomac River and mount his assault on the Pentagon. He has yet to feel the surge of untrammelled power that turned Yeltsins head as he stood on the roof of that tank. Trump the civilian has yet to try out his Commander in Chiefs uniform.

Today, the world is distracted by the US visa ban. Tomorrow, it may well experience the scourge of US military hardware used against straw-filled enemies. A decade ago, the seven countries that have been scarred for visa discrimination were functioning states. Today, through no fault of their adult voters and their younger innocent population, they are dysfunctional, international pariahs and subsist in ruins. The sort of monochrome absolutism that Trump espouses was once the credo of another leader who too believed himself invincible. Trumps first wife Ivana has revealed that Trumps bedside reading during their marriage was a copy of Hitlers collected speeches, My New Order. Hitler, a consummate propagandist, could not have found a more assiduous reader. The size of a lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, Hitler wrote in his book Mein Kampf, for the vast masses of a nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived (.) The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies but would be ashamed to tell big ones. Leaders have no such qualms. Their lies enjoy the grandeur of credible implausibility.

By arrangement with Dawn
In an unprecedented order, a seven-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court slapped a contempt notice on a sitting high court judge, and also directed that Justice C.S. Karnan of the Calcutta high court shall not handle any matter, judicial or administrative, and should appear in person in the court next week. This indicates the serious nature of the breaches of propriety by the judge in question, that left the bench no option but to take head on a colleague who has defamed the judicial system, mocked it at every turn and behaved in bizarre ways whenever called to order. Justice Karnan has a lot to answer for when he faces the full force of the judiciary as he stands in the dock.

History records that another judge was put through the impeachment process for corruption decades ago, but the motion failed in Parliament. Justice Karnans record of odd behaviour might be even more serious than that of his fellow judge from the Madras high court as it is tantamount to challenging the very system he is working in. At times, Justice Karnan embarrassed colleagues by charging them with caste bias making, for instance, the ridiculous imputation that they sat with their legs crossed in his presence. Transferred to the Calcutta high court, the judge not only passed an order staying it, but also ordered a CBI probe against the Chief Justice. Only when summoned to New Delhi by the then CJI and admonished in 2016 did he proceed to Kolkata to take up the posting, where too his record of eccentric behaviour seems to have caught up with him, as he shot off letters about his colleagues corruption.

The letters Justice Karnan frequently sent, as is his wont, to the highest in the land in the executive and judicial branches have been known to be scurrilous in nature. By staying within the system and airing such outrageous charges, the judge may have often invited personal ridicule. More, he damaged the system by unjustifiable calumny out of personal spite. He may have never stopped to think how he could have become a high court judge if there really was caste discrimination in the system. As a judge, he has been accused of sloppy work, including not writing orders after reserving judgment in many cases. His record is such that he is considered a bad egg, but it took the collective will of a Constitution Bench to call him to order, perhaps a reflection of how most had stayed clear of him to avoid the embarrassment of his using the caste card freely, whenever he felt threatened or challenged. Most legal eagles believe the Supreme Court must act decisively to snip this canker of a troublesome judge.
Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realise it themselves.

 Steve Jobs

Indians are conventionally sensitive when it comes to buying products. What may work in other geographies may not do so in India. Considering that Dunkin Donuts is relying more on burger sales rather than donuts and Dell is selling more computers through physical stores than online (in India), there is obviously a need to reinvent the wheel for business strategies by global giants. Consumers nowadays are better informed and demand customised products, based on their need, rather than what the seller wants them to take. This no one size fits all approach is applicable to Internet services as well. The usage and the requirement differs with every consumer, so does the demand for differential products. Thus, it is essential to inform consumers if what they are buying fills their need, or else the quality of experience (QoE) diminishes. Its thus suggested to businesses that they either respond to the customer or simply wither!

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is giving India a strong digital push, which is reflected from several initiatives such as the JAM trinity and recent initiatives in the payment space to have a cash lite system. Despite the intent, the quality of services (QoS) for Internet services in India is not good. A report by Akamai, a content delivery network, ranks India at 114 in terms of average Internet speed among countries across the globe and lowest in Asia-Pacific and Brics. India scores a measly 3.5 Mbps on average Internet speed, while countries like South Korea are surging ahead at 29 Mbps. However, its not all about speed. Internet services in India are marred by other quality issues as well, such as reliability, coverage, downtime, etc. A study done by CUTS International, showed that consumers are, in general, dissatisfied with their mobile Internet services. It observed that there exists a wide gap between the advertised and the actual QoS delivered by Internet service providers (ISPs). It highlighted that either the ISPs dont publish the entire set of information or the services do not match the promises. Usually the information ISPs provide to consumers is only about the maximum download speed and data limit.

There are other technical parameters which critically impact the Internet QoS such as latency, bandwidth, losses/chokes, etc. Since the ISPs do not publish this information anywhere, consumers are completely oblivious to these terms. Moreover, due to information asymmetry, it becomes difficult for consumers to make an informed choice while purchasing an Internet plan. Thus a tool is required, which can provide consumers with a complete set of reader-friendly information on Internet plans on offer by different ISPs, and enable them to make an informed choice. Information provisioning, more than that available, can help consumers compare and decide on their purchases. However, in case of Internet services, there is not much information available. Hence, consumers are unable to compare between services, which results in an uninformed choice making. Uninformed choice results in clash of expectations, which in turn causes the QoE to dip. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) recommends that ISPs should provide their customers with sufficient information on the services they provide. This should include QoS targets, pricing information, clear description of the services and customer helpline options and standards.

Since the usage pattern of consumers for Internet services varies drastically, the need for complete unambiguous information is even more critical. Some consumers are more inclined to watching videos on Internet, while some indulge in video calling. Some do extensive gaming while some use it for emails/chatting. Of these, some of the usage is highly sensitive to parameters like latency, bandwidth and chokes/losses, while other may not be. Hence, easy availability of such information can play a crucial role in an informed decision-making. The telecom regulator of Singapore, Infocomm Development Authority (IDA), has directed ISPs to publish accurate and complete information for the services they claim to provide or advertise. This ensures transparency on the services offered by ISPs and also enhances the overall customer satisfaction. India can also adopt a similar model, which can help consumers in choosing between services. One such model may be labelling of Internet services. Consumers have already experienced the concept of labelling for products, through the likes of nutrition label on prepacked food products and efficiency labels on electrical products.

Information provided on such product labels has been helping consumers to make choices on purchases and also teach them the way to use the product efficiently, price, content and relevant information. Internet services can also be labelled where critical information is provisioned to consumers in a standard format. The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has introduced broadband labels to provide broadband consumers with easy-to-understand information about price and performance. Consumers International (CI), the global coalition of voluntary consumer organisations, based on a global consumer survey, has also advocated a broadband nutrition label. The label sets out important variables in a standardised, easily-understood and comparable form, including speed, reliability, service limits and conditions, pricing and other information such as privacy policy. Internet labels, specially for broadband, can help consumers in knowing the actual terms of contract with the ISP and expected QoS. Apart from enabling comparison between services, this will also instil competition among ISPs, which will further result in a quest for providing best QoS to consumers than the competition.

The authors work for CUTS International
Assange has maintained that if he travels to Sweden to defend himself, he will risk being extradited to the US to face trial over the Iraq war leaks.

Ecuador presidential hopeful has promised to evict WikiLeaks boss, Julian Assange from the embassy. He has been hiding in Ecuadors London building since summer 2012.

Julian Assange will be given a months notice to leave the embassy if the countrys main opposition candidate wins the presidency elections next week. And the existing government isnt happy with Assanges stay, which is intended as a way of him avoiding extradition to Sweden for questioning regarding a sexual assault allegation. Assange has maintained that if he travels to Sweden to defend himself, he will risk being extradited to the US to face trial over the Iraq war leaks.

Ecuadors foreign minister, Guillaume Long in an interview with The Guardian appeared to be in agreement, stating that our staff have been through a lot. There is a human cost.

He went on to compare the situation at the embassy to something out of a John le Carre novel.

However, it appears that Lasso might not get the opportunity to fulfil his pledge, as he is seven points behind the ruling Country Alliance party's candidate, Lenin Moreno.

The first round of voting will take place on February 19, candidates require at least 40 per cent of the vote, with a 10 per cent margin to win at the first round.

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Government has received over 1,300 complaints against direct selling and e-commerce companies till December 2016, Parliament was informed on Tuesday.

It also made clear that there is no proposal to bring in a separate law to regulate e-commerce platforms.

Placing the details of complaints received by its National Consumer Helpline against direct selling and e-commerce companies in the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Consumer Affairs C R Chaudhary said: "The received complaints were dealt with as per consumer grievance redressal procedure."

A consumer can file a complaint relating to e-commerce transactions in the appropriate consumer forum established under the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act, he said in his written reply to the Lower House.

As per the data, 1,386 complaints have been received up to December 2016.

A maximum of 449 complaints were against bookmyoffer.com, followed by ebay (135), snapdeal.com (120), amazon.in (114), flipkart.com (92), whaaky.com (79), shopclues.com (47), and paytm.com (46).

Around 15 complaints were received against Homeshop 18, followed by jabong.com (15), naaptol.com (13), Shop CJ Network India (10), askmebazar.com (6) and myntra.com (2) during this period, the data showed.

The minister also said there is no proposal for setting up of National Consumer Safety Authority.

However, the Consumer Protection Bill, 2015, already introduced in Parliament, seeks to provide setting up of a central consumer protection authority to look into, inter alia, unfair trade practices, he added.

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The fire broke out at the Samsung Electronics Co Ltd affiliate's factory in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin earlier on Wednesday and has been extinguished, a Samsung spokesman said, adding that there were no casualties or significant impact to the plant's operations. (Representational image)

A minor fire that broke out at a Samsung SDI Co Ltd factory in China on Wednesday was caused by waste products including faulty batteries, the Korean company and local emergency services said. The fire broke out at the Samsung Electronics Co Ltd affiliate's factory in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin earlier on Wednesday and has been extinguished, a Samsung spokesman said, adding that there were no casualties or significant impact to the plant's operations.

The fire broke out not on the production line itself but in a part of the facility used for waste, including faulty batteries, said Samsung SDI spokesman Shin Yong-doo. He added that most of the factory was running as normal.

The local fire department, however, said on its microblog that the fire was caused by batteries inside the facility.

The "material that caught fire was lithium batteries inside the production workshops and some half-finished products", the Wuqing branch of the Tianjin Fire Department said in a post on its verified Sina Weibo account. It added it had sent out 110 firefighters and 19 trucks to put out the fire.

SDI is set to start supplying batteries for Samsung's upcoming flagship smartphone Galaxy S8 in the first quarter of this year. The S8 replaces the Galaxy Note 7 mode, which suffered a global recall last year due to battery defects.

Samsung said last month that SDI and China's Amperex Technology Ltd, the two battery suppliers for the Note 7, were to blame for the product failure that cost it $5.3 billion in operating profit.

The Tianjin plant is one of five production centres by SDI in China and a major one for small batteries used in phones.

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The Redmond, Washington-based company also said it would extend its existing promise to defend any customers sued over Azure to include the freely available or 'open source' technology incorporated into its cloud service.

Microsoft Corp has thought up another way to attract potential customers to its cloud computing service: deterrent against patent trolls.

Companies new to the cloud are vulnerable to non-practicing entities, which do not make any products themselves but use their arsenal of broad technology patents to sue other firms in order to extract royalties or a cash settlement.

The new offering could appeal to companies new to the cloud arena, needing a service such as Microsoft's Azure to store their data or host their mobile app.

It was not clear that it alone would be enough to draw customers away from the market leader, Amazon.com Inc's Amazon Web Services.

Under a plan unveiled on Wednesday, Microsoft said customers of its cloud service could rely on any of 10,000 Microsoft patents free of charge to deter legal threats against them.

The Redmond, Washington-based company also said it would extend its existing promise to defend any customers sued over Azure to include the freely available or 'open source' technology incorporated into its cloud service.

The protection is designed to appeal to an automaker, for instance, which may have car-related patents but has no such cover for its mobile apps and other cloud-based products, making it a target.

"They haven't had years to build up that patent portfolio," said Julia White, Microsoft corporate vice president, in an interview. "Cloud innovation is far too important to be stifled by lawsuits."

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Russia has detained nine people alleged to be part of a cybercrime ring accused of stealing some $17 million dollars from bank accounts, the interior ministry said Wednesday.

The detentions followed a nationwide manhunt. The FSB security agency launched a major operation last year against the alleged 50-strong "hacker group" that pilfered more than RUB 1 billion ($16.8 million, EUR 15.8 million) since 2013, the statement said.

"Nine individuals suspected of participating in hacking attacks were detained on January 25," ministry spokeswoman Irina Volk said. One was placed under arrest.

A total of 27 members and organisers are being investigated, with 19 of them now under arrest in pre-trial jail, the ministry said.

Unnamed security sources on Wednesday told Russian agencies that the latest arrests are connected to a case against legendary hacking collective Lurk that was targeted by law enforcement agencies in a sweep last year.

According to cyber-security giant Kaspersky, the group was reportedly suspected of stealing some three billion rubles from commercial organisations that included banks.

Russian hackers are in the spotlight over their alleged involvement in cyber-attacks targeting the US presidential election campaign but experts say the vast majority of cybercrime in the country is financial.

The FSB itself is also currently caught up in another murky scandal that has seen at least two of its top cyber-security experts arrested for treason linked to the United States, a lawyer involved in the case has said.

That treason case has also seen the arrest of Ruslan Stoyanov - the head of Kaspersky's cyber-security unit that probed Lurk.

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Are you worried about smelling bad? Theres a smartphone app that will notify you when you start smelling. Japanese electronics maker Konica Minolta Inc developed a device called KunKun (which translates to sniff, sniff) which detects body odours. The pocket-sized device is connected to a smartphone app that notifies users when they start to smell funny.

The device looks like a digital tape recorder which essentially detects chemicals linked to three types of body odour  one, the sweaty changing room type; two, 2-nonenal which is an odour commonly associated with ageing and three, diacetyl which a chemical used to make foods smell buttery.

The idea was born when a group of male employees at the Japanese firm shared their concerns regarding poor hygiene standards. Its difficult to recognise your own smell, Konica Minoltas Diasuke Koda told the Wall Street Journal. We can give relief by telling people how smelly they are and freeing them from the anxiety of not knowing.

This isnt the first time that a company has tried resolving the smell anxiety issue. Another company named Tanita Corp has been selling similar devices since 1999 that detects the strength of mouth odour. German skin-care manufacturer Nivea has reportedly been working on a smartphone cover and app that can detect underarm odour.

The KunKun device

The KunKun device is expected to arrive in Japan this summer. The price for the same has not been revealed yet.

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Samsung does have an asterisk on its website with regards to the offer.

Its probably one of the best times to pick up a smartphone that you are thinking about. Samsung has just made an announcement that they will be offering a 256GB micro SD card along with all Samsung Galaxy S7 smartphones. The memory card is also not any puny one  it is an EVO+ micro SD card which costs no less than Rs 17,000 ($250).

Samsung Galaxy S7 Free offer

In a move to probably take on the smartphone market and probably exhaust its older stocks before the new S8 shows up, Samsung seems to be making the purchase irresistible and highly valuable. Probably instead of dropping the prices of the phone itself, Samsung seems to be clubbing the expensive micro SD card along with the current flagship, selling two products in a single go. The offer is definitely a deal-breaker since you get a massive storage option and that too on a storage card that can write data at a staggering 95MB/s with its Class 10 U3 compatibility standards.

To avail the offer, click here.

Well, this is not all, Samsung is also offering the 256GB micro SD card for those who have already purchased the Galaxy S7. You can redeem the offer by clicking here. Make sure you have a valid bill and proof of purchase.

Samsung does have an 'asterisk' on its website with regards to the offer. It reads:

Must be 18+ & 50 US/DC/PR/USVI res. From 2/8/17 - 2/14/17, purchase a Samsung Galaxy S7 edge or Galaxy S7 on Samsung.com or Shop Samsung (Qualifying Purchase) and receive a free Samsung 256GB Micro SD EVO+ memory card (Gift) (est. $249.99 value), while supplies last. Participants who make a Qualifying Purchase on Samsung.com or Shop Samsung will be prompted to select their Gift at the time of purchase [OR have their Gift automatically added to their cart at checkout] and will not qualify to submit an offer claim on samsungpromotions.com. Limit 1 Offer claim/Gift per Qualifying Purchase. Qualifying Purchase can only be used to redeem 1 Samsung offer. Offer is non-transferrable. Offer cannot be combined with any other Samsung offer, rebate, program or promotion. Void where prohibited or restricted by law. Gift subject to availability. Additional restrictions apply. Subject to full Terms and Conditions.

Sadly, the offer does not seem to be applicable to Indian customers as yet. The offer is presently only for US customers. We are in touch with Samsung to check if the offer is valid on the Indian Samsung smartphone purchase or not. Stay tuned for an update on this page

Update: Click on this link to find out what offers Samsung is providing to its Indian customers.

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New York: A tweet from Donald Trump in defence of his controversial travel ban saw the US President being mocked by Twitterati for the confusing post.

Trump warned in a tweet on Wednesday that undesirables were entering the country, saying the federal appeals court considering his travel ban has an "EASY D!" which the Urban Dictionary defines as promiscuous women.

"Big increase in traffic into our country from certain areas, while our people are far more vulnerable, as we wait for what should be EASY D!" Trump tweeted.

Trump's "EASY D" reference reminded many of late hip hop legend Easy E, of NWA, spawning pictures of the President in various phases of spitting a verse, 'New York Daily News' reported.

Trump apparently meant to say the court faced an easy decision but Twitter laughed over the faux pas.

"I've instructed my staff that I expect to be called 'Easy D' for the remainder of this week. #chillin," said Connecticut congressman Jim Himes, whose name does not contain the letter D but is a Democrat.

"I don't think you know what 'easy d' means?.#urbandictionary #ormaybeyoudo," said a user.

"Hey, Dum-Dum. Ask a grownup to show you what 'EASY D' means at the urban dictionary websites. #ClownPresident," wrote liberal Keith Olberman.

Trump recently signed a controversial executive order barring entry to all refugees for 120 days, and to travellers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days, triggering chaos at US airports and worldwide condemnation.

The executive order has been halted by a federal court, which has now been challenged by the Trump Administration.

The Department of Justice has reached to the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals to remove the stay on the executive orders. The court is yet to come out with its verdict.
Washington: President Donald Trump has sent a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping on the heels of his remarks about Taiwan that angered Beijing.

In his missive, which thanked Xi for his "congratulatory letter" about Trump's inauguration, said he "looks forward to working with President Xi to develop a constructive relationship that benefits both the United States and China," spokesman Sean Spicer said in a statement.

The note appeared to be an effort to get on better footing after the US leader, during the transition period that followed his election and preceded his inauguration, enraged China by suggesting US policy toward Taiwan might not remain unchanged.

Just after he won the November election, Trump provoked Beijing's ire by accepting a congratulatory call from Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen.

Washington cut formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979, recognizing the Communist mainland rulers in Beijing as the sole government of "One China."



But, under the terms of the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, Washington maintains an ambiguous approach to the island, keeping trade ties and selling Taipei weapons.

The law does not recognize Tsai as a head of state, however, and China was infuriated at what it saw as a breach of protocol in Trump's acceptance of her call.

In December, Trump told The Wall Street Journal that "everything is on the table, including One China," but suggested China could save the policy by negotiating a trade deal with him.
Mexico City: A prominent Mexican journalist reported on Wednesday that the sons of Sinaloa cartel kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman say they were attacked and wounded by a rival drug gang figure and onetime "top lieutenant" for their father.

Ciro Gomez Leyva said he received word about Saturday's purported attack in a handwritten letter from Guzman's sons that said they were with Sinaloa boss Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada at the time and he was also targeted.

Gomez Leyva said the letter accused Damaso Lopez, another alleged Sinaloa figure who is believed to be disputing for control of the cartel, of betraying them. The letter said they had come to a meeting organized by Lopez only to find he was not there, and gunmen suddenly opened fire and killed their bodyguards. Guzman's sons said they and Zambada escaped.

Guzman lawyer Jose Refugio confirmed to local media that the letter came from the sons.

"I was aware of that, I know about that letter and I know they wrote that letter," Refugio told Radio Formula. "But it was not delivered through me."

Mexican authorities did not immediately confirm or otherwise comment on the purported attack.

Guzman was arrested for the third time in January 2016 and finally extradited to the United States last month. Some have speculated a bloody turf war could break out to fill the power vacuum.

Last August, his son Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar was one of a half-dozen people kidnapped by armed men from a restaurant in the Pacific coast city of Puerto Vallarta. He was released not long afterward.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Lopez was indicted by a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, in 2011, accused of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and conspiracy to launder money.

When the indictment was unsealed on March 7, 2013, he was said to be 47 years old. At the time, the Department of Justice called him "a top lieutenant" for Guzman and the Sinaloa cartel.
Washington: India and the US agreed to sustain the momentum in their defence collaboration while committing to build on the "tremendous progress" made in the sector as Defence Secretary James Mattis held his first telephonic conversation with Indian counterpart Manohar Parrikar.

"In their first conversation, Secretary Mattis committed to build upon the tremendous progress in bilateral defence cooperation made in recent years, underscoring the strategic importance of the US-India relationship and India's role in advancing global peace and security," Pentagon Press Secretary Capt Jeff Davis said.

This was the first conversation between the two leaders after Gen (retd) Mattis was sworn in as the Defence Secretary last month.

"Secretary Mattis and Minister Parrikar affirmed their commitment to sustain the momentum on key bilateral defence efforts to include the Defence Technology and Trade Initiative," Davis said after the phone call between the two leaders.

Last month, the then defence secretary Ashton Carter had said that the India-US defence relationship is on the right path and the two nations are discussing ways to develop this partnership through technology sharing and co-production.

Carter, who met Parrikar seven times during his tenure, was instrumental in US declaring India a 'major defence partner'.
Sessions, who was the Alabama Senator since 1997, was confirmed as the 84th nation's top law enforcement officer by surviving a near-party-line vote by 52 to 47 after days of delays in the Senate voting. (Photo: AP)

Washington: Jeff Sessions, a close confidant of US President Donald Trump, was today confirmed to be the next attorney general, after a historically tumultuous process that saw the senator come under fire for his views on race and civil rights.

Sessions, who was the Alabama Senator since 1997, was confirmed as the 84th nation's top law enforcement officer by surviving a near-party-line vote by 52 to 47 after days of delays in the Senate voting.

The voting was on partisan lines. Sessions, 70, resigned as the Alabama Senator later in the night. He is expected to be sworn in as the US Attorney General later in the day.

Sessions was one of the first few top Republican Senators to have endorsed Trump in his race to the White House when he was still pitted against his opponents in the GOP primary.

In the past, Sessions has positioned himself as an opponent of H-1B visas, as he believes that this work visa, popular among Indian IT professionals, displaces American workers.

In his farewell speech, soon after his confirmation and before his resignation, Sessions urged his colleagues to respect each other.

"I would say what would be my prayer for this body that in the future maybe the intensity of the last few weeks would die down and maybe somehow we get along better," he said. Sessions said the US President believes in the rule of law.

One of the first task on his plate is the win the legal battle for the Trump Administration to get the stay lifted on executive order temporarily blocking all refugee arrivals and immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries to the US.

"I want to thank President Donald Trump. He believes in protecting the American people from crime and violence. He believes in a lawful system of immigration that serves the national interest," he said.

US Senator Lindsey Graham expressed his disappointment in the way Sessions was treated by his Democratic colleagues and outside special interest groups. "He is a decent, honourable and highly qualified man who will serve the President and country well as our Attorney General," he said.

"His knowledge and dedication to upholding our Constitution and the rule of law have been evident throughout his many years of public service," said Senator David Perdue.

"Sessions' extensive legal career as US Attorney and state Attorney General, coupled with his experience as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, make him a natural fit to lead our nation's Justice Department," he said.

But the Democratic lawmaker was up against Sessions. Senator Patrick Leahy expressed concern about Sessions' commitment to ongoing civil rights litigation.

"We are disappointed that the Senate chose to turn a blind eye to Jeff Sessions' long record of hostility to civil rights. We intend to be relentless in holding this Justice Department accountable. The attorney general has an obligation and duty to protect the civil rights of all Americans. We will not allow the Justice Department to abandon this important work now," said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights under Law.
New York: A Muslim police officer who wears a hijab said a supervisor told her not to "detonate on patrol," just one of many instances of harassment and discrimination she said she suffered because of her religion.

Officer Danielle Alamrani filed a federal lawsuit this week. She said in her suit that others told her she was a "moving target." She said one of the lowest points came while working on Christmas Day 2012, when fellow officers tried to rip the hijab off her head while cursing her.

"On a daily basis she would be told that she should not be a police officer, that she should not be allowed to wear the hijab, that nobody wanted to work with her, that she was a disgrace to the NYPD and that nobody liked her," according to the lawsuit.

Alamrani said she was punished by being assigned to bad shifts that offered little overtime. She also described a scene when a fellow officer arrested her outside of her home and detained her children for hours when a neighbor called to complain about noise.

The department's deputy commissioner for legal matters and the city's law department said they were reviewing the complaint.

The NYPD has about 900 uniformed Muslim officers out of about 35,000, and has made public pronouncements seeking more recruits. The department recently loosened its restrictions on beards for officers requesting a religious exemption. Alamrani is one of two women who wear a hijab at the department.

Lt. Adeel Rana, head of the department's Muslim officer's association, said he feels that the department generally respects Muslim officers.

"We had a meeting with the police commissioner, he was very happy to engage with the community, with the Muslim members," he said. Still, it's a difficult time for Muslims in the country right now, and police officers are still human beings and "some may come with a bias," he said.

Alamrani was hired in 2006 and converted to Islam in 2007. She filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in December 2015, and it issued a right to sue less than three weeks ago, the lawsuit said. The court papers name several individual police officers and are seeking an undeclared amount from lost wages and compensation for mental distress.

"She's still on the job, she's still trying to do her job," said her attorney, Jesse Rose.
Chicago: Another member of the Kennedy family entered American politics on Wednesday, as Christopher Kennedy announced his candidacy for governor of Illinois. The Kennedy heir is the son of Robert F Kennedy, known by many Americans simply as RFK.

The elder Kennedy was assassinated in 1968. A senator at the time, he was seeking the Democratic Party nomination for the presidency. He had previously been attorney general in the administration of his brother John F Kennedy, the 35th US president, himself assassinated in 1963.

Until now, Christopher Kennedy has mostly stayed out of politics, preferring a career in business. He will run as a Democrat seeking to replace Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner, a Republican who is among the nation's least popular governors.

The 53-year-old Kennedy is a businessman and real estate developer in Chicago, the third largest city in the nation. Illinois is one of the country's most populous and economically important states.

Kennedy also helps maintain the family's billion-dollar fortune, a key factor in his candidacy, as state Democrats have been looking for someone who can compete financially with Rauner, a millionaire businessman able to bankroll his own campaign.

In a video announcing his candidacy, Kennedy struck a mostly upbeat message, highlighting his work in business and philanthropy.

"I have a vision for the future that restores the economy," Kennedy said.

But he also indirectly criticised the Republican governor, who has locked horns with the Democrat-controlled state legislature and is stuck in a historic stalemate that has left the state without a budget for some 19 months.

"I'm running for governor, because this state is headed in the wrong direction," he said. "I believe that compromise is not surrender. That's how I think our state should work."

In a sign of the bruising and long political battle to come, the election is not until November 2018, the state's Republican Party quickly put up a web page attacking Mr Kennedy.

Kennedy is expected to face a challenge from other Democrats with eyes on the governor's mansion. He is the second candidate to formally announce.
Washington: President Donald Trump's extended criticism of the judiciary has prompted a rebuke from his nominee for the Supreme Court, who told a senator the president's comments were "demoralizing and disheartening."

Judge Neil Gorsuch, who was nominated by Trump to the nation's high court last week, made the comments Wednesday after Trump accused an appellate court considering his immigration and refugee executive order of being "so political." During the weekend, the president labelled a judge who ruled on his executive order a "so-called judge" and referred to the ruling as "ridiculous."

Gorsuch's comments came at the end of his first full week of meetings in the Senate, which is considering his nomination. His response may have been aimed at drawing a line of separation from the new president, who has been a politically polarizing figure among Democrats in a highly charged partisan fight over the court.

Prior to the judge's meeting on Capitol Hill, Trump slammed the court that is deliberating his immigration and refugee executive order, telling a group of police chiefs that his immigration order was "done for the security of our nation."

He quoted from the portion of the immigration law that he said gave him the power to enact the ban, calling it "beautifully written" and saying "a bad high school student would understand this."

"Courts seem to be so political and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do what's right," he added. "And that has to do with the security of our country, which is so important."

Trump's comments came as the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is weighing the appeal of his executive order on immigration, including a temporary travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries. In a hearing Tuesday, judges on the appeals court challenged the administration's claim that the ban was motivated by terrorism fears, but also questioned an attorney's argument that it unconstitutionally targeted Muslims.

Since a lower-court judge blocked the order last week, Trump has assailed the decision, leading legal experts, Democrats and some Republicans to question whether the president's remarks might jeopardize the independence of the judiciary. Others have expressed fears he may be attempting to use political influence to sway the courts.

Gorsuch joined the criticism in a meeting with Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. Blumenthal, a former state attorney general, said Gorsuch described the president's comments about the judiciary as "demoralizing and disheartening." Gorsuch's confirmation team confirmed the judge's comments.

Blumenthal told reporters that he had told the judge he would need to condemn Trump's attacks on judicial independence publicly.

"It needs to be a strong condemnation and that kind of public condemnation is important to establish his independence," Blumenthal said. "Otherwise, the American public will conclude that he is more likely to be a rubber stamp."

In his speech, Trump sought to link his comments about the court battle over his executive order to the law enforcement community in attendance.

"We have to allow you to do your job," he said. "And we have to give you the weapons that you need, and this is a weapon that you need and they're trying to take it away from you."

The president has repeatedly said people are "pouring in" since the ban was put on hold and suggested that blocking the order would be dangerous for U.S. citizens.

On Wednesday morning he tweeted, "Big increase in traffic into our country from certain areas, while our people are far more vulnerable, as we wait for what should be EASY D!"

The administration has not provided any information to support his claims.

Customs and Border Protection, the agency in charge of screening people who arrive at U.S. ports, including airports, has not responded to multiple requests to detail how many visa holders from the seven designated countries have been allowed into the United States since a federal judge temporarily blocked the government from implementing the travel ban.

The State Department previously said fewer than 60,000 visas were provisionally revoked after the order was signed and those people would now be allowed to travel to the U.S. Trump's order banned travel to the U.S. for people from Syria, Sudan, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Yemen and Libya. It also suspended the country's refugee global program.

As of Wednesday afternoon 641 refugees from 13 countries, including five whose citizens were barred from the U.S. under the travel ban, had arrived since a federal judge in Washington ruled against the government.
Lockheed has said that moving F-16 assembly to India would create 200 engineering jobs in the United States to help support the production line in India. (Photo: Representational Image)

Washington: US defence firm Lockheed Martin (LMT.N) wants to push ahead with plans to move production of its F-16 combat jets to India, but understands President Donald Trump's administration may want to take a "fresh look" at the proposal.

With no more orders for the F-16 from the Pentagon, Lockheed plans to use its Fort Worth, Texas plant instead to produce the fifth generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that the United States Air Force is transitioning to.

Lockheed would switch F-16 production to India, as long as the Indian government agrees to order hundreds of the planes that its air force desperately needs.

Trump has criticised U.S. companies that have moved manufacturing overseas and which then sell their products back to the U.S. In his first few weeks in office, he has pushed companies, from automakers to pharmaceutical firms, to produce more in the United States.

In Lockheed's case, however, the plan is to build the F-16 to equip the Indian Air Force, and not sell them back into the United States.

Lockheed said it has been talking to Trump's transition and governance teams as well as the U.S. Congress for several months on its plans, including the proposed sale of F-16 planes to India, a spokesman told Reuters in Washington.

"We've briefed the Administration on the current proposal, which was supported by the Obama Administration as part of a broader cooperative dialogue with the Government of India," the spokesman said.

"We understand that the Trump Administration will want to take a fresh look at some of these programs, and we stand prepared to support that effort to ensure that any deal of this importance is properly aligned with U.S. policy priorities."

India is expected to spend $250 billion on defence modernisation over the next decade, analysts say, and there is concern that a veto on making the F-16 in India would not only hit Lockheed, but also threaten other military contracts to come up in India for Boeing (BA.N), Northrop (NOC.N) and Raytheon (RTN.N).

The White House did not respond to requests for comment on the plan to build the plane in India.

A person close to Lockheed said company officials did not know what the Trump administration planned to do about the proposal to shift F-16 production to India.

"They're following it closely and talking with the White House. But if they don't move production to India, there's no way they'll get the India contract," the person said.

One argument to be made was that moving to India would preserve some component production in the United States. "Twenty-five percent of something is better than zero percent of nothing," the person said.

No threat to US jobs

Lockheed has said that moving F-16 assembly to India would create 200 engineering jobs in the United States to help support the production line in India.

It has also said that about 800 workers in the United States making the non-Lockheed parts for the F-16 would keep their jobs if construction shifts to India.

"We are offering to make the F-16 Block-70 aircraft with a local partner in India. This is an offer exclusive to India," Randall L. Howard, head of F-16 business development, told Reuters ahead of India's biggest air show beginning in Bengaluru next week.

In India, the F-16 is up against SAAB's (SAABb.ST) Gripen combat aircraft, which the Swedish firm has also offered to make locally, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi drives a Make-in-India campaign to build a domestic aerospace industry and reduce costly imports.

The Indian government is expected to decide this year on which company will build a single-engine fighter plane, in collaboration with a local partner. A defence official said the process was at a very early stage.

The Indian air force alone needs 200-250 fighters over the next 10 years, its former chief Arup Raha said before he left office in December.

Negotiating arms contracts with India can take years, and industry officials said there was no guarantee Lockheed would win the contract even if it moves production to India.

Defence ties between India and the United States have grown rapidly, with U.S. arms sales of more than $4 billion in 2012-15, mostly under government-to-government foreign military sales, upstaging long-term supplier Russia and even Israel.

Lockheed's executive director for international business development, Abhay Paranjape, said his team has met with representatives from 40 defence and aviation firms in India to help build the ancillary network for the aircraft assembly programme.

"We want to be prepared, that's why we started the ground work," he said, adding Lockheed has also scouted possible factory sites in India.

Lockheed has a joint venture with India's Tata Advanced Systems Ltd to make airframe components for the C-130J Super Hercules transport plane and the S-92 helicopter.

"The capability for building components exists here, it's been proven with the C-130s. The challenge now is to pick the right partners," Paranjape said.
Washington: US President Donald Trump has told his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in a letter that he looks forward to developing a "constructive relationship" that benefits both countries, days after his remarks questioning the decades-old 'One China' policy riled Beijing.

Trump wrote the letter to President Xi who had written a congratulatory letter to him after he was sworn in as US President on January 20.

"President Donald J Trump today provided a letter to President Xi Jinping of China, thanking President Xi for his congratulatory letter on the occasion of President Trump's inauguration and wishing the Chinese people a happy Lantern Festival and prosperous Year of the Rooster," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said.

"President Trump stated that he looks forward to working with President Xi to develop a constructive relationship that benefits both the United States and China," Spicer said in a statement.

After becoming the US President, Trump has spoken with nearly two dozen world leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi. British Prime Minister Theresa May was the first world leader to have met him in the Oval Office.

Later this week, Trump would be hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the White House. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also scheduled to meet him at the White House.

Trump, after his election, had stated that the 'One-China' policy on Taiwan is up for negotiation and that he is not fully committed to it.

China had hit back saying one-China policy which stipulates that Taiwan is part of Chinese mainland is "non-negotiable". China regards Taiwan as a breakaway province and insist all countries having bilateral ties with it to abide by the 'One-China' policy.
Seoul: Prosecutors say South Korea's impeached president has cancelled plans to undergo questioning to protest leaks to the media about her investigation.

Prosecutors and President Park Geun-hye had agreed that she would be questioned on Thursday over her alleged involvement in a corruption scandal that led to her impeachment. Prosecutors say both sides agreed not to disclose the exact time and place of the questioning until it was over.

Prosecution spokesman Lee Kyu-chul said Park's lawyers told his team they were pulling out of the questioning after accusing prosecutors of leaking information about it.

SBS TV reported on Tuesday that Park would be questioned on Thursday at the presidential Blue House. Lee says prosecutors did not leak the information.
The aid workers were carrying livestock supplies to areas badly affected by the storm. (Photo: Representational Image)

Mazar-i-Sharif: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) suspended operations in Afghanistan on Wednesday after gunmen killed six employees helping deliver emergency relief to a remote northern region hit by heavy snow storms.

The governor of Jowzjan province said the aid convoy was attacked by suspected Islamic State gunmen. The head of the ICRC called the incident the worst attack against us in 20 years, but the charity said it did not know who was responsible.

A search operation was underway to find two charity workers who were still missing late on Wednesday night.

As we speak our operations are on hold indeed, because we need to understand what exactly happened before we can hopefully resume our operations, ICRC director of operations Dominik Stillhart told Reuters in Geneva.

Afghanistan is the ICRCs fourth largest humanitarian programme in the world, Stillhart said, and the attack follows a warning by the charity last month that mounting security issues made it perilous to deliver aid to large swathes of the country.

A massive snowstorm dumped as much as two metres (6.5 feet) of snow on areas of Afghanistan over the weekend, according to officials, killing more than 100 people.

Lotfullah Azizi, the Jowzjan provincial governor, said the aid workers were carrying livestock supplies to areas badly affected by the storm.

Daesh is very active in that area, he said, using an alternative name for Islamic State, which has made limited inroads in Afghanistan but has carried out increasingly deadly attacks.

The ICRC team included three drivers and five field officers. Jowzjan police chief Rahmatullah Turkistani said the workers bodies had been taken to the provincial capital.

These staff members were simply doing their duty, selflessly trying to help and support the local community, ICRC president Peter Maurer said.

Shootings, kidnappings

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said his group was not involved in the attack and promised that Taliban members would put all their efforts into finding the perpetrators.

Gunmen in northern Afghanistan kidnapped a Spanish ICRC employee in mid December, releasing him nearly a month later.

That staff member had been travelling with three Afghan colleagues between Mazar-i-Sharif and Kunduz when gunmen stopped their vehicles. The local staff were immediately released.

In a summary of its work in Afghanistan last year, the ICRC said increasing security issues hampered the provision of aid to many parts of the country.

Despite it all, the ICRC has remained true to its commitment to the people of Afghanistan, as it has throughout the last 30 years of its continuous presence in the country, the statement said.

Besides determining the operational impact of the attack, Stillhart said ICRC would pause its programs out of respect for the slain aid workers.

We also need and want to mark what is a horrible incident, which came as a huge shock for all our staff, first and foremost in Afghanistan but also to respect the families, he said.
Seoul: The embattled ruling party of South Korea's impeached President Park Geun-Hye has picked a new name, Liberal Korea officials said on Thursday, as it seeks to distance itself from a sprawling corruption scandal.

The Saenuri, or New Frontier, party was formed from a merger of several centre-right parties in 1997 and known as the Grand National Party until 2012.

Elections are due this year and a spokesman said: "We've decided to change the party name to the Liberal Korea Party with a promise to be born anew."

Party leaders will meet to approve the title on Monday, he added, when it will go into effect.

South Korean political parties have a tendency to don new names to sever ties with a tainted past or to appeal to larger audiences.

Park adopted the Saenuri name in 2012 as part of an attempt to reform and regain voter support ahead of that year's general elections, which the party won.

But a swirling corruption scandal has since surrounded Park, with huge demonstrations demanding her resignation, and she was impeached by parliament last month.

The party initially favoured "Conservatives' Power Party" for a new title, as recommended by its acting leader In Myung-Jin.

But the moniker met with public ridicule in the light of the scandal, one online poster commenting: "You'd better call it Money Power Party."

Other alternatives were Happy Korea and the People First Party, potentially evoking US President Donald Trump's "America First" slogan.

Saenuri's parliamentary floor leader Chung Woo-Taek said there had been disputes over using the word "conservative".

"But as everyone knows we are conservative, we decided not to put the word in the party name," he said.

The various components of the Grand National Party and their predecessors ruled South Korea for decades during the country's dictatorship and afterwards, and following 10 years in opposition its candidates have won the country's last two presidential elections.

The country's Constitutional Court is currently deciding whether to uphold Park's impeachment. If it does so new elections must be held within 60 days.

In the aftermath of the scandal, one-third of Saenuri's lawmakers defected to form a splinter conservative party, relegating the group to the country's second-largest party with 95 parliamentary seats, behind the opposition Democratic Party with 121 seats.
London: A family of mixed Indian and Middle Eastern heritage has won compensation after two brothers, aged seven and five, were questioned by police over the toy guns they were playing with at a school in the East of England.

The boys were reported to Bedfordshire Police as being at risk of radicalisation in March last year but officers quickly concluded there was no issue of concern.

The school and the boys cannot be named to protect their identity as minors.

I was told they had displayed signs that were worrying in terms of being reasonable indicators of being involved in terrorist activity. They had no other reason to believe they had any signs of extremism other than the colour of their skin, the mother, of Indian Hindu heritage, told BBC.

I understand that [terrorism] is a problem, but this is a rather blunt instrument with which to tackle it. There are some residual effects  both boys have suffering nightmares. My younger boy fears he might taken away. We are trying to help them move on, she said.

She claims being told that one of the boys had been speaking Arabic and talked about attending a mosque even though none of the family spoke Arabic and the children did not go to mosques.

Central Bedfordshire Council has since accepted the children were racially discriminated against and issued an apology as well as agreed to pay an undisclosed sum in compensation.

We accept the boys were discriminated against and have apologised to the family, a council statement said.

The schools governors have reportedly found that teachers were unsure if they had a duty to report their concerns under Prevent, the UK governments anti-radicalisation strategy, which had led to this incident.

We were called to reports of concern for safety and two officers attended  this was not in a Prevent capacity but routine police attendance and the officers were only present for a short time, Bedfordshire Police said in its statement.
Similar technology is used in Britain by some police forces and has been operational in US schools since 2015. (Photo: Pixabay)

London: Teachers at two schools in the UK will wear police-style body-worn cameras to film disruptive pupils.

Tom Ellis, principal lecturer at the Institute of Criminal Justice Studies at the University of Portsmouth, said all classroom teachers at the two state secondary schools, which cannot be named, have the option of wearing the cameras during the three-month pilot scheme.

"The teachers will be wearing the cameras very visibly, so there's no attempt to be covert in any way. The idea is that everyone is aware that the camera is there and is being used for a specific incident. Where the teacher feels there's a threat to themselves or to another student, then there will be evidence of that incident," Ellis was quoted as saying by BBC.

Besides filming incidents of concern, the teachers could also seek permission from local education authorities to film positive events.

Similar technology is used in Britain by some police forces and has been operational in US schools since 2015.

The UK Department for Education said the trial was "a matter for the school".

"The schools are acting within the law as far as we know but we haven't investigated this matter," a spokesperson said.

The cameras film continuously, but encrypted footage is only saved once the teacher hits the record button, at which point pupils can see the live footage on an outward-facing screen.
Alexander Boris Johnson figured in the Treasury list of people who had given up their US citizenship in the last quarter of 2016. (Photo: AP)

London: British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who was born in New York, has renounced his US citizenship, a United States Treasury Department document said on Wednesday. Alexander Boris Johnson figured in the Treasury list of people who had given up their US citizenship in the last quarter of 2016.

The former mayor of London has held both British and US passports.

Mr Johnson had said in 2015 he intended to give up his dual nationality for patriotic reasons.

He said his US passport was "an accident of birth" and that he had to "find a way of sorting it out" with the then US ambassador Matthew Barzun.

"The reason I'm thinking I probably will want to make a change is that my commitment is, and always has been, to Britain," he told the Sunday Times newspaper.

"They (the Americans) don't make it easy for you," Johnson added, hinting it could be a long and arduous process.

He had previously settled a capital gains tax bill sent by the US after he sold his house in north London, calling the demand "absolutely outrageous".

All US citizens have to pay tax to Washington, even if they live outside the country.

Britain's foreign ministry did not immediately confirm if Mr Johnson had given up his US citizenship.
England: Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, whose husband is former deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, has complained after being invited to an International Womens Day event in her married name. Posting a picture of a letter addressed to Mrs Clegg on Instagram, she noted the irony of the situation. The event, on March 8, is designed to celebrate womens success, she added. Ms Gonzalez Durantez is a lawyer specialising in international and EU trade law. She wrote: The irony of being invited to speak at an International Womens Day event to celebrate womens success, addressed to me as Mrs Clegg.

Ms Gonzalez Durantez set up the Inspiring Women group, which recruits women with successful careers to visit and speak to girls at state schools in England. This is not the first time she has criticised the way she is perceived or described. Last year she told Marie Claire magazine: I find people say of me She wears the trousers and as you can see, it is true, I have very nice trousers. Or if my husband and I share the school run, its me who has forced him, dragged him away from his work, she said. But when people, or in my case the media, are using that label on you, they are not saying you are strong, they are saying you should get back in your box, she added.
IS has waged a deadly insurgency against Egyptian security forces in the Sinai but attacks on Israel from Egyptian territory are rare. (Photo: Representational Image)

Cairo: The Islamic State group said on Thursday that it was responsible for rocket fire on the Israeli resort of Eilat from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.

"Thanks to God alone, a military platoon fired several Grad rockets yesterday" towards Eilat, the jihadists' Egyptian affiliate said in a statement circulated on social media.

The Israeli army said on Wednesday evening's rocket fire did not cause any casualties.

Three rockets were intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome air defence system and a fourth fell short of the town.

IS has waged a deadly insurgency against Egyptian security forces in the Sinai but attacks on Israel from Egyptian territory are rare.

In 2011, assailants who came from the Sinai killed eight Israelis in a triple ambush north of Eilat. Pursuing Israeli forces killed seven attackers and five Egyptian police.

In 2013, four jihadists were killed by an Egyptian air strike as they were about to fire a rocket at Israel, according to the Egyptian military.

In 2014, two Israeli soldiers on patrol were wounded by unidentified men who fired an anti-tank weapon from the Sinai during an attempted drug-smuggling operation, according to the Israeli military.

In 2015, rockets fired from Sinai hit southern Israel without causing any casualties. IS claimed responsibility.
Ahmad Waqass Goraya was among five activists who vanished in Pakistan in early January. (Photo: Screengrab)





AFP

Islamabad: A Pakistani activist abducted last month has broken his silence on his weeks-long disappearance, but is refusing to point fingers in a country where criticising extremism or the security establishment can make you a target.

Ahmad Waqass Goraya was among five activists who vanished in Pakistan in early January.

Human Rights Watch, opposition lawmakers and Pakistani activists have said their near simultaneous abductions pointed to government involvement in a country with a history of enforced disappearances.

Goraya was freed at the end of January along with at least three others and swiftly fled back to the Netherlands, where he has lived for the last decade.

"I felt I would never come back, I would never see my son and famiy," the 34-year-old told AFP during a phone interview in which he frequently became agitated.

Goraya, who like the other activists criticised religious extremism and the military establishment, refused to say anything about his captors or describe what happened during his ordeal.

But he angrily rejected accusations that he was a traitor for daring to be vocal about alleged abuses of power in Pakistan, insisting he was a true patriot.

"Nothing was against Pakistan, nothing was against Islam, I was critical of policies because I want to see a better Pakistan," he said, adding in a later message: "We want a Pakistan with rule of law".

Goraya also said he fears a virulent ultra right-wing campaign to paint him as a blasphemer while he was missing has followed him to Europe.

The charge, which engulfed Pakistani social media and was repeated by mainstream television hosts, is an incendiary one that can carry the death penalty in the conservative Muslim country.

Even unproven allegations have caused mob lynchings and violence. At least 65 people including lawyers, judges and activists have been murdered by vigilantes over blasphemy allegations since 1990, according to the Center for Research and Security Studies.

Goraya said allegations of blasphemy had surfaced on social media sites frequented by the Pakistani community in the Netherlands, prompting him to seek police advice.

"I'm looking over my shoulder I have been warned by people it is a crazy world."

Silencing dissent

Pakistan has had a history of enforced disappearances over the past decade, but they have mainly been confined to conflict zones near the Afghanistan border or to southwestern Balochistan province, where separatists are battling for independence.

Campaigners and opposition politicians believe the disappearances in January were part of a new strategy by the military which has ruled the country for nearly half its existence and wields de facto control over security policy to stamp out criticism and dissent online.

Officials have denied any role in the disappearances, which sparked protests in cities across Pakistan by progressives concerned that the space for free speech is shrinking.

But, said Goraya, they have had their intended chilling effect.

"Hundreds of our friends deactivated their (social media) accounts, their pages," Goraya said, adding that well-known liberal blog "Roshni" (whose name means "light" in Urdu) was among those deleted, despite the fact its administrator was based in London.

His three-year-old son, meanwhile, has been deeply traumatised by his father's weeks-long disappearance and its impact on his family.

"What can you tell a three-year-old kid, all he can see are his mother and grandparents screaming and crying," Goraya said.

He described how the once quiet child now lashes out. "He's yelling and slapping and beating that's what I would say is the worst loss I suffer."

Goraya said he has spent almost a decade in the Netherlands but had come to Pakistan in late 2016 to gauge the possibility of returning to Lahore with his family.

"I could have applied for Dutch citizenship after five years but we never went that way it would mean giving up my Pakistani passport," he said.

"The plan was to move permanently back to Pakistan. But now we have to replan our whole life. "
Beijing: India can increase its "military pressure" on Pakistan using the alibi of "counterterrorism crusade" that may bring "other players" in the region, China's official media warned on Thursday, justifying Beijing's latest block on a proposed UN ban on JeM chief Masood Azhar.

"India has its own reasons to have listed Azhar as terrorist. However, observers are also worried that under the defence of counter terrorism crusade, India can increase its military pressure on Pakistan, thus risking escalating tensions between the two countries," state-run Global Times said in an editorial.

It comes just a day after China defended its decision to block the US' proposal in the UN for designating Pathankot attack mastermind and JeM chief Azhar as a global terrorist, saying the "conditions" have not yet been met for Beijing to back the move.

"The India-Pakistan has been a thorny issue in South Asia for a long time and China is caught in the middle, given geographic and geopolitical proximity to the two," it said without mentioning China's all weather ties with Pakistan.

"The failure to bring the two on the path to peace underscores their different domestic and diplomatic trajectories. Any action the UN takes should assist the peace process rather than escalating tensions between the two countries," the editorial said.

Interestingly, the editorial can only be read in the print edition as internet link to it was blocked.

Projecting an enlarged role for Beijing in the tensions between India and Pakistan, it said "as a responsible power China must help maintain regional order". It said China is aware that terrorism is a burning issue.

"China has also set up anti-terror mechanism with India but regional peace and stability will always be a priority," it said.

"Any India-Pakistan confrontation may bring other players into the region, which would complicate the situation," it said without naming "other players".

Significantly for China, the resolution to ban Azhar in the Al-Qaeda related 1267 Committee of the UN Security Council was moved this time by the US and backed by other UNSC permanent members like UK and France unlike last year when India moved the application which was backed by all members except China.

However, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang on Wednesday while defending China's technical hold, played down US move to directly moving the resolution for the ban on Azhar.
Islamabad: The Trump administration has no plan to ban Pakistani citizens from travelling to the United States because Islamabad is providing the data they need to vet a visitor.

According to the Dawn, in recent briefings to various media outlets, White House officials also said the administration had no plan to add other countries to the list of seven Muslim countries whose citizens were barred from travelling or migrating to the US.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer explained that Afghanistan, Pakistan and Lebanon were among the countries which were providing the information needed to scrutinise travellers. But he warned that if this cooperation changed, these or other countries could also be added to the list.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), however, was more categorical in assuring the 40 non-designated Muslim countries that Spicer mentioned in his statement.

"Importantly, these seven countries are the only countries to which the pause on entry applies. No other countries face such treatment. Nor have any other countries been identified as warranting future inclusion at this time," the DHS said in a statement.

Another White House added that reports of banning travellers from other countries were just rumours. "There's nothing imminent that I'm aware of," the spokesperson added.

Other White House officials said that even the Obama administration had problems with the seven countries now facing the travel ban as they were not providing the data needed to scrutinise their citizens.

But a passage in the January 27 executive order leaves the option to expand the list open, causing worries and rumours across the Muslim world.

"At any point after submitting the list described in subsection (e) of this section, the secretary of state or the secretary of homeland security may submit to the president the names of any additional countries recommended for similar treatment," it said.

But the DHS, while ruling out the possibility of expanding the list in the near future, said the aliens affected by the 90-day pause on travel were also getting "case-by-base exceptions and waivers, as outlined in President Donald Trump's executive order, "Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States."
A circular of the High Court of Karnataka barring ministers and legislators from sitting on the dais during inauguration of court buildings triggered an outburst from members against the judiciary in the Legislative Assembly.



The members, cutting across party lines, on Wednesday stated that the circular is an insult to the legislature. They even sought a probe into judges assets.



Moving the motion of thanks to the governors address, K N Rajanna (Congress) referred to the October 14 high court circular and stated that the judiciary has exceeded its jurisdiction. The circular was issued by then Registrar General of the high court John Michael DCunha, based on the proceedings of the Full Court (see box ).



Rajanna said court buildings are constructed using taxpayers money and the judiciary did not have any exclusive right over them. He said legislators were the custodians of taxpayers money and members of the judiciary. Judges many a time forget that they are humans. We cannot speak against them. They threaten us with contempt of court. In one way they are... , Rajanna said.



Leader of the Opposition Jagadish Shettar said a former chief justice of India has been on record stating that 50% of the judges were corrupt. Rajanna said the government should order a probe into the assets of all judges. His view was endorsed by several members including C T Ravi (BJP) and N A Haris (Congress).



K M Shivalinge Gowda (JD-S) said judges lived in lavish quarters and even secured G category sites. Sa Ra Mahesh (JD-S) said a former chief justice, instead of being in the court, was found shopping in a jewellery shop, where he collapsed and had to be rushed to a hospital in an ambulance.



S Suresh Kumar (BJP) said when he was law minister, he had to suffer the humiliation of being subjected to police verification. The police were acting on a direction from a judge who did not want to share the dais with anyone with criminal antecedents at the inauguration of a court building at Holalkere in Chitradurga district.



Kumar urged Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who was present in the House, to advocate the cause of legislators. You should become an advocate once again. We should not be helpless, he said, referring to Siddaramaiahs law practice during his younger days.


Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao has invited warring AIADMK General Secretary V K Sasikala and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam for meeting him separately.



Rao, holding charge of Tamil Nadu in addition to Maharashtra, arrived from Mumbai late this afternoon. He had kept away from Chennai for the last three days amid a bitter war of words between Sasikala and Panneerselvam, who had revolted against the AIADMK chief.



He is here to hold talks to end the political crisis in the state.Panneerselvam has been given an appointment at 5 pm, while the Sasikala camp will meet the Governor at 7.30 pm. Panneerselvam has said he was forced to step down, paving the way for Sasikala's elevation to the top post, and said he would withdraw his resignation if the situation arose.



Sasikala, who was on Sunday elected the leader of the AIADMK legislature party, is likely to stake claim for forming government while Panneerselvam is expected to present his case before the Governor. PTI SA VIJ VS ZMN 02091639



10 senior ministers are going to go with Chinnamma (Sasikala). All the MLAs are ready to go. It is, however, the decision of the Governor (to meet or not to meet all the legislators). The Governor is very positive, he has not raised any apprehensions," School Education Minister K Pandiarajan said.



"We have an official appointment at 7.30 PM. We will be staking our claim. There are no problems. There is no need to raise any problems," he told reporters here. Sources in Panneerselvam's camp said the Chief Minister is scheduled to meet the governor at 5 PM today and "apprise" him of the prevailing situation in Tamil Nadu.



Pandiarajan, answering questions on the rebellion of Panneerselvam, said it was wrong to say that the "outgoing" Chief Minister was forced to resign from his post. "There was no pressure. There is no truth in it. Talking of coercion is laughable," he said.



He added, "Panneerselvam was all along with us when all the decisions were taken. No decision was taken by overruling him. Now, if he wants to take a different stand, it is his choice." He said it was Panneerselvam who had proposed Sasikala's name for the post of party general secretary.



"To claim now that her appointment was not as per law is unadulterated opportunism... it is the height of hypocrisy," he said, adding all the general council members, including Panneerselvam, unanimously chose her. AIADMK spokesperson C R Saraswathi had yesterday claimed that the ruling party has the support of 131 party legislators and they had attended the meeting chaired by Sasikala to discuss the fallout of the revolt by Panneeselvam.




Japan's SoftBank Corp has booked an investment loss of 39.28 billion yen (USD 350 million) on its investments in India, including those in cab-hailing firm Ola and e-commerce company Snapdeal.





In the earning statement for nine months ended December, SoftBank wrote off 39.28 billion yen in the value of shares in its Indian investments, which include Ola and Snapdeal.



"Gain or loss arising from financial instruments at FVTPL comprises mainly of changes in fair value of preferred stock investment including embedded derivatives, such as ANI Technologies and Jasper Infotech in India, designated as financial assets at FVTPL (Fair Value Through Profit or Loss)," SoftBank said in the earnings statement.



The new set of numbers are lower than the loss recorded by SoftBank in November last year.



It had booked an investment loss of 58.14 billion yen (USD 560 million) for the six-month period ending September 30, impacted by appreciation of Japan's Yen against the local currency.



SoftBank had led a USD 210-million investment in Ola and USD 627 million in Snapdeal in October 2014. It made follow-on investments in both firms.



The Japanese firm has so far invested close to USD 2 billion in India and earlier this year it stated that it is looking to scale up investments to USD 10 billion in next 5-10 years.
Amid reports of tension between Infosys founders and its management, CEO Vishal Sikka has asked employees not to get distracted by speculations that question the company's commitment to "governance, integrity and values".





He asked them to keep a "sharp focus" on executing the company's strategy, which is bolstered by its services like Mana, Skava, Edge, Panaya and cloud services.



"...let us keep a sharp focus on the execution of our strategy. Let us not get distracted by media speculation that is designed to stir up gossip or rehash old rumours or speculate on the unknowns, around visas, or anything that questions our commitment to governance, integrity and values, in order to generate headlines and create, in the words of The Wire, Eardrum Buzz," Sikka said in an internal mail.



"There is no second-guessing our deep commitment, passion and dedication to transforming this great company, even within the unprecedented new context that we find ourselves in. We are doing this. We will do this. Together!," he said.



There have been reports of simmering differences between the CEO and its founders over issues like pay hike given to Sikka and severance package of two former senior executives.



Infosys has, however, defended itself saying all decisions were made "in the overall interest of the company" and that it has made "full disclosures" on all developments.



Infosys founders, along with their family members, owned 12.75 per cent in the company at the end of December 2016, as per the data available on the BSE.



The buzz grew louder when Infosys' former chief financial officer TV Mohandas Pai said the board should give a detailed answer and not take shelter under "bland" statement that decisions were taken in the interest of the company.



Sikka said Infosys' revenue growth, which previously underperformed the industry growth by 50 per cent about 2 years ago, is now in line with overall industry growth.



"...we have held margins through operational efficiency improvements and automation benefits. Our cash flow generation continues to be amongst the strongest in the industry. And in a key sign of a thriving enterprise, our new software and services have seen tremendous growth," he told employees.



Infosys' strategy is focussed on delivering higher value services and bringing the latest advances in technology into work.



"...we create unprecedented value for clients, employees, shareholders, and the larger global ecosystem in which we operate  including delivering value as one of the largest and most respected companies in India," he said.
Pakistan is hosting warships from 36 countries, including Russia, China and the US, in the Arabian Sea for a naval exercise beginning tomorrow.





Codenamed Aman-17, the five-day-long exercise will be held in the north Arabian Sea. Russia has sent three ships for the exercise which, according to Pakistan Navy, is held every two years to raise awareness about naval affairs and improve coordination between different navies. Four ships from the US, and one each from Indonesia, Australia and Turkey will also participate.



Other participants of the exercise themed 'Together for peace' include China, Japan, Sri Lanka, the UK, and France. Commander of the Pakistani Fleet, Vice Admiral Arifullah Hussaini said the exercise has helped navies to work together in eradicating terrorism, human, arms and drug trafficking.



He said Pakistani naval ships were also ensuring free sea trade in the Gulf of Aden.

"This region, the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea, is very important as well as complex. It is from here that the world's oil is transported," he added.



Asked about India focusing on increasing its naval assets, Hussaini said the Aman-17 exercise was aimed at promoting inter-operability and not at preparing for war.



Still, he said, Pakistan's navy can protect its waters and harbours. "We will ensure that our international interests are not jeopardised. We are not into escalating adventurism at sea. Pakistan is committed to international peace," he said.



He said such exercises have helped combat piracy in north Arabian Sea after Somali pirates caused lot of damage in the area.



A Pakistani naval official said warships from Russia, China and the US have arrived to take part in the exercise. "Water salute was presented for the warships on reaching the Karachi port," he said, adding that it was mega event and the warships from 36 countries will take part in the exercise.



The exercise will feature ships, aircraft, helicopters, Special Operations Forces (SOF), Explosives Ordinance Disposal (EOD), marines and observers from different navies.



Pakistan has been organising such naval exercises since 2007 every alternate year.



The current exercise is the fifth of the series and will be held from 10-14 February.

Previous four exercise were held in 2001, 2009, 2011 and 2013. In 2015, only international maritime conference was held.
Former Infosys CFO T V Mohandas Pai feels that the present leadership at the Bengaluru-based company is not focussed on creating shareholder value even as he reposed faith in CEO Vishal Sikka's leadership, saying there is "need for a strong chairman".





Pai, who served as a board member of Infosys from 2000 to 2011, also said it was a "mistake" on the part of N R Narayana Murthy to "focus on only founders becoming leaders (CEOs)" which led many people to quit the company.



"I am very saddened. All of us spent a major part of our lives building up this great company, and I am very saddened by what has happened," Pai, who is not a founder but spent 17 years with the company before quitting in 2011, told PTI.



Yesterday, Infosys defended the pay hike to Chief Executive Sikka and the severance package for two former senior executives, saying all decisions were made "in the overall interest of the company", amid reports of simmering differences between the CEO and its founders.



The reports said Infosys founders Murthy, Kris Gopalakrishnan and Nandan Nilekani had written to the board last month expressing their concerns over pay hike to Sikka, and the severance package offered to the two senior executives.



Pai, who served as CFO from 1994 to 2006, said: "The concern is that in the last five years, the focus (of Infosys leadership) has not been there, the leadership that we built up has left for various reasons, new leadership has come in and they are still not focusing on creating shareholder value.



"There is automation coming, which they are trying to face, they have got a good CEO (in Sikka), growth rates have come down, there is uncertainty, shareholders who have put trust in the company have not seen increase in the value in the last five years," Pai added.



He cited three top reasons for "the slide". One is "lack of adequate leadership as many people left because of Murthy's focus on only founders becoming leaders and that was a mistake". Second, "not changing the business model to face automation and change in the marketplace and (the change was) slow because of the leadership flux". Third, he said, was capital allocation and lack of capital efficiency, which are hurting the company.



Further, Pai said he had confidence in CEO Sikka's leadership, but "you need a strong chairman".



Without naming Infosys Chairman R Seshasayee, Pai said: "When you have a strong CEO, you need a strong chairman to balance... so, both can work together. Infosys always had a strong chairman. The chairman holds the company together."



Like Cognizant Technology Solutions, he suggested that Infosys should go in for a share buyback programme. "They (Infosys) should have capital allocation strategy; they are sitting on Rs 40,000 crore of cash. They must use the money for shareholders either through buyback or something else. They are sitting quiet..."



Apart from buyback, Infosys needs to be energised which the CEO is doing, according to Pai. "Communication to the market has to become better. They should improve their communication to the market and shareholders," he advised.



Pai is of the view that in the last one or two years, proper communication is lacking. "Because when you miss your numbers, you cannot go and say you are surprised," he said.



On reports that Murthy, Nilekani and Gopalakrishnan have suggested to the Board to take Pai, along with two others, back as board members, he said: "Nobody has spoken to me. It's something I will not be interested (in). I am not interested."



"That phase of my life is over, and I am doing exciting things, I need to spend more time on what I am doing. I don't want to go back to what I was doing," added Pai, currently Chairman of Manipal Global Education Services and Aarin Capital.
Mitsubishi Elevator India, a wholly owned subsidiary of Japans Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, on Thursday inaugurated its first plant in India in Vemgal, near Bengaluru with a total investment of Rs 183 crore.





Industry Minister R V Deshpande inaugurated the plant along with Mitsubishi Electric Corporation President and Chief Executive Officer Masaki Sakuyama.



Interacting with DH, Sakuyama said the plant will help Mitsubishi Elevator India address the market demand more effectively.



We have sold over 10,000 units of elevators and escalators since 1995. The new plant will help us serve our clients with products that are cost competent. Currently, Mitsubishi caters to the Indian market by importing elevators from Thailand, he said.



Mitsubishi Elevator India Managing Director Iwao Oda said the companys quality levels are a benchmark in the elevator industry. This comes from the strong and stringent internal quality systems that have been adopted, he said.



Oda said the company has plans to grow its sales volumes by strengthening its sales network across the country and by more products that fulfill the local needs.



Mitsubishi Elevator India Deputy Managing Director Pravin Rao said the facility will manufacture the Nexiez Lite model of elevators. The residential segment in the elevator market is growing, as demand from the real estate sector is gaining momentum across the country. The Nexiez Lite, with 1,020 kg capacity, will help us tap this segment, he said.



According to a recent report, the elevators market in India is projected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of over 8% between 2016 and 2021. The market is expected to cross $1.6 billion in 2020, states the report.


Over 50 representatives from various sectors in the country, including online retail and technology firms, have met WTO chief Roberto Azevedo to discuss issues pertaining to global trade.





Azevedo, Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), met with Indian business leaders on Wednesday for discussions on future of global trading system at a round-table hosted by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), a statement said on Thursday.



ICC Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal and ICC Secretary General John Danilovich joined over 50 senior representatives from key sectors for the discussions that focussed on trade reforms to boost inclusive growth and other world trade developments, it added.



Mittal, who is also Chairman of Indias largest telecom firm Bharti Airtel, asked participants to consider ways in which WTO could re-energise cross-border trade to drive job creation and development. He also urged them to discuss the trade barriers they experience in their daily operations.



Its clear that we must do more to make the case for global commerce. And also to ensure that the benefits of trade reach all parts of society, Mittal said.



Its vital that we  the global business community  do all we can to ensure that ministerial delivers tangible results to support trade and inclusive development, Mittal said. The state of global trade was also central to discussion, particularly with ongoing concerns regarding the slow rate of global trade growth in recent years.
The Karnataka government has rolled out a plan to improve schoolchildrens Urdu language skills. It will help anganwadi children to learn Urdu, said Naseer Ahmed, the chairperson of the Karnataka State Minorities Commission.





Besides, the government is also planning to start the teaching of English and Kannada from Class I in Urdu-medium schools so that when students reach Class VIII, they become proficient in these languages, he said at Urdu Day organised by the Karnataka Urdu Academy here on Thursday. He called upon the minorities to submit proposals for welfare schemes so that the allocated funds get utilised before the Assembly elections next year.



Minister for Urban Development, Haj and Wakf R Roshan Baig stressed the need to teach children Urdu and encourage publications in the language. Khwaja Muhammad Ikramuddin, the former director of the National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language, and Shaista Yusuf, the president of Mahfil-e-Nisa, were present on the occasion.



As part of the programme, a rally was taken out from Ambedkar Bhavan, Vasanthnagar, which passed through Russell Market square, Broadway Road, Queens Road, Millers Tank Road and Mahaveer Jain Hospital.
Putting an end to the speculation, Infosys Chief Executive Officer Vishal Sikka on Thursday asked employees not to get distracted by speculations that question the companys commitment to governance, integrity and values.



In a letter issued to employees, accessed by DH, he stated, Over the last few weeks, many of you have reached out with your observations on the things going on around us, the clear signs of a changing context for Infosys and the IT services industry, and in particular, the Indian IT services industry.



He asked the employees to keep a sharp focus on executing the companys strategy, which is bolstered by its services like Mana, Skava, Edge, Panaya and cloud services.



There is no second-guessing our deep commitment, passion and dedication to transforming this great company, even within the unprecedented new context that we find ourselves in. We are doing this. We will do this. Together! he said.



Sikka said Infosys revenue growth, which previously underperformed the industry growth by 50% about two years ago, is now in line with overall industry growth.



In a statement sent to DH, Infosys also denied any governance lapses alleged by some sections of the media in reports that have appeared in the last few days on purported rifts among the founders, the board and the management.



According to a statement by Infosys Chairman R Seshasayee, he said the company is in the process of a formidable transformation journey. The Board is fully aligned with the strategic direction of Vishal Sikka and is very appreciative of the initiatives taken by him in pursuance of this transformation he stated.



Chairman of the Nomination and Remuneration Committee, Jeff Lehman, said, The members of the Board are deeply engaged with the company and spend considerable time on the affairs of the company.
The ninth edition of the Bengaluru International Film Festival (Biffes), which kickstarted in Bengaluru on February 2, concluded in a grand manner on the Mysuru Palace premises here on Thursday.





A series of cultural programmes were organised to add colour to the event. Film artistes performed a variety of cultural programmes.



Awards were given for the best movies screened during the festival under different categories.



While A Fathers Mill directed by Bakit Mukul bagged the award under Asian Cinema category, Harikatha Prasanga (Chronicles of Hari) directed by Ananya Kasaravalli and produced by Basanth Kumar Patil won the Best Indian Cinema Award under Indian Cinema competition.



Kannada movie Lathe Joshi directed by Mangesh Joshi and produced by Pravah Nirmitee got the Special Jury award and Special Jury Mention was awarded for Kaadu Pookkunna Neram directed by Bijukumar Damodaran. Loktak Lairambee (Lady of the Lake) directed by Haobam Paban Kumar bagged Fipresci-India P K Nair Memorial Critics Jury award.



Under the Kannada Cinema competition, Rama Rama Re directed by D Satya Prakash and produced by Kannada Kolour Cinemas bagged Best Kannada Cinema award. Pallata and Godhi Banna Sadharana Mykattu bagged second third best Kannada Cinema awards. These awards are instituted by Karnataka Chalanachitra Academy.



Kannada movie Uppina Kagada directed by B Suresha was won International Jury prize under Kannada cinema category. The prize is instituted by the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema. Kotigobba-2, Doddmane Hudga and Jaggu Dada bagged first, second and third prizes respectively under popular Kannada movies category.



Governor Vajubhai Vala, who distributed the awards, said that every year three best Kannada movies should be selected and awarded Rs 50 lakh each.



Movie makers have a great responsibility on them as cinema is a major medium of communication. Film producers must come out with movies with healthy message to society, he suggested.



Public Works Minister H C Mahadevappa and Karnataka Chalanachitra Academy chairman S V Rajendra Singh Babu were present.


It appears that the Bruhut Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) is oblivious to mosquito menace in the city. It is not that it is short of money to take up fogging but it has not made full use of the funds available.





Going by the statistics provided by Bengaluru Development Minister K J George in the Legislative Council on Thursday, the BBMP from 2014-15 to 2016-17, has spent only Rs 5.17 crore of Rs 23 crore allocated for fogging.



George provided the details to a question tabled by Jayamala Ramachandra (Cong). He said fogging is done by employees of the Palike and the work is not outsourced. Fogging is done as per requirement to check the spread of dengue and chikungunya. There has been no misuse of funds, he added.



However, Jayamala and other members argued that mosquito menace has increased considerably and effective measures have not been taken to contain the same.



Congress members V S Ugrappa and Ivan Dsouza complained that even the Legislators Homes have been facing mosquito problem. Ganesh Karnik (BJP) sarcastically said the government in the next budget should come out with mosquitoe net bhagya.



Congress member K Govindaraj jocularly said that as Jayamala seems to have studied the subject well, it is better to make her brand ambassador to launch a drive against mosquitoes.
A history-sheeter was bludgeoned to death by a six-member gang at Kirloskar Colony, West of Chord Road, north Bengaluru, around Wednesday midnight.





Raju, 32, got drunk and picked a fight with the gang over a financial matter. The men pushed him down and bludgeoned him with a hollow brick. Police said they had arrested the suspects and identified three of them as Mahesh, Ganesh and Kiran.



Raju had a criminal record with a history sheet being opened against him at the Mahalakshmi Layout police station in 2014. He was jobless and often fought with his neighbours and relatives over financial matters, police said.



Bid to attack CCB sleuths



A gang of at least 20 men tried to attack CCB sleuths during a raid on a house at Ramaswamypalya in Banaswadi on Thursday. Following a tip-off on a man selling ganja, the police arrived in a vehicle. A few people from the house tried chasing them out, brandishing lethal weapons. They tried attacking them and also damaged their vehicle. Police have arrested 15 people.


The police are yet to trace the man who had made a hoax bomb call to Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) on Wednesday, which delayed departure of an Air Asia flight to Kochi by four hours.





The police questioned a man and a woman who were to board the flight, based on suspicion. It is not yet known if the two are involved in the incident, the International Airport police inspector told DH.



The two hail from Kerala and have settled in Bengaluru. Their families had finalised their wedding and the engagement took place at Kochi on Thursday.



The call had originated from a landline number around 8.30 pm, while the flights departure was scheduled at 8.45 pm on Wednesday. The caller said that a bomb had been planted in the flight which might explode any time.



The local police, bomb detection and disposal squad, Central Industrial Security Force searched every corner of the flight and the KIA, but nothing was found. Later, they declared it to be a hoax call, following which the flight took off.



There was some delay by the two in reaching the airport. The police verified details of passengers based on details provided while booking tickets. The police found that the landline call had originated from the place very close to residential details provided by the two. Hence, the police detained them for questioning. The two were permitted to board the flight.



We have informed the Kerala police about the call. It is their duty to trace the caller and take action. A team from the city police will go to Kochi if need be, the inspector added.
The railway police have arrested three persons for robbing passengers of their valuables inside trains, and have recovered stolen valuables worth Rs 12.50 lakh.





The suspects, Raja (25), Surendra (27) and Veerendra Kumar (28), all three are natives of Haryana.



Police said that the men operated inside trains at Bengaluru Cantonment, Bengaluru East, KR Puram and Yelahanka railway stations. They would identify women and elderly persons, rob them of their belongings and later alight with their booty.



The suspects would also divert the attention of passengers by talking to them and burgle their valuables.



They would pledge valuables in Haryana and stay there for some time before returning to the city for robberies, said the police.



Based on definite alerts, the police arrested them near K R Puram railway police station.




Police claim to have picked up one of the two motorcycle-borne men who pumped 12 bullets into Dasanapura APMC president, Kadabagere Srinivas, at a busy traffic junction in northern Bengaluru on February 3. They also picked up three others.





Police are certain that the daylight attack at Kogilu Cross on Ballari Road was politically motivated but are yet to zero in on the kingpin. The four men picked up on Thursday hail from Machohalli village. A senior police officer, who is overseeing the investigation, said the suspects were yet to spill the beans on their handler and the larger conspiracy. They were clearly acting at someones behest, but we dont know yet who he is, the officer said. Police picked up the four men on the basis of information given by Sathish, a local BJP worker who was arrested in the case earlier.



The assailants shadowed Srinivas for at least four days before firing at him from a country-made pistol sourced from Bihar or Uttar Pradesh. For two days before the attack, they tailed him on a motorbike.



They got to know that he would visit the Yelahanka market around 11 am on February 3. They decided to target him on the Yeshwantpur flyover but dropped the idea as there was heavy traffic. Then they decided to waylay him on the Hebbal flyover, but backtracked for the same reason. Still, they didnt give up the chase. They found an opportunity when Srinivas was returning from the market, and accosted him at Kogilu Cross, the officer said.



Police have found CCTV footage which shows two motorbikes tailing Srinivass car in Yeshwantpur, on West of Chord Road and at Kempapura junction. Srinivas and his brother Poison Rama made many enemies in the Bengaluru underworld in the last decade, especially for real state and political reasons, the officer said.



Meanwhile, Srinivas continues to be on the ventilator in the ICU, said Prashanth N, General Manager, Columbia Asia Hospital, Hebbal. Police said he was recovering slowly and could be questioned on Friday if doctors so permitted.



Police clarified there was no evidence yet of underworld don Agni Sridhars involvement in the attack. He is currently in police custody but has been hospitalised after he complained of chest pain. He will be interrogated once he recovers, police said.



Tata Ramesh case



Police on Thursday arrested two more persons for threatening a local Congress worker, Tata Ramesh. Vijay Kumar and Kumar alias Cable Kumar were picked up while travelling to Vidyaranyapura by car. Police said they had recovered lethal weapons from them. The men were among those who had threatened Ramesh. We arrested them on the basis of information given by Sathish, Rohith alias Onte, Silent Sunil, P S Harsha, DCP (Northeast), said. Rohith and Sunil were arrested earlier.



Vijay Kumar and Cable Kumar face 10 cases, including murder and attempt to murder.



Crackdown on rowdies



Police raided a building in Sarjapur late on Wednesday night and picked up about 30 rowdies who were allegedly conspiring to commit a series of crimes in the next weeks. As many as 10,000 history-sheeters in and around Bengaluru are likely to be picked up.



The action comes after Bengaluru Police Commissioner Praveen Sood instructed the Central Crime Branch (CCB) to make a list of history-sheeters and parade them in a week. Sood decided to crack down on the underworld as gangs have been fighting each other to control the lucrative real estate business in the city. A number of murders related to the real estate business have taken over the last few years, police said.
Its the stuff of nightmares  a cockroach crawls up your nose in the middle of the night, burrows in and drives you mad with scratching behind your eyes. But for one Chennai woman, this horror story proved all too real.





Selvi ( 42) had a painful crawling sensation behind her eyes when she woke up. So, she rushed to a local clinic where her nose was flushed and she was sent home. But the sensation did not subside, and it was not until a specialist explored her nasal passages with an endoscope that she learned the awful truth.



I saw some tiny legs moving inside, Dr M N Shankar, an ENT specialist at Chennais Stanley Medical College Hospital, said.



I looked further in and realised I was actually looking at the bottom of a cockroach, he said.



The invasive critter had burrowed deep inside her nose, almost at the base of the skull, and was still alive after roughly 12 hours, Dr Shankar added.
An arrested ISI operative has told his interrogators that Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was behind the recent train tragedies in the country.





Dubai-based Shamshul Hoda was arrested in Nepal recently for his role in planting bombs on railway tracks in Bihar and causing a derailment near Kanpur.



A source, quoting the Nepal Police, said Hoda told his interrogators that Karachi-based ISI agent Safi Sheikh was behind the derailment of the Indore-Patna Express near Kanpur, in which 150 people died.



One of Hodas close associates, Braj Kishore Giri, hired three criminals in Bihar  instead of Indian Mujahideen operatives  on the instructions of Sheikh to carry out the derailment. The three  Uma Patel, Mukesh Yadav and Moti Paswan  were earlier Maoists and quite adept in causing sabotage. Giri, a resident of Kalaiya district in Nepal, was initially given Rs 8 lakh and promised another Rs 3 crore if the plan succeeded.



Paswan, the gang leader, was assigned the task of planting pressure-cooker bombs on the tracks in Ghorasan near Motihari on October 1. Two of his associates, Sohan alias Deepak Ram and Mohan alias Arun Ram, were with him during the operation.



But alert locals learnt about the bombs and informed the police. As the plan went awry, Sohan and Mohan were taken to Nepal and killed for their failure to complete the ISI task.



When it came to the derailment of the Indore-Patna Express on November 20, Paswan changed the modus operandi.



He changed trains to reach Kanpur. He got a gas-cutter with which he and two other ISI operatives removed fishplates and Pandrol clips. This caused the train derailment, a source told DH.
To give a last-minute push to the BJPs prospects in western Uttar Pradesh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address a rally in Bijnor on Friday.





Modi wants to reach out to the most backward castes (MBC) in and around the city, considered as BSPs bastion.



Vardhaman Degree College was chosen as the venue of Modis address to impact a total of 15 constituencies of Bijnor (8 seats) and Saharanpur (7 seats), with both districts also witnessing an undercurrent of communal polarisation due to earlier riots, said local BJP poll managers.



Polling on Feb 15



The polling in these two districts will take place in the second phase on Feburary 15.

What the BJP is looking at is consolidation of other than Jatavs among Dalits and most backward castes other than of Yadav OBCs, which the party believes had voted for Modi in 2014 Lok Sabha elections.



The BJP had won three seats in the Assembly polls in the two districts, but went on to clinch both the Lok Sabha seats of Saharanpur and Bijnor, largely owing to a sharp Hindu-Muslim divide post the 2013 communal riots and the MBCs looking up to Modi for their empowerment.



Amit Pal, who manages the Guru Gobind Singh dhaba in Jansoth, said his community, which mostly does menial agricultural jobs, is expected to vote primarily for Modi, but believes that the BJPs position is nowhere near its resounding performance in the general elections.



BJP insiders said one of the main reasons of their defeat in previous state polls was damage inflicted by erstwhile Mahan Dal, which was led by Keshav Prasad Maurya.



The Dal represented MBCs like Keshav-Maurya, Saini, Pal, Kashyap, a migrant community called Bengali and Prajapati and have dedicated votes of about 30,000 in each of the 15 seats.



A local RSS functionary, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in Bijnor, said, The BJP lost the elections in Dhampur and Chandpur seats of Bijnor just because of Mahan Dal candidates running away with MBC voters.




Campaigning for the first phase of polling in Uttar Pradesh came to an end on Thursday. Polling will be held for 73 seats in 15 districts of the western region of the state on Saturday to decide the fate of 836 candidates.





Unprecedented security arrangements have been put in place to ensure free and fair polling.



Prominent candidates in the first phase of polling include Sangeet Som, Suresh Rana, Mriganka Singh, Pankaj Singh, Luxmi Kant Bajpai (all BJP) and Congress Imran Masood.



While the Congress-Samajwadi Party alliance is eyeing the support of the Muslims in the state, BJP and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) have set their eyes on the Jat voters.



Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, BSP supremo Mayawati and Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav have addressed a series of election rallies in different parts of the region to garner the support of the electorate. Official sources said that the borders of the poll-bound districts have been sealed and the sale of liquor has been banned, as per directions of the Election Commission.



Women lose out to tainted nominees



While candidates with serious criminal charges found it easy to make their way into the list of candidates for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, fewer women were able to make it, DHNS reports from Lucknow.



Even as 14.59 %  227 candidates  of the total 1,555 in the two phases faced serious criminal charges, women form only 8.9% (139 candidates). In the second phase, there are only 69 women contesting.



The number of candidates with serious criminal charges in the second phase of the polls is, however, lesser than in the first phase, even as the percentage of crorepatis remained the same.



An analysis by private election watchdog Association for Democratic Rights (ADR) showed that 12% of 719 candidates in the second phase of the polls for 67 seats on February 15 have serious criminal charges. In the first phase, 17%  143 out of 836 candidates in 73 seats  are facing serious criminal charges. Analysis for the second phase showed there are six candidates with murder charges.


With a little more than 21% of the total electorate in a position to influence the outcome in as many as 200 Assembly constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, Dalits are the most sought after community in the elections in the state.





Although the BSP claims almost complete dominance over Dalits, other major political players, including the Congress, SP and BJP, were also making every effort to make a dent in the community and garner their support.



Interestingly, it was the SP, that had won 58 of the 84 seats reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SC) in the 2012 Assembly polls, followed by the BSP, which could win only 15 reserved seats.



The BJP had emerged victorious in three reserved Assembly constituencies, while the Congress and others had captured nine seats.



The SP, which is in the fray in alliance with the Congress, has been sweating hard to maintain its hold over the reserved constituencies this time also and has fielded around 75 Dalit candidates.



In the Lok Sabha polls in 2014, however, the BJP had won all the 17 seats reserved for the SC in the state.



Emboldened by its performance in the reserved seats in the previous general elections, the saffron party is not leaving any stone unturned to woo the community this time.



The party had sponsored a statewide Dhamma Chetna Yatra by Buddhist monks in a bid to attract the Dalit voters. The BJP also had the support of Ramdas Athawales Republican Party of India.



BJP Dalit leaders Udit Raj, Ram Shankar Katheria and others have been aggressively campaigning for seats where members of their community have a sizable presence.



BSP supremo Mayawati had catapulted to power in the state in the 2007 Assembly polls, riding on the social engineering formula that included the Dalit-Brahmin combination. The formula, however, failed to work for the party in 2012.



Political observers differed on whether the Dalits would support the BSP en bloc in the this years polls.



There will be a division in the Dalit votes... the preference of various sub-castes within the SC may be for the candidates of their community, said Prof Dinesh Kumar, a former faculty at the Lucknow University.



Dalit writer Prof Kali Charan Snehi, however, thinks otherwise. Dalits are still solidly behind Mayawati, Snehi told DH.
Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Jagadish Shettar on Thursday said Karnataka was going the Bihar way as far as law and order was concerned.





Sexual assault on women is on the increase. Women are not able to roam around without fear in the night. Incidents of molestation of women during New Year celebrations have dented the image of Bengaluru. Underworld gangs are fighting openly in public, he said, while speaking on the motion of thanks to the Governors address.



He accused the government of losing control over the administration. One of the main reasons for the situation going out of control is too much political interference in transfers and posting of officers. A case in point is the government transferring IAS officer Subodh Yadav 17 times in the last 15 years, he said.



The government should ensure that at least 50% of the police officers in Bengaluru are honest and hard-working.



Was there a need for mass transfer of police officers in Bengaluru on December 31 last year? The transfer order was issued despite knowing fully well that hundreds of youth will be gathering on MG Road and Brigade Road to celebrate new year, Shettar said, charging that the incidents of molestation were a testimony to the maladministration in the state.



Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had a golden opportunity to provide effective administration. He not only has full majority in the Assembly, the Congress high command has also become weak. But he failed to make use of the opportunity. The government has been in deep slumber for the last three years and nine months, Shettar said.


India has issued a demarche to China after the communist country blocked a recent initiative by the US, the UK and France to bring Pakistan-based terrorist leader Masood Azhar under United Nationss sanctions.





New Delhi also rejected Beijings suggestion that India and Pakistan should discuss to resolve differences on imposing UN sanctions on Masood Azhar, who leads terrorist organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed and is suspected to be the mastermind of several terror attacks in India.



The Ministry of External Affairs issued the demarche to Embassy of Peoples Republic of China in New Delhi. A similar demarche has also been issued by Embassy of India in Beijing to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chinese Government, official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, Vikas Swarup, said.



India lodged a protest with China after the communist country once again thwarted a fresh move by the United States to bring Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar under United Nationss sanctions.



The US of late moved a fresh proposal at the UN panel established under the Security Councils resolutions 1267, 1989 and 2253 seeking sanctions on Azhar. The US proposal was co-sponsored by two other permanent members of the Security Council  the UK and France.



The proposal was put forward in coordination with India. Russia, which is also a UNSC permanent member, supported the move and so did 10 other non-permanent members of the council.



China, however, was the only UNSC permanent member, which remained opposed to the proposal to bring the JeM chief under UN-mandated international sanctions. China in fact thwarted the process by putting the proposal on technical hold for six months.



It is our understanding that this was a classic counter terrorism proposal meant to proscribe a dreaded terrorist leader Masood Azhar whose organisation JeM (Jaish-e-Mohammad) has already been proscribed by the UN 1267 Committee, Swarup told journalists on Thursday.



New Delhi suspects that Azhar played a key role in planning the attack carried out by JeM terrorists on the Indian Air Force base at Pathankot in Punjab in January 2016.




The Centre on Thursday said it was open to the idea of completely banning cash donations for elections, but rejected the suggestion of state funding of polls.





If there is a consensus to bring cash donations to an end, it is a different matter. If somebody has any improvement to suggest, we welcome it as it concerns all of us. We will discuss it in detail in the Finance Bill, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, replying to the debate on the Budget in the Lok Sabha.



Many political parties had suggested a complete ban on cash donations, saying capping them at Rs 2,000 was a flawed idea.



Jaitley, however, said the Rs 2,000-limit on donations in cash was suggested by the Election Commission.



The number of Rs 2,000 is not given by us (the government). We decided on this number on the recommendation of Election Commission, which suggested to reduce the limit from Rs 20,000 to Rs 2,000 to usher in transparency in political funding, he said.



In this year's Budget, the government had proposed to cap cash donations for political parties from one source at Rs 2,000. It had also proposed introducing electoral bonds which donors would be able to purchase from authorised banks. They would be redeemable only in the designated account of a political party.



Presenting the Budget, Jaitley had said political parties would be allowed to receive donations by cheque or the digital mode.



Jaitley rejected the idea of State funding of elections suggested by some parties, including Trinamool Congress.



Your optimism is based on the fact that when State funding starts only State-provided funds will be used in elections and nobody will use private funds in the elections. Your optimism is based on this one belief which is not consistent with Indian reality," he said.



Jaitley said the digital mode of payment was the best way to fund elections and gave the example of former US president Barack Obama to substantiate his argument.



When American president Barack Obama fought his first election (2008), he had taken only small donations through digital payments, Jaitley said.



He said issuing electoral bonds would also ensure that only legitimate, tax-paid accounted money comes into the political system. The finance minister said the identity of the donor will be kept secret since the Banking Regulation Act prohibits sharing of details of bank transactions to anyone including the government and the courts.



Defending government's decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, Jaitley said "cash is the biggest facilitator of crime" even though he agreed that there will be crime even if there is less cash.



He said the cash-to-GDP ratio in India is 12.2% as against 2 to 5% in developed and emerging economies.



Later, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan adjourned the House to meet again on March 9.




India on Thursday formally requested the United Kingdom to extradite business tycoon Vijay Mallya so that he could be tried for loan default and money laundering.





The Ministry of External Affairs gave the British High Commission in New Delhi all documents in connection with the request for extradition of Mallya, who left India on March 2 last year and has since been living in the UK.



The move came just about a fortnight after the Central Bureau of Investigation filed a charge sheet against him in a court in Mumbai, accusing him of committing fraud and hatching a criminal conspiracy to secure more than Rs 950 crore as loan from IDBI Bank for his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines. We have today handed over the request for his extradition, as received from the CBI, to the UK High Commission in New Delhi. We have requested the UK side to extradite him to face trial in India, MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup said on Thursday.



Mallya is also being probed for defaulting on loans of over Rs 9,400 crore.

He left the country for the UK on the day a consortium of 13 banks, which had lent to his company, moved the Debt Recovery Tribunal to step up pressure on him to return the money.



The government first suspended the liquor barons passport and then revoked it in April 2016, as it had found his reply to a notice served by the MEA unsatisfactory.



New Delhi had first asked the British government to deport Mallya, the king of good times as he was once known.



But the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the British government informed New Delhi that Britains 1971 Immigration Act did not require an individual to hold a valid passport in order to remain in the UK if they had extant leave to remain as long as their passport was valid when leave to remain or enter the UK was conferred.



The UK then advised India to seek extradition of the flamboyant tycoon, instead of insisting on deportation.



The CBI charge sheet against Mallya set the grounds for India to seek his extradition. India and the UK have an extradition treaty that dates back to 1993.



New Delhi, however, may have to wait long to get Mallya back to India, as the extradition request will go through several legal processes in the UK.




Danny Danon, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, offered words of support and advice to students at San Diego Jewish Academy on Jan. 31.

Danon, who was in town for another speaking engagement, was invited to speak to students from San Diego Jewish Academy, Torah High and Southern California Yeshiva High School, said San Diego Jewish Academy Head of School Chaim Heller.

The Ambassador referred to Israel as the only free country in the Middle East, and encouraged the students to take pride in their heritage.

Be proud to come from this country, Danon said in front of hundreds of students. We should minimize the damage of this change of resolution and start to do a real dialogue.

Students asked Danon questions about the state of the U.N., and he responded by saying he would like to see the U.N. be more effective.

According to the New York Times, President Donald Trump has been looking at ways to change the United States commitment to the U.N., including the possibility of ending funding for any U.N. agency that engages in certain activity.

The criteria for the defunding includes organizations that give full membership to the Palestinian Authority or Palestine Liberation Organization, or support programs that fund abortion or any activity that circumvents sanctions against Iran or North Korea, according to the Times.

Danon suggested a reform of the U.N. instead.

The U.N. is on high alert because of the new president, he said. I spoke with the new American Ambassador yesterday... and I told her we need to reform the U.N. We shouldnt shut down the U.N. We do need the U.N. but we need to reform the U.N. to make sure the money goes to the right places.

Damon also told students that if they see reporting that they believe is biased, they should write letters to the editor to voice their opinions and be unafraid to make the change.

These students should be very proud and not listen to what they hear in the media, Danon said in an interview after his presentation. They need to take a stand. It was absolutely important that they know that now more than ever.

Heller said he was grateful the Ambassador could inspire the students to be more proactive.

Its incredibly moving that the Ambassador of the United Nations from Israel would take time out of an incredibly busy schedule to come and meet with students in San Diego who care so deeply about Israel, he said. I hope the students know that each of them makes a difference. If you see something that is wrong, you send a letter to the editor, call up a newspaper, call up the television station and become an active participant in this democracy.

Beny Mizrachi, student government president at San Diego Jewish Academy, said he was thankful Danon could speak to the students.

It was really cool to have him speak and get his perspective on the issues that Israel and the world are facing, the 12th grader said. Its a really unique thing that we dont get often in high school.
Sahar Muranovics hands trembled as she waited for her sister.

The 27-year-old scanned the crowd Sunday morning, Feb. 5, at Los Angeles International Airport, hoping that her familys anxious, weeklong ordeal  which began when her older sister was detained, then deported  would soon come to an end.

Television cameras crowded around Muranovic. Her sisters friend fiddled with Facebook Live, ready to broadcast the reunion to friends and family scattered across the globe. Muranovic stood silently as she clutched a bouquet of flowers.

Oh my God, she said suddenly, her hand covering her mouth. Is that her?

Muranovic ran down the terminal, wrapping her sister in a hug. Eight days after she was barred from entering the U.S. and forced back to Vienna, Sara Yarjani had returned.

Yarjani, an Iranian graduate student, was among those caught in a confusing legal limbo after President Trump signed an executive order temporarily banning people from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the U.S. He signed the order Jan. 27, about seven hours before Yarjani landed in Los Angeles on a flight from Oslo.

Yarjani  who arrived with a valid two-year student visa  was detained for 23 hours as her family frantically sought help from the American Civil Liberties Union and attorneys stationed at the airport. Calls and emails to customs officers got nowhere, even after a federal judge in New York issued a stay on deportations of those detained. Armed customs agents ultimately escorted Yarjani to a plane bound for Vienna, where she had been visiting family.

The days since have become a legal flurry, as attorneys across the country petitioned various federal judges to intervene. Perhaps the most significant ruling came Friday, Feb. 3, when Judge James L. Robart issued a temporary restraining order against Trumps travel ban, effective nationwide.

As soon as the ruling came down, Muranovic said, her phone began buzzing with messages.

Have you seen this? friends wrote. Get her on a flight right now.

Yarjanis family scrambled to find her a flight back, her sister said, worried that the window that was temporarily opened by the judges order would soon be shut.

Yarjani, 35, came to the U.S. in September 2015 to study holistic health at the California Institute for Human Science in Encinitas. Although her family is Iranian, Yarjani said in an interview last week that she is a permanent resident of Austria and has lived outside Iran for most of the last two decades. She returned to Vienna over winter break to visit her family.

The days after Yarjanis deportation were stressful and scary for her family, her sister said. Muranovic, who lives in Vancouver, Wash., said she hasnt been able to sleep or eat, unsure whether her sister would be able to return.

Muranovic caught an early-morning flight from Portland, Ore., to Los Angeles for her sisters arrival, just to make sure shes OK.

Im still nervous, she said before the flight landed shortly after noon. I dont know if theyll change the rules suddenly, if customs doesnt comply.

Muranovic, who is married to a U.S. citizen and holds a green card, said the entire episode has made her rethink her own plans to travel outside the country. She wont do it, she said. Shes too afraid that she wouldnt be allowed to return.

When asked if that fear spread beyond traveling, Muranovic quickly listed why she loves her life in America: an amazing support system of friends and her husband, their two dogs and cat, their city. But she also described a scene from just a few days ago, when a Lyft driver asked her where she was from.

I was too scared to say Iran, so I said Austria, Muranovic said. I dont want to tell anyone Im from Iran.

As Muranovic hugged her sister Sunday, reporters crowded around them, peppering Yarjani with questions. Yarjani said she passed through customs without any issues this time, adding that she recognized some of the same officials who detained and deported her eight days before.

The sisters kept their arms wrapped around each other as a tearful Yarjani thanked the lawyers, her friends and her school for their help.

Whenever I was in Europe ... if ever anybody criticized America, I would be the one defending it and saying, You know, whatever you say, I feel that some of the greatest, most beautiful, most accomplished people also live in that land, she said. From everything Ive seen with the love and support from last week, thats even more true.

As Yarjani and her sister slowly moved toward the airports doors, pushing their luggage through a swarm of television cameras, someone cheered from a nearby restaurant. The din of the terminal was quickly replaced by applause, welcoming Yarjani home.

Kate Mather is a writer for The San Diego Union-Tribune. Los Angeles Times staff writer Teresa Watanabe contributed to this story.
At a meeting in early January, the Del Mar City Council ordered city staff to do more work on a proposed $1.5 million road and sidewalk project on Camino Del Mar, and also to seek more comments from community members.

When the discussion resumed on the project at a council meeting on Monday, Feb. 6, the council members got an earful, as some two dozen residents of the neighborhoods surrounding the project in south Del Mar and along Carmel Valley Road spoke out, mostly against the citys plans that include shutting down one lane of traffic on northbound Camino Del Mar, the primary road into the city from the south.

Residents also were concerned about a proposal to eliminate a free right turn for motorists heading from westbound Carmel Valley Road to northbound Camino Del Mar, as well as potential elimination of a left turn lane from Camino Del Mar onto westbound 4th Street in Del Mar.

Following three hours of testimony, presentations and council discussion, the council voted unanimously to appoint council members Dave Druker and Sherryl Parks to work with staff and community groups, and come up with a plan that can satisfy residents concerns. The new plan, along with options, will go back to the citys Traffic and Parking Advisory Committee, as well as the Torrey Pines Community Planning Group, before coming back before the City Council for consideration at an unspecified date.

The project runs from 4th Street in Del Mar, south to Carmel Valley Road, along Camino Del Mar. According to city staff reports, among its key elements are the creation of a new multi-use path on the west side of Camino Del Mar, elimination of one northbound lane from Camino Del Mar as a traffic calming measure; bike lane additions, widening and buffers; and intersection improvements.

Although residents seemed concerned about several elements of the plan and their potential impacts on traffic congestion, the proposed closure of one northbound lane of Camino Del Mar seemed to draw the most ire.

Dont take that lane out. Once you do that all hell is going to break loose and these people are gonna have pitchforks, said resident Cody Sears, gesturing toward the audience at the council meeting.

The city also received dozens of letters and emails about the project, most of them in opposition. One came from Barbara Bry, a newly elected member of the San Diego City Council, whose district includes residential communities along Carmel Valley Road to the east of Camino Del Mar.

In her letter, Bry said three dozen people expressed concerns about the proposed changes to the intersection of Carmel Valley Road and Camino Del Mar at a recent meeting of the Torrey Pines Community Planning Group. Residents were also upset that they hadnt had a chance to weigh on the proposed roadway changes.

At Mondays Del Mar council meeting, Eduardo Savigliano, a member of the Torrey Pines planning board, echoed Brys comments.

We all need to work together. This impacts us. Its not just a city of Del Mar issue, its a regional issue. Please do reach out to us, Savigliano said.

While the council agreed to take another look at the project and seek more comment from residents, members came to the issue from different perspectives.

Theres a lot about this project that I like, said Councilwoman Ellie Haviland, such as the multi-use path from 4th Street to Carmel Valley Road. I dont want to see this project getting delayed and delayed and delayed.

Druker, who sent out an email to constituents before the meeting, detailing his opposition to the project, said the city should apologize for not doing a good job of notifying people who might be affected by the project. He also said the staff presentation was not thorough or understandable enough.

We need to do a better job, he said.

For example, he said, the staff presentation was not clear about the impacts of closing one of the northbound lanes of Camino Del Mar. A staff report stated that in 2016, when Camino Del Mar was reduced to one lane in each direction due to a landslide and subsequent road work, the change did not appear to have adverse impacts to traffic circulation.

But in their testimony, residents disagreed. And Druker said more information is needed.

Thats what people want to know, will it take me 10 more minutes to get from Carmel Valley Road to 4th Street once the road is narrowed to one lane, Druker said.

We are doing a major change to the major arterial in Del Mar, Druker said. We have to make sure the citizens of Del Mar and surrounding communities understand what were doing and why, and that they agree with it.
ELKO  Elko County remains under a state of emergency as flood waters continue to hamper travel and damage roads and properties around Wells and Montello.

U.S. Highway 93 was closed again Thursday afternoon north of Wells and there was no estimate when it might reopen.

The flood waters have raised and engulfed the road, said maintenance supervisor Dennis Price of the Nevada Department of Transportation. Right now theyve deemed it unsafe for any vehicles to get through.

Price said a bridge south of Jackpot needs to be inspected to ensure it is safe to use.

We dont really know at this time how long it will be closed, he said of the highway, which is a major north-south route connecting eastern Nevada with Idaho and Arizona.

Interstate 80 at milepost 327 was reduced to one lane late Thursday afternoon due to water on the roadway, according to NDOT.Sheriff Jim Pitts declared a state of emergency Thursday because of the flooding.

Warm temperatures have caused snow to melt throughout the county, which caused the earthen Twentyone Mile Dam near Montello to fail Wednesday. The failure caused flash floods and affected buildings on the Gamble Ranch.

The water from the Twentyone Mile Reservoir has flowed toward Utah, Pitts said.

The water is going around the Dake Reservoir, Pitts said Thursday evening.

All 30 residents in Montello are affected by the water, Pitts said. Every building in the rural town is flooded.

John Trevathan of Montello said the town is flooded and the basements in homes are flooded. He said the state and county have done some work on the roads.

Trevathan said he is living in a recreational vehicle and is lucky compared to some of his neighbors. Some residences have 5 to 6 feet of water in the basements, he said.

Im south of town. Im a little bit higher elevation, but in the flats its just quite a bit of mud up around my place, he said. Were just going to ride it out. I work out at the Winecup Gamble Ranch and that road is washed out, so I cant even get to work.

Trevathan said he has only lived there seven years, but he has talked to others who have lived in Montello longer and this is the worst flooding they have seen.

Its a pretty bad situation out here right now, he said.

Residents of Montello are allowed to go in and out of the town, but the road is officially closed. The state is being cautious and is trying to determined how much damage the flood caused to the highways structure, Pitts said.

The weather up by Montello has calmed down, but we did lose a road with the reservoir failure yesterday, Pitts said Thursday. SR 223 north of Montello washed out.

Pitts said he sent Undersheriff Ron Supp flying into the area to determine if the other reservoirs have been impacted and whether there is any damage.

The Humboldt River, which runs through Elko, also peaked Wednesday night at 8.5 feet, Pitts said.

The National Weather Service has most of Elko County under a flood warning until 2:30 p.m. Friday. Rain is in the forecast for Friday.

The state of emergency will help the county get assistance from the state. County commissioners have all voted on that and we have put in the paperwork, said Pitts.

Pitts mentioned other incidents around the county and that U.S. 93 south of Wells had only one lane open.

Wells has several houses under water. No one has needed to be evacuated yet from Wells or Elko.

Pitts also pointed out that the Union Pacific railroad tracks are submerged and that it is unsafe to move trains along this route. There are a lot of streets in Osino and Ryndon that are washed away. The county wants to get Corral Lane open first and then hopes to begin work on other byways.

Corral Lane wasnt the only area impacted by flooding in Spring Creek. Kings on Lamoille Highway had to close Tuesday after the store flooded and a few homes were affected by the rising water. However, the situation seems to be getting better, said Spring Creek Association President Jessie Bahr.

The ground is absorbing some of it, which is a good sign for us, she said. I know that the sheriff was setting up some help and emergency services, as well, in Spring Creek and the local fire department was providing sandbags and sand for the folks. So I think the community really came together and made sure we were helping those people as much as we can. I dont think weve seen flooding like this for many, many years.

Bahr said the association may do some additional drainage work this spring and summer and help homeowners fix their ditches and culverts.

State Route 30 out of Utah, which connects with the Montello Highway, was closed as of Wednesday night. A large section of the road had washed away with the torrential flow.

Travel is also restricted on the Nevada side at Interstate 80. Only residents and emergency workers are allowed to use the damaged route. Residents of the area are helping work crews with sandbagging and other essential measures to reduce further damage.

There have been some requests for sand bags in the Elko area. Within the city limits south Third Street is being affected by the melt and water is coming up through storm drains. FISH and several residents are taking measures to prevent flooding.

Dennis Strickland from the city said the river running through town is high but it seems there are no problems, said Pitts.

In case there are more problems Pitts wanted to let the public know that there are sandbags at the Sheriffs office and sand is available at 232 S. 10th St. in one of the citys yards. People can go pick up sand there.

In Spring Creek the fire station on Licht Parkway has sand and sandbags, including a bunch that are already filled.

The county has 7,500 bags coming in that will hopefully be in today or tomorrow, Pitts said.

So far Pitts said there have been no injuries related to the flooding.

With the temperatures raising up we are anticipating some more flooding and so we are trying to get ahead of that now.

At this point the higher elevations seem to be holding their snow, including the Ruby Mountains, and Lamoille is not currently in danger.

They havent started their thaw yet and hopefully we can get this handled before that starts, Pitts concluded.

For the Owyhee River, including Mountain City, moderate flooding is occurring, with the river forecast to rise slightly to near major flood stage, according to the National Weather Service.


For the latest issue of DESIGN SCENE magazine we discuss the growing role of the internationally licenced magazines with Editor In Chief of Harpers Bazaar Serbia PETAR JANOSEVIC. Petar, sits down for an interview with our EIC ZARKO DAVINIC to talk beginnings, challenges he faced while establishing The Serbian edition of BAZAAR and the role of Carine Roitfeld.

Hedvig Palm for Harpers Bazaar Serbia February 2017 Issue

What or who inspired you to go into fashion?

Prior to Harpers I was involved with LOfficiel and Cosmopolitan so I can say I was always surrounded by print media and fashion, even though my education was in a completely different field. There is a certain dynamic which comes with working in the media business that I have always liked.

What was the process of establishing a presence of a renowned magazine such as Harpers Bazaar in Serbia? What were the biggest challenges of starting the title from scratch?

Harpers BAZAAR is the oldest fashion publication in the world with incredible history. So we did not approach it lightly. Months of research was done in order for our team to get to know the essence and the spirit of the brand. As time went by we grew more and more confident and were able to make it our own.

A photo posted by Harpers Bazaar Serbia (@harpersbazaarserbia) on Jan 16, 2017 at 6:09am PST

Tell me about some of your highlights since the launch of HB Serbia.

Probably the biggest recognition is when an international publication acknowledges your work. Both of our anniversary cover stories were reprinted by other Harpers Bazaar magazines, as did our Beauty cover with the iconic Crystal Renn. Chanel Iman editorial inspired by Prince was an amazing experience. We had an exclusive opportunity to interview Rick Owens and Jean Paul Gaultier. I am happy to say there are more and more highlights.

What are your views on Serbian fashion and how does the fashion scene in Serbia and the region measure up compared to the international playing field?

There is a matter of scale obviously. We are a very small market and fashion in its true self is quite new to us. However some of the most famous fashion brands in the world are present in Serbia, meaning there is a market for it. In terms of know-how we have amazing people who are very skilled when it comes to the garment production. However, where we are lacking, in my opinion is in the skill set to brand our product the right way and market it. Sadly lack of resources means that designers are not able to realise their own vision. But things are starting to change. Change is happening slowly and designers have to be persistent in order to get their point across.

Chanel Iman by Joshua Jordan for Harpers Bazaar Serbia, photo Joshua Jordan

Which Serbian designers you believe could stand out on the global fashion scene? Any we should keep an eye on?

Marko Mitanovski has a very dark but glamorous aesthetic which has already made him a household name, Tamara Radivojevic has a very strong approach to fashion with her tailoring and structured pieces. Ines Jankovic probably has the most developed business sense out of all of the designers in the region and she knows how to combine the creative and the business aspect of fashion. Those are the individuals that I would say have the qualities that would make them stand out.

Do you also see HB as playing a role in educating consumers about international fashion?

Absolutely! And that is the biggest asset of our magazine. We are presenting a certain point of view and a different perspective on looking at fashion. For a magazine like Harpers their global audience are women who are working, they are well educated, independent and to them fashion is an extension of their own sense of self.

A photo posted by Petar Janosevic (@petarjanosevic) on Dec 23, 2016 at 4:42am PST

What are your views on unisex fashion?

There are certain staples of clothing that represent good taste no matter what the sex is. There is more and more fashion brands that introduce the unisex capsule collections in order for both sexes to enjoy their aesthetic equally. There are certain fabrics and ways of cutting the fabric, certain shapes that suit both sexes equally well. But still certain items should remain true to its own gender.

How does the role of Carine Roitfeld as the HB Global Fashion Director play part in the Serbian edition?

Carine is one of the most revered people in the world on fashion and she is seen as a visionary. For HB she creates 3 stories a year (every March, September and December) that every HB publication includes in their issue. She was chosen as an editor who has a vision to combine the latest fashion trend with the tendencies that are happening in our society as a whole.

Crystal Renn for Harpers Bazaar Serbia by Choi Yong Bin

How would you compare the Serbian edition to other international editions of Bazaar?

I have to say that I have the joy of working with an amazing group of people who are incredibly ambitious and forward thinking. With every edition we are trying to raise the bar in terms of the quality of content and aesthetic. I have to say that we have made the magazine our own. We are confident and the final result is as just as good as other international publications that hold the same name.

Do you feel that celebrity culture plays a pivotal role in todays fashion industry?

It all depends on the market. The United States is an example of an incredibly commercial market and if you look at all the major fashion magazines in USA you will see that all of the covers are celebrities, not models. Situation in Europe is slightly different  fashion magazines are reserved for models. I believe that celebrity culture is not pivotal, but important and it cannot be ignored.



What do you look for in a girl when casting for your next cover shoot? Also do you prefer a celebrity or a model on your cover?

I personally think that covers should include both models and celebrities. Models represent fashion and celebrities a point in time and cultural zeitgeist. Both parts of the dialogue must be included in the fashion story. The only celerity that we featured on our cover if we dont include foreign covers that we reprinted is Ana Ivanovic. She is the embodiment of a young modern woman who is a professional in what she does, she is incredibly kind and approachable, a hard working individual who has become a worldwide known name. Plus she loves fashion. In terms of models, what we want is diversity and different types of beauty to show that female beauty has many different forms.

Do you think that the rise of digital press will ever leave print publication redundant?

Print may diminish in size but it will still be present. There is a big competition so the only thing a magazine can do is be as special as it can be.

What does the future hold for you and HB Serbia?

We have already started working on projects for the next year. I have to say that we are very excited for the future.

For more of Bazaar Serbia follow @harpersbazaarserbia, while for behind the scenes of Petars work you can follow him @petarjanosevic

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A researcher from the University of British Columbia has just received a grant of Can$60,000 from JDRF and Eli Lilly Canada to fund research into type 1 diabetes and insulin-producing cell transplants.

The awardee, Dr Cara Ellis, is doing a postdoctoral fellowship under Timothy Kieffer in his UBC lab. Kieffer, Ellis and the rest of the research team have been working on developing protocols to transform stem cells into cells resembling beta cells.

Ellis is focusing on figuring out the best way to administer these stem cell-derived islet cells so they can successfully mature into insulin-producing tissue.

Kieffer has been trying to accelerate the conversion from stem cell to mature beta cells prior to transplant, so it takes less time for the cells to become fully functional once implanted.

The challenge with that resides in guaranteeing that they are not quickly destroyed by the immune system or endangered by anything else during and post-implantation.

Elliss expertise came in handy. She has been studying and co-authoring many papers on techniques that facilitate pancreatic islet transplantation and augment cell survival.

She found out that apart from immune attacks, a reason why islet transplants sometimes fail in trials done so far is because of a vascularisation problem (whereby cells dont receive an adequate blood supply) in the islets that lead to cell death.

Through her research at the Alberta Diabetes Institute, she learned that engineering the islet tissue with certain materials called collagen-chitosan scaffolds could promote the development of new blood vessels and therefore improve vascularisation.

She is now using her knowledge of the viability of islet cell implantation at the Tim Kieffer lab to help preserve transplanted beta cells.

At the same time, Kieffer and others have been actively involved in the design of immunobarriers, or macro-encapsulation devices, that can protect newly created beta cells from autoimmune responses.

After further research is conducted and once clinical trials commence, Kieffer envisions transplanting the cultured cells subdermally (under the skin) rather than into the pancreas, which shouldnt affect their glucose-responsive abilities.

Kieffers team is also evaluating the effectiveness of these stem cell-based therapies for type 2 diabetes.
ELKO  An Osino couple died but their children are safe after their trailer caught fire early Thursday morning.

Five people were in the trailer at 5485 Apache in Osino when the fire started, according to Sheriff Jim Pitts. Emergency responders were called at around 5:45 a.m.

Baltazar Gonzalez Garcia, 39, got out of the home and then went back in to help the others, Pitts said. After they were outside he reentered the structure for unknown reasons and perished in the fire.

Lori Long, 29, was flown to Salt Lake City but succumbed to her injuries while in transit. She was heavily burned and had heavy smoke inhalation, Pitts said.

An infant was taken to a hospital in Salt Lake City and the Sheriffs office is still waiting on an update on the childs condition. The child belonged to both Gonzalez Garcia and Long.

Two other adolescent children were taken to relatives who live up the street from the burned residence.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Pitts said bad road conditions caused by flooding affected the rescue effort but officers responded as fast as they could.

He advised that under such a situation people involved in a fire should escape and help young children get out, then remain outside of the burning structure until help arrives.
Public health programmes aimed at maintaining or losing weight could prevent twice as many cases of type 2 diabetes in the UK, according to new research.

A study of more than 33,000 people aged between 30 and 60 in Sweden took part in the University of Cambridge research, which looked at how effective public health programmes could be in reducing type 2 diabetes rates.

We have shown that a population-based strategy that promotes prevention of weight gain in adulthood has the potential to prevent more than twice as many diabetes cases as a strategy that only promotes weight loss in obese individuals at high risk of diabetes, said first author Dr Adina Feldma, University of Cambridge.

The findings also suggested that one in five type 2 diabetes cases could be prevented if people managed to maintain their weight and did not put any on.

The Cambridge researchers now think that public health initiatives focus on preventing weight gain are more effective at limiting type 2 diabetes numbers, rather than targeting people who are already obese and at risk of the condition.

Each participant in the Vasterbotten Intervention Programme was asked to attend a heath examination between 1990 and 2013. The researchers noted any significant body weight changes and the prevalence of type 2 diabetes at each appointment, 10 years apart.

After more than 10 years, 3.3 per cent of the study participants had type 2 diabetes, 53.9 per cent had put on two pounds in weight and 36.2 per cent had managed to retain their original weight.

The findings suggest that those who had put two pounds on or more had a 52 per cent higher risk of a type 2 diagnosis. But their risk was still lower compared to someone whose Body Mass Index (BMI) is classified as obese.

When it comes to body weight and diabetes, from a public health perspective it would be advisable to consider both high-risk and population-based strategies for diabetes prevention, added Dr Feldman added.

In the study, which has been published in the BMC Public Health journal, the authors noted: Weight maintenance in adulthood is strongly associated with reduced incident diabetes risk and there is considerable potential for diabetes prevention in promoting this as a whole population strategy.

Editors note: People at high risk of type 2 diabetes, known as prediabetes, lose an average of 5kg after six months of joining the Low Carb Program, helping to reduce their risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
A blood test used to diagnose diabetes may not be as accurate as it should be in people with sickle cell disease, research has suggested.

Sickle cells disease is the name for a group of genetic conditions that cause people to produce unusually shaped red blood cells. The condition is more common in people of African or Caribbean descent.

The HbA1c test provides a measurement of someones blood glucose control over a three-month period. In the US, a reading of 5.7% or over indicates that a person has prediabetes and a reading of 6.5% or more indicates diabetes.

In this new study, a link has been found between the sickle cell trait and lower HbA1c levels, which could indicate that diabetes diagnoses in some people of African descent may be missed.

Speaking to Reuters Health, lead author Mary Elizabeth Lacy from the Brown University School of Public Health in Providence, said: We identified 40 per cent fewer cases of prediabetes and 48 per cent fewer cases of diabetes in individuals with sickle cell trait than in those without sickle cell trait.

It is thought around 10 per cent of people with an African or Caribbean background have sickle cell disease, but people from Eastern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern backgrounds can also inherit it.

People develop sickle cell trait if one of their parents pass on the gene, which can lead to differences in red blood cells. If both parents pass on the sickle cell trait gene then the person develops sickle cell disease, for which the symptoms are more severe.

More than 4,600 African Americans were involved in this study, 367 of whom had the sickle cell trait. The research team found HbA1c levels were 0.3 per cent lower in the participants who had the trait when compared to those who did not, despite having similar blood sugar levels.

The lower HbA1c levels experienced by people with sickle cell trait could lead to doctors underestimating the risk of prediabetes or diabetes and could lead to delayed diagnoses.

The authors said: As a screening tool, an HbA1c value that systematically underestimates long-term glucose levels may result in a missed opportunity for intervention.

Because black people typically have a higher prevalence of diabetes and experience a number of diabetic complications at higher rates than white people, the cost of inaccurately assessing risk and treatment response is high.

These findings were based on one method of HbA1c measurement. While it is approved for use in those with sickle cell trait, we are unable to say whether our findings are due to assay interference or a biological phenomenon in those with sickle cell trait.

The study was published online in JAMA.
Google will collaborate with companies like IBM, RailTel and Larsen & Toubro for the project.

Google has been awarded the Wi-Fi deal for the Pune Smart City Development Corporation Limited (PSCSCL). The company will work with companies like Larsen & Toubro, IBM and RailTel for what is the first such deal. The PSCSCL is a special purpose vehicle that has been created for the smart city project in Pune. it was registered in March 2016, with seven stakeholders and 15 directors.

The contract given to Google is reportedly valued at Rs. 150 crore. This includes operating expenditure, capital expenditure and revenue sharing elements. Kunal Kumar, Pune Minicipal Commissioner, told the Economic Times, that the work order was given to Google on January 6 this year and that 15-20% of the revenue generated will be shared with the authority.

Google will be helping monetisation of the citys Wi-Fi network and also dploy Google Station platform. This platform has both monetisation and WiFi network management capabilities. In addition, last mile fiber connectivity will be provided by RailTel, enabling WiFi hotspots in 200 locations across the city of Pune.

The Google Station platform was originally meant for railway stations only, but it seems Google is now extending it to other areas as well. In essence, areas that are frequented by a large number of people can be handled by the platform. This would include places like malls, big shopping areas in cities and more. Google and RailTel have of course been working together to provide Wi-Fi at 400 railway stations in the country.
The new logo uses a wave pattern, similar to the one on the 4G LTE logo.

The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has unveiled a new logo for 5G connectivity standard. Devices that support the next generation of mobile connectivity will sport this logo. The new logo uses a wave pattern, similar to the one on the 4G LTE logo.

The idea is to keep a familiar design aspect with the use of plain black text and textured waves, but to make the logo stronger and sharper  ready for use on the new radio and next generation core specifications for 5G, 3GPP stated. However, consumer devices which will support 5G are still years away. 3GPP plans to release the 5G Phase 1 specifications till late 2018.

Trials for 5G are already underway. Last year, it was reported that Nokia Networks was in talks with telecom operators in India to begin trials of 5G networks in the country. Nokia Networks has already started testing 5G connectivity, in partnership with operators in other countries like the US, South Korea and Japan.

At CES 2017, Intel unveiled a 5G modem that can support sub-6GHz as well as mmWave bands. This would give control over a wider radio spectrum, which will allow it to be customised for a variety of scenarios. It can also pair with LTE modems like Intels XMM 7360 LTE modem to provide 4G fallback and 4G/5G interworking.
Another data privacy war is brewing in the United States. The country is on the verge of changing archaic laws from the pre-internet era. All this, as the worlds economic superpower struggles to accept an administrative change, one that is almost imperialistic in nature and has managed to alarm not just its own citizens, but that of the entire world.

"We are all in for a serious breach of our privacy"

In the midst of this uncertain and politically unstable environment, a U.S. Magistrate Judge from Philadelphia, Thomas Rueter, has ruled that transferring emails from foreign servers, so that the FBI can access them, does not qualify as seizure. The FBI warrant seeks to access data from Googles servers based outside of the United States. If the ruling is upheld by higher courts, it is feared that it would imply to all American tech companies in the future, including the likes of Facebook and Microsoft. If that happens, we are all in for a serious breach of our privacy. How?

Well, the judge asserted that such data is part of a domestic fraud probe and there is "no meaningful interference" with the account holder's "possessory interest" in the data sought. "Though the retrieval of the electronic data by Google from its multiple data centers abroad has the potential for an invasion of privacy, the actual infringement of privacy occurs at the time of disclosure in the United States," Rueter wrote.

U.S. law does not work outside the country

This ruling seeks to broaden the very scope of U.S. jurisdiction, creating a large privacy loophole as far as user data is concerned. A similar warrant was overturned back in July 2016, when a federal appeals court ruled in favour of Microsoft, saying that U.S. based companies cannot be forced to turnover customer emails that are stored on servers outside the country. The U.S. Circuit court asserted the fact that U.S. law does not work outside the country.

Google plans to quote the Microsoft ruling as its defense in an appeal. "The magistrate in this case departed from precedent, and we plan to appeal the decision. We will continue to push back on overbroad warrants," the Mountain View tech giant noted in a statement. But, things wont be so simple for Google, while the future of other such companies also hangs in the balance.

Data, the most coveted commodity in the digital world, is stored on hundreds of server farms across the world. These data farms house thousands of servers, which are in turn linked together. Each time you and I send a Facebook message, share a post, send an email through services like Gmail, hotmail, upload filed on a cloud-based drive, our data goes to these servers, where it is stored and/or distributed to its intended destination. Sometimes companies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft also use end-to-end encryption (E2E) for their services, in which case user data is protected by private keys that are generated and stored on the communicating users devices, and not even the companies themselves can unscramble or decrypt that data. Some examples of E2E encryption include Facebook owned WhatsApp, Messengers Secret Conversations and Google Allos optional incognito messages.

"The act itself was established in 1986, three years before the invention of the World Wide Web"

For a long time now, the Stored Communications Act (SCA) in the U.S. has allowed law enforcement authorities to access user data by presenting warrants. However, the SCA does not apply extraterritorially. It should also be noted that the act itself was established in 1986, three years before the invention of the World Wide Web, a time when cloud-based services were unheard of and webmail did not exist.

Another redundant law known as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) allows U.S. law enforcement to access any stored files without a warrant, if such files are left on a server for more than 180 days. The rationale behind this is that if online communications are stored beyond a period of 180 days, they are considered abandoned and thus do not fall under the purview of privacy. The ECPA, like the SCA was also established back in 1986. U.S. lawmakers are trying to replace this archaic act, with The Email Privacy Act, which universally requires warrants for any access to stored files. This Email Privacy Bill received an approval from the U.S. House of Representatives as recently as two days ago and is awaiting the Senate, and ultimately the Presiden't approval.

The clock is ticking for the U.S. Congress to reform these age-old acts, given President Trumps stronghold on the Justice Department. The Trump administration is expected to be pro-surveillance and if reforms are not made any time soon, people like us will have no choice but to accept the fact that if we use US based online services, our private and confidential data can be accessed without our consent at any given moment.

In case of Google, the company itself claims that it sometimes breaks up information into pieces, and does not necessarily know where that data is stored. Google receives over 25,000 requests annually from U.S. authorities to disclose private user information in criminal matters. There is no clarity on how this privacy debate will shape up in the US, but one thing is for sure, it will affect us all. One can either expect a widened scope of domestic warrants in the U.S., endangering the privacy of millions of internet users, or a push towards localisation of data stored by U.S. companies, resulting in a similar catastrophe, not to forget, some upturned international relationships. Lets seriously hope they find a middle path.

Header Image Courtesy: The Economist
Its that time of the year again. As mobile makers scurry to get their frontrunners for 2017 ready in time for Mobile World Congress, the leaks and rumours have come to a head. The biggest mobile-centric event of the year begins in less than three weeks and while we will be there for play-by-play coverage, it doesnt hurt to give you a heads up of what to expect.

Mobile World Congress, 2017 begins on February 27 and the devices launched there will almost certainly make their way to India over the course of the year. Heres everything we know so far.

A veteran returns

Nokia comes back all guns blazing, and if the overwhelming response to the Nokia 6 is any indication, this ones going to be big. After giving consumers a taste of what to expect, with its China only smartphone, Nokia is set to announce its comeback plans for the rest of the world at Mobile World Congress this year. Mark your calendars, February 26 marks the return of Nokia branded smartphones, sold by a relatively unknown company in HMD Global. Expected is at least one flagship class device, called the Nokia 8 or P1, which will run on Qualcomms Snapdragon 835 SoC. At least thats what the rumours suggest.

A veteran withdraws

From Nokia to Samsung, the current leader of the smartphone market is not making a big splash this year. Or is it? Samsung is still scheduled to announce the Galaxy Tab S3 at the event, and also showcase a foldable smartphone. Reports say Samsungs foldable smartphone will be showcased to a select few, presumably including its important business clients.

Dual-cameras galore

Huawei returns to MWC this year with yet another dual-camera wielding smartphone. The Huawei P10 is expected at MWC 2017, alongside the Huawei Mate 9 flagship class device. Interestingly, Huawei has been shying away from bringing its Mate-branded smartphones to India so far. However, the company had told us back in August, 2016 that the Mate 9 will make it within Indian borders after all. The P10, on the other hand is yet another collaboration with Leica and an upgrade to the Huawei P9.

From modular to bezel-less

If rumours and clues in LGs invite are to be believed, the LG G6 is going to be a bezel-less smartphone. The company had earlier confirmed to Digit that it is done with the modular venture, but LG seems to be retaining the dual-camera play still. The G6 will also bring forth a new kind of display technology and some more tech that we cant wait to find out about. LGs flagships have always been innovative, so theres definitely reason to be excited. If that's not enough, the G6 is expected to be the first time the Google Assistant will be seen outside a Pixel smartphone.

A new take on smartphone design

VentureBeats Evan Blass recently tweeted a video by HTC, boasting the design language on its upcoming smartphone. Interestingly, the company is also expected to announced six to seven new phones at MWC 2017, including an upgrade to the HTC 10, which will not be called the HTC 11. Some rumours also say HTC will have a Vive-branded smartphone this year, perhaps going with its newfound interest in virtual reality. Given that HTC is one of the foremost innovators in terms of smartphone design, we may be in for a treat.

A mid-ranged giant

When it comes to mid-range smartphones, Motorolas Moto G brand is nothing short of a giant. The company almost literally started the budget revolution in India, but has since faced stiff competition. Eventually, Motorola found a new design language for such devices, putting a generous splash of metal on the Moto M recently. It seems this design continues in the Moto G5 and G5 Plus, which are expected to be announced at MWC 2017. Sadly, there will be no modular design on the Moto G series, yet.

More brand licensing

Nokia isnt the only company licensing its brand name to others. BlackBerry recently gave TCL the license to make smartphones in its name, and MWC 2017 is going to see the first of these smartphones. The rumoured BlackBerry Mercury is expected to be launched at Mobile World Congress, 2017 and it was TCLs Steve Cistulli who tweeted out a first look at the device. Here, check it out.

Enjoy our official first look at whats to come from the newest BlackBerry smartphone. More to come at MWC. pic.twitter.com/gHkwepCPbJ  Steve Cistulli (@SteveCistulli) January 4, 2017

Another one joins the modular future

Veteran Alcatel is expected to launch a bunch of new smartphones at MWC 2017 and amongst these is a modular smartphone, or thats what rumours say. Not much is known about Alcatels modular smartphone yet, except that it is supposedly going to have LED lights that blink to the tune of music.

From Japan to Barcelona

Sony hasnt done well in the smartphone market recently, but that hasnt stopped the company from making good smartphones. Yes, its Xperia X line is grossly overpriced and yes, Sony had openly said it is making phones only for its core fan-base, but that core fan-base is amongst the oldest in the tech community. For them, Sony is expected to launch a new line of Xperia X smartphones, including a flagship class device.
Airtel claims that it has provided Jio with enough Points of Interconnection, while the latter claims otherwise

The war of words between Reliance Jio and Airtel doesnt seem to have an end in sight. After locking horns over the Jios free calling and internet offers, the two companies are now arguing over Points of Interconnection (POIs). More specifically, the lack of POIs that Airtel is allegedly providing Jio. POIs are needed to connect users from one network to another.

Earlier this week, Airtel had said in a statement that it has provided POIs well above the customer growth projection of Jio. It said that the capacity it has provided is ideal for serving over 190 million customers on the Reliance Jio network. As of December 2016, Jio had over 72.4 million customers on its network. Airtel alleged that Jio has been unable to activate all POIs and utilise the capacity that it has been provided.

Following these statements, Jio slammed the operator, calling the statements a continuation of a mischievous and motivated campaign. Jio claimed that over 2.6 crore NLD calls were failing daily, leading to a call failure rate of 53.4 percent against TRAIs norm of 0.5%.

This isnt the first time that the two companies have tussled over POIs. Back in October last year, TRAI had recommended a fine of Rs. 3050 Crore on Airtel as well as Vodafone and Idea for refusing to provide adequate POIs to Jio. Jio had claimed that refusal of POIs had lead to a call failure rate of 75% on Jios network. Airtel later gave the regulatory authority all the data regarding the POIs in hope that the issue would be resolved.

Jios offer of free voice calling and data is another matter of contention between the two companies. Airtel had filed an appeal to the the Telecom Disputes and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) challenging TRAIs decision to allow Jio to extend its Welcome Offer till March 3. The telecom operator said that Jios free offers were affecting its services and creating a significant prejudice and day-to-day-loss for the company. Later, it filed a fresh appeal with TDSAT alleging that TRAI was tacitly allowing Jio to promote anti-competitive offers of free data and calling.

TRAI later sent a letter to Airtel as well as Ideal informing that Jios Happy New Year offer was not violating the principles of non-discrimination, inter-connect rule compliance, and non-predation. It also added that the Happy New Year Offer was distinct from the Welcome Offer and cannot be treated as an extension of the earlier offer. Following the clean chit from TRAI, Airtel and Idea filed fresh appeals and TDSAT asked TRAI to clarify its position on Jios free offers. It asked TRAI if Jio informed the regulator and subscribers about Welcome Offer and Happy New Year Offer being distinct.
Industrial services and rental company Northbridge issued a pre-close trading statement on Thursday, in advance of its preliminary results announcement for the year ended 31 December, scheduled to be released during the week of 24 April.

The AIM-traded company said recent trading had been consistent with internal forecasts, and consequently the group expected the result for 2016 to be broadly in line with management's expectations.

Northbridge said it has two core activities - Crestchic, a specialist electrical equipment business; and Tasman Oil Tools, which rents drilling equipment to the oil, gas and geothermal industries from its sites in Australia, New Zealand and Dubai.

Following a strategic review in 2015, all of Northbridge's other activities were considered non-core and were disposed of ,and the cash generated was released back to the group.

The slowdown in the oil and gas industry, which suffered an estimated $740bn cut in planned capital expenditure since 2015, had a substantial impact on all of Northbridge's businesses which serve that market, the board explained.

Following the agreement between OPEC and other oil producing countries to restrict production from 1 January 2017 the price of crude oil has increased from its lows and, if maintained, will reduce the current surplus by the second half of 2017, it said in its statement.

This is likely to lead to a revival in exploration and production investment and we expect the group to benefit from this in time.

However, it was still too early to predict the timing and impact of any recovery in Northbridges markets in 2017.

The fluctuation in the value of sterling following the EU referendum vote in June had a material impact on its accounts, most positively on the balance sheet and gearing where a substantial proportion of the companys assets were held overseas, though its bank debt was in the UK.

Conversely trading losses from our overseas businesses most actively involved in the oil and gas market have also increased on translation.
Software company Scisys has won a 1.9m contract with technology firm GMV to design a mission control system to support a weather forecasting programme for a European intergovernmental organisation.

The AIM-listed company will design and implement a bespoke mission control system to support EUMETSATs (European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites) polar system earth-observation programme, which will provide weather prediction data for national meteorological services during the 2020s and 2030s.

The contract is to start this year and is expected to be delivered by 2021.

Scisys chief executive Klaus Heidrich said: "We are delighted to be making a significant contribution to EUMETSAT's EPS-SG programme that will play an important role in weather forecasting over the coming decades.

"Scisys has been, and still is, at the forefront of the developments in earth observation satellite systems. This gives us the opportunity to re-use proven solutions to our customers' benefit and shows the strength of Scisys capabilities and experience in this key area of satellite missions."

Shares in Scisys were up 0.65% to 108.70p at 0852 GMT.
Precious metals trading firm Wishbone Gold hit its sales target in December as the price of gold rose in the wake of political and economic uncertainty in Europe and the US in 2016.

The Dubai-based company experienced peak trading in December 2016 with 105 kilos committed and sold, while it hits target of exceeding 25 kilos per week by end of last year.

The safe haven metal has been rising since Junes Brexit vote in Britain and Donald Trumps surprising US electoral victory in November.

On Wednesday, the yellow metal hit a three-month high of 1,244.67 per ounce and at 0708 GMT on Thursday spot gold slipped 0.1% to $1,240 per ounce.

However, the company said that while volumes were good last year, margins were under pressure due to changes in Indias import rules which provides a premium for gold shipped to, and processed, in certain economic zones.

Early estimates suggest that India remains the largest buyer of gold in the world followed by China, which is also the world's largest producer.

The AIM-listed company is looking at new opportunities at its subsidiaries in Peru and Chile with developments in Honduras and Ghana. Representatives of the company will also be making a trip to Ghana later in February to review existing gold projects.

For 2017, the company is continue with measures that will cement ties with suppliers through equipment purchases.

Chairman and chief executive Richard Poulden said: "Overall this has been a transformative and successful year for Wishbone. The gold market remains extremely strong in volume terms which makes us believe that the oft quoted decline in production is failing to monitor the small producers which is our target supplier market.

The traffic is inexorably east with small premiums over the world spot price appearing from time to time in India and Hong Kong."

Shares in Wishbone Gold were down 11.25% to 0.732p at 1041 GMT.
An internal hedge fund at Goldman Sachs is shutting up shop in London and relocating to New York, but the investment says the decision is unrelated to Britain's exit from the European Union.

Eight members of staff from Goldman Sachs Investment Partners fund will be moved from their positions in London as a result of the relocation.

It follows the announcement last year that managing director of the team Nick Advani would be stepping down from the position.

The GSIP is part of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, which supervises over $1.15trn in assets for its clients.

"This is a discrete decision for reasons specific to GSIP, one investment team within Goldman Sachs, and shouldn't be construed as anything but that," a statement from the company read.

There has been widespread speculation that several financial institutions are considering moving operations out of the City, with possible European destinations including Frankfurt, Paris and Dublin.

HSBC and UBS, two of the largest investment banks operating in London, have both said that thousands of jobs could be moved to mainland Europe when Britain eventually leaves the bloc.

HSBC chief executive Stuart Gulliver confirmed in January that 1,000 bankers would be moving to Paris, just one day after Theresa May confirmed that the UK would be leaving the single market.
Boeing has received an order for 39 of its planes from Singapore Airlines, as the carrier aims to grow and modernise its fleet in order to compete with international rivals.

The order will be seen as a setback for Boeing's main rival Airbus, who recently announced that it was reconsidering the building of bigger versions of its A350 wide-body jets.

The purchase will see Boeing provide 20 777-9 models and 19 787-10 models to the Asian carrier.

"Today's major order for widebody aircraft enables us to continue operating a modern and fuel-efficient fleet, providing the SIA Group with additional expansion opportunities to ensure that we retain our industry-leading position," said Singapore Airlines CEO Goh Choon Phong.

Deliveries of the planes is scheduled to begin as early as in the financial year ending March 2021, the airline said in a statement, adding it also has options to buy six more of each of the two models.

Boeing claimed a significant victory with the order after Singapore Airlines had previously passed up the opportunity to buy the latest generation of 777 models in late 2015.

The Chicago-based company saw its shares rise slightly in pre-market action on Thursday by 0.32%.
The US Senate has voted to confirm Jeff Sessions as the country's attorney general, despite a series of divisive hearings in which Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren was stopped from reading a letter by Coretta Scott King.

Senator Sessions was chosen by President Donald Trump and faced difficult questions from Democrats in the chamber on his attitude towards civil rights.

Warren was silenced on Tuesday as she attempted to read the 1986 letter from Marin Luther King's wife, which accused Sessions of discrimination towards black voters.

"There is no greater honour than to represent the people of Alabama in the greatest deliberative body in the world," Sessions said following his confirmation.

"I appreciate the full debate we've had and thank those afterwards who found sufficient confidence to cast their vote to confirm me as the next attorney general," he added.

His appointment was approved by the narrow vote of 52-47, in another extremely partisan poll after Betsy DeVos scraped through as education secretary following a tiebreak intervention from Vice President Mike Pence.

Trump's nominees to his administration have taken far longer than traditionally has been the case to be confirmed, and the President attacked the Democrats on Wednesday, calling the delays a "disgrace".

"It is a disgrace that my full Cabinet is still not in place, the longest such delay in the history of our country. Obstruction by Democrats!" Trump tweeted.
US President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit the UK in June, according to London's Metropolitan Police chief.

Speaking to LBC Radio on Thursday, MPS commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe warned that the state visit would cost "quite a bit of money" as he promised increased security in order to ensure the event is successful.

"I think President Trump is coming around June, that's the plan," the police chief said. "No doubt we'll put a lot of officers out there and keep them safe and make sure everything goes well. If there is a few thousand officers, it's likely to be quite a bit of money."

Politicians in the UK have reacted angrily to Prime Minister Theresa May's decision to invite the President to the country and speak in the Houses of Parliament.

In an unprecedented move, Commons Speaker John Bercow said that the signing of an executive order to ban immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries strengthened his opposition to an address from Trump.

Members of parliament have come out in support of Bercow, whose role traditionally dictates that he remains impartial on political issues. However, the Speaker told the Commons that his stance is based on his opposition to "racism and sexism".

"Before the imposition of the migrant ban I would myself have been strongly opposed to an address by President Trump in Westminster Hall," Bercow said.

"After the imposition of the migrant ban by President Trump I am even more strongly opposed to an address by President Trump in Westminster Hall."

PETITION

A petition to prevent Trump from making a state visit has already gathered close to 1.9 million signatures, leading to a parliamentary debate on the issue on 20 February.

Trump's run to the White House in 2016 caused a stir in the political realm and in financial markets, and since his inauguration his actions have been heavily scrutinised, particularly his attempts to block access to the US from citizens of Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Libya and Yemen.

The order has since been temporarily quashed after a legal challenge from Washington state, which Trump's administration has appealed.
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By JONATHAN LEMIRE

Associated Press

NEW YORK  The United States military is looking to rent space at Trump Tower for use when President Donald Trump returns to his longtime home in New York City.

A Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday that the Department of Defense was looking for the space in order to meet official mission requirements. Two U.S. officials said that the space will likely be rented from a third party, and not from the president or members of his family. The officials said it was not clear yet if the contract had been finalized.





. . .
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PORTLAND (AP)  Fire crews rescued two workers after one of the men fell 40 feet from scaffolding while painting Portland's Ross Island Bridge and struck the other worker on his way down.

Portland Fire & Rescue says the workers suffered serious injuries Wednesday and were taken to OHSU Hospital.





. . .
Ryan Companies

Jordan

Phoenix-based Ryan Companies has hired Bret Jordan, a veteran broker from Colliers, to lead the new office it is opening in Seattle. Ryan is a national real estate company with 1,300 employees in 13 offices, and is active in all sectors of the market. Jordan has 27 years of experience in real estate, the last eight at Colliers. Ryan regional president Rick Collins said in a statement, Bret's experience in real estate brokerage, development and investment, along with his strong reputation and relationships in the greater Seattle community, create an opportunity for growth of our Northwest region.




Over the past two years, Individual Mobilization Augmentee Col. Carl Magnusson has travelled the globe in support of a variety of U.S. operations.

The U.S. Pacific Command Air Force Reservist has seen Japan, the Philippines, and Mongolia as a joint exercise control group director, and most recently, Kuwait and Turkey, where he supported Operation Inherent Resolve.

As an IMA, Magnusson is assigned to US PACOMs Operations Directorate. As a reservist, its his job to augment PACOM exercises. After talking things over with his family, he decided that 2015 was his turn to step up and let PACOM utilize his expertise full-time. He saw the 365-day voluntary mobilization as an opportunity to put all his training to use but he had no idea it would turn out the way it did. Two years and three extensions later, he says he has realized Reservists need to be flexible and ready to serve when and where they are called.

Most of his two years was spent in the Pacific region, leading exercises like a global peacekeeper training in Mongolia. However, the last five months of his tour found him working for the Army, supporting Combined Joint Task Force-OIR in the fight against ISIL.

Originally slated to serve out his mobilization in Kuwait, following the attempted coup in Turkey, the U.S. Armys III Corp quickly redeployed him there. He arrived in Ankara two weeks after the attempted overthrow and served as the chief of the Operations Integration Cell within the Office of Defense Cooperation. It was his responsibility to provide the CJTF-OIR commanders on the ground in Kuwait visibility and perspective into the situation in Turkey, as well as represent their interests to the Turkish general staff.

It was a shirt-sleeves environment and we provided an American face to the Turkish military to make sure the CJTF was informed about developments in Turkey, he said.

He said the office was somewhat unpredictable, so building personal relationships with counterparts within the Turkish military was an important part of supporting the warfighters. He worked daily with a Turkish Air Force colonel who was his peer in the operations integration cell. This drove home the importance of building professional relationships to the long-term success of operations.

Many of our partner nations put great stock in interpersonal relationships, he said. We still have many friends at the personal level within the Turkish military, which is an important partner and ally.

As his tour was winding down, Magnusson said there was an influx of both funding and personnel to broaden the contributions of the Operations Integration Cell. He said that because of the importance of Incirlik Air Base and other facilities, U.S. leadership placed great effort in maintaining and strengthening relationships with the Turkish military.

Looking back on his experiences of the last two years, especially the deployment to Turkey, Magnusson said he has a better understanding of geopolitics and has a deeper appreciation of our contributions and sacrifices in Northern Syria and Iraq.

He also noted that some of the old preconceptions about reservists are fading.

No one walked up to me and asked if I was a reservist and thats critical when you get there, he said. "Thats a measure of success because we have conquered some of the stereotypes we have been trying to overcome as total-force partners.

Magnusson also said that he realized there are many fascinating opportunities for fully-qualified reservists who are ready to apply their skills to help their country. And hes not just talking about supporting the Air Force  sister-services and the Interagency continue to need the Airmans perspective as they plan and execute their disparate missions in support of national security.

The key to getting involved, he said, is to ask and make your desires known.

Ten years ago, I would never have thought to ask how I could support United Nations peacekeeping training with our Mongolian friends, but it happened, he said. As reservists, we might not know where the road will lead us, but we know where the journey startsand as Citizen Airmen, the first step is always ours."
This is the fifth column in a series presenting findings and conclusions of Nevadas 2016 Popular Annual Financial Report (PAFR), posted at controller.nv.gov. Last time, we discussed state spending and revenue trends in K-12 education. Here, we address key policy issues.

Primary and secondary education was the second fastest-growing category of state expenditures the past decade and is the second largest category. But student academic performance has improved little despite large per-student real spending increases, and Nevada still ranks among the bottom states.

The problem is that K-12 spending has not been channeled to programs that produce the greatest benefit for students. Instead, self-serving special interest groups have made sure spending and policy benefit the adults, not our children.

Public education bureaucrats, administrators, contractors, teacher unions and others who benefit from additional spending on public schools have little incentive to pursue education economy when they can successfully lobby for additional resources from the public. And they oppose giving educational choices to families who might take their children away from the public-school monopoly.

While keeping students captive to government-run schools, they also restrict class size so additional class rooms must be built and additional (union dues-paying) teachers must be hired. At least 24 states, including Nevada, have enacted statewide limitations on class size, yet evidence shows their impact on student achievement is ambiguous at best.

One peer-reviewed study shows that, to comply with class-size restrictions, school districts have hired thousands more teachers of only marginal quality and that students they taught suffered by about as much as they benefitted from the reduced class size. Another study found that even a ten-student reduction in class size does not benefit students as greatly as improving teacher quality significantly. Nationwide, pupil-teacher ratios have declined from 27 to 16 over the past 60 years, according to federal data, but student achievement has stagnated.

Indeed, there is academic consensus that class-size reduction keeps school districts from paying good teachers more, and that paying to attract and retain great teachers holds far greater benefits for children. As the Brookings Institution notes, By one estimate, an increase in average class size by five students would result in an across the board increase of 34% in teacher salaries if all the savings were devoted to that purpose. Higher salaries would likely draw more qualified people into the teaching profession, and keep them there.

Similar to class-size reduction, full-day kindergarten and universal pre-school are designed by unions and other special interests for more classroom construction and (dues-paying) teacher hires. In 2006, the Nevada legislature used a budget surplus to expand half-day kindergarten to full-day kindergarten in some schools. This program was gradually expanded until Gov. Brian Sandoval and the 2015 legislature installed full-day kindergarten in every school with a two-year appropriation of $159 million.

Research shows essentially no difference between half-day and full-day kindergarten on student outcomes, although a single teacher and classroom can serve two half-day classes. The U.S. Department of Education tracked the experience of nearly 23,000 children entering both kinds of programs in the late 1990s and concluded, Childrens reading and mathematics gains over the first 4 years of school did not differ substantively by ... the type of school or kindergarten program they attended.

Although research shows Nevadas students would be better served by redirecting funds from the favored programs of special interests to substantial merit pay for great teachers, digital learning initiatives and other items, public schools by their nature will always be subject to control by special-interest groups. The traditional public school district is a structure through which all funding, curriculum and management choices are politicized.

So, the way to truly make schools more efficient and align spending with performance is to create a competitive education marketplace.

Nevada took a major step forward in 2015 when the legislature created a system of universal Education Savings Accounts. These publicly funded, but privately held accounts separate the public responsibility of financing education from administration of schools. Unfortunately, the Nevada Supreme Court has upheld an injunction on the program until the legislature can approve an alternative financing mechanism for it.

Reform of this nature makes children the beneficiaries of education spending, not adult special-interest groups.
The effects of roads on carnivores have obviously been underestimated in worldwide species conservation. This is the conclusion of the first comprehensive global study on this topic, which has been published in the scientific journal Global Ecology and Biogeography by an international research team from Germany and Portugal. The protection status of several species that are severely affected by roads cut through their habitat should be reconsidered, the researchers say. The wolf (Canis lupus) is among the top 25 percent of species most exposed to roads worldwide. The first global overview of the effects of roads on carnivores offers new insights for the protection of well-known species such as the puma (Puma concolor), the American black bear (Ursus americanus) and the brown bear (Ursus arctos). According to the study, they are among the species whose survival in the long-term is most seriously threatened by roads, but for which this hazard has not been fully acknowledged so far. Among the 5 Per cent of carnivores (17 species) that are most affected by roads, nine are currently categorised as "least concern" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which means that they are regarded as not endangered. "Our results show the necessity of updating the protection status of these species, whose threat from roads has previously been underestimated," insists Prof Henrique Pereira from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and the Portugal Infrastructures Biodiversity Chair/Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources (CIBIO-InBIO). Particularly under threat is the Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus), which lives only in Spain and Portugal; according to estimates, only a few hundred animals remain. The projection in the current study suggests that the species will have died out in 114 years. But while the Iberian lynx is IUCN-classified as "endangered", other species threatened by roads are not. For example, two species in Japan: According to the projection, the Japanese badger (Meles anakuma) and the Japanese marten (Martes melampus) will have died out in nine and 17 years, respectively, because of the threat from roads. Those 5 per cent of carnivores (17 species) that are influenced most heavily worldwide by roads include the mammal families of cats, bears, martens, dogs and raccoons. Four species of bear are affected - half of all existing bear species. Surprising for the researchers was that also the stone marten (Martes foina) is among the 17 species most exposed to roads. Although the stone marten is widely distributed and not categorised as endangered by the IUCN, it is often killed by cars. Another species in Germany, the wolf (Canis lupus), is among the top 25 per cent of carnivores (55 species) most exposed to roads globally. It belongs to those predator species that for long-term survival require a large area but whose habitat is cut by roads. For their study, the researchers considered a total of 232 carnivore species around the world (out of a total of ca. 270 existing species) and assessed how severely these are affected by roads cut through their habitat. To do this, they considered for example the natural mortality rate, the number of offspring and the movement behaviour of a species. From these factors, they calculated the maximum density of roads that a species can cope with. Furthermore, they determined the minimum area of unbroken habitat that a species needs to maintain an enduring healthy population. Finally, they compared these numbers with road network data. "Our results show that North America and Asia are the regions with the highest number of species most negatively influenced by roads, followed by South America and Europe," explains Ana Ceia-Hasse from iDiv, the MLU and Portugal Infrastructures Biodiversity Chair/CIBIO-InBIO. "But while we had already expected that carnivores would suffer particularly in regions with greater road density, we were surprised to find that even in regions with relatively low road density there are species that are threatened by roads." In Africa, for example, roads have a significant effect on the habitats of leopards (Panthera pardus). This is because sensitive species that naturally cover greater distances can be restricted by comparatively few roads. "We did not simply lay roads and habitats of species over one another, but also considered the specific characteristics and requirements of the species in our calculations. In this way we could also identify species that react sensitively to even only a few roads," says Ceia-Hasse. The methods established in the new study can be used in future for applied purposes - for example for local protection measures, for environmental assessments by authorities, or to integrate the long-term effects of road building into scenarios of the World Bank regarding global biodiversity changes.








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Plenty of speculation has surrounded the Chinese-made Great Wall utility range since its launch in 2009.

Just like the South Koreans were treated with suspicion when they first landed here to take on the established brands, Great Wall has been the subject of plenty of innuendo and rumour in that time. The bottom line, of course, is that some private owners and businesses took the plunge and gave the emerging brand a go, while others played it safe and stuck with the products they knew.

The prevailing sentiment among fleets that took a punt on the Chinese utes was that, at a fraction of the price of, say, a Toyota HiLux ute, they could afford to wear out two or even three Great Walls in the same space of time and still be no worse off. It was a compelling argument for many, but these days, those early Great Walls will not be in consideration by tradies and fleet managers, meaning that they're hitting the private used-car market.

Which raises the next big question over the brand: Do you want a second-hand Great Wall as a family hack or weekend warrior?

See, while many bigger fleets are quite happy to turn their vehicles around quickly, that's not always the agenda of the private buyer. Also, residual value is pretty important to the switched on fleet manager, but again, probably not as important to the private buyer who is planning to keep the vehicle for several years at least. Either way (and for either party) the Great Wall opened up a whole new can of worms when it landed here.

That happened in 2009 at which point the V240 was the only variant of the Great Wall ute available. There was a cab-chassis variant (which won't appeal to private buyers) but the dual-cab variant is the one with the greatest appeal as a usedie.

You could have your Great Wall with two or four-wheel-drive and the latter makes sense now as it means the thing can be used off-road which is a bit of a trend for family activities these days.

That first V240 used a four-cylinder petrol engine which was more or less a Mitsubishi engine (it even had `Mitsubishi' cast into the rocker cover) that Great Wall paid a license fee to use. That's not a bad thing as Mitsubishi's four-cylinders tend to be well made and tough.

A five-speed manual transmission was the only one offered, and the lack of an auto option really dents the car's appeal for family use.

In 2011, the range was facelifted and expanded with the long-awaited diesel-engined variant (dubbed V200).

The four-cylinder diesel used all the latest tech, too, including common-rail injection and a variable-geometry turbocharger. It all added up on paper, too, with 105kW of power (the petrol was good for 100kW) and a very decent 310Nm of torque (200Nm).

There was still no automatic option, but at least the diesel got a six-speed manual gearbox and you still had the choice of two or four-wheel-drive.

Both models featured a payload of 100kg and a maximum braked-trailer towing mass of 2000kg, well below some of the competition, but enough for many users.

The overall design of the vehicle was thought by some to be a vague copy of a Mitsubishi Triton, but closer investigation reveals the chassis layout, suspension and even the cabin and tray dimensions owe more to a 2005 Isuzu/Holden Rodeo than anything else.

But back to the original question regarding a second-hand Great Wall as a family toy: The short answer is no, don't do it.

Build quality seems to be the biggest problem and plenty of Great Walls have rattled themselves to death over the years. They're simply not built well at all and what might be good enough for emerging motoring markets such as China itself, just doesn't cut it here.

Engine and gearbox oil leaks are common, but even things like axle bearings can have very short lifespans even if the vehicle has been well maintained.

Beyond that, the Great Wall is simply not very nice to drive with soggy handling and engines that lack bottom-end oomph. Even the turbo-diesel was criticised at the time for being breathless down low.

The suspension, too, is pretty stiff, hastening the ute's ability to shake itself to bits as well as ruining any semblance of ride comfort you might have been expecting.

That said, plenty of owners have reported dream runs with their Great Walls, but they're by no means in the majority.

But the big harpoon in the Great Wall's chances of cutting it as cheap family transport comes in its crash safety. Or lack of it. While the single-cab ute versions scored a meagre three stars for safety, the dual-cab versions with no air-bag protection in the rear whatsoever, scored a miserable two stars in independent testing. In fact, during that testing, the passenger's seat-belt failed, leading to a national recall to not just test the Chinese-made seat-belts, but to replace them all with Australian-made belts.

There was also a recall to check the plastic welding on the fuel-tank filler-neck which could fail, leading to a fuel leak and potential fire. Other recalls involved a chafing wiring harness under the bonnet and a park-brake that could disengage all by itself.

Then there was the infamous recall for Great Wall when it was discovered that three of the gaskets that made up the exhaust system actually contained some asbestos, a material that has been banned for use in Australia since January 1, 2004. In fact, the importation of asbestos in any form is also illegal, placing Great Wall in a pretty serious position when the discovery was made.

However, it was decided that the asbestos in the Great Wall's gaskets did not pose a threat to anybody driving the vehicle and it was decided that the gaskets could stay in place until they needed to be replaced anyway.

That said, if any Great Wall owners wanted the gaskets replaced, Great Wall was obliged to do so. In any case, sales fell after the asbestos scare and O H and S concerns began driving fleet managers to five-star-safety makes and models.

So, in 2014, Great Wall simply turned off the supply tap to its Australian dealers. A metaphor for the whole failed experiment, if you ask us.

Our rating: 2/5

Nuts and bolts

Engines: 2.4-litre four-cyliner/2.0-litre turbo-diesel

Transmissions: Five-speed manual/Six-speed manual

Fuel economy (combined): 10.7 litres per 100km (V240)/8.3 litres (V200)

Safety rating (courtesy of www.howsafeisyourcar.com.au): 2 stars

Likes:

Cheap to buy then and now.

Disposal vehicle if you break it.

Post-facelift model looks okay.

Dislikes:

Lousy build quality.

Rough and loose to drive.

Many clapped out now.

Heaps of reliability and safety issues.

Competitors:

Mitsubishi Triton  Some Triton owners swear by the things. Even so, a low-mileage one is better than one with lots and lots of kilometres showing. Four-speed auto seems pretty old fashioned. 3/5

Nissan Navara  Lots and lots of these about, so finding a good one won't be impossible. But be aware that a bad one will not be much fun to drive or own. Many have been worked to death on fleets. 3/5

Holden Rodeo  Many of these were V6 petrol-powered and that engine does a decent job, so don't get hung up on needing a diesel engine. Like any of these, the previous owner will have determined the car's second-hand worthiness. 3/5

What to pay (courtesy of Glass's Guide):

Model Year New Now

V240 2010 $26,990 $5500

V240 2011 $26,990 $6600

V200 2011 $27,990 $7500

V240 2012 $25,990 $7200

V200 2012 $27,990 $7700

V240 2013 $25,990 $8000

V200 2013 $27,990 $8900

V240 2014 $25,990 $9600

V200 2014 $27,990 $10,600
Home Four wheelers BMW Gets Former Bugatti Veyron & Skoda Chief Designer Jozef Kaban oi-Kennedy Paul

BMW has confirmed that Jozef Kaban as its new Head of Design operations. Jozef Kaban, known for his design work on the Bugatti Veyron and most recently as Skoda's Chief Designer.

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Home Four wheelers Vladimir Putin Offers To Help Volkswagen In Russia; Meets Matthias Mueller oi-Rajkamal

Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia met Matthias Mueller, the CEO of Volkswagen in Moscow, and agreed to help the German carmaker develop its business in Russia.

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Judge restricts federal workers testimony

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP)  Federal wildlife employees will again be barred from testifying about any fear they felt during last winters armed occupation of a national bird sanctuary in southeastern Oregon.

U.S. District Judge Anna Brown prevented such testimony during a trial last fall in which occupation leader Ammon Bundy and six co-defendants were acquitted of conspiring to impede workers from doing their jobs at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge during the 41-day protest.

Four Bundy followers are being tried on the same felony charge this month. Assistant U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Barrow asked the judge Tuesday to reconsider and allow the workers to testify about their fears. Brown declined.

I dont for a minute doubt there was fear and negative emotions by these employees, but the charge is not did defendants intend to raise distress, but intend to impede, Brown said, according to The Oregonian.

Man gets 3 years for threat against Obamas life

RENO (AP)  A 51-year-old Reno man who told a White House operator last year he hated President Obama and intended to kill him has been sentenced to three federal years in prison.

Steven Eugene Ford faced up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine after he was convicted in Reno in November of making a threat against the life of the president.

U.S. District Judge Howard McKibben sentenced him Wednesday to three years probation after three years in prison.

Secret Service agents said in court documents that Ford admitted he made the call to the White House around March 1 and told the operator, Im going to kill that president. I hate him.

Nevadas U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden says his office takes all threats against the president seriously and is committed to bringing anyone responsible to justice.

Men charged in murder of teen who egged cars

SALT LAKE CITY (AP)  Two men have been charged with murder in connection to the shooting death of a 16-year-old boy who authorities say hit one of the suspects with an egg while out late after the Fourth of July.

Online court documents show 23-year-old Fortunato Villagrana and 22-year-old Martin Antonio Cruz were charged Tuesday with murder and weapons charges.

Neither has an attorney listed.

Prosecutors say the shooting occurred in the early morning of July 5, 2016 in Salt Lake City after the victim, Paris Gustin, hit Villagrana in the ear with an egg inside his car.

Cruz told police that Villagrana grabbed his AK-47 assault rifle from home and the duo went looking for Gustins car. Cruz says Villagrana fired several rounds at Gustin while leaning out the car.

A medical examiner found Gustin was hit in the head and back.

BLM offers tours of big horse roundup

LAKE POINT, Utah (AP)  The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is offering public tours of its next big wild horse roundup in western Utah.

The BLM says it intends to start gathering between 600 and 700 mustangs this weekend in the Cedar Mountains about 40 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.

Agency officials say their environmental reviews indicate the federal rangeland there can only support between about 200 and 400 horses.

They plan to offer more than 200 up for adoption and return approximately 400 to the range  about half of those after theyve been treated with a fertility control vaccine.

Escorted public tours are scheduled to begin at 5:30 a.m. Saturday.

Anyone interested should gather at the Flying J gas station at Exit 99 on U.S. Interstate 80 in Lake Point.
The team in the Local Enterprise Office Louth celebrated last week as one of the counties young entrepreneurs made it through to the national final of Irelands Best Young Entrepreneur (IBYE).

Roisin Hogan from HIRO by Rosin in Drogheda beat off stiff competition in the Start-Up category from other young entrepreneurs in Cavan, Meath and Monaghan to secure her place in the final. She will represent Louth at this highly competitive event in Google HQ on Sunday 5th March.

She has developed a healthy food product based on noodles made from the flour of the Asian Konjac vegetable. The noodle based meals are low in sugar, fat free, practically carb free and very low in calories and are stocked in outlets throughout Ireland and will be moving into the UK market very soon.

Roisin will be joined in the final by two young entrepreneurs from Meath: Alvin Hunt from Hexafly in the Best Idea Category and Barry Goulding BSG Design in the Best Established Business Category.

Minister Damien English was guest of honour at the Regional Final last week. He explained Young entrepreneurs are Irelands job creators and innovators. He continued by encouraging young entrepreneurs to reach out to their Local Enterprise Office who are on hand to help all businesses start-up, grow and expand.

Thomas McEvoy, the Head of Enterprise in Louth, congratulated Roisin, saying: Our search to find and support Irelands best young entrepreneurs has turned up some incredible business talent. Its important to find, recognise and support them in their work because our local entrepreneurs are the business leaders of the future. We are so proud to see Louth represented in the IBYE National Final and we are backing Roisin all the way.

Aimed at 18 to 35-year-olds, the IBYE initiative is run by the 31 Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs) nationwide, and supported by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and Enterprise Ireland.

Find out how Roisin, Alvan and Barry get in the finals by following the IBYE competition on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube and on www.IBYE.ie.
Former Town Councillor Oliver Morgan has questioned what he calls the "butchering of Clark`s Forest".

"Although I would be "at the front of the queue" to welcome the provision in our town of new, improved educational facilities for our young people and am delighted with the successful opening of St Mary`s College (the new Marist Secondary School), I would have to question the wisdom of butchering a mature town centre forest park to provide the site for the new Colaiste Cu Chulainn.

"Moreover, traffic movement capacity around this area is already at saturation point and I cannot see how the influx of a thousand secondary school students and a hundred teachers to the area at peak traffic times will be anything short of a complete disaster."

He has connected the building of the new school with the 'wasted opportunity' to secure the provision of the Narrow-Water Bridge.

"The figure which is estimated to be spent to fund the new college, of almost 17 million brings to mind another debacle; the Narrow-Water Bridge proposal.

"This is a scheme to facilitate tourists who wish to make the coastal drive, on the existing third-class coast road from the County Down coast and continue on along the County Louth/Cooley Peninsula coast, without having to drive into Newry from Warrenpoint and drive back out from Newry to Carlingford.

"The thing which is difficult to understand is this; "Why do we need a 40 million bridge to carry tourist traffic from County Down`s third class coast road onto County Louth`s second class coast road?"

"We were given a gift by the EU of more than the price of the new college to build the bridge (17 million); the required specification tourist Narrow-Water Bridge could have easily been built for a few million euro but, because our infrastructure providers decided to build a 40 million status symbol, we had to give back the price of the college, almost 17 million.

"I wonder if it would be possible for our "powers that be" to design and cost a sensible bridge, one that would just do the job that needs to be done. I suspect that such a bridge would cost us a lot less than the 17 million which we gave back to the EU!"
Local councillor Edel Corrigan has demanded to know who is monitoring the standard of roadworks being carried out in Dundalk at present.

With the increase of roadworks being carried out around the town lately, Sinn Fein Councillor Edel Corrigan asked the question at Mondays Dundalk Municipal Council meeting.

Is there a monitoring process in place whereby our local authority inspects the standard of work being carried out by these contractors?

Cllr Corrigan also commented on the inconvenience locals have felt lately.

The surge of underground works taking place by Irish Water, facilities, networks and service contractors. While I appreciate the work has to be done, lately it just seems to be a lot of streets or roads are being dug up, along with footpaths to the inconvenience of businesses, traffic and pedestrians alike. I would like to ask how road openings are monitored to ensure safe, secure traffic management systems to facilitate access by people in the area.

After consultation with several residents Cllr Corrigan said: We need better communication with residents and businesses before their services are disrupted or disconnected for a time. The notice given is inadequate and putting it out on radio or social media doesnt always reach the people affected.

I want to know what measures are in place to ensure, when all works are all finished, that the roads and footpaths will be returned to an acceptable condition. We have many community areas where residents invested money, time and effort in improving their environment only to find that planters and flowerbeds were destroyed following these works and footpaths were left unassailable. In one area residents were left distressed finding exposed live cables.

Louth County Council Operations Department advised that any concerns or complaints arising from the ongoing road works can be made to Louth County Council who will investigate.
Entries are now open for the 25th annual Telstra Business Awards, which recognise the achievements and entrepreneurial spirit of small to medium businesses and charities in Australia.

Telstra Business Group Managing Director and Awards Ambassador, Paul Tyler said each entrant will receive a comprehensive business health check, which benchmarks their performance against industry standards and identifies improvement opportunities, based on the data provided in the entry form.

He continued, Businesses dont need to win an Award to benefit from the process. By just entering, they have the opportunity to put their business under the microscope and receive valuable insights. If they progress further, then they also enjoy unparalleled networking with peers and the chance to build their profile.

Entrants are rigorously assessed against criteria including: financials, vision, technology and innovation, risk mitigation, resilience, social impact, inclusion and ethical work practices. The entry process in itself can take up to 30 hours to complete, so it is recommended businesses plan accordingly.

Jordan Walsh, founder of Adelaide Green Clean, the 2016 Telstra South Australian Business of the Year, said the Awards have sky-rocketed their business.

Our Award gave us the recognition to fast-track a merger negotiation that was underway, he said.

This has brought the business growth forward by at least five years and is a big step towards our mission to become Australias largest sustainable cleaning and waste management company, he said.

Professor Miles Prince of inaugural Charity Award winner, Snowdome Foundation, has also realised the value of the Awards.

After winning the 2016 Telstra Victorian Charity Award, we had a donor recognise the significance of the achievement, which opened discussions and led to a $5.5 million donation, he said.

There are five Award categories: New Business, Micro Business, Small Business, Medium Business and Charity Award. The winner of the Telstra Business of the Year Award can come from any of the above categories.

Entries will close on Thursday 16 March 2017. Entering the Awards starts with being nominated. Anyone can nominate a business, including the owner or founder by visiting: https://www.telstrabusinessawards.com/nominate/
When it comes to costumes for Carnival or Halloween, there are two kinds: outfits such as doctors and pirates and vampires for men, and the sexy versions for women. Here is an example of what comes up in Google Images when we search for the same costumer according to gender:

Above, the top result for searches for Disfraz medico mujer (Costume, doctor, woman); Below, results for Costumer, doctor, woman.

But provocative party costumes are not confined to the adult market. The image of a sexy nurse outfit for girls aged four to six went viral on social networks at the start of February, after being posted on the Twitter feed of culture blog Hematocritico and on the Cultura Re-Evolucionaria Facebook page.

I have just posted this costumer FOR GIRLS in Facebook. Take note of the age range.

The photo of the costume was taken last year by Carolina Rodriguez. Infuriated when she came across the product in a discount store in Madrid she snapped a picture and posted it on Facebook. On January 22, Hematocritico posted images of two other sexualized costumes for little girls  Disney princesses  and Rodriguez sent her image back by way of reply. Hematocritico then posted Rodriguezs photo on its social network sites, at which point it went viral.

Other people have run with the subject and shared pictures of sexualized costumes for girls on social media, including a female firefighters outfit from the same range as the nurse, a policewoman and a giraffe, which were published on the motherhood blog site El Laboratorio de Mama.

A complex solution

The consumer association FACUA is now trying to find out who is responsible for the costumes. According to a spokesperson for the association, the policy in these cases is the same as in any type of publicity that is degrading to women. If the message is sexist, it doesnt matter if its an advert or a label, the spokesperson says.

But even if FACUA finds the culprits, the association admits that if the company doesnt want to play ball, theres not much that can be done. Consumer associations and women's rights associations can file a report and demand the withdrawal of the product or image, he explains. But the company can refuse because the petitions are dont automatically lead to sanctions.

Being a woman is not about wearing a costume and girls will have to choose an adult image when the time comes Women's rights group Tiemar

These demands can be effective against well-known companies who want to protect their image, but when it comes to low-profile operations, it is more complicated. It depends entirely on how they react, says FACUA.

Although the consumer association has no specific figures for complaints relating to these kinds of costumes, they do say that consumers regularly contact them with complaints of campaigns that vilify women. The problem is that there is no administrative body with the capacity to impose sanctions in these cases. We need to clarify which authority is in charge of taking legal action, says FACUA.

Beauty pageant controversy

While it is most common to see provocative costumes for girls in discount stores, talent shows and fairs are also fertile ground for this kind of sexualization. In the Arrecife Carnival in Lanzarote, the poster of a nine-year-old candidate for a child beauty pageant wearing makeup and baring a shoulder has come up for fierce criticism from the local feminist organization, Tiemar.

Images collected by the laboratoriodemama.com blog.

Being a woman is not about wearing a costume and little girls will have to choose their appropriate adult image when the time comes without the heavy influence of sexist stereotypes, the organization said in a statement published on Facebook.

The nine-year-old girls family has decided to withdraw the poster from social media, although the girl will still take part in the contest, according to regional news site La Provincia. The make-up and costume are in keeping with the spirit of the carnival, a time when people get dressed up, which is why the matter need not go further, the media outlet said at the time. Meanwhile, the mother of the girl told La Provincia that they would denounce Tiemar for undermining the right of the little girl and of her parents to the respect they are due.

But while a carnival outfit might seem harmless enough, a study by the American Association of Psychology, indicates that the sexualization of women is linked to food disorders, low self-esteem and depression. And from 2007 to 2015, the number of minors treated for food disorders in Spain rose 31%.

English version by Heather Galloway.
Spain's largest opposition party, the Socialists (PSOE), on Wednesday criticized Prime Minister Mariano Rajoys telephone conversation with Donald Trump, saying the PM has offered himself as a butler to serve US interests in Europe and elsewhere. The main opposition group wants the conservative leader to provide details about the 15-minute conversation between the two men on Tuesday, and which Rajoy has simply described as cordial.

Mario Jimenez, spokesperson for the PSOEs management committee. Emilio Naranjo (EFE)

The Socialist group is unhappy that Rajoy, of the conservative Popular Party (PP), apparently made no mention of Trumps highly controversial executive orders regarding a border wall with Mexico and a travel ban on citizens from seven countries with majority Muslim populations , among other issues.

The vast majority of Spaniards are incensed and angry that the prime minister of Spain did not demand, on similar terms as other European leaders, an end to the actions being carried out by the president of the United States, and which are affecting essential elements of international governance, as well as threatening relations with the European Union, said Mario Jimenez, spokesman for the transitional team that is heading the PSOE following the resignation of its secretary general in October of last year.

Spaniards are ashamed to realize that their prime minister has offered himself as a butler of sorts

Mario Jimenez, PSOE official

Spaniards are ashamed to realize that their prime minister has offered himself as a butler of sorts [to Donald Trump], added Jimenez, alluding to Rajoys offer to mediate between the US and Europe, Latin America, North Africa and the Middle East.

The Socialists also warned that they would oppose a new Spain-US alignment in the same vein as the one that characterized relations between former US president George W. Bush and the Spanish leader at the time, Jose Maria Aznar. That relationship was best illustrated by a March 2003 meeting on the Portuguese islands of the Azores, where Aznar, Bush and Britains Tony Blair sent out an ultimatum to Iraq to disarm or face war. The ultimatum led to the invasion of Iraq, although no weapons of mass destruction were ever found.

Jimenez on Wednesday brought up that controversial summit, claiming that the Spanish governments attitude towards the Trump administration harks back to the worst images in the Azores, when Spain was submitting to another countrys interests.

This March 2003 image was widely criticized in Spain. Reuters

Back then, Rajoy was Aznars deputy prime minister and spokesman. The decision to go to war was widely opposed in Spain, where numerous protest marches took place.

The PSOEs reaction to the telephone call is also a way to show its voters that it remains a vocal critic of Rajoy despite having helped him into office. The Socialists decision to abstain at a crucial congressional vote in order to end a protracted political deadlock in Spain  which was without a government for 10 months  created a major rift within the PSOE.

The party has yet to find a new secretary general after Pedro Sanchez resigned in protest over the issue of whether to help Rajoy into office.

English version by Susana Urra.
These are the responsibility of the editor and convey the newspaper's view on current affairs-both domestic and international

The position adopted by Mariano Rajoy in his telephone conversation with Donald Trump, when he offered Spain as a mediating voice for the new US administration in Europe and Latin America, is more than a serious mistake  it is a slight to our partners in the European Union and to Latin American countries.

Mariano Rajoy at a recent EU summit in Malta. Diego Crespo (EFE)

It does not seem very prudent to take on such a relevant foreign policy position  much less during a short telephone conversation that required interpreters without a prior debate within the Spanish and European political framework.

Rajoy seems to forget that Spain is a fully-fledged member of the EU, and not a distant country that can watch on with detached curiosity as the new US president issues threats and detrimental measures for the EU, as though these did not affect Spain.

An initiative of such scope, if taken seriously, would require a substantial investment in time and diplomatic resources

The EU has institutions, people and procedures that are specifically tasked with drafting and coordinating a common foreign and security policy that is more necessary now than ever; Rajoy should help reinforce it, not make it weaker.

Similarly, Latin America is an area of vital strategic interest for Spain, both in political and economic terms, as Spain is the largest or second largest foreign investor in nearly every Latin American country, and can thus be seriously affected by Trumps aggressive policy towards Mexico.

As we have said before, Rajoy should have followed in the footsteps of other European leaders like the conservative Angela Merkel or the Socialist Francois Hollande  to mention two ideologically opposed examples  who did not hesitate to clearly and firmly remind the US president about the principles of democracy, solidarity and openness to the world that the European project is based on.

It is odd that Rajoy, normally unwilling to lead any kind of initiative or to take risks, has awarded himself a role that neither one of the three parties involved (Latin America, Europe and Washington DC) appears to have asked of him. An initiative of such scope, if it were taken seriously, would require a substantial investment in time and diplomatic resources. And its chances of success would be scant, since Spain may have some influence on both sides of the Atlantic, but not enough weight to push any of the parties, particularly not Washington, to a negotiating table.

Rajoy should have followed in the footsteps of other European leaders like Merkel or Francois Hollande

Assuming that Rajoy spoke with the sincerest of intentions, we seriously doubt that such an initiative would ever make any headway. But it would be even worse if, as it seems likely, we are dealing with a frivolous, insufficiently thought-out offer born out of Rajoys desire to ingratiate himself with President Trump easily and at no cost to himself.

The government should worry that its European and Latin American partners and friends may construe this offer not as what it could or should represent, but rather as what it looks set to become: a crude and evident attempt at being friends with everyone that, far from improving Spains reputation, will instead damage it.

English version by Susana Urra.
Early last month, the Michigan Democratic Party State Central Committee (DSCC) met to choose its delegates to the Democratic National Committee [full disclosure: I am a DSCC member]. The afternoon of the meeting, the Chair of the Young Democrats of Michigan Sam Pernick spoke to a group of Senator Sanders and Jill Stein supporters in the hallway outside of the meeting room, telling them that backroom deals were being made behind closed doors and that wasnt right. He then led his followers into the meeting chanting Whose party? OUR Party!, disrupting the meeting that was already underway. What Pernick didnt realize was that he was leading the group, not into the DSCC meeting but, rather, into a closed meeting of the MDP Labor Caucus who had the room reserved just prior to the DSCC meeting itself. UAW leader Mike Stone grabbed Pernick by the jacket and pushed him back out the door.

Pernick then proceeded to file charges against Stone which resulted in Stone receiving a ticket. Pernick took to social media to describe the assault and battery as a violent attack, blowing it up in an apparent attempt to obscure the fact that he stupidly led dozens of his followers into the wrong meeting.

Heres video of the event. The group enters the room at around the 7-minute mark:

A supporter of Pernicks wrote an absurdly inaccurate op-ed for The Observer titled Michigan Dem Meeting Breaks Into Violence as Clinton Fans Repel Sanders Partisans. I suppose there are some who consider being pushed out of a room as violence but I am not one of those people. In the piece, the author says that Mike Stone was issued a ticket for assault and battery. In truth, Mike Stone was issued a ticket for Assault-Simple and the police officer described the situation that occurred in this way:

Subject physically escorted an unwanted protestor out of the room who refused to leave.

Click the image to the right for a larger version of the ticket given to Stone.

The fact is, if you watch the video, youll see as much pushing and shoving coming from Pernick and his group as you see from Mike Stone and the other Labor Caucus members trying to get them out of the room where their private meeting was taking place.

Pernick has since dropped his ridiculous charges but would not do so with prejudice suggesting that he may come back to file charges again at some later date. My sources who know the judge who oversaw the hearing tell me that this he is quite unlikely to allow Pernick to use the courts to further his own political agenda.

Lena Thompson (aka Lena Danger), a self-described Berniecrat, participated in the protest led by Pernick and came away pretty upset that the young organizer had basically made them all look like fools. Here are a few of her comments from her piece So, we marched into a closed-door meeting and oh by the way, it was the WRONG meeting and I encourage you to read her entire essay:

Mistakes should be admitted to, not used to mobilize progressives. Instead, the piper is blaming people and dragging down the whole Michigan Democratic Party (MDP) into the gutter, because he was wrong to march us into a closed-door, Labor Caucus meeting, where he was physically assaulted because of it. And of course, I dont condone physical violence or unwanted shoving. During the actual Democratic State Central Committee (DSCC) meeting, the doors were wide OPEN and remained OPEN. If we had marched through that meeting, they may or may not have objected. But we marched into the wrong meeting. Why cant the leader of the rally and march, that was supposed to support Keith Ellison, own up to THAT mistake? [] About that so-called Backroom Deal Here is Sam talking about the 6 people on a piece of paper, that NONE of us can vote for, because we are not DSCC delegates. Only the DSCC delegates are allowed to speak or vote at this meeting. This is part of the rules of the MDP that were sent out before the meeting. Below is an excerpt. Also, I was nodding along with Sam about the 6 names, but I have done further research about this process. The 6 names were an endorsed slate, by Labor. This is NOT against any rules or bylaws of the MDP. Anyone can seek endorsement from Labor when running for positions inside the MDP. [] Sam likes to make up rules and hold MPD accountable for a rule(s) that does not exist. I am writing this article to explain the real rules, not the fake rules.

Lena has it entirely right. Sam Pernick may claim that the Democratic Party is HIS party but he doesnt even know the basic, well-publicized rules about that party and ended up making a fool of himself and of the other people who followed him, believing he had some clue about what hes doing.

I want to address this idea of backroom deals that Pernick and his followers seem to malign so deeply. At the moment, Pernick is working day and night to turn out people to this weekends MDP Convention where leadership for the constituency caucuses and Congressional District organizations will be chosen. His goal is to take over the MDP by getting his folks elected to leadership positions. Hes lining up candidates (hes not one of them, by the way, I am told) and hes lining up votes. This exactly the same sort of thing that Pernick describes as backroom deals when people he doesnt like do it. For most of the rest of us, its called politics.

The irony in all of this is that Pernick came to me late last year as the Chair of the Washtenaw County Democratic Party to help him get word out about efforts he and other employees of the Ann Arbor Peoples Food Co-op were taking to form a union. We supported his efforts and now Sam is going to be a union member. But, at the same time, hes working double time to make union members sound like goons who fix elections.

UPDATE: After further checking, I realized that I mistook Sam Pernick for another person who organized the Food Co-op workers. I apologize for the error.

Pernick has a LOT to learn about taking over a political party. Taking over a political party isnt done by disruption and protests and temper tantrums. Its done by learning the rules, working them to your advantage, and getting yourself and people who agree with you into positions of power. Its a process  called democracy  and it can be done. The Tea Party takeover of the Republican Party is our most recent example.

And heres the thing: I support it. If people like Pernick think they have a better way, can organize more effectively, and win more elections, then more power to them. Use the democratic processes laid out in the MDP rules and make it happen. Create change. What youll likely find is that youll be welcomed. When I took it upon myself to join with like-minded organizers in Washtenaw County to make the County Democratic Party more focused on grassroots organizing, I wasnt shunned and pushed out. I was welcomed. Six years later Im the Chair.

THAT is actually what democracy looks like.

When the ACTUAL DSCC meeting took place on December 3rd, not only were Pernick and his group (none of whom was actually a DSCC member) allowed to speak, they were allowed to speak BEFORE the election of DNC members and for a longer period of time than is normally allowed. They were there largely to support Keith Ellison as DNC Chair and large numbers of us, myself included, agree with them. And one of the top Sanders organizer in the state, newly-elected Washtenaw County Commissioner Michelle Deatrick, was overwhelmingly voted to be one of the six DNC delegates. You can watch the meeting on video HERE.

Its possible to shift the direction of the Democratic Party. It takes effort. It takes coalition building. It takes the formation of relationships. And it requires ideas that can work. What does NOT work are petulant displays of hostility toward the group youre trying to convince.

If you need a poster child for how NOT to take over the Democratic Party in Michigan or anywhere else, that child is Sam Pernick.

Oh, and one more thing: Thanks to Pernicks blunder, our true enemies on the conservative right are are having a field day. Nice job, Sam. Way to elevate YOUR party.

[CC Facepalm image credit: Cesar Astudillo | Flickr]
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Spains economic crisis has not brought any cuts to O Porrino, a small town on the outskirts of the northwestern port city of Vigo, in the Galicia region. Thanks to an agreement signed between the former Popular Party (PP) administration and council employee representatives when the PP came into office in 2010, municipal workers and their families have enjoyed benefits such as private university courses and even dental and ophthalmic treatment, all paid for with taxpayers money.

Former mayor Nelson Santos faces corruption allegations. LALO R. VILLAR

The Socialist Party, which took over following the municipal elections of May 2015, says it intends to end this abusive situation. Mayor Eva Garcia de la Torre has described the perks enjoyed by local government employees as disproportionate.

It has recently emerged that the local authority paid out 15,000 for distance-learning university courses in law for three council employees.

The benefits were approved by former PP mayor Nelson Santos, who is now under investigation for corruption. Prosecutors want him barred from holding public office for 10 years after it emerged he had awarded dozens of public contracts to companies that he had family or other links to.

Labor unions representing council workers say they will oppose cuts to their perks

O Porrino, which has a population of around 20,000 and a budget of 18 million, sets aside 1 million for employee benefits. The town spends a further 5 million on its wage bill for 120 workers. Some employees are paid up to 60,000, while the mayor earns 38,000 before tax.

Labor unions representing council workers have already said they will oppose De la Torres bid to cut their perks, and have refused to attend negotiations to reach a compromise settlement.

Sources at the CC OO labor union deny that the collective bargaining agreement is abusive, and have described the mayors bid to cut it as unjustified, adding that any changes would have to be approved by the local council.

These are workers rights and if any clause is considered abusive it can be corrected through dialogue, not through accusations, said a spokesman. Labor unions say they are confident that an appeal they have lodged with the regional government of Galicia will be accepted and that the matter will not end up before the courts.

Garcia de la Torre says that reforming the collective bargaining agreement has become a political battle between the Socialist Party leadership and a staff that mostly supports the PP. This has become political and gone beyond being a budget issue; it is about ending abusive privileges at the expense of the taxpayer, says Garcia de la Torre.

English version by Nick Lyne.
AMSTERDAM  The Social & Labour Convergence Project (SLCP), an initiative led by leading textile manufacturers, brands, retailers, industry groups, inter-governmental organisations and civil society organisations, has secured more than 100 signatories in the year since it launched. Recent new signatories, including the American Apparel & Footwear Association, lululemon and the Netherlands Government join early sign-ups Arvind Mills, G-Star, Gap Inc., H&M, Intertek, SGS, Solidaridad, VF Corp, Timberland, and WRAP.


By Lee Fang

The leaked draft of a presidential memorandum Donald Trump is expected to sign within days suspends a 2010 rule that discouraged American companies from funding conflict and human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) through their purchase of conflict minerals.

The memo, distributed inside the administration on Friday afternoon and obtained by The Intercept, directs the Securities and Exchange Commission to temporarily waive the requirements of the Conflict Mineral Rule, a provision of the Dodd Frank Act, for two yearswhich the rule explicitly allows the president to do for national security purposes. The memorandum also directs the State Department and Treasury Department to find an alternative plan to address such problems in the DRC and adjoining countries.

The idea behind the rule, which had bipartisan support, was to drain militias of revenue by forcing firms to conduct reviews of their supply chain to determine if contractors used minerals sourced from the militias.

The impending decision comes as Trump held a meeting Wednesday with Brian Krzanich, the chief executive of Intel, one of the leading firms impacted by conflict mineral regulations. At the White House today, Krzanich appeared with the president to announce a new manufacturing plant in Arizona.

Human rights advocateswho had celebrated the conflicts rule as a major step forwardwere appalled.

Any executive action suspending the U.S. conflict minerals rule would be a gift to predatory armed groups seeking to profit from Congos minerals as well as a gift to companies wanting to do business with the criminal and the corrupt, said Carly Oboth, the policy adviser at Global Witness, in a statement responding to a Reuters article that first reported the move.

It is an abuse of power that the Trump administration is claiming that the law should be suspended through a national security exemption intended for emergency purposes. Suspending this provision could actually undermine U.S. national security.

Advanced computer chips, including technology used in cell phones and semiconductors, contain minerals often sourced from war-torn countries in central Africa. Firms such as Intel, Apple, HP and IBM use advanced chips that contain tantalum, gold, tin and tungstenelements that can be mined at low prices in the the DRC, where mines are often controlled by militias fueling a decades long civil war.

https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/status/775810075818622976

American tech companies, such as Intel, lobbied directly on the rule when it was proposed. But since passage, tech firms have largely used third party business groups to stymie the rule. Trade groups representing major U.S. tech firms and other manufacturers, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable, attempted to block the rule through a federal lawsuit. In 2014, a federal court struck down a part of the rule that forced firms to reveal DRC conflict minerals on their corporate websites.

Intel is also one of the firms that has touted its effort to comply with the law, publishing a report that notes the company has conducted 40 on-site reviews of smelters in the eastern DRC.

Reuters also reported that acting SEC chief Michael Piwowar has taken steps to also weaken enforcement, asking staff to reconsider how companies should comply.

Reposted with permission from our media associate The Intercept.
By Lauren Wolahan

Behold the Impossible Burger, the plant-based indulgence that looks, cooks, smells and tastes just like meat, but without the environmental price tag. The no-meat treat emerged onto the food scene in 2016, when it debuted at restaurants in Manhattan, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

[facebook https://www.facebook.com/EcoWatch/videos/1447831798563086/ expand=1]

I think the natural assumption people make is that because weve basically made a food that looks and tastes and cooks and smells just like meat from a cow  that there must be some kind of sketchy business going on, said Pat Brown, CEO and founder of Impossible Foods, which makes the Impossible Burger. But, in fact, there was a lot of work that went into figuring out in detail what it took to make something that delivered all the sensory pleasures of meat using plant ingredients.

Recently welcomed onto the menus of Chef Brad Farmeries Michelin-starred restaurants Public and Saxon + Parole, the Impossible Burger has solidified its place at the cutting edge of both gastronomy and sustainability. At a panel hosted at Public, Farmerie described the Burger as a gateway drug into alternative protein, offering his patrons the chance to enjoy a new treat that represents an incredible flip on what we can do for our world.

The Impossible Burger. Impossible Foods

Impossible Foods is developing the whole gamut of traditionally animal-sourced meats, from fish to bacon. Brown said the decision to start with a plant-based burger was a no-brainer. The burger is an iconic American food and beef production has the biggest environmental impact of the foods we eat. The all-plant patty sends a clear message, he said, that the best meats in the world dont have to come from animals.

Our food choices have a huge environmental impact. Livestock production accounts for a third of global cropland, pollutes water and air, and almost 15 percent of man-made greenhouse gases. Among farm animals, cattle are the biggest culprits, accounting for the large majority of livestock-related greenhouse gas emissions. Demand for meat and dairy is set to skyrocket in the years to come.

https://twitter.com/climatehawk1/status/712349904262209540

Experts disagree on the best approach to shrinking the environmental impact of food production. Agricultural purists are deploying low-impact farming practices that reduce pollution, build healthy soils, and scrub carbon from the atmosphere. Agri-tech companies, on the other hand, are using advanced tools to increase yield crops and convert livestock waste to biogas. Some are even feeding seaweed to cows so that they burp less methane.

Many environmental advocates say we should look beyond the farm and try to change the way we eatconsuming more plants and less meatas a way to combat climate change.

The Impossible Burger at Saxon and Parole. Lauren Wolahan

Asking people to change how they eat is a thorny subject. There are personal and cultural barriers to eating less meat. But Brown says we can protect the planet without asking people to sacrifice a beloved food by developing tasty, plant-based alternatives to meat. The Impossible Burger requires using 95 percent less land and generates 87 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than a beef patty.

Because were constantly improving it, were discovering fundamental things about how to make delicious meat flavor from simple plant ingredients and discovering new ways to make it better and better and better all the time, said Brown.

This is how I know that we are going to succeed in our mission, he added. As soon as were kind of running even with the cow, the race is over, because the cows not going to get any faster and we areevery single day.
A group of former Republican officials (including James A. Baker, Henry Paulson, George P. Shultz, Marty Feldstein and Greg Mankiw) are proposing a carbon tax starting the tax at $40 per ton, that would gradually increase.

The proceeds of the tax would be distributed to every American.

The average family of four would receive $2,000 annually in dividends. As the tax rises, so would their dividends. Since everyone would receive the same amount of revenue from the tax regardless of their income level, the dividend would make a bigger difference for poorer families than for wealthier ones.

https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/status/774356804339953664

Its a win-win: Less carbon in the atmosphere and more equal distribution of income.

That its being proposed by Republicans doesnt make the idea any less worthy.

Im aware that some on the left would rather use revenues from such a tax to invest in clean energy and other social causes rather than return the revenues directly to the public. That detail can be worked out.

The idea is getting a hearing in the White House. And in these dreadful times, thats good news indeed.
Youth plaintiffs in Juliana v. United States filed a notice Thursday with a federal court in Oregon, naming Donald J. Trump as a defendant in their landmark climate case on pace for trial this fall. Plaintiffs have substituted President Trump as a named party in place of former President Barack Obama under the Federal Rules.

Youth Seek Testimony From Exxon's #RexTillerson in Federal Climate Lawsuit https://t.co/xk9OyqVyqQ via @EcoWatch  The YEARS Project (@YEARSofLIVING) January 1, 2017

In Juliana v. United States, 21 young plaintiffs sued the federal government for violating their constitutional rights and their rights to vital public trust resources. The complaint alleges the government locked in a fossil-fuel based national energy system for more than five decades with full knowledge of the extreme dangers it posed. The plaintiffs have been further emboldened by President Trumps blatant climate denial, inspiring them in their fight to secure climate justice and a safe future.

I look forward to taking on the Trump administration, as I think our new president, of all people, needs to have his power checked, said Kiran Ooommen, 20-year-old plaintiff from Eugene, Oregon. President Trump benefits financially from the fossil fuel industry, but his benefit comes at a heavy cost for the rest of us. The policies of the U.S. government that ignore the threat of climate change are only going to get worse under the new presidency, based on Trumps apparent lack of understanding of climate science and his plans to invest further in the fossil fuel industry.

We are ready to bring this case to trial with President Trump as a defendant, said Julia Olson, counsel for plaintiffs and executive director and chief legal counsel at Our Childrens Trust. President Trump will not be able to perpetuate climate denialism in a court of law. Thats just not going to happen.

At the Feb. 7 case management conference, Federal Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin made clear that the court will work closely with the parties throughout the pre-trial discovery process. He instructed all parties to prioritize expert discovery on the scientific components of the case and scheduled another status conference for March 8.

Judge Coffin encouraged all parties to streamline next steps to move the case to trial. At one point, Judge Coffin asked counsel for the fossil fuel industry if CO2 levels in the atmosphere are at 400 parts per million, as the federal government admitted. The fossil fuel attorneys responded that they did not know. Judge Coffin instructed counsel for the fossil fuel industry to determine whether they will contest facts that have been admitted by the federal government, including whether climate change is caused by burning fossil fuels.

At the end of the conference, counsel for the federal government surprised those in the courtroom when he stated the government is considering an early appeal of last falls rulings denying motions to dismiss. Plaintiffs look forward to working diligently to complete discovery and have this case ready for trial in 2017.

On Jan. 24, lawyers for the youth plaintiffs notified the U.S. government that it must retain all documents, records and tangible things relating to the plaintiffs claims in their complaint. On Monday, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Acting Administrator Catherine McCabe confirmed that documents and records would not be destroyed. McCabe said: We have taken no actions to delete data and we are taking steps to preserve and make available the scientific data and information that we have collected over the years 

Watch here:
(Photo: REUTERS / Kyodo)People attend a Roman Catholic Church beatification ceremony for 188 Japanese martyrs who refused to give up their religion despite persecution centuries ago in Nagasaki, Japan, November 24, 2008. At the ceremony, Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins delivered blessings on behalf of Pope Benedict XVI on those killed between 1603 and 1639. Beatification is a stage that comes before sainthood in Catholicism.

Japanese bishops have revived a campaign to get a samurai, who was persecuted by ruling shoguns and driven into exile, canonized for spreading Christianity despite the odds he and his family faced.

The Catholic Bishops' Conference of Japan has spoken of the circumstances of the life of Justo Takayama Ukon, a feudal lord who shunned riches and property for faith.

They say what he did could pave the way for his sainthood, as he was banished from the country for rejecting demands to abandon Christianity.

"Ukon held clear principles for choosing the path that would lead to God and would lead to correct decisions," the bishops said in a statement on December 4.

"In the present age, when we are urged to make choices from among various values that promise happiness, people who adhere to Jesus can learn from the life of Ukon to follow the Lord directly, without deviation or error," they said.

Ukon is the first Japanese national whom the CBCJ is pushing to be canonized by himself, and not as part of a group.

All 42 saints and 393 blessed from Japan are celebrated as groups as they were martyred during the tumultuous Edo Period from 1603-1868 a period of economic growth, but also isolation.

At that time, rulers of Japan prohibited the practice of Christianity, enforcing a ban on "Western religions."

Born to a landed family, Ukon converted to Christianity when he was 12 after coming into contact with Jesuits, following the footsteps of his father. The family managed to convert people who lived in their area to the faith as well.

The Gospel was introduced to Japan by one of the founding members of the Jesuit order, Francis Xavier, in 1549 and Catholicism is the biggest strand of Christianity in the country,

When Toyotomi Hideyoshi came to power, his advisers urged him to ban the practice of Christianity. Feudal lords followed suit, but not Ukon and his father, who shunned their property so they could continue practicing their faith.

Ukon was protected by friends until in 1614, when he opted for exile rather than renounce his faith. He and 300 Japanese Christians headed to Manila, where local Catholics as well as Spanish Jesuits welcomed them.

Some 40 days after he arrived on Philippine shores, Ukon died on February 4, 1615. Local clergy accorded him a Catholic burial with full military honors.

Japanese Christians had attempted to have him beatified as early as the 17th century, but the country's isolationist policy prevented canonical investigators gathering evidence of Ukon's life and martyrdom.

In 1965, local clergy tried again, only to fall short because of formal lapses.

In 2012, the CBCJ wrote to then Pope Benedict XVI to restart the canonization process for a third time. The body managed to complete the documentary evidence a year after.
(Photo: REUTERS / Kyodo)People attend a Roman Catholic Church beatification ceremony for 188 Japanese martyrs who refused to give up their religion despite persecution centuries ago in Nagasaki, Japan, November 24, 2008. At the ceremony, Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins delivered blessings on behalf of Pope Benedict XVI on those killed between 1603 and 1639. Beatification is a stage that comes before sainthood in Catholicism.

Japanese Catholics make up less than one percent of the country's population, but they are facing challenges living the faith in a nonreligious society, the nation's bishops have said.

The assessment was published March 17 in a document from the archbishop outlining the conclusions of the archdiocesan synod in 2014, Catholic Herald has reported.

Meeting the Japanese bishops on March 20 during a customary visit, Pope Francis said that even without priests, "the faith of the Christian community did not grow cold."

He said lay Catholics have kept alive "the embers of faith" preached by the missionaries and lived by the Japanese martyrs.

In a published response to the Vatican survey for the extraordinary synod of bishops on the family in 2014, the bishops said most Japanese Christians end up marrying non-Christians.

This affects how many of them receive the sacrament of marriage, attend Mass or baptise their children.

It even affects prayer life, they said: "Because homes where the whole family is Catholic are few, rather than praying as a family, it is more common to pray as individuals."

In the context of marriages of mixed religions, the bishops said, "We must ask what a Christian household and family mean."

They noted, "Generally speaking, the transmission of faith to the next generation is difficult.

"Japanese society does not support expressions of faith commitment, and some young people increasingly perceive the church as a club of the elderly."

The five-page document is published on the Web site of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Japan.

The bishops said that "Christian family life is being overwhelmed by society's values."

Though children may grow up in a Christian household, they said, "the values they acquire are those of society.

"Made to dance to the tune of a society that emphasises study for the sake of fitting in economically, and desiring to not become social outcasts, young people have no leeway to nurture a vocation. This is the greatest crisis for faith that arises in homes."

In October, Pope Francis called for an extraordinary synod on the family to be held from October 5-19.

In preparation for the synod, its secretary-general, Cardinal-designate Lorenzo Baldisseri, sent bishops' conferences a document.

It included a 39-item questionnaire asking about the promotion and acceptance of Catholic teachings on marriage and the family, and cultural and social challenges to those teachings.

It asks about divorce, remarriage, cohabitation, same-sex unions and contraception.

The Japanese bishops said that, because of the short turnaround time needed to answer the survey, they sought responses from the bishops and major superiors of religious men and women.

The bishops said most Japanese Catholics had not heard of Church teachings on the family and "are either indifferent to or unaware of the teaching of the church" on responsible parenthood.

The bishops said "there seems to not be much of a sense of guilt regarding contraception," and although there are some attempts to teach natural family planning, "few people know about it."

"For the most part, the Church in Japan is not obsessed with sexual matters," the bishops said.

The bishops also mentioned the challenges of ministering to migrants.

Although only about 440,000 Japanese are Catholics, almost a million Catholics live in Japan.

Civic education teaches that sex and procreation are separate, the bishops said, and "women desire more options than just motherhood."
(Image: Samurai Credit: Britannica Wikipedia Public Domain)

The Roman Catholic Church has beatified a 17th century Samurai and martyr during a Mass in Osaka, Japan, putting the former warrior on a potential path of sainthood.

Cardinal Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints, presided over the Beatification Mass of Justo Takayama Ukon, who was declared a martyr by Pope Francis in January last year.

Ukon was born in 1552 and baptized in his childhood, served as a warrior and was exiled to Manila in 1614 due to the Edo Shogunate's ban on Christianity. He died of fever in 1615, Kyodo News reported.

Cardinal Amato read a letter declaring Ukon to be on the beatus list at the ceremony, at which the former warrior's portrait was shown and at which around 10,000 Catholics and other participants from Japan and abroad took part.

Pope Francis approved the recognition of Ukon in Jan. 2016 after receiving an application from the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Japan calling for Ukon's beatification as a martyr.

Francis said he had abandoned his status as a warlord status and gave up his life for his belief.

Approval of beatification requires either martyrdom or a miracle to have taken place. Excluding Ukon, 393 Japanese have been granted the status while 42 others have been made saints.

JESUIT MISSIONARIES

Takayama Ukon was born in 1552 in Japan at a time when Jesuit missionaries, members of the Society of Jesus, were introduced into the country.

By the time Takayama was 12, his father had converted to Catholicism and had his son baptized as "Justo" by the Jesuit Father Gaspare di Lella, Catholic News Agency reported.

Takayama's position in Japanese society as daimyo (a feudal lord) allowed him benefits, such as owning grand estates and raising vast armies.

As a Catholic, Takayama used his power to support and protect the short-lived missionary expansion within Japan, influencing the conversion of thousands of Japanese.

When a period of persecution began in the country under the reign of Japan's chancellor Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1587, many converted Catholics abandoned their beliefs.

By the 1620s, most missionaries were either forced out of Japan or into underground ministry.

These missionary priests would have been of the same era as those featured in the recent movie "Silence" directed by Martin Scorsese, said CNA.

Although the film released in Nov. 2016 is based on a fictional novel by the Japanese author Shusaku Endo, many of the events and people depicted in "Silence" are real.

The blurb for the movie shot mostly in Taiwan says it is a story of two Catholic missionaries (Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver) who face the ultimate test of faith when they travel to Japan in search of their missing mentor (Liam Neeson).

It is at a time when Catholicism is outlawed and their presence forbidden.

In the real life story, instead of denying their faith, Takayama and his father left their prestigious position in society and chose a life of poverty and exile.

Although many of his friends tried to persuade Takayama to deny Catholicism, he remained strong in his beliefs.

Takayama "did not want to fight against other Christians, and this led him to live a poor life, because when a samurai does not obey his 'chief,' he loses everything he has," Father Anton Witwer, a general postulator in the Jesuits told CNA in 2014.

After 10 years, the chancellor became persecuted the Christians more fiercely. He eventually crucified 26 Catholics, and by 1614, Christianity in Japan was completely banned.

The new boycott on Christianity forced Takayama to leave Japan in exile with 300 other Catholics. They fled to the Philippines, but not long after his arrival, Takayama died on February 3, 1615.

In 2013, the Japanese bishops' conference submitted a 400-page application for the beatification of Takayama to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

On Jan. 22, 2016, Takayama's advancement in the cause for canonization was further proclaimed when Pope Francis approved his decree of martyrdom.

"Since Takayama died in exile because of the weaknesses caused by the maltreatments he suffered in his homeland, the process for beatification is that of a martyr," Witwer explained.

Takayama's life exemplifies the Christian example of "a great fidelity to the Christian vocation, persevering despite all difficulties," he said.
The Mexican state of Sinaloa has been gripped by escalating violence following the extradition of drug kingpin Joaquin El Chapo Guzman in January. Between Sunday and Tuesday, 13 people died in five gun battles between criminal gangs in the capital of Culiacan.

A soldier at the scene of a shooting in Culiacan. Rashide Frias (AP)

More information La violencia se dispara en Sinaloa tras la extradicion de El Chapo Guzman

El Chapos extradition has created a power vacuum within the Sinaloa cartel that former leaders and Guzmans sons are fighting to fill. This has led to an increase in violence not seen since 2008 or 2011, during the worst years of the war against the drug cartels unleashed by former president Felipe Calderon.

On Sunday evening, two gangs fought a gun battle near the airport at Sinaloas capital of Culiacan that left two people injured. Less than an hour later, two men died in a shootout in the city. On Monday, Mexican troops confronted a group of armed men, but no casualties were reported. The following day, a clash between security forces and armed men in Culiacan left six dead.

Key police officers have been replaced by members of the armed forces

On Tuesday afternoon, in the small community of Navolato, around 55 km from Culiacan, a shootout between two rival gangs left five dead, one of them a woman with no relation to the gangs who was hit by a stray bullet.

Videos and reports on the social networks warning of the presence of groups of armed men and gunfights in different areas of the city have prompted widespread panic. In response, state prosecutor Marco Antonio Higuera held a press conference on Wednesday morning explaining that the gunfights were between two rival gangs and that a strategy involving federal security forces was being worked out to prevent a return to the violence of nine years ago.

Following El Chapos arrest and extradition to the United States on January 19, a power struggle is being waged within the Sinaloa cartel for control of the organization, says journalist Javier Valdez.

The only person with any influence and power within the organization is Ismael Zambada [one of the founders of the cartel] but he has not shown the same level of violence as El Chapos sons or his brother Aureliano Guzman and this has led to misunderstandings between them, says Valdez.

El Chapo had reportedly reached an agreement with Zambada over roles and responsibilities within the Sinaloa Cartel, but following his extradition, El Chapos sons have allegedly fallen out with Zambada. They dont want to take his advice. They are much more violent and are more sympathetic toward weapons than toward words, and that is very dangerous, says Valdez.

Residents of the capital, Culiacan, are gripped by panic

The situation in Sinaloa has been exacerbated by the arrival of a new state governor, Quirino Ordaz, who replaced key people in local and regional positions with members of the armed forces, says Valdez.

He got rid of everybody who was working with the drug traffickers in the state and put in new people with no connection. But if you replace the police chiefs you destabilize everything: who they have to work with, who to negotiate with, and who to see, he explains.

Martin Barron agrees that the increase in violence began after Ordaz made the changes throughout the police force.

Like it or not, some kind of agreement needs to be reached with these criminal gangs so that they can function, he argues.

English version by Nick Lyne.




US rejects 8 shrimp shipments from Thailand, Vietnam, China in Jan.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has refused eight shrimp entry lines due to banned drug residues during the first month of 2017, according to the Southern Shrimp Alliance. The alliance is an organisation of shrimp fishermen, shrimp processors and other members of the domestic industry in the eight warm-water shrimp-producing states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas.

The January figure was the highest in a month since August 2016. The eight shrimp entry lines were from Thailand, Vietnam and China.

Narong Seafood Co., Ltd. (Thailand), a company that has been on import alert for nitrofurans in its shrimp since June 13, 2016, had five entry lines refused for shrimp products contaminated with nitrofurans and veterinary drug residues--three of "shrimp and prawns", one of "shrimp chow mein dinners, mixed fishery/seafood products" and one of "stuffed pasta with shrimp (NEC), mixed fishery/seafood products".

Minh Phu Seafood Corp. (Vietnam), a company not currently on any import alert, had one entry line refused for shrimp contaminated with veterinary drug residues.

Ca Mau Seafood Processing & Service Joint Stock (Vietnam), a company that has been on Import Alert 16-124 for enrofloxacin in its shrimp since Dec. 8, 2016, had one entry line refused for shrimp contaminated with veterinary drug residues.

Jiachang Aquatic Product Co. Ltd. (China), a company that has not been exempted from an import alert, had one entry line refused for "seafood salad (shrimp, crab, etc.), mixed fishery/seafood products" contaminated with veterinary drug residues.

Unusual for Thai-origin shrimp

According to the Southern Shrimp Alliance, the number of entry lines refused in January for Thai-origin shrimp was quite unusual. Prior to that month, there had been only 17 entry lines of shrimp refused from Thailand due to banned antibiotics since 2002. Fifteen of those 17 refusals took place in 2003. "In other words, in the thirteen years between 2004 and 2016, just two entry lines of shrimp from Thailand were refused by the FDA for reasons related to banned antibiotics", the alliance noted.

All five entry line refusals from Thailand were shipped from Narong Seafood, which has been certified under the Global Aquaculture Alliance's (GAA) Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) programme as a one-star shrimp processing plant. The GAA's website indicates that Narong Seafood Company's BAP certification is valid until April 20, 2017, according to the Southern Shrimp Alliance.

"The entry line refusals for shrimp products shipped by Narong Seafood Co., Ltd. for reasons related to banned antibiotics are another unusual development for any Thai company", the alliance said.




Why Is Armenia Procuring Low Quality Superjets

Russias Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov has recently told the journalists that Armenia is interested in obtaining Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100 civil aircraft. In particular, the airplanes will be obtained by the Armenian-Russian joint airline. Superjet 100 In 2011, Armenias national carrier Armavia had procured Sukhoi Superjet 100 but then had refused from it, referring to its bad quality and high maintenance costs. From the day of their creation, there have been numerous reports about technical issues of the jets (the representatives of Sukhoy company do admit it). In December 2016, Russias Federal Air Transport Agency suspended operation of 6 superjets of IrAero and made the Sukhoy company check not only the aforementioned six jets, but also all the Superjet 100s that are under operation. And while Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Group, which designs the Superjet 100s, has stated that 20% of the total fleet of these aircrafts is being repaired, 80% is actually under operation. This means that one Sukhoi Superjet 100 out of five is out of order. Note that these Russian planes are not distinguished by having high demand in the market, and about 80% of their buyers are Russian airlines. During more than 5 years of its existence, only 84 airplanes have been sold. At the same time, the Aerobus sold about 200 planes of that kind (A318 and A319). The Boeing-737 has also been produced in approximately the same quantity. And the Brazilian Embraer company has produced and sold 5-6 times more jets of that kind (Embraer 190 and 195 for about 100 passengers) during the last 5 years compared to the Russian Sukhoi company. EAEU Thus, a rightful question arises If all the airlines prefer European, American and even Brazilian aircraft, why is Armenia discussing the procurement of Sukhoi Superjet 100 jets, which are notorious for their technical issues and lack of economic profitability. Moreover, there are used Aerobus A-319s, Boeing 373s, Embarer 195s and other jets, which satisfy all (including European) the technical criteria, are affordable and easy (also cheap) to use. The answer to the question can be found in the customs tariffs. Before Armenia became EAEU member, this class of jets used to be cleared with 0 customs tariffs in Armenia. Currently, the importer has to pay an 18,9% customs duty. Moreover, the airplanes are not included in the list of temporary privileges, and, hence, the customs tariff has been valid since January 2015. This is the reason why Armenian businessmen are considering purchasing Russian airplanes (and Sukhoi Superjet 100 is the only civil aircraft). In order to obtain any other aircraft, they would have to pay 18,9% of its price to the EAEU budget. Daniel Ioannisyan, Union of Informed Citizens
Beaver County preparing for robust Election Day turnout

As the Nov. 8 midterm election approaches, nearly 114,000 people are registered to vote in Beaver County.
Lapshins case was a blow to Artsakhs economy (video)

Lapshns case was a test paper, which once again showed that our allies work against us, today media expert, journalist Tatul Hakobyan told the journalists. CSTO member at least two countries, Belarus and Russia, sell weapons to Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan through different diplomatic circles supports Azerbaijans interests. We all know that Armenian joined the EEU against its will; Vladimir Putin made that decision, and Serzh Sargsyan couldnt ask the opinion of Armenians at a night, said the journalist, adding that Lapshins case will not influence Karabakh issue resolution. The NA Heritage faction lawmaker Tevan Poghosyan noted that after Lapshins case Armenia must learn lessons, understand how it should act in such situations, how it should move forward its interests. According to the lawmaker, the behavior of Armenias Ambassador to Belarus shows that we have systemic problems, It is the result of bad work of the whole state. It isnt possible that the state be good, but the Ambassador be bad. NKR NA lawmaker Hayk Khanumyan was also taking part in the discussion through video call; he noted that Lapshins case was a blow directed to the tourism of Artsakh, Azerbaijan always systematically hit Artsakhs economy. Escalation in April was directed towards mining and hydroelectricity industries, and before that they were trying to hinder agricultural activities. Annually 15 thousand foreign tourists visit Artsakh. This number has been decreased after events in August, 2014 and April, 2016.
Treasury invites feedback on customs changes

The Government is asking for feedback from the Manx public as it prepares to update the Island's customs and excise legislation.

The Treasury has drafted a new Customs and Excise Bill which will go before the branches of Tynwald in the future after a period of public consultation.

The consultation documents describe the current system as becoming inadequate, referencing the Island's need for flexibility to respond to changes with the UK and the EU.

The proposed changes include updating the definition of cash to include some stored-value cards, updating rules on declaring sums of cash when entering the Island and bringing in records of declarations and disclosures.

Many of the changes are in direct response to the EU's Moneyval report, which found the Island needs to improve its financial intelligence and investigations.

Feedback on the consultation must be submitted by March 24th - full details on the consultation are available on the Government's website.
Ameriabank: At the Vanguard of Armenia's Banking Sector

STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARTSAKH

SUBSCRIBERS OF UCOMS ALL TIME BEST OFFER TO ENJOY ADDITIONAL BENEFITS

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

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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

The statement of the Defender on the video of the execution of Armenian PoWs by the Azerbaijani armed forces

LEVEL UP ONLY FOR STUDENTS: UCOM OFFERS X2 AND X3 MORE INTERNET

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
Jamie Dornan, the lead star in "Fifty Shades Darker," had a lot of interesting things to say about his role as Christian Grey in the movie, which will be out in the market on Feb. 10. Did the film affect him personally? How did the role change him, if at all?

The movie, "Fifty Shades Darker," didn't transform him too much, Jamie Dornan said. The 34-year-old actor explained that playing the role of Christian Grey coincided with the birth of his two children -- Dulcie, 3, and Phoebe, 1. Co-parenting his toddlers with his wife, Amelia Warner, was what really changed his life a lot, he said. Being a father was "totally life transforming," he told ET.

But otherwise, things do remain the same for Jamie Dornan. Acting in the film, or even its earlier avatar, "Fifty Shades of Grey," did not influence him. It did not make any difference to his fatherhood. Still, one notable fact that changed since the movie was made was the fact that playing Christian Grey made him a recognizable person in society. It's not "crazy" to be well recognized, he felt. Yet, Dornan was glad that he had done a good job "blending in" with his surroundings.

Working with his leading lady, Dakota Johnson, who played the role of Anastasia Steele, also helped to improve his life. Jamie Dornan became good friends with the co-star, with whom he completed some hot scenes that became "a good thing."

Jamie Dornan did think that the leading pair should have each other's support so that they can partner while performing steamy scenes. Love and respect are very essential, he said. Fortunately, they do get along well, otherwise, work could become so tough - actually a "horror story," he explained.

Dakota Johnson agreed with him on all counts. She said that the pair became so friendly during the making of the first movie that acting in the second movie, "Fifty Shades Darker" was just like working with a friend every day, she told ET. Johnson got close to both Jamie Dornan and his wife, Amelia Warner.

"Fifty Shades Darker" features some sexy scenes that overshoot the number of hot shots in the first film, "Fifty Shades of Grey." But It is interesting to learn that Universal Pictures have forbidden Jamie Dornan, Dakota Johnson, and the entire cast of the film from "making sexual and graphic references" to the world outside, according to AVClub.

There are a number of characters and personalities in the current film who are explored. It is crucial to get along with the leading man, explained Johnson. Other stars in "Fifty Shades Darker" include Marcia Gay Harden (Grey's mother), Rita Ora (Mia), Luke Grimes (Elliot) and Hugh Dancy (Grey's psychiatrist).

YouTube/TODAY
The return of the second half of "The Walking Dead" Season 7 is getting very near, thus fans are now excited how the future of everyone will unfold. In spite of the tragic beginning, the midseason finale ended with a positive note that gives hope to Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and the rest of the group.

In "The Walking Dead" Season 7, fans will see Rick, Michonne (Danai Gurira) Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Daryl (Norman Reedus) once again reunited at the Hilltop. This, too, will be the time that the show's protagonist will stand again on his ground and take his vengeance to Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan).

According to AMC, "The Walking Dead" Season 7 will be all about Rick and his group's preparation for the war. They will be all seen gathering supplies, looting and preparing weapons to face the evilest villain the show ever had. However, taking down Negan will need the involvement of the many, not only the people of Alexandria, so the group will build an alliance with other communities, New York Post reported.

As Rick is about to take his revenge to Negan in the continuation of "The Walking Dead" Season 7, the television series' finale is said to give him his moment. At the 2017 Walker Stalker Cruise panel, Jeffrey Dean Morgan revealed that the show's last episode will once again make the character of Andrew Lincoln shine.

"I'm glad that Rick can have a moment. I think this has been a tough season," the "Supernatural" actor said, per Comic Book. "Maybe Negan was sort of happy. I think Negan will be amused by him having a moment." As Rick will have the time of his life in "The Walking Dead" Season 7, this might imply that he has the chance to put Negan down.

Norman Reedus, too, has his comment about Rick's moment in "The Walking Dead" Season 7. The "Ride with Norman Reedus" star revealed that "things can always turn around" for Andrew Lincoln and Jeffrey Dean Morgan's characters as tough guys didn't really mean to be tough at times. The remaining eight episodes of the horror drama will return on Feb. 12 on AMC.


Samsung's big $3 billion loss caused by the exploding batteries on the current generation Galaxy Note devices, the Galaxy Note 7, was not a joke for the company. However, some critics just can't help but laugh at the latest news that has come out of South Korea. New reports have revealed that the factory that made the faulty batteries on the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 had apparently caught fire.

In what seems to be an ironic turn of events, Samsung SDI's factory in Tianjin' Wuqing district in China had apparently caught on fire. According to a report from the South China Morning Post, a fire apparently broke out in the factory yesterday. A Samsung spokesperson mentioned in the report that the fire was just a "minor" one, but based on the photos in the publication, it seems like that was not the case.

The report further reveals that the fire started with some partially assembled batteries and several battery components. The city where the fire broke out even had to send a total of 19 fire engines with 110 firefighters arriving on the scene. Samsung's claim of it being a "minor fire" may have been greatly exaggerated.

Samsung previously launched a large investigation to find out the cause of their Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphones spontaneously combusting. Previous reports had claimed that the cause may have been its flawed design.

As reported by Geek, tolerances with the separation sheets and battery housings were even blamed at some point. However, after Samsung assigned over 200 engineers to test out 200,000 device and an additional 30,000 batteries, the company concluded that the cause of the fire was in fact, the batteries themselves.

Despite the alarming findings, there is a positive side to the entire investigation. Samsung likely now has an idea of what the quality of their batteries must be and it will be fairly safe to assume that they will no longer tolerate any mistakes with their next smartphone offerings.
When Nina Dobrev finally announced that she is coming back for "The Vampire Diaries" Season 8, it felt like some big secret had finally been revealed. Something similar has happened again but this time it is Nikki Reed, who has come out with a revelation.

Nikki Reed, Ian Somerhalder and Nina Dobrev came together for dinner this week and the Bulgarian actress also posted a picture of their reunion on Instagram, People reported. She captioned it with the words "farewell dinner with team "Somereed," making it pretty clear that there was no bad blood between her and Ian as well as his wife.

Even Nikki Reed shared the reunion picture on social media. The only difference was that she posted a long message underneath the photo that showed her, Nina Dobrev and Ian Somerhalder beaming with joy.

In her post, Nikki Reed took the media to task for spreading feud rumors, claims Huffington Post. She said that for the last few years, she and Nina thought that addressing the baseless rumors with silence was the best way.

However, their silence was taken as an opportunity to fill in the blanks with even more falsities and juicier stories and so, she felt it was her moral responsibility to end that narrative. Nikki Reed said that all the media outlets who painted her and Nina Dobrev as enemies should be ashamed of themselves as they were affecting impressionable young women in a negative way.

As for Ian Somerhalder, he was completely on board with the thoughts of his wife, Nikki Reed and supported her friendship with Nina Dobrev. The actor shared his own photo as well and captioned it with a sweet message saying that it is only loved here, has always been and will always be.

It is worth mentioning here that Nina Dobrev and Ian Somerhalder began dating while shooting for "The Vampire Diaries." However, they broke up after three years in 2013. In 2014, Somerhalder and Nikki Reed started seeing each other and it was at this time that feud stories of Nina Dobrev and Nikki Reed were making headlines despite the fact that the two insisted that they had respect for each other.
From Bloomberg:

A group of prominent Republicans and business leaders pitched a tax on carbon dioxide to top White House aides Wednesday, selling the plan as an economic win that could drive job growth and yield environmental dividends too.

Former Secretary of State James Baker and other members of the new "Climate Leadership Council" pressed the case in a 45-minute meeting in the Roosevelt Room that included President Donald Trumps top economic adviser Gary Cohn, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and senior aide Kellyanne Conway.

"The signs were very encouraging," Ted Halstead, who founded the council, said after the meeting. "Two weeks into this new administration, we have positioned our solution as the most promising climate solution -- if they want to go there."

Baker also met briefly with Vice President Mike Pence, as the old-guard Republicans try to persuade the Trump administration that a carbon tax imposed in exchange for abolishing a slew of environmental regulations is an insurance policy against the risks of climate change.

"We know we have an uphill slog to get Republicans interested in this," Baker said before the White House meeting. But "a conservative, free-market approach is a very Republican way of approaching the problem."
The FTC this week announced that smart TV manufacturer Vizio has agreed to pay $2.2 million to settle charges that it installed software on its TVs that collected data on 11 million consumers viewing habits without their consent.

In addition to paying the fine, Vizio is required to disclose and obtain express consent for any future data collection, to delete all data collected before March 1, 2016, to implement a comprehensive data privacy program, and to assess that program biennially.

According to the FTC and the New Jersey Attorney Generals Office, in February 2014, Vizio began offering smart TVs that captured second-by-second information about video being displayed on the devices.

The company then attached demographic information to that viewing data, including gender, age, income, marital status, education level, household size, home ownership and household value.

Vizio then sold that information to third parties for use in targeted advertising and for other purposes.

Vizio general counsel Jerry Huang said in a statement that the company is pleased with the resolution. Going forward, this resolution sets a new standard for best industry privacy practices for the collection and analysis of data collected from todays Internet-connected televisions and other home devices, he said.

Huang added that the program never paired viewing data with personally identifiable information, and only handled viewing data in the aggregate to create summary reports. Today, the FTC is made clear that all smart TV makers should get peoples consent before collecting and sharing television viewing information and Vizio now is leading the way, he said.

Eve Maler, vice president for innovation and emerging technology at ForgeRock, told eSecurity Planet by email that the Vizio case demonstrates that the government is becoming more aggressive in asserting consumers rights to have a say in how their personal data is used and shared.

With each gift-giving holiday and each Wi-Fi-enabled slow cooker and smart shirt entering peoples lives, these questions and concerns about the Internet of Things are only intensifying, Maler said. Even in the now-traditional Web and mobile worlds, consumers have become acutely aware of the threat of identity fraud and how their digital presence can be abused or misused.

Still, a recent Blumberg Capital survey of 1,012 U.S. adults found that 45 percent of respondents admitted they wouldnt be able to tell if they fell victim to a cybercrime without being alerted to it by a vendor or law enforcement authorities.

The most common actions taken by respondents in response to a cyber attack were to change their password (74 percent) and to contact their bank (46 percent).

Fifty-one percent of respondents said identity theft is the biggest cyber security issue facing consumers.

Just 39 percent of respondents are concerned about breaches of their laptop computers, and only 38 percent are concerned about breaches of their IoT devices such as smart appliances or smartphones.

Fifty-five percent of respondents said they believe the most important cyber security problem for businesses is securing customer information.




The arrest of BTG Pactuals CEO Andre Esteves at the end of 2015 (on still-unproven charges of obstruction of justice in Brazils seemingly never-ending corruption enquiry Lava Jato) sparked a run on the bank that very nearly led to its collapse.

Esteves was not just the public face of the bank, he was its founder, the dominant partner and its controlling shareholder. As such, key-man risk was baked into the banks governance model from the very start. So when police seized him at his house in Rio de Janeiro, they kickstarted a severe reputational stress test that BTG came dangerously close to failing.

However, while it passed, the banks wider governance model gave it the rigidity to survive the flight of assets caused by Esteves incarceration. And, as originator of this model, Esteves can paradoxically take a large amount of the personal credit for offsetting the risks that the centralization of his leadership had created.

In the 2012 IPO, the shares of the banks partners were not placed directly into the listed vehicle but rather into a holding company that was 100% owned by the partners. If partners want to leave the bank  or cash out a little  they cannot sell their shares on the open market. Instead they have to sell their shares back to the partnerships holding company at book value, with those shares reassigned to the remaining partners (also at book value).

Tying employees equity holdings up in this way  and requiring employees to invest their wealth in funds managed by the firm  clearly worked against any impulse to desert a sinking ship.

BTG Pactual marketed this innovative share-scheme design heavily in the IPO because it believed that it created an innovative and powerful incentive structure for investors  and contrasted it with IPOs by US investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, which made a lot of senior bankers very rich by enabling them to sell their positions at the listed price.

And, come the stress test, BTGs model proved solid. There was no exodus of key talent. Usually in similar situations, a banks competitors circle and tempt away or, at least, distract the talent required to pull the bank through the crisis.

No doubt

Huw Jenkins, who has seen a catastrophe first hand at UBS, is under no doubt that the partnership model gave BTG an edge in surviving the mess: If I look at the speed at which a classic joint stock bank reacted [to a crisis] versus a partnership  where all the senior traders have all their capital tied up in the shares of the company  then it is very different. The speed of response was one of the couple of real plusses [that came out of the BTG crisis].

Stronger alignment also seemed to help. With the bank in an existential crisis and scrambling for liquidity, there were no reported examples of bankers trying to protect individual P&L. The bank achieved its goal: survival.

There is one potential flaw in the governance structure: Esteves had to relinquish control voluntarily. The passing of his voting rights to the seven partners who owned the next largest block of shares in the bank only came into force if he was no longer an employee of the firm.

This condition was designed to provide for a smooth transfer of power should he die or become medically incapacitated  it had not envisaged him being sent to prison. But his personal economic alignment (he remains a large shareholder) means that it would have been a strange decision if he had not passed control to those still free to fight for the banks survival.

BTG Pactual provides an interesting case study. Regulators continue to grapple with complicated formulas to strengthen banks capital levels and tweak risk-weighted asset requirements. They have spawned new contingent convertible instruments that have changed the dispersion of risk when banks become illiquid but arguably have not done much to make these banks more stable during real-life stress tests.

Perhaps a simpler solution lies in trying to replicate the durability of partnerships  tying senior managements long-term economic interests once again to the viability of the organization that is rewarding them so handsomely  and in doing so better aligning their interests with those of shareholders.

As Esteves said in an interview with Euromoney in 2012, bankers in the US and Europe seem to expect the level of rewards reaped by entrepreneurs without accepting any of the personal liability if those banks fail.

BTG Pactual shows this old-fashioned partnership model can be better replicated through innovative executive compensation structures. And it is high time that they were.
In January, Mozambique failed to pay a $59.8 million coupon to its bondholders, saying that its capacity to service its debt would be very limited this year. This is the latest event in a saga that has lasted years and follows a meeting with creditors in October during which the country announced that its debt levels were unsustainable.

After the October revelation, the sovereigns bond  a 10.5% dollar-denominated bond maturing in 2023 and totalling $727 million  quickly lost value in secondary trading. Some analysts interpreted the announcement as meaning Mozambique might miss its January coupon payment. The bondholders apparently held on to the hope that they would receive their money as expected and declined to enter into negotiations with Mozambique over a debt restructuring.

Now that the bondholders know they will not receive the latest payment on Mozambiques debt, they may be finally forced to the negotiation table.

Stuart Culverhouse,

Exotix

Stuart Culverhouse, head of research at Exotix, tells Euromoney this may even be the reason for Mozambiques decision to withhold payment.

It seems the government is trying to take a hard line, he says.

A kinder reading is also possible: Mozambiques economic woes may be such that it simply cannot afford to pay. In any case, the failure to do so hardens the tone of whatever discussion will take place with the bondholders.

It gets more complicated. Mozambique and its bondholders are not the only parties involved in the debt restructuring process to come. Mozambique has held informal talks with the IMF and is hoping to obtain the Funds support. The IMF may well be willing to help, but only once the sovereigns existing debt is on a path to sustainability  meaning only once a restructuring has been agreed with the bondholders.

There is the rub.

So far, the bondholders have said they would not even consider a debt renegotiation until Mozambique had reached an agreement with the IMF, as they think only the IMF can now bolster the countrys weak financial position.

Its a chicken-and-egg situation: the IMF will not negotiate with Mozambique until the bondholders have done so and the bondholders wont until the IMF has.

Stuck in the middle is a country not known for savvy debt dealings.

But there is a solution to this seemingly intractable problem. Mozambique could negotiate with both parties simultaneously, rather than go through one restructuring process before moving to the other.

Simple enough, in theory at least. But it will require a little flexibility on all sides and for the IMF and bondholders to reassure one another that they are committed to making things work. If the bondholders and IMF are confident in each others participation and are regularly informed of the state of each others negotiations, a comprehensive debt restructuring deal, with the injection of new IMF money, could be struck.

Whether or not this will happen is, at this stage, anyones guess.

Trust

A level of trust is necessary for this solution to be workable. But all creditors have developed a profound distrust for the sovereign, borne out of years of deceit.

The last time the sovereign borrowed from the IMF, in 2015, it failed to disclose $1.4 billion of other borrowings, giving the Fund a false impression of the state of its finances  one of the worst possible offences as far as the IMF is concerned.

The bondholders have also been mistreated recently. The 2023 bond they now hold is itself the result of a previous restructuring  that of the much-maligned tuna bonds due in 2020. That restructuring took place only last year.

It is a near miracle that the sovereigns creditors have expressed a tentative willingness, whether on or off the record, to keep working with Mozambique. But if the country chooses to bulldoze through negotiations, forcing bondholders to the negotiating table and only then trying to reach a deal with the IMF (or vice versa), whatever goodwill there is could quickly evaporate.

Mozambiques economy is on its knees. The $1.4 billion of undisclosed debt alone represents over 10% of the countrys GDP  a huge burden on Mozambiques public funds. And although Mozambique struck gas in the Indian Ocean in 2010, that discovery has so far failed to produce the kind of economic growth many had hoped for.

The reputation of those that have worked on its debt  in particular Credit Suisse and VTB Capital  is also being damaged.

There are ways out of this mess. One such way is seeking the joint support of the IMF and the bondholders. If Mozambique opts for that approach, as appears likely, the country had better perform a thorough audit of its past borrowing mistakes and carefully plan the timing  and tone  of its debt talks.
Hello



I thought I should further clarify my originating post.



New credit card plastic IDs are now available but only to citizens of non EU countries who have been granted residence in Cyprus. They are available from Immigration Offices and replace their yellow slip. However, if you are a EU citizen, or a non EU Citizen partnered to an EU citizen and hold a yellow slip identifying you as a Non EU Citizen partnered to an EU citizen, you will only be issued with the yellow MEU1 or MEU2. I was told that this policy may be changed to include all but there are no target dates. Additionally, I was told that the new ID cards for aliens only has a life of 1 year. Not sure that this point is true though.



I am quite certain that Veronica is correct about carrying a yellow slip at all times. Not sure what the law is here concerning carrying ID. However, I carry a copy of my yellow slip. When in other countries I carry a laminated copy of the face page of my passport backed with my annual holiday insurance details. I mentioned the fact to 'friendly police' in South Africa and to an identity inspector in Abu Dhabi. Both were satisfied with my copy. The South African told me that although not the letter of the law at least they could quickly verify my status from the copy if need be. Indeed, in some countries it makes sense not to carry your actual passport.
Hi everyone,



I am an American currently living in the US, but I married my French husband last December and I am hoping to join him in Paris in April. We received our livret de famille last week, and I have an appointment with the French Consulate in Atlanta in March to request the Spouse Visa.



I've let me boss know that I am planning to move to France, and it turns out the company is interested in letting me work remotely. It's a very small company (that is already very short-staffed), so they can't afford to lose me and it will take them a while to find someone to replace me. I also know it will take me some time to find a job in Paris, so this seems like a good interim solution for both of us.



Ideally, I would not be doing this for more than six months (I did my masters degree in France and have previously worked in France, so I'm hopeful I'll be able find a new job in that time). Does anyone know if I will I need to get auto-entrepreneur status to work remotely if it's for less than 6 months?



If the answer is yes, I don't mind doing it, but my follow-up question is when can I set that up? Will I have to wait until after I have my OFII stamp? Or can I set it up even before I leave for France? What would be my best resource for looking for more information?



Any advice would be very appreciated!



Thank you in advance!
I am interested in knowing if there is an expat community in Frascati. Would appreciate any feedback.
DonAndAbby said: Can you elaborate on the BPI SS deposit fee? I will need to set up an account for this next year, and maybe I need to use another bank for my SS. Click to expand...

We use Metrobank for our finances including US Social Security. There is no charge for the SS do be directed deposited into the US Social Security dollar account. Also, there is no charge for us to transfer it into our peso account. We have been dealing with them for three years now and never an issue, problem, or a mistake. It is the best bank I/we have found and would recommend them.Jet Lag
Fitch Ratings in New York on Wednesday upgraded San Antonio-based iHeartMedia Inc.s long-term credit rating after the company  which is struggling under $20 billion in debt  extended the maturity of a portion of its bonds due in 11 months.

The upgrade came after a mechanical process downgrade that happens automatically when a company conducts and completes what Fitch calls a distressed debt exchange. IHearts subsidiaries owned $503 million of the bonds, while $235 million of the debt exchanged was held by outside investors.
WASHINGTON - President Trumps official counselor, Kellyanne Conway, was counseled after she told TV audiences to go buy Ivankas stuff, the White House said Thursday.

Legal experts said Conway had broken a key ethics law banning federal employees from using their public office to endorse products. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Thursday that Conway has been counseled, but offered no other comment.

Federal law bans employees from using their public office to endorse products. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Thursday that Conway has been counseled, but offered no other comment.

Conway, speaking to Fox & Friends viewers from the White House briefing room, was responding to boycotts of Ivanka Trump merchandise and Nordstroms discontinuation of stocking her clothing and shoe lines, which the retailer said was in response to low sales and which the president assailed as unfair.

Im going to give it a free commercial here, Conway said of the presidents daughters merchandise brand. Go buy it today.

Conway and officials from the Office of Government Ethics did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.

Several attorneys, including former heads of federal agencies, said Conways endorsement directly conflicted with OGE rules designed to separate government policy from private business dealings.

I dont see what their defense is, said Campaign Legal Center general counsel Lawrence Noble, who is also former counsel for the Federal Election Commission. She did this on television. She was very clear it was advertising. Hopefully at the very least they will acknowledge this is wrong.

Don W. Fox, former general counsel and former acting director of OGE, told the Washington Post that Conways encouragement to buy Ivankas stuff would seem to be a clear violation of rules prohibiting misuse of public office for anyones private gain.

He added: This is jaw-dropping to me. This rule has been promulgated by the federal Office of Government Ethics as part of the Standards of Conduct for all executive branch employees and it applies to all members of the armed forces as well.

Attorneys said a typical executive branch employee who violated the rule could face significant disciplinary action, including a multiday suspension and loss of pay.

Enforcement measures are largely left to the head of the federal agency  in Conways case, the White House.

Federal law states the director of OGE can advise the White House and Conway of the violation, conduct its own investigation and recommend that they consider disciplinary action.

But OGEs recommendations are nonbinding, and the ultimate decision resides with the White House.

Conways endorsement comes as the Trump administration faces growing scrutiny over whether it is taking fears of conflicts of interest seriously.

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, wrote a letter Thursday to his Republican counterpart, Jason Chaffetz of Utah, urging the committee to review what he called a textbook violation of government ethics laws.

Chaffetz, who before the election was a strong advocate of investigating Hillary Clinton, said this week he would likely resist Democrats urging to investigate possible conflicts of interest surrounding Trumps business interests. Chaffetz did not respond to requests for comment.

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Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington executive director Noah Bookbinder called Conways endorsement just another example of what looks like a disturbing pattern of this administration acting to benefit the businesses of the presidents family and supporters.

The president took to Twitter on Wednesday to lash out at Nordstrom for dropping Ivanka Trumps line, saying his daughter had been treated so unfairly by the store.

Said Peter Schweizer, who has worked closely with Trump aide Stephen K. Bannon and wrote the book Clinton Cash, which was critical of donations to the Clinton Foundation: Theyve crossed a very, very important bright line, and its not good. To encourage Americans to buy goods from companies owned by the first family is totally out of bounds and needs to stop.

Clearly, the Trumps feel some of this is related to politics. But whether thats true or not, these marketing battles need to be fought by Ivanka and her company. They cannot and should not be fought by government employees and the White House, Schweizer said. Its time to move beyond the mind-set and the role of a businessman and assume the mantle of commander of chief.

Conways endorsement of the Ivanka business also highlights an awkward reality for a White House threatening U.S. companies seeking to move jobs or operations overseas. Nearly all of Ivanka-brand merchandise is manufactured in low-cost-labor countries, including China, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Trump critics quickly seized on the endorsement. Robert Weissman, president of liberal advocacy group Public Citizen, said in a statement, Conways self-proclaimed advertisement for the Ivanka Trump fashion line demonstrates again what anyone with common sense already knew: President Trump and the Trump administration will use the government apparatus to advance the interests of the family businesses.

Trump last month tweeted his own support for another retailer, L. L. Bean, saying, People will support you even more now. Buy L.L.Bean. A company board member, Linda Bean, donated money to a pro-Trump super PAC. Lawyers said the federal ban on endorsements specifically exempts the president and vice president.
With the end of a Pacific La Nina and no clear signal of where ocean temperatures are heading, predicting spring and summer weather that will affect agriculture and energy markets just got a little harder.

A weak La Nina, which starts when the equatorial Pacific cools, has ended, the U.S. Climate Prediction Center said in a report Thursday. With its collapse, the U.S. raised the odds that a El Nino could form by the end of 2017 to 50 percent from 36 percent, though the agency has yet to issue a watch for the ocean-warming phenomenon.

That has left the Pacific in so-called neutral or normal conditions, with no dominating weather pattern, and traders without an important tool to predict how temperatures and rainfall may affect markets. Last year, a strong El Nino in the Pacific helped meteorologists forecast the winter of 2015-2016.

There is nothing pushing the atmosphere in a certain direction, said Michelle LHeureux, a forecaster with the Climate Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. Neutral for us means the predictability is more limited.

The cooling and the warming of the Pacific, which can upset global weather patterns, has the biggest affect on the U.S. in the fall, winter and spring. La Nina and El Nino can affect crop yields, demand for natural gas used to heat homes and electricity rates. Many long-term forecasts hinge on what the Pacific may do.

The latest La Nina episode lasted only four months and was among the weakest and shortest on record, coming on the heels of one of the strongest El Ninos, said Mike Halpert of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations Climate Prediction Center.

Strong La Ninas usually follow powerful El Ninos, which didnt happen in this case, said University of Washington atmospheric scientist Mike Wallace.

La Ninas often last a year or more, longer than El Ninos. La Nina conditions were first detected in October and disappeared in January. The event was so feeble it failed to meet the criteria used by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, which never acknowledged it.

Even though it was fairly weak and short-lived it did leave impacts, Halpert said, pointing to unusual cold in Alaska, western Canada and U.S. Northern Plains in December and January.

While ocean temperatures have become too warm for La Nina, the atmosphere is acting as if the phenomenon is still in play, LHeureux said.

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Even now over the U.S., you cannot rule out there is some lagging influence, she said.

Its still too early to issue a El Nino watch since the best chances for the event to form are more than six months away, LHeureux said. El Ninos can cut down on wind shear across the Atlantic making it easier for hurricanes to form, and have been known to bring cooler and stormier winters across the South.

Were not quite at the point where we feel confident enough to say that things are developing toward El Nino, she said.

If an El Nino returns quickly, it would be fairly unusual. Switching from El Nino to La Nina and back in less than three years has happened only once before in the 1960s, Halpert said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump opened his remarks at MacDill AFB on Monday with a campaign-style celebration of his election victory, citing polls that indicated he had won the votes of a large percentage of the military.

"We had a wonderful election, didn't we?" he proclaimed to an auditorium packed with officers and troops. "And I saw those numbers, and you liked me and I liked you. That's the way it worked."

A day later, defense policy experts - and retired officers, who are free to speak publicly about their concerns - complained that the new commander in chief had sent the wrong signal to the military, which is sworn to faithfully carry out the orders of the president, regardless of party, and is supposed to stay above the political fray.

"When President Trump suggested that it was good to support him and said he was so thankful for the support of the military, it showed that he doesn't understand what the military in a freely elected democracy is supposed to be doing," said Mark Hertling, a retired Army lieutenant general.

"The military takes an oath to defend the Constitution, not certain politicians," he added.

There is no debate that MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, home of the military's Central Command and its Special Operations Command, was a fitting place for Trump to visit. Those commands bear most of the responsibility for carrying out the campaign against the Islamic State, the group Trump vowed to destroy.

Trump's decision to visit the base so early in his presidency was "a very big deal," Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the head of the Central Command, said as he introduced the president.

Trump's overt partisanship before an audience of armed forces personnel runs against a decadeslong legacy of civilians who have guided the military in keeping with a president's policies, while maintaining a distance from overt politics.
WASHINGTON - Angry at the civilian casualties incurred last month in the first commando raid authorized by President Donald Trump, Yemen has withdrawn permission for the United States to run Special Operations ground missions against suspected terror groups in the country, according to U.S. officials.

Grisly photographs of children apparently killed in the crossfire of a 50-minute firefight during the raid caused outrage in Yemen. A member of the Navy's SEAL Team 6, Chief Petty Officer William Owens, was also killed in the operation.

While the White House continues to insist that the attack was a "success" - a characterization it repeated Tuesday - the suspension of commando operations is a setback for Trump, who has made it clear he plans to take a far more aggressive approach against Islamic militants.

Raid OK'd over dinner

It also calls into question whether the Defense Department will receive permission from the president for far more autonomy in executing its counterterrorism missions in Yemen, which it sought, unsuccessfully, from President Barack Obama in the last months of his presidency.

Obama deferred the decision to Trump, who appeared inclined to grant it: His approval of the Jan. 29 raid came over a dinner four nights earlier with his top national security aides, rather than in the kind of rigorous review in the Situation Room that became fairly routine under President George W. Bush and Obama.

The raid, in which just about everything went wrong, was an early test of Trump's national security decision-making - and his willingness to rely on the assurances of his military advisers. His aides say that even though the decision was made over a dinner, it had been fully vetted, and had the requisite legal approvals.

Trump will soon have to make a decision about the more general request by the Pentagon to allow more of such operations in Yemen without detailed, and often time-consuming, White House review. It is unclear whether Trump will allow that, or how the series of mishaps that marked his first approval of such an operation may have altered his thinking about the human and political risks of such operations.

The Pentagon has said that the main objective of the raid was to recover laptop computers, cellphones and other information that could help fill gaps in its understanding of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, whose leaders have attempted at least three attacks on the United States. But it is unclear whether the information the commandos recovered will prove valuable.

The White House continued its defense of the raid Tuesday, making no reference to the Yemeni reaction.

'Highly successful'

Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, denied reports that the purpose of the attack was to capture or kill any specific al-Qaida leader. "The raid that was conducted in Yemen was an intelligence-gathering raid," he said. "That's what it was. It was highly successful. It achieved the purpose it was going to get, save the loss of life that we suffered and the injuries that occurred."

Neither the White House nor the Yemenis have publicly announced the suspension

It was unclear if Yemen's decision to halt the ground attacks was also influenced by Trump's inclusion of the country on his list of nations from which he wants to temporarily suspend all immigration, an executive order that is being challenged in the federal courts.

According to U.S. civilian and military officials, the Yemeni ban on operations does not extend to military drone attacks.

In 2014, Yemen's government temporarily halted those drones from flying because of botched operations that also killed civilians. But later they quietly resumed, and in recent years they have been increasing in frequency, a sign of the fact that al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, is considered one of the most dangerous terrorist groups in the world.

The raid stirred immediate outrage among Yemeni government officials, some of whom accused the Trump administration of not fully consulting with them before the mission. Within 24 hours of the assault on a cluster of houses in a tiny village in mountainous central Yemen, the country's foreign minister, Abdul Malik Al Mekhlafi, condemned the raid in a post on his official Twitter account as "extrajudicial killings."

In an interview with Al-Jazeera this week, Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak, Yemen's ambassador to the United States, said that President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi raised concerns about the raid in a meeting with the U.S. ambassador to Yemen in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Feb. 2.

"Yemen's government is a key partner in the war against terrorism," Mubarak said in the interview, adding that Yemen's cooperation should not come "at the expense of the Yemeni citizens and the country's sovereignty."

Capitol Hill briefing

The Pentagon has acknowledged that the raid killed several civilians, including children, and is investigating. The dead include, by the account of relatives, the 8-year-old daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, the U.S.-born Qaida leader who was killed in a targeted drone strike in 2011.

In a sign of the contentiousness that public disclosures of the raid have caused, Pentagon officials on Tuesday provided lawmakers on Capitol Hill with a classified briefing on the mission.

One participant in that meeting said military officials told them "they got what they wanted," without offering details. But Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said afterward that the raid was a failure.
KERRVILLE  The generous nature of F. ONeil Neil Griffin already was well known to officials of the Alamo Colleges Foundation, but the local philanthropist who made his fortune in banking outdid himself Thursday by gifting $2.445 million to the regional education center here.

The money, which will go for scholarships, programs, operations and upgrades to the Alamo Colleges Greater Kerrville Center, which opened in 2008, is the largest gift banked by the foundation in its 32-year history.

The previous record amount  $1.05 million  was given by Griffin and his late wife, Elaine, in 2010 to fund the Neil and Elaine Griffin Foundation Endowed Kerrville Opportunity Scholarship.

Neil Griffin, 90, said his support for the modest local campus and its students is his way of repaying society for the GI Bill benefits that allowed him to become the first member of his family to attend college 71 years ago.

The education that I got really changed my life and opened doors that I otherwise would never have seen, he told a crowd of about 40 gathered for the gift announcement, including Alamo Colleges District brass, Schreiner University leaders and administrators of the Kerrville Independent School District.

About 150 students are currently enrolled in workforce development programs and core academic courses in the 19,000-square-foot facility, one of two regional centers that complement the districts five campuses around San Antonio. The other regional center is in New Braunfels.

Appreciative college district officials heaped praise on Griffin, who described his far-reaching philanthropic endeavors as following a commandment of Christ.

If you are really blessed, you are supposed to share it with others, said Griffin, who was joined at Thursdays ceremony announcing the gift by his wife, Gena Griffin.

Since its inception, the local center has enrolled 11,316 students, officials said, including 83 scholarship recipients.

The gift will provide an additional $1.223 million to the existing scholarship fund, $500,000 to renovate the career and technical education building at the center, and $722,500 to establish the Neil and Gena Griffin Endowed Excellence Fund that will supply ongoing funding for programs, facilities and operations.

Jim Eskin, executive director of the foundation, jokingly said Griffin was creating his own GI Bill, of sorts, although no military experience is required to qualify for the scholarships.

Mr. Griffin lives by the creed that good fortune is for sharing, Eskin said.

Yvonne Katz, chairman of the districts board, said the new gift would allow even more students to improve their education and chances for success in life.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, she told Griffin, shaking his hand and urging him to step up again in the future and break the foundations gifting record for the third time.

Also among the speakers was Christina Exum, who credited Griffin with allowing her to get off welfare and study at the education center in preparation for getting a nursing degree.

Your very generous donation has allowed me to realize the dreams in my life, Exum said at the ceremony. Thank goodness for people like Mr. Griffin and his wife who make these donations. They really make a difference.

zeke@express-news.net
District 8 City Council candidate Manny Pelaez pushed back Wednesday on lingering residency questions as an opponent filed an ethics complaint against him for distributing campaign cupcakes at a city-operated senior center.

At issue is whether Pelaez lived in District 8 by July 20, as he says he did. City Clerk Leticia Vacek said Wednesday that she could not disqualify Pelaez from the May 6 ballot based on the residency allegations. Aggrieved opponents, she said, would have to seek relief in district court.

State district court is the venue that determines residency issues, she said.

When a candidate files for a place on the ballot, the city clerks office checks with the Bexar County Elections Office to confirm that the candidate is a registered voter in the district for which hes running. The verification process does not include a check on whether the candidate has been a resident of the district for the requisite preceding six months.

Pelaez pushed back on the residency questions in a morning email to supporters.

When it comes to politics, it is common for opponents to desperately attack the front-runner. My campaign for City Council District 8 is no different. Someone is launching an attack, questioning my residency, and consequently, has fed the story to the press, he wrote. I want to set the record straight: I live in District 8.

The email goes on to tell his story about moving to his parents lavish Dominion home to help care for his elderly father.

Despite these desperate attacks, I will continue to run a positive campaign and focus on the issues that matter most to you: reducing traffic congestion, improving public safety, and creating better jobs, said the email, which ended with a request for campaign contributions.

Meanwhile, opponent Tony Valdivia filed an ethics complaint against Pelaez and sought direction on how to address the residency issue. He said late Wednesday that hes considering his options and will decide whether to pursue legal action in the courts.

Valdivias ethics complaint alleges Pelaez violated city policy by distributing cupcakes emblazoned with campaign materials at the District 8 Bob Ross Senior Center in December.

Pat Stout, who is also running for the District 8 seat, has apparently inquired about filing a complaint about Pelaezs residency.

A story on the front page of Wednesdays San Antonio Express-News called into question whether Pelaez has lived in his parents Dominion home since last May or June, when he says he moved there with his wife and children to help his ailing father. Several social media items posted as late as December depict Pelaez still living in the home he owns with his wife on Mesa Run  in District 9s Stone Oak neighborhood.

The story also referred to Pelaezs campaign website, which said he sat on the board of the San Antonio Water System. On Wednesday, SAWS verified that Pelaez was never a trustee but did sit on a citizens rate-structure advisory committee. Pelaez said his website was incorrect and needed to be fixed, and by Wednesday evening, it had been updated.

Pelaez said hes confident that he did not violate city policies by campaigning inside the senior center.

Im a lawyer. I looked it up. Were not subject to the prohibition against giving gifts because Im not an elected official, he said. We showed up and did something very, very nice for a group of seniors, and every senior walked out of there with a delicious cupcake. My family and I were there, and it was one of the best days of 2016.

Pelaezs assessment on distributing gifts  including campaign cupcakes  may not violate San Antonios code of ethics, which does not speak to non-incumbent candidates informally handing out campaign materials at senior centers. But the act appears to run afoul of policies on political activity set by the Department of Human Services.

Those policies  posted on the citys elections home page, and covered in candidate training sessions conducted by the city  say that while candidates may mingle informally at any time, they may not provide gifts to the center or senior participants with political messages, slogans, advertisements, or candidate names.

A video and photo posted on his campaigns Facebook page show the cupcakes, each of which is topped with a card showing his portrait and name. The video also shows a photo of him speaking into a microphone at the senior center. The citys policy states that candidates for any public office may not address senior participants via political speech of campaign presentations.

Pelaez also responded to questions about a sellers disclosure associated with the sale of his home in District 9, which is expected to be finalized later this month. Initialed and signed by Pelaez, the document says the seller was occupying the home at the time of listing.

Yeah, my house was being occupied. There were people in the house, he said. The house was occupied  thats the only statement youll get from me on that one.

For Valdivia, Pelaezs residency is an issue of transparency. Pelaez signed under oath a document at the city clerks office, dated Jan. 20, stating that hed lived in District 8 for 7.5 months. The sellers disclosure, which he also signed, says the owner was occupying the Mesa Run home when the document was filled out on Dec. 21, Valdivia said.

Valdivia called on his opponent to provide canceled checks or bank statements showing that hed received rent payments showing that Pelaez had leased his District 9 home to a tenant.

Hes touted how important it is to have transparency in government, Valdivia said. I think thats true, and I think it should also apply to candidates.

jbaugh@express-news.net

Twitter: @jbaugh
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A woman who was shot dead while she was sitting in her car in 2015 was an unwitting victim, a college graduate who had lost her way and become involved with heroin, prosecutors told the jury Wednesday in the murder trial of a San Antonio man.

Miguel Martinez was 27 when he was charged with murder in the death of Laura Carter, 33. Police said she had her hands in her pockets, sitting in her vehicle in the 300 block of Arrid Drive on the Southeast Side, when she was shot five times in the head. Her body was found a little after 7 p.m. Jan. 11, 2015.

About two weeks later, police arrested Martinez without incident during a traffic stop in the 2900 block of Southwest Military Drive. Martinez pleaded not guilty.

Bexar County District Attorney Nicholas Nico LaHood is prosecuting the case himself along with Assistant District Attorney Jason Goss in 437th state District Court, Judge Lori Valenzuela presiding.

LaHood said he is actively involved in the daily review of cases and works them with his assistant DAs from every section within his office.

This particular case caught my attention because of the sheer callousness and cold bloodedness of the defendants actions, LaHood said.

In the prosecutions opening statement, Goss told the jury that Carter, a masters student at UTSA, was sitting in the drivers seat, had her seat belt on and her legs crossed, when she was shot from the passengers side.

She didnt know it was coming, Goss told the jury. One of the bullets was found in her mouth. It destroyed her teeth.

He asked the jury to imagine Carter as the sheep, and Martinez as the wolf.

Sheep sometimes lose their way, and the wolf takes advantage of the sheep, Goss said. Laura Carter lost her way a little bit and was set upon by a wolf.

Goss told the jury that Carter had an opioid problem that started with pills, then developed into a dependence for pain pills.

After she met him (Martinez), he started giving her heroin, Goss said.

He told the jury that Carter had withdrawn $7,000 and planned to give the money to Martinez to buy drugs so they could split the profits and she wouldnt have to work and go to school.

Police did not find a weapon.

Wednesday, Jurors heard from two witnesses who were just a house or two away from where Carter was killed. Cynthia Garza said she and her grandson, whom she raised since infancy and refers to as her son, were about to eat dinner when they heard six gunshots.

I told my son to duck, but he didnt listen, said Garza, who called 911 to report the shooting,

The trial is expected to last two weeks. If convicted of murder, Martinez, now 29, faces a maximum of life in prison.

This is the third trial LaHood has prosecuted personally since his election in 2014.

In March 2015, LaHood and Scott Simpson, an assistant district attorney with the DA's Child Abuse Unit, argued the punishment hearing of Dominique Martez Reed. He was sentenced to life in prison for the death of his infant daughter, Zaniyah Reed, who died from multiple blunt force injuries.

In August 2015, LaHood and Goss prosecuted former Robstown and Corpus Christi police officer Jessie Hernandez, who was found guilty of aggravated assault in the shooting of two Selma police officers. He also was sentenced to life in prison.

LaHood was scheduled to prosecute two cases in 2016 but the defendants in each case took plea deals.

ezavala@express-news.net

Twitter: @elizabeth2863
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Christian Bautista was a lot of things: a seasoned criminal, an apparent gang member, a wild-eyed killer who stabbed Lauren Bump 27 times while the 24-year-old was jogging in O.P. Schnabel Park on the Northwest Side in 2013.

He was not, however, an undocumented immigrant.

State Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, made that claim this week at the Capitol while debating the merits of his controversial sanctuary cities bill. Senate Bill 4 would punish local and state governments that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration officials or enforce immigration laws.

During a six-hour debate, Perry launched into a list of supposed victims of undocumented immigrants. He was trying to justify a proposed measure requiring local law enforcement to honor detainers  requests by federal officials to hold on to immigrants who are in the country illegally.

The third on Perrys list of victims: Lauren Bump, 24, Texas, 2013.

I can go on and list, the senator said. Those are real faces with real names that are no longer here today because the detainer process was not complied with. So we can have the debate about the outcomes from this bill. Those are realities of the day.

Perry must have meant alternative facts of the day. The reality is that Bumps killer was not an undocumented immigrant, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Christian Ivan Bautista-Velasco had been referred by local law enforcement to (ICE) officials in the past, the federal agency stated on Wednesday. However, it was later determined that he is a U.S. citizen. Therefore, ICE has no jurisdiction regarding this individual.

In naming Bump, Perry was reading from a list compiled by The Remembrance Project, a Houston-based nonprofit that seeks to publicize Americans killed by undocumented immigrants. The anti-immigrant group memorializes each victim on a stolen lives quilt that it displays at nativist events across the country.

Bump is listed among its stolen lives.

A request for comment emailed to The Remembrance Project was not returned on Wednesday.

Perrys reliance on a slanted source to justify his bill is galling, but it isnt surprising in an era of alternative facts.

The true facts simply dont fit Perrys storyline. Bumps murder was horrific, but it was not committed by an undocumented immigrant who should have been arrested by police before it happened.

Perry was spurred to recite his list by state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, who was trying to articulate the impact of a bill that would ban local law enforcement agencies from prohibiting their officers from asking about someones immigration status.

Addressing Perry, Whitmire asked about Rosa, an undocumented immigrant and single mother in Houston.

Under your bill, would she not have to worry about being pulled over for a broken taillight? Whitmire said. If under your legislation, they ask ICE about her, and theres a detainer, who is going to pick her 9-year-old up from one of our intermediate schools in Houston? Help me with that, senator, because that is an actual, living case as I stand before you. What do I tell Rosa?

I have refrained from using this information for lots of reasons, Perry responded. But let me list something for you, Sen. Whitmire.

He added, Im an accountant, not a wordsmith, so  and he began to recite the names.

A careful accountant, though, would not have counted Bump.

bchasnoff@express-news.net
A white bungalow on the southern stretch of the San Antonio River, with a pear tree in the front yard and two fishing boats in the back, is standing in the way of local developer James Lifshutzs plans to redevelop the ruins of the Hot Wells resort.

The property offers the easiest access to the ruins, where celebrities and presidents used to soak in the healing sulfuric hot springs more than a century ago. Lifshutz, who owns 21 acres there, wants to build single-family homes and an ice house around the ruins, which would be donated to Bexar County for a park.

But the bungalow has belonged to the Torres family for 150 years, and they arent budging. Theyve rebuffed several offers from Lifshutz and appeals from county officials. The county has asked to survey the property twice and officials say theyre looking at putting a road through their yard, making the family worried their land could be taken against their will through eminent domain.

Members of the Torres family enjoy the privacy of their homestead, where their matriarch, 92-year-old Crisanta Torres, lives with two of her sons, a pair of rottweilers and a multitude of potted plants. The family has owned the land since the Civil War, and their ancestors worked at Hot Wells before the resort was destroyed by a fire in 1925, said Ray Torres, Crisantas son.

The property feels secluded from the city, but its close enough to see the fireworks at Hemisfair on the fourth of July. It has a dazzling view of sunsets over the river. The entire family gathers there for parties on birthdays, New Years Eve, Mothers Day, and pretty much any other occasion.

When asked if she would consider leaving her home, Crisanta Torres emphatically shook her head no.

Ive been here all my life. Ill let them do whatever they want when I die, she said. I wont take any money for this place.

Lifshutz, a frequent donor to county political campaigns who is known for building hip hangouts in Southtown, bought 21 acres south of the Torres land from the county in 1999. He wants to incorporate some sort of art component into the new development  like his Blue Star Arts Complex three miles north  although hes not sure exactly what, yet. The county plans to spend $5.8 million on the park and build an entry road.

But Lifshutz has a problem: theres no easy way to get to his property without cutting through the Torres 1.3-acre yard.

His land is wedged between the San Antonio River and a Union Pacific railroad track that blocks access to South Presa Street. A road could be built over the track, but that would mean difficult negotiations with Union Pacific and long waits for cars and emergency vehicles to enter the property.

Lifshutz and members of the Torres family disagree on the details of their interactions over the last 18 years. They say Lifshutz once offered to trade his personal home near Mission County Park for the familys land, but he denies making that offer. At other times, he offered $55,000 and $500,000 to buy a strip of the land to build a road, said Sandra Torres, Ray Torres wife. Lifshutz said he couldnt remember how much he offered.

Its their house, and theyre free to do with it what they like, Lifshutz said when asked to comment on his dealings with the Torres family.

Renee Green, the public works director for Bexar County, said the county is weighing building a road through the land, but isnt considering using eminent domain at this time. The county also is in talks with Union Pacific, but the railroad company is very protective of its right-of-way, she said.

The county has sent two letters to the Torres family over the last few years asking to survey the land, but the family hasnt given its permission out of fear that eminent domain is being considered.

Once the city or county wants your land, theyll do anything, Ray Torres said. I dont even think a million dollars is worth it.

Sandra Torres said that Precinct 1 Commissioner Sergio Chico Rodriguez assured the family that the county wouldnt take their property against their will. But he didnt rule it out in a later interview. If the county uses eminent domain, it would have to pay fair market value for the land, but that often leaves homeowners out of pocket for legal fees and other expenses.

We want to work with them, of course, Rodriguez said. Im not saying the county wont use eminent domain, but thats not a scare tactic that I want to say we want to use on the Torreses.

The Torres family is getting support from nearby residents who are worried about the impact of new construction on the South Side, which has attracted more attention from developers since the completion of the Mission Reach section of the River Walk. For years, the Mission San Jose Neighborhood Association has been fighting efforts to build apartments next to Mission San Jose, across the river from the Torres property.

The Hot Wells Neighborhood Association and the associations for two other South Side neighborhoods have said they would fight the county if it tries to take the Torres land.

Its development at too high a cost, said Brady Alexander, a member of the Hot Wells Neighborhood Association. This will be an issue in the election. We think it sets a bad precedent. Whos next? I own 9 acres on the other side of there.

Sandra Torres said the family might be willing to sell its land if the right offer comes along. But they also dream about keeping it and fixing it up, or building a larger home where more family members could live. Torres son, Ray Jr., is in line to inherit the property because hes Crisantas favorite grandson, she said.

And then he could leave it for his kids, and his kids kids, she said. Its the way it has been for generations.

rwebner@express-news.net

@rwebner
And then there were coyotes, make that then there ARE coyotes, lots of them, behind every tree it seems, in towns, on farms, in parks, and well, just everywhere.

Indeed, Ohio is now home to a zillion more or less, of these sneaky critter killing machines.

Yotes, as some call them, song dogs as still others call them, these secretive survivors of the ages are fast becoming the favorite prey for all-seasons hunters who pursue them with all sort of strategies, gear and tricks.

Tricks

You can certainly use every kind of trick, every kind of strategy, and every kind of gadget but what it really comes down to is three things according to master coyote hunter Scott Peters; patience, persistence and confidence.

The patience and persistence pieces fall into place when a hunter develops enough skills and realizes enough success to be confident about what, where, and how he or she is approaching each and every set.

A set, explained Peters, is somewhat like a blind is to a duck, deer or turkey hunter. Maybe it ought to be called a sit since thats exactly what it is, a hunker-down spot to look for coyotes, call to them, or listen for them.

Peters, Division of Wildlifes wildlife management supervisor for much of northeast Ohio, walks and talks a solid coyote story because he has earned the attributes of patience, persistence and confidence by logging hundreds of dead coyotes.

Peters said that if you think that you can rid or eradicate coyotes from an area you better think again.

That is an unrealistic goal, he said, adding that reducing the number of coyotes in an area is doable.

Peters said that the coyotes can be hunted successfully year around, but the next two months are without argument, prime time.

Breeding season

February and March are the best two months because it is breeding season. Coyotes are busy, aggressive, and more apt to respond to the right sounds now.

Alpha males are protecting their space while roaming males are on the move searching for a mate. That alone creates the potential for aggressive and vocal behaviors.

A simple howl may be all it takes to locate and bring in a bristling coyote that is itching for a fight.

Calling is the most affective and exciting method of hunting yotes, Peters said. But, he cautioned that effective calling involves a lot more than simply turning on an electronic call.

The tendency for beginners is to turn the volume to the highest setting in hopes that a distant coyote will hear it.

They will indeed hear it but, says Peters, it may scare them and in effect, warn them that something isnt right.

Patience

Best calling results will come when a hunter starts the set with a subtle teaser, something that might coax a nearby coyote.

He then suggests that smart calling means applying a gentle increase in volume, maybe a change in distressed critter sounds, and most importantly, several rest periods of silence mixed in.

Peters instructs beginners to be patient but to not stay at a set more than about a half hour. He also said that if a coyote is spotted its important to turn down the noise, possible switching to the squeak of a small rodent or bird.

The best time of day is anytime one has available but the period of first light and last light are always the best since coyotes are generally night hunters.

Peters favorite time is first light. Thats when I hope to call to the coyote that wasnt successful during the night and is hungry, he said.

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Well the furry weather forecaster, Punxsutawney Phil, woke up last Thursday, Feb. 2, and saw his shadow. According to folklore, this means we can expect six more weeks of winter.

This is no surprise for many of us here in northeast Ohio. We actually expect winter to be like winter. One of the joys of winter for me is that OSU Extension gets to offer a ton of educational programs for our farmers.

I like to refer to it as our planting season as we get to share information which will help farmers grow their businesses and increase profitability. As part of our information planting, a group of OSU Extension educators and specialists traveled around the state the last two weeks to discuss the agriculture outlook for 2017.

As with most years, we discussed the market outlook for corn, soybean, wheat, dairy, swine and beef cattle. Additionally, this years meetings took a peak at the policy and tax changes which may be on the horizon with a Republican controlled Presidency and Congress. I was excited to be able to speak at part of these outlook meetings and share the tax outlook.

Tax reform

As an economist, it is a really fun time predicting what might be in store for us. Most of the experts are saying we will see the most comprehensive tax reform since the tax reforms of 1986 by President Ronald Reagan.

Some of these proposed tax changes could happen while others will just be fodder for talk shows and news columns like this one. Given the shift of control to the Republican side of the aisle, it is wise to look at the A Better Way report released by Speaker Paul Ryan last summer for some potential tax reforms.

For those who want more insight, the complete report can be found at: http://abetterway.speaker.gov/_assets/pdf/ABetterWay-Tax-PolicyPaper.pdf.

So lets peak into the crystal ball. 

Estate taxes

At the beginning of January, House Resolution 198, titled the Death Tax Repeal Act of 2017, was introduced into Congress and it currently sits in the Ways & Means Committee (https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/198).

This bill seeks to eliminate the federal estate tax. This is one area where I caution us to be careful of what you wish for!

On the outside, this may look like a good move but in the long run it could mean higher taxes for farmers and small businesses. Currently, Americans can pass on $5.49 million to their heir(s) tax free when they die.

The federal estate tax law also includes portability to a spouse which essentially means as a couple we can pass on a combined $10.98 million tax free to our heirs. Even better, Ohio, led by Gov. Kasich, repealed the Ohio Estate tax in 2013.

So, if your estate is less than $5.49 million as an individual or $10.98 million as a married couple, you should have very little concern in this area.

And given that less than 0.2 percent of all estates are subject to federal estate tax each year, should this really be on the chopping block? So what am I concerned about?

Details matter

The introduced bill has very little in the way of detail. And the detail will be important.

One item that could disappear if the estate tax is eliminated is the ability for heirs to step-up the value of the inherited assets to its current market value at death. During the outlook meetings, we were able to show the significant loss this would be to the American farmer.

Again, the detail in the Repeal Act will be important. It has been suggested a complete repeal of the estate tax could pave way for a capital gains tax collection at death.

So imagine your heirs having to pay a 20 percent capital gain tax on the assets from your estate when you die. For a $2.5 million dollar farm in Ohio, this would mean $500,000 in taxes versus $0 under our current system.

Ouch! Be careful what you wish for as the truth will be in the detail! We need to know what a repeal of the federal estate tax actually means.

Expensing of equipment and buildings

The administration is also advocating for businesses to be able to completely write-off the expense of any building or equipment in the year of its purchase instead of recovering its value through a depreciation schedule.

This, too, could have some unattended consequences. Again, the truth will be in the detail.

I think it matters very little on how we recapture the cost of these purchases. We have used accelerated bonus depreciation and Section 179 for 15 years to recapture the cost of capital purchases quicker.

Net operating loss

My main concern is that complete expensing could cause a net operating loss. This could lead to the farm family not paying anything into Social Security and Medicare, or at such a low level that it would affect their retirement years.

So while it may look good in the short term, without changes to how we pay into Social Security, it could lead to farmers not having enough eligible quarters to retire or be covered under Medicare.

Again, be careful for what you wish for as the truth will be in the detail.

Border adjustment tax

There has been a lot of chatter on the potential impact of implementing a border adjustment tax or BAT. This tax would be a huge change in the way we do business as Americans.

Currently, products shipped overseas bear the cost of income tax where imported products dont. In short, it could be considered a tariff without being called such. It would be a huge revenue source for the government and would promote domestic production.

It is similar to the Value Added Tax used by many of our trading partners. The BAT, coupled with the proposed reductions in the tax rates for businesses, should be a major catalyst for businesses here in the U.S.

Impact to agriculture

So, how will the BAT impact agriculture? More specifically, how will it affect our trade relations especially with the top three international buyers of agricultural exports: Canada, China, and Mexico?

I think most sectors of the economy will be weighing in on the BAT issue. Many retailers are very opposed to a border tax as a large percentage of the products they sell are imported.

For agriculture, it is anticipated it would add 10-15 percent to some of the costs of our inputs such as diesel fuel and to other inputs such as fertilizer and equipment.

Something to watch

The BAT debate is going to be fascinating to watch. Make sure to keep asking your legislators how it will impact agriculture!

In summary, my recommendation is not to fall asleep on policy and tax reform in 2017. Be engaged, ask questions and ask how it will impact your operation and our entire industry in the short term as well as long term.

To close, I would like to share a quote from Sharon Salzberg, who stated, Patience doesnt mean making a pact with the devil of denial, ignoring our emotions and aspirations. It means being wholeheartedly engaged in the process thats unfolding, rather than ripping open a budding flower or demanding a caterpillar hurry up and get that chrysalis stage over with.
AMES, Iowa  Future crop-related technology, grain handling safety and variable rate technology came to the forefront at National Farmers national convention in Springfield, Missouri, Jan. 25, in sessions led by three University of Missouri-Columbia Extension engineers.

Agricultural technology and the ability to feed the 9 billion people estimated to populate the planet by 2050 are closely connected, said Leon Schumacher, Ph.D., program chair, agricultural systems management.

Technology

The population increase will require a 70 percent increase in food, and technology may help through smart power systems, precision agriculture, farm management software, affordable sensors, smart internet systems and a mesh-like internet grid, and a plan to transfer U.S. technology to other countries, he said.

John Deere and Case-IH each offer 32 free apps on GooglePlay, Caterpillar, nine, and AGCO, three. Beyond that, producers can run many ag systems from smartphones, and find tractor rollover detection apps and apps to reduce environmental risks by calculating pesticide volumes.

Technology is great if its cost-effective, he said.

Kent Shannon, MU Extension engineer, said he sees progress ahead in technology with soil sensors and variable rate planting, including planting more than one hybrid. Sensors are also paired with drone technology to collect information, and companies more and more will bring soil maps and nitrogen application maps that way, he said.

Nitrogen

Nitrogen is the No. 1 researched soil nutrient, Shannon said, and in 55 MU replicated on-farm trials, with sensor-based nitrogen application, the results showed the methods effectiveness.

Ag innovation reaches into the grain handling safety sector, as well. Bob Schutlheis, MU Extension engineer, said, Never enter a bin, that has flowing grain, ever.

With a tabletop model grain bin, Schultheis demonstrated for producers how quickly entrapment can happen, and suggested producers talk to their fire departments about obtaining rescue tubes. Fire department officials can work with MU Extension to learn how to get a grain bin rescue tube.

Schultheis stressed following safety practices, such as not operating grain handling equipment without another person present and if a producer must enter a bin, wearing a harness with a safety line attached to the outside.

Successful storage of grain is safe storage of grain, Schultheis said.

He urged monitoring of bins for safe oxygen levels, moisture and temperature with meters, and probes for samples from different places and increased accuracy.
XENIA, Ohio  The 2017 Malting Barley Conference and Trade Show, hosted by OSU Greene County Extension and Little Miami Farms, will be held at the Greene County fairgrounds March 24, from 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m.

The fairgrounds is located at 100 Fairground Road, Xenia, Ohio.

The conference offers a full day of presentations from researchers and malting barley experts from The Ohio State University and Michigan State University, along with panel discussions from both Ohio farmers and industry representatives.

Field tour

The conference will end with a tour of Little Miami Farms malting barley fields in Xenia.

Registration is $20 and will include morning snacks and beverages, a full lunch provided by the Greene County Cattlemen Association, and materials. To register visit www.greene.osu.edu. For more information email Brian Kleinke at kleinke.3@osu.edu.
Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts touted his property tax proposal Monday as a major change to the way agricultural land is valued, even though the state's largest farm groups say it doesn't do enough to help them.



Ricketts surrounded himself with farmers, ranchers and senators at a news conference to draw attention to his measure before a scheduled legislative hearing on Wednesday.



The bill would switch the state from a system that relies on land sale prices to value property to one that focuses on how much income it could potentially produce.



If it passes, Nebraska would adopt a system already in place in South Dakota, North Dakota, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin.



"This is a way to allow our producers to be more competitive," Ricketts said.



Supporters say using a land's income potential is a fairer and more predictable way to assess land values because it would soften the sharp increases property owners have seen in recent years.



Groups such as the Nebraska Farm Bureau and the Nebraska Farmers Union have said the proposal could help but doesn't deliver the reforms sought by rural and urban residents. The Farm Bureau has called on lawmakers to "rebalance" the combination of property, income and sales taxes that finance government operations by eliminating sales tax exemptions or increasing the sales tax rate.



Asked about those concerns, Ricketts pointed to measures that he championed and lawmakers have passed in the last few years. One measure will provide $224 million this year to Nebraska's property tax credit fund, which uses state money to offset some of what landowners have to pay in property taxes.



Sen. Lydia Brasch of Bancroft, who runs a farm her husband, said the current assessment system is "crushing our farmers and ranchers." Property taxes on agricultural have soared by nearly 164 percent over the last decade, according to the Nebraska Department of Revenue.



Lavon Heidemann, a former lieutenant governor, state senator and Farm Bureau lobbyist, called on the various farm groups to unite behind the bill.

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U.S. pork and beef exports wrapped up an excellent 2016 performance with very strong December results, according to statistics released by USDA and compiled by the U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF).





Pork export volume reached a record 2.31 million metric tons (mt) in 2016, up 8 percent year-over-year and 2 percent above the previous high in 2012. Export value increased 7 percent from a year ago to $5.94 billion. December pork exports totaled 222,635 mt, up 18 percent year-over-year, valued at $564.2 million, up 20 percent.



Exports accounted for 25.8 percent of total 2016 pork production and 21.5 percent for muscle cuts - up from 24.2 percent and 20.8 percent, respectively, in 2015. December ratios were 28 percent for total production and 23 percent for muscle cuts only - up significantly from December 2015. Export value per head slaughtered averaged $50.20 in 2016, up 4 percent from the previous year. The December average was $56.06, up 24 percent.



Beef exports increased 11 percent in volume (1.19 million mt) and 1 percent in value ($6.34 billion) from 2015. December exports totaled 116,847 mt, up 24 percent year-over-year. This was the largest monthly volume since July 2013 and the largest ever for December. Export value was $619.1 million in December, up 22 percent.



Exports accounted for 13.7 percent of total beef production in 2016 and 10.5 percent for muscle cuts - up from 13.1 percent and 10 percent, respectively, in 2015. December exports accounted for 15.6 percent of total December beef production and 12.1 percent for muscle cuts only - each up more than 2 percentage points from a year ago and the highest since 2011. Export value per head of fed slaughter averaged $262.17, down 6 percent from 2015, but the December average was $301.97 - up 14 percent and the highest in nearly two years.



Pork to Mexico sets fifth straight volume record; China/Hong Kong also record-large



A remarkable second half pushed 2016 pork export volume to Mexico to its fifth consecutive record at 730,316 mt - breaking the previous record by 2 percent. Export value to Mexico totaled $1.36 billion, up 7 percent year-over-year and the second-highest on record, trailing only the $1.56 billion mark reached in 2014.





At this time of record-large pork production, it would be hard to overstate the importance of Mexican demand to the U.S. industry, said Philip Seng, USMEF President and CEO. This is especially true for hams, as we are locked out of Russia - once a large destination for U.S. hams - and Chinas demand for imported hams has moderated in recent months. So now more than ever, we need strong demand from our key customers in Mexico, and they have responded with extraordinary results. December exports to Mexico accounted for nearly $16 per head, and thats absolutely critical to the entire U.S. pork supply chain.





Though down from the high levels seen earlier in the year, December pork exports to China/Hong Kong were still up 40 percent year-over-year in volume (47,242 mt) and 42 percent higher in value ($96 million). For the full year, exports to China/Hong set a new volume record of 544,943 mt (up 61 percent) and broke the $1 billion mark for the first time ($1.07 billion, up 53 percent).





Other 2016 highlights for U.S. pork exports include:





 Japan remained the leading value destination for U.S. pork, though exports fell 5 percent in volume (387,712 mt) and 2 percent in value ($1.56 billion) compared to 2015. However, chilled exports to Japan set a new record of 218,211 mt, up 8 percent.



 Led by a record performance in Central America and a fourth-quarter surge in Colombia and Chile, exports to the Central/South America region increased 11 percent in volume (135,954 mt) and 9 percent in value ($334.5 million).



 Pork shipments increased to both Australia and New Zealand, as export volume to Oceania reached 69,963 mt (up 10 percent) valued at $197.3 million (up 3 percent).



 Exports to the Dominican Republic set another record in 2016, topping the previous years totals by 10 percent in volume (25,591 mt) and 6 percent in value ($56.4 million).



 Fueled by increases in China/Hong Kong and Canada and steady exports to Mexico, pork variety meat exports jumped 20 percent in volume to 523,199 mt and 24 percent in value to $999 million - just short of the record levels reached in 2014.





Asian markets drive strong beef export growth





Driven by strong demand for higher-value chilled cuts, beef exports achieved new value records in South Korea and Taiwan in 2016, and rebounded strongly in Japan.





In Korea, December beef exports soared by 81 percent in volume (20,333 mt) and 88 percent in value ($130 million) from a year ago, capping a remarkable year in which exports totaled 179,280 mt (up 42 percent) valued at $1.06 billion - up 31 percent from a year ago and breaking the previous value record by more than 20 percent. Koreas per capita beef consumption set a new record in 2016 of 34 pounds (carcass weight) - so the U.S. not only gained market share, but also capitalized on the markets overall growth.





Beef exports to Taiwan were also strong in December, with export value ($43.3 million) hitting its highest level ever. Full-year exports to Taiwan were up 25 percent in volume to 44,053 mt and 14 percent in value to $362.8 million.





2016 exports to Japan were the largest of the post-BSE era at 258,653 mt, up 26 percent year-over-year. Export value totaled $1.51 billion, up 18 percent. Chilled beef exports to Japan totaled 112,334 mt, up 44 percent from 2015.





In addition to the strength of the U.S. dollar, U.S. beef overcame other severe challenges in these north Asian markets and achieved remarkable results, Seng said. Despite facing higher tariff rates in Japan compared to Australian beef, U.S. beef displaced its competition and won back significant market share. And the investment the U.S. industry made to rebuild consumer confidence in Korea is paying tremendous dividends, especially in the retail sector. Were seeing U.S. beef featured regularly by retailers who were once reluctant to carry the product.





Other 2016 highlights for U.S. beef included:





 Beef exports to Mexico increased 7 percent year-over-year in volume to 242,373 mt, though value fell 11 percent to $974.9 million. While challenged by a weak peso, Mexico remains a key destination for muscle cuts such as shoulder clods and rounds, as well as for beef variety meat.



 Led by strong growth in Chile and a doubling of exports to Colombia, beef exports to South America increased 6 percent in volume to 22,810 mt, valued at $92.7 million (down 2 percent). The region should see further growth in 2017 with the reopening of Brazil.



 Exports to Central America were up 7 percent in volume (12,745 mt) with top market Guatemala up 1 percent and exports to Honduras nearly doubling. Export value was $71.8 million, up 1 percent.



 Fueled by a resurgence in Indonesia and solid growth in Vietnam, beef exports to the ASEAN region were up 41 percent in volume (29,920 mt) and 15 percent in value ($156.9 million). Indonesia expanded access for U.S. beef in early August. Despite being closed to many products through the first seven months of the year, U.S. exports to Indonesia set a new value record of $39.4 million.



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Other multiple bull accounts included return buyers Glenomera, Mandurah, with two three quarter SimAngus bulls and a Black Simmental bull paying to $9500, Cattle Chosen Grazing, Busselton, which also paid to $9500 for three Black Simmental bulls, Jarnadup Investments, Manjimup, with three Black Simmental bulls to $9250 and the Yates Family Trust, Collie, with three Black Simmental bulls paying from $6750 to $7250.
While reliable mobile phone services are often taken for granted by people in the metropolitan area, Mr Redman said The Nationals WA recognised that better mobile phone coverage was needed to improve community safety, enable people to stay in touch and support the on-going growth and prosperity of regional businesses and communities.
Warrenton, VA (20186)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 64F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 64F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
NC State football score vs. Wake Forest: Live updates

The No. 21 Wolfpack (6-2, 2-2) look to extend a 15-game home win streak on Saturday ( 8 p.m., ACC Network) when they host No. 20 Wake Forest (6-2, 2-2)
Cobalt International Energy, Inc. said Thursday the U.S. Justice Department has closed its FCPA investigation into the companys operations in Angola.

Cobalt said it received the declination in a letter from the DOJ.

Houston-based Cobalt said in a statement: This formally concludes the DOJ investigation, which was the last remaining FCPA investigation by any U.S. regulatory agency into Cobalts Angolan operations.

The SEC issued a declination to Cobalt in January 2015. The agency had sent the independent oil and gas producer a Wells Notice in mid 2014. A Wells notice advises targets of an investigation that the SEC staff has made a preliminary determination to recommend an enforcement action.

The DOJ and SEC began investigating Cobalts operations in Angola in 2011.

No regulatory action has been taken against Cobalt as a result of these investigations, the company said Thursday.

The investigations followed allegations of links between senior Angolan government officials and Nazaki Oil and Gaz, S.A., an Angolan company that Cobalt partnered with on two offshore areas of Angola until 2014.

Cobalts CEO, Timothy Cutt, said in Thursdays statement: We are obviously pleased with this resolution and the closure of this investigation. Cobalt has been and is firmly committed to conducting its operations in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations, including the FCPA.

Cobalt went public in 2009. Riverstone Holdings LLC and Carlyle Group are among its biggest shareholders.

___

Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog.
One of the more interesting developments I discovered during the holiday period was a proposal from the Barbadian Chief Justice Minister, Sir Marston Gibson, to set up a regional asset recovery group in the Caribbean.

The initiative, labelled the Asset Recovery Interagency Network (ARIN), appears to be aimed at targeting criminals and their unexplained wealth. ARIN appears to closely mirror the UKs Regional Asset Recovery Teams (RARTs), which have enjoyed significant success. Add to this the UKs National Crime Agency remit for conducting civil asset forfeiture, and there is clearly some mileage in Sir Marstons proposition.

We run a specialized law firm based in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), with investigative experience tackling with fraud/money laundering and asset recovery work, so its understandable why ourselves and colleagues in other offshore law firms, forensic accountancy firms and insolvency practitioners have taken an interest in this proposal.

One of my investigative team was a member of one of the aforementioned RARTs during his days as a British police detective. He thinks there is scope for the new plan to succeed, his only reservations being about jurisdictional and legislative issues across the region, plus the ability to freely exchange information about the targets.

As the saying goes, where there is a will there is a way, so protocols and Memoranda of Understanding will need to be drafted. In addition, we think that law enforcement agencies will need to consider using specialist private sector professionals, from a range of disciplines, as effective resources to bolster the initiative. For example, liquidators are already readily recognised in courts across the globe regardless of their jurisdictional origin and can prove a great tool in the armoury to locate hidden company assets.

To this end, I would suggest that those who will ultimately decide on and make up the ARIN team remit and structure to consider partnering with the private sector. Having civil tools at their disposal will help ensure ARINs success and enable it to establish itself quickly and effectively. A failure to deliver a new initiative promptly can see it attacked or waylaid by those with a political axe to grind. It is vital that the new ARIN team hits the ground running and has some early successes to insulate itself from such attack. The private sector can assist in this process.

Non-conviction confiscations (civil forfeitures) are nothing new. They are used far and wide (such as in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK). As Sir Marston has explained, the main drawback when seeking to carry out a post-conviction (criminal) confiscation is the requisite investigative resources needed to convict the criminal in the first place. Using non-conviction powers, the onus is placed squarely on the suspect to explain the derivation of his or her wealth; if they fail to show that it has been earned legitimately, then it could be vulnerable to forfeiture.

Unsurprisingly, there is a lot of resistance and adverse public opinion to be considered with the new ARIN proposal, especially with regard to human rights. But the alternative to civil forfeiture  that is, leaving assets in place  is unpalatable. Besides removing the incentive to commit crime, the impact of civil forfeitures can also remove some of the attraction of negative role models in a community. Forfeiture Orders will see criminals unable to touch their money when released from prison Instead of youngsters watching criminal neighbours drive around in big cars and showing off conspicuous wealth, asset confiscation may see them returned to everyday status.

In addition, the assets recovered can be used to fund further law enforcement efforts to investigate and prosecute these often-complex cases, and potentially also be diverted to be spent on community-based projects.

As an adopted resident of the Caribbean, I welcome the Chief Justice Ministers initiative and believe that the Caribbean will be a safer place for it.

___

Martin Kenney is Managing Partner of Martin Kenney & Co., Solicitors, a specialist investigative and asset recovery practice based in the BVI and focused on multi-jurisdictional fraud and grand corruption cases www.martinkenney.com |@MKSolicitors.
Russias leading anti-corruption activist and a candidate in next years presidential election was found guilty of embezzlement Wednesday and will likely be blocked from continuing his political campaign.

Alexei Navalny was convicted by a judge in Kirov, a city 500 miles east of Moscow. He received a five-year suspended sentence and a fine of about $8,400.

He was on trial for the second time for embezzling money from a state-owned timber firm. His earlier conviction by the same court in 2013 was overturned in November last year. The Russian Supreme Court said the trial was unfair.

Navalny, 40, has always denied wrongdoing and claimed he was prosecuted to remove him from politics. A criminal conviction is a bar to running for office in Russia.

He was retried this month. After his conviction Wednesday, he said the new judge copied the earlier decision against him word for word, including spelling errors.

Navalny leads the opposition Party of Progress. He announced his candidacy for president in December last year after the Supreme Court overturned his earlier conviction.

He has called current Russian President Vladimir Putin the Tsar of corruption and labelled Putins ruling United Russia party the party of crooks and thieves.

Navalny ran for mayor of Moscow in 2013. He lost to the incumbent, Sergei Sobyanin, a Putin crony. But he won nearly 30 percent of the vote, surprising the Kremlin.

He trained as a lawyer. In 2010, he published what he said was evidence of a $4 billion fraud at Transneft, a state-owned firm with a monopoly on transporting oil produced in Russia.

Navalny led mass protests in December 2011 against parliamentary elections he said were rigged. He also led protests in Moscow after Putins re-election in March 2012.

Putin hasnt said if hell run again in 2018.

____

Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog.
I find Im usually most creative in the mornings, so thats when I always aim to start writing. I try to avoid the distraction of emails, social media and so on until later in the day. Not that this always goes to plan. I am a bit of a night owl, but Im not a big fan of writing in the evening. Thats when I prefer to enjoy the creativity of others by reading books or watching TV dramas and films.

S.D. Robertson

My favourite place to read is in the bath. This is probably because theres very little to distract me there, unlike almost everywhere else. It also encourages me to read actual books, rather than to use my Kindle, although I have been known to do that too. Luckily, Ive not managed to drop it in the water yet.

My hair is very grey for a forty-year-old. It started turning when I was in my twenties and now Im aiming for totally white by forty-five. Well, it worked for Roger Sterling in Mad Men, didnt it?

Ive lived in the north of England for most of my life. Im currently based in a village surrounded by beautiful countryside but just a quick drive from Manchester. (The best of both worlds.) However, Ive previously also spent time living and working in France, Australia and the Netherlands. My wife is originally from Holland. She and our daughter often speak Dutch to each other at home. My Dutch leaves a lot to be desired, but I did manage to incorporate a little into my debut novel, Time to Say Goodbye. Theres also a small but important reference to the Netherlands in my latest book, If Ever I Fall.

I have a cat called Bernard. If you follow me on Twitter (@SDRauthor) you may have heard me mention him once or twice. In my defence, hes the only company I have during the day when the others are out at work and school. As I write this, hes currently asleep on my knee.

My favourite film is 1993s Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray. My daughter and I always watch it together on 2nd February: the date on which its set and when the annual festival actually takes place in real life. A scene in the film actually inspired the title and some key moments of the first novel I ever wrote, Too Early for Flapjacks, which is now locked away in a drawer. It was a great learning exercise, but I cant see myself ever wanting to release it now.

Im currently addicted to a little known US television series called The Americans. Its about Russian spies living undercover in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. in the early 1980s during the Cold War. If you enjoy a gripping spy yarn and intelligent, thought-provoking TV, you really need to watch this.

My favourite food is pizza. Obviously.

I used to be a local newspaper editor, which is why I chose this role for the character of Dan in If Ever I Fall. A key reason I went into journalism was because I wanted to write for a living. I always hoped to move into fiction eventually, as its been a passion of mine ever since getting addicted to Enid Blyton books as a child. Im so glad that I managed to do it.

I love it when readers contact me to tell me theyve enjoyed my books. Its quite scary when the world youve created in your head suddenly gets shared with lots of people, so its always fantastic to hear from those whove really connected with a novel.

*Former journalist S.D. Robertson quit his job as a local newspaper editor to pursue a lifelong ambition of becoming an author and to spend more time with his wife and daughter. If Ever I Fall (Avon HarperCollins, 7.99) is his second novel. A heart-rending story of family tragedy, it is published on 9 February 2017.
Lady Gaga's Metallica Grammys duet came about after she got chatting to Lars Ulrich at Bradley Cooper's house party.

Lady Gaga

The 30-year-old pop superstar is gearing up to perform with the heavy metal band at this year's ceremony at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Sunday (12.02.17), and has shared how their idea to perform together was sparked from a conversation she had with the group's 53-year-old drummer at the 43-year-old 'American Sniper' actor's home.

She shared: "[I] was at Bradley Cooper's house with Lars Ulrich, and we were just, like, hanging out ... "

The 'Million Reasons' hitmaker didn't give away any more information about her performance with the 'Enter Sandman' group - also comprised of James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett and Robert Trujillo - but she has high hopes as the last time she saw them at a gig they were "better than they've ever played before".

Gaga told Zane Lowe on his Apple Beats 1 Radio show: "I've got to tell you something: I went to see Metallica live.

"I mean, I've seen them live recently, and we were watching the how and I'll tell you something, those guys play better than they've ever played in their whole lives."

The 'Nothing Else Matters' rockers previously teased they have something "unique" in the pipeline for the slot at the prestigious bash.

They said: "We promised you something unique for Grammy night and we are absolutely thrilled to confirm that Lady Gaga will be joining us on stage.

"It was a total honour to be nominated, but now this?"

Metallica have been nominated for Best Rock Song for 'Hardwired' - from their latest LP 'Hardwired... To Self Destruct'.

Gaga hasn't been nominated because her latest record 'Joanne' isn't eligible as it wasn't released between October 1, 2015 and September 30, 2016.
Tara Palmer-Tomkinson once gave Holly Willoughby her designer diamond ring.

Holly Willoughby

The 45-year-old socialite was found dead at her home in west London on Wednesday (08.02.17) afternoon and, although it was believed she'd become "reclusive" in recent months, the 'This Morning' presenter will never forget her late friend's "generosity."

Speaking on the brunchtime show on Thursday (09.02.17), the blonde beauty recalled the time they were speaking in a restaurant a few years ago during a night out.

She explained: "She had an incredible energy. I was lucky to know her because she was very close with a friend of mine.

"She had that special energy about her. She was so funny and incredibly kind. She was very generous with her time and with her spirit as well.

"The first time I met her, we were chatting and I noticed she had this diamond bling gorgeous ring on her hand and my eyes were following it like a magpie.

"I just said, 'Your ring is beautiful' and she said, 'Oh this is just a bit of tut of Chanel' and then she dropped it in my champagne and said, 'It's yours'. She told me to keep and said, 'If you don't keep it I will throw it across the restaurant.'

"So then I woke up the next morning with this amazing ring on my hand and I told her that I had it but she insisted she didn't want it and I should keep it."

The pair had a strong bond and Tara - who was the goddaughter of Prince Charles - even came to Holly's rescue in 2011 when she had a fashion emergency.

She said: "I just had Belle [her daughter] two months before and I had an event to get to but I was feeling really dumpy because I was still breastfeeding. She was a size six and I was like a size 16 by the point but she took me back to her house and we spent hours trying out clothes. She fully kitted me out with heels, her handbag, dressed me up and sent me off on my way. She was a real girl's girl. She was a lovely person."

Tara was found dead at her luxurious penthouse in west London on Wednesday by a friend and, although her passing is "unexplained", police aren't treating it as suspicious.

The beautiful star revealed last November that she had been diagnosed with a non-malignant brain tumour and thought it would kill her.

After her diagnosis last year, Tara's outlook on life shifted and friends say she became "reclusive" and had started discussing how she wanted her funeral.

A friend explained: "Her health had left her in a really bad way and she was very low. She thought about death a lot and even discussed her funeral at points."

A post-mortem will be carried out on Tara's body to determine her cause of death but, unless the examination comes back conclusive, toxicology tests will need to be undertaken to find out whether she had drugs in her bloodstream when she died.
My jacket, muffler, cap and the gloves were on. I glared at my bike and I was sure infinite kicks were on the cards, I was not sure, whether infinity will arrive or not. So, I decided to walk. Walking in winters when you are thoroughly covered up can be therapeutic, as Rumi says, When you walk, angels whisper.



Fog overpowering the very existence of Sun, the brutal chilly wind trouncing the comfort of the breeze, the moist dog-less serene streets were enough to transform my loneliness into solitude. The absolute aura of winter morning without any hustle bustle of the day is quite a moment to live by. Finally, I arrived on the main street where people were sitting beside fire at a nearby tea stall. I did not wonder even for a moment why fire and tea of Englishmen were considered to be the finest discoveries of the mankind. And, I ordered my chai.



Listening to real India speaking in a local dialect at a tea stall can really add finesse to ones wisdom. While everyone was shivering, I noticed a man lying over his rickshaw in just a stitched shirt and torn trousers. I could not resist asking him, Miyan tumhe thand nahi lag rahi hai, he didnt even bother to look at me and responded with menacing lines that can put even the greatest philosophers to embarrassment, Bhai gareeb ko sirf bhook aur pyaas lagti hai, baaki sab fanaa hai, (A destitute man can only feel hunger and thirst, rest all is destroyed for him) and he puffed his beedi like a cigar, leaving me dumbstruck.



The roadside life of northern part of India is full of agonies and daily struggles and its really heart rendering to observe that life. Mahatma Gandhi had famously said,

There are people in the world so hungry that GOD cannot appear to them except in the form of bread. Hunger is the only gruesome fact of their lives. I was baffled to wonder whether poverty needs a blanket or bread, or perhaps poverty had no priority. Poor had only one choice that is Hobsons choice in the form of bread.



With hundreds of thoughts running in my stoned mind, I decided to walk away. My thoughts and my walk were not in synchrony. Suddenly, I heard a distant mellifluous voice of Mohd Rafi on the radio. The radio, which is such an integral part of roadside life in India belted out, Main zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya, har fikr ko dhuyein mein udta chala gaya and my thoughts went straight to the rickhshaw walah puffing his beedi and trying to find comfort in the fog. I told myself, only the poor know the real difference between melancholy and bliss, not us.-



- By Naved Ahmad


The first India Intimate Fashion Week (IIFW) has announced that illustrious jewellery designer Mona Shroff will open the first edition of IIFW with her 2017 collection, becoming one of the first luxury brands to be present alongside Indias top intimate wear talent at the event. She is engaging with IIFW to break the stereotype about intimate wear.

Shroff, the vice president and COO of World Indigenous Fashion Week (WIFW), and a council member representing India and Hong Kong said, Intimate wear is a taboo in India, where the women would love to buy expensive and sexy lingerie but shy away from discussing it. Even the designer community is all gaga about international brands and their style but has done little to promote native intimate wear designers or even encourage education in this area. With IIFW, that will change.

She has showcased in various fashion shows like Lakme Fashion week, India Beach Fashion Show, Fiji resort fashion show, India Fashion Week Dubai and Miss India Pagent. Shroff has been designing for in-house labels of Selfridges (London) and Galleri Lafayette (Paris). Her Production lines are in Italy, Spain, Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Philippines and China.

The first India Intimate Fashion Week (IIFW) has announced that illustrious jewellery designer Mona Shroff will open the first edition of IIFW with her 2017 collection, becoming one of the first luxury brands to be present alongside India's top intimate wear talent at the event. She is engaging with IIFW to break the stereotype about intimate wear.#

We are very excited to start our first venture with such a worldwide celebrated designer who is not only creative with her designs, but also understands the power of fashion, especially in the intimate wear zone. We look forward to opening the show with Mona and changing the intimate wear realm forever, said Niraj Jawanjal, founder of IIFW.

IIFW is the only platform in India, which would unveil and provide great opportunities for designers to show their talent and make India one of the pioneers in intimate wear. The focus is also on educating women about intimate wear and shedding the taboo around it. IIFW promises to bring an intimate fashion revolution by appreciating domestic talent and encouraging Indian women to be bold and confident.

The event exposes both emerging and established brands and designers, manufacturers and distributers from India and around the globe, spanning market categories of lingerie, loungewear, sleepwear, legwear, lingerie accessories, mens underwear, swimwear, beachwear, shapewear and more. (KD)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Ajay Devgn's last release 'Shivaay' had him performing breath-taking high-octane stunts. However now it seems that the actor has 'romance' on his mind and that's probably why his next is an urban rom-com.

EXCLUSIVE! Arshad Warsi On Dutt Biopic: People Will Get To See What Actually Happened With Sanju

The actor surprised everyone with the first look of his new film which is produced by Luv Ranjan-Ankur Garg and directed by Akiv Ali.

In the released still, Ajay is seen sipping a piping hot coffee while giving a naughty smile, whereas a girl wearing just a white shirt is seen walking towards the balcony with a beautiful view of the ocean.

Well, we are quite inquisitive to know who's the mystery girl!

Meanwhile, Ajay Devgn will soon start shooting for Rohit Shetty's Golmaal Again. He will also be seen in Milan Luthria's Baadshaho.

HELP PLEASE! Katrina Kaif Asks Ex Beau Salman Khan To Launch Her Two Sisters?
Parineeti Chopra who is currently shooting for Yash Raj Film's upcoming venture Meri Pyaari Bindu, took a break and headed off to Lisbon, Portugal and roamed the streets like a typical tourist, looking at maps and enjoying the holiday all by herself.

Bikini Diaries! Riya Sen Holidays In Goa With Her Girlfriends

Check out Parineeti Chopra's Lisbon holiday pictures below!



Priyanka Chopra Talks About 'Showing Off Her Bra'!

Also, a week ago Parineeti was holidaying in Dubai and had visited the best restaurants and gave all her social media followers a food coma by constantly posting images of such yummy delicacies. There also was a controversy sparked on social media on her Dubai trip in which Pari was seen walking by the beach and a man, holding her bag and carrying an umbrella. She deleted the clip as it received many negative comments.

Malaika Arora Opens Up About Her 'Love Affair'!

On the work front, Meri Pyaari Bindu is scheduled to hit the theatres in May 2017 and the film also stars Ayushmann Khurrana in the lead role. The film is produced by Aditya Chopra and the music is composed by Vishal-Shekhar.

Lisa Ray Attends A Private Teaching With His Holiness Dalai Lama!
The Dangal girl Zaira Wasim opened up about how life has changed after starring in Dangal and the young girl, is already facing the pressures of politics just for meeting the Chief Minister of Kashmir. She said,

"I live in my own zone. My life is a little different from what a 16-year-old's life should be. I never went out much. I have heard stories from my father that they used to go here and there. There is a huge hill right next to my house and I have never been there."



She further commented that there's absolutely no difference between a 16-year-old from Mumbai or Delhi than growing up in Kashmir, as teenagers across all places want to be left alone all by themselves. She quipped,

"Now a 16-year-old there (Kashmir) is as similar as the one you will meet in Mumbai or Delhi. There's not a huge difference. To some extent you might see a vast variety of opinion and views they have. They have different stories to tell you, they have their own ideas about almost everything. Apart from that ideology, you won't see vast difference."

Hot! Bikini Pictures Of Riya Sen Chilling In Goa
Renowned American actor, rapper, and film producer Lonnie Rashid Lynn Jr, popularly known as Common, states that he and Keanu Reeves had a fierce competition over the performance for their respective roles in the movie John Wick: action-thrillerChapter 2.

Common will share screen along with Keanu Reeves, in the continuation of the hit 2014 Keanu Reeves movie John Wick.

Common, who turned into acting after having a successful career as a rapper, says Keanu Reeves is an intense actor who would always seek the opportunity to woo the audience with his stand alone performance. So it was also very important for Common to raise his own standard of acting.

"I have seen Keanu being superb, so I knew I had to raise myself to that level and work really hard to get there. I was excited," Common said in a statement during an interview.

"With Keanu, it's like, he's going for real, he is not trying to hurt you but he wants to be the best, so for me, it was like I want to be the best... So we had a little competition," Common added further.

Keanu Reeves and action thriller starrer John Wick: Chapter 2 is all set to release on February 17 in India.
NIJMEGEN, THE NETHERLANDS -- (Marketwired) -- 02/08/17 -- Nexperia, the former Standard Products division of NXP, today announced the formal completion of its launch as a separate entity. Headquartered in Nijmegen, Netherlands and backed by a consortium of financial investors consisting of Beijing Jianguang Asset Management Co. Ltd and Wise Road Capital Ltd, Nexperia is a stand-alone, world-class leader in Discretes, Logic and MOSFETs, retaining all the expertise, manufacturing resources and key personnel of the former NXP division, while bringing a new focus and powerful commitment to these product areas.

Nexperia, which will produce around 85 billion devices a year and in 2016 had revenues exceeding US$1.1B, addresses three key trends: power efficiency; protection and filtering; and miniaturization. The Automotive sector is very strong for Nexperia and most of its products are AECQ101 qualified. Other important markets include portable devices, industrial, communications infrastructure, consumer and computing. A significant portion of the company's revenue is delivered through distribution channels.

Nexperia CEO Frans Scheper, formerly EVP and GM of NXP's Standard Products Business Unit, comments: "Our history ensures that Nexperia is already regarded as a strong industry leader in Discretes, Logic and MOSFETs, which consistently delivers highly reliable and innovative products to our global customers. Under the new ownership and with a renewed sense of vigour we will invest in product development and best-in-class manufacturing practices and facilities to ensure that Nexperia becomes the byword for efficiency and quality. Together with our engaged and motivated employees this will enable us on a daily basis to exceed the needs and expectations of our customers."

Nexperia has two front-end manufacturing facilities, in Manchester, UK and Hamburg, Germany, and three back-end packaging plants in Guangdong, China, Seremban, Malaysia and Cabuyao, Philippines. It currently employs about 11,000 personnel worldwide including an established and successful leadership team. Scheper continues: "Because Nexperia will continue to source its front end and back end production from its current manufacturing sites, there will be no disruption in our supply chain or other processes, so customers and partners can be fully assured that they will continue to receive excellent products and exceptional service."

The company has an extensive IP portfolio and is certified to ISO9001, ISO/TS16949, ISO14001 and OHSAS18001.

About Nexperia

Nexperia is a dedicated global leader in Discretes, Logic and MOSFETs devices. We became independent at the beginning of 2017. Focused on efficiency, Nexperia produces consistently reliable semiconductor components at high volume: 85 billion annually. Our extensive portfolio meets the stringent standards set by the Automotive industry. Industry-leading, miniature packages, produced in our own manufacturing facilities, combine power and thermal efficiency with best-in-class quality levels.

Built on over half a century of expertise, Nexperia has 11,000 employees across Asia, Europe and the U.S. supporting customers globally.

Nexperia: Efficiency wins.

About Beijing Jianguang Asset Management Co., Ltd. (JAC Capital)

Beijing Jianguang Asset Management Co., Ltd. ("JAC Capital") is a subsidiary of JIC Capital which is part of JIC Group (China Jianyin Investment Ltd). JAC Capital was established for the purpose of investing in the high tech industry including semiconductor, information technology, networking, data service, cloud computing and telecommunications. By taking advantage of the abundant resources of its shareholders in the international financial market, JAC Capital partners with industrial leaders in various sectors and makes investments in the focused high tech industry and the global semiconductors market to support its continuous development.

About Wise Road Capital LTD (Wise Road Capital)

Wise Road Capital is a global private equity fund that is focused on investing into solid high tech companies by identifying opportunities in enabling technologies for global urbanization and smart/green life through close cooperation with leading companies along several main themes, including smart city, intelligent manufacturing, renewable energies, etc. Wise Road Capital is striving to build a healthy international eco-system around those key themes through its investments and its international management team with a combination of industry and investment background.

For press information, please contact:



Nexperia

Petra Beekmans

Head of Communications & Branding

Phone: +31 6 137 111 41

Email: Email Contact



Agency: BWW Communications

Nick Foot

director

+44-1491-636393

Email Contact




Cynthia Mak & Xiao Xiao



HKTDC Communication and Public Affairs Department Joe Kainz Tel: +852 2584 4216 Email: joe.kainz@hktdc.org

HONG KONG, Feb 9, 2017 - (ACN Newswire) - Organised by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC), Fashion Hong Kong will bring three leading Hong Kong designers to participate in New York Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2017, showcasing the city's fashion creativity to industry elites and style influencers from around the world. At the Fashion Hong Kong runway show (10am on 15 February), designers Harrison Wong and Polly Ho return to New York Fashion Week while the design unit of Cynthia Mak and Xiao Xiao make their debut in the city to launch their Fall/Winter 2017 collections.Fashion Hong Kong is an initiative created by the HKTDC to promote local designers and labels in international fashion events. Since 2015, Fashion Hong Kong has staged world-class runway shows in Tokyo Fashion Week, New York Fashion Week and Copenhagen Fashion Week. To highlight Hong Kong's fashion city brand, supported by PMQ, a total of 15 fashion accessory brands will join Fashion Hong Kong's showroom at Launch Collective in the heart of Soho in New York City to showcase their designs and explore collaboration opportunities with overseas counterparts.Fashion Hong Kong Designers at New York Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2017- Cynthia Mak & Xiao XiaoDesigner profileCynthia Mak was raised in Hong Kong, where she was first exposed to arts through graphic design. She went on to attend the Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design, graduating with distinction. After working with several big-name designers and fashion retailers, she established CYNTHIA & XIAO in 2014, together with knitwear specialist Xiao Xiao.Xiao Xiao was born in Beijing and moved to the UK in 2002, where she studied fine arts and textiles in high school. She later graduated from Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design and returned to the Chinese mainland to launch her own label before teaming up with Mak to launch CYNTHIA & XIAO.Brand: CYNTHIA & XIAOCYNTHIA & XIAO blends Cynthia Mak's background in graphic and fashion design with Xiao Xiao's expertise in knitwear to produce women's wear founded on bold graphics infused with simple modernity.Collection: "Little Emperor"For FW17, the design duo revisits their passion for Chinese tradition and love of handicraft. Drawing inspiration from Chinese zodiac symbols - the rabbit and the tiger - the collection continues the brand's tradition of intricate, handcrafted detail in its winter pieces.Portrait: https://goo.gl/EoTPEu- Harrison WongDesigner profileHarrison Wong made his fashion debut by winning both the Hong Kong Young Designers' Contest and the Grand Prix Contest in Japan. Since earning a Master's degree from the London College of Fashion, he has shown his men's collections in New York, Milan, Shanghai, Taipei, Sydney and Hong Kong.Brand: HARRISON WONGHARRISON WONG is an original contemporary apparel and accessories brand for the urban man. The label specialises in edgy, aggressive designs that also display an understated elegance.Collection: "Modern Monastic"For his FW17 collection, Harrison Wong took inspiration from the spare, austere cut of monastic robes, evoking a combination of venerable tradition and stark modernity.Portrait: https://goo.gl/M1Lo3J- Polly HoDesigner profileAfter graduating from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Polly Ho studied at the University of Central England and worked for Misa Harada Millinery in London. She has been active in the Chinese market as a fashion consultant for various Chinese brands. In October 2015, Polly Ho launched her SS16 collection at the Fashion Hong Kong Show during Tokyo Fashion Week to critical acclaim.Brand: LOOM LOOPLOOM LOOP embodies a mixture of traditional craftsmanship and a modern approach to contemporary individualism. The brand employs an eco-friendly technique by using natural dye and sun exposure to develop patterns on delicate Canton silk, a traditional fabric that requires a high degree of craftsmanship on the processing procedures.Collection: "The Separated Lovers"The collection, inspired by a Chinese folk tale of two separated lovers, the Weaver Girl and the Cowherd, features prints of magpies and cows. The cow print also pays homage to an iconic brand image of a chocolate milk beverage in Hong Kong.Portrait: https://goo.gl/i3DT0wFashion Hong Kong ShowroomFashion Hong Kong will launch a new showroom at Launch Collective, during the New York Fashion Week period. Through collaborations with local department stores and select shops in New York, the five-day showroom will arrange business-matching meetings for Hong Kong designers to meet international buyers.Onsite Small OrdersApart from arranging business-matching meetings, the Fashion Hong Kong showroom will facilitate the processing of onsite orders through a Small Order Zone unique to the HKTDC. Participating labels will be provided with a QR code, which will direct interested buyers to the order page. Company visits to brand agencies and department stores will also be scheduled for the Hong Kong designers.Post-show NetworkingFashion Hong Kong will also organise a B2B reception, Fashion Hong Kong Night in New York, to create networking opportunities for Hong Kong designers to meet with global fashion buyers. Guests will be treated to a fashion presentation to highlight Hong Kong design creativity and talent.Fashion Accessories Showcase (15 labels):BIG HORN, Blksheep Empire, CECILIA MA, Fabcessories, FRANCO Y., Hak, LUISA LEITAO by Maria Luisa Leitao, MASE, Pack n' Go, POMCH, Smith & Norbu, TAT, Whosthatshop, Wingki Kwok Illustration, Yeung ChinHong Kong Designer Kevin Ho at New York Fashion WeekAnother Hong Kong fashion designer, Kevin Ho, was recommended by the HKTDC to participate in Asia Fashion Collection (AFC), an incubation project produced and supported by Vantan and PARCO, as the 2016 Hong Kong representative. Mr Ho will showcase his latest FW17 collection with AFC on 11 February alongside other promising young Asian designers in New York Fashion Week.Main Events:Fashion Hong Kong Runway ShowTime: 10am on 15 Feb 2017 (Wednesday)Venue: Gallery 3, Skylight at Clarkson Square, 558 Washington Street, New York 10014RSVP: fashion_hongkong@hktdc.orgFashion Hong Kong ShowroomTime: 13 - 17 Feb 2017 (By Appointment)Venue: Launch Collective, 495 Broadway 3rd Floor, New York 10012Appointment Requests: fashion_hongkong@hktdc.orgFashion Hong Kong NightTime: 6pm on 16 Feb 2017 (Thursday)Venue: The Refectory Room at The High Line Hotel, 180 10th Avenue (at 20th Street), New York 10011Asia Fashion Collection (AFC) ShowTime: 9am on 11 Feb 2017 (Saturday)Venue: Gallery 3, Skylight at Clarkson Square, 558 Washington Street, New York 10014New York Fashion Week FW17Time: 9 - 16 February 2017Website: http://nyfw.com/Hashtag: fashion_hongkongTo view press releases in Chinese, please visit http://mediaroom.hktdc.com/tcAbout HKTDCEstablished in 1966, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) is a statutory body dedicated to creating opportunities for Hong Kong's businesses. With more than 40 offices globally, including 13 on the Chinese mainland, the HKTDC promotes Hong Kong as a platform for doing business with China, Asia and the world. With 50 years of experience, the HKTDC organises international exhibitions, conferences and business missions to provide companies, particularly SMEs, with business opportunities on the mainland and in international markets, while providing information via trade publications, research reports and digital channels including the media room. For more information, please visit: www.hktdc.com/aboutus. Follow us on Google+, Twitter @hktdc, LinkedIn.Google+: https://plus.google.com/+hktdcTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/hktdcLinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/hong-kong-trade-development-councilSource: HKTDCContact:Copyright 2017 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - Germany's trade surplus hit a record high in 2016, data published by Destatis showed Thursday. The trade balance showed a surplus of EUR 252.9 billion in 2016, the highest value ever recorded and clearly exceeded the previous peak of EUR 244.3 billion achieved in 2015. Exports expanded 1.2 percent and imports gained 0.6 percent in 2016. Germany exported goods to the value of EUR 1,207.5 billion and imported goods to the value of EUR 954.6 billion in 2016. Both exports and imports reached new highs. The current account surplus totaled EUR 266 billion in 2016 versus EUR 252.6 billion in 2015. In December, exports declined for the first time in three months, while imports remained unchanged from November. Exports slid 3.3 percent on month, following November's 3.9 percent increase. Shipments were expected to drop 1.3 percent. At the same time, economists had forecast imports to decrease 1.1 percent after rising 3.5 percent in November. Consequently, the trade surplus fell to EUR 18.4 billion from EUR 21.8 billion in November. 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.
VANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwired - February 09, 2017) - Golden Dawn Minerals Inc., (TSX VENTURE: GOM) (FRANKFURT: 3G8A) (OTC PINK: GDMRF) (the "Company" or "Golden Dawn") announces that is has completed a Gold Purchase Agreement with RIVI Capital LLC, (see news release Jan 3, 2017). Golden Dawn has confirmed receipt of US$3,000,000 or CDN$ 3,958,977.69 and will receive a further US$1,000,000 or CDN $1,310,000 by the week of Feb 20 th , 2017. The Company is pleased to have RIVI as a partner and furthermore, effective immediately, Mr. Kevin Puil has agreed to join the board of directors of Golden Dawn. Kevin is an asset manager with more than 20 years' experience managing investments.

Mr. Puil is currently Managing Partner at RIVI Capital LLC, a mining focused private equity firm based in San Francisco. Prior to that, he held senior positions at several firms including Senior Analyst at the Encompass Fund in San Francisco, and at Bolder Investment Partners in Vancouver (now Haywood Securities), where he was a Partner and Portfolio Manager.

Kevin currently serves as a Director and member of the Audit Committee of three Toronto Stock Exchange companies. He holds a degree in Economics from the University of Victoria in British Columbia, and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charter holder. We welcome Mr. Puil to our team to add his considerable expertise in our industry.

The Company also wishes to announce that Mr. Fred Jones has resigned as a Director of the Company with immediate effect to allow the company to appoint Kevin Puil. The remaining directors, management and staff would like to thank Mr. Jones for his valuable contribution to the Board. We wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

On behalf of the Board of Directors:

GOLDEN DAWN MINERALS INC.

Wolf Wiese, Chief Executive Officer

THIS PRESS RELEASE WAS PREPARED BY MANAGEMENT WHO TAKES FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR ITS CONTENTS. 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. THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS CERTAIN FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS WHICH INVOLVE KNOWN AND UNKNOWN RISKS, DELAYS, AND UNCERTAINTIES NOT UNDER THE COMPANY'S CONTROL WHICH MAY CAUSE ACTUAL RESULTS, PERFORMANCE OR ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE COMPANY TO BE MATERIALLY DIFFERENT FROM THE RESULTS, PERFORMANCE, OR ACHIEVEMENTS IMPLIED BY THESE FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS. WE SEEK SAFE HARBOR.

For further information, please contact:

Corporate Communications

604-221-8936

allinfo@goldendawnminerals.com
PUNE, India, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The report "Methyl Ester Ethoxylates Market by Type (C16-C18 & C12-C14), Application (Domestic Cleaning, Industrial Cleaning, Personal Care & Others), and Region - Global Forecast to 2021", published by MarketsandMarkets, The market is projected to reach USD 139.8 Million by 2021, at a CAGR of 3.4% between 2016 and 2021.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160303/792302 )



Browse106 market data Tables and24 Figures spread through 154 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Methyl Ester Ethoxylates Market"

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/methyl-ester-ethoxylate-market-38024882.html



Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report.

Changes in consumer lifestyles and prevalence of low-foam and low-rinse detergents have increased the demand of methyl ester ethoxylate. There is also a growing demand for eco-friendly detergents. This trend will help in increasing the popularity of methyl ester ethoxylate. Leading players such as Huntsman Corporation (U.S.), KLK OLEO (Malaysia), Lion Corporation (Japan), Ineos Group Limited (Switzerland), and Jet Technologies (Australia) are focusing on entering new markets and developing new products. This is expected to drive the methyl ester ethoxylate market in the future.

Ask for PDF of the Report at http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownload.asp?id=38024882

Based on type, the C16-C18 segment accounted for the largest share of the methyl ester ethoxylate market in 2015

Based on type, the C16-C18 segment of the methyl ester ethoxylate market is expected to witness significant growth in the coming years. This segment is expected to grow due to the supply from palm oil plantations in the Asia-Pacific region. It is a vital feedstock used to produce C16-C18 methyl ester ethoxylate.

Based on application, the domestic cleaning segment accounted for the largest share of the methyl ester ethoxylate market in 2015

The domestic cleaning application segment of the Methyl Ester Ethoxylate Market is expected to witness significant growth in the coming years. The growth in the lifestyle in the developing nations of Asia-Pacific region has led to the growth of this segment. In addition, the use of low-foam and low-rinse detergents has also led to high demand for methyl ester ethoxylate from this application.

Asia-Pacific region dominated the methyl ester ethoxylate market in 2015

Asia-Pacific dominated the methyl ester ethoxylate market in 2015, owing to the increasing demand for methyl ester ethoxylate from developing economies, such as India and China. China is the leading consumer of methyl ester ethoxylate in the Asia-Pacific region, followed by India.

Make an Inquiry @ http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Enquiry_Before_Buying.asp?id=38024882

Key players operating in the methyl ester ethoxylate market include Huntsman Corporation (U.S.), KLK OLEO (Malaysia), Lion Corporation (Japan), Ineos Group Limited (Switzerland), and Jet Technologies (Australia).

Browse Related Reports:

Ethoxylates Market by Type (Alcohol, Fatty Amine, Fatty Acid, Methy ester, and Glyceride) and by Application (Agrochemicals, Household & Personal Care, Pharmaceutical, Oilfield Chemicals, Others) - Global Trends & Forecasts to 2019

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/ethoxylates-market-124534176.html

Oleochemicals Market by Type (Fatty Acid, Fatty Alcohol, Glycerin, and Others), by Application (Pharmaceutical & personal care, Food & beverages, Soaps & detergents, Polymers, and Others), by Region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of the World) - Trends and Forecasts to 2019

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/oleochemicals-market-235516809.html

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VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- Millennial Lithium Corp . (TSX VENTURE: ML)(FRANKFURT: A3N2)(OTCQB: MLNLF) ("Millennial" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that Mr. Iain Scarr has been promoted to Chief Operating Officer of the Company.

Since mid-2016, as Vice President of Development and Exploration, Mr. Scarr has overseen all aspects of development at Pastos Grandes and has helped spearhead recent acquisitions. Based in Salta, Argentina, he brings a much needed presence in dealing with local government and non-government agencies.

Since 1979, Mr. Scarr has worked primarily in the exploration and commercial development of industrial minerals. During his career with Rio Tinto, he was responsible for multiple discoveries in North America, South America and Africa. He worked on the commercial justification for the Jadar lithium-borate resource in Serbia. Mr. Scarr graduated with a BSc in geology from California State University and earned an MBA from the University of Southern California.

Following his 29 years with Rio Tinto, Mr. Scarr incorporated IMEx Consultants and, with a group of partners, formed IMEx Minerals Inc. He then joined Lithium One Inc., where he was responsible for bringing the Sal de Vida lithium brine project in Argentina through feasibility with Galaxy Resources and, more recently, the Rincon project with Enirgi.

Graham Harris, Chairman, comments, "After working with Iain over the past year, we can unequivocally state that we have the right person leading our exploration and development efforts in Argentina."

Iain Scarr comments, "Due to our early successes at Pastos Grandes and our recent acquisitions, I'm looking forward to building a bigger team here to keep our fast-track development on schedule, and increasing the scope of our activities in Argentina."

Project Update

Pastos Grandes (option to acquire 100%)

The Pastos Grandes property is comprised of 6,361 hectares located in the Los Andes Department, in the Central portion of the Puna Block of Salta Province, Argentina. Millennial recently completed a phase 1 exploration program which extended the known lithium bearing brines to the depth of over 400 metres. Positive results (see news release of January 25th) have led the Company to proceed with a phase 2 drill program of definition drilling and accompanying engineering aimed at producing a NI 43-101 compliant resource and a preliminary economic assessment by the 3rd quarter of 2017.

Cauchari East (option to acquire 100%)

Millennial's Cauchari East property is comprised of 2,990 hectares on the eastern side of the Cauchari-Olaroz Salar, adjacent to Orocobre's producing Salar de Olaroz Project and Lithium Americas Corp.'s advanced stage Cauchari-Olaroz Project in Jujuy Province, Argentina. Extensive geophysical studies and subsequent drilling are scheduled to commence as soon as permitting is received.

Cruz Project (option to acquire 100%)

Millennial's Cruz Project is comprised of 2,500 hectares at the north end of the Pocitos salar basin in Salta Province, Argentina. The only known exploration near the Cruz property was a shallow 12-hole program by an Argentine government agency, Direccion General de Fabricaciones Militares in the 1970s. A hole near the southeast edge of the Cruz property boundary averaged 417 parts per million (These results are considered historical and cannot be confirmed under National Instrument 43-101 standards). The property is under option to Southern Lithium Corp., who have recently completed a geophysical exploration program of transient electromagnetics in anticipation of drilling at the end of the 1st quarter of 2017.

Pocitos West (option to acquire 100%)

Millennial's Pocitos West property is comprised of 15,857 hectares on western side of the Pocitos Salar in Salta Province, Argentina. Pocitos West is adjacent to and west of ground recently acquired by Pure Energy Minerals Ltd. and to the north of Lithium S Corp. The Pocitos Salar is strategically located in close proximately to known lithium resources including the Rincon Project, 32 kilometres (km) to the north, and the Sal De Vida Project, 90km to the south.

The four properties combined bring Millennial's total land position to over 25,000 hectares in Argentina's portion of the lithium triangle.

This news release has been reviewed by Iain Scarr, AIPG CPG., COO of the Company and a qualified person as that term is defined in National Instrument 43-101.

MILLENNIAL LITHIUM CORP.

Graham Harris, Chairman, 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.

This news release may contain certain "Forward-Looking Statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian securities laws. When used in this news release, the words "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect", "target, "plan", "forecast", "may", "schedule" and similar words or expressions identify forward-looking statements or information. These forward-looking statements or information may relate to future prices of commodities, accuracy of mineral or resource exploration activity, reserves or resources, regulatory or government requirements or approvals, the reliability of third party information, continued access to mineral properties or infrastructure, currency risks including the exchange rate of USD$ for Cdn$, fluctuations in the market for lithium, changes in exploration costs and government royalties or taxes in Argentina and other factors or information. Such statements represent the Company's current views with respect to future events and are necessarily based upon a number of assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by the Company, are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive, political and social risks, contingencies and uncertainties. Many factors, both known and unknown, could cause results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements that are or may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements or information to reflect changes in assumptions or changes in circumstances or any other events affections such statements and information other than as required by applicable laws, rules and regulations.

Contacts:

Millennial Lithium Corp.

Investor Relations

(604) 662-8184

info@millenniallithium.com

www.millenniallithium.com




Pre-Stabilisation notice

9th February 2017

Not for distribution, directly or indirectly, in or into the United States or any jurisdiction in which such distribution would be unlawful.

Eika Boligkreditt AS

 500,000,000 Norwegian Covered Bond due 2024

Pre-Stabilisation Notice

Commerzbank AG (contact: Christian Klocke; telephone: +49-69-13643420) hereby announces, as Stabilisation Coordinator, that the Stabilising Managers named below may stabilise the offer of the following securities in accordance with Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/1052 under the Market Abuse Regulation (EU Regulation 596/2014).

The security to be stabilised: Issuer: Eika Boligkreditt AS Guarantor (if any): none Aggregate nominal amount:  500,000,000 (no grow) Description: Fixed rate Norwegian covered bond due 16th Feb 2024 Offer price: tbc Other offer terms: payment date 16th Feb 2017, denoms 100k/1k; soft bullet Stabilisation: Coordinating Stabilising Manager:

Stabilising Manager(s): Commerzbank AG

Credit Agricole CIB

Deutsche Bank

Nordea Stabilisation period expected to start on: 9th February 207 Stabilisation period expected to end on: no later than 30 days after the proposed issue date of the securities Existence, maximum size and conditions of use of over-allotment facility. The Stabilising Managers may over-allot the securities to the extent permitted in accordance with applicable law. Stabilisation trading venue: London SE

In connection with the offer of the above securities, the Stabilising Manager(s) may over-allot the securities or effect transactions with a view to supporting the market price of the securities during the stabilisation period at a level higher than that which might otherwise prevail. However, stabilisation may not necessarily occur and and any stabilisation action, if begun, may cease at any time Any stabilisation action or over-allotment shall be conducted in accordance with all applicable laws and rules.

This announcement is for information purposes only and does not constitute an invitation or offer to underwrite, subscribe for or otherwise acquire or dispose of any securities of the Issuer in any jurisdiction.

This announcement is not for distribution, directly or indirectly, in or into theUnited States or any other jurisdiction in which such distribution would be unlawful.

END


PARIS (dpa-AFX) - French advertising and communications company Publicis Groupe SA (PUBGY.PK, PGPEF.PK) reported that net loss attributable to the Groupe for fiscal 2016 was 527 million euros or 2.36 euros per share, compared to net income of 901 million euros or 3.99 euros per share in the prior year.



However, Headline Groupe net income for the year rose to 1.02 billion euros or 4.46 euros per share from 992 million euros or 4.39 euros per share in the prior year.



Revenue for the period grew 1.4 percent to 9.73 billion euros from 9.60 billion euros last year.



The company said it will propose to the Shareholders' AGM to approve a 16 percent increase of its dividend to 1.85 euros per share and also confirmed its objectives for 2018.



Looking ahead to fiscal 2017, Publicis Groupe noted that the first half of the year will be impacted by some account losses and the difficulties at Razorfish, but expects the Groupe should be back to levels of growth which are more comparable to its peers, in the second half.



Publicis Groupe has said earlier that its Supervisory Board appointed Arthur Sadoun to succeed Maurice Levy as Chairman of the Groupe's Management Board.



From June 1, 2017, Arthur Sadoun will become Chairman of the Management Board which will be joined on the same date by Steve King, the current CEO of Publicis Media, who will team up with Jean-Michel Etienne, Executive Vice-President and CFO, and Anne-Gabrielle Heilbronner, Secretary General.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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STOCKHOLM, Feb 09, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Financing will support development of Radspherin', a novel radiotherapeutic treatment for peritoneal carcinomatosis

Oncoinvent announced today the closing of a 210 MNOK (approx. 25 MUSD) private placement of ordinary shares. Large privately owned investment companies joining the Company as new investors include Geveran Trading Co. Ltd., Canica AS, CGS Holding AS, Helene Sundt AS and Must Invest AS. Oncoinvent AS is developing therapeutics to combat various cancers based on delivery of tumour-cell killing doses of radiation and/or immunotargeting of tumor cells.

"We are pleased at the response that we have received from the investment community regarding our private placement. The round was heavily oversubscribed. With this financing round we now have, in addition to the new funding, a shareholder base in the company that will enable Oncoinvent to bring Radspherin' to a clinical proof of concept." said Jan A. Alfheim, Oncoinvent's CEO.

About Radspherin'

Radspherin' is a novel alpha-emitting radioactive microsphere designed for treatment of metastatic cancers in body cavities. The radium based therapeutic, Radspherin' has shown strong and consistent anticancer activity without any visible signs of product related toxicity in preclinical studies. It is anticipated that the product can potentially treat several forms of metastatic cancer. The first clinical indication for Radspherin' will be treatment of peritoneal carcinomatosis originating from ovarian cancer. Peritoneal carcinomatosis is one of the most serious complications of gastrointestinal and gynecological malignancies.

About Oncoinvent

Oncoinvent AS is a privately held Norwegian company based in Oslo, Norway. The company is committed to developing new innovative products in order to provide better treatment options to cancer patients.

The company's founders started Oncoinvent in 2010 with a view to designing better cancer treatments by applying known physical and chemical principles of selected novel materials in new ways in order to maximize their medical benefit while minimizing potential safety concerns. This approach has allowed the company to develop a rich development pipeline and to explore multiple technological avenues before selecting a lead product candidate for preclinical testing.

For further information, please contact:

Jan A. Alfheim, Chief Executive Officer

Cell: +47-46-44-00-45

Email: Alfheim@oncoinvent.com

IR enquiries:

Ole Peter Nordby, Acting Chief Financial Officer

Cell: +47-41-28-71 -9

Email: nordby@oncoinvent.com

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/oncoinvent-as/r/oncoinvent-closes---25-million-private-placement,c2183254

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BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - Hungary's foreign trade surplus decreased in December from a year ago, as imports grew faster than exports, preliminary figures from the Hungarian Central Statistical Office showed Thursday. The trade surplus fell to EUR 556 million in December from EUR 638 million in the corresponding month last year. Economists had expected the surplus to drop to EUR 575 million. Exports grew 7.7 percent year-over-year in December and imports climbed by 9.9 percent. The share of European Union member states was 75 percent in exports and 76 percent in imports. For the whole year 2016, total trade surplus of the country was EUR 10.0 billion versus EUR 8.6 billion in 2015. Both exports and imports rose by 3.1 percent and 1.7 percent, respectively. 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.
SAN JOSE (dpa-AFX) - A Flamin' Hot Cheeto that looks like Harambe gorilla was bid online for nearly $100,000. eBay seller valuestampsinc posted a listing nearly a week ago for a Cheeto that vaguely resembled Harambe, the gorilla killed at the Cincinnati Zoo last year. By Tuesday, the bidding had reached $99,900, and the auction had ended. The product is with free shipping, while the bag is not included in the auction. As per reports, the seller is Chris Astoyani, whose January 28 post featured side-by-side photographs of Harambe scaling a tree and the lookalike cheeto. In the item's description, Astoyani wrote, 'Gorilla Hot Cheetos - RARE - One of a Kind Cheetos - Harambe Gorilla.' He started the auction off at $15, but dropped the selling price to $11.99 as no one seemed willing to bid. However, the bidding picked up later to end at $99,900. In the latest developments, Astoyani reportedly said the buyer with the winning bid had backed out of the deal, and EBay is going through a list of 132 bids to determine the final buyer. Astoyani plans to donate a portion of the winning bid to an animal rights group. Harambe had made international headlines in May last year after he was shot and killed at the Cincinnati Zoo in order to save a four-year-old boy, who fell into his enclosure. 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.
IRW-PRESS: Eureka Resources Inc: Eureka Resources Inc.: Update zum Projekt Gold Creek

Update zum Projekt Gold Creek

Vancouver, British Columbia, 9. Februar 2017 - Eureka Resources Inc. (Eureka oder das Unternehmen) veroffentlicht eine Zusammenfassung der im Konzessionsgebiet Gold Creek geplanten Aktivitaten des Unternehmens fur das Jahr 2017. Das Projekt befindet sich im Zentrum der historischen Goldbergbauregion Caribou.

Seit dem Erwerb des Konzessionsgebiets im Jahr 2016 hat unser Technikerteam damit begonnen, das umfangreiche Datenmaterial, das im Zuge der Optionsvereinbarung mitubernommen wurde, zu sichten.

Fruhere Betriebsstatten

Das Projekt Gold Creek verfugt uber eine Reihe positiver Merkmale, zu denen auch die Lithologie des Grundgesteins zahlt, die Ahnlichkeiten mit jenem in unserem Projekt FG und in unserer Lagerstatte Spanish Mountain aufweist. Das Projekt FG war eine der ersten Entdeckungen dieses Typs, die in der Senke Quesnel Trough lokalisiert wurden. Bei diesen Lagerstatten handelt es sich typischerweise um Lagerstatten mit Erzgangen, die in Sedimentgestein eingebettet sind (SHV-Lagerstatten). Ein von den fruheren Betreibern im Jahr 2008 durchgefuhrtes Explorationsprogramm ergab, dass in der Mineralisierung bei Gold Creek moglicherweise auch intrusionsgebundene Goldanteile enthalten sind. Es muss hier betont werden, dass SHV-Lagerstatten und intrusionsgebundene Lagerstatten zu den groten Goldlagerstatten der Welt zahlen.

Die Leser werden darauf hingewiesen, dass die nachfolgenden Ergebnisse historischen Charakter haben und das Unternehmen keine ausreichenden Arbeiten durchgefuhrt hat um feststellen zu konnen, ob diese Ergebnisse den Kriterien der Vorschrift National Instrument 43-101 entsprechen.

Das Projekt Gold Creek befindet sich rund 8 Kilometer nordwestlich der Lagerstatte Spanish Mountain. Die Lagerstatte Spanish Mountain beherbergt laut Berichten gemessene und angezeigte Ressourcen im Umfang von 238 Millionen Tonnen mit einem Erzgehalt von 0,46 g/t, was 3,5 Millionen Unzen entspricht, sowie abgeleitete Ressourcen im Umfang von 311 Millionen Tonnen mit einem Erzgehalt von 0,35 g/t, was nochmals 3,5 Millionen Unzen entspricht (Quelle: Unternehmensprasentation auf der Webseite von Spanish Mountain Gold Ltd.).

Die Explorationsziele im Konzessionsgebiet sind goldhaltige Quarzgange und gold- bzw. silberhaltige schichtgebundene Zonen aus Quarz und Quarzgangen mit Karbonatalterierung, welche in den basalen Sequenzen aus Metasedimentgestein mit Einschlussen aus schwarzem Phyllit und Vulkanstein mit Grauwackeanteilen eingelagert sind. Diese sind auch in der Lagerstatte Spanish Mountain zu finden.

Mehrere bedeutende Faktoren machen Gold Creek zu einem sehr attraktiven Projekt:

- Rechtssystem mit stabiler politischer Lage - Hervorragende Infrastruktur und Serviceleistungen vor Ort - Relativ gunstige Stromversorgung - Lage im Nahbereich verschiedener Betriebsstatten

Im Rahmen fruherer Bohrungen wurden auerdem Bereiche entdeckt, die aufgrund ihrer Merkmale eine umfassende Explorationskampagne rechtfertigen wurden. Hier die Daten aus fruheren Bohrungen in den Jahren 2008 und 2011:

Das 2011 durchgefuhrte Bohrprogramm fand im Projekt Gold Creek 2 Kilometer nordostlich der Stadt Likely im Zentrum von British Columbia statt und umfasste 2501 Meter in 25 Bohrlochern. Funf der Locher waren Diamantbohrlocher (1037 m), die ubrigen 16 Locher (1464 m) wurden mit einem Bohrgerat mittels Umkehrspulung (RC) niedergebracht. Im Rahmen des Bohrprogramms wurde eine Zone mit ausgepragter Goldmineralisierung (Probenwerte von bis zu 13,4 g/t Au) abgegrenzt.

Ziel des Bohrprogramms 2011 war es, zahlreiche Gold-in-Boden-Anomalien zu untersuchen und die geringgradige, fur eine Massenforderung geeignete Goldmineralisierung, die im Zuge fruherer Bohrungen entdeckt worden war, zu erweitern. Die hochgradigste Goldmineralisierung, die bisher gefunden wurde, befindet sich innerhalb der geschichteten Quarz-Karbonat-Pyrit-Erzgange (Loch GC11-15 mit 3,26 g/t Au auf 1,5 m und Loch GC11-27 mit 13,4 g/t Au auf 1,5 m) in den Grauwackeeinheiten. Dieser Mineralisierungstypus breitet sich scheinbar entlang der in WNW-OSO-Richtung verlaufenden Trendzone aus, die auf rund 300 m Streichenlange nachverfolgt werden kann und in ostlicher Richtung bzw. in der Tiefe offen ist.

Die Auswertung der Bohrdaten aus den Jahren 2011 und 2008 hat gezeigt, dass sich hier offenbar eine rund 75 - 100 Meter machtige und uber 300 Meter lange Zone aus geringgradiger Goldmineralisierung befindet, die entlang des Streichens in sudwestlicher Richtung und in der Tiefe offen ist. Insgesamt neun Bohrungen wurden bisher in dieser Zone - die gegen Nordosten steil abzufallen scheint und bis in eine vertikale Tiefe von max. 250 Meter erkundet wurde - niedergebracht. In der nachstehenden Tabelle sind die bisherigen Bohrergebnisse aus dieser Mineralisierungszone zusammengefasst:

Loch OstausrichNordausrichGesamtlanvon bis AbschniAu

Nr. tung tung ge (m) (m) tt (g/t (WGS84) (WGS84) (m)* )**

Diamantbohrlocher GC08-599217 5831231 124,53 12,173,1560,96 0,757 01 9

GC08-599217 5831231 256,03 20,087,7967,76 0,421 02 3

GC08-599217 5831231 103,63 2,7467,6764,93 0,281 03

GC08-599294 5831103 117,35 7,01103,797,75 0,355 04 6

GC08-599294 5831088 183,18 6,41113,0106,67 0,327 05 8

GC08-599294 5831088 274,62 18,2274,6256,33 0,245 06 9 2

GC11-599214 5831230 150 4,0 31,0 27,0 0,362 14 GC11-599211 5831235 261 14,091,0 77,0 0,316 15 einschl. 15,517,0 1,5 3,261 und 173,212,539,0 0,131 5 einschl. 175,176,51,0 2,164 5 GC11-599278 5831143 44,2 3,1 44,2 41,2 0,893 27 einschl. 3,1 32,0 29,0 1,093 einschl. 10,712,2 1,5 13,40 0

*Lange des Bohrabschnitts, keine wahre Machtigkeit; **durchschnittliche Goldwerte ohne Cutoff Die Erorterung der Bohrergebnisse stammt aus einer Pressemeldung von Bullion Resources Inc. vom 8. Oktober 2013

Das nordwestliche Ende der Zone scheint von einer Verwerfungszone abgeschnitten zu sein. Wie oben erwahnt, ist die Zone aber in sudostlicher Richtung offen, und die Gold-in-Boden-Anomalie (> 50 ppb Au im Boden), die sich im Sudosten uber einen Bereich von rund 900 m des Projekts Gold Creek ausdehnt, muss erst anhand von Bohrungen untersucht werden. Die beilegende Karte zeigt die Ausmae der Goldmineralisierung im Projekt Gold Creek. Diese Ergebnisse stimmen das Unternehmen sehr optimistisch.

Die zukunftige Exploration wird sich darauf konzentrieren, die Abgrenzungen der Mineralisierung zu definieren und anhand dieser Daten eine 43-101-konforme Ressourcenschatzung fur das Projekt Gold Creek zu erstellen.

http://www.irw-press.at/prcom/images/messages/2017/38862/NR 2017 03_DE_PRCOM.001.jpeg

UBER EUREKA Zu den Goldprojekten des Unternehmens zahlen das Konzessionsgebiet FG in der Region Cariboo im Zentrum von British Columbia, das uber eine angezeigte Ressource im Umfang von 376.000 Unzen Gold und eine abgeleitete Ressource im Umfang von 634.900 Unzen Gold verfugt, sowie das Goldkonzessionsgebiet Gold Creek, das im selben Goldgurtel wie das Projekt FG liegt. Das Goldprojekt FG befindet sich in einem fortgeschrittenen Explorationsstadium und wird im Rahmen einer Optionsvereinbarung von Canarc Resource Corp. betrieben.

Das Konzessionsgebiet Gold Creek ist ein Projekt, das sich unweit der Lagerstatte Spanish Mountain befindet und eine ahnliche Geologie wie letztere aufweist.

Eureka hat vor kurzem den Kauf des Projekts Luxor und des Konzessionsgebiets TAK im beruhmten Goldgurtel Dawson Range im Westen des Yukon, wo derzeit ein reger Bergbau stattfindet, abgeschlossen.

Eureka besitzt eine 50 %-Beteiligung am Lithiumsoleprojekt Gemini im Lida Valley, rund 40 Kilometer (26 Meilen) sudlich von Clayton Valley, dem Standort der einzigen produzierenden Lithiummine Nordamerikas. Die Bohrungen sollen hier 2017 aufgenommen werden. Die Bohrungen haben sich aufgrund des Erfolgs unserer Partner Nevada Sunrise und Advantage Lithium, die sich dafur entschieden haben, zunachst die Bohrarbeiten in ihrem Projekt Clayton Northeast fortzusetzen (siehe Pressemeldungen von AAL und NEV im Dezember 2016), verzogert.

Kristian Whitehead P.Geo und John Kerr P. Eng. sind fur diese Pressemeldung als qualifizierte Sachverstandige des Unternehmens im Sinne der Vorschrift NI 43-101 zustandig und haben den fachlichen Inhalt dieser Pressemeldung gepruft und genehmigt.

Weitere Informationen zu Eureka finden Sie auf der Webseite des Unternehmens unter www.eurekaresourcesinc.com bzw. unter www.sedar.com. Informationen erhalten Sie auch uber President & CEO Michael Sweatman oder Bob Ferguson (E-Mail: info@eurekaresourcesinc.com, Tel. (604) 449-2273).

TSXV - EUK WKN: 875742 ISIN: CA2986551018

Vorsorglicher Hinweis bezuglich zukunftsgerichteter Informationen

Diese Pressemeldung enthalt bestimmte zukunftsgerichtete Aussagen im Sinne der geltenden kanadischen Wertpapiergesetze, bei denen es sich nicht um historische Tatsachen handelt. Zukunftsgerichtete Aussagen unterliegen bestimmten Risiken, Unsicherheiten und anderen Faktoren, die dazu fuhren konnten, dass sich die tatsachlichen Ergebnisse, Leistungen, Prognosen und Chancen erheblich von jenen unterscheiden, die in solchen Aussagen direkt oder indirekt erwahnt werden. Die zukunftsgerichteten Aussagen in dieser Pressemitteilung beinhalten, jedoch nicht darauf beschrankt, Aussagen hinsichtlich der geplanten Finanzierungen, Ziele und zukunftigen Erweiterungsplane des Unternehmens fur das Projekt Gemini und das Projekt FG; der Kosten der geplanten Explorationsprogramme des Unternehmens; der Absicht des Unternehmens, zusatzliche Tranchen im Rahmen des Angebots abzuschlieen; sowie des Geschafts und der Betriebe des Unternehmens. Zukunftsgerichtete Aussagen basieren zwangslaufig auf einer Reihe von Schatzungen und Annahmen, die zwar vernunftig sind, aber dennoch bekannten und unbekannten Risiken, Ungewissheiten und anderen Faktoren unterliegen, die dazu fuhren konnten, dass sich die tatsachlichen Ergebnisse und zukunftigen Ereignisse erheblich von jenen unterscheiden, die in solchen zukunftsgerichteten Aussagen explizit oder implizit zum Ausdruck gebracht wurden. Zu solchen Faktoren zahlen unter anderem: allgemeine geschaftliche, wirtschaftliche und soziale Unsicherheiten; Rechtstreitigkeiten; rechtliche, umweltbezogene und andere juristische, behordliche, politische oder wettbewerbsbezogene Entwicklungen; dass sich die Genehmigungen des Boards oder der Behorden verzogern oder nicht erteilt werden; sowie andere Risiken, die in den offentlichen Unterlagen des Unternehmens beschrieben sind und auf SEDAR unter www.sedar.com veroffentlicht wurden. Obwohl das Unternehmen die Annahmen und Faktoren, die zur Erstellung der zukunftsgerichteten Aussagen verwendet wurden, fur angemessen halt, sind diese Aussagen nicht zuverlassig und gelten nur ab dem Datum dieser Pressemeldung. Es kann nicht garantiert werden, dass solche Ereignisse im zeitlich vorgegebenen Rahmen bzw. uberhaupt eintreten. Soweit nicht gesetzlich vorgeschrieben, hat das Unternehmen keine Absicht oder Verpflichtung, zukunftsgerichtete Aussagen aufgrund neuer Informationen, zukunftiger Ereignisse oder aus sonstigen Grunden zu aktualisieren oder zu revidieren.

Die Ausgangssprache (in der Regel Englisch), in der der Originaltext veroffentlicht wird, ist die offizielle, autorisierte und rechtsgultige Version. Diese Ubersetzung wird zur besseren Verstandigung mitgeliefert. Die deutschsprachige Fassung kann gekurzt oder zusammengefasst sein. Es wird keine Verantwortung oder Haftung: fur den Inhalt, fur die Richtigkeit, der Angemessenheit oder der Genauigkeit dieser Ubersetzung ubernommen. Aus Sicht des Ubersetzers stellt die Meldung keine Kauf- oder Verkaufsempfehlung dar! Bitte beachten Sie die englische Originalmeldung auf www.sedar.com , www.sec.gov , www.asx.com.au/ oder auf der Firmenwebsite!

Die englische Originalmeldung finden Sie unter folgendem Link: http://www.irw-press.at/press_html.aspx?messageID=38862 Die ubersetzte Meldung finden Sie unter folgendem Link: http://www.irw-press.at/press_html.aspx?messageID=38862&tr=1

NEWSLETTER REGISTRIERUNG:

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ISIN CA2986551018

AXC0179 2017-02-09/13:51
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 9, 2017) - Cruz Capital Corp (TSXV: CUZ) (OTC Pink: BKTPF) (FSE: A2AG5M) is pleased to announce that management is proposing to change the company's name to Cruz Cobalt Corp to accurately reflect the company's focus on high grade North American Cobalt prospects. The name change is pending exchange approval.

Cruz President, James Nelson, stated, "By changing the name to Cruz Cobalt Corp, management feels it will accurately reflect the company's focus on cobalt. Cruz's advantage is that we have multiple high grade cobalt projects in North America and have been enjoying first mover status in the space by being able to acquire these high historical grade cobalt projects before the recent "rush" into the sector. We have cash on hand and plan to have a very active work season commencing shortly. Management feels that cobalt prices are starting a significant price climb, similar to the move that lithium enjoyed over the past two years. Cobalt prices closed at a new 5-year high yesterday and we are extremely optimistic about the short and long term growth drivers on Cruz Cobalt Corp."

On Feb 7 2017, the company also reported it is now fully DTC eligible on the USA markets. Being fully DTC eligible will now enable USA brokerage firms to clear Cruz shares in their home market not via the Canadian market therefore creating a much more transparent and easily accessible trading situation for the USA market.

"Cruz employed early mover advantage as Cruz has been able to acquire, what we feel is one of the best collections of cobalt prospects in North America before the majority of the recent cobalt entrants were in the space. Cruz currently has Seven cobalt projects located in Canada and one in Idaho. Cruz's 4 separate Ontario cobalt prospects, according to government mineral files, returned cobalt grades of 13% on the 900 acre Coleman Cobalt Prospect and 10.5% cobalt on the 900 acre Johnson Cobalt Prospect. The 5500 acre Hector Cobalt Prospect was a past producing cobalt mine and the 1480 acre Bucke Cobalt Prospect returned cobalt grades of 13%. Our War Eagle Cobalt Prospect in British Columbia covers a past producing mine as well and returned assays of 6.5% Cobalt. Based on these projects, management feels that Cruz has amassed a quality portfolio of Cobalt assets that have some of the highest historic cobalt grades in North America, which sets Cruz apart from most cobalt companies in the junior space. We feel that 2017 will be a break out year for cobalt prices and Cruz is well positioned to take full advantage of this. We plan to commence full operations on these projects with our goal to make Cruz the "go-to" North American Cobalt project generator and developer. The first half of 2017 will be an extremely active period for Cruz and management is optimistic about what will be discovered by Cruz on our cobalt properties," states President Nelson.

If you would like to be added to Cruz's email list please send an email to info@cruzcapitalcorp.com or twitter @CruzCapitalCorp

James Nelson

President

604.899.9150

Toll free 1.885.599.9150

www.cruzcapitalcorp.com

twitter @CruzCapitalCorp
SINGAPORE -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- Adyen, the leading payments technology company, today announced the company increased transaction volume by 80 percent year-on-year, totaling US$90 billion in 2016. Adyen also made significant traction in Southeast Asia, with the expansion of its Singapore office and the signing of customers like RedMart, Grab and Althea.

"The opportunity for disruption and innovation in global payments is like no other market in the world today," said Pieter van der Does, co-founder and CEO of Adyen. "Adyen has become the partner of choice for companies looking to expand globally, and we're now seeing real growth in our next big area of focus, the in-store retail payment experience."

Along with Tory Burch and Burberry, Adyen's fast growing list of retail customers includes L'Oreal, Kit and Ace and Scotch & Soda. In the past twelve months, the company's in-store point-of-sale solution has expanded to over 2,700 live stores in U.S. and Europe.

Adyen has also continued to expand the number of ecommerce businesses it works with, bringing on new customers such as RedMart in Southeast Asia, Etsy, LinkedIn, Skype and Twitter to join its expanding list of customers including Uber, Netflix, Facebook, Airbnb, Spotify and more.

"RedMart aims to be the most customer-centric ecommerce company in the region. Ensuring a smooth checkout is very important to the overall user experience. We work closely with Adyen to ensure the payment process is convenient, seamless, and builds trust with our shoppers. Adyen provides us with the right experience, unified reporting, and local practice expertise to aid in our growth," said Jim Boland, CFO, RedMart Limited.

Throughout 2016, Adyen increased its footprint around the globe. Adyen expanded its local card acquiring capabilities to the U.S., Brazil, Hong Kong and Australia. Additionally, it continued to add local payment methods in key markets -- including WeChatPay in China and Oxxo in Mexico. Adyen is unique in that it has a single global and end-to-end platform, which enables the company to increase overall conversions rates for its customers by 1.4 percent.

The company also increased profitability in 2016, and has been profitable since 2011.

For more information about the Adyen payment platform, visit: http://www.adyen.com

About Adyen

Adyen is a technology company that provides businesses with a single solution to accept payments anywhere in the world. The only provider of a modern end-to-end infrastructure connecting directly to Visa, MasterCard, and consumers' globally preferred payment methods, Adyen delivers frictionless payments across online, mobile, and in-store. With offices all around the world, Adyen serves more than 4,500 businesses, including 7 of the 10 largest U.S. Internet companies. Customers include Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, Netflix, Spotify, L'Oreal and Burberry.

Press Contacts

Sara Pereira

Email Contact

+65 9794 8380



Melissa Jaswal

Email Contact

+65 9837 3746



Pui-San Wong

Adyen

Email Contact

+65 3158 5065




LIMASSOL, Cyprus, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Global, online forex and CFD broker, Vipro Markets announced the launch of its upgraded Client Area that offers traders and IBs a completely new experience in managing their accounts.

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/466544/New_Vipro_Client_Area.jpg )



The new version of Vipro Markets' Client Area boasts a responsive, user-friendly design that makes it easier to view and navigate its main tabs: Trader's Room, IB Room and Forex Tools.

With forex traders becoming even more sophisticated and technology-savvy, Vipro Markets capitalises on its robust in-house IT infrastructure to revamp its Client Area and add extra automated functions giving traders the possibility to:

Use quick buttons to perform various actions on each of their trading accounts (deposit, withdraw, transfer funds, modify account settings).

Export detailed CSV-formatted reports at the touch of a button

The Client Area also features a dedicated IB section where Introducing Brokers can monitor the performance of their accounts, keep track of their clients' trading activity and income and make withdrawals and fund transfers. The IB room is also equipped with powerful promotional tools for better conversion rate optimisation.

Consistent with its commitment to improving Clients' trading skills, the broker added more materials to the Client Area's all-in-one education section, including videos on forex strategies, market analysis, trading psychology, ebooks, forex signals and live webinars in multiple languages.

The broker's new Client Area is optimised for mobile devices, including iPads, iPhones and Android devices and provides a secure environment powered by advanced SSL encryption.

Vipro Markets CEO, Valerijus Ovsianikas, commented: "We are proud to unveil our new Client Area that provides traders with full control over their trading and financial operations. After months of extensive research and testing, our expert team of IT professionals developed a simple, modern interface combined with improved functionality and superior resources for both novice and advanced traders".

As a fast-growing company with a vision to take the lead in the forex industry, Vipro Markets will continue to invest in the latest technologies and industry trends to streamline its products and services with the aim of enhancing Clients' trading experience.

Notes to Media:

About Vipro Markets

Vipro Markets is a global forex broker offering retail and institutional Clients trading services with prime focus on Forex, Stock Indices, commodities, CFDs and precious metals. The broker is authorised and regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), with license number 278/15, and is also a Member of the Investor Compensation Fund (ICF). The Company has distinguished itself among ECN Forex brokers by providing top-notch trading services with low average spreads and commissions and ultra-fast execution though its state-of-the-art trading servers located at the Equinix LD4 data center in London.

Trading in derivative financial instruments may not be suitable for everyone and we therefore advise Clients to make themselves familiar with all the risks involved. Please review the Vipro Markets Client Agreement and other legal documentation available on Vipro Markets website before entering into any transaction with the company. Website: http://www.vipromarkets.com
JAKARTA, Indonesia, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --CPhI South East Asia returns to the Jakarta International Expo in Indonesia for its fifth edition from 22nd-24th March 2017 as regional pharma companies expect robust growth. In fact, the slowing pace of global markets and the increasing threat of a new protectionist wave is transforming the outlook of South East Asian (SEA)manufacturers which are now shifting their focus more to the actual prospects of regional exports. Mirroring this trend, international investors and companies are now pushing for more business in this regional market, across the entire ASEAN economy.

Logo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/466535/CPhI_SEA_Logo.jpg

Logo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/466542/UBM_Logo.jpg

Comprising 40% of SEA economic output, Indonesia is the largest pharma market in the South East Asia Pacific region (SEA/AP). The country has the biggest and fastest-growing economy in the SEA region and a pharma economy consisting of over 200 pharmaceutical companies. There are already 25-30 generic domestic companies with access to the international market, and equally, there are approximately 35 multinational companies established in the area.

These favourable macro trends will be reflected at CPhI South East Asia where domestic manufacturers in particular are increasingly attending the event, with a view to opening up sales in international markets. The biggest pharma event in the ASEAN region, CPhI South East Asia will gather over 5,500 attendees from 41 countries and more than 260 exhibitors (click here for the full list) to network, learn and do business for three days. Co-locating this year with Health Ingredients South East Asia, the event welcomes the best pharma ingredients professionals, packaging experts, machinery providers and contract manufacturing as well as nutraceutical companies from across the region.

The event's conference programme is a dedicated, content-enriched platform that will cover business outlook and markets, regulations and compliance, and manufacturing and supply chain. Sessions include "Strategies to improve market access", "Effective compliance strategies when managing 3rd parties" and "Big Data trends and applications in Supply Chain" and panel discussions on "A look at the pharmaceutical industry in South East Asia" and "ASEAN regulatory harmonization developments".

The event is supported by national and regional governments and regional trade groups, such as: the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Industry, theIndonesia Investment Coordinating Board, and theNational Agency for Drug and Food Control.

Rutger Oudejans, Brand Director CPhI South East Asia at UBM EMEA, commented: "2017 marks the 5th anniversary of CPhI South East Asia, and it is incredible to see how far this pharma economy has come. We are seeing a strong interest from international companies coming to the event looking to do business not only in Indonesia, but in the entire ASEAN economy. Additionally, in the last few years more and more Indonesian regional manufacturers are using the event as an essential conduit to begin established sales outside their core domestic market.This year we will also introduce the ASEAN-India strategic forum to help increase bilateral trade with Indian counterparts, as well as an Investment Forum and Distributors network."

Highlighted features at CPhI South East Asia in 2017 include:

The Investment Forum, matching key international players interested in investing in Indonesia with the top tier pharma companies in the country looking for reliable partners.

matching key international players interested in investing in with the top tier pharma companies in the country looking for reliable partners. The ASEAN- India strategic sourcing Forum provides a business-networking platform for ASEAN companies, both manufacturers and distributors alike, focusing on bilateral trade with their Indian counterparts.

provides a business-networking platform for ASEAN companies, both manufacturers and distributors alike, focusing on bilateral trade with their Indian counterparts. All distributors in the region have been invited to visit the event and network with peers and exhibitors through CPhI South East Asia's Distributor Network -- expanding its database of providers in the region with the aim of magnifying the reach throughout the whole ASEAN region.

-- expanding its database of providers in the region with the aim of magnifying the reach throughout the whole ASEAN region. The Business Matchmaking programme provides attendees with the opportunity to browse potential clients, schedule meetings before the event, and find new business partners.

provides attendees with the opportunity to browse potential clients, schedule meetings before the event, and find new business partners. Roadshows have been organized in many ASEAN countries to further promote CPhI South East Asia as a pharma bridge in the region.

For more information please visit: http://www.cphi.com/sea/

About CPhI

CPhI brings together more than 100,000 pharmaceutical professionals each year. CPhI hosts events in Europe, Korea, China, India, Japan, Southeast Asia, Istanbul and Russia.

Media Contact:

Ivan Ferrari

Phone Number: +62-21-2930-5959

Email: ivan.ferrari@ubm.com


Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 9, 2017) - BCGold Corp. (TSX-V: BCG) ("BCGold" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the appointment of Eduardo (Ed) Baer to serve as Chief Executive Officer and Director. Further to the Company's press release dated January 23, 2017, Gary W. Anderson has ceased acting as interim CEO and will continue to serve as the Executive Chairman of BC Gold's Board.

"This is the perfect time for Ed to become BC Gold's Chief Executive Officer. We've selected a proven leader at a time when the Company is transitioning its focus to its Peruvian projects," states Gary Anderson, Executive Chairman. "Ed is not only Peruvian, but has extensive experience working in Peru, understands the jurisdiction in terms of what it takes to drive mining projects, strengthen existing relationships in the communities where the company operates, including interacting with leaders of these communities and other stakeholders to ensure local support, and preserve the ongoing maintenance of a "social licence" for the advancement of the company's projects."

Mr. Baer brings over 25 years of professional experience encompassing business development, strategic planning, and management expertise in the mining sector. Throughout his career, Mr. Baer was instrumental in advancing the development of TSX, TSXV listed companies. Mr. Baer, in his capacity as interim President and CEO, completed the turnaround of European Goldfields Ltd., served in a senior corporate development capacity to Greystar Resources Ltd., and held senior executive positions with TVX Gold Inc. Mr. Baer is a Director of for-profit and not-for-profit private and public companies, and previously held executive directorships at both European Goldfields and TVX Gold. Mr. Baer holds a Master of Laws (LLM) from Osgoode Hall Law School and a Master of Science (Leadership) with Highest Distinction from Northeastern University. Mr. Baer is a member of the Institute of Corporate Directors and obtained the ICD.D designation in 2009.

"I am very pleased to join BC Gold's team," expresses Ed Baer. "I look forward to guiding the company's exploration projects through the preliminary economic assessment, pre-feasibility and feasibility phases in collaboration with management and fellow Board members. Working from our asset platform that includes two distinct advanced exploration projects, Pucacorral and Chanape, and that reside some 90 kilometers from Lima, allows us to develop a functional strategy for our mineral projects as we focus on transitioning from exploration to operational capacity in time."

Mr. Baer's appointment is consistent with the Board's implementation of a strategic plan to restructure the Company and direct its primary focus to Peru. Efforts are underway to facilitate financing arrangements, the successful recapitalization of the Company, and the continued advancement of its exploration activities. It is anticipated that in the coming months management will continue to introduce new projects in keeping with the rightful composition of the Company's portfolio of assets.

The Company also wishes to welcome Mr. Victor Jaramillo, M.Sc., P.Geo., to its advisory board. Mr. Jaramillo is an International Exploration and Mining Geologist with over 30 years' experience particularly in precious and base metal type mineral deposits. He has previously held positions with major and junior mining companies as project manager, senior project geologist, chief mine geologist and exploration manager. He has been involved in regional exploration, property assessment, resource estimation & mine operations.

He is author of multiple technical NI 43-101 reports, is perfectly bilingual (English-Spanish) and has several years' experience working throughout Latin America, particularly in Mexico, Chile and Peru, as well as Canada and the U.S.

Mr. Jaramillo supervised the team that discovered the La Langosta porphyry copper-gold prospect in Mexico, and the Las Lomas porphyry copper-gold prospect in Peru. He is a Fellow of the Geological Association of Canada and a Fellow of the Society of Economic Geologists.

Gary Anderson, Executive Chairman, commented: "Mr. Jaramillo's appointment to the advisory board further underlies our commitment to exploration and mining in Peru and South America, and will provide the means to boost our performance and exposure to quality projects in the region."

About BCGold

BCGold is a Vancouver-based junior resource company that has been listed on the TSX Venture Exchange for 10 years, with a focus on copper and gold exploration. The Company acquires prospective gold and copper-gold exploration properties considered to have significant mineral potential by staking, option or purchase agreements. The Company currently has a portfolio of properties in Peru, BC and Yukon with the focus being Peru.

On behalf of the Board of Directors,

Gary W. Anderson,

Executive Chairman

For further information, please contact:

Gary W. Anderson

Executive Chairman

604-857-2556

gwaa123@gmail.com

bcgir@bcgoldcorp.com

Eduardo Baer

Chief Executive Officer

416 783 0503

e.baer@rogers.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.
PUNE, India, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

According to a new market research report "Top 10 Cloud Technologies Market (Hybrid Cloud, Cloud Storage, Cloud Migration, Cloud Orchestration, Integration Platform As-A-Service, Disaster Recovery As-A-Service, Multi Cloud Management, Video-As-A Service, Cloud Analytics, and Wi-Fi-As-A-Service)", published by MarketsandMarkets, Cloud adoption is increasing rapidly by enterprises due to various factors such as the need for agility, on-demand scalability, flexibility, and cost effectiveness.

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Browse50 market data Tables and70 Figures spread through 187 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Top 10 Cloud Technology Market"

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The cloud offers pay-as-you-go service for users, which helps in reducing costs to a great extent. Disaster recovery and security services over the cloud are provided to users, which make it a reliable and secure source for data storage and management. These are a few drivers of the cloud technology due to which enterprises are adopting it speedily. The hybrid cloud market and DRaaS market are the largest and fastest growing markets, respectively, during the forecast period.

The hybrid cloud market is expected to have the largest market size, growing from USD 33.28 Billion in 2016 to USD 91.74 Billion by 2021, at a CAGR of 22.5%.

Hybrid cloud is used in several applications such as BFSI, telecommunication & ITES, and healthcare & life sciences. The market for hybrid cloud is growing owing to the increasing application base in which it is being implemented. Out of these verticals, BFSI is the most significant and contributes the maximum share. The hybrid cloud provides BFSI a seamless and a user-friendly model to migrate the applications between different infrastructure with ease and in lesser time.

Ask for PDF Brochure @ http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownload.asp?id=10879352

The cloud storage market is expected to grow from USD 23.76 Billion in 2016 to USD 74.94 Billion by 2021, at a CAGR of 25.8% during the forecast period.

Cloud storage is used in several applications such as telecommunication & ITES, BFSI, and government & public sector. The BFSI industry is expected to hold significant market share in the cloud storage market due to various benefits provided by cloud-based technologies such as improved performance, reduced IT infrastructure cost, and lower downtime. The telecommunication and ITES vertical is growing at a rapid pace as it has a huge customer base and recovery of data is essential to keep the customers informed.

The market for DRaaS is expected to grow from USD 1,677.1 Million in 2016 to USD 11,105.9 Million by 2021, at a CAGR of 45.9% during the forecast period.

The market for DRaaS is expected to grow at the highest CAGR in the top 10 cloud technologies market. Backup service provides restoration of data during downtime or failures such as power outage, human error, and natural catastrophe. It offers numerous benefits such as data synchronization, easy accessibility, and online viewing. The major vendors offering backup services to the end users, SMEs, and large enterprises include IBM, AWS, NTT Communications, and Verizon. It provides cost-effective, automated, reliable, secure, and scalable solutions to the enterprises ensuring business continuity in the event of disaster.

The market for iPaaS is expected to grow from USD 528.0 Million in 2016 to USD 2,998.3 Million by 2021, at a CAGR of 41.5% during the forecast period.

The cloud service orchestration service type in the iPaaS market is expected to hold the largest market share in 2016. The adoption of cloud orchestration among the enterprises increased due to benefits such as assistance in strategic decision-making, improved productivity & performance, and decrease in business downtime & losses. The major factors that have been driving the adoption of cloud orchestration are the need for flexibility, agility, and cost-efficiency; growing demand for optimum resources utilization; and increasing need for self-service provisioning. Some of the companies offering cloud service orchestration in the iPaaS market are MuleSoft, IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle. The application integration service type is expected to grow at the highest CAGR of during the forecast period. The North American region is expected to have the largest market size in 2016 in application integration services.

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The key manufacturers in the Top 10 Cloud Technologies Market include IBM Corporation (New York, U.S.), Cisco Systems, Inc. (California, U.S.), VMware, Inc. (California, U.S.), Amazon Web Services (Washington, U.S.), Microsoft Corporation (Washington, U.S.), Oracle Corporation (California, U.S.), Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (California, U.S.), Rackspace Hosting, Inc. (Texas, U.S.), Google, Inc. (California, U.S.), and SAP SE (Wurttemberg, Germany).

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CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts and INDIANAPOLIS, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Winning title offers practical guidance, strategic insight to healthcare information and management systems professionals

Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, and the IU Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis today announced that HIMSS (Healthcare Information Management Systems Society), an international not-for-profit organization focused on better health through information technology (IT), will award its 2016 Book of the Year Award to Health Information Exchange: Navigating and Managing a Network of Health Information Systems. Edited by Brian E. Dixon, PhD, FHIMSS, an Associate Professor at the IU Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health and Research Scientist at the Regenstrief Institute, the book was published in March 2016 by Elsevier's Academic Press imprint.

Health Information Exchange confronts the opportunities and challenges associated with the electronic exchange of data and information across the complex network of hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, and other entities involved in providing health care. While the last decade has witnessed tremendous growth in the proliferation of IT in health care, many find it complicated and frustrating to connect those systems in a way that delivers high quality, patient-centered care. Described as a "timely response to a critical need within the health system" by Charles E. Christian, FHIMSS, CHCIO, the Vice President for Technology and Engagement at the Indiana Health Information Exchange who nominated it for the award, the book chronicles the need for and progress towards interoperability among health information systems as well as the methods and tools necessary to enable seamless, nationwide exchange of health information no matter where a patient receives care. Experts and accomplished practitioners contributed to the book's chapters and its several case studies that detail how leading organizations are moving the needle with respect to health care delivery and outcomes.

The HIMSS Book of the Year Award honors a book that offers outstanding practical guidance and/or strategic insight for healthcare information and management systems professionals. JoAnn W. Klinedinst, MEd, CPHIMS, PMP, DES, FHIMSS, the Vice President of Professional Development for HIMSS North America summarizes the merits of the book this way: "Not only does Dr. Dixon offer foundational knowledge on Health Information Exchange (HIE) that covers the broad areas of technology, governance, and policy but also he provides in-depth case studies that serve to connect learners to real-world applications. This combination is critical to ensuring that stakeholders across all disciplines understand the latest applications of HIE that positively impact care delivery."

Editor Brian E. Dixon, PhD, FHIMSS, teaches and conducts research in the area of public health informatics, which applies information and computer science to improve population health monitoring as well as outcomes. Prior to joining the faculty at IUPUI, Dr. Dixon was an accomplished computer programmer as well as IT project manager who developed and implemented technologies that are now used by more than 100 hospitals and 20,000 physicians to exchange data necessary for caring for individual patients as well as monitoring the health of Indiana communities via the Indiana Health Information Exchange. Dr. Dixon has published more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and serves on multiple advisory boards for governmental and non-profit organizations who seek to use information technology to improve care delivery and health outcomes. Dr. Dixon was named to the "Forty Under 40" list in 2014 by the Indianapolis Business Journal and an Outstanding Investigator by the Regenstrief Institute's Center for Biomedical Informatics. He was named a HIMSS Fellow in 2012.

The award will be presented to Dr. Dixon at the HIMSS Awards Gala, on February 21, 2017 at Loews Portofino Bay Hotel at Universal Orlando. The gala is one of the premier events held during the 2017 HIMSS Conference & Exhibition, from February 19-23, at the Orange County Convention Center.

About the IU Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health

The IU Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI seeks to cultivate innovative, interdisciplinary, community engaged education, research and service and prepare leaders in public health and health care. The school has over 500 students enrolled in its three undergraduate, four master's and four doctoral education programs related to public health and health administration. Pending approval, the school will offer the nation's first bachelor of science degree in health data science. The school further has numerous active research collaborations with local and state health departments in Indiana as well as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a world-leading provider of information solutions that enhance the performance of science, health, and technology professionals, empowering them to make better decisions, deliver better care, and sometimes make groundbreaking discoveries that advance the boundaries of knowledge and human progress. Elsevier provides web-based, digital solutions - among them ScienceDirect, Scopus, Research Intelligenceand ClinicalKey - and publishes over 2,500 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and more than 35,000 book titles, including a number of iconic reference works. Elsevier is part of RELX Group, a world-leading provider of information and analytics for professional and business customers across industries.www.elsevier.com





Media contacts

Amanda Briggs

Director of Marketing and Communication, IU Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health

+1-317-278-0386

amanbrig@iu.edu



Pam Foote

Publicity Contact, Science & Technology Books, Elsevier

+1-978-837-8182

Footep@reedelsevier.com


CHARLESTON, SC -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- Shipt, the fastest growing online grocery marketplace, today announced that it will begin delivering fresh groceries to Charleston residents beginning on February 23, 2017. At launch, over 92,000 households in the Charleston area will have access to grocery delivery from Shipt. To celebrate the launch of Shipt in Charleston, annual members who sign up prior to February 23 will receive $25 off their first grocery order.

Founded in 2014, Shipt is committed to simplifying the lives of its members by offering an alternative to time-consuming grocery shopping. Shipt delivers all items available at traditional grocery stores, which are conveniently listed in its app in designated sections, including categories that feature healthy and organic products, seasonal selections and ingredients for quick, easy meals.

To gain access to Shipt grocery delivery, Charleston area residents can purchase an annual Shipt membership for $99. Then, through the Shipt app, members can shop the full selection of groceries offered at a local store, note any preferences, choose a one-hour delivery window and pay for their order. Shipt connects members with a community of Shoppers who hand pick their items and deliver them as soon as one hour after the order is placed.

"Charleston is a city of great food, style, and business. There is so much to do in and around the city, and we welcome the opportunity to be part of such a vibrant community," said Bill Smith, founder and CEO of Shipt. "We're in the business of giving busy people their time back and now with Shipt taking care of the grocery shopping, Charleston area residents can spend more time enjoying everything the city has to offer."

Shipt does not utilize surge pricing, even during peak times, and members have access to unlimited free delivery for orders over $35. To sign up for Shipt and learn more about the service and availability, visit Shipt.com/Charleston.

Leading up to the launch, Shipt plans to grow their network of Shoppers, who are responsible for ensuring complete, accurate fulfillments of each order. To apply to be a Shipt Shopper, visit Shipt.com and click "Get Paid to Shop." Shipt displays a commitment to each of the communities it serves and plans to identify opportunities to help eliminate hunger and food insecurity in and around Charleston.

About Shipt

Shipt, the nation's fastest growing online grocery marketplace, partners with leading retailers and local stores to deliver groceries via a community of shoppers and a convenient app. Actively delivering in 31 cities and their surrounding suburban regions across the country, Shipt provides members with unparalleled convenience and exceptional service that simplifies the grocery shopping experience. Shipt offers unlimited grocery deliveries to members for $99 per year. The company currently has offices in Birmingham, AL, and San Francisco, CA. For more information, visit Shipt.com.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Julie Coop

Email Contact

(205)799-4698




VANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwired - February 09, 2017) - Balmoral Resources Ltd. ("Balmoral" or the "Company") (TSX: BAR) (OTCQX: BALMF) announced today that its 2017 drilling program is now underway with the primary focus being the continued expansion and delineation of the Bug Lake gold deposits and other recent high-grade, near surface gold discoveries on its Martiniere Property, part of the Detour Gold Trend Project, in Quebec. It is anticipated that a minimum of 25,000 metres of drilling will be completed this year along the Bug Lake Gold Trend, with expansion of the size of the program as the year progresses being a strong possibility given the excellent results from the fall 2016 program.

"Our summer/fall 2016 drill program more than doubled the known footprint of the Bug South and Bug Lower Steep gold deposits and continued to extend the Bug North deposit down-plunge," said Darin Wagner, President and CEO of Balmoral. "Those results included some of the broadest gold mineralized intercepts from the property to date from our expansion drilling of the Bug South deposit, which is the initial focus of drilling this winter."

The Bug South gold deposit (see Figure 1) is one of three deposits now recognized along the length of the Bug Lake Gold Trend located central to the Martiniere Property. The summer/fall program led to the identification of a broad central core to the Bug South deposit located at depths of less than 275 vertical metres and highlighted by intercepts of:

115.45 metres grading 1.40 g/t gold including 10.75 metres grading 3.73 g/t gold (see NR16-19)

88.36 metres grading 1.07 g/t gold including 7.77 metres grading 2.99 g/t gold (see NR17-02)

78.17 metres grading 1.65 g/t gold including 17.00 metres grading 4.50 g/t gold (see NR16-24)

41.95 metres grading 3.24 g/t gold including 11.58 metres grading 6.30 g/t gold (see NR17-02)

35.16 metres grading 2.16 g/t gold including 9.08 metres grading 7.10 g/t gold (see NR16-24)

32.29 metres grading 3.39 g/t gold including 18.26 metres grading 5.41 g/t gold (see NR16-19)

25.90 metres grading 2.73 g/t gold including 10.75 metres grading 4.17 g/t gold (see NR16-19)

To date the Bug South deposit has been intersected for approximately 300 metres along strike, to a vertical depth of approximately 275 metres and down-plunge for approximately 425 metres. It remains open to depth and down plunge. One drill is currently testing the Bug South deposit with a second slated to begin turning over the next several days.

Drilling will also target the rapidly expanding Bug Lower Steep gold deposit which has now been intersected for over 850 metres down-plunge and which, like the Bug South deposit, remains open to depth and down-plunge. The sparsely drilled Lower Steep deposit has demonstrated excellent potential to rapidly add to the overall potential of the gold system at Martiniere.

The current winter drill program will also follow-up on three high grade, near surface gold discoveries made during the fall program. The first of these three targets, the 221 Zone, has already been intersected in several holes and occurs in the hanging wall to the Bug South Deposit. The discovery intercept of 26.90 metres grading 4.51 g/t gold included two higher grade sub-intervals grading 15.89 g/t gold over 2.80 metres and 10.89 g/t gold over 6.80 metres (see NR16-20).

The other two new discoveries occur approximately 300 metres to the east of the Bug Lake Gold Trend. The first, from hole BLD-16-03, returned 5.80 metres grading 10.51 g/t gold (see NR17-01). The second discovery is located approximately 1,000 metres to the south and returned 11.58 metres grading 6.25 g/t gold (see NR17-03). Both intercepts occur at depths of less than 100 vertical metres and are open in all directions. This area, 300-500 metres east of the Bug Lake Trend, is virtually untested and based on the recent intersections appears to have good potential to add meaningful zones of gold mineralization in the near surface to the project.

Finger Lake (Lac du Doigt) Fault Corridor

The north-south oriented Bug Lake Gold Trend is located between two east-west trending deformation/fault zones, the Sunday Lake Deformation Zone to the south, host to the large Detour Lake gold mine located 45 kilometres to the west, and the sub-parallel Finger Lake fault corridor to the north. The Finger Lake fault corridor was first identified by Balmoral in late 2014.

Limited drill testing along the Finger Lake fault corridor during the 2016 summer/fall drill program successfully extended the known gold mineralization along the corridor with an intercept of 1.28 g/t gold over 7.18 metres (43.27-50.45 metres downhole) including a higher grade core of 3.46 g/t gold over 2.37 metres in hole MDX-16-55. A second zone of weaker deformation and quartz-tourmaline veining occurs directly below (56.93-73.47 metres) and returned anomalous gold mineralization grading 0.17 g/t gold over 16.54 metres.

MDX-16-55 is the westernmost hole drilled to date along the Finger Lake corridor. Three holes across 750 metres of this structure have now all successfully intersected gold mineralization of a similar nature (see Figure 2) which is open in all directions.

"We continue to be very intrigued by the evolving potential along the Finger Lake fault system," said Mr. Wagner "The style of mineralization suggests a favourable environment which has been tested by only 3 holes to date, is open in all directions, and which has shown evidence for good gold grades and thicknesses. Additional testing is currently being planned for the summer 2017 season."

Quality Control

Mr. Darin Wagner (P.Geo.), President and CEO of the Company, is the non-independent qualified person for the technical disclosure contained in this news release. Mr. Wagner has supervised the work programs on the Martiniere Property since inception, visited the property on multiple occasions, examined the drill core from the holes summarized in this release, discussed, reviewed the results with senior on-site geological staff and reviewed the available analytical and quality control results.

Balmoral has implemented a quality control program for all of its drill programs, to ensure best practice in the sampling and analysis of the drill core, which includes the insertion of blind blanks, duplicates and certified standards into sample stream. NQ sized drill core is saw cut with half of the drill core sampled at intervals based on geological criteria including lithology, visual mineralization and alteration. The remaining half of the core is stored on-site at the Company's Martiniere field camp in Central Quebec. Drill core samples are transported in sealed bags to ALS Minerals' Val d'Or, Quebec analytical facilities. Gold analyses are obtained via industry standard fire assay with atomic absorption finish using 30 g aliquots. For samples returning greater than 5.00 g/t gold follow-up fire assay analysis with a gravimetric finish is completed. The Company has also requested that any samples returning greater than 10.00 g/t gold undergo screen metallic fire assay. Following receipt of assays, visual analysis of mineralized intercepts is conducted and additional analysis may be requested. ALS Minerals is ISO 9001:2008 certified and the Val d'Or facilities are ISO 17025 certified for gold analysis.

About Balmoral Resources Ltd. - www.balmoralresources.com

Balmoral is a well-funded, Canadian-based company actively delineating and expanding a series of high-grade gold deposits on its Martiniere Property located within the prolific Abitibi greenstone belts in Quebec, Canada. The Martiniere Property is just one of several large, highly prospective properties comprising the Company's wholly owned, 1,000 km 2 Detour Gold Trend Project. Employing an aggressive, drill focused exploration style in one of the world's preeminent mining jurisdictions, Balmoral is following an established formula with a goal of maximizing shareholder value through discovery and definition of high-grade, Canadian gold and base metal assets.

On behalf of the board of directors of

BALMORAL RESOURCES LTD.

"Darin Wagner"

President and CEO

This press release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, "forward looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and United States securities laws. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein, including statements regarding the anticipated content, commencement, duration and cost of exploration programs, anticipated exploration program results, the discovery and delineation of mineral deposits/resources/reserves, the timing of the receipt of assay results, the visual continuity of certain mineralized intervals and business and financing plans and trends, the potentially open nature of the mineralized zones on the property and the potential for future discoveries of additional mineralization on the property are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: believe, expect, anticipate, intend, estimate, postulate and similar expressions or are those which, by their nature, refer to future events. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, 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. The Company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements by the Company are not guarantees of future performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual events and results to differ materially from the Company's expectations include those related to weather, equipment and staff availability; performance of third parties; timing of receipt of assay results from third party analytical facilities; risks related to the exploration stage of the Company's projects; market fluctuations in prices for securities of exploration stage companies and in commodity prices; and uncertainties about the availability of additional financing; risks related to the Company's ability to identify one or more economic deposits on the properties, and variations in the nature, quality and quantity of any mineral deposits that may be located on the properties; risks related to the Company's ability to obtain any necessary permits, consents or authorizations required for its activities on the properties; and risks related to the Company's ability to produce minerals from the properties successfully or profitably. Trading in the securities of the Company should be considered highly speculative.All of the Company's public disclosure filings may be accessed via www.sedar.com and readers are urged to review these materials, including the latest technical reports filed with respect to the Company's mineral properties.

This news release contains information with respect to adjacent or similar mineral properties in respect of which the Company has no interest or rights to explore or mine. Readers are cautioned that the Company has no interest in or right to acquire any interest in any such properties, and that mineral deposits on adjacent or similar properties are not indicative of mineral deposits on the Company's properties.

This press release is not, and is not to be construed in any way as, an offer to buy or sell securities in the United States.

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2017/2/9/11G129853/Images/2017-02-09_nr-fig1-a5a95e17b450938e8538f6e8e0adb56f.jpg

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2017/2/9/11G129853/Images/Figure_2_-_NR17-04_17-02-09-684aa7242fb595009c74f426db2cf714.jpg

For further information contact:

John Foulkes

Vice-President, Corporate Development

Tel: (604) 638-5815

Toll Free: (877) 838-3664

E-mail: jfoulkes@balmoralresources.com
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The US military has said that it had killed eleven Al-Qaeda operativesin a bombing raid in Syria. U.S. forces killed 11 al-Qaida operatives , including a veteran leader and suicide bombing pioneer, in two precision airstrikes conducted Feb. 3-4 near Idlib, Syria, Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said in a statement issued Wednesday. The Feb. 4 airstrike killed Abu Hani al-Masri, a legacy al-Qaida terrorist with ties to the group's senior leaders, including Ayman al-Zawahiri and the late Osama bin Laden, Davis said in the statement. Al-Masri oversaw the creation and operation of many al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan in the 1980s and '90s. He was also one of the founders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the first Sunni group to use suicide bombers in their terror attacks, Davis said. EIJ is responsible for multiple attacks against U.S. and allied facilities and personnel, including a 1998 attempt to blow up the American embassy in Albania. The February 3 airstrike killed 10 terrorists in a building being used as an al-Qaida meeting place. These strikes disrupt al-Qaida's ability to plot and direct external attacks targeting the U.S. and our interests worldwide, Davis said. The extremists are increasingly questioning the loyalty of their members, the spokesman added, as paranoia spreads throughout their network about the many strikes conducted against them. U.S. forces have struck multiple meeting locations, an established basic training camp and four leaders since the beginning of the year, Davis said. 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.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- Coro Mining Corp. ("Coro" or the "Company") (TSX: COP) is pleased to announce that an environmental baseline study has been completed for the Marimaca copper leach development-stage project, located in the II Region of the Republic of Chile.

The work was carried out by an independent consultant, BORDOLI & Consultores Asociados EIRL of Antofagasta, Chile between November 2016 and January 2017. The consultant concluded that there were no material environmental issues that would impede the development of the Marimaca project, and the information gathered will form part of the feasibility study for the project that is in progress. It will also form the basis for the environmental permit applications for Marimaca, which will be submitted in due course.

Alan Stephens, President and CEO of Coro commented, "We are pleased to have completed this important phase of the project's evaluation which, together with the previously announced maiden resource estimate (see Coro press release dated January 12, 2017) and the planned acquisition of the Ivan processing plant, confirm our intention to accelerate the development of Marimaca."

The Company is also progressing through the acquisition of the Ivan processing plant and anticipates a closing of this arrangement by the end of Q1 2017. The recently announced Marimaca pit-constrained mineral resource estimate of 145,500 tonnes of copper in the measured and indicated categories and the 99,300 tonnes of copper in the inferred category provided the resource confirmation necessary to validate the decision to acquire the Ivan processing plant.

Corporate Update

In light of the improved company outlook with respect to both the Nora/Berta and Marimaca projects, Coro has heightened its investor outreach program to include a greater focus on social media, broader reach to potential new shareholder groups and greater exposure within the mining community. Coro has partnered with InvestorIntel, which is currently featuring a video interview with CEO Alan Stephens highlighting the new resource estimate at Marimaca and progress at the Nora/Berta operation (www.investorintel.com). In addition, Coro will be marketing in the western United States in late February and will be presenting at the Investor Forum during the Prospectors and Developers Conference (PDAC) in early March. More information will be forthcoming on these activities as the dates approach.

About Coro Mining Corp.:

Coro Mining is a copper-producing company with a strategy to grow its Chilean copper production through the discovery, development and operation of "Coro type" deposits. These are projects and properties that are well-located with respect to infrastructure and water, have low permitting risk and the potential for a short and cost-effective timeline to production. Our preference is open pit heap leach copper projects, where we will seek to minimize capital investment rather than maximize NPV; where we will prioritize profitability over production rate and where we will keep capital costs in relative proportion to our market capitalization. The Company's main assets include the Marimaca development project, in which the company is earning a 75% ownership and its 65% interest in SCM Berta, which includes the Nora and Berta operations as well as the El Jote deposit.

This news release includes certain "forward-looking statements" under applicable Canadian securities legislation. Such forward-looking statements or information, include but are not limited to production estimates. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which are beyond Coro's ability to predict or control and may cause Coro's actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any of its future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and other factors include, but are not limited to, the operation of the Nora Plant, copper price volatility, and changes in debt and equity markets. Such forward-looking statements are also based on a number of assumptions which may prove to be incorrect, changes in project parameters as plans continue to be evaluated, as well as those factors disclosed in the Company's documents filed from time to time with the securities regulators in the Provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador.

Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Coro undertakes no obligation to update publicly or otherwise revise any forward-looking statements contained herein whether as a result of new information or future events or otherwise, except as may be required by law.

Contacts:

Coro Mining Corp.

Naomi Nemeth

VP Communications

(647) 556 1023 or (604) 682 5546

nnemeth@coromining.com



Coro Mining Corp.

investor.info@coromining.com

www.coromining.com




BRAMPTON, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- DHL, the world's leading international express services provider, announced today that the Top Employers Institute has officially certified the company as a Top Employer in Canada for 2017. In total, 23 countries within the Americas region have been officially certified as Top Employers. Additionally, DHL also received the Global Top Employer award, which recognizes the company's commitment to support and develop its employees worldwide. DHL is also one of only 10 companies worldwide to earn the Institute's Global Top Employer award, which recognizes the company's commitment to support and develop its employees worldwide.

"Being named a Top Employer in Canada is a testament to the strong belief we have in our people and our support for their professional growth," said Andrew Williams, CEO, DHL Express Canada. "We are thrilled to receive this distinction for the first time this year, and the accomplishment was hard won and well earned. We know from experience that employees who are inspired and fulfilled in the workplace are best able to deliver excellence to customers day in and day out. All of us are very proud to be honored in such a way, and remain fully committed to our employees."

Top Employers must demonstrate the highest standards of employee offerings and have a forward-thinking human resources environment. Certification is a rigorous process. Each country must demonstrate that its employee offerings meet the Top Employer Institute's high standards. An independent audit reviews company programs, including Talent Strategy, Workforce Planning, On-Boarding, Learning and Development, Performance Management, Leadership Development, Career and Succession Planning, Compensation and Benefits, and Culture.

"DHL has been certified in various regions throughout the world and is a perfect example of a company who has harmonized its operations in a way which has not only benefited its employees but also its operational efficiency on a global scale," said David Pink, CEO, Top Employers Institute.

In the DHL Americas region, the United States, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, three countries in the Caribbean and 16 within Central and South America (CSA) received the Top Employer certification in 2017.

To learn more about the Top Employers Institute and the Top Employers Certification, visit: www.top-employers.com.

Follow us at: www.twitter.com/dhlamericas

DHL - The logistics company for the world

DHL is the leading global brand in the logistics industry. Our DHL family of divisions offer an unrivalled portfolio of logistics services ranging from national and international parcel delivery, e-commerce shipping and fulfillment solutions, international express, road, air and ocean transport to industrial supply chain management. With about 340,000 employees in more than 220 countries and territories worldwide, DHL connects people and businesses securely and reliably, enabling global trade flows. With specialized solutions for growth markets and industries including technology, life sciences and healthcare, energy, automotive and retail, a proven commitment to corporate responsibility and an unrivalled presence in developing markets, DHL is decisively positioned as "The logistics company for the world."

DHL is part of Deutsche Post DHL Group. The Group generated revenues of more than 59 billion euros in 2015.

Contacts:

Media Contact: Verena Gross

DHL Express

Communications

954-415-7358

verena.gross@dhl.com

www.dhl.com




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- Skyharbour Resources Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: SYH)(OTCQB: SYHBF)(FRANKFURT: SC1P) (the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has now commenced its planned 3,500 metre drill program on its flagship Moore Lake Uranium Project located on the east side of the Athabasca Basin. The program will continue through February into late March / early April with the majority of the drilling planned on and along strike of the high grade Maverick Zone which is land-based and accessible year round.

Jordan Trimble, President and CEO of Skyharbour Resources, states: "The commencement of our first diamond drill program at our flagship Moore Lake Uranium Project is a key milestone for Skyharbour and its shareholders. Uranium properties with the pedigree and potential of Moore Lake are rare with historical high grade mineralized results including 4.03% eU3O8 over 10 metres at the Maverick Zone as well as several shallow exploration targets that offer the potential to generate additional discoveries. The target areas in and around the Maverick Zone that we are drill testing with this initial 3,500 metre program provide strong discovery potential as we look to value-add the project using a systemic and proven exploration methodology. The Company is well funded to complete this drill program and will provide updates as results become available."

In June 2016, Skyharbour secured an option to purchase Denison Mine's Moore Lake project, on the southeastern side of the Athabasca Basin, in northern Saskatchewan. The project consists of 12 contiguous claims totaling 35,705 hectares located 42 kilometres northeast of the Key Lake mill, approx. 20 kilometres east of Denison's Wheeler River project, and 39 kilometres south of Cameco's McArthur River mine. Unconformity style uranium mineralization was discovered on the Moore Lake project at the Maverick Zone in April 2001. Historical drilling highlights include 4.03% eU3O8 over 10 metres (including 1.4 metres at 20% eU3O8) starting at a depth of 265 metres in hole ML-61. In addition to the Maverick Zone, the project hosts other mineralized targets with strong discovery potential which the Company plans to test with future drill programs. The project is accessible via winter and ice roads which simplifies logistics and lowers costs.

Moore Lake Uranium Project Claims Map:

http://skyharbourltd.com/_resources/maps/MooreLakeRegionalTenure.jpg

Skyharbour has received all of the required permits for this planned 3,500 diamond metre drill program now underway at the Moore Lake Project which will consist of 10 to 13 drill holes ranging in depth from 200 metres to 400 metres. The majority of the drilling will test and look to expand the Maverick Zone with targets both in the underlying basement rock as well as along strike of the known high grade, main Maverick mineralized lens. Additionally, several drill holes will test the 527 and the 525 Zones which are located along the Maverick corridor approx. 500 metres and 1,500 metres respectively, east of the main Maverick mineralized lens.

Moore Lake Uranium Project Geophysics Map:

http://skyharbourltd.com/_resources/maps/MooreLake-Basic-geo-revamp.jpg

This phase of diamond drilling will also test drill targets along the extensions of the Maverick structural corridor and on extensive northeast trending graphitic structural zones located north of the main Maverick mineralized lens. These targets have been identified following a review of previous exploration and include drill targets identified by prior programs that have yet to be followed up on.

Qualified Person:

The technical information in this news release has been prepared in accordance with the Canadian regulatory requirements set out in National Instrument 43-101 and reviewed and approved by Richard Kusmirski, P.Geo., M.Sc., Skyharbour's Head Technical Advisor and a Director, as well as a Qualified Person.

About Skyharbour Resources Ltd.:

Skyharbour holds an extensive portfolio of uranium and thorium exploration projects in Canada's Athabasca Basin and is well positioned to benefit from improving uranium market fundamentals with five drill-ready projects. In July 2016, Skyharbour acquired an option from Denison Mines to acquire 100% of the Moore Lake Uranium Project which is located 20 kilometres east of Denison's Wheeler River project and 39 kilometres south of Cameco's McArthur River uranium mine. Moore Lake is an advanced stage uranium exploration property with over $30 million in historical exploration, 370 diamond drill holes, and a high-grade uranium zone known as the Maverick Zone with drill results including 4.03% eU3O8 over 10 metres at a vertical depth of 265 metres. The Company owns a 100% interest in the Falcon Point (formerly Way Lake) Uranium Project on the eastern perimeter of the Basin which hosts an NI 43-101 inferred resource totaling 7.0 million pounds of U3O8 at 0.03% and 5.3 million pounds of ThO2 at 0.023%. The project also hosts a high-grade surface showing with up to 68% U3O8 in grab samples from a massive pitchblende vein, the source of which has yet to be discovered. Skyharbour also has a 50% interest in the large, geologically prospective Preston Uranium Project proximal to Fission Uranium's Triple R deposit as well as NexGen Energy's Arrow deposit. The Company's 100% owned Mann Lake Uranium project on the east side of the Basin is strategically located adjacent to the Mann Lake Joint Venture operated by Cameco with partners Denison Mines and AREVA, where high-grade uranium mineralization was recently discovered. Skyharbour's goal is to maximize shareholder value through new mineral discoveries, committed long-term partnerships, and the advancement of exploration projects in geopolitically favourable jurisdictions.

Skyharbour's Uranium Project Map in the Athabasca Basin:

http://skyharbourltd.com/_resources/SYH_Landpackage_2014.jpg

To find out more about Skyharbour Resources Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: SYH) visit the Company's website at www.skyharbourltd.com.

SKYHARBOUR RESOURCES LTD.

Jordan Trimble, President and CEO

NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THE CONTENT OF THIS NEWS RELEASE.

This release includes certain statements that may be deemed to be "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that management of the Company expects, are forward-looking statements. Although management 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 the forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements, include market prices, exploration and development successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Please see the public filings of the Company at www.sedar.com for further information.

Contacts:

Jordan Trimble

President and CEO

Skyharbour Resources Ltd.

604-639-3850 or Toll Free: 800-567-8181



Nick Findler

Corporate Development and Communications

Skyharbour Resources Ltd.

604-639-3850 or Toll Free: 800-567-8181

604-687-3119 (FAX)

info@skyharbourltd.com

www.skyharbourltd.com




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- Riverside Resources Inc. ("Riverside" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: RRI)(OTC PINK: RVSDF)(FRANKFURT: R99), is pleased to provide an update on the partner funded exploration work and initial drill testing at the Company's Thor Project in Sonora, Mexico. The Thor Project is 128 km2 and located approximately 80 km east of the capital city of Sonora, Hermosillo. Riverside and its partner, Antofagasta Minerals S.A. ("Antofagasta"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Antofagasta Plc, recently completed the first four (4) drill holes ever drilled on this large property package that indicate at least three separate porphyry hydrothermal centre areas over a strike length of greater than 8 km in total distance.

Riverside and its partner decided to complete an initial proof-of-concept drill program to confirm Laramide aged rock at depth and explore for indications of a porphyry-intrusive system. The four diamond core holes totalled 1,335 m, with all four holes intersecting fault structures which appear to intersect upper and lower structural blocks of a porphyry-intrusive system. There were no significant copper or gold mineralized intercepts over material widths in these initial four holes; however, the program successfully found a porphyry system, with drilling encountering a large Laramide aged porphyry style quartz-sericite-pyrite stockwork zone, which can now be followed up with further work. The positive indications from the current program justify additional exploration work that will initially include a detailed remote sensing study and follow up field mapping, and targeted alteration and geochemical sampling to focus on identification of further drill targeting and to help understand the structural make up of this porphyry district. Riverside and Antofagasta have reviewed the results last week and now plan to progress the project with Riverside continuing as operator and moving the discovery process forward.

Riverside's President and CEO, John-Mark Staude, stated: "We are pleased to be drilling and exploring with Antofagasta as a partner in Sonora, Mexico. The drill program at Thor has delivered a positive proof of concept with the discovery of extensive porphyry style veining in the drilled target areas. The project will now be progressed with further targeting work on both the upper and lower plates in an attempt to vector in on a potential copper porphyry discovery."

Drilling included three initial holes into the North Target area and one hole drilled at the South Target area. The recently completed program did not include any drilling at the Central area or other target zones on the greater than 100 km2 property. The drilling so far is interpreted to have cut an upper block of porphyry style quartz sericite veining and a lower plate of intrusions with varying levels of porphyry-intrusion style alteration. The porphyry system at Thor has multiple square kilometres of strong hydrothermal acid leaching and alteration. The drill testing is encouraging and provides guidance for next phases of targeting at depth along with further evaluation of the untested Central Target area.

The upper plate has at least three distinct hydrothermal centres and both the upper and lower plate appear to have potential to host a mineral discovery. Laramide porphyry systems in Arizona, such as the San Manuel-Kalamazoo copper mine operation, were discovered proximal to large extensional fault core complexes. Riverside geologists will consider these potential analogues while completing field exploration and follow up structural targeting interpretation of the system at Thor.

For more information on the Project, please visit the Thor Project page on the Company's website: https://goo.gl/nGw88q

Qualified Person & QA/QC:

The scientific and technical data contained in this news release pertaining to the Thor Project was reviewed and approved by Locke Goldsmith, P.Geo, P. Eng, a non-independent qualified person to Riverside Resources, who is responsible for ensuring that the geologic information provided in this news release is accurate and who acts as a "qualified person" under National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

Reported core samples were taken to Hermosillo, Mexico where Bureau Veritas Laboratory Group's (BV) mineral division crushed and pulverized each sample. Gold fire assays with AA finish were analysed in BV Hermosillo laboratory. The rejects remained with BV in Hermosillo while the pulps were transported to BV ISO 9001-2008 certified laboratory in Vancouver, BC, Canada for multi-element ICP analysis. A QA/QC program was implemented as part of the sampling procedures for the exploration program. Standard and blank samples were randomly inserted into the sample stream prior to being sent to the laboratory.

About Riverside Resources Inc.:

Riverside is a well-funded exploration team of focused, proactive gold discoverers. The Company currently has approximately $3,300,000 in the treasury and less than 37,500,000 shares outstanding. The Company's model of growth through partnerships and exploration uses the prospect generation business approach to own resources, while partners share in de-risking projects on route to discovery. Riverside has additional properties available for option with more information available on the Company's website at www.rivres.com.

ON BEHALF OF RIVERSIDE RESOURCES INC.

Dr. John-Mark Staude, President & CEO

Certain statements in this press release may be considered forward-looking information. These statements can be identified by the use of forward looking terminology (e.g., "expect"," estimates", "intends", "anticipates", "believes", "plans"). Such information involves known and unknown risks -- including the availability of funds, the results of financing and exploration activities, the interpretation of exploration results and other geological data, or unanticipated costs and expenses and other risks identified by Riverside in its public securities filings that may cause actual events to differ materially from current expectations. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press 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.

Contacts:

John-Mark Staude

President & CEO

Riverside Resources Inc.

(778) 327-6671

(778) 327-6675 (FAX)

info@rivres.com

www.rivres.com



Joness Lang

VP, Corporate Development

Riverside Resources Inc.

(778) 327-6671 or TF: (877) RIV-RES1

(778) 327-6675 (FAX)

jlang@rivres.com

www.rivres.com




DUBAI, UAE, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

MEE 2017

14-16 February Dubai

Stand H7-C26

Modular UPS system for critical power protection from 30 to 900kVA

Advanced energy saving design for reduced total cost of ownership

Data Center and Light Industrial specific versions

AEG Power Solutions, a global provider of power supply systems and solutions for all types of critical and demanding applications, will be showing its latest Modular Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), the Protect Plus M600, at the MEE 2017 event in Dubai on February 14th to 16th.

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/466546/AEG_Protect_Plus_M600.jpg )

AEG Power Solutions has extended its range of uninterruptible power supplies with the addition of its latest modular UPS system - the Protect Plus M600. The new modular UPS is ideal for critical power applications within datacentres, server rooms and light industrial applications.

The Protect Plus M600 UPS has a highly flexible modular architecture in a compact footprint cabinet that can be easily extended using 30kVA UPS modules up to a total capacity of 900kVA. The UPS is designed to operate at high efficiencies of over 95% in on-line double conversion mode and features a smart user interface and battery management system.

The Protect Plus M600 UPS range offers two cabinets sizes that can take up to six or 10 times 30kVA UPS modules giving a total cabinet power capacity of 180kVA and 300kVA. The state-of-the-art modular technology allows the user to right-size their day-one operating capacity, incorporate N+X redundancy and easily expand to meet future load changes through the addition of further UPS modules. The compact footprint, high operating efficiency and reliability of the Protect Plus M600 UPS systems makes it the ideal choice to protect critical loads in data centers, transportation, retail or light industrial applications.

"Protect Plus M600, is a unique combination of state-of-the-art technology, flexibility, efficiency and interactivity," explains John Lynch, Regional Director, Middle-East. "In addition to all its specific advantages, the product also benefits from AEG Power Solutions' service expertise 24/7 around the globe. It's a great opportunity for us to showcase it at MEE 2017 as our customers are more familiar with our industrial range."

AEG Power Solutions has built a strong reputation within the industrial power solutions side of its business to meet the most stringent international standards for mission-critical applications in power generation, Oil and Gas or transportation. The Industrial Power Solutions range includes the Protect 8 UPS range as well as the Protect RCS family of chargers.

Protect 8 UPS is designed to ensure the continuous availability of power and safe operations for all types of critical applications in the harshest environments. Protect 8 is adapted to be rugged, and to cope with extremes in temperature and humidity, as well as dust and sand. The Protect RCS series of robust industrial rectifiers, chargers and DC systems use proven microprocessor-controlled thyristor technology to provide highly reliable power supply and battery charging capabilities. Protect RCS comes in a range of standard models or can be easily customized and is available in an outdoor IP 65 version.

About AEG Power Solutions

AEG Power Solutions (AEG PS) Group is a global provider of power electronics systems and solutions for all industrial and demanding commercial power requirements offering one of the most comprehensive product and service portfolios in the area of uninterruptible power supply and power management.

Thanks to its distinctive expertise bridging both AC and DC power technologies and spanning the worlds of both conventional and renewable energy, the company creates innovative solutions for next generation distributed power generation.

AEG Power Solutions Group is the sole subsidiary of the holding company 3W Power S.A. (WKN A114Z9) / ISINLU1072910919), based in Luxembourg. The Group is headquartered in Zwanenburg in the Netherlands. The shares of 3W Power are admitted to trading on Frankfurt Stock Exchange (ticker symbol: 3W9K).

For more information, visit http://www.aegps.com.

This communication does not constitute an offer or the solicitation of an offer to buy, sell or exchange any securities of 3W Power. This communication contains forward-looking statements which include, inter alia, statements expressing our expectations, intentions, projections, estimates, and assumptions. These forward-looking statements are based on the reasonable evaluation and opinion of the management but are subject to risks and uncertainties which are beyond the control of 3W Power and, as a general rule, difficult to predict. The management and the company cannot and do not, under any circumstances, guarantee future results or performance of 3W Power and the actual results of 3W Power may materially differ from the information expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. As a result, investors are cautioned against relying on the forward-looking statements contained herein as a basis for their investment decisions regarding 3W Power.

3W Power undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement contained herein.

AEG is a registered trademark used under license from AB Electrolux
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 9, 2017) - Lifestyle Delivery Systems Inc. (CSE: LDS), (OTCQB: LDSYF), and Borse Frankfurt Exchange (XETR: LD6) ("LDS" or the "Company") announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Canaccord Genuity Corp. (the "Agent"), pursuant to which the Agent has agreed to sell, on a commercially reasonable efforts basis, up to 20,000,000 units of the Company (the "Units"), at a price of $0.50 per Unit (the "Offering Price") for aggregate gross proceeds to LDS of up to $10,000,000 (the "Offering"), subject to the Agent's completion of satisfactory due diligence. The Agent will have an over-allotment option for up to 15% of the Offering.

Each Unit will consist of one common share of the Company (a "Common Share") and one Common Share purchase warrant (a "Warrant"). Each Warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one Common Share (a "Warrant Share") for a period of one year from the date of issuance at an exercise price of $0.75 per Warrant Share. The Company may accelerate the expiry of the Warrants if the Company's daily volume weighted average share price on the Canadian Stock Exchange (or such other stock exchange the Company may be trading on) is equal to or greater than CDN$1.50 for 10 consecutive trading days. Net proceeds from the Offering will be used primarily towards the Company's strategic growth initiatives including its planned facility expansion, and for general working capital purposes.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of any of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful, including any of the securities in the United States of America. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933 (the "1933 Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to, or for account or benefit of, U.S. Persons (as defined in Regulation S under the 1933 Act) unless registered under the 1933 Act and applicable state securities laws, or an exemption from such registration requirements is available.

About Lifestyle Delivery Systems Inc.

The Company's technology produces infused strips (similar to breath strips) that are not only a safer, healthier option to smoking but also a new way to accurately meter the dosage and assure the purity of the product. From seed to sale the ingredients are tested for quality and composition throughout the formulation and production processes, resulting in a delivery system that is safe, consistent and effective.

On behalf of the board of directors of Lifestyle Delivery Systems Inc.

Brad Eckenweiler, CEO & Director

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

investor.relations@lifestyledeliverysystem.com

1-866-347-5058

And

Skanderbeg Capital Advisors

604-687-7130

mario@skanderbegcapital.com

Cautionary Disclaimer Statement:

The Canadian Securities Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the content of this news release.

Information set forth in this news release contains forward-looking statements that are based on assumptions as of the date of this news release. These statements reflect management's current estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations. They are not guarantees of future performance. The Company cautions that all forward looking statements are inherently uncertain and that actual performance may be affected by a number of material factors, many of which are beyond the Company's control. Such factors include, among other things: risks and uncertainties relating to the Company's limited operating history and the need to comply with environmental and governmental regulations. Accordingly, actual and future events, conditions and results may differ materially from the estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations expressed or implied in the forward looking information. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward- looking information.



NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES
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.
OTTAWA, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- Tetra Bio-Pharma Inc. ("Tetra") (CSE: TBP)(CSE: TBP.CN)(OTC PINK: GRPOF) and IntelGenx Corp. ("IntelGenx"), (TSX VENTURE: IGX)(OTCQX: IGXT), today announced the signing of a binding term sheet for the development and commercialization of a drug product containing dronabinol. Under the binding term sheet, Tetra will have exclusive rights to sell the product in North America with a right of first negotiation for outside the U.S. and Canada. The U.S. cancer pain market is expected to reach $5 billion in 2018.

Per the Binding Term Sheet, Tetra will make a non-refundable exclusive negotiation payment to IntelGenx, an upfront payment along with set milestone payments based on the completion of an efficacy study, approvals from FDA and Health Canada and launching of the product.

IntelGenx will be responsible for the research and development of the product, including clinical studies and will develop the product as an oral mucoadhesive tablet based on its proprietary AdVersa controlled-release technology. Tetra will be responsible for funding the product development, and will own and control all regulatory approvals, including the application and any other marketing authorizations. Tetra will also be responsible for all aspects of commercializing the drug product.

"We are pleased to partner with Tetra Bio-Pharma to enter the lucrative cannabis market," said Dr. Horst G. Zerbe, President and CEO of IntelGenx. "We will work with Tetra to bring this much needed THC product to North American patients suffering from anorexia and cancer chemotherapy-related pain. This announcement is a further testament to the strength of IntelGenx' scientists who continue to execute the development of innovative products using our advanced oral delivery platforms."

PhytoPain Pharma Inc., a subsidiary of Tetra will be submitting a request for a Type B pre-IND meeting with the Division of Anesthesia, Analgesia, and Addiction Products (DAAAP), Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), USA Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to discuss the marketing requirements for Dronabinol AdVersa Mucoadhesive tablet product. Tetra intends on developing Dronabinol AdVersa Mucoadhesive tablet as an analgesic for the management of Breakthrough Cancer Pain. Once the safety and efficacy is demonstrated in patients, this drug product will be eligible for approval under the 505(b)(2) New Drug Application (NDA) path commented Dr. Guy Chamberland, Chief Scientific Officer and Regulatory Affairs. The 505(b)(2) pathway represents a significant reduction in time and cost to market commented Dr. Chamberland. He added that the company will also be meeting with the Therapeutic Product Directorate, Health Canada to discuss the clinical development and marketing requirements.

Dr. Chamberland further commented that there are many clinical problems associated with the use of currently available form of Dronabinol in patients with anorexia and cancer chemotherapy. It has been demonstrated that psychoactive drugs exert their euphoria, and other psychoactive effects, when the blood levels of the drug rapidly increase. The pharmacokinetic profile of THC and its metabolite significantly affect the abuse potential of Dronabinol. The significant advantage of the Mucoadhesive technology is the controlled-release of THC resulting in a longer time release of the drug avoiding a rapid increase in the blood. There is also an improved bioavailability and potentially reduced gastro-intestinal side effects making the sustained-release THC product a promising alternative in the battle for the reduction of opioids in patients with chronic pain.

About IntelGenx:

IntelGenx is a leading oral drug delivery company primarily focused on the development and manufacturing of innovative pharmaceutical oral films based on its proprietary VersaFilmTM technology platform. Established in 2003, the Montreal-based company is listed on the TSX-V and OTC-QX.

IntelGenx highly skilled team provides comprehensive pharmaceuticals services to pharmaceutical partners, including R&D, analytical method development, clinical monitoring, IP and regulatory services. IntelGenx state-of-the art manufacturing facility, established for the VersaFilmTM technology platform, supports lab-scale to pilot and commercial-scale production, offering full service capabilities to our clients. More information is available about the company at: www.intelgenx.com.

About Tetra Bio Pharma:

Tetra Bio-Pharma is a multi subsidiary publicly traded company (CSE: TBP)(CSE: TBP.CN)(OTC PINK: GRPOF) engaged in the development of Bio Pharmaceuticals and Natural Health Products containing Cannabis and other medicinal plant based elements.

Tetra Bio Pharma is focused on combining the traditional methods of medicinal cannabis use with the supporting scientific validation and safety data required for inclusion into the existing bio pharma industry by regulators physicians and insurance companies. More information is available about the company at: www.tetrabiopharma.com.

The Canadian Securities Exchange ("CSE") has not reviewed this news release and does not accept responsibility for its adequacy or accuracy.

Forward-looking statements

Some statements in this release may contain forward-looking information. All statements, other than of historical fact, that address activities, events or developments that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future (including, without limitation, statements regarding potential acquisitions and financings) are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are generally identifiable by use of the words "may", "will", "should", "continue", "expect", "anticipate", "estimate", "believe", "intend", "plan" or "project" or the negative of these words or other variations on these words or comparable terminology. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the Company's ability to control or predict, that may cause the actual results of the Company to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things, without limitation, the inability of the Company, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, GrowPros MMP Inc., to obtain a licence for the production of medical marijuana; failure to obtain sufficient financing to execute the Company's business plan; competition; regulation and anticipated and unanticipated costs and delays, and other risks disclosed in the Company's public disclosure record on file with the relevant securities regulatory authorities. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results or events not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements included in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and the Company does not undertake an obligation to publicly update such forward-looking statements to reflect new information, subsequent events or otherwise unless required by applicable securities legislation.

Contacts:

Tetra Bio-Pharma Inc.

Dr. Guy Chamberland

Chief Science Officer

(514) 220-9225



Tetra Bio-Pharma Inc.

Andre Rancourt

Chief Executive Officer

(613) 689-0714




SAINT-LAURENT, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- IntelGenx Corp. ("IntelGenx"), (TSX VENTURE: IGX)(OTCQX: IGXT) and Tetra Bio-Pharma Inc. ("Tetra") (CSE: TBP)(OTC PINK: GRPOF), today announced the signing of a binding term sheet for the development and commercialization of a drug product containing dronabinol. Under the binding term sheet, Tetra will have exclusive rights to sell the product in North America with a right of first negotiation for outside the U.S. and Canada. The U.S. cancer pain market is expected to reach $5 billion in 2018.

Per the Binding Term Sheet, Tetra will make a non-refundable exclusive negotiation payment to IntelGenx, an upfront payment along with set milestone payments based on the completion of an efficacy study, approvals from FDA and Health Canada and launching of the product.

IntelGenx will be responsible for the research and development of the product, including clinical studies and will develop the product as an oral mucoadhesive tablet based on its proprietary AdVersa controlled-release technology. Tetra will be responsible for funding the product development, and will own and control all regulatory approvals, including the application and any other marketing authorizations. Tetra will also be responsible for all aspects of commercializing the drug product.

"We are pleased to partner with Tetra Bio-Pharma to enter the lucrative cannabis market," said Dr. Horst G. Zerbe, President and CEO of IntelGenx. "We will work with Tetra to bring this much needed THC product to North American patients suffering from anorexia and cancer chemotherapy-related pain. This announcement is a further testament to the strength of IntelGenx' scientists who continue to execute the development of innovative products using our advanced oral delivery platforms."

PhytoPain Pharma Inc., a subsidiary of Tetra will be submitting a request for a Type B pre-IND meeting with the Division of Anesthesia, Analgesia, and Addiction Products (DAAAP), Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), USA Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to discuss the marketing requirements for Dronabinol AdVersa Mucoadhesive tablet product. Tetra intends on developing Dronabinol AdVersa Mucoadhesive tablet as an analgesic for the management of Breakthrough Cancer Pain. Once the safety and efficacy is demonstrated in patients, this drug product will be eligible for approval under the 505(b)(2) New Drug Application (NDA) path commented Dr. Guy Chamberland, Chief Scientific Officer and Regulatory Affairs. The 505(b)(2) pathway represents a significant reduction in time and cost to market commented Dr. Chamberland. He added that the company will also be meeting with the Therapeutic Product Directorate, Health Canada to discuss the clinical development and marketing requirements.

Dr. Chamberland further commented that there are many clinical problems associated with the use of currently available form of Dronabinol in patients with anorexia and cancer chemotherapy. It has been demonstrated that psychoactive drugs exert their euphoria, and other psychoactive effects, when the blood levels of the drug rapidly increase. The pharmacokinetic profile of THC and its metabolite significantly affect the abuse potential of Dronabinol. The significant advantage of the Mucoadhesive technology is the controlled-release of THC resulting in a longer time release of the drug avoiding a rapid increase in the blood. There is also an improved bioavailability and potentially reduced gastro-intestinal side effects making the sustained-release THC product a promising alternative in the battle for the reduction of opioids in patients with chronic pain.

About Tetra Bio Pharma:

Tetra Bio-Pharma is a multi subsidiary publicly traded company (CSE: TBP)(OTC PINK: GRPOF) engaged in the development of Bio Pharmaceuticals and Natural Health Products containing Cannabis and other medicinal plant based elements.

Tetra Bio Pharma is focused on combining the traditional methods of medicinal cannabis use with the supporting scientific validation and safety data required for inclusion into the existing bio pharma industry by regulators physicians and insurance companies. More information is available about the company at: www.tetrabiopharma.com.

About IntelGenx:

IntelGenx is a leading oral drug delivery company primarily focused on the development and manufacturing of innovative pharmaceutical oral films based on its proprietary VersaFilm technology platform. Established in 2003, the Montreal-based company is listed on the TSX-V and OTC-QX.

IntelGenx highly skilled team provides comprehensive pharmaceuticals services to pharmaceutical partners, including R&D, analytical method development, clinical monitoring, IP and regulatory services. IntelGenx state-of-the art manufacturing facility, established for the VersaFilm technology platform, supports lab-scale to pilot and commercial-scale production, offering full service capabilities to our clients. More information is available about the company at: www.intelgenx.com.

Forward Looking Statements:

This document may contain forward-looking information about IntelGenx' operating results and business prospects that involve substantial risks and uncertainties. Statements that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. These statements include, but are not limited to, statements about IntelGenx' plans, objectives, expectations, strategies, intentions or other characterizations of future events or circumstances and are generally identified by the words "may," "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "seeks," "estimates," "could," "would," and similar expressions. All forward looking statements are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Because these forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, IntelGenx' actual results could differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, those discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" in IntelGenx' annual report on Form 10-K, filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and available at www.sec.gov, and also filed with Canadian securities regulatory authorities and www.sedar.com. IntelGenx assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange), nor the OTCQX accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Source: IntelGenx Technologies Corp.

Contacts:

Edward Miller

Director, IR and Corporate Communications

IntelGenx Corp.

+1 514-331-7440 (ext. 217)

edward@intelgenx.com




OTTAWA, CANADA -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- CannaRoyalty Corp. (CSE: CRZ) (CSE: CRZ.CN) ("CannaRoyalty" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered into a binding term sheet (the "Term Sheet") regarding a royalty financing arrangement with Rich Extracts LLC ("Rich Extracts") whereby CannaRoyalty will receive a 30% royalty on Rich Extracts' gross revenues in perpetuity.

Rich Extracts has constructed a 30,000 square foot facility in Oregon to produce cannabis extract products using a variety of extraction processes. The facility houses equipment including extractors capable of processing up to 60,000 grams per month and short path distillation units that can process up to 4,000 grams per week. Commercial operations will commence, and are subject to, the facility obtaining the necessary permits from the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, which are expected to be received in the first half of 2017.

"Rich Extracts is an award-winning brand with a mission to produce the highest quality, purest cannabis concentrates and distillates in the Oregon market. We're excited to finalize this royalty agreement with Rich Extracts which is poised to be a leading cannabis company in Oregon, a market which in 2016 had estimated cannabis product sales of approximately US$200mm," said Marc Lustig, Chief Executive Officer of CannaRoyalty.

In June 2016, Rich Extracts was granted its medical processing license (MMPS#281970) by the Oregon Health Authority for processing of cannabis products in accordance with the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program. In anticipation of the new standards that were to be enacted by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC), in August 2016 Rich Extracts began a significant development and expansion of its operations in order to meet the expected OLCC guidelines. On September 29, 2016, Rich Extracts formally filed its application for an OLCC license and is expecting to obtain the license during the first half of 2017.

Rich Wilkinson, Chief Executive Officer of Rich Extracts commented, "CannaRoyalty is a remarkable partner that provided Rich Extracts with the capital and resources we needed to address the changes in the Oregon regulatory environment in the fall of 2016, a critical juncture in our business. The capital has brought us to the brink of our goal to build what we anticipate will be one of the most advanced, full spectrum cannabis extraction, and processing facilities in the country."

The Term Sheet replaces the Company's existing term sheet with Rich Ventures, and contemplates the grant of a 30% royalty on the gross revenues generated by Rich Extracts, in exchange for the advances made by CannaRoyalty to Rich Extracts (approximately US$2 million to date, subject to further advances). Closing is subject to, among other things, (i) satisfactory completion of financial and legal due diligence by CannaRoyalty; (ii) the execution of final definitive documents acceptable to CannaRoyalty; and, (iii) the satisfaction or waiver of all conditions to closing specified in the definitive documents. The parties have also executed a general security agreement to secure the Company's existing advances against the assets of Rich Extracts.

About CannaRoyalty

CannaRoyalty is a fully integrated, active investor and operator in the legal cannabis sector. Our focus is to build and support a diversified portfolio of growth-ready assets in high-value segments of the cannabis sector, including research, consumer brands, devices and intellectual property. Our management team combines a hands-on understanding of the cannabis industry with seasoned financial know-how, assembling a platform of holdings via royalty agreements, equity interests, secured convertible debt and licensing agreements.

Forward Looking Statements

Statements in this news release that are forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties concerning the specific factors disclosed here and elsewhere in CannaRoyalty's periodic filings with Canadian securities regulators. When used in this news release, words such as "will, could, plan, estimate, expect, intend, may, potential, believe, should," and similar expressions, are forward- looking statements.

Forward-looking statements may include, without limitation, statements including the Company's expectations with respect to pursuing new opportunities and its future growth and other statements of fact.

Although CannaRoyalty has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements, there can be other factors that cause results, performance or achievements not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended, including, but not limited to: dependence on obtaining regulatory approvals; investing in target companies or projects which have limited or no operating history and are engaged in activities currently considered illegal under US Federal Laws; changes in laws; limited operating history; reliance on management; requirements for additional financing; competition; hindering market growth and state adoption due to inconsistent public opinion and perception of the medical-use and adult-use marijuana industry and; regulatory or political change.

There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate or that management's expectations or estimates of future developments, circumstances or results will materialize. As a result of these risks and uncertainties, the results or events predicted in these forward-looking statements may differ materially from actual results or events.

Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this news release are made as of the date of this release. CannaRoyalty disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise such information, except as required by applicable law, and CannaRoyalty does not assume any liability for disclosure relating to any other company mentioned herein.

Contacts:

Email: InvestorRelations@cannaroyalty.com

1-844-556-5070

Visit: www.cannaroyalty.com




LUGANO, Switzerland, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

ESMO, the leading European professional organisation for medical oncology, has announced today a new award honouring individuals for outstanding achievements in the area of cancer immunotherapy.

The ESMO Award for Immuno-Oncology is in memory of Professor Georges Mathe. "I am very proud that ESMO is honouring my father's achievements with this prestigious award, recognising the growing importance of immunotherapies applied to cancer care. As the descendant of one of ESMO's founders and immunotherapy pioneers, I am grateful for the appreciation of his work which has brought new hope for cancer patients," said Catherine Gaston-Mathe.

The first award will be presented at the ESMO Immuno-Oncology Congress in Geneva on 7 December 2017.

"Immunotherapy provides medical oncologists with another tool to treat cancer patients. The ESMO Immuno-Oncology Congress will help to increase the overall understanding of the potential of this therapy and its implications for clinical practice, today and in the future," said George Coukos, Congress Scientific Co-Chair.

"From the basics of immunotherapies to the latest research results in different cancer types; from understanding different treatment options to management of toxicities and interpretation of new data, we aim to create the European community of immuno-oncology stakeholders," said Rolf Stahel, ESMO Past-President and initiator of the ESMO immuno-oncology projects.

"The launch of the ESMO Immuno-Oncology Congress together with the new award in memory of Georges Mathe reflects ESMO's commitment to help cancer physicians and researchers keep abreast of the latest developments in oncology, in an effort to bring innovative approaches to cancer patients," the ESMO President concluded.

Full story: http://bit.ly/2k3EFnb

ESMO is the leading professional organisation for medical oncology, with over 15,000 members representing oncology professionals from over 130 countries worldwide.

ESMO Press Office

media@esmo.org

+41-(0)91-973-19-07


CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- RMP Energy Inc. ("RMP" or the "Company") (TSX: RMP) announces that Mr. Doug Baker has retired from the Board of Directors of RMP, citing health and family reasons. Mr. Baker was Chair of the Company's Audit Committee and a member of RMP's Engineering, Health and Safety Committee and the Governance and Nominating Committee. The Company would like to express its appreciation and gratitude to Mr. Baker for the many years of service as a RMP board member, providing invaluable stewardship and strong accounting and business acumen.

The Company's board of directors now consists of: Messrs. Josh Young, Andrew Hogg, Jim Saunders, Craig Stewart and Lloyd Swift.

RMP Energy Inc. is a Montney-focused crude oil and natural gas producer, based in Calgary, Alberta. RMP's common shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker "RMP". For additional information on the Company, please visit RMP's website at: www.rmpenergyinc.com.

Contacts:

RMP Energy Inc.

John Ferguson

President and Chief Executive Officer

(403) 930-6303

john.ferguson@rmpenergyinc.com



RMP Energy Inc.

Dean Bernhard

Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer

(403) 930-6304

dean.bernhard@rmpenergyinc.com

www.rmpenergyinc.com




Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 9, 2017) - Kramer Capital Corp. (TSXV: KRM.H) (the "Corporation" or "Kramer") is pleased to announce it has entered into a letter of intent dated February 8, 2016 (the "Letter of Intent") with 1082138 B.C. Ltd. ("BC") pursuant to which Kramer has agreed to acquire BC, which holds the right to earn 80% of the Mon gold property (the "Mon Property") located in the Northwest Territories.

Kramer was incorporated under the laws of Alberta and continued into British Columbia with its a head office in Vancouver, British Columbia. It is a "capital pool company" under the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange") and is a reporting issuer in the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. It is intended that the acquisition of BC will constitute a "qualifying transaction" of the Corporation, as such term is defined in the policies of the Exchange (the "Qualifying Transaction").

The Qualifying Transaction will be carried out by parties dealing at arm's length to one another and therefore will not be considered to be a "Non-Arm's Length Qualifying Transaction", as such term is defined under the policies of the Exchange. As result, a meeting of the shareholders of the Corporation to approve the Qualifying Transaction is not a condition required to complete the Qualifying Transaction.

The Qualifying Transaction

Pursuant to the terms of the Letter of Intent, Kramer and BC will negotiate and enter into a definitive agreement incorporating the principal terms of the Letter of Intent.

Subject to any Exchange, regulatory, shareholder, director or other approvals that may be required, the completion of satisfactory due diligence by Kramer and BC, the completion of the Kramer Financing (as described below) and the satisfaction of other conditions contained in the Letter of Intent, it is currently anticipated that the Corporation will issue 34,020,000 common shares ("Kramer Shares"),10,238,500 warrants and 250,000 options to acquire BC.

The Mon Property is located 45 kilometres north of Yellowknife and consists of 11 mining leases and two mineral claims. These interests are held under option by New Discovery Mines Ltd. pursuant to an option agreement with Giauque Holdings Ltd. that grants a 2.0% NSR royalty to Giauque. BC has entered into an agreement to acquire 80% of the Mon property by spending C$ 6 million over three years on exploration or development and putting the Mon property into production by December 31, 2019.

Upon completion of the Qualifying Transaction, the resultant entity (the "Resulting Issuer") will be engaged in the business of mineral exploration and the development of the Mon Property. In addition, the Resulting Issuer may explore and develop such other properties and interests as may be subsequently acquired by the Resulting Issuer.

In connection with the transaction, Brian Bayley, Richard A. Graham and Sandra Lee will step down from the corporation's board of directors. It is expected that Ronald Handford, Grant Block, Ian Klassen and John Campbell will be appointed to the board. In addition, Mr. Bayley will step down as the president, chief executive office, chief financial officer and corporate secretary of the company. Mr. Handford is expected to be named chief executive officer of the Resulting Issuer and Andriyko Herchak is expected to be named the chief financial officer of the Resulting Issuer.

Proposed Financing

The terms of the Letter of Intent provide that BC shall arrange for the completion of a non-brokered private placement by Kramer of subscription receipts (the "Subscription Receipts") for minimum gross proceeds of C$ 1,000,000 and maximum proceeds of C$2,500,000 (the "Kramer Financing") prior to or concurrent with the closing of the Qualifying Transaction. The Corporation may pay finder's fees to certain registrants or eligible persons exempt from registration on a portion of the Kramer Financing. Proceeds of the Kramer Financing will be held in escrow pending closing of the Qualifying Transaction. The net proceeds of the Kramer Financing will be used: (a) to fund the business plan of the Resulting Issuer; (b) for Qualifying Transaction expenses; and (c) for general working capital purposes.

Currently, the authorized share capital of the Corporation consists of an unlimited number of Kramer Shares of which (i) 1,775,000 Kramer Shares are outstanding; and (ii) 150,000 Kramer Shares are reserved for issuance under outstanding stock options of Kramer (the "Kramer Options"). Upon the closing of the Qualifying Transaction and completion of the minimum amount of the Kramer Financing, it is expected that there will be approximately 41,000,000 Kramer Shares issued and outstanding.

Summary Information Relating to BC

BC is a private company incorporated under the laws of British Columbia, and is focused on acquiring mineral properties for exploration and development. Its head office is in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Sponsorship of Qualifying Transaction

Sponsorship of a qualifying transaction of a capital pool company is required by the Exchange unless exempt in accordance with Exchange policies. Kramer and BC are currently reviewing the Exchange's requirements for sponsorship and intend to seek a waiver of the sponsorship requirements.

Additional Information

In accordance with the policies of the Exchange, the Kramer Shares are currently halted from trading and will remain halted until further notice.

Kramer and BC will provide further details in respect of the Qualifying Transaction, in due course once available, by way of press releases.

All information provided in this press release related to BC has been provided by management of BC and has not been independently verified by management of Kramer.

If and when a definitive agreement between the Corporation and Kramer is executed, the Corporation will issue a subsequent press release in accordance with the policies of the Exchange containing details of the definitive agreement and additional terms of the Qualifying Transaction, including, but not limited to, information relating to the Mon Property, sponsorship, summary financial information in respect of Kramer and BC, and additional information with respect to the Kramer Financing and the proposed directors, officers, and insiders of the Resulting Issuer upon completion of the Qualifying Transaction.

Investors are cautioned that, except as disclosed in the management information circular or filing statement to be prepared in connection with the Qualifying Transaction, any information released or received with respect to the Qualifying Transaction may not be accurate or complete and should not be relied upon. Trading in the securities of a capital pool company should be considered highly speculative.

For Further Information, Please Contact:

Kramer Capital Corp.

Richard Graham, Director

Telephone: (604) 689-1428

Cautionary statements

This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws relating to the proposal to complete the Qualifying Transaction and associated transactions, including statements regarding the terms and conditions of the Qualifying Transaction, the Kramer Financing, and the use of proceeds of the Kramer Financing. Readers are cautioned to not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Actual results and developments may differ materially from those contemplated by these statements depending on, among other things, the risks that the parties will not proceed with the Qualifying Transaction, the Kramer Financing and associated transactions, that the ultimate terms of the Qualifying Transaction, Kramer Financing and associated transactions will differ from those that currently are contemplated, and that the Qualifying Transaction, the Kramer Financing and associated transactions will not be successfully completed for any reason (including the failure to obtain the required approvals or clearances from regulatory authorities). The statements in this press release are made as of the date of this release. The Corporation undertakes no obligation to comment on analyses, expectations or statements made by third-parties in respect of the Corporation, BC, their securities, or their respective financial or operating results or (as applicable).

Completion of the Qualifying Transaction is subject to a number of conditions including, but not limited to, Exchange acceptance and, if required by the Exchange policies, majority of the minority shareholder approval. Where applicable, the Qualifying Transaction cannot close until the required shareholder approval is obtained. There can be no assurance that the Qualifying Transaction will be completed as proposed or at all.

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.

The TSX Venture Exchange Inc. has in no way passed upon the merits of the Qualifying Transaction and has neither approved or disapproved the contents of this press release.

The common shares have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended and may not be offered or sold in the United States without registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirement. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.



Not for distribution to U.S. Newswire Services or for dissemination in the United States.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 9, 2017) - Goldsource Mines Inc. (TSXV: GXS) (FWB: G5M) ("Goldsource" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the completion of its non-brokered private placement announced on January 16 and 31, 2017. The Company issued 26,233,450 units ("Unit") at a price of $0.17 per Unit for gross proceeds of $4,459,686. Each Unit consisted of one common share and one common share purchase warrant of Goldsource, with each warrant being exercisable for one common share of Goldsource at a price of $0.23 for a term of 2 years.

Proceeds from the private placement will be used for the Company's Eagle Mountain Gold Project capital and operating improvements, resource expansion, repayment of outstanding loan, and general corporate purposes. Please see news release dated January 9, 2017 for more detailed information on the Company's planned operations for 2017.

Yannis Tsitos, President, stated, "We are very pleased to have concluded this financing with such success. We look forward to pursuing our plans at our Eagle Mountain Gold Project and to achieving certain milestones in 2017 as described in our recent announcements."

The shares and warrants issued under the private placement and the shares issuable upon exercise of the warrants are subject to a hold period that expires on June 9, 2017.

Certain directors, officers and other insiders of the Company purchased or acquired direction and control over a total of 9,235,046 Units under the private placement. The placement to those persons constitutes a "related party transaction" within the meaning of TSX Venture Exchange Policy 5.9 and Multilateral Instrument 61-101 -Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101") adopted in the Policy. The Company has relied on exemptions from the formal valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements of MI 61-101 contained in sections 5.5(a) and 5.7(1)(a) of MI 61-101 in respect of related party participation in the placement. Further details will be included in a material change report to be filed by the Company. The material change report will not be filed more than 21 days prior to closing of the placement due to the timing of the announcement of the increased private placement and closing occurring in less than 21 days.

The Company agreed to pay 6% finders' fees totalling $28,529 in respect of the placement of certain Units.

NO U.S. REGISTRATION

The securities referred to in this news release have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or any applicable securities laws of any state of the United States, and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. persons (as such term is defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act) or persons in the United States unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and any other applicable securities laws of the United States or an exemption from such registration requirements is available. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of these securities within any jurisdiction, including the United States.

ABOUT GOLDSOURCE MINES INC.

Goldsource Mines Inc. (www.goldsourcemines.com) is a Canadian resource company that is currently in the Proof of Concept Phase at it 100%-owned Eagle Mountain Gold Project, located in Guyana. Goldsource is led by an experienced management team, proven in making exploration discoveries and in project construction.

Ioannis (Yannis) Tsitos

President & Director

Goldsource Mines Inc.

For Further Information:

Goldsource Mines Inc.

Contact:Ioannis (Yannis) Tsitos, President

Fred Cooper, Investor Relations

Telephone:+1 (604) 694-1760

Fax:+1 (604) 694-1761

Toll Free:1-866-691-1760 (Canada & USA)

Email:info@goldsourcemines.com

Website:www.goldsourcemines.com

570 Granville Street, Suite 501

Vancouver, British Columbia V6C 3P1

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.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This news release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. Such forward-looking statements concern the intended use of the net proceeds of the private placement and plans at the Company's Eagle Mountain Gold Project. Such forward-looking statements or information are based on a number of assumptions which may prove to be incorrect. Assumptions have been made regarding, among other things: conditions in general economic and financial markets; timing and amount of capital expenditures; and effects of regulation by governmental agencies. The actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of risk factors including: the availability of funds; the timing and content of work programs; results of exploration activities of mineral properties; the interpretation of drilling results and other geological data; and general market and industry conditions. Forward-looking statements are based on the expectations and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made. The assumptions used in the preparation of such statements, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be imprecise and, as such, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date the statements were made. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements included in this news release if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change, except as otherwise required by applicable law.

NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR

FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES
Leading customer engagement technology helps The Prince's Trust to engage with young people and help them achieve their goals

Thunderhead, the leader in enterprise technology for customer engagement, today announced that it is working with The Prince's Trust to help it use digital technology more effectively to engage with their service users and assist them in achieving their goals. Founded in 1976 and in its 41st year, The Prince's Trust is the UK's leading youth charity that helps 13 to 30 year-olds who are unemployed or struggling at school to transform their lives. Thunderhead's ONE Engagement Hub is a cloud-based omnichannel engagement platform that enables organisations across all industry sectors to leverage user insight and journey behaviour to drive conversation-led engagement, building stronger and more valuable relationships with their customers and constituents.

The Prince's Trust will use the ONE technology to engage with young people, guiding their journeys across different devices and touchpoints and helping them move toward achieving their goals.

"Thunderhead's ONE Engagement Hub solution allows The Trust to strengthen the relationships we have with the young people that come to us for help," commented David Ivell, Chief Information Officer, The Prince's Trust. "We are continually looking for ways to improve the way we engage with our service users and help them achieve their goals. With ONE, we can drive more appropriate, tailored and relevant placements to the individual, in-line with their skills and preferences."

Glen Manchester, Thunderhead CEO and founder and Trust Enterprise Fellow, noted, "In 2016, The Prince's Trust helped 59,000 young people to turn their lives around. Digital technology plays a vital role in engaging with young people and understanding their individual journeys and needs. Being able to do this at scale is critical, and we're very proud to offer our ONE technology to support the service user community and the work of The Trust."

About The Prince's Trust

Youth charity The Prince's Trust helps disadvantaged young people to get their lives on track. Founded by HRH The Prince of Wales in 1976, this year it is celebrating 40 years of supporting 13 to 30 year-olds who are unemployed and those struggling at school and at risk of exclusion.

Many of the young people helped by The Prince's Trust are in or leaving care, facing issues such as homelessness or mental health problems, or they have been in trouble with the law. The Trust's programmes give vulnerable young people the practical and financial support needed to stabilise their lives, helping develop self-esteem and skills for work. Three in four young people supported by The Prince's Trust move into work, education or training.

The Prince's Trust has supported 825,000 young people in the last 40 years and this year it will support over 100 more each day.

Further information about The Prince's Trust is available at princes-trust.org.uk or on 0800 842 842.

About Thunderhead

Customers don't talk to you because they like you, they talk to you because they need something; they need it now and on the platform that suits them.

At Thunderhead we join up web, mobile, high street and contact centre customer experiences, connecting them with your existing CRM system giving you a multi-dimensional view of your customers.

Our intuitive ONE Engagement Hub allows you to act on the right customer need at the right time. For the first time, customer relationships can be effectively managed at scale.

Now you can interact with customers as individuals. Effortless engagement just got personal.

For more information about Thunderhead visit www.thunderhead.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170209005758/en/

Contacts:

GingerMay PR for Thunderhead

Beki Morgan

rebecca.morgan@gingermaypr.com

0044 203 642 1124
PUNE, India, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

According to the new market research report "Industrial Fire Brigade Training Program and Services Market by Training Mode, training Topic, Training Type, Training Level, Industry Vertical, Fire Protection System (Products, Vertical) - Global Forecast to 2022", published by MarketsandMarkets, the market size was valued at USD 54.5 Million in 2015 and is expected to reach USD 95.1 Million by 2022, at a CAGR of 8.54% between 2016 and 2022.

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Browse 44 market data Tables and 24 Figures spread through 161 Pages and in-depth TOC on"Industrial Fire Brigade Training Program and Services Market"

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/industrial-fire-brigade-training-market-165533564.html

Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report.



The major factor driving this market is the continuous modification of industrial codes, regulations, and safety standards for industrial fire brigades.

Management and specialist topic is expected to hold the largest market share during the forecast period in the North American Industrial Fire Brigade Training Program and Services Market

Fire management is an important concern in various industries as improper management can result in severe financial losses and fatalities. The inspection, testing, and maintenance of various kinds of fire protection equipment are an important part of the training to help reduce failure or inefficiency in the performance of the equipment in the event of fire.

Electrical utility industry vertical is estimated to grow at the highest rate during the forecast period in the North American Industrial Fire Brigade Training Program and Services Market

There is an increase in the instances of electric fires involving electrical appliances, generators, and transformers, which can have severe effects such as shutdowns as in the case of Thermalito Power Plant (California) in 2012. Electric utility companies are increasingly investing in training, specifically for electrical fires.

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North America is expected to hold the largest share of the market during the forecast period

The market for industrial fire brigade training program and services is expected to grow exponentially in North America. The industrial fire brigade training programs in this region are mostly governed by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards. Based on the findings of the report published by the NFPA in April 2016, the U.S. administration has mandated fire protection and safety regulations, given the large number of fires at industrial or manufacturing properties each year, leading to loss of human lives and property damage worth millions.

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The key players in the industrial fire brigade training program and services market include Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service (U.S.), Lakeland College (Canada), Falck (Denmark), Lambton College (Canada), and Oklahoma State University (U.S.), among others.

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Fire Sprinkler Market by Type (Product (Wet, Dry, Pre-action, Deluge), Service (Installation, Inspection & Managed)), Component (Fire Sprinkler Head, Alarm Bell), Application (Commercial, Industrial, Residential), and Geography - Forecast to 2020

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/fire-sprinkler-system-market-3646511.html

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Tallinn, Estonia, 2017-02-09 15:30 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --AS Merko Ehitus has launched the second stage of Tallinn-based Noblessner Home Port development project and started with the sales of Staapli 3 apartments. The 6-storey building with 105 apartments and interior courtyard will be completed by the end of 2018. Staapli 4 apartment building and underground garage, connecting the whole complex, are currently in active construction and will be completed by the end of 2017.The size of Staapli 3 1-5-storey apartments range from 26-140 square metres and they offer nice views to the sea, interior courtyard and inner streets. The energy class B residential units have heat exchange forced air ventilation system and floor heating, glass-enclosed balconies, and some apartments a sauna and readiness for a fireplace. Homebuyers can choose from six interior finishing packages, developed in cooperation with interior architects Eeva Masso and Katrin Tammsaar. The price per square metre of the apartments in Staapli 4 building ranges from 2,390-4,350 euros and in Staapli 3 building from 1,711-3,553 euros. Almost half of the apartments at Staapli 4 have been sold. People, who had registered their interest in Staapli 3 apartments, have received personal pre-information and they have booked quarter of the apartments at Staapli 3 building.The Noblessner Home Port development project (noblessner.merko.ee) encompasses four apartment buildings with 200 apartments and close to 3,700 m of office and retail space. In addition to the Staapli 3 and 4 buildings in the future will be constructed also houses at Staapli 8 and 12.Noblessner Home Port is located just seven metres from the sea. The architecture was authored by an Estonian architectural design office Arhitektuuriburoo Pluss, the winner of an international invitational competition, which has put people's living environment, logistics and activities in the focus. Cars will be parked on an underground level, ensuring space mainly for pedestrians and cyclists. Private and semi-private play and recreational areas will be created in the interior courtyards, and for pedestrian access, stairs will be established in the hillside on Kalaranna street facing the sea in the summer of 2017.The goal of the BLRT Group, which is developing the entire Noblessner port complex, is an integral and prestigious living, business and leisure time environment that puts a premium on the historical legacy and the picturesque seaside location. In the immediate vicinity is the Seaplane Harbour, Kalamaja Park and the European IT Agency headquarters to be completed by the end of 2017. By the completion of the first apartment building, the shipyard operations that historically were based here will be wound up. BLRT will demolish the production facility, build a promenade with a new plaza and renovate the yacht club and recondition the area around the Valukoda (foundry). There is a plan to open the first Virtual Reality Experience Centre in Northern Europe in the Valukoda by 2019. Today, access to the Noblessner quarter is via Toostuse street, and an additional access route will be developed directly from Kalaranna street, including a pedestrian and cycle ramp that will be connected with the existing pedestrian and bike tunnel and sea promenade. Parking areas will be established, and later parking garages as well.The Noblessner Home Port project is being developed by Kodusadam OU, a joint venture, established in December 2014 by AS Merko Ehitus ja BLRT Grupp AS, both owning 50% of the company.More information: Mr. Tiit Kuusik, Director of Residential Construction Division, AS Merko Ehitus Eesti, tel. +372 680 5105.Merit Kullasepp Communication and Marketing Manager AS Merko Ehitus Tel: +372 650 1250 Email: merit.kullasepp@merko.eeEstonian industrial group BLRT Grupp (www.blrt.ee) is one of the biggest in the Baltic Sea region. Operations were launched in Tallinn in 1912. Today the group includes 57 companies that provide jobs to 4,000 specialists in 10 different sectors in seven countries.AS Merko Ehitus (group.merko.ee) group consists of Estonia's leading construction company AS Merko Ehitus Eesti, the Latvian-market-oriented SIA Merks, UAB Merko Statyba that is operating on the Lithuanian market, construction company Peritus Entreprenr AS in Norway and the real estate development business unit along with real estate holding companies. As at the end of 2016, the group employed 797 people and the company's 2016 revenue was EUR 252 million.Attachment:https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=614270
OTTAWA (dpa-AFX) - Canadian National Railway Co (CNR.TO, CNI) announced its planned C$2.5 billion capital program in 2017 focused on hardening its core infrastructure. CN plans to invest approximately C$1.6 billion, consistent with last year's investment, on track infrastructure to maintain a safe and efficient network. The planned work includes the replacement of 2.2 million rail ties and installation of more than 600 miles of new rail, plus work on bridges, branch line upgrades and other general track maintenance. The company plans to invest approximately C$400 million in 2017 to advance the implementation of PTC, the safety technology mandated by the United States Congress, along parts of its U.S. network. CN will install the hardware on approximately 3,500 route-miles and plans to invest a total of US$1.2 billion on the entire project by 2020. Approximately C$500 million is expected to be spent on equipment, expansion projects and information technology initiatives to serve growing business, improve service for customers and advance safety. 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) -- 02/09/17 -- Fund-level benchmarks, which institutional investors have relied on for decades to evaluate private equity managers and opportunities, no longer provide a complete picture, according to global investment firm Cambridge Associates.

The continued expansion and evolution of the private equity market is challenging the singular usefulness of fund-level "net to limited partner (LP)" benchmarks. Investors' pursuit of co-investment and direct investments in portfolio companies; increased fee and carry variability across managers and LP investors; and managers' expansion into new strategies and geographies are complicating institutional investors' investment evaluation efforts. Investors need to go beyond fund-level benchmarks to judge managers' true investment ability.

Enter "investment-level performance benchmarks," which measure the gross performance -- before fund-level fees and carried interest are subtracted -- of underlying portfolio companies within a sample of private equity funds. A new report from Cambridge Associates, A New Arrow in the Quiver: Investment-Level Benchmarks for Private Investment Performance Measurement, illustrates how investment-level data and analysis can offer new insights that complement traditional fund-level analysis.

"Looking beyond fund-level benchmarks is becoming more and more important for private equity investors. The market has expanded beyond commingled funds with standard '2 and 20' fee structures: today we see lower-fee or no-fee direct and co-investments, we see different fee options for the same fund. Our investment-level benchmarks provide a valuable perspective on whether, and how, an institution's private equity managers add value," says Rich Carson, Senior Director of Private Investments at Cambridge Associates and co-author of the report.

"Investment-level benchmarks represent another arrow in investors' quivers to use when evaluating private equity manager performance," adds Andrea Auerbach, Head of Global Private Investments at Cambridge Associates and report co-author. Cambridge Associates derives their investment-level benchmarks from the returns data of over 70,000 individual investments made by over 3,300 global private equity and venture capital funds. The Cambridge Associates report focuses on the investments made by private equity funds.

Investment-level performance benchmarks allow investors to gain new perspectives along several fronts:

Measure the Performance of Direct and Co-Investments. In the past decade, investors considering -- or actively pursuing -- co-investments or direct investments has grown to be a majority of investors. "One of the reasons co-investments are so popular is that they offer lower-to-no fees compared to a typical fund structure," says Auerbach. "Yet traditional fund-level benchmarks are net of fees, making them an 'apples-to-oranges' mismatch for benchmarking co-investments. Gross investment-level returns, based on a pool of deals with similar characteristics (e.g. same year of investment, same sector, same deal size) provide a better option for benchmarking these investments."





Better Understand Performance by Sector, Strategy or Geography. As investors and funds consider expanding into new sectors, geographies or strategies, they need to understand the returns and risks. However, fund-level benchmarks do not always offer a 'pure' view into the performance of a specific sector or strategy. "The vast majority of funds invest in deals across sectors; therefore, if you want to understand the performance of investments in, say, the consumer sector, you could look at the net returns of all funds that invest exclusively in the consumer sector, but there are not that many consumer-focused funds," says Carson. "Investment-level analysis provides a more robust universe of data by allowing you to pool all the investments made in a specific sector, whether by consumer-focused funds or generalist funds, and look at the returns and risks of that pool."





Assess a Fund's Performance by Calendar Years. Sometimes, the global investment environment can change drastically over the course of a fund's investment period. "For example, there were funds that were raised and invested across the years of the global financial crisis. A lot of the deals in 2007 underperformed while the deals completed in 2009 and 2010 outperformed, translating to middling overall fund performance," explains Auerbach. "Investment-level performance data looks beyond a fund's vintage year and compares investments made in a specific year to a pool of similar investments made in that same year. This extra layer of performance perspective can meaningfully inform investment decisions."





"Fund-level performance benchmarks -- the mainstay of private equity performance measurement -- are incredibly important and necessary. But they're not always sufficient in today's evolving private equity environment," says Carson. "Investment-level data can provide 'apples-to-apples' benchmarks for direct and co-investments and they can complement traditional fund-level analysis by providing additional perspectives."

Investment-level benchmarks as well as fund performance data are available to limited partner investors through Cambridge Associates' Optica Benchmarks platform. For more information contact: OpticaBD@cambridgeassociates.com

For more information, or to speak to Rich Carson or Andrea Auerbach, please contact Eric Mosher, Sommerfield Communications, at +1 (212) 255-8386 or eric@sommerfield.com.

About Cambridge Associates

Cambridge Associates is global investment firm founded in 1973 that builds customized investment portfolios for institutional investors and private clients around the world. Working alongside its early clients, among them several leading universities, the firm pioneered the strategy of high equity orientation and broad diversification, which since the 1980s has been a primary driver of performance for these leading fiduciary investors. Cambridge Associates serves over 1,200 global investors -- primarily foundations and endowments, pensions and family offices -- and delivers a range of services, including outsourced investment (OCIO) solutions, traditional consulting services, and access to research and tools (Optica Research and Optica Benchmarks) across global asset classes. Cambridge Associates has more than 1,300 employees -- including over 150 research staff -- serving its client base globally. The firm maintains offices in Arlington, VA; Boston; Dallas; Menlo Park and San Francisco, CA; London; Singapore; Sydney; and Beijing. Cambridge Associates consists of five global investment consulting affiliates that are all under common ownership and control.

The firm compiles performance results for more than 6,400 partnerships and their more than 75,000 portfolio company investments to publish its proprietary private investments benchmarks, of which the Cambridge Associates LLC U.S. Venture Capital Index and Cambridge Associates LLC U.S. Private Equity Index  are widely considered to be the industry-standard benchmark statistics for these asset classes. Cambridge Associates collaborates with the Australian Private Equity & Venture Capital Association Limited (AVCAL), the African Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (AVCA), the Latin American Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (LAVCA). Thomson Reuters, after a comprehensive search, selected Cambridge Associates to provide Cambridge's private fund performance benchmarks on their EIKON and ThomsonOne platform.

For more information about Cambridge Associates, please visit www.cambridgeassociates.com.

Media Contact:

Eric Mosher

Sommerfield Communications, Inc.

(212) 255-8386

eric@sommerfield.com




TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- Alabama Graphite Corp. ("AGC" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE:CSPG)(OTCQB:CSPGF)(FRANKFURT:1AG) is pleased to announce Edison Investment Research Inc. ("Edison") will now be generating regular independent research reports on the Company. Edison's Initiation-of-Coverage report on AGC is expected to be published in April 2017.

With offices in North America, Europe and Asia, Edison is a leading independent investment research company, generating and distributing research to a global audience, including, investment banks, institutional investors, as well as professional investors and relevant members of the global investment community. With nearly 500 corporate clients, Edison's team of more than 110 professionals, includes more than 70 analysts, supported by a department of supervisory analysts and editors. Founded in 2003, Edison writes research and analysis on more than 450 companies across every sector, making the company the largest dedicated small- and mid-cap research team in Europe. Edison is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority ("FAC"). Edison will receive a fee from AGC for an initial engagement of 12 months.

AGC President, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director, Donald Baxter commented, "We are pleased that Edison has agreed to undertake regular coverage of AGC. It will provide investors with an additional perspective on valuations and forecasts for the Company. Executive Vice President, Tyler Dinwoodie and I met with Edison Associate Director and graphite analyst Tom Hayes recently and were impressed with both his knowledge and understanding of the battery-graphite space and the unique sourced-and-manufactured-in-USA proposition that AGC potentially holds."

Future Edison reports on AGC will be available for viewing at http://www.edisoninvestmentresearch.com/research/companies/a.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of

ALABAMA GRAPHITE CORP.

Donald K. D. Baxter, P.Eng.

President, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director

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 US supplier of specialty high-purity graphite products, namely Coated Spherical Purified Graphite (CSPG) engineered for use in lithium-ion batteries. A highly experienced team leads the Company with more than 100 years of combined graphite mining, graphite processing, specialty graphite products and applications, advanced battery development 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 US-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: US 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: US 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 a preliminary economic assessment ("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.

Alabama Graphite Corp. is a proud member of the National Association of Advanced Technology Batteries International ("NAATBatt International"), a US-based, not-for-profit trade association commercializing advanced electrochemical energy-storage technologies for emerging, high-tech applications.

For further information and updates on the Company or to sign up for Alabama Graphite Corp. News, please visit www.alabamagraphite.com or follow, like and subscribe to us on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, 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 DoD- and DoE-related entities, any conduct of business involving the US federal government and its agencies and related laboratories, and any potential US government supply, granting and funding opportunities. 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 - YouTube

Contacts:

Alabama Graphite Corp.

Ann-Marie M. Pamplin

Vice President, Investor Relations

+1 (416) 309-8641

apamplin@alabamagraphite.com

www.alabamagraphite.com




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- Fortuna Silver Mines Inc. ("Fortuna" or the "Company") (NYSE: FSM)(TSX: FVI) is pleased to announce that it has completed its previously announced bought deal financing and has issued 11,873,750 common shares (the "Offered Shares"), including 1,548,750 common shares that were issued upon the full exercise of the over-allotment option, at US$6.30 per Offered Share for gross proceeds to the Company of US$74,804,625 (the "Offering"). The Offering was conducted by a syndicate of underwriters co-led by Raymond James Ltd., BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc. and Scotia Capital Inc., and including CIBC World Markets Inc. and National Bank Financial Inc. (collectively, the "Underwriters"). The net proceeds from the Offering will be used for general working capital purposes.

The Offered Shares were offered for sale in each of the provinces of Canada by way of a short-form prospectus (the "Prospectus") and in the United States pursuant to a registration statement on Form F-10, as amended (the "Registration Statement"), in accordance with the Multijurisdictional Disclosure System established between Canada and the United States.

This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of the Offered Shares in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification of the Offered Shares under the securities laws of that jurisdiction.

Before you invest in Fortuna, you should read the Prospectus or the Registration Statement, as well as the other documents that the Company has filed with the securities regulatory authorities, for more complete information about the Company and the Offering. You may get these documents at no charge by visiting EDGAR on the SEC website, at www.sec.gov, or on the SEDAR website, at www.sedar.com. Alternatively, the Company, any Underwriter or any dealer participating in the Offering will arrange to send you a written Prospectus, or you may request the Prospectus from Sally Whittall, Corporate Secretary of Fortuna, 650-200 Burrard Street, Vancouver, Canada, V6C 3L6, telephone number (604) 484-4085.

About Fortuna Silver Mines Inc.

Fortuna is a growth oriented precious metals producer focused on mining opportunities in Latin America. The Company's primary assets are the Caylloma silver mine in southern Peru, the San Jose silver-gold mine in Mexico and the Lindero gold project in Argentina. The Company is selectively pursuing acquisition opportunities throughout the Americas and in select other areas.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

Jorge A. Ganoza, President, CEO and Director

Fortuna Silver Mines Inc.

The Toronto Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange have not reviewed and do not accept responsibility for the accuracy or adequacy of this news release, which has been prepared by management.

This news release contains forward looking statements which constitute "forward looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation, and "forward looking statements" within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (collectively, "Forward looking Statements"). All statements included herein, other than statements of historical fact, are Forward looking Statements and are subject to a variety of known and unknown risks and uncertainties which could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those reflected in the Forward looking Statements. The Forward looking Statements in this news release include, without limitation, statements about the use of the proceeds from the Offering. Often, but not always, these Forward looking Statements can be identified by the use of words such as "estimated", "potential", "open", "future", "assumed", "projected", "used", "detailed", "has been", "gain", "planned", "reflecting", "will", "containing", "remaining", "to be", or statements that events "could" or "should" occur or be achieved, and similar expressions, including negative variations.

Forward looking Statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the Forward looking Statements. Such uncertainties and factors include, among others, changes in the Company's plans for its mines and mineral properties; changes in general economic conditions and financial markets; changes in prices for silver and other metals; technological and operational hazards in Fortuna's mining and mine development activities; risks inherent in mineral exploration; uncertainties inherent in the estimation of mineral reserves, mineral resources and metal recoveries; governmental and other approvals; political unrest or instability in countries where Fortuna is active; labor relations issues; as well as those factors discussed under "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Information Form, the Prospectus and the Registration Statement. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual events, actions or results to differ materially from those described in the Forward looking Statements, there may be other factors that cause events, actions or results to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended.

Fortuna believes that the assumptions and expectations reflected in the Forward looking Statements in this news release are reasonable, but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct. Forward looking Statements should not be unduly relied upon. These Forward looking Statements speak only as of the date of this news release, and Fortuna will not necessarily update these statements unless required to do so by securities laws.

Contacts:

Fortuna Investor Relations

Carlos Baca

T (Peru): +51.1.616.6060, ext. 0




PITTSBURGH, PA -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- Real Estate Contacts, Inc. (OTC PINK: REAC) announces that it has signed a Letter of Intent with Hemp, Inc. (OTC PINK: HEMP). REAC will sell its Southern Hemp Company brand to Hemp Inc. As part of the strategic partnership, REAC will continue to be the manufacturer, and Hemp, Inc. will manage the retail operations. REAC executive, Roger Ford, will oversee the manufacturing of all products.

The agreement calls for the debut of the first 12 products, highlighted by a Hemp infused moonshine. The first 12 products will be available for purchase immediately following the close of the contract next week. The brand can be viewed at www.southernhempco.com. The partnership plans to introduce at least 10 more products by the second quarter of 2017. Roger Ford commented, "This is an exciting opportunity for REAC to work with an industry legend like Hemp, Inc. CEO, Bruce Perlowin. The REAC team is overjoyed to be working with Mr. Bruce Perlowin. Bruce Perlowin will be designing the special limited edition Hemp infused moonshine bottle. The limited bottles will be numbered and signed by Bruce Perlowin."

Safe Harbor: This press release contains forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, assumptions and uncertainties that could cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from those projected in such statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date made and are not guarantees of future performance. We undertake no obligation to publicly revise any forward-looking statements.

Real Estate Contacts, Inc.

Robert DeAngelis

President & CEO

724-656-8886

contact@realestatecontacts.com




TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- Rio Novo Gold Inc. (TSX: RN) ("Rio Novo" or the "Corporation") is pleased to announce that a resolution for the amendment and restatement of the Deferred Share Unit Plan was approved by the shareholders at a Special Meeting of the Shareholders (the "Meeting") held on February 3, 2017.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Item Voted Upon Voting Result ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- DSU Plan Restatement Votes For Votes Against Amendment and Restatement of the Corporation's existing deferred share unit plan, as described in the management information circular for the Meeting. ------------------------------ 86,515,225 8,186,252 (91.36%) (8.64%) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The formal report on voting results with respect to the matters voted upon at the Meeting was filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

About Rio Novo

Rio Novo is focused on the acquisition, exploration and development of gold properties in Brazil and Colombia. The Company has Measured & Indicated resources of 1,191,252 oz and 1,464,831 Inferred oz of gold at two projects in Brazil (Almas and Matupa Gold Projects) and one in Colombia (Tolda Fria Gold Project).

The Company's goal is to become a producer of gold by bringing the Almas Gold Project, located in the State of Tocantins in Brazil, into production. Almas Project enjoys both established infrastructure, main grid hydropower in a proven and mining friendly jurisdiction and is permitted for construction.

This press release contains forward-looking statements. All statements, other than of historical fact, that address activities, events or developments that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future (including, without limitation, statements regarding the estimation of mineral resources, exploration results, potential mineralization, potential mineral resources and mineral reserves) are forward- looking statements. Forward-looking statements are often identifiable by the use of words such as "anticipate", "believe", "plan", may", "could", " would", "might" or " will", "estimates", "expect", "intend", "budget", "scheduled", "forecasts" and similar expressions or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things, without limitation, failure to establish estimated mineral resources, the possibility that future exploration results will not be consistent with the Company's expectations, the price of gold and other risks identified in the Company's most recent annual information form filed with the Canadian securities regulatory authorities on SEDAR.com. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as 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 statements.

Contacts:

Rio Novo Gold Inc.

Patrick Panero

President & CEO

+55 (21) 2429-5100

patrick.panero@rnovogold.com




NEW YORK, NY -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- Institutional Investor marks the beginning of its 50th year with an editorial makeover complete with a new logo and magazine redesign. The brand is returning to the principles that Founder Gil Kaplan instituted in 1967: "perpetual change and disruption." The new logo is reminiscent of the strong, bold logo that dominated Institutional Investor covers for more than 40 years. The newly reorganized editorial division, led by Editorial Director and Chief Content Officer Kip McDaniel, will continue to focus on quality journalism that is essential reading for those in institutional asset management.

"The newly redesigned magazine and logo are exciting advances for Institutional Investor. We're a 50-year-old brand, but as we build our editorial team and make these changes, we will be injecting a fresh, provocative voice into its pages," says McDaniel.

Read the full article featured in Institutional Investor's February issue, "Reinventing Institutional Investor," to understand how Kaplan's founding values have influenced these recent editorial changes.

Institutionalinvestor.com will undergo similar editorial and design changes in the coming months, as the brand is revamped to mark Institutional Investor's 50th anniversary.

Institutional Investor's Chairman, Diane Alfano, says, "As Institutional Investor enters its 50th year, it's important for us as an organization to continue to push forward with the mission Gil Kaplan originally set for us in 1967: to provide all those who work in the global asset management and banking communities with the most essential information on their industries. We've always innovated through media, research, events, and technology -- and this most recent refocusing of the media brand is another step in our constant push to help our readers and clients."

The new magazine design is organized into four main sections: Social Currency, Corner Office, Portfolio, and Masters (formerly Research & Rankings). The February issue features the 2017 All-Europe Research Team and includes an in-depth look at infrastructure investing -- specifically, "Why America's Airports Suck" and the revitalization of New York's airports.

The new corporate logo was officially launched online today at institutionalinvestor.com. The February 2017 magazine issue, available to subscribers, also debuts the new design. The mobile and social platforms have changed their design as well to reflect the new corporate identity.

For more information, please contact Ronda DiMasi at rdimasi@institutionalinvestor.com or

(212) 224-3569.

About Institutional Investor

For 50 years, Institutional Investor has consistently distinguished itself among the world's foremost financial publications with groundbreaking journalism and incisive writing that provide essential institutional asset management intelligence for a global audience. In addition, Institutional Investor offers a host of proprietary research and rankings that serve as respected industry benchmarks. For more information, visit institutionalinvestor.com.
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Southwest Airlines Co. (LUV) said that it will share $586 million through its ProfitSharing Plan with its Employees for 2016-equaling approximately 13.2 percent of each eligible Employee's eligible compensation, or the equivalent of six weeks' pay. This is Southwest Airlines' 43rd consecutive ProfitSharing award. For the 2016 plan year, Southwest announced a new funding structure that will pay part of the ProfitSharing award to the retirement plan and part in cash. Most employees will receive 10 percent of eligible compensation as a contribution to the ProfitSharing Plan and the remainder-approximately 3.2 percent-in cash, both of which will be paid on April 20, 2017. Some employees will receive the entire ProfitSharing award in the retirement plan as specified in their collective bargaining agreement. The company noted that the $586 million award is equivalent to more than $1.6 million a day and will be funded on April 20, 2017. When this ProfitSharing award is added to the Company's $351 million in Company contributions to Southwest's 401(k) plans for 2016, Southwest will have rewarded Employees with approximately $937 million, $852 million of retirement benefits PLUS a cash payment of $85 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.
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- Route1 Inc. (OTCQB: ROIUF)(TSX VENTURE: ROI) (the Company or Route1), a world-leader in secure data protection technologies and user authentication for government and enterprise, today provided an update on market drivers, its operations and business development activity.

Trump Administration

On January 20, 2017, Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the President of the United States. As has been widely reported, the new President's administration is likely to approach public administration matters very differently than the previous administration.

On the matter of cybersecurity, an early glimpse into the Trump administration's approach was provided through a publicly circulated draft Executive Order, commentary on the draft Executive Order at a morning briefing by the White House on January 31, 2017, and public comments made by President Trump and the Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus.

Of note, President Trump has stated that he plans to do the following:

-- Direct heads of federal agencies, not just the chief information officer (CIO), to take responsibility for internal cybersecurity and for modernizing their organization's technology; holding cabinet secretaries and agency heads totally accountable for the cybersecurity of their organizations. -- Empower agencies to modernize their IT systems for better security and other uses, spanning federal networks and data.

"One of the things I was really upset about with the OPM breach is the director or the agency clearly didn't understand the value of the data they were charged with protecting." - Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., and head of the House Cybersecurity Caucus.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) breach which was first reported in June 2015 is in reference to the data breach targeting the records of approximately 21.5 million people. The massive intrusion exposed personally identifiable information such as social security numbers as well as names, dates and places of birth, and addresses.

Route1's sales opportunities lie in the potential impact of a final Executive Order that holds agency leadership accountable for data protection. We would expect to see:

-- The full implementation of HSPD-12 across all civilian departments, thus ensuring PIV cards are used for user authentication while accessing data remotely. -- Reassessment of the risk vectors associated with the deployment of VPN- based technologies for accessing data while a user is mobile. -- Investment in technologies that take away the "human" risk factor - human's cannot be trained to be perfect in the use of any technology. -- Demand from technology vendors that improved cybersecurity will also generate true cost savings. -- Delivering functionality and convenience at the expense of cybersecurity to no longer be an acceptable practice. -- Requirement for full and complete audit trails of how and when government data was accessed and/or used. -- Reassessment of vulnerabilities related to certain currently approved approaches used to deliver derived credentials.

Appointment of John Marino

Route1 has appointed John Marino as a board director to assist the Company in working with the Trump administration, and the leadership of agencies in where Route1 has a strong interest in that agency's continued use and/or expansion of MobiKEY technology and the adoption of DerivID.

John Marino is the principal of Marino Consulting, a Washington, DC strategic consulting firm with a client portfolio of domestic and international companies spanning across diverse industries. He brings more than 15 years of progressive experience in public relations, business development, and international affairs. This includes serving in leadership roles at public affairs firms and non-governmental organizations in the nation's capital.

Marino Consulting has represented technology, cyber security, transportation, and manufacturing companies, nonprofits & NGOs, trade associations, and higher education institutions. The firm delivers government relations, communications, market access, issue management, and brand enhancement capabilities that navigate the private and public sectors and position its clients for favorable outcomes.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Marino served as the national executive director of the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF), the foremost organization advancing US-Italy relations in the areas of politics, business, education and culture. He worked closely with the bipartisan Italian American Congressional Delegation and other governmental leaders and directed the organization's thought leadership programs.

Mr. Marino received a Bachelor of Arts from Clemson University in South Carolina, a Master of Arts from Fordham University in New York City, and pursued professional training at Georgetown University's Government Affairs Institute in Washington, DC.

Mr. Marino has been granted 1,000,000 stock options at an exercise price of $0.05 per share. The stock options expire on February 8, 2022 and will vest thirty percent on the first anniversary, thirty percent on the second anniversary and the remainder on the third anniversary. Under the Company's stock option plan, 10% of the issued capital is reserved for issuance or a total of 34,766,091 options. As of today's date, including the above grant, a total of 32,689,000 options are currently outstanding under the stock option plan.

Change has Risks

As a significant portion of Route1's revenues are generated from US government departments and agencies, there are also risks for Route1 that come with a new president and administration. Further, a majority of Route1's MobiKEY renewals with the US government fall within the first 100 days of the Trump administration.

-- Immediately after an election, US government agencies sometimes defer material changes in their operations and purchases of products and services until a new cabinet is appointed and the political direction is confirmed. A deferral and possible change in political direction following the election could have an adverse effect on our renewals, prospects and results of operations. -- President Trump has publicly supported certain policies including those related to changes to international trade agreements and policies favoring US persons and companies. Therefore, there is uncertainty as to which policies will be implemented by the US government in 2017 and beyond, and when such measures and policies would be implemented. -- Certain CIOs of US government agencies are required to resign following the election of a new President. There is no assurance that a resigning CIO will be reappointed or that a newly appointed CIO will be supportive (or continue to be supportive) of Route1's products and services. -- As a consequence of the timing of the transition to a new administration, the renewal of Route1's products and services could be delayed or cancelled.

Conversely, this same political landscape, marked by turnover of agency CIOs and senior staff, also presents opportunities for companies offering value based solutions. The Republican controlled Congress will demand fiscal restraint and push the agencies to identify cost savings solutions without compromising security. In addition, the Trump Administration seems to be committed to expanding cybersecurity effectiveness across the agencies and has called for a comprehensive review. President Trump is also seeking to run the government in a corporate manner where performance, efficiency and cost are measured. So while we foresee some uncertainty, this same environment may create new opportunities for Route1 in the public sector.

MobiKEY Paid, Active Subscribers

Revenue from services includes MobiKEY application software, MobiNET (DEFIMNET) platform and other appliance licensing or yearly maintenance. All 2016 numbers are preliminary figures, unaudited and subject to final adjustment.

Services Revenue Dec 30 Sep 30 Jun 30 Mar 31 Dec 31 In 000s of CAD dollars 2016 2016 2016 2016 2015 --------------------------------------------- Closing number of subscribers 17,883 17,344 16,800 16,490 16,286 Revenue per subscriber $388 $383 $383 $367 $361 --------------------------------------------- Subscriber Revenue $1,701 $1,639 $1,591 $1,496 $1,467 Other Services Revenue $164 $169 $169 $152 $149 --------------------------------------------- Total Services Revenue $1,865 $1,808 $1,760 $1,648 $1,616 ---------------------------------------------

Business Development Highlights

- US Department of Defense (DoD): In February 2017, in accordance with the DoD Risk Management Framework (RMF), an Authority to Operate (ATO) was issued by the DoD's Joint Service Provider for Route1's MobiKEY technology. - US Marine Corps (USMC): The USMC started testing the MobiKEY technology in November 2015. In January 2017, in accordance with the DoD RMF, an Authority to Operate (ATO) and Authority to Connect (ATC) was issued by the USMC, authorizing Route1's MobiKEY technology for the Marine Corps enterprise network. In addition, Route1 has been working with the USMC to setup the MobiKEY technology on an enterprise-wide contract vehicle that will allow all components of the USMC to procure the MobiKEY technology. Route1 now anticipates the contracting process to be completed by late February or early March 2017. Upon MobiKEY being available for procurement by USMC, Route1 expects sales in the first ninety days of 100- 250 users and additional further growth on a monthly basis similar to the Company's experience with the US Department of the Navy. There is no assurance that any of the sales assumptions mentioned above will transpire in either the expected amounts or within the expected timeframe. - US Department of the Interior (US Fish and Wildlife Service): In December 2016, US Fish and Wildlife Service renewed and expanded its use of the MobiKEY technology from 550 to 1,000 users.

Share Repurchase Program

On September 27, 2016, the Company announced with approval from the TSX Venture Exchange its intention to make a Normal Course Issuer Bid (NCIB). The NCIB permits the Company to purchase for cancellation up to 5% of the common shares in the public float. The maximum number of shares allowed for repurchase is 17,563,870. Purchases under the NCIB commenced September 27, 2016 and will end September 26, 2017, or the date upon which the maximum number of common shares have been purchased by the Company. As of February 7, 2017 the Company had purchased a total of 2,884,000 common shares under the NCIB.

Since the first NCIB was announced on February 28, 2012, Route1 has repurchased a total of 40,727,200 of its common shares, representing 10.5% of Route1's common shares outstanding as at February 28, 2012.

As at February 7, 2017, Route1 has 348,193,414 common shares outstanding.

Q2 2016 Financial Results Notification

Route1 will report its four quarter and full year financial results for the period ending December 31, 2016 during the month of April 2017. A notification will be sent out in advance of Route1 reporting its results. Further, Route1 intends to hold a conference call and webcast the day following the release of its results.

About Route1 Inc.

Route1 Inc. is a world-leader in secure data protection technologies and user authentication for government and enterprise. Route1 solutions enable the workforce to be more productive and more flexible without compromising system access, data-at-rest, or data-in-use. The Company's suite of patented enterprise security solutions combines best-in-class authentication, data security and secure communications with streamlined administration tools, running on a proven, trusted infrastructure. From mobile access to business continuity to best-in-class full system encryption, Route1 offers the most effective, affordable methods to secure the digital fortress, while meeting or exceeding the highest standards for government and industry. Route1 has Full Authority to Operate from the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Department of the Navy, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of the Interior, and other government agencies. The Company is also trusted by enterprise security teams in the banking, healthcare, legal and education sectors, among others. With offices in Washington, D.C., Boca Raton, FL and Toronto, Canada, Route1 serves public and private sector clients around the world. Route1 is listed on the OTCQB in the United States under the symbol ROIUF and in Canada on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol ROI.

For more information, visit: www.route1.com.

This news release, required by applicable Canadian laws, does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available.

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 news release contains statements that are not current or historical factual statements that may constitute forward-looking statements. These statements are based on certain factors and assumptions, including, expected financial performance, business prospects, technological developments, and development activities and like matters. While Route1 Inc. considers these factors and assumptions to be reasonable, based on information currently available, they may prove to be incorrect. These statements involve risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to the risk factors described in reporting documents filed by the Company. Actual results could differ materially from those projected as a result of these risks and should not be relied upon as a prediction of future events. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which such statement is made, or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law. Estimates used in this news release are from Company sources.

 2017 Route1 Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced, transmitted or otherwise used in whole or in part or by any means without prior written consent of Route1 Inc. See https://www.route1.com/terms-of-use.html for notice of Route1's intellectual property.

Contacts:

Route1 Inc.

Peter Chodos

Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

+1 416 814-2619

peter.chodos@route1.com

www.route1.com




The UK-based Renewable Energy Association's (REA) Energy Storage and Connected Systems conference that took place in London on Tuesday and Wednesday reinforced the view that the country offers great potential for the development of energy storage, either behind or in front of the meter, and at all levels (local, regional and national). The event's presentations, however, showed yet again that government is struggling to align with energy storage technological progress and investors' needs. Policy support, said Alexander Berland, policy advisor at the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), will not arrive in the form of subsidies, as is the case of Germany. Instead, Berland said, BEIS is looking at the U.S. case, where storage deployment is unsubsidized. This unmoved the U.K. storage stakeholders present, all of whom are struggling with the country's complicated and rather outdated regulatory framework. "I am not an expert in foreign energy storage markets," said Mark Howitt, chief technology officer of Storelectric, a developer of compressed air energy storage systems, who spoke in the same panel with Berland. Germany's energy storage services framework is much simpler than in the U.K., Howitt remarked, hinting that complexity is one barrier that investors are currently facing. Storage business models Nevertheless, Jonathan Cohen, head of energy storage at global law firm Eversheds Sutherland, said that there are three broad energy storage business models currently evident in the U.K. The first is built around supporting the grid. The second model targets projects that are co-located with renewable power projects, thus supporting renewable energy generation. And the third business model concerns projects behind the meter, where presently, Cohen said, his firm sees a strong interest ...

Den vollstandigen Artikel lesen ...
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - President Donald Trump's nomination of Congressman Tom Price, R-Ga., as Secretary of Health and Human Services narrowly cleared a procedural hurdle in the Senate on Wednesday. The Senate voted 51 to 48 to limit debate on Price's nomination, with the vote coming down strictly along party lines. Senator Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who had just been confirmed as Attorney General, did not vote. The cloture motion allows for 30 hours of debate on Price's nomination. If Democrats use all of the time, the vote to confirm Price could be held early Friday morning. Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee boycotted a vote on Price's nomination, arguing that the congressman gave inaccurate and misleading testimony and responses to questions to the committee. Price has faced allegations he engaged in insider trading by purchasing shares of healthcare companies while simultaneously pushing and advocating for legislation that could impact the companies' stock prices. The Democratic opposition to Price's nomination also comes as he is expected to play a key role in Republican efforts to repeal and replace the healthcare reform law known as Obamacare. Nonetheless, the party line vote on the cloture motion suggests Price is likely to be confirmed by the GOP-controlled Senate. (Photo: Gage Skidmore) 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.
OTTAWA, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- Public Services and Procurement Canada

Today, the Honourable Judy M. Foote, Minister of Public Services and Procurement, speaking before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages, re-iterated her support for Canada's Official Languages and announced a series of measures to strengthen the Translation Bureau.

The Government is committed to renewing the Translation Bureau as a centre of excellence ready to embrace innovation, adopt leading-edge practices, and recruit the best in class. Minister Foote detailed a comprehensive vision for investing in the Translation Bureau, which in addition to hiring a new Chief Executive Officer, includes hiring a Chief Quality Officer to guarantee the Translation Bureau's linguistic services are of the highest quality.

The Bureau will also focus on ending the era of cuts and building the next generation of talent by hiring a minimum of 50 students a year in each of the next five years, and will make these opportunities available to students in regional offices so as to increase capacity for Official Languages across Canada.

Minister Foote has requested that a review be undertaken to return the Translation Bureau to a mandatory service for government departments. In addition, the Minister re-iterated the Government's commitment to ensuring interpreters continue to be accredited by the Translation Bureau. Finally, the Request for Standing Offers for conference interpretation services has been cancelled and a new process will be undertaken in collaboration with stakeholders to reflect the Government's priority that quality of interpretation services remains at the core of our linguistic services.

These measures will restore the Translation Bureau as a center of excellence for delivering high-quality translation and interpretation services.

Quick Facts

-- The Translation Bureau manages 80% of the volume of the federal government's translation needs. -- The Bureau will continue to operate its network of regional offices, which employ about one-quarter of the Bureau's 1,300 employees. -- Aligned with the Prime Minister's Youth Strategy and as part of the Government of Canada's ongoing engagement with students and universities, the Bureau commits to hiring a minimum of 50 students per year in each of the next 5 years from translation programs, such as those of the following Universities: Universite de Moncton Universite Laval Universite d'Ottawa Universite de Trois-Rivieres Universite de Montreal Universite Concordia Universite du Quebec en Outaouais (FSWEP - Federal Student Work Experience Program only) Universite de Sherbrooke McGill University Glendon College Universite de Saint-Boniface

Quotes

"The measures announced today demonstrate our government's strong commitment to Official Languages, and our plan for renewing the Bureau and strengthening its capacity to carry out its important mandate. The Translation Bureau plays a key role in supporting Canada's linguistic duality throughout the country. Canada is a world leader in maintaining the highest standards in terminology, translation and interpretation."

The Honourable Judy M. Foote, Minister of Public Services and Procurement

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Contacts:

Annie Trepanier

Office of the Honourable Judy M. Foote

819-997-5421



Media Relations

Public Services and Procurement Canada

819-420-5501

media@pwgsc-tpsgc.gc.ca




SAN DIEGO, CA--(Marketwired - February 09, 2017) - Anderson Plumbing, Heating & Air announced their Free Furnace Offer featuring the Anderson brand HVAC Systems.

The Anderson brand HVAC Systems are produced by the largest manufacturer of heating and air conditioning systems in the United States, and include full warranties including lifetime warranties on major components.

According to Mary Jean Anderson, president of Anderson Plumbing, Heating & Air, "This is a fantastic deal for homeowners. We're so proud of our American made Anderson brand HVAC Systems. They are economical, energy efficient, super dependable and come with full warranties. And with this special offer, homeowners can get the Free Furnace valued at $1000!"

In addition, Anderson Plumbing, Heating & Air offers 'one year same as cash' financing or a number of other financing programs. This special offer is valid thru March 31, 2017.

"Now is a great time to buy. Homeowners with systems that are 10 years or older should definitely consider this offer. They will get the Free Furnace, valued at $1000. And, they will save on their monthly energy bills because the technology in today's systems make them so much more efficient to run all year long. With the crazy weather we've been experiencing, it's nice to have a new system you can count on for many years to come," added Anderson.

To take advantage of this offer, make an appointment online at andersonpha.com or call (866) 750-0134. The experienced team of Comfort Advisors at Anderson Plumbing, Heating & Air will advise homeowners on the right system for their home and provide free estimates as well as financing options.

Anderson Plumbing, Heating & Air has served more than 500,000 San Diego residential and commercial customers since 1978. Services include plumbing, heating and air conditioning, sewer and drains, pipe lining, water filtration, indoor air quality and more including 24-hour emergency service. Visit andersonpha.com for more info.

Contact:

Mary Jean Anderson

mj@andersonpha.com

619.873.1460
LAS VEGAS, NV -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- Strongbow Resources Inc. (OTCQB: STBR) ("Strongbow" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it is attending the upcoming NAPE Summit (North American Prospect Expo) in Houston, Texas from February 15 to 17, 2017.

The annual NAPE Summit is a networking event that brings together all the players necessary to forge, facilitate and close deals. In the upstream oil and gas business, it is the largest and most successful event of its kind in the world. This massive three-day event offers prospects, producers and purchasers a unique chance to connect, reconnect and make deals. Strongbow is currently seeking new opportunities to add to its portfolio and enhance company value. The Company feels this event has the potential to open up a myriad of new and unexpected opportunities.

Michael Caetano, President and CEO, stated, "These events are exciting times. It allows us to come together to learn and explore various ideas with some of the best people and companies in the business. This interaction will help Strongbow further its relationships and create synergies for future acquisitions or JV partnerships."

Michael Caetano

President and Chief Executive Officer

Strongbow Resources Inc.

1.403.241.8912




BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - The Swiss stock market broke out higher Thursday, after a rather restrained start to the trading week. The market extended its gains from the previous two trading days. Investor sentiment toward the global economy has improved of late, but traders still remain cautious. The Swiss market received some support in the afternoon from the early gains on Wall Street. Better than expected weekly jobless claims data helped to drive the U.S. markets to new all-time highs. Traders are also looking forward to President Trump's meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday. The Swiss Market Index increased by 0.70 percent Thursday and finished at 8,437.54. The Swiss Leader Index climbed 0.78 percent and the Swiss Performance Index added 0.66 percent. Zurich Insurance fell 0.5 percent after the company reported annual results. The results came in largely as expected, but analysts remain unconvinced about the company's turnaround plans. Baloise increased 1.2 percent after the appointment of a new Chief Financial Officer and a new Chief Investment Officer. Swiss Life climbed 1.4 percent and Swiss Re gained 1.2 percent. Aryzta dropped 1.3 percent Thursday. The pullback was attributed to profit taking after the stock has staged a bit of a recovery from the massive price drop it suffered in late January. Swatch and index heavyweight Nestle fell by 0.2 percent each and Givaudan dipped 0.1 percent. Cyclical stocks fared rather well Thursday. LafargeHolcim advanced 2.8 percent, Lonza rose 1.3 percent and ABB added 1.1 percent. Swisscom increased 0.8 percent, adding to its gains from the previous day after the company reported annual results. Credit Suisse climbed 1.8 percent and UBS rose 1.3 percent. The pharma heavyweights also provided support to the overall market. Novartis increased 1.2 percent and Roche gained 1.1 percent. 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.


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - President Donald Trump lashed out at Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., in a series of posts to Twitter on Thursday after the Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman suggested a recent military raid in Yemen was not a success because of the death of a Navy SEAL.



'Sen. McCain should not be talking about the success or failure of a mission to the media,' Trump said on Twitter. 'Only emboldens the enemy!'



The president added, 'He's been losing so long he doesn't know how to win anymore, just look at the mess our country is in - bogged down in conflict all over the place.'



Trump's criticism of McCain comes after the Senator initially called the mission a 'failure' but later softened his language to say it was not 'a success.'



'Every military operation has objectives. And while many of the objectives of the recent raid in Yemen were met, I would not describe any operation that results in the loss of American life as a success,' McCain said in a statement.



He added, 'Going forward, I am confident that our military will act on lessons learned from this operation to strengthen our fight against our terrorist enemies.'



The raid resulted in the death of Chief Special Warfare Operator William 'Ryan' Owens as well as an undisclosed number of Yemeni civilians.



White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer argued that anyone who undermines the success of the raid owes an apology and does a disservice to the life of Owens.



'Our hero Ryan died on a winning mission (according to General Mattis), not a 'failure,' Trump said on Twitter. 'Time for the U.S. to get smart and start winning again!'



Following Trump's criticism, a McCain spokeswoman said he would continue to execute his oversight duties as Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman and support the brave men and women serving the nation in uniform.



During the presidential campaign, Trump suggested McCain was not a war hero because he was captured while serving in Vietnam. McCain was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for more than five years.



(Photo: Frank Plitt)



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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HAMILTON, Bermuda, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

OIL announced to its shareholders on February 7, 2017 that commencing on January 1, 2018 the company will no longer offer Offshore Gulf of Mexico Designated Named Windstorm (DNW) coverage. It will continue to offer windstorm coverage for onshore areas in the Gulf of Mexico, and in all other onshore and offshore areas of the Atlantic Basin and the world.

Bertil C. Olsson, President & CEO, commented that "For the past few years, membership participation in the Offshore DNW pool has appreciably declined as a result of decreased demand for this product. Increasingly, many companies have come to the conclusion that retaining this risk on their balance sheet or selectively insuring individual assets in the commercial market is a better alternative to insuring their entire portfolio of Offshore Gulf of Mexico named windstorm exposed assets with OIL. As a result, OIL has determined that this geographic risk class no longer fits well within a mutual framework."

George F. Hutchings, Senior Vice President & COO, further added that "OIL considered several product alternatives to the existing Offshore GOM windstorm product and conducted a membership survey to seek the memberships' input. Two thirds of the membership didn't believe that Offshore GOM windstorm risk should be offered by OIL and a significant portion of the membership didn't believe that this risk should be mutualized across all members as one of the options to maintain this coverage. In light of the fact that alternatives had either limited value in the context of the mutual or were expensive, the survey feedback did not favor continued underwriting of this risk and membership demand for the product is low, the decision was taken to discontinue the Offshore GOM DNW coverage."

For more information about OIL's property coverages and related value go to https://www.oil.bm/.

Oil Insurance Limited (OIL) insures over $3.0trillionof global energy assets for more than fifty members with property limits up to $400 million totaling more than$19billion in total A- rated property capacity. Members are medium to large sized public and private energy companies with at least $1 billion in physical property assets and an investment grade rating or equivalent. Products offered include Property (Physical Damage), Windstorm, Non Gradual Pollution, Control of Well, Terrorism,Cyber,Construction and Cargo. The industry sectors that OIL protects include Offshore and Onshore Exploration & Production, Refining and Marketing, Petrochemicals, Mining, Pipelines, Electric Utilities and other related energy business sectors.
OAKLAND, CA--(Marketwired - February 09, 2017) - Jennifer Merschdorf is more than just "from" Oakland. She's a true native. Daughter of Oakland public school teacher Linda Merschdorf and local business owner Paul Merschdorf, Jennifer Merschdorf was born, educated, and got her start in the Bay Area, first following in her father's advertising footsteps before finding her passion for philanthropy at the Sierra Club.

She's currently CEO of Young Survival Coalition (YSC), an organization dedicated to young women affected by breast cancer. When the organization began hosting their national Summits for young women in 2015, Merschdorf knew she had to bring the YSC Summit to her hometown of Oakland.

The mission is a personal one for Merschdorf. In 2010, she learned she had breast cancer at age 36.

"I didn't even realize that young women could get breast cancer when I was diagnosed," shares Merschdorf. "The most important thing I did was find YSC and surround myself with other strong, amazing women facing the disease."

More than 250,000 women living in the U.S. today were diagnosed with breast cancer before their 41st birthday. Approximately 13,000 young women will be diagnosed this year alone.

Even with a cancer diagnosis, Merschdorf kept pushing forward in her career. Nine months after being diagnosed and still in treatment, Merschdorf was hired as YSC's CEO in 2011.

"YSC is the largest nonprofit in the country that focuses only on young women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer," says Merschdorf. "It's an honor to be the woman running such an important social profit company that exists only to serve other women."

In this leadership position, Jennifer constantly travels the country to meet other young survivors, doctors and researchers working on breast cancer. However, Jennifer always has had her eye on bringing YSC's largest program, the YSC Summit, back home to the Bay Area.

The YSC Summit event is the largest gathering of young women and their co-survivors (spouses, partners, family and friends) that exists in the world. The event inspires and connects young women, and their co-survivors, who are facing breast cancer.

The three-day Summit event features inspirational speakers, educational workshops and wellness activities addressing the unique issues that young women with breast cancer face. Participants will have access to the most current, evidence-based information to make decisions about their health care. A key component is the opportunity to network with a community of other young survivors and co-survivors from across the country.

While Merschdorf and her husband currently live in Queens, NY and have a home in the Hudson Valley, she considers herself still to be a local of the Bay Area, and is demonstrating her commitment to Oakland by hosting the YSC Summit at the Oakland Marriott City Center on March 10-12, 2017.

"This event is about ensuring that every young woman facing breast cancer, in the Bay Area and across the country, knows about YSC and knows that she is not alone," says Merschdorf.

Merschdorf knows first-hand that the emotional and medical concerns of young breast cancer survivors are different than those of women over age 40, which is why she feels a conference like the YSC Summit is so important.

Register now: summit.youngsurvival.org/registration

When: March 10 - 12, 2017

Where: Oakland Marriott City Center, Oakland, CA

Cost: The registration fee is $175. Registration fee waivers and fundraising options are available to offset expenses.

Onsite registration is welcome.

For more details, including the full lineup of workshops and speakers, visit summit.youngsurvival.org or call 877.972.1011.

This conference is generously supported by presenting sponsors Avon Foundation for Women, Celgene, Eisai, and Genentech.

About Young Survival Coalition (YSC)

Established in 1998, Young Survival Coalition (YSC) is the premier organization dedicated to young women with breast cancer. Founded by three young survivors, YSC began as a grassroots organization to advocate on behalf of all young women diagnosed with breast cancer to increase their length and quality of life. Based in New York City, with networks nationwide, YSC provides free resources, connections and educational materials so young women with breast cancer feel supported, empowered and hopeful. YSC seeks to educate and influence the medical, research and legislative communities to address breast cancer in young women, and to ensure that no young woman faces breast cancer alone. For more information, visit youngsurvival.org. Follow conference updates at YSCSummit17.

Media Contact:

Emily Helck

Senior Marketing and Communications Manager

646.257.3024

ehelck@youngsurvival.org


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - After several delays, a hearing on fast food executive Andrew Puzder's nomination as Labor Secretary has been scheduled for Thursday, February 16th.



The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will finally hold the hearing after previously postponing four scheduled hearings to give Puzder time to submit required paperwork.



A Senate aide told USA Today the committee has now received Puzder's paperwork from the Office of Government Ethics.



However, the announcement of the new hearing date comes amid calls from Democrats and labor groups for Puzder to withdraw his nomination.



Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called it 'disgraceful to put Secretary of Labor and Puzder in the same sentence given his views.'



'They ought to withdraw Mr. Puzder before he further embarrasses this administration and further exposes the hypocrisy of President Trump, who says one thing to the American worker and does another,' Schumer said at a news conference on Thursday.



Schumer argued Trump could not have picked a worse nominee to uphold his campaign promises to the working class, claiming everything in Puzder's career is antithetical to the goals of the Labor Department.



Democrats have been critical of Puzder's opposition to the Obama administration's proposal to expand overtime pay as well as his views on raising the minimum wage.



Puzder, who currently serves as CEO of CKE Restaurants, Inc., the parent of Carl's Jr. and Hardee's, has also come under pressure amid revelations he once employed an undocumented immigrant as a housekeeper.



While Puzder said he immediately ended the woman's employment after learning of her status and paid back taxes, similar revelations have derailed other Cabinet nominations.



Meanwhile, Puzder spokesman George Thompson struck back at Democrats, calling their attacks on the Labor Secretary nominee 'fake news.'



'The fact is, Andy is exactly what America's workers and businesses need: a proven job creator,' Thompson said. 'He's from a working class family-the first Puzder to earn a college degree-and he knows that success is achieved through hard work.'



He added, 'To address his qualifications for the job, Andy Puzder understands how the right policies can spur economic growth and bring more opportunity for all Americans.'



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
QUEBEC CITY, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- Copper One Inc. ("Copper One" or "the Company") (TSX VENTURE: CUO) reports that it has received a decision from the Ministere de l'Energie et des Ressources naturelles ("MERN") dated February 8, 2017 suspending all of Copper One's mining claims related to its Riviere Dore Project. MERN is basing their suspension decision on section 63 of the Mining Act (Quebec) (the "Act").

The MERN's Decision

Copper One considers the MERN's decision to suspend Copper One's claims to be abusive and to constitute an excess of jurisdiction and believes the decision will be reversed on appeal by the Court of Quebec.

According to Copper One, the MERN was hasty in its decision. Upon examining its file related to the Riviere Dore Project claims received from the MERN on January 31, 2017, Copper One discovered that the file does not contain any documentation revealing a serious public safety issue as alleged by the MERN in its suspension order.

The public safety issue alleged by the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources in his decision does not appear to be documented in Copper One's file and, in Copper One's opinion, is not justified in the current context.

It is Copper One's view that the Minister abused the suspension power provided to him under section 63 of the Act as the Company's situation does not match any of the three cases described in that section. The Minister's decision constitutes an unreasonable exercise of the discretion conferred on him by section 63 of the Act.

The Company intends to quickly exercise its right of appeal before the Court of Quebec in order to have the decision suspending its claims reversed.

Copper One would like to remind its stakeholders that the MERN's decision is not a revocation of Copper One's claims; rather, it is a suspension of its claims that will delay the Company's proposed advancement of the Riviere Dore Project.

Copper One is a socially responsible company that is mindful of the environmental context in which it operates. Accordingly, Copper One has implemented measures to minimize the environmental impact of its drilling program. The proximity of logging roads and cutting areas was factored into the selection of drill targets so as to reduce the impact of exploration work on the environment.

Copper One hopes that its exploration program at the Riviere Dore Project will ultimately determine the development potential of the territory concerned - a development potential that, if realized, will likely benefit, in particular, the local and First Nations communities involved.

Corporate Update

The Company also announces the appointment of Thomas Olesinski to its board of directors. Mr. Olesinski, CPA, CMA, has over 20 years of finance and management experience. Mr. Olesinski worked as a managing forensic accountant for BDO Dunwoody, where he earned a Certified Fraud Examiner designation, before moving into the marketing communications industry, where he worked for Cossette Communication Group in various roles, including Director of Finance and Operations. Mr. Olesinski currently serves as Chief Executive Officer of Havas Media Canada as well as Chief Financial Officer of Havas Worldwide Canada. Mr. Olesinski's appointment follows the resignation of Paul Cowley from the board of directors of the Company. Copper One would like to thank Mr. Cowley for his contribution to the Company.

About Copper One Inc.

Copper One is a Canadian-based mineral exploration company focused on the advancement of its 100%-owned Riviere Dore Project, located south-east of Val-d'Or, Quebec.

Copper One's common shares trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "CUO".

For further information, please visit www.copperone.com.

Forward-looking Information

This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, without limitation, statements regarding the Company's exploration program, the ability of the Company to obtain the necessary permits, the results and impact of the Company's exploration program, the potential of the Riviere Dore property, potential legal action by the Company including an appeal of the MERN's suspension order, the availability and impact of Copper One's legal remedies, the impact of the suspension of the Riviere Dore claims on the Company and its stakeholders, the impact of changes to the board of directors of the Company and the future plans or prospects of the Company. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or 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 information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of Copper One, as the case may be, to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Although Copper One has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Copper One does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with 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

Contacts:

Investor Relations:

+1 (416) 861-5883

info@copperone.com

www.copperone.com



Media Contact:

Brigitte Lemay

Senior Consultant, Public Relations

Hill+Knowlton Strategies

Cell: 418 953-0223

brigitte.lemay@hkstrategies.ca




SCARBOROUGH, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- Canadian Heritage

The Honourable Melanie Joly, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Minister Responsible for Multiculturalism, today announced a call for applications for the Government of Canada's Inter-Action grants and contributions program. Inter-Action offers funding for community engagement and development projects that promote intercultural understanding and equal opportunities for people of all cultures.

This call-for-applications is for long-term, multi-year projects. Funding priority is given to projects that meet the following criteria: work toward the elimination of discrimination, racism and prejudice; provide opportunities for youth community engagement; and bring people together through art, culture or sport.

Multiculturalism programs like Inter-Action foster mutual understanding and help create bonds between all Canadians. Diversity and inclusion are central to who we are as Canadians, which is why they are a pillar of the Canada 150 celebrations taking place this year. An anniversary like this is the perfect time to highlight what makes communities all across the country so unique, diverse and vibrant.

Minister Joly also took this opportunity to announce $49,950 in Canada 150 funding for the TAIBU Community Health Centre, which will be used to support its "Crossroads of dialogue and multicultural exchanges" project in the local community. Thanks to support provided through the Canada 150 Fund, the TAIBU Centre will carry out a number of activities through their community project "Crossroads of dialogue and multicultural exchanges", including bilingual information and reflection workshops on community involvement, an exhibition and an evening celebrating our multicultural communities.

The work that Canadian Heritage performs is crucial to creating a climate in which the multicultural heritage of Canadians is valued, and to building a public space where all Canadians can express their sense of belonging to Canada and their trust in its institutions.

Quotes

"Diversity is a cornerstone of our social contract and one of the values we, as Canadians, hold most dear to our hearts. In this special year in which we commemorate Canada 150, projects that celebrate our multicultural heritage will play a vital role. Our government is proud that programs like Inter-Action can help diverse communities across the country promote the multitude of cultures found here."

- The Honourable Melanie Joly, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Minister Responsible for Multiculturalism

Quick Facts

-- The Inter-Action program, formerly delivered by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, is now administered by the Department of Canadian Heritage. -- The Program is divided into two components, the Projects component and the Events component. The Projects component follows a call-for- applications process and focuses on long term, multi-year projects. It is being launched today with new application guidelines. -- The Events component of Inter-Action accepts applications year-round and provides grants to support and promote community based events. -- Those with initiatives promoting Canada's multicultural society are invited to visit the Canadian Heritage website to learn more about the program and how to apply for funding. -- The Canada 150 Fund was established by the Government of Canada to allow Canadians across the country to participate in local, regional and national celebrations for the 150th anniversary of Confederation. The main themes of the Government of Canada's vision for Canada 150 are diversity and inclusion, national reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, youth and the environment. -- The TAIBU Community Health Centre is a regional non-profit organization whose mission is to contribute to the maintenance and improvement of the health and well-being of the Francophone Black population of Greater Toronto.

Associated Links

Inter-Action: Multiculturalism Funding Program - Overview

Canada 150

TAIBU Community Health Centre

Stay Connected

Follow Canadian Heritage on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Flickr.

Follow Canada 150 on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Contacts:

Pierre-Olivier Herbert

Press Secretary

Office of the Minister of Canadian Heritage

819-997-7788



Media Relations

Canadian Heritage

819-994-9101

1-866-569-6155

pch.media-media.pch@canada.ca




IRVINE, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- Boot Barn Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: BOOT), America's largest western and work wear retailer, will celebrate the opening of its newest store February 10th through the 12th. This new Superstore is located in East Houston, off I-10 next to the Fitness Connection. This will be the company's 16th store in the Houston area.

Boot Barn offers boots, jeans, hats, shirts, outerwear, protective work wear, flame-resistant apparel, belts and accessories for western and work customers. For over 30 years Boot Barn has focused on providing superior service and the largest selection of quality brands including Wrangler, Ariat, Justin, Carhartt, Miss Me, Corral, Tony Lama, Dan Post, Timberland and Lucchese at great prices. Boot Barn also has exclusive brands including Cody James, Shyanne, and Moonshine Spirit by Brad Paisley, a line of contemporary boots, apparel and accessories.

"We are excited to introduce Boot Barn to the East Houston community just in time for Rodeo," said Tye Romano, Marketing Manager at Boot Barn. This store is the first of its kind for Boot Barn; featuring side-by-side western and work stores with a huge selection of work apparel, including FR, and boots that is much larger than the other stores. "We're stocked with the largest selection of western and work boots and apparel -- everyone is sure to find the right style and size. We're inviting all our new neighbors to join us in celebrating our Grand Opening. Families can come and save $20 on all regularly priced boots over $100 and save $5 on all jeans, shirts and cowboy hats."

Boot Barn has been outfitting the West since 1978 and is America's largest western and work wear retailer. With the opening of the new store in East Houston, Boot Barn has over 200 stores from coast to coast and online shopping via their mobile-friendly website. Boot Barn is the official western retailer of the PRCA, NFR and PBR, an official sponsor of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, and supports over 500 rodeos and western events every year. For more information, call 888-Boot-Barn or visit www.bootbarn.com.
LANSING, MI--(Marketwired - February 09, 2017) - Michigan Retailers Association's Retailers Insurance Company announced the following personnel changes:

Patty Zaskowski, director of underwriting, retired on January 31.

Laura Schilling was promoted to director of underwriting from manager of underwriting.

Jamie Moore was hired as underwriter.

Zaskowski, an Okemos resident, spent four decades in Michigan's insurance industry. The Michigan State University graduate joined Michigan Retailers Association in 2005 to help convert its workers' compensation insurance fund to a new insurance company and launch the new insurer. Prior to joining MRA, she was an underwriter at the former AP Capital in East Lansing.

At a retirement luncheon MRA held in her honor, Zaskowski received a legislative tribute signed by Governor Rick Snyder and her local state lawmakers, Rep. Tom Cochran (D-Mason) and Sen. Curtis Hertel (D-East Lansing).

The tribute states: "Ms. Zaskowski's industry knowledge of insurance and workers' compensation trends and changes collected over her celebrated career made her a strong asset for Michigan Retailers Association and Retailers Insurance Company."

Schilling, an Okemos resident, was named manager of underwriting in July 2016 and had served as an associate underwriter since 2012. A Michigan State University graduate, she began her career at MRA in 2006 as a data processing intern and was hired full-time in 2007.

Moore, a DeWitt resident, previously was an underwriter for 12 years with the Phoenix Property & Casualty Agency in East Lansing. She is a graduate of Hope College.

Retailers Insurance Company is a Lansing-based company providing workers' compensation and small-group dental insurance to all types of businesses in Michigan. Its insurance is sold through an outstanding network of independent agents throughout the state.

Retailers Insurance was established in 2006 by Michigan Retailers Association, which represents more than 5,000 member businesses and their 15,000 stores and websites. MRA has been a trusted business resource for 77 years and provides cost-saving membership services, such as expert credit card processing, business and personal insurances, legislative advocacy, college scholarships and shipping discounts to all types of businesses.

Note: High-resolution photos are attached.

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2017/2/9/11G129926/Images/Zaskowski-ebb200288385832d92b65d516430230b.jpg

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2017/2/9/11G129926/Images/Schilling-0a06edb75314ae41a8962a218f34c29c.jpg

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2017/2/9/11G129926/Images/Moore-3be7531ca8648c42a898ba43cec55f7a.jpg

Contact:

T. Scott

517.372.5656

Email contact


CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- The Board of Directors of Computer Modelling Group Ltd. ("CMG" or the "Company") (TSX: CMG) announces a dividend of $0.10 per Common Share on CMG's Common Shares. The dividend will be paid on March 15, 2017 to shareholders of record at the close of business on March 7, 2017.

Computer Modelling Group Ltd. is a computer software technology and consulting company serving the oil and gas industry. CMG, recognized by oil and gas companies worldwide as a leading developer of reservoir modelling software, has sales and technical support services based in Calgary, Houston, London, Dubai, Bogota, and Kuala Lumpur. CMG is the leading supplier of advanced processes reservoir modelling software in the world with a blue chip client base of international oil companies and technology centers in approximately 60 countries. The Company's shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the trading symbol "CMG."

All dividends paid by Computer Modelling Group Ltd. to holders of Common Shares in the capital of Computer Modelling Group Ltd. will be treated as eligible dividends within the meaning of such term in section 89(1) of the Income Tax Act (Canada), unless otherwise indicated.

Contacts:

Computer Modelling Group

Kenneth M. Dedeluk

President & CEO

(403) 531-1300

ken.dedeluk@cmgl.ca



Computer Modelling Group

Sandra Balic

Vice President, Finance & CFO

(403) 531-1300

sandra.balic@cmgl.ca

www.cmgl.ca




ATLANTA, GA -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- Luvu Brands, Inc. (OTCQB: LUVU) will release results for the second quarter and six months ended December 31, 2016 on Tuesday February 14, 2017.

Management will host a conference call at 11:15 a.m. EST (10:15 a.m. CST; 8:15 a.m. PST) on February 15, 2017. To listen to the call, please dial 412-902-6510 and ask to be joined into the Luvu Brands, Inc. call. The replay of the call will remain available on the Company's investor relations website, www.luvubrands.com, for approximately 60 days.

About Luvu Brands

Luvu Brands, Inc. designs, manufactures, licenses, and markets a portfolio of premium consumer lifestyle brands including products for intimacy enhancement, fashion seating and furniture, and top-of-bed comfort products. The Company is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia in a 140,000 square foot vertically-integrated manufacturing facility that employs over 160 people. Bringing manufacturing back to the USA, sustainable manufacturing practices, and decreasing the overall impact on the environment are core to the Company's operating principles. Luvu Brands promotes its products in a variety of consumer categories to retailers, wholesalers, and distributors in the United States and globally. The Company's brand sites include: liberator.com, jaxxliving.com, avanacomfort.com plus other global e-commerce sites. For more information about Luvu Brands, please visit luvubrands.com.

Company Contact:

Luvu Brands, Inc.

Ronald Scott

Chief Financial Officer

770-246-6426

ron@LuvuBrands.com




Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 9, 2017) - Centurion Minerals Ltd. (TSXV: CTN) ("Centurion", or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it achieved daily design capacity level (200 tonnes/day) in January at the Ana Sofia Property agri-gypsum fertilizer pilot plant located in Santiago Del Estero, Argentina. To date, the plant and operating team have been able to extract, crush and bag approximately 1000 tonnes of material. A large percentage of this material has been sold and delivered to Argentine fertilizer distributors.

Centurion's local joint venture partner is currently negotiating definitive supply contracts and co-ordinating delivery schedules with multiple distributors in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. Agreement terms range between C$85-$100/tonne. The distributors are responsible for transportation logistics from the project site to market. Agricultural gypsum (calcium sulfate) is a valuable plant nutrient and plays a vital role in maintaining soil structure and nutrient balance in South American soils, allowing greater crop yields.

Centurion CEO, Mr. David Tafel comments, "The pilot plant has been subjected to substantial testing and has operated at, and indeed exceeded, daily design capacity levels during the month of January. Our operating team is to be congratulated for achieving these milestones so quickly. The next operational goal is to achieve and maintain continuous production flows from extraction through finished product."

The pilot plant has a process design capacity of 200 tonnes/day. Gypsum is quarried from near-surface, flat-lying beds within the sedimentary formation that extends throughout the Ana Sofia Property. The gypsum rock is fed into a hopper leading to primary and secondary crushers, then screened and sorted into two agri-gypsum fertilizer products. The plant produces both a pellet-sized granular product and a powdered product (each comprised of a minimum 85% gypsum content) that are packaged into one tonne tote bags.

The Ana Sofia Project comprises two mining concessions totaling 50 hectares (ha) in size within a larger (approximately 600 ha) exploration permit area. The Project is well situated within a region where other small producers are currently extracting agricultural gypsum and selling to fertilizer distributors and farmers. An initial inferred gypsum resource for the Project was estimated (news releases - October 31; December 16, 2016), to comprise 1.47 million tonnes averaging 94.1% gypsum, using an 85% cut-off grade that is the minimum required gypsum content for commercial-quality agricultural gypsum products in Argentina. The resource estimate was based on trenching and test-pitting work completed in 2016 that focused on two near-surface gypsum layers located within one of the project's two mining concessions.

Qualified Person

The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Andrew J. Turner, B.Sc., P.Geol., who is the Company's Geological Consultant and is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

ABOUT CENTURION

Centurion Minerals Ltd. is a Canadian-based company with an international focus on the exploration and development of agri-mineral and precious mineral projects. For additional information on the Ana Sofia project and applications of agri-gypsum, visit our website: www.centurionminerals.com

On Behalf of the Board,

"David G. Tafel"

President and CEO

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.

David TafelPresident and CEO604-484-2161The Ana Sofia project has not been the subject of a feasibility study and as such there is no certainty that a potential mine will be realized or that the processing facility will be able to produce a commercially marketable product. There is a significant risk that any production from the project will not be profitable with these risks elevated by the absence of a compliant NI 43-101 feasibility study. A mine production decision that is not based on a feasibility study demonstrating economic and technical viability does not provide adequate disclosure of the increased uncertainty and specific risks of failure associated with such a production decision. The work carried out to date is of a preliminary nature to assist in the determination as to whether the mineral product is suitable for sale and if there are markets for the mineral product. The Company has undertaken market research and studies to try to mitigate these risks. General risks inherent in the Project include the reliance on available data and assumptions and judgments used in the interpretation of such data, the speculative and uncertain nature of exploration and development costs, capital requirements and the ability to obtain financing, volatility of global and local economic climates, share price volatility, estimated price volatility, changes in equity markets, exchange rate fluctuations and other risks involved in the mineral exploration and development industry. There can be no assurance that a forward-looking statement or information referenced herein will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements or information. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements or information. We undertake no obligation to reissue or update any forward-looking statements or information except as required by law.The Ana Sofia mineral resource estimate is reported in accordance with the Canadian Securities Administrators National Instrument 43-101 and has been estimated using the CIM "Estimation of Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves Best Practice Guidelines" dated November 23rd, 2003 and CIM "Definition Standards for Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves" dated May 10, 2014. Due to the relatively wide spacing of the historical quarries and the 2016 test pits, which varies between 40 m and 300 m, the Ana Sofia 2 resource described herein is categorized entirely as an inferred mineral resource. Inferred Mineral Resources are not Mineral Reserves. Mineral resources which are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. There has been insufficient exploration to define the inferred resources as an indicated or measured mineral resource, however, it is reasonably expected that the majority of the Inferred Mineral Resources could be upgraded to Indicated Mineral Resources with continued exploration. There is no guarantee that any part of the mineral resources will be converted into a mineral reserve in the future. The estimate of mineral resources may be materially affected by geology, environment, permitting, legal, title, taxation, socio-political, marketing or other relevant issues.This news release contains forward looking statements concerning future operations of Centurion Minerals Ltd. (the "Company"). All forward-looking statements concerning the Company's future plans and operations, including management's assessment of the Company's project expectations or beliefs may be subject to certain assumptions, risks and uncertainties beyond the Company's control. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and that actual performance and exploration and financial results may differ materially from any estimates or projections. Such statements include, among others: possible variations in mineralization, grade or recovery rates; actual results of current exploration activities; actual results of reclamation activities; conclusions of future economic evaluations; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; failure of equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; accidents and other risks of the mining industry; delays and other risks related to construction activities and operations; timing and receipt of regulatory approvals of operations; the ability of the Company and other relevant parties to satisfy regulatory requirements; the availability of financing for proposed transactions, programs and working capital requirements on reasonable terms; the ability of third-party service providers to deliver services on reasonable terms and in a timely manner; market conditions and general business, economic, competitive, political and social conditions. It is important to note that the information provided in this news release is preliminary in nature. There is no certainty that a potential mine will be realized.
MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- In a decision announced yesterday, the Quebec Court of Appeal has authorized a class action by the Societe quebecoise de gestion collective des droits de reproduction (better known as Copibec) against Universite Laval on behalf of all authors and publishers from Quebec, the rest of Canada and other countries. This decision overturns the February 2016 ruling by the Honourable Justice Beaupre of the Quebec Superior Court.

Gilles Herman, Copibec's Chair of the Board, was pleased that the Court of Appeal overturned the initial ruling, approved Copibec's motion and agreed to designate Copibec as the authorized representative for the group of claimants in the class action lawsuit. "We hope this will motivate the University community to react and put pressure on the University's rector to resolve this disgraceful situation," he noted. Claude Robinson, who attended the hearings, was also pleased with the ruling which he said would have "a crucial impact on the lives of Copibec members."

The Quebec Court of Appeal, composed of Justices Gagnon, Belanger and Mainville, delivered this unanimous ruling in Copibec's favour following hearings held on November 23, 2016 and subsequent deliberations. Outlining the reasons behind the Court's ruling, Justice Gagnon wrote that this class action is intended to help ensure that authors have access to justice while preserving legal resources and, if applicable, efficiently punishing behaviours that would otherwise remain beyond the reach of judicial intervention because of the limited degree of injury when considered in individual terms. He concluded that the action proposed by Copibec meets all these higher-level considerations (ref. subsection 86).

Since June 1, 2014, Universite Laval has no longer been requesting permission from authors and publishers and has stopped paying royalties when copyrighted works are copied in coursepacks sold to students or made available to them online. The Quebec City-based university copies more than 11 million pages from over 7,000 works each year. It is the only educational institution in Quebec to take this approach. All the other institutions have been issued comprehensive copying licences from Copibec and have agreed on the royalties payable for copying.

On November 10, 2014, Copibec, with the support of many organizations representing authors, publishers and Canadian and foreign collective licensing agencies, filed a motion with the Quebec Superior Court to obtain authorization to launch a class action. In addition to asking the Court to order Universite Laval to stop its illegal copying activities, Copibec is seeking material, moral and exemplary damages in the amount of approximately $4 million per year on behalf of all persons whose copyright has been infringed.

On March 10, 2015, a group of 34 Quebec authors, including Michel Tremblay, Marie Laberge and Yann Martel, co-signed an open letter that was published in French in the Montreal daily Le Devoir in which they criticized Universite Laval for failing to pay fair compensation to content creators. A second open letter signed by 25 authors and 60 publishers was published in Le Devoir in French on June 6, 2016 and highlighted the inconsistencies between the university's copyright approach and its claims that it plays a fundamental, innovative educational and research role and is committed to our society's sustained development.

Many European reproduction rights organizations, publishers and authors have expressed their frustration on this issue to the Quebec government.

Authorization for a class action is the preliminary stage in this legal process. Copibec's next step is to go back to the Superior Court, which will rule on the merits of the case itself.

Daniel Payette, the lawyer representing the parties in the class action, pointed out that the authors and publishers involved do not have to take any specific steps to participate in the lawsuit. Anyone whose copyrighted works have been reproduced without permission will automatically be included in the class action and will be kept informed as the legal proceedings progress.

For more information, please go to the Copibec website or send an email to info@copibec.qc.ca

ABOUT COPIBEC

Copibec, whose official name is the Societe quebecoise de gestion collective des droits de reproduction, is a not-for-profit organization created in 1998 by the Union des ecrivaines et ecrivains quebecois (UNEQ) and the Association nationale des editeurs de livres (ANEL) to manage the reproduction rights for copyright protected works in print and digital formats. It has the authority to manage the reproduction rights of thousands of Quebec publishers and authors as well as the authors and publishers represented by reproduction rights organizations in 33 countries, including the United States, France and Belgium.

Contacts:

Copibec

Caroline Lacroix

Communications and Rightsholder Services Coordinator

514-288-1664 or 1-800-717-2022 ext. 242

c.lacroix@copibec.qc.ca



Information on the class action lawsuit:

Daniel Payette

418-837-2521

cabinetpayette@videotron.ca




CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 02/09/17 -- Canadian Equipment Rentals Corp. ("CER" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: CFL) is pleased to announce that further to its press release dated January 31, 2017, it has completed the sale of the assets of its wholly-owned subsidiary, 4-Way Equipment Rentals Corp. to Cooper Rentals Canada Inc.

Gross cash proceeds from the transaction will be approximately $8.5 million. Net proceeds after transaction costs and post-closing adjustments will be applied against CER's senior indebtedness.

About Canadian Equipment Rentals Corp.

Canadian Equipment Rentals Corp. is a Canadian public corporation and parent company to Zedcor Energy Services Inc. ("Zedcor"). Zedcor is engaged in the rental of surface equipment and accommodations to the Western Canadian Oil and Gas Industry. The Company trades on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "CFL".

About Cooper Rentals Canada Inc.

Cooper Rentals Canada Inc., headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, is a full-service construction equipment rental company, servicing contractors across Ontario and Quebec. Cooper specializes in the rental of compact, aerial and heavy construction equipment while providing a wide range of related services and supplies.

Forward-Looking Statements and Information

Certain statements included or incorporated by reference in this press release constitute forward-looking statements or forward-looking information. Forward-looking statements or information may contain statements with the words "anticipate", "believe", "expect", "plan", "intend", "estimate", "propose", "budget", "should", "project", "would have realized', "may have been" or similar words suggesting future outcomes or expectations. Forward-looking statements in this press release include the payment of net proceeds after transaction costs against the CER senior indebtedness. Although the Company believes that the expectations implied in such forward-looking statements or information are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on these forward-looking statements because the Company can give no assurance that such statements will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements or information are based on current expectations, estimates and projections that involve a number of assumptions about the future and uncertainties. Although management believes these assumptions are reasonable, there can be no assurance that they will be proved to be correct, and actual results will differ materially from those anticipated. For this purpose, any statements herein that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements or information contained in this press release are made as of the date hereof and the Company assumes no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements or information, whether as a result of new contrary information, future events or any other reason, unless it is required by any applicable securities laws. The forward-looking statements or information contained in this press release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.

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:

Ken Olson

Chief Financial Officer

(403) 930-5434

kolson@cercorp.ca




CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - Australia will on Friday release January figures for home loans, highlighting a light day for Asia-Pacific economic activity. Home loans are expected to sink 1.0 percent on month after adding 0.4 percent in December. The value of loans was up 1.3 percent in December, while investment lending fell 1.0 percent. Japan will see Q1 numbers for the large all industry and manufacturing indexes from BSI; in the previous three months, their scores were +3 and +7.5, respectively. Singapore will provide January data for retail sales; in December, sales fell 1.9 percent on month and gained 0.4 percent on year. 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.
Eversight, a Palo Alto, CA-based provider of Offer Innovation software solutions, received a minority investment from Bow Capital.

The amount of the deal was not disclosed.

The company intends to use the funds to continue to expand operations.

Led by Jamie Rapperport, CEO, Eversight provides Offer Innovation software solutions to enable consumer products manufacturers and retailers to discover, test, and deploy promotions. The platform leverages advanced machine learning and innovative use of digital platforms and channels to improve the effectiveness of in-store promotions for both consumer products manufacturers and their retail customers.

The company has served major brands including Coca-Cola, Ferrero, Keurig, Kimberly-Clark, Nestle, and others.

FinSMEs

09/02/2017
Evident.io, a Pleasanton, CA-based provider of cloud infrastructure security services for Amazon Web Services, raised $22m in Series C funding.

The round, which brought total funding raised by Evident.io to date to $49m, was led by GV (formerly Google Ventures), with participation from existing investors Bain Capital, True Ventures and Venrock.

The company intends to use the funds to enable support of public cloud platforms beyond AWS to Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure, to accelerate the innovation and development of new features and capabilities of the Evident Security Platform (ESP) to extend functionality beyond infrastructure security and compliance automation offering, to expand sales and marketing efforts to new geographies and vertical markets in the US, Europe, Asia and Australia.

Co-founded by Tim Prendergast, CEO, and Justin Lundy, CTO, Evident.io provides security and compliance automation solutions for public cloud. The Evident Security Platform (ESP) enables organizations of all sizes to proactively manage public cloud security risk from a single dashboard. ESP continuously monitors an organizations entire public cloud presence, identifying and assessing security risks, providing security staff with expert remediation guidance, and enabling security auditing and compliance reporting.

FinSMEs

09/02/2017
Vert Rotors, an Edinburgh, Scotland, UK-based manufacturer of small industrial compressors, received a 46k Regional Selective Assistance (RSA) support grant from Scottish Enterprise.

The company intends to use the funds to ramp up production, increasing its manufacturing productivity four-fold, and drive sales internationally.

Founded in 2013 and led by Olly Dmitriev, CEO, Vert Rotors produces a small screw compressor with a conical rotary design designed for aerospace, medical and other applications where vibration and noise are not acceptable, and dimensions and weight are mission-critical. The company, which has also revealed the installation of ultra-precision machinery for the production of the micro compressors, has three-quarters of customers based outside the UK including Fortune 500 manufacturers in the European Union and the United States.

FinSMEs

09/02/2017
Xeneta, an Oslo, Norway-based ocean freight benchmarking and market intelligence software platform, raised $12m in a Series B funding.

The round was led by London-based Smedvig Capital with participation from existing investors Creandum and Alliance Venture.

The company, which has raised $20.5m in total funding, intends to use the capital to continue global expansion and to strengthen its product development and technology platform. In conjunction with rhe funding, Rob Toms, a Managing Director at Smedvig, will form a part of Xenetas board of directors.

Founded in 2012 by Patrik Berglund, CEO, and Thomas Srb, CBDO, Xeneta digitizes the crowdsourcing of ocean container prices to create a global pricing index bringing pricing transparency to all stakeholders in international container trade. Its reporting and analytics platform provides shippers and freight forwarders the software data they need to compare their shipping prices against the worlds largest database of contracted rates  reporting live on market average and low/high movements.

Customers include global market leaders such as Kraft Heinz, Electrolux, Continental, Thyssenkrupp, Akzo Nobel, Brother International, in addition to leading suppliers in the automotive, chemical and retail industries.

The company has offices in Oslo, Hamburg and establishing a presence in the U.S. east coast, currently New York.

FinSMEs

09/02/2017
New Delhi: India today handed over to the UK an extradition request for absconding businessman Vijay Mallya who is facing cases of loan default and other financial irregularities.

"Today, we handed over the request for extradition of Vijay Vittal Mallya which we received from the CBI to the UK High Commission here. We have requested the UK side to extradite him to face trial in India," External Affairs Ministry Spokesman Vikas Swarup said.

Asserting that India has a "legitimate" case against Mallya, he said if an extradition request is honoured, it shows their "sensitivity towards our concerns".

"We have made the extradition request in prescribed format and it is for the UK to deliberate on the request and take further action," he added.

Swarup also said India is yet to make an extradition request for former IPL Chairman Lalit Modi.

Last month, a CBI court had issued a non-bailable warrant against Mallya in the Rs 720-crore IDBI Bank loan default case. Mallya, whose now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines owes more than Rs 9,000 crore to various banks, had left India on March 2.
The letter sent by founders to Infosys board raising governance concerns has given rise to nagging suspicion that remote controlling of a company by former promoters may be an emerging trend in Indian corporates that are restructuring and reinventing themselves to come to terms with the new business realities.

Coming at a time when India is dealing with newer challenges thrown up by the rising protectionism in the US and elsewhere, the trend is indeed disturbing and holds a mirror to the typical Indian mindset.

For the uninitiated, Infosys founders NR Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani and Kris Gopalakrishnan have written a letter to the company's board raising issues of governance in some of the decisions the board has taken recently. The issues they raised include the sharp rise in compensation of Vishal Sikka, the company's first non-promoter CEO, severance packages given to some of the top executives, and induction of Punit Sinha, wife of Union minister Jayant Sinha, on the board.

It is to be noted that all the founders had only a few years back voluntarily relinquished their respective posts, paving way for the first non-founder CEO to take over. In this context, the founders' letter amounts to unsolicited intervention in the company's affairs.

Observers of corporate sector say that this is unlike in the West where the most successful CEOs and founders have quit and not looked over their shoulder at what their successors have done. Case in point: Bill Gates, Founder and CEO, Microsoft. Or even Samuel J Palmisano who served as CEO for around 9 years at IBM.

I feel founders and those who have been associated at the board level in organisations should discipline themselves to leave without looking back when they have finished their tenure. That is what Bill Gates, who co-founded Microsoft and served as Chairman and CEO did, and also Samuel J Palmisano who served as CEO for around 9 years at IBM. Closer home, K V Kamath, who was Chairman and MD at ICICI Bank for over a decade, moved on to other positions and allowed his successor to flourish and has not commented on any decisions, said Kavil Ramachandran, executive director of the Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise at Indian School of Business. He says what is happening at Infosys now and what happened at Tata Sons are similar.

He doesn't think it is right for leaders who have laid down offices to talk negatively about their successors who they have chosen to succeed them, that too in public.

"I don't think they have any moral authority to do so," says Ramachandran.

However, J N Gupta, former executive director of market regulator Sebi, who is a consultant in governance matters now, feels comparing the problems at Tata Sons and Infosys is not right. Ratan Tata and Cyrus Mistry have major stakes in the group as shareholders. Sikka is a paid CEO of Infosys and is involved in the daily matters of the company unlike Mistry who was non-working CEO of many Tata firms, he said.

Not everybody feels it is wrong for founders to return to raise issues with a company. If the founders and large stakeholders in the company like Ratan Tata in Tata Sons feel the company is being steered in a direction that is detrimental for the company, it is their right to talk publicly about it, aver some experts.

There are two aspects: corporate governance and transparency. If the issues flagged off by the founders in the case of Infosys are being done in an opaque manner, then it is their right to bring focus to it, said Manoj Kumar, Founder  Hammurabi & Solomon and Visiting Fellow at Observer Research Foundation. He said that companies like Infosys or Tatas  where the fracas between ousted CEO Cyrus Mistry and chairman emeritus, Ratan Tata is well known  are listed companies and the founders and major shareholders are protecting the last mile shareholder when they are flagging such issues.

It is also because they are not being heard or not given the space by the Board to air their grievances or voice their concerns, said Kumar.

However, Gupta says founders and large majority shareholders have a substantial shareholding in the company and it is a bit difficult to believe they would not be heard at the board level.

But they wont be if they do what they are doing as in the case of Infosys  trying to remote control the drive. They should take up the directorship of the company and no one  neither shareholders or the board for that matter - would have any issues with them as long as what they are proposing is valid, says he.

Regarding Mohandas Pais concerns over the high severance payment to former CFO Rajiv Bansal and former general counsel David Kennedy, and also Sikkas salary, Ramachandran of ISB pointed out that globally compensation and severance payments and salaries to CEOs are decisions taken by the board.

These are concerns that have to be taken at the board level. Questioning the boards decision is to assume that the founders or former CEOs have a right to do that. That is what I would term as interference. It is not a good practice, he said, adding that when a person like Narayana Murthy questions it, it is even more so as he is known for advocating a strong corporate governance system.

"I fail to understand what the hullabaloo is all about," says Sanchit Vir Gogia, CEO, Greyhound Research.

"In all fairness, there is misreporting about Vishals compensation - per latest SEC filings while $906,923 is base salary, $6,488,727 is based on performance. This is standard industry practice and not out of the ordinary and hence deems no criticism of any sort, he pointed out.

The founders letter to the board at Infosys points to several issues. With the letter that has been sent out with reported governance issues, while there may be some truth in what has been reported, it is critical to note that the governance issues havent been proved (yet) and it will be unfair to conclude on the basis of the letter that has been sent out, says Gogia.

Any organisation will have difference of issues within its current working members, leave alone with founders and the board when the former are no longer at the helm.

"Separating ownership from control is one of the long standing battles for founders and the latter raising concerns post stepping down from the helm is both correct and expected. In fact, the new management has a lot to gain from the experiences and constructive criticism by the founders. We witnessed a similar scenario at Tata Sons only recently. In a nutshell, such changes and counter actions by investors are a standard practice globally and such instances shouldnt be blown out of proportion," said Gogia.

What has transpired between the founders of Infosys and the current board is not known to anyone except the contents of the letter as revealed by sources to the media. If Sikka is bringing about changes in the current scenario when the markets are volatile, it is unfair to make him a villain, points out Prof Ramachandran.

What if the board had asked Sikka to bring about changes and also want to pay him more for his decisions and actions? Does anyone know what transpired at the board level? The ones who are commenting are making assumptions and they could be wrong. People read more than what is required, unfortunately.
The American war cry no taxation without representation might have been an ideal especially in the context of the oppressive colonial rule it was raised against but no raid without disclosure of reason is the elementary norm in any democratic set up. It is certainly not too much for the asking.

The budget 2017 however seeks to kiss good bye to this salutary basic safeguard in the context of income tax raids and summons for production of books of accounts and documents. Income tax authorities are not bound to disclose what the reasons they believe or suspect for carrying out raids are to any person, any authority or the appellate tribunal.

The Supreme court in the context of reassessment proceedings which is a parallel albeit less adversarial regime vis-a-vis raids in ITO v. Lakhmani Mewal Das [1976] 103 ITR 437,445,448 had held that reason to believe was not the same as the mere reason to suspect. The law then used the expression reason to believe. But today we find that the law gives itself greater powers and amplitude by consciously using the twin expressions---reason to believe or reason to suspect. The apex courts reproach and word of caution in the above case has apparently been overruled. Now, whether it is reason to believe or mere reason to suspect neither would be disclosed to the person whose premises are raided or his attorney or indeed to anyone at all.

The Explanatory Memorandum to the finance bill 2017 says that confidentiality and sensitivity are the hallmarks of search and seizure (raid) proceedings. Well, confidentiality is indeed the hallmark of raid proceedings till the search party descends on the suspected tax evaders premises. But once the occupant of the premises is accosted, he has the basic right to demand and know why he is being subjected to the inconvenience and ignominy often bordering on suspension of right to liberty for the nonce. And by the way, where is sensitivity when reasons for belief or suspicion are not disclosed? The boot is on the other leg---it is the sensitivity of the person being raided that is ignored when he is kept in the dark.

It is significant to note that even the income tax appellate tribunal would be kept in the dark about the reasons and suspicions though its members both judicial and accountant are intelligent enough to surmise them from the case dockets. But that is not the issue. Tribunal is the ultimate fact finding authority because appeals to High Court and from there to the Supreme Court are normally possible only an issue of law. How can the tribunal deal with the case when facts are not disclosed by the tax administration to it? This makes the budget proposal all the more draconian.

It is a small mercy that High Courts and the Supreme Court have not been shut out although the income tax department could take refuge under the omnibus expression any authority in the proposed amendment for keeping them as well in the dark.

The Modi government would do well to beat a retreat. Confidentiality was crucial in the demonetisation exercise and hence remonetisation process including printing of replacement notes was not started till demonetisation was set in motion. But raids are a different kettle of fish. To be sure, confidentiality is essential lest the wily tax evader secrets away his documents and movable properties before the raid party descend on his premises. But the government cannot stretch confidentiality to mean denial of the fundamental right to be told on reaching what the reasons or suspicion for the adversarial proceedings are.

That the proposed amendment is retrospective harking back to 1 April 1962 is a ham-handed attempt to curb judicial powers in respect of the pending cases as well as the ones decided. While citizens cannot be expected to take to streets on this issue affecting as it does only the tax evaders with troubled conscience, it is a worthy cause for PIL. Is Prashant Bhushan listening please?
New Delhi: Japan's SoftBank Corp has booked an investment loss of 39.28 billion yen (USD 350 million) on its investments in India, including those in cab-hailing firm Ola and e-commerce company Snapdeal.

In the earning statement for nine months ended December, SoftBank wrote off 39.28 billion yen in the value of shares in its Indian investments, which include Ola and Snapdeal.

"Gain or loss arising from financial instruments at FVTPL comprises mainly of changes in fair value of preferred stock investment including embedded derivatives, such as ANI Technologies and Jasper Infotech in India, designated as financial assets at FVTPL (Fair Value Through Profit or Loss)," SoftBank said in the earnings statement.

The new set of numbers are lower than the loss recorded by SoftBank in November last year.

It had booked an investment loss of 58.14 billion yen (USD 560 million) for the six-month period ending September 30, impacted by appreciation of Japan's Yen against the local currency.

SoftBank had led a USD 210-million investment in Ola and USD 627 million in Snapdeal in October 2014. It made follow-on investments in both firms.

The Japanese firm has so far invested close to USD 2 billion in India and earlier this year it stated that it is looking to scale up investments to USD 10 billion in next 5-10 years.
New Delhi: The Reserve Bank on Wednesday said the weekly limit on withdrawal of cash from savings bank accounts will be increased to Rs 50,000, from the current Rs 24,000, from 20 February, and the limit will be removed completely from 13 March.

"The limits on cash withdrawal from savings bank accounts continue to be in place. In line with the pace of remonetisation, it has now been decided to remove these limits in two stages," said RBI Deputy Governor R Gandhi.

"Effective February 20 (rpt) 20, 2017, the limits from cash withdrawal from savings bank accounts will be enhanced to Rs 50,000 per week from the current limit of Rs 24,000 per week (and) effective March 13, 2017, there will be no limits prescribed by RBI on cash withdrawal from savings bank accounts."

He was speaking to the media, along with RBI Governor Urjit Patel, after the central bank announced the sixth bi-monthly monetary policy review. On the basis of remonetisation, RBI had earlier relaxed restrictions on cash withdrawal from current accounts, cash credit accounts and withdrawal through ATMs on 1 February. However, the weekly withdrawal limit of Rs 24,000 on savings bank accounts is continuing.

Government and RBI had imposed limits on withdrawal of money from ATMs and bank branches in view of the currency shortage following demonetisation. These limits, however, are being gradually eased, with RBI pumping in new notes of Rs 500 and Rs 2,000.

The limits on withdrawal, however, are being gradually eased, with RBI pumping in new notes of Rs 500 and Rs 2,000. To a question if fake new currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 have come into circulation, Gandhi said the recent ones that have come to notice are photocopies of currency which can be easily identified by the common man.

The deputy governor said the new notes have enhanced security and design features, and are not easy to copy. "The recent one that we have seen is the pure photocopy, so it is not real counterfeiting. So, this photocopy is easy for even a common man to identify. It will be possible for them not to be easily duped," he said.

Last week, the government had informed Parliament that it has not come across any confirmed reports on detection of counterfeit notes of Rs 2,000.

"(Neither) the government nor RBI has come across any confirmed reports of detection of counterfeit notes of the denomination of Rs 2,000 in the banking channel," Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.
Mumbai: The Bombay High Court dismissed a petition filed by Rabia Khan, mother of late actor Jiah Khan, challenging the CBI's charge sheet terming Jiah's death as suicide and not homicide, paving the way for trial to commence against Sooraj Pancholi in the case.

Actor Sooraj Pancholi is charged with abetment of Jiah's suicide.

A division bench of Justices R V More and Shalini Pahansalkar-Joshi today dismissed the petition. The bench also said that the intervening application filed by Pancholi does not survive and hence, it too stands dismissed.

The high court's dismissal of Rabia's petition paves way for trial to commence against Sooraj before a lower court.

The HC had earlier stayed the trial pending hearing of Rabia's petition. According to Rabia, Jiah was allegedly murdered by her then boyfriend-actor Sooraj Pancholi.

Rabia, in her petition, had sought formation of a special investigation team and monitoring of the investigation by high court.

She said that her daughter's death on June 3, 2013, was not suicidal, as claimed by CBI, but was homicidal.

Her lawyer had earlier told HC that the investigating agency's claim that Jiah had committed suicide because she was depressed about her career not doing well cannot be accepted. He had also argued that Sooraj's alibi that he was not present at Jiah's residence at the time of the incident is fabricated.

CBI counsel Anil Singh, however, had argued that the agency has CCTV footage of a hotel in Juhu where Sooraj was present on the day of the incident.

Rabia had in her petition also claimed that the injuries on Jiah's body clearly point out to physical abuse.

Sooraj had last year filed an intervening application seeking for stay on the trial to be vacated saying he has every right to face a "free, fair and expeditious trial".

He had claimed in his application that the petitioner (Rabia) has concealed vital information pertaining to Jiah's disturbed childhood and also the fact that she (Jiah) had attempted to kill herself when she was young.

Sooraj was arrested for abetting Jiah's suicide on June 10, 2013, but released on July 2 the same year after the HC granted him bail.

The case was transferred to CBI by HC in July 2014 on Rabia's petition that police was not probing it properly.

Rabia had sought SIT probe alleging that CBI, which is currently investigating the case, had concurred with the findings of Mumbai police that it was a case of suicide and not a homicide.
The Bombay High Court on Thursday dismissed a petition filed by Rabia Khan, mother of late actor Jiah Khan, challenging the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) charge sheet terming Jiah's death as suicide and not homicide, paving the way for trial to commence against Sooraj Pancholi in the case.

Actor Sooraj Pancholi is charged with abetment of Jiah's suicide.

A division bench of Justices RV More and Shalini Pahansalkar-Joshi on Thursday dismissed the petition. The bench also said that the intervening application filed by Pancholi does not survive and hence, it too stands dismissed.

The high court's dismissal of Rabia's petition paves way for trial to commence against Sooraj before a lower court. The HC had earlier stayed the trial pending hearing of Rabia's petition.

According to Rabia, Jiah was allegedly murdered by her then boyfriend-actor Sooraj Pancholi. Rabia, in her petition, had sought formation of a special investigation team and monitoring of the investigation by the high court.

She said that her daughter's death on 3 June 2013, was not suicidal, as claimed by CBI, but was homicidal.

Her lawyer had earlier told HC that the investigating agency's claim that Jiah had committed suicide because she was depressed about her career not doing well cannot be accepted. He had also argued that Sooraj's alibi that he was not present at Jiah's residence at the time of the incident is fabricated.

CBI counsel Anil Singh, however, had argued that the agency has CCTV footage of a hotel in Juhu where Sooraj was present on the day of the incident.

Rabia had in her petition also claimed that the injuries on Jiah's body clearly point out to physical abuse. Sooraj had last year filed an intervening application seeking for stay on the trial to be vacated saying he has every right to face a "free, fair and expeditious trial".

He had claimed in his application that the petitioner (Rabia) has concealed vital information pertaining to Jiah's disturbed childhood and also the fact that she (Jiah) had attempted to kill herself when she was young.

Sooraj was arrested for abetting Jiah's suicide on 10 June 2013, but released on 2 July the same year after the high court granted him bail.

The case was transferred to CBI by high court in July 2014 on Rabia's petition that police was not probing it properly. Rabia had sought SIT probe alleging that CBI, which is currently investigating the case, had concurred with the findings of Mumbai police that it was a case of suicide and not a homicide.
Television and film actor Shruti Alfat and three other co-stars have been arrested for posting pictures with an endangered cobra on social media four months ago.

DNA reports that the actor had posted a picture with an Indian Spectacled Cobra last year in October, allegedly as a promotional tool for her television series Nagarjuna - Ek Yoddha. The cobra is protected under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 and it is an offence to capture and post pictures and videos with it.

ABP Live reports that several animal activists filed a complaint against Ulfat in the Thane Forest Department. The officials of the department demanded the video with the cobra from Ulfat, her co-actor Pearl Puri and two producers, Utkarsh Bali and Nitin Solanki. The accused had claimed that the cobra was a product of the Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI). After the report of the Kalina forensic lab suggested otherwise, the department arrested the four accused.

Mid-Day quotes Santosh Kank, Range Forest officer, as saying, "We have arrested actress Shruti Ulfat along with 3 others for posing with a cobra and posting the images and videos online in October 2016. They were produced before the Borivali court and have been kept in one-day custody of the Thane range. A CD with the images and videos was sent to the forensic lab and it has been proved that a live snake was used for shooting purposes."

Kank also added that they are now further probing the matter in order to find out who supplied the cobra to the producers and arrest those miscreants as well.

However, Dainik Bhaskar reports that Ulfat has rubbished the rumours of her arrest and has clarified her stand to the daily. "Since I had posted a video with the cobra on my Instagram account, they (forest department officials) asked me to come to give the statement. The department officers want to stop this illegal trafficking and I being a responsible citizen will do everything to help them out. Also, my name has been portrayed on a larger scale because I am an actress. Otherwise, it wasnt my fault at all.

She went on to say that the makers brought a real cobra on the sets situated near Film City, Goregaon in order to celebrate 100 episodes of the show. However, the electronic media exposed the celebration to the entire world which is where the animal welfare NGOs took notice of the offense. Ulfat clarified that she did not do any crime and hence there was no question of getting arrested, as quoted by Dainik Bhaskar.
NEW DELHI India said on Thursday it had applied to Britain to extradite Vijay Mallya to face trial after the liquor and aviation tycoon was charged with conspiracy and fraud over a loan to his defunct Kingfisher Airlines.Mallya moved to Britain last March after banks sued to recover about $1.4 billion the Indian authorities say is owed by Kingfisher. He has dismissed the charges against him, saying on Jan. 28 that "not one rupee was misused".Mallya's press representative was not immediately available for comment on the Indian extradition request.Earlier attempts by India to get Mallya, the head of the Force India Formula One team and one-time billionaire, deported have failed.

The new push comes after Mallya was charged in absentia last month by the Central Bureau of Investigation - along with nine former executives from the failed Kingfisher Airlines and IDBI Bank Ltd - over a 9 billion rupee ($135 million) loan."We have today handed over the request for the extradition of Mr Vijay Vittal Mallya, as received from the CBI, to the UK High Commission in New Delhi," Vikas Swarup, spokesman for the Ministry of External Affairs, told a news conference.

A spokesman for the British High Commission said it did not comment on individual cases.The CBI, in its charge sheet, alleged Mallya diverted 2.54 billion rupees intended for Kingfisher Airlines from India. Kingfisher is also named as a defendant in the case.

($1 = 66.8450 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Alexander Smith)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Roberta Rampton

| WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump fumed on Wednesday over what he called too much politics in the U.S. judiciary, while a federal appeals court kept him and the rest of the country waiting for its ruling on a temporary suspension of his travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries.A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco heard arguments on Tuesday on the Trump administration's challenge to a lower court ruling putting the temporary travel ban on hold. The appeals court said it would rule as soon as possible but not on Wednesday.On Saturday, Trump accused U.S. District Judge James Robart, the Seattle judge who suspended Trump's order last week, of opening the United States to "potential terrorists." Trump, who argues his Jan. 27 executive order is aimed at heading off attacks by Islamist militants, has repeatedly vented his frustration over the halt since then."I don't ever want to call a court biased," Trump told hundreds of police chiefs and sheriffs from major cities at a meeting in a Washington hotel on Wednesday. "So I won't call it biased. And we haven't had a decision yet. But courts seem to be so political. And it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read the statement and do what's right."Trump was also dismissive of Tuesday's court hearing."I was a good student. I understand things. I comprehend very well. OK? Better than, I think, almost anybody. And I want to tell you, I listened to a bunch of stuff last night on television that was disgraceful," Trump said, referring to the appeals court proceedings.The appeals court must decide whether Trump acted within his authority or violated the U.S. Constitution's prohibition on laws favoring one religion over another, as well as anti-discrimination laws, and whether it was tantamount to a discriminatory ban targeting Muslims.The 9th Circuit is expected to decide the narrow question of whether a lower court judge acted properly in temporarily halting enforcement of the presidents order. While the court could take into account the strength of the arguments on both sides, this is just a first step in a fast-moving case.

Trump's order barred travelers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering for 90 days and all refugees for 120 days, except those from civil war-torn Syria, who are subject to an indefinite ban.VIEWS OF JUDGES

Trump, a Republican, has made extensive use of presidential directives that bypass Congress since taking office on Jan. 20, and has appeared to be taken aback by legal challenges to his travel order.

He praised a federal judge in Boston who earlier ruled in his favor on the travel ban as a "highly respected" jurist whose findings were "perfect." On Saturday, Trump labeled the Seattle judge who put his directive on hold last Friday a "so-called judge" who made a "ridiculous" ruling. Robart was appointed to the bench by Republican President George W. Bush.Last year, Trump accused Indiana-born U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel of bias in overseeing a lawsuit against one of Trump's businesses, Trump University, because of his Mexican heritage.Democrats and other critics have called Trump's comments toward the judiciary an attack on a core principle of American democracy: that the courts are independent and uphold the rule of law. Under the Constitution, the judiciary is a co-equal branch of the U.S. government, along with Congress and the president's executive branch.

At the meeting with law enforcement officials, Trump read from the law he cited to justify the travel ban, quoting it in fragments and sprinkling in bits of interpretation. He said the law clearly allowed a president to suspend entry of any class of people if he determines them to be a detriment to national security.During Tuesday's oral argument, the appeals court panel pressed an administration lawyer over whether the national security argument was backed by evidence that people from the seven countries posed a danger.Judge Richard Clifton, also appointed to the bench by Bush, posed equally tough questions for a lawyer representing Minnesota and Washington states, which are challenging the ban.The order, the most divisive act of Trump's young presidency, sparked protests and chaos at U.S. and overseas airports.Ultimately the matter is likely to go to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is ideologically split with four liberal justices and four conservatives pending Senate action on Trump's nomination of conservative appellate judge Neil Gorsuch to fill a lingering vacancy on the high court.U.S. State Department figures showed that 480 refugees have been admitted to the United States since Robart's order went into effect, including 168 on Wednesday. Of those admitted, 198 were from war-torn Syria. (Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu, Susan Heavey and David Shepardson in Washington; Writing by Will Dunham and Frances Kerry; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Bill Trott and Howard Goller)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
The Uttar Pradesh government has failed to make timely investigation and prosecute the seven cases of gang-rape filed following the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots and deliver justice, Amnesty International India said in a press release published on Thursday.

The briefing furnishes the details of seven Muslim women who came forward after the September 2013 riots to report that they had been gang-raped by men of the Jat community. Three years have passed but not a single person has been convicted in any of the cases. Despite amendments to Indias laws in 2013 requiring trials in rape cases to be expedited, the trials have been very slow.

The Uttar Pradesh government has failed the seven women who have fought enormous odds to pursue their cases, said Aakar Patel, Executive Director of Amnesty International India. The governments apparent lack of interest in delivering justice also goes against the spirit of the legal reforms passed in 2013 to end impunity for violence against women.

Amnesty International interviewed six of the seven gang-rape survivors who had filed FIRs, between July 2016 and January 2017. In all the cases, there was a delay in filing the charges and even after it was done the trials took a long time to begin.

In three cases, the survivors identified the men who had raped them in their complaints, but then changed their statements in court. Some of them later admitted that they were forced to do so after facing mounting pressure regarding their safety and that of their families, and a lack of adequate security from the authorities. We are still scared when we leave home, said one of the survivors told Amnesty India.

Human rights lawyer Vrinda Grover, who has represented the survivors in the apex court, said, We are saying yes, you must stand up, in court, in a rape trial, and give evidence, and your dignity must be vindicated. But for that what should she do? She should either put her own life or the life of her children or other family members at stake.

The state police also did not apply Section 376(2)(g) of the Indian Penal Code, which specifically recognises rape as an offence during communal violence, in the FIRs registered in September and October 2013 and February 2014. There were delays in filing FIRs, conducting medical examinations and recording the statements of the survivors before a magistrate.

All seven survivors have received little assistance from authorities in helping them rebuild their lives despite suffering enormous damage to their livelihoods. Many of the families had to arrange to provide food to the constables appointed to protect them.

The new government in Uttar Pradesh, which will take office in March, must ensure that the investigations and prosecutions in all the cases are pursued vigorously without undue delay, and that survivors are provided full reparation. The central government must enact a law to prevent and respond to communal

violence, and establish a comprehensive victim and witness protection programme, said Aakar Patel.
Sopore: Galib Guru, the son of 2001 Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, said on Thursday, that he will strive for his entire life to bring back the mortal remains of his father from Tihar jail where he was buried. He also blamed the separatist leaders saying that they have failed his family to play their role in getting the remains back.

"No matter what I do, I will always strive to get the mortal remains of my father back to Kashmir, till the time I am alive," said the 18-year-old Galib at his home in Doabgah village in Sopore. Afzal was hanged and buried inside Tihar jail complex on 9 February 2013.

Hundreds of people visited the Guru family on Thursday to express solidarity with the family and demanded the mortal remains of Guru back, who was sentenced to death in 2002 for his role in planning an attack on Parliament in December 2001.

They (Separatists) leaders have failed us. Their role was important in getting back the moral remains of my father, Galib, who wants to study at AIIMS and become a doctor, said.

They say India is the largest democracy in the world and that same democracy is afraid of sending the moral remains of my father back. What kind of harm it will do to the nation instead I will have a grave where I can go and pray for my father, he said.

Kashmir witnessed complete shutdown on Thursday on the fourth death anniversary of Guru, amid heightened security. In the old city of Srinagar, the government imposed curfew like restrictions to prevent protests. Yet protests broke out in several parts of the valley to press for Afzals mortal remains.

Tabasum Guru, the wife of Afzal Guru, said even after four years the government of India has failed to honour the most basic of the human rights thereby violating all the principles of ethics and human values.

We are eagerly waiting for the day when their consciousness will be awakened and they will hand over the belongings of Guru and his writings, Tabasum said. It is shame on the part of the government of India that even after four years Afzals mortal remains are yet to be handed over to us.

The family members of both Afzal and Maqbool Bhat, who too was hanged and buried inside Tihar jail, have been long demanding the return of mortal remains and belongings of the two hanged Kashmiris.

However, the centre has refused to budge. Afzal, a former Jaish-e-Muhammad militant, was hanged as his mercy petition got caught up in a political slugfest.

Mohammad Afzal Guru emerged as an ideal, symbol of dedication and commitment. He is an ideal and his determination and dedication set precedence for our young generation, Syed Ali Geelani, Hurriyat Conference leader while reiterating his demand for the return of mortal remains of both Mohammad Maqbool Bhat and Mohamad Afzal Guru, said.

Afzal was hanged by Indian judicial system to satisfy the collective consciousness of Indians which itself speaks volumes about the sham judgment, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chairman, Muhammad Yasin Malik, said.

The height of shamelessness of this biggest democracy is that it even disallowed these 'martyrs' one last chance of meeting their loved ones, Malik said.
Udayan Das, the brutal serial killer, who murdered and entombed his live-in partner Akansha Sharma after killing his parents in a similar fashion a few years ago, said he drew inspiration from American crime movies and TV series of the likes of Devil's Knot and CSI: New York.

According to India Today, the 32-year-old killer, had no friends even as a child and was frequently bullied by other children. He was mocked for his dark complexion by everyone. This, an interrogator believes, could have contributed in his evolving into a psychopath.

Police say there was a complex world that Udayan had created for himself, The Times of India reports, where he would spend lavishly and would not care for anyone but himself. It was this mentality that led him to create over 110 fake email and Facebook accounts. "He would note down the email IDs and passwords and then use them to comment on his own posts. He even posted likes from different accounts just to portray that he was successful and accepted in life," the report quoted a source as saying.

Udayan is currently under interrogation by Bankura police in Bankura town where he was brought on Monday night after he confessed to having murdered and entombed Akansha Sharma in Bhopal. Udayan said he was inspired by the drama series Crime Scene Investigation: New York and Hollywood film Devils Knot, according to The Indian Express.

Sources in the police said around 2,500 CDs of Hollywood movies and television series  mostly based on crime  were found in his house.

The police had sought 8-day remand for the serial killer.
In what will be a departure from the practice of naming airports after prominent regional and historical personalities, the central government may soon rename airports across the country only after the cities where they are located.

According to a report in The Indian Express, Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha said that the government is considering renaming existing airports and also future greenfield airstrips not after people, but after cities' names.

Nevertheless, the proposal is still under the government's scanner, and it's yet to give its final view on this issue. Further, no official policy has been formalised by the Cabinet yet, the report said.

Sinha, the Hazaribagh MP, told the publication, "That matter is under investigation. We are evaluating how best to deal with that issue."

The report highlighted the fact that naming of airports after Indian personalities causes inconvinience to foreign tourists who are generally unfamiliar with their pronunciation.

In India, many of the airports are named after historical pre and post-independent figures.

For example, the international airport in New Delhi is named after Indira Gandhi; the airport in Kolkata is named after freedom fighter Subhash Chandra Bose; the Hyderabad airport is named after late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, while the international aiport in Bengaluru is named after the city's founder Kempe Gowda.

The issue of keeping airports named after cities comes at a time when the BJP-Shiv Sena government prefixed Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport with the title of 'Maharaj', which means king in Marathi.
Mohan Bhagwat, the self-proclaimed voice of Hindus, should visit western Uttar Pradesh soon. He would find a different kind of "ghar wapsi" taking place in the region.

Tired of hatred, of vicious communal propaganda, of animus triggered by politics, Jats of the region are becoming what they always were  farmers. Two years ago, they were consumed by the Hindutva project that led to riots in Muzzafarnagar and adjoining areas, to divisive jumlas like "love jihad". In a fit of rage, they allowed themselves to "become Hindus instead of kisans".

But now, they are coming back home to a secular India, one where Hindus and Muslims coexist in peace, identify themselves by their karma, not dharma.

This ongoing "ghar wapsi" by the Jats, who are also regretting their participation in the 2013 riots in the region, underlines an important point. The RSS' project of using Hindutva as a tool to shape India's society and politics will never succeed. In the end, Hindus will rise above the divisive agendas forced upon them, and go back to their liberal, secular roots.

Considering that even Hindus refuse to get swayed by the RSS, it is comical to watch Bhagwat force the Hindutva project on other religions as well, with his argument of "everyone who is born in India is a Hindu".

Speaking at an event in Madhya Pradesh on Wednesday, Bhagwat had said, "Everyone born in the country is a Hindu  of these some are idol-worshipers and some are not. Even Muslims are Hindus by nationality, they are Muslims by faith only. Just as the English live in England, Americans in America and Germans in Germany, Hindus live in Hindustan," he said.

Consider this argument again, with its inherent contradictions. To rephrase his own words, everyone living in America is an American, not a Christian; everyone living in Germany is a German, not a Catholic or a Protestant. But everyone living in India is a Hindu, not an Indian or a Hindustani.

No, Mohan Bhagwat, you are wrong. Everyone who lives in India is an Indian, a Bharatwasi, a Hindustani. Just as every Hindu doesn't wear khaki shorts, doesn't attend RSS shakhas, and doesn't follow the Hindutva ideology, every Indian does not follow the same religious ideology. We are a country of various religions, faith and beliefs, but we are one nationality.

It's a pity that the RSS doesn't get two things straight: One, it doesn't speak for all Hindus of India; it's just a fringe organisation that espouses a socio-political thought that has been rejected many times over by Indians. And two, to quote poet Rahat Indori's famous lines: Sabhi ka khoon hai shaamil yahan ki mitti main, kisi ke baap ka Hindustan thodi hai.

India belongs to everyone who lives here; it's a country of Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Muslims and every person who calls himself an Indian.

The narrow RSS philosophy of Hindustani = Hindu is obviously rooted in the irrational idea that nations are homogeneous units that were born overnight. Its ideologues and cadres can't accept the fact that nations are always a work in progress, they change and evolve continuously. As the poet Iqbal argued, the only sign of a living community is that its fate changes every morning and evening.

But in their minds, Bhagwat and his followers have set a cut-off date for India's evolution, perhaps some imaginary date when a Donald Trump-like figure closed the borders and announced nobody would henceforth be allowed to enter India. So, everyone who became part of India after this imaginary cut-off date is either an outsider or an invader. And, because the prevalent way of life till this imagined "sealing of borders" has been branded as Hindutva by the RSS, it expects everyone to relinquish their individual identities and chant with garva that they are Hindu, not Hindustani.

This obsession with seeing India as their Hindutva fief is, unfortunately, almost similar to the mania that is sweeping Islam, birthing radical regimes like the ISIS. Just like the Hindutva hardliners, the ISIS bigots too want everyone to accept just one particular brand of religious ideology, surrender their individuality to the hegemony of one faith. In many ways, the Hindutva project of the RSS is similar to al-Baghdadi's dream of a Sunni Caliphate where the individual exists only to follow the tenets of a faith and the diktats of its self-proclaimed messengers.

Bhagwat should know that the obsession with using religion as a force to unite the majority and subjugate the minority has brought many countries to the brink of disaster and misery. It has ruined the lives of millions across Central Asia and Europe.

Thankfully, a majority of Indians are wise enough to see the perils of embracing divisive politics and narrow definitions of religions and nationality. They will never accept the RSS and its specious arguments of every Indian being a Hindu.

To understand the folly of his argument, look no further than western UP, where village after village is resonating with the same slogan: Jat ho ya Mussalman, har bhai sirf kissan. (We brothers are neither Jats nor Muslims, but just farmers).
On 24 January, the Supreme Court ruled that any private school in Delhi running on land allotted by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has to take the permission of the Delhi government before hiking the fees. The court also remarked that if they did not wish to take permission, the schools could, "return the land to government". This ruling came after a year-long battle where an association of private schools challenged a similar decision made by the Delhi High Court. This decision needs to be seen in light of numerous protests by parents (of children studying in private

schools), who complain of excessive and arbitrary fee hikes by schools.

These protests are not limited to Delhi alone.

A simple Google search shows that similar protests have taken place in Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Bengaluru  in short, in all the major cities in India. Private schools claim that these protests happen because parents wish to send their children to high-end schools, but do not wish to pay the cost it entails. However, an Assocham report in 2015 showed that the costs of private school education in the last decade have increased at a pace faster than incomes, showing a 150 percent hike between 2005 and 2015. The report shows that the cost of educating a child in a private school has risen from Rs 55,000 in 2005 to Rs 1,25,000 per annum in 2015.

Under pressure from protests by parents  or under order from courts  several state governments have attempted to regulate the fees of private schools. Prominent among them is Tamil Nadu which passed a fee regulation Act in 2009 setting up district-level fee regulation committees that fix the fees for private schools for a period of three years. Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Telangana are at different stages of enacting and implementing fee regulation legislations.

While such laws in the states mentioned above and the Supreme Court judgment may bring relief to parents, it does raise a few legitimate questions:

Why should the government  which has been unable to provide high quality education in its own schools  have the right to regulate those schools which are more successful at providing it?

Moreover, if a school wishes to provide extra facilities to their students and parents are willing to pay for it, why should a government intervene?

If parents are making a choice to send their children to private schools, should they not choose a school they can afford?

Is it mere populism by the governments when they attempts to regulate fees?

Private schools have strongly resisted any attempts at regulation and have argued that such attempts would lower the standards of education by forcing the schools to cut costs. Another question that needs to be asked is whether schools or any other educational institution should be allowed to make profits out of the running of the school. After all  it is argued  what would be the incentive of running a private enterprise, if no profit could be made?

However, as per the current legal framework, educational institutions are supposed to run as non-profit, charitable organisations. This issue has been the subject of much litigation, however, three major judgements  TMA Pai Foundation versus State of Karnataka (2002), Islamic Academy of Education versus State of Karnataka (2003), Modern School versus Union of India (2004)  have all upheld three principles: One, that educational institutions should be allowed to make reasonable surplus, two, that this surplus should be used for the growth and better facilities of said institution and finally, that this surplus could not be used for profiteering by the school management.

These were the principles used by the Delhi government when it attempted fee-regulation of schools on DDA land in 2016. There was no cap set on the fees a school could charge nor did the government fix/decide the fees of any school. The school was free to set the fee structure in consonance with the facilities provided by them; the government would merely verify the accounts to ensure that money being taken from the parents was being used rightfully spent on the children and the school.

However, the results of this verification of accounts were nothing less than alarming: Schools were found to siphoning of money from the school and illegally transferring it to their parent society, one school had bought a seven-acre farmhouse outside Delhi in the name of the school management, another school had bought a flat, one of the schools was found charging ICT fees, but had no ICT facilities and many schools were found to have reserves in crores, but were still hiking fees annually. This was not reasonable surplus, this was clearly profiteering and financial malpractices being carried out under the veil of autonomy of private schools.

And this is why regulation of private schools is needed: Not to take away the autonomy of the schools, or to cut down the facilities being provided by them; but to simply prevent school managements from siphoning of money they receive as fees. Not only should audit of all private schools be mandatory, but their accounts and fee structures should be put in the public domain.

This transparency will ensure an end to financial malpractices. And while governments should remain regulators, they need to remember that this is not a long-term solution. The problem of an acute mismatch between demand and supply of schools has happened because the government has not been able to fulfil its role of providing high quality education. And while regulation and efforts at transparency should continue  governments across the country need to pull up their socks and improve public schools. If high quality is available free of cost, why would anyone pay exorbitant fees for the same?

The author is a leader of the Aam Aadmi Party and part of the party's parliamentary action committee. She also works as an advisor to the Government of NCT of Delhi
A special CBI court ordered banks and different institutions to verify the signatures on all documents sent by Indrani Mukerjea and not to act on any of them until the verification is complete. The order came after former television mogul Peter Mukerjea revealed that his wife Indrani had forged his signature on several bank documents relinquishing his rights over their joint accounts.

According to The Times Of India, the letter was submitted by Peter's lawyers after Indrani got court's permission to sign a few bank documents. Peter's lawyers Amit Ghag and Mihir Gheewala moved an "urgent" handwritten application on Peter's behalf before special CBI trial court Judge H S Mahajan, saying that a Mumbai bank said it had received a letter addressed from Peter.

Gheewali had told The Times of India that it was is abundantly clear that Accused Number 1 (Indrani) has perpetuated a fraud on the court by presenting an annexure of a draft letter purportedly of Accused Number 4 (Peter). Moreover, Indrani could have either forged the signatures herself or done it through someone else.

India Today reports that Indrani, who is currently serving jail term in Mumbai's Byculla Jail, had addressed the letters to Syndicate Bank's Worli branch and a bank in New Zealand. Sources say both the accounts have the earnings of the couple but ever since the couple engaged in a tiff, since the beginning of the case, no money has been withdrawn. Indrani and Peter have refused to sign documents on occasions when either wanted to withdraw money.

On 1 February, Indrani sought permission from the special CBI court to sign a few bank documents which the investigative agency approved. Later, Peter's lawyers found the letter with his signature which, on verification, they found that he had not signed.

This is not the first time that Indra has been accused of forging signatures. Earlier, she was accused of forging her daughter Sheena Bora's signatures on documents from 2012-2015 after having killed her. Last month when the murder charges were filed, the forgery charges against her were dropped.
Nearly 20 years after the Uphaar theatre fire tragedy, which had killed 59 people in 1997, the Supreme Court on Thursday sentenced Gopal Ansal to one year in jail. However, his brother Sushil Ansal has been spared jail time owing to his old age.

The bench comprising justices Ranjan Gogoi, Kurian Joseph and Adarsh Kumar Goel ordered Gopal to surrender within four weeks.

Uphar cinema matter: SC orders Gopal Ansal to serve one year jail sentence, of which he had already served four months  ANI (@ANI_news) February 9, 2017

Uphar cinema matter: Review petitions of Association of the Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT) and CBI were not allowed by SC  ANI (@ANI_news) February 9, 2017

The verdict was in response to a plea filed by the CBI and Association of Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT) to review its 19 August, 2015, judgement asking real estate barons Sushil and Gopal Ansal to serve a two-year jail term if they fail to pay Rs 30 crore each as fine within three months. The Uphaar fire tragedy took place on 13 June, 1997, during the screening of Bollywood movie Border, in the capital's upscale Green Park area. It is to be noted that the brothers have already paid the fine. Meanwhile, the AVUT has expressed its disappointment over the apex court judgement. Speaking to ANI, Neelam Krishnamoorthy said, "Extremely disappointed, biggest mistake in my life was coming to court. (I have) lost faith in judiciary." She added that she feels letdown by the court, as the "rich and powerful enjoy special powers".

We don't give a damn about the trauma centre. I should've shot these people the day my children died: Neelam Krishnamoorthy,AVUT #UpharCase pic.twitter.com/st5WDb6dPp  ANI (@ANI_news) February 9, 2017

The Ansal brothers were sentenced to two years in jail by a trial court in 2007. However, the next year, the Delhi court reduced the jail term to just one year.

With inputs from PTI
Washington: India and US have agreed to "sustain the momentum on key bilateral defence efforts" after Defence Secretary James Mattis called his Indian counterpart Manohar Parrikar and expressed commitment to build upon the tremendous progress made in bilateral defence cooperation.

This was the first conversation between the two leaders after Mattis was sworn in as the Defence Secretary of the US President Donald Trump last month.

"In their first conversation, Secretary Mattis committed to build upon the tremendous progress in bilateral defense cooperation made in recent years, underscoring the strategic importance of the US-India relationship and India's role in advancing global peace and security," the Pentagon Press Secretary Capt Jeff Davis said on .

"Secretary Mattis and Minister Parrikar affirmed their commitment to sustain the momentum on key bilateral defense efforts to include the defense technology and trade initiative," Davis said after the phone call between the two leaders which took place on Wednesday.
Editor's note: The Applicant in this case are presently accused and all allegations against him remain to be proven and under Indian law he remains innocent until proven guilty, facts are taken from the relevant order of the High Court which referenced in the article. The author means no disrespect to the Honourable High Court and is exercising his right to merely critique the order Dated 16 January, 2017, a copy of which has been referenced in this article and reproduced below.

On 16 January, 2017, the Bombay High Court passed an order disposing off a bail application filed by a person who was accused of committing offences under Section 354 of the Penal Code of 1850 (Rape) and Section 8 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (Sexually Assaulting a Child). The high court granted bail to the applicant and a copy of the bail order can be found at the end of this article.

This author has not perused the papers of the case, nor has he heard the arguments in the matter, nor has he studied its record, so he will not comment if granting bail on these facts was the proper decision or not. However, he will limit himself to critiquing the language used in the order.

Judgements of the Superior Judiciary in India, cast considerable weight on the public mind and conscience, accordingly, they merit study for their potential social impact. Accordingly, this particular order, is worthy of our attention and scrutiny.

For the following reasons:

1. From this order, it is possible for a person to ascertain the identity of the child/victim.

The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (Pocso) as a guiding principle, calls upon the Special Court to protect the identity of the child, and gives identity an expansive meaning to include neighbourhood or family, school or any other means by which the child may be easily identified. In summing up the case of the Prosecution at Paragraph 2 (Where we find out where the child was currently staying) and Paragraph 3 (Where the child was adopted from and where the child's mother died) and the name of the adoptive father visible in the cause title. The identity of the child is now made plain and part of the public record.

With due respect to the court, due care needs to be taken while summing up cases involving sexual offences against minors and victims of sexual offences so that even clues to their identity are not revealed. This order has compromised the identity of the victim up to the point where at Paragraph 6 her present whereabouts are also revealed to the public at large. There is absolutely no point in making legislation that protects the identity of a victim of sexual assault or a child who has been a victim of an offence under the Pocso Act if there are publically available orders where there are such details. The court could have very well just mentioned the jurisdictional area of the police station. There was no need to mention the names of the home where the child had been adopted from or the place where the child was currently staying. Yet the order goes on to record it and thus lifts the veil of privacy that the child is entitled to both as a victim of sexual violence and as a person. A person, who was not represented before the court in her capacity as a victim of sexual violence

2. After this compromise of privacy, the order goes on to cast aspersions on her character.

At Paragraph 3 of the order, the Court states that the child/victim apparently had "unnatural behaviour" and that the supervisor of the protective home where she had been lodged prior to adoption had received several complaints about this. It also records that her mother passed away after being infected with HIV. At Paragraph 4, the court takes a statement made by the child when she was in the protective home, and concludes that the child had abnormal sexual instincts from childhood because of the conduct of her mother and the atmosphere where she lived. The court has taken this as an admission that she used to do "dirty things". Further in Paragraph 6, the court implies, that the only reason the child/victim is still in a protective home after attaining majority is because of her abnormal behaviour. Even though there is no record of this being argued either by the Prosecution or the Defence.

With utmost deference to the court, the court should not have recorded statements that would have cast aspersions on the character of the victim/child particularly given the society India lives in. Further, the child was not heard before these remarks were passed. Only the State was. Nor was an amicus curia (friend of the court appointed to act for the victim. If the court felt the statement of the child was relevant, the court should have heard her on it as the child is now a major. Or at least asked the major to explain the statement that she made in her minority, the statement on the basis of which the court concluded the minor used to do dirty things. The woman's character has been condemned without hearing her on it and forever that order will reflect that fact that she used to do dirty things.

Victims of sexual assault and violence are already hesitant to approach courts for redressed of their grievances, the chance that they will have their character history preserved as part of the permanent record is another such deterrent. Which mechanisms exist in the trial court (by holding sessions trials in camera) to preserve the anonymity of the victim, often at the appellate level, this anonymity is left to the wisdom and discretion of the high judiciary. Respectfully, superior courts must exercise discretion while making such observations and consider the broader impact they could have in deterring women and children from reporting incidents of sexual violence. Orders like this do little to encourage women to come out and report crimes that have been committed against them. In fact, they only discourage them. Few victims of sexual assault will feel reassured by orders like this, orders that compromise their privacy and cast aspersions on their character.

3. While disposing of an application for bail, the court should not have gone into the merits of the child/victim's testimony

As per Paragraph 2 of the order, the victim's abuse started when she was in Class VI and continued till 2015 when she approached the NGO who rescued her. At Paragraph 5 after the Court goes through the history of the victim, including her "unnatural behaviours", the court remarks that the complaint has been filed after a considerable lapse of time and therefore the statement on the basis on which the crime had been registered has been filed after a considerable lapse of time. Therefore, it did not inspire the confidence of the court. Further, the fact that had not disclosed the incident to the supervisor of the protective home was also a fact that was held against the victim and the statement was called into question on those grounds as well.

Respectfully, in a case concerning a child who has been sexually assaulted, these two facts should not be taken into consideration at all when speaking as to the truthfulness of the child's statement. Further, at the stage of bail, these facts need not be gone into at all. As the court goes on to state that the investigation is complete and the charge sheet has been filed, this itself is a ground on which bail could have been granted. It is vitally important, that courts encourage victims to come forward and report crimes and create an environment where victims feel that they will be believed. With due respect to the court, this order fails to do that and instead, almost creates hostile social consequences for a victim who has come forward to report her assault.

The court states towards the end that these observations are limited to the disposal of the bail application, however, the order is made public. Unfortunately, that may be limited to the trial of this case. But in real terms, this order will no doubt have irreparable implications on the life of the victim/child. Gender sensitisation of the judiciary and the law enforcement machinery should not be limited to just trail court judges, orders like these reflect the need for the senior judiciary to be trained in gender sensitisation.

Read the full order here:

Bombay High Court by Firstpost on Scribd
WHY DONT YOU READ THESE?
Bhopal: A day after Narendra Modi's "raincoat" barb at Manmohan Singh, Congress today alleged "multiple scams" under the guard of the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh and said RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and the Prime Minister seem to know the art of "taking bath while wearing a raincoat."

Launching a blistering attack, Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee president Arun Yadav alleged the state government has allotted land worth Rs 500 crore to RSS in various cities by circumventing the rules.

However, the BJP has termed the allegations "baseless" saying they are fallout of the growing frustration in the opposition party in the wake of a string of electoral defeats.

"The state government has allotted land worth Rs 500-crore to RSS (BJP's ideological mentor) in different cities in the gross violation of rules," Yadav said.

He claimed the Congress MLAs had asked several questions in this regard in the Legislative Assembly and that the government "didn't reply to the applications filed under RTI in this connection."

At the presser, Yadav posed five questions to Bhagwat who is currently on visit of the state. "Bhagwat ji should answer why RSS is on land acquisition spree in the state," he said.

Questioning "silence" of Modi and Bhagwat over "various scams" under the state BJP government, he alleged, "Over 150 scams have taken place during the BJP regime in state, including Vyapam, illegal sand mining, Rs 2500-crore Simhastha scam, dams and ponds scam, mid-day meal scam etc but the PM and the RSS chief are not talking about these scams.

"...It seems that RSS chief and the PM know the art of taking bath while wearing a raincoat," he said. In a scathing attack in Rajya Sabha, the PM on Wednesday said that one should learn the art of "bathing with a raincoat on" from his predecessor Manmohan Singh as there was not a single taint on him despite so many scams having taken place during his regime.

Yadav said whether the RSS chief was supporting the alleged illegal mining by state chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's family members "by keeping silence over the issue".

He also asked Bhagwat to speak about "over Rs 1000 crore money laundering racket busted in Katni district of state."

"Bhagwat should speak on this issue and inform who were behind this money laundering racket. Were these people belonging to the BJP?" he asked.

Yadav also claimed that one of the eleven persons held from different parts of state today in connection with an espionage racket was a relative of a BJP corporator.
BJP leader and Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad lashed out at the Congress for expressing outrage and disrupting Parliament proceedings on Wednesday, over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "raincoat" jibe against his predecessor Manmohan Singh.

"Although it is a very old party, Congress is no more an ideologically-driven political party. It has become more of 'divinity for the dynasty' and 'devotion for the dynasty'," Prasad said a press conference on Thursday.

Modi had targeted his predecessor Manmohan Singh, who had described demonetisation as "loot" and "plunder".

"So many scams occurred. We politicians have a lot to learn from Dr Sahab. So much happened, there is not a single blot on him. Dr Sahab is the only person who knows the art of bathing in a bathroom with a raincoat on," the prime minister had said.

Prasad also said that it was Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi who had made the 'khoon ki dalali' remark against Modi after the surgical strikes.

"You are hiding behind the blood of our soldiers who have sacrificed their lives in Jammu and Kashmir. Our jawans have given blood, they carried out surgical strikes. You are doing khoon ki dalali with the blood of our martyrs. Our army did what they were supposed to do. Now you do your work," Rahul Gandhi had said.

Prasad further said that Congress had insulted other leaders, including Manmohan Singh.

"There are two types of Congress leaders: The first type comes from the family; they cannot make any mistakes and their criticism cannot be tolerated," Prasad said sarcastically, adding that they were perceived to be "almost divine". "The second type comes according to the right time, get used by the party and are then abandoned," he said.

"Congress had misused Chaudhary Charan Singh. We have great respect for him. How did they behave with VP Singh when he raised the issue of the Bofors scam? What did Congress do with the memory of Lal Bahadur Shastri?" he asked.

"Congress should take a look at its own house to see how it treated its own leaders," Prasad said. "Who had torn an ordinance and called it nonsense? Has he apologised for that?" he said, referring to the time when Rahul Gandhi had denounced a controversial ordinance in 2013 to negate the Supreme Court verdict on convicted lawmakers as "complete nonsense".

"Manmohan Singh was outraged earlier. The prime minister had made a pun. But what was wrong with that?" Prasad said. "We saw a new low in the corruption index in India under the Manmohan Singh government. Under the Manmohan Singh government, there was the helicopter scam in the sky, Aadarsh scam on land, coal scam in patal, submarine scam in the water and Kerala's solar scam when it comes to solar energy," he said.

"Manmohan Singh, are you accountable for this or not?" Prasaid asked. "The so-called credibility of Manmohan Singh was abused by the dynasty to promote corruption and promote crony capitalism."

With inputs from PTI
Mumbai: Although Maharashtra Governor C Vidyasagar Rao, who also holds additional charge of Tamil Nadu, finally landed in Chennai on Thursday to take care of the administrative upheavals the state is facing, a similar political storm is gradually brewing in Mumbai as well.

The Devendra Fadnavis government in Maharashtra might be in for serious survival issues as its key partner Shiv Sena is mulling to withdraw support from the state government soon after the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation poll is over. The civic poll is scheduled to be held on 21 February and the counting is on 23 February.

Highly placed sources confirmed that by the last day campaign of BMC election on 18 February, all 12 Shiv Sena ministers in the Maharashtra government might hand over their resignation to party chief Uddhav Thackeray. There are five cabinet and seven ministers of state from the party in the Fadnavis government.

The Shiv Sena chief gave clear indications couple of days back when he said that the Fadnavis government is on "notice period". Provided Shiv Sena opts out of the government, Fadnavis would have a tough time proving his majority of 145 MLAs in the 288-member Maharashtra Assembly.

Thackeray has reportedly asked his ministers to be ready to face a decision in this direction soon.

The Shiv Sena and the BJP in January had announced that they would contest the civic elections to 10 municipal corporations and 25 zilla parishads on their own.

"Every political decision has its own time. Sena president Uddhav Thackeray has announced that we will not have a tie-up with any political party. He has made it clear that the Sena will hereafter be on its own. At this point of time, I would only say that the Fadnavis government is on notice period," said party spokesperson Neelam Gorhe.

Meanwhile, senior NCP leader and former deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar said, "If the Shiv Sena ministers resign from BJP the government then the opposition would have 150 plus MLA. BJP has only 122 and others 16. So automatically BJP would be in minority position." Former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan also hinted that the Fadnavis government might collapse anytime if the Shiv Sena withdraws support.

A political contingency in Maharashtra would only make things complex for Governor Rao as he might soon hop on a plane to Mumbai.
"How many friends does one person need?" Its the question that Robin Dunbar (2010) asked in order to trace the interactive behaviour of humans as a species. Thats a discomforting question to be put not because of its plausible answer in the form of a number, but because of the scientific method employed by Dunbar. Our friends from social science circles often find it hard to reconcile ideology with the science of evolution. However, the pursuit of truth has been the goal of science and one of the strongest propositions of science considers human beings as a group-forming species. There we go! How easy it gets now for us to understand the formation of society, associations, groups, cliques, etc! It is this very spirit that was echoed by the framers of our Constitution who gave us a Fundamental Right in the form of the Right to Form Association.

Praxis is how it was articulated in the antiquity which has continued to this day in the form of political parties and sloganeering. Those defending free speech look at it as the backbone of a healthy democracy. Slogans and songs of protest seem to have inspired millions since the Hellenic civilisation, popping up many times in the Medieval era which has been portrayed well in the works of Mikhail Bakhtin. The story of Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais is one of the ways in which dissent used to be aired in the times of carnival, according to Bakhtin. Celebrating dissent has been the hallmark of a progressive society, probably of the one based on the idea of Aufklarung (Enlightenment). However, there are other viewpoints that suggest that in the modern society, protests have become ends and not means. A society based on spectacles has in fact promoted the use of protests in order to manufacture spectacles. It is rightly called a tautology by Guy Debord. He writes in Society of the Spectacle, 1967:

"The tautological character of the spectacle stems from the fact that its means and ends are identical. It is the sun that never sets over the empire of modern passivity. It covers the entire surface of the globe, endlessly basking in its own glory.

Therein crops up the counterview. A short analysis of the Free Speech Movement in the USA would tell us that it had more to do with the ideology of the New Left than with anything that qualified as genuine peoples concern. It is a well-established fact that the entire counterculture revolution in the USA was spearheaded by just 10 percent of the population, that too those coming from the upper echelons of the society. A somewhat similar picture has emerged here in the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) that hit the headlines exactly a year ago for reasons, some say were right while others differ.

An evening gathering that culminates into an ugly scene where the very idea of India was challenged and cursed several times was definitely not a pleasant spectacle for a large number of students, teachers and passers-by.

Such rage against ones motherland seems to have caused mental trauma for a lot of students that evening. It must also be reminded that it was not the first and the only occasion when such a gathering of anti-India sentinels took place in the JNU. It was a repeat of what had been organised in preceding years, the only difference arising from the fact that earlier it had a low tempo and was restricted within the four walls of a hostel mess. This time it was a brazen attack on Indian sentiments. A year before the incident, Afzal supporters organised a similar programme which was so traumatic for some students that some of them cried on that night before they could find some respite in the bosom of sleep.

Thus, can we for a moment care to get beyond the agenda set by the New Left in the 1960s? Can the vanguards of freedom of speech and expression also take the pain to bother about something called freedom of attachment or freedom of affection and reverence towards an object or idea of ones choice? When those slogans were raised in one of the most insensitive manners, there were others who were pained and aggrieved.

What followed the incident was also not satisfactory on many counts. Nobody cared to think about the emotions of those who were aggrieved by such an act. The role of media also was unclear with its clear division on the issue. Some tried to be nationalist while others were rated as anti-nationals. In fact, the debate is something larger than that. Its about the tragedy of the commons (Hardin, 1968). Why should some suffer in order to safeguard the freedom of expression of a handful of aggressive creatures whose rage knows no boundaries? Hence, the debate that centred itself upon whether the act is sedition or not needs to go deep into the emotional impact of it.

The government and the law courts are bound by the obvious but not the intellectually-oriented minds. Is sedition the only charge thats sustainable against somebody who assaults an idea like India so dear to hundreds of million Indians? These are some questions that the judiciary and the government are faced with. How are we to curb any such tendency in future? One need not worry too much given the fact that there are still many who cherish the idea of India quite close to their heart. It is because of these people that India derives strength despite their being unable to clear the filth that surfaced on 9th February last year.

The author is central working committee member of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and former joint secretary of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU)
Why did it take nearly six decades for Afspa to become an election issue in Manipur?

What could be the outcome after Irom Chanu Sharmila appears as a candidate in the Manipur Assembly election?

These are the two questions that will decide the future of the struggle to have Afspa repealed.

Why so late?

The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (Afspa) has been in force in Manipur since the 1950s. But it was only after Sharmila, who fasted for 16 years demanding its repealment, decided to contest the Assembly election with her newly-floated party, Peoples Resurgence and Justice Alliance (PRJA) this year that it appeared as an election issue.

Manipur that has gone through a bloody history of of both extremist and 'state-sponsored' terrorism that saw 1,528 extra-judicial killings in the past four decades, alleges the Extra Judicial Execution Victim Families Association. Neena Ningombam, who lost her husband Nongmaithem Michael in a fake encounter on 4 November, 2008 in Imphal elaborates how the extra-judicial killings are executed: "In most cases, the army is the mastermind, although the trigger is being pulled by the Manipur Police commandos. The forces are massively empowered because of the Afspa. We are yet to receive justice."

Babloo Loitongbam, director of Human Rights Alert, an NGO, says that nearly 1,200 cases of such killings occurred in the 15-year tenure of the present Congress regime led by Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh. "In Manipur, we have something called Unified Headquarters that is pretty much in charge of security in the state and it counts the police, paramilitary forces and the Indian Army as part of it. Before Ibobi, all other chief ministers resisted such a security structure. But he went ahead with it and these extra-judicial killings just took a quantum leap," he says.

But that has hardly ever made Afspa a political issue in elections in Manipur. No wonder then that Ibobi won three Assembly elections in a row since 2002. Loithangbam told Firstpost that the reason Afspa has not become a political issue might be due to a lack of political awareness among the people about the Act. "Repealing Afspa became an election issue in Manipur in the early 1970s. But that really did not pick up, possibly due to a lack of awareness among the people," he adds.

This is in stark contrast with the neighbouring state of Assam, where 'secret killings' during the Asom Gana Parishad regime not only emerged as a strong political issue, but also as the reason why the then chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta was ousted from power in 2001. Professor Bimal Akoijam of Jawaharlal Nehru University agrees that a lack of awareness among the public is a reason Afspa has not been an election issue for so long.

"In Manipur, elections are hardly political. Although it sounds derogatory, it is true to say that the election is more like a festival in Manipur," he says.

He also says that he has been running publicity campaigns to make people aware that issues should play the main roles in electoral politics and public life. "This time too we are also trying to launch advertisement campaigns before the election to highlight the political issues that loom over Manipur," he says. He also adds that a lack of public awareness is not the sole reason that it took such a long time for Afspa to become a political issue; the way Afspa was carried to the people was also a reason for it.

"Although the world saw a historic protest against Afspa by Sharmila, it lacked political articulation. The movement was navigated with legal arguments. But the danger Afspa poses to our democracy by determining a role for the army in the administration was hardly discussed. All over the world, the involvement of the army in domestic affairs is seen as dangerous," adds Akoijam.

Loitongbam, who has been a close associate of Sharmila's, agrees with the view that the translation of legal arguments against Afspa to political discourse did not happen, which could also be the reason it did not find a prominent place in political discussions.

What lies ahead?

Akoijam believes that Sharmila, who has pitted herself against Ibobi has a feeble chance of winning. "Even if she manages to get four or five MLAs elected, what change can one expect from such a small number of legislators?" he asks. Nevertheless, Loitongbam says that it is important that the issue of repeal of Afspa has gained importance in election. "We can now see that even the BJP has taken up the issue of fake encounters," he states, adding that the PRJA has fielded 10 candidates in Manipur which has 60 Assembly constituencies.

Akoijam says that in the near future, Sharmila is likely to face more hurdles in taking the cause of repealing Afspa forward after she joined electoral politics. "People are normally cynical about politics. Apart from fighting against Afspa, now Sharmila will also have to fight this cynicism being a politician herself," he adds.

Naba Thakuria, of the Patriotic Peoples Forum of Assam has a different take about the future of the struggle against Afspa.

"The Indian Army has worked really hard for an image makeover in North East India with gestures of social service schemes such as building roads, bridges and organising cultural functions. These efforts have worked and cases of atrocities by the army have also dropped drastically. So it might become increasingly difficult to sustain the movement against Afspa, he says.

But he adds that Sharmila will continue to be an icon for the enormous sacrifice she has made for the cause.
Congress's righteous indignation over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'raincoat' jibe at Manmohan Singh would have been amusing had it not been patently tragic. Halfway through Narendra Modi's Rajya Sabha address on Wednesday, members of India's grand old party walked out in a huff.

All through the evening for the next few hours, adopting an expression somewhere between apoplectic rage and stunned disbelief, Congress leaders used the choicest sound bites to lay into Modi, calling him unworthy of PM's post. They also demanded an apology, failing which they threatened to boycott the prime minister in Parliament.

The source of Congress's fury was a remark by Modi during his reply to the motion on the President's address when he made satiric observations on former PM Manmohan Singh's ability to stay unblemished while scams raged all around him.

During Singh's two stints as PM, the UPA was mired in several big-ticket rip-offs costing the public exchequer lakhs of crores. While Singh's personal integrity never came under intense scrutiny, as the head of a Union Cabinet some of whose members were neck-deep in graft, the economist-turned-politician cannot be absolved of all responsibility.

While the former PM managed to keep all taint at arm's length, it is undeniable that Coalgate, 2G spectrum scam, Commonwealth Games scam (just to name a few) happened under his watch and Singh was powerless to stop his underlings from defrauding the public. At the very least, setting a high moral precedence, he could have tendered his resignation in protest but chose not to.

Tearing into Singh, who had during the Winter Session called Prime Minister's demonetisation "monumental mismanagement" and "organized loot and legalized plunder", Modi said the former PM knew "the art of bathing in a bathroom with a raincoat on", a dig at the Teflon coating that shielded Singh from all taint amid widespread corruption and financial scandals.

"In the past 35 years, Dr Singh was directly involved in the decision-making on the countrys economy," said the PM, hinting at Manmohan's earlier stints as RBI governor and Union finance minister in the PV Narasimha Rao cabinet. "Very few people can claim to have influenced our economy at the top level for nearly half of independent Indias history," said Modi, adding that though there were several cases of graft during this period, not a single spot could be found on Singh.

"Bathroom me raincoat pehen kar nahana...Yeh kala to doctor sahab hi jante hain, aur koi nahin janta (taking a bath while wearing a raincoat... only doctor sahab knows this art, none else)," he said.

The Congress staged a walkout in protest and amid a plethora of outraged reactions, Kapil Sibal said the prime minister was arrogant and he had scant regard for the dignity his chair demands. "He should know that he is everybody's PM, including ours."

One wonders at Congress's new-found respect for the PM's chair. It would've been believable but for the fact that on the first day of last year's Winter Session, Congress leader Pramod Tiwari compared the prime minister with dictators and mass murderers, equating demonetisation with history's heinous crimes.

"Kisi shabya desh ne yeh nahi kiya; jisne kiye hain unke naam itihas mein hai, pehla Gaddafi, doosra, Mussolini, Hitler & chautha hai PM Modi," said Tiwari. Compared to this revilement, Sitaram Yechuri's 'Modi Antoinette' jibe was child's play.

It was even more amusing to see Rahul Gandhi jump into the fray to criticize Modi and defend the 'honour' of Manmohan Singh. Calling Modi's comments "shameful", the Congress vice-president said: "When a prime minister reduces himself to ridiculing his predecessor, years his senior, he hurts the dignity of the parliament and the nation." Evidently the nation and the Parliament weren't robbed of their 'dignity' when the Gandhi scion chose to tear apart an ordinance passed by Manmohan-led UPA and that too when the then PM was not in the country. It didn't qualify as "insult to PM" either because no less than the Gandhi scion had done so.

And when one recalls Rahul Gandhi's 'khoon ki dalali' (pimping or brokering) jibe at Modi over surgical strikes, Congress's hypocritical notion of "honour" and "respect for PM's chair" becomes apparent. It can alternate between being the aggressor and the victim in a manner of its own choosing. While it may denigrate the prime minister and call names it reserves the right to take the moral high ground when paid back in same coin.

There is something also to be said about the way Modi treats debates in Parliament. Immediately after Manmohan Singh had derided his move to declassify the high value notes in a scathing Rajya Sabha intervention last year, Narendra Modi walked over to his predecessor and shook hands as Parliament broke for lunch. He was also seen talking, as the NDTV report points out, to rival leaders Anand Sharma and Ghulam Nabi Azad with Arun Jaitley in tow.

In the give and take of Parliamentary barbs, no quarters are given and none are asked for. Modi was at least responding to Singh's criticism. We all remember, though, that the former PM had in January 2014 warned Indians that it would be "disastrous for the country if Modi were to become the PM". That is a below-the-belt attack.
Mumbai: A majority of the corporators of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) seem to defy the usual trend by miles when it comes to annual increment at work. For the salaried class, it ranges from 10-30 percent while an industrious individual owning a business may up his earnings by 20-40 percent.

However, properties of most of the elected representatives in the country's richest civic body in Mumbai have either burgeoned from twice the size it was five years ago or grown by a whopping 600 percent during this period.

Notably, the members of the all-party standing committee have got their property doubled in the five years. This committee, which has a huge budgetary allocation of Rs 20,000 crore out of the total Rs 34,000 crore that the corporation annually have in its kitty, has the responsibility of approving tenders.

In the last two decades, Shiv Sena and BJP combine have ruled the BMC with the Shiv Sena being the lead party in the standing committee. In the current standing committee, there are 26 members with maximum members from Shiv Sena. Of late, since the BJP and Shiv Sena parted ways the former has upped the ante alleging numerous corruptions by the Shiv Sena.

Talking to Firstpost municipal secretary Narayan Pathade said, "Every month each corporator gets a monthly remuneration of Rs 10,000. Also, he or she gets an allowance of Rs 150 for the corporation meeting. There are four to five such meetings in a month. In the last two years, we have provided every corporator with a laptop and mobile phone. A monthly allowance of Rs 1,250 is also reimbursed in case of each corporator."

Since 2012, many standing committee members have seen manifold jumps in their property as declared in their affidavits. Former Shiv Sena mayor Shraddha Jadhav's affidavit showed that her asset was worth Rs 1 crore in 2012 but it jumped to Rs 15 crore 93 lakh in 2017. She is contesting from ward number 202 as a Shiv Sena candidate. Samajwadi Party group leader in the BMC Rai Shaikh's property saw a jump from Rs 27 lakh in 2012 to Rs 2 crore 10 lakh in 2017.

The BJP face in the BMC, Manoj Kotak also saw his wealth growing from Rs 2 crore 64 lakh in 2012 to Rs 4 crore 97 lakh in 2017.

Shiv Sena group leader Trishna Vishwasrao property jumped by a huge 600 percent. In 2012, Vishwasrao's property was Rs 1 crore 2 lakh but in 2017 her property jumped to Rs 6 crore 63 lakh. Similarly Congress group leader, who is also standing committee member, Pravin Cheda is also not behind when it comes to property. The property worth Rs 8 crore 60 lakh in 2012 became Rs 14 crore 4 lakh in 2017.

The current standing committee chairman Shailesh Phanse's jumped from Rs 4 crore 45 lakh in 2012 to Rs 8 crore 50 lakh in 2017.

BJPs Parag Shah, who is a real estate developer and contesting first time election in ward no 132 Ghatkopar. is the richest candidate in this round of BMC poll. Shah is the managing director of MAN Infra Construction. His net worth is Rs 690 crore as per his election affidavit. He will be contesting elections against Pravin Chheda (Congress), Sudhakar Patil (Shiv Sena), Jyoti Vaikar (Samajwadi Party) and Bobi Ramanand Chandeliya (Maharashtra Navnirman Sena).

The election affidavit revealed that he owns five houses in Ghatkopar. Shah has declared his movable assets worth Rs 670.57 crore and immovable assets worth Rs 19.38 crore. Assets worth Rs 160.92 crore are owned by his wife Mansi. Shah is the president of the Mumbai Jain Mahasangh.

Talking to the media, Shah claimed that he is not surprised at being the richest candidate in the BMC election as his wealth is the reward of two decades of hard work.

A total of 2,276 candidates are in the fray for the 227 seats of BMC which goes to the polls on 21 February. There are 91.80 lakh registered voters in Mumbai. The counting of votes is on 23 February.
Chennai: Former Tamil Nadu chief minister O Panneerselvam writing to the banks to not allow transactions without his authorisation may not have any practical impact on the AIADMK, said a senior party leader on Thursday.

"Panneerselvam may be moving legally against his dismissal as treasurer, but it may not impact the operations of the AIADMK even if the banks in which the party has its accounts were to adopt the wait and watch approach," he said on the condition of anonymity.

He said there were other authorised persons to carry out banking transactions in the party. According to reports, Panneerselvam has written to banks asking them not to allow any transactions without his authorisation as the party Treasurer.

Panneerselvam's contention is that an interim General Secretary (in reference to VK Sasikala) does not have the power to remove him from the party post. Party officials have also agreed with Panneerselvam's contention. On Wednesday, the AIADMK removed Panneerselvam as the party's Treasurer with immediate effect.

The dismissal came hours after Panneerselvam said on Tuesday he was coerced to resign as chief minister to pave the way for General Secretary VK Sasikala to occupy that position.

According to the party leader, only during elections the operation of bank accounts for the party becomes crucial as there is a cap on the individual candidates on the electioneering expenses. "On other days the situation could be managed," he added.

Follow all the live updates here
The ongoing leadership crisis in Tamil Nadu reached a fever pitch on Thursday as senior AIADMK leaders  Madhusudhanan and Pandian  threw their entire weight behind caretaker chief minister O Panneerselvam's camp. The move came as a huge setback for Sasikala. The ultimate decision to chose the next chief minister lies with the Governor. The political crisis in the state started late on Monday when Panneerselvam announced that he was coerced to quit.

Here are the key developments that have happened since last night.

Panneerselvam comes back with a bang

After Tuesday's development, chances looked pretty bleak for Panneerselvam. However, as the day progressed public opinion appeared to tilt in his favour because he is seen as an efficient administrator who was hand-picked by Jayalalithaa twice to fill in for her as Chief Minister when corruption cases forced her to step down. While she was hospitalised, he was entrusted with running key departments that reported directly to her. In contrast, Sasikala is being vetoed on social media and in Chennai for lacking any credential other than her proximity to Jayalalithaa. She has never won an election either within or outside her party.

Scales further tilted in favour of Panneerselvam after senior AIADMK MLAs came out in support of the former chief minister and called Sasikala a liar. MLAs Madhusudhanan and Pandian supported the caretaker chief minister and said that Panneerselvam is the real heir of Jayalalithaa. Senior AIADMK leader V Maitreyan also chimed in and supported Panneerselvam. Madhusudhanan is the AIADMK's number 2 as its Presidium Chairman.

Slamming Sasikala for lying about everything, Panneerselvam said that Madhusudhanan was threatened and pressurised by the "other camp" but he still stood alone just to "safeguard the party". "We welcome him." "It is Sasikala who is doing dirty tricks to acquire the chair of chief minister, if she succeeds it will be a big blot on democracy."

Governor leaves Mumbai, heads to Chennai, to meet OPS first

Tamil Nadu Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao left for Chennai in the afternoon on Thursday. Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao, who has been criticised for staying away from Chennai, arrived in the city in the afternoon. All eyes are on Rao because what happens next in Tamil Nadu depends entirely on him. He will meet Panneerselvam first at 5 pm and Sasikala later at 7pm, when she is expected to take with her busloads of MLAs to show that she has their support. AIADMK sources claimed that Sasikala will stake claim to form the government.

The governor's absence allowed Sasikala's opponents the opportunity to transform what promised to be a hitchless ascension backed by her entire party, into a political crisis. Her supporters say that the governor has therefore played a not-so-covert role in undermining her legitimate right to take over as chief minister.

However, reports said that only 10 leaders per delegation will be allowed when Panneerselvam and Sasikala land up to meet the governor. Panneerselvam got the appointment first because according to AIADMK laws a caretaker chief minister gets the first preference. Reporting from Chennai, Nikhila Natarajan said Rao a former BJP man, started as an ABVP activist, after which he became a Jan Sangh leader who was thrice elected to the undivided Andhra Pradesh assembly and later to the Lok Sabha, which brings us to our third point  BJP's involvement.

Can't sit back and watch events just unfold in Tamil Nadu: BJP

BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on Wednesday told several reporters outside Parliament that BJP members were involved in backdoor negotiations in the political crisis unfolding in Tamil Nadu. Swamy lambasted Governor Rao for not being around in such a time and added that he does not support Sasikala as the chief minister. Swamy, however, refrained from commenting whether he backed Panneerselvam as the chief minister.

Officially, BJP has claimed that it has nothing to do with the ongoings in the AIADMK and has no active role to play in Panneerselvam's revolt. However, sources in BJP told The Indian Express that the BJP wants to ensure the AIADMK stays united and Panneerselvam continues as chief minister.BJP general secretary P Muralidhar Rao said, "When people without any credibility want to become leader, whats wrong in BJP wanting to be a player in Tamil Nadu? There is political instability (in the state), and its natural that the BJP, as a party, wants to play a role."

SC to decide on DA case next week

The Supreme Court has said that it will rule next week on whether Sasikala and Jayalalithaa are guilty of corruption in the disproportionate assets case dating to the early 90s. The governor has reportedly sought legal advice on whether Sasikala should be asked to wait to take office till the verdict is delivered.

Follow our live blog on the Tamil Nadu crisis here
Chennai: AIADMK General Secretary VK Sasikala on Thursday staked claim to form the government during a 40-minute meeting with Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao, who arrived in the city this afternoon.

Couple of hours after caretaker Chief Minister O Panneerselvam visited Rao, Sasikala called on the Governor and gave him a letter presumably containing the names of MLAs who elected her as AIADMK Legislature Party Leader, and requested him to invite her to form the government.

However, the Governor's response is not immediately known. Sasikala arrived at 7.25 pm at the Raj Bhavan and left after a meeting that lasted about 40 minutes.

At 5 pm, Panneerselvam had called on Rao and after a brief meeting told reporters that "good things will happen and dharma will triumph".

The Chief Minister is now meeting his supporters at his Greenways Road official residence. Sasikala was elected Legislature Party Leader on 5 February, paving the way for her becoming the chief minister.

Subsequently, Panneerselvam raised a banner of revolt on 7 February, along with his supporters. He currently has the support of leaders like former Ministers KP Munusamy, Natham R Viswanathan, Rajya Sabha MP V Maithreyan and a few sitting MLAs.

Against the background of revolt by Panneerselvam, who has the support of a few MLAs, Sasikala has also given individual letters of support furnished by AIADMK legislators.
Mumbai: A day after declaring that the Maharashtra government had been put on a "notice period", Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday said it is time to think of a "grand alliance" of regional parties as a formidable combination to take on national parties.

"There have been many friends of BJP like Nitish Kumar, Mamata Banerjee and (late) Jayalalithaa, who had in the past opted out of the NDA, fought elections on their own and won."

"But we (Shiv Sena) were innocent. Hoping for good days and for the sake of the Hindutva we stayed put (in the alliance)," he told reporters in Mumbai.

Thackeray escalated his aggressive stand saying he is open to withdrawing support to the state ministry, if the senior partner (BJP) failed to clear its stand on issues his party had raised time and again.

"We are not an enemy of BJP and it is unfortunate that we are seen as their opposition. We are open to withdrawing support to the government if they do not make clear their stand on various issues in the coming days," he said.

Thackeray, whose party has begun to foray outside its home turf Maharashtra, said, "Not fighting the polls earlier was our mistake, as a result of which our workers in other states joined other parties".

He also said there is a vacuum of "Hindutva" from Jammu and Kashmir to Kanyakumari.

"I am thinking of forging a Maha Sangh (grand alliance) by bringing together regional parties because all national parties are only concerned about themselves. They ask for votes but shirk responsibility of development and welfare of local people," he said.

Justifying his idea of a regional front, Thackeray claimed people have rejected Prime Minister Narendra Modi in states like Delhi, Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala after he swept the Lok Sabha polls in 2014.

"Modi had made many promises like Uniform Civil Code, building Ram temple and teaching Pakistan a lesson. But what has he done in the last two and a half years? Did surgical strikes stop infiltration at the borders and killing of our jawans. He (Modi) talks of the work his government has done but does he have any proof to substantiate his claims," the Sena chief said.

Shiv Sena's ties with BJP have worsened against the backdrop of the upcoming civic body elections in Maharashtra, especially in its political heartland Mumbai, where the two parties are engaged in a fierce battle.

"They (BJP) say that they wanted transparency in civic administration. But is asking for 114 seats a measure to gauge transparency? They actually do not need friends any more. Yet, there is a feeling of love, culture and ideology left in us," he said.

"Why did Chief Minister (Devendra Fadnavis) send his people for alliance talks with us if they thought BMC was not transparent? Why did they suddenly talk of transparency after we decided to go it alone?" Thackeray asked.
Akhilesh Yadav may not have aligned with Ajit Singh in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly Election, but having the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) on the ground is proving to be effective for the Samajwadi Party chief and incumbent chief minister.

This is not to suggest that Ajit Singh is transferring his votes to the Samajwadi Party-Indian National Congress alliance, or that he has the capacity to win several seats and hopes to be a supportive ally to Akhilesh Yadav in a post-poll scenario, but that, he is playing a spoiler for the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Jat heartland which includes Bagpat, Meerut, Shamli and Muzaffarnagar. The party's substantive Jat influence extends to Ghaziabad, Hapur, Bulandshahar, Mathura and such other areas which are going to the polls in the first phase to be held on February 11.

Ajit Singhs importance lies there. It is an accepted fact that he is no winner (or an achiever) in the Indian or Uttar Pradesh politics, but it does matter for now, at least in these elections.

The question is not whether or not he is a spoiler, but how far he can act as a spoiler to the BJPs prospect of grabbing power, and how far he can be helpful to Akhilesh Yadav-Rahul Gandhi alliance in preventing BJP from marching forward, even if his party acts as just a small speed-breaker.

After travelling to Jat-dominated districts in Western UP, it was easy to assess that the Jat community which had voted overwhelmingly for the BJP in 2014 parliamentary elections (pulling down Ajit Singh to a poor third position in his own constituency) is no longer acting as a force multiplier to the party which is ruling at the centre and is most significant challenger in Uttar Pradesh.

At the same time, it would be a naive overstatement to suggest that Jats have completely shifted their preferences away from the BJP.

The party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are vigorously discussed (much more than any other party). The two make for a major share of impassioned conversations at hukka khats, tea stalls, village roundabouts, drawing rooms, shops and stall, etc. While the BJP supporters go on talking about Modi, the BJP baiters who could be SP or the Congress or RLD or BSP supporters, have only one target: the BJP and its mascot Modi.

Talking to people and political workers of all hues, one realises that in these elections everyone is fighting against one enemy, the BJP, and the BJP is fighting against every other party in the state. Conversations at hukka khats of Jats is no exception. They revolve around the same theme.

In some constituencies like Shamli, the BJP, RLD and Congress have fielded Jat candidates. Even as a majority of Jats in core Jat-dominant districts like Muzaffarnagar, Shamli and Bagpat appear inclined to vote for late Chaudhary Charan Singhs 77-year-old son Ajit Singh, Jats in Western UP today stand as a divided lot.

Its ironic that a septuagenarian Ajit Singh's identity is that of Chaudhary Charan Singhs son, nothing more to add, nothing less to subtract.

Ajit Singhs party is following an open door policy in these elections in UP. It has opened its doors to all deserters. Tough and local rebels who have some claim to fame (money, muscle or position) come and get an RLD ticket to fight on the party's water tap (nal) symbol. Some party supporters boast that "Chaudhary sahib has fielded 270 candidates".

Dont underestimate him. He can be the kingmaker even if some of his candidates win on their own might. If the mandate is clear or his party has only a few numbers to count, then all the deserters and rebels would pursue their own course and Ajit Singh, of course, has always been on his own course.

Take for instance vigorous conversations over hukka by some Jat elders in Babli village in Shamli. Sukhpal Singh who for the better part of his conversation seemed to be a dedicated Chaudhary Sab follower, simply because the two belonged to same Jat kaum, concluded in the end that he would vote on NOTA. Sukhpal's argument was his kaum's (community) prestige was the single most guiding factor in these elections and Jats should consider (Ajit Singh's party in) honour of departed Chaudhary Charan Singh.

Vote to pay respect to someone who died 30 years ago at the age of 85, but not to decide the fate of the state would otherwise sound bizarre, but then it's Jat land where emotions overpower everything else, at least among the elders.

Sukhpals logic was countered by Prem Singh, an ex-serviceman and Vireshpal Singh, a retired school teacher. Their argument was even if Jats voted 100 percent to Ajit Singhs party he would not win for the simple reason that no other caste or other person was going to vote for the RLD. For them, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was doing a commendable work and should thus be given a chance to form the government in Uttar Pradesh to take the nation forward. They particularly refer to surgical strike, demonetisation, and making a mark in the world for India.

Then comes Yashpal, who had been listening quietly so far. "Look Bhai Sab. Modi had come here for a public rally in the run up to the Parliamentary elections in Badoth (known as the workplace of Chaudhary Charan Singh) and had promised fast and remunerative prices for sugarcane farmers and building of better roads in the area, but both these promises have not been delivered.

To a query as to wouldn't Jats be wasting their votes if they know that they are voting for a candidate and party which is not going to win but still do it for sake of protecting honour of the community, Om veer Singh near Dikholi village in Bagpat says, We know that Ajit Singh is a slippery character and would go the way he sees an opportunity for himself but what shall we do, he is the only leader of the community.

The good thing about this community is that they would fight with each other over sundry issues but still take a deep drag of hukka and cordially pass on to a person sitting next to him. They know that it is now the time to seek maximum bargain from those who are pampering them for votes.
Lucknow: The catchy one liner "UP ko ye saath pasand hai" dotting the Uttar Pradesh skyline does not seem to be reflected on the ground as fledgling alliance partners SP and Congress are crossing swords in over a dozen Assembly seats. "Yes, there are some seats on which candidates of both the parties are challenging each other. The issue will be resolved," SP Chief Spokesman Rajendra Chowdhury told PTI when asked to comment on the issue.

Even UP Congress chief Raj Babbar said the matter would be sorted out in a couple of days. "Leaders of both parties will campaign in support of candidates declared by the alliance on the seats where nominees of both sides have filed their papers," he said. But, political observers say that with only a day left for the polling for the first phase on February 11 the damage seems to have been done already with candidates of both parties already on the ground.

"The alliance is set to witness some unfriendly contest in these seats," they said. The situation is worse in the Gandhi family pocket borough -- Amethi and Raebareli -- represented by Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi in Lok Sabha. There are 10 Assembly seats in Amethi and Raebareli. Devendra Pratap Singh (SP) are challenging each other.

Likewise, in Unchahar Ajay Pal Singh (Congress) is facing cabinet minister Manoj Kumar Pandey (SP). In Amethi, sitting MLA and Mulayam SIngh Yadav loyalist

Gayatri Prasad Prajapati is in the fray on SP ticket, while Congress has decided to field Amita Singh there. In Gauriganj seat too, confusion prevails with Congress

candidate Mohd Naeem challenging Rakesh Pratap Singh (SP). The UP PCC chief, however, made light of the issue saying, SP candidates had filed their nomination papers when it appeared that the alliance will not come through.

"At some places they wanted to withdraw, they could not do so due to uncertainty," he said. A defiant Naeem, however, refused to withdraw his candidature despite the seat-sharing pact between SP and Congress. He had unsuccessfully contested the last Assembly polls from Gauriganj on a Congress ticket. Ameeta Singh, the present wife of Congress leader Sanjay Singh, too is all set to file her nomination as a Congress nominee from Amethi seat from where Sanjay's estranged first wife Garima Singh is contesting on a BJP ticket.

In state capital Lucknow, SP has already announced the name of senior minister and sitting MLA Ravidas Mehrotra for Lucknow (Central).After the alliance, Maroof Khan of Congress also filed his nomination from the seat on the pretext of the high command's order. Both Mehrotra and Khan are on campaigning spree and not

ready to withdraw and the face off might help BSP turncoat Brijesh Pathak, who is contesting on BJP ticket.

From Zaidpur seat in Barabanki, Congress has fielded Tanuj Punia, son of former bureaucrat and Congress Rajya Sabha member PL Punia. Tanuj is facing SP's Ram Gopal Rawat, who was expelled from the party after refusing to withdraw. In Kanpur, though Pramod Jaiswal, younger brother of former Union minister and senior Congress leader Sri Prakash Jaiswal, opted out from Arya Nagar (Kanpur) in favour of SP's Amitabh Bajpai but could not withdraw his papers and technically remains a candidate.

In Muzaffarnagar, the Election Commission has allotted party symbols to the candidates of both Congress and Samajwadi Party from Purkazi assembly constituency, the seat which was given to Congress. In other seats like Baldev (Mathura), Gangoh (Saharanpur), Kol (Aligarh), Purkaji (Muzaffarnagar), Chandpur (Bijnor), Mahrajpur (Kanpur), Kanpur Cant and Bhognipur (Kanpur dehat) Congress and SP candidates are facing each other.

Both the allies are also facing strong rebellion from those within the cadre who were aspiring for tickets but have been left high and dry under the seat sharing formula.

SP is facing a bigger challenge from its rebels, who are either fighting as Independents or from other parties in over 100 seats across the state. When his attention was drawn to over ten seats where candidates of both SP and Congress have filed their papers despite forming an alliance, AICC General Secetary and in-charge of UP Ghulam Nabi Azad said SP candidates had filed their papers when they felt that the alliance will not take place.

Then there some places where they wanted to withdraw but could not due to uncertainity, he explained. With the state in the midst of hectic electioneering, voters would be confused as to whom to elect and could cost both the alliance partners dearly, said analysts. They said joint posters of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav might not send a message of unity unless ground realities were rectified. Out of the 403 assembly seats, SP will contest 298 and

Congress the rest 105.
As Uttar Pradesh prepares to elect its Assembly, the question to ask is not whether Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Mayawati will succeed in uniting the Dalits and Muslims. Rather, it would be apposite to ask: Why dont Muslims vote for the BSP in numbers far higher than what they do?

Indeed, Muslims should have a natural affinity for the BSP, which rides on Dalit support and assertion. This is because both the social groups share similar socio-economic status. In fact, as the Rajinder Sachar committee report shows, Muslims lag behind Dalits on several indices.

Then again, from the time the BJP swept to power in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, both groups have faced the brunt of aggressive Hindutva. For instance, cow-protectionists have targeted Muslims as much as they have the Dalits, evident in the horrifying flogging episode at Una, Gujarat. The vigilantism of cow-protectionists hit hard on the meat trade, over which the Muslim caste of Quresh has a monopoly. Also severely affected were tanneries, in which Dalits have a high stake.

If Muslims have been accused of luring Hindu girls into marriages for spreading Islam  known in Hindutva parlance as 'love jihad'  then Dalits have been ostracised, and also killed, for romancing and marrying upper caste girls.

It can thus be said that there exists, to use a Marxist term, objective conditions for Muslims and Dalits to come together for battling their humiliation and overcoming their deprivations. Their unity could have a sharp edge because together they constitute 40 percent of the states population, of which Muslims comprise 19.26 percent.

Unlike the Jats, who are confined to west Uttar Pradesh, both Muslims and Dalits are spread across the state. That gives them ample clout to determine the composition of the state Assembly, and a robust chance to capture power for reconfiguring the socio-economic arrangement tilted against them.

But this win-win theory unravels at the grassroots. The election study by the Lok Niti-Centre for the Study of Developing Societies shows that only 20 percent of Muslims voted for the BSP in the 2012 Assembly elections. Even though the BSP has fielded a whopping 97 Muslims in the 2017 Assembly elections and Mayawati has been aggressively courting them, anecdotal accounts suggest that the probability of subaltern assertion is not high.

There are five important reasons why the commonality of experiences that Dalits and Muslims share hasnt led to a unity between them:

BSP's ignorance of Muslim caste heterogeneity

Mayawati woos Muslims as members of a monolith religious community, glossing over its heterogeneity. Indeed, the Muslim community is as riven with class and caste contradictions as any social group. This has several implications for Mayawatis Muslim strategy.

Broadly, academicians have identified three social categories among Muslims. On top of the heap are the Ashrafs, or descendants of Muslims, who supposedly came from outside India. Below them are the Ajlafs or Hindu converts from all castes but mostly from traditional artisan groups. On the lowest rung are the Arzals or Dalits who converted to Islam.

But these are sociological categories, not what Muslims invoke in their self-descriptions, which often takes recourse to caste analogues. Thus, Muslim converts from the Jat community call themselves as Muley Jats, not Ajlafs. The Tyagis who proselytised are looked upon, and also consider themselves, as upper caste even though they too ought to be categorised as Ajlafs.

In the post-Mandal era, the term Pasmanda has gained currency among academicians and radical Muslim activists. A Persian word, Pasmanda means those who have fallen behind and include all those who are converts from Hindu backward and Dalit castes. At a sweep then, all Muslim castes included in Uttar Pradeshs OBC list for reservations constitute the Pasmandas.

However, a sociological sieve is also employed  for instance, Gujjar Muslims in western UP are in the OBC list, but they neither define themselves as OBC nor others consider them as one, largely because they are landed and have exploitative social relations with others. This is as true for Muslim Jats.

Thus, Muslim forward castes would include Sayeds, Pathans, Sheikhs, Rajput, Brahmin converts  and also dominant middle castes of Jat and Gujjar Muslims. All other social groups are the Pasmandas. This internal division is nowhere as sharp as it is among Hindus, largely because caste has no scriptural sanction is Islam.

Yet, these caste distinctions influence the political choices of Muslims. Mayawati does take into account the caste configuration among Muslims at the time she distributes election tickets. But she doesnt, ideologically and rhetorically, approach Muslims on the basis of their biradris (fraternity), in sharp contrast to what she does with the Hindus, who are segmented into upper castes, OBCs and Dalits. This has enabled her to exploit the internal contradictions of the Hindu samaj and challenge its hierarchical social order.

BSP overlooking Pasmanda Muslims

Since she approaches Muslims as Muslim, their religious identity acquires primacy over all other identities, including that of caste. All political parties adopt the same method in their outreach to Muslims, but the BSP forfeits what is decidedly its advantage  its radical language of caste equality doesnt have the same buzz for Pasmanda Muslims, who should have become the BSPs footsoldiers.

This is because it is the Pasmanda Muslims, not Ashrafs, whose experiences are similar to those of Dalits. For instance, the politics over the cow hasnt had a uniform impact on Muslims; its harshest consequences have been on the Quresh community, which falls in the Pasmanda category. Likewise, Mohammad Akhlaq, who was lynched in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, on the suspicion of consuming and stocking beef was a Pasmanda, as were Muslims who were killed in the rioting in Bijnor last year.

In a detailed survey of Muslims affected by the Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013, Jagpal Singh observes in his article, Communal Violence in Muzaffarnagar, published in the Economic and Political Weekly, Though Muslims of all classes were attacked, it was the Pasmanda Muslims that became the prime victims as they were more vulnerable than the middle castes (Jats, Gujjars) or the Ashraf Muslims (Sayeds, Pathans, Sheikhs).

The BSPs reluctance to address the caste dichotomy among Muslims has ensured that the non-Pasmanda, or the Ashrafs, continue to dominate the communitys perception and superimpose on it their concerns and interests. The Muslim faces of all principal parties in Uttar Pradesh are upper caste  for the Congress, it is Salman Khurshid, a Pathan; for the SP, it is Azam Khan, a Pathan; for the BSP, it is Naseemuddin Siddiqui, a Sheikh; for the BJP, it is Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, a Sayed.

It is ironical that a Dalit woman leading a Dalit party should woo Muslims through an upper caste leader. It mimics Mayawatis strategy of courting Brahmins through Satish Mishra, her Brahmin lieutenant. But all Muslims dont enjoy the same social status as all Brahmins largely do.

The one common feature that binds Muslims is the fear of the BJP coming to power and its rabid followers targeting them. Mayawati harps on the insecurity of Muslims  as do the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Congress. As a result, the BSPs Muslim strategy doesnt have any uniqueness.

Might it not have been better for Mayawati to address the apprehensions of Muslims along with telling the Pasmandas among them that their lowly economic status, to a large extent, has its roots in the iniquitous caste structure, as she often does with regard to Dalits?

Dalits' inability to protect Muslims against caste atrocities

This means that BSPs outreach to Muslims cant remain insulated from the twists and turns in Uttar Pradesh and the countrys politics. In the weeks following the Una incident, it did appear that Mayawati would succeed in uniting Muslims and Dalits. But the possibility of it started to diminish at the forging of an alliance between the Samajwadi Party and the Congress.

Why should Muslims repose faith in Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, in whose rule Uttar Pradesh witnessed a spurt in communal tension and rioting? Conversely, why shouldnt they back Mayawati, who, between 2007 and 2012, was quick to stamp out communal embers before they turned into raging fires?

Since it is impossible to predict with certainty which party will come to power, Muslims believe the SPs Yadav supporters are more capable of protecting them than the BSPs Dalits, in case neither forms the government. The Yadavs are empowered, control local levers of power, and can therefore become a bulwark against the Hindutva aggression.

By contrast, Dalits themselves are often hapless victims of caste atrocities. A social group fighting an unequal battle against dominant castes cant possibly guarantee protection to another community. Then again, segments of Dalits are known to have targeted Muslims in riots, as they certainly did in Muzaffarnagar in 2013. Thereafter, Mayawati, quite inexplicably, did not even visit Muzaffarnagar nor did she go to Dadri to console the family of Akhlaq.

Inherent sense of superiority among Muslims

The Muslim communitys historical consciousness also dampens its response to the BSPs overtures. For one, Muslims, particularly the upper caste among them, cant forget that they once ruled the country for 800 years. This has bred in them a feeling of superiority, which, though out of sync with the current reality, becomes a psychological impediment to their gravitating to the BSP, which is primarily a party of Dalits.

A large segment of Muslims think it is unbecoming of them to align with a group traditionally consigned to the bottom of Indias social heap. It is also true that Dalit castes among Muslims are numerically insignificant. A large chunk of Muslim belongs to the artisan castes. Their support to an OBC party like the SP appears to them as an alliance among equals. Upper caste Muslims do indeed rue comparisons made between them and Dalits. It is they who influence the communitys perception and self-definition, which does have a casteist echo.

BSP's primacy to Jatavs over Muslims

This problem becomes even more acute because the BSP doesnt place Muslims on par with the Jatavs in the partys organisation structure. Only a Jatav can head the BSPs zilla committees; the first choice for heading the booth committee, the BSPs basic unit, has to be a Jatav. Its cadre camps have BSP leaders speak about the philosophy of BR Ambedkar and Kanshi Ram to the audience. It is moot whether this would appeal to Muslims, given that their historical experiences are decidedly different from those of Dalits  and require another language altogether.

Though the BSP has fielded most number of Muslims in elections, yet there isnt a Muslim MLA or MP who calls the shots in the party. The elected representative is subservient to party officials. It curbs his or her autonomy and prevents him or her from forging a patron-client relationship, an important method of mustering popular support in Indias democracy.

Nearly four years ago, Pasmanda Muslim activists had launched the Pasmanda Kranti Abhiyan for consolidating lower caste Muslims. Its slogan was: Dalit-Pichchara ek saman, Hindu ho ya Musalman (Dalits and Backwards are same, whether they are Hindus or Muslims.) Unless Mayawati incorporates the idea underlying this slogan in her party's politics, she will always struggle to both widen and stabilise her support base among Muslims, whose percentage of votes for the BSP will vary according to the political circumstance prevailing before every election.

(Ajaz Ashraf is a journalist in Delhi. His novel, The Hour Before Dawn, is available in bookstores)
Jats are not communal people. We live in our own way. Musilm Jats are part of our social network. We never had anything to do with Hindutva, says a rather excitable Ramesh Malik. We voted for the BJP in 2014 because we felt it was the best choice available. We wanted to punish the government at the Centre and the state government backing it. That is all about Jat votes swinging in favour of the BJP.

At Bharat Kisan Union (BKU) president Rakesh Tikayats residence, on the outskirts of Muzaffarnagar, he was responding to questions on whether the Jat community had taken the Hindutva turn and what explains their anger against the BJP now.

Before we proceed, a little update on political developments in western Uttar Pradesh, the Jat heartland, is in order. The community which voted overwhelmingly in favour of the BJP in the general election of 2014 appears to be upset with the party. With the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party not being automatic choices for the Jat community, a considerable chunk of the social group has decided to vote for the Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal. A Jat mahapanchayat held at Kharad village in January had asked its members not to vote for Narendra Modis party. It is not aiming to have a chief minister of its own; it just wants to punish the BJP. It feels it was used and dumped.

It is obvious that the community is not sold on the BJPs promise to clear arrears of sugarcane farmers or waive farm loans on small and marginal farmers.

Rakesh Tikait, son of the legendary farmers leader Mahendra Singh Tikait, does not believe the anti-BJP mood is linked to the issues of farmers. We are a farmers body. We ensure that we get what we must through agitations. The members of the Jat community are free to vote for who they want. We havent issued any instruction to farmers to vote this way or that, he says, evading a satisfying answer. BKU is known to have been involved in Jatland politics. But how can one see farmer's issues and Jat politics as separate entities?

Malik, who is associated with BKU but is not an office-bearer, provides the answer. Its about the Jat ego, which the BJP has hurt badly during its nearly three year in power, he explains. Choudhury Ajit Singh is not a great favourite in the community. The Jats had rejected him in 1996 and had no qualms in doing so in 2014. But the way the BJP government in Delhi treated him in 2014 was considered an insult to the community.

Around September that year the Union government had slapped an eviction notice on him besides a steep fine for holding on to his official residence. He had earlier written to the government seeking to turn the residence into a memorial for his father Choudhury Charan Singh. It was rejected. After this, thousands of his supporters had protested the move to evict him. Protesting against their leader's 'insult' at Muradnagar, even BKU protesters had threatened to cut off water supply to Delhi. A request from then Chief Minister Bhoopinder Singh Hooda to Urban Development minister Venkaiah Naidu in support of Ajit Singh was also overturned.

This development hurt the Jat pride, says Malik. But didnt the Jats still vote for the BJP in Haryana? Yes, but it was the beginning. The BJPs reaction to the Jat quota agitation in Haryana was the next provocation.

After making a promise on it, the BJP showed no intent of pursuing it. The Jat agitation turned violent and many youth were arrested. There were allegations that women were molested. Have the Jats come this low? They can be a bit headstrong and aggressive but they certainly have a sense of dignity, Malik says, adding, Eighty-five percent of Jats will vote against the BJP this time. Tikait disagrees with the number but does not refute the reasons for anger in the community.

Speaking to Firstpost at his residence in Muzaffarnagar, Ashok Baliyan, chief of Peasants Welfare Organisation whos also well-versed in Jatland politics concurs, Jats in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh are not different people. Both think alike on the issue of reservation and insult to Ajit Singh. Of course, they are not happy with the BJP. But the party will still get good votes. Jats are divided on it.

Probe further and he accepts that the dislocation of the local economy due to the riots in 2013 is a reason for the Jat annoyance. Muslim labourers to work in the fields are gone. Now the farmers have to hire more expensive farm hands from Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Bihar. This is not a big reason for the current anti-BJP mood though, he says.

Ask him whether the RLD will be a beneficiary, he strongly disagrees. Can Jat votes only ensure him seats? Who else is with him? Muslims have gone to either the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance or to the BSP. Dalits are with the BSP. Can Ajit Singh win on his own?

That is a valid question. But the bigger question is whether the BJP can still manage a respectable show. All equations can change overnight, Malik says. The BJP would hope it does.
The hill state of Uttarakhand, which was largely in the news for last year's Constitutional crisis and ensuing President's Rule that was subsequently quashed, goes to polls on 15 February. The state is important for both Congress and BJP. While Congress hopes to retain power in the state, BJP has made consistent efforts in the state to rock the boat.

The key parties in the state are Congress and BJP; although the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Samajwadi Party (SP) have a minor presence in the state, it's negligible and isn't expected to make a difference to the two big parties' prospects. The Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD) takes credit for the formation of the state, but it doesn't particularly have a connect with the voter-base.

Speaking to Hindustan Times, Kashi Singh Airy, UKD patron said, "We (UKD) were the ones who played an important role in the formation of Uttarakhand and we alone can nurture it properly."

Here are all the key players in Uttarakhand:

Harish Rawat, Congress

Harish Chandra Singh Rawat is the incumbent chief minister of Uttarakhand. He has been a five-time Member of Parliament. He hails from Mohanari village near Chaunalia in Almora district. Rawat got his degrees in Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Law from Lucknow University. He started his political career by joining politics at the village level. He was inclined towards the Congress' ideology right from the outset and was a member of Youth Congress and a trade union leader for several years before joining the party ranks. In 2016, the BJP-led central government made a failed attempt at dislodging the Rawat-led government in Uttarakhand by citing constitutional breakdown in the state. The Supreme Court held that the imposition of President's Rule in Uttarakhand was invalid and paved the way for restoration of Rawat's government in the state.

Vijay Bahuguna, BJP

He served as Uttarakhand chief minister in 2012, drawing significant ire from Rawat. He subsequently resigned following severe criticism that he received for his handling of the 2012 floods in the state. He recently rebelled from the Congress and joined hands with the BJP, and has been inducted in to the saffron party's national executive. Bahuguna is a former high court judge and son of former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna. He is also a cousin of BC Khanduri, another former Uttarakhand chief minister.

BC Khanduri

Khanduri served as the chief minister of Uttarakhand twice (2007-2009 and 2011-2012). He also served a Cabinet minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government at the Centre and gave shape to the 'Golden Quadrilateral Project'. During his tenure as chief minister of Uttarakhand, Khanduri cut down expenses by reducing security for himself and other administrative officials and restricted the use of chief minister's discretionary funds.

Bhagat Singh Koshyari

Koshyari began his career with the RSS. In 1997, he became the member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council. In 2000, Koshyari was appointed the minister of irrigation, law, energy and legislative affairs of the newly developed state of Uttarakhand. In 2001, Bhagat replaced Nityanand Swami and became the chief minister of the state.

Indira Hrideyesh

Hridayesh is popularly referred to as the iron lady, and is a Congress stalwart. She began her career under ND Tiwari, who mentored her in the early 70s. She has massive clout in the Haldwani Assembly segment and she won the 2012 election with a record margin.

Satpal Maharaj

Maharaj was appointed as vice-chairman of the 20-point implementation programme during the 2002-2007 ND Tiwari regime. He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2009. He is credited with reforms in Uttarakhand.

Ajay Bhatt

Bhatt is a senior BJP member and Leader of Opposition in the Assembly. He was recently elected unopposed as chief of the party's state unit for the 2017 polls. Bhatt was elected unopposed as all three sets of nomination papers. Bhatt has also served as health minister of Uttarakhand. He said he would aim for victory in the 2017 Assembly elections by working together with all the party members.

ND Tiwari and Rohit Shekhar

In the first ever post-Independence Assembly election in Uttar Pradesh in 1952, ND Tiwari was elected from Nainital constituency and became an MLA for the first time on a Praja Samajwadi Party ticket. In 1957, he was elected from the Nainital constituency, and became leader of Opposition in the Assembly. In January 2017, he, along with son Rohit Shekhar, joined the BJP.
In the late 1990s, when the statehood demands for Uttarakhand were being considered, the town of Gairsain in Chamoli district was envisioned as the future state's capital. However, when the state was officially formed in November 2000, Dehradun was declared temporary capital until the decks can be cleared for building a new city. And Dehradun is still the capital city, 17 years later. However, demands for Gairsain to be given the status of permanent capital have never really gone away.

Surprisingly though, the issue has not lost its relevance. Even today, political parties are using Gairsain's status as a poll plank. According to a report in The Tribune, the question of the permanent capital of the state has never been settled, and it was former chief minister Vijay Bahuguna who revived the Gairsain card after the defeat of his son Saket in the Tehri Lok Sabha by-election in October 2012.

The report also said that a commission headed by Justice (retd) Virender Dixit to decide upon the suitability of a place for permanent capital of Uttarakhand looked into the feasibility of five places  Dehradun, Gairsain, Rishikesh, Kahipur and Ramnagar  on several parameters, including geographic conditions, population, accessibility, transport system, proneness to earthquake or landslides and security.

The commission found that Gairsain was less viable.

However, nobody really wanted to go against this choice, as Gairsain had been an emotional choice among people who were the original agitators for statehood to Uttarakhand.

After Rawat took charge in 2013, he made Gairsain his priority. Even today, Rawat insists he is working for the infrastructure development of state. According to The Hindu, both parties  Congress and BJP  decided that Gairsain must either be declared the state's permanent capital or its summer capital. However, both parties remain ambivalent.

"If the Congress government is not clear about the status of Gairsain, then it is wasting public money (by constructing the Vidhan Sabha building at Gairsain)," said Uttarakhand BJP president Ajay Bhatt, although chief minister Rawat said the Congress proved its stance by having the Vidhan Sabha building constructed there.

While it cannot be denied that both parties are in favour of a capital at Gairsain, it cannot be easy to have this in place. Hindustan Times reported that out of the 13 districts in the state, more than half are located in the four districts of Dehradun, Haridwar, US Nagar and Nainital. These districts  all located in the central plains  play a pivotal role in deciding which direction the state politics will move. The high population density in the plains districts seems to be one of the reasons why the Rawat government has back-tracked from its earlier plan.

SS Pangati, a former Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officer told Hindustan Times that neither party will follow through with this plan. "Even the caretaker BJP government in 2001, constituted the Dixit Commission to suggest names of cities that could be declared as the capital. The commission suggested a few names, including Dehradun and Gairsain, and the report tabled in the assembly by the then BJP government. The then BC Khanduri government did not act on the report," Pangati said.
Berlin: Chancellor Angela Merkel hopes for progress on deporting more rejected asylum-seekers as she meets with governors of Germany's 16 states on Thursday.

Merkel, who faces an election in September, has called repeatedly for a "national effort" to make sure that people who have no right to stay leave the country.

Deportations are a matter for state governments. But Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere has made clear the federal government wants more influence.

He called on Thursday for "exit-centres" near airports where people could be taken ahead of deportations "so that things are more orderly and many don't simply evade deportation at the last minute."

De Maiziere told ARD television he wants a national centre to coordinate returns.

Merkel had said earlier that there was no solution to the problem of how to fairly share the burden of migration in the European Union, an issue that has weighed on Berlin's relations with other members of the 28-nation bloc ever since the migrant influx of 2015.

The impasse has given ammunition to Merkel's domestic critics, who have railed against Germany's decision to take in hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers over the past two years even as other European countries closed their borders to migrants.
Beijing: China praised US President Donald Trump on Thursday for expressing a desire for a "constructive relationship" in a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping, even though the leaders have not spoken directly since Trump's inauguration.

Trump sent belated well-wishes for the Lunar New Year in a letter from the White House on Wednesday.

He had been the only US president in recent years not to have issued greetings to the world's most populous nation on its most important holiday, which fell this year on 28 Jan. The silence triggered speculation in China as to whether it was an oversight or an intentional slight.

A statement from the White House late Wednesday said Trump wrote to Xi that he looked forward to "develop a constructive relationship that benefits both the United States and China."

Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China "highly commended" Trump for the letter to Xi wishing the Chinese people greetings for the new year and the Lantern Festival that falls on Saturday. Lu dismissed suggestions that Beijing took offense in the timing.

"It is known to all that since President Trump took office, China and the US have been in close contact," Lu said.

Speculation has simmered in China about how Trump might back up his tough talk, with observers noting that since his Jan. 20 inauguration, Trump has spoken to more than a dozen foreign leaders but not Xi.

Trump has accused Beijing of unfair trade practices and a deliberately undervalued currency, criticised China's military buildup in the South China Sea and accused Beijing of doing too little to pressure neighbor North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs.

He also upended four decades of diplomatic protocol by speaking by phone with Tsai Ing-wen, the president of Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory.

Beijing decried the phone call with Tsai and has rejected the other accusations. China has in fact been spending heavily from its foreign currency reserves to prop up the value of its currency, which would make its exports less competitive.

The prospect of a military confrontation over the South China Sea has been raised by Trump's chief strategist, Steve Bannon, when he hosted the conservative Breitbart News Daily radio show in 2015 and 2016.

Bannon said he envisioned the possibility of a US-China war over the strategic waterbody within five to 10 years. China, which claims virtually all of the sea, has been building man-made islands in the area and equipping them with airstrips and military installations.

Despite Trump's confrontational image, Chinese internet users were warmed by a brief video clip of his granddaughter singing in Chinese that circulated on the web earlier this month.
London: British Parliament overwhelmingly supported a bill on Thursday empowering Prime Minister Theresa May to start crucial negotiations by 31 March on leaving the European Union, bringing Brexit a step closer.

The draft legislation of the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill was approved by 494 votes to 122 by the House of Commons after its final debate.

The bill allows Prime Minister May to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to begin a two-year period of negotiations for the UK's new deal as a non-member of the European Union (EU) by 2019.

Now that the bill had passed the Commons, it will be debated in the House of Lords after it returns from recess on 20 February, where it is expected to be given the final nod. Earlier, the Commons debated the last set of amendments to the Bill, including on key principles for the negotiation process, before the bill went on to its third and final reading for the vote.

Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn had instructed his MPs to vote in favour of the bill whether any amendments are made or not. However, he faced a second round of rebellion after over 49 MPs had defied the whip at the last vote earlier this month. Some 52 Labour MPs rebelled in vote on Thursday, including Shadow business secretary Clive Lewis who resigned shortly beforehand.

Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott, who missed last week's initial vote on the bill, backed it this time. She told the BBC she had "a lot of misgivings about the idea of a Tory Brexit" and predicted the UK would "come to regret it", but added: "I'm a loyal member of the shadow cabinet and I'm loyal to Jeremy Corbyn."

May herself faced a rebellion of up to a dozen of her Conservative MPs, but she managed to minimise the Tory rebellion on Tuesday by promising a Commons vote on the Brexit agreement before it is finalised.

Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, welcomed this as an important concession but others have dismissed it as a "take it or leave it" offer.

The bill was tabled last month after the Supreme Court ruled that MPs and peers must have a say before Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty could be triggered. May had initially sought to bypass parliament. However, Supreme Court rejected the UK government's argument that May had sufficient executive powers to trigger Brexit without consulting Parliament.

David Davis, UK minister for exiting the European Union, had opened the debate in the House of Commons with a clear message to MPs that they must implement a decision made by the people in the June 2016 referendum  with 51.9 percent wanting to leave the EU and 48.1 percent wanting to remain within the 28-nation economic bloc.

Afterwards, Davis hailed the "historic vote" and said it is now time for everyone, whichever way they voted in the referendum, to unite to make a success of the important task at hand for our country.

Later, Corbyn tweeted:

Real fight starts now. Over next two years Labour will use every opportunity to ensure Brexit protects jobs, living standards & the economy.  Jeremy Corbyn MP (@jeremycorbyn) February 8, 2017

But Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon accused him of giving the Conservatives a "blank cheque". She tweeted:

How? You've just handed the Tories a blank cheque. You didn't win a single concession but still voted for the Bill. Pathetic. https://t.co/kDje2GLAey  Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) February 8, 2017

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said the party's peers would seek to amend the bill in the Lords, including another attempt to ensure a referendum on the final Brexit deal.
OTTAWA Canada is very concerned by Israel's move to legalize thousands of settler homes on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank, Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Wednesday.The Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, which took power in late 2015, is more prepared to criticize Israel than the former Conservative administration, which adopted a resolutely pro-Israel policy.Israel's Parliament on Monday approved a law retroactively legalizing homes built on privately owned Palestinian land. The move generated broad international condemnation.

"Canada is very concerned ... and we want to underline that this expansion of settlements is illegal under international law," Freeland told reporters on a conference call.Canada is calling on all parties not to make unilateral moves which could have a negative effect, she added.

Ottawa has long backed a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Sandra Maler)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Beijing: India can increase its "military pressure" on Pakistan using the alibi of "counter-terrorism crusade" that may bring "other players" in the region, China's official media warned on Thursday, justifying Beijing's latest block on a proposed UN ban on JeM chief Masood Azhar.

"India has its own reasons to have listed Azhar as terrorist. However, observers are also worried that under the defence of counter-terrorism crusade, India can increase its military pressure on Pakistan, thus risking escalating tensions between the two countries," state-run Global Times said in an editorial.

It comes just a day after China defended its decision to block the US' proposal in the UN for designating Pathankot attack mastermind and JeM chief Azhar as a global terrorist, saying the "conditions" have not yet been met for Beijing to back the move.

"The India-Pakistan has been a thorny issue in South Asia for a long time and China is caught in the middle, given geographic and geopolitical proximity to the two," it said without mentioning China's all weather ties with Pakistan.

"The failure to bring the two on the path to peace underscores their different domestic and diplomatic trajectories. Any action the UN takes should assist the peace process rather than escalating tensions between the two countries," the editorial said.

Interestingly, the editorial can only be read in the print edition as internet link to it was blocked. Projecting an enlarged role for Beijing in the tensions between India and Pakistan, it said "as a responsible power China must help maintain regional order".

It said China is aware that terrorism is a burning issue. "China has also set up anti-terror mechanism with India but regional peace and stability will always be a priority," it said. "Any India-Pakistan confrontation may bring other players into the region, which would complicate the situation," it said without naming "other players".

Significantly for China, the resolution to ban Azhar in the Al-Qaeda related 1267 Committee of the UN Security Council was moved this time by the US and backed by other UNSC permanent members like UK and France unlike last year when India moved the application which was backed by all members except China.

However, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang yesterday while defending China's technical hold, played down US move to directly moving the resolution for the ban on Azhar. "Whoever submitted the request we believe all the members of the committee will act in line with regulations of the security council and its affiliations," he told the media. He said the move has not met the conditions for a ban and needed consensus for approval.

In its editorial today, the Global Times, the ruling Communist Party of China's (CPC) tabloid, known for striking nationalistic postures said India has not produced enough evidence to back its case about Azhar's involvement in the Pathankot airbase attack which incidentally scuttled India- Pakistan peace process.

"Unlike Indian media's criticism of China's veto, Pakistan media reported that people in the country welcomed the news, which reflect deep divisions among the people in the two countries," it said.

"What is troublesome is some Indian media view China with prejudice and overtly interpret China's moves, especially after China and Pakistan hastened the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project," it said.

But at the same time it said China supports India's efforts to curb terrorism. "India can work more to bring all the parties to reach consensus over the issue, instead of only blaming others for its failed attempts."
US President Donald Trump has broken the ice with Chinese President Xi Jinping in a letter that said he looked forward to working with him to develop constructive relations, although the pair haven't spoken directly since Trump took office.

The letter thanked Xi for his congratulatory note on Trump's inauguration and wished the Chinese people a prosperous Lunar New Year of the Rooster, the White House said in a statement on Wednesday.

"President Trump stated that he looks forward to working with President Xi to develop a constructive relationship that benefits both the United States and China," it said.

China's Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment on Thursday.

Trump and Xi have yet to speak directly since Trump took office on 20 January, although they did talk soon after Trump won the US presidential election in November.

Diplomatic sources in Beijing say China has been nervous about Xi being left humiliated in the event a call with Trump goes wrong and the details are leaked to the US media.

Last week, US ties with staunch ally Australia became strained after the Washington Post published details about an acrimonious phone call between Trump and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

"That is the last thing China wants," a source familiar with China's thinking on relations with the United States said. "It would be incredibly embarrassing for President Xi and for Chinese people, who value the concept of face."

A senior non-US Western diplomat said China was likely to be in no rush to set up such a call.

"These things need to happen in a very controlled environment for China, and China can't guarantee that with the unpredictable Trump," the diplomat said.

"Trump also seems too distracted with other issues at the moment to give too much attention to China."

Taiwan, Yuan in focus

There are a number of contentious areas where China fears Trump could go off script, the diplomat said, pointing in particular to the issue of self-ruled Taiwan, as well as trade.

Trump upset China in December by taking a phone call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen. China considers Taiwan a wayward province with no right to formal diplomatic relations with any other country.

Trump has also threatened to slap tariffs on Chinese imports, accusing Beijing of devaluing its yuan currency and stealing US jobs.

In his Senate confirmation hearing, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said China should not be allowed access to islands it has built in the disputed South China Sea. The White House also vowed to defend "international territories" in the strategic waterway.

China has repeatedly said it has smooth contacts with the Trump team. The Foreign Ministry in Beijing said last week the two countries were remaining "in close touch".

That contact has been led by China's top diplomat, State Councillor Yang Jiechi, who outranks the foreign minister.

Yang told Michael Flynn, Trump's National Security Advisor, last week that China hopes it can work with the United States to manage and control disputes and sensitive problems.

The source familiar with China's thinking said Trump's administration was "very clear" about China's position on Taiwan. Trump has yet to mention Taiwan since he took office.

Chinese state media has wondered whether Trump has a China policy at all.

On Thursday, the widely read Global Times tabloid, published by the ruling Communist Party's official People's Daily, noted that Trump had not immediately confronted China as had been expected because he had realised upsetting Beijing would backfire badly.

"He has probably realised that real tough action against China would result in a complex chain reaction, even beyond his control," the paper said in an editorial.

Wang Yiwei, a professor of international relations at Beijing's elite Renmin University, said the letter suggested the new US administration wanted to signal the importance it attached to the US-China relationship without risking being confronted on specific issues.

"Trump has sent many messages that makes the world confused, like on the South China Sea and 'One China' policy, so if he makes a phone call President Xi will ask 'what do you mean?'," Wang said. "He wants to avoid this so he just sends a letter for the first step."
Eight countries have joined an initiative to raise millions of dollars to replace shortfalls caused by President Donald Trump's ban on US-funded groups around the world providing information on abortion, Sweden's deputy prime minister said.

Isabella Lovin said that a conference would be held on 2 March in Brussels to kick-start the funding initiative to help non-governmental organisations whose family planning projects could be affected.

The Netherlands announced in January the launch of a global fund to help women access abortion services, saying Trump's "global gag rule" would cause a funding shortfall of $600 million over the next four years.

Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Luxemburg, Finland, Canada and Cape Verde have all lent their support, Lovin said.

"(The gag order) could be so dangerous for so many women," said Lovin, who posed for a photograph this month with seven other female officials signing an environmental bill, in what was seen a response to a photograph of Trump signing the gag order in the White House with five male advisors.

The global gag rule, which affects US non-governmental organisations working abroad, is one that incoming presidents have used to signal their positions on abortion rights. It was created under US President Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Trump signed it at a ceremony in the White House on his fourth day in office. Barack Obama lifted the gag rule in 2009 when he took office.

"If women don't have control over their bodies and their own fate it can have very serious consequences for global goals of gender rights and global poverty eradication," Lovin said.
Caens: An explosion at a nuclear power plant on France's northwest coast caused minor injuries on Thursday, but the authorities said there was no risk of radiation.

The blast took place in the engine room at the Flamanville plant, which lies 25 kilometres (15 miles) west of the port of Cherbourg and just across from the Channel Islands.

"It is not a nuclear accident," senior local official Jacques Witkowski told AFP. He said a ventilator had exploded outside the nuclear zone at the plant, which has been in operation since the 1980s.

Five people suffered smoke inhalation but there were no serious injuries, Witkowski said.

One of the two pressurised water reactors at the plant was shut down after the explosion and the incident was declared over at 1100 GMT, the authorities said.

A new third-generation reactor known as EPR is also being built at Flamanville, which will be the world's largest when it goes into operation in late 2018.

Construction of the new plant at the site in Normandy began in 2007 and was initially due for completion in 2012 but has been delayed several times.
When actor and Quantico star Priyanka Chopra, appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert said, "I'm here on a visa so I've got to watch what I say" she gave voice to what a lot of Indians in the US are feeling at the moment.

Even though a federal judge in Seattle stayed the 27 January executive order that barred the entry of people from seven Muslim-majority countries and none of the orders, so far, mention Indians specifically, US president Donald Trumps executive orders are making Indians quite nervous.

Although my Facebook feed was full of anti-Trump sentiments from Indians in the United States both during and after the elections, requests for interviews were met with little enthusiasm. And even though I assured friends that I wouldnt quote them but would simply like to hear their opinion, many declined to comment. Thankfully, friends of friends and those with green cards spoke up.

Luv Sharma, 34, who has been in Seattle for eight years, took part in the protest against the travel ban. Indians arent mentioned in the executive order so were okay for now but these policies are xenophobic and against basic human decency. Ive been part of the protests right from the beginning  protesting a right-wing proto-fascist was a no-brainer, he says. But Luv works for a left-leaning educational institute and has a green card. Other Indians in the US have had to face flak for voicing their opinions.

Niraj Lodaya, 26, works for a medical devices start-up in Silicon Valley. Lodaya says an innocuous comment from him on Facebook with regard to Donald Trump elicited extreme reactions from both American and Indian friends. I decided to delete the comment even though it was only based on facts. But everyone on my page felt it wasnt my place to make that comment. Becoming a part of the protest is out of the question as this is my last shot to get an H1B visa."

"But honestly, Im okay if it doesnt work out. Ive checked out some co-working spaces in Mumbai and they look great. Start-ups there are doing some cutting edge work and I could apply some of what Ive learnt here, he says. Even though Niraj has a family and a large support system in the US, he says his friends and he have started seriously considering moving back to India. Were not sure what to make of whats happening. Those of us who wanted to go back anyway are thinking sooner better than later, he says with a smile.

The Indian community isnt rallying together yet. A few feel its too early to start imagining the worst. The expectation is that it will become difficult to get an H1B visa (for workers in specialty occupations) if priority is given to higher paid individuals or if the total quota is reduced. The current legislation caps the number of H1B visas given annually at 85,000.

"I think the American economy needs individuals like me. Why would they give me a scholarship and access to a world-class education if they didnt want me to contribute? asks Ashwin Jeyakrishnan who graduated from a top university last year. Ashwin is hoping that the 24 month STEM OPT (Optional Practical Training) extension stays.

Students who graduate from American universities get a one year OPT period during which they can work on a student visa. During the Obama administration, this period was extended by 24 months for those who studied science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The number of American students going to college is reducing every year. If you took a look at my graduating class, the majority of students studying maths and engineering are Asian. The new administration is likely to reduce the OPT period and thats scaring a few people but Im not worried. And while I may not like whats going on, I dont have a say in the matter. Hes really not my president. This is for the American people to sort out, says Ashwin.

Immigrating to the US has been easier for engineering and IT professionals. Those in journalism or the arts have had to work harder to get the same benefits. Pavni Mittal, a journalist with Al Jazeera who was working in New York during the US elections says she is shocked at how things have unfolded. As someone who covered Trump on election night, I saw the dismay and gloom that set in after he won. Trump's policies are divisive. There are no two questions about him being racist and misogynist but the most painful bit is that this did not deter his supporters. Everyone is nervous about his policies, especially immigration. But there's a difference between people like me who studied here and many Indians sent here for work. From what I understand, Trump has shown a preference to help the former."

Pavni, a former CNBC TV-18 anchor, graduated from Columbia University last year with an MA in Politics and Global Affairs. While she is confident that a global organization like Al Jazeera appreciates the diversity she brings to the table, she is on her OPT and is hoping that things change for the better.

Firms like Apple, Google, Amazon and Uber have drafted a letter asking the president to reconsider his travel ban. Some companies are even considering legal action. Others are patiently answering questions on immigration and emphasising how much they value diversity. Universities with foreign students have been holding information sessions to separate rumour from fact. But these efforts may not mean much if the administration has its way.

Considering he's acting on all the claims that people thought are unthinkable and undoable, one fears if he can do something so radical overnight, what's stopping him from repeating that with Indians? asks 30-year-old Shruti Kolhli who moved to New York last year. Ive got some embarrassed, almost apologetic explanations from friends about how this is absolutely un-American and how they're aghast at what's happening."

But the United States has had a long history of violence, slavery and nativism  some critics would say that whats happening in the US is, in fact, quite American. Indians who are there without a green card or citizenship are on thin ice, so while its only natural that theyre quieter than usual theyre not panicking just yet.
PETAH TIKVA, Israel A Palestinian man opened fire in an Israeli market on Thursday, injuring four people, before being arrested by police, Israeli authorities said.Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the man from the West Bank opened fire with an automatic weapon in the city of Petah Tikva, 10 km (six miles) east of Tel Aviv. He shot two people in the legs and two others were also injured."The terrorist was captured," he said. "We're trying to understand how he arrived in the area."

A wave of Palestinian street attacks, including vehicle rammings, shootings and stabbings, began in October 2015 and has slowed but not stopped completely. Israel blames the violence on incitement by the Palestinian leadership.

The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank, denies that and says assailants have acted out of frustration over Israeli occupation of land sought by Palestinians in peace talks that have been stalled since 2014.

(Reporting by Rami Amichai and Ari Rabinovitch; editing by Andrew Roche)

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Bucharest: Romanian Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu easily survived a no-confident vote on Wednesday as his left-wing government battles nationwide unrest over its attempt to weaken corruption laws. The motion, submitted by the centre-right opposition, failed to garner the required 233 votes in parliament where Grindeanu's left-wing Social Democrat party (PSD) holds a solid majority after winning elections only two months ago.

The prime minister had appeared defiant ahead of the vote and vowed not to quit. "We have a duty to the people who gave us their trust during the election and to continue to govern," the 43-year-old told lawmakers in Bucharest. For more than a week, hundreds of thousands of people have protested against an emergency decree approved on January 31, which critics say would have protected the corrupt from prosecution. Although the measure was scrapped late Sunday, the marches have continued, with some protesters vowing not to stop until the government steps down.

While the crowds have noticeably shrunk from the half a million people thronging cities and towns on Sunday  the largest rallies since the fall of Communism in 1989  they are expected to grow again over the weekend. "Every action the government took in the last week proves that they are not honest at all. So we cannot trust them," protester Danchiric, who works in advertising, said at Bucharest's Victory Square where 3,000 people had gathered on Tuesday night. "Romanians don't want corrupt politicians to be pardoned and shielded from justice. We call on you to stop acting against the law," read the motion filed by 123 opposition MPs, dozens of whom wore armbands reading "Quit".

Observers say much of the public anger is directed at the graft-riddled political establishment, which includes powerful PSD head Liviu Dragnea The 54-year-old was barred from running for office because of a voter fraud conviction and is currently on trial for alleged abuse of power, a charge he denies. "The government has understood the demonstrators' message. Other measures will be taken to end this conflict," Dragnea said on Wednesday.

The street protests have also grown into political arm-wrestling between the PSD and the opposition-backed President Klaus Iohannis who has championed the mass rallies. In a parliamentary address Tuesday, Iohannis had hinted that the government should quit. "The repeal of the decree and the possible sacking of a minister is too little. Early elections are too much," Iohannis said. "If the PSD, which has created this crisis, fails to resolve the crisis immediately, I will summon all the political parties for talks. You've won, now govern and legislate  but not at any price," he warned.
By Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Daren Butler

| AMMAN/ANKARA

AMMAN/ANKARA Russian air strikes accidentally killed three Turkish soldiers and wounded 11 others during an operation against Islamic State in northern Syria on Thursday, the Turkish military said."During an operation by a Russia Federation warplane against Islamic State targets in the region of the Euphrates Shield operation in Syria, a bomb accidentally hit a building used by Turkish Army units," the military said in statement.The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin had called Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan and expressed his condolences, blaming the misdirected strikes on poor coordination between Moscow and Ankara.The incident highlighted the risk of unintended clashes between the numerous outside powers involved in Syria's complex six-year-old war. Besides Russia and Turkey, they include Lebanon's Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed militias, and members of a U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State.Russia is a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while Turkey supports the rebels opposing him. In 2015, Turkey shot down a Russian air force jet that it said had crossed into Turkish airspace, though Moscow denied that happened.

The two countries have since repaired relations, and Thursday's Kremlin statement said the two leaders had agreed to step up military coordination against Islamic State.Turkish-backed Syrian rebels meanwhile pursued a major offensive against the IS-held Syrian city of al-Bab, 30 km (20 miles) south of the border with Turkey.

A rebel commander said fighters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), working with Turkish commanders, were moving forward from territory near the western gates of the city, which they had stormed on Wednesday."The battles began a short while ago to complete what had been achieved yesterday," said a commander of a leading FSA group fighting in al-Bab, who requested anonymity.The capture of the town would deepen Turkish influence in an area of northern Syria where it has created a de facto buffer zone. It launched its Euphrates Shield operations in August, backing Syrian rebels with special forces, tanks and aircraft to sweep Islamic State from its border area and stop the advance of a Kurdish militia.

Al-Bab is a major economic hub for the militants and lies on a key crossroads for the region north of Aleppo. Syrian government forces have also advanced on it from the south, bringing them close to their Turkish and rebel enemies.The Turkish military said on Thursday it had killed 44 militants in aerial and artillery strikes and clashes in northern Syria. Five Turkish soldiers were killed in the clashes, the private Turkish news agency Dogan said. (Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Ece Toksabay; Additional reporting by Daren Butler in Istanbul and Andrey Ostroukh in Moscow; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Daren Butler

| AMMAN/ANKARA

AMMAN/ANKARA Russian air strikes accidentally killed three Turkish soldiers during an operation against Islamic State in Syria on Thursday, the Turkish military said, highlighting the risk of unintended clashes between the numerous outside powers in a complex war."During an operation by a Russia Federation warplane against Islamic State targets in the region of the Euphrates Shield operation in Syria, a bomb accidentally hit a building used by Turkish Army units," the Turkish military said in a statement. Eleven other soldiers were wounded.The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin had called Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan and expressed his condolences, blaming the incident on poor coordination between Moscow and Ankara.Besides Russia and Turkey, the foreign powers embroiled in Syria's increasingly convoluted six-year-old war include Lebanon's Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed militias, and members of a U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State.Russia is a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while Turkey supports the rebels opposing him. In 2015, Turkey shot down a Russian air force jet that it said had crossed into Turkish airspace, though Moscow denied that happened.The two countries have since repaired relations, and Thursday's Kremlin statement said the two leaders had agreed to step up military coordination against Islamic State.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence expressed condolences for the Turkish losses in a call with Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, in which they discussed cooperation in the fight against terrorism, Yildirim's office said.CLOSING IN ON AL-BAB

Turkish-backed Syrian rebels meanwhile pursued a major offensive against the IS-held Syrian city of al-Bab, 30 km (20 miles) south of the border with Turkey. Their advances risk putting them in conflict with Syrian government forces also closing in on the city from the south.A rebel commander said fighters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), working with Turkish commanders, were moving forward from territory near the western gates of al-Bab, which they had stormed on Wednesday."The battles began a short while ago to complete what had been achieved yesterday," said a commander of a leading FSA group fighting in al-Bab, who requested anonymity.

The capture of the town would deepen Turkey's influence in an area of northern Syria where it has created a de facto buffer zone. It launched its Euphrates Shield operation in August, backing Syrian rebels with special forces, tanks and aircraft to sweep Islamic State from its border area and stop the advance of a Kurdish militia.Al-Bab is a major economic hub for the militants and lies on a key crossroads for the region north of Aleppo. Syria's army secured a string of villages on the southern edge of the city on Thursday, state media said.The Turkish military said it had killed 44 militants in aerial and artillery strikes and clashes in northern Syria. Five Turkish soldiers were killed in the clashes, the private Turkish news agency Dogan said. (Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Ece Toksabay; Additional reporting by Daren Butler in Istanbul and Andrey Ostroukh in Moscow; Editing by Mark Trevelyan/Nick Tattersall)

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By Doina Chiacu

| WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON Silenced on the Senate floor, Democrat Elizabeth Warren took her criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general out to the hallway - and found a much larger audience.Republican senators voted on Tuesday evening to end Warren's reading of a letter written 30 years ago by Martin Luther King Jr.'s widow that criticized Senator Jeff Sessions, the nominee to lead the Justice Department, for his civil rights record.The action prompted a tide of support on Facebook for Warren, a darling of the political left, under a hashtag #LetLizSpeak after she went outside the chamber and read the letter in a video posted on the site that drew nearly 8 million views by Wednesday afternoon."The Republicans took away my right to read this letter on the floor - so I'm right outside, reading it now," she said.Democrats flocked to Warren's defence, including 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. In a rare public comment since losing to Trump on Nov. 8, Clinton posted on Twitter a link to Warren's video: "She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted. So must we all."The unusual rebuke of Warren came after the Republican-controlled Senate on Tuesday cleared the way for confirming Sessions as attorney general. A final vote was expected on Wednesday.

Warren took to the Senate floor to argue against the nomination, reading the letter Coretta Scott King wrote in 1986 about Sessions to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which ultimately rejected his nomination to be a federal judge.Sessions had "used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens" when he prosecuted voting fraud cases when he was the U.S. attorney in Alabama," according to the letter read by Warren. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell cut her off, saying that she broke a Senate rule that "impugned the motives and conduct of our colleague from Alabama." Senators voted 49-43 to silence Warren.Warren has been a fiery critic of Trump since he launched his presidential campaign. Democrats have expressed concern about Sessions' record on race, immigration and criminal justice reform.

"Mr. President, I am surprised that the words of Coretta Scott King are not suitable for debate in the United States Senate. I ask leave of the Senate to continue my remarks," the senator from Massachusetts responded. Fellow Democrats flocked to Warren's defence on Wednesday."This is not what America is about - silencing speech - especially in this chamber," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

A number of Democratic senators read from King's letter, including former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. "When I read the same letter as @SenWarren, no one prevented me from speaking. Sen. McConnell owes Sen. Warren an apology. #LetLizSpeak," Sanders said in a Twitter post.Many civil rights and immigration groups also have concerns about Sessions with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) saying his positions on gay rights, capital punishment, abortion rights and presidential authority in times of war should be examined. Sessions was a federal prosecutor in 1986 when he became only the second nominee in 50 years to be denied confirmation as a federal judge. This came after allegations that he had made racist remarks, including testimony that he had called an African-American prosecutor "boy," an allegation Sessions denied.Sessions said at his hearing in 1986 that groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the ACLU could be considered "un-American." He also acknowledged he had called the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a "piece of intrusive legislation." (Reporting by Doina Chiacu in Washington and Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Alistair Bell and Tom Brown)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Doina Chiacu

| WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump castigated a Democratic senator on Thursday for saying U.S. Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch had voiced dismay in a private meeting over Trump's attacks on the judiciary, while Republicans came forward to back up the lawmaker's portrayal.The Republican president has publicly vented his frustration with a court order last week that temporarily halted his travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries, criticizing the judge who issued the order, the appeals process and the wider judiciary. That has morphed into a dispute over comments made by his pick for the Supreme Court.Senator Richard Blumenthal said on Wednesday that Gorsuch had told him that Trump's comments about the judiciary, which have included calling the judge who blocked his travel ban a "so-called judge," were "disheartening and demoralizing."On Thursday, Blumenthal urged Gorsuch to condemn Trump's attacks "publicly, unequivocally and clearly."Trump, in a Twitter post and in a later meeting with a bipartisan group of senators, accused Blumenthal of misrepresenting Gorsuch's comments.White House spokesman Sean Spicer, at a briefing with reporters, defended Trump and said Gorsuch had not been commenting specifically about the president's attacks on the judiciary.Blumenthal's account of Gorsuch's comments was backed up by Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist and spokesman for the nominee, and by Kelly Ayotte, a Republican former senator who has accompanied the judge during meetings with lawmakers to build support for his Senate confirmation.Other senators, including Republican Ben Sasse and Democrat Chuck Schumer, also said Gorsuch made similar comments to them.In blasting Blumenthal, Trump sought to revive a years-old controversy over the senator's military service during the Vietnam War era."Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie), now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?" Trump wrote in a Twitter post.Trump nominated Gorsuch, a conservative federal appeals court judge, on Jan. 31 as his nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left when Justice Antonin Scalia died a year ago. Democrats have said they will push to establish that Gorsuch can exercise independence if he is confirmed to the lifetime position on the country's highest court.

Blumenthal said there were numerous White House staffers in the room when Gorsuch made the comments. Ayotte said in a statement that Gorsuch, speaking in discussions with senators including Blumenthal, had said "he finds any criticism of a judge's integrity and independence disheartening and demoralizing," while making clear he "was not referring to any specific case."Gorsuch has not made any public comment on the matter.'ATTACK ON ALL JUDGES'

Sasse, who has been critical of Trump's attacks on the judiciary, described his meeting with Gorsuch.

"I asked him about the 'so-called judges' comment because we don't have so-called judges or so-called presidents or so-called senators," Sasse said on MSNBC. He added that Gorsuch "welled up with some energy" and said any attack on his "brothers or sisters of the robe is an attack on all judges."Spicer said the president had no regrets about his comments on the judiciary and that his behaviour would not change. "The president is going to speak his mind," he said. A federal judge in Seattle, James Robart, last Friday put on hold Trump's Jan. 27 executive order that temporarily barred entry to the United States by people from seven Muslim-majority countries and by all refugees. An appeals court is considering Robart's order and is expected to rule in the coming days.On Saturday, Trump called Robart a "so-called judge" whose "ridiculous" ruling "essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country." On Wednesday, he stepped up his criticism of the judiciary, calling courts "so political" and describing the proceedings in the appeals court as "disgraceful."Democrats have called Trump's comments an attack on a core principle of American democracy by which the judiciary is independent and upholds the rule of law.

GORSUCH CAUGHT IN STORM

Republican senators, who have the majority in the Senate, painted Gorsuch's comments as evidence of his independence from the president. But Schumer, leader of the Senate Democrats, said the judge's comments were "mild" at best and "insufficient" in terms of showing independence. "I think President Trump is going to harm both Judge Gorsuch's chances at confirmation and his standing as president if he continues to undermine the independence of the judiciary," Democratic Senator Chris Coons told CNN on Thursday.Trump's spat with Blumenthal overshadowed a meeting with senators that was aimed at trying to build support for Gorsuch. If confirmed, the judge would restore a conservative majority on the Supreme Court."Ask Senator Blumenthal about his Vietnam record," Trump told reporters at the meeting.In 2010, while running for the Senate, Blumenthal said he had "misspoken about my service" by earlier stating he had served in Vietnam when he in fact got military deferments before joining the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve in 1970, allowing him to avoid combat overseas.Blumenthal expressed regret over his previous comments but said he would proud of his service as a reservist.Trump himself received five deferments during the Vietnam War, including one for bone spurs in his heel, the New York Times reported last August, and never served in the military. (Additional reporting by Ayesha Rascoe, David Morgan, Susan Cornwell, Lawrence Hurley, Susan Heavey and Richard Cowan; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Tom Brown and Frances Kerry)

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By David Ljunggren

| OTTAWA

OTTAWA Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will hold his first talks with U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday amid tensions over whether the administration plans protectionist measures that could cripple Canada's economy.The two leaders also have differing views about immigration from predominantly Muslim nations and Trump is likely to press his Canadian counterpart to ramp up defence spending and thereby help shore up NATO.Although the progressive 45-year-old Trudeau has little in common with the 70-year-old Republican businessman president, he needs to make a good impression on Trump, who wants to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).Canada sends 75 percent of its exports to the United States and is keen to avoid becoming the target of extra tariffs or other damaging measures. Trump says NAFTA, which also includes Mexico, has been disastrous for American workers.Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland sounded a note of caution on Wednesday, saying Canada opposed the idea of the United States imposing new border tariffs and would respond appropriately to any such move.

Although neither administration released details of Monday's meeting at the White House, two people familiar with the talks said it would be wide-ranging."They will discuss everything - trade, the border, security and defence," said one person, who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the matter.Defence, particularly NATO, is a likely sticking point. Although Alliance nations have committed to spending 2 percent of gross domestic product on their militaries, Canada contributes barely half that.

Trudeau's office, asked about the agenda, said more details would become known later."President Trump and Prime Minister Trudeau look forward to a constructive conversation on strengthening the relationship between our two nations," the White House said in a statement.Several senior Canadian government ministers visited Washington this week to meet their U.S. counterparts as part of a charm offensive designed to persuade the Trump team not to single out Canada during the NAFTA talks.

The Trump administration is not necessarily all bad news for the Canadian economy.Last month, the president cleared the way for TransCanada Corp's (TRP.TO) proposed Keystone XL pipeline from the Alberta oil sands to U.S. refineries.If built, the project could help a Canadian energy sector struggling with low crude prices. (Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu in Washington; editing by David Alexander, Bernard Orr)

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WASHINGTON The White House said on Wednesday that the directors of national intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency would both be members of President Donald Trump's Cabinet.The Senate has confirmed former U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo as CIA director, but the nomination of former Senator Dan Coats as national intelligence director is awaiting confirmation.The decision follows a political controversy over a decision by Trump not to make the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff regular members of the Principals Committee, a key White House decision-making body.David Priess, a historian of U.S. intelligence, said former President Ronald Reagan's CIA director, William Casey, was the first U.S. spy chief to sit in a presidential Cabinet.

Priess said one of Casey's successors, William Webster, asked not to be in the Cabinet because he felt intelligence should be kept separate from policymaking.

Under President Bill Clinton, CIA Directors John Deutch and George Tenet were Cabinet members. When Tenet continued as CIA director after George W. Bush became president, he left the Cabinet.In his memoir, "At the Center of the Storm," Tenet wrote: "I was relieved that, unlike in the Clinton administration, where my job had Cabinet status, I no longer was obliged to attend ritual events like the State of the Union," referring to the president's annual speech to Congress.

(Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by Susan Heavey and Peter Cooney)

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LONDON/PARIS Britain said on Thursday it had scrambled an unspecified number of Typhoon aircraft to monitor two Russian Blackjack bombers which flew near British airspace. The incident is the latest example of Russian jets flying near to Britain, often as a way of testing the response time of their British counterparts."We can confirm that quick reaction alert Typhoon aircraft from RAF Lossiemouth and RAF Coningsby scrambled to monitor two Blackjack bombers while they were in the UK area of interest," a Royal Air Force spokesman said in a statement.

Separately, the French air force said two of its Mirage military aircraft escorted the two bombers down the French coast before handing over to Spanish military planes.A French official said the incident was the fourth time Russian fighters had been intercepted on the French coast over the past two years, a period of tension between Russia and western European countries related to the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine.

(Reporting by Costas Pitas in London and Marine Pennetier in Paris; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Andrew Callus)

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Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman is rejecting suggestions that the Kremlin and the Trump Administration may try to negotiate a deal over the war in eastern Ukraine.

Last week saw a surge in fighting between government forces and Russia-backed separatist rebels. The fighting, which killed more than 30 people, came amid concerns that President Donald Trump's stated desire to improve relations with Russia could lead to lifting of US sanctions against Russia connected to its interference in Ukraine.

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Thursday that Russia wants the United States to pressure Ukraine to fulfill the terms of a two-year-old agreement on ending on the war and that the conflict "can hardly be a subject for some kind of deal."
By Yara Bayoumy and Noah Browning

| WASHINGTON/DUBAI

WASHINGTON/DUBAI Yemen said on Wednesday it had not suspended counter-terrorism operations with the U.S. government, despite controversy over a U.S. commando raid on al Qaeda militants in which several civilians were also killed.The raid in al-Bayda province, approved by new U.S. President Donald Trump, resulted in a gun battle that left one Navy SEAL dead and an American aircraft a charred wreck. Local medics said several women and children were killed.Yemeni officials told Reuters that Sanaa had not withdrawn its permission for the United States to carry out special operations ground missions but had made clear their "reservations" about the last operation.A statement by the Yemeni embassy in Washington said the government "stresses that it has not suspended any programs with regards to counterterrorism operations in Yemen with the United States Government".The Yemeni government "reiterates its firm position that any counterterrorism operations carried out in Yemen should continue to be in consultation with Yemeni authorities and have precautionary measures to prevent civilian casualties."Yemeni President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi has met with the U.S. ambassador to Yemen and "made clear his reservations about the problems with the last operation," a senior Yemeni official told Reuters. U.S. defense officials said they were investigating the reports of civilian casualties in the raid. U.S. Senator John McCain criticized the operation, telling NBC news on Tuesday:"When you lose a $75 million airplane and, more importantly, an American life is lost  I don't believe you can call it a success." But White House spokesman Sean Spicer defended the operation on Wednesday, calling it "absolutely a success."

"I think anybody who undermines the success of that raid, owes an apology and disservice to the life of Chief Owens," Spicer said, referring to the Navy SEAL who died. The Yemeni government has supported a U.S. campaign against the country's powerful al Qaeda branch for more than a decade.U.S. TO WORK WITH HADI

The State Department said the United States would continue working with Hadi "and his representatives to ensure that this important partnership remains solid in order to ultimately eradicate" al Qaeda and Islamic State from Yemen.The Jan. 29 commando raid was only the second publicly acknowledged ground attack by U.S. forces in Yemen.U.S. military officials told Reuters last week that the recent operation went ahead without sufficient intelligence, ground support or adequate backup preparations. As a result, three officials said, the attacking SEAL team found itself dropping onto a reinforced al Qaeda base defended by landmines, snipers, and a larger than expected contingent of heavily armed Islamist extremists.But the U.S. military's Central Command said last week that it only asks for operations it believes have a good chance of success based on its planning.

A White House official has said the operation was thoroughly vetted by the previous administration and that the previous defense secretary had signed off on it in January. The situation in Yemen is complicated by a civil war pitting the Saudi-backed government against the Houthi movement aligned with Iran. Although the government is recognised internationally, the Houthis control many of Yemen's main population centers including the capital Sanaa.The U.S. operation may also have created a headache for the government not just by killing innocent people but also a local al Qaeda commander, Abdulraoof al-Dhahab, who was an ally of pro-government tribes fighting the Houthis.. The deaths could alienate those armed tribes fighting for the government cause and aid al Qaeda recruitment."It was wrong to kill him and the children...he fought the Houthis and did not have any thought of launching attacks abroad. If the government allowed this to happen, it was a mistake," one tribal leader from al-Bayda said.More than a dozen al Qaeda members were also killed, the Pentagon said. (Additional reporting by David Alexander; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Alistair Bell)

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Samsung has been working on a foldable device for years now and even filed multiple patents as well. A few months back renders of the alleged Galaxy X foldable smartphone surfaced.

The so-called Galaxy X foldable smartphone is expected to come in around design with a hinge in the center.

As per the latest development, the South Korean giant might introduce their first foldable Smartphones and foldable panels to its customers and not to the general public at MWC. If the information circulating on the Internet turns out to be true, Samsung might unveil both in-foldable products that bend panels inwards and out-foldable products that bend panels outwards.

According to the filed patent, the smartphone will have an under-fold so that it doesnt fold exactly in half. This allows for a portion of the display to be exposed so that a user will be able to access key apps quickly and/or see notifications at a glance. Moreover, Samsung is expected to back their physical home button and capacitive buttons as well.

While the above information is not authenticated, we advise you to take it with a pinch of salt.

Source
Produced by Abigail Fuller, Sarah Ivy,

Regina Saldivar, Ryland Aldrich,

Chiemi Karasawa, Douglas Haack,

Lloyd Bryan Adams, Annette Hobday

Directed by Abigail Fuller, Sarah Ivy

Starring Connor Head, Nick Helms,

Carina Orozco, Sarah Wright

A good documentary can make us feel and learn. Well-made documentaries tell a true story in such way that the audience has no choice but to get invested in the issue, people and narrative.

A strong documentary narrative crackles with power and purpose.

Do You Dream in Color? stands on the edge of being a good documentary and falls short.

Directors Abigail Fuller and Sarah Ivy follow the lives of four blind teenagers as they try and achieve their dreams. The dreams span music, extreme sports, travel and graduation.

On the surface they seem similar to the dreams of every teenager in America, but the directors layer in the complexity that blindness brings to the equation.

Connor is a blind skateboarder who longs to be sponsored on a skate team. Hes the most engaging and charismatic of the teens. Learning about the challenges of skateboarding blind is mildly interesting. If you are a fan of Daredevil you will really enjoy the 2 minutes he spends talking about it. Connors family interactions and friends are not generally compelling. Teen aged stuff with a teen aged dreamer looking for more.

Sarahs mother passed away when she was younger and the loss has left a hole in Sarahs identity, She longs to travel and study in Portugal, her mothers homeland. Her entire narrative is built around getting accepted into a travel abroad program. The dramatic anticipation seems very forced and the directors go back to similar imagery over and over again as if they didnt have enough footage. There are also some strange scenes where Sarahs teachers and support system meet without her and it seems scripted. It seems so disjointed at times it distracts from the story the directors were trying to tell.

Nick is a blind musician with dreams of more. Sighted people are pretty comfortable with blind songwriters and musicians thanks to Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles, so this dream isnt particularly aggressive or unrealistic. It is a fairly common tale of a high school band trying to make good and one of the members of the band happens to be blind. Nicks family interactions are sweet and his relationship with his twin brother is one of the more interesting sub plots in the documentary, but right when it seems like we are getting to something real, we jump to a new topic.

Carina is a second generation Mexican immigrant who wants to be the first member of her family to graduate from high school and go to college. Her relationship with her mother is the most compelling one in the documentary. Her mothers worry and pain feel real and unforced. The struggle of being a blind student under-served in a public school is clearly demonstrated but right when the directors could have gotten deeply into a serious issue, they moved on to a new topic.

The real challenge with Do You Dream In Color? is a simple one. The directors didnt bother to go deep into the stories. Telling four stories in just over an hour is too much crammed into too little time. Carina is a compelling figure, with real challenges and emotional complexity, carrying the burden of her mothers dreams for her, but we dont spend enough time with her to really understand.

Another failure in the story telling is glossing over some really important issues facing the blind community. The documentary tells us at one point that there is over 70% unemployment in the blind community of the United States, but doesnt address any of the real reasons why. What are the real systemic challenges public schools face when trying to meet their obligations to blind children? We never really learn anything of substance about what these kids are facing at the institutional level.

In the areas the film grabbed me, it let me go just as fast. In the moments I was touched, I wasnt given a chance to invest in the person I was feeling for. The joyous moments and the sad ones seemed forced, engineered to fit the fragmented narrative.

Overall the children in the film are likable, but I never learned enough about them to truly care.



Rating: 2 stars out of 5

Do You Dream in Color? arrives on VOD on February 10th

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Just when you thought the relationship between President Trump and big tech couldnt get worse, a petition signed by more than 1,800 IBM (NYSE:IBM) employees calls for CEO Ginni Rometty to withdraw support for the President and his controversial immigration order that has dozens of Silicon Valley companies up in arms.

Rometty sits on the Presidents business advisory council. She previously penned an open letter congratulating Trump on his election victory and offering ideas on job creation. Uncontentious as it was, the letter sparked a mini-revolt at IBMs quiet Armonk, New York headquarters. I bet Rometty didnt see that coming.

IBM joins a growing number of tech companies getting drawn into the anti-Trump fray.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Google parent company Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) are among 120 technology companies that joined legal action against the Presidents temporary travel ban from seven predominantly Muslim nations. And 200 entrepreneurs, startups and venture investors signed a letter denouncing the initiative, as well as a proposal to overhaul the H1-B work visa program.

A federal judge in Washington state has temporarily blocked the executive order.

If were to take these companies at their word, their objections boil down to three things: America and many high-tech companies including Intel (NASDAQ:INTC), Google and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), were founded or built by immigrants; Trumps actions fly in the face of the industrys progressive diversity and inclusivity agenda; and of course, freedom of religion.

The question is, are those criticisms fair?

Trumps supporters would say that every modern president going back to Ronald Reagan has signed several immigration bans under the same section of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 that gives broad presidential powers to suspend entry of aliens that pose a security risk.

And the countries sited in Trumps order were actually identified by the Obama administration and affirmed by Congress as the most dangerous because they harbor terrorists and lack internal controls for identifying and vetting travelers, immigrants and refugees.

The criticism that its a religious ban doesnt hold up, since the vast majority of the worlds Muslim population is not affected by the order.

Lastly, they would argue that its just a 90-day travel suspension (120 days for refugees, and indefinitely for those from Syria) until better procedures can be implemented. If a refugee is going to be the next Andy Grove or Sergey Brin, he can wait a few days before starting up the next Intel or Google.

Thats all true. Also true, however, is that similar orders by previous presidents were not as broad. For example, a travel ban from the same seven countries was signed into law by President Obama in 2015, but it did not include those with legitimate visas to visit or work in the United States.

That, I believe, is where Trump went wrong.

Even though his order allows for exceptions on a case-by-case basis, its chaotic implementation blindsided hundreds of companies and stranded many legitimate business travelers at airports and overseas. Even green card holders were initially detained, although that was apparently unintentional.

The order was simply not well thought-out or rolled-out.

Theres one other problem. It was signed by someone named Donald Trump. Not to be cynical, but Barack Obama was Silicon Valleys president. Trump is not. If you live in the Valley and voted for Trump, youre a member of the silent minority  unless your name is Peter Thiel.

If there are potential issues with Trumps policies, the Valley elite will come after him with everything theyve got, and the President gave them legitimate grounds for doing just that. It was an unforced error, which a leader in a new position never wants to do in the early days of his tenure. Certainly not a U.S. President.

This is an important test for Trump. Our foreign worker visa program (H1-B) is broken and needs an overhaul, and the administration has been circulating a draft proposal for weeks. Lets hope Trump learns a lesson and doesnt make the same mistakes. If not, the nations most powerful industry appears ready to fight him every step of the way.
In this clip from Industry Focus: Industrials, Sean O'Reilly and contributor Adam Levine-Weinberg examine two of the biggest aircraft manufacturers to see which one is better positioned to dominate the market in the next five years.

Listen in to find out what future orders numbers look like for both companies, how both companies have performed in the last five years, how Boeing (NYSE: BA) has unlocked an entirely new market that Airbus can't tap into, and more.

A full transcript follows the video.

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This podcast was recorded on Jan. 26, 2017.

Sean O'Reilly: What's the marketplace look like right now? What's Boeing's backlog? It's some enormous number, in the hundreds of billions or trillions or something.

Adam Levine-Weinberg: Yeah, it's been hovering for the last few years in the $450 [billion] to $500 billion range.

O'Reilly: Of all the future orders, they may or may not happen, but bottom line, they have this backlog of future orders. You hear, like, Qatar bought like $50 billion worth of planes from Airbus. So what does it look like today with the market in terms of market share and all that stuff?

Levine-Weinberg: In terms of overall market share, Airbus is a little bit higher in terms of the orders for the future. But in terms of annual sales -- that's what's being delivered in each year right now -- Boeing still has a little bit of an advantage. That will probably, at least, it might flip at some point. Obviously, if Airbus continues to have more orders than Boeing, then eventually it will be building more planes than Boeing.

O'Reilly: So future orders are higher for Airbus.

Levine-Weinberg: Exactly.

O'Reilly: Was there ever a time where Airbus was way in the lead, or has Boeing been it for ...

Levine-Weinberg: This being over the past five years, particularly since the A320neo went on sale, that's really where Airbus has built up this advantage. For a long time, the A320s and 737s were splitting that single-aisle market pretty evenly, but Airbus was at a big disadvantage on the wide bodies. Now, they're even split or thereabouts on the widebodies, and the single-aisle planes Airbus is starting to gain an advantage. So, basically, when we look at the market, Boeing has really done some pretty innovative things in the way that the Dreamliner -- this is the 787 -- has opened up a lot of new markets for airlines. They basically created a plane that is small on the widebody scale; it can seat, typically, 200 to 250 people in a three-class layout where you have lie flat, first class, and that kind of stuff. And it can still fly 8,000 miles around the world, whereas usually only the biggest jets in the past were able to do that.

O'Reilly: And those are hard to fill up. That's the trick, right?

Levine-Weinberg: Right. What happened was, either you had to put all your flights through one or two very big hubs to generate the traffic, or you had to sell a lot of fares at really low prices that weren't profitable. Great for travelers; not great for the airlines, typically. So basically, Boeing has created this plane that has opened up new markets -- 6,000- to 7,000-mile flights where it was never possible before to profitably fly that on a nonstop basis.

O'Reilly: So that was a bit of a brilliant move on their part.

Levine-Weinberg: It really was. Boeing and Airbus had different philosophies. Airbus developed the A380, which is this enormous plane, two decks along the entire length of it, can seat 500-600 people. Their idea was, air traffic keeps growing at a really quick rate, it's doubling every 15-20 years, so we just need bigger planes. And that's true, except that Boeing said, "Wait, rather than having everybody continue to go through these hubs and just make them bigger and bigger, why don't we let people go nonstop on routes where you couldn't go nonstop until there was enough of a critical mass of traffic?" And so they had different philosophies.

The result is that, right now, Boeing has better coverage of the full market. They have their narrowbodies, which are the shorter-haul flights, usually less than 3,000 miles, and between 120 to 200 seats at the most at the high end of the range. Then they have the small widebody with the 787, and they also have the 777, which is a somewhat larger widebody, which is more in the 250- to 350-seat range. That actually has a new version coming out that's going to make it even bigger and stretch that range up to as many as 400 seats. Airbus, by contrast, they also are very strong, even stronger, in fact, on the narrowbody side, where they have, especially, the largest variant of the A320, which is called the A321, which has really taken off, seen a lot of interest from airlines, because it reduces the cost per seat the more seats you can put on the same version of a plane. The A321 is just better suited to that market than Boeing's largest narrowbody is right now. So Boeing kind of needs to respond to that, and they're very close, potentially, to announcing an even larger version of the 737 that would get it closer in size to the A321. But, after the A321, there's a big gap in Airbus' lineup, where they don't have a lot in the 200- to 250-seat range like Boeing does.

O'Reilly: Yeah. It's probably 20/20 in hindsight, but that seems like they dropped the ball there.

Levine-Weinberg: Yeah. They've talked about how they've come up with new cabin configurations for the A321, where you can cram more seats on it, but then that starts to give up their advantage in terms of comfort, because some of that comes from actually coming up with a better way of organizing the plane. But for the most part, it's shrinking seats, it's shrinking in the bathroom, it's doing all kinds of stuff, shrinking the galleys, so that they can't serve food out of them anymore. It's really not as easy as Airbus' management has made it seem. So as a practical matter, most airlines aren't going to take them up on the possibility of putting 220 seats onto an A321. It's only going to be the ultra-budget airlines that are going to do that.

Adam Levine-Weinberg owns shares of Boeing. Sean O'Reilly has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The fiercest storm of the winter slammed the northeastern United States on Thursday, leaving a foot (30 cm) of snow in places, forcing cancellation of thousands of flights and closing schools.

The storm, which came a day after temperatures had been a spring-like 50 to 60 degrees (10 to 16C), had wind gusts up to 50 miles per hour (80 kph) and left roads and sidewalks dangerously slick in densely populated cities such as New York, Boston and Philadelphia.

Some areas had "thunder snow," violent bursts of weather featuring both snow and lightning, which could drop as much as 4 inches (10 cm) of snow per hour. Some coastal roads around Boston were closed as wind-driven waves washed over them.

All flights at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport were halted on Thursday morning due to the storm's intensity. More than half of the flights into or out of the three major New York-area airports as well as Boston Logan International Airport were canceled.

Nationwide, about 3,200 flights were canceled, according to Flightaware.com.

"This is an unusually fast, intense storm," New York Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters. "It's very tough conditions out there."

David Hassan, 50, attested to the ugliness of the weather as he packed up his mobile coffee cart in New York's Times Square.

"I don't like coming out in this weather but I have three kids going to school and I have to work," Hassan said as he prepared for the two-hour trip back to his home in Parsippany, New Jersey.

The snow made his regular customers grumpier than usual, he said: "Everybody complains."

New York was expecting 10 to 14 inches (25-36 cm) of snow while Boston braced for even more.

"Travel is going to be extremely dangerous. When it comes down at 2 to 3 inches per hour it's hard for the plows to keep up," said Alan Dunham, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Taunton, Massachusetts.

Many schools systems were closed in the area, including Boston, Philadelphia and New York City, the nation's largest with more than 1 million students.

Many government offices also were shuttered with Massachusetts and Connecticut ordering non-emergency workers to stay home.

Blizzard warnings were in effect for the New York's eastern Long Island suburbs, southern Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

Temperatures were expected to fall to single-digit Fahrenheit levels (below -12.8 C) overnight in the Boston area.

(By Scott Malone and Jonathan Allen; Additional reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York and Svea Herbst-Bayliss in Providence, Rhode Island; Editing by Larry King and Bill Trott)
General Motors (NYSE: GM) said its sales in China fell 24% in January, in part because of a cut in government incentives for car-buyers -- and in part because of a quirk in the Chinese calendar. Both factors made for an unfavorable year-over-year comparison. But despite that, there were some very bright spots in GM's report for the month.

About the cut in government incentives

The Chinese government offers a tax incentive to buyers of vehicles with engines smaller than 1.6 liters. (Generally speaking, smaller engines burn less fuel and produce less pollution.) The government announced late last year that the incentive would be cut in half as of January 1. Many buyers who had been contemplating a new-car purchase rushed to buy their cars in December so as to get the full tax break.

The effect was that sales of smaller-engined vehicles were "pulled ahead" to December -- and thus lagged in January.

Cadillac sales are surging in China, supported by a new high-tech factory near Shanghai that can build up to seven different Cadillac models on the same assembly line. Image source: General Motors.

Why the timing of Chinese New Year affects car-sales comparisons

That "quirk" of the calendar is about Chinese New Year. Many Chinese businesses close for several days around the New Year's celebrations, and sales of cars (and other things) fall sharply during those days. But Chinese New Year is a lunar holiday, meaning its date isn't the same every year: Sometimes it's in late January, and sometimes it's in early February.

The New Year holiday fell on January 28 this year -- but last year, it fell on February 8. For our purposes, that means January of 2017 had five fewer "selling" days than did January of 2016. Obviously, that dented sales totals across the industry for January. (On the bright side, the same effect will make February's year-over-year comparisons look pretty good.)

GM was far from the only automaker whose results were hit by these factors: Earlier in the day, rival Ford (NYSE: F) reported that its sales in China fell 32% year over year.

Those bright spots: SUVs and premium models did well

Not surprisingly, larger vehicles -- or at least, vehicles with engines larger than 1.6 liters -- were the bright spots for GM in January. The good news is that the bright spots included some of its most profitable products.

GM said Cadillac sales more than doubled year over year, to over 18,000 units sold during the month. That's a lot: For comparison, GM sold 10,298 Cadillacs in the U.S. in January. GM didn't give a lot of model-specific info, but it said Cadillac's SUV sales "almost tripled" from a year ago, driven by the new-last-year XT5 crossover, and sales of the big XTS sedan and extended-wheelbase ATS-L were also strong.

The Buick GL8 Avenir is an upscale family hauler designed for the Chinese market. GL8 sales rose 62% last month. Image source: General Motors.

Two of GM's biggest success stories from last year, the upscale Buick Envision and lower-cost Baojun 560 SUVs, also had very good months in January, as did the China-only Buick GL8 minivan, which was revamped late last year. Like the Cadillacs, all of these are solidly profitable products.

GM is gearing up to bring more new products to China

GM reiterated that it plans to launch "18 new and refreshed models" in China this year, with about half of those models being SUVs or minivan-like "MPVs" (multi-purpose vehicles). Those new models will include the all-new 2018 Chevrolet Equinox, which will be offered in China for the first time. It's likely to do very well: The Equinox is one of GM's best-sellers in the United States, the redesigned version looks like a strong contender, and it will land in a sweet spot of the Chinese market.

Also coming: A new small SUV for the affordable Baojun brand and -- probably -- the all-new Buick Enclave crossover we expect GM to reveal in April.

Looking ahead

It's hard to get a clear read on how GM really did in China because of the timing of the New Year's holiday. We'll know more in early March, when we can combine the sales totals for January and February and do a proper year-over-year comparison.

10 stocks we like better than General MotorsWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*

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John Rosevear owns shares of Ford and General Motors. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Ford. The Motley Fool recommends General Motors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
What happened

Hess (NYSE: HES) isn't off to a great start in 2017. While the company reported relatively good news last month and some analysts liked what they saw, investors apparently wanted much more.

So what

Hess' stock started on a downward spiral after the company released its 2017 guidance. The driller said it was boosting capex to $2.25 billion, which was up 18% from last year. That capital would enable the company to increase production by 8% to 12% when measuring its exit-to-exit rate while delivering an average rate of 300,000 to 310,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (BOE/d). Analysts, however, were expecting more. Their consensus was that the company would spend $2.4 billion and produce 320,000 BOE/d.

Image source: Hess.

That said, J.P. Morgan came out in support of the company, saying that its post-guidance sell-off was a buying opportunity. The bank reiterated its overweight rating and $65 price target. Furthermore, it noted that the company's longer-term earnings power was improving due in part to an expanding resource base in Guyana.

Speaking of Guyana, ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) reported positive results from an exploration well in the country, noting that it encountered high-quality, oil-bearing sandstone reservoirs. ExxonMobil also stated that an appraisal well in the country identified another high-quality reservoir below the Liza field. ExxonMobil also said that the Liza field should produce as much as 100,000 barrels of oil per day when it begins flowing in 2020. These positive developments are excellent news for Hess, which owns a 30% interest in these exploration blocks.

Another weight on Hess' stock last month was the release of its fourth-quarter earnings. While the company reported a narrower-than-expected loss thanks to cost reductions, investors still sold off the stock, apparently expecting more. Meanwhile, CEO John Hess said on the conference call that the company plans to triple its rig count in the Bakken to six, and will bring its Stampede project in the Gulf of Mexico on line next year, which are catalysts for future production growth.

Now what

Aside from issuing production guidance that was slightly below forecast, Hess did everything right last month. Its financial results improved, its exploration efforts uncovered more oil, and it has visible growth prospects on the horizon. Those trends suggest that investors might have gotten it wrong last month, meaning Hess' sell-off could very well be a buying opportunity for long-term oil bulls.

10 stocks we like better than HessWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*

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Matt DiLallo has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of ExxonMobil. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
What happened

Shares of Textainer Group Holdings Limited (NYSE: TGH) soared 69.4% last month after two analysts issued bullish commentary on the container-leasing sector. Meanwhile, fellow container lessors also rebounded sharply as a result of those reports, with CAI International Inc. (NYSE: CAI) and Triton International Limited (NYSE: TRTN) up 66.2% and 42.2%, respectively, last month.

So what

Textainer Group Holdings stock took off toward the end of the month when an analyst at Cowen upgraded it to outperform, citing improving fundamentals. The Cowan analyst said that a recovering market should lead to better financial results from Textainer this year, and that the company would also benefit from the continued rise in container prices due to higher prices for Chinese steel. These factors led the analyst to raise Textainer's price target from $8 to $15.

Image source: Getty Images.

A couple of days later an analyst from SunTrust raised the bank's price targets for container-leasing companies, due to recent increases in container prices and more favorable supply-and-demand trends. The analyst boosted Textainer Group Holdings' price target from $9.50 to $16, while raising Triton International from $22 to $26 and CAI International from $10 to $18. That said, the analyst did warn that upcoming fourth-quarter results could be "volatile," but that these companies should issue positive outlooks.

Now what

It has been a tough couple of years for container-leasing companies. In fact, even with last month's rebound, Textainer's stock remains down more than 60% over the past three years. However, market conditions do appear to be getting better, which should pull Textainer's financial results out of their tailspin.

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President Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of labor has proposed avoiding conflicts of interest by resigning as CEO of his fast food empire, selling off hundreds of holdings and recusing himself from government decisions in which he has a financial interest, according to his ethics filings with the government.

"I will not participate personally and substantially in any particular matter in which I know that I have a financial interest directly and predictably affected by the matter" without a waiver from government ethics officials, Andrew Puzder wrote in the nine-page filing, dated Tuesday and obtained by The Associated Press. Puzder is CEO of CKE Restaurants Inc., which owns such chains as Hardee's and Carl's Jr.

Puzder's intent, spokesman George Thompson said, is to recuse himself from all matters involving CKE or its parent companies.

A spokesperson for Sen. Lamar Alexander, whose committee will handle Puzder's confirmation hearing, confirmed that the panel had received the agreement with the Office of Government Ethics required of all presidential Cabinet nominees. His hearing was set for Feb. 16.

Democrats have questioned how well Puzder could advocate for American workers atop the agency charged with enforcing protections, given his business empire. They publicized several unflattering stories from current and former employees of Puzder's company, and his hearing has been postponed several times. Puzder has said he opposes a big minimum wage hike, rules on overtime pay and other labor priorities.

He's facing confirmation in a Senate atmosphere that's become corrosive with opposition to some of Trump's nominees.

Like several of the wealthy corporate figures who have joined Trump's Cabinet and agreed to sell off their vast assets to eliminate possible conflicts of interest, Puzder promised in his ethics agreement that he would sell off his CKE Restaurant Holdings partnership stock shares to his company. Puzder estimated the worth of those stock holdings at between $10 million and $50 million, according to his financial disclosures.

Unlike the OGE-approved agreements of several other Trump Cabinet nominees, notably Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's, Puzder's does not include language that would place his sold-off holdings in a trust administered by an independent trustee. Such "blind trusts" are frequently used to wall off top federal officials from decisions made about their financial holdings.

Instead, the government appears to be allowing Puzder to use an alternate route of insulating himself from his holdings by converting them into "non-conflicting assets" approved by ethics officials, such as government bonds or diversified mutual funds.

Puzder said he was due a promised 2016 bonus, which he estimated in his disclosure to be worth between $1 million and $5 million, and hoped it would be paid "before I assume the duties of the position of secretary." But Puzder said he would forfeit that bonus if his company did not pay it to him before he took office. Similarly, Puzder said he was owed between $250,000 and $500,000 in promised housing relocation benefits but said he would forfeit those payments if they did not arrive before he officially joined Trump's Cabinet.

Puzder's agreement indicated that he sought extra time to sell off some of his assets and that government ethics officials gave him only cautious allowances to do so. Puzder said he expected to be able to sell more than 200 stocks, bonds and mutual fund holdings within 90 days but warned that more than a dozen other investment funds with multiple underlying assets could take longer to sell.

Puzder said selling off those investment funds could take up to a half-year and his agreement indicated that Labor Department ethics officials might give him up to two months more but only if he shows "substantial progress" toward completing the divestiture of all of these entities within a half-year. Two of those complicated investment funds are vehicles run by Solamere Capital, an investment team headed by former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his son, Tagg. Puzder said he held up to $1 million in one of those funds, Solamere Capital Fund ll LLP.

Puzder said that some of the underlying assets in those investment funds could not be disclosed because of confidentiality agreements, but he promised to work with government ethics officials "to develop an effective recusal mechanism" for any decisions affecting those corporate entities.

The AP obtained the documents from a government official who was not authorized to release them before they are made public.

Puzder has acknowledged having employed a housekeeper who was not authorized to work in the U.S. A spokesman later confirmed that the nominee fired her when he discovered her status, about five years ago, and then paid her taxes after Trump nominated him to the Cabinet on Dec. 9. Democrats and a few Republicans on the Senate committee, including Sens. Johnny Isakson of Georgia and Susan Collins of Maine, say they want to hear more about his explanation.

Puzder also has acknowledged that CKE has outsourced its technology help desk to a company in the Philippines, the type of practice Trump has derided as part of his promise to keep jobs in American hands.
What happened

Shares of frack sand suppliers CARBO Ceramics (NYSE: CRR) and Emerge Energy Services (NYSE: EMES) rocketed ahead 31% and 42.8%, respectively, in January. The two wildly outpaced their peers in the quarter thanks to much better-than-expected earnings results from CARBO Ceramics and analyst upgrades for Emerge Energy Services.

So what

One thing that should be pointed out here is that these two companies appeared to be in the most trouble following the drop in oil and gas prices starting in 2014. CARBO was heavily reliant on its manufactured ceramic proppant, which was more expensive and a less popular option for producers looking to cut costs. Emerge's troubles stemmed from the fact that its debt loads were simply too much. There was even a point at the end of 2015 where the company had violated its debt covenants and had to renegotiate with its creditors.

Image source: Getty Images.

On top of that, they were losing market share to competitors. During the first nine months of 2016, Emerge's total sand volume sales slipped 53% whereas U.S. Silica Holdings (NYSE: SLCA) saw only a 4% decline and Fairmount Santrol Holdings (NYSE: FMSA) actually increased volumes by 3%. They were more willing to take a hit on price in order to preserve market share, which led both Emerge and CARBO Ceramics to some of the largest revenue declines among their peers.

EMES Revenue (TTM) data by YCharts.

This past month, though, CARBO Ceramics showed a rapid reversal in its fortunes when it reported earnings on Jan. 26. The company announced that sequential revenue was up 44% for the quarter and, probably more importantly, that its ceramic proppant sales were up 41% sequentially as well.

Emerge has yet to report its earnings, but analysts at Goldman Sachs predict bright times ahead as it upgraded the stock last month to overweight. One thing that Goldman mentioned in its upgrade was that Emerge had a lot of unutilized capacity that will likely be absorbed by the oil and gas industry in the coming year or so. The larger producers that maintained market share -- U.S. Silica and Fairmount Santrol -- are currently running their mines at 75% or better of their nameplate capacity, whereas Emerge's mines in Wisconsin are only operating at 37%. This should leave the company with lots of opportunity to pick up incremental demand in the market.

Now what

Keep in mind that CARBO Ceramics is the only company that has so far reported earnings for the quarter and fiscal year. While it would be surprising if we saw revenue and volume increases as large as CARBO's, investors should expect some strong upticks in revenue for all of these companies. The trend of higher proppant use per well means that we will likely see sand demand outpace overall increases in drilling activity. This should bode well for all stocks in the industry.

As for Emerge, it is probably best to see what the upcoming quarter has to offer before making any decisions. It still has to deal with its debt load a bit before it can start paying out a distribution to shareholders, and it will take some spending to get those underutilized mines back up and running.

10 stocks we like better than Emerge Energy ServicesWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*

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Tyler Crowe has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
A union that represents professors at the University of Vermont is negotiating a new contract with the school.

The Burlington Free Press reports (http://bfpne.ws/2lkM46S ) that about 30 professors held signs outside the room in James M. Jeffords Hall where negotiators and union members met on Monday.

The current agreement between the union and the Burlington university is three years old and ends June 30.

The union wants to shift 3 percent of the budget into academics to create more tenured-track positions rather than continue hiring adjunct lecturers.

Professors are seeking full-time faculty wages and benefits equal to those of universities like the University of Maine and the University of New Hampshire.

___

Information from: The Burlington Free Press, http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com
President Donald Trump has come to his daughter Ivanka's defense after the First Daughter's clothing and accessories lines were dropped by Nordstrom last week.

The president tweeted, "My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by Nordstrom" adding "She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!"

My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2017

Nordstrom drops Ivanka Trump clothing line, accessories

More retailers have followed Nordstrom's lead including Neimann Marcus and now TJ Maxx and Marshalls.

According to a note obtained by the New York Times, T.J. Maxx and Marshalls parent company TJX instructed employees to "not to display Ivanka Trump merchandise separately and to throw away Ivanka Trump signs."

The retailers' decision to stop carrying Ivanka Trump's line came after the "Grab Your Wallet campaign, which has been calling for a boycott of retailers that carry Ivanka or Donald Trump merchandise. Neiman Marcus took Ivanka merchandise offline late Thursday afternoon as well.

A Nordstrom spokesperson didn't say whether the decision to stop buying the brand was permanent, only that they make buying decisions each season. Nordstrom also said it offers thousands of brands and cuts about 10 percent each year based performance.

Macy's has also faced pressure to rid their stores of all things Trump.

Macy's facing pressure to drop Ivanka Trump line

Customers took to Macys Facebook page to request the department store follow in dropping the line. One wrote, Nordstrom dumped Trump, please follow suit. I would never put plastic Ivanka Trump boots on my little daughter. Another wrote, Half my wardrobe (and a very extensive wardrobe it is) has been purchased at Macy's. I will no longer step in that store until they dump Ivanka Trump."

There's been no comment yet from Macys if Trumps merchandise will stay.

Senior Director of Marketing at Ivanka Trump, Rosemary Young, told Fox News on the contrary, the brand is continuing to expand.

The Ivanka Trump brand continues to expand across categories and distribution with increased customer support, leading us to experience significant year-over-year revenue growth in 2016. We believe that the strength of a brand is measured not only by the profits it generates, but the integrity it maintains. The women behind the brand represent a diverse group of professionals and we are proud to say that the Ivanka Trump brand continues to embody the principles upon which it was founded. It is a company built to inspire women with solution-oriented offerings, created to celebrate and service the many aspects of their lives.

Ivanka Trump has yet to publicly comment.
George and Amal Clooney stole the spotlight from Beyonce and Jay Z by annoucning they too are expecting twins.

The Clooneys are expecting twins in June, Julie Chen said Thursday on CBS' "The Talk." George Clooney told Chen in late January that his wife, a human rights attorney, was pregnant, "The Talk" host said.

"Congratulations are in order for George and Amal Clooney," Chen said. "'The Talk' has confirmed that the 55-year-old superstar and his highly accomplished 39-year-old attorney wife are expecting twins."

The Clooneys' news followed Beyonce and Jay Z's announcement last week that the superstar singer is expecting twins.

George Clooney's publicist didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The children will be the first for the couple, who married in 2014.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Oprah Winfrey pulled off one of the biggest private art deals of 2016.

Bloomberg reports the talk show legend sold a painting by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt for $150 million to an unnamed Chinese buyer.

Already one of the world's richest people with a net worth of $2.9 billion, Winfrey originally purchased the "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer" for $87.9 million at a Christie's auction in 2006.

Klimt created the painting in 1912 and it depicts the wife of an art patron and industrialist in Vienna.

The 19th-century painter was a prominent member of the Vienna Secession movement.

Winfrey loaned the painting anonymously to New York City's Museum of Modern Art in 2014, Business Insider reports.

The painting, which is currently on display in the Neue Galerie museum for Austrian and German art is being shown next to its predecessor, the "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I."

The painting was originally discovered as part of a series of paintings stolen by the Nazis during World War II, but given back to surviving members of the Bloch-Bauer family in 2006.

This is hardly Oprah's first major art sale. She unloaded a number of paintings from her collection in 2015.
Tomi Lahren has seen her visibility increase markedly in the past year. Her conservative beliefs and early support of President Trump first made headlines, but it was her debate with "Daily Show" host Trevor Noah last November that put her in the middle of the great Trump debate.

But love her or love to hate her, the 24-year-old host of TheBlaze's politics show "Tomi" is sticking to her guns ... and her beliefs.

Fox News: You went from hosting a show on a startup news channel in San Diego to being snatched up by TheBlaze. How has fame changed your life?

Tomi Lahren: Ive been blessed with an incredible platform but that platform comes with drawbacks. It wasnt until my trip to D.C. for President Trump's inauguration that I realized how quickly my daily life is changing.... I am usually alone when I travel for work and my favorite way to get the lay of the land is to walk the city. I cant do that anymore. Its too dangerous. I realized that in the most jarring way possible while in D.C. As soon as one person recognized me a swarm of protesters huddled around me. I have never been in physical danger like that before. The online social media hate is one thing, credible threats is another.

That being said, I am also blessed with a great base of support. When young ladies approach me and thank me for providing a conservative role model, its all worth it. When the family members of law enforcement officers approach me and thank me for being a voice for their community, it is all worth it.

Fox News: What has been the most difficult part of being constantly scrutinized?

Lahren: Ive learned to laugh most of the negativity off. In order for me to be hurt by you, I have to respect you. I dont respect these hateful Internet trolls who have nothing better to do than attack my looks or the way I speak.

Fox News: People either love you or love to hate you. How do you deal with the negativity?

Lahren: The hard left labels anyone who challenges it "divisive." The leftists live in a world where everyone is free to look different but must think the same. I dont play their game. I threaten them and their narrative. Thats why they slap the "divisive" label and attempt to dismiss me. Its not going to work -- not on me.

I address controversial subjects but I am not inflammatory or abrasive for the sake of ratings or views. Im honest. Im direct. I dont care what they call me. Political correctness is intellectual dishonesty and I wont be a part of it. It that makes some folks uncomfortable, so be it.

Fox News: A lot of your attention is generated on social media. Do you think the media has not given the power and influence of social media and digital media enough credit?

Lahren: The mainstream media is five years behind. The power of social media is nothing to scoff at, yet they do. President Trump was able to speak directly to Americans by going around the mainstream media. He used Facebook and Twitter to beat down the leftist mainstream, and won. I do the same thing. My average Facebook video gets 5 million views. Those numbers cannot be replicated by traditional media.

Fox News: You went head to head with Trevor Noah and will soon do the same with Bill Maher  people who mostly share opposing views. Are you nervous before those appearances?

Lahren: I am more excited than nervous. There is nothing I love more than speaking with those I disagree with. I learn nothing from remaining in my bubble. My resolve, arguments and truth only become stronger when I thrust myself into dark waters. I thrive on the pressure. I also believe it will be the heated but civil conversations between opposing sides that will truly heal this country. How can we understand the other side if we dont talk to it?

Fox News: Where do you want to be in five years?

Lahren: I always say, when I make plans, God laughs. I have no idea where I will be in five years but I hope I remain a strong voice of truth. There are so many Americans between the two coasts who feel they have no voice. The mainstream media, D.C., and the rest of the country have ignored them. I want to be a voice for those people. I see myself taking over the digital sphere. Ive found power and resonance rooted in digital commentary and I want to continue the momentum. I dont have a "dream job" but I do want three things: fun, freedom and flexibility. Thats what its all about.
Brace yourselves, Singaporeans: The Chizza is now available at a KFC near you.

After making its debut on the fast-food chains Philippine menu in 2015-- and later appearing at French and Japanese locations-- the Chizza  a pizza-topped fried chicken mashup  has made its way to the Lion City.

Made with a flattened breast of fried chicken in place of pizza dough, KFC Singapores version of the Chizza is topped with pizza sauce, a chicken-based ham product, pineapple chunks, mozzarella cheese, and the restaurants signature cheese sauce before its baked. (Its predecessors had pepperoni and occassionally green peppers, but no ham.)

GREAT OR GROSS: WACKY FOOD CREATIONS

On its official website, KFC Singapore describes their new Chizza as the best of both and the ultimate mashup of pizza and fried chicken, but social media users have mixed feelings.



Some are ecstatic over the news that the Chizza is potentially on its way to world domination.

But others seem insulted by the mere existence of KFCs hybrid:

Not even addressing the Lovecraftian horrors present here, why is there just a bunch of loose ham hanging out in the background? #Chizza pic.twitter.com/CIFRhKiiLB  Gucci Lad (@Brjyan) February 9, 2017

This isnt KFCs first attempt at marrying chicken and pizza, nor is it the first time theyve used fried chicken in items that traditionally call for bread. KFC Hong Kong released Napoli Crispy Pizza Chicken in 2015, which was basically an order of fried chicken with sauce and cheese baked on top, and KFC introduced America to the Double Down sandwich  made with two filets of fried chicken breast instead of bread buns  in 2010.

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KFC Singapores Chizza, however, might be the chain's first item to be marketed for Valentines Day, as seen in their recent heart-shaped Chizza ad:

KFC has yet to announce when, if ever, the Chizza will make its way to the U.S.
5-hour Energy may be experiencing a crash.

A court in Washington state has ordered the company behind the popular energy shot to pay nearly $4.3 million in penalties and fees for deceptive advertising techniques. The state court determined the maker of the drink  Living Essentials LLC - had tricked customers into thinking the liquid in the small bottle was a more effective energizer than caffeine.

The Attorney General in Washington State first sued Living Essentials in July 2014 over a series of the company's marketing claims. According to Consumerist, those ranged from asserting that physicians recommended the liquid to a claim that imbibers wouldnt experience a crash following a presumed energy increase.

STIFF BULL APHRODISIAC COFFEE SLAPPED WITH FDA WARNING

At the time of the ruling in Oct. 2016, the judge noted that the company did not offer proof to support its assertion that the drinks combination of caffeine, B vitamins and amino acids would provide energy that would last longer than consumers would experience from a cup of premium coffee (and in some of the ads, longer than 3 or 4 cups of coffee).

The court also disputed Living Essentials position that the non-caffeine ingredients in the drink worked together with the added caffeine to extend the stimulants effects. The court claimed that a study provided by Living Essentials actually showed the opposite effect-- that the taurine in 5-Hour Energy could counteract caffeine.

As a result, the energy drink producer will now have to pay nearly $2.2 million in civil penalties and $2.1 million in attorneys fees to the state of Washington.

About half of the money Living Essentials is expected to pay is due to separate violations of state consumer protection laws. Each run of a specific ad in question in the state since July 2012 marked a $100 violation. So one ad that ran 19,716 times-- during the lawsuits covered time period-- resulted in a fee of over $1.97 million for the individual spot

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Defendants spent more time trying to justify the science behind their ads after-the-fact than they did before marketing the products in Washington, the judge wrote after the penalty was announced.

There was scant evidence as to what science anyone at Living Essentials had ever seen or relied on before it began to sell this product.

Living Essentials now says they intend to appeal the decision.
Are you having trouble fitting in a few square meals a day?

Head over to the Philippines, where a new cafe is cutting corners to yield some pretty impressive plated food.

Brick Burger, an eatery in Pasig (just outside Manila), is serving up cheeseburgers on colorful Lego-shaped buns.

Judging by the names of each menu item, many of the burgers were inspired by characters from 2014's The Lego Movie. Other menu items appear to be modeled after specific Lego building sets and Lego-branded video games.

There's The Emmet (named after the average-joe protagonist of The LEGO Movie)-- which is your regular hamburger, while the Wyldstyle comes on a bright red bun with spicy sauce. Theres also a Nacho Tuesday burger (a play on the films running Taco Tuesday gag) and a Darth Burger, created as an homage to Darth Vaders prominence in the LEGO Star Wars series and playsets.

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The menu also features pastas, chicken dishes and several sides to go with each Brick Burger, but so far, no Batman-themed bugers have been announced ahead of the release of The LEGO Batman Movie this Friday.

Brick Burger is decorated from floor to ceiling in Lego memorabilia, and Lego playsets are provided for customers to play with while they dine. There are also Lego figurines set up on the inside of each glass tabletop to keep eaters thoroughly entertained.

I think we are the first Lego-themed restaurant in the world that serves buns, Lego brick buns, remarked Ralph Abogado, Brick Burgers head of marketing, in an interview with Mashable.

Despite its Lego-themed menu and decor, however, Brick Burger doesnt appear to have any official ties to the Lego Group or the Lego film franchise.
Not all food holidays are worth celebrating but as one of America's most popular foods, pizza deserves plenty of accolades.

Thursday, Feb. 9 is National Pizza Day, and whether you like it with pepperoni, heaped high with veggies or just plain cheese, there are plenty of ways to score a great deal on a delicious pie today. According to Pizza Hut, 94 percent of Americans eat pizza at least once a month and the average American eats about 46 slices of pizza a year.

TURKISH RESTAURANT OWNER SELLING $5,000 'TRUMP' PIZZA WITH GOLD FLAKES

Here are just a few of the ways pie lovers can their 'za on today.

BellaBrava

If youre in the mood for pizza in Saint Petes, BellaBrava has a tasty deal: half-priced pizzas and flatbreads all day.

Dominos

Dominos fans can fill up for cheap today. Order a large three-topping pizza online and pick it up in-store for just $8. The chain is also offering a mix-and-match deal with two or more sides for just $5.99.

Hungry Howies

Hungry Howies is inviting diners to take advantage of its National Pizza Day prize-- a large pizza (with three toppings) for just $7.99.

Papa Johns

Papa Johns isnt just celebrating the national holiday  the pizza chain is celebrating all month long. Customers can receive 40 percent off all regular-priced pies through March 5.

Pizza Hut and Amazon

Pizza Hut is moving into the digital age. Pizza Hut and Amazon are partnering to give pizza and tech lovers the opportunity to celebrate for an entire week. Starting Feb. 9 through Feb. 16, customers who use the Pizza Hut skill (command) for Alexa Voice Service on Amazon Echo, Amazon Tap, Echo Dot, Amazon Fire TV and Fire tablets will receive 30 percent off their order total.

If you want to skip the tech and just get to the grub, Pizza Hut is also offering a medium three-topping pizza deal for $6.

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Pizza@

In Florida, Pizza@ will be celebrating the opening of a new location at Tyrone Square Mall in Saint Petersburg by giving away 200 pizzas during the day. Customers who purchase a drink between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. can then enjoy a free, two-topping pizza.

Enjoy pizza for breakfast...on a pizza flavored bagel

Sure, we've all heard of Bagel Bites (and yes, we know you can eat them any time). But this year, Thomas'-- the brand behind those famous English muffins-- has come out with a pizza-flavored bagel in honor of National Pizza Day. Seasoned with classic Italian flavors like tomato, garlic, onion, basil and oregano this breakfast bread pairs well with a variety of savory cream cheeses-- or top it with sauce and cheese and you're good to go.

Of course, the pizza party doesnt have end on Feb. 10.

In addition to celebrating pizza the other 364 days of the year, foodies can also participate in the National Cheese Pizza Day on Sept. 5, the National Pepperoni Pizza Day on Sept. 20 and the National Pizza With Everything Except Anchovies Day on Nov. 12.
A woman in Texas was allegedly so dissatisfied with her taco meal that she reportedly shot her boyfriend during a dispute over the food.

According to KTRK TV, investigators say the woman and a male companion were at a taco truck in north Houston early Monday morning when the incident occurred.

According to police, the woman became infuriated after she reportedly asked the taco truck worker to reheat her taco and was told no.

Her boyfriend then tried to calm her down but the hungry woman then pulled out a gun and wound up shooting her partner. The man was shot once but investigators have not confirmed whether the woman shot him on purpose or if the gun fired accidentally.

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Police were unable to determine how the incident unfolded due to a lack of surveillance video. It remains unclear if charges will be filed in the case.

The boyfriend was rushed to the hospital and is expected to survive his injury. There was no word on what happened to the taco.
A 9-year-old Georgia girl who loves playing with her American Girl dolls has started a bead bracelet business in the hopes of raising enough money to donate special dolls to cancer patients. Bella Fricker, who has more than a dozen of the dolls herself, first noticed the special dolls while flipping through an American Girl magazine, Fox 5 Atlanta reported.

The company designed the dolls for children undergoing cancer treatment or suffering from hair-loss conditions.

We were going to give it to a little girl that is going through chemo, Bella told Fox 5 Atlanta.

But after seeing the $115 special-order price tag, Bella began brainstorming for a way come up with extra funds.

I go upstairs, and shes busted out this table, and put up a sign, Valerie Fricker, Bellas mother, told Fox 5 Atlanta. And I said, What are you doing? and she said, Oh I started a business.

Bella has sold more than 500 of her beaded bracelets for up to $6 each, and her mom started a Facebook page to help spread the word, Fox 5 Atlanta reported. She also joined Kids Boost, a local non-profit that helps children fundraise.

Bellas proceeds have gone toward buying three dolls so far, one of which went to Norah Adjakpo, who has been battling a brain tumor since April at Childrens Healthcare of Atlantas AFLAC Cancer Center, Fox 5 Atlanta.

Bella surprised 8-year-old Norah with a doll around Christmas, and it now accompanies her to appointments and treatment sessions.

If I have her with me, its going to be better, Norah told Fox 5 Atlanta. I dont have to worry about my hair being lost. Because I dont have hair, and she doesnt have hair.
As 35-year-old Luincys Fernandez prepared to welcome her second child into the world, a lump on her right breast during her third trimester gave the mom reason to believe something else was brewing inside her.

I was giving birth, so it was a new life, but also the possibility of losing mine, Fernandez, of Bogota, New Jersey, told Fox News of her then unconfirmed breast cancer diagnosis. Being in that situation can definitely take a toll on you.

Fernandez had long performed a breast self-exam and was familiar with signs of the disease. So at weeks 34 and 36 of her pregnancy, she underwent an ultrasound and a biopsy, respectively, but neither scan offered conclusive results.

In July 2015, she had her son, and two weeks later, a lumpectomy confirmed her fear: She had breast cancer. She underwent a mastectomy in January 2016 and immediate breast reconstruction.

Reconstruction traditionally involves placing expanders under the chest wall, and then filling the expanders with saline over several months as the skin stretches. The process can take several months and pose discomfort. Next, doctors usually implant the breasts during a second surgery.

Now, theres a new solution called Aeroform, an expander that allows the patient to self-administer doses of carbon dioxide. With saline injections, a doctor administers an average of 60 cubic centimeters (cc) of liquid, which can be painful, Dr. Jeffrey Ascherman, site chief of the division of plastic surgery at New York-Presbyterian Columbia University Medical Center, told Fox News. With the Aeroform, each dose releases 10 cc of carbon dioxide.

The Aeroform has three built-in safety mechanisms to ensure the patient doesnt accidentally administer too much.

1. Only one dose can be given every three hours.

2. Only three doses can be given in one day

3. Once a patient has reached her capacity, she cant continue to dose

Aeroform is really the first major change in tissue expansion in the last 40 or 50 years, because instead of the woman coming in and [the doctor] putting in this large syringe and needle, she can do it at home, she can do this at work, and theres no needles, Ascherman said.

Fernandez was one of 150 women who took part in the Aeroform clinical trial at New York-Presbyterian Columbia University Medical Center that ran from 2011 to 2015.

Using it was very easy, she said. It was just holding the remote control, waiting for it to find the signal, and once you found the signal, to press it on and then it would light up and thats one dose.

The study finds the median number of days from start to finish was 21, versus 45 with saline.

Fernadez said the process wasnt painful.

Im grateful every single day that I am able to be with my family to see my kids grow up, to see my boys play with each other, laugh with each other, she said.

The Food and Drug Administration approved Aeroform in December 2016. Most major insurance plans cover the device. Visit AirXpanders.com for more information.
American school kids became more stupid under the Obama administration, according to rankings released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

They recently released the results of a worldwide exam administered every three years to 15-year-olds in 72 countries. The exam monitors reading, math and science knowledge.

Click here to learn how to take back your local public school!

Based on their findings, the United States saw an 11-point drop in math scores and nearly flat levels for reading and science.

The Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, fell below the OECD average  and failed to crack the top ten in all three categories.

In other words, thanks to the Obama administrations education policies, kids in the Slovac Republic are more proficient in multiplication.

In fairness, American teenagers may not know long form division - but by golly they know their non-binary gender pronouns. Yes sir, they do!

But you can't blame the kids for being dumb as rocks.

Instead of aspiring to greatness, public schools across the fruited plain are programming kids to be mediocre.

It doesn't matter if Little Johnny thinks five plus four is 12.

Modern-day classrooms are safe spaces where everybodys a winner  everybody gets a gold star.

There's just one problem with that philosophy. When Little Johnny becomes Big Johnny he's going to be living off the taxpayer dime.

And good luck making change down at the Piggly Wiggly.
Last week, in a public courtroom in the federal courthouse in Seattle, the states of Washington and Minnesota -- after suing President Donald Trump, alleging injury caused by his executive order that suspended the immigration of all people from seven foreign countries -- asked a federal judge to compel the president and all those who work for him to cease enforcing the order immediately. After a brief emergency oral argument, the judge signed a temporary restraining order, which barred the enforcement of the presidents order everywhere in the United States.

The president reacted with anger, referring to the judge as a so-called judge," and immigrant rights groups praised the judicial intervention as a victory for the oppressed. The president meant, I think, that Judge James L. Robart had not acted properly as a judge by second-guessing him -- that he had acted more like a politician; and the immigrant rights groups felt, I think, that the United States was once again a beacon of hope for refugees.

Here is the back story.

A 1952 federal statute permits the president to suspend the immigration status of any person or group whose entry into the United States might impair public health or safety or national security. Trump exercised that authority in accordance with the 1952 law when he signed his Jan. 27 order banning all immigration from the seven named countries.

When the president exercises powers granted to him by the Constitution or federal statues or when Congress passes bills, one cannot simply sue the government in federal court because one does not like what has been done. That is so because the Constitution has preconditions for a lawsuit in federal court. One of those preconditions is what lawyers and judges call standing. Standing means that the plaintiff has alleged and can most likely show that the defendant has caused the plaintiff an injury in fact, distinct from all others not in the case.

Hence, it is curious that the plaintiffs in the Seattle case were not people whose entry had been barred by Trumps order but rather the governments of two states, each claiming to sue in behalf of people and entities resident or about to be resident in them. The court should have dismissed the case as soon as it was filed because of long-standing Supreme Court policy that bars federal litigation alleging harm to another and permits it only for the actual injury or immediate likelihood of injury to the litigant.

Nevertheless, the Seattle federal judge heard oral argument on the two states emergency application for a temporary restraining order against the president. During that oral argument, the judge asked a lawyer for the Department of Justice how many arrests of foreign nationals from the seven countries singled out by the president for immigration suspension there have been in the United States since 9/11. When the DOJ lawyer said she did not know, the judge answered his own question by saying, None.

He was wrong.

There have been dozens of people arrested and convicted in the United States for terrorism-related crimes since 9/11 who were born in the seven countries. Yet even if the judge had been correct, his question was irrelevant -- and hence the answer meaningless -- because it does not matter to a court what evidence the president relied on in this type of order. This is the kind of judicial second-guessing -- substituting the judicial mind for the presidential mind -- that is impermissible in our system. It is impermissible because the Constitution assigns to the president alone nearly all decision-making authority on foreign policy and because Congress has assigned to the president the power of immigration suspension as a tool with which to implement foreign policy.

These rules and policies -- the requirement of standing before suing and the primacy of the president in making foreign policy -- stem directly from the Constitution. Were they not in place, then anyone could sue the government for anything and induce a federal judge to second-guess the president. That would convert the courts into a super-legislature -- albeit an unelected, unaccountable, opaque one.

I am not suggesting for a moment that the courts have no place here. Rather, they have a vital place. It is to say what the Constitution means, say what the statutes mean and determine whether the government has exercised its powers constitutionally and legally. It is not the job of judges to decide whether the government has been smart or prudent, though.

One of the arguments made by the state of Washington to explain why it had standing was laughable. Washington argued that corporations located in Washington would suffer the irreparable loss of available high-tech-qualified foreign employees if the ban were upheld. Even if this were likely and even if it were provable, it would not establish injury in fact to the government of Washington. When pressed to reveal what entity Washington was trying to protect, it enumerated a few familiar names, among which was Microsoft.

Microsoft? The government of the state of Washington is suing to protect Microsoft?! Microsoft could buy the state of Washington if Starbucks were willing to sell it.

I jest to make a point. The rule of law needs to be upheld. Carefully paying attention to constitutional procedure protects personal freedom. In similar environments, the late Justice Antonin Scalia often remarked that much of what the government does is stupid but constitutional and that the courts only concern is with the latter.

The DOJ is now challenging the Seattle restraining order in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and this case may make its way to the Supreme Court. Will federal judges be faithful to the rule of law? We shall soon find out.
Before I became a member of Congress, I had a successful career in the private sector. I learned firsthand just how many obstacles our families and small businesses face, thanks to our overly complicated tax code and mounting government regulations.

I also know this because I addressed these issues when I served as the Senate Majority Leader of Michigan in the late 2000s.

To give some context, former Governor John Engler had won Site Selection Magazines prestigious Governors Cup four years in a row. Our economy was growing. Fast forward to the end of Governor Jennifer Granholms administration, and per-capita personal income had taken one of the largest drops of any state over a nine-year period since 1929. More than 800,000 jobs were lost and the unemployment rate skyrocketed to 15 percent. Not surprisingly, a common bumper sticker in our state read, Last one in Michigan, turn out the lights.

As Majority Leader of the Michigan Senate  the only Republican body of government at the time  I knew we had to take the wheel.

We must focus on simplifying the tax code for everyone, with lower rates, so its easier for hardworking families and small businesses to do their taxes and have the peace of mind they deserve.

To start, we closed government budget shortfalls by cutting and reforming government spending, instead of relying on tax increases. Spending from state resources decreased every year from 2006 to 2010. We introduced and passed reforms to the states Medicaid system, one of the fastest-growing cost drivers, to root out fraud and waste.

Before leaving state government at the end of 2010, my priority was to prepare enough legislative solutions for our newly-elected Governor and Legislature so they could get to work on day one. And thats exactly what we did.

Our reforms paved the way for Michigans recovery under Republican leadership. Were now a top 10 pro-business state and have an unemployment rate of 5 percent. In 2017, Michigan is ranked 12th among all states for overall business tax climate.

America faces many of the same challenges Michigan once did  and thats why I came to Congress. We can absolutely get our economy back on track, just as we did in the Comeback State.

It begins with tax reform.

Over the last 30 years, the federal tax code has grown to more than 75,000 pages. Within that mess, you will find hundreds of preferences and subsidies that pick winners and losers.

We must put an end to the special deals for special interests. We should be encouraging competition, rather than perpetuating an economic drag.

We must also focus on simplifying the tax code for everyone, with lower rates, so its easier for hardworking families and small businesses to do their taxes and have the peace of mind they deserve.

House Republicans have a plan that makes it easier to create jobs, increase wages and generate opportunities for everyone. Congress and the administration must work together to create the best possible environment for jobs to stay and grow in Michigan, and across the nation.

Thats the way to a comeback. Ive seen what works in our state, and Im committed to delivering that same approach in Congress.
With the green light from the federal government, the company building the Dakota Access oil pipeline said Wednesday it plans to resume work immediately to finish the long-stalled project. Opponents of the $3.8 billion project meanwhile protested around the country in an action some dubbed their "last stand."

The Army on Wednesday granted the developer of the four-state oil pipeline formal permission to lay pipe under a Missouri River reservoir in North Dakota, clearing the way for completion of the disputed project.

"We plan to begin immediately," Vicki Granado, a spokeswoman for developer Energy Transfer Partners, said in an email to The Associated Press Wednesday night.

Work had been stalled for months due to opposition by the Standing Rock Sioux, but President Donald Trump last month instructed the Army Corps of Engineers to advance pipeline construction.

The tribe fears a pipeline leak could contaminate its drinking water. ETP says the pipeline is safe.

"Now, we all need to work together to make sure the project is completed safely and with as little disruption to the community as possible. This has been a very difficult issue for everyone who lives and works in the area," U.S. Sen. John Hoeven, a North Dakota Republican, said in a statement announcing that the final easement had been granted.

Some members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, which has been at the center of the debate for nearly a year, urged "emergency actions" via social media. The Indigenous Environmental Network told people to target fuel-transportation hubs and government buildings and to expect violence and mass arrests.

Protesters posted an online list of about 50 events nationwide. There were large rallies, including one outside the White House, and smaller ones, such as in Des Moines, Iowa.

A group of protesters in Chicago targeted a bank, and another group went to an Army Corps of Engineers office in New York City but was asked to leave when they started filming without a permit. Several people were arrested for blocking public access to a federal building in San Francisco.

"Today begins the next phase of mass resistance to Donald Trump's toxic Dakota Access pipeline," said Dallas Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network. "This is our land, our water, our health, and our culture at stake  and if Donald Trump thinks we will give all of that up without a fight he is wrong."

At a North Dakota encampment that's been the focus of the pipeline battle for months, the mood was tense, with a few dozen people milling about on a frigid morning and refusing to talk about their plans. They ordered an Associated Press reporter to leave.

Joye Braun and Payu Harris, two pipeline opponents who have been at the camp since April, said in an interview that there's frustration but also resolve in the wake of the Army's decision.

"The goal is still prayerful, nonviolent direct action," Braun said.

The Army said Tuesday that it would allow the pipeline to cross under a Missouri River reservoir in North Dakota, the last big chunk of construction. The official permission to complete the pipeline, known as an "easement," could come as early as Wednesday.

The tribe maintains the move will violate its treaty rights, and its attorneys have vowed to keep fighting in court.

In court documents filed Tuesday, the Justice Department said the Army intends to cancel further environmental study and allow pipe to be laid beneath Lake Oahe. The Army is involved because the Army Corps of Engineers manages the river and its system of hydroelectric dams, which is owned by the federal government.

Although the pipeline attracted large protests long before Donald Trump became president, the call for more demonstrations was the latest example of the new administration taking action that could draw widespread dissent. Large protests followed Trump's inauguration last month. Then only a week later, the president's travel ban provoked demonstrations at many of the nation's larger airports.

The 1,200-mile pipeline would carry North Dakota oil through the Dakotas and Iowa to a shipping point in Illinois. Construction is nearly complete but has been stalled while the Corps and Dallas-based developer Energy Transfer Partners battled in court over the final segment.

The Standing Rock Sioux tribe, whose reservation is just downstream from the crossing, fears a pipeline leak would pollute its drinking water. The tribe led protests last year that drew thousands of people who dubbed themselves "water protectors" to the encampment near the crossing. Protesters and police sometimes clashed, leading to nearly 700 arrests.

Energy Transfer Partners insists the pipeline will be safe.

The camp's population has recently thinned to fewer than 300, and the Corps has notified remaining protesters that the government-owned land will be closed Feb. 22.

On Wednesday, police or pipeline security continued to monitor the camp from nearby hills, as they have done for months. In the camp, few people were outdoors, where the wind chill sank to minus 20 degrees. The tribe itself has told camp occupants to leave, though there has been no effort to remove them.

A new camp is being established on private land, according to Harris.

"This is not over. We are here to stay. And there's more of us coming," he said.

Chase Iron Eyes, an American Indian activist who has called on people to return to the main camp rather than leave, encouraged that again in comments in a statement and on social media.

"I'll see you on the front line," said Iron Eyes, who is facing a felony charge for allegedly inciting a riot during protest action last week near the camp.

An assessment conducted last year determined the river crossing would not have a significant effect on the environment. However, the Army in December decided further study was warranted to address tribal concerns.

The Corps launched a study on Jan. 18, but Trump signed an executive action six days later telling the Corps to proceed with construction. The Army notified Congress on Tuesday that it planned to do so.

The pipeline builder is poised to begin drilling under Lake Oahe as soon as it has approval. Workers have drilled entry and exit holes for the crossing, and oil has been put in the pipeline leading up to the lake in anticipation of finishing the project. CEO Kelcy Warren has said the work could be done in about three months.
A former National Security Agency contractor was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday on charges that he stole reams of highly classified documents.

Harold Martin, 52, was charged with 20 criminal counts of willful retention of national defense information.

Prosecutors allege that between 1996 and 2016, Martin stole top secret documents from the NSA and several other agencies and kept them in his Glen Burnie, Md. home and car.

"The FBI investigation and this indictment reveal a broken trust from a security clearance holder," Gordon Johnson, special agent in charge of the FBI's Baltimore field office, said in a statement.

Prosecutors had previously accused Martin of a "breathtaking" theft, and had raised the potential that he could be providing the information to a foreign government. However, the indictment contains no allegations that he spied for or colluded with any other country or even that he gave away the documents.

Martin's attorney, federal defender James Wyda, has previously described his client as a "compulsive hoarder" who never intended to harm his country and who took work documents home with him as he strove to be as committed to his job as possible.



The documents included sensitive NSA briefings and reports, including a 2009 draft of a signals intelligence directive that outlined methods and procedures for protecting the U.S. and a 2014 report containing information on foreign cyber intrusion techniques.



Martin is also accused of stealing a CIA document detailing foreign intelligence collection sources and methods; a National Reconnaissance Office document that had information about the launch of an intelligence collection satellite; and an NSA document with information on planning and operations concerning suspected terrorists.

Martin, a former U.S. Navy lieutenant, has been in custody since the FBI arrested him in August.

Martin is a former employee of Booz Allen Hamilton, a contractor which also employed NSA leaker Edward Snowden. Snowden fled to Moscow in 2013 after revealing details of the agency's surveillance operations.

If convicted, Martin faces up to 10 years in prison for each count. He is due to appear in court Feb. 14.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Sen. Jeff Sessions won confirmation Wednesday evening to become the next attorney general of the United States, capping a Senate fight so contentious that one of the nominees biggest critics was forced by majority Republicans to sit out the last leg of the debate.

The Senate narrowly approved the Alabama Republicans nomination on a 52-47 vote, the latest in a series of confirmation votes that have been dragged out amid Democratic protests. One Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, joined Republicans in voting to confirm Sessions. Sessions himself voted present.

In his farewell address Wednesday evening, Sessions urged his erstwhile colleagues to get along better following days of bruising debate.

"We need latitude in our relationships," Sessions said. "Denigrating people who disagree with us is not a healthy trend for our body."

President Trump has accused Democrats of obstructing the confirmation process, though the Senate will turn next to votes on the presidents picks to lead the health and treasury departments.

Sessions became just the sixth Cabinet nominee approved by the Senate, joining Trump's choices for Defense, Homeland Security, Education, Transportation and State.

Wednesdays vote came after a rowdy overnight session during which Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., was formally chastised for allegedly impugning Sessions integrity on the floor.

Warren had read a letter authored in 1986 by Coretta Scott King, who was against Sessions nomination at the time to the federal bench, arguing he used the power of his office to chill black voting rights. Warren also quoted the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., who originally had entered Kings letter into the record, describing Sessions as disgraceful.

GOP Senate leaders said Warren had violated Senate rules and should lose her speaking privileges. In a remarkable scene, the Senate then voted 49-43 to suspend Warrens speaking privileges for the rest of the nomination process  the first time the Senate has imposed such a punishment in decades.

Democrats had repeatedly contended that Sessions is too close to Trump, too harsh on immigrants, and weak on civil rights for minorities, immigrants, gay people and women. Sessions was a prominent early backer of Trump, a supporter of his hard line on illegal immigration and joined Trump's advocacy of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

"There is simply nothing in Senator Sessions' testimony before the Judiciary Committee that gives me confidence that he would be willing to stand up to the president," said Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt. "He has instead demonstrated only blind allegiance."

Republicans argued Sessions has demonstrated over a long career in public service, including two decades in the Senate, that he possesses integrity, honesty, and is committed to justice and the rule of law.

"He's honest. He's fair. He's been a friend to many of us, on both sides of the aisle," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said on Wednesday. "It's been tough to watch all this good man has been put through in recent weeks. This is a well-qualified colleague with a deep reverence for the law. He believes strongly in the equal application of it to everyone."

The debate had been intensified by Sessions nomination to a federal judgeship three decades ago, which was rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee after it was alleged that as a federal prosecutor he had called a black attorney "boy" and had said organizations like the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union were un-American.

At his hearing last month, Sessions said he had never harbored racial animus and claimed he had been falsely caricatured.

Before Wednesday's vote, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the Senate's lone black Republican, offered a personal and passionate defense of Sessions. He spoke of his personal experiences in introducing the Alabama Republican to African-American pastors at a racial forum in Charleston.



And he read the statements of black Alabama Democrats vouching for Sessions, who as attorney general will be the nation's top law enforcement official.



Scott said the South is still working through racial differences and said "Jeff Sessions has earned my support and I will hold him accountable if and when we disagree."



Scott read messages in which he was called an "Uncle Tom" -- and worse -- and said that "as I read through some of the comments of my friends on the left, you will wonder if I ever had an experience as a black person in America."



"I just wish that my friends who call themselves liberals would want tolerance for all Americans."



Fox News Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
As judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals weigh the legality of President Trumps immigration executive order, a Republican push to split up the controversial court -- and shrink its clout -- is gaining steam on Capitol Hill.

Republican Sens. Jeff Flake and John McCain of Arizona introduced legislation last month to carve six states out of the San Francisco-based court circuit and create a brand new 12th Circuit.

They argue that the 9th is too big, too liberal and too slow resolving cases. If they succeed, only California, Oregon, Hawaii and two island districts would remain in the 9th's judicial fiefdom.

Right now, Flake said, the circuit is far too sprawling.

It represents 20 percent of the population -- and 40 percent of the land mass is in that jurisdiction. Its just too big, Flake told Fox News on Wednesday. We have a bedrock principle of swift justice and if you live in Arizona or anywhere in the 9th Circuit, you just dont have it.

Flake says it typically takes the court 15 months to hand down a decision.

Its far too long, he added.

Conservatives have mocked the 9th Circuit for years, often calling it the Nutty 9th or the 9th Circus, in part because so many of its rulings have been overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The court has a reputation as one of the most liberal in the country, in large part because of its makeup. Eighteen of the courts 25 active judges have been appointed by Democrats. Former President George W. Bush appointed six justices, while former President Barack Obama appointed seven.

Under Flakes bill, the new circuit would cover Nevada, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Arizona and Alaska, leaving the 9th with three Pacific states as well as the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam.

A separate House version introduced by Rep. Andy Biggs and four other Arizona Republicans would leave Washington state in the 9th Circuit.

Congressional efforts to split the circuit go back to 1941.

The problem is the judges in the 9th Circuit, particularly the liberal judges, dont want to give up any of their jurisdiction, Flake said.

Congress created the court in 1891. At the time, the area was sparsely inhabited  only four percent of the U.S. population lived in the area compared to todays 20 percent.

In 1998, Congress appointed a commission to reexamine the federal appeals courts structure. The commission ultimately recommended against splitting the 9th Circuit.

But carving up the large circuit isnt out of the realm of possibility. In 1929, Congress split the 8th Circuit to accommodate a population boom and increased caseloads.

Democratic strategist Joe Lestingi pushed back on accusations the court leans left.

We dont complain about courts being too conservative, he told Fox News. The truth is the liberal side of that court provides the conflict we need to settle our most basic disagreements.

He added that the 9th Circuits track record of rulings being overturned -- sometimes unanimously by the U.S. Supreme Court -- is all part of the judicial process.

If the Supreme Court wasnt going to overturn lower courts' decisions, then we dont need a Supreme Court anymore, Lestingi argued.
Letters to parents about school financial problems are nothing unusual, but one from the head of Chicago Public Schools has created a firestorm of criticism.

CPS CEO Forrest Claypool announced a $46 million spending freeze as well as other possible cuts, including one for $18 million for independently run schools. The letter was filled with pointed attacks on Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican, whom Claypool lambasted for not doing more to give the district enough funding.

And in a move that particularly infuriated parents, and others, Claypool said that in neglecting Chicago schools, Rauner was acting like President Donald Trump.

Just like Trump, hes attacking children of immigrants, hes attacking racial minorities, attacking the poor here in Chicago, Claypool said in the letter, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. In this case its children, which is particularly shameful.

That was one of several references he made to Trump in his comparisons of the governor and the president. Claypool urged parents to reach out to Rauners office and tell the governor to stop acting like President Trump and to be fair to their children.

The criticism over the letter has been steadily pouring in, with parents, taxpayer groups and some educators calling the partisan political tone inappropriate.

Many also take Claypool to task for what they say is his move to punt to the state the problems that the school district itself  as well as city officials, including Mayor Rahm Emanuel -- helped create.

Using partisan politics is not an effective way to build trust with Chicago public school parents and students, said Sarah Brune, spokesperson for Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, a non-partisan organization that advocates for transparency and accountability in government. Voters expect both public officials and employees to take a neutral stance on politics, particularly when its about a local issue.

Theres no reason to get national politics involved, Brune told Fox News. And the mixing of political opinions and work during city time makes people uncomfortable.

Efforts to get a comment from CPS were unsuccessful.

The Sun-Times noted that Claypool and Emanuel have been taking shots at Rauner because of the governors veto of a bill that called for giving CPS $215 million for teacher pensions.

Troy LaRaviere, president of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association, wrote a letter that appeared in the Chicago Tribune in which he challenged Claypool to take responsibility for CPSs own role in creating a financial mess.

While Rauner deserves his share of the blame for the state's failure to rescue our students from this perilous circumstance, LaRaviere wrote, it is not Rauner's mismanagement that brought us to this crisis. That responsibility lies with Claypool, his recent predecessors, the Chicago Board of Education  and Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who appointed them all.

They've had six years to get CPS out of this situation, LaRaviere continued, yet they continue to create financial chaos year after year and point the finger at Springfield for failing to rescue Chicago's children from the chaos they've created.

Illinois Secretary of Education Beth Purvis was not pleased with Claypools letter, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Why would CPS arbitrarily create a crisis and hurt its students and teachers rather than work to pass the Senates balanced budget reform package? Purvis wrote to parents.
At least 31 people in Michigan could face felony charges for voting twice during last November's presidential election.

Chris Thomas, state elections director, said the residents voted twice, first with an absentee ballot and then in person.

Their names were turned over to the attorney general's office for possible prosecution.

Voting twice, or even attempting to do so, is a felony."It's not acceptable," Thomas said.

Fourteen of the 31 were in Detroit. Officials believe Detroit poll workers didn't catch the double votes because they weren't given an updated list of voters who had used an absentee ballot.It's not known which candidate got the votes.

Ballots are anonymous."There are processes in place to stop this. In these 31 cases, they didn't work," Thomas said.

Separately, the state Bureau of Elections said human error, not fraud or equipment failure, caused mismatches between the number of ballots cast in some Detroit precincts and the number of voters.

The agency's investigation followed a partial statewide recount of the presidential race, which raised questions about the safeguarding of ballots in Detroit. A judge stopped the recount after three days, although officials said it would not have changed President Trump's slim victory in Michigan over Hillary Clinton.

Before the recount was halted, there was an attempt to recount ballots in 263 Detroit precincts. But 68 precincts didn't qualify because the number of ballots didn't match the number of people who showed up to vote.

Some ballots, for example, were left in a tub below an electronic tabulator and not transferred to a secure box on election night. In one polling place, there were 300 voters but only 50 properly sealed ballots.

While many precincts couldn't be part of the recount, all ballots cast on Nov. 8 still were part of the final official result.

"There was no pervasive fraud in our audit of Detroit," said state elections director Chris Thomas, who instead cited "widespread performance issues" related to a lack of sufficient training for poll workers.

He said his elections staff looked at 136 precincts and was able to balance the number of ballots and voters in 65 and greatly reduce mismatches in others.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
At most, Elizabeth Warren would have gotten a paragraph on an inside page.

Now the chattering classes are all chattering about her.

The Massachusetts senator was on MSNBC yesterday, deflecting questions about running for president in 2020.

All thanks to Mitch McConnell.

By silencing her on the Senate floor, McConnell did more than shine a white-hot spotlight on her argument against Jeff Sessions as the nominee for attorney general. He elevated Warren to the leader of the Democratic opposition, and practically rebranded her as The Woman Who Would Not Be Silenced.

Warren, as you probably know, was delivering a floor statement against Sessions and had just finished quoting from a 1986 letter by Coretta Scott King. In opposing his unsuccessful nomination to a federal judgeship, the civil rights leaders widow wrote that Sessions, as a prosecutor, had tried to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters.

McConnell invoked a rule that prevents senators from disparaging their fellow lawmakers. When Warren persisted, the majority leader engineered a party-line vote that stripped her of the right to speak on the Sessions nomination.

The tactic was a bit puzzling, since there was no question that Sessions would be easily confirmed, as he was last night. As a shrewd tactician, McConnell had to know that his move would mushroom into a huge story. And Warren had to know that if she kept reading the letter, she would lose the parliamentary battle.

I can only conclude that McConnell saw an advantage in making Warren the face of the opposing party. Her anti-Wall Street populism makes her enormously popular in the Bernie wing of the Democratic Party, but she may be viewed as a strident or divisive voice among Republicans. It might help McConnell and company paint the Democratic attacks on Trump nominees as purely ideological.

But Warren is seizing the moment. They can shut me up, but they cant change the truth, she told CNN.

No less a figure than Hillary Clinton weighed in on Twitter, citing McConnells rationale:

"'She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.' So must we all.

And the media love the story line:

USA Today: She did it again. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has often energized her liberal base with her take-no-prisoners attitude, found herself in a familiar position on the Senate floor Tuesday: fighting back against congressional Republicans. This was followed by a recounting of her greatest hits.

CNN says the takedown of Warren backfired:

The Senate has silenced Elizabeth Warren. And by doing so, majority Republicans just handed the liberal firebrand a megaphone -- further elevating President Donald Trump's fiercest and most prominent critic in the Senate and turning her into a Democratic hero.

I happen to think the anti-disparagement rule should be suspended when a senator is nominated for a high government office. In any event, its violated all the time through carefully worded attacks on my good friend or the distinguished gentleman.

Ive wondered what would have happened if Warren had run for president in 2016. She certainly would have been attacked as anti-business and weak on foreign policy. But her profile as a Democratic force just got a whole lot higher.

Oh, and shell probably sell a few more copies of her forthcoming book, A Fighting Chance.
Illegal immigrants need only one number to access billions of dollars in free taxpayer cash.

The Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN) unlocks an exclusive gateway for non-citizens to receive monies meant for working, low-income Americans. The nine-digit code was created by bureaucrats in 1996 for foreigners who had to deal with the IRS. It allows people without a Social Security number, including those in the country illegally, to file taxes.

Its just a farce to say it was created to collect taxes, Robert Rector, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News. Its nothing but a welfare program designed for illegal immigrants. ITINS are for tourists or illegals. No ITIN filer is eligible to work in the United States.

The problem with ITIN, critics say, is gives non-citizens access to federal cash that they should not be entitled to receive. Once illegal immigrants file ITIN tax returns, they can apply for a Child Tax Credit  which entitles them to $1,000 per child. Unlike the Earned Income Tax Credit, which requires a Social Security Number to qualify, the Child Tax Credit is a cash program that does not.

Critics say that makes it ripe for abuse.

Numerous investigations by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration have chronicled not only improper Child Tax Credit fraud and error payments ranging from $5.9 billion to $7.1 billion, but schemes such as nearly 24,000 ITIN payments going to the same address. The audit reports also found IRS management was not concerned with addressing questionable applications but interested only in the volume of applications that can be processed, regardless of whether they are fraudulent.

Another audit report examining ITIN usage found Child Tax Credit claims more than quadrupled in five years, from $924 million in 2005 to $4.2 billion in 2010.

An agency spokesman said the IRS recently paid $5.7 billion to ITIN for those claiming child tax credit and in 2015 it paid $3.4 billion.

A Social Security number is required to qualify for any federal public benefit. Green card holders, refugees and those granted asylum receive Social Security Numbers. But workers without a Social Security Number can still file taxes  and apply for certain tax credits  with an ITIN number.

If you dont have a Social Security number, you shouldnt be getting a tax payment, David North of the Center for Immigration Studies told Fox News. It keeps happening and nobody pays attention.

Some are calling for President Trump to close the loophole and require people to obtain a Social Security number in order to receive a Child Tax Credit. North says no such course correction was included in an immigration-related draft order leaked to The Washington Post late January.

The order overlooks one of the largest sources of payments to non-citizens, North said. The federal government should not be subsidizing people who are in this country illegally.

North said the program has little oversight and abuse is not taken seriously.

The Treasury Department is not careful who gets a number, North said. Documents can be obtained through the mail, proving foreign status via a passport or combination of such documents as a VISA, foreign voter ID or school and medical records, without in-person interviews.

IRS IMPROPERLY PAID $15.6 BILLION THROUGH EARNED INCOME TAX CREDIT PROGRAM

While congressional attempts to adjust the practice have sputtered, Indiana Congressman Luke Messer is resurrecting an effort to address the issue.

After eight years of the Obama administration, its clear the law isnt clear enough, Messer told Fox News. There is no policy reason why we should be supporting families who are here illegally.

Messers proposal, H.R. 363, would ensure only taxpayers with a valid Social Security number are able to claim the Child Tax Credit.

He says his legislation will save America billions of dollars and could be a method to pay for the wall.

Messer says he hopes to package the law into congressional tax reform efforts but would welcome an administrative fix.

Rector concurs, saying Trump needs to step in and take action.

An executive order could stop this immediately, he said. It violates welfare reform to make these payments to illegal immigrants.
President Tran Dai Quang and Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith (Source: VNA)



Receiving Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith in Hanoi on February 8th, the President asked the PMs of the two countries to direct ministries, agencies and localities to realise the outcomes of the 39th meeting while continuing to facilitate the exchange of visits at all levels.

The Lao PM is in Vietnam to co-chair the 39th meeting of the Vietnam-Laos Inter-Governmental Committee, which took place in the Hanoi on February 8th.

President Tran Dai Quang called for increasing connectivity between the two economies to lift two-way trade, partly by prioritising energy and transport projects, dealing with existing barriers and providing all possible support for Vietnamese investors in Laos.

He proposed close coordination between Vietnam and Laos to celebrate the 55th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties and the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation this year, as well as offering mutual support in regional and global forums to further deepen linkages in the ASEAN Community, increase ASEANs central role and common voice in regional strategic issues.

The Vietnamese State leader reiterated Vietnams consistent policy of giving high priority to the special solidarity with Laos and full support for Laos reform and national construction and defence.

The Lao PM, for his part, informed the host of the outcomes of the 39th meeting, affirming that both sides have pledged to build on the past achievements to further deepen bilateral economic ties to match the growing political links between the two nations./.
For decades, the F/A-18 Hornet has been the Navys front-line combat jet  taking off from aircraft carriers around the globe to enforce no-fly zones, carry out strikes and even engage in the occasional dogfight.

But the Navys ability to use these planes is now greatly hindered as more than 60 percent of the jets are out of service. That number is even worse for the Marine Corps, where 74 percent of its F-18s  some of the oldest in service  are not ready for combat operations.

These figures are reflective of the erosion in readiness across all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces and a source of deepening concern for ranking military members and lawmakers in both houses of Congress. Top service branch officials sounded the alarm in a pair of congressional hearings this week about how bad the problem has become.

Our long-term readiness continues its insidious decline, Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. William Moran testified Wednesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

He added, While we are still able to put our first team on the field, our bench is largely depleted.

During the hearing  and one on Tuesday before the House Armed Service Committee  the vice chiefs pleaded with lawmakers to repeal legislation limiting defense spending, arguing that fiscal constraints have crippled the militarys capability to respond to threats.

Despite annual defense spending coming in at more than $600 billion, each of the branches has asked to increase the 2017 defense budget by more than $30 billion to purchase new jet fighters and armored vehicles as well as improve training. This request from the panel of four-star military officers dovetails with President Trumps promise to reinvest in a depleted fighting force and his Defense Departments push to do away with limits on military spending.

The Budget Control Act of 2011 set limits on how much could be spent on defense through 2021 while exempting money provided for overseas warfighting. Between 2011 and 2014, the Pentagon's budget fell by more than $100 billion and across-the-board spending limits known in Washington-speak as sequestration were triggered in 2013, which forced reductions that led to widespread concern the military services would be unprepared to fight.

The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 provided temporary relief from the cuts, but unless the law is changed the limits will return in the 2018 budget year and would force defense budgets to levels far lower than the Pentagon says are prudent. If the budget caps are breached, automatic spending reductions would be triggered.

According to testimony, the Navy is the smallest and least prepared its been in 99 years.

Its a simple matter of supply cant meet demand, Moran said.

The Navy has requested an additional $12 billion for 24 F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighters, one San Antonio-class amphibious landing dock ship, and dozens more Sidewinder missiles.

Gen. Daniel Allyn, the Army's vice chief of staff, said that only three of the Army's more than 50 brigade combat teams have all the troops, training and equipment needed to fight at a moment's notice.

And the Marine Corps, which wants an additional $4.2 billion added to its 2017 budget, warned that the "nation's force in readiness" will have to continue shifting money intended for new weapons to pay current bills.

The Air Force is the branch of the military that arguably is in the most dire straits, with aircraft numbers falling from 8,600 in 1991 to 5,500 today. There are 55 fighter squadrons, down from 134, and less than 50 percent of its combat forces are sufficiently ready for a highly contested fight against peer adversaries, Air Force Vice Chief Gen. Stephen W. Wilson said in reference to countries like Russia and China.

While the vice chiefs argue that financial constraints are corroding military readiness, some experts say that cash flow is only part of the problem and point to the United States' constant involvement in overseas conflicts over the past 15 years.

On one hand, our forces are more ready than ever because they are battle-hardened, James Dobbins, the head of international and security policy for the RAND Corporation and former ambassador to the European Union under President George H. W. Bush, told Fox News. But theyre not ready in the sense that they are not prepared to take on a peer adversary like Russia or China.

The pressure and wear and tear on the forces have made that all but impossible, Dobbins added.

The Republican chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, Rep. Mac Thornberry of Texas and Sen. John McCain of Arizona, are pushing for a base military budget of $640 billion in 2018  a nearly $100 billion increase over the amount authorized for the 2017 fiscal year.

Im fully aware there is much, much more that needs to be done in a careful, thoughtful, but determined way, Thornberry said earlier this week. Defense reform will be a part of my agenda as long as Ive got this job.

Thornberry and fellows hawks in Congress have argued that Republican plans to rein in federal spending in other areas, like Medicare and Medicaid, and a tax code overhaul could generate savings that can be funneled into defense spending.

But fiscal conservatives could hamper these efforts with an argument that budget savings should be used to reduce the deficit. The push also faces an uncertain future given Trumps campaign pledge to reduce taxes and protect entitlement programs from cuts, while Democrats are likely to demand equal increases in spending on domestic programs.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Defense and intelligence officials have reportedly expressed concern over the possiblity that the Trump administration will at some point designate Irans Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization.

Officials said the designation could put U.S. troops in danger in Iraq and hurt the overall fight against the Islamic State, The Washington Post reported Wednesday. The White House is weighing whether to designate the Muslim Brotherhood-- along with the revolutionary guard-- as terrorist organizations.

A senior White House official told The Post was still being mulled over. The White House has sought to take a hard stance against Iran and has even threatened fresh sanctions over Irans recent missile tests.

There are so many second, third and fifth order of facts with every decision, as we see it, and so I think that this is an area where, rightly so, we have to be very smart... This all has to do with [Irans] behavior. What we have to do is figure out what are the right things to consider. We consider a lot of things. What we actually decide to do is different, the White House official said.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer declined to say whether the White House would take steps against either the Muslim Brotherhood or the IRGC, The Wall Street Journal reported.

However, Spicer said: Theres no one that can question the presidents commitment to fully attacking and addressing the threat that we face by Islamic terrorists.

Irans Revolutionary Guard is an elite military unit and reports directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It was established right after the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran and has grown to dominate Irans economy, according to The Journal. More than 100,000 field the army, navy and air force.

The Treasury Department had already sanctioned the Revolutionary Guard and its Quds Force for terrorist activities and support. A terrorist designation would have more of an impact on Iranians ability to travel and access to the international financial system, according to The Washington Post.

Officials worry that a terrorist designation could harm the extremely fragile relationship in place between the U.S. and Iran as they seemingly work together to free Mosul from the Islamic State.

The Post reported there is an agreement that was facilitated by Iraq to keep their distances while on the battlefield to avoid a clash. Officials are concerned a clash could start fresh attacks from Shiite Muslims against American forces in Iraq, which came to a halt when the U.S. originally pulled out of Iraq in 2011.

Experts told the newspaper that a terrorist designation on the Muslim Brotherhood could cause a different set of problems. U.S. allies, including Turkey and Jordan, consider the Brotherhood a legitimate party. It makes up 10 percent of the Jordanian Parliament.

Click for more from The Washington Post.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his Democratic lieutenants refocused their energy Thursday on battling labor secretary nominee Andrew Puzder, after their public campaign against two controversial Cabinet picks failed to block their confirmation.

Though President Trump and his Republican allies have blasted Senate Democrats for slow-walking his nominees, Schumer, D-N.Y., made it clear at a press conference Thursday theyre not finished yet -- and called on the president to withdraw Puzders name.

Remember the days when Republicans would actually nominate labor leaders to be head of the Department of Labor? Schumer said, calling the nominee one of the most anti-worker nominees to any Cabinet position.

They ought to withdraw Puzders [nomination] before he further embarrasses this administration, Schumer said.

The demand comes after Democratic senators, despite spending days railing against their nominations, were unable to prevent now-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions from being confirmed.

Two Republicans joined all 48 Democrats in opposing DeVos earlier this week, but Vice President Pence broke the tie in her favor, in his capacity as president of the Senate. Sessions, a longtime Alabama senator, was confirmed Wednesday evening on a 52-47 vote following a raucous debate. He was sworn-in Thursday.

The Senate turns next to the nominations of Rep. Tom Price for health secretary and Steve Mnuchin for treasury secretary.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., defended their credentials Thursday and urged the full chamber to confirm. Amid Democratic resistance, the Senate has confirmed just six of Trumps core Cabinet secretaries, a historically slow pace for a new president.

The confirmation of any of President Trumps cabinet nominees, it seems, will bring about untold destruction, the likes of which America has never seen, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said on Thursday, blasting Democrats broad opposition. My colleagues appear to be more than willing to cast aside the traditions, respect, and assumptions of good faith that has long been the hallmark of the Senate confirmation process and of the Senate itself.

Puzder, though, is now attracting the most concentrated criticism from Senate Democrats, as he tries to address questions about conflicts of interest and other issues.

He has proposed resigning as CEO of his fast food empire, selling off hundreds of holdings and recusing himself from government decisions in which he has a financial interest, according to his ethics filings with the government

"I will not participate personally and substantially in any particular matter in which I know that I have a financial interest directly and predictably affected by the matter" without a waiver from government ethics officials, Andrew Puzder wrote in the nine-page filing, dated Tuesday and obtained by The Associated Press. Puzder is CEO of CKE Restaurants Inc., which owns such chains as Hardee's and Carl's Jr.

Asked on a separate Senate questionnaire obtained Thursday whether he would "sever all connections with (his) present employer" if confirmed, Puzder answered, "Yes."

A spokesperson for Tennessee GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander, whose committee will handle Puzder's confirmation hearing, confirmed that the panel had received the agreement with the Office of Government Ethics required of all presidential Cabinet nominees.

The hearing was set for Feb. 16.

Trump has called Puzder the ideal candidate to lead the department, citing his record boosting the careers of thousands of Americans.

But Democrats are questioning how well Puzder could advocate for American workers atop the agency charged with enforcing protections, given his business empire. They are publicizing several unflattering stories from current and former employees of Puzder's company, and his hearing has been postponed several times. Puzder has said he opposes a big minimum wage hike, rules on overtime pay and other labor priorities.

Puzder said on the questionnaire that from 2014 through 2016, he personally lobbied lawmakers and their staffers "to advocate on behalf of issues that are of importance to the restaurant industry." Puzder cited his firm's interest in menu labeling, franchise regulations, the Affordable Care Act and an Obama administration labor ruling that companies can be held responsible for labor violations committed by their contractors.

Like several of the wealthy corporate figures who have joined Trump's Cabinet and agreed to sell off their vast assets to eliminate possible conflicts of interest, Puzder promised in his ethics agreement that he would sell off his CKE Restaurant Holdings partnership stock shares to his company. Puzder estimated the worth of those stock holdings at between $10 million and $50 million, according to his financial disclosures.

Unlike the OGE-approved agreements of several other Trump Cabinet nominees, notably Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's, Puzder's does not include language that would place his sold-off holdings in a trust administered by an independent trustee. Instead, the government appears to be allowing Puzder to use an alternate route of insulating himself from his holdings by converting them into "non-conflicting assets" approved by ethics officials.

Puzder said he expected to be able to sell more than 200 stocks, bonds and mutual fund holdings within 90 days, but warned that more than a dozen other investment funds with multiple underlying assets could take longer to sell.

Puzder also has acknowledged having employed a housekeeper who was not authorized to work in the U.S. A spokesman later confirmed that the nominee fired her when he discovered her status, about five years ago, and paid the back-taxes regarding her employment after Trump nominated him.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, Wednesday defended the deadly commando raid in Yemen last month, labeling the mission a success and saying anyone who sees it otherwise owes the Navy SEAL killed during the raid an apology.

Spicer was asked by a reporter-- who mentioned Sen. John McCains earlier comments about the raidand Spicer said, Anyone who undermines the success of that raid owes an apology and [does] a disservice.

Spicer never mentioned McCain by name.

The Arizona Republican told NBC News earlier that he did not believe the raid could be called a success because a $75-million plane was destroyed and the commando was killed.

US, YEMEN PUSH BACK ON REPORTS OF REQUEST TO STOP GROUND MISSIONS

Navy SEAL William "Ryan" Owens was killed in the assault during the Jan. 29 raid. Another three U.S. forces were wounded in the "hard landing" of an MV-22 Osprey aircraft at a staging area for the mission.

According to Central Command, the firefight included small arms fire, hand grenades and close air support fire. U.S. Central Command said earlier this month that civilians may have been hit by gunfire from aircraft called in to assist U.S. troops.

The State Dept. weighed in on the latest reports. "The United States conducts operations consistent with international law and in coordination with the government of Yemen. We will not relent in our mission to degrade, disrupt and destroy," Al Qaeda and the Islamic State terror group, the department's acting spokesman Mark Toner said.

McCain told NBC News that he did not criticize the mission and recalled the time he was held as a POW during the Vietnam War, when U.S. soldiers attempted to free the captives.

"Unfortunately, the prison had been evacuated. But the brave men who risked their lives in an effort to rescue us prisoners of war were genuine American heroes," he said. "Because the mission failed did not in any way diminish their courage and willingness to help their fellow Americans who were held captive.

"Mr. Spicer should know that story."

The Associated Press contributed to this report
White House policy director Stephen Miller ripped media coverage of President Donald Trump's travel and immigration ban Wednesday night, saying it's "frankly contemptible the way that false statements have been made about the presidents lawful, necessary and fully constitutional action."

"This is the apex of presidential power, delegated to the president by Congress and the Constitution to suspend the entry of aliens into the United States,"Miller told Fox News' Sean Hannity.

WHITE HOUSE FIRES BACK AT IMMIGRATION ORDER CRITICS WITH LIST OF TERROR ARRESTS

Miller spoke hours after the White House released a list of terrorism cases involving suspects who came to the U.S. from the seven countries mentioned in the order: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

"Weve seen example after example ... of individuals becoming radicalized and joining terrorist groups," Miller said. "The reality ... is that it is a daily feature of life for law enforcement officials and federal investigators all across this country to be investigating, interdicting and preventing terrorist acts that are only being conceived of ... because we let these individuals into our country in the first place."

Miller also slammed U.S. District Court Judge James Robart's decision last week to issue a temporary restraining order, which halted the enforcement of Trump's executive order, as "judicial activism."

"An unelected judge does not have the right to remake the immigration laws and policies for the entire United States of America," Miller said. "This was an issue put before 300 million American citizens and they voted ... to put in place new, tough vetting measures so that we dont end up [spending] hundreds of billions of dollars long-term dealing with the effects of an immigration system that is not properly controlled."
President Trump on Thursday signed three executive orders setting up task forces as part of a broader effort to reduce crime  orders Trump said are designed to restore safety in America.

The orders came as Trump attended the swearing-in ceremony of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was confirmed by the Senate Wednesday night.

The orders establish three Department of Justice task forces to fight drug cartels, reduce violent crime and reduce attacks against police. The White House did not immediately release copies of the orders.

Trump said he was seeking to break the back of the criminal cartels that have spread across our nation and are destroying the blood of our youth. The cartel task force would partner the DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security.

Law and order was a central theme of Trumps campaign, during which he also pushed his hardline immigration policies. But he has also prioritized tackling violent crime, recently promising on Twitter that if Chicago didnt get its crime problem under control, he would send in the Feds.

A new era of justice begins and it begins right now, Trump said at the ceremony.
President Trump on Thursday struck back at Sen. Richard Blumenthal a day after the Connecticut Democrat leaked alleged details of a conversation he had with Trumps Supreme Court pick.

Blumenthal on Wednesday told reporters that Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch said previous comments made by Trump about a federal judge were demoralizing and disheartening.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie), now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him? Trump tweeted.

He later added: "Chris Cuomo, in his interview with Sen. Blumenthal, never asked him about his long-term lie about his brave 'service' in Vietnam. FAKE NEWS!"

The supposed comments from Gorsuch to Blumenthal came in response to Trumps tweet calling a federal judge a so-called judge. That judge had suspended Trumps immigration restriction executive order.

But White House sources told Fox News that, while Gorsuch had indeed used the words "disheartening" and "demoralizing" during his meeting with Blumenthal, he was not specifically talking about Trump's public spat with the federal judge, and was instead speaking in generalities about attacks on the judiciary.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway wouldn't comment on whether Trump and Gorsuch had spoken in the past day, however, she told "Fox & Friends" on Thursday that "the president is fully confident in Judge Gorsuch."

Former Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who is aiding Gorsuch as he speaks with senators, released a statement Thursday morning clarifying the comments Gorsuch made to Blumenthal.

"Judge Gorsuch has made it very clear in all of his discussions with senators, including Senator Blumenthal, that he could not comment on any specific cases and that judicial ethics prevent him from commenting on political matters," Ayotte said. "He has also emphasized the importance of an independent judiciary, and while he made clear that he was not referring to any specific case, he said that he finds any criticism of a judge's integrity and independence disheartening and demoralizing.

Trump in his tweet latched on to Blumenthals history of embellishment to bolster his case that the Senate Judiciary Committee member had misrepresented Gorsuchs remarks.

Blumenthal had for years boasted of having served in Vietnam, but had in actuality received five deferments, from 1965-1970, before he joined the Marine Reserve, The New York Times reported in 2010 when Blumenthal first ran for Senate. Blumenthals position in the Marine Reserve sent him to Washington state  thousands of miles from Asia  where he focused on local tasks, such as organizing a Toys for Tots drive.

We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam, Blumenthal told a group of veterans in 2008, according to The Times.

Blumenthal told The Times he had misspoken, saying his intention has always been to be completely clear and accurate and straightforward, out of respect to the veterans who served in Vietnam.

Fox News' John Roberts contributed to this report.
President Trump on Thursday took aim at one of his favorite political targets  fellow Republican, Sen. John McCain  after McCain questioned the success of a military raid in Yemen that resulted in the death of a Navy SEAL.

McCain had said in a Wednesday statement that he would not describe any operation that results in the loss of American life as a success. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer later fired back, saying anyone who undermines the success of that raid owes an apology and [does] a disservice, but didnt mention McCain by name. Trump, however, held nothing back.

Sen. McCain should not be talking about the success or failure of a mission to the media. Only emboldens the enemy! Hes been losing so long he doesnt know how to win anymore, just look at the mess our country is in  bogged down in conflict all over the place, Trump wrote in a series of morning tweets. Our hero Ryan died on a winning mission (according to [Secretary of Defense] General Mattis), not a failure. Time for the U.S. to get smart and start winning again!

While the military reported taking a trove of information following the Jan. 29 nighttime raid on an Al Qaeda compound, Navy SEAL William Ryan Owens was killed and three other troops were wounded. U.S. forces also were forced to destroy an MV-22 Osprey aircraft after a hard landing.

"Several of [the Trump tweets] cracked me up," McCain said later Thursday. "I can't comment on what the president does and I won't, but one of the things I've learned over the years here -- frankly, one of the guys I learned this from was Ted Kennedy -- he said you can ferociously defend your position or take the offense, but not get personal and you can move onto another issue or move on.

"I've tried to move on in the senate. I haven't always succeeded because of my temper, but generally speaking...I love to argue this...people I disagree with, I just don't get personal with it."

But while McCain didn't take on the president directly, several Democratic senators jumped to the Arizona Republican's defense on Thursday.

"When President Trump assaults Senator McCain, he better watch out," said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. "Because this is a guy who knows what he's talking about and not only has he walked his talk, he's been there. And that's a dangerous area for president trump to continue to trash John McCain."

Trump has frequently attacked McCain, a moderate GOP legislator who often has been critical of the president.

The war of words began when Trump said in July 2015 that McCain, who was a prisoner during the Vietnam war, was not a war hero.

He was a war hero because he was captured, Trump said. I like people who werent captured.

Trump quickly followed that controversy by lambasting McCain for problems at the VA. In October 2016, as Trump was being pilloried after a decade-old audio surfaced that featured Trump making crude remarks, Trump hit McCain for not supporting him.

The very foul mouthed Sen. John McCain begged for my support during his primary (I gave, he won), then dropped me over locker room remarks! Trump tweeted Oct. 11.

When Trumps executive order temporarily restricting immigration from seven mostly Muslim countries drew a rebuke from McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham, Trump again took to Twitter.

The joint statement of former presidential candidates John McCain & Lindsey Graham is wrong  they are sadly weak on immigration, he wrote. The two Senators should focus their energies on ISIS, illegal immigration and border security instead of always looking to start World War III.

Fox News' Peter Doocy and Jason Donner contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump will host Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the White House on Monday.

The White House says the leaders will discuss "strengthening the relationship" between their countries.

Trump has said he wants to discuss his wish to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement, which involves the United States, Canada and Mexico. Trump has said NAFTA puts U.S. workers at a disadvantage.

Trump's refugee and immigration ban may also come up in the discussions with Trudeau.

After Trump signed the executive order pausing all entries to the U.S. from seven Muslim-majority nations, Trudeau tweeted that Canada welcomed people fleeing persecution, terrorism and war.

Trudeau said "diversity is our strength."
NA Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan receives Lao Prime Minister (Photo: VNA)



While receiving Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith in Hanoi on February 8th, Chairwoman Ngan spoke highly of the important outcomes of the freshly-ended 39th meeting of the Vietnam-Laos Intergovernmental Committee, which was co-chaired by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his Lao counterpart.

Ngan said the Vietnamese NA will also facilitate the implementation of investment and trade cooperation projects between the two nations as well as the contents reached by the two Prime Ministers at the meeting.

The top legislator informed her guest about the effective cooperation between the two legislatures in the recent past, stressing that the two bodies will coordinate closely to successfully organise celebrations for the 55th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties and the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Vietnam-Laos Amity and Cooperation Treaty.

For his part, PM Sisoulith thanked Vietnam for its great and effective support and assistance to Laos over the past years.

Having briefed his host about the outcomes of the meeting, he affirmed that the Lao Government will collaborate with its Vietnamese counterpart to carry out agreements signed between senior Party and State leaders as well as cooperation contents reached at the 39th session of the intergovernmental committee.

The Lao PM also expressed his wish that the Vietnamese NA will support the deployment of agreements signed between the two nations in order to elevate bilateral socio-economic cooperation to be on a par with political relations between the two Parties and States./.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal may have thought he put his stolen valor controversy to rest during an apologetic press conference in 2010.

Then President Trump picked up his cellphone.

Trump on Thursday morning hit Blumenthal for allegedly exaggerating details of a conversation with Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch  while shining a light on the seven-year-old uproar over the Connecticut Democrat's apparent misrepresentation of his military service.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie), now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him? Trump tweeted. Chris Cuomo, in his interview with Sen. Blumenthal never asked him about his long-term lie about his brave service in Vietnam. FAKE NEWS!

Trump kept up the barrage Thursday afternoon, telling reporters Gorsuch's "comments were misrepresented, and what you should do is ask Sen. Blumenthal about his Vietnam record, that didn't exist after years of saying it did...he misrepresented that just like he misrepresented Judge Gorsuch."

Asked to comment Thursday about the tweets, Blumenthal told Fox News "this isn't about me" and denied embellishing or misrepresenting his meeting with Gorsuch.

Blumenthal received five deferments, from 1965-1970, before enlisting in the Marine Corps Reserve, though he was never sent out of the U.S. During his six years in the Reserve, Blumenthal was stationed in Washington, focusing on a slew of local projects, such as a Toys for Tots drive.

During his political career, however, Blumenthal frequently walked a precarious line, often framing his service just ambiguously enough to give the impression that he had spent time fighting in Vietnam.

I served during the Vietnam era, Blumenthal said in 2008. I remember the taunts, the insults, sometimes even physical abuse.

He told a gathering of families who were expressing support for returning American troops in 2003 that, when we returned, we saw nothing like this.

Blumenthal, however, crossed the line when speaking to a group of veterans in March 2008.

We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam, he said.

The New York Times published those quotes and others in a bombshell report during the 2010 campaign, noting that Blumenthal was described as having served in Vietnam in at least eight Connecticut newspaper articles published between 2003 and 2009.

Linda McMahon, the Republican who ultimately opposed Blumenthal in 2010, claimed her campaign had leaked the tip about Blumenthal to The Times. McMahon is currently Trumps nominee to lead the Small Business Administration.

Speaking with The Times in 2010, Blumenthal said he couldnt recall if he had seen the articles and wasnt sure if any steps had been taken to correct the claims.

I dont know if we tried to do so or not, he said.

During a 2010 press conference in which he was surrounded by veterans, Blumenthal claimed he had misspoken.

On a few occasions, I have misspoken about my service, and I regret that and I take full responsibility, said Blumenthal, who explained he meant to say he served during Vietnam, not in Vietnam. But I will not allow anyone to take a few misplaced words and impugn my record of service to our country.

Fox News' Peter Doocy contributed to this report.
Halloween might be Americas most popular candy-coated holiday, but Valentines Day is hot on its heels.

This February, confection companies such as Hersheys, Mars, Brach's, Sugarfina and Dylans Candy Bar are aiming to make Valentines Day extra sweet with a slew of exciting-- and, in some cases, not-so-wallet friendly-- offerings. Most of these sweets are inspired by classic candies, but some confectioners are getting extra creative in the hopes of capturing customers hearts  along with a portion of the $18.2 billion those consumers are expected to spend on Valentine's Day this year.

This year, white chocolate is pretty ubiquitous among several brands. Hersheys, which deserves credit for giving us the original Kiss back in 1907, is now offering White Cookie Cupcake Kisses ($4.39) exclusively at Target, as well as white-chocolate Red Velvet Kit Kats ($4.39) and 5-oz. Reeses White Creme Peanut Butter Hearts ($5.49). Mars, too, is embracing the white-chocolate trend with its new White Cheesecake M&Ms ($2.88), which are only available at Walmart.

Another fad thats sweeping the sweet aisle?

Sugary candies aimed squarely at millennials. Brach's, for example, makes Emoticon Gummi Hearts ($3.90) branded with little emoji-like faces, while Dylans Candy Bar is literally baking "Galentine's" sugar cookies ($9 each) in the shape of the "dancing girls" emoji. And over at Sugarfina, they're cooking up pig-shaped "Men Are Pigs" gummies (among other biting treats) for their Love Bites Bento Box ($26), likely for those same single gals celebrating Galentine's Day.

WHITE CASTLE STILL OFFERING VALENTINE'S RESERVATIONS

So how do these candies stack up? We tried several of these toothsome treats to get the inside scoop on this years candy crazes. Opinions were mixed, but if you have a sweet tooth, there's likely something here to wet your whistle.

White Cheesecake M&Ms

All of our taste-testers agreed that the Cheesecake M&Ms looked appetizing, but many came to the consensus that they dont taste much like cheesecake.

White chocolate  Thats really all Im getting, remarked one taster.

Theres no cheesecake, another agreed.

Still, the White Cheesecake M&Ms earned points for their pretty pastel colors, and one of our tasters liked them enough to repeatedly cleanse [her] palate with an M&M between other sweets.

Sugarfina Chocolate-Covered Champagne Bears

Sugarfinas Champagne gummy bears are made with Dom Perignon, and they retail for $26, making them pricier than the average bag of Haribos. But are they worth the splurge?

One taste-tester found these spiked gummies to be amazing, but more than a few failed to taste any Champagne underneath the chocolaty shell. On the other hand, their stomachs spoke louder than words, as most tasters went back for seconds, thirds...and more.

Red Velvet Kit Kat Miniatures

Kit Kat has released dozens of strange flavors over the years  mostly in Japan  but their latest state-side offering takes inspiration from a decidedly American dessert: red velvet cake.

Im tasting a hint of cream cheese frosting, and I am a fan, remarked one of our testers. I would be your Valentine if you gave me these, she added.

Another tester warned that the color is very misleading of the taste, mostly because she wasnt expecting the creme coating to taste like anything other than white chocolate.

Hersheys White Cookie Cupcake Kisses

Our tasters were divided by Hersheys White Cookie Cupcake Kisses  are they supposed to taste like cake? Or cookies?  but the Kisses' white chocolate essence wasn't lost on our experts.

Im sensing a theme, said one of our panelists from Australia. [Is] white chocolate a thing on Valentines Day? Is that a thing?

That said, only about half of our testers tasted any cake flavor (the other half sensed the white chocolate), but the unique, delicate cookie crunch was appreciated by all.

Dylans Candy Bars Mystery Valentines Day Lollipops

Our tasters also tried the new silvery heart-shaped suckers ($4 apiece) from Dylans Candy Bar, which dissolve to reveal fun messages after only a few licks.

Thats kinda cool! remarked one of our testers, clearly surprised by the message on her pop. You know what mine says? Youre hot!

We won't give away all the secret messages but these new lollipops from Dylan's were appreciated by all for their sheer novelty.

With so many new treats in stores this season, including some that celebrate Galentine's Day and others that pander to millennials, our panel was also pretty certain that Valentine's Day isn't just for lovers anymore. But you know what? That's just fine with us. After all, there's more than enough candy to go around  especially for those of us that don't mind white chocolate.
Abraham Lincoln was dead 57 years before the Lincoln Memorial was constructed. George Washington had to wait 89 years after his death before his monument in Washington, DC, was finished. Thomas Jefferson had it the worst, as his memorial didnt get built until 117 years after he passed away.

But President Donald Trump has been in office less than three weeks and already plans are being drawn up for a statue to memorialize the United States 45th president.

But there is one catch.

The statue will be in a tiny village in central Italy.

The mayor of Vagli di Sotto, Mario Puglia, plans to construct a big, marble statue of the sitting U.S. president in the villages Park of Honor and Dishonor. He thinks it will be a tremendous way to attract tourists from around the globe to the Tuscan town of less than 1,000 people.

"I'm not going to enter into a discussion over whether his actions are right or wrong," Puglia told local Italian media. "But at the moment Trump is the only politician who is following through on his promises, doing what he said on the campaign trail."

Last year, the village saw over 250,000 visitors, but Puglia has yet to mention if he plans to build a wall to control the flow of people into Vagli di Sotto. Puglia added that while he would be honored if Trump made a trip to see the statue, he doubts the U.S. leader will have the time.

"I don't think he will come, because of everything he has to do, but we're in contact with the American ambassador and we want to invite them, he told the Local.

Work is already underway on the statue, which is expected to be ready by the summer. Private donors in both Italy and America have reportedly offered around $105,000 to finance it.

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Trump wont be alone in the towns infamous park. The eclectic array of marble-work in the open air space includes a sculpture of a French police dog killed in a raid after the Paris terror attacks, and two relating to the 2012 Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster. One statue is of the ship's fleeing captain, Francesco Schettino, who is depicted with rabbit ears, while another honors coastguard Captain Gregorio De Falco, who famously told the cowardly captain to get back on board the doomed ship.

Last year, the town commissioned a statue of David Bowie shortly after his death. The project, which was funded by private businesses for just under $70,000, was recently completed and is set to be put in the park soon.
Several performers rehearsing for the final act of a circus show in Florida suddenly lost their balance on the tightrope and fell some 25 feet on Wednesday, officials confirmed, calling the plunge "a tragedy."

NEW ARRESTS IN DEADLY 1993 LOS ANGELES APARTMENT ARSON

Five performers were rushed to nearby hospitals in the Sarasota area. Four suffered "substantial injuries" and at least two were critical, according to rescuers. They said the world-famous tightrope walker Nik Wallenda of the Flying Wallendas was on the wire at the time but was not hurt.

The group was practicing a pyramid trick inside the tent at the University Town Center in Sarasota, Circus Arts Conservatory co-founder Pedro Reis said. The Bradenton Herald initially reported the high wire collapsed, citing Manatee County Public Safety, but Reis said that was not the case.

MARIJUANA GROWING OPERATION FOUND ON LEGOLAND PROPERTY

"We had a terrible accident," he told reporters. He predicted it could take months for the the injured performers to recover. They suffered orthopedic and pelvic injuries, according to hospital workers.

Worried familiy members rushed to the circus tent. One woman exclaimed, "That's my mom who fell off," Fox 13 reported.

Reis defended his circus performers, saying they "push the limit" like NASCAR or Formula One racers.

Pedro w Circus Conservatory says @NikWallenda will want to go back up on wire again @FOX13News #sarasota pic.twitter.com/98mGsFbuSm  Kim Kuizon FOX 13 (@kkuizon) February 8, 2017

The show, entitled "Synergy," was scheduled to have its first performance this Friday. Reis said the circus had a Plan B in place, adding, "The show must go on."

The show advertised itself as featuring "an impressive array of international circus stars." It was scheduled to run through March 5.

Nik Wallenda made headlines in recent years with daring tightrope walks at landmarks including Niagara Falls and two Chicago skyscrapers.

Click for more from Fox 13.
Mobster John Gotti's namesake grandson has pleaded guilty to selling oxycodone pills in Queens.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown says the younger John Gotti will be sentenced to eight years in prison following his guilty plea Wednesday to criminal sale of a controlled substance and other charges.

Brown says Gotti also has agreed to forfeit more than $250,000 in seized drug proceeds.

The 23-year-old Gotti was arrested in August 2016 at the Queens home where his late grandfather once lived.

Prosecutors say undercover officers bought a total of more than $46,000 worth of oxycodone from Gotti on 11 occasions. He's scheduled to be sentenced on March 2.
The principal at a progressive Manhattan private school told parents in an email last week that the Trump presidency was more troubling than Vietnam, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the September 11 attacks and Watergate, The Post has learned.

Steve Nelsons scorching missive managed to roil several parents at the $46,000 per year Calhoun School  no small feat considering the Upper West Side bastions blaring liberal bent.

It was inappropriate, it was offensive, it was condescending, said one parent. This is a liberal school. So I guess thats the approach. But this was too much. To compare this to 9-11  I think thats just too much.

Nelson emailed a series of anguished ruminations on Donald Trumps ascent to Calhoun parents, simultaneously calling for non-partisanship while skewering the billionaires policies.

In a message sent last week, Nelson, who also teaches journalism at the pre-K through 12 campus, noted his intimate familiarity with several recent catastrophes  including 9-11.

I watched soot-covered New Yorkers grimly trudging north on West End Avenue on September 11, 2001, Nelson wrote. I am more troubled now.

Elsewhere in the lengthy missive, Nelson acknowledged the theoretical need to avoid political bias in a school environment. One in my position must be scrupulous in avoiding partisanship, he said.

But he later asserted in the same message that there are matters that transcend political diversity.

The ways in which equity and equality are now threatened are deeply troubling, including the constitutionally suspect and arguably discriminatory efforts to restrict or prohibit immigration based on religion and/or ethnicity, he wrote.

READ MORE FROM THE NEW YORK POST.
An issue in a small Oklahoma town is a scene right out of the 1980's classic Footloose.

A Valentines Day dance set to take place in the town of Henryetta was canceled over an arcane city ordinance enforcing a strict moral code.

The owners of a local store, Rosie Lavans Marketplace, wanted to raise money for renovations but were told the dance would break the law, Fox 23 reported.

The owners told News 9 that they planned to hold the event inside their store. They said they made fliers for the event and advertised it on social media, and thats when they learned of the law.

The 40-year-old law prohibits any dancing within 500 feet of a place of worship. The event would have taken place 300 feet from Henryettas Church of Christ.

Mayor Jennifer Clason said she knew of the city ordinance, but it has never been enforced.

"It's never been enforced my entire life," Clason told KTUL-TV. "But I'd never looked at it because it never came up."

Police Chief Steve Norman said his department has no interest in enforcing the outdated law.

"We are law-abiding, we are not law breakers. We just wanna dance, that's it," said Joni Insabella, who is co-owner of Rosie Lavan's Marketplace along with Shelly Riveria.

City officials were working to change the strict rules. But a meeting to abolish the law wont come until Feb. 22.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Jessica Lauren was 3 years old in 1983 when her father was shot and stabbed to death inside the family's oceanfront Florida home in a murder that received no justice -- despite a newly surfaced tape by an ex-con detailing his role in the crime to police.

Lauren, a veteran television news reporter, has spent her entire adult life searching for clues in the unsolved killing of her father, Eugene Hicks, who owned a business on the infamous Thunderboat Row in south Florida where he bought and sold high-speed cigarette boats. The business was known to have connections with an illicit drug smuggling trade.

"My dad had a checkered past and I believe the state and police didn't find him worthy of justice," Lauren told Fox News.

Lauren's meetings with police, her emails to prosecutors, and her requests for information through a First Amendment rights attorney over the years seemed to lead to nowhere.

Then, one morning last December, Lauren received a DVD in the mail from the Broward County State Attorney's Office that she said answered all her questions.

A man, identified as George Williams, is seen on a grainy videotape speaking to Hallandale Beach Police Detective Ron Buekers in 2004 about Hick's murder. Williams tells the investigator how he agreed to drive his longtime friend -- Kenneth Bicking -- to Hicks' Hallandale home on June 6, 1983, in exchange for money but said he was unaware Bicking would kill Hicks.

Williams described seeing Hicks on the floor of his living room after being shot in the head. The 35-year-old father was still moving, Williams told the detective, so Bicking grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed him in the chest. The two ransacked the home for drugs before fleeing, he said.

"I could see the body moving," Williams told Beukers. "I know he was moving, and I know I told Kenny, I said, 'Kenny he's still alive.' He goes, 'OK.' I guess he went into a kitchen, and he had a knife, and he started stabbing him a bunch of times."

Neither Williams nor Bicking was arrested in the murder of Hicks.

Williams now lives in Greeneville, Tenn. Bicking, meanwhile, was handed two life sentences in 2014 for kidnapping and raping women in Jacksonville, Fla. He was also implicated in the 1993 murder of Colin Ridgway, a former Dallas Cowboys punter.

Lauren and her family never knew about the 2004 videotaped interview with Williams, which she said she considers a confession.

"Police and prosecutors turned their head to his death and let killers go free even after they admitted to doing it on-camera," Lauren said. "As a result, they went on to kill, rob and rape innocent people."

But the Office of the State Attorney in South Floridas 17th Circuit strongly rejected any suggestion prosecutors did not seek justice in Hicks' murder -- and pointed to several legal challenges in the case.

The Hallandale Beach detective, who was focused on Bicking, is heard on tape telling Williams he is being interviewed as a witness -- not a suspect -- and granted him immunity in the case.

Jeff Marcus, Chief Assistant State Attorney of the 17th Judicial Circuit in Fort Lauderdale, said Williams' account is not a confession to murder. He also said that, under the law, the tape was not admissible because it was recorded in 2004, some 21 years after the crime.

"If that statement was admissible, he [Williams] could have been charged with a crime  accessory after the fact," Marcus told Fox News. "That would have been a crime, except the statute of limitations had long passed."

Further, Marcus said authorities had no other evidence, like DNA or fingerprints, linking Williams and Bicking to the crime scene or murder weapon.

"The only evidence we have is what this guy says," Marcus said.

The Broward State Attorneys Office said in a formal statement, "As we have expressed repeatedly, we are sincerely sorry that the victims family has been unable to receive adequate closure for this horrific death."

In a close-out memo obtained by the Miami Herald, Broward prosecutors acknowledged the men are the two likely suspects. But prosecutor Tom Coleman wrote, "There exists no competent evidence to present that would result in a reasonable likelihood of a conviction in this case," according to the newspaper.

Williams and Bicking could not be reached for comment.

Lauren, who moved back to Florida after receiving the tape, recalls visiting the Hallandale Police Department when she was a 21-year-old college student seeking updates in the case.

Police had none. Instead, Lauren said Detective Buekers had a message for her.

"He said, 'Your dad kind of deserved what he got. He played both sides of the fence,'" Lauren said.

Buekers was alluding to her father's connection with the drug trade. Hicks had been arrested in 1978 aboard a yacht with eight tons of marijuana and was awaiting sentencing at the time he was killed.

He then proceeded to show Lauren crime scene photos of her father on the floor, pointing to a pool of blood and brain matter, she said.

"That's the last memory I have of my dad," Lauren said.

"My father had a checkered past before he was shot and stabbed. His case was barely investigated and swept under the carpet," she said. "They felt he didnt deserve justice."
A former Pittsburgh Steelers fullback has pleaded guilty to charges stemming from his second crash while driving under the influence of prescription drugs last year.

Forty-four-year-old Jon Witman was ordered to serve three days on house arrest as part of his six months' probation sentence.

He was sentenced Wednesday after pleading guilty to driving under the influence in York County, where he lives.

Witman played for the Steelers from 1996 to 2001. He was taking a prescribed painkiller and muscle relaxer when he ran a stop sign and hit a tree in September. His wife called police and talked him into in-patient drug rehab at the Eisenhower Center in Manchester, Michigan.

Defense attorney Chris Ferro says Witman "asked for help and he got it."
The Arizona woman who was arrested Wednesday during a routine

check-in with immigration officials has been deported to Mexico, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said in a statement.

PROTESTS ERUPT OUTSIDE PHOENIX ICE OFFICE AFTER ARREST OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT

The agency said Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos was taken to Mexico Thursday morning through the DeConcini Port of Entry in Nogales, Arizona. Garcia's arrest sparked large protests outside the ICE offices in Phoenix, which resulted in seven arrests.

Happening now. 2 ICE vans just drove out of #Phoenix @ICEgov facility with PD escort. Presumably transporting Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos. pic.twitter.com/uBIxEYlHFl  Daniel Gonzalez (@azdangonzalez) February 9, 2017

Garcia, 36, was considered a low priority for deportation under the Obama administration and had to check in with ICE officials every six months following a 2008 conviction for felony identity theft for having false papers, The Los Angeles Times reported.

In a news conference soon after the woman was taken away, family members and immigration advocates said they would continue to fight to reunite her with her husband and two teenage children.

The only thing that my mother has done is work, her daughter said holding back tears. She has a very big heart, she treats everybody as family. She has harmed no one, she said in both Spanish and English.

Puente Arizona, an immigrant advocacy group, said Garcia came to the U.S. as a 14-year-old.

Her arrest came just days after the Trump administration broadened regulations under which some people would be deported.

Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos in the van. Reflection is her son Angel, 16. pic.twitter.com/cZMjdUi67C  Daniel Gonzalez (@azdangonzalez) February 9, 2017

A spokesman said ICE would continue to focus on identifying and removing individuals with felony convictions who have final orders of removal issued by the nations immigration courts.
Photo: VGP



He made the statement at the 39th meeting of the Vietnam-Laos Inter-Governmental Committee held in Hanoi on February 7th-8th. This was the first time the PMs of the two countries had co-chaired an Inter-Governmental Committee meeting, demonstrating the two governments commitment to effectively implementing their cooperation plan for 2017.

PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc urged both countries to work closely together to prepare for the 55th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties and the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC).

He pledged to drastically direct ministries, agencies, localities, businesses and relevant units to coordinate with Lao partners to realise commitments set at the meeting.

Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith, for his part, vowed to cooperate with Vietnam to hold celebrations of the two countries major anniversaries and raise public awareness of the Vietnam-Laos special solidarity, especially among young generations.

The two sides expressed satisfaction at the effective implementation of high-level agreements and deals between ministries, agencies and localities last year. Bilateral ties across political, diplomatic, national defence-security, economic and socio-cultural fields have been strengthened and expanded.

Education is a highlight in bilateral cooperation, with more than 14,000 Lao students are pursuing studies in Vietnam.

Regarding investment partnership, Vietnamese firms have poured nearly USD3.7 billion into more than 400 projects in Laos.

A new mechanism to coordinate bilateral cooperation was introduced at the meeting.

Both sides agreed to reinforce political, diplomatic, national defence-security, investment and trade ties while expanding coordination in human resources training, transport infrastructure, and the sustainable use and management of water and natural resources.

They were determined to work closely together to hold the Year of Vietnam-Laos Solidarity and Friendship 2017, the 55th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties and the 40th anniversary of the TAC signing. They also pledged to provide mutual support at regional and global organisations and forums.

Following the meeting, the two Prime Ministers witnessed the signing of four cooperation documents, including an agreement on cooperation plan in 2017 between the two governments, the minute of the Vietnam-Laos Inter-Governmental Committees 39th meeting, a collaboration plan between the two education ministries, and a minutes on the establishment of a joint-venture to build a 500kV power transmission line connecting the two countries.

The two PMs later also co-chaired a press conference on the outcomes of the meeting./.
Oscar Lopez Rivera, the 74-year-old Puerto Rican whose sentence was commuted by former President Obama, will be transferred to a part-time prison in the island in the next few hours, El Nuevo Dia is reporting.

Lopez Rivera is expected to arrive Thursday afternoon in a commercial flight accompanied by San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz.

OBAMA DECISION TO FREE FALN TERROR GROUP LEADER SPARKS OUTRAGE

Lopez Rivera served more than 35 years in an Indiana prison after being convicted for his role in the ultranationalist Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN), a clandestine organization that sought complete independence for Puerto Rico.

Now he will finish his sentence, which expires on May 17, on a part-time prison as part of the process toward his reinsertion into society.

When the commutation was announced Jan. 17, Rivera requested that he be transferred to a federal institution in Puerto Rico to serve the last 97 days of his sentence and be allowed to work outside the prison.

'HAMILTON'S' LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA 'SOBBING' OVER OBAMA'S DECISION TO COMMUTE OSCAR LOPEZ RIVERA'S SENTENCE

While some view him as a harmless political activists, the commutation outraged many who say Lopez Rivera led a group that claimed responsibility for more than 100 bombings at public and commercial buildings during the 1970s and 80s in U.S. cities including New York, Chicago and Washington.

The attacks killed five people and wounded dozens more, including police officers.
A Michigan Republican has resigned after causing outrage by suggesting that protesters at University of California, Berkeley, should be shot.

Dan Adamini, secretary of the Marquette County GOP, told The Mining Journal of Marquette (http://bit.ly/2kSiN2P ) he stepped down so he isn't "a distraction and a hindrance to the work of the party."

Adamini last week tweeted: "Violent protesters who shut down free speech? Time for another Kent State perhaps. One bullet stops a lot of thuggery."

In 1970, the Ohio National Guard fatally shot four Kent State students during Vietnam War protests.

Adamini said he was calling for an end to violence after last week's student demonstration that stopped a speech by right-wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulos. Protesters broke windows and tossed smoke bombs.

Kent State officials called Adamini's posts "abhorrent."

___

Information from: The Mining Journal, http://www.miningjournal.net
A Tennessee prosecutor says no criminal charges will be filed against a Memphis police officer who was off-duty when he fatally shot a man last year.

In a statement, Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich said Wednesday that the officer, identified previously as Marshall Smith, was not the aggressor in the April 10 shooting of Luis Felipe Soto at a gas station in Memphis.

Police said Soto had just returned his 4-year-old daughter to his ex-wife, who was engaged to Smith, when the men got into an altercation.

Authorities say Soto pulled out a gun and pointed it at Smith, who identified himself as a policeman and told Soto to drop his weapon. Smith pulled out his own weapon and fire several shots, killing the 29-year-old Soto.
A Virginia police officer who fatally shot an 18-year-old man has been convicted of voluntary manslaughter.

News media outlets report that a jury found Richmond Police Officer David L. Cobb guilty of voluntary manslaughter on Thursday for the October 2015 shooting of Paterson Brown Jr. The conviction carries a sentence of one to 10 years in prison.

Cobb was tried a second time this week. A judge declared a mistrial in June after jurors became deadlocked.

Cobb, who was off duty, said he fired in self-defense after the two men got into an argument. Officials said Brown inexplicably jumped into Cobb's girlfriend's car and drove it out of the washing bay. Witnesses testified that Cobb told him repeatedly to get out, and Brown wouldn't.

___

Information from: Richmond Times-Dispatch, http://www.timesdispatch.com
A New Jersey woman who was the oldest American person has died at age 114.

Adele Dunlap died Sunday at a hospital near Flemington, according to the Martin Funeral Home.

She had become the country's oldest person in July 2016 following the death of 113-year-old Goldie Michelson, of Worcester, Massachusetts.

A group that tracks long-living people says the oldest known person living in the U.S. is now 113-year-old Delphine Gibson, of Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania.

Dunlap didn't have an explanation for her longevity, and neither did her children. Asked at the time how it felt to be the oldest American, Dunlap said "I don't feel any different."

Dunlap was born Dec. 12, 1902, in Newark, though family and caregivers said she often gave a younger age when asked how old she was.

Dunlap taught school before marrying and settling down to raise the couple's three children. Her husband worked for an insurance company and died in 1963.

"It's hard to say," her son, Earl Dunlap, said when his mother became the oldest American. "She never went out jogging or anything like that. She's not really thin, but she never weighed more than 140 pounds. She smoked, and when my father had his first heart attack, they both stopped. I think she ate anything she wanted."

Earl Dunlap says his mother wasn't a drinker but did occasionally enjoy a martini with her husband. Officials at the Country Arch Care Center in Pittstown, where Dunlap first arrived at age 99 , described her as a passive participant in daily activities who socialized minimally. But they said she looked forward to Girl Scouts' coming to sing Christmas carols.
Penn State has indefinitely halted fraternity and sorority parties where alcohol is available because of a student's recent death and what the school calls growing allegations of hazing, sexual assault and other misconduct.

The university announced Wednesday that Damon Sims, its vice president for student affairs, and the Penn State Interfraternity Council acted jointly to stop all alcohol-related social activities "until further notice."

The decision followed the death Saturday of Timothy Piazza, 19, of Lebanon, New Jersey.

Investigators said Beta Theta Pi fraternity members told them Piazza, a sophomore, was intoxicated when Piazza fell down a stairwell during a party late Thursday night.

Police said members of the fraternity didn't call for help until about 12 hours later. The fraternity has been suspended.

Penn State said Sims told fraternity leaders the moratorium will remain until they agree to change their policies and practices.

The alcohol moratorium at the privately owned chapter houses on the main campus in State College will be enforced by spot checks of public areas by university officials and the Interfraternity Council.
The detention of an illegal immigrant sparked a protest Wednesday outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs office in Phoenix that resulted in seven arrests as crowds blocked ICE buses on nearby streets.

Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, 36, arrived at the office for her routine check in, but instead of being released--under President Trump's illegal immigration crackdown-- she was detained.

Garcia de Rayos, 36, was considered a low priority for deportation under the Obama administration and had to check in with ICE officials every six months following a 2008 conviction for felony identity theft for having false papers, The Los Angeles Times reported.

She was joined Wednesday by her husband and son--both U.S. citizens-- and supporters, some of whom cried when she was taken in to custody, The Arizona Republic reported.

The family reportedly fears she could be deported to Mexico.

Ms. Garcia de Rayos is currently being detained by ICE based on a removal order issued by the Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review which became final in May 2013, and ICE statement read.

Happening now. 2 ICE vans just drove out of #Phoenix @ICEgov facility with PD escort. Presumably transporting Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos. pic.twitter.com/uBIxEYlHFl  Daniel Gonzalez (@azdangonzalez) February 9, 2017

News of her detainment spread quickly and protesters were seen attempting to block the ICE van Garcia de Rayos was believed to be inside. Some protesters chanted, "Shame on you."

Puente Arizona Director Carlos Garcia said the arrest was in direct result of Trumps illegal immigration crackdown.

We all knew something could be different this time with the new administration, Garcia told the Los Angeles Times. She went in with the lawyer and didnt come out. That was pretty much all there was.

Police posted on Twitter that they arrested about seven protesters, but added that the demonstration was mainly peaceful.

Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos in the van. Reflection is her son Angel, 16. pic.twitter.com/cZMjdUi67C  Daniel Gonzalez (@azdangonzalez) February 9, 2017

"Besides the few people engaged in criminal acts, most people out here are peaceful and exercising their rights properly," police said. "Everyone remains safe so far. Hoping for continued cooperation and no more criminal conduct."

By 1 a.m. Thursday, less than two dozen protesters stood in the dark outside the building talking quietly, with just a handful of police looking on.

The protesters said they initially succeeded in stopping the vehicles from leaving, but said they later left the grounds by another exit. They didn't know if Garcia de Rayos had still been aboard.

Trumps Jan. 25 executive order expanded deportation priorities to any illegal immigrants who had been convicted of a crime, regardless of its severity. The Obama administration previously prioritized violent offenders.

Puente Arizona had filed a stay in Garcia de Rayos removal, but it was denied.

Click for more from Fox 10 Phoenix.
The sister-in-law of the couple who carried out the San Bernardino terror attack changed her plea to guilty Thursday in her family's marriage-fraud case.

MOURNING AND VIGILANCE IN SAN BERNARDINO AFTER TERROR ATTACK

Tatiana Farook pleaded guilty in Riverside, Calif., to one felony count of conspiracy that included lying to federal agents and in legal documents. She faces a maximum of five years in prison during sentencing scheduled for later this year.

Her husband, Syed Raheel Farook, is the brother of Syed Rizwan Farook, who launched the December 2015 terror attack with his wife, Tashfeen Malik. The couple killed 14 people and wounded 22 others, sparking a manhunt before a police shootout that killed them.

ISIS SUPPORTER SENTENCED TO PRISON IN MUHAMMAD CARTOON CONTEST ATTACK

The marriage-fraud case involves Tatiana's sister, Mariya Chernykh, a Russian immigrant whose sham marriage to a Riverside man was discovered when her husband became part of the shooting investigation.

Chernykh pleaded guilty in the case last month.

Since the attack, investigators have said Enrique Marquez, a friend of Farooks, provided the guns the terrorists used. Marquez pleaded not guilty to conspiring with Farook on an unrelated plot.

"After today's guilty plea, all but one of the defendants charged as a result of the December 2 San Bernardino terrorist attack have been convicted," U.S. Attorney Eileen M. Decker responded. "These convictions are a testament to law enforcement's ongoing commitment to ensure that everyone related to the terrorist attack are brought to justice."

Fox News' Will Carr, Corbett Riner and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A Massachusetts travel agent has been sentenced to almost four years in prison for using millions of dollars in deposits from cruise customers to support his gambling habit.

Federal prosecutors say about 400 customers were left in the lurch after paying Tom Harper Cruises nearly $3 million. They say Bret Gordon, a Waltham man who was the business' majority owner, took about $2.25 million of that.

Prosecutors say Gordon had exclusive control of the finances at the Newton business, which sold overseas river cruise vacations.

The 44-year-old was also sentenced Wednesday to three years of probation and was ordered to pay full restitution. He pleaded guilty in November to wire fraud and tax offenses.

The company declared bankruptcy.
A private plane got within 2 nautical miles of Air Force One, which is closer than permitted, while flying over Florida and the incident is being investigated by authorities, Bloomberg reported.

The planes were flying on a parallel route and there was no risk of a collision during the incident, which occurred 30 miles out on Feb. 3, sources told the news agency. President Trump arrived safely at Palm Beach International Airport.

The report said that when Air Force One is in flight, Secret Service agents work with FAA supervisors and monitor for threats.

Air Force One is unlike most aircraft. It can be refueled in the air and, with an unlimited range, can take the president wherever he needs to go.

Its electrical systems are hardened to protect against an electromagnetic pulse, and the plane has advanced, secure communications equipment that will allow it to function as mobile command center in the event of an attack on the United States, according to the White House.

The president and most of those who fly with him enjoy 4,000-square-feet of floor space on three levels, including a suite for the president with an office and a conference room.

A medical suite can function as an operating room in an emergency, and a doctor is always on board. The plane has quarters for those who regularly accompany the president on trips, including White House staff, Secret Service agents, traveling journalists and other guests.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Overview of the ceremony



Speaking at the ceremony, Venerable Thich Tho Lac, a nun at the pagoda, a permanent member of the Central Council of the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha, Standing Deputy Head of the Central Cultural Committee of the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha, said the purpose of the ceremony was to pray for peace in the world, pray for the prosperous country and a new year of peace and happiness for people.In addition, it helped people learn more about the spirit and philosophy of Buddhism to perfect their personality and live better and happier.

Mr. Hoang Van Dieu, former President of the Overseas Vietnamese Association in Laos, said that for overseas Vietnamese, going to pagoda is very important because this is an opportunity for them to meet, share to help each other, and work together to preserve the identity, customs and traditions of the nation. This is also the reason to attract many people to the pagoda whenever they have a chance.

Once considered a Buddhism Centre of overseas Vietnamese in Laos, Bang Long Pagoda was built by Venerable Thich To Lien and overseas Vietnamese in Laos in 1942.

It is still a spiritual house and a place to gather the Vietnamese community working and living in Laos to unite and support each other in life and look towards the homeland./.
A mom whose life was forever changed when her 9-year-old daughter was shot dead in a home invasion begged for the suspects to step forward -- but said she understood that the shooter didn't plan to kill.

THREE FACE MURDER CHARGES IN 1993 LOS ANGELES APARTMENT FIRE

"I know, and I think everyone else knows, this wasn't his intention,'' Amber Caudell told The Cincinnati Enquirer. "He didn't come in there and intend to shoot and kill a 9-year-old kid."

Alexandrea "Sissy" Thompson and her father, 39-year-old Alex Thompson, were shot last month at the home in Cincinnati. The dad said he was struggling with an intruder who held a gun to the girl's head.

PLANS FOR ROMANTIC DINNER WENT AWRY BEFORE TEXAS STUDENT DISAPPEARED

"She was calling me and said, 'daddy,' and I'm like 'what,' and I turn to the other side and I see the guy covering her mouth with a gun to her head," the father told Fox 19. "My daughter said they asked her for weed and money... and I dont sell drugs."

"I think they had a plan in mind and it didn't turn out how they planned and Sissy was killed,'' Caudell told the newspaper. "They need to turn in the person who did this. Someone needs to come forward."

Alex Thompson said he saw an opportunity to try wrestling the gun from the man's hands. However, instead of running out of the room to safety, he said his daughter hid behind him.

The father reportedly was shot four times. Relatives said the bullet that struck the girl may have hit her father first.

Police have not announced any arrests. They said at least three men were spotted running away from the home after the shooting.

"I want to know what happened on that third floor. I emailed the detective and told them I want to know exactly what happened up there,'' Caudell responded.

Mourners remembered "Sissy" as a child full of laughter and love. Several of her teachers were among those attending Saturday's funeral at Spring Grove Cemetery's Normal Chapel.

The Rev. Alecia Braddock of The Calvary Church in Cincinnati said in a sermon that killings must stop and urged people to "stop killing our babies."

Click for more from Fox 19.
In the last few months, Venezuelan politics pretty much has revolved around the oppositions push for a vote to recall President Nicolas Maduro, which the socialist government has fought vigorously  and with the executive and judicial powers it still controls.

But the governments latest effort to stop the referendum is by far the bluntest.

On Monday, a high-ranking Chavista announced that a big chunk of public employees who are supportive of the vote, and signed a petition for it back in April, will lose their job.

Jorge Rodriguez, who is also mayor of Caracas, said all public employees at the manager level who offered their signature to have the referendum process started have 48 hours to resign or else will be fired.

He said the ruling party will provide ministers and public companies a list with all the names.

In the public administration we cannot have as managers people who dont support the revolution, he said in a press conference.

In Venezuela there are approximately 3 million public employees, but according to law only those who hold a manager position can be let go without cause.

Servando Carbone, director of the National Federation of Public Workers, told Fox News Latino that as many as 10,000 people could lose their job this week due to the governments most recent move.

They are doing it as threat to all the public workers and to make them afraid of supporting the referendum in the future, the union leader said.

In order for the recall vote to take place this year, thus guaranteeing that Chavismo is out of power, the opposition needs to collect almost 4 million signatures (20 percent of the electorate) by the end of October.

Those people expressed their support for the right-wing opposition, said Mayor Rodriguez with an accusatory tone.

This is not the first time public employees feel pressure from the ruling party that pays its salary.

[Since Aprils collection of signatures] we have compiled around 1,200 cases of people who have been fired, Carbone told FNL, adding that the International Labor Organization was made aware of the situation.

Almost half of the public workforce in Venezuela (about 1.2 million people) is made up of temporary employees, who are perceived as more susceptible because their job depends on the renewal of their contract.

They like this kind of workers because they can be manipulated, Carbone said.

The 48-hour ultimatum comes as the opposition prepares what it hopes will be a massive protest rally on Sept. 1, powerful enough to force a vote this year.

That day begins the last stage of Maduros government, said opposition lawmaker Freddy Guevara. To be able to vote, we have to go out and protest. The protests have to be massive, steady and pacific, he added.

In the meantime, student activists and political figures such as Lilian Tintori, wife of imprisoned Leopoldo Lopez, are starting to heat up the mood with events and demonstrations in Caracas and across the country. On Monday night, governor and former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles called on people from all over the country to go to Caracas for the big event.

The route of the rally will not be disclosed to avoid any possible sabotage from the government side, which is already accusing the opposition of plotting acts of violence and is calling on Chavistas to take to the streets that day.

"We will protect the streets because every violent intention always brings anguish and anxiety and we won't let that happen," Mayor Rodriguez said.
The U.S. and European terror forecast for 2017 'looks alarming,' in part because of increased pressure on ISIS and other terror groups on their home turf, according to a monthly assessment by House lawmakers.

The House Homeland Security Committees February "Terror Threat Snapshot" report cited two homegrown terror attacks in January and officials predicted efforts to crush foreign terror groups, while laudable, could spur more attacks to American soil.

"At this rate, the forecast for 2017 looks alarming," warns the report, citing an "unprecedented spike in the homegrown terror threat, primarily driven by the rise of ISIS."

Officials predicted necessary efforts to crush foreign terror groups could actually spur more attacks on Western soil. Coming attacks in the U.S. and Europe could be carried out by so-called lone wolves as well as homegrown terrorists who return from fighting in such places as Iraq, Syria and Somalia.

I am very encouraged that the Trump administration is preparing to put greater pressure on jihadists in their safe havens throughout the world, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said. But as they do, we can expect to see militants returning to the West to build new networks and to plot more deadly operations.

The report, compiled by the committee's Republican majority staff, is based on information gleaned from media reports, publicly available government data and documents and nongovernmental assessments.

Since the beginning of 2016, there have been plots or attacks by 39 homegrown jihadists in 19 states -- Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin, according to the report.

Two instances occurred on American soil last month: The attack at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport carried out in the first week of 2017 by Esteban Santiago, who was reportedly radicalized by ISIS videos, and the Jan. 31 murder of a Denver Regional Transportation District contract security officer by a suspect carrying jihadist material in his backpack.

The report also cites numerous incidents in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Despite President Trumps vow to take a hardline against radical Islamic terrorism, the U.S. and West could continue to reap the bloody tide of what critics call lax counter-terrorism efforts in the past.

Unfortunately, over the past eight years of the Obama administration, the ideological counter-measures were removed and, therefore, the level of radicalization peaked to the levels acknowledged in this report, Fox News contributor Walid Phares, who advised President Trump on foreign policy throughout the campaign, told Fox News. More jihadis mean more potential attacks -- this is what we are facing now.

Trump has remained committed to his campaign promises of tightening homeland security, most recently with an executive order pausing immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries. That order is currently suspended amid a legal challenge.

According to the report, although ISIS faces continued counterterrorism pressure in their key safe havens, the groups external operations plotting appears undiminished.

The report also noted counterterrorism efforts, including the elimination of key ISIS figure Abu Anas al-Iraqi, a member of ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's inner circle, in a Jan. 8 raid in Syria.

It also notes the Jan. 10 State Department terrorist designation of British national Alexanda Amon Kotey, a member of ISIS' four-person execution cell dubbed The Beatles.

Kotey, who remains at large and is believed to be in Syria, is accused of capturing and beheading nearly two dozen hostages, including American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and American aid worker Peter Kassig.

A State Department spokesperson told Fox News that naming Kotey as a Specifically Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) notified the United States and international community that Kotey is actively engaged in terrorism.

The consequences of this designation includes a prohibition against U.S. persons from generally engaging in transactions or dealings with Kotey, and the freezing of all of Koteys property and interests in property in the United States, or within the United States or the possession or control of U.S. persons, a State Department spokesperson told Fox News in an email.

According to the report, European nations are improving their counterterrorism reforms, but major security weaknesses continue to leave European countries more vulnerable to attack and put U.S. interests overseas at risk.
French police are reporting another 26 arrests overnight in further unrest in suburban Paris towns rocked by arson attacks and other violence following the alleged rape of a young black man by police.

The violence in the Saint-Seine-Denis region, a working class region northeast of the French capital with a large minority population, erupted after a 22-year-old man was allegedly sodomized with a police officer's baton during an identity check last week.

One officer was charged Sunday with aggravated rape and three others were charged with aggravated assault. The officers deny the allegations.

Authorities are wary of unrest in France's poor towns, remembering the fiery 2005 riots that spread through France  beginning in the Saint-Denis town of Clichy-Sous-Bois, and hopscotching through social housing around the country.
A prominent Mexican journalist is reporting that the sons of Sinaloa cartel kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman say they were attacked and wounded by a rival drug gang figure.

Ciro Gomez Leyva reports he received word about Saturday's purported attack in a handwritten letter from Guzman's sons.

Gomez Leyva said late Wednesday the sons were apparently with Sinaloa boss Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada at the time of the purported attack by Damaso Lopez, another Sinaloa figure believed to be disputing control of the cartel.

Guzman lawyer Jose Refugio confirmed to local media that the letter came from the sons. In his words to Radio Formula: "I know about that letter, and I know they wrote that letter."

Mexican authorities have not yet confirmed or otherwise commented on the purported attack.
The European Union's enlargement commissioner is visiting Macedonia to encourage the formation of a new government, with coalition negotiations dragging following December's inconclusive early election.

Johannes Hahn said Thursday there was "no time to waste" in Macedonia, which has long hoped to join the EU.

Conservative leader Nikola Gruevski failed to reach a deal last month with his ethnic Albanian coalition partner and has called for another election.

Gruevski's party won 51 seats in the 120-member parliament in December's election, and had hoped to add the ethnic Albanian DUI party's 10 seats to secure a majority.

The coalition deal failed after the conservatives rejected a DUI demand for Albanian to be recognized as a second official language. About a quarter of the country's population belongs to the ethnic Albanian minority.
A French court has thrown out a complaint by a federation of Catholic families that dating site Gleeden's business model is illegal and anti-social because it encourages extramarital affairs.

A Paris civil court ruled Thursday that promoting infidelity in ads isn't unlawful because adultery isn't a criminal offense in France and because cheating on one's spouse isn't necessarily a civil violation.

The Catholic association had asked the court to ban Gleeden from referring to extramarital relations in its communications.

Gleeden had pleaded for freedom of speech and argued that only spouses are entitled to invoke the obligation of fidelity.
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Police in central Germany say they have detained two known Islamic extremists in an investigation of possible plans for an attack.

Police said the men  a 27-year-old Algerian and a 23-year-old Nigerian, whose names weren't released  were detained during searches early Thursday in and near Goettingen. They said both live in the city and have long been part of the Salafist scene there.

Twelve properties were searched in the operation. Goettingen police chief Uwe Luehrig said that information about a possible attack plan had accumulated in recent days to the extent that officials decided to take quick action.
The Archbishop for the Christian community in Iraq hopes President Trump and will help minority religious groups in the region.

Bashar Warda, the Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Erbil in Iraq, said as long as Trump's executive order includes special preferences for all victims of ISIS, it can be a positive for Christians in the region, whose plight Trump has been sympathetic to.

I would personally prefer that our people stay here in their ancient homeland, but I also understand that many have lost hope, Archbishop Warda said to Fox News. They have suffered too much and want to leave. It is not my place to force them to stay.

That said, the fact that an American administration seems to know that there are Christians and other religious minorities here who need help is something I find heartening. I hope this means that we will no longer be excluded from U.S. government and UN aid, which our people desperately need.

Warda, a key figure in the beleaguered Iraqi Christian community, has been vocal in the past about the lack of assistance from the U.S. government to Christians and other minorities in the region. Now, he hopes the current administration in Washington has started a helpful dialogue.

How is it possible that a community suffered genocide, that has seen its numbers decline by more than 8 in 10 in a little over a decade, [receives] nothing at all from the American government that is funding countless humanitarian projects for internally displaced persons in this country? he said.

The Nineveh Plain region, also known as the Plain of Mosul, has been the ancestral homeland of Assyrian-Chaldean-Syriac Christians, Yazidis and other minorities -- all of whom were under attack from ISIS since the terror group rose in 2014. These ethnic and religious minority groups were driven from the Plain when the Islamic State attempted to establish their caliphate.

The Christian population in Iraq alone has plummeted from 1.5 million in 2003 to current estimates of 275,000 and could be gone for good within five years if no action is taken, according to a November 2015 report from international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need. The dwindling numbers are due to genocide, refugees fleeing to other countries, internal displacement and others who either hide or disavow their faith.

It has been estimated that a dozen Christian families flee Iraq each day. Christians who have managed to escape ISIS have fled to places like Europe and Lebanon, while members of the faith also are under increasing pressure in Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations.

Here at home, the words We help everyone sound noble, but they have too often become shorthand for actually not helping the religious minority communities at all because when aid goes only to the big camps, Andrew Walther, of the Knights of Columbus, told Fox News. The minority groups aren't typically at those camps because they are targeted for violence by extremist groups there.

The organization has performed philanthropic services in the region and successfully lobbied to get the State Department to classify the situation in the region as genocide.

The fact is, unless aid is specifically targeted to these small and fragile communities, they don't get it, and without U.S. government and UN assistance, the likelihood that these communities will disappear increases substantially, Walther said.
ISIS fighters are reportedly hailing President Trumps executive order on immigration as the Blessed Ban  saying it proves to their followers that America really does hate Islam.

A resident in the Iraqi city of Mosul, which is still considered an Islamic State stronghold, told New York Times terror correspondent Rukmini Callimachi that the jihadists have been openly celebrating the ban ever since Trump singed it into effect on Jan. 27.

Theyve even coined a phrase for it, she tweeted Wednesday. The Blessed Ban.'

Iraq is one of the seven predominantly Muslim countries  along with Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen  from which refugees and citizens are temporarily barred from entering.

Callimachi claimed residents in Mosul had been up in arms about Trumps executive order, while the Islamic State was praising it.

Everywhere I go, Iraqis want to ask about the visa ban, she said. But heres the best part. Guess who else is talking about it? ISIS is.

Describing why the extremists were calling the order the Blessed Ban, Callimachi said her source told her it was because ISIS sees this as their doing.

Click for more from the New York Post.
Israel has reprimanded Belgium's ambassador over the Belgian prime minister's meetings with liberal Israeli groups critical of the government's policies.

Israel's Foreign Ministry says Ambassador Olivier Belle appeared Thursday for the reprimand, took note of it and transmitted the complaint to Brussels.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the measure after visiting Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel met with members of the human rights group B'Tselem and Breaking the Silence, a group of former Israeli combat soldiers who criticize Israeli policies in the occupied West Bank.

Many Israeli leaders have portrayed the latter group as traitors, in part because their reports and lectures are often aimed at foreign audiences.

Netanyahu says he has ordered legislation that will prevent foreign government funding of organizations that harm Israeli soldiers.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman is rejecting suggestions that the Kremlin and the Trump Administration may try to negotiate a deal over the war in eastern Ukraine.

Last week saw a surge in fighting between government forces and Russia-backed separatist rebels. The fighting, which killed more than 30 people, came amid concerns that President Donald Trump's stated desire to improve relations with Russia could lead to lifting of U.S. sanctions against Russia connected to its interference in Ukraine.

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists Thursday that Russia wants the United States to pressure Ukraine to fulfill the terms of a two-year-old agreement on ending on the war and that the conflict "can hardly be a subject for some kind of deal."
A British lawmaker is trying to oust the House of Commons Speaker over comments criticizing U.S. President Donald Trump.

Speaker John Bercow said this week that Trump should not be allowed to address Parliament when he pays a state visit to Britain. Bercow cited Trump's migrant ban as well as the U.K.'s "opposition to racism and to sexism."

Bercow's intervention was highly unusual because those in his position are expected to remain above Parliament's partisan fray.

Although Bercow belongs to the governing Conservative Party, he has been criticized by some Conservative lawmakers.

Lawmaker James Duddridge filed a no-confidence motion in Bercow, saying he had "overstepped the mark."

Parliament began a 10-day recess Thursday. Duddridge, currently the only signatory to the motion, hopes to build momentum against Bercow during the school break.
While European leaders have been outspoken in their dislike of President Trumps immigration restrictions, a new poll indicates that they are not speaking on behalf of their voters -- and that a majority of Europeans are in favor of a Muslim ban that would go much further than Trumps order.

The Chatham House Royal Institute of International Affairs -- a London-based think tank -- issued a wide-ranging poll that surveyed 10,000 citizens across 10 European countries on their views on a Muslim ban. Specifically it asked respondents if they would support all further migration from mainly Muslim countries should be stopped.

Such a ban would be well beyond President Trumps executive order, which was issued after the poll was conducted. Trumps order imposed a 90-day moratorium on refugees and immigrants from seven terror hotspots, did not directly target Muslims, and excluded major Muslim countries such as Indonesia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

However, despite the question going well above and beyond what Trump enacted, and specifically targeting Muslims, an average of 55 percent of participants agreed with an indefinite halt.

Our results are striking and sobering. They suggest that public opposition to any further migration from predominantly Muslim states is by no means confined to Trumps electorate in the US but is fairly widespread, experts at the think tank concluded.

While only 47 percent in the U.K. agreed with that statement, and 41 percent in Spain, in other countries, strong majorities backed a ban, with numbers as high as 71 percent in Poland and 65 percent in Austria.

However, 53 percent support the measure in Germany, where Chancellor Angela Merkel is engaged in a tough reelection battle after her support plummeted in the wake of her decision to let more than a million Syrian refugees into the country -- a move that triggered a continent wide crisis.

In France, 61 percent of respondents agreed with the measure. France has been hit by a number of Islamist terror attacks in recent years, and National Front presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, running on an anti-immigration, anti-Islamist platform, has surged to the front of the polls ahead of the countrys presidential election in May. Socialist President Francois Hollande has seen his approval ratings dip to as low as four percent, in part due to his support of Merkels refugee policies.

The poll also shows 51 percent support for the measure in Italy, where Prime Minister Matteo Renzi resigned in December, and populist Beppe Grillos Five Star Movement is set to make gains in elections in elections before May this year.

The poll also found that there was a widespread perception in many countries that the arrival of refugees would increase the chance of a terror attack, with an average of 59 percent holding that belief.
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A Malaysian ship carrying 2,300 tons of food, medicine and other supplies for Myanmar's long-persecuted Muslim Rohingya minority has arrived in Yangon.

The shipment arrived Thursday as Myanmar faces allegations that the army is committing crimes against humanity against the Rohingya population.

The Rohingya Muslims have long faced discrimination in majority-Buddhist Myanmar.

The government launched what it called "area clearance operations" in northern Rakhine state after attacks on border police killed nine officers in October, and its security forces have been accused of widespread killings and rape. The government denies such allegations.

Malaysia is an outspoken critic of Myanmar's treatment of the Rohingya. Last month, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak slammed Myanmar for letting the abuses continue.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is stepping up efforts to speed up deportations of rejected asylum seekers after a terror attack in Berlin last year cast a sharp light on the potential risks of letting failed refugees remain in the country.

The chancellor Thursday called on the countrys 16 federal states to back fresh measures expediting deportations. The states would be responsible for carrying out many of the new measures in deporting illegal migrants.

GERMANY ARRESTS SUSPECTED MEMBER OF AFGHANISTAN'S TALIBAN

Berlin wants to centralize the organization of deportations, now subject to a patchwork of laws and practices, create a national repatriation center, offer more cash incentives to those who depart willingly, and allow lengthy detention time for rejected asylum seekers who are believed to pose a risk to national security.

The large number of asylum seekers who came to Germany in 2015 continues to pose big challenges to the federal government, states and communities, the chancellery wrote in a draft of the plan seen by The Wall Street Journal. It requires a national effort to reach additional improvements.

Regional politicians said there was broad agreement among the states on the plan ahead of a meeting between the chancellor and state governors in Berlin later that day to discuss the measures.

GERMAN MAGAZINE SPARKS FUROR WITH COVER OF TRUMP BEHEADING STATUE OF LIBERTY

We agree that we must use all possibilities to quickly reach results, said Volker Bouffier, premier of Hesse and a member of Ms. Merkels Christian Democratic Union.

Practices vary widely from state to state. While conservative Bavaria has boosted forced departures, some left-leaning state governments rarely carry out deportations and oppose tougher steps.

With some eight months to go before federal elections, Ms. Merkel is under pressure from the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany and conservative allies in Bavaria to address public concern over migration, rising crime and the looming terror threat.

A December terror attack at a Christmas market in Berlin committed by a rejected Tunisian asylum seeker sparked sharp criticism of authorities failure, over many months to deport the man long known as a criminal and Islamist radical. Anis Amri killed 12 people when he rammed a truck into a Berlin Christmas market on Dec. 19. Authorities said he hadn't been deported because Tunisia failed for months to issue the necessary papers. Those documents finally reached authorities in Germany two days after the attack. Amri was killed in a shootout with Italian police near Milan four days after the market attack.

Read more at the Wall Street Journal.
A Marine was killed and two civilians wounded when gunmen opened fire on a military patrol in the Pacific resort city of Acapulco, the Mexican Navy said Wednesday.

Members of the patrol responded to the attack and the assailants fled, the Navy said, stressing that the marines complied with rules designed to ensure the safety of non-combatants.

GUNMEN SLAY 6 VENDORS AT POP-UP MARKET IN MEXICO'S ACAPULCO

The navy extended condolences to the family of the dead marine and said that they would receive all the support and benefits to which they are entitled.

Acapulco has been rocked for months by a battle between drug cartels to control the territory. The resort city is located in Guerrero, one of Mexico's poorest and most violent states.
A Palestinian man opened fire and stabbed shoppers with a screwdriver at a market in central Israel wounding six people, according to the Israeli police.

Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the attacker, from the Nablus area, was arrested soon after the shooting Thursday afternoon in Petah Tikva.

He said it was "most likely a terror attack" but police are still investigating.

ISRAEL QUESTIONS EXECUTIVE OF DOVISH GROUP AT AIRPORT

Channel 10 reported three people were injured from the shooting and one person was stabbed.

Israel's ambulance service said a man and a woman in their 50s and a woman in her 30s were treated for bullet wounds to their lower bodies. A 40-year-old man was stabbed in his upper body, it said.

PALESTINIANS: ISRAELI AIRSTRIKE KILLS 3 ON GAZA-EGYPT BORDER

"This terror attack is a direct result of ongoing incitement from the Palestinian leadership," Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon reacted. "The international community must take immediate and decisive action against this incitement before it leads to any further bloodshed."

Since 2015, Palestinian attackers have carried out numerous stabbings, shootings and assaults using cars, killing 41 Israelis and two visiting Americans. During the same period, Israeli forces have killed 235 Palestinians. Israel says most of the Palestinians killed were attackers while others died in clashes with Israeli forces.

Israel says the bloodshed is fueled by a Palestinian campaign of incitement, compounded by social media sites glorifying attackers and encouraging violence. Palestinians say it stems from frustration over decades of Israeli rule in territory they claim for a state.

Earlier on Thursday, an explosion killed two Palestinians along the Gaza border with Egypt in what appeared to be a strike on cross-border smuggling tunnels.

Palestinian officials said the blast was caused by an Israeli airstrike, but the Israeli military denied any involvement. Residents said the explosion was on the Egyptian side of the border, raising the possibility of an Egyptian strike.

Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Kidra said the pre-dawn explosion killed two men and wounded five others. Palestinian civil defense workers recovered the bodies and the wounded and transferred them to hospitals in the southern Gaza Strip.

Mohammed Zorob, who lives in the border town of Rafah, said the blast took place on the Egyptian side.

Hamas has been working to improve relations with Cairo in recent months, and recently announced the deployment of additional forces along the border. The Islamic militant group ruling Gaza says the border is more secure and that underground smuggling has ceased.

The Israeli military, which has not struck the Gaza tunnels since the 2014 war, denied it was involved in the blast.

On Wednesday, the military said its missile defense system intercepted several rockets fired by militants in Egypt toward the southern Israeli city of Eilat  a relatively rare occurrence. Islamic State militants in the Sinai Peninsula claimed responsibility for the rocket attack.

Earlier this week, Israel carried out several strikes on Hamas targets after a rocket landed in Israel. Israel holds Hamas responsible for any fire originating from Gaza.

Fox News' Yonat Friling, Jonathan Wachtel and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Poland's foreign minister says it is a priority for the country to strengthen the cooperation of Americans and Europeans in the area of security and that he is concerned about the "aggressive policies of Russia in Eastern Europe."

Witold Waszczykowki made his remarks Friday during a traditional yearly address to parliament. Among those in the audience were President Andrzej Duda and foreign diplomats.

He said despite Russian polices he still sees a role for dialogue.

Waszczykowski also said Poland's ties are warming with Belarus, the authoritarian state on Poland's eastern border, noting that there have been more visits and meetings with Belarusian officials.
A Russian warplane "accidentally" hit a building on Thursday in northern Syria with Turkish soldiers inside, killing at least three troops and wounding 11, Turkey's military said.

President Vladimir Putin promptly called his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to express regrets over the friendly fire incident. The Kremlin said Putin conveyed his condolences over the "tragic incident."

The airstrike took place on Thursday morning near the town of al-Bab, which Turkish troops and Turkey-backed Syrian opposition fighters are trying to capture from the Islamic State group. News of the deaths came as Turkey was holding funerals for five Turkish soldiers killed in an IS attack the day before.

The Turkish military said Turkey and Russia were conducting a joint investigation into the incident.

TURKEY DETAINS 4 ISIS SUSPECTS PLANNING 'SENSATIONAL' ATTACK

Turkey and Russia recently repaired ties that were strained by Turkey's downing of Russian jet near the border with Syria two years ago. In late December, the two countries brokered a cease-fire for Syria and in January they sponsored peace talks in Astana, Kazakhstan. Syrian rebels and President Bashar Assad's government officials attended that gathering.

Thursday's airstrike deaths raise the number of Turkish troops killed in Turkey's operation in Syria to 64.

In other developments in Syria, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and the Red Cross said Thursday that a suspected rebel mortar attack that hit a Red Crescent distribution center in the government-held city of Aleppo the day before killed a volunteer and two civilians.

The attack in the Hamadaniya neighborhood, also wounded seven other volunteers, the organization said. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there were also other mortar rounds that hit security checkpoints in the area on Wednesday. Syria's state news agency said mortar shells also hit other buildings in the neighborhood.

ATTACK ON RED CRESCENT IN SYRIA'S ALLEPO KILLS 3

After years of heavy fighting, Syrian government forces drove the rebels out of eastern Aleppo in December, but the opposition still holds some areas on the city's outskirts. Fighting has continued around Aleppo and in other parts of Syria despite a Russia- and Turkey-sponsored cease-fire.

The cease-fire, in place since Dec. 30, has excluded areas where militant factions, the Islamic State group and Syria's al-Qaida affiliate, operate or hold ground. Syrian government troops and allied militias, as well Turkish troops, the U.S-led international coalition, and Russia have been going after IS in different parts of the country.

The push has lately focused on the IS-held town of al-Bab, northeast of Aleppo. Syrian government forces and their allies have been pushing from the south, aided by Russian airstrikes.

On Thursday, government troops seized a village south of al-Bab, bringing them less than 3 kilometers (1.5 miles) from the town, according to opposition monitors.

Meanwhile, Turkish troops, backing Syrian opposition fighters, have pushed their way from the western part of the town, entering the outskirts of al-Bab. The two advances have effectively encircled the militant group, which had set up strong fortifications around al-Bab, one if Islamic State group's last remaining strongholds in northern Syria.

Another fight against IS is raging in east and northeast Syria, where Kurdish troops, backed by the United States, are advancing against the IS in the militants' de facto capital of Raqqa. Meanwhile, government forces are battling an IS offensive in Deir al-Zour and another one in the central Homs province, around the ancient town of Palmyra.

Violence has also beset rebel- and opposition-held areas, including in Homs, where at least nine civilians were killed in suspected Russian or government airstrikes on Wednesday.
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The British defense secretary says he has "no doubt at all" about the U.S. commitment to NATO under President Donald Trump.

Secretary Michael Fallon said Thursday he agrees with Trump that the trans-Atlantic alliance must be modernized so it is more agile and responsive.

Fallon said: "We are in no doubt at all about the U.S. commitment to NATO. Previous U.S. presidents have asked Europe to shoulder a greater part of the burden. There is nothing new in that."

Trump once dismissed the military alliance as "obsolete." The White House has since stressed the "fundamental importance" of NATO to trans-Atlantic relations.

Fallon says NATO must take a "360-degree view" of current threats.

He added: "There shouldn't be a division between a European view and an American view of NATO, and there isn't."
U.K. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has given up his U.S. citizenship, according to a list released Wednesday by the Treasury Department, one of a record number of people to do so last year.

The flamboyant British politician, who was previously mayor of London, has said in the past that he intended to cut those U.S. ties.

UK'S MOVE TO LIMIT LONE CHILD REFUGEES DRAWS BACKLASH

The Treasury Department list includes the names of all people who renounced U.S. citizenship or long-term permanent residency in the latest quarter. A record number of 5,411 people renounced in 2016. That is 26% more than the next highest annual total since a disclosure law was enacted in the 1990s, according to Andrew Mitchel, an international tax lawyer who tallies the names on the lists.

Mr. Johnson, through a spokesman, declined to comment.

Mr. Johnson was a high-profile example of "accidental" American citizens who can owe U.S. taxes despite their foreign allegiance. He was born in New York while his British parents lived there during the 1960s but has said he hadn't lived in the U.S. since he was five years old. In 2014 he said publicly that the U.S. was "trying to hit" him for tax on the sale of a London home.

Click for more from The Wall Street Journal.
Britain's move to limit the entry of child refugees traveling alone triggered a backlash Thursday, with some lawmakers accusing the Conservative government of aligning the U.K. too closely with the U.S. under President Trump.

ISIS FIGHTERS REPORTEDLY CALLING TRUMP TRAVEL BAN THE 'BLESSED BAN'

Supporters of the amendment had said it could help as many as 3,000 lone child refugees from migrant camps by giving them homes in the U.K., Sky News reported. However, a new limit imposed by the government allows only about 350 children.

The decision came after France claimed the amendment could encourage too many children to make the dangerous trip to Britain -- and draw traffickers at the same time, Home Secretary Amber Rudd said.

KENYA COURT QUASHES GOVERNMENT ORDER TO CLOSE REFUGEE CAMP

"We are not saying we are closing the door, we are putting up the drawbridge," she added. "We are not saying that."

Still, many lawmakers in the House of Commons slammed the decision, calling a Trump-influenced move. "Is this what comes of cozying up to President Trump?" Joanna Cherry of the Scottish National Party asked.

Some 200 children have been brought in to the U.K. so far. Prime Minister Theresa May called her government's approach "absolutely right."

Hundreds of thousands of refugees have poured into Europe in recent years, many fleeing war and terror in the Middle East and North Africa. It's forced European countries to consider exactly how many refugees to welcome in, and how to do so. President Trump's executive order last month limited travel to the U.S. from seven countries.

Labor Party lawmaker Alf Dubs -- a Czech-born politician who came to the U.K. through the Holocaust rescue effort known as the Kindertransport -- proposed the amendment.

Opposition lawmakers also accused Britain's Home Office of trying to sneak through the changes on Wednesday, when lawmakers were debating the highly charged Brexit bill that would allow May to trigger Britain's departure from the 28- nation European Union.

Click for more from Sky News.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The Pentagon said Wednesday that two U.S. airstrikes conducted in Syria last week killed 11 Al Qaeda operatives, including one with ties to former leader Usama bin Laden.

The airstrike near Idlib killed 10 operatives in a building used as an Al Qaeda meeting site, Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said. A strike the next day killed Abu Hani al-Masri, who U.S. officials said oversaw the creation and operation of Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s.

Al-Masri had ties to bin Laden and to Ayman al-Zawahiri, who became the top leader of the terror group when U.S. forces killed bin Laden in 2011, Davis said

"These strikes disrupt Al Qaedas ability to plot and direct external attacks targeting the US and our interests worldwide," Davis said in a statement. These extremists are increasingly questioning the loyalty of their members as paranoia spreads throughout their network about the many strikes conducted against them. U.S. forces have struck multiple meeting locations, an established basic training camp, and four leaders since the beginning of the year.

Al-Masri is also considered one of the founders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the first Sunni group to use suicide bombers in terror attacks. The group was responsible for multiple attacks against U.S. and allied facilities and personnel, including a 1998 attempt to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Albania.

BBC noted that Al Qaedas power in Syria is largely exerted through the Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham jihadist group, formerly known as the Nusra Front. The group, however, said last year it was no longer affiliated with any other group, sparking speculation it had cut ties with Al Qaeda.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A teenager whose marijuana rip-off led to a deadly shooting walked out of Fredericksburg Circuit Court a free man on Thursday after a jury found him not guilty of robbery and use of a firearm in the drug deal gone bad.

Jamique Taron McAllister, 18, admitted in court that he took the marijuana from an acquaintance who had agreed to sell him the weed. But the jury of nine women and three men agreed with his attorneys contention that McAllisters actions did not equate to robbery.

The drug deal happened on the night of Aug. 16 in the parking lot of Townsend apartments off U.S. 1.

Prosecutor Jeff Adams told the jury that earlier that day, McAllister contacted Erann Ohse, a co-worker at a fast-food restaurant in Fredericksburg, asking if she could sell him an ounce of marijuana. She said she could.

Ohse testified that Christopher Williams, one of her roommates at Townsend apartments, supplied the marijuana. But she said that he wasnt around when McAllister showed up, so she took care of the exchange in the apartment complex parking lot.

She said that instead of paying for the marijuana, McAllister shoved her with a revolver in his hand, took the marijuana and fled in a vehicle with another man.

Ohse, 19, also said that McAllister posted videos on Snapchat bragging about having her marijuana, as well as images of him holding a gun similar to the one she said he used during the deal.

In his testimony, McAllister denied having a gun or pushing Ohse, saying all he did was take the marijuana from her without paying.

I was just being a jerk, he said.

The prosecutions case centered primarily on Ohses testimony, but Adams also told the jury that police found a revolver in the woods at the nearby Kendalwood apartments in the days following the incident. The prosecutor wasnt allowed to tell the jury that the discovery had something to do with the deadly shooting related to the marijuana theft.

Authorities said Williams was angered by the drug theft and two days later lured McAllister to the Kendalwood apartments, where several men became embroiled in a shootout in which Williams was killed.

In his closing arguments, Adams said it was a simple case, one in which Ohse admitted to a crime herself by telling police what happened and that she had no reason to embellish her account.

Defense attorney Charles Swedish countered by telling the jury, This is a 100 percent he-said/she-said case.

This was a marijuana rip-off not robbery, Swedish said in his closing argument, adding that Ohse was covering for herself because she was responsible for the marijuana entrusted to her by a drug dealer.

While McAllisters case is over, the courts are still dealing with two men involved in the deadly shooting that happened two days later.

One of those men involved in the shootout is Fernando Vintinelli Booker, 31, of Fredericksburg. He showed up at the complex with Williams to confront McAllister, and shot McAllister and another man, Markuis Dapri-Woodson Lucas, during the confrontation.

Booker pleaded guilty in December to malicious wounding, unlawful wounding, conspiracy to commit a felony and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. He is set to be sentenced next week.

Lucas, 19, faces murder and firearms charges in Williams death. His two-day trial was initially set for next week, but was continued to April because witnesses have been difficult to track down, said his attorney, Joseph Hicks.
Cabinetmakers, accountants and others could have jobs waiting for them at the former General Motors plant in Spotsylvania County.

Missouri-based idX Corp., the global manufacturer that plans to move into the facility on Tidewater Trail later this year, will use a range of workers at its future home, according to company spokeswoman Lin Courtois.

In addition to cabinetmakers and finance staff, the list of jobs includes: print operators, shipping and receiving jobs, machine operators, CNC programmers, decor and fixture assembly workers, human resources staff, office staff, IT workers, painters/finishers, project management, development/engineering, and quality assurance positions.

The companys website, which normally advertises openings, is down for improvements. In the meantime, job inquiries should be sent to careers@idxcorporation.com, Courtois said. Prospective employees can also keep an eye out for openings on the companys LinkedIn page and at indeed.com.

The Free LanceStar had requested the salary range of employees, but Courtois provided a list of jobs instead. The salary average or range may not offer you the best detail, so perhaps it would be more helpful to know the types of positions this facility will employ, she wrote.

The company expects to have 150 employees within three years, though an undetermined number of the jobs will be filled by existing workers at a Maryland facility about 90 miles north of Fredericksburg. IdXwhich produces decor, fixtures, graphics and millwork for retailersis relocating its Columbia, Md., operations to Spotsylvania.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced Tuesday that the manufacturer will invest $7.2 million to set up shop at the 289,000-square-foot facility, which has been vacant since the GM Powertrain plant closed in 2010. The company received a $400,000 grant from the state, and the Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors is expected to approve another $1.5 million in incentives over 10 years.

Virginia competed against Maryland and North Carolina to win the project, according to the Governors Office.

The manufacturer is purchasing the 77-acre facility from RACER Trust, which a federal judge created to sell off GMs former assets after the company declared bankruptcy in 2009. The sale is expected to be finalized soon.

IdX hopes to have a soft opening June 1 and be fully operational later that month. It has locations across North America, in addition to Asia and Europe.
Ukraine's Infrastructure Ministry hopes to repair the runway at the Odesa international airport in 2017, Minister Volodymyr Omelyan said at a meeting with journalists in Kyiv late on Wednesday.

"The aviation development program is working. I hope that this year we will start repair of the runway at the Odesa airport," he said.

The minister added that the funds may be provided for some other directions.

As reported, in July 2016 now-resigned Head of Odesa Regional Administration Mikheil Saakashvili said that the Odesa airport could stop operating due to the bad state of the runway.

In February 2017 Vice President of Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) mentioned the bad state of the runway in Odesa.

Odesa International Airport is in the top three largest airports in Ukraine on the number of passengers in the first half of 2016. It performs regular and charter flights between the cities of Ukraine, the CIS, Western Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Tom Perriello announced Wednesday that he opposes two proposed natural gas pipeline projects in Virginia  a position that represents the progressive upstarts strongest break yet from the policies of Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe.

Perriello, a former congressman and diplomat who is running against Lt. Gov. Ralph S. Northam for the Democratic nomination for governor, said he would work to stop both the Atlantic Coast Pipeline through central Virginia and the Mountain Valley Pipeline in the Roanoke region.

If elected governor, I will use the authorities available to me to prevent these pipelines and instead encourage all stakeholders to invest in opportunities that create far more Virginia jobs, keep more value in the community, protect our landholders rights and protect our beautiful natural heritage, Perriello said during a news conference at Richmonds Libby Hill Park.

The proposed 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which would cut a swath through central Virginia from the West Virginia line to North Carolina, has drawn the most attention and opposition from environmentalists who see it as a threat to drinking water and natural resources, as well as from landowners who feel their property rights are being violated.

The smaller Mountain Valley Pipeline would run through the Roanoke area to Southside Virginia.

Pipeline opposition perhaps is strongest in Nelson County and other rural areas near Charlottesville, Perriellos hometown.

Citing the threat of climate change, Perriello said investments should be made in other energy sources such as wind and solar, as well as weatherization to make buildings more energy-efficient.

The energy industry, he said, should be decentralized to encourage small-scale production.

Time and time again, when our farmers and small-business owners wanted to have a small piece of the energy sector, we saw the utilities and others make it as difficult as possible to grow those businesses, to sell power back to the grid or go off the grid altogether, Perriello said.

Perriellos stance could put Northam, the favorite of Virginias Democratic establishment, in a pinch by forcing the lieutenant governor either to stand by McAuliffe or alter his views to appeal better to pipeline opponents.

Bubba Sanderson, 44, one of roughly a dozen Perriello supporters at Wednesdays event, has a cattle farm in Cumberland County that lies in the pipelines path. He called McAuliffe a great cheerleader for the state but said the governor has been weak on the pipeline.

Tom is a guy who has crossed our state and been to Cumberland County and wants to know what the citizens want to do, instead of what big companies want to do, Sanderson said.

The campaign of Ed Gillespie, a former Republican National Committee chairman and front-runner in the four-way race for the GOP nomination, said in a statement Wednesday that Gillespie agrees with McAuliffe, Republican General Assembly leadership and Virginia business leaders that the pipeline would help the economy.

Tom Perriello made clear once again today that hes out of step with mainstream Virginians, Gillespie spokesman Matt Moran said. The only question left is, will Ralph Northam side with Virginia employers, workers and families  or the left wing of his party?

McAuliffe, who is backing Northam for governor, has pitched the $5.1 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline as an economic driver that will bring low-cost energy critical to landing industrial projects and creating jobs.

The governor has said that even if he wanted to stop the pipeline, he has no authority to do so. That stance has led environmental activists to begin pressuring McAuliffe at public appearances.

Perriello said he will look at all authorities available to governors, including instructing the state Department of Environmental Quality to conduct additional water-quality testing.

Asked for comment in response to Perriellos event, the Northam campaign issued a written statement that urged a rigorous review process but didnt flatly state opposition or support for the projects.

As a doctor and a scientist, Ralph Northam always believes in a robust and transparent process driven by science, facts and property rights, Northam campaign spokesman David Turner said in a statement.

This is why he urges the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and Virginias Department of Environmental Quality to hold this process to the highest possible standards with the utmost due diligence given to protecting our natural heritage.

That approach, Turner said, drives Northams long-standing opposition to offshore drilling.

Perriello has supported offshore drilling in the past but said Wednesday that hes always been very skeptical of offshore drilling and supports offshore wind.

The energy giant Dominion, a major donor to Virginia politicians from both parties, is leading the Atlantic Coast Pipelines development in a partnership with Duke Energy and Southern Company Gas.

Perriello pledged Wednesday that he will not take one dime from Dominion but is willing to meet with the company to discuss pragmatic solutions.

I think too often in our system we see things that are tilted in one direction because of where the contributions are coming from, Perriello said.

Northam has received $20,000 in donations from Dominion since he launched his gubernatorial campaign.

In a statement, Dominion officials said they were very disappointed by Perriellos stance and called his statement ill-informed.

This project is essential to the economic vitality and environmental future of Virginia, Dominion spokesman Aaron Ruby said.

It will create thousands of new jobs, promote cleaner air in our communities, and enhance the energy security of our region. Its unfortunate Mr. Perriello has disregarded these important public priorities and the aspirations of most Virginians.

Because Perriello has not yet had to file a campaign finance report, its not clear whether he has received funding from environmental groups.

Perriello is the second 2017 gubernatorial candidate to oppose the pipeline.

Denver Riggleman, who owns a distillery in Nelson near the pipeline route, is running an insurgent Republican campaign fueled largely by anti-Dominion rage and a populist message of supporting ordinary Virginians over Richmond power brokers.

Riggleman is competing for the GOP nomination with Gillespie, state Sen. Frank W. Wagner, R-Virginia Beach, and Prince William County Supervisor Corey Stewart.

Both parties will choose their nominees through primaries on June 13.
As some anxiously await the announcement of an assured lawsuit against the Charlottesville City Council for its recent decision, in a 3-2 vote, to relocate a public statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, two gubernatorial candidates attacked the council on Wednesday.

In news releases sent before noon, Republican hopefuls Corey Stewart and Denver Riggleman chastised the councils decision, saying they would act to prevent initiatives that they think are an attack on Virginia heritage.

"You cannot revise history. Only tyrants attempt to erase history. This is tantamount to denouncing your own heritage," Stewart said in his news release. I will do whatever I need to, both now and as governor, to stop this historical vandalism. We must fight to protect Virginias heritage.

This continued assault from Democrats on Virginia's history and heritage is unacceptable. As governor, I will protect the monuments of our heritage, but not just of the Civil War, mind you, said Riggleman, adding that he would explore memorializing more of our history.

Not only are they standing in conflict with a number of Virginia's laws, but they are spitting in the face of veterans of every conflict  no reminder of any sacrifice by any veteran of any conflict should be torn down by the liberal thought police, Riggleman, an Air Force veteran and owner of the Nelson County-based Silverback Distillery, said about the City Council.

Since Monday evening, the Virginia Flaggers, a Confederate heritage and preservation group, and Friends of Cville Monuments, an organization formed earlier this year after Councilor Wes Bellamy called for the removal of the Lee statue, have said a lawsuit against the city is imminent.

Elliott Harding, chairman of the Albemarle County Republican Committee and an attorney with Cville Monuments, which has been raising funds for a legal defense of the statues, told The Daily Progress on Wednesday evening that the announcement will be made later this week.

Last October, Stewart, who ran as a candidate for lieutenant governor in 2013 and currently serves as chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, was fired from his position as chairman of President Donald Trumps campaign in Virginia after he led a protest outside the Republican National Committees offices in Washington, D.C.

At the time, about a month away from Election Day, the committee decided it would redirect its resources from Virginia to more competitive battleground states. The decision drew Stewarts rebuke, who labeled the committees leadership establishment pukes.

Riggleman, whose Twitter account says he is the conservative outsider for governor, tangled with Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer on the social media platform Wednesday afternoon after the mayor responded to his statement online.

Seeking to correct Rigglemans assertion that Signer is creating anarchy and lawlessness by supporting the removal of the Lee statue  and also by declaring the city a capital of the resistance, opposing the Trump administrations policies and rhetoric on refugee resettlement and immigration  Signer clarified that he is opposed to and voted against moving the statue, calling Riggleman an inexperienced newby

Riggleman responded to Signers tweets, calling himself a leader and Signer a failure.

Get your apparatchiks in line, one of Rigglemans tweets said, using a Cold War-era Russian term for a Soviet bureaucrat. Signer responded by citing the city's 3.9 unemployment rate and AAA bond rating. That "didn't happen thru rhetoric," Signer wrote.

Although Signer said Monday that he believes the statue is symbolic of the Jim Crow era and white supremacy, which he reviles, he ultimately voted against the motion to move the statue.

There are the specific practical, legal and logistical obstacles that suggest that this vote will not actually result in any action for a very long time, Signer said at Mondays council meeting, adding that a state statute does prohibit this removal  .

Similar to Rigglemans vow to create new memorials, Signer said Monday that he would prefer that the city re-contextualize the statue with a broader interpretation.

In addition to the vote to relocate the statue, the council unanimously agreed to have the city hire a firm that will redesign Lee Park, whether or not the statue is moved.

The resolution also calls for Jackson Park, which is home to a statue of Confederate Gen. Thomas Stonewall Jackson to be redesigned with a new memorial to the citys enslaved population from the pre-emancipation era. The Jackson statue is expected to stay.

While a recent Christopher Newport University poll found Stewart and Riggleman trailing their opponents at 7 and 1 percent, respectively  with former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie leading with 33 percent  most voters remain undecided, and name recognition could have been a driving factor in the results. Gillespie had unsuccessfully sought to unseat Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Va.

Last week, Quentin Kidd, director of the Wason Center for Public Policy at CNU said anything could happen in the state gubernatorial race.

Republican candidates Gillespie and Sen. Frank W. Wagner, R-Virginia Beach, did not respond to questions about the Lee statue and Charlottesville City Council  neither did former Rep. Tom Perriello, D-5th, and Lt. Gov. Ralph S. Northam, who are seeking the Democratic nomination for governor.
AFTER Democrats held the Senate floor overnight in a last-ditch effort to stop Betsy DeVos from becoming the secretary of education, she was confirmed with the first-ever tie-breaker from a vice president in our nations history.

Parents of children with special needs who receive vital services from public schools are scared of the implications of this appointment. During her confirmation hearings, DeVos revealed a lack of understanding of basic education policy. Most troubling perhaps was her disregard for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), as well as FAPE, which guarantees Free Appropriate Public Education. DeVos neither understands nor agrees with enforcing these vital laws, leaving parents worried for the future of their childrens educations.

Before having my own children and leaving full-time employment, I was a public school teacher. I stumbled into the job during a time when one wasnt required to have a degree in education in order to teach. I had a passion for literature and a love for sharing it with others, and I foolishly thought that would suffice. I owe my survival of that first quarter to all of my colleagues. Their dedication to the students superseded their frustrations with my lack of experience. For the sake of our students, they sacrificed their precious little free time in order to help me become a good teacher, because that is what teachers do.

Parents of children with special needs hear DeVos lack of regard for their students when she expresses confusion over the meaning of IDEA and FAPE. Before these federal protections, these students had no right to education. If parents didnt have the financial means to provide an alternative, they often had no choice but to place their children in institutions.

I cannot imagine the fear of losing my childs educational opportunities because of the ineptitude of the secretary of education. But what I learned in my seven years as a public school educator is that teachers are a rebellious lot. You can throw all manner of rules and regulations at them, and they will find workarounds in order to teach their students.

During the No Child Left Behind Act years, for example, my colleagues and I were expected to prove a percentage of growth that did not take into account the fact that a large chunk of our student population had been in the country less than a year. And so we stayed late and brainstormed creative ways to help our students meet these goals. Incentive programs were created offering pizza lunches, movie passes, anything that would motivate the middle-schoolers to work harder. Games and other creative lesson plans helped students learn in months what their peers had taken years to master. In spite of seemingly insurmountable odds, our students reached No Childs progress goal.

During any given lunch or planning period, before or after school, and even on weekends, my colleagues were in their classrooms offering extra lessons, homework help, hosting reading groups or even just providing a listening ear for their students. Contractually, this time was ours for planning and grading. In reality, these hours were sorely needed in order to prepare our students for standardized testing.

Whether the student had a formal diagnosis or an Individualized Education Plan in place, our teachers worked tirelessly to help each one succeed. As a teacher, I thought our school was unique. Now a parent, I realize that this is what teachers do.

People such as DeVos who have no experience in education foolishly push the narrative that schools should be run like businesses. They look at test scores and grade data and see broken products rolling out on a faulty assembly line instead of human beings.

But instead of seeing products, teachers see people. Teachers see determination and drive and they seek to nurture their students. Teachers place value on growth, even when they are required to also prove proficiency.

To the parents of the 1 in 8 students in America who currently rely on public education to provide special-education services, I want you to know that while DeVos may not see you, your childs teachers do. They know this will not be easy, but they will continue to provide an education to your child. They are not deterred by policies and politicians. Teachers know that policies and politicians come and go quickly, and so they focus on what matters most: your children.

Jenn Morson is a freelance writer from Annapolis, Md. She wrote this for The Washington Post.
Nibulon company does not want to set the clear rules in the river transport segment and the current situation suits the company, Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan has said.

"In fact they would not pay more river fees than other companies [if the bill on domestic river transport is passed]. They carry no more than 2 million out of 7 million tonnes of cargo flow," he said at a meeting with journalists in Kyiv late on Wednesday, commenting on Nibulon's critics of the bill.

The minister said that his ministry considered many issues favorably for the company, optimizing some port duties that Nibulon considered discriminative.

"Then they decided that they should pay nothing. However, we need large investment to carry out dredging works on the Dnipro River, settle problems with ridges and locks. We need renewable credits. Creditors should understand that there is revenue that would cover the credits. We propose the clear and transparent approach," Omelyan said.

Ukrainian Infrastructure Ministry intends to discuss the bill on domestic water transport in parliament this week.
PATIENCE and some deal-making have paid off for those who envisioned workers returning to the plant that was once home to a significant Fredericksburg-area employer, General Motors Powertrain.

News that a global manufacturer will set up shop on the Tidewater Trail property defies the outlook that there wasnt much of a future for the leaky hulk of a building that has sat vacant for the past seven years.

Spotsylvania County officials have said all along that they hoped the 289,000-square-foot building on 77 industrial-zoned acres across from Fredericksburg Country Club would find a new manufacturing or distribution use.

Their persistence came to fruition Tuesday when Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced that Missouri-based idX Corp. will invest $7.2 million to transform the plant that assembled torque converters for GM trucks into an operation that makes store fixtures and displays from wood, metal, glass, acrylic, laminates, veneers and upholstery. Making products for major chains and franchises will undoubtedly help diversify the regions economy and revive a plant that at its peak employed 300 workers.

IdX is moving its current operation from the Baltimore area, with an expected June soft opening. The Spotsylvania site will employ 150 and give idX room to expand in the future.

Though an undetermined number of current idX workers will fill some of those jobs, the company with locations in Asia, Europe and India is in growth mode. Terry Schulz, CEO of idX, says the Spotsylvania location will strengthen its East Coast manufacturing and distribution network.

Though the number of jobs and amount of money invested is smaller than our areas Lidl and Harris Teeter distribution center projects, the idX plant will make the region a player in modern manufacturing. As Curry Roberts, president of the Fredericksburg Regional Alliance, observes, Any manufacturing jobs in this economy is a lot of manufacturing jobs. He points out these positions require greater technical skills and command higher wages.

The company is buying the property from RACER Trust, which a federal judge created to sell off GMs former assets after the carmaker reorganized after declaring bankruptcy in 2009.

For the past year and a half, Spotsylvania has quietly courted idX, which was also weighing possible locations in Maryland and North Carolina. Discussions got serious last summer, so Virginia and regional economic development officials began looking for ways to seal idXs relocation here. These days, that takes incentives.

The governor has approved a $400,000 grant from the commonwealths Opportunity Fund to assist idX with its move. Additional state dollars and services for training idXs employees will be provided through the Virginia Jobs Investment Program.

The Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors will vote soon on providing $1.5 million in incentives over a 10-year period. Details of the package have not been released at this point.

In 2015, Spotsylvania supervisors considered, but rejected, a plan to spend $3.75 million to buy the property and repair the leaking roof at the GM plant with the goal of attracting an employer there. At this point, it appears theyve achieved their goal without such direct expenditures.

While the property sat idle over the years, supervisors and RACER Trust officials expressed little interest in overtures from Civil War battlefield preservation groups that tried to buy the tract, which is near the Civil War Trusts Slaughter Pen Farm site. Historians note that in December 1862, the GM property was where Union forces commanded by Maj. Gen. George G. Meade managed to break through the defensive lines of Confederate commander Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson, only to be beaten back. What happened on that ground should never be forgotten.

The property holds strategic value today for a different reason. As state Secretary of Commerce and Trade Todd Haymore notes, the former GM site provides prime location for idX to reach its customers in the United States and across the Atlantic given the countys close proximity to major interstates, international airports and the Port of Virginia.

We have to agree that putting the plant back to work is a boon for our region. And we congratulate those who worked so diligently to make it happen. As the old saying goes, good things come to those who wait and better things come to those who dont give up.
Republican actions are the opposite of great

In recent weeks, Ive seen headlines where Congress and/or President Trump are reversing regulations. The changes will:

 Allow coal companies to pollute our drinking water. Im sure the owners of the coal companies dont drink the water, but other people do. Average Americans do.

 Allow financial advisers to ignore the best interest of the consumer. This makes Wall Street bubbas rich at the expense of the average American.

 Allow people with mental-health issues to buy guns. Why would we want to make it easier for a crazy person to get a lethal weapon? How is this in the best interest of the average American?

While this is happening, the Trump administration is picking fights with China, Iran, Mexico and Australia. We may have to go to war against China or Iran, but do we need to promote it? Trumps chief strategist Steve Bannon predicted last March that we would go to war. I hope Congress does not assist him in making this a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Additionally, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway justified restrictions on refugee admissions by making up a massacre that never happened. This type of false propaganda is a disservice to the American public, which relies on its government to be honest.

Despite campaign talking points, most Americans dont believe in repealing the Affordable Care Act, nor do they agree with defunding Planned Parenthood. Fix the ACA and move on to balancing the budget and protecting the rights of the average American. Protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Congress is rolling back the clock to the point where we had weak environmental and financial regulations, to the ultimate detriment of the average American. This is not making America great again. Its actually doing the opposite.

James Blalock

Fredericskburg
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TMM developing and construction firm LLC (Kyiv) intends to realize a project to build a solid household waste-to-energy plant near combined heat and power plant six in Kyiv, TMM Director General Mykola Tolmachev has said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

"The waste combust technology is similar to the "magma" technology when waste is heated on hot stone without the use of oxygen. The technology brings almost no waste and no emission. This is environment friendly production. I am going to be first who will build this plant in Ukraine. We are holding talks with Kyiv and Zaporizhia," Tolmachev said.

He said that at present the company is waiting for the signing of the memorandum with Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko. The document would allow starting construction of the plant in Kyiv this year.

He said that the plant could be located near combined heat and power plant six in Troyeschyna district.

He did not disclose the cost of the project. He said that he intends to raise the funds himself.

TMM Firm is a developing and construction company of full cycle. It has been operating on the Ukrainian construction market since 1994.
Ukraine's Infrastructure Minister does not see serious reasons to delay the appointment of director general of the Boryspil International Airport (Kyiv), the largest airport of the country, Minister Volodymyr Omelyan said at a meeting with journalists in Kyiv late on Wednesday.

"We have a strange situation: someone is bargaining with another person, not me. My bargaining was that I announced the public conditions of work to all candidates to the post. Everyone said that they agree. We registered all documents. Riabikin passed all procedures, but he has not yet been appointed. I expected that it would be today at the government meeting, but it did not happen," the minister said.

As reported, in December the government's committee selected former deputy transport minister of Ukraine Pavlo Riabikin as candidate for the post of director general of Boryspil International Airport state-run enterprise

Riabikin has 29 years of professional experience, in particular, at Express Avia, Partners housing company LLC and Zeleny Port recreation center LLC.

Riabikin was lawmaker in the parliament of the third convocation, and was deputy transport and communications minister in 2005-2006. Since 2014, he has been working at Kyiv City Administration in charge of infrastructure and transport construction.

Boryspil airport services over 68% of passenger transportation in Ukraine. It is the only airport in the country servicing long-haul flights. Over 50 airlines fly from the airport on more than 100 routes worldwide.
TMM developing and construction firm LLC (Kyiv) in 2016 retained revenue from selling property in realized projects and projects under construction in money terms at the level of 2015  UAH 328 million.

"In 2016, property sales remained at the level of the previous year. We retain sale revenue at UAH 328 million. Sales in absolute figures  square meters  fell only by 10%," TMM Director General Mykola Tolmachev said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

He said that today the company finished two residential houses (six and seven) in the Soniachna Brama residential complex and they will be commissioned in the first quarter of 2017.

The developer intends to start building a new house that will be part of the fourth stage in 2017.

TMM is taking part in the Alter Ego residential complex as developer and chief designer in Pechersky district of Kyiv.

"This is our joint project with Geos company. The complex will be commissioned in the middle of 2018," Tolmachev said.

TMM Firm is a developing and construction company of full cycle. It has been operating on the Ukrainian construction market since 1994.
The production of fake pesticides costs EU businesses about 1.3bn (1.1bn) each year in lost revenue, including 65m in the UK and 200 jobs.

A new report from the EUs Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) shows 13.8% of legitimate revenues are lost each year because of counterfeit pesticides in the EU.

Germany, France and Italy suffered the most in lost sales. The report estimates fake pesticides cost Germany, the biggest pesticide producer in the EU, 299m/year (255m/year) and 500 jobs.

See also: 8 checks to ensure your pesticide is not a fake

The French pesticides sector loses about 240m (204m) in sales and 500 jobs each year due to counterfeiting, the report says.

Antonio Campinos, EUIPO executive director, said: Counterfeiting can affect every economic sector, and the pesticide manufacturing industry, which includes many small and medium enterprises, is no exception.

Graeme Taylor, director of public affairs at the European Crop Protection Agency (Ecpa), said the European Commission must do more to combat illegal and counterfeit pesticides.

Counterfeit and illegal pesticides affect our industry in terms of lost revenue, he added. The more concerning element is the potential effect these products could have on the environment and the health of those using them.
Story Highlights 58% of Russians say domestic violence is a serious problem

65% of women, 50% of men say it is a serious problem

22% of Russians say the government is doing enough to fight it

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law Tuesday that partially decriminalizes certain types of domestic violence, a step that many Russians may see as in the wrong direction. Majorities of Russians continue to view domestic violence as a serious problem in their country (58%) and say that their government is not doing enough to fight it (51%). Only 22% believe that the government is doing enough.

Russians' Views of Domestic Violence 2009 2015 % % Domestic violence is a serious problem in Russia 70 58 Government not doing enough to fight domestic violence 58 51 Government doing enough to fight domestic violence 13 22 Gallup World Poll

Russian lawmakers say they are giving the public what it wants with the law, which reduces the punishment for first offenses against family members that do not result in serious injury. But as far back as 2009, majorities of Russians have viewed domestic violence as a serious problem in their country and perceived government efforts to stop it as falling short. Although slightly fewer thought this when Gallup last asked the question in 2015, majorities still feel this way.

Domestic violence is endemic in Russia, and government figures show women account for the majority of the country's victims. The country's interior ministry estimates that 36,000 Russian women are beaten by their husbands every day and that 12,000 Russian women die each year from domestic violence -- one woman every 44 minutes. This helps explain why women in Russia (65%) are significantly more likely than men (50%) to think domestic violence is a serious problem.

Women's and men's opinions do not differ by age. This suggests that domestic violence does not get a "pass" from any generation of Russians, despite the rising popularity of the "return to traditional values" that lawmakers say the new law is supposed to reflect. However, women in rural areas of Russia, which tend to be poorer and have higher incidence of alcoholism that is often linked to domestic violence, are more likely to say domestic violence is a problem (71%) than those in big cities or suburbs (60%). Men's opinions do not change regardless of where they live.

Women More Likely Than Men to See Government Efforts as Lacking

Russian women are not only more likely than men to see domestic violence as a problem, but they are also more likely to say the government is not doing enough to combat it. The majority of Russian women (56%) say the government is not doing enough to fight domestic violence, compared with 44% of men.

Majority of Russian Women Say Government Not Doing Enough Women Men % % Government not doing enough to fight domestic violence 56 44 Government doing enough to fight domestic violence 20 24 Don't know/Refused 24 32 Gallup World Poll, 2015

Both numbers are down slightly from 2009 but reflect the reality that Russia remains one of few countries without specific, separate laws regarding domestic violence, and attempts to pass such laws have failed over the past decade. Fewer than one in four men (24%) or women (20%) say the government is doing enough.

Russians Show Little Tolerance of Multiple Offenses

The recent law in question concerns first offenses of family battery, but in 2009, Gallup asked Russians about what should be done in a hypothetical situation in which a man regularly beats his wife and children and the woman reports the violence to the police. The majority of Russians (66%) say the man should be forcibly evicted from the apartment -- and just 5% say that the man should keep living in the home.

A man regularly beats his wife and children. The wife reported the violence to police. Should the man be able to keep living in the same apartment with his family during consideration of the complaint, or should he be forcibly evicted from his home while pending? Allowed to keep living in same apartment Forcibly evicted Don't know/Refused % % % Russian adults 5 66 29 Russian women 4 74 23 Russian men 7 57 35 Gallup World Poll, 2009

This majority includes women and men, but women are much stricter than men: 74% of Russian women say the man should be evicted, compared with 57% of Russian men.

Bottom Line

Critics of the new law see this as a step backward for a country that still hasn't signed or ratified the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence that took effect in August 2014. Russians, who already think their government is not doing enough to fight domestic violence and see it as a serious problem, may also see this law in the same way.
The Ukrainian pilot service market should be demonopolized in the near future, Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan has said.

"I think that Delta-Pilot monopoly is wrong. I think that if we reduce port tariffs and duties, it would be absolutely logical to make the same step in pilot services. If we speak about the creation of the free market via the creation of a new law on railway transport, the same should be done with Delta-Pilot," he said at a meeting with journalists in Kyiv late on Wednesday.

The minister also backed the idea of having private pilots on the market.

"Private pilots should exist. This market should be demonopolized. We see that unclear companies appear near Delta-Pilot. They want to work here and there part time. The quicker the state settles the issue the better it will be," Omelyan said.

Delta-Pilot is a division of Ukrainian Sea Port Authority. The company provides services in piloting ships and regulating navigation. The division has six regional pilot branches.
The public finance management strategy for 2017-2021 approved by the Ukrainian government at a meeting on Wednesday implies the introduction of the medium-term budget planning and the creation of an independent body to access the feasibility of macroeconomic forecast and national budget revenue forecast.

"We will send money to the most important directions and fully provide for the key reforms with financial resources. We cannot afford living with inherited budgets making slight changes to them," Ukrainian Finance Minister Oleksandr Danyliuk said, presenting the document.

He said that the principle of setting clear priorities used to shape the 2017 national budget is also included in the adopted strategy.

"We would have to choose what services we as the state are to quit and what services we can provide at the smaller price or in the smaller volumes. The introduction of the strategic forecasting and medium-term budgeting would help us to determine these priorities and find resources for their implementation," Danyliuk said.

The Finance Ministry said that this means the distribution of budget funds to meet top priorities for the period of three years and setting the clear development goals for five years and the key efficiency indicators for assessing the implementation of the strategy.

The minister said that the essential problems of the current public finance management are vagueness in the budget planning sphere, the low quality and high cost of services, focusing on expense control and observation of formal requirements.

Danyliuk said that the designing of the strategy is one of Ukraine's commitments to the EU and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The World Bank and the German government provided assistance in drawing up the strategy.

He said that the key tasks of the document include the observation of budget discipline, the provision for the effective implementation of the budget, growth of transparency and reporting relations in the public finance management.

The top priorities are continuation the tax system reform aimed at enhancing the predictability of the tax policy, increasing the quality and effectiveness of administration and expanding the base.

"The key task is to reduce tax pressure," the minister said.

According to the ministry, the strategy consists of four sections: the observation of the general budget and tax discipline, the increase of resource distribution efficiency, the provision for the effective implementation of the budget and the increase of transparency and improvement of reporting relations.

The government would design the national action plan to implement the strategy at all level in the next four months.
Readers, we need your help to prove a merry Christmas for victims of domestic violence.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said that Athens is interested in developing cooperation with the Black Sea region of Ukraine.

"Greece is extremely interested in development of cooperation with the Black Sea region of Ukraine due to historical links of Greece with these regions, in particular, in cultural and economic aspects. And we are very keen to develop closer links with the Black Sea regions," the prime minister of Greece told after a meeting with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman in Kyiv on Wednesday evening.

According to Tsipras, the two countries have historical ties. About 100,000 ethnic Greeks live in Ukraine, and Greece is interested in their safety, keeping in mind that some of them are living in the conflict zone in Donbas.
Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2021.
European Medicines Agency : Bonn competes to house medical agency

Berlin/Bonn A European medical agency will have to leave London when Great Britain is no longer part of the EU. Germany would like to see the agency come to Bonn.

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The German government wants to bring the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to Bonn. EMA currently has around 800 to 1,000 employees in London. The move is a consequence of Great Britains vote to leave the European Union (EU). German Health Minister Hermann Grohe is engaged in moving the agency to Bonn. But Germany has competition from 17 other EU countries that are also interested in the agency.

In government circles, there is talk of Germany officially applying to become the future home of EMA. It is believed that a decision on where to move the medical agency will be handed down in summer.

For Bonn, having EMA would be good news for hotels and restaurants. Around 300 experts visit the agency on a daily basis, most of them staying overnight.

From the perspective of the German government, Bonn would be a good location for EMA because of its international networks surrounding the UN. As well, it is already home to the Federal Ministry of Health, the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices and many other medical research facilities.
V-Day : Demonstration on violence against women

Foto: dpa

Bonn February 14 is not only Valentines Day. Next week, V-Day will be a chance for everyone to meet up in Bonn city center and send out a message about violence against women.

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In connection with V-Day - Victory over Violence, activist and dance therapist Marita Hoscheidt is calling for Bonn residents to join in a protest on Tuesday, February 14 at 4 pm. The meeting point will be Munsterplatz in Bonn city center, where a Smartmob is planned.

Hoscheidt is the founder of the Bonn group One Billion Rising. They have danced in public to show strength and solidarity in a coordinated effort with other such groups around the world. The focus this year is on the exploitation of women.
Thwaites Glacier on the edge of West Antarctica is one of the planets fastest-moving glaciers. Research shows that it is sliding unstoppably into the ocean, mainly due to warmer seawater lapping at its underside.

But the details of its collapse remain uncertain. The details are necessary to provide a timeline for when to expect 2 feet of global sea level rise, and when this glaciers loss will help destabilize the much larger West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Recent efforts have used satellites to map the underlying terrain, which affects how quickly the ice mass will move, and measure the glaciers thickness and speed to understand the physics of its changes.

Researchers at the University of Washington and the University of Edinburgh used data from the European Space Agencys CryoSat-2 to identify a sudden drainage of large pools below Thwaites Glacier, one of two fast-moving glaciers at the edge of the ice sheet. The study published Feb. 8 in The Cryosphere finds four interconnected lakes drained in the eight months from June 2013 and January 2014. The glacier sped up by about 10 percent during that time, showing that the glaciers long-term movement is fairly oblivious to trickles at its underside.

This was a big event, and it confirms that the long-term speed-up that were observing for this glacier is probably driven by other factors, most likely in the ocean, said corresponding author Ben Smith, a glaciologist with the UWs Applied Physics Laboratory. The water flow at the bed is probably not controlling the speed.

Other glaciers, like some in Alaska and Greenland, can be very susceptible to changes in meltwater flow. Water there can pond beneath the glacier until it lifts off parts of its bed, and suddenly surges forward. This can increase a glaciers speed by several times and account for most of its motion.

Researchers were not certain whether such an effect might be at play with Thwaites Glacier.

Its been difficult to see details about water flow under the ice, Smith said.

For the new study, the authors use a new technique to discover drops at the glaciers surface of up to 70 feet (20 meters) over a 20 kilometer by 40 kilometer area. Calculations show it was likely due to the emptying of four interconnected lakes, the largest about the size of Lake Washington, far below. The peak drainage rate was about 8,500 cubic feet (240 cubic meters) per second, about half the flow of the Hudson Riverthe largest meltwater outflow yet reported for subglacial lakes in this region.

This lake drainage is the biggest water movement that you would expect to see in this area, and it didnt change the glaciers speed by that much, Smith said.

The reason is likely that Thwaites Glacier is moving quickly enough, he said, that friction is heating up its underside to ices melting point. The glaciers base is already wet and adding more water doesnt make it much more slippery.

The new study supports previous UW research from 2014 showing that Thwaites Glacier will likely collapse within 200 to 900 years to cause seas to rise by 2 feet. Those calculations were made without detailed maps of how water flows at the glaciers underbelly. The new results suggest that doesnt really matter.

If Thwaites Glacier had really jumped in response to this lake drainage, then that would have suggested that we need a more detailed model of where water is flowing at the bed, Smith said. Radar data from NASAs Operation Ice Bridge program has told us a lot about the shape of Thwaites Glacier, but its very difficult to see how water is moving. Based on this result, that may not be a big problem

Melting at the ice sheet base would refill the lakes in 20 to 80 years, Smith said. Over time meltwater gradually collects in depressions in the bedrock. When the water reaches a certain level it breaches a weak point, then flows through channels in the ice. As Thwaites Glacier thins near the coast, its surface will become steeper, Smith said, and the difference in ice pressure between inland regions and the coast may push water coastward and cause more lakes to drain.

He hopes to apply the same techniques to study lake drainage below other glaciers, to understand how water flow at the base affects overall glacier movement. When NASAs ICESat-2 satellite launches in 2018 the calculations will be easy to do with high precision.

In 2018 this changes from a hard project to an easy project, and Im excited about that, Smith said.

Reference:

Benjamin E. Smith et al, Connected subglacial lake drainage beneath Thwaites Glacier, West Antarctica, The Cryosphere (2017). DOI: 10.5194/tc-11-451-2017

Note: The above post is reprinted from materials provided by University of Washington.
A new scientific approach can now provide regional assessments of land recovery following oil and gas drilling activities, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey study published in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

When developing oil and gas well pads, the vegetation and soil are removed to level the areas for drilling and operations. The new assessment approach, called the disturbance automated reference toolset, or DART, is used to examine recovery patterns after well pads are plugged and abandoned to help resource managers make informed decisions for future well pad development.

These results may assist land managers in deciding what areas might be best utilized for energy development while also minimizing the long-term environmental impacts, said Travis Nauman, a USGS scientist and the lead author of the study.

The recovery of well pads following oil and gas development is an area of growing importance because recent technological advances such as hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling have initiated rapid increases in development and production. Previous studies estimate that about 11,583 square miles of land in central North America were cleared for oil and gas related purposes between 2000 and 2012.

USGS scientists examined oil and gas well pad recovery on the Colorado Plateau using a new approach that incorporates satellite imagery, digital soil mapping, predictive ecological modeling and field assessments to evaluate vegetation recovery following well pad abandonment. Scientists used DART to study 1,800 well pads in Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. Satellite imagery was used to compare vegetation cover of the abandoned sites to surrounding undisturbed areas with roughly equivalent climate, soil, topography and management histories.

Findings show that most abandoned oil and gas pads in the study are characterized by more bare ground and less vegetation than surrounding undisturbed areas, even after more than 9 years since abandonment. The majority of pads had 15-45 percent increases in bare ground exposure relative to comparable nearby areas. More exposed bare ground makes areas much more susceptible to soil erosion and dust emission.

Differing recovery across environmental gradients and land stewardship suggests that these can be useful for identifying conditions that may promote or hamper pad recovery. Well pads in grasslands, canyon complexes, blackbrush shrublands and shale badlands are not recovering as well as other ecotypes on the Colorado Plateau. Warmer areas with more summer-dominated precipitation were also associated with reduced well pad recovery. Well pads on federally and privately managed lands had the highest recovery index while state-administered lands had the lowest recovery of the ownership entities evaluated. These findings can help managers identify policies or procedures that may lead to improved well pad recovery.

It is still unclear exactly how long well pad disturbances persist on the landscape once well pads are abandoned, particularly in more arid regions like the Southwest, but it may take many years. Active management intervention, or rehabilitation, of vegetation and soils at abandoned well pads has become more common in recent years, but additional work could increase the success of these efforts. New technological advances like DART can help land managers better understand these disturbances by providing timely assessments to help inform management decisions.

Reference:

Travis W. Naumana, Michael C Duniway, Miguel L Villarreal, Travis B. Poitras. Disturbance automated reference toolset (DART): Assessing patterns in ecological recovery from energy development on the Colorado Plateau. DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.01.034

Note: The above post is reprinted from materials provided by US Geological Survey.
An opportunity for foodies and beer lovers to get lost in a world of food and drink from a hand-selected range of food trucks and breweries from around New Zealand.
The holding of local elections in Donbas is possible only in accordance with the rules of the Minsk agreements and only after both parties agree on the relevant terms of these elections, the speaker of the Ministry of foreign Affairs of Germany Martin Schaefer said, DW reports.

"These local elections, in accordance with the rules of the Minsk agreements, are to be held only then when both parties agree on the appropriate modality (elections not controlled by the government of the territories of Donbas)," Schaefer said during a press conference in Berlin, commenting on the words of the German Ambassador in Ukraine, Ernst Reichel on Wednesday.

The representative of the German Foreign Ministry also stressed that no one, including the German Ambassador in Kyiv," has no doubt about who is ultimately responsible for starting this conflict." "Nobody in the German government has any doubts about logistical, financial and military support for the separatists of Donbas from Russia," Schaefer said.

At the same time, he added: "I'm not going to say at the government level whether there are regular Russian troops on the sovereign territory of Ukraine controlled by the separatists."

The representative of the German Foreign Ministry confirmed that the German government, Chancellor Angela Merkel, Minister of Foreign Affairs Sigmar Gabriel devote all their efforts to resolving the conflict and promote the implementation of the Minsk agreements.

He also called possible to conduct the next meeting in the Normandy format to achieve a political solution to the conflict in Donbas. The message about a possible meeting appeared before this day. However, he added that it is too early to speak about details. "Our efforts for the sake of realization of the Minsk agreements are aimed to restore the sovereignty of Ukraine throughout its territory," Schaefer said.

Speaker of the German Foreign Minister also commented on the incident, when on February 8, an MP from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction Oleksiy Honcharenko in a protest against the statement of Germany's ambassador to Ukraine wrote the word 'Nein!' [No] in red paint on the Berlin Wall fragment on the territory of the German Embassy.

We are very sorry that one deputy of Ukraine today in the territory of the German Embassy outlined the historical fragment of the Berlin Wall. We are firmly convinced that, even if it was a reaction to the statement of the German ambassador, in any case, it is inappropriate behavior, the representative of the German Foreign Ministry said.

Earlier in a media interview, Ambassador of Germany to Ukraine Ernst Reichel said that the elections in Donbas could pass in the presence of Russian troops.
Statements of Ambassador of Germany to Ukraine, Ernst Reichel, about the possibility of holding elections in Donbas in the presence of Russian troops in the temporarily occupied territories of Donbas have not affected the Ukrainian-German relations, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has said.

"I see the problem not only in the content of what was said, but how it was said. But I want to stress that what is happening does not affect the context of Ukrainian-German relations. We know the German position. I work very closely with all the representatives of Germany, and not only with those who are responsible for foreign policy in Berlin," the head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said at a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday.

Klimkin also recalled that the German Ambassador had a meeting at the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine, where the conversation concerning his words was held with him.

He also noted that the reaction of an MP from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction, Oleksiy Honcharenko, was too emotional.

"I believe that any action can be explained. This can be explained by emotions. But in the political context, I believe, that it was unnecessary. The German side does not see it as something that was deliberately directed against it," the minister said.
No soldiers of the armed forces of Ukraine killed or injured for the past day in the Anti-Terrorist operation (ATO) zone in the east of the country, Spokesman for the Defense Ministry on ATO matters Oleksandr Motuzianyk said.

"Over the past day none of the Ukrainian soldiers was killed or not injured as a result of hostilities," he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Thursday.
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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.
Luhansk region's Starobelksky district court has granted a request by the defense team of ex Party of Regions Verkhovna Rada faction head Oleksandr Yefremov for their client to be released from the detention cage at the court during proceedings against him," Yefremov's lawyer Andriy Smyrnov has informed the Kyiv-based Interfax-Ukraine news agency.

"In order to provide comprehensive defense for Yefremov during the hearing the accused will be seated with his lawyers during the hearing. This is the first application of policies recommended by the European Human Rights Court at Ukrainian courts," Smyrnov said on Thursday.

As earlier reported, on January 17, 2017 the Starobelsky district court remanded Yefremov to pretrial custody until March 17. Yefremov's lawyer Oleksandr Melnykov said legislation does not allow that decision to be appealed.
Google decides to remove millions of apps from Play Store by March 15 News oi -Sneha Hey app developers, Google can remove your apps from play store anytime. Read more for details.

In the digitally advanced space, applications play a very vital role in everyone's life. Be it any work, there are apps of various categories available on Google Play Store that surely makes life extremely easy and convenient.

However, just in case if you're over dependent on applications, well, hard days are approaching for you as Google Play Store is now planning to remove a vast range of applications. The reason behind the decision can be the rising number of fake apps and malicious activities.

This being said, latest reports suggest that Google has sent out a notice to various app developers worldwide, informing them that their app may vanish from the Play Store at any time.

To highlight more on the instance, the warning was sent to the developers who failed to meet the terms of Google's user data policy and whose applications don't have a valid privacy policy.

SEE ALSO: HawkSpex: This app can scan any object and reveals what's inside

However, in case you violate the Google's privacy policy, here's another chance for the developers out there to save their apps.

Google has now provided a link to such a policy in the Play Store Listing page and also in the application, giving the app developer yet another chance to legally register their app with Google.

To do so, developers have been given until March 15 to the developers. Failing to do so will force Google either limit visibility of offending applications or remove them altogether.

However, in case you abide by the stated user data policy of Google, there's no need for you to worry. The initiative to discard the apps from the Play Store will surely lessen the chances of getting prone to fake applications and hackers out there.

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Google alloted Rs. 150 crore under smart city initiative for setting up free WiFi in Pune News oi -Priyanka The search engine will install its Station platform, which has Wi- Fi network management capability

Google has finally got a chance to change Pune into smart city in collaboration with companies like IBM, Larsen & Toubro(L&T) and Raitel from Pune Smart City Development Corporation(PSCSCL).

The search engine will install its Station platform, which has Wi- Fi network management capability and Railtel will provide fiber connectivity to enable hotspots at around 200 strategic locations across the city.

"The latest contract is valued at Rs. 150 crore, and includes capital expenditure, operating expenditure and revenue sharing elements," Pune Municipal Commissioner Kunal Kumar told ET.

SEE ALSO: Google decides to remove millions of apps from Play Store by March 15

He further stated,"15-20 per cent revenue generated through this citywide Wi-Fi network will be shared with the authority."

He also added that,"The company will also set up emergency call boxes and public address systems, environmental sensors, variable messaging displays, network connectivity and video analytics integration."

Google has been already working with Railtel and Railway ministry to provide the Wi-Fi hotspot at 400 different railway platforms across the country and at present, the company has finished installing in 100 platforms.

This is not the first time that any State has done that, Maharashtra Government had also signed an MoU with Oracle for furthering digital initiatives in the state, and the establishment of a Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Mumbai.

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Nokia 6 Vs mid-range smartphones with 8-core CPU Features oi -Harish Kumar Nokia 6 alternatives you can consider.

The Nokia 6 smartphone is selling like hot cakes in China. The device is exclusive to the JD.com and went on sale twice. During both the sales, the Nokia 6 went out of stock instantly.

As HMD Global hasn't been able to meet the demand that Nokia 6 has created in China, it is unlikely that we can expect this phone to be launched in India anytime soon. Nokia fans in India might be disappointed by this fact, but there are a few impressive smartphones that they can actually grab in the meantime.

Upcoming Nokia Android phones Expecting to Launch 2017

Today, we at GizBot, have listed a few mid-range octa-core smartphones that can be considered instead of waiting for the Nokia 6. Take a look at these phones from below.

Vivo V5 Buy At Price of Rs 17,500

Complete Specs of Vivo V5

Key Specs 5.5-inch (1280 x 720 pixels) HD display with 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass protection

Octa-Core MediaTek MT6750 processor with Mali T860 GPU

4GB RAM

32GB internal memory

expandable memory up to 128GB

Hybrid Dual SIM (micro + nano/microSD)

Funtouch OS 2.6 based on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow)

13MP rear camera with LED Flash, PDAF

20MP front-facing camera with Moonlight Flash

Fingerprint sensor

4G LTE

3000mAh battery Lenovo K6 Note Buy At Price of Rs 15,999

Complete Specs of Lenovo K6 Note

Key Specs

5.5-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) Full HD IPS display

Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 430, 64-bit processor with Adreno 505 GPU

3GB /4GB RAM

32GB internal storage

expandable memory up to 128GB with microSD

Android 6.0.1 (Marshmallow)

Hybrid Dual SIM (nano + nano/microSD)

16MP rear camera with dual-tone LED Flash

8MP front-facing camera

Fingerprint sensor

4G VoLTE

4000mAh built-in battery Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 Buy At Price of Rs 12,999

Complete Specs of Xiaomi Redmi Note 4

Key Specs

5.5-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) Full HD 2.5D curved glass display

2GHz Octa-Core Snapdragon 625 14nm processor with Adreno 506 GPU

2GB / 3GB RAM with 32GB storage (eMMC 5.0)

4GB RAM with 64GB storage (eMMC 5.0)

expandable memory up to 128GB with microSD

MIUI 8 based on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow)

Hybrid Dual SIM (micro + nano/microSD)

13MP rear camera with PDAF

5MP front-facing camera

4G VoLTE

4000mAh (minimum) / 4100mAh (typical) battery Read More.. Motorola Moto G4 Plus Buy At Price of Rs 12,499

Complete Specs of Moto G4 Plus

Key Specs 5.5-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) Full HD display with Corning Gorilla glass 3 protection

Octa-Core Snapdragon 617 (4 x 1.5GHz + 4 x 1.2GHz) processor with Adreno 405 GPU

3GB RAM with 32GB internal memory

2GB RAM with 16GB internal storage

expandable memory up to 128GB with microSD

Dual SIM

Android 6.0.1 (Marshmallow)

16MP rear camera with dual-tone LED flash

5MP front-facing camera

Fingerprint sensor, Water repellent nano-coating

4G LTE with VoLTE

3000mAh battery with Turbo Charging Read More.. Asus Zenfone 3s Max Buy At Price of Rs 14,999

Complete Specs of Asus Zenfone 3s Max

Key Specs

5.2-inch (1280 x 720 pixels) 2.5D curved Corning Gorilla Glass display

1.3 GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6737 64-bit processor with Mali-T720 GPU

3GB RAM

32GB internal storage

expandable memory with microSD

Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) with Zen UI 2.0

Hybrid Dual SIM (Micro + nano/microSD)

13MP rear camera with LED flash

5MP front-facing camera

Fingerprint sensor

4G LTE

4100mAh (non-removable) battery Read More..

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Honor V9 with dual-lens camera set to launch on February 21 News oi -Rohit Honor V9 will be a mid-range flagship Android handset offering dual-lens camera and a large 5.7-inch QHD display

It seems Huawei's sub brand Honor don't want to wait for MWC 2017 and is all set to launch company's latest mid-range flagship Android smartphone- Honor V9 in China. As reported by The Mobile Indian, a teaser has been spotted on Weibo, which says that the handset will be unveiled on February 21 in the Chinese market, i.e. 5 days before the MWC 2017 kicks off in Barcelona, Spain.

Honor V9 has been making headlines from quite a while. It is the successor to Honor V8 and was recently spotted on TENNA certification website, which suggested that the handset will sport a 5.7-inch QHD display screen and will come in 6GB RAM and 4GB RAM variants.

SEE ALSO: Honor 6X: 5 Features that makes Honor 6X the best Smartphone in its Price-Point

The smartphone includes a 2.4GHz Kirin 960 octa-core processor, dual SIM support, 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution, 128GB built-in storage and a microSD card slot.

Besides, the highlight of the smartphone will be its dual-lens camera setup at rear offering a 12MP primary camera paired with a 2MP secondary camera.

The smartphone is expected to be powered by a 3,900mAh battery unit and for connectivity; the smartphone will come packed with 4G LTE, GPS, VoLTE, USB, and Bluetooth.

Honor V9 is expected to run on Huawei's Emotion UI (EMUI) 5.0 skin installed on Google's Android 7.0 Nougat out-of-the box.

Huawei has recently launched company's budget handset- Honor 6X in India at a starting price of Rs. 12,999. The smartphone also offers a dual-lens camera setup and offers a good overall performance.

Besides, the Shenzen based company is also expected to showcase the flagship Huawei P10 in the upcoming MWC 2017.

Stay tuned for more updates on Huawei smartphones on GIZBOT.

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President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has said that the holding of elections in the occupied territories of Donbas in the presence of the occupation forces in the region is impossible.

"Regarding the statement of German ambassador and respective incident near the embassy, my position is as follows: holding elections in the occupied territory in the presence of occupying foreign troops is out of the question," Poroshenko said during a joint briefing with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in Kyiv on Thursday, answering journalists' questions in connection with the incident at the German Embassy in Kyiv after the statements of the German ambassador about elections in Donbas.

According to Poroshenko, it is impossible to compare the situation in the east of Ukraine with the situation in East Germany [during the late 1980s], as foreign troops were present there with the consent of East German officials.

"We can draw parallels with the Russian base in Sevastopol. We have held elections many times, when Russian forces were present at the base in Sevastopol. But it is totally unacceptable when the occupation forces try to "push" holding elections at gunpoint," the president of Ukraine said.

Poroshenko also criticized Oleksiy Honcharenko, a Verkhovna Rada deputy of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction, for his behavior and insisted that this was his personal position.

"As far as I know, the faction condemned it [Honcharenko's action] as one not reflecting the political force's position," he said.

It was reported earlier that German Ambassador to Ukraine Ernst Reichel had been summoned to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry on February 7 to explain his remarks regarding the organization of elections in the Donbas territories not controlled by Kyiv.

Verkhovna Rada deputy Oleksiy Honcharenko had written the word 'Nein' on the fragment of the Berlin Wall near the German Embassy in Kyiv on February 8, saying he had done that as a sign of protest against Reichel's controversial remarks regarding elections in Donbas.

Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko announced on Thursday that criminal proceedings had been launched into Honcharenko's escapade.
Buy Samsung Galaxy S7/S7 edge and get a free 256GB micro SD card News oi -Abhinaya Prabhu Samsung's offer is irresistible.

Samsung is in the headlines for the launch of its upcoming flagship smartphone - Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus on March 29. But that's not all. The South Korean tech giant has announced that they will offer a free 256GB micro SD card along with the Galaxy S7 or S7 edge. The highlight of this offer is that the memory card is an EVO+ micro SD card that is pretty expensive costing around Rs. 15,000.

It appears like Samsung has made this move to exhaust the Galaxy S7 inventory before the release of the Galaxy S8. Instead of giving an attractive price cut on the smartphone, the company has opted to offer an expensive micro SD card for free along with the yesteryear flagship. This way, Samsung will be able to sell two products at the same time.

This free 256GB micro SD card offer will be a deal-breaker for those who need massive storage space. Moreover, the EVO+ micro SD card has a writing speed of 95Mbps with the Class 10 U3 compatibility standard.

Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus renders leak; Live image too hits the web

Apart from those who buy the Galaxy S7/S7 edge now, even the existing users of the smartphone can avail this offer. To redeem this offer, you need to have the proof of purchase and a valid bill and click on this link.

Notably, this offer is available on for the U.S. customers as yet. There is no word on whether it will be made available for the Indian users. If there is any offer, Samsung will make an official announcement regarding the same.

Know more about this offer from this link.

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Samsung may showcase its first foldable phone at MWC on February 26 News oi -Sneha Samsung may unveil foldable phones at MWC 2017. Find out all the details here.

We at GizBot earlier reported about Samsung's plan for the upcoming Mobile World Congress. To recall, the South Korean tech giant have plans to showcase a one-minute video of the upcoming flagship - Galaxy S8.

Not only that, Samsung is also prepping up to announce its most talked about foldable smartphone on February 26 at the Samsung Press Conference. However, the rumors are such that the foldable Samsung smartphone will be available only in a few selective markets.

Alongside these plans, the South Korean smartphone vendor is supposedly gearing up to unveil Samsung Galaxy Tab S3. Ahead of the launch, there has been a bundle of speculations making rounds on the internet.

So, if the rumors are to be believed, the upcoming Samsung tablet will sport a 9.6-inch 2048 x 1536 display, a Snapdragon 820 processor, and 4GB of RAM.

SEE ALSO: Samsung Galaxy S8, S8 Plus: Everything we know so far

Driving attention back to Samsung's plan on a foldable smartphone, the announce may happen behind the doors and will be like a feedback session for the time being. This being said, the foldable display device will not make any public appearance for now.

However, if the foldable smartphone receives a good feedback, chances are such that smartphone manufacturer may officially announce the smartphone very soon.

Well, as of now these details should be taken with a pinch of salt, and Samsung hasn't confirmed any of it.

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Sony Xperia XA2 live images leaked revealing Sonys trademark design language News oi -Sneha Sony is all prepping up to launch the successor of the Xperia XA - Sony Xperia XA2

Sony is planning to expand its Xperia product lineup by announcing the successor of the already launched Xperia XA very soon. Well, as of now the launch date remains a mystery.

Rumors suggest that Sony is currently working on Xperia XA2. However, this should be taken with a pinch of salt, as the smartphone manufacturer didn't issue any official statement on the device as of yet.

Well, if the rumors are to be believed, latest leak shows live images of the rumored upcoming Sony Xperia XA. Looking at the leaked pictures, it surely can't be denied that the devices embodies a sleek display and looks absolutely stunning.

SEE ALSO: Sony announces its first ever 3-Layer stacked CMOS image sensor with DRAM for smartphones

Further talking about the specifications, the images shows that the Sony Xperia XA2 will run on the latest Android 7.0 Nougat. The device is also expected to come packed with a Mediatek Helio P20 SoC.

In terms of storage capacity, the device might bear 4GB of RAM with 32GB or 64GB memory unit. Further highlighting the camera set-up, the rumored Xperia XA2 will sport an excellent 23MP rear camera and on the front fits a 16MP selfie shooter.

Well, it should be noted that Sony hasn't revealed any information on the specs and the launch date of the rumored Xperia XA2 as of now.

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Overall, dont let the bhoot mislead you, nothing bhootiya about this story. Had the makers tried to push the envelope, the idea could have been outstanding for a bhootiya comedy.
Kyiv Court of Appeals has granted a petition by an investigator of the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine to choose a preventive measure in the form of detention in absentia for fugitive ex Income and Tax Minister of Ukraine Oleksandr Klymenko.

The court issued this ruling on February 8, 2017, its press service reported.

The ruling says that if Klymenko is detained, within 48 hours from the moment of his delivery to the place of the criminal proceedings, the court should consider with the participation of the defendant the issue of the application of the chosen preventive measure in the form of detention or changing this restriction to a milder one.

As reported, on March 5, 2014 the EU imposed sanctions in the form of an asset freeze against 18 former high rank officials of Ukraine. In April four people were added to the sanctions list, including Klymenko. The sanctions were imposed on the basis of documents provided by the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine.

Klymenko has repeatedly refuted allegations made against him, saying they are political in nature.

On June 15, 2016, the press service of Klymenko said the EU court decided to annul sanctions imposed in 2014 against the former minister.

Last year, Kyiv's Pechersky district court twice rejected the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) request to start the investigation in absentia against Klymenko.

The Prosecutor General's Office tried to launch an investigation in absentia over the embezzlement of UAH 161 million by the former minister when he ran the post of the head of the State Tax Service of Ukraine. The court established that the Prosecutor General's Office sent a notification to the following address: Mekhanizatoriv Street, apartment 280 in Kyiv, while Klymenko is registered in apartment 270.

The former minister is on an Interpol wanted list.
Joint press point with NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller and the President of the Republic of Moldova, Igor Dodon

NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

07 Feb. 2017



(As delivered)

Thank you very much.

President Dodon, welcome to NATO's Headquarters. And thank you for the very intensive and positive discussion that we had today. The Secretary General regrets very much that he could not greet you today in person, but he is not feeling well today.

Nevertheless, he looks forward to future opportunities and also asked me to convey that NATO's message here with regard to your country, to Moldova, is very clear. NATO respects the sovereignty of all nations. We firmly believe that every nation has the right to set its own course. To choose its own alliances. Or to choose not to align with anyone.

NATO fully respects Moldova's constitutional neutrality. Our Individual Partnership Action Plan recognises that Moldova is constitutionally neutral and does not wish to join the NATO Alliance. This document is on the website of the Moldovan Foreign Ministry  so our cooperation is transparent to all.

But neutrality is not the same as isolation. And NATO works closely with other neutral countries  such as Switzerland and Austria.

Moldova is a close partner to NATO. And I appreciate Moldova's contribution to our KFOR mission in Kosovo. This supports peace in the Western Balkans, it gives Moldovan troops valuable practical experience, and it shows that Moldova is a responsible contributor to international security.

Neutrality is built upon a foundation of strong institutions and good governance. NATO is helping Moldova in both areas.

We provide Moldovan civilian and military personnel with training and education to help fight corruption in the defence sector.

We helped Moldova to build a strong professional military education system, with Bachelors' and Masters' degrees, and other professional courses.

So far, 350 Moldovans have graduated from these courses, and 275 Moldovans are currently enrolled in studies.

NATO is committed to improving the lives of ordinary Moldovan people. NATO has spent 4.5 million euros on destroying dangerous pesticides, anti-personnel mines, surplus munitions and dangerously stored rocket fuel.

Almost 1,300 Moldovans have attended NATO courses on topics including logistics, border security and emergency planning. And last year, NATO paid for a new cyber defence laboratory at the Technical University of Moldova, to provide training in cyber defence.

Many of these programmes are civilian and not military in nature. All of them help to make Moldova safer and more secure. And everything that NATO does has been requested by the government of Moldova.

This year, a new NATO Liaison Office will open in Chisinau. This is not a military base, but a small diplomatic mission staffed only by civilians. There will be no NATO troops in Moldova.

NATO has long had liaison offices of this kind in other partner countries, such as Russia, Ukraine and Georgia.

As requested by the Moldovan government, the Office will facilitate our support for Moldova's ongoing reforms. It will also increase transparency about what NATO is and what it does with Moldova, which we think will be very interesting and we hope also beneficial to the Moldovan public.

Mr President, NATO fully supports a stable, secure and neutral Moldova. It is important that Moldova continues its democratic reforms  notably on fighting corruption and strengthening the judiciary.

And it is important that Moldova remains committed to the values shared by all European democracies.

So thank you again sir for coming here today. It's a great honour to welcome you once again to the NATO Headquarters.

Moldova can count on the friendship of NATO. And now we look forward to hearing your remarks.

Thank you.

Q: Mr. President. I have a question to you. In 1991, 1992 you were 15 years old, when the Russian Federation having an army on your country took the international engagement to withdraw this army and 25 years after that the army was never withdrew and you are now the President of this country and you are now the Supreme Commander of the country and you are now speaking about neutrality of the country. What would you do to have a real neutral country? What would you do to make Russia to take out this army and to keep international commitments? The second part of my question is we have an other Russian army coming every day to each house of Moldovan citizens through tens of Russian TV stations, much more than needed and much more that any other country brings TV station and information to us and you and your party are part of this process, controlling and broadcasting a Russian TV station to Moldova. What as a president would you do for the informational security of your country? And third part of my question is you now are the president of the smallest, the poorest, the most vulnerable and very corrupt country in Europe and you and our country we are neighbours with the biggest, the most transparent military bloc in the world. How would you benefit from this neighbourship to make your country stronger, more transparent, less corrupt and richer? Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

IGOR DODON (President of the Republic of Moldova): [Interpreted]. You can clap again, I'll wait. Let's start with the first or the third point, let's start with the third point. Nobody will not make order in our country, will not fight corruption if we are not doing it. Representatives of so called independent mass media that you represent, you brought to the government corrupt politicians who are now in prison. You are the ones who gave that good reputation to all those democratic governments in the past that have stolen from the citizens of the Republic of Moldova, so that is why as citizens of this country will make war in our country.

Regarding the first point. I will do everything possible that the Republic of Moldova is a neutral state, should not, should not have troops from other states, doesn't matter from which countries. That is why for this it is necessary to find a political solution to the Trandniestrian issue. I am firmly convinced that now we have a window of opportunity. It is not such a big window, two, two and a half years, three years to find a political settlement, but believe me as soon as we find a political solution the issue of Russian army in Moldovan territory will be solved.

And regarding the Russian TV stations broadcasting in Moldova. I'm not sure where you are staying here in Brussels but here in Brussels on TV I saw that they have Russian TV channels. That here in the centre of Europe, in the capital of the European Union are broadcasted freely, we do not have to impose to the citizens what to watch. It is not the issue of the propaganda that you so call it, the issue is within the country amongst the corrupt politicians. We should not hide after certain frustrations, behind certain frustrations that certain people have. That is why rest assured all the things will be resolved and we will fight for it. Thank you if you have other questions.

Q: [Interpreted]. Opening, so do I understand correctly the opening of the NATO Liaison Office will not take place? And the second question is whom will it bother from the external forces for this office not to be opened in Moldova?

IGOR DODON: [Interpreted]. I think that the opening of the NATO Liaison office in Chisinau is not beneficial to the majority of Russian, of Moldovans in my country. I do not care what others are saying from outside, I only care about neutrality and safety of the citizens of the Republic of Moldova. In my opinion opening this liaison office in Moldova will not ensure security of Moldovan citizens. This is my personal opinion and I express this issue. It is a provocation who, which was done by the governing coalition that did it before I became president regarding opening or not opening the liaison office, this is, this is of concern to NATO and the Government of the Republic of Moldova but in the eventual, if this NATO office will be opened in Moldova we will come back to this issue in the future and we'll only take into consideration the opinion of Moldovan population.

Q: [Interpreted]. First of all I would like to know also the position of the NATO official, NATO representative regarding the opening or not opening of the liaison office in Chisinau. Also I have a question for Mr. President Dodon. Mr. President before coming here to Brussels you made a very good statement in Chisinau, you said that Moldova has to cooperate absolutely with everybody in the interest of the Republic of Moldova. In relation to this statement that you made, if a strong well trained army including with NATO expertise is or isn't in the interest of the Republic of Moldova? And one addition, I wanted to ask you whether it's true or not that you blocked this days the participants, participation of Moldovan army men at international military exercises organized within the framework of partnership for peace?

ROSE GOTTEMOELLER (NATO Deputy Security General): I will just reemphasise the points that I made in my opening remarks and that is that this year a new NATO Liaison Office will open in Chisinau. I want to underscore this is not a military base but a small diplomatic mission that will be staffed only by civilians, including by the way by Moldovan nationals. There will be no NATO troops in Moldova. NATO has long had liaison offices of this kind in several capitals including in Moscow, including in Kiev, including in Tbilisi. So this is from our perspective something that will be good for Moldova. For one thing we see it as an opportunity to really present a clear and a solid picture to the Moldovan public who may have some questions about the NATO alliance, may not understand exactly what NATO is all about. We see it as a good platform to provide good information to your public about what NATO is and what it is not. It is a defensive alliance and we are working with Moldova according to the priorities that your government extends and says you need help with, for example in the area of military education and training. And so that's been a very, very successful area of our joint cooperation and we hope it will continue in an even more reemphasised and reinvigorated way going forward.

IGOR DODON: [Interpreted]. Regarding the two questions that you addressed. Yes I do consider that the Republic of Moldova should cooperate with everybody, absolutely, inclusive with NATO, including NATO and I mentioned this today that there have been certain programs that have beneficial for Republic of Moldova. For example the elimination of the pesticides et cetera but this does not mean that the presence of foreign soldiers on the territory of Republic of Moldova or participation of our youth, our soldiers in places where there are shootings and the war risks will be accepted by me. Yes these days I did not sign the detachment of a unit to participate in such an international exercise. First of all we need to appoint a Minister of Defence, a professional Minister of Defence and then see what we do next. There is such a request on my desk, I've asked additional arguments and tomorrow when I come back I will see what are the arguments to participate in certain exercises in Romania, probably you are referring to this one yes? I did not sign right now, after I get back to Chisinau I will determine whether I will sign the detachment of the military unit to this exercise or not.

Regarding cooperation I am not against cooperation with the west and with the east in the interest, as long as it is in the interest of the citizens of the Republic of Moldova.



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President: South Sudan National Dialogue Begins in March

By Michael Atit, Tito Justin February 07, 2017

South Sudan President Salva Kiir says the national dialogue he proposed in December will get underway in early March.

Speaking at a public rally in Yei Town Tuesday, the president said holding a national dialogue is the only way to end the ongoing conflict.

Kiir traveled to Yei Town on Monday to try to calm the fears of residents in the aftermath of several deadly attacks between government forces and unidentified armed groups since July. At Tuesday's public rally, the president said holding a national dialogue is the only way to resolve all grievances of the South Sudanese people and to restore their faith in government.

"The dialogue I declared recently is one of the means that might bring our people back home. When our parliamentarians return [from] their recess, that is the time we will be sitting down together so that we talk about how to restore peace," Kiir said.

Open forum proposed

The president insists the proposed national dialogue would be an open forum at which all issues affecting South Sudan would be addressed and resolved. Kiir appealed to armed groups fighting his government to lay down their arms and turn their focus toward developing South Sudan. He had a stern warning for those who fail to heed his call.

"If they don't listen to the voices which call for peace, I will declare war against them. I don't think there is anyone of you who will blame me again," Kiir said.

The president also said he intends to "exhaust all means of getting peace back to South Sudan."

United Nations report 'deeply disturbing'

On October 10, the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) said it was extremely concerned by the continuing deteriorating security situation in the town of Yei, where some 100,000 people had been trapped. UNMISS called on all warring factions to immediately end all hostilities.

UNMISS said it received "deeply disturbing reports of horrific violence perpetrated against innocent and vulnerable civilians, including women and infants," in a statement issued by the Mission's principle public information officer.

Kiir urged all Yei residents to support a national dialogue, including unidentified militia groups who have been fighting his government in the troubled town, located in the newly created Yei River State.

Canan Clement Janda, one of the founding members of the higher chamber of South Sudan's parliament, the Council of States, a former presidential advisor, and an Anglican minister, said the proposed national dialogue will have little effect because only one side of the conflict is involved in the exercise.

"If it is initiated by one person, then it becomes a monologue," Janda said, adding, "Monologue is one person talking to himself."

Judging from what he reads in the newspapers and in social media "is a group of people selected by the president," Janda said.

Janda offers condolences

Janda also offered his condolences to the many families in Yei who have lost loved ones during the fighting.

"I want to extend my sincere condolences to all to you who might have lost some family members, and people who lost their properties. I want to apologize to all of you and I am sorry for what had happened," said Janda.

Up until last year, Yei had been largely spared from the attacks and violence that have plagued the country since December 2013.

The president is expected to return to the capital Juba on Friday.

Eye Radio provided the quotations of President Kiir to VOA from Yei town.

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Inherent Resolve Strikes Target ISIL in Syria, Iraq

From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release

SOUTHWEST ASIA, Feb. 8, 2017  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

Attack, bomber, fighter, and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 31 strikes consisting of 41 engagements in Syria:

-- Near Abu Kamal, three strikes engaged an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed five oil wellheads.

-- Near Bab, six strikes engaged an ISIL tactical unit; destroyed a fighting position and a tunnel system; and damaged seven ISIL-held buildings.

-- Near Raqqa, 20 strikes engaged seven ISIL tactical units; destroyed eight fighting positions, four tunnel systems, three tunnels, two vehicle-borne bombs, two oil storage tanks, a vehicle-borne-bomb facility, an engineering equipment piece, an unmanned-aerial-vehicle storage site and a tactical vehicle; and damaged two supply routes.

-- Near Palmyra, two strikes destroyed four excavators, two vehicles, two vehicle-borne bombs, a dump truck, a bulldozer and a front-end loader.

Strikes in Iraq

Attack, fighter, and remotely piloted aircraft and ground-based artillery conducted 12 strikes consisting of 51 engagements in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of the Iraqi government:

-- Near Rutbah, a strike destroyed a vehicle-borne bomb.

-- Near Kirkuk, a strike engaged an ISIL tactical unit.

-- Near Mosul, nine strikes engaged six ISIL tactical units and two ISIL staging areas; destroyed 12 watercraft, eight cranes, seven engineering equipment pieces, five vehicles, four supply caches, two tunnels, two mortar systems, a front-end loader, a weapons cache, a fighting position, a tactical vehicle, a weapons facility and a vehicle-borne-bomb facility; and damaged nine supply routes.

-- Near Qayyarah, a strike damaged four supply routes.

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 it poses to Iraq, Syria, the region and the wider international community. The destruction of targets in Syria and Iraq further limits ISIL'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, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.

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Last week's fighting in Donbas was heaviest in past 2 years and should not become norm - NATO deputy secretary general

NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller has said that the escalation of fighting in the east of Ukraine last week was the worst in the past two years and should not be accepted as normal.

"We are deeply concerned by the recent spike in violence. The ceasefire has been violated almost every day for the last two years. But last week, the OSCE, the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe, registered over 10,000 ceasefire violations in a single day. Including with heavy equipment banned under the Minsk Agreements. We have seen the heaviest fighting in the past two years. We must not accept this as the 'new normal'," Gottemoeller said at a press conference after a meeting with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman in Brussels on Thursday.

She stressed NATO does not, and will not recognize the illegal annexation of Crimea and condemns Russia's continuing destabilization of eastern Ukraine.

"Russia has a special responsibility in this regard," the NATO deputy secretary general said.

Gottemoeller said she chaired a special meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission on February 8, which addressed the latest facts on the ground. Every single Ally took the floor to express strong support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, she added.
ISIL in West Mosul Faces Choice: Surrender or Die, OIR Spokesman Says

By Lisa Ferdinando DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, Feb. 8, 2017  Terrorists with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in the western part of Iraq's second-largest city face two options: surrender or die, the spokesman for Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve told Pentagon reporters today.

"The enemy is completely surrounded in West Mosul, and those who do not surrender to the Iraqi security forces will be killed there," Air Force Col. John Dorrian said in a news briefing from Baghdad.

As Iraqi security forces prepare to liberate West Mosul, coalition strikes are pounding ISIL targets, including terrorists and their weapons caches and ISIL command-and-control sites, Dorrian said.

With eastern Mosul liberated, the 16th Iraqi Army Division is serving as a "hold force" there to maintain pressure on any remaining ISIL sleeper cells and prevent the terrorists from infiltrating the city again, the colonel explained.

Terrorists are targeting eastern Mosul with indirect fire, mortars and artillery fires, Dorrian said, causing damage and civilian casualties. They are also using commercially available drones to observe and drop explosives on Iraqi security force and civilian positions, he added.

"Although dangerous and effective as a propaganda tactic, this has limited operational effect on the battlefield and will not change the outcome or significantly delay the inevitable," he said.

Targeting ISIL in Raqqa

As Syrian Democratic Forces and their partners work on the isolation of the key Syrian city of Raqqa, coalition strikes continue to take out ISIL targets, Dorrian said.

"Around Raqqa, coalition strikes continue taking a toll on the enemy capacity as strikes remove enemy fighters and resources," he said, adding that recent targets include tunnels, weapons caches, command-and-control nodes and vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices.

The Syrian Democratic Forces with their Syrian Arab Coalition partners yesterday cleared almost 25 square miles of territory northeast of Raqqa, he said. In total, more than 1,300 square miles of territory has been liberated since the operation to isolate Raqqa began Nov. 5, Dorrian said. The SDF and their partners have encountered "light to moderate" resistance as the enemy's command-and-control system struggles to deal with multiple ongoing operations simultaneously, he added.

'Deep Trouble' for ISIL in Bab

Since Jan. 1, the coalition has conducted 35 strikes, delivering 101 weapons in or near the Syrian city of Bab to kill ISIL fighters and to destroy equipment, artillery, fighting positions, tunnels and command-and-control nodes, Dorrian said.

Coalition and Turkish military leaders continue coordinating operations in southwest Syria, he said.

"The enemy in Al Bab is in deep trouble, with Turkish military and partner forces converging on the city from the northwest, coalition forces pounding the enemy from the air, and regime forces approaching from the south," he said.

The battle space is becoming more complicated as the forces converge around Bab, Dorrian said, adding that defense officials will maintain the "deconfliction channel with the Russians."

Meanwhile, the coalition continues to fight ISIL on multiple fronts and by attacking their networks, the colonel said.

"Our commitment to completely destroying ISIL means that we must destroy their ability to communicate with leadership, their financial network and their ability to control terrain, particularly in population centers," he told reporters.

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North Korea missile tests have Army leaders focused on deterrence, response

By Sean Kimmons February 8, 2017

ARLINGTON, Va. (Army News Service) -- With North Korea testing more missiles than ever before, Army leaders say the U.S. must be prepared to deter the rogue nation and ready to launch a counterattack should events escalate.

"If you look at the Korean Peninsula, we see a rapidly developing capability being pursued by Kim Jong-un as the current leader of North Korea," said Gen. Vincent Brooks, who leads all U.S. forces in South Korea.

Since late 2011 when Kim took over North Korea after the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, the country has conducted two nuclear tests. It has also launched more than 120 missiles. That's twice as many missiles as his father and grandfather, Kim Il-sung, fired altogether in 40 years, according to Brooks.

"It's very clear in what direction Kim Jong-un is heading and that is to have a full arsenal of capability that can hold the United States at risk for deterrence purposes, but also for coercive diplomacy," he said Tuesday via video teleconference, as part of an air and missile defense forum hosted by the Association of the U.S. Army.

In response, the Army plans to deploy a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, battery to protect South Korea. In July 2016, the U.S. stationed one of the high-end missile defense systems in Guam. The THAAD battery is designed to shoot down a missile as it descends to its target.

The 94th Army Air and Missile Defense Command is also operating a second powerful AN/TPY-2 radar in Japan to bolster ballistic missile defense in the region, said Lt. Gen. Jim Dickinson, who last month took charge of the Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command.

The Army is also considering plans to increase the number of ground-based interceptors based in Alaska and California from 30 to 44 by the end of 2017, Dickinson said of the missiles that can hit intercontinental ballistic missiles at higher altitudes.

"We have made significant improvements in the operations and the mission readiness of the entire ground-based midcourse defense mission," he said at the discussion.

Although a timeframe on the THAAD battery deployment to South Korea was not discussed, Dickinson said the Army is well into its planning, despite concerns from China that the system's radar could be used against its military.

In January, Kim may have added a sense of urgency to that planning with his claim that North Korea was nearing testing of ICBMs, which can be placed on mobile launchers and are capable of hitting American soil.

"North Korea continues to improve their mobile ICBMs," Dickinson said, "[and] has likely tested ICBM capabilities in recent space launches."

While visiting South Korea last week, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said that the THAAD system would be used only to defend that country and the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed there.

"And were it not for the provocative behavior of North Korea, we would have no need for THAAD out here," he said. "There's no other nation that needs to be concerned about THAAD other than North Korea."

He also warned that, should Kim ever attack the U.S. or its allies, the U.S. would answer with an overwhelming and effective response.

"North Korea continues to launch missiles, develop a nuclear weapons program and engage in threatening rhetoric and behavior," Mattis said. "America's commitments to defending our allies and to upholding our extended deterrence guarantees remain iron-clad."

Brooks also said he would like to see offensive capabilities that could strike North Korea from his area of operations.

"Defense is not enough. If we're not also able to kill the archers, then we'll never be able to catch enough arrows," he said, referring to North Korea's missile arsenal.

Due to the dense population of South Korea, any missile that passes through the current defensive measures would have a devastating impact, he noted.

"So we have to have an offensive capability also integrated into our air and missile defense system," he said.

Kim's willingness to pursue costly missile tests, even if they fail for all the world to see, shows a strong commitment to achieving an effective nuclear capability, according to the general.

"There's a desire to mate a nuclear capability with a missile capability, so the full effect of deterrence and coercive diplomacy can be achieved," Brooks said. "It's quite evident that he does this not for the sake of  [coming] to the negotiation table."

For this reason, the Army continues to strengthen its collaboration and trust between the U.S., South Korea and Japan to create layers of defense against North Korea, he said.

Brooks noted the U.S. has undertaken trilateral exercises with all three nations. In November, South Korea and Japan signed the General Security of Military Information Agreement to increase the sharing of information and cooperation between the allies.

"Without a foundation of trust, we can't expect to see the kind of integration that's necessary against the emerging threats," he said.

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USAG Ansbach command team greets first 10th CAB contingent

By Mr. Bryan Gatchell (IMCOM)February 8, 2017

ILLESHEIM, Germany (Feb. 8, 2016) -- The U.S. Army Garrison Ansbach command team greeted the first contingent of Soldiers from 10th Combat Aviation Brigade, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), from Fort Drum, New York, to their new rotational home today at Storck Barracks here.

Col. Benjamin C. Jones, USAG Ansbach commander, and Command Sgt. Maj. Derek R. Cuvellier, USAG Ansbach command sergeant major, met the Soldiers of the advanced echelon at Bunch Fitness Center to brief them on their new home.

"We're glad to have you, we're here to support you," said Jones to the advanced echelon.

"Hopefully you'll enjoy your time here," said Cuvellier, who encouraged the Soldiers to take advantage of the services on post.

After receiving important information on living at USAG Ansbach and living in Germany, the Soldiers visited several service representatives stationed around the fitness center, including Installation Access, the Training Support Center, the on-post Army Education Center, and more.

Approximately 2,000 Soldiers of 10th CAB are set to be stationed at USAG Ansbach's installations at Ansbach and Illesheim for nine months. They are the first brigade-size rotational aviation unit to be supported by USAG Ansbach.

"It's just a different scale, going from the rotational battalions now to the brigade-size element is not something that this installation is built for," said Jones. "I think we've done a lot of work preparing for it, and we're certainly ready. We're getting to demonstrate that now with the reception of the folks as they're hitting the ground."

One of the larger pieces to prepare Storck Barracks for the arrival of rotational troops was the conversion of Army Family Housing into individual Soldier billets, according to Jones. There were other challenges to preparing the facilities at Storck Barracks for the new arrivals, which were met by the Directorate of Public Works.

"Everything from motor pool space both for parking their tactical vehicles to the maintenance bays that were available to do routine maintenance on their rolling equipment," he said. "Bringing a couple of motor pools that were slated for demolition -- bringing those back up to usable standards was another effort that DPW had to take care of."

Logistical coordination also poses a challenge, which USAG Ansbach is set to meet.

"Flight times can change, aircraft can break down," said Jones. "There's a constant coordination to make sure we're at the right place at the right time to ensure the integration of these folks -- get them picked up, get them to where they're going, either at Katterbach or here at Storck Barracks."

Although the 10th CAB is stationed primarily at Storck Barracks, the newly arriving population could soon be apparent to the members of the USAG Ansbach community located in the Ansbach area.

"At the PX, at the Shoppette, there's going to be a little more traffic; lines could be a little bit longer," said Jones. "Being a relatively small garrison by population, we don't deal with some of those issues you might see at some of those larger stateside installations: Lines getting into the gate, those type of delays. I still don't think we'll see those getting into the gates, for instance, but what I think we will see is larger populations in our facilities, be it at the gym, be it at the commissary or the PX."

Jones said the garrison is working closely with the different on-post services to find solutions to any potential challenges.

"We're finding ways where we can ensure that we are meeting the needs of both our existing permanent party community members as well as the rotational forces," said Jones.

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U.S. Department of Defense

Press Operations

News Transcript

Presenter: Colonel John Dorrian, Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman February 08, 2017

Department of Defense Press Briefing by Col. Dorrian via teleconference from Baghdad, Iraq

CAPTAIN JEFF DAVIS: So, J.D. should be up here in just a moment.

(CROSSTALK)

CAPT. DAVIS: There you go. Right.

There he is.

J.D., I just want to make sure you can hear us and we can hear you.

COLONEL JOHN DORRIAN: I've got you loud and clear, Jeff.

CAPT. DAVIS: Great.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're pleased today to be joined by Colonel John Dorrian, the spokesperson for Operation Inherent Resolve, coming to us live this morning -- evening for you, sir -- over in Baghdad. We'll turn it over to you for your opening remarks.

COL. DORRIAN: Very good. Thanks, Jeff.

Good morning, all. We'll start in Syria and move on to Iraq.

Yesterday, the Syrian Democratic Forces with their Syrian Arab Coalition partners, cleared 63 square kilometers of territory northeast of Raqqa, for a total of 3,410 square kilometers of territory liberated from ISIL control since they launched their operation to isolate Raqqa on November 5th, 2016.

In the most recent phase of the operation, they have encountered light to moderate resistance as enemy command and control struggles to deal with multiple ongoing operations simultaneously. Around Raqqa, coalition strikes continue taking a toll on the enemy capacity as strikes remove enemy fighters and resources. Recent targets include tunnels, weapons caches, command and control nodes, and vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices.

Moving over to al-Bab, since January 1st, 2017, the coalition has conducted 35 strikes, delivering 101 weapons in or near al-Bab to kill ISIL fighters, destroy equipment, artillery, fighting positions, tunnels and command and control nodes. Coalition and Turkish military leaders continue coordinating operations in southwest Syria. The enemy in al-Bab is in deep trouble, with Turkish military and partner forces converging on the city from the northwest, coalition forces pounding the enemy from the air and regime forces approaching from the south.

The coalition continues to fight ISIL on multiple fronts and by attacking their networks. Our commitment to completely destroying ISIL means that we must destroy their ability to communicate with leadership, their financial network and their ability to control terrain, particularly in population centers.

The battle space is becoming more complicated as the forces converge around al-Bab, so we'll maintain our de-confliction channel with the Russians.

Moving on to Iraq, the ISF continue preparations for the liberation of West Mosul. The 16th Iraqi Army Division is serving as a hold force in East Mosul to maintain pressure on any remaining ISIL sleeper cells and prevent the enemy from re-infiltrating the city.

Coalition strikes continue shaping the battle space in western Mosul, destroying ISIL weapons caches, watercraft, construction equipment and command and control, as well as attacking fighters directly anywhere that they congregate.

The enemy continues using indirect fire, mortars and artillery fires into eastern Mosul, which continues unfortunately to cause damage and civilian casualties. They also continue to use commercial off-the-shelf drones to observe and drop explosives on the Iraqi security force and civilian positions. Although dangerous and effective as a propaganda tactic, this has limited operational effect on the battlefield and will not change the outcome or significantly delay the inevitable.

The enemy is completely surrounded in west Mosul, and those who do not surrender to the Iraqi security forces will be killed there.

With that, I am happy to take your questions.

CAPT. DAVIS: Bob Burns from the Associated Press.

Q: Colonel, General Townsend is quoted today as saying that he believes and expects that both the Mosul and Raqqa campaigns will be concluded within six months. That seems to raise the question about when, with regard to Raqqa, when would the isolation phase -- when would you move out of the isolation phase, which you've been in for some time now?

COL. DORRIAN: Well, we continue working on the isolation phase to approach the city. This is a key part of the campaign. We're working that with the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Syrian Arab Coalition. Raqqa is a city that the enemy uses for external operations, so what we would expect is that within the next few weeks, the city will be nearly completely isolated and then there will be a decision point to move in.

We're not gonna give the exact timing of the effort to seize the city, but we do believe that excellent progress is being made and we'll continue to pressure the enemy on multiple fronts.

One of the key points here is that as -- as Raqqa is being isolated, the enemy's also under pressure in al-Bab. They're also under pressure from regime and Russian forces in Dayr az Zawr and other areas around Syria. They're completely surrounded in Mosul. So what we see is the enemy being overwhelmed anywhere that they are. It's too many problems for them to solve at any given time.

CAPT. DAVIS: Great. Next to Kasim Ileri with Anadolu News Agency.

Q: Colonel, there are reports -- Turkish authorities have announced that Turkish forces and Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army has started to move into the center of the city of al-Bab. Do you have any kind of indication on that? And is there any kind of support from the U.S. as they are moving into the city -- into the center of the city?

COL. DORRIAN: Well, we've conducted a number of strikes in and around al-Bab to remove ISIL fighters and remove ISIL resources that would threaten the Turkish force and their partner forces as they move into the city.

I don't have a deep detail about their exact position and it would probably be inappropriate for me to provide that. But I will say that the enemy is in deep trouble there and, you know, they're going to continue to lose fighters and resources as they're decisively engaged there.

Q: (Off mic) the number of the strikes that you have conducted over, like, today and the day before in the city, particularly those -- those strike in the city itself?

COL. DORRIAN: Yeah, I'd -- I'd have to get back to you on where the strikes occurred.

Generally, when we release information about strikes, we release information that's in the vicinity of. And we do that because it's -- you know, that's the way they're categorized in our database.

So, it's the nearest big city. I don't know if it's in the city or not.

Q: And today, the Turkish presidential spokes --

COL. DORRIAN: Strikes are being done as we discussed this with the Turkish military. So, that's an important element of it.

There's daily coordination ongoing between the Turkish military and the rest of the coalition. And, you know, these strikes are conducted in coordination with them. So we're striking targets that -- that do assist the -- the Turkish forces and their partner force as they continue to conduct operations there.

Q: Today, the Turkish presidential spokesman said that during the phone call between Mr. Trump and Mr. Erdogan, the two leaders have agreed or affirmed that there should be a safe zone in Syria.

Do you have any kind of -- you know, can you update us whether there is anything on your side that you are working to -- to form a safe zone in Syria?

COL. DORRIAN: You know what? I don't have firsthand knowledge of what went on in that phone call, so I'd refer you to the White House to get that question answered.

I can tell you that it's -- you know, Turkey has done an incredible job of isolating the enemy in northern Syria. They've completely blocked off their ability to infiltrate Syria or exfiltrate their fighters using the border with Turkey.

So, this is an important element of the campaign, so good continued progress here.

But I don't have any update for you on that phone call that -- that you mentioned. I don't have any visibility on that.

CAPT. DAVIS: Laurie Milroie, Kurdistan 24.

Q: Sir, it sounds from this briefing and what you've been saying that tensions that once existed between the U.S. and Turkey over support for the SD -- the Syrian Democratic Forces and other issues -- that those tensions have largely passed. Is that a correct understanding?

COL. DORRIAN: I'm -- I'm going to need you to repeat that. You broke up a little bit.

Q: It sounds, from this briefing, that the tensions that existed in the past between the United States and Turkey over things like U.S. support for the Syrian Democratic Forces -- those and other things -- those tensions have largely ended. Is that a correct understanding?

COL. DORRIAN: No, I think what I would say is that our coordination with the government of Turkey and with the Turkish military forces continues. We also work with our partner forces the Syrian Democratic Forces, with their significant Arab contingent, to isolate Raqqa. So we're going to continue that part of the campaign, the isolation phase. And both of these things are happening simultaneously.

So, as far as, you know, the characterization, what I would say is there's constant coordination between our forces in Turkey and we're working to support their operations in al-Bab.

Q: I wanted to ask you about the Kurdistan regional government. The Peshmerga ministry has just finished training a brigade of volunteers from the Sunni Arab tribes in the Nineveh Plains to fight against ISIS -- an Arab Peshmerga. How do you view this activity, this training of the Sunni Arab tribes? And you know, particularly in the light of some reports now that there's a Sunni insurgency being formed that's filling the vacuum created by ISIS's defeat?

COL. DORRIAN: Well, what I would say is every force that's going to fight ISIL in this country should be doing so in coordination with the government of Iraq. That's the way the coalition does it. We've trained more than 70,000 forces of various types -- army, police, tribal fighters, popular mobilization fighters -- that are -- that we can vet and work with.

And we continue to do all of that as Mosul is liberated. Because ultimately, when we talk about dealing ISIL a lasting defeat, it's all these forces that go in behind our forces and the Iraqi security forces that are going to make sure that ISIL is not able to re-infiltrate; they're not able to get any traction on any type of insurgency effort.

And so we fully support all these kinds of efforts. But with regard to the force that you are mentioning, I don't have a lot of depth on what those forces are doing or what they've been asked to do. But I would say any force that's operating in this country should be doing so in coordination with or under the command and control of the government of Iraq.

CAPT. DAVIS: All right. Next with Idrees Ali from Reuters.

Q: Working on Bob's question. I mean, can you confirm the timeline given by General Townsend of six months for retaking Raqqa and the operation for western Mosul to begin in days. I mean, he said it publicly. So, either he has -- or have you not seen the remarks? I mean, you know.

COL. DORRIAN: Yes, you know what? General Townsend was on a battlefield circulation today. If his -- you know, whatever he said on the record, then by all means I fully support it. But I don't -- I don't have visibility on it and I can't confirm it at this point.

Q: All right. And to follow up on -- on Turkey, a presidential spokesman said that Turkey had presented a quote/unquote "detailed plan to drive out Islamic State from Raqqa." Have you received any plan or talks with Turkey on them participating in Raqqa?

COL. DORRIAN: Well, I know at the operational level, we have coordination with Turkey every single day. We coordinate a lot of operations to support them as they advance into al-Bab. We've conducted a number of strikes for them to do that. We've conducted strikes throughout their campaign to drive ISIL from northern Syria.

But I don't have any insight into the phone call that you're talking about or the detailed plan. I -- I don't have that -- that conversation hasn't come down to our level at this point. So I can't confirm that it occurred or any of the contents of the discussion.

Q: Worked with you to re-take Raqqa at all so far?

COL. DORRIAN: I'm sorry. Can you repeat that?

Q: Have they been part of the operation to re-take Raqqa so far?

COL. DORRIAN: They -- they have not so far. They've been focused on al-Bab and other areas previously in northern Syria. So not at this point, but I know there have been meetings and discussions to that effect and we've said for many weeks that we're open to a Turkish role. But as yet, that -- that hasn't come to fruition and we'll just have to let that play out.

CAPT. DAVIS: Next to -- it's actually to Joe Tabet next and you're on the next -- list next, sir.

Q: Yeah, Colonel Dorrian, I just -- I would like to follow up on Idrees' question and what you were saying about the coordination with Turkey in regards to Raqqa. Can we expect that Turkey will have an operational role in the operation to retake Raqqa? Could you clarify the idea that Turkey will have an -- will play a role in retaking Raqqa? Are the discussions that -- the ongoing discussions with Turkey right now, what's the status of the discussions? To what state -- what stage they have reached?

COL. DORRIAN: Yeah, those are ongoing diplomatic discussions that have -- that have occurred between Turkey, the U.S. government and various members of the coalition. So I'm not gonna get inside those discussions. That's something that, you know, that's best handled in a face-to-face diplomatic discussion rather than through media.

But I would say that, you know, we've said for many months that, you know, the U.S. would be open to a Turkish role and that dialogue continues. And I don't have an update on -- on the -- the conversation that you're describing.

Q: You said -- you said diplomatic discussions, but this is a military operation. I -- can I say that the coalition or the U.S. military has  didn't take part of those discussions?

COL. DORRIAN: The military takes part in military discussions and diplomatic discussions happen in diplomatic channels. Sometimes, there's overlap, but I'm not gonna get you inside those discussions. Those are ongoing and if, you know, decisions have been made, they haven't been given to me, and so it's not time for me to give them to you if they've in fact occurred.

CAPT. DAVIS: Next, sir. I'm sorry, I don't know who you are.

Q: This is David Wood from the Huffington Post.

CAPT. DAVIS: Okay.

Q: Could you go back to the issue of de-confliction around al-Bab? And do you know, for example, how many incidents there are? Can you quantify the number of Russian intercepts? Are those going on on a daily basis? And how often does the de-confliction -- do the two sides meet to de-conflict those operations?

COL. DORRIAN: Those meetings generally happen several times a week or on an as-necessary basis.

As far as the number of intercepts, I think I'd have to gather some information for you and circle back. I don't have visibility on that.

CAPT. DAVIS: Next to Courtney Kube from NBC News.

Q: Hey, J.D.

Actually my questions were answered but one short one on Raqqa isolation. When you say that it's gonna be complete in the next few weeks, do you mean that the city of Raqqa will be completely encircled? Will it actually be completely encircled?

COL. DORRIAN: Yeah, I'm not going to provide that level of detail.

But I would say that it'll be very difficult to get into or out of the city. We've seen, you know, Mosul is completely encircled, but there have been other instances where the cities haven't been, but all the GLOCs, all the ground lines of communication, the roads into and out of the city, have been blocked.

I'm not going to get into the detail of what -- what constitutes isolation, whether it's full isolation, mostly isolation. I think we're gonna just let that play out in the next several weeks and then the -- the -- our partners, with coalition, support will move in.

Q: And then one other thing that kind of struck me from your opening statement was when you were talking about al-Bab, you said that ISIS would be facing pressure from regime forces from the south, and then when you spoke about Dayr as Zawr, you also mentioned regime forces and Russian forces who are pressuring.

It seems -- is there a change -- is there a change in the feeling of how the regime is operating? Are they suddenly in some ways on the side of the coalition? They're fighting against ISIS now.

I just found it, kind of, striking that you mention them almost as an asset in the fight against ISIS. Correct me if I'm wrong, if I read too much into that.

COL. DORRIAN: I think you've read way too much into that.

I would say the enemy is in deep trouble because they can't deal with all the areas in which they're being attacked.

The one -- the one thing that I would say is there's not really anybody who's for leaving ISIS in place unmolested, so they're going to get defeated by the coalition in any area that we can find them and there are other elements that are attacking them in other places. And all that does is complicate the enemy's problem set.

But I wouldn't read too much into that.

Q: The Syrian regime and the Russians are actually playing an active and positive role in the fight against ISIS in Syria at this point. Is that fair to say?

COL. DORRIAN: It's fair to say that they're attacking ISIS. And I don't think I want to characterize it beyond that.

Q: Thank you.

CAPT. DAVIS: Next to Kristina Wong from Breitbart.

Q: Thank you.

Thanks, Colonel Dorrian.

With Turkey closing its borders, are there any ISIS foreign fighters making it into Syria now? If so, I guess, how many? And are there any making it into Iraq? There were thousands that dropped to I think hundreds. I just want to know what the numbers are now.

And is there any evidence of any of these foreign fighters making it out of either Iraq or Syria?

COL. DORRIAN: What I'd say is that with all the borders being closed off between Syria and Turkey, that there are very, very few fighters making it into or out of the cities. So we estimate no more than 100 to 200 per month. That's down from something like 2,000, if you go back a little over a year.

So that's -- that's a tremendous disadvantage for the enemy. There are a variety of reasons for that, not just the isolation of the battle space, but it's also because of the allure of this enemy. They are losing and losing badly everywhere that they engage our partner force, or our partner force engages them. That's going to continue to happen. I think that's becoming very clear on the battlefield. And there's probably not a tremendous market of people that want to go and join that fight because the enemy is being annihilated in Mosul, and they will be in other areas as well.

Q: To be clear, that's 100 to 200 coming in, or going out, or both?

COL. DORRIAN: That's going in. I would say I don't have a figure for you getting out. It's not going to be a significant amount either. It's small numbers. They're not -- not really in any position to be leaving because in many areas, they're isolated. They're not going to get out of al-Bab very easily; not going to get out of Mosul very easily. And they're going to other areas in Syria and Iraq. They'll be engaged there.

Q: Thank you.

CAPT. DAVIS: Next to Tara Copp with Stars and Stripes.

Q: Hi, colonel. Kristina just asked my question, so I will try again on Bob's and Idrees's questions.

With General Townsend's remarks, does it at least gel with what has been expected or maybe what has been discussed, that the, you know, the extended timeframe is going to be about six months?

COL. DORRIAN: Yeah, again, that -- that -- those statements were on a battlefield circulation today. I just don't have visibility on what he said exactly. So I'd probably be out of line if I -- and just plain guessing if I offered any context or commentary on it.

But I can say that General Townsend was very clear when he took this job that his intent was to defeat ISIS militarily in both Iraq and Syria as defined by crushing them in both Mosul and Raqqa.

Q: Okay. Despite whether or not he said the -- a six-month timeframe today, has the six-month timeframe been discussed in any other forum in Baghdad that you've been privy to? So, it's something that you have heard before?

COL. DORRIAN: It hasn't been addressed in a forum that I've been in, other than what I just told you.

General Townsend has made it clear and he made it clear from his first interview on, that the intent of our campaign here is to defeat ISIL in both Mosul and Raqqa on our watch.

CAPT. DAVIS: Okay. Next to Luis Martinez from ABC News.

Q: There are reports out today that Russia has sent a large number of ballistic missiles to Syria to support the regime and that they've launched a couple of them over the last couple of days.

If I could ask you about that de-confliction line that you have. When the Russians contact you over that line, do they mention the use of ballistic missiles that may go into areas where you might be operating in Syria?

COL. DORRIAN: Luis, the purpose of the de-confliction channel is to avoid any unintended incident where our forces engage theirs, or their forces engage ours. So beyond that, I don't have any visibility on what would happen in the case of the use of a missile like that. But I know that the purpose of those de-confliction calls and discussions is to assure that we don't inadvertently have an incident in the battle space.

Q: Just to follow up. Because, you know, when we launch missiles, we issue NOTAMs warning individuals not to be close by because of the trajectory of the missile, since a trajectory, like, from a ballistic missile would bring it into the air for a long period of time.

I'm just curious, I mean, wouldn't it play a role in a de-confliction scenario?

COL. DORRIAN: I think we'll have to circle back with you, Luis -- possibly, but I don't know. It sounds like you need a more direct answer and we'll try to get you one after.

CAPT. DAVIS: Ryan Browne from CNN.

Q: Hello, colonel. Thank you for doing this.

Just to follow up on Courtney's question quickly about what we're seeing from the regime and the Russians in terms of combating ISIS. I mean, we see, you know, Palmyra, Dayr az Zawr, al-Bab. Have we ever seen this much effort from the regime, from the Russians in terms of battling ISIS before? Is this an unprecedented level of Russian-Syrian offensives against ISIS?

COL. DORRIAN: It's probably reasonable to characterize it as that prior to what's going on now. They were focused on Aleppo. And as most of you know, there really wasn't any significant ISIL presence in that city. So, it's probably fair to characterize it as you described.

Q: Thank you. And just a couple of other ones. We're now a couple of days, you know, almost halfway through the 30-day plan for ISIS that the White House has developed. Have any -- have you been asked -- has the coalition been asked to support that -- development of that plan? Has there been a lot -- has there been request for information or any kind of, you know, has there been a lot of support, contact for development of that plan?

COL. DORRIAN: Well, we're constantly evaluating the campaign and making adjustments as required. Any input would go through the chain of command to Central Command and then onward up to the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

So I don't want to get into the details of what the content of those discussions or recommendations would be, but certainly, you know, we continue to evaluate the campaign and that was all already happening. And we continue to provide feedback about how things are going and what might be needed.

Q: Final, last one, my apologies.

Is there any military requirement to detain -- from the U.S. perspective or from the coalition perspective to actually perform detention operations when it comes to captured ISIS fighters? Or is the detention provided by the Kurds, provided by the SDF, provided by the Iraqis -- is that sufficient when it comes to taking ISIS fighters capture -- captive?

COL. DORRIAN: Yeah, we -- we don't have any detention operations here. That's done by host nation and then our partnered forces. So that's tasks that they perform.

Q: So there's no requirement to have that capability, right?

I know it's being performed by our allies on the ground but would that -- is that a need? Is that a requirement that the U.S. needs?

COL. DORRIAN: Well, we're not now performing it, so I'm not going to get into whether there's a requirement for it or not.

CAPT. DAVIS: Next to Laurent from Agence France-Presse.

Q: Hi, colonel.

Following -- following up Courtney's question on the isolation phase of Raqqa, you say that isolation does not mean total encirclement, so I -- I'm a bit confused about the meaning of the word "isolation." Can you, sort of, describe what it means, the fact that the isolation phase is -- is -- is over?

COL. DORRIAN: Well, the isolation phase is intended to severely limit, to completely eliminate the enemy's ability to get fighters and reinforcements into or out of the city or to bring equipment into or out of the city.

Q: Good, thank you.

And I've got a separate question. There are reports that there were strikes yesterday from the coalition on Al Qaida in the Idlib province. Can you confirm that? And can you -- can you describe them?

COL. DORRIAN: I'm afraid I'd have to pass you to my esteemed colleagues at Central Command. We only do ISIL strikes in Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, so you'll have to follow that one up with CENTCOM.

CAPT. DAVIS: If I may interject, we'll probably have something on that later for you today.

To follow-ups, Laurie Milroie first.

Q: I have a question on a story that's in today's Washington Post about what's been learned about ISIS from the liberation of East Mosul. And it's similar to what you have been saying, that ISIS is on the defensive, it can't recruit foreign fighters. But it also contains this point that they -- in one Islamic State headquarters in a Mosul neighborhood, Iraqi forces found a stash of passports, 16 Russian and four French passports, presumably of foreign fighters who surrendered their passports when they joined ISIS.

And that sounds like a lot of Russians in ISIS. Do you know if that's typical? Do you how many Russians were, or have a sense of what proportion of the East Mosul ISIS foreign fighters were from Russia or from France or any other place?

COL. DORRIAN: Yeah, I don't have a good nationality breakdown. We do continue to find passports from a lot of different countries. What I would say, though, is that the overwhelming preponderance of the fighters in Mosul are Iraqis. We have isolate the city, and as areas are cleared, we do work with the Iraqi security forces as they do site exploitation and find, you know, documents and computers and other things that might have some intelligence value.

Among those are passports. And that does give us some insight into who this enemy is, how they operate, what they do. Of course, what we're finding is a lot of information about, you know, what their priorities are and what their morale is like.

So, some of the reports that you've seen, you know, of them finding, you know, that there are fighters who don't want to fight or who are making excuses and want to leave the country, these are indicators that are useful to us and they provide some insight into the state of the enemy.

They are on the back foot. Their fighters are being killed very quickly in some cases. And they are completely isolated in west Mosul, and they're awaiting their fate there. They're either going to surrender or they're going to be annihilated.

Q: When you say most of the -- said most of the fighters in East Mosul were Iraqi, you mean the fighters for ISIS were Iraqi and the foreign fighters are a small part of the -- the ISIS force in East Mosul?

COL. DORRIAN: Yeah, for ISIL in Iraq, most of the fighters are Iraqis.

Q: A rough percent?

COL. DORRIAN: Those -- those -- those fighters are being killed.

Q: Could you give us a rough percentage of what percent are Iraqi and what percent are foreign fighters in ISIS ranks?

COL. DORRIAN: That would be impossible to do because the number of fighters that you have at any given time and their level of commitment is something that would be nearly impossible to assess to a level where we could provide you those kinds of percentages.

Q: Thank you very much.

CAPT. DAVIS: Kasim Ileri

Q: If I could follow up on Raqqa isolation questions. So, we know that from Raqqa to Dayr az Zawr and the complete south flank of Raqqa is open. We don't have -- there are no partner forces down there. And you said that isolation means -- isolation phase means to limit or to totally shut the enemy's ability to communicate or to transfer arms and equipment from one area to the other.

So, the complete south border is open. And then the east border to Dayr az Zawr is open right now. How do you plan to isolate the city as long as these areas are open for the enemy to go away from the city and come in?

COL. DORRIAN: Well, that's because we haven't completed the isolation yet. So, once that's done, then the things that you're describing will no longer be possible: The enemy will not be able to reinforce their fighters and resupply their fighters or to leave the area in any significant numbers or very effectively.

Q: You said that in next coming weeks -- in coming weeks, you're expecting to totally isolate the city and then apparently we are seeing that the SDF is just going from north. So is there an alternative force that you are planning to put in to the south to encircle the city or somehow isolate the city's main routes?

COL. DORRIAN: Yeah, I'm -- I'm not going to speculate or discuss future operations in that level of detail.

Q: Just lastly -- okay -- you have said after the complete -- you know, the isolation process completed, then you will go to a decision-making of kicking in the operation itself, the -- the offensive into the city.

Do you mean that the decision-making is within the coalition itself, or somehow you implied that the current discussions between Turkey and the coalition?

COL. DORRIAN: Yeah, I really had trouble understanding that. You're asking if this is a decision for the coalition or is it going to be done in coordination with our NATO partner Turkey? Or -- help me -- help me with that again. I'm sorry.

Q: I mean to say -- (inaudible) -- after the isolation is completed, then you will go to have a decision-making process to start the operation on the city itself. And my question is, is the decision-making process you referred to, is it just within the coalition itself or are you meaning or are you referring to the discussions with Turks?

COL. DORRIAN: Those are ongoing discussions, and we're just going to have to let those play out. So I'm not going to discuss how decisions are made or when they're made. That's really not my purview to do that.

CAPT. DAVIS: (Off mic)

Q: Hi, colonel.

Going back to al-Bab, when the U.S. was striking yesterday, there were six strikes. How many were for Turkey and the Turkish-supported Syrian forces and how many of those strikes were in support of the SDF? Because they're in two different places.

COL. DORRIAN: Off the top of my head, I -- I don't have those figures with me on what was done yesterday. I think we'll have to circle back and give you that answer later.

Q: Is supporting both of those efforts in the fight for al-Bab, correct?

COL. DORRIAN: Okay, we're breaking up. Audio?

CAPT. DAVIS: (inaudible) -- supporting the SDF in al-Bab --

Q: And also, Turkey in al-Bab -- (inaudible)  been announcements made that we have conducted strikes in that area in support of Turkey, so I just want to clarify that we are supporting both, yes?

COL. DORRIAN: We are supporting Turkey in al-Bab. We are supporting the SDF as they isolate Raqqa. Those are two different places.

Q: So, you're going to get back to me -- oh, sorry.

CAPT. DAVIS: I think that's your answer.

COL. DORRIAN: In a great deal of difficulty because there are two operations ongoing, you know, where they're under pressure from different forces.

Q: Are -- so then, are the SDF that are near al-Bab, are they coordinating at all with the U.S. and the coalition?

COL. DORRIAN: Yeah, I'm having a lot of trouble hearing you. Can you repeat it one more time, please?

Q: Sure. No problem. Thanks.

Are the SDF that are not being supported by Turkey, are U.S. coalition forces supporting them currently in the fight around al-Bab?

COL. DORRIAN: You know, I think we're just going to have to take that question. The -- what -- what we are supporting is Turkey in al-Bab and the SDF at Raqqa. Those are the two things that the coalition is doing.

Q: (inaudible) -- there were several meetings a week with Russia. Do you mean the -- I think that's what you said -- do you mean de-confliction calls? Or -- is that -- are they -- are they still taking place daily or have they increased?

COL. DORRIAN: They -- they occur on a regular basis and on an as-needed basis. So if there's an ongoing operation where there needs to be a discussion to de-conflict, then those calls are made.

Q: Okay. So that's -- that's what you meant by "meetings" then. And that's not an increase from before al-Bab operations started, right?

COL. DORRIAN: We -- we talk to Russia on a very regular basis about the ongoing operations in al-Bab. So we make sure that we're discussing what we're going to do, where we're going to strike, to make sure that we're not striking them, not having any inadvertent events with their aircraft, and neither of us are striking the other's partnered forces.

Q: Thanks.

CAPT. DAVIS: Okay. With that, J.D., we thank you for your time and we look forward to seeing you again soon.

Thanks, everybody.

COL. DORRIAN: Thank you.

http://www.defense.gov/News/News-Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/1076721/

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U.S. Department of Defense

Press Operations

News Release

No. NR-050-17 February 08, 2017

Readout of Secretary Mattis' Call with Iraqi Minister of Defense Arfan al-Hayali

Pentagon Spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis provided the following readout:

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis spoke today by phone with Iraqi Defense Minister Arfan al-Hayali to discuss the strong U.S.-Iraq defense partnership in the fight against ISIS. Secretary Mattis congratulated Minister Hayali on his new position and praised the Iraqis' hard-won gains against ISIS- most recently in eastern Mosul. Both discussed planning for operations to liberate western Mosul. Secretary Mattis and Minister Hayali affirmed their commitment to continued U.S.-Iraq cooperation and a strong partnership that will enable the Iraqis to deal ISIS a lasting defeat.

http://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/1076751/

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1/25 Improves Cold Weather Operations, Integrates with Canadian Armed Forces

US Marine Corps News

By Sgt. Sara Graham | February 8, 2017

Marines with Company C, 1st Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, joined the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry, Wentworth Regiment, Canadian Armed Forces, for exercise Riley Xanten II in Burwash, Ontario, Feb 3-5, 2017.

The exercise is named after a World War II battle in which The Canadian Armed Forces used their ability to operate in cold conditions to eliminate German soldiers west of the Rhine River. Operating efficiently in cold weather climates can still be a deciding factor in mission accomplishment today, so Marines and Canadian soldiers trained over the three-day period in various mountain warfare tactics and procedures.

"Aside from using our internal cold weather mountain leaders, we were afforded the opportunity to work with the Canadians who had a winter warfare classes set up," said Staff Sgt. Chad DiBiase, a platoon commander, Co. C. "They had three stations: penetration and demolition showing the capabilities ice can provide for cover, survival and shelter, and snaring and ice fishing."

The Marines also patrolled and conducted a raid while traversing the rough, snow-packed terrain. They used their cold weather gear and knowledge gained from their Canadian counterparts to hike through the rough terrain, construct debris shelters, build fires more efficiently and procure food from ice fishing.

"We are allies, we do everything together, and you never know what environment you are going to be in," added Capt. Craig Hannon, a mountain warfare instructor with 2nd Battalion, Irish Regiment of Canada. "Canadians are used to the cold; a lot of Americans are used to the cold, and a lot aren't. So it is important we train because it is survival, and if you know how to live in that environment you are better off. You aren't going to become a casualty, and you will be able to continue on with your mission."

Operating in cold weather is nothing new for Marines, and retaining that ability is critical.

"I always think back when it gets cold to the Marines in Korea at the Chosin Reservoir, there are going to be situations like that which can come up," said Cpl. Michael Higgins, team leader with Co. C. "We could go to places like Ukraine, Eastern Europe, and Korea. We are prepared for those situations; we have been doing this cold weather training for three years now so we are ready to go."

Over the course of the three days the Marines and Canadian soldiers worked together and faced the elements of an arctic environment. With future plans to train in the Arctic Circle, the Marines will continue to accomplish any mission despite adverse weather conditions.

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McCampbell Visits Otaru, Japan

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS170208-07

Release Date: 2/8/2017 9:18:00 AM

By Lt. j.g. Soon Kwon, USS McCampbell (DDG 85) Public Affairs

OTARU, Japan (NNS) -- The forward-deployed Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell (DDG 85) completed its port visit to Otaru, Japan, Feb. 7.

During McCampbell's time in port, the ship hosted tours for distinguished visitors and participated in sporting events with local residents. Sailors also volunteered at the Otaru Snow Light Path Festival.

"We sincerely appreciated the hospitality and warm welcome we received," said Cmdr. Ed Angelinas, commanding officer of McCampbell. "We are grateful for the opportunity to experience the local culture and participate in the festivals with the people of Otaru."

Once the ship moored in port, McCampbell leadership attended welcome meetings hosted by the Honorable Hideaki Morii, mayor of Otaru; Hiroyuki Yamaguchi, chief of Otaru Police Department; Hideaki Yamamoto, chairperson of Otaru Chamber of Commerce and Industry; and Capt. Kenji Moribe, commander, Otaru Coast Guard Office.

The warm welcome continued when the Sailors were invited to a welcome reception hosted by the Otaru Japan Self-Defense Force Supporters Association.

"I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in Otaru and Sapporo," said Logistics Specialist 1st Class Ambrosio Maddagan, from Honolulu. "I will not forget the amazing sights and I hope to come back with my family."

McCampbell is forward deployed to Yokosuka, Japan, and visited Otaru as part of a routine patrol in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations in support of security and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region.

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USS Porter Departs Constanta, Romania

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS170208-01

Release Date: 2/8/2017 7:42:00 AM

By Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Ford Williams, Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet Public Affairs

CONSTANTA, Romania (NNS) -- Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Porter (DDG 78) departed Constanta, Romania, after completing a port visit Feb. 8.

Strengthening alliances during the port visit to Constanta demonstrated the shared commitment the U.S. has to promote safety and stability within the region, while seeking opportunities to enhance interoperability with NATO allies and partners.

Quote:

"The officers and crew truly appreciate the hospitality of the citizens of Constanta and members of the Romanian navy. Whether it was planning exercise Sea Shield, engaging in the volleyball tournament at the Romanian Naval Academy, or enjoying the sights, shopping, and local cuisine, we all had a fantastic time and look forward to returning." - Cmdr. Andria Slough, commanding officer, USS Porter (DDG 78)

Quick Facts:

Porter's port visit provided Sailors an opportunity to meet with naval counterparts in order to strengthen bonds and enhance partnerships. Along with a visit to the Romanian Fleet Headquarters and planning exercises Sea Shield 2017, Porter Sailors participated in a volleyball tournament hosted by the Romanian Naval Academy featuring sailors from the Turkish, Canadian, Bulgarian, and Romanian navies.

While in the Black Sea, Porter is scheduled to participate in exercise Sea Shield 2017. Sea Shield is an annual, Romanian-led multinational exercise in the Black Sea to improve interoperability and proficiency of participating units.

The U.S. Navy routinely operates in the Black Sea consistent with the Montreux Convention and international law.

Porter, forward-deployed to Rota, Spain, is conducting naval operations in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations in support of U.S. national security interests in Europe. The ship deployed from Naval Station Rota Nov. 30, 2016.

U.S. 6th Fleet, headquartered in Naples, Italy, conducts the full spectrum of joint and naval operations, often in concert with allied, joint, and interagency partners in order to advance U.S. national interests and security and stability in Europe and Africa.



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Saudi-backed Yemeni officials deny they banned US commando raids

Iran Press TV

Wed Feb 8, 2017 3:52PM

Saudi-backed Yemeni officials have denied reports that they suspended permission for US special operations forces to run missions in the country, despite a US raid last month that killed up to 30 civilians.

"It's not true what's being said," a Saudi-backed Yemeni official said Wednesday in Aden, where the ousted government of former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi is based.

Abdel Malek al-Mekhlafi, Hadi's foreign minister, also denied reports that the US military had been allowed to carry out ground operations in Yemen.

The statement by Mekhlafi, according to the Associated Press, followed a report in The New York Times that Saudi-backed Yemeni officials had revoked permissions for the Pentagon to continue special operations in the country.

The Times report said that the permission was withdrawn after dozens of Yemeni civilian were killed during a US commando raid on January 29 that was authorized by President Donald Trump.

Mekhalafi told the AP that "Yemen continues to cooperate with the United States and continues to abide by all the agreements." He added, however, that the ousted Yemeni government "is involved in talks with the US administration on the latest raid."

Gruesome photographs of children killed in the crossfire of an hour-long firefight during the US raid stirred outrage in Yemen.

The raid, in which just about everything went wrong, was the first known American-led ground mission in Yemen since December 2014, and Trump's first approval of such an operation.

His approval of the mission came over a dinner four nights earlier with his top national security aides, rather than a rigorous review by the White House.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said on Tuesday the mission was aimed at gathering intelligence and was "highly successful."

US officials maintain that their commandos killed 14 members of the al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the civilian deaths occurred when US aircraft were called for help.

However, medics at the scene said about 30 people, including 10 women and children, were killed.

AQAP has taken advantage of the chaos and breakdown of security in Yemen to tighten its grip on the southern and southeastern parts of the Arab country.

Saudi Arabia launched a war against Yemen in March 2015 in an attempt to bring back the former government to power and undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement.

The war has killed thousands of civilians, and unleashed a humanitarian crisis in the improvised Middle Eastern country.

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Yemeni rocket kills many Saudi mercenaries in Mokha: Report

Iran Press TV

Wed Feb 8, 2017 10:52AM

Scores of Saudi-backed militiamen loyal to the former Yemeni government have reportedly been killed when Yemeni armed forces targeted their gathering in the country's southwestern province of Ta'izz.

An unnamed military official told Yemen's official Saba news agency on Wednesday that Yemeni forces and their allies fired a domestically-built Zelzal-2 (Earthquake-2) heavy artillery rocket at al-Mizan area in the Red Sea port city of Mokha, situated 346 kilometers south of the capital, Sana'a, overnight.

The official noted that a large number of Saudi mercenaries were killed and their military hardware destroyed in the attack, without giving a precise number.

Separately, dozens of pro-Saudi gunmen were killed and injured in the city of Sirwah, which lies about 120 kilometers east of the capital, when Yemeni army and Popular Committees forces launched a counter-attack.

Yemeni troops and their allies also hit a military vehicle belonging to Saudi mercenaries in the al-Makhdra area of the same district, destroying the car and killing all those on board.

Moreover, Yemeni forces repelled an assault by Saudi soldiers and their mercenaries east of Mokha city, killing dozens of them and destroying 11 military vehicles.

On Wednesday, three children lost their lives when Saudi fighter jets bombarded their house in the Baqim district of Yemen's northwestern mountainous province of Sa'ada.

Saudi military aircraft also carried out three airstrikes against the al-Mina district in the western province of Hudaydah, though no immediate reports of possible casualties and the extent of damage caused were available.

The Saudi war on Yemen, which local sources say has killed at least 11,400 people, was launched in an attempt to bring back the former government to power and undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement.

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Despite ceasefire agreements reached by the Trilateral Contact Group on February 1, militants continue attacks against Ukrainian army positions in Donbas, the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) headquarters reported.

"As of 3 p.m., hostiles had carried out 34 attacks against Ukrainian troops' positions with the use of a vast range of available weapons, including ones forbidden by the Minsk Agreements," the press center of the ATO headquarters said in a statement published on Thursday afternoon.

It said that hostiles demonstrated the most vigorous activity in the Donetsk sector in Luhanske, Zaitseve, Opytne, Pisky, the Butivka mine and Verkhniotoretske populated areas.
Philippines coast guard seeks US, China help over piracy

Iran Press TV

Wed Feb 8, 2017 9:55AM

The Philippines' coast guard and Defense Ministry plan to seek assistance from China and the US in securing a major regional waterway amid concerns that pirates are expanding their activities there.

The Philippines coast guard authorities expressed fear on Wednesday that the Sibutu Passage sea lane between Malaysia's Sabah state and the southern Philippines may turn into a Somalia-style pirate haven for the country's Daesh-linked Abu Sayyaf terrorists.

According to the report, the deep-water channel, used by 13,000 sea vessels annually, provides the quickest route between Australia and the region's globally powerful manufacturers in China, Japan, and South Korea.

"If ship owners will skirt that area just to avoid kidnap at sea activities by these terrorists, for sure, it will have an additional cost," said Philippine Coast Guard chief Commodore Joel Garcia.

"It's not just the concern of the Philippines or Indonesia and Malaysia," he said, "but of the international shipping community."

The Philippines' Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana also said on Tuesday that Manila intended to call on the US to hold joint drills in waters off the southern Philippines to address the problem.

President Rodrigo Duterte urged China last week to launch patrols off the piracy-plagued waters, pointing to Beijing's dispatch of a naval convoy to the Gulf of Aden in 2009 to protect Chinese vessels from Somali pirates.

Meanwhile, Garcia, the coast guard chief commodore, said that details about the possible sea patrol collaborations with China would likely be discussed during planned talks between the two countries' coast guard officials in Manila next week.

Defense Secretary Lorenzana also reiterated that Manila planned to "talk to the Ministry of Defense of China on how to operationalize this joint patrol" off the southern Philippines.

The Abu Sayyaf militants from the southern Philippines have boarded ships and kidnapped dozens of crewmen for ransom in waters between Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines in the past year, sparking regional alarm.

Moreover, Indonesia has also cautioned that the region may become the "next Somalia."

The news about the Philippines seeking US help comes despite the fact that the country, under President Duterte, has had a rocky relationship with the US. The Philippine president has announced an end to joint military drills between his country and America amid Washington's criticism of his war on drugs.

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Terrorist attack on Somali hotel on election day

Iran Press TV

Wed Feb 8, 2017 7:40AM

A terrorist attack by the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab militants on a hotel in Somalia's port city of Bosasso has left four guards and two assailants dead.

"Three al-Shabab fighters stormed the International Village Hotel this morning. Four guards and two of the attackers died in the fighting," said Bari region Governor Yusuf Mohamed on Wednesday.

According to the governor, none of the guests at the hotel, which is popular with foreigners, were hurt in the armed assault. He said one of the assailants fled the scene and remained at large.

"Fortunately, the attackers did not enter the rooms. The fighting took place inside the compound. A third fighter escaped and we are pursuing him. All the people in the hotel are safe," Mohamed said.

The development came as Somalia's legislators are set to elect the country's next president in the capital of Mogadishu later in the day.

Somali authorities have enforced a security lockdown of Mogadishu in order to step up safety across the capital ahead of the planned legislative process.

Somalia's Police Commander Mohamed Sheikh Hassan Haamud announced on Tuesday that security forces had blocked main roads and barred vehicles from driving near the secure airport compound.

"Police forces will secure the election scene and streets, and the vote will take place peacefully as planned," the police chief added.

National elections to elect members of the parliament were scheduled to be held early last year but the government decided to only hold a limited franchise election, in which ordinary people could not vote. Current lawmakers have been selected by clan elders over the past few months.

Now, after months of delay, 329 newly-sworn-in legislators will choose whether to back incumbent President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud for a second term on Wednesday.

Somalia has not seen a powerful central government since former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled by warlords in 1991. Since 2007, nearly 22,000 African Union peacekeeping forces have been deployed to the impoverished country in a bid to assist the government's battle against al-Shabab militants.

The group continues to wage terror attacks in Mogadishu despite having been flushed out of the capital and other major cities by the joint forces of the government and the African Union.

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Colombia's government, second major rebel group begin formal peace talks

Iran Press TV

Wed Feb 8, 2017 6:4AM

The government of Colombia and the National Liberation Army (ELN) rebel group have entered formal peace talks in an effort to end their long-time armed hostilities.

The Latin-American country's second-largest rebel group and Bogota began their formal talks in Ecuador on Tuesday. The ELN, founded by Catholic priests, has been engaged in on-and-off preliminary talks with the government since 2014.

They hope to achieve an accord similar to the one negotiated in 2016 with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the then-largest rebel group in Colombia. That historic deal has allowed the former FARC rebels to establish a political party in exchange for laying down arms.

"Fortunately, today in Colombia, we are trying to develop a political solution to the conflict," the ELN's negotiator Pablo Beltran said at the opening of the talks, which are being held outside the Ecuadorian capital of Quito.

The Colombian government's chief negotiator, Juan Camilo Restrepo, for his part, said that the two sides would remain "loyal" to the agenda of peace and try to move the negotiations forward as swiftly as possible.

"Peace is for all Colombians; it's peace for the region and a ray of hope for humanity. New generations, the victims of the conflict, and the whole world are waiting for us to be wise and big enough to overcome this futile war," Restrepo added.

The agenda of the talks with the 2,000-strong ELN will cover similar issues as those pursued formerly in the negotiations with the FARC, such as political participation, disarmament, and compensating victims.

Bogota and the FARC signed a revised peace pact in late 2016 following four years of delicate negotiations. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos was awarded the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to make peace with FARC.

More than 220,000 people have been killed during more than five decades of conflict between armed rebels and the government in Colombia.

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Lithuania hails arrival of German NATO battalion

Iran Press TV

Wed Feb 8, 2017 1:30AM

NATO has deployed hundreds of German troops to Lithuania as part of its multinational battalion aimed at bolstering its eastern flank against Russia.

The troops arrived on Tuesday and are part of one of the Western military alliance's four battalions serving on a rotational basis in Lithuania and three other European states.

The newly arrived Germans will head a group of soldiers from countries such as French, Holland, and Belgium who by Spring 2017 will reach the number of 1,200.

In January, a group of German officers arrived in Lithuanian capital Vilnius to organize ahead of the upcoming deployments.

Lithuania's President Dalia Grybauskaite hailed the battalion's arrival, stressing that NATO military buildup sends a strong message of unity.

"Never before has Lithuania hosted military forces of such size and integrity. It sends a very clear and important message to all that NATO stands strong and united," she said, adding, "NATO deterrence protects peace."

German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen was also present at the ceremony, during which she said the deployment showed that Lithuania was not alone.

The US and its allies have been at odds with Moscow since the strategic Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, controlled by Ukraine, joined Russia following a referendum in March 2014.

Western countries have been fearful of a repeat of that scenario in other countries, and have sought to step up their military presence in Eastern Europe.

Moscow is seriously wary of the US-led alliance's military buildup near its borders. In response to the aggressive measures, Russia has beefed up its southwestern military capacity, deploying nuclear-capable Iskander-M missiles to its Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad bordering Poland and Lithuania.

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Six Red Cross Workers Killed In Afghan Attack

RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan February 08, 2017

Six Afghan employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have been killed in an attack in the northern Afghan province of Jowzjan, officials say.

The international charity said on February 8 that another two ICRC workers remained unaccounted for.

"Devastated by this news out of #Afghanistan," ICRC President Peter Maurer said on Twitter. "My deepest condolences to the families of those killed -- and those still unaccounted for."

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but provincial Governor Mawlawi Lutfullah Azizi said suspected Islamic State (IS) gunmen were behind it.

Militants loyal to the IS group were "very active" in the area, he added.

Azizi also said the aid workers were in a convoy carrying supplies to areas hit by avalanches when they were attacked in the Qush Tepa district.

The Taliban, which frequently uses roadside bombs and suicide attacks to target officials and security forces across Afghanistan, denied involvement.

IS militants have made limited inroads in Afghanistan, but have carried out increasingly deadly attacks.

The killings come after a Spanish worker of the ICRC was abducted in northern Afghanistan in December and released less than a month later. The ICRC or Afghan officials did not say how he was freed or who was behind the abduction.

Also on February 8, the IS group claimed responsibility for a suicide attack that killed at least 20 people outside the Supreme Court in the capital, Kabul.

The bomber, identified as Abu Bakr Altajiki by the militants, detonated an explosive belt as court employees were leaving work in the evening of February 7.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer called the bombing a "cowardly attack" and said U.S. national security adviser Michael Flynn had phoned his Afghan counterpart, Mohammad Atmar, to "reaffirm our support to the Afghan government."

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, officials said a suicide bomber detonated his explosives at the gate of a district headquarters in the eastern province of Paktia, killing two civilians.

A guard was also wounded in the February 8 attack in Dand-e Patan district near the Pakistan border.

"The suicide bomber wanted to enter the district headquarters, but police identified and asked him to stop," provincial police chief Qadir Gul Zadran said. "The bomber immediately detonated his explosives."

No group has yet claimed responsibility for that attack.

With reporting by dpa, AP, Reuters, and AFP

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-jowzjan-red -cross-workers-killed/28297906.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Moldovan President Warns Against 'Rush' To Closer Ties With NATO

RFE/RL February 08, 2017

Moldova's pro-Russia President Igor Dodon has warned NATO against moving too quickly to seek closer ties with Moldova and opening a planned liaison office in Chisinau.

Speaking after talks with NATO deputy head Rose Gottermoeller on February 7, Dodon said the liaison office would be of no benefit to the majority of Moldovans and NATO should not "rush" to open it.

"For me, the opening of such an office is not helpful for the security of the people; it is a provocation set up by the previous government," he told reporters at NATO headquarters during his first visit to Brussels.

The Moldovan presidency is largely a symbolic position. Chisinau's government remains under the control of a coalition of pro-European integration parties.

Since being elected in December, however, Dodon has repeatedly said he wants to restore political and economic relations with Russia, reversing the closer NATO and European Union links championed by his predecessors. His first trip out of the country was to Moscow.

Gottermoeller described her talks with Dodon as "intensive positive discussions," but insisted that NATO will proceed with plans to open its liaison office in Chisinau later this year.

The new office will be similar to those set up in other countries, such as Russia or Ukraine, and will be staffed only by civilians, not by military personnel, she said.

"This is not a military base, but a small diplomatic mission staffed only by civilians," Gottemoeller said. "There will be no NATO troops in Moldova."

"It will increase transparency about what NATO does with Moldova," she said.

Disappointing Economic Performance

The U.S.-led military alliance fully understands Moldova's desire for neutrality and respects all nations' right to decide their own security arrangements, she said.

"Moldova does not want to join NATO," she said, but neutrality does not mean isolation. Gottermoeller added that the two parties had worked together in the past and she hoped they will do so in the future.

After a meeting later on February 7 with EU President Donald Tusk, Dodon said Moldova will cooperate with both the East and West, but its economic performance since signing an association agreement with the EU has been disappointing and it is important for Chisinau to resume stronger economic relations with Russia.

"We have failed to expand exports to the European Union but have lost the market in Russia, which used to be of major importance for our country for years," he said.

Since signing the free trade agreement with the EU in 2014, Dodon said trade and investment have been on a downtrend while public debt has exploded as a result of low economic growth.

Russia imposed customs duties on Moldovan imports after Chisinau signed the EU agreement -- a move that likely contributed to the disappointing economic performance Dodon cited.

With reporting by AFP, dpa, Interfax, and TASS

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/moldovan- president-dodon-warns-against-rush-closer- ties-nato-eu/28297036.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Irreplaceable? Pentagon to Keep Cold War-Era A-10 Until at Least 2021

Sputnik News

22:04 08.02.2017(updated 00:01 09.02.2017)

The US Air Force has decided to not retire the A-10 Warthog jet, until at least 2021, pushing back the original cutoff date by three years. The platform's future is uncertain, as officials grapple with questions such as whether the aircraft should be replaced to begin with.

On Tuesday, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein told reporters "We're going to keep them until 2021, and then as a discussion that we'll have with [Defense] Secretary [Jim] Mattis and the department and the review over all of our budgets, that is what will determine the way ahead," according to Defense News.

Goldfein said that, in the coming years the discussion around close-air support missions (CAS) should move from being "platform centric," focusing on how to sustain the Warthog, to how to develop a "family of systems," in which other aircraft can show their ability to support ground forces.

The general explained, "That starts with an understanding of how we do the business today of close-air support, because the reality is it's changed significantly, and it will change significantly in the future if we get this right, because this is something we've got to continue to think about."

Goldfein noted that, as head of Central Command's air component in 2011, he was able to successfully use different aircraft during an Afghanistan CAS mission, though sometimes different terrain called for different tactics.

Former Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced the delay in February 2016, after complaints from officials that a "valuable and effective" CAS would be lost if the A-10 went out of service as planned.

Military.com quoted Goldfein saying, "We're going to keep them through 2021. Then, as a result of a discussion we'll have with [Defense] Secretary Mattis and the department, and review all of our budgets  that's when we'll determine the way ahead."

In July 2016, writer Loren B. Thompson called tentative plans to replace the A-10 "incoherent" and "foolish," writing in National Interest, "With the Air Force already planning to buy a new bomber, tanker, fighter, trainer, radar plane and rescue helicopter at a time when federal deficits are surging back to over a trillion dollars per year, the A-X2 is unaffordable. And it is unneeded: the A-10 can do the close air support mission better than any low-cost replacement by relying on upgrades that are already in progress. It's an exceedingly tough plane, and the Air Force's contention that it costs more than a high-end fighter to operate simply isn't believable."

Though Goldfein said he intends to hold a demonstration for a light attack CAS plane dubbed the A-X2, the Air Force has not decided whether it will consider the craft for future use.

"Show me what you got that's off the shelf, that's shovel-ready, that can contribute right now without research-and-development dollars, that we can get into the fight right now," said Goldfein.

 Sputnik

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US to Continue Working With Yemen Against Al-Qaeda, Daesh - State Department

Sputnik News

21:24 08.02.2017

The United States will continue to work with Yemen's President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi in the fight against al-Qaeda and Daesh, US Department of State spokesman Mark Toner told Sputnik on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  Toner said Hadi had been a stalwart partner in the fight against Daesh and Yemen's al-Qaeda branch, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

"We will continue to work with him and his representatives to ensure that this important partnership remains solid in order to ultimately eradicate AQAP/ISIS [Daesh] from Yemen," Toner stated.

On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that Yemen had withdrawn permission for US forces to conduct special operations inside the country following January 29 operation that resulted in the deaths of civilians and a US Navy service member.

Toner noted the Yemeni foreign minister had denied the reports.

Earlier on Wednesday, Central Command spokesman Maj. Josh Jacques told Sputnik that US forces had not been ordered to cease operations or directed to halt operational planning.

 Sputnik

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US Forces Not Ordered to Cease Operations in Yemen - CENTCOM

Sputnik News

20:34 08.02.2017(updated 21:10 08.02.2017)

US forces have not been ordered to cease operations or planning in Yemen and will continue to conduct operations against al-Qaeda, Central Command spokesman Maj. Josh Jacques told Sputnik on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that Yemen had withdrawn permission for US forces to conduct special operations inside the country following January 29 operation that resulted in the deaths of civilians and a US Navy SEAL.

"Currently, we have not been ordered to stop conducting any operations nor have been directed to halt any operational planning," Jacques stated.

On January 29, the US Special Forces launched a raid in Yemen, killing 14 al-Qaeda militants as well as civilians, including the eight-year-old daughter of previously assassinated al-Qaeda leader Anwar Awlaki.

Jacques told Sputnik CENTCOM would continue to conduct operations in coordination with the government of Yemen to degrade, disrupt and destroy al-Qaeda.

The US Defense Department said the raid in the southern al-Bayda province killed 14 al-Qaeda members, and the White House said commandos had successfully captured intelligence.

 Sputnik

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Security Council, UNAMA condemn attack near Afghanistan's Supreme Court

8 February 2017  The Security Council and the United Nations political mission in Afghanistan have joined Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in condemning the deadly attack outside of the Supreme Court in Kabul.

"This attack is nothing short of an atrocity. Those responsible for planning and carrying out this horrendous act must be brought to justice," the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Afghanistan, Tadamichi Yamamoto, said in a statement issued earlier today.

Mr. Yamamoto, who is the head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), noted that the attack fits a pattern of violence against judicial authorities in recent years. Since 2015, UNAMA documented at least 74 attacks, which killed 89 people and injured 214 others.

The Mission "reminds all parties that judges and staff of civilian courts  including the Supreme Court  are civilians," the statement said. "Attacks intentionally targeting civilians are tantamount to war crimes."

At least 20 civilians, mostly female employees of the Supreme Court, were killed yesterday when a suicide attacker detonated a device outside the Court. No person or group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

Calling the killings "heinous" and "cowardly," the Council members late last night reiterated their serious concern at the threats posed by groups such as the Taliban, Al-Qaida, and the Islamic State (ISIL), on the local population, National Defence and Security Forces and the international presence in Afghanistan.

They also stressed that "no violent or terrorist acts can reverse the Afghan-led process along the path towards peace, democracy and stability in Afghanistan, which is supported by the people and the Government of Afghanistan and by the international community."

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EU may adopt decision on cancelling visas for Ukrainians by June

Ukraine's Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman believes the European Union's decision to introduce a visa-free regime for citizens of Ukraine may be adopted by June 2017.

"Now certain technical procedures will happen each month, which will allow somewhere by June I believe to reach a final decision," the prime minister said on the 112.ua TV Channel on Thursday.
Yemen: UN, partners seek $2.1 billion to stave off famine in 2017

8 February 2017  The United Nations and humanitarian partners today launched an international appeal for $2.1 billion to provide life-saving assistance to 12 million people in Yemen in 2017  the largest-ever humanitarian response plan for the war-torn country.

"Two years of war have devastated Yemen Without international support, they may face the threat of famine in the course of 2017 and I urge donors to sustain and increase their support to our collective response," said UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O'Brien in a press release on the launch of the Humanitarian Response Plan for Yemen in Geneva.

"Humanitarian partners are ready to respond. But they need timely, unimpeded access, and adequate resources, to meet the humanitarian needs wherever they arise," said Mr. O'Brien, who is also the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs.

He noted that since March 2015, violent conflict and disregard by all parties to the conflict for their responsibility to protect civilians have created a vast protection crisis in Yemen and millions of people face threats to their safety and basic human rights every day. In addition, deliberate war tactics are accelerating the collapse of key institutions and the economy, thereby exacerbating pre-existing vulnerabilities.

This has left an alarming 18.8 million people  more than two thirds of the population  in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which also estimates that 10.3 million people are acutely affected and nearly 3.3 million people  including 2.1 million children  are acutely malnourished.

"We remain committed to the principle that our plans must be grounded both in evidence and actual capacity, and I ask donors today to help Yemen in its moment of great need," said the Humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen, Jamie McGoldrick.

In 2016, 120 national and international partners including UN agencies and non-governmental organisations working out of humanitarian hubs in Aden, Al Hudaydah, Ibb, Sana'a, and Sa'ada assisted more than 5.6 million people with direct humanitarian aid.

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UN Launches $2.1B Emergency Appeal for Millions in War-Torn Yemen

By Lisa Schlein February 08, 2017

The United Nations has appealed for $2.1 billion to provide life-saving assistance this year to 12 million people in desperate need of help in conflict-ridden Yemen.

This is the largest consolidated appeal for Yemen since the Saudi-led coalition began bombing the country two years ago in support of the government in its battle against Houthi rebels.

U.N. officials said the amount of money needed was a symptom of the humanitarian crisis facing the war-torn country. They said airstrikes have demolished bridges, key roads, entire neighborhoods and a port, leaving millions of people without electricity, safe water and food.

Stephen O'Brien, under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, said 18.8 million people, or two-thirds of Yemen's population, needed humanitarian assistance.

"Immense human suffering is unfolding in front of our eyes," O'Brien said. "Yemen is one of the most food-insecure countries in the world. A staggering 7.3 million people do not know where their next meal is coming from."

O'Brien noted that malnutrition was rising at an alarming rate, with nearly 3.3 million people  including 2.1 million children  being acutely malnourished.

O'Brien said he was shocked at the skeletal condition of many of the people he saw when he visited Yemen a few months ago.

"Children and youth were stunted and severely malnourished, barely holding on to their lives, and that was five months ago," he said. "Since then, the situation in Yemen has just simply gotten worse.

"It is particularly under-5s, mothers, lactating mothers, in particular, and women, the elderly, the chronically sick, who get particularly caught up with this," O'Brien told VOA. "In 2016, we were able to reach over 5.6 million people and this year, as is pretty clear from the numbers, we must reach even more."

'Life and death decisions'

Humanitarian chief O'Brien warned that without immediate action "and despite the ongoing humanitarian efforts, famine is now a real possibility for 2017."

Jamie McGoldrick, the U.N.'s humanitarian coordinator in Yemen since December 2015, has watched this situation unfold and says many Yemenis are forced to make difficult choices just to survive.

"Fishermen cannot fish, farmers cannot farm, civil servants do not get paid," McGoldrick told VOA. "What you have now is a situation of a 23-month conflict, which has slowed down the ability of people to have a productive capacity" and to cope with this crisis.

"What you have is people having to make life and death decisions," he said. "Do you feed your child or your children or do you pay for medical treatment for the sick child?

"And, that is a daily call for many families," he said.

Yemen traditionally has been one of the five poorest countries in the world. McGoldrick said the two-year-long civil war has increased the fragility of communities.

He said people were so poor they were unable to afford travel to feeding centers or to hospitals where they could find help.

"There are many people dying silent deaths," he said, noting their deaths go "unrecorded and unrecognized because 50 percent of health facilities do not function" and people do not have the money to send their children to these facilities.

Humanitarian coordinator McGoldrick said that around 7,500 people have been killed and 40,000 injured since the war began; but, he added, these "officially arrived numbers" cannot be verified because people "die at home and are buried before they are ever recorded."

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'Weak' Taliban Leadership May Present Opportunity for Peace

By Henry Ridgwell February 08, 2017

Civilian casualties in Afghanistan rose to a new high in 2016 amid the ongoing Taliban insurgency, with 3,500 killed and close to 8,000 wounded, the United Nations reported Monday. But a new analysis suggests the Taliban is deeply divided, presenting an opportunity for "insurgent peace-making."

A study based on dozens of interviews with Taliban insiders suggests exploiting fractures within the group's rank and file.

There were "senior commanders who were, in a sense, using suicide attacks to build up their reputation," said professor Theo Farrell of the Royal United Services Institute, a co-author of the report. "So there are large parts of the Taliban that are fully committed to the fight, but there is a potential here, nonetheless, to de-escalate the conflict."

That potential, according to Farrell, lies in the weakness of the Taliban's leadership.

The new leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, is widely seen as "weak and divisive leader," Farrell said. "Many of our interviewees referred to him simply as a symbolic leader. The real power in the Taliban lies elsewhere. And so, therefore, there is a view among the rank and file that, effectively, the movement has become leaderless."

Informal peace talks have taken place between the government and the Taliban leadership. However, senior Taliban commanders have demanded that the 13,000 NATO-led foreign troops in Afghanistan withdraw before formal talks begin.

Speaking in December, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani blamed the continuing bloodshed on Pakistan's failure to take on militant groups in its territory; Islamabad denies the charge.

"Some still provide sanctuary in support or tolerate these networks," Ghani said. "As [Mullah Rahmatullah] Kakazada, one of the key figures in the Taliban movement, recently said, 'If they did not have sanctuary in Pakistan, they would not last a month.'"

Farrell argues the senior Taliban leadership should be circumvented, enabling dissenting commanders to meet and forge a common purpose of ending the conflict.

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Cameroon Ups Support for Vigilantes Against Boko Haram

By Moki Edwin Kindzeka February 08, 2017

Officials in northern Cameroon say Boko Haram is hitting back against regional military pressure with suicide attacks. Rarely a week goes by without reports of a bombing. To protect border communities, Cameroon is reinforcing the capabilities of local self-defense groups who help the military.

Music is played to welcome 200 recruits of the self-defense group in Mora on Cameroon's northern border with Nigeria.

Among the thousands witnessing the exercise is Far North region Governor Midjiyawa Bakari.

The governor told the recruits President Paul Biya has instructed him to visit all border localities to congratulate and encourage self-defense groups and traditional rulers that have been courageously defending people from Boko Haram.

Regional troops said they have pushed the terrorists from much of the territory they once occupied. But Boko Haram has resorted to a campaign of suicide attacks, often targeting civilians.

The governor gave the vigilantes in Mora motorcycles, bicycles, metal detectors and cash to help with their efforts.

Dale Paul leads the self-defense group in Mora. He said they are more than ever before determined to eradicate suicide bombings in their locality.

There have been concerns about relying on vigilantes, including about the possibility of human rights violations. Last year, some members of self-defense groups were arrested and dismissed on suspicion Boko Haram had infiltrated their ranks.

But officials said the self-defense groups are doing much needed work that saves lives. This is their home, they know their way around, and they share intelligence with the military.

VOA joined members of the Mora self-defense group in the field.

Strong winds blow over the village late Tuesday. Eighty vigilantes armed with machetes, bow and arrows, knives, metal detectors and spears gathered to take over from those who worked the afternoon. While the military is tasked with protecting the nation's border, the self-defense group makes sure no stranger enters their village.

Group leader Kaadil Ousmanou said they have been given cell phones to call the military when they see suspects.

He said they are sacrificing for the well-being of their village.

VOA could not join them on their patrol near the border. The military said it was not safe.

Mora village chief Joseph Manaouda said thanks to the vigilantes, the population can sleep at night.

He said self-defense groups may not have guns, but they have succeeded in stopping so many attacks. Manaouda said when the vigilantes stop suspicious people from crossing into Cameroon, they also inform Nigerian traditional rulers across the border. The vigilantes also communicate with Nigerian self-defense groups about suspects crossing the border, he said.

Several dozen self-defense group members have been killed in northern Cameroon.

Sali Ali Mahamat said he narrowly escaped death. The 44-year-old had been assigned to the islands of Lake Chad with his two brothers, who are boatmen.

He said two armed Boko Haram fighters forced them at gun point to sail through Lake Chad to a village in Cameroon. He said he knew that they would be killed after rendering the service so he attacked one of the terrorists and they fell into the lake.

Mahamat said his two brothers attacked the other terrorist while other boatmen called the military, which came to their rescue. He walked away with a bullet in his right hand and was treated at a government hospital for free.

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Dual US-Somali Citizen is Somalia's New President-elect

By Dan Joseph February 08, 2017

Somali lawmakers elected a new president Wednesday, choosing a former prime minister who is a dual U.S.-Somali citizen.

Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, better known as "Farmajo," was declared the winner after two rounds of voting by the Somali parliament in Mogadishu.

Farmajo won the largest share of votes in the second round, far outdistancing incumbent leader Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and former president Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

Mohamud conceded defeat after the vote count, and the crowd inside a venue at Mogadishu's international airport erupted into cheers. Witnesses tell VOA's Somali service that celebrations -- and celebratory gunfire -- have broken out in the streets of the Somali capital.

The new president was quickly sworn in and pledged to improve security, fight corruption and assist the poor.

Planted roots in Buffalo, NY

Farmajo, 54, has spent much of his adult life in the city of Buffalo, New York, where he raised a family and held various jobs in the the New York state government.

But he maintained contact with Somali politics and served eight months as Somali prime minister during 2010 and 2011, at the height of the insurgency by Islamist militant group al-Shabab.

Al-Shabab threatened to disrupt the voting Wednesday but the election went off peacefully. African Union peacekeepers and government forces imposed tight security, sealing off all roads to the airport. All flights to and from the airport were canceled.

Alleged corruption

Ahead of the vote, candidates allegedly paid lawmakers millions of dollars in cash and gifts in an effort to win support. Election organizers had lawmakers drop their ballots in a transparent box, then counted the votes in front of the crowd to head off any charges of trickery.

Farmajo faces the task of eliminating al-Shabab and stabilizing a country that has seen almost continuous conflict since the early 1990s. Al-Shabab has repeatedly sent suicide bombers into Mogadishu hotels where lawmakers, diplomats and businessmen gather, in an effort to destabilize the fragile government.

In addition, aid agencies have warned of a possible famine affecting hundreds of thousands of Somalis due to violence and renewed drought.

Reporters Harun Maruf and Mohamed Olad Hassan of VOA's Somali Service contributed to this report

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Armies in Beijing stop providing paid services for civilians

People's Daily Online

(CRI Online) 20:40, February 08, 2017

Military forces in Beijing will no longer provide paid services including medical treatment, education, scientific research, warehousing, publishing, and literature and art related services and products to civilians.

The aim is to keep the military focused on their main task of fighting.

The measure is part of a national campaign, proposed by President Xi Jinping back in 2015, to stop all compensable services offered by troops and armed police in the country within three years.

Paid services for civilians have been backed by surplus military assets, and the income has been designed to enrich funds for troops, improve the efficiency of surplus resources, and polish the skills of military professionals.

Economists say at present 90% of patients consulting military hospitals are civilians.

But as business expanded, the armed forces found themselves pouring more and more energy into making money, which led in some cases to corruption and got in the way of regular training.

Gong Fangbin from the National Defense University of People's Liberation Army said the current campaign is aimed at purifying the lives of troops and preventing them from being distracted. Armed forces are born for warfare, he said, and so too much involvement in the social economy will undermine their nature and image.

In addition to distracting energy, operating businesses makes the distribution of benefits uneven and unfair within the military, because basic troops in rural areas may not have the resources to earn extra profits, whereas some urban troops are resourceful and thus have access to more profits, he said.

Military economists say that some military individuals even use the money to fill their own pockets by illegally transferring military assets to certain groups or enterprises.

Gong predicted that many services, especially military hospitals, might eventually be transferred to local governments.

Up to 2016, 40% of paid-service projects have been stopped nationwide. In the phase, policies on the placement and security guarantee of personnel, and legal mechanisms will be introduced.

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Abductees Remain Casualties of Nuclear Stand-off with North Korea

By Brian Padden February 08, 2017

Human rights and abductee advocacy groups say time is running out for many desperate and frustrated South Korean families seeking to resolve the fate of loved ones abducted by North Korea.

These abduction cases remain unresolved, as escalating inter-Korean tensions over the North's nuclear program have blocked any cooperation on humanitarian issues.

South Korean groups representing the abductee families appealed this week to the media in Seoul to keep the issue alive. They complain that their own government has forsaken them to prioritize either engaging or pressuring the North to halt its nuclear program.

"It hurts my heart that there is nothing we can do," said Lee Mi-il.

Lee's father, a factory owner in Seoul, was taken by the North during the 1950-53 Korean War. She was 18 months old at the time and is now in her late sixties. Lee has spent her life trying to bring her father and other abductees home as president of the Korean War Abductees' Family Union.

Cold war casualties

After the end of fighting, North Korea returned most prisoners-of-war, but reportedly forced thousands of South Korean citizens to remain, to help rebuild national industries, schools and other basic state functions. And in the decades after, thousands more were believed to abducted by North Korea. Most of them were fishermen, who were purportedly taken to gain intelligence or serve some propaganda purpose in the ongoing inter-Korean cold war.

Some were detained for political reasons or because their backgrounds were suspect. During the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s, approximately 30 South Korea soldiers fighting with U.S. troops were captured by North Vietnamese forces, and later sent to North Korea, according to the group The Family Union of the Vietnam War POW and Abductee.

In 1969, Hwang In-cheol's father was among the 47 passengers and crew aboard a Korea Air (KAL) airliner that was hijacked into North Korea. Most were released under intense international pressure, but 11 of them, including Hwang's father, who was a journalist and outspoken critic of the then Kim Il Sung regime, were not allowed to return nor permitted to communicate with their families.

"If your family member was abducted and you could not find out the status of the family member, and could not find a solution to resolve the problem, or didn't know about the pain your family member was having, can you imagine how painful this situation would be?" asked Hwang.

For almost two decades, Hwang has advocated for the return of his father and other abductees as a representative of the KAL Abductees' Repatriation Committee.

Today over 500 Korean victims are still being held in the North, and of that number 300 are more than 70 years old, according to the Citizen's Alliance for North Korean Human Rights (NKHR), an advocacy group that has worked closely on this issue with victims' families and the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID.)

Families of abductees forsaken

In the wake of North Korea's fourth nuclear test last year, the Seoul government suspended all remaining cooperative programs, including inter-Korean family reunions, and cut all lines of communication with Pyongyang.

The abductee families say South Korea is treating them as inconvenient casualties of the division of Korea, and is unwilling to negotiate for their release. But their anguish propels them forward, and they refuse to stop trying to find out what happened to their loved ones, to bring them home alive or have their remains sent to family burial sites.

Choi Sung-yong presumes his father, who was abducted in the 1950s, is now dead. He leads the Representative of the Abductee's Family Union. While Choi understands South Korea's national security concerns, he said the government could at least privately share with families whatever information it has on the abductees.

"The National Intelligence Service should find out how the abductee is doing and for example, who the abductee got married to, and when he or she died," said Choi.

Letter to President Trump

Lee Jae-ho has been waiting for 60 years to find out what happened to his father, who he said was abducted during the Korean War. He even wrote a letter to U.S. President Donald Trump to intercede on his behalf, as his father was a patriot that helped the Americans during the war.

"I would like to ask if the U.S. can try to confirm the status of abductees and the repatriation of corpses. There is no way to find this out in South Korea. I have seen in reports in the U.S. media that corpses of U.S. soldiers were repatriated from North Korea," he said.

It is unlikely President Trump will take up the issue. But Lee said he is so frustrated with South Korea's unwillingness or inability to help, he does not know where else to turn.

When contacted through the United Nations, North Korea has been uncooperative and has denied charges of forced disappearances and abductions, saying people are not being forced to stay in the country against their will.

North Korea also stands accused of abducting a number of foreign nationals in the 1970s and 1980s, and admitted in 2002 to kidnapping 13 Japanese citizens who were reportedly used to train spies.

An agreement between Japan and North Korea to ease some sanctions in exchange for an investigation into the status of abduction victims fell apart in the last year over Pyongyang's lack of cooperation and its continued testing of nuclear weapons.

Youmi Kim contributed to this report.

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India Provides Dedicated Technology Development Fund For Private Defense Firms

Sputnik News

09:17 08.02.2017(updated 09:30 08.02.2017)

Indian government has decided to provide state funding to private sector companies to curb dependency on foreign countries for cutting edge defense technologies.

New Delhi (Sputnik)  In a bid to push domestic manufacturing, Indian government has decided to provide special fund to small defense manufacturing companies for developing new technologies. Termed as technology develop fund, Indian government will provide a sum of $1.5 million to every defense technology project of the firm. Fund is limited to development of technologies or prototype of product having potential use for the Services and typical development period of two years.

"Scheme has been started to promote self-reliance in Defense Technology as a part of the 'Make in India' initiative. It will encourage participation of private industries especially micro, small and medium enterprises so as to create an eco-system for enhancing cutting edge technology capability for defense application," says Defense Research and Development Organization official.

Special fund for development of cutting edge technology was muted in year 2011 by previous government but could not find any corpus from annual budget.

"There are no clear indications of a big push being given to what could loosely be called Make-in-India in defense," says Amit Cowshish, former financial advisor to the Ministry of Defense. Nevertheless, special fund to develop prototype is a very significant step towards giving push to private defense manufacturing.

Indian government has allocated $4.5 million for Indian Army and $2.1 million for Indian Air Force. "One is not sure how many projects the ministry is aiming to  or could possibly  take up under the 'Make' procedure during the next fiscal i.e. during April 17 to March 18," Cowshish added.

Currently, most of defense research projects are undertaken by government controlled DRDO, based on the priorities of Armed Forces and existing capabilities. "According highest preference to purchase of Indian designed, developed and manufactured defense equipment in acquisition, and some changes in Defense Procurement Procedure 2016 are expected to catalyze investment into defense research, development and innovation," says Subhash Bhamre, India's Minister of State for Defense.

 Sputnik

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Iran's missile test not violating UNSC resolution: Russian envoy to UN

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Moscow, Feb 8, IRNA -- Technically or legally, one cannot argue that Iranians are violating any kind of prohibition imposed by the UN Security Council Resolution 2231, Russia's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin said.

Moscow hopes the tensions between the new White House administration, Iran and China will not result in any serious international showdown, the Russian envoy to the UN told Russia Today on Tuesday, adding that the current rhetoric appears to be an emotional response to reality.

Commenting on recent anti-Iranian remarks by US President Donald Trump, Churkin pointed to the active role the Islamic Republic is playing in the fight against Daesh and acknowledged that Washington and Moscow "have differences in a number of areas, including on the role of Iran."

With that, Churkin believes that some of the recent US rhetoric on Iran might have been influenced by emotions rather than rational policy-making and cold, hard facts.

"In international life, you have to differentiate between your emotions, what you want to see and what you have the right to expect from another country," he said.

"On this outcry about Iran's ballistic missile launches, I was surprised to hear even American experts speaking on CNN and calling it a violation of bans by the UN Security Council. Those bans were there before, all those bans were lifted," Churkin said.

The UNSC resolution only "calls" on Iran not to conduct tests of ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons but does not impose any ban, he explained.

Moreover, any such capability has to be proven before accusations are voiced, he argued.

"So it's just a call, not a prohibition. Technically or legally you cannot argue that they are violating any kind of a prohibition," Churkin said.

Following the test of a medium-range ballistic missile by Iran on January 29, the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, decried it as "absolutely unacceptable" and vowed retaliatory measures.

For its part, Iran reiterated that it had not breached any of its international obligations, stressing that "it will not allow foreigners to interfere in our defense affairs."

Churkin believes that the existing tensions between the US and Iran would not result in a full-blown military conflict, although it could possibly influence US-Russian ties.

9191**1771

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Iran, Russia convergence in implementation of JCPOA outcomes of talks

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Moscow, Feb 8, IRNA -- Deputy Foreign Ministers of Iran and Russia Abbas Araqchi and Sergei Ryabkov in their Wednesday meeting underlined continuation of convergence between the two countries in implementation of Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to the final point.

Senior nuclear negotiators of Iran and Russia in their three-hour discussions, held in Moscow on Wednesday, called importance of continuation of implementation of JCPOA and necessity to practice signatories commitments.

Ryabkov said that JCPOA was the main topics of our discussion, as a factor to stabilize international relations.

Araqchi said that different grounds for cooperation to continue implementation of JCPOA were discussed.

Iran's Ambassador to Moscow Mehdi Sanaeei was also present in the meeting.

Deputy Foreign Minister for legal and international affairs Abbas Araqchi said that exchanging views, interaction and convergence against challenges and regional problems and expansion of consultations between Russia and Iran are welcomed by us.

Abbas Araqchi arrived in Moscow on Wednesday morning to negotiate with his Russian counterpart on JCPOA and bilateral relations.

Russia, China, France and Britain are four permanent members of the UN Security Council accompany with European Union and Germany have repeatedly underlined that JCPOA is an international document, which confirmed by the UNSC and is enforceable .

1391**2050

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On Friday, February 10, at 12.30, the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency's press center will host a press conference "Political Spring: Headed for Turbulence?" The participants will include Director of the Institute of Global Strategies Vadym Karasiov, expert of the Gardarica Strategic Consulting Corporation Kostiantyn Matviyenko, and director of the Ukrainian Barometer sociological service Viktor Nebozhenko (8/5a Reitarska Street). Registration requires press accreditation.
Iran urges Europe's active role in execution of JCPOA

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Berlin, Feb 8, IRNA -- Visiting Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for European and American Affairs Majid Takht-e Ravanchi called for Europe's active cooperation for successful execution of Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action particularly in banking field.

Ravanchi who is in Berlin upon an official invitation from his German counterpart to discuss issues of mutual interests gave a speech at the Corber Foundation in Berlin on Tuesday.

He expounded on Islamic Republic viewpoints and policies towards the latest developments in the region and the world and answered the questions posed by the audience.

Ravanchi reviewed the process of execution of JCPOA in the past one year and presented a comprehensive analysis of achievements got, the challenges met and the obstacles on the way forward.

He pointed to breach of JCPOA by the US and called for Europe's active cooperation for successful execution of Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action particularly in banking field.

Takht-e Ravanchi discussed the latest developments in relations between Iran-Europe, Iran-Germany, as well as the issues related to Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Iraq and the Persian Gulf.

The German audience present in the Corber Foundation called for closer cooperation between Iran and Germany.

9191**1771

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Iran committed to implementing nuclear deal  Iranian deputy FM

ISNA - Iranian Students' News Agency

Wed / 8 February 2017 / 14:45

Tehran (ISNA) - Iran is committed to implementing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iranian deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said in Moscow, Sputnik reported.

"Iran, as we all are, is committed to its obligations under the JCPOA," Araghchi said Wednesday at the start of talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Ryabkov.

Referring to the JCPOA, Araghchi said Tehran looks forward to "exchange views and discuss the challenges the agreement faces today."

"In the past, our dialogue was very fruitful and we hope for its similar character in the future," the Iranian diplomat said.

Ryabkov expressed hope that his meeting with Araghchi would be productive in implementing the nuclear agreement, which he called a "stabilizing element in international relations."

Araghchi arrived in Moscow on Wednesday (8 February) for one-day visit.

End Item

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U.S' consensus-building power waned more than ever: Rouhani

ISNA - Iranian Students' News Agency

Wed / 8 February 2017 / 15:36

Tehran (ISNA)  United States' consensus-building power has shrunk more than ever, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani insisted on Wednesday in a meeting with foreign minister and the minister of petroleum of Venezuela in Tehran.

Developing ties with Latin American countries is very important for Iran said President Rouhani.

At the meeting with foreign minister Delcy Rodriguez and petroleum minister Nelson Pablo Martinez, President Rouhani said: "Tehran is willing to deepen ties with Latin American countries, especially Venezuela in political, economic and cultural fields".

He emphasized that the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) should have a role and continued: "all members of the NAM should join hands for the organization to play a more active role in regional and international issues".

Referring to Iran and Venezuela's common views on most international issues, he added: "independence and resistance against countries that are following unilateral approaches in the world is one of the key principles of Iran and Venezuela's foreign policy as two independent countries".

"The current conditions of the world require independent countries, especially the non-aligned ones, to rely on their own nation and act more united against unilateralism, extremism, and violence," he stated.

Also referring to the successful steps taken by oil-producing countries in Algeria meeting, Rouhani added: "all oil-producing countries, be member or non-members of the OPEC, must attempt to raise oil prices to a stable and fair point for the producers and consumers".

In this meeting by conveying the Venezuelan President's written message to Rouhani, Delcy Rodriguez said that Caracas was determined to deepen its ties with Tehran in all fields.

She also referred to Algeria meeting and said: "all oil-producing countries should implement the Algeria agreement for a more balanced market and stabilized oil prices".

End Item

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Iran missile work not violating UN bans: Russia's Churkin

Iran Press TV

Wed Feb 8, 2017 9:46AM

A senior Russian diplomat has expressed surprise at an outcry provoked by the new US administration over Iranian missile work, saying Tehran's missile tests are not violating any UN bans, legally speaking.

"This outcry about Iran's ballistic missile launches. I was surprised to hear even American experts speaking on CNN and calling it a violation of bans by the UN Security Council," said Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin in an interview with RT published Tuesday.

He was referring to Resolution 2231 adopted by the Security Council in July 2015 to underpin the landmark nuclear deal inked days earlier between Tehran and the P5+1 group of states, namely Russia, China, France, Britain, the US plus Germany.

The document terminated the provisions of previous UN resolutions, calling on Iran "not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology."

Explaining the legal language used in Resolution 2231, Churkin said the document merely "calls" on Tehran not to conduct tests of missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons, but does not impose any ban on Tehran.

"Those bans were there before, all those bans were lifted," said the Russian official. "Technically or legally you cannot argue that they are violating any kind of a prohibition."

He also said no evidence has been provided to support the claims that Tehran's missiles are capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

Late last month, Washington's UN envoy Nikki Haley slammed a missile test by Iran as "absolutely unacceptable."

US President Donald Trump's National Security Advisor Michael Flynn also said following the January 29 test that Washington was "officially putting Iran on notice," claiming that the launch was "in defiance of UN Security Council Resolution 2231."

The Islamic Republic has, on numerous occasions, asserted that its missiles are not designed to be capable of carrying nuclear warheads, and that it is not involved in such missile work.

In March 2016, Russia blocked the potential ratification of a United Nations Security Council resolution against Iranian missile tests in a session called by the former US administration.

Explaining Russia's opposition to an anti-Iran resolution, Churkin said back then that in the view of veto-wielding Russia, Resolution 2231, which endorsed a nuclear deal between Iran and six other countries, did not legally prohibit Iranian ballistic missile tests.

He said the text explicitly did not ban Iranian missile test-launches.

"A call is different from a ban, so, legally, you cannot violate a call, you can comply with a call or you can ignore the call, but you cannot violate a call," Churkin said. "The legal distinction is there."

Elsewhere in the interview, Churkin warned that the United States' tensions with Iran might work to affect Moscow's relations with Washington.

"There are so many complexities, so many issues which can create additional problems, including problems which might affect our relations with the US," he said.

The envoy cautioned the US against behaving emotionally instead of relying on facts when it comes to Iran.

"In international life, you have to differentiate between your emotions, what you want to see and what you have the right to expect from another country," he said.

Churkin further took on US President Donald Trump's recent comment to Fox News that the Islamic Republic is "terrorist state number one."

The envoy pointed to the active role the Islamic Republic is playing in the fight against the Daesh Takfiri terror group, which is mainly active in Syria and Iraq.

Iran has been providing military advisory support to the countries' respective militaries in their fight against the terrorists, an assistance that has been met with appreciation from both governments.

On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also reacted to Trump's remarks, saying, "We disagree with this postulate."

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Libyans must make 2017 the 'year of decisions,' UN envoy tells Security Council

8 February 2017  Still seeking to implement a political accord signed more than a year ago, Libyans must make 2017 "the year of decisions" and political breakthrough, the United Nations envoy for the North African country urged today.

"We are beginning to see an emerging consensus among parties. 2017 must be a year of decisions and political breakthrough," Martin Kobler, the Secretary-General Special Representative and head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), told the UN Security Council.

He noted that 2016 was spent seeking to implement the agreement and begin the re-establishment of State authority across the country.

Despite some gains, "Libyans are not in a position to address the root causes of divisions," he cautioned, stressing that some important decisions must be taken, including on possible amendments to the political agreement, on ways to form a strong army and police force, and on how best to utilize the revenues from oil and gas exports for the benefit of all Libyans and end the dire humanitarian situation in the country.

Mr. Kobler said many meetings have taken place to discuss amendments to the agreement, including the question of the Supreme Commandership of the army and the future composition and role of the Presidency Council.

On the security front, he said that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da'esh) terrorist group, which one year ago was expanding its territory in Libya, now controls none. However, it still poses a threat and the fight against terrorism is far from over, he added.

"The country's borders remain porous. Terrorists, human and weapons traffickers and criminal gangs continue to exploit the security vacuum," he warned, welcoming the initiative of the neighbouring States to form a panel of experts to develop recommendations on how to improve regional border security.

The on-going formation of the Presidential Guard is a step in the right direction but is a transitional measure until a unified Libyan army is formed.

Turning to the economy and finance, he said that despite its wealth and abundant natural resources, the country saw living conditions and public services deteriorate over the past years. However, oil production has increased to over 700,000 barrels per day, and the 2017 budget has been agreed at 37.5 billion Libyan dinars (about $26 billion).

"This is an opportunity to address much-needed service delivery," in particular in the area of health, he said.

Mr. Kobler also voiced concerns about the human rights abuses against migrants, especially those in detention centres.

In January, a workshop was held in Malta with Libyan experts and activists, to establish a roadmap for national reconciliation. "A process is needed to heal the wounds of years of conflict and oppression," he said.

"I am hopeful that with bold decisions and actions we will witness a political breakthrough that can place Libya on the path of peace, prosperity and stability," he concluded.

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Myanmar crackdown has allegedly killed 1,000 Rohingya: UN officials

Iran Press TV

Wed Feb 8, 2017 3:33PM

More than 1,000 Rohingya Muslims have allegedly been killed in Myanmar amid the army's intensified crackdown on members of the minority group, two senior United Nations officials have disclosed the horrifying fact.

The officials, dealing with Rohingya refugees fleeing violence in Myanmar, said on Wednesday that the death toll from the carnage had been far greater than previously reported.

The officials said the world had yet to fully grasp the dimensions of the human tragedy that had been unfolding in Rakhine, a Muslim-dominated state in northwestern Myanmar, which has seen tens of thousands flee to neighboring Bangladesh as a result of the army crackdown.

"The talk until now has been of hundreds of deaths. This is probably an underestimation, we could be looking at thousands," said one of the officials, citing information his agency had gathered from refugees in Bangladesh camps over the past four months.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the weight of the testimony gathered from the refugees could verify conclusions that the death toll had already exceeded 1,000.

Officials in Myanmar's government insist that fewer than 100 have been killed since the army began an operation against residents of Rakhine in October. The operation was launched after the military claimed that Rohingya militants had attacked police border posts and killed several officers.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) earlier indicated that mass killings and gang rape had happened in Rakhine in recent months, saying that could have amounted to crimes against humanity.

The OHCHR cited evidence from refugees as well as satellite imagery showing destruction of villages.

A second UN official, also operating for an agency in Bangladesh, said on Wednesday that the OHCHR report on the situation, which was based on interviews with 220 people, was only "the tip of the iceberg."

A separate, internal UN analysis, which has reportedly used a larger sample size, has revealed that more than 350 people from a single village have either been killed or remain unaccounted for after the army crackdown.

Myanmar's presidential spokesman, Zaw Htay, said on Wednesday that the death of more than a thousand, as claimed by UN officials, should be checked on the ground.

"Their number is much greater than our figure," said the official, without elaborating.

Myanmar denies citizenship to more than 1.1 million Rohingya living in the country, with Buddhist officials still insisting that members of the community all illegally crossed the border from Bangladesh over the past decades.

Rights groups and governments have repeatedly challenged the claim as historic documents show that Muslims have had historic roots in Myanmar.

The UN says about 69,000 people have escaped from Rakhine into Bangladesh since the violence began last year.

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Russia's Putin orders snap Air Force drills

Iran Press TV

Wed Feb 8, 2017 6:27AM

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered snap drills by the country's Air Force to evaluate its preparedness against potential aggression, according to the Russian defense minister.

The minister, Sergei Shoigu, said an inspection was launched on Tuesday "in accordance with the order of the Armed Forces Supreme Commander," a reference to President Putin.

The Russian president emphasized that "special attention should be paid to combat alert, deployment of air defense systems for a time of war and air groupings' readiness to repel the aggression," Shoigu explained, adding that Putin thus ordered tactical drills at all relevant military bases and within all relevant units.

The military drills are the latest in a series of Russian maneuvers aimed at strengthening the armed forces.

Western media have, meanwhile, accused Moscow of preparing to start an aggression. This is while Ukraine, a country in conflict with Russia, has been carrying out naval exercises along with six NATO members in the Black Sea near Russia.

According to Romania, which is hosting the war games, 16 warships and 10 warplanes along with some 2,800 troops from Ukraine, Romania, Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, Canada, and the US are taking part in the naval drill.

NATO, which has suspended all ties with Moscow since April 2014, has also deployed thousands of its troops as well as military hardware near Russian borders.

Russia had previously warned that it would take unspecified measures to respond to the increased activities by the Western military bloc.

The armed conflict in Ukraine's east has soured relations between Russia and the West.

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McCain slams Trump for US-Russia comparison

Iran Press TV

Wed Feb 8, 2017 1:54AM

US Republican Senator John McCain has harshly criticized a recent argument by President Donald Trump that Washington and Moscow are morally equivalent.

In a speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday, McCain said there cannot be any comparison on moral grounds between Russia, led by President Vladimir Putin, and the United States.

"There is no moral equivalence between that butcher and thug and KGB colonel and the United States of America. The country that Ronald Reagan used to call a shining city on a hill," the US senator said.

McCain added that to "allege some kind of moral equivalence between the two is either terribly misinformed or incredibly biased. Neither can be accurate in any way."

The Arizona senator made the comments after Trump told Fox News that it would be unfair to characterize the Russian president as a "killer" because there have been many killers in the United States and Washington is not so innocent.

McCain also listed a number of Putin's critics and journalists, allegedly been killed by the government in Russia.

Two days earlier, another Republican senator, Mitch McConnell, had also appeared on CNN, rejecting any "equivalency" between the two states.

McCain, however, has been a virulent critic of Russia and the new US president, who has repeatedly cast doubt over the claim that Russia launched cyberattacks on the US during the last year's presidential election.

On December 22, former US president Barack Obama announced a series of economic sanctions against Russia, as well as expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats, over allegations that it interfered in the 2016 presidential election through widespread hacking attacks.

McCain argued that punitive measures against Russia were imposed in response to the Kremlin's interfering actions in Ukraine and Syria. He also stressed that Moscow was still unwilling to change its behavior and therefore Washington should keep the sanctions in place.

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Russian Oppositionist Navalny Calls Latest Conviction 'Telegram From Kremlin'

RFE/RL February 08, 2017

A court in the Russian city of Kirov has found opposition political activist and anticorruption campaigner Aleksei Navalny guilty of embezzlement.

Judge Aleksei Vtyurin said on February 8 that the trial had established that Navalny "organized the commission of a crime" and sentenced him to a five-year suspended prison term.

Co-defendant Pyotr Ofitserov was also convicted, and he was given a four-year suspended sentence. Both men were fined 500,000 rubles ($8,350).

Both Navalny and Ofitserov maintained their innocence, and Navalny said the charges against him were politically motivated and aimed at preventing him from running for president.

"What we have seen is a sort of telegram from the Kremlin," Navalny said after the verdict, "a telegram saying that [the authorities] believe that I, my team, and the people whose views I voice, are too dangerous to be allowed to take part in the election campaign."

The conviction renders Navalny ineligible for public office, according to Russian law. However, Leonid Volkov, who is managing Navalny's campaign for the 2018 presidential election, said the February 8 ruling would have "no impact."

After the trial, Navalny said he would appeal the verdict, meaning that he can continue his political activities while his appeal is pending.

The text of the verdict was virtually identical to the verdict read out by another judge in the 2013 trial. As the judge was reading, Navalny was posting on Twitter photographs of the old verdict in advance for comparison.

After the hearing, Navalny said that because the text of the verdict was the same and because it had already been overturned, he was confident his appeal will succeed.

The defendants have said they will file a complaint regarding the court's ruling with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), if necessary.

The EU's foreign-policy office said in a statement that the verdict against Navalny was an attempt "to silence yet another independent political voice" in Russia that "further constrains political pluralism...and raises serious questions as to the fairness of democratic processes in Russia."

Michael Georg Link, director of the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), expressed concern over Navalny's conviction, saying in a statement that the ruling "appears to have been handed down with the purpose of limiting his political rights -- including the right to stand for office."

Opposition politician Vladimir Milov told the BBC that the verdict was "widely expected" and expressed confidence Navalny would proceed with his election campaign.

Former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, now an opposition politician, denounced the verdict as "a political decision that has no basis in law."

"The Kremlin is taking revenge on Navalny for his anticorruption investigations and does not want him to have access to the national television channels with his anticorruption agenda," Kasyanov wrote on Facebook.

Navalny and Ofitserov were retried on charges of embezzling funds from the state-controlled forestry company KirovLes after the Supreme Court last year nullified the Kirov court's 2013 guilty verdict in the case.

Navalny announced in December that he would run for president in a March 2018 election in which Vladimir Putin, in power as president or prime minister since 1999, is widely expected to seek a new six-year term

In February 2016, the ECHR ruled that the 2013 trial in the case violated the defendants' right to a fair trial. According to the ECHR ruling, the Russian court found the men "guilty of acts indistinguishable from regular commercial activity."

Navalny was convicted of fraud in a separate case in 2014 and given a 3 1/2-year suspended sentence.

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/russia-navalny-guilty- embezzlement/28297665.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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'Poisoned' Kremlin Critic Vladimir Kara-Murza: What You Need To Know

Carl Schreck February 08, 2017

Russian opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, Jr., has fallen gravely ill in Moscow for the second time in two years, and his wife has said doctors' preliminary diagnosis this week was the same as the first: "poisoning" by an unidentified substance.

Kara-Murza previously said he believed he was deliberately poisoned with a sophisticated toxin in May 2015 as retribution for his political activities, and his most recent illness has raised concerns that a similar attack led to his February 2 hospitalization and subsequent organ failure.

His case has also reverberated in Washington, where federal lawmakers have urged President Donald Trump's administration to prioritize Kara-Murza's plight as it formulates its Russia policy.

Here's what you need to know about the case.

Who Is Vladimir Kara-Murza?

Kara-Murza, 35, is a veteran politician who has been active in Russian liberal opposition parties and movements since President Vladimir Putin's rise 17 years ago. The son of a prominent journalist, also named Vladimir, he worked for several years as a television correspondent in Washington before joining political projects launched by former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a prominent Putin foe who now lives in Europe after spending more than a decade in prison.

Kara-Murza was also a friend and ally of Boris Nemtsov, a prominent opposition leader killed in a February 2015 assassination-style shooting near the Kremlin. A dual Russian-British citizen -- he lived with his mother in Britain as a teenager -- Kara-Murza resides part of the year outside Washington, where his wife and three children live.

What Happened To Him?

In May 2015, Kara-Murza became suddenly and violently ill in Moscow. He had been conducting seminars and meeting fellow political activists in several Russian cities over the previous weeks. He was shuttled to various hospitals as doctors tried to determine what was wrong with him, and his major organs -- lungs, heart, kidneys, liver, intestines -- subsequently failed. He was placed on life support, and doctors determined he had suffered from acute poisoning "of an unknown origin," his wife, Yevgenia, told RFE/RL at the time.

Kara-Murza ultimately survived and spent months in treatment in Moscow and outside Washington. He suffered lasting nerve damage and had to walk with a cane following his hospitalization.

Was He Deliberately Poisoned?

This is unclear. If so, the substance and delivery mechanism remain a mystery. Kara-Murza's doctors in Moscow in 2015 concluded that he was "poisoned" by the widely prescribed antidepressant citalopram, which he had taken for several years. But an Israeli doctor consulted by Kara-Murza and his supporters viewed this diagnosis with skepticism, saying the near-fatal symptoms he suffered would be unusual for either an intentional or unintentional overdose of the drug.

Independent toxicologists who viewed Kara-Murza's medical documents also said citalopram was a highly unlikely culprit. An independent analysis of his blood, hair, and fingernail samples by a prominent French toxicologist led to no firm conclusions.

Kara-Murza believes he was targeted with a lethal toxin: "I have no doubt for a second that this was deliberate poisoning, that this was deliberate poisoning aimed to kill, and that it was motivated by my political activities," he told RFE/RL in a December 2015 interview. He added that he believes the toxin was likely a "very sophisticated" substance that typically only security services would have access to.

Several prominent government critics have fallen gravely ill or died in alleged deliberate poisonings during Putin's reign in what Kremlin opponents call a revival of Soviet-style techniques of dealing with dissent.

Russian officials dismiss such claims, including those concerning the 2006 poisoning death of former Russian security-services officer Aleksandr Litvinenko in London.

Why Would Anyone Want To Kill Him?

Kara-Murza is far from a household name in Russia, where the fractious liberal opposition has been not only steadily sidelined and demonized by the government and its media machine, but also mired in constant infighting. He has neither the fame nor the fiery public persona of opposition leader and anticorruption crusader Aleksei Navalny, but he is a dogged political organizer.

Perhaps more notably, he has the ears of prominent members of the U.S. Congress, where he has repeatedly lobbied for sanctions against senior Russian officials.

He was a prominent advocate in Washington for the Magnitsky Act sanctioning alleged Russian rights abusers, a 2012 law that has infuriated the Kremlin. He also urged Congress to sanction Kremlin-loyal television "propagandists."

Kara-Murza told RFE/RL in the December 2015 interview that he did not know of any specific threats against him prior to his illness but he believes his work for Khodorkovsky or Magnitsky Act lobbying were the most likely reasons for the alleged assassination attempt.

In February 2016, the volatile Kremlin-backed head of Russia's Chechnya region posted an Instagram video showing Kara-Murza and opposition politician Mikhail Kasyanov framed in what appeared to be a sniper's crosshairs

Kara-Murza's connections among Washington's political elite were evident after he was again hospitalized due to an apparent poisoning last week. Several leading U.S. lawmakers issued statements of support.

U.S. Senator John McCain (Republican, Arizona), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, on February 7 delivered a statement to the floor of the Senate honoring his "good friend," Kara-Murza. "Vladimir has once again paid the price for his gallantry and integrity, for placing the interests of the Russian people before his own self-interest," McCain said.

Representative Ed Royce (Republican, California), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, on February 7 called Kara-Murza "one of the bravest people I know."

The same day, the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation urged Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to "pay close attention" to Kara-Murza's case as he reviews U.S. policy toward Moscow.

What Happened To Him Last Week?

Kara-Murza's wife, Yevgenia, told RFE/RL that he was at staying at her parents' house in Moscow on February 2 when he suddenly experienced symptoms similar to those of his 2015 poisoning. Over the previous weeks, he had traveled to several Russian cities to present a documentary about Nemtsov.

He was rushed to the same hospital where he was previously treated and again experienced organ failure, she said. He was placed in an induced coma and subsequently diagnosed with "acute poisoning by an undetermined substance," she said on February 6. Yevgenia Kara-Murza told RFE/RL that the "clinical picture is the same" as in 2015. As of February 7, he remained on life support in stable but critical condition, his lawyer, Vadim Prokhorov, said in a Facebook post.

Kara-Murza's abrupt illness has only heightened suspicions of his family and friends that he was targeted with poison. They say American doctors examined him exhaustively following his 2015 hospitalization and found nothing that would seriously imperil his health going forward. Furthermore, he stopped taking citalopram or any other medicine after the 2015 incident, his wife told RFE/RL on February 6.

Samples of Kara-Murza's blood, hair, and fingernails have been sent to an Israeli lab for an independent analysis, his wife said. Prokhorov, his lawyer, told RFE/RL on February 7 that he was told it could take around 20 days for the results from the Israeli lab to be ready.

There's no guarantee, however, that those results will yield any firm conclusion about what triggered Kara-Murza's latest symptoms. Toxicology experts say determining a particular toxin -- particularly an exotic one -- through blood, hair, and fingernail analysis can be exceedingly difficult if it's not clear what one is looking for.

Are Russian Authorities Investigating The Case?

Russian investigators have looked into Kara-Murza's 2015 poisoning and are examining his latest illness as well, according to Prokhorov and media reports. But the lawyer has previously said authorities do not appear to be taking the case seriously. He previously based this assessment on the fact that it was being handled at a low level: the federal Investigative Committee's local branch in Moscow's Khamovniki district, which summoned Kara-Murza for questioning in January 2015.

Russia's state-run RIA Novosti news agency on February 7 cited an unidentified law-enforcement source as saying that the Investigative Committee is conducting a probe into his most recent illness "based on media reports."

Prokhorov said in a Facebook post the same day that he had received "confirmation from law-enforcement officers" of Kara-Murza's diagnosis upon his hospitalization: "toxic effect from an unidentified substance."

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/explainer-russia -kara-murza-kremlin-critic- poisoned/28298062.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Rights Group Warns Russia Moving Toward 'Martial Law' On The Internet

RFE/RL February 08, 2017

Russia is increasingly cracking down on Internet users as courts impose harsh jail sentences for posts expressing political views, a rights advocacy group warned.

"The Russian authorities have begun to see the Internet as a theater of war, both inside and outside" the country, with the slightest criticism "seen as like an armed attack," the Agora advocacy group said in a report released in Moscow on February 7.

Agora's comprises some 50 lawyers who have worked on leading rights cases, including that of the Pussy Riot punk collective and radical performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky.

The advocacy group said that the Kremlin is increasingly zeroing in on what it considers "enemies" on the Russian-language Internet, known as the Runet, leading to "strong censorship" and increasing pressure on Russia's estimated 66 million to 84 million web users.

The group said it recorded seven criminal cases opened against Russians for expressing views online in 2016, with four ending in a prison sentence.

In addition, it recorded 97 proposals last year from politicians and officials to strengthen Internet controls, and 116,103 instances of "Internet freedom limitation" where content was filtered or blocked during the year. That was up from 15,000 in 2015, it said.

"All this allows us to draw a definite conclusion -- the Runet has entered a state of martial law," the Agora report said.

The Russian government also focuses on external threats, it said, with the FSB security service saying it foiled 70 million cyberattacks last year, although Agora questioned whether that figure was too high.

The report details criminal cases brought against Russian citizens, including the case of journalist and blogger Aleksei Kungurov in the Urals city of Tyumen, who was jailed for two years by a military court for online criticisms of Russia's bombing campaign in Syria.

He was found guilty of publicly justifying terrorism in December over a post on the Live Journal site.

Meanwhile, an electrical engineer from the central Russian city of Tver, Andrei Bubeyev, was sentenced to two years and three months in a penal colony last May.

He was found guilty of support for extremist activity and breaches of Russia's territorial integrity after reposting a pro-Ukrainian article and a picture of a toothpaste tube with the caption: "Squeeze Russia out of yourselves."

With reporting by AFP and Interfax

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/agora-rights- advocacy-group-warns-russia-moving-toward- martila-law-on-internet/28297163.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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U.S. Senators Submit Bill Seeking Veto Power Over Trump On Russia Sanctions

Carl Schreck February 08, 2017

WASHINGTON -- A group of U.S. senators has introduced legislation that would hamstring any effort by President Donald Trump's administration to lift sanctions imposed on Russia for its actions in Ukraine.

The bill, called the Russia Sanctions Review Act, has both Republican and Democratic backers and comes amid mounting concerns in Congress about the Trump administration's policy intentions toward Russia.

Trump has repeatedly signaled he wants more cooperation with Russia in areas like the fight against international terrorism, particularly in Syria. But his administration has made statements about Ukraine and other issues that echo Russia's perspective, in contrast to the previous U.S. administration.

Senators Lindsey Graham (Republican-South Carolina) and Ben Cardin (Democrat-Maryland) are among the group backing the legislation that would impose strict congressional oversight and veto power over the Trump administration if it sought to lift sanctions on Russia.

"The reason for the Russia Review Act is that we've heard the president speak several times about potentially reducing or eliminating sanctions," Cardin told reporters on February 8.

"So it's aimed at getting consultation from Congress and, if necessary, action from Congress, if the president were to change our policy on the current sanctions without the broad support and understanding of Congress."

The bill is co-sponsored by Senators John McCain (Republican-Arizona), Marco Rubio (Republican-Florida), Claire McCaskill (Democrat-Missouri), and Sherrod Brown (Democrat-Ohio).

Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, froze assets and banned visas on a range of top Russia officials after Moscow annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

Ukraine, the United States, and the EU also say that Russia has supported separatist forces in eastern Ukraine who are fighting Ukrainian troops. Russia denies those charges.

More than 9,750 people have been killed in the fighting in Ukraine's Donbas region.

McCain said in a statement after the legislation was introduced that easing sanctions against Russia "would send the wrong message as [Russian President] Vladimir Putin continues to oppress his citizens, murder his political opponents, invade his neighbors, threaten America's allies, and attempt to undermine our elections."

"Congress must have oversight of any decision that would impact our ability to hold Russia accountable for its flagrant violation of international law and attack our institutions," added McCain, who has repeatedly been accused by officials in Moscow of baselessly stirring up anti-Russian sentiment in Washington.

Speaking to reporters earlier in the day, Cardin said the legislation was modeled after the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, a 2015 law giving Congress a say in the landmark deal between Tehran and world powers to restrict Iran's nuclear activities in exchange for easing sanctions.

He expressed optimism that the legislation will receive broad bipartisan backing in Congress and said he believed it could be passed with sufficient support to prevent Trump from vetoing it.

With reporting by Mike Eckel

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-us- senators-trump-veto-sanctions/28298328.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Russia-US Thaw at Risk if Senate Gets Veto Power on Lifting Sanctions on Russia

Sputnik News

16:33 08.02.2017(updated 16:48 08.02.2017)

The US Senate's veto power on lifting anti-Russia sanctions by the US presidential administration would impede normalization of relations between the two countries, Konstantin Kosachev, the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian upper house of parliament, told Sputnik Wednesday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  On Tuesday, media reported that a group of US senators intended to introduce a legislation allowing a congressional review of a White House request to lift anti-Russian sanctions and giving Congress the veto power in case US President Donald Trump unilaterally takes such a decision.

According to CNN, the Russia Review Act would urge the Trump administration to submit to Congress a detailed report, explaining the reasons for sanctions lifting. It would also introduce a 120-day review period, granting the Congress final approval authority.

The initiative is led by Lindsey Graham and Ben Cardin, and supported by John McCain, Marco Rubio, Claire McCaskill, Sherrod Brown.

"Another line of red flags around the US administration headed by Donald Trump would not add anything positive to the deplorable state of Russia-US relations. It will complicate their further normalization which we, of course, expect and rely on," Kosachev said.

The Russian senator noted that "the authors of this project are five most anti-Russian senators for whom a a change of the US stance on Russia would have been a personal failure and maybe even a collapse of their carrers."

"I see not only lack of care about their [the US] country and the global security in this initiative, but also selfish political interests [of US senators], the implementation of their own political approaches regardless of current US interests and of the gains from the Russia-US ties' normalization."

During the presidential race, as well as after his victory in the vote on January 20, Trump has repeatedly stressed the necessity to mend ties with Russia and cooperate with Moscow on a number of international issues, including the fight against terrorism.

 Sputnik

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Navalny Gets 5-Yr Suspended Sentence for Embezzlement

By VOA News February 08, 2017

A Russian judge has given prominent opposition leader Alexei Navalny a five year suspended sentence after he was convicted of embezzlement, a decision that may prevent him from running in next year's presidential election.

Navalny, who maintains his innocence, said he would appeal the sentence and would still run for president against Vladimir Putin, should Putin decide to seek another term in office.

"We don't recognize this ruling," Navalny said after he was sentenced. "I have every right to take part in the election, according to the constitution, and I will do so," he added.

Navalny accused Russian government officials of trying to block him from running for president, claiming the sentence was "a message saying that they consider me, my team and the people whose views I'm representing too dangerous to be allowed into the election campaign."

When reporters asked if Navalny's absence from the presidential race would compromise the validity of the election, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded, "We don't believe any concerns about this are appropriate."

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, a regional security group, expressed concern over the conviction. "I fear that Alexei Navalny's conviction today is just the latest case of the courts being used to exclude certain individuals from the political arena," said Michael Georg Link, director of the group's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.

Russian law bars anyone found guilty of committing a "high-level crime," which would include embezzlement, from running for office for 10 years.

Navalny announced in December his intent to run for president in 2018, when Putin's current term expires. He said after the verdict he believed he could still run for office because the 10 year disqualification does not apply to those given a suspended sentence.

The sentence was handed down by a regional judge in the city of Kirov in a retrial that had the same outcome of a 2013 trial.

Navalny first became publicly known for exposing fraud in Russian state corporations. He was a leader during protests in 2011 and 2012 that united around Putin's return to the presidency.

Some material for this report came from AFP and Reuters.

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Tide of Syria conflict turning in favor of Damascus, Moscow: Assad

Iran Press TV

Wed Feb 8, 2017 2:43PM

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says the tide of events in the Arab country is changing in favor of Damascus and Moscow, which are both engaged in a battle against foreign-backed terrorists.

"Events are moving quickly in the direction which we and you desire," Assad said in a meeting with Russian lawmakers in Damascus on Wednesday.

He further appreciated Russia's military support for Damascus in its anti-terror fight and the sacrifices made by the Russian forces in the Syrian territory.

"Of course, military support is very important. But even one drop of blood of the Russian soldiers who died in our country is more important for us than any military support," President Assad said.

Moscow launched its campaign against Daesh and other terror outfits in Syria at Damascus' request in September 2015. The air cover has helped Syrian forces conduct successful counterterrorism operations.

Syrian army troops and allied fighters have recently made sweeping gains against Takfiri elements, who have been wreaking havoc in the Middle Eastern state since 2011.

Following Wednesday's meeting, Dmitry Sablin, a member of the defense committee of Russia's State Duma, the lower house of the country's parliament, said the Syrian leader had expressed Damascus' readiness to hold direct talks with representatives of all opposition groups, including the armed ones.

'Astana talks more conducive to peace'

Meanwhile, referring to last month's Syrian peace talks in the Kazakh capital Astana, Russian lawmaker Sergey Gavrilov noted that President Assad had expressed optimism that the negotiations in the Astana format would be more effective than the planned Geneva format.

"He (Assad) believes that the resumption of talks in Astana will be more productive not only for the expansion of the local truce, but also for mechanisms of disarmament and political reconciliation through humanitarian mechanisms than the current Geneva format," he said.

The Kazakh capital hosted two days of talks between Damascus and opposition groups, with Iran, Russia and Turkey attending the event as mediators. The trio agreed on the establishment of a mechanism to support the Syria-wide truce that has been in place since December 30.

Syria's warring sides are expected to resume their discussions in the Swiss city of Geneva on February 20.

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Syria rejects Amnesty 'false' report of mass jail hangings

Iran Press TV

Wed Feb 8, 2017 7:2AM

Damascus has slammed as "inaccurate and politically-motivated" an Amnesty International report claiming that Syrian military police hanged as many as 13,000 people over the course of five years.

The Syrian Justice Ministry, in a statement published on Tuesday, rejected the account of mass hangings at Saydnaya prison near Damascus between 2011 and 2015 as bogus and false, saying such claims are meant to ruin the government's reputation in the international community.

The statement further emphasized that based on Syrian law, death sentences are handed only after judicial trials run through several degrees of litigation.

Such allegations come in the face of recent gains by Syrian army forces and allied popular defense groups in battles against foreign-sponsored Takfiri terrorists, and the atmosphere of national reconciliation in the country, it added.

Syria finds militant tunnel near Damascus

Meanwhile, Syrian military forces have discovered a long tunnel used by foreign-backed militants during a clear-up operation on the outskirts of the capital Damascus.

Army soldiers and pro-government fighters from popular defense groups found the 500-meter tunnel in Harasta city, situated roughly 8 kilometers northeast of Damascus, on Tuesday, Syria's official news agency SANA reported.

An unnamed Syrian military source said terrorists with the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly known as the al-Nusra Front, reportedly used the tunnel to sneak into a Syrian military site but army units managed to thwart their attempt and eliminate dozens of terrorists in the process.

Additionally, scores of Daesh militants were killed and two pickup trucks equipped with heavy machine guns destroyed as Syrian forces engaged the terrorists in the al-Bayarat district of the central province of Homs.

Syrian fighter jets also bombarded militant hideouts in the al-Msheirfeh al-Shamaliyeh district of the same province, killing and injuring many Daesh terrorists.

Elsewhere in the northern province of Aleppo, Syrian soldiers mounted an ambush against members of a terrorist group affiliated to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, and killed scores of of them.

Government forces and their allies also targeted Daesh terrorists on the outskirts of Dayr al-Zawr Military Airport, and killed a large number of them in the process.

Also on Tuesday, Syrian government representatives and militant officials exchanged 112 prisoners and hostages in the west-central province of Hama.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the exchanges took place in the militant-held Qalaat al-Madiq town, and that many of those released had been detained for years.

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Moscow Believes Turkey Not Creating Buffer Zone in North Syria Amid Al-Bab Op

Sputnik News

19:06 08.02.2017(updated 19:07 08.02.2017)

Moscow believes Turkey is not currently creating a buffer zone in northern Syria, a senior Russian diplomat told Sputnik.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The comment comes as the Turkish military operation in Syria's Al-Bab has entered the final stage. Turkey's units entered central Al-Bab, the operation is being conducted in coordination with Russia to prevent clashes with Syrian government forces.

"Now, as far as we understand, they are not creating a buffer zone in northern Syria," the Russian Foreign Ministry's Fourth European Department Director Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko said.

"Ankara, just as us, speaks in favor of preserving the territorial integrity of the country and inadmissibility of its partition," he said.

Turkey is currently conducting an operation in Syria dubbed Euphrates Shield. On August 24, Turkish forces, supported by Free Syrian Army rebels and US-led coalition aircraft, began a military operation dubbed the Euphrates Shield to clear the Syrian border town of Jarabulus and the surrounding area from Daesh terrorist group. As Jarabulus was retaken, the joint forces of Ankara, the coalition and Syrian rebels continued the operation to gain control over Al-Bab in the Aleppo province.

Moreover, Russian and Turkish military jets have repeatedly jointly bombed Daesh targets near Al-Bab in Syria.

Al-Bab is one of Daesh's last remaining strongholds near the Turkish border. Capturing the city is of strategic importance to Turkey in order to prevent the Syrian Kurds taking it and unifying their own territories.

 Sputnik

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Syrian Army Annihilates Senior Daesh Commanders in Deir ez-Zor

Sputnik News

17:38 08.02.2017(updated 17:47 08.02.2017)

In an interview with Sputnik Arabic, field commander of the Syrian Arab Army in Deir ez-Zor Brigade General Issam Zaheralden confirmed that two senior Daesh commanders, including Abu Muhammed al-Adnani who was in charge of the group's drone attacks, were killed in an airstrike near the city of Deir ez-Zor.

The other high-ranking Daesh fighter was identified as field commander Abu Walid al-Tarablusi.

Brigade General Issam Zaheralden said that civilians lost access to the airport, their only source of food, medicine and fuel, due to the latest terrorist attack on the city, prompting the Syrian Arab Army to launch an offensive along the 3-kilometer-long (1.8-mile-long) frontline.

The ongoing operation has seen government forces advance 1.5 kilometers (more than 0.9 miles) from the al-Makabir district into territories held by the militants. The fighting has continued unabated.

As part of this campaign, the Syrian Arab Air Force conducted airstrikes near an area known as hill 14, killing 15 terrorists, Brigade General Issam Zaheralden detailed, adding that Abu Muhammed al-Adnani and Abu Walid al-Tarablusi were among them.

In addition, the son of Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is said to have been wounded in an airstrike conducted by Syrian warplanes, unnamed sources told Sputnik, adding that several of his companions were killed.

On Monday, a military source told the news agency that Russian and Syrian aircraft carried out several sorties targeting Daesh in the southern districts of Deir ez-Zor, including al-Makabir, Sirriya Jneed and Liwaa al Taamid.

In January, Daesh encircled the Deir ez-Zor military airfield. The base remains the Syrian Army's last line of defense on the way to the city, which has been besieged by the militants for three years. Lt. Gen. Sergei Rudskoy, chief of the Russian General Staff Main Operational Directorate, warned that should the base and the city fall, civilians trapped there will be killed.

 Sputnik

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Syrian Army's Strike in Deir ez-Zor Reportedly Kills Daesh Commanders

Sputnik News

15:37 08.02.2017(updated 15:38 08.02.2017)

At least 15 Daesh terrorists, including two field commanders, were killed during a Syrian airstrike in Deir ez-Zor on Wednesday, Fars news agency reported, citing Syrian Brig. Gen. Osam Zahralddeen.

MOSCOW, February 8 (Sputnik)  According to the agency, the commanders were identified as field commander Abu Mohammad Adnani and Libyan commander Abu Walid Terablosi.

Syrian army forces have also launched attacks on Daesh's defensive lines, and have successfully advanced three kilometers (1.8 miles) into occupied areas of the city over recent days.

The city of Deir ez-Zor, which is still held by Syrian government forces, has been under Daesh's siege since July 2014. The residents of Deir ez-Zor and the servicemen receive food only via planes delivering humanitarian aid.

Earlier, Daesh terrorists surrounded the Deir ez-Zor military airfield in Syria's northeast.

Commenting on the development of the situation in the area, the Russian General Staff said that if terrorists capture Deir ez-Zor, civilians will be subjected to genocide and the population may be completely exterminated.

 Sputnik

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War on Daesh Rages On: Syrian Army, Turkish Troops Enter Outskirts of al-Bab

Sputnik News

15:15 08.02.2017(updated 16:45 08.02.2017)

According to information from sources in the Syrian Arab Army, Turkish troops together with the Syrian army have launched an offensive on the outskirts of the Syrian town of al-Bab. Sputnik Turkey spoke with Syrian commander Ahmed Osman about this operation.

Over 2,000 soldiers and heavy weapons are involved in the operation in an offensive being carried out on three fronts. The Turkish military is providing air and artillery support.

Turkish special forces units managed to enter the suburban neighborhoods of al-Bab after a many hour offensive, according to reports.

Twenty-six Daesh terrorists and three Syrian soldiers were reportedly killed in the operation. Five soldiers were taken to the hospital in the Turkish town of Kilis with injuries.

Divisional Commander for the Sultan Murad Battalion Ahmed Osman told Sputnik Turkey that the Syrian Army must take another 200 meters before they reach the center of al-Bab.

"The village of Hecam has been liberated and right now the fighting has concentrated in the Bicehem area, as well as in three other areas. On the liberated territory, our fighters have placed the Sultan Murad battalion's flag," Osman said.

He further said that they had entered the outlying neighborhoods of al-Bab. "Currently, the city center is separated from us by 500 meters, in some areas by 200 meters," the commander said.

On Tuesday, the Russian General Staff reported that the Russian Aerospace Forces had destroyed 892 terrorist targets near al-Bab.

"Russian Aerospace Forces' jets destroyed 892 terrorist targets near al-Bab," Chief of the General Staff's Main Operational Directorate Lt. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi said on Tuesday.

Since 2011, Syria has been engulfed in a civil war, with government forces fighting against numerous opposition and terrorist groups, including al-Nusra Front and Daesh, banned in a range of countries, including Russia.

 Sputnik

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A large truck lost control on a mountain road in southwest Chinas Chongqing on February 7, 2017, causing a partial of the vehicle hung dangling over a 65-feet-high (20 meters) cliff.

A family of four was trapped inside, including two little girls. Firefighters rushed to the scene, and with harnesses secured to their bodies, the firefighters proceeded to reach out to the cabin.

Fortunately, all family members were saved.
Assad Voices Support for Syria Talks Brokered by Russia, Iran, Turkey

Sputnik News

13:00 08.02.2017(updated 15:05 08.02.2017)

Syrian President Bashar Assad supports the format of Syrian talks in Astana and considers them to be effective, Russian lawmaker Dmitry Sablin said Wednesday.

DAMASCUS (Sputnik)  Earlier in the day, Assad held a meeting with a group of Russian lawmakers in Damascus.

"Today, it was voiced for the first time that the Syrian president supports the Astana talks and calls them effective and favorable," Sablin told reporters after the meeting.

Meanwhile, a deputy from Russia's lower house of parliament said Assad considers the Syrian talks in Astana to be more productive than the Geneva format.

"He [Assad] believes that the resumption of talks in Astana will be more productive not only for the expansion of the local truce, but also for mechanisms of disarmament and political reconciliation through humanitarian mechanisms than the current Geneva format," Sergey Gavrilov told reporters.

The intra-Syrian peace talks were held in Kazakhstan's capital of Astana on January 23-24, resulting in Moscow-Tehran-Ankara agreement on establishment of a trilateral mechanism to monitor the ceasefire in Syria.

The talks brokered by Russia, Iran and Turkey brought together the representatives of the Syrian government and the armed opposition groups for the first time since the beginning of the Syrian war in 2011.

European Parliament lawmakers plan another visit to Syria alongside Russian senators, Umakhanov said.

"I have information that a number of European Parliament members who represent the various political factions in the European Parliament intend to visit Syria again," Umakhanov said Wednesday.

He said "I do not rule out" that members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) could also join the Russian-EP delegation.

Earlier this month, Belgian lawmakers visited Syria and held a meeting with Assad.

 Sputnik

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Turkish, Rebel Fighters Seize Area Around Key Syrian Town

By VOA News February 08, 2017

Turkey's military said Wednesday that Syrian rebel forces with Turkish support have taken control of strategic hills surrounding the Islamic State-held town of al-Bab.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war in Syria, said Turkish forces and allied Syrian rebels launched an operation late Tuesday and seized territory on the western outskirts of al-Bab.

The town is a key area in northern Syria that increasingly is becoming a focal point of the multi-party conflict.

Syrian forces have advanced from the south to within about 3.5 kilometers of al-Bab, the Observatory says. Turkish and rebel fighters are coming from the north, while Syrian Kurds hold territory to the east and west. All of those groups have fought to push out Islamic State fighters, but what happens if the militants are routed from al-Bab remains a looming issue.

The Syrian government has long complained about Turkish activity in Syria, particularly since Turkey launched what it calls Operation Euphrates Shield in August. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the offensive was in response to a series of attacks in Turkey, and that he wanted to end threats from "terror" groups that included Islamic State and the Syrian Kurdish fighters.

Turkey sees the Syrian Kurds as aligned with Kurdistan Worker's Party, or PKK, rebels who have carried out a decades-long insurgency based in southeastern Turkey.

Syria last week sent letters to the United Nations again condemning Turkey's military actions, including the push toward al-Bab. The letters further accused Turkey of supporting terrorist organizations in Syria.

Turkey supports rebels who opposed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and Assad's government routinely refers to any opposition fighters as terrorists.

The many parties involved in the fighting have not made finding a resolution any easier. The United Nations is holding its next round of peace talks beginning February 20 in Geneva. A spokeswoman for U.N. envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said invitations for the talks were due to be sent on Wednesday.

The U.N. has sponsored several rounds of talks in recent years, but none have produced much progress in ending the fighting. The process has worked off a framework that calls for a total cease-fire and a Syrian-led political transition that includes a new constitution and elections.

Assad's future is not part of the outline, and disagreements about whether he should remain in power or leave have been one of the main sticking points in past negotiations.

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Turkey 'Has Own Specific Tasks in Syria' - Russian Diplomat

Sputnik News

18:49 08.02.2017(updated 19:32 08.02.2017)

Moscow believes that it would be wrong to say that Turkey does not have its own specific tasks in Syria, a senior Russian diplomat told Sputnik Wednesday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The diplomat said that Ankara's position on Syria has not become similar to Russia's and many differences in countries' approaches still exist.

"I do not want to say that Turkey suddenly changed its position on the Syrian settlement, and it became completely identical to the Russian one. We still have many differences," the Russian diplomat said.

"Yes, there is a joint fight against Daesh and al-Nusra [Front]. Of course, it would be wrong to say that the Turks do not have their own, specific tasks in Syria related to their understanding of the situation," the Russian Foreign Ministry's Fourth European Department Director Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko said.

"We do not forget about differences, but it is important to discuss them," Botsan-Kharchenko said.

"In the Russia-Turkey dialogue, the topic [of Assad's future] is not an obstacle for the development of cooperation in the Syrian affairs," Botsan-Kharchenko said.

The comment comes amid a nationwide ceasefire in Syria backed by Russia and Turkey which came into effect on December 30 and was later supported by a UN Security Council resolution. Moreover, Russian and Turkish military jets have repeatedly jointly bombed Daesh targets near Al-Bab in Syria.

Turkey is currently conducting an operation in Syria dubbed Euphrates Shield. On August 24, Turkish forces, supported by Free Syrian Army rebels and US-led coalition aircraft, began a military operation dubbed the Euphrates Shield to clear the Syrian border town of Jarabulus and the surrounding area from Daesh terrorist group. As Jarabulus was retaken, the joint forces of Ankara, the coalition and Syrian rebels continued the operation to gain control over Al-Bab in the Aleppo province.

Al-Bab is one of Daesh's last remaining strongholds near the Turkish border. Capturing the city is of strategic importance to Turkey in order to prevent the Syrian Kurds taking it and unifying their own territories.

 Sputnik

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Turkey Coordinates Al-Bab Campaign With Russia to Avoid Clashes With Damascus

Sputnik News

15:50 08.02.2017(updated 16:00 08.02.2017)

Turkey coordinates its military campaign in the northeastern Syrian city of al-Bab with Russia to prevent clashes with the government forces, Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said Wednesday.

ANKARA (Sputnik)  On August 24, the Turkish army launched Operation Euphrates Shield against the internationally-condemned jihadist group Daesh. Turkish forces, with assistance from Syrian opposition fighters, occupied the city of Jarablus in northern Syria and are currently conducting an offensive on al-Bab.

"Our units have entered central [al-]Bab. To avoid clashes with the Syrian army, we are in coordination with Russia," Kalin said in comments broadcast by NTV.

The spokesman added that an area between the cities of Azaz and Jarabulus should be cleared from the outlawed Daesh jihadist group in order to establish a safe zone.

Kalin said the Turkish armed forces would next target the Daesh stronghold of Raqqa once the operation in al-Bab is completed.

 Sputnik

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Turkey President Mute About US Travel Ban in Hope of Concessions

By Dorian Jones February 08, 2017

U.S. President Donald Trump spoke by telephone Tuesday with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the White House described the 45-minute conversation as productive.

The call came amid controversy over Trump's order of a temporary travel ban on seven Muslim majority countries in which terrorist groups operate.

Erdogan is usually among the first to speak out against perceived injustices against Muslims and Islamophobia. Analysts say this time he was uncharacteristically quiet about the travel ban controversy.

"This deafening silence about Trump. If I were a fan of his, I would have said disappointing, heart breaking," observed International relations expert Soli Ozel of Istanbul Kadir Has University. "But it is pretty obvious they don't want to be cross with Trump, there are expectations from Trump. And with Trump you know he would reciprocate. That's why the silence."

One of Erdogan's key expectations is the end of U.S. military support to the Syrian Kurdish group the PYD. Its militia, the YPG, is currently leading the fight to capture the Syrian city of Raqqa, the self-declared capital of the Islamic State group.

Last month the Pentagon supplied military vehicles to a coalition including the YPG. The move caused alarm in Ankara, as it accuses the Syrian Kurdish group of being affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is fighting the Turkish government for greater minority rights.

"If this U.S. administration in its early days decides to supply these weapons to the PYD, that will surely be seen as a non-friendly message to Ankara," warned analyst Sinan Ulgen of the Carnegie Institute in Brussels. "And also be important to understand how the bilateral relation will evolve."

Turkish presidential sources quoted in local media claim both leaders agreed to cooperate in the battle to capture Raqqa and the Syrian town of al-Bab, which Turkish forces are engaged in fighting to recapture from Islamic State. The same sources also claim CIA Director Mike Pompeo will soon visit Turkey.

Analysts predict any final decision by Washington on the PYD will likely depend, at least in part, on a review of the fight against Islamic State being carried out by the Pentagon, which is still several weeks away from completion.

Reportedly also on the agenda of the CIA director's visit is U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen. Ankara is demanding Gulen's extradition, accusing him of using his followers to carry out a failed coup last July, a charge he denies.

Experts warn any extradition is ultimately a matter for the courts and will likely take months, if not years, with an uncertain outcome. Ankara is also pressing for Gulen's detention, as well as cooperation in curtailing or monitoring the activities of his followers and vast business network.

With U.S. military planes using Turkish airbases, including Incirlik, in the war against Islamic State, analysts suggest Ankara does have some leverage with Washington, albeit limited.

"What you can do, is you can close Incirlik. There are some loose mouths within the government that say we can consider this," noted international relations expert Ozel. "Well let's say you become the eighth county on the (travel ban) list. Can you really risk that happening. Which means you have to really remain within reason and really not bluff, and Turkey and United States do have common interests," he said.

Iran is one of those shared interests, given Erdogan has expressed Trump's concern over Tehran's rising hegemony, albeit in less colorful language. "Turkey will be happy with anything that counterbalances Iran," predicts political columnist Semih Idiz of Al Monitor website. "But it would not actively engage or be seen to be engaging in those activities, as the two countries try hard to maintain a relationship."

Given Turkey has strained relations not only with Iran, but also with its other southern neighbors Syria and Iraq, coupled with growing concerns over Russia's intentions, analyst Ulgen argues Ankara is banking on a resetting of relations with Washington to reverse its growing isolation.

"That would certainly help Turkey to reacquire more influence in the region. That is the big uncertainly now. Because if the relationship with the U.S. does not improve as deeply as Ankara initially expected that would also weaken Turkey's position within the region," he said.

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Ukrainian Officials Say Sheremet's Death Contract Killing

February 08, 2017

Ukrainian officials say Belarusian journalist Pavel Sheremet was killed because of his professional activities in a contract killing.

Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said in Kyiv on February 8 the results of a pretrial investigation into Sheremet's death "lead to the conclusion that this crime was carefully prepared by a group of people."

"Investigators do not rule out that the order for the killing came from the Russian Federation," Avakov added.

Oleksandr Vakulenko, the deputy chief of Ukraine's National Police and head of its main investigative unit, said Sheremet's journalistic activities in Ukraine, where he lived, and Belarus and Russia "is considered in the first place" as a motive for his killing.

Sheremet, 44, was killed when the car he was driving to work was blown up in central Kyiv on July 20.

Jailed in Belarus in 1997 while recording a story on the Russian-Belarusian border, Sheremet was often critical of top political leaders and other government officials in his reporting.

He had also warned in the last blog post before his death that Ukrainian politicians who were former members of volunteer battalions that had fought separatists in eastern Ukraine could carry out a coup in Kyiv.

Vakulenko said an antipersonnel mine was used in the blast that killed Sheremet. He added that no one had yet been arrested for the killing.

Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Yuriy Lutsenko agreed with Avakov in saying that Sheremet's "killer was not alone. This is a group [of assassins] and we can see part of this group in the video [taken where Sheremet's car was parked before he drove it]."

Based on reporting by Interfax and the Kyiv Post

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-russia-sheremet- death-contract-killing/28298572.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Separatist Commander 'Givi' Killed In Eastern Ukraine

RFE/RL February 08, 2017

KYIV -- A separatist commander in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk has been assassinated, the Russia-backed separatists say.

Mikhail Tolstykh, better known by his nom de guerre Givi, died after a bomb exploded in his office in the separatist stronghold of Donetsk just after 6 a.m. local time on February 8, de facto separatist authorities and a source with ties to its military told RFE/RL by phone.

The separatists announced two days of mourning.

Donetsk separatist leaders called the killing a "terrorist" attack organized by the Ukrainian intelligence services.

"The Ukrainians...cannot defeat us on the battlefield, so they kill us in a malicious way," separatist leader Aleksandr Zakharchenko said.

The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) denied it was responsible, instead suspecting an internal operation to clear the rebel ranks.

"People tied to illegal armed groups are purged by special agencies beyond the line of contact," Yuriy Tandit, an adviser of the SBU chief, told the 112 Ukrainian channel.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the killing "an attempt to destabilize the situation" in eastern Ukraine, where fighting between government forces and Russia-backed separatists has killed more than 9,750 people since April 2014.

Givi, 36, was leading the Somali battalion and made a name for himself in the brutal battle for Donetsk airport.

Video footage from 2015 shows him verbally and physically abusing Ukrainian servicemen captured during the battle.

Another separatist commander -- Arseny Pavlov, who was better known by the nickname Motorola -- died on October 16 when a bomb exploded in an elevator in his apartment block in Donetsk.

With reporting by AFP, RIA Novosti, TASS, and Interfax

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine- donetsk-separatis-leader-givi-killed /28297344.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Senior Donbass Militia Commander Killed in Terror Attack - DPR Leader

Sputnik News

14:35 08.02.2017(updated 14:36 08.02.2017)

The commander of the "Somali" battalion of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), Mikhail Tolstykh, was killed in a terrorist attack, DPR leader Alexander Zakharchenko confirmed Wednesday.

DONETSK (Sputnik)  The senior Donbass militia commander was killed earlier in the day being shot from a flamethrower, according to preliminary information.

"A preliminary version showed it was a terrorist attack, investigators are establishing those guilty," Zakharchenko told reporters.

Since May 2014, Mikhail Tolstykh had participated in the battles for Slavyansk, in the summer of 2014 in the fighting in Ilovaysk. In September 2014 he participated in the battle for the Donetsk airport. In September 2016 he was awarded the rank of Colonel of the Donetsk People's Republic.

This is not the first killing of a Donbass militia commander not during battle. On October 16, a blast in an elevator killed a prominent commander of the Donetsk People's Republic colonel Arseniy Pavlov (call sign Motorola). The Donetsk authorities accused Kiev of masterminding the murder.

 Sputnik

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Kiev Passes Up, OSCE 'Ignores' DPR's Phased Donbass Conflict Settlement Plan

Sputnik News

14:40 08.02.2017(updated 15:18 08.02.2017)

The Ukrainian government has passed up and European security monitors ignored the phased Donbass conflict settlement plan offered by the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), DPR Deputy Defense Minister Eduard Basurin said Wednesday.

DONETSK (Sputnik)  He noted that OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) Principal Deputy Chief Monitor Alexander Hug also declined to mediate the negotiating process "by ignoring our initiative."

"This plan passed all approvals, was documented and submitted to the Ukrainian command for further ratification. But Ukraine rejected the document and ignored the republic's initiative," Basurin said in a live briefing.

Basurin added that the DPR suspects Ukrainian security services of preparing to mine a coking plant in Avdiivka, threatening an "environmental and humanitarian catastrophe."

The situation in southeastern Ukraine has escalated over the past few days, in particular near the town of Avdiivka in the Donetsk region, where clashes between Kiev forces and the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic militia have intensified. The conflicting parties have both accused each other of initiating the violence.

 Sputnik

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Edge data centres will account for most of the telecom server market growth and is projected to reach US$14 billion by 2026 according to a new report from DellOro Group.
Traffic police in central Chinas Henan province were baffled after they pulled over a van running on expressway on February 7 and found out that the driver was in Monkey King costume and all passengers were dressed like characters in the Journey to the West.

The Journey to the West is a Chinese novel published in the 16th century, describing the legendary pilgrimage of the Tang dynasty Buddhist monk Xuanzang who traveled to central Asia and India to obtain Buddhist sacred texts and returned after many trials and much suffering. The characters in Journey to the West are created based in Chinese folk religion, Chinese mythology, Taoist and Buddhist philosophy.

It was later on revealed that the driver and all passengers are actors who were heading to rural areas for performances. Photos taken at the scene show all the mythological characters standing by the side of 21st century traffic police officers, with the Monkey King pulling out his driver license.
The photo shows the China-made planes that have been formally handed over to Nepal's national flag carrier. [Photo: Xinhua]

Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC), the national flag carrier of the Himalayan nation, on Wednesday formally received two brand new aircrafts from the Chinese supplier to add in its domestic fleet.

With addition of two new Chinese planes, one 56-seater MA60 and another Y-12e, the NAC has now majority of its planes made in China. Of the total seven planes in its domestic fleet, four are China-made while three are Canadian Twin Otters.

Chinese supplier -- AVIC International Holding, handed over planes to the NAC amid a function organised at the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu.

The two planes had landed in Kathmandu on Jan. 26 and Feb. 1.

NAC Managing Director Sugat Ratna Kansakar and Xu Bo, vice-president of AVIC International Aero-Development, signed the handover document at the presence of Nepalese Minister of Culture Tourism and Civil Aviation Jiwan Bahadur Shahi and Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Yu Hong.

Kansakar said, "NAC considers entry of Chinese aircraft as an impetus to expand domestic service." According to a senior NAC official, they expects to increase the NAC's domestic market share to 20 percent from current around six percent with the operation of Chinese planes.

As per an agreement signed between the NAC and AVIC International Holding, in 2012, Nepal would acquire six Chinese aircraft, two in grants and four in loans. Of the six planes, Nepal's national flag carrier has to take delivery of two MA60 and four Y12e as per the agreement.

During the handover ceremony, Nepalese Minister Shahi made an empathic appeal to the Chinese side to arrange the English speaking pilots. "The NAC plans to bring two additional Y-12e in the very new future," said Kansakar.

The NAC had taken delivery of two new planes after nearly two year-long hiatus of first acquiring first two planes -- one MA60 and Y-12e in 2014 which were given to NAC as a grant from China, because it had concerns regarding spare parts, training, load capacity and insurance cost with the supplier.
Danville may offer credits for residents whose waters lines leak and cause excessively high consumption charges on their utility bills.

Danville City Council will vote at its next meeting Feb. 21 whether to revise city code to allow for the credits.

Its a way to help out a customer who wouldnt have any reason to know they would have an issue [water leak], said Danville City Manager Ken Larking, who also serves on the Danville Utility Commission.

The commission unanimously approved the idea during its December meeting.

Danville Utilities receives reports of about 100-150 customer water leaks every year because of unknown underground leaks on the customers side of the water meter, Danville Utilities Director Jason Grey told councilmen during a council work session Tuesday night.

The leaks are not found until the customer receives their bill with a huge increase in their monthly water consumption, according to Grey.

Weve received  cases where customers are astonished when they received a large water bill for consumption they havent used, Grey said Wednesday.

Customers bills resulting from water leaks have ranged from $100-$200 in excessive charges each, Grey said.

The new policy would apply to the customers pipe between the house and the meter.

If council approves the idea, the customer would be eligible for one credit in a 12- month period and would be required to repair the damaged piping. The work would have to be inspected by the citys inspection division, Grey said.

Once we receive that inspection report, we would move forward with the credit, he said.

The credit would be for the amount determined to be for the excessive flow of water through a meter due because of a leak in, or a rupture of, a water pipe caused by a severe weather conditions; an undetected leak in, or rupture of, an underground water pipe; or because of an undetected leak or rupture of water pipe where the city has made changes or improvements to the water system to improve water pressure and/or other construction.

The change would not apply to leaking faucets, toilets or other customer-owned water devices.

Cost adjustments would have to be requested within 60 days of the billing period that the leak occurred.

Grey said staff would look at a customers bill, determine the amount for their normal consumption and conduct an estimate to determine the credit.

Danville currently allows a similar credit for wastewater, Grey said.

In many cases, the city can detect a leak  with its smart metering system  in a residence and notify the customer, Larking said.

Were constantly monitoring the meters and getting information from all of the meters, Larking said.

The city has lots of residents on fixed incomes, Larking pointed out. A large increase in their bill would pose a challenge for them, he said.

There is a percentage of water lost in the citys system thats never paid for, Larking said. If there is an occasional loss of revenue in cases of undetected leaks, its not a complete detriment to the system, he said.
CHATHAM  A Pittsylvania County judge sentenced a Cascade man to life in prison Wednesday for the rape of a young girl in 2015.

Judge Stacey W. Moreau upheld a jurys recommendation in the sentencing of Shaun Lamont Morrison, 36, for rape, forcible sodomy and abduction convictions following a November trial.

Curtis Thornhill, Morrisons defense attorney, asked the court to show his client mercy but did not present any character witnesses to testify on Morrisons behalf.

Pittsylvania County Assistant Commonwealths Attorney Mark Hicks said the victim was living in a nightmare.

She will have to live with the memories of the incident forever, Hicks said.

Morrison, dressed in regular clothing, stood before the court in leg shackles and said hes lost everything Ive worked hard for.

After Morrison gave his statement, Moreau upheld the jurys recommended sentencing. Morrison registered as a sex offender in court before being taken to a holding cell.

Morrison was convicted of keeping a 12-year-old girl in a bedroom and sexually assaulting her in June 2015.

The girl testified in November that Morrison moved the bed against the door before he committed the act.

She said Morrison used a pillow and blanket to stop the screaming.

Did it hurt? Pittsylvania County Chief Deputy Commonwealths Attorney Nate Griffith asked her at the trial.

Yes, she replied.

Were you crying? Griffith asked.

Yes, she responded.

The key evidence in Morrisons conviction was the shorts recovered from the scene.

Pittsylvania County sheriffs deputies recovered a pair of red shorts from Morrisons residence after his arrest.

DNA was found on the shorts that didnt belong to the girl. Shaun Morrison cannot be eliminated as a person who contributed to the DNA, a forensic expert said at the trial.

It was a one in 7 billion chance the DNA did not belong to Morrison, the expert testified.
To the editor:

This letter is in response to the Jan. 31 letter to the editor, Not the Democratic Party of JFK.

The 100 protesters so clearly quoted by The Associated Press after Inauguration Day as destroyers of property were just that, 100, and this form of protest is inappropriate. However, you failed to mention the one million who peacefully protested after Inauguration Day and, according to the District of Columbia police department, without a single arrest.

The protesters were responding to what the national columnist on that days Opinion page described as Trumps running war with the truth.

The truth matters to Democrats. Not since McCarthy has the American public been subjected to such falsehoods, or as some might say lies, threatening the integrity of our democracy. This is a cruel administration, harsh and unkind, and not just to refugees.

Presidents cannot adequately govern by 140 characters. A conservative writer for The New York Times wrote, To say that this is amateur hour at the White House is to slander amateurs.

Yes, this is a different Democratic Party because it is a more inclusive party than in the John F. Kennedy years compared to the exclusive GOP. Americans find themselves struggling to sift the truth from an administration determined to set itself up as a kingdom. We might as well live in Saudi Arabia.

We know not from day to day what to expect from this president. Legalities make no difference to Donald Trump who will have it his way, with only Democrats to make some sense of it all. Dangerous times resulting from this presidents incompetence are a threat to all Americans, as well as the world.

Democrats must be tougher, louder and wiser and fight as if their democracy depends on it because it does. No, it is not the party of JFK. It is the Democratic Party of 2017!

JUNE FORD

Danville
The tomb cluster was discovered at a construction site in Feihu Village, Pujiang County in southwest China's Sichuan Province in September last year.

Chinese archaeologists said Wednesday they have unearthed a large cluster of boat coffin tombs dating back 2,200 years that will shed light on ancient indigenous culture.

The tomb cluster was discovered at a construction site in Feihu Village, Pujiang County in southwest China's Sichuan Province in September last year. It covers an area of 10,000 square meters and has 60 tombs in four rows.

As of mid-January, workers with Chengdu Cultural Relics and Archeology Institute have excavated 47 tombs, said the institute Wednesday.

The tombs date back to the late Warring States Period (475 - 221 BC) and the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC). The boat-shaped coffins are four to seven meters long and made of nanmu, a rare wood.

The cluster belonged to the indigenous Shu culture and contains elements of the Chu and Qin cultures.

Pujiang County was part of the Shu Kingdom, which has no written record of its history.

Workers have dug up more than 300 pieces of pottery, bronze, iron and bamboo as well as weapons, coins and 11 seals, said Gong Yangmin, head of the excavation team.

Two excavated tombs were well preserved, said Gong. In one, workers discovered ten bamboo baskets of well-preserved grain and a delicate string of glass beads on the waist of the tomb owner, showing his high status.

"Glass beads like dragonfly eyes were exotic at the time. They were probably imported via the Silk Road," said Gong.

As there are ruins of salt wells nearby, the tomb owners were possibly salt administration officials, according to archeologists.

Boat coffins have been found in Pujiang seven times. Construction work at the site has been suspended and the county government plans to build a museum there.
MARTINSVILLE  A public meeting is planned for area residents to voice their opinions on how the vacant second floor of the citys small business incubator could best be used.

Any local citizens or entrepreneurs who feel they have a valid idea are welcome to attend, said Amanda Witt, president of the Martinsville-Henry County Chamber of Commerce.

The meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 21 at the West Piedmont Business Development Center (WPBDC) at 22 E. Church St. uptown.

The WPBDC is owned by the city but managed by the chamber and its independent affiliate, the Chambers Partnership for Economic Growth (C-PEG). Tenants get advice from professionals on financial, managerial and business planning matters. By sharing resources such as clerical staff, utilities and major office equipment like copiers, they save on operating costs so they can spend more toward their growth and development.

Twenty businesses and service providers now occupy the WPBDC. Twenty-eight have graduated  left to make it on their own  since the incubator opened in 2002. Current and past tenants together have created 275 jobs, information on its website shows.

About 95 percent of the incubator is occupied. Witt, who also is C-PEGs executive director, said she expects a new tenant will sign a lease soon, bringing that amount up to 97 percent.

However, the roughly 3,000-square-foot second floor, designed to be light manufacturing or warehouse space, has been vacant since Solid Stone Fabrics, which makes and distributes stretch fabrics, moved out in 2008.

The space is a really unique aspect to have in an incubator, Witt said, because most small business incubators only have space for service and office-oriented businesses.

Its definitely set up for a different type of business than ones now in the WPBDC, she said of the floor, mentioning its dock doors as an example.

Basically, though, its too big for a startup and too small for an established business, Witt said.

We want to give the community some input into how it eventually is used, she added.

One idea already proposed is turning the floor into a cooperative where people interesting in becoming plumbers, electricians, carpenters and other types of skilled laborers can learn trades and get started in them, either by opening their own businesses or getting jobs with existing ones. That idea still is being investigated to see whether it would be viable for the community.

The floor also could be turned into more space for firms like the ones that the incubator now hosts. Witt believes more such space will be needed in the future after the incubator fills up.

But the floor should be put to a purpose that suits its uniqueness, she said.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 9, 2017) - Eureka Resources Inc. (TSXV: EUK) ("Eureka" or the "Company") is providing a summary of our plans for 2017 at the Gold Creek Property located in the center of the historic Caribou Gold Camp.

Since acquiring the property in 2016 our technical group has commenced a review of the substantial data package that was acquired as part of the Option Agreement.

Previous Operations

The Gold Creek project has a number of favorable attributes including the host lithology of the property is similar to both our FG project and the Spanish Mountain deposit. The FG project was one of the first discoveries of this type located in the Quesnel trough. These deposits are of a typical Sediment Hosted Vein (SHV) type deposit. In 2008 a program conducted by previous operators indicated that the mineralization encountered at Gold Creek may include an intrusive related gold source. It is important to note that SHV and Intrusive related deposits are some of the world's largest Gold Deposits .

Readers are cautioned that the following results should be considered historical in nature as the Company has not performed sufficient work to determine whether these results are compliant with the requirements of National Instrument 43-101.

The Gold Creek project is located approximately 8 km to the Northwest of Spanish Mountain deposit. The Spanish Mountain deposit has reported resources of Measured and Indicated 238 million tonnes grading .46g/t for 3.5 million ounces and an Inferred resource of 311 million tonnes at .35 g/t for a further 3.5 million ounces. (source Spanish Mountain Gold Ltd. Website corporate presentation).

Exploration targets on the property are gold-bearing quartz veins and gold-silver bearing stratabound zones of quartz and carbonate-altered quartz-veins that occur in the basal, black phyllite metasedimentary and greywacke volcanic sequences such as observed in the Spanish Mountain deposit.

There are a number of significant factors that make Gold Creek a very attractive project including:

Stable political jurisdiction

Excellent local infrastructure and service centres

Relatively inexpensive grid power

Located close to a number of operating mines

Further previous drill results have identified areas with attributes that would support a significant exploration campaign. Past drilling from 2008, and 2011 have been reported as follows:

In 2011 the drilling program consisted of 25 drill holes and 2501 m of which 5 are diamond drill holes (1037 m) and the remaining 16 holes (1464 m) completed using a reverse-circulation drill rig on the Gold Creek prospect 2 kilometres north-east of the town of Likely in Central British Columbia. The drilling program outlined a gold rich zone with sample values up to 13.4 g/t Au.

The purpose of the 2011 drill program was to test numerous gold in soil anomalies as well as expand upon low-grade bulk-tonnage gold mineralization encountered in earlier drill programs. The strongest encountered gold mineralization to date occurs within the sheeted quartz-carbonate-pyrite veins (Hole GC11-15 of 1.5 m @ 3.26 g/t Au and GC11-27 of 1.5 m @13.4 g/t Au) within greywacke units. This style of mineralization appears to occur along an WNW-ESE trending zone that has been traced along strike for ~ 300 m and remains open to the east and to depth.

Analysis of the 2011 and 2008 drilling data has shown that there appears to be an approximately 75-100 m thick and more than 300 m long zone of low-grade gold mineralization that is open along strike to the southeast and to depth. A total of nine drill holes have tested this zone to date, which appears to dip steeply to the NE and has been tested to a maximum vertical depth of ~250 m. The table below summarizes the drilling results from this mineralized zone to date:

Hole No. Easting (WGS84) Northing (WGS84) Total Length From (m) To (m) Interval (m)* Au (g/t)** Diamond Drill Holes GC08-01 599217 5831231 124.53 12.19 73.15 60.96 0.757 GC08-02 599217 5831231 256.03 20.03 87.79 67.76 0.421 GC08-03 599217 5831231 103.63 2.74 67.67 64.93 0.281 GC08-04 599294 5831103 117.35 7.01 103.76 97.75 0.355 GC08-05 599294 5831088 183.18 6.41 113.08 106.67 0.327 GC08-06 599294 5831088 274.62 18.29 274.62 256.33 0.245 GC11-14 599214 5831230 150 4.0 31.0 27.0 0.362 GC11-15 599211 5831235 261 14.0 91.0 77.0 0.316



incl.

15.5 17.0 1.5 3.261

and



173.5 212.5 39.0 0.131



incl.

175.5 176.5 1.0 2.164 GC11-27 599278 5831143 44.2 3.1 44.2 41.2 0.893



incl.

3.1 32.0 29.0 1.093



incl.

10.7 12.2 1.5 13.400

*drilling intercept length, not true widths; **un-cut average Au assays

Drilling discussion is taken from Bullion Resources Inc October 8. 2013 News Release

The northwest end of the zone appears to be cut by a fault zone but as mentioned above the zone is open to the SE where future drilling has yet to test the gold in soil anomaly (> 50 ppb Au in soil) which extends to the southeast for ~ 900 m on the Gold Creek prospect.

The attached map shows the extent of the gold mineralization on the Gold Creek prospect. The company is very encouraged by these results.

Future exploration will focus on defining the limits of the mineralization with the objective of preparing a 43-101 compliant resource estimate on the Gold Creek prospect.





To view an enhanced version of this image, please visit:

http://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/5130/24999_a1486601287860_39.jpg



ABOUT EUREKA

Gold projects include the FG property in the Cariboo area of central British Columbia having an indicated resource of 376,000 ounces of gold and an inferred resource of 634,900 ounces of gold and the Gold Creek gold property in the gold belt of the Company's FG project. The FG project is an advanced stage gold project, currently under option to Canarc Resource Corp.

The Gold Creek property is a project located proximal to and with similar geology to the Spanish Mountain deposit.

Eureka has recently concluded the purchase of the Luxor project and the TAK property in the famous and very active Dawson Range Gold belt of western Yukon Territory.



Eureka owns a 50% interest in the Gemini lithium brine project located in the Lida Valley, approximately 40 km (26 miles) south of the Clayton Valley, which contains North America's only producing lithium deposit. Drilling is anticipated to commence in 2017. The drilling has been delayed because of the success of our partners Nevada Sunrise and Advantage Lithium who have elected to retain the drilling crew at their Clayton Northeast project (see AAL and NEV news releases December 2016).

Kristian Whitehead P.Geo and John Kerr P. Eng. is the Company's designated Qualified Persons for this news release within the meaning of NI 43-101 and haves reviewed and approved the technical information described in this news release.

Further information on Eureka can be found on the Company's website at www.eurekaresourcesinc.com and at www.sedar.com, or by contacting Michael Sweatman, President and CEO, or Bob Ferguson by email at info@eurekaresourcesinc.com or by telephone at (604) 449-2273.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This news release includes certain "forward-looking statements" under applicable Canadian securities legislation that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results, performance, prospects, and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the Company's proposed financings, objectives, goals and future exploration plans at the Gemini Project and the FG Project, the costs related to the Company's proposed exploration programs, and the business and operations of the Company. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based on a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause actual results and future events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to: general business, economic and social uncertainties; litigation, legislative, environmental and other judicial, regulatory, political and competitive developments; delay or failure to receive board or regulatory approvals; those additional risks set out in the Company's public documents filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com; and other matters discussed in this news release. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on these statements, which only apply as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed time frames or at all. Except where required by law, the Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.
Further exploration upside expected at Sentinel prospect located 350m north of the Pinion Deposit

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Feb 9, 2017) - Gold Standard Ventures Corp. (TSX VENTURE:GSV)(NYSE MKT:GSV) ("Gold Standard" or the "Company") today announced assay results from 8,056m of reverse-circulation (RC) and core drilling in 25 holes at the Pinion oxide gold deposit and at new prospects Sentinel and Irene on its 100%-owned/controlled Railroad-Pinion Project in Nevada's Carlin Trend.

Of 12 drill holes located to test Pinion, 11 reported continuous gold values above the cut-off grade of 0.14 g Au/t established in the NI 43-101 resource estimate announced on March 15, 2016 (see news release). Highlights included 49.7m of 0.96 g Au/t from the Pinion North Zone and 23.3m of 0.79 g Au/t from the Pinion Main Zone. This drill program also reported 22.9m of 0.42 g Au/t at Sentinel, indicating the potential for this new target to make a significant contribution to the greater Pinion resource.

The primary objectives of the 2016 program were to: (1) test for gold mineralization identified by surface rock chip channel samples at the new Sentinel target; (2) complete metallurgical core holes for column leach tests for the Pinion North and Main zones; (3) extend areas of known oxide mineralization outward from the Pinion resource along the South Fault Corridor, an important control on gold mineralization at Southwest Pinion; and (4) complete additional scout drill holes at the Irene prospect 2.0 km northwest of the Pinion resource.

Jonathan Awde, CEO and Director of Gold Standard, commented: "We are very satisfied with last year's progress at Pinion. The deposit is continuing to confirm its potential to support a low cost heap leach operation while the resource continues to grow. We are particularly excited by the new Sentinel deposit which appears to be compatible with Pinion and could be developed at the same time. Sentinel is yet another deposit type which opens up further exploration opportunities at Railroad and offers additional evidence of the size and strength of the project's mineralizing systems. This year, in addition to further drilling at Sentinel, we expect to release an updated resource estimate for Pinion early next quarter and complete advanced metallurgical testing as part of our de-risking of the deposit."

Key Pinion Highlights

At the new Sentinel Target, 10 reverse-circulation (RC) holes and one core hole were completed to follow-up on continuous rock chip channel samples that returned seven significant weight-averaged, composite intervals including 27.4m of 0.35 g Au/t and 12.2m of 0.46 g Au/t (see news release dated January 25, 2016). Nine of these 11 holes returned intercepts above the resource cut-off grade. Results were highlighted by 22.9m of 0.42 g Au/t and 7.6m of 0.42 g Au/t in drill hole PIN16-16 on the northwest margin of the drill pattern (Please click the following link to view plan and section maps: https://goldstandardv.com/lp/pinion-results-2017/). Gold mineralization is near surface, oxidized, and open to the north and west. The deposit is hosted in the Sentinel Mountain dolomite and the top of the underlying Oxyoke sandstone, new stratigraphic host units on the Railroad-Pinion Project with the potential for new resource opportunities. Mineralization occurs within the footwall of the district-scale, gold-controlling Bullion fault. Higher grades have been noted along this fault where crossing structures have focused the gold system. These cross structures will be targeted in the 2017 drill program planned for Sentinel.

In the Pinion North Zone, PQ size core holes PIN16-01 and -04 returned 43.6m of 0.50 g Au/t and 49.7m of 0.96 g Au/t, respectively. Both intercepts are near-surface and entirely oxidized. Material from these intercepts, along with core from two previously drilled holes at North Zone, is undergoing column leach testing at Kappes, Cassiday & Associates in Reno, NV.

In the Pinion Main Zone, PQ size core holes PIN16-05A and -07 returned 23.3m of 0.79 g Au/t and 27.7m of 0.42 g Au/t, respectively. Both intercepts are near-surface and entirely oxidized. PIN16-05A offset hole PIN16-05, which suffered from poor recovery through the mineralized zone. Material from these intercepts, along with core from two previously drilled holes at Main Zone, is undergoing column leach testing at Kappes, Cassiday & Associates in Reno, NV.

At Southwest Pinion, six RC holes (PIN16-02, -03, -06, -08 and -10) intersected multiple zones of altered, oxidized to variably reduced, multi-lithic collapse breccia and gold mineralization approximately 120 to 150m on projection from existing drill holes.

At Irene, two RC scout holes (PIN16-11 and -12) were completed 2.0 km northwest of the Pinion resource. These holes followed up on 2015 scout hole PIN15-24. The new holes were spaced approximately 700m apart and represented the first tests beneath an extensive soil anomaly containing gold and Carlin pathfinder elements. Two of the three holes intersected favorable host rocks but only weak alteration and low level geochemistry.

Pinion drill results are as follows:

Drill

Hole Type Azimuth Incl. TD

(m) Intercept

(m) Thickness

(m) Grade

(g Au/t) PIN16-01 Core -90 171.6 115.2 - 158.8 43.6 0.50 PIN16-02 RC 205 -88 397.9 291.2 - 292.7 1.5 0.15 295.7 - 324.7 29.0 0.43 PIN16-03 RC 274 -58 452.7 303.4 - 309.5 6.1 0.24 320.1 - 327.7 7.6 1.00 352.1 - 355.2 3.1 0.30 373.5 - 375.0 1.5 0.19 379.5 - 382.6 3.1 0.30 PIN16-04 Core -90 123.0 3.7 - 53.4 49.7 0.96 Including

Including 4.9 - 20.3 15.4 1.39 45.4 - 50.0 4.6 2.05 58.5 - 64.9 6.4 0.50 PIN16-05 Core -90 51.2 2.3 - 2.8 0.5 0.14 4.7 - 19.2 14.5 0.73 27.7 - 28.6 0.9 0.48 PIN16-05A Core -90 29.7 6.4 - 29.7 23.3 0.79 Including 15.8 - 23.4 7.6 1.15 PIN16-06 RC 259 -59 449.7 309.4 - 346.0 36.6 0.36 356.7 - 362.8 6.1 0.23 375.0 - 397.9 22.9 0.25 PIN16-07 Core -90 101.5 61.0 - 88.7 27.7 0.42 PIN16-08 RC -90 452.7 285.0 - 295.7 10.7 0.16 300.3 - 324.7 24.4 0.38 346.0 - 349.1 3.1 0.61 359.8 - 367.4 7.6 0.18 PIN16-09 RC 172 -60 458.8 no assays > 0.14 g Au/t PIN16-10 RC -90 402.4 289.6 - 307.9 18.3 0.37 315.5 - 326.2 10.7 0.24 PIN16-11 RC -90 714.9 no assays > 0.14 g Au/t PIN16-12 RC -90 638.7 0 - 6.1 6.1 0.16 PIN16-13 RC -90 461.9 3.0 - 21.3 18.3 0.21 48.8 - 50.3 1.5 0.16 PIN16-14 RC -90 428.4 1.5 - 6.1 4.6 0.15 16.8 - 35.1 18.3 0.20 42.7 - 57.9 15.2 0.22 91.5 - 93.0 1.5 0.15 187.5 - 192.1 4.6 0.16 239.3 - 240.8 1.5 0.16 PIN16-15 RC 320 -45 36.6 0 - 4.6 4.6 0.19 19.8 - 21.3 1.5 0.14 30.5 - 32.0 1.5 0.17 35.0 - 39.6 4.6 0.15 PIN15-15A RC 320 -45 19.8 4.5 - 7.6 3.1 0.17 16.7 - 19.8 3.1 0.15 PIN16-16 RC 325 -60 422.3 1.5 - 10.7 7.6 0.42 22.9 - 24.4 1.5 0.18 32.0 - 53.3 21.3 0.20 57.9 - 80.8 22.9 0.42 100.6 - 102.1 1.5 0.16 137.2 - 141.8 4.6 0.15 205.8 - 210.4 4.6 0.23 214.9 - 216.4 1.5 0.15 271.3 - 272.8 1.5 0.18 PIN16-17 RC 335 -60 274.4 19.8 - 28.9 9.1 0.27 47.3 - 65.6 18.3 0.23 86.9 - 88.4 1.5 0.28 PIN16-18 RC 275 -60 493.9 12.2 - 13.7 1.5 0.18 19.8 - 39.6 19.8 0.33 48.8 - 61.0 12.2 0.20 65.5 - 73.1 7.6 0.17 79.2 - 89.9 10.7 0.18 118.9 - 122.0 3.1 0.29 227.1 - 230.2 3.1 0.14 285.1 - 286.6 1.5 0.75 442.1 - 446.7 4.6 0.33 PIN16-19 RC 20 -50 522.9 no assays > 0.14 g Au/t PIN16-20 RC 285 -58 228.7 7.6 - 13.7 6.1 0.35 15.2 - 16.7 1.5 0.15 27.4 - 36.5 9.1 0.17 143.3 - 144.8 1.5 0.19 175.3 - 178.4 3.1 0.24 PIN16-21 RC 250 -45 129.6 41.2 - 47.3 6.1 0.14 50.3 - 51.8 1.5 0.15 61.0 - 68.6 7.6 0.31 PIN16-22 RC 240 -63 314.0 10.6 - 13.7 3.1 0.19 32.0 - 36.6 4.6 0.15 41.2 - 42.7 1.5 0.21 PIN16-23 Core 300 -60 275.3 15.1 - 31.0 15.9 0.23 158.4 - 160.8 2.4 0.20

* Gold intervals reported in this table were calculated using a 0.14 g Au/t cutoff. Weighted averaging has been used to calculate all reported intervals. True widths are estimated at 70-90% of drilled thicknesses.

Mac Jackson, Gold Standard's Vice President of Exploration stated, "We are encouraged by the widespread, shallow oxide mineralization within a new host horizon at Sentinel. The Sentinel gold zone occurs in the immediate footwall of the Bullion fault corridor, a very important, north-striking district scale control with the North Bullion and Pinion deposits also located in its immediate footwall. Sentinel is open to the north and west; there is an excellent chance of intersecting higher-grade mineralization where crossing structures have focused the gold system. Our 2017 program at Sentinel is an important opportunity for us to add more near surface, oxide ounces at the north end of Pinion and further explore the Bullion fault corridor."

Sampling Methodology, Chain of Custody, Quality Control and Quality Assurance:

All sampling was conducted under the supervision of the Company's project geologists, and the chain of custody from the project to the sample preparation facility was continuously monitored. Core was cut at the company's facility in Elko and one quarter was sent to the lab for analysis and the remaining core retained in the original core box. A blank or certified reference material was inserted approximately every tenth sample. The Pinion core and RC samples were delivered to ALS Minerals preparation facility in Elko, NV where they were crushed and pulverized. Resulting sample pulps were shipped to ALS Minerals certified laboratory in Sparks, NV or Vancouver, BC. Pulps were digested and analyzed for gold using fire assay fusion and an atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) finish on a 30 gram split. All other elements were determined by ICP analysis. Data verification of the analytical results included a statistical analysis of the standards and blanks that must pass certain parameters for acceptance to insure accurate and verifiable results.

Drill hole deviation is measured by a gyroscopic down-hole survey that has been completed on all holes by International Directional Services of Elko, NV. Final collar locations are surveyed by differential GPS by Apex Surveying, LLC of Spring Creek, Nevada.

The scientific and technical content and interpretations contained in this news release have been reviewed, verified and approved by Steven R. Koehler, Gold Standard's Manager of Projects, BSc. Geology and CPG-10216, a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

ABOUT GOLD STANDARD VENTURES - Gold Standard is an advanced stage gold exploration company focused on district scale discoveries on its Railroad-Pinion Gold Project, located within the prolific Carlin Trend. The 2014 Pinion and Dark Star gold deposit acquisitions offer Gold Standard a potential near-term development option and further consolidates the Company's premier land package on the Carlin Trend. The Pinion deposit now has an NI43-101 compliant resource estimate consisting of an Indicated Mineral Resource of 31.61 million tonnes grading 0.62 grams per tonne (g/t) gold (Au), totaling 630,300 ounces of gold and an Inferred Resource of 61.08 million tonnes grading 0.55 g/t Au, totaling 1,081,300 ounces of gold, using a cut-off grade of 0.14 g/t Au (announced March 15, 2016). The Dark Star deposit, 2.1 km to the east of Pinion, has a NI43-101 compliant resource estimate consisting of an Inferred Resource of 23.11 million tonnes grading 0.51 g/t Au, totaling 375,000 ounces of gold, using a cut-off grade of 0.14 g/t Au (announced March 3, 2015). The 2014 and 2015 definition and expansion of these two shallow, oxide deposits demonstrates their growth potential.

Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) nor the NYSE MKT accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This news release contains forward-looking statements, which relate to future events or future performance and reflect management's current expectations and assumptions. Such forward-looking statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein including, without limitation, statements about our proposed exploration programs are 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. Risk factors affecting the Company include, among others: the results from our exploration programs, global financial conditions and volatility of capital markets, uncertainty regarding the availability of additional capital, fluctuations in commodity prices; title matters; and the additional risks identified in our filings with Canadian securities regulators on SEDAR in Canada (available at www.sedar.com) and with the SEC on EDGAR (available at www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml). These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and, except as required under applicable securities legislation, the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances.

CAUTIONARY NOTE FOR U.S. INVESTORS REGARDING RESERVE AND RESOURCE ESTIMATES

All resource estimates reported by the Company were calculated in accordance with the Canadian National Instrument 43-101 and the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy Classification system. These standards differ significantly from the requirements of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for descriptions of mineral properties in SEC Industry Guide 7 under Regulation S-K of the U. S. Securities Act of 1933. In particular, under U. S. standards, mineral resources may not be classified as a "reserve" unless the determination has been made that mineralization could be economically and legally produced or extracted at the time the reserve determination is made. Accordingly, information in this press release containing descriptions of the Company's mineral properties may not be comparable to similar information made public by US public reporting companies.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of Gold Standard,

Jonathan Awde, President and Director
Vancouver, February 9, 2017 - BCGold Corp. (TSX-V: BCG) ("BCGold" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the appointment of Eduardo (Ed) Baer to serve as Chief Executive Officer and Director. Further to the Company's press release dated January 23, 2017, Gary W. Anderson has ceased acting as interim CEO and will continue to serve as the Executive Chairman of BC Gold's Board."This is the perfect time for Ed to become BC Gold's Chief Executive Officer. We've selected a proven leader at a time when the Company is transitioning its focus to its Peruvian projects," states Gary Anderson, Executive Chairman. "Ed is not only Peruvian, but has extensive experience working in Peru, understands the jurisdiction in terms of what it takes to drive mining projects, strengthen existing relationships in the communities where the company operates, including interacting with leaders of these communities and other stakeholders to ensure local support, and preserve the ongoing maintenance of a "social licence" for the advancement of the company's projects."Mr. Baer brings over 25 years of professional experience encompassing business development, strategic planning, and management expertise in the mining sector. Throughout his career, Mr. Baer was instrumental in advancing the development of TSX, TSXV listed companies. Mr. Baer, in his capacity as interim President and CEO, completed the turnaround of European Goldfields Ltd. , served in a senior corporate development capacity to Greystar Resources Ltd., and held senior executive positions with TVX Gold Inc. Mr. Baer is a Director of for-profit and not-for-profit private and public companies, and previously held executive directorships at both European Goldfields and TVX Gold. Mr. Baer holds a Master of Laws (LLM) from Osgoode Hall Law School and a Master of Science (Leadership) with Highest Distinction from Northeastern University. Mr. Baer is a member of the Institute of Corporate Directors and obtained the ICD.D designation in 2009."I am very pleased to join BC Gold's team," expresses Ed Baer. "I look forward to guiding the company's exploration projects through the preliminary economic assessment, pre-feasibility and feasibility phases in collaboration with management and fellow Board members. Working from our asset platform that includes two distinct advanced exploration projects, Pucacorral and Chanape, and that reside some 90 kilometers from Lima, allows us to develop a functional strategy for our mineral projects as we focus on transitioning from exploration to operational capacity in time."Mr. Baer's appointment is consistent with the Board's implementation of a strategic plan to restructure the Company and direct its primary focus to Peru. Efforts are underway to facilitate financing arrangements, the successful recapitalization of the Company, and the continued advancement of its exploration activities. It is anticipated that in the coming months management will continue to introduce new projects in keeping with the rightful composition of the Company's portfolio of assets.The Company also wishes to welcome Mr. Victor Jaramillo, M.Sc., P.Geo., to its advisory board. Mr. Jaramillo is an International Exploration and Mining Geologist with over 30 years' experience particularly in precious and base metal type mineral deposits. He has previously held positions with major and junior mining companies as project manager, senior project geologist, chief mine geologist and exploration manager. He has been involved in regional exploration, property assessment, resource estimation & mine operations.He is author of multiple technical NI 43-101 reports, is perfectly bilingual (English-Spanish) and has several years' experience working throughout Latin America, particularly in Mexico, Chile and Peru, as well as Canada and the U.S.Mr. Jaramillo supervised the team that discovered the La Langosta porphyry copper-gold prospect in Mexico, and the Las Lomas porphyry copper-gold prospect in Peru. He is a Fellow of the Geological Association of Canada and a Fellow of the Society of Economic Geologists.Gary Anderson, Executive Chairman, commented: "Mr. Jaramillo's appointment to the advisory board further underlies our commitment to exploration and mining in Peru and South America, and will provide the means to boost our performance and exposure to quality projects in the region."BCGold is a Vancouver-based junior resource company that has been listed on the TSX Venture Exchange for 10 years, with a focus on copper and gold exploration. The Company acquires prospective gold and copper-gold exploration properties considered to have significant mineral potential by staking, option or purchase agreements. The Company currently has a portfolio of properties in Peru, BC and Yukon with the focus being Peru.On behalf of the Board of Directors,Gary W. AndersonExecutive ChairmanGary W. Anderson, Executive Chairman604-857-2556gwaa123@gmail.combcgir@bcgoldcorp.comEduardo Baer, Chief Executive Officer416 783 0503e.baer@rogers.comNeither 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.
India Ranks 43rd Out Of 45 Nations In IP Environment Business oi-Nithya Nair

India continues to languish near the bottom in an international intellectual property index, ranking 43rd out of 45 global economies, according to a report by the US Chamber of Commerce's Global Intellectual Property Center (GIPC).

The GIPC also highlighted the need for the government to "build upon the positive rhetoric of its IPR policy with the substantial legislative reforms that innovators need". This is the fifth year in a row that India has been ranked at the bottom of the pack in the index.

However, the 2017 report, titled 'The Roots of Innovation', represents a slight improvement in its performance as the country was ranked last or next-to-last in the last four years. "In India, many of the same challenges to innovation remain. Although it has made incremental progress, the government needs to build upon the positive rhetoric of its IPR policy with the substantial legislative reforms that innovators need," David Hirschmann, President, and CEO of GIPC, said in a statement.

"If Indian policymakers wish to deliver the kinds of results the Modi administration once hoped for, they can act to address issues that impact Indian innovation, such as software patentability, life sciences patents, copyright protection and enforcement, and trade secrets protection," he added. Hirschmann pointed out that reforms can improve the country's reputation as a destination for doing business, foreign businesses' ability to invest in and make in India, and India's own innovative industries. The report includes 90 per cent of global gross domestic product (GDP) and grades countries on patents, trademarks, copyright, trade secrets, enforcement and international treaties.

In addition to its anaemic IPR policy, the report cited challenges with the scope of patentability for computer-implemented inventions, Section 3(D) of the Indian Patent Act, and the recent Delhi High Court decision regarding photocopying copyrighted content.

The new economies included in the fifth edition of the index are Egypt, Hungary, Kenya, Pakistan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, and Spain. India ranks 43, just ahead of Pakistan. The US ranks on top, followed by UK, Germany, Japan and Sweden respectively. India has seen a slight improvement in its scores overall. However, this increase is large because of a relatively strong performance on the five new indicators included in the index and not from any actual improvements to the national IP environment, reports PTI.

The report identifies India's key strength in the newly adopted National IP Policy that recognizes several key gaps, including the need for a stronger enforcement of the current IP rights.

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Story first published: Thursday, February 9, 2017, 11:00 [IST]
Policy 'part of global strategic shift'

The U.S. has shortened the expiration period of the old visa from within 48 months to within 12 months for Chinese citizens to apply for a new visa without interview, which experts said might be linked to Trump's determination to restrain illegal immigration.

A highlighted note published on the website of the U.S. embassy in China shows that if Chinese citizens previously received a U.S. visa that expired within the last 12 months and they are returning to the country for the same purpose of travel, they may be able to obtain a visa without coming to the consulate for an interview.

Previously, the required expiration period was within 48 months.

An agent providing visa services told the Global Times that the change would make it harder for Chinese citizens to apply for a visa, adding, however, that it will have little influence on people who hold a 10-year travel visa.

In November, the U.S. required Chinese citizens with 10-year B1, B2 or B1/B2 visas to update their biographical and other information from their visa application through the Electronic Visa Update System before traveling to the U.S.. This update must be done every two years, or upon getting a new passport or B1, B2, or B1/B2 visa, whichever occurs first.

"The change in the rule might be related to Trump's attitude to immigration and it will have a negative effect on people-to-people and cultural exchanges between China and the U.S.," Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations of China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times.

Li said that it may not be a China-specific policy but part of a global strategic shift, showing Trump's determination to prevent illegal immigration.

According to the website of the U.S. embassy in Poland, Polish citizens also need to apply for the new visa within 12 months of the expiration of the old visa.

Trump issued an executive order on January 27, barring travelers from seven Muslim majority countries from entering the U.S. for 90 days and all refugees from entering the country for 120 days.

A task force of China experts offered their recommendations to the new Trump administration on the China-U.S. relationship, the country's most crucial bilateral relationship, in a report issued by the Asia Society, People's Daily reported.

The Task Force on U.S.-China Policy, which includes former U.S. government officials, scholars, and think tank researchers, generated the report and a set of recommendations to assist the new administration in formulating a China strategy that will protect and further U.S. national interests.
Republican governors are moving aggressively to cut personal and corporate income taxes, including proposals that would increase reliance on state sales taxes, setting up ambitious experiments in tax reform that could shape what is possible on a national level.
U.S. President Donald Trump sent a letter on Feb. 8 to Chinese President Xi Jinping, expressing his hopes of developing a constructive relationship with China.

According to a statement from the White House press secretary obtained by People's Daily, the U.S. president provided a letter to President Xi Jinping of China, thanking President Xi for his congratulatory letter on the occasion of President Trump's inauguration and wishing the Chinese people a happy Lantern Festival and prosperous Year of the Rooster.

President Trump stated that he looks forward to working with President Xi to develop a constructive relationship that benefits both the United States and China.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday defended the massive property tax hike he's set to propose in his new budget, even as some of the aldermen who will be asked to approve it are balking at the idea of voting for what would easily be the largest property tax increase in modern Chicago history.Still, the mayor predicted he'll have the votes needed to approve his new spending plan, which sources said could include a property tax increase of $450 million to $550 million, a new monthly garbage hauling fee of $10 to $12 per home, a tax on ride-hailing services and taxi rides, and the expansion of cigarette taxes to chewing tobacco and electronic cigarettes.Facing the prospect of selling the series of tax hikes, Emanuel framed the significant property tax increase, which would be poured into the city's underfunded police and fire pension systems, as a matter of respect for the city's public safety personnel."As it relates to police and fire pensions, we will also put that on a course to respect the hard work of the men and women who protect us every day and do it in a way that's also consistent with our values of being fair and progressive," said Emanuel at a hastily arranged photo opportunity in which he read to kids at a Near West Side day care center.Asked if he can muster the votes -- he'll need at least 26 of the 50 aldermen -- Emanuel said, "If you're asking me do I think we're going to get it done, the answer is yes, because I actually believe the aldermen are up to the task of charting a new course for Chicago's future."Chicago mayors have long enjoyed a mostly compliant City Council, but Emanuel could end up asking aldermen to take a series of tough votes -- to cover next year's property tax increase, a budget containing the new fees and taxes and authorization for Chicago Public Schools to raise its property taxes by another $50 million.The pension shortfall has been well-known at City Hall for years, and Emanuel warned of a major property tax hike near the end of the mayoral campaign if he didn't get help from Springfield. Aldermen hoped the bite would be less severe, however."I think that's a bit more than people were expecting," said Ald. Roderick Sawyer, 6th, who said many aldermen were anticipating a property tax increase of about $250 million. "We thought that was somewhat palatable for the citizens, but $450 (million), $500 million, it gets a little hairy at that point."An increase of $500 million would raise the city portion of the property tax bill by 60 percent. The city, however, only accounts for about a fifth of the bill, so the bottom line for owners of businesses and homes would be less dramatic.A $500 million increase would boost the overall tax bill on a $250,000 home by around $470, or about 11 percent, said Courtney Greve, spokeswoman for Cook County Clerk David Orr. The owner of that same Chicago home received a total property tax bill of nearly $4,200 this year, she added.That kind of hit on homeowners, and indirectly on renters after landlords pass along the costs, is difficult for politicians to support. And just as aldermen fear alienating voters, they also worry about increasing property taxes to a point that businesses decide to leave the city."There is certainly a tipping point, but it's one for each individual building and commercial tenant who ultimately bear the property tax burden," Ron Tabaczynski, director of government affairs for the Building Owners and Managers Association of Chicago, said in a statement. "It's easy to see how increasing the tax burden on commercial real estate . . . risks creating a cascading problem and threatens the economic engine that powers Chicago."Under Cook County's property tax structure, owners of retail, office and industrial buildings pay taxes at a much higher rate than homeowners. For example, the owner of a commercial property worth $250,000 this year received a tax bill of nearly $11,600, Greve said. The $500 million city increase would have raised that tab by a little more than $1,300.The owner of a $1 million commercial property would have seen their $46,000 tax bill increase by nearly $5,300, Greve said. For the owner of a $50 million building, that tab is now more than $2.3 million and would have increased by about $262,000.But flight to the suburbs would not necessarily cut costs for the city's businesses. Chicago now has the lowest tax rate of all municipalities in Cook County and nearly all cities, villages and towns in the collar counties. If the $500 million increase had been in place this year, Chicago would have had the fourth lowest rate in Cook County, Greve said. Only Barrington, South Barrington and Northfield would have had lower rates, she said.It's the wrath of voting homeowners that many aldermen fear the most. Sawyer said it would be easier to sell the tax increase if all of the money were not going to make payments to police and fire pension funds -- as Emanuel has proposed -- and the mayor's proposal were not also coupled with the first-ever fees for garbage pickup at single-family homes and two-flats."If it softens the blow to lower-income people and if we can really show the citizens of Chicago that they're really getting something for this money," Sawyer said. "We really have to show that there's going to be some investment in the city of Chicago."We can't excuse it as a way to pay pension debt and other debt -- people aren't going to be too inclined to go for that," Sawyer added. "We do have to show that there's going to be a commitment to investment in the neighborhoods. Downtown looks fine, let's be honest. We've got probably one of the most beautiful downtown areas in the world, but our neighborhoods are struggling, and they need some investment. They need a shot in the arm."Freshman Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza, 10th, a member of the Progressive Reform Caucus that often opposes the mayor, said she plans to vote against the spending package because it leans too heavily on new revenue from working-class homeowners like those in her Far Southeast Side ward who can least afford to pay. "Where's the money from the Mercantile Exchange, the banks?" she asked. "Right now, I'm a strong 'no' (vote) on a property tax increase."Possibly anticipating that argument, Emanuel said his property tax would be implemented "in a fair and progressive way," adding that he was concerned about "seniors and working families." But he did not elaborate.Ald. Proco "Joe" Moreno, 2nd, said Thursday that the mayor has shown support for the basic outlines of Moreno's plan to offer property tax rebates to lower-income Chicagoans. "You get a check back, you get a rebate back, which will obviously offset some, but not all, of your increase," Moreno said.Another freshman and a member of the Progressive Caucus, Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, 35th, said he too will be hard-pressed to support the property tax increase, adding that many homeowners in his neighborhood "are still underwater from the mortgage crisis."Not every alderman expressed surprise. Ald. Willie Cochran, 20th, said the property tax part of Emanuel's plan is in line with what aldermen have been bracing themselves for, and Ald. Ameya Pawar, 47th, said the amount was dictated by the payments due next year to the police and fire pension funds."There's no doubt that we need a significant pot of new money to make good on pensions, and the courts have ruled that pensions are inviolate," Pawar said.Emanuel, meanwhile, cautioned that nothing is set in stone and his budget plans could change before he unveils the final product. Starting out with such a huge number could provide the mayor wiggle room to negotiate it downward and look like he compromised."We go through this line by line -- I wouldn't jump to conclusions," Emanuel said. "I will give the budget speech on Sept. 22. I'd like to reserve that right to give that speech, if that's OK."
Several states are undertaking what amounts to a significant social experiment, one that leaders and policymakers in other states will want to watch closely.Concerned about private-sector employees' lack of retirement savings and the potential impact on poverty levels, and subsequently on state budgets, legislators in nine states -- California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont and Washington-have enacted programs designed to remedy both problems.They have good reason. Unlike most government employees, more than 30 million of the nation's private-sector workers -- about a third of the workforce -- lack access to a retirement savings plan through their jobs. While some of these employees may have other savings vehicles, such as individual retirement accounts (IRAs), research by The Pew Charitable Trusts has shown that only 28 percent of those without access to an employer-provided plan have any retirement savings at all.More recent research illustrates the concern and cost that inadequate retirement savings pose for states. In January, the Pennsylvania Treasury released an independent study that quantified the fiscal and economic costs to the state of insufficient savings: Public-assistance costs due to inadequate retirement savings reached an estimated $702 million in 2015, while tax revenue shrank by about $70 million. The study projects that Pennsylvania's net assistance costs will grow to $1.1 billion by 2030, by which point the cumulative 15-year cost could top $14 billion.The fiscal issues Pennsylvania faces from inadequate retirement savings are by no means unique. In 2016, lawmakers in more than half of the states introduced legislation to create state-sponsored retirement savings plans for employees who lack access to one at work. Today, 80 percent of the states -- including Pennsylvania -- are considering or have considered legislation to address gaps in retirement-plan access. But the major development in the past year is that nine states have already moved to implement these programs.Their approaches vary. California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland and Oregon are launching automatic-enrollment IRAs, state-facilitated programs administered by private financial firms with plan participants bearing the program cost. New Jersey and Washington state, meanwhile, have created online marketplaces: state-managed websites listing plans administered by private firms that meet minimum standards. Massachusetts and Vermont have opted for a multiple-employer plan, which is a state-developed group 401(k) available to eligible employers (the Massachusetts plan is limited to small nonprofits).Coverage of privately employed workers could eventually be extensive. California's Secure Choice auto-IRA program, CalSavers , aims to have a pilot in place by year's end and ultimately to cover 285,000 employers with more than 6 million employees. Speaking at a Pew-hosted forum in Sacramento in late 2016, State Controller Betty Yee underscored the program's potential impact, calling it "an ambitious step that is part of a growing national movement" and adding that it could help keep millions from retiring in poverty.Oregon, the first state to launch a state-sponsored auto-IRA program for the private sector, completed its first wave of enrollments in late 2017. OregonSaves is focusing initially on large employers, with smaller companies joining during the next two years. Once the program is fully implemented, the state hopes to provide retirement-plan access to nearly 800,000 workers at more than 64,000 businesses.The plans do have some possible risks: How would a statewide program affect small employers? Would savings in a state plan be offset by increases in credit-card and other debt among low- to moderate-income households? And how these state-sponsored plans relate to federal pension law remains somewhat unclear.Pew's research shows that the biggest hurdles for businesses when it comes to offering retirement savings plans are the financial costs and organizational resources needed to launch them. The findings suggest that if states could minimize administrative and financial burdens on employers, the business community would react positively, especially employers who do not offer savings plans now.Meanwhile, the workers themselves have cited their lack of knowledge about retirement plans as a roadblock to saving. Many workers also are unsure about how much they need to be able to retire comfortably; less than a third who responded to a Pew survey had tried in the past two years to determine how much they would need.It's clear, however, that plan participation can make a difference in financial behavior beyond the mere act of saving. In addition to adding to their nest eggs, research shows, employees saving through a workplace plan are more likely to engage in formalized retirement planning and to seek out online tools and calculators rather than simply "guesstimating" their retirement needs.The implementation process for this experiment will continue, as will close scrutiny by states that are considering programs of their own. Much is at stake -- both in terms of states' budgets and their residents' financial well-being in retirement.
Vowing to free Maryland businesses from what he called "nonsensical, out-of-control" regulations, Gov. Larry Hogan launched a commission Thursday charged with reviewing every rule on the state's books with an eye to streamlining or eliminating them.The Republican governor, following up on campaign promises, told reporters that his new Regulatory Reform Commission will make recommendations to eliminate regulations that discourage businesses from coming to or staying in Maryland."We promise a top-to-bottom review of all regulations and policies to make sure that Maryland can once again operate under a fair, accountable and balanced regulatory climate," Hogan said. He said the panel will target rules that are outdated, failed to meet their goals, or are poorly drafted or implemented.Critics objected to the composition of the 10-member panel, which is made up almost entirely of business interests. Six of the members, including co-chair James A. Soltesz, were identified as chief executive officers of companies and a seventh as president. The other co-chair is Baltimore securities lawyer Abba David Poliakoff of the firm Gordon Feinblatt.The other members include a representative of the agricultural community and Hogan transition chief James T. Brady, a former secretary of business and economic development.The group included no representatives of labor, environmental organizations or nonprofits -- groups that typically seek a role in how regulations are written and enforced. Aides to the governor said more people might be added.Hogan said the commission would scrutinize a wide swath of rules -- dealing with such areas as the environment, transportation, health, labor standards, occupational licensing, banking and finance, land use and insurance. He identified excessive regulation as one of the three "deadly self-inflicted wounds" holding back business in Maryland. (The others, he said, are high taxes and an anti-business attitude.)Henry Bogdan, public policy director for Maryland Nonprofits, said he was concerned by what he considers a lack of diversity on the panel."Someone should be at the table to speak for the reasons those regulations were put there in the first place," he said.Karla Raettig, executive director of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters, expressed similar concerns. She said the environmental community wants Maryland to increase jobs but believes a well-protected natural environment helps attract businesses."One of the things they need to be examining when they look at these regulations are the benefits they bring," she said.Hogan spokesman Doug Mayer said the governor wants a panel that reflects the business interests."It represents the governor's point of view," he said.Brian Poffenberger, president of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce, welcomed the commission. Of the three problems Hogan identified, he said, heavy-handed regulation is the greatest threat."It is the one that will shatter a business plan most severely because business are based on predictability," he said.Poffenberger said the membership of the panel was appropriate."You want people with a deep business background," he said.Hogan told reporters that the commission would continue through the next three years of his administration and make recommendations each December. The governor said some of the panel's recommendations might require legislation, while others could be adopted administratively.He said the panel will report to Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford, who will serve as honorary chairman.It was unclear how the group would interact with a similar commission created in a bill passed by the General Assembly, and signed by Hogan this year.That panel, charged with investigating the impact of regulations on small business, will include lawmakers and business owners appointed by legislative leaders, in addition to Hogan Cabinet secretaries."I don't know the difference between what the governor's doing and what he signed into law," said House Speaker Michael E. Busch, a Democrat who said he received no advance notice of Hogan's plans. An official in Democratic Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller's office said he was not informed either.Mayer said the governor's commission would be reviewing all regulations in Maryland, not just those affecting small business.It is not unprecedented for Maryland governors to appoint panels to review regulations and try to streamline government in the state. Gov. Martin O'Malley undertook a review that led to the elimination or revision of more than 130 regulations in 2012. And Busch recalled a similar initiative under Gov. William Donald Schaefer in the early 1990s.Busch said Hogan was acting within his authority."He's the governor," the speaker said. "He has the right to review every regulation."But Busch said any legislative proposals developed by the panel would be "highly scrutinized" by the General Assembly.
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FOUNDING FRUSTRATIONS

GROWTH AND DATA

THE IMPORTANCE OF MOATS

Online ratings and reviews have gained their place in mainstream consumer life. Now, fueled by $10 million worth of fresh capital, a Washington, D.C.-based startup called Procurated is striving to bring more of that mentality to government procurement.Launched in 2019 by David Yarkin  the state of Pennsylvanias former top procurement officer  the company has developed vendor performance management software designed to help officials in government, health care and education find the best suppliers.The general idea is to have those procurement officials review and rate their suppliers, which in turn creates what amounts to a real-time database that can inform purchase decisions. Suppliers can list for free but pay for upgrades that enable them to provide such information as case studies and white papers to potential customers.Yarkin said Procurated verifies reviewers, does not manipulate reviews and ratings  for example, by accepting payment from suppliers for better or higher listings  and allows users to link to suppliers. The company, however, does not enable direct purchases via the Procurated website.Its almost a utility for public-sector purchasing, Yarkin, who is also the Procurated CEO, toldabout the vision for his company.So far, the company has raised $15 million.That includes the recent Series A funding round that was led by Greycroft and included Tribeca Venture Partners, TDF Ventures and Limerick Hill LLC, which drove the companys seed funding round Government and education buyers spend $1.5 trillion annually on goods and services that directly impact citizens lives, said Alan Patricof, co-founder and chairman emeritus of Greycroft, in a statement. But for too long, they have lacked reliable performance data to help make informed decisions.The new capital comes as more investors look favorably upon the general gov tech space  though, as Yarkin told it, Procurated stands out almost as a relatively odd duck amid that investment activity.You have to have an incredible amount of understanding and experience about how the market works, Yarkin said when talking about public agency procurement. You cannot just be a 20-something in your garage and start coding.Indeed, the company sprung from his own frustration during his work in procurement.Not only did he and his colleagues have to make decisions on multimillion contracts with relatively little information about the performance records of suppliers, but the feedback they did get was often cherry-picked by the suppliers themselves.We were making decisions blind, he said. The only option we had was to call references. Its just crazy.Another spark involved the mundane reality of business travel, which so often involves deciding on meals at relatively unknown restaurants or choosing someplace that will please a large and diverse group of people. As ratings-and-review sites such as Yelp and Tripadvisor gained traction, Yarkin and countless other consumers came to rely on the data offered via those online channels.I found I was making very good decisions by relying on the wisdom of my peers, he toldSince the company entered live beta in the summer of 2019 with participation from the state of Pennsylvania  Yarkin also worked as a procurement consultant since leaving his state job  Procurated has attracted 34,000 reviews of 10,000 suppliers from some 8,000 verified public-sector employees.Reviews are only the starting point for the Procurated proposition.The company aims to use all that data to not only help buyers gauge supplier performance and figure out potential places for improvement, but also to more precisely locate specific types of suppliers.For instance, that might include suppliers certified as small, minority, women- or veteran-owned businesses  Yarkin said his companys platform has about 1,000 of those businesses already.For such reasons, Procurated has won praise from one its earliest users.According to Curt Topper, secretary for Pennsylvanias Department of General Services, the state was thinking about building its procurement information-sharing tool before deciding to work with Procurated.They had no other customers yet, but we thought it would be worthwhile to pursue a pilot with a solution that could potentially scale beyond Pennsylvania and provide greater value to our constituents, Topper toldin a statement. Now, more than 2,000 suppliers have been reviewed by procurement professionals across the state, including 400 small-, woman- or minority-owned businesses. And as the Procurated community has expanded into many more states, our buyers can learn about suppliers not only from their peers in Pennsylvania, but from those all across the country.The company says it manually vets the work email addresses of people who sign up to review suppliers, and that only verified professionals from the government, education, nonprofit and health-care industries gain access.Its that manual vetting process  and the companys refusal to game the system for favored suppliers  that Yarkin said will keep Procurated growing as competitors likely emerge.After all, business-to-business e-commerce keeps on expanding  already, 13 percent of B2B sales in the U.S. are digital, according to one estimate  and that is certain to attract other upstarts and even legacy players to this area of gov tech. Amazon , for example, is already active in procurement, and its a pretty safe bet that the e-commerce giant will fight hard for more such business.Whether its Amazon or any other player, they pose a potential threat to every startup, Yarkin said. However, there are certain things we are doing to create a moat around our business. The work of vetting reviewers is not easy, not if you have integrity.
The problem of unequal wealth distribution in American cities has never been greater than it is today. Nine out of ten metropolitan cities have experienced a shrinking middle class from 2000-2014, according to the Pew Research Center , and the middle class no longer makes up the majority of the population in the United States.A critical step in addressing the problem of wealth inequality is understanding the nature of the problem and where it occurs in order to more effectively allocate resources and strategies like the promotion of affordable housing. Data visualization and mapping allow for a deep understanding of the issue and where cities struggle the most. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) provider Esri created a story map, an Esri product that combines mapping with narrative and multimedia content, called  Wealth Divides  to give users a dynamic way to see and interact with data about this issue.The story map focuses on five major U.S. cities with high levels of wealth inequality  New York City, Boston, Atlanta, Washington D.C., and San Francisco  and expresses how visible the problem is. One in five New York residents lives below the poverty line. Mapping median household incomes in the city shows that the wealth disparity is often visible within walking distance.The interactive map also allows users to hone in on a specific census tract, view the total population and number of households, and see how many households have incomes either greater than $200,000 or less than $25,000. The nature of current wealth disparities does not isolate the wealthy and low-income households geographically; in New York City, the census tract bordering Central Park in the Upper East Side has a median household income greater than $200,000. Just a few blocks away, in East Harlem, the median household income is under $16,000.In San Francisco, rapid gentrification, largely a product of the tech industry boom, has driven low-income residents out of what were formerly working-class neighborhoods. The median household income map shows a checkerboard of high and low-income neighborhoods. The coastal neighborhood of Potrero was once known as a working class neighborhood, but the current median household income stands at $179,806. Just a few miles south, another coastal neighborhood has a median income of $16,703. These stark divides are common -- as seen on the Upper East Side and East Harlem in New York, complicating the issue of how to achieve equity in the rapidly gentrifying enclaves of major American cities.The City of Boston ranks number one in the nation in income inequality, according to the Brookings Institution . In 2014, the highest-earning Boston households made nearly 18 times as much as those households that ranked closer to the bottom of the income distribution list. The Esri story map describes Boston as a study in income divides, highlighting its wide wealth disparity and unique neighborhood-by-neighborhood divides. One interesting and stark divide comes in two neighborhoods divided by the Franklin Park Zoo. On one side, the Jamaica Plains neighborhood has a median household income of $169,291, while directly on the other side of the zoo, the Forest Hills neighborhood has a household income of $34,366.The Wealth Divides map draws income and geographical data from the Pew Research Institute, Brookings Institution, Esri Living Atlas, and the U.S. Census Bureau and was created using Esris Cascade application. Explore the map here and dive in deeper to find out more about the nature of the widespread wealth divides in some of Americas largest, most prominent cities. And stay tuned to Data-Smart for more on how data visualization can be used to understand and solve complex urban problems, as the Civic Analytics Network will soon launch a contest highlighting the most effective and interesting interactive maps.
With the stroke of a pen just seven weeks ago, Philadelphia joined other major cities like New York and Los Angeles in creating a zero waste goal, seeking to boost its trash diversion rate to 90 percent by 2035.Upon signing an Executive Order on Dec. 20, Mayor James Kenney created the citys first-ever Zero Waste and Litter Cabinet. And that cabinet's 16 members  nine city government entities including its departments of transportation and planning and development, and seven community stakeholders including school officials and members of Keep Philadelphia Beautiful (KPB)  have a full calendar.They're tasked with creating a comprehensive, data-driven action plan for waste reduction and litter prevention; increasing the percent of diversion from landfills and incinerators; preventing and better managing litter and illegal dumping; partnering with government and business; and challenging residents to keep their own neighborhoods clean.But even as officials and community leaders scrutinize the origins of trash in Philadelphia, the birthplace of the U.S. Constitution is also bringing technology to bear on the ongoing problem.This spring, officials will pilot a litter index in two neighborhoods. Using metrics from a similar paper-based Keep America Beautiful (KAB) survey, theyll painstakingly and systematically map every piece of litter, garbage and trash they see  then digitize their findings with GIS software and surveying products.When we started looking at the program and how we enhance it, the first idea was digitizing. Were basically creating surveys for field workers in Philadelphia to go out and take a survey of every square inch in Philadelphia, said Zero Waste and Litter Director Nic Esposito.Ultimately, large and small trash should become big data for the city.What this comes into is, weve set up some really great systems through our Department of Innovation and Technology to aggregate that data and crosscheck it, so we can really see where resources need to be driven, where hot spots are, Esposito said.The pilot should begin in March, though city officials were reluctant to tip where theyll try it first, and the survey will likely go citywide in late summer or early fall. Philadelphias goal is to do two citywide litter indexes a year, Esposito said.On the back end, officials will be able to use the results to plot their response in trash-strewn areas and habitual dumping grounds. But on the front end, theyll be creating a website where residents will be able to check an areas litter score and see what resources  anything from street trash cans to friend groups  are available.Esposito and Michelle Feldman, director of KPB, the local KAB chapter, praised the mayors creation of the cabinet, which has already held a meeting.But beyond strategic coordination, both agree the index will also provide a chance to apply behavioral science to trash and littering, possibly with researchers from a local university.I think data is already helping to shape what the behavioral science subcommittee is looking at in terms of measuring interventions. Data is going to be very important there, I think also [in determining] what messages work, said Feldman, who sits on the cabinets behavioral science and communications and engagement subcommittees.Through studying data, she said, officials may be able to help shape effective anti-litter messages and strategies by observing which result in cleaner areas.I think the key is, litter abatement is different than litter prevention. You really need great data to put together a good plan for litter prevention, Feldman said. Its a really powerful means of citizen engagement, which I think is part of solving this problem too, making folks feel like the institutions around them are listening, but making them also feel like its a two-way dialog.Besides, she added, if people see their government responding, theyre more likely to engage in positive behavior and cut down on littering.Mark Wheeler, chief graphic information officer in the citys Office of Innovation and Technology, sits on the cabinets data subcommittee.His office is formulating a survey index for grading the litter that city officials will find when they pilot the litter index.Wheeler compared the process to existing applications like the citys Address Information System, which lets official users input an address, then see on a computerized map whether its a valid residence.The litter is going to have some kind of similar aggregation of data, he said. Theyre going to work on the survey itself and the survey is going to tell us the quantity of litter theyve seen, the frequency. But we know we want to look at the number of vacant lots on the same block, the number of 311 [calls]. These things may be contributors to why there is so much litter.Other issues, Wheeler said, could also be aggregated as data to suggest additional reasons why litter is a persistent problem in certain areas. Crime and theft rates, for example, could be keeping people from helping clean up their neighborhoods.Philadelphia may also use its data and related quality-of-life indicators to emulate cities like Boston and Los Angeles in creating dashboards, he said.We could do that but take it up a notch, integrate it geographically so you could see whats going on in that neighborhood, Wheeler said, noting the city has had many requests for dashboards using information that is sometimes still paper-based.Theres so many opportunities for one project to improve the other, he added.Esposito compared the cabinets overall effort to assembling a pretty complex puzzle, but said action on trash should happen sooner rather than later.Were not going to wait until 2035 to clean up Philadelphia," he said. "That has to happen right now.
There has been a flurry of activity around the Minnesota Statehouse in recent weeks with regard to how the state protects and evolves its technology infrastructure and cyberdefenses.The first, and arguably more prominent action, came out of democratic Gov. Mark Daytons office with a proposal aimed at pumping $125 million into cybersecurity and systems upgrades. The second was the creation of a new House committee that will be charged with looking ahead at the tech landscape and suggesting various actions.Technology officials in the state have long said that aging systems and increasing threat vectors are putting citizen data at more risk than ever before, but a clear-cut path to shoring up defenses has been harder to identify than some might assume.Of the governors proposed IT spending plan, $74 million would go toward system security updates, while the remaining $51 million would be allocated to upgrading technology infrastructure.Last year, when Dayton made a similar, albeit smaller, budget proposal, legislators moved against the allocations due to concerns about some of the states faltering technological undertakings  most prominently, the states health-care coverage portal MNsure. The 2016 attempt at more money for cybersecurity came in at $45 million, but sources close to the governor are hopeful legislators will see the need this year and sign on the dotted line.During a press conference about the governors budget Jan. 31, Management and Budget Commissioner Myron Frans and CIO Thomas Baden stood behind the proposal, citing statistics about the current standing of the state's IT infrastructure and the unprecedented challenges in defending it.Baden said the millions of attacks launched against the state on any given day are not unusual and regularly put the data of 5.5 million citizens in jeopardy. We have to be concerned with the safety and security of the information. Today there is a real threat to Minnesota, he said.We must secure the states IT systems, he warned. The cost of doing nothing is simply too great.The CIO also explained that some of the technology used on a daily basis predates the Internet and computer mouse. Though Baden was not available to discuss the budget proposal, his staff supplied a comment that underlined his concerns: Each day, cybercriminals around the world steal personal, private data, disrupt business and government operations, and use our resources to conduct illicit or illegal operations. Strong cybersecurity protections are critical to protect Minnesota citizens, businesses and our state from these attacks. Gov. Mark Daytons historic investment to improve cybersecurity across the state of Minnesota will help to protect the private data of all Minnesotans, he wrote.The push for more cash in IT coffers coincided closely with a move on Feb. 1 by House Speaker Kurt Daudt to create the new Select Committee on Technology and Responsive Government, a body dedicated to improving state processes and efficiency. I think weve got a huge opportunity in Minnesota to look at upgrading our IT systems, our computer systems and technology to provide better services to Minnesotans, he said.Daudt said the impetus for the committee boils down to a need for longer-term thinking when it comes to state technology and how it impacts citizens and customers.One of the problems for us in the Minnesota House is we serve two-year terms. We very often get stuck looking at everything as just how it impacts us right now  this budget, in this election, for two years, how does it impact us? And we forget to look at it on a longer term," he said. "Thats really what this committee is about."When asked how the committee might dovetail with the governors efforts to provide a new level of funding for state IT, Daudt said he hopes it will serve as a resource in addressing some of the issues facing Minnesota and its customers.What we are really focusing on is how can we use technology to not only make government more effective and better at serving its customers, but also make it more efficient. I think they are two separate things, but hopefully complementary of each other.We know as well that there are potentially some weaknesses in our IT infrastructure as far as cybersecurity is concerned, and we know that those need to be addressed, Daudt said.As for how the governors office believes the new committee will fit into the efforts, a source close to the administration said it remains to be seen. While any progress toward improved IT infrastructure is a step in the right direction, the same source said solidifying longer-term funding, much like transportation allocations, needs to be a priority for all involved.
Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr., and Israel's Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert recently announced the creation of the Maryland/Israel Development Fund (MIDF), a $1 million fund to support new joint product development ventures between high tech companies in Maryland and Israel."The Maryland/Israel Development Fund is further proof that Maryland is open for business, particularly in the global marketplace," said Gov. Ehrlich. "Minister Olmert and I believe that Maryland and Israel share common strengths in the bioscience, information technology and homeland security sectors. This fund will bring our companies together for joint development of new high tech products that strengthen companies and create jobs in both Maryland and Israel."Gov. Ehrlich and Vice Prime Minister Olmert, who also serves as Minister of Industry, Trade, Labor and Communications, first discussed the fund idea during the governor's trade mission to Israel in November 2003. The fund is modeled on several bi-national research and development funds Israel maintains with other countries including the United States, Canada and Britain. This is the first such fund Israel is establishing with an American state.The Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development and Israel's Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor will each dedicate $500,000 for the grants. Maryland and Israeli companies will be eligible for conditional matching grants from their respective governments to jointly develop new commercial high tech products. Projects will be sought in the areas of telecommunications, electronics, software development, homeland security and life sciences. The grants will be repaid from royalties on sales of the products.Hanan Sibel, chairman of the Maryland/Israel Development Center which will market the MIDF to local and Israeli businesses said, "The Maryland/Israel Development Fund will be a very useful tool in promoting business and R&D collaboration between our companies. It's the logical next step to the brokering work of the Maryland/Israel Development Center, and further illustrates Governor Ehrlich's leadership in business development and forging bi-national ties. We're proud Maryland is the first state to form such a development fund with Israel."Other Maryland/Israel economic development projects announced during Governor Ehrlich's November 2003 trade mission to Israel include: the expansion of Oblicore, an Israeli software company in Columbia, Maryland; the establishment of MarketReach America, an in depth business development consulting program for growing Israeli companies; the establishment of the Marine Biotechnology Research Collaboration between the Center of Marine Biotechnology at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute and the Israel Oceangraphic Institute; and M/A-Com's export contract with the Israeli government, making Israel its largest international customer.****The Maryland/Israel Development Center is a non-profit organization that promotes trade and investment between Maryland and Israeli businesses. It is an alliance between the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, Israel's Ministry of Industry and Trade, and The ASSOCIATED: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore. For more information, see www.MarylandIsrael.org
On Feb. 8, the prayer flags tied to five poles around Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, the capital city of Tibet Autonomous Region, were switched out with new ones in celebration of the coming Tibetan New Year. Worshipers tied prayer flags to the poles to pray for a prosperous new year.
Michael Schumacher's former manager is not so sure the takeover by Liberty Media will really be good for F1.

So far, since the US media group took over from controversial former owner CVC, most commentators have said Liberty's modern savvy should help F1 step up a gear.

But Willi Weber, who famously guided F1 legend Schumacher into the sport in the 90s, is not so sure 'Americanisation' will be good for grand prix racing.

"The Americans make a circus out of every sport," he told Germany's Sport Bild.

"Now they'll want to make every race a big event, inviting famous actors and letting the spectators get closer to the audience than in the Bernie (Ecclestone) era.

"But the Americans will never fight for a formula one ticket -- they would just rather go somewhere else. So I think that the premium feeling about formula one will be lost.

"The new owners have no racing feeling -- they just want to make money," Weber added.

Weber also commented on the future of Sebastian Vettel, as many say the German's attempt to emulate Schumacher's feats at Ferrari has already failed.

Weber agrees: "If it is not much better this season, then Vettel must go. Even when they (Ferrari) pour wine at lunch again, it is clear -- no more."

Finally, 74-year-old Weber commented on the fate of his old friend Schumacher, saying he has no information about the seven time world champion after being shut out by the family and new management.

"There seems to be a fear that I would reveal something about Michael's condition," he said. "But I would never do that. I would sign any clause of secrecy.

"Regardless of this, I consider it only right to explain three years after his accident to his millions of fans, how he (Schumacher) is.

"I pray for Michael," said Weber. "Hope dies last."

(GMM)
In a breeding base at the foot of Mount Emei, ornithologists and biologists are carrying out a huge operation to bring crested ibises back to Sichuan province. Fifty of the creatures were introduced into the breeding base at the end of 2016. Breeding season is now approaching, and baby crested ibises will be born next month.

The 50 crested ibises currently at the base come from Henan, Zhejiang and Shaanxi provinces. According to Xiong Tieyi, a chief expert at Sichuan Provincial Academy of Natural Resource Sciences and head of the Mount Emei Biological Resources and Experiment Station, the crested ibis is one of the worlds most endangered species, in addition to being listed as an "international protected bird" by the International Association of Birds. Known as a "treasure of the East" and an "Oriental gem," the bird is as rare as the giant panda.

"At one time, Sichuan was the only habitat for crested ibises in southwestern China. The reintroduction of the bird will rebuild this species in Sichuan province," said Xiong. Crested ibises mainly eat small fish, shrimp, loaches and insects. They are timid creatures that are easily frightened, and prone to losing their appetites for up to several weeks after a stranger enters their midst.

Preparation work for the reintroduction of crested ibises took approximately four years.

"Based on current development, the crested ibises are scheduled to be made available for viewing by the public starting on May 1, 2018," said Xiong. In two years, it is estimated that the number of crested ibises at the base will approach 100.

"If this batch of crested ibises manages to settle in smoothly, [the program] will become another model for protecting highly endangered species, following that for giant pandas," Xiong added.

At present, there are about 2,500 crested ibises in China. The crested ibis used to be common in Japan, China, Korea, and Russia. It has now disappeared from most of its former habitats.
The majority of Chinese people believe that home produced products have made great progress over the past decade, according to a survey conducted by China Youth Daily.

In the survey of 2000 netizens, 65.1 percent of respondents say mobile phones were the domestic products they trust the most; 55.4 percent of them choose space and aviation facilities; and 54.1 percent place their trust in domestic high-speed rail products most.

41.4 percent of netizens praised domestic products, with 49.2 percent saying they were acceptable and only 1.3 percent of respondents rejecting made-in-China products.

Ten years ago, the most reputable domestic products were small items such as clothing and shoes. But today, high-tech products have won a good reputation for good quality and low prices.

Wu Zhen, a Doctor at Tsinghua University, said the biggest change for domestic products is that they are not only cheap, but also display advanced technologies. He noted that the smartphone he now uses is a Chinese brand, adding that the smartphone is easy to use and is of good quality.

Sun Yu working at a hospital in Henan province is planning to buy a Haier washing machine. He said many Chinese brands such as Haier, Huawei and Lenovo have won favour among foreign customers for their good quality and low prices.

To do better in the future, nearly 70 percent of respondents suggest Chinese brands focus on intellectual property rights and the development of core technology.

54.4 percent say innovation is the top priority of domestic products.
Brilliant Chinese student in UK allegedly beaten to death by her boyfriend

Bi Xixi [Photo: Wales News Service]

A British court has been told that a Chinese student who moved to Britain to further her education was beaten to death by her obsessed barman boyfriend, according to the Daily Mail newspaper.

24-year-old Bi Xixi, was killed by Jordan Matthews, 23, in what was described in court as a 'vicious, sustained and prolonged attack'.

Matthews has admitted manslaughter but has denied murder, telling the police that he had 'been horrible' to Bi, after he saw a message from another man on her mobile phone.

The court in Cardiff heard that Bi Xixi was a very talented student who spoke four languages, and had moved to Oxford as a teenager to further her education.

Bi Xixi and Jordan Matthews [Photo: Wales News Service]

She was studying for a master's degree in international business in Cardiff when she fell for Matthews - who had a black belt in karate - showering him with gifts.

But after their relationship began, Matthews allegedly began beating Bi and forcing her to miss lectures.

Born in east China's Nanjing city, she was reportedly the daughter of a former CEO of Yurun, the 112nd of Fortune Brand of China, according to the This is Great Britain official weibo social media account.

The court was told Matthews was a violent controller who easily became jealous.

The day before her death Bi Xixi traveled to London to see a friend who noticed bruising on her face. When she returned to Cardiff, she was picked up by Matthews. At home, they argued over messages he found on her phone.

The court was told that Bi died as a result of the multiple blunt force injuries.

The trial is expected to last up to three weeks.
All three ferries will be capable of all-electric operation with fast charging. Diesel engines, capable of pure biodiesel operation, will be installed as well, enabling hybrid and plug-in hybrid operation. The ferries have been designed with energy efficient hulls, equipment and systems.

Norwegian Electric Systems (NES) has signed a new contract with Havyard Ship Technology, Leirvik for the delivery of hybrid electric systems for three new ferries owned by Norway`s largest ferry company Fjord1. The ferrieswith capacity for 50 cars and 199 personsare designed by Multi Maritime . The first ferry is schedueled for delivery in May 2018.

Two of the ferries will operate on the route between Brekstad - Valset and one ferry between Sandvikvag - Husavik. The Norwegian Road Authorities strict requirement for emissions for these two ferry routes resulted in an electrical propulsion system using chargeable Li-ion batteries.

Norwegian Electric Systems main DC system ensures the safe charging and discharging of the batteries. The DC system also includes NES Odins Eye solution, allowing for future upgrades of the vessels, such as larger battery capacity and/or higher charging power from shore. Odins Eye is a DC grid solution which allows for the use of variable speed generator sets.

We have always believed in DC Grid solutions, they work, they save fuel use and have lower emissions. However, we did not like the technology currently being offered because it was very expensive and limited in what it could do. We knew we could do better, so we set about finding a solution which is less expensive and offers more capability, including improved safety. It turns out we had the answer already.

We expanded our Frequency Converter, the Quadro Drive, and connected it in a ring net solution. Instead of being limited to just a two split switchboard, which means drastically over-sizing the generators and propulsion motors, we can now split all the essential equipment up into separate autonomous islands. These islands can be configured to work together with closed bus-ties or independently with open bus-ties. Because we are using our existing well proven hardware we can keep our costs very low and avoid the risk of new product development. We believe this amazing solution, Odins Eye, will make it more affordable for more owners who want economic, flexible and reliable solutions. Paul Winson, Senior Vice President Sales for NES

The complete integrated DC-Grid system consists of:

QUEST - Energy Storage System (Batteries)

Norwegian Electric DC switchboards

Norwegian Electric Generators

Norwegian Electric Transformers

Norwegian Electric Swithcboards230 VAC

Quadro Drive Low loss DC/AC and AC/DC

Odins Eye, EMS and IAS

Project Management

Calculations/Engineering

Commissioning and sea trial

NES has already installed one of Europes largest test facilities for electric propulsion systems including energy storage.
Residents of Changsha, Hunan province staged a dragon dance on Feb. 9, 2017, performing in boats on Shiyan Lake. The performance was intended to welcome the upcoming Lantern Festival. (Chinanews.com/Yang Huafeng)
The U.S. Forest Service has abandoned its presence in Green River after the previous employee found new work.

Tuesday night, Rebecca Eusek, director of the Green River Chamber of Commerce said the forest service has left the visitor center with one less person to work during the summer travel months.

For summertime, weve lost one full-time employee, Eusek said. This is an issue.

The forest service subleases the visitor center as a location to greet people traveling to the Ashley National Forest south of Green River. The hiring and communications freezes initiated by the feder...
Betty Ann Corona, 93, passed away Feb. 3, 2017 at Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County.

She was a resident of Rock Springs since 1996 and former resident of Douglas, Ariz., Corona died from a sudden illness.

She was born Nov. 25, 1923, in Emporia, Kan., the daughter of Howell Jones and Margaret Corbet.

Corona attended schools in California and graduated from Paso Robles High School in 1941.

She was married June 18, 1956, to Clifton F. Corona.

Her interests include spending time with family and friends, books on tape and friends of the library.

Survivors include daughter Vicky Ila Dean...
Dear Sen. Barrasso,

I am disappointed that you did not include Teton County in your scheduled constituent visits this February. Many people whom you represent are quite concerned about your recent voting record on cabinet positions, executive orders, and rule changes. A less charitable person than myself might think you are trying to avoid constituents who dont agree with you. I will simply say the optics look bad. You know as well as I that a town hall conference call is not the same thing as face-to-face interaction.

I have many things Id like to discuss with you, and Im h...
If President Donald Trump's executive order stands, Mamoun Sakka and his wife, Raveen Mustafa, now living in a Greensboro apartment with their young son, would be among the last refugees to get into the United States.
A girl walking with her suffered minor injuries in the accident, which happened on the same road where an 11-year-old boy died in 2019 after being struck by an SUV.
President Donald Trump must be disappointed, or maybe angry, to find out that Neil Gorsuch believes in the independence of the courts.

Trump is throwing another mini-tantrum aimed, not at a department store that won't carry his daughter's made-in-Asia products, but at a Democratic senator who said Gorsuch found the president's attack on judges to be demoralizing and disheartening.

Trump claims Sen. Richard Blumenthal's "comments were misrepresented and what you should do is ask Sen. Blumenthal about his Vietnam record, which didn't exist."

Yep, Blumenthal, who served in the Marine Corps Reserves, once falsely asserted that he served in Vietnam.

So Blumenthal got it wrong, as Trump says?

No.

"Former Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), who is Gorsuchs guide on Capitol Hill, issued a statement Thursday saying 'he said that he finds any criticism of a judges integrity and independence disheartening and demoralizing' but that Gorsuch was talking in general about attacks on judges and not any specific case." The Hill reports.

Well said. Gorsuch was talking in general about "any criticism of a judge's integrity and independence" ... just after Trump has lodged exactly that criticism.

Again and again.

By the way, Blumenthal isn't the only senator to give a similar account. From Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, per Politico:

"Frankly he got pretty passionate about it. I asked him about the 'so-called judges' comment, because we don't have so-called judges or so-called presidents or so-called senators. And this is a guy who kind of welled up with some energy and he said any attack on any  I think his term to me was 'brothers or sisters of the robe'  is an attack on all judges," Sasse said. "What I saw in that guy is he got some energy about it, was this isn't about somebody just whos just been nominated to Supreme Court. This is a guy if he were on traffic court in Colorado or in Nebraska would have the same view."

We've made clear our belief that Gorsuch deserves a vote in the Senate.

I'll go further. He should be confirmed, and he should continue to defend the integrity and independence of the courts  even against a White House buffoon who thinks he can bully anyone into doing his bidding.

Our Constitution makes sure that can't happen.
On Feb. 8, the Nigerian embassy in China declared that China will not deport over 80,000 Nigerians, though a rumor to that effect had been circulating. The embassy condemned the rumor as a vicious and irresponsible lie.

According to the debunked statement, China would deport more than 80,000 illegal immigrants from Nigeria, but would provide travel fees and give each person a 2,000-RMB stipend with which to rebuild their lives in Nigeria. The rumor also purported that Nigeria refused the offer because the identities of the people in question could not be verified.

Jin Canrong, a professor at Renmin University of China, was also implicated in the story. Jin was said to have commented on the case, claiming that such a deportation scheme would meet several obstacles. Asked about the situation, Jin insisted he had heard nothing about it, and the comments must have been lifted from his former speeches on Chinas illegal immigrant population.
Tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds, the top seller of the menthol cigarettes favored by most black smokers, is seizing on the hot button issue of police harassment of blacks to counter efforts by public health advocates to restrict menthol sales.

In recent months, the company quietly has enlisted black groups and leaders, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, a civil rights activist, and former U.S. Rep. Kendrick B. Meek of Florida, to hold meetings at prominent black churches on the theme of Decriminalizing the Black Community.

Sharpton and Meek, along with speakers from groups involved in criminal justice reform, have warned of the unintended consequences of banning cigarettes with the minty, throat-numbing additive  namely, the risk of creating a black market and giving police new reasons to lock up black males. The meetings have been held at churches in Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Oakland, and in other forums.

Reynolds makes Newport cigarettes, the most popular menthol and the No. 2 U.S. cigarette brand overall, with a market share of nearly 14 percent. The company has paid travel costs for the panelists and contributed to their organizations, according to the panelists and Reynolds spokesman David Howard. However, promotional fliers suggest that Sharpton and his National Action Network are the main sponsors of the meetings, rather than the tobacco company.

Anti-smoking advocates have blasted the campaign as deceptive and a scare tactic.

How can the tobacco industry care about criminalization when they dont even care about killing you? asked LaTrisha Vetaw, who attended a Jan. 25 meeting at the Greater Friendship Missionary Baptist Church in Minneapolis, where a few dozen people turned out to hear Sharpton and be treated to a lunch of chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans and cake.

Sharpton led protests against police abuses following the death in New York City of Eric Garner, an incident frequently invoked at the meetings. Garner died in July, 2014, after police put him in a chokehold while arresting him for allegedly selling untaxed single cigarettes, or loosies.

In Minneapolis, Sharpton said repeatedly that he had not made up his mind about a menthol ban, according to a tape of the meeting.

I am not on either side of the argument, he said. I want to hear and listen.

In an interview with FairWarning, Sharpton said Meek, a Reynolds consultant who serves as moderator at the meetings, asked us to consider the unintended consequences of a menthol ban and also asked him to appear at several of the churches. Sharpton said the National Action Network will take a position on a menthol ban at its convention in April.

Meek, who could not be reached for comment, is a former Florida Highway Patrol trooper later elected to Congress, serving four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives before losing to Marco Rubio in the 2010 race for U.S. Senate. The tobacco industry contributed $202,510 to his congressional campaigns and leadership political action committee, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. Meek received $104,342 of that in the 2009-10 campaign cycle, more than any other member of Congress except U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., who is from Winston-Salem, where R.J. Reynoldss parent company, Reynolds American, has its headquarters.

Meek and the others have stressed that they arent in favor of smoking. We have to deter smoking, okay, Meek said at the Minneapolis meeting. But we also have to make sure thatwere not giving tools to law enforcement to ensnare more young blacks in the criminal justice system.

There is almost no chance of a menthol ban at the federal level. But as reported by FairWarning, some local officials and anti-smoking groups have taken up the cause of regulating menthol sales.

In Chicago, sales of flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes, are banned within 500 feet of high schools. Advocates in Minneapolis and St. Paul, where menthol cigarettes are exempted from an ordinance restricting sales of flavored tobacco products to adult-only tobacco shops, are trying to repeal the exemption.

Menthols account for about 30 percent of U.S. cigarette sales but are the choice of more than 80 percent of black smokers and more than half of smokers under age 18, according to research cited by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 47,000 African Americans die annually from smoking-related causes, according to CDC estimates.

There is no evidence that menthols are more toxic than other cigarettes. But health authorities describe menthol cigarettes as a starter product, saying menthol anesthetizes the throat, helping beginners to tolerate the harshness of tobacco smoke and making them more likely to become addicted. For these reasons, said a 2013 report by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, it is likely that menthol cigarettes pose a public health risk above that seen with non-menthol cigarettes, a conclusion cigarette-makers hotly reject.

The landmark 2009 law that authorized the FDA to regulate tobacco products included a ban on candy, fruit and spice cigarette flavorings because of their appeal to young smokers. But Congress punted on menthol, directing FDA to do research on whether it, too, should be restricted or banned. In 2013, the FDA put out a call for comments on a possible menthol ban, but has done nothing since, and there appears to be almost no chance the Trump administration will act.

Along with Sharpton and Meek, speakers at the Reynolds-sponsored meetings have included John I. Dixon III, former president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, which lists Reynolds American Inc. , parent of R.J. Reynolds, as one of its corporate partners. Other panelists have been Neill Franklin, a former Maryland State Police narcotics officer and executive director of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership; and Art Way, Colorado state director of the Drug Policy Alliance.

Franklin said his group, whose focus is ending the war on drugs, received $75,000 from Reynolds in 2016 but is not controlled by any of its donors. My place in this is to give education to people about what potentially could happen if there is a ban, he told FairWarning. To me, its being ahead of the issue.

Way said opposing a menthol ban is a natural fit with his groups general concerns over the  black market and the kind of unintended consequences of banning popular substances We say what we want to say, and reach larger audiences, basically on Reynolds dime.

The forums havent been limited to black churches. Last June, at the annual convention of the National Newspaper Publishers Association  the trade group for more than 200 African American community newspapers  Meek, Dixon, Franklin and Way were listed on the program for a Panel Discussion, Criminal Justice ReformHosted by RAI Services Company, a reference to Reynolds. In 2015, Reynolds contributed $250,000 to the publishers association, according to a document posted on the companys website.

Yes, RAI has provided some funding to those organizations, Reynolds spokesman Howard said in an email to FairWarning. We work with these organizations in an effort to engage in conversations to work to resolve controversial issues related to tobacco use in a responsible manner, while ensuring that any new rules or laws do not result in troubling unintended consequences.

But Vetaw said the company is blowing smoke. The tobacco industry is great at marketing  so they send celebrity Al Sharpton, said Vetaw, who is the policy and advocacy manager for the North Point Health and Wellness Center in Minneapolis. A couple of people in the room said, Well, Al Sharptons here so this must be important. 

Valerie Yerger, who attended an October meeting at the Beebe Memorial Cathedral in Oakland, had her microphone cut off when she tried to raise the issue of Reynolds involvement in the event, according to interviews and a report by Oakland North, a newspaper published by the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Yerger, an associate professor of nursing at UC San Francisco who has researched the history of tobacco industry support for African-American groups, said the campaign shows that cigarette makers are continuing to use influential black leaders and their organizations as a front group to promote industry interests. 
Black History Month always inspires references to Frederick Douglass, but this year, the celebration got off to a strange start with some stilted praise from President Trump. The president said that the 19th-century writer and abolitionist is an example of somebody whos done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice.

What, exactly, about Douglass caught the presidents eye was not clear, although the Twittersphere quickly lit up with satirical suggestions. But if youd like to know more about this extraordinary American, the best place to start is with his first book, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Published in 1845, the autobiography came stamped with the declaration Written by Himself.

That claim of personal authorship was essential to Douglass freedom  and to his critique of Americas peculiar institution. Although it was illegal for slaves to learn to read or write, as a child in Baltimore, Douglass learned the alphabet from his owners wife, Sophia Auld. But when his owner discovered these lessons, he insisted they stop immediately. Whats more, he explained to his wife  while Douglass was listening  that such an education would spoil the boy and render him forever unfit him to be a slave. For Douglass, this was the first crack in the chains that enslaved him:

These words sank deep into my heart, he writes, stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering, and called into existence an entirely new train of thought. It was a new and special revelation, explaining dark and mysterious things, with which my youthful understanding had struggled, but struggled in vain. I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty  to wit, the white mans power to enslave the black man. It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom.

Realizing the power of literacy eventually led to his escape and to the composition of this startling book. In his clear, vivid style and remarkably even-tempered tone, Douglass describes not only what he endured as a slave but also how slavery corrupted his white owners. Beyond its illuminating historical record, Narrative offers a poignant reflection on the psychological agony of emerging from slavery. Literacy and the self-knowledge that it enabled came at a high cost, as Douglass writes:

That very discontentment which Master Hugh had predicted would follow my learning to read had already come, to torment and sting my soul to unutterable anguish. As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out. In moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity. I have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own. Any thing, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me ... I often found myself regretting my own existence, and wishing myself dead.

Fortunately, he resisted that despair, escaped to the North and blessed the nation with this revolutionary autobiography. Its almost impossible now to fathom the full extent of his accomplishment. While Ralph Waldo Emerson and other white writers were fretting about what a new American literature might look like, Douglass was busy producing it. Narrative was an instant best-seller in America, England, France and Holland. Pro-slavery forces quickly charged that the book was a fraud because no slave could possibly write that well, but on his international lecture tour, Douglass demolished that lie. And 10 years later, he struck back against those accusations by producing a fuller and even more elegant version of his life story called My Bondage and My Freedom.

So, yes, he did an amazing job. The best job. Yuge.
UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif.  This is the man whos telling the Fifty Shades story on film. Ask him how he feels, and no words could be more fitting than these:

I feel nakedly optimistic, said director James Foley, whose long Hollywood career now includes directing Fifty Shades Darker, the second installment in British author E.L. James steamy Fifty Shades of Grey book-turned-movie trilogy, opening this week nationwide.

Its late January, and Foley is sitting upright in a black swivel chair in an editing room inside the Alfred Hitchcock building on the Universal Studios lot. Work on Darker, which he shot last year, is done. Next, hell be finishing the third and final movie, Fifty Shades Freed, which was shot directly after Darker but wont premiere till 2018.

Behind Foley is an Apple computer with four monitors, each displaying a freeze-framed image of a man standing behind a woman, looking into a mirror. His eyes are smoldering. Hers are seductive. He is wearing a crisp white shirt. Shes in slinky lingerie. The man is Christian Grey, a billionaire with an appetite for the exotically erotic, played by the actor Jamie Dornan.

The woman, played by actress Dakota Johnson, is Anastasia Steele, a recent college graduate who is Greys girlfriend, but in the most nontraditional  and unmentionable  of ways.

I fell in love with these characters, said Foley, who didnt direct the series first movie, which grossed more than $560 million globally but was critically maligned. In the opening story, Christian and Anastasia meet in unlikely crossing of their distant worlds. (He was the big-donor graduation speaker at her college; she interviewed him for the school newspaper.)

In Darker, Foley said, it becomes a much warmer: more human interaction, where the man and the woman are on very equal footings in terms of their desires, their feelings, their emotions, their fantasies. Its a liberation for both of them in a very different way.

Foley, 63, has directed storied cinema (Glengarry Glen Ross, Fear), groundbreaking television (House of Cards) and pop culture classics (Madonnas Papa Dont Preach video).

This is his return is big-studio moviemaking after 10 years away.

In an interview with The Buffalo News, he was verbose and candid about where his new films fit in the pantheon of cinema.

I feel nakedly optimistic about the premiere, he said. Im being naked in saying Im optimistic because, of course, it could not work out that way and you have egg on your face. But I dont mind eggs. I like eggs.

The challenge, he said, was to make a good movie out of one of these books, because frankly I didnt think the first one was a good movie. So my first reaction about signing up for it was, Youre out of your mind.

But then I read the books. (Its) not Shakespearean prose, but a sexual, romantic dynamic between a man and a woman that was fascinating to me, Foley said. In Darker, (that dynamic) grows and matures and is quite dramatic in trying to find its equilibrium as a love story

Its played out in a sexual way  surprise, surprise. I really like the sex in the movie, actually. I think its perfectly calibrated.

But hes not delusional, he said. The movie is not going to win Oscars. But I dont think its going to win Razzies, he said with a laughs. Thats my goal  to not win a Razzie!

The first Fifty Shades of Grey installment won several Razzies, a spoof award.

Here are more excerpts of the conversation, edited for space, clarity and language:

Q: The extreme success of the books feeds interest in the movies. Is Darker a movie that someone who hasnt read the books could still enjoy?

A: Absolutely, 100 percent. I stand by it in that regard, as long as its within the context that the movie is kind of an upscale comic book. Maybe (that is) why its so successful, because its like every other movie thats based on comic books. It works.

The nature of relationships in these movies  certainly in Darker  is not super subtle. Its more in your face. So one might call that melodramatic. One might call that pandering, or something.

But I really believe part of cinema is magic. Sometimes when youre editing, you watch a take of this one particular moment with an actor, and they do it 10 times. But one of those times somehow hits something. Its called Gods take. I think theres a matter of good luck.

Somehow, various strains of things came together in this movie. The biggest probably was the maturation of the actors (Dornan and Johnson) and their relationship with each other. They had been through Grey and thats an intimate kind of war to go through. Frankly  obviously, I suppose  filming sex scenes is not the easiest day on the set. And if the actors who are engaged in those scenes are at each others throats, I cant imagine how horrible that would be.

Anyway, these guys were like total mensches. Theyd been through the first. Theyd been through the publicity. They were kind of grounded and focused on what they were doing, and much freer to not be second-guessing themselves. I think the consequence of that is the chemistry between them is greatly enhanced. The acting performances are greatly enhanced.

I will take that, even though its not hit Rotten Tomatoes yet. And I dont expect any great love in Rotten Tomatoes. But I expect better love than the first. Thats my goal.

Q: What are the challenges of filming sex scenes that are as comfortable as possible on set, but also enhance the movie?

A: The biggest issue in directing a Fifty Shades movie is the sex. Its renown is from sexual encounters. I was very much down with that. It was very much part of why I responded to the books: These peoples relationship was very volatile and very extreme, which I think is just mimicking other peoples relationships, which are maybe slightly less dramatic, but have the same dynamics going on.

The sex-scenes stuff was not the fun day on the set. But I was very aware that it wouldnt be the most fun day on the set, so I set it up to be  this sounds strange  as mechanical as possible. Delivering storyboards, exact things, what shots we needed. Not just doing it and filming it at every angle and seeing what we get. You try to minimize how many times they have to do it, and try to be smart about what your focus is in the lovemaking scenes.

Q: From that perspective, are the Fifty Shades movies the most intense youve done?

A: Its far less explicit than in Darker and Freed, but there was sex stuff in a movie I did called After Dark, My Sweet with Jason Patrick and Rachel Ward. (Note: Foley adapted the screenplay for the 1990 movie from a book.) That was intense; not the most fun day of my life. Days. But Im really proud of the product.

Actually, the very first film I did (in 1984), called Reckless, was rated X, which was the moniker at the time. (Note: Foley cut a scene and lowered the rating to R.) The designation now is NC-17. Which means no one under 17 admitted, whether youre with a parent or not?

Q: Right.

A: We had that on Darker for a short time. But it was amazing. We cut very little. ... But its kind of silly, all that judgment about sexuality and ratings.

Q: How important a factor is trust?

A: Its the factor, because I am the person whos going to present it on screen to the public. So they have to feel confident that no matter what they do, Im not going to release something thats ugly or humiliating.

Thats a big jump to trust somebody like that, because youre walking around and there are always two cameras. Theres a crew  a reduced crew on sex stuff, but still a bunch of dudes who are standing there...

I feel quite proud that Ive never had an actor shut down on me and just say, No! Theres always been a collaboration of trust.

Q: How did House of Cards impact your career?

A: Majorly. Theres the career trajectory we all have to live through. Its at its highest in the beginning (with) expectations of your first film. Then its about, What was your last film and how successful was it? Previous films become irrelevant, because youre not hot.

I feel as if my experience has been  and Im not complaining  as if nobody knew who I was before House of Cards. I was a brand-new person in House of Cards. Which is good because you have no baggage. Youre just a House of Cards director.

So Im certain, actually, that Universal deciding they wanted me to direct these movies was not 100-percent on House of Cards. The previous work mattered. But House of Cards delivered the ignition switch to make me a person they would hire.

Now that Ive done this, even before it comes out, Id be wise to make another deal. Because Fifty Shades Darker is hot at the moment, and will be for the next three weeks. (Foley laughs.) So Ive got three weeks to decide my fate!
In partnership with Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Greensboro, Operation Smile Carolinas will present the ninth annual Dancing with the Carolina Stars at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at the Empire Room in Greensboro.

Celebrities from North Carolina will pair up with professional dancers to celebrate Operation Smiles work providing free medical care for children and young adults suffering from cleft lip, cleft palate and other facial deformities globally and in the U.S.

Dancing stars include: Ann Christian Johns, Gisela Hood, Karen Odom, Merikay Hunt Tillman, Sam Tucker, Dr. James Wyatt, Justin Outling, Matt Logan, Dr. Matthew Wagoner, Frank Harris, Joe Curran and Carolyn Woodruff.

Celebrity emcees will be Cindy Farmer and Chad Tucker of WGHP Fox 8 News. Last years Dancing with the Carolina Stars event raised $250,000 which provided surgery for more than 1,000 children.

Items to be auctioned include a David Yurman bracelet, courtesy of Finks Jewelers, and two tickets to the Finale of Dancing with the Stars in Hollywood.

For information and to support a favorite dancer, call (336) 691-8188 or visit www.operationsmile.org/dancing.

Give a Kid a Coat through Saturday

The Give a Kid a Coat campaign ends Saturday.

To date, the effort has generated 15,344 coats.

Coats are accepted at A Cleaner World locations.

Families in need of coats can visit www.acleanerworld.com/GiveaKidaCoat.aspx to check on distribution dates and times.

For information, call (336) 841-4188.

Greensboro College holds info sessions

Greensboro College will hold admissions information sessions for prospective students on Saturday, Feb. 18 and 25.

Each informational session will begin at 10:30 a.m. in the Cowan Humanities Building lobby. Individuals interested in learning more about Greensboro College in a small-group setting are welcome to tour the campus with current students.

Each session is free, but advance registration is required. Register online at www.greensboro.edu/saturday-tours-form.php.

For information, call (336) 272-7102, Ext. 5391 or email megan.whitcomb@greensboro.edu.
Over 150 people performed during a parade in Christchurch, New Zealand on Feb. 8, in celebration of Spring Festival.

The parade route went past the Bridge of Remembrance and a commercial pedestrian street, eventually arriving at the Cathedral Square. Well-dressed participants then performed a waist drum dance, fan dance, cheongsam show, dragon dance and lion dance, in addition to other performances.

The performances attracted thousands of locals to gather around and watch. They took pictures and interacted with the performers throughout. Local Chinese praised the performance, expressing hope that there will be opportunities for them to participate in similar activities in the future. Local media also devoted extensive coverage to the event.
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STAMFORD  The daisy-wheel logo still blooms at the top of 600 Washington Blvd., even after a string of harsh seasons at the downtown property.

Lashed by strong winds of regulation and retrenchment that have swept across its industry since the 2008 financial crisis, Royal Bank of Scotland has cut hundreds of jobs in the past two years in the city center, where it operates its Americas headquarters.

The scale and pace of the downsizing of one of Stamfords largest financial-services employers are ominous. But the offices strategic location and the lack of ideal alternatives point to RBS keeping its roots planted in Connecticut in the foreseeable future.

We remain committed to our U.S. markets business, which is based in Stamford, RBS officials said in a statement. It is business as usual.

Recent struggles

The curved glass-and-steel edifice on Washington Boulevard covering some 400,000 square feet still houses an important financial hub. Its sixth-floor trading floor alone covers about 100,000 square feet.

But a diminishing contingent occupies those trading posts. Since the beginning of 2015, RBS has eliminated approximately 550 Stamford-based positions. The cuts have focused on several areas including banking, trading, IT, sales, legal, risk, analysis and operations. The latest round, affecting some 20 employees, is scheduled for March.

RBS declined to comment on its current number of Stamford employees. It reported to the city a local contingent of some 1,600 employees as of June 2014. Earlier, it had counted a local workforce of about 2,400.

In response to numerous inquiries about the layoffs, RBS has responded with a handful of statements.

In line with the strategy to make RBS stronger, simpler and more sustainable, we are reducing the size of the bank to focus on our core customers, products and locations, RBS officials said in a statement last year. This includes our trading and sales hub in Stamford.

RBS has declined in the past year to make any of its executives available for interviews with Hearst Connecticut Media.

The cuts do not surprise financial experts outside the company. They describe the layoffs as an unfortunate but inevitable upshot of increased regulatory pressure in the post-recession era on both sides of the Atlantic, especially from European authorities.

To avoid a repeat of the financial meltdown, regulators have sought to make firms like RBS reduce their risks, operate more conservatively and cut the size of their balance sheets  sweeping changes that have precipitated the widespread layoffs.

RBS regulatory pressure is particularly pronounced. In the wake of the financial crisis, the British government took over the bank in a bailout operation. In 2015, the government began selling its shares, but still owns about 70 percent of the companys stock.

Whats happening is you have a government working with management and figuring out how to skinny the bank down, said Charles Murphy, a professor of management practice in New York Universitys Stern School of Business. Theyve gotten out of a lot of businesses and changed management. From the outside, it looks like its converting back to a more traditional British bank, as opposed to a global banking thought process.

One of the United Kingdoms big four banks, RBS financial struggles in the past year have compounded its predicament. It took an approximately $3 billion loss for the first three quarters of 2016.

Government intervention played a major role in encouraging RBS move to Stamford about eight years ago. It built the downtown office center to accommodate the growing operations of its then-Greenwich Capital unit from Greenwich and several hundred employees from New York City with a $100 million package of state tax credits. RBS invested $400 million in the Washington Boulevard complex.

Tied to Stamford

If RBS were to mull an exit from Stamford, a number of financial and logistical factors would complicate a departure. The bank could not easily leave 600 Washington Blvd.  it owns the building.

Recent experience demonstrates the difficulty of filling a large office complex. Last year, UBS relocated its shrunken Stamford contingent from the approximately 712,000-square-foot complex across the street at 677 Washington Blvd. to the RBS building.

For more than a year, leasing opportunities at 677 Washington Blvd. have generated little interest, according to mortgage-tracking firm Trepp. That building is now vacant.

By leaving, RBS would forfeit one of the citys best-positioned office hubs, standing yards from Interstate 95 and the downtown Metro-North station. And a move to the nations financial capital, Manhattan, would almost certainly raise operating costs.

Assuming that the bank requires a presence in the U.S. as a consequence of its business plan, we can presume theyll maintain a presence in Stamford going forward, Murphy said.

pschott@scni.com; 203-964-2236; twitter: @paulschott
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The $27 billion Chinese investors poured into the United States real estate market last year ranks first among foreign investors for the fourth year in a row.

Around the time the National Association of Realtors published that finding last summer, based on sales between April 2015 and March 2016, Paul Breunich, CEO of William Pitt and Julia B. Fee Sothebys International Realty was approached with an opportunity.

Ben Briggs, executive vice president of international business for Briggs Freeman Sotheby's International Realty, asked Breunich for help on a buyers guide to United States real estate catered to Chinese investors.

I always had an interest in writing books, and this came out of left field, Breunich said in an interview. Id never acted on it before now. I saw this as an opportunity to enhance the perception of Connecticut real estate.

The book spans the basics, like why to buy American property, to more specific topics such as international taxes and investing in single-family homes. It also includes sections written by real estate experts local to the the nations popular markets.

Thats where Briggs, whos spent a decade living in China, asked for Breunichs help. Breunich, who grew up and went to school in Connecticut and is now based in Stamford, was tasked with writing the books description of the Connecticut real estate market.

This richness of our area is rooted in our legacy and traditions, Breunich said, so thats what I focused on. I talk about our history, how the state developed from all the way back to the colonies, our culture, schooling and the towns. Then I go into the individual markets.

While the section covered the well-known southwestern Connecticut markets, Breunich also shed light on other parts of the state.

A lot of Connecticut is unknown outside of the southern part, he said. I took this chance to expose the rest of the state to a larger portion of the world. I really consider those parts to be a hidden gem.

The title of the book is Chinese Institutions Definitive Guide to USA Commercial Real Estate, but it includes information about commercial and residential property, Breunich said.

With a lifetime spent in the state as well as the resources at his firm, Breunich said he didnt have a hard time digging up all the information and finished his contribution within a few months.

Since sending in his chapter on Connecticut last fall, the book has been published in Mandarin by a Beijing business publisher and has printed a few thousand copies, Breunich said.

It arrives at a interesting time as President Donald Trump could set the countys relations with China on a different course, even as some projections say Chinese investments in United States real estate could double within 10 years.

Theres a piece of the pie here for everybody, Breunich said. I do think the demand will continue.

This article has been updated to correct the titles of Paul Breunich and Ben Briggs.

MBennett@greenwichtime.com, 203-625-4411; Twitter @Macaela_
TRUMBULL  Stamford isnt the only municipality benefiting from Henkels acquisition last year of Wilton-based Sun Products.

The German company recently signed a lease to take over the more than 20,000-square-foot building at 4 Trefoil Drive in Trumbull, Hearst Connecticut Media has learned.

The site is vacant and located near Sun Products North American Technology Center at 30 Trefoil Drive, which opened in 2010 and is described as the hub of our product development and top innovations on the companys website.

Henkel acquired Sun Products last June in a $3.6 billion deal. Shortly after, the company announced it would be relocating the laundry detergent companys headquarters to Stamford from Wilton, while also bringing its Scottsdale, Ariz.-based beauty, laundry and home-care businesses to Connecticut.

Henkel, which has its own North American corporate headquarters in Rocky Hill, plans to take 155,000 square feet at the BLT Financial Centre, at 200 Elm St. in Stamford for its new consolidated businesses.

Company officials have said they would have roughly 266 Stamford-based employees at first before expanding the workforce to about 500 by next year. Henkels move to Stamford, funded by $20 million in state aid and a $30 million company investment, is expected to start within the next few months and be completed by early 2018.

It is not clear how many employees would work at the Trefoil Drive facility.

While not confirming the exact location, Sun Products Spokesperson Kathryn Corbally acknowledged on Thursday that the company was looking for space near their current facility in Trumbull. The new space would allow the company to expand its research and development capabilities and meet the needs of its expanded portfolio of laundry, home care and beauty products, she said, in an email.

We will be retaining our existing facility at 30 Trefoil, Corbally added.

Sal DiNardo, of Peter DiNardo Enterprises, which owns the property at 4 Trefoil Drive, declined to comment.

Rina Bakalar, economic development director for Trumbull, said Henkel has not disclosed what department would occupy the new building but noted that their expansion in town was welcome.

It would mean more good jobs coming to Trumbull and it would mean grand list growth, she said. Trumbull is in a good fiscal position and businesses and companies want to come where theres stability.

First Selectman Tim Herbst said the quality of life, good schools, easy access to Interstate 95, Merritt Parkway and Route 8, as well as the towns fiscal stability have placed it in a good position to attract new businesses, big and small. I think thats why businesses are giving us a second look, he said.

He added that when big businesses like Henkel bring good-paying jobs into a town it positively impacts the small-business owner, as well. Its a very big deal, Herbst said.

ktorres@hearstmediact.com; 203-330-6227
GREENWICH  The 42nd annual Greenwich St. Patricks Day Parade has been canceled because of probably bad weather.

Parade Committee Chairman James Dougherty announced on Friday that the parade, which is sponsored by the Greenwich Hibernian Association and was scheduled for Sunday, would not take place this year. It will return in 2017  weather permitting.

After reviewing the weather reports all day today, the Parade Committee has decided that, based on the forecast for Sunday, it is best to cancel the 2016 Greenwich St. Patrick's Parade, Dougherty said. While we regret having to do so, our primary concern is for the safety of the participants and the spectators. We did not feel it was prudent to hold the parade with the potential for significant snow and cold temperatures on Sunday.

Dougherty said he couldnt think of a time when it had been canceled before.

We tried to hold off this decision as long as we could, Dougherty said. In a perfect world we would have waited until Saturday to see how the forecast was going to be, but we had to take into account all that goes into closing the road for the parade and the police coverage we need. We had to do it now.

The committee had already begun to hear from marchers early Friday who would not be able to attend because of the weather, Dougherty said. According to the National Weather Service, a hazardous weather outlook has been declared for Fairfield County with at least six inches of snow, strong winds and coastal flooding on the way to Connecticut, New York and New Jersey.

Town Emergency Management Director Dan Warzoha said it was hard to tell what kind of impact the weather was going to have on Greenwich. As of mid-day Friday, he had not received any guidance from the Department of Emergency Services; the weather groups he monitors werent in agreement of how much snow would come  or even when it would start, with a range of 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

This is one of those cases where, as a town, were going to plan for the worst and hope for the best, Warzoha said.

According to Dougherty, there were seven bands, three Irish dance groups and countless community groups including the fire and police and Boy and Girl Scouts that were going to participate. He and other committee members spent most of Friday calling the participants to tell them the parade was off.

Cathy Lavaty, a lifelong Greenwich resident and a 38-year veteran of NBC News, had been named Grand Marshal. Dougherty said it was unclear whether she would retain the honor or if a new grand marshal would be named for 2017.

Weve never had this happen before, Dougherty said. We have no precedent for this. We have to come up with a new policy.

kborsuk@scni.com
The following excerpt is from Entrepreneur's book Finance Your Business. Buy it now from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes

When Chris Bergman entered Cincinnati-area startup accelerator The Brandery in 2011, he wasnt sure exactly what the program could accomplish for his company.

I was a skeptic. My hope was that if it taught me something about how to raise money, that would be good enough, says Bergman, cofounder and CEO of ChoreMonster, which has developed an app to reward kids for helping out around the house.

Related: Joining a Pitch Fest for Business Financing

Bergman is still reaping rewards, financial and otherwise, from his three-month stint with the accelerator. Ive had conversations with investors that have turned into capital, Ive made invaluable networking connections and Ive learned a lot about how I want to manage my company, he says. Our business wouldnt exist today without The Brandery.

Startup accelerator programs are popping up every day, available to a wider range of entrepreneurs than ever before. Theyre no longer limited to Silicon Valley, and no longer just for tech companies; there are industry-focused programs centered on fashion, food and socially conscious endeavors as well.

Although most accelerators provide tangibles such as funding, mentorship and access to potential investors, theyre not a golden ticket to success. A positive experience depends on setting realistic expectations and understanding what these programs can and cant do.

Cash and counsel

For many startups, the initial draw of an accelerator is the potential for securing capital to refine their concept or get their business up and running. Companies can expect to receive some funding to get started or gain traction, but the amount varies, as does the amount of equity the accelerator receives in return. Yael Hochberg, associate professor of finance and entrepreneurship at Rice Universitys Jones Graduate School of Business, estimates a range of 5 to 8 percent equity in return for a $15,000 to $40,000 stipend, with the median offer around 5 percent equity for a $20,000 stipend.

The money is certainly a boost, but the real draw for startups is the exposure -- to knowledge, experts and funding -- accelerators can provide. One of the marquee benefits is access to mentors who can offer experienced insight and advice in a concentrated amount of time.

For every aspect of building our company, there was a specialist on hand to help us learn very quickly what otherwise would have taken a long time to learn, says Robert Leshner, cofounder of San Francisco-based internet-privacy protection service SafeShepherd. His team joined Mountain View, California-based accelerator 500 Startups in October 2011. When we needed to learn about something like SEO, he explains, there was a mentor who was incredibly knowledgeable about it.

Both Leshner and Bergman say that just as valuable as the mentor connections were the relationships they developed with their program peers. Being able to speak with so many people about their experiences and bounce ideas off them is invaluable, Leshner says. So is having this incredible network built for you of friends you can trust.

Despite all the support, entrepreneurs still need to think for themselves. One common misconception of accelerator programs is that advisors will give participants all the answers they need to succeed. Accelerators do provide access to informed opinions and data, but participants need to process them wisely.

Ultimately, its a receptiveness to feedback thats key to getting the most out of the accelerator experience. To glean the full benefits of the program, entrepreneurs need to check their egos at the door. Its a prestigious thing to be accepted into an accelerator, but the reality is, you still havent done anything yet, Bergman says. If you come in thinking youre already a success, youll miss out on learning a lot of valuable things.

Funding realities

The accelerator perk that gets the most headlines is access to financing information and investors. A huge benefit for us was going through the process and understanding what raising money looks like, and all of the details of building a business with investment, Bergman says.

The potential to connect with investors -- often hundreds of them -- at an accelerator demo day is a huge draw, albeit one that can lead to pitfalls for participants. Hochberg says many have the mistaken perception that going through one of these programs guarantees funding at the end. Entrepreneurs need to recognize that even 75 percent of venture-backed firms fail completely, she says. Its true even at the top programs.

Focusing too much on financing was a pitfall for Leshner and his group during their time at 500 Startups. Theres a lot of investor interest for companies in the top accelerators, and that became a distraction for our team and took a lot of time away from building our company, he says. We finally realized we should be focusing on our product instead of the money.

Related: Entering a Small Business Funding Contest

Thats not atypical, according to Jen, whose AlphaLab minimizes discussion of financing for the first half of its program. He says such talk can lead startups to put the cart before the horse. If they dont have the product and some early market traction, theyre not going to get very far in the funding anyway, he says, so the best thing they can do to work on their funding is work on the product.

Group dynamics

When it comes to accelerator programs, a strong team is everything. With acceptance rates to some of the countrys top-tier accelerators hovering around 1 percent, a standout application is integral to getting ones foot in the door. Of course, pitching the product and the market it serves is important, but insiders agree that portraying a strong business team is even more crucial.

In addition to your product, youre also being judged on your team, says Hochberg. Your idea or product can change quite a bit as you go through the program, in terms of the business model or even what exactly youll be producing, so theres also a lot of evaluation of the team and whether theres a sense that you fit together well, understand the challenges ahead of you, and will be able to be successful entrepreneurs.

A lot of it is convincing the accelerator that as a team, you have the passion, the commitment and the drive to make this company happen no matter what, Jen says. Then you need to show you have the capabilities to execute on what you want to do.

The same is true at the end of the program, on demo day. Communicating a sense of your team and why youre capable of being successful is much more important than communicating the details of your product, says Leshner. Your product or idea is likely to evolve, but the team is a constant.

Choose wisely

Jen defines a true accelerator as a time-specific, mentorship-driven program designed to provide startups with critical resources to help them make rapid progress on product and customer development. There are a lot of incubators and shared working spaces that are incorporating a lot of the elements of accelerators, but its a smaller universe that applies to the definition of a true accelerator, and even a smaller number that have been around and have a proven track record, he says.

To help founders, Hochberg adds, you have to be very good at screening so that youre only taking in groups that really have a chance of succeeding. And Im not convinced that all of the accelerators out there are equipped to do that.

Quality funding sources are also a concern. Its important to verify that an accelerator can bring valid investors to the table. With the top programs, everybody in the VC community will be looking at you, Hochberg says. But with some of these newer accelerators, especially regional ones or those in nontraditional verticals, you need to be sure that serious VCs from outside your area see its alumni as serious possibilities for funding.

For assurance about any of these issues, applicants should conduct thorough research online and talk to past participants to verify exactly whos involved in the program, what kinds of connections they have, and how many of the accelerators alumni have received funding and at what stage.

Related: What You Need to Know About Government Small-Business Grants

Making sure an accelerator is a good fit for your business is also important. If youre a health-care startup, it doesnt matter if theyre the best consumer internet VCs on the planet and the mentors are all consumer internet gurus; if youre doing health care, thats not the right fit for you, Hochberg says.

With the pool of accelerators expanding daily, doing the research and making decisions is crucial to choosing the program that will benefit your business the most. Equity is an extremely precious thing to be handing away, Hochberg points out. You need to make sure youre handing it away to an organization that will truly b

Related:

The Most Essential Things You Need in a Business Accelerator

4 Product Management Mistakes That Will Drive You Crazy

Why Your Startup Needs to Protect Its Online Reputation From Day 1



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
On Feb. 9, performers staged an underwater dragon dance in Harbin Polar Land, an aquarium in Harbin, Heilongjiang province, in celebration of the upcoming Lantern Festival. Dragon dances are a traditional Chinese cultural performance, most often seen during Spring Festival celebrations. (Chinanews.com|Wang Shu)
(Xinhua) 20:39, February 09, 2017

After Brexit and the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president, eyes are on France where voters will choose their next president amid public discontent and high terror alert in the European country.

Could Trump's victory serve as a boon to France's far-right candidate Marine Le Pen from the National Front?

"The impossible has suddenly become possible," Le Pen told thousands of supporters in Lyon, France's third-largest city, kicking off her campaign on Sunday.

"Other countries have shown us the way. The British have chosen Brexit and the United States has chosen their national interests," Le Pen told her followers.

However, BVA pollster analyst Erwan Lestrohan believed that Le Pen might enjoy a boost in ratings but could not win the presidency.

Providing support for Lestrohan's remarks, an Opinionway poll published on Wednesday showed that French independent centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron would easily beat Le Pen in the race.

An Opinionway poll for Les Echos newspaper and Radio Classique showed that in the first round of voting scheduled for April 23, Macron, a former economy minister, would get 22 percent of the vote, behind Le Pen's 25 percent. But in the decisive second round, Macron would beat Le Pen 66 percent to 34 percent, the poll showed.

Under fire over his wife's fake job, embattled conservative contender Francois Fillon, a front-runner until two weeks ago, will not be able to enter the second round.

Experts believed that the surprise that happened in the U.S. election is not expected in France because the two electoral systems are different.

"In the United States, the presidential election has only one vote, which Donald Trump won. In France, the presidential election has two rounds. This allows the voters of non-finalist candidates to choose one of the two qualified to block the other," Lestrohan told Xinhua.

Continued terror threats and rising risks of immigration crisis give a boost to Le Pen, who embraces protectionism. However, the 49-year-old lawyer does not have a strong majority and enough solidity to win the presidential run-off, said Lestrohan.

Thomas Guenole, a political scientist and professor at Sciences Po University, agreed.

"The only one scenario in which Le Pen could likely win the presidential election is if she faces an unpopular candidate from the right or the left in the second round, which is very unlikely," said Guenole.

In 144 "commitments" unveiled on Saturday, Le Pen pledged to slash migration, repatriate all illegal immigrants and impose taxes on the job contracts of foreigners.

Macron promised to further reduce France's high employment charges and increase workers' minimum wage. He also wants to raise taxes on consumption and wealthy pensioners.

Macron also promised to boost the defense budget, hire 10,000 more police officers and raise funding for schools.

"We can no longer defend a political system whose practices weaken democracy," he told supporters at the weekend in Lyon.

The pro-business contender joined the Socialist government in August 2014 as economy minister. Two years later, he quit his post to focus on his presidential campaign.

Macron, an advisor to current President Francois Hollande during his election campaign, was one of the authors of a flagship blueprint for the revival of growth and employment in France.

The disgraced Fillon appealed to voters on Wednesday via a newspaper column to back his campaign.

"It's for you and only you to decide," Fillon wrote. "Nothing will divert me from the real aim of my presidential campaign: to get France back on its feet and bring the French together."

The Republican candidate has pledged tough cuts in public spending.

Since the scandal emerged that his wife was receiving hefty salaries for an alleged job she did not do, Fillon's campaign has lost steam. Opinion polls show that he is unlikely to reach a second round run-off.

However, the 62-year-old ex-prime minister has expressed fierce determination to stick to his presidential bid.

"I am the only candidate which can bring about a national recovery," he told reporters.
Think an $18 cup of coffee is excessive? How about a single strawberry for $22? Part of Japans grand tradition of wildly overpriced fruit, the so-called Kotoka strawberry is sold at upscale Hong Kong supermarket, and purveyor of $522 apples, CitySuper.



Beyond the exorbitant price tag, its attracted ire for its excessive packaging. Just one strawberry is tucked inside a cardboard humidor with synthetic straw and a foam doughnut for protection. Food waste has generated a lot of attention, but wasteful packaging is also a problem; Hong Kong generates 6.4 million tons of waste a year. Theres no world in which a $22 strawberry could possibly be worth it, but for the record: While the strawberrys producer describes it as a magic fruit that brings a delectable surprise and a mouthful of happiness  psychedelic!  a Time reporter merely describes it as good, but not the strawberry to end all strawberries.
The news really cant come as that big of a surprise. Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Stagnant sales have finally pushed Whole Foods into a spot so tight, it cant wiggle out by getting bougier or throwing shoppers another lower-priced bone. On a call yesterday with investors, CEO John Mackey conceded that the grocery biz is very different today than it was five years ago, thanks to mainstream supermarkets [upping] their game. The company will have to get more disciplined about growth as a result, he explained, and that starts with closing nine locations this year  stores in Chicago, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, and Georgia, and two apiece in Colorado and California. This is Whole Foods first downsizing since 2008, and the most store closures its ever done simultaneously, Bloomberg reports.



Mackey added that these stores were mostly older, smaller locations that, for some reason, were located near larger, more modern ones, so a person could see why this move would make sense. It follows six straight quarters of sales declines, though, and Bloomberg adds that the companys 2017 sales forecast offers little hope of a quick recovery. Whole Foods apparently considered converting some of the nine stores into outlets of its new low-price 365 chain, but concluded that wasnt practical.

Probably not the best time to note that Aldi, previously not Whole Foods rival in any legitimate sense, just announced its spending $1.6 billion to make 1,300 of its budget-friendly stores into sleeker spaces, with more natural light and fancier wood fixtures that will also carry a larger selection of organic produce and fresh meat. Cling to your vegetable butcher while you can, Whole Foods.


Today we have heard news of the two new smartwatches from Google and LG along with the official debut of Android Wear 2.0 on these devices. The LG Watch Style and LG Watch Sport are the features wearables, though only one of them will have NFC for making payments with Android Pay.

Android Pay for Android Wear 2.0

Google has confirmed to Android Police that if the tethered smartphone has an unlocked bootloader: a popular occurrence among intense fans of Android, Android Pay would not work on the tethered smartwatch. The Android Pay app on the smartphone will not allow you to add a card with an unlocked bootloader for security reasons, regardless of whether or not your smartwatchs bootloader is unlocked (yeah, you can do that, too).

This is just a reminder that smartwatches arent all that smart on their own, they are still more like a companion and act as an extension of your smartphone much more than a standalone device. Itll be interesting to see what Android Wear 2.0 is able to do without a tethered smartphone over its own LTE connection.

Source | Via
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Samsung has expanded its mobile payments service to Thailand. Early access to the service was introduced three months ago in the country, but now it has been officially launched there.

Samsung Pay in Thailand currently supports MasterCard, Visa, KCC, Bangkok Bank, Citibank, KasikornBank, KTC and Siam Commercial Bank.

"Aside from compatible credit cards, the Galaxy Gift Prepaid Card by MasterCard, as well as a wide variety of distinguished membership cards, can be added to Samsung Pay for convenience upon checkout," the tech giant said in a press release.

In all, the mobile payments service is now available in ten markets around the world, including South Korea, the US, and China.

Source
Open Signal has released a report called State of Mobile Networks: USA which took sample data during the last quarter of 2016 from all four national carriers in the US, comparing various aspects of each carrier down to network speeds, availability, and even 3G speeds are taken into account, though 3G is being used less and less, Open Signal reports.

Samples were taken from about 170k users across various networks and pinned them up against each other. The report samples about 4.6 billion data points to make comparisons across carriers in the US.

Source: Open Signal

The Overall Network Comparison ties Verizon and T-Mobile together in two categories: Download Speed: 4G, and Download Speed: Overall, which we assume incorporates both 4G and 3G speeds. This would make sense, given that T-Mobiles 3G speeds (HSPA+) are much faster than Verizons 3G (CDMA) speeds. T-Mobile beats Verizon in 3G speeds, and 3G latency while Verizon has T-Mobile beat in 4G latency and 4G availability.

T-Mobile won in two more categories that it didnt tie with Verizon, these two categories are both becoming more and more irrelevant as the majority of users in the US are being almost (if not entirely) supported by LTE signals as 3G technologies see less usage.

Back to the speeds, Verizon saw an average of 16.9 Mbps while T-Mobile saw 16.7 Mbps in 4G data, close enough for a statistical tie (higher HSPA+ (3G) speeds allowed both Verizon and T-Mobile to tie in the overall speeds category with an average of 14.6 Mbps. Verizon and AT&T saw a boost of about 1 Mbps over the last quarter, and while T-Mobile stayed steady, Sprints network dropped slightly.

We see speeds on the increase at operators like AT&T and Verizon thanks to new upgrades and new 4G spectrum, and in individual cities operators are pushing well beyond 20 Mbps in our download tests. But in our nationwide tests, all four operators fell short of the global LTE download average of 17.4 Mbps.

Source | Via




Haiti - Politics : Canada announces $91M million in aid





Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of International Development and La Francophonie, who participated the previous day at the investiture ceremony of President Jovenel Moise announced 5 development projects in Haiti. Canadas health and welfare focus in the country aims to improve the health and rights of women and children, support initiatives in child protection and continue to increase the access to and completion of basic education, with a focus on girls.



Canadas $91.2-million over 5 years investment will increase womens access to sexual and reproductive health, protect the rights of child workers, increase access to education and improve womens and childrens access to legal services. Finally, under an initiative of the International Development Research Centre, Canada will provide young Haitians with much-needed technical skills to enter the workforce and take control of their future.



"Canadas support to Haiti and its people reflect the priorities of our development agenda: upholding and uplifting human dignity, empowering women and girls and enhancing the local capacity of government and institutions. As true partners, we are behind Haitis new government and are eager to work collaboratively to advance our vision together, declared Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of International Development and La Francophonie.



Recall that the day before, Minister Bibeau held a one-on-one meeting with President Jovenel Moise , on the sidelines of the investiture ceremony. During this meeting she reported that President Moise had insisted on the importance of "social justice" and "good governance", "He fully recognizes the importance of having competent and integral people at the head of the various public services," she said, adding, "It is encouraging, but we remain very cautious in the use of funds and to whom they are given," to ensure that the money goes to where it is intended, she said.



HL / TB/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Politics : Jovenel Moise met with the representative of King Mohammed VI





Tuesday, after the investiture ceremony, the new President of Haiti Jovenel Moise received in audience Mr. El Malki, the President of the House of Representatives, who officially represented His Majesty the King of Morocco Mohammed VI.



This audience was an opportunity for El Malki to recall the content of the cooperation between Morocco and Haiti, particularly in the field of training, through a program that allows a significant number of Haitian students to pursue their studies in Morocco. He also highlighted the expertise acquired by the Kingdom of Morocco in the agricultural sector and in the development of the rural world through the use of fertilizers and the management of water resources.



These fields, El Malki said, "constitute the main axes around which Morocco intends to articulate its cooperation with Haiti," welcoming the solidarity ties that unite the Kingdom of Morocco and the Republic of Haiti, two countries proud of their African roots.



President Jovenel Moise rejoiced of that meeting, stating that he was closely following the experience of Morocco in all areas of concern to Haiti. He instructed President El Malki to convey his congratulations to His Majesty the King for the return of the Kingdom to the African Union and to welcome the reforms introduced by the Sovereign, making Morocco a model for the development and Stability in the region. He assured "for Haiti, Morocco is a country brother and friend."



HL/ S/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Politics : Jovenel Moise officially invited to Europe





Wednesday, Edita Hrda, Executive Director for America of the European Service for External Action (EEAS), who represented the European Union on the eve of the investiture ceremony of the President of the Republic of Haiti Jovenel Moise, https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20030-haiti-inauguration-jovenel-moise-58th-president-of-haiti.html , has been received by the new Head of State.



At the end of her meeting Mrs Hrda declared "As a friend and partner of Haiti, the European Union is ready to strengthen its relationship with the new administration in order to accompany Haiti in its economic, social and environmental redeployment." Mrs Hrda conveyed a letter of congratulations to President Moise , signed by Presidents Donald Tusk (European Council) and Jean-Claude Juncker (European Commission), as well as an invitation to host a State visit to the European institutions "This letter and invitation also demonstrate the European Union's commitment to relations with the entire Caribbean region [...] We also talked about the political priorities of President Jovenel Moise in order to put Haiti back on the right track. The European Union has always supported Haiti and will continue this support. We are willing to strengthen our relationship with the new administration to accompany Haiti in its economic, social and environmental redeployment."



Finally, the Executive Director also provided details on the additional 35 million Euro post-Matthew aid the European Union announced the day before. This new aid envelope for revovery amounting 35 million for one hand the humanitarian needs and also to development.



Humanitarian aid : 16 million

Humanitarian aid of 16 million will be devoted to strengthening emergency initiatives in education, shelter, protection, water, sanitation and hygiene of affected families. This assistance will also help ensure access to school for their children, ensure access to decent housing, provide appropriate support to the most vulnerable and prevent the spread of diseases among the most affected communities.



Development aid : 19 million

Following the damage caused by the passage of Matthew, the fall in local food production has led to an increase in food prices in local markets. An additional  4 million will be invested to strengthen the production capacity of small-scale agricultural producers in the South Department, in order to ensure better availability of locally produced foods, reduce costs and improve sources of income of the poorest households.



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Politics : France optimistic about the chances of success of Jovenel Moise





Wednesday the day after the investiture ceremonies https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20030-haiti-inauguration-jovenel-moise-58th-president-of-haiti.html Jean-Marie Le Guen, Secretary of State for Development and Francophonie to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development, who represented France at the investiture, met with the new President of Haiti Jovenel Moise.



After having reiterated the congratulations of President Hollande to President Moise on his election, the Secretary of State exchanged views with the President on his priorities and assured him of France's support to accompany Haiti on the path of reform, particularly in the areas of the rule of law, agriculture and education, stressing that "it is up to the Haitians to take their destiny into their own hands."



Secretary of State Guen is optimistic about the chances of success of the new President of Haiti, because the Haitian Parliament is mostly composed of elected officials and allies of same trend as Jovenel Moise.



He also conveyed the invitation of the French Head of State to President Moise to visit France.



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20045-haiti-news-zapping-politics.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20038-haiti-inauguration-speech-by-the-senate-president.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20035-haiti-politics-we-will-build-a-single-haiti-for-all-haitians-dixit-jovenel-moise.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20030-haiti-inauguration-jovenel-moise-58th-president-of-haiti.html



HL/ HaitiLibre


















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By Vasia Orion | Published on 2017/02/09

Tae-ho is busy plotting in the present as much as he was in the past and new hints point to a bloody history for the star long before the island incidents. The investigators are torn between whose story is more convenient to publicize while our tour through the island group's fate brings a new person with a lot of valuable information to the camp. Tae-ho's cover back in the past is in danger and he becomes desperate.

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With one episode to go until we hit the midpoint, as the series is thankfully only sixteen episodes long, the main obstacle named Tae-ho (Choi Tae-joon) makes its grand return. A Tae-ho vs. Bong-hee (Baek Jin-hee) battle will follow and Investigator Jo (Song Ok-sook) sadly picks the wrong person to side with. On the other hand, Tae-yeong (Yang Dong-geun) seems to have settled down now and he is ready to become the new ally in Bong-hee's life.

Episode seven gives us a lot of clues about some big revelations which might be coming very soon. The conversation between Tae-ho and Jang Do-pal (Kim Bop-rae) about their respective murders is very casual and it paints their sordid affair as a long-standing one. Combining this with our new island survivor, Kim Gi-wan's (Heo Jae-ho) certainty over Tae-ho's nature and his murder of So-hee (Ryu Won), it seems our villainous duo has been busy for a while, seperately or as a team.

The less likely to have happened is that Do-pal planned the plane crash and is now covering for Tae-ho because the latter may have evidence against him for past transgressions. The more likely is that Jae-hyeon (Yeon Je-wook) did not commit suicide, but was killed by Tae-ho, possibly in collaboration with Do-pal. Unfortunately, the confusing nature of the related flashback puts both So-hee and Tae-ho on the ground as Jae-hyeon fell, but distorting reality is something the creators clearly like doing.

I am excited to see how the situation on the island will unfold now that Tae-ho has been found out. We can safely assume that there is some truth to his story at the end of the episode. Joon-oh (Jung Kyung-ho) probably turned on him to save the others after Tae-ho attacked them. The incident seems to take place on a ship, so we also have evidence of a possible rescue before everyone disappeared, unless President Hwang (Kim Sang-ho) was piloting a found vessel.

With Bong-hee's innocence fully proven and the new villains making plans for her, I look forward to the next episode. The low ratings worry me, since I know how Korean drama productions react to them, but I sincerely hope this story unfolds as originally intended. Tonal, creative and editing clumsiness notwithstanding, the basics of the story have been well-crafted so far.

"Missing 9" is directed by Choi Byeong-gil, written by Son Hwang-won and features Jung Kyung-ho, Baek Jin-hee, Oh Jung-se and Choi Tae-joon.

Written by: Orion from 'Orion's Ramblings'

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Harlow is a former New Town in Essex with a population of 86,000. Located in the upper Stort Valley, it was built in the decades after the Second World War to ease overcrowding and London and provide homes for people bombed out during the Blitz. It includes Britain's first pedestrian precinct and first modern residential tower block, The Lawn. Old Harlow, the historic part of the town, was mentioned in the Domesday Book. David and Victoria Beckham's former home, Rowneybury House, nicknamed 'Beckingham Palace', is nearby.

12:22, 4 NOV 2022
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.9



By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:



Bulgaria welcomes the participation of Azerbaijans state oil company SOCAR in the project for expansion of Chiren underground gas storage facility in the country.



We welcome the participation of as many companies as possible in these procedures. The participation of SOCAR there would be an expression of evaluation by our partners from Azerbaijan to the feasibility of this project, as well as a real area for enhancing cooperation between our countries in the field of energy, the newly-appointed Energy Minister of Bulgaria Nikolay Pavlov said in an exclusive interview with Trend.



He pointed out that currently, Bulgartransgaz performs activities relating to two different projects, which will render Chiren underground gas storage (UGS) modern and meeting the standards and requirements of the European Union.



The first project concerns the modernization of the storage, which will improve the daily flows of natural gas to levels of 5 million cubic meters, according to the minister.



The expansion of UGS Chiren is the second ongoing project of Bulgartransgaz. The expansion consists of a phased increase in the storage volume  larger volumes of stored gas, increased gas pressure in the tank, greater flow rate of daily injection and withdrawal, said Pavlov. The project plans an increase of working gas volume of up to 1 billion cubic meters and increase in the flow rate of daily injection and withdrawal up to 8 -10 billion cubic meters per day.



He pointed out that in the framework of the first campaign for receiving project proposals under the Connecting Europe Facility, Bulgartransgaz has applied and obtained co-financing to carry out 3D filed seismic surveys in the area of Chiren structure.



We expect to hold the tenders for supply of the equipment in 2019 and construction works to start after 2020, said the minister. Public procurement procedures under the Bulgarian law will be launched for the implementation of these activities.



Earlier, head of SOCAR Balkan Murad Heydarov said that SOCAR plans to take part in expansion of the Chiren underground gas storage in Bulgaria.



SOCAR is eyeing to participate in the project not as an investor, but as a contractor. The gas storages expansion is a part of the concept to expand Bulgarias potential for the Southern Gas Corridor, said Heydarov.



The Chiren underground gas storage was created in 1963 and commissioned in 1974.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn
U. Hawaii Law Review Sharing Economy Symposium (Feb. 17, 2017)

by Robert Thomas, InverseCondemnation, February 8, 2017

This year, the University of Hawaii Law Review is devoting one of its issues to a symposium on issues related to the sharing economy.

On Friday, February 17, 2017, the law review is sponsoring a series of presentations from 9:00 am - 4:30 pm at the law school (lunch included if you RSVP ahead of time), followed by a reception in downtown Honolulu.

Presenters include national experts such as Professor Stephen Miller (who is also the founding Chair of the ABA State and Local Government Law Section's Sharing Economy Committee), Christina Sandefur of the Goldwater Institute, local players such as Michael Formby, the Director of Transportation Services for the City and County of Honolulu and Greg Kugle of my law firm, and industry insiders such as Timothy Burr Jr., Senior Public Policy Manager for Lyft.

The day will see presentations on Housing, Transportation, and Discrimination, as well as a keynote address by Professor Erez Aloni, "Access and Excess in the P2P Economy: A Comparative Approach."

I'll be moderating the panel on Transportation issues, so come on up to campus and get educated on these cutting-edge issues.

If you can't make it there, you should join us downtown after the day's presentations for a reception at 1003 Bishop Street in the main second floor lobby. Free parking!

More on the symposium and a complete agenda (including speakers and topics) is posted here.

LINK: UH Law Review Sharing Economy Symposium
Capitol Buzz

by Joni Kamiya, Hawaii Farmers Daughter, February 8, 2017

Tomorrow, a bunch of people will once again descend down to the Capitol building to testify at the buffer zone hearings. None of my family members will be there. Its not because we dont want to but its because we have real responsibilities.

My dad and brother will be around the island in delivery trucks getting the papayas to the customers waiting for their weekly fill. Any delay in deliveries leaves their phones ringing off the hook. I will be at my day job taking care of my residents in need of rehabilitation. I also have to be around to pick up my kids and get homework and baths done. Theres many things to be done on a daily basis.

As soon as my dad and brother finish deliveries, they are preparing to pick more fields tomorrow and survey the fields for any diseases and pests. They are also maintaining their trucks and tractors to ensure its in working condition. They cant afford to stand outside a hearing room for several hours to defend their work as they have done for the last 4 years.

Meanwhile, the same activists along with their lead lobbyist, Ashley Lukens, will be leisurely waiting to launch their tirades against the large corporations and putting in a bitty clause that it wont affect the small guys. They do this every single year. Because they have never visited a farm, they know nothing of our locations and the publics perception of this excessive and misleading fear mongering. Misleading people is Lukens' forte and making it cool that others repeat her mantras.

If you look closely at the activists there, none of any have t-shirt tans or even the slightest hint of field dirt under their nails or on their shoes. They are all clean and free of the hands in the dirt look but to the politicians, this is the voice of what needs to happen in agriculture. Many non-farmer politicians buy into the emotional stories hook, line, and sinker.

If only more people tomorrow would step back and critically examine whats being asked. The numbers of GM fields grown in the US is at 175.2 million acres yet Ashley isnt going to these communities asking for the same buffer zones. Why not if she truly wants to protect people?

The truth is out there if one is willing to examine it. Until alternative facts are rejected, the small farmers of Hawaii will continue to suffer being the collateral damage of outside activists.

The fear mongering leaves people irrational to the point of vandalizing crops.
A record penalty of $532,000 has been ordered in a case involving the underpayment of five workers at the Canteen Cuisine cafe in Albury.



Fares Ghazale, the former owner of the cafe in regional NSW, has been penalised $88,810 in the Federal Circuit Court, while his company Rubee Enterprises Pty Ltd has been penalised a further $444,100.



The total of just shy of $533,000 is the largest amount ever as a consequence of legal action brought on by the Fair Work Ombudsman.



The next highest was the $408,348 penalty to a Brisbane 7-Eleven store for underpaying foreign workers.



One employee being sponsored on the approved 457 visa was required to repay Ghazale $11,050 over a number of months in amounts varying from $450 to $940 a week.



Ghazale even threatened to contact Immigration if the employee did not hand over the cash after the employee complained.



The employee gave affidavit evidence that Ghazale told him: If anything happens to my business, I will kill you. If you complain to anyone, I will kill you and cancel your visa.



Moreover, Ghazale coerced the second Indian employee into repaying him $10,680 in cash through weekly repayments ranging from $360 to as much as $2000 one week.



After the employee complained to Ghazale that he was taking advantage of him, Ghazale responded by threatening to withdraw support for the employees pending 457 visa application.



When the worker told Ghazale he could no longer afford to pay money back, Ghazale responded by yelling at the employee and demanding he repay $500 cash each week if he wanted to get the visa.



Moreover, the worker gave affidavit evidence to the Court that at one point during this exchange, Ghazale dragged him by the collar and attempted to punch him. The matter was reported to Albury police.



After the incident, the cook continued working at the cafe and paying money to Ghazale.



The cashback scheme and the underpayments resulted in the two employees being underpaid $32,063 and $28,858, respectively.



Moreover, Ghazale and his company also underpaid the minimum wages and entitlements to three Australian citizens employed at the cafe.



A waitress was also underpaid $11,273, a cook $8946 and an apprentice cook $6766.



The Indian workers gave affidavit evidence that the underpayments left them struggling to even buy basic household items, such as groceries.



Apart from the penalties, the Federal Circuit Court has ordered Ghazale and his company to back-pay the five workers in full.



In the event that this order is not complied with due to insolvency, the Court has ordered that part of the penalties imposed be paid to the workers to rectify the underpayments.



Judge Tom Altobelli found in his judgement that the treatment of the Indian employees was grossly exploitative and the conduct was highly aggravating and extremely serious and particularly saddening.



(Ghazale) exploited his position of power to extract significant sums from each of the employees, and in effect, pay them wages as low as $6 an hour. It is also highly aggravating that (Ghazale) used violence, and threats of violence, to obtain the repayments, Judge Altobelli said.



Judge Altobelli also found that the cashback scheme was part of a deliberate strategy of deceit to hide the ongoing contraventions of workplace laws.



Moreover, Ghazale had deliberately exploited the imbalance of power between sponsor and visa holder in order to achieve financial gain.



The Court should send a message to Australian employers that there is a single set of workplace protections in Australia that provide a safety net to all employees, regardless of their visa status, he said.
By Frank Taylor / Carolina Public Press

A federal judge ruled Thursday against a group seven of environmental advocacy organizations that hoped to prevent shipments of liquid nuclear waste from Canada to South Carolina, with a likely route through Western North Carolina.

The plaintiffs argued in filings and oral arguments before the Washington court on Jan. 18 that the U.S. Department of Energy should be required to submit a supplemental Environmental Impact Study to haul 6,000 gallons of highly enriched uranyl nitrate liquid from Chalk River, Ontario, to the Savannah River Site.

The federal agency had instead relied on older studies and analysis, which may have examined conditions slightly different from those involved with liquid waste transportation or relied on older science for their analysis, plaintiffs argued.

But U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan agreed with the Department of Energy and other defendants who said the requirements of the law were might be the study submitted.

Had the lawsuit succeeded, it could have led to a delay in the shipments, but might not have been effective in permanently blocking them. With Thursdays decision, the shipments can now move forward. According to an article in the Buffalo News last year, those could start by this summer.

The actual route for the shipments is unknown and wont be revealed publicly, per federal policy for nuclear shipments.

Although some opponents of the shipments have criticized the project for bringing materials from Canada into the U.S., the judge noted that the shipments would contain U.S.-origin uranium that was processed in Canada, in keeping with U.S. policy since the 1950s for providing nuclear fuel to other nations.

The judge acknowledged the differences between the current plan and those cited in the DOEs earlier studies. A 1996 environmental impact study focused on loose powder rather than liquid. But the judge found other portions of the plan were not so different.

Essentially all other aspects of the plan, including the source location, the use of trucks carrying casks over land, the potential routes used, and the storage at the Savannah River site are the same, Chutkan said.

In 2013, when Canadian authorities informed DOE of their desire to ship waste in liquid form, DOE conducted sufficient analysis of liquid, including the transport of liquid that had been analyzed for other routes, so that a new environmental impact study was not warranted in this case, the judge said. DOE also added further analysis in support of this plan in 2015.

One problem for the environmental groups in the case was that the judge found she was not allowed to consider several declarations from scientific experts they submitted in their filings. She instead moved to strike this from the record. The judge found that the circumstances in this case did not allow her to consider the submission of materials that DOE did not review in making its decision.

In the courts view, these two declarations are more akin to conflicting views of specialists, for which the Supreme Court (has said that DOE) must have discretion to rely on the reasonable opinions of its own qualified experts,  Chutkan wrote.

Because the declarations do not point to materials or evidence that plaintiffs allege DOE should have considered and do not provided any background insight into the agencys decision-making process, the court will grant defendants motion to strike these declarations.

Several environmental advocates who talked with Carolina Public Press about the situation in recent weeks described an effort to persuade Gov. Roy Cooper to speak out against the shipments. However, given the judges reasoning in striking outside opinions about the shipments, it seems unlikely that Coopers involvement would have influenced her decision.

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 9

By Elmira Tariverdiyeva  Trend:

Contacts with the sides of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will continue, regardless of the schedule of meetings of the Russian, Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers at the Munich Security Conference, to be held on Feb. 17-19, said the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

She made the remarks at a briefing on Feb. 9, according to the Russian Foreign Ministrys website.

Russia is currently negotiating a possible schedule of meetings in Munich, including the meetings with the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers, according to her.

It will be announced later whether the meetings will be held, Zakharova said.

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov has earlier said Moscow was trying to arrange a meeting of the Azerbaijani, Russian and Armenian foreign ministers and Baku gave its consent to this meeting.

He added that it was planned to hold a meeting with the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs as part of the Munich Security Conference.

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.
On March 23, from 6:45 pm to 8 pm, the annual Morgan Lecture Series will host Dr. Michael Brown, a solar-system astronomer, and professor of Planetary Astronomy at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) this spring. Dr. Brown will present a public lecture in the Blue Ridge Ballroom of the Plemmons Student Union. This event is sponsored by the Department of Physics and Astronomy, and the College of Arts and Sciences. Members of the community, as well as campus, are welcome to this out-of-this-world, free event.

Dr. Brown specializes in the discovery and study of bodies at the edge of the solar system. He is the author of, How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming, which chronicles his discovery of Eris, the most massive object found in the solar system in 150 years, and the object which led to the debate and eventual demotion of Pluto from a real planet to a dwarf planet. He is also deeply involved in the search for Planet 9, a hypothetical giant planet orbiting the far reaches of our solar system.

As one of the forerunners in his field, Dr. Brown has changed the way that we look at our known universe, and being a featured speaker at The Morgan Lecture Series is just one honor on a long list of accolades. Feature articles about Dr. Brown and his work have appeared in numerous publications including the New Yorker, the New York Times, and Discover. In 2006, he was named one of Time magazines 100 Most Influential People.

At Caltech, he teaches undergraduate and graduate students in classes ranging from introductory geology to the formation and evolution of the solar system. He was especially pleased to be awarded the Richard P. Feynman Award for Outstanding Teaching at Caltech, where he has taught since 1996. Dr. Brown received his AB from Princeton in 1987 and his MA and Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley in 1990 and 1994, respectively. He has won many awards and honors for his scholarship and was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences in 2014.

The Morgan Lecture Series in the Sciences was created by an endowment from the G. William Morgan Family. The series brought representatives from each of the four science departments together, among whom the lecture rotates (Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy, and Geology). The repertoire of speakers hosted at this annual event has included Nobel laureates such as Roald Hoffmann (Chemistry), Stephen Chu (Physics), Fraser Stoddart (Chemistry) and Mario Capecchi (Physiology).

Dr. Brown will also give a technical seminar in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, as well as meet with students during his visit on Thursday, March 23, 2017. To learn more about Dr. Browns research and publications, visit his website. For more information on events, visit the College of Arts and Sciences.

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(HedgeCo.NET) The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced that Citigroup Global Markets has agreed to pay $18.3 million to settle charges that it overbilled investment advisory clients and misplaced client contracts.

The SECs order finds that at least 60,000 advisory clients were overcharged approximately $18 million in unauthorized fees because Citigroup failed to confirm the accuracy of billing rates entered into its computer systems in comparison to fee rates outlined in client contracts, billing histories, and other documents. Citigroup also improperly collected fees during time periods when clients suspended their accounts. The billing errors occurred during a 15-year period, and the affected clients have since been reimbursed.

Advisory clients have every expectation that the fees charged by their financial adviser reflect the negotiated rate. Citigroup failed to take the necessary precautions to ensure clients were billed in a manner consistent with their advisory agreements, said Andrew M. Calamari, Director of the SECs New York Regional Office.

The SECs order further finds that Citigroup cannot locate approximately 83,000 advisory contracts for accounts opened from 1990 to 2012. Without those missing advisory contracts, Citigroup could not properly validate whether the fee rates negotiated by clients when accounts were opened were the same advisory fee rates being billed to clients over the years. It is estimated that Citigroup received approximately $3.2 million in excess fees from advisory clients whose contracts were lost.

Its a fundamental responsibility of a financial adviser to preserve key account documents such as advisory contracts. Citigroup failed to safeguard its client contracts, which seriously impeded its ability to determine the proper amount of fees the firm was authorized to charge, said Sanjay Wadhwa, Senior Associate Director of the SECs New York office.

Citigroup consented to the SECs cease-and-desist order and agreed to undertakings related to its fee-billing and books-and-records practices. The firm is censured and must pay $3.2 million in disgorgement of the excess fees collected due to the missing contracts plus $800,000 in interest and a $14.3 million penalty.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 9

Trend:

Azerbaijani presidents aide for public and political affairs, Ali Hasanov has met with Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Youssef bin al-Ottaimeen.

They praised relations between Azerbaijan and the Organization and exchanged views on further development of cooperation.

Azerbaijan`s President's Assistant for Public and Political Affairs Ali Hasanov conveyed greetings of President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev to Secretary General Youssef bin al-Ottaimeen. The Assistant also presented an invitation of the President on participation in the Islamic Solidarity Games to the Secretary General.

The Secretary General, in turn said he will participate in the Islamic Solidarity Games with great pleasure.

The President`s Assistant highlighted Azerbaijan`s multicultural environment, adding representatives of all religious confessions lived in Azerbaijan in peace and stability across the centuries.

The Assistant also said Azerbaijan is the bridge between East and West. Mr. Hasanov spoke about Azerbaijan`s close cooperation with the European Union.

The President`s Assistant said 2017 was declared a Year of Islamic Solidarity in the country. Azerbaijan will host Islamic Solidarity Games. These sport event will give a push to strengthening the Islamic Solidarity in the world, he added.

The Assistant highlighted that a conference of the Journalists Association of OIC Member States was held in Baku.

Secretary General Youssef bin al-Ottaimeen thanked for the comprehensive support of the Republic of Azerbaijan and President Ilham Aliyev to the Organization`s activity in the field of protecting interests of the Islamic world and solving its problems.

Youssef bin al-Ottaimeen also praised activity, successful policy of President Ilham Aliyev.

Azerbaijan`s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Rasim Rzayev was also present in the meeting.
I've decided to enter the race, he stated to Helsingin Sanomat on Monday . Vapaavuori, who said he will take a leave of absence from his responsibilities at EIB in Luxembourg, is thus expected to be nominated as the mayoral candidate of the National Coalition Party in Helsinki.

Jan Vapaavuori (NCP), a Vice-President at the European Investment Bank (EIB), has confirmed his candidacy for the municipal elections to be held in Finland on 9 April.

Vapaavuori revealed to the daily newspaper that he had already made up his mind not to run in the elections but ultimately decided otherwise due to his fondness of Helsinki. Helsinki is first of all a terribly dear place to me, he said.

He later shed further light on his reasons to seek a return to domestic politics in his personal blog, voicing his concerns about the state of liberal democracy and the well-being of citizens in both Helsinki and Finland.

Liberal democracy is in crisis. Western values are being questioned, nationalist sentiment is picking up steam, populism is running high. We are living in difficult times. We must stand up to defend responsible democracy right now, he wrote.

Vapaavuori also reiterated his fondness of Helsinki, reminding that he has been involved in local decision-making practically throughout his adulthood. He assured that he appreciates the concerns of citizens about the apparent dejection and disorientation of policy-making and growing uncertainties around the world.

I am confident, however, that you share my view that we are living in a great city, one of the best in the world, he wrote.

The journey is not yet over, however, he added. People continue moving to cities. Helsinki is not quite ready yet. The nature of work is changing rapidly. Too many continue to struggle. Helsinki must keep abreast of the times and develop itself further.

The city, he reminded, is increasingly important as the promoter of competitiveness and well-being in all of Finland, as the focus of global competition is shifting away from international competition to competition between cities and urban regions.

Helsinki is the only metropolis in our country, with its associated strengths and weaknesses, he said.

The National Coalition Party in Helsinki will announce its mayoral candidate on 16 February, 2017.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Jussi Nukari  Lehtikuva

Source: Uusi Suomi
The nosedive of the economy has been successfully halted. A turn for the better has taken place. The employment situation developed favourably particularly towards the end of last year, he declared.

Prime Minister Juha Sipila (Centre) called attention to the improved economic and employment conditions in Finland in his announcement to the Finnish Parliament on Wednesday.

Sipila pointed out that the sustained increase in central government debt as a percentage of gross domestic product came to a halt in 2016. He admitted, however, that the positive development is partly attributable to special circumstances.

The State Treasury recently adjusted its recommendation on state cash reserves, effectively reducing the need to borrow, according to Helsingin Sanomat.

He reiterated his assessment that the employment rate target of 72 per cent is ambitious but not unattainable in light of the fact that the employment rate in other Nordic countries is hovering around 75 per cent elsewhere in the Nordics.

Even long-term unemployment is gradually starting to decline, said Sipila. This Government has restored confidence in Finland.

The previous time the employment rate was at such a high level in Finland, however, was in late 1980s and early 1990s, according to data published by Statistics Finland.

Sipila also called attention to the historic reforms drafted by his Government.

The Government is about to present a proposal for the reform of health care and social welfare services. The responsibilities of 350 independent organisations will be assigned to 18 counties, he reminded.

The long-anticipated reform will according to him allow citizens to select their health care providers regardless of their financial situation.

Sipila additionally commented on the decision of the United Kingdom to withdraw from the European Union and the election of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States. Finland, he underlined, is not a troublemaker, but it has the right to disagree and will continue to defend international law.

Finland remains one of the best countries in the world on a number of indicators, concluded Sipila. That should be a cause for gratitude and pride [as the country celebrates the centenary of its independence].

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Markku Ulander  Lehtikuva

Source: Uusi Suomi
A LEADING international art critic and curator is overseeing the latest exhibition opening at Henleys Bohun Gallery tomorrow (Saturday).

A fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Clare Henry was the chief art critic of the Herald newspaper in Glasgow for more than 20 years before moving to New York to work for the Financial Times.

The 74-year-old continues to write for many UK and US art magazines, often with an emphasis on Scottish art and sculpture.

It was this expertise that saw her appointed the commissioner for Scotland at the 44th Venice Biennale, while her extensive reference archive built up over her long and distinguished career is now housed at the Glasgow School of Art after she donated it in 2014.

A spokesman for the Bohun Gallery said: We are delighted to present an exhibition of Scottish art selected and curated by Clare Henry. This will feature both emerging and established Scottish artists, printmakers and sculptors.

The growing acknowledgement of the importance and distinctive character of the Scottish art scene has increased since the Eighties and now the international reputation of the Scottish arts continues to flourish and has enjoyed remarkable successes over the last decade.

Patronage of the Scottish art scene continues to evolve and grow as the acclaim for this diverse group of artists becomes more widespread. Clare Henrys selection at Bohun Gallery offers collectors the rare opportunity to see a group of Scotlands finest working artists without having to travel north.

Critics Choice: Clare Henry Selects Contemporary Scottish Art runs at the Bohun Gallery in Reading Road until Saturday, February 25.

But as the curator revealed, her association with the gallery in Reading Road stretches back nearly three decades.

Speaking ahead of the exhibitions launch, she said: Almost 30 years ago I selected my first Bohun Critics Choice exhibition. Many of those artists went on to great award-winning success and recognition  even the occasional CBE!

Now I have a foothold in the USA, I enjoy the benefit of a totally international perspective. Yet it has not changed my opinion that British, especially Scottish artists, are among the best.

Long long before Tate Turner judges began to celebrate Glasgow,  so far 14 Glasgow-based folk have either won or been nominated for the prize  I was keen to introduce and promote Scottish art.

Today my choice is as varied as ever. Ive known many of these nine exciting artists for years, watching them develop from students to professionals, some becoming art school lecturers themselves.

Their work has energy, vivacity, joy and colour  all much needed in todays unsettled times. All these artists demonstrate a capacity to celebrate our world from an unique and intriguing viewpoint. That is the glory of art.

I am delighted that the Bohun Gallery has once again given me the chance of introducing new, powerful, fascinating work to Henley and beyond.

The exhibition covers painting, sculpture and printmaking and includes work by Rosemary Beaton, Philip Braham, June Carey, Damian Henry, Yedidya Hershberg, Christine McArthur, Andy Scott, Bronwen Sleigh and Adrian Wisniewski.

The Bohun Gallery is open from 10am to 5pm from Tuesday to Saturday. For more information, visit www.bohungallery.co.uk
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 9

By Anakhanum Hidayatova  Trend:

France is considering cooperating with Azerbaijan to develop the countrys e-government sphere, Jean-Vincent Place, French minister of state for state reform and simplification attached to the prime minister, told reporters in Baku Feb. 9.

He said that he came to Azerbaijan to mainly discuss mutual projects and cooperation with the ASAN service (Azerbaijani state agency for government services to citizens).

He added that France has a lot of experience regarding e-government, and is ready to share it with Azerbaijan.

Close relations are established between Azerbaijan and France, and the frequent mutual visits are another proof of this, the French minister of state said.

Several French companies also successfully operate in Azerbaijan, he added.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @Anahanum
Aftermath of fire that claimed the lives of couple Joe and Anne Whelan and Joes brother Jim

A retired couple who flew to London help care for an ill relative died in a tragic house fire that claimed all three lives.

Tributes have been paid to Joe and Anne Whelan, from Cobh, Co Cork, who travelled to Essex to care for Joe's sick brother, Jim, who had lived in the UK for years.

Jim had been suffering from ill health in recent months and had just returned home from hospital.

The fire broke out at the mid-terraced property in Romford, east London, early on Monday morning. All three pensioners were trapped inside despite the best efforts of the emergency services to save them.

Mrs Whelan, who was in her 60s, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Her husband, also in his 60s, died on Tuesday evening.

Bedside

It is understood he lived long enough for his sons, Joe Jnr and Hugh, to fly from Cork to be at his bedside in the London hospital.

Jim lost his battle for life yesterday having been on a life support machine.

The two brothers were originally from Dublin. Joe remained in Ireland while Jim had spent his entire adult life in the UK.

Joe had served for a time with the Naval Service in the 1950s before setting up home in Cobh. His wife, Anne, nee Gannon, is from Cobh.

The couple lived on Tay Road outside the Cork harbour town and were described by neighbours as "totally devoted to each other".

"I saw the two of them out walking together just the other week," said a neighbour. "You'd never see one without the other. They were absolutely devoted to each other.

"Both were very private but the Whelans are a lovely family and very supportive of the Cobh community and their neighbours.

"Everyone here is heartbroken for the family."

Desperate

Another neighbour said the retired couple flew to London to care for Jim, who had been cared for by his devoted family in the UK.

"Joe and Anne just wanted to give the family a bit of a break by helping to look after Jim for a few days," she said.

Neighbours desperately tried to rescue the pensioners but were beaten back by smoke, heat and flames.

Four fire engines attended the blaze, which was fought by 22 officers.

An Essex police investigation is under way, but the fire is being treated as a tragic accident.

Last night, Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan offered his condolences.

"I would like to extend my deepest sympathies to the family and friends of the three people who died," he said.

"My department is providing assistance to the family in this tragic case."
A close associate of the Kinahan cartel is expected to appear before a Dutch court in relation to an alleged botched shooting.

Gareth Chubb (30) was one of four men arrested by police in Rembrandt Square, Amsterdam, after a man claimed he was threatened with a firearm.

All four are expected to appear in court today charged with weapons offences.

Their case will be heard by a senior judge.

One of the men, a 23-year-old from Inchicore, is an associate of Chubb. The other two are UK nationals aged 29 and 37.

Search

A spokesman for the Dutch police said no time had been confirmed by the judiciary for when the hearing will take place.

The alleged firearm incident is said to have occurred at 8.45pm on Sunday.

During a search of the nearby Club Smokey, officers recovered three pistols and a silencer.

One of the weapons was found hidden in a bin and the others under a seat.

A Nigerian man is understood to have been the target of the alleged botched shooting.

He fled the bar and contacted police claiming he was the victim of an attempted shooting.

It is understood the man, who has both Dutch and Nigerian citizenship, has since fled the country.
Floral tributes at Eddie Hutchs grave in Glasnevin Cemetery, which was monitored by gardai yesterday

Gardai at the scene after Eddie Hutch was shot last February

Eight people have been arrested by gardai investigating the murder of Eddie Hutch Snr in the year since he was shot.

Gardai yesterday carried out surveillance of Mr Hutch's grave in Glasnevin Cemetery because of fears that it would be targeted by the Kinahan cartel on the anniversary of the innocent taxi driver's murder.

Eddie is buried in the same grave as his son, Christopher 'Bouncer' Hutch, who was cartel kingpin Daniel Kinahan's best pal before 'Bouncer' died of a drugs overdose in March 2003.

No one then could have predicted that a dispute between Daniel's and Christopher's associates would lead to a feud that has claimed 11 lives since Gary Hutch's murder in September, 2015, by the Kinahan mob.

In a series of anniversary notices published in this newspaper yesterday, Eddie's brother John and nephew Jonathan paid tribute to the murder victim.

Both men have been the subject of botched Kinahan cartel hits since the murder of highly regarded Eddie (58), who was known to his pals as 'Neddy'.

Inflamed

The massive garda investigation into Mr Hutch's murder is ongoing and last night a senior source said the victim had "no involvement" in the Regency Hotel gun attack, which inflamed the deadly feud.

Gardai still believe that Eddie was murdered just because he was a brother of Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch, who officers suspect may have been involved in the planning of the Regency attack, which claimed the life of cartel figure David Byrne (33).

The last time the publicity-shy 'Monk' was photographed was when he showed up in disguise at his slain older brother funeral last February.

The anniversary of Byrne's death passed off on Sunday without incident as gardai mounted a major campaign to prevent further bloodshed.

Eddie Hutch was shot dead at his home in Dublin's north inner city on February 8 last year.

The four-man hit team, who burst into Mr Hutch's home at Poplar Row, later escaped in a silver 06 BMW car.

His killing was seen as a revenge attack for the Regency Hotel shooting, in which Byrne was assassinated and two of his pals injured.

The Herald previously revealed that gardai have been probing whether the same gangsters who murdered Eddie Hutch were involved in the fatal shooting of Gerry Hutch's best pal Noel 'Kingsize' Duggan just weeks later.

Two notorious hitmen from Cabra and Finglas have been arrested as part of the probe.

Both have since fled abroad because of garda heat in the case and the fact they face serious charges before the courts.

This duo are also the chief suspects in the murder of Darren Kearns (33), who was shot dead in front of his wife after eating a Chinese meal on December 30, 2015, on Dublin's Blackhorse Avenue.

Slain David Byrne's cousin, Ritchie Thompson (38), was arrested on suspicion of withholding information in relation to the case but was then released after a few hours. He is not considered a murder suspect.

Bullets

In the same week that Thompson was arrested, a man in his late 20s was also picked up by detectives, who suspected him of possessing bullets in relation to the savage crime.

This Clontarf thug's links to the cartel can also be seen by the fact that he was previously arrested by detectives investigating the feud murder of dissident Republican Michael Barr in the Sunset House pub last April, but he is not suspected of being present at either murder.
Motorists caught after drinking as little as one pint of beer will be banned from the road as part of a "sustained attack" on drink-driving.

Transport Minister Shane Ross plans to overturn the penalty system that was introduced in 2012, under which motorists caught slightly over the limit pay a fine and have three points put on their licence.

Under legislation that the minister hopes to have in place in the coming weeks, the drink-driving system will revert to the position before 2012, when drivers caught over the limit were hit with an automatic ban, likely to be three months.

The move comes amid increasing concern about the death toll on the country's roads, with an average of 152 people arrested for suspected drink-driving every week.

"Clearly, this is not acceptable," Mr Ross told the Dail Transport Committee.

"We are launching a sustained attack on drunk drivers. We are committed to taking action now."

Research by the Road Safety Authority (RSA) suggests that alcohol was a contributory factor in 38pc of collisions between 2008 and 2012, but the true picture is "likely to be higher", the minister said.

The garda Christmas anti- drink-driving campaign, which ran from December 1 to January 8, resulted in 961 arrests, up 35pc on the same period a year earlier.

Evidence from the Medical Bureau of Road Safety indicates that 60pc of those caught were more than twice the legal limit, with 20pc three times over and 22pc four times over.

Under existing rules, motorists caught with more than 50mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood, but less than 80mg, receive an on-the-spot fine of 200 and three penalty points. This applies only to a first offence.

Concern

These drivers will now be hit with a fine and a three-month disqualification.

Motorists with 80mg to 100mg of alcohol will see the same principle applied, but with the punishments set at a fine of 400 and six-month ban.

Above 100mg and it will be a minimum disqualification of two years.

The lower drink-driving limit of 50mg, down from 80mg, was introduced in 2012 under the Road Traffic Act.

A lower limit of 20mg applies for novice and professional drivers, who are automatically disqualified if over the limit.

The move has been met with concern from some rural TDs.

Kerry's Michael Healy-Rae, who has supported allowing drink-driving in rural areas, warned against rushing through changes.

However, Mr Ross said: "If you're over the limit in Dublin, you're over the limit in rural areas as well.

"They must accept that the dangers that are posed by people going behind the wheel over the limit are the same in one place as the other, and the dangers of fatalities are the same, because the impairment to driving is the same."

The RSA said that an exam- ination of 1,000 collisions found that 330 involved alcohol. Thirty per cent of the fatalities involved alcohol levels below the legal limit.

"Our message is any level impairs driving. People not above the legal limit were a significant proportion of those killed. One drink starts to impair," chief executive Moyagh Murdock said.
Multi-millionaire Niall Horan did his best to have an authentic backpacking experience during his time off - spending only 23 a night.

The One Direction star (23), from Mullingar, took a break from the limelight to travel with two cousins early last year.

He has talked previously about wanting to travel "properly, so we did it on a budget".

He told Radio 2's Chris Evans Breakfast Show: "I went backpacking across south-east Asia last year.

"It was incredible. We went around Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia for six weeks.

Brilliant

"We did it on a budget and it was brilliant. You'd be surprised what 20 quid a night gets you over in Asia."

Horan is writing his solo album in Los Angeles as One Direction are on a break.

"When you're writing songs it goes through phases, writing some good stuff and bad stuff," he said.

"At the moment, in my head, I think I'm writing some good stuff.

"I'm just going to keep writing for a while and bring out the album later in the summer."

Niall will be performing at the Tower of London for the final of Radio 2's 500 Words writing competition for children aged five to 13, which the Duchess of Cornwall will help judge.

Asked if he had any advice for young writers, and knuckling down to meet the February 23 deadline, he said: "I would always write a concept out before I start writing anything. Let it flow out of your mouth, write it down as you go along.

"I was terrible at school at deadlines, absolutely horrific.

"I used to make up the worst excuses. I don't think I have ever made a deadline before."
Bemused workers leave the plant as FF TD James Lawless speaks of the devastating news

HPs Maurice OConnell said it was a sad day for employees

Technology giant HP Inc will have to repay almost 4m of the 62m it has received in taxpayers' money since arriving in Ireland.

This was revealed by Enterprise Minister Mary Mitchell O'Connor after the company announced 500 jobs will go at its Leixlip plant over the next 12 months.

She told the Dail that the 3.9m given to the company will have to be repaid.

Ms O'Connor brushed aside criticism of the Government and said it and the Industrial Development Agency (IDA) had fought "long and hard" in their bid to keep the jobs at the Leixlip plant.

Saddened

Some of the workers who will lose their jobs have been employed by the company for more than 20 years, said the plant's general manager, Maur-ice O'Connell.

News of the job losses left workers "disappointed and saddened", he said.

Speaking to reporters outside the massive HP facility, he said yesterday was a "sad day" for employees.

"Our focus will be on helping them through this transition period, helping them seek other careers within HP if possible and helping them seek opportunities outside the company," he said.

He said the decision to cut jobs was part of HP's global strategy to drive operational efficiencies and cost savings.

The money saved will be reinvested in growth opportunities for the print business.

"It's really about the need to consolidate to fewer sites," said Mr O'Connell.

"Ireland, relatively speaking, is a smaller site and we see an opportunity to move activities to larger sites, consolidate those activities there and achieve operational efficiencies and organisational efficiencies.

"As a result, we have decided to exit all of the print activities from the Leixlip site.

"Up to 500 people will be impacted by this. It is an unfortunate decision for the employees, but by no means is this an adverse reflection on the contribution of this site, which has been in operation since 1995.

"Truthfully, employees have been very disappointed, they are saddened by the news. They have had a long relationship with HP in general. People have 20 and 22 years of service here. HP has been a great employer and it's a sad day for employees."

He said the printing business was changing, but offered hope for the future by saying the company was interested in exploring newer technology such as 3D printing.

"A good example would be 3D printing, in which we feel we have a tremendous opportunity in the marketplace going forward."

Mr O'Connell said that it is only part of the HP business that is closing.

"Ireland remains a very important market for HP," he said. "We will retain the sales and marketing organisation here to support the business."

Although the 500 job losses are expected to be executed over the next 12 months, Mr O'Connell said he did not see any positions moving any earlier than July.

Some of the workers affected by the redundancies may be able to be redeployed elsewhere within the organisation, but Mr O'Connell conceded that some skills were not transferable.

He did promise, however, that those facing redundancy would receive an "enhanced severance package".

Meanwhile, Kildare North Fianna Fail TD and technology spokesperson James Lawless said the news of the job losses was devastating for the 500 workers, their families and for the wider communities.

"It's a bolt from the blue. HP has a long tradition of investment in Co Kildare," he said.

Commute

"The demographic would be very much graduates and technology workers. A lot of people commute from Dublin to these technology firms, so this is really a hammer blow.

"My heart goes out to the workers here today. They are taking the news on board, they are digesting it. It's never easy to get news like this."
US president Donald Trump could be a "very effective" leader, Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary has claimed.

The chief executive of the low-cost airline urged people to "wait and see" what the president achieves during his time in the White House.

Mr Trump has been criticised for some of his policies, including the imposition of a travel ban on seven predominantly Muslim countries and plans to build a US-Mexico border wall.

"If he implements some of his stated policies - reducing taxes, promoting fracking, lowering the price of oil - it would be very good not just for the US economy but for the world economy generally," said Mr O'Leary, speaking at an aviation summit in Brussels.

Sensible

"Some of the other stuff I don't understand. Why you care how many showed up to your in- auguration is beyond me.

"If he carries out some of the sensible policies he could be very effective. We should wait to see what Trump does over the next two years, and if it's successful, great."
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 9

By Seba Aghayeva  Trend:

Azerbaijani Foreign Ministrys spokesman Hikmat Hajiyev has commented on some circles attempts to link Alexander Lapshins case with the freedom of media and movement.

Speaking to Trend on the matter, Hajiyev said the attempts of the Armenian propaganda, certain circles, and particularly OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatovic to link Lapshins case with the freedom of media or freedom of movement is totally groundless.

The criminal case against Lapshin and his extradition to Azerbaijan, in line with intergovernmental agreements, are a triumph of the rule of law, said Hajiyev.

He said the attempts of Armenia, which attracts foreigners to its criminal acts, to call Lapshins case a violation of media freedom and freedom of movement are absurd and laughable.

Azerbaijan has urged the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatovic not to go against her mandate, being led by Armenias dirty propaganda, not to present certain criminal cases as violation of media freedom and not to politicize them.

I would like to remind Dunja Mijatovic about how she rejected the provocative proposals of an Armenian delegation on the travel of media representatives to conflict zones at the South Caucasus Media Conference, held in Tbilisi on July 6-7, 2016 under her chairmanship, said Hajiyev.

I would also like to note that blogging does not give anyone the right to violate the law or the right to security of a person, he said, adding that the criminal case brought against Lapshin has nothing to do with his activity as a blogger.

Alexander Lapshin is a citizen of several countries and has had a criminal conspiracy with Armenians living in the occupied Azerbaijani territories. He also illegally visited these territories.

Lapshin is accused of violating Azerbaijani laws on state border in April 2011 and October 2012.

In order to promote the illegal regime created in the Azerbaijani territories occupied by Armenia, Lapshin presented Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state on his social media account, and supporting the independence of the unrecognized regime he made public incitements aimed at violating Azerbaijans territorial integrity on April 6 and June 29, 2016.
Belarus has fulfilled its obligations under the international treaty on rendering legal assistance when extraditing blogger Alexander Lapshin to Azerbaijan, Dmitry Mironchik, press secretary of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry, head of the Department of Information at the ministry, said Feb. 9, BelTA reported.

Extradition is a purely legal issue, said Mironchik. Treaties must be respected.

On Feb. 7, Lapshin was extradited to Azerbaijan from Belarus.

Earlier, the Supreme Court of Belarus rejected the complaint filed by Lapshins lawyer regarding his extradition to Azerbaijan.

On Jan. 26, Alexei Stuk, deputy prosecutor general of Belarus, issued a ruling on Lapshins extradition to Azerbaijan. The Minsk City Court upheld this decision.

Alexander Lapshin is a citizen of several countries and has had a criminal conspiracy with Armenians living in the occupied Azerbaijani territories. He also illegally visited these territories.

Lapshin is accused of violating Azerbaijani laws on state border in April 2011 and October 2012.

In order to promote the illegal regime created in the Azerbaijani territories occupied by Armenia, Lapshin presented Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state on his social media account, and supporting the independence of the unrecognized regime he made public incitements aimed at violating Azerbaijans territorial integrity on April 6 and June 29, 2016.

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.
Washington County football: Wildcats, Warriors open playoffs with victories

Williamsport and Boonsboro will play in the second round of the Class 2A-1A West playoffs after victories Friday night.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 9

By Elena Kosolapova  Trend:

The story of blogger Alexander Lapshin will be a lesson for others not to visit the occupied Azerbaijani territories without Bakus permission, Kazakh expert Askar Kumyran said.

The expert added that the story will show that it is necessary to respect Azerbaijans laws.

"By the way, such flogging could be also arranged for some Kazakh citizens, cinema fans and journalists who visit Nagorno-Karabakh region without notifying Baku," Kumyran wrote on his page in the social networks.

The expert recalled that in violation of international law, Lapshin visited the Azerbaijani territories occupied by Armenia, by supporting the separatist regime in Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Afterwards, he visited Baku and began to write offensive posts that he had insulted the whole country and will avoid punishment, Kumyran added.

"As a result, Lapshin was declared internationally wanted on the initiative of Azerbaijan, he said. The blogger was detained in Belarus. Despite moaning and groaning Russian blogosphere, Belarusians observed the norms of the international law and extradited the provocateur to Azerbaijan."

Alexander Lapshin is a citizen of several countries and has had a criminal conspiracy with Armenians living in the occupied Azerbaijani territories. He also illegally visited these territories.

Lapshin is accused of violating Azerbaijani laws on state border in April 2011 and October 2012.

In order to promote the illegal regime created in the Azerbaijani territories occupied by Armenia, Lapshin presented Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state on his social media account, and supporting the independence of the unrecognized regime he made public incitements aimed at violating Azerbaijans territorial integrity on April 6 and June 29, 2016.

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, Feb. 9

By Anakhanum Hidayatova  Trend:

Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics will pay a working visit to Azerbaijan February 11-14, said a message posted on the official website of the Latvian Foreign Ministry.

During the visit, the minister will hold several bilateral meetings at the highest level, the message said.

According to the message, the possibility of strengthening bilateral relations will be also discussed during the visit.

Earlier, Latvian Ambassador to Azerbaijan Juris Maklakovs stressed that the preparation for the visit at a higher level will be discussed during Rinkevicss forthcoming visit.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @Anahanum
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 9

By Elmira Tariverdiyeva  Trend:

Reading the Twitter posts of one of the main agencies of the Armenian lobby in the US  the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA)  one can find some flaws in education of those who write the angry posts directed against Azerbaijan, including against Trend Agency.

The tenacity, with which the Armenian lobby in the US is trying to set Israel and Azerbaijan  the two allies and strategic partners  at loggerheads, is somewhat disturbing.

By the way, ANCA has already attempted to negatively affect the relations between the two countries. Juggling with facts, ANCA has recently tried to set Azerbaijan and Israel at loggerheads in the most painful topic for the latter  the Holocaust.

That time, the provocation of the Armenian lobby received an adequate response from Trend Agency.

In this article, we will expose the recent provocative actions by ANCA regarding Israels Iron Dome missile defense system.

A recent Twitter post urging for prohibiting the sale of Iron Dome system by Israel to Azerbaijan is a continuation of ANCAs campaign. In late January, ANCA announced that the sale of the Israeli Iron Dome missile defense system to Azerbaijan must be checked under the US Arms Export Control.

Now the Armenian lobby has gone a step further and decided to practically force the US to exert pressure on Israel in the issue of selling the missile defense system to Azerbaijan.

ANCA's call is based on that the US and Israeli defense ministries have an agreement banning the sale of Iron Dome to third countries without each others consent.

The ban is based on the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), a US code governing the sale of American arms abroad.

According to one of the ITAR articles, the US has the right to veto the sale of certain types of military equipment, which may contain the US technologies, by Israel to third countries (or individuals).

It is quite obvious why the Iron Dome is covered by the agreement  though there are no American technologies in it, the Iron Dome project of Israel is financed by the US.

The US House of Representatives approved the law H.R.5327 United States-Israel Rocket and Missile Defense Cooperation and Support Act in May 2010. According to the law, the US administration is allowed to assist the Israeli government in procurement and maintenance of Iron Dome.

According to the official reports and expert estimates, the US has recently allocated several billion dollars to upgrade Iron Dome.

That money was allocated for the Israeli defense ministry to purchase Iron Dome from the Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd which developed that system.

The company is among 100 largest arms producers in the world.

Apparently, the ban on the Israeli defense ministrys sale of Iron Dome refers directly to the batteries which were purchased through the US funds to meet Israels needs.

It is unlikely that the US can forbid Rafael to sell its products to other countries.

Azerbaijans Minister of Defense Industry Yavar Jamalov has earlier said that an agreement on the sale of Iron Dome was reached by the Ministry of Defense Industry and the respective Israeli authority.

This may have brought ANCA to conclusion that Azerbaijan will be buying the Iron Dome systems that were paid for by the US. However, it is important to know the nuances of contracts signed on Israeli weapons. The point is that Israels defense deals are signed at the level of government delegations, but in fact the country acts only as a guarantor for the fulfillment of obligations.

So, a contract could have been signed between defense authorities of Israel and Azerbaijan for the supply of Rafaels products.

Unprofessional approach of the Armenian lobby in the US to any matter connected with Azerbaijan seems to be related to the fact that the Armenian diaspora is losing ground under its feet and so it is taking everything very emotionally, forgetting to deal with facts.

The ANCA members had to, at least, think about the fact that an open deal contradicting the American legislation and bilateral agreements between Israel and the US would have brought about opposition from Washington.

The fact that the US didnt react to another hysteria of the Armenian lobby can either mean that the deal to be signed doesnt give the US a right to impose a ban on the Iron Dome sale, or that the US gave permission to Israel for a deal.

---

Elmira Tariverdiyeva is the head of Trend Agency's Russian News Service
Details added (first version posted at 17:03)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 9

By Elmira Tariverdiyeva  Trend:

The issue of blogger Alexander Lapshin should be resolved by Russia and Azerbaijan in line with regular procedures, said the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

She was answering a question at a briefing on Feb. 9 on how Lapshins case may affect the Azerbaijan-Russia relations, according to the Russian Foreign Ministrys website.

All the questions arising in bilateral relations, regardless of which countries are concerned, should be resolved in line with regular procedures. Everything having to do with Russian citizens is certainly a priority for us, but I want to repeat that all this should be resolved in line with regular procedures, she said.

Russia will continue engaging in Lapshins case, Zakharova added.

Alexander Lapshin is a citizen of several countries and has had a criminal conspiracy with Armenians living in the occupied Azerbaijani territories. He also illegally visited these territories.

Lapshin is accused of violating Azerbaijani laws on state border in April 2011 and October 2012. In order to promote the illegal regime created in the Azerbaijani territories occupied by Armenia, Lapshin presented Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state on his social media account, and supporting the independence of the unrecognized regime he made public incitements aimed at violating Azerbaijans territorial integrity on April 6 and June 29, 2016.

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, Feb. 9

Trend:

An official from the Consular Department of Russias Embassy in Azerbaijan met on Feb. 9 with blogger Alexander Lapshin, extradited from Minsk, Denis Apashkin, the embassys press attache, told Trend.

He was charged under two articles - 281.2 (appeals directed against state) and 318.2 (illegal border crossing) of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the embassy said.

A trial is to be held in the near future to define the measure of restraint against Lapshin, said Apashkin.

Lapshin has no complaints about detention conditions. He was given a lawyer. He was also entitled to make phone calls. He feels well, Apashkin added.

Alexander Lapshin is a citizen of several countries and has had a criminal conspiracy with Armenians living in the occupied Azerbaijani territories. He also illegally visited these territories.

Lapshin is accused of violating Azerbaijani laws on state border in April 2011 and October 2012.

On Jan. 17, Alexei Stuk, deputy prosecutor general of Belarus, issued a ruling on Lapshins extradition to Azerbaijan. Lapshin was brought to Azerbaijan on Feb. 7.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 9

By Samir Ali  Trend:

Blogger Alexander Lapshin, extradited to Azerbaijan on Feb. 7, can not be offered a foreign attorney, Lapshins attorney Safar Huseynov told Trend.

He said he met with his client on Feb. 9 and asked him about his health and detention conditions. Lapshin said everything was fine, and he had no complaints.

Alexander Lapshin is a citizen of several countries and has had a criminal conspiracy with Armenians living in the occupied Azerbaijani territories. He also illegally visited these territories.

Lapshin is accused of violating Azerbaijani laws on state border in April 2011 and October 2012. In order to promote the illegal regime created in the Azerbaijani territories occupied by Armenia, Lapshin presented Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state on his social media account, and supporting the independence of the unrecognized regime he made public incitements aimed at violating Azerbaijans territorial integrity on April 6 and June 29, 2016.

On Jan. 17, Alexei Stuk, deputy prosecutor general of Belarus, issued a ruling on Lapshins extradition to Azerbaijan. Lapshin was brought to Azerbaijan on Feb. 7. Earlier, the Supreme Court of Belarus rejected the complaint filed by Lapshins lawyer regarding his extradition to Azerbaijan.

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, Feb. 9

Trend:

Blogger Alexander Lapshin, extradited from Minsk, met with officials of Russias Embassy in Baku on Feb. 9, said the Azerbaijani Prosecutor Generals Office.

The meeting was organized upon the requirements of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, as well as the appeal of the Russian Embassy in Azerbaijan to the countrys Foreign Ministry.

Alexander Lapshin is a citizen of several countries and has had a criminal conspiracy with Armenians living in the occupied Azerbaijani territories. He also illegally visited these territories.

Lapshin is accused of violating Azerbaijani laws on state border in April 2011 and October 2012.

In order to promote the illegal regime created in the Azerbaijani territories occupied by Armenia, Lapshin presented Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state on his social media account, and supporting the independence of the unrecognized regime he made public incitements aimed at violating Azerbaijans territorial integrity on April 6 and June 29, 2016.

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, Feb. 9

By Azad Hasanli  Trend:

VPS Healthcare company (UAE) will build a pharmaceutical plant in Azerbaijan, the countrys Economy Ministry said.

The plants construction is envisaged by the memorandum signed by the VPS Healthcare company with Azerbaijan Investment Company.

The document was signed during the visit of Shamsheer Vayalil, managing director of the VPS Healthcare, to Azerbaijan. During his visit, Vayalil met with Azerbaijani Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev.

Mustafayev informed the guest about the work on creation of the pharmaceutical industry, improvement of the investment and business environment.

In turn, Vayalil noted that Azerbaijan has great potential for the development of the pharmaceutical industry and his company is interested in cooperation in this sphere.
I save things. One of these days, I really must pare all the stuff I have accumulated, but I have a penchant for connecting memories with things, or I convince myself that somebody other than me thinks all these items are important or collectible.

I have a fairly large window sticker, oval, that states: NATO Your Best Bet For Peace. I have no idea where I got it, but it may have been at the Knoxville Worlds Fair.

NATO was formed in 1949 as the counterpoint to the Soviet Unions Iron Curtain. The basic premise is that an attack by an enemy on any member nation is considered an attack on all and the members must support each other. However, that doesnt mean everybody goes to war.

NATO members may judge for themselves what kind of aid to give and how to deliver it.

Fine-tuning the NATO military command structure was overseen by the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces from World War II, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. That was in 1951. Ike got the job done just in time to become our president in 1952.

There is another article of the NATO charter that mandates consultation if a member nation feels threatened. Turkey has invoked that article four times, Poland once  the only instances of official come-help-us military consultation in NATO history.

NATO was the right thing to do when the Iron Curtain appeared impenetrable. The Iron Curtain is gone, but plenty more curtains  some without catchy nicknames  persist. I have my window sticker, just for reassurance.

I must say Ronald Reagans Trust but verify sounds better every day.

THEN THERES THE USS NORTH CAROLINA. Its an awesome battlewagon. Ive visited the ship and I have collected several trinkets over the years. But rummaging through some stuff looking for other stuff, I came across a fact sheet that jogged my memory about just how important the North Carolina was in WWII.

It was the only American battleship to engage in all of the 12 major naval offensives in the Pacific. It was the first U.S. battleship to fire into Japanese territory. The ship traveled more than 300,000 miles during the war and consumed approximately 2 million gallons of fuel.

Thats slightly more than 6.5 gallons per statute mile. Well, the ship displaces 35,000 tons and carried an active-duty crew of 2,000.

If you havent been to Wilmington to see the battleship memorial, you should. After all, its not that far north from the Grand Strand, and lots of us go there when we can.

AND IN THE GOOD RIDDANCE DEPARTMENT, an item that was saved from an 1888 copy of the Newton Enterprise newspaper that I am now saving. I redact last names, you know, just in case.

On Sunday, the thirteenth day of May 1988, William, aged eighteen years and my wife, Sarah, aged forty years, ran away from my home in Lincoln County. William is about five feet and six inches high, has dark hair, fair complexion, and black eyes, short black beard on his face and weighs about 165 pounds.

Sarah is a small spare-made woman with light red hair, fair complexion with warts on the back of the left hands, weighs about 112 pounds, and uses eyeglasses in reading or sewing. I think they have gone to South Carolina. Probably to some cotton factory.

I publish this not to bring them back to this county again, but to let the good people know who they are, wherever they may be. The announcement was signed by husband Joseph.

Ol Joe didnt leave much to the imagination, making sure people knew without a doubt Williams beard was on his face. I do wonder how many left hands, warts and all, Sarah had.

The irony is I found this forgotten item not long after hearing Rod Stewart sing on the radio about a woman named Maggie. It appears William was not as indecisive as Rod.

Reach Larry Clark at wryturlc@yahoo.com.
In 2001, when George Bush ascended to the presidency, Nancy Pelosi said in order for the Democrats to be successful, all they had to do was to oppose everything President Bush proposed.

Is there any reason to believe Republicans would not retaliate if the opportunity presented itself?

The opportunity came with President Obama.

Surely, most rational people would agree that President Bush's policies where closer to the center then President Obama's, but let's just say that the last 16 years were a draw.

The Democrats, who always see themselves as superior in intellect, now have the opportunity to show they have the interest of the American people at heart and not just be a party of no.

Unfortunately, they have already said they will not work with President Trump now or ever; thereby perpetuating the sorry state of a divided government and nation. This is a shame.

Maybe the Democrats are not superior and may find themselves in the political wilderness.

But here is good news: The longer and warmer climate due to the natural cycle of global warming will keep them warm and well fed.

Willi Klappert

Hickory

Reaction to President Trumps immigration ban

I am writing to express my opposition to the recent executive action which places a temporary ban on travel from seven "majority Muslim countries" and an indefinite ban travel from Syria.

I would like to express in the strongest possible terms my utter dismay to what amounts to a "Muslim Ban" by President Trump.

There is no doubt that this is a violation of our Fourth Amendment freedom of religion.

Whats more, this humiliating and callous act is disrupting lives and separating families of hundreds of innocent people, many of whom are refugees and highly-vetted immigrants.

I stand with the lawyers of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Council on American-Islamic Relations in demanding that the rights and safety of those who are legally permitted to travel to this county be protected.

I refuse to accept this degradation of our standards of human decency in the name of "Fighting Terrorism."

Furthermore, I believe such restrictions only foment fear and mistrust among the people of the world most vulnerable to the "radicalization" by the Islamic extremist forces we are attempting to thwart.

It is time for President Trump to rescind this reprehensible action and make America safe again for all who wish to visit, regardless of their religious affiliations.

Kenyon Kelly

Newton

Reaction to Ted Smiths letter to the editor

I was just trying to figure out the purpose of the letter from Ted Smith. At the start, I thought it was to make fun of Mr. Wronski's letter.

After reading the whole letter, I was confused. I am not the smartest of people, but I do have a college degree and that letter made no sense to me.

If he is hoping to be a comedian, just forget that, he is not funny.

Unlike the fellow writer on the same page, Mr. Fitzsimmons, we all know he is the local republican letter writer and know what to expect before we even read his letter.

Mr. Smith likes to use the words "right" and "left." I am one of those independent voters who thinks that neither party has the complete answer to our problems.

It is so simple to just vote the R or D depending on which party you belong to. That way you can always feel you are correct on any subject and do not have to listen to a different view.

Johnny C. Perry

Granite Falls
LINCOLNTON  A man suspected of stealing a military Humvee from a National Guard Armory in Lincolnton was charged Tuesday after he was released from the hospital.

He was receiving treatment for gunshot wounds, according to a press release from the Lincolnton Police Department.

Officer Thomas Hall shot the suspect, Brian Samuel Brittain, 32, during the incident. Following standard procedure, Hall has been placed on administrative leave.

Brittain drove from the scene in the Humvee before transferring to another vehicle. The new vehicles driver alerted a deputy that Brittain had been shot, and Brittain was airlifted to a Charlotte hospital.

Brittain faces charges of one felony count of breaking and entering, one felony count of larceny, one felony count of fleeing to elude, one felony count of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury and one felony count of possession of stolen goods. Additional charges may be pending.

According to the release, the Humvee struck an officers vehicle, injuring Officer Daniel Lafone. Lafone has been treated and released from the hospital.

The State Bureau of Investigation will investigate the shooting.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 9



By Seba Aghayeva  Trend:



The Lithuanian government is ready to introduce certain benefits and guarantees for Azerbaijani investors in order to attract them to economic zones, said Lithuanias Ambassador to Azerbaijan Valdas Lastauskas in his interview with Trend.



"Today, there are Azerbaijani investments in the tourism sector of Lithuania. This is, firstly, the construction of hotels in the zones of business tourism," noted the diplomat.



"Many Azerbaijani investors are interested in this type of activity, and benefits and guarantees are being considered for them."



Lastauskas said that Lithuania has seven free economic zones, which may be interesting for Azerbaijani investors.



He noted that Lithuanias seven free economic zones are located in the countrys economic centers and offer excellent conditions for business development by providing ready industrial areas with necessary infrastructure supporting services and tax benefits.



The enterprises that will work in these zones are exempt from income tax for six years, and will pay a tax in the amount of 7.5 percent in the next ten years, said the diplomat.



He went on to add that those enterprises dont pay revenue taxes and real estate taxes.



Via Lithuania one can also enter the European market, and Klaipeda Seaport, railway lines, highways are a good opportunity for this, the ambassador said.



Azerbaijan also opens good opportunities for Lithuanian investors, Lastauskas said.



In May 2016, Baku hosted the meeting of representatives of railway agencies of Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Georgia and operators of the 'Viking' train project.



The Azerbaijan Railways CJSC submitted a letter on joining the Viking international railway project. The protocol was signed by all participants of the project. Azerbaijans Karvan Logistics was defined operator of the 'Viking' train through the countrys territory.



The diplomat noted that Lithuania supports this project and is doing everything possible to make this supply route of goods from the East to the West and from the South to West via the Baltic Sea and further to Scandinavia attractive.



"There are many players in the market," Lastauskas added. "According to the statistics, the freight traffic among Western Europe, the Far East and China tripled from 2005 to 2015. It means that the flow will continue to increase."



"The best conditions for the transportation of these goods should be offered," the ambassador added. "In this regard, the project has good opportunities. The route covers several countries. A number of technical

issues, including those in the field of customs procedures, must be solved."



"There are no obstacles for the development of cooperation in the economic sphere," the diplomat added. "It is possible to improve relations in this field and increase the trade turnover level."



The diplomat said that the trade relations between Azerbaijan and Lithuania expanded and the trade turnover increased from 2011 to 2015.



"The crisis has affected the economic relations between Azerbaijan and Lithuania since 2016 and the trade turnover even slightly decreased," he added. "But the main thing is that all main conditions for work are available. We have a good legal framework that protects investments and

joint projects. The cooperation between regions of the two countries is being more and more developed every year and it is beneficial for both countries."



There are many areas for cooperation, the envoy said, adding that the most important is desire and mutual interest.



"Lithuania is glad that Azerbaijan and the European Union intend to soon start negotiations on a strategic partnership agreement. This will also expand opportunities of Lithuania as an EU member country for further strengthening of cooperation with Azerbaijan," he said.



The European Council adopted a mandate for the European Commission and the high representative for foreign affairs and security policy to negotiate, on behalf of the EU and its member states, a comprehensive agreement with Azerbaijan in November 2016.



The new agreement should replace the 1996 partnership and cooperation agreement and should better take account of the shared objectives and challenges the EU and Azerbaijan face today.



The agreement will follow the principles endorsed in the 2015 review of the European Neighborhood Policy and offer a renewed basis for political dialogue and mutually beneficial cooperation between the EU and Azerbaijan.
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In October, when elections were hardly in the mind of the public, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a passionate appeal from a public platform in poll-bound UP to stop injustice towards Muslim women.

It is the responsibility of the government and the people of the country  lives of Muslim women cannot be allowed to be ruined by triple talaq, he said while advocating a ban on the Islamic practice of divorce by uttering the word talaq thrice.

Three weeks before Modis parivartan rally, the law commission had issued an appeal on October 7, inviting all stakeholders to give their suggestions on all possible models and templates of the Uniform Civil Code (UCC). One of the 16 questions asked was: Should the practice of triple talaq be abolished in toto, retained the custom or retained with suitable amendments.

Read | Woman asks court to consider consensual triple talaaq as divorce

The move kicked off a countrywide debate with the All India Muslim Personal Law Board refusing to participate in any conversation with the commission.

However, as Modi had said the emotive issue should not be politicised, the clerics shifted their focus to the impending legal battle maintaining that courts cannot scrutinise the Muslim personal law as they follow the Koran.

The debate on personal law vs Constitution was picking up when triple talaq found its way into the election manifesto of the BJP for Uttar Pradesh, a state with 19% Muslim population with high (40%) to moderate (25%) concentration in west UP, polling on February 11 and 15.

Read | Smriti Irani slams Congress, SP over womens safety issue

The manifesto promised that the BJP government would take the opinion of Muslim women and present it in the Supreme Court. Personal laws fall in the concurrent list and both state and Centre can legislate leading to scepticism in the community.

Adding fuel to fire were statements displaying BJPs commitment to end the evil social practice. What seems to have piqued the community is the BJPs silence on other contentious issues  female infanticide was raised by Modi himself at the same rally.

Socially, the burning issues of honour killing, riots, rape and rehabilitation, and the political issue of quota for women in legislatures and Parliament have not found mention in BJPs manifesto.

And while projecting itself as a benefactor of Muslim women, the BJP has not fielded even a single candidate from the community, less so a woman.

Now, BJP ministers are strategically pushing the emotional issue of triple talaq, much to the consternation of the community.

Read | Govt may take steps to ban triple talaq after UP polls: Ravi Shankar Prasad

Union minister Smriti Irani tried to corner the Samajwadi Party and Congress leaders asking them to spell out their stand on the emotive issue. Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi refused to react as its a non-issue in the elections.

Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said it was not a religious issue and pertained to womens dignity, justice and equality. He listed 20 Islamic countries that either restricted or abolished it, whereas India was not even willing to discuss and debate it. The community was hardly amused.

Instead, the All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board petitioned the Election Commission of India demanding action against the BJP for exploiting the triple talaq issue for political interests. Its chairperson Shaista Amber wants a ban on triple talaq but condemns the BJP for making it a poll issue. Thats the general mood of the community.

Muslim clerics define it as a threat to Indias pluralism and diversity; new age Muslims denounce the practice but prefer to keep it out of the realm of politics.

Read | In Ghaziabad, Mayawati plays reservation, minority card

This burgeoning class of young Muslims is not averse to online fatwas and five-star Islam, they dont depend on local mosques for their knowledge on Islam but they also dont want politics on triple talaq.

They see the UCC bogey as an effort to discipline Muslims instead of developing them.

Some surveys reveal that despite focus on triple talaq that manifests their vulnerability, Muslim women are increasingly taking to entrepreneurship. And they want Modi to keep his words, Koran in one hand and laptop in the other.

They support a ban on triple talaq but are not for a party advocating it. Thus, the BJPs attempt to divide the community to create a vote-bank is only strengthening its resolve to vote them out.

The UCC is BJPs trumpeted electoral promise and though it helps in building a majoritarian public opinion, it fails to garner votes.

Can it be a polarising issue?

Triple talaq lacks the polarising zing of issues like cow slaughter, love jihad and migration, primarily because it does not socially or economically impact the Hindus directly.

Read | Ram Bhakts did whatever happened in Ayodhya: Yogi Adityanath

The community refuses to react or revolt the way it did in the case of love jihad. Its not an issue discussed on the streets and academic circles. Instead, its a legal battle.

In fact, making light of it, Asaduddin Owaisi even gave triple talaq an interesting turn saying people of the state have decided to divorce Modi, Akhilesh and the Congress.

Why is the BJP making a poll issue out of a non-issue then? Perhaps to take forward their 2014 commitment on a Uniform Civil Code.

saron@hindustantimes.com
Samajwadi Party MP Dimple Yadav and its Rajya Sabha MP Jaya Bachchan on Thursday jointly campaigned for the partys candidates in Kanpur, where the common refrain was no confusion no mistake, only cycle only Akhilesh.

The SP leaders appealed to the electorate to vote for Aruna Kori, Aruna Tomar and Seema Sachan, the partys candidates from assembly seats in Kanpur and Kanpur Dehat districts.

The rally started with Dimple and Jaya asking the gathering to raise the slogan of no confusion no mistake, only cycle, only Akhilesh.

Samajwadi Party has fulfilled all the promises that it had made during the 2012 elections, rather it has done more, said Dimple, chief minister Akhilesh Yadavs wife, who is wooing voters with achievements of the SP government and new promises in the party manifesto.

Taking a dig at rival parties, she said, The state government has given 18 lakh students laptops. Now other political parties are promising the same. You should ask them how many students have got laptops in states ruled by them.

If the SP forms government in the state they (students) will be given smart phones so that are always informed about the states programmes and scheme, the Kannauj MP said.

She claimed her partys government had already ensured 24-hour electricity in cities and 14 hours in rural areas.

If voted to power the SP dispensation will make electricity available in rural areas for 24-hours. Besides, the party will provide pensions to 1 crore women and bring a scheme to distribute pressure cookers in households, Dimple said.

The SP leader also highlighted the recently opened Agar-Yamuna Expressway and the Metro Rail project.

Describing Akhilesh as a hardworking politician, Jaya said, He has reached his current stature after overcoming many hurdles and problems. Therefore, the more votes SP candidates get, the stronger Akhilesh will become.

The SP government has worked for women security and empowerment, and if it came to power it will ensure employment and pension, the Rajya Sabha MP said.
Amid opposition outcry over Prime Minister Narendra Modis raincoat barb at Manmohan Singh, BJP president Amit Shah on Thursday reminded Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi of the term his mother, Sonia Gandhi, used against Modi in the past.

Shah also said there was nothing wrong in the Prime Ministers remarks against his predecessor.

Modiji said nothing wrong. The onus for scams worth Rs 12 lakh crore during UPA does rest on the Congress and the former PM, he said at an election rally in New Tehri in Uttarakhand.

Modi drew flak from the opposition on Wednesday when he said in reference to his predecessor, Manmohan Singh, in Parliament, There were many scams around him, but his own image remained clean. Dr sahab is the only person who knows the art of bathing in a bathroom with a raincoat on.

Shah went on to say that the Congress shouldnt have taken exception to this description of the former PM as it was correct and so far as dignity of language from public forums was concerned, the Congress did not lag behind anyone.

He reminded Rahul Gandhi of the term his mother Sonia had used against Modi many years ago, the term used recently by the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and his own Khoon ki dalali remark against the Prime Minister at the time of the surgical strikes.

The BJP president was apparently referring to the maut ka saudagar (merchant of death) remark made by Sonia Gandhi against Modi in the past.

Shah also said that Rahul was the first to show disrespect to Manmohan Singh by publicly tearing to pieces an ordinance passed by him.

Rahul had on Wednesday hit out at Modi for his raincoat jibe, saying the event was saddening and shameful.

Attacking Rahul for repeatedly demanding a report card of Modi governments performance, the BJP president said it was time for the Congress in Uttarakhand to give an account of what it had done in the past five years of its rule.

The BJPs turn to give a report card on its performance will come in 2019. Dont you worry Rahul baba, we will give it in good detail, he said.

The BJP leader said if Rahul insists, he can only say the BJP gave a Prime Minister who speaks.

We gave a Prime Minister to the country who speaks before whom there was one whose voice could be heard only by you and your mother, Shah said in reference to Rahul and Sonia Gandhi at the rally.

Referring to the Congress and its vice-president, Shah said those who had not given a report card on the 60 years of their rule were asking for Modis report card.

He also patted the back of his partys government for implementing OROP, an issue hanging fire for 40 years, within two years of coming to power at the Centre.
Voting at 48 polling stations at Punjabs five assembly segments and the Amritsar Lok Sabha constituency was peaceful and without any technical glitch on Thursday.

The Election Commission (EC) had ordered the repolling after malfunctioning of voter-verified paper audit trail machines (VVPATs) and other electronic voting machines (EVMs) during the February 4 voting at stations in Amritsar, Moga, Muktsar, Sardulgarh and Sangrur.

Must read | Paper-trail voting machines a nightmare, says Punjab chief electoral officer after glitches

Barring Amritsar where turnout dipped by about 3%, polling at other stations was higher than that on February 4. At the one polling station in Sardulgarh segment in Mansa district, 90.33% votes were polled, making it the highest for the day.

1149 of 1272 votes (90.33%) polled at polling booth in Kaurewala village in Sardulagrh. 1142 votes (89.77%) were polled on Feb 04 @HTPunjab  Mohammad Ghazali (@ghazalimohammad) February 9, 2017

The poll panel said 89.55% voters turned up at the nine stations of Muktsar segment. In Sangrur, where too repolling was held at nine stations, 85.68% turnout was recorded. Mogas one station saw 81.26% turnout.

In Amritsar district, where polling was held for the LS bypoll as well as the Majitha assembly segment, 76.58% votes were polled in 20 polling stations, according to the EC. Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) legislator and minister Bikram Singh Majithia also recast his vote in Majitha.

Women show their inked fingers after casting their vote at Govt Ranbir College in Sangrur on Thursday. (Bharat Bhushan/HT )

A fierce triangular contest is on the cards at all the places where repolling was held. Brisk polling was witnessed right from 8am. Candidates mobilised their supporters to reach the polling stations, and long queues were seen particularly at the voting venue in Majitha where Bikram Majithia and Congress candidate Sukhjinder Raj Singh Lalli Majithia had a verbal spat on February 4.

In Muktsar, there are 10 candidates in the fray, including sitting MLA Karan Kaur Brar of the Congress, and Kanwarjit Singh Rozy Barkandi of the SAD.

At Sardulgarh, 1,149 of the 1,242 electors cast their vote; seven more than the number for February 4.
DEHRADUN/New Tehri: Amid furore over Narendra Modis raincoat barb at former prime minister Manmohan Singh, BJP president Amit Shah Thursday reminded Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi of the remarks he and his mother Sonia had used against the PM in the past.

Modiji said nothing wrong. The onus for scams worth 12 lakh crore during UPA does rest on the Congress and the former PM, Shah said a poll rally in Tehri.

In an apparent reference to the maut ka saudagar (merchant of death) remark made by Sonia, Shah

asked Rahul to think of the remarks recently made by the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and his own khoon ki dalali remark against the PM.

Shah said that Rahul was the first to show disrespect to Manmohan Singh by publicly tearing to pieces an ordinance passed by him.

Attacking Rahul for repeatedly demanding a report card of Modi governments performance, the BJP president said, The BJPs turn to give a report card will come in 2019.

the BJP president also took a jibe at Manmohan Singh. Our partys first achievement is that it gave a PM who can speak. Before him there was a PM whose voice could be heard only by you and your mother, Shah said.

He also launched a scathing attack on chief minister Harish Rawat. Rawat is the only chief minister in the country who was seen negotiating a bribery deal in a CD. Ministers are looting the state in league with the liquor mafia and corruption under him has reached its peak, the BJP chief said.

The BJP leader was referring to the alleged sting operation on April 29 purportedly showing Rawat offering bribe to rebel Congress MLAs to support him during a floor test in the Assembly.

Accusing Rawat of always complaining about Uttarakhands lack of resources and difficult terrain rather than doing something for its development, Shah said the CM lacks the determination to take the state on the path of progress.

Charging Rawat with always looking for avenues to mint money, Shah said, Harish Bhai where there is a will there is a way! You cannot do it because your attention lies somewhere else, perhaps on ways to make money.

Asking Rawat to give up as he has run out of ideas, he said the BJP will develop Uttarakhand into a model state by setting up IT parks in the hills on the lines of New York and New Jersey.

Besides, the states huge wealth of medicinal plants will be tapped to meet international demand, Shah said.

The BJP president also slammed Rawat for being ungrateful to the PM who had gifted 900 km all-weather chardham roads to the state.

WITH PTI

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A Bhopal resident, who was arrested earlier this month for murdering his live-in partner and hiding her body in a marble platform built at his house, has confessed to killing his parents a few years ago because they were forcing him to study mathematics.

Though 32-year-old Udayan Das had confessed to his role in their killing a few days ago, police have disclosed the circumstances surrounding the incident only now. Their bodies were exhumed from a house in Raipur on Monday, following which Das was interrogated for nearly two hours.

Police said mathematics, a subject that the youth hated, was one of the main reasons behind his parents murder.

Udayan told us that his parents, particularly his mother, used to force him to study mathematics. He hated his parents because of this. Though he wanted to pursue a career in social sciences and the arts, his parents wouldnt let him, said Raipur additional superintendent of police Vijay Agarwal.

The police officer said Das claimed to have a deep interest in photography, painting, poetry, cartoons and writing. He said he doesnt feel even a tinge of remorse about murdering his parents because they were Mr and Mrs Hitler. Murdering them helped pave the way for Udayan to pursue his other interests, Agarwal added.

Police said Das was a brilliant student till Class 8, but started failing and went into a sort of depression after being forced to study mathematics. The accused speaks flawless English, and also dabbles in information technology and a number of art forms.

Police say Udayan Das speaks flawless English, and also dabbles in information technology and a number of art forms. (HT photo)

He wanted to live a lavish life. So he forged his parents signatures to release their money from the bank, another police officer said, adding that the bank officials who allegedly helped Das forge the documents are also under the scanner.

Das  an only child  used to live with his parents at Raipur. While his father was a foreman with BHEL, his mother worked as a data analyst at Vindhyachal in Bhopal. They had three houses at Raipur, Delhi and Bhopal  the combined rent of which came up to Rs 80,000 per month.

Dass mother also received a monthly pension of Rs 30,000.

Sources said the accused became acquainted with his live-in partner  Akanksha Sharma  through Orkut (a defunct social networking site) in 2007. He managed to convince her that he was a software professional based in the United States.

Sharma, a native of Bankura in West Bengal, left her parents house and met Das at Delhi in June 2016. The duo then reached Bhopal, where their relationship turned sour. Police said Sharma was murdered 20 days later, on December 27.

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Adventure junkie Amit Sadh, who takes off to exotic locations every few months, is now planning to document his trips. The actor started rock climbing at the age of six and his favourite spot to indulge in the activity is Kumaon and Gharwal in Uttarakhand. Last year, we went on a bike-trip to Leh Ladakh and now he plans to ride his bike to Nepal and Bhutan. While he loves to travel, he is also quite keen on making a documentary on his travel escapades. Since he will be covering the hilly terrain, he is also working on being physically fit and following a special workout regime.

A source reveals, This documentary will record all his travel experiences and cover the locations he travels or has travelled to in the past. Though he is undecided about whether he will release it commercially or not, he has started working on it. In fact, last year he was even approached to host a travel show.

#ontheroad #coonoortrip #happyholidays #photopitstop A photo posted by Amit Sadh (@theamitsadh) on Dec 29, 2016 at 3:32am PST

Talking about the places he is planning to cover on his road-trip, the Kai Po Che actor says, I love travelling and exploring new places. This time, I want to cover Silk Route in the north and Khardungla which is the highest motorable road. I also want to enter Pokhra in Nepal and Bhutan. I want to cover Siliguri. I want to capture all my travel experiences and meeting new people and exploring the roads.

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In December last year, the Pakistan Film Producers Association chairman Syed Noor lifted the self imposed ban on the release of Indian movies there. Following it, the Hrithik Roshan-Yami Gautam-starrer Kaabil became the first film to hit theatres in the country. Now, Taapsee Pannus film opposite Amit Sadh, RunningShaadi.com is set to be released in Pakistan, and on the same day as India.

Taapsee Pannu and Amit Sadh on the poster of RunningShaadi.com.

The ban on Indian films lasted for almost two months in Pakistan. Kaabil was screened in Pakistan from February 2, marking the first film to release there after the Uri terror attack and its aftermath.

Directed by Amit Roy, RunningShaadi.com will hit theatres in India and Pakistan on Feburary 17.

Speaking about the Pakistan release, the director said, I think its a good way forward because just banning all things that the two nations enjoy about each other is not going to move our relationship forward. We enjoy many of the same things and the people of both our nations are made from the same grain. So why let the politics chosen by the select few determine the common mans desire on either side to communicate and enjoy each others cultures. I completely welcome this decision by our friends in Pakistan to release our film and I hope they enjoy it.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
While there are several films being made on serious issues that intend to give a message to the society, its overwhelming to see how Bollywood celebrities are also taking the charge offscreen. Doing their bit to spread awareness on the importance of sanitation and personal hygiene, there are many that have come forward and offered support in some form or the other.

Actor Anushka Sharma has been appointed as the female face of PM Narendra Modis Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. (PTI)

Recently actor Anushka Sharma was chosen as the female face of PM Narendra Modis Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Drive) where she would be focusing on women and open defecation. While championing the initiative that aims to highlight the women-centric aspects of open defecation, the 28-year-old actor is also expected to initiate communication with women, mostly in rural and semi-rural areas.

Last year in September, actor Amitabh Bachchan featured in a government video on open defecation urging people to join the movement. Bachchan has been the most vocal brand ambassador of this nationwide health and sanitation campaign since July 2016.

Actor Vidya Balan has featured in several television commercials urging people in rural areas to curb defecating in open.

Another significant contribution has been of actor Vidya Balan, who in her capacity as the national sanitation brand ambassador, has been working hard to make India defecation free. Over the last five years, Vidya has been part of a nationwide television and radio campaign that aims at constructing more toilets. Shes became a household name when she featured in countless ad commercials that connected with the viewers in the most interesting manner.

As for the efforts made through movies, actors Akshay Kumar and Bhumi Pednekar would be seen in a film titled Toilet: Ek Prem Katha, which will be a satirical comedy based on PM Narendra Modis Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and will bring to light the unhygienic conditions in the rural areas of India. Helmed by Shree Narayan Singh, the film will highlight the importance of the pay-and-use toilet scheme and try its bit to curb the problem of open defecation.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 9

By Elena Kosolapova - Trend:

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev ordered to increase oil production and refining within the meeting with Energy Minister Kanat Bozumbayev Feb. 9, the presidential press-service said.

Oil production at Kashagan has started. Decision on expansion of the Tengiz field has been made. In addition, we have handled the matter with Karachaganak field. Thereupon it is necessary to increase oil production and refining, the president said.

The minister in turn noted that oil production target was exceeded and oil export increased in 2016.

The oil production target was 75.5 million tons; oil output reached 78 million tons. Over-fulfillment resulted from production at Kashagan, which gave about 1 million tons of oil in 2016, Bozumbayev said.

Oil exports increased to 62 million tons, including 40 million tons pumped by the Caspian Pipeline Consortium pipelines, according to the minister. Moreover, liquid gas production increased by 136 tons.

Kazakhstan's proven oil reserves as of early 2016 stood at 30 billion barrels, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy.

Follow the author on Twitter: @E_Kosolapova
Intel CEO Brian Krzanich after meeting US President Donald Trump announced that the tech giant will invest $7 billion in a new factory employing up to 3,000 people.

The factory will be located in Chandler, Arizona, the company said.

Krzanich confirmed to CNBC News that the investment over the next three to four years would be to complete a previous plant, Fab 42, that was started and then left vacant.

The 7 nanometer chips to be produced there will be the most powerful computer chips on the planet, Krzanich said.

Most Intel manufacturing happens in the US, Krzanich said.

America has a unique combination of talent, a vibrant business environment and access to global markets, which has enabled US companies like Intel to foster economic growth and innovation, Krzanich said in a statement.

Our factories support jobs - high-wage, high-tech manufacturing jobs - that are the economic engines of the states where they are located.

Trump tweeted his thanks to Krzanich, calling the factory a great investment.

Thank you Brian Krzanich, CEO of @Intel. A great investment ($7 BILLION) in American INNOVATION and JOBS! #AmericaFirst pic.twitter.com/76lAiSSQ1l  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2017

The announcement comes as the technology industry has pushed back against the Trump administration, amid mounting pressure to move manufacturing jobs back to the US.

However, the White House said there will be no incentives from the federal government for the Intel project.

Intel was one of more than 100 companies that joined together to file a legal brief opposing Trumps temporary travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority nations. Yet Intel, like Apple and other large technology companies, also supports the Trump administrations plans to reduce corporate taxes and regulations.
If the proposed merger of Vodafone India Ltd and Idea Cellular Ltd comes through, Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla could become the chairman of the merged entity, the Mint reported on Thursday.

The newspaper quoted two people familiar with the negotiations between the two mobile phone services companies as saying that the merged entity would likely have 12 directors on its boardthree from either side and six independent ones. There was no official word on it, however. A spokesperson for the Aditya Birla Group said that any talk of appointments is premature.

After months of speculation, Vodafone confirmed last Monday that it was in merger talks with Idea. The proposed merger of Vodafone India and Idea Cellular will create the nations largest telecom firm with combined revenue of Rs78,000 crore and a 43% share of the market hitherto dominated by Bharti Airtel Ltd, which reported annual revenue of Rs50,008 crore from local telecom operations in the last financial year.

The consolidation has been triggered partly by the entry of Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, which has invested a staggering $25 billion (about Rs1.5 trillion) and launched its operations last September by offering free voice and data services till 31 March.

Read | Vodafone-Idea merger and how it will change the Indian telecom industry

The idea of Birla as the chairman of the merged entity may help Vodafone Group make a case that it has spun off or deconsolidated its subsidiary Vodafone India, the Mint report added. Vodafone cant be seen as having greater control in the merged entity. To do this under the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), a company has to demonstrate that it no longer has operating or management control in the subsidiary, said Charanjit Attra, partner, SR Batliboi and Associates Llp. Vodafone Group will have to prove this to its statutory auditors, the first person said.

Full report | Kumar Mangalam Birla may head Vodafone and Idea combine
A man, accused of murdering a child and staying in Sri Ganganagar Central Jail pending trial, has accused police of electrocuting his genitals. He was sent to hospital by jail authorities on February 5, two days after he was taken to jail after a court remanded him to judicial custody.

However, the police have denied the charges and said the wound on the mans genitals were one year old. Doctors treating him said the injury looked fresh, but appeared not to have been caused by electrocution.

Pankaj Jain, 35, was arrested on January 30 from Sri Ganganagar on the charges of murdering the five-year-old boy. The police said that the child went missing on January 15 and later his body was recovered from a canal on January 23.

The police said Jain threw the boy in the canal and later called them from a stolen SIM card to tell them that a woman, who was his estranged lover, was responsible for the killing.

Jawahar Nagar police station station house officer Shakil Ahmad said Jain had called up the police in some other cases also naming the woman. Jain has earlier been in jail for rape, and also been involved in forgery and mobile phone thefts, the police officer said.

Central jail official Ramesh Purohit said Jain told them about the police torture a day after he was brought to the prison. The jail doctor saw cut marks on his genitals and referred him to the district hospital, Purohit added.

Dr Raghav Tantiya, surgeon at district hospital, said there were bleeding ulcers on Jains genitals. But we did not spot entry and exit wounds generally associated with electrocution, he added, refuting Jains claims.

Meanwhile, SHO Ahmad said Jain had an affair with a woman with whom he was living in. About a year ago, when he went to drop her home, her brothers threw acid on his genitals, he added.

However, the district hospital doctor said the wound was not old.

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Mumbai

Parag Shah, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) nominee in Ghatkopar, is probably the richest candidate contesting the Mumbai civic polls. Shah runs a real estate development and construction business and has declared his family assets worth Rs690 crore. The 47-year-old graduate from Osmania University is contesting from ward number 132, which covers the Garodia Nagar-Rajawadi areas. He is pitted against Congress heavyweight Pravin Chheda, who has declared assets of Rs140 crore.

I have made a foray in politics to make it more transparent. I have done social work for the last 15 years and I think politics will provide me with a bigger platform to continue my philanthropy, Shah said.

Managing director of MAN Infraconstruction Ltd (MICL), Shah has declared his family movable assets worth Rs670.57 crore and immovable assets worth Rs19.38 crore in the election affidavit. Shares and bonds in various companies worth Rs 346.15 crore form the biggest chunk of his movable assets and similar financial instruments worth Rs160.92 are owned by his wife, Mansi.

The couple owns jewellery valued at Rs 2 crore and lands in Valkas and Takwahal in Maharashtra and Surendranagar in Gujarat. They also have five houses in Ghatkopar and Thane. The house in Thane is worth Rs8 crore, the affidavit reveals.

According to the MICL website, the company deals in residential, commercial, institutional, port infrastructure, road and industrial spaces. MICL has residential projects in Ghatkopar, Sion, Chembur, Mulund and Dahisar. It is involved in port projects at Nhava Sheva, Cochin and Chennai, said Shah.

A BJP functionary from Ghatkopar, who did not wish to be named, said Shah is well-known in the Jain community. He the president of the Mumbai Jain Mahasangh. Shah is also close to BJP leader and state housing minister Prakash Mehta.

Though Shah was apprehensive, Mehta asked him to enter politics as he is a very well-known person in Ghatkopar, the source said.

Shah will face a tough fight from sitting Congress corporator Pravin Chheda. Interestingly, Chheda left the BJP in 2012 after a dispute with Mehta and won the seat on a Congress ticket. Chheda has declared movable and immovable assets worth Rs140.46 crore. He has immovable property worth Rs130.90 crore. Chheda and his wife Vijaya together own ten houses in Vidhyavihar and Ghatkopar. The 51-year-old has studied up to Class 9 and also has three cases registered against him, the affidavit reveals.

Meet the wealthiest BJP candidate from ward 132

Name: Parag Shah, 47, managing director of MAN InfraConstruction Ltd (MICL)

Shah is also the President of the Mumbai Jain Mahasangh

Education: Graduate from Osmania University

Candidature: A first-time BJP candidate from ward number 132 (Ghatkopar, Garodia Nagar, Rajawadi, etc)

Shahs wealth

Cash: Rs1 lakh

Bank deposits: Rs10 lakh

Bonds and shares: Rs346.15 crore

Other investments: Rs43.46 crore

He owns an agricultural land and a plot in Valkas and Takwahal in Maharashtra,

He has two offices and three houses in Ghatkopar

Shahs wifes wealth

Bank deposits: Rs3.96 crore

Shares, bonds and investments: Rs160.92 crore

Shahs wife, Mansi, has two plots in Surendranagar, Gujarat, and one house each in Ghatkopar and Thane.

The couple owns jewellery valued at Rs2 crore.

Family wealth

Moveable assets: Rs670 crore

Immovable assets: Rs19.38 crores

Total wealth: Rs690 crores

Family income in 2015-16: Rs3.38 crore

Tough battle against Congress Pravin Chheda

Pravin Chheda is the sitting corporator and leader of opposition in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation

Chheda left the BJP before the civic elections 2012 to join the Congress

He has declared movable and immovable assets worth Rs140.46 crore in his affidavit

He has studied up to Class 9 and also has three cases registered against him

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I was in Doha while writing this column, in transit from India to New York City. The United States my wife and I return to feels significantly different from the one we left nearly a month ago. Since his inauguration on January 20, Donald Trump has shaken longstanding international alliances, railed against the constitutional checks to his power, and sparked a mutinous mood across the country. Reports speak of confusion in the White House and anxiety in many government departments. Both in the halls of power and in the court of public opinion, America is wracked with convulsions.

No single action of Trumps young presidency has incurred as much backlash as his ill-considered and callous order to ban refugees and migrants from several Muslim-majority countries. Hamid International Airport in Doha, from where I write, has in the past week been home to devastating scenes. Despite its gleaming, space-age design, this airport like all airports is a modern purgatory, a liminal space between nation-states. Many travellers from the countries on Trumps ignominious list have been stopped and stranded here, blocked from the lives they once had or the lives they dreamed of having.

Read: Trump to federal judges: Even a bad high school student would rule in my favour

I was disappointed, if not surprised, by the somewhat heartless reaction of many Indians to news of the ban: Why not Pakistan? they wondered, as if displeased that Trump had missed a chance to rankle our neighbours. But the absence of Pakistan and, for that matter, Egypt and Saudi Arabia (from where many of the 9/11 hijackers came) does indeed point to the logical inconsistency of the ban. Trumps order has little to do with security. Numerous state department and military figures have insisted that the ban actually makes the United States less safe, not safer, playing into the hands of Islamist extremists. Instead, the ban was devised to set the tone of the Trump presidency, to announce the rise of a decisive, strongman ruler tough on Muslims.

The ban faces stiff challenges from the American judiciary, which has, to Trumps chagrin, risen to the task inscribed in the US Constitution of checking the power of the president. But no matter the fate of that executive order, the new administrations obsession with Islamic terrorism is a good deal more apocalyptic than the stances of the bellicose Bush and Obama administrations.

Read: I wasnt kidding... Wall on US-Mexico border being designed right now: Trump

The role of Steve Bannon, the far-right ideologue who now serves as Trumps chief strategist, looms large here. He has brought a brand of civilizational zeal, long cultivated on the fringes of American politics, straight into the Oval Office. Bannon believes that the Judaeo-Christian West is in an outright war against jihadist Islamic fascism. That language pretends to a kind of precision, but its obvious that Bannon and Trump (who Bannon has described as a useful instrument) want to convey the impression of a much wider, more generalised threat in which jihadists in particular become inextricable from Muslims in general.

To that end, Trump has sought to paint Muslim refugees fleeing from war and terror as an existential danger. His administration has also recently proposed renaming a federal programme aimed at countering violent extremism within the country to one only aimed at Islamic extremism, never mind the growing and serious threat posed by far-right white nationalist violence in the West, as evidenced by mass shootings at a Sikh gurudwara in Wisconsin, a left-wing youth camp in Norway, an African American church in South Carolina, and last week at a mosque in Quebec that left six worshippers dead.

Trump has said almost nothing publicly about the Quebec killings, but his administration took the extraordinary step this week of releasing a list of 78 Islamist attacks it felt deserved more media coverage. This list had the effect of combining two of Trumps favourite pastimes, inveighing against the inadequacies of the media and scaremongering about Islamist violence. It includes the infamous attacks on Paris, Brussels, and Orlando that were inescapable, headline news everywhere. With very few exceptions, the incidents included in the list were covered extensively in the international press. The list omits, of course, the far more significant numbers of Islamist attacks on Muslim civilians, which undermine the sense that Islamist terrorism is only trained in a purposeful way against the West.

Read: Trump-style travel ban finds fans in Europe: Poll

For all their policy failings, both the Bush and Obama administrations rarely invoked such a grisly spectre of Muslim terror. Whats remarkable about the list is not just its amateurish compilation (it is full of misspellings, including the word attacker which is spelled attaker many times), but that it suggests that the Trump administration actively wants to scare the public. It wants the American people to feel terrified, in this case of the Muslim other.

This doesnt bode well. In an earlier era of rising global authoritarianism, US president Franklin D. Roosevelt announced in 1933 that the only thing Americans had to fear is fear itself. With Trump at the helm, Americans now have reason to be afraid.

Kanishk Tharoor is the author of Swimmer Among the Stars: Stories.

The views expressed are personal

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More than a year after Delhi Police registered two cases of sedition against JNU students and a former Delhi University professor, they are yet to file a charge sheet. Nationwide protests had erupted against the police last year for using the archaic law in their first information report (FIR). The students alleged that they had been falsely implicated and the charges were based on doctored videos.

Interestingly, no sedition case has been registered across Delhi after the two FIRs, which were registered in February 2016. The last time, police in Delhi registered a sedition case was in 2013. According to National Crime Records Bureau data, while 30 sedition cases were registered across the country in 2015, not a single such case was reported in Delhi. In 2014 too, Delhi Police did not register a sedition case, while the number of cases across India was 47.

JNU students Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid, Anirbhan Bhattacharya, among others, and former DU professor SAR Geelani were booked under sedition charges. Exactly a year ago, on the evening of February 9, 2016 the three JNU students were accused of raising anti-India slogans in the university campus at an event to mark the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. A case was registered at the Vasant Vihar police station. The second sedition case was filed at the Parliament Street police station against SAR Geelani for organising an event inside the Press Club where similar anti- India slogans were raised.

Interestingly, both cases were registered suo moto by the police. The police officers who are the complainants in both cases mentioned that they watched the news telecast of both the events on a news channel after which they learnt about the sloganeering. The footage, involving the JNU students recorded by the news channel purportedly showed JNU students shouting anti-India slogans. The footage has been sent to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory to test its authenticity.

According to FIR in Geelanis case, the complainant police officer had seen the news report about Geelani raising anti-national slogans. Delhi Police spokesperson Dependra Pathak said, The Delhi Police is looking into all angles of the case. Each and every aspect is being legally scrutinised. A few cases do take time to reach a conclusion. Its been looked into professionally.

The 2012 and 2013 sedition cases were filed on the orders of a court. The first case in 2012 was against a UK resident, Abu Barra who had allegedly said he had no faith in the constitution and the laws binding him. Barra, however, did not join the probe. Barra had allegedly made the statement when he was stopped from carrying out a march to Parliament. Another case, registered in 2013 was against Mumbai politician and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray accused of delivering a hate speech at a rally in Mumbai. In both cases, the police filed a closure report saying there was no evidence against accused persons.

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About one year after taking charge, JNU vice-chancellor Jagadesh Kumar talks to HT about the controversies surrounding the university and allegations of stifling the right to dissent. Excerpts:

Q) Within weeks of your joining as vice chancellor, the university faced one of its biggest crises in the face of the February 9 event. Do you think you handled it well?

A) I still feel the episode was an aberration. It was an internal incident. We did our best during that time to handle it internally. As a professor of electrical engineering, I have learnt not to panic when there is a sudden change but to work on stabilising the situation.

Q) Students and teachers accuse you of curbing freedom of speech in the university. Why would you send notices to teachers and students over protesting at a spot where they have been protesting for years?

Read: JNU still simmering year after anti-national protests, Kanhaiya arrest

A) All the notices request them to follow university rules. I am all for freedom of expression but if the protests are causing inconvenience to officials working in the admin block then we have to take steps. There is a university rule about protesting at admin block, we are only implementing it. They can protest at other sites.

Q) How would you describe your one year in JNU amid all the controversies it has faced?

A) Last one year has been very productive for me as leader of this university. It is already an excellent university but you cannot rest on your laurels. You need to work hard to even remain at that stage and the challenge is to reach the next level.

Q) What do you think JNU stands for?

A) JNU stands for inclusivity and social justice. It is our endeavour to take this legacy forward and I have been able to do that in the last one year.

Q) Students allege that you did not allow strict action against those found guilty of assaulting Najeeb Ahmad, who is missing for over 100 days now.

A) It is an unfortunate incident. I understand what the family must be going through and we are doing our best to find him. I am in regular touch with police to get updates in the case.

Read: Students lock up JNU vice-chancellor, senior officials over missing youthGiving punishments to students is handled by the proctor office. Based on the initial warden report, the proctor issued notices to them but after getting depositions from many students, the final punishment was awarded.

Q) Teachers and students allege the UGC gazette adopted by committees will discriminate against many and violate reservation policy.

A) It is mandatory for us to follow the constitutional requirements. The UGC guidelines are passed by the Ministry of Human Resources and it becomes a law. We have to adopt it completely. We discussed with all the stakeholders and agreed that JNU has certain progressive policies for admission. We decided to continue with that.

Our entrance test will be based on 80:20 formula with our progressive policies on deprivation points. But the entrance test will be two part and students will have to secure 50% in part one. This way our admission policy remains within the framework of UGC.

If UGC is actually violating any constitutional provision then UGC will take care of it.

Q) What are the future plans?

A) We are focusing on creating new research facilities and infrastructure. We will start a school of management and entrepreneurship to focus on informal innovation. We will also start an engineering school which will offer an integrated five-year degree. We are filling the vacant teaching positions.

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CBI has registered an FIR against a Bank of Baroda official and another person for allegedly converting demonetised notes worth Rs 6.50 crore in contravention of rules.

CBI has alleged that SK Dogra, chief manager of BoB Mandoli branch in New Delhi had allegedly opened a current account of one Akash Arora nearly a month before demonetisation was announced without completing KYC formalities.

Two days after November 8, 2016, when Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes ceased to be legal tender, Arora allegedly deposited Rs 15 lakhs in the current account in old currency against which Dogra issued a fixed deposit (FD) of Rs 16 lakh, the FIR said.

On the basis of the FD, an overdraft (OD) account in the name of Arora was opened by Dogra with limit of Rs 15.20 lakhs on November 10, 2016. Arora allegedly used the OD account to transfer Rs 15 lakhs to Jain Abhushan same day.

This process was again repeated next day albeit with different amount, it said.

Between November 11 and December 29, 2016, Arora kept on depositing old currency totalling over Rs 6.50 crore which were credited to various companies, the CBI alleged.

According to the FIR, Rs 2.40 crore was transferred to Dhampur Sugar Mills Pvt Limited, Rs 1.30 crore to Jain Abhushan, Rs 90 lakhs to Jindal Bullions, Rs 25 lakhs to Gogia Flour Mills Pvt Limited, totalling Rs 6.77 crores.

These amounts were transferred by Arora without having any business transactions with these companies, it alleged.

Arora has acted as money mule and dishonestly got transferred demonetised currency notes by adopting such illegal activity with the active connivance of S K Dogra, chief manager, who by abusing his official position, has also allowed transactions in both the accounts -current account and OD account simultaneously, in violation of Bankers Book of Instructions, 2012 of Bank of Baroda, the FIR alleged.

It said that such large cash deposits were allowed by Dogra despite Aroras account not being KYC compliant.

Dogra falsely informed anti-money-laundering officer (AMLO) of the bank that these amounts have been credited to sugar mills as Arora was a wholesale dealer and his account was KYC compliant.

In his communication, Dogra did not inform AMLO that the money was being transferred to jewellers and with dishonest intention did not intimate these high value transaction to regional heads, as required by the Bank of Baroda procedures put in place last year, it alleged.

CBI said that Dogra connived with Arora and other unknown persons and by misusing his official position, he dishonestly exceeded the OD limit in the name of Arora and also allowed him to deposit the cash amount in the form of demonetised notes repeatedly.

He transferred the said funds to other person and companies on the request of Arora with the objective to defeat government policy pertaining to demonetising of high valued government currency notes, the FIR added.
A 10-year-old boy was allegedly sodomised by a 22-year-old youth, both visually impaired, inside the premises of the institute for the blind in southeast Delhis Amar Colony area.

According to the complainant, Pawan Kumar, a class 12 student at the school, came to his hostel room and sexually abused him on February 1. The next day, the boy then called his uncle and informed him about the incident, who told the school principal.

Investigations revealed that Kumar had allegedly sodomised another boy in the school in December, which was brought to the notice of the authorities but the police was not informed about the incident. Kumar reportedly gave a written apology to the school requesting to not take any action as he was to appear for his board examination in March.

Several visually impaired children and youngsters study at the school and stay in the hostel in the school premises.

The first incident was reported on December 20, but we were not informed. The school authorities asked for a written apology from Kumar and he was let off. The victim was also pacified. We have accessed the copy of the written apology that was taken from Kumar. As no strict action was taken against him then, he allegedly sodomised another kid on February 1. We have recorded statements of both the children and have begun the investigation, a senior police officer said.

Police also said that action may be taken against the school authorities for withholding information. The principal should have informed the police when the first incident was reported on December 20, instead of solving it at their level. Action may be taken against the school authorities once allegations are verified.

DCP southeast Romil Baaniya confirmed the incident. A case under sections of the 377 (sodomy) and POCSO (protection of child against sexual offences) has been registered in the matter and the investigation is on.

A statement before the magistrate will now be recorded by the two boys. A statement under 164 CrPc will be recorded and further action will then follow, a police officer said.
Several prominent BJP and Congress leaders will not be able to contest the upcoming MCD polls in Delhi from their existing wards because they have either been reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) category or a woman contestant after delimitation, upstaging their plans to contest the polls from their home turf.

The new reservation plan has caused a change in wards of political bigwigs such as former Delhi BJP chief Satish Upadhaya, former deputy mayor of unified MCD Farhad Suri, and standing committee chairman of south Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) Shailender Singh. Former north Delhi mayor Ravinder Guptas Karol Bagh ward has also been changed from general to SC.

The State Election Commission has released the list of all 272 wards of three municipal corporations including the names of wards set aside for reserved category. As per the Municipal Act, 46 wards have been declared for SC candidates, on the basis of their population, while 136 have been kept for women contestants. According to the 2011 census date, the city has around 17% SC population.

Read: MCD elections: Councillors fear losing voters after delimitation of municipal wards

Women category reservation is based on a formula devised by the commission to ensure 50% representation in each corporation. Every ward having odd number is fixed for a woman contestant.

Upadhyay was councillor from Malviya Nagar ward, which is now reserved for a woman. Suris Nizamuddin and Singhs Safdargunj Enclave seats have also been reserved for women candidates.

In North Corporation, senior BJP leaders like Ravinder Gupta and Yogendra Chandolia, both former mayors, will also need to look for new wards as their seats also fall in reserved category. Chandolia was councillor from Dev Nagar ward which has been changed into SC (Woman) category. Gupta represents Karol Bagh, which has been set aside for a SC contestant.

Varyam Kaurs ward in Raguburpura has become a general seat. Earlier, it was reserved for women. Kaur is the leader of opposition in East Corporation.

The development has evoked mixed reaction.

Abhishek Dutt, councillor from Andrews Ganj ward of SDMC, expressed his satisfaction over the development. There are some prominent leaders who lost their seats but we welcome the decision of State Election commission (SEC). The commission must have adopted a formula as per the law, he said. Andrews Ganj has been retained under general category.

Read: Election commission begins preparation for MCD polls in Delhi

All four wards of Sultanpur Majra and Gokulpuri assembly seats are reserved for Schedule Caste category. Three out of four wards of Mangolpuri and Trilokpuri constituencies have been kept for SCs, while one ward is for women.

In Karol Bagh area, two wards have been set aside for SC and one for a woman candidate. Tughlaqabad now has three wards  two for SC and one for women.

Subhash Arya, leader of house, South Corporation said, We are happy that the election commission has considered our demand for deciding on reservation of wards. We suggested reservation on basis on maximum schedule caste population criteria. It will help to implement schemes for the welfare of the community.

Elections in numbers

Total Number of wards 272

South Delhi Municipal Corporation

Total 104; SC (SC-Women) 15; Women 45

North Delhi Municipal Corporation

Total104 ; SC (SC-Women) ; 20 Women 42

East Delhi Municipal Corporation

Total 64; SC (SC-Women) 11; Women 27

WARDS IN SPOTLIGHT

North Delhi Municipal Corporation

Karol Bagh ward (SC) is now reserved for SC. Ravinder Gupta, former mayor has won this seat as general candidate in 2012.

Yogendra Chandolia, former standing committee chairman, has decided not contest the election this time as his ward Dev Nagarhas been reserved for SC (women) category. Previously it was only for SC category.

Senior Congress councilor Satbir Sharmas Kishan Ganj was has been reserved for woman .

Pahar Ganj ward was under general category after new plan it is for woman. BJPs Virender Babbar is incumbent councillor from here

Leader of opposition in North Municipal Corporation Mukesh Goel is elected from Dhirpur ward which has been retained as general this time too.

South Delhi Municipal Corporation

Former deputy mayor of unified MCD Farhad Suri is sitting councilor from Nizamuddin. The boundary of his ward has been changed post delimitation and the name of his ward also been changed as Daryaganj. It is reserved for woman as per the new reservation scheme.

Seat of Satish Upadhyay former president, Delhi BJP (Malviya Nagar) has been reserved for woman.

Shailendra Singh standing committee chairman and councillor from Safdarjung Enclave reserved for woman

Seat of Congress Indu councillor (Sriniwaspuri) has become general ward, it was a woman category ward.

Greater Kailash ward has been reserved for women. KC Taneja of BJP is present councilor from here.

East Delhi Municipal Corporation

leader of opposition Varyam Kaurs seat (Ragubarpura), has been made to general from women.

Ram Narayan Dubey seat (Dilshad Colony) is reserved for woman.

Maujpur seat is represented by the Leader of House Sanjay Jain, has been converted into woman.

Vivek Vihar ward now falls in general category. Independent councillor Preeti has won the seat which was reserved for woman candidate.

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 9

By Elena Kosolapova - Trend:

Kyrgyzstan may sign a new agreement on cooperation with the European Union next week, head of the EU Delegation to Kyrgyzstan, Cesare de Montis said at the press-conference Feb. 9, TASS reported.

The agreement is expected to be signed within Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayevs official visit to Brussels on February 16 and will replace a similar agreement signed 20 years ago, according to the EU representative.

De Montis noted that Kyrgyz president will meet with all of the EU leadership in Brussels.

He went on to add that a memorandum of support of judicial reform in Kyrgyzstan by the EU is expected to be signed during Kyrgyz president's visit to Brussels. Previously, the EU has allocated 13 million euros for the implementation of the first stage of this reform in Kyrgyzstan and 13 million euros more will be allocated in near future.

According to official data, the EU provided Kyrgyzstan with 34.5 million euros of grants in 2016.

Follow the author on Twitter: @E_Kosolapova
Ahead of the 2015 assembly polls, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) gave an elaborate statement of purpose in its manifesto about reforming the health and education sectors. What it did not have was a clear road map to curb pollution.

In December 2015, after the Delhi High Court called the capital a gas chamber, the fledgling government was forced to react. Taking suo moto cognisance of reports on rising air pollution, the court had directed the Centre and the Delhi government to submit an action plan to deal with the problem.

Delhi is one of the worlds most polluted cities with some studies putting daily pollution related fatalities in the capital at as high as eight. November 2016 saw the city enveloped in dense smog with particulate matter shooting to unprecedented levels. PM10 levels in November at Anand Vihar touched 1700 mark (the safe limit is 100).

During the course of its two-year rule, the AAP government proved that it is neither short of ideas nor political will when it comes to tackling pollution. But when it decided to go ahead with odd-even car rationing plan, it lacked the conviction to go the whole hog. It also didnt use the pollution-free months in 2016 to prepare for the winter spike.

In 2015-16, there was a sense of optimism as the Delhi government came up with a short-term action plan and implemented the odd-even plan. After that there was a slowdown and the government missed out on rolling out a sustained plan of action. Months later, we got caught in the deadly smog and got into a reactive mode. This time the action has to be sustained, says Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).

Jagan Shah, director, National Institute of Urban Affairs, agreed. Air pollution spiked to alarming levels, so the government came up with a slew of measures. But, it was quite late. High decibel announcements are made which often fizzle out later.

A look at steps taken by the government showed these either lost steam midway or were implemented without a comprehensive long-term strategy.

Monitoring

World over, collection of data is the first step to fighting pollution. The Delhi government talked of deploying mobile monitoring stations. But a related plan to put up screens at public places is yet to take off. Although 137 crore was allocated, a senior government official said it may not be implemented at all.

We are looking at widening air quality monitoring network with 20 new stations. These will all have screens to display real-time pollution readings, the official said. More monitoring points will help micro handling of air quality.

The SC recently asked the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to withdraw funds from the environment compensation charge fund to buy equipment for new monitoring stations across Delhi-NCR. In Delhi, apart from CPCB, the Delhi Pollution Control Committee, SAFAR (under the Union government) and the US embassy have installed pollution testing mechanisms. Delhi has 28 stations  four by DPCC, eight by the Met department and the rest by CPCB.

Vehicles

In 2015, the AAP government launched odd-even car rationing plan  a brave move in a city where the total number of vehicles is set to touch 10 million. Though there was no visible impact on air pollution, the first phase saw reduced traffic on roads. But the second phase resulted in more congestion on roads.

A study by School of Planning and Architecture also showed that the share of private vehicles in the city rose by almost 50% during odd-even phase two. Vehicle owners became smarter and bought second hand cars. People went for retrofitted CNG kits, which pollute more. The air quality also dipped due to factors like lack of wind speed, said Dr S Velmurugan, senior principal scientist, traffic engineering and safety division at CSIR-CRRI. The poor state of public transport didnt help either.

Dust and farm fires

The AAP government banned construction activity to check pollution by dust in November and December last year. According to the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF), dust is the highest source of pollution in Delhi and contributes to 52% of particulate matter.

The government steps, however, were not backed by intensive measures such as step-by-step demolition, covering construction site during demolition and use of sprinklers. Mechanical sweeping never took off properly.

Every year, farm fires in Punjab and Haryana raise pollutants by over six times the limit. The Delhi government has raised the issue but despite court bans and fines, the practice continued.

With the Centre notifying the graded response action plan, it is time for the AAP government to show it is ready to walk the talk. The plan assigns specific responsibility to each agency to counter pollution. Environment Pollution Control Committee chief Bhurelal said : Over two years, the government has taken steps. The biggest milestone will be the graded action system. The onus is on the state government now, he said.

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The Supreme Court on Thursday awarded one year imprisonment for real estate builder Gopal Ansal who with his elder brother, Sushil, owned a south Delhi cinema hall where a fire killed 59 people 20 years ago.

The tragedy dates back to June 13, 1997 when a fire broke out at Uphaar Cinema in Delhis Green Park area during the screening of Bollywood blockbuster Border. Fifty nine people died and over 100 were injured due to suffocation in the ensuing stampede as the escape routes were blocked by illegally-fixed extra chairs.

People pay their respect at the site of Uphaar fire three years after the incident. (S Burmaula/HT File Photo)

Rescue operation at the Uphaar theatre where a fire broke out in 1997. (HT File Photo)

A view of the Uphaar cinema after the fire broke out. (Arun Jetlie/HT File Photo)

(Mayank Austen/HT File Photo)

A desolate view of the cinema years after it was gutted in a fire. (Arun Jetlie/HT File Photo)

13 June 1997 - Uphaar Fire Story - HT Photo by Prakash Singh.

In November 2007, a trial court had sentenced the Uphaar owners  the Ansal brothers  to two-year rigorous imprisonment. But in December 2008, the Delhi high court reduced their sentence to one-year jail term. While Sushil Ansal spent 5 months and 20 days in jail, Gopal remained in jail for four months and 20 days.

On August 19, 2015, the SC upheld the brothers conviction in the case. However, considering their age and the period already spent by them in prison, it decided not to send them back to jail. It asked the Ansal brothers to pay a fine of Rs 30 crore each in lieu of a jail term.

A policeman rescues an injured person from the Uphaar cinema. (Prakash Singh/HT File Photo)

Cars were also gutted in the fire broke out in the basement of Uphaar Cinema hall in Delhi. (Prakash Singh/HT File Photo)

The rescue operation at Uphaar cinema hall. (PTI File Photo)
A year ago, Jawaharlal Nehru University erupted in protests over the 2013 execution of Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri separatist convicted of conspiring in an attack on Parliament 16 years ago, but whose trial many human rights groups felt was flawed. Five JNU students grabbed the headlines at those campus protests in which alleged anti-national slogans were shouted.

HT looks at how the event shaped their lives and how they look at the future.

Kumar was not directly involved in organising the event but allegedly raised anti-national slogans. Sedition charges were slapped on him and he was arrested.

Kumar says he continues to do what he did earlier  student activism and studies. But he is aware of the scrutiny on what he says and does. There is a lot of scrutiny and I am interpreted in wrong ways many times, Kumar, who recently wrote a book, said.

I am either writing my dissertation or addressing people in different cities, he said. He said it is not just JNU that has changed but the entire country. The present government continued with economic policies of its predecessor such as fund cut in higher education. But they are trying to impose an ideology, he said.

They will call us anti-national because their idea of a nation is different from the Constitution. Their idea is inspired from Manusmriti. We are against their ideology and they are ruling the country so they will obviously call us anti-national.

After the arrest of JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar and other union members going in hiding, Rashid emerged as the face of the students protest. She organised marches, addressed students and gathered support for the movement.

Her future plans changed after the February 9 event. Rashid wanted to go to Harvard University for PhD but has now chosen to stay in India. I have changed my plans and want to focus on activism in India. All progressive forces need to come together and fight this onslaught by the right-wing, she said.

For Rashid, February 9 was not an isolated event and she along with others saw it coming, albeit not at such a large scale. Before February 9, there were incidents when ABVP created a hurdle in screening of documentaries, talks and speeches. We knew we will be attacked once the new government came in power but we didnt expect it to be at this level, she said. She said the incident has given an opportunity for people to start a new discourse on issues.

Khalid was one of the main the organisers of the event against whom sedition charges were filed.

He spent 24 days in the prison.

Khalid said not much has changed for him since the event. I have been doing politics on this campus for the last seven years. My ideology, convictions are the same but I have evolved as a person. Through the February 9 episode, the government itself gave us a platform to propagate our ideas to the people. By the attack, the government thought they will finish us, but they ended up taking our message far and wide.

Khalid added: The attack on JNU started not on February 9 but on January 27, when the new vice-chancellor came. With our movement we defeated the first round of attack of #ShutdownJNU but the attack is still relentless. Just that now it is not a televised spectacle. But attempts in different ways are being made to make the institution internally hollow. As long as V-C Jagadesh Kumar is there, the attack on JNU will continue.

The then general secretary of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) and member of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), he was the main complainant against the event.

Kumar said the February 9 episode strengthened his conviction to work for the national cause. As a student and member of ABVP, in the February 9 incident, I performed my constitutional duty. The incident has helped develop my personality greatly and made me stronger to think about the country and to work towards working for the society.

The incident has helped regain and revive the culture of JNU of debate and dissent with peaceful existence of students from different ideologies. But sadly, since the controversy, no constructive politics is taking place in our university... It has now become important to tell the world that JNU is not only about protests. So this a request that media should stop giving space to such deconstructive politics.

Bhattacharya was one of the main event organisers. A case of sedition was filed against him and he spent 24 days in jail before getting bail.

Bhattacharya, who wanted to be a journalist reporting on land issues, said his options have been limited due to the incident.

He still sees a silver lining. Whatever the state wanted to do to make us into villains, I think that has worked for us. I think they have done a service to us. Because of what they did, people want to know what we think on issues... Curiosity is better than status quo, he said.

He said things are not as bad for him as they are for his friend Umar Khalid. I still have that anonymity to go out and work without many people recognising me. But for Umar, stepping out of JNU is a struggle... There is a difference between being a Bhattacharya and a Khalid, he said.

How JNU became the hotbed of controversies A look at how the February 9, 2016, event spelt chaos at JNU and where the controversy stands one year later. The year also saw other controversies that set students and teachers on a collision course 2016 Feb9: Event to commemorate the death of Parliament attack convict, Afzal Guru, held at JNU. Anti-national slogans allegedly raised at the event

Event to commemorate the death of Parliament attack convict, Afzal Guru, held at JNU. Anti-national slogans allegedly raised at the event Feb 10: JNU president Kanhaiya Kumar picked up by police from the campus and sent to police custody. The organisers of the event  Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya and few other students disappear from the campus

JNU president Kanhaiya Kumar picked up by police from the campus and sent to police custody. The organisers of the event  Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya and few other students disappear from the campus JNU constitutes a high-level inquiry committee, suspends eight students

Delhi govt orders magisterial probe

Issue raised in Parliament

Feb 11: A case of sedition lodged at Vasant Kunj police station against unknown people

A case of sedition lodged at Vasant Kunj police station against unknown people Students organise protest and the controversy turns into a national issue

Feb15: Kumar attacked by group of lawyers in Delhi HC. Even journalist and teachers were attacked and called anti-nationals.

Kumar attacked by group of lawyers in Delhi HC. Even journalist and teachers were attacked and called anti-nationals. March 2: Forensic probe of a set of video clippings of the event, ordered by the Delhi govt, finds two videos were "manipulated" where voices of people not present in the clips were added.

Forensic probe of a set of video clippings of the event, ordered by the Delhi govt, finds two videos were "manipulated" where voices of people not present in the clips were added. March 3: Kanhaiya Kumar gets interim bail for six months.

Kanhaiya Kumar gets interim bail for six months. March 15: The probe panel of the university says "masked outsiders" had raised anti-national slogans.

The probe panel of the university says "masked outsiders" had raised anti-national slogans. April 25: JNU rusticates Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya. Umar fined ~20,000 and Anirban barred from JNU campus for five years.

JNU rusticates Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya. Umar fined ~20,000 and Anirban barred from JNU campus for five years. April 26: JNU students reject punishment, burn report.

JNU students reject punishment, burn report. May 10: Umar and Anirban move court against their rustication, court asks varsity to explain the decision and submit relevant documents as well as the report of its panel.

Umar and Anirban move court against their rustication, court asks varsity to explain the decision and submit relevant documents as well as the report of its panel. May 12: Kanhaiya, others move HC against JNU action. The matter is pending in the court.

Kanhaiya, others move HC against JNU action. The matter is pending in the court. June 16: JNU forms a committee to look into the appeals of the students against whom punishment was announced.

JNU forms a committee to look into the appeals of the students against whom punishment was announced. July 23: JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar fined  10,000.

JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar fined 10,000. August 20: A research scholar and member of the All India Students Association (AISA), Anmol Ratan is accused of raping a fellow student on the campus. He surrenders, blames political rivalry. Political organisations, including ABVP protest, and Ratan made out of bounds from the campus.

A research scholar and member of the All India Students Association (AISA), Anmol Ratan is accused of raping a fellow student on the campus. He surrenders, blames political rivalry. Political organisations, including ABVP protest, and Ratan made out of bounds from the campus. October 15: A masters student Najeeb Ahmed disappears from the campus after alleged brawl with the ABVP members. Police still looking for him.

A masters student Najeeb Ahmed disappears from the campus after alleged brawl with the ABVP members. Police still looking for him. Dec 12: The protest ground of the university at the administrative block made out of bounds for students.

The protest ground of the university at the administrative block made out of bounds for students. Dec 13: A notice issued to professor Nivedita Menon for addressing students at the administrative block.

A notice issued to professor Nivedita Menon for addressing students at the administrative block. Dec 23: Academic Council meeting discusses implementation of UGC guidelines which would alter the JNU admission policy.

Academic Council meeting discusses implementation of UGC guidelines which would alter the JNU admission policy. Dec 26: Teachers and students protest.

Teachers and students protest. Dec 28: JNU suspended 9 students for disrupting the academic council meeting. 2017 Jan 18: In protest, JNU teachers start the azaadi lecture series protesting the university.

In protest, JNU teachers start the azaadi lecture series protesting the university. Jan 21: The nine suspended students begin hunger strike.

The nine suspended students begin hunger strike. Jan 30: Students begin protest against the university for adopting UGC notification on making interview sole criteria for admission. The protest took place outside MHRD.

Students begin protest against the university for adopting UGC notification on making interview sole criteria for admission. The protest took place outside MHRD. Feb 3: University issues a statement that admissions will take place according to the old admission policy of 80 for entrance test and 20 for interview.

University issues a statement that admissions will take place according to the old admission policy of 80 for entrance test and 20 for interview. Feb 7: JNUSU holds a referendum on the policy, continue the hunger strike.
The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has shut down the rooftop sections of 21 open-air restaurants in Connaught Place.

The sealed establishments include My Bar Headquarters, Warehouse Cafe in D-block, The Vault Cafe in F-block, Kinbuck-2 and Kitchen Bar in C-block, Lord of the Drinks, Open House Cafe, Jungle Jamboree, Boombox Cafe, Farzi Cafe, House of Commons, Hotel Palace Heights, Office Canteen Bar, Luggage Room, Cafe OMG, Unplugged Courtyard, Barbeque Nation, TC Bar & Restaurant, Teddy Boy Restaurant and The Niche Restaurant and Cafe Public Connection, an NDMC official said.

The move comes after part of a building in CPs C Block collapsed last week, raising concerns about the safety of buildings at one of Delhis favourite shopping destinations.

Read: Part of Jain Book store building in Connaught Place collapses, nobody hurt

The open-air restaurants have been running for years without permission. The chief architects office had sent showcause notices to these for misuse of premises under sections 250 and 252 of the NDMC Act, 1994. The rooftop sections were sealed on Friday, a senior official said. He added that the council prohibits use of terrace and balconies in these heritage buildings for commercial activities.

Ajit Ajmani, owner of MyBar Headquarters, said that the NDMC had issued notices to these establishments.

They asked us not to use the balcony or terrace for commercial activity. After the collapse, the officials came and sealed the rooftop areas, Ajmani said.

Last year, the New Delhi Traders Association (NDTA) had written to NDMC chairman Naresh Kumar to cap the number of restaurants on rooftops, citing excess load on heritage structures.

The NDMC has already formed a six-member panel, comprising structural safety experts from IIT-Delhi, to ascertain the reason behind CPs roof collapse.

Read: Is Delhis posh shopping hub Khan Market a disaster waiting to happen?

Constructed in 1933, Connaught Place was named after Duke of Connaught (Arthur, son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert) to honour him on his visit to Delhi. In 2007, the CP redevelopment was kicked off as a pilot project with the facade restoration of C Block. It was scheduled for completion ahead of the Commonwealth Games in October, 2010. However, it could be finished only in 2013, after missing a series of deadlines and escalation of cost from Rs 76 crore to Rs 671 crore.

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It was business as usual at Jawaharlal Nehru University on Thursday, a year after some students allegedly raised anti-national slogans at the campus during an event held to commemorate hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. Academic issues are now at the centre stage in the university with a section of students holding protest on Thursday at the Administration Building over new admission policy.

The university, however, remained calm with no talks, events or public lectures on the issue scheduled in the campus. The only organised protest on Thursday was by JNU students union over academic issues. The university administration said they had not received any requests for event or talk except one by Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) for nationalism lecture which was denied.

In the interest of peace and harmony on a crucial day, the programme may be postponed, officials said while denying permission to the ABVP to hold a an event on Thursday. We have not received any other request by any student group to hold any event on campus on February 9. We are being cautious as there is need to maintain calm on campus, an official said.

However, a group of students held a symbolic protest against the pellet gun attack on people in Kashmir. Tying white bandage stained with red blood around their head and eyes the students gathered at the administrative block. The protesting students also carried photos of children injured by pellet guns.

The event held on February 9, 2016 by a small group of students led to charges of sedition being slapped on some students and arrest of three, including the then JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar.

The university was branded as anti-national with many advocating to shut it down. This further prompted teachers and students to protest.

This entire year saw a slew of protests starting from the February 9 incident, to the missing student Najeeb Ahmed and against changes in admission policy as per UGC guidelines.

On Thursday, students led by JNUSU met admission director Milap Punia to tell him about a referendum on the new policy. They said over 98% JNU students had voted against the new policies.

Students from each centre in JNU will ask the V-C. Who is going to apply for this years admission when there is zero admission in JNU?, said Satarupa Chakraborty, general secretary JNUSU.

JNU has over 8,000 students. A total of 3,455 students participated in the referendum and 98.35% of them voted against the gazette, a JNUSU statement said.

Following protests by students, the university had decided to take entrance test in two parts with part one being an objective type paper, in which students will have to secure 50%, after which their second paper will be evaluated.

Eighty per cent weightage will be given to the marks secured in the second paper, which will be descriptive, and 20% weightage will be given to viva. This way we will continue with our own admission policy while following the UGC framework, an official said.

Reacting to the referendum, officials said policies are not decided based on referendum. Misinformation on questionable referendum on May 2016 UGC gazette abound. Two-thirds of JNU students did not participate in voting, said Rana P Singh, dean of students.

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The kin of victims who perished during the Uphaar cinema hall fire said they were unhappy and disillusioned with the Supreme Courts Thursday judgment sending city-based builder Gopal Ansal, 69, to a year in prison.

Gopals brother Sushil Ansal, 77, was however, given a reprieve in consideration of his old age.

Neelam Krishnamoorthy, who lost both her children in the tragedy said, The court let off Sushil Ansal on the basis of his age and medical condition. That is unacceptable. We know how many aged criminals have been languishing in jail for years. Why was such relief granted to him? This is an accused friendly system.

Read: This couple never quits: Neelam, Shekhar Krishnamoorthy fight for Uphaar victims

Neelam, who has spearheaded the campaign to get justice for the victims of the tragedy, said they will explore their legal options and fight on by filing a curative petition in court.

A curative petition allows an aggrieved person to challenge an order of the Supreme Court, after dismissal of their review petition.

When the gatekeeper of Uphaar and employees of Delhi Vidyut Board were handed two-year jail sentences, how can the quantum of punishment for the prime accused be less? Justice has been both delayed and denied to us, Neelam said.

She added that they had sacrificed their business for the cause of justice as they felt they had nothing left in their lives after the tragedy. We would have been grandparents by now, Neelam said.

Painfully recalling the tragic day, Neelam said, both Unnati (17) and Ujjwal (13) wanted to watch the matinee show of Bollywood movie Border that had released that day. I tried to talk them out of it. I even told them that we will watch the movie together. But they insisted ad so I had to book tickets for them. That is one decision I regret till date, she said.

A spark in an electricity transformer around 5.00pm on the ground floor of the cinema hall caused a fire. The toxic smoke entered the auditorium through the air-conditioning ducts.

Read: Uphaar cinema fire: SC jails Gopal Ansal for a year, asks him to surrender

My children would still have escaped, had the Ansals not put additional seats blocking the exit. Around 750 people sitting on the first floor of the cinema managed to escape ,but my children who were in balcony were trapped due to the greed of the owners, she said.

Satyapal Sudan, 77, who lost seven members of his family said, I lost all the members of my family. My son, daughter, daughter-in-law and son-in-law and their children had gone to see the movie. If age was a criteria for handing punishments, then the court should have actually increased the quantum because I lost my one-month old grand-daughter in the accident.

Naveen Sawhney, who lost his only daughter, Tarika, 21, in the fire, said, I lost my world. My daughters marriage was fixed. We were planning to hold an engagement. Later, I got a phone call from a friend about the fire. We rushed to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences only to find Tarikas body among several other children that had been lined up, he said.

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It was back to the familiar cycle of raucous protests and walkouts in Parliament on Thursday with the Congress protesting against Prime Minister Narendra Modis remarks on his predecessor Manmohan Singh in Rajya Sabha. On Wednesday, Mr Modi said that people should learn from Dr Singh how to bathe in bathroom wearing a raincoat, alluding to his blemish-free reputation while heading a scam-riddled government.

The comment  not as acerbic as some of the ones that have been made against Mr Modi by the Opposition many times in recent years  led to the Congress stalling proceedings in the upper house and staging protests in the lower. The issue could lead to further disruptions when the House reconvenes on March 9: The Congress has said that it will boycott Mr Modi for rest of the budget session. The session is going into a recess in order to enable the standing committees to consider the demands for grants of ministries/departments and prepare their reports.

Read | Remember what your mother called PM Modi, Amit Shah tells Rahul

If we sift through contemporary political history, heres what Opposition leaders have called Mr Modi: A snake, a scorpion, and bhasmasur, the demon. After the surgical strikes along the LoC, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi said: Jinhone Hindustan ke liye surgical strike kiye hain, unke khoon ke peeche aap chhupe hain. Unki aap dalali kar rahe ho. (You are hiding behind the blood of soldiers who carried out the surgical strikes for India. You are dealing in their blood).

Speaking to reporters outside Parliament in November, Mr Gandhi referred to Mr Modis video-address at the Global Citizen Festival in Mumbai and said: He can speak on TV, he can speak in pop concerts, then why not in Parliament?

In contrast to such derogatory expressions and strong attacks, Mr Modis description of Mr Singh was a sedate one, almost taking us back to those times when humour and wit  as opposed to caustic diatribe  was used in Parliament to needle the Opposition.

Read | Oppn seeks apology from PM Modi for his remarks on Manmohan, disrupt Rajya Sabha

Reacting to the PMs comment, Mr Gandhi tweeted: When a Prime Minister reduces himself to ridiculing his predecessor  years his senior, he hurts the dignity of the parliament &the nation. In other words: Mr Modi should not have picked on Mr Singh just because, well, the former PM is senior in age. This is hardly a strong defence. Moreover, such an ageist parameter is unreasonable and detrimental to the basic nature of a democratic system.

Disruption of Parliament on flimsy grounds only shows that the Congress is clutching at straws to win a political brownie point. Political parties must realise that every disruption costs money. But more than that it delays legislation critical for the voters who send them to the House.
In a daring armed heist in Gurgaon, armed men looted 33 kg gold worth Rs 10 crore from Manappuram Finance company on the busy New Railway road on Thursday.

The robbers, who are believed to be 7 to 8 in number, also took away mobiles phones of the firms employees, who offer loans in lieu of gold deposits.

Three persons including one bank guard and two customers were injured during the robbery and were admitted to Gurgaons civil hospital. The robbers also took away all the cartridges after snatching the rifle from the guard on duty.

Bijender Singh Hooda, SHO, Civil Lines Police station, said, The branch officials have given in their statement that 33 kg gold and Rs 8 lakh in cash has been robbed from the premises.

Manappuram gold heist in railway road Gurgaon: Injured guard Mukesh admitted at Hospital gives an eyewitness account @HTGurgaon @htTweets pic.twitter.com/q3xAjLLndm  Parveen Kumar (@parveenkumar_ht) February 9, 2017

According to police, four to five persons made their way to the first floor branch around 11 am on Thursday posing as customers and also entered their address in the visitors register. Before anyone had an inkling of what was about to go down, two of them suddenly pounced on the guard and hit him on the head with a knife and took him inside.

The duo snatched his rifle whereas others took rest of the staff hostage brandishing knives. Police, however, said that one or two of them also had firearms. The four staffers and customers were threatened with dire consequences and asked to remain quite during the next half-an-hour during which they cleaned out the gold, worth crores, from the lockers.

Gurgaon police commissioner Sandeep Khirwar (Watch video below), who rushed to the spot after getting word of the incident, said that around 7 to 8 persons were involved in the robbery. An alert has been sounded and the police team is going through the CCTV footage. The robbers will be identified and caught soon, he said.

Commissioner of Police Sandeep Khirvar Robbery in Manappuram gold loan railway road Gurgaon @HTGurgaon @htTweets pic.twitter.com/ZOyyP1QUh2  Parveen Kumar (@parveenkumar_ht) February 9, 2017

A team of forensics and finger print experts also reached the spot and collected evidence. The officials said that they would release the pictures of the culprits within a couple of hours.

An eyewitness, who was inside the Mannapuram branch said that all the robbers, who had entered the branch were drunk. One of the robbers who hit the other guard was heavily drunk and his speech was also slurring, he said.

Devicharan, the other guard who was taken hostage said that the criminals also took away the bullets of their rifle.

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Hoteliers and liquor industry in Gurgaon is worried about its future as neither the excise department nor the government has any clarity on how the distance of 500 metres from the highway, which was set by the Supreme Court while banning liquor trade along speed ways, will apply. There is also confusion as to whether aerial distance or motorable distance would be taken into account while measuring the distance.

The apex court directive banning the sale of liquor within 500 metres of state and national highways is likely to deal a killler blow to the liquor trade in Gurgaon and across Haryana. The bench made it clear that such an order was necessary for the safety and security of highway commuters who are often tempted to down a few drinks as they drive past liquor shops along highways. It also expressed serious concern over 150,000 fatalities every year in road accidents, a majority of them attributed to drunk driving.

There are about 1,243 liquor vends in Haryana, of which 650 have to be relocated as per the Supreme Court order. The vend owners are worried and want the government to find a solution to their problem. They said they invested crores of rupees in setting up the businesses and stare at an uncertain future in the light of the Supreme Court order.

In Gurgaon, as many as 293 pubs and bars are likely to be adversely affected by this order. These include pubs at 12 five-star hotels as well. There is a distillery at Narsinghpur along the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway, which falls in the zone where the liquor ban will apply. Its management, too, has been left to sweat about its future in the wake of the apex court directive.

Read I SC liquor ban that may hit CyberHub evokes strong reactions in Gurgaon

There are 89 liquor vends in the district, of which 43 cannot be relocated, an excise department official said.

Vend owners say shifting the establishments is also a major problem as there are restrictions pertaining to the vicinity to schools, religious places, hospitals and residential areas which make it that much more tougher to shift these liquor vends.

We are staring at a bleak future as there seems to be no plan in place to safeguard our interests. Neither the excise department nor any other agency has cared to suggest a way out for us. There are many traders who would be ruined if asked to relocate, Ankit Singh, manager of Lake Forest Wine, said.

Hoteliers, meanwhile, said majority of their customers come to partake of the quality food and liquor served in these joints and if they are forced to shut down, business will be hit badly.

The Galaxy Hotel sees a majority of clients from abroad and they prefer us over others because of the quality and variety of the liquor served here. If we are forced to shut operations, our business will be hit hard, Pradeep Bhardwaj, general manager, Galaxy Hotel, said.

The excise and taxation department, Panchkula, has written to the Attorney General seeking clarity on how the ban on liquor trade within 500 metres of national and state highways will apply.

In Maharashtra and other states, the excise department has asked the liquor vend and restaurant owners to measure the distance of their establishments from the highways and send a report to them.

While issuing the directive, the Chief Justice of India noted that the Centre had sought the removal of these vends in 2007.

The Haryana government had removed liquor vends from highways, including shops along NH 8 that runs through Gurgaon, following a Punjab and Haryana High Court order in 2014.

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If your child is good at maths, chances are that he or she may have an increase in positive emotions, but bad results in maths may trigger negative emotions such as anxiety and boredom, a new study has found.

The findings showed that mathematics  a subject that is known to trigger strong emotions in students  impacted their academic performance for years.

Successful performance in math increased students positive emotions and decreased their negative emotions over the years, said Stephanie Lichtenfeld from the University of Munich in Germany.

Students with higher intelligence had better grades and test scores, but those who also enjoyed and took pride in math had even better achievement.

The findings showed that mathematics  a subject that is known to trigger strong emotions in students  impacted their academic performance for years. (Shutterstock)

While, students who experienced anger, anxiety, shame, boredom or hopelessness had lower achievements.

In contrast, students with poor grades and test scores suffered from a decline in positive emotions and an increase in negative emotions, such as math anxiety and math boredom. Thus, these students become caught in a downward spiral of negative emotion and poor achievement, Lichtenfeld added.

For the study, published in the journal Child Development, the team studied 3,425 German students from grades five to nine belonging to different socio-economic backgrounds, whose annual assessments of emotions and achievement in math were evaluated.

While questionnaires measured the self-reported emotions of students, their achievement was assessed by year-end grades and scores on a math achievement test.

Administrators, educators and parents need to strengthen students positive emotions and minimise negative emotions relating to subjects in school, the researchers recommended.

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Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Feb. 9

By Demir Azizov Trend:

The government of Uzbekistan and the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED) signed a memorandum of understanding, which envisages participation of the KFAED in the financing of social projects in Uzbekistan, totaling $60 million, the press service of the countrys Foreign Ministry reported.

The document was signed in Kuwait following the meeting of Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov with Kuwaiti First Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah.

The KFAED has so far allocated about $150 million to the Uzbek government to implement eight projects in such areas as health care, utilities, development of transport infrastructure, irrigation networks and drainage systems.

In addition, the sides signed an intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in the field of higher education and research, as well as an agreement on visa-free travel for holders of diplomatic passports.

The Uzbek and Kuwaiti foreign ministers held the first round of political consultations, during which they exchanged views on a wide range of issues of bilateral and international agenda, according to the press service of the Uzbek Foreign Ministry.

The ministers confirmed their readiness to expand cooperation between the Uzbek-Kuwaiti foreign ministries and hold regular consultations to work out the ways for development of the bilateral relations in various areas, primarily in the spheres of trade, investments and joint implementation of projects.
Tamil Nadus caretaker chief minister O Panneerselvam on Thursday said party legislators will have the chance to vote as per their conscience and he would be able to prove his majority.

Panneerselvam also said he personally did not have any suspicion on the death of J Jayalalithaa.

In an interview to a Tamil channel, Panneerselvam declined to reveal the number of legislators who were supporting him and said he will prove his strength on the floor of the house.

On Wednesday, Panneerselvam said a commission of inquiry headed by a sitting Supreme Court judge will be set up to probe into Jayalalithaas death.

She passed away on December 5, 2016 after being admitted to Apollo Hospitals for 75 days. There is widespread doubt about her death and hence the probe.

Panneerselvam resigned as chief minister on February 5, and his resignation was accepted by governor C Vidyasagar Rao.

AIADMK general secretary VK Sasikala was elected as the leader of the legislature party so that she could become the chief minister.

Rao had asked Panneerselvam to continue till alternate arrangement was made.

On Thursday, after meditating for 40 minutes at Jayalalithaas memorial Panneerselvam said he was compelled to resign as chief minister and propose Sasikala for the post of leader of legislature party.

While majority of the legislators are with Sasikala, around five legislators are with Panneerselvam.

Governor Rao is expected to reach here later on Thursday and Sasikala was slated to present the letters of AIADMK legislators supporting her and stake claim to form the government.

DMK working president MK Stalin in a statement said the governor should see that the vote of confidence is held in the state assembly.

He also said the AIADMK legislators were being housed in resorts.
With uncertainty looming large over Tamil Nadu politics following the revolt of outgoing chief minister O Panneerselvam against chief minister-in-waiting VK Sasikala, in charge governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao is in the limelight again.

Maharashtra governor Rao, who holds additional charge of Tamil Nadu, is said to be waiting for instructions from Delhi on the further course of action. As a governor, he is supposed to act independently. But being a hardcore and disciplined worker of the BJP, he will certainly not go against the wishes of the top leadership in Delhi, a senior BJP leader close to Rao said.

Though Sasikala might be enjoying the support of majority of AIADMK legislators as things stand now, Rao might use his discretion and defer the swearing-in ceremony. He might as well wait till the Supreme Court delivers its judgment on the illegal assets case. He will probably act upon legal advice in calling Sasikala for taking oath as the chief minister, the BJP leader said.

A native of Siricilla district of Telangana, Rao hails from a family of politicians. His eldest brother, Ch Rajeshwara Rao, was a militant communist leader and four-time CPI MLA from Siricilla, while his second brother, Ch Hanumantha Rao, was a Left-leaning economist and a member of the planning commission.

Only Vidyasagar Rao turned right by becoming the convener of the Karimnagar unit of the Jan Sangh in the 70s. After completing his law degree from Osmania University in 1972, he practised law for some time and was also active in Sangh activities. He was jailed during the Emergency period and entered politics full-time after his release.

Rao held several posts in Andhra Pradesh BJP before entering the state assembly as a party MLA from Metpally constituency in Karimnagar district in 1985. He won the elections thrice and was also the president of the BJP state unit during this period. During his stint, the party expanded its wings in the state, particularly in the Telangana region. A great orator, it was because of his padyatra from Hyderabad to Ichampalli that the major irrigation project (now Kaleshwaram lift irrigation scheme) became a rallying point for the Telangana movement.

In 1998, Rao contested and won the Lok Sabha elections for the first time from Karimnagar Lok Sabha constituency. He was re-elected to Lok Sabha in 1999 and inducted into the Atal Bihari Vajpayee cabinet.

After he lost all elections since 2004, Rao kept a low profile till he was appointed governor of Maharashtra on August 30, 2014. He became in charge governor of TN on September 2, 2016, after his incumbent K Rosaiah completed his five-year term.

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A BJP lawmaker wants the Centre to collect information about freedom fighters from Akhand Bharat or undivided India, who fought for the countrys independence between 1857 and 1947, and honour their struggle and sacrifice by building a memorial.

Member of Parliament from Sant Kabir Nagar constituency in Uttar Pradesh, Sharad Tripathi said the country has failed to acknowledge and honour the contribution of the unsung heroes of Indias freedom struggle.

We have a memorial  India Gate  where the names of those soldiers who fought on behalf the British in various wars are inscribed. But we dont even have the records of those who fought and sacrificed to free their motherland, India from imperial rule, he told Hindustan Times.

The ruling BJPs ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh describe the concept of Akhand Bharat as a unified India which includes Pakistan and Bangladesh. While the BJP leadership wavers on the issue, the RSS has remained a strong proponent of the idea.

Tripathi, who has raised the issue in Parliament as well, wants the Centre to construct a new memorial Shahid Gate adjacent to India Gate in the national capital.

The enormity of exercise, which would include ferreting out names of those who participated in the freedom struggle, starting with the soldiers rebellion of 1857, from places, now in Pakistan and Bangladesh does not daunt Tripathi.

It is not difficult to collect information if the government gets down to it. For years successive governments had failed to honour heroes such as Bhagat Singh and Rajguru. Modiji (PM Narendra Modi) was the first Prime Minister to visit the birthplace Chandrashekhar Azad (in Madhya Pradesh), the MP from the eastern UP constituency, named after the poet-saint Kabir, said.
A day after the cancellation of the Bihar Staff Selection Commission (BSSC) intermediate-level examination following allegations of question paper leak, police on Thursday indicated that the commissions chairman could be interrogated in the case.

Highly placed sources in the police department told HT that a detailed questionnaire was being prepared for BSSC chairman Sudhir Kumar in the light of the special investigation team (SIT) probe report and various facts that have emerged during the interrogation of the commissions secretary.

BSSC secretary Parmeshwar Ram and data entry operator Avinash Kumar were arrested on Wednesday for their alleged role in the question paper leak.

The examination was being conducted in four phases to recruit clerks in state government departments across Bihar. About 95000 candidates had taken the examination at 750 centres across the state in the second phase held on last Sunday. The first phase was held on January 29.

What could spell trouble for the BSSC chairman is his statement on Tuesday that questions might have leaked from either examination centres or the treasury which was given the papers for safe keep.

A senior police officer associated with the probe has ruled out the leak from the treasury or examination centres. The questions of February 5 examination were available since January 29, when the first phase examination took place, he said. The officer was not willing to be quoted midway through the probe.

Questions reach treasury barely 24 hours or in some cases 48 hours before the examination and arrive at centres in the morning. How could any centre or the treasury be involved in the leak when questions and booklets were available in the market a week before the examination? asked the official. There were ample evidences that questions of all the four phases had been leaked, he added.

The SIT report, submitted to the chief secretary and the director general of police on Wednesday, clearly states that the sanctity of the BSSC examination had been compromised. As soon as chief secretary Anjani Kumar Singh went through the initial information, he wasted no time in recommending its cancellation to chief minister Nitish Kumar.

It is a criminal case and the stage for blame game is over. The BSSC secretary remained in denial mode all through the interrogation and kept blaming the chairman for whatever happened until he was shown messages of his mobile which corroborated his involvement. The mobile phone is now with the SIT and a few of the messages were traced to some IAS officers. The detailed study of the call data record may reveal involvement of more bigwigs, said a senior police officer.

During interrogation, the secretary was not able to answer how he got so many calls and messages seeking favour for particular roll numbers. Besides, some admit cards and other materials were also recovered from his residence.

In fact, the commission chairman also cannot escape the responsibility in the entire episode merely by saying he was not aware of the question paper leak. Many things happen at his level. Even if he delegated the work to someone, the onus will still lie with him to prove otherwise. Many exams have taken place in the past but question paper has never been leaked from the treasury. In the present case, the complete series-wise answers were available, as was discovered in Saran, Jehanabad, Nawada, Vaishali and Patna districts, said another officer.

Director general of police PK Thakur said as it was a criminal case, investigators would delve deeper to unravel the entire nexus and whoever was required for interrogation would be quizzed. The investigation will be taken to its logical end, he added.

Here it is not so important who used bluetooth device or WhatsApp messenger or any other means to supply set-wise answers. What is important is the fact that how and where all four question paper sets were leaked from? We have also identified the photo copy centre in Patna where the booklets were first copied. Further investigations have been taken up to track all beneficiaries as well their patrons, said another officer.

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Raucous disruptions have returned to Parliament once again, this time following Prime Minister Narendra Modis jibes at his predecessor Manmohan Singh.

The Rajya Sabha, where the political drama happened on Wednesday, was adjourned temporarily, signalling a deepening chill between the Congress and the government. The principle opposition party has demanded that the PM apologise to Singh for saying people should learn from Dr Singh how to bathe in bathroom wearing a raincoat, alluding to his blemish-free reputation while heading a scam-riddled government.

Top Congress leaders huddled on Thursday morning and decided to stall proceedings in Rajya Sabha and stage protests in the lower House.

Its not clear if the protests would lead to a washout of the rest of the session in the Rajya Sabha, but the disruptions are likely to disrupt a large part of the budget session.

Sources in the Congress say the latest episode might cast a shadow on the fate of the goods and services tax bill.

When our leader is under attack, how can they expect our support for bills, especially on economic issues like the GST? said a Congress leader.

For the Congress, Singh remains the most important powerhouse for taking on the BJP government over economic issues, among other things. He enjoys an aura and respect from the partys rank and file. Even as the UPA 2 administration was marred in corruption charges, the Congress leadership -- especially party president Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul -- stood like a rock beside Singh.

The party has reached out to other Opposition outfits to garner a united onslaught against the BJP over the PMs remarks.

On one hand, Modi seeks cooperation from all parties to run the House and push bills. On the other hand, he attacks Manmohan Singh who is an epitome of cooperation. Singh had always believed in consensus politics. So, he (Narendra Modi) actually doesnt want cooperation, said Md Selim, politburo member of the CPI(M).

During his intervention in the debate on Presidents speech, PM spoke about how Singh had been involved in the economic policy-making of India for almost 35 years.

There have been so many scams. But he has maintained an unblemished image. People should learn from Dr. Singh the art of bathing in bathroom wearing a rain coat, Modi quipped.

He recalled how Singh had said organised plunder and loot to describe demonetisation and added, If someone used such words, then he should also be ready to hear the reply.

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India has issued a demarche to China, protesting its stand to block a UN ban on Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar.

The MEA said on Thursday demarches had been given to the Chinese embassy in New Delhi and in the foreign office in Beijing by the Indian embassy. External affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup also said the matter has been taken up with the Chinese ambassador here and a similar demarche is being made in Beijing.

He said the proposal was not moved by India but by three permanent members of the UN Security Council  the US, the UK and France, adding it was a classic counter-terrorism proposal and hoped that China will also come around to accept this view.

It is our understanding that this was a classic counter- terrorism proposal meant to proscribe a dreaded terrorist leader Masood Azhar whose organisation the Jaish-e-Mohammad has already been proscribed by the UN 1267 Committee.

We dont view this as a bilateral matter between India and Pakistan but as an issue of global counter terrorism. We hope that eventually China will also come around to accepting this view. Obviously, if there is a change in the Chinese position, there will be consensus also, he said.

Indias sharp reaction came a day after China defended its decision to block the US-initiated proposal in the UN for designating Azhar as a global terrorist, saying the conditions have not yet been met for Beijing to back the move.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang had also told a media briefing in Beijing that his government resorted to this move to allow the relevant parties to reach a consensus.

We put out technical hold after we had several rounds of consultations with India. We hope relevant parties have enough time to consult with each other to make sure that the decision made by the Committee will be based on consensus representing the broad international community, Kang said.

China stalled the US-initiated proposal, which comes barely weeks after Indias bid to get Azhar banned by the UN was scuttled by Beijing last December. This prompted India to take up the matter with the Chinese government.

(With inputs from agencies)

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BJP on Thursday defended Prime Minister Narendra Modis dig at Manmohan Singh saying fun, pun and repartee are part of parliamentary debate, and suggested that Congress was using Singh as a useful, expendable outsider as it had done with many top leaders outside the Gandhi family.

It fielded Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to launch a sharp attack on Congress, especially its top leaders Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, saying it is no longer a conventional political party representing certain ideology but a conglomeration believing in divinity and devotion to a family.

There was nothing wrong in Modis barb in the Rajya Sabha that Singh knew the art of taking bath wearing raincoat as he remained untainted despite all the scams in his government, Prasad said, noting that the former Prime Minister had called demonetisation organised loot and legalised plunder.

Prasad alleged that Singh was likely to have read from the note written by some other Congress leaders as such strong expressions are alien to his vocabulary.

Now the Prime Minister is responding to it. Why are they (Congress) so troubled with this? Fun, pun, repartee and exchange of mild or strong words are a part of parliamentary convention.

Congress has two set of leaders. Ones who come from the family are beyond criticism. They cannot make a mistake. Second set of leaders are those who are used for political convenience and then discarded. Manmohan Singh also has his utility... Those outside the family are useful, expendable entities, he said.

Prasad cited former prime ministers like Lal Bahadur Shastri, Charan Singh, VP Singh, Chandra Shekhar, PV Narasimha Rao and IK Gujral, all of whom were Congress leaders or served in the party for some time, besides likes of Bhimrao Ambedkar and Maulana Azad, to argue that they were all treated harshly by it after their utility was served.

Manmohan Singh will be there as long as his utility remains... The so called credibility of Singh was abused by the dynasty to promote corruption and rank cronyism, he said.

Congress leaders compared Modi with abhorrent rulers and showered abuses on him, he said and referred to remarks like Maut ke saudagar, made by Sonia Gandhi when Modi was Gujarat Chief Minister, and khoon ki dalali, Rahul Gandhis barb at Modi following surgical strikes.

Claiming that Modi set an example in humility by noting contributions of former prime ministers in his August 15 speech from the Red Fort, Prasad said he showed his big heart by never launching a witch-hunt despite the conspiracies hatched against him when he was Gujarat chief minister.

Prasad said that Singh despite being the then Prime Minister could not save his guru PV Narasimha Rao from insult even in his death as the Gandhi family did not allow his body to be taken inside the Congress headquarters.

He has his own utility. I feel pity for him... This is his tragedy, he told a press conference.

The Rao government accorded Bharat Ratna to Sardar Patel and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in 1991 and 1992. Was this the reason for the manner in which they treated Rao? he asked.

It was Rao who politically empowered Singh, who served as Finance Minister under him, to go for major reforms.

While Congress accuses Modi of criticising it on foreign soil, it was Rahul Gandhi who trashed an ordinance approved by the Singh government when the Prime Minister was in the USA on an official visit, he said.

Prasad listed out several alleged scams that happened under the UPA government to target Singh, saying he maintained silence then and was using terms like organised loot and legalised plunder to attack demonetisation.

Asked if his government would probe Singhs involvement, he noted that probe in several cases had begun before the NDA came to power and asserted that we are not into witch-hunt and law would take its own course.

He also noted that several little known people who worked for the society were given Padma awards by this government.
The opposition Congress vowed on Thursday to boycott Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the remainder of Parliaments budget session if he does not apologise for his barbs against predecessor Manmohan Singh.

Modi taunted the economist-politician in the Rajya Sabha the day before, remarking that he showered with a raincoat on to maintain his unblemished image when multiple scams were cropping up around him. It was a stinging riposte to Singh calling the NDA governments demonetisation exercise equivalent of loot and plunder.

An angry Congress walked out and declared it wont allow the Prime Minister to speak in Parliament until he apologised.

We will boycott him but wont assault the dignity of the office. We know that he is an obdurate person  He has demeaned his office repeatedly by his choice of words and language, Congress leader Anand Sharma said.

The ruling BJPs response was swift. The party ruled out an apology, saying the Congress has no moral right to preach or give sermons as it too had called Modi names and so should say sorry as well.

BJP chief Amit Shah reminded Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi of the language his mother and party president had used against Modi.

Shahs reference was to the Maut ka Saudagar or merchant of death remark that Congress chief Sonia Gandhi had made when Modi was chief minister of Gujarat.

At a public meeting at New Tehri in Uttarakhand on Thursday, BJP chief Amit Shah reminded Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi of the language his mother and party president had used against Modi. (PTI)

Rahul Gandhi, who had called Modis comments saddening and shameful, said at an election rally in Uttarakhand that the Prime Minister had lowered the dignity of his office.

Protests engulfed Parliament, a day before it went into an almost month-long recess, as opposition parties joined the Congress in demanding an apology from the Prime Minister for using abusive and insulting language against his predecessor.

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi said at an election rally in Uttarakhand on Thursday that the Prime Minister had lowered the dignity of his office. (PTI)

They dug up instances from the past to nail the ruling party. Congress leader Sharma alleged that Modi had insulted the memory of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. CPMs Sitaram Yechury said Modi had used abusive language against his partys former general secretary.

The Congress, CPM and Janata Dal (United) forced adjournments of the Rajya Sabha twice.

In the Lok Sabha, where the BJP enjoys a brute majority, the Congress, NCP and RJD walked out briefly over Modis remarks. Congresss Mallikarjun Kharge said the comments were unbecoming of a Prime Minister.

Parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar jumped to his leaders defence, saying the Lower House has nothing to do with what happened in the Rajya Sabha.

As proceedings got obstructed in both Houses because of the protests, urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu demanded an apology from the opposition party for its uncharitable remarks against the Prime Minister.

He said Congress leaders had used absurd and cheap words against Modi.

Let them not teach or preach pravachan (sermons) to others, he said. They called him Hitler, Mussolini, Gaddafi. It is a shame. They are not able to understand the reality. Why should the Prime Minister apologise? Naidu asked.

His colleague, Ravi Shankar Prasad, too launched a stinging attack on the Congress and defended Modis dig. Fun, pun and repartee are part of parliamentary debate, and the Congress was using Singh as a useful expendable outsider to protect the Gandhi familys interests, he said.

Singh said during Parliaments winter session last November that the deaths and distress linked to the shock recall of 500-and 1,000-rupee banknotes were a reflection of an organised loot and legalised plunder. The Congress flaunted Singhs strong speech in its protest against the demonetisation drive.

The barb was not forgotten. Modi responded on Wednesday with the raincoat taunt and said: We have the ability to pay back in the same coin  If someone used such words, then he should be ready to hear the reply.
The government on Thursday said India is taking urgent measures to counter radicalistion and will soon hold an international conference on the issue that distorts reality and the message of Islam.

Delivering his key note address during an international seminar organised by countrys premier counter-terror force NSG here, minister of state for external affairs MJ Akbar said India was surprised as to why the United Nations and its member countries have been held back by some limited tactical reason to define the precise meaning of terrorism.

... we protect human rights when we eliminate terrorism. This is a debate which goes on and on and on that we, those who seek to eliminate terrorism, are somehow infringing human rights, when the greatest threat to human rights is the terrorist. Is there anybody, who is sane, and who can challenge this? Is there anybody, who is sane, who can argue with this?

In fact, even in the Holy Koran it is written that the eliminator of a fasadi (one who spreads mischief), fasad is a word commonly used in India now, elimination of one fasadi is equivalent to saving the whole community. And it is very true, I mean, this metaphor is so perfectly appropriate to our country, Akbar said while addressing the top brass of counter-terror officials from India and about a dozen foreign countries.

He said while the country was not witnessing a flood of Indian Muslims going towards radicalisation, the government does recognise the need to take urgent measures to counter and protect the spread of terrorism and radicalisation.

We are taking the lead in discussing radicalisation, in searching and finding out ways in order to challenge it because this has to be fought not only at the level of what you (security agencies) do it, but also at the level of ideas.

And, we hope that we will be able to hold an international conference on radicalisation very soon. We have, therefore, called upon all countries to work together to expedite the adoption of a draft comprehensive convention on international terrorism in UNGA (United Nations General Assembly) without any further delay, Akbar said.

The minister also expressed Indias disappointment over the UN not coining a definition on what exactly terrorism means to the globe.

I dont think anyone in the world denies the menace of terrorism. Why is it that for the last 20 years the UN has not been able to find a definition. Nations must ask themselves how can you fight an enemy if you do not have clarity about the enemy and how can you have clarity if you do not have definitions?

This coy approach to such a menace is not serving the world very well ... the UN itself is a term from the second Word War (and) it was created for the allies, there was clarity. Why is there no clarity in this world?, Akbar said, adding radicalisation by terror groups distorts reality and the message of Islam.
Some 200 years ago, the prosperous Paliwal Brahmin community abandoned their villages near Jaisalmer in western Rajasthan on a single night. Ever since, the ruins of the villages, considered haunted, have been closed to tourists after sunset.

There is no official record of the mass evacuation in the early 19th century, but according to popular folklore, the inhabitants fled fearing persecution by a Salim Singh, a minister of a princely state.

Centuries later, a four-member team of geologists examining the collapsed roofs, fallen joists, lintels and pillars in the Kuldhara and Khabha villages suggests the desolate houses are the result of an earthquake that flattened 84 villages.

Inspecting the ghost villages, the team found striking similarities to the remains of Harappan cities such as Mohenjodaro, Dholavira and Lothal. (HT Photo)

The idea is based on evidence of recent tectonic activity along major faults in the region  covering Jaisalmer and adjoining areas that make the region susceptible to seismic activity.

Archaeologists must excavate the area. Fault lines and skeletons are bound to be seen, said AB Roy, geologist, lead investigator, and fellow of the Indian National Academy of Sciences.

Around 18km from Jaisalmer, Paliwal is a protected monument under the Archaeological Survey of India. In Khabha, renovations are restricted to temples and chhatris, or canopies that usually demarcate funeral sites.

According to researchers, the nature of destruction at Paliwal can be compared to the earthquake-affected areas of Latur in Maharashtra and Bhuj in Gujarat.

The Paliwal houses collapsed owing to poor construction techniques, and the minimal use of cementing material. (HT Photo)

Inspecting the ghost villages, the team found striking similarities to the remains of Harappan cities such as Mohenjodaro, Dholavira and Lothal. It is difficult to attribute such massive destruction to the normal processes of weathering and erosion. Neither can it be attributed to social compulsions that led the villagers to abandon the area overnight, without a trace of their whereabouts, said Roy.

Drawing parallels to the destruction in Harappan cities led us to consider evidence of archeao-seismicity  the study of ancient earthquakes  to match descriptions recorded worldwide.

The team evaluated the terrain by looking at topographic maps and satellite images of the region. A seismotectonic map was compiled, with data on faults, lineaments and earthquake epicentres recorded between 1985 and 1991 from the Geological Survey of India.

We superimposed the locations of a few prominent Paliwal villages. What we found were clusters of villages close to active faults and epicentres. General country rocks in the region include different types of limestone belonging to the Jurassic age, said Roy.

The geologists inferred that the destruction of life and property caused by collapse is likely to have been quite substantial and virtually total (HT Photo)

He added that active fault lines also disrupted the drainage system by offsetting the flow of stream channels. This resulted in saline lakes being formed.

The team, however, suggests earthquakes in Jaisalmer were not of very severe intensity. The Paliwal houses collapsed owing to poor construction techniques, and the minimal use of cementing material. Brick-like blocks were placed on top of each other to construct the walls. Roofs were covered by placing logs  held in place by small square or rectangular-shaped beams  supported by narrow-but-heavy limestone pillars, stated the paper.

The geologists said the destruction of life and property caused by collapse is likely to have been quite substantial and virtually total.

Only a few may have escaped the fatality. Since the event of destruction, nobody lived in these villages presumably owing to the stories of mysterious deaths, the paper read.

Till date, the Paliwal community does not celebrate rakshabandhan. It is instead observed as black day as they believe the villagers were forced to flee and abandon their homes on this day.

An unwritten history

The surname Paliwal means a person from Pali (Pali+wal), a district in Rajasthan. Pali was a small kingdom in the Thar desert, and its believed that inhabitants from this district migrated to different parts during the Mughal period

In the 13th century, they migrated to Kuldhara (then state of Jaisalmer) to escape what they viewed as the tyrannical behaviour if the king of Pali (source: http://www.paliwalsangh.org.in/)

The Paliwal community, with houses spread over 84 villages, lived in Jaisalmer since the late 13th century. Once prosperous, the Paliwal Brahmins are believed to have evacuated the village en masse overnight in the early 19th century.

Popular folklore suggests the villagers abandoned their homes as they were being persecuted by a man identified as Salim Singh, a minister of a princely state.

There is no official record of this, but it believed Singh wanted to marry the village chiefs daughter. He set a deadline of two days, failing which he would increase taxes on the villagers. Refusing to give the girl to the minister, but fearing him, the village is believed to have fled through a tunnel unnoticed. As the mass evacuation took place on Rakshabandhan, the Paliwal community observes the festival as black day.

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 8

By Fatih Karimov  Trend:

Iran has launched a crude oil storage facility which increases the countrys crude oil storage capacity by 10 million barrels.

The facility, named Omid, became operational Feb. 8 near the port city of Genaveh in southern province of Bushehr, IRNA news agency reported.

The facility was constructed by Irans private sector with investment of 280 billion rials (each USD makes 32,379 rials).

The project improves Irans oil storage and export capacity by 36 percent and consists of eight 1-million-barrel tanks, two 500,000-barrel tanks and four 250,000-barrel tanks.

The facility was constructed in an area of 100 hectares and will support oil exports from the southern Kharg Island Oil Terminal in the Persian Gulf.
Names of people donating money to political parties through electoral bonds will be kept secret, finance minister Arun Jaitley said on Thursday, scotching fears of a backlash on donors by rival groups.

He, however, ruled out the possibility of state funding of elections, a suggestion that has been made by several parties.

In this years annual budget, the government proposed to introduce electoral bonds, which donors would be able to purchase from authorised banks and redeemable only in the designated account of a political party.

Also, it reduced the limit of party donations from one source  from Rs 20,000 to Rs 2,000  to bring transparency in political funding. Most political parties receive a bulk of their donations in cash under Rs 20,000, which allows donors to remain anonymous.

These measures were taken to prevent political parties from becoming conduits for black money.

Speaking in the Lok Sabha on Thursday, Jaitley defended the bonds as an initiative that will check the flow of unaccounted-for cash into the political system. He said these have been designed to protect the identity of the donor.

People donating to a political party usually dont like to disclose their identity as they fear repercussions from rival political parties. By purchasing electoral bonds, they can keep their identity secret, the minister said.

Opposition parties and election watchdogs were sceptical about the move, aimed at checking the inflow of illegal money to parties.

Jaitley argued that people prefer to donate in cash because of anonymity clause.

We have made a serious effort to legitimise this. We have said that you pay by cheque, then the donor and the receiver both will get tax advantage. We have said pay by digital mode, he said.

Besides, the bonds will have a validity period of a few days, and will resemble a promissory note. These can be deposited in registered accounts of political parties within a particular time-frame.

The minister was not keen on state funding to offer a fair playing field for poor parties contesting elections.

I am open to the idea. But your optimism is based on the fact that when state funding starts only state-provided funds will be used in elections and nobody will use private funds in elections. So your optimism is based on this one belief which is not consistent with Indian reality.

Experts believe electoral reforms in the worlds largest democracy are overdue. Besides measures to clean up the system, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is pushing for simultaneous Lok Sabha and assembly elections in states, a move that will help reduce poll expenditure.

President Pranab Mukherjee has echoed similar views.

Taking a cue, Jaitley said the government has proposed solutions to bring transparency in electoral funding but it will not take us anywhere if the Opposition finds fault with every reform.
There have been 21 incidents of flying objects being spotted near airports in 2016, and two such cases so far this year, the government said on Thursday.

Asked whether the government was aware of recurrence of incidents of flying objects being spotted near airports, including in Delhi, which poses a grave threat to airplanes, Union minister Jayant Sinha replied in the affirmative.

There have been 21 incidents in 2016 and 2 incidents in the current year so far, he said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

A standard operating procedure (SOP) for handling of sub-conventional aerial platform threats in the country has been issued by the home ministry.

In a separate written reply, the minister of state for civil aviation said no full body scanner was presently operational at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi.

According to him, a trial run test of whole body scanners was conducted at IGI Airport for performance evaluation from the security point of view and the trial run was made optional to passengers.

The full body scanner works on the Millimeter Wave (MMW) technology and has privacy filters. It does not give out the exact body contours of a flier under inspection at the scanner, but puts out a generic mannequin figure depicting aberrations on an individuals body, he noted.
A parliamentary panel has said something is seriously wrong with the countrys counter-terror establishment, as it pulled up the government for failing to learn from the Pathankot airbase attack and preventing more such strikes.

The audacious attack on the forward base in the border state of Punjab on January 2, 2016 left seven security personnel dead. It took forces three days to secure the airbase. India has blamed Pakistan based Jaish-e-Mohammed for the attack.

The panel also questioned the role of the Punjab Police and their handling to the events in the run-up to the assault.

The committee understands that in this attack, the role of the Punjab Police is also very questionable and suspicious, the panel said in a report tabled in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.

It took the Punjab Police a long time to realise that the abduction of a superintendent of police was not just a criminal robbery but it was going to be serious national security threat.

Read | NSG ignored plea to rescue two guards trapped during Pathankot attack, says air force officer

The panel said it couldnt understand why the terrorists let off SP (Salwinder Singh) and his friend and called for a thorough probe by the National Investigation Agency, the countrys premiere counter-terrorism body.

Four men had on December 31, 2015 snatched the SPs vehicle in Dinanagar close to the Pakistan border. The multi-utility police car was found abandoned 500 metres from the airbase the next day. The SPs claim that his friend and he were abducted by the attackers has remained suspicious.

Headed by former Union home minister P Chidambaram, the parliamentary standing committee on home affairs said the role of narco-syndicate active in Punjabs border areas should also be investigated as the terrorists might have taken help of channels or networks used by smugglers to infiltrate the border, shelter and carry out terror attack.

Punjab is battling a drug problem and it was one of the main issues in the recently concluded state elections.

A terror alert was sounded well in advance but terrorists still managed to breach the high-security air base and attacked it, the panel said.

Read | China defends blocking US move to impose UN ban on Masood Azhar

Talking about subsequent strikes on defence installations in Pampore, Uri, Baramulla, Handwara and Nagrota, all in Jammu and Kashmir, the panel said there was comprehensive failure to prevent recurrence of Pathankot-like attacks.

There was an urgent need to strengthen the security network and plug serious gaps in intelligence gathering or sharing, it said.

The panel also questioned the government decision to allow a Pakistani joint investigation team to visit the base. It asked if the government had insisted that an Indian probe team be allowed to visit the neighbouring country to gather evidence and whether Islamabad had agreed to it.

and, if Pakistan had not agreed to the demand, why was the Pakistan team allowed to visit India without a commitment to allow a reciprocal visit by an Indian investigation team?

During its visit to the airbase, it found security wanting. The growth of long shrubs and trees in the premises might have helped terrorists hide, making difficult for security forces in combing out the attackers, the panel said.

The airbase should be declared a high-security zone and people residing around the airbase should be kept out, it said.

Read | No direct evidence Pathankot attack militants entered through border: BSF

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After cooking gas LPG, the government on Thursday made Aadhaar mandatory for availing subsidised foodgrains from the ration shops with a view to better target Rs 1.4 lakh crore subsidy under the food security law.

The government has given time to those not having the biometric-based unique identification number to apply for Aadhaar by June 30.

Under the National Food Security Law (NFSA), which was rolled out in November , the government provides 5 kg of foodgrains per person every month at Rs1-3/kg to over 80 crore people.

The notification would come into effect from February 8 in all states and UTs except Assam, Meghalaya and J&K.

The notification has been issued since subsidised foodgrains under PDS and cash transfer of food subsidy under NFSA involves recurring expenditure from the Consolidated Fund of India, an official statement said.

Till Aadhaar is assigned to the beneficiaries, the government said foodgrains would be provided on production of ration card and either Aadhaar enrolment ID slip or copy of his/her request for Aadhaar enrolment

The beneficiaries can make request for Aadhaar enrolment by giving their name, address, mobile number with ration card number with their fair price shop owners or through the web portal provided for the purpose.
Hey, fatso! It was a common jibe heard in school corridors when a plump junior ran into the school bully.

If it were 1990s, the matter would have ended with the junior learning to ignore, cope or emulate.

But in this millennium, the battle rages on in cyberspace. Cooped up under the blanket, the junior evens the score on Facebook by posting his tormentors morphed picture. Enough number of likes means he has won the battle before the start of another day.

Of all the risks children face online, cyber bullying or use of social media to embarrass or humiliate others, is most familiar and remains unchallenged. It is also a dangerous territory. Posts uploaded for fun or in retaliation have caused serious damage to the target in the past.

In 2015, a class 12 student of Chhatarpur in Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself. Police probe revealed that Sandeep Sen was upset about a video uploaded on social media that showed him getting being thrashed by some people. Police said he ended his life as he could not bear the humiliation.

According to Teens, Tweens and Technology report 2015 by cyber security firm Intel Security, at least one in every four children surveyed across metro cities said that they had been bullied online. A Parliamentary Standing Committee also acknowledged in its report on cyber crime in 2014 that cyber bullying was more prevalent than other perils of social media.

One recent high-profile threat is the one posed to children by predatory pedophiles, who conceal their true identity whilst using the Internet to groom potential victims. Probably far more common is the online bullying of children by their peers, it said.

With easy access to internet, bullies are at work at all times and places. A teacher in south Delhi remembers how two girls had a petty fight at the school playground one day. It ended with both pulling each others hair. Well, not quite.

Soon, one of the girls posted a picture of an antiseptic lotion with a caption that read  Thank God I washed my hands with it after touching her. We just sat there wondering if we could stop such hate, she said, while adding teachers are also vulnerable to bullying online through snide remarks live from classrooms. They simply delete them to get away. But hundreds of people have read those derogations by then.

Geetanjali Kumar, a psychologist working with schoolchildren in Delhi, calls the danger of cyber bullying a ticking time bomb. All it takes for children to be on social media is to register with a wrong date of birth. But the sense of power it gives helps children malign others and not be sorry about it, says Kumar, who is presently counseling at least five children affected by cyber bullying.

Shruti Kalra (name changed), a student, recently posted nasty comments on a picture of a classmate in her new dress on Facebook. Shruti wanted a similar dress, but couldnt get one as her parents had refused.

She was so angry that she wrote on her classmates post how bad she looked. She felt that if she couldnt have it, she would ruin it for her too. Parents should watch out for such episodes and address the problem, says Kumar. Even for the other kid, what was the need to click selfies and flaunt her dress on social media? But parents themselves do that all the time. Children just follow.

As threats are invisible offline, parents often do not realize when their children are at risk. But there are symptoms, such as the child becoming reclusive, feeling intimidated, refusing to attend school and unexpectedly spending much more time on social media. Bullying can even lead to stalking online, and children do not realize when they fall into lawlessness.

Though Indias legal framework to protect children online is going forward with legislations, such as National Policy of ICT in Schools, 2012, National Cyber Security Policy, 2013 and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, a report on Child Online Protection in India released by UNICEF in September 2016 finds lacunae in the laws.

Many activities that have been criminalized in other countries, such as sexting and cyber bullying, are not regarded as offences by Indian law. Legal provisions for addressing cyber bullying are lacking. There is a need to develop approaches that do not criminalize children and adolescents for harmful online behaviours, it recommends.

In many cities, schools and the police have started collaborating to create awareness and keep children in check. Schools in Kolkata, such as Beleghata Deshbandu Girls High School have prohibited use of mobile phones by students. Ballygunge Government High School has been sensitizing parents so that they do not allow their children to use smartphones.

Read |How safe are our kids: Schoolchildren pay for rule violations in blood

The cyber cell of Jharkhand police has been holding workshops in schools across the state for over a year now, as cases of morphed images and shaming on Facebook have gone up. In a majority of cases, friends and classmates are the culprits, police say.

Kerala government floated a Stop Cyber Crime Army in schools in 2014 to create awareness. A recent study conducted by the state cyber crime department found that around 25% school children exposed to internet face some kind of cyber harm like bullying, stalking, defamation or hacking.

However, police say instances of cyber bullying and stalking go largely unreported as children do not talk about them or schools and parents often end the tiff with a compromise.

The fear of getting reprimanded or punished for using social media prevents schoolchildren from sharing their problems with parents and teachers. Due to this, a significant number of them end up as vulnerable, said Dependra Pathak, spokesperson, Delhi Police that has launched Child Safety Awareness Programme and Go To School Initiative-Protecting Children on Internet in Delhi schools.

Around 10 lakh students from 868 government and private schools across Delhi are being trained to navigate the internet safely.

Principals say parents should show an equal concern in this matter as only they can restrict the use of internet at home and on mobile phones.

Meanwhile, schools in Mumbai are teaching cyber etiquette to adolescents as they frequently receive complaints of cyber-bullying. However, a principal from Navi Mumbai urged schools to not be hasty while lodging police complaints. They are children, it is our job to correct them, not ruin their careers, she said.
Tamil Nadus political crisis resembles a Bollywood potboiler more every day. And, the latest episode in the saga has been scripted by SP Shamuganathan, the AIADMK legislator from Sivaikuntam near Tuticorin.

On Wednesday afternoon, Shamuganathan attended a party MLAs meet to show support to AIADMK general secretary VK Sasikala -- who paraded 130-plus lawmakers in a show of strength to counter a rebellion by caretaker chief minister O Panneerselvam.

But later in the evening, Shamuganathan had a change of heart and slipped away to Panneerselvams camp.

According to sources, Shanmuganathan told those in charge of getting MLAs to board the bus to a luxury resort that he was feeling giddy and wanted to take medicines. A diabetic, this former minister did go out for some time and returned.

But when the time to board the bus came, the party managers found he had slipped away again. The MLA later surfaced at the residence of Panneerselvam  known popularly as OPS -- at Greams Road.

Despite his paltry numbers, the caretaker chief minister is confident that, given a chance, he would pass the floor test. According to sources, the chief minister is planning to meet governor at the airport when Vidyasagar Rao arrives in Chennai in the afternoon. The governor is said to have given an appointment at 5pm to Sasikala.

Read| Tamil Nadu governor Vidyasagar Rao is deliberately delaying Sasikalas swearing in | Opinion

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The government said on Thursday it had applied to Britain to extradite Vijay Mallya to face trial after the liquor and aviation tycoon was charged with conspiracy and fraud over a loan to his defunct Kingfisher Airlines.

Mallya moved to Britain last March after banks sued to recover about $1.4 billion the Indian authorities say is owed by Kingfisher. He has dismissed the charges against him, saying on January 28 that not one rupee was misused.

Mallyas press representative was not immediately available for comment on the Indian extradition request.

Earlier attempts by India to get Mallya, the head of the Force India Formula One team and one-time billionaire, deported have failed.

The new push comes after Mallya was charged in absentia last month by the Central Bureau of Investigation - along with nine former executives from the failed Kingfisher Airlines and IDBI Bank Ltd - over a 9 billion rupee ($135 million) loan.

We have today handed over the request for the extradition of Mr Vijay Vittal Mallya, as received from the CBI, to the UK High Commission in New Delhi, Vikas Swarup, spokesman for the Ministry of External Affairs, told a news conference.

A spokesman for the British High Commission said it did not comment on individual cases.

The CBI, in its charge sheet, alleged Mallya diverted 2.54 billion rupees intended for Kingfisher Airlines from India. Kingfisher is also named as a defendant in the case.
Life was disrupted in Kashmir as many parts of the region observed a shutdown to mark the fourth death anniversary of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru on Thursday.

Security restrictions were imposed on several parts of old Srinagar. Main city markets remained closed while public transport vehicles went off the road.

As many as 14 people, including five militants, were killed in the terror attack. Delivering its verdict, the Supreme Court had said: ...the collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if capital punishment is awarded to the offender.

Guru was hanged in Tihar jail on February 9, 2013, and his remains were not handed over to his family.

However, for many Kashmiris, he remains the victim of an unjust system.

The Valleys separatist leadership, which called for the shutdown, said people will seek the mortal remains of Shaheed Mohammad Afzal Guru on the day.

No violence was reported in areas brought under shutdown  including Gurus hometown of Sopore  till late noon. However, the authorities decided to leave nothing to chance, and suspended train services between Banihal and Baramulla.

A large number of Kashmiri netizens took to the social media to criticise the execution.

Gurus family, for its part, has been able to leave the past behind. Last year, his son Ghalib  who was only two years old when the militant was arrested  scored 95% marks in the annual state board matriculation examination, securing the 19th position in the Valley. He scored 474 marks out of 500 and received A1 grade in all five subjects.

Separatist leaders have also called for a complete shutdown on February 11, the death anniversary of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front founder Mohammad Maqbool Bhat.

The separatist leader, convicted of murdering a CID officer, was hanged in Tihar jail on February 11, 1984. Bhats remains were not returned to his family either.

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A majority of people from leading European nations would support a Trump-style ban on further migration from mainly Muslim countries, according to a poll of more than 10,000 people in 10 countries.

An average of 55% of those surveyed for London-based think tank, Chatham House, agreed that immigration from Muslim-majority countries should be halted, NBC News reported on Wednesday.

Majorities in all but two of the 10 countries polled supported a ban, ranging from 71% in Poland, to 53% in Germany, 47% in Britain and 41% in Spain. In no country did the percentage that disagreed surpass 32%, the report said.

The poll, carried out before President Trump took office, also found that the issue crossed the political spectrum -- three-quarters of respondents in support of a ban self-classified as right-wing and more than a third said they were left-leaning.

Support for a ban was also higher among older Europeans than younger ones as less than half of all college graduates supported further migration curbs.
Delhis deputy chief minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) member Manish Sisodia is quite hopeful of a good working relationship with Anil Baijal, saying the new lieutenant governor has started clearing files blocked by his predecessor Najeeb Jung.

The Kejriwal government, which completes two years in office next week, had been locked in a bitter battle with Jung over appointments, movement of files and police control.

I think it (the channel) is reopening. From all the discussions I have had with the L-G so far, its been good. I am optimistic, Sisodia told HT on Tuesday, a day after Baijal cleared the governments ambitious programme to set up mohalla clinics in school premises.

The new 300 clinics are part of the Kejriwal governments plan to make basic healthcare easily available to the capitals 20 million residents.

Its just the beginning and I hope he will look at things from a different perspective, Sisodia said. Baijal took over as the LG on December 31, eight days after Jungs surprise resignation.

Baijal was clearing files put on hold by Jung, Sisodia said.

He has cleared the names we suggested for the board of directors at the Indira Gandhi Delhi Technological University, said Sisodia, who also holds the education portfolio.

A proposal to allow sportspersons to train in school grounds in after hours, too, has been given the go-ahead while a number of files were returned without any objection, he said.

Asked if the Centres interference had reduced after Baijals appointment, Sisodia said, Time will tell. It wont be fair to comment right now.

But he did say he was meeting the L-G at least once every week, sometimes even more. They had elaborate discussions on a parking policy for the city. They also discussed pollution and public transport.

That is quite a change from the regular clashes between the Kejriwal government and Jung over administrative control of the capital.

The battle is still playing out in courts, with the first round going to the L-G after the Delhi high court said the lieutenant governor was the administrative head of the Capital and all government decisions must be communicated to him.

The Kejriwal government has challenged the ruling in the Supreme Court.

Soon after the high court order in August, Jung set up a panel to examine several decisions taken by the government and called for around 400 files.

Recalling Jungs tenure, Sisodia said, Initially things were going fine. But, towards the end, a point came where he refused to consider anything we would suggest.

Jungs resignation, however, came as a shock to him and the government. It was unexpected. When I met him he said he did so to return to academics. I had no reason not to believe him, Sisodia said. Jung had 18 months left in his tenure when he quit.

An L-G, Sisodia said, should work for Delhi rather than focusing his energy on saving his job.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 9

By Farhad Daneshvar  Trend:

Iran and Hungary have concluded several agreements to encourage bilateral economic ties, including a deal on shipping hundreds of buses to Tehran.

Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary Peter Szijjarto has said Ikarus Global Cls will ship hundreds of buses to Tehran, Hungarian governments official news website reported.

According to the minister, the deal will be financed by Hungarys Eximbank.

The sides reached the agreement within the framework of the first session of the Hungarian-Iranian Joint Economic Committee held in Budapest over the current week.

The two countries will also tighten their cooperation on energy, creating the opportunity for Hungarian enterprises to become involved in the development of Irans energy infrastructure, Szijjarto said.

The minister said the economic potential between Hungary and Iran is indicated by the fact that annual trade flow between the two countries used to be some $350 million, but fell to roughly a tenth of that during the period of sanctions and currently stands at some $30 million.

The sides also signed a memorandum of understanding between Hungarys Ministry of Human Capacities and Irans Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, as well as an action plan of tourism cooperation between the Hungarian Ministry of National Development and the Iranian Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization (ICHHTO).

Tayebnia heading a delegation arrived in Hungary on Feb. 7 to attend the Hungarian-Iranian Joint Economic Committees first session.
The police in Meghalaya on Thursday charge-sheeted independent MLA Julius Kitbok Dorphang and five others for the trafficking and sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl more than a month ago.

Dorphang was arrested on January 7 for allegedly raping the minor girl in a Shillong guesthouse run by the son of Meghalaya home minister HDR Lyngdoh in December last year. He had also allegedly raped the girl in a resort 20km from Shillong.

The officer-in-charge of Laitumkhrah Police Station (where the case was filed) charge-sheeted Dorphang and five others for their involvement in the case and submitted it to the court of the special judge for Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, Shillong superintendent of police Vivek Syiem said.

Dorphang was chargesheeted for committing aggravated penetrative sexual assault by a public servant and committing the same more than once. The others  three of them women  have been charged with procuration and inducement of a minor girl for prostitution.

Syiem said the police examined 42 witnesses in connection with the case and supplementary charge-sheet will be submitted against the accused after further evidence is received.

Womens rights groups in Meghalaya have been seeking exemplary punishment for Dorphang besides demanding Lyngdohs resignation. State chief minister Mukul Sangma has, however, defended Lyngdoh.

The high-profile case has put the spotlight on rising incidents of crime against women, seen as a shame for Meghalaya where the three main tribes  Khasi, Jaintia and Garo  are matrilineal.

National Crime Records Bureau datasay Meghalaya reported 452 cases of child rapes between 2001 and 2011. Among the eight north-eastern states, the state was second to Tripura where 457 cases were reported during the period.

Meghalaya Police crime records say only 26 rape cases were registered in 2001, increasing gradually to 183 in 2013. The number of cases dipped to 93 in 2015 but 60% of the rape survivors that year were found to be minor girls.

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Till a few weeks ago, Abeiu Meru and her colleagues at the Nagaland Mothers Association (NMA)were busy fighting battles to eradicate social evils and for womens rights in Nagaland---a task for which they were glorified.

But now, the president of Nagalands apex womens body and others associated with the NMA are battling accusations hurled at them and trying to keep the 33-year old organisation afloat.

Tribal organisations opposed to 33% reservation for women in urban local bodies (ULBs), on the ground that it infringes of customary laws, are holding NMA responsible for the recent incidents of violence.

Following the loss of two lives and destruction of government property, diktats have been issued by some tribal bodies to their women wings to dissociate from NMA as it has lost its direction and Nagas have lost confidence on NMA.

This is the first time such an attack has been directed at us. But instead of weakening, it has strengthen our resolve to keep fighting for women rights in Nagaland, said Meru.

The reason for such reaction is because NMA was actively involved in the fight to ensure reservation for women in ULBs and had filed a special leave petition (SLP) in Supreme Court for the same.

The men-dominated tribal bodies of the 16 major Naga tribes say reservation for women in ULBs would violate Article 371A of the Constitution which gives special status to Nagaland for preservation of customary laws.

Read| Nagaland to miss out on central grants to the tune of Rs 140 crore for not holding municipal polls

NMA came into existence in 1984 as an organisation to fight against social evils. According to the organisations constitution, every adult Naga woman is automatically considered a member.

One of the first causes NMA took up was the issue of drug abuse and alcoholism in Nagaland. Efforts of the organisation were largely responsible for imposition of prohibition in the state in 1989.

In the 1980s and 1990s when Nagaland was ravaged by attacks and counter-attacks between rebel groups and the army, NMA members ventured into jungles to meet insurgent leaders, urging them to come for peace talks.

The mothers have also worked tirelessly with HIV patients to remove misconceptions and the social stigma attached to the disease. All these efforts have earned them accolades within Nagaland and outside.

But now many in Nagaland see NMA as the villain. The organisations attempt at getting 33% reservation for women is being termed as the reason which led to the recent violence, deaths and wide-scale protests.

Refusal by men to go with constitutional obligations is the reason for the present situation. They (Naga men) are scared of us and thats why they are blaming us, said NMA advisor and founder president Sano Vamuzo.

Following the governments decision to hold ULB election with 33% reservation for women, NMA withdrew the SLP in Supreme Court and the joint action committee for womens rights was dissolved.

But with the state government now declaring the election null and void following the recent events, NMA is mulling how to go about continuing this battle under the changed circumstances.

Everybody associated with us is being put under pressure. The situation is so bad we cant even call a meeting as we are not sure whether most office-bearers will be able to take part, said NMA vice-president Sarah Nuh.

The going may be getting tough, but Meru, Vamuzo, Nuh and all women associated with NMA have not lost hope. They are determined to continue with the fight till the battle for reservation is finally won.

We are still alive and wont dissolve or disband NMA. The fight for our rights will continue, said Meru.

Read| Nagaland crisis: Clash of traditional values and women empowerment

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In 2013, communal violence between Hindus and Muslims in and around Muzzaffarnagar and Shamli districts in Uttar Pradesh led to the killing 60 people and the displacement of tens of thousands. There were also reports of targeted sexual violence against women: Seven Muslim women came forward to report that they had been gangraped by men from the Jat community. However, to date, there has not been a single conviction in any of the cases, said a new Amnesty International India (AII) report, Losing Faith, The Muzaffarnagar Gang Rape Survivors Struggle for Justice, which was released on Thursday.

According to the report, two of the seven have changed their statements, following threats and intimidation. One died in 2016. In two cases, trial has not even begun.

The survivors also have not received any additional benefits from the state, apart from the compensation given to all who had lost their property in the riots.

The security and compensation that the state government provided to the survivors came only after human rights lawyers filed petitions on their behalf before the Supreme Court in December 2013, the report added.

Shockingly, when researchers met the survivors, many did not receive regular information about the status of their cases from government authorities.

Some even said that they had not attended hearings for several months as they did not know about the dates of the hearings and had not met the government prosecutors handling their cases.

The Muzzaffarnagar district court counsel told AII that the delays were partly caused by difficulty in finding the survivors, and that he was unaware that one of survivors had died in August 2016.

Read: Muzaffarnagar after 3 years: Riot victims, witnesses get cold feet

The states advocate general insisted that there were no delays on the part of the government.

It also seems that the political class has forgotten the cases. Though the Samajwadi Party and the BJPs manifestos for the UP election talk about women safety and empowerment, they have no mention of the

cases or promises for a speedy trial. Both districts go to polls on February 11.

The Allahabad High Court granted bail to the three of accused men in December 2014, January 2015 and February 2015, on the condition that they will not seek adjournments on the dates fixed for evidence when the witnesses are present in court.

However, adjournments were repeatedly sought by the accused and granted by the fast-track court hearing the case.

In an appeal made to the state government that will take over after March 11 results, the AII has urged that it must ensure that the investigations and prosecutions into the gangrape cases are pursued without delay; those responsible are brought to justice; investigate reports of threats, intimidation or harassment of survivors of their relatives, and bring suspects to trial; provide survivors effective legal assistance and services, keep them informed of the status of investigations and prosecutions, and address any concerns they may have; and also ensure that survivors are provided adequate rehabilitation, compensation and other measures of repatriation and that their economic and social needs are met.

Read: In riot-torn Muzaffarnagar, sexual violence becomes a political tool

There is a pattern that follows communal riots and anti-Dailt violence in India. We have seen this happening in Gujarat and in Uttar Pradesh though the ruling parties were different: The police will either not file cases or even if they do, they will make the chargesheet weak. This is not just a failure but a deliberate design to deny justice to the victims. There is a huge majoritarian bias in the system, former bureaucrat Harsh Mander told HT.

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Nagaland Governor PB Acharya on Thursday declared the entire process of elections to Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) in the state, which was bitterly opposed by Naga tribal groups, as null and void.

State Election Commissioner Sentiyanger Imchen in a notification said following the Governors decision, the election programme for the ULBs, notified on December 21 last year, is now null and void.

On February 2, the state Cabinet had decided to declare the election process null and void, also a demand of the Naga tribal groups.

The official declaration was made on Thursday by the State Election Comminssion (SEC) after the assent of the Governor.

The ULB election, which provided for 33% reservation for women, was opposed tooth and nail by Naga tribal groups. It led to violence in which two persons were allegedly killed in police firing outside the private residence of chief minister TR Zeliang in Dimapur on January 31, on the eve of polling day.

The election to the 32 municipal and town councils in the northeastern state had been announced by the SEC on December 21 last year, as per the directive of the state government dated October 4 and November 18, 2016.

The government decision to hold the ULB election also spurred violence at Mokokchung and Longleng districts.

Subsequently, the tribes under the banner of Nagaland Tribes Action Committee (NTAC) Kohima and Joint Coordination Committee (JCC) demanded the resignation of Zeliang and his Cabinet colleagues on moral grounds and suspension of the police officers involved in the firing, besides declaring the election process null and void.

The restive tribals went on a rampage, vandalised and set ablaze government offices and vehicles in the capital town on February 2.

The functioning of government offices has been hit for more than a week because of the protests and the state has been trying to pacify them.

The meeting with the tribal organisations that was convened by the government on Wednesday was attended by only a few Naga leaders.

NTAC Kohima and JCC, the two organisations spearheading the movement against the government, stayed away and remained firm on their demands.

Zeliang held yet another meeting with apex bodies of the tribal organisations on Thursday but it was attended only by representatives of Naga Hoho and Gaon Burhas, CMO sources said.

Eastern Nagaland Peoples Organisation and Central Nagaland Tribes Council did not respond to the invitation for the meeting.

No resolution was adopted in this meeting too but the Chief Minister and his colleagues tried to convey to them the position of the government with regard to conduct of the ULB polls with reservation for women.

The three-day deadline of NTAC Kohima and JCC demanding Zeliangs resignation ends on Friday.
The navy on Thursday downplayed apprehensions over an international naval exercise being organised by Pakistan in the Arabian Sea this week, terming it as a normal maritime activity every nation was entitled to.

This is an exercise hosted by Pakistanis once in two years. And 16 nations are taking part in it. It is a normal maritime activity any nation is entitled to, Sunil Lanba, chief of naval staff, told reporters at the sidelines of a conference organised by the National Maritime Foundation (NMF).

Pakistan is organising Aman-17 from February 10-14. Navies from Australia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Maldives, Russia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States are participating in the joint exercise.

A day after the IL 38 Long Range Maritime Reconnaissance aircraft (LRMRA) carried out a successful Anti Ship Missile firing on a target ship in the Arabian Sea, Lanba said, all the LRMRAs with the Indian Navy will now have the ability to take on any ship.

The LRMRAs are used for surveillances, especially to keep a track on hostile submarines.

The P-8I Boeing aircraft with the navy also has similar capabilities, the official said.

Speaking at the conference titled The Blue Economy, Lanba emphasised on the need for a suitable policy and a legal framework for national and international level to address different aspects of the blue economy.

Identify the differences between the existing national and international laws and policies which should be amended or modified to include tenants of blue economy. For instance, suitable safeguards (are necessary) for fisheries management so that the practise conforms to the tenants of the blue economy.

Science-based approach is also necessary for development of blue economy, he said, adding that high international cooperation was imperative if the concept of blue economy had to take roots.

Blue economy refers to the use of the sea and its resources for sustainable economic development.

India has also been cooperating closely with a number of countries such as Mauritius, Seychelles, Bangladesh and Australia to implement and harness the concept of blue economy, the Navy chief said.
Eleven men, including a relative of a ruling BJP councillor, have been arrested by the Madhya Pradesh polices anti-terror squad (ATS) for allegedly running an international call racket that helped Pakistans ISI to spy on Indias military operations.

Officials said they were allegedly operating parallel telephone exchanges using Chinese equipment and SIM-boxes.

All the 11 men have been booked under provisions of the Indian Telegraph Act, besides Section 122 and 123 of Indian Penal Code (IPC), which deal with collecting arms, information and other things for waging war against the country.

MP ATS inspector general Sanjeev Shami said five men were nabbed from Gwalior, three from Bhopal, two from Jabalpur and one from Satna. He, however, refused to speak about the political linkage of those taken into custody.

Madhya Pradesh Anti Terror Squad members display in Bhopal on Thursday an electronic appliance used by a gang allegedly involved in spying for Pakistan. (PTI)

Shami said that the man arrested from Satna and identified as Balram is allegedly the mastermind of the racket.

Investigations revealed that Satna (MP) resident Balram was funding the activities of the duo held in Jammu. Balram, who was in constant touch with Pak-based handlers, used multiple bank accounts to fund the anti-national operations of the duo arrested last year in Jammu, he said.

The two Inter-Services Intelligence operatives, Satwindar and Dadu, were arrested from RS Pura area of Jammu district in November 2016, said Shami. They were revealing sensitive information pertaining to defence installations and camps, besides other matters of strategic importance to handlers in Pakistan.

Balram and his aides operated several parallel telephone exchanges in various cities of MP, including Bhopal, Gwalior, Jabalpur and Satna. Money was allegedly transferred from Pakistan into the bank accounts of Balram via these exchanges. It was subsequently forwarded to the two ISI operatives in Jammu.

Shami said the SIM boxes, which house SIM cards, and other equipment were being used to run the exchanges that masked the identity of callers from Pakistan and other countries.

The calls by overseas handlers were converted into local calls using SIM cards obtained on fake ID proofs and also landline numbers. The calls were made via the internet and sent to SIM boxes which redirected the VoIP traffic onto mobile networks.

This subsequently enabled ISI spies to pose as senior army officers and call up military personnel in Jammu and Kashmir to extract details of strategic operations particularly in sensitive areas near the LoC, ATS sources confided.

Weve seized hundreds of SIM cards from the 11 men, who were running such parallel phone exchanges in different MP town. The role of employees of some telecom companies too is under the scanner and more arrests will be made in coming days, said Shami.

He added the arrested men were not only aiding anti-national operations through these parallel exchanges but also caused enormous revenue loss to the central government and department of telecommunications via illegal conversion of international calls into local calls.

They were also using these call centres to dabble in other illegal activities like money laundering and online lottery fraud.

The racket was busted by MP ATS in cooperation with central intelligence agencies, agencies from Jammu and Kashmir and other states, besides the Telecom Enforcement Resource and Monitoring (TERM) cell of the Union telecom ministry, said Shami.

A similar spying racket was busted by the Uttar Pradesh police ATS last month with the arrest of 11 people. The mastermind of that racket Gulshan Sen, a resident of Delhis Mehrauli area, is believed to be the common link between the UP and MP rackets, ATS sources said.

Those in custody include Jitendra, who is a close relative of BJP municipal councillor from Ward No 58 Vandana Satish Yadav.

Gwalior BJP district president Devesh Sharma admitted Jitendra is Yadavs distant relative but said neither the party nor the councillor has anything to do with the arrested man.

The law will take its own course and those responsible will not be spared, Sharma said.

More arrests are likely by the MP ATS in coming days from other parts of the state, officials said.
Pakistan on Thursday claimed India is building a secret nuclear city to produce thermonuclear weapons as well as develop intercontinental missiles and stockpile nuclear material  allegations that India promptly dismissed as completely baseless.

Pakistan ministry spokesperson Nafees Zakaria made the allegations at a press conference in Islamabad, but presented no evidence to back up the claim.

The two nuclear-armed neighbours have fought two of their three wars over the disputed Kashmir region, which both claim in its entirety. Tensions between Islamabad and New Delhi have recently soared amid continued violence in Kashmir.

Zakaria also claimed India is working on an inter-continental ballistic missile and an anti-intercontinental ballistic missile system, which could lead to a strategic imbalance in the region and beyond.

In addition, he accused India of sponsoring terrorism attacks in Pakistan, saying that Islamabad recently shared documentary evidence of this with the United Nations.

Indias foreign ministry dismissed Zakarias remarks as unfounded.

These are completely baseless allegations. The so-called secret nuclear city is a figment of Pakistans imagination, said Vikas Swarup, spokesperson of Indias ministry of external affairs. India has always been in compliance with its international obligations.

Pakistan became a declared nuclear power in 1998 by carrying out nuclear tests in response to tests done by India. The southern rivals atomic tests first came into the limelight in 1974.
With the Mumbai civic polls less than a fortnight away, the Shiv Sena is turning on the heat on its friend-turned-foe Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by giving indications that it might give a jolt to the Devendra Fadnavis-led Maharashtra government with a mass resignation of its ministers.

Party sources say the ministers could be asked to submit their resignation to Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray ahead of the February 21 elections.

Shiv Sena ministers in the state government met chief minister Devendra Fadnavis late on Wednesday night primarily to give a memorandum demanding a loan waiver for Maharashtras farmers.

However, on their way out of the chief ministers official bungalow, Varsha in South Mumbais Malabar Hill, the ministers also brandished resignation letters, which they said they have kept ready in their pockets, before the media.

Transport minister Diwakar Raote said, All of us have been carrying our resignation letters in our pockets. We are only waiting for orders from the Shiv Sena chief to submit them and pull out of the government, and we will put in our papers.

Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday said he needs a breathing period to take an informed decision about whether to continue his partys support to the BJP, indicating a decision is likely only after the civic polls.

However, there is a likelihood of the ministers submitting their resignation letters to Thackeray on February 18, the day of his last public address for campaigning for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls, to put the BJP in a bind close on the heels of elections.

Party top brass also thinks such a move would also generate sympathy among Senas traditional voter, the party sources say. However, it would be Thackeray who would decide if the Sena should pull out of the government in Maharashtra or continue.

The Shiv Sena had pulled a similar stunt before the elections to the municipal corporation of Kalyan-Dombivli, Mumbais satellite city falling in the urban agglomeration of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, in 2015. Shiv Sena minister Eknath Shinde publicly tendered his resignation from the government in a rally on the last day of campaigning for the polls, which the BJP and Shiv Sena contested separately in a shrill highly-competitive fight.

Shindes resignation grabbed eyeballs across the state and built up pressure, after which Thackeray rejected it, but only after warning that the Sena may be forced to withdraw from the government if the Fadnavis government does not mend its ways.
The Class 12 student, who had set himself ablaze in his classroom on Monday in Jharkhand capital Ranchi and suffered 65% burn injuries, died on Wednesday night, police said on Thursday.

The 18-year-old was undergoing treatment at Devkamal Hospital in Ranchi.

With 65% burn injury, his condition was very critical since day one. His survival chance was negligible. Finally, he succumbed to his injury on Wednesday, director and chief plastic surgeon of Devekamal Hospital, Dr Anant Sinha, said.

Ashutosh Anand, a science student at CBSE-affiliated Lala Lajpat Rai School, carried a bottle of petrol in his school bag to the class on Monday. During a break, he poured it on his sweater and lit it with a matchstick.

The school authorities came to his rescue but more than half of his body was already burnt by then.

Ashutosh belonged to Bihars Ara district and was living with his aunt at Harmu Housing Colony in the city. He aspired to become an engineer and was preparing to crack the IIT, his classmates said.

The hospital authorities have handed over his body to the local police for an autopsy at the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS).

The post-mortem will be carried out today (Thursday), Pandra police station in-charge Anand Kumar said.

The management of Lala Lajpat Rai School closed the school on Thursday in memory of Ashutosh. The practical examination of Class 12 was deferred for a day.

The incident has once again highlighted the stress among students due to pressure of performing well in academics, making psychiatrists, educationists and activists question the competitive education structure in the country.

I could not cope with the study pressure. So, I decided to end my life, Ashutosh said in his statement to the police.

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Tamil Nadus acting governor Vidyasagar Rao is expected to reach Chennai on Thursday afternoon in the midst of a political turmoil in the ruling AIADMK that has plunged the state in a governance crisis.

He arrives amid mounting bitterness between caretaker chief minister O Pannerselvam, who has claimed that he was forced to resign, and AIADMK general secretary VK Sasikala, who has claimed the support of an overwhelming majority of party legislators.

Rao -- the governor of Maharashtra who holds additional charge of Tamil Nadu -- is expected to meet both but experts say an indication of his next move might be in which politician he meets first.

The governor is said to be waiting for instructions from Delhi on the further course of action. As a governor, he is supposed to act independently. But being a hardcore and disciplined worker of the BJP, he will certainly not go against the wishes of the top leadership in Delhi, a senior BJP leader close to Rao said.

The dispute has also reached the Presidents door with Lok Sabha deputy speaker Thambidurai leading a delegation of party lawmakers to meet Pranab Mukherjee and apprising him of the situation.

The crisis kicked off on Tuesday after Pannerselvam revolted against the party leadership, saying he was pushed out by legislators close to Sasikala. Within hours, the general secretary hit back by removing Pannerselvam as party treasurer and alleging that he was hand-in-glove with the opposition DMK.

Since then, the fight has become uglier with Pannerselvam ordering a judicial probe into the death of former chief minister J Jayalalithaa and asking the banks to not disburse money from party accounts without his approval.

A majority of party MLAs are said to have sided with Sasikala and have been packed off to a luxury resort near Chennai to ward off any threats of poaching.

Many say though Sasikala enjoys the support of a majority of AIADMK legislators, Rao might use his discretion and defer the swearing-in ceremony.

He might as well wait till the Supreme Court delivers its judgment on the illegal assets case. He will probably act upon legal advice in calling Sasikala for taking oath as the chief minister, the BJP leader said.
Tehran, Iran, February 8



By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:



Luristan province in western Iran has been going through a lot of managerial efforts in recent years in order to turn the province into a tourism hub, thanks to its rich natural and historical heritage.



In an interview with Trend, Luristans Cultural Heritage, Handicraft, and Tourism Director General Qolamreza Soleimani said that hotels, railroads, airports, and highways are being built and developed in the province.



"We are positive that in one or two years there will be no infrastructural shortcomings," he said. "This will make the province highly attractive for both tourists and tourism investors."



Luristan province has the biggest length of rivers and streams, numerous springs and wetlands, over 40 waterfalls, as well as many historical sites, the official mentioned.



"Nonetheless, we have been giving permits for the creation of more and more ecotourism accommodations. We have also been providing education to rural people that live in the vicinity of the natural and historical attractions to initiate them into the handicraft business as another way to boost the tourism business," Soelimani mentioned.



"Under the 6th Development Plan of Iran, 30 villages in the province have been chosen for tourism infrastructure development."



Dyanoosh Cheraghi, Soleimanis deputy for tourism, also spoke to Trend, saying that cultural features such as local music have proven to be of great attraction to tourists.



"Music goes deep into the lives of people in Luristan province, accompanying them in many situations such as work time, times of merriment, and times of sadness. We have seen the music attract many people in various events inside and outside the province," Cheraghi said.



Luristan province is a music-friendly land. While many national musicians have been facing problems to stage concerts in other provinces in recent years, many of them have managed to hold successful events in this province.
India will be the worlds fastest growing economy during the next five years, a top US intelligence think-tank has said while underlining that Pakistan, unable to match Indias economic prowess, will seek other methods to maintain even a semblance of balance.

Pakistan, unable to match Indias economic prowess, will seek other methods to maintain even a semblance of balance, said the report Global Trends of the National Intelligence Council (NIC), which is the centre for mid-term and long-term strategic thinking within the US Intelligence Community.

India will be the worlds fastest growing economy during the next five years as Chinas economy cools and growth elsewhere sputters, but internal tensions over inequality and religion will complicate its expansion, the report said.

In its report, the National Intelligence Council said that Pakistan will seek to maintain a diverse set of foreign partners, from which it can draw economic and security assistance, and to develop a credible nuclear deterrent by expanding its nuclear arsenal and delivery means, including battlefield nuclear weapons and sea-based options.

In its efforts to curtail militancy, Islamabad will also face multiple internal security threats, as well as a gradual degradation of equipment used in these operations, declining financial resources, and a debate over changes needed to reduce the space for extremism, it said.

While violent extremism is unlikely to present an existential threat to Pakistan during this period, it will have negative implications for regional stability, the report said.

Pakistan has introduced short-range, battlefield nuclear weapons that it has threatened to use against Indian conventional incursions, which lower the threshold for nuclear use, the report said.

NIC said Indias growing economic power and profile in the region will further complicate calculations, as New Delhi navigates relations with Beijing, Moscow, and Washington to protect its own expanding interests.

New Delhi, however, will continue to offer smaller South Asian countries a stake in Indias economic growth through development assistance and increased connectivity to Indias economy, contributing to Indias broader effort to assert its role as the predominant regional power, it added.

According to National Intelligence Council tremendous internal and external changes will shape security and political stability in South Asia in the next five years as the planned drawdown of international forces in Afghanistan; the deepening relationship between the US and India; Chinas westward-facing development objectives under its One Belt, One Road initiative; and inroads by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and other terrorist groups all have their impact.
Tamil Nadus political potboiler is expected to see an action-packed Thursday as acting governor C Vidyasagar Rao arrives in Chennai in the middle of a bitter fight between AIADMK leaders O Panneerselvam and VK Sasikala for control of the party.

Panneerselvam has alleged Sasikala forced him to resign as CM and ordered a judicial probe into the death of former chief minister J Jayalalithaa.

As counter, Sasikala has paraded the partys 134 MLAs in front of the media and packed them off to a hotel to thwart any attempts at poaching.

Here are five developments expected in the saga on Thursday:

1. The governor arrives in the afternoon and is scheduled to meet both Pannerselvam and Sasikala. Meanwhile, AIADMK MLAs, locked up in a luxury resort near Chennai will be paraded before Rao. Sasikala is expected to formally stake claim to form the government.

2. Panneerselvam, asked to continue as CM till alternate arrangements are made, will seek an interview with governor and ask for time to prove his majority on the floor of the house. OPS claims he has the support, which is growing. Of keen interest will be to see who will the governor meet first  the caretaker chief minister Panneerselvam or newly elected AIADMK legislative party leader Sasikala?

3. Students in Chennai, Coimbatore and Tiruchirapalli are planning a protest in support of Panneerselvam. People are also expected to join in the protests, similar to the massive demonstrations last month in support of Jallikattu.

4. War in AIADMK will escalate as Panneerselvam moves to block party funds. He has written to the Bank of India manager not to entertain anyone asking to withdraw money from the party account without his consent. He has insisted that he is still the party treasurer as Sasikalas appointment was illegal and therefore, she had no power to sack him.

5. Opposition DMK is in a wait-and-watch mode and might want a floor test. The DMK hopes the governor will factor in peoples sentiments and also an anticipated Supreme Court verdict in a disproportionate assets case before taking a decision on Sasikalas claims.

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Defence secretary James Mattis called his Indian counterpart Manohar Parrikar and affirmed their commitment to sustain the momentum on key bilateral defence efforts built between India and US, Pentagon press secretary Jeff Davis said.

This was the first conversation between the two leaders after Mattis was sworn in as the defence secretary of the US President Donald Trump last month.

In their first conversation, secretary Mattis committed to build upon the tremendous progress in bilateral defence cooperation made in recent years, underscoring the strategic importance of the US-India relationship and Indias role in advancing global peace and security, Davis said, after the phone call between the two leaders which took place on Wednesday.

Secretary Mattis and minister Parrikar affirmed their commitment to sustain the momentum on key bilateral defense efforts to include the defense technology and trade initiative, he said .

Read| India cautiously optimistic after Trump takes over as US president
Chinas state media on Thursday warned overseas Indians of political consequences if they interfere in the countrys internal affairs, after a US university headed by an Indian-origin academic invited exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama.

According to a report in the state-run Global Times, the University of California San Diego (UCSD) on February 2 said it has invited the 14th Dalai Lama to address the graduating students at their commencement ceremony in June.

The announcement has triggered protests from Chinese mainland students at the university, the report claimed.

By calling the Dalai Lama the exiled spiritual head and leader of the Tibetan people and a man of peace, the UCSD has shown admiration for the Buddhist monk, the paper said.

What is laughable is that the person behind the infamous invitation was campus Chancellor Pradeep Khosla, an Indian-American. The campus website posted a photo of Khosla who met the Dalai Lama in Dharmsala, India, last October. This shows how some Indian-Americans agitate China-India and China-US relations, it said.

But he is not the first and the only person to take such action. In recent years, as Indian authorities gradually offset the support for the Dalai Lama, some public organisations supporting the Buddhist monk have become more active. In 2008, many Indians and Westerners in Nepal held demonstrations in Kathmandu against the Beijing Olympic torch relay, it said.

Some Indians in European countries have also tried to lobby local officials for more opportunities for the Dalai Lama to speak to an international audience. With a clear knowledge of the Chinese governments stance toward the issue, these Indians overseas are deliberately opposing China, it said.

India is a big country in terms of public diplomacy, but if some overseas Indians make it their business to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries and treading on their sovereignty, they will bear the political consequences, it warned.

Since modern times, the Indians have enjoyed unity bestowed by the British. They ramified Pakistan, annexed Sikkim, and exploited geopolitical interests from ethnic divisions in Sri Lanka and Nepal. If the Indians indulge in the obsession of intruding on the territorial integrity of China, China will not sit still, it said.

The article also attacked the new Trump administration.

The US may have played a role in the UCSD invitation. The invitation was announced right after Rex Tillerson was sworn in as the US secretary of state. It may serve to echo Tillersons supportive stance toward Tibets Government in Exile and the Dalai Lama, it said.

If Donald Trumps administration wants to alter the consensus reached between China and the US after the end of WW-II over Tibet, they will thoroughly embarrass themselves, it said.
Singing of the English version of the national anthem at the Kota mayors school has sparked off a row as two people have written to the Rajasthan high court chief justice, alleging that the act was a dishonour to the patriotic song.

Urging the chief justice on Wednesday to treat the letter as a public interest litigation (PIL), the two said the anthem was sung during the Republic Day celebrations at the school in more than 52 seconds, the set time to finish its singing.

The mayor, who belongs to the BJP, said singing the English version of the anthem was not a violation of the rules.

The Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971 says dishonouring the national anthem will be punished with imprisonment (the term may be extended to three years) and fine.

Shiv Sen and Bhanu Singh of Kota wrote to the chief justice when a video of the anthem singing in English came out on the facebook. They have also lodged complaints with the Kota collector and the divisional commissioner.

Their counsel Dileep Sharma said, The litigants have sent a PIL to the chief justice of the high court accusing MB International School authorities of letting their staff sing the English version of the national anthem during Republic Day celebrations; the staff took 67 seconds, instead of the laid norm of 52 seconds, to finish singing, which is a violation of constitutional provisions.

Mayor and school director Mahesh Vijayvargiya said Rabindranath Tagores English rendering of the national anthem was sung at a cultural programme in the evening on the Republic Day and not during the flag hoisting. There was no disrespect to the national anthem. While the video was of 67 seconds, the anthem was sung in around 56 seconds, Vijayvargiya told HT on Thursday.

I am not sure whether the singing of the anthem is a violation. I have talked to legal experts who have said it is not a violation. If at all it is an error, I on behalf of school authorities am ready to apologise, said Dinesh Vijay, another director of the school.

Asked for his opinion on the issue, advocate Akhtar Khan Akela said, There is no clarity in the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971 and also in the Supreme Court rulings regarding singing of the national anthem in any language other than Hindi, or the time limit; so it cannot be said with certainty that singing the anthem in English or in more time is an offence. The court can take appropriate decision on it.

Article 51A(a) of the Constitution enjoins every citizen to respect the national flag and anthem. In December last year, the Supreme Court said all cinema halls across the country should play the national anthem and that those present must stand up in respect to instill a feeling within one a sense of committed patriotism and nationalism.

The order touched off a debate on whether forcing someone to sing the anthem infringes fundamental rights. Section 3 of the 1971 Act, (as amended in 2005) does not dictate whether a person should sit or stand when the anthem is playing or sung.
A murder accused awaiting trial in Sri Ganganagar central jail has accused the cops of applying electric shock to his genitals, a charge police have denied.

Pankaj Jain, 35, was arrested on January 30 for allegedly murdering a 5-year-old boy and dumping his body in a canal.

He was sent to judicial custody on January 3 and referred to the hospital for treatment on January 5.

Police said the wounds on Jains genitals were a year-old, when he was allegedly attacked with acid by the kin of his now-estranged lover. Though doctors found the injury fresh, they said it did not appear to have been caused by electric shock.

No probe has been ordered into the complaint as yet.

Central jail official Ramesh Purohit said Jain told authorities about the alleged torture a day after he was brought to the prison. The jail doctor saw cut marks on his genitals and referred him to the district hospital, Purohit added.

Dr Raghav Tantiya, surgeon at district hospital, said the wounds on Jains genitals were a result of bleeding ulcers. We did not spot entry and exit wounds generally associated with electric shock, he added.

Jain is still undergoing treatment at the hospital.

Jawahar Nagar police station house officer Shakil Ahmad, who had arrested Jain, said, A year back, Jain was living with a woman. Once, when he went to drop her home, her brothers threw acid on his genitals.

However, the district hospital doctor said the wound was not that old.

Ahmad said Jain got in the habit of calling up police and naming the woman, who he fell out with, in various crimes.

In the past, Jain had served time for rape, and was also involved in forgery and mobile phone thefts, he added.

In the latest case, the minor had gone missing on January 15 and his body recovered from a canal on January 23.

Police said Jain threw the body in the canal and later called them using a stolen SIM card, saying his former lover was responsible for the killing. He was arrested a week later.

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Abdul Mannan, the leader of the opposition, was put on an external pacemaker on Wednesday evening after he was rushed to a hospital following a scuffle with security personnel inside the West Bengal Legislative Assembly in the afternoon.

He was rushed to G D Hospital and Diabetes Institute on Lenin Sarani in central Kolkata after he fell ill, where doctors attached the pacemaker.

Mannan earned fame in 2014 when his dogged pursuit of a petition in the supreme court eventually led to the CBI investigation in the chit fund scam. The high-profile investigation into Rose Valley, Saradha, I Core and MPS group apart from a host of other entities, and the resultant political fallout, can be traced back to his efforts.

Read: Pandemonium in Bengal Assembly, leader of the opposition rushed to hospital

We had to put him on a temporary, external pacemaker since we diagnosed that his heart was heading towards a block. He would need a permanent pacemaker later. However, his condition is stable with normal blood pressure. Since he needs advance cardiac care, his family members decided to shift him to Apollo, Dr Subhasish Ganguly, under whom he was admitted in G D Hospital and Diabetes, told HT.

Officials of the Assembly said on Wednesday that a few microphones were damaged. (Subhankar Chakraborty)

Mannan was shifted him to Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals on Thursday morning.

The 65-year old Congress veteran is unmarried and lives in Hooghly district.

In the 2016 assembly polls, Mannan won from Champdany constituency, an industrial area in Hooghly district. He used to teach mathematics in a school.

On Thursday governor Keshari Nath Tripathi described the incidents inside the House on Wednesday as unfortunate.

During the day, Congress and Left MLAs continued their agitation outside the assembly. Our agitation will continue to protest the manner in which he was manhandled inside the Hoouse, said Congress leader Amitabha Chakraborty.

We are conducting joint protests, and will boycott the budget together, said CPI(M) MLA Sujan Chakraborty.

Pandemonium broke out in the Bengal Assembly on Wednesday when Mannan led a protest by opposition parties over a Bill proposed by the government to make vandals pay for any damage to public and private property.

The Congress and the Left Front are opposed to the Bill, have called it draconian and alleged that it is aimed at curbing protests. Tension was triggered after opposition MLAs pointed out that Trinamool Congress MLAs unleashed unprecedented vandalism in the assembly itself on November 30, 2006 when the Left Front was in power.

When speaker Biman Bandyopadhyay did not allow Congress and Left MLAs to enter the House carrying posters of the TMC vandalism, Mannan, defied the speaker and wore a jacket made of the posters, following which the speaker suspended Mannan for the day and asked the Marshall to take him out of the House.

While Mannan refused to leave and squatted in the well, he was forcibly taken away. He fell ill following the scuffle.

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Marine scientists from Jadavpur University in Kolkata are developing a model to predict how much Hilsa would reach the Bengali platter every year.

The model will not only tell us how much Hilsa would be available in the rivers and estuaries, but also the sustainable fishing limit. The quantity could vary from year to year depending on various factors such as availability of food (plankton), turbidity, fresh water flow, wind direction, lunar phase and sea surface temperature among others, said Sugata Hazra, director of School of Oceanographic Studies at Jadavpur University, who is leading the project.

Hilsa is often reckoned as the queen of fishes by Bengalis, most of whom are fanatic about its aroma and taste. The declining availability of hilsa is of great concern to almost all Bengalis in the country that peaks every year during the monsoons.

The obsession is such that chief minister Mamata Banerjee was flooded with requests to persuade Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to lift the ban on hilsa exports to India that Dhaka imposed in July 2012.

Work on the model is progressing and the JU team hopes to come up with the predictive model sometime later this year.

We are studying several models including Ecopath with Ecosim  a path-breaking model developed by US agency National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration  which helps scientists to accurately understand complex marine ecosystems. We are trying to come up with a single model which would allow us to predict month-wise and if possible daily availability of hilsa population in the fishing zone, he added.

Both the catch of hilsa and the size of the fishes had been dwindling over the years. Experts have pointed out various reasons behind this ranging from siltation of rivers, unbridled fishing of juvenile hilsa, pollution, loss of habitat among others. Incidentally before the Farakka barrage was built on the Ganged, hilsa was found in Hardwar too.

According to the government estimates the hilsa catch has come down from 33,102 tonnes in 2000-01 to 9,269 tonnes in 2014-15, a decline of close to 72% percent.

Hyderabad-based Indian National Center for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) under the ministry of earth sciences sends out advisories to governments and fishermen about availability and congregation of fish shoals in the sea. The JU-model would help scientists to send similar advisories for hilsa to INCOIS and the state government.

Once the model is prepared scientists would feed it with data such as availability of algae, freshwater discharge rate, rainfall, wind direction, lunar period, turbidity, depth of rivers and temperature among other information. This, in turn, would throw up data on fish availability and how much could be netted sustainably.

If can go for sustainable fishing with bans and restrictions during some months during the year and in the spawning areas, the hilsa population would recover within the next few years, said Hazra.

The Bangladesh government has already put in place stringent legislation to conserve the Hilsa population. Dozens of fishermen are arrested for fishing baby hisla (below 500 gms) every year. West Bengal is also planning to bring in similar legislation which would help authorities to arrest anyone buying or selling baby hilsa.

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Rajan Yadav alias Arthi Baba arrived on an arthi (pyre) to file his nomination papers at the Collectorate along with his supporters who carried it on their shoulder. Rajan, who decided earlier to contest election as an independent candidate, will now fight on the ticket of Sarvasambhav Party, the political outfit floated by the brother of Bollywood comedian Rajpal Yadav.

Rajan, who holds a degree in master in International business management from Gorakhpur University ,is contesting from Chauri Chaura seat of Gorakhpur . The returning officer gave more time to a candidate from the Samajwadi Party and overlooked me when I reached there for filing nomination papers. They did not take my candidature seriously and have asked me to visit again with a fresh notary, said Arthi Baba. He was referring to SP candidate Manurajan Yadav who also arrived at the collectorate to file nomination papers from the same seat. Interestingly, Arthi Baba runs his election office from a crematorium ground and begs people arriving there to raise fund for fighting elections. He also visits voters on his arthi and washes their feet with water to seek their votes . Son of a small farmer in Nandanagar, arthi baba has unsuccessfully contested two assembly election and one general election. The prevailing corruption and desire to improve the system led him join politics. An alive person on an arthi symbolises the condition of a common man who is badly affected by corruption in the system, said Rajan.
Lucknow: The Congress and the Samajwadi Party will have to work out a common agenda to work together and implement the poll promises made by them if an alliance government is formed in Uttar Pradesh.

With both the parties releasing their independent manifestoes, with different sets of promises, it would not be easy for the alliance government (if formed) to implement the same.

Although both the parties initially agreed to formulate a Common Minimum Programme (CMP) to be declared before assembly polls, Uttar Pradesh Congress president Raj Babbar said a common agenda will be worked out in a week after the formation of alliance government.

As of now, the respective manifestos are differing on many counts. While the SP promises construction of Samajwadi Poorvanchal Expressway and two new greenfield expressways to connect Bundelkhand with Terai region and Lucknow with Indo-Nepal border, the Congress manifesto promises two new highways, Ganga Highway and Yamuna Highway, to connect four corners of the state.

In continuation with the work done by the Samajwadi Party government we will continue to develop new expressways starting with Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi and Allahabad to better connect all corners of UP, read Congress manifesto released on Wednesday.

The Congress manifesto also promises commissioning of new power projects while the SP promises completion of ongoing ones.

The Congress manifesto makes a mention of promises of Qarza maaf, bijli half for farmers. It expects the centre to fulfill the promise of loan waiver for farmers and promises to bring down their power bills to half. The SP government, however, have promised subsidy on power bills of private tube wells.

The Congress and SP manifestoes list different priorities on issues concerning law and order.

While the Congress promises new law to check hate crime and talks of police reforms, appointment of an ombudsman and criminal injuries compensation board, the SP manifesto speaks about providing facilities and promotions to policemen and implementation of UP 100 scheme in all the districts.

Both the parties have a common promise of setting up women police stations in every district though they may differ on number of police stations promised there.

The Congress manifesto speaks about abolition of entry tax and rationalization of other taxes, the SP manifesto instead promises ease of doing business and abolition of inspector raj in the state.

Efforts on to fight friendly fights

Congress general secretary (incharge UP) Ghulam Nabi Azad on Wednesday said efforts were being made to ensure that Congress and Samajwadi Party candidates did not fight an election against each other and a solution may be found in three to four days.

Azad was replying to questions from journalists at the UPCC headquarters here after releasing his partys manifesto for the 2017 assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.

Replying to another question, Azad said the BJP had been raising controversial issues during elections. The BJP should not use religion for political purposes, he said. The Supreme Court should take note of certain promises made by the BJP in its poll manifesto, he said.

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 9



By Khalid Kazimov  Trend



Mohammad Hashemi, a brother to Irans Former President Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, has refused rumors suggesting that the late official was assassinated.



Mohammad Hashemi has said his brother was neither assassinated nor strangled, ISNA news agency reported.



The ex-president passed away at a swimming pool due to a heart failure, Hashemi added. According to the sibling, the ex-president never let his bodyguards accompany him in swimming pool.



Irans former president and the chairman of Expediency Council of the country, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani passed away aged 82 on Jan. 8.




Amethi: The Nehru-Gandhi family bastion of Amethi is on the brink of a queen-size electoral battle in which two residents of Bhupati Bhavan, the royal home of Amethis erstwhile ruling family, are set to be pitted against each other despite living in the same palace.

Rani Garima Singh, estranged wife of Congress Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Sinh is already in the fray as a BJP candidate from the Amethi assembly seat. Sanjay Sinhs wife Rani Amita Singh is set to file her nomination as a Congress candidate from the same seat on Thursday.

Sanjay Sinh is scion of the royal family here and known popularly as the Raja of Amethi.

Garima Singh, who stayed away from Amethi for many years in view of her estrangement from her husband, has not spoken much so far.

She returned to the palace with her son Anant Vikram Singh and two daughters a few months after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. But, she has remained away from the public glare. Her silence appears to be working as her main strength now.

We look towards the royal palace for directions on important issues. As two ranis will contest the poll against each other, its going to be a difficult situation for all of us. We know Rani Garima Singh is fighting for her rights in the palace. So, she has a lot of public sympathy, says a fruit vendor who does not want to be named.

Amita Singh, who has represented the constituency in the past and lost the 2012 assembly election to UP minister Gayatri Prasad Prajapati, has been the peoples link to the royal house over the years with her husband.

She has developed a strong network and consistently worked in the constituency.

The Congress and the Samajwadi Party are allies, a factor that normally would have worked in her favour. But the battle will not be an easy one as Prajapati is the sitting MLA from the seat and the anti-incumbency factor may be working against him. Besides taking on Prajapati and other candidates, Amita Singh may have to counter the sympathy that Garima Singh may generate in her favour during the campaign.

All our relatives are reaching Amethi to join my mothers campaign but they are not being allowed inside the palace. Anybody entering the palace has to go through many levels of security checks. This is a big hindrance, says Garima Singhs son and BJP leader Anant Vikram Singh.

If Amita Singh fights the poll against Prajapati, the division of votes may work in favour of her adversaries.

Any alliance may work on 402 out of 403 assembly seats of Uttar Pradesh. But, in Amethi, the people decide votes on the basis of the candidate. The SPs votes will not be transferred to the Congress if the party gets to contest the seat. The Congress voters will not be transferred to the SP if Prajapati contests the poll as a candidate of the alliance, says Sadashiv Pandey, an Amethi-based lawyer..

Infighting is being witnessed in the Amethi royal house now. But Rani Garima Singh is contesting the election for the first time and this may work to her advantage, he says.

Sanjay Singh and Amita Singh were not available for comment.

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Si3

Director: Hari

Cast: Suriya, Anushka Shetty, Shruti Haasan

Rating: 2/5

Much like when you walk into a film screening of a James Bond adventure or, closer home, a Rajinikanth starrer, you would know exactly what to expect when you troop into a movie that has Suriya. And a Suriya as Singam or Lion  and that too as a cop  can only push the film in a singularly unilateral direction. The man has to be squeaky clean, putting to shame a force where corruption rules with unbelievably high-handedness. Not only is Singam honest, sincere and dedicated, but he is also so strong that he is equated with a lion  with the actor ever so often leaping into the air before he bangs his opponent with his outstretched palm. Just like the king of the forest, Singam is the undisputed monarch in his territory. Which has been expanding.

Durai Singam  that is the full name of the character which the actor portrays  has grown since his first appearance in Singam 1  which strove to weave a balance between his familys sentiments and his own arrival into the big city of Chennai. Singam chooses the khaki as his sole identity and principle in life. Singam 2 saw Suriya chasing criminals across the Tamil Nadu border  in what was a clear indication of his rising powers and expanding turf.

In the third of the series, shortened stylistically to Si3, Suriyas Durai Singam is a Deputy Commissioner of Police in Chennai who is asked to help solve the murder of the Andhra Pradesh Commissioner of Police. When someone quips why ask a Tamil Nadu policeman to come over, pat comes the reply: Because Singam is forthright, dedicated and unimaginably daring. And may I add, unbelievably strong, so strong that he can race past a truck, jump down several storeys with not a scratch to his body and take on dozens of pistol-toting and knife-wielding men, each looking more evil than the other.

Singam lands in Vishakhpatnam, the scene of the murder, and soon smells a huge racket involving an Indian businessman (with an Australian passport and an Indian Minister for a father)  who dumps into the Indian backyard Australian medical waste and medicines past their expiry. Children die when they inhale the smoke from the waste that is burnt. A policeman faints when he takes a spurious pill from Australia. The culprit of this game is Vittal, and Singam  with the help of a few honest cops  breaks into a seemingly impregnable fortress of crime and corruption, greed and inhuman callousness.

The movie is one long chase of 156 minutes  punctuated for brief moments by a night club dance number and a Shruti Haasan as an investigative reporter, Vidya, in love with a Singam, happily married to Anushka Shettys Kavya. These romantic or marital interludes appear more like an excuse to attract women audiences to the film, which is otherwise tryingly violent, with a camera that could well put to shame an overly hyperactive kid. The only time the camera breathes easy is when Singam gets into his preachy best  forcefully reminding the villains and the traitors that India is a great country. Not one huge garbage bin that men like Vittal treat, dumping into it the poisonous filth and dirt from another nation, Australia in this case. (As I walked out of the cinema, I was wondering whether the Australian Government would take umbrage over this.)

Honestly, Si 3 seems quite jaded with nothing really different to offer from the earlier editions. And Suriya looks positively tired, a tad uninterested and mechanical as well. After all, there was nothing refreshing about this roar.

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1. Goa Highway accident: 7 youngsters from Mumbai cremated

Hundreds of Vile Parle residents thronged the Chakala crematorium for the last rites of the seven men killed in the Mumbai-Goa Highway accident. The funeral was carried out at Parsiwada near the Western Express Highway on Thursday morning.

2. Thane: ST bus driver dies of heart attack after being assaulted by autorickshaw driver

A state transport (ST) bus driver died of a heart attack after he was assaulted by an autorickshaw driver at Bhiwandi on Thursday. The two fought after their vehicles collided, said the police.

3. Jiah Khan case: HC rejects Rabias plea for probe by special investigation team

The Bombay high court on Thursday rejected the plea filed by Rabia Khan  mother of late actor Jiah Khan  seeking that a special investigation team (SIT) be constituted to probe the case of her daughters death.

4. Shiv Sena ministers meet Maharashtra CM demanding farm loan waiver

Keeping up the pressure on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led state government, a delegation of Shiv Sena ministers met chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Wednesday night to give him a memorandum demanding a loan waiver for farmers.

5. Tuition teachers husband held for molesting one of her 9-year-old students

The Ghatkopar police arrested a 60-year-old man on Wednesday for allegedly molesting a 9-year-old girl who went to his house for tuitions. The police said the girl lives in the same area as the accused and was taught by his wife.
Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray says a post-election alliance with the BJP is unlikely, and when there is no relation or meaning within an alliance, searching for a reason for its existence is pointless. The party chief, however, said he needs a breathing period to decide whether to continue Shiv Senas support to the BJP at the state level, and a decision is likely only after the civic body elections.

Excerpts from Thackerays interview with HT:

The BJP achieved significant success in the municipal council polls, and has been enjoying a wave of popularity. Dont you think it is a major threat to the Sena in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls?

Yes, they did achieve success in the municipal council polls, but a month later, the result of the legislative council elections to the teachers and graduates constituencies was exactly the opposite. Within a month, peoples opinions have changed, and if they have changed to such an extent in just one month, imagine how much they can change in another month.

You are fighting now, but may come together to rule the Mumbai civic body after the elections.

Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray at an election rally in Mulund. (HT Photo)

Unlikely. We had an alliance for 25 years until the Assembly elections and it was not just a seat-sharing pact. We had relations. We had a connection with Atalji, Advaniji, Gopinathji (Munde). Sentimentally, it was difficult for us to break these relations. The BJP called off the alliance then. Now over the past 2-2.5 years, we have been seeing that instead of completing their promises, they are doing something else. Instead of bringing back black money stashed in Swiss banks, they implemented demonetisation and brought the common man on the streets. Where there used to be saintly people on the dais of the BJP, now there are goons. This change is not affordable. Now tomorrow, if instead of Shankaracharya, they make Dawoodacharya (underworld don Dawood Ibrahim), should we bow down to him? BJP has become like a kumbh mela. Take a dip and purify yourself.

So, we will have to seriously think for how long we should stay with this party at what all places, or whether we should even stay with them at all.

You think your party will get a majority on its own in Mumbai civic elections?

100 per cent. People are happy. They are happy because the alliance has been broken, and they are happy because I am saying what is in their minds aloud.

The Shiv Sena has said the state government is on a notice period. How long is this notice period likely to be?

Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray feels the meaning of the alliance with the BJP has been lost. (File)

The notice is still being typed. Why is an alliance forged? If in the alliance, the relation, the meaning is lost, then the reason is lost. If our path is not agreeable to you, your path is not agreeable to me, why look for a reason? So I think first let us get over with the municipal corporation elections, then we can assess this entire situation. I need a breathing period to think about it and take an informed decision.

BJP leaders say the Shiv Senas constant criticism of the government in Saamana fuelled the differences between the two parties. What would you say to that?

Uddhav Thackeray with PM Narendra Modi and CM Devendra Fadnavis at the jalpoojan for Shivaji memorial in Mumbai in December. (File)

Any criticism of mine has not been personal. It has been about policies. For example, my criticism was on the land acquisition bill, it was on certain sections of the Goods and Services Tax, on the issue of Hindutva I criticised the BJPs alliance with Mufti Mohammad Sayeed. I did not criticise Narendra Modi. I criticised demonetisation. It is my right to criticise policies. I have not called anyone a mafia.

There are about 40-odd wards where the majority of the population comprises Gujaratis and have been contested by the BJP until now. How does the Shiv Sena see its performance there?

In 1985, the Shiv Sena contested the BMC elections alone and came to power. In 1997, for the first time, the BJP and Shiv Sena had an alliance for the civic body for Hindutva. We decided that the Marathi wards can be with us, some Gujarati and North Indian wards can be with them, so that we can contest without splitting any Hindu votes. We didnt interfere in their wards. We said, you are contesting there, so we are not worried. Our shakha there will help you. After many years, all 227 wards are now open and people speaking different languages in different wards have started coming to us. Some Gujaratis, North Indians, Muslims have come. They came by themselves, and why should one say no?

Over the years there has been an impression that the Shiv Sena has been anti-Gujarati. How are you battling that impression?

Those wards were with the BJP, and to say we were anti-Gujarati is not right. Take Raj Purohit, for example, we helped him. We helped Atul Shah. We even helped Mangal Prabhat Lodha at one point of time. Havent we also helped Kirit Somaiya? Even the last time, I was pulled into the campaigning for Kirit. So, it is just that the wards were with them.

Is there any possibility of a tie-up with the MNS?

After so many years, the Shiv Sena has started progressing by itself, why look back?

Read | Hardik Patel as Shiv Senas face for Gujarat polls? Uddhav Thackeray says why not

Do you think the recent defections and internal rebellion might cause a dent to the party?

No, I dont think so. Ultimately people want work done, and a party that does work. A party that takes responsibility. Now, most who had filed independent nominations have withdrawn them. What happens is, some people are new to the party and we gave them candidature at a few places. At a few other places we could not accommodate a few other people. One should also understand their mindsets. They too have aspirations.

What is the significance of your meeting with Hardik Patel on Tuesday?

Gujarat Patidar leader Hardik Patel with Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray and his son Aditya Thackeray at their Bandra residence on Tuesday. (Vijayanand Gupta/HT PHOTO)

Hardik Patel had wanted to come and visit since long. He is still young and he himself says that he has not established any political outfit of himself and has not even given it a thought. His meeting yesterday was important from the point of view of his devotion to Balasaheb. He seems very thorough and will grow a lot. What I feel bad about is that you brand such a person as a traitor. He might be erring, but why would you err? Should people not speak against you at all? You can declare him as a traitor and then form relations with leaders like Mufti. This is wrong.

Will he be your face in Gujarat?

I did say that he could, but to begin with he has no political party of himself. I dont know if he can even contest at the age of 23, but going forward if he is going to develop as a leader and fight, why shouldnt I back him?

Read | How the polite, shy Uddhav Thackeray made the Shiv Sena roar

You are facing flak for bad roads in Mumbai? Why is the condition of the citys roads so sad?

I am not saying that I have managed to make Mumbais roads pothole-free. The responsibility of Mumbais roads doesnt lie only with the BMC. The PWD and MMRDA (state agencies) also look at some of Mumbais roads. The neglect of roads by them is also often blamed on the BMC. The BMC every year maintains and cements roads in the city, but there are utilities that lie underground to provide various services and the agencies that provide these services keep digging Mumbais roads for various works. I have discussed this with successive CMs. My demand is that make it a centralised command.

What about the allegations of widespread corruption in road contracts, and inferior quality works?

The same people who made the allegations gave a Metro contract to a contractor blamed for these road works. They have given contracts to companies blacklisted by the BMC. The standing committee meetings are anyway transparent. One has to award contracts to the lowest bidder otherwise he will challenge it in courts. Also, corporators have no role in awarding contracts. Awarding tenders is the administrations work. Corporators dont have any role to play in it. Also, if corporators reject a particular proposal, the municipal commissioner can overturn the decision. To begin with, the administration brings the proposal. A corporator doesnt bring a proposal. Now, all works of the BMC are available online for the publics perusal. So, bring transparency in the state government too by putting up remarks of all ministers and secretaries online. Bring transparency in that. Put file notes online.

There are many freebies in your manifesto, such as waiver of property tax for houses up to 500 square feet and a rebate for those up to 700 square feet. There has been criticism about why these are being promised only before elections, and why these were not implemented despite the Shiv Sena being at the helm of the BMC for 20 years.

hiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, son Aaditya and other party leaders launch the partys manifesto for the BMC polls on January 23, 2017. (Arijit Sen/HT PHOTO)

That way, one should speak about the promises that other parties are making as well. For example, the Ram Mandir issue in Uttar Pradesh. We dont do that. We have implemented everything that we have promised. This time I felt after collecting property tax for so many years we have reached a comfortable financial state. So there is no reason to keep collecting property tax from these people. So, we have not decided to scrap it. Also, it is not just property tax. It comprises 8 to 10 different taxes  a general tax, an education cess, a street tax. Now on street tax, the BJP says it will waive that and on the other hand the party says it will maintain the level of the property tax. How will they keep the property tax stable on one hand, but scrap the street tax on the other?

But do you know the cost of a sop like scrapping property tax. Wont it affect the BMCs revenue, especially when revenue from octroi too is likely to go with the introduction of the GST?

It is true that the scrapping of taxes will impact the BMCs revenue, but there are other provisions that I have thought of. It is feasible even if octroi is scrapped. I have studied everything and only then made promises. I have three major promises  rebate in property tax, free bus travel for uniformed students and a healthcare schemethat can impact finances, but I have made them only after studying the entire situation. I am not saying I will make water free because we cannot manufacture water, and realise what the cost of procuring water is. During drought if we did not have Middle Vaitarna dam, we would have been in a fix. Even now, we dont have permissions for Gargai and Pinjal dams.

If the Shiv Sena comes to power in the state, would you want to be the chief minister?

Honestly, I dont have such dreams. I dont have personal dreams. My one dream is to get a Shiv Sena chief minister in Maharashtra. But I am not one to run away from responsibility. If it suddenly comes up, I will step forward. But that is not my personal dream. In 2014, there was a sudden situation that demanded me to step up.

Read more: Maharashtra CM only cares about destroying Shiv Sena: Uddhav Thackeray

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Bharatiya Janata Party MP Kirit Somaiya on Thursday challenged Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray to come clean by declaring his family assets and income. Somaiya also alleged that Sena leaders were acting like godfathers of the dumping mafia and thats the reason the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had failed to close the Mulund dumping ground despite strictures and directives from the Bombay high court.

Somaiyas retort comes after Shiv Sena MP Shewale accused the former of taking up the Mulund dumping ground issue at the behest of a local developer.

Is Uddhav Thackeray not closing down the Mulund dump because he is getting hafta (extortion money) from the nullah-cleaning and dumping mafia, questioned Somaiya.

I will release all my financial statements of my entire family to a chartered accountant named by Thackeray. I have not taken a single rupee from any developer or anyone else nor have I indulged in money laundering by trying to route money through Calcutta-based shell companies. Similarly, Shewale and Uddhav Thackeray should give all their financial statements and papers to a CA and make them public, he added.

While Somaiya levelled allegations, he did not bolster it with any new papers. He referred to the BMCs report on the desilting scam dated August 31, 2015 to show how contractors had raised fake bills for the lifting and dropping of silt by giving details of the same car number. The report showed that many of the vehicle numbers provided by the contractors further showed that they belonged to two-wheelers, private cars.

The BJP MP said his party will set up a special inquiry commission to prove all such scams within 100 days of their coming to power in the BMC after which action would be recommended against those involved with the state government.

Going by the number of scams BJP has promised to investigate so far, it seems unlikely that such inquiries can be completed until the end of their governments tenure in 2019. The high-decibel Mumbai civic polls is likely to see more such allegations and counter allegations between the Sena and BJP over the running of the Rs 37,000 crore civic body. Ironically, BJP has been a ruling partner albeit junior in the civic body for the past 15 years with Sena.

Read more: Mumbai civic polls: Can BJP keep its transparency promise?

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The Mumbai suburban collector on Wednesday asked the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (Mhada) to register police complaints against the owners of 53 Versova bungalows, including actor Kapil Sharma, who destroyed mangrove forests in their backyard to illegally expand their homes. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has been directed to demolish illegal extensions over the next month.

Mhada, which owns the land, has to file first-information-reports (FIRs) at the local police station. HT had reported on January 9 that notices were sent to owners of bungalows regarding illegal extensions to their homes by destroying mangroves, a violation under the Environment Protection Act (EPA), 1986. The bungalows, which line a one-km stretch, had been given two weeks to respond to the notices. While some responded, authorities were not happy with the explanations.

In a meeting with the state mangrove cell, the BMC and a representative from Mhada on Wednesday, the final order was passed to BMC and Mhada to initiate action, said Deependra Singh Kushwa, Mumbai suburban collector.

He said the decision was taken after an investigation that began in September. We gave the residents ample opportunity to either rectify their stance by coming forward and destroying the illegal extensions or present us with relevant documents that allowed them to make those extensions. Since they failed, final action has now been initiated, said Kushwa.

The violation in this area first came to light in September when the mangrove cell had submitted a report to the Mumbai suburban collectors office, regarding destruction of mangroves by Sharma. On September 18, the Andheri tehsildar (revenue official) ensured that an FIR was filed against Sharma by the Versova police in violation of Environment Protection Act, 1986.

HT had first reported in November that the mangrove cell submitted a report highlighting 66 of 73 bungalows having illegal extensions less than 50m away from thick mangrove cover. In 2005, the Bombay high court banned the destruction of statewide mangroves and construction within 50m of them. In 2014, the HC banned all reclamation and construction on wetlands in 2014. After field investigations and several reports were compiled by the collectors office, 53 of 66 bungalows were identified to have violated EPA.

MHADA officials said they had already instructed the civic body to start demolishing the illegal structures. We have not received the final order yet, but our office has already communicated to the BMC to take down the illegal extensions. Once we receive the order, further action from our end will be initiated, said a senior Mhada official.

Read more:

Bombay HC asks for Google Maps images to assess extent of damage to mangroves

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The impact of illegal sand mining is being felt at Raigad district in Maharashtra too. Mumbai-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) Awaaz Foundation identified 25 trees uprooted by alleged mechanical dredging at Nandgaon beach, located 130 km south of the city.

The NGO filed a complaint with the Raigad district collector and Konkan divisional commissioner on Thursday, highlighting the erosion caused by sand mining. The complaint states that the illegal activity also resulted in a drop in the level of the beach near Alibaug.

HT had reported on Tuesday that after the NGO identified illegal sand mining at several locations at Raigad, the state government drafted an action plan to prevent the activity across the district.

Illegal sand mining is not only confined to select creeks or beaches in Raigad, but is spreading to remote beaches too. Beaches around Alibaug are promoted as tourist destinations, however, sand mining directly affects the interface between land and sea. If the mining continues, these beaches will vanish, said Sumaira Abdulali, convener, Awaaz Foundation.

As miners usually depend on cows to transport the sand, she added that the presence of hoof marks in the area indicated that the illegal activity was ongoing.

In 2014, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had banned sand mining in the coastal regions of several states, including Maharashtra, citing its harmful impact on the environment. In 2016, the ban was lifted in the states coastal districts of Sindhudurg, Ratnagiri, Raigad and Thane, after the state promised the NGT that it would take steps to protect the environment.

However, Bombay high court and Supreme Court orders, as well as a coastal regulation zone (CRZ) notification, make it clear that mining sand from beaches  in any circumstances  is prohibited across the country.

Officials from the local district collectors office said they will investigate. We have not received the complaint yet. However, beach sand mining is a serious issue. We have started cracking down on such sites with the help of the police and home guards. A team will be deputed to Nandgaon, said a senior official.

HT had reported in May last year that sand mining at Kihim had led to a 70% decline and 10-feet drop in sand at the beach.

Officials from the state environment department said they were keeping a watch on illegal sand mining across the state. Collectors from each district were asked to file reports regarding what steps they took against violators after the action plan was implemented. We will take stock of the situation soon, said Satish Gavai, principal secretary, state environment department.

Why you should care

Sand mining is a major environmental concern, which may threaten the existence of more than 70% of the worlds beaches. It is likely to contribute to major land erosion, compromising water security, affecting climate and causing fatal calamities.

Read

Maharashtra government to act against illegal sand mining in Raigad

Rasta roko in Vasai to protest action against sand dredging

Spot illegal sand mining in your area? Send email to environment ministry

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Arshi Qureshi, a guest relations officer with the banned Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), radicalised Ashfak Majeed, one of several young men who left India to join the Islamic State (ISIS) terror group in 2015, at meetings he used to conduct at IRFs Dongri centre, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) claimed in its charge sheet, filed on Thursday.

NIAs 4,000-page charge sheet against Qureshi was based on a complaint filed by Ashfaks father Abdul Khan, a businessman from Nagpada. Khan had alleged in his complaint that his son had been radicalised by Qureshi; Mohammad Haneef, a maulavi from Kerala; and Rizwan Khan, another suspect in the case. It is alleged that apart from Ashfak, the accused radicalised 21 other young men from Kerala who allegedly went on to join ISIS.

Khan alleged that the accused also helped his son and the others flee India to join ISIS. The agency did not include Haneef and Khan in the charge sheet, saying the investigation against them is still in progress. It does, however, name Abdul Rashid Abdulla as a wanted accused as he allegedly left India to join ISIS after influencing other youngsters.

In its charge sheet, the NIA accused Qureshi of misusing his position in IRF to influence people of other faith to embrace Islam. Investigation has established that Qureshi was using his official position in IRF to influence people from other religions to embrace Islam. He used to selectively pick practices and rituals of other religions to compare with Islam and during the process used to motivate them for Hijrah (Haj). He used to tell them that Hijrat is the duty of every Muslim. These teachings influenced Ashfaq, Bestin alias Yashia, and Marrin alias Mariyam to leave their homes, later to join ISIS, read the charge sheet.

The agency claimed that Ashfak met Qureshi while he was in Mumbai. Ashfak used to give reference of Qureshi to youths from his village as the authority on Islam and a guide to follow true Islam. He also used to give reference of Sunday meetings held at IRFs Dongri officer in Mumbai to young people of his village. Soon Ashfak came under the influence of Qureshi. Ashfak, Shihas, Hafesudheen, Bestin alias Yahia, his wife Merrin alias Mariyam, Bexen alias Isa used to visit IRF office at Dongri as well as residence of Qureshi at Vashi, Navi Mumbai in the year 2014-2015, the agencys charge sheet claimed.

Also read: Arshi Qureshi arranged for funds for ISIS recruits: Mumbai crime branch

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Abdul Rashid Abdulla, wanted in connection with the Kerala ISIS case, used collective farming as a disguise to bring together and radicalise young Muslim men who allegedly went on to join ISIS. Abdulla had also voiced his support for the attack on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo in 2015, according to the charge sheet filed by National Investigation Agency.

The agency claimed that Rashid had been employed with Peace Foundation, Kozhikode, as head of its other cognitive areas department since 2012, and that he would criticise democracy during discussions with colleagues. They also supported the Charlie Hebdo attack in France and Abdul Rashid argued in support of it, read the charge sheet.

Rashid also took the initiative for collective farming for the group on a piece of land at Kavumpuram, Mallapuram district, Kerala, to practice living a pure Islamic way of life. At this farm, after farming work, the group used to read religious book, offer prayer, discuss on debated topic like views on Islamic work, views on ISIS ideologies, read the charge sheet. It was during this period the men hatched a plan to leave India, the agency claimed.

Also read: ISIS case: Police claim Kerala cleric Haneef sent messages to Middle East

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A 29-year-old man from Nashik received a heart through a transplant financed by the chief ministers relief fund.

The patient, who has dilated cardiomyopathy, where the hearts capacity to pump blood decreases, got the transplant from a 25-year-old man from Colaba, who was declared brain-dead after a fatal Haemorrhage.

The donors family also donated the kidneys, which helped two other end-stage kidney patients in the city. Doctors form Fortis Hospital, Mulund, said the recipient was waitlisted for three weeks. The transplant team retrieved the heart from Wockhardt Hospital, Mumbai Central, on Thursday morning. With the help of a green corridor, the team reached Fortis Hospital at 4.52am, covering 34km in 22 minutes. A team of doctors from Jaslok Hospital retrieved one kidney and a patient at Wockhardt received the other. Hospital officials said that surgery was financed by the CMs Relief Fund as the patient was from a poor family.

The surgeries cost about Rs 20 lakh and the patient was from an underprivileged background. They had approached the CM for financial help and the state is slated to bare the expenses, the officials said.

This young donors family deserves highest appreciation for having saved multiple lives through their noble gesture  they help us build a strong testimony, that patients with end-stage heart failure have hope. Our young recipient is now stable and will be observed for the next 48-72 hours in the ICU, said Dr Anvay Mule, head of the cardiac transplant team at Fortis.

This was the citys 37th heart transplant surgery since August 2015, and the second heart transplant surgery of 2017.

READ MORE

2016: When Mumbai mastered the act of giving
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 9

By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:

Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan has said the Americans new claim on Irans missile test is aimed at spreading Iranophobia, describing the reports as fake.

He advised Irans southern neighbors to avoid believing such reports, adding that Iran has never posed any threat against the Persian Gulf countries, IRNA news agency reported.

The minister further termed the reports on Irans new missile tests as psychological warfare aimed at boosting the US weapon sales to the Arab states of the Persian Gulf.

Fox News on Feb. 8 claimed that Iran launched another missile Wednesday from the same launch pad east of Tehran where it conducted a previous ballistic missile test last month.

The officials from Iran and the US have recently exchanged sharp criticism over several reports on the Islamic Republics recent missile tests.

Earlier on Feb. 2 Iran confirmed that the country test-fired a missile.
In a bid to increase voter turnout, the state government, on the directives of the state election commission (SEC), announced a holiday on polling days  February 16 or 21  in the jurisdiction of the 10 civic bodies, 25 zilla parishads and 283 panchayat samitis going to polls.

The government has also directed private establishments, including malls, hotels, IT firms to either announce a holiday on polling day or at least grant a window of two hours for employees to vote.

The state government in its notification issued on Wednesday has declared a holiday for its employees on both polling days.

About 80% of the 8.35 crore voters in the state, including about 12 lakh government employees, will vote on these two days.

In a government resolution issued by the industries and labour department last week, the government also directed private establishments, including shops, malls, multiplexes, information and technology firms, hotels to announce a paid leave for their employees. The order further clarifies that in the case of heavy losses because of the holiday, the establishments may opt give them a window of two hours to vote.

The government was also thinking of declaring a holiday in the neighbouring areas, which have no elections as residents employed in those areas may be from districts or corporations having the elections. For instance, the Panvel corporation is not going to polls, but there may be offices there employing people from Thane or Mumbai, the corporations of which are going to polls, said an official said.

JS Saharia, state election commissioner, told HT, In a city like Mumbai, where people travel for hours to reach office, it becomes inevitable to have a holiday or a concession during working hours, he said.

However, Nitai Mehta, founder trustee of Praja, said, Two hours off is okay, but shutting the government for polling is a bad idea. Responsible citizens will vote anyway. I dont think this will help in improving the voting percentage, .

Voter turnout in past three elections (in %)

2002 2007 2012

BMC 43.25 46.05 44.75

Thane 43.13 56.66 53.26

Ulhasnagar 37.40 41.31 42.19

Nashik 55.40 58.2 57.19

Pune 50.81 52.82 50.92

Nagpur 49.07 56.28 52.00

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BMC polls: Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray should declare family assets and income, says Kirit Somaiya

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Revenue department officials tried to seal the Malvani depot of the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking (BEST) along with bank accounts on Thursday. This was done to recover pending cost of the depot land.

A team of the Borivli tehsildar office sealed the record room and other offices at the depot and had also tried sealing the BEST bank account but it was put on hold after an interaction between higher officials of BEST and the suburban collector office.

BEST officials said that this did not affect bus operations. Sources, however, said that the operations were hit for a brief period.

BEST has pending dues for a 40,467.24 sqm land that is reserved for a bus depot and staff quarters in P-west ward.

According to BEST, the undertaking had taken possession of only 28,024 sqm of the land from the Maharashtra Housing Area Development Authority (MHADA) in April 1986. They had paid all dues for the land at that time and built the depot and staff quarters on it later.

An offocial from BEST said that the revenue department was asking BEST to pay Rs10 crore, along with interest, for all of the land, when it had already paid its dues at the time of possession.

As BEST has already paid the value for 28,024 sqm of the land to MHADA, the government should recover the amount from the authority, said the official. He added that the decision on handing over the remaining land to BEST was still pending with the government.

The revenue department, however, said that the government owns the land, but it had not received payment from BEST. As BEST claimed that it had paid the MHADA, we put our action on hold, said Deependra Singh Kushwah, collector of Mumbai suburban district.

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Despite more schools offering admissions under the Right to Education (RTE), the number of seats has dropped by 22% this year. The reason: most schools have chosen Class 1 as their admission entry-point instead of pre-primary. Activists are concerned that this will deprive children from economically and socially weaker sections, who have a 25% quota in seats, of early childhood education.

In the admission process, which began on Thursday, only 7,449 seats in 334 schools are open for free admissions to economically and socially weaker sections this year, significantly less compared to 9,664 seats across 317 schools last year.

Out of the total intake, just 1,884 are pre-primary seats, while the rest are for class 1. Last year, this number was at 3,359 seats.

This is a result of the new admission rules applicable from January that allow schools to choose their own entry-level. Till last year, schools had to begin intake at their actual starting point, which was nursery or junior kindergarten in most cases.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) education officials, who conduct the admission process, said schools prefer Class 1 because the government doesnt reimburse them for expenses incurred in pre-primary as it is an unregulated sector.

If given a choice between admitting children in kindergarten or two years later in Class 1, private schools will obviously choose kindergarten, said a senior official not wanting to be named.

Schools said they incurred heavy losses in the last two years when they were forced to admit RTE students in pre-primary.

We were under tremendous financial strain because we were giving away 25% of our seats for free, said Amol Dhamdhere, vice-president of the Indian Education Society, which runs multiple schools in Mumbai.

Activists said the new rules will deprive children from economically weaker of pre-primary education.

These kids cannot afford pre-schools on their own as they too charge exorbitant fees. And, without early childhood education, their basics will not be strengthened and they are likely to lag in academics when they enrol for Class 1, said Sudhir Paranjape, activist from NGO Anudanit Shiksha Bachao Samiti.

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Mumbai schools cannot cross-verify documents of RTE students: BMC

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The death of seven people after the car they were travelling in crashed into a tree on the Mumbai-Goa highway in Ratnagiri has once again raised a question on the safety of motorists on the busy road.

According to the police, 1,000 accidents take place on this road every year on an average. In 2015 alone, 174 people died in 1,088 accidents and over 2,000 people were injured.

In May last year, seven people, including an eight-year-old boy, died after their car rammed into a bus on the highway near Mangaon in Raigad.

Several accident-prone areas on the stretch have been identified by the police, but according to a source, the government has done nothing to make the road safer. After conducting a survey, the Raigad police identified as many as 55 extremely dangerous areas and have written to the state. They are yet to get a response from the state.

The police said most accidents take place because of speeding. The motorists drive at a high speed and lose control of their vehicles most of the time. Many of them do not wear seat belts. The absence of streetlights has also been identified as a reason behind frequent accidents, said Vijay Kadvane, police inspector of Panvel traffic unit.

Another reason for accidents on this road is the expansion work. Because of the road-widening project, certain stretches have turned into bottlenecks. Apart from creating traffic issues, these areas have become virtual death traps for motorists, said a senior police officer from the Raigad traffic department. The pace of the work is also extremely slow, according to a source.

The National Highway Authority of India is widening the road by demolishing structures on either side. Because of this project, the breadth of the road has been reduced posing more threat to the motorists.

The road, which has no dividers, is narrow at several places and there are sharp turns just before or after these patches have made them accident-prone areas. Lohar Mal is one such area that has seen several accidents in the past one year. Some other places are the Lonere stretch, Sukheli village, Pui village that see accidents almost every other day, said Manoj Mhatre, traffic in-charge, Raigad district.

According to Mhatre, most accidents take place when drivers try to overtake each other. Owing to the absence of a divider, drivers end up colliding with vehicles coming from the opposite direction during an overtaking manoeuvre, he said.

Read

7 killed, 1 hurt as speeding car rams into tree on Mumbai-Goa Highway

7 killed in accident on Mumbai-Goa highway

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In seven districts of western Maharashtra, at least 75 political leaders of major parties have fielded their family members for the Zilla Parishad elections, underlining even local body elections are not immune to dynastic politics.

The unflattering trend was at a full display on Tuesday, the last day to file nominations for the polls which will be held by the end of this month. All major political parties, including the BJP, Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP are contesting without any formal alliance.

Besides siting MPs, MLAs and ministers, former lawmakers have also picked their family members from their pockets of strength.

Some of the prominent names who have launched their relatives include Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar, former minister Patangrao Kadqm of Congress, Bharatiya Janta Party MP Sanjay Patil, cooperation minister Vijay Deshmukh, Leader of the Opposition Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil of Congress, Sena MP Sadashiv Lokhande, Legislative Council Speaker Ramraje Naik Nimbalkar, former Assembly speaker Dilip Valse Patil of NCP and NCP MLA Shahsikant Shinde.

In Kolhapur, supporters of Congress leader PN Patil insisted that his son Rahul contest the election. Rahul complied with the demand.

In Solapur, NCP MLA Babanrao Shinde has fielded his two sons  Ranjit and Vikramsinh  from two separate constituencies. Bharat Bhelke of NCP from the same district has managed to bag a ticket for his son Bhagirath while state minister Vijay Deshmukh has secured a ticket for his son Kiran.

Former industries minister and senior Congress leader Parangrao Kadam has fielded his son-in-law Mahendra Lad and daughter-in-law Vaishali from Sangli district. Kadam had fielded his elder brother, Mohanrao, for the Legislative Council election and managed to win it. Devraj Patil, nephew of NCP leader Jayant Patil, is also in the fray while BJP MP from Sangli Sanjaykaka Patil has got a party ticket for his uncle DR Patil.

In Ahmednagar, which is known for cooperative sugar mills, a majority of sitting and former lawmakers have won the tickets for their relatives. They include Radshakrishna Vikhe Patil, Sena MP Sadashiv Lokhande and BJP MLA Bhanudas Murkute.

In Satara, two members of Naik-Nimbalkar family are in the fray. Ramraje Naikl Nimbalkar is a senior NCP leader and Speaker of Legislative Council. His brother Sanjivraje and sister-in-law Shivanjaliraje are contesting the election.

Workers believe that established political leaders are not ready to hand over their good will to somebody else out of the family. Secondly, they are not willing to promote any possible competitor. Workers point out that several political families in Maharashtra have experienced split because of the competitive nature of politics.

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Maharashtra: Ex-CM Vilasrao Deshmukhs son takes ZP route into politics

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Two days after a 1.5m-long iron rod was found across the railway tracks that put the lives of hundreds in the Pune-Santragachi Express in a jeopardy, a similar incident took place on the Panvel-JNPT railway line on Wednesday morning, where an eight-foot long iron pole was placed across the railway tracks.

Like the Kalamboli incident, in this case too, the motorman spotted the pole on the tracks and informed the authorities about it.

Prakash Nilewar, assistant commissioner of police (Panvel division), said, Around 3am, the motorman of a goods train spotted the pole and halted the train. The railway official, along with the engineers, rushed to the spot and removed it.

They also checked in the peripheral areas to find out if there was anything else on the tracks and then allowed the train to move. Later, they registered an FIR with the Panvel city police.

We have registered a case under Section 150 (1) (a) of the Railway Act and Section 336 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against unidentified people. However, we are still clueless about the culprits, said a police officer from Panvel city police station.

The police have not been able to trace the people who kept the rod in Kalamboli on Monday evening.

According to a railway official, a major disaster was averted as the train was running at a low speed. The intensity of the accident would have been huge if the train was running at a high speed, said the official.

Nilewar said, We are investigating the matter from various angles. One theory is that some local people carried the piece of rail to sell. But they might have left it on the tracks, seeing a train approaching them.

However, he did not rule out the possibility of a conspiracy. A section of the union is protesting against the railways over salary and there is a possibility that they could have done this. This was a work of more than one person as one person cannot lift such a big piece of rail, he said.

Apart from local police agencies like the GRP, the RPF, IB and ATS are also investigating the matter. All these agencies visited the site after the incident, Nilewar said.

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Indias aviation safety regulator benched Air Indias executive director (flight operations) for allegedly skipping mandatory breathe checks.

On February 8, an internal email sent to Air India chairman and managing director Ashwani Lohani stated that the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) wanted Captain Arvind Kathpalia grounded with immediate effect. HT has a copy of the email.

Neither Lohani nor the airline spokesperson responded to HTs query on the issue. But Lalit Gupta, DGCA joint director, confirmed that the senior pilot wont be allowed to operate flights for now.

The executive director (operations) of Air India has been off-rostered based on preliminary report of the airline. They have been asked to expedite submission of final report along with evidence to the DGCA, said Gupta.

Captain Kathpalia said he was not allowed to speak to the media and that the probe was still on.

On January 31, HT had first reported that an AI pilots union had tipped off the DGCA on the matter.

Union sources claimed Kathpalia allegedly skipped checks for two flights over a span of three days. The DGCA rules stipulate that first time offenders are denied flying permission for three months. A pilot could be benched for three years if caught a second time. The quantum of punishment is this case is still not clear. But sources say that a three-year break for a senior pilot could end his or her career.

On Thursday, the Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) sent a legal notice to the DGCA seeking action against Kathpalia within seven days. According to the notice, the regulator has taken a prompt action against flight crew booked for the same offence earlier but was ostensibly dragging its feet in this case. It took the regulator almost 10 days for an action which should have happened immediately, said an ICPA member requesting anonymity.

Gupta from the DGCA claimed the regulator had not received any legal notice. The union had sent us a note without naming the pilot. Accordingly, we asked the AIs air safety department to investigate the matter.

Last year, the HT had reported that at least one pilot tested positive every two days between January and June in 2016.The DGCA data revealed that such safety lapses almost tripled from 69 cases in 2011 to 186 in 2015.

READ

Air India pilot accused of evading breath checks to face panel

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The Ghatkopar police arrested a 60-year-old man on Wednesday for allegedly molesting a 9-year-old girl who went to his house for tuitions. The police said the girl lives in the same area as the accused and was taught by his wife.

The woman was not at home when the minor went there at 9.30 am. As there were other students present, the accused allegedly took the girl to his bedroom, where he molested her.

After the class ended at 11.30 am, the girl went home and narrated the incident to her mother, who immediately called her husband.

The two went to the tuition teachers house and fought with the accused. They then called the police. The minors father also spoke to the other students to determine what had happened, said the police.

The police registered an FIR in the afternoon, following which, the accused was arrested under sections of molestation under the Indian Penal Code and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. He will be produced before a sessions court on Thursday.

Read

Minor takes molestation complaint to NCP MLA, man held

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With the Mumbai civic polls less than a fortnight away, the Shiv Sena is turning up the heat on its friend-turned-foe BJP by hinting at the mass resignation of its ministers, a move that would jolt the Devendra Fadnavis-led Maharashtra government.

Party sources said the Senas ministers in the state government may submit their resignation letters to their chief Uddhav Thackeray on February 18, the day of his last public address in Mumbai before the February 21 BMC polls. Party sources said the move is aimed at generating buzz among the Senas Marathi voters and at the same time creating a public perception that the party is capable of pulling down the BJP government in the state. We need to send such a strong signal because we are in a close fight with the BJP in a number of electoral wards in Mumbai, said a key Sena functionary.

The move is also being seen as a way to discourage the BJP from using its position in power to keep Sena workers under pressure from the local administration or the police, he said. During the Kalyan-Dombivli civic polls, the Sena had accused the police of being harsh on its workers.

However, the move does not mean the Sena will pull out of the BJP-led government immediately. Thackeray will weigh his options before taking any such decision and a lot would depend on the outcome of elections to 10 civic bodies and 25 district councils in the state, that will reveal the direction in which the wind is blowing. He would also take into consideration the results of the Uttar Pradesh election, which is likely to have an impact on national politics.

Significantly, Thackeray has gone on record saying he needs breathing space to take an informed decision about whether to continue his partys support to the BJP in the state.

However, the party is attempting to push the BJP, its arch rival for the civic election, in a corner, with the Senas ministers in the state cabinet brandishing their resignation letters in public, and saying they are ready to tender them the moment their party chief says so.

BJP leaders called this a pressure tactic saying it was unlikely the Sena would pull out from the government any time soon.

Buzz about the Sena ministers resigning began on Wednesday evening with reports that four of its ministers would meet Fadnavis late at night.

The ministers  transport minister Diwakar Raote, industries minister Subhash Desai, minister of state for finance Deepak Kesarkar and environment minister Ramdas Kadam  met Fadnavis, but handed him a memorandum demanding a loan waiver for Maharashtras farmers after the BJP promised a farm loan waiver in its manifesto for the UP Assembly elections.

However, on their way inside the chief ministers official residence, some ministers also flashed their resignation letters before the media.

Raote said, We have our resignations ready. We will put in our resignation the moment our party chief says the word. He has made us ministers, so he will decide when to pull out.

Senas Ramdas Kadam said he has been carrying his resignation letter in his pocket like all other Sena ministers. We have even been sleeping with our resignation letters next to us. At the time of the state Assembly elections, the BJP stabbed us in the back even though the Sena supported the party for 25 years. The BJP took our help, our votes, but later turned against us. It is not a friend. It is not trustworthy. We are not desperate and should not drag ourselves after them. Our request to Uddhavji is to remove the crutches. Let the chief minister know exactly where he stands, Kadam said. He, however, did not comment on whether the ministers will submit their resignations to the Sena chief on or before February 18.

If at all the minister submit resignations on this day, the Sena chief may choose to keep mum until after voting is carried out on February 21 and elections are announced on February 23.

This is a ploy to show the Sena has the guts to pull out of the government. The timing is conveniently on the last day of their campaign rally. Why dont they tender resignations now? Things will get clear after the BMC poll results and UP poll results. Depending on our performances, each partys strategy will get shaped, said a senior BJP functionary.

Fadnavis had earlier said his government was not in any danger for five years  until it completes its tenure.

If the Sena withdraws its support to the BJP, the Fadnavis government, which otherwise completes its term in 2019, may have to brace for early elections unless it takes the aid of parties such as the NCP. After it came to power, the BJP proved its majority on the floor of the House with the NCP giving it outside support by remaining neutral during the confidence motion.

In 2015, too, the Sena had attempted similar posturing ahead of the high-decibel Kalyan-Dombivli municipal corporation election. Sena minister Eknath Shinde publicly tendered his resignation from the government in a rally on the last day of campaigning for the polls, which the BJP and Sena contested separately in a shrill highly-competitive fight. It was ultimately rejected by Thackeray.

The Opposition slammed the Sena ministers statements as a gimmick. Congress spokesman Sachin Sawant said, The ministers who flaunted their resignation letters for publicity before meeting with the chief minister should ideally quit the government on the issue of a loan waiver for farmers.

Read more:

Shiv Sena ministers meet Maharashtra CM demanding farm loan waiver
The Dehradun Public School (DDPS), Govindpuram has enrollment of nearly 3,000 students, including those who come from nearby rural areas, where the gun culture and availability of illegal weapons in households is a common and accepted practice.

The illegal weapon seized by police after the incident on Wednesday had a big barrel and is known as Poniya in local dialect. It was used by a Class 11 student who opened fire on a rival student inside his classroom in DDPS during lunch break.

Such weapons can be found easily in households in rural areas. Poniya is a type of small rifle and its barrel can be opened up easily and adjusted. The accused student fetched the gun from his house. We are questioning his parents about the source from which the weapon was procured, said a police officer involved in the investigation.

The shooting at DDPS would have had far more serious implications had the student been able to load the second cartridge, police said.

This is not an isolated incident where students have been involved in carrying weapons and opening fire in educational institutions. In June 2015, a 20-year-old BBA student, on her way to appear for examination, was caught in crossfire between two groups of students. She had sustained bullet injuries, and police later arrested four persons in the case.

Such instances are an eye opener for parents as well as school authorities. We have instructed authorities of other schools too to ensure regular inspections to avoid such instances in future, said Deepak Kumar, senior superintendent of police, Ghaziabad.

The tall claims by police about crackdown on weapon suppliers and busting of arms factories while western UP is going to polls on February 11, has also fallen flat.

Police say criminal cases involving use of illegal weapons are not uncommon due to their easy availability. In recent past, several illegal arms factories were busted, where the accused prepared such arms easily with the help of truck steering rods. The prices of such weapons range anything between Rs 2,000 to Rs 10,000, depending on quality.

According to records, the police in 2016 seized nearly 600 illegal country made and factory made weapons in criminal cases, apart from 1,066 cartridges. The weapons included stenguns, AK-47, rifles, double barrel guns, revolvers and country made pistols.

Apart from the illegal weapons, the district also has nearly 15,700 licensed arms, from which nearly a majority of around 12,000 were deposited with the district administration, since the model code of conduct for UP assembly elections prevails.

While the students resorted to firing inside the school on Wednesday forenoon, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his election rally on Wednesday, had raised concerns over the law and order situation in UP and said that nearly 40,000 cases under the Arms Act were pending in the state.

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 9

By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has said that his countrys military programs pursue merely defensive purposes.

President Hassan Rouhani said the Islamic Republic has proved that it does not have any intentions to interfere in other countries domestic affairs, IRNA news agency reported.

Addressing the ambassadors of foreign countries to Iran at a ceremony marking the countrys republic day, he said the Islamic Republic has never attacked any country.

Saying that Iran has no plans to attack any country in the future, he added that the Islamic Republics weapons are for self-defense only.

We believe that nations should establish relations and the governments should facilitate ties between the worlds nations in order to benefit from common interests, Rouhani said.

Since President Donald Trump has assumed office, several officials from US and Iran have exchanged sharp criticism, in particular concerning Irans recent missile tests.

Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan on Feb. 9 rejected a report by Fox News claiming Iran has conducted a new missile test.
In an election rally in Ghaziabad on Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi attacked Samajwadi Partys (SP) new chief Akhilesh Yadav over his alliance with the Congress for the upcoming polls.

PM Modi urged a mammoth gathering to vote for Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in order to end the 14 years of vikas ka vanvaas (isolation of development) in UP and also sought hisab (a report card) from Akhilesh.

The election is for choosing a government in the state and also a chief minister. Those in power should give answers about the work they have done, in election rallies. If they dont provide uttar (answer) in Uttar Pradesh, they how will they make UP uttam pradesh (the best state). People know what Shriman Akhilesh did with father, uncle and relatives. Now, you should provide hisab of five years of your rule to people, PM said, at the rally held at Kamla Nehru Nagar ground in Ghaziabad.

He said that Akhilesh is full of fear that he embraces anyone, even Congress, which is already sinking. He asked those present, Does anyone step into a sinking boat?

He mocked his opponents who repeatedly asked what he has done. He said, Modi will provide his report card ahead of the 2019 elections, adding that it is time for Akhilesh to provide answers.

He also slammed the law and order situation and spoke about the safety and security of women. You tell me if any girls or women have the courage to step out of their house after the evening? Girls dread even going to school. This is despite you (Akhilesh) having churned out a number of women politicians from your family. Still, UPs women and girls are still unsafe. What is the reason? It is because you and your party have harboured goondas, he said.

He recalled BJPs previous governments under Kalyan Singh and Rajnath Singh and said that it was same government, same officials and same police, who set had sent the goondas to jail.

The situation is unruly because they have given areas to their party leaders, and they are given full freedom to act as they wish. Any deserving, educated young man has no guarantee of a job in UP because the governance and the administration have been filled with the poison of casteism, PM said.

He said that if BJP comes to power, the interview selection will be on merit and will be decided by computers.

He also slammed the SP for failing to provide a list of poor to the Central government, which slotted 750 crore for providing them food. He alleged that it was only due to the SP government that only 14% of the farmers in UP were given coverage of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna while states that have a BJP rule provided more than 50% coverage.

Modi said that the demonetisation move was a fight against corruption and targeted those who amassed wealth by unfair means. The money looted from the poor will be returned to them and I have made a sankalp about this. The money belongs to the poor, middle class and honest people. I vow to draw out this money to benefit people, Modi said.

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A 30-year-old relationship manager with Yes Bank was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh special task force (STF) on Wednesday in connection with the alleged Ponzi online scheme case in Noida.

Atul Mishra, posted at a branch in Ghaziabads Raj Nagar District Centre, allegedly informed officials of prime accused Anubhav Mittals Ablaze Info Solution Private Limited about any probe, raids and suspicious transaction reports and helped them manage their funds beforehand.

Mishra is the fourth person to be arrested in the alleged scam and was nabbed during an ongoing probe in the case related to Mittal and his company. Mittal was arrested by the STF on February 2 along with CEO Shreedhar Prasad and technical head Mahesh Kumar.

The special task force on Wednesday arrested relationship manage of Yes Bank, Raj Nagar District Centre branch in Ghaziabad in connection with Noidas Ponzi scheme. (Sakib Ali/HT Photo)

The accused was managing entire funds of the bank account related to Mittals company. Whenever the bank used to generate the suspicious transaction report, he used to inform Ablaze officials who used to withdraw or transfer funds elsewhere. He even informed company officials about STF inquiries and also about investigations, Amit Pathak, senior superintendent of police, UP-STF, said.

We have sufficient evidence to support that whenever there were any alarms raised, the money use to get transferred within a couple of hours or new accounts were opened. We have matching details of calls and even the data entries. In a way, he was working for Mittal to help him manage funds, Pathak added.

Officials said the arrest was made in connection with an FIR already lodged against Ablaze officials at Surajpur police station in Greater Noida. Mishra will now face similar charges as the officials of Ablaze and also a charge of being a part of the criminal conspiracy.

UP-STF officials have said that they also come across several bank accounts in Axis Bank, Yes Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Canara Bank and are investigating the transactions related to Ablaze. They added that with Mishras help, the funds were allegedly migrated and syphoned by Mittal.

The account in the Yes bank was opened last year and Mishra was in touch with Ablaze officials since. We have electronic evidence, corroborated with bank documents, against the accused, Rajiv Narayan Mishra, STF additional superintendent of police, said.

Ablaze officials and their group of companies were allegedly found cheating nearly 6.5 lakh investors to the tune of nearly Rs 3,726 crore in name of promotion through Likes on website links. The revelation has also put huge money of investors at stake.

Apart from a special investigation team helped by UP-STF, the Enforcement Directorate on Sunday also registered a case of money laundering on the basis of an FIR registered by the UP-STF in connection with the multi-level marketing Ponzi scheme.

Officials said that Mittals lifestyle has also come under the scanner. He is stated to have invited Bollywood actors Sunny Leone and Amisha Patel to a five-star hotel in Greater Noida on November 29, 2016, to celebrate his birthday and launch a new scheme, they added.

Presently, we dont feel the need to question the actors in connection with the event held. If the need arises, we will get in touch with them, an official said.

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Pakistan has featured prominently in Union home minister Rajnath Singhs discourse during his campaign whirl in Gautam Budh Nagar over the last two days, as he invoked the cross-border surgical strike on terror camps in the PoK and the Centres tough posturing vis-a-vis the nuclear neighbour while campaigning for BJP candidates in the upcoming state elections.

And, there was no let up on the Pakistan bashing as he addressed a campaign event in the Rabupura area of Noida on Thursday.

As I arrived in Pakistan to attend the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) summit, I saw some people raising slogans against me and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. I could have easily cancelled my visit right then and returned home. Instead, I decided to ignore the protests, attend the summit and give a befitting reply to Pakistan, Singh said at Rabupura on Thursday.

Addressing two rallies in Dadri and Jewar constituencies on Wednesday and Thursday in favour of candidates Tejpal Singh Nagar and Dhirendra Singh, the home minister brought up Pakistan saying his governments assertive stance vis-a-vis the nuclear neighbour has prompted the army to respond in equal measure to cross-border attacks and ceasefire violations.

I remember an army officer once telling me that his men had come under an unprovoked attack by militants and had since been awaiting an official permission to hit back. On that day, I told our jawans not to hold back and hit them hard. I told them not to count their bullets when it comes to protecting our borders, Singh said on Thursday.

Singhs half -an-hour speeches at Dadri and Jewar, too, were high on rhetoric vis-a-vis Pakistan and even had a reference to the Uri attack that left 18 soldiers dead.

We have always tried to maintain friendly ties with Pakistan. We can choose friends, but not neighbours. The Prime Minister made his intent on fostering friendly ties with our neighbours clear when he invited the heads of state for his swearing-in ceremony. However, the Uri attack was the tipping point as we decided to send a strong message to Pakistan. Bharat kisi ko chedhta nahi hai lekin koi use chedhe toh chodhta nahi hai (India is all for peace, but if we are hit we will hit back), Singh said.

Singh also hit out at the ruling Samajwadi Party, Congress and Bahujan Samaj Party for failing in governance when in power. However, he did not spare a word on the problems faced by the people of Dadri and Jewar constituencies  damaged roads, lack of womens safety, creaky health care, lack of electricity, education and agricultural development.

In what was a pointer to his lack of awareness on issues faced by the locals, Singh was seen in conference with the party nominees on what the farmers produce in the respective constituencies.

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Authorities of Dehradun Public School (DDPS) in Ghaziabad have dismissed four students and issued transfer certificates to them, a day after they attacked a Class 11 inside his classroom.

During the incident, a Class 11 boy was shot at inside his classroom by another student, accompanied by three others who attacked the victim with belts, during lunch break on Wednesday. The boy suffered injuries from the gunshot and was rushed to a private hospital, while the student who fired at him was nabbed by the school authorities and handed over to police.

The school management has taken a strict view and all the four students involved in the attack were given transfer certificactes. They will not be allowed inside the school anymore. From now on, there will be a strict checking of school bags, said Renuka Sharma, principal, DDPS Govindpuram.

The school has nearly 3,000 students, including those coming from neighbouring villages as well as other semi urban and rural areas. The injured student hails from a village in Dadri, Greater Noida.

Vinod Bhati, father of the victim, said that he was informed about an injury to his son on Wednesday. I asked my son why he was attacked. He explained that a day before, a cousin of the accused had disobeyed a teacher, and he intervened. The act led to some altercation. The school officials had intervened to settle the matter, and made them shake hands. But on Wednesday, his cousin brought a weapon along and fired at my son, Bhati said.

The school authorities also said that they had counselled both the students the same day and that the firing next day was unanticipated.

We are still in shock of hearing a gunshot inside the campus. It was something unexpected. We do inspect bags of students, but that is generally to check if they bring mobile phones to school. We never expect a student to carry a weapon in his bag. Even parents of the accused seem to be in the dark about what their child had in his bag, said Sharma.

The accused student was booked for attempt to murder at Kavi Nagar police station.

He (the victim) beat up my brother, so I brought the weapon from home in my school bag. I had brought along two cartridges as well, and loaded the weapon inside the school, said the accused student, who is son of a property dealer in neighbouring Dasna.
Uttar Pradesh special task force (STF) on Wednesday made a fourth arrest in the alleged online ponzi scam of Noida and nabbed a 30-year-old relationship manager posted at Raj Nagar district centre, Ghaziabad branch of the Yes Bank.

Atul Mishra was arrested during an ongoing probe in the case related to Anubhav Mittal and his company Ablaze Info Solution Private Limited. It was alleged that the accused passed on vital information about any probe, raids and suspicious transaction reports to officials of Ablaze Info Solution and helped them manage their funds beforehand.

The accused was managing entire funds of the bank account related to Mittals company. Whenever the bank used to generate the suspicious transaction report, he used to inform Ablaze officials who used to withdraw or transfer funds elsewhere. He even informed company officials about STF inquiries and also about investigations, said Amit Pathak, senior superintendent of police, UP-STF.

Companys managing director Mittal was arrested by STF on February 2 along with CEO Shreedhar Prasad and technical head Mahesh Kumar.

We have sufficient evidences to support that whenever there were any alarms raised, the money use to get transferred within couple of hours or new accounts were opened. We have matching details of calls and even the data entries. In a way, he was working for Mittal to help him manage funds, Pathak added.

The officials said that the arrest was made in connection with an FIR already lodged against Ablaze officials at Surajpur police station in Greater Noida. Accused Mishra will now face similar charges as the officials of Ablaze, and also a charge of being a part in the criminal conspiracy.

The UP-STF officials said that they had already come across several bank accounts in Axis Bank, Yes Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Canara Bank and are investigating the transactions related to Ablaze. They said that with Mishras help, the funds were allegedly migrated and siphoned by Mittal.

The account in the Yes bank was opened last year and Mishra was in touch with Ablaze officials since. We have electronic evidences, corroborated with bank documents, against the accused, said Rajiv Narayan Mishra, additional superintendent of police, STF.

It was alleged that Ablaze officials and their group of companies were found cheating nearly 6.5 lakh investors to the tune of nearly Rs 3,726 crore in the name of promotion through likes on website links. The revelation has also put huge money of investors at stake.

Apart from a special investigation team, helped by UP-STF, the enforcement directorate on Sunday also registered a case of money laundering on the basis of FIR registered by the UP-STF in connection with the multi level marketing ponzi scheme in Noida.

Officials said that Mittals lifestyle has also come under scanner. He is stated to have invited Bollywood actors Sunny Leone and Amisha Patel to a five-star hotel in Greater Noida on November 29, 2016, to celebrate his birthday and launch a new scheme, they added.

Presently, we dont feel the need to question the actors in connection with the event held. If need arises, we will get in touch with them, an official said.

Three teams have been formed to question the accused. The teams will question the accused separately. As of now, STF has received a total of 9,000 complaints.
In a two-pronged strategy, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) central leadership has gone the whole hog to campaign for its Noida candidate, Pankaj Singh, son of union home minister, Rajnath Singh.

In contrast, the Samajwadi Party (SP) did not have any star campaigners in Noida, while the Congress and BSP roped in only one-two leaders each.

The BJP, to keep its flock together after nominating outsider Pankaj in Noida, leaders of the disgruntled cadres, from their caste and region, moved to placate them in election rallies and campaigns. They also wooed the urban voters with several promises of development.

Though sitting MLA Vimla Batham has also supported Pankaj, her supporters were upset. A few others who were aspiring for a ticket had threatened to quit the party after Pankaj was given the ticket.

Two-time former MLA from Dadri Nawab Singh Nagar, who was ready to jump in the fray on a BJP ticket even from Noida, was among those unhappy on being denied a ticket.

One BJP leader is also contesting as an independent candidate. However, he extended support to the official BJP candidate at party president Amit Shahs rally on February 5.

BJP president Amit Shah, state BJP president Keshav Prasad Maurya, union urban development minister Venkaiah Naidu, minister of law and justice Ravi Shankar Prasad, power minister Piyush Goyal, minister of state for heavy industries and public enterprises Babul Supriyo, minister of state for human resource development Mahendra Nath Pandey, former Uttarakhand chief minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, MP Kirron Kher and MP Udit Raj have visited Noida to campaign for Pankaj Singh.

The party has succeeded not only in pacifying disgruntled members but also making them actively participate in the campaign. The campaign by senior leaders has helped BJP connect with the representatives of various regions and communities from across the country who are living in Noida.

However, Pankajs father, Rajnath Singh, did not visit Noida, despite visiting Bisada (Dadri) on Wednesday and Rabupura (Jewar) on Thursday. It was decided that Rajnath ji would not campaign in Noida. However, we roped in several senior party leaders, central ministers and MPs from various backgrounds. This has boosted the morale of the party workers and helped in consolidating the votes from various communities, said Manish Sharma, BJPs media in-charge for the district.

A majority of the visiting BJP leaders addressed a gathering of not more than a few hundred at the auditorium of Kailash Hospital. Meetings of Piyush Goyal, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Nishank were held at other places, but with a limited gathering. Only Shah held a public rally, while North East Delhi MP Manoj Tiwari, held a road show in Noida on Thursday, the last day of campaigning.

Due to the strict expenditure cap put in place by the Election Commission, we decided to hold a workers meet and bring in people from various communities. The press coverage of their visits helped us in sending our message to these communities as well as the public that the BJP in Noida is not a divided house, a party functionary from Noida said.

He added that Delhis proximity to Noida made it possible for ministers to campaign for Pankaj. The other major contenders in Noida are Sunil Choudhary of the SP-Congress alliance and BSPs Ravikant Mishra.

For BSP, only the party general secretary Naseemuddin Siddiqui held a rally at Sector 39 community centre on January 24. BSP national general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra was to hold a public rally in Sector 43 on Wednesday but the programme was cancelled.

Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad held a rally at Dadri and UP state Congress president Raj Babbar also held a road show in Dadri.

However, Samajwadi Party failed to attract any star campaigner in Noida, including Akhilesh Yadav, due to it being jinxed for chief ministers. We had sent a request for Dimple ji (Akhileshs wife) to campaign in Noida but she could not make it. Our party leader Surender Nagar held a road show on Thursday, Raghvendra Dubey, SP media head for the district, said.

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As the candidates fielded by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance are all from the Gujjar community, Muslim voters hold the key to deciding the winner.

A large number of Muslims, who had voted for the BSP in the previous elections, might tilt the balance if they favour the SP-Congress alliance. The Muslim community is the third largest in Dadri, after the Gujjars and Dalits.

BSP, being the arch-rival of Samajwadi Party, is likely to shift its loyalty to the BJP to prevent an SP-Congress victory. With BSP votes getting divided, Muslim voters are going to be a crucial factor in the election.

As per an estimate, Dadri has 4,40,424 voters, of which 1.2 lakh belong to the Gujjar community, 85,000 to the Dalit community, 52,000 to the Muslim community. The other sizeable communities in the district are Thakurs (35,000), Brahmins (30,000) and Baniyas (15,000).

Haji Yunus Malik, 65, from Nai Abadi in Dadri town, said that the majority of Muslims are going to vote for the SP-Congress candidate Samir Bhati. Since most Muslims here are with the SP, we will vote for Samir. Even if 35,000 Muslims vote for him, Samir has a good chance of getting elected. He became MLA after his father Mahender Bhati, who was an MLA for two terms from Dadri, was killed. He is an influential person with a very good network. He will also get a good number of votes from his own community, he said.

Samir had won the Dadri assembly seat on an SP ticket. He switched to BSP in 2009 and joined the Congress before 2012 assembly polls. He contested on a Congress ticket from Dadri but lost.

BJP candidate from Dadri, Tejpal Singh Nagar, was with the BSP before joining the saffron party about two years ago. He is contesting the assembly elections on a BJP ticket for the first time.

BSPs sitting MLA Satveer Singh Gurjar won the Dadri seat twice in 2007 and 2012. He is contesting again from Dadri but is facing anti-incumbency. We never saw him in our area in the last 10 years, except twice  at the time of seeking votes in 2007 and 2012. Look at the condition of the roads, there is no development in the area, Vishal Goyal, who runs a sweets shop at Surajpur, said.

Another resident of Surajpur, Madan Lal Gautam, a BSP supporter, said,When the battle lines are drawn not on the basis of issues, caste becomes a deciding factor. Even the major political parties have given the ticket to the candidates from the same community who dominate the area.

While a large number of voters in Dadri feel that it is a contest among the BJP, BSP and the SP-Cong alliance, some said that Rashtriya Lok Dals Ravindra Singh Bhati will further divide the votes of the majority community.

RLDs Ravindra Bhati is nowhere in the reckoning. However, he has the potential to get some votes from the Gujjar community. The other three main contenders are also Gujjars. It will be a division of Gujjar votes among them. It is difficult to assess as to who will garner more votes from their community, so they are hoping for the support of other communities. The BJP is banking on Rajputs, Brahmins and Baniyas. The BSP has the Dalit support and the SP will get the Muslim votes, Mange Ram Sharma, a resident of Brahmpuri in Dadri town, said.

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PATNA: Bihar can benefit from Union finance minister Arun Jaitleys emphasis during his budget speech on eliminating five chronic diseases that afflict India. While tuberculosis (TB) is one of them, the others are kala azar, filariasis, leprosy and measles.

The state has seen an upsurge in the number of TB patients in the last three years. It had 217 cases per lakh population in November 2016 against 203 in 2014 and there are indications to suggest that the number of patients is increasing with each passing day.

To eliminate TB by 2025  the deadline  the number of cases has to fall to 10 per one lakh population in the next nine years.

Experts believe it is an uphill task for Bihar as it has missed many such targets in the past because of poor implementation of TB eradication programmes.

The most alarming aspect of the story is that the number of multiple drug resistant (MDR) TB is also on the increase. As per official records, 2091 MDR-TB patients were diagnosed in Bihar last year, whereas 2056 such cases were detected in 2015. Despite their condition, a majority of patients drop off the radar without adherng to the full regimen, a sure recipe for extremely drug resistant (XDR) TB.

Notably, MDR -TB is resistant to the two best known first line drugs: isoniazid and rifampicin. XDR is resistant also to the best second line medicines.

Dr Rajiv Ranjan, a physician, said while the recovery rate of MDR cases was about 60%, it was abysmally low in XDR cases. He said both the conditions could be prevented provided all cases of tuberculosis were treated properly with full regimen.

MDR and XDR are caused by poor quality of health system, substandard drugs, lack of accessibility to treatment and failure to complete the therapy, he added.

However, state TB officer Dr KN Sahay told HT that the situation of TB in Bihar was not alarming. Because of the increased surveillance, more and more cases are diagnosed, he claimed.

To ensure uninterrupted administration of anti-tubercular drugs, the government would provide medicines to patients on a daily basis from February 15, 2017, he said. As per existing provisions, patients are given drugs thrice a week.

Notwithstanding the claim made by Sahay, in Bihar TB continues to affect the lives of thousands of people with 64078 patients officially registered for anti-TB therapy in 2016, which is almost 5% of the total cases registered in the country. Bihar ranks 8th among the states in terms of number of patients registered for treatment

.

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Sunni is a small village spread over 91 hectares in the sub-mountainous Kandi area in Hoshiarpur district and has a population of less than a thousand. Like all other villages and towns of Punjab, it too was witness to the tragedies of communal strife at the time of Partition. What sets this hamlet apart is that it has taken a lead in building a memorial gate and restoring monuments that were sites for the discord.

Hoshiarpur has a long tradition of building gates to commemorate events and heroes. There are several gates named after the patriots of the Ghadar movement and others. Going past the village, one may just take it to be another of those gates but it is the name that strikes a bell among the minds of those who are in touch with Punjabi literature. It is called Darwaza Amar Katha and Amar Katha is the name of a Partition story by writer Gulzar Singh Sandhu, which along with his story Shaheed, are accounts of the killings and loss of 1947 as seen through the eyes of a 12-year-old.

Punjabi writer Gulzar Singh Sandhu at his ancestral village Sunni in Hoshiarpur district. (HT Photo)

A celebrated writer, Gulzar is best known for these two stories that touched the heart with their brutal honesty. The collection of his stories named Amar Katha was given the Sahitya Akademi award in 1982.

Ask Brahmdeep Singh Sandhu, 48, who worked for years as a prison officer in England and has been living at his farm in Sunni for the past four years, what does he feel about this memorial to the Partition and his reply is: These memories are undoubtedly very sad but are nevertheless a part of the village history and heritage. They also remind us of times when different faiths lived in harmony and give a message to the village to keep up its tradition.

Former sarpanch Ramandeep Singh Sandhu, who is nephew of the writer, says: The maseet (mosque) in the village was renovated as well as the memorials of our forefathers (Sandhus) who established this village. This sends a message of co-existence and peace to the region.

Gulzar (82), who penned the pain of the village, says I was a just a 12-year-old and those incidents left a terrible impression on me. I saw my best friend Noora being killed in front of me and his sister with whom I was infatuated being abducted by marauders from outside.

He adds, Our village had a large population of Muslim vegetable growers and they had joined the rest of the village on August 15, 1947 in the Independence celebrations. Later, it was suggested that they convert to Sikhism so that their lives could be saved in those communally charged times. The Muslims did so and were given iron bracelets and yellow patkas. However, a band of goons from outside the village later identified them and killed them, he regrets.

The writer goes on to say, Redemption came to Sunni when people of the village were able to protect two Muslim girls, who were abducted and somehow fled and came back seeking help from the village elders. Not only did the villagers give them shelter but attacked the abductors when they came again to forcibly take the girls away. They killed the three men and the girls were safely escorted to Pakistan.

How did the building of the gate and monuments come about? It was my wife, medical practitioner Surjeet Kaur, who took the initiative and the villagers joined in, he adds.
After a couple of days breather, the candidates looked toiling hard and taking no chances as Majitha assembly segment underwent a repoll on few booths in the constituency.

As Majitha assembly witnessed repolling on 20 booths including assembly and Lok Sabha, candidates were not in a mood to take chances in this keen contest.

Must read | Repoll at 48 stations in Punjab: Turnout higher than February 4

As soon as the polling started around 8 am, all candidates  SADs Bikram Singh Majithia, Congress Sukhjinder Raj Singh Lali Majithia and AAPs Himmat Singh Shergill  were seen moving all around the constituency to ensure smooth polls.

SAD candidate Bikram Singh Majithia after casting his vote in one of the polling stations in Majitha constituency in Amritsar on Thursday. (Gurpreet Singh/HT)

Casting his vote at booth no. 35, Bikram Majithia said, It was the Election Commissions decision to hold a repoll. I welcome it and feel that people have got another chance.

Yet again hitting out at few Congress leaders for allegedly distribution money in the segment, Majithia said, This indicates the frustration of the Congress leaders. I will again appeal to the Election Commission of India to disqualify Congress candidate from Majitha segment.

Majithia, while alleging that the Congress leaders were caught by EC observers with liquor and while offering money on Tuesday night, said EC must take suitable action.

However, when questioned that Congress workers have also caught three Akali supporters distributing money on Tuesday night, Majithia said that it was a drama that the Congress leaders created themselves.

Meanwhile, things were same for the security forces, which remained on their toes throughout to ensure peace during polls.

Punjab police commandos deployed near the polling station in Majitha constituency of Amritsar on Thursday. (Gurpreet Singh/HT)

Also, as there was repoll on 16 booths of the Amritsar Lok Sabha segment also, Congress candidate Gurjit Singh Aujla and BJP nominee Rajinder Mohan Singh Chhina were also seen toiling hard.

The segment was once again in to a complete poll mode as even in the streets and bazaars, people stood in groups discussing politics. Even the stalls set up by parties saw a lot of buzz.

With the fate of the candidates finally closed in the EVMs now, March 11 will tell what happens to this keenly watched contest.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 9

By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:

Iranian supreme leaders senior foreign policy advisor, Ali Akbar Velayati has called for strengthening Irans defense capabilities.

Velayati said the foreigners plot against Muslim world and the New Middle East plan is aimed at separating Muslim countries, Mehr news agency reported Feb. 9.

The Iranian official also criticized US President Donald Trump over his contradictory and unwise remarks adding, Trumps approach is an outcome of the Wests failure.

He further asserted that foreigners are plotting to weaken Muslim countries, such as Pakistan and Turkey.

The official also accused the foreigners of destabilizing Syria and Iraq.

Since President Trump has assumed office, the officials from both countries have exchanged sharp criticism, in particular concerning Irans recent missile tests.
The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) has made an appeal to the Supreme Court (SC) to have a rethink over its refusal to give any direction to ban jokes on Sikhs.

In a statement issued here on Wednesday, SGPC secretary Harcharan Singh said such jokes hurt the image of Sikhs who always stay ready for service of humanity regardless of caste, religion, creed and race.

Sikhs are known as sympathisers of mankind across the world and their history is splendid. Still their mockery is made in these jokes, he stated.

As these jokes present Sikhs wrongfully, these should be banned. But the apex court expressed helplessness in doing so. This is not fair. If it (SC) shows such an approach where (will) Sikhs make appeal for this?

The Sikh community has got disappointed over this decision. This is a serious issue and the apex court should take it seriously. Keeping in view Sikh sentiments, the court should review its decision, he added.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to issue any direction on a petition by lawyer Harvinder Choudhary seeking to ban Sikh jokes, saying it will be impossible to implement its order or guidelines. The apex court said it cant lay moral guidelines for the citizens over the issue.
Haryana Civil Services (HCS) officer Nishu Singal, 46, who has now been involved in controversy for lodging a police complaint against Chandigarh mayor Asha Kumari Jaswal, is generally known to keep a low-profile. The 2011 cadre officer, from Karnal in Haryana, complained to the UT adviser against the mayor on February 3, accusing her of violating the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, by meeting the minor victim of sexual abuse without permission.

The two-page report highlighted that the Snehalaya staff had requested the mayor to meet the victim in the common room on the premises, but she had paid no heed.

Following the complaint a case of trespassing was registered against the mayor.

Singal joined the UT Administration in August 2015 and was appointed as director, social welfare; MD, Chandigarh Schedule Castes, backward classes and minorities financial & development corporation; MD, child and women development corporation and secretary, Chandigarh Commission for Protection of Child Rights.

ORGANISED FASHION SHOW FOR DISABLED

Singal, is credited with organising a special fashion show for differently-abled.

The Department of Social Welfare, Women and Child Development had organised the ramp walk on January 23 in the event, Pride Fashion Show.

Singal had also acted after she noticed bungling in the supply and utilisation of raw material at the Snehalaya mess located in Maloya. To tackle this, she decided to install a stock inventory software to monitor material used everyday.

Singal, however, could not ensure the timely supply of ration to the government-run creches in January this year, as claimed by the The Indian Council for Child Welfare Employees Union. Singal could not be contacted and has been avoiding the media ever since the controversy.

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Everyone loves a chocolate and they say its good for our heart. Its even better if a sweetheart wants to gift a chocolate.

So on the third day of Valentines week, which is celebrated as Chocolate Day, we try to understand the parallels between chocolates and love. Do you like it sweet and creamy or crunchy or are you in for the dark ones?

We asked some television actors to answer those questions and the answers are yummy.

Debina Bonnerjee



My husband is so soft like Dairy Milk, he is so silky like Cadbury milk and lovely like my sweetheart. I searched many shops to buy the best chocolate for me. But I didnt find any chocolate sweeter than him and his smile.

Akashdeep Saigal



Relationship need to be yummy enough like chocolates. Dark chocolates are good for healthy brain. Similarly, relationship should be healthy for brain and not irritating. I love eating bar of chocolates every day. When you are stressed out eat desserts ie ice-creams, cake, cookies or anything chocolatey or sweet as stressed itself spelled backwards is DESSERTS.

Sara Khan



Chocolate is sweet and any relationship needs sweetness to last a lifetime. And, the best part is that some chocolates are bittersweet and just as life is! It cant be hunky dory all the time. So guys, if you love someone just take a big bar of his/her favourite chocolate and propose. I am sure they will melt and agree. I am waiting for my Mr Right with my favourite chocolates in his hand.

Anuj Sachdeva



To enjoy a chocolatey relationship, we need to add half percentage of milk and dark chocolate with lots of crunch and richness of almonds and hazelnut, make it stand the test of time by being flexible in your approach just like caramel, melt the time you shower love, being a protective Oreo layer to comfort your partner. No matter how difficult it seems, always sprinkle your relationship with loads of colour like M&M does.

Mahika Sharma



I feel there is nothing better than a friend unless it is a friend with chocolate. As they say, love is like a chewing gum, it tastes good only in the beginning! But friendship is like chocolate, it tastes till it ends! And cheers, I have all kind of friends in group: Milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate and chocolate ice cream.

Paras Madaan



Relationship is like a sweet treasure of chocolates. It could be nutty, sweet, bitter, crunchy, soft or just ready to melt. You never know what surprises are there in store for you. Most importantly, it leaves a beautiful smile on ones face and awesome contentment in ones heart. Life without chocolates is nothing! Chocolates are one of the best ways to show your love to your dear ones.

Veer Aryan



I am a sugar addict and my relationship with chocolate is complicated. I love it so much that it eventually takes over my mind and then I regret having it so much. In others words, it can also be termed as a love and hate relationship. Similarly for relationships, I am addicted to the taste of emotions, care, pamper and romance.

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TV actor Shruti Ulfat and three others were arrested for posting pictures of endangered cobras on their social media.

The Nagarjuna - Ek Yoddha actor posted pictures with the cobra in October, reports DNA. According to the another report on ABP Live, several animal rights activists filed complaints against the actor in the Thane Forest Department.

Arjun Bijlani of TV show Naagin also came out in her support and said that it was unfair to blame the actor for the incident. I dont think the actor was aware that putting a picture up was going to land her in jail. The supplier should be put behind bars, not the actor. The entire team is accountable, why just the actor? Hopefully, this incident will create awareness around rules regarding the use of animals on shows, he said to Mid-Day.

Forest officials demanded the videos from Ulfat, her co-actor Pearl Puri and two producers, Utkarsh Bali and Nitin Solanki. The accused claimed that the cobra was a CGI creation. Once these claims were dismissed, an arrest was made.

Forest Dept say that production manager nd actress said this snake was special effect bt forensic tests cnfrmd it was real @dna pic.twitter.com/DIfosxGhZO  Virat A Singh (@singhvirat246) February 8, 2017

We have arrested actress Shruti Ulfat along with 3 others for posing with a cobra and posting the images and videos online in October 2016. They were produced before the Borivali court and have been kept in one-day custody of the Thane range. A CD with the images and videos was sent to the forensic lab and it has been proved that a live snake was used for shooting purposes, said Santosh Kank, Range Forest officer to Mid-Day.

Ulfat however dismissed the rumours of her arrest to Dainik Bhaskar. Since I had posted a video with the cobra on my Instagram account, they (forest department officials) asked me to come to give the statement. The department officers want to stop this illegal trafficking and I being a responsible citizen will do everything to help them out. Also, my name has been portrayed on a larger scale because I am an actress. Otherwise, it wasnt my fault at all, she said.

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The self-proclaimed mastermind of the September 11 attacks wrote to former president Barack Obama to tell him 9/11 was a direct result of American foreign policy and the deaths of innocent people it has caused.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammeds 18-page letter was addressed to the head of the snake, Barack Obama, leader of the country of oppression and tyranny.

Defense attorney David Nevin provided a copy of the letter, which has not yet been posted on the US militarys website for Guantanamo proceedings. He told AFP that Mohammed began writing it in 2014.

Read | After Trump, White House releases list of 78 terror attacks under-reported

The letter is dated January 8, 2015, but reached the White House only two years later in the last days of Obamas presidency, according to news reports, after a military judge ordered the Guantanamo prison camp where Mohammed is held to deliver it.

It was not we who started the war against you in 9/11; it was you and your dictators in our land, he wrote.

He says God was on the side of the hijackers on that fateful day when airplanes were guided into the Twin Towers in New York, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

Allah aided us in conducting 9/11, destroying the capitalist economy, catching you with your pants down, and exposing all the hypocrisy of your long-held claim to democracy and freedom, Mohammed wrote.

Read | 9/11 attack taught planes could be weapons of mass destruction: Delhi HC

Listing many grievances over Americas brutal and savage massacres from Vietnam to the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Mohammed focused his rage on the plight of Palestinians and US support for Israel and the occupier Jews.

Your hands are still wet with the blood of our brothers and sisters and children who were killed in Gaza, he wrote in the opening paragraph.

The truth about death

Along with the letter, Mohammed sent a 51-page manuscript entitled Shall I Die when the Crusaders Carry out the Death Sentence? The Truth about Death. It is illustrated with an image of a noose.

Mohammed, who faces a potential death sentence for allegedly masterminding the plane hijackings that killed almost 3,000 people, says he is not afraid of dying.

I speak about death happily! he wrote.

Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003 and held at a secret CIA prison site overseas.

Read | US response to 9/11 expanded terror threat: France president Hollande

In the letter, he explained that if your court sentences me to life in prison, I will be very happy to be alone in my cell to worship Allah the rest of my life and repent to Him all my sins and misdeeds.

And if your court sentences me to death, I will be even happier to meet Allah and the prophets and see my best friends whom you killed unjustly all around the world and to see Sheikh Osama Bin Laden, he added, referring to the late Al-Qaeda leader killed in a US raid in 2011 in Pakistan.
An American woman imprisoned in Indonesia for killing her mother has retracted statements made in YouTube videos that her boyfriend, also convicted in the same case, was innocent.

A statement released by Heather Mack and her lawyer Yulius Benyamin Seran on Wednesday said the assertions in the videos were false and recorded under pressure. The statement said Mack, 21, was reading words written by her boyfriend Tommy Schaefer.

In a series of three videos posted last week, Mack said Schaefer was trying to protect her when he confessed to striking her 62-year-old mother Sheila von Weise-Mack in the head with a metal fruit bowl.

Macks statement said the video was uploaded on YouTube by someone who deliberately created an account in her name.

Bali prison warden Tonny Nainggolan said authorities were investigating who recorded and uploaded the videos. He said neither Mack nor Schaefer had admitted to producing or uploading the videos and blamed each other.

The couple was convicted in April, 2015 of premeditated murder, which carries a maximum penalty of death. Schaefer was sentenced to 18 years in prison while Mack, who gave birth during the trial, received a 10-year prison sentence.

Von Wiese-Mack was the widow of highly regarded jazz and classical composer James L Mack, who died in 2006 at the age of 76.

Schaefer testified at his trial that von Wiese-Mack was angry when she learned about her daughters pregnancy and tried to strangle him, prompting him to strike her with a metal fruit bowl.

Heather Mack (L) and Tommy Schaefer with their child on way to the court in a prison bus in Bali. (Reuters file photo)

In the videos, Mack said she plotted to kill her mother herself because Schaefer refused to help find someone who would kill her mother for $50,000.

After that I got this new savage idea in my head that I wanted to kill her in a hotel room because she killed my father in a hotel room, she said. We were going to Bali, then I began to plot.

Mack, the composer, died in a hotel room in Athens, Greece, after suffering a pulmonary embolism, according to his Chicago Tribune obituary.

Prosecutors said the two discussed killing von Weise-Mack in text messages, but in the videos Mack said she took Schaefers phone when he was asleep and sent text messages to her own phone.

Tommys an innocent man, said Mack.

She said he only helped her stuff the body in a suitcase and clean up the murder scene because she threatened to tell the police that he committed the crime.
Britains foreign secretary Boris Johnson, who was born in New York, has renounced his American citizenship.

Johnsons name appeared on a US government list Wednesday of 5,411 people who had given up their citizenship last year.

Johnson had called his dual nationality an accident of birth, and had described American tax laws as being outrageous. He had previously settled a US capital gains tax bill for the sale of a London home before going on a US tour in 2015

American citizens are liable to pay US taxes even if they live abroad.
Britains Conservative government has placed a limit on the number of lone child refugees it will accept into the country, citing fears that people traffickers were exploiting the system.

Some 350 children will be allowed in far fewer than the 3,000 originally expected under the law that had been aimed at helping some of the tens of thousands of migrant children across Europe. Some 200 children have been brought in thus far.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd on Thursday the decision was made after France raised concerns that UK government actions were acting as a draw to encourage children to make the perilous journey to the continent.

Read | Japan took in just 28 refugees in 2016, despite record applications

We are not saying we are closing the door, we are putting up the drawbridge, she said. We are not saying that. The move is controversial because Britain has taken in so few of the hundreds of thousands of refugees that have flowed into Europe in recent years, many fleeing the war in Syria.

Lawmakers in the House of Commons accused Rudd of trying to more closely align the country with President Donald Trumps ban on travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Syria, a move that has sparked protests in the US and abroad.

Is this what comes of cozying up to President Trump? asked Joanna Cherry of the Scottish National Party.

Opposition lawmakers also accused Britains Home Office of trying to sneak through the changes yesterday, when lawmakers were debating the highly charged bill that will allow Prime Minister Theresa May to trigger Britains departure from the 28-nation European Union.
British MPs backed a bill on Wednesday empowering Prime Minister Theresa May to start negotiations on leaving the European Union, bringing Brexit a significant step closer.

Members of the House of Commons voted by 494 votes to 122 for a law enabling May to trigger Article 50 of the EUs Lisbon Treaty, which begins two years of talks on pulling out of the 28-nation bloc.

We have seen a historic vote tonight -- a big majority for getting on with negotiating our exit from the EU and a strong, new partnership with its member states, said Brexit minister David Davis.

The unamended two-clause bill now moves to the House of Lords, where there may be more opposition from unelected peers -- and where Mays Conservative party does not have a majority.

But its passage through the Commons, where two-thirds of MPs had campaigned against Brexit ahead of the June referendum, puts May on course to begin the withdrawal process by the end of March, as she has vowed.

Labour headaches

The referendum result sent shockwaves around Europe, spooking investors and raising fears for the future of the EU itself.

In the early weeks, there was speculation that pro-European lawmakers might try to delay or even stop the Brexit process.

May initially sought to bypass parliament, prompting an appeal to the Supreme Court that last month ruled she must obtain their approval to trigger Article 50.

But during five days of debate on the resulting government bill, it became clear that most MPs would not stop the process -- even if some warned that leaving Europes single market could be disastrous.

The opposition Labour party and the smaller Scottish National Party (SNP) tabled amendments demanding guarantees on market access, workers rights and those of EU citizens in Britain.

Each was defeated, although during the process the government was forced to promise lawmakers a vote on the final Brexit deal before it is concluded.

Labour imposed a three-line whip, a tough disciplinary measure ordering its MPs not to oppose the legislation, ensuring it would pass.

But some 52 Labour MPs rebelled in Wednesdays vote, including business spokesman Clive Lewis who resigned shortly beforehand, bringing a fresh headache for embattled leftist leader Jeremy Corbyn.

After two-thirds of Labour voters backed Brexit, many of them driven by concerns over mass immigration from the rest of the EU, Corbyn decided his party could not block the process.

Real fight starts now. Over next two years Labour will use every opportunity to ensure Brexit protects jobs, living standards & the economy, Corbyn wrote on Twitter following the vote.

But he was swiftly reprimanded in a reply by SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon: How? You have just handed the Tories a blank cheque. You did not win a single concession but still voted for the bill. Pathetic.

Ode to Joy

SNP lawmakers voiced their frustration during Wednesdays vote by singing Beethovens Ode to Joy, the EUs anthem, before being told off by deputy speaker Lindsay Hoyle.

But the outcome was celebrated by Brexiteers such as Nigel Farage, former leader of the UK Independence Party.

I never thought I would see the day where the House of Commons overwhelmingly voted for Britain to leave the European Union, he wrote on Twitter.

Liberal Democrat lawmaker Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister, said the vote will allow the government to pursue its aim of a hard Brexit, which will see Britain pull out of the single market.

There is no mandate for the hardest of hard Brexits the government favours, which risks leaving us poorer, weaker and more isolated, he said.

May has promised to prioritise controlling migration in the Brexit negotiations, even if that comes at the expense of giving up membership of Europes single market and its 500 million customers.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 9

Trend:

Belarus has made its choice and the ideas of excluding it from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) are groundless, Interfax agency reported citing the Belarusian Foreign Ministry Feb. 9.

The participation or non-participation in the CSTO is voluntary, Belarus has made its choice, Dmitry Mironchik, spokesman for the Belarusian Foreign Ministry, said.

Earlier, Vahram Baghdasaryan, head of the parliamentary faction of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia, said that Belarus should be excluded from the CSTO.

"This is not the first time when Belarus demonstrates a biased attitude towards the Armenian side, he added, while commenting on the extradition of blogger Alexander Lapshin to Azerbaijan.
Canada opposes the idea of the United States imposing new border tariffs and would respond to any such move, countrys foreign minister Chrystia Freeland said on Wednesday after her first meeting with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Tillersons meeting with Freeland, and a separate meeting with Mexican foreign minister Luis Videgaray, at the State Department touched on the trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement, which President Donald Trump wants to renegotiate.

Speaking to reporters afterwards, Freeland said she made clear in the meeting with Tillerson that Canada would oppose the idea of border tariffs on Canadian goods in upcoming NAFTA talks.

If such an idea were ever to come into being, Canada would respond appropriately, she told reporters on a conference call, stressing that Ottawa did not yet know what the US opening position would be.

Both Canada and Mexico send the bulk of their exports to the United States and could be crippled by major changes to NAFTA, which Trump has called a disaster.

Mexicos foreign ministry said that Videgaray discussed migration and security issues in his meetings with Tillerson and US. Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly.

Both Tillerson and Videgaray said they would keep working on solutions to their public differences, it added. Videgaray also told Kelly that the human rights of Mexicans in the United States was important, the statement said.

After their hour-long meeting, Videgaray told reporters that Tillerson had said he would visit Mexico in the coming weeks, according to a Mexican Foreign Ministry official.

The State Department did not provide a readout of either of the meetings, which occurred in Tillersons first full week in his new post.

Trump made free trade deals a major target during his campaign for the presidency. He says NAFTA, formally signed in 1994, has harmed American workers.

The pact was aimed at removing tariff barriers between Canada, Mexico and the United States.

Canada is trying to persuade the new administration and senior politicians that its especially close ties with the United States mean the country should be spared protectionist measures.

In making the case for how balanced and mutually beneficial our economic relationship was, I really felt I was pushing on an open door with everyone I spoke to, Freeland said.
Millions of foreigners visiting China annually will have their fingerprints collected starting this week, Chinas ministry of public security announced Thursday.

The requirement will apply to most people between the ages of 14 and 70. Foreigners holding a diplomatic passport or coming from countries that have reciprocal agreements with China will be exempted, the ministry said.

Fingerprint logging will start Friday in Shenzhen, the southern Chinese city bordering Hong Kong, before being gradually implemented elsewhere.

Chinese authorities counted more than 76 million entries and exits last year from foreigners, primarily from South Korea, Japan, the United States and Russia.

The ministry said in a statement that the new requirement was an important measure to strengthen entry and exit management that matches requirements in other countries.

US Customs and Border Protection has fingerprinted most foreign visitors since 2004. The agency said on its website that it is conducting tests of facial recognition software and other biometric screening. Japan also began fingerprinting all arriving foreigners in 2007 as a public safety measure.
Thirty-two combatants were killed on Wednesday in the battle for a key coastal town in western Yemen between government forces and Shiite Huthi rebels, officials said.

The deaths occurred as forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Masnour Hadi advanced into neighbourhoods of Mokha and Huthis retreated to northern and western parts of the town, military sources said.

Loyalists backed by the firepower of a Saudi-led Arab coalition entered the strategic port town in late January as part of their efforts to drive the rebels away from the Red Sea coast.

The clashes on Wednesday left 24 rebel fighters dead , including 12 whose bodies were taken a hospital in Mokha, medical officials said.

The other 12 were rebels whose remains were found by advancing troops and later buried in Mokha, a loyalist military official said.

Eight soldiers were killed, military and medical officials said.

Mokha was Yemens main port serving as its export hub for coffee until it was overtaken by Aden and Hodeida in the 19th century.

Forces supporting Hadi, backed by the coalition, began a major offensive on January 7 to recapture the coastline overlooking the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait.

More than 400 combatants have been killed since government forces launched their drive up the Red Sea coastline.
Pope Francis says he is at peace with himself and not taking tranquilising pills while dealing with corruption in the Vatican and clergy sexual abuse.

There is corruption in the Vatican but I am at peace, he told leaders of religious orders he met last November in the Vatican, according to a transcript published on Thursday.

Never wash your hands of problems, he said, according to the Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolica.

At his election in 2013, Francis was mandated to tackle financial scandals in Vatican departments, notably its bank.

He created a new economy ministry to centralise operations, strengthened the power of the Vaticans Financial Intelligence Authority and appointed a general auditor.

While international monitors have applauded improved transparency in Vatican finances, there has been less praise for his handling of the sexual abuse crisis plaguing the Church for decades.

At the meeting, he said clerical sexual abuse of children was a clear sign the devil is at work destroying the work of Jesus through those who should be proclaiming Jesus.

This sickness must be spotted early, he said, and student priests better evaluated to weed out potential abusers.

Francis said seminaries should not accept candidates who had been rejected or expelled from other institutions. Child protection advocates say this has happened in the past.

Last month, the pope said bishops must show zero tolerance for clergy abusers and begged forgiveness for a sin that shames us.

Francis has taken steps to combat sexual abuse in the Church and to protect children, including appointing an advisory commission with victims among its members.

But victims groups say he should go further and discipline bishops who covered up scandals for decades, moving abusers from parish to parish instead of defrocking them.

On Monday, an Australian government commission said seven percent of Catholic priests working there between 1950 and 2010 were accused of child sex crimes but few were pursued. .

Asked at the meeting about his serenity, Francis said No, I do not take tranquilising pills! He joked that he followed the Italian saying to live in peace, you need a healthy dose of not caring.

I live in peace. I do not know how to explain this, he said, adding he was much more anxious when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires.

He said he puts notes about unsolved problems next to a statue of St. Joseph in his bedroom and joked: Now he is sleeping under a mattress of notes.
Eight countries have joined an initiative to raise millions of dollars to replace shortfalls caused by President Donald Trumps ban on US-funded groups around the world providing information on abortion, Swedens deputy prime minister said.

Isabella Lovin told Reuters a conference would be held on March 2 in Brussels to kick-start the funding initiative to help non-governmental organisations whose family planning projects could be affected.

The Netherlands announced in January the launch of a global fund to help women access abortion services, saying Trumps global gag rule would cause a funding shortfall of $600 million over the next four years.

Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Luxemburg, Finland, Canada and Cape Verde have all lent their support, Lovin said.

(The gag order) could be so dangerous for so many women, said Lovin who posed for a photograph this month with seven other female officials signing an environmental bill, in what was seen a response to a photograph of Trump signing the gag order in the White House with five male advisors.

The global gag rule, which affects US non-governmental organisations working abroad, is one that incoming presidents have used to signal their positions on abortion rights. It was created under US President Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Trump signed it at a ceremony in the White House on his fourth day in office. Barack Obama lifted the gag rule in 2009 when he took office.

If women dont have control over their bodies and their own fate it can have very serious consequences for global goals of gender rights and global poverty eradication, Lovin said.

Read| Is Sweden trolling Trump? Deputy PM posts all-female picture signing climate bill
Four men convicted of grooming girls for sex in a case that fuelled racial tensions in Britain face deportation to Pakistan after a judge on Thursday upheld a government decision to strip them of British citizenship.

The ruling by an immigration tribunal clears the way for the men, all of Pakistani nationality, to be removed from Britain. They acquired British citizenship by naturalisation.

They were among nine men of Pakistani and Afghan descent convicted of luring girls as young as 13 into sexual encounters using alcohol and drugs. They were based in Rochdale, in northern England.

Among the four facing deportation is ringleader Shabir Ahmed, sentenced in 2012 to 22 years in jail. The other three are Adil Khan, Qari Abdul Rauf and Abdul Aziz.

Ahmed, who was convicted of rape as well as other charges, remains in custody, while the other three men have been released on license to serve their sentences outside of jail.

Highlights A judge upheld a government decision to strip them of British citizenship They were among nine men of Pakistani and Afghan descent convicted in the case They lured girls as young as 13 into sexual encounters using alcohol and drugs The five victims of the gang who gave evidence in the 2012 trial were all white

Khan, Rauf and Aziz were convicted on conspiracy and trafficking for sexual exploitation charges. Aziz was not convicted of having sexual intercourse with any child.

The judge at the hearing in the upper tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber, Mr Justice Bernard McCloskey, described their crimes as shocking, brutal and repulsive.

His decision rejected claims concerning human rights laws and a complaint of disproportionate interference with their rights.

The case centres on a decision by Prime Minister Theresa May, when she was home secretary, to strip the mens citizenship for the public good.

The five victims of the gang who gave evidence in the 2012 trial were all white, and spoke of being raped, assaulted and traded for sex, being passed from man to man, and sometimes being too drunk to stop the abuses.

The men, ranging in age from 22 to 59, used various defences, including claiming the girls were prostitutes.

The decision on Thursday was the first step in what could be a drawn-out process, and the Home Office must fulfill a number of steps before the men can be lawfully deported. The four men can apply for permission to appeal the judges decision.

McCloskey told the hearing that the road to removing the men from Britain involved all of the formalities, procedures, rights and protections which decisions of this kind entail.

Rochdale lawmaker Simon Danczuk said the four men who appeared at the tribunal on Thursday should be deported to Pakistan as soon as possible.

Foreign-born criminals should not be able to hide behind human rights laws to avoid deportation, Danczuk said.
A Pakistani activist abducted last month has broken his silence on his disappearance, but is refusing to point fingers in a country where criticising extremism or the security establishment can make you a target.

Ahmad Waqass Goraya was among five activists who vanished in Pakistan in early January. Human Rights Watch, opposition lawmakers and Pakistani activists have said their near simultaneous abductions pointed to government involvement, in a country with a history of enforced disappearances.

Goraya was freed at the end of January and fled to The Netherlands, where he has lived for the last decade.I felt I would never come back, I would never see my son and family, the 34-year-old IT worker told AFP during a phone interview.

Goraya, who like the other activists criticised religious extremism and the military establishment, refused to say anything about his captors or describe what happened during his ordeal, which began after he was abducted on January 4 shortly after leaving his family home in Lahore.

But he rejected accusations that he was a traitor for daring to be vocal about alleged abuses of power in Pakistan, insisting he was a true patriot. Nothing was against Pakistan, nothing was against Islam, I was critical of policies because I want to see a better Pakistan, he said, adding, We want a Pakistan with rule of law.

Also Read: Pak bloggers leave country after receiving threats for blasphemous opinions

Goraya also said he fears that a virulent ultra right-wing campaign to paint him as a blasphemer while he was missing has followed him to Europe.

The charge, which engulfed Pakistani social media and was repeated by mainstream television hosts, is an incendiary one that can carry the death penalty in the country. Even unproven allegations have caused mob lynchings and violence. At least 65 people including lawyers, judges and activists have been murdered by vigilantes over blasphemy allegations since 1990, according to the Center for Research and Security Studies.

Goraya said allegations of blasphemy had surfaced on social media sites frequented by the Pakistani community in the Netherlands, prompting him to seek police advice. Im looking over my shoulder -- I have been warned by people it is a crazy world.

Activists hold images of bloggers who went missing during a protest in Islamabad in January. (AFP)

Silencing dissent

Pakistan has had a history of enforced disappearances over the past decade, but they have mainly been confined to conflict zones near the Afghanistan border or to southwestern Balochistan province, where separatists are battling for independence.

Campaigners and opposition politicians believe the disappearances in January were part of a new strategy by the military  which has ruled the country for nearly half its existence and wields de facto control over security policy  to stamp out criticism and dissent online.

Officials have denied any role in the disappearances, which sparked protests in cities across Pakistan by progressives concerned that the space for free speech is shrinking. But, said Goraya, they have had their intended chilling effect.

Hundreds of our friends deactivated their (social media) accounts, their pages, Goraya said, adding that well-known liberal blog Roshni (meaning light) was among those deleted, despite the fact its administrator was based in London.

His three-year-old son, meanwhile, has been deeply traumatised by his fathers weeks-long disappearance and its impact on his family. What can you tell a three-year-old kid? All he can see are his mother and grandparents screaming and crying, Goraya said.

Goraya said he has spent almost a decade in the Netherlands but had come to Pakistan in late 2016 to gauge the possibility of returning to Lahore with his family once his wife had completed her PhD studies. I could have applied for Dutch citizenship after five years but we never went that way  it would mean giving up my Pakistani passport, he said.

The plan was to move permanently back to Pakistan. But now we have to replan our whole life.
Under the guise of counterterrorism, India is merely trying to increase military pressure on Pakistan by repeatedly trying to get Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar sanctioned at the UN, Chinese state media said on Thursday.

An editorial in a state-run paper added China is willing to work with India on counterterrorism, but never at the cost of regional instability, an indication that Beijing is unlikely to cooperate with New Delhi on any issue that would seemingly strengthen its hand against Islamabad.

Read China blocks US move to get Masood Azhar banned by UN

A day after the Chinese government dismissed Indias outrage at Beijing for again coming between Azhar and a UN ban by saying there was no consensus at the Security Council, state-controlled media seemingly took up the cudgel for close ally, Pakistan.

India has its own reasons to have Azhar listed as a terrorist. However, observers are also worried that under the defence of counterterrorism crusade, India can increase its military pressure on Pakistan, thus risking escalating tension between the two countries, the nationalistic tabloid Global Times, often known to publish articles critical of India, said in an editorial on Thursday.

Chinese analysts said they believe India did not provide enough evidence to support its proposals as evidence is required not only because of the need to maintain the UNs authority, but also because of the complexities in the region, the editorial said.

The editorial portrayed China as a champion of UN rules and procedures and caught in the tension between India and Pakistan.

The India-Pakistan feud has been a thorny issue in South Asia for a long time and China is caught in the middle, given geographic and geopolitical proximities to the two, it said.

It depicted China, which plays by the rules and not strategic interests, as a victim of the Indian media.

What is troublesome is some Indian media view China with prejudice and overly interpret Chinas moves especially after China and Pakistan hastened the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, the editorial said.

Unlike Indian medias criticism of Chinas veto, Pakistani media reported that people in the country welcome the news, which reflects the deep divisions among people in the two countries.

China, according to the newspaper, must maintain regional order.

Any India-Pakistan confrontation may bring other players into the region, which would complicate the situation.

The blame is on India for not being able to convince all the countries.

China supports Indias efforts at curbing terrorism. India can work more to bring all the parties to reach a consensus over the issue instead of only blaming China for its failed attempts, it added.

China, of course is aware that terrorism is a burning issue.

China has also set up anti-terror mechanisms with India in this regard. In the future, China will enhance anti-terror cooperation with India but regional peace and stability will always be a priority, the editorial said.
US President Donald Trumps daughter Ivanka has reportedly stepped down as a trustee for a fortune set aside for the daughters of Rupert Murdoch, the American media mogul, a media report said.

Ivanka Trump served for several years as a trustee before stepping down in December, sources close to the matter said on Wednesday.

Her role highlighted the close ties between Trumps family and the family that controls Fox News Channel, The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets, The New York Times reported.

The trust for the Murdoch daughters holds some $300 million in stock in News Corporation and 21st Century Fox, companies that Murdoch, 85, leads, and in which he and his family hold controlling interests.

Murdoch has two daughters, ages 15 and 13, with his former wife, Wendi, 48.

It was Wendi Murdoch who chose Ivanka Trump as a trustee, according to the sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Read | Trumps: All you need to know about new US first family, 45th President Donald

The two women have long been close, and their friendship has continued since the Murdochs 2013 divorce.

Trumps husband, Jared Kushner, served as a conduit between the Trump campaign and Murdoch.
In his first remarks after being sworn in as US attorney general on Thursday, Jeff Sessions, an immigration hawk and, notably for India, a strident critic of the H-1B temporary visa programme, called for a lawful system of immigration.

One of President Donald Trumps most contentious cabinet picks, Sessions was confirmed by the senate on Wednesday at the end of a bitterly contested process, during which he was accused of racism and bigotry by Democrats.

We need a lawful system of immigration, Sessions said after his swearing in at the White House. Thats not wrong, thats not immoral, thats not indecent. We need to end that lawlessness that threatens the American people.

As head of the countrys federal prosecution branch and premier investigating agency FBI, Sessions will have considerable influence over the Trump administration at home and abroad, and immeasurably more as a close adviser.

The Indian government, which has had, according to officials on both sides, productive interactions (meetings and phone calls) with the new US administration, has been paying close attention to Sessionss appointment and the confirmation process.

Read | Over 100 start-up companies urge US President Trump against H-1B executive order

The former Alabama senator has been a strident critic of H-1B  a visa programme that allows American companies and multinationals based here  hire high-skilled foreign workers temporarily, for a maximum of six years.

As a senator, Sessions introduced a bill to make it prohibitively expensive for American employers to bring foreign workers under the H-1B programme by proposing a high wage ceiling for such hirings, making it less profitable to hire foreigners.

And he co-sponsored a legislation that sought to cut the annual cap on H-1B visas from 65,000 (plus 20,000 issued to foreigners already in the US, enrolled in colleges and universities) to 50,000.

Protestors on Wednesday demonstrate outside the house of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ahead of the senate vote to confirm Jeff Sessions as the attorney general. (AFP)

In fact, Sessions has said he believes the programme could be done away with entirely. I dont think the republic would collapse if it was totally eliminated, he said at an election rally in October 2016, according to Des Moines Register.

Its not just him, or his proximity to the president. New Delhi worries about his erstwhile staffers, who are now in critical positions in the administration and who are now pushing the same line of thinking, most critically Stephen Miller.

Miller subscribes to Sessionss scepticism about H-1Bs completely and tabled critical changes in the current system in a meeting Trump had with Silicon Valley CEOs and leader earlier, famously branded as the Tech Summit. One, to do away with the lottery system of distributing the annual quota of H-1Bs as the demand far outstrips the availability, and replace it with a system that will give priority to visa applications for high-paying jobs. Two, to remove the Masters degree waiver to attract the best and the most educated foreigners and not those brought here to replace Americans even from relatively lower-skilled, low-paying jobs, as has happened under outsourcing.

Read | Now, bill introduced in US senate to cut legal immigration

Trump is reportedly considering a set of changes on H-1B, and could, as reflected in a leaked draft of an executive order going around, seek a review of the current system with recommendations for what needs to stay and change.

Sessions, it is expected, will be a close adviser on the issue.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 9

By Orkhan Quluzade  Trend:

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu had a phone conversation with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, the Turkish media reported Feb. 9.

According to the message, Cavusoglu and Lavrov discussed the situation in Syria.

Syria has been suffering from an armed conflict since March 2011, which, according to the UN, has so far claimed over 500,000 lives.

Militants from various armed groups are confronting the Syrian government troops. The IS, YPG and PYD are the most active terrorist groups in Syria.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @o_quluzade
Yoandri Pavot applied just in time for a visa under a recently scrapped US policy that had long welcomed doctors from Cuba who defected while on assignment in third countries.

Pavot and other Cuban doctors arriving this week in Miami under the now cancelled policy called the Cuban Medical Professionals Parole said theyre relieved to be arriving despite uncertain times for immigrants under the Trump administration. But theyre anxious about colleagues left behind.

I still cant believe it. Pinch me. Pinch me. I cant believe I am here, Pavot, 35, said after arriving Monday at Miami International Airport holding a small American flag. I wish they would give the ones left behind a chance because they are also fighting for freedom.

The programme  begun in 2006 by then President George W Bush  allowed Cuban doctors, nurses and other medical professionals to defect to the US while on their governments mandatory assignments abroad. Pavot said he had applied after the Cuban government dispatched him to a crime-ridden area of Venezuela, where many co-workers were attacked.

The waning administration of President Barack Obama cancelled the doctors policy January 12. It also eliminated the better-known wet foot, dry foot policy that gave any Cuban who makes it to US soil a path to become a legal resident. The moves lined up with Obamas push for a more normalized relationship with communist Cuba.

But doctors who already applied for visas before January 12 are being allowed in, and the final wave of those accepted are arriving on flights to Miami this week, said Julio Cesar Alfonso, director of a nonprofit that helps Cuban doctors resettle in the US.

On Monday, a few walked through glass doors past Customs to loud cheers and hugs from close and distant relatives carrying flowers and balloons. They cried and took photos.

Alfonso said 20 professionals arrived Monday and more are expected on flights this week.

Cuban doctor Carlos Amigo, right, is surrounded by the media after arriving from Colombia at Miami International Airport. He and other Cuban doctors arriving in Miami this week under the Cuban Medical Professionals Parole said theyre relieved to be arriving, during an uncertain time for immigrants to the U.S. under President Donald Trump, but concerned about colleagues left behind. (AP Photo)

Some critics of the doctors policy have said it amounted to a more than decade-long brain drain for Cuba. But proponents said the doctors were forced by the Cuban government to toil overseas under often-grueling conditions and deserved to be liberated.

The repeal of the wet foot, dry foot policy was welcomed by many in the Cuban exile community who accused certain recent arrivals of abusing privileges by claiming federal benefits and then traveling back to Cuba. But many of the same criticized the cancellation of the medical defectors program; theyre urging the Trump administration to restore it.

Under the policy, qualifying medical professions could immediately apply for work permission and apply for residency after one year.

President Donald Trump has not established what, if anything, will change regarding Cuba policy. Press secretary Sean Spicer said last week the administration is reviewing its position with Havana.

Cubas doctors abroad program has earned praise from the World Health Organization for responding to the Ebola outbreak in Africa and to natural disasters such as Haitis 2010 earthquake.

Yet its critics are fierce.

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican U.S. representative born in Cuba, said the Cuban doctors worked under modern-day indentured servitude and that the defector program was undermining the Castro regime by providing an outlet for Cuban doctors to seek freedom from forced labor.

Some critics also say the Cuban government exploits medical professionals abroad by taking away most of the wages paid by foreign governments and using the funds as a source of hard currency for the island.

Alfonso said hundreds of doctors are currently stranded in Colombia, after deserting their missions in Venezuela, and many didnt manage to apply in time.

Its really sad that Obama left that legacy with the Cuban community, favoring the Havana regime and crushing the hopes of a group of professionals who want to be free, he said.

Yerenia Cedeno, a 28-year-old general practitioner, said she deserted her mission in Venezuela because of violence and meager pay that sometimes wasnt enough to buy food.

Although she had applied for a visa before Jan. 12, she thought her chances of reaching the U.S. were slim once the program was cancelled.

I am immensely relieved because when we saw the program ended, we lost hope. Then we got the visa, and I was so happy, Cedeno said after arriving at the Miami airport. We can say that we were saved.
Fear of being seen as going against the democratic mandate on the EU referendum  and its repercussions  prompted a large number of MPs to vote in favour of the Brexit bill in the House of Commons on Wednesday night, clearing its first major hoop.

The bill will now go to House of Lords, which is supposed to be dominated by pro-EU members, but there were already calls that the lords should also clear the bill without much ado to avoid facing renewed calls for the abolition of the upper house.

Virendra Sharma, senior Labour MP from Ealing Southall, was the only Indian-origin MP to vote against the bill that seeks to authorise the May government to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty that sets outs the two-year process to leave the EU.

After the opposition Labour and other parties failed to get their amendments in, the bill was passed overwhelmingly by 494 votes to 122. Prime Minister May intends to start the exit process by the end of March.

As supporters of Brexit  including sections of the news media  exulted at the bills passage, those on other side of the argument rued the outcome, alleging that the MPs had failed to do their duty.

In an editorial titled MPs fail their first test, The Guardian wrote: The courts ruled that legislators must decide on Britains place in Europe. The Commons has not learned its lessons yetToo many on both sides of the Commons nonsensically deployed their experience and expertise to vote for a bill they admitted to not supporting.

Read Disgraceful: Theresa May govt introduces Brexit bill, sparks row

Too many MPs genuflected to a referendum decision that sets Britain against its neighbours and its own place in the world and puts the UK economy at hazardtoo many of them felt compelled to go through the lobbies in support of a bill that they believe, correctly in our view, will damage Britain.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn faced much trolling online for a tweet after the bills passage: Real fight starts now. Out of 229 Labour MPs, 52 voted against the bill as Corbyn faced another resignation from his shadow cabinet , Chris Lewis.

Brexit secretary David Davis said after the bills passage: Weve seen a historic vote tonight  a big majority for getting on with negotiating our exit from the EU and a strong, new partnership with its member states.

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A Russian warplane on Thursday accidentally hit a building in northern Syria with Turkish soldiers inside, killing at least three troops and wounding 11, Turkeys military said.

Russia immediately apologized for the bombing near the Islamic State-held town of al-Bab, which came amid warming ties between Turkey and Russia after they were strained by Turkeys downing of a Russian jet near the border with Syria two years ago.

Meanwhile, in a further reflection of how complex the Syrian theater of war has become, Turkish-backed Syrian opposition fighters and Syrian government-allied troops briefly clashed on the outskirts of al-Bab in the first such confrontation since the Turkey-backed offensive began in northern Syria last August.

Thursdays clashes came despite Ankaras remarks the previous day that it was in talks with Moscow to coordinate troop movements and avoid any encounter with the Syrian military in the fighting around the town.

Al-Bab, one of the Islamic State groups last major strongholds in Syria besides its self-declared capital of Raqqa, has emerged as the latest epicenter of the Syrian conflict, where the interests of various stakeholders converge. Turkish troops and Turkey-backed Syrian opposition fighters have been trying unsuccessfully to capture the town from IS for months.

More recently, Russian-backed Syrian government forces and their allies have converged on the town, and on Thursday made significant advances that brought them less than three kilometers (1.5 miles) from the town, according to opposition monitors.

The race for al-Bab has shaped up to be a test for the emerging cooperation between Russia and Turkey to help end the 6-year-old conflict in Syria  and the outcome could define a lot of what happens next.

The Russian airstrike came as Turkey was holding funerals for five Turkish soldiers killed in an IS attack near al-Bab the day before.

President Vladimir Putin promptly called his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to express regrets over what the Russian leader called a tragic incident.

The Turkish military said Turkey and Russia were conducting a joint investigation into the bombing.

The two countries reconciled last year after ties were soured over the downing of the Russian jet in 2015. In late December, they brokered a cease-fire for Syria, and in January they sponsored peace talks in Astana, Kazakhstan, attended by Syrian rebels and officials of President Bashar Assads government.

The deaths from Thursdays airstrike raise the number of Turkish troops killed in Turkeys operation in Syria to 64.
US President Donald Trump has broken the ice with Chinese President Xi Jinping in a letter that said he looked forward to working with him to develop relations, although the pair havent spoken directly since Trump took office.

The letter thanked Xi for his congratulatory note on Trumps inauguration and wished the Chinese people a prosperous Lunar New Year of the Rooster, the White House said in a statement on Wednesday.

President Trump stated that he looks forward to working with President Xi to develop a constructive relationship that benefits both the United States and China, it said.

China said on Thursday it attached great importance to China-US ties.

We highly appreciate President Trumps holiday greetings to President Xi Jinping and the Chinese people, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said at a daily press briefing.

Asked whether it was a snub that Trump had held calls with many other world leaders as president, but not Xi, Lu said: This kind of remark is meaningless.

He reiterated that China and the US had maintained close communication since Trump took office and that cooperation was the only correct choice.

China is willing to work with the United States in adhering to the principles of non-confrontation, mutual respect and mutual benefit to promote cooperation, control disputes, and on a healthy and stable foundation, promote greater development in China-US ties, Lu said.

Trump and Xi have yet to speak directly since Trump took office on January 20, although they did talk soon after Trump won the US presidential election in November.

Diplomatic sources in Beijing say China has been nervous about Xi being left humiliated in the event a call with Trump goes wrong and the details are leaked to the US media.

Last week, US ties with staunch ally Australia became strained after the Washington Post published details about an acrimonious phone call between Trump and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

That is the last thing China wants, a source familiar with Chinas thinking on relations with the United States told Reuters. It would be incredibly embarrassing for President Xi and for Chinese people, who value the concept of face.

A senior non-US Western diplomat said China was unlikely to be in a rush to set up such a call.

These things need to happen in a very controlled environment for China, and China cant guarantee that with the unpredictable Trump, the diplomat said.

Trump also seems too distracted with other issues at the moment to give too much attention to China.

Taiwan, Yuan in focus

There are a number of contentious areas where China fears Trump could go off script, the diplomat said, pointing in particular to the issue of self-ruled Taiwan, as well as trade.

Trump upset China in December by taking a phone call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen. China considers Taiwan a wayward province with no right to formal diplomatic relations with any other country.

Trump has also threatened to slap tariffs on Chinese imports, accusing Beijing of devaluing its yuan currency and stealing US jobs.

In his Senate confirmation hearing, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said China should not be allowed access to islands it has built in the disputed South China Sea. The White House also vowed to defend international territories in the strategic waterway.

China has repeatedly said it has smooth contacts with the Trump team. The Foreign Ministry in Beijing said last week the two countries were remaining in close touch.

That contact has been led by Chinas top diplomat, State Councillor Yang Jiechi, who outranks the foreign minister.

Yang told Michael Flynn, Trumps National Security Advisor, last week that China hopes it can work with the United States to manage and control disputes and sensitive problems.

The source familiar with Chinas thinking said Trumps administration was very clear about Chinas position on Taiwan. Trump has yet to mention Taiwan since he took office.

Chinese state media has wondered whether Trump has a China policy at all.

On Thursday, the widely read Global Times tabloid, published by the ruling Communist Partys official Peoples Daily, noted that Trump had not immediately confronted China as had been expected because he had realised upsetting Beijing would backfire badly.

He has probably realised that real tough action against China would result in a complex chain reaction, even beyond his control, the paper said in an editorial.

Wang Yiwei, a professor of international relations at Beijings elite Renmin University, said the letter suggested the new US administration wanted to signal the importance it attached to the US-China relationship without risking being confronted on specific issues.

Trump has sent many messages that makes the world confused, like on the South China Sea and One China policy, so if he makes a phone call President Xi will ask what do you mean?, Wang said. He wants to avoid this so he just sends a letter for the first step.
Donald Trump on Wednesday lashed out at department store chain Nordstrom for dropping his daughters clothing line, again spotlighting the intermingling of the US presidency with Trump family businesses.

The public rebuke, which the White House later defended, called renewed attention to the potential tangle of business interests Trump brought with him on taking office last month.

In a tweet posted moments after he wrapped up an address to US law enforcement, Trump hit out at the high-end retailer for announcing last week it had decided to discontinue sales of Ivanka Trumps fashion line due to poor sales.

My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by Nordstrom, Trump wrote. She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!

Since his surprise victory in the November presidential election, Trump has used his Twitter feed to lambast individual companies -- from General Motors to Boeing -- be it for off-shoring jobs or allegedly overcharging the federal government for aircraft.

Family business

But the latest tweet was different in that it sought to defend part of Trumps family business empire, which critics have said could be a source of profound conflicts of interest for the White House.

Trump made sure to give his message on Ivanka maximum reach by posting it both on his personal handle @realDonaldTrump and on the official account of the US presidency @POTUS.

My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2017

Since his November victory, Trump has touted an effort to remove himself from running his business empire, transferring corporate control to his sons. But he has resisted divesting, as a government ethics watchdog had called on him to do.

Critics say the Trump businesses still pose a significant ethical quandary.

Further playing into the running debate, Pentagon officials said Wednesday they were looking to rent space in Trump Tower, Trumps flagship Manhattan luxury building, to accommodate equipment and staff who accompany the President during his stays there.

That came on the heels of a lawsuit filed by Melania Trump in New York, which claimed that damaging rumors reported by a British tabloid had interfered with her unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to earn millions of dollars due to her raised profile as first lady.

Boycott calls

White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Wednesday defended Trumps Nordstrom tweet, saying the President was standing up for a family member.

Theres clearly efforts to undermine that name based on her fathers issues or particular policies, Spicer told reporters.

For someone to take out their concern of the policies against a family member of his is simply not acceptable and he has every right to speak out about it.

The Nordstrom logo is displayed above the post where it trades on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York. (AP File Photo)

Nordstrom responded on Wednesday, reiterating that its decision to drop the Ivanka Trump line was made purely on business grounds.

Over the past year, and particularly in the last half of 2016, sales of the brand have steadily declined to the point where it didnt make good business sense for us to continue with the line for now, the company said in a statement to AFP, adding that it had a great relationship with Ivanka Trumps business.

Nordstrom is one of several US businesses that has faced boycott calls for its association with the Trump brand. It is among the firms targeted in a Grab Your Wallet campaign launched by anti-Trump activists in protest at the Republican billionaires agenda.

The campaign on Wednesday was still targeting other retailers such as Macys, Bloomingdales and Dillards for carrying Ivanka Trump products.

Sign of the fine line that firms are treading in the current political era, others such as PepsiCo and Budweiser have faced a backlash from the opposite camp after moves deemed critical of the Trump administration.

Ethical obligations

Richard Briffault, an expert in government ethics at Columbia Law School, told AFP that Trumps use of the presidential bully pulpit to defend his daughters business was inconsistent with any notion of the ethical obligations of a public official.

What this suggests is that he hasnt fully internalised the consequence of being the most important public official in the country, Briffault said.

Since a 1989 executive order, federal officials have been barred from using public office for private gain, Briffault said, adding that any public criticism from a sitting president could be interpreted as an attempt to influence that companys business decisions.

Ivanka Trump attends US President Donald Trump's strategy and policy forum with chief executives of major US companies at the White House in Washington. - (Reuters Photo)

It gives the appearance that he is using his position to promote the business interests of a close relative, said Briffault.

Unlike other companies he has attacked on Twitter, including Lockheed, Boeing and Ford, which saw their share prices suffer following criticism from Trump, Nordstroms stock finished up more than 4.0% on Wednesday.

The news of Trumps remarks preceded a report from The New York Times on Wednesday, which said TJX Companies, the parent of clothing retailers TJ Maxx and Marshalls, had told employees to discard all Ivanka Trump promotional signs and not to display her clothing separately.
Donald Trumps nominee for the US Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, on Wednesday described the Presidents Twitter attacks on the judiciary as disheartening and demoralizing, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said.

Gorsuch spokesperson Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist hired by the White House to help guide the judges nomination through the US Senate, confirmed that Gorsuch used those words when he met Blumenthal.

Trump took to Twitter over the weekend to condemn the Friday order by Judge James Robart that placed on hold the Presidents January 27 temporary travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries and on all refugees.

The administration appealed that ruling to a three-judge federal appeals panel, which is due to decide the issue this week.

Trump, who took office on January 20, referred to Robart as a so-called judge and said his ridiculous opinion essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country.

In an interview with CNN, Blumenthal said he told Gorsuch that he found Trumps attacks on the judiciary unacceptable and asked the judge to condemn them.

After some back and forth, he did say that he found them to be disheartening and demoralizing, said Blumenthal, who is a member of the Judiciary Committee, which will hold a confirmation hearing on Gorsuchs nomination.

He said Gorsuch was non-committal about publicly criticising the attacks, and thats one reason why I remain deeply concerned about this nomination.

US presidents are usually hesitant to weigh in on judicial matters out of respect for a US Constitution clause ensuring a separation of powers between the executive branch, Congress and the judiciary.

Trump nominated Gorsuch on January 31 to succeed Justice Antonin Scalia on the nine-member court. Scalia died a year ago this month.

As the nominee of a President who has viciously attacked the independence of the judiciary and declared multiple litmus tests for justices, Judge Gorsuch has a special responsibility to reassure the American people that he will be an open-minded and independent jurist, Blumenthal said in a statement earlier.

If he wants the American people to believe that he is truly independent, Judge Gorsuch must tell them in no uncertain terms that President Trumps attacks are not just disappointing  they are abhorrent and destructive to our Constitutional system  and he must condemn them publicly, Blumenthal said.
Two Palestinians were killed and five wounded overnight, the Islamist movement Hamas said on Thursday in Gaza, following a spike in tensions near the Egypt-Israel border.

The Gaza health ministry blamed an Israeli air strike. The incident comes after several rockets were fired on Wednesday evening from Egypts Sinai, which borders the Gaza Strip, at the Israeli Red Sea resort of Eilat.

The Israeli military however had not confirmed by Thursday that it had carried out retaliatory strikes.
American Airlines says a threat forced one of its planes to be diverted to St Louis, but it has been deemed non-credible by law enforcement.

Flight 534 left Columbus, Ohio, and was heading for Arizona when it landed in Lambert Airport at 8.14am on Thursday. Neither American Airlines nor the FBI would say what prompted the diversion.

In an emailed statement, American Airlines said, The incident was deemed non-credible by law enforcement, and that the flight was scheduled to resume to Phoenix.

The airline previously said the security check was out of an abundance of caution.

Lambert spokesman Jeff Lea said the 113 passengers and five crew were taken by bus to the terminal while the plane and bags were checked by bomb-sniffing dogs.
Belgiums prime minister says NATO heads of state and government will meet with US President Donald Trump for the first time in May.

Premier Charles Michel said in a tweet late Wednesday that he is very pleased to welcome my colleagues for the next NATO summit in Brussels on 25th May and opening of new headquarters.

Work on the sprawling new complex near the main Brussels airport is well behind schedule. A ribbon-cutting ceremony is set to be held there, while the leaders are likely to meet at NATOs old premises across the road.

Trump has shaken up the worlds biggest military alliance, branding it obsolete and warning allies that he might not come to their defence if they dont boost military spending.
As British Admiral Sir Thomas Phillips, YOU must lead your powerful warships to oppose Japans December 1941 opening war offensive in the Pacific.

It is December 8, 1941, as you assume the role of British Admiral Sir Thomas Phillips, the ranking Royal Navy officer at Singapore, Britains Far East bastion and most important Pacific naval base. Although Britain has been at war with Germany in Europe since September 1939, rising aggression by Japan in Asia throughout 1941 has posed an increasing threat to Britains interests in the Far East,principally its colonies of Malaya, Burma and Hong Kong and the vital sea-lanes in the southwest Pacific and Indian Ocean.

In late October, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered you to lead a naval squadron from Atlantic waters to Singapore as a show of force to deter further Japanese aggression. The squadron,known then as Force G, comprised the new battleship His Majestys Ship (HMS) Prince of Wales, the older battle cruiser HMS Repulse and four destroyers. The new aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable was to join Force G, but its participation was canceled when it ran aground and was damaged. Six days ago, on December 2, Force G arrived at Singapore and was redesignated Force Z.

But in the hours before dawn this morning, the strategic situation in the Far East changed suddenly and dramatically when Japanese air, naval and ground forces launched a series of devastating attacks that began World War II in Asia and the Pacific. Japanese forces have overrun the neutral international concessions in Shanghai, attacked Hong Kong, dealt a devastating blow to the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor (it was December 7 in Hawaii), struck American airfields in the Philippines, and, of immediate concern to you, launched an amphibious invasion of northern Malaya.

Your show of force deterrence effort has now become a combat mission to oppose the enemy onslaught.

FORCE Z

You have great confidence in Force Zs striking power in any ship-to-ship naval action given the heavy guns of its two powerful capital warships. Your flagship, Prince of Wales, first saw combat as part of the Royal Navy force that tracked down and sank the German battleship Bismarck in May. Your ships critical hits on Bismarck were a major factor in the British victory.

Completed last March, Prince of Wales has a top speed of 30 knots and displaces 44,000 tons when fully loaded. Its main armament consists of 10 new rapid-firing 14-inch guns (in three multiple-gun turrets, two forward and one aft) with a range of 18 miles. Its secondary armament consists of eight pairs of 5.25-inch heavy anti-aircraft guns; a half-dozen 8-barrel, 2-pounder pom-pom batteries; a 40 mm Bofors gun; and several .303-caliber machine guns. Captain John Leach commands the ship and it is crewed by 100 officers and 1,502 sailors.

Completed in 1916, the 25-year-old battle cruiser Repulse fought in World War I naval engagements and was later extensively reconstructed to improve its armor protection and fire control. Its top speed is 32 knots and it displaces 36,000 tons when fully loaded. Its main armament consists of six 15.2-inch guns mounted in pairs (in two forward turrets and one aft) and with a range of 19 miles. Its secondary armament consists of a dozen 4-inch guns, six high-angle 4-inch anti-aircraft guns, and two 8-barrel pom-pom batteries. Captain William Tennant commands Repulse and it is crewed by 69 officers and 1,240 sailors.

Force Zs destroyers are His Majestys Ships Electra, Express, Encounter and Jupiter. The latter two are currently undergoing repairs and are out of action for up to three weeks, but HMS Tenedos and the Australian navys HMAS Vampire are available to replace them. The destroyers are less heavily armored and mount much smaller main guns (typically one or two 5-inch guns) than do your two major warships, yet they are valuable for screening, countermine and anti-submarine operations.

Since Force Z lacks an aircraft carrier, the only available air support is from Royal Air Force (RAF) and Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) ground-based aircraft flying from forward airfields in Malaya and from Singapore. However, this air support is greatly limited by the number and type of planes  only 43 outdated Brewster Buffalo Mk-I fighters  and the necessity for them to support ground combat against the Japanese landing force. Yet you doubt the ability of enemy aircraft alone to sink your combat-ready warships as they maneuver at sea, and you further believe that the proper employment of your large number of anti-aircraft weapons will provide formidable protection from enemy air attacks.

JAPANESE FORCES

Japans opening war offensive features five separate operational groups attacking as far east as Hawaii and as far south as Malaya. Vice Admiral Nobutake Kondos Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) Southern Task Force, carrying the landing force of General Tomoyuki Yamashitas 25th Army, is mounting the Malaya operation. Kondos largest warships are two 1914-vintage battleships, Kongo and Haruna, each mounting eight older 14-inch guns whose firepower is inferior to that of the guns of Prince of Wales and Repulse. Moreover, IJN support offshore at the Kota Bharu landing site has no warship larger than a cruiser with 8-inch guns. However, you are sure that the Japanese will have naval mines along the sea approaches and submarines patrolling the waters.

Although Kondos Southern Task Force has no aircraft carriers, the operation is within range of the land-based IJN aircraft of 21st and 22d air flotillas flying from airfields in southern Indochina. Twenty-first Flotilla has 27 Mitsubishi G4M1 Type 1 bombers, which the Allies have code-named Betty bombers. Twenty-second Flotilla has 72 twin-engine Mitsubishi G3M2 Type 96 bombers, Allied codenamed Nell bombers; 36 Mitsubishi A6M fighters, Allied code-named Zeke fighters but commonly called Zero fighters; and six reconnaissance aircraft. The Japanese long-range bombers are armed with bombs and powerful Type 91 aerial torpedoes.

COURSES OF ACTION Just hours ago you witnessed Japanese airpower first-hand  and you were not impressed. In the predawn darkness of 4:30 a.m., 17 Japanese Nell bombers appeared over Singapore, which was not under blackout and therefore brightly lit. Although scattered bombs killed or wounded several hundred unsheltered people, the air raid inflicted no militarily significant damage.

The land defense of Malaya and Singapore is the responsibility of British army Lieutenant General Arthur Percivals Malaya Command. (See What Next, General? in the March 2008 ACG.) Although you will cooperate with Percival, you are in sole command of all navy ships at Singapore and you will decide how best to use Force Z.

At noon you gather your staff and ships captains to decide Force Zs actions in response to Japans opening war offensive. You are considering three possible courses of action.

COURSE OF ACTION ONE: ATTACK JAPANESE INVASION FORCE. With this plan, Force Z will sortie from Singapore at once and directly attack the Japanese invasion force before the beachheads are consolidated. Success will depend on speed, the element of surprise, and the formidable guns of your major warships. Air support will require close cooperation with RAF/RAAF ground-based aircraft.

COURSE OF ACTION TWO: DEFEND SINGAPORE. Under this course of action, Force Z will put to sea immediately to avoid being caught at anchor and destroyed like the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor. However, your ships will remain in the area to protect the Singapore base against a Japanese ground assault or naval strike.

COURSE OF ACTION THREE: STRATEGIC REDEPLOYMENT Under this option, Force Z will redeploy from Singapore to Jakarta harbor in Java. From this new base, your ships will be well positioned to cooperate with other Allied naval forces, protect vital sea-lanes to Australia and the Indian Ocean, and provide maximum flexibility to react to future Japanese thrusts throughout the southwest Pacific region.

You must now decide which plan you will implement.

What next, Admiral Phillips?

COURSE OF ACTION ONE: ATTACK JAPANESE INVASION FORCE

You believe that prompt action by your powerful warships will prove decisive to defeating Japans invasion of Malaya. Therefore, you decide to sail Force Z immediately to the waters off northern Malaya and attack the invasion force before the beachheads are consolidated.

You estimate that if your ships depart Singapore as soon as possible today, they will arrive at the invasion area early on December 10. Your intent is to bombard the Japanese forces on the beachheads, destroy their support shipping, and engage Kondos fleet with the superior firepower of the guns of Prince of Wales and Repulse.

Before departure, you coordinate with Air Vice Marshal Conway Pulford, senior RAF commander. Pulford promises to provide what air support he can, but he warns that he cannot guarantee continuous coverage since his limited number of RAF/RAA Faircraft are committed to supporting ground forces in the ongoing combat.

As Force Z steams out of Singapore harbor at 5:35 p.m., you signal all ships from aboard Prince of Wales: We are out looking for trouble and no doubt we shall find it. We hope to surprise the enemy transports and we expect to meet the Japanese battleships. Led by the destroyers Electra and Express, Force Z then moves into open waters and is joined by the destroyers Tenedos and Vampire.

Wary of Japanese submarine attacks using torpedoes, you order your ships to sail a zigzag course. The weather turns in your favor as low-hanging clouds and frequent rain squalls help obscure Force Z from observation by enemy aircraft.

The next morning the weather clears somewhat and Vampire reports sighting an enemy plane. This presents a dilemma:Should you call for air support in case the plane spotted your ships and initiates an attack, or should you maintain radio silence to avoid alerting the Japanese to your presence if Force Z has not yet been observed?You decide to maintain radio silence, and your ships continue sailing toward northern Malaya throughout December 9.

Unbeknownst to you, however, the enemy submarine I-58 has spotted Force Z and reports your position. The Japanese begin preparing the aircraft at their Indochina bases to attack your ships. During the night of December 9-10, an enemy reconnaissance plane mistakenly drops a flare over Kondos fleet, which is positioned only five miles from you. You seethe flare, but since you are unaware that Kondos ships are nearby, you assume it means the enemy has spotted Force Z and that you have lost the crucial element of surprise. You therefore decide to abort the strike mission.

At 11:13 a.m. on December 10, as Force Z sails back to Singapore, nine enemy aircraft are sighted. All of your ships anti-aircraft guns open fire as the Japanese bombers approach. The planes drop nine bombs; eight of them miss, while one explodes on Repulses heavily armored deck. The damage, however, is minor.

Thirty minutes later, 16 enemy torpedo planes arrive and dive at full speed toward Prince of Wales. The battleship turns to avoid the torpedoes but is nonetheless struck by one. Your flagship immediately lists 12 degrees to port and slows to 10 knots, losing its ability to evade further strikes. Meanwhile, Repulse successfully dodges over a dozen torpedoes.

At 12:20 p.m., more enemy torpedo planes arrive. Four of them target Repulse and six attack the crippled Prince of Wales. A torpedo strikes Repulse amidships and then minutes later three more crash into its sides. Repulse sinks within 20 minutes, taking 513 sailors with it. The crew aboard Vampire, however, rescues Captain Tennant and several hundred men.

Unable to maneuver, Prince of Wales is hit by three more torpedoes and begins to capsize. You refuse to leave your sinking flagship, however, and you, Captain Leach and 327 British sailors go down with it.

COURSE OF ACTION TWO: DEFEND SINGAPORE

You fear that any attempt to strike the Japanese invasion force in northern Malaya will unnecessarily risk the loss of Force Z. Although you still doubt the ability of aircraft alone to sink major warships maneuvering at sea, you also think it would be foolhardy to test that theory by placing the Allies two most powerful ships in the region in an exposed position with, at best, only weak air cover.Therefore, you decide to remain in southern Malayan waters and defend Singapore.

Since the Pearl Harbor attack has demonstrated that aircraft can sink ships at anchor, you order Force Z to leave Singapore harbor immediately. Led by the destroyers Electra and Express, your flagship, Prince of Wales, and the battle cruiser Repulse put to sea at 5:35 p.m. and shortly thereafter are joined by the destroyers Tenedos and Vampire. Singapore will remain your base for refueling and resupply, but by ensuring that only one or two of your ships are in the harbor at a time, you can prevent a disastrous repeat of Pearl Harbor.

You initially lead Force Z to a position about 80 miles southeast of Singapore.From here, your force is better protected but you can still respond to land or sea threats to the city.

In the meantime, Malaya Command is losing the ground and air battle in northern Malaya. The enemy reinforces its Kota Bharu beachheads, advances rapidly and then defeats British forces at the Battle of Jitra on December 11-13. Although this causes you to have second thoughts about whether you should have attacked the Japanese invasion force, you cannot turn back the clock.

After Jitras fall, Yamashitas spearheads swiftly move down the Malay Peninsulas west coast, keeping Percivals troops off balance and unable to stop the enemy onslaught. By January 9, 1942, the Japanese advance reaches the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur,halfway down the peninsula.

Percival urgently requests Force Z to sail to the adjacent waters and use its heavy guns to bombard the enemy and help defend the important city. You, however, reluctantly decline Percivals request  you cant risk being caught by an enemy air or naval attack in the narrow strait between Malaya and Sumatra. Kuala Lumpur falls to the Japanese on January 11.

In late January, after keeping Force Z safe and in a state of preparedness for so long, you finally get the opportunity to fight Kondos Southern Task Force. On the lower east coast of Malaya, Japanese troop transports have begun landing a force near Endau against light opposition from Malaya Command. Given the threat Prince of Wales and Repulse pose to this amphibious assault, Kondo undoubtedly has his warships in the vicinity. You immediately lead Force Z at top speed to the waters off Endau and arrive at 2 a.m. on January 27.

Indeed, Kondo is protecting the landing with the battleships Kongo and Haruna as well as a light cruiser and six destroyers. You initiate the night battle with the main guns of Prince of Wales and Repulse, concentrating their firepower on the enemy battleships.

Both sides score hits, but soon the superior firepower of your capital ships rapid-firing 14-inch and 15.2-inch guns swings the combat in your favor. Haruna is a smoking wreck and Kongo is severely damaged. Unfortunately, two Japanese torpedoes hit Repulse and it must limp back to Singapore.Defeated, however, Kondo withdraws his surviving ships. As he departs, you sink three unprotected Japanese troop transports.

Since your naval victory over Kondos Southern Task Force at the Battle of Endauhas ended any immediate seaborne threat to Singapore, you decide to reposition Force Z several miles off the citys southwestern coast to oppose the looming ground threat posed by Yamashitas advancing army on Malayas west coast. When Yamashita attempts an amphibious assault across the Johore Strait to invade Singapore on the night of February8, you unleash Prince of Wales big guns and your destroyers smaller guns, blasting apart the enemy invasion effort.

Desperately short of troops and ammunition and unwilling to risk another amphibious assault in the face of your powerful naval guns, Yamashita decides to suspend indefinitely further attacks against Singapore. It will take several weeks  perhaps months  for him to receive enough men and ammunition for another attempt.

With Singapore remaining an unconquered bastion and U.S. General Douglas MacArthurs American and Filipino troops continuing to hold back the Japanese conquest of the Philippines, Japans opening war offensive timetable has been seriously disrupted.

COURSE OF ACTION THREE: STRATEGIC REDEPLOYMENT

You believe that attacking the Japanese invasion force in northern Malaya unnecessarily puts Force Z at risk. You also are convinced that now that the enemy is ashore in force, Malaya and Singapore will be won or lost by Percivals Malaya Command fighting on the ground and in the air, not by offshore naval combat.

The Japanese air attack on Singapore this morning has demonstrated the enemys surprising ability to project long-range airpower that could threaten nearby British warships. You therefore decide that a strategic redeployment to Jakarta harbor will protect Force Z and allow it to remain the Royal Navys most powerful threat to counter further Japanese advances in the southwest Pacific region.

Percival understandably objects to the loss of naval support, but you stand firm on your decision. At 5:35 p.m., Prince of Wales, Repulse and the destroyers Electra and Express leave Singapore harbor and are soon joined by the destroyers Tenedos and Vampire. After sailing at top speed for 72 hours, Force Z arrives at Jakarta harbor at 6 p.m. on December 11.

You receive reports over the next week that Malaya Command is losing the ground and air battle in northern Malaya. Yamashitas soldiers, supported by overwhelming airpower that sweeps the skies of outnumbered and outmatched RAF/RAAF aircraft, relentlessly advance southward against the more numerous but demoralized British troops. Although this causes you to have second thoughts about your choice not to attack the Japanese invasion force or defend Singapore, you remain convinced that you made the right strategic decision.

In early January 1942, the Allies create the American-British-Dutch-Australian(ABDA) Command to coordinate their combined naval, ground and air operations against the Japanese offensive in the region.Except for Prince of Wales and Repulse, ABDA naval assets consist only of a number of destroyers and a few older heavy and light cruisers armed with 8-inch main guns.Thus, your two capital warships give ABDA naval forces the formidable firepower they need to have a fighting chance in combat against the Japanese ships.

Bad news arrives on February 15; Percival has surrendered Singapore to Yamashita. Despite Malaya Command outnumbering Yamashitas force by over 2-to-1, the Japanese outfought and outmaneuvered Percivals troops to capture Britains main Pacific bastion with surprising speed. Japan now turns its focus to seizing the Dutch East Indies andits vital resources defended by ABDA forces.

On February 26, Allied reconnaissance aircraft report a Japanese task force of two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and 14destroyers escorting 10 troop transports approaching the Java Sea through the Makassar Strait east of Borneo. Clearly, this is an invasion force intending to assault Java. An ABDA strike force composed of Force Z, two heavy cruisers, three light cruisers and nine destroyers intercepts the enemy fleet at4 p.m. on February 27 as it exits the strait and enters the Java Sea. Due to bad weather over Japanese air bases, the enemy task force lacks the powerful air cover that typically supports such operations.

Over the next seven hours, the Battle of the Java Sea  the largest naval battle since the 1916 World War I Battle of Jutland  rages into the night. As the warships on both sides exchange salvoes from their main guns,it quickly becomes apparent that the Japanese cruisers, which mount many more8-inch guns than their ABDA counterparts,would be dominating the combat if your powerful capital ships were not present.

In fact, early in the battle, the British heavy cruiser Exeter is heavily damaged by gunfire from the enemy cruisers and must withdraw to safety. Meanwhile, Prince of Wales 10 rapid-firing 14-inch guns and Repulses six 15.2-inch guns deliver sustained,overwhelming firepower. Both Japanese light cruisers are sunk outright, and the heavy cruisers are so severely damaged that they must break contact and retreat.

Left with only heavily outgunned Japanese destroyers for protection, the slow-moving, highly vulnerable enemy troop transports turn back north in a desperate attempt to escape. To cover the transports withdrawal, Japanese destroyers launch a barrage of deadly Type 93 Long Lance torpedoes. Only one, however,strikes an ABDA ship, the Dutch destroyer Kortenaer, which breaks apart and quickly sinks. All ABDA warships guns now concentrate on the troop transports. A rain of shells sinks eight of the 10 ships, mercilessly annihilating the Japanese amphibious invasion force.

Thanks to the big guns of Prince of Wales and Repulse, the Battle of the Java Sea is a stunning Allied strategic naval victory that stops Japan from quickly overrunning the resource-rich Dutch East Indies. Along with the continued heroic defense of the Philippines by U.S. General Douglas MacArthurs American and Filipino troops on Bataan, Force Z has dealt a serious  perhaps fatal  blow to Japans opening war offensive.

HISTORICAL COURSE OF ACTION AND ANALYSIS

Phillips chose to lead Force Z in an immediate strike against Japanese naval and amphibious forces in northern Malaya (COURSE OF ACTION ONE: ATTACK THE JAPANESE INVASION FORCE), and the battle unfolded as described in the COA One narrative. His fateful decision to maintain radio silence, which prevented the coordination of ground-based air support from RAF/RAAF aircraft, was based on his tragically wrong conviction that airpower alone could not sink capital warships maneuvering at sea  the U.S. battleships sunk at Pearl Harbor, of course, had been stationary targets at anchor. Yet the Japanese aircrafts sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse while they were underway and fully prepared for combat was a stark lesson that the nature of naval warfare had changed forever. Phillips paid for that lesson with his life, as did 840 British sailors who went down with the two warships.

The loss of Prince of Wales and Repulse was a blow to British naval forces and to Allied naval forces as well, since they were the largest and most powerful warships in the British, American, Australian and Dutch fleets opposing the Japanese in the southwest Pacific during the early weeks of the war. Two months after the ships were sunk, the Japanese overran Malaya and captured Singapore. They conquered the Dutch East Indies by early March 1942, and on May 9 the Philippines fell with Corregidors surrender.

Yet even as the Philippines were falling, the tide of war began to turn against Japan when the May 4-6 Battle of the Coral Sea stopped further Japanese expansion in the southwest Pacific. After the U.S. Navys decisive victory at the June 4-7 Battle of Midway and the successful conclusion of the August 1942-February 1943 land, sea and air campaign in the Solomon Islands, Japanese defeat in the Pacific War was inevitable.

Colonel (Ret.) Richard N. Armstrong has written numerous military affairs/history articles for professional and historical journals and has authored several books, including Red Army Tank Commanders and Soviet Operational Deception.

Originally published in the March 2015 issue of Armchair General.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 9

By Orkhan Quluzade  Trend:

Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency Mike Pompeo has arrived in Turkey in his first-ever visit abroad as the CIA head, the Turkish media report.

Pompeo will hold a meeting with Head of Turkeys National Intelligence Organization (MIT) Hakan Fidan.

The CIA head is also expected to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The situation in the region, as well as aspects of the joint fight against terrorism and operations in Syria will be discussed during the negotiations.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @o_quluzade
US Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Iraqi Defense Minister Arfan al-Hayali have discussed in a phone call preparations for liberation of western Mosul from Daesh terrorists, US Department of Defense spokesman Jeff Davis said in a press release, Sputnik reported.

"Secretary Mattis congratulated Minister Hayali on his new position and praised the Iraqis' hard-won gains against ISIS [Daesh]  most recently in eastern Mosul. Both discussed planning for operations to liberate western Mosul," Davis stated on Wednesday.

The spokesman added that Mattis and Hayali affirmed their commitment to bilateral cooperation and partnership.

Mosul is Iraq's second largest city, it was captured by Daesh in June 2014. The eastern part of Mosul was liberated from the terrorists by Iraqi and US-led international coalition forces in late January 2017.

The US-led coalition of 68 nations is conducting airstrikes against Daesh in Syria and Iraq. The Islamic State, also known as Daesh in Arabic, is outlawed in many countries around the world.
According to Ritz-Carlton's own customer service policy: "Ritz-Carlton Hotel has a policy that any employee can spend up to $2000 a day (without requiring any authorization from management) to solve the need or concern of any of their customers. On his way to Hawaii to deliver an important presentation, a businessman realized he had accidentally left his portable computer at a Ritz-Carlton in Atlanta. His presentation was stored on the computer. He placed a frantic call to the hotel and was routed to housekeeping. They had found his computer. Please send by Federal Express, he requested. I absolutely need it tomorrow morning for my presentation. Imagine his surprise when Mary from housekeeping showed up in Hawaii early the next morning to hand deliver his computer. Mary was quoted as saying, this was too important to trust FedX with, so I decided to deliver it myself!" (source: helpscout.net)

Clearly when you think of exceptional hotel customer service, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company sets the bar. I've traveled all over the world and have stayed in many luxury properties such as Ritz-Carlton, Mandarin Oriental and Four Seasons. To be honest, all the rooms are very well appointed and luxurious. The facilities are top notch. But the Ritz-Carlton properties have an extra level of something I'll call "customer service pixie dust" that separates them from all the other luxury hotels. In my mind the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company has successfully used customer service as a marketing differentiator within the hospitality luxury market place. Frankly they have set themselves apart. And I will add that their clientele have no problem paying the extra money to stay in a place where they know they will receive superior customer service.

But let's step back for a moment to consider where customer service between your hotel and guests actually begins. Is it when the new guest arrives at your front desk or is it when the guest checks into their room? Better yet, does customer service begin the moment someone begins to engage with your brand or property? In my opinion customer service begins the moment someone visits your hotel website and begins to engage with your property online. From that initial moment a potential guest is starting to formulate a vision that creates a feeling of excitement, anticipation or disappointment and is either enticed or let down based on what they are seeing and experiencing on your website.

In today's very fast-paced world where we are all connected nearly 24 seven it's important to realize that we are in the hospitality business and not in the artificial intelligence and robotic business as some have come to believe. The hotel business, frankly like any other business, is about creating relationships, human-to-human, and it's your job as a hotel operator to humanize your hotel and your brand in order to gain the highest level of customer service as perceived by your guest. So how exactly do you accomplish this and where does it begin?

I am a firm believer that every hotel website should have a push-to-chat function enabled. As consumers we have all used live chat functions on websites as we've dealt with them for the last 10 years. Yet as a hotel industry we have yet to see the proliferation of live chat customer service via hotel websites. Yes, there are some hotel websites that are live chat enabled however they are in the minority. In fact, we researched over 2500 hotels in North America and found that less than one half of 1% of the hotels have live chat enabled on their websites. That's an extraordinary number of 12 hotels out of 2500 ready to support customer service via live chat. This is a sad reflection on hotel operators and, as an industry, we can do way better than this. What excites me about live chat is that there is no learning curve from a customer's perspective. As I mentioned, we have all been using live chat for the last 10 years. Certainly you may have used live chat yourself when contacting your local bank or cable company. I find that I'm often able to receive faster and more precise customer support service when I utilize live chat versus calling an 800 number and being routed through an endless array of interactive voice response prompts.

When you further consider that the majority of hotel websites are in self service mode, meaning the potential hotel guests are expected to fend for themselves in seeking out information they need on your website, your hotel has a tremendous opportunity to differentiate and grab market share by simply implementing a live chat human-to-human real-time engagement widget on your website.

Now I have no doubt that you have read about all these fancy new technologies that utilize artificial intelligence to reply to consumers via a messaging app or a chat application. There's a lot of venture capital money chasing these applications and this is part of the reason the frenzy is so intense. At this point in time artificial intelligence chat applications, chatbots, are really technologies that are looking for a problem to solve. I am a firm believer that technology ultimately improves customer engagement for hotels but we should never look for problems to solve with technology but rather we should use technologies to solve problems. The industry seems to be chasing a problem that doesn't exist with this artificial intelligence consumer engagement technology.

In addition to providing real-time customer service via live chat through your website, customer service is also expected through your social media channels. And it's not just about Facebook. It's also about Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and other social media platforms where potential and past guests can engage with your hotel and others. Your hotel needs to keep a keen eye on comments made before and after guests arrive at your property.

So here is where the customer service concept as a marketing advantage for your property comes into play. Because social media engagement between your hotel and potential and past guests is conducted in public, out in the open, others can clearly see and judge you on how well you are engaging with your past and future guests. In fact they can see how you are humanizing your hotel and providing human-to-human engagement conversations. This is where you can set your property apart from your competitive marketplace by being on top of every single engagement opportunity there is to be had via your social media platforms. Whereas in the past you may have considered social media platforms as new direct booking channels for your hotel, you can now consider your social media channels as your customer service marketing advantage within your competitive set. In fact Live Chat your website and social media channels provide your hotel with a tremendous marketing opportunity, almost an unfair advantage within your marketplace.

Today's new mobile technologies coupled with super-fast Internet bandwidth connected to mobile devices, has empowered consumers like never before. And with the plethora of messaging and chat applications available to consumers and hotels, there's never been a better time for hotels to create their customer service marketing advantages via consumer real-time engagement. The successful hotel operators today are the ones who understand how consumers wants to be communicated to and on which technology and application platforms; and this is exactly where a customer service competitive advantage can be created for your property.

Consumers today expect stellar customer service regardless of whether they are engaging with your brand or your property both off and online. Within the competitive marketplace in which we all operate there is no excuse for your hotel to not deliver on consumer expectations. The market will make you pay for your customer service omissions in the way of lost business opportunities and lost room nights. And when you consider that consumers will often pay (sometimes more) for great customer service, there is no excuse for not investing in the proper tools and services to be able to deliver great customer service even before the guest arrives on your property. Once the guest arrives, well, then it's up to you and your team to step up and to show the guest that they indeed made the right decision in staying with you in the first place.

DJ Vallauri, Founder & President of Lodging Interactive, has been proactive and successful in all his social media initiatives over the last five years through CoMMingle. DJ saw the void of participation on social media from individual hotel properties and in 2010 CoMMingle was born.Through his insightful projections, CoMMingle has become a successful division of Lodging Interactive solely dedicated to social media marketing, social customer service and reputation management for the Hospitality Industry. Every industry's social media needs are different and DJ understands the needs and challenges faced by hotels. Mr. Vallauri can be contacted at 877-291-4411 ext 704 | Lodging or [email protected] Please visit http://LodgingInteractive.com for more information. Extended Bio...

About Lodging Interactive

Since 2001 Lodging Interactive has been a leading provider of digital marketing services to the hospitality industry. Customers include select service, full-service branded properties, and independent luxury hotels and resorts worldwide.

Lodging Interactive is the parent company of CoMMingle, the Company's social media marketing and reputation management division which serves hundreds of hotels, restaurants, spas, and management companies.

The Company also provides subscription-based website development and digital marketing services through its HotelSiteXPRESS offering. The service is based on a "pay-as-you-go' model and requires no capital investment on the part of the hotel.

Lodging Interactive is an HSMAI Adrian Award winner and has won awards from the International Academy of Visual Arts, Interactive Media Awards, Horizon Interactive Awards, Web Marketing Association, Academy of Interactive & Visual Arts, and Travel Weekly's Magellan Awards have recognized Lodging Interactive as an industry leader.

For more information, please contact [email protected], 877-291-4411 ext. 704, or visit the company's website LodgingInteractive.com.

DJ Vallauri

President & Founder

+1 877 291 4411

Lodging Interactive
Are you sick of paying Online Travel Agents (OTA's) upwards of 25% for making reservations at your hotel? Looking for ways to drive more direct bookings online? Here are 3 ways your hotel can better compete against OTA's to drive MORE revenue through direct bookings.

#1 - Optimize your Website for Mobile & Tablet Users

In 2016, 51.8% of travelers who book trips via digital means will do so using a mobile device says eMarketer. By 2019, they say that number is set to hit 69.8%! If your hotel's website isn't Mobile-Friendly then you can't complain that OTA's are taking your revenue.

US Mobile Travel Bookers, 2014-2019 Photo by eMarketer

Potential guests fully expect that they can browse hotels and complete reservations without sitting down at a computer. In fact, today's consumers have turned to mobile so much so that search engines like Google and Bing are actually penalizing websites that aren't Mobile-Friendly.

Not sure if your site is Mobile-Friendly? You can check here: http://bit.ly/1K9NYd7.

If your website isn't Mobile-Friendly, all isn't lost. Connect with a web developer to update your website and get an online booking system integrated into your Property Management System (PMS) ASAP! Seriously, stop reading this and get on it! Sirvoy, a cloud-based online booking system would be a great place to start.

If you have a Mobile-Friendly website, and you're still not driving enough direct bookings, read on.

#2 - Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Hurray! So, you have a website that looks cool, functions well on all devices, and bookings seamlessly integrate into your PMS. Congratulations, you've completed about 25% of the work need to compete with Global OTA's.

The biggest advantage OTA's have compared to your website is an entire herd of SEO dudes & dudettes optimizing their performance. I kid you not, there are hundreds of people sitting in a room trying to figure out how to get their website on the top of the Google/Bing/Yahoo search results for "Best hotel in (your city)" or "Cheapest hotel in (your city)".

via GIPHY

To combat this, you need to get on the phone with an SEO/SEM (Search Engine Marketing) firm right now. We've had great success working with Two Six Digital in the past and can't recommend them enough. They can walk you through the ins and outs of making sure that your website is optimized for the way search engines display results. Their number one goal is to ensure that you're performing well in your online target markets.

But Beware! Being first ranked for a search, or even showing up on the first page of results, isn't something that happens overnight. Nor is your SEO totally dependent on your website. There are many other digital channels that impact your SEO performance and you'll need to evaluate your entire Digital Strategy to ensure you're managing them properly.

In the meantime, look into creating SEM ads to ensure you're showing up high in search results while you wait for the SEO tactics you implemented to begin working. Additionally, ensure your appropriately managing your online reputation on sites like TripAdvisor and Yelp. Here are 6 tips you should definitely check out.

#3 - Best Rate Guarantee

Now that you've made sure you're website is Mobile-Friendly and performing well in search results, you have to make sure you're actually offering a competitive price. If I'm comparing rates for your hotel, and find a better price on a site like Expedia than what you've advertised on your website, will you honor the lower rate?

If not, it's time to start! This is called a Best Rate Guarantee (BRG) and without it, you're proactively giving money away to OTAs. How so? Huge commissions of up to 25% for starters. Furthermore, you're conditioning guests to feel like it's easier to book through OTAs than through you directly, where your margins are much higher.

The key to successfully implementing a BRG is to ensure that you're not asking guests to jump through hoops for it. Give your staff the authority to capture business that's sitting in the palms of their hands. It will go a long way in ensuring that your guests are happy with the customer service AND accommodations that you provide.

Not sure you're ready to jump in? Here is what the BRGs of a few prominent hotel brands look like. This information was accumulated by The Points Guy in 2014 and may have changed, but does a great job of illustrating your options nonetheless.

The Points Guy Best Rate Guarantee Overview Photo by The Points Guy

SUMMARY

OTA's have become stronger, larger, and more agile over the past decade. They continue to leverage ever-expanding networks and a powerful web presence to negotiate higher and higher commissions. Investing in your own digital marketing is the only way to compete.

Will it take time, money, and a change in your digital strategy? Yes, absolutely. Will it be uncomfortable? Probably. But today is the day you need to take a step back, evaluate your Inventory Management Strategy and actively try to reduce your dependency on OTA bookings. Your margins depend on it!

John Stocki

CEO

Stocki Exchange

View source
Destinations, hotels and tourism businesses should seize the opportunities of digital democracy created by the semantic search revolution that has only just begun

WHEN Google switched its algorithm to semantic search in 2013 it began to clear away dodgy SEO practices and leveled the playing field for small operators and destinations. It made it easier for small businesses to create an honest strategy to rank well online in Google and the search engines.

A few years on, the main outcome is that page one of a Google search will be different for every user, every location and every desktop or mobile device.

Today, tourism businesses and destinations therefore have the opportunity to rank well for their ideal customer in Google's organic search results  as long as they commit to building online trust, reputation and authority over time.

Relevance and trust are the new currencies in town. They have given travel businesses and destinations opportunities that we are unlikely to see again. It's like being at the beginning of time once more, a time when tourism businesses can not only survive online, but thrive.

However, there's no quick fix. If you want to be on the first page of your ideal customer's Google search  as MyTravelResearch.com has done for the terms "travel research" in certain regions  you have to be consistent in your online marketing. This means consistency in branding and content marketing. Post relevant, good quality content and post often.

To get results you have to be clear about who your customers are and have a well-defined brand that guides your visual choice and gives you a consistent tone of voice and messaging.

The Five Steps

Clear branding and customer targeting are the baselines. In addition, there are five steps you have to also take:

1) Make sure you're on Google My Business (it's free).

2) Ensure your site is mobile friendly (you can check here for free  and Google gives you tips how to make your site mobile compatible).

3) Realise that content is king. Create content that is useful, relevant and meaningful. Ensure quality over quantity

4) Make sure your web site and your social media platforms are soundly branded in terms of content, language and image choice.

5) Ramp up the number of images and videos you have on your site (Google loves this).

For visual content don't think you need to spend big money on video production. You don't. Videos uploaded from smart phones are often deemed more 'authentic'. For example see "Whale of a Time" or "Who are Roo Looking At?" here.

Importantly, to achieve a strong online presence in the brave new world of semantic search all the above elements have to work together. Remember, travel related content is the most watched content on YouTube. In western countries people spend about 13 hours doing online research before making a travel purchase (22 hours in China).

People everywhere are perplexed and overwhelmed by the abundance of digital marketing choice. If customers are confused by your brand, search engines will be too. So focus your online branding, messaging and be consistent.

Turn the above insights into action and put an end to 'hope marketing'.

The full Five-Step Tourism Marketing blog can be read here.
Luxury property developer GURNER has announced the successful sale of the building management rights to its landmark $600m 'FV' project in Brisbane to Mantra Group's high-end 'Peppers' brand.

The management rights span 970 apartments across the project's three towers, as well as portions of the 4,000sqm of commercial space and leisure facilities comprising proposed multiple food and beverage premises, conference and business facilities, concierge, housekeeping and maintenance areas, numerous pools, private spa areas, a gymnasium, private dining and moonlight cinema areas, along with the expansive hotel-style rooftop amenity atop the third and final building, No1.

The deal was contracted in the final days of 2016, and managed by Resort Brokers Australia.

Under the terms of the deal, the managed apartments and associated facilities will be known as 'FV by Peppers'.

GURNER founder and director, Tim Gurner said the deal had completed the developer's vision to create a world-class mixed-use 5 star precinct in the heart of one of Brisbane's most vibrant inner city locations.

"From the outset FV has been an incredibly important legacy project both for the business and me personally so we wanted to ensure that our clients and residents would be serviced by the best in the business after the project has reached completion, so that in 10 and 20 years time it is still a place we are all incredibly proud of.

"Our goal has always been to create a precinct that would offer the very best 5-star service and amenity akin to a luxury international hotel so it was important to find the right brand to bring that vision to life.

"The sheer scale and level of luxury at FV meant we needed to be incredibly diligent in who we selected to manage the building in order to ensure our incredibly high standards of service and quality could be met for our buyers and residents.

"With its impeccable track-record and experience in managing high-end properties around the globe, I have absolute faith that Peppers  with the strength of the Mantra Group business behind it  will embody our vision to create a truly world-class retail and residential precinct.

"With a focus on expanding its long-term rental business, Mantra Group has the experience and breadth of understanding of the long term market to manage such a substantial portfolio of apartments and ensure our owners are getting the best service available in Australia.

"Although we had a number of offers from competing international groups at higher levels, we felt the balance sheet, strength and resources behind the Peppers brand and Mantra Group business would deliver the outcome we insist on for such a large and iconic project," he said.

"Mantra Group in my view is the only large group in Australia with the breadth of services and resources to be able to run such a large long-term rental business and provide great flexibility for owners," he said.

Mantra Group Chief Executive Officer, Bob East said the acquisition would herald the arrival of the Peppers brand in Brisbane and represents a continuation of the Group's strategic direction to grow the permanent rentals arm of the brand.

"This acquisition is in line with Mantra Group's strategy to selectively grow its permanent rental business in favourable locations, following the successful acquisition of Mantra Residences @ Southport Central last year.

"FV presents us with an excellent opportunity to secure a presence of scale and quality in a prominent location and grow our permanent rental business, with potential short-term accommodation opportunities also foreseeable.

"As the leading strata titled property operator, our appointment ensures investors will benefit from our flexible operating options, dedicated owner relations and strata management team and powerful distribution platforms.

"Once open, FV by Peppers will be Mantra Group's largest property in Australia and our second largest globally - superseded only by the 1,176-room Ala Moana Hotel in Honolulu Hawaii.

"The property's sought-after Fortitude Valley location, a vibrant, growing metropolitan Brisbane precinct, has proven demand drivers for both visitor and residential accommodation.

"We strongly believe in Brisbane's future prospects and invest for the longer term.

"We're thrilled to partner with GURNER on this strategic and significant new development for Brisbane, one which will establish a new benchmark for scale and luxury in the city," he said.

Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said Council was committed to advancing Brisbane's position as a New World City and the arrival of Mantra Group's Peppers brand would be another exciting boost for the local economy.

"GURNER's $600 million FV project represents what is a very significant investment in the area and will enhance the daytime economy of the Fortitude Valley precinct," Cr Quirk said.

"We're very excited to hear FV will be managed by five-star standard operator Peppers, in what will be the brand's first Brisbane venture.

"This is a major vote of confidence for Brisbane and will help transform Barry Parade and Brunswick Street into a vibrant destination for residents and visitors."

GURNER's FV project has turned heads since its initial launch in 2014, thanks to its hotel-style luxury design and unparalleled dedication to luxury amenity throughout.

The three-tower project features a total of 3,000sqm of private amenity; complete with multiple pools including a feature U-shape pool and bar in the Flatiron building, in addition to a crowning rooftop pool in the No.1 building, along with a number of bars, private dining areas, cinema facilities, a gym, yoga studio, business club and much more.

Inspired by luxury Maldives and Bora Bora resorts, the third building includes an exclusive 800sqm rooftop lounge including an expansive pool wrapping around half the building, an underwater lounge area, water feature, sundecks, bars and barbeque areas.

This amenity is in addition to the project's overarching 'FV Private Club' which services residents of all three buildings and offers over 2000sqm of luxury amenity including a long u-shaped sunken pool, a private dining room, moonlight cinema room, health club, yoga studio, BBQ and outdoor landscaped deck areas, as well as three VIP lounges with pools available for private bookings.

'FV by Peppers' is expected to launch later this year in line with the first stage of construction completion.

Construction of the project's first two stages, 'Flatiron' and 'Valley House' is currently underway, with these stages slated to reach completion in the third quarter of 2017. Construction of the third tower commenced in January 2017 and is anticipated to reach completion in 2019.

For more information on GURNER's FV project visit www.gurner.com.au.

About Mantra Group

Mantra Group is the leading Australian-based hotel and resort operator. Mantra Group's portfolio consists of 128 properties with more than 21,000 rooms in properties under management, across Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and Hawaii. Operating three well-known and trusted brands  Peppers, Mantra and BreakFree - MantraGroup operates the second largest network of accommodation properties in Australia (by room number). The Group is positioned to offer both leisure and business style accommodation ranging from full-service city hotels and self-contained apartments to luxury resorts and retreats. The Group successfully listed on the ASX in June 2014 and in its first year as a public company was elevated to the ASX 200:

www.mantragroup.com.au; www.peppers.com.au; www.mantra.com.au; www.breakfree.com.au

Yvette Peverell

PR Manager

07 5631 2543

Mantra Group
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Drake earned praise when he revealed he wasnt feeling a certain man trying to turn people against each other. Now, another one of his concert ad-libs has gotten him in hot water instead.

The Canadian was bantering with a female fan close to the stage when he asked her to remove her hot ass scarf. His Muslim fans, assuming that the woman was wearing a hijab, are calling for a boycott for the perceived Islamophobic comments.

You got on that hot ass scarf right there, you might wanna take this off. You gotta turn this muthafucka up, Drizzy says in the clip. You gotta come out of that shit.

Though he never mentioned a hijab, fans are upset and many Twitter users are lambasting Drake. The video doesnt prove the so-called scarf in question is a religious piece of clothing. Still, many are calling for a boycott.

Its unclear when the video was shot but it was posted February 2, a few days before he made comments about bullshit going on in the world. The 6 God has yet to comment on the controversy.

Drake
US President Donald Trump told Chinese President Xi Jinping in a letter on Wednesday he looks forward to building constructive ties that will benefit both countries, the White House said in a press release, Sputnik reported.

President Trump stated that he looks forward to working with President Xi to develop a constructive relationship that benefits both the United States and China," the release noted.
Quan had to hand some money to that bouncer he allegedly punched in Miami.
The dearly departed actor Sir John Hurt will be honoured with a special screening of his film Snowpiercer.

ADIFF 2017 is quickly approaching, and it has been revealed that actor Eric Bana will be attending this year, for the Gala Irish Premiere of his film The Secret Scripture on February 18 at the Savoy Cinema. Based on the novel by Sebastian Barry, the film tells the story of Rose, who has documented her stay at a mental hospital in her personal diary. The film version will star Bana along with Vanessa Redgrave, Jack Reynor and Susan Lynch, who will also be appearing at the festival along with director Jim Sheridan. Regarding Bana's upcoming appearance at the festival, Grainne Humphreys, Festival Director, said, "The Gala Irish Premiere screening of The Secret Scripture at the Audi Dublin International Film Festival with Jim Sheridan and Vanessa Redgrave in attendance was already a landmark event for Irish film in 2017. But to have Eric Bana jetting in for the Gala brings another dimension of glamour and significance. Im delighted to welcome him back to Ireland for the festival."

It has also been announced that following the tragic death of actor Sir John Hurt this past January, there will be a tribute screening of his film Snowpiercer on February 24 also at the Savoy. The brilliant post-apocalyptic thriller has never before been screened here in Ireland. Hurt received widespread critical acclaim for his work on the film in the role of Gilliam. Humphrey's also spoke of Hurt's remarkable influence on the film industry, saying "He was one of the most important acting talents of the last 50 years and he had a strong and special relationship with Ireland, where for many years he made his home. He will be very much missed. A donation from the screening will be made to a charity of the Hurt familys choice."

The choice to screen Snowpiercer rather than any of Hurt's other classic films was one that Hurt himself would have supported, according to statements from his family. Hurt's widow, Anwen Hurt, said, "I cannot imagine a better tribute, nor one that would please John more, than Snowpiercer, a film of which he was immensely proud and that he championed so passionately."

Watch the trailers for The Secret Scripture and Snowpiercer below.

The Secret Scripture trailer:



Snowpiercer trailer:


Irish actor Colin Farrell steps into Clint Eastwood's cowboy boots for the remake of the Southern Gothic horror movie, 'The Beguiled'.

The first teaser trailer for the movie, which co-stars Nicole Kidman and Kirsten Dunst, was uploaded onto social media sites last night.

The film is directed by Sofia Coppola and promises to be very different from the original version made in 1971. Based on a novel by Thomas Cullinan, 'The Beguiled' is set in the Deep South and tells the story of a civil war solider who is nursed back to health by a group of women in a girls school... with a terrifying twist.

The original movie was told from Clint Eastwood's character's point of view, but Coppola says her version will focus more on the film's female characters.

"The main crux of the story is about the dynamics between a group of women all stuck together, and then also the power shifts between men and women, she says. So for me, its very universal, but its in this exotic setting of the Southern gentility.

The movie, which is Coppola's first film since 2013's 'The Bling Ring', will hit cinema screens in June


ITALY

Now under the leadership of Irishman Conor OShea, the Italians have traditionally been viewed as Six Nations whipping boys, but they always possess the ability to pull off a shock  and Ireland will have to proceed with caution when they arrive in Romes Stadio Olimpico on February 11. OShea has said his short-term aim is to make the Azzuri more competitive and there were some encouraging signs during their autumn campaign. Although they suffered a 68-10 trouncing against the All Blacks and a embarassing two-point reversal to Tonga, the Italians landmark first victory over South Africa will no doubt be enough to keep Joe Schmidts charges on their toes.
Netflix has announced that it will shortly air the new TV series Girlboss, which is inspired by the New York Times best-selling book by Sophia Amoruso, the founder of the fashion brand Nasty Gal.

Girlboss, which will be available for streaming from 21 April, stars Britt Robertson, Ellie Reed, Alphonso McAuley, Johnny Simmons, and Dean Norris.



The series centres on Sophia (Britt Robertson), who began selling vintage clothes on eBay and, by the age of 28, had built the multi-million dollar fashion empire, Nasty Gal.

"It felt like every story was about a flawed man," says the show's creator, Kay Cannon, who was behind the hits Pitch Perfect 1 & 2, as well as 30 Rock, which is totally fine. But I was really starving to create a story about a woman.

Charlize Theron (Monster, Young Adult) and Laverne McKinnon, of Denver & Delilah, Christian Ditter (How to Be Single) and Sophia Amoruso will also serve as executive producers. Ditter also directs all 13-half hour episodes.

Charlize Theron describes the show as a homage to amazing but flawed life story of CEO Sophia Amoruso. "I built a whole career on flawed and fucked up characters. I have a love affair with that stuff," she says.
Irish-Ethiopian actress Ruth Negga joins the list of Irish talent to be honoured at the U.S-Ireland Alliance's Oscar Wilde Awards at the end of this month. The Limerick native has won herself more than a few nominations this award season, with even the possibility of an Oscar win ahead. On February 23, she will receive an Oscar Wilde Award, at the ceremony hosted by director JJ Abrams at Bad Robot in Santa Monica. Caitriona Balfe, Glen Hansard, Zachary Quinto, and Martin Short will also be honoured at the ceremony. Actors Chris Pine and Catherine OHara will present the awards.

Most notably Negga has achieved worldwide acclaim for her role in the historical drama Loving, the true story about an interracial couple who were arrested for their marriage in 1958. The U.S-Ireland Alliance hosted a screening of the film which Negga herself attended in Beverly Hills. Her performance in the role of Mildred Loving made her an Oscar contender for this year's awards, which will air live on February 26, three days after the Oscar Wilde Awards.

Alliance founder Trina Vargo praised Negga's performance for Loving, saying, Were thrilled to honor Ruth. I watched the film several times at our various screenings and found new subtleties with each viewing. The brilliance of Ruths performance lies in the nuances. Its a role that requires the conveyance of emotion as much through a look as through dialogue.

Aside from taking over cinemas around the world, Negga has also appeared on her share of television screens, with roles on shows such as Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for ABC, the UK series Misfits for Logo, Love/Hate for RTE, and the BBCs mini-series Five Daughters.

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For over a decade, northwest Harris County's Klein Independent School District, one of the largest in Texas, used parent information forms containing inaccurate information about the special education admission process, records show.

The forms were given to thousands of parents who expressed an interest in getting a student evaluated for special education services like tutoring, counseling or therapy. In describing the process, the forms incorrectly said that students could not be evaluated for those services until their teacher had tried all other strategies to reach them.

That inaccuracy led parents to believe that they had to wait weeks or months before their children could be evaluated. Advocates say it may have led to the delay or denial of critical services to scores of students with disabilities.

Officials at the school district, which serves 45,000 students, changed the form after a query from the Houston Chronicle but have decided not to notify parents. The officials said the mistake was inadvertent and did not harm any students because the district never actually made parents wait for evaluations.

But multiple current and former district employees disagreed. Three of them remembered being told not to immediately refer students to be evaluated, even if the need was obvious.

"We couldn't just jump into referring children for special education," said Andrea Chouhan, who taught special education in Klein for several years before taking a teaching job in Alabama.

Advocates for special needs children called the district's actions appalling.

The issue dates to 2006, when Klein ISD created a new form for parents interested in getting a student evaluated for special education services like tutoring, counseling and therapy. The form included information about the process and about other options for reaching struggling students, like regular classroom "interventions," such as special assignments or small group instruction.

"Please note that federal guidelines mandate that we must exhaust and document all general education interventions prior to considering Special Education services," the form said.

Federal guidelines do not mandate that, though. The law requires schools to immediately consider special education for all students who show signs of having a disability - especially when a parent requests an eligibility evaluation. And the U.S. Department of Education has explicitly said schools cannot require kids to first go through interventions.

'One of the worst things'

Delays in evaluations waste crucial time and cause students to fall even further behind, academically, socially and emotionally, said Louis Geigerman, a longtime advocate for children with special needs.

"It's one of the worst things you can do," he said.

Geigerman called the form troubling. He said it indicates Klein ISD illegally delayed evaluations. Even if the district doesn't do that, he said, the form has made parents less knowledgeable about the law and less able to fight for their rights.

Klein ISD officials changed the form quickly after it was brought to their attention late last year. Now, the form simply says that the evaluation committee "will consider, among other information, the general education supports and interventions your child has received."

But to date, the district has not notified parents.

"I see no point in doing that," said Mary Rosenberg, the district's executive director of student support services, in an interview.

"Klein ISD has no reason to believe that any student has been denied referral, eligibility or services based on the form," a district spokeswoman added in a statement.

Both Rosenberg and the spokeswoman emphasized that despite the form, the district has followed federal law and never required a student to go through all possible general education interventions before being evaluated for special education.

The current and former educators remembered things differently.

"It was very clearly communicated that (interventions were) something needed to occur first," Chouhan said.

TEA to end benchmark

Delays in evaluating students for special education are not unique to Klein.

The Chronicle reported last year that schools around Texas often delay or deny services to children with disabilities because the state has penalized school districts for special education "over-identification."

Texas Education Agency officials decided in 2004 that no more than 8.5 percent of students in the state should get services - even though the national average has stayed at around 13 percent for decades. In the years since, the percentage of Texas students receiving services has fallen from near the national average to exactly 8.5 percent, which is by far the lowest in the United States.

In Klein ISD, the percentage has fallen from 10.2 percent in 2004 to 8 percent today.

Many districts have lowered their numbers by using general education interventions - collectively known as Response to Intervention - to delay services, according to hundreds of current and former educators.

Houston ISD and other schools in Harris County appear to have done it more than schools in other parts of the state, according to educators.

The TEA has agreed to end the 8.5 percent benchmark. Several districts, including Houston ISD, are reviewing their special education operations. And the U.S. Department of Education is investigating the issue.
US military airstrikes near Syrias town of Idlib eliminated 11 al-Qaeda fighters last week, US Department of Defense spokesperson Capt. Jeff Davis said in a release, Sputnik reported.

"US forces killed 11 al-Qaida operatives in two precision airstrikes near Idlib, Syria, Feb. 3-4," Davis stated on Wednesday.

A legacy al-Qaida terrorist, Abu Hani al-Masri, who had ties to Osama bin Laden, was killed in the Saturday strike, according to the release.

"These strikes disrupt al-Qaida's ability to plot and direct external attacks targeting the US and our interests worldwide," Davis said.

In the 1980s and 1990s, al-Masri oversaw the creation of al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. He also co-founded Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which was the first Sunni group that used suicide bombers.
Houston's apartment market is facing a sluggish year as demand struggles to keep up with a growing supply, panelists said Wednesday morning to members of the Houston Apartment Association.

The markets most concerning to multifamily analyst Bruce McClenny include Montrose, the Galleria, the Texas Medical Center area, downtown and Tomball/Spring.

Rents were down last year near the Galleria, the Medical Center and Montrose, an Inner Loop neighborhood where more renters moved out of apartments than moved in.

Properties on the west side of Houston, however, are beginning to moderate, and Pearland, Baytown, Galveston and Pasadena are "doing OK," McClenny, of Apartment Data Services, said at the association's annual State of the Industry breakfast.

Rents for high-end apartments will continue to soften this year as the supply grows. Overall occupancy is expected to be at 88 percent by year-end, data shows.

"2017 in Houston is going to be a lot of hand-to-hand combat," Camden Property Trust's Keith Oden said Wednesday during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call. He called Houston's apartment market "vastly oversupplied."

Merchant builders, who sell developments after constructing them rather than holding them for the long term, are offering as many as three months of free rent to lure tenants.

As many as 12,000 new apartments are expected to open this year, while job growth is expected to be modest at best.

Economist Jesse Thompson said at the breakfast event that job growth in Houston could range from 0 to 1.5 percent.

"We've transferred out of the oil bust. The worst is behind us, but it's a mixed bag," said Thompson, of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas-Houston Branch.

While a strong national economy and some growth in the oil and gas sector are helping this region's economy, much of the new job growth has been in leisure and hospitality, which generally represent lower-wage jobs.

"As disposable income has evaporated, discretionary spending has gone down. We see that in the retail sales data," Thompson said.

Swapnil Agarwal, whose company owns older, moderately priced apartment complexes in Houston, said high-end job cuts have helped the lower-end apartment market as renters look for cheaper alternatives.

"We've seen a positive effect," he said.
As the U.S. government and the Texas Legislature consider penalizing so-called "sanctuary cities" for undocumented immigrants, Mayor Sylvester Turner insists that Houston "will continue to be a welcoming city."

On Tuesday, the Texas Legislature approved Senate Bill 4, which would defund cities that do not comply with detention requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Gov. Greg Abbott has called the bill one of his priorities.

An executive order signed by President Trump in January would also cut federal money to "sanctuary cities" if local law enforcement agencies do not comply with U.S. immigration requests.

It's not clear whether either measure could be enforced or would pass court scrutiny. Nor is there a clear definition of "sanctuary city." By some definitions, Houston qualifies as one, but not by others.

The stakes could be high. According to the Houston's 2015 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the city receives $255 million in federal funds and $13 million in state funds.

Chronicle reporter Olivia Tallet spoke recently with Mayor Turner.

In your opinion, what are the chances that SB 4 will be approved?

There has always been a sanctuary bill filed probably in the last five sessions, but no one has ever passed the Texas Legislature. This time, there is more pressure on the members to vote to pass a sanctuary bill.

In the Texas House, I know, they will be fighting very hard not to pass a sanctuary bill. It has never passed out the Texas House under Speaker (Joe) Straus. Still, the governor is supporting it; this time it may be a real possibility that it comes out.

(Editor's note: A "sanctuary city" bill passed the House in 2011 under Speaker Straus but did not become a law.)

What happens to the City of Houston if the bill passes?

The question would be what would be the substance of that bill. I have always said that we are a welcoming city; that we embrace every one. One out of four in this county is foreign born. The Houston Police Department is not going to be ICE or INS. So that's not going to happen. In my administration, it's not going to happen.

What about the executive order signed by President Trump?

It is somewhat ambiguous in its definition of what is a sanctuary city. The U.S. Supreme Court has said that law enforcement cannot stop someone on a pretense to determine whether or not a person is legally or illegally in the U.S. Houston police officer cannot look at someone and say, "Oh, I think this person may be here illegally here, so I am going to stop and interrogate this person." That is not going to happen.

Also, if the sanctuary bill comes out of the Legislature, I doubt that they could [ignore] what the Supreme Court has outlined as the law of the land, so it doesn't really change the status quo.

But there is always a risk that some police officers could profile people and stop them with some pretext...

HPD, under my administration, as long as I am mayor, is not going to profile people. Period.

Regardless of what the legislation may be, the Houston Police Department is not going to profile people. We are not going to be ICE. Period. End of discussion. It's not going to happen, irrespective of what the legislature or anybody else may say.

We are going to follow the dictates of the United States Supreme Court.

Let's supposed that the Texas bill passes, and the president's executive action is fully implemented. What happens to undocumented immigrants if they are detained?

In Houston, if they have not committed any crime, the police will not stop them to determine their status. But let's assume that this person has robbed a bank, they are arrested, and it's determined that that person is illegally here. If you commit a felony, a serious crime, then you go through the process to determine if the person is here illegally. That person, yes, is turned over to ICE, but that is a felony.

But let's say this other person is stopped for running the red light. Citation is probably given or it's a misdemeanor. Then no, you don't go through all that. If that person is illegally here, it doesn't matter: That is a misdemeanor.

In New York, it's very similar. So is in L.A. and other cities.

What if the city is defunded by the federal or state government?

We are going to continue to operate as we have operated, and we will continue to be a welcoming city. We do not separate families. We place a great deal of value on families being together. I don't want children in schools to be concerned or nervous. I don't want to increase the anxiety of people in our city and especially our kids.

We have heard from the federal government and the state legislature, and a lot of it has been challenged in our federal court. At this point there are several courts across our land that, even as it relates to the administration's so-called ban, the courts have said that it's unconstitutional. With respect to the administration executive order, it is highly ambiguous and very difficult to enforce.

There is a lot of verbiage and talk, but that is not a reality, and it's highly unlikely that it will become a reality.

Why do you think the City of Houston should keep the current status quo?

Because this is who this city is; this is who we are. We are a city of immigrants.

Let me start by saying that I think that what we need to be doing is a comprehensive immigration policy. That would help to clarify a lot. If anything, Congress and the administration should be working on a comprehensive immigration policy. That is number one. Short of that, its very difficult to do it in this piecemeal; it creates a lot of confusion and anxiety.

One things that has worked well for us is that people know that in this city we value diversity. We work very hard for inclusion. If we look at the top administrators, the people in power in the city of Houston, you have myself, an African-American. You have Chief [Art] Acevedo as police chief. You have Chief [Samuel] Pena as chief of the Fire Department. You have Juliet Stipeche in charge of education for the city. [Editor's note: Acevedo, Pena and Stipeche are all Latinos.]

I cannot think of any other city that is more diverse and inclusive than we have been. What I have tried to do is to demonstrate what my philosophy is and the value that I place on diversity by appointing people that are diverse.

Has the city already been under pressure to take measures against undocumented immigrants?

I haven't received any major pushback. I am sure not everybody agrees with my positions. But the positions that we are taking are the right positions for us to take. The business community, by large, supports the positions that I have taken.

Mi casa es su casa. I like seeing people feeling good about being in our city. Houston is a great city, and we place a premium on our diversity. From those who run the city  from those who run for example HISD, Superintendent [Richard] Carranza  we have all stood together and made it very clear that we are moving forward and we are embracing the people in our city.

There is no reason for people to have fear or anxiety. We're going to continue to work to be even more inclusive in how we address the concerns. Things will happen on the federal level, and things will happen on the state level. There is going to be a lot of dialogue and debate, but as far as the City of Houston  we are the fourth-largest city, soon to be the third; we are the most diverse city in the country; and I think that people can find a great deal of confidence in the leadership and those who are making key decisions in the city.

We need to be concerned with everything that has been said. Suddenly we have to be concerned with the actions and words that are coming out of D.C. We have to be concerned with the actions coming out of the state of Texas. I am concerned about that.

But in many ways, I can control what takes place in the city. This is our home, and as long as I am the mayor of the city, this is our home, and you're welcome in this home.

Olivia.Tallet@chron.com

Twitter: @oliviaptallet
WASHINGTON - President Trump's official counselor, Kellyanne Conway, was "counseled" after she told TV audiences to "go buy Ivanka's stuff," the White House said Thursday.

Legal experts said Conway had broken a key ethics law banning federal employees from using their public office to endorse products. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Thursday that Conway "has been counseled," but offered no other comment.

Federal law bans employees from using their public office to endorse products. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Thursday that Conway "has been counseled," but offered no other comment.

Conway, speaking to "Fox & Friends" viewers from the White House briefing room, was responding to boycotts of Ivanka Trump merchandise and Nordstrom's discontinuation of stocking her clothing and shoe lines, which the retailer said was in response to low sales and which the president assailed as unfair.

"I'm going to give it a free commercial here," Conway said of the president's daughter's merchandise brand. "Go buy it today."

Conway and officials from the Office of Government Ethics did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.

Several attorneys, including former heads of federal agencies, said Conway's endorsement directly conflicted with OGE rules designed to separate government policy from private business dealings.

"I don't see what their defense is," said Campaign Legal Center general counsel Lawrence Noble, who is also former counsel for the Federal Election Commission. "She did this on television. She was very clear it was advertising. Hopefully at the very least they will acknowledge this is wrong."

Don W. Fox, former general counsel and former acting director of OGE, told The Washington Post that "Conway's encouragement to buy Ivanka's stuff would seem to be a clear violation of rules prohibiting misuse of public office for anyone's private gain."

He added: "This is jaw-dropping to me. This rule has been promulgated by the federal Office of Government Ethics as part of the Standards of Conduct for all executive branch employees and it applies to all members of the armed forces as well."

Attorneys said a typical executive-branch employee who violated the rule could face significant disciplinary action, including a multi-day suspension and loss of pay.

Enforcement measures are largely left to the head of the federal agency - in Conway's case, the White House.

Federal law states the director of OGE can advise the White House and Conway of the violation, conduct its own investigation and recommend that they consider disciplinary action.

But OGE's recommendations are non-binding, and the ultimate decision resides with the White House.

Conway's endorsement comes as the Trump administration faces growing scrutiny over whether it is taking fears of conflicts of interest seriously.

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (Md.), the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, wrote a letter Thursday to his Republican counterpart, Jason Chaffetz (Utah), urging the committee to review what he called "a textbook violation of government ethics laws."

Chaffetz, who before the election was a strong advocate of investigating Hillary Clinton, said this week he would likely resist Democrats' urging to investigate possible conflicts of interest surrounding Trump's business interests. Chaffetz did not respond to requests for comment.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington executive director Noah Bookbinder called Conway's endorsement "just another example of what looks like a disturbing pattern of this administration acting to benefit the businesses of the president's family and supporters."

The president took to Twitter on Wednesday to lash out at Nordstrom for dropping Ivanka Trump's line, saying his daughter had "been treated so unfairly" by the store.

Said Peter Schweizer, who has worked closely with Trump aide Stephen K. Bannon and wrote the book "Clinton Cash," which was critical of donations to the Clinton Foundation: "They've crossed a very, very important bright line, and it's not good. To encourage Americans to buy goods from companies owned by the first family is totally out of bounds and needs to stop.

"Clearly, the Trumps feel some of this is related to politics. But whether that's true or not, these marketing battles need to be fought by Ivanka and her company. They cannot and should not be fought by government employees and the White House," Schweizer said. "It's time to move beyond the mind-set and the role of a businessman and assume the mantle of commander of chief."

Conway's endorsement of the Ivanka business also highlights an awkward reality for a White House threatening U.S. companies seeking to move jobs or operations overseas. Nearly all of Ivanka-brand merchandise is manufactured in low-cost-labor countries, including China, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

Trump critics quickly seized on the endorsement. Robert Weissman, president of liberal advocacy group Public Citizen, said in a statement, "Conway's self-proclaimed advertisement for the Ivanka Trump fashion line demonstrates again what anyone with common sense already knew: President Trump and the Trump administration will use the government apparatus to advance the interests of the family businesses."

Trump last month tweeted his own support for another retailer, L. L. Bean, saying, "People will support you even more now. Buy L.L.Bean." A company board member, Linda Bean, donated money to a pro-Trump super PAC. Lawyers said the federal ban on endorsements specifically exempts the president and vice president.

- - -

Drew Harwell is a national business reporter at The Washington Post.

Tom Hamburger covers the intersection of money and politics for The Washington Post.
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AUSTIN - A years-long fight over the use of telemedicine in Texas appears to have been resolved, with medical and industry groups agreeing to compromise legislation that, if it passes, could benefit patients, especially those in rural areas.

Senate Health and Human Services Committee Chairman Charles Schwertner, a Georgetown Republican and orthopedic surgeon, confirmed the deal Wednesday and said he will sponsor the legislation to resolve the longstanding feud over rules to allow doctors to see patients electronically.

"I think we will have a bill very soon," he said, noting there could be "considerable benefits" to patients if the legislation is approved by lawmakers - as well as possible benefits to taxpayers if the electronic doctor visits can help curb spiraling costs for some state-funded healthcare programs.

Ironically, despite the heated controversy over telemedicine for most Texans, the concept of electronic visits was adopted successfully two decades ago in the Texas prison system in a program that is now credited for saving hundreds of millions of dollars.

While the announced agreement clears the way for Schwertner's bill to move forward in the Legislature to passage, opposition could still materialize that could delay - or perhaps derail - it. Last session, well over a dozen bills were filed concerning telemedicine in Texas, but the issue was unresolved, officials said.

The telemedicine concept already permitted in most other states works like this: Patients can consult with their doctors by phone or video, and doctors can order prescriptions based on those electronic visits.

In Texas, issues have simmered over telemedicine for years between doctors, telemedicine interests and insurance companies, among others. Schwertner said those interests were represented in the talks to explore a possible agreement on legislation that would allow the use of expanded technology in seeing patients.

Expedite care

For rural Texans who may have to travel long distances to see their doctors, and for many others who may otherwise end up in an emergency room for minor ailments, telemedicine could expedite care and significantly cut costs for consumers - perhaps by as much as $12.6 billion a year, by one provider's estimate.

Beside the possible cost benefit, primary care physicians are in short supply in the Lone Star State. In an April 2015 report by a healthcare study group, 80 of Texas' 254 counties were listed as having five or less physicians and 35 had no doctors. The physician shortages were most acute in rural areas that are home to more than 3 million Texans, according to state statistics.

But amid horror stories of serious illnesses being misdiagnosed on the phone or during video consultations, the doctors' lobby had been steadfast in its insistence that advancing technology would not necessarily provide better care.

In a business-friendly state where the doctors' lobby wields considerable clout, the issue over those so-called e-visits has been a flashpoint for controversy, legislation and lawsuits for years.

The issues reached a boiling point in 2011 when the Texas Medical Board warned Texas doctors that using the telemedicine concept could jeopardize their medical license for "failing to establish a proper professional relationship with the patient," which it said should include an initial face-to-face meeting.

Lawsuits followed, and the Legislature two years ago failed to resolve the issue with various interests still at loggerheads for a solution.

With the state's rules tied up in court, representatives of physician, telemedicine, business and insurance interests last year began meeting privately to see if the sides could come to terms on legislation that would resolve the fight.

As those talks were ongoing, the Texas Association of Business - the politically potent lobby group representing most Texas businesses - weighed in to endorse an overhaul of state regulations to allow for the expansion of telemedicine services across the state.

"Texas has some of the most onerous regulatory hurdles for telemedicine technologies," Bill Hammond, then CEO of the business association, said at the time, in a statement that was widely seen as a signal that the political pressure was increasing to resolve the long-running fight.

"The industry's potential to help Texas patients and companies maximize access to care and reduce the cost of care is being held back by limitations imposed by regulators who accept the status quo as sufficient," Hammond added.

Agreement applauded

While providing few details on the settlement, Schwertner said Wednesday he believes the issues of disagreement have been addressed. Others familiar with the talks agreed.

They said doctors wanted to ensure proper patient care was maintained and that they would receive payment for services provided remotely.

Health insurance providers who had supported use of new technologies to improve care and cut costs wanted to ensure proper payments would be permitted. And companies that offer telemedicine services wanted to ensure they could operate without onerous restrictions.

"This is significant, and will be a winner for everyone," said Nora Belcher, executive director of the Texas e-Healthcare Alliance, a telemedicine trade group. "This is going to get us a fair and open market for telemedicine in Texas."

She and others involved in and familiar with the negotiations credited Schwertner with bringing the various sides together on the proposed legislation.

"(The Texas Medical Association) applauds Senator Schwertner for his leadership in helping us all pursue a compromise telemedicine bill on our patients' behalf," said Dr. Ray Callas, chair of the Texas Medical Association Council on Legislation.

"While we are pleased that the seed of a legislative agreement is in place, we acknowledge that more work remains before it can grow into a new law to guide this valuable form of patient care for the future."
LONDON - In November 1967, four years after her husband's assassination, Jacqueline Kennedy traveled to the temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia on a much-publicized trip with David Ormsby Gore, a friend of her husband and himself a recent widower.

There was much speculation of a romantic attachment. A few months later, Ormsby Gore, a former British ambassador to Washington, proposed marriage. She turned him down.

In a handwritten letter, filled with anguish and a touch of cruelty, she explained her decision to marry Aristotle Onassis instead.

"If ever I can find some healing and some comfort - it has to be with somebody who is not part of all my world of past and pain," she wrote. "I can find that now - if the world will let us."

The letter was part of a set of papers found in locked red-leather cases discovered only last month in Wales at the family home of Ormsby Gore, who died in 1985. They are being auctioned in London next month by his grandson to help restore the house.

The letters point to the depth of feeling behind the public mask of one of the most celebrated women of her time.

'Lost so much together'

Among them is the letter to Ormsby Gore, also known as Lord Harlech, dated Nov. 13, 1968, a month after her marriage to Onassis and five months after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

In it, she spoke of the love she felt for Ormsby Gore, whose wife had died in a car crash in May 1967. "We have known so much & shared & lost so much together - Even if it isn't the way you wish now - I hope that bond of love and pain will never be cut."

Writing from Onassis' yacht in Greece, on stationery with the ship's crest, a clear if cold message, Kennedy told Ormsby Gore: "You are like my beloved beloved brother - and mentor - and the only original spirit I know - as you were to Jack."

Ormsby Gore had expressed incredulity at her choice of Onassis, and she tried to respond.

Onassis, she wrote, is "lonely and wants to protect me from being lonely. And he is wise and kind. Only I can decide if he can, and I decided.

"I know it comes as a surprise to so many people," she continued. "But they see things for me that I never wanted for myself."

Friend to the president

Ormsby Gore was an old friend of John F. Kennedy, whose younger sister Kathleen, or Kick, married Ormsby Gore's first cousin. After John Kennedy's election in 1960, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan sent Ormsby Gore to Washington as Britain's ambassador.

The two men, a year apart in age, were extremely close, and the president consulted him on every key issue of foreign policy, especially during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, and in discussions of Vietnam and nuclear disarmament.

Robert Kennedy said that Ormsby Gore was "almost a part of the government," adding that the president "would rather have his judgment than that of anybody else."

Among the letters is one in which the president praised the ambassador: "I appreciate as you know, in all these critical matters your judgment - which I have found to be uniformly good and true."

Ormsby Gore inherited his father's title, Lord Harlech, when he died in 1964. His grandson Jasset, who inherited the title a year ago, is the one selling the papers, along with other possessions, at Bonhams, London, in an auction scheduled for March 29.

Some of the letters will be on view March 2 at the Bonhams showroom in New York.

In total, there are 18 handwritten letters and one typed letter from Jacqueline Kennedy to Ormsby Gore, as well as other papers. Those include a pass admitting him to the White House for Nov. 23, 1963, one day after the assassination; a jocular 1963 letter from Robert Kennedy, signed "Bobby"; and instructions for pallbearers for Robert Kennedy's funeral.

The papers include a letter Jacqueline Kennedy wrote to Ormsby Gore after the death of his wife, Sylvia, known as Sissie, which seemed to foreshadow his desire to marry her.

"Your last letter was such a cri de coeur of loneliness - I would do anything to take that anguish from you," she wrote. "You want to patch the wounds & match the loose pairs - but you can't because your life won't turn out that way."

'Our marriage problem'

One of the most moving documents is a draft letter Ormsby Gore wrote to Jacqueline Kennedy after she turned down his proposal.

"All the pathetic plans I had brought with me for visits to Cyrenaica, holidays near one another and a whole variety of solutions to our marriage problem, including one for a secret marriage this summer - plans which I saw us eagerly discussing, calmly and with complete frankness as we did at the Cape and in Cambodia for the next wonderful ten days - all had become irrelevant trash to be thrown away within a few hours of my landing in New York," he wrote.

"As for your photograph I weep when I look at it. Why do such agonizing things have to happen? Where was the need for it?"

Matthew Haley, the head of fine books and manuscripts at Bonhams, said that "you just don't get this quantity of insight into Jackie's personal life and that level of intimacy."

Contacted about the letters Friday, a representative of the Kennedy family said that family members will not to comment.

Ormsby Gore did marry again, in December 1969, to Pamela Colin, an American who bore more than a passing resemblance to Jacqueline Onassis. He died at 66, after a car crash. Jacqueline Onassis attended his funeral.
JOHANNESBURG - Wildlife traffickers in a major African park have been offering rewards for a full lion carcass, raising concerns that poachers are increasingly targeting a vulnerable species because of demand in some Asian countries for lion bones used in traditional medicine.

The report from Mozambique's Niassa National Reserve comes amid debate about whether the legal, annual export of bones from hundreds of captive-bred lions in South Africa to China and Southeast Asia could spur the market, possibly leading to the illegal killing of wild lions for their bones as well. African lion bones are a relatively recent substitute in tonics for the bones of Asian tigers, which have been depleted by poachers.

There have been "multiplying anecdotal reports of lions harvested for body parts" along with "increasing examples of whole skeletons being taken," said Paul Funston, senior lion program director for the Panthera conservation group. He said he believes the phenomenon is linked to increased Chinese demand rather than the longtime use of lion parts in some traditional African cultures.

"It seems to start with teeth and claws, which probably mainly have trinket value, and migrates to bones and carcasses once a market is established," Funston said.

Lions face other threats, including human encroachment on habitats and the poaching of antelopes and other animals for food, which deprives the predators of prey. The number of African lions in the wild has dropped by more than 40 percent to about 20,000 in the past two decades, according to estimates.

Recent South African cases "have the hallmark of domestic consumption for the local traditional medicine trade," said Vivienne Williams, a researcher at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and the lead author on a 2015 lion bone study. Sometimes, lion teeth and claws are used as talismans and lion paw bones feature in healers' divination sets, she said.

South Africa has proposed a 2017 export quota of 800 skeletons of captive-bred lions, many of which are killed by paying clients in a practice described as "canned hunting."

South Africa's environmental affairs department raised a concern that runs counter to that of some conservationists, saying a ban on the trade in captive-bred lion bones could trigger more poaching.

Richard Thomas, spokesman for TRAFFIC, a conservation group, said the legal industry must be closely monitored.

"We don't fully understand the dynamics of the lion bone trade, and while it may not currently be having a perceived impact on wild lions in South Africa, we simply don't know whether that'll be the case there in the future or whether it's presently the case elsewhere in the continent," he said.
WASHINGTON  Texas U.S. Sen. John Cornyn sided Wednesday with Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who cut off a speech the night before by liberal Massachusetts firebrand Elizabeth Warren opposing the nomination of Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general.

"This is not supposed to be a mud wrestling ring or a food fight," Cornyn said.

It started Tuesday when Warren took to the Senate floor to read statements from the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and Coretta Scott King, the widow of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., criticizing Sessions' record on civil rights.

McConnell accused Warren of impugning Sessions on the Senate floor, a violation of Senate rules designed to maintain decorum. In particular, Republicans took umbrage at the use of Kennedy's words from 1986 describing Sessions as a "disgrace."

The dust-up turned a late night speech to a nearly deserted Senate chamber into a national news story, elevating Warren into a Democratic hero. McConnell's complaint that Warren had been warned and that "she persisted," became a rallying cry for her supporters, including Hillary Clinton.

On Wednesday, some of the same passages were read on the Senate floor by other Democratic senators without objection.

But Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, said the party-line vote to rebuke Warren was appropriate. "Senator Warren tried to hide behind other people's words," he said, "by basically reading their words and suggesting it was them speaking and not her."

He characterized Warren's speech as "a sign of the times where we have kind of a race to the bottom." Too often in the Senate, he added, lawmakers "fail to treat each other with the civility and decorum that I think goes along with the privilege of serving in the Senate."

Cornyn demurred when he was asked about a 2015 floor speech in which Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz attacked McConnell's integrity, saying he was "willing to say things that he knows are false."

"No one raised a point of order at that time," Cornyn noted, "and I think that's the best answer to that... As I said, we can all do better."
The funding scheme for ReBuild Houston, the city's street and drainage repair initiative, remains in limbo after a state appeals court agreed Thursday that the 2010 charter referendum creating the program is void.

The Texas Fourteenth Court of Appeals ruling affirms an Oct. 2015 trial court decision ordering the city to call a new election on creating a dedicated pay-as-you-go fund for street and drainage projects.
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim agreed over the phone Thursday to increase cooperation between the two countries, according to a Prime Ministry source, Anadolu reported.

During the call, Pence described Turkish-U.S. relations as entering a "new day", the source who spoke on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on talking to the media said.

The two leaders also agreed to increase bilateral cooperation on basis of the countries alliance and partnership, especially in the areas of military, security and counter-terrorism.

Pence also expressed condolences for the death of Turkish soldiers who were accidentally martyred Thursday during Russian airstrikes against Daesh in northern Syria's Al-Bab region.

On Tuesday night, U.S. President Donald Trump spoke to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a 45-minute telephone call. They discussed the situation in Syria, the refugee crisis, and counter-terrorism, and their call reportedly led to the current visit to Ankara of CIA Director Mike Pompeo.
It's an uncommon day when policymakers deliver good news on taxes. And even while the message the Texas Education Agency delivered last week to the Houston Independent School District and a handful of other "property-rich" districts around the state is only a limited silver lining, we'll take it.

School funding in Texas is in an absurd state. The chief absurdity is the so-called Robin Hood program. It was set up in the mid-1990s to lessen public education inequities among communities that are fueled by the state's reliance on local property taxes to fund our schools. As currently designed, Robin Hood payments, or "recaptured" funds from property-rich schools, benefit the state's bottom line, not poor schools: When property-rich schools pay into the Robin Hood pool, funds go to property-poor districts. But in a sleight-of-hand move, the state reduces the amount of aid going to those districts.

What's this have to do with TEA's message to the district last week?

HISD last year became one of the districts designated as "property rich" and was due to send a $162 million payment to the state this summer. Voters in November said no to the scheme, sending the district careening onto another forsaken path. Because voters disapproved the payment, TEA is set to detach HISD's most valuable commercial property - think, the Galleria, Chevron USA and other titans - and permanently place it in the taxable inventory of property-poor districts.

(We know, your head is spinning, but we're doing the best we can to explain this arcane mess.)

Here's where the TEA letter and the silver lining comes in. In its communication, TEA said it was changing a nearly two decades-old formula. The change is favorable to HISD, but the district is still on the hook for a recapture payment - estimated at around $77 million. That's still a bitter pill.

Trustees tonight are deciding whether to put the recapture provision back on the ballot on May 6. The item will use state-mandated language that will make voters' intent clear as mud. If trustees agree to a May election, voters will be asked to indicate "for" or "against" the "purchase of attendance credits."

In simple terms - we're trying - this will give voters the option to pay in cash the amount owed under the state's Robin Hood program rather than payment through detachment.

Putting the proposition back on the ballot is not an endorsement of the Robin Hood program. It's abhorrent that HISD should be penalized for the rise in property appraisals over which it has no control, and more so to know that the recapture payment won't improve funding equity for property-poor districts.

This is the message that some HISD trustees, along with Mayor Sylvester Turner and others have tried to drill home with state lawmakers now that the Legislature is in session. Even with the lesser amount, payment will materially impact HISD's ability to educate its primarily disadvantaged student population.

It's too early to say what actions the Legislature is going to take to fix our broken school finance system in this session. Despite the state Supreme Court's tepid conclusion in late 2015 that the school finance system is constitutional, justices went out of their way to point out the many fissures. The court urged lawmakers to overhaul the system. HISD voters' November decision against a recapture payment underscored the justices' point.

Trustees should bring the matter back to voters. Doing so promotes transparency and accountability.

The squeaky wheels are getting attention. Operating a high-quality public education system is an imperative state responsibility, and we mustn't let lawmakers off the hook.
"Would you love me more if I was dirtier?"

That's Jeffrey Clark's tongue-in-cheek question to Texas political leadership. Clark serves as executive director of the Wind Coalition. Looking at the stats on wind production in our state, you'd think that the industry would be up there with oil derricks, Gulf Coast seafood and Blue Bell ice cream as symbols of state pride. After all, we're the nation's largest producer of wind energy, and what Texan can pass up another opportunity to brag about everything being bigger?

But instead of touting those wind farms, plenty of politicians confuse the Panhandle landscape for the California coast.

"Everybody is on board to invest until I say, 'oh and by the way I don't produce any CO2 and I don't contribute to climate change,' " Clark told the editorial board.

Anything with a tint of green has a way of turning off voters and politicians in our red-hued state. Call it partisanship, tribalism or identity politics, but something is deeply wrong with the way Texans prioritize our policies.

Last year, half of all electricity in the United States was produced by wind or natural gas - the Texas two-step for energy production. As their share of the energy pie continues to grow, dirty coal gets the squeeze.

The Lone Star State should celebrate as our electrical grid is powered by indigenous gas and wind. But as Clark summarizes the political feedback he hears up in Austin: "Well I'm a Republican and I believe in coal."

Republicans used to believe in business, too. Companies like GM and Facebook are going out of their way to buy Texas wind. Even Dow Chemical uses wind to help power its chemical plants. The stable prices and low pollution are simply good for the bottom line and so are the 25,000 jobs wind has created in Texas.

Things aren't much better up in Washington, where the Texas delegation is largely lined up behind Donald Trump's agenda to save the failing coal sector.

The shale boom's cheap natural gas continues to undercut the need for coal. In fact, domestic demand could fall by 40 percent by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency. But that hasn't stopped the industry from expecting gifts from the government. Just last week, Congress voted to ease anti-pollution regulations on coal mines, allowing them to dump waste into streams.

However, there are options to consider other than keeping Obama-era regulations or staking out a position on the opposite extreme. In a Wall Street Journal column titled "A Conservative Answer to Climate Change," former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Former Secretary of State George Shultz advocated this week for an across-the-board carbon tax. That sort of policy would be a boon to clean Texas energy and help prevent the emission of greenhouse gas.

Environmentalism doesn't have to be a zero-sum game in politics. Energy markets, however, only have room for so many producers. Each move to help coal is a push against natural gas and wind. Texas politicians need to choose a side.
Impressed with Houston

Regarding "Greatest ever" (Page A1, Monday), I would like to say a big thank you to the city of Houston for a great job with Super Bowl LI! My family was in Houston to visit friends, participate in Super Bowl activities and cheer on our New England Patriots. We were incredibly impressed with the organization of the event, venues, law enforcement and most especially the thousands of volunteers!

Everywhere we went we encountered friendly, helpful people and law enforcement officers. We had our kids with us and always felt safe and appreciated how organized the city made all the events.

Congratulations to the city of Houston, city, state and federal law enforcement and all the resident volunteers for making Houston a great host city.

The Coulter Family, Daniel Island, S.C.

Reaping after sowing

Regarding "Houston mayor: Super Bowl was 'perfecto,' leaving $350 million to city" (Chron.com, Wednesday), hopefully some of the money will be used to clean Houston up and try to work on the extreme homeless issue.

Jason Miller, posted via Facebook

Showing respect, dignity

Regarding "This week at the Texas Legislature" (HoustonChronicle.com, Monday), we strongly condemn Senate Bill 6, the so-called bathroom bill, which has its committee hearing this week, as immoral and not in line with the values Texans hold dear. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and his supporters should be ashamed of scapegoating transgender Texans for political gain. This bill has nothing to do with protection.

Opponents of transgender rights claim that bills such as SB6 guard women from sexual assault. There is no evidence to support this. Sexual assault in any context is illegal. There are no recorded incidents of transgender women assaulting other women in public restrooms. It is a fabricated issue. The fact is that transgender people are the ones who need legal protection from violence, employment discrimination, and assault.

All religions require us to show compassion to our neighbors, especially toward those of us who are marginalized in society.

It is inconceivable to us that a person of deep faith could listen to the story of a transgender individual, pray with that person, and then deny that individual basic dignity and respect.

Rev. Jonathan C. Page, First Congregational Church of Houston, and Rev. Lisa Hunt, St. Stephen's Episcopal Church; president and vice president, respectively, Faith Leaders Coalition of Greater Houston

Superfund site

Regarding "EPA's San Jac River cleanup plan is flawed" (Page A11, Tuesday), as a retired mechanical engineer and project director who was a registered professional engineer in Texas and two other states, I thought about the two choices for dealing with the dioxins and furans in the river beneath the cap.

The options are a) leave the pollutants submerged where they are and maintain the cap, or b) completely remove the pollutants from the river.

I'd say the author should ask himself one question before reaching a final conclusion about the cleanup: "If I lived on a property I owned at the shores of the San Jac River near the site, would I feel as safe and comfortable living there with option "a" as I would with option "b"?

Jesse Cancelmo, Houston
Stupid but legal. Such is the Trump administration's travel ban for people from seven Muslim countries. Of course, as with almost everything in American life, what should be a policy or even a moral issue becomes a legal one. The judicial challenge should have been given short shrift, since the presidential grant of authority to exclude the entry of aliens is extremely wide and statutorily clear. The judge who issued the temporary restraining order never even made a case for its illegality.

The Ninth Circuit has indeed ruled against the immigration ban, but even if the ban is ultimately vindicated in the courts (as is likely), that doesn't change the fact that it makes for lousy policy.

It began life as a barstool eruption after the San Bernardino massacre when Donald Trump proposed a total ban on Muslims entering the country "until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on."

Rudy Giuliani says he was tasked with cleaning up this idea. Hence the executive order suspending entry of citizens from the seven countries while the vetting process is reviewed and tightened.

The core idea makes sense. These are failed, essentially ungovernable states (except for Iran) where reliable data is hard to find. But the moratorium was unnecessary and damaging. Its only purpose was to fulfill an ill-considered campaign promise.

It caused enormous disruption without making us any safer. What was the emergency that compelled us to turn away people already in the air with already approved visas for entry to the U.S.?

President Trump said he didn't want to give any warning. Otherwise, he tweeted, "the 'bad' would rush into our country.  A lot of bad 'dudes' out there!"

Rush? Not a single American has ever been killed in a terror attack in this country by a citizen from the notorious seven. The killers have come from precisely those countries not listed - Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Lebanon, Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan (the Tsarnaev brothers). The notion that we had to act immediately because hordes of jihadists in these seven countries were about to board airplanes to blow up Americans is absurd.

Vetting standards could easily have been revised and tightened without the moratorium and its attendant disruptions, stupidities, random cruelties and well-deserved bad press.

The moratorium turned into a distillation of the worst aspects of our current airport-security system, which everyone knows to be 95 percent pantomime. The pat-down of the 80-year-old grandmother does nothing to make us safer. Its purpose is to give the illusion of doing something. Similarly, during the brief Trump moratorium, a cavalcade of innocent and indeed sympathetic characters - graduate students, separated family members, returning doctors and scientists - were denied entry. You saw this and said to yourself: We are protecting ourselves from these?

If anything, the spectacle served to undermine Trump's case for extreme vigilance and wariness of foreigners entering the United States. There is already empirical evidence. A Nov. 23 Quinnipiac poll found a 6-point majority in favor of "suspending immigration from 'terror prone' regions"; a Feb. 7 poll found a 6-point majority against The same poll found a whopping 44-point majority opposed to "suspending all immigration of Syrian refugees to the U.S. indefinitely."

Then there is the opportunity cost of the whole debacle. It risks alienating the leaders of even nonaffected Muslim countries - the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation expressed "grave concern" - which may deter us from taking far more real and effective anti-terror measures. The administration was intent on declaring the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, a concrete measure that would hamper the operations of a global Islamist force. In the current atmosphere, however, that declaration is reportedly being delayed and rethought.

Add to that the costs of the ill-prepared, unvetted, sloppy rollout. Consider the discordant, hostile message sent to loyal law-abiding Muslim-Americans by the initial denial of entry to green card holders. And the ripple effect of the initial denial of entry to those Iraqis who risked everything to help us in our war effort. In future conflicts, this will weigh upon local Muslims deciding whether to join and help our side. Actions have consequences.

In the end, what was meant to be a piece of promise-keeping, tough-on-terror symbolism has become an oxygen-consuming distraction. This is a young administration with a transformative agenda to enact. At a time when it should be pushing and promoting deregulation and health care transformation, it has steered itself into a pointless cul-de-sac - where even winning is losing.

Krauthammer's email address is letters@charleskrauthammer.com.
The Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress are pushing to prevent Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funds to pay for contraception and cervical and breast cancer screenings. Funding for the federal Title X program, which provides infrastructure support to a network of nearly 4,000 clinics across the country, could also be in jeopardy.

Five years ago, we learned in Texas what can happen when efforts to defund Planned Parenthood are carried out: The network of health-care providers falls apart, and women lose access to essential preventive services. Now Trump and his allies are poised to wreak the same havoc on the country that the 2011 Republican state Legislature imposed on Texas.

The motivation for the Texas action was the same as the motivation for what Congress plans to do: appeasing groups opposed to legal abortion. But none of these family planning programs pay for abortion care, which the law prohibits spending federal money on. Defunding Planned Parenthood only reduces access to contraception and other necessary health care. Indeed, by reducing unintended pregnancies, the programs Republicans want to cut Planned Parenthood out of actually reduce the number of abortions.

Our study of what happened in Texas provides some warnings of what to expect if the GOP carries out its plan.

In 2011, the Texas Legislature cut the two-year budget for funding family planning from $111 million to $38 million in an effort to defund Planned Parenthood. After these cuts, 82 Texas family planning clinics - 1 out of every 4 in the state - closed or stopped providing family-planning services. An unintended consequence of the law was that two-thirds of the clinics that closed were not even Planned Parenthood clinics. Organizations that remained open, many with reduced hours, were often unable to offer the most effective methods of contraception, such as IUDs and contraceptive implants, to women who wanted them.

Organizations also were forced to begin charging uninsured women fees for birth control and other health services that had previously been free or lower-cost.

In focus groups with low-income Texas women, some said they did not seek care at all because they were unable to pay the new fees.

Another component of the 2011 legislation prohibited any doctor or clinic associated with abortion care from participating in the Women's Health Program, the state's Medicaid fee-for-service, family-planning program. This effectively excluded Planned Parenthood, which until then had cared for more than 40 percent of the program's clients. Over the two-year period following the funding cuts and exclusion from the Women's Health Program, 31 of Planned Parenthood's 74 Texas family-planning clinics closed.

Removing Planned Parenthood from the Women's Health Program reduced access to IUDs and implants at a time when use of these methods was increasing in the rest of the country.

Comparing counties with and without a Planned Parenthood clinic, our research found that in counties with no clinic, there was a reduction of 36 percent in the provision of IUDs and implants and a reduction of 31 percent in the provision of injectable contraceptives.

In a survey we conducted among former Planned Parenthood clients who used injectable contraception in Houston and Midland, many reported difficulties finding a new provider, having to repeat exams or make multiple appointments before getting a method and being charged unauthorized co-payments. Several years later, many were using less-effective methods, and some had become pregnant.

These findings represent a stark rebuttal to repeated assurances made by state leaders then - and Republicans in Congress now - that the gap left by Planned Parenthood would be easily filled by community health centers or women switching their care to private physicians. Perhaps voters are already aware that defunding Planned Parenthood brings a lot of unintended consequences. In an October 2016 poll conducted by Politico and the Harvard School of Public Health, 58 percent of likely voters supported federal funding for Planned Parenthood, including almost half of Trump voters. As shown in a Quinnipiac poll last month, the proportion is even higher - 8 in 10 - when respondents are told that the money will be used for non-abortion services.

Rather than repeat the Texas experience, the new administration could be inspired by another era in Republican history. With the 1970 bipartisan passage of the Title X program, President Richard Nixon stated "no American woman should be denied access to family planning assistance because of her economic condition." This national commitment to women should not be abandoned now.

Potter is the principal investigator and White is an investigator of the Texas Policy Evaluation Project. This commentary first appeared in the Washington Post.
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Alibaba founder and executive chairman Jack Ma. (Photo : Getty Images News)

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba opened its first office in Melbourne as it firmly eyes Australian and New Zealand as a source of "high-quality products and services that China will not be able to supply alone."



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Its founder and executive chairman Jack Ma said that as China moved from exporting to importing, it presented enormous opportunity due to huge consumption with a middle class expected to swell to close to 500 million in the next 15 years.



Ma also expressed his enthusiasm for the region by calling its clean environment as its next "gold mine" during Alibaba's Australian launch on Saturday. He said that due to China's polluted environment, a lot of things needed to be imported.



There is a high demand from people in China for fresh air and Australia has bottled up to $1 million worth of air in aerosol cans that are sold for about $25.



The Melbourne office will support the 1,300 Australian and 400 New Zealand businesses, many of which entered China for the first time selling on Alibaba's online retail platforms.



It also serves to attract new merchants.



It also intends on building the entire operating infrastructure, which includes online payments and logistics and cloud computing, according to Maggie Zhou, managing director of Alibaba's Melbourne office.



However, executive director of the Australian Retailers Association, Russell Zimmerman, warned that Alibaba would add pressure on Australian retailers' ability to compete.



Before attending the opening ceremony, Ma had a meeting with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in Sydney to discuss the Alibaba executive chairman's e-World Trade Platform project, which helps small and medium enterprises penetrate the global economy.



Ma also donated $20 million for a scholarship program at the University of Newcastle and signed a memorandum of understanding to expose Australia Post, a state-run logistics firm, to Southeast Asia's e-commerce market.


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Many of the goals we make for ourselves, or our employees, are only partially met, and many are never met at all1In response to this, you can google business goals and objectives and get millions of hits. These in turn will take you to excellent articles on how to create goals and objectives; including Examples of Business Goals & Objectives2 and How to Set Business Goals3 and How to Write a Great Business Plan.4 However, rather than review the contents of these outstanding articles, Im suggesting that setting and meeting your goals involves a principle which must precede all others. That principle is that every goal must begin with how you think! Another way of expressing this is that our goals (and indeed everything else in our lives) begin with our brain. The more we understand how our brain works, the better our chances for meeting our personal goals, and the goals of our organization. Lets begin our understanding of the brain by observing that one of the primary jobs of your brain is to keep us safe within your comfort zone5 This means that our brains do not like change. This is the reason that for the most part, New Year Resolutions do not work, and many company goals are never met. So how can we train our own brains, and those of our employees to get out of our comfort zones and actually help us meet our goals? Its interesting; M...
>2016 was a busy year in the employment space and 2017 will see those developments tested, clarified and challenged. Legislative amendments have set the bar high with respect to minimum employment standards  changes the unions are unlikely to let go unnoticed.The Harmful Digital Communications Act, which has now come in to force in its entirety, addresses the risk that emerging communication technologies pose in interpersonal relationships.Overseas, litigation in the United Kingdom has sent ripples through the wider gig economy, exposing the inherent tension between the steady march of technological progress and the rights of workers.In this article Aaron Lloyd and the team from MinterEllisonRuddWatts, suggest the four key areas to be mindful of in the year ahead.2016 saw a number of legislative changes aimed at safeguarding and clarifying the minimum rights of employees, and imposing greater sanctions in the event of an employer non-compliance. These changes prohibit the use of so-called zero hour contracts; require employees to guarantee set hours of work; and regulate the manner in which employers can require their employees to be available to accept work outside of their guaranteed hours. The extent of the obligations imposed under the new amendments provides fertile ground for test cases, with the unions expected to take up the mantle of challenging employers in this space.By the end of 2016, the remaining sections of the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015 had come fully into force. The Act introduces a criminal offence for posting a digital communication which is intended to cause harm. This is highly relevant for employers because the Act imposes specific obligations on online content hosts who receive notice of the complaint. Businesses responsible for online platforms, particularly if those platforms allow a degree of interactivity with employees, will need to be mindful of their statutory duties. Employers are encouraged to educate their employees, implement appropriate codes of conduct and IT policies, and establish lines of communication and prompt complaint handling procedures in line with the Act.The Government has recently accepted the recommendations of the Joint Working Group on Pay Equity, and has declared that these recommendations will be incorporated into employment legislation this year. This acceptance comes after high profile litigation in the aged care sector, and the on-going media scrutiny that followed. The recommendations facilitate the making of pay equity claims at any stage of employment. Once a claim is made by an employee, the provisions requiring good faith bargaining will apply. This is considered a major step forward in terms of achieving pay equity in New Zealand.The gig economy is an environment in which temporary positions are common and organisations contract with independent workers for short-term engagements. This new model already has a solid foothold in New Zealand, affording greater flexibility for workers and economic advantage to employers. However, engaging contractors has become a way for employers to circumvent the expenses associated with engaging employees  a phenomenon which sits uncomfortably within traditional employment paradigms. In the United Kingdom, recent litigation involving ride-sharing service, Uber, saw the courts adopt a substance over form approach to employment classification, which is familiar to us here in New Zealand following the Supreme Courts longstanding decision in Bryson v Three Foot Six Ltd. Uber employees were only contractors by title, but the courts deemed them to be employees and therefore entitled to the rights and privileges that this classification entails (including holiday pay and annual leave). The Uber litigation has provided impetus for other contractors to challenge their employment status and 2017 may see those operating in New Zealands gig economy also making noise.With these changes coming now is a good time to review your policies. It is probably also a good time to look at training your staff to ensure that they understand their responsibilities. After recognising an increasing burden on businesses to ensure staff understand, and are compliant with, legal obligations MinterEllisonRuddWatts, launched an online compliance training and reporting system tool called Safetrac , to help organisation do this in a time and cost effective manner, whilst providing a full audit trail Further information and an online demo of Safetrac can be viewed here: https://www.safetrac.co.nz/demo/
This is personal for me, she admitted at Makers conference, a womens leadership event held in California. I lost my husband very suddenly. Facebook provided leave and flexibility, and now were doing more.

Sandberg returned to work 10 days after her husband, Dave Goldberg, died suddenly of cardiac arrhythmia while on vacation.

The benefits bump is just the latest improvement from Facebook and last year the tech giant increased its paid parental leave to four months for both men and women.

People should be able both to work and be there for their families. No one should face this trade-off, said Sandberg. We need public policies that make it easier for people to care for their children and aging parents and for families to mourn and heal after loss.

Recent stories:
traditional, expected breaks; unexpected breaks that are distracting; and unexpected breaks during which a person maintains focus.

question of how best to structure the work day is important for most organisations and the one thing employers need to take into consideration is the type of breaks employees are taking, according to researchers from Harvard Business School and the University of North Carolina.Breaks are often seen as a necessary evil  inevitable but non-productive, but in their paper The Microstructure of Work: How Unexpected Breaks Let You Rest, but Not Lose Focus , researchers Pradeep Pendem, Paul Green, Bradley R. Staats, and Francesca Gino said that they are more than merely a palliative experience but can actually yield post-break improvements in performance.They said that there are three types of breaks at work:Of all three types, it is the last one that has the most positive effect on an employees productivity, they claimed. They defined this type of break as unplanned pauses of unknown length in the work stream during which the employee is not required to attend to anything outside the primary work task.Unexpected work breaks that maintain focus allow an employee to recharge and rejuvenate but without disengaging cognitively, thus removing negative post-break costs to productivity and creating the best organisational value, they said.When taking traditional breaks, employees usually plan to fully disengage from their tasks but this leads to needing a mental reboot when it comes time to get back to work, they explained.To test their hypothesis, more than 300 workers were asked to do 10 rounds of a particular task with expected two-minute breaks scheduled after the fifth round. In the unexpected break portion, participants were told at random to remain ready to continue while looking at a spinning wheel.They found that participants in the unexpected break portion consistently performed better than their expected breaks counterpart.Participants who experienced the unexpected break reported being more alert and engaged in lower levels of mind wandering as compared to participants who experienced the expected break, they noted.These studies suggest that researchers  and practitioners  should think of breaks as a set of two simultaneous experiences: physical disengagement from the work task and cognitive disengagement from the work task, they added.How can you encourage more unexpected breaks at work? Author Daniel Kleinman at Forbes suggested holding an impromptu brainstorming session or even a short lecture to teach employees a new skill.Your employees might not realise they needed it, but their brains will thank you for the newfound energy, he said.
The guests road from your hotel marketing campaigns, to your website and finally to online booking is a delicate, razors edge journey filled with several opportunities for the customer to bounce, turn back, and never return. However, many hoteliers assume a booking is guaranteed once a visitor is on the website and ready to buy.

This article originally appeared on Tambourine.

The guests road from your hotel marketing campaigns, to your website and finally to online booking is a delicate, razors edge journey filled with several opportunities for the customer to bounce, turn back, and never return.

However, many hoteliers assume a booking is guaranteed once a visitor is on the website and ready to buy. But, beware. There is a dangerous chasm between your hotel website and your booking engine, where potential guests can likely fall off if youre not cautious.

Here are the most common ways to lose potential guests transitioning from your Website to your booking engine:

1. Lack of Personalization

Personalization is a big industry buzz word right now. But cutting through all the hype, the one place where personalization can truly make an immediate impact is on your direct website.

How?

When your hotel website and booking engine are integrated by one provider, personalized web experiences can be created instantly and dynamically. You can show gated and loyalty rates to recognized members of any closed group your hotel wants to create.

Here are a few more examples:

 When a guest from Argentina visits your website and moves into the booking engine, your website can automatically pass the users location and localize room rates in the booking engine to the guests native currency.

 A past guest (Alex in this case) revisits your website after checking dates a week before. You can now present dynamic rate promos only available to loyal past guests. Check out this example from our client, Cassa Times Square NYC:

 Your website tracks user behavior and auto-configures the booking engine with images and messages relevant to that demographic (family vs business traveler).

2. A Slow Loading Booking Engine

It takes mere seconds to kill a booking. Research shows that 25% of consumers will leave a website if it takes more than four seconds to load. That figure jumps beyond 50% if your booking engine takes up to 10 seconds to load.

In a world of instant gratification and lightening-fast internet speed, guests expect every part of your hotels online experience to load immediately. Every moment of delay gives the customer more and more reason to abandon you in search of something better and faster.

Slow page loads and annoying delays are common when a customer plugs in their dates or a discount rate code into the booking engine. Dont lose a hard-earned booking because of something as simple as speed.

Test your load times on different browsers and from mobile devices, which is especially important since many guests are now relying on their own cellular connections (non high-speed wifi) to make online purchases.

3. Inconsistent Experiences Between Website to Booking Engine

The best booking engines are the ones that go unnoticed by the guest. Being transferred someplace that looks and feels different to complete a transaction can cause guests to feel uneasy. This is why user experience (UX) is vital for online transactions.

Even the smallest of changes, like different fonts or different colors, can be jarring to your guests and chip away at the delicate trust and reliability that you worked so hard to establish. So, keep guest confidence high with a seamless transition and a consistent appearance.

A continuous, seamless customer experience is one of the major benefits of using one company for both your website and your booking engine. Customers will move smoothly from examining your guestrooms, looking at property photos and reading up on your amenities, to taking out their credit card and making a reservation.

About Tambourine

Tambourine uses technology and creativity to increase revenue for hotels and destinations worldwide. The firm, now in its 33rd year, is located in New York City and Fort Lauderdale. Please visit: www.Tambourine.com

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 2022 Hospitality Trends
Its another mind-bending day in America.

Fox News Outnumbered host Dagen McDowell defended Ivanka Trump Wednesday, saying if retailers had dropped brands owned by family members of past presidents, people would find it easier to call those scenarios wildly sexist if not racist.

Fox News host: If the family member of any previous president had their brand dropped, it would be called "wildly sexist if not racist" pic.twitter.com/T6tlmkkVP7  John Whitehouse (@existentialfish) February 8, 2017

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But I think that its unfair because shes not the president. Shes a family member with the same last name, she said. And if it was any other family  female family member  of any other president in modern history, this move would be called wildly sexist if not racist.

It was a comment that caught a few people off guard.

"Racism" against Ivanka Trump https://t.co/WXDAIIaaRa  Kurt Gessler (@kurtgessler) February 8, 2017

If any previous president had a family member with a brand, it would have been called "wildly inappropriate and grounds for indictment." https://t.co/RJ3b7VRv7s  Glenn Fleishman (@GlennF) February 8, 2017

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The Fox News host was addressing the controversy over Nordstroms recent decision to pull Ivanka Trumps line of clothing and accessories from its retail and online stores.

Nordstrom brushed off claims politics is the reason behind last week's move. Instead, the company pointed to poor sales.

Its a decision that riled the U.S. president, so much that Donald Trump assailed Nordstrom in a tweet from his personal account  retweeting it from the official POTUS handle, too.

My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2017

When asked about what the president thinks about retailers breaking ties with his daughters company, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said its more a personal attack on his family than the business.

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He ran for president. He won. He's leading this country. I think for people to take out their concern about his actions or his executive orders on members of his family, he has every right to stand up for his family and applaud their business activities, their success, Spicer said during Wednesday's press briefing.

McDowells comment, said less than a month after America bid farewell to its first black president, did not acknowledge how Trumps presidency and businesses bring unprecedented potential conflict of interests to the White House.

And, with the exception of Barack Obama, all of Americas past presidents in modern history have been white. Obamas two daughters were children when he took office in 2008. At the time, they did not serve as heads of companies bearing the family name.

Also on HuffPost
Sir Richard Branson and former U.S. President Barack Obama are seen having a good time during the British Virgin Islands encounter. (Photo : YouTube/Richard Branson )

Former United States president Barack Obama is said to be enjoying his life as a private citizen. It seemed that that the former White House resident had never experienced fun like this in his entire eight years as commander-in-chief.



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Alongside with his wife and former first lady Michelle Obama, the former chief executive took a side trip before heading back to Washington and met up with close friend Richard Branson of the Virgin Group, according to CNN. The couple went to the latter's own private island Moskito for some well-deserved vacation and bathe on its tropical climate.



Prior to the Virgin Islands getaway, there were reports suggesting that Mr. Obama was spotted in flip flops with his cap worn backwards. A tweet has proven such and it seems that the former head of state is enjoying his retirement.



Obama's on vacation with the hat backwards. He's never coming back. pic.twitter.com/RUakcwwgtT

 Philip Lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) February 1, 2017







On a blog post, Branson even recalled his encounter with Obama as the latter revealed some interesting facts before and during his term. He stated that Obama told him about the time when the latter was "surfing dangerously" in Hawaii. As soon as he came back, the then head of security gave him a heads up saying that such escapade will be the last during his entire career as a public servant.



Branson then suggested to Obama to learn some kitesurfing while he tries out foil boarding. Branson even made a wager that whoever stays in the water the longest without getting wiped out, wins. The two then set a date on when the challenge would take place and practiced their preferred water sport prior to that big day.



Obama eagerly learned the sport despite falling several times. The former president managed to tame the tides and went on winning the challenge as he strode on water for 100 meters making him a bona fide kitesurfer.



Watch Obama's kitesurfing skills here:














Turns out it's not only Canadians who prefer Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to U.S. President Donald Trump.

An Ipsos poll released Tuesday found that four in 10 Americans would prefer to have Trudeau as their president over Trump, while only one in three prefer Trump to Trudeau.

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Some felt so strongly, that four per cent said they've started researching moving to Canada and seven per cent said they are seriously considering a move.

However, those surveyed were a bit more divided when asked if Trudeau would be able to stand up to Trump. Four in 10 felt he would be able to, but three in 10 disagreed.

And it's no surprise that many Canadians disapprove of President Trump  but not in every respect.

Eighty-four per cent of Canadians disapprove of Trump, according to a separate poll released by Mainstreet/Postmedia Wednesday, but 53 per cent approve of his economic policy.

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Just 43 per cent approve of Trudeau's economic plan.

The poll also compares Trump and Trudeau's approval ratings, policies and personal characteristics.

Trump scored poorly on key leadership traits like whether or not he was honest, inspirational, intelligent, strong, or rational, while Trudeau did much better.

Only 13 per cent of those surveyed would describe Trump as compassionate. Trudeau scored much higher at 65 per cent.

As for approval ratings, 52 per cent approved of Trudeau while just 15 per cent approved of Trump at the end of the polling period.

Researchers said they expected Trudeau's approval rating to see a "Trump bump," but that didn't happen.

"But we saw no evidence of a bump in support for the Prime Minister, and, in fact, his approval rating dropped, as did Trumps over the tracking period," said Mainstreet Research president Quito Maggi in a release.

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Polls' accuracy

Mainstreet surveyed a random sample of 500 Canadians each day between Jan. 18 and 29 by phone. The poll's margin of error is  2.53, 19 times out of 20.

The Ipsos poll was conducted from Feb. 3 to 6, on behalf of Global News. It surveyed 1,004 U.S. residents online, that were randomly drawn from Ipsos's online panel. The poll had a credibility interval of  3.5 percentage points for all respondents.

Follow The Huffington Post Canada on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Also on HuffPost
Air Canada unveiled a new livery and new uniforms on Thursday, as it prepares to expand its presence in a competitive global environment.

The new aircraft look does away with the powder-blue and light-red theme the airline was using most recently, replacing it with a white, black and red theme.

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The new design hearkens back to earlier Air Canada looks, including a red maple leaf in a "rondelle," or circle, on the fin. It's the first time in 24 years that Air Canada planes have featured this, the airline says.

The new look came from Winkreative, a design company owned by Canadian entrepreneur Tyler Brule. The uniforms were designed by another Canadian, Christopher Bates.

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The airline has been expanding its routes aggressively of late, adding 28 new routes last year, including 15 overseas destinations. This year it plans to launch flights from Toronto to Berlin, Mumbai and Reykjavik; from Montreal to Algiers, Marseilles, Reykjavik and Shanghai; and from Vancouver to Frankfurt, London-Gatwick and Nagoya.

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Its officially the year of twins!

George Clooney and his wife, Amal, are expecting two babies this year, multiple sources confirm to People magazine.

A source close to the couple also revealed that Amal has let everyone in both families know quietly and that theyre all very happy.

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This exciting news means the Clooneys will become first-time parents this year.

Julie Chen, host of The Talk, also confirmed the pregnancy news on Thursday, reporting that the twins are due in June.

Beyonce is not the only superstar expecting twins. Congratulations are in order for George and Amal Clooney, she announced on the show. The Talk has confirmed that the 55-year-old superstar and his highly accomplished 39-year-old attorney wife are expecting twins.

Pregnancy rumours have been swirling ever since Amal was spotted wearing loose-fitting clothing to a Netflix screening in London last month, and again at the Credit Suisse Women Of Impact dinner in Davos, Switzerland, in late January.

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George and Amal Clooney attend the Netflix special screening and reception of "The White Helmets" in January.

The pregnancy news comes as a big surprise as Clooney is known as one of Hollywood's most notorious bachelors.

George and Amal tied the knot in 2014, and a year later, the "Up in the Air" actor admitted that kids were far from his mind. Ive thought about it I suppose, but I havent really  it hasnt been high on my list, the actor said during an interview on CBS This Morning.

Since then, it looks like Clooneys had a change of heart. We couldnt be more excited to meet the couple's twins this year!

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Valentines Day might be for lovers, but who says you need a partner to celebrate?

February 13 marks Galentines Day  a day to show the ladies in your life some much deserved appreciation. The special day originated in 2010 when Amy Poehlers Parks and Recreaction character, Leslie Knope, introduced the concept to the world for the very first time.

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Oh it's only the best day of the year, Knope declared. Every February 13th, my lady friends and I leave our husbands and our boyfriends at home, and we just come and kick it, breakfast-style. Ladies celebrating ladies. It's like Lilith Fair, minus the angst. Plus frittatas.

Since then, many women have adopted Feb. 13 to celebrate with their crews. But in case you need more than just the promise of brunch to start your own Galentines tradition, here are five reasons Valentines Day is better with your girlfriends.

Valentines Day is often thought of as the loneliest day of the year for singles. After all, every February we're bombarded with store shelves lined with pink and red hearts, gushy advertisements on our TVs and, worst of all, selfies of excessively happy couples all over social media.

But instead of isolating yourself into a pit of despair, Galentines Day is a chance to refocus your energy and celebrate the love of family and friends. After all, these are the people in your life who will stick around even when relationships end, so why not show them some love?

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A photo posted by Amanda Rose (@hearteyesshoppe) on Feb 1, 2017 at 3:01pm PST





Whoever said absence makes the heart grow fonder knew exactly what they were talking about. Turns out space is the key to lasting relationships, and celebrating Valentines Day with your gal pals is the perfect excuse to get away from your partner.

When partners have their own set of interests, friends, and time for self, that makes them happier and less bored, psychologist and relationship expert Dr. Terri Orbuch told the Sydney Morning Herald. Time alone also gives partners time to process their thoughts, pursue hobbies and relax without responsibilities to others.

Friendships are important, but as we grow older, we sometimes lose sight of that.

According to a 2016 study, 25 is the age where our friendship circles start to dwindle down. The theory is that we realize who the people are that are most important to us, and try to make a greater effort to hold on to these friendships.

Thus, Galentines Day is the perfect way to reconnect with your BFFs and show them some appreciation. Plus, who doesnt want an excuse to reminisce about all the trouble you got into in high school, or all the things your friend cant remember from her bachelorette party last year? Call your friends. Its time to catch up.

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A photo posted by viaONEHOPE (@viaonehope) on Feb 1, 2017 at 12:13pm PST





The beauty of Galentines Day is that there are no set rules, meaning you and your gal pals can do whatever the hell you like! Not into brunch? No problem. Watch some empowering chick flicks, try rock climbing for the first time or enjoy a night out on the town.

But if you do have brunch, you can rest easy knowing your BFFs wont judge you for scarfing down an entire plate of waffles and a side of bacon, while also indulging in a couple mimosas. In fact, theyd probably do the exact same thing, before turning to ask you what youd like to share for dessert. Arent girlfriends just the best?

According to Dr. Irene S. Levine, psychologist and author of The Friendship Doctor, female friendships are among the most meaningful but complex relationships in womens lives. These unique bonds often run deeper than family ties and last longer than relationships with husbands and lovers.

But why is that? Simply put, female friends are not only your confidantes, but theyre also your support system and partners-in-crime.

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Thats the basis of our mutual relationship, Boston-based business columnist Kris Frieswick told the Seattle Times, the mutual spilling, the purging and not being judged. These are women who accept you totally.

And on top of all that, having close friendships also promises a number of health benefits.

For one, these friendships keep your stress levels in check. When people bond socially, oxytocin, also known as the love hormone, is released to help combat the negative effects of stress, such as high blood pressure and increased risk of heart disease.

Additionally, a research review from 2010 has shown that people with strong social relationships are more likely to live longer than those who are isolated.

So keep that in mind the next time youre debating whether or not to celebrate Valentines Day with your girlfriends. Because chances are, itll benefit you in the long run to give the ladies in your life lots of attention.

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A defence minister who is a veteran of three combat tours in Afghanistan attempted to fend off accusations Thursday that the government he serves is pinching pennies when it comes to soldiers in harms way.

Harjit Sajjan was pressured by Conservatives in question period over revelations from CTV News that more than 300 soldiers in Kuwait, who are assisting in the fight against the so-called Islamic State, will lose a tax break worth at least $1,500 a month. The tax break is essentially danger pay for troops stationed in especially unsafe areas.

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Its an issue Tory critic James Bezan raised with Sajjan at a defence committee meeting in December, weeks after 15 soldiers at U.S. airbase Camp Arifjan in Kuwait learned they would not receive the same break as other soldiers because their risk level had been downgraded.

Bezan told the House of Commons Thursday that when he asked Sajjan to address that inequity late last year, he never imagined that would mean taking away everyones danger pay. Bezan asked why the prime minister was betraying men and women in uniform.

Sajjan said he agreed with his critic that the situation was not fully fair, and has asked the chief of defence staff and other agencies to review compensation rules.

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The defence minister is a proud veteran and he knows better than anyone how important danger pay is not just for our brave men and women in uniform, but for their families back home as well, Bezan said.

'Despicable' situation: Tory critic

Now, we all knew the Liberals would cut defence spending but we didnt ever imagine they would literally do it on the backs of our soldiers and military families.

Sajjan said he realized some of these inequities existed when he first visited Kuwait in 2015 because of rules put into place under the previous Conservative government.

Pierre Paul-Hus, the Tories associate defence critic and a veteran himself, said it was despicable that Sajjan was asleep at the switch on this issue.

As a former unit commander, Im ashamed of my country, Paul-Hus said, according to a translator. Ashamed of the way the Liberals are treating our troops.

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Sajjan says government 'working through' issue

Sajjan said it was despicable that troops were sent "in the first place" in 2014 without all these compensations.

Again, the defence minister suggested a process was underway to resolve the issue.

Many different departments are involved and we are working through it, he said. And we will get through this.

Paul-Hus then accused Sajjan of only taking action in light of media reports.

At the defence committee meeting on Dec. 1, Bezan asked Sajjan if he was committed to making sure that Operation Impact troops stationed at the air base received the same pay and benefits as others in Kuwait.

Absolutely, Sajjan replied, noting there was work to be done between the Treasury Board and military.

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But we are working through the complexities based on how this is done to make sure there is more equity for our troops when it comes to deployments, Sajjan said at the time.

"I'll look forward to having that rectified, Bezan said.

Sajjan is a retired lieutenant-colonel with the Canadian Armed Forces. He is also the first Sikh-Canadian to command an army regiment.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story indicated that Camp Arifjan was in Iraq, not Kuwait.

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Wahoooo! "The Magic School Bus" is making its comeback, thanks to Netflix, and "Saturday Night Live" star Kate McKinnon has already climbed on board.

On Wednesday Netflix announced McKinnon, known for her portrayals of Hillary Clinton and White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, will voice the lead character of Ms. Frizzle in their reboot, "Magic School Bus Rides Again."

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McKinnon as Hillary Clinton opposite Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump. (NBC via Getty Images).

The character of Ms. Frizzle was originally voiced by Lily Tomlin, who currently stars in Netflixs Grace & Frankie alongside Jane Fonda. Tomlin held the role for the show's entire four-year run and even won a Daytime Emmy Award for her performance.

The re-imagined series, which is expected to premiere later this year, was green-lit in June 2014 under the name "The Magic School Bus 360."

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At the time Netflix described the show as "a dynamic reimagining" of the original series with a high-tech bus to boot. Like the books the series is based on, Netflix's version will continue to focus on scientific exploration and innovation.

Though Tomlin isn't returning to her role, Producer Stu Stone, the original voice of the character Ralphie, told TMZ many of his original castmates have signed up for new roles in the reboot.

So don't rule out a return from the original "Ms. Frizz" just yet!

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Anyone with a newborn will tell you to sleep before the baby arrives because once that tiny ball of terror arrives you won't won't be able to get any zzz's.

But unfortunately for 78 per cent of women, pregnancy itself can be the start of restless nights. According to the National Sleep Foundation, changes in hormone levels is one of the main reasons for sleep changes in pregnant women. Other causes of discomfort include weight gain and belly growth, nausea, cramping, congestion, heartburn and the increased urge to urinate.

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Some pregnant women may even experience insomnia closer to their due date as anxiety and labour fears begin to set in.

Poor sleep isn't just hard on women mentally, it can be bad for baby too. In 2004, researchers from the University of California found pregnant women who get less than six hours of sleep a night were more likely to require cesarean deliveries and tended to be in labour longer.

If you're having a hard time sleeping for two, try these tricks to improve your quality of sleep:

Take Naps

Having a sleep plan is great, but being able to make adjustments is key. If you find yourself nodding off on Sunday afternoon, take advantage of it and sneak in a few extra zzzs while you can.

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Drink Water... During The Day

While pregnant it is recommended that women up their fluid intake to 10 cups a day to reduce cramping. Don't drink this all at once, or right before bed, because if you do you'll be running to the bathroom all night.

Use Night Lights

If frequent urination is keeping you up, use night lights or a dimmer switch to guide your path without shocking your eyes making it harder to fall back asleep.

Use Pillows

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Many doctors recommend women sleep on their left side to increase bloody flow to the uterus and kidneys. To make this more comfortable place a pillow between the knees to support the back. Extra pillows around the back and abdomen can help keep your posture in place while wedges and body pillows can keep stomach sleepers from rolling over on to their belly.

Exercise

Sticking to an exercise routine while pregnant isn't just good for your physical and mental health, it can also help you sleep. Just don't do any high intensity workouts before bed.

Take An Antacid

Acid reflux, or GERD, is quite common in pregnant women, so talk to your doctor about taking antacids if heartburn is keeping you up.

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If you wish to avoid medication, consider cutting back on spicy, acidic and fried foods.

Create A Nighttime Routine

A glass of warm milk, a cycle of yoga or a hot shower can help calm nerves and induce sleep.

If your sleep deprivation is severe, talk to your doctor about creating a sleeping plan specifically for you.

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Most victims of rape would never want to see their rapist again but one woman is turning that notion on its head.

Thordis Elva was raped in 1996 by her boyfriend, Australian native Tom Stranger, when she was just 16 years old.

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But decades later, the two reunited to write a book together, titled South of Forgiveness, described as "an unprecedented collaboration between a survivor and a perpetrator, each equally committed to exploring the darkest moment of their lives by the book's website.

Last October, Elva, a native of Iceland, and Stranger, reunited again, this time on stage for a powerful TED Talk about how they were able to heal after the rape.

Elva explained that after she was raped, she blamed herself  something that is very common among rape survivors  and felt "it was pointless to address what had happened."

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Following a dance at which Elva drank rum for the first time, Stranger took her home, where "he proceeded to take off my clothes and get on top of me."

"My head had cleared up, but my body was still too weak to fight back, and the pain was blinding," she reflected. "I thought I'd been severed in two.

"In order to stay sane, I silently counted the seconds on my alarm clock. And ever since that night, I've known that there are 7,200 seconds in two hours."

Stranger recounted his experience after the rape as well, saying, "It is important to now state that I didn't see my deed for what it was."

"To be honest, I repudiated the entire act in the days afterwards and when I was committing it," he continued. "I disavowed the truth by convincing myself it was sex and not rape. And this is a lie I've felt spine-bending guilt for."

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You know you're grown up when your book has its own website: www.southofforgiveness.com #Iamhavinganadultmoment #southofforgiveness A photo posted by ordis orvaldsdottir (@thordiselva) on Feb 7, 2017 at 5:51am PST

Nine years after the rape, Elva wrote a letter to her ex, which turned into an eight-year correspondence where they "dissect[ed] the consequences of that night, and they were everything from gut-wrenching to healing beyond words."

Nearly 16 years after the rape, the two met in person in Cape Town, South Africa, where they talked about the impact the rape had on Elva.

"I read somewhere that you should try and be the person that you needed when you were younger," Elva said. "And back when I was a teenager, I would have needed to know that the shame wasnt mine, that theres hope after rape, that you can even find happiness, like I share with my husband today."

A photo posted by ordis orvaldsdottir (@thordiselva) on Jul 2, 2015 at 9:46am PDT

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She continued, Which is why I started writing feverishly upon my return from Cape Town, resulting in a book co-authored by Tom, that we hope can be of use to people from both ends of the perpetrator-survivor scale. If nothing else, its a story that we wouldve needed to hear when we were younger.

When you own something and really square up to your culpability, I do think a surprising thing can happen, explained Stranger.

Its what I call a paradox of ownership. I thought Id buckle under the weight of responsibility. I thought my certificate of humanity would be burnt. Instead, I was offered to really own what I did, and found that it didnt possess the entirety of who I am.

"Dont underestimate the power of words," he added. "Saying to Thordis that I raped her changed my accord with myself, as well as with her. But most importantly, the blame transferred from Thordis to me. Far too often, the responsibility is attributed to female survivors of sexual violence, and not to the males who enact it. Far too often, the denial and running leaves all parties at a great distance from the truth. Theres definitely a public conversation happening now, and like a lot of people, were heartened that theres less retreating from this difficult but important discussion. I feel a real responsibility to add our voices to it."

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8 Dumb Comments About Rape Made By Powerful Men See Gallery
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen is pushing for independence from China. (Photo : Getty Images)

President Tsai Ing-wen's stance against the one-China policy has renewed a dispute between the two countries last year. She is establishing trade relations with other Southeast Asian nations and the United States.



China's Ministry of Commerce reported that trade with Taiwan decreased by 9.8 percent in the first half of 2016. The volume of trade only reached $95.5 million.



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Taiwan has formal ties with only 22 countries. China was able to get Sao Tome and Principe to withdraw from their alliance from Taiwan last year.



The efforts of the Taiwanese leader are a major challenge since no Southeast Asian nation formally recognizes a trade partnership with Taiwan. American President Donald Trump expressed resistance against the one-China policy, which was met with much criticism.



Lo Chih-cheng, a member of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and the head of the foreign affairs committee in Taiwan's legislature, admitted, "We're trying to diversify our trade and investment but countries are cautious and China always tries to block our relations with other nations."



China is the biggest market for Taiwanese products. Forty percent of the country's total exports are being shipped to the mainland.



Many Taiwanese manufacturers are holding production in Taiwan. Foxconn, a Taiwanese company which makes iPhones, is based in China.



John Chen, the representative of Taiwan's economic and trade office in Indonesia, said that the absence of bilateral relations with other countries is a "great challenge" for Taiwan.



He said that bilateral agreements help private companies in getting tax breaks and special operational permits.



He noted, "The hurdles can be quite big but even if the government cannot jump over them, the private sector can do it."



Taiwan has established trade relations with Indonesia even without a bilateral agreement. Smartphone manufacturers like HTC and Asus have production sites in Indonesia.


A subsidiary of a Canadian company has won a contract to build space robots for the Pentagon.

But don't get excited (or scared) by the prospect of a made-in-Canada army of Terminators in space. These robots are meant to be mechanics, not soldiers. And the whole thing could still be scuttled by a lawsuit.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA for short, has launched a project to develop robots that can repair satellites in space. DARPA is an agency of the U.S. Department of Defence.

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DARPA wants to create a robotic servicing vehicle that could make house calls in space. If successful, the effort could radically lower the risk and cost of operating in [orbit].

The technology could be a game-changer: Satellite owners would have to leave far fewer broken or damaged satellites for dead.

That contract has gone to Space Systems Loral (SSL), a California subsidiary of MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA), a British Columbia-based IT company.

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But the news spurred Virginia-based aerospace manufacturer Orbital ATK to launch a lawsuit against DARPA, calling the project illegal.

Orbital, a competitor of SSL, said in its lawsuit filed Monday that DARPAs project violates the U.S.s 2010 National Space Policy, which forbids government agencies to run space programs that compete with the private sector.

DARPA intends to give away this technology to a foreign-owned company for that companys sole commercial use, the company said, as quoted at Space News.

But as Sputnik News notes, the National Reconnaissance Office  the division of the Pentagon that operates spy satellites  stands to benefit from the project.

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Steve Oldham, SSL's senior VP for strategic business development, said in a statement that the technology "will be marketed to both commercial and government satellite operators, providing them with unprecedented flexibility in fleet management and capital deployment."

The company says it is "already in discussion with several key customers."

The SSL project, if it goes ahead, is slated to be completed by December, 2021.

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did Ted Cruz just say a "Canadian Governor" went to the US for Health care? but...

We ... we don't even have "governors".

 Name Can't Be Blank (@RosalindR) February 8, 2017
On a daily basis, the news is saturated with reports of violence around the world.

Although it wasn't covered widely in Canadian media, in recent months, a Canadian tourist, along with 13 Jordanians, was killed by terrorists in Karak, Jordan. According to reports, the terrorists' real plan was to attack the local Catholic Church on Christmas Day.

As Canadian National Director of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association, I visited Jordan in January. There, I joined a small group of Catholics and Muslims deeply shaken by this event to pray where the Canadian tourist was killed. The question on everyone's mind was: Why? Why did six young men from the Karak region decide to join the Islamic State and attack their own families, friends and neighbours? This is a first in Jordan, the most peaceful country in the Middle East.

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On other trips I took this past year to the region, I also met Muslims and Christians from Gaza, Syria and Iraq who have experienced the worst atrocities imaginable. They, too, ask: why?

Back in Canada, the shooting at a mosque in Quebec City was a rude awakening, as the violence we see unfolding far away is now too close for comfort. Ironically, these victims came to Canada to escape violence and to live in security and freedom.

On January 30, I joined 300 Muslims and Christians who gathered at the Gatineau mosque. At the invitation of Archbishop Paul-Andre Durocher Catholics and Muslims started talking to each other -- embracing, shaking hands and some even hugging -- to find human beings that needed one another in this time of crisis. Once again, people asked why.

The reasons are multiple and complex, but at the root of it all, our world has changed in the last 30 years and we face many unresolved issues. For example, multinational corporations and financial markets have too much influence over states, while organized crime can destabilize key sectors of country's economy and institutions. Disproportionate wealth accumulation is in the hands of a few and its lack of distribution is also a problem; our petroleum-based economy is in conflict with new environmental initiatives and the many violent armed conflicts in the Middle East are making things worse.

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Pope Francis has called this the beginning of a world war fought "in pieces" around the world -- fuelled by terrorism, unforeseen acts of violence, organized crime, abuses suffered by migrants and devastation of the environment.

The world needs to wake up its leadership to this pressing need. Politicians and international diplomacy have failed miserably to respond to the new reality the world faces. Too often, politicians are pushing self-serving and negative ideologies to get more votes. The damage they are doing is deep.

Isn't it obvious that if we spent as much money, resources, time and energy on building peace as the world currently does on weapons and war, the world would be a better place?

If our politicians have a hard time adjusting, it is then up to us as citizens of the world to put pressure on them so that they too realize that peace is the only solution. To achieve this, voices of tolerance, understanding, dialogue and peace must ring out loud and clear.

Let's join Pope Francis call who said forcefully on January 1 that the world must reach out to "migrants, those in need, the sick, the excluded and marginalized, the imprisoned and the unemployed, as well as victims of armed conflict, natural disasters and all form of slavery and torture. Every such response, however modest, helps to build a world free of violence, the first step for justice and peace."

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Day six in the trial of "Aydin C.," my daughter Amanda Todd's alleged tormenter, taking place in the Netherlands. It was the day the prosecution team asked for a sentence of 10 years and eight months in prison, and stated that if it were possible, they would have asked for more. The six sessions so far have heard testimony from young victims as well the older males that were victimized.

An interesting thought to me is the way some media explain not only Amanda's case, but the ones that are being heard in the Netherlands right now, as "cyberbullying." Cyberbullying can be defined by Collins Dictionary as "the use of the Internet to frighten or upset someone, usually by sending them unpleasant messages."

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A more accurate way of describing what happened to not only Amanda, but the other 39 known victims in the Netherlands, was sextortion. Who sextorts? Someone who may prey on vulnerability in his/her victims. Amanda and others were blackmailed to the point where the victims were left to feel helpless, hopeless and afraid.

Collins Dictionary defines sextortion as "a form of sexual exploitation that employs non-physical forms of coercion by threatening to release sexual images or information to extort sexual favours from the victim."

Today was the day that the prosecution team spoke in court and summarized their findings. They would request to the court their expectation of judgement for Aydin C.

Being able to listen to the summary of evidence for this trial was heart-wrenching. I was back at home in Vancouver, B.C. for the start of this trial, and after arriving in Amsterdam, I was able to sit and listen to the trial in person. Sitting in the courtroom and hearing what he allegedly did not only to Amanda, but others throughout the years, made this horrible story all the more real.

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This isn't a TV crime drama, or a made-for-TV movie, or even a fictionalized story in a book -- this is a true-to-life story that really happened. And this is why I and other advocates continue to tell others that this kind of story could happen to anyone.These words and continued efforts aren't meant to scare, but rather to forewarn others of the dangers of what can happen on the Internet.

As argued in the trial, Aydin C. allegedly coerced many of his young victims on a website that enabled chat conversations. Young children thought they were having innocent conversations with someone their own age. Unfortunately, some of these children were victimized and traumatized by the actions of a deviant soul.

We must remember that this trial is not a reenactment. What happened here allegedly happened to real children and adults. They were victimized. Then re-victimized. And ultimately traumatized. I only hope that over time, their minds, bodies and souls will carefully heal and become healthier.

The question of today has been -- what do I think of the 10 year, eight month suggestion for sentencing by the prosecution?

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I have learned that although we can vent in frustration, we cannot continue to blame.

I have seen the comments posted on my social media about this being not enough time and that he should be jailed forever. Of course, we all have our wishes, but knowing about the truths and possibilities, a sentence of "forever" will never happen. It just isn't how the court system works out in the Netherlands or in Canada.

I have learned that although we can vent in frustration, we cannot continue to blame. Ten years and eight months is the longest possible sentence that can be requested. Our energies need to be funneled into creating increased awareness and education not only among our young people, but among the adults and caregivers who have positive, healthy and influential relationships with our children.

This coming Monday, the defence team will get their chance to speak to the court. What will be asked for by this team can only be assumed. A plea of not guilty? Acquittal? We will have to wait and see.

After the final verdict in mid-March, we will be one step closer towards the trial of Amanda v. Aydin C. But not before a probable appeal -- and it is only after one, plus a 100 per cent approval for extradition to Canada, that the wheels will be set in motion for the next chapter of the upcoming trial.

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Bittersweet will always be a word in my vocabulary. Amanda and her story continues to make us sit up a little straighter and listen. It also makes us shed tears. We will never forget and will always help. As I sat in the courthouse today, tiny snowflakes began to fall from the sky in Amsterdam, where it rarely snows at all.

Through her eight-minute YouTube video, Amanda has allowed others from all over the world to hear and watch her story online. Her video has sparked discussions all over the world on topics related to bullying and cyberbullying, online exploitation, sextortion, Internet safety and the issues surrounding mental health and wellness. This will hopefully break through the barriers of silence and create more scenarios of support and hope.

#Justice4Amanda and all the other victims.

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Most holidays come with ready-made traditions--some important, some frivolous. Canada Day is for barbecuing and fireworks, and Thanksgiving is for expressing gratitude for our bountiful lives (while devouring a big bird).

Seven Canadian provinces have established a holiday in February to break up the bleak winter months with another long weekend. Four of them -- Alberta, B.C., Manitoba and Ontario -- have dedicated their winter holiday to families.

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However, Family Day is thus far a holiday without a tradition. That's a shame because traditions are an important part of family life. Maintaining traditions makes families stronger and more stable, and gives children a feeling of comfort and security, according to Dr. Susan Coady, a researcher in family relations at Ohio State University.

But what to do when the weather is gloomy and you and your credit card are still coming down from the last holiday? Rather than retreat into separate rooms in the February darkness or risk it becoming just another greeting card holiday, let's imbue this unclaimed occasion with a tradition of giving. Not giving gifts, but giving back as a family to our communities.

Here are some ideas to help you launch a Family Day giving tradition:

Make 'giving plates.' This bake-and-take activity is sure to become a family favourite. Decorate some inexpensive ceramic plates with food-safe paints. Have a family baking session to fill the plate with goodies. Finally, share your gift with new or isolated neighbors, sick or stressed friends, or even the mail carrier or bus driver.

Empty-the-closets day. Ransack the family wardrobes for old, unwanted apparel. Bag it up and make a family trip to the local Salvation Army or Goodwill store to donate your duds. Why not bring some of the leftover home-made treats for the hard-working volunteers there, as well?

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Family film night. Fire up the popcorn maker and park the family in front of Netflix. Instead of the latest Star Wars installment, choose a film with a social message like The Help. Afterwards, discuss the issues in the film, how the characters took action and what actions the family can take for a related cause.

Talk Dollars and Sense. Plan your family budget for the year with your children. We're not suggesting you let your teen balance your accounts, but financial literacy helps kids feel empowered, and gets them thinking about how much it takes to run a household. Set aside some funds for great family experiences -- like a trip -- but also for a charitable commitment. Encourage your kids to do the same by donating birthday money or a portion of their allowance. Help them with research, but let them pick the cause they care about.

Red letter day. Every Family Day, pick a cause to write about. Compose a joint letter -- or, if kids are older, individual letters -- to take action on the issue. Maybe it's writing to your Member of Parliament about climate change, or supporting an Amnesty International campaign to free political prisoners.

Use this generic holiday to start a meaningful tradition. Because the family that gives together, stays together.

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Craig and Marc Kielburger are the co-founders of the WE movement, which includes WE Charity, ME to WE Social Enterprise and WE Day.

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The whole world is watching Donald Trump now that he has assumed the position of most powerful man on earth. As we ponder what the future will bring, it's worth reflecting on two facts. Last year the British people finally learned about the web of deceit that surrounded Tony Blair's decision to invade Iraq; while in the U.S. Donald Trump was elected with a pledge to be the retaliator-in-chief against any country who dares challenge American supremacy. In a world with too much violence -- and the possibility of far more -- it's worth knowing why peace matters.

Back in 2003 the people of Toronto joined millions of others in the global demonstrations against the planned invasion of Iraq. We knew the so-called weapons of mass destruction were either a ruse or a convenient excuse to invade an oil-rich country that failed to fall in line with the Bush doctrine. We knew that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with Bin Laden and those who destroyed the World Trade Centre. In our hearts, we also knew that nobody could predict how this saga would unfold.

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Hundreds of thousands of lives later, with a country in ruins and suffering from ongoing turmoil, the consequences are obvious. The massive oil reserves, second largest in the world, have been effectively privatized for American and European energy giants. The U.S.-imposed regime in Iraq alienated huge sections of the population, plunging the country into vicious civil war. Eventually that dynamic gave rise to the group known as Daesh, which has brought so much grief to the Middle East and Europe.

U.S. foreign policy then supported regime change in Libya and Syria, with dramatic impact on the entire world. It was not just politics at play. A terrible drought linked to climate change forced millions of Syrians off the countryside and into cities that soon became cauldrons of dissent. The Assad regime responded to unrest with brutal force. Civil war engulfed the region, with foreign interests deeply involved. Sadly the chain of events connects directly to the surge of refugees into Europe and the rise of extremist anti-immigrant parties whose rhetoric echoes that of Donald Trump.

Canadians have a proud history of standing for peace and solidarity.

Canadians may have been astounded by the tone of the American election, but vitriol and xenophobia has become a shameful new norm. Many observers credit the Brexit vote and Trump's success to the anger of a white working class betrayed by global restructuring. The billionaire class left millions unemployed and communities in crisis, while right-wing populism blames immigrants and Muslims for the problems instead of the real culprits.

Canadians have a proud history of standing for peace and solidarity, including supporting refugees who refuse to serve in unjust wars. Not all Canadians, of course -- Steven Harper would have taken us into Iraq, applauded militarism and pursued the deportation of U.S. war resisters.

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When I was a TV spokesperson for the peace marches in 2003, there were callers who insisted that I could never have also served as an infantry sergeant in Canada's military reserve. What they could not understand was that the labour movement was out in full force in those marches, with hundreds of union flags among the crowds.

We were there because we understood that war can be unjust, and unjust wars can have immense consequences. The world is still paying the price for the arrogance of individual leaders and the ignorance of too many others. Those lessons need to be reviewed today, at a time when wedges are being driven daily between people due to race, religion and nationality.

In the year 2017, all of us need to reach out to our families and neighbours who feel uneasy about the changing world, and patiently challenge prejudice or intolerance whenever it appears. If the worst happens south of the border and the drums of war and belligerence beat more loudly, the future of the world will be at risk. We need to build bridges between all communities and work hard to affirm our shared humanity in the face of adversity. We owe that and much more to the next generation.

John Cartwright is the President of the Toronto & York Region Labour Council.

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After a visit to the Pentagon with his U.S. counterpart, Defence Secretary James Mattis, Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan hinted a defence budget raise could be announced for 2017.

Sajjan and Mattis met at the Pentagon for a 45-minute formal meeting, followed by a dinner. Surrounded by a six-person entourage on both sides, it is pretty evident the talks were focusing on defence spending, the situation in the Middle East, NORAD, as well as NATO's intervention against Russia. That said, Sajjan refused to answer questions about the meeting.

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The meeting between the two former officers was the first between the newly elected Trump administration and the Canadian Liberal government.

Currently, Canada spends one per cent of its GDP on defence, half of what NATO requires. By doubling the defence budget, Canada would allow approximately $40 billion to its Armed Forces -- a significant boost considering the urgent need of new aircraft, ships and ground equipment.

Although nothing was publicly mentioned about the discussion on a possible deployment of Canadian troops to Mali as U.N. peacekeepers, I believe it will most likely influenced Canada's decision to send troops or not. Unfortunately, the Canadian government might back out of their engagement solely based on what the United States wants from our soldiers.

I don't believe we'll see conventional forces in Iraq, however.

Canada pledged more than 600 additional peacekeepers around the world last summer, and the U.N.'s intention was to send the Canadian to Mali where more than 100 peacekeepers have been killed in action since 2013.

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According to the Globe and Mail, "sources told the Canadian Press last week that, because of Ottawa's vacillation, Canada lost its chance to command the Mali mission." It is, however, impossible to know if it's true or not.

The situation in Iraq

I wouldn't be surprised that both Mattis and Sajjan agreed on the role of the CANSOFCOM in Iraq. Currently deployed to advise and assist Kurdish troops, members of CANSOFCOM were actively taking part in the liberation of Mossoul by supporting their allies.

Both parties must've reiterated on the importance of Canada's contribution to ISR and refuelling operations in the sky over Iraq and Syria.

Once Mossoul is liberated, the Canadian operators will most likely remain in country to train the Iraqi forces as well as the Kurds against a possible ISIS counterattack coming from Syria.

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I don't believe we'll see conventional forces in Iraq, however.

The situation in Eastern Europe

Canada pledged more than 1,000 troops to Latvia organized under a battle group. It will also lead troops from Albania, Italy, Poland, Slovenia and Spain. The first Canadian troops should be in Latvia by May, with all elements in place by July or August.

The deployment of Canadian troops is directly aimed at Russia. NATO has been accusing Russia of massing troops on its borders. That said, NATO's eastward march is clearly more provocative than seeing Russian troops move in their own territory.

Canada was one of the first country to impose economic sanctions on Russia as well as pledging support to Ukraine. As a matter of fact, Canadian soldiers are actively taking part in training Ukrainian troops in Western Ukraine.

Canada had the intention of renewing diplomatic relations with Russia when the Liberal government was first elected, but with the recent troop commitment and additional sanctions, it is pretty obvious that it is not in Canada's priority to do so.

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The situation with NORAD

NORAD remains the most important partnership for Canada. Our aerial and maritime defence is in need of a major upgrade. Raising the defence budget could lead in a better coastal security as well as a strong presence in the Arctic.

The Arctic Offshore Patrol Ship (AOPS), built by Irving Shipbuilding, will enable Canada to sail for a longer period in the Arctic Ocean, especially with the new Nanisivik Naval Facility.

As for intercepting foreign aircraft, the acquisition of 18 Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet will give Canada the possibility to fly for a longer period in a more advanced aircraft.

I wouldn't be surprised to see more cooperation and joint exercises in the Arctic as well, since it is a vital part of Canada. We could see new radar installations to detect incoming aircraft in the near future as well.

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The meeting was the first of many to come. Two former staff officers in those roles will most likely increase the communication between the two countries. However, Canada needs to understand that we are a sovereign country and it is our job to decide whether we deploy troops or not, and where we do so.

Having a great relationship with a country can also mean telling them "no" is possible, especially when it comes to our foreign policy. Everyone knows that Canada's foreign policy and Trump's plan are not on the same line.

Nevertheless, the first meeting was a success and both countries will benefit from a good relationship between Sajjan and Mattis.

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There is no one good question to ask a legend. There are plenty to ask.

But I was in a rush to ask Mulatu Astatke the question that is on everybody's mind these days. I needed to know what he thought of a slew of complements he has been receiving on social media from The Weeknd, AKA Abel Tesfaye.

How could I not ask, when a mere mention of a name on the famous Canadian twitter feed brings a neglected artist to near stardom and allow a public cause to be accomplished. But Astatke is no ordinary artist; he is an extraordinary talent, award winning and a respected pioneer in the local music industry, known as the 'father of Ethiopian jazz."

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Inside the magnificent and still the only Diamond Star mansion-like Sheraton Addis in Ethiopia is where I had a face-to-face conversation with him.

Dressed in casual faded jeans with an immaculate colourful shirt with a red-rose perfect handkerchief placed outside the heart pocket of his Oxford coat, I had a rich conversation with him. He was set to give a press conference and promote an upcoming concert at Sheraton Addis on February 18.

The conference was late, almost 40 minutes late and in an almost disarray. With cell phones ringing nonstop and young publicists running around to drive the conference forward, what is heard in the background are beautiful sound. They are the music of the legend himself.

Some I have heard in popular movies, some sampled by artists but they are just breathtaking. Cool, collected and Quincy Jones-like, with the voice of a lion, he is excited about the future of Ethiopian music and the next generation of local artists.

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Like a concerned uncle-like figure, concerned why anyone would name their kid "The Weeknd," (unknown to him that his real name is Abel Tesfaye), he told me how excited he was that "famous Ethiopian" was kind enough to mention him, as one of his influences. He knows the magnitude of the endorsement, yet he told me, he has not yet heard his music.

"I am in to Ethiopian Jazz and he is into something different," he reflected.

"My mother, grandmother, and my uncles would play Ethiopian artists like....Mulatu Astatke..... I can speak and understand Amaharic but I can't understand their poetry. When my mother would translate -- it's the most beautiful thing ever," The Weeknd had said.

Astatke was born in December 1943, a week before the European Christmas into a prosperous family, who valued education. They saw a future engineer, he saw an artist in himself. They sent him to Wales to an engineering school; he instead made his way to Lindisfarne College, then ultimately to the Berklee College of Music, becoming its first African-born graduate of the prestigious college. He must have been a stubborn young man, to have convinced his parents, a career in music, more so almost half a century ago.

In the shadow of the Derg era, when the best of his generation were making their way to western countries, he returned to Ethiopia. He brought a renewed musical sense to help engineer a new Ethiopian sound, with a bit of an imported influence from American jazz and Latin instruments. He was determined to take the Ethiopian sound to the mainstream, like the African sound of Mali, Senegal and what was then Zaire.

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He accompanied international musicians such as Duke Ellington and toured the country, partnered with legendary Ethiopian artists, such as Tilahun Gessesse and Alemayehu Eshete.

Most of the artists he collaborated with, along with the record company owners all left Ethiopia, making his a one-man effort in what was becoming a doomed industry. What was to be an advancement of Ethiopian art went underground.

His sound was neglected; he seldom released a full album for almost two decades. It was not until the beginning of the end of the Derg era, his sound started to make a comeback. International record companies started re-releasing his old work. The Ethiopiques album - Ethiopiques Volume 4: Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale, 1969-1974, Mulatu Astatke became a hit once again and earned him a large and new following, especially outside of Ethiopia.

His music would be sampled in Hollywood movies such as Broken Flowers, and American based National Public Radio would use it in some of its programs. The Somali Canadian artist, K'naan, Nas, Damian Marley and Kanye West would all sample his sound.

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He would be invited to tour the world, to the Montreal Jazz festival and others.

Harvard would offer him a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship, while MIT made him the Abramowitz Artist-in-Residence and his alma-mater, Berklee, granted him an honorary doctorate in 2012. I asked him, if there are local artists he admires. "Plenty," he told me, and then he added. "But most are in the jungle and we have not found them yet."

Then he lists his musical heroes, the unknown architects of the "tizita, ambassel, benishangul and bati.

I asked him about Berklee, as the pioneer graduate of his generation and knowing he was back there after a 50 year hiatus and whether it has become more diverse. His answer is "no," but he told me, how he helped Ethiopian artists such as the Japanese-Ethiopian arranger, Abegaz Shiota get there.

I could not help but venture back to The Weeknd!

He wants to collaborate with him to bring Ethiopian sound to the mainstream. Fresh from receiving an honorary degree from Jimmy University, his hometown's higher institution, he expressed how much he would appreciate receiving support from him to further its musical department.

The Weeknd was recently asked about his eventual return to Ethiopia. "When I do go, I'm going to make it very special," he said. His musical hero has a road-map to make his eventual return special and memorable.

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The concert is an initiative of Ethiopia's premier advertising agency, Zeleman and it will take place at Sheraton Addis on February 18th.

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Chinese scientists are helping to increase the number of giant pandas by working toward the reintroduction of giant pandas, which are born in human care, to the wild. (Photo : Website of the Smithsonian's National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute)

Giant panda Bao Bao, born at the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington D.C. in Aug. 2013, will be moved this month to a new home in China as part of an agreement that aims to help in giant panda reproduction and health.



The panda's departure will be on Feb. 21, Tuesday, according to USA Today. FedEx will be flying Bao Bao to Chengdu, China.



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The courier company has donated an aircraft dedicated to bringing pandas to and from China. In 2000 it transported Bao Bao's parents, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, from China to the United States; and in 2010 his older brother Tai Shan, from the United States to China.



The crate she will be travelling in measures 55 inches wide, 50 inches tall and 75 inches long. For several months she had been acclimatized through an especially designed travel crate so she will be comfortable during her flight, the Zoo said.



Along with Bao Bao in her travel to China will be one keeper and one veterinarian who will attend to and monitor her during the entire trip and until she is handed to her new Chinese keepers. The Zoo said that in her flight she will have her favorite treats including bamboo, cooked sweet potatoes, apples and pears.



The China Wildlife Conservation Association (CWCA) and the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute are participating in a cooperative breeding program that requires pandas born from Mei Xiang and Tian Tian to be sent to China before they reach the age of 4. Mei Xiang and Tian Tian are on loan to the U.S. from China since 2000.



In their new homes in China, the giant pandas will eventually participate in a breeding program when they have reached sexual maturity, usually at the age of 5 to 6 years.



Chinese scientists are helping to increase the number of giant pandas, which are reclassified from endangered to "vulnerable" in the wild by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. They are working toward the reintroduction of giant pandas, which are born in human care, to the wild.


Peter David via Getty Images Deep oceanic waters.

With Valentine's Day on the horizon, it is the perfect time to explore some of the weirdest mating strategies in the animal kingdom. From vicious females to interesting ways to fence, here are 10 of nature's strangest mating strategies:

1. When two become one

When certain angler fish sub-species mate, the male bites into the female and essentially becomes a parasite. The male fuses with the female's body, to the point where all that remains of him are his testes, which are ready to fertilize the female's eggs when she ovulates. This mating strategy has evolved for deep sea life, where it's rare to come across a member of the opposite sex.

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2. A long distance relationship

Male argonaut octopuses have a detachable phallus, which is a small sperm ball inside a hectocotylus (modified octopus arm). When a female argonaut octopus swims by, the male's phallus detaches from his body, floats to the female and mates with her. The female can store multiple phalluses in her spacious mantle cavity (the cavity in which the gills are found). Shortly after releasing its phallus, the male dies.

Praying mantises mating (Photo by Oliver Zoemmerling)

3. Quit playing games with my head

When praying mantises mate, the male experiences a tragic ending: the female rips off his head and eats him. However, while the female is preoccupied with her afternoon snack, the male's genitals continue to work their magic. As brutal as this strategy may seem, it enables the male to have greater reproductive success because while the female is eating his corpse, she isn't mating with other males, so his sperm are essentially guaranteed to fertilize her eggs.

4. Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs...stab?

Termed "traumatic insemination," male bed bugs mate with females by using their barbed phalluses to stab into the females' bodies. The sperm then travels through the female's bloodstream to its ovaries.

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Marine flatworm (Photo by Jens Petersen/Wikimedia Commons)

5. En garde!

Marine flatworms, which are hermaphroditic (have both male and female reproductive organs), engage in "penis fencing" during mating. In this ritual, the worms use their phalluses to try and pierce through each other's skin to inseminate one another. The losing partner has the burden of carrying the offspring, which requires more energy.

6. Brainwashing at its finest

Like the marine flatworm, the sea slug is a hermaphrodite. When it mates, it stabs its partner directly in the forehead with its razor-sharp penis, ejaculating into its cerebral ganglia. This manipulates the partner into assuming the female role in the pair.

7. The good life

Green spoon worm larvae are born without a sex. Some larvae will attach themselves to a female's body and become male. The female then inhales the male, which spends the rest of its life inside the female's body, continually releasing sperm.

8. Plug it in, plug it in

After a male Darwin's bark spider fertilizes a female, he plugs up the female's genitals with a mating plug. Using silk, the female traps the male so that he's stuck to her genitals, saving him for when she's hungry.

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Red-sided garter snakes mating (Photo by Greg Schechter/Wikimedia Commons)

9. Talk about suffocating

As soon as they emerge from hibernation, red-sided garter snakes come together in large mating groups consisting of up to 100 males trying to mate with one female. Unfortunately for the female, she risks suffocating to death. While the female uses escape strategies such as defecating to deter the males, or doing a "body roll," males have scales on their bellies that they can use to keep the poor female in place.

10. Showering her with love

https://blogger.huffingtonpost.com/mt.cgi?__mode=view&_type=entry&blog_id=3#

To get a female porcupine's attention, the male will urinate on the female from as far as two metres away. If the female finds the male's pheromones irresistible, she will then mate with him. Both sexes relax their spines while mating, to prevent themselves from wounding each other. Porcupine mating is a rare occurrence, as females are only sexually receptive for eight to 12 hours a year.

This post originally appeared on the Nature Conservancy of Canada's blog, Land Lines.
The five things you need to know on Thursday, February 9

1) THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

For the Eurosceptics, joy it was to be alive in Westminster last night. Outside the Members Lobby, both John Redwood and Bill Cash told me that historic was, for once, the right word to apply to the Brexit Bill clearing the Commons. One senior ministerial Brexiteer, ahead of the Third Reading of the EU (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill, couldnt hide his delight, telling me I am about to have the best moment of my life, since my wedding night! Ive waited for this for 25 years!

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Many Cabinet ministers were pointing out the scale of the vote (roughly 5-1) meant that the Lords would be daft to attempt to block the will of the Commons - and of the public. Most ministers know that Labours Lords leader Baroness Smith has already said she wont defy the EU referendum result. But I, along with other hacks, got a text from a senior Government source: The Lords will face an overwhelming public call to be abolished if they now try and frustrate this bill.

And the Telegraph has a wonderful quote that Tory whips would order everyone who is not lame, dead or senile to back the bill. No.10 were this morning dialling down that rhetoric, and David Davis himself stressed the Lords were perfectly entitled to scrutinise the legislation (all 136 words of it). DD did add that peers had to do their 'patriotic duty'.

A triumphant Davis was in Strangers Bar after the vote, and offered to give Diane Abbott a kiss, Im told. She recoiled and told him to fuck off. Abbott was accompanied by Shami Chakrabarti, one of DDs allies on civil liberties during his wilderness years. Its unclear whether the DD-Abbott exchange was all friendly banter or had a real edge.

Tom Newton-Dunn in the Sun has some fascinating intel on Tuesday nights botched Tory Remainer rebellion, revealing Nicky Morgan claimed she had been lied to by the Prime Minister over plans to give MPs a meaningful vote on the final Brexit deal. But in the end, the past few days showed a masterclass by Theresa May and Davis in how to handle a Commons rebellion with a tight majority.

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With the Brexit bill set to clear the Lords by March 7, the day before the Budget, we could even see May add a final flourish by triggering Article 50 in the middle of the month - two weeks early.

2) ABBOTT AND THAT FELLOW

Given the general publics lack of interest in politicians, I suspect some will know who Diane Abbott is, but very few will have ever heard of Clive Lewis. Depending on Lewiss next few months, they may get to hear more of him.

Or they may not. Because for all the media hoopla about the resignation of the former Shadow Business Secretary last night - when he finally decided to defy the party whip to oppose the Brexit bill - many Labour MPs in the lobby and bars were issuing a collective meh. And never forget that under current rules, new candidates for party leader need 35 MPs to nominate them. Im told Lewis would at the moment get no more than 20.

MPs point out he was Shadow Business Sec for four months and Shadow Defence for three and a half months and did little in either to take the fight to the Tories. Several pointed out Lewis mistakenly voted for the Government clauses on the bill at one point.

Of course, Lewis has a decent backstory as a working class, mixed-race kid who served as a soldier then a broadcaster, before entering Parliament in Norwich in 2010. He goes down a storm on the stump with Corbyn-supporting party members and it wont do him any harm to be seen as out of step with the PLP. But rules is rules and unless the NEC can change them, he has a formidable hurdle to jump to get on the ballot paper - not least as MPs were badly burned by the oh, go on, its Jeremy, he wont win Corbyn nominations in 2015.

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Diane Abbott told Newsnight she thinks This is not a Tony Benn Brexit, this is a Donald Trump Brexit. Which sounded odd, given she voted for the Bill. But in the early hours, she issued a statement saying I voted for the Bill as a loyal supporter of Jeremy Corbyn.

Corbyn had probably his best ever PMQs yesterday, thanks to his sweetheart texts from one hapless Tory council leader. Yet it was Labour that was looking broken-hearted and shambolic last night after 13 frontbenchers quit. Nicola Sturgeon was swift to pounce on Corbyn's tweet declaring 'REAL FIGHT STARTS NOW', and the online ridicule was brutal. Im told Rebecca Long-Bailey will get Lewiss job, Andrew Gwynne will get her Shadow Chief Sec job, Jess Morden will get Shadow Wales and Grahame Morris will get Shadow Defra. But Corbyn is in no hurry to do his reshuffle and many junior rebels may escape any punishment.

3) DUB STEP

It wasnt a good look yesterday when the Government slipped out its decision to end the Dubs scheme to take in child refugees. Buried in the fifth paragraph of a Written Ministerial Statement issued between PMQs and the Brexit votes, the Home Office revealed just 350 kids had been helped - far short of the 3,000 many had expected.

Labour peer Lord Dubs, whose amendment last year had set up the scheme, told me it was a shabby move, which failed to deliver the letter and spirit of his plan. Theyve done it in an underhand way but the main issue is what theyve done. Today, you can bet that Home Affairs Committee chairman Yvette Cooper has this morning demanded an Urgent Question. Alf tells me he will raise it in the Lords too.

Theresa May has long played hardball on Syrian refugee migration to Europe, insisting that blanket welcomes like Angela Merkels are counter-productive and preferring to offer support in-region. It may be that the real reason for the low number of children helped in the UK is a lack of places offered by councils, which again points to their own funding issues.

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But as Alf told me last year, when May had initially defeated his amendment, he saw her looking pleased: You might be smiling, but Im not giving up!. Thanks to the Lords and some Tory rebel MPs, he got his way last year. Will the PM reconsider now, even at this late stage, given the whole issue risks undermining her shared society message? After all, in an interview with the New Statesman, she says: I hope there are Labour voters out there who will now look at us afresh..

BECAUSE YOUVE READ THIS FAR

Watch this blind skateboarder try, try and try again to get a trick right. Just brilliant.

4) SURREY, CAN I HELP YOU?

As Elton John didnt quite put it, Surrey seems to be the hardest word. Jeremy Corbyn showed yesterday that he has learned the tricks of the trade at PMQs, asking tight questions and using the powerful ammo of leaked texts about funding at the impeccably Home Counties county.

The killer text from Surrey County Council leader David Hodge was to Nick in Whitehall: The numbers you indicated are the numbers I understand are acceptable for me to accept and call off the R. Turns out Hodge had sent the texts to fellow Local Government Association chief and Newcastle council leader Nick Forbes.

No.10 insisted no special deal had been done and its true Surrey wont get extra council tax help this year. But Hodge hinted there had been a chat about longer term help: I am confident that the government now understands the real pressures in adult social care and the need for a lasting solution. This may well apply to all councils. Yet Surrey is also now included in a pilot scheme to let it keep all of the business rates raised across its area. Council and social care funding is an issue that aint going away.

5) JUDGE DREAD

Elton Johns lyrics in fact now sound like a Trump tweet (Its sad, so sad (so sad) It's a sad, sad situation..), and its true that youre never likely to hear the US President apologise for anything. But his recent remarks about the judiciarys blocking of his travel ban are clearly causing concern, even among his allies.

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Trump had famously attacked US District Judge James Robart as a "so-called judge" whose "ridiculous" opinion "essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country. Yesterday, Trump went further, declaring "I won't say the court was biased. But so political. Underlining his banana Republican credentials, he appeared to try to rule on the case himself. Now even his own nominee for the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, has told a Democrat senator that Trumps attack was "demoralising and disheartening for the judiciary.

The FT reports that Trumps pick for EU ambassador, Ted Malloch, embellished his new autobiography. It includes claims that a business documentary he made was nominated for an Emmy Award. It turns out the film had been submitted for a Lower Great Lakes Chapter Regional Emmy, but not nominated. Best of all, he says he was once knighted in the Sovereign Order of St John by the Queen, Elizabeth II herself. The award is equivalent to an MBE - and the Queen never attends its investiture.

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csakisti via Getty Images

The history of Syria is not a peaceful one, even before the current civil war, Syria had been ruled by the iron fist of dictators, the people suffering from heavy sectarian violence. Though the land it occupies has been home to people for thousands of years, the country of Syria is less than a century old, and herein lies the key to its bloody history.

Much of the structure of the modern day middle east was decided not by the citizens and leaders of these countries, but by British and French lawmakers and cartographers shortly after the first world war and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. This is much like the history of Africa where regions were divided, split, and looted by European powers.

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These lawmakers drew lines in the sand without much thought paid to the socio-political situation of those living there. People whose loyalties were to their tribes or religious sects suddenly found themselves citizens to nations they didn't understand, sharing lands with their former enemies. Other groups who lived on friendly terms were suddenly separated by national borders.

It's little wonder, then, that things in Syria often became tense and violent over the following decades. It is not unfair to say that a great share of the blame for this violence and disharmony lies fully on the shoulders of those lawmakers.

Today, the modern equivalents of these lawmakers have turned their backs on those fleeing the catastrophic violence, violence that our nations, and indeed the very same lawmakers, had a part in (consider the war in Iraq, refugees of which fled to Syria in more peaceful times). It doesn't require much observation to tell that our national response to the refugee crisis has been pitiful. The UK has only accepted a few thousand refugees at the most, whereas Lebanon, a country with a population smaller than London, a country which has also suffered with tension and conflict, has accepted over a million refugees from Syria.

On the 8th of this month, the government, lead by Amber Rudd, suspended the 'Dubs Scheme' the policy of accepting unaccompanied refugee minors after an insignificant 350. An additional 700 children have also been accepted thanks to a EU policy of reuniting families. 1,050 refugee minors is not enough. There are estimated to be 90,000 minors spread across Europe. The original Dubs (named after Lord Dubs, himself a former child refugee) law proposed the acceptance of 3000 children, itself a small number. Tiny compared to the 10,000 European child refugees accepted during the Second World War.

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It is not hard to see that we are living in a country that is on the wrong side of history.

Perhaps these refugee policies (the term 'migrant' is offensively wrong, a migrant can describe the many Brits living in Spain, not an African or Middle Eastern child living on the streets, or a muddy refugee camp) stem from a paranoid fear of terrorism, ridiculous notions of overpopulation, or an attempt to appeal to the rising influence of the far right-wing voter.

Whatever the reason, I feel in a true sense that the government is acting against the will of the British people. Over the past few weeks there have been many marches and demonstrations protesting Donald Trump and his Muslim ban. Whilst he is the leader of a different nation and the influence of the average British voter to him is negligible, it demonstrates that a huge number of us are on the side of the refugee, even if our government is not.

Indeed, at the time of writing there is a petition on Citizens UK demanding that the Dubs Scheme be re-instated; there are 25,000 signatures and rising.

Such opposition to governmental rejection of refugees has been thankfully widespread. Within hours of Donald Trump's signing of the Muslim ban, airports all over America became surrounded by thousands of protesters. Whilst this is a good sign, it also shows a frightening level of disharmony between the citizens of the UK, USA, and likely other countries.

In the end I think of a man I heard about who was living in the Calais camp. He was a Syrian academic, a speaker of many languages, and had a PhD in political science. This was someone who would be an objective benefit to have in the UK, even for a while. But in any case, he spent his nights dressed in black, trying desperately to sneak into the UK.

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I don't know what happened to him, and I know he is probably in the minority of those there. There are still countless thousands displaced across Europe who the government are refusing to give a chance.
The Blog Commons People Podcast: Protest Votes Are So Passe

On this week's Commons People, the team consider if Labour is on the verge of yet another leadership contest after Clive Lewis quit the Shadow Cabinet. Labour's Gisela Stuart is dubbed a "liar" by a former colleague after she voted against an amendment calling for the rights of EU nationals in the UK to be protected in any Brexit deal.
Bastiaan Slabbers via Getty Images

The problem with U.S. President Donald Trump seems to be that he is used to reigning supreme over his own business empire, unchallenged by any checks and balances. This however, is not how democracy works. In a functioning democracy you have the legislature (Congress), the executive (President) and the judiciary (courts of justice), the three branches of government (see chart).

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The underlying problem might not be that Trump is attempting a downstream rightwing coup, subverting democratic institutions and practices after assuming power. Somehow, he doesn't seem enough of an ideologist for this. (That said, Trump's top adviser, former boss of rightwing news outlet Breitbart, Stephen Bannon, needs an appraisal in his own right in this context.)

For Trump, it seems to be hard not be the supreme ruler whose decisions go unchallenged. He already shows signs of aggravated frustration with the courts doing their constitutional job, keeping a check on his presidential powers. Indeed, it must be hard for somebody who has for so many years always gotten his way to accept that there now are people he can't just by-pass - or fire for that matter.

This is the worrisome point: We don't know if Trump is willing and able to learn his lesson in democratic process. Trump's personality traits might point towards a form of inability or at least unwillingness to learn lessons in self-regulation and moderation. It looks like he will go on trying to get his way, no matter the cost to democracy.

How far will he try to take it? And how far will he get? Those are the elephantesque questions in the room.

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Democracy seems a fragile system. Then again, America is the one democracy in the world that has all institutional safeguards and presets installed. It's the country with the best chances of withstanding the encroachment of authoritarianism.

Trump in Washington doesn't exactly play in the same league as Julius Caesar did, who became Rome's first dictator in perpetuity. (Rome had been a republic for 450 years before.) Perhaps Trump can't even match the 37th President of the United States, Richard Nixon, who really gave his best to unhinge the judiciary. (He had much more experience in all things government than Trump, and the CIA on his side.)

The final test will come when Trump starts showing signs of not accepting defeat at the polls in four years' time, or tries to call into question the limit on presidential terms after eight years. Then latest, will we know who Trump really is - which could be too late. It's going to be a challenging and tough time.
Today the National Literacy Trust and Experian published new research exposing the scale of the literacy crisis in England.

News that this country is facing a literacy crisis in children should not come as a surprise, after all over 200,000 children left primary school last year unable to read to the required level. Moreover, 5.2 million adults in the UK are 'functionally illiterate' - meaning that they don't have the reading and comprehension skills to carry out everyday tasks.

But what this new research shows is that this is a crisis which is impacting on nearly every corner of the country, with 86% of constituencies in England having at least one ward with severe literacy problems - shockingly only 75 constituencies in the entire country aren't currently facing problems.

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The areas which are at highest risk from the current crises are - on the whole -found in inner cities or districts surrounding urban areas. Although the research shows that there are clear 'hot-spots' where the crisis is intensified - such as areas in the West Midlands and Yorkshire & Humberside, the causes and symptoms of this crisis are intensely localised.

The localised nature of the literacy crises we're all facing means that we need to re-think how we're going to solve it. While various national strategies have made some positive progress in improving literacy over recent years, it is now clear that a targeted and localised solution is required to help communities in need. That is why I'm so proud of the work we're doing at Beanstalk to help ensure that young children are protected from this literacy crisis.

At Beanstalk we provide a localised solution, where we recruit and professionally train volunteers from local communities and businesses to provide children with the tailored one-to-one support they need to improve their key reading skills and confidence.

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Our work is focussed on delivering life-changing support to children in areas who need it the most, indeed we work in 80% of the constituencies marked as 'in greatest literacy need' in National Literacy Trust's research.

To ensure that our one-to-one support further meets the needs of the local community, we work closely with schools to ensure that the children we support are the ones most in need of support, and that the progress they make results in quantifiable outcomes in-line with the national curriculum.

In the last school year we helped over 11,000 children across England, in over 1,400 schools, with the help of over 3,000 reading helpers, ensuring those children have the skills and confidence to reach their true potential. But we know that there is far more we need to do in local communities across England to protect children from this literacy crisis, that's why by 2020-21 we will be support 30,000 children every year. Without a dedicated, localised, strategy and increased resource to solve this endemic problem, the demand for our work will continue to grow.
I was so in pieces coming up to the end of my relationship in Aruba. I was empty- emotionally frozen. I was so numb that all verbal abuse felt like a standard procedure. So empty that there were no more tears left to cry no matter how much insults I had to endure.

That same horrible person that was so sweet and funny in front of other people turned into a monster behind closed doors. I have no idea from where I got finally the power to leave.

The few weeks it took to organize my departure still feels like a movie. Everything was calm and friendly when he was around so he would not suspect anything. Then when he walked out the door the crazy havoc started. The first thing I had to take care of was the paperwork for my sweet dog Happy who I had to take to the vet for over a month to get all vaccinations that were needed before she could make the trip. I would not leave Happy to him. He would already get all my furniture and a new car. Thank God, my assistant managed to ship at least my clothes and photos to me afterwards.

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I must confess that I hated men back then. I would have never believed that I would love again or get married for that matter.

We all know that life has its plans, and it is full of unexpected surprises.

We had our civil wedding on the 20th of December 2012. It was just a small official ceremony followed by some champagne cake and coffee at home. It was a fun filled relaxed evening. Good practice though to take away some of the stress and prepare me for the emotionally filled wedding day.

My bride maids Irina and Stephanie stayed over for the night before the big day. Irina went to the toilet at 3 am; I woke up and of course, I could not sleep anymore from all the excitement. It was finally at 6.30 when my assistant Cathy came to work. The first thing to do was to eat a bit and drink some coffee. I have to pee on time before putting on the wedding dress. I would have to go the whole day without peeing and that meant without drinking either.

It feels like this marriage is supposed to be. Even nature is with us on this! There is now very much snow; all is white. Trees look beautiful covered in frost. Sun is out and shining making the day as gorgeous as it could be. It was a great weather for a wedding just as I had hoped for.

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There were six women in that taxi and spirits were high as we were heading to the country estate where the wedding would be held. On arrival Henning came out and we went immediately to the set (outside)for our wedding shots. It was cold -30 degrees Celsius. Henning was already freezing after the first shoot. Well, I cannot blame him. I had my warm fur on, but he had just his suit on and no special underwear underneath for cold weather. After two different locations, some beautiful shots and frozen fingers of Lauri the photographer we went inside.

About an hour later the ceremony started. A string quartet played the theme of the ballet version of the Sleeping Beauty as I was wheeled down to the (closed) terrace by my father. He handed me over to Henning who took me up to the priest. Henning held my hand for most of the ceremony. I cried a couple of times. Like when Irina was reading from the Bible: what is love (even the priest who has done hundreds of wedding ceremonies had a tear in his eye at a certain moment).

After the ceremony, everybody came to congratulate us. At that moment, I could not hold it anymore and I started to cry like crazy.

After that, we went to the dinner table. Dad gave a speech followed by a toast and then after Henning's mom delivered a speech followed by a second toast.

Just before the slicing of the cake Stephanie and Irina had their power point presentation speech. Everybody loved it. It made people laugh and cry. Their speech was followed by speeches from Henning's best men Leontios and Darrick. The layer cake was beautiful and delicious. It was a chocolate and mocha cake with ten Calla lilies on top that were made from sugar.

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After the stroke, a thought that I would get married and have a wedding dance was utterly unimaginable. There I was; in a wheelchair wedding dress on and on the dance floor. Our dance was not a traditional one. It was from the heart and not from the books. We danced to El Amor by Tito El Bambino. The song that made me reply to Henning's message on the internet what started out our relationship.

Later that evening we lit up some Good luck lanterns, and every couple sent one up for us into the frozen sky. It was all SOOO beautiful. It was undoubtedly memorable. The night sky filled with lit pink, orange and yellow lanterns against white snow and pitch black sky.

The wedding was truly like a storybook wedding! Everything was so beautiful but most of all, people partied and had fun. I could not have hoped for a better wedding. It was unbelievable!

I did feel different the morning after. I knew then for sure that we would always stay together.

I am very lucky to have Henning. Usually, you have best and most handsome boyfriends when you are young. I'm almost 40 and I have hands down the best, most intelligent, romantic, funny, sweet, and handsome boyfriend now husband ever!

More than once I have been asked: what I have that normal healthy woman don't. Well, the answer is a positive attitude and a smile. It is as simple as that. I am also asked very often if I do hope on a miracle. To tell the truth, the miracle has already happened.
The World Youth Organization - a registered charity (sponsored by Child Protection Training UK) based in England, Wales and the Republic of Ireland celebrated it's 1 year anniversary at 100 Parliament Street on Wednesday.

The evening included speeches from myself, Ayath Ullah (Chairman), Chief Advisor Kishan Devani, Gillian McKeith and Afton McKeith (ambassadors of the organisation) followed by performances from students across the London and Voice UK finalist Lydia Lucy.

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As part of my speech I highlighted the charity's activities throughout 2016 and what the organisation plans to roll out throughout 2017.

Ayath Ullah - Chairman at the World Youth Organization spoke about failure, the normality of it and how to overcome and learn from it.

Kishan Devani - Chief Advisor, who previously was the Deputy chairman of the Conservative Party spoke about the charity's success and outlook.

Gillian McKeith spoke about an exciting upcoming project which is partnered with the World Youth Organization, this will be officially announced in the near future. Afton McKeith mentioned her excitement of becoming an ambassador at the charity and looks forward to working with the organisation throughout 2017.

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The evening also included video messages from volunteers across the globe who work with the World Youth Organization, including Lauren Duffy the International Relations Director who works with our worldwide partners including those in Guatemala and South America.

Concluding the event, Lydia Lucy finalist of The Voice UK sung two breath-taking performances shortly followed by performances from local secondary school students Bower Park Academy.

The World Youth Organization empower young people with the skills, knowledge and opportunities to succeed in work and life. In 2017 the charity plan on starting a five-year program to educate the UK's youth on mental health, sex education, lifestyle skills, careers and citizenship while jointly looking for a major sponsor to jump on board.

At 15, I didn't quite know that in 2 years' time I was going to be managing an Internationally registered youth charity. Nor did I know I would be constantly surrounded by amazing people.

The last year hasn't been all that easy. Like every year there are good days and bad days. But it's always been like that and it will continue to be like that. The important thing about life is being around people who care and love you. They'll help you get through the bad days.

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From annual accounts to charity commission audits, reports, finances, legal and websites, social media, marketing and press.

I didn't really have a clue a year ago.

But wow, learning on the job I think will always be the best way to gain knowledge and skills. It has been a huge learning curve. People doubted me and the organisation. Sometimes we follow plan A and sometimes we follow plan B. But we will always prosper with whatever path we take. Sometimes I fail, sometimes I succeed.

But I will always continue to learn new things every day.
Lucas Jackson / Reuters

Charlize Theron is not to be messed with. My time is strictly limited and there are more primpers and minders than the entourage of your average head of state. As she settles in her fabulous frock - Dior, of course - worries that a pin might be pricking her are dismissed and our little chat begins.

This bemusing ritual is standard procedure for an interview with a Hollywood star, but we catch more revealing moments later when our privileged access - filming an observational documentary - pays dividends. Charlize is guest of honour at tonight's banquet to celebrate the restoration of Christian Dior's mansion in the South of France and is, of course, placed on the right of the firm's owner, Bernard Arnault. He is the richest man in France (his empire, of which Dior is a mere part, made profits of six billion Euros last year). Just before the hors d'oeuvres (delicious, by the way), I notice her take a pink rose from the table and hold it under M Arnault's nose. A star knows instinctively what to offer the man who has everything.

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The rose and jasmine harvests in the rolling hills around Grasse make a stunning picture. Francois Demachy - the 'nose', the man on whose nasal instincts the success of Dior Parfum depends - gives us access to his high-security lab. This is an ultra-secretive, cut-throat business. A kilo of Jasmine essence is worth twice its equivalent in gold. You can't patent the formula of a successful perfume, so when he lets us film one - a sheet of paper clearly marked 'confidential' - I make sure some if it is out of focus...

Christian Dior was a savvy businessman. After his first couture collection hit the headlines in 1947 with the so-called 'New Look', his empire was launched - and he understood that the brand which bears his name could capitalise on its appeal and branch out into luxury perfumes, cosmetics, accessories. Since his death - a mere ten years later - the company has cleverly exploited his legacy and grown to the massive billion-dollar business it is today. But the ateliers - workshops in the attics of Dior's HQ on the posh Avenue Montaigne Paris - still house the women and men (the 'petites mains') who hand-make each wildly expensive item of haute couture.

Catherine Riviere is the elegant woman - of indeterminate age - who runs Dior Haute Couture. Each ravishing creation is cut for the model who will launch it on the catwalk. Clients will have theirs individually made, no matter what their size. 'Poor things, they have to be dressed!' says Catherine, briskly, revealing to me the 'casts' of clients' torsos lining the shelves - 'as you see, some have big breasts, some no breasts, some no waists!'

Florence - or 'Flo' - is in charge of the dress-making workshop - and while famous designers might come and go, they all understand that there's nothing that Flo doesn't know about her craft. In the mad rush to get all the model fittings done by show time, Flo is no-nonsense. She goes up to someone she's never met and with hardly a 'bonjour' grabs her decollete and gives it a yank upwards. 'No, this needs adjustment' she announces. The model is of course unperturbed.

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Flo is sanguine about the whole crazy business. She clearly loves her work, but when I ask her whether she fancies wearing any of the clothes she makes, she fires back 'I make dresses for Princesses, Ladies - I wouldn't want to wear one of these - No, no, not for me - I'm happy as I am - I'm a woman of the earth!'

We film the Haute Couture show not normally seen - put on specially for the clients, not the press. Despite the shape of some of the 'casts' we filmed in the atelier, the Duchess of Windsor's famous phrase, 'never too rich, never too thin' seems apposite. An insight into the way the world's economy is moving: a large proportion of the guests are from China. Before and after, the champagne flows and Catherine Riviere woos them all charmingly.

We follow the appointment and arrival of the first female Creative Director in Dior's history - the Italian, Maria Grazia Chiuri. During the frenzied tension of the build up to her first show, she chuckles and jokes with me as she puts the final touches to her elegant and witty outfits. We sneakily film as the glacial Empress of fashion herself, Anna Wintour, arrives for a special private preview. (Ms Wintour thaws, and even accepts a proffered chocolate, though there's no evidence that she actually ate it).

Maria Grazia's daughter Rachele comes to Paris to give Mama support. The Rodin Museum is transformed - at heaven knows what cost - for the show that will last all of ten minutes. In a touching scene as mother and daughter are limo'd from the final lighting rehearsal back to the fittings, Maria Grazia puts her head on Rachele's shoulder and sighs. As she says, 'It's not easy, Dior!'
On Saturday January 20th I stood with a group of a few hundred Americans in front of the U.S. Embassy in Athens. It was thrilling to be a part of simultaneous marches across the world for women's rights. The gathering began at 4pm, and at 4:30 we were politely told to cross the street, our slot was up. Yes, in Athens demonstrations at the Embassy are so frequent you get a half-hour slot. We moved down the boulevard shouting, "women's rights are human rights." Our energy was waning....but then, then something pretty beautiful happened.

As we marched west, we crossed paths with a pro-refugee, anti-fascist Greek demonstration heading east. There was a split moment of hesitation before the entire women's delegation turned 180 degrees and headed back towards the Embassy, joining the Greeks. We alternated chants in Greek and English - for women's rights, for refugee rights, for who knows what since I don't speak Greek. If earlier I had been inspired, now I was fired up. Marching in solidarity with others, being in Athens. The symbolism of having stolen away for a few hours that morning to visit the Acropolis, the cradle of western democracy, it wasn't lost on me.

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A week later, I found myself in Berlin, just a few hundred meters from where the wall came tumbling down as I came of age in late eighties. After a day of meetings with young social entrepreneurs from across Germany, blown away by their passion and commitment to human rights, we retired to the hotel lobby for a drink. It was January 27th and CNN blared the news of the Executive Orders from the U.S. Presidency across the bar. Not only were refugee resettlement program on hold for 120 days, but Syrian refugees were banned indefinitely -- visa holders from Iran, Iraq, and beyond were not to be permitted to enter the U.S. Trump had set plans in motion to build a wall, an "impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful, southern border wall" between the US and Mexico.

All this on Holocaust Remembrance Day. In Berlin. In a city where residents know that walls, they aren't beautiful. Where we've seen the danger of banning people based on religion All this a week after my crash course in history and protest in Athens.

And now I'm home from Greece, back from Berlin and here's what I can't stop thinking about: Texas.

Yes, Texas. I received some of my earliest lessons in democracy there in my 20s, way before I ever visited Greece. I was doing a series of oral histories along the border in the Rio Grande Valley, deep in southern Texas. There was no wall there, just the river that separates the U.S. from Mexico, where poverty was evident on both sides of the banks.

I will never forget my interview with Carmen. Carmen was in her early seventies, a former migrant worker. She was a public figure in the Rio Grande Valley, speaking out regularly on justice and dignity for residents of the colonias. With ferocity she talked about her leadership training with Valley Interfaith, a community organization. Gesticulating widely, she explained how she had a renewed perception of politicians.

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"I used to think that politics was about the politician ... how was I supposed to treat him... But not anymore. I understood with Valley Interfaith that the politician is my servant and I am his boss. See the difference?""

I see the difference. I know others do, too, which is why we are seeing such outrage across the U.S. and across the world. It is this spirit of accountability that must drive our work to remind those in power that they work for us. They are, after all, public servants.

So no, we will not stand for walls. We will not stand for discrimination. We will join one another's protests, interlock arms, and surround the embassies. And we will continue to stand up for justice, even if it isn't our scheduled time slot.
Visitors gathering at a Google booth during the 2016 China International Electronic Commerce Expo in Yiwu, east China's Zhejiang Province. (Photo : Getty Images)

According to experts, the proposed partnership of Google Inc and NetEase Inc is likely to help the former gain a much-coveted toehold in China.



According to The Information, a U.S. news portal, the U.S. tech giant is in talks with China's local Internet behemoth to bring its Google Play mobile app store to the Chinese mainland. NetEase Inc is China's second-largest online games provider.



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Both Google and NetEase declined to respond to requests for comments amid the rumors that Google may be mulling a comeback in the largest mobile Internet market in the world.



"Forming a partnership with local players could help Google get a green light from the Chinese government," said Sandy Shen, a Beijing-based research director at Gartner Inc, a technology consultancy firm.



The Cyberspace Administration of China, the country's top Internet authority, just issued a new regulation last month. The regulation will require app store operators to register with China's local government before rolling out their services.



Sandy added: "That's perhaps why Google is reportedly considering a joint venture. NetEase can offer lots of help in government relations."



Google Inc has withdrawn most of its businesses from China in 2010. The absence of the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store encouraged handset vendors as well as local Internet giants to develop and offer their own versions of a mobile application marketplace.



Wang Xiaofeng, a senior analyst at Forrester Research Inc, said that Chinese users would welcome a relaunch of Google Play because the app store application still has a strong reputation in the country.



"Google Play has a bunch of new features that local products lack. The digital assistant Google Now, for instance, is likely to lure Chinese consumers and help erode the presence of local players," Wang said.



According to Annie, a mobile application tracker, Chinese consumers spent approximately $1.7 billion at Apple's iOS mobile app store. This is five times higher compared to what consumers spent two years ago.


Martin Barraud via Getty Images

Over the last few months, I've been unable to control my emotions: anger, numbness, sadness, hopelessness and anxiety frequently plague my moods at unpredictable intervals. I haven't had a decent night of sleep since November 8th; my dreams veer towards nightmare on most nights. I often prefer the companionship of Netflix or Amazon Prime over my friends.

I am not being hyperbolic. The results of the US election compounded by the realities of Brexit have fundamentally challenged (and arguably rejected) my world view. I believed the increasing globalization of societies, economies and people was a good thing, because it multiplied our shared interests which amplified our ability to address global challenges like climate change and gender parity. As global citizens, I thought we had a better shot at making the world more equitable for everyone; and I thought that was what everyone else wanted too.

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I was wrong. Maybe.

The surge of populism and the backlash against globalization has proven that we are still living in a world where national interests trump global equality and harmony. Where the demand for walls outpaces the desire to dissolve boundaries. Where one person can only gain if another loses. Where specific genders, ethnicities, and religions are superior to others. Where bullies win despite hateful and violent words. Where only some have the opportunity to succeed.

This is what is driving my insomnia and tears.

I don't want to live in this world, and it's taken me months to realize that I don't have to. It's been heartening to witness the surge of political and community activism in the US and across the UK. Friends who have never taken a strong political stance before are now leading campaigns to defend women's reproductive rights, the environment, refugees and immigrants, or access to quality public education. Citizens are sharing their stories, creating communities, and marching for their beliefs. The battle to defend shared interests and a global, more equitable world is on.

As for me, I've been stunted by emotional turbulence, but I am (slowly!) realizing that my current state is simply unsustainable, so I am taking small steps to prepare myself for the fight. Here are a few things I am doing to help me get out of my bedroom and onto the battlefield.

Voicing my opinions more strategically and concretely...

Veteran Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi has partnered with a tech startup to launch Countable, an online tool which empowers US citizens to have a louder voice in the national political debate. The service gives the public simple, concise summaries of legislation and enables them to send direct emails to their respective elected representatives about that legislation. It makes it easy to get in touch with Representatives and Senators and express opinions about potential laws.

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Putting my money where my mouth is...

Non profits have experienced a surge of donations since the election. That's a good thing, no doubt. The 1460 fund makes philanthropic giving strategic and easy. The donor advised fund focuses on organizations fighting for issues that could potentially be under attack in the Trump Presidency including women's reproductive rights and the environment. The fund's founders, Alisha and Carlos Miranda, do all dirty work of identification and due diligence; they also cover the fund's management fees, so 100% (and in some cases with gift aid 125%) of each donation goes directly to the benefiting charities.

Picking my battles...

I've learned the hard way that social media exacerbates my emotional turmoil and undermines my efficacy in fighting for the world I want. I now do my best to avoid unproductive Twitter and Facebook debates, and I actually pick three days a week where I stay off all social media platforms. It helps me to retain my sanity.

Descending from my soapbox...

I have never been an amazing listener. I often hear what I want or interrupt a perspective that doesn't align with my opinion. In the last few weeks, I have deliberately tried to improve this failing. I have accumulated unfair stereotypes about Leavers or Trump voters; instead of dismissing them, I now ask them questions to understand the root of their opinions. Even though I don't agree, I am attempting to acknowledge that other perspectives exist and are valid. (This one is still a journey for me...)

Building my own "Pantsuit Nation"

It turns out that neither Netflix nor Amazon Prime is particularly empowering. After realizing the sheer amount of hours I've wasted in front of my iPad, I've enlisted a group of women whose careers focus on social impact to support me. The emails we trade and the stories we share get me through the day and reinforce that I am not alone. We're going hiking and plotting in June.

Finding perspective...

My father has been central to my coping strategy. He forces me to acknowledge that we are not the first generation to be confronted by a political leader or movement we abhor. He got through Nixon. I can get through Trump. Our generation will survive and thrive. It's about persistence, discipline, and resilience. It's also about listening to the voices of older communities who have more wisdom than we often appreciate.

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These are a few of the weapons and strategies I've amassed to prepare myself for the long crusade ahead. Concrete and productive actions are helping to keep my feelings at bay. Every day, my personal purpose strengthens.

Despite 2016's setbacks, I don't think I was totally wrong - the world isn't full of hateful and selfish people. There are lots of communities and people who share my beliefs and vision of the future. I know now that we are #StrongerTogether, and that in the end, love will trump hate. We just have to fight a little harder to realize the world we want. And that's a fight I am now ready for.
As the seismic repercussions of Brexit and the election of Donald Trump start to reveal themselves, a new imperative for the art world emerges. The referendum and US presidential election reduced a set of complex, interlocking problems into a simple binary decision - the status quo or change. It is now clear that there are many among us who feel disenfranchised and forgotten and for whom the status quo could not be worse. Change, regardless of how potentially damaging, was their only choice. It is exactly in this narrowing of options where arts can and should play a bigger role in society. Are we limited to the options presented through the political process, or can we use our creativity to empower ourselves to find new options when the political process fails us?

German artist Josef Beuys (1921-1986) famously said 'everyone is an artist.' He believed that human beings are by their very nature creative and, therefore, the world around us is simply a collective product of our creativity. He used the term 'social sculpture' to describe the process through which we mold and shape society through our actions. Beuys was also one of the founders of the Green Party in Germany. He deployed his theory of social sculpture to address environmental sustainability in his 1982 work 7000 Oaks - City Forestation Instead of City Administration. The project started with 7000 stone slabs being brought to an exhibition site in the German city of Kassel. These slabs would act as markers indicating where trees were planted. Beuys started the project by planting the first tree and marker. However, the project continued through the work of local residents, councils and community groups who submitted site proposals for the planting of trees in and around Kassel based on their vision for their homes and neighborhoods. As trees were planted, the stockpile of stone slabs at the exhibition site diminished, showing the progress that had been made. The project finished five years later with Beuys' son planting the final tree. According to Beuys, the project was intended to raise the ecological consciousness of the local community. The project was replicated in cities around the world, including Oslo and New York and had a significant influence on establishing the green movement. It was Bueys' form of creative engagement that empowered the public to make the change they wanted to see. Not the political system.

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Fast forward 35 years. There is a palpable sense of uncertainty about the future and the hopes and dreams of many are tied up in a 'good' Brexit deal and Trump's seemingly unique ability to 'make America great again.' What can the art world do? Many arts organisations and artists are mounting different forms of protest: The Whitney Museum offered a programme called Speak Out on Inauguration Day as a platform for "[a]rtists, writers, and activists [to] affirm their values to resist and reimagine the current political climate" and MOMA has rehung artworks of artists from the seven muslim countries banned from US entry by Trump's executive order. In its first exhibition since re-opening, the Design Museum in London features a living room comprised of furniture from the 28 member states of the EU with a window blind made from slats with each country's national colours. Behind the blind is a picture of the 1940 Rotterdam Blitz, a symbol of what could happen if the EU breaks apart. On the other hand, there are artists and arts organisations that have decided to strike. Last week, the world famous installation artist Christo decided not to move forward with the Colorado Project, which would suspend a silver canopy over 43 miles of the Arkansas River as a rejection of US National Park Service which is now under the leadership of Trump.

While arts can be a powerful tool of resistance, can the art world go one step further to produce change in its own right? Like Bueys' 7000 Oaks, can artists empower people through creativity to find solutions to problems that the political system has not successfully addressed? I think so. I'll give one more example: In 2008, artist Pedro Reyes developed a participatory art project aimed at reducing gun violence in Mexico. Through a series of television ads, he asked people to give up their guns in return for a coupon for household appliances. A total of 1527 guns were collected, including semi automatic weapons. The guns were melted down and sent to a hardware manufacturing company and turned into shovels. The shovels were then distributed to schools to enable children to plant new trees.

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By Melissa Mackey, Search Supervisor, gyro Cincinnati

Voice search is about to move from a whisper to a shout, quickly. The fact that Google Home and Amazon Echo both had a starring roles in this years Super Bowl is only the latest of evidence of this fact.

Voice search exploded in 2015, going from statistical zero to 10% of all searches globally within the year. By May of 2016, the percent of voice searches doubled to 20%. As voice recognition technology improves, its no surprise to see voice search skyrocketing. After all, we can speak a lot faster than we type (we speak at 150 wpm, vs 40 wpm for typing).

Voice queries are different from typed queries. Lets say youve been looking for a new phone company for your small business, and youre trying to remember the name of the company whose ad you saw on TV the other night. If youre typing, youll probably search for something like business phone companies. With voice search, natural language is more common. You might say something like whats the name of the business phone company whose TV ads offered $30 per month? Suddenly, a 3-word query has become a 15-word query, and the intent is much more clear.

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A few years ago, longer queries were problematic. Search engines struggled with delivering relevant results for voice searches. Search algorithms were built to expect queries of no more than four to five words. But with the growth of voice search, the algorithms have become much better. Not only are search results relevant, but theyre personalized. While writing this article, I asked Google to show me the nearest Best Buy. The result was so accurate (including a pin on a map for my location) that I dont want to show the screen shot here! It gave me a map, phone numbers, and hours  all on my mobile screen. It was as if Id asked the person next to me  only better, with visuals and tappable phone numbers.

In fact, personal digital assistants like OK Google, Cortana, and Siri are almost better than having your own human executive assistant. A digital assistant can schedule an appointment in seconds, placing it on your calendar instantly. You can send a text entirely with voice commands, without ever typing a single letter on a keyboard. You can turn a search question into a task, complete with a calendar reminder and a map with directions. Even complex tasks like planning a trip have become easier: with a few voice commands, you can find and book a flight and hotel, put the trip on your calendar, and get a weather report for your destination. Everything but packing your suitcase can be done via voice.

This holiday season, the Amazon Echo was a popular gift  so much so that it sold out just before Christmas Day. The Echo, along with devices like Google Home, are taking search to the next level. Search has now become ubiquitous. Its on our phones, and in our home devices. Not only can the Echo play music and turn lights on and off, it can order household items that youve run out of. And with

Search is a major component of home assistants like the Echo. But the Echo orders everything from Amazon. Google Home, on the other hand, serves up results from Googles search engine. Marketers need to be ready for an influx of voice searches for their products and services from Google Home.

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Google is changing the search game for businesses within the Google search results, too. Starting next month, Google is going to automatically include phone numbers in search ads on mobile devices for advertisers who have a prominent phone number on their landing page. Previously, advertisers could add call extensions to their ads, which would incorporate a tappable phone number in their mobile ads.

With the latest change, call extensions arent necessary  Google will automatically include a phone number in your ad if you feature one prominently on your landing page, as many businesses do.

Automatically including phone numbers in ads does two things: it acknowledges that mobile advertising is here to stay, and it makes ads more humanly relevant by encouraging phone calls from those with a phone in their hand.
American industry associations have been trying unsuccessfully to overturn the Conflict Minerals Rule in court. Now, news reports say President Trump is preparing to order a two-year suspension, claiming the rule jeopardizes U.S. national security and has cost too much to implement. The law allows him to suspend the rule in the interest of national security, but doing so would put impoverished Congolese at greater risk of enslavement.



Free the Slaves stands firmly on the side of freedom. We speak out when public policy violates that commitment. We support our Congolese anti-slavery partner organizations, and the many villagers that their organizations serve. The Conflict Minerals Rule should not be weakened, repealed or suspended. No company should be allowed to enslave workers and hide it. Consumers and investors have a right to know whether they are subsiding slavery.
This is the sixth installment in the series, The 3D-Materialization of Art, an ongoing survey tracing the new and growing movement of highly-reflexive 3D spectacle and narrative art and activism. Made by artists who distance themselves from the commercial uses of 3D in motion pictures, television, advertising and gaming, the new 3D artists employ the same technology that the commercial industries use. The difference is the 3D-materialization artists extend the dematerializing values and strategies of Conceptual Art to digital imaging, narratives, mythopoetics, satires and paradigms that promote progressive and sustainable political, cultural and natural lifestyles for the present and future. The preceding Huffington Post features in the series include commentaries and criticisms on the 3D art of Claudia Hart, Kurt Hentschlaeger, Matthew Weinstein, Jonathan Monaghan and the bitforms gallery exhibition, Post Pictures: A New Generation of Pictorial Structuralists A related article includes the digital art of Morehshin Allahyari in a particularly global feminist context.

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Much of the work discussed in this post can be viewed at the Johannes Vogt Gallery, New York, through February 26, 2017.

It is rare that an art or a medium that is self-reflexive about its structure, its operations, its effects on the viewer, and about assuming a visual strategy that is largely abstract and process oriented, is also preoccupied with its own historicity, it's own capacity for pictorial representation, it's own conciliation of fiercely defended ideological oppositions. But these are just some of the contradictions posed by Monika Bravo's vector art of abstract-representation. Yes, abstract-representation sounds like a non sequitur, but the work that Bravo has exhibited at the Johannes Vogt Gallery on the Lower East Side of Manhattan is focused on making the conciliation of such opposites a presiding philosophy of vector art.

Even the passage from the street into the Vogt Gallery imposes its own powerful epiphany about opposites in dialectical relationship, about ideas outliving their time yet resisting the new order, in this case the ongoing and likely unreconcilable conflict between an ascendant cultural relativism and the political orthodoxy set on obstructing that relativism's advance. For upon reaching the gallery's location near the intersection of Chrystie Street and Canal, my attention could not but be drawn across the street by the huge yawning portal of the Manhattan Bridge sitting like some giant sphinx of modernist American engineering guarding against a newer, likely foreign technology. As my eye traced the bridge's ascent to the American continent that Manhattan Island defiantly remains aloof from culturally and aesthetically, I became aware that Bravo, a Columbian immigrant-turned-citizen, introduced her art in a sanctuary city more attuned to global history and culture than to the static provincialism of the continental United States, especially amid Trump's anti-relativist America. But as this particular series of work by Bravo is largely apolitical, I was grateful for once to escape the dark cloud looming over the nation to partake in a meditation on what new media and ancient media together can tell us about time and consciousness.

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Inside the gallery, the digitally, seemingly-abstract animated paintings of Monika Bravo, and the inspired curating of Octavio Zaya, spoke to me of the vital new direction for painting. Should we call video painting? Definitely. In the 1960s and 1970s Dan Flavin, Marian Zazeela, and James Turell presented light as an essential formal component of both painting and sculpture. We're not calling it 'paint', after all, which is the skin of traditional painting. Painting is an optical art, and thereby light's color alone merits it to be called painting. But animation is not just revitalizing painting, but abstraction. That is abstraction that is both authentic and ironic (yet another pair of opposites to reconcile) in being taken up as vital components in the structure and language derived from the negotiation of abstraction and representation as renewed by the epoch of vector imaging. By understanding that abstraction and representation are two sides of the same coin, we also come to understand that abstraction isn't just a modern or Western invention, but a universal cognitive process that enabled the evolution of linguistic, visual and material expressions of representation since the dawn of human consciousness. In this larger sense of abstraction/representation as reciprocally interchanging within all meaningful structures, we mustn't get bogged down in the stylistic geometric abstraction that Bravo visits.

Yes, 'visits' is one of the central objectives of this series of work, as Bravo's relativism is nomadic in terms of temporarily inhabiting a paradigm, rather than settling permanently into it as an imperative for mediating life or thought. It's a nomadic relativism that Bravo and Zaya instinctually kept crucially in mind when installing the work around the space in a kind of circle in which the abstract forms on the smaller screens open up to a large open projection both dissecting and circumscribing the space. Zaya explains his rationale for the scheme of the installation:

"In the center of five monitors, three projectors, and sound, the viewer undergoes a hyper- rhythmic sensorial stimulation. In this activated state, on the one hand, Bravo is superimposing layers on LCD screens to help us enter into a new cognizance, where perception is mediated between what is real and what is virtual. On the other hand, another set of projections will be countering that experience: bursts of patterns of tiles, masked with Google image captures of Earth, will pulsate around the room as the silent beat of an imaginary musical score."

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In these projections, abstract motifs we may recognize from art history or design are superimposed upon large-scale pictures of nature and civilization accessed through Google Images. So as not to get mired in arguments of historicity (periods, styles, originality or lack of), which are secondary to this work and, anyway, have been done to death over the last century, Bravo is neither concerned with revising geometric abstraction as a nostalgic trope, as a zealous historicist might do, nor is she posing an ironic mimicry of historicism to critique the epoch of abstraction's indifference to cultural upheavals, as Peter Halley and Phillip Taaffe did in the 1980s and 1990s. Above all she is rejecting the snide authoritarian critics whose "painting is dead" mantras dismiss current artists' forays into abstract art as so much "zombie abstraction".

If there are many historical aspects to the Vogt Gallery Tesserae installation, it is because Bravo's digital art surveys the full spectrum of visual language shared by painting and electronic screens to convey how capaciously the most time-honored modes of both formalist abstraction and pictorial representation can be adapted with vitality to new emedia while yielding a reflexive semiotic and methodology of imaging uniquely its own. Even the title of the work, Tesserae, meaning mosaic, conveys the process by which a great macrocosm of a literal idea or a realistic image is made up of many microcosms, some abstract, some pictorial. The first video on this page, Tesserae 05, 06, exemplifies the continuity between the visual processes of abstraction and pictorial articulation as an explicit outgrowth from form-to-structure-to visual language-to signage. The two subsequent videos, Tesserae 02 and Tesserae 03 & 04 predominately display familiar compositions of hard-edged geometric abstraction visited by animated pictures so discreetly integrated within the lines of the abstraction that they seem at first glance to be abstractions themselves.

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Here is where Bravo and Zaya ended the exhibition. But I'm here including an additional work, URUMU (Weaving Time), 2014, shown in two earlier installations at The Bard Graduate Center and Christie's West Galleries, to emphasize that Bravo understands the full extent to which abstraction informs the basic components of pictorial representation -- fully comprising even what we call realism. (In fact, the earlier date of this work implies that Bravo first had to explicitly work out a scheme that grew full-fledged pictorialism, replete with resoundingly emphatic signage, from the most minute alignment of vectors in order for her to feel confident about displaying that same semiotic evolution, from abstraction to pictorial signage, more subtly and with greater nuance in the Tesserae.

The Tesserae work only delineates a brief and recent cross section of the evolution from abstraction to post-abstraction picture making. But in doing so, Bravo and Zaya cite the various issues painting has attended to since it became a self-referential exercise at the end of the 19th-century. All of these styles, methods, techniques, ideologies -- despite their analog ancestry -- compose the newborn digital lineage for vector media and 3D animation. As a composite media integrating time in motion, Bravo and her peers in vector animation see themselves as inheriting art history as much as they inherit photography and cinematography. They indeed come closest to realizing Flaubert's 1852 musing that art would one day "take the middle ground between algebra and music". Today's 3D artists are certainly the legatees of Cezanne , whose each brush stroke in a picture represented a uniquely different perception of the spatial world in its own instant in time, and wholly different from what the intellect summarizes as the world of consistent duration. They also inherit the lessons of Cubism established by Picasso and Braque, with their economized time brilliantly strategized by painting successive views of a figure or scene from any number of perspective points in one picture. (After Cubism, the Surrealist photographers used multiple exposures to do much the same.)

These are only the most renowned art historical instances to have compelled Bravo to turn to the century-old theory of time summarized by the metaphysician, Henri Bergson. Much the way that Cezanne isolated the timing of each brush stroke, Bergson saw time as we know it by experience as quantitatively different from time as we understand it intellectually to comprise both the instant of life in the living, and the totality of time we live out. Bergson explained that both the illusion of the instant and that of the totality, are but abstract concepts that tell us nothing about the duration of time that we experience as a bracketed continuity with a beginning and end. Bergson understood that art was changing our view of time by turning us away from the idea of time as an absolute, and toward a view of time as made up of bracket parts we remember and call durations. Even more popularly after the Lumieres, motion pictures represented a perpetual flux that, though the medium allowed replaying, the fragile and precocious materiality of cinema combined with the changing conditions (of light, temperature, temperament) that could never be rendered identically. Bravo and Zaya together chose to integrate the modern lessons about time derived from Cezanne, the Lumieres and Bergson in the Tesserae show. And they did this by choreographing the shadows and interactions of the gallery viewers into the installation by making the light of the central overhead projectors more than just a medium. The light is as well made a collaborator with the visitor to the installation when they together improvise the intervals of shadows blackening the images projected. Bravo and Zaya hereby pay homage to the legacy of the performance art that grew directly out of the action painting of Pollock -- those artists of the 1950s and 1960s who saw themselves as literally breaking out of the frame of painting, photography and cinema to make their actions in time itself a feature of visual art. In connecting with this history, Bravo and Zaya saw to it that we could never merely experience the installation through photo and video documentation, like those posted here. They were intent, rather, that the full audio-visual-tactile ambience of the painting-in-space would only be experienced with a visit to the gallery itself.

There is one problem, however that Bravo's vector paintings invite, at least to the impatient viewer. Anyone not aware of vector practice today, yet perhaps too-well versed in the history of modernist painting, might likely walk into the Tesserae installation (or its recreation), and despite the flickering light of video, the chromatic aura of the LCD screens arranged around the space, and the shadows of viewers integrating with (not merely obstructing) the projections draping floor, ceiling and walls, might fall prey to recalling the formalisms of Malevich, Kandinsky, Klee, Mondrian, Robert and Sonia Delauney, Reinhardt, Newman, Dibenkorn, O'Keefe, etc. Or they might invoke the history of the diverse, yet systematic hard-edged geometric movements of De Stijl, Suprematism, Constructivism, Bauhaus, Minimalism, Neo-Geo. Such historically adept viewers might in haste feel there is nothing new here in terms of painting and walk out.

For the informed vector enthusiast, however, the Bravo installation sustains a long investigation not just for the history being echoed by a (fairly) new medium, but for its visually-enhanced allure, even a cultural aura -- things digital art often lacks. That allure and aura have nothing to do with the history being evoked, but the hypnotic resonance of alterations unfolding in each screen and projection that speak of relativities unleashed, even magnified, by the fluidity and virtuosity of the vector graphics that, in a single composition, can simultaneously imply legacies as recent as the invention of modernist hard-edged abstraction and as historical as the invention of the science of one- two- and three-point perspective in the Renaissance. Just the use or viewing of vectors makes an artist or viewer predisposed to historicism given that vectors proceed from the invention of perspective as a tool for art and architecture.There is also a sense that training in vector imaging, like training in perspective drawing, inclines us toward relativism. This much was discerned in 1938 by William M. Ivins, Jr., then the curator of prints and drawings at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, when he wrote that the Theory of Relativity that Einstein conceived would likely not have been postulated without an understanding of the shifting vision of perspective in the eye.

More than any of her past exhibitions, the Tesserae show affirms that Bravo shares the historicists' agenda. But she also returns to the reflexive mirror of media about media to recontextualize the modernist lessons of abstraction as a philosophy of our individualistic relations to history and nature. Even the amateur historicist can see in the Tesserae work the legacy of geometric abstraction in art, along with the myriad variations formalist critical argot. Some of the language is long forgotten: the 'kinevisuality' of critic Umbro Apollonio (his name for Op Art); the 'iridescent interpenetrations' of Giacomo Balla; the 'luminism' of Larinva and Goncharva. The imagery of such artists, however, invoke, if only superficially, the linearity and overlapping of Hans Richter, Sophie Taueber-Arp, Frank Kupka, El Lissitzky, Diebenkorn. An earlier work by Bravo, URUMU (Weaving Time), shown in 2015 at Christies West, New York, while superficially evocative of circuit boards, on the other hand recalls the rhythmic and highly regulated lattice paintings of Yaacov Agam or Carls Cruz Diez, that optically move with the eye in essays of intricate and relativist optical illusions. Nothing in Bravo is an optical illusion. It's all straightforward vector graphics, cinematic camera and google images. Solarization, rayograms and other Surrealist techniques appear to be at work but are not. It's all vectors programmed for effects, while often by chance appearing like an early employment with paint and optics.

I asked Bravo whether she was interested in rephrasing Modernist painting with any particular formula of 3D particle systems, such as volumetric sampling, caustics, subsurface scattering, or any specific program, technique or device. She answered:

""My process? I use a computer but it is a purely painterly process. Rather than employ a programmed script to execute each part, I implement manual execution within the computer frame. I create a method or system in my mind, and then it is executed first by hand and then by combining two programs: illustrator, which creates the vectors, and then after effects, which enables me to create the movement by hand. My choice of using the computer to still simulate Manual actions is what I consider rendering a materiality to the ones and zeros."

"I come from the idea of painting and want to stay in the realm of painting by using time as a material while asking, what is a screen? What is the wall? Who decides sizes shapes or positions? And what are the limitations of each? And of course, the biggest question is, can painting, with the help of the computer still be a medium that reinvents itself?'

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Bravo makes it clear that the reinvention of painting as a 3D medium and consciousness is the central issue from a variety of standpoints, one of which is its departure from art history to sketch out the origins of the parameters of the vectors found in the legacy that informs her work both structurally and as conscious history. "I've departed from Sonia Delauney in the fast google video. This comes after I referenced Delauney's color inspiration in URUMU, a 2014 series of glass studies for weaving time. I've also been influenced by Malevich, and am intrigued that so many of the early Modernists were somehow connected to ideas of the divine, the intangible, the non-objective, though history has stripped the spiritual component in art because it confuses it with the religious. I have since I remember always been a very spiritual child, with all the good and terrible connotations it implies for the immateriality which connects us."

One of Bravo's smaller works in the gallery's office is a Malevich-like composition on a 24" x 36" screen that can be hand held to view from different angles. It is a work that upon turning so that we peer at it from is side makes us aware of how rarely, if ever, we look at a painting or drawing not frontally, but laterally (at 90 degrees) from which we see only a surface line.

Because the streaming motion, like a video, is so much more accomplished in terms of the fluency and subtlety of motion than was the primitive kinetic art of the 1960s, Bravo's work evokes the cinematic process brought to her work, not only by the screen, but as well by the pictorial motion she defines with the use of parallelograms and by the converging and diverging lines that launch perspective drawing into temporal pictorialism. Bravo sees the kinetic action of her screen version of painting acting as the programmed version of memory, while the breaks with that memory, the disjunction and "splicing" (to use an antiquated cinematic technique as legacy rather than process) to expand her media vocabulary into pictorial iconographies and semiotics, as well as the merging of paintings, cinema and video. Bravo's equation of media around the installation space (painting + animation + video + sculptural + performative space) add up to visualized essays on consciousness, but also of the contradictions and conflicts that come with the discontinuity that different consciousness imposes when people of different backgrounds converge, as she personally, as an immigrant, is painfully aware.

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Which is why the different techniques in her work not only enact, but emphasize disjunction and discontinuity. Amid the intersecting lines and overlapping shapes, the hard edges and simulated brush strokes, imitation washes, even vectored effects of painted sfumato and scumbling, there are flashes of photo-generated water rippling in pools, rain on a leaf, light penetrating shrubbery, reflecting glare bleaching out pictures of thriving life. Or there are aerial views of unspoiled terrain phasing into urban centers, concrete giving way to floribunda. The disjunction amid these groupings is an operation that Bravo likes to associate with schizophrenic discontinuity. Normally I object to the formalist disjunction in art being labeled schizophrenic, since schizophrenia is disruptive of choice when art is largely choice. But this time the description came to me a month after I finished writing about Agnes Martin's grid paintings mapping a continuity that became the artist's escape from the disruption of life imposed on her by the schizophrenia that plagued her for decades. Bravo, by contrast, maps a tentative and uncertain entry into the schizophrenic's crisis of breaking with continuity, if only to experience what the breakage from a continual reception and understanding of visual language tells us about how abstraction in mental picturing supplies the cement needed for living productively. Similarly, in Bravo's art, abstraction is the cement for vectoring together a simulation of the mental pictures that, like building blocks, compose our experience of the world, our reality-in-time.

"Time, as perceived in the Western tradition, is linear", Bravo adds. "It creates anticipation and a sense of narrative that has already been established in the history of writing and movie making where there is an anticipation of something that will end apocalyptically, of someone who will messianically come again. All information within this timeframes moves in a perpetual straight line. The eastern traditions observe time, they follow nature: a river doesn't stop flowing between countries unless a mind chooses to stop it."

"This is, by the way, the connection to the Google images, a personal annotation of how the machine swallowed me. I show nature that circles in time. And recently my source for the images have been drones that pulsate so fast."

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When I asked Bravo what she takes from cinema, she cited the most painterly of recent film directors.

"Greenway tried to explain the relationship and difference between cinema and painting in the 1990's when he was cutting and pasting elements into his frames. It was in The Pillow Book that I saw he was intervening on the screen by creating screens within screens. That made me stop and ask what defines the screen, the frame, the format. And I am still there going beyond the screen, going inside and outside the machine, the medium, the drawing, the wall, the color, the idea of what a structure and process is. As in the Tao. You cannot name the Tao. A painting cannot be defined. When you try t define it, it stops being what it is, something that moves you, that connects in other levels that most of the times are not tangible, whether rational or emotional."

It was in watching The Pillow Book that Bravo foresaw the Tesserae series, though more as an external skin than as the mosaic it bacame. "The medium, whether it is paint or screen, is like the skin of the body, a vessel. When we define it too much, it loses its magic. I am just using and intervening on the space beyond what is established, what is expected, because my aim is to create an experience that others can take elsewhere. So again, Greenway tried to depict this relationship, the difference between cinema and painting. When I saw this back in the 1990's, I knew I was on the right path, I just needed to create my own language to convey it."

Create her own language, Bravo does. But the one disappointment in the Tesserae series is that Bravo does not elaborate the pictorial imaging with as much precision, clarity and cohesion as she bestows on the abstract components. Part of this is because Bravo relies on rather bland, appropriated imagery from Google instead of photographing or simulating objects that are as richly developed as the abstract videos, or as evocative of the power of the sign in imagery in her 2014 work, URUMU (Weaving Time), a 4 channel projection seen in the fourth video here that bears fleeting resemblance to Hollis Frampton's 1966 structuralist masterpiece, Zorn's Lemma, if only a slice. Rather than accessing more appropriated imagery in her work to come, Bravo might profit more by advancing an alternate pictorial reality, one engineered by visiting her modeling and effects program to map out an entirely authentic scheme for reconciling the imagery of abstraction and representation.

Listen to G. Roger Denson interviewed by Brainard Carey on Yale University Radio.

Read other posts by G. Roger Denson on Huffington Post in the archive.
Review of Democracy: A Case Study. By David A. Moss. Harvard University Press. 773 pp. $35.

Noting that more than two-thirds of students did not reach proficiency in a civics assessment conducted in 2006, reformers claim that robust civics courses in social studies, economics, political science, and history might well produce well-informed citizens, enhance popular engagement, and increase turnout on Election Day. Less clear is how schools can foster an understanding of how a representative democracy works - and what roles ordinary Americans play in it.

In Democracy, David Moss, a professor at the Harvard Business School, provides an innovative approach to this challenge. Applying a case study method (and pedagogies designed to promote active and experiential learning) to American history courses, he claims, can give students a sound foundation of knowledge of chronology, important events, individuals, organizations, and the structures and mechanics of policy formulation and implementation. Best read along with Minds on Fire, by Marc Carnes, which shows how role-immersion games can utilize the competitive impulses of undergraduates (and their desires to internalize alternate selves) to stimulate substantive learning, Democracy should command the attention of teachers and students of all ages.

Democracy presents nineteen case studies (developed in his course at Harvard), each of which ends with a decision about to be made at a pivotal moment in our nation's history. Should President Washington sign or veto a bill to establish a national bank (and thereby vindicate an expansive view of the Constitution's "necessary and proper clause")? Should President Lincoln evacuate Fort Sumter or send provisions to Union soldiers, an act almost certain to provoke war? Should Martin Luther King, Jr. lead a march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, against the wishes of President Johnson and in violation of a federal court order? Should the legislature of Florida ratify the Equal Rights Amendment?

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Presented at the end of the book, "follow-ups" to the cases invite students to gauge the implications of the decisions that were made (and, perhaps, the roads not taken). And Moss's conclusion - that "more orderly" elections (with the introduction of the secret ballot); the achievement of near universal suffrage among adult citizens; and the dramatic expansion of the federal government "may have eroded citizens' faith and engagement in the democracy, in ways both large and small" - is, to put it mildly, provocative.

Most important, Moss's case studies are engagingly written, well researched, rich in content and context. Consider, for example, the chapter on race, justice, and the jury system in the post-Civil War South. As he lays out Judge Alexander Rives' charge to two (interracial) federal juries to investigate whether the state courts of Virginia excluded blacks from jury pools because they were black, Moss reveals that in 1201 King John of England decreed that "if a Christian shall have a cause of action against a Jew, let him be tried by a Jew's peers"; and in 1354 King Edward III proclaimed that foreigners residing in England could request "a mixed jury" that included individuals who spoke their own language. One can readily imagine students (and readers of Moss's book) thinking hard about the meaning of the phrase "a jury of his peers," the relevance of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and the role of the federal government in determining the composition of state juries.

In the chapter on the initiative and referendum in Massachusetts, to cite one more example, Moss asks us to ask about the role of direct democracy in a republic based on representation. Critics of these reforms, Moss points out, claimed that big money interests often controlled the outcome - and questioned the capacity of voters to make informed decisions. They cited an election in 1908 in Oregon in which voters approved two separate initiatives introduced by competing groups of salmon fishermen, one banning the use of gill-nets downstream and the other banning fish wheels upstream, thus shutting down the industry until a federal court blocked enforcement of the two laws.

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Leigh Nakanishi, lead of Edelman's Global Security & Privacy Group, has spent considerable time assessing what the Trump Presidency and a new administration portends for cybersecurity. The risks and challenges are manifest on a variety of important fronts:

Of the many policy priorities for the Trump administration, how it tackles the cybersecurity and data privacy challenges facing the country will have a significant impact on the economy, national security and civil liberties. From the escalating hacking episodes by nation-states and calls to develop significant offensive cybersecurity capabilities, to combating cybercrime and improving critical infrastructure protection, there are no shortage of challenges facing the new administration.

In his press conference as president elect, Trump announced he will release a report in the next 90 days outlining the administration's approach to cybersecurity and he is set to pay off that promise with an executive order aimed at reviewing current vulnerabilities in Federal systems and devising plans to defend critical infrastructure. Like several other major policy issues presented by the administration, it's unclear how detailed the report and approach will be. However, one thing is clear: it will inevitably involve collaboration with the private sector through his new cybersecurity advisor, Rudy Giuliani.

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Importantly, this new environment will also present potential challenges for businesses, but also potential opportunities to build common ground with the new administration. The following are major security and privacy areas where we are likely to see developments that companies will need to navigate:



Hardening the Federal Government and Business from Attacks

President Trump has said time and again that he believes the United States is "being hacked by everybody," citing the loss of millions of records by the Office of Personnel Management and a recent report that found federal agencies are less secure than every other private sector industry. It's likely that hardening the Federal government and critical infrastructure from attacks will be part of Trump's plan and an area where he will seek advice from the private sector.

For businesses with significant amounts of data, technology companies and those developing security solutions, President Trump's focus on engaging the private sector could provide an opportunity for industry experts to offer insight into the major challenges (technical, operational, etc.) that exist in protecting both the private and public sector from attacks.

This attention is likely to also bring risk for businesses. If there is a breach of US government systems, it will be viewed as a major failure, and the technology behind it will be at risk of receiving significant scrutiny from the President. Likewise, companies that are victims of big consumer breaches risk criticism for failing to protect Americans.

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Business Imperatives:

Companies with security expertise should consider engaging the Administration on this issue to build goodwill, share best practices, and ensure that any policies that get developed are effective.

The private sector also has an opportunity to share in the chorus helping educate the public on the current threat environment; this responsibility shouldn't only fall on the shoulders of the Government

It's also important for all companies to have security incident response plans which are effectively communicated to employees and their business partners to ensure they are properly managing a major incident and are less likely to get in Trump's crosshairs.

Cybersecurity as a National Security Priority

With revelations of Russian hacking aimed at disrupting the presidential election, it's clear that we are likely to see more international conflicts taking place in cyberspace. The Trump administration has already indicated it will invest in offensive cyberweapons and will not shy away from using them, either as a deterrent or as a response to an attack. And, with no clear rules of engagement for the use of cyber-capabilities, the potential for a disproportionate response is much more likely than with traditional conflicts.

While intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense have greatly increased their capabilities to gather intelligence on foreign nation-state attacks, security companies also have strong capabilities in this space. It's possible that this new focus could lead to greater opportunities for threat intelligence sharing and a greater role for the private sector to play in helping shape the administration's strategy moving forward.

At the same time, this new environment will create increased risk for companies. As evidenced by previous attacks on Sony Pictures and many critical infrastructure providers over the past few years, it's possible that businesses will be caught in the middle and end up victims of advanced attacks due to an international cyber-conflict.

Business Imperatives:

The need for collective defense against threats facing both the government and private sector provides an opportunity for companies to revisit their stance on intelligence sharing. This could include pushing for new legislation to protect companies that share information from legal liability. More here.

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Collective Action Against Cybercrime and Consumer Fraud

Trump is viewed as a law and order President. In addition to bolstering cyber-related funding and establishing new areas of focus within the Federal Government, one area where he may be able to make some traction is by taking more aggressive action against cybercriminals. Recently, the FBI took down a major international crime ring with the assistance of the private sector. Presumably these types of actions will continue to be a focus for federal law enforcement and could provide positive examples that Trump can cite to show he is successfully tackling cybersecurity.

Most of these actions require close collaboration with the private sector, who often have the intelligence and technical capability necessary to assist law enforcement. This creates another area for potential bridge-building and collaboration with the new administration.

Business Imperatives:

Companies targeted by attacks, those that experienced major security incidents, or those with intelligence about cybercriminal networks should ensure they are closely working with the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies.

Privacy and Security at Odds

President Trump's focus on national security will likely lead to increased concerns around data privacy for citizens and foreign consumers. Following the fight last year between Apple and the FBI over the use of encryption to protect communications on the iPhone used by the San Bernardino shooter, we are likely to see more companies asked to compromise the security of their products in the interest of national security. It's also possible we will see more companies receive requests from the government for information they have on their consumers to aid in intelligence gathering.

Ultimately, this new approach will lead to significant scrutiny of companies by the privacy advocacy community, foreign data protection regulators and media. It will also lead to potential challenges for companies that do business abroad, where international governments are very sensitive to the potential exposure of information about their citizens to the US government. This tension has already presented significant headaches for US companies looking to collect and use data on European citizens.

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Business Imperatives:

All companies should ensure they have a documented strategy and supporting messaging that explains under which circumstances they will provide information to the government.

If a company develops communications technologies, it will be important that it proactively communicates about the danger of intentionally introducing vulnerabilities in its products, and the impact it can have on security.
Senator Jeff Sessions, attorney general pick for U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, listens as Senator Charles 'Chuck' Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, not pictured, speaks during a meeting in Washington, D.C., U.S, on Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2016. Sessions, the 69-year-old, four-term Alabama Republican is a hard-liner on free trade and immigration, arguing that prospective immigrants dont have constitutional protections. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images

This post was almost called "Make Black History Black Again." Believe it or not, we are only 20 days into this new Administration, and I have reshifted my partial sew-in more times than I care to admit. We have all bore witness to the aggressive slaughtering of our Nation, which barely missed hell thanks to the Williams' sisters, Beyonce's pregnancy, and James Baldwin still speaking to and through us in the must-see cinematic prose "I Am Not Your Negro" (surely February deserves one more calendar day just for that title alone).

After witnessing delusional inauguration photo interpretations, censoring of reporters, discriminatory travel bans, confirmations of underqualified elitists, sightings of deceased abolitionists, the silencing of the late Coretta Scott King via Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and a major threat to healthcare coverage nationwide, I have one message to Democrats: You're not gonna win with common sense alone.

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I am in no way suggesting anarchy, but I am suggesting a real reevaluation of strategies and tactics. For starters, it appears that Dems are in a little bit of a numerical quagmire. Republicans control both chambers of Congress, the White House, and now the Departments of Justice and Education, and soon to be the Supreme Court. Not to mention that our State Department is now owned by Exxon, Texas Gov. Rick Perry is actually considered for...anything...and once Trump opponent Sen. Lindsey Graham has uttered "Make America Great Again." Is there no balm in Gilead?

Dems, you're outnumbered but not just because you don't have the votes to pass legislation. But because the Republicans take pacts. And they take those things just as seriously as Atlanta Housewife Cynthia Bailey takes her friend contracts. Remember how serious it was when former Republican presidential candidates were hesitant to say whether they'd back the presumptive nominee? The response was always "it would be a disgrace if so and so didn't back the nominee. We all made a pact!" See, pacts are real sophomoric, like "pinky swears." Except for when they're honored by everyone. Then, these impenetrable bonds have power and are exactly why you Dems stay scratching your head because your once GOP-bestie is now acting like y'all ain't never worked out in the same Congressional gym.

Face it: conservatives individual feelings towards Donald Trump will not overpower their invisible pact to look the other way and push forward their agenda. So, don't waste too much time reasoning with them.

That's not to say that there won't be outliers from time to time. Senators Lisa Murkowski (AK) and Susan Collins (ME) voted against the nomination of now confirmed head of the Department of Education, Betsy DeVos. But the subsequent Attorney General confirmation of Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions a day later once again proves that Republicans do not care about patterns of injustice, facts, or the will of the people. They have the power to do what they want to do. And they will use it.

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Republicans have been perfecting this power stance for almost a decade, taking every opportunity to obstruct the desires of the people of America by obstructing the candidate the people elected, twice--President Barack Obama. They did not succumb to being labeled the "do-nothing" Congress when they were in the majority. They didn't care how many millions our Nation lost when they shut down the government. And they definitely could care less that every night, cable news networks listed their discretions.

They made a pact, remember.

And because they wouldn't let up, we started to normalize this dysfunction and treat it as government. The Tea Party, which was at one time synonymous as crazy, is now spelled GOP. Which left room for the arrival of a problematic, litigation-ladened, never governed, now President Donald Trump. And now, folks are wondering if we really have to wait until 2020 to take action.

The short answer is: we can't wait. And to get a little sanity, we got to get a little crazy first. I do believe you, Dems, when you say that the people will answer in 2018 and 2020. But using old tools on this new journey is not going to get us there. I offer these five starter suggestions:

Resolve now that "political petty" is a viable tactic. Political petty is a step up from traditional petty in that it is reserved for elected officials who have no regard to the feelings of the opposing party, pursuant to an intended outcome. Sen. Ted Cruz is a political petty master, showing that he will hold up a Senate floor all by himself for twenty-one hours, vowing to "speak in support of defunding Obamacare until I am no longer able to stand." (so poetic, right?) Political pettiness causes sensationalism, which results in huge coverage, and ultimately viewership--especially by everyday people who only tune in to news when an outrageous moment is captured. Political pettiness can be best felt when a critical mass of electeds employ it. One idea is to have every Dem elected start every interview with a statement like "In 3 years, 11 months, 3 days, 12 hours, and 53 seconds the American people are going to fire Trump." Trust me, you do that every day, we'll listen. (This site helps you keep track of the exact amount of time).

Get yourselves a real good messenger (and message). We laughed when Kellyanne Conway used the term "alternative facts" to describe the lies (which are the opposite of "facts") that were spewing out of the Trump Administration. But considering that now "alternative facts" has its own Wikipedia page, I'd say she won that battle. And part of the genius of her presence is that she is not the President. Face time is an extremely important tool for elected Dems, especially in the House of Representatives, where guaranteed tenure is for two years at a time. But Dems should consider employing a face that can resonate your collective strategy, stay on message, and afford to make a couple mistakes. I trust you Dems will leverage your incoming Chair to take this role, but an additional surrogate may not hurt. (And if you combine strategies one and two, you can even hold your own weekly Dem Press Conference to counter all the alternative facts from the past week. See how political petty works?)

Do not over rely on cable news. Get on more non-traditional outlets, and perhaps more importantly do things untraditionally. Pull out your camera phone while walking to the car and let us know your unscripted thoughts about the ongoing attacks on liberties, destruction of freedom, and normalized bigotry from the highest seat in the Nation. Rep. Maxine Waters did one recently right outside elevators in one of the Congressional buildings, proving that almost no spot or time is a bad one. I suggest you don't do it in the shower or you know...with no shirt on. But a slip of a curse word here or there is quite alright. We survived pussygate...so we can handle passionate four letter words from time to time. Which leads me to my next point.

Keep the Rising American Electorate energized and engaged! You may have heard the term the "rising electorate" but who are they are where are they rising from? The rising American electorate (RAE) is the term to describe the rapidly growing group of unmarried women, millennials and non-white voters. Decade-long projections proved to be correct this past election cycle as this group emerged as the majority of voters, at 55 percent. Majority of this demographic supported Hillary Clinton and has probably already been targeted by Trump. What does this mean? Get more Cardi B's as your messengers so they can speak organically to your voters! And do some more in-person events in local venues and hot spots. This ain't your "Meet the Press" crowd.

Some of y'all have to leave Congress. This may be where I lost some consulting coins. But hear me out. There were two things that really stood out to me during the 2010 midterm elections as a staffer in Congress: the age of tea party candidates and the "one-term" messaging. With a more fresh and green appearance, the Tea Partiers came in with more room to make mistakes, especially when so many ran on message of leaving after just one-term. In a nation growing quite resentful of a lack of political options, you Dems must ask yourselves this key question: Are you really as effective as you used to be? Or put another way: Can America win more with new blood in Congress? I suggest the Dems not only embrace this, but also embrace a real pipeline that is less of a stepping down and more of a baton pass. If America were to see a cohort of you guy say "You know what, we love what we do and we will serve in other ways. But we see the value of endorsing the new wave of representatives in 2018," I think we will finally get a little closer to using the greatness within America to finally make her great for us all.

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FILE PHOTO - U.S. President Donald Trump is seen during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, U.S. on February 8, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

This week PBS premiered Oklahoma City, an illuminating documentary that revisits the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and the broader climate of far-right extremism that spawned the homegrown terrorist Timothy McVeigh.

The documentary couldn't have come at a better time.

We should all hope that President Trump and his advisers are paying close attention, because by focusing their attention exclusively on terrorism inspired by overseas groups like ISIS, they could be missing the next McVeigh.

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The Oklahoma City bombing was, at the time, the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil, killing 168 men, women and children, and wounding nearly 700 more. It did not occur in a vacuum. McVeigh, a veteran of the Gulf War, was steeped in the white supremacist and anti-government militia movements of the 1990s -- movements that produced dozens of terrorist attacks and plots.

After the bombing, then Attorney General Janet Reno formed the Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee to coordinate the government's response. Numerous terror plots were foiled and militia leaders arrested. Partly as a result of the crackdown, the militia movement fell into disarray.

As fate would have it, the terrorism task force was scheduled to hold a monthly meeting on Sept. 11, 2001. It did not meet that day, for obvious reasons. But the task force did not skip just one meeting. As the country's focus shifted to al Qaeda, the group did not meet again for 13 years.

During the interim, domestic extremism surged. The number of hate groups, mainly white supremacists, nearly doubled in a 10-year span. And with the election of Barack Obama, the anti-government movement also roared back. From 2008 to 2012, the number of so-called "Patriot" groups, including militias, multiplied by more than 800 percent, to 1,360.

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The increased activity was accompanied by an alarming level of violence, both from antigovernment extremists and racists. West Point's Combating Terrorism Center reported in 2013 that right-wing violence during the period surpassed that of the 1990s by a factor of four. The attacks included the 2012 massacre of six Sikhs at a Wisconsin temple by neo-Nazi Wade Page.

Finally, in 2014, the Justice Department revived the task force -- but only after Glenn Miller, an infamous former Klan leader, killed three people he mistook for Jews in Overland Park, Kansas.

Now, it appears that Trump, who made Muslim-bashing a signature of his campaign, is once again turning the government's attention away from the threat posed by men like McVeigh, Page, Miller, and Dylann Roof, who massacred nine African Americans in Charleston.

Indeed, it seems as if Trump is living in a world of alternative facts. The list of terrorist attacks he released to the news media this week didn't contain a single reference to those committed by radical-right extremists. More bizarrely, while he has said nothing publicly about the Jan. 29 attack in Quebec City -- where a right-wing extremist killed six Muslims at a mosque -- his press secretary cited it as an example of why Trump's Muslim ban is needed.

Last week, Reuters reported that the administration is considering changing the government's Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) program so that it focuses solely on Islamist extremism and no longer works to counter other violent ideologies, such as white supremacism. It would be renamed as "Countering Islamic Extremism" or "Countering Radical Islamic Extremism."

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Far-right extremists cheered the news. "Donald Trump wants to remove us from undue federal scrutiny by removing 'white supremacists' from the definition of 'extremism,'" wrote the founder of the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer.

Beyond the dangers of taking law enforcement's focus off far-right terrorists, the decision to change the CVE program would have other harmful effects.

While it may be politically satisfying to some Trump voters, the change will further stigmatize Muslims and likely prove counterproductive. In a report last year, Duke University's Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security found that a singular focus on Islamic terrorism erodes the trust between law enforcement and Muslim communities -- trust that is needed to thwart attacks.

What's more, by explicitly targeting Muslims in his rhetoric and policies, the president is handing a potent recruiting and propaganda tool to radical Islamists who portray the United States and the West in general as being at war with Islam.

9/11 was the Pearl Harbor of our time. And each anniversary of that horrible day reminds us of the continuing threat associated with radical forms of Islam.

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But we must not forget the 168 lives lost in Oklahoma City -- or those lost in Kansas, Wisconsin or Charleston.

It shouldn't take another massacre to remind us of the very real terror threat posed by the far-right extremists living among us.
Francisco Pacheco, "La Inmaculada de Miguel Cid"

Now that Valentine's Day is upon us, let's offer a toast to the medieval Arabs from whom Europe learned to respect and honor the feminine. What?! That religion in which women are oppressed chattel, forced to cover themselves in black, segregated from public life! We are certain of our cultural superiority, of the high values of Western civilization, assuming that there has always been something innately superior about our Judaeo-Christian heritage.

Most people are unaware of how little honor was given to the feminine in the Graeco-Roman world, in early Christianity, and in Europe during the first thousand years of the common era. The Roman world offered no moral code worthy of admiration, nor any wholesome model of marriage. Christianity looked upon marriage as a necessary evil to preserve people from sin and facilitate procreation. Nowhere in the European world was Woman honored in the way that the knights of the desert did, following their ancient code of chivalry, muruah, or manliness, which combined physical prowess, heroic generosity, loyalty, and, above all, honoring and defending women.

Titus Burckhardt in Moorish Culture of Spain writes that the European chivalry of the Middle Ages was learned from the Spanish Moors. The quintessentially Western ideal of chivalry was unknown in the Western world until it came into Europe through Islamic Spain. The Moors, as they were called, were still living according to this code, prolifically composing poems and songs honoring the Feminine. Eventually, this was adapted by the Provencal troubadours from the Arab courts in Andalusia who sang of yearning for the beloved, elevating the sensibilities of the European mind from mere sensuality to a new refinement of emotion.

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In the Arab context, there was always an ambiguity about whether it was the earthly beloved or the divine beloved that was being addressed, and this ambiguity was enjoyed, offering spiritual delight to the sensuous, and perhaps some sensuous delight to the spiritually minded. It is worth noting that the veneration of the Virgin Mary began around this time. While there had long been an esoteric current associated with Mary Magdalene in southern France, where she is believed to have settled after the death of Jesus, there is at least circumstantial evidence that the honoring of Mary, mother of Jesus, to whom all the cathedrals were dedicated, had entered European consciousness during this time both from the Spanish influences of Islamic Spain, as well as from the cultural cross pollination of the Crusades.

The great Cambridge scholar, R.A. Nicholson, wrote about the impact of Arab al-furusiyyah and muruah on European chivalry: "The chivalry of the Middle Ages is, perhaps, ultimately traceable to heathen Arabia. Knight-errantry, the riding forth on horseback in search of adventures, the rescue of captive maidens, the succor rendered everywhere to women in adversity -- all these were essentially Arabian ideas, as was the very name of chivalry, the connection of honorable conduct with the horse-rider, the man of noble blood, the cavalier ... But the nobility of the women is not only reflected in the heroism and devotion of the men; it stands recorded in song, in legend and in history."

Yes, contrary to the current myth that women are entirely degraded in Islamic culture, there was once a time when the Arabs civilized Europeans. One of the greatest of Muslim theologians, a Sufi, Ibn `Arabi (d. 1240), wrote that the contemplation of God is possible, indeed enhanced, through the human form: When man contemplates the Reality in woman he beholds God.

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A similar influence entered the modern world with the recent wave of translations of the great poet Rumi. In a culture that is just beginning to heal the wounds of both life-denying Puritanism and heedless hedonism, Rumi's poetry helps us to embrace our humanness and find something profoundly sacred in this earthly life, and especially in the intimacy of human love.

There are conventions of Persian poetry that use the metaphor of the beloved in very sensual terms, and it is not surprising that readers might interpret these poems on at least two levels. While Rumi would not blame us for imagining a personal beloved, especially if the poem engenders a tender intimacy in human relationship, it is not quite what Rumi had in mind. He speaks often about the spiritual archetype of the "Lover," and for him this was the pinnacle of human attainment. Through the disciplines of the spiritual path, he had discovered something very sublime; he said "there is no greater love that love with no object."

You, ignorant of the marrow, deceived by the skin,be aware. The Beloved is at the center of your soul.The essence of the body is sensation and the essence of the senses is the soul.Not until you transcend body, senses, and soul, is everything He/She (God).

(Rumi, Quatrain 322, translated by Kabir Helminski)
Taiwan displaying how its air force jets could land, refuel and take off on a closed-off motorway in a scenario simulating a Chinese attack that wiped out the island's air force bases. (Photo : Getty Images)

Taiwan is planning to build 66 jet trainer aircraft to bolster defenses against China. The fleet's scheduled maiden flight will be by 2020.



The National Chung-shan Institute of Science and Technology, a quasi-defense military research agency, said that the fleet of 66 aircraft will be delivered by year 2026. The jets will be developed jointly by the defense ministry, the institute, and the Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation.



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Tsai Ing-wen, the current president of Taiwan, said at the signing ceremony: "Investing over T$68 billion ($2.19 billion) in new model advanced jet trainers, not only lays the foundation for the development of our future air combat capability, but also lets our aerospace industry continue to develop."



The jet manufacturing capabilities of Taiwan have already stagnated for nearly 30 years, as its aerospace industry is falling behind compared to other countries. Taiwan has developed and produced the Indigenous Defense Fighters, their combat aircraft, in 1990. The country ended the program for developing and producing it in 2000.



The defense ministry said that it plans to spend T$68 billion from its 2017 budget to develop its own jet trainers.



Taiwan's jet trainers will only be used in preparing pilots for combat aircraft. The air force mainly uses IDFs, U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets and the French-built Mirage.



Taiwan has struggled to maintain modern military warfare due to it being isolated diplomatically and being reliant to the United States. This will be an issue as it faces China's growing force across the 112-mile Taiwan Strait to its west.



China has rattled Taipei when it sailed its sole aircraft carrier around its island in late Dec. 2016 and early January this year.



Beijing distrusts Tsai's independent-ruling government. Taiwan's move on being independent is the reason why they are said to be forcibly taking control of Taiwan.



The success of Tsai's push in rebuilding the defense industry in Taiwan will depend on the technology transfer from its allies.


February 8, 2017 The Trump White House is reportedly considering designating the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization, or "FTO." The factual argument against such a designation has been well and repeatedly made. Experts--including those within the U.S. government--have noted that such a move would rest on legally dubious grounds and would not help in the struggle against violent Islamist extremism, but would cause harm to vital bilateral relationships in the Middle East.

Most troublingly, labeling the Muslim Brotherhood as an FTO could expose law-abiding Muslim Americans and others living within the United States to claims of materially supporting a terrorist group, a criminal offense. While the White House's intent in considering an FTO designation is difficult to discern, the obvious downsides of the decision and previous statements by administration officials leave open the real possibility that linking American Muslims to alleged criminal activity is the very purpose of the action. Such a move would be an exceptionally dangerous infringement of individuals' constitutional rights and should be rejected by all Americans. As Human Rights First has previously noted, there are many downsides to designating the Muslim Brotherhood as an FTO:

* Any designation would be unworkably broad. There is no single "Muslim Brotherhood" organization. Instead, Brotherhood affiliated and inspired organizations exist in a wide range of countries, and their conduct and activities are shaped by the context in which they exist. Those Muslim Brotherhood groups that do use terrorist tactics, like Hamas, have already appropriately been designated terrorist organizations. In other countries, like Turkey or Tunisia, Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated parties exist within democratically elected governments closely allied with the United States. In Syria, the United States supports groups affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood engaged in a military conflict with ISIL.

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* Any designation would likely increase the threat from violent Islamist extremists. In most countries, Muslim Brotherhood-linked political movements have favored peaceful participation in electoral politics when permitted to do so. Many have been heavily criticized by terrorist groups like al-Qa'eda and ISIL for this choice. Were the United States to designate the Brotherhood a terrorist organization, the action would thus strengthen those who argue that nonviolent opposition to tyranny is pointless and empower advocates of political violence.

Governments like those in Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Syria would like the United States to designate the Brotherhood a FTO not because the organization is illiberal and Islamist, but because it advocates for more representative, democratic governance. Instability and insecurity--including the threat of Islamist inspired terrorism--are rooted in the Middle East's crisis of governance. Closer alignment by the United States with regional authoritarians will lead to more instability and more terrorism, not less.

* On a practical level, the administration's stated priority of winning the fight against ISIL in Iraq and Syria requires close cooperation with Turkey. Yet a move to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as an FTO would almost certainly further strain relations with the Turkish government, which largely supports the group.

Such a demonstrably harmful proposal suggests that its real purpose is not to achieve the stated objective of making Americans safer, but rather to spread fear and division within American society by further tarring American Muslims. Ruling on Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, the Supreme Court found that because money is fungible, donations to a nonviolent wing of an FTO are tantamount to funding terrorism. If the Trump administration designates the Muslim Brotherhood as a whole an FTO, it could expose innocent Americans to prosecution. An American who sent remittances to a family member involved with the Muslim Brotherhood's peaceful political activities in Kuwait, Jordan, or Morocco could be charged with material support for terrorism. Like magic, the U.S. government could thus conjure up "radical Islamic terrorists" within America's borders with the stroke of a pen.

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The proposed designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as an FTO fits the Trump administration's pattern of adopting policies based on demonstrably false assumptions. The primary purpose of such actions is to sow fear about the problems they purport to address, rather than taking a fact-based approach to resolving them.

The highly controversial executive order suspending the refugee admissions program and entry from seven majority Muslim countries is a case in point. President Trump has called for "extreme vetting" of people from Muslim-majority countries entering the United States, but homeland security and intelligence officials from both political parties have repeatedly reported that such vetting is already in place and has been working effectively for years.

Similarly, President Trump has falsely claimed that the media is purposefully under-reporting terrorist attacks carried out by Islamist extremists around the world, fueling public fears of Muslims by suggesting that they commit more terrorist violence than is generally reported.


The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is suing Navient Corp., the nation's largest student loan servicer, accusing it of "systematically and illegally failing borrowers at every stage of repayment," according to a press release from January 18. The CFPB is asking Navient to compensate the borrowers the agency says were harmed.

Among other things, the CFPB alleges that since at least January 2010, Navient misallocated payments, steered struggling borrowers toward multiple forbearances instead of income-driven repayment plans, and provided unclear information about how to re-enroll in income-driven repayment plans and how to qualify for a co-signer release.

Navient denied the CFPB's allegations in a statement the same day the suit was announced, saying they are false and politically motivated. The student loan giant, which broke off from Sallie Mae Bank, one of the largest lenders of private student loans, in 2014, currently services more than $300 billion in federal and private student loans for more than 12 million borrowers.

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The Illinois and Washington attorneys general also filed suits against Navient on January 18. Navient said in subsequent statements the same day that allegations by the Illinois and Washington attorneys general were also politically driven and "unfounded."

"Time will tell" what impact these lawsuits have on borrowers, says Betsy Mayotte, director of consumer outreach and compliance at American Student Assistance, a nonprofit that helps students pay for college. But regardless of outcomes, borrowers should regularly check their student loan accounts to make sure their loans are being serviced correctly, she says.



How to check if Navient is your loan servicer

Your

is the company you make payments to each month. It's not always the same company that lent you money in the first place.

The Department of Education is the lender for all federal student loans, but it contracts with private, third-party companies, including Navient, to handle loan servicing. Log on to the Federal Student Aid website to find your federal loan servicer. In addition to Navient, other major federal loan servicers include FedLoan Servicing, Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation & Affiliates and Nelnet.



What to do if you're frustrated with your student loan servicer

When it comes to student loan servicing, "consumers cannot easily take their business elsewhere," Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said in a

Wednesday.

It is possible to switch student loan servicers through federal consolidation or student loan refinancing. But you shouldn't consolidate or refinance solely to switch servicers because there are potential risks associated with each, says Adam Minsky, a Boston-based lawyer specializing in student loans. Also, there's no guarantee you'll be better off with a different servicer.

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"The other servicers aren't exactly rainbows and sunshine," Minsky says.

If you're stuck with your servicer, there are a number of things you can do to voice your concerns and protect yourself as a borrower: File complaints, check your credit report for errors, school yourself on your repayment options and watch out for companies that charge fees for student loan help.

File complaints

You can file complaints to one or multiple of the following entities:

The CFPB alleges that Navient ignores borrowers' complaints. But getting your concerns in writing is still worth doing, if only to improve the system for others, Seth Frotman, student loan ombudsman and assistant director of the office for students at the CFPB, said in a press call Wednesday.

"We receive thousands of complaints," Frotman said. "That has dramatically informed our work around improving the student loan servicing market."

Check your credit report for errors

One of the CFPB's allegations is that Navient incorrectly reported disabled borrowers' accounts as "in default" when the borrowers had actually gotten loan relief through the government's Total and Permanent Disability discharge program. To guard against a mistake like that, which could severely hurt your credit score, check your credit report for errors. You can get one

every year from each of the three major credit bureaus.

Get up to speed on your repayment options

Student loan servicers are supposed to help you understand the various student loan repayment options. By learning about the options yourself, you can be empowered to hold your loan servicer to that standard. Keep in mind, though, that each of the following options has risks.

Income-driven repayment plans can lower your monthly federal student loan payments by capping your payment at a percentage of your income. They also offer loan forgiveness after you make on-time payments for 20 or 25 years, depending on the plan.

Student loan forgiveness programs, such as Public Service Loan Forgiveness, can relieve your federal student loan debt if you work for a certain type of employer and make on-time payments for a certain period of time.

Federal consolidation doesn't lower your monthly payments or save you money, but it's sometimes necessary to do in order to qualify for income-driven repayment or a forgiveness program. Consolidating is frequently confused with student loan refinancing, which is a way to save money on interest by getting a lower rate.

Watch out for companies that charge fees for help

You can sign up for the above options on your own for free. But some companies that aren't affiliated with the Department of Education capitalize on subpar student loan servicing practices by charging fees to enroll borrowers in free federal student loan programs. So-called

often advertise messages such as "Obama Student Loan Forgiveness" on Facebook and Google. If you're tempted by such an offer, know that you don't have to pay for student loan help.

If your servicer isn't answering your student loan questions, reach out to the Department of Education or your state's attorney general's office for help.

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Teddy Nykiel is a staff writer at NerdWallet, a personal finance website. Email: teddy@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @teddynykiel.
In light of all the wars and conflicts happening in the world, a designer in New York City has created a brand inspired by cities that seeks to bring commonality into focus while respecting differences and creating "an awareness of place and leveraging fashion as a messaging tool to create social impact."

An architect-turned-designer Azin Valy, co-founder of the award-winning multi-disciplinary New York architecture firm I-Beam Design, launched Cityzen by Azin [1], a luxury fashion and accessories brand, in 2012.

Inspired by Woody Guthrie's iconic song, "This Land Is My Land" which embodies Azin's values and vision of the world, she has created a new fashion campaign that simultaneously celebrates global diversity and the American narrative for which she has used immigrants as her collaborators. As an Iranian-American, and a citizen of the world, she has woven the threads of unity and diversity with a breathtaking perspective from above.

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"It's a way of connecting the heart and soul of a city to that of a garment. Clothing is our first habitable structure. . . . It's about looking bold and being bold. It's about global citizenship and not just nationalism or regionalism," Azin Valy told me in an interview at her office in Soho. "It literally allows you to wear your pride on your sleeves or simply connects you to the global community."

During the Fashion Week 2017, her brand, Cityzen By Azin, is hoping to bring people together through fashion.



Omid Memarian: How did you go from being a successful architect to the fashion world?

Azin Valy: In 2011, my architecture firm, I-Beam Design, founded by Suzan Wines and me, was nominated for an urban planning exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) examining the future of cities that were going through the foreclosure crisis. As I was researching the urban structure of these cities--in New York, New Jersey, Florida, California and Nevada--I was amazed by their breathtaking views from above, despite the crisis they were facing on the ground. I wondered if there was a way to highlight their beauty while raising awareness about their challenges by incorporating them into textile designs. There I saw an opportunity to merge fashion and architecture (vis-a-vis urban planning) with social entrepreneurship. And so Cityzen by Azin was born, to bring awareness to place, and leverage fashion as a messaging tool to create social impact.

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What excited me was the idea of allowing the landscape to define each design. For instance, the Tiber River forming the neckline of the Rome dress or the Chao Phraya River becoming a strap in the Bangkok dress, and the Ganges turning into a slit on the Dhaka dress.

The superimposition of the cities onto the shape of the body and playing around with the scale of each allowed numerous interpretations of each design which literally opened up a whole world to me. I felt that I could spend the rest of my life generating infinite designs while learning about each place and virtually traveling the world. It was also a way for me to connect to places I loved as well as places I was curious about.

OM: When did you think of turning your idea into a fashion brand?

AV: When I realized the tremendous potential this concept has both from a design and creative point of view as well as the social impact it could have. After all, I am dealing with the World!

As an Iranian-American, I straddle two seemingly very different cultures that actually have a lot in common, yet are full of misconceptions about one another. I thought it would be a great opportunity to create a brand that transcends physical and mental borders and promotes a global dialogue towards understanding and peace.

OM: How you choose which cities to do?

AV: It varies according to the places I've been to or where I would like to go, or where my staff is from, but also based on world events and places in conflict or crisis. I research each city and learn about its history, culture, architecture, craft, etc. and choose colors accordingly. Each Cityzen piece is accompanied by a small hang tag or mini-guide that celebrates the featured city through the six senses of sight, sound, touch, taste, scent and thought, where we promote books to read or music to listen to or foods to taste.

I am also an idealist and like to choose cities that are in conflict, and show that the world is far greater than all the petty differences we go to war over, and that we need to unite in preserving it rather than destroying it. By raising awareness of areas in conflict or crisis, I hope to draw more attention to the plight of the people living there and utilize my brand for greater social impact.

I also work in collaboration with various charities to help raise funds and awareness for their causes according to their geographic location.

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OM: How hard was it to enter the super competitive fashion market?

AV: The challenge was the fact that I am an outsider to the fashion world--which may be an opportunity in and of itself. There is a lot that I have learned in a short period of time and a lot more to learn. I am excited about every aspect of it.

What is exciting about the fashion profession relative to architecture is the immediacy it has and the exposure it gets. The fashion industry has a tremendous ability to channel women who are 80% of the consumers into asserting their point of view not only through their spending but also their intellect.

OM: How do you envision the future of your brand? What's the next step?

AV: For the near future, we are working on a collection of coats with an incredible Afghan/Swiss/American designer who is also an architect. Her name is Zolaykha Shehrzad of Zarif Design and she supports over 30 women in Kabul. We are producing a Kabul collection for next year which I am very excited about. We hope to have an event in the near future to showcase both brands and help raise funds towards peace efforts.

For the distant future, I am hoping to have women "ambassadors" from all over the world come together in sponsoring different cities and promoting a wider dialogue towards peace, as they are the peacemakers and the majority of donors in the world. I am also working on a business model in which I can partner with international and nongovernmental organizations to employ displaced people, particularly women, at fair market prices while creating a mobile manufacturing center within refugee camps.

Speaking literally and metaphorically, I have the entire world at my disposal to work with, and have come full circle in connecting all my interests.

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WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 09: Sen. Jeff Sessions is sworn in as the new U.S. Attorney General by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence in the Oval Office of the White House February 9, 2017 in Washington, DC. U.S. President Donald Trump also signed three executive orders immediately after the swearing in ceremony. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

We think they meant to report that it's a shitstorm out there.

1. Kellyanne Conway told Fox News viewers to "go buy Ivanka's stuff". Pretty sure you just broke a federal law Kellyanne. Bad! More here.

2. Jeff Sessions has been sworn in as the Attorney General. You hear that? It's the death of human dignity. More here.

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3. Yemeni government would like if the US let them know before going all Mission Impossible in their country. Seems fair. More here.

4. Wikipedia will no longer accept the Daily Mail as a reputable source due to its history of sloppy fact checking. When Wikipedia is becoming the gold standard we're in deep trouble. More here.
In these strange and often scary (but rebellious!) times, I'm sure I'm not the only one finding hopeful signs in whatever I can: a new baby, a sunny day, the fact that books by Rep. John Lewis, George Orwell, Sinclair Lewis, and, most recently, the long-departed Frederick Douglass are flying off the shelves (a small upside to having the country's least-literate president in office). And speaking of books, the literary website Lithub.com (highly recommended!), taking note of "the growing number of regularly scheduled book events across the U.S.," just introduced a bimonthly column about community-based reading series. "Pages may be written in solitude, but the mingling and exchange of ideas at literary gatherings can be revitalizing for writers and lit enthusiasts, especially for those living in isolated areas outside cultural hubs."

Here in the Bay Area, of course, we are far from isolated, part of a vast cultural hub. A major hub within that hub is my local bookstore, Book Passage, which for decades has been offering readings, classes, book groups, weekend conferences for mystery, travel, children's picture book and YA authors, and other literary gatherings. The main store, in Corte Madera (Marin County), has barely enough space for all these activities, which, on top of everything else, include a Path to Publishing program for new or would-be authors. I should note that I am a part of that program, have taught classes in the store, and lead a long-running monthly book group there called Meet the Author.

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One student, explaining that she would be a bit late each time because she'd be coming straight from another class, told me, "This store is my social life." Book Passage is where people instinctively gather after local or national traumas, from 9/11 to political events last November. We all know the store's owners, Elaine and Bill Petrocelli, because we see them in the store all the time. Sometimes they introduce and even interview the authors who flock here for readings almost every night of the week, on many afternoons and most weekends. (Elaine will interview Min Jin Lee, author of the well-received novel Pachinko, in Corte Madera on February 16.) Thirteen years ago, they opened a second, much smaller Book Passage in San Francisco's Ferry Building.

And now--here comes the hopeful and joyous part--the Petrocellis have just opened a third store, in Sausalito, not far from the Sausalito ferry and the tourist haunts on Bridgeway. It's another cozy book nook, whose windows offer wonderful views of the harbor. The grand opening party was last week, on a rainy Saturday afternoon, and you could barely get into the store. The place was crammed with both friends of Book Passage and denizens of Sausalito, who seemed utterly delighted--after cutting the official ribbon, Sausalito Mayor Ray Withy even said something like "You're not a real community if you don't have a bookstore."

Book Passage by the Bay, 100 Bay St., Sausalito, 415.339.1300, bookpassage.com.
This following column is co-authored by Vincent Ryan, Delaware Democratic Activist and Fundraiser.

At the end of February in Atlanta the 447 members of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) will elect their new officers. Had Hillary Clinton won the Presidency this would have been simple; she would have indicated her choice to lead the Party and that person would have been elected. But to the dismay of so many of us who supported her; and millions who have now taken to the streets including those who realize the mistake they made by not voting for her; we have a fight over who the leaders of the Party will be.

Listening to the candidates at the DNC coordinated forums, the final one Saturday in Baltimore, there is little difference on the goals each candidate has enunciated. They agree on the need to rebuild the Democratic Party state-by-state if we are to take back state legislatures, governorships and the Congress. The Democratic Party has long been known as the 'Party of the People' and there is recognition the Party has to reinvigorate and motivate people to take part in building the Party and then get them out to vote. The election made it clear the Democratic National Committee must refocus its efforts and message working with State and local groups to build them and develop that messaging.

Many wrote about why we lost the election and hindsight is always 20/20. Reality is our candidate won nearly 66 million votes, 3 million more than Trump. Unfortunately these votes weren't all in the right states. So the issue is how to energize longtime Democratic voters and appeal to new voters and Independents. We know those voters don't all think alike. It is too easy to assume all Independent voters are progressives or lean to the far left of the Party. So the new leaders of the DNC must be prepared to help state Parties appeal to the voters they need to win their state; helping them raise money and sharing expertise including technology.

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Adam Parkhomenko running for the position of Vice Chair has all the experience and expertise needed to do that. Adam is by far the most qualified person seeking this position. He is an incredibly energetic millennial. He speaks to the cohort of millennials and Independents we must attract to build our Party but is also able to communicate with and motivate longtime Democrats. He is a progressive but just as important is his experience as a grassroots organizer and social media guru. He earned his credentials beginning at age 17 starting a draft Hillary movement and collecting 42,000 signatures. He was co-founder and Executive Director of Ready for Hillary PAC, successfully energizing through use of social media nearly 4 million people to join the organization and donate millions of dollars online. He did this and built a staff of over twenty, nearly all young and motivated to become part of the political process. This is the experience he will share with state parties helping them build their organizations.

Adam is running on a platform his website sums up in one sentence. "I will work to make our Party prominent in every state and region; develop effective digital tools that engage and serve our members; recruit and train volunteers and campaign staff; work closely with state and local chairs; and ensure that we expand our low-dollar donor base." He clearly understands what his role as Vice Chair must be.

Adam understands we cannot gear up every four years for a Presidential race; have candidates and the DNC with extensive voter files, technology operations and fundraising operations then close it all down for another four years. He understands the Party will be built from the ground up with the DNC providing the needed expertise and training to local and state Parties. He is committed to having the DNC expand its low dollar fundraising and sharing the proceeds with state parties to support field operations and volunteer work. Adam understands State Parties must decide their priorities.

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Adam has local and national campaign experience. He has campaigned for local candidates in once totally red-state Virginia, and served as National Volunteer Coordinator for Hillary Clinton's winning primary campaign in 2016. He then served for the short general campaign as the DNC's National Field Director. Adam worked on a plan focused on what were called Democratic Victory Councils (DVC's), a model for the future to build the Party. These Councils included thousands of volunteers who signed on to help in their own states, and assist partner states if their state was reliably blue and already had a solid State Democratic Party. Just another indication of how Adam understands the power of people and the power of volunteers at the grassroots.
beautiful close up White House, Washington DC USA.

Through the Looking Glass

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

You know youre living in a looking-glass world when former Vice President Dick Cheney speaks out against one of Donald Trumps executive orders. Hes a good example of how past adversaries of movements for peace and justice are lining up against our current adversary, the new president.

The United States, Cheney told radio host Hugh Hewitt, should not exclude people from our territory on the basis of religion. That was just a few days after Trump had signed an executive order entitled Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States. Such a move, said Cheney, goes against everything we stand for and believe in.

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In the same interview, Cheney revealed the origins of his personal affinity for Muslim refugees. His own ancestors, he said, arrived on this continent to escape religious persecution. They were Puritans, he explained, adding, There wasnt anybody here then when they came. No one? It was a sparkling display of precisely the European-American solipsism that so deeply marked the Cheney years in power.

Refugees, he acknowledged, do represent a serious problem. To begin to solve it, however, You gotta go back and look at why theyre here. Theyre here because of whats happening in the Middle East.

The refugees Cheney refers to arent here, of course, or what would be the point of Trumps entrance ban? Otherwise, Id have to agree with the former vice president: you do need to look at whats happening but also -- something he didnt mention -- what happened in the Middle East to explain their need for refuge. Refugees from Iraq and Syria (among other places) have indeed lost their homes and homelands by the millions, in significant part because of the very invasions and occupations that Cheney and his president, George W. Bush, launched in the Greater Middle East, radically destabilizing that part of the world.

The Enemy of My Enemy?

What should it mean for those of us hoping to resist the grim presidency of Donald Trump to find Dick Cheney, even momentarily and on a single issue, on our side? One thing it certainly cant mean is that Cheney stands for the same everything that moved thousands of people to rush to U.S. airports, demanding the release of visitors, immigrants, and green card holders detained under Trumps new order. Although in the Muslim refugees of today he may indeed recognize a reflection of his Puritan ancestors, Cheneys disagreement with Donald Trump does not, in fact, make him a friend of the cause of compassion, justice, or the rule of law.

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Few of us who spent eight years opposing Bush and Cheney or who remember their record of invasions, occupations, torture, black sites, and so much more are likely to imagine that his opposition to the ban on refugees makes him our friend. But that doesnt mean that we cant take some satisfaction from where hes landed on this issue.

Its been harder, however, for many of us to find clarity when it comes to certain of the other war hawks who, for their own reasons, dont trust Trump.

Its a trap most of us avoided last summer when 50 members of the national security establishment, including former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and one of George W. Bushs CIA directors, Michael Hayden, wrote an open letter warning the world that Trump lacked the character, values, and experience to be president. We recognized that the letter signers themselves lacked the character, values, and experience to comment. After all, in the Middle East and elsewhere, this bunch had helped to pave the way for Trumps rise.

In recent months, as the Russian hacking scandal hit and Trumps feud with the CIA gained ever more media attention, that Agency has proven another matter. Here is a real danger to avoid: in our efforts to delegitimize Donald Trump, its important not to inadvertently legitimize an outfit that most of us have long opposed for its vicious campaigns around the world. Just because Donald Trump all but called its operatives Nazis shouldnt lead the rest of us to forget its long history of deceit or accept its pronouncements at face value because they happen to fit what we would like to believe.

When Barack Obama said that there was convincing evidence Russia had used its hacking efforts to throw the U.S. election to Trump, the president-elect not surprisingly labeled the claim ridiculous. But theres also been a bit of sympathy for the CIA in some odd places. For example, long-time CIA critic and Hullabaloo founder Heather Digby Parton (generally known as Digby) wrote at Salon that the CIA understandably felt there was something a tad unfair about the Trump transition team calling the Agency the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. After all, they were under a lot of pressure from the White House back then. As Digby wrote, Its now known that Vice President Dick Cheney went out to [CIA headquarters in] Langley [Virginia] in order to personally twist arms and stovepipe the intelligence report on Iraq.

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Thats certainly true, but its also true that the CIA director of that moment, George Tenet, assured President Bush that there was a slam dunk case that Saddam Hussein had such weaponry. The fact is that the CIA caved in to pressure from top administration officials for the intel they so desperately wanted for the invasion they already knew they were going to launch in Iraq. That is not exactly a ringing endorsement of the agencys integrity or political independence. An "independent" CIA is bad enough, but the CIAs vulnerability to political pressure from the White House is another reason we should be cautious about using Agency pronouncements as an instrument against Donald Trump. That's the slippery terrain we find ourselves on now.

Digby is certainly no admirer of the CIA, and her article wasnt primarily focused on the quality of its intelligence under Bush, but on a far more recent turf war between the Agency and the FBI. She rightly calls out FBI Director James Comey for his 11th hour intervention in the election, the way he alerted Congress to the (vanishingly tiny) possibility that the hard drive on the computer that Anthony Weiner shared with his wife, Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, might have contained evidence of Clintons failure to protect State Department emails. Nevertheless, the reader is left to infer that -- at least when it comes to intelligence rather than clandestine operations -- the CIAs pronouncements might prove a reliable instrument against Donald Trump, an urge that was relatively commonplace among opponents of the new president.

For example, the Atlantic, which has carried excellent reporting about CIA deceptions, published a piece by Kelly Magsamen, who served on the National Security Council (NSC) under both Bush and Obama, expressing alarm at Trumps plan to exclude the CIA director from his version of the NSC. (In fact, the new president reversed himself on the matter almost immediately.) It's not surprising that Magsamen would have this view. For those of us who would like to dismantle the entire national security edifice, however, it would be shortsighted indeed to attack Trump by shoring up the reputation of an agency -- the CIA -- that, as former counterintelligence officer John Kiriakou has suggested, the country and the world do not need. Kariakou, you may remember, was jailed for discussing the CIAs torture program with a journalist.

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Support for Americas spooks has continued to resound in odd places. For example, theres been much outrage expressed at President Trumps bizarre behavior on a visit to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. In a performance that was indeed shocking, he used the occasion to complain about the way the media underestimated the size of the crowd at his inauguration, after which he asserted that God had stopped the rain during his Inaugural Address.

What many commentators found far more bizarre and disturbing, however, was that Trump gave his performance in front of a memorial wall commemorating CIA agents who had died on the job. Writing for the not-exactly-right-wing Huffington Post, Neil McCarthy claimed that the wall honors un-named heroes who have died in our service. In a New Yorker article headlined Trumps Vainglorious Affront to the CIA, former Washington Post diplomatic correspondent Robin Wright chided the new president for his lack of respect for the Agencys martyrs. Trump, she suggested, should have followed the example of President Ronald Reagan, who on his first visit to the CIA told the assembled staff:

The work you do each day is essential to the survival and to the spread of human freedom. You remain the eyes and ears of the free world. You are the trip wire over which totalitarian rule must stumble in their quest for global domination...

While I would never applaud anyones untimely, violent death, the fact that Donald Trump (despite his denials) has been feuding with the CIA shouldnt erase that agencys history or just what those agents died defending. Trumps annoyance shouldnt magically transform an agency responsible for decades of violent and bloody coups against democratic governments in places like Iran, Guatemala, the Congo, and Chile into an organization essential to the survival and spread of human freedom. Whatever pleasure we may take in Trumps irritation, it doesnt vindicate the murder of between 26,000 and 41,000 Vietnamese, many of then tortured to death, in the CIAs notorious Phoenix program during the Vietnam War. It doesnt erase the training in torture and repression its agents provided to dictatorships around the world. And it certainly doesnt make the CIAs use of terror and torture in its black sites as part of the Bush administrations war on terror any less horrific or illegal.

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Nor does the CIAs future look much more promising than its past. When it comes to torture, its new head Mike Pompeo has clearly wanted to have it both ways. During his confirmation hearing, he proved unwilling to call waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation methods torture, but did acknowledge that they are illegal under a 2015 law, which limits interrogation techniques to those described in the U.S. Army Field Manual.

There are two problems with reliance on that law. The present Field Manual contains a classified annex, which permits among other things repeated 12-hour bouts of sensory deprivation and solitary confinement for up to 30 days at a time. Both of these are forms of the cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment prohibited by the U.N. Convention against Torture. In addition, the manual itself is up for revision in two years. A new version might provide very different guidance.

But its not clear that Pompeo is actually wedded to the manual anyway. As Human Rights Watch (HRW) points out, in his written testimony for his confirmation hearing he indicated that he would consult with CIA staff to determine whether the application of the Army Field Manual was an impediment to intelligence-gathering, and whether it needed to be rewritten. Note as well that Gina Haspel, Pompeos newly appointed deputy director at the Agency, is notorious for her involvement in its black sites and torture practices in the Bush years (as well as the destruction of video tapes of waterboarding sessions -- evidence, that is, of those criminal activities).

Trump himself supports such torture practices. On January 25th, he told ABC News that he still clings to his belief that torture works. His evidence? The testimony of people at the highest level of intelligence who as recently as twenty-four hours ago told him that it works absolutely. It seems likely one of those people was Gina Haspel, who has a good reason to cling to that same belief.

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In reporting ABCs interview with Trump, CNN, like most mainstream media, allowed itself to be distracted by the question of whether or not torture is an effective way of getting information from someone. It isnt, as the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded in its landmark 2014 report. However, the question really shouldnt be whether torture works. The question should be: Is it either moral or legal? And Donald Trump notwithstanding, the answer in both cases is no.

Pompeo is also a big fan of NSA-style mass surveillance and has called for the reinstatement of the NSAs massive secret collection of telephone, Internet, and social media metadata. The telephone data part of the program officially expired in November 2015 as a result of the USA Freedom Act, passed earlier that year. Under the new arrangement, metadata is held by the phone companies, rather than directly by the NSA, which now needs a FISA warrant to get access to those records. Internet and social media records are still directly available to the NSA, however.

But thats not enough for Pompeo. Human Rights Watch points to a 2016 Wall Street Journal op-ed, in which Pompeo urged Congress to 'pass a law re-establishing collection of all metadata' -- that is, records of communications, such as their dates, parties, and durations -- 'and combining it with publicly available financial and lifestyle information into a comprehensive, searchable database.'

HRW observes that, in spite of repeated written and oral questions in the context of the hearing, Pompeo remained vague on what he meant by the potentially expansive and discriminatory term lifestyle information. As one devoted to the lesbian lifestyle, I dont find this particularly encouraging.

Fortunately for those of us who hope to see the national security state dismantled someday, as recent events have indicated, that edifice and its friends in both parties are not a seamless whole. There are runs and tears throughout its fabric, and part of our job is to help open those gaps wider -- always keeping in mind that while politics may make strange bedfellows, there are some people you dont ever want to sleep with. Even in the Trump era, the enemy of my enemy is not my friend, at least not when that enemy is the CIA.

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Enemies of Enemies of Enemies

If the CIA is the enemy of my enemy, then Vladimir Putins government in Russia must be the enemy of the enemy of my enemy. Is it therefore my friend?

This is a complicated and delicate question. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has just set its doomsday clock forward to two-and-a-half minutes to midnight, 30 seconds closer to catastrophe.

In the shadow of nuclear war, who wouldnt be eager to see tensions between Russia and the United States defused? At the same time, I become uncomfortable when some of my colleagues on the left appear to believe that any adversary of U.S. hegemony may represent a potential ally for us.

For example, the Nations Stephen Cohen, whose many years of writing on the Soviet Union served as an important corrective to the official narrative of the time, characterizes those who today are wary of Putin as enemies of detente. He points to a New York Times editorial whose descriptions "of Putins leadership over the years" were "so distorted they seemed more like Saturday Night Lives ongoing parodies" and calls out Times columnist Paul Krugmans "neo-McCarthyite baiting" of Trump for his admiration of Putin.

I can agree with Cohen that Krugman goes over the top when he refers to the present administration as the Putin-Trump regime. But its a mistake to equate legitimate suspicion of Russia and Putin with the efforts of Senator Joe McCarthy to discredit the U.S. left (and liberals) during the Cold War. The Russian Federation is not the Soviet Union, and distrust of Vladimir Putin is not McCarthyism.

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Cohen is certainly correct that Putin has good reason to be wary of what he calls "NATOs highly provocative buildup on Russias Western border." But even if Russia quite rightly objects to the way NATO has moved east, it doesnt prove that Putins government didnt try to influence the U.S. election. Such things are hardly beyond the realm of possibility. After all, the United States has a long history of doing just that to countries around the world (as did the Soviet Union in its day).

That the Washington establishment opposes Russian challenges to the U.S. urge for global dominance doesnt make Vladimir Putin any less an autocrat, or Russia under his rule any more a country to emulate. Indeed, on January 27th, the Russian parliament voted 380-3 to decriminalize domestic violence. A week later, Putin signed the bill into law. Which way, I wonder, would Donald Trump go if similar legislation were on the table here?

What About Friends?

When the thieves who run our government fall out, we should be glad -- and find ways to drive the wedge deeper. When John McCain does something we approve of, like objecting to Trumps executive order on immigration, we can agree with him, but notice as well that, in the next breath, he says he supports Trumps commitment to rebuilding our (already vast and unprecedentedly powerful) military.

Theres a difference between people who find themselves sharing the same adversary and people who can be, to use an old-fashioned term, in solidarity with each other. Those of us who oppose U.S. military adventurism abroad and inequality, racism, and sexism at home need to remember who our friends are. The next few years must be a time of building broad coalitions and tightening the bonds among organizations and people who believe that, even now, a better world is still possible.

In the mixed-up looking-glass universe that is Trumplandia, we are going to need our friends more than ever. This is true domestically, which means, for instance, that tenants rights groups will need to keep jumping into struggles for immigrant rights (as is already happening in many places), and veterans organizations will need to keep on supporting fights to preserve Native land and water rights as in the struggle over the Dakota Access pipeline. Its true on the international level, as well. We will need to build strong ties with people in Europe fighting the rise of the far right there, and to continue our solidarity with the victims of U.S. military actions around the world.

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But its also true at the level of our individual lives. Now especially we need contact with the people we love to keep us strong and hopeful. Now is a good time to remind your friends that you love them, and that you will have their backs. Its a time to march together, but also to eat together. To strategize and organize, but also to make each other laugh. Its a time to remember who our adversaries are, but also to cherish our friends.
Photo courtesy of Getty Images

By Rebecca K.C. Hersman, Franklin C. Miller, and Shanelle Van

Today's security landscape includes a growing set of nuclear dangers emanating from adversaries both new and old. These risks come not only from long-simmering regional tensions that have taken on nuclear dimensions, but also from countries returning to a kind of nuclear saber-rattling thought to have gone the way of the Berlin Wall. Of principal concern today are North Korea, where growing nuclear and missile capabilities are coupled with a dictator's penchant for provocation, and Russia, which has issued irresponsible nuclear-tinged threats amidst "snap" military exercises and aggressive posturing. But India, Pakistan, China, and Iran, too, with their assertions of regional dominance and potentially escalatory behavior, are sources of instability in the overall nuclear landscape as well. In addition, the fear of nuclear terrorism prompted by growing extremism and enabled by weaknesses in the international nuclear security system lurks continuously in the background. These challenges knit together to form a complex and unpredictable security environment - one in which nuclear threats on the rise are interwoven with new conventional capabilities in the space and cyber domains - that will require that we continue to work closely with our allies.

The importance of alliances generally, and the significance of NATO specifically, has taken on growing prominence in a world that no longer assumes the unqualified benefits of internationalist commitments to collective security. In this world of danger and challenge, the unique role of the United States, the United Kingdom, and France as a unit (the P3) becomes ever more important. They are the only nuclear weapons states that share common values and principles directed toward the same objective of global peace and security. They set an example for the responsible stewardship of nuclear weapons and seek at every opportunity to advance the goals outlined in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). And, as permanent members of the UN Security Council, they have long stood as steadfast allies and partners.

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Today, our alliances and other multilateral structures are under great pressure. The populist wave that swept in Brexit and President Trump, and which continues to move through Europe, questions the value of extended deterrence and advocates for stepping back from active engagement in the world. These nationalistic sentiments will test the postwar transatlantic partnerships between the United States, the United Kingdom, and France that have served as a stabilizing force for more than 70 years. It should worry us that some see these ties as resting on uncertain ground as nuclear tensions escalate throughout Asia and along NATO's periphery. It would behoove us to shore up these relationships, rather than take their strength for granted. We need only imagine the void that would be left by their absence to understand why the importance of the bonds amongst the P3 cannot be overstated.

We need only imagine the void that would be left by their absence to understand why the importance of the bonds amongst the P3 cannot be overstated.

Recognizing this, the Center for Strategic and International Studies established in 2009 a forum, called the European Trilateral Track 2 Nuclear Dialogues, for bringing together American, British, and French nuclear experts to discuss nuclear policy issues and to identify areas of consensus among the three countries. This forum is now in its eighth year, but there is as much to talk about now as there was in 2009. Many nuclear issues will be coming to a head over the next few years: the future of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (otherwise known as the Iran Deal), the proposed United Nations nuclear weapons treaty ban, how best to deter an expansionist Russia from both further aggression and from using nuclear weapons, and the prospect of a North Korea with intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities. Addressing them will require more than P3 consultation - it will take coordination, cooperation, and creativity to find and broaden the bipartisan middle ground of practical and pragmatic policy positions on deterrence, arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament.

The consensus statement produced every year by the European Trilateral Track 2 Nuclear Dialogues' non-governmental participants - who come from across the political spectrum, and who have collectively spent several lifetimes in public service - is evidence that this seemingly elusive common ground exists. This year, our consensus statement addresses some of the most vital, and, at times, divisive, issues in the Euro-Atlantic security environment and beyond. It rebukes Russia's nuclear saber-rattling as actions unbecoming a responsible nuclear power and pushes for consequences for its violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. It advises the revitalization of NATO's nuclear mission and continued enhancement of defense along its periphery, applauding the Communique that emerged from the Warsaw Summit last July and affirming: "It is incumbent upon the NATO Alliance - and particularly upon its three nuclear weapons states - to make clear that, as in the past, NATO will fulfill its security commitments to its members and will not be divided or intimidated." It calls for the P3 to uphold the Iran Deal and to remain vigilant in enforcing the commitments of all parties, emphasizing that "it is 'the only deal in town' and must be made to work." It acknowledges the motivations underlying the proposed UN nuclear weapons treaty ban, but urges its advocates to instead focus on existing forums such as the NPT and to "exert pressure on those states that contribute to the gridlock by holding arms control and nonproliferation initiatives hostage." Those who have signed this statement agree that these are responsible, advisable, and bipartisan paths forward on the difficult questions that the P3 faces today.

In the months and years ahead, the United States will confront myriad challenges in the nuclear realm, some domestic and others global. President Trump must be able to turn to his counterparts in the United Kingdom and France as dependable allies for consultation and cooperation; they must be able to do the same with President Trump. But maintaining alliances requires constant care. It is the hard work of not only governments and political leaders, but also of civil society and publics, to remember that strong partnerships - even those that have lasted over 70 years - are not a given. The stakes are obviously high. We look forward to continuing our work on the sidelines, through our European Trilateral Track 2 Nuclear Dialogues, facilitating consistently honest and productive discussions on how our three countries can move us closer toward a world free of nuclear dangers.

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Rebecca Hersman is Director of the Project on Nuclear Issues and Senior Adviser with the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Ms. Hersman joined CSIS in April 2015 from the Department of Defense, where she served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for countering weapons of mass destruction.

Frank Miller is a Principal at The Scowcroft Group in Washington, D.C. He previously served as a Special Assistant to President George W. Bush and as Senior Director for Defense Policy and Arms Control on the National Security Council staff. His White House assignment capped a 31-year career in the U.S. government, which included two years at the Department of State and 22 years serving under seven Secretaries in a series of progressively senior positions in the Department of Defense.

Shanelle Van is a Research Assistant with the Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). She graduated with a B.A. in public policy and a minor in economics from Duke University.
"Lot of killers. We've got a lot of killers. Boy, you think our country's so innocent? You think our country's so innocent?"

We have carnage and we have irony.

The speaker is the president, of course. It's Super Bowl Sunday and here he is, generating another eyeball-popping headline as he dares to compare American collateral damage over the years with (as a chorus of shocked critics exclaimed) Vladimir Putin's remorseless homicides. This happened during a pre-Super Bowl interview with Bill O'Reilly last Sunday, after O'Reilly had challenged Trump's coziness with Russia and called Putin a killer.

Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska summed up the outrage thus: "There is no moral equivalency between the United States of America, the greatest freedom-loving nation in the history of the world, and the murderous thugs that are in Putin's defense of his cronyism."

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Too bad we can't ask 8-year-old Nawar al-Awlaki for her opinion on whose killings are worse, America's or Russia's. She apparently bled to death from a neck wound a week before the Trump interview, during the disastrous U.S. raid on Yemen that left a Navy SEAL -- and maybe 23 civilians -- dead. This was a Trump authorized raid, the first of his presidency, but had been planned many months earlier. A newborn baby was also killed in the raid, according to the British humanitarian organization Reprieve, along with other women and children.

How many children have been buried thus far in the mass grave we call collateral damage? Nawar was the sister of Abdulrahman Awlaki, a 16-year-old boy killed in a 2011 drone strike, two weeks after the children's father, an alleged al Qaeda leader (and U.S. citizen), was killed, also in a drone strike. "Why kill children?" Nawar's grandfather asked after the girl's death.

But the politics of our drone assassinations and our air strikes and our wars justify and soften the murders we commit. Even now, as consensus consigns the Iraq war to the status of "mistake," we still refuse to take official responsibility for its consequences. The shattered country, the dead, the dislocated, the rise of terrorism -- come on, cut us a little slack, OK? We were bringing democracy to Iraq.

The unpredictable Trump spews out a fragment of spur-of-the-moment truth in a Fox News interview -- "you think our country's so innocent?" -- and the consensus critics can only writhe in outrage. "One can argue that's the most anti-American statement ever made by the president of the United States," retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey exclaimed on MSNBC, defending American exceptionalism as though it were God.

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What a strange game this president is playing. Fervid belief in this exceptionalism is the foundation of Trump's support. The raw meat he throws to his supporters is fear and hatred and clearly defined enemies: Muslims, Mexicans, refugees and immigrants from everywhere (except Europe). His allegiance to white nationalism and corporatocracy and war, the unacknowledged beneficiaries of this exceptionalism, is serious, and reflected in his cabinet choices.

"Everyone on Trump's national insecurity team seems to agree on one thing: the United States is in a global war to the death," Ira Chernus writes at TomDispatch, for instance, quoting the crusading militarism of a number of his advisors and appointees, such as Deputy National Security Advisor K.T. McFarland.

"If we do not destroy the scourge of radical Islam, it will ultimately destroy Western civilization . . . and the values we hold dear," she has said.

"For her," Chernus noted, "it's an old story: civilization against the savages."

And, indeed, Trump's ascension to the presidency was cited by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists as the reason they set the Doomsday Clock -- Planet Earth's largest, most ominous metaphor -- ahead by thirty seconds in January, to two and a half minutes to midnight. The Bulletin's Science and Security Board explained:

"This already-threatening world situation was the backdrop for a rise in strident nationalism worldwide in 2016, including in a U.S. presidential campaign during which the eventual victor, Donald Trump, made disturbing comments about the use and proliferation of nuclear weapons and expressed disbelief in the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change."

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I note all this in the context of Trump's Fox News tease -- that the United States is no more innocent in its wars and murders than Russia is -- and his perplexing, perhaps business-related friendliness with Putin, which seems to address one of the major concerns of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The Board, in its Doomsday Clock statement, noted with alarm: "The United States and Russia--which together possess more than 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons--remained at odds in a variety of theaters, from Syria to Ukraine to the borders of NATO."

Trump is a walking maelstrom of racism, arrogance, greed, incompetence and political incorrectness. He approved the Navy SEAL raid in Yemen with a shrug, as he ate dinner. Children died. The smiling face of Nawar al-Awlaki now haunts the mission.

As Bonnie Kristian wrote recently at Business Insider: "President Trump promised real change in U.S. foreign policy, and in at least one clear regard he has already delivered: Where President Obama spent six years waging covert drone warfare in Yemen and nearly two years quietly supporting brutal Saudi intervention in the Gulf state's civil war, Trump drew national outrage to this heretofore ignored conflict in nine days flat."

In his own racism and hypocrisy, is Trump exposing the hypocrisy of the media and the military-industrial complex? Is the new president somehow holding hands with the children whose deaths he will continue to order?

- - -

Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. His book, Courage Grows Strong at the Wound is available. Contact him at koehlercw@gmail.com or visit his website at commonwonders.com.

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Sen. Bernie Sanders' CNN health care debate with Sen. Ted Cruz Tuesday night was a case study of the competing visions of social justice and free market fundamentalism.

The ostensible frame of the debate was on the expected repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

But the presence of Sanders on the stage changed the discourse to a broader contrast of compassion or a ruthless you're on your own society.

What Sanders articulated so well is the vision of humanism and hope that animated his Presidential campaign.

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That healthcare must be a fundamental human right. That we are "in this together," and not just in words, or as he said in a South Carolina town hall during his campaign, "that when you hurt, when your children hurt, I hurt."

That we live in a country over stuffed with legislators, the corporate donors who fund them, and the far right policy wonks, who arm them with Ayn Rand-style ideas that elevate privilege and greed to a moral imperative.

Or in health care, a system of money over care, of profiting off human suffering and pain, that is a death sentence for so many.

Speaking on behalf of the repeal and replace crowd, Cruz hammered away at the central Tea Party theme, "freedom" from "government" mandates (unless it is dictating the rules of women's health choices, of course).

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Accompanied by the misleading mythology of the market, that with private insurance you have the "freedom" to choose your doctor, to design the health plan you want, and to pay what you want.





Truth at this stage seems to be of marginal value in a country divided in so many ways.

The backdrop is a long campaign, carefully orchestrated by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and others to convince working people across the country that government, not Wall Street, not corporations, is to blame for a country that fails them.

Thus the false narrative that government programs, including safety net measures that are essential to maintaining a civil society, and regulations, public protections, such as clean air and water and food safety, are an impediment to jobs and economic security.

It's especially a fraud in health care, which remains in the iron grip of corporations, which accumulate massive profits by denying care or setting prices so high, with virtually no limits on what they can charge, that have created a cruel system based on ability to pay.

Thus, a highlight of the debate, Bernie calling out Cruz on whether health care is a right. Cruz' response, "access to care" is the right. To which Bernie aptly responded, as he had earlier to Rep. Tom Price, the rightwing ideologue tapped as Health and Human Services Secretary: "access" is not care if you can't afford it.

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The sad irony of the ACA is that it was a convoluted attempt to straddle both worlds - public mandates, including the expansion of Medicaid, curbs on many insurance abuses, and a number of required benefits for ACA plans, with multiple handouts to entrench and enrich healthcare corporations, from insurers to hospitals to drug companies.

The result - the Republicans are right, the ACA out-of-pocket costs are out of control and the insurance networks are limited. But that's because the ACA was modeled on a Republican-Mitt Romney plan in Massachusetts with mechanisms set in place to protect the healthcare industry.

And, all the replacement schemes envisioned by Cruz and his cohorts would make it even worse. Their rhetoric and crocodile tears over costs under the ACA are a convenient stalking horse for "replacement" plans that would not guarantee lower costs, but even greater license for corporations to charge all that they can get.

They would shut even more people out, letting them die if they cannot afford the inflated costs or trapped in a byzantine scheme of health savings accounts, high risk pools, or bare bones insurance plans, all premised on how much you can pay.

Only one replacement plan would actually fix the real holes in the ACA, and the far greater pre-ACA disaster that saw the U.S. plummet to 37th in world rankings on access, cost, and quality early in this century. That is, of course, as Sanders emphasized in his campaign, and in the debate, an improved Medicare for all.



Here's a table, comparing and contrasting health care before the ACA, with the ACA fixes and limitations, what the Republicans propose today, and what an actual humane system would look like.
China to Build a Reef Off Coast of Philippines to Gain Effective Military Control Over South China Sea

Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana takes part in an interview with AFP in Manila. (Photo : Getty Images)

Manila is expecting China to build a reef off the coast of the Philippines, the defense secretary of the country stated. He said that this would be "unacceptable" in the flashpoint waterway.



Delfin Lorenzana, the current Secretary of National Defense of the Philippines, said in an interview that he believes that China would eventually reclaim Scarborough Shoal, just 230 kilometers from the main Philippine island of Luzon.



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Beijing has already built a number of reefs and islets in the Spratly Islands located in the South China Sea. It has installed military facilities on several of them.



Analysts say that if they do a similar installation near Scarborough Shoal, this will give China an effective military control over the disputed sea. If they build a military outpost there, it will be the last major physical step required to secure control of the sea.



The military outpost will put Chinese fighter jets and missile within easy striking distance to the Philippines.



"If we allow them, they will build. That's very, very disturbing. Very much (more) disturbing than Fiery Cross because this is so close to us," Lorenzana added as he refers to one of the reefs China has built on and claimed their own.



An arbitration that is backed by the United Nations was ruled last year. It indicates that the so-called "nine-dash-line" declared by Beijing to claim most of the South China Sea has no legal basis. This happened under the government of the previous Philippine president, Benigno Aquino Jr.



His successor, Rodrigo Durterte, the current president of the Philippines, courted China and backed away from its close relationship with the United States.



The current administration of the United States said that it will push back against any Chinese attempt to bolster the control of the South China Sea.



Rex Tillerson, the Secretary of State in the U.S., said: "The U.S. would block Chinese access to reclaimed islands, although analysts have pointed out that this would require a military blockade--an act of war."



Lorenzana commented that Tillerson's remark was "very troubling," as the Philippines might become a battleground if conflict broke out between China and the U.S.


The chasm between industry needs and our educational system has accelerated and our current educational model is quickly going broke, increasingly hampered by educational costs, skyrocketing tuition fees and student loans. Educational institutions continue doing what they always have done, seeking public funding, asking alumni for donations and courting charitable foundations and wealthy individuals for gifts. So, how can we redesign our current financial model to work more effectively?

Niels Brock, a highly reputable business school in Copenhagen, Denmark, with over a hundred years in education and a large alumni network, recently acquired CIBU, a small struggling business school in San Diego, California, renaming it Niels Brock San Diego University.

Niels Brock San Diego University recently experimented with crowdfunding to raise capital for their ambitious innovative change program. The thinking behind this bold move asked why business school business models remain static when everything else is changing. It appears that top-tier business schools push progress through entrepreneurship and innovation, however can display conformity and risk averse behavior in their own business dealings. It seemed time to challenge the way business schools do business.

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Teaming up with Bayfish and 3 Strand Innovation, two California based creative agencies, they crafted a well-designed Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to run in the fall of 2016 with the goal of raising a modest $200,000. After only a couple of weeks, it was clear to everyone that the campaign was doomed to failure.

The team was not blind to the poor odds available in this case. Despite CIBU having been in business for twenty years, the school had built a limited alumni network due to its small size. No amount of blogging on LinkedIn and publishing on new online media could make up for this handicap.

An unwanted outcome does not indicate poor judgement and decision-making, however, in fact, the more innovative the project, the higher the degree of ambiguity, lack of clarity and risk.

In a study of new product development funding campaigns on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter showed that out of ten thousand campaigns only around fifty raised more than $500,000 and the average take was no more than $7,000.

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Despite these daunting statistics, the team forged ahead seeking to improve the odds by doing an excellent job implementing the campaign. However, this was not enough to make up for the main obstacle, the school's low brand value and weak social network.

Was the whole experiment worth the effort and opportunity cost? In immediate financial terms - clearly not, however, in a larger perspective, it could be seen as a long term investment.

For a relatively small budget, the school gained first-hand experience in applying new funding tools, as well as, working with a creative agency, something CIBU had never done before. The process also helped the management team to crystalize what made the school unique and to formulate the changes they want to implement in the near future.
In recent days, Acting Attorney General Sally Yates announced that her department would not defend the president's executive order on immigration. She was promptly fired. President Trump said she "betrayed the Department of Justice." About one thousand State Department career foreign service officers and civil servants used the agency's "dissent channel" to disagree with the same order, prompting Press Secretary Sean Spicer to tell them they should "either get with the program or they can go." Many Americans agree with the president and his press secretary. They are tired of obstruction by bureaucrats. Others cheer the federal workers, recalling the horror of Nazi Germany's civil servants who just followed orders.

This issue is not new. Civil servants have taken what they regard as principled stands before. The "dissent channel" was used to question President Obama's lack of more aggressive action on Syria. Some civil servants objected to the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" during the Iraq War. Presidents, of course, don't usually appreciate federal workers who refuse to "salute the flag."

What is the obligation of government workers when they disagree with what they are directed to do? This question is important for them but also for us, since our judgment of and trust in the bureaucracy and its leaders - and our understanding of our governmental system - depends on the answer.

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Fortunately, there is a touchstone: the U.S. Constitution. Every public servant, from the president to the lowliest clerk, takes an oath to "preserve, protect and defend" it. American civil servants do not take an oath to obey the president. While in almost all cases they should and do, this distinction matters. When orders from superiors appear to civil servants to conflict with Constitutional values and established law, they have a moral obligation to object. The way in which they should do so, not their obligation to do so, is the relevant question.

Unfortunately, most civil servants get little help in thinking through this. Taking the oath is usually sandwiched between signing forms and getting office supplies on their first day at work, rendering it devoid of the historical and moral force it should play in their careers. Nor do they receive training in taking an ethical stand when they need to do so.

Unfortunately as well, most citizens - including some presidents - don't appreciate this obligation. Using the business model with which they are most familiar, they assume that you do what your boss says or get fired. They see bureaucrats as pampered employees who ignore or defy their boss with an impunity unacceptable in the private sector. Yet government is not a private business. Employees of private companies don't take a solemn oath to defend the Constitution. The goal of business is profit. The end of government is justice.

Further, leaders in government who insist on lockstep compliance and prevent or punish dissent are asking their employees to disregard their professional expertise, which they are duty-bound to provide. Such leaders disrespect their own Constitutional oath. Without a willingness to consider the knowledge their subordinates provide, they can't be sure they are doing the right thing. Indeed, the State Department's dissent channel was established expressly for this purpose. From the Bay of Pigs to Vietnam to Iran-Contra to Abu Ghraib prison, just to cite recent examples, we know too well the consequences for presidential efficacy and America values when dissent is submerged or punished.

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President Trump had the right to fire Sally Yates. She was a political appointee, serving at the pleasure of the president. Yet when he told her she betrayed her agency, he was wrong. She used her best professional judgment about the law and her reading of the Constitution to take a principled stand. You may disagree with her conclusion, but her action was honorable.

President Trump does not have the right to take punitive action against career civil servants because they disagree with him or his appointees on Constitutional grounds. Merit System Principles were established in law to ensure that employees are protected against such retaliation because faithfulness to the Constitution is more important than obedience to superiors. This does not, of course, mean that civil servants should glibly or thoughtlessly disobey. Such acts are a form of civil disobedience and, in the extreme, threaten the administration of government and the public trust. Civil servants have an obligation to voice their concerns internally, in private, and to use the chain of command to seek decisions consistent with the Constitution and the law. Only when that fails, and they have carefully considered the appropriateness, manner, and impact of public dissent, should they take more serious action.
President Trump's first treaty might be closer than you think, if he chooses peace. It's the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which bans all nuclear test explosions.

Trump just needs to encourage the Senate to ratify the treaty. With the support of Trump and the Republican led Senate, the treaty could be approved.

Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy were the first presidents to seek a nuclear test ban treaty. Why? Because they understood its vital role in leading to disarmament.

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JFK said, "The conclusion of such a treaty, so near and yet so far, would check the spiraling arms race in one of its most dangerous areas. It would place the nuclear powers in a position to deal more effectively with one of the greatest hazards which man faces in 1963, the further spread of nuclear arms."

That hazard, nuclear proliferation, is still tragically with us today. There are almost 15,000 nuclear weapons worldwide despite previous treaties.



Trump, like JFK, should pursue a complete ban on nuclear testing by supporting the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. (National Archives photo)

Ike and JFK's efforts got a limited test ban, but still needed was the comprehensive ban which the Senate could now approve.

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President Ronald Reagan was another advocate for outlawing nuclear testing. It was Reagan who said, "I am committed to the ultimate attainment of a total ban on nuclear testing."

Reagan sought the ratification of treaties that placed further limitations on testing, slowly building the way toward a complete ban. Barack Obama also supported the CTBT, but was unable to work with Republicans on getting the treaty ratified.

Trump has the chance to complete the mission of these former presidents and get this treaty. He should seize this moment.

If the United States were to ratify the test ban treaty it would encourage China to join as well. Nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, also treaty holdouts, would be far more likely to sign on too. Russia has already ratified the treaty.

There are eight nations that need to ratify for the CTBT to take effect: The United States, China, Israel, Iran, Egypt, India, Pakistan and North Korea. We need to show leadership at this pivotal stage or face the consequences of more nuclear test explosions.

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The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is in every nation's interest. The alternative of testing nukes, or threatening to test, does nothing but encourage expensive arms races and heighten international tensions. How tragic it would be if the U.S., Russia, China were to waste valuable resources in arming nukes when they could have taken the road to disarmament.

The CTBT can build the confidence of nations toward reducing nukes. That is a sound policy: the step by step reduction of nukes globally. That is what Ronald Reagan and others envisioned on the journey toward eliminating nuclear weapons.

George Schultz, who was the Secretary of State for Reagan, says, "the CTBT would make us and the world safer, but it would also be part of rebuilding the momentum toward realizing how dangerous nuclear weapons are and getting rid of them."

One thing that did not exist during Reagan's time was the extensive international monitoring system to detect nuclear explosions. This is critical toward verifying the treaty and making sure no country does secret test explosions.

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The development of this technology has taken place over many decades and new monitoring stations are being unveiled constantly. There are hundreds in operation across the globe in numerous countries including Russia.

This past December, in China, a treaty monitoring station to detect nuclear test explosions was certified. This was the first time in China and more are on the way.



CTBTO Executive Secretary Lassina Zerbo addresses participants at the RN21 certification ceremony in Lanzhou, China which strengthens the international monitoring system for detecting nuclear tests. (courtesy of the CTBTO)

Dr. Lassina Zerbo, the director of the CTBT organization, says, "This is a milestone for the development of the International Monitoring System (IMS) and for the growing cooperation between China and the CTBTO. Because of China's size and importance, a small step from China is a big step for the international community."

If this progress can take place in China, think of what that could mean for their neighbor and ally North Korea. China is the most influential nation for ending the North Korean nuclear threat.

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North Korea tested nukes twice in 2016 and the development of their arsenal is one of the most dangerous situations the world faces. Diplomacy is the best way to defuse the crisis.

Think how much stronger that diplomacy would be if China ratifies the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty as an example for their neighbor. North Korea could then end testing, which would be an opening for disarming its entire arsenal.

The United States simply cannot afford to return to nuclear testing. It would be politically disastrous. And there is no need to because technology, the Stockpile Stewardship program, can maintain the U.S. arsenal without test explosions.

Trump must not squander the opportunity to end nuclear testing and create the atmosphere for global nuclear disarmament to take place. As president he has this chance to build peace.

The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is a relatively easy first step for Trump. Let's hope and pray he takes it.
Unless something unexpected happens (and given this political season, it's a great possibility), 2017 will fill the air with more Cuban music by the best the island nation has to offer. Cuba has quickly become a destination for musical talent in the U.S. in search of the source of all popular music today. And then there are the U.S.-based artists who are celebrating the bridge being reopened between the two countries. A prime example: percussionist/vocalist Pedrito Martinez who has performed with a range of artists searching for top-tier percussion including Wynton Marsalis, Paul Simon, Eddie Palmieri, Paquito D'Rivera and Bruce Springsteen. He is also lauded by the great Latin jazz star Ruben Blades, who says, "In a musical world so filled with counterfeit output, it is refreshing to see a genuine talent like Pedrito emerge. Always curious, forever searching, restless, he's the type of artist whose product is forever fresh and vital."
Wealthy Chinese mainland households typically earn around 136,00 yuan ($19,800) annually, according to Gavekal Dragonomics. (Photo : Getty Images)

An e-commerce company based in the U.S. is looking to tap into young, fashionable and tech-savvy Chinese women by selling them top fashion brands through mobile messaging.



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Operator, a startup based in San Francisco, California, recently suspended its services in the U.S. to focus on the Chinese market. This is due to the "surging business" that it has experienced since November when it expanded its operations to China.



Chinese users will be able to connect with experts based in the U.S. through their mobile messaging app. These "experts" will be able to provide their recommendations to customers. The company's team then sources and delivers the purchases after the customer decided.



Online translation tools are also available on the mobile messaging app for users who cannot understand English.



Most of the users of the app are Chinese women aged 25 to 35. The company declined to disclose specific user numbers, but they said that many of their users are young mothers and professionals.



The most popular categories on the mobile app are beauty, fashion and baby goods. The company is currently working with hundreds of brands from the U.S. for their inventory.



Robin Chan, the CEO and co-founder of Operator, said: "We think Chinese customers have a big appetite for authentic goods and access to good products. The demand for authentic products from the United States is very strong. The key thing we are looking at is the healthiness of the market in terms of overall performance."



Operator features a "conversational experience" for customers who use their app. According to Chan, conversational commerce is the next big wave in e-commerce because everybody has a smartphone, and the most popular platform is messaging.



The startup has raised $25 million in funding since it was founded in 2015. It has recently closed a Series B financing worth $15 million that will help fund its global expansion.


Trump Advisor Pens Useless, Uninformed Piece On Intellectual Property Theft

Although it's hardly at the forefront of current political issues, a recent and rather clueless piece in Business Insider regarding intellectual property and its theft from one of the members of Trump's transition team does not bode well for the music industry.

________________________

Guest post by Mike Masnick from Techdirt

I realize that there are much bigger issues at hand right now, but those of us who follow copyright, patent and trademark policy have been somewhat perplexed about what a Trump administration might do on that front. The issue was basically entirely ignored by Trump and his campaign during election season. And because of that, you now have lots of organizations on all sides of the debate pressing Trump to simply buy into their views of intellectual property, no matter how inane.

However, I recently came across a piece at Business Insider, entitled "Why intellectual property theft is one of the biggest crimes threatening the US economy," that was so clueless of the actual issues related to intellectual property, that I went to see who wrote it  only to discover that the author, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, was on Trump's transition team (something that is not disclosed by Business Insider for unknown reasons). This does not bode well. The whole article is problematic and confused, so let's dive in.

Many assert that President-elect Donald Trump is against free trade.

Well, that's mainly because Trump himself has argued that free trade is harmful to American interests and has repeatedly argued for protectionist tariffs and other anti-free trade policies.

But standing against the theft of intellectual property and old-fashioned mercantilism, as Trump has promised to do, is an appropriate role for the chief executive. Allowing other countries to cheat us is not free trade.

So, already, we're left with a big giant "huh?" Copyright policy, in particular, is itself a leftover remnant of mercantilism. Patents and copyrights are protectionist anti-free trade policies by their very nature. Historically, patents were a key part of anti-free trade protectionist programs by governments, in which they'd give the sole right to produce certain goods to certain "friends" and block out all others. And that's what copyright and patent law today continue to do, in a slightly modernized form. They still involve central government bureaucracies handing out monopolies and the blocking of free trade. It's kind of bizarre to argue that actual competition is "old fashioned mercantilism" when copyright and patents themselves are directly old-fashioned mercantilism in action.

And, sure, allowing countries to "cheat" may not be free trade, but what do we mean by "cheating" here, because it mostly sounds like copying. And copying is actually a key part of free market capitalism, because it's a part of competition and a driver of innovation. How do you compete when someone copies you? You innovate and keep making your product or service better. That shouldn't be seen as cheating  it should be seen as competing in a free market world. Copyright and patent laws that are too strict directly impede that free market.

From there, the article gets even more inane.

People throughout the world identify with American art, music, software, and clothing designs, and benefit from American pharmaceuticals and patents.

Weird to include clothing designs in that list, since clothing designs are, somewhat famously, not protected by copyright, which has helped it thrive (thanks to competition and rapid innovation). But, more importantly, Furchtgott-Roth seems to make the totally amateur mistake here of assuming that the product output here is the same thing as "intellectual property laws." This is common among people who either don't understand the space, or who are misrepresenting the role of copyright or patent laws to push an agenda. The argument relies on the simple fallacy that because some of these things (again, notably not clothing designs) are protected by intellectual property laws, they only exist because of those intellectual property laws, and therefore, we have those laws to thank for them existing.

But, of course, nearly all of the evidence contradicts this  especially in areas of art, music and software. Those are all areas where we've seen much more creative output over the past couple of decades, even as "piracy" and infringement have increased. The reason we've seen so much output has little to nothing to do with the state of intellectual property laws, but much more to do with innovations, such as the internet and computer technology, that have made it easier than ever to create, produce, edit, distribute, promote and monetize works without having to rely on gatekeepers.

Yet American intellectual property is routinely stolen.

You mean infringed. It's kind of an important distinction.

Each year, the United States Trade Representative publishes a report entitled Special 301 Report on intellectual property theftyet does nothing about it.

Oh goodness. Where to start. First of all, the Special 301 Report is widely considered a total joke by basically everyone with any knowledge of it outside of the USTR. As I've said before, I've even seen the copyright maximalists at the Copyright Office mock the report. Canada has an official stance that it does not recognize the Special 301 report, because the methodology is a complete and utter joke. More recently, Chile announced a similar position.

And that's because it is a total joke. There is no methodology. Basically, the USTR allows anyone to submit their "complaints" about certain countries, and it becomes a Festivus-style "airing of the grievances" for special interests. It's mainly the MPAA, RIAA and similar maximalist organizations that go around whining about any country that won't pass their preferred laws, even in situations where those laws go way, way, way beyond what we require in the US. One of the reasons, for example, that Canada ignores the Special 301 report was that for years the MPAA got the USTR to put it on the really bad list because Canada wouldn't criminalize people filming movies in movie theaters.

From there, the USTR basically just picks and chooses whose complaints it likes the most, and rewrites the complaints into the Special 301 report. There is no data. There is no analysis. There is just the whining of the MPAA/RIAA, the USTR and what countries they decide need to be smacked down. Amusingly, if you submit a report to the USTR about how some country is abusing user rights  such as trampling on fair use  well, the USTR will completely ignore that.

Also the "do nothing about it" part is incredibly ignorant of what happens once a country is put on one of the "naughty" lists of the Special 301. At that point, US diplomats start putting ridiculous levels of pressure on those countries to change their laws. The Special 301 report was used to absolutely bully Sweden and Spain into ratcheting up their copyright laws, despite the fact that the public was totally against it in both cases. A few years ago, the US used the Special 301 to bully Ukraine in a way that likely violated the WTO.

In short, the total joke of a policy is (unfortunately) regularly used to apply strong diplomatic pressure on countries to change laws. But that's apparently not enough for Furchgott-Roth, who acts as if she just discovered the Special 301 before writing up this piece. She wants more:

America should take a tough line with countries on the USTRs Section 301 Priority Watch List. Here are five suggestions. We could limit their commercial activities in the United States. Alternatively, we could limit imports of those products with their intellectual propertyor ours. When an American company is being harassed in a foreign country, we could haul the ambassador in and ask what is going on. If China holds up our imports, we could hold up their imports. If the country is on the special watch list, the Commerce Department could request the International Trade Administration do audits of intellectual property protection in those countries. We could limit, and not expand, the commercial activities of countries on that watch list. If a country appears for a second year on the list, the Commerce Secretary could be required to prepare a special report to the President on remedial actions.

Yikes. Again, the list itself is a joke based on no methodology and we already use it to apply a disproportionate level of diplomatic pressure on the countries on that list. And yet, this suggestion is to make it worse. That's not "free trade" that's good old fashioned protectionism of American goods. It's the opposite of free trade. So the crux of this plan is basically letting the MPAA/RIAA decide who the US should block all trade with. What could possibly go wrong?

And, as a kicker, Furchtgott-Roth, suggests that the fact that China has literally been kidnapping book publishers and sellers it doesn't like is a good example of how it can crack down on copying. Really.

Countries may tell us that it is impossible for them to prevent their citizens from copying our goods. But when China, for example, can make book publishers in Hong Kong disappear because it disagrees with the content of the books, it can certainly close down the fake Apple stores.

For once, I'm at a loss for words. Supporting making political dissidents disappear as a good example of how an authoritarian regime might deal with basic competition is downright frightening.

But, unfortunately, this may be what we have to look forward to under a Trump administration.

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On Safer Internet Day millions of children, parents, educators and policy makers in over 120 countries across six continents were exploring how to stay safe online. The digital world offers endless opportunities, but it is also a place where young people may be exposed to violent or disturbing content, strong language or hate speech or become victims of cyber-bullying, or sexual harassment. This is an issue of everyone's concern as one third of all internet users worldwide are below the age of 18, and 68% of 9-16 year olds have at least one profile on a social network.

The motto of Safer Internet Day 2017 is "Be the change: unite for a better internet". In this spirit, the European Commission, tech and telecoms companies, broadcasters, NGOs and UNICEF (who form the Alliance to Better Protect Minors Online) unveiled a major self-regulatory initiative to address harmful content, harmful conduct and harmful contact online. This has been brokered by the European Commission in line with its Better Internet for Kids strategy.

Andrus Ansip, the Vice-President for the Digital Single Market, said: "Today, our children are born into an increasingly digital society and start using the internet at an ever younger age. This gives them a direct involvement and importance in the Digital Single Market. While online activities stimulate their critical thinking, they may face risks that can harm their well-being and development. Creating a safe digital environment for children is a shared responsibility and so I welcome this self-regulatory initiative from companies and NGOs. I have high expectations of the Alliance's work to make the internet safer and better for children."

Statement of Purpose

In the Statement of Purpose companies agreed to curb harmful content, harmful conduct and harmful contact (such as cyberbullying, sexual extortion and exposure to violent content), through three strands of action:

User-empowerment to promote enhanced use of parental tools, content classification and other tools for online safety. Reporting tools will be provided in a more accessible and user-friendly way. Companies will also focus on improving follow-up measures such as feedback and notifications.

Companies commit to intensify cooperation and sharing of best practices, also by taking account relevant input from NGOs, civil society, European, national and local authorities and international organisations.

Members of the Alliance intend to scale up awareness raising and also to promote and increase access to positive, educational and diversified content online.

This could prepare the ground for more formal self-and co-regulatory mechanisms which the proposal for a revised Audiovisual Media Service Directive seeks to promote. It complements the Code of Conduct and commitments to combat the spread of illegal hate speech online announced by the European Commission and IT companies last year.

Next Steps

The companies who endorsed the Statement of Purpose have responded to the European Commission's call for action of May 2016. Many of them already have ongoing commitments to respect and support children's rights online. Within the next three months, companies will announce their individual commitments to improve online safety as part of the Alliance to Better Protect Minors Online. Members of the Alliance (see annex for full list) and the European Commission, have agreed to assess implementation of this initiative through regular transparent and independent monitoring and evaluation.

As previous and ongoing industry cooperation has shown, self-regulation can make the industry more responsive and flexible in addressing safety challenges. The Alliance is a cooperative voluntary initiative, building on existing work for child online safety and new members will be welcome. The Commission expects that the actions announced today will be embraced by a growing number of companies as the starting point of a new process.

Background

Safer Internet Day, launched by the European Commission in 2004, is celebrated in over 120 countries across six continents. In 2016 alone it reached 2,8 million children, 2,5 million parents, and up to 400 million people on social media. Safer Internet Day is coordinated by the Insafe/INHOPE network thanks to funding from the through the Connecting Europe Facility. The European Commission's Safer Internet Programme(link), operating under the Connecting Europe Facility (link), finances a network of Safer Internet Centres in 27 Member States, Norway and Iceland.

In the Digital Single Market Strategy, European Commission promotes an inclusive digital society, where people have the necessary skills to go online and do so safely. Through its Strategy for a Better Internet for Children, the Commission coordinates initiatives to be undertaken by the Commission, Member States and the whole industry value chain.


Superintendent Robert Putnam said he will hold tours of the schools to better inform the public of their condition. ADAMS, Mass.  Adams-Cheshire school district was presented with eight possible district configurations on Wednesday.

But none offered a clear direction forward or cure-all for the district's financial and enrollment woes.

The options were provided by the University of Massachusetts' Collins Center, which was commissioned by the town of Adams to study trends and goals for the regional district and tasked with finding potential paths forward.

The center's Senior Associate Monica Lamboy led the presentation Wednesday at the C.T. Plunkett auditorium for about 100 mostly quiet residents. She gave several cost-saving scenarios that included the expected recourse of closing one of the two elementary schools to save between $376,000 and $555,000.

"The variation on alternatives is not very dramatic and there isn't one that stands out because the savings are so substantial," Lamboy said. "They are all relatively in the same ballpark, which lets you put policy and academic concerns more into the conversation."

Lamboy said the biggest savings would come from closing Plunkett in Adams and moving pre-K to third grade to Cheshire Elementary. This is anticipated to save $555,000.

Fourth and fifth-grade students would be transferred to Hoosac Valley High School, which already houses Grades 6-12.

A savings of $513,100 is anticipated if Grades 2 through 5 were moved to Cheshire Elementary and pre-K through first grade was sent to Hoosac Valley.

Lamboy said Cheshire has the nicer campus and more parking and would be optimal for a renovation project with an addition.

She noted that there will have to be some reconfiguration in the building to establish more classrooms and there would be far more students in the building than in the past. More classes would have to be held in the basement level.

Also, the building would need a major renovation if it becomes a permanent fix.

To move pre-K through third grade to Plunkett instead, would save $428,000 and to move second grade through fifth grade to Plunkett would save $376,000.

Lamboy said Plunkett has more and larger classrooms and the school currently holds roughly the number of students it would if Cheshire, with its 200 or students, were to close. Plunkett currently has about 451 students, with about 150 in Grades 4 and 5.

Plunkett has little parking, is close to a main highway and does need major repairs, but it is unknown the total extent of work that needs to be done.

Lamboy noted that having one elementary school would be an overall plus for the district because it would allow more services at the single school, correct the student-to-teacher ratio, offer more inclusion, more programming, and more access to education support and extracurricular activities.

She did say closing a school does not represent a permanent move for the district and it could always choose to renovate either one of the schools or add on to the Hoosac Valley campus in the future.

"There is the potential of a wonderful outcome from the change here and you could get the greatest building you could possibly have for your children but it takes time," she said. "New construction takes time and so does renovation and this could be an interim fix until you can come together as a community and decide what the best outcome would be."

She said the one elementary school option only works if students are moved to the recently renovated Hoosac Valley.

The first option would be to transfer eighth-graders into the high school program and relocate Grades 4 and 5 into the middle school section of Hoosac Valley.



Collins Center Senior Associate Monica Lamboy led the presentation Wednesday in the C.T. Plunkett auditorium. The second option would also transfer the eighth-graders to the high school portion of the building and relocate pre-K through first grade in the middle school portion of the school.

Lamby said there is an early child development center in the high school that was never utilized; employing would allow Hoosac Valley to offer an early childhood development vocational program.

Also, she said students would have access to more programming at Hoosac Valley for a longer period and would be more likely to stay when they enter the high school grades. The high school has been losing students between the Grades 8 and 9 transition.

Moving more students to the high school would also allow them to fully utilize the newer building that Lamby said can hold more than 800 students. Currently, there as 624 students at the high school and they could bump it up to around 840.

The Collins Center also looked at moving the high school to Plunkett and everyone else to Hoosac Valley and splitting the district but neither were financially viable.

Lamboy said if the district were to split, the towns would have to set up three different school committees and Cheshire's allocation would increase by $800,000 just to maintain the services it has now.

"I think that this is the worst-case scenario," she said. "In addition to the cost implications, you will have continued enrollment decline and you still have to maintain aging buildings without a partner."

Collins Center representative Frederick "Rick" Kingsley also presented some best practice cost-saving recommendations that could save the district upwards of $905,000 and near $350,000 in reinvestment.

He said the big ticket would be for the district to shift all current employees and retirees from the Berkshire Health Group to the Massachusetts Group Insurance Commission.

He noted recipients would have deductibles and co-pays but it would save the district $750,000. He also recommended transferring the pension system from the town of Adams to a different system with a better rate.

Kingsley urged the district to smooth out its pay scales. He said there are huge increases, some 8 or 9 percent, built into step increases that can be spread out more equally through a contract.

He also suggested they reduce the value and number of stipends and create a nepotism policy because many residents aired concern about nepotism in the district.

Kingsley said it would also be beneficial to improve communication with the faculty, students, and community and create a feasibility study committee to study what the district needs in an elementary school.

Collins Center representative William Lupini presented some educational changes that could save the district in the long run.

He said a lot of cuts, especially to special education, education specialists, and paraprofessionals, may have cost the district more in the long run.



Collins Center representative Frederick 'Rick' Kingsley offered some financial changes the district could make. "What happens in a number of districts is decisions get made in very tough budget times that seem very logical but they actually contribute to extending the problems," he said.

He said the district may see cost decreases if it lowers special-education enrollment and Individualized Education Programs.

Lupini recommended bringing back classroom support and putting a paraprofessional in every first grade and kindergarten classroom creating a special education team to better manage referrals and IEPs

"We take a very specialized job that controls money and instead of putting it in the hands of five or six people we put it in the hands of 20," he said. "Then we don't train them because there are too many and our costs go."

He added that the district should increase professional learning and increase the professional development budget but ask educators to take courses that align with districtwide focuses.

He said hiring more specialists and paraprofessionals would allow more intervention and special help to all students. He added that many students on IEPs just need services that should be present in regular education provided by specialists.

He also suggested finding ways to attract more students and expanding programming. He recommended teaming up with McCann Technical School and offering vocational programming at Hoosac Valley.

Because the School Committee plans to vote on the district's budget in March, Superintendent Robert Putnam will hold tours of the school buildings to better inform the public and town officials of their condition as well as provide scenarios for reorganizing the district into two schools.

There will be a tour for town officials on Saturday and tours open to the public Feb. 14 through the 16. The meetings will begin at 5:30 at Cheshire Elementary School and continue to C.T. Plunkett.

The School Committee will ultimately make the decision, however, and has noted it plans to hold public input meetings before making a ruling.




Haiti - Diplomacy : Germany congratulates the new President of Haiti





Tuesday, as part of the inauguration of the President of Haiti Jovenel Moise, the Ambassador of Germany accredited to Haiti Manfred Auster, presented to President Moses the letters of congratulations from the Federal President and Chancellor Angela Merkel of the Federal Republic of Germany.



Federal President Joachim Gauck recalled the lasting and friendly ties between the two countries and expressed the hope that the two countries would cooperate more closely in the future in order to improve the living conditions of Haitians.



The German Chancellor welcomes the outcome of the elections in which Haiti expresses the desire to have political stability, "an important precondition for the reconstruction of the country" and underlines the will of Germany to continue to accompany Haiti on this path.



IH/ iciHaiti


















We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector

We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector

We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector

We work towards an equitable,

gender-just, self-reliant and

sustainable fisheries,

particularly in the small-scale,

artisanal sector
Coal burning is still China's main source of energy. (Photo : Getty Images)

According to Greenpeace, China is not slowing down on coal burning. The environmental group revealed that the country has already produced more than 70 gigawatts of coal energy.



There are 200 gigawatts to be produced by coal plants that are under construction.



Greenpeace also said that China is producing an excess of energy, which is expected to amount to 1 trillion yuan by 2020.



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The International Energy Agency agrees. In their World Energy Investment report, the IEA stated, "It is becoming apparent that China has overinvested in new fossil fuel capacity."



"Measures permitting renewables and the pricing of coal-fired power could make it more difficult for generators to recover the capital costs of coal plants," the agency added.



There are efforts to convert to gasification or conversion of coal emissions to synthetic natural gas. However, the process leads to the production of more carbon dioxide.



Gasification was initiated by the China Kingho Energy Group, the largest private company on energy. They began the process in a power plant in northern Xinjiang in 2013.



Greenpeace then reported that the company intended to establish 50 more gasification facilities. The environmentalist group criticized China for permitting a huge amount of deadly carbon dioxide to be released into the atmosphere.



Gan Yiwei, a climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace East Asia, spoke against coal-to-gas plants. He said, "With the economy and market conditions, we really don't think this is a good choice."



Later on, the National Energy Administration stopped the construction of the gasification facilities.



Li Junfeng, an adviser to the Chinese government on climate change, said, "It is extremely irrational to develop a coal-to-gas technology. Coal-to-gas conversion is unfit to become a national strategy."



In spite of the challenges facing China's energy sector, President Xi Jinping said that China will remain committed to protecting the environment. During the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he said that the climate change "is a responsibility we must shoulder for the sake of our future generations."


Fans pose for photos in the 'Rick and Morty' Galactic Federation Prison at at New York Comic Con on October 8, 2016 in New York City. (Photo : Getty Images for Turner / Paul Zimmerman)

"Rick and Morty" Season 3 is still in production but fans cannot seem to comprehend that. Show writer Dan Harmon is still being pressured to disclose when the series will air again and he addresses them in a recent podcast.



The fate of Rick Sanchez in the intergalactic prison is still uncertain. However, the short black and white teaser released several months ago shows that he is trying to escape albeit in another non-human form.



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Harmon is once again addressing the "Rick and Morty" Season 3 release date questions in a recent episode of his Harmontown podcast. He said that the animators and artists are already drawing the episodes.



Previously, Harmon has already explained that the show is not in danger and that there were no serious issues to be alarmed off. Harmon said in a statement obtained by Comic Book that nobody was to blame for the slow production.



"So, I'm sorry I can't say 'we fractured a creative valve in sector 3' or 'it's Paul's fault. GET HIM!" said Harmon. "No hidden truth. We slow. Sorry. Part of what I was trying to express is that WE would sit and ponder, what's the problem here, how can we write faster, why we so slow?"



One of the possible "Rick and Morty" Season 3 release dates is July 26 considering that it was also the same one for Season 2 in 2015, Cinema Blend reported. The after-credits scene from the previous season includes Mr. Poopy Butthole saying that it may take more than a year before the show returns.



"Rick and Morty" Season 3 is already in production and fans have no other choice but to wait for it to be finished. Animation can also take longer but it may be the last part as the voice overs seem to be finished based on the earlier teaser.



Watch the Harmontown podcast below:






Prayers for fairer treatment of women? Chinese worshippers light incense as they pray at the Dacheng Temple on Jan. 28, 2017 in Qiqihar, Heilongjiang Province. (Photo : Getty Images)

Celebrating the Chinese Lunar New Year or Spring Festival in China comprises a series of vibrant sights and sounds, from the cheerily pulsating lion and dragon dances to the strikingly serene rising of lanterns at nighttime to simple yet intimate reunions.



It also involves a scene of a lone wife in the kitchen preparing to face the stacks of bowls at the sink. Well, she previously gathered them by herself from the dinner table.



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After all, in between such merry-making, whom does the household expect to wash the dishes?



Zhang Yiqian, a wife, wrote an opinion piece for Global Times where she expressed her thoughts about how, despite gender equality, feminism should still matter, her reflections triggered by the recent Spring Festival.



Zhang shared the fate of her cousin Lin, a housewife, as a fitting case worthy of contemplation.



Lins story became my worst nightmare, she said.



She attended Lins wedding day, the last time she saw her. A decade has now passed.



According to Zhang, since Lin got married, her cousin has not been able to attend family reunions held every Chinese New Year.



Oddly surprising, the house she shares with her husband is an hour drive from her hometown.



Another cousin of Zhang once visited Lin during Spring Festival. Lin was about to cook, washing some vegetables when this cousin arrived.



The cousin told Zhang that Lins husband was not around. Her in-laws were there but watching TV.



After their meal, Lin dutifully wiped the table clean and proceeded to the kitchen to wash the dishes.



The in-laws never bothered to help Lin. Their son displayed the same sense of entitlement.



Lins husband, according to the cousin, did not offer to assist Lin even in the presence of his wifes very own relative.



Lins experience as a housewife troubled Zhang.



It bothered me so much that when I got married last year, I swore this was not going to be an issue in my life, she said.



It could be said that Zhang got a bit luckier than Lin on one particular aspect: Zhang and her husband calmly settled the matter of taking turns visiting ones parents during Spring Festival.



The fact that her married friends defended their right to be with their parents on this special occasion delights Zhang.



She said, We are all our parents only children and we all need to keep them company during the holidays.



Lins newfound family has actually forbidden her to visit her parents, citing the age-old tradition where the wife stays put in her husbands house.



So, who or what really prevents Lin from bonding with her parents on Spring Festival? Tradition or her in-laws? Which is which?



Zhang stressed that more and more women nowadays have started taking control of their own personal lives and becoming more vocal in pronouncing their rights.



Many women now dispute some social norms and traditions, which, as one friend of Zhang from Shanxi puts it, are really discrimination against women in disguise.



When CCTV presented its annual Spring Festival Gala, people watched a skit where a woman filed for divorce because she cannot give her husband a child. Another skit showed an overjoyed husband and his wife who gave birth to a baby boy.



Through a WeChat group, one feminist said that such skits limit the role of women in society. Fellow feminists likewise rebuked the skits.



On a broader view of feminism, Professor Dai Jinhua from Peking University, a scholar of gender studies, said that it entails women using their experience to contribute to society, according to Women of China.



The greatest significance of feminism lies in women providing new resources and creations to the world with their own life experience, other than merely equal rights or gender antagonism, said Dai.



Zhang, on the other hand, underscores the role of education in feminism and how it helps shape womens mindset, particularly when they settle down and become wives. For her, it serves as a tool for women to empower their own selves.



For one female writer, it takes more than earning a degree, getting a job and being financially independent.



What I mean when I talk about strong modern women are those who are independent not only materially but also spiritually, said Li Xiaoyi, author of Live Life, Grab Love. quoted Women of China.



For Lin and those wives who are in a similar situation like hers, perhaps sharing the household chores with the husband and celebrating Spring Festival with their parents would suffice, at least, for the meantime.






The Justice League live-action movie will be directed by Zack Snyder and it stars Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Ray Fisher, Jason Momoa and Ezra Miller. (Photo : Facebook/DC Extended Universe)

New details and spoilers for "Justice League" movie will feature the location of the final Mother Box and a full length trailer coming soon.



It seems that confirmation on the final Mother Box in the "Justice League" movie has been revealed and it turns out that the Mother Box happens to be a character in film, particularly within Victor Stone/Cyborg (Ray Fisher).



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According to the latest issue of Total Films (via ScreenCrush) Cyborg is essentially a living Mother Box as the alien technology allows him to access his powers in the film. Three Mother Boxes were buried during Darkseid's first invasion of earth centuries ago. The humans, Atlantians and Amazons have carried each of the boxes to their respective worlds; in Atlantis, Theymiscra and an unknown location on earth.



It was during the events of "Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice" that the Mother Box reemerge after Victor's father, Dr. Silas Stone tries to revive him with the use of technology. For unknown reasons, the Mother Box suddenly activated itself and transforms Victor in a cyborg giving him arms, legs etc. using robotic parts.



This indicates that Cyborg may play a vital role in the plot of "Justice League" film since the forces of Apokolips are coming to earth under the leadership of Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hind), and Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck) must recruit metahumans like Cyborg to defend the planet now that Kal-El/Superman (Henry Cavill) is dead.



In other news, "Wonder Woman" star Gal Gadot teased netizens and DC comic book fans alike as to when will the next "Justice League" trailer launch.



A fan on Facebook posted that he was hoping that a "Justice League" movie trailer will be at Super Bowl as Galdot replied by saying that the it will come soon, Heroic Hollywood reported.



While Gadot did not reveal the full date of the new trailer release, TheWrap reporter Umberto Gonzales tweeted that the next "Justice League" trailer will drop on the Spring and teased that Warner Bros. will have more promotions on the film with Comic Con being one of them.



If Gonzales' tweet has any indication of being true, then comic book fans will expect "Justice League" to have a significant presence at this year's San Diego Comic-Con over the summer, which would afford Warner Bros an opportunity to follow-up with yet another trailer or further news about the film.



"Justice League" movie is scheduled to premier in cinemas on Nov. 17.






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!
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On a May evening in 1973, Peter Hall, the director of Britains National Theatre, went to see Last Tango In Paris. As he confided in his diaries, the sad, moving, heavy film impressed him with its analysis of the danger and pain of unthinking promiscuity and the loneliness of lust. A filmmaker as well as a theatre director himself, Hall was awe-struck by how Italian auteur Bernardo Bertolucci handled the erotic scenes. They were elegant and beautifully shot and achieve a new formalism, a stylisation of the sexual act, which involves the audiences emotions rather than exciting their sexuality.

Last Tango may have provoked considerable controversy but, more than 40 years on, it still stands as a very rare sex film which filmgoers were able to take seriously. They didnt just concentrate on the notorious butter scene. They were intrigued by Bertoluccis portrayal of a middle-aged man (Marlon Brando) close to despair, and a young Parisian woman (Maria Schneider) in an intense and destructive relationship.

Sex scenes with Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider in 'Last Tango in Paris' could be taken seriously by audiences

50 Shades Darker is in absolutely no danger of being treated with the same respect. This is the erotic movie as Hollywood high-kitsch escapism. Its intention is to titillate, not to probe. Like its predecessor, the latest EL James adaptation is glossy and banal in the extreme, a chocolate box fantasy that wont satisfy anybody. Its a celebration of conspicuous consumption in which the characters spend as much time putting on their designer clothes as taking them off.

There may be nudity but there is never any sense that the filmmakers are getting under the skin of their characters or are trying to understand the loneliness of lust as Hall put it. Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan), in the 50 Shades films, is supposed to be damaged goods; someone who suffered so much as a young child with his drug addict mother that it warped his sexuality. However, the filmmakers arent remotely interested in delving too deeply into his dark places. 50 Shades is to Last Tango in Paris what the Chippendales, the male strippers, are to the Bolshoi ballet.

Sex scenes in 'Nymphomaniac', with Charlotte Gainsbourg, were intense

It goes without saying that cinema, from the earliest days of the peep shows, has been utterly fascinated by sex. Even so, sex on screen tends to work much better when it is an ingredient of a movie rather than the whole meal. From Hedy Lamarr naked in Ecstasy to Sharon Stone uncrossing her legs in Basic Instinct, careers have been built on the back of one or two voyeuristic moments.

Directors and actors can sometimes think theyre making an art house movie  but their producers have different intentions altogether. This was definitely the case with Tinto Brasss Caligula, which was mooted as a Fellini-esque recreation of ancient Rome at its most decadent and had a cast which included John Gielgud, Peter OToole and Helen Mirren. Once Penthouse boss Bob Guccione intervened it became very X-rated indeed.

At the end of Nagisa Oshimas 'The Realm of the Senses', the deranged lover kills her partner and cuts off his penis

In Hollywood, the 80s and 90s were the decade of heavily stylised low budget softcore US sex movies, for example those made by the very prolific Gregory Dark  and quite a few bigger budget Hollywood movies that seemed be imitating them, for example 9/12 Weeks, Paul Verhoevens Basic Instinct or Sliver. This was the video era and tropes from low budget sex movies spilled into much more ambitious mainstream films.

Back in Europe, whether Liliana Cavani with The Night Porter or Lars Von Trier with his Nymphomanic magnum opus, every self-respecting art house director since Bertolucci has had a stab at a film with sex at the centre of it. They continually tried to make films that deal with sex in a way that is graphic and frank without being pornographic. Theyve rarely succeeded. It doesnt help that so many of the movies are made by middle-aged or elderly men behind the camera working with very much younger women in front of it.

'Caligua' was meant to be an art house film but became X-rated after Penthouse boss Bob Guccione got involved

Jean-Claude Brisseau, a very respected French art house director, ended up being sued by his actresses for sexual harassment after auditions for his film, Secret Things. Brisseau was accused of being voyeuristic and predatory. He seemed to have the belief that sex on screen was only authentic if it was done for real. He, like so many other directors making high-minded sex films, are looking for authenticity. They have the illusion that showing sex in films will enable them to transcend the limitations of conventional performance and arrive at something far more truthful. The frustration that so many of them have found, especially those whove worked with adult performers, is that showing the mechanics of sex is all very well but, unless the actors can portray emotion too, the scenes will seem very perfunctory.

Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger in '9 1/2 weeks', which depicted sado-maschism

The sex films that do work tend to be those that arent really about sex at all  or that have a context that puts events in the bedroom into an entirely different perspective. Nagisa Oshimas In The Realm Of The Senses (1976) is a famously graphic movie, notorious in its time not just for its (apparently unsimulated) sex scenes and its grotesque finale in which the deranged lover kills her partner and cuts off his penis. The film is set in late 1930s Japan, at a time of rising militarism and social conformity. The transgressive sex can be read both as an expression of individuality and as a form of political protest. Patrices Chereaus Intimacy (2001) wasnt just about infidelity but about the sadness and the seediness that accompanies it, the guilt and sense of betrayal that characters like Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey never seem to feel.

In 1970, Terry Southerns novel Blue Movie was published. This was about a famous director trying to make an erotic movie with proper actors, a fully pornographic art movie. Southern was being satirical but since his book first appeared, filmmakers from Stanley Kubrick to Michael Winterbottom and Gaspar Noe have accepted the same challenge for real. The results have tended to be very messy. In movies, the sex alone is never enough. After the initial illicit thrill is gone, the spectators soon get bored. They want more than just masturbatory fantasy. The 50 Shades films show just how challenging is to make films in which the sex is foregrounded without succumbing to that grim, drooping, all too inevitable sense of anti-climax.
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A Hollywood talent agency scrapped its annual Oscars party in favour of a pro-immigration rally which took place yesterday (24 February) in Los Angeles.

The agency's decision was made earlier this month following the news that Donald Trump's (now halted) travel ban meant that its client Asghar Farhadi, the director of Oscar-nominated film The Salesman, would not be able to attend this Sunday's ceremony to support his film.

Named 'United Voices,' the rally's purpose was to counter the anti-refugee sentiment Trump's ruling has heightened.

The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Show all 9 1 /9 The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the media White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer takes questions during the daily press briefing Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Union leaders applaud US President Donald Trump for signing an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington DC. Mr Trump issued a presidential memorandum in January announcing that the US would withdraw from the trade deal Getty The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Mexico wall A US Border Patrol vehicle sits waiting for illegal immigrants at a fence opening near the US-Mexico border near McAllen, Texas. The number of incoming immigrants has surged ahead of the upcoming Presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. A signature campaign promise, Mr Trump outlined his intention to build a border wall on the US-Mexico border days after taking office Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and abortion US President Donald Trump signs an executive order as Chief of Staff Reince Priebus looks on in the Oval Office of the White House. Mr Trump reinstated a ban on American financial aide being granted to non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling, provide abortion referrals, or advocate for abortion access outside of the United States Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Dakota Access pipeline Opponents of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines hold a rally as they protest US President Donald Trump's executive orders advancing their construction, at Columbus Circle in New York. US President Donald Trump signed executive orders reviving the construction of two controversial oil pipelines, but said the projects would be subject to renegotiation Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and 'Obamacare' Nancy Pelosi who is the minority leader of the House of Representatives speaks beside House Democrats at an event to protect the Affordable Care Act in Los Angeles, California. US President Donald Trump's effort to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace the healthcare law failed when Republicans failed to get enough votes. Mr Trump has promised to revisit the matter Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Donald Trump and 'sanctuary cities' US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January threatening to pull funding for so-called "sanctuary cities" if they do not comply with federal immigration law AP The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the travel ban US President Donald Trump has attempted twice to restrict travel into the United States from several predominantly Muslim countries. The first attempt, in February, was met with swift opposition from protesters who flocked to airports around the country. That travel ban was later blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The second ban was blocked by a federal judge a day before it was scheduled to be implemented in mid-March SANDY HUFFAKER/AFP/Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and climate change US President Donald Trump sought to dismantle several of his predecessor's actions on climate change in March. His order instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to reevaluate the Clean Power Plan, which would cap power plant emissions Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Speakers at the event - which saw 1,200 protestors attend - included Jodie Foster, Michael J. Fox and Farhadi himself.

Farhadi, who was honoured and in tears" over the agency's decision, spoke at the rally via video link from Tehran.

He said: It is comforting to know that at a time when some politicians are trying to promote hate by creating divisions between cultures, religions and nationalities, the cinema community has joined the people in a common show of unity to announce its opposition.

I hope this unity will continue and spread to fight other injustices.

The Silence of the Lambs star Foster gave a particularly impassioned speech.

Addressing the crowd, she said: I'm not somebody who feels very comfortable using my public face for activism, she said. This year is a very different year and it's time to show up. It's the singular time in history. It's time to engage.

Michael J. Fox branded Trump's anti-Muslim policies "an assault on human dignity."

 Oscars 2017: Our film team discuss who will win and who should

UTA's other clients - including Mark Ruffalo, Paul Bettany and Supernatural actor Misha Collins - expressed happiness over their agency's decision to host the rally and to donate $250,000 to ACLU.

This year's Academy Awards, presented by Jimmy Kimmel, takes place on 26 February.
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The Great Wall, an action-adventure film with a title that also describes the stack of money Matt Damon must have received for it, tweeted out a short teaser last night showing a soldier firing a fatal arrow at an attacking monster.

The weird thing was how shoddy it looked - the VFX appearing better than a TV movie but certainly not up to standard for a studio movie with a budget of $150 million - especially given the film already has several teasers (some featuring a higher quality version of the beast).

The tweet was quickly deleted, but this is 2017 so it carried on being shared, becoming the object of mirth and derision on Reddit.

The Great Wall centres on European mercenaries searching for black powder who become embroiled in the defense of the Great Wall of China against a horde of monstrous creatures.

Jing Tian, Pedro Pascal and Willem Dafoe co-star in the Zhang Yimou-directed film, which is out in UK cinemas on 17 February.
Kong: Skull Island (Photo : Jimmy Kimmel Live/YouTube)

Despite the recent slowdown of box-office receipts in China, the second-largest movie market continues to be courted by Hollywood movie producers. Five movies got March playdates in China which could make or break these films.



The list of five foreign movies that got the approval of the government regulators and playdates next month is led by Kong: Skull Island of Legendary Pictures which got a playdate of March 24. The film would debut on March 10 in North America and other major territories, Variety reported.



Advertisement

4 More Hollywood Movies in March



Logan was given March 17 as opening day, two weeks after the movie opens in the U.S. on March 2 and 3. When Logan opens in the U.S. and China, it would go against Beauty and the Beast, a Disney production, according to The Hollywood Reporter.



The controversial A Dogs Purpose, was given a March 3 playdate, along with Lego Batman. Government regulators determine the release dates for foreign movies. However, most of the time, the dates are locked in until six weeks before the movie premieres. Another restriction is Hollywood studios are not allowed to establish releasing structures in China.



Chinas Import Quota



Two government-owned companies, Huaxia Distribution and China Film Co., enjoy a duopoly on revenue-sharing status with Hollywood studio pictures that have revenue-sharing status under the import quota of China raised to 36 yearly from the 34 in 2016. The two extra foreign movie slots went to India after the successful showing in China over the Spring Festival holiday of two co-productions with India  Buddies in India and Kung Fu Yoga.



Kong: Skull Island is a co-production of Dalian Wanda Group-owned Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. According to Rotten Tomatoes, the film reimagines the origin of the mythic Kong when a diverse team of explorers come together to enter an uncharted island in the Pacific.



The group is unaware that it is entering a beautiful but treacherous territory which is the domain of Kong. Among the stars of the movie, directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts, are Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, John C. Reilly, Tom Wilkinson and John Goodman.






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TJ Maxx is the latest in a long line of retailers to apparently pull away from promoting Ivanka Trumps struggling fashion brand.

Bosses have demanded that employees throw out her advertisements, take down displays and stop presenting her brands merchandise separately.

Last week, workers at both TJ Maxx and Marshalls, which are both owned by TJX Companies, were told that Ivankas products should no longer be given pride of place.

 Sean Spicer says an attack on Ivanka's clothing line is an attack on the President

Effective immediately, please remove all Ivanka Trump merchandise from features and mix into [other products on the racks], a note, leaked to The New York Times, read.

All Ivanka Trump signs should be discarded.

The move by TJ Maxx and Marshalls has been played down by bosses saying that it often reorganises products but the timing  amid what appears to be an anti-Trump boycott  seems suspicious.

One worker even said that in the several years they have worked at the store, they had never once seen an order demanding that a brands adverts be thrown in the trash.

In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Show all 32 1 /32 In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London An image of President Donald Trump is seen on a placard during the Women's March in London, England Getty In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydney A view of the skywriting word reading 'Trump' as thousands rally in support of equal rights in Sydney, New South Wales EPA In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Rome People shout and hold signs during a rally against US newly sworn-in President Donald Trump in Rome Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London A protester holds a placard during the Women's March in London, England Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Marseille A placard ready 'Pussy grabs back' is attached to the handle bar of a bike during a 'Women's March' organized by Feminist and human rights groups in solidarity with women marching in Washington and around the world for their rights and against the reactionary politics of the newly sworn-in US President Donald Trump, at the Old Port (Vieux Port) of Marseille, southern France Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Bangkok A young Thai girl holds a "women's rights are human rights" sign at Roadhouse BBQ restaurant where many of the Bangkok Womens March participants gathered in Bangkok, Thailand Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Bangkok A Thai woman takes a photo of a "hate is not great" sign at the women's solidarity gathering in Bangkok, Thailand Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Bangkok American expats and travellers gather with the international community in Bangkok at the Roadhouse BBQ restaurant to stand in solidarity in Bangkok, Thailand Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London Protetesters gather outside The US Embassy in Grosvenor Square ahead of the Women's March in London, England Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Marseille Women's March at the Old Port (Vieux Port) of Marseille, southern France Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Marseille Protestors hold placards reading 'My body my choice, my vote my voice' during a 'Women's March' organized by Feminist and human rights groups in solidarity with women marching in Washington and around the world for their rights and against the reactionary politics of the newly sworn-in US President Donald Trump, at the Old Port (Vieux Port) of Marseille, southern France Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Rome A person holds a sign during a rally against US newly sworn-in President Donald Trump in Rome Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Kolkata Activist Sarah Annay Williamson holds a placard and shouts slogan during the Women's March rally in Kolkata, India AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Kolkata Activists participate in the Women's March rally in Kolkata, India AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London A Women's March placards are rested on a bench outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square ahead of the Women's March in London, England Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London A women carries her placard ahead of the Women's March in London, England Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Manila Women protesters shout slogans while displaying placards during a rally in solidarity against the inauguration of President Donald Trump, in suburban Quezon city, northeast of Manila, Philippines AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Berlin Protesters attend a 'Berlin Women's March on Washington' demonstration in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Berlin Protesters attend a 'Berlin Women's March on Washington' demonstration in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Berlin Protesters attend a 'Berlin Women's March on Washington' demonstration in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Melbourne Protesters take part in the Melbourne rally to protest against the Trump Inauguration in Melbourne, Australia Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Macau Protesters take part in the Women's March rally in Macau Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Melbourne Womens march on Melbourne protestors marching during a rally where rights groups marched in solidarity with Americans to speak out against misogyny, bigotry and hatred Rex In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Macau Protesters hold placards as they take part at the Women's March rally in Macau Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Macau Protesters hold placards as they take part at the Women's March rally in Macau, Macau. The Women's March originated in Washington DC but soon spread to be a global march calling on all concerned citizens to stand up for equality, diversity and inclusion and for women's rights to be recognised around the world as human rights Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Manila A mother carries her son as they join a rally in solidarity against the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States in suburban Quezon city northeast of Manila, Philippines AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydney An infant is held up at a demonstration against new U.S. President Donald Trump in Sydney, Australia Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydney A woman attends a demonstration against new U.S. President Donald Trump in Sydney, Australia Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydney A woman expresses her Anti-Trump views in Sydney, Australia Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydeney Protesters demonstrate against new U.S. President Donald Trump in Sydney, Australia. The marches in Australia were organised to show solidarity with those marching on Washington DC and around the world in defense of women's rights and human rights Getty In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London Protesters march from The US Embassy in Grosvenor Square towards Trafalgar Square during the Women's March in London, England Getty In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London Protesters carrying banners take part in the Women's March on London, as they stand in Trafalgar Square, in central London Reuters

Doreen Thompson, a spokesperson for TJX Companies played down the significance of the change, telling Racked that the chains would continue to sell the brand.

'We aim to offer a merchandise mix that gives our customers a choice in what they may want to purchase,' she said.

Yet another blow to the socialites business which has already been dropped by a string of luxury retailers including Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus, this hit is bound to have an impact on her sales.

President Trump took to Twitter on Wednesday to challenge Nordstroms decision to completely ditch Ivankas line which, they say, was purely based on a steady decline in sales.

My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by Nordstrom, he wrote.

She is a great person - always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!
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Franco Pepes cheese and tomato pizza recipe is simplicity at its best, combining sweet, ripe tomatoes with beautiful aged Grana Padano cheese and creamy buffalo mozzarella. Make sure you use Francos pizza dough recipe for perfect results. Widely regarded as the best pizza chef in the world, Franco Pepes pizza dough recipe is a closely guarded secret. Although he will never give up the recipe used at his restaurant Pepe in Grani, just north of Naples, this one is pretty close and comes from the great man himself.

Tomato whim  cheese and tomato pizza by Franco Pepe

Topping for 1 pizza base

80g Grana Padano, 24 months old

85g buffalo mozzarella

baby plum tomatoes, yellow

sun-dried tomatoes, preferably San Marzano

If making at home without a pizza oven, preheat a fan oven to 250C. Stretch and shape one 250g ball of pizza dough (see below) into a disc, leaving the edges slightly thicker than the centre

Evenly distribute the mozzarella and Grana Padano all over the pizza. Arrange some sun-dried tomatoes and yellow plum tomatoes over the surface of the pizza and cook in the pizza oven for about 90 seconds (or in the fan oven for 6-7 minutes).

Remove from the oven, drizzle over some extra virgin olive oil and serve with some more shavings of Grana Padano.

Franco Pepes pizza dough

Makes 10 pizza bases

Time: 60 minutes, plus 6 hours first proof and 3 hours second proof

1900g 00 flour

1l water

150g leftover pizza dough

50g salt

5g fresh yeast

Place 40 per cent of the flour in the corner of a wooden kneading trough (or wooden box or bowl). In the opposite corner, slowly pour in the water.

Read more The 22 best pizza places in London, ranked by price Add the old dough and mix thoroughly until dissolved. After this, add the salt and again mix until dissolved. Incorporate the flour until the mixture has a batter-like consistency. At this stage, crumble in the fresh yeast.

Keep mixing and adding the remaining flour until it is all used up, then knead for another 15 minutes until the dough is smooth and consistent. Cover and leave to prove for 6 hours at room temperature.
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The biggest phone show of the year, Mobile World Congress (MWC), will take place in Barcelona between 27 February and 2 March, providing a platform for technology giants such as Samsung, LG and Sony to unveil their latest wares.

A number of high-profile gadgets are expected to launch at MWC, including smartwatches, tablets and several flagship smartphones.

Many of the companies in attendance have already sent out invitations for their respective launch events, and weve seen plenty of speculation about the upcoming announcements.

Our breakdown of the launches lined up for MWC 2017 follows, but first it's worth knowing what won't happen at the event.

The sheer scale of MWC means that getting your head around every companies plans can be a bit of a pain. However, while the show is primarily focused around major phone launches, there will be a number of notable absentees.

Apple, for instance, will not be in attendance. The company stays away from trade shows, preferring to unveil new software, MacBooks and models of the iPhone at its own events later in the year.

Google, meanwhile, will be around to plug the Android operating system by supporting its manufacturing partners. Like Apple, it will save the launch of the next version of Android and its Pixel products for another occasion.

Gadget and tech news: In pictures Show all 25 1 /25 Gadget and tech news: In pictures Gadget and tech news: In pictures Gun-toting humanoid robot sent into space Russia has launched a humanoid robot into space on a rocket bound for the International Space Station (ISS). The robot Fedor will spend 10 days aboard the ISS practising skills such as using tools to fix issues onboard. Russia's deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin has previously shared videos of Fedor handling and shooting guns at a firing range with deadly accuracy. Dmitry Rogozin/Twitter Gadget and tech news: In pictures Google turns 21 Google celebrates its 21st birthday on September 27. The The search engine was founded in September 1998 by two PhD students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, in their dormitories at Californias Stanford University. Page and Brin chose the name google as it recalled the mathematic term 'googol', meaning 10 raised to the power of 100 Google Gadget and tech news: In pictures Hexa drone lifts off Chief engineer of LIFT aircraft Balazs Kerulo demonstrates the company's "Hexa" personal drone craft in Lago Vista, Texas on June 3 2019 Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures Project Scarlett to succeed Xbox One Microsoft announced Project Scarlett, the successor to the Xbox One, at E3 2019. The company said that the new console will be 4 times as powerful as the Xbox One and is slated for a release date of Christmas 2020 Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures First new iPod in four years Apple has announced the new iPod Touch, the first new iPod in four years. The device will have the option of adding more storage, up to 256GB Apple Gadget and tech news: In pictures Folding phone may flop Samsung will cancel orders of its Galaxy Fold phone at the end of May if the phone is not then ready for sale. The $2000 folding phone has been found to break easily with review copies being recalled after backlash PA Gadget and tech news: In pictures Charging mat non-starter Apple has cancelled its AirPower wireless charging mat, which was slated as a way to charge numerous apple products at once AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures "Super league" India shoots down satellite India has claimed status as part of a "super league" of nations after shooting down a live satellite in a test of new missile technology EPA Gadget and tech news: In pictures 5G incoming 5G wireless internet is expected to launch in 2019, with the potential to reach speeds of 50mb/s Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Uber halts driverless testing after death Uber has halted testing of driverless vehicles after a woman was killed by one of their cars in Tempe, Arizona. March 19 2018 Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie 'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway resembling the giant panda is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway, resembling a giant panda, is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A concept car by Trumpchi from GAC Group is shown at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A Mirai fuel cell vehicle by Toyota is displayed at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A visitor tries a Nissan VR experience at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A man looks at an exhibit entitled 'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A new Israeli Da-Vinci unmanned aerial vehicle manufactured by Elbit Systems is displayed during the 4th International conference on Home Land Security and Cyber in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv Getty

What to expect

Samsung

The South Korean firm usually dominates MWC, but circumstances are rather different this year. The company has decided to push back the launch of the Galaxy S8 to late March, because of the fallout surrounding the disastrous Galaxy Note 7.

Instead, its expected to unveil a rival to the the iPad Pro in Barcelona, the Galaxy Tab S3. Set to launch at 7pm CET on 26 February, its unlikely to generate the same levels of interest as the S8, but could prove an excellent addition to Samsungs range.

The Tab S2 was announced back in 2015, so Samsungs had plenty of time to think up ways to improve it. Details about the Tab S3 are hazy right now, but its likely to be a '2-in-1' rather than a pure tablet, and is rumoured to be just 5.6mm thick and feature a 9.6-inch screen and Android Nougat.

(underKG (underKG)

LG

Samsungs abnormally low-key plans open the door for another South Korean giant to take the spotlight. The LG G6 is one of the most highly anticipated phones of the year, not least because of the failure of the G5.

LG took an enormous risk by making a modular flagship handset last year, and it didnt pay off. The LG G5 was totally different to its rivals, a breath of fresh air for consumers bored of manufacturers embracing increasingly similar design schemes, but it ended up being completely overshadowed by the likes of the S7 and iPhone 7, which werent dissimilar to 2015s S6 and iPhone 6.

LG appears to have dropped the modular approach for the G6, which is expected to launch at 12pm CET on 26 February and use a 5.7-inch, 2,880 x 1,440 display with an unusual 18:9 aspect ratio, ideal for running two apps simultaneously. It's also shed light on the core features it claims users most want, highlighting waterproofing, a wide-angle camera and a compact body, so it will be surprising if the G6 didnt include all three.

The latest teaser from the company points to the inclusion of an AI assistant, but we don't know whether this would be an existing one, such as Google Assistant or Alexa, or a new once created by LG itself.

The Huawei P9 new phone has two cameras on the rear, to allow users to change the focus of pictures after they've been taken (Huawei)

Huawei

Though Huawei has sent out invitations for an event kicking off at 2pm CET on 26 February, which will see it launch a new flagship device, were not totally convinced that the P10 will see the light of day in Barcelona.

The P7, P8 and P9 were all launched after MWC, and with Huawei gaining serious ground on its more established smartphone rivals in the UK, a change in strategy doesnt exactly seem necessary. Whats more, the excellent Mate 9 only came out last month, and the company wouldnt want its two best smartphones to compete with each other.

Huawei could instead unveil a new tablet or wearable. A follow-up to the Huawei Watch, arguably the best-looking Android Wear watch, certainly isnt out of the question.

Nokia

Nokia hasnt given up on a dream return to greatness, and itll be hoping to kickstart its recovery with the launch of a handset many believe to be called the Nokia 8, at a conference lined up for 4.30pm CET on 26 February.

Rumours suggest it will have strong photography credentials, using a 24-megapixel sensor with Optical Image Stabilisation. Its also said to feature a large QHD display, a metal body and waterproofing.

The company's also expected to resurrect the Nokia 3310, perhaps the best-loved and most resilient phone in history. The mobile was released 17 years ago, and has achieved legendary status thanks to its toughness, iconic design and Snake, which you can also play on modern smartphones.

Motorola

Now under the control of Lenovo, the Motorola brand is a dominant force at the cheaper end of the smartphone market. Its likely to expand the fantastic G line by launching the new G5 at MWC at 4.30pm CET on 26 February.

Many of the rumours weve seen surrounding the phone have conflicted with each other - even the handsets name is in doubt, with suggestions that it could actually be called the Moto X or Moto Z - so were not going to stick our necks on the line with this one.

If the next Moto phone is anywhere near as enticing a package as the sub-200 G4 though, consumers should be excited.

Sony

Sonys smartphone strategy has been nothing short of a mess in recent years. The company has left much of the industry confused by frequent releases of both flagship and mid-range handsets, few of which have actually impressed.

The latest? Unfortunately, Sonys scattergun approach appears to still be intact. Rumours suggest its preparing to launch five new smartphones at MWC at an event scheduled for 8.30am on 27 February, two of which will be high-end models.

One of these is largely expected to be called the Xperia X2, and come with an impressive 5.5-inch 4K screen and a possible 6GB of RAM. Another Sony handset could feature a 5.5-inch QHD screen and 4GB of RAM, while another could use a 5.2-inch 1080p screen, 4GB of RAM and a 23-megapixel primary camera.
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At least five people have been accidentally infected with HIV at a hospital in China after a doctor reused dirty needles during treatment.

The doctor at the Chinese medicine hospital in the eastern city of Hangzhou is under criminal investigation, according to the local health authority.

The government statement said a "serious medical incident" had occurred at the Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, reported the South China Morning Post.

The AIDS-causing virus is believed to have spread when the doctor violated procedure by failing to dispose of syringes after use, transferring the infection from one HIV positive patient to at least five others.

Internet users in China reacted with shock to the news, stoking long-standing fears HIV could be spread by poor medical practice.

However, most media reports and social media posts published in Chinese about the incident were swiftly censored, according to AFP.

World Aids Day 2015 around the world - in pictures Show all 9 1 /9 World Aids Day 2015 around the world - in pictures World Aids Day 2015 around the world - in pictures Indian NGO volunteers light candles in the shape of a ribbon during an awareness rally on the eve of World Aids Day in Agartala, the capital of northeastern state of Tripura, India World Aids Day 2015 around the world - in pictures Government health workers wear masks as they display a streamer during a World Aids Day celebration in Manila, Philippines REUTERS/Erik De Castro World Aids Day 2015 around the world - in pictures Filipino women wear colourful costumes during a World Aids Day celebration in Manila REUTERS/Erik De Castro World Aids Day 2015 around the world - in pictures Indonesian students hold a rally to increase awareness of HIV and AIDS at a university in Surabaya JUNI KRISWANTOJUNI KRISWANTO/AFP/Getty Images World Aids Day 2015 around the world - in pictures An Indian college student poses alongside placards during an event at a local hospital to raise awareness about AIDS on the occasion of World Aids Day AFP PHOTO STR/AFP/Getty Images World Aids Day 2015 around the world - in pictures People Living with HIV AIDS (PLHA) lie on the street during a protest demanding the revival of focus on India's AIDS programme which has been on the decline in the past few years, in New Delhi AFP PHOTO / SAJJAD HUSSAINSAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP/Getty Images World Aids Day 2015 around the world - in pictures A red ribbon placed at the Puerta de Alcala in Madrid, Spain, by the Collective of Lesbians, Gays, Transexuals and Bisexuals of Madrid (COGAM) EPA/J.P. GANDUL World Aids Day 2015 around the world - in pictures South Korean middle school students hold umbrellas as they form a giant red ribbon during a ceremony to mark World AIDS Day in Seoul AFP PHOTO / JUNG YEON-JEJUNG YEON-JE/AFP/Getty Images World Aids Day 2015 around the world - in pictures Pakistani people hold placards as they attend a rally to create awareness in Peshawar Arshad Arbab/EPA

The health authority said it had learned of the five infections on 26 January, but did not disclose how many people might have been exposed to the virus in total, or what the original treatments were for.

The Independent has contacted the large hospital, whose website claims it is "well known nationwide for its longest history and largest scale with the best technical capacity in Zhejiang Province", for comment.

Hangzhou, in Zhejiang province, is around 100 miles from Shanghai.

China had around 500,000 cases of HIV and AIDS at the end of 2014, according to a 2015 UN report, and the Chinese government has announced new efforts to contain the spread of the virus with a five-year plan.

In 1990, thousands of people contracted HIV amid an infected blood-selling scandal in the central Henan province.
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First-born children are more intelligent than their siblings because they receive more mental stimulation in their early years, new research has shown.

Confirming the suspicions of eldest brothers and sisters everywhere, University of Edinburgh economists found first-borns achieve higher IQ test scores from as young as one year old.

The researchers, collaborating with a team from from Sydney University, examined data from 5,000 children who were given reading and picture vocabulary tests every two years.

By analysing the results in relation to parental behaviour, they found first-borns were given more support with tasks that involve thinking, and subsequently scored better on the tests.

The differences in test scores increased slightly with age, according to the study published in the Journal of Human Resources, which looked at childrens mental progress from pre-birth to age 14.

All children were found to receive the same level of emotional support, but parents appeared to spend less time on brain-stimulating activities with their younger children, took part in fewer activities with them such as reading, crafts and music.

Parents were also more likely to take increased risks, such as smoking more, after the birth of their second child.

Dr Ana Nuevo-Chiquero, who led the research, said the results could be used to explain differences in achievement observed in education and employment later in life.

Previous studies have shown first-borns to be more successful and ambitious. Researchers at the University of Essex found that within a family, first-borns are 16 per cent more likely to pursue higher education than their younger siblings.

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However, first-borns are also more likely to be short-sighted than their younger counterparts and are 20 per cent more likely to have severe myopia.

This could also be because of the length of time parents dedicate to their education, according to research published in the journal Jama Ophthalmology.

The University of Edinburgh and Sydney University study used data collected by the US Bureau of Labour Statistics, but experts have warned any results are generalities, which may or may not translate to individual families.
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The Government has failed to grasp the seriousness of severe pressures faced by NHS hospitals, the British Medical Association has said.

Waiting times at A&E departments hit record levels in December, NHS England data showed, with the lowest percentage of patients seen within four hours since the target was introduced 13 years ago.

More than 60,000 seriously ill patients spent more than four hours waiting on trolleys in December  and provisional data leaked to the BBC suggest figures for January could be even worse.

Doctors have warned of worsening conditions in overstretched hospitals, said to be at breaking point due to overwhelming demand and bed shortages.

The Governments target states that 95 per cent of A&E patients must be seen and either admitted or discharged in four hours, but in December just 86.2 per cent of patients waited four hours or less.

And of 1.4 million A&E visits in January, only 82 per cent were dealt with in the required time frame, according to a document prepared by regulator NHS Improvement and leaked to the BBC.

The government have so far failed to grasp the seriousness of the situation. The Prime Minister cannot continue to bury her head in the sand as care continues to worsen, said Mark Porter, chair of the British Medical Association council, in a statement.

 Theresa May acknowledges incidents of 'unacceptable practice' in NHS

When social care isnt available, patients experience delays in moving from hospital to appropriate ongoing care settings  preventing patients being admitted at the front end in A&E. These trolley waits are a desperate sign of a system under too much pressure, he said.

The government must urgently look at the long-term funding, capacity and recruitment issues facing the system as a whole if we are to get to grips with the pressures the NHS faces year in, year out, but which are compounded during the winter months.

The leaked figures for January also reportedly suggest a record high for people waiting more than 12 hours in A&E departments to be seen.

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In December 550 patients spent more than 12 hours waiting in A&E  up from last springs high of 349 in March 2016, but less than the 650 recorded in January 2015.

Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, told the BBC: These figures have not been verified and should therefore be treated with caution, but they are in line with the feedback we have been getting from trusts.

NHS staff have responded magnificently to increased winter pressures, but the situation has become unsustainable. The rise in long trolley waits is particularly worrying, as there is clear evidence they can lead to worse outcomes for patients.

Hospitals have not hit the target nationally since the summer of 2015.

Screaming blue murder: We join a London Ambulance crew for the busiest nightshift of the year Show all 4 1 /4 Screaming blue murder: We join a London Ambulance crew for the busiest nightshift of the year Screaming blue murder: We join a London Ambulance crew for the busiest nightshift of the year 284491.bin IMMO KLINK Screaming blue murder: We join a London Ambulance crew for the busiest nightshift of the year 284492.bin IMMO KLINK Screaming blue murder: We join a London Ambulance crew for the busiest nightshift of the year 284493.bin IMMO KLINK Screaming blue murder: We join a London Ambulance crew for the busiest nightshift of the year 284494.bin IMMO KLINK

A Department of Health spokesman stressed that the data for January was yet to be verified.

He said: We do not recognise these figures  it is irresponsible to publish unverified data and does a disservice to all NHS staff working tirelessly to provide care around the clock.

Despite the pressures of winter the vast majority of patients are seen and treated quickly and hospitals have detailed plans in place to manage busy periods  supported by an extra 400m of funding.

John Appleby, director of research at health charity the Nuffield Trust, said the figures paint a stark picture of the very real pressures facing NHS hospitals across the country.

The most striking statistic is that 61,000 patients were stuck on trolleys for more than four hours in December  the highest since these statistics were first published in 2010 and extremely worrying for patients and their families.

At some hospitals overcrowding has reached such high levels that nurses are treating patients in corridors.

Janet Davies, head of the Royal College of Nursing, told The Independent the organisation had heard from nurses across the country who are working in badly overcrowded hospitals, striving to give the best care they can in extremely difficult circumstances.

Its an understatement to say that treating patients and holding what are often very personal discussions in a corridor is unacceptable, she said.

Footage taken by the BBC showed patients waiting more than four hours to be seen at Royal Blackburn Hospital, where at one point last week 33 beds were available for 95 seriously ill people.
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One day students at Pennsylvanias Wharton Business School will write theses on the brand impact of an association with the presidency of Donald Trump. Some of them will focus on one of the schools most high profile alumni: his daughter Ivanka.

Ms Trump was at the centre of the Presidents latest ethics controversy, when he launched one of his patented Twitter broadsides at Nordstrom, a fancy retailer which recently dropped the Ivanka Trump brand as a result of its failure to perform.

My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person  always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible! he snarled.

The ethics debate centres on the President intervening with the aim of boosting his daughters company. In reality, by further entwining her name with his, he might just have put the final nail in its coffin.

Ivanka Trump is a very modern business, that relies solely on the image portrayed by its glamorous founder and the willingness among her target market  young working women  to buy into her by wearing her name.

Unfortunately the name is all the business really has and she cant easily change it. This isnt like Cosmair becoming LOreal USA. Without Ivanka Trump, theres nothing there.

Ms Trump built the brand, and its image, by saying things like: Im incredibly proud to play a small role in debunking this caricature of what a working woman looks like, in creating content thats actionable, thats tip-orientated, for this young working woman that encourages her to architect a life that she wants to live.

 Sean Spicer says an attack on Ivanka's clothing line is an attack on the President

No, Im really not sure what that means either. It feels like she wants to be seen to care about her target market but is struggling to say so, perhaps because the world she lives in is so completely divorced from the world of the average working woman. And perhaps because she knows that, deep down, hers isnt the mission-led business she likes to claim. Its just about making a buck.

But thats just my view, and up until very recently, the strategy has undeniably worked. Those vague statements have imparted a vaguely positive, aspirational quality to clothes and shoes made in China. They have put the brand up alongside other vaguely aspirational names that sell similar clothes and shoes made on the same production lines.

Until The Donald embarked on a political career and it became obvious that he was the antithesis to all that slightly woolly positivity, even before his despicable comments about women were made public.

Brand Ivankas demographic is made up of a group of people who may very well feel Mr Trump to be their Kryptonite. And if they dont, their friends probably do.

With a wide field of alternatives that dont have the potential to be seen as a faux pas at a working lunch when you wear them, why take the risk of buying Ivanka? Especially now the President has further entwined Ms Trumps brand with his own.

 Kellyanne Conway tells Americans to 'go buy Ivanka's stuff'

Nordstroms decision wasnt made as a comment on that. It was something the President really ought to understand: a cool-headed business choice to remove from the shelves a brand that had stopped selling. Unlike previous businesses that have been made Trump tweet targets, Nordstroms shares have done just fine.

As for Ms Trump, she had, of course, stepped back from the brand and from her previous role at the Trump Organisation, partly because she has taken an ill-defined role in her fathers administration while her husband Jared Kushner has joined his leadership council as a loyal lieutenant.

Whether there will be anything for her to return to when that role ends is now open to question.

Business news: In pictures Show all 13 1 /13 Business news: In pictures Business news: In pictures Flybe collapses Airline Flybe has collapsed. All future flights on the Exeter-based airline have been cancelled  leaving more than 2,300 staff facing an uncertain future, and wrecking the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers. The chief executive, Mark Anderson, said: Europes largest independent regional airline has been unable to overcome significant funding challenges to its business. AFP via Getty Business news: In pictures Future product placement will be 'tailored to individual viewers' Marketing executives say that product placement in films and televison shows on streaming services such as Netflix may be tailored to individuals in future. For instance, if data shows that a viewer is a fan of pepsi, a billboard in the background of a shot would host an advert for pepsi, while for a viewer known to have different tastes it could be for Coca-Cola Paramount Business news: In pictures Corbyn wishes Amazon a happy birthday In a card sent to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on the company's 25th birthday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn writes: "You owe the British people millions in taxes that pay for the public services that we all rely on. Please pay your fair share" Business news: In pictures No deal, no tariffs The government has announced that it would slash almost all tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Notable exceptions include cars and meat, which will see tariffs in place to protect British farmers Getty Business news: In pictures Fingerprint payment NatWest is trialling a new bank card that will allow people to touch their hand to the card when paying rather than typing in a PIN number. The card will work by recognising the user's fingerprint NatWest/PA Wire Business news: In pictures Mahabis bust High-end slipper retailer Mahabis has gone into administration. 2 Jan 2019 Mahabis Business news: In pictures Costa Cola Coca-Cola has paid 3.9bn for Costa Coffee. A cafe chain is a new venture for the global soft drinks giant PA Business news: In pictures RIP Payday Loans A funeral procession for payday loans was held in London on September 2. The future of pay day lenders is in doubt after Wonga, Britain's biggest, went into administration on August 30 PA Business news: In pictures Musk irks investors and directors Elon Musk has concluded that Tesla will remain public. Investors and company directors were angry at Musk for tweeting unexpectedly that he was considering taking Tesla private and share prices had taken a tumble in the following weeks Getty Business news: In pictures Jaguar warning Iconic British car maker Jaguar Land Rover warned on July 5, 2018 that a "bad" Brexit deal could jeopardise planned investment of more than $100 billion, upping corporate pressure as the government heads into crucial talks AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures Spotif-IPO Spotify traded publically for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. However, the company isn't issuing shares, but rather, shares held by Spotify's private investors will be sold AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures French blue passports The deadline to award a contract to make blue British passports after Brexit has been extended by two weeks following a request by bidder De La Rue. The move comes after anger at the announcement British passports would be produced by Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto when De La Rues contract ends in July. The British firm said Gemalto was chosen only because it undercut the competition, but the UK company also admitted that it was not the cheapest choice in the tendering process. Business news: In pictures Beast from the east economic impact The Beast from the East wiped 4m off of Flybes revenues due to flight cancellations, airport closures and delays, according to the budget airlines estimates. Flybe said it cancelled 994 flights in the three months to 31 March, compared to 372 in the same period last year.

Of course, she could always set up a new brand. It worked for Gerald Ratner, after the UK jeweller damaged the business that bore his surname with some spectacularly ill-advised comments that were mild by comparison to what the President says daily.

He resurfaced in the same sector, using the brand Gerald with some success. If Ivanka wants to follow his lead she might want to try using her middle name.

Or she could just take up her old role at the Trump Organisation. It has been trying out a new name of its own: Scion.
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First came zucchini and eggplant shortages. Then Iceberg lettuce disappeared from European grocery shelves.

Now erratic weather in Spain and Italy, the world's biggest producers, is rippling through global olive oil markets, and it's about to get worse. Prices for extra virgin olive oil in Italy have soared almost one-third since October to 5.75 ($6.15) a kilogramme, while Spanish costs jumped about 10 per cent, according to the International Olive Council in Madrid.

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The forecasters at Mintec in England see room for even further gains. Nowhere is the surge felt more than Britain. Thanks to the Brexit-induced collapse of the pound, olive oil is the most expensive it's been in at least seven years. Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver is closing six of his Italian restaurants around the country after the currency's crash drove up costs.

"Olive oil is expensive and very much in the hands of nature," said Mr Oliver. "The really good stuff is worth every penny. You pretty much charge the oil per tablespoon, like you would foie gras or caviar."

Chef Ben Tish, who runs Salt Yard, a Spanish and Italian tapas restaurant in central London, says he normally buys 100 litres of olive oil per week to drizzle over charcoal grilled flat breads,whip into alioli, and pour into a polenta cake batter.

His price rose 13 per cent to 26 ($32.70) for five litres, from 23 over the past three months.Prices have become more volatile because of erratic weather in the past few years, and global production is set to drop about 8 per cent this season, according to Bourne End-based Mintec.

Hot, muggy weather in Italy attracted olive fruit flies and helped bacteria to flourish, damaging groves. The nation's production is expected to plunge as much as 50% this season. In Greece, last spring's heat waves are poised to cut output by about one-fourth.

Floods in Andalusia, Spain's main growing region, ruined its harvest.At the same time demand is increasing from China and other emerging markets. Spanish producers have had to drain stockpiles to meet export orders, including to the US.

How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Show all 8 1 /8 How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Weetabix Chief executive of Weetabix Giles Turrell has warned that the price of one of the nations favourite breakfast are likely to go up this year by low-single digits in percentage terms. Reuters How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Nescafe The cost of a 100g jar of Nescafe Original at Sainsburys has gone up 40p from 2.75 to 3.15  a 14 per cent risesince the Brexit vote. PA How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Freddo When contacted by The Independent this month, a Mondelez spokesperson declined to discuss specific brands but confirmed that there would be "selective" price increases across its range despite the American multi-national confectionery giant reporting profits of $548m (450m) in its last three-month financial period. Mondelez, which bought Cadbury in 2010, said rising commodity costs combined with the slump in the value of the pound had made its products more expensive to make. Cadbury How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Mr Kipling cakes Premier Foods, the maker of Mr Kipling and Bisto gravy, said that it was considering price rises on a case-by-case basis Reuters How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Walkers Crisps Walkers, owned by US giant PepsiCo, said "the weakened value of the pound" is affecting the import cost of some of its materials. A Walkers spokesman told the Press Association that a 32g standard bag was set to increase from 50p to 55p, and the larger grab bag from 75p to 80p. Getty How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Marmite Tesco removed Marmite and other Unilever household brand from its website last October, after the manufacturer tried to raise its prices by about 10 per cent owing to sterlings slump. Tesco and Unilever resolved their argument, but the price of Marmite has increased in UK supermarkets with the grocer reporting a 250g jar of Marmite will now cost Morrisons customers 2.64 - an increase of 12.5 per cent. Rex How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Toblerone Toblerone came under fire in November after it increased the space between the distinctive triangles of its bars. Mondelez International, the company which makes the product, said the change was made due to price rises in recent months. Pixabay How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Maltesers Maltesers, billed as the lighter way to enjoy chocolate, have also shrunk in size. Mars, which owns the brand, has reduced its pouch weight by 15 per cent. Mars said rising costs mean it had to make the unenviable decision between increasing its prices or reducing the weight of its Malteser packs. iStockphoto

The country imports more than 300,000 tons of olive oil a year, more than half of which comes from Italy and Spain. US consumers have so far enjoyed lower prices thanks to a stronger dollar.

Jacob Kenedy, owner of popular Italian restaurant Bocca di Lupo in London, said the importers he uses have absorbed most of that cost, but he can't get his usual brand. Italian Chef Francesco Mazzei, who runs Sartoria in London's Mayfair, says he had to raise prices.

"Olive oil is becoming a luxury," said Mr Mazzei.

Bloomberg
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Major global brands are unknowingly funding Islamic extremists and white supremacists by advertising on their websites, according to a report.

An investigation by the Times shows that adverts by large companies, universities and charities are appearing on hate sites and alongside YouTube videos run by supporters of terror groups such as Islamic State and Combat 18, a violent pro-Nazi faction.

Those adverts are likely to generate tens of thousands of pounds a month for the extremist groups, according to the paper. An advert appearing with a YouTube video typically earns whoever posts the video $7.60 for every 1,000 views. The most popular extremist videos have more than one million hits.

Big advertising agencies, which frequently place adverts on behalf of their clients, have already faced criticism in the past for pushing brands into online advertising to bolster their own profits.

The Times says that corporations are concerned that they are paying huge mark-ups for digital promotion and receiving crappy advertising in return.

And analysis done by the Times shows that blacklists which are designed to prevent digital adverts from popping up next to extremist content, are not working.

The paper says that a YouTube advert for a Mercedes E-Class car, for example, runs next to a pro-Isis video that had been viewed more than 115,000 times.

Similar adverts by companies including Honda, Thomson Reuters, Halifax, the Victoria & Albert Museum, Liverpool University, Argos, Churchill Retirement and Waitrose also appear on extremist YouTube videos, according to the Times.

Many of the companies said that they were unaware of and deeply concerned by their presence of their adverts on extremist sites.

Google, the owner of Youtube, told the Times that it had taken down some of the videos after being alerted by the Times.

The Times reported that six top advertising agencies had each denied any wrongdoing.

A Google spokesperson told The Independent: When it comes to content on YouTube, we remove flagged videos that break our rules and have a zero tolerance policy for content that incites violence or hatred.

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. 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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

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Goldman Sachs Investment Partners, which opened in 2008 with one of the biggest launches in hedge fund history, is folding its London operations into the United States and shifting staff members to New York, four sources told Reuters.

About eight staff members who made up the London team were recently told to move to the Battery Park City headquarters of Goldman Sachs Group in lower Manhattan or find a new job internally, the sources said.

A Goldman spokesman confirmed the move but not the details, adding that the reasons for the staff shift were not related to Brexit.

Recommended Goldman Sachs boss issues Brexit warning to Theresa May

This is a discrete decision for reasons specific to GSIP, one investment team within Goldman Sachs, and shouldnt be construed as anything but that, he said.

The move was triggered by managing director Nick Advani, who led the hedge funds London operations, the sources said. He said in June he would be stepping down from his role, they said, requesting anonymity because they are not authorised to speak to the media.

Advani, now an advisory director at Goldman, did not respond to requests for comment. Advani is expected to leave the firm later this year, the sources said.

Managing director Raluca Ragab, who had been formally leading the London-based team since Advanis departure, will also leave Goldman once the move is complete, one of the sources said. Ragabs departure is for personal reasons, one of the sources added.

Multi-strategy hedge fund GSIP launched in November 2008 with $7bn (5.5bn) in assets, one of the largest hedge fund launches at the time. GSIP, run globally by co-heads Raanan Agus and Kenneth Eberts, sits within Goldman's asset management division.

But a focus on value investing with around 20 positions mainly in equities became more challenging in recent years, a former employee told Reuters.

GSIPs Global Long Short Partners Offshore fund posted losses of 8.2 per cent in the year to end-September in 2016 after small gains of 1.5 per cent in 2015, according to an investor letter reviewed by Reuters.

Business news: In pictures Show all 13 1 /13 Business news: In pictures Business news: In pictures Flybe collapses Airline Flybe has collapsed. All future flights on the Exeter-based airline have been cancelled  leaving more than 2,300 staff facing an uncertain future, and wrecking the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers. The chief executive, Mark Anderson, said: Europes largest independent regional airline has been unable to overcome significant funding challenges to its business. AFP via Getty Business news: In pictures Future product placement will be 'tailored to individual viewers' Marketing executives say that product placement in films and televison shows on streaming services such as Netflix may be tailored to individuals in future. For instance, if data shows that a viewer is a fan of pepsi, a billboard in the background of a shot would host an advert for pepsi, while for a viewer known to have different tastes it could be for Coca-Cola Paramount Business news: In pictures Corbyn wishes Amazon a happy birthday In a card sent to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on the company's 25th birthday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn writes: "You owe the British people millions in taxes that pay for the public services that we all rely on. Please pay your fair share" Business news: In pictures No deal, no tariffs The government has announced that it would slash almost all tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Notable exceptions include cars and meat, which will see tariffs in place to protect British farmers Getty Business news: In pictures Fingerprint payment NatWest is trialling a new bank card that will allow people to touch their hand to the card when paying rather than typing in a PIN number. The card will work by recognising the user's fingerprint NatWest/PA Wire Business news: In pictures Mahabis bust High-end slipper retailer Mahabis has gone into administration. 2 Jan 2019 Mahabis Business news: In pictures Costa Cola Coca-Cola has paid 3.9bn for Costa Coffee. A cafe chain is a new venture for the global soft drinks giant PA Business news: In pictures RIP Payday Loans A funeral procession for payday loans was held in London on September 2. The future of pay day lenders is in doubt after Wonga, Britain's biggest, went into administration on August 30 PA Business news: In pictures Musk irks investors and directors Elon Musk has concluded that Tesla will remain public. Investors and company directors were angry at Musk for tweeting unexpectedly that he was considering taking Tesla private and share prices had taken a tumble in the following weeks Getty Business news: In pictures Jaguar warning Iconic British car maker Jaguar Land Rover warned on July 5, 2018 that a "bad" Brexit deal could jeopardise planned investment of more than $100 billion, upping corporate pressure as the government heads into crucial talks AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures Spotif-IPO Spotify traded publically for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. However, the company isn't issuing shares, but rather, shares held by Spotify's private investors will be sold AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures French blue passports The deadline to award a contract to make blue British passports after Brexit has been extended by two weeks following a request by bidder De La Rue. The move comes after anger at the announcement British passports would be produced by Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto when De La Rues contract ends in July. The British firm said Gemalto was chosen only because it undercut the competition, but the UK company also admitted that it was not the cheapest choice in the tendering process. Business news: In pictures Beast from the east economic impact The Beast from the East wiped 4m off of Flybes revenues due to flight cancellations, airport closures and delays, according to the budget airlines estimates. Flybe said it cancelled 994 flights in the three months to 31 March, compared to 372 in the same period last year.

Last September, three of the fund's top five credit positions were in the Europe Middle East and Africa region, according to the letter.

GSIPs assets fell in 2014 after Goldman pulled out $2.8bn (2.2bn) in response to the US Dodd-Frank financial reform law and the Volcker rule, which restricted banks proprietary trading. The fund now manages around $3.5bn (2.8bn).

Separately, Goldman may move up to 1,000 staff out of London in response to Britains vote to leave the European Union, it was reported last month.

Reuters
'Spider-Man: Homecoming' rumors: Eddie Brock, Norman Osborn coming to the MCU; New Iron Man armor revealed, Ned Leeds to play a vital role in the film!

Robert Downey Jr. reprises his role as Tony Stark/Iron Man in "Spider-Man: Homecoming". (Photo : Facebook)

The latest details and spoilers for "Spider-Man: Homecoming" will feature a new Iron Man armor, Ned Leeds role and two Spider-Man villains coming to the MCU.



It seems that Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) might showcase a new armor in "Spider-Man: Homecoming" as Hasbro's new line of Marvel Legends toy sets revealed Tony's latest armor having a key resemblance to the Ultimate Iron Man in the Ultimate Marvel comics.



Advertisement

Other figures in the "Spider-Man: Homecoming" Marvel Legends figures include a Spider-Man Web Wings Suit figure, a Spider-Man Homemade Suit figure, and a Spider-Man and Iron 2-Pack. Each pack contains one piece necessary to complete the Vulture with Flight Gear Build-A-Figure, ComicBook reported.



It is no secret that iron Man will play an important role in Peter Parker/Spider-Man's (Tom Hollands) life as he keeps an eye on him and tries to mentor him on how to be a better hero. Tony first found out that Peter was Spider-Man before the events "Captain America: Civil War" and went to his home in Queens, New York to recruit him, even giving him a new suit before their battle with Captain America's (Chris Evans) forces.



Tony plays similar to Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) in a way tries to help him out and tries to take pause, begins practically assessing his new wards suitability for the Avengers and tries to keep Peter in check, showing signs of maturity in his part.



Co-producer Eric Hauserman Carroll stated that Peter's participation in "Captain America: Civil War" had a huge mental effect in his life as he not only saw the Avengers, he wants to join them, but has reponsibilities as a student and he is stuck in the situation, hence his desperate need to prove himself to Tony as a future member of the team.



Tony on the other hand, tries to be a the father figure in Peters life. And while it is to some degree one-sided, with Peter clearly reading more into the relationship, with him being just a teenager, Tony has some clear affection for his young ward as he allows Peter to keep the new Stark Industries suit and as they depart gives some convoluted hero advice, then, later on, begins to get much sterner, all in an attempt to keep the teenager safe.



There relationship could be the key point for Peter to overcome obstacles and to prove himself as he selfless hero and possibly future member of the Avengers.



In other news, Peter's bestfriend Ned Leeds (Jacob Batalon) will be helping him in "Spider-Man: Homecoming".



Ned Leeds is the first person from Peter's (Holland) school who discovered that he is Spider-Man by accident. Holland stated that Ned is a gamer in the film and will likely help Peter unlock the many features in Spidey's suit.



Aside from that, two Spider-Man characters could be debuting in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. According to Schmoes Know, someone in the Marvel comics will appear leave a huge impact in coming Spider-Man sequels in the MCU.



It is hinted that Norman Obsborn/Green Goblin or Eddie Brock/Venom could be appearing in the new Spider-Man films.These two villains are Spider-Man's greatest foes as Green Goblin was responsible for killing Gwen Stacy, Peter's first love and failure in the comics, while Venom has a deadly vendetta against him for abandoning the symbiote and for destroying Brock's career as a journalist.



"Spider-Man: Homecoming" will be release on July 7, 2017.


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Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has said that everyday life in Greece is unsustainable and that the countrys European creditors are going after the little people rather than corrupt oligarchs.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4s Today programme, the 55-year old economist said that the country has been put on a fiscal path which makes everyday life unsustainable in Greece.

The German finance minister agrees that no Greek government, however reformist it might be, can sustain the current debt obligations of Greece, he said. Earlier in the day, Wolfgang Schauble told German broadcaster ARD that Greece must reform or quit the euro.

Recommended IMF issues fresh warning on Greek debt

A country in desperate need of reform has been made unreformable by unsustainable macroeconomic policies, Mr Varoufakis said.

He said that instead of attacking the worst cases of corruption, for six years now the creditors have been after the little people, the small pharmacists, the very poor pensioners instead of going for the oligarchies.

Greece in 2010 was given a huge loan that Mr Varoufakis said was not designed to save the bankrupt country but to cynically transfer huge banking losses from the books of the Franco German banks onto the shoulders of the weakest taxpayers in Europe.

Earlier this week, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned Greeces debts are on an explosive path, despite years of economic reform.

Golden Dawn rally in Athens, Greece Show all 9 1 /9 Golden Dawn rally in Athens, Greece Golden Dawn rally in Athens, Greece Nikolaos Michaloliakos, leader of the Golden Dawn party, addresses supporters in front of the party's offices in Athens during the commemoration of the death of three officers in 1996 during the Imia crisis that brought Greece and Turkey to the brink of war Getty Images Golden Dawn rally in Athens, Greece Supporters of Greece's far-right Golden Dawn party lift torches and wave national and party flags during an annual rally to commemorate the 21st anniversary of the Imia dispute, in Athens, Greece Reuters Golden Dawn rally in Athens, Greece Golden Dawn supporters wave flags and chant slogans in front of the party's offices in Athens to commemorate the death of three officers in 1996 during the Imia crisis that brought Greece and Turkey to the brink of war Getty Golden Dawn rally in Athens, Greece Supporters of Greek ultra nationalist party Golden Dawn hold Greek national flags and torches during a gathering of Greek nationalists in central Athens, to commemorate the death of three Greek military officers Getty Images Golden Dawn rally in Athens, Greece Supporters of the Greek ultra nationalist party Golden Dawn hold Greek national flags and torches during a gathering of Greek nationalists in central Athens, to commemorate the death of three Greek military officers Getty Images Golden Dawn rally in Athens, Greece Protesters hold banners in a march to the US Embassy and to the offices of far-right wing party Golden Dawn, during an anti-fascist rally organized by leftist movements in Athens, Greece EPA Golden Dawn rally in Athens, Greece Protesters hold banners in a march to the US Embassy and to the offices of far-right wing party Golden Dawn, during an anti-fascist rally organized by leftist movements in Athens, Greece EPA Golden Dawn rally in Athens, Greece Supporters of Greece's extreme right Golden Dawn party raise torches during a rally commemorating a 1996 military incident which cost the lives of three Greek navy officers and brought Greece and Turkey to the brink of war, in Athens AP Golden Dawn rally in Athens, Greece Supporters of Greece's extreme right party Golden Dawn attend a rally in Athens AP

The IMF has insisted on additional debt relief and reduced fiscal targets before it participates financially in Greece's current bailout program. Germany, which faces national elections, has resisted such moves.

Statistics agency ELSTAT said on Thursday that Greece's jobless rate came in at 23 per cent in November, unchanged from the previous month. But although the jobless rate has come down from record highs, it remains more than double the euro zone's average of 9.8 per cent in November, according to Reuters.
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A man shouted youre dying mate as he stabbed his girlfriend to death while she phoned police.

Kevin ORegan, from London, has been jailed for life after being found guilty of murdering Donna Williamson in an alcohol and jealousy-fuelled attack.

Ms Williamson called a 999 operator in August last year, saying she was being beaten by O'Regan and he had picked up a knife, reports the Evening Standard.

She was screaming as the 37-year-old threatened her with the blade, then stabbed her twice in the heart and lungs while she was still on the phone.

When they arrived, police found Ms Williamsons body in the communal hallway of the couples flat, and the kitchen knife ORegan said he killed her with in the sink.

The Old Bailey heard ORegan had accused Ms Williamson of seeing other men in their flat.

Kevin ORegan will serve a minimum of 20 years in prison (Met Police)

Detective Inspector John McQuade said: "In court O'Regan claimed that Donna had reached for a knife and she had been stabbed accidentally as they struggled.

The jury chose to believe the prosecution's account that, fuelled by alcohol and jealousy, O'Regan attacked Donna that night.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 4 November 2022 A peacock is seen in the early winter sunshine in the Dutch Gardens in Holland Park AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 November 2022 A villager cooks roti bread at the site of the annual Camel Fair in Pushkar, in India's desert state of Rajasthan AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2022 People dressed in Halloween costumes paddle board along the river Avon in Christchurch, Dorset PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2022 Members of the public take pictures as police officers remove activists from a road during a Just Stop Oil protest, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA 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. 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"I am pleased at O'Regan's conviction and sentence for the sake of Donna's grieving family."

ORegan will serve a minimum of 20 years in prison.
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A man has been charged with racially aggravated assault after he allegedly kicked a pregnant Muslim woman in the stomach and caused her to lose her unborn twins.

David Gallacher, 37, is accused of assaulting the mum-to-be, who did not know she was expecting children, outside a Co-op store in Bletchley last August.

The unnamed woman, who is a mum-of-four, was forced to flee her home in fear as a result of the assault.

Mr Gallacher, of no fixed abode, also allegedly attacked a man who tried to intervene during the incident, Thames Valley Police said.

The female victim was taken to hospital where she was told she was carrying twins. Days later, doctors confirmed she was no longer pregnant.

Mr Gallacher will appear in front of magistrates in March charged with one count of assault causing actual bodily harm, one count of assault by beating, two counts of racially/religiously aggravated assault, and three counts of assaulting a police officer when he was arrested.

A spokesperson for Thames Valley Police said: The charges relate to two incidents. The first was on Saturday 6 August 2016, when two victims, a 34-year-old woman and a 40-year-old man were assaulted and racially abused by a man near the Co-op on Water Eaton Road, Bletchley."

They added that the second incident on 14 September related to "when three police officers were assaulted as they arrested a man."

Brexit racism and the fightback Show all 9 1 /9 Brexit racism and the fightback Brexit racism and the fightback Demonstrators protest against an increase in post-ref racism at London's March for Europe in July 2016 PA Brexit racism and the fightback These cards were found near a school in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, the day after the EU referendum Twitter/@howgilb Brexit racism and the fightback Getty Brexit racism and the fightback Romford, Essex, June 25 @diamondgeezer Brexit racism and the fightback A worker at this Romanian food shop was asleep upstairs at the time of this arson attack in Norwich on July 8, but escaped unharmed. Hundreds later participated in a love bombing rally outside the shop to express their opposition to racism and their support of the shop owners. JustGiving/Helen Linehan Brexit racism and the fightback This neo-Nazi sticker was spotted in Glasgow on June 26 Courtesy of Eoin Palmer Brexit racism and the fightback But after news emerged of neo-Nazi stickers appearing in Glasgow, some in the city struck back with slogans of their own. Courtesy of Eoin Palmer Brexit racism and the fightback Getty Brexit racism and the fightback More signs began to appear in some parts of the UK, created by people who wanted to show their opposition to post-referendum racism Courtesy of Bernadette Russell

Mr Gallacher has been bailed to appear at Milton Keynes Magistrates' Court on 14 March.

Community leaders had earlier criticised the polices response to the incident after officers took more than a month to release CCTV images of the attacker.

Within hours of the pictures being published, local people had named Mr Gallacher and reported him to police.

Defending the delay, the force said obtaining and viewing such footage can often take time.

The assault took place just yards from a mosque that was the subject a racist attack by far-right activists in 2013 after it was converted from a pub.

The building was firebombed the building and threw a pigs head on the roof.
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The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is investigating accusations a top police unit deleted a mass of files shortly after the announcement of a major probe that was to look into its activities.

The police watchdog is looking into claims that documents kept by the National Domestic Extremism and Disorder Intelligence Unit (NDEDIU) of the Metropolitan Police were shredded in May 2014  shortly after Theresa May, the then-Home Secretary, promised a full public inquiry into undercover policing practises.

Ms May was responding to allegations that undercover officers had spied on the family of Stephen Lawrence, the black teenager murdered in a racist attack in south London in 1993, and had kept detailed files on a range of political figures.

The latest IPCC inquiry will investigate whether the police shredded documents in the same year  2014  as they are accused of destroying files on a Green Party peer.

Baroness Jenny Jones has alleged that records relating to her were destroyed or deleted in June 2014. Ms Jones had been a member of a committee that oversaw the work of the Metropolitan Police.

A whistle-blower claimed officers had kept files on her but had later destroyed them to stop her finding out about them.

Announcing the latest investigation, an IPCC spokesperson: The IPCC can confirm that there is evidence which suggests documents were shredded after the Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI) was announced, and a specific Metropolitan Police instruction had been issued that documents should not be destroyed without express permission.

Long reins of the law: Do we still need a Mounted Branch of the Metropolitan Police? Show all 3 1 /3 Long reins of the law: Do we still need a Mounted Branch of the Metropolitan Police? Long reins of the law: Do we still need a Mounted Branch of the Metropolitan Police? 246147.bin WILL WINTERCROSS Long reins of the law: Do we still need a Mounted Branch of the Metropolitan Police? 246148.bin WILL WINTERCROSS Long reins of the law: Do we still need a Mounted Branch of the Metropolitan Police? 246149.bin WILL WINTERCROSS

Ms Jones case is now also subject to independent investigation and is a separate matter from the May 2014 documents, the IPCC said.

IPCC Deputy Chair Sarah Green said: While the evidence indicates that a large number of documents were shredded over a period of days in May 2014, the difficult task ahead for our investigators is to determine what the documentation was, why it was destroyed, whether electronic copies were kept and who may have ordered its destruction.

We are also examining what action the Metropolitan Police took once it was alerted, by a member of staff, to the allegations in December 2014.
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RAF jets have been scrambled to intercept Russian bomber planes that spent more than five hours skirting the edges of British airspace.

The Independent understands the Russian Tu-160 Blackjack bombers entered the UKs area of interest from the north-east at around 10am, flying between the Shetland and Faroe islands, then down the west coast of Ireland and over the Bay of Biscay.

French and Spanish aircraft took over the interception but the two planes then turned around to head towards Russia, flying back into the British militarys patch while heading north. The bombers passed the coast of the Outer Hebrides shortly after 3pm.

 Russian warships move through English Channel under Royal Navy watch

A Royal Air Force spokesman said: We can confirm that quick reaction alert Typhoon aircraft from RAF Lossiemouth and RAF Coningsby scrambled to monitor two Blackjack bombers while they were in the UK area of interest. At no point did the Russian aircraft enter UK territorial airspace.

The Typhoons were supported by a Voyager air-to-air refuelling aircraft from RAF Brize Norton for the mission, which lasted several hours.

Soviet-era Tupolev Tu-160s are the world's largest combat aircraft and have been modernised for the ability to carry long-range nuclear cruise missiles. It was unclear if the planes circling the UK on Thursday were armed.

The incident is the latest RAF deployment in response to Russian military manoeuvres, following the tracking of Russian warships that passed through the English Channel on their way to bomb Syria last year.

HMS St Albans (foreground), escorting Russian Warships Petr Velikiy (centre) and the Admiral Kuznetsov (background), as they pass through the English Channel on their way back to Russia (PA)

Russian bombers have skirted British airspace on numerous occasions, including last February when two Russian Blackjack bombers were escorted by the RAF.

Vladimir Putin has been accused of Cold War-style brinkmanship over a series of similar incidents with Nato aircraft across Europe, with more than 100 Russian planes intercepted in 2014 alone.

Both Russia and Nato have held extensive military drills, sparking accusations of warmongering directed at both sides.

The Russian embassy in London and Russias ministry of defence could not be reached for comment.

Update, 11 January:

The Russian Embassy has asked us to make clear that it did respond to The Independent's request for a comment in relation to the incident described above. However, it did so after the report had been published and its response was limited to providing a phone number for the Russian defence ministry; a number which had already been called without reply.
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The number of women in jail could rise amid a "revolving door" of release and return to custody, a new report claims.

Campaigners said probation reforms risk driving up the number of female prisoners.

Figures show the number of women recalled to custody following their release has increased by more than two-thirds (68 per cent) since the end of 2014, according to analysis by the Prison Reform Trust.

 Prisoners from HMP Swaleside capture disturbance from the inside

Under the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014, licence supervision was expanded so anyone sentenced to more than a day in jail is subject to at least 12 months' supervision on release.

Recommended Record number of prison inmates killed themselves last year

The PRT briefing also highlighted a rise in the use of suspended sentence orders, alongside a fall in the number of community penalties.

Jenny Earle, director of the charity's programme to reduce women's imprisonment, said: "Despite widespread and cross-party support for reducing women's imprisonment, there is a real risk women's prison numbers will be pushed up as the revolving door of breach and recall to custody spins faster.

"Reforms that were supposed to help women rebuild their lives are leading to even more pointless jail time.

The end of innocence: Inside Britain's child prisons Show all 6 1 /6 The end of innocence: Inside Britain's child prisons The end of innocence: Inside Britain's child prisons The end of innocence: Inside Britain's child prisons GETTY IMAGES The end of innocence: Inside Britain's child prisons GETTY IMAGES The end of innocence: Inside Britain's child prisons The end of innocence: Inside Britain's child prisons PA The end of innocence: Inside Britain's child prisons PA

"The Government has found 1.3 billion for new prisons, but community schemes across the country providing vital support for women in trouble battle to survive."

The report said the women's prison population more than doubled between 1995 and 2010. However, the number has fallen in recent years and now stands at below 4,000.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said the increase in the number of recalls coincides with changes that mean we are now monitoring more female offenders than ever before and providing them with the support they need to turn their lives around.

He added: We are conducting an internal review of the probation system and we want a clearer system with specific outcome measures such as getting offenders into apprenticeships and work.

We are providing 1 million funding over the course of this Parliament to help local areas develop multi-agency approaches to women who are at risk of offending.

PA
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A prominent pro-Brexit MP has defended her decision to vote against a proposed amendment to the Government's Article 50 bill that would have guaranteed the rights of EU citizens, despite previously saying that they had been left in limbo.

Gisela Stuart was one of five Labour rebels to vote against the amendment which would have allowed EU Nationals to remain in the country after Brexit.

After last year's referendum, the Birmingham MP, who was one of the most high profile Labour voices on the Vote Leave campaign, said the Government should take the initiative and say it would protect the rights of those who already live in the UK.

In an apparent attempt to counter the uncertainty Labours Harriet Harman tabled an amendment to the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill.

It proposed that all EU citizens legally living in the UK on June 23 - the date of the EU referendum - would have their right to stay protected.

But Ms Stuart, who was born in Germany but holds British citizenship, defended her decision to vote against the amendment saying it was not the bill to deal with these issues.

She told The Independent: This was not the Bill to deal with this, that is why I voted against all amendments. Last night was about implementing the referendum decision.

She said Prime Minister Theresa May had given her assurances to the House regarding the status of EU citizens and she planned to hold her to her word.

A campaign set up to help EU nationals already living and working in the UK, the3million, has also urged Ms May to clear up the uncertainty before she officially triggers Article 50 at the end of March.

Brexit reactions  in pictures Show all 10 1 /10 Brexit reactions  in pictures Brexit reactions  in pictures Supporters of the Stronger In campaign look at their phones after hearing results in the EU referendum at London's Royal Festival Hall AP Brexit reactions  in pictures Leave supporters cheer results at a Leave.eu party after polling stations closed in the Referendum on the European Union in London Reuters Brexit reactions  in pictures Mr Cameron announces his resignation to supporters Getty Brexit reactions  in pictures Donald Tusk proposes that the 27 remaining EU member states start a wider reflection on the future of our union Getty Brexit reactions  in pictures Ukip leader Nigel Farage greets his supporters on College Green in Westminster, after Britain voted to leave the European Union PA Brexit reactions  in pictures Supporters of the Stronger In Campaign react as referendum results are announced today Getty Brexit reactions  in pictures Boris Johnson leaves his home today to discover a crowd of waiting journalists and police officers Getty Brexit reactions  in pictures Leave EU supporters celebrate as they watch the British EU Referendum results being televised at Millbank Tower in London Rex Brexit reactions  in pictures Supporters of the Stronger In Campaign react as results of the EU referendum are announced at the Royal Festival Hall Reuters Brexit reactions  in pictures Supporters of the Stronger In campaign react after hearing results in the EU referendum at London's Royal Festival Hall PA

In a statement, which was issued hours after Ms May ruled out guaranteeing their rights in her Brexit speech last month, the group said: It is extremely disappointing that the Prime Minister has not used this speech as an opportunity to unilaterally guarantee that all European citizens or those living in the UK under the protection of EU treaty rights will have the right to remain here after Brexit.

All EU citizens resident in Britain should get a firm assurance in law that they will be able to continue living in the UK, with exactly the same rights of residence as they have now.

Nearly one million EU citizens have applied for permanent residency in the UK since the vote prompting fears that they would be at risk of deportation as 30 per cent were unable to fulfill the unrealistic standards of evidence required by the Home Office to prove their right to reside, the3million said.
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Peers in the House of Lords are confident they can force changes to the Article 50 Bill and derail Theresa Mays timetable for starting Brexit.

The Independent has learned of the areas of the legislation that Labour peers are determined to amend  the rights of EU nationals, the vote on the final deal and regular reports on the exit talks.

The Liberal Democrats will also go into battle over EU nationals and other attempts to re-shape Brexit are certain to come from independent crossbenchers.

The stance puts the Lords firmly on a collision course with the Government, which has demanded that the upper chamber get on and deliver the will of the British people.

Immediately after the Commons passed the Bill  unamended  a Government source threatened: The Lords will face an overwhelming public call to be abolished if they now try and frustrate this Bill.

Ms May is thought to want the Bill to receive Royal Assent on March 8  allowing her to formally notify the EU that she is invoking Article 50 at an EU summit later that week.

But any amendments to the Bill will force the Prime Minister to wait at least another week, while still allowing her to achieve her original target of the end of March.

 Brexit Bill backed: Theresa May allowed to start EU exit negotiations

A Labour source in the Lords said: We believe we can find a way to get the Lords behind us to push the Bill back to the Commons for another go at changing it.

On the touchstone issue of EU nationals, specifically, he added: We are optimistic that, if this has to be pressed to a vote, the numbers will be there.

That confidence was echoed by Dick Newby, the Lib Dem leader in the Lords, who said: We believe we have support on all sides to deliver on the promises the Government should have made to millions of people who have made our country their home.

The European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill reaches the House of Lords on 20 February, when no fewer than 150 peers are expected to try to speak in a two-day debate.

Labour will attempt to persuade  or force  the Government to think again over:

* An immediate, unilateral guarantee that the rights of 3m EU citizens in the UK will be protected after Brexit.

A threatened Tory rebellion in the Commons evaporated when Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, insisted nothing would change without MPs consent.

However, that still means the uncertainty facing EU citizens will continue unless and until Ms May agrees a deal with EU leaders when the exit talks get underway in April.

* A written guarantee that Parliament will be given a meaningful vote on any final deal that the Prime Minister secures  and, crucially, if she fails to agree one.

In the Commons, Keir Starmer, Labours Brexit spokesman, claimed victory when ministers conceded a vote before the European Parliament starts its consideration, probably in late 2018.

But the assurance was verbal only. The source said: We want it on face of the Bill and written into the legislation.

* Regular updates to Parliament on the progress of the Article 50 talks  at least every three months.

An amendment demanding reports every two months was thrown out in the Commons after a minister branded it dangerous, because it might allow further interference by the courts and delay the negotiations.

However, Baroness Angela Smith, Labours leader in the Lords, has echoed Jeremy Corbyn by insisting the party will not block Brexit.
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The Government has defended its early closure of the child refugees scheme, arguing that the programme could incentivise children to travel to Europe.

Last year ministers said they would accept 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees but in a statement, snuck out during the Brexit debate yesterday, the Home Office announced it would be taking just 350.

In an urgent question in Parliament this morning Labours refugee taskforce spokesperson, Yvette Cooper, branded the measure shameful but ministers defended the move.

The Government has always been clear that we do not want to incentivise perilous journeys to Europe particularly by the most vulnerable children, Amber Rudd said.

The section 67 obligation was accepted on the measure that it would not act as a pull factor to Europe. The Government has a clear strategy and we believe this is the right approach.

Section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016 includes a demand for the Government to make arrangements to relocate and support a specified number of unaccompanied child refugees from Europe to the UK.

Ms Rudd said she was proud of the Governments policy on the issue. Later, when told children were returning to the camps in Calais, which were cleared last year, she said: Perhaps it is because they think they could continue to go to the UK. Does it help them? It does not. What would help those children is if they could have their claims processed in France.

Ms Rudd insisted that the scheme was not closing but merely that it would not take in as many children as had been suggested in Parliamentary debates.

The Government conceded the child refugee scheme last year after a campaign by Lord Dubs, a former Jewish refugee who fled the Nazis in the 1930s as part of the Kindertransport scheme.

However the Government attracted bad publicity for the scheme after a media campaign against the children by right-wing tabloid newspapers at the end of last year. The newspapers claimed that some of the refugees in the scheme did not look young enough to be eligible for it.

Ms Cooper said: Once those 350 children are here, thats it, it is closed. Where does it say in the Hansard debate that I have here from our debates in the Dubs amendment that we will only help lone child refugees for less than six months. Where does it say that instead of the 3,000 that Parliament debated we will only help a tenth of that number?

In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea Show all 7 1 /7 In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A baby being taken on to MSF's Bourbon Argos ship from a boat carrying 130 migrants and refugees Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A refugee boat carrying 101 people being rescued by MSF's Bourbon Argos Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A refugee boat carrying 101 people being rescued by MSF's Bourbon Argos all images by Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A baby among refugees on a boat carrying 185 people off the coast of Libya Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea Migrants and refugees sleeping after being rescued by MSF's Bourbon Argos ship Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A crew from MSF's Bourbon Argos ship rescuing a boat carrying 130 migrants and refugees off the coast of Libya, at sunrise Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A woman in a stretcher being lifted onto MSF's Bourbon Argos ship from a boat carrying 130 migrants and refugees off the coast of Libya Lizzie Dearden

Where does it say that when we get the chance we will somehow turn our backs once again. It doesnt because we didnt say that at the time. The Home Secretary knows what she is doing is shameful.

Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott said: The worst thing about this Governments failure to step up to the totality of the refugee crisis is the children.

How does she live with herself leaving thousands of people, members opposite can jeer, leaving thousands of children, subject to disease, people trafficking, squalor and hopelessness?

Charities hit out at the Governments claims about the scheme. Steve Symonds, director of Amnesty International UK's refugee and migrant rights programme, said: The Home Secretary has this horribly wrong. By restricting its commitment to providing a safe route out of deprived, demeaning and dangerous situations elsewhere, the Government will only exacerbate the risk that these children fall victim to traffickers and other abusers.
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The Archbishop of Canterbury has criticised the Government for scrapping its child refugee scheme and called for it to be reinstated.

Justin Welby said the decision to row back on the pledge to take 3,000 unaccompanied children was regrettable and suggested the Government was on the same page as US President Donald Trump.

We must resist and turn back the worrying trends we are seeing around the world, towards seeing the movement of desperate people as more of a threat to identity and security than an opportunity to do our duty, he said.

Recommended Government defends closure of child refugee scheme after six months

The Government last year pledged to take in 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees but yesterday during the Brexit debate quietly released a statement saying the number would now be 350.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd this morning defended abandoning the remainder of the children, arguing that the schemes existence had acted as an incentive for children to become refugees and that councils would not be resourced to take more than 350.

Mr Welby said: I was saddened and shocked to read in the ministerial statement released yesterday that only 350 children will be received under the regulations in the Dubs amendment. Our country has a great history of welcoming those in need, particularly the most vulnerable, such as unaccompanied children.

The Government conceded the child refugee scheme after a campaign by Lord Dubs, a former Jewish refugee who fled the Nazis in the 1930s as part of the Kindertransport scheme.

Mr Welby said: Refugees, like all people, are treasured human beings made in the image of God who deserve safety, freedom, and the opportunity to flourish. Jesus commands us to care for the most vulnerable among us."

In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea Show all 7 1 /7 In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A baby being taken on to MSF's Bourbon Argos ship from a boat carrying 130 migrants and refugees Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A refugee boat carrying 101 people being rescued by MSF's Bourbon Argos Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A refugee boat carrying 101 people being rescued by MSF's Bourbon Argos all images by Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A baby among refugees on a boat carrying 185 people off the coast of Libya Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea Migrants and refugees sleeping after being rescued by MSF's Bourbon Argos ship Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A crew from MSF's Bourbon Argos ship rescuing a boat carrying 130 migrants and refugees off the coast of Libya, at sunrise Lizzie Dearden In pictures: A day of refugee rescues in the Mediterranean Sea A woman in a stretcher being lifted onto MSF's Bourbon Argos ship from a boat carrying 130 migrants and refugees off the coast of Libya Lizzie Dearden

He said the Government should be commended for its original decision to take the refugees and provide aid but that to end the scheme now, when such a small proportion have actually entered the country, is regrettable.

He continued: I very much hope that the Government will reconsider this decision, and work with church groups and others to find a sustainable and compassionate solution that allows those most in need to find sanctuary in our country.
A distant view of an amusement park in Heihe, Heilongjian, China, on the southern bank of the Amur River, as seen from Blagoveshchensk, Amur Region, Russia. (Photo : Getty Images)

The major trade link between China and Russia will be further enhanced as construction of a cross-border rail bridge received more than 755 million yuan ($110 million) to finance its completion, Chinese officials announced on Monday, Feb. 6.



Advertisement

According to China Daily, the bridge will connect Tongjiang in the northeastern Heilongjiang Province with Nizhneleninskoye in Russia's Jewish Autonomous Oblast. The total investment for its construction is 2.6 billion yuan ($379 million), the government said.



Once completed, the rail bridge, known as the Amur International Rail Bridge or the China-Russia Tongjiang Rail Bridge, is expected to boost bilateral trade between China and Russia as it will serve as a major transportation link in the region where economic activity has been limited by poor transport infrastructure.



The local government said that the latest round of financing was provided by a Sino-Russian joint venture, supported by China Investment Corp, a sovereign wealth fund.



"It means that the financing problem from the Russian side has finally been solved," Zhang Ruohui, an official from the Commerce Department of Heilongjiang Province, said.



The construction of the bridge started in 2014 but funding problems and construction delays by the Russian side have halted construction work.



Wang Jin, the mayor of Tongjiang, said that the bridge will make the city a transport center with Russia and a major link in the China-Mongolia-Russia economic corridor.



"The bridge will help unleash the potential of Tongjiang as a key transportation hub in the region," Wang said, adding that it will also boost the local economy.



The bridge is also expected to improve trade between the two countries and reduce transport costs for businesses. Government data showed that bilateral trade between the two countries reached $69 billion last year.



The bridge project has shown the difficulties that the two countries may face in future partnerships, especially in developing the Far East regions, Xu Tao, a Central Asia studies researcher at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said.



"Securing funds has long been a hurdle. Insufficient mutual trust and Russian doubts over China's intention to develop the region have been another source of uncertainty for Sino-Russian cooperation," Xu said.


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Diane Abbott has voted in favour of triggering Article 50 after recovering from an apparent migraine that prevented her taking part in an earlier vote on the issue.

The Shadow Home Secretary, a close ally of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, missed a key vote during the House of Commons second reading of the European Union Bill last week after saying she had gone home early with a bad headache.

It led some of her colleagues to accuse her of having bottled it and developed Brexit flu amid suggestions the Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP had cried off sick in order to avoid having to vote. Several Labour MPs said she should resign if she felt unable to be "part of the team".

Ms Abbott told The Independent: I campaigned for remain and still believe that it is not in our best interests to leave the European Union. However, to say that because the vote went the wrong way we are going to ignore the votes of millions of people up and down the country would be a blow to democracy.

This does not mean that we have to accept Brexit in the haphazard way in which it is being handed to us.

This passage of this Bill has been a challenge for Labour. Our MPs represent the top six most passionately pro-leave constituencies, and the six most passionately pro-remain constituencies.

Following the decision taken by the Shadow Cabinet on voting for the Article 50 Bill, I voted for the Bill as a loyal supporter of Jeremy Corbyn and a loyal member of the Shadow Cabinet.

Ms Abbotts constituency voted overwhelmingly for Remain and she has argued passionately in favour of Britain staying in the EU, but would likely have had to resign from the shadow cabinet in order to vote against triggering Article 50.

 Brexit Bill backed: Theresa May allowed to start EU exit negotiations

Amid a furious row about her failure to vote, Ms Abbotts aides claimed she had been taken ill two hours before the vote and had informed Mr Corbyns office that she was going home. Critics pointed out that she had been well enough to speak passionately in a different parliamentary debate earlier in the afternoon and was posting messages on Twitter shortly before the vote.

However, Ms Abbott was in the Commons chamber for some of the debate during the Bills third reading and took part in the vote, following party orders to vote in favour of triggering Article 50.

She added: I was in Parliament for the Maastricht Treaty, which was just a revision to the EU Treaty. We debated it for forty-two days.

MPs have been given just five days to debate coming out of the EU all together.

This demonstrates how arrogant Theresa May is, how much she does not want to involve Parliament, and how much she wants to bulldoze things through.

Brexit Concerns Show all 26 1 /26 Brexit Concerns Brexit Concerns Brexit will put British patients at 'back of the queue' for new drugs Brexit will put British patients at the back of the queue for vital new drugs, the Government has been warned  forcing them to wait up to two years longer A medicines regulator has raised the alarm over a likely decision to pull out of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), as well as the EU itself. ealth Secretary Jeremy Hunt dropped the bombshell , when he said he expected the UK would quit the EMA  because it is subject to rulings by the European Court of Justice. Getty Images Brexit Concerns London to lose status as 'gateway to Europe' for banks One of Germanys top banking regulators has warned that London could lose its status as gateway to Europe for the banking sector after Britain quits the European trading bloc. Andreas Dombret, who is an executive board member for the BundesbankGermanys central banktold a private meeting of German businesses and banks earlier this week in Frankfurt that even if banking rules were equivalent between the UK and the rest of the EU, that was still miles away from [Britain having] access to the single market, the BBC reports. Jason Hawkes Brexit Concerns Exodus The number of financial sector professionals in Britain and continental Europe looking for jobs in Ireland rocketed in the months after the UK voted to leave the European Union Shutterstock Brexit Concerns Brexit is making FTSE 100 executives richer Pay packages of many FTSE 100 chief executive officers are partly tied to how well share prices are doing rather than the CEOs performance -- and some stocks are soaring. ritish equities got a boost since the June vote because the likes of Rio Tinto, Smiths Group and WPP generate most sales abroad and earn a fortune when they convert these revenues back into the weakened pound. Sterlings fall also made UK stocks more affordable for overseas investors. Rex Brexit Concerns Theresa May: UK to leave single market Theresa May has said the UK "cannot possibly" remain within the European single market, as staying in it would mean "not leaving the EU at all". Getty Brexit Concerns Lead campaigner Gina Miller and her team outside the High Court Getty Brexit Concerns Raymond McCord holds up his newly issued Irish passport alongside his British passport outside the High Court in Belfast following a judges dismissal of the UK's first legal challenges to Brexit PA wire Brexit Concerns SDLP leader Colum Eastwood leaving the High Court in Belfast following a judges dismissal of the UK's first legal challenges to Brexit PA wire Brexit Concerns Migrants with luggage walk past a graffiti on a wall as they leave the 'Jungle' migrant camp, as part of a major three-day operation planned to clear the camp in Calais Getty Brexit Concerns Migrants leave messages on their tents in the Jungle migrant camp Getty Brexit Concerns The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (Adra) which distributes approximately 700 meals daily in the northern Paris camp states that it is noticing a spike in new migrant arrivals this week, potentially linked the the Calais 'jungle' camp closure - with around 1000 meals distributed today EPA Brexit Concerns Migrant workers pick apples at Stocks Farm in Suckley, Britain Reuters Brexit Concerns Many farmers across the country are voicing concerns that Brexit could be a dangerous step into the unknown for the farming industry Getty Brexit Concerns Bank of England governor Mark Carney who said the long-term outlook for the UK economy is positive, but growth was slowing in the wake of the Brexit vote PA Brexit Concerns The Dow Jones industrial average closed down over 600 points on the news with markets around the globe pluninging Getty Brexit Concerns Immigration officers deal with each member of the public seeking entry into the United Kingdom but on average, 10 a day are refused entry at this London airport and between 2008 and 2009, 33,100 people were detained at the airport for mainly passport irregularities Getty Brexit Concerns A number of global investment giants have threatened to move their European operations out of London if Brexit proves to have a negative impact on their businesses Getty Brexit Concerns Following the possibility of a Brexit the UK would be released from its renewable energy targets under the EU Renewable Energy Directive and from EU state aid restrictions, potentially giving the government more freedom both in the design and phasing out of renewable energy support regimes Getty Brexit Concerns A woman looking at a chart showing the drop in the pound (Sterling) against the US Dollar in London after Britain voted to leave the EU Getty Brexit Concerns Young protesters outside the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, to protest against the United Kingdom's decision to leave the EU following the referendum Getty Brexit Concerns Applications from Northern Ireland citizens for Irish Passports has soared to a record high after the UK Voted in favour of Leaving the EU Getty Brexit Concerns NFU Vice President Minette Batters with Secretary of State, Andrea Leadsome at the National Farmers Union (NFU) took machinery, produce, farmers and staff to Westminster to encourage Members of Parliament to back British farming, post Brexit Getty Brexit Concerns The latest reports released by the UK Cabinet Office warn that expats would lose a range of specific rights to live, to work and to access pensions, healthcare and public services. The same reports added that UK citizens abroad would not be able to assume that these rights will be guaranteed in the future Getty Brexit Concerns A British resident living in Spain asks questions during an informative Brexit talk by the "Brexpats in Spain" group, about Spanish legal issues to become Spanish citizens, at the town hall in Benalmadena, Spain Reuters Brexit Concerns The collapse of Great Britain appears to have been greatly exaggerated given the late summer crowds visiting city museums, hotels, and other important tourist attractions Getty Brexit Concerns The U.K. should maintain European Union regulations covering everything from working hours to chemicals until after the government sets out its plans for Brexit, said British manufacturers anxious to avoid a policy vacuum and safeguard access to their biggest export market Getty

Senior Labour figures had previously suggested the party could vote against Article 50 if it failed to secure support for a number of its proposed amendments to the Governments bill.

However, Jeremy Corbyn issued another three line whip - the strongest form of party discipline  to instruct his MPs to vote for the Bill.

Media reports suggested Mr Corbyn had lost patience with Ms Abbott after her missed vote and warned his friend he might sack her from the shadow cabinet if she voted against him.

While she ultimately obeyed, other senior party figures did not.

Norwich South MP Clive Lewis, another Corbyn ally, became the fourth shadow cabinet minister to resign over the issue when he stepped down as Shadow Business Secretary minutes before the vote.

 Jeremy Corbyn says he is 'very lenient' in response to possible shadow cabinet sackings over Brexit whip

He said: When I became the MP for Norwich South, I promised my constituents I would be Norwichs voice in Westminster, not Westminsters voice in Norwich. I therefore cannot, in all good conscience, vote for something I believe will ultimately harm the city I have the honour to represent, love and call home.

It is therefore with a heavy heart that I have decided to resign from the shadow cabinet.
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Donald Trumps planned state visit to the UK could happen around June, London police chief Sir Bernard Hogan Howe says.

The Presidents potential visit to the UK, which will include an audience with the Queen, has provoked outrage after he signed an executive order temporarily banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries entering the US.

Nearly two million people signed a petition calling on Theresa May to cancel the visit in light of the Muslim ban which has lead to a Parliamentary debate on the matter which is due to take place on 20th February.

But it seems that planning for Mr Trumps visit seems to be well underway as Sir Bernard told LBCs Nick Ferrari that the London Metropolitan Police were expecting huge protests.

He said: First of all, I think President Trump is coming around June, thats the plan.

At the moment, people are concerned there will be lots of protests. There have been protests already. We've had about 20,000 people about 10 days ago at Whitehall  all very peaceful.

Ive no doubt, as the days pass, well make assessments on what's going to happen, so we cant definitely say there will be huge amounts of problems.

No doubt well put a lot of officers out there and keep them safe and make sure everything goes well. If there is a few thousand officers, its likely to be quite a bit of money.

Thousands marched on London last weekend as news of the ban  which also halted the USs refugee programme  spread and reports emerged of people with valid visas and green cards already in transit when the order was signed being detained for hours at airport security.

The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Show all 9 1 /9 The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the media White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer takes questions during the daily press briefing Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Union leaders applaud US President Donald Trump for signing an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington DC. Mr Trump issued a presidential memorandum in January announcing that the US would withdraw from the trade deal Getty The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Mexico wall A US Border Patrol vehicle sits waiting for illegal immigrants at a fence opening near the US-Mexico border near McAllen, Texas. The number of incoming immigrants has surged ahead of the upcoming Presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. A signature campaign promise, Mr Trump outlined his intention to build a border wall on the US-Mexico border days after taking office Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and abortion US President Donald Trump signs an executive order as Chief of Staff Reince Priebus looks on in the Oval Office of the White House. Mr Trump reinstated a ban on American financial aide being granted to non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling, provide abortion referrals, or advocate for abortion access outside of the United States Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Dakota Access pipeline Opponents of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines hold a rally as they protest US President Donald Trump's executive orders advancing their construction, at Columbus Circle in New York. US President Donald Trump signed executive orders reviving the construction of two controversial oil pipelines, but said the projects would be subject to renegotiation Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and 'Obamacare' Nancy Pelosi who is the minority leader of the House of Representatives speaks beside House Democrats at an event to protect the Affordable Care Act in Los Angeles, California. US President Donald Trump's effort to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace the healthcare law failed when Republicans failed to get enough votes. Mr Trump has promised to revisit the matter Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Donald Trump and 'sanctuary cities' US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January threatening to pull funding for so-called "sanctuary cities" if they do not comply with federal immigration law AP The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the travel ban US President Donald Trump has attempted twice to restrict travel into the United States from several predominantly Muslim countries. The first attempt, in February, was met with swift opposition from protesters who flocked to airports around the country. That travel ban was later blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The second ban was blocked by a federal judge a day before it was scheduled to be implemented in mid-March SANDY HUFFAKER/AFP/Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and climate change US President Donald Trump sought to dismantle several of his predecessor's actions on climate change in March. His order instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to reevaluate the Clean Power Plan, which would cap power plant emissions Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

The organisers of the protest said the ban was an appalling attack on human rights and that they wanted to send a message to Ms May that Mr Trump was not welcome here.

It followed another protest the week before where over a million women in the UK joined with millions of others around the world to march against Mr Trumps inauguration and his anti-women comments and policies.

Unlike his predecessor Barack Obama, Mr Trump does not look set to address MPs in Westminster Hall following an intervention by Commons Speaker John Bercow.

Speaking in the House, Mr Bercow said he had been strongly opposed to Mr Trump even before the ban was announced because speaking in Westminster Hall was an earned honour rather than an automatic right.

Demonstrators outside Downing Street protest President Trumps ban on travel from seven Muslim countries (Getty) (Getty Images)

If Mr Trump does make an address to Parliament it is likely to be in the Royal Gallery, in the House of Lords, rather than Westminster Hall.

The hall, which was built in the 11th century and is the oldest part of the Palace, has traditionally been reserved for foreign leaders who are deemed to be specially revered by the international community. Past speakers have included Mr Obama, Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Pope Benedict XVI and former South African Nelson Mandela.

Ms May announced that Mr Trump had been invited to the UK during her trip to the US at the end of last month.

The trip was viewed as a coup for the Prime Minister at the time as she was the first foreign leader to visit the new Commander in Chief since his inauguration on 20 January but it was quickly marred in controversy after Mr Trump signed the Muslim ban on the day she left.
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Jeremy Corbyn has accused the BBC of peddling fake news after being challenged on persistent rumours he was preparing to quit as Labour leader.

Denying the reports, Mr Corbyn told BBC Breakfast that speculative stories belonged on imadeitupyesterday.com.

Calling claims he was considering stepping down amid allegations he is damaging his party absolute nonsense, he added: Im really surprised the BBC is reporting fake news. There is no news. There is no news.

The phrase fake news has popular with Donald Trump, who routinely uses it to refer to unfavourable coverage by the mainstream media. Theresa May also used one of her new US allys sound bites during Prime Ministers questions on Wednesday, accusing Labour of peddling alternative facts.

The Labour Party is facing a fresh wave of defiance from the front bench over Brexit, with Clive Lewis quitting as shadow Business Secretary to defy a three-line whip to oppose the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill. He joined 51 of his Labour colleagues to vote against the Government, while 13 abstained.

Conservatives seized on Labour's turmoil over the vote to to claim the Opposition was hopelessly divided.

Asked about the rebellion by some of his MPs, Mr Corbyn said: No, it's not a disaster.

Pressed about claims that he would have to reconsider his position in a year if his poll ratings had not improved, Mr Corbyn replied: We are demanding social justice in Britain. That's what the Labour Party exists for, that's what I'm leading the party for and that's what I'm going to continue doing.

How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Show all 8 1 /8 How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Weetabix Chief executive of Weetabix Giles Turrell has warned that the price of one of the nations favourite breakfast are likely to go up this year by low-single digits in percentage terms. Reuters How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Nescafe The cost of a 100g jar of Nescafe Original at Sainsburys has gone up 40p from 2.75 to 3.15  a 14 per cent risesince the Brexit vote. PA How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Freddo When contacted by The Independent this month, a Mondelez spokesperson declined to discuss specific brands but confirmed that there would be "selective" price increases across its range despite the American multi-national confectionery giant reporting profits of $548m (450m) in its last three-month financial period. Mondelez, which bought Cadbury in 2010, said rising commodity costs combined with the slump in the value of the pound had made its products more expensive to make. Cadbury How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Mr Kipling cakes Premier Foods, the maker of Mr Kipling and Bisto gravy, said that it was considering price rises on a case-by-case basis Reuters How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Walkers Crisps Walkers, owned by US giant PepsiCo, said "the weakened value of the pound" is affecting the import cost of some of its materials. A Walkers spokesman told the Press Association that a 32g standard bag was set to increase from 50p to 55p, and the larger grab bag from 75p to 80p. Getty How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Marmite Tesco removed Marmite and other Unilever household brand from its website last October, after the manufacturer tried to raise its prices by about 10 per cent owing to sterlings slump. Tesco and Unilever resolved their argument, but the price of Marmite has increased in UK supermarkets with the grocer reporting a 250g jar of Marmite will now cost Morrisons customers 2.64 - an increase of 12.5 per cent. Rex How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Toblerone Toblerone came under fire in November after it increased the space between the distinctive triangles of its bars. Mondelez International, the company which makes the product, said the change was made due to price rises in recent months. Pixabay How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Maltesers Maltesers, billed as the lighter way to enjoy chocolate, have also shrunk in size. Mars, which owns the brand, has reduced its pouch weight by 15 per cent. Mars said rising costs mean it had to make the unenviable decision between increasing its prices or reducing the weight of its Malteser packs. iStockphoto

The vote on the Brexit Bill was widely regarded as a victory for Theresa May who many believe wishes to impose a hard Brexit.

It will now need to be approved by peers before the Prime Minister can begin exit talks under Article 50 of the EU treaties, which she has promised by April.

A Government source has stressed the Lords will face an "overwhelming public call to be abolished" if it attempts to frustrate the progress of the legislation. And David Davis told unelected peers not to try to change the simple two-clause Bill as it was passed by MPs unamended, which he said "reflected the will of the people".

The Liberal Democrats have vowed to continue trying to amend the legislation after it comes to the Lords on 20 February to ensure a second referendum on the final exit deal achieved by Ms May. Pro-Europe Tory and Labour peers may also try and make changes to the Bill.

In January, the BBC Trust ruled that the BBC's political editor, Laura Kuenssberg, inaccurately represented Mr Corbyn's views on shoot-to-kill policies in the aftermath of the Paris attacks.

A viewer complained to the Trust about the November 2015 News at Six report on security measures being considered by the British Government in the wake of the attacks.

Ms Kuenssberg said that she had asked the Labour leader whether he would support a shoot-to-kill policy if a similar attack happened in London, and if he were Prime Minister. The footage showed Mr Corbyn responding: Im not happy with a shoot-to-kill policy in general. I think that is quite dangerous and I think can often be counter-productive. I think you have to have security that prevents people firing off weapons where you can."

The viewer said this was misleading because no reference had been made to the Paris attacks when Mr Corbyn had been asked about the issue. They claimed it was "in order to cause Mr Corbyn maximum political damage".

Trustees rejected the idea there was a "deliberate attempt to mislead audiences", but said the broadcast was "not duly accurate" because it presented "an answer Mr Corbyn had given to a question about 'shoot to kill' as though it were his answer to a question he had not in fact been asked".
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Jeremy Corbyn has said Donald Trump's controversial visit to the UK should be scrapped.

The Labour leader  who has previously backed a ban on the President speaking to Parliament  went further by calling for the summer visit to be abandoned altogether.

Mr Corbyn said: "My position is that Donald Trump should not be coming to the UK.

Donald Trump has been promoting something that undermines international law, he has been promoting misogyny, he has been making some awful statements in the USA and threatening to build a wall with Mexico.

And our Government seems to think that this is a man they should be doing deals with.

We should be challenging Trump on international law issues and we should also not be rolling the red carpet out.

Speaking on BBC breakfast, Mr Corbyn was also repeatedly challenged on whether he would meet Mr Trump, having previously invited him to a local mosque  so he could understand multicultural issues.

He replied: We have to have relations with the USA, but Im not sure he is going to want to have a meeting with us.

The Labour leader then added: I think it would be right to meet the President of the USA, but I think it would be wrong for him to come here.

The comments came as a Metropolitan Police Commissioner appeared to confirm a rumour that the State Visit will take place in June.

Speaking to LBCs Nick Ferrari, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe was asked how much it is going to cost to police the huge protests expected, replying: I think President Trump is coming around June, that's the plan.

At the moment, people are concerned there will be lots of protests. There have been protests already. We've had about 20,000 people about 10 days ago at Whitehall - all very peaceful.

"No doubt we'll put a lot of officers out there and keep them safe and make sure everything goes well. If there is a few thousand officers, it's likely to be quite a bit of money."

A spokesman for 10 Downing Street told LBC: No date has been set yet for the State Visit."

However, it is thought that a visit in the first week of June would avoid inflaming the row over whether Mr Trump should speak in Parliament, which will  conveniently  be in recess at that time.

During his interview, Mr Corbyn insisted last nights resignation of Clive Lewis, the Shadow Business Secretary, who refused to vote for Article 50 was not a disaster.

He said the majority of Labour MPs had voted in favour of starting Brexit and that a small number had rebelled because of strong pro-Remain feeling in their constituencies.

Mr Corbyn denied the Government had been handed a blank cheque, saying: We support the result of the referendum and have to carry it out.

It doesnt mean we agree with the Government on the economy of the future and it does mean we have to build closer relations with everybody across Europe.

The Labour leader also accused the BBC of reporting fake news after a presenter asked him about claims that he may be preparing to step down.

It was absolute nonsense to say he has discussed a handover date with aides in a bid to ensure one of his allies takes over when he resigns.

Mr Corbyn said: We are demanding social justice in Britain. Thats what the Labour party exists for, thats what Im leading the party for  and thats what Im going to continue doing.
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John Bercow faces a vote of no confidence in the House of Commons after a Conservative MP, angered at the Speaker's comments on Donald Trump, tabled a motion to oust him.

Mr Bercow riled members of his own party earlier this week when he said the US President should not be allowed to address Parliament during a state visit to the UK later this year.

James Duddridge, MP for Rochford and Southend East, described Mr Bercow's comments, which called out the billionaire businessman's "racism" and "sexism", as "wholly inappropriate".

He tabled the motion after earlier writing to Theresa May to ask for the Commons to be given a free vote in the event of a vote of no confidence in the Speaker.

The Telegraph reported that up to 150 MPs are prepared to back his motion to remove Mr Bercow.

Labour has said it would oppose a vote of no confidence, with shadow Commons leader Valerie Vaz saying she welcomed Mr Bercows support for us and for the reputation of Parliament.

John Bercow defends his comments on Donald Trump

She said: "When a person refers to a senator, Elizabeth Warren, as Pocahontas, who is then silenced by her party. When a person repeats the cry, 'Lock her up', of a candidate, when no offence has been committed.

"When a person suggests women should be grabbed in certain places without their consent. When a person has consistently questioned the birthplace of an American president, President Obama.

"Then I, born in Aden, Yemen, of Goan-Indian heritage, who may or not be directly affected by the travel ban, and others, welcome the support for us and for the reputation of Parliament."

Facing mounting criticism from within his own party, Mr Bercow was forced to defend his comments, which came less than two weeks after Mr Trumps state visit was confirmed. I was honestly and honourably seeking to discharge my responsibilities to the House, the Speaker said.

 John Bercow 'strongly opposed' to Donald Trump address to Parliament

He subsequently faced calls to resign on the grounds that he breached the neutrality expected of the Speaker.

But others, including members of Labour and the SNP, came to his defence.

Jeremy Corbyn tweeted: Well said John Bercow. We must stand up for our country's values. Trump's State Visit should not go ahead.

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron responded: "This is the right decision by The Speaker.

"The Prime Minister might wish to kowtow to the nasty misogynist that now sits in the Oval Office but no-one else does. We do not want him to speak to us. He is not welcome.
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A Labour councillor has denied he is anti-semitic after he shared a tweet by neo-Nazi containing slurs against the Israel and the Rothschild family.

John Clarke claimed the meme was an oversimplified view of the world economy but containing a great deal of truth as he retweeted it.

It suggested that Israel controlled both houses in the US House of Representatives and that the country, along with the Rothschild family, had taken over the world.

He later apologised, saying he did not realise the user, Tinnelle88, was spreading far-right hate speech and conspiracy theories. But he had not deleted it at the time of publication.

The account, which is based in New Zealand, has frequently tweeted false news reports denying the Holocaust, claimed that Adolf Hitler was right and cited conspiracy theories about Jews.

Mr Clarke, who sits on Black Notley Parish Council in Essex, told The Independent he was not anti-Semitic and was instead against the Israeli governments conduct in the occupied territories.

The retired maths lecturer, who lost out to the Secretary of State for International Development, Priti Patel in the 2015 General Election, said: I continue to stand unequivocally behind the rights of Palestinian people and I am against the illegal activity of the Israeli government as outlined by the United Nations.

I have made clear that I am not anti-Semitic and that I do not hold anti-Semitic views. Yesterday, I retweeted a post without first checking who had posted it. An error on my part which I regret.

When I found out who had originally posted the tweet, I made my thoughts on that person clear, on Twitter, and then I blocked him/her. By that time people with a vastly different agenda to mine appeared to have decided that they want to make mischief of my error.

He later tweeted that he objected to Rothschild and co because of their greed, monopolistic exploitations and unchecked power.

The Rothschild family descended from a wealthy 18th century German-Jewish financier, Meyer Amschel Rothschild, and went on to become of the richest families in the world.

They have since been the target of many unfounded conspiracy theories  many of which are anti-Semitic in nature.

Mr Clarkes comments have reignited the controversy over anti-Semitism within the Labour party which has plagued leader Jeremy Corbyn over the past year.

The party was forced to confront a series of incidents last year including remarks made by members on Twitter and at public meetings.

Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone was suspended by the party after he made remarks suggesting Hitler supported Zionism.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 5 November 2022 Demonstrators with placards calling for a General Election march near the Houses of Parliament AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 4 November 2022 A peacock is seen in the early winter sunshine in the Dutch Gardens in Holland Park AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 November 2022 A villager cooks roti bread at the site of the annual Camel Fair in Pushkar, in India's desert state of Rajasthan AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 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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 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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. 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Baroness Chakrabarti published a report on 30 June which said Labour was not overrun by antisemitism, Islamophobia or other forms of racism.

Her 20 recommendations included that members should resist the use of Hitler, Nazi and Holocaust metaphors.

Mr Corbyn was also heavily criticised when a Jewish MP, Ruth Smeeth, left the audience of his speech denouncing anti-Semitism in tears after an audience member accused her of colluding with the right-wing media.

A report into anti-Semitism in the Labour Party was then produced former director of campaign group Liberty, Baroness Shami Chakrabarti.

It said Labour was not overrun by antisemitism, Islamophobia or other forms of racism.

Her 20 recommendations included that members should resist the use of Hitler, Nazi and Holocaust metaphors.
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The Holocaust survivor who forced the government to accept child refugees is demanding they keep their promise after they quietly scrapped a pledge to help thousands of lone asylum seekers under the age of 15.

Lord Alf Dubs said he will challenge the "bitterly disappointing" termination of his amendment to the immigration act, which forced Theresa May to let in the most vulnerable people from countries such as Syria.

He intends to file a Private Notice Question in the House of Lords today, and says Labour MP Yvette Cooper is to raise the "shabby" move in the House of Commons.

Just hours before the final vote on the triggering of Article 50, the government announced it would allow only 350 unaccompanied asylum seeking children to come to the UK under the scheme which was expected to help thousands, in a statement that Lord Dubs described as "confusing" and "hidden".

Its been sandwiched between PMQs and all these votes on Brexit  what a way of hiding an announcement, he said, telling the Independent he had not been notified of the decision to end his amendment in advance, and believed the government had tried to sneak it through without anyone noticing.

He added that he had never heard the 350 children figure before. Up to lunch time [on Wednesday] I was under the impression there was no cap, he said.

The statement from Immigration Minister Robert Goodwill said local authorities indicated they have capacity for around 400 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children until the end of this financial year  50 of those spaces have been allocated for delayed family reunion cases  and said the country should be proud of its contribution to finding homes for refugees.

But the new cap on Dubs children is thousands short of the figure suggested by government sources last year, and nobody outside of the Home Office had heard it before the shock statement on Wednesday.

We knew 200 had come because theyve been saying so, Lord Dubs said.

But the 350... the extra 150 has come from God knows where, theyve just cooked it up... It's entirely new.

He added: Theyve [the government] recently said they would accept the letter and spirit of the amendment but they are manifestly not doing that.

"I think theyre using it as an excuse that local authorities dont want to step up to the mark, and I think it is quite clear from the evidence that we have that local authorities would respond if asked.

On Wednesday, Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron called the decision a betrayal of British values.

Last May, MPs from all parties condemned the Governments inaction on child refugees in Europe, and voted overwhelmingly to offer help to the thousands of unaccompanied kids who were stranded without their families backed by huge public support, Mr Farron said.

Instead, the Government has done the bare minimum, helping only a tiny number of youngsters and appearing to end the programme while thousands still suffer. At the end of December last year the Government had failed to bring a single child refugee to the UK under the Dubs scheme from Greece or Italy where many of these children are trapped.

Ministers introduced the programme last year after coming under intense pressure to give sanctuary to lone children stranded on the continent.

Calls for the measure were spearheaded by Lord Dubs, who himself came to the UK as a child fleeing the Nazis, whose amendment to the Immigration Act requires the Government to make arrangements to relocate to the UK and support a specified number of unaccompanied refugee children from other countries in Europe.

The legislation did not specify a figure, and campaigners had hoped that as many as 3,000 children would benefit from the scheme.

I never argued that we should take them all, said Lord Dubs, I argued that we should take our share.

He added: I was in Greece a few weeks ago, the situation was dire, I think it is sort of arbitrary to say well take 350 and thats it and there are some very vulnerable children who are going to be left there.

Judith Dennis, Policy Manager at the Refugee Council said: The Governments job is far from done; the global refugee crisis hasnt gone away and if anything its getting worse.

The UK needs to step up rather than step back and ensure that we pull our weight by offering refuge to more vulnerable people and enabling more refugees to reunite with their families here.

In a written ministerial statement, Mr Goodwill said more than 900 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children were transferred to the UK from Europe in total last year.

This included more than 750 from France as part of Britains support for the clearance of the Calais jungle.

More than 200 of those children met the criteria for the Dubs route, while the remainder were transferred under an accelerated process based on, but operated outside of, the Dublin Regulation covering family reunion cases.

Mr Goodwill said: The UK can be proud of its record of helping refugee children and I can today announce, in accordance with Section 67 of the Immigration Act, that the Government will transfer the specified number of 350 children pursuant to that section, who reasonably meet the intention and spirit behind the provision.

This number includes over 200 children already transferred under Section 67 from France. It does not include children transferred to UK where they have close family here.

We will announce in due course the basis on which further children will be transferred from Europe to the UK under Section 67 of the Immigration Act to the specified number.

Calais Refugee Children arrive in UK Show all 9 1 /9 Calais Refugee Children arrive in UK Calais Refugee Children arrive in UK A coach carrying the first group of unaccompanied minors from the Jungle migrant camp in Calais to be brought to Britain arrives at an immigration centre in Croydon, south London Reuters Calais Refugee Children arrive in UK A Catholic priest chats to Muslim Imans as they wait for the arrival of the coach carrying the first group of unaccompanied minors from the Jungle migrant camp in Calais to be brought to Britain arrives at an immigration centre in Croydon, south London Reuters Calais Refugee Children arrive in UK Fourteen migrant children from the 'Jungle Camp' in Calais are due to arrive in the UK today to be reunited with relatives Getty Calais Refugee Children arrive in UK Young men are escorted after stepping off a coach at the Home Offices Lunar House Getty Calais Refugee Children arrive in UK A boy is escorted after stepping off a coach at the Home Offices Lunar House after arriving from the Calais 'Jungle Camp' Getty Calais Refugee Children arrive in UK UK Border Force staff escort the first group of unaccompanied minors from the Jungle migrant camp in Calais to be brought to Britain as they arrive at an immigration centre in Croydon, south London Reuters Calais Refugee Children arrive in UK A young boy arrives on a coach at the Home Offices Lunar House after leaving the Calais 'Jungle Camp.' Fourteen migrant children from the 'Jungle Camp' in Calais are due to arrive in the UK today to be reunited with relatives Getty Calais Refugee Children arrive in UK British former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, center, flanked by Bethany Gardiner-Smith, left, from the Citizens UK charity and Bishop of Croydon Jonathan Clark speaks to the media about the 14 migrant children who will be resettled in the UK, outside Croydon Minster church in Croydon, south London AP Calais Refugee Children arrive in UK Asif Khan whose brother Aimal Khan was one of fourteen migrant children who arrived in the UK, speaks to the media outside Lunar House in Croydon, south London. The 25-year-old chef has been living in the UK for 11 years, having fled Afghanistan himself. His brother Aimal Khan, 14, also from Afghanistan, had been stranded in the Jungle for six months PA

The Home Office minister went on: As required by the legislation, we have consulted with local authorities on their capacity to care for and support unaccompanied asylum-seeking children before arriving at this number.

Local authorities told us they have capacity for around 400 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children until the end of this financial year.

We estimate that at least 50 of the family reunion cases transferred from France as part of the Calais clearance will require a local authority placement in cases where the family reunion does not work out.

We are grateful for the way in which local authorities have stepped up to provide places for those arriving and we will continue to work closely to address capacity needs.
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A Tory-run council was promised extra cash from central government over the next few years in order to head off an embarrassing referendum on raising council tax, it has emerged.

Labour has called for an investigation into potential ministerial misconduct over Surrey County Council, which had planned to hold a referendum on a 15 per cent council tax rise because it said its social care system was in danger of collapse without extra money.

Eyebrows were raised earlier this week when the planned poll was abruptly cancelled with little explanation.

One of the wealthiest areas of the country, the Tory stronghold is home to the seats of Jeremy Hunt the Health Secretary and Philip Hammond the Chancellor. Citing leaked text messages, Jeremy Corbyn on Wednesday accused the Government of striking a sweetheart deal with the Tory local authority at the expense of poorer areas.

Downing Street and the council both denied a special deal had been struck  but after hours of not commenting Whitehalls Department for Communities and Local Government later confirmed that Surrey would in fact be set to get extra money in the 2018/19 financial year.

Under the plan, Surrey would take part in a Department for Communities and Local Government pilot scheme that would let it keep revenues from business rates that would ordinarily go to central government.

Other councils not involved in the pilot will have to wait a further two years to get the extra cash, which Surrey would only otherwise have received in April 2020.

Labours shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth has written to Theresa May to call for the publication of all correspondence on the matter and for a probe into potential misconduct by ministers.

Given your failure to provide clarity on the issue when asked in the Chamber today, and bearing in mind the great importance of this issue given the crisis faced by social care in our country, I am hereby requesting for the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to make an urgent statement to the House tomorrow, he wrote.

This news has caused considerable embarrassment to the Government, in particular the Secretary of State for Health and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

To rule out any suggestions of wrongdoing, the Government now needs to confirm that no special deal has been offered or granted to Surrey County Council.

At PMQs Theresa May said only that whether or not to hold a referendum was a matter for Surrey County Council.

Jeremy Corbyn accused Theresa May of making a 'sweetheart deal' (PA)

A DCLG spokesperson said: Surrey County Council informed the Government that they wished to become a pilot area.

The secretary of state for communities and local government told them that this was not possible for 2017/18, but said that, subject to due process and meeting the necessary criteria, they could participate in the 2018/19 pilot.

All other councils will be free to apply to participate in these pilots, and the Government invites them to do so.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 5 November 2022 Demonstrators with placards calling for a General Election march near the Houses of Parliament AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 4 November 2022 A peacock is seen in the early winter sunshine in the Dutch Gardens in Holland Park AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 November 2022 A villager cooks roti bread at the site of the annual Camel Fair in Pushkar, in India's desert state of Rajasthan AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2022 People dressed in Halloween costumes paddle board along the river Avon in Christchurch, Dorset PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2022 Members of the public take pictures as police officers remove activists from a road during a Just Stop Oil protest, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA 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

DCLG has already held discussions about the 2018/19 pilots with several councils and it will be publishing more information shortly.

David Hodge, leader of Surrey County Council said: Surreys decision not to proceed with a 15 per cent council tax increase was ours alone and there has been no deal between Surrey County Council and the Government.

However, I am confident that the Government now understands the real pressures in adult social care and the need for a lasting solution.

Under a rule brought in by the Government, councils cannot raise council tax by more than 5 per cent without holding a costly local referendum.
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A mother working at a day care centre says another worker breastfed her three-month-old son without permission.

Kaycee Oxendine told WTVD-TV in Durham, North Carolina, that security footage inside Carrboro Early School showed a woman adjusting her top and bringing Ms Oxendine's three-month-old son to her chest to breastfeed him.

Ms Oxendine said her son's teacher told her he was constipated, and when another woman working in the nursery asked Ms Oxendine if she could breastfeed the boy to see if it would help, Ms Oxendine twice said no.

Day care director Daron Council said an employee reported what happened and the worker is no longer there. Ms Oxendine said the worker was fired, and she wants the woman charged.

To me, a criminal act was committed against him, she told the broadcaster. Not only did you put your breast to my son, you also made my son sick because hes lactose [intolerant].

"So youve put something in his body that his body cant digest.

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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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. 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Carrboro police said they are investigating, but no charges have been filed so far.

Associated Press
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A state senator has dared fascist Donald Trump to come after him and make good on his promise to end his career.

Pennsylvania senator Daylin Leach sent out his message to the US President via Twitter and Facebook in a show of solidarity with an unnamed Texas state senator.

Mr Trump appeared to encourage the sheriff of a small Texas county to destroy the career of a Texas senator who wanted to tamper with asset forfeiture laws.

The controversial legislation allows police to seize cash and property of suspected criminals before conviction.

Hey @realDonald Trump I oppose civil asset forfeiture too! Why dont you try to destroy my career you fascist, loofa-faced s***-gibbon, said Mr Leach on Twitter this week.

He also taunted on Facebook: Why dont you come after me.

Mr Trump was meeting county sheriffs from across the US in the White Houses Roosevelt Room when Rockwall Countrys Sheriff Harold Eavenson mentioned the Texan who was talking about introducing legislation to require conviction before seizing cash and assets.

Can you believe that, Mr Trump interjected, according to Politico.

And I told him that the cartel would build a monument to him in Mexico if he could get that legislation passed, the Texas sheriff continued.

Who is the state senator? Do you want to give his name? Well destroy his career, Mr Trump allegedly replied.

Democrat Mr Leach, who practised law, then tweeted this afternoon: New bill requires psychiatrist at WH (White House). Great idea! Maybe they could also require the guy with the nuclear codes to carry a straight jacket.

Recommended Donald Trump brands senator a liar over Supreme Court nominee

His spokesman Steve Hoenstine added: President Trump blithely talked about destroying the career of a man who disagreed with Trump on a policy issue. Then Trump laughed about it, which is just what youd expect from someone who gets his kicks firing people on national television.

Trump just continues to undermine democratic norms, Americas system of checks and balances, and the general principle of human decency. Senator Leach is mad as hell about it, as you can see from his tweet.

Mr Hoenstine also told The Independent that Mr Leach was "always fighting for what's right" and would not back down if indeed Mr Trump did come after him.

"Donald Trump may try a lot of dirty tricks, but Daylin would fight back intelligently and tirelessly, and his constituents would have his back," added Mr Hoenstine.

Asked about Mr Leach's imaginative use of swear words, he added: "I know this isn't the first time someone has called Trump a s***gibbon. Safe to say this also isn't the last time someone calls Trump a s***gibbon."

The Independent has contacted Mr Trumps communications director Hope Hicks for comment.
With only four-episode left until "Hwarang: The Beginning" comes to an end, actor Do Ji-Han recently got real about what it is really like to film a nude scene for the historical drama. In the show, he plays Park Ban-Ryu, one of the most powerful men in the Kingdom of Silla.



Earlier this week, the 25-year-old actor sat down for an interview with the local media and shared his honest thoughts about what it is like to work with actors Park Seo Joon, Park Hyung Sik, Cho Yoon Woo, SHINee's Minho, and BTS's Kim Taehyung (V). The actors spent six months filming for the historical drama together and have kept in touch since then.



Advertisement

"Our friendship strengthened rapidly after the shower scene," Soompi quoted Do as saying before a group of local media. "We even went drinking together afterward."



Do went ahead to say that the group shower scene really cemented their close bond. Revealing their bodies to each other in said nude scene helped them become close and comfortable with each other, he added.



The scene being referred to showed the six main actors showering in the communal baths when the heroine Ah-Ro (Go Ara) accidentally walked in. The toned bodies of the cast left viewers in awe.



At the time of the interview, the show's lead male actor arrived in Los Angeles to attend the "Tommy Hilfiger Spring/Summer 2017" fashion show. He is the first Asian male model to be the face of the said fashion brand.



Seo Joon, who gained widespread fame from 2015's "She Was Pretty," fits well with the simple and dandy image that the Tommy Hilfiger desires, a representative from the fashion brand told All Kpop. It added, "We look forward to the synergy that 'Tommy Hilfiger' will create with Park Seo Joon, who's a trending actor with great popularity and influence in the Asian market."



For now, check out the 16th episode of "Hwarang: The Beginning" below:






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Donald Trump has sent a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping rather than call him, a move experts say will be "interpreted as a slight".

The two leaders have not spoken directly since Mr Trump's inauguration.

In his letter, Mr Trump wished the Chinese people a prosperous Lunar New Year of the Rooster, making him the only US leader not to have sent well wishes to the world's most populous nation on its most important holiday, which fell on 28 January this year.

"It will be interpreted as a slight," Leslie Vinjamuri, an associate fellow of the US & the Americas programme at Chatham House told The Independent.

 Donald Trump's closest advisor Steve Bannon thinks there will be war with China in the next few years

She said Mr Trump was careful in wording the letter to appear conciliatory, "but undoubtedly most people and the Chinese will notice this was not a phone call."

A statement from the White House said Mr Trump wrote to Mr Xi to say he looked forward to "developing a constructive relationship that benefits both the United States and China."

Ms Vinjamuri said it was "a very clear signal" Mr Trump is "keeping the Chinese at arm's length."

"To wait nearly three weeks to establish contact, when we're talking about the most strategic relationship that the United States has over the course of the century, is a very significant factor."

The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Show all 9 1 /9 The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the media White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer takes questions during the daily press briefing Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Union leaders applaud US President Donald Trump for signing an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington DC. Mr Trump issued a presidential memorandum in January announcing that the US would withdraw from the trade deal Getty The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Mexico wall A US Border Patrol vehicle sits waiting for illegal immigrants at a fence opening near the US-Mexico border near McAllen, Texas. The number of incoming immigrants has surged ahead of the upcoming Presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. A signature campaign promise, Mr Trump outlined his intention to build a border wall on the US-Mexico border days after taking office Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and abortion US President Donald Trump signs an executive order as Chief of Staff Reince Priebus looks on in the Oval Office of the White House. Mr Trump reinstated a ban on American financial aide being granted to non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling, provide abortion referrals, or advocate for abortion access outside of the United States Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Dakota Access pipeline Opponents of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines hold a rally as they protest US President Donald Trump's executive orders advancing their construction, at Columbus Circle in New York. US President Donald Trump signed executive orders reviving the construction of two controversial oil pipelines, but said the projects would be subject to renegotiation Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and 'Obamacare' Nancy Pelosi who is the minority leader of the House of Representatives speaks beside House Democrats at an event to protect the Affordable Care Act in Los Angeles, California. US President Donald Trump's effort to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace the healthcare law failed when Republicans failed to get enough votes. Mr Trump has promised to revisit the matter Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Donald Trump and 'sanctuary cities' US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January threatening to pull funding for so-called "sanctuary cities" if they do not comply with federal immigration law AP The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the travel ban US President Donald Trump has attempted twice to restrict travel into the United States from several predominantly Muslim countries. The first attempt, in February, was met with swift opposition from protesters who flocked to airports around the country. That travel ban was later blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The second ban was blocked by a federal judge a day before it was scheduled to be implemented in mid-March SANDY HUFFAKER/AFP/Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and climate change US President Donald Trump sought to dismantle several of his predecessor's actions on climate change in March. His order instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to reevaluate the Clean Power Plan, which would cap power plant emissions Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China "highly commended" Mr Trump for the letter. He dismissed suggestions that Beijing took offence in the timing.

"It is known to all that since President Trump took office, China and the US have been in close contact," Mr Lu said.

Speculation has simmered in China about how Mr Trump might back up his tough talk, with observers noting that since his inauguration on 20 January, he has spoken to more than a dozen foreign leaders but not Mr Xi.

The US President has accused Beijing of unfair trade practices and a deliberately undervalued currency. He has also criticised China's buildup in the South China Sea and accused Beijing of doing too little to pressure North Korea over its nuclear missile programme.

He also broke four decades of diplomatic protocol by speaking by phone with the president of Taiwan, a country China claims as its own territory.

Mr Trump's closest adviser and chief strategist has openly envisaged the possibility of a US-China war over the South China Sea.

Steve Bannon said he thinks the US will be at war with China within the next five to 10 years.

Ms Vinjamuri said future relations between the US and China will be hard to predict, due to being in a "very unstable and unpredictable phase in US politics."

"There's a strong expectation that the Trump administration will take a much more aggressive line. And I think there's some very real concerns, especially with respect to the economic relationship."

She added: "I suspect this relationship is going to go through a very difficult patch."
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Donald Trump has claimed that the botched Yemen raid that left nine children and a US Navy Seal dead, was an example of the US "winning".

In a Twitter rant, he said the Chief Special Warfare Operator William Ryan Owens was a hero who died during a "winning" raid, and not a failure.

President Trump has been criticised for "missing his target" during his first overseas military mission.

On 29 January he gave the green light to descend upon a rural Yemeni village to target Al-Qaeda leader Qasim al Raymi, but the operation ended up killing nine children and a member of the US military.

There were at least 30 casualties in total.

In a series of tweets, the President vented anger against Senator John McCain, a former war prisoner in Vietnam, for claiming that the mission had been a failure.

Mr McCain had told reporters that the loss of lives "made it hard" to describe the operation as a success.

"He's been losing so long he doesn't know how to win anymore, just look at the mess our country is in - bogged down in conflict all over the place. Our hero Ryan died on a winning mission (according to General Mattis), not a "failure".

"Time for the US to get smart and start winning again!"

Five days after entering the White House, Mr Trump signalled that the US Navy SEALS, who had carried out rehearsals of the attack, could go ahead.

The team reportedly descended in darkness on a small cluster of brick houses, which also contained civilians.

Their cover was blown and enemy fire was returned. Contingency plans failed. $70 million of military Osprey aircraft was destroyed.

The US Central Command issued a statement to say the agency had "concluded regrettably that civilian non-combatants were likely killed" including women and children.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism discovered that nine children under the age of 13 were killed, and five more were injured.

Yet White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer insisted that the mission was a "absolutely a success".

"And I think anyone who would suggest it's not a success does disservice to the life of Chief Ryan Owens," he said.

"He fought knowing what was at stake in that mission. And anybody who would suggest otherwise doesn't fully appreciate how successful that mission was, what the information that they were able to retrieve was, and how that will help prevent future terrorist attacks."

He did not confirm whether the US government had been requested by Yemen to discontinue ground operations to fight Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

"I think we're in touch with Yemeni officials," he said.

Mr Spicer said earlier this week that the aim of the mission had been to gather intelligence rather than kill al-Raymi, who released an audio recording to taunt Mr Trump after the raid.

Mr Trump also claimed that defense secretary General James Mattis had agreed that the mission was "successful".

Last week Mr Trump made an unannounced trip to an air base in Delaware to honour the solider whose remains were being flown home.
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At least two people have reportedly turned down the chance to become Donald Trumps White House communications director - a position that has been vacant since he was sworn in as President last month.

The White House's Chief of Staff, Reince Priebus, has been tasked with filling the vacancy.

But his approaches to communications specialists with Mr Trump's Republican Party have been met with disinterest, according to the Politico website.

There is a list of candidates, but I can see why people aren't interested," a source told the site. "It's a tough job.

Jason Miller, Mr Trumps communications chief during the presidential campaign had been expected to take the role. But he turned down the job.

As a result communications in the first few weeks of Mr Trumps presidency have generally been led by the White House press secretary, Sean Spicer.

 Donald Trump falsely claims US murder rate is at 47-year high

The President has reportedly been unimpressed with Mr Spicers performance and blames Mr Priebus for pushing him for the job.

In the administrations first 20 days, the press secretary has cited a fake terror attack, said coal will be a clean energy source, and wrongly accused Iran of going to war with the United States.

Steve Schmidt, a campaign strategist for the Republican Party, told Politico the complete and total chaos emanating from the White House made it clear there was no strategic planning.
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Donald Trump has sworn in Jeff Sessions as US Attorney General - a man once deemed too racist to be a judge.

Mr Trump praised his new appointee as a man of integrity and principle, and as someone who had devoted his life to the cause of justice.

In a short inaugural speech following the Oval Office ceremony, Mr Sessions vowed to end lawlessness and tackle the dangerous, permanent trend of rising crime rates, a claim regularly repeated by the Trump administration that remains unproven.

The 70-year-old, who was the first sitting US senator to endorse Mr Trumps candidacy, is one of his most controversial cabinet picks due to his record on civil rights and immigration.

Formerly a state attorney general and federal prosecutor, the Alabama senator, who resigned his senate seat shortly after his new position was approved, has been followed by accusations of racism and bigotry since the 1980s.

A senate hearing at the time heard he discriminated against organisations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union, allegedly calling them un-American.

He was also accused of suggesting a white civil rights lawyer was a race traitor for taking on a voting rights case in Alabama.

Senators heard he had referred to a black official in his US attorneys office as boy and told him to be careful what he said to white people, a claim he denies.

However, he did admit to making a "joke" in which he said he had admired the KKK until he found out they smoked marijuana.

He defended himself at the time saying: I am not the Jeff Sessions my detractors have tried to create. I am not a racist. I am not insensitive to blacks.

Republicans lauded his four decades of public service and his commitment to fairness and the rule of law during the appointment.

Recommended Ivanka Trump has not fully split from family business empire

Mr Trump used the swearing-in ceremony to sign three new executive orders, including ones targeting transnational drug cartels and those who commit crimes against law enforcement.

"These dangerous times require a determined attorney general," he said at the ceremony.

It came as Mr Trump's Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch called the US President's attack on the US courts who blocked his controversial immigration order "demoralising and disheartening".
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Donald Trumps family are using his presidency "like the Kardashians used reality TV" to expand their business enterprises, a former White House ethics counsellor has said.

The remarks come after legal documents filed on behalf of Melania Trump revealed she expected to develop multi-million dollar business relationships as a result of her presence in the White House. Business documents have also shown she has not stepped away from many of the companies that manage her 'Melania'-branded products since her husband took office.

Ethics watchdogs have said they are worried the First Lady seems to be inappropriately trying to profit from a high-profile position that is usually centred on public service.

The Trumps are using the White House like the Kardashians used reality TV, to build and vastly expand their overall business enterprises, said Norman Eisen, who was President Barack Obama's chief ethics counsellor.

A libel lawsuit, re-filed by Ms Trump on Monday in New York, drew particular attention because little has been heard from the First Lady, who last posted on social media on 21 January, for several weeks. She has not been to Washington since the inauguration, and has largely been keeping a low profile in New York.

Ms Trump has been suing the corporation that publishes the Daily Mail's website over a now-retracted report that claimed she once worked as an escort.

While the new court documents do not specifically mention her role as First Lady, an unusual passage argues that in addition to being false and libellous, the Daily Mail report damaged her ability to profit from her high profile, and affected her business opportunities.

 Lawyers are using Donald Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric against him

The passage states that Ms Trump had the unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as an extremely famous and well-known person, as well as a former professional model, brand spokesperson and successful businesswoman, to launch a broad-based commercial brand in multiple product categories, each of which could have garnered multi-million dollar business relationships for a multi-year term during which plaintiff is one of the most photographed women in the world".

Charles Harder, Ms Trump's attorney, did not respond to a question about what was meant by the phrase once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He said the first lady has no intention of using her position for profit and will not do so.

It is not a possibility, Mr Harder said. Any statements to the contrary are being misinterpreted.

The products referenced in the lawsuit could have included clothing, accessories, jewellery, cosmetics, hair care and perfume, among others. The first lady is seeking compensatory and punitive damages of at least $150 million (120 million).

A review of business filings found that Ms Trump has not stepped away from her brand.

As of Tuesday, she was listed in New York filings as the CEO of Melania Marks Accessories Member Corp, the holding company of Melania Marks Accessories LLC, both of which remain active. Those companies managed between $15,000 (12,000) and $50,000 (40,000) in royalties from her accessories lines, the Trumps' May 2016 financial disclosure filing shows.

A White House spokeswoman for the first lady did not respond to a request for comment.

In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Show all 32 1 /32 In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London An image of President Donald Trump is seen on a placard during the Women's March in London, England Getty In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydney A view of the skywriting word reading 'Trump' as thousands rally in support of equal rights in Sydney, New South Wales EPA In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Rome People shout and hold signs during a rally against US newly sworn-in President Donald Trump in Rome Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London A protester holds a placard during the Women's March in London, England Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Marseille A placard ready 'Pussy grabs back' is attached to the handle bar of a bike during a 'Women's March' organized by Feminist and human rights groups in solidarity with women marching in Washington and around the world for their rights and against the reactionary politics of the newly sworn-in US President Donald Trump, at the Old Port (Vieux Port) of Marseille, southern France Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Bangkok A young Thai girl holds a "women's rights are human rights" sign at Roadhouse BBQ restaurant where many of the Bangkok Womens March participants gathered in Bangkok, Thailand Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Bangkok A Thai woman takes a photo of a "hate is not great" sign at the women's solidarity gathering in Bangkok, Thailand Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Bangkok American expats and travellers gather with the international community in Bangkok at the Roadhouse BBQ restaurant to stand in solidarity in Bangkok, Thailand Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London Protetesters gather outside The US Embassy in Grosvenor Square ahead of the Women's March in London, England Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Marseille Women's March at the Old Port (Vieux Port) of Marseille, southern France Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Marseille Protestors hold placards reading 'My body my choice, my vote my voice' during a 'Women's March' organized by Feminist and human rights groups in solidarity with women marching in Washington and around the world for their rights and against the reactionary politics of the newly sworn-in US President Donald Trump, at the Old Port (Vieux Port) of Marseille, southern France Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Rome A person holds a sign during a rally against US newly sworn-in President Donald Trump in Rome Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Kolkata Activist Sarah Annay Williamson holds a placard and shouts slogan during the Women's March rally in Kolkata, India AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Kolkata Activists participate in the Women's March rally in Kolkata, India AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London A Women's March placards are rested on a bench outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square ahead of the Women's March in London, England Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London A women carries her placard ahead of the Women's March in London, England Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Manila Women protesters shout slogans while displaying placards during a rally in solidarity against the inauguration of President Donald Trump, in suburban Quezon city, northeast of Manila, Philippines AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Berlin Protesters attend a 'Berlin Women's March on Washington' demonstration in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Berlin Protesters attend a 'Berlin Women's March on Washington' demonstration in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Berlin Protesters attend a 'Berlin Women's March on Washington' demonstration in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Melbourne Protesters take part in the Melbourne rally to protest against the Trump Inauguration in Melbourne, Australia Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Macau Protesters take part in the Women's March rally in Macau Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Melbourne Womens march on Melbourne protestors marching during a rally where rights groups marched in solidarity with Americans to speak out against misogyny, bigotry and hatred Rex In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Macau Protesters hold placards as they take part at the Women's March rally in Macau Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Macau Protesters hold placards as they take part at the Women's March rally in Macau, Macau. The Women's March originated in Washington DC but soon spread to be a global march calling on all concerned citizens to stand up for equality, diversity and inclusion and for women's rights to be recognised around the world as human rights Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Manila A mother carries her son as they join a rally in solidarity against the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States in suburban Quezon city northeast of Manila, Philippines AP In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydney An infant is held up at a demonstration against new U.S. President Donald Trump in Sydney, Australia Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydney A woman attends a demonstration against new U.S. President Donald Trump in Sydney, Australia Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydney A woman expresses her Anti-Trump views in Sydney, Australia Getty Images In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump Sydeney Protesters demonstrate against new U.S. President Donald Trump in Sydney, Australia. The marches in Australia were organised to show solidarity with those marching on Washington DC and around the world in defense of women's rights and human rights Getty In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London Protesters march from The US Embassy in Grosvenor Square towards Trafalgar Square during the Women's March in London, England Getty In pictures: Women of the world march against Trump London Protesters carrying banners take part in the Women's March on London, as they stand in Trafalgar Square, in central London Reuters

Scott Amey, general counsel of the Washington watchdog Project on Government Oversight, said the First Lady's ongoing enterprises are another example of the first family blurring the line between public service and private business interests.

Richard Painter, who advised former President George W Bush on ethics, said the lawsuit's language shows Ms Trump is engaging in an unprecedented, clear breach of rules about using her government position for private gain.

Mr Painter and Mr Eisen are part of a group of attorneys suing the president for an alleged violation of a constitutional clause that prohibits presidents from receiving foreign gifts or payments.

President Trump continues to financially benefit from his global business empire, breaking from past practice. Previous presidents and their families have divested from business interests and placed their holdings in a blind trust, although there is no legal requirement to do so.

Mr Trump handed daily management of the real estate, property management and licencing business to his adult sons and a longtime Trump Organisation employee.

Additional reporting by Associated Press
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Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States of America, is very impressed with the telephones in the White House. Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States of America, is very unimpressed with the towels on Air Force One.

The Huffington Post has reported that, according to a White House aide, Mr Trump registered a complaint about the hand towels aboard Air Force One, because they are not soft enough.

It is the latest in a series of insights into the President's daily routine.

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Last week, he confessed his love of the White Houses phone system, telling the New York Times: These are the most beautiful phones Ive ever used in my life."

On Wednesday, Mr Trump confused many Twitter users with a post referencing "EASY D!:

It was widely suggested he was probably referring to an "easy decision" in relation to the ongoing legal battle over his controversial travel ban.
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Donald Trump posted an angry tweet about his daughter's brands being dropped by chain of department stores, 21 minutes after his official White House schedule said his daily intelligence briefing was due to start.

The US President claimed Ivanka Trump had been treated so unfairly by Nordstrom, after it dropped the 35-year-olds clothing line.

His tweet was posted at 10.51am on Wednesday. Mr Trump was due to meet intelligence officials at 10.30am.

The post was later re-shared by his official and taxpayer-funded @POTUS account, a profile intended for presidential business only.

Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, defended the billionaires actions, claiming Mr Trump was responding to an attack on this daughter.

The President had every right to stand up for his family and applaud their business activities, their success, Mr Spicer said.

He added: "So, look, when it comes to his family I think he's been very clear how proud he is of what they do and what they've accomplished. And for someone to take out their concern with his policies on a family member of his is just, is not acceptable. And the president has every right, as a father, to stand up for them."

Mr Spicer suggested there was a targeting of Ms Trumps brand due to her fathers position on particular policies.

The press secretary also insisted the President was free at the time he tweeted.

 Sean Spicer says an attack on Ivanka's clothing line is an attack on the President

Nordstrom said the decision to drop the clothing line was made in early January, while Barack Obama was still President.

Over the past year, and particularly in the last half of 2016, sales of the brand have steadily declined to the point where it didnt make good business sense for us to continue with the line for now, the company said in a statement.

Mr Trump was criticised for using his office to complain.

Norm Eisen, a former White House ethics chief said Mr Trump's tweet was "an abuse of the office of the presidency".

The Independent has attempted to contact the White House for comment but none had been received at the time of publication.
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Donald Trump has signed three executive orders to deal with public safety, including handing more authority to the police.

At the formal ceremony to appoint Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, the President outlined the new mandate that Mr Sessions would have, including tackling crime, drug cartels and terrorism.

He insisted that the US faced the threat of rising crime and that things will get better very soon.

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I am directing the Department of Justice to reduce crimes and crimes of violence against law enforcement officers, he said.

Its a shame, what has been happening to our great, our truly great, law enforcement officers. That is going to stop today.

One of the executive orders seeks to define new federal crimes, and increase penalties for existing federal crimes, in order to prevent violence against state and federal police.

In 2016, a total of 135 police officers were killed in the US, a five-year high, according to a report from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. Around half of them  64 officers  were fatally shot while on the job, including 21 who were killed in an ambush-style attack. The number also includes traffic accidents and job-related health issues, for example, heart attacks while working.

No mention was made by Mr Trump of the hundreds of people who die at the hands of law enforcement every year.

There were 968 deaths last year, according to The Washington Post, and more than 130 people so far in 2017, according to a database called killedbypolice.net

The executive orders were signed during Black History Month.

His speech comes just one month after the former administration's DoJ concluded that, in Chicago, residents had suffered a pattern of excessive force by police, experienced particularly within communities of colour. Chicago was just one city being investigated under former President Barack Obamas government as shocking videos emerged that showed people such as Alton Sterling, Sandra Bland and Walter Scott being violently arrested or killed at the hands of police officers.

Civil rights campaigners say the new mandate under Jeff Sessions is unlikely to include continuing the former department's investigation on these deaths or follow through on policing reform.

The rate of police officers being indicted or convicted is extremely low.

At the swearing-in ceremony of Mr Sessions on Thursday, Mr Trump added that the three new executive orders, including ordering the Department of Homeland Security to break the back of criminal cartels and asking the Department of Justice to implement a task force to reduce violent crime, were giving a clear sign to criminals.

Your day is over, he declared. A new era of justice begins and it begins right now.

Mr Sessions, a longtime Senator from Alabama who was once deemed too racist to serve as a federal judge, told reporters that the US has a crime problem.

I wish the rise that we're seeing in crime in America today were some sort of aberration or a blip, he said.

My best judgement, having been involved in criminal law enforcement for many years, is that this is a dangerous, permanent trend that puts the health and safety of America at risk, he added.

The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Show all 9 1 /9 The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the media White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer takes questions during the daily press briefing Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Union leaders applaud US President Donald Trump for signing an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington DC. Mr Trump issued a presidential memorandum in January announcing that the US would withdraw from the trade deal Getty The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Mexico wall A US Border Patrol vehicle sits waiting for illegal immigrants at a fence opening near the US-Mexico border near McAllen, Texas. The number of incoming immigrants has surged ahead of the upcoming Presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. A signature campaign promise, Mr Trump outlined his intention to build a border wall on the US-Mexico border days after taking office Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and abortion US President Donald Trump signs an executive order as Chief of Staff Reince Priebus looks on in the Oval Office of the White House. Mr Trump reinstated a ban on American financial aide being granted to non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling, provide abortion referrals, or advocate for abortion access outside of the United States Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Dakota Access pipeline Opponents of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines hold a rally as they protest US President Donald Trump's executive orders advancing their construction, at Columbus Circle in New York. US President Donald Trump signed executive orders reviving the construction of two controversial oil pipelines, but said the projects would be subject to renegotiation Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and 'Obamacare' Nancy Pelosi who is the minority leader of the House of Representatives speaks beside House Democrats at an event to protect the Affordable Care Act in Los Angeles, California. US President Donald Trump's effort to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace the healthcare law failed when Republicans failed to get enough votes. Mr Trump has promised to revisit the matter Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Donald Trump and 'sanctuary cities' US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January threatening to pull funding for so-called "sanctuary cities" if they do not comply with federal immigration law AP The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the travel ban US President Donald Trump has attempted twice to restrict travel into the United States from several predominantly Muslim countries. The first attempt, in February, was met with swift opposition from protesters who flocked to airports around the country. That travel ban was later blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The second ban was blocked by a federal judge a day before it was scheduled to be implemented in mid-March SANDY HUFFAKER/AFP/Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and climate change US President Donald Trump sought to dismantle several of his predecessor's actions on climate change in March. His order instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to reevaluate the Clean Power Plan, which would cap power plant emissions Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Mr Trumps and Mr Sessionss claims of permanent, rising crime have consistently been debunked.

Despite a slight rise in crime over the past two years, it has gone down significantly over several decades and is much lower than in the 1980s and 1990s.

Mr Sessions added that he would fight terrorism and implement a lawful system of immigration.

We need to end this lawlessness that threatens the public safety and pulls down the wages of working Americans, he said.

Mr Sessions was widely reported to be one of the key architects of the Muslim ban, an executive order signed on 27 January which banned all travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries in the name of fighting terrorism, despite these countries having produced no terrorist who killed a single American on US soil as part of a terrorist attack since 2001. The order was signed on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Mr Trump was also criticised for beginning his pitch to black voters just a few weeks before the Presidential election in November.

He told black churchgoers in Ohio that communities of colour have crime-ridden inner cities, no jobs and their schools are no good.

What the hell do you have to lose? he asked them.

The next four to eight years will reveal the answer.
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Donald Trump wears his sleep deprivation as a badge of honour. The President has routinely relished in boasting he is above a proper nights sleep.

In the most recent instance, the mogul-turned-politico declared he only gets around four or five hours of sleep a night. Speaking to Fox News interviewer Bill OReilly on Tuesday night, Mr Trump said he works long hours, right up till 12 o'clock, 1 o'clock in the morning and then generally wakes up at 5 am.

But while President Trump might see this as something to be proud of, Dr Neil Stanley, a sleep expert who has been involved in sleep research for 34 years, has other ideas.

On the contrary, Dr Stanley thinks Mr Trumps lack of sleep could have some very serious potential consequences for America and the wider world. Unsurprisingly, he is wary of the idea of President Trump making snap presidential decisions when he has only had a few snatched hours sleep here and there.

It goes without saying that getting a handful of hours sleep per night has profound consequences on people. To put it simply, sleep deprivation has a harmful impact on functions associated with the frontal lobe of the brain, such as alertness, attention, decision-making and cognitive processes.

We know from research in business leadership that if you are sleep deprived, your inability to focus, concentrate, make decisions, and a lack of empathy can make it more likely you make rash decisions not based on all the information and express them in an undiplomatic way, Dr Stanley tells The Independent.

The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Show all 9 1 /9 The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the media White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer takes questions during the daily press briefing Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Union leaders applaud US President Donald Trump for signing an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington DC. Mr Trump issued a presidential memorandum in January announcing that the US would withdraw from the trade deal Getty The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Mexico wall A US Border Patrol vehicle sits waiting for illegal immigrants at a fence opening near the US-Mexico border near McAllen, Texas. The number of incoming immigrants has surged ahead of the upcoming Presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. A signature campaign promise, Mr Trump outlined his intention to build a border wall on the US-Mexico border days after taking office Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and abortion US President Donald Trump signs an executive order as Chief of Staff Reince Priebus looks on in the Oval Office of the White House. Mr Trump reinstated a ban on American financial aide being granted to non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling, provide abortion referrals, or advocate for abortion access outside of the United States Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Dakota Access pipeline Opponents of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines hold a rally as they protest US President Donald Trump's executive orders advancing their construction, at Columbus Circle in New York. US President Donald Trump signed executive orders reviving the construction of two controversial oil pipelines, but said the projects would be subject to renegotiation Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and 'Obamacare' Nancy Pelosi who is the minority leader of the House of Representatives speaks beside House Democrats at an event to protect the Affordable Care Act in Los Angeles, California. US President Donald Trump's effort to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace the healthcare law failed when Republicans failed to get enough votes. Mr Trump has promised to revisit the matter Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Donald Trump and 'sanctuary cities' US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January threatening to pull funding for so-called "sanctuary cities" if they do not comply with federal immigration law AP The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the travel ban US President Donald Trump has attempted twice to restrict travel into the United States from several predominantly Muslim countries. The first attempt, in February, was met with swift opposition from protesters who flocked to airports around the country. That travel ban was later blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The second ban was blocked by a federal judge a day before it was scheduled to be implemented in mid-March SANDY HUFFAKER/AFP/Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and climate change US President Donald Trump sought to dismantle several of his predecessor's actions on climate change in March. His order instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to reevaluate the Clean Power Plan, which would cap power plant emissions Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

He says being underslept is the equivalent to being over the drink driving limit. According to Dr Stanley, if you have been awake for around 16 hours, it can impair your ability more than being over the drink driving limit. While being awake for 24 hours is the equivalent of being twice over the limit.

If you are over the drink driving limit, you probably should not be taking important decisions, he says. If he is sleep deprived, he is running the country while too impaired to drive a motor vehicle.

Dr Stanley thinks some of Mr Trumps recent blunders are indicative of someone who may be sleep-deprived  especially those regarding international diplomacy. The two examples he cites are Mr Trumps alleged decision to put the phone down on Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his phone call with Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen in December which broke nearly four decades of US policy and upset China.

He does seem to be an impetuous man, he says. He does seem to say what he thinks whereas perhaps someone who was well rested would temper his language or his way of dealing with things.

Dr Stanley explains that whether you cut yourself chopping a cucumber or press the nuclear codes, these are both examples of your reaction to a situation being exacerbated by a lack of sleep.

It would be better if the leader of the free world was rested and functioning at his best, he suggests. You would know that whatever he was doing, he was doing advisably, even if you dont agree with it, at least you know hes not making mistakes. We would all rest easily.

Nevertheless, Dr Stanley does say there is a good chance Mr Trump could simply have a good sleeper gene  a theory which has been frequently floated. After all, the former reality TV star has been bragging about how little sleep he needs for the last couple of decades.

In his 2004 book Think Like a Billionaire, Mr Trump wrote: Dont sleep any more than you have to, I usually sleep about four hours per night. In a similar vein, at a campaign event in Springfield, Illinois in November 2015, he said: You know, Im not a big sleeper. I like three hours, four hours, I toss, I turn, I beep-de-beep, I want to find out whats going on.

The amount of sleep you need is genetic and while most people need between seven and nine hours, there is the chance Mr Trump is one of the two per cent of the population who does not need much. Then again, experts have suggested that only five out of 100 people who believe they are short sleepers actually are.

It could be that Trump just genuinely is one of those people who can function at a high level on not enough sleep, explains Dr Stanley. He may just be like that. This might be the best of Donald Trump. In a way, you want to imagine that he is sleep deprived because you could fix that and things would be better.

Dr Stanley explains that sleep deficit also has a fundamental impact on emotions. Research on couples has shown youre more liable to have an argument and youre less likely to make up afterwards. You show less empathy, he says.

If you lack empathy, diplomacy and are unable to make decisions and you are in a couple, you going to have more fights but if you are the President of the United States, you are a very powerful individual. There are plenty of flash points in the world for somebody who isnt acting as empathetically or diplomatically as you hoped.
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Neil Gorsuch, Donald Trumps Supreme Court nominee, has called the presidents recent attacks on the judiciary disheartening and demoralizing.

Senator Richard Blumenthal on Wednesday said that he spoke with the US Appeals Court judge in a private meeting. Mr Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, told reporters that Mr Gorsuch "certainly expressed to me that he is disheartened by the demoralising and abhorrent comments made by President Trump about the judiciary."

The president recently criticised a federal judge in Seattle for suspending his visa and refugee ban on seven majority Muslim countries. In a series of tweets, the president called US District Judge James Robart a so-called judge. Mr Robart was nominated in 2003 by George W Bush and confirmed unanimously by the Senate.

The president on Wednesday also criticised the three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals for questioning a Justice Department lawyers who defended the ban. The judges also grilled a Washington attorney who argued that the temporary ban had caused irreparable harm to his state and its people.

"I don't want to call a court biased, so I wont call it biased the president complained, but courts seem to be so political, and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do whats right.

New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban Show all 27 1 /27 New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban Ethnic Yemenis and supporters protest against President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen on February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. At least 1,000 Yemeni-owned bodegas and grocery-stores across the city shut down from noon to 8 p.m. today to protest the order. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban Men pray during a protest by ethnic Yemenis and supporters over President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen on February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. At least 1,000 Yemeni-owned bodegas and grocery-stores across the city shut down from noon to 8 p.m. today to protest the order. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban Ethnic Yemenis and supporters protest against President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen on February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. At least 1,000 Yemeni-owned bodegas and grocery-stores across the city shut down from noon to 8 p.m. today to protest the order. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban Men pray during a protest by ethnic Yemenis and supporters over President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen on February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. At least 1,000 Yemeni-owned bodegas and grocery-stores across the city shut down from noon to 8 p.m. today to protest the order. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People gather for evening prayer at a rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally with flags at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally with flags at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally with flags at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally with flags at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally with flags at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban A Yemeni business owner places a sign on the gate of his store February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Across the city, Yemeni owned bodega and grocery-stores will shut down from noon to 8 p.m. to protest President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen. It is expected that over 1000 stores will be closed in protest with workers and owners participating in an afternoon rally in Brooklyn. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban A Yemeni business owner places a sign on the gate of his store February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Across the city, Yemeni owned bodega and grocery-stores will shut down from noon to 8 p.m. to protest President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen. It is expected that over 1000 stores will be closed in protest with workers and owners participating in an afternoon rally in Brooklyn. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban NEW YORK, NY - FEBRUARY 02: Yemeni business owner Musa closes the gate to his store February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Across the city, Yemeni owned bodega and grocery-stores will shut down from noon to 8 p.m. to protest President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen. It is expected that over 1000 stores will be closed in protest with workers and owners participating in an afternoon rally in Brooklyn. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban A Yemeni business owner closes the gate to his store February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Across the city, Yemeni owned bodega and grocery-stores will shut down from noon to 8 p.m. to protest President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen. It is expected that over 1000 stores will be closed in protest with workers and owners participating in an afternoon rally in Brooklyn. Spencer Platt/Getty

"A bad high school student would understand this," he told a gather of law enforcement officers in Washington DC. "Anybody would understand this."

Later this week, the three judges with the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals are expected to decide on whether to uphold Judge Robarts restraining order.
A huge explosion of a magnesium plant in Anhui caused a mushroom cloud of fire. (Photo : Facebook)

A magnesium factory in Anhui was on fire and caused the formation of a massive fireball. Footage of the fire went viral on social media.



The explosion of a magnesium factory occurred on Wednesday night. Chinese authorities are still investigating the cause of the fire. No injuries were reported.



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According to the Tongling Daily, the chemical explosion happened late Wednesday evening. Large flames were seen in the sky.



The Daily wrote, "At present, there are no injuries or deaths," adding that the fire caused by the explosion has been effectively controlled.



At the time of the explosion, residents screamed in terror as a giant mushroom of smoke formed and rose above the burning chemical plant. Fire engines and emergency rescue teams rushed to the scene.



The fire was controlled right away and stopped from spreading to other villages. Many residents recalled the explosion in Tianjin, the biggest so far.



Chemical explosions are a common occurrence in China. The explosion in Tianjin killed 173 people and caused damages that totaled $1.1 billion and damaged 304 buildings, according to reports from the State Council.



Every year, the locality of Tianjin commemorates the heroism of the firefighters who died while attempting to stop the fire from spreading.



The Communist Party is trying to tone down reports of what happened during the Tianjin blast. President Xi Jinping, however, said that local officials should learn from the lessons of the explosion to avoid similar tragedies from happening in the future.



One survivor, Zhang Mengfan, a fire radio operator, refused to stay quiet. He said, "On this anniversary there should be a way for the public to know what happened. I don't want silence."



"When I saw the mushroom cloud I fell into a state of desperation. I knew what it would mean for my friends," he recalled.



Firefighters did not know at that time that there was a huge amount of illegally stored chemicals in the plant and that would cause the loss of many lives.






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Donald Trump has branded a senator a liar and hit out over claims his own Supreme Court nominee had criticised him.

Judge Neil Gorsuch had told Senator Richard Blumenthal that Mr Trump's attacks on judges were "demoralizing and disheartening", according to reports from both the senator and the judge's own spokesperson. But now the President has said that Mr Gorsuch never actually said that and that the senator is liar.

"Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie), now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?" Mr Trump posted on Twitter. His update came as Mr Gorsuch's comments looked set to embarrass Mr Trump, who has repeatedly criticised judges and the judiciary both before and after his election.

The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Show all 9 1 /9 The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the media White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer takes questions during the daily press briefing Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Union leaders applaud US President Donald Trump for signing an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington DC. Mr Trump issued a presidential memorandum in January announcing that the US would withdraw from the trade deal Getty The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Mexico wall A US Border Patrol vehicle sits waiting for illegal immigrants at a fence opening near the US-Mexico border near McAllen, Texas. The number of incoming immigrants has surged ahead of the upcoming Presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. A signature campaign promise, Mr Trump outlined his intention to build a border wall on the US-Mexico border days after taking office Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and abortion US President Donald Trump signs an executive order as Chief of Staff Reince Priebus looks on in the Oval Office of the White House. Mr Trump reinstated a ban on American financial aide being granted to non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling, provide abortion referrals, or advocate for abortion access outside of the United States Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Dakota Access pipeline Opponents of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines hold a rally as they protest US President Donald Trump's executive orders advancing their construction, at Columbus Circle in New York. US President Donald Trump signed executive orders reviving the construction of two controversial oil pipelines, but said the projects would be subject to renegotiation Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and 'Obamacare' Nancy Pelosi who is the minority leader of the House of Representatives speaks beside House Democrats at an event to protect the Affordable Care Act in Los Angeles, California. US President Donald Trump's effort to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace the healthcare law failed when Republicans failed to get enough votes. Mr Trump has promised to revisit the matter Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Donald Trump and 'sanctuary cities' US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January threatening to pull funding for so-called "sanctuary cities" if they do not comply with federal immigration law AP The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the travel ban US President Donald Trump has attempted twice to restrict travel into the United States from several predominantly Muslim countries. The first attempt, in February, was met with swift opposition from protesters who flocked to airports around the country. That travel ban was later blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The second ban was blocked by a federal judge a day before it was scheduled to be implemented in mid-March SANDY HUFFAKER/AFP/Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and climate change US President Donald Trump sought to dismantle several of his predecessor's actions on climate change in March. His order instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to reevaluate the Clean Power Plan, which would cap power plant emissions Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Mr Blumenthal said that Mr Gorsuch has made the comments on a phone call, and they were later confirmed by the judge's own spokesperson. The two spoke because the senator sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will question the judge before he has admitted to the Supreme Court as Mr Trump's nominee.

The nominee  who was picked by Mr Trump during a livestreamed event  "didn't disagree" that the President could be held in contempt of court for his repeated attacks on the judiciary, said Mr Blumenthal.

Mr Gorsuch appeared to be referencing Mr Trump's ongoing fight with the courts over the legality of bringing in the travel ban, which keeps people from a range of predominantly Muslim countries from entering the US.

A number of judges have criticised the legality of the executive order that introduced the ban and it has temporarily been stopped. Mr Trump has criticised the judges that have been involved in doing so.

I don't ever want to call a court biased so I won't call it biased, and we haven't had a decision yet, Mr Trump said most recently. But courts seem to be so political, and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to . . . do what's right.

He also referred to one of the legal experts involved in the ban as a "so-called judge". That followed a pattern of criticising members of the judiciary that also included his claim that a judge with Mexican-American heritage was biased against him and so could not hear a case involving him.
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Donald Trump has insisted that the Muslim ban was written perfectly and the federal judges who opposed it were motivated by politics.

Yet his executive order is facing a court battle that could last all the way to the Supreme Court.

Signed on 27 January, the order banned nearly all travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries and prompted widespread protests. It was temporarily halted after eight days by federal judge James Robart in Seattle.

 In August of 2017, Donald Trump decried the courts' role in the travel ban

Mr Trump read out the wording of the executive order to the National Sheriffs Association on Wednesday morning, saying that it was written clearly and that even a bad high school student could understand it.

I watched [the judges arguments for and against] last night with amazement and I heard things that I couldnt believe, said Mr Trump, referring to the hearing at the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco.

Things that really have nothing to do with what I just read. I dont want to call the courts biased.

But courts seem to be so political and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do whats right. And that has to do with the security of our country.

The President was angry that his emergency appeal to overturn Judge James Robarts ruling was denied.

A bad high school student would understand this. Anybody would understand this.

The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Show all 9 1 /9 The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the media White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer takes questions during the daily press briefing Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Union leaders applaud US President Donald Trump for signing an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington DC. Mr Trump issued a presidential memorandum in January announcing that the US would withdraw from the trade deal Getty The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Mexico wall A US Border Patrol vehicle sits waiting for illegal immigrants at a fence opening near the US-Mexico border near McAllen, Texas. The number of incoming immigrants has surged ahead of the upcoming Presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. A signature campaign promise, Mr Trump outlined his intention to build a border wall on the US-Mexico border days after taking office Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and abortion US President Donald Trump signs an executive order as Chief of Staff Reince Priebus looks on in the Oval Office of the White House. Mr Trump reinstated a ban on American financial aide being granted to non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling, provide abortion referrals, or advocate for abortion access outside of the United States Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Dakota Access pipeline Opponents of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines hold a rally as they protest US President Donald Trump's executive orders advancing their construction, at Columbus Circle in New York. US President Donald Trump signed executive orders reviving the construction of two controversial oil pipelines, but said the projects would be subject to renegotiation Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and 'Obamacare' Nancy Pelosi who is the minority leader of the House of Representatives speaks beside House Democrats at an event to protect the Affordable Care Act in Los Angeles, California. US President Donald Trump's effort to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace the healthcare law failed when Republicans failed to get enough votes. Mr Trump has promised to revisit the matter Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Donald Trump and 'sanctuary cities' US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January threatening to pull funding for so-called "sanctuary cities" if they do not comply with federal immigration law AP The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the travel ban US President Donald Trump has attempted twice to restrict travel into the United States from several predominantly Muslim countries. The first attempt, in February, was met with swift opposition from protesters who flocked to airports around the country. That travel ban was later blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The second ban was blocked by a federal judge a day before it was scheduled to be implemented in mid-March SANDY HUFFAKER/AFP/Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and climate change US President Donald Trump sought to dismantle several of his predecessor's actions on climate change in March. His order instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to reevaluate the Clean Power Plan, which would cap power plant emissions Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Its as plain as you can have it, he added.

I was a good student. I understand things. I comprehend very well, better than I think almost anybody, he said.

He argued the order was correct, not politically correct, and it was important to stop an influx of people who want to do harm to the US.

It couldnt have been written any more precisely, said the President. Its not like, oh gee, we wish it was written better. It was written beautifully.

 Lawyers are using Donald Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric against him

Regardless of the appeal courts ruling, a decision is expected within days and the case will likely end up in the USs highest court.

White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, insisted the executive order was executed lawfully and it had been signed off by the Justice Department. The order prompted about 60,000 visas to be revoked, which were then reinstated a week later following the court order in Washington state. Airports were instructed to act as if Mr Trumps executive order had never existed.

Mr Spicer avoided questions on why the President had called Judge Robarts ruling outrageous.

If at some point this President does not have the power as given to him in law to protect this country I think this really questions the slippery slope were on, said Mr Spicer.

When questioned on what constituted the real" threat to the US regarding terrorism, his answer was vague.

He [the President] wants to make sure we understand the threat and it is his job to do everything he can to protect the nation and the country, he replied.

While we may not face an imminent threat today, we dont know when that next threat comes. Is it next week, next month or next year?

A study by the Cato Institute think tank found that no Syrian refugee had even been charged with the intent of carrying out a terrorist attack on US soil in more than four decades, and only 17 people from the six other countries had been charged with such an intent. No one died as a result of a terrorist attack plotted or carried out by anyone from the seven nations in 41 years.

John Kelly, the Department of Homeland Security Secretary, testified this week that the roll-out of the ban should have been paused just a bit to allow his department to inform Congress.

This is all on me, by the way, he added, to a Senate committee.

Mr Kelly and his staff reportedly made small changes to the order but were overruled by Mr Trumps chief strategist, Steve Bannon, who pushed for the order to cover visa and green card holders.
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Donald Trump just can't seem to separate the presidency from his family's businesses.

Whereas other presidents took pains to avoid even the appearance of using their office for private gain, Trump is pushing the limits. He met with Indian business partners before his inauguration, and decided to hold on to his company, while expanding his hotel brand.

On Wednesday, he added to a string of presidential firsts, and drew fire from ethics lawyers, with a Twitter attack on Nordstrom. The Seattle-based retailer earned Trump's ire by dropping his daughter Ivanka's clothing and accessory line.

The implication, intended or not: Hurt my daughter's business and the Oval Office will come after you.

My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom, the president tweeted. She is a great person - always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!

Posted first on his personal account, it was re-tweeted more than 6,000 times in less than an hour. It was also retweeted by the official @POTUS account.

Though Trump has tweeted about companies such as Boeing, Carrier and General Motors, ethics experts say this time was different: It involved a business run by his daughter, which raises conflict-of-interest concerns.

Trump's tweet follows revelations that First Lady Melania Trump expected to develop multi-million dollar business relationships tied to her presence in the White House, according to a suit she filed on Monday.

Ethics experts have criticised Trump's plan to separate himself from his sprawling real estate business by handing managerial control to his two adult sons. The experts want him to sell his company. Most modern presidents have sold their financial holdings and put the cash raised in a blind trust whose investments remained unknown to them.

Kathleen Clark, a government ethics expert, said the Nordstrom tweet is problematic because other retailers may think twice now about dropping the Ivanka Trump brand for fear of getting criticised publicly by the president. She said it was especially disturbing that Trump retweeted his message on the official White House account.

The implicit threat was that he will use whatever authority he has to retaliate against Nordstrom, or anyone who crosses his interest, said Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis.

Clark defended the president's right to use his personal Twitter account to express his views, however. She noted that government workers recently set up alt-EPA accounts to criticise the president's policies. A government employee, even a president, is allowed to tweet in his personal capacity.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump was responding to an attack on his daughter when he posted the tweet and that he has every right to stand up for his family and applaud their business activities, their success.

One of the president's fiercest ethics critics, Norman Eisen, described the tweet differently - a bullying tactic beneath the dignity of the president's office.

This is a shot across the bow to everybody who is doing business with Trump or his family, said Eisen, who was President Barack Obama's chief ethics counsellor. It's warning them: Don't withdraw their business.

Eisen joined with other legal scholars and lawyers to sue the president last month for allegedly violating a clause in the Constitution that prohibits government officials from accepting gifts or payments from foreign governments. Though other legal scholars disagree, Eisen said such payments include foreign diplomats staying at Trump's new Washington D.C. hotel and holding events there and at the other Trump venues.

Trump and his top aides have repeatedly said that Americans do not care about what Eisen and other ethics critics say. Prior to the election it was well known that I have interests in properties all over the world, Trump wrote on Twitter November 21.

Two surveys released in January show that's not entirely the case. A Quinnipiac University poll found that about 60 percent of registered voters were at least somewhat concerned that the president would veto a law that would be good for the country because it would hurt his business interests. And a Pew Research Center poll found that 57 percent of American adults were at least somewhat concerned that Trump's businesses could conflict with his ability to serve the country's best interests.

The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Show all 9 1 /9 The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the media White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer takes questions during the daily press briefing Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Union leaders applaud US President Donald Trump for signing an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington DC. Mr Trump issued a presidential memorandum in January announcing that the US would withdraw from the trade deal Getty The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Mexico wall A US Border Patrol vehicle sits waiting for illegal immigrants at a fence opening near the US-Mexico border near McAllen, Texas. The number of incoming immigrants has surged ahead of the upcoming Presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. A signature campaign promise, Mr Trump outlined his intention to build a border wall on the US-Mexico border days after taking office Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and abortion US President Donald Trump signs an executive order as Chief of Staff Reince Priebus looks on in the Oval Office of the White House. Mr Trump reinstated a ban on American financial aide being granted to non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling, provide abortion referrals, or advocate for abortion access outside of the United States Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Dakota Access pipeline Opponents of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines hold a rally as they protest US President Donald Trump's executive orders advancing their construction, at Columbus Circle in New York. US President Donald Trump signed executive orders reviving the construction of two controversial oil pipelines, but said the projects would be subject to renegotiation Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and 'Obamacare' Nancy Pelosi who is the minority leader of the House of Representatives speaks beside House Democrats at an event to protect the Affordable Care Act in Los Angeles, California. US President Donald Trump's effort to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace the healthcare law failed when Republicans failed to get enough votes. Mr Trump has promised to revisit the matter Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Donald Trump and 'sanctuary cities' US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January threatening to pull funding for so-called "sanctuary cities" if they do not comply with federal immigration law AP The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the travel ban US President Donald Trump has attempted twice to restrict travel into the United States from several predominantly Muslim countries. The first attempt, in February, was met with swift opposition from protesters who flocked to airports around the country. That travel ban was later blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The second ban was blocked by a federal judge a day before it was scheduled to be implemented in mid-March SANDY HUFFAKER/AFP/Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and climate change US President Donald Trump sought to dismantle several of his predecessor's actions on climate change in March. His order instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to reevaluate the Clean Power Plan, which would cap power plant emissions Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Yet Trump seems to have calculated that his base of supporters forgives - and maybe even encourages - his protective bluster about his family businesses.

Nordstrom reiterated Wednesday that its decision was based on the brand's performance, not politics. The company said sales of Ivanka Trump items had steadily declined over the past year, particularly in the last half of 2016, to the point where it didn't make good business sense for us to continue with the line for now.

Retailers drop brands all the time because of poor performance, said brand consultant Allen Adamson. But given a highly charged political environment, perception is reality for loyal Trump fans.

It is clearly hard for Nordstrom to tell the story that it is dropping (the brand) for business reasons, said Adamson, founder of the firm Brand Simple.

AP
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A Democratic congressman has said he plans to file a bill to require the White House to hire an in-house psychiatrist for Donald Trump.

Im looking at it from the perspective of, if there are questions about the mental health of the president of the United States, what may be the best way to get the president treatment? California's representative Ted Lieu told The Huffington Post.

Mr Lieu added: Were now in the 21st century. Mental health is just as important as physical health."

He said he was planning to introduce the legislation early next week.

 Donald Trump falsely claims US murder rate is at 47-year high

In 1928, Congress passed a law requiring a physician in the White House, but the law stopped short of calling for a psychiatrist because of the stigma around mental health issues at the time.

Last week, Mr Lieu criticised Mr Trump for his tweets attacking the New York Times and defending his executive order on immigration, which banned people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US.

"Last 24 hrs on Twitter, Donald Trump went on rant about 'death & destruction,' 'FAKE NEWS,' & 'evil.' Should he get mental health exam?" Mr Lieu tweeted.

In his Huffington Post interview, he said "it is not normal" for the president "to write about death and destruction and fake news and evil."

President Donald Trump life in pictures Show all 16 1 /16 President Donald Trump life in pictures President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump poses in a rocking chair once used by President John F. Kennedy at his New York City residence Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Developer Donald Trump with his new bride Marla Maples after their wedding at the Plaza hotel in New York Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and Celina Midelfart watch the match between Conchita Martinez and Amanda Coetzer during U.S. Open. She was the date whom Donald Trump was with when he met his current wife Melania at a party in 1996 Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas serving as the grand marshal for the Daytona 500, speaks to Donald Trump and Melania Knauss on the starting grid at the Daytona International Speedwa Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Developer Donald Trump talks with his former wife Ivana Trump during the men's final at the U.S. Open Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and his friend Melania Knauss pose for photographers as they arrive at the New York premiere of Star Wars Episode : 'The Phantom Menace,' Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Billionaire real estate developer Donald Trump talks with host Larry King. Trump told King that he was moving toward a possible bid for the United States presidency with the formation of a presidential exploratory committee Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump answers questions as Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura looks on in Brooklyn Park. Trump said on Friday he 'very well might' make a run for president under the Reform Party banner but had not made a final decision Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Billionaire Donald Trump makes a face at a friend as he sits next to Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso before the start of the 2003 Miss Universe pageant in Panama City Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Entrepreneur Donald Trump is greeted by a Marilyn Monroe character look-a-alike, as he arrives at Universal Studios Hollywood to attend the an open casting call for his NBC television network reality series 'The Apprentice.' Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and Simon Cowell present an Emmy during the 56th annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump and Megan Mullally perform at the 57th annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump, poses with his children, son Donald Trump, Jr., and daughters Tiffany and Ivanka Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Billionaire Donald Trump told Miss USA 2006 Tara Conner on Tuesday she would be given a second chance after reported misbehavior Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures Donald Trump holds a replica of his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as his wife Melania holds their son Barron in Los Angeles Reuters President Donald Trump life in pictures U.S. property mogul Donald Trump stands next to a bagpiper during a media event on the sand dunes of the Menie estate, the site for Trump's proposed golf resort, near Aberdeen, north east Scotland Reuters

He added: His disconnection from the truth is incredibly disturbing.

"When you add on top of that his stifling of dissent, his attacks on the free press and his attacks on the legitimacy of judiciary, that then takes us down the road toward authoritarianism.

"Thats why Ive concluded he is a danger to the republic.
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Americas first hijab wearing Olympian, Ibtihaj Muhammad, has revealed she was detained at US customs - and suggested it happened because she is a Muslim. The incident happened prior to President Trump's travel ban coming into force.

The fencer, 31, shot to fame during the Rio Olympics for wearing a hijab and winning a bronze medal for Team USA.

"I was held at customs for two hours just a few weeks ago. I don't know why. I can't tell you why it happened to me, but I know that I'm Muslim. I have an Arabic name," she told Popsugar.

 London protests against US President Donald Trump's travel ban

And even though I represent Team USA and I have that Olympic hardware, it doesn't change how you look and how people perceive you.

Unfortunately, I know that people talk about this having a lot to do with these seven countries in particular, but I think the net is cast a little bit wider than we know. And I'm included in that as a Muslim woman who wears a hijab.

Ms Muhammad, a New Jersey native, has previously expressed her opposition to Mr Trumps policies.

Last week, she posted a picture to Instagram depicting the Statue of Liberty hugging a Muslim child. It was captioned: Our diversity is what makes us strong #NoBanNoWall.

In addition, Ms Muhammad said during the Olympics she didn't feel safe in America because of anti Muslim rhetoric in the country.

This has become more vigorous since Mr Trump took office, with new travel restrictions widely branded a 'Muslim ban'.

Signed on 27 January, the order banned nearly all travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries and has prompted widespread protests.

It applies to people from Syria, Sudan, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Yemen and Libya. The order also suspended the country's refugee global programme before being temporarily halted after eight days by federal judge James Robart.

Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Show all 74 1 /74 Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Eight Andy Murray celebrates his victory over Kai Nishikori to reach the men's Olympic final. Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Eight Jessica Ennis-Hill continues her bid for gold in heptathlon. Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Eight Usain Bolt breezed through his 100m heat. Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Eight Team GB took silver in the women's eight. Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Eight The men's eight gold took Great Britain top of the rowing medal table. Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Seven Britain's Jazz Carlin secured her second silver of the Games in the women's 800m freestyle, as American Katie Ledecky surged to her fourth Rio gold. Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Seven Singapore's Joseph Schooling won his nation's first gold medal with victory in the 100m butterfly as Michael Phelps was denied a 23rd Olympic title. Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Seven Sir Bradley Wiggins becomes Britain's greatest Olympian ever as Team GB win gold in the men's Team Pursuit at the Velodrome. AFP Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Seven Bryony Page on her way to a silver in gymnastics trampoline. EPA Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Seven Heather Stanning and Helen Glover win gold in the women's rowing pairs. Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Seven Alex Gregory, Mohamed Sbihi, George Nash and Constantine Louloudis celebrate their success in the mens coxless four. Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Seven Defending champions Great Britain won silver in the Olympic team dressage, as world champions Germany claimed gold. The British quartet - Spencer Wilton, Fiona Bigwood, Carl Hester and Charlotte Dujardin - were beaten into second by 3.334 points. Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Six American Simone Manuel became the first black female swimmer to win an Olympic title as she shared the women's 100m freestyle gold with Canada's Penny Oleksiak, 16, after a dead heat. Getty Images Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Six Swimming legend Michael Phelps demolished the field in the 200m individual medley to claim his 22nd Olympic gold. Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Six Simone Biles takes gold in the Womens individual all-around artistic gymnastics. Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Six Fiji's Vatemo Ravouvou breaks through to score during the Men's Rugby Sevens Gold medal final match against Great Britain. Team GB settled for silver as Fiji romped to gold. David Rogers/Getty Images Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Six Callum Skinner, Jason Kenny and Philip Hindes of Great Britain celebrate after winning gold in the men's team sprint. AFP Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Six Double act David Florence and Richard Hounslow won their second joint Olympic silver in the canoeing slalom. Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Six Victoria Thornley and Katherine Grainger show off their silver medals after the women's double sculls final Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Five Max Whitlock poses with his bronze medal Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Five Joe Clarke reacts to winning Britain's second gold of thee Games Reuters Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Five Jack Laugher and Chris Mears celebrate with their gold medals Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Four David Florence suffered heartbreak in the canoe single C1 men's semi-final Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Four Andy Murray celebrates his straight sets victory against Juan Monaco Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Three Lilly King shows off her gold medal as Yulia Efimova parades her silver AFP Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Three Russia's Yulia Efimova (left) looks on as the US's Lilly King (right) celebrates winning the Women's 100m Breaststroke Final earlier this morning Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Three Lilly King celebrates after beating her Russian rival Yulia Efimova Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Three Michael Phelps takes on Chad Le Clos in the men's 200m butterfly final Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Three Michael Phelps says it 'breaks my heart' to see drug cheats at the Olympics Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Three James Guy missed out on bronze on Monday night Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Three Louis Smith reacts to his pommel stumble which may have cost Team GB a medal Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Three Dan Goodfellow (right) and Tom Daley celebrate with their bronze medals Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Three Tom Daley and Dan Goodfellow dive into the pool in delight after winning bronze Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Three Tom Daley (left) and Daniel Goodfellow performing in the men's synchronised 10m platform final PA Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Three Canada celebrate their victory against Team GB on day three Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Three Heather Watson leaves the court yesterday after losing her second round match against Elina Svitolina of Ukraine Reuters Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Two Carlin proudly shows off her silver medal Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Two Carlin reacts after learning that she has won the silver medal Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Two Peaty shows off his gold medal with pride Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Two Adam Peaty celebrates his gold Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Two Andy Murray and Jamie Murray were knocked out of the men's doubles by Thomaz Bellucci and Andre Sa AFP Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Two Venus and Serena Williams suffered their first ever Olympic defeat playing together Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Two Richard Kruse battling the Russian Timur Safin GETTY Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Two Lizzie Armitstead finished fifth in the women's road race PA Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Two Anna van der Breggen celebrates winning gold in the women's road race Reuters Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Two Annemiek van Vleuten suffered a horrific accident in the women's road race Reuters Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Two The women's road race passes along the beach in Rio de Janeiro Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Two Andy Murray beat Viktor Troicki 6-3, 6-2 to win his men's singles first round match Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Two Serena Williams is through to the second round of the women's singles after defeating Daria Gavrilova Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Two Gold medal winner, Hoang Xuan Vinh of Vietnam, center, silver medal winner, Felipe Almeida Wu of Brazil, left, and bronze medalist Pang Wei of China, at the victory ceremony for the men's 10-meter air pistol event AP Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day Two Rowing was cancelled on day two over fears of sinking and capsizing due to strong winds Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day One Yusra Mardini has won her heat of the Women's 100m Butterfly but she will not be able to go forward to the semi-final Getty Images Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day One Britain's James Guy chops through the water Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day One Kantinka Hosszu of Hungary set a new world record in winning gold in the Women's 100m Individual Medley final Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day One Samir Ait Said receiving medical help after suffering a badly broken leg Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day One Yusra Mardini leads the race in the 100m Butterfly heat at Olympic Aquatics Stadium in Rio EPA Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day One Natasha Hunt scored two tries to inspire Britain to victory against Brazil Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day One Joanne Watmore scored Britain's first try in Olympic rugby sevens history Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day One Adam Peaty celebrates after breaking the 100m breaststroke world record Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day One Adam Peaty broke his own world record in the 100m breaststroke heats and is favourite to win gold on Sunday Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day One Adam Peaty broke his own world record in the 100m breaststroke heats Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day One Chris Froome speaks with a bruised Geraint Thomas after the men's road race PA Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day One Greg van Avermaet celebrates winning gold in the men's road race Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day One Rafal Majka was caught with just two kilometres to go Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day One Greg van Avermaet won a sprint finish to clinch Olympic road race gold EPA Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day One A bullet is marked by Brazilian police in the equestrian media centre Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day One The peloton make their way along the beach during the road race Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day One Chris Froome leads away the men's road race along with the rest of Team GB Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day One The field make their way along the opening stages of the road race Eric Gaillard/Reuters Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day One Mahe Drysdale of New Zealand had no trouble in qualifying for the men's single skulls quarter-finals Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Day One Rowers warm up under the watchful gaze of the Christ the Redeemer statue Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Opening Ceremony A huge fireworks display signals the end of the Rio 2016 Opening Ceremony. Felipe Dana/AP Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Opening Ceremony Andy Murray leads out Team GB at the Rio Olympics opening ceremony Getty Rio 2016 Olympics - in pictures Opening Ceremony Gisele Bundchen turns the stage into a catwalk during the opening ceremony AP

The US appeals court is now hearing the governments case in favour of reinstating the ban.

* This article originally reported that the alleged incident involving Ms Muhammad occurred after President Trump's travel ban. In fact it happened in December. We apologise for the error.
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Pope Francis has issued a thinly veiled rebuke of Donald Trumps cornerstone policy to build a wall along the border with Mexico.

The pontiff did not refer to the US President by name or directly mention his plan to build a fence along the border but instead emphasised the need to forge bridges rather than walls.

In a weekly address on Wednesday at the Vatican, Pope Francis said a Christian would never under any circumstance say you will pay for that.

This appears to be a direct reference to Mr Trumps insistence the Mexican government pays for the estimated $15bn 1,000-mile long border fence  a demand which has been outrightly rejected by Mexicos president Enrique Pena Nieto.

In the social and civil context as well, I appeal not to create walls but to build bridges, Pope Francis told the audience.

To not respond to evil with evil. To defeat evil with good, the offence with forgiveness. A Christian would never say you will pay for that. Never.

That is not a Christian gesture. An offence you overcome with forgiveness. To live in peace with everyone.

The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Show all 9 1 /9 The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the media White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer takes questions during the daily press briefing Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Union leaders applaud US President Donald Trump for signing an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington DC. Mr Trump issued a presidential memorandum in January announcing that the US would withdraw from the trade deal Getty The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Mexico wall A US Border Patrol vehicle sits waiting for illegal immigrants at a fence opening near the US-Mexico border near McAllen, Texas. The number of incoming immigrants has surged ahead of the upcoming Presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. A signature campaign promise, Mr Trump outlined his intention to build a border wall on the US-Mexico border days after taking office Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and abortion US President Donald Trump signs an executive order as Chief of Staff Reince Priebus looks on in the Oval Office of the White House. Mr Trump reinstated a ban on American financial aide being granted to non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling, provide abortion referrals, or advocate for abortion access outside of the United States Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Dakota Access pipeline Opponents of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines hold a rally as they protest US President Donald Trump's executive orders advancing their construction, at Columbus Circle in New York. US President Donald Trump signed executive orders reviving the construction of two controversial oil pipelines, but said the projects would be subject to renegotiation Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and 'Obamacare' Nancy Pelosi who is the minority leader of the House of Representatives speaks beside House Democrats at an event to protect the Affordable Care Act in Los Angeles, California. US President Donald Trump's effort to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace the healthcare law failed when Republicans failed to get enough votes. Mr Trump has promised to revisit the matter Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Donald Trump and 'sanctuary cities' US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January threatening to pull funding for so-called "sanctuary cities" if they do not comply with federal immigration law AP The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the travel ban US President Donald Trump has attempted twice to restrict travel into the United States from several predominantly Muslim countries. The first attempt, in February, was met with swift opposition from protesters who flocked to airports around the country. That travel ban was later blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The second ban was blocked by a federal judge a day before it was scheduled to be implemented in mid-March SANDY HUFFAKER/AFP/Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and climate change US President Donald Trump sought to dismantle several of his predecessor's actions on climate change in March. His order instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to reevaluate the Clean Power Plan, which would cap power plant emissions Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Pope Francis might also have been alluding to President Trumps hard-line immigration ban which has banned people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering America. The executive order, which sparked outrage and chaos in airports across the world, has now been overturned by a federal judge.

This is by no means the first time the Pope has issued a plea to build bridges instead of walls. After the billionaire property developer announced he would deport millions of undocumented migrants and build a wall along the border between Mexico and the US, Pope Francis condemned the idea of building a wall. A year ago, he told reporters aboard the papal plane returning from Mexico to Rome anyone keen to build a wall is not a Christian.

Mr Trump issued a stern response, saying: For a religious leader to question a persons faith is disgraceful.

The Vatican later explained the comments had not been intended as a personal attack on Mr Trump.

The pontiff made the most recent remarks about bridge-building at his weekly address. The speech coincided with the International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking and the feast day of Sudanese immigrant Saint Josephine Margaret Bakhita.
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Rupert Murdoch reportedly sat in on Michael Gove's interview with US President Donald Trump.

The News Corp owner is said to have accompanied his star columnist, the former Justice Secretary, to New York for the interview.

He did not feature in photographs of the encounter  which infamously showed Mr Gove giving the thumbs-up alongside President Trump  but two sources told the Financial Times the News Corp chairman was in the room.

Recommended Trump tweets 21 minutes after daily intelligence officially started

Mr Murdoch is now directly running the Fox News channel, which features prominent pro-Trump hosts in prime time slots, like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson.

He and the President have close ties, according to the FT, with Mr Trump's daughter Ivanka until recently representing the interests of the media mogul's young daughters in 21st Century Fox and News Corp.

News UK declined to comment.

Mr Murdoch's sons, James and Lachlan, told 21st Century Fox employees they "deeply value diversity" in the wake of Mr Trump's executive order banning travel to the US for people from seven Muslim-majority countries.
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Sarah Palin has been touted as a potential US ambassador to Canada, prompting a mixture of mirth, confusion and anger from their neighbours north of the border.

The rumour started to fly after White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer refused to rule out her appointment, despite being directly questioned about whether the 2008 Vice Presidential candidate was being considered.

We have no additional ambassador nominations or announcements to make on that front. I'm sure at some point we will have, soon, he said.

Ms Palin was one of the first high-profile Republicans to endorse Mr Trump during his election campaign last year as the first state, Iowa, prepared to hold its caucus.

Are you ready for the leader to make America great again? she asked a rally at Iowa State University. Are you ready to stump for Trump? Im here to support the next president of the United States  Donald Trump.

The former Governor of Alaska also reportedly spoke to Mr Trump about the position of veterans affairs secretary. However she was not selected for the cabinet role.

The lack of denial from the Trump administration led many Canadians to take to social media in despair over the potential appointment.

Many accused Ms Palin of being under-qualified for the job.

However, ambassadorships are often presented to those loyal to the President, regardless of their career trajectory.

The last 18 US ambassadors to Canada were not career diplomats, according to the Ottawa Sun newspaper.

The position has remained vacant since Barack Obama's ambassador to Canada Bruce Heyman resigned ahead of Mr Trumps inauguration.
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The Senate confirmed Jeff Sessions as attorney general on Wednesday after a heated debate over his record on civil rights and immigration.

The Republican-controlled Senate voted 52-47 with no Republicans siding against the Alabama senator, who is considered one of President Trumps most divisive cabinet picks.

He will now serve as Americas top law enforcement officer despite scathing criticism from the Democratic Party. Mr Sessions was named the attorney general of Alabama in 1995, serving for two years before he entered the Senate. Hes held his current position for two decades.

Following the vote, Mr Sessions addressed his critics and called for unity amongst both parties. Denigrating people who disagree with us, I think, is not a healthy trend for our body, he said.

President Trump offered his congratulations to Mr Sessions on Twitter.

Accusations of racism nearly ended Mr Sessions political career in the past. The Senate committee denied him a federal judgeship in 1986 after his former colleagues claimed that he casually used the n-word and made jokes about the Ku Klux Klan. At the time, he allegedly said they were okay, until he learned that they smoked marijuana."

At the time, he defended himself against the allegations. I am not the Jeff Sessions my detractors have tried to create, he told the Senate Judiciary Committee. I am not a racist. I am not insensitive to blacks.

The night prior to the Senate vote, Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, voiced dissent against Mr Sessions nomination. Republicans voted to silence Ms Warren after she read a 1986 letter from Coretta Scott King that condemned Mr Sessions. The letter accused him of using his awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens in the district he now seeks to serve as a federal judge. This simply cannot be allowed to happen.

Mr Sessions was one of the earliest and most prominent supporters of Mr Trumps presidential campaign, who signed on to help the Republican candidate craft his immigration policies. After Mr Trump's election victory, the business mogul called Mr Sessions a world-class legal mind," adding that he is greatly admired by legal scholars and virtually everyone who knows him.

Nonetheless, as soon as Mr Trump announced his intentions to appoint Mr Sessions to attorney General, his civil rights record became the main indictment against his nomination.

Last week, a divided Senate Judiciary Committee voted to approve Mr Sessions as attorney general, the day after Democrats succeeded in postponing the vote. His critics have condemned his support for President Trumps refugee policy, and have raised questions about whether he will be an independent attorney general.

The American Civil Liberties Union immediately responded to the confirmation promising to sue the new attorney general if he violates the Constitution.

New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban Show all 27 1 /27 New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban Ethnic Yemenis and supporters protest against President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen on February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. At least 1,000 Yemeni-owned bodegas and grocery-stores across the city shut down from noon to 8 p.m. today to protest the order. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban Men pray during a protest by ethnic Yemenis and supporters over President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen on February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. At least 1,000 Yemeni-owned bodegas and grocery-stores across the city shut down from noon to 8 p.m. today to protest the order. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban Ethnic Yemenis and supporters protest against President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen on February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. At least 1,000 Yemeni-owned bodegas and grocery-stores across the city shut down from noon to 8 p.m. today to protest the order. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban Men pray during a protest by ethnic Yemenis and supporters over President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen on February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. At least 1,000 Yemeni-owned bodegas and grocery-stores across the city shut down from noon to 8 p.m. today to protest the order. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People gather for evening prayer at a rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally with flags at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally with flags at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally with flags at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally with flags at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally with flags at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban A Yemeni business owner places a sign on the gate of his store February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Across the city, Yemeni owned bodega and grocery-stores will shut down from noon to 8 p.m. to protest President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen. It is expected that over 1000 stores will be closed in protest with workers and owners participating in an afternoon rally in Brooklyn. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban A Yemeni business owner places a sign on the gate of his store February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Across the city, Yemeni owned bodega and grocery-stores will shut down from noon to 8 p.m. to protest President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen. It is expected that over 1000 stores will be closed in protest with workers and owners participating in an afternoon rally in Brooklyn. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban NEW YORK, NY - FEBRUARY 02: Yemeni business owner Musa closes the gate to his store February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Across the city, Yemeni owned bodega and grocery-stores will shut down from noon to 8 p.m. to protest President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen. It is expected that over 1000 stores will be closed in protest with workers and owners participating in an afternoon rally in Brooklyn. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban A Yemeni business owner closes the gate to his store February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Across the city, Yemeni owned bodega and grocery-stores will shut down from noon to 8 p.m. to protest President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen. It is expected that over 1000 stores will be closed in protest with workers and owners participating in an afternoon rally in Brooklyn. Spencer Platt/Getty

Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chair, expressed her excitement over the Senate vote.

I am thrilled that the Senate has voted to confirm such a qualified public servant as Jeff Sessions to be our nations chief law enforcement officer, she said in a statement.

That Democrats would try to skew Sessions strong civil rights record and consistent adherence to rule of law in a partisan effort to block their colleagues nomination shows their only commitment is to blindly obstructing this administration.
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner visited the Chinese embassy in Washington. (Photo : Getty Images)

In attempts to start good relations with China, Ivanka Tump and Jared Kushner met with Chinese Ambassador Cui Tiangkai. The ambassador noted that the discussions went well.



The President's 5-year-old granddaughter, Arabella, was also in attendance and both members of the presidential family played with puppets, admired crafts, and listened to traditional music.



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The visit from the presidential family was done in the hopes of bridging a gap after President Donald Trump refused to send a personal New Year's greeting to the embassy.



The relations between China and the U.S. was tarnished after President Trump declared his opposition to the one-China policy. The American president has also accused China of controlling the yuan.



However, the visit signified that the White House would like to remain diplomatic with China.



Dennis Wilder, senior director for Asia at the National Security Council, said that the strategy is similar to the one done by the last Bush administration. Former President George H. W. Bush has personal connections with Chinese officials.



Wilder said, "I predict very direct communication from the White House to Zhongnanhai."



The former CIA official observed that Ivanka's visit made the Chinese leadership "extremely pleased because it advanced the personal connection to President Trump and his family."



Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that China would want to make progress with the country's relationship with the U.S.



In Canberra, Wang told reporters, "In the past four decades, there has never been a shortage of tough or sometimes even irrational statements on China-U.S. relations."



He added, "But such statements aside, the China-U.S. relationship has defied all kinds of difficulties and has been moving forward continuously."



An expert commented that non-traditional approaches are necessary to deal with an unconventional leader like Trump.



Pang Zhongying, a U.S. affairs expert at Renmin University in Beijing, said, "Trump is not a traditional politician. And it is not much use establishing contacts with him through officials or academics. You have to do it through businessmen and his family."


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Donald Trumps new Education Secretary reportedly donated nearly $900,000 over the years to the Senators who confirmed her into the job.

Betsy DeVos was a controversial choice for the role and was criticised for her performance before the Senate confirmation committee.

She has previously spoken of her desire to advance God's kingdom though the education system. She also candidly admitted that she expects something in return for her money when it came to political donations.

Over the years, the Education Secretary has donated almost $4 million (3.2 million) to Mr Trump's Republican Party.

 Education secretary Betsy DeVos wants to 'advance God's kingdom' through US school system

The vast majority was given in the 2016 election cycle, according to the Centre for American Progress, although Ms DeVos has contributed to party since 1980.

Of the 51 politicians who voted for her to be Education Secretary, 22 had received a total of $894,350 (712,686) in campaign donations from Ms DeVos, according to the Mic news outlet.

The largest donation was to Mr Trump's former rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Senator Marco Rubio, who received $98,300 (78,276).

She also made two donations of $70,200 (55,900) to Senators Bill Cassidy and Thom Tillis. Others donations ranged from $60,050 (47,817) to just $1,000 (796).

Ms DeVos has been politically active as a campaigner for many years but this will be the first government position she has held.

She is known to support the use of education "vouchers"  a $10,000 taxpayer funded voucher which is given to parents to put towards their childs schooling at a private or religious institution.

Critics claim it takes taxes out of the public system and places it directly into private hands.

Ms DeVos has also come under fire for her attitude towards donations.

My family is the biggest contributor of soft money to the Republican National Committee, she wrote in the political magazine Roll Call, in 1997. I have decided to stop taking offence at the suggestion that we are buying influence.

The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Show all 9 1 /9 The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the media White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer takes questions during the daily press briefing Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Union leaders applaud US President Donald Trump for signing an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington DC. Mr Trump issued a presidential memorandum in January announcing that the US would withdraw from the trade deal Getty The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Mexico wall A US Border Patrol vehicle sits waiting for illegal immigrants at a fence opening near the US-Mexico border near McAllen, Texas. The number of incoming immigrants has surged ahead of the upcoming Presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. A signature campaign promise, Mr Trump outlined his intention to build a border wall on the US-Mexico border days after taking office Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and abortion US President Donald Trump signs an executive order as Chief of Staff Reince Priebus looks on in the Oval Office of the White House. Mr Trump reinstated a ban on American financial aide being granted to non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling, provide abortion referrals, or advocate for abortion access outside of the United States Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Dakota Access pipeline Opponents of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines hold a rally as they protest US President Donald Trump's executive orders advancing their construction, at Columbus Circle in New York. US President Donald Trump signed executive orders reviving the construction of two controversial oil pipelines, but said the projects would be subject to renegotiation Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and 'Obamacare' Nancy Pelosi who is the minority leader of the House of Representatives speaks beside House Democrats at an event to protect the Affordable Care Act in Los Angeles, California. US President Donald Trump's effort to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace the healthcare law failed when Republicans failed to get enough votes. Mr Trump has promised to revisit the matter Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Donald Trump and 'sanctuary cities' US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January threatening to pull funding for so-called "sanctuary cities" if they do not comply with federal immigration law AP The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the travel ban US President Donald Trump has attempted twice to restrict travel into the United States from several predominantly Muslim countries. The first attempt, in February, was met with swift opposition from protesters who flocked to airports around the country. That travel ban was later blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The second ban was blocked by a federal judge a day before it was scheduled to be implemented in mid-March SANDY HUFFAKER/AFP/Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and climate change US President Donald Trump sought to dismantle several of his predecessor's actions on climate change in March. His order instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to reevaluate the Clean Power Plan, which would cap power plant emissions Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Now I simply concede the point. They are right. We do expect something in return. We expect to foster a conservative governing philosophy consisting of limited government and respect for traditional American virtues. We expect a return on our investment.

The tight vote confirming Ms DeVos as Education Secretary was indicative of her divisive nature.

Fifty Senators voted against her, including two Republicans. It forced Vice President Mike Pence had to make an unprecedented move and vote in her favour, so she could cross the line with 51 ballots.

On Ms DeVoss confirmation, education policy campaigner the Centre for American Progress, Catherine Brown, said: Its true that money talks, and for the Republican Senate majority, $4 million in donations from Betsy DeVos and her family spoke louder than the voices of hundreds of thousands of constituents that called, emailed, tweeted, faxed, and protested about Ms DeVos nomination.

Unprepared, unaware, and unqualified, Ms DeVos will now lead an agency whose work touches the lives of virtually every American. If theres anything we hope Ms DeVos learned from her confirmation process, its that the American people do not want our public school system to be devalued and defunded, and any attempt to voucherise our schools will not happen quietly.

The Independent has contacted the Department of Education for comment.
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China is to start fingerprinting foreigners who arrive in the country.

The Ministry of Public Security announced that it would begin screening foreign passport holders who arrive Shenzhen Baoan International Airport in the Guangdon Province later this week.

It will be rolled it out across the rest of the country by the end of the year.

All foreigners aged between 14 and 70 will be required to leave their fingerprints when entering China apart from people with diplomatic ranks.

The collecting of fingerprints has become common practice for border control authorities around the world, the Ministry said in a statement on the governments English language website. Authorities will ensure that the new system is efficient and does not result in unnecessary delays.

More than 76 million foreigners, primarily from South Korea, Japan, the United States and Russia, entered the country last year, according to Chinese figures.

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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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

US customs and border protection has fingerprinted most foreign visitors since 2004. The agency said on its website that it is conducting tests of facial recognition software and other biometric screening.

Japan also began fingerprinting all arriving foreigners in 2007 as a public safety measure.
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A student drowned in a river just moments after posing for selfies when a dam was opened and the water level rose dramatically.

New Zealander Rachael Louise De Jong was swept away by rapids after becoming stranded on a rock with three friends in the middle of the Waikato River.

The four women had reportedly been taking selfies moments before, as the warning siren went off, signalling the dam would be opened.

The group attempted to jump to safety from the small rock on to a bigger rock as fast-flowing water began to rise around them.

Two women reached the rock, but Ms De Jong, 21, another woman, and a man who had been trying to help them were swept away by a sudden surge of water.

While the man and other women managed to swim to safety, Ms De Jong was drowned by the powerful current.

Rachael De Jong, a 21-year-old Auckland University student, drowned (Facebook/ Rachael De Jong)

German tourists Katrin Taylor and Kevin Kiau witnessed the incident, but were unable to help.

They told news site stuff.nz they were on a viewing platform when the siren went off and the water began to rise.

Ms Taylor said the water had become quite high when they noticed four people holding selfie sticks on the other side of the river.

We could see the water was rising further and that they were in danger of getting washed away, she said.

Ms Tayor said the women tried to jump to a bigger rock where a man was waiting whilst the water rose above their feet.

We saw the first girl made it. The guy pulled her in. The second girl jumped and made it safe as well.

The third girl, she jumped but the water was washing her away so the guy grabbed her.

She said that they then saw the man and two of the girls being washed away  one of whom was Ms De Jong whose body was recovered by police later in a rockpool.

"There was nothing we could have done. We could just stand there and watch helplessly and it was horrible, Ms Taylor added.

Ms De Jong, a student at Auckland University, was described as the most perfect sister in a tribute posted online by her brother, Daniel.

Yesterday I lost one of the most important people in my life, my wonderful sister, he wrote. Not only was she an inspiration to us all, she was my best friend, and the most perfect sister I could ever have asked for.

You never spoke a bad word of anyone, and you had such an infectious smile that could cheer anyone up. I love you so much Rachael, rest easy.

The Aratiatia Dam, operated by energy company Mercury Energy, is opened four times each day during the summer. As well as the warning siren, there are signs around the river telling people not to swim.

In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Show all 50 1 /50 In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge take a ride on the 'Shotover Jet' in the New Zealand city of Queenstown on 13 April, 2014 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge take a Sealegs craft, a boat that can be driven from dry land into the water, to Westpark Marina, where they were given a mini Sealegs boat for Prince George, during the fifth day of their official tour to New Zealand In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Catherine and Prince William are presented with a minature Sealegs amphibious marine craft at the Westpark Marina in Auckland In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Kate meets waiting crowds after she traveled by Sealegs craft to Westpark Marina in Auckland In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Prince William and Duchess of Cambridge arrive at the Westpark Marina on a Sealegs amphibious marine craft in Auckland In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William travel on the amphibious craft 'sealegs' in Auckland Harbour In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Catherine gestures as she steers an America's Cup yacht towards her husband after she crossed the finish line ahead of him while sailing on Auckland Harbour In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Prince William races with Team New Zealand CEO Grant Dalton during a match race on the Waitemata Harbour in Auckland In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Royal supporters wearing costumes and displaying placards can be seen aboard a vintage boat after Prince William and his wife Catherine sailed aboard two America's Cup yachts on Auckland Harbour In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Prince William and Catherine on the yacht Imagine, talk with Grant Dalton(L) and Dan Barker of Team New Zealand at the Viaduct Basin in Auckland In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Catherine onboard a Team New Zealand yacht at the Viaduct Basin in Auckland In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Prince William meets members of the public at Auckland Harbour in Auckland In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visit Emirates Team New Zealand base, home to New Zealand's Americas Cup Team at Auckland Harbour In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Prince William and Catherine arrive in the rain at the Viaduct Basin in Auckland In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Kate engages with families at the Royal New Zealand Air Force base Whenuapai in Auckland In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Kate talks with families at the Royal New Zealand Air Force base Whenuapai in Auckland In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Prince William, Duke of Cambridge speaks with Sgt Stephen Sutherland after arriving at Whenuapai Airbase in Auckland In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Duchess of Cambridge smiles as she meets families of the Royal New Zealand Air Force base Whenuapai in Auckland In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Prince William and his wife arrive to meet with families at the Royal New Zealand Air Force base Whenuapai in Auckland In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Prince William and his wife Catherine arrive at the Whenuapai Airbase for a visit in Auckland In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Prince William and his wife Kate, along with New Zealand Prime Minister John Key (L) and Governor-General Sir Jerry Mateparae (R) toast after the unveiling of a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II during a state reception at Government House in Wellington In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Prince William and his wife Catherine stand next to a picture of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II as they attend an art unveiling ceremony at Government House in Wellington In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Prince William and Kate unveil a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, by New Zealand artist Nick Cuthell, during a state reception at Government House in Wellington In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand New Zealand First Lady Bronagh Key, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge look on as they attend an art unveiling of a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II by New Zealand artist Nick Cuthell during Day 4 of a Royal Tour to New Zealand at Government House in Wellington In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge are on a three-week tour of Australia and New Zealand, the first official trip overseas with their son, Prince George of Cambridge In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Prince William and Kate smile while talking with guests at a State reception at Government House in Wellington In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Prince William, Duke of Cambridge makes a speech while Governor-General, Sir Jerry Mateparae looks on during a state reception at Government House in Wellington In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Duchess of Cambridge attends an art unveiling ceremony at a state reception at Government House in Wellington In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Prince William and his wife Catherine arrive with New Zealand's Governor-General Jerry Mateparae (R) to attend an art unveiling ceremony at a state reception at Government House in Wellington In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand The Duchess of Cambridge receives flowers as she meets with members of the crowd in Seymour Square in the town of Blenheim In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand The Duchess of Cambridge talks with children after laying a wreath at the war memorial in Seymour Square in the town of Blenheim In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Kate smiles as she meets with members of the crowd after laying a wreath at the war memorial in Seymour Square in the town of Blenheim In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Catherine plays with a child whilst on a walkabout in Seymour Square during a visit to the New Zealand city of Blenheim In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Prince William speaks with veterans at a ceremony at the war memorial in Seymour Square in the town of Blenheim In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Children wearing crowns made from cardboard wait for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in Seymour Square in the town of Blenheim In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand A young girl looks on as crowds of public gather in Seymour Square during Day 4 of a Royal Tour to New Zealand in Blenheim In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Tallulah Debinette (9) holds a picture showing the first time she met The Duke of Cambridge, as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge tour the WWI display during the World War One Aviation Commemorative event at Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre in Blenheim In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand The Duchess of Cambridge waves during a Wreath-laying and Commemoration ceremony at the War Memorial in Seymour Square In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge stand together after laying a wreath at the war memorial in Seymour Square in the town of Blenheim In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand A card can be seen on the wreath that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge laid at the war memorial in Seymour Square in the town of Blenheim In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge bow their heads during a ceremony at the war memorial in Seymour Square in the town of Blenheim In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge walk together as they prepare to lay a wreath at the war memorial in Seymour Square in the town of Blenheim In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Catherine and her husband Prince William react after receiving a baby size flying hat at the Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre near Blenheim In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Catherine and her husband look at a static WWI display at the Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre near Blenheim In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Film director Peter Jackson points at tone of the exhibits of WWI aircraft during the World War One Aviation Commemorative event at Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre in Blenheim In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and film director Peter Jackson view an interior exhibition of WWI aircraft during the World War One Aviation Commemorative event at Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre in Blenheim In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Catherine and her husband sit in the cockpit of an Avro Anson aeroplane at the Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre near Blenheim In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Prince William smiles as he sits in the cockpit of an old Sopworth Pup single seater biplane while Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge looks on during a visit to the Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre in Blenheim In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Catherine watches her husband Prince William sit in the cockpit of a Sopwith Pup at the Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre near Blenheim In pictures: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge go walkabout in New Zealand Royal Tour in New Zealand Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and her husband Prince William walk down the steps of an Avro Anson aeroplane at the Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre near Blenheim

CEO of Mercury Energy Fraser Whineray said in a statement that safety processes would be reviewed in light of the incident.

We are always looking for ways to improve safety to minimise the risks of it ever happening again, he said. The challenge is to keep people out of that area at those times [when the water is released].

Our sincere thoughts go out to the family and friends of the person who has passed and to those who are recovering at the local hospital and who will be traumatised.
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Several people are being treated for smoke inhalation after an explosion and fire at a nuclear power plant in France.

Authorities said there was "no nuclear risk" following the blast in Flamanville shortly before 10am local time (9am GMT) on Thursday.

"It is a significant technical issue but does not constitute a nuclear accident," Olivier Marmion, director of the prefect's office, told AFP, adding that the explosion occurred outside the nuclear zone.

Officials said the blast took place in the turbine hall and confirmed there was no radioactive leak.

Five people were treated by paramedics for smoke inhalation, with no serious injuries reported.

The Flamanville nuclear power plant is run by EDF Energy, which is the main contractor on the new 18bn Hinkley Point C station in Somerset.

It said there were no casualties in the incident or "consequences for safety at the plant or for environmental safety".

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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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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"A fire resulting in a minor explosion broke out in the turbine hall on the non-nuclear part of unit one at the Flamanville nuclear power plant," a spokesperson said.

"The fire was immediately brought under control by the plants response team. As per normal procedure, the fire brigade went to the affected location and confirmed that the fire had been extinguished."

No information was given by EDF on the cause of the fire, which caused the number one reactor to be disconnected from the power grid.

The French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) said the fire originated in a fan underneath an alternator, which converts mechanical energy into electricity.

The ASN will ask EDF to provide a full analysis of the causes and consequences of the event, a spokesperson added.

Barry Marsden, professor of nuclear graphite technology at the University of Manchester, said: Explosions in turbines, usually related to oil in bearings overheating, are not uncommon and occur from time to time in conventional coal, oil or gas plants.

Another possibility is that the explosion could have been an onsite emergency generator for use if power is lost for some reason. Either way there should be no release of radiation.

 UK approves Hinkley Point nuclear power plant

Neil Hyatt, professor of radioactive waste management at the University of Sheffield, said the incident was very serious, regardless of the lack of a leak.

International and international regulators will want to undertake a thorough investigation to understand the cause and lessons to be learned, he added.

Recommended UK nuclear strategy faces meltdown as faults are found in identical

Thursday's fire was the latest concerning incident for the trouble-beset Flamanville station, once described as a "nuclear catastrophe" in the French press.

The plant, located on English Channel coastline in La Manche, houses two pressurised water reactors built in the 1980s. A radioactive leak occurred in 2012 from reactor one, which was at a standstill at that time.

A third reactor was commissioned in 2005 but remains under construction after a series of delays. One was caused by a fault with a reactor component using the same steel used for Hinkley Point.

Hundreds have joined protests against the reactor, which is due to be turned on in 2018 after costing an estimated 10.5bn (9bn).
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A suspected terrorist who attacked soldiers guarding Le Louvre with a machete has denied receiving orders from Isis, claiming he acted alone despite a series of Twitter messages hinting at sympathy for the group.

Abdallah el-Hamahmy remains in hospital after being shot several times during last Fridays assault and initially refused to cooperate with French investigators.

But he has now broken his silence, sources told AFP, claiming he acted of his own will and intended only to deface works of art at the famed gallery as a symbolic attack on France.

 Soldier shoots 'attacker' outside Louvre museum in Paris

But investigators believe he has a certain sympathy for the ideas of Isis, the source said, following the discovery of a slew of social media posts from the minutes leading up to the assault.

El-Hamahmy was armed with two machetes purchased from a shop in Paris when he launched his attack, shouting Allahu akbar, meaning God is great in Arabic.

Officials said a group of four soldiers guarding the entrance to the art gallery and Carrousel du Louvre shopping centre had refused him entry with two backpacks.

One of the troops received a wound to his scalp, while el-Hamahmy was shot at least four times, with police later finding spray cans of paint in his rucksack.

The Egyptian sales manager entered France legally on 26 January using a tourist visa from Dubai, where he lives and works, and was renting an expensive apartment near the Champs-Elysees.

French police secure the site near the Louvre Pyramid in Paris (Reuters)

His family in Egypt insist they saw no sign of radicalisation and have accused French authorities of seeking to justify their shooting with false allegations.

But a Twitter account believed to belong to el-Hamahmy, which has since been suspended by the social network, expresses support for an Islamic state shortly before the attack.

A series of tweets posted in Arabic between 9.27am and 9.34am local time, minutes before the assault was launched, call for people to fight in the cause of Allah and kill.

In the name of Allah the merciful... for our mujahedeen brothers in Syria and across the world, one tweet reads.

Why are they afraid of the creation of an Islamic state? another post asks. Because the state of Islam defends its resources and the honour of Muslims...they are struggling for the sake of God and do not fear anybody.

The messages did not refer to Isis by its Arabic acronym, Daesh, but used the phrase Dawlat al-Islam, which is commonly used to refer to the groups territories by its supporters.

The only tweet in English took aim at Donald Trump, calling the US President Donald Duck.

Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Show all 9 1 /9 Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Policemen outside Rouen's cathedral during the funeral of Jacques Hamel, the priest who was killed in a church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray in Normandy on 26 July during a hostage-taking claimed by Islamic State group Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Two jihadists, both 19, slit Hamel's throat while he was celebrating mass in an attack that shocked France as well as the Catholic Church Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Muslims place flowers and hold a minute of silence in front of the church if Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, western France, where French priest Jacques Hamel was killed on 26 July Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Two people hold each other by the new makeshift memorial in Nice, in tribute to the victims of the deadly Bastille Day attack at the Promenade des Anglais Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the truck attack that killed 84 people in Nice on France's national holiday. Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, 31, smashed a 19-tonne truck into a packed crowd of people in the Riviera city celebrating Bastille Day Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Police work at a site where a Syrian migrant set off an explosive device in Ansbach, southern Germany, on 25 July, killing himself and wounding a dozen others Daniel Roland/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis A Syrian migrant set off an explosion at a bar in southern Germany that killed himself and wounded a dozen others in the third attack to hit Bavaria in a week. The 27-year-old, who had spent a stint in a psychiatric facility, had intended to target a music festival in the city of Ansbach but was turned away because he did not have a ticket Friebe/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Police officers walk along train tracks in Wuerzburg southern Germany on 19 July, a day after a man attacked train passengers with an axe. German authorities said they had found a hand-painted IS flag among the belongings of the man, an asylum seeker from Afghanistan, who seriously injured four members of a family of tourists from Hong Kong in his rampage Daniel Roland/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis German police killed a teenage assailant after he attacked passengers on a train in Wuerzburg, southerg Germany with an axe and a knife on 18 July, seriously wounding three people Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/AFP/Getty Images

The tirade ended with a message reading: No negotiation, no compromise, no letting up, certainly no climb down, relentless war.

A tour guide told Le Parisien el-Hamahmy had visited Le Louvre five days before his attack, spending three hours inside the worlds most visited museum.

I recognised him after seeing his face in the media, the man said, adding that el-Hamahmy had used his real name and entered through the same staircase where he was shot.

I clearly remember asking him where he came from. He replied that he was an Egyptianhe seemed very interested in the visit, especially by the department of Egyptian antiquities.

Egyptian officials said local security agencies were gathering information on el-Hamahmy to help establish if he was a member of any militant groups or had been radicalised.

Prosecutors in Paris said they would ask investigating judges to file preliminary charges of attempted terrorist murders and terrorist criminal conspiracy once his medical condition has improved.



No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, which French authorities are treating as terror-related.
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A rape survivor has teamed up with her attacker to talk about the assault.

Thordis Elva and Tom Stranger said they had been in brief relationship as teenagers before he raped her one night at her home in 1996.

They said they were speaking out in the hope of reducing the shame associated with being a victim of rape and to promote a discussion about the motivations of the people - usually men - who carry out sexual assaults, in order to better understand and combat the problem.

 Round-up: Women's March Protests 2017

At a Ted Talk, which took place in October 2016 but published online this week, Ms Elva, an Icelandic native was said she just 16 when she began her high school romance with Mr Stranger, an 18-year-old exchange student from Australia.

After the couple went to a dance together she got drunk and was taken home by Stranger.

It was like a fairy tale, his strong arms around me, laying me in the safety of my bed, Ms Elva said. But the gratitude that I felt towards him soon turned to horror as he proceeded to take off my clothes and get on top of me.

Recommended Rare Icelandic murder of young woman leaves country devastated

My head had cleared up, but my body was still too weak to fight back, and the pain was blinding," she added. "I thought I'd be severed in two. In order to stay sane, I silently counted the seconds on my alarm clock. And ever since that night, I've known that there are 7,200 seconds in two hours.

The attack - committed in her own room by someone known to her - did not fit into her media-influenced idea of rape, she said.

My actions that night in 1996 were a self-centered taking, Mr Stranger said. I felt deserving of Thordis's body."

"I've had primarily positive social influences and examples of equitable behaviour around me," he added. "But on that occasion, I chose to draw upon the negative ones. The ones that see women as having less intrinsic worth, and of men having some unspoken and symbolic claim to their bodies. These influences I speak of are external to me, though.

"And it was only me in that room making choices, nobody else.

The couple broke up shortly afterwards, and Mr Stranger returned to Australia, where he said he lived through "denial and running" to avoid confronting his wrongdoing. He drew heavily upon other parts of his life to construct a picture of who he was.

Meanwhile, Ms Elva struggled for years with the effects of the attack. I was 25 years old, and headed straight for a nervous breakdown, she said.

My self-worth was buried under a soul-crushing load of silence that isolated me from everyone that I cared about, and I was consumed with misplaced hatred and anger that I took out on myself.

On a particularly emotionally charged day, she wrote a letter to Mr Stranger, putting his actions to him. Unexpectedly, she received a response, and the pair continued a correspondence, eventually meeting in South Africa. Their conversations there led to a book, South of Forgiveness.

Countries where sexual violence has become a way of life Show all 19 1 /19 Countries where sexual violence has become a way of life Countries where sexual violence has become a way of life Afghanistan Recommendation: I urge the Government of Afghanistan to adopt legislative reforms to ensure that sexual violence offences are not conflated with adultery or morality crimes and to establish infrastructure for the delivery of protection, health and le gal services to survivors. I call on the Ministry of the Interior to accelerate efforts to integrate women into the Afghan National Police, thereby enhancing its outreach and its capacity to address sexual and gender-based violence Countries where sexual violence has become a way of life Central African Republic Recommendation: I urge the authorities of the Central African Republic to ensure that efforts to restore security and the rule of law take into account the prevention of sexual violence and that monitoring of the ceasefire and peace agreement explicitly reflects this consideration, in line with the joint communique of the Government and the United Nations on the prevention of and response to conflict-related sexual violence signed in December 2012. I further encourage the authorities to make the rapid response unit to combat sexual violence operational and to establish a special criminal court Countries where sexual violence has become a way of life Colombia Recommendation: I commend the Government of Colombia for the progress made to date and its collaboration with the United Nations, including through the visit of my Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict in March 2015. I encourage the authorities to implement Law 1719 and continue to prosecute cases of sexual violence committed during the conflict to ensure that survivors receive justice and receive reparations. Conflict-related sexual violence should continue to be addressed in the Havana peace talks, as well as in the resulting accords and transitional justice mechanisms. Particular attention should be paid to groups that face additional barriers to justice such as ethnic minorities, women in rural areas, children, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex individuals and women abused within the ranks of armed groups. I encourage the Government to scale up its protection measures and share its good practices with other conflict-affected countries Countries where sexual violence has become a way of life Congo Recommendation: I urge the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to ensure full implementation of the armed forces action plan against sexual violence, to systematically bring perpetrators to justice and to deliver reparations to victims, including payment of outstanding compensation awards. I call on donors and the United Nations system to support the Government in its efforts and to pay increased attention to neglected areas, including unregulated mining regions Countries where sexual violence has become a way of life Iraq Recommendation: I commend the Government of Iraq for its national action plan for the implementation of Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) and urge its swift implementation, including by training its security forces to ensur e respect for womens rights. Programmes to support the social reintegration of women and girls released from captivity by ISIL are urgently needed, as is community-based medical and psychological care. The capacity of the United Nations system should be enhanced through the deployment of Womens Protection Advisers or equivalent specialists Countries where sexual violence has become a way of life Libya Recommendation: I urge the national authorities in Libya to implement Decree No. 119 and Resolution 904 of 2014 to ensure redress for all victims, including those affected by the current conflict, through the establishment of multisectoral services and the adoption of legislation to categorically prohibit sexual violence Countries where sexual violence has become a way of life Mali Recommendation: I urge the Government of Mali, with support from United Nations Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict, to develop a comprehensive national strategy to combat sexual and gender-based violence and to ensure the safety of humanitarian workers so that services can reach remote areas. I further call on all parties to ensure that conflict-related sexual violence is addressed in the inter-Malian dialogue and that perpetrators of sexual violence do not benefit from amnesty or early release Countries where sexual violence has become a way of life Myanmar Recommendation: I urge the Government of Myanmar to continue with its reform agenda and, in the process, take practical and timely actions to protect and support survivors of conflict-related sexual violence and to ensure that security personnel accused of such crimes are prosecuted. Sexual violence should be an element in all ceasefire and peace negotiations, excluded from the scope of amnesty provisions and addressed in transitional justice processes. It is critical that women be able to participate consistently in and influence these processes Countries where sexual violence has become a way of life Somalia Recommendation: I reiterate my call to the Federal Government of Somalia to implement the commitments made under the joint communique of 7 May 2013 and its national action plan to combat sexual violence in conflict, including specific plans for the army and the police. I encourage the adoption of a sexual offences bill as a matter of priority Countries where sexual violence has become a way of life South Sudan Recommendation: I urge the parties to the conflict in South Sudan to adopt action plans to implement the commitments made under their respective communiques. I call upon the Government of South Sudan to address the negative impact of customary law on womens rights and to reflect international human rights standards in national law. I also encourage the African Union to make public and act upon the report of its Commission of Inquiry on South Sudan Countries where sexual violence has become a way of life Sudan (Darfur) Recommendation: I call upon the Government of the Sudan to grant the United Nations and its humanitarian partners unfettered access for monitoring and the provision of assistance to people in need in Darfur. Given that there has been grave concern over sexual violence in Darfur for more than a decade, I encourage the Government to engage with my Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict to develop a framework of cooperation to address the issue comprehensively Countries where sexual violence has become a way of life Syria Recommendation: I acknowledge the Governments invitation to my Special Representative to visit the Syrian Arab Republic and call upon the authorities, in the context of such a visit, to agree on specific measures to prevent sexual violence, including by members of the security forces. I condemn the use of sexual violence by ISIL and all other parties listed in the annex to the present report and call on them to cease such violations immediately and allow unfettered access for the delivery of humanitarian assistance Countries where sexual violence has become a way of life Yemen Recommendation: I urge the authorities in Yemen to undertake legislative reform as a basis for addressing impunity for sexual violence, ensuring the provision of services for survivors and aligning the minimum legal age of marriage with international standards. I further call on the authorities to engage with local community and faithbased leaders to address sexual and gender-based violence and discriminatory social norms Countries where sexual violence has become a way of life Bosnia and Herzegovina Recommendation: I urge the relevant authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina to harmonize legislation and policies so that the rights of survivors of conflict-related sexual violence to reparations are consistently recognized and to allocate a specific budget for this purpose. I further call upon the authorities to protect and support survivors participating in judicial proceedings through, inter alia, referrals to free legal aid, psychosocial and health services, as well as economic empowerment programmes Countries where sexual violence has become a way of life Ivory Coast Recommendation: I urge the Government of Cote dIvoire to ensure the effective implementation of its national strategy to combat gender-based violence and the action plan for FRCI, and call on the international community to support these efforts. It is critical to accelerate disarmament, demobilization and reintegration and strengthen law enforcement to ensure that ex-combatants who have been reintegrated into the transport sector do not pose a risk to women and girls who are reliant on those services. The Government and the international community must provide monitoring and awareness-raising to mitigate the possibility of a recurrence of sexual violence in the context of the presidential elections to be held in October 2015 Countries where sexual violence has become a way of life Liberia Recommendation: I call on the Government of Liberia to continue its critical efforts to combat sexual and gender-based violence including through the United Nations-Government of Liberia Joint Programme, and in the context of recovery from the Ebola virus epidemic Countries where sexual violence has become a way of life Nepal Recommendation: I encourage the Government to ensure that survivors of conflict-related sexual violence are recognized under the law as conflict victims, which will enable them to access services, judicial remedies and reparations. I further call on all parties involved in the transitional justice process to ensure that the rights and needs o f survivors of sexual violence are addressed in institutional reforms and that these crimes are excluded from amnesties and statutes of limitations Countries where sexual violence has become a way of life Sri Lanka Recommendation: I call upon the newly elected Government of Sri Lanka to investigate allegations of sexual violence, including against national armed and security forces, and to provide multisectoral services for survivors, including reparations and economic empowerment programmes for women at risk, including war widows and female heads of household Countries where sexual violence has become a way of life Nigeria Recommendation: I encourage the Government to implement its national action plan on the implementation of Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) to ensure that womens protection concerns are mainstreamed throughout its security operations. I also call upon the authorities to guarantee security in and around internally displaced persons camps and to extend medical and psychosocial services to high-risk areas

I believe that a lot can be learned by listening to those who have been a part of the problem," Ms Elva wrote on the Ted Blog. "If theyre willing to become part of the solution  about what ideas and attitudes drove their violent actions, so we can work on uprooting them effectively.

Rape is often perceived as a womens issue when its really a human issue, Ms Elva said.

Men need to be involved in the discussion surrounding violence prevention, she said.

She added: A problem of this size and magnitude calls for necessary shifts in attitude, one being that those who perpetrate violence shoulder the responsibility for it, as opposed to those who are subjected to it.
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Russia sees Romania as a Nato outpost and "a clear threat" due to it hosting elements of a US anti-missile shield, a senior foreign ministry official has said.

"Romania's stance and the stance of its leadership, who have turned the country into an outpost, is a clear threat for us," Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko told the Interfax news agency in an interview.

The US military says the shield is needed to protect from Iran, not threaten Russia.

The $800m (637m) Romanian part of the missile shield was switched on in May last year. Another part is due to be built in Poland.

 James Mattis says Putin's threat to Nato is biggest threat since WWII

Accusing Romanian authorities of revelling in anti-Russian rhetoric, Mr Botsan-Kharchenko said: "All these decisions... are in the first instance aimed against Russia."

Speaking separately, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Meshkov said Russia considers the deployment of Nato troops and military hardware in the Baltic states, Poland and Germany as a threat.

Mr Meshkov said Moscow was watching closely and would ensure its own security was guaranteed.

"This deployment is of course a threat for us," he said. "And who said that it will end with this? We do not have such information. For the first time since World War Two we see German soldiers along our borders."

A map showing Nato's military buildup in Eastern Europe (Statista)

Mr Meshkov's comments come after the United States deployed thousands of soldiers and heavy weaponry to Poland, the Baltic states and southeastern Europe in its largest build-up since the Cold War.

German troops and armour are due to reinforce Lithuania this month under Nato plans.

US and Nato officials say the move is needed to provide extra security and reassurance to European countries after Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea, but Russia says it is part of an aggressive strategy on its borders.
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One of Russias most popular newspapers has told women to be proud of their bruises, as the country partially decriminalises domestic abuse.

The article, published by Komsomolskaya Pravda, came ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin signing into law a new measure that will see offenders face fewer penalties.

Yaroslav Korobatov, a columnist for the paper, said: For years, women who have been smacked around by their husbands have found solace in the rather hypocritical proverb, If he beats you, it means he loves you!

However, a new scientific study is giving women with irascible husbands new grounds to be proud of their bruises, insofar as women who are beaten, biologists confirm, have a valuable advantage: theyre more likely to give birth to boys!

The scientific study refers to research by Satoshi Kanazawa, a controversial evolutionary psychologist.

In 2005 Mr Kanazawa published an article titled Violent men have more sons, and three years later another titled Why do some battered women stay?, in which he stated women may have been selected to tolerate a certain level of nonlethal violence in their mates.

 MP delivers passionate speech on domestic violence

He has also stated African countries suffer from poverty due to low IQs, and that black women are objectively less attractive.

The move to partially decriminalise domestic violence in Russia has sparked worldwide anger.

The presidential action, which reduces the assault of a relative from a criminal offence to a civil one, has sparked fears it will send a signal that abuse is not a serious crime.
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An American child has admitted launching a cyber attack targeting Brussels Airport in the wake of Isis suicide bombings that killed more than 30 people.

The Belgian federal public prosecutors office said the suspect aimed to take down the Brussels Airport Company website and infiltrate the computer system on the night of 22 March 2016 but was unsuccessful.

Investigators traced the source of the hack to a property in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and handed the information to US authorities.

The FBI proceeded to conduct house search in Pittsburghand interrogated a minor of American nationality, a spokesperson said. He confessed.

Preliminary interviews and searches of seized computers and other evidence have shown no indication of a terrorist motive or Isis links, prosecutors said.

The Belgian federal public prosecutors office therefore wants to emphasise that this case has nothing whatsoever to do with that of the terrorist attacks on 22 March 2016 in Brussels, a spokesperson added.

No further information was released on the suspect or his possible motivation.

In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport Show all 30 1 /30 In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport A man carries an injured person in Brussels Airport, after explosions ripped through the departure hall In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport Travellers get to their feet in a smoke filled terminal at Brussels Airport after explosions In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport A man is wounded in Brussels Airport in Brussels In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport A man speaks on a mobile phone in Brussels Airport, after the explosions ripped through the departure hall In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport Belgian police officers detain a man at the Gare du Midi train station in Brussels In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport A police officer stands guard as people are evacuated from Brussels airport, after explosions rocked the facility in Brussels In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport People stand near Brussels airport after being evacuated following explosions that rocked the facility in Brussels In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport Crew and passengers are evacuated from Zaventem Bruxelles International Airport after an attack in Brussels In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport Passengers gather near Brussels airport in Zaventem, following its evacuation after blasts rocked the main terminal of Brussels airport In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport Two women wounded in Brussels Airport in Brussels In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport Passengers and airport staff are evacuated from the terminal building after explosions at Brussels Airport in Zaventem near Brussels In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport Passengers and airport staff are evacuated from the terminal building after explosions at Brussels Airport in Zaventem near Brussels In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport Broken windows seen at the scene of explosions at Zaventem airport near Brussels In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport People leave the scene of explosions at Zaventem airport near Brussels In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport People are evacuated from the scene after two explosions were heard at Brussels Airport In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport People wait outside of the Brussels Airport after evacuation In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport People leave the airport area after explosions at Brussels Airport in Zaventem In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport Passengers comfort each other as they are evacuated from the terminal building after explosions at Brussels Airport in Zaventem In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport People react as they walk away from Brussels airport after explosions rocked the facility in Brussels In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport Emergency services attend the scene of explosions at Zaventem airport near Brussels Reuters In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport Injured people at the scene at Brussels Airport after two explosions were heard PA In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport The aftermath of the explosions at Brussels airport PA In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport People wait outside of the Zaventem airport after two explosions were heard PA In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport Emergency services at the scene of explosions at Brussels Airport In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport A view of the scene after the explosions at Brussels airport PA In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport Emergency services at the scene of explosions at Zaventem airport near Brussels Reuters In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport The aftermath of the explosions at Brussels airport PA In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport The view of the Brussels airport after the explosion PA In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport Smoke is seen at Brussels airport in Brussels AP In pictures: Terror attacks at Brussels airport A photo shows cars on a blocked highway near Zaventem, Brussels National airport, after two explosions rocked the main hall of Brussels Airport Getty Images

The attempted cyber attack came just hours after two Isis suicide bombers blew themselves up in the departures hall of Brussels Airport, killing more than a dozen people.

The third intended bomber, Mohamed Abrini, survived and fled the scene, sparking an international manhunt before being arrested weeks later.

Little over an hour after the first explosions, another Isis militant detonated his explosives on a train at Maalbeek metro station, bringing the total death toll from the coordinated attacks to 35.

The jihadis behind the bombings were part of a wider cell that carried out the Paris attacks in November 2015, massacring 130 people in bombings and shootings at a concert hall, bars and the Stade de France.

Investigations into a wider network linked to the atrocities continue, with judges prolonging the detention of several suspects detained in connection with the Paris attacks on Thursday, as well as the alleged Brussels Jewish Museum shooter Mehdi Nemmouche and a man suspected of stabbing two police officers in Schaerbeek in October.

In a separate anti-terrorism investigation, 11 people were detained for questioning and then released after a series of house searches in Brussels overnight on Tuesday.
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Vladimir Putin ordered a snap air drill involving 45,000 troops who launched missiles at unidentified objects in the sky.

One hundred and fifty aircraft and 200 anti-aircraft units were also scrambled for the three-day exercise this week.

London-based think tank the European Leadership Network has previously warned that these unannounced military exercises could confuse Nato and lead to an accidental conflict.

State news agency Tass said Mr Putin and Russian defence minister Sergey Shoigu triggered the exercise at 9am Moscow time on Tuesday.

In accordance with the decision by the Armed Forces Supreme Commander, a snap check of the Aerospace Forces began to evaluate readiness of the control agencies and troops to carry out combat training tasks, said Mr Shoigu.

"Special attention should be paid to alert combat, deployment of air defence systems for a time of war, and air group readiness to repel the aggression.

Deputy defence minister Alexander Fomin followed by saying the government did not need to give any formal notice under the Vienna Document.

As part of the exercise, news agency Interfax said S-300 and S-400 air defence systems practiced spotting and destroying unidentified objects flying at low altitudes just south of Moscow.

The number of snap drills have reportedly increased since relations deteriorated between the West and the Kremlin over Ukraine.

 Russia hold military drills

 Russian soldiers train to shoot down helicopters

Russia is estimated to have an army of around 800,000 active troops and 1,796 nuclear warheads.

The US, by comparison, has around 480,000 active troops and 1,367 nuclear warheads.

European Leadership Network research director Lukasz Kulesa said the air drill appeared to simulate what an attack by the US or NATO might look like.

"From a Western viewpoint, the idea of an air assault on Russia is absurd. It is thus worrying that such scenarios are seen as likely in Russia," said Mr Kulesa, speaking to The Independent.

Mr Kulesa also said it was unlikely anything was shot down from the skies in the recent drill, but that "interceptions by air defence" were carried out.

The Independent has contacted Nato for comment.
Members of the Falun Gong hold protest against China's ban on organ harvesting. (Photo : Getty Images)

The Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Science invited the director of the National Human Organ Donation and Transplant Committee to speak at the Summit on Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism.



Huang Jiefu, a former vice-minister of health, will speak at the summit in the Vatican to speak about the "China model" in organ donation and transplant management after the effectivity of the ban on organ harvesting.



Advertisement

"This is the first time that China has been invited to a summit on organ transplanting held by an authoritative international organization," he said.



Other transplant surgeons welcomed the good news and said that the invitation was "a New Year gift for us Chinese transplant surgeons who have been gradually recognized by international peers."



It was in 2005 when the organ harvesting from inmates was made public in China and the practice was terminated in 2015.



There was a total of 28,000 organs harvested by the end of 2015. Almost 10,000 donors have died, according to the National Health and Family Planning Commission.



However, a non-government organization called Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH) is refuting China's claims that organ harvesting has stopped.



In a press statement published on the group's website, they claimed, "China's participation in an organ trafficking summit hosted by the Vatican science group comes despite no evidence that past practices of forced organ harvesting have ended; alleged reforms in China remain unverified due to lack of transparency."



Dr. Torsten Trey, the group's Executive Director, said, "Without accountability, there is no reason to trust the government of China's claim that forced organ harvesting of prisoners has come to an end."



The group is calling for the Beijing government to release the data of transplant procedures done in 20 licensed hospitals.



They are also asking for confirmation from the government that activities of the Falun Gong have ended along with organ harvesting from inmates.


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Iran has conducted another missile test, just days after the US slapped new sanctions on the country for launching a mid-range ballistic missile last month, US media reports.

A defensive surface-to-air (Sam) rocket was launched from Semnan in central Iran on Wednesday, both CNN and Fox News reported US officials as saying.

Last week US President Donald Trumps administration published a list of 13 Iranian individuals and 12 entities facing new sanctions after it emerged that Iran had tested what it said was a non-nuclear ballistic missile. He had warned in a message on his Twitter account that the country was playing with fire.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is the world's leading sponsor of terrorism and engages in, and supports, violent activities that destabilise the Middle East, US National Security Adviser Michael Flynn said in an accompanying statement.

That behaviour seems continuous despite the very favourable [nuclear] deal given to Iran by the Obama administration. These sanctions target those behaviours.

Iran maintains that the Jan 28 mid-range ballistic missile test did not contravene either a UN resolution nor the 2015 historic US-Iran nuclear deal regarding curbing the expansion of the countrys nuclear arsenal, as the missile was not capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

The new test on Wednesday, a Sam missile, was also not covered by the nuclear treaty.

 Michael Flynn: We're officially putting Iran on notice

It comes as tensions between Tehran and Washington continue to deteriorate since President Trump took office a few short weeks ago. Mr Trumps proposed Muslim ban - which is currently being challenged in federal courts - targeting citizens of Iran and six other Muslim countries was met with outrage in Tehran, which quickly imposed a retaliatory travel ban for US citizens and announced Irans central bank would stop uisng the US dollar for official and financial reporting.

On the campaign trail, Mr Trump repeatedly criticised former President Barack Obamas stance on Iran and his administrations 2015 nuclear deal, which eased decades of crippling international sanctions in return for changes to Irans nuclear programme.

While the administration has dampened down talk of scrapping the deal, Mr Flynn said last week that the international community had been too tolerant of Iran's bad behaviour, including several other missile tests in the last 18 months.

The days of turning a blind eye to Iran's hostile and belligerent actions towards the United States and the world community are over, he said.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement last week that the country would not allow its domestic security to become the focus of international debate.

The amateur and irrational policies of the new US administration will change nothing about the principles of Iranian politics, it read.
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Isis has claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on the southern Israeli port town of Eilat.

Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system shot down three missiles fired from neighbouring Sinai late on Wednesday, the Israel Defence Force (IDF) said. Up to seven are thought to have been launched during the attack - in which no one was hurt - in total.

Gazan media reported that Isis, rather than Hamas, was responsible. Isis' official media channels confirmed the group was behind the attack later on Thursday.

The branch of the jihadist group based in restive Sinai province in Egypt is believed to have attacked Israeli targets multiple times in the past.

As well as the Sinai rockets, Israel has been hit by projectiles launched from Gaza this week, and in what the IDF described as not unusual "spillover" from the Syrian civil war, several rockets landed in the Golan Heights.

The IDF struck a target in the Syrian Golan in response.

The incident in Eilat marks the first time the Iron Dome has intercepted rockets aimed at the city since the 2014 war against Hamas.

As of Thursday morning, police had lowered Eilat's threat level back to normal.

Also on Thursday, Palestinian officials said that two people had been killed in a pre-dawn airstrike whilst smuggling goods through a tunnel linking Gaza to the Egyptian Sinai.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the claims.
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A Russian warplane "accidentally" hit a building on Thursday in northern Syria with Turkish soldiers inside, killing at least three troops and wounding 11, Turkey's military said.

President Vladimir Putin promptly called his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to express regrets over the friendly fire incident. The Kremlin said Putin conveyed his condolences over the "tragic incident".

The air strike took place on Thursday morning near the town of al-Bab, which Turkish troops and Turkey-backed Syrian opposition fighters are trying to capture from Isis. News of the deaths came as Turkey was holding funerals for five Turkish soldiers killed in an Isis attack the day before.

The Turkish military said Turkey and Russia were conducting a joint investigation into the incident.

Turkey and Russia recently repaired ties that were strained by Turkey's downing of Russian jet near the border with Syria two years ago. In late December, the two countries brokered a cease-fire for Syria and in January they sponsored peace talks in Astana, Kazakhstan. Syrian rebels and President Bashar Assad's government officials attended that gathering.

Thursday's air strike deaths raise the number of Turkish troops killed in Turkey's operation in Syria to 64.

In other developments in Syria, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and the Red Cross said Thursday that a suspected rebel mortar attack that hit a Red Crescent distribution centre in the government-held city of Aleppo the day before killed a volunteer and two civilians.

The attack in the Hamadaniya neighbourhood, also wounded seven other volunteers, the organisation said. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there were also other mortar rounds that hit security checkpoints in the area on Wednesday. Syria's state news agency said mortar shells also hit other buildings in the neighbourhood.

After years of heavy fighting, Syrian government forces drove the rebels out of eastern Aleppo in December, but the opposition still holds some areas on the city's outskirts. Fighting has continued around Aleppo and in other parts of Syria despite a Russia- and Turkey-sponsored cease-fire.

The cease-fire, in place since 30 December, has excluded areas where militant factions, Isis and Syria's al-Qaida affiliate, operate or hold ground. Syrian government troops and allied militias, as well Turkish troops, the U.S-led international coalition, and Russia have been going after IS in different parts of the country.

The push has lately focused on the Isis-held town of al-Bab, northeast of Aleppo. Syrian government forces and their allies have been pushing from the south, aided by Russian airstrikes.

On Thursday, government troops seized a village south of al-Bab, bringing them less than 3 kilometers (1.5 miles) from the town, according to opposition monitors.

Meanwhile, Turkish troops, backing Syrian opposition fighters, have pushed their way from the western part of the town, entering the outskirts of al-Bab. The two advances have effectively encircled the militant group, which had set up strong fortifications around al-Bab, one if Isis's last remaining strongholds in northern Syria.

Another fight against Isis is raging in east and northeast Syria, where Kurdish troops, backed by the United States, are advancing against the Isis in the militants' de facto capital of Raqqa. Meanwhile, government forces are battling an Isis offensive in Deir al-Zour and another one in the central Homs province, around the ancient town of Palmyra.

Violence has also beset rebel- and opposition-held areas, including in Homs, where at least nine civilians were killed in suspected Russian or government airstrikes on Wednesday.

Associated Press
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The UN has launched an emergency appeal for $2.1 billion (1.7 billion) to provide food and life-saving aid for Yemeni civilians caught up in the chaos of the countrys two-year-long civil war.

Around 12 million people are facing famine, with 3.3 million - including 2.1 million children - already acutely malnourished.

Approximately 55 per cent of the countrys medical infrastructure is out of action, and the economy and vital civil institutions have been devastated, the UNs humanitarian coordinator in Yemen, Jamie McGoldrick, said on Wednesday at a briefing in Geneva.

 The world has forgotten the Yemen war, says senior UN humanitarian official

"Many of the people never make it to the feeding centres or the hospitals because they can't afford the transport," he said.

"Many people die silent and unrecorded deaths, they die at home, they are buried before they are ever recorded."

More than 10,000 people have died as a result of the conflict so far, including an estimated 63,000 children who died of preventable causes linked to malnutrition, Unicef said last week.

"If there is no immediate action, and despite the ongoing humanitarian efforts, famine is now a real possibility for 2017. Malnutrition is rife and rising at an alarming rate," UN emergency relief coordinator Stephen O'Brien said.

In all, nearly 19 million Yemenis - more than two thirds of the population - need assistance and protection, the United Nations said.

Yemen has been plagued by unrest since the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, with the country descending into full-scale civil war in March 2015.

The situation in Yemen Show all 14 1 /14 The situation in Yemen The situation in Yemen Houthi supporters trample on a US flag during a gathering mobilizing more fighters into several Yemeni battlefronts, in Sana'a, Yemen EPA The situation in Yemen People carry the coffins of men, who were killed in the recent Saudi-led airstrikes during their funeral, in the Old City of Sanaa, Yemen AP The situation in Yemen Pro-government fighters give food to Yemeni children on the road leading to the southwestern port city of Mokha. Yemeni rebels are putting up fierce resistance in a key Red Sea port city where they are encircled by pro-government force Getty Images The situation in Yemen A Yemeni stands in front of a graffiti protesting US military operations in war-affected Yemen, in Sana'a, Yemen. According to reports, US Special Forces troops allegedly disembarked from US helicopters in the Yemeni town of Yakla and attacked several houses belonging to members of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda, killing three high-ranking Al-Qaeda members and nine civilians, six women and three children. One American serviceman has been killed and three injured in the attack EPA The situation in Yemen US Special Forces troops allegedly disembarked from US helicopters in the Yemeni town of Yakla and attacked several houses belonging to members of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda, killing three high-ranking Al-Qaeda members and nine civilians, six women and three children. One American serviceman has been killed and three injured in the attack EPA The situation in Yemen A Yemeni female fighter supporting the Shiite Huthi rebels, and carrying weapons used for ceremonial purposes, takes part in an anti-Saudi rally in the capital Sanaa Getty Images The situation in Yemen Yemeni female fighters supporting the Shiite Huthi rebels, and carrying weapons used for ceremonial purposes, take part in an anti-Saudi rally in the capital Sanaa Getty Images The situation in Yemen A boy shouts slogans next to pro-Houthi fighters, who have been injured during recent fighting, during a rally held to honour those injured or maimed while fighting in Houthi ranks in Sanaa, Yemen Reuters The situation in Yemen Balls of fire and smoke rise from a Houthi-held military camp following alleged Saudi-led airstrikes, in Sana'a, Yemen EPA The situation in Yemen Yemenis search under the rubble of damaged houses following reported Saudi-led coalition air strikes on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital Sanaa Getty Images The situation in Yemen A Yemeni boy looks on as Yemenis search under the rubble of damaged houses following reported Saudi-led coalition air strikes on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital Sanaa Getty The situation in Yemen A Yemeni boy sits amidst the rubble of damaged houses following reported Saudi-led coalition air strikes on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital Sanaa AFP/Getty The situation in Yemen Marine One with US President Donald Trump flies with a decoy and support helicopters to Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware, for the dignified transfer of Navy Seal Chief Petty Officer William 'Ryan' Owens who was killed in Yemen Getty Images The situation in Yemen US President Donald Trump aboard the Marine One to greet the remains of a US military commando killed during a raid on the al Qaeda militant group in southern Yemen on Sunday, at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, US Reuters

The conflict has pitted Shia Houthi rebels, who currently control much of the country, against the internationally recognised exiled government.

Extremist groups such as al-Qaeda have taken advantage of Yemens chaos, establishing strongholds across the country.

A Saudi Arabia-led coalition of Arab countries has intervened on behalf of Yemens exiled government since March 2015 against the Iran-allied Houthi movement in what Riyadh says is aimed at curbing creeping Iranian influence in the region.

The campaign has been widely criticised for hitting civilian infrastructure, including the bombing of a Sanaa funeral that killed 140 people in October last year. Roads, ports, bridges, markets and bridges across the country have also been hit.

Several Western governments  including the UK  have been rebuked for selling arms to Saudi Arabia, which rights groups say are destined for use in the conflict.

The Saudi-led coalition also imposes an air and naval blockade on the country, imposing strict restrictions on what can and cant be bought in, and causing aid delivery delays, the UN says.

"In Yemen, if bombs don't kill you, a slow and painful death by starvation is now an increasing threat," Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said in a statement as the UN plan was launched.

Reuters contributed to this report
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Partly because of the prevailing high prices in Spain, bookings to Greece for summer 2017 are up by nearly half. Customer confidence in Turkey is still in decline, but numbers to Hurghada in Egypt are increasing.

Thomas Cook has just announced its results for the first quarter of its fiscal year, covering October to December 2016.

Revenue for the first quarter rose by 1 per cent to 1,618m, with the usual seasonal loss 1m lower at 49m.

Peter Fankhauser, chief executive of Thomas Cook, said: Bookings to Greece are currently up by over 40 per cent, while demand for destinations such as Cyprus, Bulgaria, Portugal and Croatia is also strong.

These positive trends are making up for continued weak demand for Turkey.

A basic self-catering package for a family of four on the Spanish island of Lanzarote, sold under Thomas Cooks Airtours brand, costs 456 per person in early August, including flights from Gatwick, while a similar holiday in Marmaris, Turkey, is on sale for 382. On Greeces largest island, Crete, a comparable Thomas Cook trip costs 422.

Demand for Greece last year was dampened by reports about large numbers of migrants passing through the islands.

Intense competition between low-cost airlines means that flight-only prices for the coming summer are no higher than last year. On Monday, Ryanair predicted air fares would fall during 2017.

Among long-haul destinations, Thomas Cook says Cuba and Mexico are proving popular, at the expense of Florida.

Mr Fankhauser added: We remain cautious about the rest of the year, given the uncertain political and economic outlook.

Shares in Thomas Cook Group ended the day nearly 8 per cent down.
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Fake news, controversial and offensive a phrase as it is, is really just a euphemism for lies, a much older, simpler and shorter description of the same thing. Imagine if Donald Trump or Jeremy Corbyn told reporters that they were telling lies? Imagine if, instead of attacking Laura Kuenssberg for fake news Corbyns fan base just called her a liar? Actually they do, and worse, but at least that is more honest.

Often, though, it seems even apparently plain speaking types such as Trump and Corbyn cannot bring themselves to call a fib a fib. It seems, more broadly too, that we cannot even be honest to ourselves when we argue about the supposed dishonesty of political discourse. The only time Ive heard it said properly lately was about the Leave campaign in the Brexit referendum. Maybe exchanging such insults would be even more incendiary than the allegations that have been ranged against CNN, the BBC and, indeed, the rest of whats termed the mainstream media by zealots from opposite ends of the political spectrum. I imagine the phrase fake news and its euphemism-piled-on-euphemism relation, alternative facts are also handy formulations to chuck around in the Senate or the chamber of the House of Commons, where the niceties do not allow for any honourable member to be accused of being a liar, that being unconscionable unparliamentary language. But it all amounts to the same thing. It is as old as politics and debate itself; but just because it is old doesnt make it alright. This long-term relentless assault on the integrity of the political class, the political process itself, and the media that report and comment on it should not be underestimated.

As I say, it is nothing new. Most prime ministers and party leaders have had their run-ins with the press. Somewhere in the BBCs archive sits a wonderful clip of labour leader Harold Wilson getting up onto the stage at his partys conference, circa 1967. The economy was in meltdown, the pound devalued, the Empire in retreat, an application to join the European Union humiliatingly rejected by the French (plus ca change), poll ratings at record lows and the unions causing their usual ructions. The delegates, though, gave Wilson a thunderous welcome, and, after waiting theatrically for the tumultuous applause to die down, and for a signal that the start of his speech was now being broadcast live, he declared: Thank you for what will no doubt be reported by the BBC as a hostile reception.

 Jeremy Corbyn accuses BBC of reporting fake news

Laura Kuenssbergs tussle with Jeremy Corbyn over the stability of his leadership lies in a long tradition of such conflicts. Sometimes they spiral out of control. Margaret Thatcher and her party chairman, Norman Tebbitt, mercilessly bullied the BBC over its coverage of the bombing of Libya by US planes flying from British bases in 1985, an obsession that was quite disproportionate to any error of judgement. A decade or so later, in the pomp of new Labour, there were similar allegations and counter-allegations. An obscure early morning broadcast on the Today programme by the BBCs Andrew Gilligan with a passing reference to a sexed up dossier caught the incensed attention of the Prime Minister's Press Secretary, Alistair Campbell. We all know how that ended: the tragic death of Dr David Kelly, most of those concerned losing their jobs, including the Chairman and Director-general of the BBC, open war between the media and Number 10, a public inquiry, Tony Blairs reputation trashed and some truly bizarre conspiracy theories. It proved, if proof were needed, that, like many wars, those between the media and politicians usually end up with both sides losing. Worse than that, there is a third loser  the cause and reputation of democratic politics itself.

Without getting alarmist, it is how democracies decline, and sometimes even fail. The old adage that politicians are all liars and in it for themselves slides into a widespread belief that all politicians are corrupt. That, in turn, can evolve into a lack of faith in the power of debate and elections to change anything. When the reputation of democratic politicians as a class declines so badly in the eyes of the public that we become suspicious of, and disenchanted by, democracy itself is when the future of democratic politics starts to sag.

It is even worse  well I would say this  when the media become a distrusted part of some mythical conspiratorial elite, the cosy Westminster village turned into a cabal intent on defrauding and exploiting the public. So not only can the public not trust what politicians tell them  but they cannot even trust the reporters and commentators to report, or expose, those very distortions properly  likely as not adding some of their own. It is a poisonous, lethal cocktail we are brewing here.

It has been a slow, almost imperceptible process, and an insidious one. Taking a step back for a moment, though, there are a few moments since about the turn of the millennium that accelerated the trend, at least in Britain. One was the Iraq War and its aftermath, of which the Gilligan affair was a part, the feeling that so much life and treasure had been lost over a war fought on a false premise; another was the continuing damage done by the scandal over MPs expenses, long after when those guilty have slunk away from Westminster for good; the Leveson Inquiry and all that told us about the dark side of the press (many parts of which even now refuse to accept they did much that was wrong in the hacking and other scandals); and the revelations about the financial sector and the malfeasance of certain bankers (still unpunished it has to be said). Even sport has been exposed as a swamp of malpractice and dishonesty. Usually democracies have to cope with one or two such crisis of confidence; to have them all coincide is almost lethal.

The great thing about democracy, of course, is that it can be reinvigorated, but I am not sure that is what is happening now. Despite the corrosive, misleading, cynical manipulation that Donald Trump is visiting upon the American people, his use of Twitter to communicate his unvarnished early morning still-in-his-dressing-gown thoughts is at least authentic. It is a direct form of communion with millions, unmediated by spin placed on it by others. Much the same goes for the fourth-pint-of-bitter verities spouted by Nigel Farage. What they both have in common, as is well noted, is a tendency to attack the establishment. But now everyone is attacking the establishment, even those who are plainly integral parts of the establishment in any sensible definition. Nick Clegg, hard as it may be to recall, once painted himself as the fresh outsider, this public schoolboy and Brussels eurocrat; so does Nicola Sturgeon, law graduate of Glasgow University; so, indeed, does Jeremy Corbyn, an MP for 34 years; as well as billionaire Trump and stockbroker Farage.

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The press are sometimes willing accomplices in this game of mass suicide  the Mail's Enemies of the People deserves its notoriety as a tabloid headline. The mutually assured destruction the politicians, media and the judiciary are presently indulging in wont end free elections or free speech. It will, though, lead to a sickly, lifeless sort of democratic life, unengaged with the electorate, drained of idealism, infested by cynicism, barley legitimatised by public approval, intertwined with economic decline and hopelessness.

It isnt Germany in 1933, but it is more like any number of democratic states where the morale of the system sinks so low it is difficult to sustain it  Third Republic France before 1940, say, or Italy by the 1990s, or America after Watergate, when Richard Nixon correctly observed that when people get pounded with revelations about wrong doing night after night then they will lose their faith in the system (adding, famously, I am not a liar). Someone, somewhere needs to start sticking up for the establishment, defending the elites, justifying press intrusion where it supports the public interest, defending the independence and fairness of our lawyers and bankers, and explaining to the public why democratic politicians cannot always honour all their promises, and telling them to grow up. Or would we just think thats all fake news?
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Imagine your morale if you were a Muslim living in America right now. What could be worse than having a president who has launched a calculated assault against your community? How about the signing of a new bill that has the power to intimidate, silence, and imprison Muslims for being politically engaged?

The Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act bill, currently sitting in Congress, comes against the backdrop of a travel ban on citizens from seven Muslim countries, the revamping of a US counter-terror program to focus solely on radical Islamic extremism, and a series of disconcerting responses to terrorism from the new President  from a shouting caps tweet about the Egyptian knife-wielding attacker at the Louvre in Paris, to total silence after six Canadians were gunned down inside a Quebec mosque by a right-wing nationalist.

But this bill, if passed, is pretty much the icing on the cake for American Muslims.

Proudly introduced by Republican Senator Ted Cruz in January, the act is designed to protect against the violent jihad carried out by the Muslim Brotherhood affiliates both in the United States and the rest of the world. Formally branding the Brotherhood a terror group, Cruz says, will enable the US to take action that could stifle the funding they receive to promote their terrorist activities.

New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban Show all 27 1 /27 New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban Ethnic Yemenis and supporters protest against President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen on February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. At least 1,000 Yemeni-owned bodegas and grocery-stores across the city shut down from noon to 8 p.m. today to protest the order. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban Men pray during a protest by ethnic Yemenis and supporters over President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen on February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. At least 1,000 Yemeni-owned bodegas and grocery-stores across the city shut down from noon to 8 p.m. today to protest the order. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban Ethnic Yemenis and supporters protest against President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen on February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. At least 1,000 Yemeni-owned bodegas and grocery-stores across the city shut down from noon to 8 p.m. today to protest the order. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban Men pray during a protest by ethnic Yemenis and supporters over President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen on February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. At least 1,000 Yemeni-owned bodegas and grocery-stores across the city shut down from noon to 8 p.m. today to protest the order. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People gather for evening prayer at a rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally with flags at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally with flags at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally with flags at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally with flags at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally with flags at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest US President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban People rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall as Yemeni bodega and grocery-stores shut down to protest President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen, on February 2, 2017 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban A Yemeni business owner places a sign on the gate of his store February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Across the city, Yemeni owned bodega and grocery-stores will shut down from noon to 8 p.m. to protest President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen. It is expected that over 1000 stores will be closed in protest with workers and owners participating in an afternoon rally in Brooklyn. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban A Yemeni business owner places a sign on the gate of his store February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Across the city, Yemeni owned bodega and grocery-stores will shut down from noon to 8 p.m. to protest President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen. It is expected that over 1000 stores will be closed in protest with workers and owners participating in an afternoon rally in Brooklyn. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban NEW YORK, NY - FEBRUARY 02: Yemeni business owner Musa closes the gate to his store February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Across the city, Yemeni owned bodega and grocery-stores will shut down from noon to 8 p.m. to protest President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen. It is expected that over 1000 stores will be closed in protest with workers and owners participating in an afternoon rally in Brooklyn. Spencer Platt/Getty New York City bodegas strike to protest Trump's travel ban A Yemeni business owner closes the gate to his store February 2, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Across the city, Yemeni owned bodega and grocery-stores will shut down from noon to 8 p.m. to protest President Donald Trump's Executive Order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Yemen. It is expected that over 1000 stores will be closed in protest with workers and owners participating in an afternoon rally in Brooklyn. Spencer Platt/Getty

Blacklisting an Egyptian group with alleged links to terrorism has a direct impact on American citizens because these affiliates encompass several US Muslim advocacy organisations, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim Students Association (MSA).

Cair is the largest and most influential civil society group in America and, according to policy experts, faces the highest likelihood of being shut down as a result of this ruling.

Its hard to come across a Muslim in America that hasnt heard of or supported a Cair event since it was founded in 1985. The grassroots organisation has earned a strong reputation among civil liberties groups for pushing back against biased media portrayals of Islam and encouraging American Muslims to participate in political and social activism. This group has played a key role in the US Muslim immigrant success story.

Its not the first time Cair has been threatened. The Terror Designation bill marks the fifth consecutive year lawmakers have introduced legislation to blacklist the Muslim Brotherhood, but theres a reason why its never previously been passed: US foreign policy and counter-terror experts generally do not view the group as a threat to US national security. A British Government investigation last year also determined that, while the Muslim Brotherhood had some ties to extremism, it was not a terrorist group. Neither are its far-flung US affiliates.

 Donald Trump state visit is likely to be 'around June'

Yet US lawmakers under Trump have never been more optimistic that the bill will finally pass this year and the impact on civil liberties, advocates and academics say, is terrifying. As Sussan Siavoshi, a political science professor at Trinity University in Texas, puts it: If Cair, a civil society group, becomes designated as a terror organisation, what are peoples options if they want to become involved in politics? Some may become inactive, but others may start underground violence or movements.

If the idea of branding an advocacy organisation a terrorist group sounds far-fetched, consider this: in 2012 the largest Muslim charity in the United States, the Holy Land Foundation, was shut down, its assets frozen and five of its leaders arrested by the FBI. They remain behind bars for allegedly funding Hamas and several charitable groups, some of which were not even listed for having links to terrorism.

Concerned about a Muslim registry? This is the Muslim registry, says Mike Merryman-Lotze from the American Friends Service Committee in Philadephia. This is an exceptional move. If this bill passes, that determination will be a political act, not an act based on the advice, review, and findings of the US officials responsible for making these decisions within the State Department and Security Services.

This is when resistance action is needed, he adds.

But its hard to resist when the myth that Cair equates to the Muslim Brotherhood, and that the Muslim Brotherhood is trying to take over America, is so widely spread in the Breitbart media world.

When Trump vowed to establish a Muslim registry, the Jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL) stood up in defiance. Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of ADL, told an anti-Semitism conference in November he would register as a Muslim if need be. But if this bill is passed, will the ADL and other groups like it stand up and support Cair? This is a test of our civil society.
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Compassion, sermonised Amber Rudd at last years Conservative party conference, does not have borders. It would seem, however, it does have a cap.

Todays urgent questions on the Governments decision to close the provision offered by the Dubs amendment to settle unaccompanied child refugees failed to provide any reasonable case, practical or ethical, for back tracking on last summers commitment to settle thousands.

Amber Rudd is wrong on the Dubs amendment for two important reasons. The first is that her interpretation of Dubs as a pull factor or incentive to travel across Europe isnt born out in the statistics. We have only settled 200 children so far, less than 10 per cent of the originally stated goal of 3,000. The newly imposed cap of 350, just over half of the 544 unaccompanied children residing in Calais, will not dissuade the people traffickers or those desperate enough to pay for their services.

Refugees and migrants were streaming across Europe long before David Cameron adopted the amendment and will continue on after it has been dropped. Invoking the image of some sort of modern day childrens crusade rolling across French hills and through shady German woodland all because weve committed to helping child refugees is a bit of a stretch. With MPs reporting that 50 unaccompanied child refugees a day are going back to the camps in northern France, were passed the point of stopping them getting on the boats in the first place.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 5 November 2022 Demonstrators with placards calling for a General Election march near the Houses of Parliament AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 4 November 2022 A peacock is seen in the early winter sunshine in the Dutch Gardens in Holland Park AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 November 2022 A villager cooks roti bread at the site of the annual Camel Fair in Pushkar, in India's desert state of Rajasthan AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2022 People dressed in Halloween costumes paddle board along the river Avon in Christchurch, Dorset PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2022 Members of the public take pictures as police officers remove activists from a road during a Just Stop Oil protest, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA 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

Secondly, the insinuation that councils werent stepping up is an invitation to see an act of self-defence as sadism. Local authorities simply dont have enough money to meet their current obligations, let alone pump up demand for their services. As the LGAs David Simmonds said on BBC Radio 5 Live, If the money isnt available to pay foster carers, then councils wont be able to get them to take on refugee children.

Underneath all of this is a contradiction which we have yet to figure out. Opinion seems to exist on a continuum which says refugees in Jordan or Lebanon need our help, but once they get close enough to our borders suddenly they become a potential threat. Can we really, as Daniel Trilling wrote in the Times Literary Supplement last June, expect a border policy which puts our obligations to displaced people into conflict with our desire for security to work? Politically the answer appears to be no.

The Home Secretary suggested we need to spread responsibility around for child refugees. She rightly praised Kent for bearing the brunt, yet I fail to see how she can assume the moral high ground over councils who choose not to enter a voluntary scheme when she voluntarily caps the numbers we accept.

 Child refugees in France neglected by authorities following Home Office rejections

I mentioned the childrens crusades of 1212 earlier. Tens of thousands of children and peasants followed Stephan of Cloyes and Nicholas of Cologne towards the Middle East. None were recorded to have reached the Holy land. They barely left their own countries, let alone the continent. This is surely the point. Most will not reach our shores. More than 80 per cent are hosted by developing countries close to their own.

Last year we established an obligation to those children who did make it that we would protect them. Are such things done on Albions shore wrote William Blake in his Songs of Innocence and of Experience on Britains predilection for excessive commercial and penal treatment of children. We no longer indulge such brutality ourselves; however in reneging on our Dubs commitment we are indirectly abetting a cruelty not out of place in the 18th or 19th century. Not on Albions shores anymore I grant you, but just off them.
Multinational warships during Aman-13. (Photo : Pakistan Navy)

Pakistan will host what will perhaps be the year's largest multinational naval exercise -- Aman-17 -- in which over 30 navies are expected to take part, including China and the United States.



Aman-17 will be held off Karachi, Pakistan's largest city that lies along the shore of the Arabian Sea, from February 10 to 14. The Pakistan Navy said more than 35 countries so far have confirmed their participation in this major naval exercise. "Aman" is the Urdu word for peace.



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With the theme "Together for Peace," Aman-17 has been planned by the Pakistan Navy and will be conducted in the North Arabian Sea.



The "Aman" exercises have been held every other year since 2007. It aims to boost inter-operability and to demonstrate the allied nation's capabilities to fight terrorism and other maritime threats.



Participating naval units will witness a variety of activities including Search and Rescue (SAR) Operations, gunnery drills, anti-piracy exercises, replenishment at Sea (RAS) and maritime counter-terrorism.



It will involves warships, aircraft, helicopters, Special Operations Forces (SOF), Explosives Ordinance Disposal (EOD), marine teams and observers from regional and extra-regional navies.



This exercise is a platform for the navies involved -- some of which don't work together very often -- to hone their skills and build cooperation and friendship to promote peace and stability.



AMAN-17 will feature a harbor phase and a sea phase. The joint drill will bring together navies from 12 countries: Australia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Maldives, Pakistan, Russia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States.



In addition, observers from 31 countries will also attend the event.



It's the fifth time China has participated in the joint drill. A squadron from the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) will include the CNS Harbin (112) a Type-052 Luhu-class guided-missile destroyer; CNS Handan (579), a Type-054A multi-purpose frigate and Dongpinghu (960), a Type 903 replenishment ship.


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So thats it. The guy is crackers. Theres no stopping him. And Steve Bannon appears to have his hands on the levers. Poor old Jared Kushner, the son-in-law with the much-trumpeted power to tame the American president, couldnt prevent that disgraceful White House Holocaust statement which somehow just failed to mention the Jews of Europe. Dont tell me it was left out to appease the Armenians  whose own 1915 genocide was always left out by cowardly US presidents to avoid upsetting the Turks.

But now the White House is making some Israelis deeply concerned. In an extraordinary attack, Bradley Burston of the leftist Haaretz newspaper has fired off a volley at the White House. Its an inconceivably scary thought, he wrote this week, that the Trump administration is simply winging it, breakneck, disrupting and detonating and taking America apart  and all of it without a plan. But heres the even scarier possibility  that there is, in fact, a plan.

The plan, according to Burston, is a Holy War. Donald Trump needs a war. But not just any war. He needs just the right global non-Christian, all-powerful, all frightening, non-white, non-negotiable enemy And he needs a doomsday weapon he can rely on. As it happens, he already has one. Its called Steve Bannon. Burston has been combing through some of the nonsense spouted by Bannon at a Vatican conference in 2014.

Heres a sample of what Trumps new point man said then: were at the very beginning stages of a very brutal and bloody conflict, of which if the people in this room, the people in the church, do not bind together and really form what I feel is an aspect of the church militant  to fight for our belief against this new barbarity thats starting, that will completely eradicate everything that weve been bequeathed over the last 2,000, 2,500 years.

Theres no point in saying that this is preposterous. It is. Were now, I believe, at the beginning stages of a global war against Islamic fascism, quoth Bannon. And Burston is right when he dissects this unpleasant oration for  and I quote Burston  not only does it predict the imminence and the inevitability of a war pitting Christianity against Islam, it obliquely suggests that Jews could find themselves a target for US Christian anger somewhere down the road.

When Bannon worked at Goldman Sachs, he told his Vatican listeners, he could see there are people in New York that feel closer to people in London and in Berlin than they do to people in Kansas and in Colorado, and they have more of this elite mentality that theyre going to dictate to everybody how the worlds going to be run.

Now I know that Boris doesnt want us to compare Trump to Hitler  though Trump himself represents a kind of theatrical fascism  but the above quotation is pretty damning. This was indeed the kind of statement that could be made in the 1930s in Germany. And Burston goes on to fillet the Bannon speech a little further.

A few minutes after the above quotation  and here I quote Burston again  Bannon exuberantly responds to a question about the 2014 Republican primary defeat of then-House majority leader Eric Cantor  at the time the sole Jewish Republican in either the House or Senate. Bannon, calling Cantors defeat monumental and the biggest election upset in the history of the American Republic and says that Cantors opponent won because Middle-class people and working-class people are tired of people like Eric Cantor  selling out their interests every day to crony capitalists.

Now this is pretty dreadful stuff  and this, remember, is Trumps senior advisor with a seat on the National Security Council. And despite all Trumps glad-handing for Israel, I suspect that the Israelis themselves are going to have a far harder ride with Trumps administration than with Obamas. They might get the US embassy moved to Jerusalem  but they might also be very worried that folk like Bannon are going to provoke a war with Iran.

The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Show all 9 1 /9 The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the media White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer takes questions during the daily press briefing Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Union leaders applaud US President Donald Trump for signing an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington DC. Mr Trump issued a presidential memorandum in January announcing that the US would withdraw from the trade deal Getty The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Mexico wall A US Border Patrol vehicle sits waiting for illegal immigrants at a fence opening near the US-Mexico border near McAllen, Texas. The number of incoming immigrants has surged ahead of the upcoming Presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. A signature campaign promise, Mr Trump outlined his intention to build a border wall on the US-Mexico border days after taking office Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and abortion US President Donald Trump signs an executive order as Chief of Staff Reince Priebus looks on in the Oval Office of the White House. Mr Trump reinstated a ban on American financial aide being granted to non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling, provide abortion referrals, or advocate for abortion access outside of the United States Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Dakota Access pipeline Opponents of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines hold a rally as they protest US President Donald Trump's executive orders advancing their construction, at Columbus Circle in New York. US President Donald Trump signed executive orders reviving the construction of two controversial oil pipelines, but said the projects would be subject to renegotiation Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and 'Obamacare' Nancy Pelosi who is the minority leader of the House of Representatives speaks beside House Democrats at an event to protect the Affordable Care Act in Los Angeles, California. US President Donald Trump's effort to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace the healthcare law failed when Republicans failed to get enough votes. Mr Trump has promised to revisit the matter Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Donald Trump and 'sanctuary cities' US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January threatening to pull funding for so-called "sanctuary cities" if they do not comply with federal immigration law AP The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the travel ban US President Donald Trump has attempted twice to restrict travel into the United States from several predominantly Muslim countries. The first attempt, in February, was met with swift opposition from protesters who flocked to airports around the country. That travel ban was later blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The second ban was blocked by a federal judge a day before it was scheduled to be implemented in mid-March SANDY HUFFAKER/AFP/Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and climate change US President Donald Trump sought to dismantle several of his predecessor's actions on climate change in March. His order instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to reevaluate the Clean Power Plan, which would cap power plant emissions Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

The problem is that when folk like Bannon become powerful in the most powerful nation in the world, they really can start wars. What did the US government mean, for example, that Iran was on notice after its recent missile test (the one which didnt actually break any rules)? Was that a warning of dislike  or war?

Of course, when your President lives in fantasy land, you can only expect journalists to do the same. My long-standing chum Thomas Friedman has called upon Americas top business leaders to save American democracy  as if the most capitalist of all capitalists are going to oppose the President when theyre all waiting to see if Trump is going to get rid of Nafta and the EU which help, as Friedman says, to drive so much of the world economy.

And I doubt if the great and the good in the East Coast journalism trade are going to defend America from its elected leader. If they have been so afraid of offending Israel for so many years, they are certainly not going to offend Trump. But thats the trouble at the moment. How can you be fair to a fantasist, of a man  of men  who simply tell untruths. I do suspect weve been down this road before. I seem to recall most Americans believed Saddam arranged the 9/11 attacks. And wasnt the whole nonsense about weapons of mass destruction an alternative fact. And I do recall a little problem with the 45-minute warning. You dont have to be an American president to dream up this stuff.

I think that May will have to summon up a little more courage if shes going to represent her peoples view of Trump. And I do think that Boris should be careful about what he says on the subject of Hitler. No, Trump is not Hitler. But he has one characteristic in common with the infamous Austrian corporal. What he says hes going to do is exactly what he does. And hes got Bannon beside him.
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It is one thing to refuse to confront a President for an appalling policy  but its another to follow his lead. This year we have watched in horror as Trumps America, with its Mexican wall and Muslim ban, turns in on itself  yet under our noses Britain risks marching down a similar path.

Rather than providing more resources in Calais to process refugee claims, Theresa May announced instead that our flagship response to the crisis on our doorstep would be to build our own 2m wall of shame. Then we saw the handful of child refugees we did bring to the UK splashed across our front pages a threatened to have them examined by dentists as age checks were demanded and their legitimacy questioned. The Government did little to challenge the false stereotyping of children fleeing conflict and suffering from post-traumatic stress, and instead seeming more intent on turning our school gates and A&E departments into border checkpoints.

Yesterday the Governments record sank even lower as it was revealed that Britain will turn its back on some of the most vulnerable people in the world  lone child refugees. Despite saying we could take in up to 3,000 children in Europe fleeing persecution and war, we couldnt even find room in our communities for less than two in every upper tier and unitary local authority in the country. By the time the extra children have been brought to the UK we will have given refuge to just 350 under the Dubs scheme.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 5 November 2022 Demonstrators with placards calling for a General Election march near the Houses of Parliament AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 4 November 2022 A peacock is seen in the early winter sunshine in the Dutch Gardens in Holland Park AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 November 2022 A villager cooks roti bread at the site of the annual Camel Fair in Pushkar, in India's desert state of Rajasthan AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2022 People dressed in Halloween costumes paddle board along the river Avon in Christchurch, Dorset PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2022 Members of the public take pictures as police officers remove activists from a road during a Just Stop Oil protest, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA 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

Compare this to the scale of the tragedy. Last year 5000 people died while trying to reach Europe. In Syria alone seven million people have been displaced while one million are applying for asylum in Europe. Last year, 30,000 unaccompanied children arrived in Greece and Italy. As the fifth richest country in the world, can we really only find room for 350 of their children? The Government should have been doing everything possible to help local authorities to house these children, but instead theyve cancelled the scheme altogether.

The abandoning of these children is not an isolated incident. In fact it fits with a hard line narrative that Theresa May has been pursuing since becoming PM. We have a Prime Minister so intent on pulling up the drawbridge that she is willing to sacrifice our environmental protections and economic security on the altar of ending freedom of movement. After a divisive EU referendum campaign we've seen toxic rhetoric from our own Government blaming a whole host of problems on EU nationals  from the crisis facing the NHS to the shortage of affordable housing. This despite the fact that with 100,000 people from other EU countries employed by the NHS, they are more likely to be dressing our wounds or building our houses than standing in front of us in the queue.

 British expat helps tackle refugee crisis in Greece

The Governments aim couldn't be clearer: by refusing to give an early guarantee to EU citizens of their right to stay here, by blaming migrants for Britain's problems and, now, ending the refugee childrens scheme, they are colluding with those who say that people from abroad simply are not welcome here.

Britain is a bigger country than this. We should be stepping up as a world leader in welcoming refugees, not stepping away at their time of need.

Indeed, people here have already taken things into their own hands, opening their homes to refugees and going to Calais to help in any way they can. We have both seen first-hand the compassion of volunteers moved to act where the Government has failed. On visits to Calais last year we saw how simple ticketing systems can be used to distribute donations which UK citizens, unable to make it to the camps themselves, have been quick to give.

But on these visits, while the presence of British volunteers was striking, so was the absence of British officials. Sadly it seems to be becoming clearer now why  our Government has no intention of offering any meaningful help in the way its citizens have.

As Lord Dubs himself pointed out, during the Kindertransport Sir Nicky Winton rescued 669 children from Nazi persecution. If one man can save almost double the numbers of youngsters we have already, surely we cannot stop here. Britain has stepped up in the past and it can do so again.

Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley are co-leaders of the Green Party
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In the south west corner of the Arabian Peninsula, Britain is complicit in one of the worst and least noticed crimes against humanity in the 21st century. Thanks to Saudi air strikes starting two years ago, a localised civil war in Yemen was transformed into a devastating conflict which has brought 12 million people to the edge of famine. Some 19 million Yemenis out of a total population of 25 million lack fresh water to drink and 4 million do not have enough food to eat.

In bringing about this man-made calamity, the British Government has played a small ignoble role as a supplier of weapons to Saudi Arabia whose air raids are primarily responsible for the destruction.

The continuation of arms sales that are the subject of a legal challenge before the High Court in London this week on the grounds that the weapons will be used in Yemen in violation of international humanitarian law. Critics of the US and Britain say they play an essential role in supporting the Saudi-led air campaign that has destroyed much of the Yemens infrastructure. The poorest Arab country, it used to import 90 per cent of its food  but this has become far more difficult since air strikes destroyed cranes in the port of Hudayda on the Red Sea coast in 2015. The loss of the always inadequate sewage and garbage disposal facilities has led to the spread of cholera and dengue fever. In addition, at least 10,000 people have been killed in the fighting and 3.27 million people forced to flee their homes.

The suffering is likely to grow worse because the prolonged Saudi attempt to defeat the Houthi rebels, who are allied to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, has so far only produces a military stalemate. The rebels still hold the capital Sanaa and much of the north of the country. The Saudi ambition to split the alliance between the Houthi and Saleh has so far failed.

 Yemen's prime minister accuses UK of war crimes

British support for the Saudi campaign has provoked little public interest, but the Government is now facing a landmark case before the High Court in London as the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) seeks an order to stop the sale of British-made bombs, fighter aircraft and other munitions to Saudi Arabia. CAAT says that since the start of the conflict, Britain has approved export licences for arms worth 3.1bn to Saudi Arabia.

The British Government maintains that it does not licence weapons when there is a clear risk of humanitarian law being breached. But there is evidence that Saudi pilots either do not know or do not care what they are bombing. US officials are quoted by The Washington Post as saying that errors of capability or competence, not of malice explain repeated strikes against civilian targets but this lack of intent means that no international laws are being broken.

American and British support for Saudi Arabia as their main regional ally has been automatic in the past, but its policies have become more aggressive and nationalistic since King Salman became Saudi monarch in 2015.

Though the US and UK have sought to present the Houthis as an Iranian proxy, there is little sign that they get much help from Tehran, though Saudi intervention has served to deepen  and make more sectarian  a complicated civil war inside Yemen.

As Britain prepares to leave the European Union, it has a strong incentive to strengthen existing alliances with trading partners in the Gulf and elsewhere. Theresa May has already visited Bahrain and Turkey, both notoriously prohibiting dissent and imprisoning journalists and opposition leaders.

President Obamas administration had begun to distance itself from supporting Saudi Arabia and the Sunni states of the Gulf, but the Trump administration is showing himself itself as much more sympathetic to Saudi Arabia and hostile to Iran with officials saying that the US will give full support to the Saudi-led air offensive.
An abandoned border guard hut on the northern side of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland

Britain will impose a hard border on the island of Ireland as it leaves the European Union regardless of its impact, a senior Sinn Fein MP has said.

Pat Doherty, former vice president of the party, told a parliamentary committee there is no such thing as a soft border.

Ireland should not be "naive" about an imminent new frontier and needed to realise Britain had only permanent interests, not permanent friends, he said.

"There is no such thing as a soft border... just soft words," he told Dublin's Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement.

"The road the British government is travelling on is going to lead to a hard border on the island of Ireland.

"We are in for a very, very difficult time."

The abstentionist West Tyrone MP said it did not matter that every political party, north and south, bar one or two small factions, was opposed to a 310 mile hard border being reimposed between both parts of the island.

"We should not be naive about the intention of the British government," he said.

"They are going to have a hard border and they do not care in any meaningful way about its impact on Ireland."

Mr Doherty said Theresa May's Government cares only about the "Tory and Brexit vote, mostly in England" and Ireland has a huge job to convince Europe of the depth of the problem.

But he added Europe could "devise special circumstances" for Northern Ireland given that every citizen is entitled under the Good Friday Agreement to be an EU citizen.

Public Spending Minister Paschal Donohoe, who appeared before the committee hearing into the impact of Brexit on the peace deal, said the Irish government needed to look at trade and funding models between Sweden and Norway as well as France and Switzerland.

"We want the current trading relationship between the UK and Ireland to be as close to the current circumstances as possible," he said.

"That is the objective we will have entering negotiations."

Mr Donohoe said the British "have left space" in what relationship it will have with the EU's customs union in the future, which allowed an important area to negotiate a trading arrangement that best suits the needs of the Irish economy.

"Any time I visit any of the border counties I hear very clearly from citizens their concerns on economic stability and freedoms now and in the future," he said.

"I agree that we can not see a return to a hard border because of the destabilising effects it would have on the north and other parts of Ireland."
Worries about free movement in the context of Brexit don't simply apply to people. Concerns have been raised about horses also.

Agriculture Minister Michael Creed has warned the United Kingdoms exit from the European Union poses significant implications for Irelands thoroughbred industry.

Horse racing and thoroughbred breeding essentially operates on an all-island basis, he said, with horses, trainers and riders regularly moving between both jurisdictions.

The introduction of tariffs or regulations has the potential to increase the cost of business and reduce the free movement of labour and horses, Mr Creed said, in response to a parliamentary question from Independent TD Tommy Broughan.

Mr Creed said trainers in Northern Ireland are licensed by the Irish Turf Club, and races there are run under the Turf Clubs Rules of Racing.

90pc of runners at these fixtures are trained in the Republic with horses moving on a daily basis, so the return to a hard border would seriously disrupt this movement, he added.

The two countries operate a single entity for stud book purposes - ie British and Irish foals are both registered in the one stud book - and together with France, have historically had a tripartite agreement between the respective Departments of Agriculture to facilitate free movement of thoroughbred horses between the three countries.

Ireland exports of thoroughbreds to Britain are worth around 225 million each year, he said. This may be at risk due to reduced trade flows following the Brexit vote, the Government believes.

The horse industry overall contributes in excess of 1.1 billion annually to the Irish economy.

Brexit may have very serious implications for the Irish thoroughbred racing and breeding industry and the concerns of the sector will need to be taken into account in any discussions/negotiations on the matter, the minister added.

To a large extent the horse racing and breeding industries of the UK and Ireland operate as one with horses, trainers, riders regularly moving between both jurisdictions.
Fully controlling the movement of goods and people across the border between north and south is not "remotely possible", Ireland's ambassador to the United Kingdom has said.

Veteran diplomat Dan Mulhall said the European Commission will not be trying to create problems for Ireland post Brexit in terms of the "modest quantities" of cross border trade.

He added the UK will not be "taking back control" of its border in the north if it wants to maintain the common travel area, despite border security being a key plank of the Brexit campaign.

He said monitoring the border fully given the level of traffic and crossings wasn't doable.

"Even if somebody wanted to, the effort involved, I just don't think it's remotely possible to think in terms of having a border that really controls every movement of goods and people accross, so we have to find practical solutions, " the ambassador told the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee.

He argued that there was always flexibility within the European Union to make things work.

I havent got any impression that any of my colleagues in governments are looking to throw a spanner in the works and make life difficult for Ireland, he said.

Although both the UK and Irish governments have argued that there is no desire for a hard border, Prime Minister Theresa Mays ambition to leave the single market and potentially pull the UK out of the customs union has raised fears that border controls will be required.

Former European Commission customs expert Michael Lux told the Committee last week that Ireland would be obliged to implement controls on this side of the border, even if it didnt want to, because it would be an EU frontier.

The veteran diplomat, with almost 40 years experience, said that Europe has a reasonable understanding of the need not to do anything to create problems or destabilise the political situation in Northern Ireland.

The ambassador told the committee that there were more than 200 crossings on the border.

He said there were 177,000 lorry crossings over the border each month, 208,000 light vans and 1.85 million cars.

It may be that even those figures dont pick up the huge scale of it, he said.

Under questioning from Lady Sylvia Hermon MP about the prime ministers stated desire to take back control of the UKs borders, Mr Mulhall said: The intention is to maintain the common travel area which means they will not be taking back control of that border.

Mr Mulhall said nothing will stop EU citizens from entering the UK through Ireland, but that if they want to live and work in the UK, they may be breaking UK laws.

He said the free movement principle was not about the right to enter a country, but the right to settle there.
Changes in 'policies and pipes' are set to accelerate the strong growth of data centres in Ireland, and firms should be aware of the effects - whether involved in their development, or simply using data in one's business.

Data centres are specialised buildings where data is stored, managed and exported, and Ireland ranks as a leading centre, alongside Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam and Paris. Indeed, the boom in the development of these facilities, much of which occurred here during the recession, saved many a professional firm from collapse. Now the sector is set for a fresh wave of activity following the development of two new undersea fibre cables to the US in the last 18 months, bringing the total to four.

For Europe, Ireland's growth as a centre for hosting data is well ahead of the average and there are 14 existing undersea cables between Ireland and the continent. A new cable, from Cork to France, was announced last week.

Activity in the industry is measured by power consumption, which is now at 300 megawatts. Half of this is taken up by the three 'hyper-scale' operators in Ireland - Google, Amazon and Facebook. The other segment of the industry, which is growing fast, is 'co-location', where operators store and manage data for other parties. The main players in this sector are Digital Realty, Equinix, Interxion and Dataplex. Co-location operators provide a space inside their building where the customer places their own servers, or a space in a rack, or a shared server. Thousands of companies worldwide, who are serving European markets, are being serviced by co-located facilities in Ireland.

Most of the data centres in Ireland are located along the route of the M50, as that is also the route of the 'T50', an infrastructure of 40 ducts and chambers that was developed alongside the motorway. Data centres tend to cluster in certain locations - usually because there is easy access to back-up power and fibre connections. The first wave of data centre development in the 1990s saw several existing buildings, usually on IDA estates, being converted. Latterly, however, facilities are purpose-built, particularly for reasons of energy conservation.

Not only is the growth in 'pipes' (physical infrastructure) boosting development in Ireland, but Brexit, and the issues of international compliance with data privacy laws, are set to boost demand further.

Central to this growth in demand are new European regulations known as the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), which come into force across the EU on May 25, 2018. These regulations protect a citizen's right to decide what happens with their personal data. The collapse of the 'safe harbour' agreement also means that many US companies find it more convenient to host European citizens' data in Europe. Brexit could see UK data centres forced to re-locate within the EU - with Ireland as an obvious beneficiary.

The GDPR will have implications for the property sector. For example, estate agents collect and store large amounts of information on citizens. When leasing a property, tenants provide bank accounts, landlords' references, bank references and character references. While an agent is required to keep information for minimum periods, from May 2018 any citizen can demand that their information be deleted.

Firms will need clear policies and procedures on how they collect, manage and dispose of data. This is a corporate governance issue, involving trust around the storage of data, and should not, I suggest, be casually referred to the IT department.

'Host in Ireland' is an initiative to raise awareness of Ireland as an optimum location to host 'digital assets'. Garry Connolly, President and Founder of Host in Ireland told me that there is a lack of awareness here of the impact of GDPR. The organisation is holding an event in Dublin today, which is a 'call to collaborators', such as professional bodies, trade associations and experts, to work with them in preparing for the new regulatory regime. The Data Protection Commissioner will be another source of information.
Ornua has announced a 1.6 point increase in its Product Purchasing Index to 105.4 points, which it stays is equivalent to a milk price of 29.8c/l + VAT (31.4c/l including VAT),

IFA National Dairy Committee Chairman Sean OLeary said the announcement bears out IFAs view that at least 1c/L price increase is fully justified on January milk.

He added that lower payers, including Kerry, need to aim higher than 1c/L to be fair to their suppliers.

Most co-op boards will be meeting this week and next, to examine milk prices payable for January.

"They must make sure the new increased 5.4% VAT rate benefits the farmers fully, and pass back a fully justified increase of at least 1c/l  more for the lower payers including Kerry  back to support their milk suppliers essential income recovery before peak, Mr OLeary said.

O'Leary said this week's 1.3% GDT price increase belied the slight easing in spots and futures of recent days.

"This is because buyers realise that the global milk production scarcity which has been developing for months is now compounded by the Northern Hemisphere only starting to creep up towards peak, and Oceanias output rapidly falling seasonally, he said.

EU market returns throughout December and January have exceeded 37c/l gross (equivalent to a farm gate price of 32c/l + VAT). Irish SMP prices have caught up with EU averages in January, with butter now even exceeding that figure, he said.

As December 2016 figures become available, it is very clear that, other than the US, all dairy regions are seeing production fall. In the EU, France is back an estimated 7%, the UK around 5%, Denmark also 5%, Italy 4.5%, Belgium 12% and Spain 2%.

"New Zealand production is down 2.75% for December, while Australias is back 4.1%. Argentinas December output is down by a whopping 19%. While December US production recorded a 2.4% increase, global milk availability is continuing to shrink rapidly, he added.

ICMSA Dairy Committee Chairperson, Gerald Quain, said ICMSA is anticipating a milk price rise as co-op boards meet to set price for January supplies.

He said that Friesland Campina, the giant Dutch Dairy Co-operative, has increased its milk price for February to now stand at 35/100kg or 33c/L.

"This is an increase of 0.50 per 100kg on last month and provided a clear indication of the level of confidence at processor level in mainland Europe which must begin to be reflected in the price being paid Irish milk suppliers by their Co-ops, who are currently paying well below that price level."

He also said that a rise in the Global Dairy Trade this week point to a solid dairy market, while all the indications are that global milk supplies are expected to remain below previous year levels in most of the key exporting nations  very specifically, New Zealand.
Actors Gaten Matarazzo, Noah Schnapp, Caleb McLaughlin, Natalia Dyer, Millie Bobby Brown and Finn Wolfhard of 'Stranger Things' attend the BUILD Series at AOL HQ on August 31, 2016 in New York City. (Photo : Getty Images/Michael Loccisano)

"Stranger Things" Season 2 just aired its first ever 36-second trailer, and it already opened a lot of questions about what's coming to the show.



The "Stranger Things" trailer debuted to massive applause from fans, generating widespread social media buzz enough to eclipse the other 65 brands that advertised during Sunday's 2017 Super Bowl.



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According to Variety, the "Stranger Things" Season 2 trailer generated 307,000 tweets on Twitter. The teaser gained 21 million views on Facebook and 3.6 million on YouTube. One of the most talked-about scene was the one where characters Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Mike (Finn Wolfhard) and Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) wore "Ghostbusters" costumes.



Producer Shawn Levy told Vanity Fair that Season 2 is going to be bigger and potentially darker.



"The threat, which in Season 1 was to Will Byers, has grown. That's all I'm going to say! But, I will say Season 2 has a bigger cast and is definitely loyal to the kind of magical storytelling that we established in the first season. It's character-based and still about our core group of characters," he added.



"Stranger Things" Season 2 is set in 1984 around Halloween, which is about a year since the events in the first season. Although it seems that everything is back to normal, "darkness lurks just beneath the surface."



The core cast members will return, including Millie Bobbie Brown's Eleven. Joe Keery, who plays Steve Harrington, and Noah Schnapp, who plays lost boy Will, have been elevated to season regular status. However, Barb will not return to show as the character is dead for real.



The show will also introduce a new set of characters, including a young girl named Max and her bad boy big brother Billy. There's also going to be another love triangle, care of Chief Hopper (David Harbour), Joyce (Winona Ryder) and their high school friend Bob (Sean Astin).



There are also speculations that "Stranger Things" Season 2 might magnify its political themes, given David Harbour's fiery speech at the 2017 SAG Awards.



"Stranger Things" Season 2 will premiere on Halloween this year on Netflix.






Irelands hedgecutting laws were described as "pure nonsense" in the Dail this week, with another call for farmers to be allowed cut roadside hedges all year round in the interests of road safety.

Independent TD, Mattie McGrath said there is need to deal with the law preventing the cutting of hedges which he described as pure nonsense.

To quote Deputy Danny Healy-Rae, there is no bird foolish enough to nest on the side of the road where there are lorries passing, so they go well into the fields to nest.

McGrath highlighted that he is involved with the Association of Farm Contractors Ireland and has been lobbying for years to allow the hedges to be cut.

We discussed this in the talks on the programme for Government last year but, lo and behold, we have to get permission from the county council, he said.

Why can we not just have permission in the interests of road safety and of saving lives?

When a tractor is coming out of a field, it is probably 7ft out of the field before the cab is out and it could be 10 ft.

If there is an implement on the front of the tractor.

There could be 5ft of scrub and bush that is nothing but rubbish.

If it is cut clean, the birds would have plenty of time to mate and hatch in the fields, he said.

I am all for our bird species but it is ridiculous how the Wildlife Acts are directly impeding road safety.

Deputy McGrath said the current rules are contradictory as well as being unsafe and unwise.

Farmers will cut the hedges, he said.

Following a review of the laws by Government, Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Heather Humphreys announced proposals in December 2015 to introduce legislation to allow for managed hedge cutting and burning at certain times within the existing closed period on a pilot two year basis.

The legislation required to allow for these pilot measures is included in the Heritage Bill 2016, which was published in January 2016.

The Bill is currently at Committee Stage in Seanad Eireann.

In the meantime, the existing provisions relating to Section 40 of the Wildlife Acts remain in force. The current rules prohibits the cutting, grubbing, burning or destruction of vegetation, with certain strict exemptions, from 1 March to 31 August.
A coroner has said farm machinery in Northern Ireland should be MOT tested.

Eugene (Gene) Murphy, an elderly retired farmer from Co Armagh, was crushed under the wheel of his heavily-loaded tractor after problems with the handbrake and gear box allowed it to roll forward last summer, an inquest found.

The Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland (HSENI) said a number of tragedies involving faulty tractor brakes had occurred in recent years.

Coroner Paddy McGurgan said: "It is disappointing to note that the EU in their wisdom, the powers that be, have rejected the need for an MOT-type system involving farming machinery.

"I as coroner believe that could only have been a good thing."

The HSENI identified a number of defects with the tractor, which had no engine braking from the gears. The handbrake was also faulty.

Mr Murphy, 70, had hitched a trailer and loaded it with eight tonnes of soil at a laneway on a slight slope on Lough Road in Silverbridge in August 25 last year.

The coroner found that it was likely that after filling the trailer the tractor began to move forward and the victim tried to get into the cab to rescue the machine and fell in front of the wheel.

"Death would have been rapid."

The father of three sons and a daughter was crushed with severe injuries despite the efforts of a relative and his nurse daughter who performed CPR.

Malcolm Downey, who investigated the accident for the HSENI, said the organisation was planning a media campaign to highlight the danger of defective tractor brakes.

There is no requirement for MOTs for the machines.

The coroner's court was told most farmers were practical but tractors were becoming more complicated and maintenance was a job for a specialist.

Mr McGurgan said: "There was a sequence of very unfortunate events coming together.

"The tractor cooling, the load, the handbrake slipping and the fault in the gearbox."

He said Mr Murphy, who was married for around 40 years, was a very accomplished person.

"But in that comfort comes complacency and we have to be very careful when we are on machinery that we are not too complacent and too comfortable because tragedies like Mr Murphy's can and do happen as I as coroner can only testify to."

Mr Murphy was being treated for prostate cancer and when he was not feeling well used a stick to get around, his daughter Teresa McShane said.

The steps to the tractor were buckled and there was no rail to get into or out of the machine, Mr Downey said.

However the condition of the steps were not found to be central to the accident.
WHEN the International Energy Agency (IEA) was founded in 1974, it was considered a lobby group for rich OECD countries, including Ireland, which were keen to ensure security of supply and price stability during the oil crisis.

Its role today is very different. Executive director Dr Fatih Birol says not only will it retain its 'traditional' role over the coming years, but it will also add members and become a clean energy hub.

"We don't want to be an organisation of rich countries, and we have China, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore as associate members, and Mexico is becoming one," he says. "The biggest challenge is to make the IEA truly international. We want to keep our pole position in terms of traditional energy, and be a clean energy hub."

Appointed as executive director in September 2015, the Turkish economist is considered among the most influential figures globally on energy policy. Chairman of the World Economic Forum's (Davos) Energy Advisory Board, he also serves on the UN Secretary-General's Advisory Board on 'Sustainable Energy for All'.

He makes the point that 1.2 billion people across the planet have no access to electricity, but how the world sources its power is rapidly changing. While the Paris Climate Accord paves the way to a low-carbon future, government supports will be needed to drive change, especially given that pledges made in December 2015 will not limit average global temperature rises to no more than 2C.

"We have seen, in the last two years, that emissions did not grow significantly - although the global economy grew by 3pc," he says. "It's the first time that global emissions did not grow despite economic growth. This is mainly as a result of three facts - renewable energies started to penetrate the market; many countries, especially China, pushed the energy efficiency button and in terms of the volumes - which is the biggest one - in the US, natural gas replaced coal.

"I expect this decoupling to continue, unless there are some major changes in government policies. If everything is left to the economic facts which are in place now, I expect a weakening of the link between economic growth and emissions, but even this trend will not bring us to the 2C trajectory."

With oil, gas and coal prices low, securing investment in renewables is challenging. But he notes that for the first time, spend on wind, solar, hydro, biomass and nuclear is outstripping that on fossil fuels. This is in large part due to government supports, which he says will play a major role in the transition to a clean energy future. Dirty polluters will also have to be tackled.

"If prices remain at this level, life for renewables will be much more difficult in the absence of government support. If everything is left to pure economics, in all the growing energy demand centres like Asia, coal will be the winner. Here is the role of governments in terms of support for renewables, or making life for the dirty ones more difficult with regulations not only for climate change, but for air quality reasons. It can be carbon prices, carbon tax and policies the government can enact. It's to encourage the good and punish the bad.

"Half of the coal in the world is used in China, but for the last two years coal consumption is in decline. Not because of climate change, but because of local pollution in the cities. In the electricity sector, more than 150 countries have support policies. The second half of the story will be how to increase the share of renewables for heat and transport.

"What worries me is in south-east Asia, where a lot of coal power plants are built today, one-third are the worst efficiency. Once they are built, they are with us for 50 years. One tonne of carbon coming from Shanghai, Hanoi or Brussels is the same thing, it affects all of us. If they are building coal-fired plants, they should at least be building efficient ones."

However, he points out that the West still bears a heavy responsibility.

"We have to be fair. In India today, 250 million people have no electricity. It's very natural they go to the cheapest and easiest way to get electricity. If you want them to not have a high carbon future, the best way is to provide mechanisms to allow them have better options.

"Higher efficiency plants, more renewables, and natural gas instead of coal is important, but in the absence of those alternatives, to blame the Indians for doing this would be double standards. More than 90pc of the carbon which has accumulated in the atmosphere was from western countries, and we shouldn't tell the Indians to clean it up."

Because so many of the 1.2 billion without access to energy live in rural areas, solar, wind and hydro with local distribution systems can play a major role. Africa has the best solar potential in the world, and huge scope to roll out wind and hydropower, and many countries - including Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania and Mozambique - are investing.

"We may well witness something for the first time in the history of energy," he says, "The US, Europe and China all became rich by using a lot of coal. Now, they are moving to clean energy. Development in Africa may well be based on renewable energy and natural gas. This is very exciting, Africa electrified with low-carbon technology."

He adds that in countries like Ireland, which continue to produce energy using highly-polluting peat, economic policies including compensation should be considered in the drive towards cleaner fuels.

"It's important governments find a trade-off between energy and employment objectives. If peat production proves to be unsustainable, perhaps finding compensation for the people who are employed may be the best way rather than keeping the energy policy as it is."

At the heart of the transition will be energy efficiency, renewables and putting in place mass transit systems including rail. Every country will have to make a "positive contribution", he says, and securing "social licence" for projects is key. "There are ways to do that in terms of making the local population feel the benefits by finding some way to compensate local communities."

Fracking also has a role, if proper "tight" regulations are in place to protect the environment, he says. On Brexit, he doesn't see a "substantial impact" on the European energy market. He also predicts an increase in use of liquefied natural gas from the US and Australia which will "change the dynamics" in the gas markets.

But the attitude of US President Donald Trump towards green energy and the Paris Agreement will shape the global picture, he says. "The US is still a significant oil importer, and the target is to minimise those imports. We say that the first way of reducing imports is to decrease consumption as a result of efficiency improvements. The decisions taken in the US will be very important not only for the US but beyond, given the sheer size of its emissions and critical role it plays in international affairs."
THE head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) has warned that government supports for renewable energy will be needed for the foreseeable future to drive a move away from fossil fuels.

IEA Executive Director Dr Fatih Birol said wind and solar projects would have a "difficult time" competing with cheaper coal and gas.

He said suggestions that governments might reduce subsidies was a "major concern".

The Department of Climate Action and Environment is developing a new Renewable Electricity Support Scheme, which is expected later this year, subject to clearing EU State Aid rules.

The ESB has suggested that supports be retained for wind, but that none be developed for solar due to falling costs.

The industry said unless a support scheme was introduced, development of solar farms would not go ahead.

Speaking to the Irish Independent, Dr Birol said that last year, more than half of all new electricity supply globally was from renewables - more than coal, gas, oil and nuclear combined.

"The renewables are not a romantic story any more," he said. "It's a real business and it's happening. Renewables were the champion in 2015.

"It's true that in some instances solar or wind may be competitive enough vis-a-vis gas, coal or other traditional sources, but to generalise this is like a boomerang - it will come and hit you.

"If the government policies are removed, I think renewables will have a difficult time competing with gas and coal. We are expecting that subsidies for renewables will be increasingly needed for several years to come. This is a major concern for me." He said that in the UK, tax credits were available for wind generators with "huge" support in China for solar.

He noted that pledges made under the Paris Climate Agreement were not enough to limit global warming to 2C, and that policy supports were "very important" for renewables, but also for electric vehicles (EVs), and use of renewables in heat and transport.

"Where we see record sales of EVs, there are government supports for the cars, the infrastructure and giving priority to EVs in traffic.

"Strategies give incentives for car manufacturers. In their absence, nobody would go there. I believe car manufacturers will come up with a big revolution soon on EVs, hybrids and biofuels because they're all seeing the challenges the internal combustion engine is facing."

Read the interview in full
Film director and lawmaker David Puttnam is proposing measures in the UK's House of Lords aimed at frustrating Rupert Murdoch's 11.7bn (13.69bn) plan to merge his US media company, 21st Century Fox, with pay-television broadcaster Sky.

The amendments to the proposed Digital Economy Bill would subject media acquirers to a so-called fit-and-proper test in order to hold a broadcasting licence. The test would look at any past criminal wrongdoing and corporate-governance failures - ensuring Murdoch and his son, James, who is chairman of Sky and ceo of Fox, would face new scrutiny over their handling of a hacking scandal that derailed an earlier offer for Sky.

Puttnam's proposals mark one of the first concrete moves by political opponents who argue the deal, which would unite the Murdochs' TV empire, would threaten UK media plurality.

British culture secretary Karen Bradley is under pressure from the opposition Labour party to have regulator Ofcom review the deal on public-interest grounds. Campaigners include Hacked Off, a media-accountability advocacy group formed during the phone- hacking scandal.

"These amendments would provide the necessary safeguards to ensure the public interest is protected as the bid for Sky by the Murdochs is scrutinised," Evan Harris, joint executive director of Hacked Off, said in a statement.

Fox already holds a 39pc stake in Sky. Uncertainty over whether it will succeed in buying the rest has led traders to discount Sky stock, which fell 0.2pc to 10.04 on Wednesday and remains about 6.6pc below the offer price of 10.75 per share.

The difference shows traders are concerned that political obstacles may block the deal, said Neil Campling, head of global tech, media and telecom research at Northern Trust Securities.

Officials at Sky and Fox declined to comment.

Puttnam also called for safeguards to protect editorial freedom in broadcast acquisitions, and restrictions related to influence over cultural expression.

Another clause widens the fit-and-proper test that would be conducted by Ofcom, asking the media regulator to look into past conduct, including corporate-governance failures.

"We don't think this is going to derail the bid at all," said Alice Enders, director of research at Enders Analysis, citing difficulties of getting the amendments passed through both houses of Parliament.

"It's not going to interfere with the process of regulatory clearance at the European Commission."

The Lords proposals, which Puttnam has secured cross-party backing for, are unlikely to be voted on until March. (Bloomberg)
Lending rules changed for first-time buyers in January, meaning they need 10pc for amounts borrowed up to 220,000 (Stock picture)

Large numbers of first-time buyers are using the "bank of mum and dad" to get a deposit together.

New figures show that one in five new buyers is getting a handout to help them put the funds together for a down payment.

The average amount gifted to buyers is around 10,000, according to new research from the Central Bank.

Amounts of this size are well within lifetime inheritance tax limits for those getting a gift from parents.

Economists at the Central Bank found that the amount handed over by parents and other relations tends to be around half of the funds needed for a deposit. That is broadly in line with most other European households.

Since the start of this year, rules introduced by the Central Bank required first-time buyers to have a deposit of 10pc for amounts borrowed up to 220,000, and a 20pc deposit for amounts over that figure.

According to the researchers, the average Dublin first-time buyer had a deposit of 50,000 last year.

Collapse

This figure has been creeping up since the property collapse.

There was an average of 25,000 being used as a down payment in the rest of the State last year, according to the economic letter by Central Bank economists Jane Kelly and Reamonn Lydon.

However, the average of 25,000 for first-time buyers outside Dublin is well below the peak during the property boom.

In the border, midlands and western regions, the average deposit first-time buyers are using to secure a mortgage and a home is less than 20,000, the lowest of four different regions.

In Dublin, down payments needed by first-time buyers have been rising steadily since 2012, reaching a median level of 50,000 in 2016.

The Central Bank lending rules were eased for first-time buyers at the start of the year. Other borrowers still need a 20pc deposit.

Despite the controversy over the impact of the lending rules on new buyers, the economic letter found that the average deposit in this country was at the lower end of the range relative to many other European countries up to last year. Savings and inheritance patterns were remarkably similar across most countries, they found.

One-third of those between the ages of 26 and 40 who are renting say they are saving to buy a home, according to data cited by the economists.

The median amount saved for house purchase was 20,000 in the 2013 to 2014 period, the economic letter states.

The Central Bank said that a typical Irish home-buyer had a 20pc deposit last year, while first-time buyers had a deposit of closer to 15pc.

First-time buyers have huge difficulties getting on the housing ladder, due to strict lending rules, but also because there are so few houses being built.

The Central Bank has said it would change the rules on the size of deposits required by buyers if there was a "rapid increase in house prices".

Central Bank Governor Philip Lane said he changed the mortgage rules in response to rising house prices and higher incomes.

The Housing Agency estimates that there is a need for 81,000 homes between 2016 and 2012. This figure excludes one-off houses, which is up to 6,000 units a year.

Goodbody Stockbrokers economist Dermot O'Leary called on the Government to increase housing density and height limits to help meet demand.
President Trump Speaks With King Of Saudi Arabia From The White House (Photo : Getty Images)

U.S. President Donald Trump appears to be doing some damage control to the U.S.-China relationship by sending Lunar New Year greetings to China. However, his greeting is 11 days late since the Chinese New Year was on Jan. 28 and three days early for the Lantern Festival on Feb. 11.



Trumps Greetings for 2 Occasions



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According to the White House, Trump sent a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping to thank him for sending Trump a congratulatory letter on his inauguration on Jan. 20. He wished China a happy Lantern Festival and prosperous Year of the Rooster, The Washington Post reported.



Trump also said he looked forward to working with China to develop a constructive relationship. In turn, Lu Kang, spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry, said China places great importance to develop the relationship with the U.S. He specifically expressed Beijings willingness to widen cooperation and manage differences with Washington by being guided by principles of upholding non-conflict and non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation for the development of bilateral ties in a stable and healthy manner, CCTV reported.



Standard Diplomatic Language



The influential daily noted that while the language that Trump used is standard diplomatic language, it is still a departure from the negative words that the former real estate billionaire used during the campaign. He previously called China and enemy of the U.S. for raping the country using unfair trade practices.



Trump has personally called by phone 18 other world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, Canadian President Justin Trudeau, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and British Prime Minister Theresa May. Some Chinese political experts believe Trump would also call Ji Xinping after Michael Flynn, national security adviser, spoke last week to Yang Jiechi, the top diplomat of China.



Lu added that Cooperation is the only right choice for China and the United States.






KBC Bank said it will look at buying bank or insurance businesses here after taking a decision to remain in the Irish market.

Ulster Bank and Permanent TSB have long been tipped as potential tie-up partners for KBC Ireland. A merger with one or both would add scale to the business here, which is dwarfed by AIB and Bank of Ireland.

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Alternatively, a takeover of an insurance provider such as FBD, the country's only stand alone insurer, could replicate the bank-assure model of KBC'S parent.

KBC Group ceo Johan Thijs said no deals are imminent but acquisitions will be looked at carefully, on a call with investors.

"If the opportunity arises (to buy an Irish bank or insurance business) we will do our homework," he said.

The Belgian owned bank confirmed its long term commitment to Ireland this morning following a strategic review of its Irish activities.

Weeks of intensive speculation about its future had weighed on its 1,000 employees.

The results of a strategic review of KBC Groups Irish activities were announced this morning as it revealed its quarter 4 and full financial results for last year.

KBC Bank Ireland reported a net profit of 227m for the year, after tax and impairment, up from 75m in 2015.

The bank reported some 20,000 new customers in the last three months of 2016, bringing to 70,000 the total added in 2016.

The bank also reported a continued momentum in reducing the number of its mortgage arrears cases.

Commenting on the financial results and 2017 outlook, Wim Verbraeken, Chief Executive of KBC Bank Ireland said he was pleased to report on a very successful 2016.

I also welcome KBC Groups decision to commit to the future of the Irish business and our customers here by making Ireland one of its core markets, said Mr Verbraeken.

Todays announcement is fantastic news for KBC customers and staff, and will result in more competition in Irish banking and better choice for customers. KBC has been here for over 40 years, weve invested heavily through the recent challenging period, built a strong and compelling retail bank, and are looking forward to becoming the main challenger bank here.

Mr Verbraeken told Newstalk Breakfast that he believes KBC can grow "organically".

"Our first priority is to grow our business organically.

"We're not concerned at all about the loan performance. We've put implementations in place to help customers who are in distress and deal with their problems and in the vast majority of cases, we find a way out. I invite customers who are in distress to engage with us."

Johan Thijs, KBC Group CEO, said KBC Bank Ireland will be the customer-centric bank of the future where digitalisation will support a great customer experience.

The Bank managed to return to profitability as soon as 2015, earlier than we had anticipated and on the back of the encouraging turnaround they achieved strong results for financial year 201, said Mr Thijs.

We believe Ireland is a sound and attractive market which presents opportunities and in which we wish to play a more active role. It provides diversification to our operations in Western and Central Europe.

Going forward, Ireland will be a core market in which KBC will continue to invest. The Bank will be a frontrunner in the digital transformation of the KBC Group where digital solutions will be tested for further group-wide roll-out. We believe we have the people in Ireland with the right skills, the energy and determination to do this and we are ready to support them. In the medium and long-term this customer-centric approach will result in a sustainable future-proof business model and financial results for KBC Bank Ireland, to the benefit of its customers, staff and all other stakeholders.

The Minister for Finance Michael Noonan welcomed the announcement.

"This is another strong sign of the recovery in Ireland and shows confidence by KBC Ireland in the Irish economy."

"The fact that KBC is committed to remaining in Ireland ensures continuing competition in the Irish banking market which is good for consumers. Such commitment is also a mark of the robust market and of its continuing growth potential into the future."

Minister Noonan will be meeting with senior officials of the bank this afternoon and looks forward to hearing in more detail about their future plans to support customers in this growing area of the Irish economy.
A friend of mine watched in horror recently as a 12-year-old child walked across a busy road to her school, with much younger siblings in tow, all the while gazing intently at her smartphone. She barely noticed the car that missed her by inches, or the bike that was forced to stop suddenly.

Kids are not the only ones addicted to their devices; too often I see adults do the same thing. If I'm honest, I'm frequently guilty of being a slave to my phone myself. That message, or comment, or email simply cannot wait. How often have I tapped a reply to a work message, or got distracted by something on my Twitter feed while my poor kids get frustrated that I am not listening to their latest joke or what happened in the yard at school that day?

As parents, we have such an important role to play in influencing how our children behave online. Modelling good behaviour is far more persuasive than simply expecting it from them and not adhering to the same guidelines ourselves. For example, a great rule for online use that we would recommend to parents is that connected devices stay downstairs at night.

In any event, there's a lot of research that suggests that use of tablets and phones late at night impacts on the quality of your sleep.

This is something we tell the kids about when we go into schools, but it applies to adults just as much. If you want to persuade your children to leave their devices downstairs at night, make it a rule for the whole household to do so. We could probably all do with better sleep.

How often do we see the phones come out at the family dinner table or even in restaurants?

Is it so hard to be really 'present' and have a conversation instead of half listening with our minds on our Facebook feed? I wonder if our kids will wreak their revenge in years to come when they take us out for that special Sunday lunch and spend half of the meal ignoring us.

We encourage children to value their information, use privacy settings, and not share things online with people that they don't know in real life.

But how many parents have social media accounts with no safety or privacy settings applied? Or a friends' list that contains hundreds of random people who went to the same school 30 years ago - or they once met at a conference?

How many share photos or videos of their children with people they barely know, or even complete strangers? And how can we expect our children to protect their own data, when no one actually reads the terms and conditions to which we sign up when installing new apps?

A school principal recently asked us if we had any guidance on appropriate WhatsApp usage that they could pass on to parents.

Those handy chat groups between parents of children in a particular class are invaluable for arranging activities outside school or when Sean has forgotten his notebook and doesn't know what he should be doing for homework.

But they can occasionally become a minefield of dangerous and completely inappropriate behaviour. We have heard many stories of parents criticising teachers within these chat groups, or worse still, discussing the behaviour of certain children in the class.

Sometimes it is your first instinct as a parent to turn to one of these groups for advice or comfort if your child comes home upset about something.

But once you put it out there, and others say their piece, you cannot take it back. If we want our children to think before they post something online, or even comment on what others have to say, we need to do the same.

I can't emphasise enough the critical role that parents can play in keeping their children safe online; but that influence will be far greater if they model good behaviour themselves.

Maybe we should all take a step back and find a healthy balance, forming good habits that become the norm for our children too. We are then much better placed to have those incredibly important conversations about how to be stronger, smarter and safer online.

Cliona Curley is Programme Director of CyberSafeIreland, a not-for-profit organisation that delivers online safety education to primary school children and their parents. CybersafeIreland has just launched a short scribe animation video with simple steps that parents can take. For more information, visit cybersafeireland.org, @CyberSafeIE or facebook.com/cybersafeireland
Actress/director Sharon Horgan and talent Carrie Fisher speak on stage at Tribeca Tune In: Catastrophe at SVA Theatre 2 on April 19, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Robin Marchant/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival)

Sharon Horgan's sitcom Catastrophe returns and the show has paid a "highly emotional" tribute to its late co-star Carrie Fisher.

The show finished filming just days before the Star Wars actress had a heart attack on a flight home to Los Angeles from London.

She died four days later on December 27.

Fisher appeared as a guest star in the sitcom about a dysfunctional couple as the mother of Rob Norris, played by Horgan's co-creator and co-star Rob Delaney.

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She will also appear in the third series when it airs on Channel 4 later this month.

Horgan said: " The first series and even the second series we didn't have her for very long, she flew in and did her bit over a day or two and of course we wanted to get to know her better.

"We idolised her but just didn't really have a chance to, and then in series three we wrote this bigger, chunkier part for her in episode six and got to spend time with her.

"She was part of the gang and we really feel very privileged and honoured.

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"She was funny all the time and incredibly witty company and loved saying assholey things to everyone but also was just a kind, lovely, supportive person."

The writing duo revealed they first approached Fisher to play the role through the unorthodox medium of Twitter.

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Delaney said: "W e wrote the pilot and then later went to the Attitude Magazine Awards where Graham Norton was getting the lifetime achievement award and Carrie Fisher was giving it to him.

"Her speech was just amazing and we were watching it and Sharon said 'What if she played your mum?' and I was like, 'Sharon you're crazy', and we looked up who her agent was.

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"I tried to tweet her first, no response.

"Then we got her agent the scripts for series one and the pilot and she said 'okay, sure' and thank god."

Horgan said they have not yet thought how the show will deal with Fisher's death, saying: " It's a bit hard to think about it yet so I'm hoping a bit of time will pass and we will think of a fitting finish to that story."

Channel 4's head of comedy, Phil Clark, added: "She appears in some emotionally powerful scenes and we hope you will agree that it is a fitting tribute to her."

Speaking at a press conference in London, Horgan, who plays Sharon in Catastrophe and has written comedies including Pulling and Sarah Jessica Parker's new show Divorce, was dismissive of a question about the status of women in comedy.

"I feel it's not really a question any more, it's just so obvious that a huge proportion of the comedy on TV at the moment is made by women and has been for a while and I'm delighted that it's not a thing any more," she said.

The show, which has already been commissioned for a fourth series, will see Rob and Sharon in the aftermath of Sharon's infidelity at the end of series two.

It will also show alcoholic Rob falling off the wagon.

Catastrophe will return to Channel 4 at 10pm on February 28.
David OMorchoe, president of the British Legion, and his wife Margaret at an event to recognise those involved in the 1916 commemorations, at the British Ambassadors residence in Dublin Photo: Arthur Carron

The 1916 commemorations were a shining example of the spirit of inclusiveness between Ireland and the UK, according to Arts Minister Heather Humphreys.

In an address to British Ambassador to Ireland Robin Barnett in Dublin last night, the minister thanked the ambassador, his predecessor ambassador Dominick Chilcott and embassy staff for their contributions to some of the 60 State ceremonial events held last year to mark the 1916 Easter Rising.

They included an event to mark the deaths of British soldiers during the Rising as well as a ceremony marking the 18th anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.

"It says a lot about the warmth and closeness of the relationship between our neighbouring countries a century on from the seismic events of 1916 that we are gathered here. I was always determined this would be a year for everyone, it would be inclusive to the greatest possible extent - and it's safe to say that this has been delivered in full," she said.
Two Palestinians were killed Thursday dawn in an Israeli air strike that targeted a tunnel between the Gaza and Egyptian borders, a ministry of health official in the besieged Palestinian strip stated.

Five others were injured in the strike, according to the statement by the ministry, which is affiliated with Hamas Movement.

Eyewitnesses reported to AFP that an Israeli aircraft fired missiles at the tunnel's entrance on the Egyptian side, hours after four rockets were fired into southern Israel's resort city of Eilat from the Sinai Peninsula on Wednesday night.

The Israeli military had no immediate confirmation on the strike.

The rocket attack was reportedly claimed by the Islamic State affiliated group "Sinai Province."

No injuries were reported as result of the attack.

Egypt's security forces have been battling a decade-long militant Islamist insurgency mainly in North Sinai that has intensified since the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

Militant attacks have left hundreds of police and army personnel dead.

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Emma Miskell, Lavally, Co Galway, with her baby Darcy May, and Garda Claire Grenham, who helped deliver the baby on the side of the road near Galway city. Also pictured is Darcy Mays father, Sean Flynn, who was behind the wheel of the car at the time. Photo: Ray Ryan

A garda has been hailed a hero for using a shoelace to tie the umbilical cord of a baby born during morning rush-hour traffic.

It happened at traffic lights near Galway city as parents Emma Miskell and Sean Flynn, rushing to reach University Hospital, had to settle for a car seat birth instead.

The couple, from Cloondahamper, Lavally, Tuam, Co Galway, realised that rushing to hospital was in vain, even with a Garda escort, when baby Darcy May arrived in the front seat of their car 4km away.

Garda Claire Grenham, who was in the squad car driven by colleague Garda Brendan Owens, jumped out and used her shoelace to tie the baby girl's umbilical cord while waiting for the arrival of an ambulance.

Garda Grenham, herself the mother of an 18-month-old baby, said this emergency roadside midwife task was something she never thought she would have to do as a garda.

"Once we saw the baby's tiny hands move and she let out a little cry, we were happy that she and her mum were ok," she added.

The unassuming garda said "it was easy" and Ms Miskell had done the hard work herself.

Brilliant

But she had a little help and encouragement from her partner who was driving, and teenage daughter Megan who, according to her mother, was "timing the contractions" from the back seat. "We had the baby at the traffic lights just as we were pulling in and while Sean was still driving. He was brilliant in the situation," she said.

"We knew when we reached Claregalway village that we were not going to make it without a bit of help," added Mr Flynn.
Staff at the National Museum of Ireland claim "bullies and perverts" are endangering their welfare, according to a report on wellbeing in the workplace.

The report reveals over 40pc of staff at the National Museum of Ireland are at risk of developing anxiety or depression and how 70pc of employees surveyed want mental health support to help deal with stress.

One in five employees at the institution are 'often' or 'always' subjected to bullying, according to the unpublished report obtained by RTE.

The report, which was completed last November, shows how staff have requested 'social activities not involving the pub' as well as counselling; anger management and to know 'how to deal with bullies and perverts'.

Speaking to RTE Radio One's Drivetime this evening, a psychotherapist who was employed by the National Museum to provide an employee assistance programme, said her concerns around workplace bullying were ignored by management and by the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht.

The museum had previously employed the services of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre to provide 'Dignity at Work' training workshops.

The report claims:

Over 40pc of staff at the National Museum of Ireland are at risk of developing anxiety or depression;

One in five employees at the institution are 'often' or 'always' subjected to bullying;

Another 20pc are "sometimes" the victims of bullying;

One employee complained of having to deal with 'bullies and perverts';

Over 40pc of employees at the institutions are deemed to be at risk of developing anxiety or depression;

Almost 70pc of respondents feel employee morale is poor to very poor;

70pc of employees want mental health support to help deal with stress and depression;

Staff contentedness at NMI is in the bottom 20pc of Irish companies.

Stephanie Regan, who worked with the institution between 2008 and 2012, says the atmosphere remains 'toxic' at the museum.

"Over time I heard a number of stories that were very disturbing; and they were that people had made complaints and those complaints were taken off the file", she told Drivetime.

She alleged 'very senior people' were involved in the alleged bullying.

She said she made her concerns clear to management and Arts Ministers Jimmy Deenihan and Heather Humphreys; but the concerns were ignored.

"I am over 25 years doing this work; I never heard the story being so consistent and coming from individuals not in the same room. The toxic nature of what was presented; that is what is so awful... relentless and systematic", she added.

Now, the Chair of the Oireachtas Arts and Heritage Committee Peadar Toibin is demanding representatives from the National Museum, the Department of the Arts and the Minister Heather Humphreys urgently come before his committee to address what he claims is a "HR crisis... wasting taxpayers money".

The findings are contained in 'The Work Positive Profile Management Report', which 96 members of staff completed. There are between 140 & 150 staff at the institution.

The National Museum of Ireland operates four sites - The Archaeology museum on Kildare Street; the Natural History Museum on Merrion Street; the Museum of Decorative Arts and History in Collins Barracks and the Museum of Country Life in Castlebar.

In a statement; the museum said it had taken a range of actions since the health and wellbeing report.

"These include the setting up of a museum council, a staff consultation forum and improvements in communications between staff and management," he said.

The Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht said Minister Humphreys has no involvement in the day to day running of the National Museum of Ireland.

"The Board should promote the development of the capacity of the State body including the capability of its leadership and staff. The Board is also responsible for holding the CEO and senior management to account for the effective performance of their responsibilities." it added.
One lucky winner will be cashing in 250,000 after they got lucky with the Lotto Plus 2 numbers tonight.

The Lotto offices confirmed the winning Lotto Plus 2 ticket was sold in Dublin, but there was no winner for the Lotto jackpot.

The Lotto numbers were 2,6, 9, 31, 41, 47 and the bonus number was 43.

Lotto Plus 1 numbers were 7, 8, 13, 25, 33, 37 and the bonus number was 21.

Finally, the lucky numbers for the Lotto Plus 2 draw were 28, 31, 35, 39, 43, 47. The bonus number was 17.

Finally, the winning raffle number this evening was 7101.
A YOUNG woman who was caught driving without insurance for a sixth time told gardai her name was Roz Purcell when she was stopped.

Christina Joyce was sentenced to four months in prison on her 25th birthday after appearing before Swords District Court.

Joyce was also disqualified from driving for 15 years after the court heard she drove while subject to a 10-year ban.

The court was told she was using the car to drive to hotels in a bid to secure accommodation on the day she was stopped at a checkpoint in Cloghran, Swords.

She was also sleeping in the car when she could not find accommodation.

Joyce, who is now living in long-term accommodation at the Regency Hotel, pleaded guilty to driving without insurance, driving while disqualified, having no driving licence and giving gardai a false name at Stockhole Lane, Cloghran, last October 3.

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Her solicitor said Joyce was driving to the Premier Inn at Swords to try to secure accommodation for the night, but she could not get any.

"She realises it is wrong to be using the car," the solicitor said, adding that she panicked and gave gardai the name Roz Purcell - a top model and former Miss Universe Ireland contestant - when she was stopped.

Her solicitor asked Judge Dermot Dempsey to "deal with her as leniently as possible".

However, on hearing that Joyce has five previous no-insurance convictions and four for driving without a licence, Judge Dempsey said it "seems all remedies have been exhausted".

"She was caught driving in January, April and October last year when she shouldn't have been," he noted.

Joyce's solicitor said she was using the car as back-up accommodation at the time.

Judge Dempsey responded: "I have no problem with her living in the car, it's the driving around in it that I can't tolerate. What if she knocked people down the next time?

"She has no regard for the law and she has got every opportunity in the past."

On handing Joyce a four-month prison sentence, he said he was not prepared to suspend any part of it.

He also imposed fines of 200 for having no licence and giving gardai a false name.
KINAHAN cartel associate Gareth Chubb was charged with "attempted manslaughter" and unlawful posession of firearms in Amsterdam District Court earlier today, the Prosecution Service in Amsterdam confirmed

Chubb (29) from Keeper Road in Drimnagh, was one of four men arraigned in front of a examining magistrate in the Dutch court in connection with an incident in a cafe in Rembrandt Square on Sunday night.

According to witnesses, a Nigerian-Dutch national was lucky to escape with his life after a gun jammed during a botched shooting attempt.

The hit target is believed to have fled Smokeys Cafe and contacted Dutch cops who stormed the pub and arrested the four men.

During a search of the premises, officers recovered a Glock pistol, a Walther PPK, another pistol and a silencer.

Convicted cocaine dealer Chubb is regarded as a Kinahan Cartel henchman and is a close associate of Liam Byrne.

Yesterday, a spokesman for the Prosecution Service in Amsterdam said all four men had been remanded in custody.

"Their custody has been extended for at least 14 days. In line with the strict Dutch privacy laws the Prosecution Service is not allowed to name the suspects.

"At the end of the 14 days detention the public prosecutor can apply to the district court for a detention order for a period not exceeding 90 days.

"The four men who where arrested in an bar on Sunday 5th of February in the centre of Amsterdam were arraigned today in front of a examining magistrate of the Amsterdam district court.

"They are charged with possession of unlawful firearm. The 29- year old Irishman is also charged with attempted manslaughter. He appeared to have attempted to shoot a 27-year old man from Amsterdam, but his weapon jammed."
THE children of Jim and Marie Quigley, who died in a murder suicide, have said Ireland is rampant with mental health issues which "should not be ignored."

In a statement issued after the inquests into their parents deaths, which were held today, they said they live with, this tragedy every minute of every day.

Their mother Marie was found dead in her bedroom and their father Jim died after driving his car into the path of an articulated lorry on the M1 motorway.

It is believed that Jim murdered Marie before taking his own life.

Dundalk Coroners Court heard their son Kieran had a bad feeling when his dad did not turn up to meet him at the DOE test centre in Dundalk about 2.45pm on the 27th July 2015.

He rang his mother and fathers phones but no one answered so he went to the family home at Newtownbalregan outside Dundalk. He told gardai he thought his father may have had a heart attack.

When he arrived at the house he saw the blinds were down in his parents bedrooms; his mother was an early riser and always pulled up her blind.

The back door was locked so he opened the front door and went upstairs.

His fathers bedroom was empty but his mothers door was locked. He was ringing her phone and could hear it ringing out (in the locked room).

He rang 999 and family members. His uncle and cousin arrived and the three of them tried to open the door. When they got it open Kieran said he could see a blanket over somebody and there was blood all over the place.

It was he said, the most devastating moment in my life, he told gardai.

Garda Superintendent Brian Mohan, then an inspector based in Dundalk, said the body of Mrs Quigley was lying across the bed and was partially covered.

She has suffered severe head injuries and a towel was stuck in her mouth. The doctor on call pronounced her dead at the scene.

State Pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy performed a post mortem and said she had been the victim of a violent attack while in bed. Mrs Quigley had suffered blunt force trauma to the head with an object such as a hammer and had been struck in excess of a dozen times.

She had stab wounds to her face and neck and there was a scalding injury to her face as well as bruising to both her hands. She concluded death was due to instrumental blunt force trauma to the head and obstruction of the airways because of a gag.

She said death would have been rapid and within minutes of the assault.

The inquest heard that James Quigley had driven southwards on the hard shoulder of the northbound lane of M1 south of Dundalk and had then driven into an articulated lorry.

Garda Fiona Dunne, Castlebellingham said she got a call about it from an off duty garda at 2.21pm and when she got to the scene said the driver, had extensive injuries and he was pronounced dead at the scene by a local GP. He was formally identified using DNA evidence.

Dr Cassidy said that her post mortem concluded he had driven into the path of the lorry and his death, which was instantaneous, was due to crush injuries as a result of the collision.

The jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing for Mrs Quigley and for her husband they returned an open verdict.

The gardai and Coroner and jury expressed their sympathies to the families of the deceased.

In a statement issued through their solicitor Kieran, Sonya, Mark and Gavin Quigley, the children of the deceased said, the sense of losing both parents is overwhelming and we are living with this tragedy every minute of every day. We can only pray time will ease the heartache and heal our souls.

We hope people can understand what we have been through and hope that when today concludes, that our grieving can progress and we ask the media to respect our privacy.

They said, we lived with our fathers mental illness all our lives. In recent years our father had some major physical problems and coupled with the enormous medication along with his mental health problems, we now know he was beyond helping.

Jim was a loving father and husband, and Marie, a dearly loved and devoted wife and mother who supported Jim throughout his illness and that is why she isnt here today.

They said, Mental health is a form of disease which is sometimes not visibly noticeable and which this country is rampant with, but it should not be ignored.
A serial offender and public order nuisance has an Irish record of 556 prior criminal convictions, a court has been told.

Jennifer Armstrong (41) was handed down the latest addition to her staggering criminal record, her 557th conviction, by a judge today.

She was fined 100 for being drunk and a danger to herself after gardai found her asleep on board a Dublin bus in an incident in the west of the city.

Armstrong, a homeless alcoholic and asthma sufferer did not appear in Blanchardstown District Court, where her case was heard, and Judge David McHugh imposed the fine and conviction in her absence.

Armstrong, of no fixed address, was charged with intoxication in a public place at the Lucan Road on January 7 last.

Garda Micheal McLoughlin told the court he had been unable to contact the accused.

Of the latest offence, Garda McLoughlin said it was reported that Armstrong was asleep on board a bus. When awoken, she was very intoxicated and hit her head as she got up to leave.

She was arrested for her own safety, brought to a garda station and charged.

Garda McLoughlin said the accuseds previous convictions were mostly for public order offences and similar matters.

That is a record, Judge McHugh said. The poor lady, she appears to be in some difficulty.

The garda confirmed to the judge that he was satisfied every effort had been made to get the defendant to come to court but these efforts had failed.

On a previous court appearance, in 2015, Dublin District Court heard Armstrong had amassed more than 540 convictions.

At the time, she was arrested for exposing herself in the street, screaming obscenities at tourists and stealing their drinks.

She shouted abuse of a "sexual nature" at passers-by and also narrowly avoided being hit by cars as she stood in the middle of rush-hour traffic, drinking cans of cider.

She admitted a litany of 40 public order, theft and other offences in the city centre in the space of six weeks that year.

The court heard Armstrong had no place to stay on release from her regular prison sentences.

The 2015 offences happened in some of south Dublin's most popular tourist areas and nightspots.

In one incident at South Great Georges Street , Armstrong was intoxicated, drinking alcohol and exposing herself to passers by.

She shouted obscenities "of an abusive and sexual nature."

When she was not allowed into a pub in Temple Bar, she took glasses from a table, smashed them and verbally abused patrons.

She was drinking cider in Temple Bar Square at 1.40pm when she spat at a garda and screamed obscenities at tourists.

She tried to steal drinks from patrons of a pub at South William Street, then ran away but was so drunk, she collapsed.

At a convenience store on College Green, she spat in the face of a female staff member.

The accused, who has chronic asthma, told Judge Walsh her parents had died while she was in prison.

"When you're on the streets and you have no money, there's nothing you can do," she told the court during her 2015 appearance.
Aftermath of fire that claimed the lives of couple Joe and Anne Whelan and Joes brother Jim

THE family of a kind-hearted Irish couple who died in a London fire alongside a sick relative have thanked the public for the overwhelming sympathy and support they have received.

Tributes have been paid to Joe and Anne Whelan from Cobh, Co Cork who flew to Romford in Essex, a satellite of London, to care for Joe's sick brother, Jim.

All three are in their early 70s but Jim Whelan, who had lived in the UK for years, had been suffering from ill health over recent months.

He lived at Laburnum Avenue at Hornchurch in Romford, an outer suburb of London.

Tragically, a fire broke out at the mid-terraced premises in the early hours of Monday morning and all three were trapped inside.

Now, Joe and Anne's son, Hugh, who immediately flew to London on hearing of the tragedy, has thanked Irish and UK people for their incredible support.

"Thank you one and all for your kind words and support. I will, in time, thank everyone individually," he posted on social media.

"As of yet there are no arrangements but I will update as soon as we bring them home."

"Again, thank you for the kind words - they have been, and are, a great source of comfort to us," he added.

Hugh flew to London immediately on hearing of the tragedy with his Cork-based brother, Joe Jnr.

It is understood they managed to get to the London hospital bedside of their father before he passed away from the effects of smoke inhalation on Tuesday.

Mrs Whelan was pronounced dead at the scene despite desperate efforts by London paramedics to revive her.

Mr Whelan's brother, Jim, lost his battle for life early on Wednesday having been on a life support machine.

The two brothers were originally from Dublin.

Jim Whelan had spent his entire adult life in the UK.

Joe Whelan had served for a time with the Naval Service in the 1950s before setting up home in Cobh.

His wife, Anne, nee Gannon, is from Cobh.

The couple lived on the Tay Road outside the Cork harbour town and were described by neighbours as "totally devoted to each other."

There was no answer to callers at the family home.

Prayers were offered at all Cobh Masses yesterday for the Whelan family.

"I saw the two of them out walking together just the other week. You'd never see one without the other," one neighbour said.

"They were absolutely devoted to each other. Both were very private but the Whelans are a lovely family and very supportive of the Cobh community and their neighbours."

"Everyone here is heartbroken for the family."

Another neighbour, who asked to be unnamed, said the retired couple had decided to fly to London to care for Joe's older brother.

He had been very ill over recent months but had been cared for by his devoted UK family.

"Joe and Anne just wanted to give them a bit of a break by helping look after Jim for a few days," she said.

Local newspaper, The Romford Recorder, said the blaze erupted in the early hours of Monday morning.

Neighbours desperately tried to assist the trio but were beaten back by smoke, heat and flames.

Multiple units of London Fire Brigade attended the blaze and officers equipped with breathing apparatus managed to get the trio out of the property.

An Essex police investigation is underway but the fire is being treated as a tragic accident.

Hornchurch neighbours indicated that Jim Whelan, who lived at the property for a number of years, had been in poor health for some time.

A total of four fire brigade units attended the scene from Hornchurch, Dagenham and Romford with 22 officers battling the blaze.

Substantial damage was caused to the mid terraced property before the blaze was brought under control.

Part of the ground floor was left gutted.

London City Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton described it as a terrible tragedy.

"My thoughts and those of everyone at the brigade are with the friends and family of the three people who died following the tragic fire in Hornchurch," he said.

"Fire fighters worked extremely hard and did all they could in the circumstances."

One Hornchurch neighbour, Jeffrey Prendergast, said fire brigade officials did everything they possibly could to save the elderly trio.

"It is tragic. There was smoke billowing out the windows," he said.
Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi is set to attend on Thursday the armed forces' 24th intellectual seminar titled Counter-terrorism: a Nation's Will.

The seminar will also be attended by Egypt's prime minister, parliament speaker and military commanders, as well as a range of renowned Egyptian writers and journalists.

The president is scheduled to speak in the seminar on the country's efforts to combat terrorism over the past few years.

Earlier this year, El-Sisi praised and honored security forces killed and injured in recent years in a celebration marking Police Day, saying that Egypt is "fighting a vicious war and the whole world knows that it is fighting it alone."

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Commissioner OSullivan has stated that she had no part in any campaign to discredit the so-called garda whistleblowers. Photo: Gerry Mooney

The garda whistleblower controversy has been dominating headlines again this week. Here's everything you need to know.

Who are the main players?

Sgt Maurice McCabe: The states most high profile whistleblower. He is currently on indefinite stress leave.

Superintendent David Taylor: The garda officer whose allegations of a smear campaign by garda management against Sgt McCabe have forced the Government to launch an Independent commission of investigation.

Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan: The State's most senior garda, who is at the centre of this latest whistleblower controversy.

Ex-Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan: The former commissioner will now be investigated over claims was involved in directing the alleged smear campaign.

Judge Peter Charleton: The Supreme Court justice who has been given nine months to investigate the alleged smear campaign.

Retired Judge Iarfhlaith ONeill: His scoping exercise prompted the Government to set up the commission of investigation.

Tanaiste and Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald: She has been accused of protecting Commissioner OSullivan.

Fianna Fail TD John McGuinness: Mr McGuinness claims he met former commissioner Callinan at a secret car park meeting in 2014, during which the latter allegedly claimed Sgt McCabe could not be trusted.

Labour Party leader Brendan Howlin: The former ministers decision to put on the Dail record claims that journalists were direct to allegations that Sgt McCabe was linked to sexual crimes has sparked political furore.

What are the allegations?

Garda management orchestrated a smear campaign to discredit Sgt McCabe. Central to this is allegations that former Commissioner Callinan and his successor Noirin OSullivan directed or were aware of the smear campaign itself.

But the allegations go further

Judge Charleton will investigate whether the smear campaign involved journalists being told of Sgt McCabes links to criminal misconduct.

Phone calls and text messages between the main -players will be examined too.

A secret carpark meeting between John McGuinness and former commissioner Callinan will also be examined - as will claims that Commissioner OSullivan used the national broadcaster RTE to put out false information about McCabe.

She has fully refuted all allegations.

What happens now?

Thats anybodys guess.

On one hand, Judge Charletons commission will run its course. He has been given nine months and a budget of 1.2m to do his work.

The commission will have direct powers to compel witnesses.

But politically, Commissioner OSullivan is under serious pressure to step aside. So far Fianna Fail has refused to call on her to do so, if that changes, we could be on course to lose another garda commissioner.
The Government was today quizzed on whether other state agencies were approached by the gardai in relation to allegations against whistleblower, Sgt Maurice McCabe.

Sinn Fein deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald used Dail question time to ask the Justice Minister if gardai had approached other state agencies about disputed the details of disputed claims of misconduct by Sgt McCabe.

Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald said to her knowledge there were approaches to the garda oversight body, GSOC. But she was not aware of approaches to any other state agency.

The Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan also faced fresh calls for her to temporarily stand aside pending an investigation into alleged mistreatment of the garda whistleblower.

As the Dail prepared to debate the terms of reference for a new judge-led inquiry, Sinn Fein backed calls from Labour and Independent TDs for Ms OSullivan to take so-called administrative leave.

Sinn Fein deputy leader, Mary Lou McDonald, said the ill treatment of whistleblower, Sergeant Maurice McCabe, was deplorable and the allegations hit at the core of police and justice administration systems.

Ms McDonald said that Commissioner OSullivan was not guilty of any wrongdoing. But as a matter of good procedure it was best that she temporarily stood down pending the investigation by Supreme Court Judge Peter Charleton.

Minister Fitzgerald said that allegations against Commissioner OSullivan had been examined, along with counter allegations against other parties, by retired High Court Judge Iarfhlaith ONeill. But Judge ONeill could not decide in favour of one side or the other  so Commissioner OSullivan must stay in her post.
The cardiologist who concluded University Hospital Waterford did not need a second cath lab said yesterday he stood by his find- ings.

Belfast medic Dr Niall Herity, who was appearing before the Oireacthas health committee, faced strong criticism from Independent Alliance Junior Minister John Halligan - who had threatened to resign from Government over the rejection - and other Waterford TDs.

Dr Herity defended his methodology and said he stood by his decision to confine the cathment area to a population of 286,147, a figure critics said was too low.

"It was, and it remains, my opinion that expanding the service to provide 24/7 cover is not a sustainable solution," he said.

Waterford consultants have warned that the limited service puts lives at risk.

A mobile cath lab has since been promised.
Caitriona Purcell (10) from Tinryland, Co Carlow, has a heart condition and regularly travelled to Dublin for treatment Picture: Maxwells

Parents of children with heart defects are worried about long waiting lists and a shortage of nurses.

Mothers have spoken of how their surgeries have been cancelled before their children were due to enter theatre.

Many said there was not enough nurses in ICU in hospitals, at an event hosted by the charity Heart Children Ireland.

Janette O'Riordan (51) from Leopardstown, is a former nurse whose child Samuel (12) had three open heart surgeries, which were delayed twice.

"We were ready to go to theatre, and it was cancelled because there was no ICU nurse to man the bed on the other end. It happened twice," she said.

Trish Purcell's daughter Caitriona (10) was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect when she was born.

The family are from Tinryland, Co Carlow and had to regularly commute to Dublin to receive treatment.

She said: "I would worry for the kids. Thankfully, Caitriona doesn't need any surgeries at the moment, but it's very frightening for any parents that are waiting for surgery."

Mrs Purcell has also experienced last-minute cancellations.
The bullet riddled minibus in south Armagh where 10 protestant workmen were shot dead by IRA terrorists. Photo: PA Wire

A man whose palm print was allegedly found on a suspected getaway vehicle used in the Kingsmill massacre will not be prosecuted.

Northern Ireland's Public Prosecution Service (PPS) said there was "insufficient evidence" to offer a reasonable prospect of convicting the individual arrested on suspicion of murdering 10 Protestant workmen in the 1976 outrage.

The ten victims were lined up on a country road in rural south Armagh and shot dead in a sectarian attack that was widely blamed on the IRA. Another man survived despite being shot 18 times.

Michael Agnew, the PPS's Assistant Director of Central Casework, said lawyers had given "careful consideration to all of the evidence" and had applied the test for prosecution.

"We have concluded that there is no reasonable prospect of a conviction based on the available evidence and that the test for prosecutions is therefore not met," he said.

It is understood a lack of Garda and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) records in regard to how the van was forensically handled upon discovery was a key factor in the PPS's decision.

Prosecutors could apparently not find documents indicating exactly when the vehicle was found, or where it was taken for examination, or even the precise location of the palm print position on the windscreen.

So while prosecutors did not perceive matching the print to the individual as an issue, the missing forensic records meant they were unable to rule out that the palm might have been placed on the windscreen well after the shootings.

While the PPS did have two witnesses identifying the green Bedford van as being in the general vicinity both before and after the attack, the sightings were not close enough to the scene to provide strong circumstantial evidence.

The already long-delayed inquest into the Kingsmill murders was again put on hold last year with the dramatic announcement that detectives had apparently matched the print to an individual.

Three months later a 59-year-old man was arrested in Newry, Co Down.

The man, who had previous terror convictions, was released pending a police file being sent to prosecutors for assessment.

At a subsequent inquest hearing, a lawyer for the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said detectives believed the print belonged to the arrested man.

Mr Agnew announced the decision on Thursday.

"We are mindful of the disappointment that this decision will bring to the surviving victim and families of those who were killed," he added.

"Although 41 years have passed since this atrocity, we are conscious that their pain endures.

"We have informed the families this morning of our decision and the reasons for it, and have offered to meet with them to answer any further questions that they may have.

"We are also conscious that inquest proceedings are currently adjourned to allow for any criminal matters to be concluded and accordingly have advised the coroner of this decision."

The textile workers were shot when their minibus was ambushed outside the village of Kingsmill on their way home from work.

Those on board were asked their religion, and the only Catholic was ordered to run away.

The killers, who had been hidden in the hedges, forced the 11 remaining men to line up outside the van before opening fire.

Alan Black was the sole survivor.

The suspected getaway vehicle was left abandoned across the Irish border and the palm print was subsequently recovered days later.

No-one has ever been convicted of the murders, which have been widely blamed on the IRA, even though the organisation never admitted responsibility.

The attack was seen as a reprisal for loyalist killings in the same area days earlier.

Following re-examination by forensic scientists in May 2016, a potential match was found on the police's database - a week after a fresh inquest into the shootings opened in Belfast.

Last month, the coroner presiding over the Kingsmill case said if the decision was not to prosecute then he would move to reconvene his inquest at the earliest opportunity.

Responding to the PPS announcement, PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton said: "In June 2016, detectives from LIB investigating the Kingsmill murders followed up on a specific line of inquiry in relation to a palm print following a forensic development.

"A 59-year-old male was arrested in August 2016 and later released pending a report to the PPS.

"We acknowledge the decision made by the PPS in relation to this. As prosecutorial decisions are a matter for the PPS, we will not be commenting further.

"PSNI remain committed to supporting the ongoing inquest, bringing offenders to justice and protecting the public."
Tenants who were crammed into an "unauthorised hostel" have claimed that the man who collected their rent each month threatened to keep their deposits unless they hand wrote a letter saying "how much they loved living in the house."

Texts seen by Independent.ie show how Dillon De Brun, who collected rent from up to 70 tenants living in a five-bedroomed house, sent a message to everyone ordering them to write letters to be used as evidence in court.

The messages read: "Ok so here's what's going to happen.

"I need every tenant to write a handwritten letter for me to give to the judge of the case about how much they love living in the house and how ye cant afford to find a house elsewhere as they [sic] is nowhere as cheap or available!

Expand Close The tenants were told they wouldn't get their deposits back unless they sent a video/wrote a letter saying they were 'happy' / Facebook

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"I'm going to go to the judge on Monday and hand him all these letters and speak to him myself."

Dillon De Brun was employed by Mr Christian Carter (29) to manage The Pines, Lehaunstown, Cabinteely and collected the rent each month on his behalf.

He used various usernames on Facebook to advertise the property, including Dyl OReilly.

Undercover recordings by Independent.ie revealed how tenants had no written leases and Mr De Brun claimed The Pines was rented to foreign nationals because "[with] their way of living theyd agree to it a lot more".

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Now the tenants, who were given five days notice to find alternative accommodation, have spoken out about what it was really like to live in the house.

"He threatened us about how we wouldn't get our deposits back unless we made a video or wrote a letter," they claimed.

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"At the beginning there was very few of us and the house was like brand new. It wasnt so bad back then. Day by day, more people arrived. There was 20, then 21, then 22 and eventually almost 50 people in the house," said Laura (28), originally from Italy.

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They spoke of problems with mould, how the heating always broke down and said there was constant electricity problems.

"They just tried to put in as many people as possible. Some people had to pay incredible money for the beds. When they knew we would have to leave the house, they asked for two months' rent up front.

"We had to wait until midnight to cook our dinner and there was over 40 phone chargers and a lot of hair straighteners so it was really dangerous," she added.

Expand Close The Pines, Lehaunstown, Cabinteely which had up to 70 people living there at one time Photo: Tony Gavin / Facebook

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Dillon De Brun declined to comment to the above claims.

'All they cared about was money'

Wilko (30), originally from the Netherlands, described the landlords as "two-faced."

"It was like they were wearing masks. They pretended they cared about us, but all they cared about was money."

The tenants were informed that a second kitchen would be built into the house to accommodate them.

However, instead, the would-be kitchen was transformed into another bedroom.

"I asked could I pay my rent by standing order and was told no. Dillon said it was not secure and insisted we pay cash-in-hand. With 500 in Italy, you could rent a house. In Ireland, you can rent a bed," said Laura.

Other tenants returned home to their countries due to being unable to find alternative accommodation after they were ordered to vacate the property.

Diego (33) from Mexico said "they didnt care about us."

"Nobody tried to take care of people in the house after the story. Instead of helping us to get out of the problem, we were made feel like the problem."

"We were made feel like criminals," Laura added.

The tenants expressed disappointment about the "lack of consideration" when it came to finding them somewhere else to live.

They claimed Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council "weren't very helpful" when it came to finding alternative accommodation and were puzzled as to why nobody from the council sat down to speak with them to explain what would happen.

"They just came in and took some pictures of the house," they claimed.

However, a spokesperson for the council responded:"In the course of investigations issues concerning environmental pollution also came into evidence supporting the view that the premises presented a danger and health risk to occupants and the local environment.

"The occupants were notified of the proceedings and ultimately by Order of the Court dated the 2nd February the second named defendant Christan Carter was directed to provide alternative accommodation for those persons remaining in occupation of the premises.

"However, I can confirm that the Housing Department ensured that emergency accommodation was secured and made available to all individuals who presented to our Homeless Services Section. "

'The tenants need to be the ones protected'

Edel McGinley, Director of the Migrants Rights Centre Ireland (MCRI), has been working with the tenants to help them find accommodation since they were ordered to vacate the property.

She is calling for new laws to be implemented to protect the rights of tenants in situations like this.

"We are very concerned that the council did not take their rights into consideration when pursuing the landlord for breaches of planning laws. Rogue landlords need to be prosecuted and tenants need to be protected in these types of situations.

"County councils have a duty of care. This is not an isolated incident and further actions by any council needs to uphold the rights of the tenant," she added.

Undercover investigation

Independent.ie first reported on the poor living conditions in The Pines earlier this year.

Following an inspection by the council after our undercover investigation, the property was deemed to be an "unauthorised, dangerous hostel."

Mr Christian Carter, who was subletting the property from the owner Mr Richard Stanley, appeared in court in relation to the matter.

Both parties were ordered to pay legal costs of 60,000.

However, former tenants have claimed this would only be "one months rent" for Mr Carter, who rents a number of other houses across Dublin.

Independent.ie also exposed how Christian, along with his father Colin Carter, was renting five houses in Clontarf and Rathmines on behalf of a Mr James 'Jim' Cuddy in a similar manner.

The number of tenants in these houses was significantly reduced after Dublin City Council issued fire safety notices in respect of the properties.
Emergency services at the scene of the crash on the M1 yesterday

Gardai at the Quigleys house in Rathmore, Hackballscross, near Dundalk

Gardai investigate the discovery of a body of a woman in her sixties at a house in Rathmore, Hackballscross near Dundalk. Picture:Arthur Carron

Gardai investigate the discovery of a body of a woman in her sixties at a house in Rathmore, Hackballscross near Dundalk. Picture:Arthur Carron

Gardai investigate the discovery of a body of a woman in her sixties at a house in Rathmore, Hackballscross near Dundalk. Picture:Arthur Carron

Gardai investigate the discovery of a body of a woman in her sixties at a house in Rathmore, Hackballscross near Dundalk. Picture:Arthur Carron

Gardai investigate the discovery of a body of a woman in her sixties at a house in Rathmore, Hackballscross near Dundalk. Picture:Arthur Carron

Gardai investigate the discovery of a body of a woman in her sixties at a house in Rathmore, Hackballscross near Dundalk. Picture:Arthur Carron

Gardai pictured at the house where Gardai have discovered the body of a woman with serious head injuries. Picture Ciara Wilkinson.

The body of a woman found dead at her home in Rathmore, Hackballscross near Dundalk, being removed from the scene. Picture:Arthur Carron

The body of a woman found dead at her home in Rathmore, Hackballscross near Dundalk, being removed from the scene. Picture:Arthur Carron

A mum-of-four was beaten to death with a lump hammer in an apparent suicide--murder tragedy.

Marie Quigley (68) died at her home in Hackballscross, Co Louth, just before her husband was killed driving the wrong way on the M1.

The body of Mrs Quigley was found by her son just before 4pm yesterday.

Sources said that Kieran Quigley had gone to meet his father, but instead found the house quiet and the upstairs bedroom locked and curtains drawn.

He then called his cousin to help him break down the bedroom door and the pair found the body of Mrs Quigley, who had suffered serious head injuries.

Moments later, when gardai arrived at the house to inform Ms Quigley of the death of husband Jim, they found the distressing scene.

I have never seen anything like it, a source told the Herald.

The couple had five children  Kieran, who also lived in Hackballscross, Gavin who lives in Cork, Mark who is currently in Canada and Sonya, who lives in Newbridge.

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A fifth child, the couples son Aidan, died in a drowning accident when he was nine-years-old.

Gardai realised yesterday that a car registered to that address was involved in a serious collision on the M1 some 15 miles away.

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The crash on the M1 occurred at 2pm as Mr Quigley, driving the wrong way, collided with another car and a lorry.

Three other people were brought to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and the crash led to long traffic delays as gardai closed the motorway for a technical examination.

They confirmed that Mr Quigley died when his car collided with two other vehicles, including a truck.

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Whatsapp The body of a woman found dead at her home in Rathmore, Hackballscross near Dundalk, being removed from the scene. Picture:Arthur Carron

The couple, both in their 60s, were well-known in the area.

Mrs Quigley (68) worked with Beagans Customs in Dundalk. The wider Quigley family is involved in oil distribution.

James, or Jim as he was known locally, was "quite friendly" but was known to have battled with mental health problems for many years.

He suffered with depression and could get very down in himself, one local said. Its such a terrible tragedy for all concerned.

Alice Lynch, a life-long neighbour and friend of the family, said that the community was devastated.

If there was one word I could use to describe Marie and Jim, it would be unique, she said.

They were a devoted couple who did everything together, they were extremely loyal to one another and it was an absolute shock to hear the news.

I stayed up all night last night trying to come to terms with it. They were a lovely couple, very quiet who just went about their business.

Marie was a very impressive woman, if the family were happy then she was happy. It just shows you never know what might happen. To say Im shocked is an understatement. Local priest Gerry Campbell told the Herald that the tragedy has come as a huge shock to the community.

We cannot even begin to imagine what the family are going through at this time, he said.

All that we can do now as a community is rally around the four children and do what we can to comfort them at this time, he added.

There is a large extended family there, but it is in the time and weeks to come that they will all really need our help.

"He suffered with depression and could get very down in himself. He suffered from terrible nerves," another local told the Irish Independent.

"He worked with his brother and would be seen leaving the house for work most mornings."

Another neighbour added: "The woman who died was a lovely, sweet woman. She would stop her car to give you a lift if she saw you walking on the street. That was the type of person she was."

Shock

Local priest Fr Gerry Campbell said: "It comes as a huge shock to the community and we cannot even begin to imagine what the family are going through at this time.

"It is quite a small area and a place where the family would have been well known so for this to have happened is an awful tragedy for the area. All that we can do now as a community is rally around the four children and do what we can to comfort them at this time.

"The shock and sadness is unbearable. There is a large extended family but it is in the time and weeks to come that they will all really need our help and we will have to do what we can for them."

Speaking this morning, the parish priest reiterated the fact that the community is close-knit.

"The community spirit here is very strong, people know each other very well," Fr Gerry Campbell of the Kilkerley parish told RTE Radio One's Morning Ireland.

"And following what happened yesterday you can imagine the shock people are feeling.

"The son made the discovery [in the house], you can't imagine what he and his sister and brother are going through.

"It's an awful thing to come upon, it must have been such a shock.

"There is a feeling of numbness in the family, and it's extended throughout the community.

"It's devastating, and I suppose it's going to be like this for some time," Fr Campbell added.

Louth County councillor Declan Breathnach said the deaths were "a terrible tragedy and a terrible loss to the community".

Post mortems will be carried out at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda today.

Gardai appealed for witnesses to contact Ardee Garda Station on 041-6871130, the Garda Confidential Telephone Line 1800 666 111 or any garda station.
Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has said he will not allow divisions, or organising along political, religious or sectarian lines among members of the Egyptian armed forces, saying that the Egyptian military will forever remain "the army of the nation."

El-Sisi's statement came during a speech before the Egyptian Armed Forces 24th intellectual seminar titled Counter-terrorism; a Nation's Will on Thursday.

"I say before you, I refused a request over four years ago to allow sectarian and religious affiliation inside our armed forces; our army will remain the army of the Egyptian people."

"Anyone who appears to have adopted any orientation or loyalty inside the army except for to his nation will be expelled immediately; this has been the rule of the army for thirty years," the president said.

Addressing the country's security forces in the army and police, El-Sisi praised the role of both national institutions. He said they were fighting a "sacred war" against terrorism, working to protect their nation from collapse.

"For three years we have been fighting this war,'' El-Sisi said, stressing that loyalty inside the army and police is solely to the nation and not even to the president.

"I say to my sons in the armed forces: you are not fighting a war to defeat an enemy, you are fighting a war to save your nation from fragmentation and religious sectarianism."

"We will not allow that our people be terrorised or become refugees; this is our most sacred and honoured duty inside the army," the president said.

El-Sisi added that the war on terrorism must carry on simultaneously with development efforts.

On the country's current economic situation, El-Sisi said that the challenges may be bigger than the state, the government or even the president, but that he is certain they cannot be bigger than the will of the Egyptian people.

"The Egyptian people's awareness has been a brick wall in the face of these challenges. Despite all complexities we may be facing, Egyptians now have the ability to decide what is better for them," he said.
A new report from Age Action revealed that thousands of pensioners, mainly women, are losing a large sum of money from their retirement payments due to austerity cuts.

It has been estimated that 35,000 pensioners have been hit with lower payments due to changes to State pension eligibility rules in 2012.

Close to 23,000 people, or more than six out of ten of these, are women.

On average, retired workers have lost more than 1,500 a year.

Independent.ie spoke to a pensioner who said she had been looking forward to her retirement - but now finds herself struggling to get by.

Patricia Cawley - 'Thirty euro might not sound like a lot of money to some people, but I can tell you it makes a difference for me'

With the exception of four years after I married my husband, I worked my entire life.

I started out at the age of 16 in 1963 in the civil service and then in the charity sector.

I liked working. I enjoyed making a contribution and being useful, but I was also looking forward to retirement when I would turn 65 in March 2012.

I applied for the State Pension in late 2011 and was told that I would be entitled to 225.80 which was the second highest rate at the time.

But just before I turned 65, my manager came to me and asked if I would like to stay on for another year.

Although I had been looking forward to retirement, I liked where I worked and I liked the people I worked with.

I felt I was making a genuine contribution to the community and part of me wanted to show that people my age could still make a difference so even though the salary was not much better than the pension I stayed on for another year.

Unfortunately, and unknown to be, the Government was changing the pension system.

The changes came into effect in September of 2012 and it meant that when I retired for good in March 2013 I was suddenly, and without any explanation, told I was entitled to a pension of 196  a cut of 30 a week.

Thirty euro might not sound like a lot of money to some people but I can tell you it makes a difference for me. Its more than fifteen hundred euro a year.

I added it up recently and since the changes were introduced I have lost out on more than 6,000. Ill continue to lose out for the rest of my life.

The really frustrating thing is that if I had not stayed working, I would have got a better pension. I was punished by the Government for working.

If I had known that for the rest of my life I would be losing 30 a week I would have retired in 2012 but this mean and sneaky cut was brought in without any effort being made to tell people like me who would be affected by it.

I asked the local social welfare office if they could help and I got very little sympathy. I appealed and I was told there was nothing that they could do. The Department told me that the changes were to make the pension sustainable and to make the pension fair.

It didnt seem very fair to me. It doesnt seem a very fair way to treat thousands of pensioners who worked hard all their lives only to find that their pensions were cut when they werent looking.

A lot of the cuts that were brought in during the recession are now being reversed and people are getting back some of the money that they lost.

I believe we too have the right to have a mean and unfair cut to our pensions, one that was introduced very quietly, reversed and for people to have their pensions restored.

I am asking Minister Leo Varadkar and the other TDs in Leinster House to find a way to do this and to make the pension fair again.

'We need to put to bed the myth that the state pension was protected'

Justin Moran is the head of advocacy for Age Action and believes the changes to pension payments "punished women who took time out of work to care for their children."

"We need to put to bed the myth that the state pension was protected by the last government," he said.

"It was cut, drastically cut, for tens of thousands of older people, who have lost substantial sums of money as a result."
A FIANNA Fail TD has queried whether the States child and family agency, TUSLA, will become part of the Commission of Investigation into an alleged smear campaign against sergeant Maurice McCabe.

Carlow/Kilkenny deputy John McGuinness made the intervention towards the end of a Dail debate on the terms of the reference for the judge-led inquiry.

TUSLA is the body responsible for the protection and wellbeing of children.

Earlier during Leaders Questions, Sinn Fein deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald asked Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald whether other state agencies were approached by the gardai in relation to allegations against Sgt McCabe.

Ms Fitzgerald said to her knowledge there were approaches to the garda oversight body, GSOC. But she was not aware of approaches to any other state agency.

But during a later Dail debate , which heard calls for the terms of reference for the inquiry to be widened, Mr McGuinness cited the agency TUSLA. He asked whether it would be included in the work of the commission by Supreme Court judge Peter Charleton.

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Ms Fitzgerald replied: I think that would be entirely up to the commission to decide but I see no reason why if there is a relevant agency, for example the one that you mention, that it wouldnt be included in the work of the commission.

Queries to TUSLA and the garda press office have yet to be answered.

The development comes as the Government and the garda force continue to be rocked by the fallout of the allegations of a smear campaign against Sgt McCabe.

Among the terms of reference for the commission of investigation is to determine whether journalists were pointed to whether Superintendent David Taylor was directed to draw journalists attention to an allegation of criminal misconduct made against Sgt McCabe.

In the Dail yesterday, Labour Party leader Brendan Howlin claimed that Garda Commissioner Noirin OSullivan was involved in the leaking allegations that Sgt McCabe was involved in crimes of a sexual nature. She has vehemently denied the claims in a statement.
On this week's show, Niall O'Connor was joined by Philip Ryan and Niamh Horan as they look back on the week in Irish politics, from the future of the Garda Commissioner, to Brendan Howlin's Dail privilege, and a Trump visit to Ireland.

Click here subscribe to the Floating Voter on iTunes.

Should Noirin O'Sullivan step aside while an investigation is ongoing and is the Commissioner on borrowed time? There were diverging views across the table on the Floating Voter this week as Philip Ryan argued she was due 'proper process during the investigation and shouldnt step down.'

"But, there is little confidence left in the Garda Commissioner," countered Niall O'Connor. "And she should step down. If she is found innocent then all is fine."

Turning their attention to the issue of Brendan Howlin's use of Dail privilege, Niamh Horan questioned a politician's motives behind such acts.

"This is the third time in a short time when Dail privilege has been used to drop bombshells," she told O'Connor. "With great power comes great responsibility, but how much is it to do with their own interests and political careers?"

"What Brendan Howlin said is all based on hearsay and Labour is all at sea over Howlins actions," said Ryan. "Howlin himself has not done himself any favours at all. If this was Mary Lou McDonald people would be castigating her for it."

And let's not forget, Labour is on 4% and now everybody is talking about them, Niall O'Connor reminded the panel.

Finally on this week's show, the team asked whether Trump should be invited over for an Irish State visit?

"Why not?," wondered Ryan. "We can invite Putin and Kim Jong-un over as well and use it as an opportunity to discuss their policies and get our point of view across. What's the harm in that?"

"Yes we should invite him over," agreed Horan. "Its about the economy, jobs and American investment and not for keeping liberals happy."

Each week on the Floating Voter, INM's political team discuss the main issues affecting Irish politics, bursting the bubble around Leinster House. New episodes on Independent.ie every Thursday.
The wine seized at Dublin Port (Photo: Revenue)

Revenue officers seized bottles of wine worth 11,000 at Dublin Port yesterday.

Officers approached and searched a Transit van as a result of routine profiling.

The van had arrived into Dublin from France via Holyhead.

A total of 786 litres of wine were seized in the operation.

The smuggled red and white wines have a retail value of around 11,000 and represent an estimated potential loss to the Exchequer of 5,400, Revenue reports today.

Investigations are ongoing.

The seizure is part of Revenue's ongoing operation targeting the illegal importation, supply and sale of alcohol in the shadow economy.
British Ambassador to Cairo John Casson announced on Thursday the signing of a 2 million British programme to assist Egypt in combating human trafficking, saying that while there are no magical solutions to the problem, the UK strongly supports Cairos efforts in this area.

"Human trafficking costs the world 6 billion annually" Casson said, praising a recent law approved by the Egyptian government which incriminates all parties involved in human trafficking operations.

Casson said the law, signed by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi in November 2016 amid a hike in the number of migrants departing the country for Europe, underscores Egypts political will to curb this phenomenon.

The British ambassador also praised Egypt's role in aiding immigrants and refugees and its assistance to neighboring Libya, which is considered the main point of departure for refugees and irregular migrants traveling to Europe.

The head of Egypt's National Coordinating Committee for Combating and Preventing Illegal Immigration (NCCPIM) Ambassador Naela Gabr welcomed the announcement of the programme, which is under the supervision of the International Organization for Migration.

Nearly 210,000 irregular immigrants arrived in Europe across the Mediterranean between January and June 2016.

Approximately 3,000 irregular immigrants drowned in the Mediterranean during the same period, according to the IOM.

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A SENATOR has suggested that people who dump illegally and fail to pay their court fines should be named and shamed online.

Fine Gael Kerry Senator Paul Coghlan suggested the idea of a 'name and shame' website which he wants to raise in the Seanad.

He said stronger measures are needed to combat the issue of illegal dumping.

Speaking on Thursday he said; Its time to think outside of the box in our efforts to tackle illegal dumping.

"A name and shame approach may make offenders think twice before engaging in this practise.

For those who fail to pay the fixed penalty notice and are taken to court, their names should be published either on the website of their Local Authority or in the local newspaper," he continued.

The illegal dumping of rubbish is an issue that plagues both our rural countryside and our urban areas.

"Its a source of embarrassment to Local Authorities and the thousands of people across this country who work all year round to keep their communities tidy."

The senator explained how some local authorities have installed CCTV cameras in well-known litter black-spots to try and catch perpetrators, but not all authorities have the finance to do so.

"At present, if a Local Authority can establish who owns material that has been illegally dumped, a fixed penalty notice is issued to the person," the senator continued.

"If they fail to pay this, they are then taken to court and prosecuted for illegal dumping.

"We have a number of deterrents already in place, and yet we still see illegal dumping on the rise and plaguing local authorities nationwide.

"Further action must be taken to protect our urban and rural areas and put an end to illegal dumping.

While on the topic of litter, Senator Coghlan took time to commend the good work of the Tidy Towns teams across the country.
A garda investigation has been launched after a solicitor was allegedly found in possession of an illegal substance while trying to gain entry into a prison.

The solicitor, who is based in Dublin, was visiting an inmate in Mountjoy prison yesterday evening.

He was searched by staff there, as are all visitors to the prison, and a small amount of suspected drugs were found.

The substance has since been sent off to the Forensic Science Ireland laboratory to determine what it is.

A source said that if the substance is found to be illegal, the amount is so small that it is likely it was for personal use and was not being smuggled into a prisoner.

The solicitor was denied admission to the prison after the discovery.

Gardai are investigating.
Looking back through the mists of time, I recall my first student welfare talk at university. Chief among the guidelines we women were taught: not to walk alone in deserted or dark spots, to carry an alarm and, should one befall a sexual predator, to scream 'fire' instead of 'rape'. "Fire?" we replied, confused. Because, apparently, a nearby stranger might be more inclined to react or offer help in the event of a fire than in the event of a rape.

But that was then, and this is now.

We're more enlightened, certainly about rape and sexual assault, in relation to campus culture, and unfortunately the resulting figures are damning. Recent USI (Union Of Students in Ireland) research has shown that 16pc of Irish students experienced an unwanted sexual experience. There were a large proportion of victims who did not report these incidents because they were ashamed or embarrassed (29pc); because they thought that they would be blamed for what happened (22pc); or because they did not want their parents or family to find out (21pc).

Talking a lead from Oxford and Cambridge Universities' student unions, Trinity College's own student union has this week passed a motion whereby mandatory workshops on sexual consent will be taught to undergraduates, both male and female. The initiative, devised alongside statutory bodies like the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, could be introduced as early as September.

Many have hailed the student-driven initiative, not least in light of findings unearthed by TCD's Student's Union that show that some 25pc of women, and almost 5pc of men, have had a non-consensual sexual experience.

Far from drilling into students' heads the idea that women should dress/drink/behave a certain way and men should well, simply not rape, the consent classes would aim to enlighten youngsters about what 'consent' actually means. It's not about scaremongering, victim blaming or even pre-emptive strikes; it's about making those problematic blurred lines around sex and consent a lot less blurry.

The workshops, and their teaching materials, are also designed to be gender-neutral and aimed at both men and women.

"We'll be challenging the myths around rape and sexual assault, and introducing the reality of statistics and evidence that show the prevalence of sexual assault," explains Conor Clancy, welfare officer at Trinity College.

"I think the idea that this is a pre-emptive, 'don't rape' class is a bit of a misunderstanding. It will be about discussing positive relationships and where the line between consent and non-consent is."

While the classes would be mandatory, Clancy has previously stated that "we won't hold anyone in a workshop and we won't force people into a building or anything."

So what can Trinity's sexual consent class attendees expect? Firstly, those devising Trinity's workshops are working off the Oxbridge model. The classes will be run by "professionals", according to Clancy.

Writing in Vice magazine, Oxford student Nathalie Wright described her experience: "No one was waving condoms. The atmosphere was relaxed and friendly. Several students I spoke to were worried the workshops would be 'patronising' or 'cringey'. Yet, from the moment we arrived, it became clear that, as a society, we do not know enough about consent, and that we need to listen to each other and learn more."

Still, the idea of mandatory consent classes isn't without its detractors. In the UK, George Lawlor, a politics and sociology student at Warwick University, wrote of his anger at being invited to consent training lessons.

"I love consent," he wrote in a blog post. "Like any self-respecting individual would, I found this to be a massive, painful, bitchy slap in the face. To be invited to such a waste of time was the biggest insult I've received in a good few years. It implies I have an insufficient understanding of what does and does not constitute consent and that's incredibly hurtful."

"We accompanied 303 victims of recent rape and sexual assault to the Rotunda Hospital in 2015, a 37pc rise in comparison to the 2014 numbers," explains Ellen O'Malley-Dunlop, chief executive of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre. "Research tells us that only one in 10 report the crime."

The fact remains; university campuses and student culture, with its intoxicating freedom and endless drinks promotions, is an environment ripe for sexual confusion and those aforesaid blurred lines.

Chelsea Tyler, 20, a student at DIT, is hopeful that consent classes could well be rolled out into other campuses across the country.

"I know a lot of people are saying (the idea) is ridiculous and that they know the difference between 'yes' and 'no', but when I got to college sex seemed like such a casual thing," she recalls.

"There is plenty of peer pressure and alcohol. A girl might go out, get drunk, have sex and shrug it off, but she may have regrets down the line. Men don't know that it's such a big deal. If they buy a drink for a girl, they see that as consent. A boy mightn't think in his head, 'I've just raped someone, she's locked and she came home with me'. I think these classes would teach them more than they realise."

Kevin O'Donoghue, president of the USI, says: "I don't care if you're offended. You don't have a right not to be offended. Maybe they don't have something to learn, but I'd sooner take the risk of them attending a consent class and having a mature conversation about it [than not]. We need to accept that this is a significant problem, not just on campuses but across society. "

Certainly, the idea that mandatory consent classes demonise young men and patronise young people is one that isn't going away. Still, the alarming statistics speak for themselves. A consent class may well be patronising. But lessons in knowing what a non-consensual sexual advance constitutes is are for life, not just for fresher's week.
Wine snobbery has been with us for as long as there's been champagne to covet and iconic vineyards to revere. Coffee snobbery is a more modern phenomenon, the affliction of which seems related to either beard size or capsule colours.

Now it seems that chocolate snobbery is catching up, as bars of small batch, single origin, craft chocolate with high percentages of rare cacao beans come with complex tasting notes that wouldn't look out of place on a wine label, boasting 'summer fruit' or floral notes, mocha or caramel, spice or even tannins - and exclusive price tags to match, at 5 or upwards for a bar of about 60g-75g.

But is it all just a load of jargon designed to part fools with their money, or can a simple bar of chocolate merit those higher prices?

Commercially produced chocolate can afford to be cheaper for several practical reasons, including the economies of scale of factory production and the cost of the ingredients themselves. Most ordinary commercial milk chocolate contains 30pc or less of cocoa solids, the other 70-plus percent being sugar, powdered milk, vanilla and emulsifiers. Buy chocolate with a higher cocoa percentage and the price will reflect that ratio.

Then there's the cacao bean itself, of which three types are cultivated today. To borrow an analogy from the wine-buff movie Sideways, if Forastero beans are the Merlot grape of cacao, being adaptable and high-yielding, then Criollo is the Pinot Noir: high maintenance but with often exquisite results. Criollo is also extremely rare, accounting for less than 1pc of all cacao bean production today. Trinitario beans, a cross between thoroughbred Criollo and workhorse Forastero, account for 4pc, and Forastero the remainder.

The origin of the bean also influences flavour, quality and price. 'Single origin' means that the beans are from one country or region (or even one 'single estate'). Wine drinkers expect a difference between a Pinot Noir produced in Burgundy, Chile or New Zealand. The 'terroir' of the grapes - where they are grown and under what conditions - affects the wine's flavour profile, as does the handling of the grapes. Terroir explains why we might seek out Wexford strawberries, Comber Early potatoes, Ethiopian Yirgacheffe arabica coffee or Madagascan Criollo cacao beans. You're also paying for the expertise, skill and labour of the producer. Until recently, Irish chocolate was either factory-produced or from craft chocolatiers.

A chocolatier buys in quality chocolate beans that they temper (stabilising the crystals and ensuring a good sheen and snap) and mould into bars or mix with cream to make truffles, typically in small batches to keep a close eye on results. Some, like Wexford-based sisters Natalie and Karen Keane of Bean & Goose, work exclusively with single-origin chocolate as they believe the different flavour profiles allow them greater scope for flavour pairings.

Others - bean-to-bar 'chocolate makers' - buy in the fermented cacao bean itself and then roast and winnow (separating cacao nib and husk), refine and conch (grinding to release and distribute the cocoa butter within the chocolate), blend (typically with sweeteners of one sort or another) and finally temper.

It's a lot more trouble to go to but bean-to-bar producers like those at Hazel Mountain Chocolate, Wilkies Chocolate and Clonakilty Chocolate believe it's worth it. Yes, it's more labour intensive, they say, but it allows greater control over not just where and who they buy from their beans from but how those beans are handled and what they are blended with.

For Alisson Roberts of Clonakilty Chocolate, paying the grower a fair price is a primary concern. She imports Fairtrade cacao beans from Kumasi in Ghana. "West Africa in particular is really corrupt," she says, "so I like trying to have an impact there and trying to help right some of the wrongs." She suggests that if we are gifting a luxury product like chocolate to loved ones, that shouldn't be at the cost of poor pay or working conditions, or in some cases, child labour.

John and Kasia Connolly of Hazel Mountain Chocolate buy their cacao beans directly from small farmers or co-ops, with Venezuelan, Madagascan, Costa Rican and Cuban beans shipped directly to their boutique Burren-based chocolate factory, where visitors can sample the chocolate at its various stages. This Direct Trade route ensures that a greater percentage of what the consumer pays goes to the cacao farmer.

Hazel Mountain Chocolate roasts its beans lightly to accentuate the nuances of flavours across the various beans (with parallels in the trend towards lighter roasts for coffee). The caramel and butterscotch notes of its Cuban beans work well as a milk chocolate bar while Venezuelan Criollo beans, with their high cocoa butter content, give a "smooth and buttery chocolate with dark fruits, plum and smoky notes".

"But," adds John, "all that goes out of the window if the chocolate has vanilla in it," pointing to another advantage of bean-to-bar production: ultimate control over exactly what goes into the final product. Hazel Mountain Chocolate chooses not to add vanilla, as it homogenises the flavour.

Shana Wilkie of Wilkies Chocolate prides herself on being one of the few modern chocolate makers not to add emulsifiers. She says that this makes the chocolate harder to handle but results in a purer product. Clonakilty Chocolate, meanwhile, is a sugar-free brand. "I like opting for an alternative to a mass-produced, mono-culture product," says Roberts, who prefers to use coconut sugar.

But assuming that your chocolate-maker or chocolatier is selling you what they tell you they are, what about those high-falutin' tasting notes? I gathered a motley crew of chocolate fans, including dark chocolate purists and milk chocolate lovers, to blind taste-test a selection of single-origin chocolate. The results were interesting.

As with any wine tasting, especially with untrained tasters, the descriptors varied but there were some parallels with the official tasting notes. We all identified caramel notes in the Java 32pc chocolate, for example, while the Equadorian 76pc brought to mind descriptors like lavender, perfumed, cereal, grassy - not too far from the official 'floral' note.

But the biggest learning was that, as with wine, everyone's taste is different.

One person's 'brilliant' is another's 'worthy' (and not in a good way). The most important thing is to figure out what you like and find someone who produces it well - and, if possible, ethically.

And it that means spending a little extra, at least you know what you're paying for.

Five treats for your Valentine

* Le Comptoir de Mathilde Chocolate Hearts, RRP 5.95, 80g: If your loved one favours Belgian chocolate, this solid slab decorated with heart-shaped sweets makes a pretty treat.

* Bean & Goose Limited Edition Chocolate Bars, RRP 5.50, 80g: Just 500 bars of this will be made, featuring single origin dark chocolate from Ecuador (76pc) with candied orange, fennel seed and bee pollen.

* Bean & Goose Limited Edition Sharing Slab, RRP 29.50, 500g: Indulge the milk chocolate lover in your life with milk chocolate Arriba (38pc) from Ecuador topped with Wexford honey-roasted hazelnuts and pear, Wexford lavender and cornflower.

* Wilkies Luxurious Dark Chocolate Selection, RRP 20: A selection of dark chocolates made with award-winning organic Tumbes (75pc) from Peru flavoured with salted caramel, praline, coconut and mint.

* Hazel Mountain Chocolate Valentines Truffle Collection, RRP 18 (left): A collection of handmade truffles featuring bean-to-bar chocolate crafted in the heart of the Burren.
Insurance premiums are so high that it can be cheaper to rent a car on a regular basis. That is certainly what education expert Sue Whyte discovered after she was quoted a huge figure following an accident.

Even though she has a good job, she baulked at the cost. Now she rents a car most of the time and uses it for extensive travel around the country.

It is, she has calculated, far cheaper to rent than to run a vehicle with insurance at such prohibitive levels.

Apart from underlining the impact of soaring insurance costs and dismissing widely-held perceptions about renting a car, her experience also reflects a growing trend of people 'using' rather than owning their mode of transport.

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But it was the cost of insurance that prompted Ms Whyte's ultimate radical decision. Sue (34) had been driving for years and, with that one exception, had a clean safety record.

"I had a good job but I still couldn't afford the premium they were quoting me."

So she sat down after her accident two years ago (for which she accepted liability) and, on the advice of a friend, 'did the maths'.

She could scarcely believe the figures. With a little bit of planning and shrewd use of comparison websites, she now finds herself better off renting after tax, depreciation, repairs etc are taken into account.

"I don't have to worry about a thing. I have a new car all the time, when and where I want it."

It all began with the accident in March 2015. Her car, a Kia Rio diesel, was out of commission as the damage was 5,000 and it was technically 'written off'. So when it came time to renew insurance the following month she had no car.

As a result she was classified as 'New Business'. Her premium soared from a previous, never-had-an-accident 700 (it used to be 200 but like everyone else she was victim of huge increases) to as much as 2,700.

Other companies wouldn't quote her because she had a liability outstanding. She finally got a letter of 'refusal to quote' from another company and that put her back in play with her original outlet, who in turn quoted her a sizzling price. At the time she was commuting 15km each way from Mullingar to Multyfarnham, Co Westmeath - and had to use a bicycle.

A friend told her he had worked out the figs; hiring a car would cost much the same as her insurance would be for her own. And that was before other items, such as being insured, servicing etc were taken into account.

She discovered she could hire a small car, such as a Volkswagen Polo for as little as 7-a-day or 49/week all in.

Sue, a secondary school teacher is based in Dublin now and cycles or uses public transport a lot. But her work for education and trading organisation Amazing Brains takes her all over the country for study skills workshops in primary and secondary schools. It involves big mileage; she reckons 50,000km a year.

She now hires a larger car, a Hyundai i30, from Enterprise Rent-a-Car Ireland for both the big mileage and to bring materials with her.

And it costs? "It costs 3,000 a year all in. That's everything covered. Everything. Insurance, tax and I don't have to worry about anything going wrong, or punctures. Sometimes I hold onto a car for months. Sometimes I change more frequently. I have to leave it back for a check over after every rental period. That means it's cleaned as well. Then I can choose a newer model if I want to. Typically I hire a car for a month at a time but in reality I have one nearly all the time." She deals with the Long Mile Road office of Enterprise.

But is there not a lot of other paper work and checking? "Not at all. I have often booked a car at 3pm and picked it up at 4pm. If I give better notice they will pick me up and bring me to the car. And drop me home after I leave it back."

One of the few stipulations is that the car is left back with a full tank of petrol. She emphasises that she keeps right up to date with the best deals by using comparison websites.

Apart from insurance, the big saving is deprecation. A car covering 50,000km a year would easily fall in value by 2,500/3,000 a year initially. And there is no NCT to worry about, no road tax - the list goes on.

Which explains why, for the equivalent of 60-a-week (plus fuel costs, of course) she doesn't see why she should bother going through the process of trying to get insurance quotes for a car of her own.

The irony is she made all these discoveries due to difficulties getting a realistic insurance quote in the first place. "I never thought of rental. You think of it as something you do on holidays. If you're cute and live in Dublin you can do this, though I did it when I was coming up from Mullingar for a while too.

"I have use for a car five-to-seven days a week. I tend to keep it over the weekend for convenience and for driving down to see my parents."

Her experience with the insurance industry has yielded many lessons and criticisms, especially how dealings with it can be a protracted, expensive business.

"It's manic when you're paying more for your insurance than you are for your car. I don't see any reason to stop hiring. It's just bizarre how convenient it is."

George O'Connor, MD of Enterprise Rent-A-Car Ireland, says: "Sue's story shows how out of synch our car insurance market is when a single lady who works full-time cannot afford her car insurance due to failures within the system. This matter is serious and is something our company has actively engaged on with government groups."
Close to a quarter of people convicted of drink driving were found to be four times over the legal blood/alcohol limit. Stock Image: PA

An automatic driving ban for anyone caught drink driving is among tough new measures Transport Minister Shane Ross intends to impose to reduce the carnage on our roads.

Noting that close to a quarter of people (22pc) convicted of drink driving were found to be four times over the legal blood/alcohol limit, Mr Ross will tell a Dail committee today the current sanction of three penalty points for a drink driving conviction is not enough to deter people from getting behind the wheel after drinking.

He intends to replace it with an all-out driving ban as well as four other hard-hitting bills on road safety which he called "somewhat unprecedented but entirely necessary".

"I am extremely concerned about the statistics around intoxicated driving and I am determined that this area will be tackled as a matter of urgency," he will tell the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport. Despite "hard hitting" measures like mandatory alcohol testing at roadside checkpoints, the lowering of the legal blood/alcohol limit for drivers and "tougher penalties" for those convicted of drink driving, "there is still an average of 152 drivers arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence each week," he notes.

"Clearly this is just not acceptable. To that end I am concerned that in certain cases where people have breached the alcohol limit while driving, the awarding of three penalty points sends out the message that it is not a serious offence.

"I therefore intend to remove the current penalty and replace it with a disqualification period so that all people who are found to be drink driving will receive an automatic disqualification from driving."

Expand Close Clampdown: Transport Minister Shane Ross. Photo: Tom Burke / Facebook

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Mr Ross said 38pc of all collisions between 2008 and 2012 involved alcohol consumption by the driver and gardai saw a 35pc increase in drink driving arrests between December 1 and January 8 last year.

However, Kerry TD Michael Healy-Rae has warned that we cant rush changes to drink driving legislation in the way Donald Trump is making rushed decisions in the US.

The TD, who has supported allowing drink driving in rural areas, was speaking to Newstalk breakfast.

He admitted he had reservations about the measures proposed by Transport Minister Shane Ross.

You could do something with law that could have a detrimental effect and have an effect that people might not actually want, he said.

You have to take everything into account. Its a bit like whats happening in America at the moment with president Trump.

Hes making an awful lot of rushed decisions that when you look at it are they really being thought through and pout through the political process? My belief is that theyre not," he said.

We certainly dont want to go down that road in Ireland we have to be prudent and sensible.

Mr Healy Rae said the road death rates on Irish roads needs to be tackled but that a wide range of issues were behind the high number of road deaths in Ireland.

He said he may find he is supportive of the measures proposed by Mr Ross when he considers them fully.

Other measures he intends to introduce include allowing for the cross-border exchange of vehicle registration and driver data and to establish a database of disqualified drivers.

The Road Traffic (Master Licence Record) Bill 2017 will also link vehicles to drivers for the first time and the introduction of the Road Traffic (Compulsory Motor Insurance ) Bill will improve existing motor insurance legislation.
Love is in the air at this Thai rainforest canopy suite, judged the 'World's Sexiest Bedroom' ahead of Valentine's Day.

The Bird's Nest Villa at Keemla Resort in Phuket was described as "heaven" in the UK's annual Mr & Mrs Smith Hotel Awards.

"There are no hard and fast rules for creating the perfect boudoir," according to the boutique hotel collection. But the world's sexiest bedroom should "pull out all the stops to light your fire... it has to delight, excite and surprise."

We'll second that. Keemla's pool villas are loosely based on ancient tribe dwellings, and set just a short drive from Patong beach. Feeling giddy yet?

Expand Close Bird's Nest Villa, Keemla, Thailand. Photo: mrandmrssmith.com / Facebook

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The Bird's Nest editions are the cherry on the cake, boasting woven wood walls and floor-to-ceiling glass overlooking the rainforest, mountains and sea, with four-poster beds, alfresco tubs and of course, your own private pool.

And the price? Rates start from 496 per night going to press.

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The Mr & Mrs Smith Hotel Awards celebrate "stylish places to stay" all over the world with members voting on their favourites over 12 categories. The winners are selected by a panel of "tastemakers, specialists and industry insiders".

Smith Hotels' Top 10 Sexiest Bedrooms are as follows:

Bird's Nest Villas, Keemla, Thailand Atelier Room, NoMad Hotel, New York Marrangga Villa, Nihiwatu, Sumba, Indonesia The Love Room, Areias do Seixo, Torres Vedras, Portugal Val D'Orcia, Monteverdi, Tuscany, Italy Maharani Suite, La Residence, Winelands, South Africa Junior Suites, Jardins Secrets, Languedoc-Rousillon, France Room 19, El Fenn, Marrakech, Morocco Casa de Arvore, Uxua Casa Hotel & Spa, Bahia, Brazil Room One, Coqui Coqui Coba Residence & SPa, Mexico

Halcyon House in Cabarita Beach, Australia, was voted the overall Best Hotel for 2016 in the only category voted for by the public.

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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.
The government has tried on more than one occasion to shut down El-Nadeem Center

Egyptian authorities on Thursday shut down a rights group that treats torture victims, the latest in a series of such government attempts against El Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture.

"A great police force has sealed the centre with red wax on our off-day," Aida Seif Elldawla, a psychiatrist and one of the centre's co-founders told Ahram Online.

No staff member was there at the time, Seif Elldawla said, adding that police forces arrested the doorman, questioned him and let him go.

"This is the latest in a series of attacks against whoever says an opposing word in this country."

Authorities have attempted on numerous occasions over the past year to shut down El Nadeem Centre, which provides psychological support to victims of torture and to families of missing individuals.

In February 2016, the government ordered the closure of the centre without providing an official reason. The centre challenged the order in court and has continued to operate.

Two months later, authorities tried to shut down the centre again without showing official documentation but its doctors refused the order.

In November, the group's bank account was suspended pending its registration as a non-governmental organisation before it was lifted a week later.

Nadeem is already registered as a clinic with the health ministry.

Also in November, Seif Elldawla was banned from traveling to Tunisia to attend a conference on the rehabilitation of torture victims in North Africa.

Late last year, Egypt's parliament approved a contentious bill that regulates the activities of NGOs in Egypt, a move that sparked fears of tightening restrictions on civil society.

The law was sent to President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to sign into law.

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For all the things low-information voters supportive of US President Donald Trump are not supposed to care about (eg. lies, White House chaos, foreign policy), there are, it's fair to say, two things that will make a difference to them both in preference and turnout in the 2018 midterm election. The good news for Democrats is that both factors do not weigh in Mr Trump's favour.

His voters will want to know: Did he do what he said he would on the important issues? That means delivering on Obamacare, a tax cut, and border security.

On Obamacare, Tennessee Republican senator Bob Corker made a Kinsley gaffe - meaning he told an impolitic truth.

The 'Huffington Post' reports: "Asked when Republicans might get down to the business of crafting an Obamacare alternative, Corker said he wasn't sure. 'I have no idea,' he said. 'I'm not on a committee that deals with this . . . but I don't see any congealing around ideas yet. I think it's fine that we take our time . . . I mean, we're dealing with something that is very important, very complicated. It's explosive if not handled properly, and we should take our time and do it right."

Every email Speaker of the House Paul Ryan issues bragging that everything is moving ahead on replacing Obamacare makes me think not much of anything is happening.

Mr Corker makes sense when he warns about the perils of reconciliation. The 'Huffington Post' continued: "Repealing taxes is popular, but Corker warned that doing so sets up a perpetual trap for Republicans. 'If you repeal the taxes on the front end and you end up with, say, a Medicaid expansion, or even if it winds up being refundable tax credits, you're still expending dollars,' he said. 'If you repeal all the sources of income on the front end, then,' Corker paused to emphasize the absurdity of the position, 'it's difficult to me to see how you ever get to a place where you actually fund what you're expending. Then you've self-created the doc-fix scenario, where each year it just keeps getting extended, you're piling up the deficits, because I don't see Republicans voting for a tax increase. That's why to me it's important that this happen simultaneously. I don't see a scenario where people are pushing to insure less people. You gotta have money to pay for that.'"

So what about tax reform? That's not going much of anywhere either. The border tax has thrown a monkey wrench into an already complicated issue (even without that, the House Republicans have never written and put up for a vote a complete tax plan).

The border tax idea, driven in large part by the Speaker, will be exceptionally divisive just on the GOP side.

Freedom Partners, a Koch brothers group, and many business groups are opposed to the idea. "Walmart Stores Inc, Target Corp, Nike Inc and Toyota Motor Corp joined an opposing coalition, warning border adjustment will cause consumer price increases," the 'Wall Street Journal' said, adding that key lawmakers are already raising concerns. "Every chip away at unanimity makes tax overhaul tougher. Rep Pat Tiberi (Ohio) says some of his constituents back border adjustment while others are worried. . .Rep Pat Meehan (Pennsylvania) says refiners in his district rely on imported oil and that he is arguing for an exception. 'It puts us at a remarkable competitive disadvantage,' he says. At least seven GOP senators have expressed concerns about border adjustment, including Utah's Mike Lee, Arkansas's John Boozman, Georgia's David Perdue and Texas's John Cornyn. Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (Utah) said last week he had questions about border adjustment and that the Senate would put its own stamp on the tax bill. 'I worry that consumers, my Kansas constituents, are the ones who pay the tax,' says Senator Jerry Moran (Kansas). He is concerned the world might respond in ways that hurt his state's wheat growers and airplane makers. 'I assume you get into a battle with other countries,' he says, 'and it affects the exporters'."

So tax reform can hardly be called a sure thing.

Border security? Many in Congress are threatening not to pay for Mr Trump's wall. Lawmakers and local officials are threatening pushback on the sanctuary cities executive order. Also, of course, the travel ban has the administration tied up in litigation and, according to polls, is very unpopular.

Maybe Mr Trump will admit net immigration is now flowing to Mexico and declare victory in the effort to stop the non-existent "flood" of illegals.

In sum, not a lot of what Mr Trump emphasised in the campaign will likely come to fruition by 2018. If it does, Democrats will make hay out of those who come out worse off as a result of replacing Obamacare and point to gains by the rich in the tax plan.

If those issues aren't going to produce concrete legislative results, how else could Mr Trump and Republicans earn voters' continued indulgence? In essence, Mr Trump promised a better life for the down-and-out in the Rust Belt and the resentful anti-elitists everywhere. What will be the evidence of that?

Unemployment presumably would need to go even lower, coal jobs return, and productivity spike, resulting in wage growth. Take-home pay would have to rise, at the very least. Accomplishing those may be more challenging than passing an Obamacare replacement.

Whatever Mr Trump thought he'd deliver may prove elusive as the problems of Rust Belt voters are the result not of "foreigners stealing their jobs" or "dumb trade deals", but long-term, knotty problems with no easy solution. He has no idea how to make the transition to a 21st-century economy while making sure millions don't get left behind. He never even talks about juicing productivity, let alone puts forth a plan to do so.

If Mr Trump does not deliver on his major initiatives and does not bring about an economic renaissance for the "forgotten man and woman", will they stick with him, or stay home in 2018? Like it or not, 2018 will be a referendum on Trump and Trumpism. That's why Democrats shouldn't be too pessimistic about their near-term political prospects.

Jennifer Rubin is a 'Washington Post' columnist
The visit of President Michael D Higgins to Peru, Colombia and Cuba is an opportunity to draw attention to the important work done by Irish NGOs and missionaries in Latin America over many years.

Irish missionaries have a long history of working in Latin America in partnership with local communities. Today, they work with communities to demand justice and human rights, create sustainable livelihoods, provide education and implement measures for disaster reduction.

In Peru, the Columban Fathers provide citizenship training to children aged six to 12. These children work with local community organisations in Lima to create safe public places free from violence. The Presentation Sisters are also working to train residents in Lima to build safe buildings that can withstand tremors in earthquake-prone sites.

Christian Aid Ireland, with the support of Irish Aid, works on issues of peace, land rights, and tax justice in Colombia. It works with local organisations and communities on human rights issues and supports protection of human rights defenders through advocacy, accompaniment, and awareness-raising.

The relationship between Ireland and Peru and Colombia celebrated by Mr Higgins's visit would not be nearly as strong were it not for the essential work, historically and in the present day, of Irish NGOs and missionaries. This important contribution should be recognised and acknowledged.

Suzanne Keatinge

CEO, Dochas

Dublin 8

Labour has abandoned justice

In defending the decision to confer the freedom of our capital city on Barack Obama, Mayor Brendan Carr and his Labour Party colleague cited Mr Obama's work of bringing "communities together".

This confirms once and for all the modern Labour Party simply has abandoned the pursuit of fairness and justice in society and, indeed, has now not a clue what it even looks like. The fact is Mr Obama did the complete opposite.

The latest report from the World Economic Forum shows that America, under his leadership, became significantly more unequal and divided, dropping 11 places down the Inclusive Development Index standing, now a lowly 23rd on a table consisting of 30 nations.

Mr Obama will be at ease in modern Ireland complete with unprecedented levels of poverty, homelessness, and division, a position reached with no small contribution from that same Labour Party.

Jim O'Sullivan

Rathedmond, Co Sligo

TDs blind to rubbish dumping

I received a response from Environment Minister Denis Naughten today in answer to my suggestion that a deposit charge return be put on plastic bottles and drink cans. It read: "Ireland is ahead of its European neighbours in recycling."

In the past, I have been given the same information by both Phil Hogan and Alan Kelly. Why are our TDs blind to the problems of widespread rubbish dumping in rural Ireland? Do they want pictures and videos? I am sure your readers can supply them.

Mary O'Callaghan

Enniscorthy, Co Wexford

Clever clogs I want to meet

I was thinking about the odds of winning the Lotto and got thinking about the amount of money the bookies lost last year as a result of Brexit, Trump and Leicester winning the English Premier League.

So, who were the clever clogs who put their money on Leicester winning in 2016 and being relegated in 2017?

I want to meet them.

Damien Carroll

Kingswood, Dublin

Time to treat Trump as a friend

The media is continually displaying bias against US President Donald Trump, sometimes even being hostile about the suggestion of him being invited to visit Ireland.

Has anyone stopped to consider that maybe he would not want to visit a small, insignificant member state of the European Union about which he is critical and dismissive. Meanwhile, in Brussels, he knows he is being labelled as a danger to the Union. Not a very complimentary view of someone who is paying the major share of the cost of defending Europe.

For Mr Trump it's 'America first', so he wants jobs returned to the US and taxes paid there and not here. He is of German/Scottish descent, so has nowhere to visit on the Auld Sod. On top of that, he does not drink and would have no interest in sharing a pint of the black stuff with the Taoiseach, watched by adoring crowds like previous presidents.

Rather than vilifying him, it's time to treat him with respect and as a friend. He's here to stay for at least four years and we will need him to help us through the crisis that Brexit will certainly cause us in a year or two. In fact, at that time, he may be our only friend because the EU has already indicated that we will get no special treatment.

William Shortland

Blessington, Co Wicklow

FF powerless to bring change

I am surprised that the Irish Independent published a letter by Declan Foley, of Berwick, Australia (February 7), praising Stephen Donnelly for joining Fianna Fail.

The letter contained a glaring error when Mr Foley stated that Fianna Fail in government always brought about revolutionary change like the Shannon electricity generation and Bord na Mona.

The Shannon hydroelectric scheme was started in 1925 and was opened in July 1929 by the then Cumann na nGaedheal government under WT Cosgrave.

The minister responsible was Patrick McGilligan and he was repeatedly criticised by the then Fianna Fail leader, Eamon de Valera, who said that it was a white elephant and that it would impoverish the country.

For Mr Foley's information, Fianna Fail did not form a government until 1932. He should get his facts correct about Ireland.

Henry Quirke

Kildare, Co Kildare

Votes politicians' only concern

The recent political and public outrage and ministerial shame surrounding the 'RTE Investigates' discovery of long HSE waiting lists continues. Health Minister Simon Harris has announced the development of a priority action plan to deal with waiting lists in excess of 18 months for orthopaedics etc.

Perhaps it has escaped the attention of HSE senior management and the Health Minister that patients awaiting necessary oral surgical procedures in our public health 'service' currently wait for periods in excess of three years.

Politicians in general are only worried about the votes attendant on orthodontic services. For evidence, check the Dail record for parliamentary questions relating to dental or oral health matters.

Dr Maurice Quirke

Dental surgeon, New Ross, Co Wexford
Model and actress Rosie Huntington-Whiteley has announced she and her fiance Jason Statham are expecting their first child together.

The Mad Max: Fury Road actress took to Instagram on Thursday to share the exciting news with fans.

"Very happy to share that Jason and I are expecting!!" she wrote in a caption attached to a photo Jason took of herself flaunting her large baby bump while sporting a bikini on the beach.

The 29-year-old first sparked rumours she might be expecting last month after she posted a photo on social media that appeared to allude to a pregnancy. In the photo, she is seen wearing uncharacteristically baggy clothing while petting a horse, and she added the cryptic message: "Here's to fresh starts and exciting prospects for the new year. Wishing everyone a happy and healthy 2017".

Many fans quizzed Rosie in the comments section of the image, asking if she was pregnant.

She and movie action man Jason have been dating since 2010 and they became engaged last year.

Very happy to share that Jason and I are expecting!! Lots of love Rosie x  Photo by @jasonstatham A photo posted by Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (@rosiehw) on Feb 9, 2017 at 10:55am PST

Both stars have previously spoken about how much they love each other and Rosie has been chatting about her desire to have children for years.

"Having a family is something I think about for sure, and whether I'd live here in America or in England (to raise the child), but it's not always as simple as that," she told the UK magazine Express in 2015. "I have no idea what will happen but it'll be interesting to find out, right?"

Furious 7 bad guy Jason, 49, has previously praised Rosie for being his rock, adding, "I think behind every successful man theres a stronger woman thats responsible for almost every good thing we do, he said to Total Film around the time of his engagement to the actress.

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Krishna Barot, left, with her babyNitul and security guard Michelle McKeller, who helped deliver Nitul after Krishna went into labour unexpectedly at Silverburn shopping centre near Glasgow

A woman who gave birth in a shopping centre has been reunited with the security guard who helped deliver her baby when the infant arrived unexpectedly.

Krishna Barot, 32, was at Silverburn in Glasgow, shopping for aromatherapy oils for the water birth she had planned when she started having contractions.

Her waters broke when she went to the toilet and son Nitul was born 15 minutes later, weighing 7lb 3oz.

First aiders Michelle McKeller and Catherine Brisbane rushed to help deliver the baby, whose birth certificate states that he was born in "Silverburn Shopping Centre, Barrhead Road" on July 15 2016 at 8pm.

He is thought to be the first baby born in a shopping centre in Scotland.

Mrs Barot, from Crookston, Glasgow, was two days overdue when she visited the mall and initially did not realise she was going into labour.

She said: "I was walking through Silverburn with my family, shopping for aromatherapy oils for my planned water pool birth, when I started to experience some pain. As the pain wasn't constant, I chose to ignore it and only realised it was fullblown contractions when I visited the ladies' toilets a bit later.

"By this point the pain was unbearable and I could barely stand, so my mother-in-law called for help, which is when Michelle and Catherine turned up.

"Michelle immediately recognised that I was in labour and helped me lie down in the mother and baby cubicle, as I was starting to lose consciousness.

"I could hear everyone shouting "Push, push, you can do it!" and within a matter of minutes Nitul was born. It all happened so quickly."

Mrs Barot, who also has a three-year-old daughter, added: "The staff were so quick to respond and did an amazing job. I am so very grateful and can't thank them enough."

Security officer Ms McKeller said that being a mother of two herself helped her know what to do.

She said: "As one of Silverburn's first aiders, I was alerted by one of our cleaning staff that a mother was going into labour in the ladies' toilets. I was with Krishna for about 10 minutes before the baby was crowning, then within five minutes Nitul was born.

"I'm glad we were there to help, because it all happened so quickly - without us she would have been by herself.

"It was an absolutely incredible experience and I am so pleased to see Nitul and his mum doing so well."

She added: "It feels good, the fact that you've brought a wee kid into the world and it's a special kind of satisfaction you have knowing that you actually achieved that."

Silverburn management have given the infant 500 worth of baby goodies to celebrate his arrival.

General manager David Pierotti said: "Silverburn offers a wide range of facilities for mothers and mums-to-be, but this is the first time we have delivered a baby.

"We are thrilled that Krishna and Nitul have come back to the centre to visit us and astonished to see that his birth certificate really does say he was born in Silverburn.

"Hats off to the amazing staff who stepped in and went far beyond the call of duty to deliver Nitul safely."
MPs sang EU anthem Ode To Joy during a crucial vote on legislation concerning Brexit talks in the Commons

Ministers have been pressed to allow singing in the Commons so MPs can hear more from the "SNP choir".

MPs from the pro-EU SNP were told off by Deputy Speaker Lindsay Hoyle for whistling and singing Ode To Joy as a crucial vote took place on legislation which will allow Theresa May to start formal Brexit talks.

With defeat inevitable for the anti-Brexit contingent, the sound of the official EU anthem drifted across the chamber.

Veteran Labour MP Paul Flynn described the singing as the "only bright spark" of the night and asked Commons Leader David Lidington for a debate on whether procedure during votes could be changed.

Mr Lidington reminded colleagues that those wishing to sing could join the parliamentary choir.

Speaking in the Commons, M r Flynn - who was celebrating his 82nd birthday - said: "A suggestion that might appeal to you with your great record as an innovator and a trailblazer in this House is we should have a debate on procedure during divisions so that we can enjoy the singing of the Scottish National Party choir.

"The only bright spark in yesterday evening's bleak and mean-spirited chauvinism was hearing those glorious words of the European anthem."

Mr Flynn then recited a line of the song in German, adding: "And the essence of the European ideal - Alle Menschen werden Bruder, wo dein sanfter Flugel weilt.

"The looking forward to the great European ideal on which this Government is trampling now, the idea that a day will come when all humanity will be one family."

Mr Flynn (Newport West) was cheered by SNP MPs for his remarks.

Mr Lidington replied: "Well, it's a Welshman who highlights the importance of singing.

"I think my advice to honourable ladies and gentlemen on the Scottish National Party benches would be that we have an all-party, and staff as well as members, parliamentary choir that meets in the crypt every Monday evening.

"I know that many SNP members would be welcome to join those who already participate."

Tory MP Tom Pursglove (Corby) was next to ask a question, although he remarked: "I have to say I'm not sure how to follow that."

Some MPs shouted: "Sing."

Mr Pursglove did not sing.
An Australian man whose excavator fell into a dam was "extremely lucky to survive" after he was trapped just above mud for hours, with just his nose and forehead above the surface.

Daniel Miller (45) was driving the three-tonne vehicle at the remote property in Charlotte Bay, 180 miles north of Sydney, when the banks of the small dam collapsed.

Pinned by the excavator's roll bar as his feet slowly sank in the mud, Mr Miller had to arch his back to keep his nose above water and occasionally yell out for help.

A neighbour 500 metres away eventually heard his shouts and went for help.

While rescuers said the ordeal had lasted two hours, Mr Miller's relieved wife, Saimaa, said he had been stuck for five hours.

"Dan is ok!," she wrote on Facebook. "He was trapped ... with only his nose and forehead out of the water, with the weight of his excavator on his back, and with the boggy dam ground below him slowly slipping away. For five hours.

"It was literally sheer mental strength and determination to survive that got him through. As well as being fit, strong and healthy. Nothing to do with luck. Legendary effort from a legendary man."

Chief Inspector Neil Stephens told NBN News that Mr Miller was "extremely lucky to survive".

"He was trapped such that only just a part of his face was above the water, just his nose and his forehead was above the water," he said.

With the dam floor too unstable for rescuers to lift the excavator, firefighters had to dig beneath Mr Miller's body to allow him to slide out beneath the bar.

He was taken to hospital in Newcastle, where he was treated for minor back injuries and hypothermia.

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
Canadian foreign affairs minister Chrystia Freeland says new trade tariffs would be mutually harmful (AP)

Canada's foreign minister has warned the Trump administration that it will retaliate if the US applies new trade tariffs.

Foreign affairs minister Chrystia Freeland said her government strongly opposed any new possible tariffs, which would be mutally harmful, and warned that Canada would respond.

More than 75% of Canada's exports go to the US and 35 states count Canada as their leading export market.

President Trump has talked about renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Ms Freeland spoke during a trip to Washington in which she met US secretary of state Rex Tillerson, House of Representatives speaker Paul Ryan and senators John McCain and Bob Corker.

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau is expected to visit Mr Trump this month.

AP
A Giza criminal court sentenced on Thursday afternoon the Mubarak-era irrigation minister Mohamed Nasr Allam to seven-years in jail on corruption charges.

The court also sentenced in absentia the CEO of the Egyptian-Kuwaiti Company for Land Reclamation Ahmed Kora in the same case to seven-years in jail.

The verdict can be appealed.

Allam was found guilty of illicit profiteering and using his post in allowing the Egyptian-Kuwaiti company to use 26 thousand feddans in Giza governorate the company had formally acquired for land reclamation and farming for real estate development.

The prosecution said the violations by Allam and Kora cost the treassury EGP 37 billion.

Allam served as irrigation minister during the rule of ousted president Hosni Mubarak from March 2009 to 30 January 2011.

Investigations into the case date back to 2011 following Mubarak's ouster.

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Madeleine McCann's parents have not be cleared as innocent in their daughter's disappearance, a Portuguese judge has said.

Kate and Gerry McCann have denied all allegations that they were involved in their three-year-old daughter's disappearance while on holiday in Praia da Luz.

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Last week, the couple lost an appeal against the author of a book who alleged they were involved in the toddlers disappearance.

Portugals Supreme Court ruled Kate and Gerry McCann cannot sue the former Portuguese detective who published the book for libel.

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The Supreme Court judges said that lifting their status as formal suspects does not mean that they were innocent.

The court said it wasn't their job to determine whether the McCanns bore any criminal responsibility over their daughter's disappearance and said it would be wrong for anyone to draw any inferences about the couple's guilt or innocence from their ruling.

According to the Telegraph, they said: "It should not be said that the appellants were cleared via the ruling announcing the archiving of the criminal case. In truth, that ruling was not made in virtue of Portugal's Public Prosecution Service having acquired the conviction that the appellants hadn't committed a crime.

"The archiving of the case was determined by the fact that public prosecutors hadn't managed to obtain sufficient evidence of the practice of crimes by the appellants.

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"There is therefore a significant, and not merely a semantic difference, between the legally admissible foundations of the archive ruling. It doesn't therefore seem acceptable that the ruling, based on the insufficiency of evidence, should be equated to proof of innocence."

They added: "It's true that the aforementioned criminal inquiry ended up being archived, namely because none of the apparent evidence that led to the appellants being made 'arguidos' was subsequently confirmed or consolidated.

"However even the archive ruling raises serious concerns relating to the truth of the allegation that Madeleine was kidnapped."

The McCanns were lifted of the status of a formal suspect in 2008.
A Russian court has found the opposition activist Alexey Navalny guilty of embezzlement, in a verdict that prevents him from standing against Vladimir Putin at next year's presidential election.

In a hearing in the city of Kirov yesterday, Judge Alexei Vtyurin found Navalny guilty of embezzling timber worth 16 million rubles (about 250,000).

Judge Vtyurin sentenced Navalny to five years probation. His co-defendant, Petr Ofitserov, received four years probation. Navalny, who denied the allegations, was first convicted of fraud in connection with a timber firm called KirovLes in 2013.

The case was heard again after the European Court of Human Rights said he was not given a fair hearing at the first trial.

Navalny and his supporters said the charges were politically motivated and the conviction designed to keep him off the ballot at the presidential elections in 2018.

Russian law forbids convicted criminals serving a sentence from standing for office.

"As we've said before: despite the guilty verdict, the campaign for Navalny to stand in the elections continues. It will achieve victory," Leonid Volkov, a close adviser to Navalny, wrote on Twitter after the verdict was read out.

"If you too dislike judges who word-for-word repeat verdicts that have already been found illegal and overturned, come here," he said in a tweet with a link to the campaign's website.

Navalny, a bitter critic of Mr Putin who led a series of anti-Kremlin protests in 2011 and 2012, announced his bid for the Kremlin in December last year.

Mr Putin is widely expected to win a fourth term as president of Russia at elections next year, although he has not yet announced whether he will run.

Many of Navalny's supporters hoped the Kremlin would calculate that allowing a genuine opposition figure to stand would lend greater legitimacy to Mr Putin's eventual victory than a race against the increasingly elderly and ineffective leaders of "systemic" opposition parties.

Yesterday's verdict will be widely seen as a signal that the authorities have decided not to take that risk, although some opposition activists have expressed hope the decision could later be reversed.

In 2013, Navalny's conviction in a separate case was unexpectedly over-turned and sent for retrial in what was widely seen as a decision to lend legitimacy to the election for mayor of Moscow.

Navalny stood in the election after the court decision and came second against Sergei Sobyanin, the Kremlin-backed candidate.
President Donald Trump watches as Vice President Mike Pence administers the oath of office to Attorney General Jeff Sessions (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

Jeff Sessions has been sworn in as US President Donald Trump's attorney general.

During an Oval Office ceremony, Mr Trump called Mr Sessions a man of integrity and principle, and someone who has devoted his life to the cause of justice.

Mr Sessions was sworn in the morning after the senate confirmed his nomination following a contentious confirmation process.

The Alabama politician resigned his senate seat shortly after his colleagues approved him on a 52-47 vote that broke largely along partisan lines.

Mr Sessions was the first sitting US senator to endorse Mr Trump.

He faced criticism from Democrats over his record on civil rights and immigration.

Republicans lauded his four decades of public service and his commitment to fairness and the rule of law.
Refugees walk among huts at the refugee camp in Dadaab (AP)

A Kenyan court has ruled that the government must not close the world's largest refugee camp and send more than 200,000 people back to war-torn Somalia.

The decision eases pressure on Somalis who feared the camp would close by the end of May.

Kenya's internal security minister abused his power by ordering the closure of Dadaab camp, Judge John Mativo said, adding that the minister and other officials had "acted in excess and in abuse of their power, in violation of the rule of law and in contravention of their oaths of office".

Rights groups Amnesty International, Kituo cha Sheria and the Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights had challenged the government's order to close the camp.

Kenya's government quickly said it will appeal against the ruling.

The judge called the order discriminatory, saying it goes against the Kenyan constitution as well as international treaties that protect refugees against being returned to a conflict zone.

President Uhuru Kenyatta's government has not proved Somalia is safe for the refugees to return, the judge said, also calling the orders to shut down the government's refugee department "null and void".

Somalia remains under threat of attacks from homegrown extremist group al-Shabab.

Some Kenyan officials have argued that the sprawling refugee camp near the border with Somalia has been used as a recruiting ground for al-Shabab and a base for launching attacks inside Kenya.

But Kenyan officials have not provided conclusive proof of that.

US President Donald Trump's temporary ban on travel from seven majority-Muslim countries, including Somalia, had put added pressure on the Dadaab refugees.

Last weekend, about 140 of the Somali refugees who had been on the brink of resettling in the United States were sent back to Dadaab instead.

Said Abuka, a community leader in Nairobi and a refugee for 22 years, said the court ruling would help the Somali refugees.

Newborn babies could not be registered as refugees because of the shutdown of Kenya's refugee department, he said.

"After months of anxiety because of the camp closure deadline hanging over their heads, increasingly restricted asylum options and the recent US administration suspension of refugee resettlement, the court's judgment offers Somali refugees a hope that they may still have a choice other than returning to insecure and drought-ridden Somalia," said Laetitia Bader, Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Al-Shabab has carried out several attacks on Kenya, which sent troops to Somalia in 2011 to fight the militants.

The attacks include the September 2013 attack on the Westgate mall that killed 67 people and the 2015 attack on Garissa University that killed 148 people, mostly students.

AP
A Syrian regime fighter aims an anti-tank missile system as they advance towards Hayyan oil field, east of the central Syrian Homs province. Photo: STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images

Syria's justice ministry yesterday rejected an Amnesty International report of mass hangings of as many as 13,000 people in a prison near Damascus, calling the allegations "totally untrue" and part of a smear campaign.

Syria's justice ministry yesterday rejected an Amnesty International report of mass hangings of as many as 13,000 people in a prison near Damascus, calling the allegations "totally untrue" and part of a smear campaign.

The ministry's statement, published by Syria's state-run news agency, came a day after Amnesty released its report, based on a year of research and interviews with 31 former detainees of the Saydnaya prison near Damascus and more than 50 former guards, prison officials, judges and experts.

Amnesty's report included chilling details from witnesses who saw various stages of the killings, down to the actual implementation and last-minute wishes of the men hanged, most of whom were civilians.

In Damascus, the justice ministry said "misleading and inciting" media outlets carried the Amnesty report with the intention to smear the Syrian government - particularly after recent "military victories against terrorists groups". The government refers to all armed opposition as "terrorists".

It also called the allegations "baseless" and stated that executions in Syria follow due process and various stages of litigations. It also questioned testimonies of survivors who are currently outside of Syria. "Why didn't the Syrian authorities execute them and why were they released if others were executed?" it said. "The justice ministry denies and condemns in the strongest terms what was reported, because it is not based on correct evidence, but on personal emotions that aim to achieve well-known political goals," the statement said.

Meanwhile, Syrian government jets bombed a rebel-held district of Homs in the west of the country yesterday, rescue workers and a monitoring group reported. A pro-Damascus media outlet said Syrian planes targeted militants in al-Waer after the insurgents fired at civilian areas in government-held Homs. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least eight people were killed.

A military media unit run by Assad ally Hezbollah said the militants had violated a ceasefire.
Protesters demonstrate about the bloody conflict outside the Syrian embassy in Belgrave Square, central London

A series of air strikes on an opposition-held district in Homs, Syria's third-largest city, have killed at least nine civilians, activists said.

Pro-government forces, presumably Russia or Syria, shelled the city's al-Waer neighbourhood with tank and artillery fire in conjunction with the air strikes, the Local Co-ordination Committees, an activist network, reported.

Government forces have kept the opposition-held neighbourhood under siege since 2013, according to the Washington-based Siege Watch.

An estimated 75,000 people are trapped inside.

The local civil defence search-and-rescue team, also known as the White Helmets, said the air strikes hit one of its centres in al-Waer, wounding one volunteer.

The government and its allies have regularly targeted hospitals and first responder positions in the course of the Syrian civil war, which is approaching its seventh year.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said nine civilians were killed in the raids.

Government forces retook most of the city in 2014, effectively ending an anti-government protest movement that had gripped Homs since 2011.

The al-Waer assault came a day after presumed Russian or Syrian government aircraft bombed the rebel-held city of Idlib and marked the second major violation of a month-old ceasefire between the government and rebels in as many days.

The Observatory said 24 civilians were killed in seven strikes across Idlib on Tuesday and the Idlib Civil Defence said 26 people were killed.

The December 30 ceasefire was brokered by Russia and Iran, both key allies of Syrian president Bashar Assad, and Turkey, which supports the opposition.

Each side has accused the other of repeated violations.

United Nations-sponsored talks on Syria are due to start in Geneva on February 20 and invitations to the discussions will be issued "in the coming days", UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

He said UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura and his team were continuing discussions and the invitations would go out once they reached "a position of comfort".

Earlier Mr de Mistura said invitations would be issued around Wednesday and if the Syrian opposition was not united, he would select the delegation and ensure it was as inclusive as possible.

Mr Dujarric would not say whether talks with opposition groups were still going on or whether Mr de Mistura was choosing the opposition delegation.

Later, the Pentagon said two US air strikes near Idlib last week killed 11 al Qaida operatives, including one with ties to Osama bin Laden and other senior al Qaida leaders.

Navy captain Jeff Davis said an air strike on Friday killed 10 operatives in a building used as an al Qaida meeting site and a raid the next day killed Abu Hani al-Masri, who US officials say oversaw the creation and operation of al Qaida training camps in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s.

Al-Masri had ties to bin Laden and to Ayman al-Zawahiri, who became the leader of al Qaida when bin Laden was killed by US forces in 2011, Capt Davis said.

Turkey, meanwhile, is in talks with Russia to co-ordinate troop movements around northern Syria to avoid any encounter with the Syrian military, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan's spokesman said.

Syrian government forces and Turkish-backed opposition fighters are in a race to seize the town of al-Bab from the Islamic State terror group.

Turkish and Syrian forces have so far avoided direct conflict, despite hostile rhetoric between Mr Erdogan and Assad.

The twin offensives put the two forces within two miles of one another, on opposite sides of al-Bab.

Mr Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said Turkish troops had reached the centre of al-Bab and were fighting to secure it, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists inside Syria, said the Turkish force was still on the town's outskirts.

AP
India Kirksey (20) was arrested in Ohio after someone watching the live stream reportedly called the authorities from more than 1,000 miles away in Texas

A mother has been charged with raping a four-year-old boy and broadcasting it live on an internet video streaming application.

India Kirksey, from West Hill, Ohio, was arrested after someone watched her recording of the incident called the authorities from more than 1,000 miles away in Texas.

Prosecutors said she had recorded herself performing a sex act with the child using the Periscope app, which she then uploaded to the internet.

Police said she confessed to having sex with the boy during an interview.

A family member of Ms Kirksey told the 9 On Your Side news channel, that she was not guilty and suffers with special needs.

"We as family try to the best we can to get her therapy and talk to her, maintain her safety, but sometimes you can only do so much," said the woman, who did not wish to be identified. "This is not in her character. It's not something she would do."

The alleged incident took place in January, but social services were only recently alerted to it after receiving the call from Texas.

The case is scheduled to go to a grand jury on later this month. Ms Kirksey's bail amount is said to stand at $350,000 (282,000).
Women seeking an abortion will have to obtain written permission from the foetus father, if an Oklahoma bill passes into law.

"No abortion shall be performed in this state without the written informed consent of the father of the foetus," the bill read.

If the identified man argues that he is not the father, he can legally demand a paternity test, which could delay the abortion procedure by at least three days.

The only exceptions in the bill apply to cases where the father is dead and the woman proves this by signing a legally-binding statement, or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. Women whose lives are endangered by the pregnancy are also excluded from obtaining consent.

The Oklahoma bill has been introduced just one month after Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson signed a law that allows a womans spouse or family member to sue an abortion provider. Under this new anti-abortion law, there is no exception for rape or incest.

The Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to demand spousal consent as far back as 1976, three years after the same court guaranteed that a woman had the constitutional right to have an abortion at certain stages of her pregnancy.

Despite the federal protections, hundreds of state-wide laws have gradually impacted and eroded womens right to choose.

In Kentucky, House Bill 2 will force doctors to describe an ultrasound to women seeking an abortion. Even if she objects, the doctor must describe the foetus shape to her, even if the doctor thinks it could do the patient more harm than good.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, there have been 238 state-level restrictions imposed since 2010, and 50 last year alone.

There are now 15 states that ban abortions on pain-capable unborn children, as described by pro-life groups. This unscientific theory - that a foetus can feel pain even in the very early stages of pregnancy - led to the Ohio heartbeat bill, which bans an abortion as soon as a heartbeat can be heard and often before a woman even realises she is pregnant.

Ohio Governor John Kasich vetoed the bill but instead signed a new bill which bans abortion at 20 weeks.

Even at the national level, a wave of anti-abortion bills have been introduced.

A total of 14 House bills and two Senate bills were introduced last month for the current session of Congress, and must be passed by both chambers and signed by the President before becoming law.

They include the "End Trafficking of the Terminated Unborn Act", which incorrectly states there is an industry in trafficking foetal tissue, and the "Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act", a violent rhetoric which has fed into President Trumps mind set.

At a debate versus Hillary Clinton in 2016, he insisted that babies are "ripped from the womb" at nine months.
Rebel fire on an aid distribution centre in Syria's Aleppo city has killed three people, including a Red Crescent volunteer and a child, a monitor said Thursday.

The Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) and the International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed the volunteer's death in Wednesday's incident.

"One SARC staff member was killed. Seven SARC volunteers and staff were injured, three of them severely," a statement said.

"Two beneficiaries who had come to the centre to receive humanitarian aid also died, and several others were injured."

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor identified those two killed as a woman and a child.

The rocket fire hit a SARC distribution centre in the Hamdaniyah neighbourhood of the city, which was fully recaptured by government forces in December after a months-long siege and heavy fighting.

The Observatory also reported five children were killed Wednesday when unexploded ordnance detonated in the Bustan al-Qasr neighbourhood, a rebel-held district recaptured by government forces in December.

Families who fled formerly rebel-held east Aleppo during the fighting in December, or earlier, have been returning to devastated neighbourhoods like Bustan al-Qasr to start the slow work of rebuilding.

Syrian government forces have carried out operations to clear explosives from east Aleppo and authorities have encouraged civilians to return to their homes.

Aleppo was once Syria's economic powerhouse and a tourist draw for its ancient markets and famed citadel.

But it was ravaged by fighting from mid-2012, when rebels seized the eastern portion of the city.

Years of conflict ended after a devastating siege and heavy assault saw government forces reclaim full control of Aleppo on December 22.

More than 310,000 people have been killed since the Syrian conflict began with anti-government demonstrations in March 2011.

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Sean Spicer has had a rocky start to his run as the new administrations press secretary and a new report suggests that the president regrets choosing him for the position.

President Trump is disappointed with Mr Spicers performance and blames his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, for pushing for Mr Spicer for the job, CNN reports. "Priebus vouched for Spicer and against Trump's instincts," one source told the network, adding that the president "regrets it every day and blames Priebus.

Mr Spicer is a longtime Republican party operative and has a close relationship with Mr Priebus. However, in his first two weeks, hes berated reporters and has been tasked with defending numerous falsehoods pushed forth by the Trump administration.

CNN reports that Mr Spicer was not the presidents first choice for press secretary and he wanted White House counselor Kellyanne Conway to assume the role, but she eventually turned it down. Fox News personality Kimberly Guilfoyle was another top candidate interviewed for the position.

Mr Spicer is currently assuming the role of press secretary and communications director, a separate role that the White House is urgently seeking to fill. The source told the network that the position needs to be filled more than ever.
President Donald Trump gives a thumbs up as he arrives to speak to the Major County Sheriffs Association and Major Cities Chiefs Association in Washington yesterday Photo: AP

Donald Trump yesterday used the presidential Twitter account to attack an American department store that stopped selling his daughter's products after earlier issuing a blistering attack on the US courts system.

The president accused Nordstrom, the high-end department store, of treating Ivanka Trump "so unfairly" by pulling her eponymous products from its shelves, and said she was a "great person" who was "always pushing me to do the right thing". He added she was someone who did not deserve to see her business suffer.

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Ms Trump's fashion line includes clothing, jewellery, handbags and other products.

Nordstrom's decision to drop the brand came amid the "#GrabYourWallet" boycott of Trump-branded products, which has resulted in a sales plummet, according to the company.

Another retailer, TJ Maxx, told its employees to throw away signs advertising Ms Trump's brand and directed its stores to mix her range in with other products, which would make them less visible in stores.

Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, defended Mr Trump's tweet - and denied suggestions that the president had sent it during his daily intelligence briefing.

According to his schedule, the tweet was sent 21 minutes after the briefing began.

"I think this is less about his family's business than an attack on his daughter," said Mr Spicer.

"I think for people to take out their concern about his actions or his executive orders on members of his family, he has every right to stand up for his family and applaud their business activities, their success.

"There's clearly an attempt for him to stand up for her because she is being maligned because they have a problem with his policies."

But Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the Democrats in the House, said it was unbecoming of a president.

"I think it's inappropriate - but he's a totally inappropriate president, so it's totally in keeping with whom he is," she said.

Nordstrom has denied the move was motivated by anything other than poor sales.

"Over the past year, and particularly the last half of 2016, sales of the brand have steadily declined to the point where it didn't make good business sense for us to continue with the line for now," the company said in a statement, adding that Nordstrom had a "great relationship" with Ms Trump, and noting that she was "personally informed of our decision in early January".

Other companies including Belk and Neiman Marcus have said they will also stop selling Ms Trump's products.

Brazen

Earlier yesterday Mr Trump courted yet more controversy, launching a brazen attack on the court weighing up the legality of his travel ban and describing their deliberations as "disgraceful" and saying the hearing was "a sad day".

On Tuesday night, a three-judge panel in San Francisco heard arguments for and against reinstating Mr Trump's ban on refugees and travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries entering the United States.

They are expected to announce their decision later this week - a decision which will almost certainly be taken to the Supreme Court by the losing side.

But, describing the deliberations in terms unheard of in the modern era, Mr Trump ridiculed the judges' procedures and said he was undeniably right to impose the ban, adding: "A bad high school student would understand this."

He continued: "I was a good student. I understand things. I comprehend very well. OK? Better than, I think, almost anybody. I want to tell you, I listened to a bunch of stuff last night on television that was disgraceful. I think it's a sad day. I think our security is at risk today and it will be at risk until such time as we are entitled and get what we are entitled to as citizens of this country, as chiefs, as sheriffs of this country. We want security."

Speaking in Washington to the annual meeting of major cities' police chiefs, Mr Trump accused the court of being politically motivated.

"I don't ever want to call a court biased, so I won't call it biased," he said.

"We haven't had a decision yet. But courts seem to be so political and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do what's right."

Yesterday's comments were greeted with astonishment across the political spectrum.

John Dean, a former Nixon White House counsel, said that Mr Trump went too far.

"One thing Richard Nixon would never have done is publicly demean the court," he said, adding with a smile: "He might have said it privately." ( Daily Telegraph London)

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
A student drowned in a river just moments after posing for selfies when a dam was opened and the water level rose dramatically.

New Zealander Rachael Louise De Jong was swept away by rapids after becoming stranded on a rock with three friends in the middle of the Waikato River.

The four women had reportedly been taking selfies moments before, as the warning siren went off, signalling the dam would be opened.

The group attempted to jump to safety from the small rock on to a bigger rock as fast-flowing water began to rise around them.

Two women reached the rock, but Ms De Jong (21), another woman, and a man who had been trying to help them were swept away by a sudden surge of water.

While the man and other women managed to swim to safety, Ms De Jong was drowned by the powerful current.

German tourists Katrin Taylor and Kevin Kiau witnessed the incident, but were unable to help.

They told news site stuff.nz they were on a viewing platform when the siren went off and the water began to rise.

Ms Taylor said the water had become quite high when they noticed four people holding selfie sticks on the other side of the river.

We could see the water was rising further and that they were in danger of getting washed away, she said.

Ms Tayor said the women tried to jump to a bigger rock where a man was waiting whilst the water rose above their feet.

We saw the first girl made it. The guy pulled her in. The second girl jumped and made it safe as well.

The third girl, she jumped but the water was washing her away so the guy grabbed her.

She said that they then saw the man and two of the girls being washed away  one of whom was Ms De Jong whose body was recovered by police later in a rockpool.

"There was nothing we could have done. We could just stand there and watch helplessly and it was horrible, Ms Taylor added.

Ms De Jong, a student at Auckland University, was described as the most perfect sister in a tribute posted online by her brother, Daniel.

Yesterday I lost one of the most important people in my life, my wonderful sister, he wrote. Not only was she an inspiration to us all, she was my best friend, and the most perfect sister I could ever have asked for.

You never spoke a bad word of anyone, and you had such an infectious smile that could cheer anyone up. I love you so much Rachael, rest easy.

The Aratiatia Dam, operated by energy company Mercury Energy, is opened four times each day during the summer. As well as the warning siren, there are signs around the river telling people not to swim.

CEO of Mercury Energy Fraser Whineray said in a statement that safety processes would be reviewed in light of the incident.

We are always looking for ways to improve safety to minimise the risks of it ever happening again, he said. The challenge is to keep people out of that area at those times [when the water is released].

Our sincere thoughts go out to the family and friends of the person who has passed and to those who are recovering at the local hospital and who will be traumatised.
Bahraini forces recaptured several prisoners who were sprung from jail in a spectacular January 1 prison break as they attempted to flee by boat on Thursday, the interior ministry said.

On New Year's Day, four gunmen stormed the notorious Jaw prison, south of the capital Manama, killing a policeman and freeing 10 inmates convicted of terrorism offences.

"Security forces foiled at dawn today an attempt to smuggle terrorist fugitives and the Jaw prison escapees," the ministry said.

It said the fugitives had intended to board "a boat that was headed to Iran."

Bahrain has been wracked by unrest pitting its Shiite-majority population against its Sunni Muslim rulers.

A 2011 uprising seeking a constitutional monarchy and an elected prime minister was crushed with deadly force.

The Shiite opposition has since been banned and many of its leaders given long jail terms, several of them on "terrorism" charges.

Seven of the prisoners who escaped from Jaw last month were serving life sentences.

The government's crackdown on the opposition has drawn criticism even from its chief ally Washington, which has its Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain just across the Gulf from Iran.

Bahraini authorities have repeatedly accused Shiite Iran of fanning the unrest in the kingdom. Tehran says it is merely speaking out in defence of the rights of its coreligionists.

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Rubbish piles up at an encampment near Cannon Ball, North Dakota (James MacPherson/AP)

Construction of the Dakota Access pipeline under a North Dakota reservoir has begun and it should be operational within three months, the developer of the long-delayed project said.

It comes as an American Indian tribe filed a legal challenge to block the work and protect its water supply.

The army granted Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) formal permission on Wednesday to lay pipe under Lake Oahe, clearing the way for completion of the 1,200-mile, 3.8 billion dollar (3 billion) pipeline.

ETP spokeswoman Vicki Granado confirmed early on Thursday that construction resumed "immediately after receiving the easement".

Workers had already drilled entry and exit holes for the crossing, and oil had been put in the pipeline leading up to the lake in anticipation of finishing the project.

"The estimate is 60 days to complete the drill and another 23 days to fill the line to Patoka," Ms Granado said, referring to the shipping point in Illinois that is the pipeline's destination.

Work was stalled for months due to opposition by the Standing Rock Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux, as well as a prolonged court battle between the developer and the Army Corps of Engineers that oversees the federal land where the last segment of the pipeline is now being laid.

President Donald Trump last month instructed the Corps to advance pipeline construction.

The Cheyenne River Sioux on Thursday asked a federal judge to stop the Lake Oahe work while a lawsuit filed earlier by the two tribes against the pipeline proceeds.

Lawyer Nicole Ducheneaux said in court documents that the pipeline "will desecrate the waters upon which Cheyenne River Sioux tribal members rely".

ETP did not immediately respond in court to the filing and U S District Judge James Boasberg did not immediately rule.

Standing Rock Sioux lawyer Jan Hasselman has said the tribe will also try to block the lake crossing in court.

An encampment near the construction site has drawn thousands of protesters since April in support of the Standing Rock Sioux, leading on occasions to clashes with law enforcement and hundreds of arrests.

Ms Granado said she was not aware of any incidents involving pipeline opponents in the area.

The Morton County Sheriff's Office also said it had not responded to any incidents.

Tribal chairman Dave Archambault said in a statement late on Wednesday that the tribe is prepared to keep up the battle "in the courts".

"We will continue to fight against an administration that seeks to dismiss not only our treaty rights and status as sovereign nations, but the safe drinking water of millions of Americans," the chairman said.

The tribe fears a leak in the pipeline could contaminate drinking water at its reservation that is just downstream from the proposed Missouri River crossing.

ETP said the pipeline will be safe.

In a statement on Wednesday, North Dakota governor Doug Burgum urged "co-operation and restraint" from all parties and requested federal law enforcement assistance to keep the peace during construction that would transport North Dakota oil across four states to a shipping point in Illinois.

Protesters rallied in several cities across the country on Wednesday.

Demonstrators in Chicago targeted a bank. Others went to an Army Corps of Engineers office in New York City but were asked to leave when they started filming without a permit.

Several people were arrested for blocking public access to a federal building in San Francisco.

Joye Braun and Payu Harris, two pipeline opponents who have been at the North Dakota encampment that has been the focus of the pipeline battle since April, said in an interview at a nearby casino that there is frustration but also resolve in the wake of the army's decision.

"The goal is still prayerful, non-violent direct action," Braun said.

The tribe maintains the decision violates its treaty rights, and its lawyers have vowed to keep fighting in court.

The Corps has notified protesters still at the encampment that the government-owned land will be closed on February 22.

But according to Mr Harris, a new camp is being established on private land.

"This is not over. We are here to stay. And there's more of us coming," he said.

An assessment conducted last year determined the river crossing would not have a significant effect on the environment.

However, the army in December decided further study was warranted to address tribal concerns.

The Corps launched an environmental impact study on January 18, but Mr Trump signed an executive action six days later telling the Corps to allow the company to proceed with construction.

AP
A.L. Brown High School will host a Family and Community Math Night on Thursday, Feb. 16, from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

The event is designed to show families, business leaders and community members what high school students are learning in math. It will be both informative and interactive. Guests will learn more about how North Carolina students are being prepared to become successful college students, employees and colleagues after graduation.

Milton Chicas of Wayne Brothers Construction will outline the importance of math in all career fields, and the N.C. Department of Public Instruction will include the event as part of its statewide documentary about math instruction.

Dinner will be served, and there will be interactive and hands-on activities. Everyone will learn valuable information and be able to ask questions about what high school students are learning in math at A.L. Brown High School and throughout North Carolina.
Concord and Kannapolis law enforcement has done something right.

For the last two years, both municipalities have ranked among the top 10 safest big cities in the state according to studies conducted by consumer research company ValuePenguin, this year landing 10th and seventh, respectively. And police chiefs from both said they couldnt have done it without help and involvement from residents.

We have such a good relationship with the community, Kannapolis Police Chief Woody Chavis said. The information they provide us with, we act on it as soon as we can. We know what their concerns are and problems are. We try to make sure we address the things we perceive as a problem; we make sure we reply to them and give them information they need. We make them aware we are working on it.

That makes citizens a whole lot more responsive to giving us more information. They know it doesnt fall on deaf ears. We are listening to what they are saying and doing everything we can.

ValuePenguin has done a safest cities analysis for the last few years, using crime metrics sourced from the Federal Bureau of Investigation to rank 115 cities and towns across North Carolina with a population of at least 5,000.

Analysts gathered data from two kinds of crime: violent and property crime, both of which subdivided to smaller categories such as rape or murder, vandalism or trespassing. Violent crime held a much higher rate in the formula because of its more serious nature and tendency to cause more damage, lead analyst Andrew Pentis said.

We do try to account for population, so we give a little more credit to larger cities knowing that its much harder to manage crime in larger cities, he said, adding even with the boost big cities still usually fare worse. Typically when we do these studies, we find larger cities much farther down the list. Obviously with Concord [and Kannapolis], it shows that it can still be safe despite being so large.

Pinehurst ranked No. 1 overall, while Lumberton came in at 115. The study said that all of the safest communities had a population of less than 35,000, though some of the top municipalities were still quite large. Cary, for example, was the sixth-largest city and ranked as the eighth safest place overall.

Cities with populations of more than 25,000 fell in the large category, while towns with populations between 10,000 and 25,000 classified as mid-sized cities for the purpose of the study. Small cities were those with populations of 5,000 to 10,000.

If anything its slightly unfair to cities on the larger size, such as Concord and Chapel Hill, Pentis said of grouping such a large range of municipalities together in the largest category. Typically, smaller cities are safer, and Kannapolis is relatively smaller but still plenty big enough to be included in our Bit City category. Its worth noting, too, that we account for population in our crime scores.

Concord

In the ValuePenguin study, Concord ranked 15th for violent crime and 34th for property crime, giving it a place of 36 overall. The city stood at 10th among large cities.

What that tells you is that Concord did a much better than average job of scoring well in those two categories, particularly impressive when its a larger city, Pentis said.

Last year, Concord finished 30th overall and seventh for big cities.

Concord did actually fall of a few spots overall and in terms of big cities, Pentis said. But it still is performing much better than average.

Thats not to say crime increased, just that the municipalitys scores changed compared to others across the state. In fact, Concord Police Chief Gary Gacek said the city saw an 8 percent reduction in violent crime and a 6 percent reduction in property crime, according to preliminary 2016 statistics.

I believe a lot of major cities across the country are experiencing crime increases last year and this year, Gacek said. We are sandwiched between Charlotte and Rowan, so for us to have a decrease is significant.

The chief said criminologists often struggle to figure out why crime increases or decreases, making it difficult to determine what causes rates to go up or down.

What I can say is the people on the street did a very good job of executing the strategy, he said. Being highly visible and being proactive and the officers being seen is what we are looking for.

Last year, Concord officers had a 6 percent increase in dispatched calls for service and a 28 percent increase in self-initiated activity, such as traffic stops, business checks and foot patrols. The department also started a bike patrol in 2016, which made a significant impact especially on the Logan neighborhood. That community logged 10 violent crimes in 2015 but only one last summer, when bike patrols began.

Its a combination of bicycle patrols during the day and officers being more proactive 24/7, Gacek said. We are paying attention to the data and where should we be spending our time. We know the areas that are susceptible to crime and disorder and the times it might be more susceptible. We are doing a better job investing our time into those areas when it makes sense to do so.

Kannapolis

Kannapolis placed 32nd in violent crime and 24th in property crime for an overall rank of 29thor seventh among big cities.

The high ranking means that Kannapolis residents should be proud of their relatively safe community, Pentis said. It has room to improve in terms of violent and property crimesevery city that didnt rank first overall does.

Also slipping slightly since last year, Kannapolis ranked 22nd overall in 2015. But the municipality still sat above not only Concord but also Chapel Hill and Matthews in the big city category.

Chavis said the police departments use of the MyPD application for smartphones has helped combat crime, allowing residents to report incidents or suspicious people.

I think us and Greensboro are the only two police departments in North Carolina that use it, he said. It gives them another avenue to report stuff. When they notify us with that, there are at least five other people notified with the problem and what the problem is, and we are making sure we are very diligent. You dont have to give your name or identify yourself; its a way for them to give us specific information so we can start investigating.

The department also started bike patrols and improved officer-resident communication out on the street.

All in this together

Both cities ranked higher overall than Greensboro at 80, Statesville at 83, Asheboro at 84, Charlotte-Mecklenburg at 89, Salisbury at 93, Durham at 102 and Winston-Salem at 109.

Once again, it all comes back to community. Gacek said the department couldnt take credit for the decreased crime all on its own; combatting violence and illegal activity takes a village.

Part of it is having an engaged community and having folks calling in suspicious activity, he said. It takes folks partnering with us to achieve this decrease. An increase in dispatched calls for service is a good indicator that people are more willing to call and tell us about things or ask for service. Thats a good recipe, and I hope it continues in 2017.
A Saudi rights activist who tweeted a depiction of Christ's birth on Christmas Day has been freed on bail after one month in prison, a watchdog said on Thursday.

A second activist detained around the same time is still in custody, the Gulf Center for Human Rights said.

Their cases are part of what monitors describe as intensified repression in the kingdom.

Ahmed al-Mshikhs was released on February 1 from the police prison in Qatif district, which is dominated by Saudi Arabia's Shiite minority, said the centre.

No charges were laid against Mshikhs but, based on what has happened to other activists, "he could face trial any time in the future", the rights group said.

Mshikhs is co-founder of the Al-Adalah Centre for Human Rights in Saudi Arabia. He had been detained since January 5.

The activist, whose Twitter account shows him against a backdrop of Nelson Mandela, Ernesto "Che" Guevara and Mahatma Gandhi, tweeted on December 25 a Nativity scene showing the birth of Christ.

The practice of religions other than Islam is banned in Saudi Arabia, an absolute Islamic monarchy.

The Gulf Center welcomed the release of Mshikhs but said another activist, Essam Koshak, should also be freed.

Koshak was arrested on January 8 in Mecca, where he has been interrogated about "what he has published on Twitter," it said.

Koshak had tweeted Western media reports about Saudi Arabia, and retweeted comments from other activists, including a banned rights association.

Both Koshak and Mshikhs were targeted because of their human rights work and their exercise of the right to freedom of expression, the Gulf Center said.

New York-based Human Rights Watch on Monday said the cases of Koshak and Mshikhs are among the "stepped up arrests, prosecutions, and convictions of peaceful dissident writers and human rights advocates in 2017."

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During his election campaign, Donald Trump signaled his presidency would be a boon for Israel and tough on Palestinians. The U.S. Embassy would move to Jerusalem, he would name an ambassador who backs Israeli settlements on land Palestinians seek for a state and there would be no pressure for peace talks.

But as Trump prepares for his first White House meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his administration has toned down elements of its pro-Israel bravado, suggesting that a president perceived to have acted hastily on many early policy initiatives will be more cautious with Middle East diplomacy.

After nearly three weeks in office, there is growing consensus in the White House that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will require extensive deliberations and consultations with key lawmakers and U.S. allies before a decision on how to proceed, according to people familiar with the administration's thinking.

"This is a case where campaign promises run head-on into geopolitical reality and they have to be adjusted accordingly," said a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

As a result, relocating the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem  a step world leaders including Jordan's King Abdullah warned against and which would probably inflame the Muslim world - has been put on hold for now.

At the same time, the White House has adopted a more measured stance on Israeli settlement-building in occupied territory than Trump's campaign rhetoric indicated.

Even so, there is little doubt that when Netanyahu meets Trump on Feb. 15 he will find a Republican president determined to show more warmth to Israel than his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, with whom he had an acrimonious relationship.

Social media exchanges have suggested a budding "bromance" between Netanyahu and Trump, who has pledged to be the "best friend" Israel has ever had in the White House.

As a result, Palestinians fear their leaders will be frozen out and their statehood aspirations pushed aside.

Netanyahu, though, may prefer to keep the focus on forging a common front against Iran, Israel's regional enemy and a target of Trump's ire, while shunting the Israeli-Palestinian dispute further down the agenda, aides say.

Still, it will be an issue that can't be ignored, especially after Israel's parliament on Monday approved a law retroactively legalizing 4,000 settler homes build on privately-owned Palestinian land. The move drew international condemnation.

Barring a curveball from the sometimes unpredictable U.S. president, Trump is unlikely to use the talks to press Netanyahu for concessions toward the Palestinians - such as a temporary freeze on settlement-building - in the way Obama did.

But neither can Trump afford to be seen to abandon the U.S. commitment to a two-state solution, the bedrock of Washingtons Middle East policy since the 1993 interim peace accords and a principle embraced internationally.

CAREFUL STATEMENT ON SETTLEMENTS

A White House statement on Feb. 2 set forth a more nuanced position than Trump expressed during the campaign, backing away from a long-standing U.S. view of settlement activity as an "impediment" to peace. Instead, it said new settlements or expanding existing ones beyond their current boundaries may not be helpful toward that goal.

That shift transpired just hours after Trump met briefly with King Abdullah on the sidelines of an event in Washington.

Nevertheless, the emerging shape of Trump policy remains decidedly pro-Israel and more accommodating than at any time since Republican George W. Bush occupied the White House.

For the Palestinians, that is troubling.

"It seems we are headed for a new policy with this administration that is different from its predecessor in how it deals with the Palestinian leadership and the Palestinian cause," said Wasel Abu Youssef, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's executive committee.

There has been no contact between the Palestinian leadership and the Trump administration so far, Palestinian officials said.

Moderate, Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was among the first world leaders Obama called on his first full day in office in 2009. A White House official insisted, however, that the Trump administration intends to develop a relationship with the Palestinian Authority. The official did not elaborate.

All the same, many Israeli officials do not read the White House's settlements statement as a warning to Israel or a reining-in of Netanyahu, rather they see it as largely positive.

Not only does it conclude that settlements do not block peace prospects, it says construction within established settlements, whether major blocs close to Israel or others scattered across the West Bank, is acceptable to Washington.

"Bibi will be happy," said an Israeli diplomat, using Netanyahu's nickname. "He can put new settlements on hold and hold off the right wing by pointing to Trump. At the same time, he can build as much as he wants within existing settlements."

In that regard, the lines drawn by the White House help Netanyahu fend off demands from the far right in his coalition for sweeping steps, like annexing portions of the West Bank.

There are many decisions that are hostile to the Palestinians, said Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Palestinian legislator and scholar. Trump made some promises during the election that cannot be applied on the ground because it would create uncertainty, violence and instability which will be beyond anyone's ability to control.

Palestinians would be alarmed if Trump decided to proceed with moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, essentially recognizing the city as Israel's capital despite international objections that its status must be decided in negotiations.

The Palestinians want East Jerusalem, occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in a move not recognized internationally, as the capital of their future state.

Trump and his aides have played down the prospects for a quick embassy move since he took office on Jan. 20. But he could come under pressure to address the issue during Netanyahus visit. No one can be sure what the president might say.

MODERATING INFLUENCE

Some experts see a moderating influence as Trump fills out his national security team. It has members such as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, a former Exxon Mobil chief executive with extensive contacts among Gulf Arab governments, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a retired Marine general.

They will have to deal with other, sometimes ideologically driven advisers with close personal ties to Trump. David Friedman, Trump's former bankruptcy lawyer and now nominee as ambassador to Israel, has raised funds for a West Bank settlement and voiced doubt about Palestinian statehood. The presidents son-in-law, Jared Kushner, whose family has donated tens of thousands of dollars to the same settlement, has been assigned a senior role in Israeli-Arab diplomacy.

Aides may be moving circumspectly also in hope of keeping the door open if Trump  who has touted his skills as a master dealmaker  decides to seek what he has called the "ultimate deal": Israeli-Palestinian peace.

To pursue such an initiative, the United States needs to be seen as an even-handed mediator, while also overcoming the rigid disputes that have scuppered so many peace efforts over the years: settlements, borders, the status of Jerusalem, what to do with Palestinian refugees, and Palestinian political divisions.

The last, U.S.-brokered round of peace talks collapsed in 2014. It is questionable whether the Trump administration will be inclined to devote much attention to the Israeli-Palestinian issue at a time when it is distracted by other big domestic and international priorities. In the Middle East alone, the fight against Islamic State and countering Iran are higher on the Trump agenda.

However, if Trump at some point does opt to wade in where so many of his predecessors have failed, for Netanyahu  who is looking for a reset of U.S.-Israeli relations  it might be a case of "be careful what you wish for".

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Three Turkish soldiers were accidentally killed and 11 wounded on Thursday when a Russian war plane struck a building in Syria where the troops were deployed, the Turkish army said.

The plane had been seeking to hit targets of Islamic State (IS) militants but "by accident three of our soldiers were martyred when a building was bombed where our units were," it said.

The army said Russian President Vladimir Putin had already reached out to Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan to express his "sadness and condolences."

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Experts in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) warned US President Donald Trump that declaring the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation "may fuel extremism", a POLITICO report revealed on Thursday.

According to POLITICO, a US official gave the news website access to the CIA report that was finalized on 31 January.

The intelligence document claimed that this decision  if officially taken  will "damage relations with America's allies", pointing out that the Muslim Brotherhood has rejected violence as a matter of official policy and opposed al-Qaida and ISIS.

CIA experts admitted that "a minority o [Muslim Brotherhood] members have engaged in violence, most often in response to harsh regime repression, perceived foreign occupation, or civil conflicts.

Yet, drawing attention to the presence of Brotherhood branches in states such as Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco and Tunisia  the CIA expected that this potential move will probably worry that such a step could destabilize their internal politics, feed extremist narratives, and anger Muslims worldwide.

MB groups enjoy widespread support across the Near East-North Africa region and many Arabs and Muslims worldwide would view an MB designation as an affront to their core religious and societal values, POLITICO quoted the CIA report as saying.

Moreover, a US designation would probably weaken MB leaders arguments against violence and provide ISIS and al-Qaida additional grist for propaganda to win followers and support, particularly for attacks against U.S. interests.

In late 2013, Egypt designated the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, after the authorities blamed a number of deadly attacks against security forces in the aftermath of the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi on the group and its supporters.

In a report published on Wednesday, the NYC-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) described the possibility of declaring the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation as a threat to "the rights to association of Muslim groups in the United States."

The report added that "such a designation would also undermine the ability of the Muslim Brotherhoods members and supporters to participate in democratic politics abroad."

Designating the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organization would wrongly equate it with violent extremist groups like Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State and make their otherwise lawful activities illegal, Laura Pitter HRW's, senior US national security counsel, was quoted as saying in the same report.

The designation would also unfairly taint anyone alleged to be linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and undermine the exercise of its political rights abroad.

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Its that time of year again! Roses, chocolates and jewelry are in high demand, restaurant reservations are rapidly increasing, and love is in the air all over Indy. While the spirit of Valentines Day may have become a bit commercialized, these local couples are proof that true love exists. The Recorder recently met with local lovebirds to get their perspectives on how to make it through the highs and lows of a relationship and obtain long-lasting love.

First and only love: Nathanial and Tera Allen

They say youll never forget your first love. For some, a memory is not enough. Nathanial Allen met his future wife Tera when he was a child and connected with her instantly. Since resting his eyes on Teras, he had no desire to date anyone else.

Ive known her since I was 6. Her dad was our pastor. I liked her for as long as I can remember, said Allen.

The pair grew up together. As a young man, Nathanial wrote his future wife tons of poetry about his feelings for her, eventually compiling them into a book. As teens, they attended prom together and became each others first and only relationship.

She prayed that her first boyfriend would be her husband, and I was indeed her first boyfriend and now her husband. Unique to these days, we remained abstinent until we were married at 23. We celebrate 13 years of marriage this year, and our love grows deeper each year.

Tera has advice for couples seeking long-lasting love.

The way you approach the relationship and what you bring to the relationship will have a direct impact on what you get from the relationship. Therefore, put in what you hope to get out, said Tera.

Nathanial says having realistic expectations of your partner is key to a happy relationship.

Disappointments in marriage tend to stem from unmet expectations. Instead of looking for the other person to meet all of your needs, start being the person to meet all of theirs. Be sure that you serve one another. The happiest marriages consist of two servants in love, said Nathanial.

As fate would have it: Madisyn and Watson George

Madisyn and Watson George were both born in Haiti, but their paths didnt cross until they attended college in Anderson, Indiana.

We were born 15 miles apart, but did not know each other in Haiti. Watson lost his biological mother when he was 2 years old, and I lost mine when I was 11. Growing up in Haiti was very rough. Many times I had to eat off the streets and would go days with no food, said Madisyn.

As a young boy, Watson was abandoned by his biological parents and left alone in the streets of Haiti. A group of missionaries found him and helped him find an adoptive family. After Madisyns mother passed away, she was put up for adoption, as well. As fate would have it, their paths crossed in 2014 at Anderson University.

I contacted Watson to help me raise funds to go back to Haiti to reconnect with my biological family, and by November of that same year Watson asked me to be his girlfriend. On June 25, 2016, Watson and I got married and are livingly happily ever after, said Madisyn.

Watson and Madisyn both felt the need to give back to the country they came from.

The couple founded a nonprofit organization called the Beyond Me Initiative that uses asset-based community development to support Haiti.

When we focus solely on meeting the needs of people, we often neglect to help them use their unique gifts to create prosperity for themselves. No independent and thriving country can run solely on foreign aid and charity, said Madisyn. We want to support the local initiatives of the people to become self-sustaining. I cater Haitian food in Indianapolis and the surrounding area to raise funds, and Watson handles the marketing and music aspect of Beyond Me.

Watson has advice for people seeking true love:

When we have disagreements, we sit down and talk about it. If we cannot come to an agreement right then, we try again when we are both calm. We do not leave the house or to go bed without talking things through, said Watson. Always remember to put the other person before yourself. If you believe in something bigger than yourself, make that the center of your relationship, and find ways you can make a positive impact in the world together.

A rocky start: Brittany and Rashad Cunningham

Rashad and Brittany Cunningham were both high school students when they met during the summer of 1999 at a carnival in Brownsburg, Indiana.

My brother and I were there strictly to get digits and see who could walk away with the most numbers saved in our fake, deactivated cellphones. TLC had dropped the song No Scrubs earlier that year, making it hard for any guy to have a chance with a lady if he came incorrect, said Rashad.

Brittany, a high school freshman at the time, was enjoying the festivities with a friend when Rashad approached her. Rashad remembers her as seemingly shy and uninterested. Nevertheless, she gave him her pager number and asked him to call her later.

Its amazing to look back and see that would turn into what we have today. In my mind, this was going to be another notch on the belt. Back then, the only thing that mattered was bragging to my brother and our friends, but she was different.

Years later they married, but their marriage had a very rocky start due to Rashads infidelity and the racial discrimination that they both faced. Rashad recalled a time when two men called his wife a n***** lover at a gas station while their daughter was in the car with them. He also said his mother disapproved of him entering an interracial relationship.

Brownsburg was a predominately white community. My mother was the definition of pro-Black. My wife had the strength to hold on through all of my cheating and my mother disapproving of our relationship.

Brittany says there were times she wanted to throw in the towel on their union.

I was so consumed with sadness that I began to think that the way we were living was normal. I accepted the cheating and chalked it up to me not being good enough. I used to tell myself I needed to stick it out because I wanted (our daughter) to be brought up in a two-parent household, said Brittany.

In April of 2011, Brittany approached Rashad and told him she wanted a divorce, but something held them back from filing the papers.

Her literal words were, I stayed with you on hope, a prayer, and my fingers crossed. I am so thankful she did. Maybe it was her hope that made me believe that with God all things are possible, including me having my life turned upside down for the good, said Rashad.

Brittany credits their relationships transformation to Rashad surrendering his life to Christ five years ago and breaking a lot of bad habits.

Not to get all preachy, but our marriage is at its strongest because of where we are with our faith. I cant really put into words the transformation I witnessed in Rashad, but it was scary. I dont know if the Holy Spirit put him in a headlock or God said Cash me outside! But in all seriousness, patience played a huge part in our relationship and still does today. We have definitely had hard times. I must say we are some of the most resilient people I know, said Brittany.

Today, Rashad is a pastor at Church on the Rock Baptist in Brownsburg. The couple has advice for others seeking long-lasting love:

When we are reminded of our history, when we see the problems of Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter, who went through far more to legalize marriages like ours, the small things become unnecessary to fight over, said Rashad. We are still in Brownsburg. It is still a community struggling to engage the cultural differences that exist among us. As my wife and I look back, we realize that through all the years of learning from each other, God was preparing us for leading others to break down barriers with love. Our marriage lasted because we allowed Christ to break down barriers caused by this fallen world and ourselves.
A nonprofit focused on developing character in young men is planning to add programming geared toward science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), and theyre hoping a fundraiser later this month will help.

The Bloom Project helps Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, Indiana, youth ages 1218 explore career paths, prepare for college, participate in service projects and more through its various programs.

Founder Arnetta Scruggs, who named the program after her grandfather (his nickname was Bloom), said many of the boys  theyre known as kings in the program  have expressed interest in STEM careers. The programming is still in the planning phase, but Scruggs said it will likely be embedded into Blooms current offerings: Project King and Royal Mentality.

Project King, Scruggs explained, is a group mentoring program that meets monthly. It was launched after a suggestion from an attendee at the organizations annual Kings Feast, an event that brought together young men and professional men from various fields for mentoring opportunities.

One year, one of the young men came up to me and said, Hey, what happens after I meet this professional male? I wont see him again until a year later. He asked about doing monthly workshops where we invite professional men to come out and talk about different topics, Scruggs said, adding that the program is continually reshaped based on the boys expressed interests and needs.

Thats what Bloom is about  giving our young men a voice, she said. We dont have a book we go by. We talk to our teens about everything, and thats where the topics come from.  They have fully created their own brotherhood and their own organization. We always tell them, This is your organization. What would you like to see happen?

The kings expressed interest in STEM, and a plan is now in the works, Scruggs said. Similarly, a plan of action borne from a Twitter discussion is fueling the programs fundraising efforts.

Indianapolis native Jeff Williams volunteered with Bloom while living in the Circle City, and even after moving to Dallas, Texas, he wanted to stay involved.

I had opportunities that other kids who looked like me might not have had. Bloom Project brought that sense of purpose back to reality for me, and I got to see it firsthand. The kids are extremely curious, inquisitive and they wanted to learn. It wasnt necessarily a lack of desire; it was a lack of opportunity, he said. (I told Arnetta), if there was any opportunity for me to help in any kind of way, I wanted to be a part of that.

With his mind open to opportunities to contribute, a conversation on Twitter started Williams wheels turning.

There was a discussion going on on Twitter about not having a lot of opportunities for young professionals to dress up really nice and go out and have fun, and do it for a good cause, Williams said.

That conversation, his desire to continue to help the Bloom Project and his knowledge of millennials willingness to engage with nonprofits combined to create Pardi Gras, a black-tie event marketed toward millennials (but open to anyone) with the aim of raising $25,000 for Blooms future STEM initiatives.

Williams said Indianapolis growing tech scene and a need for more diversity in tech jobs also add to the importance of the event.

The Googles and the Salesforces of the world want to attract diversity, because its great business and its just where society is heading, but what theyre finding out is theres a pipeline gap making it difficult for them to actually fulfill those roles, he said. Our objective was simple: How can we bridge the gap in tech and do it through Bloom Project and tackle that issue on our home front?

Pardi Gras will be held at the JW Marriott in downtown Indianapolis on Feb. 25 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $70 and include specialty cocktails and heavy hors doeuvres. Music will be provided by DJ Limelight, and radio host Keisha Nicole will host the event.

Keisha Nicole, a Los Angeles native who has been in Indianapolis for about two years, has done work to combat bullying and promote self-esteem among young people. She said its important to her that shes a positive role model for children, and shes fully behind the Bloom Projects mission.

Im excited to help Bloom raise money for STEM, she said. I think its positive for young men to aspire to careers besides being athletes.

For more information about Pardi Gras or to buy tickets, visit pardigrasball.splashthat.com.
Editors Note: A previous version of this story stated that the Indiana Forest Alliance dropped their lawsuit against the DVA at the behest of Congressman Carson. A representative of his office confirmed that this was incorrect. Though he has been highly involved in the situation since the beginning, ethics regulations forbid his involvement in any litigation of this sort.

Community residents and local activists are keeping up their efforts to protect one of the citys oldest forests.

In September of 2015, the Crown Hill Cemetery administration sold a 15-acre plot of land to the Department of Veterans Affairs for the purpose of constructing a columbarium to house the cremated remains of military veterans.

The plot is a unique one, as it is home to one of the states last remaining old-growth forests, an area known as the North Woods.

Carleen Carter, a longtime resident of the neighborhood and president of the Crown Hill Neighborhood Association, said many of her neighbors have fond memories of the woods and were shocked to learn last summer that the area was in danger of being no more.

It is my understanding that some of those trees are older than the state, she said. Though the place she calls home has been subject to scrutiny over the years due to violence and economic issues, the lack of green space has been a major concern, as well. The forest, for her and other residents, is a much-needed feature in what she describes as an asphalt jungle.

Carter said residents were invited to a gathering held by Crown Hill Cemetery Inc. last summer to celebrate the new development that would be taking place. I was happy to hear about (the veterans cemetery), but those of us in our neighborhood south of it did not recognize (the area they were referencing) because of the technicalities in how they put the info out. Had it not been for the Forest Alliance, we wouldnt have recognized that it was in this area, she said.

She and others joined forces with the Indiana Forest Alliance and local ecologists to see if there was a way to meet both needs  honoring veterans and preserving the land.

The plot has been the subject of past controversy. Nearly a decade ago, developers from Mann Properties had plans to turn 71 acres of Crown Hill land into a development with homes and retail shops, but after a huge public outcry in opposition, the Metropolitan Development Commission denied their rezoning request, killing the project.

Becky Dolan, a botanist from Butler University, shared that during this period there were attempts by various groups interested in conversation to raise funds to purchase the land themselves and turn it into a nature preserve or city park. Their efforts were quickly thwarted due to the economic downturn of 2008.

Dolan, who in a seemingly bizarre footnote to this saga was asked to pen a chapter on the majesty of the North Woods for a book published by Crown Hill in honor of their 150th anniversary, said that for several years she and her colleagues had been told by administrators of the cemetery that the historic land was not up for sale. She was shocked to learn that things had changed.

Jeff Stant, executive director of the Indiana Forest Alliance, said that past issues like the Mann example should have been enough to deter deals like the one between Crown Hill and the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) from being made.

That woods has been called a pre-settlement forest, a forest that essentially was not cleared, when others were, during the development of the city. Essentially, ecologists and botanists have all issued opinions about it being a very rare remnant of the pre-settlement forest that covered this area of the state. Thats why it has been such a coveted piece of nature, because there isnt anything left like this in the inner city, he said.

(DVA) did not consider other areas on Crown Hills property. No other cemetery in the city, including those that have military heritage sites, was considered either. The only site the V.A. looked at was this one. That raises a concern, because they are a federal agency, and they are supposed to follow federal environmental laws, he continued.

The law Stant referred to is the National Environmental Policy Act, which in summary requires that all branches of government give proper consideration to the environment prior to undertaking any major federal action that significantly affects the environment. From Stants perspective, the parties in question did the bare minimum in meeting their federal requirements.

They published two legal notices in the newspapers and posted the environmental assessment in some public libraries. That was the extent. Our point is that if they would have looked at the public record on this site, they would have seen volumes of public testimony in public tribunals saying, Dont develop these woods. And that would have illuminated their decision-making, he said.

Stant, Carter, Dolan and many others have petitioned legislators and elected officials such as Congressman Andre Carson, Congresswoman Susan Brooks and Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett to make public statements on their behalf. The group dropped their lawsuit, filed in December against the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Recently, the Dr. Laura Hare Charitable Trust (LHCT), a private environmental foundation, presented the DVA with an offer to purchase the Crown Hill plot from them and cover all related expenses accrued from finding an alternative spot.

Despite these actions, last month Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson of the U.S. District Court of Southern Indiana denied a request made by the group to halt progress. Unless a circuit court steps in, construction may begin very soon.

Everyone agrees that an expanded veterans cemetery is a great project, said Dolan. The question is in the details, the location, and there are so many places where that project would be an improvement to the landscape, the neighborhood, and this is just the wrong site.

When asked about the possibility of considering alternative locations and the process through which the public was notified about the current proposal, the DVA in a 311-word written statement said it takes seriously the concerns of local community members and groups regarding the preservation of trees at the Crown Hill site for the planned columbarium-only national cemetery in Indianapolis. In response to what we learned through the public engagement process, NCA instructed the Army Corps of Engineers to revise the site plan to preserve as many mature trees as possible while permitting VA to meet the burial needs of over 250,000 Veterans and families who reside in the Indianapolis metropolitan area.
Have you or someone you know suffered a recent violent loss? If so, you are not alone. Here in Indianapolis, we have experienced a record-breaking number of deaths due to gun violence, the impacts of which are widespread in terms of police/community relations, residents overall feelings of well-being and the effect it has on the family of the deceased.

Rev. Oscar Crear, a preacher with nearly 50 years of experience, is on a mission to help those who are grieving. He will be visiting Indianapolis on Feb. 25 to do a book signing and group grief counseling session.

Crear currently serves as the pastor of New Tiberian Baptist Church in Chicago, a city that has been plagued with gun violence over the years. Since 2010, he has also served as chapel pastor for a funeral home on the citys west side. As chapel pastor my job is to preach the funerals and work with families that dont have pastors, he said, adding that most of the nearly 35 eulogies he preaches a year are for people who are victims of violent crime.

The Lord has placed a passion in my heart for the recovery of these families. Everybody wants to stop the violence, but I am on the other end  I want to heal the pain that is caused by the violence.

Through his experience in the industry, he deduced that the different professionals that interact with grieving families werent as helpful as they could be. At the urging of a friend, he wrote his first book in 2013, Lord Thou Hast been Our Dwelling Place: Pastoral Reflections on Life, Traumatic Death, Funerals and Chronic Grief.

We need to rethink how we deal with these families, said Crear. All of these cities are going through the same thing  its not just Chicago  but nobody is reaching out to say, How do we heal these people? When a family hurts, the block is hurting, and then the community hurts, then the city hurts  and hurting people hurt people.

His second book, On This Journey, features eight meditations that are designed to walk loved ones through the weeklong funeral-planning period. The passages cover what to do when you get the call that a loved one has been killed and how to prepare for the day you take clothes to the mortician and pick the gravesite. Everything that a family goes through that week, there is a meditation for that day based on real-life stories. I interviewed over 100 people, he said. In On This Journey, Crear shares the story of a mom who lost a child and couldnt sleep in her own bed for several months. In order to get to her bedroom, she had to walk past her sons room, who died, and she couldnt do it. We have families that two, three, four and five years later are still dealing with these issues and (wonder), how do we get past the pain?

Crear, who is working on another book titled 7 Spirits that Haunt Our Grief, will be signing copies of his second publication on Feb. 25 from 9 a.m.1 p.m. at Kountry Kitchen, located at 1831 College Ave. At 4 p.m. that same day, he will lead Conversations for Healing, a grief counseling session with 20 families who have experienced violent loss, at Williams and Bluitt Funeral Home.

People have to realize that everyones grief is individual. Black folks dont go to grief counseling. We just dont go. It is my job, my passion  since Muhammad wont come to the mountain to take the mountain to Muhammad.

Crear plans to travel the country hosting similar events throughout the year. For more information, call (773) 991-2615.
Imam, author, activist and firefighter Michael Saahir is putting away one of his many hats this month. Since 1979, Saahir has served as a firefighter with the Indianapolis Fire Department. On Jan.19, after 38 years, he decided to retire.

Saahir is the resident Imam of the Nur-Allah Islamic Center and the author of The Honorable Elijah Muhammad: The Man Behind the Men. Since 1992, he has penned a recurring column for the Indianapolis Recorder titled Al-Islam in America, and he is a regular contributor to Muslim Journal, a national Islamic publication.

On Feb. 18, the Nur-Allah Islamic Center will honor Saahir with a retirement party from 36 p.m. at the Indiana Inter-Church Center located at 42nd Street and Michigan Road. Those interested in attending are asked to RSVP via email to Mustaffaa Abdullah at albaith99@hotmail.com.
Last month, Sanjay Leela Bhansali was attacked by the members of a Rajput community group. They didn't just stop the shooting of the film, they damaged the set at Jaigarh Fort, and alleged that he was distorting facts in his film Padmavati.

Twitter

Actress-turned-politician Jaya Bachchan raised the issue in the House during the Zero Hour and said that intolerance is growing in the country and it's sad how selected few assume that they represent the masses. Further, under certain political patronage, they take law and order in their hands. Jaya Bachchan said,

Sometime they are threatened, sometimes films are not allowed be screened, sets are vandalized and sometimes it takes a violent turn as it happened in Jaipur recently."

Jaya Bachchan added that apart from being a renowned director, he had also staged the same subject of Padmavati as an opera in a Paris theatre in 2008. She further added that neither the State government nor the Centre has condemned the incident or taken action against the culprits.

Demanding strong action against those involved in the incident, she added,

What message are we sending to the film fraternity which is one of the most important and vibrant ambassador of the country. Creativity should not be subjected to such treatment."

Jaya Bachchan also added that the film fraternity has long been fighting the menace with little or no support from the government. The film industry creates a large number of employment opportunities and such disruptions, she said, affects the earnings of the sector.
Fire and Samsung seem to be inseparable at the moment. A minor fire that broke out at one of Samsungs factories in China, was reportedly caused by -- you guessed it -- faulty lithium-ion batteries, among other waste products.

The fire broke out at Samsung SDI Co Ltds factory in China on Wednesday in the Chinese city of Tianjin, and local fire department reportedly blamed the fire on batteries inside the factory affiliated to Samsung.

According to Reuters, the Tianjin Fire department had to send 110 firefighters and 19 fire trucks to extinguish the fire successfully, and that the "material that caught fire was lithium batteries inside the production workshops and some half-finished products, the fire department further added.

The fire was contained and no casualties were reported.

The Tianjin factory is one of five production units operated by SDI in China, and its critical for manufacturing smaller Li-ion batteries used in smartphones.

Samsung Galaxy Note 7 disaster to repeat in Samsung Galaxy S8?

If you remember, Samsung last month blamed the exploding Galaxy Note 7 disaster down to its faulty battery, and SDI was one of the two battery suppliers responsible for striking an early death knell on Galaxy Note 7 and costing the South Korean consumer electronics giant US $5.3 billion in operating profit.

What seems to be alarming is that the Samsung SDI plant where the battery-related fire broke out yesterday is reportedly set to supply batteries for Samsung's upcoming flagship smartphone Galaxy S8, according to Reuters.

Leaked Samsung Galaxy S8 according to Venturebeat

Will the Samsung Galaxy S8 suffer the same fate as Samsung Galaxy Note 7? You never know. In Samsungs defence, they did delay the Samsung Galaxy S8s expected MWC launch later this month and pushed it to March 29, precisely to make sure that none of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 issues was repeated and that the company "will be working hard to regain consumer trust," in the words of their mobile chief Koh Dong-Jin last month.

Weve reached out to Samsung for a quote and will update the story later when we hear from them.
President Hassan Rouhani said Thursday Iran's military power was "purely defensive", after tensions with the United States over its missile programme and a nuclear deal soared following Donald Trump's inauguration.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has showed that it doesn't intend to interfere with the internal affairs of other countries," Rouhani told foreign diplomats in Tehran, according to the ISNA news agency.

"Our military power is purely defensive," he was quoted as saying.

The comments from Rouhani, a moderate expected to run for re-election later this year, come after the war of words between Iran and the US spiked following Tehran's announcement of a ballistic missile test and Trump's controversial travel ban.

"At the current time, we must not allow some to create an unhealthy climate by conjuring illusions," Rouhani said, quoted by ISNA.

The new US president in his first weeks in office issued an executive order banning travel to the US for nationals of seven predominantly Muslim countries, including Iran.

He has criticised the landmark nuclear deal signed between Iran and world powers -- including the US -- and warned Iran last week it was "playing with fire" following the Islamic republic's missile test on January 29 and military drills last week.

The White House on Friday raised the stakes in the increasingly tense stand-off by slapping fresh sanctions on Tehran's weapons procurement network.

Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday that Trump's behaviour showed "the real face of America", long a leading adversary of Tehran.

Defence Minister Hossein Dehghan on Thursday rubbished a report by US cable channel Fox News the day before that alleged Iran had launched a new ballistic missile, Iran's IRNA news agency reported.

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We always knew how indestructible the Nokia 3310 was, but for the phone to survive a washing machine, swim in spicy curry, being stamped on repeatedly is just insane!

The Nokia 3310 launched in September 2000, a year before the twin towers of World Trade Center fell in New York City. And 17 years later, a former British soldier's trusty Nokia 3310 is still going strong, having survived the war zone of Afghanistan and Iraq pretty much unscathed.

Dave Mitchell, a 49 yr old retired British Army soldier, literally cant live without his Nokia 3310 phone. He says he would be distraught if he were forced to give the handset up, according to a Dailymail report.

He has a special relationship with his old and faithful Nokia 3310 phone, because its still going strong even after 17 years of non-stop use. And theres no signs of it stopping anytime soon.

Credit - Caters News Agency

He only charges the Nokia 3310 phone once every 10 days, and doesnt miss any modern features offered by faster, more powerful smartphones. He credits the Nokia 3310 for being virtually indestructible as hes inadvertently dropped the phones several times over its 17 year lifespan -- sometimes in a washing machine and curry sauce, too -- and each time hes either wiped or dusted off the handset, turned it on for it to work perfectly.

Why is he still hooked on to the Nokia 3310? After all its an old phone, has only 1KB of memory, space for only 250 contacts, 84x48 pixel monochrome display, and no camera or Internet? Because Mr Mitchell is happy with the phones features, doesnt take selfies and has no interest in surfing the Internet on his phone.

He even forgot his spare Nokia 3310 in a drawer in 2010 when he left for duty, knowing full well that he has a backup phone to keep him company should his current 17-yr-old active Nokia 3310 were to conk off. For his sake and for the sake of Nokias legacy, we hope the phone continues to go past the 20 year mark and beyond!
After Vietnam, Singapore and other countries in Southeast Asia, India is now also steadily stepping up military ties with Indonesia with an eye firmly on China. India and Indonesia have now decided to hold their first-ever joint air combat exercise as well as deepen maritime security cooperation.

Reuters

Defence sources say India also offered to train sailors from Indonesia in the complex art of submarine operations during the recent visit of defence secretary G Mohan Kumar to the country.

Vietnamese sailors, incidentally, are already being trained in "comprehensive underwater combat operations'' in the Indian Navy's submarine school INS Satavahana in Visakhapatnam. A similar programme to train the Vietnamese fighter pilots on Indian Sukhoi-30MKI fighter jets is set to begin this year, as was earlier reported by TOI.

Reuters

Much like the expansion of its military training, technology-sharing, joint exercises, visits and exchange of experts with Vietnam, India is now poised to crank up defence ties with Indonesia. Apart from exploring opportunities for collaboration in the defence production sector, the two countries will also upgrade their joint Army exercise called Garuda Shakti, the fourth edition of which was held at Magelang in Indonesia March 2016.

The two navies have also been conducting coordinated patrols on their respective sides of the international maritime boundary line (IMBL) twice a year since 2002, with the aim to keep this vital part of the Indian Ocean region safe and secure for commercial shipping and international trade.

Reuters

As for Singapore, India has also renewed its air force training agreement with the city state for another five years. With land and airspace being a scarce commodity in Singapore, it has been utilising Indian military facilities to train its own small but high-tech armed forces under special agreements signed in 2007 and 2008.

India, for instance, provides facilities to Singapore for exercises of mechanised forces at Babina and artillery at Deolali ranges as well as for fighters at the Kalaikunda airbase in West Bengal. The two countries also regularly hold the Simbex naval wargames, which have graduated from being purely anti-submarine warfare exercises to complex ones involving multiple facets of operations at sea.
"You don't get a maroon beret, you have to earn it," this is said about all those men who aspire to join Parachute Regiment, the Army's premier airborne strike force. The September 29 surgical strike on terror launch pads across LoC was the latest feat of daredevilry by the men from this elite force. But the government had refused to divulge the details of the operation in which 19 Para soldiers took part.

BCCL/representational image

It was only while bestowing medals to these bravehearts on the 68th Republic Day, the Army gave an account of the combat operation and the raw courage displayed by them in the citations of the gallantry awards. While scores of Army personnel might have been involved in the planning and execution of the cross-LoC operation, the 19 para soldiers were integral part of the surgical strike, the citations say.

One Colonel, five Majors, two Captains, one Subedar, two Naib Subedars, three Havildars, one Lance Naik and four Paratroopers of the 4th and 9th battalions of the Para Regiment took part in the surgical strike.

Also Read: Indian Army Carried Out A 'Surgical Strike' Against NSCN Militants, Reportedly Inside Myanmar

While Major Rohit Suri from the 4th Para was awarded a Kirti Chakra, Col Harpreet Sandhu, commanding officer of 4 Para, was honoured with a Yudh Seva Medal. The team also won four Shaurya Chakras and 13 Seva Medals. Colonel Harpreet Sandhu, who was tasked to undertake two simultaneous strikes on launch pads, was awarded a Yudh Seva Medal for formulating the strike plan and ensuring its execution flawlessly.

BCCL/representational image

The Army started planning to execute the surgical strike on the terror infrastructure in PoK soon after the Uri terror attack in J&K in which 17 soldiers were killed, but it was awaiting an 'amavasya' (moonless) night to execute the operation. Finally, on the intervening night of September 28-29, Major Rohit Suri, heading an eight-member strike team, was tasked to carry out strikes on the terror infrastructure.

Also Read: Nineteen Soldiers Who Carried Out The Surgical Strike In PoK Honored With Gallantry Awards

After carrying out a recce, Major Suri directed his team to engage the terrorists in the open at a launchpad. Suri and his buddy came within just 50m of the target and neutralised two terrorists. Once the terrorists in the open were killed, Major Suri noticed the movement of two suspected jihadis in the nearby jungle. The movement of two terrorists was also being tracked with a UAV. Major Suri ignoring his safety intercepted the terrorists and engaged them in a close fight, eliminating both of them.

Another Major was tasked to undertake close-target surveillance of the launchpads on September 27.

The officer, along with his assault group, crossed the LoC 48 hours prior to the strike and kept the target under close surveillance till the day of the strike. His team mapped the target zone, location of automatic weapons and different firing positions the strike team could use. The officer destroyed a weapon shelter, killing two terrorists. During the attack, his squad came under fire from a nearby weapon shelter. Sensing danger to his squad, the Major, who was honoured with Shaurya Chakra, crawled near the shelter and eliminated one more terrorist, silencing the gunfire.

AFP/representational image

The third Major along with his buddy closed in on a terror shelter and destroyed it, killing all jihadis sleeping inside. Thereafter, he guided other members of the strike group to safety. Major, who too was awarded Shaurya Chakra, kept his superiors posted about the progress of the operation during the strike.

The fourth Major was awarded a Sena medal for destroying an automatic weapon fortification with his grenade attack and killing two terrorists at close range.

The surgical strike was not an easy operation. The strike team came under heavy fire from terrorists. The fifth Major spotted three terrorists carrying RPG (rocket-propelled grenades), who were about to target the squad led by the fourth Major.

But before the terrorists could attack, the fifth Major, unmindful of his safety, engaged the terrorists in a gunfight and neutralised the two.

His buddy eliminated the third terrorist.

BCCL/representational image

Not only officers, even JCOs and paratroopers showed exemplary courage. A Naib Subedar, who was awarded Shaurya Chakra, fired grenades at a terrorists' fortification, killing two terrorists and destroying the launch pad. When he saw a terrorist firing at his team, he pushed his buddy to safety and charged at the terrorist and eliminated him.

Also Read: Proof Of Surgical Strikes Is Here, Here're The First Official Details On How Our Soldiers Targeted Pak Bunkers

Though no soldier was killed in the operation, a paratrooper, who was part of the surveillance team, suffered injuries during the operation.

After spotting two terrorists who were moving dangerously towards a strike squad, the paratrooper chased them but accidentally stepped on a mine, which blew up his right foot. Unmindful of his injuries, the paratrooper engaged the terrorists and killed one of them.
Amid the speculation of US-China standoff after a slew of events which led to the exchange of words between US and China, US President Donald Trump has broken the ice and written a letter to Chinese Premier Xi Jinping.

President Trump in the letter has reportedly said that he looks forward to working with the Chinese President to develop constructive relations. Although, the two leaders havent spoken directly since Trump took office.

AFP

The letter thanked Xi for his congratulatory note on Trump's inauguration and wished the Chinese people a prosperous Lunar New Year of the Rooster, the White House said in a statement on Wednesday.

"President Trump stated that he looks forward to working with President Xi to develop a constructive relationship that benefits both the United States and China," it said.

China's Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment on Thursday. Trump and Xi have yet to speak directly since Trump took office on Jan. 20, although they did talk soon after Trump won the U.S. presidential election in November.

Diplomatic sources in Beijing say China has been nervous about Xi being left humiliated in the event a call with Trump goes wrong and the details are leaked to the U.S. media. Last week, US ties with staunch ally Australia became strained after the Washington Post published details about an acrimonious phone call between Trump and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

"That is the last thing China wants," a source familiar with China's thinking on relations with the United States told Reuters. "It would be incredibly embarrassing for President Xi and for Chinese people, who value the concept of face."

AFP

A senior non-US Western diplomat said China was likely to be in no rush to set up such a call. "These things need to happen in a very controlled environment for China, and China can't guarantee that with the unpredictable Trump," the diplomat said. "Trump also seems too distracted with other issues at the moment to give too much attention to China."

There are a number of contentious areas where China fears Trump could go off script, the diplomat said, pointing in particular to the issue of self-ruled Taiwan, as well as trade. Trump upset China in December by taking a phone call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen. China considers Taiwan a wayward province with no right to formal diplomatic relations with any other country.

AFP

Trump has also threatened to slap tariffs on Chinese imports, accusing Beijing of devaluing its yuan currency and stealing U.S. jobs. In his Senate confirmation hearing, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said China should not be allowed access to islands it has built in the disputed the South China Sea. The White House also vowed to defend "international territories" in the strategic waterway.

China has repeatedly said it has smooth contacts with the Trump team. The Foreign Ministry in Beijing said last week the two countries were remaining "in close touch". That contact has been led by China's top diplomat, State Councillor Yang Jiechi, who outranks the foreign minister. Yang told Michael Flynn, Trump's National Security Advisor, last week that China hopes it can work with the United States to manage and control disputes and sensitive problems.
A few workers were injured after an explosion occurred at French utility EDF's Flamanville nuclear plant few hours ago.

Reuters

However, there was no nuclear risk from the explosion, French newspaper Ouest France reported on its website, citing local police.

Officials at EDF's Paris headquarters had no immediate comment and local officials at the plant in western France could not be immediately reached for comment.
Russias President, Vladimir Putin, has passed a controversial section to a law that ensures domestic abusers are not severely punished.

Reuters

The new addition has reduced a relatives assault from a criminal to a civil punishment. Campaigners are arguing this sends the message that abuse isnt a criminal enough crime.

President Putins party backed the alteration in law that only applies to first-time offenders and if the victim has not suffered any significant harm.

guias media

Domestic abuse can only become a criminal offence if the victim has broken bones or a concussion and is also proved. Otherwise, hitting a partner will result in a $500 or less fine, 15 days of administrative arrest or community service.

Following the softening of domestic abuse law, a Russian tabloid, Komsomolskaya Pravda, published that women should be proud of their bruises because absurdly it means they are more likely to give birth to boys.

Israel national news

Columnist Yaroslav Korobatov wrote, For years, women who have been smacked around by their husbands have found solace in the rather hypocritical proverb, If he beats you, it means he loves you!

However, a new scientific study is giving women with irascible husbands new grounds to be proud of their bruises, insofar as women who are beaten, biologists confirm, have a valuable advantage  theyre more likely to give birth to boys!

Are we back in the mediaeval age, already?
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the September 11 attacks, wrote to former president Barack Obama to tell him 9/11 was a direct result of American foreign policy and the deaths of innocent people it has caused.

AP

The 18-page letter was addressed to "the head of the snake, Barack Obama," leader of "the country of oppression and tyranny."

Defense attorney David Nevin provided a copy of the letter, which has not yet been posted on the US military's website for Guantanamo proceedings.

He told AFP that Mohammed began writing it in 2014.

The letter is dated January 8, 2015, but reached the White House only two years later in the last days of Obama's presidency, according to news reports, after a military judge ordered the Guantanamo prison camp where Mohammed is held to deliver it.

"It was not we who started the war against you in 9/11; it was you and your dictators in our land," he wrote.

He says God was on the side of the hijackers on that fateful day when airplanes were guided into the Twin Towers in New York, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

"Allah aided us in conducting 9/11, destroying the capitalist economy, catching you with your pants down, and exposing all the hypocrisy of your long-held claim to democracy and freedom," Mohammed wrote.

Reuters

Listing many grievances over America's "brutal and savage massacres" from Vietnam to the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Mohammed focused his rage on the plight of Palestinians and US support for Israel and the "occupier Jews."

"Your hands are still wet with the blood of our brothers and sisters and children who were killed in Gaza," he wrote in the opening paragraph.

Along with the letter, Mohammed sent a 51-page manuscript entitled "Shall I Die when the Crusaders Carry out the Death Sentence? The Truth about Death." It is illustrated with an image of a noose.

Mohammed, who faces a potential death sentence for allegedly masterminding the plane hijackings that killed almost 3,000 people, says he is not afraid of dying.

"I speak about death happily!" he wrote.

Reuters

Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003 and held at a secret CIA prison site overseas.

In the letter, he explained that "if your court sentences me to life in prison, I will be very happy to be alone in my cell to worship Allah the rest of my life and repent to Him all my sins and misdeeds."

"And if your court sentences me to death, I will be even happier to meet Allah and the prophets and see my best friends whom you killed unjustly all around the world and to see Sheikh Osama Bin Laden," he added, referring to the late al-Qaida leader killed in a US raid in 2011 in Pakistan.

Mohammad and his co-defendants face charges that include hijacking, terrorism and nearly 3,000 counts of murder in violation of the laws of war in a case that remains in the pretrial stage.

Reuters

In a closed 2007 appearance before a panel of military officers, he said he planned the September 11 attacks "from A to Z" and had been involved in many other plots. He said he personally beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl with his "blessed right hand", according to a transcript.

At his first public court hearing in 2008, he chanted verses of the Quran and said he would welcome becoming a martyr for his September 11 role. The following year he released a written statement calling the attacks a "noble victory."
Thordis Elva was sixteen when she was raped by her boyfriend, Tom Stranger. The incident happened when Stranger was visiting Iceland as an exchange student from Australia.

Every rape or sexual abuse is different. However, this story particularly stands out in one aspect. It brings together the victim and the attacker on a public platform where the two share their story together, narrating how neither of them understood the word 'consent' at the time of the rape.

Twenty years after Elva reached out to Stranger (the rape had happened in 1996), the two wrote a book together titled South of Forgiveness and also partnered for a Ted talk in 2016.

Their talk begins with Stranger telling the audience about his tour to Iceland as an 18-year-old boy and his relationship with Elva.

Elva then takes over and narrates how after a Christmas dance at their school, Stranger had raped her in her own bed. She recalls how she drank for the first time and fell "very ill, drifting in and out of consciousness in between spasms of convulsive vomiting".

Ted Women 2016

She details the ordeal where Stranger had taken her home and then proceeded to take her clothes off to get on top of her.

Elva says,

"My head had cleared up, but my body was still too weak to fight back, and the pain was blinding. I thought Id been severed in two. In order to stay sane, I silently counted the seconds on my alarm clock and ever since that night, Ive known that there are 7,200 seconds in two hours."

After the two broke up, both tried to grasp the incident where neither could relate the rape to that depicted in mainstream media. And therefore, neither could understand it completely.

Ted Women 2016

Stranger says,

"The word 'rape' didnt echo around my head as it should have and I wasnt crucifying myself of memories of the night before. My definition of my actions completely refuted any recognition of the immense trauma Id caused Thordis."

Years later, she wrote to Stranger in Australia, in the hopes of "finding forgiveness". She says,

"Regardless or not of whether he deserved my forgiveness, I deserved peace. My era of shame was over."

Ted Women 2016

Stranger wrote back a letter "full with disarming regret". In the following years, both broke their silences and started to heal together, with Stranger "whole-heartedly owning up to what he'd done".
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres plans to appoint former Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad as UN envoy to Libya, tasked with brokering talks on changes to a faltering political deal, diplomats said Thursday.

Guterres informed the Security Council in a letter that he intends to appoint Fayyad to replace Martin Kobler of Germany, who has been Libya envoy since November 2015.

Fayyad, 65, was prime minister of the Palestinian Authority from 2007 to 2013 and also served as finance minister twice.

The appointment comes amid diplomatic negotiations over changes to a UN-brokered political deal that led to the formation of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj's unity government.

The Sarraj government was installed in Tripoli last year but has failed to assert control further east, where strongman General Khalifa Haftar holds sway.

Kobler told the Security Council on Wednesday that talks on "possible amendments" to the political agreement were making progress.

Negotiations have focused on Haftar's role in the government and the need to have a unified army.

Sarraj's government is strongly backed by Western countries, while Haftar has been gaining support from Russia and Egypt after his forces drove Islamist militants from the second city of Benghazi.

Guterres has given the council two days to raise objections to the appointment, but diplomats said they did not expect opposition to the choice of Fayyad.

It was the first major appointment by Guterres of a special envoy to a conflict area since he became UN chief on January 1.

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Thursday's EWG meeting in Brussels is not expected to lead to any agreement over the now dangerously delayed second review of the Greek program, nevertheless, it could plot the course of a breakthrough -- given that a Feb. 20 Eurogroup is now only two weeks away.
U.S. officials stopped screening refugees for potential resettlement in the United States this week but will return to the Pacific atoll of Nauru to continue working toward a deal that President Donald Trump has condemned as "dumb," an Australian minister said Thursday.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton would not say when U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials would return to Nauru to conduct what Trump describes as "extreme vetting."

Trump made enhanced screening a condition for agreeing to honor an Obama administration deal to accept up to 1,250 refugees refused entry into Australia. Australia pays Nauru and Papua New Guinea to keep more than 2,000 asylum seekers  mostly from Iran, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka  in conditions condemned by rights groups.

The process of "extreme vetting" has yet to be explained.

U.S. officials were sent to Nauru within days of the deal's announcement in November after the U.S. presidential election. But they left this week with arrangements under a cloud.

"I don't have any comment to make in relation to when U.S. officials will be on Nauru next," Dutton told reporters. "There have been officials there who have left ... in the last couple of days and we would expect other officials to be there in due course."

Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul said most of refugees on Nauru who had been accepted by the United States as candidates for resettlement had initial interviews with U.S. officials in what they had been told was a two-step process.

But there have been no second interviews so far, Rintoul said.

Australia has determined that there are 1,600 genuine refugees among 2,077 asylum seekers on Papua New Guinea and Nauru. There could also be refugees among the 370 asylum seekers who came to Australia for medical treatment then took court action to prevent their return to the island camps.

As of last week, Nauru held 1,132 asylum seekers including women and children. The Manus facility in Papua New Guinea housed 818 men with another 127 male asylum seekers living elsewhere in Papua New Guinea.

Australia has said the "most vulnerable" refugees on Nauru would be given priority for U.S. resettlement.

After committing to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull that he would honor the agreement, Trump tweeted that it was a "dumb deal."

Asked last week whether the deal would continue, Trump said: "We'll see what happens."

Papua New Guinea was on Thursday accused of breaching the rights of 60 asylum seekers who have been told they are about to be deported.

The 60 have had their refugee claims rejected and one has already been removed from the men-only Manus facility, said Ben Lomai, a lawyer representing them.

Most of those targeted for deportation were from Iran, with others from Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Bangladesh.

One asylum seeker from Nepal was put on a commercial flight Wednesday night and told he was being returned to his home country, Lomai said.

Lomai was preparing an application for the court in Papua New Guinea on Thursday asking that the deportations be halted. The asylum seekers already have separate court applications pending asking that they be resettled in Australia, and Lomai said it would be unjust to deport them before those matters were heard.

Australian Attorney-General George Brandis defended Papua New Guinea's legal right to deport the men, saying their refugee claims have been investigated and rejected.

The Papua New Guinea government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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As Chair of Comminution Peru 2017 Conference, I am pleased to extend a warm invitation to mining and mineral processing Operators, Managers and Technical Experts to join us in Lima, Peru to update us on the latest advances in comminution practice in the mining industry. Peru is establishing a position of global importance in the world minerals supply, ranking as the third largest supplier of copper and in the top-5 producers of silver, lead, zinc, tin and molybdenum and growing with new projects and expansions. I view Peru as not just a major minerals producer but also driving the innovative advancement of mineral processing technology.

The massive low-grade ore-bodies that are now being developed demand much larger capacity for ore processing and removal of overburden than previously catered for in our process designs. At the heart of this is the corresponding increase in energy and equipment intensive comminution processes needed to liberate the valuable minerals. Improving the efficiency of the comminution circuit can change the economics of a mine, in

lower capital investment with leaner equipment, reduced operating costs of power and consumables, and most importantly in increased recovery through effective size reduction. There are still opportunities for cost-saving improvements that can be made to operations, plus significant steps in productivity through innovative thinking and new processes or equipment. The most significant advances will likely arise from linking mining, bulk ore handling and processing changes into processing transformation. I believe that Peru has the spirit to motivate major changes so as to accelerate development and move up the global minerals market.

We encourage suppliers and consultants from around the world to join us in sharing your experiences with a focus on application to the processing needs in Peru and the wider region. We wish this to be a vibrant conference of new ideas, novel equipment and processes, and routes to process improvement with current equipment  a future view grounded in reality. We call for papers and presentations that will share these ideas and bring our expertise to the fore in this worthwhile forum.

COMMINUTION 2017

 I international congress on Minerals Comminution to be held in in Lima, Peru from May 11th through 13th, 2017 at Hotel Sol de Oro, Miraflores.

The congress includes 30 technical presentations, keynote lectures, trade show and discussion panels with experts coming from 5 continents about ultimate technologies, equipment development, accessories and trends regarding to minerals crushing, grinding and classification , and also about geometallurgy. It is the most important event for those involved in Concentrators and Mines, with the participation of Plants and Projects responsibles , geology and mine chiefs and top suppliers of the region. Comminution 2017 has to Dr. Malcolm Powell (Australia) as Chairman. He is director of sustainable comminution in JKMRC from University of Queensland. The VP of this congress is Marcial Medina (Peru), who is Metallurgical Superintendent in Hudbay Minera Constancia Copper Concentrator Plant.

There will be 2 prior workshops: SAG Mill & Liners Design

Commercial Trade Show include more than 15 booths with top suppliers showing ultimate technologies. Ask for sponsorship opportunities to the email: informes@encuentrometalurgia.com

You can register for conferences to the email: comminutionperu@gmail.com

Invite you to participate in the best event for Mineral Processors in the world, with big networking opportunities.
The EU is Supporting Terrorists in Syria By President al-Assad February 08, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - " SANA" - Damascus, President Bashar al-Assad stressed that Syria is owned by the Syrians and that the peace is two things: fighting terrorists and terrorism, stopping the flowing of terrorism, every kind of logistical support. Second, dialogue between the Syrians to decide the future of their country and the whole political system. On his expectations from the new administration in Washington, President Assad said, in a statement to Belgian media,What we heard as statements by Trump during the campaign and after the campaign is promising regarding the priority of fighting terrorists, and mainly ISIS, thats what weve been asking for during the last six years. So, I think this is promising, we have to wait, its still early to expect anything practical. It could be about the cooperation between the US and Russia, that we think is going to be positive for the rest of the world, including Syria. So, as I said, its still early to judge it. Question 1: Mr. President, weve been to Aleppo, weve seen the destruction, how do you see the way forward to peace nowadays after Astana? President Assad: If you want to talk about how to see the peace, its not related mainly to Astana; its related to something much bigger: how can we stop the flowing of the terrorists toward Syria, or in Syria, how can we stop the support from regional countries like Turkey, Gulf states, or from Europe like France and UK, or from the US during the Obama administration. If we deal with that title, this is where you can talk about the rest, about the political procedure. Astana is one of the initiatives during this war on Syria, and its about the dialogue between the Syrians. Now its too early to judge Astana, the first one was positive because it was about the principles of the unity of Syria, about the Syrians deciding their future. How can you implement this communique? Thats the question, and I think we are going to see Astana 2 and so on. So, the peace is two things: fighting terrorists and terrorism, stopping the flowing of terrorism, every kind of logistical support. Second, dialogue between the Syrians to decide the future of their country and the whole political system. These are the headlines about how we see the future of Syria. Question 2: We have seen many breaches in the ceasefire, would you consider the ceasefire is still upholding, or is it dead? President Assad: No, its not dead, and its natural in every ceasefire anywhere in the world, in every war, in any conflict, to have these breaches. It could be sometimes on individual levels, it doesnt mean theres policy of breaching the ceasefire by the government or by any other party, and this is something we can deal with on daily basis, and sometimes on hourly basis, but till this moment, no, the ceasefire is holding. Question 3: In the fight against terror group Daesh, do you think all means are justified? President Assad: Depends on what do we mean by all means, you have to be Journalist: Literally all means. President Assad: Yeah, but I dont know what the means that are available to tell you yes or all means, so I dont what the all means are. But if you want to talk about military means, yes of course, because the terrorists are attacking the people  Im not only talking about ISIS; ISIS and al-Nusra and all the Al Qaeda-affiliated groups within Syria  when they are attacking civilians, and killing civilians, and beheading people, and destroying properties, private and public, and destroying the infrastructure, everything in this country, lets say, our constitutional duty and legal duty as government and as army and as state institutions is to defend the Syrian people. Its not an opinion; its a duty. So, regarding this, you can use every mean in order to defend the Syrian people. Question 4: But we have seen the destruction in Aleppo, you have seen the images as well. Was there no other way to do it? President Assad: Actually, since the beginning of the crisis, of the war on Syria, we used every possible way. We didnt leave any stone unturned in order to bring people to the negotiating table, but when you talk about the terrorists, when you talk about terrorists, when you talk about Al Qaeda, when you talk about al-Nusra and ISIS, I dont think anyone in this world would believe that they are ready for dialogue, and they always say theyre not; they have their own ideology, they have their own way path, they dont accept anything that could be related to civil state or civil country, they dont, and I think you know as a European about this reality. So, no, making dialogue with al-Nusra and Al Qaeda is not one of the means, but if somebody wanted to change his course on the individual levels, we are ready to accept him as a government, and give him amnesty when he goes back to the normal life and gives up his armament. Question 5: The Belgian government is contributing in the fight against Daesh. There are six F-16 fighter planes in the fight against Daesh. Are you grateful to the Belgian government for that contribution? President Assad: Let me be frank with you, when you talk about contribution in the operation against ISIS, actually there was no operation against ISIS; it was a cosmetic operation, if you want to talk about the American alliance against ISIS. It was only an illusive alliance, because ISIS was expanding during that operation. At the same time, that operation is an illegal operation because it happened without consulting with or taking the permission of the Syrian government, which is the legitimate government, and its a breaching of our sovereignty. Third, they didnt prevent any Syrian citizen from being killed by ISIS, so what to be grateful for? To be frank, no. Question 6: You have stated several times that it is up to the Syrian people, it is up to the constitution, to decide who their leadership should be, who their president should be. If the Syrian people would decide for a new leadership, would you consider to step aside? President Assad: If the Syrian people choose another president, I dont have to choose to be aside; I would be aside, I would be outside this position, thats self-evident, because the constitution will put the president, and the constitution will take him out according to the ballot box and the decision of the Syrian people. Of course, thats very natural, not only because of the ballot box; because if you dont have public support, you cannot achieve anything in Syria, especially in a war. In a war, what you need, the most important thing is to have public support in order to restore your country, to restore the stability and security. Without it, you cannot achieve anything. So, yes, of course. Question 7: Mr. President, I am 43 years old, if I would have been born in Syria, there would always have been an Assad in executive power. Can you imagine a Syria without a member of the Assad family in executive power? President Assad: Of course, we dont own the country, my family doesnt own the country, to say that only Assad should be in that position, thats self-evident, and this could be by coincidence, because President Assad didnt have an heir in the institution to be his successor. He died, I was elected, he didnt have anything to do with my election. When he was president, I didnt have any position in the government. If he wanted me to be an heir, he would have put me somewhere, gave me a responsibility, I didnt have any responsibility, actually. So, its not as many in the media in the West used to say since my election, that he succeeded his father or his father put him in that position. So, yes, Syria is owned by the Syrians, and every Syrian citizen has the right to be in that position. Question 8: Do you think the European Union or even NATO can play a role in, like, rebuilding the country, like, rebuilding Syria? President Assad: You cannot play that role while you are destroying Syria, because the EU is supporting the terrorists in Syria from the very beginning under different titles: humanitarians, moderate, and so on. Actually, they were supporting al-Nusra and ISIS from the very beginning, they were extremists from the very beginning. So, they cannot destroy and build at the same time. First of all, they have to take a very clear position regarding the sovereignty of Syria, stop supporting the terrorists. This is where the Syrians would  I say would  accept those countries to play a role in that regard. But in the meantime, if you ask any Syrian the same question, he will tell you no, we dont accept, those countries supported the people who destroyed our country, we dont want them to be here. Thats what I think. Question 9: Do you think Belgium can play a role in Syria? President Assad: Let me talk about the European political position in general; many in this region believe that the Europeans dont exist politically, they only follow the master which is the Americans. So, the question should be about the Americans, and the Europeans will follow and will implement what the Americans want. They dont exist as independent states, and Belgium is part of the EU. Question 10: There is a new administration in Washington, with Trump in power. What do you expect from it? Are you looking to work closely together? President Assad: What we heard as statements by Trump during the campaign and after the campaign is promising regarding the priority of fighting terrorists, and mainly ISIS, thats what weve been asking for during the last six years. So, I think this is promising, we have to wait, its still early to expect anything practical. It could be about the cooperation between the US and Russia, that we think is going to be positive for the rest of the world, including Syria. So, as I said, its still early to judge it. Question 11: If you look back on the last couple of years, are there any things that you regret? President Assad: Every mistake could be a regret, by any individual, and as a human Journalist: Have you made mistakes? President Assad: As a human, I have to make mistakes to be human. Otherwise, Im not a human. Journalist: What would you consider a mistake? President Assad: A mistake is when you either take a wrong decision or make a wrong practice, it depends on the situation. But if you want to talk about the crisis, as I understand from the question, the three decisions that we took from the very beginning is to fight terrorism, and I think its correct, is to make dialogue between the Syrians, I think its correct, to respond to every political initiative, whether its genuine or not, and I think its correct, and actually we supported the reconciliation between the Syrians, and I think its correct. Anything else could be trivial, so you have a lot of things regarding the practice, regarding the institutions, you always have mistakes. Question 12: If you look back, was this war avoidable? President Assad: No, because there was bad intention regarding the different countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, France, UK, and the US in order to destabilize Syria, so it wasnt about the Syrians. That doesnt mean that we dont have many flaws before the war and today as a country that allow many of those countries to mess with our country. Im not excluding, Im not saying its only about them, but they were the one who took the initiative in order to wage this war, so I dont think it was avoidable. Question 13: You have just had a visit from a Belgian parliamentary delegation with Mr. Dewinter and Mr. Carcaci, do you consider them as friends? President Assad: The most important thing about those visits is not to be friends with them. As a politician, you dont come to Syria to visit your friend; you come to Syria to see whats going on. Journalist: Do you see them as political allies? President Assad: No, theyre not my allies at all. They are coming here not for that reason; they are here in order to see whats going on. They are the allies of the Belgian people. They came here because the government, the Belgian government, like many European governments, are blind today, they have no relation with this country on every level, so they dont see whats going on, they cannot play any role. So, now the only eyes that you have are the delegations that are coming from your country, and this is one of them, this is one of the eyes that your government could have, and you could have many other eyes and delegations coming to Syria. So, theyre not my allies, theyre not coming here for me; theyre coming here to see the situation, and Im one of the players in the Syrian conflict, its natural to meet with me to hear whats my point of view. Question 14: Mr. President, just one more question: after the victories in Aleppo, Wadi Barada, your troops are close from al-Bab, do you think that all these major victories can change the mind of European governments concerning the Syrian government? President Assad: I dont know, I think they have to answer that question. For us, its our war, we need to liberate every single inch on the Syrian territory from those terrorists. If the European governments think that their efforts went in vain, thats good, they may change their mind, and at least to stop supporting those terrorists that dont have the support of the public in Syria; they only have the support of the Europeans and the Gulf states, the Wahabi Gulf states, in order to have more terrorism and extremism in Syria. We hope, I think during the last two years, the whole world has changed, the United States has changed, the situation in Syria has changed, the situation in the region in general has changed. Two things didnt change or hasnt changed till this moment: first of all, Al Qaeda is still there through ISIS and al-Nusra, and the mentality of the European officials, it hasnt change yet, they live in the past. Question 15: Mr. President, in your opinion, what is our ______ to question if after the war, the international court in the Hague should go over some responsibles on the crimes against humanity against the Syrian people, do you support that view, that the responsibles of the crimes at war should be judged by the international court in the Hague? President Assad: We all know that the United Nations institutions are not unbiased, they are biased, because of the American influence and the French and British, mainly. So, most of those institutions, they dont work to bring the stability to the world or to look for the truth; they are only politicized to implement the agenda of those countries. For me, as president, when I do my duty, the same for the government and for the army, to defend our country, we dont look to this issue, we dont care about it. We have to defend our country by every mean, and when we have to defend it by every mean, we dont care about this court, or any other international institution. Question 16: Yes. Do you accept the position of the United Nations? President Assad: It depends on that position. Most of the positions are biased, as I said, regarding every organization, regarding every sector, regarding most of the resolutions against Syria. Thats why it was for the first time maybe for Russia and China to take so many vetoes in few years, because they know this reality. So, no, we dont accept, we dont accept. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
How Trump Can Defeat ISIS



Attacking Iran will not win the war on terror. Working with Russia and Syria might.



By Sharmine Narwani February 08, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - " American Conservative " - If you were betting on an unpredictable Donald J. Trump to transform Americas bankrupt Mideast policy scene, these next ten words will burst your bubble. As of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice, National Security Advisor Michael Flynn told reporters a mere thirteen days into the new administration. Iran? If you recall, Trump came roaring off the campaign trail with the foreign policy priority of defeating ISIS, so why the sudden confrontation with the Islamic Republic of Iran? Though Flynn apparently thinks otherwise , ISIS and Iran are not the same thing at allthey are the exact antithesis of each other. Iran is a natural regional hegemon by virtue of its size, population, and development indicators. The Shia-majority nation has not initiated war in centuries, forges state-to-state relations using soft power tools, and prides itself on its diversifying knowledge-based economy, rich cultural heritage, and respect for diversity . ISIS is a non-state actor driven by a radical, Wahhabi-infused interpretation of Islam that uses violent terror tactics to seize territory and subjugate populations. ISISs reign of terror has been marked by extreme intolerance for other views, the destruction of cultural and historic sites, and the wholesale massacre of people it considers infidelsthe Shia in particular. And now Trump looks set to ignore the foundational truth that scuppered both Obama and Clinton efforts in the Mideast: you cannot pick fights with both ISIS and Iran and expect to win anything. You have to pick one or prepare to hunker down for endless conflict. Terror groups like ISIS, al-Qaeda, and other Salafist militants in their strongholds of Syria and Iraq view Iran as their core regional adversary. The Islamic Republic of Iran, after all, is allied with both Damascus and Baghdad. Iran trains, arms, or guides the armies and militias now successfully mowing down jihadists. Every time the U.S. intervenes to isolate or diminish Irans role, it only undermines the regional ground forces that do the heavy lifting against ISIS and al-Qaeda. Washingtons Iran hawks panic over Tehrans recent ascendance from the Levant to the Persian Gulf, but Irans improved regional stature comes courtesy of the rise of ISIS and al-Qaeda in these areas. All this is fueled directly by the U.S. and its NATO and Arab allies, who backed the extremist rebels who drew in Iran. You cant have your cake and eat it too. Regional states view the fight against ISIS and al-Qaeda as an existential one and will fight them to the death. The stakes are not nearly as bleak for the U.S., many miles away from the gory battlefields. But the consequences of unleashing jihadi terrorin part, to contain Iran and its allieshave now seeped onto western shores and made security a national priority. Is Washington prepared to break from its failed policy trajectory and make the crucial choice between Iran and ISIS? Because if Trump is willing to do that, a plan to defeat ISIS and al-Qaeda is in easy reachand it will barely cost the deal-making businessman a dime. Big Bang, Small Bucks All the military components necessary to defeat ISIS and al-Qaeda currently exist inside Syria and Iraq. There are the armed forces of both states, accompanied by large volunteer-based militias operating under a central command structure. They are assisted by the Russian air force in Syria and the U.S.-led coalition air forces in Iraq, and flanked by secure western borders in Lebanon and eastern ones in Iran. But whats missing is a commitment by all external parties to coordinate their mission around a singular goalthe destruction of ISIS and al-Qaeda, to the exclusion of all other ambitions or interests. That means Washington will have to cast aside its long-held claim that the only force available to fight ISIS is a Kurdish and Sunni Arab one. The multi-sect and multi-ethnic Syrian and Iraqi national armies and their allied militias would beg to disagree, and they now wield the evidence of many victories against ISIS and al-Qaeda. Mainstream U.S. media frequently dismisses or ignores these advances, mainly because traditional American foes (and Shiites) are the driving forces behind them. But its silly to exclude the Shia from a security solution. Today, they form a majority demographic from the Levant to the Persian Gulf, and are the obvious local source of manpower to fight the existential ISIS and al-Qaeda threat directed at their own populations. Other interventions that will not address this central threatlike defeating or weakening Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, partitioning states, establishing Kurdish federations, and backing militant groupsmust stop. The U.S. and its allies must instead focus on the collective task of securing borders, sharing intelligence, thwarting financiers of terrorism, and coordinating sensitive military operations under a command sanctioned by Russia and Syria. When Trump sits down with Russian President Vladimir Putin at their as yet-unannounced first meeting, there is ample opportunity for the two leaders to cast their weight behind a joint singular mission. At his inauguration, Trump promised : We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the worldbut we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first. From this must come the recognition that Russia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon also want to pursue their own interests, in their own regions. A joint U.S.-Russian deal to focus primarily on defeating ISIS and al-Qaeda may result in a Syria with Assad and a stronger, more secure Iran, but the upside is hugeand globally significant. The war on terror will be won, an important notch on Trumps belt for both domestic constituents and international audiences. He will have managed this feat at minimal cost and with no American boots on the ground. Washingtons positive collaboration in defeating terror will open up Mideast markets that were not previously accessible because of politics or security. The sources of inspiration and funding for worldwide jihad will be culled. And Trump can take credit for an extraordinary, Nixon-like rapprochement with the Russian Federation, yanking the two states away from the brink of confrontation and ushering in a new era of bilateral cooperation. While Washington may have to downsize some traditional relationships in the process, the damage can be contained. Abandoning the Obama administrations Kurdish projects will ensure that U.S.-Turkish relations can get back on track, and that Arab-Iranian-Turkish mistrust of American and Kurdish intentions will fade. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other major financiers of ISIS, al-Qaeda, and Salafist militias will have to be brought to heel, but their interest in the Syrian and Iraqi battlefields have lessened anyway as contracting economies, domestic restiveness, and conflict in Yemen have intensified. Their security infrastructures are so intertwined with the U.S. military that they cannot afford to clash with Trump on a subject as universally reviled as terror financing. As for the Israelis and their Iran fixation, Americans cant be expected to sideline vital national security interests to perpetually babysit that state. Trump can take credit for making Israel safer, and thats that. But none of this can be achieved if the Trump administration continues to confront Iran simultaneously. There are no Kurdish or Sunni Arab troops able to defeat ISIS and al-Qaeda alone. If the U.S. had been able to amass and train enough of them, Washington would have already done it in Iraq, circa 2003. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov points out , Iran has never been complicit in any links to IS or Al-Nusra Front whatsoever. Moreover, Iran contributes to combatting IS. We have long advocated the idea of creating a unified anti-terrorist front. I am convinced that Iran must be part of our common effort if we evaluate potential contributors to such an alliance objectively. Can Trump slice through the conventional Beltway mindset on Iran, particularly given the Iran hawks he has gathered around him? Will the efficiency of an alternative plan appeal to him enough to break free? Will the decisive CEO in him emerge, or are we stuck with an insecure, inexperienced politician who cleaves to the guidance of trusted old hands who lack new ideas? Because heres the rub. The Syrians, Iranians, Iraqis, Lebanese, and Russians are defeating ISIS and al-Qaeda anyway, with or without the United States. Lets see what happens when Trump meets Putin. Sharmine Narwani is a commentator and analyst of Mideast geopolitics, based in Beirut. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
Two out of the five Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, members in Jigawa State House of Assembly, JSHA, have defected to the ruling party, the All Progressive Congress, APC, the News Agency of Nigeria reports.

The Speaker of the House, Idris Isa, announced during plenary on Thursday that the two members had submitted their separate letters to him stating their intention to change their party.

I received letters from two of our Honourable colleagues stating their change of party (PDP to APC) with effect from today.

The members are Honourable Ibrahim Sulaiman Gwiwa (Gwiwa Constituency) and Honourable Shuaibu Inuwa Fagam (Fagam Constituency), Mr. Isa announced.

Governor Muhammad Badaru of the state was at the house to witness the defection but declined comment even after the speaker requested him to do so.

Speaking to journalists, Mr. Fagam said that he left his party due to its leadership crisis.

I left the PDP for APC, and I did so because my former party lacked one leadership.

Even the PDPs national headquarters had been under lock and key for the past one year.

I also moved to APC because of prudent management of the states resources by the present administration under Gov. Badaru, he said.

Also, commenting, Mr. Gwiwa told journalists that he joined the APC because the state government had continued with all projects abandoned by immediate past administration in his constituency.

There were over N4 billion worth of projects abandoned in my constituency and this administration has continued to execute most of these projects.

We were also being carried along in all activities in House despite the fact that we were PDP members.

Again, as opposition party members, we were members of sensitive committees of the House. So these are some of the reasons why I joined the APC, he said.

The two defectors denied allegations that they were given money to abandon their former party.

Nobody gave us kobo to join APC, I joined the party based on the reasons I told you earlier, Mr. Fagam said.

Also Mr. Gwiwa said: Looking at my age and experience, you will believe that there is nothing monetary in my defection to APC.
The Lagos state command is investigating a case of suspected murder committed by a 51 year old man against his mother. On February 7, 2017 at about 11pm, one Akintunde Ayoola of united estate, Sangotedo, Ajah Lagos, came to the station and reported that on the same date at 6pm, he got information that his brother, Oluwaseye Ayoola manhandled his mother over failure to release undisclosed amount of money to him.

However, on arrival at the scene, he found his mother, Dorcas Ayoola, 81, dead in a pool of her blood. The culprit, Oluwaseye Ayoola then fled to an unknown destination. At the receipt of the information, the commands detectives from Ogombo division launched a manhunt for the suspect, he was consequently arrested.

Upon interrogation the suspect confirmed that he had gone to his mother to ask for the sum of #500,000 out of his late sisters will of #11,000,000 but she refused to give him, an occurrence which angered the suspect and made him pounced on the old woman and axed her to death.

The Lagos state police commands spokesperson SP Dolapo Badmos who confirmed the case said that the suspect is in custody while the corpse have been deposited in general hospitals mortuary for autopsy.

Source: News Every Hour
Gov. Abubakar Bello of Niger has said that 60 per cent of primary and secondary school teachers in public schools in the state used fake and invalid certificates to obtain teaching jobs.

Bello made the statement when he received members of the Board of Directors of Bida Emirate Education Forum, led by its Chairman, Prof. Jonathan Ndagi, in Minna on Wednesday.

He said that the attention of the state government had been drawn to the fact that most primary and secondary school teachers used fake certificates to get employment.

According to him, most of the teachers in public schools do not have the requirement and are not qualified to teach.

Information reaching us is that majority of our teachers in public schools do not have the competency to teach and that is why the state has record of mass failure in WAEC and NECO.

Primary school is the basic foundation for children, if the foundation is faulty, then we will bring graduating students who cannot compete with their compatriots, he said.

The governor directed the Ministry of Education to look at the challenges facing public schools and suggest how best government can intervene.

Identify the genuine teachers and the fake ones. The real teachers will be compensated and paid well.

Teachers salaries will be reviewed and those with fake certificates will be fished out because if we allow this to continue it will mean the children of the ordinary men dont have hope, he added.

Earlier, Ndagi disclosed that the emirate generated N107 million as Internally Generated Revenue since 2001 to date.

He said the organisation spent N124 million on the renovation of classrooms, establishment of computer-based test centres and creation of women development centres.

The chairman added that the emirate also sponsored 150 indigenous students for pre-degree programmes in Federal University of Technology, Minna.

He said that the state government only supported the emirate with N20 million since 2001 and called for more support.

Source: Naija Loaded
The container laden with 661 pump-action rifles intercepted by the federal operations unit (FOU) zone A Ikeja, Lagos of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) last week, was released by some officials of the Nigeria Customs Service without the mandatory inspections that ought to have been carried out, Leadership findings have revealed.

Checks by a correspondent showed that neither physical examination nor scanning was conducted on the container before it exited the Lagos port, even as it was further gathered that the case of the 661 rifles was not the first time containers were exiting Apapa port without proper examination conducted on them.

The Assistant Inspector General of Police, Maritime Command, Musa Katsina, had in May, 2016, intercepted a truck conveying a 40-foot container which he alleged was moved out of the ports at midnight.

Under examination, it was discovered that it contained used tyres that were not declared, as well as used vehicles that were under-declared, leading to leakages in revenue accruing to the federal government.

Confirming Leaderships investigation, the public relations officer, Apapa Command of the service, Emmanuel Ekpa, said preliminary investigation by the command showed that the container was not examined before being released by officers of the command.

He said, This said container was not dropped for examination. I can authoritatively tell you that no examination was conducted and it was not among the list of containers to be examined the day it was released. When a container is brought in, it will be brought for examination or scanning to determine what it contains, but nothing of such was done on this.

When asked why it was released by the command when it was not scheduled for examination, he said, Only investigation can reveal why the container was released without scanning or examination.

Source: Naija Loaded
Police in central Germany say they have detained two known Islamic extremists in an investigation of possible plans for an attack.

Police said the men  a 27-year-old Algerian and a 23-year-old Nigerian, whose names weren't released  were detained during searches early Thursday in and near Goettingen. They said both live in the city and have long been part of the Salafist scene there.

Twelve properties were searched in the operation. Goettingen police chief Uwe Luehrig said that information about a possible attack plan had accumulated in recent days to the extent that officials decided to take quick action.

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The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) in Kaduna on Wednesday described as unfortunate the allegations by motorist accusing the corps of mounting indiscriminate check-points and extorting motorists in Kaduna.

The Sector Commander, Francis Udoma, denied the allegation while reacting to the state government order that barred FRSC from erecting checkpoints in Kaduna and other urban centres in the state.

Mr. Udoma said that since he resumed office as the sector commander of the corps in the state, no motorist or any member of the public had filed a complaint bordering on extortion of any sort.

FRSC do not condone any form of corruption. Collecting bribe under any guise is outright dismissal and our men are fully aware of that, he said.

We are only doing our job as prescribed by the Act that established FRSC.

Asking motorists to pay fine for committing traffic offences is a matter of law and no official collects any money from motorist, they pay in the bank and the money goes to the federation account, he said.

On the mandate of FRSC, he said that FRSC was empowered to patrol federal, state and local government roads with the core mandate of keeping Nigerian roads accident-free.

But if Gov Nasir El-Rufai insists that we should leave, we will do just that because he is the chief security officer and the number one citizen of the state.

But we will continue to discharge our duties where necessary in accordance with our mandate, he said.

The Kaduna State Government had in a statement signed by Special Assistant to the governor, Samuel Aruwan, on Wednesday barred FRSC from inspecting vehicles in Kaduna and other urban centres in the state.

Mr. Aruwan said the decision was taken by the state Security Council after a meeting in which it reviewed complaints from the general public against the road marshals.

The government further directed the FRSC officials to henceforth, concentrate their activities in ensuring safe travel on highways such as the Abuja-Kaduna expressway and other federal highways.

The Kaduna State Government had in May 2016, inaugurated traffic and environmental agency tagged, Kaduna State Traffic and Environmental Laws Enforcement Agency (KASTELEA).

The agency is empowered by law to control and regulate traffic around Kaduna metropolis and other towns in the state.

Source: NAN
The governor of Borno State has been thoroughly shocked after storming Maiduguri only to find schools abandoned by teachers.

Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima has expressed shock at the abandonment of classes by public school teachers in spite of efforts to revive the education sector ravaged by the activities of the Boko Haram sect, the News Agency of Nigeria reports.

Shettima made the observation when he paid an unscheduled visit to Lamisula Primary and Junior Secondary School located in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.

The governor, who observed that most teachers were absent at the school, decided to conduct a roll call of the teaching staff at the end of which only 43 out of the 87 teachers were present.

Shettima expressed sadness over the development, promising to take action against those found absent.

He said, It is sad to note that more than 40 per cent of the teachers were absent.

Those absent will face punishment to serve as deterrent to other teachers and workers.

Shettima, who went around the classrooms and interacted with the pupils, also expressed dismay at the conditions of some classrooms as pupils were made to sit on the bare floor in spite of the availability of furniture in government stores.

The governor ordered the state mechanical workshop to supply enough furniture to the school to address the problem.

He said, It is really disturbing that in the heart of Maiduguri, our children are sitting on the floor to learn in spite of thousands of school desks we have distributed.
Nigerias President Muhammadu Buhari Thursday met with the leaders of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in London.

Both former governor of Lagos State and a leader of the party Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and former national chairman of the APC, Bisi Akande, met with the president at Abuja House, London, according to a message from the official presidency Twitter account.

Buhari left Nigeria in January for London to undergo routine medical check-ups during a short holiday and was expected to resume work on February 6.

But he later extended the vacation on the advice of his doctors, his spokesman, Femi Adesina said.

President Muhammadu Buhari has written to the National Assembly today, February 5, 2017, informing of his desire to extend his leave in order to complete and receive the results of a series of tests recommended by his doctors, Adesina said in a statement.

The President had planned to return to Abuja this (Sunday) evening but was advised to complete the test cycle before returning. The notice has since been dispatched to the Senate President, and Speaker, House of Representatives.

Mr. President expresses his sincere gratitude to Nigerians for their concern, prayers and kind wishes.

Buharis current visit to London would make it the second time in less than a year he has gone there for medical treatment.

He visited London in June 2016 for treatment to what the presidency described as a persistent inner ear infection, which caused him to pull out of several scheduled engagements. But his latest visit, however, has been dogged by the rumours of his death.

Source: Guardian
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, on Wednesday, said President Muhammadu Buhari was in regular discussion with the Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, every day.

This, he said, showed that the President was not in danger or hospitalised as being speculated.

Mohammed spoke while briefing State House correspondents on the outcome of a meeting of the Federal Executive Council in Abuja presided over by Osinbajo.

He was joined at the briefing by the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola; Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh; and the Minister of Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enelamah.

Mohammed attributed the controversy over the health status of the President to Buharis transparency.

He said Buhari, who had at different times in the last few weeks been reported to have passed on or in a critical shape, was a victim of his own transparency.

The minister said the controversy was caused by Buhari, who, in his usual transparent manner, announced that he was going on vacation during which period he would undergo check-ups.

He said people had undergone check-ups without announcing doing so.

He stated, Mr. President, like I said elsewhere, is a victim of his own transparency. He was going on leave; he did what the constitution says he should do. He transmitted a letter to the National Assembly and an Acting President was put in place.

The President said while I am on leave, I am going to conduct some medical tests which all of us do without announcing them.

And of course, less than six hours after he got there, he was pronounced dead by some people. Even those who saw him climbed the aircraft in Abuja said he was flown by air ambulance.

I can assure you that Mr. President is well, is hale and hearty and no cause for concern. The Acting President speaks to him every day and he told you (reporters) so.

He stated that Buhari was in good health and was not in any danger.

The information minister added, I think I can say without any equivocation that he is well, he is hale and he is hearty. No question about that.

Do you think Mr. President will be ill and we will be here and go about our business like this? He (Fashola) was in Anambra about three days ago. I was in Ilorin on Monday. All ministers are busy. I want to assure you that Mr. President is well and he is absolutely in no danger.

Mohammed faulted the position of those quoting him as calling for updates on the health status of the late President Umaru YarAdua as the then spokesman for the defunct Action Congress.

He said YarAduas case was completely different from the current case at hand, arguing that in Buharis case, there was no need for any update.

He stated, I think it was one of the newspapers that said when I was the spokesman for the AC, I demanded hourly bulletin of YarAduas health and that I ought to be giving hourly bulletin as Minister of Information on the health of the President.

They are comparing apples and oranges. Mr. President is not ill, he is not in hospital. There will be no need to give anybody hourly bulletin about his health, pure and simple!

When asked if it was ideal for the President to embark on vacation at a time the nation was in recession, Mohammed replied, Absolutely yes! Our constitution guarantees that. Did Obama not go on leave? Do other Presidents not go on leave?

Mr. President will go on vacation when he has to go on vacation. Do you know how many ministers have gone on vacation this year? To say Mr. President cannot go on vacation is ridiculous.

Meanwhile, the National Caretaker Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party said in Abuja, on Wednesday, that it was not praying for the death of Buhari.

Rather, it said it was its prayer that the President should return to Nigeria in peace from the United Kingdom, where he is currently holidaying and attending to his health.

The Chairman of the PDP National Caretaker Committee, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, stated this while addressing members of the party in Abuja.

He spoke during the submission of the report of the PDP Strategic Review and Inter-Party Affairs Committee, headed by Prof. Jerry Gana.

Makarfi, a former governor of Kaduna State, said it was in the interest of the PDP for the President to return in peace and continue to preside over the affairs of the nation.

He added, His health is important to the country and Nigerians. It is true we want to capture power in 2019, but we want to take over in an orderly manner.

He must come back and continue his work; thats our prayer. So, we want two people to, before this event is over, pray for the good health of the President.

Before then, a former governor of Niger State, Dr. Babangida Aliyu, had prayed for the Presidents quick recovery.

Aliyu, who was the second to pray during the opening session, asked God to grant the President good health to enable him to lead the country throughout his tenure.

Also, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the party, Sen. Walid Jibrin, dissociated the PDP from those spreading rumour on the alleged death of the President.

Jibrin, who described those spreading such rumour as power seekers, advised them to revert to offering prayers of recovery for the President.

He added, As good opposition, we shall never engage in wishing President Buhari dead; instead, we are engaged in special prayers for Mr. President and sincerely sympathise with his family and the Acting President of the country.

Instead of some power seekers engaging themselves in spreading rumour, they should revert to offering prayers for the President. All those trying to involve PDP in wishing the President dead should better stop as the PDP has a good name to maintain.

Source: Punch
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) operatives raided the home of Andrew Yakubu, former General Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), in Kaduna city on Thursday.

The agents recovered $9.2 million from Mr. Yakubus safe and an additional 72,000. The EFCC said it was the largest sum of cash the commission had recovered in recent weeks.

Mr. Yakubu was arraigned in June 2016 on allegations of money laundering.

He served as GMD of NNPC from 2012 to 2014 during the Goodluck Jonathan administration. Premium Times reported in 2014 that the embattled GMD was sacked after then Minister of Petroleum Resources Diezani Alison-Madueke accused him of insubordination.

Source: SaharaReporters
Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose has blamed the current problem of congestion in the nations prisons on the arbitrariness of the Federal Government and its law enforcement agencies.

Fayose argued that prisons in the country were over populated because Federal Government agencies like the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), Department of State Services (DSS) and the Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arrest and detain innocent citizens and perceived opponents of the Federal Government for flimsy reasons and on malicious, spurious and unfounded allegations.

The governor canvassed this argument in his response to a letter by the National Security Adviser (NSA), Major General Babagana Monguno (rtd), with reference number NSA/601/A and dated January 16, 2017, requesting his (Fayoses) assistance in facilitating quick decongestion of the nations prisons.

Monguno had, in the letter, argued that the problem of prison congestion by awaiting trial suspects and convicts has negatively hampered the administration of justice in the country.

Fayose noted, in his response, that many Nigerians were currently languishing in prison without any reprieve, because of the trumped-up charges of heinous offences preferred against them by these agencies.

Copies of his response were addressed to President Muhammadu Buhari and the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami (SAN).

Fayose said: Specifically, the controversial arrests and continued detention of Messers Nnamdi Kanu, Col. Sambo Dasuki (Rtd) and Ibrahim El Zakyzaky among several others, and the flagrant disregard and disobedience to court orders directing their release from prison by security and law enforcement agencies are not only unjust, immoral and detestable but constitute an affront to the rule of law and a rape on democracy.

He urged the office of the NSA to critically appraise the nefarious activities of the security and law enforcement agencies which not only constitute an infraction of the fundamental rights of the affected citizens, guaranteed under the constitution, but also directly contribute to the perennial prisons congestion.

Your inaction or failure to address the above-mentioned acts of Executive rascality and lawlessness will definitely undermine and belie your sincere concern and genuine commitment to the decongestion of the prisons as stated in your letter.

It is, therefore, my candid advice that your office should urgently intimate appropriate authorities with the need to henceforth lead by example, by respecting the rule of law, eschewing all forms of arbitrary discriminatory and dictatorial practices and disobedience to Court orders

It is my believe that your prompt action in the above regard, may help to correct the growing public perception that the Federal Government is selective in its observance of the rule of law and is partial in its so-called anti-corruption crusade.

Source: TheNation
He explained that the Federal Government gave N7.8billion to the state in July 2016 and another N11.5billion in December to settle all outstanding indebtedness.

Obono-Obla asked: Why has Governor Benedict Ayade not paid civil servants and pensioners. Why are the residents not asking questions if we must clamour for true federalism?Also, the National Vice Chairman (South-South) of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Ntufam Hilliard Eta, urged the governor to explain how the bailout fund and the Paris Club debt were spent, since they were loans.

He appealed to the governor to invest in infrastructure that would benefit the masses, adding that the states position during the public hearing organised by the Senate, showed lack of accountability.

The state Chairman of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), John Ushie, had, last week, threatened to go on strike to compel the governor to pay them their entitlements.

But, the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor and Senior Special Assistant on Media, Mr. Christian Ita denied that the fund was misappropriated.He said: What Obono-Obla is doing is personal pursuit of a narrow interest. The delay at the local councils level had to do with technical hitches in the process of bio-verification.

We are aware that while some people have not earned their salaries for up to six months, others had been paid up to March 2016. So it is not a question of lack of money but that of trying to address the technical challenges.

Government had raised an inter-ministerial panel, mandating commissioners to go to local councils to supervise the exercise. As soon as it is completed, everybody would be paid, he said.
The Nigerian government has applied for an amendment of the 16 count criminal charge leveled against Senate president, Bukola Saraki, before the Code of Conduct Tribunal, CCT, in Abuja on Wednesday.

The CCT panel permitted Saraki to enter his plea to the fresh charge by 1:30pm.

Dr. Saraki was docked before the CCT on September 22, 2015, on a 13-count charge and latter re-arraigned on April 28, 2016, on an amended 16-count corruption charge.

FG alleged that he made false/anticipatory declaration of assets, operated foreign accounts while in office as Kwara State governor between 2003 and 2011, as well as collected governorship salary four years after his tenure had elapsed. FG had earlier called two witnesses that testified against the defendant before the tribunal.

At the resumed hearing of the case on Wednesday, Justice Umar stood-down the proceeding to record Sarakis fresh plea. The development came shortly after the third prosecution witness, Pw-3, Mr. Samuel Madujemu narrated how FG uncovered discrepancies in assets the defendant declared to the Code of Conduct Bureau, CCB.

The witness is the Chief Admin Officer at the CCB.

He was the head of investigation Division under the Department of Intelligence, Investigation and Monitoring, that joined the EFCC to probe Sarakis assets.

Madujemu told the tribunal that Saraki made his first assets declaration on September 16, 2003, upon his assumption of office. He told the tribunal that a joint investigative team involving the CCB, Federal Ministry of Justice and the EFCC, discovered that Saraki falsely declared his assets.

He said:  After we discovered that there were some discrepancies, we commenced further investigations into the matter. One of the discrepancies we discovered had to do with false declaration and none declaration of some assets and some liabilities.

The witness said he was not aware that the CCB initially verified Sarakis assets before EFCC tendered preliminary report that ignited the joint investigation. He told the tribunal that Saraki under-declared some assets he acquired in 2006. For instance, he told the tribunal that Saraki declared two properties he bought in Lagos and left out two others.

But reading from one of the assets declaration forms marked as exhibit-3, the witness said: My lord what I see here is No17a and 17b Mc Donald Street Ikoyi which the defendant acquired with a bank loan in 2006. No 15a and 15b Mc Donald Ikoyi which he also acquired in 2006 was not included in the assets he declared.

Saraki allegedly acquired the properties with N265m. The witness was at the verge of revealing more alleged discrepancies in assets the Senate President declared, when head of the defence team, Chief Kanu Agabi, SAN, drew attention of the tribunal to the amended charge against his client. My lord I think we should at this juncture bring to your notice the fact that we were served with an amended charge this morning.

You cannot proceed further in th matter until the defendant pleads to that amended charge. My lord the defendant is psychologically affected by this amended charge and is desirous to enter his plea. At this stage the defendant must plead to it before we proceed further on this matter. If it is not serious then the prosecution should withdraw it, Agabi submitted.

Responding, the prosecution counsel, Mr. Rotimi Jacobs (SAN) said he did not raise the issue so as not to disrupt proceeding of the day. My lord amendment can be done anytime even after their own defence, before judgment is delivered. Moreover we are not bringing anything new. The new charge is just the old wine in a new bottle, Jacobs argued. Though the tribunal panel observed that they were yet to receive a copy of the amended charge, Justice Umar said he was willing to stand-down the matter for one hour.

Chief Agabi remember that Rotimi is your son, the tribunal Chairman, Justice Umar jokingly remarked. No my lord, Rotimi is now a bad son, Agabi responded. Saraki will now face an amended 18-count charge.

Source: Politics NGR
After months of speculations, with denials by the management of Arik Air, Asset Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) has finally taken over the troubled Nigerian carrier.

In a statement made available to aviation reporters today, AMCON confirmed its seizure of the debt-ridden airline.

Our aviation correspondent found that, prior to todays takeover of the airline, Arik Air owed AMCON more than N135 billion in debt. The airline also owed N10 billion to other service providers.

In its statement, AMCON appointed Captain Roy Ukpebo Ilegbodu, a veteran aviation expert, to run Arik under the receivership of Mr. Oluseye Opasanya, a Nigerian lawyer. AMCON explained that it took over the airline due to the carriers heavy financial debt that is threatening to permanently ground Arik.

Arik Air is responsible for the airlift of at least 55 per cent of freight in Nigerias aviation sector, but the carrier has been racked by financial and operational difficulties attributed to its bad corporate governance and weak operational practices. The airline has maintained an unreliable schedule, consistently failed to bring in passengers luggage, and has been unable to pay staff salaries.

AMCON said Nigerian authorities called upon the corporation to intervene before Arik Air went under like many other carriers before it.

AMCONs statement suggested that its takeover of the beleaguered airline underscored the Federal Governments policy to instill order in Nigerias aviation sector. It remarked that the takeover was to prevent a major catastrophe and to protect as well as preserve Arik Air as a business.

This development will also afford Arik Air to go back to regular and undisrupted operations, avoid job losses, protect investors and stakeholder funds as well as ensure safety and stability in the already challenged aviation sector, AMCON stated.

The statement quoted the Minister of State for Aviation, Hadi Siriki, as saying that the intervention would save the countrys aviation industry. It added, We believe that this appointment is timely and will stabilize the operations of the airline.

This will enhance the long term economic value of Arik Air and revitalize the airlines ailing operations as well as sustain safety standards, in view of Arik Airs pivotal role in the Nigerian aviation sector.

Mr. Siriki also promised that the Federal Ministry of Aviation would support the new management of the strategic carrier, adding that steps had been taken to ensure that there would be no undue disruption in Ariks regular business operations or activities as a result of the recent changes in the leadership and management of the airline.

Captain Ilegbodu, who will run the airline under the receivership of Mr. Opasanya, also assured staff of the troubled airline and other stakeholders that his appointment at Arik would enhance the carriers value, improve customer experience, and sustain the safety, reliability and secure operations of the airline.

As a matter of fact, Arik Air has been in a precarious situation largely attributable to its heavy financial debt burden, bad corporate governance, erratic operational challenges and other issues, that required immediate intervention in order to guarantee the continued survival of the Airline, AMCON disclosed in its statement.

It added, Yesterday (Wednesday), Arik temporarily suspended its flight operations to the John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York, United States, claiming that the two Airbus A330-200 aircraft dedicated to the route have been taken to France for C check at the same time. Equally more than eight aircraft are currently grounded at the tarmac making it difficult to meet their routine commercial flights.

Some of the myriad issues confronting Arik Air include confiscation of aircraft due to non-payment of leases, frequent flight delays, and constant fights between Arik Staff and irate passengers at both local and international airports etc.

During the last yuletide season, passengers were stranded in airports all over the country due to Ariks incessant flight delays and cancellations, which negatively affected the preference they enjoy from passengers. You are all living examples of this.

AMCON assured all stakeholders that the intervention was in the best interest of the general public, workers, creditors and other aviation interest groups. Its statement declared that Arik Air was so overwhelmed that the workers wages were not paid for several months, leading to occasional confrontation between the management of the airline and different aviation unions in the country.

AMCON remarked that Ariks inability to pay its workers for seven months had compelled the United Labor Congress (ULC) and Engineers Union recently to shut the offices of the airline across the country. The shutdown caused untold hardship to thousands of travelers and an embarrassment to the aviation sector in the country.

AMCON stated, Besides owing workers salaries, the airline has also not been remitting the taxes of workers to relevant bodies thus also defrauding the country.

The airline is also in perpetual default in its lease payments and insurance premium, leading to regular and embarrassing repossession of its aircrafts by lessors.

AMCON assured all stakeholders that its intervention was in the best interest of the general public, workers, creditors and other aviation interest groups. It added that it was not out to frustrate any company, but to revive dying airlines.

Source: SaharaReporters
Senator Esther Nenadi Usman, who is a former Finance minister has asked a court to order the release of her travel papers.

A former junior minister of Finance, Nenadi Usman, has begged a federal court in Lagos to grant her leave to travel abroad to treat her breast cancer.

The defendant is facing a 17-count charge bordering on conspiracy, stealing, and fraud alongside Femi Fani-Kayode, a former aviation minister; Danjuma Mohammed; and Jointrust Dimensions Nigeria Limited amounting to over N38 billion.

She asked the court through her lawyer, Abiodun Owonikoko to order the release of her travel documents to enable her go for medical check-up. Usman had since denied any involvement in the fraud.
NATO will host a summit of leaders including US President Donald Trump in May at its new Brussels headquarters, even though it will not be ready by then, sources said Thursday.

Security and IT systems at the $1.2-billion headquarters in the Belgian capital are behind schedule and so the transatlantic military alliance will only properly move in come September, sources told AFP.

Trump has previously criticised NATO, calling it "obsolete" in an interview earlier this year and pressing the rest of the 28-nation group to commit more money to it.

A source close to the matter told AFP that NATO aimed to inaugurate its new building after the summer holidays, "in my view more like the end of September."

Asked for comment, NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu told AFP: "On the summit venue, we aim to hold it at the new headquarters."

"The move to the new NATO headquarters has started and it's due to be completed later this year," she said, describing it as a "complex logistical undertaking" involving NATO staff and delegations from the 28 allies.

"The new IT and security systems in the building are highly complex and we are slightly behind schedule in making all of them fully operational."

Lungescu did not give a date.

The supplier responsible for delivering the network infrastructure has still not delivered it to the alliance, which has in turn pushed back security tests, the source close to the matter said.

The new NATO HQ, built in a distinctive double lightning bolt shape, will house 4,000 staff and diplomats from the 28 member countries.

Built just over the road from the current 1960s-era headquarters near Brussels airport, it had been scheduled to open in the first quarter of 2017.

The White House confirmed last week that Trump will attend the May summit, easing doubts in Europe about the new US president's commitment to the bloc.

Trump expressed "strong support for NATO" in a phone call with the alliance's Norwegian chief Jens Stoltenberg but also urged European members to pitch in more to ease the defence spending burden.

Trump's apparent coolness towards the alliance has been particularly alarming for some member nations given his friendly stance towards Russia, which NATO has described as being increasingly assertive in the wake of its seizure of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

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Except something providential happens, over 12,000 Nigerians seeking asylum in Germany risk being deported next year.Germanys Global Head of Programmes, Migration and Development, Dr. Ralf Sanftenberg, dropped the hint yesterday during a courtesy call on the Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to the President on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, Mrs. Abike Dabiri-Erewa in Abuja.

Sanftenberg, who led a delegation from Germanys Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development, was on a site assessment mission for assisted-voluntary returnees of Nigerias irregular migrants in his country.

The mission is saddled with the responsibility of coordinating the Centre for International Migration and Development (CIM), which offers returnees support service and knowledge transfer.

We have over 37,000 Nigerians in Germany and more than 12,000 of them are asylum seekers. There is a little chance for their applications to be moved and they may be forced to come back to Nigeria next year, he stated.

According to the envoy, about 99 per cent of them are likely to be denied asylum status since Nigeria is not considered one of the war-ravaged countries.

Sanftenberg, however, noted that if they were willing to return home voluntarily, they would be assisted through a support programme organised by the German government.

A member of the delegation, who is a consultant to the programme, Stephanie Alofokhia-Ghogomu, urged the Nigerian asylum seekers to return home. Alofokhia-Ghogomu, who was also a voluntary returnee, said she had spent half of her life in Germany, adding that she had to return home to contribute to the development of Nigeria.

Dabiri-Erewa commended the German Chancellor, Angel Merkel for her professional handling of illegal migration in the country.So, we will look forward to seeing what you want to do in terms of setting up German migrant services in Nigeria, she added.

The presidential aide urged the affected Nigerians to return home and take advantage of the assistance being provided by the German government.For Nigerians in Germany, who may wish to return, there is a better place for them at home to help them live a better live. Germany has the Ministry of Internal Affairs and budget for the returnees. And there are services that would be provided through the German government which they can enjoy, Dabiri-Erewa stated.

Source: Guardian
An Indian publisher has caused a public uproar with a school textbook that encourages children to suffocate kittens as part of a scientific experiment.

The book, which is used in hundreds of private schools in India, includes an experiment in which two kittens were placed in separate boxes  only one of which had airholes. Put a small kitten in each box. Close the boxes. After some time open the boxes. What do you see? The kitten inside the box without holes has died, read the text.

Animal rights activists said several schools had already pulled the offending page from the book, entitled Our Green World. They have also secured a promise from the publisher that it will not be included in the next edition.

It might be stupid, but they were endangering the lives of the children and animals by citing such an experiment, Vidhi Matta, spokesperson for the Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations, told AFP on Wednesday.

Matta said she was unaware of any student actually conducting the experiment. Indian textbooks frequently make the headlines for their glaring mistakes and controversial content.
A marijuana trafficker caught a break Tuesday when a federal appeals court in the U.S. held that he could not be resentenced by a judge who mistakenly imposed a 10-day sentence when he meant a 10-month term.

Charles Bentil, 46, was convicted in 2003 of possession with the intent to distribute more than 100 kilograms of marijuana and a related firearms charge for which he was eventually sentenced to 10 years followed by five years of supervised release.

Bentil violated the terms of his parole and was sentenced April 28 by U.S. District Judge James C. Cacheris in Alexandria to 10 days.

The 10-day term was to be added to any time he might be given in Alexandria Circuit Court where he faced then-pending marijuana trafficking charges. (He was convicted last August and netted three years in state prison.)

But on May 12, Cacheris convened a resentencing hearing at which he imposed a 10-month sentence, saying that the 10-day term was a clear error.

Bentil appealed the 10-month federal sentence challenging the judges authority to impose it.

A three-judge panel of the appeals court agreed with him Tuesday in a nine-page ruling.

The appeals court noted that a district court judge may modify a sentence once it has been imposed under the rule cited by Cacheris only if it was a sentence that resulted from arithmetical, technical, or other clear error.

Among other things, the appeals court judges wrote, The intent of the district court to impose a 10-month consecutive sentence is not sufficiently clear from the record of the revocation hearing, and as such, the district courts imposition of a 10-day sentence at the revocation hearing was not the type of obvious error that we have suggested is correctable.

The opinion noted that while Cacheris stated that Bentils original crime was very serious and that he had a significant criminal history, the judge also seemingly took into consideration several mitigating factors, including Bentils steady employment, his clean drug screens, his completion of a substance abuse program, his payment of child support for his daughter, and his substance abuse problem, which began at an early age.

Cacheris also acknowledged that Bentil would likely face a prison sentence in state court. Consequently, the district courts intent at the revocation hearing to sentence Bentil to 10 months rather 10 days is ambiguous at best, and thus, any disconnect between the 10-day sentence and the courts intent at the revocation hearing cannot support resentencing.

The appeals court also rejected the notion that Cacheris, in imposing a 10-day sentence, seriously affect(ed) the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.

To the contrary, we believe that permitting the district court to resentence Bentil after clearly announcing the 10-day sentence and entering the written judgment would be more detrimental to the fairness and integrity of the proceedings than allowing the 10-day sentence to stand, the judges wrote.

The appeals court vacated the 10-month sentence and ordered Cacheris to reinstate the 10-day sentence initially imposed.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), said its subsidiary, Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company (KRPC), loses about N2.2 billion yearly to illegal tapping on its raw water pipeline.

The corporation said this in a statement in Abuja on Thursday by its Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Mr Ndu Ughamadu.

According to Ughamadu, the raw water pipeline which runs from Kaduna River, generates power for the running of the refinery and serves as coolants for equipment and combats fire outbreaks.

Sequel to the series of tapping, the refinery now spends more on diesel and other material inputs in the maintenance of its generators and other equipment, he said.

He said that KRPC Managing Director, Malam Idi Mukhtar, had lamented that the consumption of the water by settlers who encroached on the companys premises was an unnecessary, additional burden to the refinerys industrial requirements.

Mukhtar said this must be resolved urgently by relevant state government agencies.

He said other losses were that it slows down the build-up rate of water in the reserve tanks, which endangers the refinery as the plant is expected to maintain a minimum level of water requirement that is considered safe for operations.

The illegal acts are committed mostly in Janruwa, Kamazo, Namaigero and Mahuta areas of Kaduna metropolis, which are the communities along the raw water intake pipeline Right of Way.

He also explained that a particular amount of water, sufficient enough to generate steam and other industrial consumption is needed.

This is because of the incidents of illegal tapping of our water pipeline, we need to put more effort to meet our industrial requirements, Ughamadu said.

He expressed pleasure that the Kaduna State Government had promised to look into the issue with a view to finding a lasting solution to the challenge.

He explained that Kaduna State Urban Planning and Development Authority and Kaduna State Water Board had been contacted to address the issues of land encroachment on KRPC Right of Way.

Ughamadu advised illegal tappers of the refinerys raw water pipeline to desist from the act, warning that the raw water was not fit for human consumption because it was untreated.

He quoted KRPC Executive Director, Operations, Alhaji Shehu Malami, as saying that if the problem was not addressed, a time would come when the plant would not be able to run some of its critical units.

Malami said that the refinery was currently operating at 65 per cent capacity, producing 1.7 million litres of petrol, 1.7 million litres of diesel and 700, 000 litres of kerosene, daily.

The daily rate of loading is massive; even, on Sundays products are being loaded to meet the growing demand in the country, Ughamadu said.

Source: NAN
An outstanding female banker, Sola David-Borha is said to be the highest paid Chief Executive Officer in Nigeria for her extraordinary ability.

According to SplufikNigerians, Sola David-Borha who is the former CEO Stanbic IBTC is the highest paid Chief Executive Officer in Nigeria.

The banker takes a whopping N117m Annually, which means she takes home N484,931 daily.

Sola David-Borha resigned her appointment as the chief executive officer (CEO) of Stanbic IBTC Holdings PLC late January and became Chief Executive Officer, Rest of Africa, Standard Bank Group. Stanbic IBTC Holdings is a member of Standard Bank Group.

Until January this year, Sola was the Chief Executive Officer, Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc.  a full service financial services Group with subsidiaries in Commercial Banking, Investment Banking, Pension and Non-Pension Asset Management and Stockbroking. A few days ago, she was appointed Chief Executive Officer, Rest of Africa, Standard Bank Group. Stanbic IBTC Holdings is a member of Standard Bank Group. We love how Sola has grown organically in her career, destroying every barrier along the way. Prior to 2007, when it was acquired by Standard Bank Group, Sola worked as an Executive Director at IBTC Chartered Bank Plc.
Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) yesterday said that seven new cases of Lassa fever have been reported in Edo, Ondo and Bauchi states. There are four cases in Edo, two in Ondo and one in Bauchi.

Meanwhile, healthcare workers in the country have been advised to always apply universal precautions by insisting that medical personnel and patients alike must go for tests before the treatment of malaria as Lassa fever has very similar symptoms with it.

Speaking at the Lassa Fever Advocacy Meeting in Abuja on Tuesday, NCDC Deputy Director in the Surveillance Department, Mrs. Elsie Ilori, disclosed that there have been 44 confirmed cases reported since December 2016 in nine states namely, Ogun, Plateau, Bauchi, Taraba, Edo, Nasarawa, Rivers, Ebonyi and Ondo, with some of them categorised as probable.

According to Ilori, out of the 44 confirmed cases, we have 37 that were confirmed at the laboratory and seven that are probable. When we say probable, we mean cases we were unable to collect the laboratory samples but had all the symptoms of Lassa fever and they died and so they were linked to confirmed cases.

She noted that fatality rate of Lassa fever, which was about 54.5 per cent, is high because people are not well sensitised enough on the disease. She added that Lassa fever was seasonal and could become endemic.

Ilori observed that states as well as local councils across the country, especially in the affected places, are expected to get their own drugs as the Federal Government had earlier given them seed supplies.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the centre, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, urged patients to desist from self-medication and ensure that heaps of refuse that could attract rats were properly collected and disposed.

To achieve this, he said individuals and organisations must be held accountable as rodents, which are the primary vectors for Lassa fever always abound in such environments.

He disclosed that the centre has achieved 20 per cent reduction in Lassa fever-related deaths through peoples habits and positive response to sensitisation programmes.

We have been able to prevent a lot of deaths. We want people to know that when they have fever, they should report immediately to the public health facilities. We have laboratories in Lagos, Edo and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja, he added.

Source: Guardian
The Nigerian Navy has flagged an operation to tackle maritime criminality like sea robbery, piracy and others in the Niger Delta region.

Chief of Naval Staff Vice Adm. Ibok-Ete Ibas, represented by Chief of Training and Operation, Naval Headquarters Rear Adm. Adeniyi Osinowo, flagged off the operation in Warri. Photo: Nigerian Tribune.

Nigerian Tribune reports that the operation called tagged Operation Tsare Teku was flagged off by the Chief of Naval Staff Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas in Warri, Delta state on Wednesday, February 8 in readiness of the Navy to rid the waterways of criminal activities.

Vice Admiral Ibas, who was represented by Rear Adm. Adeniyi Osinowo, the chief of training and operation at Naval Headquarters, Abuja, said the operation became necessary because the effects of the activities of illegal refiners were becoming worrisome.

What is really of concern to Navy is that the agitation of some of the militant groups has transmitted in one way of the other detrimental to the image of the nation.

Flag Officer Commanding (FOC), Central Naval Command, Rear Adm. Mohammed Garba, said Operation Tsare Teku was aimed at safeguarding the maritime domain.

Statistics at our disposal shows that there is reduction in occurrences of piracy, sea robbery and other forms of crime in the waterways.

To those who are bent on perpetrating maritime crime, it is no longer a business as usual, he said.

Meanwhile, Seven Russian citizens and a Ukranian have been reportedly attacked and abducted by pirates in the Gulf of Guinea 45 nautical miles south-west off Brass, Nigeria.

News of the incident was broken by the Russia News Agency TASS which said the general cargo ship, BBC Caribbean, was attacked near Pennington Oil Terminal at the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.

Source: Naija Loaded
Nigerian newspaper headlines February 9, 2017.

Punch

The Department of State Services have quizzed the members of the Board of Trustees of the Christian Association of Nigeria over a video some Christian leaders have been using to mobilise funds for the rebuilding of churches destroyed by Boko Haram.

Guardian

The Federal Government has accused the Cross River State government of misappropriating N19billion, which was given to it as bailout fund to pay salaries and pension.

Vanguard

A coalition of Ijaw groups across the Niger Delta region on the platform of Ijaw Peoples Development Initiative, IPDI, yesterday, gave the Bayelsa State governor, Mr Seriake Dickson, a seven-day ultimatum to revoke the allocation of 1,200 hectares of land the state government allocated to Fulani herdsmen for grazing or face a mass shutdown of all government facilities across the state.

The Nation

The Federal Executive Council has approved some measures to reduce food prices.

Thisday

The leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said that it has commenced talks with some politicians and the leadership of the Labour Party (LP), Social Democratic Party (SDP) and five other political parties in the country on modalities for aligning forces to wrest power from the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2019 general election.

Premium Times

Emmanuel Ogebe, a U.S.-based Nigerian lawyer and social welfare campaigner, has slammed a $5 million libel lawsuit against the Nigerian government, court filings showed.

The Sun

An impending fuel scarcity looms in some South West states, including Oyo, Osun and parts of Ondo State, over the grounding of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) depot in Ibadan, Oyo State.

Leadership

Following a video clip trending on social media on Wednesday, which showed two army officers brutalising a physically challenged man for wearing a camouflage shirt, the Nigerian Army has said the officers in question have been apprehended.
The Ogun State Governor, Ibikunle Amosun, has commuted the death sentence on two convicts to life imprisonment and ordered the release of three other prisoners.

The two convicts had been sentenced to death last December for armed robbery.

The governors gesture was contained in a letter addressed to the Controller of Prisons, Nigerian Prison Service, Ogun State Command, dated February 8, and signed by Funmi Ajayi, Permanent Secretary (Political Affairs and Administration), for the Secretary to the State Government, Taiwo Adeoluwa.

In an Order of Commutation signed by the governor, Mr. Amosun said written reports in the cases of the said persons received as well as other information derived from the record of the cases and elsewhere, were taken into consideration.

He said after consultation with the Advisory Council on the Prerogative of Mercy, he was exercising his power under sub-section (1) of Section 212 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as Amended).

Those ordered to be released are Gbenga Oyeleye, Idowu Olojede and Dare Jimoh, who were imprisoned, following their conviction over criminal charges.

Mr. Oyeleye was serving a three-year sentence and has six months yet to serve, while Mr. Olojede was released on grounds of old age and good record. Mr. Jimoh, a long term convict, also got reprieve for good conduct and good record.

The governor ordered that the death penalty imposed on Nurudeen Suleiman and Isikilu Olamilekan, both males, who were convicted for robbery at the High Court of Ogun State sitting at Ijebu Ode on December 14, 2006, be commuted to life imprisonment.

Mr. Amosun had during his visit to the Ibara Prison in Abeokuta on January 25, as part of activities to mark his 59th birthday, promised to review cases of those who deserved to be pardoned.
"Go buy Ivanka's stuff," a top White House adviser urged American shoppers on Thursday, a day after President Donald Trump sharply criticized a department store for dropping his daughter's clothing line.

"I hate shopping," Kellyanne Conway told the Fox network in a televised interview, with the White House seal clearly visible over her left shoulder. But "I'm going to go get some myself today."

"This is just a wonderful line," she added. "I own some of it. I fully -- I'm going to give a free commercial here. Go buy it today, everybody. You can find it online."

To Washington traditionalists, Conway's direct pitch from the White House for a product line sold by the president's child seemed a jaw-dropping use of presidential prestige.

But she was clearly channeling the anger expressed a day earlier by the president himself, when he tweeted that Ivanka had been "treated so unfairly" by Nordstrom, the upscale department store chain that dropped her line. "Terrible," he added.

The message from the White House again fanned debate over the unprecedented level to which the new president -- despite his protestations to the contrary -- has mixed politics, business and family, raising questions about conflicts of interest.

After Trump's tweet, shares in Nordstrom briefly dropped but soon began to rise. Toward midday on Thursday, the company's stock was trading up nearly 7 percent over its closing price from two days earlier.

Since his election in November, Trump has targeted a series of American multinationals by name (General Motors, Ford, Boeing, Lockheed and others) for moving production overseas or for allegedly overcharging the government.

But this was the first time he had complained directly about the business interests of one of his adult children. The tweet appeared both in Trump's personal feed and on that of the official presidential Twitter account, @POTUS.

The Nordstrom group, with 350 stores in the United States and Canada, has repeatedly denied any political motive to its dropping of Ivanka Trump's clothing line, saying it was motivated purely by "performance" considerations. Sales had fallen, particularly in last year's second half.

But products carrying a Trump brand, including Ivanka's, have been boycotted by critics of the new president, leading to his complaint of a political motivation behind Nordstrom's move.

TJX Companies, which operates the clothing store chains TJ Maxx and Marshalls, told AFP on Thursday it had instructed store employees no longer to display Ivanka Trump products separately.

"The communication we sent to TJ Maxx and Marshalls in the US instructed stores to mix this line of merchandise into our racks, not to remove it from the sales floor," a spokesperson told AFP, confirming an earlier report in The New York Times.

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A commercial driver in Agbor, Delta State, is sending a strong appeal to Nigerians for help to reunite an eight-year-old boy with his family. The boy was abandoned in the drivers vehicle at Agbor, the reporter gathered.

According to the driver, whose name is being withheld by this newspaper, the boy has not been in contact with his family since September 3, last year after the kid and his father had boarded a vehicle from Asaba to Agbor.

The driver, who said he was heading to Benin City, had made a stop-over at the Uromi Road junction motor park where some passengers disembarked. However, when the driver was ready to take off again, his attention was drawn to the little boy by a passenger who noticed that the boy had been abandoned. The boys father had apparently absconded, leaving the boy to his fate.

Determined to find the boys father, the driver returned to the park in search of him. Unfortunately, there was no trace of him. All efforts to locate him proved futile. To worsen the situation, the little boy couldnt give an account of his identity or where he was going to. The driver had to take the child to the Divisional Police Headquarters in Agbor, Delta State, where he narrated the boys ordeal

I had reported the incident to the Divisional Police Station after several efforts to trace this boys father failed. I equally made inquiries at the motor park to see if there was anybody who had reported a case of a missing or forgotten child at the park. Surprisingly, there was no recorded complaint till date, neither has the Agbor police investigations yielded any positive results to identify the victim.

However, there seems to be an increasing concern for the welfare of the boy. The Police and the Delta State Ministry of Women Affairs, Community and Social Development in Asaba are collaborating to ensure that they get useful information that might help the boy reunite with his family.

At the moment, the child is at an orphanage in Agbor.

Assistant Chief Social Welfare Officer in Asaba, Mr. Ogoegbunam Adibeli, said till date, the child had not been able to disclose his name or his background

Anyone with useful information on the boy or how the child might be reunited with his family should contact the newspaper, the Divisional Police Headquarters in Agbor, Ministry of Women Affairs, the community or Social Development, Asaba. The Assistant Social Welfare Officer, Mr. Ogoegbunam Adibeli may be reached on 08060517515.

Source: Naija Loaded
Barring any last minute change, President Muhammadu Buhari may return to Nigeria on Saturday, 11th of February, the Leadership Newspaper has reported.

According to reports, a senior official in the presidency who spoke on the condition of anonymity said all is set for Mr. President to return to the country this weekend.

Barring any last minute change, we are expecting the president back this weekend, probably on Saturday, it quoted the source.

This latest development is coming on the backdrop of the statement by the Senate President, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, who claimed the president is in high spirits and is hale and hearty.

Saraki, via his official Twitter handle @bukolasaraki said that he spoke with the President on Wednesday night and he (President Buhari was in high spirit).

Happy to have spoken with President Buhari tonight tonight. He was in good spirits and joked about my working late into the night, as usual, Saraki Tweeted.

President Buhari who was expected to resume work on Monday, 6th of February after weeks of vacation in the United Kingdom announced the extension of his stay on Sunday citing doctors orders.
Senate president Bukola Saraki has confirmed to Nigerians that President Muhammadu Buhari was in good spirits when he spoke with him Wednesday night.

Saraki made this known via a tweet, adding that Buhari joked about the senator working late into the night as usual.

Happy to have spoken with @NGRPresident @MBuhari tonight.

He was in good spirits and joked about my working late into the night, as usual.  Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki (@bukolasaraki) February 8, 2017

The Senate president must have made the post in order to allay fears of Nigerians concerning the health status of Buhari.

President Buhari, who was due to return to the country on Monday following a 10 days vacation, wrote to the House of Assembly demanding an extension to his leave.
The national leadership of the People Democratic Party on Wednesday asked the Police to tell Nigerians where the money given to the security agencies during the rerun election was being kept.

The Chairman of the partys National Caretaker Committee, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, stated this while reacting to the report of the police panel, which investigated the December 10 legislative elections in Rivers State.

The panel, had, while submitting its report to the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Ibrahim Idris, on Tuesday said that it recovered N111m from some Independent National Electoral Commission officials, who were allegedly bribed by the Rivers State Government with N360m

Reacting to the allegations, Makarfi said it did not believe in the report the panel presented to the IGP, arguing that the panel ought to tell Nigerians where the money allegedly given to the security agencies by the other party was being kept.

He said, They brought some money out, displayed it on the table like a film. They said they confiscated the money from INEC officials. What of the money from security agencies offered by the other party? That is not recoverable?

He said it would be wrong for the government to be destroying public institutions in the country, warning that such institutions must be freed from individuals in government.

Meanwhile, INEC has said that it has not received the report of the police panel which recovered N111:3m from some of its personnel in the Rivers State rerun.

The Chief Press Secretary to the President of INEC, Mr. Rotimi Oyekanmi, told one our correspondents on Wednesday that the commission had not received the report from the commission.

He said, We are yet to get the police report, thank you,

A top officer of the commission had said on Tuesday that the Chairman of the commission, Prof. Mahmud Yakubu, was embittered by the police indictment of some of the commissions officials in the bribery scandal.

The source had said that the leadership of the commission was determined to flush out those indicted in the scandal.

However, a member of the panel confided in one of our correspondents that the panel would give copies of the report to the office of the Attorney General of the Federation, the Department of State Services and INEC.

The source added that it was the office of the AGF that would act on the report.

Source: Punch
Russia is on the verge of decriminalizing several forms of domestic violence, despite the countrys enormously high rate of abuse against women.

As federal lawmakers in Moscow march ahead with this controversial initiative, one of Russias most read newspapers, Komsomolskaya Pravda, published an article this Wednesday, citing research that supposedly suggests women with abusive partners stand a better chance of giving birth to sons  a valuable advantage, the newspaper claimed.

For years, women who have been smacked around by their husbands have found solace in the rather hypocritical proverb, If he beats you, it means he loves you! columnist Yaroslav Korobatov argued in Komsomolkaya Pravda. However, a new scientific study is giving women with irascible husbands new grounds to be proud of their bruises, insofar as women who are beaten, biologists confirm, have a valuable advantage: theyre more likely to give birth to boys!

The article refers to research by the controversial evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa, whos been denounced by many in the field as a bad scientist and a racist. He is known for arguing that African countries suffer chronic poverty because of low IQs, and for claiming that black women are objectively less attractive than the women of other races.

In 2005, Kanazawa published an article claiming that violent men have more sons, and three years later he followed it up with a blog post for Psychology Today, arguing that women may have been selected [evolutionarily] to tolerate a certain level of nonlethal violence in their mates, in order to increase the odds of bearing sons.

In his piece for Komsomolskaya Pravda, Korobatov also cites the so-called returning soldier phenomenon, suggesting that men returning from combat in World War II ended up fathering more sons because they were sex starved and therefore pumped full of hormones when they had intercourse with their wives, once back home.
In what has been described as a public disgrace, a 36-year old single woman, Jane Okeke has been stripped Unclad and arrested after she was caught stealing some clothes at PEP Super Store in Isolo, Lagos.

P.M.EXPRESS learnt the suspect went to a inner room provided to customers to test their selected clothes by the management before they make payment.

However, Okeke reportedly selected 11 different wears and went inside the changing room with her handbag, pretended to be trying on those clothes before she could make payment.

Unknown to the management, Okeke

had another motive.

He reportedly removed her old clothes she had kept in her bag, including the clothes she worn and changed them with some of the new clothes she selected from the store, wore some she pretended wanting to buy.

However, as she made to exit the store, the security demanded to search her and it was during that exercise that the management discovered what she did.

She was stripped of those clothes she had already wore and was immediately handed over to the police by the management.

At the police station, Anambra State-born Okeke confessed that she stole and that the stores management took back their clothes including the ones she already worn leaving her Unclad.

She said she was a drop-out student of Federal Polytechnics Oko, Anambra where she hails from.

She said she could not complete her programme in the school due to finance occasioned by the death of her father and had to come to Lagos to hustle to make ends meet.

Okeke was arraigned before Isolo Magistrates court with conduct likely to cause breach of public peace and stealing under the Criminal code.

She pleaded not guilty.

The presiding Magistrate, Mrs A.K. Shonubi granted her bail in the sum of N10,000 with one surety.

She was however remanded in prison custody pending when she will perfect her bail.

The matter was adjourned till 20 February 2017.

Source: PM Express
U.S. ECONOMY IS IN TROUBLE Alpine Trading - Sat Nov 5, 4:35PM CDT Never Mind the nonsense, here is the RISK-OFF trade of the YEAR!

November Rain Sidwell Strategies - Sat Nov 5, 2:31PM CDT US elections Tuesday; USDA reports Wednesday

Climate activists block private jets at Amsterdam airport AP - Sat Nov 5, 7:48AM CDT Hundreds of climate protesters have blocked private jets from leaving Amsterdams Schiphol Airport in a demonstration on the eve of the COP27 United Nations climate meeting in Egypt $SPX : 3,770.55 (+1.36%) $DOWI : 32,403.22 (+1.26%) $IUXX : 10,857.03 (+1.56%)

Should Investors Sweat the 2022 Midterm Elections? Young & The Invested - Sat Nov 5, 6:00AM CDT Election Day is right around the corner. And while there's plenty to be anxious about, Wall Street strategists say your portfolio shouldn't be one of them.
The Louvain University in Belgium handed over a 35,000 year-old axe to the Egyptian Embassy in Brussels after studies

After the completion of archaeological and scientific studies, the Louvein University in Belgium handed over a 35,000 year-old axe to the Egyptian Embassy in Brussels.

The axe will arrive in Egypt within days.

Shaaban Abdel Gawad, the supervisor-general of Antiquities Repatriation Department, said the axe is carved in stone and was discovered by the Louvain mission along with a human skeleton in Nazlet Khater archaeological site in Sohag in Upper Egypt.

The Luvein mission took both the skeleton and the axe to Belgium for studies. The skeleton returned to Egypt in August 2015.

Abdel Gawad said that the axe is one of the oldest skeletons ever found in Egypt.

It goes back to the Old archaic era around 35,000 years ago.

It also shows the development of human species that lived in Egypt throughout different eras.

Abdel Gawad suggested that the skeleton and the axe be put on show at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat.

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When Bryan Rowan enters LaGuardia Airport, he begins mentally renovating. Its really too bad about this, he says, gesturing to a low-ceilinged food court in Terminal B. It all got redone recently to make the concessions more of a draw, but nothing can change the fact that these places are presecurity. For Rowan, a financial model man behind the terminals $4 billion rebuild, a presecurity food court is like filet mignon cooked well done: Potential is a terrible thing to waste.

As we amble down a hallway toward Gate D security, Rowan explains that this Central Terminal Building was designed in the 1960s. And it was designed for half the current passenger volume. The CTB (the formal name for the central terminal) curves in a wide C shape, affording plenty of room for shops and restaurants. From the main building four narrow concourses extend like concrete quills. Around each one jut bridges capped by constellations of narrow-body and regional jets.

Theres not enough room for two planes to back up at the same time, Rowan points out. Theres not enough room for almost anything. See how this concourse funnels people into a single security lane? We watch a bottleneck of passengers in the security line, stripping laptops from cases, shoes from feet, dignity from selves. Back when LaGuardia was built, of course, there was no way to foresee what flying would look like post-9/11.

Having postsecurity shops and restaurants  concessions, to the airport aficionado  began to matter financially after security became so much tighter. Nonticketed people used to be allowed right up to the gate, Rowan notes. While they waited to pick someone up, they could wander to a restaurant in the terminal to have dinner, then walk up to the gate for coffee. They had the run of the place. Now the travel experience is such that people are not going to be able to relax until theyre through security. We watch a line of holidaymakers snaking through the entrance to JetBlues gates. Once that time uncertainty is gone, instead of grabbing a water on the run, a passenger might sit down and have lunch or stop for a drink.

We amble past the Bowery Bay Tavern, a recent corporate attempt at a hipster pub. A couple of dozen beer taps flaunt local offerings, including Brooklyn Brewery. Despite the mostly empty bar stools (typical for presecurity), this attempt to bring the city into the airport is apparently a hot trend nationwide. Yet LaGuardia has five Auntie Annes pretzel stores and sometimes only Auntie Annes, depending on your gate. Either carbo-loaded passengers are more docile in a truculent plane takeoff line, or Auntie Anne is a legit rainmaker.

Neither is true, according to Rowan. And that matters. Just like the bars and food halls that are concentrated in the presecurity area, many things exist at LaGuardia that shouldnt.

The concessions are not optimally located from a revenue perspective right now, Rowan explains. They are where most of the room for growth is. Whatever LaGuardias shops and restaurants bring in, the airport receives a portion to fund operations and capital. Buy a $4 bottle of Poland Spring from Hudson News and the airport gets roughly 72 cents, based on median figures from a recent survey of North American airports. On a pretzel dog ($3.99) with salsa cheese dip ($0.89), Auntie Annes might hand over 65 cents, but there isnt enough heartburn in the world for that paltry amount of change to fund a world-class transportation hub.

Americas airports feel like bus stations because, broadly speaking, they are funded like bus stations. They dont rely on taxpayer money, nor are they allowed to turn profits. Anything they earn must be reinvested into the facilities. The trouble for U.S. airports is that what they earn  through pennies on pretzels, rent from airlines, and a $4.50-per-ticket charge  isnt nearly enough to keep pre-9/11 facilities safe, functioning, and ready for the 21st century. Overseas and in Canada airports have solved this problem by bringing in private investors, selling off operator rights, and taking control of, and often raising, the user fee. Those tactics either arent allowed in the U.S. or they havent been exercised. The result: places like LaGuardia. All day every day, thousands of people file onto airplanes headed to the U.S. guaranteed of one thing: Wherever theyre leaving is better than what lies ahead. LaGuardia Airport is North Americas worst, the perverse jewel in New York Citys Triple Crown of terrible airports. LaGuardia, Newark Liberty International, and John F. Kennedy International often sweep the bottom of U.S. rankings. LaGuardia, remarkably, has earned unanimous condemnation from airport nerds as the worst in America, uniting Travel + Leisure editors with the Points Guy, J.D. Power and Associates, and Frommers. T+L, perhaps the most discerning of the publications, gave dilapidated LaGuardia the dubious honor of ranking the worst for the check-in and security process, the worst for baggage handling, the worst when it comes to providing wi-fi, the worst at staff communication, and the worst design and cleanliness. Its also worst for on-time performance and cancellations, says the Points Guy, and has somehow declined in overall quality since 2014. Welcome to the greatest city in the world.

If I blindfolded someone and took them at two in the morning into the airport in Hong Kong and said, Where do you think you are? theyd say, This must be America; its a modern airport, Joe Biden, then vice president, told a crowd in Philadelphia at a 2014 Amtrak engine unveiling. (With infrastructure photo ops, U.S. politicians have to take what they can get.) If I blindfolded you and took you to LaGuardia Airport in New York, you would think, I must be in some third-world country. The audience broke out in laughter. Biden pressed the point. Im not joking.

Even in the petty world of tristate politics, the officials in charge of LaGuardia didnt come to its defense. I agree with him, said Patrick Foye, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the regions major airports, bridges, ports, and roadways on its own balance sheet. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has called LaGuardia a disgrace.

But at least LaGuardia is trying. The Central Terminal Building is set for the scrapyard, and its massive new replacement is budgeted to cost $4 billion, the main piece of an $8 billion overhaul plan. Frasca & Associates  the transport finance firm where Bryan Rowan has worked since college  joined the LaGuardia project in 2012 and supported the years-long process of evaluating bids to select a developer. What makes this project special is that the developer not only pours the concrete for the new LaGuardia, it owns the concrete  for the next 35 years, at least.

On June 1, 2016, the 35-year lease on Terminal B transferred from the Port Authority to an international consortium of private companies, winners of a long and competitive bidding war. Theyve promised a 21st-century LaGuardia thats bigger, cleaner, easier to get to, and makes much more money, benefiting both the investors and the region. By 2021, LaGuardia should no longer suck. If all goes as planned  admittedly, thats a big if  passengers will be able to swiftly exit taxis or meet their Uber drivers via an extra level for traffic, revel in three times the current Terminal B security screening capacity, walk to the Delta Air Lines terminal without going outside, and relax with a cocktail and nonpretzel-based meal postsecurity. Luxuries, one imagines, will abound in the terminal just as puddles used to proliferate on the floors when it rained.

How all this gets paid for is the job of Frasca & Associates. Rowan has spent a decade with the firm, specializing in financing airports. He does not rustle up capital from investors; instead, he works out the ideal combination of municipal bonds, taxable debt, equity offerings, cash flow, fees, leverage, creditworthiness, and more that puts a project into motion and sustains it. His and the firms presence at LaGuardia is a sign that this airport, and perhaps American airports as a whole, are finally ready to enter the modern age  an entrance delayed, experts say, by a nearly 70-year game of catch-up.

American aviation peaked high and early. The age of flight began in 1903 with 12 airborne seconds over a windswept Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Four years later a Brazilian in France debuted what would become the first series-production aircraft, capable of a searing 75 miles per hour. The French weaponized airplanes during World War I, and Americans continue to perfect the art. The Kim Kardashian of the sky  first in fame, one might say  was the Red Baron, the German ace who downed 80 rivals before taking a bullet to the heart over a village near the Somme River. Once again, what Europe did first, the U.S. did better: The 1920s and 30s were the era of celebrity pilots like Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh. Initial ventures into commercial aviation abruptly halted as World War II began and U.S. aviation became military aviation. When the war ended, Europe and its allies across the pond refocused on commercial air travel. The aeronautics industry began branching into two missions: flying civilians for money and transporting weapons for war.

Americans took to the skies. Too many, in fact, for the converted military airfields and early civilian marine terminals. Air traffic nearly doubled between 1946 and 1955, according to government figures. Then came a technological revolution  the most important since Wilbur Wrights 12 glorious seconds aloft.

The jet age began in the late 1950s and rendered existing infrastructure obsolete. Planes became bigger, faster, louder, and cheaper to operate. American Airlines first transcontinental route spirited passengers from New York to San Francisco  nonstop!  in a mere five hours, for 25 percent less than a ticket on the older-generation, piston-engine airships. In their place, Boeing 707s and McDonnell Douglas DC-9s arced coast to coast, and Pan Am stewardesses shook martinis for passengers in the smoking section.

American factories churned out jet planes faster than developers could build places to take off, land, and hangar them. Enter: the lag. By 1955 the strain on existing air facilities and the inadequacy of flight traffic controls compelled president Dwight Eisenhower to enlist three private institutions and several advisers  military and civilian  to make a long-range plan for controlling jet-age chaos and upgrading propeller-era systems. Much of our airspace is already overcrowded, the committee concluded. The development of airports, navigation aids, and especially the air traffic control system is lagging far behind both aeronautical development and the needs of our mobile population and industry. In the previous five years, 65 midair collisions occurred  all involving personal planes  killing scores. Airliners reported an average of four near misses per day.

Within months Congress funded the nations first modern air traffic control system: radar, radio, 40 control towers, and illuminated runways for the busiest routes and airports. Order was imposed, and flying got safer.

Sixty years later North American airports and carriers are the worlds safest: The risk of crashing is roughly one in 10 million, according to 2015 data from the International Air Transport Association. This is an important caveat to the contention that Americas airports suck. Any mode of transport that can operate  never mind fly, with a human pilot  daily for 2,700 years before failing is the opposite of suck.

Starting in the 1950s safety took priority over passenger experience, insufficient airport capacity, and development for the future. Then, as now, nearly all U.S. airports had constrained spendable assets, and operators picked safety over bathroom tiles and proactive expansions. We cannot go on year after year expanding all our airport facilities, a Civil Aeronautics Board official declared in a 1955 speech. We have a right to expect a kind of aircraft to be developed that will be more economical of facilities on the ground.

U.S. cities have been continuously playing catch-up since World War II, historian Janet Bednarek writes in Airports, Cities, and the Jet Age. While many cities came out of WWII with converted military bases that helped absorb the first new waves of air traffic, unexpectedly large growth in passenger traffic, new technologies, and changes in the rules of the game challenged even the best airport planning. Civic leaders expanded many times with the expectation that the facilities could then meet demand for decades. But many airports were congested within a few years of wrapping up construction. Others, Bednarek writes, baked aggressive passenger traffic growth into their project funding models  the airport hucksters version of supply-siding a tax cut to reach revenue neutral.

Local governments strove to close the lag, Bednarek explains, as airports became logical places for cities to promote themselves to national and even international markets. They built runways  big ones  and commissioned terminals that would become landmarks of architecture. In 1962, for example, New Yorks Port Authority opened the TWA Flight Center at Idlewild Airport (now JFK). A prominent architect described the structure, designed by Eero Saarinen, as the Grand Central of the jet age. It took seven years to build, and as many to become obsolete. Boeings 747 kicked off the so-called wide-body war in 1970, compelling airports to retrofit for the new planes expansive girth. But in a few short years, that war was over. Later, post-9/11 fuel prices made jumbo jets impractical for all but the longest hauls.

Maintaining a major airport could feel like a Sisyphean task. Americas newest  Denver International  opened in 1995 and has expanded twice since then. Chasing capricious traveler flows and yo-yoing plane sizes with a seven- to ten-year building handicap is a nearly impossible mission, and one that the U.S. is performing worse than nearly every other first-world country, not to mention many in the developing world.



The airports goeth before the fall, futurist economists contend. Americas air infrastructure requires $75 billion in investment through 2019 to keep up with passenger and cargo growth, rehabilitate existing facilities, and support aircraft development, according to the North American branch of trade group Airports Council International (ACI-NA). Of course, a high estimate would be self-serving given the constituency the organization represents. Yet any frequent flier can attest to the fact that Americas airports have fallen behind.

When you fly into an airport like LaGuardia, what do you see when you land? An airport in desperate need of repair, ACI-NA president and CEO Kevin Burke told me at the organizations recent conference in Washington. The biggest issue: funding, especially the $4.50 user fee, or passenger facility charge (PFC), that U.S. airports borrow against for development projects. Instituted in 1992 at $3 and increased to $4.50 in 2001, the fee can only be raised through an act of Congress. Since 2001, passenger volume has climbed while inflation has diminished the fees real value to $2.20. Congress has refused to heed the industrys call to raise the cap, seeing the fee as a tax that would reduce flying. This argument infuriates Burke and U.S. airport operators, who typically compare it to checked-bag fees. (Airlines, unlike the facilities they fly in and out of, can add charges without lawmakers go-ahead).

Canada allows airports to dictate their own passenger fees: Set them too high, and the market will punish that airport accordingly. Nearly all are multiples of the $4.50 maximum allowed at U.S. airports. Calgary International, for example, charges each passenger C$30 ($22.82); Toronto adds C$20; and Bathurst, New Brunswick, tops the chart at C$40 for the privilege of flying from its tiny gateway. Furthermore, Canadian airports are mostly run by private organizations, which pay the government for long-term leases on the land. When they want to build a runway, they build a runway, Burke says, shaking his head. And our airports are competing with one hand tied behind their back, thanks to Congress.

The ACI-NA isnt lobbying for Canadian-style fee freedom or even that level of increase. A $4 raise to $8.50 per ticket, Burke says, would be like manna from heaven. But with an antitax, Republican-controlled House, Senate, and White House, its about as likely to arrive.

Airlines dont get veto power over passenger fees, but in practice their lobbying has prevented any increase. Our position is that we want our costs to be as low as we can, says Deltas Christine Kennedy, general manager for network planning and partnerships. At the ACI-NA conference she presented her airlines extraordinary profit growth to attendees. I understand the arguments for the PFCs, but for me its just a number in the P&L, she says. Obviously, the lower the better.

By preventing airports from raising sufficient capital the traditional way  fees per ticket  airlines essentially hold the purse strings for U.S. airport development. We absolutely care about passenger experience, Kennedy asserts. You can see that in the money Delta spent on JFK  nearly $1.4 billion to overhaul Terminal 4, which serves the airline exclusively. Airlines have positioned themselves as the only source of capital and, in doing so, have taken enormous control over U.S. airports. If Delta, American, or United is signing the check for a new terminal, you can bet the improvements wont benefit passengers flying JetBlue, Air Canada, or Spirit. And thats a problem for any airport with a crumbling central security screening area or multiairline runways.

Privatization hasnt taken off in the U.S., because of the countrys unique structural and philosophical barriers. In discussing airport financing, the U.S. is different from the rest of the world in some key respects, says Perry Offutt, a managing director at Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets in New York. Macquarie is invested in airports in Brussels; Glasgow and Aberdeen, Scotland; Delhi and Hyderabad, India; and Hobart, Australia, among others, and is a leader in financing public-private infrastructure projects worldwide. Despite the countrys focus on capitalism, some local entities, which control most U.S. infrastructure, are reluctant to privatize because they worry about the potential impact on key constituents of changing the status quo.

Local jurisdiction over airports means that fundamental change, such as privatization, is enormously complex. It involves a range of stakeholders whose interests dont necessarily align, including unions, mayors, city councils, and state governors, for example. Those who oppose public-private partnerships often suggest that private capital is profiting at the expense of the public, Offutt says. What that misses, he explains, are the enormous efficiencies private operators can bring to bear and the risk transfer from governments to investors. If a new terminal development goes sideways, for example, the Macquaries of the world are left holding the bag, not taxpayers.

But those arguments failed to overcome the hurdles of the U.S. market  until LaGuardia, that is. Americas infrastructure philosophy  for the people, by the people  sounds democratic, but the result for airports is the opposite. Block off private investment, and youre left with whatever the airlines throw your way and (over)leveraging against capped user fees. As the manager of one midsize, overcapacity U.S. airport puts it, Airport financing is a hot mess right now.

Why not accept this perverse American exceptionalism and treat airports as the bus terminals of the skies? People still fly, after all. Consider LaGuardia in its direst state: Rain outside means rain inside the terminals, with leaks cleverly siphoned into inverted traffic cones taped to rubber tubes that run into garbage bins. Yet the airport still kicked off $35 million in operating income in 2015. Together the Port Authoritys Big Three are more than the Triple Crown of terrible places to be alive in. Theyre also the worlds second-most-popular airport system (122 million passengers in 2015), behind Londons quartet of Heathrow-Gatwick-Stansted-Luton (150 million), according to the Port Authority and the CAPA Center for Aviation.

For LaGuardia, business is up. More than 1 million additional people passed through its doors in 2015 (the most recent statistics available) versus the previous year. Thats 175 percent of the airports intended capacity. And unlike many less fortunate cities in the U.S., travelers to and from New York have options. Its broke  but why fix it?

There is a sense of pride one wants to have in their public assets and infrastructure, says Jane Garvey, head of the Federal Aviation Administration in the Clinton administration and one of the people tasked with rebuilding LaGuardia. Airports are our gateways. You want the gateway to be something you can be proud of.

Garvey is chairman of North America for Meridiam, a leading, Paris-based infrastructure investment firm. In 2011 the Port Authority solicited private sector interest in overhauling LaGuardia, and Meridiam joined forces to bid with international specialists in airport construction (Skanska, Walsh Group), design (HOK, WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff), and operations (Vantage Airport Group). Together they became LaGuardia Gateway Partners. Bryan Rowan and his Frasca & Associates colleagues spent years analyzing the numbers and stress-testing the models of each bidder, just one of many professional contractors to the Port Authority in the massive leap into airport privatization. In 2015, LaGuardia Gateway Partners won the landmark contract; it took over the Central Terminal Building lease last June. It vows to stop rain from falling inside the terminals.

We had been holding our breath for two years, and Im sure you could hear the sighs of relief and cries of joy all over Manhattan, says Rebecca Catley, Vantages senior director of communications, recalling that Thursday in May 2015 when the Port Authority picked her group. It was very, very exciting. Three finalists remained in competition for the contract, all of them experienced international groups that had invested years of effort and millions of dollars in wooing the Port Authority. Leaders gathered at the World Trade Center to hear their fate, and each team was assigned a color. We were the purple team, Catley remembers, and we all bought purple ties, purses, and scarves for that extra bit of good luck. I dont even remember if we went out to celebrate, but Im sure we raised a glass that night.

Patching the leaky roof and fixing other egregious issues was the first $5 million line item in LaGuardias CTB overhaul. The next $3.2 billion should turn the stepchild of New York airports, as one Port Authority official calls it, into world class. Vantage, Meridiam, and Skanska brought $200 million in capital to the table, but insiders say the Port Authority wasnt after their money; it wanted their expertise.

The Port Authority, having experienced significant delays and cost overruns at the World Trade Center  that was one of the main drivers for soliciting an alternative delivery method for LaGuardia, says an insider. They saw how awry things went and thought, We could use some people who know what theyre doing. Bringing in private partners was a massive decision, and not everyone was in support of it.

Its a testament to good governance that the Port Authority learned a lesson. Many public entities have undertaken big infrastructure projects and bungled them; the Port Authority applied its experience to make a better plan for the next project. From early on in the process, it carved out a role for private partners in the design and construction of LaGuardia 2.0. That matters to the eventual outcome, according to Meridiams Garvey and Marie-Liesse Marc, Vantages vice president of acquisitions and asset management.

As an operator, the best way to deliver really good customer experience is to have input in the design from the beginning, Marc explains. In the case of LaGuardia, we had to think the Port Authority would lead the project to a successful outcome, because its going to be a complex process. Partnerships like these are going to be critical in the much-needed development of the U.S. market: An experienced operator focused on deliverability looks ten years, 20 years in the future and asks, Am I overbuilding? Am I underbuilding? And when you have a deliverable project, its financeable.

Rowan knows the LaGuardia project can be financed, and he is convinced its deliverable. The companies running the show are pros, in his view. As for their plan: Hello, postsecurity dining, drinking, and shopping. The vast majority (95 percent) of concessions will be accessible after the ritual strip search; Rowan thinks this will pay off for investors and travelers. After all, only happy passengers shop. From the airport roads to the terminals to the airside, the redevelopment should significantly improve every aspect of the passenger experience, he writes in an e-mail. As a New Yorker, and as someone in the industry, Im beyond excited to witness this transformation taking place.

So are investors worldwide, who are itching to put money in this desperately undercapitalized, highly stable long-term market. Thats where hope lies for Americas airports and the 900 million people who fly through them every year. Airports could be awash in cash for redevelopment if their controlling entities choose to take it (and give up a little control in the process).

We have clearly underinvested in infrastructure in this country, Garvey says. There has been a distrust of private entities on the part of public officials. As more and more P3 [public-private partnerships] are built and operated well, public opinion may change and be more embracing of the delivery mode. This model, she adds, is as much about shifting risk and fostering innovation as it is financial.

For that reason, the infrastructure cash tsunami promised by Donald Trump elicits wariness from many airport experts. Governments have poor track records putting public capital to work efficiently, rarely delivering projects on time and on budget. Entire administrations change over the course of a terminal or runway rebuild, putting projects at the whim of politicians  which, as the Port Authority has learned, is the worst way to do them well.

On January 4, a year and a half into New Yorks privatization experiment with LaGuardia, Governor Cuomo made an announcement: The Triple Crowns days are numbered. We are New York, and we remember the bravado that built this state in the first place, he told a large audience. That is the attitude that will take JFK and turn it into the 21st-century airport that we deserve.

Potential private investment in the JFK project: $7 billion.

Leanna Orr is the Global Content Director of Institutional Investors Investor Intelligence Network.
Preqin ranks the allocators pouring the most money into the asset class  and the managers who are raking it in.

For the biggest investors in private equity, look to the Great White North.

A Preqin ranking of the 100 largest allocators to the asset class released on Wednesday placed three Canadian pension funds in the top ten. The biggest of these, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, topped the list with a current allocation of $44.4 billion  nearly 16 percent of its total portfolio.

The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan and Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, with investments of $21 billion and $20 billion, respectively, placed sixth and seventh for total capital committed, according to the data tracker?s ranking.

Outside of Canada, the largest private equity investors included Abu Dhabi's $792 billion sovereign wealth fund  which allocated $39.6 billion to the asset class, according to Preqin estimates - and Singapore's GIC, with $31.5 billion in private equity.

In total, 43 percent of the largest investors were public pensions. By location, North America dominated private equity investments, with Canadian and U.S. allocators making up 67 of Preqin's top 100 investors. These limited partners, including the $305 billion California Public Employees' Retirement System and Yale University's $25 billion endowment, currently invest a total of $523 billion in the asset class.

The continent is also home to 64 of the 100 largest private equity managers, with eight of the top ten hailing from the U.S. The largest, Carlyle, raised $66.7 billion over the past ten years. Close behind in second and third place were Blackstone Group and KKR, with ten-year fundraising of $62.2 billion and $57.9 billion, respectively.

Of the top 100, Blackstone ranked the highest in dry powder levels, with $31.9 billion ready to deploy.

Buyout funds were by far the preferred vehicle of the largest investors, with 98 percent citing these as a favorite. Growth funds and venture capital were also popular, chosen by 87 percent and 82 percent of allocators, respectively.

As for geographic preference, the top ten limited partners most liked private equity funds targeting Europe, North America, Asia, and emerging markets, as well as global funds.

On average, the biggest investors allocated 12.1 percent of their portfolios to private equity. The largest commitment as a portion of the total portfolio came from Bregal Investments, a London-based single-family office investing the entirety of its $3.1 billion in private equity.
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Inflation remains the primary concern for the worlds central banks, which have engaged in the broadest and fastest tightening regime in history, according to Alejandra Grindal, chief economist at Ned Davis Research.
"I was a bit surprised by that," says expert
Ask any person on the street their thoughts on the insurance industry and it is likely the response is not going to be great.Whether they think the industry is out to rip-off consumers, hide details in small print or is just simply boring, the general publics idea of insurance and the reality behind the industry are two very separate things.For Mike Bartlett, commercial director of Sum Insured, it was this challenge in perception that saw him attracted to the industry in the first place.The thing that really piqued my interest the most was the public perception of the insurance industry, Bartlett told Insurance Business. That [perception] was one of the insurance industry is always trying to rip us off, they are the bad guys and not to be trusted.When I got into the industry I realised it was exactly the opposite of the way things worked.Every time there is a negative story peoples perceptions are almost reinforced. It is only when they might have a claim and have a terrific experience with a claim that the light goes on.For Bartlett, the key to re-imaging the general publics idea of the insurance industry is to work on self-promotion and change policy wordings.The industry should shout louder about its positive stories, especially its work in post-disaster areas, as a way to highlight their worth to society, Bartlett continued.In addition, by working complex policy wordings into easier to understand terminology, consumers can begin to self-educate on the need for insurance and the power a policy brings.By helping to improve the perception of insurance, Bartlett said that the talent shortage currently gripping the industry could be alleviated. Those on the outside will look at insurance in a more positive light and might be more inclined to pursue an insurance career.As a late bloomer in insurance, Bartlett knows a thing or two about entering the industry. Prior to his time in the setor, Bartlett completed what he called two other careers before making his debut in the industry proper with Cordell Information in 2008, before moving to Sum Insured last year.It has opened me up to my third career, Bartlett continued.I absolutely adore this industry and think it is a fabulous industry but my only regret is that I didnt discover this industry right from the very start.For his part, Bartlett is trying to talk his two eldest daughters into a career in insurance. When it comes to shifting perceptions of the misunderstood insurance industry, every little bit helps.
Facebook and Manhattan prosecutors went to New York states highest court Tuesday to settle a legal dispute over search warrants for users accounts, a closely watched case with big implications for online privacy.

An attorney for Facebook told the judges that it must be allowed to object when law enforcement seeks search warrants for its users information. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. argued it is up to individual Facebook users to fight any effort to obtain personal information for criminal investigations.

Prosecutors sought search warrants in 2013 for the accounts of 381 people in connection with a disability benefits fraud case against New York City police and fire retirees.

The Menlo Park, California-based social media company challenged the warrants, but lower courts sided with prosecutors, ruling that Facebook didnt have legal standing to object since the target was information about possible suspects  not Facebook. Facebook turned over the data but has continued to contest the actions of prosecutors.

Facebook attorney Thomas Dupree said the search warrants were unprecedented in their scope. Facebook regularly works with law enforcement but has to be allowed to object when it feels a search warrant is overly broad, he said.

This case involves the DAs seizure of the most personal and intimate information imaginable, Dupree said. These are peoples private thoughts and communications, on their lives, their identities, their families, their politics, their religion, their sexuality, all captured in the DAs dragnet.

Vance said anyone whose Facebook information is seized has the right to sue prosecutors for damages or challenge the admissibility of the evidence in court. He also noted that prosecutors must go before a judge before obtaining search warrants.

Law enforcement is always going to be bumping up against peoples privacy, he said. The search warrants for social media posts, he added, are really no different than if we issued a search warrant into someones house and took books and records or a car or a safe deposit box.

In the alleged disabilities fraud case against police and fire retirees, prosecutors sought the social media content in an attempt to show the retirees were leading active lives and lying about disabilities.

A decision is expected within a few months.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics New York Law Enforcement
A senior Chinese insurance regulator warned against the industrys reckless overseas investment, saying some insurers behaved recklessly when it came to offshore acquisitions, the official Securities Times reported on Thursday.

Chen Wenhui, vice chairman of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) urged insurers to take a cautious approach when investing overseas, the newspaper said.

Blind outbound investment by insurers, often with high leverage, involved tens of billions of yuan worth of risks in some cases, Chen was quoted as saying.

Some companies behave like a little boy rushing into a candy store when making overseas investment, Chen said.

Chen made the remarks at a time when Beijing is stepping up efforts to stem capital outflows that adds depreciation pressure to the yuan, and threatens to exhaust Chinas foreign currency reserves.

Acquisitive Chinese insurers such as Anbang Insurance Group have been shopping overseas in recent years, snapping up foreign companies and properties.

Chinese insurers may boost outbound investment by about $100 billion over the next three years, as they seek to diversify risks, BNP Paribas predicted in December.

($1 = 6.8929 Chinese yuan) (Reporting by Samuel Shen and John Ruwitch; editing by Sam Holmes)

Topics Carriers China
AXIS Capital Holdings Ltd. announced that Neil Arklie has joined AXIS Insurance as vice president, Financial Lines, and lead underwriter for its London-based international cyber insurance unit.

Arklie will lead a team of experienced underwriters focused on writing cyber, media, film and television, and technology coverage for AXIS Insurances International Division, AXIS said in a statement.

Joining Arklie on the recently expanded AXIS London cyber insurance team is Delvin Tillett, who has been appointed associate vice president, Financial Lines, and will provide underwriting support across cyber, technology and media liability lines.

Neil and Delvin are key additions to a growing cyber team that is just beginning to tap into its potential as we continue to leverage AXIS platform at Lloyds and expand our capabilities, said Mark Gregory, CEO of AXIS Insurances International Division.

One of the first market underwriters to specialize in cyber, Neil brings proven leadership and experience that also crosses into the media and technology sectors. Additionally, Delvin is a talented cyber expert, and our clients will benefit significantly from his in-depth knowledge of the sector, he added.

Arklie joins AXIS following 13 years in various roles at Swiss Re, most recently as senior cyber and technology product manager. He began his career in underwriting roles at Provincial (now part of AXA) and Chubb.

Tillett joins AXIS from managing general agency Ascent Underwriting, where he served as an underwriter and specialized in cyber.

Source: AXIS Capital Holdings

Topics Cyber Underwriting
Theresa Mays latest Brexit victory should leave her happy  but might ultimately come at a price.

Late on Wednesday, the U.K. prime minister persuaded the House of Commons to back her original 137-word draft law to start the withdrawal from the European Union. Her only concession to lawmakers was that Parliament should get an early vote on the final pact.

The question now as the House of Lords prepares to begin debating the legislation is whether that move amounted to nothing more than a sop to buy off rebels in Mays ruling Conservative Party, or will prove a significant concession that could derail her Brexit strategy down the line.

Mays team argued she merely confirmed that lawmakers will get the choice between accepting her handiwork or quitting the EU with no deal at all. Brexit Minister David Jones warned that the premier would never return to the negotiating table to ask EU leaders for a better pact.

The main oppositions Brexit spokesman thinks the government is bluffing.

The idea the prime minister would seriously say in 2019: Well, rather than go back and see if I can improve and satisfy parliament I will simply crash out that would be a reckless act, Keir Starmer of the Labour Party told the BBC Radio on Wednesday.

Weak Hand?

In that worst-case scenario, May and her European counterparts would have to decide if they really wanted to see World Trade Organization tariffs erected on their trade.

Whether that is really the choice available will depend on the political mood at the time, said Alan Renwick from the Constitution Unit at University College London. Given a strong desire, in the U.K. and across the EU, to avoid hard and disorderly Brexit, strenuous efforts to find an alternative would follow any parliamentary vote against the deal.

According to Renwick, Mays government might well collapse if lawmakers reject the final draft agreement. The government will therefore do all it can to deliver a deal that parliament will accept, he said.

The EU is also adept at stepping back from the brink of disaster at the last moment. We also know from the euro zone crisis the skill with which the EU can teeter on cliff edges without quite falling off, Renwick added.

Lords Next

In less than two weeks, the bill will face the House of Lords  where the government does not have a majority. While it could receive tougher treatment in the unelected chamber, the draft law is unlikely to be blocked, leaving May ample time to meet her deadline to trigger Article 50 by March 31.

As for what happens later in the process, the timing of Parliaments vote on the final deal is also significant. British and EU negotiators are aiming to have the agreement ready to send to the European Parliament in October 2018, six months before the U.K. will automatically leave the bloc under the legal timeline set out by the EUs Lisbon treaty.

By giving the U.K. Parliament a say before the deal goes to European lawmakers for approval, May has handed British legislators a potential six-month window in which they can pressure her to go back to Brussels and ask for something better.

All this hinges on opponents of Mays Brexit accord being organized enough to win a vote in Parliament. This weeks showing suggests they have a long way to go.

Labour Crisis

Labour remains in disarray over how to handle Brexit, and it showed this week. Jeremy Corbyn, the party leader, faced renewed speculation over his own position while shadow business secretary Clive Lewis resigned rather than follow orders to vote in favor of Mays bill to trigger Brexit.

The ruling Conservatives, meanwhile, have problems of their own. May took a risk when she sacked most of David Camerons cabinet as soon as she won power last July. This week, two of the victims  Nicky Morgan and George Osborne  defied Mays order to support her in Commons voting.

In all, seven Conservatives voted against May on Tuesday, in the closest act of defiance yet.

Ultimately, the state of the economy over the next two years could dictate the direction of Brexit. A sharp economic downturn has the potential to make voters think again about leaving the EU, handing Mays enemies a chance to hit back.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics Legislation Europe
A federal judge on Wednesday ruled against U.S. health insurer Anthem Inc.s proposed $54 billion merger with smaller rival Cigna Corp., derailing an unprecedented effort to consolidate the countrys health insurance industry.

The U.S. Justice Department sued in July to stop Anthems purchase of Cigna, a deal that would have created the largest U.S. health insurer by membership, and Aetna Inc.s planned $33 billion acquisition of Humana.

On Wednesday, Judge Amy Berman Jackson of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued the ruling against Anthems deal, saying that the merger would have worsened an already highly concentrated market and was likely to raise prices.

Last month, a different U.S. judge ruled against Aetnas proposed deal for Humana.

Government antitrust officials argued that both deals would lead to less competition and higher prices for Americans. The acquisitions would have reduced the number of large national U.S. insurers from five to three.

Berman had separated the Justice Departments case into two trials. Her ruling focused only on the first one in which the Justice Department argued that the tie-up would hurt the ability of large national employers to get competitive rates for the health coverage they provide workers.

The second trial considered overlaps in the two insurers business selling health benefits to individuals, and administering Medicare Advantage coverage to the elderly.

Anthem argued that there was enough competition because large companies with more than 5,000 employees often used multiple smaller players in the national market, but the judge disagreed.

Regional firms and new specialized niche companies that lack a national network are not viable options for the vast majority of national accounts, and they will not ameliorate the anticompetitive effects of this merger, Berman wrote.

Cigna intends to carefully review the opinion and evaluate its options in accordance with the merger agreement, it said in a statement.

Anthem said on Thursday that it intends to promptly file a notice of appeal and request an expedited hearing of its appeal to reverse the courts decision.

PROTECTING CONSUMERS

Acting Assistant Attorney General Brent Snyder of the Justice Departments Antitrust Division said the ruling had prevented American consumers from facing higher health insurance premiums and less innovation.

Bill Baer, who was head of the Justice Departments antitrust division when it decided to sue to block both the insurance deals but has since left the agency, also hailed the decision. Together with the decision on Aetna and Humana, this preserves five large national providers of critically important health insurance products, he said.

The fifth player, UnitedHealth Group Inc. was not involved in the deals.

Some Wall Street analysts expect all four of the companies to now move on, although Aetna and Humana have not committed to doing so. Their deal expires Feb. 15.

More deals may be in the offing, JPMorgan analyst Gary Taylor said in a research note. Given Anthem and Cignas pursuit of Humana in 2015, we think new potential combinations could emerge. He does not expect shares in either Anthem or Cigna to move given that investors had expected this ruling.

Cigna is entitled to receive from Anthem a $1.85 billion break-up fee if the deal fails to win regulatory approval, according to the merger agreement. The agreement also requires Cigna to have put forth its best effort on that front.

But Anthem and Cigna disagreed about the deal in court, Berman wrote in her order, with Cigna refusing to sign off on Anthems interpretation of how the companies could garner saving.

Anthem is the largest member of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and operates BCBS plans in 14 states. It and said it could apply its discounts to Cigna members while Cigna said its collaborations with doctors would save money.

Pre-merger integration was stalled and incomplete, the judge said. (Additional reporting by Akankshita Mukhopadhyay and Dipika Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Bernard Orr and Leslie Adler)

Topics Mergers & Acquisitions USA Legislation
A U.S. federal judge on Wednesday upheld an Obama-era rule designed to avoid conflicts of interests when brokers give retirement advice, in a possible setback for President Donald Trumps efforts to scale back government regulation.

The stinging 81-page ruling comes just days after Trump ordered the Labor Department to review the fiduciary rule  a move widely interpreted as an effort to delay or kill the regulation.

The decision by Chief Judge Barbara Lynn for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas is a stunning defeat for the business and financial services industry groups that had sought to overturn it.

And while it is not expected to stop the Labor Department from delaying the rules April 10 compliance deadline while it conducts the review, some legal experts say it could make it more difficult for the Labor Department to find a way to justify scrapping or significantly altering the rule.

This marks the second time now a federal district court has upheld the fiduciary rule. A third court, meanwhile, rejected an effort to stay the rules implementation.

Three courts have now carefully considered the full range of industry attacks on the DOLs best interest fiduciary rule, and they have firmly rejected all of them, said Stephen Hall, the legal director of Better Markets, a non-profit group that supports the rule.

The decision issued today is definitive and sends a message that ought to put a stake through the heart of industrys efforts to destroy this common-sense rule.

The Labor Departments fiduciary rule requires brokers to put their clients best interests first when advising them about individual retirement accounts or 401(k) retirement plans.

It is championed by consumer advocates and retirement non-profit groups, but has been staunchly opposed by the financial services sector, which argues it will make retirement advice too costly and harm lower-income retirees in particular.

The long list of groups that sued the Labor Department in the Dallas federal court include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Financial Services Institute, the Financial Services Roundtable, the Insured Retirement Institute and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.

In a joint statement, those groups said they disagreed with the judges ruling and vowed to pursue all of our available options to see that this rule is rescinded.

The decision in the Labor Departments favor came just a few hours after the Justice Department had petitioned the court to stay issuing a ruling because of the Feb. 3 White House request to review the rule to determine if it should be revised or scrapped.

Lynn, who was appointed to the bench by former President Bill Clinton, denied that request shortly after her ruling was filed.

The Department of Labor is continuing to follow the presidents memorandum and is exploring options to delay the applicability date, Labor Department spokeswoman Jillian Rogers said in a statement.

SWEEPING LEGAL ARGUMENTS REJECTED

Wednesdays ruling represents a setback for Gibson Dunn & Crutcher attorney Eugene Scalia, who represented the business groups and has a strong track record for winning legal challenges to kill off unwanted Wall Street regulations.

The decision addressed a sweeping series of legal arguments that Gibson Dunns attorneys made against the rule, including claims that the Labor Department had exceeded its legal authority and that it had violated federal rulemaking procedures by failing to conduct an adequate cost-benefit analysis to help justify the regulation.

The court finds the DOL adequately weighed the monetary and non-monetary costs on the industry of complying with the rules, against the benefits to consumers, Lynn wrote.

In doing so, the DOL conducted a reasonable cost-benefit analysis.

Lynn also rejected other arguments, including claims that the rule violated free speech rights of brokers and that the rule violated federal laws governing arbitration.

The case could still be appealed to a higher court.

Meanwhile, there are still several other pending legal challenges to the rule.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Dan Grebler and Lisa Shumaker)

Topics USA Legislation
Gov. John Bel Edwards is making his sixth trip to Washington to lobby for $2 billion more federal flood aid for Louisiana.

The state has received $1.6 billion from Congress so far to respond to the March and August flooding. The governors additional request comes amid cleanup from tornadoes that struck south Louisiana on Tuesday.

Edwards traveled to Washington on Wednesday and will return to Baton Rouge by the weekend.

Hes meeting with Louisianas congressional delegation, House Democratic leadership, Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and staff of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees flood recovery spending.

Edwards also is seeking meetings with the Trump administration.

Hell also be attending Washington Mardi Gras events and speaking about his tax reform proposals to a business group.

Related:

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Louisiana Flood Washington
Vicksburg, Miss., Mayor George Flaggs Jr. says he wants all city workers who handle money to be required to take polygraph tests.

Flaggs told The Vicksburg Post that taxpayers need to know were not losing their money. He brought up the idea Monday, as he and city aldermen discussed hiring a certified public accountant to audit the court services department because of allegations that money was mishandled.

That department processes cases for the citys Municipal Court and collects fines for traffic and misdemeanor offenses.

Flaggs said he would like to see polygraph tests administered randomly like a drug test. He said hes asked the city attorney to research a new polygraph policy.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Mississippi
Assignment of benefits abuse has escalated over the last five years to the point where it is now a serious disruption to Floridas insurance market.

The abuse, which is especially rampant in South Florida, stems from unscrupulous contractors and attorneys cashing in on homeowners dealing with a water loss, such as a burst pipe or roof leak. The bad actors, as they have been dubbed by the industry, use an AOB to acquire the homeowners insurance benefits, file inflated claims, and then pursue lawsuits against insurers when those claims are disputed or denied.

Because of Floridas one-way attorney fee statute, insurers are left footing the bill for the inflated claim and the attorney fees.

We believe the [one-way attorney fee statute] provides an extraordinary incentive for people to get into a dispute with the insurance company and inflate the claim so the company has to pay attorney fees, said Florida Insurance Commissioner David Altmaier at the Feb. 7 Florida Cabinet meeting.

The industry hopes this will be the year that the Florida Legislature addresses the problem.

AOB is such a hot topic in Florida right now that it dominated discussions on almost every panel and between attendees of the Florida Chamber of Commerces Florida Insurance Summit held Feb. 1-3 in Miami. A glance at the numbers from various Florida sources tells the story of why:

Frequency of water claims rose 46 percent and severity increased 28 percent between 2010 and 2015 (OIR 2015 Data Call)

AOB property insurance claims totaled 28,000 in 2016, up from 843 in 2010 and 405 in 2006 (Florida CFO Jeff Atwater)

Floridas Citizens saw a 30 percent increase in new lawsuits filed against the insurer between January and November 2016 (Citizens)

50 percent of Citizens water-related claims resulted in litigation in 2016, up from 15 percent in 2011 (Citizens)

As of October 2016, Citizens had 9,306 litigated claims pending and continues to receive an average of approximately 850 new claims per month (average of approximately 980 per month from August to October)

In South Florida, the average AOB claim costs more than $32,000, nearly triple the average of non-AOB claims (Florida Consumer Protection Coalition)

Non-cat water loss claims accompanied by an AOB are increasingly coming to insurance companies in the form of a lawsuit before the insurer has even seen the claim. Data from Citizens found that 76 percent of water loss claims in 2016 were submitted to the company in the form of a lawsuit, up from the 2.5 percent of litigated water claims in 2012.

Citizens CEO and Executive Director Barry Gilway said the average water damage claim is received by Citizens 50 days after the date of loss.

We are not getting these lawsuits from the insured, he said. In many of those cases we have never even seen the claim, weve never had an opportunity to adjust it or received a statement of loss its just here is a lawsuit and a bill for $30,000.'

National homeowners carriers have also seen a significant rise in the abuse in Florida.

Assignment of benefits started out as a convenience for Florida residents, allowing them to sign over the benefits of their property insurance policy to a vendor to facilitate direct payment for repairs, said State Farm Florida Spokesperson Michal Brower. However, it has become a vehicle for fraud and claim build-up by some vendors escalating the scope and cost of remediation or repairs beyond actual damage to the home.

The effect that assignment of benefits abuse is having on the property/casualty insurance industry in Florida is extensive and if not addressed will ultimately be devastating to consumers. The abuse is not only fueling the need by insurers to seek rate increases to cover rising claims costs, its also likely to affect consumer choices in the future, as more insurers are forced to consider leaving the areas where the abuse is the heaviest, said Liz Reynolds, State Affairs Director, Southeast Region of the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC).

Industry Response

As the situation continues to deteriorate, insurers say they can no longer afford to just watch the trend and are instead taking action to ensure that the increasing frequency and severity of claims wont deplete their surplus and ability to pay claims.

According to the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, nearly 73 percent of the rate filings received by insurance companies and approved by OIR were for a rate increase, largely because of AOB claims.*

Insurers are responding in ways other than raising rates, as well, including pulling out of certain areas of the state, filing for policy wording changes, and accepting fewer take-out offers from Citizens. The company has reached its lowest policyholder count in its history, but there are concerns those efforts will be reversed if the AOB problem continues.

Citizens Gilway has been one of the loudest voices in Florida on the AOB problem, first calling attention to the issue at Citizens OIR rate hearing in August 2015.

Gilway says as a non-profit insurer, Citizens is in a unique position to bring attention to how the problem is really hurting the consumer and not just a way for insurance companies to raise rates so they can make more money.

I dont have any axe to grind here. My bottom line is I feel very, very sorry for the insureds. They are getting ripped off by signing one of these things. Most of the time when they sign them, they are under duress, Gilway said.

Florida insurance companies are just starting to quantify the AOB abuse and its impact on their bottom lines. The industry has seen increased water loss claims and litigation, but hasnt necessarily been tracking the frequency of AOB with those claims. In OIRs 2015 Data Call, only four companies were able to provide consistent indicators of AOB for the analysis.

Because private companies have not put forth concrete data like Citizens has, some have questioned if the abuse is as great as the industry has claimed.

Belinda Miller, chief of staff for OIR, said regulators have closely examined if the problem is an abuse of the system or if insurance companies are somehow complicit in the increased litigation. To reach that determination, OIR evaluated consumer complaints over the last five years and if they had increased at the same rate as lawsuits. Miller said that wasnt the case.

The argument that maybe its just the companies arent doing a very good job and arent paying when they should, we dont see any evidence of that, Miller said.

And as AOB costs insurers more money in claims, they can raise rates in response.

Insurance companies pass through these costs, said Miller. The insurance company can raise rates and keep paying. It doesnt necessarily mean they are going to make more money  they are going to pass these costs on to their policyholder.

*Correction: This story has been corrected from an earlier version to clarify that 73 percent of approved rate filings in 2016 were for rate increases. An earlier version of the story incorrectly stated that 73 percent of insurance companies operating in Florida filed rate increase requests for 2017. Insurance Journal regrets the error.

Topics Lawsuits Carriers Trends Florida Claims
A King County judge has ordered the makers of 5-hour ENERGY to pay nearly $4.3 million in penalties and attorneys fees for violating the Washington state Consumer Protection Act.

Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a lawsuit against the companies in 2014, and this week Judge Beth Andrus ruled that the companies advertising was deceptive.

The companies claimed the energy shots were superior to coffee and said doctors recommend them. They also said their decaffeinated formula provides energy, alertness and focus that would last hours.

Ferguson says the companies broke the law in pursuit of profit, and now they are paying for it.

The judge ordered Living Essentials LLC and Innovation Ventures LLC to pay nearly $2.2 million in civil penalties and an additional $2.1 million in legal fees.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Legislation Washington
Chubb has named Sean Ringsted EVP and chief digital officer for Chubb Group, a newly created position.

In his new position, Ringsted is tasked with "transforming the company into a digitally integrated organization," Chubb says. He reports to CEO Evan Greenberg.

"Chubb's vision of digital integration encompasses all underwriting, claims, sales and service functions that touch prospective customers, our policyholders, distribution, all internal operations, as well as deepening our insights and transforming the nature of the product we sell and service  in a word, converting the company to a digital enterprise," Greenberg says. "A deep thinker and manager, Sean has the vision, experience and depth of industry knowledge to lead this strategically important mission for our company."

Ringsted is also the company's chief risk officer, a position he held at ACE Group before that company acquired Chubb last year, and will retain. However, his duties as chief actuary will be taken over by Paul O'Connell, who had been the chief actuary for global P&C and North America insurance.
Jeremy D. Morley concentrates on International Family Law. The firm works with clients around the world from its New York office, with a global network of local counsel. Mr Morley is the author of "International Family Law Practice", the leading treatise on international family law in the U.S., and "The Hague Abduction Convention", published by the American Bar Association. He is a Fellow of the International Academy of Family Lawyers and a former law professor.
India exchange-traded funds (ETFs) offer a way for investors to geographically diversify their global portfolios by owning a range of companies in the worlds second most populous nation and one of the worlds largest emerging markets. India ETFs track the performance of a basket of equities trading on the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. (NSE). Some of Indias largest companies include Indian Oil Corp. Ltd. (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd. (BPCL), and Tata Motors Ltd. (TATAMOTORS).

India's economy was significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, but it has bounced back substantially in recent quarters. The countrys gross domestic product (GDP) climbed by 8.9% in 2021, according to The World Bank. The growth was pronounced enough to allow India to surpass the U.K. to become the fifth-largest economy in the world in the final quarter of 2021. The International Monetary Fund predicts that India's GDP will climb by 7.4% in 2022.

Key Takeaways Indian equities outperformed the broader market over the past year.

The India exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with the best one-year trailing total returns are INCO, NFTY, and EPI.

The top holdings of these funds are Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., Bajaj Finserv Ltd., and Reliance Industries Ltd., respectively.

There are eight India ETFs that trade in the U.S., excluding inverse and leveraged ETFs, as well as funds with less than $50 million in assets under management (AUM). Note that these funds target Indian stocks rather than bonds. India-based equities, as measured by the MSCI India Index, have outperformed the broader market, with a total return of -3.7% over the past 12 months compared with the S&P 500s total return of -11.0%, as of Sept. 1, 2022. The best-performing India ETF, based on performance over the past year, is the Columbia India Consumer ETF (INCO).

We examine the top three India ETFs below. All numbers below are as of Sept. 1, 2022. In order to focus on the funds' investment strategy, the top holdings listed for each ETF exclude cash holdings and holdings purchased with securities lending proceeds except under unusual cases, such as when the cash portion is exceptionally large.

Performance Over One-Year: 1.6%

Expense Ratio: 0.75%

Annual Dividend Yield: 0.28%

Three-Month Average Daily Volume: 7,038

Assets Under Management: $84.0 million

Inception Date: Aug. 10, 2011

Issuer: Ameriprise Financial

INCO targets the Indxx India Consumer Index, which is a free-float adjusted market capitalization-weighted index of no more than 30 companies in the consumer industry in India. Companies included in the index focus on autos, food products, beverages, media, household products, and similar areas. Consumer discretionary stocks make up over 55% of holdings, and consumer staples make up the remainder.

The top holdings of INCO include Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. (500520:BOM), an automotive manufacturing company; ITC Ltd. (500875:BOM), a conglomerate with operations in hotels, cigarettes, specialty papers and packaging, and software; and Eicher Motors Ltd. (505200:BOM), a maker of commercial vehicles and motorcycles.

Performance Over One-Year: -2.2%

Expense Ratio: 0.80%

Annual Dividend Yield: 0.49%

Three-Month Average Daily Volume: 1,362

Assets Under Management: $50.3 million

Inception Date: Feb. 14, 2012

Issuer: First Trust

NFTY tracks the NIFTY 50 Equal Weight Index, which is an equally weighted version of the NIFTY 50 Index, including the 50 largest and most liquid securities on the National Stock Exchange of India. NFTY focuses on large-cap companies and includes a blend of growth and value stocks. Financials make up the largest portion of the portfolio, at over 23%, followed by materials and consumer discretionary companies.

The top holdings of NFTY include Bajaj Finserv Ltd. (532978:BOM), a non-banking financial services company; IndusInd Bank Ltd. (532187:BOM), a commercial bank; and Titan Company Ltd. (500114:BOM), a maker of jewelry, watches, and other fashion accessories.

Performance Over One-Year: -4.1%

Expense Ratio: 0.84%

Annual Dividend Yield: 0.83%

Three-Month Average Daily Volume: 336,712

Assets Under Management: $732.4 million

Inception Date: Feb. 22, 2008

Issuer: WisdomTree

EPI tracks the WisdomTree India Earnings Index, a fundamentally weighted index that gauges the performance of profitable companies incorporated and traded in India and eligible to be purchased by foreign investors. The ETF provides a valuation-centric approach to Indias equity markets, weighting individual holdings by earnings rather than by market capitalization. It focuses on large cap companies across the Indian economy, with energy, materials, and bank stocks accounting for nearly half of invested assets.

EPIs top three holdings are Reliance Industries Ltd. (500325:BOM), a manufacturer of petrochemicals, synthetic fibers, textiles, and more; Housing Development Finance Corp. Ltd. (500010:BOM), a provider of housing finance; and Infosys Ltd. (500209:BOM), a provider of IT consulting and software services.

The comments, opinions, and analyses expressed herein are for informational purposes only and should not be considered individual investment advice or recommendations to invest in any security or adopt any investment strategy. While we believe the information provided herein is reliable, we do not warrant its accuracy or completeness. The views and strategies described in our content may not be suitable for all investors. Because market and economic conditions are subject to rapid change, all comments, opinions, and analyses contained within our content are rendered as of the date of the posting and may change without notice. The material is not intended as a complete analysis of every material fact regarding any country, region, market, industry, investment, or strategy.
Top News - Investor Idea

A Boat-full of Potential - Renewed Interest in the Cruise Industry Bolsters Luxury Markets (OTC: MASN) (NYSE: CCL) (NYSE: CUK) (NYSE: RCL) (NYSE: NCLH)

Vancouver, Kelowna, Delta, BC - November 2, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Investorideas.com, a leading investor news resource covering luxury goods and cruise ship stocks releases a special report featuring Maison Luxe, Inc. (OTC: MASN), a company that offers luxury retail consumer items.

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Breaking AI Stock News: GBT's (OTCPK: GTCH) AI Driven Financial Technology Patent Application Received a Notice of Publication

San Diego, CA - November 3, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) GBT Technologies Inc. (OTC PINK: GTCH) received a notice of publication for its financial software patent application.

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Breaking AI Stock News: Intellagents, a FatBrain AI (OTCQB: LZGI) Company, Announces Hiring of Insurtech Industry Veteran as Chief Revenue Officer

NEW YORK, NY - November 2, 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, announces the hiring of Euan King, an experienced and respected Insurtech industry leader as Chief Revenue Officer for insurance technology-focused subsidiary Intellagents.

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Health and Wellness Stock News - Endexx (OTCBB: EDXC) Secures $3.8M Order for Non-Nicotine Vape Product HYLA from Italy

CAVE CREEK, Az. - November 2, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Endexx Corporation (OTCBB:EDXC), a provider of innovative, plant-based, and sustainable health and skincare products, today announces it has secured a new $3.8 million USD order for its newly acquired, non-nicotine based vape product, HYLA from customers in Italy.

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Press Release

IPU statement on the recently adopted Regularization Law in Israel

Geneva, 9 February 2017

Kiryat Arba Jewish settlement on the outskirts of the Palestinian city. Hazem Bader/AFP

The IPU President, Saber Chowdhury has expressed his deep disappointment over, and deplored, the adoption by the Israeli Knesset of the Regularization Law on 6 February 2017. The legislation, an affront to the rule of law, will seriously jeopardize ongoing efforts to secure a peaceful resolution of the conflict in the Middle East, including the two-state solution that the parties have commited to with the strong support of the international community. It will in fact hinder the chances of establishing a viable and sovereign Palestinian State.

The law effectively authorizes retroactively the establishment of Israeli settlements on private Palestinian land. Such a measure will ultimately lead to heightened instability and insecurity for the entire region and beyond. The IPU President is deeply disturbed by the fact that this legislation is consistent with neither national nor international law as evidenced by UN Security Council resolution 2334.

The IPU President and Secretary General, Martin Chungong, have therefore reached out to, and are consulting with, the Israeli parliamentary authorities, urging the Knesset to reconsider and repeal this legislation in the interest of peace between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. Such a measure to repeal the law would be in conformity with the rule of law, a key precept of democracy. It would also be consistent with the logic of peace, which is yearned for by all in the region and beyond.

The IPU is premised on the principles of dialogue and cooperation for the resolution of conflict, and has appreciated the ongoing commitment of the Knesset and the Palestinian legislative authorities to its peace projects over the past two years within the framework of IPUs Committee on Middle East Questions. In the current environment, it is even more important to rededicate to such projects, which are intended to transform potential elements of conflict into factors of peaceful co-existence, through science and technology. The IPU stands ready to play its part in continuing to promote such dialogue in the interest of lasting security, development and prosperity for the people in the region.

The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) is the global organization of national parliaments. It works to safeguard peace and drives positive democratic change through political dialogue and concrete action.
What a fun night we had launching RHOSYD and meeting our lovely counterparts from Sydney! Looking forward to watching the show!#champagnejacquart #champagnelady #rhoakl #rhosydney#bravonz A photo posted by Anne Batley Burton (@annechampagnelady) on Feb 7, 2017 at 1:24pm PST

The cast ofreunited last week as they welcomed their counterparts from across the ditch during a preview screening of. Angela Stone, Anne Batley Burton, Gilda Kirkpatrick, Julia Sloane, Louise Wallace and Michelle Blanchard all reunited and welcomed RHOS ladies Krissy Marsh and Nicole O'Neil to New Zealand, where they were promoting the upcoming new Foxtel series.As for the RHOAKL ladies, none them had heard anything about a possible second season of the Bravo New Zealand show, however a few did express interest in a sequel.Anne Batley Burton, who hosted the afternoons festivities said she would be hoping for a second season of the Real Housewives of Auckland, as would Angela Stone."Hopefully it [RHOS] means that there is a chance for a season two for us... Fingers crossed," Batley Burton told. "I think most of us would come back. We have all had our ups and downs of course but all-in-all it has been an amazing experience for all of us and we have had a lot of fun."However The Real Housewives of Auckland appeared to enjoy the antics of their Sydney mates as the room filled with laughter.Two of the Australians, Krissy Marsh and Nicole O'Neil, were welcomed into the exclusive Housewives club with open arms.Krissy Marsh said she had enjoyed the first season of the Auckland series. "We loved it, Australia and New Zealand are like sisters so we had to watch it and support them," said Marsh.Photo Credit: Bravo New Zealand
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Gardai have confirmed they are investigating an alleged attempted abduction of a school boy in Balbriggan, Dublin on January 30.

Gardai also said they were unaware of a second alleged similar incident in the area that has been reported on social media and in some media outlets.
The four man gang arrested by armed police in Amsterdam last Sunday night have been charged with a number of offences in a Dutch court today.

The gang, made up of two Irish and two British nationals, appeared in court following their arrest last Sunday night in the citys Rembrandt Square after a man approached police and told them he had been threatened with a gun.
Wall St stocks opened lower, weighed by losses in the banking and healthcare sectors, and European share prices turned negative, while oil recovered after a surprise draw in petrol stockpiles.

Three months before the final round of Frances presidential election, investors are concerned about the strong showing of far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who has promised to take France out of the eurozone and to hold a referendum on EU membership. Eurozone government bond yields fell broadly yesterday, though French debt lagged the rest with 10-year yields falling three basis points to 1.1% but remain not far off the 17-month highs touched earlier this week.

Low-risk German equivalents 5.4 basis points to 0.31%, a two-week low. This pushed the spread between the two yields at one point to more than 78 basis points, its widest since November 2012, a move that was also fuelled by expectations that the ECBs bond-buying stimulus scheme has peaked.

If you step back, the big picture still remains  that of political concerns in Europe concomitant with speculation over ECB tapering, said Rabobanks head of rates strategy, Richard McGuire.

The premium investors demand to hold low-rated Italian 10-year bonds rather than German Bunds hit its highest since 2014. Apart from German debt, investors also bought gold, which is seen as a safe investment. Spot gold hit a three-month high of $1,244.67 an ounce. The euro was down another 0.1% to $1.068 after a sharp fall on Tuesday. Against sterling, it rose slightly, however, to 85.4p. The price of US crude oil was up 44c at $55.61 after news of a large rise in inventories in the US Energy Information Administration data saw prices initially fall overnight.

The crude oil inventory build was really terrible for the market but the market does not seem to care because the products inventories were better than expected and are dragging crude oil prices up with it, said Andrew Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates in Houston.

The dollar, whose predicted path higher has been interrupted lately by uncertainty over President Donald Trumps economic policies, ticked higher against a basket of major currencies. Investors are still waiting to see if Mr Trump makes good on his campaign pledges to cut taxes and boost spending.

Markets know that if Trump was to come out and start talking about tax reform and infrastructure spending, the dollar would go up. The dollar rose a long way at the end of last year, it has come back, now we are sitting around waiting for the next steer, said Gavin Friend, a strategist with National Australia Bank in London.

Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at online broker IG warned about potential disruption ahead.

The ominous quiet in US markets, where moves greater than 1% continue to be rarer than hens teeth, is a signal that something big is on its way. The current flows into gold and treasuries and away from the S&P 500 is another indication that the equity rally is looking exhausted, he said.

Reuters and Irish Examiner staff
When the Italian central banks deputy governor joined a radio phone-in show last week, many callers asked why Italy didnt ditch the euro and return to its old lira currency.

A few years ago such a scenario, that Salvatore Rossi said would lead to catastrophe and disaster, would not have been up for public discussion.

Now, with the possibility of an election by June, politicians of all stripes are tapping into growing hostility towards the euro.

Many Italians hold the single currency responsible for economic decline since its launch in 1999.

We lived much better before the euro, says Luca Fioravanti, a 32-year-old real estate surveyor from Rome. Prices have gone up but our salaries have stayed the same, we need to get out and go back to our own sovereign currency.

The central bank is concerned about the rise in anti-euro sentiment, and a Bank of Italy source told Reuters Mr Rossis appearance is part of a plan to reach out to ordinary Italians.

Few Italians want to leave the EU. Italy was a founding EU member in 1957 and Italians think it has helped maintain stability in Europe.

And the ruling Democratic Party (PD) is pro-euro and wants more European integration though it complains that the fiscal rules governing the euro are too rigid.

But the three other largest parties are hostile, in various degrees, to Italys membership of the single currency in its current form. The PD is due to govern until early 2018, unless elections are called sooner.

The PDs prospects of victory have waned since its leader Matteo Renzi resigned as premier in December after losing a referendum on constitutional reform, and polls suggest that under the current electoral system no party or coalition is likely to win a majority.

Italians used to be among the euros biggest supporters but a Eurobarometer survey published in December by the Commission showed only 41% said the euro was a good thing, while 47% called it a bad thing.

In the Eurobarometer published in April 2002, a few months after the introduction of euro notes and coins, Italy was the second most pro-euro nation after Luxembourg, with 79% expressing a positive opinion.

Italy is the only country in the eurozone where per capita output has actually fallen since it joined the euro, according to Eurostat data.

Its economy is still 7% smaller than it was before the 2008 financial crisis, and youth unemployment stands at 40%. The right-wing Northern League, the third biggest party, is the most critical of the euro. Party leader Matteo Salvini calls it one of the biggest economic and social crimes ever committed against humanity.

The party has promised to pull Italy out of the euro if elected but it only has about 13% of voter support.

The anti-system 5-Star Movement may pose a bigger threat to Italys membership of the currency club. Polling roughly level with the PD at about 30%, 5-Star says it will hold a referendum on euro membership.

But Italys constitution forbids referendums on matters that are governed by international treaties such as eurozone membership.

5-Star says it could organise a consultative ballot to gauge public opinion.

A post last week on its official mouthpiece, the blog of founder Beppe Grillo, was headlined A referendum on the euro before its too late.

I would vote to leave the euro as it stands, lower house deputy Luigi Di Maio, who is widely expected to be 5-Stars candidate for prime minister, told Reuters.

We should return to a sovereign currency or, if there is an agreement with the other countries, form a new common currency with new rules.

Italys other significant party, Silvio Berlusconis centre-right Forza Italia, is not pushing for outright euro exit, but he has argued that Germany should leave instead, or that Italy should use the euro and the lira at the same time, an idea that many say is unworkable.

Economists in favour of leaving say a devalued currency would revive Italys exports. Those wanting to stay in the euro say an exit would trigger a surge in interest rates and inflation, capital flight, a banking crisis and possibly a default on Italys public debt.

Reuters
In an interview yesterday, Ms Kemp said that the businesses made serious progress since 2013 and that she was happy about their performance.

Ms Kemp was commenting on new accounts for the Itsa Bagel Ltd firm which showed that accumulated losses at the company increased by 58,635 to 186,307.

The losses take account of non-cash depreciation costs and interest payments. Ms Kemp said: Expansion costs and depreciation are the main reason for the small loss, adding that the business was shifting away from the original Itsa brand to include development of Alchemy Juice, Hatch & Sons and Joes Coffee.

It also operates Joes Coffee outlets at Arnotts in Dublin and in Kildare Village and has outlets at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Ireland and the Hugh Lane Gallery, as well as Hatch & Sons at the Little Museum of Dublin.

It also caters events at the Powerscourt Estate and at other venues. The firm employs around 100 across 14 outlets. Staff costs totalled 2.55m last year.

On the outlook for this year, Ms Kemp said that two new wholesale contracts last summer had helped boost revenues and the business had returned to profit despite increased costs for insurance, rents, and electricity.

Ms Kemp said: We closed branches in Ranelagh and Malahide which were under-performing.

We have created new brands and investment was required for the new premises and both brands: Joes and Alchemy.
It marks the first time the Carlow Brewing Company  which makes a stout and three beer varieties under the OHaras brand, as well as the Falling Apple cider brand  has acquired a rival company.

The Craigies deal will allow Carlow/OHaras to extend its product range and make its own cider. Currently Falling Apple is made by the Armagh Cider Company.

Carlow Brewing chief executive Seamus OHara said the company hopes to add new cider products over the next 12 months.

Craigies owns the Ballyhook Flyer and Dalliance cider brands, which sell both domestically and overseas.

Mr. OHara said he expected to see more consolidation amongst the craft beer community in Ireland, but urged the Government to lend more support.

He said the move to reduce excise duty for small breweries has helped the craft beer sector, but a different model is needed for cider makers and needs to be introduced.

He also said the Craft Beer Bill, if passed, will allow cider makers to sell their products on their premises.

OHaras has been looking to extend its cider presence for some time and had been in talks with Craigies for a number of months.

Craigies has also been working on a number of new cider products, which should come to market relatively soon.
As the Government published the terms of reference of a commission of inquiry, opposition parties demanded Ms OSullivan step aside for the duration of the investigation.

Labour leader Brendan Howlin went further, claiming Ms OSullivans position was untenable. Earlier, in the Dail he accused the commissioner of spreading allegations of sex crimes against Sgt McCabe.

He said he was contacted by a journalist who claimed direct knowledge of the smear campaign against Sgt McCabe.

The journalist told me that they have direct knowledge of calls made by the Garda commissioner to journalists during 2013- 2014 in the course of which the commissioner made very serious allegations of sexual crimes having been committed by Garda Maurice McCabe, said Mr Howlin.

Ms OSullivan issued a statement categorically denying the allegations which were made under Dail privilege, saying she refutes in the strongest terms the suggestion that she has engaged in the conduct alleged against a serving member of An Garda Siochana.

The statement added: This is the first occasion on which the commissioner has been made aware of the allegations made by Deputy Howlin and to her knowledge no report having been made to the Garda Siochana Ombudsman or elsewhere relating to the specific allegations.

The commission of inquiry, headed by Supreme Court judge Peter Charleton, will examine claims by former head of the Garda press office Superintendent Dave Taylor that he was involved in a campaign of propaganda against Sgt McCabe in 2013 and 2014, and that he was operating under the instructions from then commissioner Callinan and with the knowledge of Ms OSullivan, who was deputy commissioner.

The inquiry will examine whether there was a concerted campaign to blacken Sgt McCabes character, including allegations Mr Taylor was instructed to:

* Encourage reporters to write negatively about Sgt McCabe and brief reporters that Sgt McCabes claims of malpractice have no substance;

* To brief reporters that Sgt McCabe was motivated by revenge against the gardai over an allegation of criminal conduct allegedly made against him;

* To examine any files on Maurice McCabe which were created or retained.

This refers to an allegation from Mr Taylor that an intelligence file on Sgt McCabe was created at Garda HQ.

The commission will also examine phone records from Mr Callinan and Ms OSullivan for the period in question, and examine a meeting between Mr Callinan and John McGuinness in 2014, when the latter was chair of the Public Accounts Committee, in front of which Sgt McCabe was due to appear.

Mr Justice Charleton is also tasked with investigating whether Ms OSullivan planned and orchestrated broadcasts on RTE on May 9 last year using briefing material prepared in Garda headquarters.

The terms of reference of the inquiry state that the report, purporting to be a leaked account of an inquiry into Sgt McCabes whistleblowing, branded him a liar and irresponsible.

Significantly, issues around alleged attempts to attack Sgt McCabes character at the OHiggins Commission have not been included in the inquiry.

Sinn Fein and a number of independents have also called for the commissioner to step aside but both the Government and Fianna Fail have indicated that they believe she is entitled to remain in office unless any of the allegations are substantiated.

Tanaiste and Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald said that the allegations of wrongdoing have to be investigated fairly and fully.

That is what is now going to happen, said Ms Fitzgerald.

It is in the interests of both persons making the allegations and those against whom allegations have been made that the commission, which will have all the necessary legal powers to attempt to establish the truth, be allowed proceed with its important work.
Pascals car remained there, to be swamped by the waves. It was fished out later, but he never drove it again. According to Pascal: That is the price you pay for living in paradise.

Malachy King of Sweeneys Strand Bar in Cleggan, recalls this tale and many others involving the Hollywood stuntman who went from big budget pictures back to his roots on the tidal island off Co Galway. For years he has been its sole resident. Its now said his death last Sunday, on his 75th birthday, means it is the first time in 500 years that no one is permanently living on the island.

Pascals mother came from the island and he played there as a child, although his life took him around the world. He became a stuntman through a friend while living in Australia, and went on to gather credits in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Live and Let Die and Crocodile Dundee.

The late Pascal Whelan and Rex. Picture: Kevin Griffin

According to Malachy, the death of another stuntman in an accident put a stop to his own career. He went back to Omey permanently more than 30 years ago, and so began an almost daily ritual whereby he awoke in his mobile home and drove across the sands during the tidal window to get his messages and to grab a pint.

His sister lived in Galway and a brother in Clifden, but it was only Omey for Pascal. He told Malachy he was never lonely. Locals helped him with water supply, but any electricity came off a car battery. He was into fishing and diving. Aged 60, he told Malachy, Im living on borrowed time. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer three years later. Tears flowed, but he beat it. Later he had a kidney removed. He lived on, the man of Omey. He may have had memorabilia from his stuntman days but it seems he didnt overdo it with the anecdotes.

Instead, he did odd jobs and a bit of plastering and stayed in contact with his family. It was Malachy who noticed he hadnt come across last Sunday, and Malachy who rang Pascals mobile phone. I made a call to him and it rang out, he said. Normally hed answer on the third or fourth ring. I left it 15, 20 minutes and tried again. No answer. I got my car and went into him. He had told me where his key was. I saw the dog inside and I thought: this is it. It was indeed.

Mourners at the funeral of Omey Islands last permanent resident. Picture: Eamon Ward

Pascal  stuntman, father, friend, islander  was laid to rest yesterday. Almost every day hed be in the Strand Bar, supping a pint or taking a brandy before the journey back, the Prince of Tides. The stool is now empty.
The union has confirmed it will commence ballots among its hundreds of members working for the council next Monday for industrial action up to and including strike.

The union says it is frustrated with the local authoritys attitude, in particular to the dwindling number of outdoor road workers and has not acted on several calls to recruit more.

Although the councils retained firemen are among Siptu members, they will not be involved in the ballot.

Siptu organiser Con Casey said for many months council management had refused to employ more outdoor staff, even though they were allowed to since the Government lifted its embargo a year ago on the recruitment of local authority staff.

We now have a situation where key sections of the council which deal with road maintenance, housing, and many other essential services are now seriously understaffed, said Mr Casey.

Councillors have repeatedly called for more staff to be employed on road maintenance and housing repairs.

That roads section has suffered most from cuts to staffing in recent years.

Those who have retired have not been replaced. They also have the highest average age of all staff employed by the council and the highest sickness levels because they have to work in all weather conditions.

Council staff have to maintain 12,800km of roads in the county and its workers are also responsible for coastal defences in several areas along the 11,000km coastline.

The outdoor workers are also involved in flood prevention works and the clean-up in the aftermath of flooding as well as ensuring roads are gritted during icy conditions.

The running down of the ability of the council to adequately provide services for the largest local authority area in terms of land mass and coastline in the country would unfortunately seem to be part of an agenda to increase the outsourcing of work to private for profit companies, alleged Mr Casey.

The council has outsourced road repairs in the past to the private sector.

Mr Casey claimed outsourcing by council management is being pursued in contravention to national agreements.

The ballots will be counted in Connolly Hall, Cork, on Friday, February 17, and the results are likely to be made known that day.
At Cork Circuit Criminal Court yesterday, Sergeant Annamarie Guiney testified that Patrick Bassett sexually assaulted a boy who was aged between 8 and 11 in the late 1960s in Co Cork.

Bassett pleaded guilty to all 12 charges.

Judge Sean O Donnabhain acknowledged that the 82-year-old was presently serving a three-year sentence having been convicted on a total of 40 charges of a similar nature in relation to three separate injured parties. The judge imposed a two-year jail sentence but suspended it.

Sgt Guiney said the background to the latest sexual assault before the court was that the defendant, while he was in his 30s, took advantage of the boy. He removed the childs pants and masturbated him.

When questioned initially about the charges in the Midlands prison, Bassett made no comment to the investigating sergeant.

However, he ultimately pleaded guilty to the 12 charges.

The victim was not present in court yesterday for the case and did not want to appear or to give a victim impact report.

Sgt Guiney said that the injured party did have difficulties arising out of these assaults and had 34 sessions of counselling to deal with his issues.

However, he indicated to her that he was in a good place now and did not want to come to court as he simply wanted to put the matter behind him.

Defence barrister John Devlin stressed the age of the defendant and the fact that he had served prison sentences for such crimes and was still serving one of those sentences of three years. With remission he will be released in April from that sentence.
Christine Crowley, aged 72, from Main St, Drimoleague, Co Cork, was arraigned at Cork Circuit Criminal Court yesterday in relation to the offences at Kerrs pharmacy on Main St, Dunmanway, Co Cork.

The case would have taken approximately five weeks or more had it gone to hearing.

However, defence senior counsel James OMahony said the accused could be arraigned yesterday on 20 sample counts on the indictment.

Mr OMahony asked if the accused could sit down rather than stand for her arraignment because of health issues. Judge Sean O Donnabhain said the defendant could remain seated.

She then replied, guilty, to each of the 20 counts on the indictment.

Many of the charges followed the same wording, namely that in a monthly period at Kerrs pharmacy, The Square, Dunmanway, she induced an official of the HSE to pay, for instance, 131,000, a fraudulent representation of the drug payment scheme/long term illness scheme monthly claim, with the intention of making a gain for yourself.

Other charges referred to the falsification of patient medical records in relation to medication dispensed in the sum of, for instance, 100, approximately.

Prosecution senior Alice Fawsett clarified at the end of the arraignment that despite reference to multiple sums in and around 100,000, the total amount of money involved was 70,000.

Ms Fawsett explained that only a portion of the falsified total represented an illegal gain for the accused and that the bulk of the total would have been legitimate.

70,000 of the claims was false, all of which has been recovered by the HSE. There is no money outstanding, she said.

Mr OMahony explained that once this fraud came to light the accused for a period of 13 months provided services to the HSE and to patients and that during this period the HSE made no payment to her.

Judge Sean O Donnabhain agreed to adjourn sentencing until March 3 to allow the defence time to obtain a medical report on the accused.

Ms Fawsett SC said the State acknowledged that the pleas of guilty yesterday obviated the necessity for a trial on 174 counts and involving 1,500 exhibits.

The background to the crimes will be given at the sentencing next month.
Back on the market is the largely vacant, but fully built, Charleville Town Centre on a four-acre site, just off the heavily trafficked Main Street in the strong county town on the Cork-Limerick border.

Anchored by Dunnes, who own their own unit, and featuring an Elverys (also occupier-owned) as well as Lloyds/Unicare pharmacy renting at 180,000, its being billed by Lisneys Cork offices as a modern shopping centre investment, with significant asset management enhancement potential.

Even with 15 of its 17 units still vacant, the rent paid on the pharmacy unit alone equates to a 9% NIY return, and there are 16 years left to run on that lease. Sourcing and adding new occupiers (discount retailers? Dealz? Iceland?) would swell that yield further, in this 37,000 sq ft complex, which includes 450 multi-storey car parking spaces. Charlevilles population is c 3,700, it serves a wider catchment, and is on the Cork-Dublin rail line with a rail station close to the Town Centre, which backs onto Bakers Lane, in effect a sort of town bypass.

Noting the significant asset management upside, agent Margaret Kelleher of Lisney said it could be an ideal opportunity with immediate rental returns for someone skilled in retail management, and she says they will consider expressions of interest as an entire, or with the pharmacy investment separate to the balance of the development.

Charleville Town Centre was completed in 2008, just in time for the economic and retail collapse, and has 17 retail units ranging from 800 to 3,165 sq ft, as well as eight office units spanning 650 sq ft to 2,852 sq ft over ground and first floors, plus a two-bed 850 sq ft duplex apartment.

It was developed on a four-acre site acquired in 2004 at reported site cost of 4m by Beaux Walk Properties, at total cost of up to 20m and is being sold on behalf of receiver Ken Fennel of Deloitte.

It was last offered for sale back in 2014, via different agents, at just 950,000 all-in, but failed to find a buyer at that stage in the recovery cycle.

Details: Lisney 021-4275079
THE extent to which Supt David Taylor has implicated himself in a campaign of black propaganda against Sgt Maurice McCabe became fully apparent yesterday.

The terms of reference for the commission of inquiry to investigate whether there was a campaign against McCabe spoke volumes. The terms are based mainly on Taylors claims.

These include his claim that he briefed the media to write negatively about Sergeant McCabe to the effect that his complaints had no substance, that the gardai had fully investigated his complaints and found no substance to his allegations and that he was driven by agendas.

In addition, he admitted briefing that an allegation of criminal misconduct had been made against Sgt McCabe and that this was the root cause of his agenda, namely revenge against the gardai.

The latter theme also featured in attempts at the OHiggins Commission to attack McCabes character.

There is a pattern here, or maybe just a series of coincidences. Unable to refute McCabes claims of malpractice, elements within the force allegedly decided to instead mercilessly attack his character. The question is whom these elements were.

Taylor admits his role, but claims he was instructed by his boss, then commissioner Martin Callinan, with the full knowledge and complicity of current commissioner Noirin OSullivan.

Taylor had left the press office and HQ by April 2015 when there was another alleged attempt to attack McCabes character behind the closed doors of the OHiggins inquiry into McCabes claims.

Counsel for OSullivan said he was instructed to do so, but the commissioner says she never issued such instructions. Only when McCabe produced a tape recording vindicating himself of such allegations, did the matter die.

Taylor was gone by then. If what happened at OHiggins was part of a pattern to attack McCabe, then it outlived his tenure at HQ, which would give some weight to Taylors claim that he wasnt acting off his own bat.

The goings-on in OHiggins are not included in terms of reference, which is unfortunate, as they were extremely serious and remain unresolved.

Noirin OSullivan

What is included in the terms is an allegation that RTE was supplied with briefing material about the OHiggins report ahead of publication, which painted McCabe as a liar.

The inquiry will also examine a meeting between Fianna Fail TD John McGuinness and then commissioner Callinan in a carpark in 2014. McGuinness has stated that Callinan attempted at that meeting to discredit McCabe, saying he wasnt to be trusted and that there were issues about him.

Earlier in the Dail there was a significant, if somewhat shocking, development, when Labour leader Brendan Howlin made an extraordinary allegation under privilege.

He had raised the issue over whether OSullivan should step aside for the duration of the commission of inquiry. Then he revealed that he had been contacted by a journalist by phone that morning.

The journalist told him they had direct knowledge of calls made by the Garda commissioner to journalists during 2013 and 2014 in the course of which the commissioner made very serious allegations of sexual crimes having been committed by Garda Maurice McCabe.

Howlins decision to relate the allegation under privilege carries a certain weight. He passed on allegations about the gardai in 2000 which led to the setting up of the Morris Tribunal into malpractice in the force in Donegal.

Afterwards, Howlin and former TD Jim Higgins were dragged all the way to the Supreme Court over their refusal to divulge their sources. As it was to turn out, setting up the Morris Tribunal was a correct, if belated, decision, demonstrated by an outcome which exposed serious malpractice and corruption.

Now Howlin is making another claim under privilege about the guards, and deserves to be listened to. As does OSullivan, but the questions around her are multiplying to the extent that either she has serious issues to answer or a number of people are now out to bury her in the same way some elements once attempted to bury McCabe.

Garda Maurice McCabe

The other outcome from Howlins Dail claims is that he apparently has unearthed another whistleblower of sorts. The journalist who contacted Howlin  taking the Labour leader at his word  must have been within the ambit of those who were fervently briefed by Garda HQ about Sgt McCabe, if this journalist has the direct knowledge that they claim.

Judge Charleton will be interested to hear from one who has apparently undergone a Pauline conversion. Presumably, the judge will also be curious as to which other senior figures briefed this journalist and what exactly they had to say.

In addition, there is the issue over whether these alleged nefarious briefings affected how this journalist covered the whistleblower story.

Unless everything is a ball of smoke, as an earlier phase of this story was once prematurely characterised, then its not just the upper echelons of An Garda Siochana that will be damaged by Judge Charletons inquiry.

Elements of the media and some senior political figures may also emerge from the process shipping damage.
I SOMETIMES wonder why it is his head which has to go above the parapet, Des OMalleys wife Pat told me in a Limerick hotel a quarter of a century ago.

Pat, who died last week, was in election mode. The Fianna Fail/PD government formed three years before had fallen apart when Albert Reynolds told the Beef Tribunal that Des OMalley was dishonest in stating that Reynolds had exhibited favouritism towards Larry Goodman as minister for industry and commerce.

Reynolds stuck stubbornly to the word dishonest even though it was going to blow up the coalition, in the face of the offer from OMalleys counsel that Reynolds might call OMalley incorrect instead.

In his book on the PDs, the writer Stephen Collins records an entry from Fianna Fail press secretary Sean Duignans diary: I kept willing him to get back to defending his own decisions, to leave OMalley out of the damn thing Albert paused for what seemed like ages and then he said that one word  dishonest. I think were bollixed.

I was on one of my first real assignments as a freelance journalist and I was preparing to make a total hash of it. I hadnt the faintest idea why the coalition had collapsed. I had no idea what Pat OMalley was talking about when she said: Sometimes I wonder does Albert understand the nuances of words. I honestly think he didnt understand that telling an untruth under oath in court amounts to the same thing as perjury.

What saved me was my tape recorder, which for once didnt limit itself to recording the dishwasher behind the bar. I had had many such horrible experiences in my first forays into journalism and indeed I had once reconstructed an entire interview from memory.

But I recorded Pat OMalleys words and managed to turn in an explosive interview which stunned the editor at the newspaper which had commissioned it. I heard her talking on the phone to the editor-in-chief, explaining she had expected a light, feelgood interview as part of a series on  wait for it  party leaders wives. She insisted that she had not commissioned a political interview.

She even asked me to hand over my tapes because she knew me too well. It could have been another reconstructed interview. But it wasnt. The thing was, Pat OMalley was amazing. When I asked her how she would feel about her husband going into government again she said: Oh I dont know. Id say Dick Spring [then leader of the Labour Party] is on the way up! To say a comment like this was unheard-of in the run-up to a general election is an understatement. What about the electorate is sovereign, and all the blah, blah, blah which politicians and their supporters come out with to this day?

Pat OMalley spoke her mind. Once my editor had satisfied herself that the interview was genuine she wanted to splash the quotation about Dick Spring under the photograph. Her veteran sub-editor, smoking a large pipe and thus fuming both physically and metaphorically, refused.

It was a joke, we chorused.

It was also the truth. Pat OMalley spoke the truth.

Born Pat McAleer in Omagh in 1940, she met Des OMalley in UCD. He proposed after three days but she made him wait four years, during which time she worked as a teacher. They married in 1965 and she became pregnant almost immediately. She was also plunged straight into campaigning for Des when his uncle Donogh OMalley died.

Des won a seat and Pat had a child, the first of six children in eight years. Her young interviewer considered this a fate worse than death, but did ask her if having the children had given her satisfaction and she said: Well it did and it didnt. There was definitely a hint of regret that she hadnt been able to fulfil other ambitions.

I distinctly remember her saying I was going to take on the world but my tape recorder must have hiccupped at that point because its not in the article.

She added, however: Im feeling grateful that I did take the time with them because theyre extremely responsive children, very independent and outgoing and they give me great pleasure.

She wasnt prepared to play down the sometimes catastrophic impact of her husbands political career on her life. In my wildest dreams I could never have imagined that I would one day find her words applying to myself, briefly a ministers wife, raising a young family alone.

I remembered her motto was you cant be waiting for Des as she forged her own life with her own friends, many of whom would certainly not have a PD point of view, feminist friends and left-wing friends.

She said her children resented their fathers continual absence  as did he. But she seemed devoted to him and defended him passionately, even though her opposition to the founding of the PDs in 1985 was legendary. She cautioned accountant Paul Mackay about her husband: If you get involved with this man it is like becoming involved with Jesus Christ. Once you declare yourself for him you have to forget everything else and be with him. She was, in Mackays immortal words, acting up. She even threatened to disrupt the PDs launch. A family friend had to be called to drive her away from the building and talk her down over lunch.

I love the passion, the bolshiness, and the faithfulness. She must have had a big impact on her husbands ideas particularly on issues such as contraception and abortion which caused friction between Des and FF, and through him she had a big impact on life in this country.

But she was also a faithful public servant in the forgotten role of sustaining family life on her own, as have been so many political wives and a couple of husbands: From Kathleen Reynolds to Finola Bruton to Fionnuala Kenny to Enda ORourke to Patricia Ryan who gave up sharing her husband Brian Lenihans last few months while he battled for this countrys life.

The supporting role is unfashionable but as we remember Pat OMalley, we should record how vital it is to the health of this society. And celebrate a relationship which kept giving through the decades, something which puzzled her young interviewer very much a quarter of a century ago. And be glad that they had the time after politics for which she said she longed: I just hope it will happen with enough time for us both to live this life, walking and sauntering around and going out to dinner. I think it would be bliss.
Burma Arakan State Govt Proposes Locations for Nine New Beach Resorts

Kanthaya coastal beach in Gwa Township. / Sithu Phyo / Facebook

RANGOON  The Arakan State government has issued a proposal to the Union government to open seven new beach resorts in Gwa Township and two in Thandwe Township, according to the regional minister for finance, revenue and economics U Kyaw Aye Thein.

We found seven locations in Gwa Township. The beaches are pretty nice. And we intend to establish hotel zones, said minister U Kyaw Aye Thein.

He explained that the state government is awaiting approval from the Union government in order to officially announce the hotel zones on the Gwa coastline. The minister said they would then invite developers to invest in the projects.

Although the minister did not elaborate on a timeframe for the announcement, he said it would take place very soon.

Currently, the state and Union governments are coordinating in order to upgrade the highway to Gwa from Nga Thaing Chaung town in Irrawaddy Division. Some local travel agencies are arranging tour packages to Gwa for domestic travelers by minivan from Rangoon.

The Gwa seashore is somewhat popular among Burmese visitors, but the area is not home to luxury hotels like those found on neighboring Ngapali beach.

Regional lawmaker U Soe Win of the National League for Democracy said that in recent years, some businessmen bought land near Kanthaya beachjust north of Gwa townupon hearing that the government would create a hotel zone there, causing land prices to rise.

Gwa is known to be one of the least developed areas in Arakan State, with most residents relying on fishing and agriculture to make a living. Employment and educational opportunities for young people in the area are limited, said U Soe Win.
Burma Bangladesh Says it is Stopping Rohingya Militants, Allowing Helpless Refugees

Rohingya refugees visit a community health care center to receive health check-ups and free baby food at Kutupalang Unregistered Refugee Camp, in Coxs Bazar, Bangladesh on February 5, 2017. / Mohammad Ponir Hossain / Reuters

DHAKA, Bangladesh  Bangladesh is working with Burmese security forces to stop Rohingya Muslim militants crossing their shared border, but will continue to allow women, children and the elderly to seek shelter there, a top government official said.

Around 69,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh to escape violence in Burma since October, straining relations between the two neighbors who both see the stateless Muslim minority as the other nations problem.

Despite those tensions, H.T. Imam, political adviser to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said Bangladesh had handed over two Rohingya militants caught sneaking into its territory in October, and was continuing to cooperate with Burma to prevent more from doing so.

Those who are absolutely helplesswomen with children and the elderlywe will give them temporary shelter, Imam said in an interview on Wednesday. We are doing this at a heavy cost. Its a crisis that has been forced on us. They are citizens of Myanmar and must be taken back.

Refugee Influx

Bangladesh is already host to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees, and says the latest influx has strained its limited resources.

Officials, including Imam and Foreign Minister A.H. Mahmood Ali, met diplomats from countries including the United States, Saudi Arabia and Burma in Dhaka on Sunday to address the crisis.

Bangladesh is seeking funds for its much-criticized plan to relocate new and old refugees from Burma to an isolated and undeveloped island in the Bay of Bengal called Thengar Charwhich floods at high tide. They are currently sheltered in the coastal district of Coxs Bazar.

The foreign minister requested for international help and also for taking the Rohingya population, Imam said. Bangladesh has a serious political, economic and financial problem because of the influx.

Underscoring Bangladeshs commitment to press ahead with the island plan, the prime ministers military secretary, Major General Mia Mohammad Zainul Abedin, visited Thengar Char on Wednesday.

The general asked the local administration to set up a helipad, jetty, deep tube well for drinking water and other infrastructure to make the island liveable, a local official said.

New York-based Human Rights Watch has urged Bangladesh to drop the island plan, which it called cruel and unworkable.

The current crisis erupted after nine Burmese police officers were killed in coordinated attacks on border posts on Oct. 9.

Refugees started to trickle across the border soon after that, but many were initially turned back by Bangladeshi border guards. Imam said they were later allowed to come in after Prime Minister Hasina intervened on humanitarian grounds and at the request of the international community.

Over the past five months Hasina has twice spoken with Nobel Peace Prize winner Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who leads Burmas government, to work out ways to send back the refugees that Bangladesh calls undocumented Myanmar nationals.

The PM also sent a special envoy to Yangon, Imam said. We are trying to engage them as much as possible. We suggested joint border patrols, joint border watch. Our border guards keep regular contact so that there is no cross-border militancy.

Burma, however, has not responded to the proposal for joint patrolling of the border, Imam said. Burmas Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to a request for comment.
Burma Education Ministry to Introduce New Exam System

A school in Chin State. / The Irrawaddy

NAYPYIDAW  Burmas Ministry of Education will introduce a new examination system to monitor and assess year-round performance, marking a major policy shift for basic education schools.

Under the current system, final exam results are the only measurement used to determine if a student is ready to advance to a higher grade.

Under the new system, well determine if a student is qualified for the higher grade based on his overall performance throughout the academic year. We will not only look at his final exam results, Dr. Khaing Mye, spokesperson for the Ministry of Education, told The Irrawaddy.

The new system will be applied to all grades in the basic education level, but not the matriculation level, he said.

The new system is aimed at improving students all-round performance. Students will be required to cooperate more with their parents and communities on schoolworkscoring well at exams will no longer be enough.

Teachers will monitor and assess the performance of students throughout the academic year, said an officer from the education ministry.

For example, there will be five exams in a year and well calculate a grade point average and divide the students into grades A, B, C, and D. Students will be able to earn 60 points from exams, and the remaining 40 points will depend on their individual performance, said the officer.

When grade point averages are calculated, a D grade will be treated as failing. Grades A, B, and C are a pass.

Dr. Khaing Mye said the new exam system was designed by the Ministry of Education and scholars.

The ministry briefed leaders from division, state, and district education departments on Jan. 26 and 27, according to U Myint Lwin, a director in the Basic Education Department.

We have provided the guidelines, so schools can start applying the new system in the coming academic year, he said. In basic education schools, the new academic year usually begins in June.

We will apply the new system mainly to fifth grade and ninth grade students, he said.

According to the Basic Education Department in Naypyidaw, there are about 9 million basic education students, 400,000 teachers, and 45,981 basic education schools.
Burma After Local Objections, Mon State Bridge Will Undergo Name Change

Construction of the bridge on the Salween River between Chaungzon and Moulmein townships. / Aung Aaing Oo / Facebook

RANGOON  The chief minister of Mon State has said he will reconsider naming a bridge after Burmese independence icon Gen Aung San, after objections from ethnic Mon locals.

Leaders from the Mon National Day Working Committee met Chief Minister U Min Min Oo on Thursday morning to discuss the issue of the bridge, which is located on the Salween River between Moulmein and Chaungzon townships. Construction of the two-lane, 5,200-foot structure will be completed in March, and has cost an estimated 60 billion kyats (US$44 million).

In the meeting, U Min Min Oo promised to choose a name for the structure that would be acceptable to locals.

He told us that his government would not use the name of Gen Aung San for the bridge. He will consider another name, which could be a local regional name, said Nai Kyi Win, minister of Natural Resource and Environmental Conservation for Mon State and a committee member of the Mon National Day Working Committee.

The bridges proposed name became known when the Ministry of Construction sent a letter to Aung Naing Oo, deputy speaker of the Mon State parliament, announcing a celebratory opening ceremony for it on Feb. 13. Locals were outraged by the decision, instead preferring a name celebrating ethnic Mon heritage. The opening ceremony has since been canceled.

Aung Naing Oo said that U Kyaw Myint, director of the Ministry of Construction, informed him on Thursday morning that he had made the state and Union governments aware of the naming conflict.

He told me that he had informed the state and Union governments already about how it would be a problem to use the name [Gen Aung San] for the bridge, because the ethnic Mon did not agree to it. He even asked to use a name given before to the Salween River bridge, said Aung Naing Oo, referring to the Mon term Chaungzon.

We will see their actions first, then we can decide next what we should do, he said of the government, adding that he would stand with the Mon community in fighting for the name change.

The main disagreement from our ethnic people was, that Gen Aung San has no relation to this bridge, and not even any relation to this area, Aung Naing Oo explained, adding that the countrys ruling partythe National League for Democracywas trying to take political advantage by invoking Aung Sans name, without considering the views of ethnic minorities.

The Mon National Party also issued a statement on Tuesday requesting that the state government designate a name that does not harm ethnic unity, peace and stability in the region, and could contribute to national reconciliation in the country.
Burma Statue of Slain KNU Leader to be Unveiled in Irrawaddy Delta

Karen National Union leader Mahn Sha was assassinated on Feb. 14, 2008.

CHIANG MAI, Thailand  Children and relatives of Padoh Mahn Sha Lah Phan, the late leader of the Karen National Union (KNU), will unveil a memorial statue of their father in his hometown in the Irrawaddy Delta on Tuesday.

The initiative to commemorate Padoh Mahn Sha Lah Phan comes on the ninth anniversary of his assassination, which took place in the Thai border town Mae Sot on Feb. 14, 2008. The statue will be erected in Taw Kyaung village in Pantanaw Township, Irrawaddy Division.

As a KNU leader, Padoh Mahn Sha Lah Phan was well-respected not only by his Karen people, but also by Burmese political activists for his leadership and broad-mindedness in the democracy movement. He was an outspoken leader while serving as the KNU general secretary in exile.

He was murdered by two gunmen on the afternoon of Feb. 14, 2008 at his home in Mae Sot. After his assassination, his four children established the memorial Phan Foundation, which gives an award every year to a young Karen leader along with a US$2,000 cash prize.

Padoh Mahn Shas children believe their father was assassinated by agents of the Burmese military regime, according to a statement the Phan Foundation released on Wednesday.

Although nine years have passed since the assassination, the perpetrators have never been brought to justice.

Saw Say Say Phan, the oldest and adopted son of Mahn Sha Lah Phan, was with his father when the assassination happened. He told The Irrawaddy that the purpose of erecting a statue is to recognize his fathers leadership and his work in the democracy struggle.

He was a great father for his children. He served his people. He also did his best in contributing to the [KNU] organization. We want to recognize his work, so we are erecting this statue in his birthplace, said Saw Say Say Phan.

The statue of Mahn Sha Lah Phan is already completed, and his relatives will hold a dedication ceremony on Feb. 14 in Taw Kyaung village.

Four of Mahn Sha Lah Phans children still live in exile and will not be able to attend the unveiling. Two daughters, Nant Zoya Phan and Nant Bwa Bwa Phan, live in England. His son Slone Phan lives in Canada, and his adopted son lives in Thailand.

All of the children are active in campaigning for human rights, the democracy movement, and the Karen cause. His daughter Nant Zoya Phan, who is a prominent democracy activist, also serves as a campaign manager at Burma Campaign UK, a London-based NGO.

Padoh Mahn Sha Lah Phan dedicated his life to the struggle for human rights, democracy, and self-determination for the Karen people and for all the people of Burma. He was committed to working with all ethnicities and religions. He played a key role in uniting opposition to the former military regime.
Burma The Unpublicized Summit in Naypyidaw

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing are seen leaving the special meeting on national defense and security, Oct. 14, 2016. / Global New Light of Myanmar

RANGOON  An unpublicized meeting took place between top leaders last Saturday in Naypyidaw.

State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing held a private meeting. Some senior officials from both sides also attended. But state-run media made no mention of the summit.

In the past, there have been many highly publicized meetings between the two leaders, and there have been some low-key get-togethers that were not publicized. Perhaps the State Counselor and military chief could not always reach an agreement or they did not want to smile for reporters cameras at times.

On Saturday, Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing reportedly asked Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD government to convene a meeting of the National Defense and Security Council (NDSC) as soon as possible. No NDSC meetings have taken place since the NLD government took office one year ago.

The 11-member NDSC was created during former President U Thein Seins administration and enshrined in the 2008 Constitution. The NDSC is empowered to formulate policy regarding certain military and security issues, including the right to petition the President to declare a nationwide state of emergency.

The council members include the president, two vice presidents, speakers of the upper and lower houses, the armys commander-in-chief, the deputy commander-in-chief, the foreign minister, and the ministers for defense, home affairs, and border affairs. The military controls a 6-5 majority in the council.

Soon after clashes began in Northern Arakan State in October, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing held a highly publicized security meeting together at the presidential residence in Naypyidaw. News of the summit was published on the front page of state-run newspapers. However, the October meeting was not an official NDSC meeting.

Not all 11 members of the NDSC were invited to attend.

On behalf of the military, army chief Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing, deputy army chief Gen Soe Win, defense minister Gen Sein Win, and minister of home affairs Lt-Gen Kyaw Swe all were in attendance.

But from the civilian side, only two NDSC members were presentPresident Htin Kyaw and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. U Kyaw Tint Swe, the Union minister for the Office of the State Counselor, attended the meeting as the only non-NDSC member.

In January, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi appointed U Thaung Tun, a veteran diplomat, as national security advisor. The position is equivalent to a minister-level position. The appointment did not go down well with the top brass of the armed forces, and it was seen as an attempt by the NLD government to circumvent the supreme council.

Some political observers believe the relationship between Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing has deteriorated over the last few months.

Following the appointment of a national security advisor, former information minister U Ye Htut penned an analysis in Singapores Today Online. In the article he said, Unfortunately, Mr. Thaung Tuns appointment puts him on a collision course with the all-powerful military.

He continued, By tradition, internal security has been the sole domain of the Myanmar military, with the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces serving as the principal advisor to the government on these issues.

There are concerns that this could point to a looming clash between military leaders and Ms. Suu Kyi, the ex-information minister wrote.

If the NDSC were to convene now, the NLD government would control only five of the 11 key positions. These include President Htin Kyaw, Vice President Henry Van Thio, and the house speakers Win Myint and Mahn Win Khaing Than. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi also gets a seat on the NDSC in her capacity as foreign minister.

Is it any coincidence that the former ruling party, the Union Solidarity Development Party (USDP), recently called on the government to convene an NDSC meeting?

The USDP has asked for the NDSC to intervene in security and rule-of-law issues that are now facing the country.

The USDP has raised questions about accepting Rohingya refugees back into the country, about the formation of the Arakan State Advisory Commission, and about the recent national security advisor appointment.

It has said that peoples socio-economic security and state security were weakening.

The USDP and its allies released a joint statement that said the current government has ignored parliamentary discussions, political parties concerns, and good-faith suggestions about the formation of the Kofi Annan-led Arakan State Advisory Commission.

The government failed to consult the NDSC while making an important decision on the formation of the commission, they said. The recent national security advisor appointment was made by the Union government without consultation as well, they said.

The NLD government has not responded to their request.
Burma UN Officials Fear Arakan State Death Toll Underestimated

Rohingya refugees at Kutupalang Unregistered Refugee Camp, in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. / Reuters

COXS BAZAR, Bangladesh  More than 1,000 Rohingya Muslims may have been killed in the crackdown by security forces in Arakan State, suggesting the death toll has been far greater than previously reported, according to two senior UN officials dealing with refugees fleeing the violence.

The officials, from two separate UN agencies working in Bangladesh, where nearly 70,000 Rohingya have fled in recent months, said they were concerned that the outside world had not fully grasped the severity of the crisis unfolding in Arakan State, also known as Rakhine.

The talk until now has been of hundreds of deaths. This is probably an underestimationwe could be looking at thousands, said one of the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Both officials, in separate interviews, cited the weight of testimony gathered by their agencies from refugees over the past four months for concluding the death toll likely exceeded 1,000.

Burmas presidential spokesman, U Zaw Htay, said the latest reports from military commanders were that fewer than 100 people have been killed in a counterinsurgency operation against Rohingya militants who attacked police border posts in October.

Asked about the UN officials comments that the dead could number more than 1,000, he said: Their number is much greater than our figure. We have to check on the ground.

In addition to the information the two UN officials gave Reuters, a report released by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Friday gave accounts of mass killings and gang rapes by troops in northwestern Burma in recent months, which it said could constitute crimes against humanity.

The government led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said last week it would investigate the allegations in the report.

Mounting evidence of atrocities by the army puts Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who has no control over the armed forces under a constitution written by the previous military government, in a difficult position, Burma-based diplomats say.

Counting the Dead

Independent verification of what has been happening in Burma is extremely difficult as the military has cut off access to northwestern Arakan State.

The OHCHR report cited supporting evidence including bullet and knife wounds sustained by refugees and satellite imagery showing destruction of villages.

A second senior UN official, from a different agency in Bangladesh, told Reuters that the report only described the tip of the iceberg.

The OHCHR report was based on interviews with 220 people, the majority of whom said they knew of people who had been killed or disappeared.

Reuters also has reviewed a separate, internal UN analysis using a much larger sample size.

In this unpublished report, based on interviews with families comprising more than 1,750 refugees, there were 182 reports of killings of people just in the interviewees home village, and 186 reports of people from their village disappearing.

The document acknowledges that the actual number in both categories was likely lower as interviewees from the same village may have separately described the same incidents.

The UN says 69,000 people have crossed the border since October, so if the proportion reporting people killed or missing among all the refugees was consistent with those in the report, the total number would run into the thousands.

Harrowing Accounts

According to refugees accounts provided to Reuters in camps in Bangladesh over the past two weeks, the army intensified its offensive in northern Arakan in mid-November, unleashing what the OHCHR report described as a calculated policy of terror after an incident in which several hundred Rohingya attacked an outnumbered group of soldiers, killing an officer.

The OHCHR report details deaths in random firings, including from helicopters and grenades; targeted killings of imams and teachers, slitting of throats with knives and locking people inside burning houses.

Reuters reporters have heard similar accounts from refugees in the camps in Bangladesh.

Khatun Hazera, a 35-year-old woman from the village of Kya Guang Taung, told Reuters that soldiers shot her husband, a teacher at the village madrassa, as he was returning from school with his students.

They shot him and then turned the body upside down, dragged it, put a sword inside it and took pictures, she said. Her elderly parents-in-law, interviewed separately, gave similar accounts.

Reuters could not independently confirm these accounts.

Presidential spokesman U Zaw Htay said the authorities will try to verify such reports, adding: If its true we need to find out the reason and the background data about the incident.

Where Are the Men?

The OHCHR report says that the vast majority of the new Rohingya refugees were women and children, raising questions about the fate of the men left behind, UN officials said.

Boys and men between the age of 17 and 45 were particularly targeted, as they are considered to be strong and seen as a potential threat to the army and authorities, it said, adding that many accounts describe men of that age being rounded up and taken away with their hands tied behind their backs or heads.

U Zaw Htay said the police and army were doing their jobs in making arrests

Burma authorities have given little information about how many may have been detained, although prison officials told a UN human rights envoy last month that they were holding about 450 people.

If you look at the new arrivalsthe majority are womenso many of them talk about a killed husband, a slaughtered uncle or a missing brother. Where are all the men? said the first UN official.
News Govt to Speed Up NVC Issuing Process

Locals in Maungdaw Township. / The Irrawaddy

RANGOON  The Burma government has formed a leading body to accelerate the process of issuing national verification cards (NVCs) to Rohingya waiting for citizenship verification under the 1982 Citizenship Law.

The Presidents Office announced the formation of the six-member body on Wednesday, assigning it to speed up the process of issuing NVCs for stateless people in Arakan State.

The body is chaired by the minister of labor, immigration and population, and also includes deputy ministers for home affairs, defense and border affairs, the Arakan State minister for border and security affairs, and the director-general of the national registration and immigration department.

In the statement, the government avoided using the terms Rohingya or Bengali, and simply stated those in Arakan State waiting for citizenship verification.

As originally conceived, the scheme only permitted the states Rohingya population to apply for citizenship on the condition that they self-identify as Bengalia term used by the government and much of Burmas population, implying that they are interlopers from Bangladesh.

In June, a citizenship verification exercise was suspended when residents of a Rohingya village refused to accept the cards because they did not state the bearers religion or ethnicity.

The military regime previously issued white cards or temporary citizenship certificates to stateless minorities in Arakan State. However in Feb. 2015, former President U Thein Sein declared white cards invalid and announced a plan to replace them with national verification cards (NVCs).

When asked about the plan to issue NVC cards, chairman U Thar Aye of the Union National Development Party said those confirmed as living in Burma would be registered, which would serve as proof of identity and prevent illegal immigration. He added that it would also facilitate citizenship verification, which current NVC holders are still waiting for.

As of Jan. 16, NVCs had only been issued to 6,202 of 397,497 people who returned their white cards due to various difficulties, said the President Offices statement.

The Union government and the Arakan State government have to work in cooperation and in seriousness to complete the NVC issuing process as quickly as possible, said the statement.

Rohingya politician U Thar Aye, however, is not in support of the plan to issue NVCs.

I think it will cause complications if NVCs are issued to white card holders. It would be better to issue NVCs to people who have not yet been registered, he said.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko
Thursday, February 9th, 2017 (8:23 am) - Score 671

The Hampshire Superfast Broadband project in England, which is working with Openreach (BT) to roll-out superfast broadband (24Mbps+) to 97.4% of local premises by 2019, has announced a deal that will add 400+ extra premises in the rural New Forest area to their coverage.

At present the projects next goal is to reach nearly 96% of local homes and businesses in the county by September 2018 and theyre already well on their way to achieving that (24Mbps+ coverage currently sits at around 92%), while the follow-on Wave 2 contract reflects the later 97.4% target for 2019 (details here); the jump from 90% to 97.4% coverage reflects an extra 43,000 premises.

However until now there has been no firm agreement on the rural New Forest National Park, which is considered to be an Area of Outstanding National Beauty (AONB) and so gaining planning permission for any broadband infrastructure upgrades can be somewhat more challenging.

The good news is that stakeholders including Natural England, New Forest National Park Authority, Verderers of the New Forest, Forestry Commission and New Forest District Council have now agreed to a network extension deal that will benefit more than 400 properties via four new up to 80Mbps capable FTTC (VDSL2) Street Cabinets.

The New Forest Coverage Plan

* 200 properties in East Boldre near Hatchet Pond

* 90 properties in Burley

* 90 properties in South Gorley near Fordingbridge

* 60 properties in Brockenhurst

Overall the county council has so far committed 12.9m of public funding towards the wider project, with 16.4m coming from the Governments Broadband Delivery UK programme, 1.25m from district councils and 7.6m being contributed by BT. The overall total is 38.2 million.

Councillor Mel Kendal said: Its been important that we consider the proposals very carefully, as we want to ensure that the work will not have an impact on the special and unique qualities of the New Forest National Park and its free roaming livestock. Im pleased that we can now take forward these proposals and help bring faster internet connections to many more homes in the New Forest, in future. Significant challenges remain in Hampshire to reach the final few dwellings, where proportionately more expensive infrastructure is needed for a smaller number of properties. However, we are alert to the challenges and are working hard to find a solution for these areas, such as facilitating discussions with satellite broadband or self-funding providers. We await details from the Government on how this will be tackled nationally.

Its worth pointing out that the New Forest agreement wont receive formal approval until a 56-day statutory notice period for public comments has elapsed, which is due to run until 31st March 2017 before any work can take place. Hopefully there will be no significant objections to faster broadband, but not everybody shares the same viewpoint on such upgrades in an AONB.
Ive written about the emergence of citizen developers, but so far only from the perspective of the low-code platform providers who make it possible for people with little or no software development or IT background to develop apps for their businesses. So when the opportunity arose to speak directly with a citizen developer, I jumped at it.

Im referring to Roger Benedict, owner and president of Ruggs Benedict Carpet One Floor & Home, a retail floor covering store in Avon, Colorado. Benedict, who has no IT background, built the apps to run his business using FileMaker, Apples database and app development platform.

In a recent interview, Benedict explained how he became a citizen developer this way:

One of the biggest struggles for a small business owner is to figure out and implement the business operating systems and behaviors that they need in order for their business to keep growing. Im kind of like Joe the Plumber, who started out as a really good plumber, and ended up with a plumbing company. Not too far into the process, you have to understand that your job now has nothing to do with plumbing  it has to do with how to run a business. So that was my attraction to FileMaker  it made it easier for me to make repetitive behaviors for operating the business, whether its the warehouse guy checking in a shipment of rolls of carpet, or the salesperson creating an estimate, or wherever we are in the behavior path that leads to a flooring sale. Ive just used FileMaker to make those step-by-step, repeatable behaviors easy.

Benedict went on to explain the process hes adopted:

It starts with CRM, where you enter a customer and start a project, and then its really easy from there to do all of the associated things you need to do to push that project through to completion. You can create an estimate, you can special-order a carpet sample, you can schedule the installation. In every step of the process, Ive made a little step-by-step app to handle just that one thing. But then with FileMaker, you can hook those individual apps together, and make a whole running solution out of them.

While a lot of citizen developers focus on developing mobile apps, Benedict said his focus is on developing in-store apps:

FileMaker runs really nicely on desktops, whether theyre Mac- or Windows-based. The bulk of my people like to work on big screens with everything they want in front of them. This runs big-screen, it also runs really well on iPads. My warehouse runs completely on iPads  theres not even a computer in the building. So it runs either way. Because most of our work is done right here on-site as far as working with customers, doing estimates, and selling carpet, wood, and area rugs, we dont really use the mobile technology as much as other people that have a lot more going on out in the field. Ours is pretty much focused on just running our own store here.

I asked Benedict what hes unable to do with FileMaker that he would like to be able to do. He said so far, he hasnt run into that problem:

Whenever I come up with something that I would like to do, I can study a little more FileMaker developer stuff and I can do it. For instance, accounting for a small business becomes important, and one of the neat things about FileMaker is that they have plug-ins available that, once you align your accounting fields to them, they can stuff all your data into QuickBooks Enterprise. So our entire store accounting is actually done in QuickBooks, and what our accounting person does is once were really, really done with a job, and we know everything is correct, she can look it over and check the costs and the details, and just push a button and it shoves it into QuickBooks. And then we do the bill paying and the receivables and everything out of QuickBooks. Its just a single step, but its nice to have that review, also. So you have those sorts of connectivity capabilities.

Another connectivity capability that Benedict said he uses is connectivity to email:

For instance, if a salesperson is doing a sales order or an estimate, when theyve finished all the calculations and theyve got it just right, they just push a button to email it to a customer. It creates the email, pops it up on the screen with the estimate attached, and with room to write a note and send it on  you never leave the order. So that sort of connectivity to outside capabilities is really nice  if you hit something that FileMaker itself wont do, you can connect to something ready-built, like mail or QuickBooks, to do that.

Benedict wrapped up the conversation with an interesting analogy  working with FileMaker, he said, is kind of like playing with Legos:

I think what FileMaker has found is there are people like me who have used their product to develop exactly what they want to develop, to make their business run the way they want it to run. Im in a lot deeper than most, because Ive been at it for a lot longer, and have quite a bit at stake in it. But any small business owner thats in need of making up some repetitive behaviors as they grow, can use FileMaker to do that pretty quickly. Theyve made it so easy to build what you want to build, its like working with Legos.

A contributing writer on IT management and career topics with IT Business Edge since 2009, Don Tennant began his technology journalism career in 1990 in Hong Kong, where he served as editor of the Hong Kong edition of Computerworld. After returning to the U.S. in 2000, he became Editor in Chief of the U.S. edition of Computerworld, and later assumed the editorial directorship of Computerworld and InfoWorld. Don was presented with the 2007 Timothy White Award for Editorial Integrity by American Business Media, and he is a recipient of the Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for editorial excellence in news coverage. Follow him on Twitter @dontennant.
The Vatican stood by its decision to invite China to this years organ trafficking. The said invitation earned the ire of the international community who underlined Chinas massive record of obtaining the internal organs of executed inmates. The Pontifical Academy of Sciences (PAS) said that the invitation was given without confirmation whether China is still continuing the practice. However, they do hope that the event will be able to encourage change not only with China but also among all countries who will partake in the conference.

Human rights groups claimed that forced organ harvesting from executed prisoners still remains a practice. Beijing, on the other hand, denied the allegations and claimed that they have ended forced organ harvesting in 2015. Joining the bandwagon of protesters against China, the Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH) said that Chinas participation in the event will compromise the integrity of the conference. They also added that PAS should reject the claims of China versus organ harvesting until further investigation to prove that it is no longer implemented has been proven.

Dr. Torsten Trey told the BBC that there is no reason to trust Chinas claim that it has ended forced harvesting of executed prisoners without proper due investigation. Falun Gong, an exercise-based spiritual movement, claimed that some of their members were killed so that their organs can be sold. The group became known, and eventually was banned after being suspected as a cult. The group included members who are Christians, ethnic Tibetans and Uighurs.

According to The Guardian,Medical Ethics expert Dr. Wendy Rogers from the Macquarie University in Australia warned that Chinas participation in the event, and a chance to meet with Pope Francis, might boost the propaganda of its forced organ harvesting. In a protest letter he wrote to the Vatican, he said that the Pontifical Academy of Sciences must be aware that China is even using indirect endorsements to propel the reputation of its unethical practice.

Organ donation is not rampant in China alone. Last year, the U.S. recorded 33,606 organ transplants. This is an 8.5 increase compared to their records in 2015.
More than 2,000 endangered Saiga antelopes have died due to a disease that can seriously threaten their whole species. The said disease is known to be caused by a virus called Peste des Petits Ruminants or PPR. According to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) scientists, PPR originated as a livestock disease. The first case of PPR has been recorded last January 2, 2017.

The scientists worked in Western Mongolias affected grassland area. The animals remains were burned to avoid the possible spread of the dreaded disease. WCS veterinary scientist Dr. Enkhtuvshin Shiilegdamba confirmed that 2,500 Saiga had already died.

Researchers feared that the rapid spread of the disease should be taken seriously. Therefore, they said that immediate and appropriate action needs to be undertaken. Furthermore, they also added that this is the first infectious disease that affected the whole population of antelopes, and eventually species within the wider grassland ecosystem.

The BBC said that one of the groups scientists, Dr. Shiilegdamba, warned those same animals might suffer the same fate are species with the same range as antelopes. This includes ibex and big-horned sheep. She further added that more than 1.5 million Mongolian gazelles migrated in the eastern part of Mongolia. If the disease hits the gazelle, Shiilegdamba said that this might take a toll on the countrys economy and ecology.

Even before the spread of this disease, IUCN has already reported back in 2009 that the antelope species were already in danger of extinction. Five species of antelopes were particularly pointed out as the most endangered. These include the Dama Gazelle, Aders Duiker, Hirola, Addax, and the Saiga Antelopes. The Scimitar Horned Oryx has already been extinct.



In 2013, nine antelopes have been selected for a study which lasted for 18 months. Each antelope has been given a distinct collar. This helped scientists who recorded the herds location data every three hours for twelve months. The collars were retrieved from the antelopes during the summer of 2014.
A few months back, Google Pixel and Pixel XL have gone on sale, and now, Google is reportedly working on a new smartphone, the Google Pixel 2. Avid fans of the Pixel smartphones will be thrilled to know that a lot of new features are expected to be included. The success of Google smartphones are greatly attributed to its manufacturers such as LG, HTC, Huawei, Samsung, and Motorola, however, Google has no official confirmation yet which company will become the maker of Google Pixel 2 phone. According to a source, Avid fans will have to wait for confirmation, but for now, it is good to hear that Google will be launching a premium brand.

Google Pixel 2: Price Hike

According to a source, Google is working closely on creating a lower-end Pixel, which is dubbed as "Pixel 2B," that would boast fewer features, however, comes a significantly lower price. The Pixel 2B's exact price has not been revealed yet although it is said to be "significantly cheaper," while reports claim that Google Pixel 2 might come with a $50 price hike. The current 32GB Pixel phone price starts at $650.

Google Pixel 2: Features

Information drifting toward speculations includes the possibility of a 4K screen and to come at least 6 GB of RAM. If Pixel 2 will be powered by Qualcomm's fastest Snapdragon 835 processor, then we can also expect that the device will sport the Quick Charge 4.0. Google is also reportedly focusing on the device's camera as the current smartphone's camera has been well reviewed across the industry and hopes to "master" low light photography.

Google Pixel 2: Operating System

Furthermore, Google will unveil the upcoming Android operating system, Android O during its event on May 17 to 19 this year.The company has always used its annual device releases as the launch conveying for the final version of its latest OS. Google will allow a few couple of months to test Android O-beta versions before releasing the final version in its device. As last year, Google is expected to launch Pixel 2 during October.
In what is seen as a highly controversial move if approved, the United States will be asking visitors to the country to divulge the passwords of their social media accounts.

The idea came from John Kelly, the Security of Homeland Security. Kelly stressed that the measure will help authorities determine if a person coming into the country has said or done anything that merits a look. Kelly also said that those who do not cooperate or give up their passwords will be barred from entering the country.

Kelly gave this suggestion to the House Homeland Security Committee which was having talks focused on the executive order signed by Donald Trump that prohibited people from certain nations as well as immigrants and refugees from being allowed into the country. Kelly also suggested that looking at the visitors' financial records is also being considered. PC World noted that despite Kelly's pronouncement that the measure was still only an idea, authorities were already asking foreign visitors to provide social media account IDs.

As expected, Kelly's idea was met with opposition. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has openly opposed Trump's travel ban and has said before that the U.S. is a country of immigrants, a fact that should be met with pride.

Robert McCaw of the Council on American-Islamic Relations stressed that the "price of admission into the United States shouldn't mean giving up your online life". McCaw also expressed one possible problem with Kelly's pronouncement - forgetfulness. Many, if not all of those who have created social media accounts have forgotten a password at one time or another. McCaw sees the possibility of being accused of lying to a federal agency when in fact the person just forgot his or her password and could not disclose the requested piece of information.

CNET acknowledged the fact that social media networks such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter offer a lot of information about a person. Such is the case with Trump himself who is an active Twitter user.
Foldable phones have been a big topic for the past few months especially with the presence of a few patents that were filed pertaining to the said technology. Now, it looks like fans are going to know more about an actual foldable phone prototype in the form of a Samsung phone. Recent reports suggest that the company may be preparing something interesting for its Mobile World Congress event this year.

Samsung To Showcase A Foldable Phone

The most recent report pertaining to Samsung's foldable phone says that the company will be showing off a prototype at the MWC later in the month. However, the catch is that not everyone may be able to see it first-hand. Apparently, the said device will be exhibited in a private room and only a selected set of individuals will be allowed to see it.

Additionally, it was revealed by some industry sources that the firm will also showcase a few other display technologies at the MWC. This is for Samsung to be able to predict how the market will respond to them. It was said that inward and outward folding devices will be showcased. However, the latter is more likely to end up commercializing.

Sam Mobile also says that Samsung could be using its MWC demo as an opportunity to pitch the foldable smartphone display technology to other smartphone manufacturers. Take note that the company isn't only making money from its smartphones. Its display manufacturing subordinate referred to as Samsung Display is also one of the company's big money-maker.

Samsung MWC 2017 Conference

Samsung is expected to hold an event this February 26. Reports and teasers suggest that the company will be showcasing the Galaxy Tab S3 during the said show. The Samsung Galaxy S8, on the other hand, might wait a few more weeks before getting launched. The company has actually shared at an earlier time that the S8 won't be making its way to the MWC event. Nevertheless, there's also a good chance that Samsung might at least reveal the flagship's teaser at the Mobile World Congress.
Of every single smartphone maker in China, Oppo is definitely the most surprising of all, to the point in which this company has been considered as the greatest secret gem in the Chinese phone business. This is because Oppo has achieved incredible sales in a market ruled by Huawei, and its R9 managed to become the most popular mobile device in Asias largest market, beating the almighty iPhone 7, and every other smartphone from any brand that competes in this market, included Huawei, which is the most important company in China, and the biggest smartphone maker in this nation.

Oppo Achieved The Chinas Biggest Market Share Last Year

Getting to this point, the main question appears: Could Oppo become a huge threat for this company? Believe it or not, there are some reasons to believe it, considering that in addition to its incredible rise in power and popularity, this is a brand that will also make the major leap to the global market, which is something that other Chinese smartphones are Xiaomi wont.

First of all, far from being a stroke of luck, Oppos ascension in China is actually proved by the way in which this brand already achieved the highest position in its smartphone market, managing to get a market share of 16.8 percent in 2016, which is bigger than the 16.4 percent that Huawei achieved. Also, this incredible rise is also proved in how Oppo also made that Xiaomi and even Apple got out of the top three.

Naturally, this is something that Huawei would definitely have to take a serious look at, considering that according to market research firm IDC, Oppo has achieved an outstanding 122 percent year-over-year growth, while Huawei just achieved a 21.8 percent, which is even less than Vivos 96.9 percent. Although this is an unexpected picture, Oppo is actually the smartphone brand with the biggest ascension in China, which is something that clearly shows how this company could become the major player in the Chinese market.

Oppo Wont Defeat Huawei In The Global Market

Nevertheless, one of the most important details in this equation is that Oppo mostly creates mid-range phones, while Huawei has managed to create some of the greatest in the world, which is something that could still set an important difference between both companies. In fact, even when Oppos numbers in China are more than incredible, in the global market it wouldn't represent a big threat for Huawei, at least for now.

However, the main danger for Huawei is that Oppo might be targeting India and the Southeast Asia, which in addition to China, it represent a really important market in which this company could actually beat everyone if it manages to keep releasing incredible mobile devices with a really affordable price.

Suddenly, just when Huawei is taking a lot of moves to achieve a major hit in the American market, its invincible position in the Chinese wont be that comfortable anymore, since Oppos rise might set a turning point Chinas smartphone business. Of course, a collateral effect would be that Apple and Samsung might be having more chances to restores its relevant position in the market, but for now, the real battle will be between Oppo and Huawei.
Of every single controversial detail about Donald Trump and his few weeks in the presidency, the most incredible one could be the way in which the major tech companies have stood against him on some divisive issues, which clearly show a new battle to come between the White House and the tech world in the next four years. In fact, just when everyone thought that things were getting a bit calmer between both parties, it has been known that Amazons "buy now" button has been converted into an easy way to donate $5 to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is one of the major critics of the Republican.

The Amazon Dash Button Can Be Used To Send Money To The ACLU

Believe it or not, this was a hack made by designer Nathan Pryor after ordered the customizable IoT (Internet of Things) version of the Amazons dash button. While waiting for it to arrive, he wrote his own code for automating the processor of triggering the donation to the organization every time it was pressed. Apparently, the main reason why he did this was that he felt inspired by the idea of donating to the ACLU every single time the president made any kind of offense.

Incredibly, his idea worked, and every time Donald Trump says something that he doesn't like, he can just hit the dash button and it will be donating to this organization, from a pre-paid debit card. Actually, he made the code available for other users as well, but in addition to the fact that every time ACLU updates the donation page with new fields the code wont work at all, there are no guarantees in terms of security, which actually explain the pre-paid debit card, considering that your child or pet can easily donate your entire bank account if they manage to get a hold of the Amazons dash button.

In any case, Pryor actually wrote a custom scrip which was powered by Amazons servers, that automatically filled out the donation page with the name, address and credit card info of the person whos making the donation to the ACLU. Naturally, this is something that clearly represents the way in which people can take advantage of technology for their own purposes, even if the product theyre using wasn't originally made for that task.

Everyone Can Hack The Amazons Dash Button

Of course, everyone can actually make their own ACLU donation dash button, and Pryor actually provided custom programming for those who want to take this step, but the thing is that they should be really careful with it, given the fact that he didn't include any kind of fail-safe or error checking.

Although it cant be said that this situation isn't Amazons fault, it remains unknown which could be the reaction of president Donald Trump if the dash donation button to the ACLU ends up being efficient. This is because the companys CEO is Jeff Bezos, one of the richest figures in the world and Washington Posts boss, hes probably the tech leader with the worst relationship with the chief of state, especially after this media published the controversial video in which Trump said sexist comments that cost him a lot of criticisms during the presidential campaign.
Is Google a good choice for communication? With the exception of email, Google is not considered a leader in person-to-person communication apps and services. Skype, owned by Microsoft, tops the video calling space. Facebook dominates social media. Slack leads business chat-room messaging. WhatsApp rules mobile messaging. And besides the big platforms from the big companies, hundreds of startups have created appealing and innovative communications apps and services.

Google lags for a variety of reasons. Among these are confusion and uncertainty -- confusion about which app to use, uncertainty about whether Google will terminate any given product.

Google offers 11 communications apps and services. Alphabetically, these are: Allo, Chat, Gmail, Google+, Groups, Hangouts, Inbox, Messenger, Duo, Project Fi and Voice. If you look at the various communication actions you might want to take -- voice calls, video calls, email, text messaging and social posting -- Google has at least two offerings for each.

The company is unrepentant about its bewildering lineup. A Google spokesperson told me: "We've designed specific products for distinct use cases, so we don't intend to have one app that does everything for everyone. We think we can better serve our users by creating products that function really well, and users can choose the product that best suits their needs." In other words, choice serves users better than clarity does.

At the same time, the company has a longstanding habit of ditching old products and services that have seen limited success, including Google Wave, Google Reader, Picasa and many more. According to my informal survey of nearly 3,000 Google+ users, a majority (55% as of this writing) said they hesitate to use some Google products because they're afraid Google might kill them off.

In fact, this article originally covered 12 Google messaging apps and services, one of which was a unique social posting service called Spaces. But after offering the service for less than a year, Google announced that it was pulling the plug. Starting March 3, Spaces will be read only, and it will be removed entirely on April 17.

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Still, the tech giant appears unconcerned about its reputation for killing off products and the uncertainty that reputation engenders. The Google representative told me that delivering the "best experience" involves occasionally dropping products for the sake of focus.

How to think about Google communication products The clarifying filter for understanding Google communication products is to consider legacy and the evolution of product direction. Every Google comms app can be categorized as new, old or ancient. That makes the choice easy, right? Just use the new one. Well, not so fast. There are some good reasons you might want to use an older Google product instead of a newer one. For starters, the new version may lack features that you enjoy in the old one. Simplification is the most conspicuous trend in social apps, and it's often achieved by the removal of specific controls. As a result, older versions are often better for power users. Plus, you might want to use an older version because that's where a specific community remains.

All that said, Googles communication products do have three Googly strengths:

1. Best-in-class artificial intelligence,

2. Best-in-class search,

3. Integration with other Google services.

If you're one of the many users who want to take advantage of these powerful attributes, how do you approach the problem of choosing? If you want to embrace a text messaging app, should it be Allo, Hangouts, Messenger, Voice or Chat? If you're looking for an email service, do you choose Inbox or Gmail? And if you want to interact in a social networking context, should you use Google+ or Groups?

Here's everything you need to know to understand, choose from, and make the best use of Google's many communications apps and services, broken down by function.

Voice calls

Google offers three ways to make phone calls via the internet (otherwise known as Voice-over-IP, or VoIP): Voice, Hangouts and Project Fi. All three enable calls to any phone number, and Google offers competitive international rates.

Google Voice, which at eight years old is Google's oldest VoIP product, is available on the web and via iOS and Android apps.

Voice includes a free phone number for U.S. users. In settings, you can instruct Voice to ring your home, work or cell phone -- or all three -- whenever someone calls your Voice number.

Voice takes voicemails, which are not only available as audio files, but also transcribed and emailed to you. You can also block phone numbers, and when you block them, those callers hear a fake message saying the number is no longer in service.

After five years with no major updates to its Voice apps, Google appeared to be slowly pushing Google Voice users toward Hangouts or encouraging them to sign up for the Fi service. For example, Voice users can choose in settings to receive SMS texts and voicemails in Hangouts instead of Voice. When a Voice user calls via Hangouts, the person called sees the Google Voice phone number in caller ID. And only people who use both Voice and Hangouts can receive calls on Hangouts from a landline or mobile phone originating outside the Hangouts system. Using both Voice and Hangouts improves the functionality of Hangouts.

However, in January Google began rolling out an updated version of Voice with a more modern interface and new features, including group and multimedia texting. Seems there's life in the old app yet.

Project Fi is best known as Google's mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), which means that Google acts as a mobile carrier but in fact resells the mobile services of actual carriers. Fi is currently available only to U.S. users who own one of four smartphone models (because special antennas are required): Nexus 6, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P and Pixel.

Fi's best technical trick is to automatically switch between Wi-Fi calls or any of three U.S. carriers to provide the best connection. Fi also offers low data rates at home and abroad, plus a very straightforward billing plan that can be "paused" for up to three months at a time when you're not using it.

Less well-known is the fact that when Voice users sign up to use Fi, their Voice phone number becomes the number for the phone, and their Voice account is essentially terminated and replaced by the Fi account.

Google's third voice-calling product is Google Hangouts, the closest thing Google has to an all-in-one communications platform. VoIP calling is merely one of its features; it also supports video calls, instant messages and SMS texts.

With Google's launch of Allo for instant messaging and Duo for video calling last summer, however, the company announced that it would refocus Hangouts as an enterprise tool. The company recently closed its Hangouts API for the refocus. Some business apps for Hangouts will remain, but the consumer apps are being terminated. Google is working to integrate Hangouts into the suite of business products formerly known as Google Apps, which the company recently rebranded "G Suite."

Consumers will be nudged away from Hangouts toward Allo and Duo. The trouble is, these apps don't support phone calls. (Google wouldn't comment on the possibility of future Duo voice calling.)

So, which Google app for internet phone calls?

My advice: I recommend that every U.S. user take advantage of Google Voice. It's free and powerful. Whether you ultimately end up using another Google offering as your VoIP service, get Voice now and get the free phone number.

I also recommend Project Fi for anyone who owns one of the four supporting Android phones -- or for anyone who travels abroad frequently.

If you now use or plan to use G Suite in the future, Hangouts is a great choice.

If you're not going to use Google's business suite but currently use Hangouts, keep using Hangouts for voice calls. (If Google eventually adds voice calling to Duo, you might want to switch at that point.)

Video calls

Google gives you two ways to make video calls: Duo and Hangouts.

The Hangouts name originated with the group video chat feature of Google+. Some three years ago, Google removed the Hangouts video chat feature, the Google Chat voice calling feature and the Google Messenger messaging feature from Google+, and rolled them all into an app called Hangouts.

In August 2016, Google launched a new video calling product called Duo, which is available on iOS and Android.

For one-to-one video calls, Duo is the best app out there if you want to video chat with, say, your technophobic parents. Just open the mobile app, tap the one button (labeled "Video call") and pick the person you're calling. If they have the app too, you'll be connected on a free, high-quality video call that fills the whole phone screen.

When you receive a call on Duo, you see the preview of the caller's video on the screen before you even answer the call, a feature called Knock Knock. On Android phones, you even see the Knock Knock preview on the lock screen. (Knock Knock can be disabled in settings.)

Because one-to-one video calls on mobile devices is the only thing Duo does, Hangouts is currently better for other kinds of video calls, such as those made via a desktop web browser.

Two more differences: Hangouts uses your Google account for identity, whereas Duo uses your phone number. And Duo calls use end-to-end encryption, so it's actually more secure than Hangouts.

Duo's biggest downside is that it has fewer users than Skype, FaceTime or even Hangouts. So if you try to connect with a person in your Contacts list, chances are they'll have to install the app before you can connect. However, most consumers who use video chat tend to connect with the same small number of people, so once your family and friends have the app, it works great.

Unlike Apple's FaceTime, which works only with Apple devices, Duo works across iOS and Android. If you or a family member or friend has Android, Duo is a nice option.

Given Google's refocusing of Hangouts for the enterprise, it's possible that at some point in the future, consumers will no longer be able to use it. Right now, Google isn't saying -- nor is it revealing what additional features Duo will get down the line.

My advice: For now, use Duo for one-to-one video calls and keep using Hangouts for all other video calls.

Email

Launched as a beta product in 2004, Gmail is (in technology terms) ancient, but has been recently upgraded with a modern interface.

The two-year-old Inbox is the newer of Google's two email offerings, and has the advantage of artificial intelligence, making it easy to use.

For example, the Smart Reply feature of Inbox, which is powered by advanced deep neural network machine learning, often gives you three reply options to a specific email message, which you can pick from by clicking on the best option. Google says about 10% of users' replies in Inbox are now made using Smart Reply.

Inbox also intelligently bundles similar messages together, so you can dismiss them all with a single click, or process them together. It highlights events, such as trips, clustering together flight and hotel information.

And you can even use Inbox to communicate with yourself, using reminders, assists and snooze messages or reminders based on date, time or even location.

Generally, Inbox is far more intelligent, automated and easier to use than Gmail. And it's better integrated, too, with hooks into Google Keep and Google Calendar. Users report that the coveted status of "zero inbox" (when you empty your inbox every day) is easier to achieve with Inbox than with Gmail.

Gmail, however, still gives users more direct access and control. Unlike Inbox, Gmail has an All Mail folder (where every single message appears), extensive options in Settings, including Filters and Blocked Addresses and experimental "Labs" add-ons. Power users love this stuff.

I asked Google if it plans to combined the ease-of-use features of Inbox with the power user options in Gmail -- or if it plans to phase out the older Gmail. A representative told me that Inbox was created not as a replacement for Gmail, but as an option and that the company plans to continue offering both.

My advice: If you want easy, use Inbox. If you want control, use Gmail. Or do what many power users do and use both simultaneously or interchangeably based on daily needs for optimum control of email.

Text messaging

Google offers five ways to chat by text: Allo, Hangouts, Messenger, Voice and Chat.

Let's start with the most elusive and mysterious of Google's messaging products: Google Chat. Before the standalone Hangouts app existed, you could do instant messaging and VoIP calls from Gmail and Google+ using Chat, but Google subsequently pushed users to the Hangouts app for those functions. (Note that Chat has also variously been called Google Talk, Gtalk, Gchat and Gmessage.)

You can still use Chat in a web browser by going into Gmail, clicking your name in the left column, and then in the bottom frame of the pop-up menu clicking on "Revert to old Chat." But I don't recommend it. Hangouts offers more flexibility and a better user interface.

I added Google Voice to this category because Voice offers straightforward SMS and MMS text messaging, including group messaging, which you can use in the mobile app or on the website.

Google's best app for SMS and MMS is Google Messenger. Messenger has a great interface, and supports pictures, GIFs, emoji and group texts.

You can make it your default texting app, which means that when people text to your phone number, Messenger alerts you. And you can reply to incoming messages from the notifications themselves. However, Messenger is available only on Android.

Hangouts supports messaging as well, including texting (but it doesn't support group SMS messaging).

Some power users use Messenger for texting with their Android phone's number, and Hangouts for their Google Voice number.

And, finally, there's Allo, Google's newest way to chat, which was launched in May 2016. The app is available for Android and iOS.

The most unusual feature of Allo is artificial intelligence, which appears in two functions: You can chat with Google's virtual assistant (called, well, Google Assistant) and use the same Smart Reply technology found in Inbox. Allo also has all the messaging bells and whistles, including stickers, emoji, visual effects, GIFs and conversation-specific themes. It's likely that there will eventually be lots of third-party add-ons as well.

Controversially, Allo's end-to-end encryption is turned off by default, but you can turn it on by using an incognito mode, which also lets you make messages self-destructing and notifications private.

Allo has two significant restrictions. First, it must be associated with a single phone. You can't use Allo on a tablet or laptop, and you can't use the same account on two phones.

Second, Allo is awkward with SMS. You cannot set Allo as your phone's default SMS app. And when you try to send a message to a non-Allo user (which on other platforms simply fails over to straightforward SMS), the recipient gets a text message not from you, but from a weird proxy number and a message asking if they want to opt out. If they don't, you can exchange text messages. But they will always get the message from the proxy number, not yours.

Allo is great for talking to the Google Assistant, and the best messaging app for talking to someone else who also uses Allo. But it's weak for the vast majority of people who don't use Allo strictly.

My advice: If you're on Android, use Messenger.

If you use G Suite, go ahead and use Hangouts for messaging.

If you use Google Voice, then of course use Voice or Hangouts for text messages sent to the Voice number.

And if you're on iOS and looking for an all-purpose messaging product, I would not recommend Google. Instead, choose Apple's Messages app or Facebook's WhatsApp or Messenger. All these alternatives give you all the bells and whistles, plus the ability to include SMS contacts gracefully.

Social posting

Google offers two different ways to post in social contexts: Google+ and Groups. The most unusual aspect of Google's social services is that they're free and don't have advertising.

Google Groups is 16 years old! It's an all-purpose message board service for joining and engaging in threaded conversations on the web or via email. It also plugs into Usenet, which even predates the web.

Some people still use Groups because at some point they joined a Group (because of some event or organization), and that's where the conversation remains.

Google+ started in 2011 as the Mother of All Communications Networks. In Google+'s first couple of years, you could use the service to send email, text, make video calls, lifelog, edit and share photos and more. A few years ago, Google reversed its all-in-one approach and decided to pull out different communication features into separate apps. So the company stripped Plus for parts, spinning out Hangouts, Photos and other products.

Today, Google+ is like a cross between Facebook and Reddit, which is to say, a social network like Facebook but centered around moderated interests and topics like Reddit.

Google+ content is organized by "Collections" (user-created categories of content that only the creator can post to, but which followers can follow individually -- so you can follow my "tech" posts without being subjected to my "food" posts) and "Communities," which are moderated user-created categories that others can join and all members can post to. Google's spokesperson told me that people are joining Communities at the rate of 1.6 million joins per day, and that Collections are growing even faster.

My advice: Avoid the antiquated Google Groups if you can.

Use Google+ if you like to talk about your interests, passions, hobbies or business.

The bottom line

I can't convince Google to consolidate and simplify its communication options. But I can offer my best advice for which products to choose and why.

If you want easy and simple, use Messenger, Duo, Fi (if you have the right phone) and Inbox. And use your phone for voice calls.

If you want power and control, use Gmail, Google+, Hangouts and Voice.

I don't recommend Allo, Chat or Groups.

Yes, Google's lineup of 11 communications apps and services is confusing. And, yes, Google has a reputation for terminating products. But for many, Google's amazing AI, search and integration are just too good to pass up.
Microsoft yesterday released a refreshed beta of Office 2016 for Mac that includes support for Apple's latest hardware innovation, the Touch Bar that debuted in October on new MacBook Pro notebooks.

On those laptops, Apple replaced the static row of function keys at the top of the keyboard with an OLED (organic light-emitting diode) display whose contents change depending on the active application. Most Touch Bar support has come from Apple and its own software, such as Maps and Safari, but a few third-party programs, including Adobe Photoshop, have followed suit.

The update, which was issued to the "slow" track of the Office Insider program, was announced via Twitter and in a message posted to Microsoft's support forum.

Subscribers to the consumer versions of Office 365, including Home, Personal and University, may participate in the Insider scheme on the Mac by checking the "Join the Office Insider program to get early access to new releases" box in the Microsoft AutoUpdate (MAU) utility. Users can display MAU by selecting "Check for Updates" from any Office application's Help menu. The slow or fast tracks can be selected from the field labeled "Choose how you get Insider builds."

Microsoft launched Office Insider on the Mac more than a year ago.

The debut of Touch Bar support in Office came about three months after the unveiling of the MacBook Pro laptops. Perhaps not coincidentally, that was about how long it took Microsoft to add support for a new high-resolution display, dubbed Retina, after Apple upgraded the screen of the 15-in. MacBook Pro in mid-2012.
The nation's energy policies appear to be ready to change drastically under President Donald Trump's administration.

The Presidents "America First Energy Plan," published yesterday, appeared to focus almost exclusively on increasing fossil fuel production and rejuvenating the coal industry.

The plan called for accessing "the estimated $50 trillion in untapped shale, oil, and natural gas reserves, especially those on federal lands that the American people own. We will use the revenues from energy production to rebuild our roads, schools, bridges and public infrastructure. Less expensive energy will be a big boost to American agriculture, as well."

Another goal of the plan is to achieve "energy independence" from what the White House statement described as the "OPEC cartel and any nations hostile to our interests."

The plan will also promote clean coal technology, and reviving America's coal industry, "which has been hurting for too long."

Energy Information Administration

The White House's energy plan came on the same day a report claimed the solar industry now employs more than twice as many as does the coal industry, slightly more than the oil industry, and five times as many people as in the nuclear energy market.

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The report -- from The Solar Foundation -- claimed last year's growth in the solar industry outpaced the overall U.S. economy by 17 times.

The Solar Foundation

Last month, the U.S. Department of Energy published a report showing jobs in the solar field surpassed those in the coal industry.

In 2016, the solar workforce increased by 25% over the previous year, to 374,000 employees, compared to 187,117 electrical generation jobs in the coal, gas and oil industries combined, according to the DOE's "Energy and Employment Report for 2017."

Industry experts have also noted that the coal industry isnt likely to revive its previous output because it's simply too expensive compared with the cost of producing renewable energy.

The Trump Administration's energy plan did point out that the need for energy "must go hand-in-hand with responsible stewardship of the environment."

"Protecting clean air and clean water, conserving our natural habitats, and preserving our natural reserves and resources will remain a high priority. President Trump will refocus the EPA on its essential mission of protecting our air and water," the plan stated.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment from Computerworld.

In 2015, the average number of employees at U.S. coal mines decreased 12%, to 65,971 employees, the lowest on record since the Energy Information Agency began collecting data in 1978. Coal production decreased for the fourth year in a row, to 1,165 million tons, a decline of 6.3% from 2014 levels.

Energy Information Administration

By comparison, in 2015, new installations of solar power capacity surpassed both wind and coal for the second year in a row, accounting for 32% of all new electrical capacity, according to a new report from GTM Research.

There is a concern, analysts said, that the Trump Administration will roll back the 30% Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for solar, which was passed in a bipartisan agreement and extended through 2019. After that, the tax credit will decline to 10% by 2022 in return for lifting the oil export ban.

The rollback "could happen, but [is] unlikely, due to the bipartisan nature of how the extension was passed in Congress and the momentum solar has right now," said Raj Prabhu, CEO of the Mercom Capital Group, a clean energy research firm. "Solar has gone mainstream with utilities, businesses, and homeowners, not to mention that solar jobs exceed over 200,000."

Former President Barack Obama focused his administration's efforts on addressing climate change and promoting renewable energy. For example, in August 2015, through an executive order Obama made $1 billion in loan guarantees available for states' renewable energy projects.

The Solar Foundation

The administration also made available to single-family housing Property-Assessed Clean Energy financing, which made it easier for homeowners to invest in clean energy technologies. Obama also created the Department of Defense's Privatized Housing Solar Challenge, spurring private companies to commit to providing solar power to housing on over 40 military bases across the country -- with a goal of installing 300MW by 2020.

The Obama administration also made available $24 million for 11 projects in seven states to develop innovative solar technologies that double the amount of energy each solar panel can produce from the sun.

Freedom Solar Power Workers prepare to install rooftop solar panels.

In addition, the Environmental Protection Agency created the Clean Power Plan, a policy aimed at combating global warming. Under that plan, the federal government set a goal of reducing carbon emissions in 2025 by 26% to 28% below 2005 levels and increasing the share of renewables in their respective electricity generation mixes to the level of 20% by 2030.

In 2014, the United States brought online as much solar energy every three weeks as it did in all of 2008, and the solar industry added jobs 10 times faster than the rest of the economy, according to a White House statement. Since the beginning of 2010, the average cost of a solar electric system has dropped by 50%. In fact, distributed solar prices fell by 10% to 20% in 2014 alone, and currently 44 states have pricing structures that encourage increased use of distributed energy resources.

National Public Radio noted in a news article that Trump's "America First Energy Plan" is similar to a speech he made last month before Republicans gathered in Philadelphia.

"We will unleash the full power of American energy, ending the job-killing restrictions on shale, oil natural gas and clean, beautiful coal. And we're going to put our coal miners back to work," Trump said.

Related video:
Apple is promoting the development of a standard API that would allow web browsers to access GPU features for 3D graphics.

The team behind Apple's WebKit browser engine proposed a community group at the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) called the W3C Community Group for GPU on the Web that would be charged with providing an interface between the web browser and modern 3D graphics and computation capabilities in native system platforms.

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"The goal is to design a new web API that exposes these modern technologies in a performant, powerful, and safe manner," the community group proposal states. "It should work with existing platform APIs, such as Direct3D 12 from Microsoft, Metal from Apple, and Vulkan from the Khronos Group." Beyond generic computational capabilities being exposed in existing GPUs via the API, Apple also wants to investigate shader languages to produce a cross-platform solution.

Browser engine developers, GPU hardware vendors, 3D software engineers, and anybody else interested in 3D graphics are invited to participate. As part of the launch of this effort, Apple is sharing its WebGPU API proposal. It will also be releasing a prototype of the API to the WebKit open source project.

The WebKit team anticipated a next-generation graphics API several years ago and began prototyping in WebKit to show it could expose a low-level GPU API to the Web and still improve performance. Apple's effort so far is not expected to become the actual API in the standard.

W3C released a statement in support of the effort. Google and Microsoft did not comment Wednesday on whether they might participate in Apple's effort. Mozilla said Apple's proposal would be useful in the design process, but it was far too early to say more.

The current standard for rendering graphics on the web is WebGL. However, since WebGL was created, both GPU technology and software APIs for tapping the power of these processors have improved. These newer APIs -- such as Direct3D, Metal, and Vulkan -- generally offer better performance than WebGL, but they are not available across all platforms. Apple's proposal attempts to remedy this by creating a standard API that can be implemented on top of many systems.
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Feds laud $83M to better Pell Bridge The congressional delegation of Rhode Island was in Jamestown to celebrate an $82.5 million grant to upgrade the bridge that connects Conanicut Island to Newport. U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, a...

Local author, illustrator collaborate on book A local woman has turned her digital cross-country teatimes with her granddaughter into a childrens book. Tuesday Tea, written by Debby Furness Saletin and illustrated by Maryann England, both of...

Local group asks for rental rules changes A group of residents is expected to present its recommendations on how to improve the ordinance that governs short-term rentals. Member Ron Ratcliffe said the item is scheduled to be...
Autodesk Chief Executive Officer Carl Bass has decided to leave the company after several years at the design-focused software firm. Bass said he is looking forward to his "next adventure" and disclosed that he will be tinkering with his robots at his own shop right after he steps down from the CEO role.

Being with the company for several years, Bass has managed to hold several roles at Autodesk. However, he said the plan to have him step down from the CEO role had been put in place several months prior to the announcement.

Venture Beat reported that Bass will be replaced by two interim co-CEOs who will work hand in hand in managing the operations of Autodesk. Bass, whose ties with the company goes way back in 1993, will continue to be involved with the San Rafael-based design automation software company as an adviser.

Bass will facilitate the transition and help the two interim co-CEOs get used to their new roles. Autodesk appointed its very own Amar Hanspal and Andrew Anagnost as co-CEOs. Hanspal acted as senior vice president and chief product officer, while Anagnost served as senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Autodesk.

Hanspal and Anagnost will be leading the newly formed Interim Office of the Chief Executive at Autodesk. The two executives are expected to hold the role until Egon Zehnder, the executive search firm that Autodesk hired, managed to find a new CEO for the company.

Silicon Beat also reported that Autodesk will be bidding goodbye to two of its board members. Autodesk board members Scott Ferguson and Jeff Clarke are resigning from the company's board. Ferguson is with Sachem Head Capital, while Clarke is with Eminence Capital. Their term on the Autodesk board expires once a new CEO has been named, or at the company's annual meeting.

The news comes just as Jobs & Hire reported that Tiffany & Co. Chief Executive Officer Frederic Cumenal has been kicked out of the company.
Krispy Kreme has announced a delightful and sweet surprise for people in New Jersey, especially those that are in downtown Jersey City. The famous doughnut maker has started its expansion efforts in the United States with the opening of its first-ever factory store in New Jersey.

As reported by the Triad Business Journal, Krispy Kreme has launched its first factory in New Jersey with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Those who are interested in watching doughnuts being baked should head to 95 Christopher Columbus Dr. in downtown Jersey City.

The news is a welcome one for Jersey City residents as the opening of the factory store would mean that they would have access to freshly baked doughnuts any time they crave for some. Aside from doughnuts, Krispy Kreme stores also sell coffees and lattes, and customers usually buy the two products together.

The doughnut maker is anticipating high demand from the city as well as surrounding areas. The factory store has been built to be able to churn out 65,000 doughnuts a day, NBC New Yorks reported.

The factory store is the first one of the six locations that Krispy Kreme plans to open in New Jersey. The planned stores in the state are parts of a bigger expansion plan across the U.S., which would add to the doughnut maker's 300 shops scattered across 41 states.

Krispy Kreme touted that the other five locations that it plans to open in New Jersey will offer freshly made doughnuts supplied by the factory store in Jersey City. The doughnut maker is expected to announce other expansion efforts in other states as soon as the plans are finalized.

Krispy Kreme has enjoyed financial success right after it was acquired by JAB Beech Inc. for $1.35 billion, which Jobs & Hire previously covered. With Mike Tattersfield as the CEO, the doughnut maker saw its revenue and net income increase year over year in 2016.
Last year, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg unveiled Jarvis, his own A.I. assistant voiced by Morgan Freeman. This year, the 32-year-old and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are funding researchers and scientists who are working to combat deadly diseases. It was reported that among the projects that will be funded is the development of technology with the potential to read human minds.

According to Buzzfeed, Zuckerberg and Chan launched a $3 billion effort last year, which aims to cure, prevent, or manage all diseases by the end of the century. The cash will be distributed by the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, and $50 million will be given to nearly 50 scientists in fields such as engineering, chemistry, biology, and physics, among others.

The scientists, referred to as Biohub Investigators, come from UC Berkeley, Stanford University, and UC San Francisco. They will reportedly be receiving up to $1.5 million for five years of research.

According to the New York Post, one of the researchers who was selected to receive funding is Dr. Rikky Muller, co-founder and CEO of a firm called Cortera. Muller is working on a technology designed to be used by people suffering from severe disabilities.

She is said to be working on developing clinically viable and minimally invasive neural interfaces and hopes that recording brain activity will allow paralyzed people to control prosthetic limbs.

Mullers implants can be placed inside the brain and have the potential to change peoples behavior by altering their physiological responses, which is the term for reactions which take place in response to external stimuli. They work by monitoring the electrical signals sent within the brain.

Apart from funding Mullers research, Zuckerberg took to Facebook on Thursday to announce that they have funded their first class of investigators. The first Biohub group includes a doctor from UCSF looking at how malaria spreads, a Stanford scientist working to analyse massive quantities of genomic data, a miniature foldable microscope, and more.

The father-of-one said that the Biohub team is a diverse group, made up of almost 50 percent women and 15 percent underrepresented minorities.

Im excited to see what they come up with, said Zuckerberg.

For more, check out Jobs & Hires report on what happens when Mark Zuckerberg holds meetings with Facebook employees.
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A U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge has approved a Turkish textile company buying the assets of defunct Microfibres Inc., including its plants in Winston-Salem.

Judge Diane Finkle approved Tuesday an asset purchase offer of $5.92 million from Tukek Holding Anonim Sikretiased at the conclusion of a sale hearing.

Tukek was identified as owner of Flokser Inc., and a strategic buyer in the international textile sector.

Microfibres, based in Pawtucket, R.I., filed for Chapter 7 voluntary bankruptcy protection Jan. 27, 2016  the same day it closed its Pawtucket, Winston-Salem and Lee County, Miss., facilities and ceased production. A Chapter 7 filing signifies the company wants court permission to liquidate its assets.

Microfibres said it ended its U.S. manufacturing presence in response to domestic and global textiles challenges. The company made high-performance, stain-resistant flocked fabrics for the upholstery, furniture and specialty-products markets.

Assets up for sale included 473,000 square feet of space in Winston-Salem that includes five buildings on 25 acres. The main manufacturing plant at 3821 Kimwell Drive is 219,500 square feet. The other local properties are at 3760, 3803 and 3811 Kimwell.

Tukek and Flokser officials could not be reached for immediate comment on their plans for the Microfibres assets. Richard Gemma, an attorney representing the companies in the bankruptcy auction, deferred comment Thursday to the companies.

However, Tukek was given a $200,000 price reduction so that money could be spent on estimated remedial costs to the Winston-Salem properties.

The Winston-Salem plant had 125 employees when it closed. The local workforce was at 270 as recently as 2004. The Pawtucket facility had 58 employees, and the Mississippi facility had two.

Trustee Joseph DiOrio had valued the Microfibres assets at $7.46 million, of which $3.78 million is inventory, some of which could be sold in separate transactions. Also sold were 300,000 square feet of space on 10.2 acres in Pawtucket and a 31,000-square-foot warehouse in Lee County, Miss.

Equipment and machinery in the Winston-Salem plant were valued at $580,394, while equipment and machinery in Pawtucket were valued at $499,425. The land value for each plant was $1.2 million.

The agreement relieves Tukek of responsibilities for WARN Act claims filed by employees against Microfibres.

A former Microfibres employee in Winston-Salem, Cedric Williams, received approval for a class-action lawsuit against the company. On Jan. 23, Finkle agreed to seal the financial settlement reached in the dispute.

The plaintiffs asked for at least $1.5 million in damages and priority administrative claim status for the first $12,745 of each employees claim, meaning they typically would be first in line after secured creditors were paid.

The attorneys said the proposed class notice will provide each member with the projected amount of their pre-tax recovery under the settlement agreement. The attorneys added that the settlement motion contains all the relevant information that a party requires to form an opinion on the settlements relative benefit to the estate.

The U.S. Labor Department has no authority to enforce WARN regulations, hear employee complaints, investigate potential wrongdoing or file lawsuits representing employees. Employees must file a lawsuit in court to assert WARN rights.
Gildan closes on American Apparel brand acquisition

Gildan Activewear Inc. said Wednesday it has closed on its $88 million purchase of the brand rights of American Apparel LLC.

The Montreal basic-apparel manufacturer, with a significant yarn production presence in Mocksville and North Carolina, won the brand rights during a Jan. 10 auction in bankruptcy court.

Other reported potential bidders included Amazon, Forever 21 and Next Level. There was no listing of auction results in American Apparels bankruptcy filings.

Gildan paid $22 million more than its initial proposal of $66 million, which was made Nov. 14.

Richard Craver

Winston-Salem company offers debt, securities

Triad Semiconductor Inc. said in a regulatory filing Wednesday that it is offering up to $5 million worth of debt and warrant securities.

The securities became available Jan. 31 with $1.4 million already being sold to two investors.

The company is based at 1760 Jonestown Road in Winston-Salem with John Goode as chief financial officer and Lynn Hayden and James Kemerling as other executive officers. The company began in the Babcock Demon Incubator at Wake Forest University in 2002.

Richard Craver

Bassett CEO Spilman gets small raise in 2016

Bassett Furniture Industries Inc. gave Robert Spilman Jr., its top executive, a 2.4 percent raise in salary for fiscal 2016, but a 55.2 percent decline in total compensation.

Spilman, the companys chief executive and president, did not receive a bonus and received no stock and stock option awards. His incentive pay declined by 17.3 percent to $442,623.

The main change in Spilmans compensation was a change in pension value and non-qualified deferred compensation earnings from $1.46 million in fiscal 2015 to $382,183 in fiscal 2016.

Richard Craver

Tissue paper maker expanding in Shelby

Clearwater Paper Corp. said Wednesday it will add 180 jobs over two years as part of a $330 million expansion of its production and distribution operations in Shelby.

Clearwater Paper is the largest provider of private-brand tissue to the U.S. retail market. The Shelby plant opened in 2012 and has 264 employees.

Clearwater Paper plans to hire operators, distribution staff and maintenance personnel to work on its newest equipment.

The annual compensation for the companys 180 new jobs will average $40,791. By comparison, Cleveland Countys overall average wage is $36,576 per year.

The company has been made eligible for up to $2.63 million in incentives in the states Job Development Investment Grant program.

Richard Craver
Wells Fargos board of directors is likely to scrap annual 2016 bonuses for some of the top leaders amid fallout from the banks fake-accounts scandal, a person familiar with the matter said Wednesday.

The San Francisco-based banks directors discussed the issue at a meeting in January but havent finalized their decision, the person said. This is the time of year when banks determine year-end bonuses and prepare spring proxy filings that disclose pay for top executives.

The Wall Street Journal reported the potential for the lost bonuses earlier on Wednesday. A Wells Fargo spokesman declined to comment.

In September, Wells Fargo, which has a major presence in Charlotte, agreed to pay regulators $185 million in fines to settle allegations that its employees may have opened as many as 2 million unauthorized accounts to meet aggressive sales goals. The scandal has led to a bevy of investigations and cost the banks chief executive, John Stumpf, his job.

Wells Fargos board is pursuing its own investigation, which could be completed soon, but it could release preliminary results earlier, the person said.

Taking away bonuses for top executives would not signal culpability for specific wrongdoing but would show broader accountability in the wake of a scandal that has diminished retail branch sales and besmirched the image of a company that had fared well in the financial crisis, the person said.

Top executives who could be in line to lose compensation are CEO Tim Sloan and Chief Financial Officer John Shrewsberry.

Sloan was elevated from president and chief operating officer in October and has been working to restore trust in the company. In 2015, he received total compensation of $11 million, including a $1 million bonus and $8 million in stock awards.

Last month, Wells Fargo reported that fourth-quarter profit was down 5 percent as the bank continued to grapple with the scandal. The bank will report first-quarter results in April and executives and directors will also have to face investors that month at the banks annual shareholder meeting.
A three-judge panel of state Superior Court judges has issued a temporary restraining order that prohibits a N.C. Senate committee from beginning confirmation hearings on Gov. Roy Coopers 10 Cabinet secretaries.

Cooper submitted a motion Monday in Wake Superior Court, his latest legal action against House Bill 17, which was passed Dec. 19 by the Republican-controlled legislature during the 2016 special fourth session.

The panel issued the temporary restraining order Tuesday night. The judges are Todd Burke from Forsyth County, Jesse Caldwell III from Gaston County and Jeffery Foster from Pitt County.

The order allows Cooper to temporarily bypass the section of HB17 that requires the Senate confirmation hearings.

The panel determined that Cooper has a likelihood of success on the merits of his challenge, and is likely to sustain irreparable harm unless the temporary restraining order was issued.

Cooper spokesman Ford Porter said Wednesday that the next step is for the judges to take up a motion for a preliminary injunction at 11 a.m. Friday, which would suspend the confirmation process until the full trial on the lawsuit, which is scheduled for March 7.

We need to put these partisan confirmation games behind us and get on with repealing House Bill 2, raising teacher pay and getting better jobs for North Carolinians, Cooper said in a statement.

The court is absolutely correct in their decision and should not be intimidated by threats from legislative leaders, he said.

The legislatures top two Republican leaders, Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, and House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, responded to the temporary restraining order by calling it a gross misreading of the (state) Constitution and a blatant overstep of their Constitutional authority.

Three Superior Court judges attempted to dictate to the legislature when it could or could not hold committee meetings and what it could or could not consider in those meetings, the two said in their joint statement. Their decision to legislate from the bench will have profound consequences, and they should immediately reconvene their panel and reverse their order.

State Sen. Wesley Meredith, R-Cumberland, said before cancelling a Senate Commerce and Insurance Committee meeting today that make no mistake: the General Assembly will meet to review the qualifications of Gov. Coopers Cabinet nominees as allowed by the constitution, and we are going to get answers to questions regarding their qualifications, potential conflicts of interest and willingness to obey the law.

Rick Glazier, a former Democratic legislator and the executive director of left-learning N.C. Justice Center, said he is concerned that leaders from one branch of government made personal attacks on members of another branch.

It does a disservice to the process, Glazier said. These judges are just doing their duty and they did not asked to be assigned to the case. They came to a unanimous, bipartisan decision on issuing the temporary restraining order.

Before submitting his request Monday for the temporary restraining order, Cooper sent a letter to Berger and Moore asking them to delay their confirmation timeline, which is scheduled to run through March 17.

Before leaving office, Republican Gov. Pat McCrory signed HB17 into law. Part of the law requires Senate advice and consent of the governors 10 Cabinet secretaries.

The nominees have been asked to answer submitted questions to the Senate Select Committee on Nominations.

It is not clear if a no vote serves as a veto and eliminates a nominee from serving as a department secretary.

Cooper filed his initial complaint Jan. 11, calling HB17 an unprecedented legislative effort to interfere with his duties. He said it could have played a detrimental role in his potential Cabinet selections.

State Sen. Bill Rabon, R-Brunswick, has said he doesnt expect any of Coopers nominees to be vetoed by the committee if they can meet the three stated criteria.

The Senate committee appears to have saved the two most potentially contentious candidates for last in Michael Regan for the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality and Dr. Mandy Cohen as state health secretary.

Regan has drawn GOP criticism for serving as a long-time advocate for the Environmental Defense Fund. Mandy Cohen served as a top Medicaid and Medicare administrator of President Barack Obamas health-care overhaul.

Coopers motion said he has not submitted any Cabinet nominees to Berger. Cooper has said he has until May 15 to do so.

According to attorneys representing Cooper, It is critically important that he find and employ people who share his views and priorities for North Carolina so he can exert control over the executive policy that is implemented.

They continued: These changes are unconstitutional because they violate the separation of powers clause, the executive power clauses, and the appointment and exclusive privileges clauses enshrined in the North Carolina Constitution.

For example, Coopers attorneys have claimed the Senate advice and consent clause covers only constitutional officers, such as Council of State members.

They argue that statutory officers, such as Cabinet secretaries, are beyond the advice and consent edict. The attorneys say an amendment to the state constitution, which requires voter approval, is necessary to give that consent role to the Senate.

Coopers attorneys said a legal precedent was established in a 2014 lawsuit involving McCrory vs. Berger. In January 2016, the N.C. Supreme Court ruled that the General Assembly took powers away from the executive branch by permitting its leaders to appoint most of the statutory members on three environmental regulatory commissions.
NEW YORK  President Donald Trump criticized Nordstrom, the latest company to be the focus of his Twitter attention, saying Wednesday that the department store chain that decided to stop selling his daughters clothing and accessory line has treated her so unfairly.

Though he has tweeted in the past about companies such as the U.S. automakers, Boeing and Carrier, ethics experts saw the fact that this one was about a business run by his daughter raising conflict-of-interest concerns and even carrying an implicit threat.

In the message, Trump said, My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person  always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible! Posted first on his personal account, it was re-tweeted more than 6,000 times in less than an hour. It was also retweeted by the official @POTUS account.

Trumps presidency has raised unprecedented concerns about ethical conflicts. His plan to separate himself from his sprawling real estate business has been criticized by ethics experts, who say it doesnt do enough to make sure that Trump wont make decisions to personally benefit himself, his family or his company.

Kathleen Clark, a government ethics expert, said the Nordstrom tweet is problematic because other retailers may think twice now about dropping the Ivanka Trump brand for fear of getting criticized publicly by the president. She said it was especially disturbing that Trump retweeted his message on the official White House account.

The implicit threat was that he will use whatever authority he has to retaliate against Nordstrom, or anyone who crosses his interest, said Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis.

Clark defended the presidents right to use his personal Twitter account to express his views, however, pointing out that government workers at the EPA recently set up alt-EPA accounts to criticize the presidents policies.

Trump has feuded with several consumer brands before and after winning the presidency. After Macys dropped his line of ties and shirts during the summer of 2015 over his comments about immigrants, Trump singled Macys out for having a tough holiday season. Good news, disloyal @Macys stock is in a total free fall. Dont shop there for Christmas, he tweeted that December. And in January of this year, he scolded General Motors for sending Mexican made model of Chevy Cruze to U.S. car dealers-tax free across border. Make in U.S.A. or pay big border tax, he said.

Nordstrom reiterated Wednesday that its decision was based on the brands performance. Since it confirmed its decision about the brand last week, the company has been responding to disappointed or angry shoppers on its Twitter, stressing that its reasons were based on poor performance. Nordstrom shares had dropped after the tweet, like those of other companies Trump has mentioned in the past, but they later recovered to close more than 4 percent higher.

A social media campaign called Grab Your Wallet has urged a boycott of stores that stock Ivanka Trump or Donald Trump products, though the companies that have stopped ordering or cut back on the Ivanka Trump brand have not mentioned it.

Nordstrom said last week its decision was based on the Ivanka Trump brands performance, and that each year it replenishes about 10 percent of its supply with new products. On its website alone it has more than 2,000 products on its website alone. Reviewing their merit and making edits is part of the regular rhythm of our business, it said.

Retailer Belk Inc. said Wednesday it will no longer be carrying the Ivanka Trump brand on its website, but will still offer the merchandise at its stores. The New York Times reported that TJX Cos., which operates T.J. Maxx, told employees not to display Ivanka Trump goods separately and to discard the brands signs, according to a memo obtained by the paper. TJX spokeswoman Doreen Thompson confirmed the memo and said the communication was intended to instruct stores to mix this line of merchandise into our racks, not to remove it from the sales floor. She said that at this time, we continue to offer the line of merchandise.

Rosemary K. Young, senior director of marketing at Ivanka Trump, said last week that the brand is expanding and saw significant revenue growth last year compared to the previous year. Ivanka Trump has said she would take a leave of absence from her clothing and accessories business as well as the Trump organization.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump was responding to an attack on his daughter when he posted the tweet and that he has every right to stand up for his family and applaud their business activities, their success.
The ink might be barely dry on the ballots from the 2016 election, but two Forsyth County Democrats are already in the running for their partys nod to run for the 5th Congressional District in 2018.

Winston-Salem Council Member D.D. Adams announced Thursday that she would try for the seat now held by Virginia Foxx, a Republican who hasnt faced a close contest since winning office in 2004.

Also in the running is Winston-Salem resident Jenny Marshall. Marshall has a web site, a Facebook page and filed a statement of organization with the Federal Election Commission on Dec. 12. She kicked off her campaign on Feb. 5.

Foxx, who is 73, has no plans of stepping aside. Her communications director, Sheridan Watson, said Foxx will definitely seek a new term in 2018.

Eric Ellison, the chairman of the Democratic Party in Forsyth County, said that Democrats are energized with opposition to President Donald Trump, and predicted that more party members may be interested in running for the 5th.

Here in Forsyth County we are clearly blue, Ellison said. I anticipate that more people will put their hats into the race. I will allow them to announce that when they are ready. There are many people who believe that Mrs. Foxx does not represent the people of the 5th District.

Adams said her decision to run has nothing to do with Trumps election, but is rather what she sees as her next step in public service. But she did say that Democrats do need to reach out better to the kind of working class voters who deserted the Democrats for Trump in the last election cycle.

The Democratic Party did not speak to the base and what the real needs of the district and country are, she said. We didnt speak to the needs or what was bothering or holding our folks back: jobs, jobs jobs. We didnt look at how people are paying for education and how our educational system is stacking up.

Forsyth County is entirely in the 5th District and makes up about half of the districts population. The rest of the district consists of nine less-populated counties extending northwest to the Tennessee and Virginia borders.

Although Forsyth gave Democrats almost 54 percent of the countys vote in the 2016 congressional election, Foxx carried the district with more than 58 percent of the vote by sweeping most of the other counties.

Marshall could not be reached for comment, but on her campaign web site described herself as a wife, mother, educator and advocate. She said that she earned a bachelors degree in elementary education and a masters degree in language education from Indiana University.

Marshall said she has been a small business owner, an executive with Boy Scouts of America, and is currently a public school teacher.

In her campaign kickoff speech, posted online, Marshall referenced Trump twice, saying that if Democrats take back congress they can stop the current (president) from doing any more damage than he has already done, and cause the GOP to stop doing the damage they have done for the last six-plus years.

On her web site, Marshall stakes out her positions on everything from social security to gay rights, but the first thing on her list of issues is the economy, where she criticizes past trade agreements for shipping jobs overseas. She calls for opposing any trade deal that would cause jobs to leave to low-wage destinations, and supports expanding educational programs to train workers for skilled manufacturing jobs.

Marshall said she supports helping small business, and favors raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. She calls for legalizing marijuana, saying that the country should end a failed War on Drugs with mandatory minimums that punish people of color unfairly.

Adams is from Winston-Salem and attended East Forsyth High School and Morgan State University in Baltimore, where she earned a bachelors degree in speech communication. She returned to Winston-Salem and worked 37 years in manufacturing and management positions before retiring from Johnson Controls in 2013.

In her campaign announcement, Adams said she would be a strong voice of reason and progress for common concerns in the 5th District that include jobs, educational opportunities, environment, healthcare, equality, financial security as we grow older and countless other things.

Adams is serving her third term on the Winston-Salem City Council, and isnt up for re-election on that board until 2020. Adams doesnt have a campaign web site up and running yet.

John Dinan, a political science professor at Wake Forest University, noted that Foxx has consistently earned between 57 and 60 percent of the vote in her campaigns, making her district one where Republicans enjoy a comfortable advantage.

Dinan said that Democrats are hoping 2018 will be true to the pattern of the party holding the White House losing ground in the mid-term election.

On the other hand, he said, the composition of the electorate has been more favorable to Republicans in the mid-terms because fewer Democratic voters participate in those elections.

Dinan said that trend could dampen the enthusiasm of some Democratic officials who might be deciding whether to run for congress in 2018.
WASHINGTON  The Arab Spring may seem like a distant memory, but a new report by a team of Arab and American analysts argues that across the Middle East people still feel the same yearning for better governance and rule of law that motivated protesters in Cairos Tahrir Square.

The persistence of this vision of more modern and just government is important to remember, especially at a time when the Trump administration is so focused on the threatening image of Islamist extremism. The study is a reminder that most residents of Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East want the same things that Americans do  justice, dignity, freedom and prosperity.

It was six years ago this month that protesters toppled the regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, which marked the zenith of the Arab uprising. Since then, the trends have mostly been disastrous for the Arabs, with civil wars in Libya, Syria and Yemen and the rise of the hyper-violent Islamic State.

Despite these reversals, Arabs still embrace an agenda of better governance, according to the report, titled Arab Fractures: Citizens, States, and Social Contracts, which was published last week by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The lead author was Marwan Muasher, a former Jordanian foreign minister. He was joined by three other Arabs and three Americans.

In a survey of 103 prominent Arabs conducted for the study, authoritarianism and corruption were cited as among the regions top two problems, identified by 65 and 48 of the respondents, respectively. These problems of governance were seen as more important than terrorism, sectarian strife or other security issues.

Six years into the Arab uprisings, most Arab states are still facing a crisis in governance, the report argues. That includes most of the regions monarchies, such as Jordan and Saudi Arabia, which have been more stable than their neighbors but whose subjects still hunger for a more open and dynamic political life.

The report draws on a survey called the Arab Barometer, conducted biennially since 2006 in 15 Arab countries by Princeton University, the University of Michigan and a group called the Arab Reform Initiative. The findings illustrate the desire among Arabs for better, freer political systems. In the latest installment, conducted last year, corruption and the economy were identified as the top two problems.

Respondents were surprisingly frank. A question asking people if there was some or a lot of corruption in their governments got a positive response from 90 percent of Tunisians, 84 percent of Egyptians and Algerians, 83 percent of Palestinians, 76 percent of Moroccans and 63 percent of Jordanians.

The internet has transformed the Arab world more than most Westerners realize. According to the Carnegie study, Arabs average more than five hours a day online. Saudis in 2014 were the highest per-capita watchers of YouTube videos globally, with over 90 million a day collectively, and had the worlds highest Twitter penetration rate, at 33 percent. In 2014, 17 million tweets a day originated in the Arab world.

Thanks to the internet, citizens feel connected to each other and the outside world. They want human rights  including the right to criticize their governments. Surprisingly, according to the 2016 Arab Barometer, two-thirds of those surveyed thought they could criticize their governments without fear.

This passion for better governance matters because it comes amid such a desolate landscape. The report notes: It is difficult to overstate the magnitude of the catastrophe that has befallen the Arab world since February 2011. As of 2015, more than 143 million Arabs were living in countries afflicted by war or occupation. While Arabs are only 5 percent of the worlds population, they make up half its refugees, the study notes.

The study bluntly blames the persistence of police-state tactics in much of the Arab world for slow political development, arguing: The predominance of the security sectors and armed forces in Arab states has contributed significantly to the regions current political and governance crises.

The study builds on the landmark 2002 Arab Human Development Report, prepared by independent Arab researchers for the United Nations Development Program. That study identified profound deficits in political freedoms, education and womens empowerment, the new Carnegie study notes. Yet nearly 15 years later, all three challenges remain and new challenges have emerged.

The path toward better governance must be anchored in a respect for pluralism, argues Muasher in a concluding chapter. A suffocating uniformity has contributed to the stagnation of Arab societies, he writes. This self-critique by prominent Arab analysts provides a baseline for change.
During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump accused Barack Obama of treating Americas adversaries with tender love and care while our allies were snubbed and criticized by an administration that lacks moral clarity.

Weve picked fights with our oldest friends, Trump declared in his April 2016 foreign policy speech, adding Weve had a president who dislikes our friends and bows to our enemies.

Trump was absolutely right. From Iran to Cuba, Obama bent over backward to court our adversaries. At the same time, he mistreated our closest allies  allowing Israel to get bullied by the U.N. Security Council and canceling missile defense deals with Poland and the Czech Republic in a misguided effort to curry favor with Moscow.

So why, just three weeks into his presidency, is Trump doing precisely what he criticized Obama for doing  picking fights with one of our oldest friends, Australia, while treating our adversary, Russia, with tender love and care?

When Fox Newss Bill OReilly challenged Trump on his praise for Vladimir Putin this weekend, declaring Putins a killer, Trump responded There are a lot of killers, adding Weve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our countrys so innocent?

Had Obama said these words, every conservative in America would have erupted with outrage. Equating U.S. actions with those of our enemies is a tried-and-true tactic of the left. Remember how appalled we were when Obama declared that America should get off its high horse in criticizing Islamic terrorists because of the terrible deeds committed in the name of Christ during the Crusades? Or when he drew a moral equivalence between Irans decades of terrorist murder and the role the CIA played in the 1950s overthrow of a democratically-elected Iranian government in his infamous Cairo speech? Why would Trump follow Obamas model, and draw the same false moral equivalence between the United States and Russia?

Trump says he wants to get along with Putin. Theres nothing wrong with trying. But getting along with Putin does not require excusing this campaign of political murder, or suggesting that the U.S. acts similarly.

Worse still, Trumps defense of Putin came just days after he scolded Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over an agreement he had reached with President Obama to take in 1,250 refugees held at Australian detention centers from Iran, Iraq, Somalia and other countries. Yes, it was poor form for Turnbull and Obama to make this deal after Trump was elected.

Yes, Australia was stupid to press Trump to take in a group of refugees that they themselves refuse to let into their country  many of whom hailed from the very nations for which Trump had just temporarily suspended immigration. But Australia is also one of our closest allies  a nation that has fought beside us in every war we have fought in the last century from World War I to Iraq and Afghanistan. There was no reason for Trump to tell Turnbull that theirs was the worst call by far he has had with any world leader  including, apparently, Vladimir Putin. The leader of Americas closest ally deserved at least the same kind of deference that Trump seems to be willing to extend to the leader of one of our greatest adversaries.

Trump told the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington that we have to get tough because the world is in trouble.

Hes correct. For eight years, the Obama administration projected weakness in the world, and the consequences have been devastating  from the rise of the Islamic State, to Syrias brutal use of chemical weapons on its own people, to the spread of Iranian hegemony in the Middle East, North Koreas nuclear and missile tests, and Chinas cyberattacks on America and building of military bases on disputed islands in the South China Sea.

We do need to get tough, and Trump is doing so. He has imposed new sanctions on Iran for its illegal ballistic missile tests  a sea change from Obama, who delivered pallets of unmarked foreign currency to Tehran on secret planes. And instead of just droning terrorists, like Obama did, Trump put boots on the ground, sending a special operations team to Yemen to take out al-Qaida leaders and capturing intelligence that Obama would have vaporized.

This is all to the good. But as Trump jettisons Obamas policies of weakness, he should also banish Obamas troubling habit of treating our allies worse than our enemies  and of drawing a moral equivalence between our actions and theirs.
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By Charles Ornstein | (ProPublica) |  

In a clandestine mission that had the makings of a hostage rescue, the Cleveland Clinic and its lawyers arranged for medical resident Suha Abushamma to fly back to the United States yesterday, more than a week after she was forced to leave because of President Donald Trumps travel ban.

Abushamma is being introduced at a news conference at this hour at the Intercontinental Hotel in Cleveland.

Abushamma was among the highest-profile people affected by the presidents executive order, which banned visitors from seven predominantly Muslim countries. A first-year resident at the Cleveland Clinic, she was forced to leave the U.S. hours after landing at New Yorks John F. Kennedy International Airport on Saturday, Jan. 28.

Abushamma, a Sudanese citizen, was given the choice of withdrawing her visa application voluntarily or being forcibly deported and not allowed back to the U.S. for at least five years. She chose to withdraw her visa application, meaning she did not have a valid document with which to enter the U.S. She flew back to Saudi Arabia, where her family lives.

Her return to the U.S. resulted from high-level discussions between lawyers for the clinic, outside lawyers working with them and officials at the U.S. Attorneys office for the Eastern District of New York. Even though Abushammas visa was cancelled, the U.S. Attorneys office secured permission for her to return yesterday without problem, said David Rowan, the clinics chief legal officer.

Abushamma said she hadnt lost hope, even when her situation appeared most tangled.

I knew from the beginning that things were going to resolve, Abushamma said in an interview with ProPublica on Tuesday morning. I didnt know when exactly, but I knew it was going to work out in the end and that I would be back.

Rowan would not discuss specifics of the Cleveland Clinic teams conversations with the U.S. Attorneys office.

There were a lot of behind-the-scenes activities, Rowan said in an interview. He said the U.S. Attorneys office communicated with the Department of Homeland Security as far as the unique circumstances here and having the necessary paperwork  We had to have authorization to let her board a flight in Saudi Arabia.

Even when a federal judge in Washington state issued a stay late Friday, preventing Trumps executive order from being enforced, the ruling did not apply to Abushamma because she didnt have a valid visa in hand. Other doctors and family members returned before she did.

Rowan said the legal team explored a variety of options to get Abushamma back. For one, she sued Trump and other federal officials, seeking her return. The lawsuit contends that Abushamma was denied access to legal advice and was unlawfully removed.

Abushamma will be filing a notice to dismiss her lawsuit this afternoon, though that was not a condition of her return, said Jennifer Kroman, an attorney for Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, which represented Abushamma in the lawsuit pro bono.

Abushamma took off from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, at about 6 a.m. Monday morning, which is about 10 p.m. Sunday in New York. She landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport a little after 11 a.m. Monday, where she was greeted by lawyers and a team from the clinic. They returned to Cleveland later in the day.

Her trip back was not assured. Although lawyers for both sides had agreed that she would be allowed back in, they kept it quiet. Even airport workers were not fully clued in.

Abushamma said she booked her ticket to return on Saturday. And on Sunday night, she flew from Yanbu, where her family lives, to Jeddah. After resting at a friends house for a few hours, she returned to the Jeddah airport at 3 a.m. There, a ticket agent looked at her passport and, not seeing a valid visa, alerted an airline supervisor.

The supervisor told Abushamma that he had received an email about her and said, I knew you were going to be boarding the plane. But he, too, was confused and took her documents for 35 minutes before giving her a boarding pass and allowing her to proceed.

Once through security, Abushamma said, she was asked for her passport again and had to wait five minutes. Finally, she said, while boarding the plane, when the ticket agent scanned her boarding pass, she saw high-risk passenger pop up on the screen for a split second before a light turned green allowing her to board.

High-risk passenger, thats what Im considered, I dont know, she said. I wasnt nervous at all. Im a very calm person.

She remained in contact with her legal team until the plane took off.

When she landed in New York, Abushamma said she was greeted by Customs and Border Protection Agents with smiling faces. An agent said, Weve been waiting for you and then escorted her to the room in which she was held for hours when she arrived on Jan. 28 before being sent home. My favorite room at JFK, she joked. But this time, it literally took one minute.

They gave her a form to sign, stamped her passport as if she had a H-1B visa (her original visa type before it was canceled) and escorted her to get her luggage.

Reporters were waiting outside customs, so Abushamma was let out a side door where she was greeted by Cleveland Clinic colleagues, including Dr. Abby Spencer, program director for the internal medicine residency program.

In a court filing, Spencer had said that Abushamma has been a stand-out physician and colleague. She has repeatedly and consistently demonstrated the utmost ethical standards and continued to prioritize patient needs.

It was just really emotional, said Eileen Sheil, a clinic spokeswoman who was among those to greet Abushamma in New York. Everyone was trying really hard to keep it low key because there was a lot of media around.

The Cleveland Clinics chief executive, Dr. Toby Cosgrove, is a close advisor to Trump. Cosgrove and the clinic have been very concerned about the effects of the executive order on health care itself, education and research, and Dr. Cosgrove has put forth proposals about how the order could be applied, taking into account the unique issues in health care, Rowan said.

Abushamma said the experience has been unforgettable.

The support that I have received is just amazing. It is incredible, she said. From the Cleveland Clinic, from friends, from residents that Ive never met before  from people in Cleveland itself, from people across America as well. Just the support I received is the one thing that I will never ever forget about this experience.

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Maan News Agency |  

GAZA CITY (Maan)  In the wake of multiple airstrikes launched by the Israeli army inside the Gaza Strip on Monday, the Gaza-based al-Mezan Center for Human Rights expressed concern that Israel could be leading up to a wide-scale military offensive.

Meanwhile on Wednesday, four Israeli bulldozers raided the northern Gaza Strip and leveled Palestinians lands near Israels Erez border crossing, according to local sources. An Israeli army spokesperson told Maan that were looking into the case.



File.

In a statement released Tuesday night, al-Mezan said Mondays artillery shelling and airstrikes targeted resistance factions training sites, agricultural lands, and open areas, and impacted nearby civilian properties and spread fear and panic among residents, especially children.

The center said the escalation was reminiscent of the incidents that lead up to Israels wide-scale military assaults on Gaza like the so-called Operation Protective Edge in 2014, a devastating 51-day assault that resulted in the death of at least 1,462 Palestinian civilians.

Between 9 a.m. and evening time on Monday, Israeli forces opened fire on fishing boats, carried out at least four rounds of shelling and five rounds of airstrikes, opened fire at shepherds, and opened machine gun fire that damaged a civilian home.

Over the course of the day, at least three people were injured, while one poultry farm was damaged and another poultry farm was completely destroyed, according to the center.

Al-Mezan condemned the military escalation and said it viewed the attacks as a possible prelude to wide-scale aggression on Gaza.

As witnessed in the last three Israeli military campaigns, women, children, and the elderly bear the brunt of Israels lack of respect to the rules of international law, including targeting of the civilian population and civilian properties, the statement said.

The rights group called on the international community to act promptly against Israels military escalation, to fulfill their obligations to protect civilians, and ensure respect for the rules of international law, stressing that acting before a full-scale military bombardment is launched is crucial to ensuring the protection of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.

Al-Mezan noted the failure of the international community to hold Israel accountable for its ongoing violations of international law and war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip.

via Maan News Agency
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By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment)  

One-man fake news channel Sean Spicer, Trumps spokesman, said Wednesday that anyone who criticized the botched raid on Yakla in Yemen that killed innocent children and other noncombatants and left a Navy Seal dead owes an apology to the deceased sailor.

This assertion is perhaps the most disgusting thing Spicer or Trump have said, and boy is that saying something. It is also the height of hypocrisy.

Trump has been scathing in criticizing George W. Bushs Iraq War, despite his initial support for it:

Obviously the war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake . . . George Bush made a mistake. Obviously we can make mistakes, but that one was a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq. They lied, they said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none and they knew that there were none.

Doesnt Trump therefore owe an apology to the 4,486 US military personnel killed in Iraq?

Governments are very good at the political shell game of getting up a war and then demanding support from the public in the name of the grunts they just sent into some godforsaken desert or jungle.

I remember how angry I used to get when W. would come on t.v. and say he was a war president and hadnt sought that position. He literally went to war against Iraq for no good reason and turned himself into a war president! In using this term he was asking the US public to defer to him. It still makes me throw up a little in my mouth. Spicer did the same thing Wednesday.

There is a difference between supporting our troops and supporting the government that often unwisely or unnecessarily puts them in harms way. The analogy I make is between active duty personnel and defense attorneys. They often do not get to decide which cases they pursue, and sometimes they are ordered to defend a client who is actually guilty. But you dont vilify the defense attorneys. They are just doing the job the US public asked them to do. Likewise you dont vilify the troops. The dont make policy. (Of course if a military person commits a war crime in the field, that is condemnable).

At the same time, using troop deaths to shield a president from criticism is disgusting.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism did follow-up interviews in Yakla in Yemen and discovered the raid ordered by Trump killed 9 young children, one a US citizen, and all together it killed 25 civilians.

Republican critics like Sen. John McCain saw the death of a Navy Seal and the crash of an Osprey aircraft worth $70 million as indictments of the raid.

McCain doesnt seem to care about the unnecessary civilian casualties. The Bureau for Investigative Journalism writes:

It is already known that 8-year-old Nawar al Awlaki, the daughter of al Qaeda propagandist Anwar al Awlaki was among those who died in the attack. But following a field investigation, the Bureau can today reveal that nine children under the age of 13 were killed and five were wounded in the raid in al Bayda province on January 29. Details emerged piecemeal last week regarding civilian and military deaths, the disputed value of the targets and deficiencies in planning  some of the information coming from military sources in unprecedented briefings against its own administration. Insiders told CNN and NBC that the ultimate target was AQAP leader Qasim al Raymi. If the soldiers didnt find him in the village they hoped they would find clues as to his location. But despite the growing reports of failure  and despite the death of Navy SEAL Chief Petty Officer William Owens and the destruction of a $70 million Osprey aircraft  Trumps press secretary Sean Spicer has continued to insist that the mission was a successful operation by all standards. Evidence gathered by the Bureau must surely challenge that assessment. A fierce gunfight turned into an intense aerial bombardment, and the outcome turned out to be as bad as one can imagine it being, said former US ambassador to Yemen Stephen Seche. Working with a journalist who visited the targeted village of al Yakla five days after the raid and talked to nine of the survivors, we have collected the names and ages of all 25 civilians killed as reported by those who live there. The Bureau also has photos of the families hit and the homes destroyed as helicopter gunship fire rained down. AQAP says 14 of its men were killed in the clash, including six villagers. The youngest was 17, the oldest 80. The villagers say 25 civilians died alongside a group of militants, including nine children under the age of 13. They deny that any of the dead villagers were AQAP members. Of the nine young children who died, the smallest was only three months old. Eight women were killed, including one who was heavily pregnant. Seven more women and children were injured.



Related video:

A Disservice To Ryan Owens | NBC News
JURIST Guest Columnist Brian T. Hodges of The Pacific Legal Foundation, discusses Murr v. State of Wisconsin and its potential effect on regulatory takings jurisprudence 

The US Supreme Court is set to resolve a critically important question of regulatory takings law this term in the case, Murr v. State of Wisconsin, Dkt. No. 15-214. At issue is the relevant parcel inquiry, which is the threshold determination to the multi-factor regulatory takings test established by Penn Central Transp. Co. v. New York City (1978). That test directs courts to determine the impact of a regulation on the parcel as a whole by considering the character of the state action, the economic impact of the regulation and the regulations interference with the owners investment-backed expectations. Murr asks what the term parcel as a whole means in practicedoes it limit the takings inquiry to the regulated parcel or does it allow the government to combine the owners interests in other parcels of land?

The answer to that question is currently subject to a nationwide split of authority among the lower courts, resulting in inconsistent decisions applying the Takings Clause of the US Constitution and creating an environment of uncertainty for both landowners and government alike.

The US Supreme Court has often analogized the takings inquiry to solving a fraction where the impact of the regulation provides the numerator and the relevant parcel provides the denominator. Keystone Bituminous Coal Association v. DeBenedictis (1987). Thus, the definition of the relevant parcel of land is a crucial antecedent that determines the extent of the economic impact wrought by the regulation. Lost Tree Village Corporation v. United States (Fed. Cir. 2015). A rule that allows the government to increase the size of the denominator by combining an owners interests in other parcels of property will have a very real impact on the takings calculusfor example, a regulation that deprives an owner of 9/10 of his or her property is much more onerous than one that impacts 9/20 or 9/100 of the property

The facts in Murr demonstrate how this fraction equation can be manipulated to diminish the apparent impact of a regulation on property. In 1960, William and Dorothy Murr purchased a 1.25-acre lot in a subdivision on the St. Croix River in Wisconsin and built a cabin on it. Three years later, the Murrs purchased an adjacent lot as an investment. The family did not build on that lot and the parents later gave the property to their children. When the children began to look into selling the lot to pay for repairs to the family cabin, the government said that they couldnt sell or make any valuable use of the land. The government explained that regulations passed after the Murrs purchased their lots require a bigger net project area than either lot had by itself. Because the neighboring lots were commonly owned, the government combined them into one unit and, consequently, prohibited the development or sale of the investment lot.

The Murrs filed suit against Wisconsin and St. Croix County, arguing that the governments action violated the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause by depriving the Murrs of the value of the investment lot. The US Supreme Court has long recognized that a land-use regulation that goes too far can rise to a taking. Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon (1922). But defining too far has often proved difficult. Indeed, with a few exceptions, the court has eschewed any bright-line rules defining what is or is not a regulatory taking. Instead, the court typically relies on the Penn Central multi-factor balancing test.

In Murr, the definition of the relevant parcel was critical. If the parcel as a whole was limited to the investment lot, then the regulations clearly wiped out all value of the property. But Wisconsin court of appeals ruled against the Murrs, holding that they were not entitled to compensation, finding that the county ordinance had merged the two lots into one single lot. Because the Murrs could continue to use this merged property for residential purposes, they did not suffer the loss of substantially all of the beneficial uses of his land. Having changed the denominator from one parcel of land to two, the court concluded that the regulation only deprived the Murrs of half of their overall property interests and did not therefore rise to the level of a compensable taking.

The US Supreme Court accepted review of the parcel-as-a-whole question after the Wisconsin Supreme Court refused to consider the appellate decision. The single question presented asks whether, in a regulatory taking case, the parcel-as-a-whole concept as described in Penn Central establishes a rule that two legally distinct but commonly owned contiguous parcels must be combined for takings analysis purposes.

In the decades following Penn Central, the US Supreme Court has repeatedly expressed discomfort with the parcel-as-a-whole concept, but never fully explained what that term means. One can glean from its earlier decisions, however, that the court never intended the rule to merge separate legal parcels into one lot in circumstances like those presented in Murr. Indeed, in Penn Central, the court offered only that

Taking jurisprudence does not divide a single parcel into discrete segments and attempt to determine whether rights in a particular segment have been entirely abrogated. In deciding whether a particular governmental action has effected a taking, this court focuses . . . [on] the parcel as a whole.

Notably, in deciding that case, the court refused to follow a New York rule that had allowed courts to aggregate an owners other property investments and later criticized the aggregative approach as extreme and unsupportable in Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council (1992). In Palazzolo v. Rhode Island (2001), the court noted the difficult, persisting question of what is the proper denominator in the takings fraction.

Given this backdrop, the parties arguments focus largely on the governments authority (or lack thereof) to redefine an owners rights in property through regulations enacted after acquisition of the land. The Murrs argue that their rights in each lot were fixed when they took title. Thus, when the government enacts a regulation after acquisition, the fee title presumptively provides the relevant parcel for a takings inquiry. In response Wisconsin and St. Croix County argue that land-use regulationswhether adopted before or after the property is acquiredshape an owners reasonable expectations in regard to his or her property rights. Thus, according to the government, the Murrs expectation that the two lots would continue to be separate legal parcels of land was extinguished by the adoption of a regulation deeming the lots to have been merged.

That argument, however, hearkens back to Palazzolo, which rejected the notion that a regulation, once enacted, becomes a background principle of property law. Thus, it is unsurprising that the United States, which filed an amicus brief, acknowledged that the court had consistently rejected the circular approach of defining the relevant parcel by the terms of the challenged regulation. Instead, the United States suggested that courts determine the relevant parcel on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the spatial, temporal and functional aspects of an owners property interest.

The three proposed solutions will have very different impacts on the public. The state and countys pro-regulation perspective seeks to preserve the flexibility that an aggregative approach provides for government to achieve its regulatory ends without having to pay just compensation for any resulting impairment of property rights. That approach, however, would allow courts to rule that there has been no taking without ever determining the actual impact to the regulated parcel. That is contrary to the purpose of regulatory takings law, which is intended to determine the actual burden imposed on property rightshow that burden is allocated[and] when justice might require that the burden be spread among taxpayers through the payment of compensation. Lingle v. Chevron U.S.A. Inc. (2005).

The pro-regulation approach does more than just insulate the government from the risk of just compensation awards. If adopted, it would inject an unacceptable degree of uncertainty into land development projects. It is common for both residential and commercial development to occur in phases. Typically, lots are developed and sold in order to fund further development in a process that can last years. As lots are sold, the developer does not typically retain an ownership interest in all of the land and his economic expectations with regard to the first phase of the development are considered complete. However, it is common for a developer to retain an interest in individual parcels for future development long after a phase has been completed. Thus, although a developer may hold an interest in several adjacent properties over the course of the entire project, those interests will be temporally severed as phases are completed. They will also be severed by different investment expectations.

The approach advocated by the state and county would deprive developers of the certainty in their projects by allowing the government to impose severely restrictive regulations then avoid the compensation requirement by exaggerating the relevant parcel. Such a rule would harm more than the developerit would also harm the publics interest in new development, which is absolutely essential in the fight against the skyrocketing cost of housing throughout our nation.

The United States case-by-case approach would do very little to eliminate uncertainty. Under that approach, neither the owner nor the government would be able to predict how a court would determine the relevant parcel when faced with a potential regulatory taking. Moreover, the multi-factor threshold test would only operate to significantly drive up the cost of litigation on both parties.

By contrast, the approach argued by the Murrs would hold government accountable by confining the relevant parcel determination to the individual lot that is being subjected to burdensome regulation, thereby acknowledging and enforcing the constraints that the Fifth Amendment places on the governments authority to regulate private property. Moreover, the Murrs approach recognizes that the configuration of any given parcel of property may change over timeparticularly in areas where developable lands are limited and the population continues to growand argues that the metes and bounds as set by the current title should establish the relevant parcel.

Although the question at issue in Murr is somewhat esoteric, the answer has the potential to affect the public at large. Indeed, this issue crops up more frequently than one would assume. The Supreme Court is holding a petition filed by the United States challenging a favorable relevant parcel ruling for a Florida developer pending its decision in Murr. And a recent case from Washington State shows that the same questions are dogging courts across the nation. In Murr, the Supreme Court has the opportunity to focus the takings analysis in a predicable manner that would reduce uncertainty and avoid many of the harms associated therewith. For that reason alone, the US Supreme Court should hold that title presumptively defines an owners interest in his or her property.

Brian T. Hodges is a Principal Attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, which represents the Murr family before the US Supreme Court. He concentrates his practice on representing property owners, with a focus on Takings and Due Process litigation. He was co-counsel for the petitioner in Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District and participated as an amicus curiae in Arkansas Game & Fish Commission v. United States and Brandt v. United States.

Suggested citation: Brian T. Hodges, Murr v. State of Wisconsin: Esoteric Regulatory Takings Question Could Affect All Homeowners, JURIST  Professional Commentary, Feb. 9, 2017, http://jurist.org/hotline/2017/02/Brian-Hodges-murr-v-wisconsin.php

This article was prepared for publication by Kelly Cullen, a JURIST Assistant Editor. Please direct any questions or comments to him at commentary@jurist.org
A judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] on Wednesday issued an order to enjoin [press release] the proposed merger of health insurance giant Anthem and Cigna [corporate websites]. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) sued to halt the merger in July on the grounds that the acquisition of Cigna would substantially lessen [press release] the competition in the health insurance market. Anthem plans to appeal, while Cigna said [press release] it would evaluate its options. The courts order is temporarily under seal.

Antitrust issues have become of growing concern in the past months. Last month a federal judge prohibited [JURIST report] the merger of two major health insurance companies, Aetna and Humana. That same month the European Commission welcomed an agreement [JURIST report] between Apple and Amazon to end their exclusivity obligations for audio books. Also in January the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that plaintiffs may sue Apple [JURIST report] for violating antitrust regulations by forcing users to purchase apps exclusively through their app store. In November the EU made allegations [JURIST report] that Google had abused its market dominance of its Android mobile phone operating system. In August the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC), South Koreas antitrust regulator, confirmed that the country is investigating [JURIST report] whether Google violated the countrys antitrust laws.
A judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas [official website] on Wednesday rejected [order, PDF] a challenge by the US Chamber of Commerce [official website] to a rule governing retirement investment advice. The regulation requires professionals who occasionally give financial advice to be treated as fiduciaries under the revised definitions of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and the Internal Revenue Code (IRC)a title that comes with heightened ethical and legal responsibilities toward clients. The revised ERISA and IRC definitions eliminate the condition that investment advice must be provided on a regular basis to trigger fiduciary duties. The Department of Labor (DOL) [official website] created the rule in April of last year, and it is set to take effect in two months. Among the various arguments put forth by the Chamber included one premised First Amendments guarantee of freedom of speech. Chief Judge Barbara Lynn rejected this challenge as having no merit stating that rules regulate professional conduct, not commercial speech, and therefore any incidental effect on speech does not violate the First Amendment.

The ruling comes shortly after President Donald Trump [official profile] issued an executive order and presidential memoranda [JURIST report] aimed at dismantling the Obama administrations financial regulations created in the wake of the 2008 recession and delaying the fiduciary rule. Trump promised to implement pro-growth economic policies [press release] on the campaign trail. Last week the Senate voted 52-48 [JURIST report] to approve a resolution that would repeal a Securities and Exchange Commission [official website] rule requiring oil, gas, and mineral companies to disclose payments made to foreign governments.
Israel-based advocacy groups Legal Center for Arab Rights and the Jerusalem Center for Human Rights and Legal Aid [advocacy websites] asked the Israeli Supreme Court [official website] Wednesday to review a new law that retroactively legalizes some 4,000 settlements in the West Bank. The bill, initially approved in December [JURIST report], received the final votes in needed in the Knesset [official website] on Tuesday. Though there is a possibility that the law will be overturned [NYT report] in court, the passage represents a political accomplishment for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu [official profile], who has advocated Israeli settlement [Reuters report].

While Israel and Palestine have a troubled past [HRW backgrounder], the issue of settlements in the West Bank have escalated tensions in the last decade. Iin November Israels Ministerial Committee for Legislation unanimously approved [JURIST report] the Formalization Bill to legalize the West Bank outposts. In March the spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said [JURIST report] that the office is concerned about the apparent extra-judicial execution of a Palestinian man in the West Bank. In January Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged [JURIST report] businesses to cease operations in Israel settlements. In August 2015 UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged both sides of the conflict [JURIST report] to reconcile and move towards peace after an attack occurred in the West Bank village of Duma, where Jewish extremists allegedly set fire to a Palestinian home while a family slept inside. Last April HRW alleged [HRW report] that Israeli settlement farmers in the occupied West Bank are using Palestinian child laborers in dangerous conditions in violation of international laws.
The UK House of Commons [official website] voted 494-122 Wednesday to approve HC Bill 132 [text, PDF], which would empower Prime Minister Theresa May [official website] to formally begin the Brexit process. The House of Commons completed its first reading [JURIST report] of the bill late last month, two days after the UK Supreme Court [official website] ruled that the parliament must vote [JURIST report] before the Brexit process can begin. Specifically, the bill would allow the prime minister to notify the EU of the United Kingdoms intention to withdraw from the EU under Article 50 [text] of the Lisbon Treaty. The bill will be taken up by the House of Lords [official website] later this month. Once the upper house of parliament approves the bill, it will be submitted for royal assent. The targeted date of submission for royal assent is March 13.

Uncertainty about when and how the UK will leave the EU has been widespread. Last week judges for the UK High Court dismissed a suit [JURIST report] that claimed members of parliament should be allowed to vote on whether Britain will leave the European Economic Area [official website]. A majority of UK voters expressed their desire to leave the EU [JURIST report] in June, leading to the resignation of former prime minster David Cameron. The EU has set out a mechanism for leaving in Article 50, where a member state may decide to withdraw from the union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements, and must notify the European council of its intention. Under Article 50, a member country can only be removed from the EU two years after notification. While Britain might bypass this process through repeal of the European Communities Act of 1972, it is believed that this would make coming to a preferential trade agreement with the EU more difficult.
African nations should not abandon the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website], UN Special Adviser Adama Dieng [official profile] urged in an editorial [The East African op-ed] Monday. Dieng, the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, wrote in response to three African nations, Burundi, South Africa and The Gambia, after they announced intentions to withdraw from the court. These countries believe the court shows a lack of fairness and unfairly targets African leaders. Dieng said that membership to the ICC is something of which African nations should be proud, as 34 nations on the continent are currently parties to the Rome Statute [text, PDF]. Dieng wrote, we believe that the ideals and values that inspired the creation of the Court still hold true, 15 years after the Rome Statute came into force.

Last week leaders of multiple African countries announced that they have backed [JURIST report] a strategy of collective withdrawal from the ICC. In November JURIST Guest Columnist David Crane of Syracuse University College of Law discussed [JURIST op-ed] the need for the ICC to utilize politics to ensure its future. South Africa officially announced its intent to withdraw from the ICC in October and submitted a bill to withdraw [JURIST reports] in November. A few days after the announcement, Human Rights Watch criticized [JURIST report] South Africa for the decision. Shortly after South Africas announcement, the Gambian government announced [JURIST report] that it would be leaving the ICC. Earlier in October Burundi voted to withdraw [JURIST report] from the ICC amid criticism the court only prosecutes African nationals. Also in October the ICC president stated [JURIST report] that such withdrawals represent a setback in the fight against impunity and the efforts towards the objective of universality of the Statute.
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Rory Little, a law professor at UC Hastings, said he does not think the judges were persuaded by the government's overall argument and are unlikely to lift the ban on enforcing Trump's order.

During his argument, DOJ attorney August Flentje presented the judges with a potential option of deciding to keep the ban in place for people who are not yet in the United States, but exempt those who have already arrived.

The judges heard arguments by telephone Tuesday from an attorney representing the states of Washington and Minnesota, which say the travel ban is unconstitutional and should be invalidated, and from a Department of Justice lawyer who said the president has the authority to issue such an executive order and protect national security.

Now the three-judge panel on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is deciding whether to uphold that order, strike it down, or potentially send the case back to the lower court for further consideration. No matter their ruling this week, the case is likely to end up at the Supreme Court.

A lower federal court issued the temporary restraining order last week, saying the government could not enforce the 90-day entry ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries or the 120-day suspension on accepting refugees.

A U.S. federal appeals court expects to issue a ruling sometime this week on the government's request to end a temporary pause of President Donald Trump's travel ban.

"On balance it doesn't sound like the court is going to grant the motion to vacate the stay. They might try to narrow that or they might deny the motion and send it back to the trial court to narrow it, which strikes me as probably the more strategic decision. But I think either way, the Trump administration is going to take it up to the Supreme Court."

Asked about the prospect of the case going to the Supreme Court, Trump himself said Tuesday, "Hopefully it doesn't have to."

"Oh we're gonna take it through the system," Trump said. It's very important. It's very important for the country, regardless of me or whoever succeeds at a later date."

If the ban is restored, opponents say the decision might lead to renewed confusion and chaos at many of the nation's airports, just as it did when the executive order was signed by President Trump on January 27. Hundreds of people were later detained by customs officers at airports, and some of them were deported. That action sparked nationwide protests and prompted legal action on many fronts.

If the 9th Circuit does rule on the case, rather than ordering it back to the lower court, that decision will have big implications for possible action by the Supreme Court.

The nation's highest court has been shorthanded since the death last year of Justice Antonin Scalia, and it is now evenly divided between four liberal-leaning justices and four conservative-leaning ones. It would take the votes of five Supreme Court justices to overturn the appellate court's ruling, meaning a 4-4 tie would let stand whatever the 9th Circuit decides.

The Supreme Court could also decline to hear the case.

For now, enforcement of the order is entirely suspended, and immigration advocates have been encouraging people who have obtained U.S. visas to board airplanes as soon as they can. Each day since the suspension, would-be immigrants have been doing just that.


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Dallas, Texas, 02/09/2017 /SubmitPressRelease123/

Dallas employment lawyer Keith Clouse recommends lawyers talk with their clients about preserving their social media accounts. A party has a duty to preserve evidence that will be material and relevant to any claims at issue. This duty includes social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Nowadays, social media is more likely to contain relevant information, which sometimes may be unfavorable to a client. Whether the information is embarrassing or simply personal, clients may alter or delete posts and comments without understanding the repercussions of their actions.

The most effective way to inform clients of their duty to preserve is to include a detailed preservation provision in their retainer agreement. Inform clients that altering or destroying evidence may result in monetary penalties and/or an adverse inference instruction to the jury. A preservation provision will not only advise your clients to preserve evidence, but it will also protect lawyers from being sanctioned if a client does not comply.

To speak to an employment law attorney about non-compete agreements, send an email to [email protected] or call (214) 239-2705. This article is presented by the Dallas employment law lawyers at Clouse Dunn LLP.

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Some 54.5 percent of respondents did not want to reveal their social media accounts on job applications. Six out of 10 said they would have to tailor their social media accounts to employers if there was no way around it.

Young jobseekers do not want potential employers to see their social media accounts, according to a straw poll of 505 people by job portal Career.

One senior at a university in Seoul shut down his prized social media account early last year and opened a fresh one when he found out that foreign companies here often check them.

"I shut down my account to avoid problems," he said. His new account is studiedly bland and only contains photographs and information that highlight his strengths. "It's a shame I have to do this, but I have no choice if I want to land a job," he added.

Headhunters say foreign companies often check the social media accounts of applicants. Byun Ji-sung at Job Korea said, "Thousands of people apply for jobs with big Korean companies, so they don't bother to check all the social media accounts. But foreign companies hire fewer people and often look at them because the views and beliefs of new employees can have an impact on other workers."

But some Korean businesses also check them when hiring experienced applicants. One 32-year-old who was hired by a major conglomerate last year said, "I was surprised when my job interviewer asked me a question related to my social media posts."

In the survey, 76.2 percent of job applicants used social media, with Facebook the most popular at 31.7 percent, followed by Kakao Story (21 percent) and Instagram (20.2 percent).
Korea's cigarette exports hit a record last year, with a large proportion going to the smoking-friendly Middle East.

Last year's cigarette exports amounted to US$1.01 billion, up 11 percent on-year, according to the Korea Customs Service on Wednesday.

The UAE topped the list of importers at 36.9 percent because it redistributes Korean cigarettes across the region. "Middle Easterners particularly like Korean-made slim cigarettes," a Finance Ministry official said.

KT&G exported 48.7 billion cigarettes last year, 27 billion of them super-slim Esse brand. The UAE was followed by Japan (14.1 percent), the U.S. (10.3 percent), Vietnam (8.8 percent), and Australia (5.1 percent).


The new headquarters will be about six times larger than the current one and cost LG some US$300 million (US$1=W1,146). Solar panels will be installed on the roof and 1,500 trees will be planted around the building.

LG Electronics held a groundbreaking ceremony for its new North American headquarters in New Jersey on Tuesday. It will be built 3.8 km north of the current location along the Hudson River and be finished by 2019.

The new building will also house other LG subsidiaries such as LG Chem and LG Household and Health Care.

"There will be about 1,000 people working there, and we hope communication amongst LG subsidiaries in North America will be streamlined," an LG staffer said.

North America is a very important market for LG Electronics, with it accounting for 30 percent of the company's sales of W55.37 trillion last year.

The electronics maker is focusing on expanding its share of the U.S. high-end home appliance market.
Korean investments in the U.S. hit a record last year while American investments here plunged almost one-third.

The Korea International Trade Association on Wednesday said Korean investments in the U.S. reached US$6.9 billion in the first three quarters of 2016 and are expected to surpass $10 billion once fourth-quarter figures are tallied. The previous record was $7.3 billion in 2011.

Korea's U.S. investments hovered between $5.5 billion and $5.7 billion from 2012 to 2015 but surged last year, when the figure was the highest since the Export-Import Bank of Korea began compiling such data in 1980.

"The National Pension Service made massive investments in U.S. real estate and funds and Hyundai and affiliated car parts makers also boosted investments there," a spokesman for the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said.

KITA said Korean investments in the U.S. grew steadily since the bilateral free trade agreement went into effect in 2012, outpacing investment flowing the other way round. KITA said this point should be stressed to counter U.S. President Donald Trump's claims that the Korea-U.S. FTA disadvantages the U.S.

U.S. investments in Korea rose from $3.5 billion to in 2012 to $5.4 billion in 2015 but plummeted 29.3 percent last year to just $3.9 billion. In total, Korean firms invested more than $30 billion in the U.S. since the FTA went into effect but Americans invested only $20 billion here.

Last month Hyundai announced plans to invest another $3.1 billion in the U.S. over five years, while Samsung and LG are also considering building factories there.


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President Muhammdu Buhari left Nigeria on Monday, January 23, 2017, for a 10-day vacation in the United Kingdom. Amidst rumours of President Buharis death, some notable persons have seen and spoken with him since he departed Nigeria for London.

We list five notable personalities who recently had contacts with President Buhari.

1. Governor Ibikunle Amosun: A photo of Ogun state governor, Ibikunle Amosun with President Buhari hit the internet on Friday, January 27, 2017. In the picture, President Buhari looked calm on a sofa with the governor and other personalities. Although the exact location in U.K was not given, it is reported that the President was enjoying his 10-day vacation.

2. Aisha Buhari: Another picture surfaced on Sunday, January 29, 2017, showing the First Lady, Aisha Buhari by the side of the President

3. Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo: Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo told State House correspondent on Monday, February 6, 2017, that he had a long chat with President Buhari earlier. Prof. Osinbajo also said he knows President Buharis health status but will not disclose it.

4. Buharis sister: Hajiya Rakiya, the only surviving sister of President Buhari told NAN on Wednesday, February 8, 2017, that she speaks with her brother daily. She further called on Nigerians to pray for President Buhari for him to succeed in the task of addressing the problems facing the nation.

5. Senate President, Bukola Saraki: In a tweet, late hours of Wednesday, Senator Bukola Saraki disclosed that he spoke with President Buhari. According to Saraki, President Buhari was in good spirits and joked about him working late into the night. President Buhari extended his 10-day vacation in London, United Kingdom in order to complete and receive the results of a series of tests recommended by his doctors.
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Does he speak English?

As I was busy working at my computer dictating on the last patient, I overheard the question posed to my receptionist. The receptionist, unfazed, responded with a polite, yes.

My medical assistant ushered the patient into one of the exam rooms where Ms. Smith proceeded to expound on how she had experienced some less than ideal interactions with Indian physicians  they had seemed cold and curt; their accent was often difficult to understand; it was hard to pronounce their names when asked by others to repeat it.

I walked into the room, introduced myself to her, and shook her hand. After finishing the exam, I informed her that she would be a good surgical candidate and that my medical assistant would be calling her to schedule a procedure in the near future. Upon leaving, she commented that she enjoyed the experience and that, my name wasnt too hard to pronounce.

I would like to say that the above interaction is exceedingly rare. It is not. While rarely hearing directly about a patients concern about my ethnicity, I have heard from both colleagues and nurses that some patients have paused when hearing my name, even though I had done my best to Anglicize it. Moreover, as an administrator in the hospital where I practice, I have been privy to comments on patient experience surveys expressing frustration over the foreign doctors who need to learn how to speak English.

When I was applying for residency, my mentor, a surgeon who contracted multiple sclerosis early in his career, and was forced to give up his clinical practice, gave me a bit of advice: You should go by Vik rather than Vikram.

I nodded my head, but he could see the confusion on my face.

These surgeons, and other people, they will prefer to call you Vik. Its easier for them to digest and it will be better for you.

My mentor passed away a few years ago, but I am still struck that a white, male who came from a storied New York family had the emotional intelligence to understand what challenges a brown-skinned, immigrant would face.

So, I adopted Vik as my professional name, and I have kept it ever since. Beyond this, however, I have also learned to modify my interactions with patients based on their own personal experiences. I have been fortunate enough to have lived in various parts of this country: When I encounter a patient from the South, I slow down my Midwestern speech pattern and do my best to mimic the Virginian accent I was exposed to in medical school. While trying to steer clear of religion, when asked about my own, I mention that my wife is Catholic, and that both of my kids have been baptized as Catholics (I rarely mention my own Hindu faith).

Some have called me to task for playing into the prejudices of patients or that I am acting as a self-loathing minority by minimizing my differences. Maybe. I counter, though, that patients are inherently anxious, and that, despite all of the talk about entering into a partnership with patients, the physician-patient relationship is still fundamentally asymmetric with the physician decidedly holding the power. Why wouldnt a patient grasp at some kind of connection with their doctor to minimize their fear?

Diversity among the physician workforce is important, and I feel that the growing number of women and minorities is essential to the populations we serve. Unfortunately, several physicians will continue to encounter patients who will have concerns about them based on their identity whether that be gender, race, or religion. The question physicians will have to ask themselves is this: How am I going to take care of these patients?

Vik Reddy is a plastic surgeon.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com


Local teen Charlie Grant is hosting a fashion show to raise funds for Diabetes Ireland.

Charlie who is currently in fifth year in Colaiste Pobail Osrai is hoping to raise money for research into type 1 diabetes which he, his brother, father and uncle all suffer from.

The big-hearted Clara teenager is anxious to play his part in promoting research into the condition.

I dont let my diabetes impact on my life. I keep a pretty strict routine. I count my carbs, take my injections and check my blood sugar regularly There have been lots of advances but I want to do my part to progress matters more., he said.

The fashion show is being held at the Ormonde Hotel on the February 19 at 4 pm will feature clothes from all over Kilkenny including McDonagh Junction Shopping Centre, High St. Kilkenny, Market Cross Shopping Centre and local boutiques.

The 20 models for the show are all friends and fellow students of Charlie's.

Tickets are 10 and are available at the Diabetic Clinic in Kilkenny, the Ormonde Hotel and from Charlie himself.

Karen Morrisey will MC the night and there will be two musicians performing from Charlie's school. There will also be a raffle on the night with great prizes including a night at the Heritage Hotel with spa treatments, Afternoon Tea at the Ormonde Hotel and a hamper from Sam McCauley Chemist plus much more.

Tickets for the raffle are available on the night for 5
A High Court challenge may be instigated by Kilkenny''s Fine Gael TD, John Paul Phelan against the recommended boundary extension into Co Waterford where at least 7,500 people will be dispalced and shifted into Waterford with 15,000 acres of land currently in Kilkenny becoming part of Waterford.

Deputy Phelan has more to lose than most if the Oireachtas votes through the highly controversial measure.

He has vowed to leave the Fine Gael party if it gets through the Dail because he said he could not look his fellow South Kilkenny men and women in the eye, if he supported such an outrageous, unjusdt and deeply divisive decision.

He has claimed that the landgrab is a political stunt.

Were not going to be used as pawns in any elaborate attempt by the Commission or anyone else to resolve the mounting debts of Waterford City and County Council by gifting them a piece of our proud county.

What is mooted in this report has a profound impact on the 7,500 people  myself among them  who live in this area. We need to work together now. We need to put all of our political differences aside. We all need to stand together, to stand strong.

This is also a slap in the face and a sucker punch in the guts to the 20,100 men and women who poured their hearts and their souls into submissions to the Commission and argued against this change. Democracy will win out. That is my promise.

Were used to battles here in Kilkenny. Were used to winning them too. And this is one battle Ive absolutely no intention of losing. Ive left Minister Coveney in no doubt tonight that the people of Kilkenny will rise up and fight this to the bitter end. Deputy Phelan told him bluntly that Kilkenny will not accept the recommendation of the boundary committee.

We will fight it on the streets and we will fight it in the courts, if necessary, he said.

There are some people in high office, many of them in my own party, who would be delighted to be able to wipe out Waterford City and County Councils debts without impacting on the government balance sheet by gifting Waterford this valuable chunk of land and rates in what we as residents of the area see as tantamount to nothing short of a debt management scam.

This boundary change cannot happen. It will not happen. We will not allow it to happen. I once again pledge that I will stake my political career on this matter. Kilkenny is not Waterford and it will never be, he claimed.
It was a late-night phone message that tipped off Steve Goldberg, a Washington, D.C., investment adviser, that something was amiss. Goldberg was startled by a request from a broker to wire $270,000 from a wealthy -- and elderly -- client to a bank in London. Immediately, Goldberg smelled a rat.

The client (well call him Mr. Smith) had previously mentioned that he expected a big inheritance, but his reluctance to offer details raised Goldbergs suspicions. So he told the broker to delay the transfer.

Slowly, Goldberg unraveled the scheme. The initial bait sounded like something only a fool would fall for. A fax purporting to be from a staffer on the Swiss Banking Commission claimed that someone with the same last name as Goldbergs client had died in 1996 without a will, leaving $17.5 million unclaimed. The civil servant wanted Smith to misrepresent himself as a long-lost cousin, collect the cash and divvy it up with the schemer.

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Smith is in his eighties, sharp and still working. But as the accompanying story notes, its not uncommon for financial skills to deteriorate with age.

Once he responded to the scam artists, Smith found himself in the hands of skilled criminals. He hired the Swiss lawyer they recommended -- or, at least, he thought it was a Swiss lawyer -- to investigate the deal. He made phone calls to officials in Berne and London, and he received return calls.

Over several months, Smith handed over $1.3 million in pursuit of a big score -- all before he became Goldbergs client. The scammers first said he had to pay Swiss inheritance taxes, then user fees, then new fees tacked on because of anti-terrorism laws. It all sounded plausible. And the deeper he became ensnared, the easier it became to defraud him.

When Goldberg first warned of a swindle, Smith angrily disputed the possibility. I need this wire to go out or I lose the whole thing, he pleaded. Searching for a way to protect his client without violating his privacy, Goldberg turned to Todd Schwartz, a Portland, Ore., attorney. His advice was to call in the FBI. Were going to make an assumption that hes being abused because hes elderly, Schwartz told Goldberg. Elder-law statutes should protect you. Confidentiality stops with illegal activity.

Smith eventually came to the painful realization that he had been deceived. He was deeply embarrassed and ashamed. Few cases like this ever end with the recovery of any money, says Goldberg.
On Feb. 3, the Trump administration signed an executive order that may derail a rule that the Department of Labor (DOL) had planned to implement to help protect retirement savers. Briefly, rather than being forced to take on the role of fiduciary that the DOL rule wouldve demanded, this new directive will continue to allow brokers and certain types of advisors to place their own interests ahead of those of their clients.

Even though Im a financial adviser who has acted in a strict fiduciary capacity for over two decades, I applaud this executive order. Heres why:

SEC protections only extend so far

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is the main regulatory body responsible for monitoring advisers and ensuring that the investing public isnt getting ripped off. The mission of the SEC is: To protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation.

Subscribe to Kiplingers Personal Finance Be a smarter, better informed investor. Save up to 74% Sign up for Kiplingers Free E-Newsletters Profit and prosper with the best of Kiplingers expert advice on investing, taxes, retirement, personal finance and more - straight to your e-mail. Profit and prosper with the best of Kiplingers expert advice - straight to your e-mail. Sign up

Pretty clear, right?

As a principal in a registered investment advisory firm, Im already regulated by the SEC and have a legal duty to operate as a fiduciary, which means I only make recommendations that are in my clients best interests.

That responsibility is something that I take very seriously.

If I were not registered with the SEC and, say, instead, was employed as a representative for a brokerage firm (like the ones affiliated with many of the large banks), I would instead be regulated by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).

Basically, FINRA is an independent organization that does much of the regulatory work that would otherwise fall to the SEC.

The problem with suitable investments

Why is this important? Because the entities that operate under the SECs Investment Advisor program are required to act as fiduciaries, while those that operate as brokers under FINRAs jurisdiction need only offer products that are suitable for clients.

If you think the word suitable is too vague, youre correct.

While the products offered by brokerage firms can be lousy, expensive and not in the best interests of their clients, just as long as they are deemed suitable, the broker is usually protected from liability.

For years Ive been asking people in-the-know to explain to me why the SEC doesnt do something to address this issue. It wouldnt be difficult. They could require any financial adviser to act as a fiduciary, or they could create some clearer (and simpler) guidelines so that everyday investors can easily understand the differences.

For example, perhaps those individuals who sell commission-based investment products manufactured by their parent companies shouldnt even be allowed to call themselves advisers.

DOLs solution comes with a flaw

The fact is, the SEC, while having discussed this matter internally, has still done nothing to address the fiduciary issue.

This is why the Department of Labor acted. Part of the DOLs mission is: To foster, promote, and develop the welfare of the wage earners, job seekers, and retirees of the United States. Given the fiduciary vacuum created by the SECs continued inaction, the DOL figured it would step in and try to protect the retirement plans of workers and retirees, alike.

One major shortfall of the DOL, however, is that it has no jurisdiction to regulate non-retirement accounts. Under this fiduciary rule, brokers would be required to act as fiduciaries only for IRA assets, but they could still continue to sell garbage to investors who have money outside of their retirement accounts.

While well-intentioned, the DOL rule gives investors a false sense of security, in my opinion. Simply, since the ruling, many of the people Ive encountered had assumed that brokers and advisers were going to be required to act as fiduciaries in every instance.

The real fix that we need to protect consumers

Some people believe that any protection, no matter how limited or flawed, is enough. But I disagree.

What I would like to see is for the SEC to embrace its responsibility and enact a blanket fiduciary standard for anyone who calls themselves a financial adviser. This would protect the public and leave no ambiguity by ensuring that all advice rendered by financial advisers is always in the best interests of the client.

Until then, you can still protect yourself. For starters, ask your adviser if he/she is acting as a fiduciary in ALL circumstances. Are there times when they remove their fiduciary hat and put on the hat of a broker, earning commissions for products that are sold? Ask if there are ever times in the relationship where they are not legally required to act as a fiduciary. Finally, ask if they are willing to sign a fiduciary oath, such as the one found here: http://www.thefiduciarystandard.org/fiduciary-oath/. (opens in new tab)

The bottom line is that you want to make sure your advisor is working in your best interest, not in his or her own best interest.

Hanson's new book, Personal Decision Points, (opens in new tab) can be found on Amazon.
Technologies, such as the solar power storage park (front) and the bioliq biomass pilot plant (back) are being developed by KIT. (Photo: KIT)

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) has joined the German Renewable Energy Research Association (FVEE) and will contribute its disciplinary and interdisciplinary research competencies in particular in the areas of renewable energies, energy storage, and energy systems analysis.

KIT possesses vast competence for the solution of challenges facing the society in many sectors and at their interfaces with each other and with society, says Professor Holger Hanselka, President of KIT and Research Field Coordinator Energy of the Helmholtz Association. Together with our partners in the FVEE, we want to develop holistic solutions and viable concepts for the energy transition.

To increasingly cover energy demand of a modern industrial society with renewables, a variety of technological approaches and smart networking are required, says Professor Thomas Wetzel, Spokesman of the Renewable Energies topic in the KIT Energy Center and Member of the Board of the Institute of Thermal Process Engineering of KIT. Together with Hanselka, he will represent KIT in the Board of Directors of the Renewable Energy Research Association. Energy researchers of KIT look forward to conducting joint research and making innovations for a sustainable energy system together with the FVEE partners.

The spokesperson of the Renewable Energy Research Association, Bernhard Milow of the German Aerospace Center, welcomes KITs decision: KIT is a strong actor in the German energy research community and conducts excellent, comprehensive research in a large range of areas. Many members of FVEE have already been cooperating with KIT for a long time. I am very pleased that the Renewable Energy Research Association will now have direct access to KITs expertise.

Energy research at KIT combines fundamental and applied research into all relevant types of energy for industry, households, services, and mobility. This also holds for renewables: Solar and wind energy, bioenergy, and geothermal energy, integration of these energy sources into the future energy system, connection with storage systems, grids, and mobility solutions are subjects of KITs holistic research. Competencies in engineering and science, but also in economics, the humanities and social sciences as well as law are pooled for research that also considers the societal side of innovative energy technologies.

The German Renewable Energy Research Association

The German Renewable Energy Research Association represents a nation-wide cooperation structure of institutes conducting research and developing technologies for renewables, energy efficiency, energy storage, as well as optimized technical and socioeconomic interaction of all system components. The FVEE aims to make the energy supply system sustainable.

More about the KIT Energy Center: http://www.energy.kit.edu

Being The Research University in the Helmholtz Association, KIT creates and imparts knowledge for the society and the environment. It is the objective to make significant contributions to the global challenges in the fields of energy, mobility, and information. For this, about 9,800 employees cooperate in a broad range of disciplines in natural sciences, engineering sciences, economics, and the humanities and social sciences. KIT prepares its 22,300 students for responsible tasks in society, industry, and science by offering research-based study programs. Innovation efforts at KIT build a bridge between important scientific findings and their application for the benefit of society, economic prosperity, and the preservation of our natural basis of life. KIT is one of the German universities of excellence.
SHANGHAI, Feb 9 (Reuters) - A senior Chinese insurance regulator warned against the industry's reckless overseas investment, saying some insurers behaved recklessly when it came to offshore acquisitions, the official Securities Times reported on Thursday.

Chen Wenhui, vice chairman of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) urged insurers to take a cautious approach when investing overseas, the newspaper said.

"Blind outbound investment" by insurers, often with high leverage, involved tens of billions of yuan worth of risks in some cases, Chen was quoted as saying.

"Some companies behave like a little boy rushing into a candy store when making overseas investment," Chen said.

Chen made the remarks at a time when Beijing is stepping up efforts to stem capital outflows that adds depreciation pressure to the yuan, and threatens to exhaust China's foreign currency reserves.

Acquisitive Chinese insurers such as Anbang Insurance Group have been shopping overseas in recent years, snapping up foreign companies and properties.

Chinese insurers may boost outbound investment by about $100 billion over the next three years, as they seek to diversify risks, BNP Paribas predicted in December. ($1 = 6.8929 Chinese yuan)

(Reporting by Samuel Shen and John Ruwitch; Editing by Sam Holmes)
MELBOURNE, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Uncertainty over U.S. President Donald Trump's policies has driven up gold prices, but the effect may be limited to the short-term only, the head of Australia's biggest gold miner Newcrest Mining Ltd said on Thursday.

Gold prices have risen to near three-month highs above $1,240 an ounce amid worries over the impact of Trump's protectionist policies and political risks in Europe ahead of a string of elections.

"What I think he's done, at least for the moment, is introduce a level of uncertainty that wasn't necessarily there before he took over," Newcrest Chief Executive Sandeep Biswas told reporters after speaking at the Melbourne Mining Club.

Investors, unsure of what may happen under Trump, were maintaining positions in gold as a traditional store of value rather than due to any structural shift, he said.

"I don't think there's any policies that we've seen at this stage that would lead me to believe that it's good or bad in the medium or long term for gold," said Biswas, who started following Trump on social media last week to "keep up with what he's up to."

Newcrest, whose shares have jumped 52 percent over the past year, is due to report half-year results on Feb. 13.

(Reporting by Sonali Paul; Editing by Richard Pullin)
HANOI, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Here's a snapshot of Vietnamese dong exchange rates in the official and unofficial markets, indicative SJC gold prices in Hanoi and interbank offered rates at 0437 GMT.

Feb 9 Feb 8 USD/VND mid-point 22,216 22,208 USD/VND interbank 22,680/22,682 22,545/22,620 USD/VND unofficial 22,800/22,830 22,830/22,880 SJC gold (mln dong/tael) 36.95/37.27 36.74/37.06

Interbank offered rates Overnight 1.5-3.5 2.1-3.5

1 week 2.0-4.0 2.2-4.0

1 month 3.2-4.5 3.7-4.5

3 months 3.8-4.6 4.1-4.6

NOTES: As of Jan. 4, 2016 the State Bank of Vietnam has begun setting the mid-point rate on daily basis, allowing dollar/dong transactions to move in a band of +/- 3 percent around the mid point. The dong's exchange rate against other currencies is not restricted by a band. Interbank offered rates are the latest indicative bid/ask prices, quoted from market sources.

One tael is equivalent to 37.5 grams or 1.21 troy ounces. SJC gold prices are quoted by state-owned Saigon Jewelry Co.

For more interbank rate fixings released at 0400 GMT, click on .

For Vietnam market overview click on: Vietnam's bonds market auctions: Bonds auction results: (Compiled by Hanoi Newsroom)
* AMP reports 57 pct fall in underlying profit

* Targets second reinsurance deal for life insurance

* Announces A$500 million share buyback

(Recasts, adds CEO and analyst comments)

By Jamie Freed

SYDNEY, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Australia's biggest wealth manager, AMP Ltd , on Thursday said it wanted to strike a second reinsurance deal for its life insurance unit to reduce its financial exposure to the troubled business.

The company announced a A$500 million ($381.95 million) share buyback and kept its dividend steady despite posting a worse-than-expected 57 percent fall in full-year underlying earnings because it had released capital from a reinsurance deal with Munich Re in October. Australia's life insurers have seen rising claims rates and more policy cancellations since Australian media in March last year revealed the use of discredited methods to refuse legitimate claims for insurance payouts.

AMP Chief Executive Craig Meller said life insurance was an "area where we are looking to reduce our exposure".

"Our focus for the time being is on ensuring it delivers the margins we have guided to and we continue to complete the reinsurance arrangements that allows us to free up capital or return it to our shareholders," he told reporters.

The next reinsurance deal would cover policies under the National Mutual Life Association business it acquired from AXA in 2011, he said.

Morningstar analyst David Ellis said he would not be surprised if the deal released a similar amount of capital to the A$500 million from the Munich Re transaction.

AMP shares were trading 3.4 percent higher on Wednesday, while the broader market was up 0.3 percent.

AMP reported underlying earnings of A$486 million for the 12 months ended Dec. 31, down from A$1.12 billion a year earlier, including a A$415 million operating loss in its life insurance business.

The underlying result was below an average estimate of a 41 percent decline in underlying profit to A$633 million from 15 analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

On a statutory basis, which includes one-off items, the company swung to a A$344 million bottom-line loss - its first loss since 2003 - due to writedowns in its life insurance business announced to the market in October.

While analysts say the wealth management sector's long-term outlook is bright thanks to an ageing population and Australia's compulsory pension savings scheme, the AMP result underscores medium-term risks associated with the life insurance business.

Rival Suncorp on Thursday said it was considering "strategic alternatives" for its life insurance division, including a reinsurance deal, sale or partnership arrangement. Meller is under pressure from the board to revive the life insurance division and reverse a slide in market share.

He announced a shake-up of senior management in November as part of that effort, and last month AMP closed its fledgling venture capital arm to focus more on its core business. ($1 = 1.3096 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Jamie Freed; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Stephen Coates)
* Indonesia quiet due to no supplies

* Indonesia's discounts at $5-$20 per tonne vs $10-$20 last week

* Vietnam's discounts nearly unchanged at $65-$70/tonne to ICE May

By My Pham

HANOI, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Prices of Vietnamese coffee dropped this week following cues from London while Indonesia was quiet with no deals sealed for want of supplies, traders said on Thursday.

Coffee prices in Daklak, Vietnam's largest growing province, decreased to 44,500-45,000 dong ($1.96-$1.98) per kg from 47,600 dong last Thursday, in line with a fall in the ICE May contract . The contract extended its decline into a fifth session on Wednesday, shedding a combined 5.4 percent.

Vietnamese robusta grade 2, 5 percent black and broken was quoted at discounts of $65-$70 per tonne to the May contract, nearly unchanged from $60-$70 a week ago. "The market is less bustle as both sellers and buyers want to wait and see," said a coffee trader in Ho Chi Minh City.

The Southeast Asian nation is expected to produce 24.5 million bags of coffee in the 2016-2017 crop year ending September, a recent Reuters poll showed. Meanwhile, in Lampung, Indonesia's main coffee growing area, there was no new trade as there was no supply. Some traders even left for vacation due to low activities, traders said.

For the robusta grade 4, 80 defects , exporters quoted discounts of $5-$20 a tonne to the March contract , compared with discounts of $10-$20 a week earlier.

Coffee bean exports from Indonesia's main growing area in Sumatra rose 37 percent in January from the same period a year earlier. ($1=22,680 dong)

(Additional reporting by Mas Alina in BANDAR LAMPUNG; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
LONDON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - The Bank of England said it has fined Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Limited (BTMU) 17.85 million pounds ($22.44 million), and MUFG Securities EMEA PLC 8.9 million pounds for failing to be open with the regulator about U.S. enforcement action.

The BoE's Prudential Regulation Authority, which regulates banks in Britain, said the two banks - both part of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group - failed to be open and cooperative with the watchdog in relation to an enforcement action into BTMU by the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS).

The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ was fined $315 million in 2014 for pressuring its consultant to water down a supposedly objective report on BTMU's dealings with sanctioned countries, submitted to DFS, thereby misleading regulators, the PRA said in a statement.

The DFS enforcement action also had implications for the then Chair of MUFG Securities, it added.

The two banks did not inform the PRA of the DFS action until after the DFS' public announcement.

"BTMU's inadequate systems and controls for the communication of relevant information contributed to this failure to be open with the PRA," the watchdog said. ($1 = 0.7955 pounds)

(Reporting by Huw Jones,; Editing by Rachel Armstrong)
Nikkei skids, hit by stronger yen ahead of U.S.-Japan summit



TOKYO, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Japan's Nikkei share average fell on Thursday due to pressure from a stronger yen ahead of a meeting this week between U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The Nikkei ended 0.5 percent lower at 18,907.67. The broader Topix fell 0.7 percent to 1,513.55, while the JPX-Nikkei Index 400 was down 0.8 percent at 13,571.04.

(Reporting by Lisa Twaronite and Ayai Tomisawa; Editing by Sunil Nair)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in precious metal products, commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.

kitco news
ZURICH, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Here are some of the main factors expected to affect Swiss stocks on Thursday:

ZURICH INSURANCE * The Swiss insurer on Thursday posted a 74 percent jump in full-year net earnings as its core general insurance business rebounded under new chief executive Mario Greco.

* On Wednesday evening, Zurich said it was proposing Bank of America Chief Operations and Technology Officer Catherine P. Bessant to its board of directors.

For more click on UBS UBS has hired former Credit Suisse global ECM head Joe Reece as executive vice chairman of its investment bank as the Swiss bank looks to bolster its ranks of US dealmakers.

For more, click on COMPANY STATEMENTS * Also Group said its profit before taxes (EBT) rose by 25.4 percent to 113.9 million euros in 2016. It proposed a dividend of 2.25 Swiss francs per share. * Baloise Holding Ltd said it appointed Matthias Henny as Chief Investment Officer (CIO) and Carsten Stolz as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Both will take up their roles on 1 May 2017. * Belimo Holding AG said its net income rose to approximately 69 million Swiss francs last year, from 56.2 million in 2015. Detailed figures are due on March 13. * Geberit AG said it will nominate Eunice Zehnder-Lai for election to the Board of Directors at the 2017 General Meeting. * Leonteq said group net profit fell 75 percent to 17.2 million Swiss francs in 2016 and proposed no dividend for the year. The company also announced a cooperation agreement with Credit Agricole in the area of structured investment products. * MCH Group said it was acquiring a 25.1 percent holding in art.fair International GmbH in Cologne, Germany.

* Molecular Partners said it had an operating loss of 19.5 million Swiss francs and a net loss of 18.6 million francs in 2016. * Swiss Finance & Property Investment increased net profit to 24.4 million Swiss francs in 2016 from 22.7 million francs the year before thanks to sales and re-evaluation effects, the group said. * Vetropack Holding Ltd said it appointed Johann Reiter, General Manager of the Business Division Switzerland/Austria, as CEO with effect from 1 January 2018. ECONOMY * Swiss unemployment in January due at 0645 GMT

(Reporting by Zurich newsroom)

Daily Swiss stock market report in German................ All SMI constituent stocks............................ News on major Swiss stock price moves.................. FTSE Eurotop 300 index................................ DJ STOXX index........................................ Top 10 STOXX sectors............................. Top 10 EUROSTOXX sectors........................ Top 10 Eurotop 300 sectors....................... Top 25 European pct gainers... , losers... Swiss mid-cap index SMI futures Swiss all-share index Market statistics Swiss market digest Sector overview All Swiss news Swiss research news All equity news INTERNET ADDRESSES: Swiss Exchange / Eurex STOXX Ltd SPEED GUIDES: ))

Keywords: MARKETS SWISS STOCKS/
UK Stocks-Factors to watch on Feb 9

Feb 9 (Reuters) - Britain's FTSE 100 index is seen opening 1 to 8 points higher, or as much as 0.1 percent, on Thursday, according to financial bookmakers. * The UK blue chip index closed flat in percentage terms at 7,188.82 points on Wednesday, underperforming European peers, as a drop in energy stock prices prompted by oil price weakness offset a rally led by housing stocks. * GSK: GlaxoSmithKline and Gilead Sciences will vie for business in treating HIV patients next week when both companies unveil clinical trial results at a medical meeting in Seattle. * ICAG: British Airways and Iberia owner IAG is looking to offer low-cost long-haul flights from airports other than Barcelona in its efforts to compete on trans-Atlantic routes. * CENTRICA: Britain's Centrica has created a new global division to focus on end-consumers in a strategy shift away from its core energy production business that will also merge its British and North American segments, the company said on Wednesday. * UK MOTOR INSURANCE: Britain plans to introduce new insurance rules to ensure victims of accidents involving self-driving cars are compensated quickly in a bid to remove a major obstacle for the nascent industry. * ASDA: Wal-Mart is throwing its weight as the world's largest retailer behind its struggling British arm Asda after admitting it was too slow to respond effectively to the threat posed by the discount supermarkets. * EX-DIVS: Sage Group and Unilever will trade without entitlement to their latest dividend pay-out on Thursday, trimming 1.7 points off the FTSE 100, according to Reuters calculations * For more on the factors affecting European stocks, please click on: cpurl://apps.cp./cms/?pageId=livemarkets * UK CORPORATE DIARY: Tate & Lyle Plc Q3 2017 Trading Statement Release Pennon Group Plc Trading Statement Release Enterprise Inns Plc Trading Statement Release Dairy Crest Group Plc Half Year 2017 Ashmore Group Plc Half Year 2017 Earnings Release Smith & Nephew Plc Q4 2016 Earnings Release Henderson Group Plc Full Year 2016 Earnings Release Thomas Cook Group Plc Q1 2016/2017 Interim Management Statement Release TODAY'S UK PAPERS > Financial Times > Other business headlines Multimedia versions of Reuters Top News are now available for: * 3000 Xtra : visit * For Top News : (Reporting by Rahul B in Bengaluru; Editing by Sunil Nair) Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in precious metal products, commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication. kitco news
(Adds analyst comment, background, outlook)

By Sudip Kar-Gupta and Martinne Geller

PARIS/LONDON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - French cosmetics giant L'Oreal is weighing a possible sale of The Body Shop retail chain, it said on Thursday as it posted higher sales and profits.

L'Oreal said in a statement that it had decided to "explore all strategic options regarding The Body Shop's ownership in order to give it the best opportunities and full ability to continue its development."

It said no final decision had been taken on the British chain, which it bought over a decade ago.

Founded in 1976 by social and environmental activist Anita Roddick, the brand was a pioneer in the ethical beauty business, but has since suffered from heavy competition as many other brands adopted similar philosophies.

"Given the uninspiring performance of the brand, we suspect it shouldn't come as a big surprise," said RBC Capital Markets analysts.

L'Oreal is being advised by Lazard, according to an earlier report in the Financial Times, which said some private equity suitors had already expressed interest in buying the brand and it could fetch 1 billion euros.

L'Oreal said 2016 sales had risen 2.3 percent from a year ago to 25.84 billion euros ($27.6 billion), slightly ahead of the mean average forecast for sales of 25.75 billion euros according to a Reuters consensus conducted with Inquiry Financial.

Earnings per share for 2016 also rose 4.6 percent.

Looking ahead, L'Oreal said that despite "an economic context that is still volatile and uncertain", it was "confident it will once again outperform the beauty market in 2017" with another year of growing sales and profits.

L'Oreal, whose brands include Maybeline New York, Kiehl's and Redken, issued its statement after the Paris stock market had closed with the stock up 0.4 percent after marginal gains so far this year on top of a roughly 12 percent gain in 2016.

L'Oreal has been very active lately in terms of deal-making, announcing the $1.2 billion acquisition of IT Cosmetics last July and the $1.3 billion purchase of three brands from Valeant last month. It said the possible sale of The Body Shop was part of a related "brand portfolio optimisation".

($1 = 0.9379 euros)

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Andrew Callus/Ruth Pitchford)
(Adds quotes, background)

By Manolo Serapio Jr and Enrico Dela Cruz

MANILA, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Philippine environment minister Regina Lopez said on Thursday her order to shut mines operating in watersheds is non-negotiable and has the backing of President Rodrigo Duterte, who has the final say on the fate of the affected mines.

Lopez said her decision to shut 23 of the country's 41 mines and suspend five others was above-board, in response to claims made by a mining industry group that she side-stepped the proper processes.

"It's totally in my right to close down the mines," Lopez told a media briefing to address controversy over her decision.

The mines to be closed account for half of nickel ore output by the world's top supplier of the metal. Fifteen of the 23 mines are within watershed areas.

However, sources told Reuters that a team that reviewed an audit of the country's mines recommended suspension of operations and payment of fines for environmental violations, rather than closures. "It would take a miracle to convince me to allow mining in watersheds. As far as I know it's against the law. It's against social justice, it's against the constitution. He (Duterte) said I agree there should be no mining in watersheds," said Lopez, a staunch environmentalist.

Lopez said the miners can appeal her decision to the office of the president. If the president upholds the closure, they can go to court but they would have to halt their operations while the matter is decided.

Mines ordered for closure include those run by Hinatuan Mining Corp, a unit of top Philippine nickel ore producer Nickel Asia Corp , and BenguetCorp Nickel Mines Inc.

The Chamber of Mines of the Philippines is pressing the environment agency to release the audit that led to the closures.

"We are not just requesting for the mere summation of the audit results. We need the actual test results which were used as bases for determining whether or not these mining firms have violated environmental regulations," Artemio Disini, the chamber's chairman, said in a statement on Thursday.

Lopez assured the group she would provide all the information it needed.

<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Philippine mine closures ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^> (Reporting by Manolo Serapio Jr and Enrico dela Cruz; Writing by Karen Lema; Editing by Richard Pullin)
(Adds comments from union spokesman)

By Fabian Cambero

ANTOFAGASTA, Chile, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Workers at BHP Billiton's Escondida in Chile, the globe's biggest copper mine, walked off the job on Thursday, their union said, marking the start of a strike that threatens to disrupt the international supply of the metal.

No miners were aboard transport normally filled with workers slated to begin the morning shift, it said. Striking workers also blocked roads at the Coloso port, where hundreds of thousands of tonnes of copper are shipped annually.

"The buses are empty, there are no workers in them" to replace the night shift, union spokesman Carlos Allendes told Reuters. "The strike is now in effect."

BHP Billiton spokesmen were not immediately available for comment.

BHP has said it would halt production during the strike because it could not guarantee the safety of the 80 workers the government had authorized to perform "critical duties," such as equipment upkeep and adhering to environmental protocols.

The union has warned that a strike could be lengthy, and workers camped near the mine have stockpiled rations and supplies to survive the Chilean high desert's scorching sun and frigid nights.

"We are united and strong to make sure this is a success considering the measures the company has taken against its workers; we are fighting for our families and our future," said Claudio Perez, plant worker at the Coloso port.

The strike at Escondida, which produced 6 percent of the world's copper in 2015, follows weeks of fractious negotiations which have sent copper prices higher.

(Additional reporting by Anthony Esposito; Writing by Gram Slattery & Anthony Esposito; editing by Jason Neely and W Simon)
Jason Krupp and Rachel Hodder from the NZ Initiative write:

This week The New Zealand Initiative launched its report on immigration, The New New Zealanders: why migrants make good Kiwis. In it we make the case that while concerns about immigration are valid, we need to assess whether the facts bear these fears out before we make policy decisions. In short, it was an attempt to verify or debunk whether immigration is really the cause of all the problems it is reported to be. In short, while we note the immigration system could be improved, it is hardly the bogeyman it is made out to be. So it was hardly surprising to see NZ First leader Winston Peters rail against the report on his official Facebook page. After all, Mr Peters has made a career of fanning anti-immigrant sentiment into a populist inferno. Predictable it may have been, but it nevertheless deserves a fact-based response.

Responding to Winston with facts  novel!

Second, while the 125,000 figure is startling at first, when you break it down it looks substantially less formidable. For instance, of these 125,000 people, 29% were returning New Zealanders and Australian citizens who arent affected by immigration caps. A further 22% arrived on student visas, 31% on work visas and 5% on visitor visas. Here is the rub though: these are temporary visas, and the vast majority of these people will return to their home countries over time. A portion will transition into permanent residency, just under a fifth all in all, but this is what the immigration system is set up to do  establish a low risk mechanism through which migrants can prove they are a fit for New Zealand. The remaining 12% of arrivals, or just over 15,000 people, are here on residence visas. That number is far less frightening than the 125,000 figure. Were going out on a limb here, but we suspect this is the reason why Mr Peters has not delved below the headline figure.

The level of residency visas has shifted very little over time.

Then there is the claim that our analysis is wrong, and migrants do in fact steal jobs. The evidence? A dated report by the OECD and Mr Peters own experience at service stations, supermarket counters and in hospitality. Mr Peters could be right if migrants were only workers. Unfortunately for his argument migrants are also consumers. They spend money on housing, clothes, food and a host of other goods and services  just like everyone else. That creates an opportunity for Kiwi businesses to satisfy this increased demand, for which they will need staff. Looked at this way, it could be said that migrants create jobs, not steal them.

And as the NZ Initiative pointed out we get the tax and the consumption from the migrants without havign had to pay for 18 years of education for them.

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Simon Wilson writes:

The prime minister spent his first Waitangi Day in office not at the treaty grounds, but at Bastion Point, where Simon Wilson watched him give two of the most surprising Waitangi speeches in living memory. Did you know Bill English used Waitangi Day to praise the great protest struggle of Bastion Point? He made two speeches on the marae at Bastion Point that day, both of them in front of TV cameras and other media. Almost none of what he said got reported. Instead, there was a frenzy of excitement over his utterly inconsequential phone call with Donald Trump. But what the prime minister said on the marae at Bastion Point was extraordinary.

So what did he say?

He told them the modern history of Ngati Whatua was a story of great success. And he wanted them to know he did not view the protest as an aberration in that story, but as a vital part of it. Later, over breakfast in the wharekai, he built on his theme. There was a large audience  Ngati Whatua, politicians, community representatives and media  and he said we are all engaged in a great enterprise of building a country based on fairness, tolerance and respect. Then he said, Weve all got better at it because of our struggles over the treaty.  Bill English acknowledged the massive achievements of Ngati Whatua in such a short space of time and said he wanted to celebrate a group of people with the leadership and courage to make decisions. He said he knew what it cost the kaumatua who negotiated treaty settlements. At another iwi, one leader had told him hed been unable to sleep the night before they signed. He said he struggled with the burden of knowing he must say to his ancestors, Thats enough. And he struggled with the responsibility of saying the same to his descendants. There are so many ways in which treaty settlements are different for Maori and Pakeha, and thats one of them: Pakeha dont think like that.

Deciding to settle wouldnt be an easy decision Im sure, as you would feel the weight of expectations from your Iwi past present and future.

In the regions, he said, and I include Auckland in that, I would say that almost without exception the organisations that are most committed to development are the local iwi. Thats another remarkable thing for him to say. Iwi are economic powerhouses in the regions and major agents of social cohesion. Despite what Don Brash and his band of Hobsons Pledge ostriches might want us to think, theyre not stripping the country of its assets and infrastructure  theyre building them.

Ngai Tahu has said there are a number of SOEs they would like to invest in  the benefit being they are an investor that will never leave New Zealand and be here permanently.

First, have we ever before had a National Party prime minister who speaks so unequivocally in support of Maori agency  and of Maori activism that lays the foundation for Maori agency? Second, if the Bastion Point protest was historically invaluable, what does that say for other protest movements today  inside Maoridom and more widely? Third, if English will say these things on the marae, will he say them in Parliament, and in the regions, to business groups and to his own party  will he say them to audiences who are not already primed to agree? Hes a diffident leader, a quiet explainer more than an engaging winner of hearts and minds, and hes as liable as most politicians to duck the difficult issues when its hard to stand up for them. Mind you, he probably thought he was saying all this to a wider audience because he probably assumed his Waitangi Day speeches would be reported. Especially as he made it clear he knew Ngati Whatuas achievements were founded on that great protest occupation. Audrey Young in the Herald covered some of it; almost no other media mentioned anything. Its not Englishs fault if he gets ignored when he speaks up.

This is why it is good we have sites like The Spinoff.

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Fabricated City'

Kwon-yu (Ji Chang-wook) is falsely accused of killing a woman he does not even know. His friend Yeo-ul (Shim Eun-kyoung), a genius hacker, finds out that somebody framed Kwon-yu. Directed by Park Kwang-hyun.







The Lego Batman Movie'

Batman (Will Arnet) adopts a little boy Robin (Michael Cera), and discovers it is nice to have someone around him. Fighting the evil forces threatening Gotham City, he learns the value of friendship and teamwork. Directed by Chris McKay.







xXx: Return of Xander Cage'

Legendary spy Xander Cage (Vin Diesel) receives a mission to recover a deadly weapon, "Pandora's Box." In order to complete the mission, he forms a group named "Triple X," which consists of the best spies from around the world. Directed by D.J. Caruso.





Arrival'

Twelve alien spacecrafts come to Earth and send mysterious signals. In order to figure out why they are here, linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is tasked to decipher the message in 15 hours. Directed by Denis Villeneuve.







Confidential Assignment'

To catch a criminal who fled to the South, North Korea dispatches a detective, Cheol-lyeong (Hyun Bin), to Seoul. Jin-tae (Yoo Hae-jin), a South Korean detective, has to keep an eye on him under the government's order. Directed by Kim Sung-hoon.
Ben Boyd, president of Edelman's Practices, Sectors and Offerings, announces the 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer at Ferrum Tower in Seoul, Wednesday. / Courtesy of Edelman Korea

By Park Jae-hyuk

This year, Korea is at the bottom once again in a survey gauging public trust of businesses amid the lingering influence-peddling political scandal involving most of the domestic conglomerates.

According to the survey by Edelman, Wednesday, only 29 percent of Koreans said they trust corporations and 24 percent said corporate CEOs are credible. The global public relations firm has announced the trust barometer every year by compiling responses from more than 33,000 people from 28 nations.

"Korea is the only market of the 28 where people see business and government as the least trusted institutions," Ben Boyd explained to The Korea Times in a recent interview at Edelman's Seoul office.

"Globally, businesses almost tied with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which are most trusted."

The president of Edelman's Practices, Sectors and Offerings said that firms are responsible for the lack of trust, citing the nation's time-honored connection between the government and business.

Boyd pointed out that distrust is a fundamental flaw for enterprises seeking to move forward in a sustainable way. He said each firm's global business will probably be impacted, depending on their measures against the scandal.

"The value of being trusted is a business question," he said.

Companies will not collapse overnight due to the dearth of trust but Boyd noted it never means they should continue to misbehave.

Although recent boycotting against scandal-ridden firms has been mostly short-lived, he explained the implications against the reputation of a business will accumulate in the long-run.

Therefore, Boyd suggested Korean companies, especially those companies involved in the recent political scandal, should behave significantly differently and declare to their employees and to the public about their rededication to transparency.

President Park Geun-hye and her confidant Choi Soon-sil are embroiled in the corruption scandal in which the biggest conglomerates of the nation contributed 77 billion won to two foundations Choi operated.

"First they have to stop being involved in scandals," he said with a smile. "The absence of having something to hide is critical, if Korean business leaders are going to rebuild their trust with the public, which is clearly skeptical about businesses."

However, Boyd said the current state of distrust can be an opportunity, paradoxically, for a business to be viewed as the leader, only if the company is courageous enough to step forward in a public way and be clear about how it is going to act and behave differently.

"I believe that would have a positive economic benefit for enterprises as well," he said.

According to the survey, 28 percent and 17 percent of Koreans trust the government and its officials, respectively. Four out of 10 answered they believe the media and 56 percent demonstrated their trust of the NGOs. Only 11 percent responded that Korean society is functioning well.

"Koreans do not know who to trust anymore," said Edelman Korea managing director Jang Sung-bin. "Ordinary citizens cannot help but question whether anything that is said by the government, media and businesses can be taken at face value."


Ten Ibis Ambassador hotels



Ten Ibis Ambassador hotels in Seoul are giving away room vouchers and Kakao cash coupons to more than 100 guests in a photo contest.

Those who would like to participate should take photos from one of the 10 Ibis properties and post them on Instagram with the hashtag #WeLoveIbisFamily.

The top winner will receive 10 room vouchers for each of the 10 Ibis Ambassador hotel properties, while the runner-up will receive one for Ibis Style Ambassador Gangnam and 100 other participants get a Kakao Talk cash gift. Photos should be posted by March 10 and the winners will be announced on March 20. Visit facebook.com/Accorhotels.kr for more info.

Imperial Palace Seoul Hotel offers its city driving package to give guests the opportunity to drive luxury vehicles. The package includes a night stay in a Club Deluxe Room or Suite Room, a six-hour test driving session of the Jaguar XJ or Range Rover SUV, and a one-day class at the leather studio for two. Guests will have access to the fitness club and indoor swimming pool and breakfast for two at the Club Imperial Lounge.

The package is available until June 25 and starts from 290,000 won, excluding tax and service fees. For more information, visit imperialpalace.co.kr or call (02) 3440-8000.







Sheraton Grand Incheon Hotel



Sheraton Grand Incheon Hotel announced it ranked 18th in the Top 25 Luxury Hotels in Korea by TripAdvisor, a U.S. travel website.

The list was put together on the basis of travelers' reviews last year.

The hotel, located next to Songdo Central Park, caters to business and leisure guests, with luxurious facilities and warm services. For more information and reservations, call (032) 835-1000.







Four Seasons Hotel Seoul



Four Seasons Hotel Seoul recently appointed Lorenzo Antinori as its new head bartender. Originally from Rome, Antinori previously worked at American Bar and Beaufort Bar at the Savoy Hotel in London, England, between 2011 and 2015. Before that, he led a bar operation at Hotel de Russie in Rome and other cities in Australia and Mexico. His bar team was awarded sixth in the World's 50 Best Bars in 2011 and Best International Hotel Bar in 2015. Right before arriving in Seoul, he was the head bartender at Mondrian Hotel London's Dandelyan bar. Antinori will oversee all bar operations and cocktail programs at the hotel.







Park Hyatt Busan



Park Hyatt Busan presents 70 gift boxes for sale to celebrate the hotel's fourth anniversary. Every gift box will have a surprise voucher.

The gift box items include champagne, handmade macaroons, cookies and a bodycare kit with body lotion, body gel and shampoo  costing 250,000 won each. Vouchers include a room stay, dining and spa services at the hotel, worth worth 4 million won.

Gift boxes will be available at the Patisserie pastry boutique on the first floor, and each customer can purchase up to four boxes. For more information and reservations, call (051)990-1411.
South Korea's foreign ministry has launched a drive to enforce stronger discipline on its diplomats following revelations of a series of workplace misdeeds, a government source said Thursday.

A taskforce was formed recently and held its first meeting to discuss ways to maintain discipline of officials stationed in embassies, consulates and other overseas missions, according to the source.

The source said that the ministry has reached out to private-sector experts for input and opinions in establishing tougher workplace rules.

In September, a South Korean diplomat handling cultural affairs in Chile was accused of sexually harassing a 14-year-old Chilean girl while teaching Korean, which factored into the decision to launch the drive.

A Chilean broadcaster then aired hidden camera footage of the diplomat harassing another young woman in December, sparking public fury in the Latin American country. He has since been dismissed from his post.

In addition, an incumbent ambassador in a Middle East country was found to have sexually harassed an office staff worker. The diplomat had his pay cut as a punishment in December.

"We are looking into things from diverse angles in order to prevent the repeat of such workplace misconduct," he added. (Yonhap)
A group of Korean-Americans will set up a girl's statue symbolizing victims of Japan's wartime sexual slavery at a civil rights movement museum in the city of Atlanta, Georgia, the group's former chief said Wednesday.



Kim Baek-kyu, former head of the South Korean resident group in Atlanta, said, "We will erect the statue at the Center for Civil and Human Rights," without giving a date when it will be set up.



Located in downtown Atlanta and opened in 2014, the center is a museum dedicated to the achievement of both the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1950s-1960s and the broader worldwide human rights movement.



Kim and other members of the group have pushed ahead with a plan on the statue installation for three years in secret.



It will mark the third time that a statue, which represents "comfort women," Korean women forced to work in wartime Japanese military brothels, is installed in the United States following ones in Glendale, California, and Southfield, Michigan.



The museum also confirmed the planned statue installation. It has given the resident group support in the project, making itself the center of attention as the U.S. city is the birthplace of the African-American civil rights movement.



Atlanta hosts the birth home, a memorial hall and the tomb of the late American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.



As words of the statue installation spread, it is feared that the Japanese government and the country's right-wing bodies will launch an offensive to have the plan foiled.



In August last year, a right-wing Japanese group, the Global Alliance for Historical Truth, filed a suit demanding the statue in Glendale be removed, but it was to little avail. A U.S. court rejected the demand, saying Glendale did not use the statue for diplomatic purposes.



Historians estimate that up to 200,000 women, mainly from Korea, which was a Japanese colony from 1910 to 1945, were forced to work in front-line brothels for Japanese soldiers during World War II. But Japan has long attempted to water down the atrocity. (Yonhap)




The picture has been criticized as immoral on the web as netizens call for a harsh punishment to the doctors involved.

/ Courtesy of Instagram



By Lee Han-soo

Five doctors who photographed their autopsy practice session and posted the image on Instagram face severe punishment.

The health ministry and the Korean Medical Association (KMA) are in talks over penalty options, including invalidating their licenses to practice.

The punishment action started when the photo triggered public outrage after its posting on Tuesday, especially on the internet where numerous netizens are exploring websites to identify the five.

According to reports, the photo was taken at Seoul St. Mary's Hospital in Seoch-gu, southern Seoul. The hospital confirmed the photo's background to be its autopsy room.

Hospital officials said its orthopedic department hosted the autopsy session on Feb. 4 with "dozens of doctors" from other hospitals. They did not elaborate.

"We are working to identify the five," said Hwang Eui-soo, a health ministry manager. "When the work is done, we will start proceedings to punish them."

Opinions vary when it comes to an appropriate penalty. While many call for stern punishment, such as license invalidation, skeptical critics say the doctors would face fines up to 500,000 won ($436) at best under medical law.

The KMA said  after a thorough investigation -- it might deprive the doctors of their association membership.
Aging couples look to living apart in marriage as alternative to gray divorce

By Kang Hyun-kyung

The husband or the wife, or sometimes both, feel one day that something is missing in their decades of marriage, although it has been wonderful so far. After searching their souls to figure out what made them feel their marriage is incomplete, they realize that deep in their hearts they have unfulfilled dreams they had to put aside to raise their children and make ends meet.

They conclude enough is enough and suggest living apart without breaking their relationship to chase their overdue dreams. Once their suggestion is accepted and their separation is realized, they become those who are in "jolhon," or graduates of marriage, a term first coined by Japanese writer Yumiko Sugiyama in her 2004 book "Recommending the Graduation from Marriage."

They are graduated from marriage because they are no longer obligated to family chores or other duties as part of their relationships.

Jolhon has become a buzzword since November when veteran actor Baik Il-seop used the term to define his current marital status. The actor in his 70s said he and his wife have lived apart because their irreconcilable differences made it harder for them to live together. But they are still married and would never consider divorce.

The actor described the arrangement as "different from divorce," on the TV Chosun program "My Way" that aired last year.

"I would say I graduated from my four decades of marriage," he said. "I wished to be treated as a respected husband and breadwinner because I am an established actor. But things didn't work out as I hoped. My wife and I had frequent disputes and brawls and things like that had continued and showed no signs of getting better."

Baik notified his wife of his departure and has since lived alone.

Since the airing of the episode, jolhon became the most-searched keyword on the nation's largest internet portal Naver. TV talk shows and other reality programs followed up on the topic as the term stirred a pros and cons debate.

In a society where divorce rates are on the rise, jolhon is emerging as a popular alternative to gray divorce or twilight divorce. Aging couples, who were brought up under conservative education, still feel pressure over ending decades of marriage.

"Divorce is considered a risky choice for couples, especially for the older generation," said Kang Hak-joong, president of the non-profit group The Korean Institute of Family Studies. "Divorce is something akin to a stigma in this society. So people, who are thinking seriously about divorce but feeling pressured on the consequences, would view jolhon positively as an alternative to divorce."

Korea's divorce rate  the number of divorces per 1,000 people  is among the world's highest. It stood at 2.3 in 2011, making the country the ninth highest among the 34 OECD member states. Divorce rates among aging couples rose 31 percent between 1993 and 2012, according to a Seoul Metropolitan City Government survey.

A Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs survey of 604 people found that financial difficulty (26 percent) takes the lion's share in the reasons for divorce, followed by unfaithful spouses, irreconcilable differences and domestic abuse.

Kim Se-won, a professor of Catholic University of Korea, said jolhon can be seen as an attractive option for Koreans because they are afraid of what others think about them if their marriages are broken.

There are couples who are fed up with each other and find no hope for improving their relationships. But they remain indecisive about divorce because they fear what others would say once they are divorced, Kim said.

"They don't want to rock the boat because they don't want to be seen as losers or responsible for the broken relationship," she said. "They just don't want to admit that their choice of their spouses turned out to be wrong."

The younger generation is more open-minded to jolhon than their older counterpart, according to a recent survey.

A poll of 548 unmarried men and women conducted by the matchmaker Gayeon in May 2016 showed younger people viewed jolhon as something positive that they could consider in the future. Over half of them responded that they are willing to suggest living apart in marriage to their future spouse once their children are grown up. Women are more open-minded to jolhon with 63 percent remaining positive of such an offer.

Some experts say the status of women is related to the jolhon phenomenon as women became increasingly vocal and financially independent after they earned income.

Jun Gil-yang, head of the gender equality department of the Korean Institute for Gender Equality Promotion and Education, a Seoul-based state-run think tank, said the notion of jolhon seems to be associated with Korea's aging society.

The years married couples live together have been increasing as the consequence of an increasing life expectancy. The aging society allows them to look back on their past lives. With enough time, some try to fulfill their dreams without family affairs distractions and this caused them to find alternative ways to maintain their marriage.

"Jolhon is different from separation because the latter is a step toward divorce, so it is heard negatively," Jun said. "Unlike separation, jolhon has some positive meaning in that the couple successfully fulfilled their duties as spouses and parents, and in their sunset years they are seeking the lives they deserve."

Family relationship expert Kang said the new concept may appeal to some but it remains to be seen whether such a lifestyle could become more mainstream.

"I'm wondering how many couples would opt for living apart if their marriages are still happy," he said. "How many parents would tell their children to go for such a lifestyle when they are asked for their opinions? I think there are people who just want to justify their choice of living separately from their spouse by naming it as such."

He said jolhon is not something cool or chic.
Moon Jae-in, left, the former leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), and An Hee-jung, right, also a DPK member, vie to court support from followers of former President Roh Moo-hyun. / Korea Times, Yonhap



Two presidential hopefuls vie to court supporters of former president

By Choi Ha-young





The suicide of former President Roh Moo-hyun on May 23, 2009, was one of the most tragic and shocking events in modern Korean history, but it was also the moment when his lasting legacy began.

His longtime friend Moon Jae-in announced his death in a tearful statement. Roh's other confidant An Hee-jung was a pall bearer at Roh's funeral.

Now, the two political heirs to Roh are vying for the presidency as two of the strongest contenders. Moon, the former leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), is cementing his lead in polls; while South Chungcheong Province Governor An, also a DPK member, is emerging as a dark horse.

They are now poised for a battle in the party's primary. The winner is expected to have a strong chance of becoming the country's next president.

Moon, a former human rights lawyer, served as presidential chief of staff for Roh. When the former President was impeached in 2004 by the opposition-controlled National Assembly, Moon was his attorney and when Roh was investigated for bribery allegations in 2009 after leaving Cheong Wa Dae, he defended him.

For Roh, Moon was more than a friend. Roh once said, "If someone suspects my capacity, I will tell them that Moon is my friend."

An, 11 years younger than Moon, met Roh in 1994. As a leading aide in Roh's presidential camp, he was nicknamed "Roh's left-hand" with his friend Lee Kwang-jae, "Roh's right-hand." An, who shouldered responsibility for illegal political funds Roh allegedly received from Samsung, didn't accept any position during the latter's term after being sentenced to a one-year prison term.

"My loyalty to Roh was loyalty to the ordinary people, who don't have power and wealth. After he was elected, imprisonment was the only thing I received," An said in a tearful speech in 2010 during his campaign for governor.



Roh's legacy

Roh, who suddenly rose to become a star politician after he threw a nameplate at military dictator Chun Doo-hwan, was always in the center of controversy. "Rohsamo"  literally meaning people who love Roh  was the first-ever fan club for a politician in Korea. He was also the first President to be impeached here.

After the dramatic candle lit rallies calling for his reinstatement, he pushed for the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement and dispatched troops to Iraq, which made his supporters turn away from him. When facing thorny issues, he didn't avoid talking openly. To reform the prosecution, Roh argued with prosecutors for two hours in a televised discussion.

"As a symbol of justice, Roh's largest contribution was anti-authoritarianism," said Im Hyug-baeg, a professor of political science and diplomacy at Korea University. "However, he lost his own authority as president in the end, which led to his failure," said Im, who once served as an advisor to Roh.

He was much happier after his five-year presidential term ended. His hometown of Bongha Village in South Gyeongsang Province emerged as a tourist attraction.

The president-turned-farmer started to live a life that was full of joy  taking bicycle rides with his granddaughter, enjoying an occasional cigarette and dreaming of eco-friendly agriculture  before prosecutors began looking into allegations of bribery against his family and friends, which led to his suicide.

Citizens came to recall the former president's humble image, particularly after the influence-peddling scandal involving President Park Geun-hye and her confidant Choi Soon-sil, caused by Park's closed-mind and authoritarian leadership style.

Following Roh's reviving popularity, the newly released movie "The King," based on Roh's journey through life, has so far drawn over 5 million viewers. An was invited to a public screening, Thursday.

Now, Roh's hometown is a must visit spot for all presidential aspirants, not only liberals but also conservatives. Seongnam Mayor Lee Jae-myung of the DPK paid his respects at the former President's grave there, Sunday. "I will complete his dream of making a fair society without privilege," Lee said. "I am proud of myself for eagerly fighting to achieve his ideals."

Conservative hopeful Rep. Yoo Seong-min of the Bareun Party also visited the village Wednesday, sending out the message of integration across ideologies.

Roh's shortcomings are as evident as his strengths. Despite his slogans in favor of the common people, he failed to alleviate growing polarization. His insufficient economic policies resulted in the conservatives' return to power. The conservatives often criticize Roh's "pro-North" security policy line, which still haunts Moon.

"Regardless of the truth, Moon has been dogged by allegations that Roh yielded to the North's request on the Northern Limit Line and asked Pyongyang about it's view of U.N. pressure on its human rights problem," said Junhan Lee, a professor of political science at Incheon National University.

"To overcome the anxiety around him, Moon has recruited military leader Chun In-bum and other veterans," Lee added.

Compared to Moon, An is less burdened by Roh's mistakes since he didn't assume any position during the late President's term.

However, An is currently under fire from other DPK hopefuls for his proposal to share power with conservatives, which is in line with Roh's "Grand Coalition."

"This was an improper moment to suggest a grand coalition. An has to win the DPK's primary," professor Im said.

Im said both contenders are more careful than Roh, and so are less likely to make slips of the tongue; however, he pointed to An's speaking style. An held a five-hour free debate instead of the typical press conference to declare his presidential bid, which reminded voters of Roh, but he was criticized for using vague words.

"Roh was an eloquent speaker with hard-hitting and witty words. Also, he was an action-oriented person. On the other hand, An's expressions are too philosophical. Politicians should deliver an understandable message to voters," he said.
Former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon speaks to reporters while leaving his house in Sadang-dong, Seoul, Feb. 2. / Yonhap



By Lee Han-soo

Former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon left Korea for Kenya Thursday to reunite with his family.

Ban will visit his youngest daughter, Hyun-hee, a UNICEF employee, and his son-in-law, Siddharth Chatterjee, head of the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Kenya.

"Ban and his wife will visit his daughter's family and come back on Feb. 16," Ban's close aide said. "Although this is a personal visit, Ban plans to meet and encourage U.N. staff in Kenya as a former U.N. Secretary-General."












By Kim Rahn



Moon Jae-in, the leading presidential contender from the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), is also the most favorite among married women, according to a survey released Thursday.



The poll, conducted by Micromill Embrain, also showed Seongnam Mayor Lee Jae-myung, also from the DPK, had a relatively high support rate due to his welfare policy.



Moon led the presidential race with a 27.6 percent approval rating in a survey conducted of 1,026 married women aged between 19 and 69, Monday and Tuesday.



Moon was followed by South Chungcheong Province Governor An Hee-jung from the DPK who had 16.5 percent, acting President and Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn with 14.5 percent, former minor opposition People's Party chief Ahn Cheol-soo with 9.8 percent and Lee with 5.4 percent.



Moon's support was below 30 percent in this poll, while he often ranks over that mark in other surveys. "Many Moon supporters are in their 20s to 40s, but this poll was conducted on married women only," the poll agency said. "So many of his supporters in their 20s were excluded and his support rate here is lower than those in other polls."



When asked who will make Korean mothers the happiest when elected, 16.9 percent picked Moon, the highest among the potential candidates. But this figure was far below his general support among the respondents.



On the contrary, Lee, whose general rating was 5.4 percent, enjoyed relatively higher support, 9.4 percent, in terms of expected policies for mothers.



"The Seongnam mayor has presented welfare policies in his city, many of which were welcomed by married women. This may have affected the poll," the agency said.



As to the problems the next president should resolve urgently, 31.7 percent of the married women said the country needs to stabilize prices for living necessities, while 22.9 percent cited the need for lower education expenses such as private tutoring fees and college tuition, and 16.8 percent called for expanded childcare support.



Nearly 43 percent said they take their husbands' opinion into consideration when casting their vote.



Asked about their favorite female lawmaker with at least three terms of experience, the respondents picked Park Young-sun of the DPK, who was followed by Na Kyung-won of the ruling Saenuri Party and Sim Sang-jeung of the minor progressive Justice Party.



In the meantime, a separate poll conducted by Realmeter on 1,508 adults  both male and female  showed Moon is taking the lead with support of 33.2 percent.



Hwang ranked second with 15.9 percent, closely followed by An at 15.7 percent.



With the combined popularity of Moon and An, the DPK gained the highest support among parties, enjoying 45.4 percent of the total, up by 7.2 percentage points from the previous week. But the minor conservative Bareun Party seems to have failed to appeal to the conservative voters, as its approval rating remained at 5.8 percent, the lowest among five parties surveyed  DPK, Saenuri, People's, Justice and Bareun.




By Kim Bo-eun





Lee Kyu-chul, the spokesman for the special prosecution team, speaks during a briefing at the team's office in Gangnam-gu, southern Seoul, Thursday. / Yonhap

The independent counsel team reaffirmed Thursday that it will push for face-to-face questioning of President Park Geun-hye over her alleged involvement in the corruption and influence-peddling scandal surrounding her confidant Choi Soon-sil.

The team said that it will have to extend its mandate one month, especially if President Park continues to refuse to accept the request for questioning.

"We will fine tune details of face-to-face questioning of the President," team spokesman Lee Kyu-chul said in a briefing Thursday.

"Our position is firm that we need to interrogate the President," Lee said, adding that they have yet to decide on a date.

The team and Cheong Wa Dae had planned to hold the questioning Thursday at the presidential office.

But the plan fell through after Cheong Wa Dae took issue with media reports on the date of the questioning.

Earlier, it had requested the team not to disclose the date until after the questioning took place. However, a local broadcaster reported Tuesday the details of the interrogation.

Cheong Wa Dae accused the team of leaking the date, claiming a "breach of trust."

However, the counsel team reiterated Thursday it was not responsible for the leak.

"Even though the law on the independent counsel's investigation into the scandal states that the schedule of questioning can be disclosed, we agreed with Cheong Wa Dae not to do so, until after it took place," Lee said.

"Based on this agreement, we did not disclose the date to the press."

The spokesman also said that the team gave in to most of Cheong Wa Dae's requests in regards to the President's questioning, including the place.

He asserted Cheong Wa Dae unilaterally pulled out of the deal.

The team had earlier sought to have the questioning take place at a third location, but later accepted Cheong Wa Dae's request for it to take place inside the presidential office, considering issues of security and "the President's dignity."

Lee said Park's refusal to be questioned could become a key factor for the extension of the mandate of the counsel team which expires at the end of February.

"We believe whether we will question Park in person or not will be an element determining the extension of the mandate for the independent counsel," Lee said.

He said the special prosecution team has not notified acting President and Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn yet of its intent to extend the mandate.

Lee said that the team has no means to enforce the questioning if Park continues to refuse to accept it.

The team wants to ask Park about allegations that she asked Samsung Group and other conglomerates for money in exchange for business favors, ordered the creation of a blacklist of artists critical of the government and was absent from official duty on the day of the Sewol ferry disaster in 2014.
By Choi Ha-young





Chun In-bum

Leading presidential contender Moon Jae-in is taking flak over his recruitment of former commander of the Special Warfare Command (SWC), Chun In-bum, as a key campaigner.

Days after Chun joined Moon's campaign, a district court found his wife Shim Hwa-jin, president of Sungshin Women's University, guilty of embezzling school funds and sentenced her to one year in prison, Wednesday. His wife was imprisoned immediately after.

The verdict from the Seoul Northern District Court reads, "Shim is unlikely to flee, but we don't rule out the possibility that she could commit a similar crime again."

Moon recruited Chun, a retired Army lieutenant general who reportedly has maintained close relationships with senior U.S. military officials, as his adviser for security policies last week. Chun, who speaks English fluently, is known as a firm supporter of the planned deployment of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system in South Korea.

What made his wife's case more viral was Chun's previous comment on social media, in which he said, "If my wife did anything wrong, I would shoot her with a pistol."

Following the conviction of his wife, Chun said, "I apologize for the scandal involving my wife. However, I will continue to work for Moon."

Now, various allegations are surfacing against Chun.

The Center for Military Human Rights Korea, a civic group, recently claimed, "In 2014, Chun directed training to experience the situation of a war prisoner, despite subordinates' calls for a delay, and two soldiers suffocated to death."

Four soldiers in charge of the deaths were fined. Chun only received a written warning.

There are also allegations that he mobilized Sungshin Women's University employees for a celebration when he was promoted to major general.

Joining Moon's camp, Chun said he decided to work for Moon after being disappointed with the military's decision to cut the budget for knives for special forces.

However, the Ministry of National Defense refuted Chun's claim.

"We decided to buy the knives in January 2015, and will fully adopt the weapon by 2022," Moon Sang-kyun, spokesman of the ministry, said Monday in a regular briefing. "It seems Chun was not updated on this after his retirement last summer."
By Jun Ji-hye



Impeached President Park Geun-hye is apparently taking all possible measures, including threats, blackmail and even tricks to obstruct the independent counsel's probe into her corruption scandal and delay her ongoing impeachment trial.



Critics say Park is deliberately causing conflict and controversy to strengthen the solidity of her own supporters, while clouding the issue of the high-profile political scandal that led to her impeachment by the National Assembly in December.



They say she is just trying to avoid receiving criminal punishment and to keep her post as long as possible rather than taking responsibility for the scandal in which her longtime friend Choi Soon-sil and former presidential aides have been arrested.



On Wednesday, Park rejected face-to-face questioning that the probe team, led by independent counsel Park Young-soo, planned to carry out Thursday, citing some "peculiar reasons."



The presidential office blamed the probe team for leaking the schedule and location to media  local media outlets reported Tuesday that Cheong Wa Dae and the probe team had agreed to hold the interview at the presidential compound Thursday.



While coordinating the details of the questioning, the presidential office imposed a preposterous condition of "non-disclosure of the schedule and the place" although the law stipulates that special prosecutors can brief the media on the progress of their investigation to satisfy the people's right to know. Nevertheless, the investigators accepted the condition as they had to question Park in some way or other, considering her history of rejecting prosecutors' questioning several times last year, breaking her promises made to the public.



After the details were reported in the media, Cheong Wa Dae lashed out at the special probe team, unilaterally concluding that the team leaked the information. The team denied it leaked the schedule.



Some critics even speculated that Cheong Wa Dae's argument about the team's information leak could have been a self-fabricated scenario, which is in line with its tactic to delay Park's impeachment process.



Such a tactic has been detected as the Constitutional Court is moving to make the ruling before March 13 when the tenure of one of the remaining eight justices, Lee Jung-mi, ends. The court's former President Park Han-chul, who left office on Jan. 31, said the final ruling should be made before acting court President Lee's term expires.



In an apparent effort to delay the impeachment trial process, Park and her legal representatives recently asked the court to summon 17 more witnesses. Among them, the court chose eight witnesses and set a schedule for questioning them, reducing the likelihood that the court will make a decision in February at the earliest.



In a 13-page written statement submitted to the court, Park also maintained an irresponsible attitude, only saying, "I did not know," or "I did not give such orders."



On Jan. 25, Park called the massive corruption scandal a "huge mountain heaped up with lies" in an interview with a conservative online journalist.



What she is doing is going against her previous promises made in her nationally televised addresses last year. Offering an apology for the scandal at the time, Park said that she was willing to sincerely cooperate in the investigations by prosecutors and the independent counsel, and that she was willing to comply with the Assembly's decision on her fate.



"Park should recognize clearly that the nation is crumbling because of her," former conservative lawmaker Lee Jae-oh said. "If she has any conscience, she should resign voluntarily tomorrow."



Amid growing tension that Park's impeachment could be thwarted or delayed considerably, the opposition parties also renewed their call for her prompt ouster.



Gyeonggi Province Governor Nam Kyung-pil of the newly formed Bareun Party said Thursday, "I am angry seeing Park continually running away. This is clearly shameful. This is not what a president of the Republic of Korea does."



The opposition parties also urged acting President and Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn to approve the extension of the investigation if the probe team asks him to do so.



The initial probe mandate of the independent counsel is due to expire Feb. 28. The period can be extended once by a month with the consent of Hwang.



Meanwhile, Cheong Wa Dae dismissed speculation that Park would boycott the corruption probe, saying she will undergo direct questioning soon "when trust is restored in the special prosecutors."




Jin Air is under fire due to bunglings in tackling safety incidents. / Korea Times file





By Kim Se-jeong

Jin Air, a local budget carrier and subsidiary of Korean Air, came under criticism Thursday after suffering minor safety incidents two days in a row.

The incidents occurred on one plane, making people question the company's maintenance and operational procedures.

The first incident took place in Bangkok Tuesday night. Jin Air Flight LJ004 was preparing for take-off with 392 passengers and 10 crew members on board. Smoke suddenly entered the cabin of the Boeing 777-200ER, resulting in four people receiving first aid for smoke inhalation. According to the airline, the fumes came from an auxiliary power unit in the plane's tail that had just been fueled. The auxiliary power unit assists the main engines, meeting power needs for floor lighting and air conditioning. Technicians replaced the unit, and the plane arrived at Incheon around 7:05 a.m. Wednesday, after a seven-hour delay.

Less than 24 hours later, the same plane was to fly to the Philippines.

After the plane took off from Incheon at 9:54 p.m., Wednesday, a fire alert went off, causing the flight crew to return the aircraft to the airport after 50 minutes in the air. An airline official said an internal investigation was underway to find the cause of the fire alarm malfunction. "We're sorry for what happened. We're working to find out the cause. Our services will remain the same," the official said.

The official emphasized the two incidents were merely a bad coincidence not a crisis, ruling out worries that the company put a malfunctioning airplane into service. "We didn't prevent these incidents from happening, but we handled the emergency situations well without any deaths," he said.

Yet, people scrambled on social media, pouring out their experiences and worries about Jin Air, which is one of Korea's most popular domestic carriers.

Park Chang-hyun, a passenger who boarded the plane from Bangkok, criticized the airline on Facebook. "I am sad about the way Jin Air handles these situations," he wrote from Bangkok International Airport. "It was huge chaos. I left the dark and smoke-filled plane fearing for my life. And the company asked me to get back on board. I couldn't do it. Who would tolerate this?"

He also complained of a lack of information on compensation from the company. He flew the next day and had to delay an important business meeting. But he thanked the ground crew. "They did what they could in the middle of the night. I felt thankful to them."

Some passengers criticized the emergency response by likening the incidents to the Sewol ferry disaster in 2014. More than 300 passengers on the ferry died in the sinking ship because they stayed on board after a stand-by order from the captain, who was among the first to escape. The Jin Air passengers said crew members prevented them from opening an emergency door, but the airliner said it was unnecessary to open it, and the situation would have become more dangerous if the door was opened.
by John J. Metzler



UNITED NATIONS  The rumble of artillery and the cracks of Kalashnikovs shatter the Winter chill. The refugees, the displaced and the injured have become part of the broken landscape which reflects the agony of previous battles. Yet the wider silence is broken by the unwavering voices who remind us that this is not beleaguered Syria in the Middle East nor Sudan in Africa but Ukraine in Europe.



Ukraine's smoldering conflict has flared up again with a sharp upsurge in fighting in the disputed Donetsk region in the east of the country. Russian backed rebels have attacked Ukrainian government positions along the unstable ceasefire line. A ranking UN official asserts, there's been a "dangerous intensification of the conflict."



A Security Council meeting, sponsored by Ukraine, set the stage. Ambassador Volodymyr Yelchenko, who serves as the Council's President for February, stated "Altogether 20 Ukrainian soldiers were killed and 134 were wounded by the Russian hybrid forces and Russia-backed militants since the beginning of this year in the area around Avdiyivka." He stressed that Moscow-backed forces had broken the Minsk ceasefire accords and were destabilizing Ukraine's sovereignty. Russia blames Ukraine for starting the recent round of fighting.



Nearly 10,000 people, military and civilians have been killed since the conflict began in 2014.



U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley's debut address before the UN Security Council condemned Russia's "aggressive actions" in eastern Ukraine and warned "Until Russia and the separatists it supports respect Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, this crisis will continue."



Amb. Haley lamented that it was "unfortunate" that she had to condemn Russia during her first Security Council appearance, adding"we do want to better our relations with Russia."



Significantly, the recent flareup up in Ukraine comes amid moves by the Trump Administration to improve relations with Russia. Some analysts question why Moscow would wish to reignite a conflict which would immediately put it at loggerheads with the new American Administration. Russia suggests that Ukraine plans to present itself as the victim to precisely forestall U.S./Russian rapprochement. A third option may involve the vodka soaked separatists themselves who want to keep the pot boiling to avoid being sacrificed as part of a Putin political deal with Washington.



Improving the severely strained USA/Russian relationship should not come at the expense of a sovereign Ukraine.



In earlier comments to the press, Ukraine's Ambassador Yelchenko stated that Nikki Haley, the new U.S. Ambassador, was well-informed about the situation in his country. "She had confirmed that the United States would continue to support Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," he added.



Indeed during Ambassador Haley's strong condemnation of Russian actions in eastern Ukraine she added, "The United States continues to condemn and call for an immediate end to the Russian occupation of Crimea.Crimea is a part of Ukraine. Our Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns control over the peninsula to Ukraine."



Importantly according to a story in Politico, President Donald Trump promised Ukrainian opposition leader and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenkothat the U.S. won't lift sanctions on Russia until it pulls out of Ukraine.



Nonetheless despite the renewed geopolitical posturing, the continued conflict in Ukraine's eastern regions has created a terrible and growing humanitarian crisis.



Stephen O'Brien, the UN's Humanitarian Chief told the Council, "Over three years into the conflict in eastern Ukraine, in what has become yet another protracted humanitarian crisis, we are now faced with a significant deterioration in the situation following the sudden and recent escalation in violence The current escalation in violence is causing severe damage to critical infrastructure, water, electricity and heating. Combined with low winter temperatures, the result is a deteriorating humanitarian situation."



Tragically O'Brien added, "This latest escalation in violence is exacerbating the ongoing needs of an estimated 3.8 million civilians who continue to bear the brunt of this protracted conflict There are 700,000 more people in need this year compared to 2016. More than 60 per cent of those in need, reside in non-government controlled areas."



Civilians on both sides of the artificial divide are suffering from the conflict.



Britain's Ambassador Matthew Rycroft admonished, "The responsibility of the inception and continuation of the conflict in eastern Ukraine lies squarely with Russia and the separatists it supports."



As Ukraine's delegate Yelchenko admonished, "The remedy to stop this Russian aggression against my country and to avoid further civilian sufferings is rather simple. What the international community needs to do is to step up pressure on the aggressor and urge Russian Federation to get out of Ukraine."





John J. Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. Contact jjmcolumn@earthlink




By Do Je-hae

The global craze for a lifestyle concept called "hygge" has arrived in Korea.

Hygge, which means coziness, is an entire attitude to life that puts emphasis on living well by pursuing everyday happiness. It originates from Denmark, which is often voted as one of the happiest countries in the world.

The concept has become such a huge sensation that Collins English Dictionary selected hygge as one of the words of 2016 along with Brexit and Trumpism, and has been praised as Denmark's biggest export since LEGO. Collins describes the word as "a concept of creating cozy and convivial atmospheres that promote well-being."

I was led to the world of hygge (pronounced HOO-gah) by a friend while on a plane flight last year. Aside from flipping through duty-free shopping guides, I normally don't like to read while flying. My friend brought the Korean translation of "The Little Book Hygge: the Danish Secrets to Happy Living," by best-selling author and CEO of the Happiness Research Institute, Meik Wiking. I was first drawn to the book because it had some lovely photos that looked like they came out of the pages of interior design magazines I love so much, such as House Beautiful.

Although hygge had been trending in other countries for some time, I had not heard of it until the unexpected encounter with this book, which has been widely introduced in the Korean news media over the past few months.

According to Wiking, hygge can be defined by words like togetherness, relaxation, indulgence and comfort. "I think it's because a lot of people in different countries are having the experience of growing richer but not necessarily happier," Wiking said in media interview on the reason for hygge's sweeping popularity.

Since my first column for The Korea Times is being published shortly after the start of the lunar New Year, I thought it would be useful to talk about something Koreans desperately need, which is happiness.

The topic of happiness is timely because Koreans are undergoing very difficult times, as shown by the term "hell Joseon" which sums up the unhappiness of Koreans across generations. Soaring taxes and stagnant incomes have fueled anger among many workers. The younger generation, disenchanted by the rising social injustice, wealth gap and dysfunctional education system, is increasingly losing hope in their country. We also have one of the highest poverty rates among the elderly.

These factors explain why Korea regularly ends up at the bottom of the happiness index among OECD countries and has one of the highest suicide rates. The nation has ranked low on global indexes measuring work and life balance. Koreans, who live in a highly competitive and stressful society, need to learn lessons from Denmark, which was ranked at the top of a happiness index by the U.N. last year. Denmark was also among the leading countries in an index measuring quality of life among OECD countries.

Here are some suggestions for hygge. .

- We instead of I: do something with others rather than alone, like having a family dinner.

- Lots of candles: Wiking's book says "no candles, no hygge." Candles are essential to creating a hygge-style living room or any other space you spend a lot of time in. They instantly create a soothing atmosphere.

- Reduce late hours at the office: be productive and finish work on time so that you can spend more time with loved ones.

- Exercise: Danish people love to cycle. Set aside time for physical exercise and enjoy fresh air.

- Spend time in the kitchen: making a pot of healthy porridge or baking your favorite pastry can give you a sense of fulfillment. The book had photos of some very simple yet healthy recipes, such as a fish dish and tomato salad placed beautifully on a blue and white plate.

- Indulge yourself: a piece of cake will make your coffee or tea time more enjoyable.

- Try to be thankful every day.

As a way to unwind, I have been trying to bring hygge into my life. One of the first things I did was to stock up on candles of all sizes, some warm blankets and several kinds of tea. I have always loved candles, but since I learned that it is central to hygge, I have grown more attached to them. It has become a ritual for me to warm up my living room with tea light candles and make a pot of earl grey or vanilla tea when I get home from work.

I hope this brief introduction to hygge will help our readers find more peace of mind and balance in their daily lives for a happy year.
A month has passed since Japanese Ambassador Yasumasa Nagamine and Yasuhiro Morimoto, the Japanese consul general in Busan, were recalled by Tokyo on Jan. 9 to protest the "girl statue" that a civic group set up in front of the Consulate General building in Busan.



The statue was built to remember the suffering of Korean women who were forced to serve as sexual slaves for the Japanese Army before and during World War II. But Japan has called for the removal of the statues, claiming that they undermine the dignity of its diplomatic missions.



Since the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1965, such a prolonged absence of a Japanese ambassador in Korea is unprecedented. In 2012, Japan's top envoy Masatoshi Muto temporarily returned to his home country to protest then-President Lee Myung-bak's visit to Dokdo, but resumed his duties in Seoul 12 days later.



It is feared that Korea-Japan ties will worsen in the weeks ahead. On Feb. 22 Japan will hold a "Takeshima Day" event which highlights Tokyo's sovereignty claims over Dokdo, known as Takeshima in Japan. In March, Japan's education ministry is expected to revise curriculum guidelines for school textbooks to emphasize its sovereignty over Dokdo.



The dilemma for Seoul lies in that it is very difficult to convince the civic group to remove the statue for fear of inflaming public sentiment. But the foreign ministry also needs to find a way to deliver its share of a 2015 bilateral deal, which aimed to resolve the dispute over the so-called comfort women. Tokyo has claimed that since it has kept its part of the deal to finance a fund for supporting the surviving victims, it's time for Seoul to act on removing the statues.



The recent diplomatic tension shows that there are still a lot of misunderstandings between the two countries over the 2015 deal.



During the G20 foreign minister's meeting, Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se should meet his counterpart Fumio Kishida and discuss ways to improve bilateral ties despite differences over historical conflicts. Tokyo should also return its ambassador to Korea at an early date to normalize diplomatic relations.




By Donald Kirk





President Donald Trump's most fearsome offensive on the world stage has nothing to do with immigration reform, or building that wall all along the U.S. border with Mexico, or defense or treaty alliances or the North Korean nuke-and-missile threat. It's all about U.S. trade relations with the rest of the world.

When you come right down to it, all that other stuff may be good for headlines but isn't going to affect most Americans directly. The hassle over letting refugees into the U.S. doesn't faze people too much on a personal level. Sure, Trump may be raising suspicions  and prejudices  against Muslims and Mexicans, but lives of most people won't change dramatically just because he would like to keep them off American soil.

Nor do people really worry a lot, day in and day out, about the network of U.S. treaty alliances that shield them against their enemies. Kim Jong-un may threaten to fire a long-range missile that's capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to a distant target, but who believes he'll really attach a live warhead to one of those devices or launch even a mid-range missile for real at targets in America's Northeast Asian allies, South Korea and Japan?

Ah, but trade with the rest of the world is another matter. That's where the money and jobs are, and Trump would not be president had he not won over rust-belt states with his promise to "make American great again." Inherent in the promise was and is the vision of bringing jobs and economic security, and upward mobility to middle-and-working-class people who have felt left out in the flight of industry overseas, the hollowing-out of once prosperous communities built on industrial prowess in the pre-digital age.

So what on earth is Trump going to do about it? Right off, he and his aides are talking about currency reform  no, not the American currency but the currency of a host of other nations that they say is undervalued. They're convinced, if only China, Japan, Germany, Korea and maybe a few others raised the exchange rate of their currencies they wouldn't pour out their products at bargain prices in the U.S., undercutting American products and costing jobs for American workers.

That's an argument that's easy to understand. The U.S. trade deficit is out of control. China made $347 billion dollars off the American market last year, according to the latest official stats from Washington, accounting for about 60 percent of the overall U.S. trade deficit. Trump's trade adviser, Peter Navarro, in a much-quoted interview with the Financial Times, singled out China and two other offenders, Germany and Japan, as currency manipulators. Japan's trade surplus with the U.S. last year was nearly $70 billion. Germany came next with a surplus approaching $65 billion.

These numbers are so mind-boggling that it's hard to know what to make of them. Combine them with the U.S. national debt of nearly $20 trillion, and you begin to wonder how much longer the U.S. can go on this way. Trump wonders too. That's why he's threatening to get tough, really tough, instigating a trade war beginning by slapping protective tariffs on China, as he's said many times during his campaign and to a more muted degree since his election.

The implications of a global trade war, closing markets behind tariff walls, are disturbing. Obviously South Korea, with a surplus with the U.S. last year totaling $27.6 billion, would be caught up in the turmoil. The U.S. might not label Korea a currency "manipulator," but trade and commerce officials view Korea's currency, like those of China, Japan and Germany, as "undervalued." Trump has said he wants to do away with the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, with which the U.S. also has enormous deficits. Next, he might go after the Korea-U.S. FTA, arguing that the U.S. deficit with Korea has only increased since the deal took effect five years ago.

The ruckus over the deficit risks repercussions far beyond trade. U.S. constraints on trade imposed in 1930 after the 1929 stock market crash are often blamed for bringing on World War II. That lesson resonates today. Trump has the right and reason to bargain hard, but no one wants to risk the war that looms darkly over barriers to trade.





Donald Kirk, www.donaldkirk.com, has been covering economic, military and political issues in Asia for decades. He's at kirkdon4343@gmail.com.
By Lee Hyo-sik





Park Sam-koo

Kumho Asiana Group Chairman Park Sam-koo is moving closer to rebuilding his fallen empire after raising nearly a trillion won ($870 million) to buy back a controlling stake in the group's former tire unit.

Kumho officials said Thursday that Park has secured the funds from several financial investors and business associates to buy a 42.1 percent stake in Kumho Tire held by the Korea Development Bank (KDB) and other creditors.

"The chairman has successfully attracted about 1 trillion won needed for taking control back of Kumho Tire," a Kumho Asiana official said. "As soon as creditors notify Park of the sales price, he will exercise his right to buy back the stake in the tire unit."

Park will soon set up a wholly owned special-purpose company to receive funds from investors, according to the official. When asked to name the investors, the official said he did not know who they are.

Creditors on Jan. 17 selected Double Star Tires, a mid-tier Chinese tire maker, as a preferred negotiator, which outbid two other Chinese contenders  Shanghai Aerospace Industry Corp. and Jiangsu GPRO Group.

The Chinese company reportedly offered to pay between 950 billion won and 1 trillion won for a controlling stake. To retake control of Kumho Tire, Park must beat Double Star's offer.

Creditors plan to sign a stock purchase agreement with Double Star later this month and inform the Kumho chairman of the sales price and other conditions. Park will then have to let creditors know within 30 days whether he will pay a higher price or give up his right.

The Kumho chief is not allowed to acquire the stake through a third party because the creditors decided not to allow him to transfer a prior stock purchase right to a third party.

Park cannot mobilize Asiana Airlines or other group units either to reacquire the tire unit, meaning he has to use his personal funds.

This has left Park with no choice but to establish a private company to raise the money. The chairman is short of cash after spending tens of billions of won buying back control of Kumho Industrial and increasing shares in other group units.

The banks acquired their stake in a debt-for-equity swap in 2010 when Kumho Asiana suffered a severe liquidity shortage. They then signed an agreement to negotiate first with Park when unloading their Kumho Tire stake.

Besides four plants in China, Kumho Tire operates three plants in Korea and one each in Vietnam and the United States. In 2016, the company had 2.95 trillion won in sales and posted a 120 billion won operating profit.
By Park Jae-hyuk



HDC Shilla has become the first and only profitable duty free shop operator among those that obtained a license in 2015, although it is only a monthly figure.



The joint venture between Hotel Shilla and Hyundai Development Corporation (HDC) said Thursday it posted 53.2 billion won ($46 million) in sales in January for an operating profit of 125 million won.



The positive results came only 10 months after the store's opening last March.



It chalked up sales of 397.5 billion won last year for an operating loss of 20.9 billion won. Observers say that last month's result would give momentum for its turnaround this year.



HDC Shilla aims to turn to profit on 750 billion won in turnover this year. Its duty free store in Yongsan, Seoul, has most luxury brand shops, including Bottega Veneta, Gucci, Bulgari and Burberry. It will open a Louis Vuitton outlet in the first half of this year.



Hyundai I'Park Mall that houses the duty free shop will be expanded by 64,000 square meters this year. HDC Shilla expects to attract more than 1 million visitors a year when CJ CGV completes building a Korean cultural complex there.



Duty free businesses have suffered from a decrease in Chinese tourists and saturation of the domestic market. Against this backdrop, HDC Shilla said it has focused on efficient management rather than heading toward cutthroat competition.



The Seoul-based company has invited internet celebrities from China and hosted various events to attract more tourists. The firm also has promoted the Yongsan area, collaborating with Yongsan Electronics Market.



The company said its success can be attributed to Hotel Shilla's accumulated know-how of running duty free shops and infrastructure established by HDC. The store's location is also an important factor in its success, according to the company. It is directly connected to Yongsan Station.



"The recent outcome is meaningful in terms of making sustainable growth possible," HDC Shilla chief Yang Chang-hoon said. "We will not be satisfied with the status quo and will try our best to maintain the surplus."




A protest has been planned in Sharm el-Sheikh, the venue of the summit.
The Vietnamese bankers who returned from Eastern Europe, Russia

Mr Nguyen Dang Quang



VietNamNet Bridge - Businessmen returning from Eastern Europe have set up large businesses in Vietnam and made great contributions to the countrys economic development.In the early 2000s, Vietnam welcomed businessmen returning from the former USSR and Eastern Europe looking for investment opportunities in the homeland. They were born in the 1960s and later, and and cherished the hope of getting rich in the land where they were born.With talent and assets created when doing business in Russia and Eastern Europe, they have quickly set up large conglomerates in Vietnam.Analysts noted that most of the largest joint-stock banks in Vietnam were founded by businessmen returning from Eastern Europe.VIB Bank was established in 1996 and Dang Khac Vy was one of the founding members of the bank.Vy, born in 1968, graduated from RSGPU, a geological exploitation university in Moscow, and then obtained a doctorate of economics from the Russia Federation Academy of Science.Being one of the founding members of VIB, there is little information about Vy. What people know about him is that he is among the businessmen returning from Eastern Europe, together with Ho Hung Anh, Nguyen Dang Quang and Ngo Chi Dung.IFC, when learning about VIB and the assets of the members of the banks board of directors, found that Vy and his family members are big shareholders of the bank.In Vietnam, Vy also invests money in the food sector (Uniben). He is also president of Mareven Food Holdings, one of the largest conglomerates owned by Vietnamese overseas.Mareven Food Central, belonging to Mareven Food Holdings, was listed by Forbes among the 200 biggest private companies in Russia.The total assets of VIB Bank by the end of 2016 had reached VND105 trillion. On January 9, 2017, more than 564 million VIB shares were put into transaction on UpCom.Techcombank was established in September 1993 by a group of people who graduated from prestigious universities in Russia, with initial investment capital of VND20 billion.Two important faces in Techcombanks board of directors since May 2012 are Ho Hung Anh, chair of BOD, and Nguyen Dang Quang, vice chair of BOD, who is also the chair and vice chair of Masan Group.Though Anh and Quang joined Techcombank early, their role only became more important after the departure of Nguyen Thi Nga and when the Masan Group got more deeply involved in the banks business.There is another famous man with Eastern Europe origin in Techcombank  Nguyen Duc Vinh. He joined Techcombank in 2000 and during 12 years of managing the bank, Vinh played a big role in turning Techcombank into one of the largest banks in Vietnam.





Kim Chi
Historic ties of north Meck span throughout region Though the north Mecklenburg area didnt see significant population growth until a few decades ago, its rich history dates back to the Revolutionary War. That was the basis of...

An easier-than-expected first mammogram experience HUNTERSVILLE  Scheduling a cancer screening probably ranks somewhere on your to-do list between "clean out the garage" and "donate those clothes that don't fit." Sure, you'll get to it at...
PRESS RELEASE

Kiev Regime Fueling the War in the Donbass

Feb. 8, 2017 (EIRNS)Recognition that the Kiev regime is behind the recent escalation of the fighting in the Donbass is coming to some in the West. An article in Foreign Policy by Isaac Webb, a freelance writer based in Kiev, not only connects the renewed fighting to the arrival in office of President Trump, but it also notes that the Kiev regime has been moving heavy weapons into areas along the line of contact where they are banned by the Minsk agreements. He furthermore states that "theres no evidence that regular Russian troops are involved in the current fighting," though he otherwise places equal blame for the recent escalation in fighting on Russia. At the same time, the Ukrainian presidents office has used the escalation to "remind" Trump of the "costs" of rapprochement with Russian President Vladimir Putin: "The shelling is massive. Who would dare talk about lifting the sanctions in such circumstances?" Poroshenko said on Jan. 31.

In comments made yesterday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov appeared to be responding, at least in part, to Webbs article.

"If someone hopes that all Ukraines problems will be solved as soon as Kiev regains full control of Donbass, they are wrong, for it is impossible."

This is why Kiev must settle for implementing the Minsk agreements, Lavrov added.

At the Pentagon, Defense Department spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis admitted: "We havent seen any sort of large-scale movement of Russian forces that would suggest this is a part of something bigger," he told reporters yesterday.

"This is a flair-up of violence, but at this point we see no reason to believe it is a part of a broader problem or preparation for something bigger,"

Davis said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone yesterday on the Ukrainian situation. Merkel called on Putin

"to use his influence on separatists in eastern Ukraine to stop the violence there, and the two agreed on the need for new ceasefire efforts, a German government spokesman said," reports Reuters.

Putin clearly disagreed with the notion that Russia is controlling events on the ground.

"Vladimir Putin drew Angela Merkels attention to the data of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission as well as statements by official Kiev representatives, which indicate attempts by the Ukrainian security forces to change the situation at the contact line in their favour by military means,"

reports the Kremlin readout.
PRESS RELEASE

International North-South Transport Corridor on the Verge of Becoming Fully Rail-linked

Feb. 8, 2017 (EIRNS)The International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) that links the Persian Gulf to Europe through Iran, Azerbaijan, and Russia, is getting closer to having full rail connections. Irans Vice Minister of Roads and Urban Development, Saeed Mohammadzadeh, during talks on Feb. 7 with Javid Gurbanov, chairman of Azerbaijan Railways CJSC, said the rail link between the town of Astara on the Azerbaijani border with Iran, and an identically named town, Astara, on the Iranian side, will get rail-linked next month, The BRICS Post reported today. The completion of this link-up will leave only the Rasht-Astara section on the Iranian side to be completed. Reports indicate that work is in full progress and that this section will be completed this year.

INSTC starts off at Bandar Abbas port of Iran on the Persian Gulf, and proceeds northwards along the western shore of the Caspian Sea to Russia and beyond. INSTC also has a sea-route from Iran through the Caspian to Russia by ship and barge. Once the INSTC becomes fully rail-linked, it will shift a whole lot of cargo from Iran and the Central Asian countries, from sea to land transport.
PRESS RELEASE

Russia, China, and United States Cooperation Will Benefit the World: Ambassador Denisov

Feb. 8, 2017 (EIRNS) Ahead of Russias Feb. 10 Diplomats Day celebrations, Russian Ambassador to China Andrei Denisov told reporters in Moscow that

"it is necessary to end this global uncertainty and, of course, if the possibility of interaction between China, Russia, and the United States emerges, it will benefit the entire world,"

Sputnik reported today.

Pointing out that Russia and Chinas bilateral relations are based on mutual interest, and not on any ideology, he said it is the same mutual interest that prevails in the cooperation of these three nations. Denisov noted that China and Russia share a common vision on a number of international issues, adding that "the level of relations that is achieved between China and Russia is characterized as the highest in history," Sputnik reported.

He added that

"the three countries were doomed to undertake a collective leading role in the fight against terrorism, as there was no other way to defeat the threat,"

according to Sputnik. He also

"stressed that lately it was up to Russia and China to handle the task of improving the general international environment, and their bilateral relations became the major stabilizing factor in the international relations,"

Sputnik reported.
George Saunders first novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, is remarkable; lets get that out of the way first. Unfolding over one night in a graveyard not far from the White House, it tells a story that is, by turns, simple and complicated, tracing both a fathers grief and its effect on the Republic he serves. The Lincoln of the title is, of course, our 16th president, and his sorrow is for his favorite son, Willie, who died of typhus at age 11 in February 1862.

Lord, what is this? Saunders imagines Lincoln keening. All of this walking about, trying, smiling, bowing, joking? This sitting-down-at-table, pressing-of-shirts, tying-of-ties, shining-of-shoes, planning-of-trips, singing-of songs-in-the-bath?  When he is to be left out here?

Lest this make it seem as if the novel is somehow Lincolns book, it isnt really, although he sits at the center of everything. Instead, Saunders develops his narrative in pieces, building it through the accretion of dozens of voices, all talking in tandem or on top of one another, to create a kaleidoscopic point of view.

For the most part, these speakers are ghosts, denizens of the graveyard in which Willie has been laid to rest. They have carried with them into death their final state of being, physical and emotional. Thus, Percival Collier, a landowner who keeled over in his kitchen, moves through the afterlife (or this stage of it, anyway) with his shirt clay-stained at the chest from his fall, nose crushed nearly flat. Another character, Hans Vollman, is burdened with an undeflatable erection, having been thinking lustily about his young wife at the moment he died.

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Such flourishes are vintage Saunders; his four collections of stories are marked by outrageous conceits and turns of language, from the decrepit amusement park in which CivilWarLand in Bad Decline is set to the fox who narrates, in spectacularly broken English, the fantasia Fox 8. At the same time, Saunders has always been essentially an observer, which allows him to instill enormous empathy into his work. I think of a story such as Victory Lap, in which an adolescent watches as a sex offender tries to kidnap his teenage neighbor; the drama turns on the characters inner conflict over whether or not to intervene.

In Saunders universe, there are no easy answers, no ready-made conclusions; we are all flawed and frightened human beings. He evoked such a territory with wit and terror this past summer in his reporting on Trump supporters for the New Yorker: Sometimes, he wrote there, it seemed that they were, like me, just slightly spoiled Americans, imbued with unreasonable boomer expectations for autonomy, glory, and ascension, and that their grievances were more theoretical than actual, more media-induced than experience-related.

Its tempting to trace some sort of connection between Lincoln and the Bardo and the political climate in which it has been published, but to do so, I think, is to miss the point. Rather, its concerns are existential, metaphysical, even when politics enters the work.

To deepen the novel and give it context, Saunders regularly interjects bits of history and reportage (some of which he has created)  another layer of voices, as it were. The intention is to remind us of the world swirling outside the graveyard, although tellingly, it is a world of which the ghosts remain unaware.

Mr. Lincoln was President, ponders a ghost named Roger Bevins III. How could it be? How could it not be? And yet I knew with all my heart that Mr. Tyler was President. Memory, as it must, ceases at the instant of death.

Still, what else is Lincoln in the Bardo but a book of memory, the way memory lingers and shapes us, both as individuals and in a more collective sense? That is the source of Lincolns grieving, that he cant escape, or reconcile, his memories, that he has come, alone, to this graveyard to sit with his dead son in a futile attempt to bring him back.

Still, what else is Lincoln in the Bardo but a book of memory, the way memory lingers and shapes us, both as individuals and in a more collective sense?  David L. Ulin on George Saunders

Its in the nature of the bardo, which exists, in Tibetan Buddhism, as a kind of purgatory, a transitional space for souls that cant give up their former lives. All the characters here are trapped, prisoners of the past, bellowing their stories into the doorway, until it as impossible to discern any individual voice amid the desperate chorus. Worse, the living cannot hear them; to Lincoln, all the tumult is just a silent crypt in the dead of night The only solution available to them, then, is to let go.

The same might well be said of Lincoln, who is lost not only personally but also in the prosecution of the Civil War. Have exported this grief, he reflects. Some three thousand times. So far. To date. A mountain. Of boys. Someones boys. Must keep on with it. May not have the heart for it.  What am I doing.  What am I doing here.

Its a key moment in the novel, in which the political life of the nation blurs into the emotional life of the president, and Saunders uses it to astonishing effect, suggesting that, in looking into his own disrupted heart, Lincoln came to understand that the only way to do maximum good, bring the thing to its swiftest halt, was to [k]ill more efficiently.  Hold nothing back.  Make the blood flow  Bleed and bleed the enemy until his good sense be reborn.

The greatest mercy, in other words, might be the bloodiest  a perspective that is ruthless and ethical at once. How to measure suffering and sorrow? Is it better to back away from all of it, or to pursue the conflict to its speediest end? That there is no definitive answer is, of course, the answer, for morality, Saunders means to tell us, is always relative, in the sense that it must respond to the complexities of the world.

We must not be ruined, he writes,  [b]ut must go on.  We must see God not as a Him (some linear rewarding fellow) but an IT, a great beast beyond our understanding, who wants something from us, and we must give it, and all we may control is the spirit in which we give it and the ultimate end which the giving serves.

Thats a harrowing perspective, and yet, how else do we engage the world? Life is chaos and history a story, and even the greatest of our leaders are merely humans, after all. The recognition sits at the center of Lincoln in the Bardo, which is a book of singular grace and beauty, an inquiry into all the most important things: life and death, family and loss and loving, duty and perseverance in the face of excruciating circumstance.

The gentleman had much on his mind, Saunders writes about the president. He did not wish to live. Not really. It was, just now, too hard. There was so much to do, he was not doing it well, and, if done poorly, all would go to ruin. Perhaps in time (he told himself) it would get better, and might even be good again. He did not really believe it. It was hard.

Ulin is the author of Sidewalking: Coming to Terms With Los Angeles. A 2015 Guggenheim Fellow, he is the former book editor and book critic of the Los Angeles Times.

Lincoln in the Bardo

George Saunders

Random House: 349 pp., $28
Predicting diminished competition and likely higher costs, a federal judge has rejected Anthem Inc.s bid to buy rival health insurer Cigna Corp.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said Wednesday that the merger would significantly reduce competition in the already concentrated insurance market, particularly for large national employers. Cigna and Anthem are two of just four insurers selling to companies with 5,000 employees spread across multiple states, and they compete aggressively for business, the judge wrote.

Berman Jackson was unconvinced by Anthems argument that the merged company could save money for customers by combining the two insurers different approaches to cost saving. Anthem has negotiated lower payments to doctors and hospitals, while Cigna has focused on preventive care in the hopes of reducing future expenses.

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Eliminating this competition from the marketplace would diminish the opportunity for the firms ideas to be tested and refined, when this is just the sort of innovation the antitrust rules are supposed to foster, she wrote.

Anthem officials are reviewing the decision, spokeswoman Jill Belcher said. She declined to comment further.

Last month, another federal judge rejected Aetna Inc.'s roughly $34-billion bid to buy rival Humana Inc., citing in part concerns about competition in hundreds of Medicare Advantage markets.

U.S. District Judge John Bates said in an opinion filed Jan. 23 that federal regulation would probably be insufficient to prevent the merged firm from raising prices or reducing benefits. He added that neither new competitors nor an Aetna plan to sell some of the combined companys business to another insurer, Molina Healthcare Inc., would be enough to ease competitive concerns.

An Aetna spokesman has said the company is strongly considering an appeal.

The Justice Department had sued last summer to block both deals, and the cases went to trial late last year.

The two deals would have consolidated the nations five largest insurers into three, a list that includes UnitedHealth Group Inc., currently the largest.

The insurers have argued that by getting bigger they will be able to negotiate better prices with pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and doctor groups that also are growing. They also expect to cut expenses and add more customers, which helps them spread out the cost of investing in technology to manage and improve care.

Industry experts have said any repercussions for consumers from these deals would take years to materialize and could lead to savings in some areas, along with higher costs elsewhere.

The American Medical Assn. cheered the ruling, saying the merger would have created a healthcare behemoth too big to regulate and with too much control over consumers lives.

In a David vs. Goliath battle between consumers and mega insurers, a federal judge today ruled that Anthems proposed acquisition of Cigna poses a clear and present threat to the quality, accessibility and affordability of healthcare in the United States, Dr. Andrew Gurman, the AMA president, said in a statement.

In promoting the $48-billion Cigna deal, Anthem Chief Executive Joseph Swedish has also said the merger would help stabilize pricing in the volatile public exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act. He has said that would enable his company to keep its commitment to the public exchanges, a statement seen by some as a signal that Anthem would possibly slash that part of its business if the deal fell through.

The Indianapolis-based insurer, which sells Blue Cross-Blue Shield coverage in key markets including California and New York, offers plans on exchanges in 14 states and covers 839,000 people.

Many insurers have struggled in developing their business on the exchanges. Swedish said Feb. 1 that his company is waiting to see whether the government can make some short-term fixes for these markets before it decides how much it will participate next year.

He said Anthem is concerned about a health insurance tax and special enrollment periods that expensive customers use to sign up for coverage only when they need insurance, among other issues.

The Justice Department has pushed aggressively in recent years to block deals in several industries that they say would reduce competition. The Swedish company Electrolux and oil and gas service provider Halliburton both walked away from multibillion-dollar deals after being sued by regulators.

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The biggest fresh garlic producer in the nation is giving its employees a hefty raise, reflecting the desperation of farmers to attract a dwindling number of farmworkers.

Christopher Ranch, which grows garlic on 5,000 acres in Gilroy, Calif., announced recently that it would hike pay for farmworkers from $11 an hour to $13 hour this year, or 18%, and then to $15 in 2018. Thats four years earlier than whats required by Californias schedule for minimum wage increases.

Ken Christopher, vice president at Christopher Ranch, said the effect of the move was immediately obvious. At the end of last year, the farm was short 50 workers needed to help peel, package and roast garlic. Within two weeks of upping wages in January, applications flooded in. Now the company has a wait-list 150 people long.

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I knew it would help a little bit, but I had no idea that it would solve our labor problem, Christopher said.

He said the farm has been trying, without success, to draw new workers since 2014. Human resources frantically advertised open farm-labor positions, posting help-wanted ads online and urging employees to ply their networks for potential recruits. Nothing came of it.

Farmers across the country have reported that they, too, are struggling to find farmhands. The dearth of ag labor seems to have reached a tipping point when the Obama administration stepped up border enforcement and deported millions of undocumented workers.

Perhaps partly because of the crackdown, plus the financial crisis of 2008, more Mexicans returned home than migrated to the United States from 2009 to 2014, for the first time in decades, according to the Pew Research Center.

A stronger, more dynamic Mexican economy also seems to be prompting a turn away from careers in agriculture. The total supply of farm laborers in Mexico, for which growers in the U.S. compete, declined by 150,000 workers every year between 1980 and 2010, according to a study last year by Diane Charlton and Edward Taylor, researchers at Montana State University and UC Davis.

Kids arent growing up in rural Mexico to be farmworkers the way they once were, said Taylor. Mexico has been successful at building rural schools and providing kids in villages with access to education.

The shortage of workers is one reason farms have cut back production of fruits and vegetables by 9.5%, costing growers $3.1 billion in lost revenue, according to a 2015 report by the Partnership for a New American Economy, a nonprofit that promotes immigration reform.

Its continuing to become more acute as fewer new workers come into the country to do agricultural work, and experienced workers here are aging out of the industry, said Jason Resnick, vice president and general counsel for the Western Growers Assn. trade group.

The scarcity has prompted employers to give farmworkers a raise.

Between 2010 and 2016, weekly wages for those in crop production went up by 28% in California, compared with a 20% rise in average state wages overall, according to the Employment Development Department. Farmwork pays about $32,500 annually on average in California, the most recent data show. The pay data can include management and desk workers.

Agricultural workers have long been entitled to a minimum wage. Lawsuits over paying for breaks, training and other nonproductive time were largely resolved in 2015 when Gov. Brown signed legislation offering growers a way to settle back-wage disputes and avoid prosecutions. That law, however, is under review by a federal court.

The governor last year also signed legislation changing the threshold for overtime for farmworkers, who now can receive such pay after eight hours of work or more than 40 hours a week. Previous law set the bar at 10 hours per day and 60 hours per week.

Farm wages have risen more gradually in other parts of the U.S., still far outpacing the rise in pay for all sectors.

Throwing money at the problem hasnt solved anything yet, because it isnt drawing in workers from other industries.

The one constant is that no matter how much we pay, domestic workers are not applying for these jobs, Resnick said. Raising wages only serves to cannibalize from the existing workforce; it does nothing to add new laborers to the pool.

The question is whether Christopher Ranchs approach of offering bigger raises can be replicated elsewhere.

Christopher Ranch is a huge operation  employing around 600 workers who touch garlic and other food products every day  and so it may be better positioned to withstand a wage hike than smaller operators.

Garlic also requires a lot of human labor to harvest, package and roast, so the farm has an incentive to keep its workforce intact.

The company is at a disadvantage because it is nestled in the southern tip of Santa Clara County, home of Silicon Valley. The mushrooming tech sector has driven up average pay  and the cost of living  for locals across many sectors.

On average, people in Santa Clara County earned $121,212 last year, up 41% from $85,800 in 2010, according to the Employment Development Department. That means Christopher Ranch has to make its jobs attractive enough to draw in workers who may live far away.

When the farm raised its lowest wages from $10 to $11 last summer, no new workers streamed in, says Christopher, the vice president. He reasons that the extra $1 wasnt enough to tempt people to drive in from cheaper nearby areas, such as San Benito, Monterey and Merced counties, where one-bedroom apartments can be had for less than the $2,500-a-month average in Santa Clara County.

News of the eventual raise to $15, which workers learned about when they got their first checks in mid-January, spread quickly, though.

Moving to $13 became really attractive and made it worth it for people to carpool into these jobs, Christopher said.

Hes now getting applications from workers willing to commute nearly two hours to and from the farm.

I see this as an example of enlightened management, that realizes agriculture needs to adjust to a new world in which there will be fewer farmworkers than before, said Taylor, the UC Davis researcher.

To read the article in Spanish, click here

Natalie.Kitroeff@latimes.com

Follow me @NatalieKitro on Twitter

Times staff writer Geoffrey Mohan contributed to this report.

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If you thought the old Ikea in Burbank was a maze, brace yourself for its supersized replacement: a colossal labyrinth nearly twice the size, packed with even more quirkily named furniture and gravy-smothered meatballs.

At 456,000 square feet, the new Burbank store is the chains largest location in the United States. To put that into perspective, navigating the entirety of the old store clocked about 700 steps on my fitness tracker, or about a third of a mile. The new location? Two thousand steps.

Like most people who have moved and set up house  and did I mention Im a millennial?  I have spent a lot of time at Ikea, zig-zagging its cavernous aisles for sleek, minimalist Scandinavian designs that wouldnt break my budget.

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So when Ikea announced its new store would open Wednesday, I was there. Along with more than a thousand other people.

Many were in surprisingly good spirits after queuing, some as early as the day before, for a crack at the 26 free sofas and 100 free chairs that Ikea was giving away. Shortly before the doors opened at 9 a.m., an employee belted out the national anthem.

Dozens more workers flanked the escalator inside, cheering on the early shoppers and beating a steady drumbeat with white balloon sticks.

To many shoppers, Ikea serves as a source of design inspiration and also a frustrating maze that frog-marches you through seemingly miles of displays before reaching that one thing you actually came for. That was the case with the old Burbank store, which closed for good Saturday after opening in 1990.

At the new location, built on a 22-acre lot less than a mile from the old store, the layout is similar, but theres a lot more stuff: All 10,000 items that Ikea sells are carried here, compared with 7,500 at the old store. The restaurant fits 600, more than three times the old store.

Even the parking lot is bigger: Instead of sharing with other retailers at the Burbank Town Center, Ikea has allotted space for 1,700 parking spots. That is no small thing to this native Texan, who grew up believing that free parking is an American right, right behind life and liberty, and just above the pursuit of happiness (L.A. quickly taught me otherwise).

The aisles are more spacious and there are additional display rooms (50 versus about 40), including entire apartment mock-ups occupied by imaginary people. In one 376-square-foot pad, a sign written by a fabulously cosmopolitan fake couple waxes enthusiastic about their minimalist condo and nights spent theater-hopping and restaurant dining.

Ikea had been looking to move for a decade, motivated in large part by customer frustrations about the old store  confusing parking, a severely limited loading zone and a general claustrophobia during busy times.

It felt very crowded inside, spokesman Joseph Roth said. It wasnt convenient for customers. Its not as pleasurable as it could be or should be.

Roth said that wiping away those complaints should more than make up for the extra hoofing required to get around the gargantuan store. He also pointed to layout shortcuts that savvy customers can use to bypass departments  the new store has seven, up from five in the first-generation location.

The layout rewards loyal customers, he said, who know the way to cut directly to their final destination.

Several shoppers said they hoped to eventually get the hang of the new store, but had a little trouble navigating initially.

Ive already gotten lost, said Arthur Leander, a 34-year-old artist. Its huge!

The University Park resident said hed already asked three employees the way to the cash registers; each time, he lost his way again.

I almost had the other store memorized, Leander said. Now Im going to do it over again here.

Ikea isnt the only retailer that has to contend with how to draw customers into huge retail spaces.

The average Costco Wholesale Corp. store is about 145,000 square feet, said Richard Galanti, Costcos chief financial officer. In recent years, the chain has been going bigger and building locations up to 160,000 square feet.

Galanti said retailers have to be thoughtful about how to treat customers inside large stores. At Costco, displays in the middle section of the store are kept low, so shoppers can see all the way to the back.

The warehouse clubs food samples and seasonal items add a treasure hunt element to daily marketing. Costco also doesnt have signs pointing to where products are, to encourage strolling through more of the store, Galanti said.

Every merchant would like you to walk every aisle and every side aisle, he said.

Ikea has clearly done the math and decided that going bigger in Burbank makes sense for the bottom line, retail analysts said.

The majority of people dont buy furniture, they buy items, said Britt Beemer, founder of Americas Research Group. The more items people see, the more they buy.

However, retailers run the risk of alienating some customers. Out of the people who have stopped shopping at Ikea, 61% said it was because going to the stores was a waste of time, according to a survey conducted by Beemers firm.

Retailers try to play these games and make you go through the rat maze, he said. Consumers hate it, especially impatient millennials who would rather shop online.

As a member of the millennial tribe, Im guilty of that as well. My Ikea consumption is now done almost entirely online. Except for the meatballs.

shan.li@latimes.com

Twitter: @ByShanLi
Labor secretary nominee Andy Puzder pledged that, if confirmed, he would divest his multimillion-dollar stake in CKE Restaurants Inc.  the fast food company he has headed since 2000  and sell a wide array of other holdings, according to federal financial disclosure and ethics forms.

Puzder also promised not to participate in any matters as Labor secretary involving CKE, parent company of the Carls Jr. and Hardees chains, unless he first received a waiver or authorization in conjunction with federal law.

The forms were filed with the Office of Government Ethics and obtained by The Times on Wednesday.

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The 33-page disclosure report showed Puzder had $35 million to $119 million in assets, which are required to be reported only within broad ranges.

His stake in CKE Restaurants is worth between $11 million and $55 million. Puzder listed liabilities of nearly $4 million to $12 million, mostly mortgages on two personal residences.

Puzders confirmation hearing had been delayed four times as the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee awaited the forms.

Now that the committee has received the paperwork, a confirmation hearing has been set for Feb. 16, said Taylor Haulsee, a spokesman for the panels chairman, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.).

The paperwork delay apparently was caused in part by the complexity of divesting from CKE, which is privately held.

Puzder said he received $3.4 million in salary and bonus from CKE Restaurants last year. He said he would resign as chief executive upon confirmation and would not receive any severance or deferred compensation.

He said he would keep the estimated bonus of $1 million to $5 million that he is owed this year and reimbursement of $250,000 to $500,000 for his move to Tennessee, where CKEs corporate headquarters is relocating this year, if he receives the money before he takes office as Labor secretary.

If confirmed, Puzder said he would sell his holdings in 213 companies and other investments within 90 days. Those include AT&T, Bank of America, Exxon Mobil, Microsoft and Procter & Gamble, as well as bonds from the state of California and the University of California.

Within 120 days, he said he would sell holdings in 13 investment funds.

Senate Democrats have complained about the delay in receiving Puzders paperwork, one of several criticisms of him. His large net worth is likely to be a target at his confirmation hearing.

Democrats have been critical of labor law violations at his companys restaurants, and fast-food workers have staged protests against Puzders nomination in Los Angeles and elsewhere.

Democrats also have criticized Puzder for his opposition to increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. And opponents received more ammunition this week when Puzder admitted to employing a housekeeper who was an immigrant in the U.S. illegally.

Puzder said he was unaware of her immigration status and ended her employment when he discovered it, offering to help her obtain legal status. He said he fully paid back taxes to the IRS and California.

A spokesman for Puzder said the housekeeper was employed about five years ago but that Puzder paid the back taxes only after then-President-elect Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate him in early December.

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jim.puzzanghera@latimes.com

Follow @JimPuzzanghera on Twitter
The top Senate Democrat on Thursday called for President Trump to withdraw the nomination of fast-food executive Andy Puzder to be Labor secretary, calling him probably the most anti-worker choice ever for the cabinet position.

Democrats and workers rights groups have been sharply critical of Puzder, chief executive of Carpinteria-based CKE Restaurants Inc.

They have complained about the treatment of employees at the companys Carls Jr. and Hardees chains, as well as Puzders opposition to increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, among other views.

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On top of that, Puzder admitted this week that he had employed a housekeeper for years who was in the U.S. illegally.

On policy and practice, Andrew Puzder has proven himself to be an enemy, not a champion, of workers rights, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters,

They ought to withdraw Puzders [nomination] before he further embarrasses this administration and further exposes the hypocrisy of President Trump saying one thing to the workers of America and then doing another, Schumer said.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on the committee that will review the nomination, said the disclosure about Puzders housekeeper and that he failed to pay taxes for her until after he was nominated was shocking.

Not only is Andrew Puzder uniquely unqualified, but his decision to pick and choose what laws he himself follows is disqualifying, Murray told reporters.

A spokesman for Puzder said the housekeeper was employed about five years ago but that Puzder paid the back taxes only after Trump announced his intention to nominate him in early December.

The focus on Puzder comes after Democrats have been unable to derail other cabinet nominees theyve opposed. Murray said Democrats are focusing on him now because his confirmation hearing is set for Feb. 16.

The hearing had been delayed four times as senators awaited Puzders ethics and financial disclosure forms.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee now has received the paperwork, in which Puzder pledged to divest his multimillion-dollar stake in CKE Restaurants and sell a wide array of other investments.

Puzder also promised not to participate in any matters as Labor secretary involving CKE Restaurants unless he received a waiver or authorization in conjunction with federal law.

The forms, filed with the Office of Government Ethics, were obtained by The Times on Wednesday.

The 33-page disclosure report showed Puzder had $35 million to $119 million in assets, which are required to be reported only within broad ranges.

His stake in CKE Restaurants is worth between $11 million and $55 million. Puzder listed liabilities of nearly $4 million to $12 million, mostly mortgages on two personal residences.

Puzder said he received $3.4 million in salary and bonus from CKE Restaurants last year. He said he would resign as chief executive upon confirmation and would not receive any severance or deferred compensation.

He said he would keep the estimated bonus of $1 million to $5 million that he is owed this year and reimbursement of $250,000 to $500,000 for his move to Tennessee, where CKEs corporate headquarters is relocating this year, if he receives the money before he takes office.

If confirmed, Puzder said he would sell his holdings in 213 companies and other investments within 90 days. Within 120 days, he said he would sell holdings in 13 investment funds.

Democrats have been critical of labor law violations at CKE Restaurants, and fast-food workers have staged protests against Puzders nomination in Los Angeles and elsewhere. Workers in the Fight for $15 movement are planning rallies against Puzder Monday at CKEs Anaheim offices and in two dozen other cities.

jim.puzzanghera@latimes.com

Follow @JimPuzzanghera on Twitter

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SpaceXs prospects will turn on whether the company can pull off a year of firsts.

In 2017, the Hawthorne space company is planning the first reflight of a previously used first-stage rocket booster; the long-awaited debut of its larger Falcon Heavy rocket; and an unmanned test flight of its capsule, which eventually will ferry astronauts to the International Space Station.

Most important, from a revenue-generating standpoint, SpaceX also intends to increase its launch cadence, potentially sending up rockets as frequently as once every two to three weeks. Experience with rocket recovery also is important for the companys eventual plans to colonize Mars.

SpaceXs next launch is targeted for Feb. 18, when the company will carry supplies for NASA to the International Space Station.

The planned surge in launches has implications elsewhere. SpaceX will increase its presence at the Port of Los Angeles after the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners last week approved an expansion to the amount of land and water areas leased by the company.

SpaceX plans to use the additional areas to more safely and efficiently conduct its rocket recovery operations, according to a staff report to the board of commissioners, including taking used and relanded rockets off a droneship, removing unused rocket fuel and preparing the booster for transport to Florida for refurbishment.

SpaceX has a contract with satellite operator Iridium Communications Inc. for eight launches out of Vandenberg Air Force Base in California through early 2018. The first of those occurred last month with the launch of 10 communications satellites on one Falcon 9 rocket. It was the companys first mission since a September launch-pad explosion.

Bill Ostrove, aerospace and defense analyst for Forecast International, said the company needs to focus on increasing its number of launches and developing the astronaut crew capsule.

If theyre not able to overcome those two issues, I think its going to start raising some doubts among customers and investors, he said. 2017 is going to be a pretty important year for them.

Heres a look at SpaceXs ambitious plans:

Debut of Falcon Heavy

SpaceXs heavy-lift rocket, Falcon Heavy, is scheduled to launch for the first time this year. Analysts and investors say that could open new markets to the company.

When it launches, Falcon Heavy will be the most powerful operational rocket in the world, SpaceX says, with 27 engines that will produce more than 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff.

The Saturn V rocket that propelled astronauts to the moon generated more than 7 million pounds of thrust at launch, according to NASA.

Falcon Heavys first stage is comprised of three Falcon 9 engine cores, all of which are expected to return and land back on Earth much like Falcon 9s first-stage boosters. The starting price for a launch in 2018 is $90 million, according to SpaceXs website, and customers already are lined up for launch.

The rocket will allow SpaceX to launch heavier payloads and potentially take on deep-space exploration missions, said Kerri Cahoy, associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT.

It would really make them a more formidable player and definitely give the company an edge, she said.

Falcon Heavy also is key to SpaceXs plans for an unmanned Red Dragon mission to Mars in 2018. The company intends to launch a Dragon 2 spacecraft atop the massive rocket to demonstrate how to land large loads on the Red Planet without using parachutes or other aerodynamic decelerators.

The entire strategy of SpaceX has been to prove out something on a smaller scale and then reuse that proven component on a larger scale, said investor Steve Jurvetson, partner at venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

Faster pace of launches

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with 10 Iridium NEXT communications satellites lifts off at Vandenberg Air Force Base on Jan. 14, 2017. (SpaceX via AP)

In an interview with Reuters, company President Gwynne Shotwell said SpaceX could launch as frequently as once every two to three weeks after the company finishes renovations to its alternate launch pad, Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center.

That pad will accommodate both Falcon 9 launches, as well as Falcon Heavy launches.

SpaceX has said it has about 70 missions, worth more than $10 billion, on its launch manifest. Last year, the company launched eight missions before the explosion in September.

Phil Smith, senior space analyst at the Tauri Group, said increasing launch volume could be the companys most important goal this year.

Showing they can do one launch every two weeks or so is really what were looking for this year, he said. Itll tell customers that they can tap a launch provider that can swiftly integrate and launch payloads.

First flight of its astronaut capsule

This image obtained from NASA shows the SpaceX crew Dragon Weldment pressure vessel structure on June 29, 2016, in Hawthorne. (SpaceX / AFP/ Getty Images)

SpaceX is scheduled to launch in November the first unmanned flight test of a capsule that eventually will take astronauts to the space station.

A test flight with crew aboard is set for May 2018.

SpaceX and Boeing Co. are developing spacecraft to ferry astronauts. Since the space shuttle program ended in July 2011, the U.S. has relied on the Russian space agency to take astronauts to the space station.

Though NASA originally set 2015 as the target date for the first manned mission to the space station, both companies have faced challenges that led to multiple delays, according to a NASA Office of Inspector General report released in September. The report predicted that the first routine flight with astronauts likely would be delayed until late 2018.

Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that a draft version of a Government Accountability Office report highlights concerns about persistent cracking of vital propulsion-system components on the Falcon 9 rocket.

Citing unnamed sources, the Journal said NASA has warned SpaceX that cracks in the turbine blades that pump fuel into the rocket engines pose an unacceptable risk for manned flights on the rocket.

The September NASA inspector general report noted these concerns about the turbopumps, saying the company has experienced ongoing issues with stress fractures in turbopumps that must be resolved prior to flight.

SpaceX spokesman John Taylor said in a statement that the company has qualified its engines to be robust to turbine wheel cracks, but will be modifying the design to avoid them all together.

That change will come in the final design iteration of the Falcon 9 rocket, he said.

SpaceX has established a plan in partnership with NASA to qualify engines for manned spaceflight, Taylor said.

Shotwell, told Reuters the new turbopumps will be installed before the November test flight. She said the company had discovered two kinds of cracks during ground tests in 2015 and created a software fix and redesigned the turbine wheel to fix the more serious cracking issue. The first of those redesigned wheels flew on a Falcon 9 in July 2016, according to Reuters.

First reflight of a used booster

This first-stage booster of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket landed on a platform at sea in the Atlantic Ocean on April 9, 2016. (SpaceX)

SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk has long promoted reusable rockets as a way to decrease launch costs.

This spring, the company will have to prove whether it can turn around first-stage boosters that it previously launched and landed at sea, and blast the refueled rockets back into space. That first flight will hoist a communications satellite operated by Luxembourg-based SES.

In an interview with The Times last year, SES chief technology officer Martin Halliwell said he could not disclose the price the company paid for the launch but confirmed that the company did receive a discount for being the first customer.

Shotwell has said launch costs eventually could drop 30% by reusing rockets. SpaceX currently lists the starting price for a new Falcon 9 as $62 million on its website.

Cahoy of MIT said a successful relaunch of a previously used rocket could transform the company.

I think that theyre coming up against a lot of curiosity of how that will go, she said.

samantha.masunaga@latimes.com

@smasunaga

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Plenty of people have won Oscars, but only one man holds the record for the most nominations without a win. That would be sound mixer Kevin OConnell, who recently received his 21st nomination, this one for Hacksaw Ridge, which recounts the story of Desmond Doss, a conscientious objector who served as a combat medic in the Pacific theater during World War II receiving the Medal of Honor for his service saving the lives of others.

OConnell started his professional journey as a Los Angeles County firefighter. The job was sufficiently dangerous that his mother, Skippy OConnell, decided to introduce her son to her co-workers in the sound department of 20th Century Fox  spurring his career change.

I said, Ma, this is the greatest thing ever. I get to work on films like Grease and Animal House and Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Empire Strikes Back. How can I ever thank you? She was this feisty Irish woman. She goes, Someday, you go win yourself an Oscar, and you can thank me in front of the whole world!  OConnell recalls.

With more than 200 films on his resume, hes still waiting for his chance.

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On Hacksaw Ridge, what was the job of the sound mixing team?

 Hacksaw Ridge features Teresa Palmer, Andrew Garfield, Hugo Weaving, Sam Worthington and Vince Vaughn.

The sound editors supply the mixers with all of the sounds  all of the explosions, all of the gunshots, all of the footsteps, all of the dialogue, all of the music. Every single sound on that battlefield is on the mixing console on a fader, and the level can be controlled. And so its the task of the mixing crew to take all of those sounds, put them in perspective into one cohesive form and use that to create whatever type of emotion were trying to evoke for the audience at that time.

What were some key sounds in the mix?

The sound editors, Robert Mackenzie and Andy Wright, went to great lengths to make sure the sounds were authentic. Robert Mackenzie came across these wonderful World War II recordings of bullets whizzing through a battlefield that we used extensively throughout the film. And because of the modern mixing technology, where we have so many speakers in a room, 56 surrounding us, we literally could place those sounds throughout the entire theaterhave them whizzing over your head from front screen to back wall, left wall to right wall, etc. [One veteran] said the one thing that provoked his PTSD a little bit was the sound of the whizzing, cracking bullets flying over his head in the theater.

Was it ever hard to find the right sound?

Theres a scene in the movie where after the first battle, Luke Bracey and Andrew Garfield [as Doss] are hunkered down in a foxhole. And Andrew falls asleep a little bit and is surprised by a Japanese soldier, who pops his head up over the berm. And we couldnt quite find the right sound in either sound effects or music to shock the audience the way that [director] Mel [Gibson] was looking to shock the audience. So Mel said, Hey, guys, can I give it a try? So we gave Mel a microphone and ran him the scene. And right when the Japanese solider popped his head up over the berm, Mel screamed into the microphone. Rah! And then we took that sound, and we placed it in all 56 speakers around the room. And trust me when I say that the first time we played it, it scared the crap out of all of us too. And that became one of our tools for adding some shock value.

What went into the sound for the flashbacks?

Well, theres a scene after Desmond hits his brother with the brick. His parents are yelling behind him, and what we did is we ripped all of the top end off of the parents dialogue, and put different types of reverbs on them to make them sound like theyre in his head, not in reality. And then we took all of the natural backgrounds in the house, any atmospheres, and pulled those down, and then just took Desmonds breathing and raised that up and put some reverb on it. And it gave you the effect that were literally with him in his head thinking about what he just did. And then there were a couple of times we did that on the battlefield.

How do you feel about your 21st Oscar nomination?

I havent been nominated in many years, and I have to tell you something: I mean, I really felt like it was like the first time for me. I was elated. I was thrilled. And by the same token, I was humbled by it as well. And Im hoping the 21st time is the charm!

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Hidden Figures earned three Oscar nominations  for best picture, supporting actress and adapted screenplay. The film was co-written by Allison Schroeder and director Theodore Melfi. Here, the two describe their experiences with the film, both separately and again together.

Allison Schroeder

In high school, I was selected for NASAs Math & Science program. Id hop on the yellow school bus and head up to Cape Canaveral. One day, they walked us down a long hallway to an unmarked door: Whatever you do, do not touch the heat tiles or your parents will be charged $10,000. Before we could understand the warning, we were ushered into a hangar and there was the Space Shuttle suspended just above our heads. It was awe-inspiring. All of us quickly shoved our hands into our pockets, terrified of the consequences.

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Smiling at our respectful fear, the NASA scientists let us climb up the ladder to look inside. They let us stand on the launchpad. They let us touch the experiments being loaded into the payload bay. They let us be one of them.

Allison Schroeder (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

I knew I had to be a part of this project. How could these womens stories not be in our history books?  Allison Schroeder

When I left NASA to continue my studies in math and science, that wasnt always the case. I was often the only woman in the room. And so, years later, when film producer Donna Gigliotti sent me Margot Lee Shetterlys book proposal for Hidden Figures, I knew I had to be a part of this project. How could these womens stories not be in our history books? How could little girls not know of the pioneers before them?

For Ted and me, Katherine Johnson [played by Taraji P. Henson in the film] was always the spine of the story. John Glenn really did request: Get the girl to run the numbers. If she says theyre good, Im ready to go. So our climax was clear, because nothing we dreamed up would ever be better than that moment of truth.

But Katherine, now 98, had one request: that the script not be just about her, but the other women she worked with as well. Because for Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughan, it was always a team effort.

 A trailer for Hidden Figures, starring Taraji P. Henson and Octavia Spencer.

Theodore Melfi

I grew up in Brooklyn, in what I now know was poverty. Sharing a tiny bedroom with my two brothers, eating government cheese and passing down sneakers until they were unpassable  I simply thought the whole world lived as such, especially in pre-gentrified Williamsburg of the 1980s.

After a tumultuous 20-year marriage, my father up and left one day, leaving my mother to raise three boys without the means to do so. And yet somehow she did. At the age of 50, she enrolled in nursing school and became a nurse and worked countless overtime hours and weekend shifts just to give us a fighting chance.

I say this to say, I never thought for a moment I was privileged. Quite the opposite actually. But I am. The journey of making Hidden Figures has shown me the automatic privilege that all white men are afforded in America in 2017 and in any and every year before that.

This became crystal clear to me while I was traveling with actress Octavia Spencer and her stylist Val Noble. We were returning to the States from a screening of the film in London and we stopped in the first class lounge at Heathrow Airport. Octavia and Val sat down on a couch and I left to buy lipstick for a friend at the duty-free shop.

When I returned, a half an hour later, Octavia and Val were in the exact same spot. I noticed they had not been served. Nothing. No coffee, no tea, nothing. The moment I arrived at the couch, a server waltzed right up to me and asked, May I get you something, sir? It was then that I noticed the looks on Octavias and Vals faces: sadness crossed with familiarity. And Octavia said two words. Two words I will never forget for the rest of my life, You see?

Writer-director Theodore Melfi (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Hidden Figures is no longer just a movie for me. Its a mission.  Theodore Melfi.

And I saw. In that relatively ordinary moment, I saw my privilege. I saw their disadvantage. I saw endless years of bias and unfairness and mistreatment and suffering. Octavia Spencer cant get a cup of coffee. I can. Period.

And so Hidden Figures is no longer just a movie for me. Its a mission.

Allison Schroeder and Theodore Melfi

We pored over every word in the screenplay for Hidden Figures. It was important to us on so many levels. Important to show kids of all shapes, sizes, colors and creeds the power they possess with their intellect, imagination and perseverance. Important for single moms to see Katherine Johnson raise three girls while working in the most pressurized think tank in the world. And important for white males to understand their privilege and see what true leadership looks like: the meritocracy of NASA.

As flawed as that time in Americas history was, NASAs white male management conceded and let black women and white women work at the highest levels in engineering and math. The mission superseded all. And thats the moral of the story and the mantra we need to be reminded of in 2017. As Kevin Costners character says in the film, We all get to the peak together or we dont get there at all.

As writers, we spend endless hours searching for words, phrases, that perfect scene that will move a reader or touch an audience. But the truth is  Hidden Figures can be boiled down to two tiny words. Those two simple words uttered by Octavia Spencer in an airport lounge: You see? Its time for us all to see.

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James Corden is trying his best to weave through a thicket of famous (and famous-adjacent) people while balancing a tray carrying glasses and a bottle of Champagne. The Late Late Show host and man of the hour is dressed smartly in a fitted suit and white sneakers at Esquire magazines first Mavericks of Hollywood party, held at the Sunset Tower Hotel in West Hollywood.

Corden, the magazines March cover star, is slated to host the Grammys for the first time Sunday, but tonight hes just here to have fun with a few other members of the Hollywood glitterati. Among the stars in the crowd are Kate Bosworth, Liev Schreiber, rapper Desiigner, Edgar Ramirez (The Girl on the Train) and Matt McGorry (How to Get Away With Murder).

White-jacketed servers with lobster rolls and white wine navigate the event, presented by Hugo Boss, as a crowd of mostly black-clad guests chats. The din grows to a roar as conversations turns to politics, the womens marches and Trumps first 100 days in office.

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Im always down to talk politics, McGorry says. Its what I spend most days thinking of and its weighing on me today with the confirmation of Jeff Sessions [as attorney general] and with the Dakota Access pipeline now starting to be drilled in. Its a lot.

Matt McGorry, left, with How to Get Away With Murder co-star Billy Brown at the Esquire party. (Joe Scarnici / Getty Images for Esquire)

McGorry says he wasnt surprised by the election results, but the daily updates on President Trumps policies have made him angry, upset, confused and concerned for the future.

The actor, who also appears in Orange Is the New Black, self-identifies as an activist and intersectional feminist and goes on to stress the importance of political engagement.

If Im preaching to the choir, its because I want the rest of the choir to be preachers, he says. If all 750,000 people that were out for the womens march in L.A. were being active consistently and politically engaged, we would be much further along in the progress of our country.

Some other party goers seek to find the silver lining in the solidarity following the protests.

It was incredibly kind of electric, says Atlanta star Zazie Beetz, who attended the march on Washington and another protest in New York. I was waiting around for some friends and saw people that I knew, and it was cool to see that my friends and my people are coming out and we all stand and believe in the same thing.

Ramirez, who describes himself as a journalist as well as an actor, says these are challenging times.

I think that for free societies and for democracies as strong and compacted as the American democracy, its a great opportunity to test the strength of the core values this country was built upon, he says.

The Venezuelan says the election results didnt come as a surprise at all. He expects quality art to emerge as a result in the next four years.

This tension between art and power is very fruitful for art, he says. In the specific case of America, I think that were in for a great few years of movies because power and art is the tension that creates great things.

sonaiya.kelley@latimes.com

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Clooney, party of four!

George Clooneys wife, Amal, is reportedly pregnant with twins.

Hollywoods power pair is expecting a pair of babies this June, according to well-connected The Talk host Julie Chen, who confirmed and announced the actor and the British human rights attorneys life-changing event on todays show.

Clooneys rep did not immediately respond to The Times request for confirmation.

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On #TheTalk today @JulieChen confirmed that George & wife #AmalClooney are due w/ twins IN JUNE! Congrats to the happy couple! said a tweet from the CBS talk shows official account.

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These will be the first children for both the Oscar-winning producer, 55, and his 39-year-old wife.

They are said to be expecting a boy and a girl, TMZ reported, noting that rumors about the pregnancy came up after Amal Clooney (formerly Alamuddin) was spotted with a baby bump in London last month while their Clooney Foundation for Justice hosted a screening of the Netflix documentary The White Helmets.

Amal has let everyone in both families know quietly, a source close to the couple told People. Theyre all very happy.

The Clooneys wed in Venice in 2014, despite several proclamations that the actor, a perennial bachelor, would never again wed or have kids. (He and Amal had previously expanded their brood by adopting a shelter dog in 2015.)

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The Chinese family dramedy Duckweed, directed by Han Han and written by Yu Meng, is a winsome riff on Back to the Future. Race car driver Lang (Chao Deng) wins the race of his career but still harbors a grudge toward his stern father, Zheng (Eddie Peng), who never accepted his dreams. His life flashes before his eyes during a car accident, and goes step one further  Lang travels back in time to before he was born, befriending his youthful, immature father, an affable, cocksure gangster, and getting to know his mother (Liying Zhao), who died when he was a baby.

For all of its serious themes, Duckweed has a whimsical, magical realist sensibility, underscored by quirky musical montages and a penchant for American country songs. Peng and Deng as father and son, and later, best friends, are a charming, soulful pair  despite some dodgy old-age makeup on Peng in the films bookends.

Lang soon learns that you cant meddle with fate and ultimately embraces the chance to get to know his parents as people, not authority figures or blurry memories. The film cant quite figure out how to wrap up, overstaying its welcome with multiple resolutions, but its heart is in the right place, using fantasy to reveal poignant truths about empathy and redemption.

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Duckweed

In Mandarin with English subtitles

Running time: 1 hour, 42 minutes

Unrated

Playing: AMC Atlantic Times Square 14, Monterey Park; AMC Puente Hills 20, City of Industry

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Movie recommendations from critics Kenneth Turan, Justin Chang and other reviewers. Click title for full review.

Arrival Amy Adams stars in this elegant, involving science-fiction drama that is simultaneously old and new, revisiting many alien-invasion conventions but with unexpected intelligence, visual style and heart. (Kenneth Turan) PG-13.

The Eagle Huntress A portrait of a 13-year-old Kazakh girl from Mongolia who defies eons of tradition by learning to hunt with fierce golden eagles is a documentary so satisfying it makes you feel good about feeling good. (Kenneth Turan) G.

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Elle Paul Verhoevens brilliantly booby-trapped thriller starring Isabelle Huppert is a gripping whodunit, a tour de force of psychological suspense and a wickedly droll comedy of manners. (Justin Chang) R.

The Founder Michael Keaton gives a performance of ratty, reptilian brilliance as Ray Kroc, the American salesman who turned a California burger stand into the global fast-food behemoth that is McDonalds, in John Lee Hancocks shrewd and satisfyingly fat-free biopic. (Justin Chang) PG-13.

I Am Not Your Negro As directed by the gifted Raoul Peck, this documentary on James Baldwin uses the entire spectrum of movie effects, not only spoken language but also sound, music, editing and all manner of visuals, to create a cinematic essay that is powerful and painfully relevant. (Kenneth Turan) NR.

Jackie Star Natalie Portman as Jackie Kennedy and director Pablo Larrain brilliantly pull back the curtain on one of the most public of private lives. (Kenneth Turan) R.

La La Land Starring a well-paired Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, writer-director Damien Chazelles tuneful tribute to classic movie musicals is often stronger in concept than execution, but its lovely and transporting all the same. (Justin Chang) PG-13.

Land of Mine Explosive devices that can detonate at any moment are intrinsically dramatic, and this Danish World War II film makes good use of that plot mechanism, but it has a whole lot more going for it as well. (Kenneth Turan) R.

Loving Beautifully acted by Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton, this involving, socially conscious Jeff Nichols drama shows the personal lives of the interracial couple whose marriage led to the 1967 Supreme Court ruling that anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional. (Kenneth Turan) PG-13.

Manchester by the Sea Powerful, emotional filmmaking that leaves a scar, Kenneth Lonergans drama starring Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams is both heartbreaking and heartening, a film that just wallops you with its honesty, its authenticity and its access to despair. (Kenneth Turan) R.

Moonlight Superb filmmaking and an exceptional level of emotional honesty universalize a very specific coming-of-age experience, that of a gay black man growing from child to adult starting in 1980s Miamis crack cocaine epidemic years. (Kenneth Turan) R.

Paterson Jim Jarmuschs wonderfully serene and beguiling movie is a portrait of a young artist refining his craft, drawing impressions from his everyday existence and coaxing them into a pleasing and provocative shape. (Justin Chang) R.

The Red Turtle A prize-winner at Cannes, this immersive, meditative, stunningly beautiful animated feature that is concerned with the rhythms of the natural world and the mysteries and wonders of ordinary life. (Kenneth Turan) PG.

Silence Martin Scorseses wrenching adaptation of Shusaku Endos 1966 novel, about 17th century Portuguese priests experiencing a crisis of faith in feudal Japan, ponders the dogmas and mysteries of Christian faith with astonishing rigor and seriousness. (Justin Chang) R.

Toni Erdmann Sandra Huller and Peter Simonischek give splendid performances as a high-strung businesswoman and her screw-loose dad in this magnificently unpredictable comedy from German writer-director Maren Ade. (Justin Chang) R.

20th Century Women Mike Mills lovingly fictionalized snapshot of his late-1970s adolescence belongs to Annette Bening and her marvelously suggestive and layered performance. (Justin Chang) R.

Tanna Beautifully shot on a tiny Eden-like Pacific island, this is the surprisingly convincing story of the forbidden love between two young people and how it plays out in a traditional South Seas culture. (Kenneth Turan) NR.

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This years batch of Oscar-nominated shorts, whether animated, live action or documentary, deal primarily with sadness and strife, but a handful do so sublimely.

Of the animated films, most clock in at under 10 minutes, save Robert Valleys noirish half-hour epic Pear Cider and Cigarettes, a spiky, skewed-angles memory piece about helping a hard-drinking, self-destructive friend secure a new liver in China. Bulgarian-born Theodore Ushevs Blind Vaysha uses a hypnotic, churning woodcut-like technique to tell the gloomy fable of a village girl born with one eye that sees the future, while the other sees the past. Similarly steeped in loss, the Pixar-inspired (but darker) Borrowed Time, directed by Andrew Coats and Lou Hamou-Lhadj, depicts a sheriffs son returning to the cliff where the tragedy of his youth played out.

Two gems address individuating from parents. Perennial nominee Pixar has Piper, directed by Alan Barillaro, in which a sandpiper hatchling learns how to feed itself by figuring out the beautiful tandem of sand and surf. 2015s Oscar winner Patrick Osborne (Feast) returns with the music-driven, time-collapsing masterpiece Pearl, wherein a young woman playing an old tape recorder in a beat-up hatchback ignites a montage of memories. The car is the setting, as we see a busking, country-crossing young musician turn into the suburban father of a budding rock star. Its the animated equivalent of the perfect three-minute pop song (even if its six minutes).

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The documentaries tread typically heavy ground, the exception being the sentimental Joes Violin, directed by Kahane Cooperman, which chronicles a Holocaust survivor passing down his musical instrument to underprivileged Bronx schoolgirls. Dan Krauss Extremis  which directly and compassionately observes end-of-life decisions in a hospitals ICU  is more indicative of this fields coverage of grimmer topics.

For the rest, that means refugees and Syria. Daphne Matziarakis immersive 4.1 Miles, part of the New York Times Op-Doc series, shadows a sleepy Greek islands coast guard captain over one day as hes called upon almost hourly to rescue Afghans risking death at sea to cross over from Turkey. Virunga filmmaker Orlando von Einseidels The White Helmets follows a handful of oppressed Syrians in the titular humanitarian organization  motivated to wield a stretcher over a gun  who juggle training, rescue missions and fear for their own families safety.

The standout here is Marcel Mettelsiefens Watani: My Homeland, which spends three years tracking a war-torn Aleppo family as they leave an increasingly unrecognizable Syria  and a husband and dad who is captured by Islamic State  for calmer pastures in Germany. There are many moments of charm, heartbreak and hope, but the prevailing takeaway is that to ignore the challenges of people struggling just to be safe is to deny a fundamental human right.

This is the rare year when the live-action collection is strongest, even if Denmarks Silent Nights, directed by Aske Bang, is the clunkiest entry, packing a seasons worth of soap opera story lines into its romance between a Ghanan immigrant and a homeless shelter volunteer. More confidently winning is Timo von Guntens La Femme et le TGV, a Swiss confection about a lonely, train-loving boulangerie owner (Jane Birkin!) awakened by the promise of companionship.

What enriches this category are three sharply observed stories of pushback, starting with Selim Azzazis Ennemis Interieurs, depicting a tense mid-1990s exchange between a citizenship-seeking French Algerian man and his interviewer, who sees a man protecting terrorists. Whose sense of egalite, liberte and fraternite is truer?

The treasures, though, are metaphorical pearls. Hungarian Kristof Deaks Sing, about a prize-winning grade school choir and a rule that doesnt sit well with two of its young participants, is an exquisitely turned, moving tale about recognizing corruption and combating voicelessness.

Theres a silence, also, that passes between parking lot security guards who alternate shifts in Juanjo Gimenez Penas enchanting Timecode, but when these worker bees discover their own method of expressive connection, its as exhilarating and funny and beautiful an argument for finding art in life as a movie could make. As in the best of these nominees, to be who you are and do what you must is so much more than a short subject.

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2017 Oscar Nominated Short Films

Animated program: 1 hour, 26 minutes

Live-action program: 2 hours, 10 minutes

Documentary program A: 1 hour, 12 minutes

Documentary program B: 1 hour, 22 minutes

Not rated

Playing: In limited release shorts.tv/theoscarshorts/

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The opening title Based on a true story can cover a multitude of movie sins, but in A United Kingdom, it unlocks the door to a romantic drama that grows more remarkable by the minute.

While lovers faced with daunting obstacles is a dramatic tradition going back to Romeo and Juliet, if not further, the real-life barriers facing Seretse Khama (David Oyelowo) and Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike) when they fell in love in 1947 London were unusually intimidating and overwhelming.

The African Khama and British Williams had to contend with more than casual British racial prejudice, more than the taunts of yobs on the street or even the horror of Williams own father, who tells his daughter, You disgust me. Much more.

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 David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike star in A United Kingdom.

For Khama was not simply a handsome and charismatic African, he was also a prince of his native country, the British protectorate of Bechuanaland (now Botswana), and about to become king. And Williams was on the surface simply an ordinary office worker, leading to taunts like a chief cannot pluck a girl out of the typing pool.

Back home, not only were Khamas sister and the aunt who raised him aghast at the match but so were big chunks of the countrys population, especially his regent uncle Tshekedi Khama (an effective Vusi Kunene), who felt he was compromising Bechuanalands future and demanded he abdicate the throne.

More than that, the love match between these two caused serious international political dislocations. Bechuanalands neighbor South Africa, starting to implement its racial separation policy of apartheid, was furious at what it considered an affront, and as an influential member of the Commonwealth, that country had enormous sway with British policy toward the protectorate.

Quite a lot for a young couple to contend with; as written by Guy Hibbert (Eye in the Sky, Omagh) and directed by Amma Asante (Belle), A United Kingdom does a satisfying job of keeping all these balls in the air.

A United Kingdom is traditional, well-made cinema, with a taste for the obvious at certain points, but it has some powerful advantages. These include its remarkable story (Susan Williams book Colour Bar was a primary source), plus a director who knows how to convey its essence and a superior cast whose presence elevates the material.

Costar Oyelowo, persuasively sensitive as well as strong, has been connected to the project since even before his role as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 2014s Selma brought him to prominence.

The actor helped persuade Pike, much sought after after playing the disappearing Amy in Gone Girl, to take the role of the unwavering Williams.

And he wanted Asante after seeing Belle because he felt, the press notes relate, she convinces the audience that two people are falling in love before their eyes.

Along with its willingness to honor the storys complexity, it is that ability to make us believe that these two people have become so truly and deeply in love that they can withstand whatever the world throws against them that keeps A United Kingdom involving.

Certainly falling in love was hardly on Williams mind when she accompanied her sister Muriel (Downton Abbeys Laura Carmichael) to an earnest event called the Missionary Society Dance.

There she meets Khama, and the two bond over a mutual love of American jazz, and, as it turns out, the energetic swing dancing they convincingly take part in as their attachment deepens.

The reveal to Williams that Khama is no ordinary African but a future leader comes fairly early on, and A United Kingdom is especially good at conveying the attraction that continues to bind them even though they know it doesnt make sense. I will never achieve anything, he tells her, if I leave my heart here.

Inevitably less convincingly portrayed are the string of myopic Foreign Office Brits like Alistair Canning (Jack Davenport) who have their devious, distinctly nonromantic reasons for trying to derail this love match. When Canning threatens Khama with the assertive now you will see how an empire defends itself, he is for once being completely candid.

By contrast, the films portrayal of key Africans, starting with but not limited to Oyelowo and Kunenes performances, is one of A United Kingdoms strengths.

The films most effective nonromantic scene, in fact, has Khamas sister Naledi (Terry Pheto, from the Oscar-winning Tsotsi) and his aunt Ella (Abena Ayivor) having a why would you do this to us? confrontation with Williams that has both substance and bite.

Though it engages in some not surprising simplifying of complex events, A United Kingdom also displays a welcome yearning for fidelity, with cinematographer Sam McCurdy shooting exteriors in Botswana, including Khama and Williams original home in the village of Serowe (which the film crew sought out and refurbished).

The married couples real-life battles against the forces arrayed against them were fought one skirmish at a time over a number of years. A United Kingdom understands that it was by no means easy, but emphasizes the centrality of their determination not to allow the worlds ugliness to take our joy away. They dont, and we are all the better for it.

A United Kingdom

Rating: PG-13 for some language, including racial epithets and a scene of sensuality

Running time: 1 hour, 51 minutes

Playing: ArcLight, Hollywood; Landmark, West Los Angeles

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kenneth.turan@latimes.com

@KennethTuran
The letter wishing the Chinese people a happy Lantern Festival and prosperous Year of the Rooster was sent late  four days after the Chinese New Year holiday officially ended.

But the Chinese government didnt seem to mind.

It portrayed the letter, from President Trump to President Xi Jinping, as a sign of detente in a relationship that has grown tense since Trump was elected.

We highly praise the letter, Chinas foreign affairs spokesman, Lu Kang, said Thursday. As President Xi pointed out, China and the U.S. shoulder special responsibilities to maintain world peace, stability and prosperity.

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Trump has not been kind to China.

He has accused it of manipulating its currency, supporting North Koreas leader Kim Jong-Un, economically raping the U.S. and creating the concept of global warming as a hoax to undercut U.S. manufacturing.

He also offended Beijing by breaking longstanding protocol and holding a phone call with the president of Taiwan, over which China has claimed sovereignty since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s.

Though Trump has spoken by phone with more than a dozen other world leaders since his Jan. 20 inauguration, his only conversation with Xi took place in November, a week after the election.

Trumps top advisor on trade is Peter Navarro, a hawkish business professor at UC Irvine who directed a documentary called Death by China.

And his secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, told the Senate during his confirmation hearing that China should be denied access to artificial islands that it built in contested waters of the South China Sea.

If Trumps diplomatic team shapes future Sino-U.S. ties as it is doing now, the two sides had better prepare for a military clash, the state-run Global Times responded in an editorial.

But the newspaper said that Trumps letter has been largely seen as a kindhearted message  and a sign that the two countries may be moving toward a reasonable strategic relationship.

The Trump administration has softened its tone somewhat since the campaign and the transition period.

In a phone call last week with Chinas top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, National Security Advisor Michael Flynn noted that the U.S. government is committed to developing strong U.S,-China relations, Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported.

Trumps daughter, Ivanka Trump, attended a Chinese Lunar New Year event at Chinas embassy in Washington last week and shook hands with Ambassador Cui Tiankai.

And this week in Tokyo, Trumps Defense secretary, James Mattis, said that issues in the South China Sea would be best solved by the diplomats.

The relationship between the countries stands at a precarious crossroads, said a report released Tuesday by a task force of more than two dozen China experts who offered the Trump administration a list of recommendations as it crafts its China strategy.

The administration appears to be considering policy approaches toward China and Asia that could radically alter the basic strategy that previous Republican and Democratic presidents have pursued for many decades, the report said.

It said the administration should recognize that U.S. engagement with China from a principled position of strength in Asia has generally served these interests well and should be continued.

Shen Dingli, a professor of international relations at Fudan University in Shanghai, said that Trumps letter signaled a desire for reconciliation and was more effective than a phone call.

It is better to reach out to China indirectly, he said. Thats the reason why he sent a letter.

Yingzhi Yang and Nicole Liu in the Times Beijing bureau contributed to this report.

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The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Thursday that he needs several thousand more troops to help Afghan government forces break a stalemate with the Taliban less than a year after President Obama drew down American forces.

Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr. told the Senate Armed Services Committee that more troops are needed to help train Afghanistans military and police forces as they battle Taliban insurgents, Islamic State militants and other militias.



For the record: An earlier version of this article referred to the U.S. special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction as the Pentagons special investigator general for Afghanistan reconstruction.

We have a shortfall of a few thousand, he said. He said the troops could come from the United States or other countries in the international coalition in Afghanistan.

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President Trump said little about Americas longest war, now in its 16th year, during the campaign last year or since taking office. He has spoken far more often about U.S. military efforts to defeat Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, where the militants have steadily lost ground over the last year.

The Taliban, in contrast, controls more territory now than at any point since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, according to United Nations estimates. And the Pentagon has far more troops in Afghanistan than in Iraq and Syria.

In July, President Obama ordered a reduction of U.S. troops to 8,400 from 9,800 by the end of 2016, backing off his 2008 campaign promise to extricate the U.S. from the punishing war.

Nicholson, commander of U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Afghanistan, oversees about 6,300 NATO troops from 38 countries in addition to U.S. troops.

Nicholson wants more advisors to assist Afghan army commanders at the brigade level, rather than at the higher corps level, he said.

U.S. special operations troops routinely accompany and advise Afghan forces on combat missions, while U.S. fighter jets and drones provide air support and surveillance. The U.S. also has a counter-terrorism mission, which Nicholson said was adequately staffed, to track and kill militant leaders.

Nicholson described the war against the Taliban as a stalemate. He said Afghan forces had suffered twice as many casualties in the last two years as U.S. forces did in 10 years.

The Afghan government controls about 57% of the countrys populated districts, down from about 72% in November 2015, according to a report released Jan. 30 by the the U.S. special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction.

Our Afghan partners have been sustaining very significant losses, Nicholson said. And Im not sure thats sustainable.

Nicholson also said Russia was legitimizing the Taliban by creating a false narrative that the fundamentalist Sunni Muslims insurgents are fighting Islamic State militants, who are also Sunni Muslims, in Afghanistan.

He said Iran continues to arm and fund Shiite Muslim fighters in Afghanistan.

When we look at Russian and Iranian actions in Afghanistan, I believe that... theyre trying to undermine the United States and NATO and prevent this strong partnership that we have with the Afghans in the region, he added.

william.hennigan@latimes.com

Twitter: @wjhenn

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USC names retired aerospace executive Wanda Austin as acting president, announces Nikias departure By Harriet Ryan USC appointed a retired aerospace executive as interim president and laid out a detailed plan for selecting a permanent leader Tuesday, ending speculation about whether outgoing President C.L. Max Nikias might remain in the post. Nikias, embattled over his administrations handling of a campus gynecologist accused of sexually abusing patients, relinquished his duties after a meeting of USCs board. The trustees tapped one of their own, Wanda Austin, an alumna and former president of the Aerospace Corp., to temporarily run the university. The trustees also approved the formation of a search committee and the hiring of firm Isaacson, Miller to coordinate the selection of a successor. A second search company, Heidrick & Struggles, will also advise trustees. Read More Facebook

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Ex-student sues elite Brentwood School after teacher is charged with sexually abusing him By Richard Winton A former student sued the elite Brentwood School on Monday in the wake of a female teacher being charged with repeatedly having sex with the minor, alleging that other faculty members encouraged the unlawful behavior and failed to report it to authorities. The lawsuit accuses the private school, whose students include the children of many of Hollywoods elite and L.A.s powerful, of acting negligently and allowing Aimee Palmitessa to abuse and batter the teenager sexually. The suit alleges that the student was abused in summer 2017 after one of the schools counselors offered words of encouragement to the then-17-year-old, identified in the suit as only John Doe, to engage in an illegal relationship with the teacher. Read More Facebook

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Civil jury vindicates fired Montebello school executives in whistleblower case By Howard Blume The Montebello school district is in dire straits  at risk of insolvency and under apparent criminal investigation. An outside audit in July found some teachers earning more than $200,000 a year, as well as improper raises, excess paid vacation time and inappropriate overtime, sick leave and car allowances. Fixing the district and pinpointing blame could take time. Read More Facebook

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L.A. schools fall short on safety measures, new report warns By Howard Blume After the mass shooting at Floridas Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February, Los Angeles school officials reassured parents that much had been done to keep local schools safe. California had tougher gun laws, after all, and the school district paid close attention to students mental health. But a new report issued Monday by a panel convened to take a close look offers some cause for concern, flagging inconsistent campus safety measures, thinly spread mental health staff and inadequate coordination between the school district and other public agencies. With the stakes this high, we must strive to do better, said L.A. City Atty. Mike Feuer, who assembled the panel. Read More Facebook

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L.A. school district says more are graduating, but rate may not show it By Howard Blume The L.A. Unified School District has hopes of continuing its winning streak this year with another record graduation rate, but the official numbers may not show it. A senior district administrator warned the board Tuesday that graduation rates were likely to decline 2% to 3% across the state, even though L.A. Unified is likely doing better than ever in producing graduates, he said. The issue is that the state will now count high school students who transfer to adult school as dropouts, said Oscar Lafarga, who heads the districts office of data and accountability. Previously, schools treated these students as though they had simply enrolled in another high school, he said. Read More Facebook

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Betsy DeVos to California: Not so fast on that federal education plan By Joy Resmovits In April, Californias top education officials breathed a sigh of relief. After months of debate and back-and-forth with Betsy DeVos staff, they had finalized a plan to satisfy a major education law that aims to make sure all students get a decent education. The state focused on aligning its plan to fulfill the requirements of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act with Californias Local Control Funding Formula, which gives extra money to districts to help students who come from low-income families, are in the foster system or are English learners. But this week, DeVos team said not so fast. Jason Botel, the U.S. Department of Educations principal deputy assistant secretary, sent California education officials a letter asking for more information in such areas as measuring student progress, graduation rates and English learners. In an unsigned statement, the California Department of Education declared itself surprised and disappointed because officials thought  after a meeting with federal officials in Washington  that they were on the right track to get approval. Now the Every Student Succeeds Act plan will be up for discussion once again at the July meeting of the State Board of Education. The U.S. Department of Education has already approved most state plans. Every Student Succeeds is the Obama administrations 2015 replacement for the No Child Left Behind Act. Facebook

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L.A. school board sets a new goal: prepare every grad to be eligible to apply for Cal State or UC By Sonali Kohli Last month, Los Angeles school board president proposed a spate of highly ambitious mandates aimed at ensuring that every district graduate be eligible to apply to one of the states public four-year universities by 2023. By the time the L.A. Unified school board unanimously approved the resolution Tuesday, the original language had been watered down. The goal is no longer that in five years 100% of students meet the long list of benchmarks, which include not just college eligibility for graduates but first-grade reading proficiency and English fluency by sixth grade for all students who enter the district in kindergarten or first grade speaking another language. The original college-readiness goal, for example, called for 100% of all high school students to be eligible to apply to one of the states four-year universities. Now the goal seems to offer more wiggle room: Prepare all high school graduates to be eligible to apply to a California four-year university. Read More Facebook

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We have been hurt. More women say they were mistreated by USC gynecologist By Richard Winton USC student Anika Narayanan says she vividly recalls her first appointment with Dr. George Tyndall at the campus health center, alleging that he made several explicit comments during an examination she felt was inappropriate and invasive. When she came back for a second visit in 2016 after a nonconsensual sexual encounter, he allegedly chastised her, she said in a civil lawsuit and at a press conference Tuesday. He asked me if I had forgotten to use a condom again,  said Narayanan, 21. At one point, she said, Tyndall asked if I did a lot of doggy style,  she said. Read More Facebook

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L.A. Unified gives inspector general brief contract extension By Howard Blume The Los Angeles school board on Tuesday extended the contract of Ken Bramlett, its inspector general, by three months, though his job is far from secure and questions remain about the future direction of his watchdog office. Board members also unanimously promoted Vivian Ekchian, who had been the runner-up for the superintendents job, to deputy superintendent  the districts No. 2 position. Both moves had elements of peacemaking between different factions on the board. Read More Facebook

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USCs handling of complaints about campus gynecologist is being investigated by federal government By Harriet Ryan The U.S. Department of Education announced Monday that it has launched an investigation into how the University of Southern California handled misconduct complaints against a campus gynecologist, the latest fallout in a scandal that has prompted the resignation of USCs president, two law enforcement investigations and dozens of lawsuits. In revealing the inquiry by the departments Office of Civil Rights, officials rebuked USC for what they alleged was improper withholding of information about Dr. George Tyndall during a previous federal investigation. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who has been criticized for taking a less vigorous approach to examining sexual misconduct than predecessors, called for a systemic examination of USC and urged administrators to fully cooperate. Read More Facebook

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Judge to sentence woman and her boyfriend for the murder of an 8-year-old that led to L.A. child welfare reforms By Marisa Gerber A woman and her boyfriend are expected to be sentenced Thursday for the torture and murder of an 8-year-old boy whose killing in 2013 provoked public outrage, prompted sweeping reform of Los Angeles Countys child welfare system, and led to unprecedented criminal charges against social workers who handled the childs case. Pearl Sinthia Fernandez, 34, faces life in prison without the possibility of parole for her role in the death of her son, Gabriel. A jury decided last year that her boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre, 37, should be executed. When paramedics arrived at the boys Palmdale home in May 2013, Gabriel had slipped out of consciousness. He had a fractured skull, broken ribs, burned skin, missing teeth and BB pellets embedded in his groin. A paramedic would later testify that every inch of the boys small body had been abused. Read More Facebook

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L.A. Unifieds spending out of step with similar school systems, task force says By Howard Blume The Los Angeles school district is out of step with similar school systems, spending more on teachers pay and health benefits and less on activities that could enhance student learning, according to a new report by an outside task force. The L.A. Unified School District Advisory Task Force did not make specific recommendations, but instead posed a series of questions it said the district needs to answer to make sure its funding is aimed at providing a full opportunity for all students to succeed. What were trying to say is: Lets put the data on the table. Lets look at the truth. Lets be transparent and here are the numbers, said task force member Renata Simril. This is not to say that  we should cut teachers salaries. Read More Facebook

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Top USC medical school official feared dean was doing drugs and alerted administration, he testifies By Paul Pringle A former vice dean of USCs Keck School of Medicine testified Tuesday that he feared the schools then-dean, Dr. Carmen A. Puliafito, could be doing drugs and expressed concerns about his general well-being to the universitys No. 2 administrator before Puliafito abruptly left his job in 2016. Dr. Henri Fords testimony at a hearing of the state Medical Board marks the first suggestion that any USC administrator had suspicions about Puliafitos possible drug use before he stepped down. A Times investigation in 2017 found Puliafito led a secret second life of using illegal drugs with a circle of young criminals and addicts. Puliafito testified about his behavior at the hearing Tuesday, saying he took drugs with one young woman on a weekly basis. Ford said that he decided to alert USC Provost Michael Quick after receiving reports in early 2016 that Puliafito was partying in hotels with people of questionable reputation, and that he came to worry about his mental stability. Read More Facebook

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Why L.A. Unified may face financial crisis even with a giant surplus this year By Jessica Calefati With more than half a billion dollars socked away for next school year, the Los Angeles Unified School District hardly seems just two years from financial ruin. Its a scenario that is especially tough to swallow if youre a low-wage worker seeking a raise or a teacher who wants smaller classes. But budget documents show that todays $548-million surplus cannot be sustained  and that even basic services face steep, seemingly unavoidable cuts because of massive problems barreling the districts way. Theres a disconnect between the rosy short-term picture and what we know is coming, said board member Kelly Gonez. Read More Facebook

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We have failed: Top USC officials try to reassure students amid gynecologist scandal By Joy Resmovits Top administrators at USC are reaching out to students in the wake of misconduct allegations against the universitys longtime gynecologist, acknowledging failings and vowing reforms as they try to address growing outrage over the revelations. Several USC deans have sent out messages trying to reassure students and faculty that the university is committed to changing. We have failed, wrote Jack H. Knott, dean of USCs Sol Price School of Public Policy, in a May 24 letter. What happened is antithetical to everything we know is right. Read More Facebook

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Rick Caruso is named chair of USCs trustees, vows swift investigation of gynecologist scandal By Thomas Curwen The University of Southern Californias board of trustees has elected mall magnate Rick Caruso to be the new chair of the board, giving fresh leadership as the university navigates a widening scandal involving a longtime campus gynecologist. The move marks the latest effort by USC to address the case, which has sparked a criminal investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department and dozens of civil lawsuits. More than 400 people have contacted a hotline that the university established for patients to make reports about their experience with Dr. George Tyndall. In his first act as chairman, Caruso announced that the white-shoe L.A. law firm OMelveny & Myers would conduct a thorough and independent investigation into the gynecologists conduct and reporting failures at the clinic. He set an ambitious timeline for the review, pledging it would conclude before students return for the fall semester. Read More Facebook

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UC Berkeley students persistence helps win more liberal rules for in-state tuition By Teresa Watanabe Ifechukwu Okeke thought shed be a shoo-in for in-state tuition when she was admitted to UC Berkeley for fall 2016. She had moved to the United States from Nigeria in 2012 to go to Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga. By the time she got her acceptance to transfer to UC to study molecular and cell biology, she had lived in California four years. She had a California drivers license, bank account and rental records as proof. UC Berkeley, however, ruled she was a nonresident  which meant she would have to pay nearly $27,000 more. Read More Facebook

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State medical board calls former County-USC doctor a sexual predator, suspends his license By Matt Hamilton A UCLA cardiologist has been temporarily stripped of his medical license after state regulators described him as a sexual predator who assaulted three female colleagues when he was working and training at L.A. County-USC Medical Center. Read More Facebook

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Global California 2030 aims to get more students learning more languages By Joy Resmovits Tom Torlakson (Andrew Seng / Associated Press) Outgoing state Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson on Wednesday announced a new statewide effort to encourage students to learn more languages. Called Global California 2030, its goal is to help more students become fluent in multiple tongues. Torlakson said that by 2030, he wants half of the states 6.2 million K-12 students to participate in classes or programs that lead to proficiency in two or more languages. By 2040, he wants three out of four students to be proficient enough to earn the State Seal of Biliteracy. Torlakson announced the initiative at Cahuenga Elementary School, which offers a dual-language immersion program in English and Korean. Californias public school students speak more than 60 languages at home, and 40% come to school with knowledge of a language other than English. Torlakson called his plan a call to action that invites parents, legislators, educators and community members to pool resources to expand language offerings in schools and get more bilingual teachers trained. He said the state already is working with Mexico and Spain to expand a teacher-exchange program. Fluency, the plan argues, can help students succeed economically  and language acquisition can help their overall critical thinking. The initiative builds on Proposition 58, a ballot initiative passed in 2016 that undid an earlier requirement that English learners be taught in English-immersion classes unless their parents signed waivers. Torlakson recently visited Mexico and met with that countrys education secretary. They later signed a pact to increase collaboration, particularly in language education. This [Global California 2030] is great follow-through on Toms part and very important, Patricia Gandara, a UCLA education professor who hosted the Mexico meeting, said in an email. It hands over a plan to move forward in an area in which California has a unique advantage, but must seize the opportunity. Facebook

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Jury convicts man of murder in 2015 slaying of UCLA student found inside her burning apartment By Marisa Gerber A jury on Tuesday convicted a man in the 2015 slaying of a UCLA student found dead inside her burning apartment  a gruesome stabbing case that led to a fierce rebuke of the police response amid concerns that the killing could have been prevented. The panel deliberated for about six hours before finding Alberto Medina, 24, guilty of murder, arson, burglary and animal cruelty. On Sept. 21, 2015, firefighters found the charred body of Andrea DelVesco inside her apartment after responding to the complex a block from campus. The 21-year-old student  an Austin, Texas, native known to her sorority sisters as a fearless giver who befriended others with ease  was stabbed at least 19 times, authorities said. Read More Facebook

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LAPD begins sweeping criminal probe of former USC gynecologist while urging patients to come forward By Adam Elmahrek The Los Angeles Police Department said Tuesday it is investigating 52 complaints of misconduct filed by former patients of USCs longtime campus gynecologist as detectives launch a sweeping criminal probe into the scandal that has rocked the university. LAPD detectives also made an appeal for other patients who feel mistreated to come forward, noting that thousands of students were examined by Dr. George Tyndall during his nearly 30-year career at USC. More than 410 people have contacted a university hotline about the physician since The Times revealed the allegations this month. Tyndalls behavior and practices appear to go beyond the norms of the medical profession and gynecological examinations, said Asst. Chief Beatrice Girmala. We sincerely realize that victims may have difficulty recounting such details to investigators. We are empathetic and ready to listen. Read More Facebook

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At L.A.'s only school for the deaf, parents want leaders who speak the same language By Anna M. Phillips Ever since her son was 6 months old, Juliet Hidalgo has been bringing him to the Marlton School, a low-slung building in Baldwin Hills that for generations has been a second home for deaf and hard-of-hearing students in Los Angeles. Marlton staff taught Hidalgos brother and sister, both of whom are deaf. The school was where her deaf son learned to make the signs for milk and food. Hidalgo had planned to enroll her daughter, taking advantage of a popular program that allows hearing children to learn American Sign Language alongside their deaf siblings. But after more than a decade of involvement, she and other family members are considering withdrawing their children. They are not alone. Read More Facebook

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Fueled by unlimited donations, independent groups play their biggest role yet in a California primary for governor By Ryan Menezes An unprecedented amount of money from wealthy donors, unions and corporations is flowing into the California governors race, giving independent groups  unrestricted by contribution limits  a greater say in picking the states chief executive than ever before. The groups have already spent more than $26 million through Thursday, the most ever spent by noncandidate committees in a gubernatorial primary, according to a Times analysis of campaign finance reports. California elections have always been expensive, and the future is even more expensive, said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College and a former state Republican leader. The stakes are very real. Read More Facebook

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2 hurt in Indiana middle school shooting; suspect in custody, authorities say By Associated Press Authorities say two victims in a shooting at a suburban Indianapolis school are being taken to a hospital and the lone suspect is in custody. Bryant Orem, a spokesman for the Hamilton County Sheriffs Office, said in a news release that the victims in Friday mornings attack at Noblesville West Middle School are being taken to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis and their families have been notified. He says no other information is available about the victims. Orem said the suspect is believed to have acted alone and was taken into custody. No additional information about the suspect was made public. Read More Facebook

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For new L.A. schools chief Austin Beutner, some key unions are giving no honeymoon period By Howard Blume In the less than two weeks since Austin Beutner took charge of Los Angeles schools, unions representing teachers and administrators have staged a job action and a protest. Theyve made it clear that they will not give the new superintendent the traditional honeymoon period, and they are bashing him for his wealth and lack of experience running either a school or a school district. Beutner is a billionaire investment banker with zero qualifications, local teachers union President Alex Caputo-Pearl told members in a phone alert urging them to participate in a Thursday afternoon rally in Grand Park. The board is saying that billionaires who made their money blowing institutions up and making money off it know best  not the education professionals who have dedicated our careers to working with students. Read More Facebook

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Pressure grows on Board of Trustees amid USC gynecologist scandal By Paul Pringle USCs large and powerful Board of Trustees is coming under growing pressure to provide a stronger hand as the university faces a crisis over misconduct allegations against the campus longtime gynecologist that has prompted calls for President C.L. Max Nikias to step down. Allegations that Dr. George Tyndall mistreated students during his nearly 30 years at USC have roiled the campus, with about 300 people coming forward to make reports to the university and the Los Angeles Police Department launching a criminal investigation. USC is already beginning to face what is expected to be costly litigation by women who say they were victimized by the physician. So far, the trustees to whom Nikias reports have expressed sympathy for the women who have come forward and launched an independent investigation while also publicly backing the president. Read More Facebook

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UC regents approve leaner budget for Janet Napolitano By Teresa Watanabe University of California regents on Thursday unanimously approved a leaner, more transparent budget for President Janet Napolitano, moving to address political criticism over the systems central office operations. The $876.4-million budget for 2018-19 reflects spending cuts of 2%, including reductions in staffing, travel and such systemwide programs as public service law fellowships, carbon neutrality and food security. Napolitano shifted $30 million to campuses for housing needs and $10 million to UC Riverside to support its five-year-old medical school. She also permanently redirected $8.5 million annually to help enroll more California students, as required by the state. Read More Facebook

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USCs Academic Senate calls on university president to resign after a series of scandals By Matt Hamilton The body that represents USCs faculty called on President C.L. Max Nikias to resign Wednesday in the wake of relevations that the universitys longtime gynecologist faced years of accusations of misconduct by students and colleagues at the campus health clinic. The Academic Senate took the vote late Wednesday afternoon after a fiery town hall meeting attended by more than 100 faculty members, many of whom voiced outrage over Nikias and the Board of Trustees leadership. The vote came a day after the trustees executive committee stood firmly behind Nikias, saying it has full confidence in his leadership, ethics and values. At the town hall meeting, Senate President Paul Rosenbloom said he did not think Nikias or Provost Michael Quick committed wrongdoing but that the university president deserved criticism for a lack of transparency. Read More Facebook

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Californias public universities on the way to getting a big longed-for boost in funding By Teresa Watanabe The University of California and California State University systems are poised to get major funding boosts that will help them enroll thousands of additional state students and eliminate the need for tuition increases in the coming school year. A key Assembly budget panel on Wednesday approved $117.5 million in new funds for the UC. A Senate panel approved a similar sum last week. The same committees recently approved even more funding for the Cal State system. Read More Facebook

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UC regents to scrutinize Janet Napolitanos office budget in a step toward stronger oversight By Teresa Watanabe University of California regents this week plan to scrutinize the budget of President Janet Napolitano, whose office came under political fire last year for questionable spending and murky accounting. Regents will vote on the proposed $876.4-million budget for 2018-19 during their two-day meeting, which starts Wednesday, at UC San Francisco. They also will discuss state funding, financial aid, online education and transfer student policies. Board Chairman George Kieffer said regents are stepping up to exert stronger oversight of the presidents office after a blistering state audit last year found financial problems including an unreported $175 million budget reserve. Read More Facebook

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State legislative panels approve major funding boost for Cal State By Teresa Watanabe After months of intensive lobbying, Cal State University has convinced two key legislative panels to approve funding to enroll nearly 11,000 more students, hire more faculty and expand housing aid to those without shelter this fall. An Assembly budget panel on Tuesday approved $215.7 million more for Cal State, adding to Gov. Jerry Browns proposed $92.1 million general fund increase. A Senate budget panel approved a similar increase last week. The extra funding  which went beyond Cal States own request to the Legislature of $171 million  is still subject to final budget negotiations with Brown. But the actions by the Senate and Assembly panels amount to a demand from Democrats that the governor hike higher education spending. Cal State University is the workhorse undergraduate university serving hundreds of thousands of Californians, said Assemblyman Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento), who heads the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Education Finance. We need more graduates for the California workforce and higher education is the ticket to the middle class. Cal State Chancellor Timothy P. White hailed the actions, but said it was too soon to celebrate. The CSU has a singular focus on helping students earn high-quality degrees sooner, and the entire university community has rallied to reinforce that message to our states lawmakers, he said in a statement. The actions taken thus far by the Assembly and Senate are promising and show that our message is being received, but there is still work to be done. Funding for the University of California was not taken up Tuesday as originally scheduled. McCarty would not comment on sticking points but said he was confident that a resolution would be reached this week. Were looking to provide resources above whats in the governors budget, but negotiations are ongoing, he said in an interview. State per-student funding is not what it once was, leaving both Cal State and the UC in a tough financial squeeze. Both systems raised tuition last year after a six-year freeze on higher costs. For this year, Cal State had asked for funding to enroll an additional 3,621 students, but both the Senate and Assembly panels approved three times that amount. Cal State, the largest public university system in the nation, turned away 32,000 eligible students last year because its campuses werent able to accommodate them. The panels asked that at least $50 million of the extra funding be used to hire more tenure-track faculty to help boost graduation rates. The Assembly panel also approved one-time funding of $5 million to ease hunger on campuses and $14 million for rapid rehousing pilot projects at three campuses, offering needy students rental support and short-term case management. Other items approved include $5 million to support the CSU Long Beach Shark Labs research on sharks and beach safety and $2 million for equal employment opportunity practices. This post has been updated to include comments from Assemblyman Kevin McCarty and Cal State Chancellor Timothy P. White. Facebook

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Faculty members call for USC president to step down: He has lost the moral authority to lead By Matt Hamilton Two hundred USC professors on Tuesday demanded the resignation of university President C. L. Max Nikias, saying he had lost the moral authority to lead in the wake of revelations that a campus gynecologist was kept on staff for decades despite repeated complaints of misconduct. Read More Facebook

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Gun battle, negotiations lasted 15 minutes before Texas school shooter was apprehended, sheriff says By Molly Hennessy-Fiske Minutes after a school shooter opened fire in an art class last week, killing 10 people and wounding 13, including a local police officer, fellow officers returned fire in a protracted gun battle before isolating the suspect, the local sheriff said Monday. Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset praised first responders as well as Santa Fe Police Officer John Barnes, who was working as a resource officer at the school the day of the shooting. Their actions, he said, prevented the attack from spreading to other classrooms and potentially claiming additional victims. As officials continue to probe last Fridays shooting at Santa Fe High School, students are worried about returning to the scene of the attack when classes resume next week. Read More Facebook

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6 women sue USC, alleging they were victimized by campus gynecologist By Richard Winton Six women filed civil lawsuits Monday alleging that a longtime gynecologist at the University of Southern California sexually victimized them under the pretext of medical care and that USC failed to address complaints from clinic staff about the doctors behavior. One woman alleged Dr. George Tyndall forced his entire ungloved hand into her vagina during an appointment in 2003 while making vulgar remarks about her genitalia, according to one of the lawsuits. Another woman alleged that Tyndall groped her breasts in a 2008 visit and that later he falsely told her she likely had AIDS. A third woman accused the doctor of grazing his ungloved fingers over her nude body and leering at her during a purported skin exam, the lawsuit states. The wave of litigation comes as USC continues to grapple with the scandal, which legal experts said could prove costly to the university as scores of former patients come forward about their experiences with the gynecologist. Read More Facebook

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Fatalities reported in Texas high school shooting; suspect arrested, officials say By Associated Press Houston-area media citing unnamed law enforcement officials are reporting that there are fatalities following a shooting at a local high school Friday morning. Television station KHOU and the Houston Chronicle are citing unnamed federal, county and police officials following the shooting at Santa Fe High School, which went on lockdown around 8 a.m. The Associated Press has not been able to confirm the reports. The school district has confirmed an unspecified number of injuries but said it wouldnt immediately release further details. Assistant Principal Cris Richardson said a suspect has been arrested and secured. Read More Facebook

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This student followed the new L.A. schools chief on his first-day tour Melissa Barales-Lopez, a senior at Garfield High School followed Supt. Austin Beutner on his first day on the job, as he toured a variety of programs around the Los Angeles Unified School District. Heres what she took from the experience. LAUSD students and staff alike are looking for a personal champion, someone who will address and improve the difficulties afflicting their education.  What LAUSD students need is someone whos willing to listen and learn, someone who can understand the current issues affecting their schools and act to efficiently amend them, someone who can unlock the full potential of LAUSD students and enable them to reach their goals. During the entirety of his first day, superintendent Austin Beutner did indeed demonstrate a willingness to learn. Posing questions to teachers and students, Beutner engaged with the student communities he encountered to gain a better comprehension of the minutiae and nuances that distinguish each school inside an overwhelmingly large district. From inquiries about Grand View Boulevard Elementary Schools dual language program to questions regarding the services of LAUSDs after-school program, Beyond the Bell, Beutner revealed he has a lot to learn about the system. But, Beutner also showcased a willingness to tackle challenges head-on on his first day. Read More Facebook

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USC let a gynecologist continue treating students despite years of misconduct allegations By Matt Hamilton For nearly 30 years, the University of Southern Californias student health clinic had one full-time gynecologist: Dr. George Tyndall. Tall and garrulous with distinctive jet black hair, he treated tens of thousands of female students, many of them teenagers seeing a gynecologist for the first time. Few who lay down on Tyndalls exam table at the Engemann Student Health Center knew that he had been accused repeatedly of misconduct toward young patients. The complaints began in the 1990s, when co-workers alleged he was improperly photographing students genitals. In the years that followed, patients and nursing staff accused him again and again of creepy behavior, including touching women inappropriately during pelvic exams and making sexually suggestive remarks about their bodies. Read More Facebook

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Cal State trustees to discuss Browns latest budget proposal, which they say still falls $171 million short By Joy Resmovits Just how much money does California State University need to serve its students? In recent years, this question has been front and center for the nations largest public university system. Cal States leaders say that to keep their campuses quality from slipping, they need much more money than the state is giving them. This year, theyre also at odds with Gov. Jerry Brown on the question of whether any extra money should come in one-time bursts or be ongoing. Read More Facebook

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On his first day as L.A. schools chief, Beutner plans a day of visits across the district By Howard Blume L.A. Unifieds new superintendent, Austin Beutner, will kick off his first day of work on Tuesday with a choreographed tour of the nations second-largest school district, from the San Fernando Valley to Carson. His day is scheduled to begin at 5:15 a.m. at a school bus depot and end more than 12 hours later at a parent meeting at Garfield High School. Along the way, Beutner is expected to be joined by school district administrators, L.A. Unified board members and the vice president of the union that represents school bus drivers. Though he will be covering a lot of ground, Beutners tour has him skipping Tuesdays school board meeting, when board members are expected to discuss labor negotiations in closed session. Read More Facebook

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Cal State trustees to discuss Browns latest budget proposal, which they say still falls $171 million short By Joy Resmovits Just how much money does California State University need to serve its students? In recent years, this question has been front and center for the nations largest public university system. Cal States leaders say that to keep their campuses quality from slipping, they need much more money than the state is giving them. This year, theyre also at odds with Gov. Jerry Brown on the question of whether any extra money should come in one-time bursts or be ongoing. Read More Facebook

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Why a handful of rich charter school supporters are spending millions to elect Antonio Villaraigosa as governor By Ryan Menezes California voters have seen a barrage of sunny television ads in recent weeks touting former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosas record on finances, crime and education, aired by Families & Teachers for Antonio Villaraigosa for Governor 2018. But the group is, in fact, largely funded by a handful of wealthy charter-school supporters. Together they have spent more than $13 million in less than a month to boost Villaraigosas chances in the June 5 primary  at a time when his fundraising and poll numbers are lagging. Reed Hastings, the founder of Netflix, jump-started the group with a $7-million check, by far the largest donation to support any candidate in the election. Their efforts are part of a broader proxy war among Democrats between teachers unions  longtime stalwarts of the party  and those who argue that the groups have failed low-income and minority schoolchildren. Read More Facebook

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Talking schools with L.A. Unifieds new superintendent By Anna M. Phillips Austin Beutner, who officially starts Tuesday as the new superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, is taking on a famously difficult job at a particularly difficult time. The school board is divided and did not back him unanimously. The nations second-largest school district has deep-seated problems, including declining enrollment, lagging academic achievement and rising pension and healthcare costs that eat away at its budget. The 58-year-old former investment banker and former L.A. Times publisher has years of experience in the financial world but none as an educator. Earlier this week, he sat down with the Times education team to discuss the challenges facing the district, which has about 60,000 employees and 500,000 students in traditional public schools. He did not talk about his plans  saying repeatedly, stay tuned  but he spoke in broad terms about his mindset in approaching the tough decisions ahead. Read More Facebook

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Suspect detained, authorities search campus after reports of armed man at Palmdale high school By James Queally One person has been detained after a report of an armed man at a Palmdale high school sparked a massive law enforcement response Friday morning. The suspect was spotted at 7:05 a.m. on the campus of Highland High School in Palmdale, according to Sheriffs Department spokeswoman Nicole Nishida. The person was detained in a nearby parking lot, according to Nishida, who did not know whether that person was an adult or juvenile. Deputies at the scene are clearing the school methodically, and students will be transported home via school buses once the campus is deemed safe, Nishida said. Read More Facebook

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The education of Bertha Perez: How a UC Merced custodians disenchantment led to a political awakening By Robin Abcarian Its the third day of a three-day strike, and UC Merced custodian Bertha Perez is taking a break from a picket line at the universitys unremarkable entrance, an intersection with stop lights. Photos from other UC campuses this week have shown big crowds of striking service workers  members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees  marching and chanting pro-labor slogans as they try to force the University of California back to the negotiating table. But here, at UC Merced, whose handful of big buildings rise from a flat expanse of farmland, the picket line is tiny, maybe two dozen workers and a few students. Its not a big-city-style show of force. Then again, a union sympathizer is banging relentlessly on a snare drum, so its noisier than youd expect. Read More Facebook

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Ref Rodriguez resigns from teacher credentialing commission By Howard Blume Ref Rodriguez appears during a court appearance. (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times) Los Angeles school board member Ref Rodriguez has resigned from the states Commission on Teacher Credentialing, which oversees the integrity and quality of Californias teachers. Rodriguez faces felony and misdemeanor charges for political money laundering. Separately, his former employer, a charter school organization, has accused him of improperly authorizing checks to a nonprofit under his control. Rodriguez has denied wrongdoing. Rodriguezs resignation from the state body was effective May 4, days after he cast a crucial vote as part of a narrow majority that voted to authorize contract negotiations with Austin Beutner to become superintendent of the L.A. Unified School District. Beutners first official day on the job is Tuesday. Rodriguez remains in his $125,000-a-year position on the Los Angeles Board of Education. The mission of the state body is to ensure integrity, relevance, and high quality in the preparation, certification, and discipline of Californias teachers. Critics had questioned Rodriguezs continued service on the commission, given that teachers can be suspended from work if they face criminal charges. They also can lose their jobs for lapses in personal behavior, such as excessive drinking, with the potential to affect their performance. Police in Pasadena arrested Rodriguez on a Friday afternoon in March for public drunkenness. He was not charged in the incident and has apologized. The state commission reviews teacher discipline cases and can take action to remove a teachers credential to work in a California classroom. The commission has 15 members. Rodriguezs departure was disclosed in a one-sentence announcement on the agencys website. Facebook

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School board members request for restraining order against blogger is rejected By Priscella Vega An Orange County Superior Court judge on Wednesday denied a school board members petition for a permanent restraining order against a Huntington Beach blogger. Attorney Jeffrey W. Shields filed the petition on behalf of Ocean View School District trustee Gina Clayton-Tarvin, 46, who alleged in court documents that Charles Keeler Johnson, 56, has threatened her on social media and at school board meetings, causing her to fear for my own safety and for that of my immediate family members. Johnson, who goes by Chuck and publishes HBSledgehammer.com, said the trustee tried to stifle his freedom of speech. He also contended that Clayton-Tarvin took his blog posts and Facebook comments too seriously and out of context, saying anyone who is afraid of metaphors has serious issues. Read More Facebook

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Deal with workers averts one-day strike that could have shut down L.A. schools By Howard Blume Los Angeles school district and union officials announced a contract agreement Tuesday night that averted a one-day strike planned for next week. The pact, which runs through June 2020, removes one labor problem from the desk of incoming Supt. Austin Beutner  whose first day on the job would have coincided with the strike. Plenty of other challenges remain. Read More Facebook

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UC labor strike expands with show of support from more unions By Teresa Watanabe Fong Chuu is a registered nurse who has assisted with countless liver transplants, kidney surgeries and gastric bypasses during 34 years at UCLA. Working with her are scrub technicians who sterilize equipment, hand medical instruments to the surgeon and dress patient wounds. They are a team, Chuu says, which is why she walked off her job Tuesday in support of those technicians and other members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299. The 25,000 member AFSCME local, the University of Californias largest employee union, launched a three-day strike Monday. Read More Facebook

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We are humans too: Voices of UCLAs striking custodians, hospital aides and imaging technicians By Joy Resmovits Demonstrators parade in front of Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) This week, thousands of UC employees are staging a three-day strike for better pay and working conditions. On Monday, more than 20,000 custodians, cooks, lab technicians, nurse aides and other members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 walked off their jobs. By Tuesday, two more unions joined in sympathy strikes. The union and UC reached a bargaining impasse last year. The university has said it wont meet the workers demands. The strikers said they wanted better pay, more equity in the allocation of work, stable healthcare premiums and an end to the universitys use of contract workers. These are their stories. Read More Facebook

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Massive UC workers strike disrupts dining, classes and medical services By Joy Resmovits A massive labor strike across the University of California on Monday forced medical centers to reschedule more than 12,000 surgeries, cancer treatments and appointments, and campuses to cancel some classes and limit dining services. More than 20,000 members of UCs largest employee union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, walked off their jobs on the first day of a three-day strike. They include custodians, gardeners, cooks, truck drivers, lab technicians and nurse aides. Two altercations involving protesters and people driving near the rallies were reported at UCLA and UC Santa Cruz. At UCLA, police took a man into custody Monday after he drove his vehicle into a crowd, hitting three staff members. They were treated for minor injuries at the scene and released, said Lt. Kevin Kilgore of the UCLA Police Department. Read More Facebook

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Sen. Kamala Harris to skip UC Berkeley commencement in support of striking workers By Teresa Watanabe California Sen. Kamala Harris has canceled plans to deliver UC Berkeleys commencement address this weekend in support of UC workers who are on strike over wages and health benefits. Due to the ongoing labor dispute, Sen. Harris regretfully cannot attend and speak at this years commencement ceremony at UC Berkeley, said a statement from Harris office issued Monday. She wishes the graduates and their families a joyous commencement weekend and success for the future. They are bright young leaders and our country is counting on them. UCs largest employee union, the 25,000-member American Federation of County, State and Municipal Employees Local 3299, launched a three-day strike Monday and had earlier called for a speakers boycott. The union and university reached a bargaining impasse last year and subsequent mediation efforts have failed to produce an agreement. The union is asking for a multiyear contract with a 6% annual pay increase while the university is offering 3% annual increases over four years. UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ will deliver the keynote address instead, the university announced. About 5,800 students are expected to participate in the ceremony Saturday. Facebook

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School mural depicting Trumps bloody, severed head sparks controversy By Gary Warth A Chula Vista school mural that depicts the bloody, severed head of President Trump on a spear sparked a controversy that prompted officials to cover it and issue a response distancing themselves from the work. The statement also said the artist will alter the painting. We understand that there was a mural painted at the event this past weekend that does not align with our schools philosophy of non-violence, read the statement from MAAC Community Charter School director Tommy Ramirez. We have been in communication with the artist  who has agreed to modify the artwork  to better align with the schools philosophy. Read More Facebook

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New blackface incident at Cal Poly prompts calls for state investigation By Kim Christensen Cal Poly San Luis Obispo officials have asked the state attorney generals office to investigate after a new photo of a white student in blackface surfaced on a fraternity groups private Snapchat. I am outraged, Cal Poly President Jeffrey D. Armstrong said in a video address Friday to the campus. These vile and absolutely unacceptable acts cannot continue. We must not allow these acts to define us as an institution. Armstrong said the latest photo was intended to imitate an incident last month in which a white member of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity was photographed at a party wearing blackface. Read More Facebook

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More than 50,000 UC workers set to strike this week but campuses will remain open By Teresa Watanabe More than 50,000 workers across the University of California are set to strike this week, causing potential disruptions to surgery schedules, food preparation and campus maintenance. The systems 10 campuses and five medical centers are to remain open, with classes scheduled as planned. UCs largest employee union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, plans to begin a three-day strike Monday involving 25,000 workers, including custodians, gardeners, cooks, truck drivers, lab technicians and nurse aides. Read More Facebook

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New L.A. schools chief Beutner pledges to listen, learn and take action By Howard Blume New Los Angeles schools Supt. Austin Beutner proved Wednesday that hes a quick learner even without an education background. Like countless public officials before him, he appeared at an important event  his first speech and news conference  with a photogenic background of students. His message  that he would put those students first  seemed heartfelt if hardly original. Nor was it a huge surprise that he pledged to push cooperatively but unflinchingly to improve the districts academic performance and stabilize its finances. As an introduction, Beutner, a former investment banker who made a fortune on Wall Street, offered little flash, but that was partly the point. Read More Facebook

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In a school lockdown, one student takes stock of the stressful scene At the beginning of lunch one day late last month, Duarte High School, Northview Middle School, and California School of the Arts-San Gabriel Valley were advised by the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department to go into lockdown mode due to police activity in the immediate area. Phalaen Chang, a junior at the California School of the Arts, wrote a series of notes on her iPhone while she sat in a room with her classmates. By the time the lockdown ended an hour later, she wrote, she knew which of her friends would hold open the door for others, be the ones calming others down, be the ones barricading the doors. She knew that all of them have the potential to be such strong people. Read More Facebook

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Tale as old as time: L.A. Unified superintendent pick follows a historical pattern of outside-the-box choices By Joy Resmovits L.A. Unified has long gone back and forth between picking insiders and outsiders to run the nations second largest school district. The choice of Austin Beutner, announced Tuesday, places the district squarely back in the outsider camp  months after a consummate insider, Supt. Michelle King, announced that she had cancer and would not return to the job. Check out this timeline of former L.A. superintendents to see how the school board members have changed their minds, sometimes favoring leaders who come from the world of education and sometimes executives from elsewhere, recruited to shock the system into change. At one point, the district hired someone from the military  retired Navy Vice Adm. David L. Brewer III, who served as superintendent from 2006-2008. In hiring Brewer, board members had opted for a non-educator  largely because they sought a fresh thinker, unwedded to the bureaucracy, unafraid to make bold, even unorthodox moves, reads a 2008 Times story. Facebook

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Austin Beutner named superintendent of Los Angeles schools By Howard Blume Austin Beutner, a philanthropist and former investment banker, on Tuesday was named superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nations second-largest school system. His selection was the biggest move yet by a Los Angeles school board majority elected with major support from charter school advocates. The decision came after lengthy public testimony, most of it in support of the other remaining finalist, interim Supt. Vivian Ekchian, who is well known within the school system. Beutner, 58, has no background leading a school or school district. Less than 2 years ago, a school board with a very different balance of power named Michelle King, a former teacher who rose through the district throughout her career, to L.A. Unifieds top job. Read More Facebook

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Hearing delay gives both sides more time in Ref Rodriguezs potential trial By Howard Blume Ref Rodriguez and his attorneys will have more time to prepare their defense against charges of political money laundering, a judge ruled Monday. The preliminary hearing in the case had been scheduled to begin May 9, but that date will now be pushed back to July 23 per the ruling from L.A. Superior Court Judge Deborah S. Brazil. Rodriguez, 46, faces three felony charges of conspiracy, perjury and procuring and offering a false or forged instrument, as well as 25 misdemeanor counts related to the alleged campaign money laundering. Read More Facebook

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L.A. school board poised to name Beutner as superintendent By Howard Blume The Los Angeles Board of Education is poised to select philanthropist and former investment banker Austin Beutner to be the next superintendent of the nations second-largest school system. Barring a last-minute development, the only mystery is whether Beutner emerges with four or five votes from the boards seven members. Terms of his contract already have been under discussion, according to sources close to the process who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak. The selection of Beutner, 58, who has no experience managing a school or a school district, would be a signal that the board majority that took control nearly a year ago wants to rely on business management skills instead of insider educational expertise. Read More Facebook

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Teacher walkouts in Arizona and Colorado continue national debate on money for schools By Michael Livingston Following the lead of teachers who walked off the job in other states in recent weeks, thousands of teachers and their supporters took to the streets in Arizona and Colorado for the second day in a row to demand better pay and more funding for education. Read More Facebook

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Three decades before the #MeToo movement, UC San Diego led the way against sexual assault By Teresa Watanabe When Nancy Wahlig first started her fight against sexual assault, one company was marketing a capsule for women to stash in their bras and then smash to release a vile odor. Because of the very nature of society, the only person who can prevent rape is the woman herself, read a 1981 advertisement for the Repulse rape deterrent. Ideas about how to prevent sexual violence have come a long way since then, and Wahlig has helped lead that evolution on college campuses. In 1988, she started UC San Diegos Sexual Assault Resource Center (SARC), the first stand-alone program at the University of California. Today, she remains the systems most senior specialist. Read More Facebook

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Andres Alonso withdraws from consideration for L.A. schools job By Howard Blume Andres Alonso, believed to be one of three remaining finalists to lead the Los Angeles school system, has withdrawn from consideration. The remaining known candidates in the confidential search are former investment banker Austin Beutner and interim Supt. Vivian Ekchian. Alonso, 60, announced his decision on Twitter on Thursday night, saying he had notified the L.A. Unified School District on Monday. The exit of Alonso, the former Baltimore schools chief, seems to solidify the front-runner status of Beutner, who also was a former L.A. Times publisher and a Los Angeles deputy mayor. He held each of those positions for about a year. Read More Facebook

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Heres why the apparent increase in autism spectrum disorders may be good for U.S. children By Karen Kaplan The prevalence of autism spectrum disorder among American children continues to rise, new government data suggest. And that may be a good thing. Among 11 sites across the U.S. where records of 8-year-olds are scrutinized in detail, 1 in 59 kids was deemed to have ASD in 2014. Thats up from 1 in 68 in 2012. Normally, health officials would prefer to see less of a disease, not more of it. But in this case, the higher number is probably a sign that more children of color who are on the autism spectrum are being recognized as such and getting services to help them, according to a report published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Read More Facebook

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UC shelves tuition increase for now, in hopes of getting more state funding By Teresa Watanabe University of California regents will not vote on a tuition increase next month, shelving the plan for now in hopes that state lawmakers will come through with more funding. Raising tuition is always a last resort and one we take very seriously, UC President Janet Napolitano said Thursday in a statement. We will continue to advocate with our students who are doing a tremendous job of educating legislators about the necessity of adequately funding the university to ensure UC remains a world-class institution and engine of economic growth for our state. Last week, Cal State Chancellor Timothy P. White said the 23-campus system no longer would consider a plan to raise tuition for the 2018-19 academic year. But unlike Cal State, UC officials have not taken a tuition increase off the table entirely. Read More Facebook

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A chemical spill, unchecked eyewash stations, poor training: Audit details Cal States lax lab safety By Joy Resmovits In May 2016, two bottles tumbled off a poorly supported shelf and broke, leading to a chemical spill in a Sacramento State University lab. The liquid got onto one students legs and soaked anothers feet. Five employees cleaned up the mess, even though no one knew for sure what it was and whether it was dangerous. They called fellow employee Kim Harrington, their union representative, to let her know what happened. Read More Facebook

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After blackface incident, minority students at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo say they dont feel welcome By Hailey Branson-Potts Aaliyah Ramos was walking through the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo campus last year when a prospective student approached her. Ramos was the only black person, the young woman said, that she and her mother had seen that day. They asked about the quality of education and the diversity of the student body. Ramos, a mechanical engineering student, didnt want to sugarcoat the truth: Cal Poly long has been predominantly white. But she told the young woman  who also was black  that she didnt want to discourage her from applying, because that wouldnt help with diversity at a school where only 0.7% of students are African American  the lowest percentage of any university in the California State system. Read More Facebook

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El Camino Real Charter High School in Woodland Hills wins the 2018 U.S. Academic Decathlon By Carlos Lozano El Camino Real Charter High School in Woodland Hills has won the 2018 U.S. Academic Decathlon, officials said. The winner was announced early Saturday at a ceremony in Frisco, Texas. More than 600 students from the U.S., Canada, China and the United Kingdom gathered there over the last three days to compete in the 37th annual U.S. Academic Decathlon. Congratulations to El Camino Real Charter High School for another impressive victory, said Vivian Ekchian, interim superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Your academic stamina and competitive spirit to win is remarkable. The entire L.A. Unified family is so proud of you. Read More Facebook

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Anticipation mounts as L.A. school board meets over superintendent selection By Howard Blume The Los Angeles Board of Education is reconvening in closed session Friday at noon as anticipation mounts about the choice of the next leader of the nations second-largest school system. The presumed front-runner is former investment banker and philanthropist Austin Beutner, but interim Supt. Vivian Ekchian and former Baltimore Supt. Andres Alonso also are in the running. Most district insiders appear to be rooting for Ekchian, who has spent her entire career in education within the school system. After her 10 years as a teacher, her roles have included head of human resources, chief labor negotiator and regional administrator for campuses in the west San Fernando Valley. Shes managed the district since September, when then-Supt. Michelle King went on medical leave and chose Ekchian to fill in for her. King, who is battling cancer, never returned and announced her retirement in January. Numerous influential civic leaders have urged  and pressured  the board to select Beutner. Also lending their weight have been advocates for charter schools, which are independently operated, growing in number and competing for students with district-operated campuses. Four of the seven board members  enough to control the outcome  were elected with major financial support from charter supporters. Beutner has two ongoing connections with the L.A. Unified School District. The first is his leadership of an outside task force that is making recommendations on how to improve the school system. The second is his charity, Vision to Learn, which supplies glasses to low-income students. The charity and the school system are in a dispute at the moment over who is responsible for delays in providing services to students as part of a $6 million contract, half of which is paid for by L.A. Unified. Unlike Ekchian and Buetner, Alonso, who currently teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has no deep-seated local constituency, but the prospect of his selection has generated some excitement. While in Baltimore, Alonso was recognized for pushing for progress at low-performing schools, and for being willing to take strong action. While in Baltimore, he also weathered a test-score cheating scandal and occasionally rocky relations with the teachers union. But by the time he resigned, after six years, he and union leaders seemed to be working together without rancor. Leaders of some community groups have split from the pro-Beutner camp. They worry that Beutners approach to confronting the districts financial problems could shut out their voices or involve severe economic cutbacks that would undermine programs that are helping students. Some prefer Ekchian; some Alonso. Theyve been reluctant to speak out publicly because theyll have to work with whoever is selected, but they have tried to get the ear of board members. On Friday morning, one leader of a community group decided to come out in favor of Alonso. L.A. Unified has the opportunity to bring in an instructional leader of color with a history of success, said Alberto Retana, president and chief executive of Community Coalition, which works on behalf of low-income students and families in South Los Angeles. If we have a shot at that, we should go for it  because its in the best interests of our kids and of our community. Retana said his statement was not meant to criticize Beutner or Ekchian but to alert board members that there also is community support for Alonso. Facebook

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Cal State leader shelves proposed tuition hike: Its the right thing to do, but its not without risk By Joy Resmovits Cal State, the nations largest public university system, will no longer consider a plan to raise tuition for the 2018-19 academic year, Chancellor Timothy P. White announced Friday. The decision is a bet that Sacramento will come through in the end. If Cal State loses that bet, it could mean cuts to campus programs. White said in an interview that Californias economy is strong enough that families should not be shouldering the burden of higher college costs. Read More Facebook

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L.A. students to participate in national walkout activities on Friday By Joy Resmovits Students are taking to the streets again Friday to protest gun violence on the 19th anniversary of the Columbine school shooting. Starting at 10 a.m., students at many schools will spend 13 seconds honoring the 13 people  12 students and one teacher  killed on that day in Littleton, Colo. After that, theyll participate in a host of different activities. Within L.A. Unified, one school is having an open-mic event for students to talk about school violence, and lawmakers are visiting campuses to hear students thoughts. According to a central hub for organizing the protests  written by the students of Ridgefield High School in Connecticut  the walkouts are intended to drive the political change necessary to curb school violence. The day is also a time for students to interact on an elevated platform they have never had before, the site states. It is a day of discourse and thoughtful sharing. Bringing together communities and students to get a national discussion rolling. Organizers have suggested using the event to convey the importance of curbing gun violence to legislators. They are encouraging students to push legislation that would ban assault weapons and tighten up rules around who can buy guns and how. Over 2,500 schools nationwide are expected to participate. In L.A., some students  at campuses including Eagle Rock High School, the Ramon C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts and Bravo Medical Magnet  plan to walk out. Students from various schools expect to join area marches, including those in Santa Monica and Huntington Park. Other schools are hosting career days and voter registration drives. At 1 p.m., students plan to start a rally in front of L.A. Unified headquarters. For the record: An earlier version of this article stated that 12 teachers and one student were killed in the Columbine shooting. The opposite is true: twelve students and one teacher died. Facebook

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Stabbing of popular student devastates South El Monte High School; teen friend suspected in slaying By Sonali Kohli When administrators at South El Monte High School called Jeremy Sanchezs parents to say he never showed up for class Wednesday, his father began to worry. It was unusual for the 17-year-old junior to miss school, so his father filed a missing persons report and assembled two of Jeremys close friends to look for the popular student-athlete. Their search took them to a scenic stretch of the San Gabriel River Trail, where one of the friends  a 16-year-old boy  made a tragic discovery. Among the bushes in the riverbed near Thienes Avenue and Parkway Drive was Jeremys body, punctured with stab wounds, according to Lt. John Corina of the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department. Read More Facebook

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Racist fliers spark outrage at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo By Alene Tchekmedyian Soon after Neal MacDougall arrived on the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo campus Tuesday, the professor noticed university police standing outside a restroom near his office. A racial slur against African Americans had been scrawled in red marker on a stall wall. Later, he discovered a series of racist fliers pinned up next to his door. Someone had also slashed posters hed hung outside his office supporting students in the country illegally. The discovery was the latest controversy on the prestigious campus  which the president said is less than 55% white  that MacDougall said demonstrates a culture of racism at the university. Last week, photographs emerged of white fraternity members, including one in blackface, flashing gang signs. Read More Facebook

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The superintendent waiting game, paying for L.A.'s College Promise, Princetons slave history: Whats new in education By Joy Resmovits Acting LAUSD superintendent Vivian Ekchian is a finalist for the permanent job. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) In and around Los Angeles: The L.A. Unified school board spent 10 hours interviewing and discussing candidates for superintendent. When they adjourned after 10 p.m., they said they would reconvene on Friday. Who is paying for Mayor Eric Garcettis much-touted College Promise, a program that promises two years of community college for LAUSD grads? In California: The Legislature is considering a proposal that would boost K-12 education funding for black students. When the cost of living is taken into account, California has the highest rate of child poverty. Nationwide: The families of two children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School are suing Alex Jones and Infowars for saying the school massacre never occurred. Princeton will name two spaces  an arch and a garden  after slaves who lived or worked on the campus. Facebook

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L.A. school board meets privately with finalists and debates choice for school district leader By Howard Blume The Los Angeles Board of Education adjourned late Tuesday after spending more than 10 hours interviewing candidates and trying to reach a decision on who would be the next leader of the nations second-largest school system. When the meeting finally recessed at 10:11 p.m., a spokesman announced only that the school board would reconvene Friday at noon. Going into the days meetings, there were apparently four finalists, according to sources who could not be named because they were unauthorized to speak. Read More Facebook

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Two Sandy Hook families sue Alex Jones and Infowars for saying the school massacre never happened By David Altimari Families of two children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School have filed lawsuits in Texas against controversial radio host Alex Jones for continually claiming the massacre never happened. Neil Heslin, the father of Jesse Lewis, and Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, whose son Noah Pozner died in the massacre, filed separate lawsuits late Monday in Travis County, Texas. The lawsuits allege that Jones defamed the parents by constantly calling them crisis actors and insisting the shooting was a false flag operation; they also claim Jones accusations have led to death threats against the Sandy Hook families by Jones followers. Read More Facebook

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Beutner emerges as a top pick for L.A. schools superintendent amid last-minute jockeying By Howard Blume Austin Beutner has emerged as a leading contender to run the Los Angeles school district, with backers saying he is smart enough and tough enough to confront its financial and academic struggles. Though he does not have a background in education, the former investment banker has in the last year examined some of the districts intractable problems, serving as co-chair of an outside task force with the support of then-Supt. Michelle King. Sources inside and outside the school district said Beutner appears to have more support on the seven-member board than other finalists, and his name could come up for a vote as early as Tuesday. Read More Facebook

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Challenge at Chicago school construction site: Watch for 38,000 unmarked graves By Nereida Moreno A 15-year effort to build a school in Chicagos Dunning neighborhood is underway with an unusual complication: Construction workers are taking careful steps to avoid disturbing human remains that may lie beneath the soil. The $70-million school is to be built on the grounds of a former Cook County Poor House, where an estimated 38,000 people were buried in unmarked graves. Among the dead are residents who were too poor to afford funeral costs, unclaimed bodies and patients from the countys insane asylum. There can be and there have been bodies found all over the place, said Barry Fleig, a genealogist and cemetery researcher who began investigating the site in 1989. Its a spooky, scary place. Read More Facebook

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Oklahoma teacher walkout winds down despite lawmakers failure to meet demands By Washington Post Oklahomas largest teachers union has announced an end to a walkout that has drawn thousands of educators out of classrooms and to the state Capitol demanding greater investment in the states schools, which have endured the nations steepest funding cuts. The announcement Thursday from the Oklahoma Education Assn. does not necessarily end the protests at the Capitol, as teachers not affiliated with the union vowed to stay longer. Instead of a walkout, the union and school districts across the state have said they plan to send delegations of teachers to Oklahoma City to keep the pressure on lawmakers. Teachers and their supporters have also promised to push education issues to the forefront of November elections, when the state chooses a new governor. As school districts begin to reopen, the protests may lose steam. The Legislature is not in session Friday, and observers are waiting to see what happens Monday, when lawmakers return. Read More Facebook

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Most Californians are worried about school shooting threats and oppose arming teachers, survey finds By Joy Resmovits Hamilton High School student Aiyana Dabriel holds a sign during a March 14 walkout in support of the Parkland shooting victims. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) Most Californians are worried that a school shooting like the one that occurred in Parkland, Fla., in February could shed blood closer to home, a new survey found. Some 73% percent of adults and 82% of public school parents said they were very concerned or somewhat concerned about school shootings. The Public Policy Institute of California surveyed 1,704 adults in the state by phone just after the March for Our Lives protest against gun violence. Latino and black respondents were significantly more likely to be concerned about school violence than white or Asian respondents, the institute found. Two-thirds of adults and public school parents said they opposed letting more educators carry weapons in school. The response differed across party lines, with 86% of Democrats and 69% of independents voicing their opposition, while 60% percent of Republicans said they would support a measure to arm educators. The poll, which had a margin of error of 3.2% in either direction, also asked Californians about school funding, educational issues in the governors race and the impact of immigration enforcement on students. You can find the full results here. Facebook

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Californias largest virtual charter school network agrees to contract with its teachers By Anna M. Phillips Nearly four years after teachers at Californias largest online charter school voted to unionize, they have reached a deal to increase pay and create job protections, according to a spokesman for the California Teachers Assn. The contract, which is still tentative and subject to ratification, is a victory for the teachers union. Although charter schools are publicly funded, most are privately managed and their employees arent protected by labor contracts. Under the terms of the contract  the result of years of negotiation and legal wrangling  approximately 500 teachers working for California Virtual Academies will no longer be at-will employees who can be dismissed for almost any reason. Their average salary will rise to just over $45,000, according to union estimates, a figure that remains far below the norm for traditional public school teachers. Still, it is an improvement over the previous average of $38,000. The accord also places a limit on the number of students each teacher is responsible for monitoring in online homeroom classes. Were very satisfied with the gains we made, said teacher Brianna Carroll, president of California Virtual Educators United. I think were going to see some extraordinary changes in our schools. According to Carroll, teachers at California Virtual Academies  better known as CAVA  had grown frustrated with the organizations foot-dragging and were making preparations to go on strike when CAVAs leadership agreed to the deal. CAVA and K12, the Virginia-based for-profit company linked to its schools, did not immediately respond to an email Tuesday asking for comment. The network currently operates nine virtual charter schools across California. In 2016, the charter network agreed to pay $8.5 million to settle claims of false advertising, misleading parents and inadequate instruction. The state attorney generals office had also accused K12 of controlling the charters for its own financial benefit. Neither CAVA nor K12 admitted to wrongdoing in the settlement. A year later, the state imposed a $2-million fine on CAVA after an audit found that it had misspent public funds. The network disputed the findings. Facebook

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School board approves a new formula for funding high-need schools By Sonali Kohli L.A. schools will soon get more money if they are located in neighborhoods with such problems as high levels of gun violence and asthma. The Los Angeles Unified school board voted unanimously Tuesday to adopt a new formula to determine how to dole out some funding to schools, based not only on the characteristics of the student populations but on the traumas that affect the communities around campuses. The new formula will be applied to $25 million in funding next fiscal year and about $263 million annually in future years  a small part of the districts $7.5 billion annual budget. Read More Facebook

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Protesters demand Ref Rodriguez resignation outside school board meeting By Sonali Kohli Students, parents, teachers and UTLA marching outside the board meeting chanting "Ref resign" pic.twitter.com/W0LRWZSIXY  Sonali Kohli  (@Sonali_Kohli) April 10, 2018 A few dozen parents, students and teachers marched outside the Los Angeles Unified School Board meeting Tuesday, some calling for board member Ref Rodriguez to resign the week after news broke that he was taken into custody on suspicion of being drunk in public at a Pasadena bar and restaurant. Rodriguez was not cited or charged in that incident, but was held for more than five and a half hours before being released. The school board member faces felony and misdemeanor charges for political money laundering. He is accused of getting more than two dozen people people to donate to his campaign for his school board seat with the understanding that he would reimburse them. He stepped down from his post as school board president after he was charged last fall, but he did not give up his seat on the board. He has pleaded not guilty to three felony counts of conspiracy, perjury, and procuring and offering a false or forged instrument, as well as 25 misdemeanor counts related to the alleged campaign money laundering. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for May. He cant give his full focus to our students, said Rebecca LaFond, a Highland Park parent whose three children marched with her as she chanted, Ref resign. One daughter marched in front of her, using a drum stick to hit the bottom of a gallon-size empty water jug. Our kids deserve someone who has the utmost ethical standards representing them, LaFond said. The protests continued into the board meeting, where some addressed Rodriguez directly, calling on him to step down during public comment portions of the meeting. Rodriguez, through his chief of staff, declined to comment. Some parents outside the board meeting did not know about the charges against Rodriguez but came out to protest the possibility of sharing their school campuses with charter schools. Protesters also oppose colocation  not all of the parents are here to ask Ref Rodriguez to step down pic.twitter.com/1Co8zQ9zSi  Sonali Kohli  (@Sonali_Kohli) April 10, 2018 Cynthia Martinez said her son, who goes to Christopher Dena Elementary School in Boyle Heights, has been bullied in the past by students from a charter school sharing the campus. She said she didnt know who Rodriguez was. Some parents and teachers are worried about losing computer labs, robotics rooms and fitness centers if they are required to share their campus with charter schools, said Ilse Escobar, a parent community organizer for United Teachers Los Angeles. The issues of Rodriguez and colocation are related, Escobar said. Rodriguez is part of a majority on the school board elected with financial backing from charter school supporters, and many parents, she said, feel that the school board is compromised if he is a part of it. Staff reporter Howard Blume contributed to this post. Facebook

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Delaine Eastin tries to gain momentum in the California governors race, one voter at a time By Seema Mehta Delaine Eastin was a sophomore in high school when a drama teacher urged her to try out for a part in The Man Who Came to Dinner. She hesitated until he told her: This is a metaphor for your whole life. If you never try out, you will never get the part. Eastin auditioned and won the role. Decades later, the advice sticks with the former state schools chief, this time in her unlikely run for governor. Despite calls for more women in leadership roles in state politics following sexual misconduct allegations in Sacramento, Eastin has been largely overlooked in the race, lagging far behind her Democratic rivals in fundraising and the polls. Read More Facebook

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Arizona high court rejects in-state tuition for DACA recipients By Associated Press Young immigrants granted deferred deportation status under a program started by President Obama are not eligible for lower in-state college tuition, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled Monday. The unanimous ruling will affect at least 2,000 students attending the states largest community college district and hundreds more at other colleges and the states three public universities. The Maricopa County Community Colleges District and state universities said they would begin raising tuition immediately for the coming school year. Read More Facebook

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New York high school students injured when bus strikes overpass By Associated Press A charter bus carrying teenagers returning from a spring break trip Sunday night struck a bridge overpass on Long Island, seriously injuring six passengers and mangling the entire length of the top of the bus. The crash happened shortly after 9 p.m. Sunday on the Southern State Parkway in Lakeview, according to New York State Police. One of the six injured passengers had very serious injuries, said State Police Maj. David Candelaria. Thirty-seven other passengers suffered minor injuries. Read More Facebook

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Some good news for California in national student test scores By Joy Resmovits Every two years, the nations fourth- and eighth-graders are tested in math and reading  and newly released results from last years tests give California at least a little reason to be pleased. The 2017 results  out Monday night  were mostly flat nationwide compared with 2015, though the average score in eighth-grade reading went up. But while that improvement largely came from the increased scores of the highest-performing students, California eighth-graders showed some reading progress from the lowest levels to the highest. Read More Facebook

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Under state control, Inglewood school districts financial picture worsened By Anna M. Phillips When Eugenio Villa agreed to return to the Inglewood schools for a second tour last summer, he knew the district remained one of Californias most troubled. Inglewood Unified had been nearly insolvent when it was taken over by the state Department of Education in 2012. Six years later, its enrollment was still declining. Its school buildings were tired  some edging into decrepitude. Its test scores and graduation rates were still below the state average. And the public was out of patience. Still, Villa, who had signed back on as the districts chief business official, was shocked at what he found when he arrived in June 2017. Two years earlier, he had left the school system on what he thought was firm ground. Read More Facebook

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Charter school group drops two lawsuits against L.A. Unified By Howard Blume A charter schools advocacy group last week announced that it would end two long-running lawsuits in which it was seeking more classroom space and construction money from the Los Angeles school district. The decision, the California Charter Schools Assn. said, reflects better relations between charter schools and the L.A. Unified School District. But the move also suggests that the litigation, which already contributed to significant gains for area charters, was unlikely to produce much more. It takes time, money and effort to litigate, said Ricardo Soto, general counsel for the charter group. Maybe its better to see if we can find the time and opportunity for collaboration. Read More Facebook

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L.A. school board member Ref Rodriguez is arrested on suspicion of public intoxication By Richard Winton Los Angeles school board member Ref Rodriguez was arrested recently on suspicion of being drunk in public at a Pasadena restaurant, the latest trouble for an elected official who faces political money-laundering charges. Pasadena police took Rodriguez into custody on March 16, according to city spokeswoman Lisa Derderian. Officers arrested Rodriguez at about 4:30 p.m. at the Yard House restaurant and bar at the Paseo Mall and held him in jail for more than five-and-a-half hours. Rodriguez was ultimately released without being cited or charged, Derderian told The Times. Other details about the arrest were not available, she said. Read More Facebook

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Kentucky teachers rally at Capitol over state budget By Associated Press Thousands of Kentucky teachers filled the streets near the state Capitol in Frankfort on a cold, overcast Monday to rally for education funding. Teachers and other school employees gathered outside the Kentucky Education Assn. a couple of blocks from the Capitol chanting, Stop the war on public education and holding or posting signs that say, Weve Had Enough. Were madder than hornets, and the hornets are swarming today, said Claudette Green, a retired teacher and principal. Read More Facebook

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Last year, Andre Dubois and his girlfriend were evicted, along with neighbors, from their rent-controlled apartments in Hollywood.

The property owner, Belmond Homes LP, wielded the power of the Ellis Act, a state law that allows such evictions to occur on the condition that the apartment units be taken off the market.

But months after moving out, Dubois and his girlfriend, who is battling cancer, said they were surprised to learn the units were being rented out on Airbnb.

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The Los Angeles Housing and Community Investment Department opened up an investigation on the allegations of re-rentals and prepared to turn the case over to the city attorney. But then, last month, the same agency cleared the property owner to demolish the Hollywood apartments  even as its investigation continued.

The demolition unleashed complaints from community members that led to a stop-work order. But an attorney for the property owner said that order from the city wasnt received until after the building was partially demolished.

The case of Belmond Homes highlighted an issue the city is focusing on more  alleged illegal short term rentals  but also provided an example of how bureaucratically complicated, and confusing, the process of dealing with these cases can be. Residents and the councilman representing the neighborhood both expressed bewilderment about the chain of events.

The housing department is now working with the city attorney to determine whether legal action can be taken against Belmond Homes for the alleged re-rental. The Department of Building and Safety is also preparing to turn over a case for violation of the stop-work order.

Councilman David Ryu, whose district includes Hollywood, introduced a motion aimed at preventing the housing department from issuing clearance for demolition while investigations are still going on.

Developers should not be able to reap the benefits of the Ellis Act while simultaneously violating its other provisions, Ryu said in his motion.

An attorney representing the property owner denies any wrongdoing.

Tenants who live next door to the demolished apartments and are facing eviction from Belmond Homes expressed concerns and joined others in protesting in the neighborhood last month.

They shouldnt be able to reap benefits for doing things illegally in this city. Thats rewarding illegal activity, said Jianna Maarten, who is among those facing eviction. I dont think we should be a city that does that.

Andre Dubois, right, a former 17-year resident of the demolished building, protests the demolition of residences on North Formosa Avenue on Jan. 24. (Patrick T. Fallon / For The Times)

Belmond Homes LP began evicting tenants last spring from the North Formosa Avenue apartments under the Ellis Act. The state law, passed in 1985, allows landlords to evict tenants if they intend to take the housing off the rental market or demolish the building to put up new apartments.

An Ellis Act application submitted March 8 stated that the apartments would be demolished for construction of new multi-family housing, according to Rushmore Cervantes, general manager of the city housing department. Belmond Homes fully complied with Ellis requirements, he said.

Then, in October, the department began receiving complaints that the units at the Formosa property were being rented out on Airbnb.

When department staff inspected the property in November, they found evidence of short-term rental use, Cervantes said. Staff issued a notice to comply to the owners for the violation of short-term rentals.

When staff did another inspection Jan. 9 and found the property still in violation, they began preparing the case for a referral to the city attorney, according to Cervantes.

That same month, former tenants filed a lawsuit against Airbnb for its role in renting the properties after the apartments were vacated. At the time, an Airbnb spokesman declined to comment on the lawsuit but said that the online platform has long opposed landlords who remove housing from the market.

We deny any allegation of wrongdoing, said Parham Hendifar, the attorney for Belmond Homes.

Illegal short term rentals, such as the ones alleged at the Formosa property, have been on the city attorneys radar. The city attorneys office filed criminal charges for the first time in a separate case last year.

At the time, City Atty. Mike Feuer said his office had made it a priority to investigate complaints about illegal short-term rentals.

Regarding the Formosa Avenue property, nothing has yet been referred to the city attorneys office by the housing department, a city attorneys office spokesman said.

Shortly after all rentals were ended at the Formosa Avenue units, construction fences went up outside the property, said Rich Koehler, who was also under an Ellis Act eviction. Koehler said neighbors were shocked when construction crews began demolition work on Jan. 20.

We ran out, like, Whats going on? You cant do this, you guys have a case open against you, Koehler recalled.

Cervantes said his departments clearance for demolition was given because the property owner had complied with the Ellis Act. But hours after giving the clearance, the department revoked it because of its own pending investigation, sowing more confusion.

On the Ellis side, it had technically been achieved legally, Cervantes said. But that nuance of the Airbnb in the interim kind of added a wrinkle to it. Thats why we withheld it, just to be on the safe side.

A stop-work order from the Department of Building and Safety was posted on Jan. 20 at 6 p.m., according to officials.

The next morning, residents and officials allege, construction crews continued demolition, despite a posted notice with a stop-work order and a statement of intent to revoke the permit.

Work ceased after the property owners learned of the intent to revoke the demolition permit, Hendifar said. The property owners have followed all procedures and are unfairly being portrayed as rule breakers, he said.

There is a group of people who are ideologically opposed to the development. They are now being supported by some of the tenants in the neighboring building, Hendifar said. To push their narrative, theyre now spreading misinformation and untrue allegations regarding the demolitions.

On Jan. 30, the housing department reinstated its Ellis clearance of the demolition permit, Cervantes said.

The remaining portions of the property were demolished the following day, Hendifar said.

Although the permit was issued once more, the Department of Building and Safety is going to pursue the violation of the stop-work order, said Jeff Napier, spokesman for the department.

A crowd of about two dozen gathered outside the demolished property on a recent weekday, carrying signs reading, Stop breaking the rules mega developers and No more ruined neighborhoods.

Many of them complained about residential management company, Wiseman Residential, which has a history of evicting tenants under the Ellis Act.

Dubois joined the crowd as they chanted, Stop Wiseman, save Formosa. The 54-year-old held a sign that read, Wiseman abused the Ellis Act to evict my girlfriend who is dying of cancer.

Hendifar said that developer Wiseman Residential is not involved with the Formosa property.

But Michael Cohanzad, senior vice president of development and business affairs for Wiseman, is listed as the agent of service for Belmond Homes. Belmond Homes listed address is the one for Wiseman Residential headquarters.

Over the last decade, Wiseman has evicted at least 237 tenants from rent-controlled properties in Los Angeles. The company purchased more than a dozen other properties where landlords had already used the state law to clear out apartments.

In an interview with The Times last month, a representative for Wiseman said the Formosa apartments were slated for demolition to make room for a new development.

These buildings will be dirt in February, Benjamin Cohan, president of Wiseman Residential, said at the time. Cohan was on-site with Hendifar on the recent weekday that community members gathered to protest.

When asked who would develop on the site, Hendifar said he was not able to disclose confidential business information to the extent that they are not part of the public records.

Times staff writers Ben Poston and Andrew Khouri contributed to this report.

For more California news, follow @brittny_mejia

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The chatter of Spanish serves as the backdrop of Pico-Union, where the aroma of pastries from the panaderia merge with the synthetic smells of an auto repair garage. A predominantly Latino neighborhood, it has for decades been a first stop for immigrants  both legal and illegal  coming from various corners of Latin America.

Over the years, this community has faced challenges, including from politicians threatening crackdowns on illegal immigration. But to many in this densely populated area near MacArthur Park, the presidency of Donald Trump poses a threat of an altogether different scale. Trump has vowed mass deportations of those here illegally, which if carried out, could fundamentally alter the rhythms of life in Pico-Union and numerous other immigrant enclaves around Southern California and beyond.

The potential threat of emptied homes and shuttered businesses has residents envisioning the worst.

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Una desolacion. Imaginate no mas, worried Graciela Sandoval, 79, who has lived in Pico-Union for five decades. A desolation. Just imagine it.

Itll be a ghost town here, added Manuel Blanco, 42, a lifelong Pico-Union resident who runs an auto repair shop in the area. Its not even going to be worth being in business.

Manuel Blanco owns Blancos Tires & Auto Repair. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

An analysis released Thursday by the Pew Research Center underscores just how much immigrants here illegally have been embedded into the culture and economy of Los Angeles. Woven, often seamlessly, into dozens of cities infrastructures, they have become a workforce and community that makes up much of the fabric of Southern California.

Nearly 10% of the nations 11.1 million immigrants who are in the country illegally reside in Los Angeles and Orange counties, according to the research center. The region is home to 1 million such immigrants, second only to the greater New York area, which has 1.2 million. Third on the list was Houston with 575,000. The city of Los Angeles alone has an estimated 375,000.

Up to 8 million people in the country illegally could be considered priorities for deportation, according to calculations by The Times based on interviews with experts who studied internal documents related to Trumps directive. Trump has said that his order allows immigration officials to detain nearly anyone who has crossed the border illegally.

The Pew analysis, using augmented 2014 data collected by the American Community Survey, which is conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, focused on the 20 major metropolitan areas with the highest numbers of immigrants here illegally. It showed that the population tends to live among legal immigrants and is highly concentrated.

In 2014, 61% of immigrants here illegally lived in those 20 metropolitan areas, whereas only 36% of the total U.S. population lived in the same regions. All but one of the areas remained in the top 20 over the previous decade.

Five of those  including Riverside, San Francisco, San Diego and San Jose  were in California, a state at the forefront of the sanctuary movement, where leaders have insisted cities will continue to offer refuge to immigrants in the face of Trumps threat to cut their funds.

Although Los Angeles has not explicitly declared itself a sanctuary city, it has taken measures to protect those here illegally. Early this month, City Council members pushed forward a plan to draft a law that would decriminalize street vending. Many, if not most, who peddle items like bacon-wrapped hot dogs, fruit and ice cream are in the country illegally, and city leaders hope to keep them from being charged for selling goods or food on the sidewalk  which would make them more vulnerable to deportation.

If the unauthorized population were to leave areas where they contribute to the local economy, cities could find themselves in trouble.

They would face not just a loss of population or loss of labor  but also loss of buying power, said Louis DeSipio, a professor of political science at UC Irvine who specializes in immigration from Latin America.

Immigrants who are here illegally often contribute to the economy even in neighborhoods where they dont live, as service workers in restaurants or in the homes of the more well-heeled.

In Santa Ana, businesses catering to immigrants kept the downtown financially viable after white residents left decades earlier. The county seat of Orange County, Santa Ana boasts a downtown with gourmet restaurants and hipster shops, but its vibrancy is fueled by the Mexican immigrant community  a good portion of which lacks legal status.

On Sundays, vehicles cruise 4th Street blaring Mexican ranchera music while families amble about bridal and hair salons, snack carts, jewelry shops and check-cashing stores that wire money to Latin America.

Claudia Arellanes, secretary of the Santa Ana Business Council and owner of a furniture store, said the area is reliant on its immigrant clientele.

Many people dont understand this, she said. It would be devastating. The downtown area would fail.

Businesses that dont specifically cater to new immigrants, such as mainstream malls, movie theaters and restaurants, also reap the benefits from a large unauthorized population that quickly acculturates to its surroundings, DeSipio said.

In Maywood, a 1.2-square-mile municipality that declared itself a sanctuary city more than a decade ago, the effects of Trumps directive have residents envisioning a collapsed community. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city has a population of 28,000, but city officials say that number doubles when immigrants in the country illegally are included.

Residents can point out neighbor after neighbor who dont have documents. Most have relatives in the same situation. Friends, too.

You would have empty homes and empty apartments, Mayor Pro Tem Eduardo De La Riva said of potential mass deportations. People would be afraid to come outside.

To read this article in Spanish, click here.

brittny.mejia@latimes.com

cindy.carcamo@latimes.com

corina.knoll@latimes.com

Times staff writer Ruben Vives contributed to this report.

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UPDATES:

3:50 p.m: This article was updated with details from Santa Ana and Maywood.

2:35 p.m.: This article was updated with an assessment of the effect of mass deportations on the Pico-Union neighborhood of Los Angeles.

12:50 p.m.: This article was updated with information about Maywood and comments from a Maywood city councilman.

This article was originally posted at 9 a.m.
The city of Los Angeles will pay $3.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by a woman who fell from a moving police cruiser and suffered serious injury, according to court documents.

The settlement, which was reached on Jan. 27, wraps up years of litigation between the city and plaintiff Kim Nguyen.

The litigation stemmed from an incident that occurred in Koreatown on St. Patricks Day in 2013, when Nguyen was arrested by LAPD Officers David Shin and Jin Oh on West 6th Street for public intoxication. The officers had seen her running across the street between Oxford and Serrano avenues and stopped her.

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After she was handcuffed and placed in the back of their squad car, they drove away. As the officers drove east on Olympic Boulevard, one of the rear passenger doors opened and Nguyen fell out of the squad car, according to her suit.

Nguyen slammed into the street and laid there until the officers returned for her.

A surveillance camera in the area partially captured the incident, but it didnt record Nguyen falling out of the car. In the video, Nguyen appears to be unconscious while lying in the street with bruising visible on her face.

The footage shows officers standing around her until she moves slightly.

According to police, Nguyen fell out as the car accelerated from a stop.

After the incident, Nguyens attorney said she shattered her jaw and had bleeding in her brain, as well as emotional and psychological injury.

In June 2013, Nguyen sued the officers and the city for negligence, saying the officers carelessly failed to properly secure her in the squad car.

Nearly two years later, she filed a federal suit, alleging one of the officers sexually battered her.

In that March 2015 federal lawsuit, Nguyen claimed that while she was being driven to jail, the officers stopped the squad car and one of them climbed into the rear passenger seat with her. One of the officers, the suit said, sexually battered her intentionally touching her in the left thigh, left chest/breast, and pulled on [her] left ear.

A U.S. District Court judge dismissed Nguyens claim in November 2015. The judge ruled Nguyens state and federal suits share a common transactional nucleus of facts and that both address the right of bodily safety.

Nguyens attorneys appealed the decision to U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The appeal was voluntarily dismissed on Feb. 3.

Nguyens attorney, Mark Baute, said last months settlement of the Los Angeles Superior Court case was a fair deal.

Kim is ready to move forward, he said.

The Los Angeles city attorneys office declined to comment on the settlement.

veronica.rocha@latimes.com

Twitter: VeronicaRochaLA

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For years, Audrey Hepburns two sons hosted charity exhibits featuring their famous mothers elaborate evening gowns, awards and photographs.

Throughout the world, they showed off more than a dozen Givenchy dresses that the Oscar-winning actress and humanitarian wore in movies and to award shows, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for a charity they created in her name after she died in 1993.

But now, the half brothers are at the center of a legal dispute over whether the charity  headed by Luca Dotti, the younger of the two  has the right to continue using Hepburns memorabilia and likeness to raise money, according to Los Angeles County Superior Court records.

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The Audrey Hepburn Childrens Fund filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Hepburns older son, Sean Ferrer, accusing him of hampering fundraising efforts by sabotaging exhibits planned in Australia and South Korea and requesting payments from the fund for the use of Hepburns likeness.

The saddest part of this is this is being done for childrens charities, to carry on Audreys work, where her heart lies, said Steven Young, an attorney representing the charity in the lawsuit.

According to its website, the Pasadena-based charity has donated to more than a dozen childrens organizations, including hospitals, an equine therapy program and a child soldier relief foundation. Ferrers actions, the lawsuit alleged, has rendered the fund unable to meet commitments to certain hospital programs.

An attorney for Ferrer, who according to the lawsuit lives in Italy, could not be reached for comment.

The lawsuit comes almost two years after Ferrer sued his brother in Los Angeles court, claiming he and Dotti were unable to agree on how to divide their mothers personal belongings, including posters, costumes, jewelry, scripts, shoes and awards. That case is still pending, records show.

The saga stretches back to 2008 or 2009, when Ferrer  who at the time was chairman of the nonprofit  suffered a financial crisis and began to meddle with the charitys fundraising efforts, the lawsuit said. In 2011, he asked his younger brother to join the board, and over the next several months, Ferrer gradually gave up his role in operating the charity.

In 2013, after Ferrer resigned from the funds board, he sent a letter to the fund in which he said he was terminating its right to use Hepburns name, image and likeness, which was owned equally by him and his brother, the lawsuit stated. The suit claims that the charity didnt need Ferrers permission.

After that, Ferrer began meddling with the charitys fundraising activities, changing the password of its GoDaddy account, which manages its domains and emails, and causing exhibitors in Australia and South Korea to pull out of prospective events, the lawsuit alleged.

In 2015, the lawsuit alleged, Ferrer asked Hubert de Givenchy to falsify and backdate a letter saying that hed donated his gowns to Hepburns sons, not to the charity.

Givenchy, the founder of the French fashion house whose designs Hepburn wore in seven movies, including Breakfast at Tiffanys and How to Steal a Million, refused, according to the suit.

According to Young, Ferrer had penned a letter in 2002 thanking the fashion designer for donating the dresses  which Hepburn wore between 1968 and 1991  to the fund.

Most recently, Ferrer, through an attorney in Switzerland, contacted an exhibitor in China, where charity events are scheduled for this year and next, and threatened legal action if the exhibitor went forward with the project, the lawsuit stated.

The lawsuit requests that a judge determine that the charity has the right to use Hepburns name and likeness for its fundraising efforts without having to pay or get permission from Ferrer and award an unspecified amount in damages.

alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter @AleneTchek

UPDATES:

6:40 p.m.: This article was updated with information about another lawsuit over Audrey Hepburns property.

This article was originally published at 4 a.m.
Long Beach police are searching for a man suspected of robbing a senior housing complex and sexually assaulting an elderly woman, authorities said Wednesday.

According to police, a man forced his way into several homes in a senior housing complex near Atlantic Avenue and Via Carmelitos between Thursday and Sunday. The youngest victim was 63 years old. The eldest was 95.

In three of the cases, a man knocked on the womens doors, forcing his way inside when they answered and physically assaulting them before making off with purses, cellphones and cash, according to police.

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In one case, a woman was robbed as she was walking near the residential complex.

A woman who was assaulted inside her home Sunday was taken to a hospital with injuries and expected to survive.

Anyone with information regarding the case can call Long Beach Police Det. J. Kearns at 562-570-7368 or email LBPDSexCrimes@longbeach.gov.

hannah.fry@latimes.com

For breaking California news, follow @HannahFryTCN on Twitter.

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A man is facing animal cruelty charges after throwing his pitbull mix off a hillside in an East Los Angeles neighborhood, prosecutors said.

Andres Spancky Raya, 21, pleaded not guilty Wednesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court downtown to two felony counts of animal cruelty, according to the Los Angeles County district attorneys office.

After entering his plea, Raya was taken into custody. He is being held on $65,000 bail.

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Raya is accused of throwing his dog, Mary Jane, off the neighborhood hillside in the 1300 block of Luella Drive on Sept. 26 and 28, according to prosecutor Alexandra Campbell. Mary Jane fell 145 feet into a ravine.

A neighbors surveillance camera caught the act, KTTV-TV reported.

After the incidents, the dog was taken in and cared for by another family, the television news station reported.

Before he was charged with animal cruelty, Raya was on probation for one felony count each of grand theft of personal property and hit-and-run driving resulting in injury to another person, according to Ricardo Santiago, a spokesman for the district attorneys office.

If Raya is convicted, he faces up to three years and eight months in jail.

veronica.rocha@latimes.com

Twitter: VeronicaRochaLA

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A 28-year-old Muscoy man is in custody Thursday after authorities say he fatally shot two of his neighbors.

Officials said that Roberto Lopez was arrested on suspicion of murder Wednesday after San Bernardino County sheriffs detectives interviewed him about the deaths of two neighbors. Their bodies were found with gunshot wounds in a converted garage on June Street in Muscoy that morning.

Deputies discovered the bodies while responding to a 9:45 a.m. 911 call about gunfire, officials said in a media statement. Lopez was identified as a person of interest and taken to sheriffs headquarters for questioning.

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At the end of the interview, Lopez was arrested. Authorities did not release a motive for the killings or say what Lopezs relationship was to the two men he allegedly killed.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to call Det. Lisa Guerra or Sgt. Jason Radeleff at (909) 387-3589.

Jail records show Lopez is being held without bail and is due in court Friday.

joseph.serna@latimes.com

For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter.

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One current and one former Carls Jr. employee filed a class-action lawsuit in Los Angeles Wednesday, alleging that Carl Karcher Enterprises LLC and its franchisees colluded to suppress wages by barring management workers from transferring between restaurants.

According to the lawsuit, the Carpinteria-based company uses no-hire agreements in an effort to keep workers from seeking raises by threatening to go to another franchisee. CKE is the parent company of the Carls Jr. and Hardees fast-food franchises.

The lawsuit cites comments CKE Chief Executive Officer Andy Puzder has made about his faith in free-market capitalism to spur the economy and reduce poverty. Under Puzder, President Trumps pick for Labor secretary, the market for CKE employees is not free, the lawsuit said.

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If I cant threaten my employer with going elsewhere  and taking my unique skills  to another Carls Jr. restaurant with me  then I am unable to demand as high of a salary, said Nina DiSalvo, an attorney for the plaintiffs. Theres no pro-competitive justification that we can identify that would support having a restraint like this. The only reason we can identify is to actively reduce labor costs to save them money.

The lawsuit comes on the heels of the Senates Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee setting a date for Puzders confirmation hearing. After four delays, the hearing is expected to be held Feb. 16.

This isnt the first time Puzder has faced heat for his business practices.

Democrats have criticized him for labor-law violations at the companys restaurants, as well as for his opposition to increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. Opponents received additional ammunition this week when Puzder admitted to employing a housekeeper who was an immigrant in the U.S. illegally.

While we will not comment on the specifics of any pending litigation, the timing of the filing of this baseless lawsuit is obviously intended to be an attempt, albeit a feeble one, to derail the nomination of Andy Puzder, Charles A. Chip Seigel III, executive vice president and general counsel for CKE, wrote in a prepared statement.

The plaintiffs and their backers will succeed at neither.

Luis Bautista, a shift leader at a Los Angeles Carls Jr., and Margarita Guerrero, who worked as a shift leader until late 2016, alleged that they suffered reduced wages and atrocious working conditions because of the companys no-hire policy.

Guerrero said she was promised that her pay would increase during the year she worked as a shift leader. However, she was never paid more than she earned as a crew member, according to the lawsuit.

If the company itself  rather than its franchisees  directly employed management workers, the lawsuit said, then it would be entitled to restrict movement between locations. But CKE officials and Puzder have said in the past that franchisees are not part of a single entity. Instead, they are expected to compete, according to the filing.

Puzder cannot have it both ways, the lawsuit said. They cannot eschew their responsibilities under labor and employment laws by embracing a free-market model constituted by independent, competing franchisees, while at the same time restraining free competition to the detriment of thousands of workers employed by CKE and its franchisees.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs are asking for the company to abolish the no-hire policy and seeking damages for the two people named in the suit, as well as any other management-level employees who have been affected.

hannah.fry@latimes.com

For breaking California news, follow @HannahFryTCN on Twitter.
When psychologists James Mitchell and John Bruce Jessen were hired by the CIA to design and help carry out harsh interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists after 9/11, they obviously became agents of the government. Or so argued the mens attorney, who recently told a federal judge that, as agents of the government, Mitchell and Jessen cannot be sued for their actions.

Not so, says the family of an elderly Afghan farmer who died in 2002 after two weeks in CIA custody. The family has been joined in a lawsuit by two other former CIA detainees who say the interrogation techniques Mitchell and Jessen taught and promoted at the spy agency amount to war crimes.

This key question  whether the former Air Force psychologists can be sued  is at the heart of the case, which a federal judge has ruled can proceed. The first lawsuit alleging torture by the CIA, it comes as President Trump has called for harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects.

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Mitchell and Jessen created a company that earned $81 million through a series of government contracts from 2003 until President Obama ended the arrangement, and torture tactics, in 2009.

The pair helped birth what grew into the notorious U.S. rendition program involving abductions, flights to black site prisons overseas, and enhanced interrogation techniques. The methods included waterboarding, beatings and mind-bending experiments with glaring lights and incessant music in attempts to force detainees, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to talk.

The admitted plotter of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times and eventually confessed to involvement in a series of terrorist acts, the U.S. said, including a never-launched second wave of aerial attacks that was planned against the US Bank Tower in Los Angeles and skyscrapers in Chicago, Seattle and Manhattan.

Skeptics, however, said there was no proof to support Mohammeds claims and, in the words of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the brutal questioning actually produced false and misleading information from Mohammed.

Trump recently said he believed enhanced interrogation absolutely works, but his CIA director, Mike Pompeo, said he would absolutely not bring back torture, and Trumps secretary of Defense, retired Marine Gen. James N. Mattis, doesnt support waterboarding or torture.

Give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers, he famously told Trump during one of their meetings, and I do better with that than I do with torture.

In an ABC interview on his fifth day in office, Trump appeared to still be holding out for the use of torture, vowing to do everything within the bounds of what youre allowed to do legally. If that included waterboarding, he said, then I will work for that end [because] I think it works.

The next day, he hedged, saying hed leave the final decision to Mattis. Im going to rely on him, Trump said. Mattis would override [me] because I am giving him that power.

Psychologist Mitchell, however, on a recent U.S. tour to promote his new book on the interrogation and rendition saga, Enhanced Interrogation, said the media were probably overstating Mattis objections.

Would you [as a prisoner] give up information that would get Americans killed if you were captured by ISIS or Al Qaeda, for a Michelob and a pack of Winstons? he asked.

I dont think so, he answered, Buzzfeed reported.

Whether the lawsuit can proceed against Mitchell  who personally interrogated prisoners, including Mohammed  and Jessen was the subject of a Jan. 19 hearing held by a federal judge in Spokane. Though the psychologists developed the torture program as independent CIA contractors, they took their marching orders from the agency, argued their attorney James T. Smith during a telephonic court hearing.

The militarys oversight, Smith maintained, effectively made the psychologists agents of the government who were protected from lawsuits under the color of law by the Military Commissions Act. Every action taken by our clients, Smith said on the phone from Philadelphia, was taken at the request of the United States of America.

Dror Ladin, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney in New York who brought the lawsuit on behalf of former detainees, disagreed. Acting jointly in no way changes that definition [of contractor]. There is no support for immunity for that type of action, Ladin said.

Ladin represents Suleiman Abdullah Salim, a Tanzanian fisherman abducted by the CIA in Somalia in 2003, allegedly tortured and released five years later with a document stating he posed no threat to the United States; and Mohammed Ahmed Ben Soud, a Libyan abducted in 2003 and allegedly tortured in Afghanistan, then rendered to Libya and held until 2011, after the overthrow of the Kadafi regime.

He also represents the Afghan family of Gul Rahman, also abducted, who died after two weeks in CIA custody, chained up and suffering from hypothermia. Rahman was held at a facility in Afghanistan known as the Salt Pit.

The plaintiffs are seeking compensatory damages of more than $75,000, plus punitive damages and attorneys fees.

U.S. District Court Judge Justin L. Quackenbush, ruling from the bench, gave the nod to Ladin. The folksy Quackenbush, 87, had turned away a defense motion last April to dismiss the lawsuit, and said his mind hadnt been changed.

I dont think they were operating as agents, he said.

He later issued a written ruling, stating that while an independent contractor could be in an agency relationship with a principal whom it has contracted with, Defendants have not presented such facts.

The judge also said Mitchell and Jessen failed to establish that the three detainees had been named as enemy combatants, which would have prevented them from suing the psychologists. None of the three plaintiffs was determined by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal to be an enemy combatant, as defined by the George W. Bush administration, the judge concluded.

During the telephone arguments, Smith said CIA officials should be brought to court and questioned about their definitions of agents and combatants. Weve been trying to get the CIA to take a position on this, said Smith. The judge should put CIA officials under oath and force them to explain, he added, an idea Quackenbush also rejected.

The CIA has cooperated in other efforts to enable the case  tentatively set for trial starting June 26  by providing documents and choosing not to invoke a national security defense to prevent disclosure.

The governments turnabout was due in part to an explosive 525-page summary of a 7,000-page government expose released in 2014 by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, revealing abuses, CIA misrepresentations, and U.S. officials awareness that the program was illegal. The report described waterboarding, sleep deprivation, beatings and exposure to loud noises, among other techniques.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who unsuccessfully urged President Obama in his final months in office to release the full report, said history would judge the nation by its willingness to face an ugly truth and say, Never again.

The CIA disputed the reports findings. So did Mitchell, who in his new book rejected many of the Senate reports conclusions and said the techniques produced valuable information to aid the U.S. war on terrorism.

I have looked into the eyes of the worst people on the planet, he wrote. I have heard their eagerness to convert or kill millions of people in the process. Our actions were necessary, effective, legal and authorized and helped save lives in America. Those claims are now headed to trial.

Anderson is a special correspondent.
Arizona immigration activists prodded Phoenix politicians and law enforcement to declare the city a sanctuary for immigrants in the country illegally after a mother of two U.S. citizens was deported Thursday morning.

Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, 36, was deported to Nogales, Mexico, early Thursday, said her attorney, Ray Ybarra Maldonado.

As a nonviolent felon, she was considered a low priority for deportation under the Obama administration, but an executive order by President Trump widened the priorities of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to include all immigrants in the country illegally with a criminal record.

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Garcia de Rayos spent 22 years in the country illegally, arriving in the U.S. when she was 14. She was convicted in 2009 of felony identity theft after she was arrested in a workplace raid under then-Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

There are a hundred people in harms way with similar backgrounds to Guadalupe, Ybarra Maldonado said.

A protester locked himself to the van carrying Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Phoenix on Wednesday night. (Rob Schumacher / Associated Press)

Activists demanded at a news conference in front of the ICE field office in Phoenix that new Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone, a Democrat who defeated Arpaio in Novembers election, remove ICE agents from the main Phoenix jail on the citys 4th Avenue.

We want nothing of Arpaios culture still there, said Carlos Garcia, director of the immigrant advocacy group Puente Arizona. Get ICE out of the 4th Avenue Jail. Stop running people booked through immigration background checks.

Penzone, who took office in January, told The Times on Thursday that he is not moving ICE from the jails.

ICE is going to stay in the jails right now because there are people who have committed serious crimes, violent crime, Penzone said. I have a responsibility to ensure that were facilitating other agencies to act in a manner that theyre empowered to.

In a statement, ICE said Garcia de Rayos was transported to Mexico shortly before 10 a.m.

Ms. Garcia, who has a prior felony conviction in Arizona for criminal impersonation, was the subject of a court-issued removal order that became final in July 2013, the statement said. Ms. Garcias immigration case underwent review at multiple levels of the immigration court system, including the Board of Immigration Appeals, and the judges held she did not have a legal basis to remain in the U.S. ICE will continue to focus on identifying and removing individuals with felony convictions who have final orders of removal issued by the nations immigration courts.

Garcia de Rayos was arrested during a routine check-in with ICE agents. Accompanied by protesters who worried that she would be detained because of the new executive order, Ybarra Maldonado accompanied her into the ICE field office.

Its no fun walking someone to the slaughter, he said.

Protesters gathered outside the ICE office in hopes of preventing her transfer Wednesday night, with one demonstrator even chaining himself to a transport van.

nigel.duara@latimes.com

Twitter: @nigelduara

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12:45 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone and a statement from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

This article was originally published at 11:45 a.m.
In a significant setback for the Trump administrations first major attempt to carry out its anti-terrorism agenda, a federal appeals court Thursday refused to reinstate a controversial executive order barring travelers from seven predominantly Muslim nations from entering the U.S.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a Seattle federal judges earlier restraining order on the new policy should remain in effect while the judge further examines its legality.



For the record: An earlier version of this story misidentified Sally Yates, the former acting attorney general, as Nancy Yates.

The travel moratorium signed Jan. 27 stirred chaos at airports and protests worldwide as at least 60,000 visas were canceled, including those held by students visiting families abroad and engineers working in the U.S.

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Reaction, analysis and more on the 9th circuit ruling 

The three judges, two Democratic appointees and one appointed by a Republican, unanimously said the administration had not shown an urgent need to have the order go into effect immediately. By contrast, they said, the two states that challenged it had shown that some of their residents would be harmed by having their right to travel cut off.

In a ruling that rejected the Trump administrations arguments at almost every turn, the court faulted the federal government for failing to present evidence that the ban was needed for national security. The Government has pointed to no evidence that any alien from any of the countries named in the Order has perpetrated a terrorist attack in the United States, the court said.

The panel also denied the administrations last-gasp request to limit the scope of the legal hold, perhaps making it apply to some but not others.

President Trump lost no time in responding to the courts ruling on Twitter: SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!

U.S. District Judge James L. Robart issued a temporary restraining order last week blocking enforcement of Trumps directive after concluding that a challenge by the states of Washington and Minnesota was likely to succeed.

The Seattle-based judge, appointed by President George W. Bush, also concluded that halting the ban  at least for a while  would cause no undue harm to the country.

Administration lawyers have argued that the country could be at risk of a terrorist attack until heightened vetting measures for travelers from the seven identified countries are put into place.

The appellate judges rejected the Trump administrations argument that the courts lacked the right to review the presidents executive order. There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy, the panel said.

Indeed, federal courts routinely review the constitutionality of  and even invalidate  actions taken by the executive to promote national security, and have done so even in times of conflict, the panel added.

The court said the states were likely to succeed in their due process claim, noting that the due process protections provided under the Constitution apply not only to citizens, but to all aliens in the country, as well as certain aliens attempting to re-enter the United States after traveling abroad.

The judges also said they took note of the serious nature of the states claim that the travel ban, because it targets Muslim-majority nations and provides exceptions for members of persecuted religious minorities, constitutes religious discrimination.

We express no view as to any of the States other claims, the court said, though it did note that the states had also offered ample evidence that reinstatement of the ban would harm their universities and businesses.

The government lost across the board, said Arthur Hellman, a University of Pittsburgh law professor. At almost every stage, the court says to the government, You have to persuade us, but you did not.

Trumps executive order, issued only seven days after the president took office, placed a 90-day block on admission of citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, all of which administration officials say have links to terrorism.

It also included a 120-day ban on all refugee admissions, indefinite suspension of the admission of Syrian refugees and preference for refugees who are members of persecuted religious minorities.

Washington and Minnesota sued Trump, maintaining the order was hurting their businesses and disrupting their public universities.

Bottom line, this is a complete victory for the state of Washington, Washington Atty. Gen. Bob Ferguson, who brought the lawsuit on behalf of his state and Minnesota challenging the executive order, said at a news conference after the decision. We are a nation of laws. And as I have said, as we have said from Day One, that those laws apply to everybody in our country, and that includes the president of the United States.

Hillary Clinton, Trumps Democratic opponent in the 2016 campaign, had a quick, terse response on Twitter, apparently referring to the unanimity of the ruling: 3-0, it said.

Eric H. Holder Jr., attorney general under President Obama, also responded on Twitter with a photo of Sally Yates, the acting attorney general whom Trump fired after she refused to defend the presidents executive order. Skill, judgment, courage. VINDICATED. 3-0, Holder wrote.

Muslim groups across the country applauded the appellate courts ruling.

Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit not only upheld a federal court ruling that placed a temporary nationwide halt to President Trumps Muslim ban, it also upheld long-treasured American values of the rule of law and liberty and equality for all, regardless of religion, Farhana Khera, executive director of the civil rights group Muslim Advocates, which has filed a brief in the case, said in a statement.

But former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a 2016 Republican presidential candidate, tweeted that the court thumbed nose at Constitution and law and did left-wing politics.

Trump, he said, tries to protect USA; court protects terrorists.

Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative Christian group that filed a brief in support of the travel ban, said the decision puts our nation in grave danger.

The fact is that President Trump clearly has the constitutional and statutory authority to issue this order. It is clear: radical Islamic terrorists are at war with America. President Trumps order is a proper and constitutional way to protect America, he said.

The Trump administration can appeal the decision directly to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has four Democratic appointees and four Republican appointees and may be unable to reach a majority decision. The seat of the late Justice Antonin Scalia remains vacant.

Or it could agree to leave the stay in place and return to the district court in Seattle to begin arguing the constitutional issues that form the heart of the case.

Kellyanne Conway, a senior advisor to Trump, emphasized that the ban has always been about keeping the country safe, and hinted that the administration is interested in getting down to the essentials of the case.

This ruling does not affect the merits at all, she said. It is an interim ruling, and we are fully confident that now that we will get our day in court, and have an opportunity to argue this on the merits, that we will prevail.

UC Berkeley law professor John Yoo, who worked in President George W. Bushs administration and helped write a memo justifying torture of suspected terrorists, said the Supreme Court is unlikely to agree to review the decision on the stay. The inclusion of green card holders in the travel ban doomed it legally, Yoo said, and the high court rarely agrees to hear such emergency appeals.

Yoo said the 9th Circuit ruling was on less solid ground on other issues: whether the states had standing to sue and whether visa holders had a right to a hearing before their visas were canceled. The administration lost because it rushed out this order in an ill-considered and haphazard way, the conservative legal scholar said. A more cautious, more modest executive order would have survived legal scrutiny, he said.

UC Irvine Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky said the most important aspect of the appeals courts ruling was its assertion of the role of the courts in the nations system of government. The court, he said, reaffirmed the most basic aspect of the rule of law: No one, not even the president, is above the law, and it is the role of the courts always to review the constitutionality of government actions.

U.S. Sen. Kamala D. Harris, a Democrat on the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and Californias former attorney general, said the ruling recognizes this administration has utterly failed to justify the tremendous harm this ban has inflicted on our country.

The ban, she said in a statement, has jeopardized our national security and undermined our nations core values as a place of refuge for those fleeing violence and seeking freedom.

During the presidential campaign, Trump vowed he would make the country safer from terrorism by barring Muslims from other countries from entering.

But federal lawyers defending the ban said the seven countries targeted in the executive order were designated not because they were predominantly Muslim but because Congress and the Obama administration had linked them to terrorism.

The Trump administration also argued that the president could not be second-guessed by the courts on his executive action because as a matter of law he has authority over foreign relations and national security.

The 9th Circuit, which decides federal matters for nine Western states, is considered one of the more liberal circuit courts in the nation.

But the most liberal of the 9th Circuits judges, those appointed by President Carter, are gradually retiring from the court.

The Clinton and Obama appointees are generally viewed as much more moderate, and judges chosen during the last five terms of Republican presidents tend to be conservative or moderately conservative.

Also, judges are randomly selected for the three-member panels, and depending on whose names are drawn, a panel can be conservative, liberal or middle of the road.

The Seattle case that led to the 9th Circuit review is among dozens of lawsuits going through federal district courts over the travel ban.

In Virginia, a Friday hearing was scheduled in front of a federal judge in a case brought by the state, which has asked for a preliminary injunction against the ban. There is also a hearing scheduled in late February in Brooklyn, N.Y., where a federal judge handed the American Civil Liberties Union the first legal victory against the ban when she issued an emergency order to halt deportations of visa holders who had arrived in the U.S. but were denied entry.

New federal lawsuits are also still being filed, including one on Thursday in Washington, D.C., on behalf of several Iranian American organizations.

Times staff writers Kurtis Lee, Matt Pearce and Nina Agrawal contributed to this report.

maura.dolan@latimes.com

jaweed.kaleem@latimes.com

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5:55 p.m.: The story was updated with additional analysis from liberal and conservative legal scholars and a comment from California U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris.

5:10 p.m.: The story was updated with additional reaction.

4:20 p.m: The story was updated with additional reaction.

3:45 p.m.: This story was updated with additional details from the ruling and initial reaction.

This story was originally published at 3:16 p.m.
As John Swallow stood before family and colleagues at a swearing-in ceremony inside the marble rotunda of the Utah Capitol in 2013, many viewed him as a rising star in the Republican Party.

Charismatic and ambitious, Swallow had served three terms in the state House and now would become Utahs 20th attorney general.

He had what seemed to be everything going for him, recalled state Rep. Paul Ray, a Republican from Clearfield, about 30 miles north of Salt Lake City. Little did I or anyone know it was about to end.

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Indeed, 10 months after his swearing-in, Swallow resigned his position amid a flurry of corruption allegations. Now, nearly four years after becoming the states top attorney, Swallow is at the center of what experts say is unprecedented in Utah  a high-ranking state official facing multiple felony charges.

Prosecutors in Salt Lake City, where Swallows criminal trial began this week, allege he was a part of a scheme that dates to 2008. At the time, Swallow worked as a deputy attorney general under state Atty. Gen. Mark Shurtleff, who was in his final term after more than a decade in office. Unsurprisingly, he was regarded as Shurtleffs heir apparent and easily won election.

Swallow, 54, is charged with a pattern of unlawful activity during that time, which, among other things, consists of money laundering, accepting improper gifts and soliciting a bribe  all second-degree felonies. Moreover, he faces three counts of evidence tampering, obstruction of justice and misuse of public money, which are all third-degree felonies.

Authorities said Swallow in effect hung a virtual for sale sign on the door of the attorney generals office. Claims by former employees that Swallow had received improper gifts and extorted from businessmen, among other things, began to pile up shortly after he took office.

This led to an investigation by a House Ethics Committee, which in March 2014 released a 200-page report that said, Swallow and others responsible for the abuses described must be held accountable for their actions.

Shurtleff also faced criminal charges, but prosecutors dropped them last summer, citing his ongoing cooperation in their investigation.

For his part, Swallow has maintained his innocence, calling the charges politically motivated.

But some Utah political observers bristle at that notion.

This seemed to be clearly a guy who felt because of his status, he could get away with anything, said Carter Livingston, the vice president of the Utah offices of Strategies 360, a political firm with offices nationwide. He might have got a little cocky.

In one instance, prosecutors allege, Swallow accepted a dozen gold coins from a payday loan titan, which were valued at $17,000.

LaVarr Webb, a longtime political strategist in Utah, said the case has led to murmurs about other politicians who could be involved.

These were some top guys allegedly doing some really criminal stuff, said Webb.

In the case against Swallow, prosecutors say he bragged about being able to influence powerful people  even boasting that he could help bribe then-U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Prosecutors never implicated Reid, and the retired Nevada Democrats office has called the allegations false.

Jeremy Johnson, the onetime owner of the multimillion-dollar online marketing company iWorks, who is now in prison, is among the prosecutions top witnesses. In 2010, Johnson said, he provided rides on a private plane and houseboat trips to Swallow and his family, which were improper gifts.

Johnson, a big political donor in Utah, became acquaintances with Swallow when the politician served as deputy attorney general. Over the years, Johnson donated tens of thousands of dollars to Republicans in the state.

In March 2016, a Utah jury convicted Johnson of eight counts of making false statements to a bank in connection with iWorks. Hes currently serving an 11-year sentence.

On Thursday, Marc Sessions Jenson, another Utah businessman who is a prosecution witness, testified that he paid tens of thousands of dollars in expenses for Swallow and his family members to vacation in 2009 at the posh Pelican Hill resort in Orange County, Calif. In exchange, he said, Swallow and Shurtleff said they would help resolve a 2005 securities fraud case Jenson was battling, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

Swallows trial is expected to last most of February and include testimony from nearly 120 witnesses, including Shurtleff and current House Speaker Greg Hughes.

This really has just been a mess for the state, Webb said. People are looking around like, Where did this come from?

In Utah, Republicans dominate the state Legislature and governors office, much like Democrats do in California. The state has not voted for the Democratic presidential nominee since 1964, making it among the reddest of states in the country.

Rep. Ray, a lifelong Republican, said he and many conservatives in the state will be watching the trial closely. When asked whether he had seen any scandal of this size in Utah, Ray paused to think about it.

No, not at all, he said.

Swallow, he added, was really on the rise. If anything  this can make politicians realize theyre not invincible.

kurtis.lee@latimes.com

Twitter: @kurtisalee

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Construction of the final segment of the Dakota Access pipeline has begun, and the full system should be operational within three months, the developer of the long-delayed project said Thursday, even as a Native American tribe filed a legal challenge to block the work and protect its water supply.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granted Energy Transfer Partners formal permission Wednesday to lay pipe under a North Dakota reservoir, clearing the way for completion of the 1,200-mile pipeline. Company spokeswoman Vicki Granado confirmed early Thursday that construction resumed immediately after receiving the easement.

Workers had already drilled entry and exit holes for the segment, and oil had been put in the pipeline leading up to Lake Oahe in anticipation of the completion of the project.

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The estimate is 60 days to complete the drill and another 23 days to fill the line to Patoka, Granado said, referring to the shipping point in Illinois that is the pipelines terminus.

Work was stalled for months due to opposition by the Standing Rock Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes. Both tribes argue that the pipeline threatens their water supply and cultural sites.

In a statement, Cheyenne River Sioux Chairman Harold Frazier said the water is our life. It must be protected at all costs.

The Cheyenne River reservation in South Dakota borders the Standing Rock reservation, which straddles the North Dakota-South Dakota border. The last piece of the pipeline would pass under the lake on the Missouri River, which marks the eastern border of both reservations.

A separate court battle unfolded between the developer and the Corps of Engineers, which oversees the federal land where the last segment is now being laid. President Trump last month instructed the Corps to advance pipeline construction.

The Cheyenne River Sioux on Thursday asked a federal judge to stop the work while a lawsuit filed earlier by the tribes proceeds. Attorney Nicole Ducheneaux said in court documents that the pipeline will desecrate the waters that the Cheyenne River Sioux rely on.

Energy Transfer Partners, which maintains the pipeline is safe, did not immediately respond in court to the filing. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg did not immediately rule.

The tribes lawsuit, filed last summer, has been on hold while the dispute over the final pipeline segment played out. The Cheyenne River Sioux on Thursday told the judge that they also want to make a claim on freedom-of-religion grounds.

The sanctity of these waters is a central tenet of their religion, and the placement of the pipeline itself, apart from any rupture and oil spill, is a desecration of these waters, Ducheneaux wrote.

Standing Rock Sioux attorney Jan Hasselman has said that the tribe will also try to block the construction in court, where they will probably argue that further study is necessary to preserve tribal treaty rights.

An assessment conducted last year determined that building the final segment of the pipeline would not have a significant effect on the environment. However, the Corps of Engineers decided in December that further study was warranted to address tribal concerns.

The Corps launched an environmental study on Jan. 18, but Trump signed an executive action six days later telling the Corps to allow the company to proceed with construction. Legal experts have disagreed on whether the Corps can change its mind simply because of the change in administrations.

An encampment near the construction drew thousands of protesters last year in support of the tribes, leading to occasional clashes with law enforcement and hundreds of arrests.

Granado said she was not aware of any incidents involving pipeline opponents in the area Thursday. The Morton County Sheriffs Office also said it had not responded to any incidents.

Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault said in a statement late Wednesday that the tribe was prepared to keep up the battle in court to fight against an administration that seeks to dismiss not only our treaty rights and status as sovereign nations, but the safe drinking water of millions of Americans.

In a statement Wednesday, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum urged cooperation and restraint from all parties and requested federal law enforcement assistance to keep the peace during construction.

Protesters rallied in several U.S. cities Wednesday. Joye Braun and Payu Harris, two pipeline opponents who have been at the North Dakota protest encampment, said in an interview at a nearby casino that theres frustration but also resolve in the wake of the Armys decision.

The goal is still prayerful, nonviolent, direct action, Braun said.

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The biggest storm to hit the Northeast this winter pushed its way up the Philadelphia-to-Boston corridor with a potential for more than a foot of snow in places Thursday, making for a slippery morning commute and giving millions of people weather whiplash a day after temperatures soared into the 50s and 60s.

Scores of accidents were reported as drivers confronted windblown snow and slick highways. More than 3,500 flights were canceled, and all planes in and out of New Yorks Kennedy Airport were ordered held on the ground while crews cleared the runways.

Schools were closed in most places, including New York City, Philadelphia and Boston, and government offices from the Philadelphia area to southern New England told most nonessential workers to stay home.

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A doorman in New York City died after falling through a window while shoveling snow, police said. He suffered cuts on his face and neck.

The National Weather Service said the Boston area and eastern Maine could get 12 to 18 inches of snow, and a blizzard warning was issued for New Yorks Long Island. New York City could see 8 to 12 inches and the Philadelphia area 4 to 8 inches.

Forecasters also warned of high winds, coastal flooding and possible power outages.

This is a pretty nasty storm. Were doing our best to stay on top of it, Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said.

Governors throughout the region urged people to stay off the roads to keep them clear for plows and emergency vehicles.

By midmorning, Connecticut state police responded to about 30 accidents, and New Jerseys emergency management office recorded about 50. No serious injuries were reported.

Bundled-up commuters in New York City carefully navigated snow-covered sidewalks. Blowing snow stung any exposed skin.

Sam Lopresti, of Jersey City, N.J., warm and dry in his workplace, said he was pleasantly surprised that his early-morning train trip into New York City had gone smoothly.

I fully expected the MTA and PATH to curl into a ball and say, Dont hurt me!  joked Lopresti, an actor and barista.

The storm came a day after much of the Northeast enjoyed a brief glimpse of spring, with record-breaking highs in some places. Temperatures then crashed more than 30 degrees as the storm rolled in.

The snow was expected to taper off by early afternoon in the Philadelphia and New York City areas, while New Englanders braced for snowfall through the evening commute.

MORE NATIONAL NEWS

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UPDATES:

10:20 a.m.: This article was updated with news that a New York City doorman died in a snow-related accident.

This article was originally published at 8:30 a.m.
Good morning. Its Thursday, Feb. 9, and heres whats happening across California:

TOP STORIES

End-of-life hero

Even as President Trumps executive order banning immigrants from seven majority Muslim countries reverberates through the courts and the country, one Libyan-born Muslim in Azusa heroically cares for L.A. Countys terminally ill foster children. Los Angeles Times

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Chill out

Los Angeles is too hot, and Mayor Eric Garcetti knows that. Its why the mayors administration has brought together a team of scientists to figure out how to reduce the regions temperature by 3 degrees. Los Angeles Times

Ghost ship revelations

Documents show Oakland officials had visited the Ghost Ship warehouse numerous times and investigated at least 10 code enforcement complaints in the years before the December fire that killed 36 people. Los Angeles Times

L.A. STORIES

Learning to love L.A.: La La Land creator Damien Chazelle, who has done much to make moviegoers fall in love with L.A., says it wasnt exactly love at first sight for him. I had some negative conceptions of Los Angeles, but I was willing to try something other than the East Coast because I wanted to do movies For a few years, there were ups and downs, but I slowly became smitten. New York Times

Charter school challenge: Columnist Steve Lopez explains how newly minted Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will be on the front line of a local and national fight over public schools. In L.A., where billionaires funding charter schools are commonplace, Lopez says, its immoral to use students as pawns. Los Angeles Times

Counterpoint: Examining segregation in charter schools  in Los Angeles and beyond. The Atlantic

LAX mayhem: Horror stories from those detained at Los Angeles International Airport under President Trumps targeted travel ban in the last couple of weeks emerged at a recent L.A. City Council meeting. Los Angeles Daily News

Ikea mania: There were at least 1,000 people who lined up in front of the nations largest Ikea store, which opened in Burbank. The first 100 who entered got free armchairs. Los Angeles Times

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

Trump water? For years Cadiz Inc. has been trying and failing to get federal permits to excavate Mojave Desert groundwater. That was until Trump became president. McClatchy

Midterm season begins: The Republican Party has identified four California Democratic congressmen whom they are hoping to unseat in the 2018 midterm elections. Los Angeles Times

Power impact: State lawmakers have asked the California Energy Commission to pause and reevaluate the need for a controversial natural gas project proposed for Ventura County in light of a report published by the Los Angeles Times that detailed how the state has created a glut of electricity capacity over the last decade at the expense of ratepayers. Los Angeles Times

Delays on the San Diego Bay: Even though Anthonys Fish Grotto has now closed after 71 years, its replacement wont be coming along anytime soon. San Diego Union-Tribune

Lawmakers rebut Trump: State lawmakers have introduced a package of bills to help support refugees who end up resettling in the state. Mercury News

CRIME AND COURTS

Ford settlement: Ezell Fords family will receive $1.5 million after the L.A. City Council agreed Wednesday to fund the settlement. Fords 2014 killing by LAPD officers drew a national outcry, and this settlement comes two weeks after the L.A. district attorneys office said it would not charge the two officers who shot the 25-year-old. Los Angeles Times

Gas leak settlement: Southern California Gas Co. will pay $8.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by air quality regulators over the Aliso Canyon gas leak, and it will fund a study of potential effects on community health. Los Angeles Times

Jack in the Box killing: Last week a Long Beach man stabbed three people along Sunset Boulevard before being shot by the LAPD. Law enforcement sources tell The Times that he was struggling with mental illness. Los Angeles Times

Scandalized cop saved: A Richmond police officer who had been slated to be fired for his connection to a sex scandal involving a teenage sex worker will return to the force, according to the city manager, after new information came to light. San Francisco Chronicle

DROUGHT AND CLIMATE

Conservation measures stay: State water regulators have decided to keep emergency drought restrictions in place despite the epic rain and snowfall this winter. Los Angeles Times

Lifesaver: When a mudslide hit this womans home in Los Gatos, she used Facebook to get help. SF Gate

CALIFORNIA CULTURE

Desert tacos: One of Los Angeles taco kings, chef Carlos Salgado, has opened a shop in Palm Springs. Desert Sun

Dope kush: Hybrid strain Gorilla Glue No. 4 was the most popular strain of marijuana in California, according to a survey of the 250,000 users of the medical marijuana delivery app Eaze. Refinery 29

Easy living: U.S. News & World Report has ranked San Jose the third best place to live in America and San Francisco the 16th best place to live. Does that check out? Curbed San Francisco

No Oscar party here: Mega-agency UTA has canceled its annual Oscar party and instead will give $250,000 to charity and hold a rally to express the creative communitys growing concern with anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States. Variety.

EBay find: Someone bid nearly $100,000 for a Flamin Hot Cheeto that looks like the late gorilla Harambe, but apparently they got cold feet. Los Angeles Times

So cool: The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has released 375,000 images for public consumption. Here are the 10 coolest ones relating to California. LAist.

CALIFORNIA ALMANAC

Los Angeles: Partly cloudy Thursday, rain Friday. San Francisco: Rain Thursday and Friday. Sacramento: Rain Thursday and Friday. San Diego: Partly cloudy Thursday and Friday. More weather is here.

AND FINALLY

Todays California memory comes from James Richardson:

It was 1981, I was on my way to NAS Moffett Field at Mountain View. I had driven from Mississippi to L.A. on Interstate 10 and decided to stop to get a burger before I got on the I-5 to begin my trek north. I grew up in Philly, we had our share of traffic, but I cursed out loud (to an empty car) when I couldnt find a parking spot. I was tired and in need of a break, so I double-parked and ran in to the MacD. When I returned to my car, I found a cop finishing writing me a ticket. I said I was sorry and would pay it when I got to my destination. I was amazed when he replied, Here you go, just go ahead and rip it up. Everyone else does! Gotta love those L.A. cops.

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 Benjamin Oreskes and Shelby Grad.
President Trump has branded a California bill to restrict the role of state and local officials in deportations ridiculous  which, given the current state of affairs, gives the proposed legislation instant credibility. It is Trumps sweeping deportation threats that are ridiculous and dangerous, and that make proposals like Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leons SB 54 a part of the states arsenal to protect its residents and its economy. But as the bills details are being worked through, de Leon and his colleagues must take care not to turn California into the obstructionist jurisdiction that Trump and anti-immigration activists have falsely claimed it to be.

Lawmakers are rightfully worried about Trumps pronouncements on illegal immigration. After first pledging to deport all immigrants in the country illegally, then only violent criminals, he has broadened his deportation target again to include those who are merely accused by police of minor crimes, or who claim a public benefit such as a free school lunch. And he continues to stain immigrants as violent criminals despite studies that show immigrants, both with and without legal status, commit crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans.

Much of his rhetoric is drawn from immigration opponents who have long criticized what they falsely claim to be local policies to harbor people who are in the country illegally and keep them from federal immigration agents.

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If not worded with care, the bill could make the inaccurate characterization of California cities as obstructionist seem credible.

But most of Californias so-called sanctuary cities, including Los Angeles, are nothing of the sort. Rather, these jurisdictions rightly recognize that local resources should not be spent enforcing federal immigration laws. Doing so wouldnt just blur the lines of enforcement responsibility; if immigrants view local police as immigration agents, they are less likely to report crimes or cooperate in investigations. That is a danger to communities. But cities and local law enforcement agencies routinely work cooperatively with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The common assertion that local police and sheriff departments block the feds from obtaining information about people they arrest and jail is simply false.

Californias leaders could easily stand up to Trumps baseless assertions by restating the obvious and verifiable fact that neither the state nor any jurisdiction in it actively interferes with federal law enforcement.

De Leons proposed legislation takes a different route: It would for the first time impose on Los Angeles and other cities, as well as counties, school districts and health facilities, a directive not to cooperate with immigration authorities. The directive would apply to law enforcement, health facilities and schools across the state.

If not worded with care, the bill could make the inaccurate characterization of California cities as obstructionist seem credible. It wouldnt make California a sanctuary state  but it could layer on requirements that prevent local police agencies from using their own experience and discretion in choosing how best to protect public safety.

To de Leons credit, he is working with law enforcement to ensure that the bill would not restrict the ability of police to work with federal officials on human trafficking, border protection, and apprehension and prosecution of violent and dangerous criminals, regardless of their immigration status.

But in its current form the bill would keep ICE agents from interviewing people held in local jails. That might seem like an overstep  why not let immigration officers talk to people in custody?  were it not for ICE agents past abuses in racially profiling inmates. Nevertheless, it would be better to limit ICEs access to individuals that the agency has identified as possibly living here illegally, rather than imposing a blanket denial of access. The bill also would bar local officials from responding to requests for information, such as an inmates release date or home address. But there is no good reason for local police not to answer specific requests about individuals in custody.

Californias local law enforcement agencies should not be conscripted, against their will, by federal agents into rounding up people for deportation, especially when they have their hands full with violent crime. Neither should they be prevented by Sacramento from working with immigration officials when they believe it will help keep their cities safe  for example, by prosecuting and punishing violent criminals, rather than simply escorting them across the border so they can return a week later.

Its a delicate line to walk. Resisting Trumps ridiculous deportation plans and his inaccurate depiction of sanctuary cities is crucial. The guiding principle here should be that immigration authorities do their jobs, and local agencies do theirs without actively shielding people or otherwise crossing the line from principled silence to obstruction.

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Its bad enough that President Trump confined his Cabinet search to members of the 1%. But its particularly galling that his choice for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services  an agency vital to poor and infirm Americans  may have used his congressional office to expand his personal fortune.

That nominee  Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), an orthopedic surgeon who has served on two House committees that help shape healthcare policy  invested in more than half a dozen healthcare-industry companies even as he took steps as a legislator that benefited them. Thats a clear conflict of interest, and if Trump honestly wanted to drain the swamp of self-serving elites in Washington, he would have withdrawn Prices nomination as soon as Prices investing habits came to light.

Granted, those investments represent a small fraction of Prices net worth, which the Houses imprecise financial disclosures value at $10 million or more. The problem is that Price would invest at all in drug companies, medical device makers and other health-industry firms with so clear a stake in the measures he sponsored. By the Wall Street Journals tabulation, Price traded more than $300,000 worth of healthcare-company stocks in his last two terms as he sponsored and voted on legislation affecting those companies.

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Trump should not be able to...fill his Cabinet with people who cant or refuse to see the conflicts between their own interests and the publics.

Three particular sets of transactions stand out. According to Time magazine, a broker acquired $6,000 to $90,000 worth of shares in six major pharmaceutical companies for the congressman in March 2016, just after a division of the Health and Human Services Department proposed to change how doctors were reimbursed by Medicare for the drugs they buy and administer to patients. The point was to eliminate a perverse incentive for doctors to use the most expensive drugs available, rather than the ones that would help their patients the most. The six companies lobbied hard against the proposal, and after buying their stock, Price cosponsored a resolution to block the rule and sent a letter (with wide support from both parties) to the Obama administration urging that the rule be dropped. It was.

Also in March 2016, CNN reported, Price acquired $1,000 to $15,000 worth of stock in Zimmer Biomet, a top manufacturer of artificial knees and hips. A few days later, Price introduced a bill to delay a proposed rule designed to rein in hospitals spending on  knee and hip replacements. The proposal, part of the Obama administrations push to get more value out of the money spent on healthcare, mirrored efforts by states and private insurers to come up with better ways to pay doctors and hospitals.

Finally, last June, Price bought $50,000 to $100,000 worth of stock in an Australian biotech company at a special discounted price available only to a small circle of buyers, the Wall Street Journal reported. The shares have more than doubled in value since then.

Prices supporters argue that most of the trades were made without Prices prior knowledge and that Price was hardly the only person given access to the discounted biotech shares. The problem is more fundamental than that, however. Price knew what he owned, and that knowledge created a conflict. Thats why lawmakers should not hold shares in individual companies or narrowly targeted mutual funds, particularly not in the fields directly affected by their work.

The congressman also happens to be wrong on healthcare policy, simultaneously seeking to lower governmental spending on care while freeing doctors, hospitals and drug makers to charge more. But his views are (sadly) within his partys mainstream, and Trump should have the leeway to pick nominees whose policy choices reflect his own. What he should not be able to do, however, is fill his Cabinet with people who cant or refuse to see the conflicts between their own interests and the publics.

The Senate is expected to vote on Price this week, then turn to Trumps nominee for secretary of the Treasury: Steve Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs partner, hedge fund manager and OneWest Bank honcho. Mnuchin presents a different ethics-related issue for senators. Although hes been flailed for some apparently dodgy testimony at his nomination hearing  for example, he said that OneWest engaged in no robo-signing of foreclosure documents when it clearly did  the main rap against Mnuchin is that he grew rich and his bank prospered while foreclosing on thousands of people, often unfairly and at times with stunning heartlessness, and evicting a disproportionate number of people of color.

In other words, Mnuchins problems stem from his companys and his industrys bad behavior  yet the ethical problem may be as serious as Prices. In fact, it is precisely the sort of Wall Street greed and arrogance that Trump denounced on the campaign trail, back when he often sounded like a populist. He doesnt seem to mind it as much now.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is the very model of Teutonic stolidness. She doesnt always smile in photo ops. Shes not constantly tweeting; she doesnt traffic in outrage. Instead, she simply gets on with leading the most powerful country in the European Union.

With bombast and bluster in ascendance on the world stage, her manners seem almost quaint. In her workmanlike way, however, Merkel could oversee a truly consequential change in foreign affairs, a shift from Pax Americana to Pax Germania. The role of guardian of the liberal world order  tamping down national egoism, promoting peace  isnt one Germany has sought, but it may be one it cant avoid.

Merkel and the EU face enormous challenges. She is up for reelection in September, as opposition parties in Germany gain ground and a corrosive nationalism rises across the continent. Germany is grappling with 1 million refugees from the fractured Middle East. Britain is Brexiting. Russian President Vladimir Putin looms on Europes eastern flank, and in the West, President Trump rarely misses an opportunity to signal his disdain for the chancellor and what she represents. But dont count Merkel out.

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Merkels chancellorship so far embodies the stability Germans have craved since the end of the Nazi era and the founding of the Federal Republic in 1949.

For more than 50 years, Germany and Europe in general have operated in Americas international shadow, building the EU and cooperating with the U.S. on trade and defense. On Sunday, however, the weekly Der Spiegel editorialized that Germans had to prepare for a painful reality: standing in opposition to the 45th president of the United States and his government.

Trump has forced the issue. He seems to view the EU as a kind of German economic racket, and he has repeatedly referred to the NATO defense alliance as obsolete. During the campaign, he deliberately chose the past tense to describe Merkel: I felt she was a great, great leader. He calls her refugee policy a catastrophic mistake, and his top trade advisor, Peter Navarro, recently accused Germany of exploiting the U.S. and the rest of Europe by grossly undervaluing the euro.

Instead of a close relationship with a unified Europe, Trump appears to prefer the map rearranged along the lines of the grand alliance during World War II  Russia, Britain and the United States, with America first, of course.

Merkel isnt blinking. After Trumps victory, the chancellor sent him a lukewarm message of congratulations and a not-so-veiled warning that the U.S. should honor its agreements and base its ties to Germany on a common platform of democracy, freedom, advocacy for human rights all over the world and championing the open and liberal world order.

In direct opposition to Trump, Merkel has become Putins foremost public challenger, insisting that sanctions levied against Russia for invading Crimea and fostering war in Ukraine stay in place. A Tuesday phone call between them yielded a joint appeal for an immediate truce in eastern Ukraine. She and Putin continue to circle each other warily.

She is steadfast in her support for the more than 1 million refugees  illegals in Trumps eyes  seeking resettlement in Germany. That policy caused an uproar last year, but recent German poll results show that it hasnt dimmed Merkels chances for reelection. Despite a December terrorist attack in Berlin, in which a refugee killed 12 people, her popularity and that of her party rose slightly in January.

Merkel hasnt been shy about turning up the heat on Trump. At a recent public reception, she stated that politicians should employ facts, not fakes to persuade their electorates. After Trumps refugee and travel ban, she issued a statement: The necessary and resolute fight against terrorism in no way justifies a general suspicion against all people who share a certain faith.

Politically, Trump appears to be making Merkel look better and better at home. Malte Lehming, opinion editor of the Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel, told me many Germans are convinced that the U.S. is hopelessly adrift: Merkel is perceived as being the antipode to all of that  reliable, steadfast, knowledgeable, polite.

The German yearning for such qualities is rooted in the memory of World War II and the Holocaust, which renders overt displays of nationalism and assertions of Teutonic might taboo. Indeed, Merkel has tried to lower her power profile: No human being on his own  can manage to give the world a positive direction for everything, not even a German chancellor, she said as she announced her reelection bid in late November.

But that isnt stopping Merkel from adopting a leadership role. She is taking a hard line with Britian, demanding that London accede to the principle of freedom of movement for workers in its Brexit agreement. At the same time, her economic minister, Sigmar Gabriel, is touting opportunities for collaboration with Asia and China. (Chinese Premier Li Keqiang responded quickly: Berlin and Beijing, he said, should safeguard the existing international system through trade and investment liberalization.)

Merkels chancellorship so far embodies the stability Germans have craved since the end of the Nazi era and the founding of the Federal Republic in 1949. If she succeeds in defying her political adversaries this fall, and if Trump really does pull back from Europe, she is likely to preside over the creation of a newly powerful Germany.

It is no small irony that the nation the U.S. transformed after 1945 may emerge as the primary standard bearer for universal values its mentor is in danger of leaving behind.

Jacob Heilbrunn is the editor of the foreign policy magazine the National Interest.

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If you do something for long enough, the world will accept it, Daniel Reisner concluded in 2009, after a decade serving as head of the Israel Defense Forces international law department. An action that is forbidden today becomes permissible if executed by enough countries.

As proof, Reisner cited the targeted killings Israel conducted continually until the practice was, in his words, in the center of the bounds of legitimacy. The Israeli governments latest attempt at legitimization takes the form of a new law passed by Parliament on Monday. The bill retroactively legalizes government expropriation of privately owned Palestinian land on which settlements or outposts were built in good faith or at the states instruction. In effect, it makes the illegal legal.

The bill offers compensation to the owners of expropriated land, but this is just a fig leaf to make the illegal practice sound fair. Israel is well aware that no Palestinian will accept compensation, which we consider a means of selling ones country and forfeiting its future.

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The ploy of declaring private Palestinian land as government property and acquiring it for settlement is not new. But the bill signals a further erosion of Israels willingness to respect the international consensus regarding the status of the West Bank as occupied territory, as confirmed in a United Nations Security Council resolution in December.

The greatest enemy of Israeli democracy has not been Palestine... It has been the erosion of democratic values within the country itself.

In 1979, I defended Francois Albina, a resident of Jerusalem whose privately owned land had been taken by the Israeli military and given to the Jewish Agency in order to build the settlement of Beit Horon. At the end of a long legal battle that lasted several years, the Israeli military court accepted the spurious claim that the transaction involving privately owned and registered Palestinian land was done in good faith and allowed it to stand.

Yet there is something new, and newly pernicious, about this weeks bill. Declarations of private land owned by Palestinians as public property belonging to Israel used to be made by the military government. Now, the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, is legislating for the West Bank as if it were formally annexed to Israel.

Two Israeli rights groups, Adalah and the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center, have asked Israels Supreme Court to overturn the law, but the fact remains that the bill is part of a larger trend. In Israel, de-democratization is proceeding at a frightening pace. Israel has quietly not been allowing citizens of the United States and other Western countries whom it suspects of being pro-Palestinian to enter the country, according to reports by Al Jazeera and the website Mondoweiss. More recently, it openly indicated that those who advocate the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel will not be allowed in. International law and such basic principles as the protection of private property and freedom of speech are being seriously eroded.

The Palestinians had pinned their hopes on the International Criminal Court in The Hague. But after years of being provided with evidence of the criminal behavior of Israeli officials and generals, the court has not investigated the allegations. The Palestinian Authority has been reluctant to submit a claim to that court because the U.S. has warned Palestinian leaders that suing Israel in international courts would trigger severe steps by the White House, including the closure of Palestine Liberation Organization offices in the American capital and an end to economic aid to the Palestinian Authority.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be traveling to the U.S. next week to hold talks with President Trump. Netanyahu is likely to seek guarantees that Washington will issue no objection to the new law and do all it can to shield Israel from being sued in the International Criminal Court  a liability made greater by the bill. He may well be successful on both counts. After all, Trump eerily echoes the Israeli governments disdain of peaceful dissent when he says that Homeland Security will allow into the United States only those who love us.

Where, then, does hope rest? Only in an active and mobilized American public that is now beginning to stir and raise its voice, supported by institutions that are willing to speak out. At times like these, the public and the courts are the most effective guarantor of democracy.

The greatest enemy of Israeli democracy has not been Palestine, or, for that matter, Syria, Iran or the Islamic State. It has been the erosion of democratic values within the country itself. In Israel, de-democratization has been underway for a long time now  the half-century that the government has spent occupying Palestinian lands.

Under President Trumps leadership, the U.S. seems to be learning fast from Israels right wing. For democracy to survive around the world, and especially in the Middle East, it is more important than ever for the American public and its institutions to be heard, loud and clear, before the world begins to accept the unacceptable.

Raja Shehadeh is a Palestinian lawyer and the author of several books on the Middle East, including Where the Line is Drawn: A Tale of Crossings, Friendships, and Fifty Years of Occupation in Israel-Palestine, due out by the New Press in June. He lives in Ramallah, West Bank.

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An executive order leaked to the media last week revealed plans to use the Oval Office to legalize broad discrimination against the LGBT community in the name of religion. A draft of the order, first published in The Nation, would allow any organization, including closely held for-profit corporations to refuse services to LGBT people, whether in housing, employment, education or healthcare. In the media uproar that followed, Donald Trump said that he would not sign the order at this time.

But the president did not rule out doing so in the future.

The document is a reminder that while Trump has claimed he wont overturn marriage equality in the White House, he doesnt have to repeal Obergefell v. Hodges  the Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage  to strip the rights of gay and lesbian couples. The order is specifically designed to allow anyone who has a religious objection to same-sex marriage to discriminate in the name of faith  and would prevent the government from taking action against any individual who acts on those views. This would allow full federal protections for people like Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Ky., clerk who famously refused to sign marriage licenses for legally wedded couples in 2015.

During the 2016 election, Trump flip-flopped on the subject of marriage equality numerous times. After claiming that he would appoint justices to erase the Supreme Courts 2015 marriage ruling, the president told Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes that he would use the bully pulpit to target the ruling. Trump, who said his personal view on same-sex marriage is irrelevant, claimed the case was already settled.

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Its law, the POTUS said. It was settled in the Supreme Court. I mean its done.

President Trump said that he would not sign an anti-LGBT executive order at this time...but he didnt rule out doing so in the future.

What makes this claim rather disingenuous is that Trump doesnt need the court system to neuter the protections allowed by Obergefell v. Hodges, which offer the full legal rights of marriage to all couples.

Same-sex partners may get to keep their marriages under the Trump administration, but those unions will mean little if the federal government erodes the rights and benefits afforded to that status.

In essence, the leaked document is an executive version of the First Amendment Defense Act  or HR 2802  a national version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act laws introduced in states like Indiana and Louisiana. The bill, which is co-sponsored by Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), protects the moral convictions of anyone who believes marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman. Under HR 2802, it would be perfectly legal for a photographer to decide not to shoot a same-sex couples wedding or an adoption agency to turn down that same couples application.

The bill  which also could be used to fire a gay employee for having a picture of his legally wedded partner on his desk, or to deny housing to a lesbian couple  will be debated by Congress later this year. On his campaign website, Trump vowed to sign it.

Trumps Supreme Court pick, Neil Gorsuch, would appear to confirm the administrations commitment to so-called religious liberty over the rights of same-sex couples. Gorsuch, a far-right nominee who once referred to equal marriage as part of the liberal social agenda, sided with Hobby Lobby in 2012 as a justice for the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. The court ruled that the popular home goods brand could legally deny contraception provided to employees by the Affordable Care Act on the basis of faith. The Supreme Court later would vote in kind.

It remains to be seen how a SCOTUS with Gorsuch on the bench would rule if many of the central tenets of marriage equality  the equal protection of same-sex couples under the law  are disputed by religious liberty advocates.

The impending challenges to same-sex marriage, though, may take place sooner rather than later. The Texas Supreme Court will hear oral arguments this year on a case out of Houston, a trial that will decide whether same-sex couples in the Lone Star State are entitled to the same marriage benefits as heterosexual couples. Although the court passed on it in September, the case has been a favorite of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who repeatedly lobbied for the judges to reconsider hearing it. Patrick, who famously suggested that the LGBT victims of the Pulse massacre deserved to be murdered, served as Trumps campaign chairman in Texas.

Justice John Devine, the most far-right member of the Texas Supreme Court, already has stated his opposition to providing spousal benefits to same-sex couples, which he believes are not guaranteed under existing law. Marriage is a fundamental right, wrote Devine in September, when the court voted 8-1 not to try the case. Spousal benefits are not.

That case will be heard in March, and its just one of numerous battles LGBT advocates will fight this year in order to protect recent gains in civil rights. 2016 was the first full legislative session following the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, which fanned the flames of anti-LGBT hate across the U.S. Over 200 bills targeting the rights of the community were heard by state legislatures last year, a figure that more than doubled over the prior year. A majority of these cases were over the very religious objections that will take center stage this year.

The LGBT community would appear to have won an important victory with Trumps momentary decision to put his executive order on hold  after many claimed it was already a done deal. But be warned: The war against same-sex marriage is just getting started.

Nico Lang is co-editor of the Boys anthology series. You can read his work in Rolling Stone, Salon and the Onion A.V. Club. Find him on Twitter @nico_lang.

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To the editor: Doyle McManus essay is an exercise in pre-President Trump analysis. The Democrats dont have a clear message other than resistance, McManus complains, as though jawboning about five-point plans didnt lose them Congress and the White House. (Democrats are now the party of no. Is that enough to win back the country? Opinion, Feb. 5)

Were divided as a nation on that most basic question: What kind of nation are we going to be?

One one side, youve got Republicans. Trump, their leader, has openly called for torture and praises a butcher like Russian President Vladimir Putin. On the other side, youve got Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and others whose overarching message is that people should be treated with dignity.

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The only response to the result of the 2016 election is to fight tooth and nail to stop Republicans in their tracks. In other words, resist.

Branden Frankel, Encino

..

To the editor: The parental precept of pick your battles seems an appropriate guide for the Democratic resistance, as the current occupant of the White House is someone with the impulse control of a child. They should not give in to the understandable wish to follow the Republicans as the party of no.

Judge Neil Gorsuch is a reasonable choice and he should be confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Democrats should save their energies and their political capital to oppose clearly unqualified nominees in the mold of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

Elizabeth Rumelt, Santa Barbara

..

To the editor: McManus piece adds salt to the Democrats wound of denying Trumps election with subterfuges. The worst is sanctuary municipalities distorting U.S. immigration laws while complaining that the federal government may not longer release federal funding to them.

The Democrats highlight their lawlessness. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and his supporters loudly defy Washington and promise to fight if federal money is withheld, not realizing it is the presidents constitutional duty to disburse or deny appropriated funds.

Hence, for Lee and others to defy the federal governments request for help in enforcing immigration laws makes them obstructers of justice.

Francisco Wenceslao, Norwalk

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I went to an inaugural ball a few weeks ago  the one in Washington state, not the one in Washington, D.C.  and got a good sense of the official resistance that is rising on the West Coast against the policies of the new Trump administration.

Jay Inslee celebrated the advent of his second term as governor of the Evergreen State on the evening of Jan. 11, and I was there for personal reasons. Inslee and I were in the same high school graduating class in Seattle, as were both our wives. In fact, Ive known the states first lady, Trudi Inslee, since sixth grade, so this was a friends and family event.

Somewhere near midnight, after the big party was over, I was hanging out with Inslee in the kitchen at the governors mansion. I asked him what he thought of the decision by Californias legislative leaders to hire President Obamas former attorney general, Eric Holder, to advise them on ways to fight the Trump administration in court. Inslee indicated he was all for resistance. He said he was already conferring with the two Browns  Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and California Gov. Jerry Brown  to coordinate efforts.

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Now, that resistance has come to fruition in the lawsuit brought by Washington state to block Trumps travel ban aimed at immigrants and refugees from seven predominantly Muslim countries. Washington Atty. Gen. Bob Ferguson has been all over cable news talking about what, so far, has been a successful effort. On Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments on the dispute. However the court rules, the case is expected to go on to the U.S. Supreme Court.

This demonstrates the importance of governors and states in the four-year battle to preserve the fundamental values of this country, Inslee told the Washington Post. The nation needs checks against a president whos prone to rogue behavior, and governors will assume a more important place in the democratic system.

West Coast governors have made it clear they intend to oppose President Trump on a full range of issues  climate change, energy, healthcare, same-sex marriage, immigration and more. Oregon is officially a sanctuary state and Kate Brown, speaking about the immigration ban, said, I will uphold the civil and human rights of all who call Oregon home. She has been joined in that opposition by all but one of the members of Oregons congressional delegation.

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Californias Gov. Brown has said his state will resist what he called the miasma of nonsense emanating from the Trump White House. Dealing seriously with the challenge of climate change has been a central focus throughout Browns years as governor and, in a December speech before the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, he declared his intention to push back against the climate change deniers who are ascendant with Trumps election.

Weve got the scientists, weve got the lawyers, and were ready to fight, Brown said of his state. If the Trump administration shuts down NASAs climate research satellites, Brown said, California will launch its own damn satellite.

Government officials in the three states are getting backing from many of the major companies that fuel the West Coast economy. Forbes magazine identifies 126 tech companies that have signed on to Washington states brief against the travel ban, and most on the list are based in cities stretching from Los Angeles to Seattle, including SpaceX, Tesla, Apple, Google, Airbnb, Uber and Microsoft. Seattle-based Amazon filed a separate declaration of support. Adidas, the German company whose U.S. headquarters is in Portland, announced opposition to the ban, as did the chief executives of Oregon-based Nike and one of Oregons largest employers, Intel.

One out of every eight Americans lives in California, now an estimated 39 million people. Add in the 7 million-plus in Washington and Oregons 4 million, and you are talking about a lot of voters.

Californians pay more federal taxes to the federal government than any other state and, per capita, get far less back in federal support than many other states. Trump has threatened to defund California if the state gets too ornery. One wonders if California could defund the federal government in return.

Whether such a thing is possible, it is clear that Trump, the man who wants to build a big wall on the border, is running into a massive wall himself. It is called the West Coast.

David.Horsey@latimes.com

Follow me at @davidhorsey on Twitter

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Former President George W. Bush says his recent remarks have been misconstrued as criticism of Trump

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Former President George W. Bush on Wednesday pushed back at the notion that his recent remarks about the media were criticisms of President Trump.

Im asked the question, Do I believe in free press? and the answer is absolutely, I believe in free press  because the press holds people to account, he said. Power is very addictive and its corrosive if it becomes central to your life and therefore there needs to be an independent group of people who hold you to account. And so I answered that question and of course the headlines were, Bush criticizes Trump. And so therefore I needed to say, There should be a free and independent press, but it ought to be accurate.

Bush made the remarks at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley during an hourlong question-and-answer session promoting Portraits of Courage, his new book that features his paintings of veterans. While doing media interviews about the book in recent days, he has raised eyebrows by making comments about the media, immigrants and allegations of Russian interference in the November presidential election that were widely viewed as criticisms of the new president.

He said that he decided once he left the office not to second-guess his successor, former President Obama, and that the same holds true for Trump. Doing so would undermine the office, Bush said, adding that he wants all of his successors to succeed because it is good for the nation.

I dont want to make the presidents job worse, no matter what political party it is. Its a hard job, Bush said. Sometimes my remarks can be construed as criticism. Theyre certainly not meant to be, and after I finish this book tour you probably wont hear from me for a while.

But he was willing to offer advice to those who follow him.

Know what you dont know and find people who do know what you dont know and listen to them, he said. My advice is that the job is different once you get in. It looks one way and then you get in the Oval Office and it looks different. Trust me.

Bush also made an implicit criticism of Obamas foreign policy when asked whether the world is more dangerous than it was four years ago.

This may be taken as criticism of one of my successors and I dont really mean it to be. There is a lesson however when the United States decides not to take the lead and withdraw, he said. Vacuums can be created when U.S. presence recedes and that vacuum is generally filed with people who dont share the ideology, the same sense of human rights and human dignity and freedom that we do.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Aside from a handful of serious moments, Bush was jovial and self-effacing as he described how he became an oil painter after leaving the White House. Seeking ways to fill his time, he said he read an essay by Winston Churchill about painting.

I basically said, What the hell, this guy can paint, I can paint, Bush said.

He hired an instructor and started painting a cube and a watermelon before moving on to portraits. Former First Lady Laura Bush was not pleased with his depiction of her, so when he painted his mother, former First Lady Barbara Bush, he decided to depict her from behind.

Barbara Bush and former President George H.W. Bush are doing well despite their recent hospitalizations, the younger Bush said.

Theyre both great given their limitations. Dad cant walk, hes confined to a wheelchair and yet his spirit is joyful, Bush said.  Moms doing fine. Shes shrinking, and as she does, her voice gets louder. But shes a, shes a piece of work is what she is.

Bush has been reclusive since leaving office, but said he wrote the book and is publicizing it to raise money for veterans and to draw attention to the invisible wounds many of them suffer.

I think when you read [their stories] youll be moved by stories of courage, injury, recovery willingness to help others, he said.  Ive got a platform  its not as big as it once was  and I intend to use it to help our veterans for the rest of my life, and this is one way to do so.
Gold Star father Khizr Khan cancels speech in Toronto after organizers report his travel privileges were under review

(Alex Wong / Getty Images)

Gold Star father Khizr Khan has canceled a scheduled speech in Toronto after being told his travel privileges are being reviewed, according to the event organizer.

Khan has lived in the U.S. since 1980 and is a naturalized U.S. citizen.

It was unclear which authorities communicated with Khan or what privileges were under review. Yolanda Choates, a spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, declined to comment about Khan specifically.

She said in and email that the agency would notify people who were losing their membership in the Global Entry program -- which allows pre-screened travelers to speed through customs upon arriving in the country -- though theres no indication that is what happened to Khan.

Of course, any U.S. citizen with a passport may travel without trusted traveler status, she said.

Khan could not be reached for comment, and the event organizer, Ramsay Talks, did not respond to an email, text message or phone message.

Khan was scheduled to speak Tuesday at a luncheon hosted by the Toronto-based organization.

The two-hour event was slated to include a presentation and question-and-answer session on what we can do about the appalling turn of events in Washington -- so that we dont all end up sacrificing everything, according to the organizer.

In a statement posted on Facebook, the organizer said Khan was not told why his travel status was under review.

This turn of events is not just of deep concern to me but to all my fellow Americans who cherish our freedom to travel abroad, Khan said in the statement. I have not been given any reason as to why. I am grateful for your support and look forward to visiting Toronto in the near future.

Khan, whose family is Muslim, made national headlines after his fiery speech at the Democratic National Convention, during which he blasted Donald Trumps rigid stance on Muslim immigration.

Donald Trump, youre asking Americans to trust you with their future. Let me ask you, have you even read the United States Constitution? Khan said before pulling a pocket Constitution from his jacket. I will gladly lend you my copy. In this document, look for the words liberty and equal protection of law.

Khan immigrated to the U.S. from Pakistan in 1980. He and his wife, Ghazala, became American citizens six years later.

Their son Humayun Khan was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq in 2004. The Army captain was running toward a taxi cab approaching his troops when a bomb inside exploded. Khan was killed while the other soldiers remained safe.

Khan received the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star posthumously.

UPDATE

6:02 p.m.: This story was updated with information about Trusted Traveler programs.

This story was originally published at 1:12 p.m.
An ambitious California law intended to help create retirement security for low-income workers is in the crosshairs of the Trump-era Congress, which is moving to block the state and others from launching programs to automatically enroll millions of people in IRA-type savings plans.

The push is one of the most direct confrontations yet with California and other liberal states by a GOP-led Congress emboldened by President Trumps election.

And it is intensifying the debate about whether conservatives who now control Washington will honor their pledge to respect states rights, even when states pursue policies out of step with the Republican agenda.

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By targeting the novel auto IRA-style programs, congressional Republicans are also provoking one of Californias most visible leaders, state Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, the Democrat who championed the policy in California and nationwide and is leading a movement in the Legislature to resist the Trump White House.

The 2016 law being targeted requires employers to enroll 6.8 million California workers who currently have no access to a retirement savings account at work in a state-sponsored plan. Millions more in seven other states that have passed laws similar to Californias would also be enrolled in those states. Many more states are now weighing joining a movement that has been years in the making.

California first took steps toward creating its program in 2012. Other states, including Illinois, have been slowly implementing their own laws, which have been complicated by federal Labor Department rules governing such investment pools.

In its final months, the Obama administration gave states the green light to pursue their vision.

The state laws generally require employers with no retirement plans to automatically invest a small percentage of each workers pay in a state-sponsored retirement account. Employers are not required to contribute anything and workers can opt out of the program if they choose.

The first such program was expected to launch this year in Oregon. California and other states were hoping to begin next year.

Now at the urging of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a coalition of Wall Street investment firms long opposed to government-sponsored retirement programs that could compete with their own offerings, key Republicans are moving to revoke the federal approval.

Our nation faces difficult retirement challenges, but more government isnt the solution, said a statement from Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), chairman of a House subcommittee on retirement issues who is taking a lead in the repeal effort.

Walberg and his colleagues are invoking an obscure parliamentary tool that gives Congress a small window to repeal new regulations. It has rarely been used in recent years because any repeal effort would have faced certain veto by President Obama. But under Trump, it is now a potent tool for Republicans to swiftly unwind Obama-era regulations.

The results of the November election give us an opportunity to go back and correct this, Aliya Wong, executive director of retirement policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said of its effort to block California and other states from moving ahead with their programs.

No hearings are required before the full House votes on the repeal of the federal approval, which could happen as soon as next week.

They are trying to do this for Wall Street in the middle of the night, behind closed doors, without a hearing, De Leon said. If this is really about helping workers, they should hold hearings, study it and permit public testimony.

He vowed that California would press ahead regardless of how Congress proceeds. California can redesign its program to avoid federal approval, but doing so would make it more vulnerable to legal challenge.

De Leon predicted the fight could ultimately end up in court either way, along with other big battles between Washington and California, such as the threat from the White House to strip federal grants from so-called sanctuary cities.

The effort to undermine the state programs has set in motion a lobbying frenzy on Capitol Hill, with the nearly 38-million-member AARP rushing to pressure lawmakers against it.

Congress should support these important state savings programs, not take steps to end them, said a letter that AARP lobbyist Nancy LeaMond sent to lawmakers on Wednesday. It warned that a repeal would have a significant chilling effect on states, sending the political message that state flexibility is not a priority.

De Leon earlier in the week appealed directly to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, in a letter the California Senate leader co-signed with Republican state Sen. Anthony Cannella, who also supports the program.

McCarthy, though, is poised to align with his colleagues seeking to block the program in his home state and others. The solution for more access to retirement savings is not by more government involvement that skirts nationally recognized safeguards, his office wrote in an email.

Officials at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Wall Street trade groups aligning with it say their goal is not to inhibit the states from launching their own programs, but to require them to follow the same federal rules as the private sector.

We dont see this as a states rights issue, Wong said. States are free to create their own programs. We just want them to be subject to the same rules as the private sector.

Supporters of the programs, though, call that argument misleading. They say the states need flexibility from some of those federal rules in order to lessen the burden on employers subject to the new law, whose only obligation under the current design is to set up the payroll deductions like those already required for unemployment insurance or workers compensation.

Groups that represent large financial institutions and insurance companies have a long history of fighting this, said Yvonne Walker, who chairs the retirement security committee for SEIU International. They dont want to be in what they think will be competition with the state. But the truth is the financial services industry has for decades ignored working people who cant afford to purchase retirement plans on their own.

California and other states were moved to address the large share of the workforce not enrolled in any retirement plan after efforts to create a federal automatic IRA program stalled years ago. Reports by some bipartisan think tanks and policy analysts suggest the programs could ultimately save states billions of dollars by creating a measure of financial security for elderly Americans who otherwise end up on the rolls of Medicaid, food stamps and other safety-net programs.

This empowers people to save on their own, so government does not have to cover the cost of them not having saved for retirement, said Angela Antonelli, executive director of the Georgetown University Center for Retirement Initiatives. A lot of policymakers in the states understand the trade-off. Its either help people find a way to pay now, or government has to figure out how to pay later.

evan.halper@latimes.com

Follow me: @evanhalper

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If President Trumps travel ban reaches the Supreme Court, some predict that justices may look for a middle-ground ruling rather than an all-or-nothing decision.

Such a move could allow the high court  currently split, 4 to 4, between Republican and Democratic appointees  to avoid a tie and put off a broader debate on the constitutionality of the ban.

It would also allow the Trump administration to claim at least a partial victory.

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Under such an approach, justices might decide that Trumps ban could take effect for some travelers, but not others.

Specifically the court could allow the ban to apply to thousands of foreigners who have obtained U.S. visas but have not yet used them, but not to green card holders, foreign students, doctors, technology company executives and tourists who were already living in the U.S. when the travel restrictions were announced.

Some immigration lawyers say a middle-ground ruling makes sense legally and practically.

This would provide a balanced remedy that would relieve the chaos, said Peter Margulies, who teaches immigration law at Roger Williams Law School in Rhode Island. It would protect the visa holders who are here and want to travel outside the country. Its unfair to change the rules on them. But it would not apply to people who have never been admitted to this country.

Justice Department attorney August Flentje advocated for such an approach in the final minutes of his argument Tuesday before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel.

He called the temporary restraining order against the ban vastly over-broad.

But in its decision Thursday night, the three-judge panel unanimously rejected the governments arguments, including the plea to partially reinstate the ban.

The judges said courts were ill-equipped to make such distinctions.

[E]ven if the [temporary restraining order] might be overbroad in some respects, it is not our role to try, in effect, to rewrite the executive order, the panel ruled.

It remains to be seen whether the high court justices take a similar approach.

The eight Supreme Court justices split 4 to 4 last year in the challenge to President Obamas immigration order deferring deportation of millions in the country illegally, and they could split again if forced to decide the broad question.

Generally the court prefers to avoid such outcomes, since it means the lower court ruling  in this case, the 9th Circuit decision  remains in effect.

The courts conservative justices are likely to see merit in the governments claim that the law calls for deferring to the president on matters of immigration and national security.

The liberal justices are also likely to agree that Trumps order was rash, disruptive and unfair to foreign travelers who were traveling legally into and out of this country.

Margulies said justices from both sides may favor a middle-ground approach.

I think its possible Justices [Stephen G.] Breyer or [Elena] Kagan might think a modified restraining order makes more sense, he said.

Temple University law professor Peter Spiro agreed the justices may move toward narrowing the order, noting U.S. law gives more protection to people who are in this country, even if they were foreign citizens.

The courts have been generally deferential to the political branches when it comes to immigration, but they have been less deferential when it comes to noncitizens already present in the U.S., he said. So this makes sense, both politically and legally. Students in the U.S. with visas, for example, could go back to their home countries for vacation and then return to their studies here. From the administrations perspective, a limited reinstatement would get them much of what its looking for: No new visas would be issued to nationals of the listed countries or to refugees.

david.savage@latimes.com

On Twitter: DavidGSavage

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4:00 p.m.: This story was updated with a quote from the ruling.

3:45 p.m.: This story was updated after the 9th Circuit Court decision.

This story was originally published at 2 p.m.
In the short history of the Trump presidency, the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court had been the one effort operating under traditional rules  smooth, carefully planned and predictable.

Until Thursday.

The disruption came, as has so often been the case, with a tweet from the president, in which he attacked a senator whose support Gorsuch was trying to win.

As Trump repeated his attack later in the day, White House aides seemed to struggle to keep his comments from complicating what had been a textbook rollout of a high-court nomination.

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At stake are the votes of a handful of senators who make the difference between an easy confirmation for Gorsuch and a highly partisan one that would require changing the Senates rules to obtain a win.

Gorsuch has a firm hold on all 52 Republicans in the Senate. Hes been trying to woo a handful of Democrats in hopes of reaching the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster. Part of his approach has been to assure them that if he is confirmed, he would be independent of the man who picked him.

On Wednesday, Gorsuch met with one of the uncommitted Democrats, Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. Gorsuch told Blumenthal that he was disheartened by disparaging statements Trump had made about judges. Trump has aimed his attacks at judges who have been considering legal challenges to his temporary bans on travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries. On Thursday, a three-judge federal appeals court panel ruled unanimously against Trump and refused to reinstate the ban.

Blumenthal quickly made the remark public, noting later that Gorsuch had said he was free to do so. A spokesman for Gorsuch confirmed the remark to reporters.

Thursday morning, the former senator who is guiding Gorsuch through the nomination process, confirmed the words again.

He said that he finds any criticism of a judges integrity and independence disheartening and demoralizing, former Sen. Kelly Ayotte said in a statement. Gorsuch was not commenting on any specific case and emphasized that he was troubled by any attack on the judiciary, she said.

Senate aides and others familiar with the confirmation process interpreted the comments as a careful effort to distance the nominee just far enough from Trumps controversial remarks to win over the Democratic votes he wants.

The White House team shepherding Gorsuchs nomination appeared to be trying to give Democrats a justification for voting for him, said James Manley, who served as a top aide to former Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada when he was the chambers Democratic leader.

But if that was the plan, Trump, notoriously sensitive to criticism, complicated it.

In a tweet Thursday morning, he took a shot at Blumenthal, saying the senator had misrepresented Gorsuchs comments. For good measure, the president also took aim at Blumenthals credibility, bringing up a seven-year-old controversy over his military service.

Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie), now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him? Trump tweeted.

During Blumenthals campaign for Senate in 2010, he was criticized for claiming in speeches that he had served in Vietnam. Blumenthal had been in the Marine Corps Reserve and was not posted overseas. He later said he had misspoken about his record a few times out of the hundreds of speeches he has given in his political career.

A few hours later, in a meeting at the White House with several senators, Trump repeated that criticism.

His comments were misrepresented. And what you should do is ask Sen. Blumenthal about his Vietnam record that didnt exist after years of him saying it did, Trump told reporters.

He misrepresented that just like he misrepresented Judge Gorsuch, Trump added, as a couple of Blumenthals Democratic colleagues sat nearby.

One of them, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, later said he remained uncommitted. I will continue to review Judge Gorsuchs record, qualifications and his future testimony to determine if I will support him, he said in a statement.

The sequence of events generated multiple theories about what was taking place behind the scenes: Had Gorsuchs comments caught the White House by surprise or, as many Democrats speculated, had they been part of the administration plan all along?

Manley said he leaned toward the simple explanation  that even if some administration officials knew that Gorsuch would try to distance himself from Trump, the president did what comes naturally, lashing out at criticism.

I think the guy cant help himself, he said.

Trump didnt say how Blumenthal had misrepresented Gorsuchs comments. But in the daily White House briefing, Press Secretary Sean Spicer insisted that Gorsuch had been speaking only about his general philosophy about the judiciary, not about any specific criticisms Trump had made about judges.

There is a big difference between commenting on the specific comments that had been made in a tweet and his general philosophy about the judiciary and his respect for his fellow judges, Spicer said.

As a whole, he doesnt like attacks, in general, on the judiciary.

That interpretation might have assuaged the presidents feelings, but it undermined whatever effort Gorsuch might have been making to demonstrate independence. It gave Democratic leaders an opening to step up demands that he more explicitly denounce Trumps comments.

A private criticism whispered to a senator is not close to a good enough show of independence, Democratic leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York said in a Senate speech. Gorsuchs remarks so far were not a good start, he added.

The fracas seemed to all but guarantee that Democrats at Gorsuchs confirmation hearing will demand the nominee say something public about the presidents remarks  presumably what Gorsuch was hoping to avoid by commenting to Blumenthal privately.

Spicers spin also appeared to contradict not only what Gorsuchs representatives had said, but also the account offered by a Republican senator, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, about his meeting with Gorsuch.

In his meeting, Sasse said, he had specifically asked Gorsuch about Trumps labeling the federal judge in Seattle who had blocked his travel ban as a so-called judge.

I asked him about the so-called judges comment, Sasse said on MSNBC.

He got pretty passionate about it, Sasse said. Gorsuch told him that any attack, I think his term to me was, on brothers or sisters of the robe, is an attack on all judges, and he believes in an independent judiciary.

While Trump is not the first president to go after judges, his attacks have been unusually personal.

Over the weekend, Trump said Americans should blame judges who blocked his travel ban if there were terrorist attacks in the U.S. And at a conference of police chiefs in Washington on Wednesday, he accused judges ruling against him of acting with political motives.

Spicer made clear Trump plans to continue that practice.

The president is going to speak his mind, Spicer said.

Part of the reason the president got elected is because he speaks his mind. He doesnt hold back, Spicer added.

He has no regrets.

david.lauter@latimes.com

Twitter: @davidlauter

brian.bennett@latimes.com

Twitter: @bybrianbennett

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This story was originally published at 8:25 a.m.
The phone in Rep. Tom McClintocks office rang seven times in 10 minutes Tuesday afternoon.

This is Congressman McClintocks office, how may I help you? the receptionist said again and again, scribbling down each callers name, address and comment. This call means a lot to us. Ill express that to the congressman.

Members of Congress have been inundated with phone calls and emails in the scant weeks since President Trump took office, with staff answering two to three times as many calls and emails as normal.

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Some are organic outpourings from constituents concerned about the new administration. Others are inspired by the progressive groups that have formed as an outlet for angst about what the Republican-led Congress will do with a Republican White House.

McClintock (R-Elk Grove), who was escorted out of a town hall Saturday by police when the crowd got rowdy, said the calls are coming from constituents as well as people outside his district. He compared it to the flood of calls after the 2008 election  the last time the presidency changed hands.

Its the mirror opposite of 2009. When the Democrats were in charge, people opposed the administration, [there was a] huge uptick, and now its reversed: Republicans are in charge and [there is a] huge uptick in opponents of the administration, McClintock said. They really hate Donald Trump and theyre really mad about the election.

Much of the increase has been directed toward the Senate, especially as it considers Trumps Cabinet nominees.

Sen. Kamala Harris received more than 251,000 calls and emails since the inauguration, mostly asking her to vote against Trumps Cabinet picks. She received more than 105,000 calls, emails and letters on Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, most urging her to vote no on the nomination, which was approved only after a tie vote was broken by Vice President Mike Pence. Sen. Dianne Feinstein heard from 96,000 constituents on DeVos.

I heard you all loud and clear, and I want you to know that I am here to serve you and I will continue to be your voice, Feinstein said in a statement.

They really hate Donald Trump and theyre really mad about the election.  Republican Rep. Tom McClintock

House members are getting their fair share of calls as well.

Rep. Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles), a former community organizer, said so many constituents have reached out to her by phone, mail and in person that she has scheduled two extra town halls next weekend. Her staff said the office received 1,140 constituent calls in January, far above the 252 they received in the two weeks the office was open in December.

Bass is encouraging her constituents to contact Democrats and Republicans, saying all members of Congress need to hear their concerns.

I feel like I have to bring people together, she said. People are so frightened by this man that they look to me, literally, to reassure them. Im trying to figure out how to be constructive in this process, and its tough to reassure people when Im not necessarily feeling reassured.

Rep. Julia Brownley (D-Westlake Village) said that at the moment shes hearing from constituents about Trumps executive order banning entry to the U.S. by migrants and visitors from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

Generally its people calling to say, Weve got your back, Brownley said. People are really activated in the district, people are yearning to gather together. I think people are just very anxious to have their voices heard and are trying to figure out the most effective things that they can be doing.

Multiple staff members were answering calls in Brownleys office Tuesday afternoon.

I really appreciate you took the time to call, an intern said after listening to a caller. Your voice still very much matters and very much contributes.

Republican Rep. Duncan Hunters Washington office has had a slight uptick in calls from outside his suburban San Diego district, chief of staff Joe Kasper said, but contact from within our district? Nothing has changed.

Many Democrats calling are asking Hunter to hold a town hall meeting, a request thats popping up in a lot of offices. Hunter normally holds at least two in-person town hall meetings a year, as well as three telephone town halls. Kasper said the congressman feels no rush to hold a meeting, especially if he feels it wont be constructive. Some of the progressive groups have been mimicking the town hall tactics used by the tea party to oppose the Affordable Care Act in 2009.

Theyre doing it with the specific purpose of trying to create a public event which they can attend and agitate, Kasper said. Were not going to adjust the way we do things just because there is a group out there looking to make a scene.

Rep. Steve Knight (R-Palmdale) has personally been taking some of the calls to his office, and he said that as he gives callers more information, specifically about which parts of the Affordable Care Act Republicans want to keep, they seem to calm down. Many calls are indeed about the healthcare law, he said, and there was a bump in calls when Trumps entry ban was instituted. On Tuesday, Knights staffers were urging people to email and then follow up with a phone call.

We want to hear from people. If no one says anything, do we know were doing good by them, bad by them, whatever? We like to hear, Knight said. A lot of people dont call but think that were doing a good job. Youve got to be committed to what youre doing and that what youre doing is right, but also youve got to have a pulse on the district.

sarah.wire@latimes.com

Follow @sarahdwire on Twitter

Read more about the 55 members of Californias delegation at latimes.com/politics

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Feb. 9, 2017, 1:32 p.m. Construction resumes on Dakota Access pipeline

A short section of the Dakota Access pipeline in September 2016. (Tom Stromme / Associated Press)

Construction on the Dakota Access oil pipeline resumed early Thursday, less than 24 hours after the government granted a final easement allowing for completion of the disputed project.

Despite months of protests led by tribal groups and an expanded environmental review ordered in the final days of the Obama administration, the project is racing ahead at the urging of President Trump.

Four days after he was sworn into office, Trump, who has vowed to expand fossil fuel production and roll back environmental regulations, encouraged the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to abandon the review ordered under Obama. On Tuesday, the Corps announced that it had done so. The next day, it granted the easement, which allows construction across Corps land and a dammed section of the Missouri River.

The company building the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, said late Wednesday that it had received all federal authorizations necessary to proceed expeditiously to complete construction of the pipeline. The company, based in Texas, said it expects to have in hand $2.6 billion in loans for the project within the next several days and for the pipeline to be operational no later than June.

The $3.8-billion, 1,170-mile pipeline would stretch from western North Dakota to Patoka, Ill.

The project is moving forward despite continued protests and ongoing legal challenges.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, which has led protests against the pipeline, has said it will continue to oppose its completion in court and, if necessary, fight the operation of the pipeline if it is completed. The nearby Cheyenne River Sioux tribe, which has joined the Standing Rock Sioux in legal battles, filed a request in federal court in Washington on Thursday for a restraining order to stop construction.

The main section of the pipeline that remains to be built would be laid beneath the dammed river, just north of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. The tribe says the pipeline threatens its water supply and sacred sites on what had been its land before the government forced it onto the reservation.

Energy Transfer Partners says the pipeline, which could transport more than 500,000 barrels of oil daily, will be safer than moving oil by rail or truck.

The Standing Rock Sioux have encouraged people who have been protesting the pipeline near its reservation for months to leave and focus instead on political and legal efforts across the country.

Those efforts include divestment. On Tuesday, Seattle became the first city in the nation to end its relationship with a bank in protest of the pipeline. The Seattle City Council voted unanimously to sever ties with Wells Fargo, which manages about $3 billion for the city annually.
As the healthcare vote looms, Trump sees opposition from conservatives, both on Capitol Hill and in the media By Kurtis Lee Its a really important vote in President Trumps fledgling first term. Will House Republicans pass a bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act  a promise from Trump on the campaign trail  or reject it? (House Speaker Paul D. Ryan rushed to the White House on Friday morning for a last-minute meeting with Trump as both attempted to corral enough votes.) Trump spent much of the week trying to win support from members of the Freedom Caucus, among the most conservative lawmakers, some of whom are holdouts because they believe the bill does not go far enough. After seven horrible years of ObamaCare (skyrocketing premiums & deductibles, bad healthcare), this is finally your chance for a great plan! Trump tweeted Friday. But even some in conservative media arent all that thrilled about the bill. Here are some of Fridays headlines: Polls: Ryancare even more unpopular than Obamacare and Hillarycare (Breitbart) So, its been clear in recent weeks that the right-wing website Breitbart does not like the new healthcare proposal. The news site has dubbed the current bill Obamacare-lite or Ryancare  an homage of sorts to Ryan, who helped craft the legislation  and argued it does not go far enough in its overhaul. Most conservatives want to repeal the Affordable Care Act, nicknamed Obamacare, they just differ on what the replacement should look like. For example, some on the far right want to see so-called essential health benefits, such as maternity and newborn care, stripped from the bill.) This piece highlights several of the dismal polls the legislation has received. Among them: A recent Fox News survey that showed 54% oppose the bill, compared with 34% who support it. The article also references an analysis of polling and data by FiveThirtyEight.com, which shows the GOP legislation is more unpopular than Obamacare and President Bill Clintons healthcare reform bill were when they were first introduced. A modest immigration proposal (Weekly Standard) Trumps recent immigration orders have left many immigrants on edge. Through social media and pop-up legal clinics, immigrant rights groups have doled out around-the-clock assistance, as families fear being separated. In this piece, Irwin Stelzer notes that at some point, our border will be secure, resistance to deporting felons will collapse, and we will have accepted the fact that Dreamers will be allowed to stay in this country, probably on a path to citizenship. He lays out his views of immigration reform, citing, among other things, setting an annual immigration limit and adopting a system that has the effect of enriching our citizens by filling that annual quota with immigrants who are likely to increase the well-being of the existing citizenry. Jeff Sessions is Rip Van Winkle on drug policy (American Conservative) Its clear from polls that most Republicans oppose marijuana legalization, while Democrats support it. However, libertarian-leaning Republicans often tend to support legalization. This piece highlights Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions recent comments in opposition to states legalizing pot. The attorney general regurgitates simplistic cliches right out of the 1970s and 1980s about marijuana use. I dont think America is going to be a better place when people of all ages, and particularly young people, are smoking pot, Sessions told reporters on February 26, the author, Ted Galen Carpenter, writes. He adds, Such comments confirm that critics may be right when they label him a drug war dinosaur. He seems either oblivious or scornful about the trend in public opinion regarding marijuana. Facebook

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FCC Chairman Pai wants to halt Internet privacy rules before they begin taking effect this week By Jim Puzzanghera (Nicholas Kamm / AFP/Getty Images) The nations new top telecommunications regulator wants to halt tough Internet privacy rules before they begin taking effect this week, arguing they would unfairly impose tougher requirements on broadband providers than on websites and social networks. Privacy advocates and a key Senate Democrat vowed Monday to fight the move as well as a separate effort in Congress to overturn the regulations, which were approved in October on a party-line vote by the Federal Communications Commission when it was controlled by Democrats under President Obama. Following President Trumps inauguration, control of the commission passed to Republicans and Ajit Pai took over as chairman. All actors in the online space should be subject to the same rules, and the federal government shouldnt favor one set of companies over another, a spokesman for Pai said Friday. Read More Facebook

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Trump says Hollywoods obsession with him led to best picture Oscar gaffe By Michael A. Memoli (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) President Trump is often loath to accept responsibility when things go wrong, but in the case of Sundays Oscars broadcast, he made an exception. As he explained it Monday, it was Hollywoods obsession with attacking him that contributed to the botched best picture announcement, calling the embarrassing episode sad, of course. Accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has apologized for the mix-up that led Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway to announce La La Land as the winner of the top Academy Award prize, instead of Moonlight. But in Trumps eyes, the blame falls more broadly on an entertainment industry so preoccupied with politics that they didnt get the act together, he told Breitbart News. It took away from the glamour of the Oscars, Trump told a reporter from the website, which was once led by his chief White House strategist, Stephen K. Bannon. It didnt feel like a very glamorous evening. Ive been to the Oscars. There was something very special missing, and then to end that way was sad, he added. The ceremony did contain a number of slights at Trump during its telecast, some more subtle than others. Host Jimmy Kimmel openly at one point begged the president to weigh in by tweeting at him. Trump spent part of Sunday night hosting a black-tie dinner at the White House honoring the nations governors, who were visiting Washington for their annual winter meeting. But it appears from excerpts of the Breitbart interview that he may have spent at least part of the evening watching. Facebook

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Justice Department shifts course in closely watched Texas voter ID case By Del Quentin Wilber The Trump administration has scaled back its assault on a strict Texas voter identification law that federal courts have ruled discriminated against minorities, portending a shift in how the Justice Department plans to pursue allegations of voter suppression. The government revealed its decision in court papers filed in federal court Monday, dealing a blow to civil rights advocates who have relied on federal support to help them knock down the controversial Texas statute. Its a very concerning signal to American voters about the Department of Justices commitment to enforcing the Voting Rights Act, said Danielle Lang, deputy director of the voting rights unit of the Campaign Legal Center, which is suing Texas in the case. The administrations partial retreat in the dispute highlights how Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions, a conservative Republican who has championed voter identification measures, is expected to handle such cases. The Obama administration had joined civil rights groups in aggressively challenging the Texas law and other such measures around the country. At issue in the case was how the Justice Department would proceed in a federal lawsuit that alleged the Texas legislature discriminated against minority voters when it enacted the strict voter identification law in 2011. Known as SB 14, the measure requires voters to present a specific form of government-issued photo identification - such as a drivers license, military ID card, U.S. passport or citizenship certificate - to be permitted to cast a ballot. The Obama administration and civil rights groups argued the state pushed the law, in part, to suppress the power of the states minority voters, who frequently dont drive or have a passport. State officials and lawmakers countered that the law was aimed at preventing voter fraud, though there is scant evidence that the problem exists. The law was challenged in court by civil rights groups and the Justice Department under provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which was intended to help overcome legal barriers erected at the local and state level to keep African-Americans from the polls. Last July, a federal appeals court ruled that the Texas law had a discriminatory impact on minority voters. It told U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos to craft a temporary remedy in time for the November elections. Ramos subsequently ordered Texas to permit voters to present other forms of documentation to verify their identities. The judges order is expected to remain in force until she imposes a permanent remedy or Texas addresses the judges concerns. According to the court papers filed Monday, the Justice Department will continue to work with civil rights groups to address those issues but will seek to withdraw from another important aspect of the suit. In the same decision that found the Texas law had a discriminatory impact, the appeals court reversed Ramos finding that Texas legislators had intended to harm minority voters. It ordered Ramos to reconsider the evidence of that finding. If the judge determines discriminatory intent in crafting the voter ID requirements, she could throw out the entire law. Civil rights groups will continue to press that claim. In its court filing, the Justice Department asked Ramos to permit it to withdraw its claim that Texas acted with intent, arguing that it is best to give the Texas legislature time to address the matter. With the loss of their key ally in court, civil rights groups will argue on their own in an effort to prove that Texas acted with a discriminatory purpose in passing the law. A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday. Voting advocates complained that the Trump administration was backing away from a key safeguard of voting rights. The Justice Department decision defies rationality and stands diametrically opposed to positions they have taken at every stage of this litigation, Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said in a statement. This reversal of position was taken despite years of work and effort that the government has invested in fighting the Texas Voter ID law, one of the most discriminatory voting restriction of its kind. Facebook

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House Intelligence Chair Devin Nunes warns against witch hunt over Trump-Russia ties By Sarah D. Wire House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Tulare) talks to reporters about his committees Russia investigation. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images) House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes said on Monday he has seen no evidence from the intelligence community that there was contact between Russia and the Trump campaign. I want to be very careful, we cant just go on a witch hunt against Americans because they appear in a news story, said Nunes (R-Tulare). We still dont have any evidence of them talking to Russia. He said the committee has been briefed on the highlights of what the intelligence community has found, but is still collecting evidence. The committees ranking Democrat, Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), quickly responded, saying the committees investigation is in its infancy and its too soon to reach conclusions about the evidence. We havent obtained any of the evidence yet, so its premature for us to be saying weve reached any conclusion about the issue of collusion, Schiff said. The most that weve had are private conversations, the chair and I with intelligence officials. Thats not a substitute for an investigation. The House and Senate Select Intelligence Committees are conducting separate investigations into Russias reported attempts to influence voters in 2016 in an effort to curtail Hillary Clintons chances and boost Donald Trumps. A leaked U.S. intelligence report on the attempts did not look at whether the effort succeeded. The House committee has expanded a previous ongoing investigation of Russia cyberhacking to include a look at efforts to interfere in the 2016 election, Nunes told reporters Monday. Though it is still in its early stages  the leaders of the committee are still discussing the investigations scope  Nunes said he expects the findings to be made public. Schiff and Nunes spoke separately to reporters Monday. Schiff said the two agreed privately that they would jointly address reporters about the investigation going forward. Nunes, who served as a member of Trumps transition team, said he continues to be concerned about leaks of classified and sensitive information from the White House and intelligence communities. The leaks  one of which resulted in a report about the FBI investigating Trump campaign officials  will be part of the committees investigation. A government cant function with massive leaks at the highest level, Nunes said. Facebook

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Appeals court denies Justice Department request to put appeal of travel ban on hold By Jaweed Kaleem (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has denied the

Justice Departments request to pause proceedings in an appeal of President Trumps travel ban. The court in a filing Monday said its schedule for the governments appeal of a lower courts halt on the travel ban will proceed, with the first brief due to the appeals court on March 10. In early February, the Justice Department appealed a Seattle-based federal district judges order blocking enforcement of Trumps executive action. which established a series of immigration and refugee restrictions aimed at preventing potential terrorists from entering the country. Last week, government lawyers asked the appeals court to stop proceedings in the case because the president planned to issue a new executive order and rescind the original one. A three-judge panel of the court previously denied a request from the government to reverse a nationwide stay on the travel ban. The same panel on Monday ruled that the appeal will proceed. Trump has said he will sign a new executive order tailored to deal with court decisions that have largely gone against him. On Monday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said he expected the order to be issued mid-week. Spicer has said Trump wants to fight for the current order while also issuing a new one, but the Justice Department has said in multiple court filings that the the current order will be undone after a new one is issued. The states of Washington and Minnesota, which brought the case in Seattle now under review, have pushed for courts to move forward on a review of the constitutional issues. Facebook

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No random ICE stops on streets of America, Homeland Security chief tells governor By Lisa Mascaro Gov holds closing media briefing on Capitol Hill to wrap up @NatlGovsAssoc Winter Meeting. pic.twitter.com/3mZMBA4S0o  Ralph Northam (@GovernorVA) February 27, 2017 President Trump received some unsolicited advice at dinner with the nations governors when Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe told him he needs to do a better job explaining his policies regarding deportations. McAuliffe, a Democrat and chairman of the National Governors Assn., told the president that there has been a chilling effect going on as businesses stay away from his state and as immigrants fear being rounded up. If theyre not going to be deported, we need to hear that from the president, McAuliffe said, recounting his conversation from the governors Sunday night dinner with Trump. What I told the president is these actions are hurting us. McAuliffe, a longtime ally of Hillary Clinton, said Trump agreed in large part. McAuliffe also met privately with Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly, and said the secretary assured him during an hourlong talk that Trumps enforcement actions were only targeting criminals -- despite widespread reports of otherwise law-abiding immigrants being detained for being in the U.S. illegally. He assured me there will be no random ICE stops on the streets of the United States of America, McAuliffe said, referring to the raids being conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. If thats the case, McAuliffe said, Trumps policy does not sound much different than the operations under former President Obama, whose administration deported more immigrants than its predecessors. Obama, however, explicitly put a priority on deportations of criminals, a distinction the Trump administration has done away with as part of the presidents executive action. My advice to him was he needs to let the American public know what theyre doing, McAuliffe said. Facebook

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Trump: I havent called Russia in 10 years By Brian Bennett President Trump rejected calls for an independent investigation of his ties to Russia, telling a group of business leaders Monday that he hasnt called Russia in a decade. At the start of a White House meeting with healthcare executives, a reporter asked Trump whether a special prosecutor should be assigned to investigate allegations of Russian meddling during the election. In response, Trump mouthed the word no to the executives. As reporters were led out of the room, Trump said: I havent called Russia in 10 years. Democratic lawmakers have ramped up their calls for additional investigations into allegations that Trump allies had been in contact with Russian officials during the election and inappropriately discussed U.S. sanctions against the Moscow regime during the transition. White House officials have denied reports that Trump associates were frequently in touch with senior Russian intelligence officials during the election. U.S. intelligence agencies concluded last year that Russian leader Vladimir Putin had authorized an operation to damage Hillary Clintons campaign and tilt the 2016 election in Trumps favor. Facebook

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Trump: Nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated By Michael A. Memoli View Twitter post President Trump promised the nations governors Monday that his yet-to-be-revealed replacement plan for the Affordable Care Act would give states greater flexibility and thanked some Republicans in the room who advised him on healthcare. Its an unbelievably complex subject, he said. Nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated. The remark likely surprised state leaders; spending on Medicaid alone was the second-biggest driver of increased state general fund spending, according to the 2016 Fiscal Survey of States conducted by the National Assn. of State Budget Officers. And it was just eight years ago that Washington dove head-first into a raging debate over healthcare reform under President Obama, which simmered long after his signature health law was enacted. But the finer points of healthcare policy are likely new to Trump, who is immersed in discussions with Republican leaders and his senior staff on that and other subjects ahead of his high-profile address Tuesday to a joint session of Congress. Trump offered no hint as to the details. Republicans have vowed to repeal and replace Obamacare, but their effort has stalled as they debate how to do so and await word from the White House on what Trump wants to do. The president seemed keenly aware of the political ramifications of whatever steps he takes. As soon as we touch it, if we do the most minute thing, just a tiny little change, whats going to happen? Theyre going to say its the Republicans problem, Trump said after telling the governors the easiest thing for him to do would be nothing, and, in his view, watch Obamacare collapse. But we have to do whats right because Obamacare is a failed disaster. Facebook

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Trump wants to add $54 billion to defense budget while slashing domestic spending and foreign aid By Brian Bennett President Trump is proposing a massive increase in defense spending of $54 billion while cutting domestic spending and foreign aid by the same amount, the White House said Monday. Trumps spending blueprint previewed a major address that he will give Tuesday night to a joint session of Congress, laying out his vision for what he called a public safety and national security budget with a nearly 10% increase in defense spending. We never win a war. We never win. And we dont fight to win. We dont fight to win, Trump said Monday in remarks to the nations governors. So we either got to win or dont fight it at all. Trump noted that the U.S. has spent nearly $6 trillion on fighting wars since the Sept. 11 attacks but said that cutting military spending was not the answer. Instead, the increase he is proposing would be offset by cuts to unspecified domestic programs and to foreign aid, which would in turn be made up for in part by demanding that other countries pay more for security alliances that have historically been underwritten by the U.S. This budget expects the rest of the world to step up in some of the programs that this country has been so generous in funding in the past, an official from the Office of Management and Budget said, demanding anonymity to discuss the presidents spending plans. Foreign aid makes up about 1% of the budget. This budget speaks for itself, the official said. I dont think this budget has anything to do other than putting Americans first. Trumps call for deep cuts to spending at home is likely to set up major battles on Capitol Hill, where Democrats and even House Republicans will likely be reluctant to pass a spending bill that includes such major reductions in programs for their constituents. Facebook

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Trump says businesses cant borrow because of Dodd-Frank. The numbers tell another story By Jim Puzzanghera President Trump was preparing the first step in a key campaign promise  dismantling the 2010 DoddFrank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act  when he repeated a frequent criticism of the law. We expect to be cutting a lot out of Dodd-Frank because, frankly, I have so many people, friends of mine that had nice businesses, they cant borrow money, Trump told leading corporate chief executives, including Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Larry Fink of money management giant BlackRock Inc., meeting at the White House earlier this month They just cant get any money because the banks just wont let them borrow it because of the rules and regulations in Dodd-Frank, Trump said. Shortly afterward, he ordered a wholesale review of the landmark act, which was passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. But a main reason for dismantling Dodd-Frank often cited by Trump and critics of the law  that its slew of tougher financial regulations have significantly restricted bank lending  isnt borne out by the data. Read More Facebook

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Another Trump nominee withdraws nomination to top national security post due to business interests By W.J. Hennigan Philip M. Bilden, President Trumps pick for Navy secretary, withdrew from consideration late Sunday, becoming the second White House nominee to bail on a top Pentagon position due to problems untangling his financial investments. After an extensive review process, I have determined that I will not be able to satisfy the Office of Government Ethics requirements without undue disruption and materially adverse divestment of my familys private financial interests, Bilden said in a statement. He did not detail the issues but he said he fully supported the presidents agenda  to modernize and rebuild our Navy and Marine Corps. Bildens withdrawal comes after billionaire investor Vincent Viola dropped out from becoming Army secretary after he decided his extensive financial holdings would hamper his ability to win Senate confirmation. The White House shot down reports that surfaced two weeks ago that Bilden was considering stepping down. Just spoke with him and he is 100% commited [sic] to being the next SECNAV pending Senate confirm, White House spokesman Sean Spicer tweeted on Feb. 18. Bilden, a venture capitalist and Army veteran, was a surprise selection from Trump but had the backing of Defense Secretary James N. Mattis. This was a personal decision driven by privacy concerns and significant challenges he faced in separating himself from his business interests, Mattis said in a statement. While I am disappointed, I understand and his respect his decision, and know that he will continue to support our nation in other ways. Bilden served ten years in the U.S. Army Reserve as a military intelligence officer from 1986 to 1996. He then co-founded private equity firm HarbourVest Partners LLC and spent 25 years there, mainly in the companys Hong Kong headquarters. He also serves on the board of directors of the United States Naval Academy Foundation and the board of trustees of the Naval War College Foundation. Mattis said he intends on recommending a replacement nominee to Trump in the coming days. The withdrawal marks another setback for Trumps national security team, which has struggled to find its footing since the fledgling administration began. Earlier this month, National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was forced to resign after it became public that he held secret talks with a Russian ambassador and then misled Vice President Mike Pence about it. Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster took the job last week after Trumps first choice to replace Flynn, retired Navy Vice Adm. Robert Harward, passed on the opportunity. Facebook

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New DNC chairman Tom Perez ridicules Trump tweet over rigged vote By Laura King Former Labor Secretary Tom Perez was chosen to lead the Democratic Party over a congressman backed by the progressive wing. (Branden Camp / Associated Press) President Trump claimed Sunday that the race for Democratic National Committee chairman had been rigged -- drawing a quick riposte from Tom Perez, who narrowly won the partys leadership race. Trump insinuated that Perezs DNC victory on the second ballot at a party conference in Atlanta on Saturday was because Hillary Clinton had backed Perez, a former Labor secretary in the Obama administration who was seen as representing the partys establishment forces. Clinton did not make a formal endorsement, but Perezs rival, Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, was backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and the partys more liberal wing. Bernies guy, like Bernie himself, never had a chance, Trump tweeted early Sunday morning. Clinton demanded Perez! Perez, appearing on CNNs State of the Union on Sunday, told host Jake Tapper that he and Ellison got a good kick out of that, adding: Donald Trump, up in the morning tweeting about us. Sanders, appearing on the same show, said Trump doesnt have a point about the DNC vote. Moments after Perez beat Ellison by 35 votes out of 435 cast, he named Ellison as the deputy chairman of the party, leading to widespread applause. Perez is the first Latino to lead the Democratic Party, and he faces the challenge of trying to rebuild a party that suffered devastating losses in the 2016 election. Republicans now control not only the White House and Congress, but 33 governorships and dozens of state legislatures. In his CNN interview, Perez sarcastically suggested that Trump should address questions about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign rather than concerning himself with the DNC leadership battle. Frankly, what we need to be looking at is whether this election was rigged by Donald Trump and his buddy Vladimir Putin, he said. Facebook

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White House again bats away call for special prosecutor on Russia By Laura King A White House spokeswoman said Sunday that it was too soon to say whether a special prosecutor should look into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, while President Trump again inveighed against coverage of Russia-related queries as FAKE NEWS. Calls have grown louder from Democrats in Congress for U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from the issue because of his role as a prominent Trump supporter during the campaign, and to appoint an independent special prosecutor to carry out a Russia probe. A few Republicans have joined in that chorus  some reluctantly. Rep. Darrell Issa of Vista, appearing on HBOs Real Time with Bill Maher, voiced support Friday for naming of a special prosecutor to probe the Russian connection, though he also said congressional intelligence committees should continue their work. He also said he considered Sessions a friend, but pointed to his role as a political appointee who had worked on the Trump campaign. Issa, who narrowly won reelection, was a vociferous critic of the Obama administration during his former tenure as head of the House Oversight Committee. In that post, he spearheaded an array of investigations on topics from Benghazi to bank bailouts. Some Republicans pushed back against the notion of Sessions needing to recuse himself. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said on NBCs Meet the Press that he had seen no credible information about contacts between the Trump campaign and Russians  and no allegations that rose to the level of criminal activity. If we get down that road, thats a decision that Attorney General Sessions can make at the time, said Cotton, who is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russian intelligence agencies hacked Democratic Party computers and used other tactics last year to interfere with the election. The FBI is separately investigating whether anyone on Trumps campaign had improper contacts with Russian authorities during the campaign. On Sunday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said congressional investigations on Russia and the campaign should be allowed to go forward before a special prosecutor appointment was considered. I dont think were there yet, Sanders said on ABCs This Week. Lets work through this process. Echoing the previously stated White House stance, Sanders said the Trump campaign had not colluded in any Russian meddling. We had no involvement in this, she said. The president is known to keep a close eye on surrogates performances on the talk shows, and Sanders repeated a prime administration talking point: that questions about possible Trump campaign contacts with Russia amounted to Democratic excuses for losing the election. If Democrats want to continue to relive their loss every single day, by doing an investigation or review after review, thats fine by us, she said. We know why we won this race. Its because we had the better candidate with the better message. Trump himself underscored that notion with an afternoon tweet denouncing media coverage of the ongoing Russia investigations as FAKE NEWS put out by the Dems, and played up by the media, in order to mask the big election defeat and the illegal leaks! Facebook

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Whose news is fake? Heres the latest in Trumps war with the press By Kurtis Lee Every president since 1981 has attended the annual White House Correspondents Assn. dinner. That year, President Reagan missed out. The reason? He needed to recover after a would-be assassin fired a bullet into his chest a few weeks earlier. On Saturday, President Trump announced he will not be attending the annual dinner in April, long considered the premier social event of the Washington press corps and typically an evening of good-natured bantering between presidents and the Fourth Estate. Trumps announcement added to the ratcheting tensions between his administration and the media. Almost daily, in speeches or on Twitter, he calls particular news outlets fake, disgusting or dishonest  and news organizations have responded by digging in, standing united and devoting more resources to covering a president who has branded the press the enemy. Read More Facebook

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Crucial group of Americans like Trumps stands, not him, poll finds By David Lauter Trump still gets dismal ratings on temperament but is above water on economy, decision-making, promises of change. pic.twitter.com/Md0H096n9m  Carrie Dann (@CarrieNBCNews) February 26, 2017 With the public deeply split in its views of President Trump, one potentially key group stands out -- those who dislike the man, but approve of the direction in which hes moving. Thats a central finding of a new nationwide survey by NBC News and the Wall St. Journal. The new poll confirms what other major surveys have shown: Trump starts his administration with less support than any president in the seven decades of presidential polling. Asked if they approve or disapprove of the job Trump is doing, 44% approve, 48% disapprove. No previous president has begun his tenure with a net negative job approval. Trump has held onto the support of his ardent backers. At the other end of the spectrum, he gets almost no approval from Democrats. In the middle, the poll found, are many Americans -- just over a third of those polled -- who either voted for Trump with reservations, voted for a third party candidate or did not vote at all in 2016. Just over half of that group gives Trump positive marks, the poll found. Their support is enough, currently, to keep Trumps standing from collapsing, and holding them is likely key to his future. Just under one third of Americans say they like Trump and approve of his policies, the poll found. Another one in six approve of most of his policies even though they dislike him. Well over half, 59%, said they did not like him personally. On a separate question, only 43% of those surveyed have a positive view of Trump -- up from the low points of the campaign, but still far below the standing of most new presidents. By contrast, 86% agreed with one of the central lines of Trumps inaugural speech, that government insiders had reaped the rewards of government, while the people have borne the cost. On other issues, the public is more closely divided. The public splits evenly, for example, on Trumps proposed temporary ban on travel from seven mostly Muslim countries. Just over half of those surveyed, 52%, said that the problems Trump has encountered in his first month were unique to this administration and suggest real problems; 43% said they were growing pains similar to those other administrations have had. And by 51%-41%, the public thinks the press has been too hard on the new administration. The NBC/WSJ poll, run by a bipartisan team of two polling firms, was taken by phone, using cell phones and landlines, Feb. 18-22 among 1,000 American adults. It has a margin of error for the full sample of 3.1 percentage points in either direction. Facebook

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Trump appears to think Perez at head of Democratic National Committee is good news for Republicans By Evan Halper Congratulations to Thomas Perez, who has just been named Chairman of the DNC. I could not be happier for him, or for the Republican Party!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2017 The Democratic Party put its faith in its old guard Saturday to guide it out of the political wilderness, choosing as its new leader an Obama-era Cabinet secretary over the charismatic congressman backed by the progressive wing of the party. Tom Perez, a former secretary of Labor with strong ties to unions, persuaded the spirited assembly of party delegates in Atlanta that he can best help harness a grass-roots outpouring of anti-Trump protest and anger into a Democratic resurgence at the ballot box. Read More Facebook

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Trump to Washington reporters: Not going to your dinner By Kurtis Lee I will not be attending the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner this year. Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2017 The annual White House Correspondents Assn. dinner will be missing a key guest this year: President Trump. On Saturday, Trump tweeted he will not attend the April 29 dinner, considered the premier social event of the Washington press corps -- and typically an evening of good-natured bantering between presidents and reporters with a mix of celebrities watching. His announcement comes amid growing tensions between his administration and the media. Trump has decried stories he doesnt like as fake news, and described unnamed news groups as an enemy of the people. A day earlier, the White House barred reporters from several major news organizations, including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, CNN and Politico, from attending an off-camera press briefing. In a sign of the growing rift, several media organizations that traditionally sponsor lavish parties around the black-tie dinner had announced they would not do so this year. At the annual dinner, the president usually delivers self-deprecating jokes and often is roasted by a high-profile comedian. The president also greets students who win journalism scholarships and awards, a major part of the evening. Trump has been a frequent guest of media organizations at the dinner in the past, but he always sat at a table in the crowded ballroom, not up at the front dias. President Obama singled Trump out during the dinner several years ago, mocking Trump for raising doubts about whether Obama was born in the United States. This year, as we do every year, we will celebrate the First Amendment and the role an independent press plays in a healthy republic, the White House Correspondents Assn. said in a statement earlier this month about the upcoming dinner. Facebook

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Former Labor Secretary Tom Perez named Democratic Party leader By Evan Halper Newly elected Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez (Branden Camp/Associated Press) The Democratic Party put its faith in its old guard Saturday to guide it out of the political wilderness, choosing as its new leader an Obama-era Cabinet secretary over the charismatic congressman backed by the progressive wing of the party. Tom Perez, a former secretary of Labor with strong ties to labor unions, persuaded the spirited assembly of party delegates in Atlanta that he can best help harness a grass-roots outpouring of anti-Trump protest and anger into a Democratic resurgence at the ballot box. We are suffering from a crisis of confidence, a crisis of relevance, Perez told delegates before they chose him in a down-to-the-wire contest with Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, whom the Bernie Sanders wing of the party had rallied round. We need a chair who can not only take the fight to Donald Trump.  We also need a chair who can lead a turnaround and change the culture of the Democratic Party, Perez said. The ascendance of an establishment liberal is certain to renew tension between veteran party stalwarts and the unruly progressive movement aligned with Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, both of whom backed Ellison. Some Ellison supporters erupted in protest as the final vote was announced. Perez quickly sought to unite the party by naming Ellison his deputy chair, a move unanimously approved by the 435 assembled delegates, who had supported Perez 235-200. Read More Facebook

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Trump chastises media for not reporting minor dip in national debt By Del Quentin Wilber President Trump took to Twitter on Saturday morning to blast the news media for not highlighting a minor dip in the national debt. The media has not reported that the National Debt in my first month went down by $12 billion vs a $200 billion increase in Obama first mo., he tweeted at 8:19 a.m. The media has not reported that the National Debt in my first month went down by $12 billion vs a $200 billion increase in Obama first mo.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2017 Trumps tweet came shortly after Herman Cain, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, made a similar comment on Fox News. While the numbers are accurate, Trumps tweet suggests he deserves credit for something that is largely beyond his control, especially since he hasnt yet given Congress any proposals to change tax laws or the financial industry. Considering that Trump hasnt enacted any fiscal legislation, its a bit of a stretch for him to take credit for any changes in debt levels, Dan Mitchell, a libertarian economist at the Cato Institute, told the fact-checking website Politifact. President Obamas first month in office in 2009 was largely taken up with spending bills aimed at easing the massive recession that he had inherited. Trump inherited an economy with low inflation, low unemployment and a booming stock market. The national debt, which stands at just under $20 trillion, is expected to rise by more than $500 billion in the fiscal year ending in September. Facebook

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Mexico rejects U.S. plan to deport Central Americans to Mexico By Patrick J. McDonnell Mexico has informed the Trump administration that it cannot accept non-Mexican nationals whom U.S. authorities arrest along the border and seek to remove from U.S. territory, the nations internal security chief said Friday. Earlier this week, the Trump administration rolled out a broad immigration crackdown that included a proposal to send non-Mexican detainees apprehended along the U.S.-Mexico border back to Mexico while their immigration cases were pending in the United States. The vast majority of non-Mexican nationals detained along the U.S.-Mexico border are Central Americans. They often travel overland through Mexico to reach the United States. In a fact sheet released Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security said that releasing detained, third-country nationals to the foreign contiguous territory from which they arrived would save on detention and adjudication resources. The idea would be to keep them out pending their hearings on deportation, the fact sheet said. However, Mexican authorities have reacted coolly from the outset to the notion. Now, they appear to have formally nixed the idea. On Friday, Mexicos interior secretary, Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, told a radio interviewer than Mexican authorities had informed a pair of visiting U.S. Cabinet officers  Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly  that Mexico could not oblige the U.S. request. We told them that our legal framework doesnt allow this, Osorio Chong told Radio Formula, referring to the visit this week of the two Trump Cabinet officials.  We told them it is impossible. There is no way, legally, nor is there capacity. In recent years, non-Mexicans, mostly Central Americans, have become a larger proportion of illegal immigrants apprehended along the Southwest border as the relative number of Mexican nationals has declined. In fiscal year 2016, according to U.S. Border Patrol statistics, agents recorded apprehensions of almost 191,000 undocumented Mexican citizens along the Southwest frontier. In the same fiscal year, the Border Patrol said it registered 218,000 detentions of non-Mexican nationals, most of them Central Americans. Cecilia Sanchez of The Times Mexico City bureau contributed to this report. An earlier version of this blog post misspelled Miguel Angel Osorio Chongs name as Osorio Chung. Facebook

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Trump blasts FBI over Russia leaks after a brief Twitter hiatus By Kurtis Lee (Alex Wong / Getty Images ) After several days of relative silence on Twitter, President Trumps feed came alive Friday with a direct attack on the FBI. Yes, hes done this before. But recent news reports that suggest his administration pressed the FBI to quell claims that members of his campaign had contact with Russians throughout the 2016 election appear to have inspired a response. The FBI is totally unable to stop the national security leakers that have permeated our government for a long time, he tweeted. And conservative news was all over it. Here are some of todays headlines: Trump blasts FBI leakers (Fox News) Trump has assailed everyone from Democrats to intelligence officials for the leaks  which he often refers to as fake news  about his ties to Russia. Reports from several news outlets this week, citing anonymous sources, claim Trumps chief of staff, Reince Priebus, asked FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to publicly dispute media reports that Trumps campaign advisors frequently were in touch with Russian intelligence agents during the election. While some reports made it appear Priebus had contacted McCabe, this piece disputes that. Fox News has learned that McCabe indeed had initiated the conversation, asking to speak with Priebus for a few minutes at the end of an intelligence meeting last week, their article reports. Ed Schultz at CPAC: Trump promised Americas heartland a deal (Daily Caller) He was once among the top liberal voices in the country. Now, Ed Schultz, the former MSNBC anchor, is speaking glowingly about President Trump. Between covering high-profile speeches at the Conservative Political Action Conference from Trump and his aides, the Daily Caller popped into a panel at which Schultz provided commentary. Shultz, who now works with the Russian government-funded RT television network, blasted the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, asserting that Trumps claim that it would cost U.S. jobs was a game changer in the 2016 election. Trump went into Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin and he took down the progressive firewall, because he talked to the American people about a deal, Schultz said. It was a Wall Street deal, it was not a Main Street deal, he said, referring to the TPP. Trump is about blowing up Washington as it exists (Rush Limbaugh) Remember when Trump talked about draining the swamp? Since he entered the White House, some conservatives have wondered if Trump means business. Many members of his cabinet  including Priebus and Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions  are the ultimate Washington insiders. Still, Rush Limbaugh, one of the firebrand conservatives out there, is certain the president will blow up traditional Washington. Whats Trumps No. 1 obstacle? I have concluded that the media is the No. 1 obstacle because of the success they have, he said on his radio show this week. The people in Washington, media is every bit as big a part of the establishment as anybody else is. He added: The media is creating this narrative, if you will, and this picture  this series of pictures, this overall image  that Trump is stalled, that everybodys opposing him, that his agenda is backlogged. Facebook

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After Trump calls media an enemy of the people, White House bars many news outlets from briefing By Noah Bierman Fridays White House press briefing, normally an on-camera affair open to all reporters with press credentials, was turned into an exclusive event for certain outlets hand-picked by the administration. The action came after President Trump on Friday described the media and what he terms fake news as the enemy of the people."On the list were Trump-friendly outlets such as Breitbart News, the Washington Times and OANN, a conservative television network that employs former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski as a commentator. Off the list were some of Trumps favorite targets, including the New York Times and CNN. The Los Angeles Times was also excluded. The off-camera briefing with Sean Spicer, the press secretary, was not solely for conservative outlets. Several mainstream reporters were also allowed in, including the three major broadcast networks and wire services, such as Bloomberg News. Also allowed in were pool representatives who transmit news events to a far larger group of reporters. The Associated Press and Time magazine were also invited but declined to participate in solidarity with other news organizations that were denied entry. The White House Correspondents Assn. protested, as did editors at several of the organizations that were excluded. In a statement, Times editor Davan Maharaj said that it was unfortunate that the Los Angeles Times has been excluded from a White House press briefing today. The public has a right to know, and that means being informed by a variety of news sources, not just those filtered by the White House press office in hopes of getting friendly coverage, Maharaj said. Regardless of access, The Times will continue to report on the Trump administration without fear or favor, he added. 12:30 p.m.: This post was updated with a statement from Times editor Davan Maharaj. Facebook

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Its a Russian flag! Trickster strikes CPAC before Trumps speech By Matt Pearce Crowd at CPAC waving these little pro-Trump flags that look exactly like the Russian flag. Staffers quickly come around to confiscate them. pic.twitter.com/YhPpkwFCNc  Peter Hamby (@PeterHamby) February 24, 2017 As the crowd waited to hear President Trump speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference, little red-white-and-blue flags appeared without warning, handed down the aisles by a man with a green bag, according to a witness. The flags said Trump. They also happened to be the flag of the Russian Federation. He was dressed like any one of us, said Tyler Dever, 20, a student at the University of South Florida in Tampa, who was wearing a suit. He passed them to me and was like, Pass them down, pass them down.  Dever, caught up in the moment, passed them down, before someone sitting next to him said, Oh, its a Russian flag! CPAC staff quickly recollected the flags. If it was just a red-white-and-blue flag, I would have picked it out, Dever said. He said it was his first time attending an event like CPAC and was surprised to see a provocateur in the audience, especially beyond the cordon set up by the Secret Service. Someone tried to victimize me, Dever said. You have Secret Service out here, and Id expect it to be fully screened. ... Thank God someone noticed. Facebook

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Trump still loves the USC/L.A. Times poll: What it got right and what it got wrong By David Lauter Throughout the fall campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump and his allies loved the USC/L.A. Times Daybreak poll -- the only major survey that consistently showed him winning. A couple polls got it right. I must say Los Angeles Times did a great job, shocking because, you know, they did a great job, Trump declared in his speech this morning at CPAC, the annual gathering of conservative activists. But did the poll get it right? In the simplest terms, no, and after considerble analysis, we know why. Read More Facebook

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A celebration, and wake, for a campaign legend and a Republican Party that is no more By Mark Z. Barabak (Steve Lopez/Los Angeles Times) It was a cool and rainy day when elders of the Republican tribe recently gathered to honor one of their own. The honoree, Stuart K. Spencer, was unmistakable in his white duck pants and a lime-green sport coat so bright it almost hurt to see. A reformed chain-smoker, he snapped merrily away on a wad of chewing gum. The event marked Spencers 90th birthday, but the mood beneath the surface conviviality was unsettled and gray, like the clouds fringing the mountains outside. If the occasion was intended as a personal celebration, it also had the feel of a wake for a time in politics long passed. Along with former Vice President Dick Cheney and former California Gov. Pete Wilson, veterans of the Reagan years turned out in force. It was Spencer, more than anyone, who took a political long shot and washed-up B-movie actor and helped transform him into the Reagan of legend. Read More Facebook

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CPACs reaction to President Trumps speech: Two thumbs up By Matt Pearce Supporters cheer President Trump as he speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md., on Friday. (Alex Brandon / Associated Press) President Trump loves CPAC, and CPAC loves Trump. As hundreds of Conservative Political Action Conference attendees spilled out into the hallways Friday after Trumps speech to the group, they had glowing reviews of the man who has been tormenting Democrats and the media and transforming the Republican Party. It was fantastic, unbelievable, absolute truth, said Shia L. Lome, 84, a retired Air Force colonel from Deerfield Beach, Fla., appraising Trumps remarks. If he carries through [his promises], this will be the greatest country ever. Lome added that there is no question about it, Trump is his own type of Republican. Whether its conservative or whatever you want to call it, Lome said he is happy as long as [Trump] causes the Democrats heartaches. Kayne Robinson, 73, a former chairman of the Iowa Republican Party, said Trump was simply taking the party in the direction that people want it to go. I think the party is every bit as united behind him as it was behind either of the Bushes, Robinson said. Trump led a revolution in the party, very much like Reagan. ... I think Trump is doing just fine. Frank March, a 50-year-old Army retiree from Fairfax County, Va., emerged from the ballroom at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center wearing a red Make America Great Again cap, which carried Trumps jagged signature on the bill. Marchs daughter had gotten the hat signed when she previously met Trump, and he proudly showed off photos of that event. I recognize the signature! a woman exclaimed as she saw the hat. March praised Trumps follow-through and his commitment to workers as incredible. Hes bringing in new people to the party, March said. The hope is, by his follow-through, doing what he said he was going to do, then the non-Republicans who voted for Trump will stick. Helping workers will be one of the ways Trump can make that happen, he said. In politics, youre supposed to help people, March said. Workers are the people. Theyre people who earn money to take care of their families. Republicans should support those people because theyre the ones who make America run. Facebook

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Donald Trump shows up at conservatives most prominent gathering and defines a new GOP By Noah Bierman  President Trump shows up at conservatives most prominent gathering and defines a new GOP. President Trump made one of his strongest pitches Friday to unite the Republican Party and the conservative movement behind a nationalist, anti-globalist ideology that until recently would have been unthinkable for many Republicans. There is no such thing as a global anthem, a global currency or a global flag, Trump said to great applause from thousands of conservatives. Im not representing the globe. Im representing your country. He echoed ideas he has espoused in the past -- denouncing trade deals as the antithesis of economic freedom, warning that the great cities of Europe have been ruined by mass immigration, denouncing intervention in the Middle East by both parties. But while many of the words were familiar, the venue and the passion made Fridays speech remarkable. The comments came at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, just outside of Washington, D.C., the most prominent gathering of right-leaning groups and activists in the country. Such a speech would have been shocking from a conservative, much less the president, at almost any other time in the conferences history. Trump has been popular at CPAC in the past. He credits a speech there with launching his political career. But he snubbed last years event amid a heated primary in which many conservatives rejected his tone and the direction he was trying to move the GOP. I would have come last year, but I was worried that I would be at that time too controversial, Trump said in his speech, which lasted nearly an hour. Trump, the first president since Ronald Reagan to address the group during his first year in office, made clear that he is moving those once controversial ideas to the movements center. In addition to his usual critiques of the media and frequent references to his electoral success, Trump spoke directly of his ambition for reshaping the Republican Party to attract blue-collar voters, the forgotten men and women who helped propel his electoral victory. Im here today to tell you what this movement means for the future of the Republican Party and for the future of America, Trump said. The core conviction of our movement is that we are a nation that [must] put and will put its own citizens first. Later, he added that the GOP will be from now on also the party of the American worker. While Trump tried to unite conservatives, the speech made little effort to bridge the countrys larger political divide. For example, Trump dismissed people who have shown up at town halls around the country to protest reversal of Obamacare. Theyre not you, he said. Theyre the side that lost. Facebook

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Justice Department rescinds order phasing out use of private prisons By Del Quentin Wilber Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions has jettisoned an Obama administration order to phase out the use of private prisons to hold federal inmates. The new order reverses one issued by former Deputy Atty. Gen. Sally Yates in August that sought to eliminate the departments use of private for-profit prisons, which hold just over 10% of the current prison population. The Obama administration order changed long-standing policy and practice, and impaired the bureaus ability to meet the future needs of the federal correctional system, Sessions wrote Thursday to announce the reversal. Civil rights and prisoner rights groups decried the Sessions decision, saying private prisons are not as cost-effective or as safe as government-run facilities, citing numerous abuses in the past. The Bureau of Prisons houses about 21,000 of its 190,000 inmates in a dozen private prisons, including one near Bakersfield. Atty. Gen. Sessions has shown that he is not taking the mass incarceration crisis seriously, said Wade Henderson, who heads the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Continuing to rely on private prisons for federal inmates is neither humane nor budget conscious, Henderson added. We need a justice system that can work better for all people. Yates order did not affect facilities used to detain people in the country illegally. The use of private prisons is expected to surge under President Trumps promised crackdown on illegal immigration. Trump has signed an executive order calling for expansion of immigrant detention facilities and authorized the use of private contractors to construct, operate, or control facilities. Stocks in private prison companies have jumped on Wall Street since Trump won the presidential election, and they continued their rise on news of Sessions order. Facebook

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CPAC and conservative media prepare for Trump By Kurtis Lee The future path of the Republican Party is being debated in the halls of the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland this week. Will it be the party of Donald Trump, an outsider of the GOP establishment, or House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, the definition of establishment? Or, perhaps, of Richard Spencer, a white nationalist leader of the so-called alt-right movement? (Spencer was kicked out of CPAC on Thursday.) Trump is set to address the conference on Friday, and the conservative media are ready for the much-anticipated address. Tomorrow it will be TPAC when hes here, Kellyanne Conway, a senior advisor to Trump told reporters Thursday. Here are some of todays headlines: Go Big, Go Bold: Walker, at CPAC, pushes GOP to carry out agenda as party controls Congress, White House (Fox News) Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, once a Trump foe, is urging conservatives to use the November election as a mandate. Do what you said you were going to do, Walker said to attendees. In the Fox News piece, which leads its website, it notes that leaders at the conference are hoping to use it to strategize about what they can accomplish and to better articulate their values at a time when the very definition of conservatism has seemed to waver. Sweden Democrats: Trump was right (Fox News) Remember last weekend when everyone  including many Swedish politicians  were really confused about Trumps comments at a recent rally? You look at whats happening last night in Sweden, Trump, at a rally in Florida on Saturday, said about the Scandinavian country that has accepted large numbers of refugees. Sweden. They took in large numbers. Theyre having problems like they never thought possible. Actually, not much happened in Sweden on Friday night. Trump said later that he had been referring to a broadcast on Fox News on that night. Still, recent riots in the country were covered extensively by conservative media. This post notes a recent op-ed penned by Jimmie Akesson and Mattias Karlsson, both leaders of the Sweden Democrats, in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday supporting Trumps characterization of a Muslim immigrant-led crime crisis in Sweden. In it they write, Trump did not exaggerate Swedens current problems.  If anything, he understated them. Trump Is Letting DREAMers Stay, And Rush Is Fine With That (Daily Caller) Hes an immigration hard liner, and, apparently, hes OK with Trump allowing DREAMERs to remain in the country. This piece highlights comments by Rush Limbaugh this week. A lot of people think that Trumps caving because if you allow the DREAMers to stay, were talking 750,000 DREAMers, kids, who each have two parents who could come in. Look, this is a-no-win, Limbaugh said this week. Nobodys gonna win anything by deporting a bunch of kids that we let in. Facebook

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Trump advisor Steve Bannon rails at corporatist, globalist media By Noah Bierman Steve Bannon to the #CPAC crowd: "If you think they're going to give you your country back without a fight, you're sadly mistaken" pic.twitter.com/ryw7iO0Snr  POLITICO (@politico) February 23, 2017 The two men with the most heavily dissected relationship in President Trumps White House held a rare public appearance together Thursday and agreed on one common enemy: the media. Reince Priebus, the chief of staff who is often described as embattled, said he has grown conditioned to the media counting Trump out: during the presidential campaign, the transition and the first month of the presidency. The biggest misconception is everything that youre reading, Priebus said. Steve Bannon, Trumps chief strategist, framed his complaint as an ideological war. He consistently called the media the opposition party throughout a 20-minute joint interview on stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference just outside of Washington. Its not only not going to get better, it gets worse every day, Bannon said. Theyre corporatist, globalist media that are adamantly opposed to an economic nationalist agenda like Donald Trump has. If you think theyre going to give you your country back without a fight, he added. You are sadly mistaken. Bannon, former executive chairman of the far-right Breitbart News, seldom speaks in public. His nationalist rendering of Republican ideology is often seen in contrast to Priebus, the former chairman of the GOP, who is viewed as the more mainstream conservative advocate within the White House. The two men said the tension between them portrayed in the media is inaccurate. But as they praised each other, the men made clear that Bannon sees his role as dominant in shaping Trumps policy. Bannon praised Priebus for doggedly keeping the trains running -- one of the toughest jobs Ive ever seen in my life. Bannon talked about being in the first inning of shaping a new political order and beginning the deconstruction of the administrative state. Priebus used more prosaic language and spoke of Bannon as the one who pushes Trump to maintain his bold vision. He is very dogged in making sure that every day the promises that President Trump made are the promises were working on, Priebus said of Bannon. Facebook

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In Mexico, Homeland Security chief says there will be no mass deportations of people in U.S. illegally By Patrick J. McDonnell Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly, left, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Mexico City on Thursday. (Ronaldo Schemidt / AFP/Getty Images) Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly, on a visit to Mexico, said Thursday that there will be no mass deportations of people living in the U.S. illegally. Kelly also said U.S. military forces would not be used in deportation efforts and that any deportation cases would go through the U.S. legal system. No. Repeat, no use of military force in immigration operations, Kelly said at a news conference at the Foreign Relations Ministry in Mexico City. None. Well approach this operation systematically, in an organized way, in a results-oriented way, in an operation and and in a human dignity way. Kelly and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson are in Mexico City to discuss a wide variety of issues, including immigration and security, with Mexican government officials. Kellys remarks came the same day President Trump called recent raids in the U.S. an unprecedented enforcement effort. You see whats happening at the border. All of a sudden for the first time, were getting gang members out, he said. Were getting really bad dudes out of this country, and at a rate that nobodys ever seen before. Read More Facebook

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Mexico bracing for long battle with Trump administration, foreign minister tells lawmakers By Patrick J. McDonnell Mexico Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray (Brian Smialowski / AFP/Getty Images) Mexico is preparing for a long battle with the administration of President Trump, its foreign minister reportedly told lawmakers in private comments, adding that the country was prepared to retaliate with new tariffs if necessary. We are here preparing for a battle that is going to be long, Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray told federal deputies Wednesday, according to the newspaper La Jornada, which said it had obtained a copy of the comments. This is not going to be resolved in three days. In the reported remarks, Videgaray said Mexico was prepared to retaliate with new tariffs on U.S.-made goods should the Trump administration follow up on its threats to slap an export tax of 20% or more of goods imported from Mexico to the United States. There was no official response from the Mexican Foreign Ministry on Videgarays reported remarks. Videgaray was among the Mexican officials, including President Enrique Pena Nieto, who met this week with a pair of visiting White House Cabinet members, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly. The private remarks were apparently made on Wednesday, when the two Trump envoys were scheduled to arrive in Mexico City. Read More Facebook

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Homeland Security tried to downplay immigration raids as routine. Now Trump says theyre unprecedented By Michael A. Memoli (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) After nationwide immigration raids this month in which more than 680 people were arrested, the Department of Homeland Security issued a nothing-to-see-here statement downplaying the sweeps as strictly ordinary. ICE conducts these kind of targeted enforcement operations regularly and has for many years, the agency said last week, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But President Trump had a different take Thursday, labeling the raids an unprecedented enforcement effort. You see whats happening at the border. All of a sudden for the first time, were getting gang members out, he said before a roundtable on manufacturing. Were getting really bad dudes out of this country, and at a rate that nobodys ever seen before. Under President Obama, deportations peaked at 400,000 people in 2012, touching off widespread criticism from immigration advocates, which prompted Homeland Security to scale back deportations. Last year, deportations fell to 240,000 as the Obama administration focused on targets similar to what Trump described in the raids conducted under his authority: criminals, repeat immigration violators and recent arrivals. Trump also called the sweeps this month a military operation, even though no military resources were involved and the White House has pushed back aggressively on reports that the administration was considering seeking National Guard forces to assist in deportations. Homeland Security said the raids were conducted by ICE agents, U.S. marshals and state and local law enforcement agencies. What has been allowed to come into our country, when you see gang violence that youve read about like never before, and all of the things  much of that is people that are here illegally, Trump said. Theyre rough and theyre tough, but theyre not tough like our people. So were getting them out. Of the 680 arrests last week, 161 occurred in Los Angeles and surrounding counties. Three-quarters of those detained in the Los Angeles-area sweeps were from Mexico. Trump noted that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly traveled to Mexico this week on a tough trip. We have to be treated fairly by Mexico, Trump said. Facebook

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White nationalist leader Richard Spencer booted from Conservative Political Action Conference By Matt Pearce Reporters surround white supremacist Richard Spencer during the first day of the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 23, 2017. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images) One of Americas most prominent white nationalists, Richard Spencer, was kicked out of the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday after conference organizers gave him credentials to attend and then wavered on whether to let him stay. Spencer, who coined the term alternative right to describe his far-right views on separating the races, came to CPAC to attend a speech that was critical of the alt-right. CPAC organizer Matt Schlapp took pains to distance CPAC from the fringe Spencer represents. The alt-right does not have a legitimate voice in the conservative movement, said Schlapp, adding that nobody from that movement is speaking at CPAC. Read More Just talked to CPAC organizer Matt Schlapp. Said he didn't endorse Richard Spencer's ideas but won't kick him out of the conference.  Matt Pearce  (@mattdpearce) February 23, 2017 Basically their line on this is, if they actually agreed with his ideas, they'd put him on stage, but they don't, and it's a free country.  Matt Pearce  (@mattdpearce) February 23, 2017 Change of plans. Richard Spencer just got kicked out of CPAC.  Matt Pearce  (@mattdpearce) February 23, 2017 Facebook

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Obamacare 101: Are health insurance marketplaces in a death spiral? By Noam N. Levey (Don Ryan / Associated Press) Its been a rocky few months for the health insurance marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act. Even if youre not one of the roughly 11 million Americans who rely on these online markets to get your health insurance, youve probably seen the headlines about rising premiums and insurance companies pulling out of the system. Last week, national insurance giant Humana announced it would stop selling plans on the marketplace. Aetnas chief executive claimed the marketplaces are in a death spiral. Republicans say the marketplaces are Exhibit A that Obamacare is collapsing. So whats the real story? Are these things really kaput or can they be fixed? Heres a rundown of where things stand. Read More Facebook

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Trump administration wants tax reform done by August, Mnuchin says By Jim Puzzanghera The Trump administration wants to overhaul the tax code by August, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday, laying out an aggressive timetable in his first significant public comments since taking office last week. Our economic agenda, the No. 1 issue is growth, and the first most important thing that will impact growth is a tax plan, Mnuchin said in an interview with CNBC. So we are committed to pass tax reform, he said. We want to get this done by the August recess. Read More Facebook

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Loud and angry, protesters turn congressional town halls into must-see political TV By Mark Z. Barabak (Bill Pugliano / Getty Images) They came by the hundreds, in big cities and rural hamlets, to heckle, plead, badger and, in some instances, to protest the protests themselves. Congress is in recess this week, and a citizenry suddenly spurred to action used the opportunity to let their returning lawmakers know just how they feel about the tempestuous last month in Washington. Winners make policy and losers go home, a taunting Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate leader, told an invitation-only gathering in his home state of Kentucky, as about 1,000 protesters gathered outside. Not exactly. The town hall meeting, a throwback to a time of more intimate connection, has become a political organizing tool in the social media age  a piece of performance theater and a worldwide stage. Obamacare, immigration, environmental regulation, Social Security, Russian meddling in the 2016 election and Trump, Trump, Trump  all poured forth this week in the form of questions, loudly and heatedly. Read More Facebook

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Trump administration rescinds guidelines on protections for transgender students By Michael A. Memoli The Trump administration rescinded an Obama-era directive Wednesday aimed at protecting transgender students rights, questioning its legal grounding. Under the guidelines, schools had been required to treat transgender students according to their stated gender identity, and either allow access to restrooms and locker rooms for the gender they identify with or provide private facilities if requested. The Obama administration had said that students gender identities were protected under Title IX requirements, which prohibit federally funded schools from discriminating on the basis of sex. But officials in the Education and Justice departments said that their predecessors failed to make their case, citing significant litigation spurred by the policy. Read More Facebook

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Americans in Mexico protest Trumps inflammatory rhetoric during Tillerson visit By Kate Linthicum A group of Americans living in Mexico is planning a protest Thursday to send a message to visiting U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Their gripe? President Trumps inflammatory rhetoric. Thats according to a draft of a letter that several groups organizing the protest hope to deliver to Tillerson, who is in town along with Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly for talks with top Mexican officials. The letter, which will be cosigned by the Mexican chapter of Democrats Abroad, as well as other groups, complains about Trumps hostile attitude toward Mexico, which it says is engendering nationalistic sentiments in Mexico. Among Trumps hostile acts, the letter says, is Trumps vow to build a border wall and force Mexico to pay for it. The idea of building a wall ... frames Mexico and Mexicans as foreign invaders, the letter says. It also criticizes Trump for pledging to renegotiate NAFTA, saying, The U.S. and Mexico are deeply connected economies and it is in the interest of the United States to strengthen the regional production network to boost manufacturing employment in the U.S. and ensure the long-run competitiveness of manufacturing in the region. There are more than a million U.S. citizens living in Mexico, and many have been vocal since Trumps election. Last month, thousands turned out for a womens march outside the American Embassy that saw crowds chanting anti-Trump slogans. Facebook

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Mexico will never accept unilateral American immigration rules, foreign secretary says By Patrick McDonnell Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Videgaray said defending the rights of Mexican immigrants is the first point in the agenda for talks with U.S. officials. (Christian Palma / Associated Press) Mexico will reject any unilateral effort from the United States to impose immigration or other policies on the Mexican government, the countrys foreign secretary said Wednesday. I want to make clear, in the most emphatic way, that the government of Mexico and the Mexican people do not have to accept measures that, in a unilateral way, one government wants to impose on another, Foreign Secretary Luis Videgaray said in public comments. That we are not going to accept. He spoke a day after the Trump administration unveiled tough new measures to enforce immigration laws and deport people who are in the country illegally  proposals that were widely portrayed in the Mexican media as a prelude to massive deportations. On Wednesday, two top Trump administration cabinet members  Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly  were arriving in Mexico for talks with that nations officials, including Videgaray. Immigration, trade and law enforcement issues were expected to be discussed at a tense moment in U.S.-Mexican relations. In his reported comments, the Mexican secretary did not single out any specific U.S. proposal as objectionable. Mexican officials have acknowledged there is little they can do to counter U.S. immigration policies. Among other things, the Trump administration has proposed sending non-Mexican citizens detained along the U.S.-Mexico border back to Mexico. Mexican officials would presumably have to sign off on such a plan. Mexico already detains and deports thousands of Central Americans annually who cross Mexican territory with the hope of entering the United States illegally via the U.S.-Mexico border. U.S. authorities have worked with their Mexican counterparts to halt the Central American influx. The Mexican foreign secretary made it clear that immigration would be at the top of the list of items to be discussed during meetings with the U.S. Cabinet secretaries. Defending the rights of Mexican immigrants is the first point in the agenda, said Videgaray. He also said Mexico could take the issue of the rights of Mexican immigrants to the United Nations and other international agencies. Facebook

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Both in power and in turmoil, conservatives head to Conservative Political Action Conference to see whats next By Matt Pearce Josh Platillero (Matt Pearce / Los Angeles Times) The eyes of men in crisp blazers darted toward passing faces and identification badges, looking for a familiar face, a famous name. As Fox News host Sean Hannity prepared to broadcast a live show from a ballroom, a brief chant burst out from the audience: U-S-A! U-S-A! Its that time of year again: Hundreds of Republicans began arriving Wednesday at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in Oxon Hill, Md., just south of Washington, for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. CPAC, as its best known, is a place for conservative political figures and activists to gather, schmooze, hammer out new ideas and audition for starring roles in the Republican Party. And this year, CPAC attendees have a lot to talk about. Their party is in control of Congress, the White House and dozens of state governments across America, and yet not at all at peace with itself. President Trump is expected to address the conference later in the week after winning on a platform of populist nationalism that some conservatives have accused of not being conservative at all. Breitbart News, the brash rising star of right-wing media, is one of the conferences top promoters, but one of its staffers, Milo Yiannopoulos, lost his speaking slot at CPAC and resigned from the news organization after video circulated showing him appearing to promote pedophilia. Some conservatives had backed Yiannopoulos and cried censorship when the provocateur offended liberals at college speaking events, but now they had become offended themselves. Still, as CPAC began on Wednesday, the mood was upbeat. This was a victorious movement, after all. Many new guests were greeted by the sight of Josh Platillero, 23, wearing a cartoonishly large stovepipe hat and a suit the colors of the American flag. I love networking, said Platillero, who recently lived in Knoxville, Tenn., before moving to the D.C. area to work with a conservative nonprofit, the Leadership Institute. Its his second year attending CPAC, and he was excited about the lineup of speakers, which include some of the White House staff. I think our new president is not perfect, but I think hes doing good things, he said. Ariel Kohane, 45, who came from the Upper West Side in Manhattan, stood in the lobby holding signs that read, Jews for Trump, in both English and Hebrew. I love the fact that I can get together with many of my fellow conservative friends and colleagues and we can all be very proud of ourselves with all our accomplishments and the fact that we get to strategize and plan ways to further expand conservatism across America and across the whole world, Kohane said. Facebook

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Pence condemns Jewish center bomb threats and visits desecrated cemetery in Missouri By Jaweed Kaleem (Michael Conroy / Associated Press) Visiting Fenton, Mo., on Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence condemned a string of bomb threats against Jewish community centers around the nation and the desecration of a St. Louis-area Jewish cemetery over the weekend. Speaking just yesterday, President Trump called this a horrible and painful act. And so it was. That along with other recent threats to the Jewish community centers around the country, said Pence, who was visiting the headquarters of the Fabick Cat machinery company. He declared it all a sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil. We condemn this vile act of vandalism and those who perpetuate it in the strongest possible terms. The vice president said it was inspiring how the people of Missouri have rallied around the Jewish community with compassion and support. Among those showing solidarity with the Jewish community is a group of Muslims who launched an online fundraising campaign to help repair the cemetery. Donors had pledged more than $90,000 by Wednesday afternoon. Pence later visited the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery in University City, Mo., where nearly 200 tombstones had been toppled over the weekend. Facebook

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Trumps move on transgender bathroom access sparks interest By Kurtis Lee (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) For President Trump, commenting on social issues  such as same-sex marriage and abortion  has never seemed much of a priority. Indeed, throughout the campaign, Trump hardly discussed the topics. When asked about transgender bathroom access at a town hall in April 2016, Trump said people should be able to use whichever bathroom they choose. He then moved on from the question, offering little else. Now it appears his administration is set to wade into the controversy. Its a topic the conservative media loves to explore. Here are some of todays headlines: Return to normalcy: Trump readies reversal of transgender bathroom lunacy in public schools (Daily Caller) What will the Trump administration do about transgender bathroom access? The Caller highlights White House Press Secretary Sean Spicers pronouncement on the issue: This is a states rights issue and not one for the federal government, Spicer told reporters. The lunacy referred to is the federal guidance President Obama issued prior to leaving office directing schools that receive federal funding to allow transgender students to use restrooms and other facilities that match their gender identities. Several states filed suit to overturn the directive, and a federal judge issued a temporary injunction barring its enforcement, which remains in place. Several states, following the lead of North Carolina, are seeking to implement legislation that bans transgender people from using the bathrooms of the gender with which they identify. 66 percent of Trump voters change the channel when awards shows get too political (Daily Caller) When Meryl Streep criticized President Trump last month in her Golden Globes speech, he replied quickly. Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesnt know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes, Trump tweeted. Well, Trump can probably expect more barbs as actors (in overwhelmingly liberal Hollywood) take the stage at the Oscars on Sunday. Lots of Trump voters can be expected to change the channel, according to this piece, which highlights a new poll on the subject. The Hollywood Reporter says that 66% of Trump voters said they have stopped watching an awards show because a celebrity started talking about politics while accepting an award. By contrast, only 19% of Hillary Clintons supporters have done so. Trump talks tolerance, decries anti-Semitism, but media remain skeptical (Fox News) Well, Trump finally did say something to condemn the anti-Semitic vandalism and threats that have taken place since his presidential victory. Anti-Semitism is horrible, Trump said in an interview with MSNBC on Tuesday. In the Fox News piece, Howard Kurtz argues the media should give the president more credit for speaking out. I always think its unfair to blame a political leader for violence or vandalism carried out by people who support him, he writes. I felt the same way about critics who blamed Barack Obama for urban riots or shootings of police officers. Facebook

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Among Republicans, Trump is more popular than congressional leaders By David Lauter Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) walk together. (Matt Rourke / Associated Press) Amid strain between the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress, the White House holds the high ground, a new survey indicates. Among Republicans, President Trump has greater popularity than the partys congressional leaders. Asked specifically who they would trust if the two sides disagreed, most Republicans chose Trump over their partys leadership. The findings, from a new survey by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center underscore Trumps continued sway with the Republican congressional majority. Although the president has historically low job approval ratings among the public at large, he remains highly popular among Republican partisans and in Republican districts. As for Democrats, theyre strongly in an oppositional mood. Asked if they were more worried that Democrats in Congress would go too far in opposing Trump or not go far enough, more than 70% of Democrats said they feared their party would not go far enough. Only 20% said they worried the party would go too far. Republicans in Congress have eyed Trump warily on several fronts. His positions on trade and entitlement reform break with years of the partys positions. His reluctance to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin has generated tension. And the administrations lack of clarity on healthcare and tax policy have Republican leaders guessing which way to turn on major issues. But Republican partisans have fewer reservations than their elected representatives. Eighty-six percent to 13%, those who identify as Republicans or as independents who lean Republican have a favorable view of Trump, the Pew survey found. By comparison, 57% have a favorable view of Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, with 22% unfavorable and 21% having no opinion. House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin is slightly better known, with 65% of Republicans holding a favorable view, 23% an unfavorable view and 13% having no opinion. Asked who they would trust if the two sides disagreed, 52% of Republicans said they would side with Trump and 34% with the Republicans in Congress. Republicans younger than 40 were the only major exception; 52% to 36%, they said they would side with Congress. At the same time, Republican partisans now have a warmer opinion of their party leadership than they had during most of President Obamas tenure. Republicans' approval of their congressional leaders has more than doubled since 2015 https://t.co/KSo1hRMhJj pic.twitter.com/WHTHxCNEFq  Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) February 22, 2017 During the Obama years, GOP partisans tended to be frustrated that their side could not reverse the presidents initiatives, even with a majority in the House, starting in 2010, and then in the Senate for Obamas last two years. Their view of the GOP leadership has rebounded strongly since the election. Democrats view of their congressional leadership has been more stable. And both sides widely dislike the other partys leaders. Facebook

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Supreme Court rejects use of racial stereotypes in death penalty cases By David Savage The Supreme Court rejected the use of racial stereotypes in death penalty cases Wednesday, reopening the case of a black man in Texas who was sentenced to die after his jury was told African Americans are more likely than whites to commit crimes. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said this testimony had no place in a sentencing hearing and appealed to the racial stereotype that black men are prone to violence. Our laws punish people for what they do, not for who they are, the chief justice said in the courtroom. The 6-2 decision faults Texas authorities for refusing to give a new sentencing hearing to Duane Buck, a Houston man who was convicted of shooting and killing his ex-girlfriend and seriously injuring her new boyfriend in 1995. Buck was found guilty of murder, but when his jury was debating his fate, his court-appointed defense attorney put on the witness stand an expert who cited statistics showing blacks are more likely to commit future crimes than whites. After hearing this testimony, the jury decided to sentence Buck to death. Years later, Texas state attorneys set aside the death sentences for six other black defendants whose juries heard similar testimony, but they refused to reopen Bucks case. In Buck vs. Davis, the high court said that was a mistake. The jury was deciding the question of life or death, and this is no place for the introduction of a particularly noxious strain of racial prejudice, Roberts said. The court sent the case back to judges in Texas to reconsider the death sentence. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, along with Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. Thomas said Buck was properly sentenced to die for a brutal murder, and he insisted the court should not have heard the case for procedural reasons. Having settled on a desired outcome, the court bulldozes procedural obstacles and misapplies settled law to justify it, he wrote. Facebook

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At Rep. Tony Cardenas town hall, Democrats worry about what Donald Trump may do By Kurtis Lee (Kurtis Lee/Los Angeles Times ) They arrived with soggy jackets, hats and umbrellas. The topic was supposed to be the Affordable Care Act. But many who attended Democratic Rep. Tony Cardenas town hall meeting Tuesday night in a crammed auditorium at the Cesar E. Chavez Learning Academies came with a question: What can we -- as Democrats -- do to help you? Show up and vote, said Cardenas, who represents a slice of the staunchly liberal San Fernando Valley. (Hillary Clinton defeated Donald Trump in this district by nearly 60-percentage points in the fall election.) Sign people up, get people involved, he said. At times the meeting had the feel of a therapy session for Democrats, wondering aloud how to function under a Trump administration. Where is the anger among Democrats? asked one man. I want to see more anger. Cardenas, standing at a lectern on an elevated stage, offered a stern look and nodded in agreement as rain could be heard splattering on the roof above. The complaints included Republicans efforts to repeal Obamacare and Trumps new immigration mandates. Trust me, Im pissed. Im upset, Cardenas said. But we have to act constructively. We have to be responsible. Last month, Trump signed executive orders directing the Department of Homeland Security to prioritize the removal of people in the U.S. illegally who have criminal convictions. In addition to speeding up the deportation of convicts, Trumps orders also call for quick removal of people in the country illegally who are charged with crimes and waiting for adjudication. And in recent days, a handful of people who have received protection under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) have been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents nationwide. Cardenas said that for him, the issue is personal. His parents were immigrants from Mexico, who lived in the San Fernando Valley for decades, raising 11 children, he said. Today his district is nearly 70% Latino. Im going to fight for you, he said. Im going to fight for the people who are my immigrant father. When a young man, a DACA recipient, asked him, via Twitter, if hell be safe in the weeks ahead, Cardenas seemed at a loss. I pray that [Trump] doesnt go after you, he said. Facebook

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Killing with kindness, GOPs McClintock faces down hostile questioners as town hall goes into overti
Like many scientists, Aaron Parsons doesnt have a history of political engagement.

Instead of focusing on earthly concerns, the UC Berkeley radio astronomer spent most of his time scanning the outer reaches of the cosmos, searching for the earliest stars in the universe.

Were looking for when the lights turned on, he said.

But after Donald Trump became the leading Republican candidate for president, Parsons turned his attention closer to home.

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As someone who has lectured about the atmospheres of distant planets, he was dismayed by Trumps dismissive attitude toward climate change and his claim that the science on global warming was a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese.

He became distraught when he heard that the new Trump administration was considering pulling out of the Paris climate agreement to curb greenhouse emissions.

And he watched with increasing despair when Trumps nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, said at his Senate committee hearing that there is no clear scientific consensus that global warming is caused by human activity.

I had to do something, Parsons said. I felt like I couldnt ignore what was going on anymore.

I had to do something. I felt like I couldnt ignore what was going on anymore.  Aaron Parsons, UC Berkeley radio astronomer

So he sent an open letter to Trump explaining the widespread consensus among experts that human-caused climate change is real and that its consequences are already being felt.

The science of how greenhouse gases trap heat is unimpeachable, he wrote.

He passed it around Berkeleys astronomy department to see whether his colleagues would sign on. Within a few weeks, 2,300 researchers and academics from across the University of California and Cal State University systems had added their names to the letter.

When facts become politicized, then scientists have to speak up, Parsons said. We are fighting for what is knowledge, and how we know it.

In ivory towers across the country, scientists are leaning in.

Spurred by a flurry of executive orders and presidential advisor Kellyanne Conways references to alternative facts, certain researchers are venturing beyond the safety of the lab and into the murky political fray.

Hundreds of scientists protest during a December meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco to denounce Donald Trumps position on climate change. (Marcio Jose Sanchez / Associated Press)

Four hundred scientists took to the San Francisco streets at an American Geophysical Union conference in December to denounce Trumps position on climate change. A larger March for Science in Washington is being organized for Earth Day in April.

Researchers have spoken out against new restrictions on how government scientists at the EPA and other federal agencies communicate with the public. Others have been collecting and storing the governments copious climate data for fear that it may soon become unavailable to the public or deleted entirely. Many have lamented that nearly a month into his presidency, Trump has still not selected a science advisor.

Perhaps the biggest outcry came after the White House announced that travelers from seven primarily Muslim countries would be blocked from entering the United States. Hundreds of research institutions, hospitals and scientific organizations expressed grave concerns for how it would affect the future of research in the United States.

It doesnt matter if you were born in Pakistan or Somalia or whatever scientists like to work with scientists, said Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Rafael Reif. If you are after facts and truth and whats real, then it doesnt matter who can help you.

James Appleby, head of the Gerontological Society of America, echoed that sentiment.

There is a saying that all politics is local, but I think its fair to say all science is international, he said. There is this image of the lone scientist toiling away in the laboratory to come up with the next big advance, but in reality, many of the biggest leaps come from our ability to sit down with other scholars from around the world.

The burst of activity has been particularly gratifying to Rush Holt. As a physicist, he helped lead the Department of Energys Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory for more than a decade. Then he was elected to Congress, representing the New Jersey district that includes Princeton University for 16 years. Now he leads the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science, the largest organization of scientists and engineers in the world.

Holt said that when his group penned a letter to President Trump decrying the travel ban, 171 other institutions quickly signed on.

In my relatively long career I have not seen this level of concern about science, he said. This immigration ban has serious humanitarian issues, but I bet it never occurred to them that it also has scientific implications.

In my relatively long career I have not seen this level of concern about science.  Rush Holt, chief executive of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science

Among them: Researchers from overseas are threatening to boycott meetings held in the United States. Already, Sudanese-born Mohamed H.A. Hassan, co-leader of a group of scientific academies from around the world, has said he wont travel from Europe to attend the AAAS annual meeting in Boston next week.

Bill Foster, a physicist-turned-congressman from Illinois, said the political awakening among researchers is not solely a consequence of the rapid series of executive orders coming from the Oval Office.

In science, if you stand up and say something you know is not correct, thats career-ending, said Foster, a Democrat. It used to be that way in politics, but not anymore. To see how far we have fallen, that is particularly disturbing to scientists.

Holt agreed.

Some of us have been saying for years now that ideological assertions have been crowding out scientific evidence in public debate, he said. But the willful disregard for facts is worse now than its ever been.

To counteract this trend, some researchers are considering their own experiments with politics.

The recently formed 314 Action PAC had 2,500 people with backgrounds in science, technology, engineering and math sign up for training on how to run for office. Thousands more have volunteered to help with their campaigns.

What has motivated them? Donald Trump, said founder Shaughnessy Naughton, a trained chemist from Pennsylvania who lost two campaigns for Congress. But the bigger picture is the feeling that science is under attack.

Jamie Tijerina of Highland Park is one of the scientists who signed up for 314 Actions workshop. She works in Caltechs cytometry lab and is a member of her local neighborhood council.

Its important for people with a scientific background to have a seat at the table, she said. The taxpayers deserve to have someone knowledgeable about the scientific literature to offer their expertise.

Its important for people with a scientific background to have a seat at the table.  Jamie Tijerina, Caltech

The taxpayers deserve to have someone knowledgeable about the scientific literature to offer their expertise, said Caltech scientist Jamie Tijerina. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

UC Berkeley evolutionary biologist Michael Eisen has announced on Twitter his plan to run for U.S. Senate in 2018.

He hasnt filed formal papers yet, and he has no fundraising apparatus in place, but he says his campaign is not a stunt.

Id been thinking about issues of science and politics for a long time, and a lot of people felt like things were coming to a head with the new administration, he said. The moment seemed to call for more engagement, so one morning I just said ... this is what I have to do.

Eisen said the whole thing is kind of like one of his science experiments.

Michael Eisen, a UC Berkeley evolutionary biologist, announced his plan to run for U.S. Senate in 2018. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)

Its clear that there is a lack of empirical decision-making in our politics, he said. Our hypothesis is that having more scientists involved in politics would reverse that trend. Its an untested hypothesis, but one we should test.

As a realist, he doesnt expect to win. But he said he hopes his campaign will help spark a conversation about the relationship between science and politics, and possibly inspire other scientists to run for office as well.

Foster, the sole physicist in Congress, said he hopes more scientists will join him there.

Scientists want to know the evidence behind a statement; they want reproducible tests and verifiable facts, he said. There is a big difference in the thought process of a trial lawyer who is interested not in whats true, but what he can convince a jury is true.

Parsons, the astronomer who penned the letter about climate change, said scientists have a moral obligation to speak out.

I wish we lived in a world where science could live outside of the political sphere, he said. But we didnt bring this battle to them; they brought it to us. And we have to fight back.

deborah.netburn@latimes.com

Do you love science? I do! Follow me @DeborahNetburn and like Los Angeles Times Science & Health on Facebook.

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Armed with inflatable vinyl thunder sticks, dozens of yellow-shirted IKEA employees greeted more than 1,000 shoppers Wednesday morning to the Swedish retailers new store in Burbank, the largest IKEA in the United States.

The thudding sound from the noisemakers echoed for more than 15 minutes as a seemingly never-ending stream of people entered the 456,000-square-foot facility located at 805 S. San Fernando Blvd.

IKEA allowed eager shoppers to line up at the stores entrance beginning at 6 a.m. for a shot at winning free furniture. However, Burbank police were called at around 5:30 a.m. after several hundred people decided to wait in line earlier and create their own waiting list, IKEA spokesman Joseph Roth said.

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IKEA employees greeted shoppers with inflated thunder sticks. (Raul Roa / Burbank Leader)

Burbank police Sgt. Derek Green said officers arrived at the store to maintain order, adding that there were no incidents during their time there.

Initially, the retailer was going to give the first 26 people in line a sofa and the next 100 customers an armchair. However, because of the large number of people waiting in line, store officials decided to give the furniture away via a lottery, Roth said.

We werent sure what to expect, he said about the size of the crowd.

Despite the small hiccup early in the morning, shoppers patiently waited in line  some for hours  to get a chance to be one of the first people in the new store.

Silver Lake resident Martha Hernandez, 45, arrived at IKEA at around 7:30 a.m. and found herself on the outer fringes of the parking lot with several hundred people in front of her.

IKEA is always a good place to shop, she said. I like the atmosphere. They always have good sales. I always buy furniture here, and its close to home.

Hernandez said that she frequented the original Burbank IKEA, located a little more than a mile away on North San Fernando Boulevard in the Burbank Town Center. It opened in 1990 and was IKEAs first store in California.

Though the former store was smaller  242,000 square feet  Hernandez that she liked seeing the showrooms change there every time she visited.

There was always something new, she said.

Julissa Camacho, 30 of San Gabriel, tries out the beds during the grand opening of the new IKEA. (Raul Roa / Burbank Leader)

Further up the line was Sandy Seufert, 53, of Hollywood, who was dressed in a Swedish folk costume and playing Swedish folk songs on her fiddle.

Seufert, who has Swedish heritage on her mothers side of the family, said she has always loved IKEA since the store opened 26 years ago and that the retailer has allowed her to keep in touch with her roots.

I went to the old store at least once a month, and if I couldnt go, I would look at the catalog, she said. I know half the product line, and Im just a huge fan.

Before the stores opening, Burbank Mayor Jess Talamantes and IKEA store manager Jeff OShaughnessy sawed a log in half, which, in Swedish tradition, is meant to bring good luck.

At around 9 a.m., the sliding double doors opened, and hundreds of people rode an escalator to the stores 77,500-square-foot showroom.

Granada Hills resident Patricia Dungo, 33, was at the store with her husband and children looking for new storage containers for their newborn.

Its more spacious, bigger and a lot more walking for us, she said.

Though in addition to a bigger showroom there is a 600-seat restaurant at the new store, Dungo said she is most excited about the underground parking and additional loading zones.

Its much better than the old one, where you had to walk across a street, she said.

Near the sofas was Sherman Oaks resident Mohammad Khalil Beik, who was with his wife perusing the various sections of the showroom.

Khalil Beik, 41, said they had bought new furniture at the old IKEA before it closed on Saturday, but they wanted to stop by the new store to see what changes were made.

The old store was good, but a little tight, he said. But here, I feel like I can breathe better and be more relaxed. You have space to go around, and youre not bothering other people.

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Anthony Clark Carpio, anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com

Twitter: @acocarpio

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Several local parents broke out in applause during a Burbank school board meeting last week after board members passed a resolution that reaffirms a safe and equitable environment for all students, regardless of their immigration status.

Titled Reaffirming a Safe and Nondiscriminatory School Environment, the resolution was brought to the school board for consideration last Thursday following California state officials desire for school districts to be declared safe havens for students and their families.

The board passed the resolution with a 5-0 vote.

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State officials began pressing school districts to pass resolutions in December, before President Donald Trump issued a ban last month on the entry of refugees and citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries into the United States. The ban has since been blocked and met with skepticism from federal appeals court judges.

Burbank school officials said they sought to make it clear to residents that district employees shall not inquire about a students immigration status and that district personnel shall treat all students equitably, according to the resolution.

I dont want there to be confusion in our schools. Our responsibility is to have safe learning environments. I find that this resolution clarifies that, said Burbank Unified Supt. Matt Hill. There are families that have come to me privately saying, I am concerned. If we have not walked in their shoes, then we do not know what theyre going through.

Hill said some residents criticized the resolution for being redundant, but Burbank parent Chris Cookson supported the resolution.

We have a diverse and strong school district, she told the school board. It is important that we put the well-being of our children  all of our children  first. Last spring, my 8-year-old son came to me scared. He was legitimately frightened that a friend of his would be deported if Trump was elected because shes Mexican. Even the little ones pick up on the political climate right now in our country. But this should not affect them.

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Kelly Corrigan, kelly.corrigan@latimes.com

Twitter: @kellymcorrigan

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After several months of searching, the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority has chosen an artist to design large-scale artwork to be mounted on the transportation center at Hollywood Burbank Airport.

Commissioners unanimously voted during a meeting on Monday to award New Mexico artist Fausto Fernandez an $85,000 contract to come up with six different designs for each of the panels outside of the building along Hollywood Way.

The airport authority is required to put up art pieces on the center to fulfill Burbanks Art in Public Places obligation after the building was constructed, said Nerissa Sugars, who is in charge of the authoritys marketing and business development.

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Fernandez, who said that he has always had a fascination with airplanes, is no stranger to public art pieces. His work can be seen at East Rancho Dominguez Park in Compton and at the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport.

He was chosen by the airport authoritys artist selection committee because of his unique style and his willingness to work with the community on the project, said Gail Goldman, an art consultant hired by the authority.

Theres a lot of confidence in his experience in public art and with his approach to the work that he does, Goldman said. We feel a strong sense that his work will translate really well onto that large scale.

Fernandez said that his concept for the six designs will be based off an art project he recently worked on which involved creating abstract collages of people from specific communities and mixing in graffiti elements.

The artist plans to go out in Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena to do research and design the art pieces.

I do research. I talk to people. I photograph [examples], and I try to gather all that information in order for me to do public-art projects, Fernandez said.

The overall cost of the project, which was approved by the airport authority this past August, will be roughly $377,000, which includes the design process and Fernandezs contract as well as construction of the art panels.

Fernandez will have until this April to develop the panels designs, which will need approval from the airport authority.

Barring any setbacks, the project is expected to be completed by May 2018.

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Anthony Clark Carpio, anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com

Twitter: @acocarpio

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Standing ovations are rare in community theater, but the one delivered to the cast of A Piece of My Heart at the Costa Mesa Playhouse after the Feb. 4 opening performance was, most certainly, justified.

Shirley Lauros emotional tribute to the women who served as nurses in the Vietnam war  and the bitterness they faced afterward  is brilliantly related by director Kathy Paladino and a true all-star cast. The half-dozen actresses who relate incidents from the conflict and its aftermath are uniformly outstanding.

A Piece of My Heart resurrects a period of American history that most of us either have forgotten or were born too late to experience  the horrors of Vietnam and their effects on those who came through it apparently unscathed. As a theatrical piece, it offers exceptional opportunity for all six principals to render compelling performances, as they do on the Costa Mesa stage.

In this true ensemble exercise, the women take turns grasping pieces of our own hearts as they relate their life-changing experiences. The first act comprises their Vietnam service; the second focuses on their frustrations upon returning home. Only the final scene, at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., finally offers an emotional uplift.

The tightly bound cast consists of Martha (Kim Sava), a professional nurse frustrated by military regulations; Sissy (Hannah Suria), agonizing that she was sent to Southeast Asia rather than a more familiar Hawaii; Whitney (Shannon Dodson), beautiful and well educated but out of her depth; LeeAnn (Katie May Porter), sustained by her religious beliefs; Steele (Angela D. Watson), on a career course in the military; and Mary Jo (Caitlin Fuller), not a nurse but a USO entertainer with a killer set of vocal cords.

The story is told in episodic form, focusing on vignettes from each womans service. One such telling point is Steeles researched premonition of the Chinese participation in the Tet offensive  which is brushed aside by the Army brass. Its curious that the African-American character is the only one billed by her last name, Steele.

The men who fought the war are distilled into one actor, Hans Kelsen, who plays them admirably. He and Sarah Rohrer provide musical accompaniment (including popular anti-war songs) not specified in the script but added, quite effectively, by director Paladino.

Those seeking theatrical fulfillment typically found only at South Coast Repertory should take a piece of their heart to A Piece of My Heart at the Costa Mesa Playhouse.

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IF YOU GO

What: A Piece of My Heart

Where: Costa Mesa Playhouse, 611 Hamilton St., Costa Mesa

When: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays through Feb. 26

Cost: $18 to $22

Information: (949) 650-5269

Murder served up Christie-style in Newport

Over in England, the words Christie and mystery virtually rhyme since one is so closely associated with the other. Agatha Christie is, according to the Guinness World Records book, the best-selling novelist of all time.

Many of the books of Dame Aggie, who specialized in convoluted whodunits, were turned into theater projects. And no one could toss the red herrings around pages or stages like she could, particularly in the areas of characters not being what they seem.

A prime example is her 1950 project, A Murder is Announced, currently housing the stage of the Newport Theatre Arts Center under the direction of Sharyn Case. Its a sterling example of circuitous plotting and the roundabout route the authorities take to capture the guilty party.

One of Christies favorite sleuthing characters is the gentle old soul Miss Marple (Judy Jones). But in A Murder is Announced, this lady is merely a party guest, a background character, until the climax when, of course, she prevails.

At Newport, the focus is on Letitia Blacklock (Harriet Whitmyer), a rooming house operator and potential heiress at whose dwelling the announced (in the local press) murder occurs  in the dark, naturally. Then other characters vie for audience attention as the village constabulary homes in on their fibs and foibles.

Among the more interesting suspects are Dora Bunny Bunner (Yvonne Robertson), Letitias flighty, slow-witted gal pal; Julia Simmons (Hayley Jackson), a niece whose affectionate relationship with her brother Patrick (Jeff Budner) appears more than filial; and the neer-do-well son (Seth Weiner) of one of her lady friends (Mary Pat Gonzalez), who hopes to become a writer  eventually.

All are competent, but the actress who truly steals this show is Carla Naragon as a hot-tempered Russian maid. Shes given a juicy part, and she bites into it with relish. Also particularly strong is Floyd Harden as the brusque Scotland Yard inspector trying to solve the crime.

It may seem a bit corny and melodramatic today, but Christie once made a quite comfortable living weaving plots like this one, which still charms audiences, at the Newport Theatre Arts Center.

TOM TITUS reviews local theater.

*

IF YOU GO

What: A Murder is Announced

Where: Newport Theatre Arts Center, 2501 Cliff Drive, Newport Beach

When: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. matinees Saturday and Sunday until Feb. 26

Cost: $17

Information: (949) 631-0288
The Irvine Co. has dropped its lawsuit that alleged that supporters of the Museum House condominium project in Newport Beach were creating a hostile environment at Irvine Co. commercial properties.

The Newport Beach-based real estate giant dropped its case against Museum House developer Related California on Friday, according to Orange County Superior Court records. The suit was filed Dec. 9.

The complaint had contended that supporters of Related California were effectively trespassing on Irvine Co. properties in November and December because they did not have permission from the Irvine Co. to conduct free-speech activities there.

The Irvine Co. requires advance registration for petitioners, a practice it says is consistent with state and federal law.

The issue arose as petitioners for Line in the Sand, a Newport activist group, were gathering signatures calling for a public vote on Museum House, a proposed 25-story, 100-unit luxury condo tower in Newport Center that the City Council approved in November.

State political expenditure filings showed that Goco Consulting, a Sacramento-based campaign consultant that Related paid $200,000, stationed people throughout Newport Beach who urged residents not to sign the referendum petition.

Gocos hired helpers reportedly were aggressive with passersby. During the Dec. 13 council meeting, then-Councilman Keith Curry called the tactics absolutely disgusting.

In a statement Wednesday, Irvine Co. spokesman Bill Lobdell said: We always want to ensure our guests have an enjoyable experience at our retail centers while also allowing for free-speech activities under our content-neutral rules. With the signature-gathering process over, we have dropped the lawsuit but reserved the right to refile if our free-speech rules are ignored in the future.

The referendum effort gathered nearly 14,000 signatures in about two weeks, and the Orange County registrar of voters office certified last month that the petition had enough valid signatures to qualify the matter for a ballot.

The City Council may decide at its meeting Tuesday to put Museum House up for a public vote this year or in 2018. The council also could rescind its approval of the project, which is proposed to replace the Orange County Museum of Art at 850 San Clemente Drive.

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For the Record: The original version of this story incorrectly stated the art museums address as 580 San Clemente Drive.

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After the Irvine Co. filed its lawsuit, Related California attorney Sean Matsler told the Daily Pilot that the company hired to educate the public about the project had submitted the Irvine Co.'s requisite paperwork. At the time, that company was not identified.

Matsler said the company didnt know that one form didnt apply to all Irvine Co. commercial centers but would work toward complying with this technicality.

Related California also promised to pay for retired or active peace officers to sit at the shopping centers and help guarantee that all sides participate fairly in the public process. We hope this removes any concerns or issues going forward.

Matsler said through a spokesman Wednesday that nobody followed up on that offer.

Related California Executive Vice President and Newport Beach resident Gino Canori said in a statement Wednesday that his company undertook a very public process and complied with all requirements and approvals in an open and transparent manner. Transparency always serves the public interest, and we would expect all interested parties to conduct themselves in the same manner.

While we are certainly pleased that the lawsuit has been dismissed, we find recent disclosures to be very troubling, Canori said.

Canori pointed to a disclosure, first reported in the Daily Pilot last week, that Line in the Sand was aided by Citizens Against High Rise Urban Towers, a Santa Ana-based nonprofit that also opposed Museum House.

In December, Citizens gave $47,500 to Newport 1st, a political action committee, which in turn used the funds to give Line in the Sand an in-kind donation worth $46,506. That donation paid for Line in the Sands petition, according to Susan Skinner, Newport 1sts treasurer.

Related California officials have repeatedly called Citizens a dark money group because its benefactors havent been made public. Citizens attorney, Mark Rosen, has said the nonprofit is funded primarily by Newport residents who oppose Museum House but that he was unaware of its other backers.

Rosen did not respond to requests for comment last week about the dark money allegation.

bradley.zint@latimes.com

Twitter: @BradleyZint
UC Irvine police are looking for a man suspected of stealing unattended wallets and purses from the campuss Langson Library.

After the thefts, the man used credit cards from the wallets and purses to make purchases at local businesses, according to UCI police.

Campus police described the man as Asian, in his 20s, black hair parted on one side, clean-shaven, a thin build and wearing slightly tinted eyeglasses.

Police asked anyone with information or who recognizes the man to call Det. Sgt. Charles Chon or Det. Roland Chiu at (949) 824-5223.

Callers who want to remain anonymous may call OC Crime Stoppers at 855-TIP-OCCS, text OCCS plus their tip to 274637 or visit occrimestoppers.org.

alexandra.chan@latimes.com

Twitter: @AlexandraChan10
Throughout the month of February, all babies born at USC Verdugo Hills Hospital will take home free handmade, red knit hats as part of the American Heart Assn.'s Little Hats, Big Hearts campaign.

As part of a collaborative program with the Childrens Heart Foundation, and sponsored locally by Union Bank, the effort aims to raise awareness of heart disease and congenital heart defects, the most common type of birth defect.

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More than 1,600 babies in Los Angeles will receive the caps, knit by volunteers in celebration of Heart Month in February. Follow the campaign on social media at #LittleHatsLA or visit heart.org/littlehatsbighearts to learn more.

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Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com

Twitter: @SaraCardine
On Tuesday, Vicki Schwartz, president of the La Canada Flintridge Sister Cities Assn., updated the City Council on the organizations search for an international partner city for La Canada and hinted at some exciting new cultural opportunities and exchanges that could be on the horizon.

Letters of introduction and requests to partner have officially been sent to four European communities  Bad Homburg and Oberursel, both in Germany, and the Spanish cities of Donostia-San Sebastian and Villanueva de La Canada.

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So far, Schwartz said, both Spanish cities have been avid in reaching out to her about their hopes for future partnership. San Sebastian city officials hope to meet their La Canada counterparts in an upcoming video conference later this month, while an international relations group representing Villaneuva de La Canada is already sketching out an exchange program.

I have been emailing their president of international relations and planning for a student exchange this summer, Schwartz told council members. Theyre on board and would like to exchange four students  with four of our high school students.

For more information on the La Canada Flintridge Sister Cities Assn., including how to become a member, visit lcfsistercities.org online or email lcfsistercities@gmail.com.

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Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com

Twitter: @SaraCardine
Four months after La Canada city officials confronted Southern California Edison about unplanned outages that left some 1,300 residents and businesses without power, the City Council on Tuesday agreed to bring in a consulting firm to evaluate the utility providers transmission and distribution system.

Los Angeles management consulting firm PCMC has been awarded a professional services contract not to exceed $27,700 to provide an independent evaluation of Edisons infrastructure and service to the La Canada community.

The firm will be asked to provide a report detailing its analysis of the utilitys system as well as the effectiveness of recent improvements made by Edison in response to the citys complaints. At the end of last year, the agency installed more than 9,000 feet of underground cable and promised future improvements and upgrades in 2017 to improve reliability.

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The firm will review data on unplanned power outages occurring in the last 10 years, including their causes and correlations to weather conditions, outdated infrastructure, external interferences or insufficient power sources.

PCMC will be expected to confirm or refute SCEs past explanations for such outages and will review the utilitys mobilization and response time, among other aspects of service and communications.

City Manager Mark Alexander said bringing in a consultant to look at such issues will help staff and officials figure out how to assess Edisons past performance and the efficacy of the improvements its made.

City staff really doesnt have the level of expertise to gauge whether the proposals made by Southern California Edison would adequately address the recurring issue, Alexander said. So the council agreed to hire a consultant to evaluate that and report back.

Adrian Garcia, an appointed liaison between the city and utility provider, said at Tuesdays council meeting he was willing to work with PCMC, but expressed some concerns about what he called confidential and proprietary information Edison would not be able to provide.

We do have some questions regarding the scope of work  our position is that its a little broad, Garcia said. But we hope to sit down with the consultant, as soon as you approve (a contract), to discuss a better understanding of what the true expectations would be of the final product.

Alexander stressed the consultants review is not intended to cast aspersions on Edisons performance, especially given that, in the wake of severe rainstorms that hit the area in January, no significant unplanned outages were reported.

I look at this as a very positive thing and, again, I want to commend Edison for their efforts, he said.

Council OKs closing on Sport Chalet HQ

In other action Tuesday, the City Council voted unanimously to approve and authorize the purchase and close of escrow to acquire the former Sport Chalet headquarters building at a total cost of $11.23 million, appropriating $5.5 million from the citys General Fund reserves.

When it approved an initial purchase and sale agreement for the property in October, the city deposited $250,000 into escrow.

Another $5.58 million in reserves funding was committed to pay off a 30-month interest-free promissory note, secured by a deed of trust, offered by La Canada Properties, Inc., pending alternative financing.

In a staff report, City Atty. Mark Steres explained the city completed a due diligence period, originally set at 90 days and extended by one week, during which some issues were discovered.

The building, in general, appeared to be well-maintained, but there were certain equipment and mechanical components that were worn and/or in need of replacement or repair, Steres said. Based on this due diligence report, the parties entered into further negotiations and we did enter into a second amendment to the agreement to reduce the purchase price.

That reduction was taken out of La Canada Properties initial $6.05-million promissory note, Steres said. Although the city has enough in its reserve fund to cover the full cost of the acquisition, officials will actively seek alternative means of paying off the note.

Although we have the reserves to complete the entire purchase, this has been offered to us and we are taking advantage of that, the city attorney added.

In their comments, council members praised what they characterized as a fair deal.

It was a very long process, and its a big step, but I think we all agree its a right step, Mayor Pro Tem Mike Davitt said.

Sport Chalet Drive is no more

Also on Tuesday, the City Council approved renaming Sport Chalet Drive in the citys Town Center to Civic Center Drive. The street segment runs north from Foothill Boulevard to Town Center Drive, along which the former Sport Chalet retail store sits.

The newly acquired City Hall building will be the only structure to bear the new street name in its address, which will be One Civic Center Drive.

Other address options, made available to council members but not selected as preferences, included 927 Town Center Drive, 4520 Beulah Drive and 4520 Olberz Park Drive.

--

Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com

Twitter: @SaraCardine
Somalia took a halting step toward stability Wednesday by electing a new president, a 55-year-old former prime minister who lived in the United States for many years and is a U.S. citizen.

Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo was voted into office by the parliament, which gathered at the Mogadishu airport because it was deemed the most secure place in a capital plagued by suicide bombings and armed attacks by the Islamic militant group Shabab.

The voting was streamed live online, and celebratory gunfire rang out in Mogadishu as Farmaajo moved ahead. After the result was announced, crowds surged into the street chanting his name, local journalists reported.

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This victory represents the interest of the Somali people, Farmaajo said after taking the oath of office. This victory belongs to the Somali people, and this is the beginning of the era of the unity, the democracy of Somalia and the beginning of the fight against corruption.

Farmaajo was born in Mogadishu and once worked in the foreign ministry, which deployed him to Somalias embassy in Washington in 1985.

He left the embassy in 1989 to study at the State University of New York in Buffalo. After the collapse of the Siad Barre regime in 1991, when Somalia erupted in clan warfare, Farmaajo sought asylum in the U.S.

He eventually became a U.S. citizen, served as equal employment commissioner for the New York state Transportation Department and wrote a masters thesis titled: U.S. Strategic Interest in Somalia: From the Cold War Era to the War on Terror.

In 2010, he returned to Mogadishu to take up the post of prime minister, a job to which he was appointed.

As prime minister, Farmaajo was seen as a reformer who made sure that security forces got paid, forced lawmakers to disclose their assets and set up an anti-corruption commission.

The vote Wednesday was tinged by corruption. The electors were lawmakers who themselves were chosen in October by 14,000 clan leaders, politicians, elders and community figures in an election marred by vote buying, bribes, threats and at least a few killings.

A local anti-corruption group, Marqaati, reported that more than a quarter of the voters in the October election that it interviewed had been harassed or intimidated and that 32% of elders had been offered bribes.

Votes were sold for as much as $30,000 each and candidates paid more than $300,000 in bribes to get parliamentary seats, the group said.

Several candidates pulled out of the presidential race in protest.

Somalia aims to hold direct elections in 2020, giving ordinary Somalis a chance to vote. Officials have said that doing so currently is too risky, given insecurity and clan tensions.

Farmaajo defeated 20 other presidential candidates. In the first round of voting, no candidate received the two-thirds majority needed to win the election. The top four candidates advanced to the second round, where 165 votes were required to win and avoid a third round. Farmaajo received 184.

The incumbent president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, was second with 97 votes. A former peace activist, he had faced criticism for being too close to the Ethiopian government, which had sent forces into Somalia to fight Shabab but withdrew them late last year.

Fayumo Dayib, a candidate who withdrew from the race saying the process was corrupt, tweeted her joy when Mohamud was defeated and Farmaajo emerged as the victor.

History in the making. Lawmakers have clearly chosen the choice of the people. Theyve saved #Somalia!! It is a new dawn, a new beginning!

The election is a modest step toward political stability. But Somalia remains fragile because of looming famine and Shabab, which has carried out a series of devastating attacks in recent months.

Security forces and civil servants have gone unpaid for months, and the United Nations recently warned that some members of the Somali army could defect to Shabab.

Somalia is among the seven predominantly Muslim countries targeted by President Trumps executive order on immigration, which seeks to temporarily block immigrants from entering the United States. The ban  which Trump says is a matter of national security  is currently on hold by court order and facing multiple legal challenges.
Global leaders are flocking to Dubai this weekend for an annual gathering that will chew over the challenges facing governments in a time of lurching change.

What are the aspirations of Arab youth? How can government harness innovations in science and technology? What will make the world more prosperous and happier?

All those are on the agenda of the annual World Government Summit, which convenes Sunday  apparently without official U.S. representation  and takes place against a backdrop of global fears of terrorism, a continuing refugee crisis and a surge in populism that is partly a response to those two problems.

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Such meetings are often no more than talkfests, and its not clear whether any concrete agreements will emerge from Dubai.

In this file photo, children sort waste products in an impoverished community in Manila. (Jes Aznar / Getty Images)

The three-day gathering hosted by the government of the United Arab Emirates was expected to include more than 4,000 regional and global participants, including heads of state, scholars, scientists, entrepreneurs and experts in finance and public policy, according to information published by organizers of the event.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, fresh from a scheduled meeting in Florida on Friday with President Trump, is slated to give a keynote speech.

Last year, President Obama addressed the summit, underscoring in a video uplink the need for governments to truly invest in their citizens, their education, skills, and health.

A man pushes a trolley with goods along a street in Beijing in January 2017. Chinas producer prices rose at their swiftest pace in more than five years in December, according to the government. (Wang Zhao / AFP / Getty Images)

The White House press office would not say whether the Trump administration would send a representative this year, or had plans for remote participation. A State Department official, speaking on customary background, said the department had been interested in sending a qualified speaker but a family emergency prevented the unidentified speaker from attending. There was no alternate at this moment, the official said.

Discussions at the summit are to focus on challenges and opportunities for the global economy, innovations in science and technology, and the future of healthcare and education, among other topics relating to sustainable development, organizers said.

Representatives of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which has been a strategic partner of the World Government Summit since its inaugural meeting in 2013, said the group would deliver the message that good governance fosters inclusive economic growth.

In this January 2017 file photo, Joe Sigler 59, sits with his dog Mojo as his homeless encampment along W. 95th Street in the Manchester Square neighborhood of Los Angeles. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

In an email, Rolf Alter, OECDs director of public governance and territorial development, said his organization would push innovations in governance and improvements in transparency.

The gathering comes at a time of deep uncertainty in many countries.

A poll of 552 Eisenhower Fellows conducted in December and published earlier this month found that fewer than one-quarter of the global fellows from more than 71 countries believe their country is headed in the right direction. Fewer than half said they trusted the government, media and financial institutions, the poll showed.

Fellows hail from all professional fields, and represent private, public and nonprofit sectors.

From the U.S on out there, there is growing lack of trust in government, said John Della Volpe, an Eisenhower Fellow and director of polling at Harvard Kennedy Schools Institute of Politics. There is a message and understanding that government by itself cannot meet the challenges facing the world.

The fellows, who are part of an international leaders exchange program named for President Eisenhower, said growing economic inequality was a major reason for the pessimism, according to Della Volpe.

A riverboat taxi crosses the Chao Phraya river in front of massive construction in Bangkok, Thailand. A United Nations report says Asias economic outlook for 2017 is strong despite slowing global growth due to sluggish international trade and investment. (Dake Kang / Associated Press)

There is a sense that too many are being left behind and institutions arent as trustworthy as they should be in paving the way for access to all members of societies, he said.

Jeffrey Sachs, director of the center for sustainable development at Columbia Universitys Earth Institute and a senior advisor to the United Nations, said that lack of trust in government can have profound implications for society.

When people mistrust their government, which is a fairly widespread condition around the world, including in the United States, the levels of life satisfaction are really reduced, he said. Whatever else government does it should be honest in how it does it.

ann.simmons@latimes.com

For more on global development news, see our Global Development Watch page, and follow me @AMSimmons1 on Twitter

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The Journalists were called at White House claim that media outlets are failing to adequately report the terror attack. To support President Donald Trump claims the White House has distributed a list of 78 terror attack.

According to CNN, the list includes many atrocities that received many blanket western media coverage including the Paris Bata clan attacks, the Nice truck killing, and the San Bernardino shootings. The list also includes last year's attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando and the mass shooting and bombing in California, in 2015

Trump at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida said the attacks were happening all over Europe. He also claimed that in many cases the dishonest press doesn't want to report it.

The 78 major terrorist attacks were inspired by ISIS since September 2014. The White House official said most of these attacks did not receive adequate attention from Western media sources. But the media has claimed that they have robustly covered many of those attacks and terror in general.

The Washington Post has reported that Trump believes the attacks are not "unreported but underreported". The White House spokesperson Lindsay Walters has reported that they want media to wall-to-wall coverage of this report.

"I'm really troubled by that", said by Washington post columnist David Ignatius. He also said," We have brave colleagues who every day are taking big risks to cover these stories".

However the listed attack span from September 2014 to December 2016. The attack includes Paris attack, the truck attack in Nice and Berlin, the Brussels airport attack, the Istanbul airport attack and the Sydney siege.

The White House only mentions attacks that appear or have been carried out with Islamic motives and removed other terrorist operations. It does not mention the recent terror attack on a mosque in Quebec City.

Meanwhile, Trump has used terror attacks issue to justify his controversial ban on citizens from seven Muslim-majority nations from entering into the US.


Gov. Tom Wolf visited Allentown on Wednesday in his first stop to present his new budget proposal, a day after sharing it with lawmakers.

He touted what he calls an innovative approach to keeping sales and personal income taxes flat while maintaining services and beginning to build back up the state's rain day fund reserve.

"Yesterday what I did is stood up and said I'm going to do budgeting differently in Pennsylvania than we have ever, ever done and I'm not sure any state has ever done it this way," Wolf said during the appearance at the Northeast Regional Council of Carpenters' new Carpenter's Training Center in the city.

Wolf's Fiscal Year 2017-18 budget, due to be passed by the Legislature by June 30, seeks $1 billion in tax increases, including what the administration views as loopholes in taxes on sales, corporate profits and insurance premiums. About $290 million of that would come from a new severance tax on Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling that, he allowed, would be passed on to consumers in Pennsylvania and other states that benefit from the gas production.

"This is a resource that lies beneath our feet," said Wolf, a first-term Democrat who plans to seek re-election in 2018. "People are taking it out and using it and people who use that actually ought to pay for that. That gets embedded in the price."

In closing a $3 billion deficit, the $32.3 billion budget also includes $2 billion in spending cuts, efficiency steps and revenue sources that do not involve raising taxes.

Republican lawmakers from the Lehigh Valley said they were encouraged by the governor's approach and looked forward to vetting it by the July 1 start of the new fiscal year.

In hosting the governor, the Northeast Regional Council of Carpenters got to show off its new apprentice education center that had its grand opening about a month ago at 1818 Vultee St., off Lehigh Street near Queen City Airport. Students who are already working in their trade get a debt-free education valued at about $50,000 apiece, thanks to union dues that cover the cost, council officials said. The council hopes to education about 100 apprentices a year at the center, said council representative David Gannon.

The center receives no state funding, Wolf noted.

"What goes on here is a really a great deal for Pennsylvania," he said. "You leave here with a good job, a good family-sustaining job and that is the best public policy we could do."

Wolf's office says his administration has created or retained more than 30,000 jobs in the Lehigh Valley, leveraged more than $848 million in outside funding and provided direct funding of more than $100 million.

Going forward, according to his office, Wolf proposes:

Partnering with Pennsylvania's research universities and Industrial Resource Centers to accelerate manufacturing technology advancement and adoption and to foster manufacturing innovation and commercialization.

Creating a new apprenticeship grant program to ensure workers can receive training aligned to business workforce needs, funded with revenue recovered from companies that fail to live up to previous commitments made when they received state assistance.

Investing $5 million in a manufacturing training-to-career grant program to partner with technical programs and community colleges to develop new training programs that align with their workforce needs.

Wolf said his budget does not reduce any services, and increases funding for education and human services. It also ends the state's reliance on "smoke and mirrors": tapping into Treasury funds to cover costs as needed and leaving the state's rainy day fund at a paltry $245,000, he said. He proposes a course to grow the savings to nearly $500 million by 2022.

"Basically what I'm trying to do is balance our budget, live within our means, not raise taxes and continue to do the things that matter to all of us: invest in education, invest in jobs, invest in the things that make people like you want to come here, learn what you're learning and do the things that you're doing, but I want you to do them right here in Pennsylvania," he told the audience Wednesday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
UPDATE: Bethlehem homicide victim linked to prior shooting, police say

A 19-year-old woman found shot to death early Wednesday on Bethlehem's South Side has been identified.

Teayahe Glover, who lived on South Side, died of multiple gunshot wounds, said Northampton County Coroner Zachary Lysek. He ruled the manner of death homicide.

Bethlehem police Chief Mark DiLuzio said the shooting occurred at 1:43 a.m. at Fiot and Sioux streets. Glover was found on the ground about two blocks from where shots were fired, he said.

It was the second shooting in a week on South Side. The previous incident occurred about 11 p.m. Thursday inside a rooming house at 526 Cherokee St., where Allen Young was shot, allegedly by Tariq Dashon Page, 23, of Allentown.

Police and rescue squad workers attempted CPR but were unable to revive Glover. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police have released few details about what may have led to the shooting and have not said they have anyone in custody in connection with the homicide. Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli also declined comment if a suspect has been taken into custody.

Neighbors Wednesday were stunned to learn about the killing. The houses along Sioux Street are across from Holy Ghost Cemetery in the typically quiet neighborhood.

Asked how often police activity is seen in the area, a 53-year-old man, who declined to give his name, said: "Not too often. There's the occasional broken window and some (criminal mischief). But it's fairly decent."

Another neighbor reported hearing what sounded like four gunshots at the time of the crime.

Anyone with information about the shooting should call Bethlehem police Detective Christopher Beebe at 610-997-7681 or 610-865-7187. Calls can be confidential.

Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @pamholzmann. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
An alleged drug dealer used a popular online classified website to sell prescription painkiller medication, police said.

Charged is Keyvon Derick Hinson, 20, of Philadelphia.

Bethlehem Township police on Monday received information from the Monroe County District Attorney's office that Hinson was trying to sell Percocet on Craiglist.

A Monroe County detective contacted Hinson by cellphone and text, court records indicate. The detective arranged to buy $1,300 worth of Percocet.

She arranged to meet Hinson at 8:06 a.m. Monday at the William Penn Park and Ride in Bethlehem Township. Bethlehem Township arrested Hinson at the parking lot.

Hinson had aspirin packaged to resemble a controlled substance, according to police. Hinson allegedly told investigators he packaged the aspirin how he would package Percocet.

Hinson is charged with possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, criminal use of a communications facility and possession of a controlled substance. He was arraigned before District Judge Richard Yetter III, who set bail at $65,000.

In lieu of bail, Hinson was sent to Northampton County Prison.

Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @pamholzmann. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Nick Englesson

Nick Englesson is running for district judge in Bethlehem for seat 3-2-11. The seat was held by Patricia Romig-Passaro until she resigned in October 2015.

(Courtesy photo)

A Bethlehem attorney announced he's running for district judge in the Bethlehem area.

Nick Englesson seeks office in the 03-2-11 seat vacated by Patricia Romig-Passaro, who resigned in October 2015. He's a lifelong Bethlehem resident.

"I come from humble beginnings. My family ran a diner and grocery store on the South Side when I was a kid," said Englesson in a news release issued Monday.

Englesson has been an attorney for 35 years. Most recently he was a special judicial master in Northampton County. He had to resign the post in order to run for district judge.

He served as a state and county prosecutor during a 17-year period.

"I have earned a reputation in the courts for being level-headed, fair-minded, and respectful of all people who come before me as a judicial special master and I pledge to do the same for the people in my district," he said in the news release.

The district with the office on Stefko Boulevard covers northeast Bethlehem, Freemansburg and the eastern half of the South Side, including the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem.

Englesson is a registered Democrat but plans to cross-file to run in both the Democratic and Republican primary elections.

Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook.
The 19-year-old woman shot to death in Bethlehem was the focus of a dispute between a man who was shot last week in the city and the alleged shooter, who is in custody, police Chief Mark DiLuzio said.

"She was the girl they had the beef over," he said Wednesday night of Teayahe Glover, who was shot multiple times at 1:43 a.m. Wednesday at Fiot Avenue and Sioux Street on South Side.

Tariq Dashon Page (Courtesy photo | For lehighvalleylive.com)

Glover was present at 526 Cherokee St. the night of Feb. 2 when Tariq Dashon Page, 23, of Allentown, allegedly shot Allen Young, according to court records. Page was arrested Saturday on attempted homicide and related charges and was jailed in lieu of 10 percent of $500,000 bail.

Police investigating the shooing on Cherokee Street, about a half-mile's walk from Wednesday's shooting scene, described Glover as Young's girlfriend and said she had dated Page in the past.

Investigators were continuing to probe possible connections between the shootings, and no one was in custody as of Wednesday night in Glover's death, DiLuzio said.

"We don't know what the connection is right now," he said. "We're working on that. She was involved in both incidents."

He said he did not have a name or description of anyone sought to immediately release.

"It's an active investigation, and it is moving forward," DiLuzio said Wednesday night.

Another woman interviewed in last week's shooting told police she returned to the Cherokee Street home from a liquor run to hear two shots and saw Young bleeding, according to court records.

Page was allegedly outside yelling, "I don't give a f--." Glover closed the door to the home, and Page allegedly kicked it in to re-enter the home.

Young was unresponsive after the shooting, and CPR was administered, police said. He was taken to St. Luke's University Hospital in Fountain Hill and remained in serious condition earlier this week.

A memorial to Bethlehem homicide victim Teayahe Glover is set up the night of Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2017, near the intersection of Sioux Street and Fiot Avenue on the city's South Side. The 19-year-old was shot there about 1:45 a.m. Wednesday, police said. (Kurt Bresswein | For lehighvalleylive.com)

Glover, when she was 16, ran away from home in West Bethlehem, police said at the time, in August 2013.

Police were continuing to investigate her killing and asked anyone with any information to reach out to Detective Christopher Beebe at 610-865-7187.

Pamela Sroka-Holzmann contributed to this report.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
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A meat company's lucrative scam led to countless consumers being duped into eating what they thought was halal lamb  when it was neither lamb nor halal, a court heard.

Owners of restaurants, takeaways and shops across Leicestershire and beyond unwittingly bought tonnes of low-cost turkey that was being passed off to them as more expensive lamb off the bone, it was claimed.

The alleged con-trick was said to have netted meat wholesaler Dutch Bangla Direct Ltd at least a quarter of a million pounds in profit.

The boss of the now defunct company, Mahmudur Rohman, is on trial at Leicester Crown Court with three other men, accused of conspiring to defraud customers by making false representations about the type of meat being sold, between 2013 and 2014.

The alleged fraud came to light during an investigation into the then recent national horse meat scandal. Food tests discovered turkey DNA in dishes that were supposed to be lamb.

Rohman (46), of Rothbart Way, Peterborough, Mohammed Anwarul Hoque (56) and his son, Mohammed Zunaid Hoque (25), both of Uplands Road, Oadby, and Kamal Rahman (54), of Derby Drive, Peterborough, all deny the conspiracy.

Kevin Barry, prosecuting on behalf of trading standards, said: "It's alleged these four defendants conspired together to commit fraud in relation to the dishonest supply of turkey meat which they pretended was lamb.

"They were supplying shops and restaurants in the East Midlands and beyond.

"The operation was on a grand scale, involving 100 tonnes of turkey.

"The cost of turkey is very much lower (than lamb), and profits generated from deceiving customers was in the hundreds of thousands of pounds.

"Apart from the main conspiracy, they are accused of further offences linked to the conspiracy to defraud.

"Documents were forged and there was an attempt to pervert the course of justice (allegedly by Rahman) by getting a witness to lie to the authorities.

"There was also the mis-describing and mis-labelling of food."

He said Rohman was the sole director of Peterborough-based Dutch Bangla Direct Ltd, which "was the front or conduit to carry out their fraudulent activity".

"Rohman placed substantial orders with European suppliers of turkey meat, but sent it out as lamb, sometimes with false labels.

"He would often use the three co-defendants as salesmen and deliverymen.

"Mohammed Anwarul Hoque is Leicester-based, with a history of involvement in the restaurant business, who was the key sales and delivery manager for Dutch Bangla.

"He had considerable face-to-face contact with customers and received thousands of pounds from Dutch Bangla.

"His son, Mr Hoque junior, assisted his father in establishing customers and supplying them with meat, and he lent himself to the fraud, knowingly selling turkey as lamb.

"Kamal Rahman, formerly Kamal Uddin, was a well-established and successful businessman in the East Midlands and a prominent member of the Bangladeshi community."

Mr Barry claimed Rahman offered a restaurant owner money to lie to trading standards about the source of suspect meat "to corrupt the investigation into the scam to supply turkey labelled as boneless leg of lamb".

Between October 2012 and November 2014, the company allegedly imported 116 tonnes of turkey, mainly from Germany, paying between 1 and 1.50 per kilo, which was sold on as lamb for between 4.75 and 7 a kilo.

Mr Barry said: "The estimated turnover was between 500,000 to 800,000 generated by selling turkey as lamb  and more than half of that would have been profit to Dutch Bangla.

"Turkey meat at wholesale level commands much lower prices, and by selling turkey as lamb the defendants were able to charge around double of what it was actually worth  and they were still able to undercut rivals' prices for lamb, so it looked more attractive to the customer.

"It wasn't halal certified and the (European) suppliers to Dutch Bangla didn't claim it to be halal certified."

Mr Barry said forged certificates were seized which wrongly claimed that Dutch Bangla was certified to handle halal meat.

He added: "They were plainly being created to fraudulently induce customers to believe it was a certified halal business when it wasn't."

As well as the conspiracy allegation, all four deny selling food which was not the substance demanded by the customer and selling food labelled with a false description.

Rahman also denies intending to pervert the course of justice.

Rohman, Hoque and Hoque deny five counts of Food Safety Act breaches.

Rohman denies forgery, possessing an article for use in fraud, selling food with a false description, failing to have in place adequate systems and procedures to provide food traceability to the authorities and failing to notify the authorities of premises where food production, processing or distribution was taking place.

Hoque senior denies possessing a false halal certificate for the use of fraud.

The trial continues.
A Newbridge couple, who set up a successful cosmetic brand, have signed a major deal with the largest home shopping TV channel in the world.

Husband and wife team, Sonia and Padraic Deasy have joined forces with the US based QVC, which has a reach of over 200 million households worldwide.

We have had a lot of interest in our products in the States, and knew through our US stockist, and through the figures reflected in our online sales, that there is a substantial appetite across the pond for the range, said Sonia.

Our online sales in America have also been growing at a steady pace with customers buying one product and then returning to purchase the full skincare suite.

She pointed out the American consumer is highly educated when it comes to cosmetics and skincare.

Although our range is high end, all the products are affordable and it is each of these elements that make us attractive to QVC, they know 'Superstar' will be a big seller.

Established in December 2014, Padraic and Sonia have built up Pestle & Mortar Cosmetics to achieve a turnover of over 2m in 2016, with products sold through retailers and skin care providers in Ireland, the UK and America.

Stockists include Arnotts and Avoca, Liberty in London and ABC Home in New York. The company also sells direct to consumers online and to some spas.

Established in December 2014, the company has experienced rapid growth, developing six skincare products in just over two years.

Motivated and inspired by their five young children, aged from 10 down to 4, Padraic and Sonia have managed to create a loving home and run their businesses.

The Pestle & Mortar Superstar Retinol Night Oil will feature on the station in early March when Sonia travels to QVCs Pennsylvania studio to go on air to talk about the product.

Sonia will appear on air with a QVC anchor and the seven-minute slot could prove to be a major turning point for the brand in the USA.

Sonia stressed all the products are free from parabens, mineral oil, silicones, sulphates, propylene and animal derived raw materials.

The duo also own and run a photography studio in Newbridge. Regarded as one of the leading portrait photographers in the country, Padraic was named as the European Photographer of the Year in 2011.

The couple are no strangers to e-commerce and also own an online business called Seamless, which sells photography products, mainly aimed at professional photographers.

The Deasys plan to release three more Pestle & Mortar products in 2017 and hope to break into new markets across continental Europe.

We are thrilled with progress, said the busy mum of five, we will continue to build the brand and have our sights firmly set on the USA for the first part of the year, after that we plan to focus on Germany and France. Cosmetics is a competitive place, you have to continually innovate and break new ground and thats what we intend to do.
Moves to ban fracking in Ireland have been boosted by the support of Hollywood legend, Jane Fonda. She has joined Susan Sarandon, Sean Lennon, Shailene Woodley, while Robert F Kennedy Junior has led an Irish American voice in support of a bill attempting to make its way through the Dail to ban fracking.

The Back the Bill campaign has been active since October 2016 when the bill introduced by Deputy Tony McLoughlin FG received unanimous cross party support when introduced to the Irish parliament.

However, since December 2016 the bill has been put out for consultation until February 10 by the Irish government causing supporters of it to worry that this might be a stalling measure by people who would prefer to see fracking in Ireland.

At a press conference in Dublin on February 1, Deputy Tony McLoughlin who sponsored the bill reminded the people present that the bill was only part of the way there. He said, We cannot afford delays of any kind. He urged that the bill get clear passage with no ifs or buts.

Antifracking group Love Leitrim who have been working with Tony McLoughlin and Friends of the Earth have encouraged the public to urge the government to pass the bill in its current form to the next stage, do not water it down, nor try to delay in it.

Eddie Mitchell of Love Leitrim said, The only thing that can stop this bill is if people want to hold it back." Leitrim Sinn Fein TD Martin Kenny reiterated that sentiment, that even though a ban in fracking was voted for unanimously through the Dail, there were still forces behind the scenes promoting fracking. He commented, "There are vested interests pulling strings."

Friends of the Earth Ireland have a petition, which has being receiving thousands of signatures asking the government to honour the wish of the Irish public for a frack free Ireland.

Robert F Kennedy Junior who has been supporting native tribes in Standing Rock also called out on social media for his followers to back this petition saying, Take action. Back the bill to ban fracking In Ireland.

People can keep signing the Friends of the Earth Ireland petition here http://www.foe.ie/takeaction/ ban-fracking/?
Islington is one of the most liberal places in the country. Cosmopolitan and confident, Islington was a natural home for the Liberal Democrats, but when voters moved on from Iraq, Labour moved back in. Labour hold 47 of 48 borough council seats (the other is a Green) and have held both parliamentary seats for longer than Ive been alive.

I am relatively new to front line politics, but then so too are most of our members. Islingtons membership soared past 700 last week and from these newcomers, a majority of our executive have been elected into a Lib Dem role for the first time.

Our first action day of the year last Saturday was a spectacular success. 60 local members came out in the rain to help deliver four different wards across our two constituencies and for many, it was the first political thing they had ever done. An Islington veteran told me afterwards over a drink that shed never seen anything like that level of enthusiasm, not even on general election day.

Our local residents are enthused as well and it was the first Lib Dem leaflet they had received for at least a year. Since we delivered our bundles, dozens of residents have emailed through our contact address asking how they can join the party, asking how they can help locally, and of course there are always, always pot holes to fix!

Brexit is driving members to us, which is unsurprising considering our borough voted overwhelmingly to remain. But we are also blessed with sitting Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry as our local MPs. We can track their recent performances on Marr and Peston to spikes in our website numbers and then eventual membership signups.

I recorded a video on Saturday, highlighting that Islington has many thousands of EU nationals who were until recently, residing very happily in our corner of North London, but who feel utterly betrayed by Labour.

A new member who joined the day before our action day told me:

When Emily Thornberry said she wouldnt die in a ditch for freedom of movement, I knew I had to do something.

We have a great opportunity in Islington to use the enthusiasm, and the anger, and put together a local election team in 2018 that returns many Lib Dem councillors. But more fundamentally, we have an incredible opportunity to show the rest of the country that voters are deserting the Labour project in a Labour heartland, in favour of the Lib Dems.

I want to spread the word that the Lib Dems are alive and kicking in Islington and ready for the fight. If you can lend us your expertise, if you can tell someone about us, or if you just want to come and help us beat team Corbyn and Thornberry, please get in touch.

Were going to make Islington, Liberal again.

* Alain Desmier is Chairman of the Islington Lib Dems. You can contact him at [email protected]
A FATHER-of-two who sustained a traumatic brain injury following a savage and unprovoked attack outside a fast food restaurant in Newcastle West 18 months ago has been unable to work or drive since, a court has heard.

Sean Ambrose (34) was placed in a medical coma and spent five weeks in hospital after he was punched by an exceptionally strong and exceptionally well-built rugby player in the early hours of August 24, 2015.

James Corbett, aged 23, of Sharwood Estate in the town has pleaded guilty to intentionally or recklessly causing serious harm to Mr Ambrose at the Square, Newcastle West shortly after 2am.

CCTV footage of the assault was shown during a sentencing hearing at Limerick Circuit Court this Wednesday afternoon.

In the shocking footage Mr Corbett can be seen approaching Mr Ambrose and violently striking him while he was standing on the main road outside Superbites.

Detective Garda Eric OShea agreed with Michael Collins BL, prosecuting, that Mr Ambrose immediately fell helplessly to the ground and was then punched a further three times by the defendant as he stood over him as he lay prone in the ground.

Mr Ambrose, whose skull was fractured, was initially taken to University Hospital Limerick but was later transferred to University Hospital Cork where a number of surgical procedures were carried out.

Following his release from hospital he was then admitted to the National Rehabilitation Centre for five weeks.

A number of medical reports were submitted to the court and Judge Tom ODonnell was told that without medical intervention on the night Mr Ambrose would have died.

The victim, who worked as a haulier before the incident, has lost his sense of smell and his sense of taste has deteriorated significantly.

He continues to experience problems with his memory and has difficulty concentrating at times.

In a Victim Impact Statement, he said it took him some time to accept what had happened to him.

He said he became agitated and confused and took out his frustrations on members of his family who had maintained a constant vigil at this bedside.

He said he missed his daughters fist day at school because of what happened and that he continues to suffer chronic headaches.

Mr Ambrose said the thought of the accused man carrying on with a normal life upsets and angers him.

Andrew Sexton SC said his client  Mr Corbett  was genuinely remorseful and regretted what happened.

He said he had taken out a credit union loan of 20,000 which he accepted was paltry in the context of Mr Ambroses injuries.

Judge ODonnell adjourned the matter to March 29, next to allow him time to read the various medical reports.
FOR a fourth consecutive day, University Hospital Limerick has the highest trolley numbers in the country.

According to figures collated by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, there are 39 patients on trolleys at UHL  in the emergency department and on wards.

This figure is the highest among hospitals nationally  for a fourth consecutive day  but have dropped from Tuesdays 46.

The overcrowding figure has been consistently high at UHL but remains some way short of Januarys peak of 66  yet the hospital is regularly the most overcrowded in the country.

27 beds that were opened between St Johns Hospital, Ennis and Nenagh hospitals to alleviate overcrowding have now reverted back to their original use.

A state-of-the-art emergency department is expected to open this May, subject to a successful recruitment campaign and HSE funding.

It will be three times the size of the current facility, and is expected to improve the patient and staff experience at the hospital, a spokesperson for the UL Hospitals Group has said.
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Find not too frequent updates from the Livesay family here
Matthew Jackson takes a sample of lava from a flow in Hawaii. New research suggests that this lava may contain traces of a primeval Earth that dates back 4.5 billion years.

Lava from Earth's hottest spots may be flecked with primordial rock that existed 4.5 billion years ago, before the moon had formed, new research suggests.

The traces of ancient Earth likely come from dense primordial reservoirs buried deep below the Earth's surface, at the boundary between the mantle and the core. As plumes of molten rock in the Earth's mantle rise toward the surface, they pull in some of this primeval rock. These plumes then warm Earth's surface at volcanic hotspots, oozing lava that contains signatures of the young planet, according to the study, which was published on Monday (Feb. 6) in the journal Nature (opens in new tab).

"We're finding the hottest plumes are sampling the oldest domains on the Earth," said study co-author Matthew Jackson, a geochemist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "These lavas are sampling a domain in the Earth that had to have formed in the first 100 million years of Earth's history." [Photo Time Line: How the Earth Formed]

Smashing beginning

Around 4.54 billion years ago, Earth formed during several massive collisions, the last of which occurred about 100 million years after the solar system's coalescence, when Earth crashed into the planetoid Theia. The vaporized remains of this planetoid then condensed to form the moon.

Though the violent churning of the Earth has erased almost all traces of this early history, in the past few decades, scientists have found evidence that bits of this young Earth may still exist in places like Hawaii and Iceland. These locations are among the 50 volcanic hotspots on the planet, where heat from the Earth's mantle rises in a plume, melting rock at the base of the tectonic plates that form Earth's surface. The molten rock, or magma, then oozes through fissures in the Earth to erupt and form volcanoes.

In the 1980s, scientists sampling lava in Hawaii noticed that in some spots, the ratio of helium-3 (helium with just one neutron per atom) to the version with two neutrons per atom, called helium-4, was higher than expected based on the surrounding rock's composition.

"This ratio is associated with the building blocks of the planet, primitive meteorites, the atmosphere of Jupiter, the solar wind," Jackson said. (Jupiter's atmosphere likely formed early in the solar system's history.)

In other words, the high ratio of helium-3 to helium-4 suggested a very ancient source, he said. Follow-up studies produced ratios of other isotopes, such as tungsten and xenon, that suggested these lavas may come from the first 50 million years of Earth's history.

"It records the earliest history of the planet," Jackson told Live Science.

Hottest spots, oldest rock

However, only some hotspots held lava with high helium-3/helium-4 ratios. Why then were some hotspots sampling this primordial soup when others weren't?

To answer that question, Jackson and his colleagues took helium-isotope data from 38 volcanic hotspots around the world and combined that information with data on how fast seismic waves travel through the upper mantle. Seismic waves travel more slowly through hotter mantle. They found that the areas with the slowest seismic waves (and therefore the hottest mantle) also had a helium signature associated with primordial reservoirs.

The new research suggests that the hottest of hotspots may be the only ones pulling from this primordial pool of ancient rock, the study said. The hottest spots are likely fed by the most buoyant plumes in the mantle, meaning the plumes are better able to rise up in relation the surrounding mantle rock, the researchers said. These ultrahot plumes are also able to cause more melt, the scientists added.

Under this hypothesis, these dense blobs of primordial rock lie about 1,860 miles (3,000 kilometers) below the Earth's surface, at the boundary with the core. Because these blobs are so dense, only the hottest mantle plumes can melt bits of this material and transport it, Jackson said.

The high density "also explains how something so ancient could survive in the chaotically convecting mantle for 4.5 billion years," he said in a statement. "The density contrast makes it more likely that the ancient helium reservoir is preserved rather than mixed away."

While the findings suggest an explanation for why only some lava contains traces of ancient Earth, the results don't answer larger questions about these primeval reservoirs, Jackson said. For instance, scientists have little idea what these primordial reservoirs are made of or how they formed, he said.

Originally published on Live Science.
A herd of wild bison has been reintroduced to Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada, marking the first time that bison have roamed this part of Canada since they were hunted to near extinction in the 19th century.

Parks Canada  the Canadian government agency that manages national parks, conservation areas and historical sites  relocated the 16 bison, which primarily include pregnant females, to the remote Panther Valley in Banff National Park, the Calgary Herald reported. Initially, the bison will be in an enclosed pasture and monitored by Parks Canada officials, but by summer 2018, the herd will be free to roam across more than 460 square miles (1,200 square kilometers) in the Red Deer and Cascade river valleys, according to the Calgary Herald.

Banff National Park Superintendent Dave McDonough said the herd's release is part of a celebration of Canadas 150th anniversary of Confederation, when the country was united into one dominion. [Photos: 9,000-Year-Old Bison Mummy Found in Siberia]

"It's a great event to have a keystone species return to one of our nations most iconic places," McDonough said when making the official announcement Monday (Feb. 6), according to news reports. "I'm proud to say that history has come full circle and wild bison are once again in Banff National Park."

Bison used to freely roam the land that is now Banff National Park, and their historic population in North America was about 30 million, the Calgary Herald reported. However, overhunting brought the large herd animals to the brink of extinction. To save the species, the Canadian government purchased one of the last surviving herds in the early 1900s, according to Parks Canada. For almost a century, this herd and its descendants were kept in a protected paddock at the base of Cascade Mountain in Alberta, before being released in 1997 to begin their reintroduction to the wild.

If the herd thrives, and a healthy wild population is established, the Banff plains buffalo population will be just one of four in North America that is roaming in the wild and interacting with its historical environment, said Karsten Heuer, bison project manager for Parks Canada.

"That will be a first in over 140 years in Banff National Park, and that's really why we're doing this, is to make them wild again," Heuer told the Calgary Herald. "They've been absent from this landscape for too long, and so I think today is the hooves-on-the-ground beginning of trying to bring that back."

Original article on Live Science.
Kiwis are pear-shaped, flightless birds with long legs and beak. Though they look to be covered in fur, kiwis actually have thin, hair-like feathers. Their closest relatives are the emu, ostrich, cassowary and rhea.

Size

A kiwi is about the size of a chicken. There are five species. The largest is the northern brown kiwi, which grows up to 20 to 25 inches (50 to 65 centimeters) and weighs 3.2 to 11 lbs. (1.4 to 5 kilograms). The smallest is the little spotted kiwi. It grows up to 14 to 18 inches (35 to 45 cm) and weighs 4.3 lbs. (0.8 to 1.9 kg).

The kiwi's muscular legs make up around a third of its total body weight, and according to the San Diego Zoo, a kiwi can outrun a person.

Kiwis' wings are tiny, at around 1 inch (3 cm). Each wing has a small claw on the tip, though the claw has no known use.

Habitat

Kiwis are found only in New Zealand in forests, scrublands and grasslands. They sleep in burrows, hollow logs or under dense vegetation.

A great spotted kiwi. (Image credit: Lakeview Images/Shutterstock)

Habits

Kiwis are typically nocturnal, which means they sleep during the day and are active during the night. Throughout the night, they spend their time foraging for food.

When it's not foraging, it is patrolling its territory. It will leave behind highly odorous droppings to mark its area as it walks. The only other kiwis allowed in its territory are its spouse, its young and its adult children. If another kiwi does wander into another's territory they will fight.

Diet

Kiwis are omnivores. They munch on worms, grubs, bugs, berries and seeds that they find with their excellent sense of smell. Kiwis are the only birds that have nostrils on the tips of their beaks. Most birds have nostrils closer to their faces.

Offspring

Kiwis sometimes mate for life. Often, though, the female will find a male she likes better and leave her current spouse.

Kiwis have one of the largest egg-to-body weight ratios of any bird. On average, an egg is 15 percent of the female's body weight, according to the New Zealand Department of Conservation. It can be up to 20 percent of her body weight, though, which is comparable to a 120-lb. (54 kg) woman giving birth to a 24-lb. (11 kg) baby, according to the San Diego Zoo. The female lays one to two eggs at a time, up to three times per year.

Eggs have antibacterial and antifungal properties to ward off bacteria and fungi that are common in the soggy areas of New Zealand. The male in the pair will sit on the eggs until they hatch. The incubation period of a kiwi egg is 75 to 85 days.

Unlike other birds, chicks kick their eggs open and are covered in feathers as soon as they hatch. They look like tiny versions of their parents. After a few days, the chick will leave the burrow and hang out with dad for around 20 days. After that, they may stay in their parent's territory for a while or trek out to find their own.

Chicks often don't make it to adulthood. They have a 95 percent chick mortality rate, according to the San Diego Zoo. If they do make it to adulthood, they have very long lives. Kiwis typically live 25 to 50 years.

A northern brown kiwi. (Image credit: ChameleonsEye/Shutterstock)

Classification/taxonomy

Here is the taxonomy information for kiwis, according to the Integrated Taxonomic Information System:

Kingdom: Animalia Subkingdom: Bilateria Infrakingdom: Deuterostomia Phylum: Chordata Subphylum: Vertebrata Infraphylum: Gnathostomata Superclass: Tetrapoda Class: Aves Order: Apterygiformes Family: Apterygidae Genus: Apteryx Species:

Apteryx australis (brown kiwi, southern brown kiwi)

Apteryx haastii (great spotted kiwi)

Apteryx mantelli (northern brown kiwi)

Apteryx owenii (little spotted kiwi)

Apteryx rowi (Okarito brown kiwi)

A kiwi crossing warns motorists. New Zealand loses about 20 kiwi per week. (Image credit: Tony Pavelka/Shutterstock )

Conservation status

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the southern brown kiwi and the great spotted kiwi are listed as vulnerable. The northern brown kiwi and Okarito brown kiwi are listed as endangered, though the population trend for the northern brown kiwi is currently stable and the population for the Okarito kiwi is increasing. The little spotted kiwi is listed as near threatened with an increasing population.

New Zealand is losing around 2 percent (around 20 per week) of unmanaged kiwi every year, according to the New Zealand Department of Conservation. There are around 68,000 kiwi total in New Zealand.

Other facts

Kiwis have a body temperature of 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), the lowest of any bird, according to the San Diego Zoo.

These birds get their names from the sound of their calls. They communicate with others by making "kee-wee, kee-wee" sounds.

The small, fuzzy Chinese gooseberry, native to south Asia, was introduced into New Zealand in 1908, according to Purdue University. Growers there in the 1960s began calling it "kiwifruit" to give it more market appeal.

Additional resources
MARINE CORPS BASE HAWAII  Whether it's the noxious gases rising from the Kilauea volcano, or the lively coral reefs that sprawl across the seafloor around the island chain, Hawaii's ecosystems are under some serious scientific scrutiny this month.

Researchers are here gathering data using NASA's high-altitude airplanes, outfitted with cameras that capture visible light as well as infrared radiation. One airplane, the ER-2, can soar to 67,000 feet, or "the edge of space," as NASA systems engineer Michael Mercury put it. From that height, on daily flights over the islands, the cameras snap images that the scientists then stitch together and analyze, Mercury said, explaining the project at a media briefing that the space agency held here on Wednesday (Feb. 8). [Earth Pictures: Iconic Images of Earth from Space]

The goal of this current work in Hawaii is to find the best ways to use these measurements to gain new insights into volcanic activity and coral reef health. For example, scientists studying Hawaii's active volcano are trying to refine their models that predict exactly how and when the "vog," or volcanic smog that forms from Kilauea's gases, will blanket Hawaiian cities instead of blowing out over the Pacific. Other researchers, who study coral reef ecosystems, are using the images from the high-altitude flights to better understand what aspects of water quality make the difference between a thriving reef and one that is overgrown with algae.

But there is a larger goal, too. NASA has plans to launch an Earth-observing satellite into low-Earth orbit in 2022. That project, called the HyspIRI mission (or Hyperspectral Infrared Imager), will provide researchers with images of Earth's surface that are similar to those being gathered now in Hawaii, and from ecosystems all over the world.

The current project in Hawaii will help the researchers to figure out exactly which instruments and equipment are most useful for their work, and should be the ones that are loaded up onto that satellite.

The images taken of Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano reveal the volcanos lava lake (shown here in orange) and ash plume (shown in light blue). Images like this one are made from more than 300 pictures, taken from high-altitude aircraft, that have been superimposed. Put together, the images create a sort of "barcode," for any given spot on Earths surface, and let researchers analyze changes occurring on the surface over time. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Eventually, the satellite could be used to gather data not only on volcanoes and corals, but also on many other features that change the Earth's surface over time, such as wildfires that destroy vegetation, thinning glacial ice or changes in the health of croplands.

Once the HyspIRI satellite is in place, researchers plan to use it in conjunction with aircraft- or ground-based instruments. "The satellite might see something new, [and] point us to new places to go with the airplane," Randy Albertson, deputy director of the NASA Airborne Science Program, told Live Science. [Colorful Creations: Incredible Coral Photos]

In the meantime, the Hawaii projects are in full swing. In the coral project, the images taken by the instruments aboard the aircraft can help the researchers spot changes in the color of a reef, said Steven Ackleson, an oceanographer with the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., who is in Hawaii to work on the project.

"Reef pigments come from both the zooxanthellae and from the corals themselves," Ackleson told Live Science, using the scientific term for the algae-like organisms that live in symbiosis with the coral polyps. "Colors indicate health," he said.

The researchers want to figure out the best ways to draw information from the images to determine coral health, he said. For example, the scientists are hoping to learn more about why some types of zooxanthellae tolerate warming waters better than others. The answer may involve differences in the chloroplasts between the different types of zooxanthellae, he said.

The researchers who are working on the volcano project are using the images to better study the composition of the gas plume that arises from Kilauea, and how it changes as the plume spreads out, said Vincent Realmuto, a geoscience researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

A key part of the project is looking at how the plumes affect Hawaii's air quality, Realmuto said.

For example, one question the volcano researchers are trying to answer with the new data is exactly how quickly the sulfur dioxide gas that the volcano emits becomes aerosolized, meaning it combines with other compounds to form particulate matter, which can be harmful to human health.

The current estimate is that process takes 10 hours, Realmuto said. But that estimate is very rough. "The local temperature, the humidity, the topography  all of these impact the conversion rate," he said. The new data will help the scientists to create better models to predict the formation and movements of the particulate matter, which could lead to better forecasts of the vog. [The 10 Biggest Volcanic Eruptions in History]

Albertson noted that even when it launches, the new satellite won't eliminate the need for gathering data from instruments aboard aircraft and on the ground. Ground-based instruments can gather measurements on a much finer scale than the satellite will. But the satellite's capacity to get images from the entire Earth in a short amount of time will be a huge advantage for researchers.

To put this in perspective, Mercury said, the current six-week effort will capture images, using the visible-light camera, for most of Hawaii. If that camera were on a satellite, for the same amount of time, the researchers would be able to capture the same level of imaging for the entire Earth's surface, four times over, he said.

Originally published on Live Science.
It's not every day that scientists can study a volcano up close, but researchers investigating the feasibility of volcano-powered electricity successfully drilled into the core of one in Iceland.

Scientists studied the volcanic system at Reykjanes Peninsula in Iceland, which has been dormant for more than 700 years, according to a hazard assessment by Verkis Consulting Engineers for Invest in Inceland.

The depths of Reykjanes' geothermal field  an area with high heat flow  had never been explored, researchers with the Iceland Deep Drilling Project (IDDP) said in a statement. Beginning in August 2016, the IDDP spent 168 days drilling into the volcanic belly of Reykjanes. This well was completed on Jan. 25, reaching a record-breaking depth of nearly 3 miles (4.8 kilometers). [The 11 Biggest Volcanic Eruptions in History]

At this depth, the hole does not enter the magma chamber but does penetrate the rock surrounding it, which the researchers measured to be about 800 degrees Fahrenheit (427 degrees Celsius).

Geothermal energy uses the heat trapped beneath the Earth's surface to generate electricity. Conventional geothermal energy utilizes steam from natural sources such as geysers, or by drawing water from the hot, high-pressue depths of the Earth. The hot vapors are then used to drive electric turbines.

In the case of volcanic geothermal energy, the heat comes from "supercritical water." The researchers explained that energy from so-called supercritical water is much higher than conventional geothermal steam. When molten rock and water meet, the extreme heat and pressure bring water to a "supercritical" state, where it is neither liquid nor gas. In this form, the water can carry more energy than normal steam, which could create up to 10 timesthe power output of other geothermal sources.

Research will continue through 2018 to explore how the volcano's thermal energy could be used, including as a form of alternative energy, according to IDDP scientists.

"If deep supercritical wells, here and elsewhere in the world, can produce more power than conventional geothermal wells, fewer wells would be needed to produce the same power output, leading to less environmental impact and improved economics," IDDP researchers said in the statement.

Geothermal energy is a major source of energy in Iceland, with about 25 percent of the country's electricity generated from tapping the Earth's heat, according to the National Energy Authority of Iceland. About 90 percent of Icelandic households are heated with geothermal energy.

In its 2016 power production report, the Geothermal Energy Association (GEA) found that only 6 to 7 percent of global geothermal power potential has been tapped. However, production is on the rise and the GEA predicts global geothermal energy production will more than double by 2030.

Original article on Live Science.
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President Donald Trump's campaign was partially built on the promise of returning outsourced work to Americans, and one of the many work programs he targeted was the H1-B visa.

"I know the H1-B very well. We shouldn't have it, it's very, very bad for workers," he said during a debate in March 2016.

THAT'S SO '2017': Time Magazine highlights the new, weird jobs of the year

According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the H-1B visa program is for non-immigrants who want to work for a company in a position that requires at least a bachelor's degree or higher. Think engineers, scientists and programmers.

Companies that wish to hire workers under the H-1B visa program have to file a labor condition application or LCA with the U.S. Department of Labor. Once certified, the worker can proceed to obtain their H-1B visa and be on their way.

The program is an easy target for American politicians on both sides of the aisle who voice opposition towards outsourcing. Proponents of the H-1B visa, including the CEOs of America's top tech companies, argue any negative modifications to the program could hurt their employees and/or their ability to hire skilled labor.

FREE BURGERS, HAIRCUTS: Glassdoor names the 20 best job perks, benefits for 2017

"If we want to buy American and hire American, we do that best by creating companies in America," Venky Ganesan, a managing director at venture capitalist firm Menlo Ventures, told the Associated Press. "Having the best and brightest from all over the world come and create companies in America is better than them creating companies in India, Israel or China."

Texas is the second-highest employer of H-1B visa holders, having forwarded around 68,460 LCAs in the 2016 fiscal year, according to myvisajobs.com. The average salary of those positions is around $79,940.

We've compiled a list of the top 25 companies in Texas hiring large numbers of H-1B visa holders. See them all in the gallery above.
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More than seventy staff at Tescos Longford store look set to stage an indefinite all-out strike on Valentine's Day after staff voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action.

Around 60 employees unanimously voted to support long serving staff who are currently embroiled in a pay dispute. The row, which has been brewing for close to a year, stems from plans to move pre-1996 staff onto lower paid contracts.

Efforts to resolve the dispute through the Workplace Relations Commission and the Labour Court came to a head on Monday night as staff, together with Mandate union officials, held a meeting at the Longford Arms Hotel.

The upshot of those discussions saw all 59 staff members vote in favour of supporting their 15 long serving work colleagues in voting for industrial action.

One of those spoke anonymously to the Leader on Tuesday morning and underlined why staff are preparing to down tools next week.

Tesco is pushing ahead to change the terms and conditions of about 200 long serving staff across the country, said the spokesman. Tesco has called this move Project Black which indicates that they intend to change more staff in the future.

He also claimed Tesco long serving staff were excluded from a 2% pay rise given to staff 16 months ago along with a further 2% rise in January. This conduct by the company is totally unacceptable, he added.

It makes little of our long years of service and hard work.

Its expected eight other stores will also go on strike next week though that number is expected to top the 20 mark once separate ballots at another 15 stores are collated over the coming days.

Tesco, in response said it was "extremely disappointed" to learn of the ballot. However, it insisted any strike that may or may not take place next week, would not force it to close its Longford store.

"Tesco has followed all industrial relations procedures and has exhausted the Industrial Relations mechanisms of the State," read a statement. "We believe there is an onus on Mandate now to abide by the outcomes of the Labour Court after a Recommendation which the Union, themselves had sought."

A spokesperson from Mandate was unavailable for comment.
Local politicians have this week reacted with fury to the Leader's special investigation into suspected social welfare fraud in Longford, writes Liam Cosgrove.

Councillors Padraig Loughrey and Gerry Warnock were two of those to hit out at the findings.

In their totality, they revealed more than 360 alleged or suspected cases of fraudlent claims being made by individuals in Longford last year, an average of one a day.

Cathaoirleach of Longford Municipal District, Cllr Padraig Loughrey said the figures underlined the scale of social welfare deception both at a local and national scale.

I'd have an issue with social welfare fraud, he said in no uncertain terms.

I suppose the fact that on average there was a case every day (in Longford) is symptomatic of the widespread abuse of the social welfare system both locally and nationally.

Cllr Loughrey said the only way to combat perceived such increases in so-called 'white collar' crime was to home in on suspected welfare cheats.

What we have to do is clamp down on social welfare fraud and do everything within our power to limit it. Where abuses in the social welfare system exist unfortunately what that does is it means there is then a shortage of national funding available for projects, he added.

We have a large number of infrastructural projects that we want to progress in Longford but when you have cases of social welfare fraud that then limits the ability of the Government to allocate funding which means the taxpayer and the country at large loses out.

Equally, Cllr Loughrey said he had been left alarmed by the Leader's discovery of the types of abuse social welfare staff have, and continue to experience.

It's a disgrace, he said.

The people down in social welfare are only trying to do their job and they could well do without this kind of abuse.

His fellow local authority colleague, Cllr Gerry Warnock was just as strident in his condemnation of social welfare fraud.

You will always have a certain level of abuse that goes on but for a county the size of Longford that (figure) does seem particularly high, he stated.

It just goes to show you it (social welfare fraud) is thriving.

What I would say though is I take my hats off to the Social Welfare investigators for their detection rates but it is also probably only the tip of the iceberg.
It was a red letter day at Laurel Lodge nursing home recently as the Fianna Fail party honoured one of its great stalwarts, Johnny Deehan from Ballymagrine, Rooskey.

The life long party member was presented with a special certificate from party leader, Micheal Martin, in recognition of his many years of service and loyalty to the party.

Family and friends joined with Johnny in Laurel Lodge as his local TD, Eugene Murphy made the presentation. It was a great honour for the TD, who said that Johnny had been a mentor to him as he was coming through the political ranks.

From Ballynagrine, Rooskey, Johnny would have hosted all the Clonflower Cumann meetings in his house and over the years would have worked with, and canvassed for, Brian Lenihan Snr, Sean Doherty, Michael Finneran and the current incumbent, Eugene Murphy TD.

The Clonflower Cumann has since been amalgamated into the Tarmon Cumann but many locals have fond memories of the Cumann meetings in Johnny Deehans house. There was always a roaring fire, plenty of tea and sandwiches and the liveliest of political discourse.

Deputy Murphy added, They were great meetings and there was no better place to get an education on roads and roadworks. Johnny knew each and every road as well as the people who lived on them. He had an encyclopaedic knowledge of his local community.

Also at the function was Johnnys proud sister, Mary Cox, who now lives in Ardnacassa Lawns, Longford with her husband, James Cox.

Other great friends of Johnny there for the event were Tommie Hoare, Cumann secretary; Mary D Dowd and Rooskey native and Longford town butcher, Christy Monaghan, who has been a great friend of the Deehan family over the years.

Deputy Murphy said that Johnny had made an enormous contribution to his community and the Fianna Fail party and it was only proper that it should be recognised.
Minister for Transport Shane Ross is facing mounting calls this week to reintroduce state funding for Local Improvement Schemes following a tense and fiery county council meeting last night.

The Independent Alliance co-founder came under attack from a number of local representatives over calls for the scheme to be reopened.

Many of those calls came from predominantly north Longford based councillors who, not for the first time, raised their concerns over the numbers of applications that were still pending.

Several members said the need to reintroduce dedicated funding for improvement works on predominantly private and non public roadways was becoming increasingly imperative for rural communities.

Leading that charge was Cllr Paraic Brady as he read out a motion on behalf of the six members of Granard Municipal District.

"Everyone knows north Longford has the largest road structure and we have 80 or so LIS alone," he said.

"We have to do something and I am calling on Shane Ross to consider bringing back LIS grants."

Cllrs PJ Reilly and Luie McEntire both endorsed those urgings with the latter taking issue with the increased onus on councils to allocate monies from their own optional reserves.

"I think we have to grasp this nettle a lot stronger than we have been doing," said Cllr McEntire.

"We keep hearing that it (LIS) is at our own discretion but it is not at our own discretion."

As tensions grew steadily more noticeable, others like Fine Gael's Colm Murray took issue with recent comments which had been attributed to the Transport Minister.

He questioned the merit of Mr Ross' decision to wade in on debates surrounding the control over judicial appointments and President Donald Trump, claiming the Independent politician would be better served "looking after his own department".

That drew a terse reaction from Mr Ross' independent counterpart Cllr Mark Casey.

He said LIS had been in operation during the Fianna Fail led administration of 2008-11 with no sign of its reintroduction over the past six years under Fine Gael.

Cllr Casey insisted Mr Ross had inherited a "basket case" from both those administrations as he questioned why councillors were at pains to lambast the Independent Alliance given the recent funding announcements made another Alliance member, Kevin 'Boxer' Moran TD.

"Shane Ross has taken over a huge mess from what went before," said the Lanesboro politician.

In a comical outburst which provoked glaring looks from those sitting in the Fine Gael benches, Cllr Casey invited councillors to sidestep their own Dail deputies and instead contact Mr Moran himself concerning issues of a local nature.

"I can't understand it, I really can't. Every rep I went to the Boxer with I have got a good result from. Listen, it's (086) that's the number you need to call if you want something done in Longford.

"He can't look into his crystal ball unless you contact him."

Clearly taken aback by those goadings, Cllr Brady hit back and challenged Cllr Casey as to the economic fruits which came from a council led delegation to Mexico in 2015.

"That's fine," he shouted across at Clle Casey.

"You might mention to Boxer about that trip to Mexico and these jobs you were supposed to deliver because you certainly didn't deliver them."

For more on this story, see next week's Longford Leader.
Others, Nature & Weather, Local News, Seasonal & Current Events

By Brian Re Published: February 09 2017

Snow accumulations in the range of 12-18 inches are now expected as Winter Storm Niko arrives on Long Island.

The rapidly deteriorating conditions from Winter Storm Niko have both Suffolk County and Nassau County under a Blizzard Warning until 6 PM this evening. This update marks an elevation for Nassau County, which was previously under a Winter Storm Warning, while New York City remains under a Winter Storm Warning.



Likely snow accumulations have risen dramatically, with the current forecast indicating 12-18 inches for communities on Long Island. Snow will be falling at a rate of up to 3 inches per hour, creating whiteout conditions and visibilities at just  mile. Frigid temperatures in the 20s are also expected throughout the morning and afternoon.



Sustained winds of 25-35 mph with gusts of up to 50 mph will lead to hazardous travel and potential power outages. Both Nassau County and Suffolk County are covered under a Hazardous Weather Outlook as well today until 6 PM.



For the most up to date weather information, head over to the LongIsland.com Weather Center, where you can find the latest weather forecasts, advisories and more.



To get the latest traffic & road conditions before traveling, visit the LongIsland.com Traffic Center, and be sure to check out the live traffic feeds on our Traffic Cam Page.



Please visit our Long Island School Closures Page for regular updates of school closings in your district.



[Source: NWS]
Family & Parenting, School & Education, Local News, Press Releases

By Long Island News & PR Published: February 09 2017

Senator Todd Kaminsky brought together some of the states top education officials and a bipartisan coalition of local lawmakers, including NYS Board of Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa, to advance his plan to improve diploma options ...

Rockville Centre, NY - February 7, 2017 - Tonight, Senator Todd Kaminsky brought together some of the states top education officials and a bipartisan coalition of local lawmakers, including NYS Board of Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa, to advance his plan to improve diploma options for students. Over 400 students, parents, teachers and school administrators came together to address the problem of the lack of diploma options that was created when New York State abolished the local diploma several years ago.



Panelists Included:

Senator Todd Kaminsky

NYS Board of Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa

Long Island Regent Roger Tilles

Christopher Suriano, Assistant Commissioner of the Office of Special Education, New York State Education Department

Senator John Brooks

Assemblyman Brian Curran

Assemblyman David McDonough

Assemblywoman Melissa "Missy" Miller

Assemblywoman Michaelle Solages



Tonight, our top education officials heard from anguished parents, students and educators who are fed up with the system that leaves too many behind. It is our duty to ensure that students are able to fulfill their potential, and right now our state needs to do much more to ensure that becomes a reality. I look forward to working with other elected officials as well as the Board of Regents and the State Education Department to come up with creative solutions to find an alternative pathway to achieving a diploma, said Senator Todd Kaminsky after the forum.



The forum was held in the South Side High School Auditorium. Assistant Commissioner Suriano gave a short presentation on diploma options, after which members of the public were invited to make their voices heard by providing comments or asking the panel questions. At the conclusion of the forum, Senator Kaminsky called on his fellow legislators and NYS officials to take action to expand diploma options available for students.



Additionally, the following statements were issued:



Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said, "Every New York student deserves an equal opportunity to achieve their dreams and have their hard work recognized by our school system. I applaud Senator Todd Kaminsky for his leadership on this issue and for his dedication to empower New York families and students.



Senator John E. Brooks said, "As someone who struggled throughout high school due to an undiagnosed learning disorder, and as a former School Board President, I know firsthand that no student is alike and every student learns differently. We must do more to expand diploma options for all students because the ability to pass a Regents exam should not dictate or limit a student's potential to succeed after school. I applaud Senator Kaminsky and Chancellor Rosa for tackling this injustice head on and including Long Island parents and students in the discussion -- it is the first step to rectifying the problem and honoring the talent and contributions of all students."



Its important that we fight to give every child a chance to learn and be recognized for their growth and accomplishments in school. I appreciate that the State Education Department is working to make this certificate inclusive; however these students deserve to be recognized with a diploma. My son is a student in a life skills program. I know how important this is to these kids and their families. Ill work hard to make sure that happens, said Assemblywoman Missy Miller.



New York States education policies should move away from a 'one size fits all' approach, stated Assemblywoman Michaelle C. Solages. By offering multiple pathways to a diploma, we can inspire a love of learning as well as prepare students for a future beyond the classroom."



"There should never be a lack of diploma options for high school students, especially those with special needs. We must consider an alternative pathway to a diploma, one size does not fit all , and it is vital that special needs children be given an option of a Regents VS Non Regents diploma in order for them to thrive and move forwards. I am glad to participate in this forum along side Senator Todd Kaminsky , and other distinguished speakers and educators." - Assemblyman Brian Curran
Local News, Press Releases

By Long Island News & PR Published: February 09 2017

Backed by the states leading good government groups and elected officials, Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today introduced the New York Votes Act.

New York, NY - February 8, 2017 - Backed by the states leading good government groups and elected officials, Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today introduced the New York Votes Act, a comprehensive reform package aimed at simplifying the voting process, boosting voter registration, and increasing voter turnout. The New York Votes Act will be sponsored by the Chairman of the Election Law Committee, Assemblyman Michael Cusick (D-Staten Island).

The New York Votes Act will dramatically update the states voting systems by adding early voting, automatic and same-day voter registration, consolidated primaries, shortened party registration deadlines, and more.

Any law that makes it easier to vote is a good law; any law that makes it harder to vote is a bad law, said Attorney General Schneiderman. New York has long been a bastion of democracy, but our states current system of registration and voting is an affront to that legacy. The New York Votes Act will help our state become a national leader in protecting and expanding voting rights for New Yorkers.

As Chairman of the Election Law Committee, I am pleased to be working with Attorney General Schneiderman on the New York Votes Act, said Assemblyman Michael Cusick. This legislation, aimed to simplify the voting process and improve voter accessibility, will give citizens a better opportunity to participate in the democratic process by increasing voter participation across New York State.

Many of the provisions in New York Votes Act arise directly from the findings of the Attorney Generals December 2016 report on the problems that voters faced during the 2016 presidential primary and general elections. The inquiry, which was undertaken in response to record voter complaints during the April primary election, found that voters encountered barriers to access erected by New Yorks restrictive voting laws, rules and procedures, as well as by the practices and administrative errors of state agencies and the Boards of Election.

Read the full New York Votes Act here. Key provisions of the bill include:

Voter Registration

Automatic Registration of Eligible Voters Any designated state or local agency that collects information from a person who has formal contact with that agency as part of an application for services, change of address or other similar process would be required to automatically electronically transmit identifying information for that person (e.g., name, address, date of birth, drivers license number) to the New York State Board of Elections (NYS BOE). Upon receiving this information, NYS BOE would then electronically forward it to the appropriate local Board of Elections (BOE) for verification and processing as a voter registration application. Individuals would have the absolute right to opt out of the automatic registration process by simply checking an opt out box on the designated agencys electronic or paper form.



Same-Day Registration For New Voters Amend New York State Election Law to permit a qualified person who is not registered to vote in the state to appear personally at the appropriate polling place on the day of any primary, general or special election, register to vote, and simultaneously cast his or her ballot. Once the registration is processed and vetted by the BOE, the voters ballot would be counted, and the voter would be added to the voting rolls.



Online Personal Voter Registration and Absentee Ballot Applications Allow electronic personal voter registration, and online applications for absentee ballots, so that any qualified registrant can complete the entire voter registration or absentee ballot application process online via a desktop computer or handheld device.



Create a System of Permanent Voter Registration Implement a system of permanent voter registration in the state by requiring BOEs to maintain and update the registration of any consenting voter who moves within the state and submits a change of address to the BOE or to any designated state or local agency.



Allow Registered Voters to Change Their Party Enrollment Closer to Primary Day Allow already-registered voters to change their party affiliation up to 120 days prior to any primary election.



Voting

Adopt a System of Early Voting Permit a registered voter to vote at the local BOE in the same county where the voter is registered, or at one or more other designated polling places, seven days per week starting two weeks before an election.



Provide for "No Excuse" Absentee Voting Repeal, in its entirety, the current requirement that absentee ballots can only be obtained and cast by otherwise qualified voters if they meet one of several statutorily-enumerated justifications for obtaining such ballots (e.g., unable to vote at the polls due to illness or physical disability). The bill also would allow online submission of applications for absentee ballots.



Ensure Uniformity of Poll Site Hours Across the State Require poll sites statewide to open at 6:00 a.m. and close at 9:00 p.m. during all primary elections. Under existing law, except for NYC and seven other counties, polling places do not open until noon on primary days.



Consolidate Federal, State and Local Primaries on Single Day Hold all statewide primary elections on one day in late June.



Enact Disaster Preparedness Protections Clarify and facilitate decision-making by BOEs during an emergency as well as communication to voters and participants of a caucus when time is of the essence to protect voters' safety and enable them to vote when the emergency event is over.



Enhance Access to the Ballot

Increase Language Access Whenever any local BOE finds that 3% of the voting-age residents of an election district have Limited English Proficiency, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, it shall provide ballots as well as registration or voting notices, forms, instructions, assistance, and other materials or information relating to the electoral process in the primary language of the population in question, in a manner that provides the same opportunity for access and participation as voters whose primary language is English.



Protect Voters from Improper Challenges Require a good faith basis and supporting documentation for persons, other than election officials, who challenge voter eligibility on Election Day, as well as penalties for those who abuse this provision of the law.



Restore Voting Rights for Citizens on Parole Restore voting rights to persons on parole or post-release supervision following a felony conviction. Restoration would not be contingent upon payment of fees, fines, restitution, or other legal financial obligations



Enhance Poll Worker Training and Recruitment Require election commissioners and BOE employees to complete mandatory training within six months of appointment, and continuing education annually, with the curriculum to be established by the NYS BOE; and require NYS BOE to establish and host an Education and Training Institute to develop a curriculum for certified poll worker training and train-the-trainer programs. Reimbursement to Localities



Reimburse Localities For Extra Costs Require the state to reimburse localities for any additional costs associated with the implementation of early voting, enhanced language access and expanded primary election voting hours as required by the bill.



Voting ease and accessibility is critical to our democracy. Unfortunately, in New York State, we fall behind half the country because of our outdated practices. Attorney General Schneiderman's New York Votes Act will help bring New York up to speed and ensure New Yorkers statewide aren't turned away from casting their ballots as a result of senseless roadblocks. In order to have the democracy we seek nationwide, we must lead by example and create a fairer system here in New York, said Mayor Bill de Blasio.

"Fair and well participated in elections are an essential part of our democracy. The Independent Democratic Conference has long been an advocate for making our election process simpler and more accessible for all New Yorkers. I commend Attorney General Schneiderman for proposing this comprehensive legislation that will improve and protect the election process in New York," said Senator Jeff Klein.

New York State ranks abysmally low on voter turnout, and that is the direct result of generations of red tape, voter disenfranchisement, and antiquated registration systems, said Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins. The Senate Democrats unveiled a series of bills to help address this problem, and we thank Attorney General Schneiderman for his dedication on this issue. Our democracy requires active participation from all citizens and together with Attorney General Schneiderman, we will keep up the fight to achieve that goal.

New York's voting laws are a relic of the last century, said State Senator Daniel Squadron. At a time when Americans are concerned about the strength and future of our republic, New York should be leading the charge to ensure New Yorkers can exercise their voting rights. I was proud to stand with the Democratic Conference earlier this week as we unveiled an important voting reform package, and thank Attorney General Schneiderman for introducing this important reform proposal.

The right to vote is one of the most fundamental freedoms belonging to every American, said State Senator Liz Krueger. But years of neglect and outright attacks have left our voting system in disarray and voters rights far from secure. Urgent and smart reforms are needed, and I thank Attorney General Schneiderman and his team for their contributions to this effort. New Yorkers deserve free, fair, and accessible elections  anything less is simply un-American.

State Senator Brad Hoylman said: Attorney General Schneidermans inquiry into voter complaints filed during the 2016 election confirms that our states byzantine and cumbersome electoral system, whether by design or by accident, has disenfranchised thousands of New Yorkers. As people take to the streets to protest the Trump Administration, we cannot continue to criticize federal efforts to undermine basic constitutional rights while ignoring inequities in our own backyard. Im grateful to the Attorney General for this important investigation and look forward to working with him and my colleagues in Albany to enact reforms that will break down these unfair barriers and help expand the franchise to each and every voter.

For quite some time there have been serious flaws in the New York State voting process. In 2016, however, many New Yorkers who were unaware of such flaws felt them first hand. As a State we have to do better to improve New Yorkers access to their most basic rights. Voting is a right in this country, not another way to divide the haves and have-nots. Protecting and expanding voting rights in New York is a must if we want to continue to be the standard-bearers for progress across the world," said Senator Tony Avella.

As the State Senator of a district with a high concentration of low-income and minority communities, and a troubling history of low voter turnout, I understand the critical importance of reforming our State's electoral system, said State Senator Gustavo Rivera. I applaud the efforts of Attorney General Schneiderman for not only releasing a comprehensive report examining the exorbitant number of voter complaints during last year's election cycle, but more importantly for proposing a series of common sense measures which mirror the set of proposals put forth by the Senate Democratic Conference earlier this week that will improve voter participation. Too many of our fellow citizens have perished defending our right to cast a ballot and we must continue to protect this inalienable right from any attempts at curtailing it.

There is no more important right for our democracy than the right to vote, and unfortunately New York State has lagged behind many other states in instituting commonsense voting reforms. When states make it difficult to vote, the burden falls strongly on low-income communities and people of color. I applaud the Attorney General's drive to address this unacceptable situation, and I look forward to supporting his efforts toward reform in Albany, said State Senator Marisol Alcantara (31st District).

State Senator Jose Peralta (D-Queens), noted, Voting is the very backbone of our democracy, and unmerited attacks against our system constitute a threat to all of us. I will vote in favor of democracy always, and I will vote and work tirelessly until New Yorkers have easier access to voting. I have always been an unequivocal supporter of progressive election law reform, and my record proves just that. Currently, there are simple technologies that exist to allow for commonsense measures such as same day voter registration, automatic voter registration, online voter registration, and early voting. Reforming election laws is crucial in guaranteeing that all the pieces of our democratic process work, and work equally for all. Voting complaints are to be taken very seriously. I applaud Attorney General Schneiderman for his efforts and his leadership on voting protections and voting reforms. I will do anything possible to ensure these proposals become a reality. 

Ive been working to reform New Yorks antiquated voting system for years, said Assistant Assembly Speaker Felix W. Ortiz. While we often hear of discriminatory voting laws in other states, lets remember that New Yorks laws have been on the books for decades. Its time to bring our state into the 21st century and adopt the proposals being announced today.

Voting rights are the foundation upon which we build our democracy, said Assemblyman David Buchwald, Chairman of the Assembly Subcommittee on Election Day Operations and Voter Disenfranchisement. I thank Attorney General Schneiderman for putting forward a bold set of election law reforms. I will gladly work with my colleagues in government to improve our voting system.

As a long-time supporter of election reform and as a member of the New York State Assembly election law committee, I am pleased that Attorney General Schneiderman is supporting many reforms that will increase involvement in the political process and increased voter turnout, said Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz. We should not be setting up barriers that prevent people from exercising their right to vote. Given the current state of affairs in our country it is more important than ever that our citizenry be actively engaged in the voting process and it is crucial that we do everything we can to encourage rather than discourage people from voting.

"Early voting increases citizen involvement and turnout in elections, said Assemblymember Peoples-Stokes.Exercising the right to vote should not be burdensome for New Yorkers. The New York Votes Act, will transform our voting process by introducing early voting for New Yorkers and same-day voter registration. Over the years, Election Day has created a challenge for many voters at the polls ranging from long lines, wrong polling sites and/or faulty machines. I applaud Attorney General Schneiderman in supporting New York States early voting initiative. I look forward to the New York Votes Act bringing New York States voting process into the 21st century and keeping pace with the rest of the country.

As false rumors of vote fraud gain prominence in the national discourse, New Yorkers know that we need to make voting easier, not harder, said Assemblymember Dan Quart. I'm proud that our state's Attorney General has committed to making the voting process more fair. New York is stronger when every citizen has an equal voice, and reforming the voting process will bring us closer to that reality.

We need to better protect the right of everyday citizens to participate in their government through nominating candidates and voting, said Assemblyman Thomas J. Abinanti.

One of our most basic obligations as elected officials is to ensure that New Yorkers have a full and fair opportunity to exercise their right to vote, said Assemblymember Brian Kavanagh. That's why the Assembly Majority has been working diligently to enact common sense reforms, like early voting, unrestricted absentee voting, and a voter registration system that allows eligible voters to enroll and stay enrolled easily and reliably. I thank Attorney General Schneiderman for his leadership in calling for these and many other reforms today and for the thoughtful and comprehensive report that he and his staff released in December, which strengthened our understanding of the challenges voters face and the solutions available to address them.

I applaud Attorney General Schneidermans efforts to highlight and address grave deficiencies in New York States antiquated voting laws, said Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (D/WF). This past election, my constituents flooded my office with calls and emails to report numerous problems at the polls, including not being allowed to vote despite having been registered for decades; inability to obtain absentee ballots; not receiving absentee ballots in a timely manner; repeated reassignment of polling place; and much more. As Donald Trump continues his crusade to curtail the rights of voters across the country, it is imperative that the State step up to ensure all New Yorkers have the easiest possible path to voting."

I support Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's leadership in addressing our flawed voting system in New York State, said Assemblymember Shelley Mayer. We have one of the lowest voting rates in the country, and this is partly due to the archaic way we allow our citizens to register to vote and our outdated rules and regulations that govern voting. As legislators and leaders, it is our duty to promote policies which increase civic engagement and participation. The 2017 New York Votes Act lays out a comprehensive list of changes to address the issues that have inhibited voter turnout in New York, and I look forward to working with my colleagues to enact these changes.

Voting rights are a central part of reform. It's hard for regular people to vote in New York, said Assemblymember Robert Carroll. It's hard to register, hard to change party enrollment. It's hard because the laws make it that way. Voting isn't supposed to be hard. And running for office is even harder. It's complicated, time consuming, expensive. It doesn't have to be that way. We want to encourage people to run for office, to get involved. When regular people can't run for office, we end up with a government of powerful insiders. These voting reforms help return the power to the people. I am proud to work with Attorney General Schneiderman on this issue.

Access to the ballot box is an indispensable hallmark of our democracy, said NYC Council Member Rafael Espinal. I was alarmed this past primary election when over 100,000 voters in Brooklyn were purged from the voting rolls and thousands others could not vote because of cumbersome deadlines to change party registration. Now, more than ever, with the ongoing national assault on voting rights, and so many threats to our liberties, New York must act decisively to encourage voting, rather than make it difficult for citizens to carry out their constitutional right. I applaud Attorney General Schneiderman for his steadfast efforts to expand voting protections and reforms throughout our state.

At a time when unsubstantiated voter fraud claims are falsely being spread around, we need more leaders talking about the real problem: voter suppression, said Council Member Donovan Richards. This package of reforms will put New York State on the right side of the conversation by improving voter registration accessibility and will surely lead to an increase in voter turnout. I'd like to thank Attorney General Schneiderman for identifying the flaws in our system and working to find realistic, attainable solutions.

New York State should be a national role model for voter access and voting rights, with same-day registration, early voting, and no-excuse absentee voting, said NYC Council Member Ben Kallos, chair of the Committee on Governmental Operations. I applaud Attorney General Schneiderman's efforts to get these voting reforms passed, and in the City Council we will continue to support that effort with resolutions calling on the state legislature to do the right thing.

Onida Coward Mayers, director of voter assistance at the NYC Campaign Finance Board, said, The false claims of voter fraud in last years elections are a distraction from an important truth: the best way to protect the integrity of our elections is to modernize our election system. Now is the moment for New York to restore faith in our elections by adopting commonsense reforms that make it easier for voters to register and participate.

The League of Women Voters of New York State applauds Attorney General Eric Schneiderman for this comprehensive voting reform package, said Barbara Bartoletti, Legislative Director for the League of Women Voters of New York State. New York State continues to rank near the bottom in terms of statewide voter turnout  especially for primary elections. Laws that would allow for automatic voter registration, early voting, no-excuse absentee voting, and consolidation of primary elections will empower voters and give greater access to the ballot. We urge the Governor and Legislature to act on these reforms as soon as possible to ensure future elections do not face the same barriers as the 2016 primary and general elections.

New York ranks consistently as one of the nation's worst in terms of voter participation, driven by state laws that create obstacles to voting, said Megan Ahearn, NYPIRG Program Director. Much of the rest of the nation has developed practices that improve voter turnout. The Attorney General's package relies on those best practices. NYPIRG applauds his sweeping response; one that modernizes state voting laws with an eye toward making participation easier, not harder.

Our outdated voting laws continue to suppress turnout among perfectly eligible New Yorkers. Harsh deadlines, negligent voter purges, and manual, paper-based registration are hurdles to participation matched only by New York's single election day. The findings in AG Schneiderman's voter access report compel Albany to prioritize--and adequately fund--a comprehensive overhaul of the way we vote, said Jarret Berg, Executive Director of the New York Democratic Lawyers Council.

With one of the lowest voter turnout rates in the country, New York needs to modernize its outdated elections systems so that more eligible New Yorkers can register and vote. Automatic voter registration stands to add millions more voters to New Yorks rolls, and implementing it at agencies beyond the DMV would make our state a nationwide leader. Adding early voting days, including on weekends, would make it significantly more convenient to votefor some people, it could make all the difference in whether they are able to cast a ballot at all, said Chisun Lee, Senior Counsel for the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. The Brennan Center applauds the Attorney General for his leadership in calling on the State to bring its elections into the 21st century.

The problem with our nations electoral system is not that too many people are voting  it is that too few eligible people have access to the ballot box, said Heather McGhee, president of Demos. Government at all levels have a responsibility to ensure eligible voters of all races and backgrounds do not have to overcome unnecessary barriers to exercise our constitutional right to vote. Demos applauds Attorney General Schneiderman for taking ownership of that obligation by presenting clear reforms, including removing obstacles to registration and voting, expanding language access, restoring voting rights to parolees and addressing the legal loopholes that have previously enabled discrimination against voters of color. Demos remains committed to advocating for policies like this across the country, in order make it possible for all Americans to participate in our democracy and have their voices heard.

The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) has a long history of protecting the right to vote for all New Yorkers. Last month, OAG intervened in a federal lawsuit against the New York City Board of Elections (NYCBOE), alleging that widespread policies and practices used by the NYCBOE to cancel voter registrations violate federal and state laws. Specifically, the lawsuit alleges that since 2014 the NYCBOE improperly purged over 200,000 voters registrations and, as a result, disenfranchised many voters during the 2016 Presidential Primary.

OAG has been a fierce defender of language access at the ballot box. Since 2012, the office has entered into agreements with eight counties aimed at ensuring that Spanish-speaking voters have equal access to the electoral process. The agreements specifically ensure that the local BOEs have Spanish-language voter registration forms, absentee ballot applications, affidavit applications, public notices, website information, polling place reassignment letters and the Election Day ballot itself. In addition, the Boards also agreed to recruit and identify sufficient numbers of Spanish-speaking poll workers and agreed to provide enhanced training for poll workers to ensure that quality language assistance is provided on Election Day.

OAG has also operated its Election Day Hotline since November 2012. The Hotline  reachable at 800-771-7755 -- has fielded hundreds of complaints from voters across the state and worked with local election officials and others to promptly address issues encountered by voters at the polls.

The Attorney General's Office is committed to the voting rights protecting all eligible New Yorkers. To file a civil rights complaint, contact the Attorney Generals Office at (212) 416-8250, email or visit www.ag.ny.gov.
Local News, Crime, Press Releases

By Long Island News & PR Published: February 09 2017

Nassau County D.A. Singas and Senator Kaminsky unveiled aggressive, new anti-corruption legislation to provide improved legal tools for local prosecutors to pursue corruption cases.

Long Island, NY - February 8, 2017 - Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas and Senator Todd Kaminsky unveiled aggressive, new anti-corruption legislation today to provide improved legal tools for local prosecutors to pursue corruption cases and to significantly increase penalties for government officials who violate the publics trust.



As a former assistant District Attorney and federal corruption prosecutor, I saw firsthand how corrupt politicians exploit our States weak laws, Senator Todd Kaminsky said. If we want to stop the rampant corruption that has plagued New York for decades, we must give prosecutors the tools they need to succeed and ensure that the penalty for corruption fits the crime. This legislation will strengthen our anti-corruption laws, lead to more convictions and stronger penalties, and send a message that New Yorkers will not tolerate dirty public officials.



New Yorks anti-corruption laws are outdated and inadequate, and this important legislation will give local prosecutors important new tools to combat the corruption that continues to degrade public confidence in our government, said District Attorney Singas. Stronger laws to deter government corruption and tougher penalties for those who abuse their positions of trust will help ensure that New Yorkers get the honest government that they deserve. I commend Senator Kaminsky for introducing these bills and encourage the full Senate to pass them quickly.



The laws, S12 and S4033, will empower district attorneys by making it a crime to lie to local prosecutors and investigators, and will broaden the range of charges available to prosecutors who pursue corrupt public officials, as well as stronger penalties.



Good government advocates praised the bills.



"We all lose when law enforcement can't do its job," said Susan Lerner, Executive Director of Common Cause New York. "New Yorkers deserve public officials who honor their trust, and prosecutors who can bring them to justice when they don't.



Fighting corruption from the local level has been such a low priority here in New York State that we are pleased to see Senator Kaminsky and District Attorney Singas propose two bills that will strengthen the hand of the local district attorneys, said Dick Dadey, Executive Director of Citizens Union, a New York City based democratic reform organization. Though much of our past efforts over the past 10 years have focused on increasing the penalties and strengthening the punishment for corruption, these bills fill in the holes that exist in enforcement of anticorruption measures. Local district attorneys know the public officials the best and can provide a more watchful eye than others and give them better tools to enforce the laws.



Specifically, the legislation unveiled today criminalizes lying to district attorneys, assistant district attorneys or district attorney investigators. While it is a felony to lie to federal government agents, New York law does not currently penalize such behavior. The bills also codify recommendations of the New York State White Collar Task Force to create and enhance penalties for public servants found guilty of official misconduct, ensuring that these crimes are punished at a level commensurate with their impact on the community.



Before entering the New York State legislature, Senator Kaminsky was an assistant U.S. Attorney representing Long Island, Brooklyn and Queens. As acting deputy chief of the Public Integrity Section, Kaminsky took down corrupt elected officials who used taxpayer dollars to fund lavish lifestyles, including State Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada Jr. and Assemblyman Jimmy Meng.
Local News, Press Releases

By Long Island News & PR Published: February 09 2017

Suffolk legislators unveiled a maneuver to explore the possibility of building a drag strip in the county.

Suffolk County Legislature Presiding Officer DuWayne Gregory, alongside his colleagues and with the support of motorsports advocates, announces the formation of a committee to explore the possibility of bringing a drag strip to Suffolk.

Hauppauge, NY - February 7, 2017 - Alongside a crowd of supporters so large the press conference had to be moved from the lobby to the auditorium, Suffolk legislators unveiled a maneuver to explore the possibility of building a drag strip in the county.

At the Suffolk County legislative building today in Hauppauge, Presiding Officer DuWayne Gregory announced that he has formed an ad hoc committee to look into bringing legal drag racing to Suffolk County. The move was prompted by a request from Legislator Tom Cilmi after racing enthusiasts conveyed a desire for a family-oriented motorsports park.

The committee will investigate potential locations in Suffolk for a drag strip, the economic benefits the project could bring, and the impact it would have on combating illegal drag racing and threats to public safety. Committee members will include motorsports advocates, a county representative from the Department of Planning, and a representative from the Suffolk County Supervisors Association, as well as a bipartisan group of legislators made up of Presiding Officer Gregory and Suffolk Legislators Cilmi, Al Krupski and Robert Trotta.

Long Island has thousands of families who are passionate about racing as a sport, and providing a legal outlet for drag racing could bring tremendous economic benefits to Suffolk County, said Presiding Officer Gregory. Long Island is losing money in sales tax as residents and tourists flock to nearby states, including New Jersey, to use their drag racing strips. Estimates indicate a drag strip could generate more than $100 million in revenue as well as spur job creation in high-tech industries that build cars and support racing. Additionally, illegal drag racing is a public safety issue, and providing a safe place to participate in motorsports will keep street racers off of public roads.



Photo by: Suffolk County Legislature, via Facebook.

More than 100 members of the Long Island Needs a Drag Strip advocacy group stood alongside legislators at the press conference to express their support and gratitude.

Its great news that Presiding Officer DuWayne Gregory and the Legislature are taking a serious look at the possibility of creating a drag racing strip in Suffolk County, said John Cozzali, of Mastic, founder of Long Island Needs a Drag Strip. My fellow racers and I are so happy to see this big step take effect. We look forward to working on this initiative, which we believe will have a positive economic impact for Long Island and will create a safe place for the new generation to come and race.

Racing is probably the largest spectator sport in the United States. The crowd that stood behind us today is indicative of the popularity of the sport right here in Suffolk County, said Legislator Cilmi, who represents the 10th District. We are thrilled to embark on this effort to find an appropriate location for a racing park here in Suffolk County. In so doing we will help generate millions of dollars for our local economy, support small businesses, and provide a venue for a wholesome family-oriented recreational activity for everyone to enjoy for years to come.

I will be joining with the Presiding Officer to explore the possibility of locating a drag strip in an appropriate location in Suffolk County, added Legislator Krupski, who represents the North Fork. I look forward to working with the committee to reach consensus recommendations that will address the concerns and needs of all stakeholders.

Based upon the number of people who showed up here today, there is clearly a demand, said Legislator Trotta, who represents the 13th district. This county needs revenue, and if we can put a drag strip in and attract people from all over the country to come here and spend money, its a great thing. The problem is, we have limited space, but we are going to do our best to find a place and figure out a way to make this happen.
Nature & Weather, Local News, Press Releases

By Long Island News & PR Published: February 09 2017

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today directed non-essential State employees on Long Island impacted by the extreme winter storm to go home from work early.

Long Island, NY - February 9, 2017 - Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today directed non-essential State employees on Long Island impacted by the extreme winter storm to go home from work early.



Non-essential employees in State offices in Suffolk and Nassau counties can leave work at 3 p.m. without having to charge accruals.



If an agency has any questions, the agency's designated representative should contact the Governor's Office of Employee Relations at 518-474-6988.



Individuals with appointments at State offices on Long Island this afternoon should call to reschedule.



The latest storm information and updates from the Governors Office are available here.


Video of Governor Cuomo's storm briefing in New York City.

There are accumulations of 10 to 16 inches of heavy wet snow expected, with the highest amounts in Suffolk County. Wind gusts could reach 40-50 mph on Long Island, which could down trees and power lines causing outages. Visibility will be one quarter mile or less from blowing and drifting snow throughout the day. In New York City, a winter storm warning remains in effect until 6 p.m. for Bronx, Kings, New York, Orange, Putnam, Queens, Richmond, Rockland and Westchester Counties. Within the NYC warning area, 10 to 14 inches of snow is expected. Capital Region and areas south have seen intense snow rates of up to four inches per hour and snow will last through the afternoon. Additionally, snow totals increased for the Hudson Valley to 7  12 inches.



State Agencies Take Action During Storm

The Department of Transportation has deployed a number of resources to ensure roadways are cleared, including more than 3,823 operators and supervisors statewide. Resources include:

More than 397,000 tons of road salt

1,496 large plow/dump trucks

207 medium plow/dump trucks

332 loaders and 46 truck/loader mounted snow blowers

62 tow plows, 20 graders and 13 pickup trucks with plows

81 staff from non-impacted areas of the state deployed to regions impacted by storm

The New York State Thruway Authority has 24-hour staff rotation in place for maintenance personnel, snow removal equipment, and ample salt and fuel supplies. The following is a breakdown of resources deployed by the Thruway Authority to help keep roadways clear and safe:

More than 600 operators and supervisors

More than 107,000 tons of road salt

197 Large Snow Plows

110 Medium Snow Plows

53 Loaders across the state

"The safety of all New Yorkers is priority number one... we will continue to monitor the path and severity of the storm until it passes," said Governor Andrew M. Cuomo.

Variable Message Signs, Highway Advisory Radio and social media are being utilized to alert motorists of winter weather conditions on the Thruway. In addition, the following measures have been taken for downstate bridges.



New NY Bridge Wind Storm Preparation:

All project related cranes, barges, equipment, and material have been secured

Two Tug Boats will patrol the Hudson River near the New NY Bridge and the Tappan Zee

Snow removal equipment will be prepared to clear the construction site and barges

Continue monitoring of GPS tracking of barge and equipment on project site

Tappan Zee Bridge Wind Storm Preparation:

Wind speeds being monitored by TZB Personnel

Implementation of TZB High Wind Restrictions for Tractor Trailers based on wind speeds as detected by electronic monitors on the Bridge

Wrecker tow truck crews are on standby to address any accidents / disabled vehicles

Vehicular diversion plans are in place if needed

The Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services Office of Emergency Management is also coordinating with state agencies and local governments to ensure resources are available throughout the storm. State Emergency Operations and Watch Centers will continue to be staffed for enhanced monitoring.



To support roadway safety, one High Axle Vehicle has been staged at the Exit 52 Welcome Center on I-495 and another High Axle Vehicle has been staged in Westchester County. These vehicles are each equipped with blankets and hand tools, one eight-person tracked SUV, three enclosed, six-seat, tracked Utility Vehicles, and two, two-seat, tracked Utility Vehicles. Two additional High Axle Vehicles equipped with blankets and hand tools are being utilized by State Police for Long Island response operations. Additionally, the Brentwood & JFK Airport Stockpiles each have one Sandbagger and 195,000 sandbags, various generators, light towers and pumps are ready to deploy if necessary.



Staff from State Office of Emergency Management, Department of Transportation, and State Police are working at the Nassau and Suffolk County Emergency Operations Centers, and State Office of Emergency Management staff are working in the New York City Emergency Managements Emergency Operations Center.

In addition, State Police are patrolling roadways throughout the state, including:

45 patrols deployed during rush hour on Long Island.

State Police stationed at Suffolk and Nassau EOCs with additional staff available to assist at other county EOCs as necessary.

Metro-North and LIRR Cancelations: Metro-North Railroad has canceled five trains due to storm conditions. In addition, Long Island Rail Road crews continue to work around-the-clock at Jamaica Station following a derailment of one train 10-car at 4 a.m. on Wednesday, February 8. By Wednesday night, the disabled train was cleared from the station. However, two tracks remain out of service as inspections continue. As a result, nine trains are canceled. The LIRR is also experiencing system-wide delays averaging 20-30 minutes as a result of winter storm conditions. For more information on train service, click here.



Metro-North and the LIRR have also deployed extra staff and specialized equipment to continuously monitor storm conditions, including up to 360 snowblowers, 35 pickup truck plows, and 7 rail-bound jets. Scheduled track work has been canceled to allow personnel to concentrate efforts on storm response. Anti-freeze trains have been deployed throughout the systems to spray de-icer on the third rail in an effort to prevent ice-build-up, and non-passenger patrol trains will operate along the right-of-way to prevent snowdrifts from forming on the tracks. At stations, extra personnel have been salting and working to clear platforms of snow throughout the storm. Waiting rooms will be kept open around the clock to provide shelter for customers waiting for trains.



Bridges and Tunnels: Command Center has activated additional weather desks and monitoring conditions to ensure efficient deployment of personnel and resources. Electronic weather sensors are functional and all facilities have the ability to monitor weather and roadway conditions. There are more than 9,000 tons of roadway de-icer ready to be deployed and more than 100 pieces of storm fighting equipment including trucks and plows that have been actively clearing roads throughout the morning.



Subways and Buses: New York City Transit continues to monitor conditions for subways and buses via its Incident Command Center situation room. There are 31 Snow Fighters in operation and an additional 19 Suburbans are plow-equipped. Up to 2,900 snow-clearing personnel are on duty working 12-hour shifts. Snow-fighting equipment includes more than 1,000 snow melting devices at switches, about 1,500 3rd rail heaters, about 80 scraper shoes on trains, 10 snowthrowers, four jetblowers, and seven de-icer train cars. Bus tires are chained and a 20 percent reduction in local, limited and SBS bus service was in place during Thursday morning rush. Express subway service on A, B, E, D, F, N, Q, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 will end early Thursday night and express service will be impacted later to facilitate underground storage of trains on express tracks. Previously planned subway maintenance, rehabilitation and construction projects (such as FASTRACK) will be canceled Thursday.



Port Authority of New York and New Jersey

JFK, LaGuardia and Newark Liberty International airports are all open as of Thursday morning. However, nearly half the flights at those airports have been cancelled. Travelers are strongly urged to call their carrier before traveling to the airport. Below is a breakdown of cancelations:

JFK: 501 cancellations and airlines have taken down their domestic schedules until the afternoon.

LGA: 655 cancellations and airlines report no planned activities until 2 p.m. with slow return service.

EWR: 618 cancellations and United Airlines reporting they are increasing to full activity by 6 p.m.

The Port Authority urges bus travelers to also check with their carriers before going to the bus terminals since many public and private carriers may cancel or delay service if conditions continue to worsen.

In addition, all of the seaport terminals in the Port of New York and New Jersey are closed today. The Express Bus Lane into the Lincoln Tunnel is closed and the sidewalks over the George Washington Bridge are also closed. PATH service remains on schedule and there are no major issues reported at the Port Authoritys tunnels and bridges.



The following winter weather equipment and supplies have been deployed at major transportation facilities:

Hundreds of pieces of snow equipment at its airports, including melters that can liquefy up to 500 tons of snow an hour and plows that can clear snow at 40 mph;

Dozens of pieces of snow equipment at its bridges and tunnels;

Thousands of tons of salt and sand for airport roads and parking lots, plus thousands of tons of salt for the bridges and tunnels;

Hundreds of thousands of gallons of liquid anti-icer chemicals at the airports, which prevent snow and ice from bonding to runways and taxiways, plus thousands of tons of solid de-icers, which break up snow and ice already on the ground;

Plow-equipped trains, liquid snow-melting agent trains and a "jet engine" plow to remove snow from PATH tracks, and snow blowers, plows and spreaders to clear station entrances, roads that serve PATH's 13 stations, and various support facilities.

Tandem Trailers Banned on I-84 and NYS Thruway (I-87) South of Exit 17

Tandem Trailers will be restricted on Interstate 84 due to heavy snowfall. Until 4 p.m. on Thursday, February 9, tandem trailers will be banned from Interstate 84 in both directions, from the Pennsylvania border to the Connecticut border. Tandem truck drivers who are planning to travel on I-84 are urged seek alternative routes or travel early.



In addition, the New York State Thruway Authority has banned all tandem vehicles (long and short) on I-87 in both directions south of Exit 17 (Newburgh  Scranton  I-84  NY Routes 17K & 300) until further notice.
Crime, Press Releases

By Long Island News & PR Published: February 09 2017

Detectives report the arrest of Hamilton Croft, 38, of Hewlett on Wednesday, February 8, 2017 in connection to the crime.

Update - February 8, 2017 - Detectives report the arrest of Hamilton Croft, 38, of Hewlett on Wednesday, February 8, 2017 in connection with the crime below. He is charged with Murder 2nd Degree and will be arraigned on Thursday, February 9, 2017 at First District Court in Hempstead.

The original press release and an earlier update is below.

Update - December 7, 2016 - The Homicide Squad reports that the above victim Daniel Flowers, 24, of Freeport was transported to a local hospital on December 31, 2015 with complications from his injuries and was pronounced deceased on January 2, 2016.

Detectives are attempting to find any information about the above crime and request anyone with information to contact Nassau County Crime Stoppers at 1-800-244-TIPS. All callers will remain anonymous.

The original press release is below.

Hempstead, NY - July 4, 2011 - The Third Squad is investigation an Assault that occurred on Sunday, July 3, 2011 at 3:03 am in Hempstead.

According to detectives the male victim, age 20 was with a group of friends in the vicinity of 302 Main Street when an unknown subject approached him and began to shoot at the victim. The victim attempted to flee, but was struck in the neck. He was transported to a local hospital and is listed in critical condition. The subject fled in an unknown direction. There is no description of the subject at this time.

Detectives ask anyone with information about the above crime to contact Nassau County Crime Stoppers at 1-800-244-TIPS. All callers will remain anonymous.
An Islamic State fighter raising the groups flag over the town of Qandala in Somalias Puntland Region in Oct. 2016

The Islamic State has claimed yesterdays suicide assault on a hotel in the northern Somali town of Bosaso in a statement released online. The attack left at least four security guards and at least two gunmen dead.

According to local media, militants affiliated with the Islamic State faction operating in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland stormed the Village Hotel in Bosaso. This prompted a fierce shootout between the militants and the hotels security guards, with four guards and at least two gunmen dying. The number of attackers has varied in press reports, as Reuters reported that only three jihadists stormed the hotel, while Somali media has said seven.

In a statement released by the Islamic States Amaq News Agency, the jihadist group said that fighters of the Islamic State were responsible for the assault. Initial reporting pinned the attack on Shabaab, al Qaedas branch in East Africa, as it is notorious for targeting hotels in Somalia, but Shabaab denied responsibility.

Yesterdays assault represents the first major attack in Puntland since the fledgling Islamic State branch captured the town of Qandala last October. At the time, a claim by Amaq News stated fighters loyal to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi captured the town after a brief firefight with Puntland security forces. A subsequent video released by Amaq showed a handful of Islamic State fighters parading through the streets and hoisting their black flag on several rooftops of the town.

A day later, Puntland officials claimed that the militants withdrew from town. However, Somali journalists refuted this claim saying that residents are reporting the jihadists still remain in control. It was not until Dec. 7 that Puntland officially took back control of the town and offered photo evidence.

A separate Islamic State faction operating in southern Somalia had earlier captured a town in Dec. 2015, the first for Islamic State-loyal militants in the country, but their reign did not last long.

The Islamic State in Somalia was officially formed in Oct. 2015 and is led by Abdulqadr Mumin, a former Shabaab commander. Compared to Shabaab, Islamic State in Somalia is known to be relatively small. It also remains largely concentrated in the northern Puntland Region, but has claimed sporadic attacks in Mogadishu. Pro-Islamic State factions in southern Somalia have had trouble operating due to a large-scale crackdown by Shabaab and its Amniyat, or security service, on any dissenters within the group.

Caleb Weiss is a research analyst at FDD's Long War Journal and a senior analyst at the Bridgeway Foundation, where he focuses on the spread of the Islamic State in Central Africa.

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.
The Defense Department announced today that 11 al Qaeda terrorists were killed in a pair of airstrikes near Idlib, Syria earlier this month. Ten al Qaeda men were reportedly killed on Feb. 3, when the US struck a building they were using as a meeting place.

On the following day, Feb. 4, a jihadi known as Abu Hani al Masri (seen on the right) perished in a second airstrike. The Pentagon says Abu Hani served al Qaeda for decades.

Abu Hani was a legacy al Qaeda terrorist with ties to the groups senior leaders, including Ayman al Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden, according to a statement by Pentagon Spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis. During the 1980s and 1990s, Abu Hani oversaw the creation and operation of many al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, where he recruited, indoctrinated, trained and equipped thousands of terrorists who subsequently spread throughout the region and the world.

The Defense Department says that Abu Hani was also one of the founders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the first Sunni group to use suicide bombers in their terror attacks. The EIJ was responsible for multiple attacks against US and allied facilities and personnel, including a 1998 attempt to blow up the American embassy in Albania.

The EIJ formally merged with Osama bin Ladens operation prior the 9/11 attacks. Even before their official unity, however, the EIJs operatives played key roles in al Qaedas growing network. In the early 1990s, for example, EIJ members helped perform surveillance on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Their work was used to plan al Qaedas Aug. 1998 bombings in those two countries.

Jihadis quickly honored Abu Hani al Masri

Several social media sites have commented on Masris death. There is often uncertainty with respect to jihadi biographies, as common aliases and other similarities between different individuals can lead to confusion. FDDs Long War Journal has collected several statements regarding Abu Hanis life. These reports are summarized below.

Abu Hanis comrades do not appear to have corroborated the Pentagons claim that he was one of the EIJs founders. But at least some of the write-ups do portray him as a longtime al Qaeda veteran.

Interestingly, multiple sources identified Abu Hani as a senior military leader in Ahrar al Sham, a group that has been allied with al Qaedas branch in Syria for years.

In recent weeks, Ahrar al Sham has split into different factions, with one powerful contingent joining Tahrir al Sham, a new entity formed by several groups, including al Qaedas rebranded arm in Syria. Others in Ahrar al Sham have refused to join Tahrir al Sham and have even clashed with their fellow insurgents.

Some sources speculated that Abu Hani was about to join Tahrir al Sham when he was killed.

Shortly after Abu Hanis death, the Tahrir al Sham member known as Abu Saeed al Halabi tweeted that Abu Hani was Ahrar al Shams mil. leader, or military leader. The tweet can be seen on the right. Abu Saeed asked if the US was now going to bomb moderate factions. But Ahrar al Sham cannot be described as moderate, as it has openly modeled itself after the Taliban.

Nonetheless, others in Syria quickly picked up the talking point.

Sheikh Muslih Al Alyani, a top cleric in the newly formed Tahrir al Sham, used Abu Hanis death to argue that anyone in the field of jihad can be attacked, regardless of whether or not he is overtly affiliated with al Qaeda. Al Alyanis claim, which was translated by the jihadi outfit Al Maqalaat, is misleading. Al Qaeda has embedded veterans in several groups inside Syria, often seeking to mask their influence.

Another leading Tahrir al Sham ideologue, Sheikh Abderrazak Al Mahdi, also commented on Abu Hanis death. On his English-language Telegram channel, Abderrazak denied that he had been targeted in the airstrike, saying it was Abu Hani who came under the crosshairs instead.

May Allah admit him [Abu Hani al Masri] into paradise, Abderrazak wrote. And just so everyone is aware; He was from the veterans in Jihad from the days of Bosnia and all that was after it. Abderrazak offered high praise for Abu Hani, writing: I never saw someone like him. Struggle, experience, manners and humbleness.

Still others commented on Abu Hanis demise.

Al Fustaat, which operates an English-language Telegram channel, also said that he was part of Ahrar al Sham. Al Fustaat claimed that he was killed by an armed drone, controlled by US forces that left from the Incirlik Air Base in Turkey.

Biography posted on social media

Abu Hassan al Kuwaiti, a jihadi ideologue based in Syria, posted an Arabic-language biography of Abu Hani al Masri.

Abu Hani swore allegiance to Sheikh Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and became a member of al Qaedas elite Shura (or advisory) council, according to the biography. He then waged jihad in Chechnya, Bosnia and Somalia, serving as a mujahideen commander in East Africa. Abu Hani eventually relocated to Malaysia and the US government allegedly asked the government there to turn him over. But Abu Hani was sent back to his native Egypt on a private jet instead. He was purportedly tortured in Egypt for six years, and developed a heart condition that required treatment.

According to the biography posted by Kuwaiti, Abu Hani was eventually released from an Egyptian prison in 2011. He then made his way to Syria, where he could begin his jihad once again.

Abu Hani, also known as Hani Haykal, was among the first immigrants to join the jihad in Syria and he helped set up training camps there. He worked in Syria until the dispute with Abu Bakr al Baghdadis Islamic State broke out. Abu Hani then relocated to Turkey, where he was allegedly arrested by the Americans. Turkish security services supposedly intervened, freeing Abu Hani so that he could move to Qatar. Eventually, he made his way through Turkey to Syria, traveling under a new alias (Abu Basir al Masri). He then served in Ahrar al Shams military wing.

Ahrar al Sham figures eulogized Abu Hani al Masri

Prominent Ahrar al Sham figures quickly eulogized Abu Hani al Masri on their Arabic-language Twitter feeds.

One of them, Khalid Abu Anas, tweeted that Abu Hani and several of his fellow Egyptian jihadis who have fallen were an example of humility and high character. They worked in silence and departed in silence, Khalid Abu Anas tweeted. That same phrase, highlighting the silent aspect of their careers, is part of a common al Qaeda saying. Other known al Qaeda leaders have been eulogized in the same terms.

Khalid Abu Anas has consistently advertised his respect for al Qaedas men. He similarly honored Nasir al Wuhayshi, the emir of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Al Qaedas general manager, after Wuhayshi was killed in June 2015. Abu Anas also honored Mullah Omar in July 2015, shortly after the Taliban finally admitted that Omar had passed away two years earlier.

Another Ahrar al Sham official, Ahmad Mohamed Najib, wrote a series of five tweets remembering Abu Hani and other Egyptian jihadis as martyrs. Najibs Twitter feed describes him as the head of the groups judiciary committee.

Al Qaeda veterans embedded within Ahrar al Shams leadership

Other al Qaeda veterans have served as leaders in Ahrar al Sham, but their roles have not been advertised.

FDDs Long War Journal first reported in Dec. 2013 that Abu Khalid al Suri was a senior member of Ahrar al Sham. At the time, his role was not publicly disclosed by the group. Suri served as Ayman al Zawahiris chief representative in the Levant. It was not until after Suri was killed in Feb. 2014 that numerous photos of him waging jihad in Syria were posted online. Many of the images showed al Suri side-by-side with Hassan Abboud, Ahrar al Shams top leader at the time. It is obvious from the photos and other information that Abboud, who was subsequently killed in Sept. 2014, considered Suri to be his mentor and teacher.

Al Qaeda has repeatedly honored Abu Khalid al Suri since his death.

In 2015, the jihadis revealed that a 17-year al Qaeda veteran known as Abu Hafs al Masri had died while fighting for Ahrar al Sham.

Stepped up airstrikes against al Qaeda in Syria

The US has stepped up its air campaign against al Qaeda in Syria in recent weeks. On Jan. 20, the Pentagon announced that more than 150 al Qaeda terrorists have been killed since the beginning of the year. The Americans are targeting both individual leaders, as well as al Qaeda-controlled camps and buildings.

The Defense Department justifies the airstrikes by arguing that the al Qaeda operatives killed pose a threat to the West.

These strikes disrupt al Qaedas ability to plot and direct external attacks targeting the US and our interests worldwide, Capt. Jeff Davis, the Pentagon spokesman, said in his statement announcing Abu Hanis death. These extremists are increasingly questioning the loyalty of their members as paranoia spreads throughout their network about the many strikes conducted against them, Davis continued. US forces have struck multiple meeting locations, an established basic training camp, and four leaders since the beginning of the year.

Davis added: We will continue to take action to deny these terrorists safe haven in Syria to ensure they cannot focus on plotting terror against the region and world.

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.
Katibat Imam al Bukhari, also known as the Imam Bukhari Jamaat, has claimed an ambush on Afghan troops in northern Afghanistan in a statement released through the terrorist groups Telegram channel. The statement did not specify the Afghan province where the attack occurred.

According to the statement, KIB jihadists destroyed three Afghan humvees in improvised explosive device (IED) blast before opening fire on soldiers. Additionally, the group claimed to kill four Afghan troops. Pictures showing the explosions and subsequent ambush were released alongside the statement.

This is not the first time KIB has advertised its role in Afghanistan. Last year, the group released two videos from the northern part of the country, depicting training camps for both general indoctrination and lessons on the manufacturing of IEDs, along with combat footage. One video only showed IED attacks, while one focuses on the capture of an Afghan outpost.

KIB swears allegiance to the Taliban leadership and has also played a prominent role in northwestern Syria fighting alongside al Qaedas forces there. According to RFE/RL, the Syrian wing is led by a veteran of the jihad in Afghanistan who was sent to Syria by the Taliban and Sirajuddin Haqqani, one of the Talibans top deputies and leader of the powerful al Qaeda-linked Haqqani Network.

KIB took part in the al Qaeda-led 2015 offensive that took over Idlib Province, as well as the al Qaeda-led offensive in the southern Aleppo countryside and renewed clashes in Latakia last year. It has also advertised its training camps in the country, including at least two for children.

Photos released by the group:

Caleb Weiss is a research analyst at FDD's Long War Journal and a senior analyst at the Bridgeway Foundation, where he focuses on the spread of the Islamic State in Central Africa.

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.
There is no room for complacency in the battle against malaria  DfID Secretary (Politics Home)

19 December 2016



This article was originally published on Politics home.

A group of experts met last week to launch a report from the World Health Organisation and to talk about how best to stamp out the disease.

2016 has been a tremendous year in terms of the progress made on ending malaria, Priti Patel told the global launch of the WHO World Malaria Report 2016.

She joined a group of panellists at the launch which was hosted by the APPG on Malaria and NTDs. The event was organised by a number of different organisations, including Malaria No More UK and Malaria Consortium. A panel of experts, chaired by Jeremy Lefroy MP, spent an evening discussing how best to preserve and strengthen efforts to fight this disease.

One thing all the experts agreed on was that the malaria reduction over the last 20 years has been one of the greatest achievements in global public health.

The 2016 report revealed how much progress had been made, showing a 37% reduction of new cases, a 60% drop in malaria deaths and a 65% drop in deaths among children under five. Even more impressively, ten countries that had malaria in 2000 are now malaria free and nearly 60 countries have reduced their malaria cases by 75% or more.

The International Development Secretary explained the world had come so far thanks to communities working together and she highlighted the work the United Kingdom has done, saying the country has been at the forefront of the battle.

But, although the progress has been unprecedented and worthy of celebration, the experts were keen to emphasise there is still a huge amount of work to do.

International Development Secretary Priti Patel commended the phenomenal progress the global community has made on eradicating the disease, but cautioned: We can never stand still, there is no room for complacency.

The size of the challenge is enormous.

Last year, over 400,000 people died of malaria and there were 212 million new cases.

In the report, WHO references its Global Technical Strategy for malaria. The goal is to reduce malaria deaths by 90%, eliminating malaria in at least 35 countries and preventing a resurgence of the disease in all countries that are malaria free. To achieve these goals, global financing for malaria will need to triple from joint levels reaching $8.7bn annually by 2030.

The strategy will only become achievable with proper funding, emphasized the panelists, and a continuous global effort.

Ms Patel, and others, explained one of the top priorities in the fight against malaria was finding a way to address the urgent challenge of dealing with drug and insecticide resistance, which is threatening the progress made thus far.

Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, warned that there is an epidemic coming of drug resistant malaria in parts of Africa, and if the world fails to address drug resistance urgently, we will really regret it.

He also remarked that at a time when countries are looking ever more inward, it was up to the international community to emphasise the importance of global health.

Baroness Lindsay Northover, former Liberal Democrat Dfid minister, who was responsible for enshrining the 0.7% pledge into law, echoed the sentiment saying: In order to achieve that we all need to work together, countries must not turn inwards. We must not now lose the scientific and political leadership on malaria.

Ironically, the fact that so much progress has been made in fighting malaria has meant, that it is difficult to keep on the global agenda, said the Malaria Consortium Chief Executive Charles Nelson.

Priti Patel announced to the audience the UK Government will give a 50m to fund the crucial work of developing treatments aimed at women and under-fives and an additional 25m for continued innovation.

The Secretary also called for further global effort, saying the world must commit to fighting malaria.

Dr Pedro Alonso of the World Health Organisation joined Ms Patel in calling for global investment, remarking it has flat-lined over the past few years.

Mr Nelson expressed his encouragement at the funding pledge, and the Governments support for fighting the disease, saying:

The UK Governments reaffirmation of the their commitment to ongoing support for established interventions, and the enhanced investment in new vector control tools and the development of new treatments strongly encouraging.

There needs to be that ongoing commitment as progress is made, and the economics of interventions change on the path to elimination. We strongly believe this is a disease that can be beaten but it will take real sustained work and funding both internationally and domestically.

Ms Patel wrapped up her speech by pledging to carry on the leadership on this global issue: Its our opportunity to keep the momentum going because thats how we work towards a malaria free world.

Keywords: Advocacy and policy

Related projects
Fancy standing in the midst of boisterous, merry gaiety, while feasting your eyes upon a series of exciting live performances? Or if youre looking for a more serene way to spend your weekend, how about trying your hand at ceramics or soap-making with your partner or a few girlfriends?

This week calls for an extra injection of creativity and merriment, where no doubt youll find something new and exciting to do. The island may be small, but the number of events available really knows no bounds. So whether youre jamming out to old school hits or immersing yourself in a dinner theatre show, shake off the weeks monotony by trying something new!

Head over to the gallery above to discover our pick of events happening over the next few days, theres no reason to have any #FOMO this weekend.

Winnie Tan

Horoscope Predictions: From 4 to 10 February

7 Effective aromatherapeutic products to help you sleep better
Germany Blasts Israels Illegal Land Grab

A previous article discussed Israels Resolution Law, retroactively approving around 4,000 illegally built settler outpost homes on privately owned Palestinian land - confiscating it for exclusive Jewish occupation and use, legislation its attorney general opposed and wont defend.



Anything about Israel is sensitive in Germany, given its Nazi era mass extermination of Jews.



Last December, its Foreign Ministry spokesman expressed great concern about the pending legislation, saying it violates international law, along with undermin(ing) any chance for a two-state solution.

Asked at the time if German or EU sanctions would be imposed, he called it the wrong path in this case to make headway in the Middle East peace process - the greatest hoax in modern times, he failed to explain.



Following the Resolution Laws adoption, Germanys Foreign Ministry spokesman strongly criticized it, saying:



Many in Germany who stand by Israel and feel great commitment toward it find themselves deeply disappointed by this move.



Our trust in the Israeli governments commitment to the two-state solution has been shaken to its foundation.



We hope and look forward to the Israeli government renewing its commitment for the two-state solution to be reached through negotiations, and prove it by actual steps in accordance with the Middle East Quartets demand.



After the puzzling remarks by several cabinet ministers who have publicly called for the annexation of parts of the West Bank, and are preparing bills for that purpose, this is now a question of reliability.



Fact: Israel intends all valued Judea and Samaria areas exclusively for Jews, Palestinians systematically ethnically cleansed to achieve its objective.



Years ago, two states were possible. No longer. Israel controls about 85% of historic Palestine, more stolen land added regularly.



The only viable solution Israel wont tolerate is one state for all its people. Nothing else can work. Palestinians shouldnt waste time considering alternatives.



Palestine belongs to the Palestinians. Theyre willing to settle for 22% of their historic land with East Jerusalem their rightful capital - a nonstarter with Israel.



Brussels, Britain, France, Turkey, Jordan, other countries and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres denounced Israels Resolution Law land grab - not the Trump administration, its near silence virtual approval unless proved otherwise by comments yet to come.



A February 28 EU/Israeli summit was postponed in the wake of the new law, virtually certain to be rescheduled - its purpose to discussed increased cooperation on various issues.



Criticism of Israeli lawlessness without teeth does nothing to stop it.



It remains unaccountable for decades of Nuremberg-level high crimes against millions of defenseless Palestinians - brutalized by its viciousness.



A Final Comment



Palestinian appointed president Abbas is a longtime Israeli collaborator. Saying if Israeli colonization continues, (hell) have no other choice but to halt security coordination is a meaningless threat made numerous times before.



Israel ignores him or firmly reminds him whos boss - easily able to eliminate him like Yasser Arafat if he gets too testy.

By Stephen Lendman

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com

His new book as editor and contributor is titled Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.

http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html

He lives in Chicago and can be reached in Chicago at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.



Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday through Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national topics. All programs are archived for easy listening.

 2017 Copyright Stephen Lendman - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




MARTINSVILLE  The soul isnt the only thing the Martinsville High School Jazz Band will be feeding at their fundraising concert Friday evening. Admission to the event also includes a homemade spaghetti dinner, complete with a tossed salad, bread, dessert and drink.

Taking to the commons area at the high school for about an hour, the band will play a variety of tunes.

We will be performing the music of Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, as well as a few jazz/rock numbers, said MHS Band Director Brian Joyce.

Proceeds from the event will help students travel to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, in just under two months, where they will perform at Dolly Partons famous amusement park, Dollywood.

With a goal of $30,000, students and faculty are getting closer to the financial amount needed to travel approximately 540 miles round-trip in April. However, theyre not quite to where they need to be yet.

We are still about $5,000 short of reaching our goal, Joyce said.

While the band boosters club will help offset the majority of the costs, students will still be responsible for a couple of things, like some of the cost of the trip as well as a few fast food meals, Joyce said.

Band members have persistently worked toward their ultimate financial goal. By performing music, holding silent auctions and hosting 31 Bingo events, the band boosters have been raising money for the trip since last year.

In addition to the music and meal Friday night, there will also be a silent auction and 50/50 raffle.

Hoping to raise all of the needed funds by the middle of March, MHS Jazz Band students  who will be performing alongside members of the MHS Concert Band in Tennessee  are motivated to put on a stellar performance Friday night.

Tickets for the Jazz and Dinner Fundraiser are available at a variety of locations around the city for $10 a piece.

We are asking people to get tickets in advance, Joyce said.

Some participating ticket vendors include Third Bay Cafe, John R. Wheless, DDS and Books and Crannies.

Joyce also suggested stopping by the MHS office or calling the high schools band room for tickets.

We hope that we can have a packed house for our Jazz and Dinner event, Joyce said. All of the money raised goes directly to the students.

The event will take place at 6:30 p.m. this Friday at Martinsville High School, located at 351 Commonwealth Blvd W.
What do you need my money for? I mean, it seems like a fair question, when someone's asking for a donation. When it's a politician or a member of their campaign, it's practically required. Before I hand over a dime, I want to know what it'll be spent on. If you say tv ads, staff salaries or even food for volunteers, I could get behind it, but dress shirts? Not so much.

It was easy to miss, with everything else going on in the last two weeks. A committee in the House of Delegates last week killed the latest bill, HB 1446, that would have banned the use of political campaign funds for personal use in Virginia. For the record, that leaves the commonwealth as one of only three states that allow politicians to use campaign dollars for other needs.

Del. John OBannon, R-Henrico, was one of the people to raise complaints about this proposal last year when it first came up. He argued that if a politician walked out in a rainstorm and got wet on the campaign trail, he or she should be allowed to use campaign money, dollars contributed from supporters, to buy a brand new shirt.

Now look, I understand the need to dress a certain way at campaign events, but c'mon. If Im out in a storm and my clothes get wet, they do actually manage to dry. Are we to understand that these candidates, in charge of billions of taxpayer dollars in the General Assembly, cant get a staff member to bring an extra shirt, just in case?

If youre wondering where youve heard OBannons name before, hes also the lawmaker who proposed this session that we use tax dollars to give clean needles to drug users, so theres that. Other lawmakers shared concerns as well. Del. Mark Cole told the Richmond Times Dispatch several members of the House came up to him, worried that the bill would make some of what they called harmless behavior illegal. One person raised the issue with him of what happens when a lawmaker buys a box of donuts for a campaign rally and then lets family members eat it afterward. Something tells me if our state lawmakers really wanted to pass this bill, they could have put a clause in that made it clear family members had access to donuts.

Something like this irritates me because it's basically lying to residents. When the campaign staffer calls up a 67-year-old grandmother, telling her that his or her candidate needs the woman's help to fight for Virginia's values, I seriously doubt they mention a donation could help buy clothes. I wonder, if we all knew exactly what lawmakers spent our dollars on, would we give them so many?

Other lawmakers in the House argued the government should stay out of whats basically a private transaction between the supporter and candidate. Fair enough. But when I go out and buy something at Target, I get a receipt. I know exactly what it is that I bought. If people contribute to a campaign, most of the time theyre doing so with the idea its going for staff salaries, supplies, signs, TV ads and other things needs to help win the race.

If politicians dont want to put the ban in place, as it's been killed in two straight sessions, then they need to disclose everything. Every. Single. Expense. Each time a shirt is purchased with campaign money, that needs to be reported. Each time that money goes to buy a gift for a family member or fill up a car with gas, it needs to be reported. Right now, Virginia lawmakers on every level have to disclose their campaign spending, but only on a limited basis. Beside that $1,500 expense, they can label it as travel reimbursement and it will be accepted, with no detail required. The Virginia Board of Elections doesnt audit or investigate campaign finance reports.

A vague description like "travel reimbursement" leaves many questions. Travel from where to where? Who took the trip and for what purpose? Lawmakers in this state have to report gifts given or received and contributions accepted, but yet they don't have to give a detailed accounting of how they spent that money from supporters. Doesn't that seem a bit odd? And to be fair, I'm not accusing every politician in Virginia of going on a spending spree. If they want our donations, however, I am asking them to be accountable for how it's spent.

It never fails during campaign season. We hear talk about how more donations are needed to fight the good fight. Politician X raised $10 million, so his opponent asks for $12 million to "win." I just got the first such letter in my mailbox on Monday. Where is that money going? How much of that is actually used on the campaign and how much goes to benefits for the candidate?

Our donations arent given to be used as a personal bank, an account available for lawmakers to go shopping when they want. If someones buying a shirt with my money, then either Im out shopping for my family or Im getting something for myself. But yet our campaign donations can go to buy a shirt for someone who owns multiple houses in different parts of the state. Does that seem logical to anyone?

As it stands, the only block candidates have on spending the money comes when closing out the account. At that point in Virginia, the politicians cant go on a spending spree. But a month before? Six months before? Thats all fair game. Banning that practice, making sure that political donations go for their intended purpose, just seems to make sense. Its honestly embarrassing that we as a commonwealth havent done it before now. For politicians who actually mean what they say about cracking down on government waste, it seems like a good place to start. But maybe thats the real problem.
Drain the Richmond swamp

There is a swamp in Richmond that needs to be drained. Some young Republicans who realize that the power grab going on in Richmond will eventually fail wanted a constitutional amendment before the public to make redistricting nonpartisan. They understand the fairness of the ballot box. The powerbrokers decided that only three proposed amendments to the Virginia constitution should go on the ballot to keep from confusing the public. (Are we children who cant handle voting?)

The three included taking away power from the weak governor system and giving more of it to the powerbrokers. Martinsville and Henry County are in three different districts, one that includes southern Henry and Pittsylvania County and Danville. Mine includes Martinsville and north Henry and Pittsylvania Counties. Southwestern Henry County is paired with Patrick County. This makes no sense, unless it is designed to keep a handful of people in power.

These are the people who now want some of the governors power for themselves to cement themselves in place by controlling elections, too! When is Mr. Jeffersons Virginia going to join other states in having a non-partisan Board of Elections? Isnt voting sacred to being a democracy? My delegate, Les Adams, was initially in favor of redistricting, but he didnt have the guts to buck the system. He and his fellows took the easy way out. They voted to end the meeting rather than have a vote on their records. Chickens have more bravery than Les Adams and his progressive fellows!

Lynn Bechdolt

Martinsville

Problems in Washington

A compulsive liar is someone who lies with ease and finds comfort in it. The person may even continue to lie when presented with the truth in cold, hard facts. Getting a compulsive liar to admit he or she lied can be nearly impossible.

Its sad that this country, in my opinion, has a President who is a compulsive liar.

Not only is he a liar, but he is narcissistic. That makes him a dangerous person.

Its sad that this country is so divided by race, politics and hate that some have no problem with a President who lies and cant stand criticism.

I dont know what the next four years holds for this country, but I know its sad that we have a President that acts the way Trump does.

Everything we are teaching our kids about respect, honesty, bullying and humility is being thrown out the window due to politics.

Praying something changes because watching this President is not only sad, its embarrassing. .

Michael Elder

Charlottesville

Saying thanks to Pat

I read with interest the article in todays paper about the Bassett Historical Center. I also started family research when the building also contained the library. I do not recall ever seeing it in the condition as described in the article. Pat Ross was the director. If you had trouble finding something she was always ready to help and show you what to do. Even in the 90s the Center was already online for research. She may not have taught classes as such but her help was just as good. She is the person who helped make the Center what it is today so that new employees and the public have better access to the records. I wonder if anyone ever thanked her for all the work she put into making the Center what it is today so someone else could teach classes there?

Janie Thorne

Martinsville
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A Communique was issued on 26 February 2019 inviting applications for the award of 24 scholarships under the Additional Scholarship Schemes based on Merit & Social Criteria.

A selection exercise has been carried out by the Ministry of Education and Human Resources, Tertiary Education and Scientific Research in collaboration with the Ministry of Social Security, National Solidarity & Reform Institutions in accordance with the provisions of the Education (Amendment) Regulations 2013 as subsequently amended.

With regard to the two scholarships awarded to Rodriguan candidates, the selection exercise has been conducted by the Rodrigues Regional Assembly.

The following candidates have been awarded scholarships under these two schemes, respectively in the light of the eligibility on merit and social criteria out of all applications received.

(a) 16 Additional Scholarships Scheme

Additional Scholarships based on merit and social criteria to eligible students ranked among the first 500 of the Cambridge International Examination Scholarship Rank Orders, and whose total parental income does not exceed, in the aggregate, 16,000 rupees per month.

(b) 8 Additional Scholarships scheme

Additional Scholarships, to eligible students based on merit and social criteria  as well as the results of the Cambridge Higher School Certificate Examinations (2018) and whose total parental income does not exceed, in the aggregate, 9,500 rupees per month.

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Every Sunday at the Crossmill Church of God in Marion, 13-year-old Bradley Branton makes a special prayer request for the men and women of emergency services.

Ever since he was little, that has just kind of been his thing. He loves emergency personnel, Bradleys mother Angel told the newspaper by phone.

And, every night, Bradley and Angel take a drive around McDowell to the different emergency stations to make sure they are OK and safe.

That is his nightly ride, and then we will come home. Anytime he sees a police officer, or anyone in that field, he waves and hollers at them, said Angel.

So after hearing of Bradleys support for McDowell agencies, firefighters, police, deputies, troopers and paramedics showed up to meet the young man who is always praying for them.

He had no idea (they were coming). I just thought it was going to be just a few people. When we got there, he ran right down there. I couldnt believe there were so many people, said Angel. When I got home, I cried. I try not to cry in front of him, but I thought he was going to cry. I am very grateful for everything. Thank you to my pastor Kerney Wilson, his wife and her father.

Bradley was treated to a ride in a fire truck, ambulance and highway patrol car. He got to hang out with the men and women in many different emergency fields, and they even stayed to have lunch with him at the church. Students from the EMS class at the high school were even there to share their experiences and meet Bradley.

We are really blessed. He was so happy during it all. He talked about it until he went to sleep that night, Angel said. He thinks he is famous now. He looked at me and said, Momma, Im famous. Daddy always told me I would be famous one day, and now look, I am famous.

Bradleys father passed away unexpectedly last year, and Angel said it has been rough on their family, but seeing her son happy, was the best gift of all. Bradley was diagnosed with autism when he was 3 years old, but he wont let anyone tell him he has it.

He wont let anybody say that to him. He says, Momma, I dont have autism. God healed me and I dont have it, said Angel.

Bradley just recently returned to school after being homeschooled for a while. Angel said he is fitting in really well at East McDowell Middle School.

He is very social; he will talk your ears off. Hes very intelligent and he is doing amazing in school. Hes a totally different kid. Its God, thats all it is, its God, she said. We are going to have a wonderful year.
by Scott Gillum , Op-Ed Contributor, February 9, 2017

As recent events have shown, we are living in the age of feeling versus an age of reason. Its a time when people often act  or react  first without having any, or all, of the facts. And the media may (or may not) be reading more into things than are actually there.

Take for example, Budweisers Born the Hard Way Super Bowl ad. It tells the story of Adolphus Buschs journey from Germany. The ad, released last Tuesday, hit the air at the height of the controversy surrounding President Trumps travel ban.

The 60-second ad starts with a shot of Busch and a voice in the distance saying, You dont look like youre from around here. Whether its intentional or not, the immigration-themed ad struck a chord with many.

Although Anheuser-Busch InBev denies any political connections, other have used it as a rallying cry. As an ad, its well-done, possessing many of the important elements of quality advertising. Its an authentic (despite being somewhat fictionalized) story of the American dream told through the founders journey to St. Louis as a German immigrant.

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The challenge is that it may not connect with its audience. More bluntly, it may have turned off a lot of Bud drinkers. Heres what the agency strategists and A-B InBev may have missed during the creative concept process.

If you look at a map of the 2016 presidential election results and compare it with a map of the most popular beers in each state, you will see that of the 13 states where Bud Light is the most popular beer, Trump won nine -- and of the remaining four, Trump won the rural vote. In fact, the profile of a Bud drinker is almost identical to that of a Trump voter.

The risk for Budweiser, in its desire to reach and connect with Millennials (77% drink something other than Bud), is that the company may have alienated and/or offended traditional Bud drinkers.

The day before the Super Bowl saw a groundswell of loyalists threatening to #boycottbudwiser (yes, spelled incorrectly). The hashtag trended the night of the Super Bowl and the following day after. Once corrected, the hashtag became a lightning rod for comments both supportive and critical of the theme. Bud fans are seemingly upset at what they see as Budweiser making a political statement.

Its a classic big company conundrum. In order to ensure growth, Bud had to twist its messaging toward a younger audience at the risk of alienating its loyal customer base.The question for Budweiser now is: Did the ad do its job? It was voted as one of the winners of the evening, but did it convert non-Bud drinkers? And in this highly competitive marketplace, will the ad be effective in bringing new younger buyers to the brand at a rate to cover the loss of consumers who may be switching their allegiance because of their outrage over its political overtone?

The takeaway for agencies: We now have to consider the potential for ads to be hijacked by a political controversy. As a result of the polarization of America, agencies and companies may know have to consider how their audience voted when crafting campaigns. The other insight is that we may have found a new way to use emotions to trigger action, for better  or worse.
As part of a broader response to claims of racial bias, Facebook is making it harder for advertisers to avoid consumers based on certain personal attributes.

As outlined in its updated ad guidelines, the social giant is prohibiting advertisers from discriminating against users based on race, ethnicity, color, national origin, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, family status, disability, or medical or genetic condition.

When an advertiser attempts to show an ad that we identify as offering a housing, employment or credit opportunity and either includes or excludes our multicultural advertising segments -- which consist of people interested in seeing content related to the African American, Asian American and US Hispanic communities -- we will disapprove the ad, Facebook notes in a new blog post.

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In addition, when advertisers try to show an ad that Facebook identifies as offering a housing, employment or credit opportunity and uses any other audience segment on Facebook, it will show those advertisers information about its updated anti-discrimination policy.

Facebook will then insist that advertisers certify they are in compliance with that policy, along with all applicable anti-discrimination laws.

Some activists applauded Facebook for its efforts on Wednesday.

We like Facebook for following up on its commitment to combating discriminatory targeting in online advertisements, Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, stated.

To make these recent changes, Facebook said it sought council from New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, members of the Congressional Black Caucus, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and others.

Late last year, ProPublicareported that Facebook was making it possible for advertisers to prevent their ads from being shown to users who belonged to certain "ethnic affinity" groups. The ProPublica report sparked outrage among lawmakers and activists, which led to a potential class-action civil rights lawsuit.

As part of its initial response, the tech titan promised to prohibit marketers from using a race-based targeting option for ads offering housing, employment or credit.

There are many nondiscriminatory uses of our ethnic affinity solution in these areas, but we have decided we can best guard against discrimination by suspending these types of ads, Erin Egan, a company vice president, explained in a blog post last November.
by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, February 8, 2017

Donald Trump began his presidency declaring an ongoing war with the media. On Wednesday, it escalated to include a well-known consumer brand when he used the White Houses official Twitter account  @POTUS  to retweet a slam against Nordstrom.

My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!, Trump tweeted on his @realDonaldTrump account when the retailer dropped Ivanka Trumps line, citing declining sales for her line of branded products.

He then retweeted it on @POTUS, an account that historically has been reserved for official White House business.

The act sparked renewed criticism about ethics of the President of the United States using his office to influence his familys business interests.

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It also comes as a number of brands have been taking increasingly public positions for and against the Trump White house, its policies and actions.

Asked about the use of the @POTUS account to retweet the jab at Nordstrom's and its connection to Trump's family businesses during the White House press briefing, Press Secretary Sean Spicer said, I think this was less about his family business [than] an attack on his daughter.

He ran for President. He won. Hes leading this country, Spicer continued. And I think for people to take out their concern about his actions or his executive order on members of his family, he has every right to stand up for his family and applaud their business activities, their success.

Spicer characterized the executive tweet as the action of a father who is proud of his daughter and her accomplishments and that he was standing up for her.

When the question was raised again later in the briefing, Spicer implied Trump took action because he saw it as a direct attack on his policies and her name. And so there is clearly an attempt for him to stand up for her because she is being maligned because they have a problem with his policies.

While retailer T.J. Maxx isnt dropping Ivanka Trumps line, the company said its T.J. Maxx and Marshalls stores will no longer prominently feature her products but would mix them in with other brands.

Both Nordstrom and T.J. Maxx are among the companies that have been targeted for consumer boycotts by grabyourwallet.org for carrying Trump family brands.
by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, February 9, 2017

Mastercard took up residence Thursday at the Gibson Brands Sunset, formerly the L.A. Tower Records store, to roll out a campaign celebrating the 59th Annual Grammy Awards.

"I used to stand in line at Tower Records in New York to get my concert tickets," said Cheryl Guerin, EVP, group executive global products and solutions at Mastercard. "There was no online at the time. You either went to the ticket office at the area where they held the concert, or you went to Tower Records."

Designed by McCann Erickson, the Masterpass #ThankTheFans campaign delivers a one-of-a-kind experience, complete with interactive music experiences. The event runs through Saturday.

Masterpass gives consumers exclusive access to shop for colorful, rare and unique vinyl for just $10, as well as early access to intimate evening performances. There are sound booths where ewallet users can record music and walk out of the store with a vinyl recording.

Guerin said there has been a resurgence of vinyl during the past few years.

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"Everyone's looking for more experiences in their lives, rather than just buying things," she said, referring to brand directives to give consumers more just a product.

All proceeds from the vinyl record sales will be donated to MusiCares.

There is also a D.J. scratch academy to try out the experience, and a listening station allows music fans to sample a variety of music.

The experiential campaign is integrated with a social campaign taking place Grammy night, February 12. During the broadcast, Mastercard will unlock special offers on Twitter that Masterpass users can purchase for $1.
by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, February 9, 2017

ReDigi, a company that sought to create a used marketplace for digital music, is asking an appellate court to reverse a ruling that the service infringed copyright.

In papers filed this week with the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, ReDigi and its founders argue that the company is protected from copyright liability by "first-sale" principles, which allow consumers to re-sell lawfully acquired material.

ReDigi, which declared bankruptcy last year, operated a platform that enabled people to re-sell their old iTunes tracks. ReDigi said its platform scanned users' hard drives for proof that consumers' music was acquired legally and then transferred tracks to the cloud while simultaneously deleting them from the original users' hard drives.

Capitol Records sued ReDigi for copyright infringement soon after its November 2011 launch. The record company argued that consumers weren't selling the same works that they purchased, but copies they uploaded to the cloud. That model is illegal, Capitol said, because only the copyright owner has the right to make copies.

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Capitol added that even if the tracks are removed from people's hard drives, users may have kept copies of the files on other devices.

For its part, ReDigi argued its business model was protected by the "first sale" concept, which gives consumers the right to resell products they legally purchased.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Sullivan in New York sided with Capitol. Sullivan said in his ruling that the first sale doctrine only applies to "material items" and not digital files.

"ReDigi is not distributing such material items; rather, it is distributing reproductions of the copyrighted code," Sullivan wrote. "The first sale defense does not cover this any more than it covered the sale of cassette recordings of vinyl records in a bygone era."

ReDigi stipulated that it would pay Capitol $3.5 million in damages, but also appealed the underlying copyright infringement finding to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.

Among other arguments, ReDigi says that Sullivan's ruling leaves consumers without the ability to re-sell digital music, short of selling their hard drives or other physical equipment.

"One does not need an advanced degree in economics to realize that no secondary market for previously purchased iTunes music files can ever develop if consumers are required to give away their computer hard disks as part of any resale," the company argues.

ReDigi also says its service is protected by fair use principles. "Even if this court concludes that ReDigi's technology infringes any of Capitol's rights, ReDigi respectfully submits that such infringements are permitted under the fair use doctrine because they further the public interest by extending reasonable first sale protection to all lawful owners of copyrighted iTunes music files."

Outside groups, including the American Library Association, are expected to soon file friend-of-the-court briefs siding with ReDigi. Capitol hasn't yet responded to ReDigi's appeal.
by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, February 9, 2017

On the heels of another strong earnings report, Facebook has more good news: FB Lite has surpassed 200 million active users.

The social giant debuted the low bandwidth version of its app in 2015 to expand its network beyond those consumers with access to high-speed broadband networks.

Lite has also proven to be a boon to small businesses, according to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.

FB Lite is helping business owners grow and reach customers on mobile even when bandwidth is at a minimum, Sandberg said in a new post.

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International expansion is clearly part of Facebooks long-term business strategy, but such efforts have not been easy. For instance, following a string of negative news from India, Kirthiga Reddy stepped down as Facebooks regional managing director last year.

Earlier in the year, Indian telecom regulators decided to block Facebooks Free Basics Web service as part of a ruling in favor of Net neutrality.

The move made good on a threat issued by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India -- an independent regulator of the countrys telecom industry -- in late 2015.

Meanwhile, in late 2015, Egyptian authorities also pulled the plug on the free Internet service for reasons that they never fully articulated.
by Ray Schultz , Columnist, February 9, 2017

An email pops up in your inbox, saying you have a date in court. And it uses your first name. Pretty alarming, no? Not to worry  courts dont communicate that way. Its a scam  a variant of one that apparently has spread from Australia and the UK. But the purpose isnt to bilk you out of money  its to steal your identity and get you to click on malicious links.

Welcome to the new spam, a phenomenon that threatens consumers and companies alike. Such schemes have long existed, but they are now more insidious, thanks to improved technology and the boundless creativity of the perpetrators.

For example, the Internal Revenue Service warned this week that thousands of taxpayers W-2 records have been compromised.

This particular scam, sometimes referred to as business email spoofing (BES), reportedly first appeared last year, said the IRS, PYMNTS.com reports. Cybercriminals send emails to employees in payroll and human resources (HR) using slightly modified email addresses to make it appear as if the emails are coming from an organization executive, said the IRS. The email requests a list of all employees and their W-2 forms.

PYMNTS.com continues that the scam has evolved beyond affecting just the corporate world and has spread to other sectors, including school districts, the health care sector, temp agencies and nonprofits, among others.

It used to be that fraud artists rented an email suckers list: Many still do. But its expensive, and not as reliable as it once was. Anyway, why risk the liability to both sender and vendor? There are better ways.

Take the snowshoe spamming allegedly conducted by Michael A. Persaud. Persaud was indicted on federal charges this week, according to Krebs on Security.

The Justice Department says Persaud sent well over a million spam emails to recipients in the United States and abroad, Krebs on Security writes. Prosecutors charge that Persaud often used false names to register the domains, and he created fraudulent From: address fields to conceal that he was the true sender of the emails. The government also accuses Persaud of illegally transferring and selling millions of email addresses for the purpose of transmitting spam.

It gets worse.ZDNet reported yesterday that spammers can spoof Gmail accounts, and that Gmail cant stop them. Renato Marinho, a researcher from Brazilian security firm Morphus Labs, claims that Gmail doesn't filter or indeed even warn users about dodgy messages from a spoofed @gmail.com address, according to ZDNet. That is, the email appears to have come from a Gmail account, but actually came from a non-Gmail server. It's not hard to imagine the fun that hackers and spammers could have with this behavior.

The solution? Stronger cybersecurity at companies and institutions of all kinds  to protect customers, employees, and everyone.
Multiple sclerosis, or MS, is a condition that affects the central nervous system and changes the way that the nerves work. Many aspects of MS remain a mystery. This article covers five things we do know about this condition. Almost 1 million people in the United States have multiple sclerosis (MS), according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. However, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) suggest that the number may be closer to 250,000350,000 , noting that it is difficult to know the exact figure. This article looks at five important facts that people should know about MS.

1. The cause is unknown Share on Pinterest MS is more likely to appear in women aged 2040 years than in other age groups. Many scientists believe that MS is an autoimmune disease, which develops when the immune system attacks its own healthy tissues. In MS, the body attacks myelin, which is the fatty substance that acts as a protective cover to nerve fibers. This disrupts communication between the brain and the rest of the body. Doctors do not know why the immune system attacks myelin, but they believe the following factors may increase the risk: having a family history of MS

having a history of other autoimmune conditions

having had certain viral infections

smoking

being 2040 years old

being female

living in a temperate climate away from the equator Also, people with MS often have low vitamin D levels. Recent studies suggest there is also a moderate to high risk prevalence of MS in the regions of North African and the Middle East. A person may have a genetic feature that makes them more likely to develop MS, but they may need exposure to an environmental factor to trigger it.

2. Symptoms can range in severity In MS, the communication problems between the brain and body can lead to major damage to the nerves. Symptoms can range from mild, which may be inconvenient and annoying, to debilitating. However, 2 in 3 people with MS will not lose the ability to walk, and the condition is rarely life-threatening. In fact, life expectancy with MS has increased over recent years, according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. This is due to emerging therapies and scientists having a better understanding of the condition. Some of the most common symptoms of MS include: tiredness

weakness

pain, tingling, and numbness

stiffness

muscle spasms

difficulty walking or balancing

vertigo and dizziness

problems with thinking and memory

changes in vision and hearing In this article, learn more about brain fog, which can cause a person with MS to feel unable to think clearly. MS can also lead to: bladder and bowel problems

sexual dysfunction

tremor

difficulties with speech and swallowing

mood changes and depression

anxiety The symptoms and progression rate of MS vary from person to person. For example, some symptoms may not be noticeable in the early stages of MS. Also, some people never develop all the symptoms, whereas others will experience severe symptoms that impact their quality of life. Symptoms fluctuate and can be hard to predict. They can also worsen over time. In relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS), a person will experience a worsening of symptoms for a while, or a flare, followed by a period of partial or complete recovery. However, the lesions that cause the problems remain, so the symptoms will usually return. In progressive forms of MS, the symptoms gradually worsen, without any periods of significant recovery. In some aggressive forms of progressive MS, symptoms worsen quickly, and the condition can be life-threatening. However, this is also rare. Advanced MS can involve paralysis, but most people will not experience this. In this article, learn more about late-stage MS and how to manage it. Coping with fatigue David Bexfield, who received a diagnosis of MS in 2006, started a group called ActiveMSers. He told Medical News Today that people with MS should pay attention to their bodies and do what helps them feel good. Thankfully, I dont have many bad days, he said. Daily exercise has helped keep my fatigue in check, one of the most debilitating symptoms of this disease. Few people understand how MS fatigue can be utterly pancaking. Imagine pulling an all-nighter, make that three of them in a row, and then running a marathon. Backwards. On stilts. While juggling chainsaws. Once you get that in your mind, realize thats not even close to what it feels like. When MS fatigue hits, everything is exhausting: reading, thinking, even listening. And lying down to take a nap doesnt help. Bexfields other piece of advice was to get help when possible: Check your ego at the door. Handicap parking placards, walking aids, protective undergarments  Ive used them all. Theyve helped take me down the street, onto the hiking trail, and around the globe. Take advantage of the helpful tools available to you.

3. It can be difficult to diagnose Share on Pinterest An MRI may reveal damage that results from MS. Diagnosing MS can be challenging because many of its symptoms overlap with those of other conditions. This means that it can take time for a doctor to reach a diagnosis. They will review a persons medical history and perform a physical examination. Then, they may recommend the following tests to help reach a diagnosis, including ruling out other conditions: blood tests, to rule out other conditions

lumbar puncture, to test cerebrospinal fluid for antibodies that may suggest an autoimmune condition

MRI scans, which can detect lesions on the brain or spinal cord

an evoked potential test, which measures how well messages travel through the nervous system June Halper, a nurse practitioner and the CEO of the Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers, told MNT: Advances in MS management focus both on disease modification as well as symptomatic management. While treatment regimens have become more complex and more challenging to the person with MS, there is now a clear message of hope for the future June Halper Getting an early diagnosis can improve the chances that treatment with disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) can slow the progression of MS. Current guidelines recommend that doctors discuss suitable DMTs with the individual as soon as possible after a diagnosis.

4. It affects more women than men More than twice as many women develop MS as men, according to the NINDS. However, experts do not know why. Symptoms usually appear between the ages of 20 and 40, but MS can develop at any age. At this age, women with MS can experience complications with their sexual and reproductive health, especially during pregnancy. Medical student Jen Finelli described working with a female who had MS and her unique struggles while preparing to get pregnant: We had a sweet, sweet patient on one of my rotations who had MS attacks so severe she went blind, and she was concerned when she became pregnant, because she needed her medications to prevent these horrible attacks. She told us that shed quit her medications to protect her baby if she had to! Thankfully, [that patient] didnt have to make that sacrifice, she added, but because of the autoimmune nature of the disease, patients must verify their medications with their ob-gyn and their MS specialist before becoming pregnant. Learn more about how MS can affect women.
Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a desktop diagnosis tool that detects the presence of harmful bacteria in a blood sample in a matter of hours instead of days. The breakthrough was made possible by a combination of proprietary chemistry, innovative electrical engineering and high-end imaging and analysis techniques powered by machine learning. The team details their work in Scientific Reports.

To identify low levels of harmful bacteria among a large number of human blood cells, researchers for the first time melted bacterial DNA in 20,000 extremely small simultaneous reactions. Each reaction contained only 20 picoliters - a scale that is hard to picture: one drop of rain contains hundreds of thousands of picoliters.

Each type of DNA has a specific signature as it comes apart during melting. As the melting process is imaged and analyzed, researchers can use machine learning to determine which types of DNA appear in blood samples. During experiments, the system accurately identified, 99 percent of the time, DNA sequences from bacteria causing food-borne illnesses and pneumonia - in less than four hours.

"Analyzing this many reactions at the same time at this small a scale had never been attempted before," said Stephanie Fraley, a professor of bioengineering at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego and the paper's lead author. "Most molecular tests look at DNA on a much larger scale and look for just one type of bacteria at a time. We analyze all the bacteria in a sample. This is a much more holistic approach."

Current methods used to detect and identify bacteria rely on cultures, which can take days. That is too long to provide physicians with an effective and timely diagnosis tool - as anyone who has been prescribed antibiotics while waiting for test results knows.

"We are driven by clinical needs," Fraley said.

She brought together a team of bioengineers, clinicians, electrical engineers and computer scientists to develop a faster diagnosis system.

How it works

It all starts with one milliliter of blood, which researchers inoculated with Listeria monocytogenes, a food-borne bacterium that causes about 260 deaths a year in the United States, and Streptococcus pneumoniae, which causes everything from sinus infections, to pneumonia, to meningitis.

Researchers isolated all DNA from the blood sample. The DNA was then placed on a digital chip that allowed each piece to independently multiply in its own small reaction. For the process to work at such small scales - each well containing DNA in the chip was only 20 picoliters in volume - researchers used a proprietary mix of chemicals subject to a provisional patent.

The chip with the amplified DNA was placed in an innovative high-throughput microscope that Fraley and her team designed. The DNA was then heated in increments of 0.2 degrees Celsius, causing it to melt at temperatures between 50 to 90 degrees Celsius -about 120 to 190 degrees Fahrenheit.

As the DNA double-helix melts, the bonds holding together the DNA strands break. Depending on the DNA's sequence, the bonds have different strengths and that changes the way the strands unwind from each other. This creates a unique sequence-dependent fingerprint, which researchers can detect using a special dye. The dye causes the unwinding process to give off fluorescent light, creating what researchers call a melting curve - a unique signature for each type of bacteria.

When engineers imaged the melting process with the high-throughput microscope, they were able to capture the bacteria's melting curves. They then analyzed the curves with a machine learning algorithm they developed.

In previous work, the algorithm was trained on 37 different types of bacteria undergoing different reactions in different conditions. The researchers showed that it was able to identify bacteria strains with 99 percent accuracy. By contrast, the error rate for traditional methods can be up to 22.6 percent.

Next steps

Next steps include shrinking the size of the system so that it can be more easily deployed in clinics and physicians' offices. Researchers also want to add to the system the capability to detect fungal and viral pathogens, as well as genes for antibiotic resistance. They also want to further validate their results on patient samples.

Fraley hopes the system will be available to physicians in the next five years.

"This has the potential to reach people near or at the point of care," she said. "With further improvements, it could also be deployed in low-resources settings. It's a simple and innovative approach."

In addition to Fraley, authors are: Daniel Velez Ortiz, Hannah Mack, Julietta Jupe, Sinead Hawker and Yang Zhang, graduate students in the Department of Bioengineering at UC San Diego; Ninad Kulkarni and Behnam Hedayatnia, from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC San Diego; and Dr. Shelley Lawrence, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the UC San Diego School of Medicine and Rady Children's Hospital of San Diego.

The research was supported by a UC San Diego Clinical and Translational Research Institute Pilot Grant, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface and the UC San Diego Frontiers of Innovation Scholars Program.
ROCKLEDGE, Fla.

Feb. 9, 2017

Tina Aldrich

Tina Aldrich

Orlando's

Gaylord Palms

Garret Leather

Tina Aldrich

Ryan Medico

Tina Aldrich

Tina Aldrich

Tina Aldrich

/PRNewswire/ -- Elev8 Brands, Inc. (OTC Pink: VATE) a company with a new premium hemp seed coffee blend, that also plans to bring to market hemp water products and supplements, all of which will focus on the health and fitness markets, announces it has entered into an acquisition agreement with 02 Breathe, LLC, a Florida Limited Liability Company. As part of the Transaction Elev8 Brands, Inc. acquired all of the membership interest in 02 Breathe, LLC and Ms.has become the new Marketing Manager of Elev8 Brands, Inc.02 Breathe, LLC was founded byin 2010 asfirst mobile oxygen bar. Since then she's expanded the business to cover many large festivals, concerts, and other events around the state of Florida. 02 Breathe has serviced trade shows and private events for major clients such as Kaspersky,, House of Blues, Hard Rock,, Papa John's, Merritage Homes, Salix Pharmaceuticals, Symantec, and more.In 2015, Ms. Aldrich opened a small shop to coincide the various locations the oxygen bars are found and to expand the product lines that her health-conscious following was looking for. At the shop, you'll be able to find numerous products in the health, beauty, and wellness industry ranging from aromatherapy inhalers to a full line of massagers. As the demand for CBD and hemp based products began to grow, Ms. Aldrich introduced her following to the health benefits of hemp and CBD through various oils in late 2015.Elev8 Brands, Inc. is in the process of finding the right individuals to bring on to its management team. As both companies share the same passion for life and health,has accepted a position as the Marketing Manager for Elev8 Brands, Inc."We are beyond excited to acquire 02 Breathe, LLC and diversify our company," stated, CEO of Elev8 Brands, Inc. "We are going to be aggressive in our continued pursuit of acquisitions that help add tremendous value to our Company. I am also thrilled to announce Ms. Aldrich will be joining our Management Team, bringing over 10 years of experience with her. She will be an invaluable asset to Elev8 Brands.""I am so happy to join the Elev8 Brands Team," stated, Marketing Manager of Elev8 Brands, Inc. "Our paths crossed at the perfect time. Everything just fell into place. I had just looked at three locations with more space to open a coffee shop when Ryan approached me about his company. I couldn't be more excited about how parallel our brands are. It just makes sense to do business together."The Company would also like to announce that its revolutionary hemp coffee made with high-quality South American sourced coffee beans, has been shipped to Elev8 Brands warehouse and will soon be available for sale on Amazon.com.About Ms.is the founder of 02 Breathe, LLC, a company that brings the health and wellness industry to the next level through mobile oxygen bars, aromatherapy inhalers, CBD oils, and now a premium hemp coffee.Before developing 02 Breathe, Tina spent over 10 years developing skills in sales and marketing, management, event planning, and consulting. From engaging audiences of thousands, to gorilla marketing, Tina has successfully done it all.Please visit, www.elev8hemp.com for more informationSafe Harbor Statement:The information posted in this release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You can identify these statements by use of the words "may," "will," "should," "plans," "expects," "anticipates," "continue," "estimate," "project," "intend," and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, general economic and business conditions, effects of continued geopolitical unrest and regional conflicts, competition, changes in technology and methods of marketing, delays in completing various engineering and manufacturing programs, changes in customer order patterns, changes in product mix, continued success in technological advances and delivering technological innovations, shortages in components, production delays due to performance quality issues with outsourced components, and various other factors beyond the Company's control.

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/elev8-brands-inc-acquires-02-breathe-llc-300404959.html



SOURCE Elev8 Brands, Inc.




LINDON, Utah

February 9, 2017

/PRNewswire/ --

(FVRG), a leader in the direct marketing industry and provider of unique health-centered products, announced today it recently completed a successful European tour that focused on the company's newly launched product, Prodigy-5. The tour also resulted in increased new membership growth in the European market. The tour consisted of five countries ForeverGreen Worldwide Corporation including France, Germany, Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland.



Ron Williams

North America

Australia

Europe

Asia

Africa

South America

North America

Craig Smith

"The European Prodigy-5 Tour was a great success," commented ForeverGreen CEO,. "The event attendance and positive response from new and current members during the tour stops are great indicators for a stronger 2017. After sitting down with our top leaders in the European Union, it is evident that the FGX Model will play a big part in our future success."The company has previously announced it will consolidate other products into this global model in order to drive sales, beginning with Frequensea Pro from a bottled format to a powdered format.For more information on ForeverGreen's products, visit http://www.forevergreen.org.ForeverGreen Worldwide Corporation develops, manufactures and distributes an expansive line of all natural whole foods and products toand, including their new global Xpress offering Prodigy-5. Additional products include PowerStrips, SolarStrips and BeautyStrips. They also offer theirweight-management line Ketopia, along with FrequenSea, a whole-food beverage with industry exclusive marine phytoplankton, immune support and weight management products, and Pulse-8 powdered L-arginine formula.Forward-Looking StatementThis press release contains certain forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that certain statements in this release are "forward-looking statements" and involve both known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors. Such uncertainties include, among others, certain risks associated with the operation of the company described above. The company's actual results could differ materially from expected results.Contact: ForeverGreen Worldwide Corporation, +1-801-655-5500 craig@forevergreen.orgorBrokers and Analysts: Chesapeake Group +1-410-825-3930 info@chesapeakegp.comSOURCE ForeverGreen Worldwide Corporation
WASHINGTON

Feb. 9, 2017

Brazil

Steven R. Goodman

/PRNewswire/ -- An article published in(Volume 242, Issue 3, February, 2017) identifies microRNAs (miRNAs) as key factors in some hemoglobinopathies, genetic disorders characterized by alterations in the level or structure of the globin proteins that are responsible for oxygen transport in the blood. The study, led by Dr. Thais Fornari, from the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Campinas indemonstrated that differential expression of miRNAs may be responsible for the variations in globin gene expression observed in patients with two hemoglobinopathies: hereditary persistence of fetal hemoglobin deletion type 2 (HPFH-2) and Sicilian-??thalassemia.HPFH-2 and Sicilian-??thalassemia are conditions described as large deletions of the human ?-like globin cluster, with no ?-globin expression and compensatory increases in ?-globin expression. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that participate in a wide range of biological processes including erythropoiesis. miRNAs silence the expression of other genes by binding to their mRNAs, and blocking protein synthesis and/or initiating mRNA degradation. Transcription factors such as BCL11A and SOX6, which regulate ?-globin gene expression, are potential targets for several microRNAs based onanalysis. Thus, novel miRNA-mediated pathways may explain the differences in the expressions of ?-globin in Sicilian ??thalassemia and HPFH-2.In the current study, Dr. Fornari and colleagues compared the miRNA profiles of erythroid cells derived from individuals heterozygous for HPFH-2 and Sicilian-??thalassemia. Forty-nine differentially expressed miRNAs that may participate in ?-globin gene regulation and red blood cell function were identified. Twelve of these miRNAs potentially targeted the BCL11A gene, and down-regulation of BCL11A gene expression in HPFH-2 was verified by qPCR. This research suggests an important action of miRNAs in the regulation of globin expression in patients. Fornari said that these findings "may partially explain the phenotypic differences between HPFH-2 and Sicilian ??-thalassemia and the variable increases in ?-globin gene expression in these conditions. Moreover, these data support erythroid BCL11A as a therapeutic target for sickle cell disease and ?-thalassemia major patients."Dr., Editor-in-Chief of, said, "Fornari and colleagues provide further evidence for the role of miRNA networks in the regulation of fetal hemoglobin expression, via altered expression of BCL11A and SOX6. These studies are important when considering these transcription factors as potential therapeutic targets".is a journal dedicated to the publication of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research in the biomedical sciences. The journal was first established in 1903.is the journal of the Society of Experimental Biology and Medicine. To learn about the benefits of society membership visit www.sebm.org. If you are interested in publishing in the journal, please visit http://ebm.sagepub.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/mirna-modulators-of-transcription-factor-targets-potential-treatments-for-hemoglobinopathies-300404756.html



SOURCE Experimental Biology and Medicine




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That all nations and all cultures recognize human trafficking for the purpose of organ removal and organ trafficking, which include the use of organs from executed prisoners and payments to donors or the next of kin of deceased donors, as crimes that should be condemned worldwide and legally prosecuted at the national and international level. That religious leaders encourage ethical organ donation and condemn human trafficking for the purpose of organ removal and organ trafficking. That nations provide the resources to achieve self-sufficiency in organ donation at a national levelwith regional cooperation as appropriateby reducing the need for transplants through preventive measures and improving access to national transplant programs in an ethical and regulated manner. That governments establish a legal framework that provides an explicit basis for the prevention and prosecution of transplant related crimes, and protects the victims, regardless of the location where the crimes may have been committed, for example by becoming a Party to the Council of Europe Convention against Organ Trafficking. That healthcare professionals perform an ethical and medical review of donors and recipients that takes account of their short- and long-term outcomes. That governments establish registries of all organ procurement and transplants performed within their jurisdiction as well as all transplants involving their citizens and residents performed in another jurisdiction, and share appropriate data with international databanks. That governments develop a legal framework for healthcare and other professionals to communicate information about suspected cases of transplant-related crimes, while respecting their professional obligations to patients. That responsible authorities, with the support of the justice system, investigate transplants that are suspected of involving a crime committed within their jurisdiction or committed by their citizens or residents in another jurisdiction. That responsible authorities, insurance providers, and charities not cover the costs of transplant procedures that involve human trafficking for the purpose of organ removal or organ trafficking. That healthcare professional organizations involved in transplantation promote among their members awareness of, and compliance with, legal instruments and international guidelines against organ trafficking and human trafficking for the purpose of organ removal. That the World Health Organization, the Council of Europe, United Nations agencies, including the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and other international bodies cooperate in enabling a comprehensive collection of information on transplant-related crimes, to yield a clearer understanding of their nature and scope and of the organization of the criminal networks involved.

The Pontifical Academy of Sciences collaborated with many international organisations and on the 7-8 February 2017, organised the 'Summit on Organ Trafficking' at the Casina Pio IV, the headquarters of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences at the Vatican.Chancellor Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo chaired the meeting that was conducted by Dr. Francis Delmonico, past president of 'The Transplantation Society' and a renowned world leader in the field of transplantation. Seventy five leaders representing over 60 countries were invited to the summit.The gathered leaders deliberated about the problem of organ trafficking and possible solution for almost two days. The consensus statement was prepared after much discussion and with the approval of the Chancellor of the AcademyThe following statement of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences Summit on Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism was issued -We, the undersigned participants of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences Summit on Organ Trafficking, resolve to combat these crimes against humanity through comprehensive efforts that involve all stakeholders around the world.The following recommendations from the PAS Summit on Organ Trafficking are proposed to national, regional and municipal governments, ministries of health, to the judiciary, to the leaders of the major religions, to professional medical organizations, and to the general public for implementation around the world:This consensus statement was signed by all the seventy five world leaders including the two from China.Dr.Jiefu Huang, Chairman of National Organ Donation & Transplantation Committee from China assured the gathered leaders that the practise of organs from executed prisoners was stopped and statement such as this from the international community would help them further strengthen their programme and keep it ethical. Last year China became the second largest programme for deceased donation in the world after the USA.India was represented by Dr. Sunil Shroff, President of Nephrology, Urology & Transplantation Society of SAARC, Vice President of Indian Society of Organ Transplantation and Managing Trustee, MOHAN Foundation and Dr.Sandeep Guleria, Senior Transplant Surgeon from Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, Delhi. Dr.Guleria gave the Indian perspective of the organ donation programme and Dr.Shroff spoke about 'Why does organ commerce take place in India despite a stringent law'.Countries in conflict and without domestic stability can become the locations of transplant-related crimes. Jeffrey Sachs rightly wrote thatSource: Medindia
Primary Prevention of HIV

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Four Prong Strategies of WHO

Primary prevention of HIV among women who are in the childbearing age

Prevention of unintended pregnancies among women with HIV

Prevention of transmission from an HIV-positive mother to her child

Provision of necessary therapy and care for mother and child with HIV

Initiatives Carried out in Thailand

Encouraging people to use condoms- 100% condom program encouraged all male patrons of commercial sex workers to use condoms. This was a critical step in lowering HIV risk among women in childbearing age

Disbursing information about risk of transmission

Introduction of HIV testing during pregnancy and after delivery

Thailand's National AIDS policy being transferred to the Office of the Prime Minister from the Ministry of Public Health in 1991 and

The Government expenditure for the HIV/AIDS programme increasing from US$684,000(1988) to US$82 million(1997)

Antenatal Care

A voluntary HIV test is routinely conducted with the results provided on the same day.

The patients can also re-test to ensure that mothers have remained HIV negative.

Among women who test positive for HIV, anti-retroviral drugs are provided.

Policies undertaken by the government of permitting production of low-cost generic drugs have resulted in these drugs being more affordable.

Extensive counseling about the use of contraceptives is given to women of childbearing age who are at a risk of being infected with HIV.

The primary method of prevention of HIV transmission to infants would be to prevent unintended pregnancies, provide easy access to testing, ensure adequate counseling, and utilize infant feeding practices that are low in risk as well as practice safe delivery methods.Mothers should be counseled about consuming antiretroviral drugs which would prevent transmission to the infants and lower the risk of infant mortality.The concerted efforts by the WHO has lowered mother to child transmission rates fromtoThe focus of the WHO strategy involvesThe initiatives that were carried out in Thailand includeThese initiatives were successful and were supported by strong government policies which includedThere is a lot of focus on antenatal care in Thailand which has supported the prevention of transmission from the mother to the child.Dr. Usa Thisyakorn who is the lead author of the study and a Professor of Chulalongkorn University, said that Thailand had achieved WHO elimination of transmission of HIV from the mother to the child. The author further reiterates that there were a lot of lessons that were learnt during the process of preventing transmission from the mother to the child. There is a need to protect children from harm and to ensure that they have a healthy childhood which will form an ideal foundation for adulthood, as children will soon constitute the next generation.The aim of the governing bodies is not only to prevent transmission to the infant but to also keep the mother alive so that the child enjoys the care and support of the mother. Efforts are thus being focused on providing the necessary treatment and care to support a healthy pregnancy and prevent transmission.The success of the policies that were undertaken by the Government of Thailand will encourage other Asian countries to emulate the steps taken, to protect the health and interest of infants thus ensuring a healthier generation.Source: Medindia
Gurgaon and Bengaluru are in for a treat this March as Dire Straits Experience, formed by 2 former members (Chris White and Chris Whitten) of the legendary British band Dire Straits, is making their way to India for the first time ever. Playing in Gurgaon on 17th March and in Bengaluru on 19th March, the band will be supporting the cause of clean drinking water in many villages of Rajasthan.

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Even though Mark Knopfler exited the iconic rock band Dire Straits, that was an essential part of the 80s music scene with hits like Romeo & Juliet, Sultan of Swings and Tunnel of Love, in 1995, this upcoming concert will see two former members perform in India for the first time with their band. Nonetheless, this is still exciting news and a concert you definitely cannot miss.

 Dire Straits Experience

Even though you would have to wait a couple more days to get your hands on the tickets on Book My Show, it really is worth it as the concert is also for a good cause. A part of the ticket proceeds would be utilized in building water conservation structures in around seven villages in Rajasthan to provide clean drinking water, better sanitation and improved irrigation for the people.

An amazing concert with an even better cause. Well, see you there!
Before I start, Id like to take a moment to really count my blessings; for being blessed with a profession that lets me do what I love doing bestexploring music, artists and festivals across the country and the world. There is no self discovery like the kind music gives to you and through my work and my journey, Ive been lucky to have experienced and witnessed some of the best musicians in our country and the more legendary ones from outside create and produce music that united the world and every soul, in one way or another. How often do you find something that does that in the kind of world that we live in?

 GoSupersonic

And its because of this exposure that I have had, through my own journey without any external help, that I can sit and write this to all of you who are reading this. And if youre anything like me, then I can vouch for the fact that youre going to be headed to Pune this weekend for one of the most awaited homegrown festivals in the countryVh1 Supersonic. Its every ardent Indian Dance music fans bucket list goal to watch the legendary Eric Prydz perform on Indian soil and its finally coming true. Not to forget, youve got Macklemore and Zedd to look forward to. Youre probably already counting down the hours to the event.

But, whats your itinerary for the remainder of the artists that take the stages before our three headliners do? Heres who Ill be watching out for and you should, too.

1. Boris Brejcha

 Boris Brejcha

Born in 1981, Brejchas childhood shaped his career as an electronic dance music artist; learning to play the drums as well as the keyboard for as long as he could remember. In 2007, electronic music magazine, Raveline named him as the "exceptional Talent 2007". In 2012, the artist created a whole new genre, title high tech minimal which has been his forte ever since. The music is a combination of minimal and electro. The main features are a pumping bass foundation, driving percussion elements, crazy sound effects, melodies and unexpected turns in the arrangement.

2. Aly & Fila

 Ministry of Sound

Aly El Sayed Amr Fathalah (a.k.a. Aly) and Fadi Wassef Naguib (a.k.a. Fila) are an Egyptian trance music duo who host Future Sound of Egypt, a radio show dedicated to trance music; they are also founders of the Armada label of the same name. From Ultra Music Festival, Tomorrowland to Global Gathering, there isnt a music festival that Aly & Fila have not played at. Their 2011 track, We Control The Sunlight, earned them the title of the Tune of The Year on Armin Van Buurens show, A State Of Trance.

3. Protoculture

 Protoculture

South African DJ and Producer, Nate Raubenheimer, also known as Protoculture has been creating what Armin Van Buuren would probably call Gold for the past 12 years and hes made a name and a niche for himself that remains untouchable. Nate studied music professionally after completing his studies in Audio Engineering at age 20, immediately taking the international psy-trance scene by storm. He debuted at the Glastonbury Festival in UK and released his first album, Refractions to an audience that was craving for more. He has mixed music for well known names, like Armin van Buuren, Markus Schulz, Paul Oakenfold, Bryan Adams, Dash Berlin, Robert Miles, Jeanne Michelle Jarre and Nadia Ali.

4. B.R.E.E.D

 Facebook

An avant-garde music duo from Los Angeles, B.R.E.E.D comprises of Ritesh D'Souza, producer/composer and two-time DMC (India) champion, and Tara Mae, vocalist/composer and classically-trained pianist. They started out in India and quickly established themselves as an extremely exciting electronic act, and were even named "bass ambassadors" on Mista Jam's BBC Radio show. Along with their amazing sound, they fuse high fashion with their unique animal mask branding.

5. Oceantied

 Facebook

The solo electronic project started by Ketan Bahirat, guitarist at Until We Last, Oceantied explores Ketans music headspace with ambient, dancey and upbeat music that explores two main sides of the spectrum with downtempo tracks, alongside fast-paced footwork & jungle music.

6. Vinayak^a

 Facebook

Hailing from the small town of Jamshedpur, this talented artist can turn any setting into a boiler room, dancefloor or club, depending on what youre feeling. Hes performed for some of the most sought after indie dance music festivals in the country, like Go:Madras and is a regular in the dance music scene. Based out of Bangalore, his music is a mix of Experimental, House, Deep and Space and he draws inspiration from the likes of Pink Floyd.

7. Tuhin Mehta

 Ashish Parmar Photography

Tuhin is a qualified sound engineer from SAE, Chennai, further to which he has served as the international ambassador at the Berklee College of Music. He remains one of the most seasoned and versatile guys on the scene. He is easily one of the few who literally pioneered quality homegrown dance music in the country, about two decades ago. He has remained a strong name ever since.

8. Sickflip

 Facebook

An electronica solo project brought to life by Sarvesh Shrivastava - a music composer, producer and performer from Mumbai, India, Sickflip brings an indefinable mix of serene melodic vibes and atmospheres to contrasting bass-heavy, chest-rattling festivals. Sarvesh has released music on record labels like High Chai Records (US), Rub A Duck recordings (Netherlands), Plain Dope records (UK) & Sony Music (India) and has performed at the major homegrown festivals, like Sunburn Festival, Enchanted Valley Carnival, Vasundhara Festival & NH7 Weekender.

9. Praveen Achary

 Avirat Anuj Sundra

Very few musicians can be as effective through their musicality diversity & unpredictability and still be well recognized & respected. One of them I Praveen Achary, who has, singlehandedly produced a number of chart topping productions on heavyweight international record labels, thrown in DJ sets that have resonated across the nation. He has performed at festivals around the nation, the like, Sunburn, Submerge Supernova, Above & Beyond's Radio - Group Therapy, Krank and Go:Madras.

10. Ash Roy

 Facebook

He has had an illustrious 17-year career that has seen him perform in Germany, USA, India, Sweden, Netherlands, Canada, Malaysia, Singapore, Dubai, Denmark, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bahrain, to name a few. He, along with friends, founded the fantastic electronica band Jalebee Cartel, which gained massive popularity globally, in 2004 and launched his own dance music record label - Soupherb Records, in 2013. His music ranges from minimal to tech-house to techno and has played alongside headliners like The Chemical Brothers, Modeselektor and Carl Cox, to name a few.
Anyone would love to stay in Canada, or that is what is generally perceived. Great country, amazing infrastructure, advanced constitution but above all, a liberal team of leaders (read Justin Trudeau) are reasons galore. However, when our music maestro AR Rahman was offered a Canadian citizenship by a mayor, he politely refused because for him, home is Tamil Nadu.

Rahman was recently in Toronto for a concert when this happened. He already has a street named after him in Ontario.

 Twitter

He extended a warm invite to the mayor and asked him to visit his music conservatory in Chennai, hinting at future musical collaborations between the two countries. The music legend has never forgotten his roots ,and his international fame has always kept him humble.
Just when you thought Samsungs troubles related to battery issues were over, a literal fire broke out at one of the companys battery suppliers in Tianjin, China. Samsung has been going through a horrible time due to the Galaxy Note 7 crisis and it seems like it wont be over anytime soon.

Reuters reports that there was a minor fire at the factory, which can reflect really bad for Samsung due to their recent history with battery woes. It was reported that Samsung might have suffered a loss of $5.3 billion in profits due to the faulty Galaxy Note 7 phones. The apparent reason for the fire at the factory was due to discarded faulty batteries.

 Weibo

Samsung SDI, the culprit behind the fire at the factory, manufactured these faulty batteries. These discarded factories were in the garbage, which immediately caused the fire, however, it is unknown whether these batteries were related to the Galaxy Note 7 crisis.

The local fire department stated, Material that caught fire was lithium batteries inside the production workshops and some half-finished products. However, a Weibo post by the Tianjin fire department which is now taken down, stated that the fire started due to lithium batteries in the production.

We sincerely hope that these half-finished products were not the much-awaited Galaxy S8 as it would add even more worry to their woes as they have suffered enough pain, thanks to the Galaxy Note 7 debacle. So far no casualties have been reported.
Workers install solar panels at a photovoltaic power station in Weining, Guizhou province. [Photo provided to China Daily]

BRUSSELS - The European Commission on Wednesday proposed an extension of import duties on solar panels from China by 18 months with a gradual phase-out, Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans said on Wednesday.

Timmermans told a news conference that the decision was made after taking into account the different interests at stake, including member state opinions.

"Solar energy is essential for our environmental and climate goals, that is why the College today took the time for a careful and thorough weighing of the options," he said.

"The phase-out is also meant to make sure that producers of solar panels in the European Union have the time to adapt to the new situation. The precise conditions are something that will be up for debate, also with member states now," Timmermans added.

Those anti-dumping and anti-subsidy measures on Chinese solar products have been in place since 2013 and are currently under review as to whether they should be maintained.

Eighteen of EU member states last month opposed a proposed two-year extension.

This proposal will be sent to member states for further discussion and the case is expected to be settled in early March.
A Taohuawu New Year woodcut print of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) on display at a Taohuawu nianhua exhibition held in Suzhou, Jiangsu province in November. [Photo/Xinhua]

Elderly craftsmen fear for future of their art, a part of China's intangible cultural heritage that is fast disappearing Spring Festival is supposed to be a joyous occasion, but it has left Fang Zhida, 83, anxious. Days before the Lunar New Year, he locked himself in his studio to focus on an ancient folk art.

Taohuawu New Year woodcut prints, or nianhua, are a type of traditional art that people put on their doors to ward off evil and express good wishes for Chinese New Year.

But in recent years, business has been poor, leaving Fang worried that his beloved craft may eventually die out.

The craft was born on Taohuawu street in Suzhou, Jiangsu province.

It involves a craftsman drawing a sketch on a piece of paper before carving it on to a set of boards and painting it. The print is complete once the boards are pressed onto a piece of paper or other surface.

The art, which dates back more than 350 years, was added to China's intangible cultural heritage list in 2006.

Fang began learning nianhua at age 14, and describes it as the love of his life.

Since 2004, he has been teaching the traditional printing technique at the Taohuawu Woodcut New Year Print Society. Four students are chosen every two years, with 28 students graduating so far.

"It is important that we introduce the art to the young and pass it down," he said.

From painting to woodcutting and printing, it can take as little as a week or as long as a year to finish a single piece, and if any mistakes are made then the whole thing must be redone from scratch.
In Brussels today, Alternate Foreign Minister G. Katrougalos briefed Greek MEPs on Greece's priorities during the current semester in the EU and, mainly, regarding the future of Europe and the migration issue.



Also discussed was organization and coordination with other Ministries so that Greek MEPs can be kept up to date in a timely and effective manner.



Finally, it was agreed that there will be a new meeting ahead of the celebration, this coming March, of the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Ioannis Amanatidis had an introductory courtesy meeting today, Wednesday, 8 February 2017, with the new Egyptian Ambassador to Athens, Farid Monib, at the latter's request.



The meeting, which took place in a very friendly atmosphere, commensurate with the traditionally very good relations between the two countries, focused on the prospects for the development of specific actions in the sectors within Mr. Amanatidis' portfolio.



More specifically, Mr. Amanatidis and Mr. Monib agreed on the need for further intensification of the already existing bilateral cooperation in the field of educational/cultural diplomacy, noting that that the tangible progress in this sector also facilitates progress on the par excellence political issues.



Finally, Mr. Amanatidis highlighted to his collocutor the Greek government's strong interest in the Patriarchate of Alexandria and the Greek communities of Egypt.




Ladies and Gentlemen,



2017 is not like 2015, because the world is continuously changing around us and, in an unprecedented climate of fluidity, Greece constitutes a pillar of stability, solvency, and peace.



From the Mediterranean Basin all the way to the other side of the Atlantic, the changes in the world political map are huge, and Greece is one of the countries that guarantees security in the wider region. This role of ours, nonetheless, as an island of stability, does not mean under any circumstances that we have surrendered our sovereign rights. And let me be clear: Grey zones in the Aegean do not exist. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras reiterated this again yesterday from Malta, and we make it clear here as well.



Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to focus on the global challenges that marked these past two years. I only have to remind you of the statements of the former UN Secretary, General Ban Ki-moon, Pope Francis, and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, and so many other prominent figures regarding the Greek nation's solidarity with refugees.



As descendants of refugees ourselves, we have not forgotten our commitment to compassion that our grandfathers and grandmothers from Pontus, Asia Minor and Eastern Rumelia handed down to us. Yourselves the descendants of refugees to Kilkis, you have reminded humanity what the words hospitality, brotherly love, and compassion signify. Despite the various difficulties due to the unprecedented nature of the situation, Idomeni spread wide its arms, and the residents of Kilkis opened their hearts and homes, because you are able to understand and remember. All of us stand before your compassion and selflessness with great awe.



Ladies and Gentlemen,



Greece no longer looks like a country with no future in the eyes of the world, as hard as certain conservative European circles may try to paint it as such. The world is changing, Europe is changing, international relations are being reassessed, and now the vast majority of our partners are showing utter comprehension of the position, the stance, the valid demands of the Greek side, on all issues, as much for that which pertains to handling of the refugee crisis, as to Greek-Turkish relations, as well as issues relating the countys economy and progress.



A great ally of ours, moreover, is the great positive achievement of, the positive surpassing of, all economic goals on the part of Greece recently.



At the same time, Greece desires the establishment of peace, which will be achieved through building and further developing networks for communication, transport, and exchange, which will contribute to building relationships of interaction, understanding, and reliance among nations and peoples.



More specifically, Greece:



 Is building and developing models of trilateral cooperation whose main pillars are Greece and Cyprus, with the participation of non-EU countries (Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, and Palestine).



 Has created the following quadrilateral models of collaboration, which pertain, in fact, to our region.



The intra-European quadrilateral model, with the participation of Greece, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Romania.



The cross-border quadrilateral model with the participation Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, FYROM, for collaboration in the areas of border control, quashing of illegal immigration, and in the fight against terrorism. Furthermore, special importance is attached to the humanitarian aspect of actions pertaining to cooperation and coordination in the area of the handling of the refugee and immigration crisis.



At the same time, we are organizing Conferences which promote dialogue, interaction, and regional cooperation, highlighting the importance of intercultural and interfaith dialogue as a means of creating a climate of peace and security in the wider region. More specifically, I would like to stress:



a. the International Conference on Cultural and Religious Pluralism and Peaceful Coexistence in the Middle East, through which we promote harmonious coexistence in multicultural societies, and respect for diversity. The Conference will be held again this year during the first week of November. This time, in fact, we will organize it together with Austria, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.



b. The Rhodes Conference for Security and Stability, of which we have established the second such Meeting, for which we are already preparing in June 2017. During the first organization of the specific initiative, (Rhodes 8-9 September 2016) the opportunity was given, for the first time, to nations of South-eastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, to discuss the problems pertaining to the Eastern Mediterranean, a tumultuous region of great geopolitical importance, which is plagued by wars and lengthy battles, nonetheless stressing the enduring importance of the right to multiculturalism and religious diversity.



Additionally, we have been a leader in the efforts for the establishment of the GC10, the group of 10 nations representing the world's 10 most ancient civilizations. We attach particular importance to our relationship with China and we are pleased that the latter wholeheartedly support this initiative of ours, which we hope will materialize, through which other useful actions may be promoted.



At the same time, Greek Foreign Policy is being adjusted to fit the needs of emerging international trends and conditions, and accordingly the countrys geographical representation is being reconfigured. Thus, opening of an Embassy in Singapore is expected, as well as that of a Consulate General in Erbil. Additionally, The Greek Embassy in Libya is excepted to recommence operations.



As far as our relationship with the Russian Federation, the common initiative for the commemorative Year 2016 proved to be a very successful tool in strengthening of bilateral relations between our countries and contact between the peoples of Russia and Greece. The public in both countries responded to the Programmes events with marked interest. In many cases, interest in future cooperation was sparked between the two parties which organized them.



And, of course, we organized and coordinated visits of great importance on the part of foreign leaders, such as that of the former President the United Sate, B. Obama, as well as the President of Russia, V. Putin, which once again granted a global aura to Greece.



Regarding the region of the Balkans, there has been Greek diplomatic success as concerns inclusion of all five priorities that have been set as basic prerequisites in examining possible commencement of the EU accession negotiation for Albania into the document of the conclusions drawn up by the Slovenian Presidency of the EU General Affairs Council (12/2016).



As regards our countrys relationship with the FYROM, the added value of the Confidence Building Measures must be noted - measures which include the natural gas pipeline, the Bitola-Florina rail line, as well as cooperation between police, fire brigades, and also between universities and research centres in both countries - as this pertains to a multifaceted and intensive cooperation which dismantles prejudices and aims to neutralise irredentist and nationalistic tendencies.



It must be emphasized that we are at a critical juncture of historic proportions in terms of negotiations for the solution of the issue of Cyprus, as well as our relationship with our neighbouring country, Turkey.



More specifically, regarding the issue of Cyprus, I would like to reiterate, given the events that took place at the Conference in Geneva and the technical-level meetings at Mont Pelerin, that clear upgrading of the importance of the issues of eliminating the archaic system of guarantees and withdrawal of occupying forces from Cyprus, in the framework of the developing negotiations, represents a diplomatic success.



Finally, regarding issues related to the administration of the Ministry, we have submitted a bill to Parliament relative to changes in the Statutes of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to further modernize its operation and to strengthen the scientific support of the actions of Greek diplomacy.



Thank you.
Key investments address infrastructure needs, education and stronger, safer communities while paying down long-term debt

Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2017

LANSING, Mich.  Gov. Rick Snyders recommendation for the fiscal year 2018 budget continues the precedent that has been set for fiscal responsibility and responsible investment over the past six years. The budget plan continues paving the path to a more prosperous future with key investments in economic development, talent development, infrastructure, education, and stronger, safer communities.

The overall budget includes $10.1 billion in general fund dollars, an increase of 1.75 percent compared to fiscal year 2017, and totals $56.3 billion, an increase of 2.5 percent.

The governor also offered a 2019 projected budget today, continuing his emphasis on long-term planning.

This budget is a reflection on everything weve been able to accomplish over the past six years, and we should be proud of those achievements, Snyder said. Our economy is growing, our labor force is expanding, and our states fiscal house is in good shape. In the same spirit that has brought us this far, we need to continue making smart, responsible investments in critical areas like education, infrastructure, and the professional trades. In partnership with the Legislature, I look forward to once again finishing our budget early so we can continue our journey on the path to an even better Michigan.

Lt. Gov. Brian Calley and State Budget Director Al Pscholka joined Snyder in outlining the budget recommendation to a joint session of House and Senate appropriations committees.

We have worked hard over the past six years to complete fiscally responsible budgets while investing in core areas, and this years budget is no exception, Calley said. Numerous economic indicators demonstrate that Michigan is on the right path. We need to stay on that path by continuing to make smart decisions that protect our residents and boost our economy for generations to come.

A reformed tax code, strategic economic investments, and a renewed focus on talent development have helped to make Michigans comeback a model for the nation. The states economic climate continues to improve with almost 500,000 private-sector jobs added to the state since December 2010, making Michigan the leader in job growth in the Great Lakes region. Also, since December 2010, the state has seen its unemployment rate drop and remain near its lowest level in more than 15 years. Personal income growth continues to be positive and the states housing market now beats the national average with a 44-percent increase since 2010.

This plan continues the strong tradition of making sure the budget is in balance for the long term, said State Budget Director Al Pscholka. The recommendations announced today add to our savings account while addressing future liabilities and needed infrastructure investments in roads, facilities, and technology. And we do it all with a continued focus on ensuring one-time funding is not depended upon for ongoing costs in future years.

To keep Michigan on this path to the future, highlights of the recommended budget include:

Investing in the 21st Century Economy

To continue building a strong Michigan economy, the governor today recommended more investments in business attraction and retention, as well as talent development:

A total of $125.5 million for business attraction and community revitalization, an 8.7-percent increase from last year.

A one-time allocation for talent marketing in the amount of $5 million dollars to support stronger career connections.

To help Michiganders get the skills they need to meet the demands of incoming jobs, $40.9 million dollars would be invested in the Going Pro Program which helps ensure that we are training job seekers to be experts in their field of choice, whether its the professional trades, information technology, or other high-demand occupations. This is a 32% increase from the prior year.

Investing in a 21st Century Infrastructure

To address the states deteriorating infrastructure the Governor created the 21st Century Infrastructure Commission. The commission published a report assessing Michigans infrastructure and providing recommendations. Based on that input, the Governor makes the following recommendations to ensure a better Michigan is left for future generations:

A $20 million deposit into the Michigan Infrastructure Fund as the start of a down payment on future infrastructure investments.

An additional $2 million to implement the commissions identified pilot for a statewide asset management database to better align and coordinate infrastructure needs.

A $214.3 million increase over the FY 2017 levels for state and local roads, and $15 million for transit and rail programs.

Per-pupil K-12 Funding and Supporting At-Risk Youth

Gov. Snyder's continuous strong support for K-12 education is clear in the recommended FY 2018 budget. The Governor also makes significant recommendations for aiding at-risk youth. The definition of at-risk students has been expanded for free and reduced lunch income eligibility, children in families receiving food (SNAP) or cash assistance (TANF), and migrant, homeless and foster care children. Among other things, the highlights include:

An increase in per-pupil spending of $128 million, providing an additional $50 to $100 per pupil for schools, with an additional $50 per high school pupil to support the higher cost of educating high school students.

An increase of $150 million, to a total of $529 million, to ensure that children in difficult financial situations are getting the help they need. All districts and public school academies will now be eligible to receive an additional $778 per pupil to assist at-risk students.

Higher Education Increases

Providing all of Michigans students with access to opportunities in higher education remains a top priority for the Governor. The recommended FY2018 budget includes increases in higher education funding, financial aid assistance, and scholarship and grant programs:

An increase of $36.6 million for university operations, bringing total funding to $1.5 billion.

An increase in financial aid and scholarships that total $18 million.

A 10-percent or $5.3 million increase is included for the Tuition Incentive Program. The program supports about 18,500 students, aiding low-income Medicaid-eligible students with funding for an associates degree and up to $2,000 for baccalaureate work.

A $2 million investment to reestablish the Independent Part-Time Student Grants program that targets adult students at community college who have completed at least 15 credit hours.

Assisting Michigan Families

Strong communities require healthy residents. Gov. Snyder recommends key investments to assist Michigans most vulnerable populations so they, too, can be on a clear path toward the future.

An increase of $45 million to improve the quality and stability of the direct mental health care workforce, with an additional $7.2 million going to aid the states psychiatric hospitals. Planning is also recommended to build a new state psychiatric hospital.

An increase of $3.7 million for the homeless emergency shelter program, which provides temporary shelter to displaced residents and assists the chronically homeless find permanent housing.

Increased funding is also included for a clothing allowance, providing low-income families with $140 to $200 a year.

The recommendation includes $6.8 million for food assistance through the Heat & Eat program.

An increase of $11.3 million for improving staffing and service for the elderly and disabled at risk of abuse, neglect and exploitation.

An increase of $5.6 million to support the Pathways to Potential program which positions state social workers inside school buildings to better serve the community.

Responding to Public Health Issues

Gov. Snyders recommended budget includes funding to help protect Michiganders from public health issues. Highlights include:

A $6.8 million investment for drinking water quality programs, including lead prevention and toxicology response.

A $3 million investment to contribute a state match for the federal Drinking Water Revolving Fund.

An investment of $4.5 million for the statewide school drinking water quality program to help ensure our children have clean, safe water at school.

A total of $4.9 million for the Vapor Intrusion Program to protect air quality from a threat that is growing nationally.

Continued support for Flints recovery includes an additional $48.8 million.

Investing in Michigans Safety

Ensuring the safety and security of Michiganders has been a top priority for Gov. Snyder since he first took office, and this years budget proposal includes significant investments to continue efforts to increase safety in our state:

A $9.2 million increase to train 100 additional state troopers, bringing the total number of enlisted Michigan State Police personnel to its highest level since 2003.

An additional $7 million to further secure state networks and systems from unwanted intrusion.

A $5 million investment for the public safety communications systems to keep our law enforcement officers connected during critical times.

Commitment to Natural Resources and Agriculture

In an effort to enhance Michigan for the future, Gov. Snyder has recommended numerous investments to support the states agriculture industry and natural resources:

A $1.8 million investment to hire additional conservation officers.

An investment of $19.5 million for state parks special maintenance.

Also included is $5 million to the Department of Natural Resources Enhanced Challenge for Trail Development.

An increase of $3.8 million to assist Wetland Mitigation Banking Program.

A total of $3 million for agriculture development industry enhancement.

Decreasing the State's Liabilities and Saving for the Future

Gov. Snyder's record on fiscal responsibility is strong, and this budget recommendation is no different, providing future generations with confidence that the current fiscal policies are erasing past financial burdens.

The Governor includes funding to lower the assumed rate of investment return for the states retirement systems from 8 percent to 7.5 percent. This more conservative assumption will require additional state investments into the retirement systems, helping to ensure that available funds will be sufficient to pay the benefits that have been earned. The state will reduce risk, remain on track to eliminate the liability entirely by the year 2038, and protect the retirement systems that many older Michiganders will be relying on in their senior years.

A more than $260 million deposit into the states rainy day fund. When the Governor took office, the Budget Stabilization Fund balance was just $2 million. Through smart and responsible budgeting during the past six years, this new budget will see the rainy day fund balance soar to over $1 billion.

The states new fiscal year begins Oct. 1, 2017.

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Copies and more details of the governors recommended budget are available at www.michigan.gov/mibudget. Join the conversation on Twitter at #mibudget.
While some of us schlep around with our limited vacation days and occasional gift card, some lucky slobs at these companies are getting paid to go the gym and drink fancy juices.

Job search and company review website Glassdoor has posted a list of the "Top 20 Employee Benefits & Perks for 2017." Each named business offers a little something extra for employees aside from the pay and time off.
CASEVILLE  There were 16 members and one guest present at the Caseville Historical Societys Jan. 19 meeting at Maccabee Hall, which is located at 6733 Prospect St., in Caseville.

President Rich Bass opened the meeting and welcomed all in attendance, especially guest, Cathy Snider.

The minutes for the previous meeting and treasurers report were presented to the group and approved with no changes.

Bass said there is some drywall work taking place in the downstairs closet and that work will continue as weather allows.

He said the Historical Society of Michigan will be offering several opportunities for interested persons. One opportunity will be the spring conference on March 3 and 4 in Sterling Heights. A brochure is available in the office for anyone interested in attending.

Also available are a variety of history skills workshops. These workshops may be attended electronically via the Zoom Communication Program. The next scheduled workshop is titled Keeping Cemeteries Alive, and it will be presented on Feb. 17 in Lansing. Anyone wishing more information on these workshops should inquire at the museum office.

Bass said he has communicated with Sid Holodnick regarding the Past Perfect Computer Program that can be used for record keeping and archival tracking for local museums.

The Elkton Historical Society will have its Annual Winter Dinner at 5:30 p.m. Saturday at the Elkton Community Outreach Center. The speaker will be Bob Wiltse, and he will discuss the history of Charity Island. The cost is $12 per person.

Bass said the group would like to find someone familiar with a variety of computer programs including Past Perfect and Zoom Video. A sign-up sheet was circulated requesting volunteers to work at the museum over the next month.

The membership committee reported one new member, Alan Marschke. Sherry Hoelzle reminded those present annual dues were due on Jan. 1 and are payable at the museum office.

The Events Committee reviewed upcoming events. The next event will be the Checkers Tournament on Feb. 18. It will be take place in conjunction with Casevilles Shanty Days festival. Harold Hoelzle and Rosemarie Cregeur are coordinating this event, where the museum will host on-going checkers competitions from 1 to 3 p.m. The cost to enter the competition is $5. Free refreshments will be offered. In addition to checkers, a puzzle table will be available for those not playing checkers.

The Ice Cream Social is scheduled for May 28, and it is being coordinated by Tom and Audrey Jesmore and Bud McCormick. The Ladies Luncheon will be on June 10, and the Cheeseburger Museum will keep everyone busy from Aug. 11-20.

The Huron County Museum Weekend will be Sept. 23 and 24, and it will include a car show at Maccabee Hall.

The Harvest Dinner will take place, but a date has not been set for it at this time.

Reporting for the Archival and Museum Committee, Bass said the museum has received the donation of a vintage snow shovel from Ron and Mary Karwowski. The beach themed display has been completely dismantled and work on the new Ladies Mercantile and Dry Goods Store, is being planned. Work on this new display will begin soon and will be completed prior to the Ice Cream Social in May.

Barb Eimers, representing the Genealogy Committee, is available at 1 p.m. the first Thursday of each month at the museum to assist those persons interested in doing genealogical or building research.

Bass offered thanks to those who have helped with the continuing improvement of Maccabee Hall. They include D&D Construction, Last Call Drywall, All Pointes Services, Centerline Heating and Cooling, Jim Flock Plumbing, and Caseville True Value Hardware.

Following the groups meeting on July 20, historical society members, friends and guests will be offered a scenic Charity Island Lighthouse Tour. The cost per person will be $40, and a small sandwich lunch will be available for purchase.

The video Ora Labora, produced by Al and Dave Eicher, was shown following the Jan. 19 meeting. Popcorn was served during the video.

The next meeting will be at 10 a.m. Feb. 16. All meetings are open to the public and everyone is invited to attend. Meetings are a great way to meet and interact with others from the community who are interested in preserving the history of the Caseville Area.

For more information, call 989-856-9090, visit www.thehchs.org/caseville, e-mail chscm@comcast.net or like the group on Facebook.
SANDUSKY  In partnership with the Thomas Smith Memorial Foundation, McKenzie Health System, and Marlette Regional Hospital, Hurley Childrens Hospital is offering free Teen Heart Health Checks to students ages 13 to 19 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at Sandusky Elementary School.

This special program offers an in-depth, noninvasive heart screening that includes a medical history, blood pressure check, and an electrocardiogram (EKG). A cardiologist will evaluate each student and an echocardiogram will be provided, if needed. The screening looks for evidence of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a serious condition that can cause sudden cardiac death in young athletes as well as in students engaging in physical activity or exercise.
CASS CITY  The Cass City Village Council named its second interim manager in eight days Tuesday night, bringing a former village manager out of retirement.

Lou LaPonsie will serve for at least three months at $30.36 an hour while the village launches its search for a permanent manager.

Craig Haynes, who was appointed interim manager last week upon the resignation of Village Manager Peter Cristiano, will instead focus on his duties as police chief.

The village manager position was one of many issues addressed at the councils committee meeting of the whole and subsequent special meeting.

President Pro Temp Jenny Zawilinski chaired the meeting, even though Village President Carl Palmateer was present.

Palmateer apologized to the public for reported comments that he made to a Caro newspaper.

This came after a resident called out Palmateer during public comments for calling residents idiots and saying that they had an axe to grind at last weeks Village Council meeting, according to the report.

Palmateer said he did not remember making all of the comments, and that he would not make such comments in the future.

Former long-time village President Lambert Althaver was in the audience, and questioned during public comment why Zawilinski was chairing the meeting, rather than Palmateer.

Zawilinksi responded: President Palmateer turned the meeting over to me, which Im perfectly capable and within my realm of duties to take over the meeting.

Village attorney Jason Bitzer addressed Althaver as well, referring to the village rules of procedure.

The president may appoint a parliamentarian to take care of the conduct of the meetings, and thats what he did here tonight, Bitzer said.

Althaver also encouraged the council to provide the public with a balance sheet at every meeting.

And Trustee Tom Herron continued to lobby for information regarding the villages fund balance, for which he has been asking since December when he joined the council.

Thirdly, Althaver questioned Haynes about whether a part-time police officer was still in charge of blight enforcement, because he said there is no evidence of progress in that area.

That did not work out, Haynes said, so blight enforcement was turned over to the village manager, while Haynes handled grass-mowing issues.

Later in the meeting, Herron and Trustee Mick Kirn agreed to contribute to addressing the blight issue.

The vote to hire LaPonsie passed 6-1, with Zawilinski voting no and Trustees Steve Erickson, Kirn, Herron, Marilyn Biefer, Mark Karkowski and Palmateer in support.

After Herron made the motion to hire LaPonsie and some discussion took place, Zawilinski said that former Trustee Nancy Barrios was qualified to be interim manager.

Zawilinksi then attempted to make a motion.

But the vote first had to be taken regarding LaPonsie.

Kirn paused before he cast the second vote then said, I guess, to stop all this fuss, Im gonna vote yes.

LaPonsie was on the job Wednesday.

Before retiring the first time, he oversaw village business for 25 years, starting in the late 1970s.

Herron said last week that after retiring from Cass City in the early 2000s, LaPonsie brought a previously financially troubled Sandusky to a $7 million fund balance as interim manager.

He then worked as interim manager for Marlette and brought the village from the brink of state control to a $2 million fund balance after a few years.

Herron had urged the council to hire LaPonsie last week, but trustees instead hired Haynes in a 5-2 vote.

About 100 people had attended that meeting. Roughly 50 residents attended Tuesday, making it a near standing-room-only crowd.
CASS CITY  Every year the Rotary Club of Cass City puts on the St. Patricks Day Dinner and Auction and this year its scheduled for March 18.

It involves an authentic Irish dinner of corned beef with cabbage and carrots, and for those non-Irish in attendance there will be baked chicken, red-skin potatoes, corn, salads and roll along with several deserts.
HURON COUNTY  A Central Michigan University student with ties to Huron County recently admitted to committing criminal sexual conduct on his roommate in their dorm room following a party Jan. 21.

According to a release from the Central Michigan University Police Department, 19-year-old sophomore Logan Lemke, formerly of Ubly, was charged Feb. 1 with four counts of criminal sexual conduct  capturing, distributing and surveilling images of unclothed adults and possessing child sexually abusive material.

While the charges stem from the victim coming forward to CMUPD officials, the situation could reach much further  including into Huron County.

In addition to the criminal sexual conduct, Central Michigan Life reported police officials identified more than 1,200 images of males changing clothes and more than 600 images showing males sleeping, some pornographic in nature, in Lemkes possession. Many of these images date back to 2012 and 2013 and include male subjects under the age of 18 at the time.

CMUPD obtained warrants to search Lemkes primary cell phone and dorm room for surveillance equipment.

These search warrants and Lemkes interview led CMUPD to finding thousands of images located on two other cellphones  an iPhone 5s and a black Motorola, according to CM Life.

CMUPD indicated the males in the photos are not connected to the Jan. 21 incident and have yet to be identified. An additional investigation to identify the subjects of the photos will be conducted.

They (CMUPD) have been in contact with us, but I dont have any further details at this time, said Huron County Sheriff Kelly J. Hanson.

Hanson added he has not heard of any potential victims in the area coming forward at this time.

They (CMUPD) will be back in contact if they have more for us, Hanson said.

A probable cause hearing for Lemke was scheduled for 8:15 this morning.
Camp Lejeune Town Halls Aim to Help Those Exposed to Toxic Water. Heres How You Can Go.

Retired Marine Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger made it his mission to tell the world that if they lived or served on Camp Lejeune...
It's not quite the 36 infantry battalions that President Donald Trump has cited, but the Marine Corps is asking Congress for its biggest force increase in nearly a decade.

The assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Glenn Walters, asked lawmakers Wednesday for 194,000 troops -- a 12,000-Marine increase from the current force strength of 182,000. That number's not a ceiling for the Corps, he said, but a starting point.

"We have done 18 months' worth of analysis on what capabilities we need," he told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee's subcommittee on readiness. "Before we built another capacity, we need to fix the holes in our current organizations. That's a smaller number, 194,000."

This figure includes an additional 3,000 troops the Corps expects to receive this fiscal year, thanks to a provision in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act. But the money for those troops can't be spent until Congress passes an appropriations bill, which lawmakers are set to debate between now and April.

The Marine Corps just completed a multi-year drawdown process beginning in 2011 to bring it from a peak force strength of 202,000 during the troop surge in Afghanistan to the current 182,000 end strength, cutting infantry battalions and support elements. Amid sequestration cuts and budget austerity, some leaders warned the service might be forced to draw down as low as 175,000.

Now, with the prospect of funding to grow the force, Walters said specialized communities and capabilities would get attention first.

"Cyber, information operations, [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance], counter-UAS, and long-range fires," he told Military.com in an interview after the hearing. "So these are the capabilities we're trying to buy that we lack right now."

The Corps, he said, is building what he called the MEF information group, a Marine Expeditionary Force element that would incorporate all these capabilities. This development comes as the service also adds a new three-star general position, a deputy commandant for information environment operations, to serve as an advocate to leadership for these roles.

"The way we're going to fight in the future and the way the enemy's going to fight in the future, we have to push those [capabilities] down to the lower echelons," Walters said.

Of the 12,000 troops the Corps hopes to add, the only Marines in traditional ground combat positions will be artillery troops adding long-range fires capabilities, including the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, Walters said. While other Marines in the prospective plus-up might serve in infantry units, they won't be riflemen, he said.

That doesn't mean the Corps is giving up on adding more infantry battalions, but Walters said it's prioritizing what it sees as pressing capability gaps.

"Once you get past that [194,000] number is when you start, if you ever grew past that, would be adding more capacity ... to reduce the [deployment]-to-dwell ratio," he said.

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at@HopeSeck.
President Donald Trump on Thursday criticized Sen. John McCain in a series of tweets defending the recent Yemen raid that resulted in the death of a U.S. Navy SEAL.

Navy Chief Special Warfare Operator William "Ryan" Owens, 36, was killed in the Jan. 29 raid against an Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula compound and became the first known combat fatality of Trump's presidency. Three other service members were wounded in what the Pentagon has termed a "ferocious firefight" and two more were injured in the hard landing of an MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.

Trump authorized the mission after reviewing it with several members of his administration, including Defense Secretary James Mattis, the retired Marine Corps general.

"Sen. McCain should not be talking about the success or failure of a mission to the media," Trump tweeted Thursday morning. "Only emboldens the enemy! He's been losing so  long he doesn't know how to win anymore, just look at the mess our country is in -- bogged down in conflict all over the place. Our hero  Ryan died on a winning mission (according to General Mattis), not a 'failure.' Time for the U.S. to get smart and start winning again!"

The president's comments came a day came after McCain, a Republican from Arizona and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, indirectly criticized Trump for initially characterizing the raid as a "success."

"While many of the objectives of the recent raid in Yemen were met, I would not describe any operation that results in the loss of American life as a success," McCain said in a statement, according to Politico. "Going forward, I am confident that our military will act on lessons learned from this operation to strengthen our fight against our terrorist enemies."

In addition to calling the raid "successful," Trump had said that 14 militants were killed and that intelligence was seized "that will assist the U.S. in preventing terrorism against its citizens and people around the world."

The terrorist group known as AQAP has claimed responsibility for the "Charlie Hebdo" terror attacks in Paris in 2015 and for the attempt to bring down an airliner over Detroit in December 2009 by the so-called "underwear bomber."

By law, the U.S. military has authority for operations in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. Other operations require presidential approval.

In an interview with NBC News, McCain, who received a classified briefing on the mission, also said one of the objectives of the raid was to capture terrorists.

"My understanding of the parameters of the raid were, they wanted to capture individuals," he told the network. "The objective was to kill the bad guys but also capture some of them."

Another goal was to "gain information from various electronic devices," he said.

In a recording released after the raid, Qassim al-Rimi, the leader of al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, taunted the U.S. president.

"The new fool of the White House received a painful slap across his face," he said in the 11-minute recording, CNN reported, citing information released by the SITE Intelligence Group.

While the Yemen raid may not have gone as planned -- the U.S. team killed female fighters of the al-Qaida affiliate and the damaged Osprey had to be destroyed by an AV-8B Harrier II jet flying off the amphibious assault ship Makin Island -- the Pentagon has pushed back against reports that the commandos lost the element of surprise.

The senator and the president have feuded before.

McCain withdrew his support for Trump during the presidential election after video surfaced showing Trump lewdly speaking about women. Trump, who received draft deferments during Vietnam, criticized the war record of McCain, who received the Silver Star, the third-highest valor medal, for resisting "extreme mental and physical cruelties," among other awards for his war service.

-- Richard Sisk contributed to this report.

-- Brendan McGarry can be reached at brendan.mcgarry@military.com. Follow him on Twitter at @Brendan_McGarry.
FEB. 10: Utley has narrowed his field to four teams, tweets Rosenthal. The veteran second baseman is only considering contending clubs and is moving closer to making a decision.

FEB. 8: The Indians are interested in veteran second baseman Chase Utley, reports Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports. Certainly, as Heyman notes, Cleveland is far from a perfect fit for Utley, as Jason Kipnis is entrenched at second base. FOXs Ken Rosenthal hears the same, noting that there are also other clubs in the mix on Utley (Twitter link).

The Indians seemingly would have a difficult time finding consistent at-bats for Utley, which could make them a tough sell for the 38-year-old. With Kipnis at second base and a combination of Edwin Encarnacion and Carlos Santana set to rotate between first base and DH, theres no regularly open spot for Utley to occupy. However, hed be a nice bat off the bench for manager Terry Francona, and its possible that Utley would be attracted to Clevelands deep roster and status as an early AL Central division favorite. Heyman notes that Cleveland would be interested in giving Utley a utility job if hes open to such a role. His experience outside of second base is fairly limited, but Utley has logged a few innings at both infield corners in the Majors (230 at first base and 27 at third).

Utley didnt have a great season at the plate in 2016 but held his own in mostly regular work with the Dodgers, hitting .252/.319/.396 with 14 homers in 565 plate appearances. His batting line was dragged down by a woeful .154/.206/.264 slash against left-handed pitchers, but Utley handled righties quite well; in 468 trips to the plate while holding the platoon advantage, he batted .273/.343/.425 with 12 of his 14 round-trippers.

Cleveland may also be attractive to Utley based on the simple fact that there arent many teams with regular second-base at-bats to offer. The Dodgers and Angels entered the winter with clear needs at Utleys position, but the Dodgers acquired Logan Forsythe from the Rays, while the Angels acquired Danny Espinosa from the Nationals. (The Halos could still conceivably use Utley in a platoon with the switch-hitting Espinosa, but theres been no recent link between those two parties.)

Its not clear which other teams have interest, though Heyman writes that some wonder if Utley, a Long Beach native and Bay Area resident, would be reluctant to leave California. If thats the case it becomes all the more difficult to find a fit. The As could theoretically make room for Utley by shifting Jed Lowrie to a utility role, but theres been no connection between the two. The Giants could move an infielder into left field to try to make room for Utley, but thats obviously far from a perfect fit as well.

Speculating further (if Utley is willing to leave the west coast), the Royals could seek some more certainty at second base or, at least, a left-handed bat for the bench. The Braves have also been loosely linked to second base upgrades this winter, while the Twins are known to be looking for a strong veteran voice in their clubhouse. Signing with a team that lost as many games as either Atlanta or Minnesota did in 2016 could be a tough sell for Utley, however, to say nothing of geographic preference. All of these potential fits outside of Cleveland are, of course, speculative reaches due to the lack of obvious fits for the longtime Phillies star. Still, at last check Utley was said to have received multiple offers, so it seems that hell ultimately find a team to suit up for what will be his 15th Major League season.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Nearly a month after apologizing to dozens of residents turned away from a congressional town hall meeting, a West Michigan politician has upgraded to a larger venue.

U.S. Rep. Justin Amash, R-Cascade Township, plans to meet with constituents from 6-7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 9, at the auditorium inside City High Middle School in Grand Rapids.

Follow along in the comment section below for live coverage of Thursday's meeting.

The auditorium has a maximum capacity of 595, according to district officials, more than double the 252 limit at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum auditorium where Amash held his January town hall.

According to staff from Amash's office, the museum auditorium was one of the largest venues they've used for the regular community forums, which never experienced space problems in the past.

During January's town hall, the congressman addressed a myriad of questions and concerns from the crowd, ranging from efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act to President Donald Trump's cabinet nominations.

He received both negative and positive feedback from a very vocal crowd some of whom stalled the question-and-answer format to argue points with the congressman.

First elected to Congress in 2010, Amash won reelection to a fourth term in November 2016.

He represents Michigan's 3rd congressional district, which stretches from Albion in the south to Sand Lake in the north and includes all or portions of Barry, Calhoun, Ionia, Kent and Montcalm counties.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Police are clearing a house in Southeast Grand Rapids, looking for possible suspects after a man was shot in the back.

Grand Rapids police cleared the house, in the 800 block of Franklin Street near Geneva Avenue, about 6:15 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 8.

Grand Rapids police Sgt. Terry Dixon said police responded to the area of Franklin Street and Dolbee Avenue about 4:50 p.m. on a report of multiple shots being fire. Officers found a 21-year-old man with a gunshot wound to the back in a rear yard.

His injuries are not considered life-threatening, police said.

Dixon said police were ordering people out of a house in the 800 block for questioning. He said it's not clear if any of the people in the house were involved in the shooting.
WASHINGTON D.C. -- Three months ago, U.S. Rep. Justin Amash publicly congratulated fellow West Michigander Betsy DeVos on her nomination as secretary of education.

But on the day of her confirmation to the office by the U.S. Senate, the Cascade Township Republican joined seven other members of his party to introduce a bill that would eliminate the department DeVos now oversees.

The bill -- House Resolution 899 -- was sponsored by U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky. It is one sentence long: "The Department of Education shall terminate on December 31, 2018."

Though the timing of the bill's introduction on Tuesday, Feb. 7, might appear to be an attack on DeVos, its sponsors explain the legislation is a response to a much bigger issue.

In a statement from Communications Director Corie Whalen, Amash's office explains its stance has more to do with giving states and local school districts control over education.

"Our Constitution reserves the power over education to the states, and Rep. Amash has consistently supported putting parents and teachers back in control," Whalen wrote. "While relatively little federal money for public education comes from Washington, federal bureaucracy and mandates reduce the total amount of resources available to public schools and cannot properly account for the individualized needs of students."

Even in his congratulatory note to DeVos upon her nomination to the position, Amash voiced a desire for her to dismantle federal education initiatives and "empower parents and local communities."

Congratulations to Betsy DeVos on her nomination as secretary of education. She is a friend, a resident of Michigan's... Posted by Justin Amash on Wednesday, November 23, 2016

In a statement, Massie said state and local communities are in the best position to choose curricula that meet their students' individual needs.

"Unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. should not be in charge of our children's intellectual and moral development," he said.

He went on to echo previous statements that have been made by Secretary DeVos, a school choice advocate.

"Parents have the right to choose the most appropriate educational opportunity for their children, including home school, public school, or private school," Massie said.

The proposed elimination of the U.S. Department of Education -- which was created by President Jimmy Carter and began operating in 1980 -- is nothing new. President Ronald Reagan promised elimination of the department shortly after its creation, but was unable to accomplish that goal.

Other co-sponsors joining Massie and Amash in supporting the new bill include Reps. Andy Biggs, R-Arizona, Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, Matt Gaetz, R-Florida, Jody Hice, R-Georgia, Walter Jones, R-North Carolina, and Raul Labrador, R-Idaho.

After its introduction, the bill was referred to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. Three Michigan Republicans sit on that committee: U.S. Reps. Tim Walberg, R-Tipton; Michael Bishop, R-Rochester; and Paul Mitchell, R-Dryden.

First elected to Congress in 2010, Amash won reelection to a fourth term in November 2016.

He represents Michigan's 3rd congressional district, which stretches from Albion in the south to Sand Lake in the north and includes all or portions of Barry, Calhoun, Ionia, Kent and Montcalm counties.

Amash plans to hold his second "town hall" meeting of 2017 on Thursday, Feb. 9, at City High Middle School in Grand Rapids. The public meeting will run from 6-7 p.m. in the auditorium of the school, located at 1720 Plainfield Ave. NE.

The meeting comes nearly a month after his first of the year, when crowds of attendees were turned away at the door by a Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum security guard. Before starting the meeting, Amash went out to apologize to the crowd, and to explain the auditorium had already met its capacity with 252 people inside.

The auditorium at the school more than doubles that number, with capacity for 595 attendees.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI - For the third consecutive year, the statewide graduation rate for Career and Technical Education (CTE) students surpassed the federal benchmarks for Michigan.

More than 3,700 students are currently enrolled in CTE programs through the Kent and Ottawa Intermediate School Districts.

The 2015 graduation rate for all Michigan students was 79.8 percent. The rate for CTE students was 96.6 percent last year, 1.6 percent above the federal target.

Career and Technical Education programs offer students a sequence of courses that provide rigorous content aligned with challenging academic standards as well as relevant technical knowledge and skills needed to prepare students for both further education and careers in current or emerging professions.

These programs often include an industry-recognized credential, a certificate, or articulated college credit. CTE programs were among the big winners in the state budget proposal Gov. Rick Snyder unveiled Wednesday, Feb. 8. The programs would receive a one-time hike of $20 million for equipment upgrades.

"The talent issue requires short-term and long-term solutions, which is why we are also pleased to see the governor recommend $20 million for schools, intermediate school districts and community colleges to purchase career technology education (CTE) equipment," according to a press release from the Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce, reacting to Snyder's budget.

The Ottawa Area ISD's Careerline Tech Center has 28 programs for high school students in eight pathways from business management to healthcare. There are 1,449 students enrolled this year, not including the nine students in the CTC Early College program. Some of the Ottawa County school districts also offer CTE programs

Kent ISD's Kent Career Technical Center has 2,320 students enrolled. There are 22 programs offered, plus new Design Lab that is considered a great introduction to the programs. Programs range from healthcare and Information Technology to hospitality and criminal justice. Like Ottawa, several school districts also offer CTE programs.

Each year, results of a survey of students who completed a CTE program in grades 11 or 12 are used to calculate the state's placement rate for CTE students.

Last year's, statewide placement rate of CTE students was 96.4 percent, up 0.6 percent from 2015 and exceeding for the second time in seven years the federal target rate of 95.5 percent for Michigan.

The rate means 19 out of every 20 CTE students were successfully placed in colleges and universities; advanced training programs; military services; or jobs within a year of leaving high school, according to surveyed students.

"These are excellent results that demonstrate the impact and importance of CTE programs," State Superintendent Brian Whiston said. "CTE offers educational strategies that meet the needs of students and employers, and get us closer to the goal of being a Top 10 education state in 10 years."



"I'm very impressed with the CTE programs throughout Michigan," said Gov. Rick Snyder, a long-time proponent of promoting the skilled trades. "Thanks to Michigan's incredible comeback, there are many high-skill, high-demand and high-paying jobs in our state. These CTE programs are making sure our students are adequately prepared to follow Michigan's path toward the future."

For the past seven years, the state's CTE placement rate has been above 90 percent.

Of last year's 15,571 survey respondents, 15,013 or 96.4 percent said they were in a continuing education program or employed, or both.

A deeper dive reveals that of the 11,687 student respondents in continuing education, 514 or 4.5 percent were pursuing a certificate; and 4,031 or 35.4 percent were getting an associate's degree; and 6,344 or 55.7 percent were getting their bachelor's degree.
[February 09, 2017] Opening a new Frontier: Duke Energy Renewables' 200-megawatt Oklahoma wind project delivering power

CHARLOTTE, N.C., Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Duke Energy Renewables has completed its large-scale wind power plant in Oklahoma, the 200-megawatt (MW) Frontier Windpower Project. The wind facility, located in Kay County, east of Blackwell, became operational in late December 2016, and increases Duke Energy Renewables' U.S. wind capacity to 2,300 megawatts (MW). "We had several 'firsts' with the Frontier project," said Rob Caldwell, president, Duke Energy Renewables and Distributed Energy Technology. "It was our first wind project in Oklahoma, and it was the first time Vestas' extra-large 126-meter rotors were deployed in the U.S. "We also formed a unique partnership with Blackwell Industrial Authority for our operations and maintenance building. A project of this scale was made possible by the overwhelming support of the community, landowners, vendors and our customer, City Utilities." City Utilities of Springfield, Mo., is purchasing the power from the Frontier Windpower Project under a 22-year agreement. "We're excited about the partnership we have developed with the Frontier Windpower Project," said Scott Miller, general manager, City Utilities of Springfield. "Providing a long-term renewable source of power generation in this changing market is critical to the future of our utility." "Rarely does a project, by design, have a multigenerational economic impact on a region like Duke Energy Renewables' new Frontier wind farm," said John Robertson, executive director of Blackwell Industrial Authority. "Blackwell, Oklahoma, is fortunate to have been selected for their operations and maintenance facility, assuring decades of high-tech jobs and nvestment in our rural location. We are excited to welcome them to our community and are looking forward to future growth of the green energy sector in our state."



The 200-MW Frontier Wind produces enough emissions-free electricity to power about 60,000 average homes. Amshore US Wind provided development support for the project, and Wanzek Construction was the contractor. Vestas supplied 61 V126-3.3 MW turbines for the site.

Video available: Visit our illumination site to download a 60-second time lapse video at http://illumination.duke-energy.com/articles/oklahoma-project-captures-the-power-of-the-wind. Still photos upon request. About Duke Energy Renewables

Duke Energy Renewables, part of Duke Energy's Commercial Portfolio, is a leader in developing innovative wind and solar energy generation projects for customers throughout the United States. The company's growing portfolio of commercial renewable assets includes 20 wind projects and 55 solar facilities in operation in more than a dozen states, totaling about 2,900 megawatts in electric-generating capacity. Follow Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK) on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook. About City Utilities of Springfield

City Utilities of Springfield (CU) is a progressive, community-owned utility serving southwest Missouri with electricity, natural gas, water, broadband and transit services. CU has a diverse electric supply resource mix including coal, natural gas, wind, solar, landfill methane, and hydroelectric. CU provides electricity to 111,000 customers in our community. About Vestas

Every single day, Vestas wind turbines deliver clean energy that supports the global fight against climate change. Wind power from Vestas' more than 55,700 wind turbines currently reduces carbon emissions by over 60 million tons of CO2 every year, while at the same time building energy security and independence. Today, Vestas has installed turbines in 74 countries, providing jobs for around 19,600 passionate people at our service and project sites, research facilities, factories and offices all over the world. With 52 percent more megawatts installed than our closest competitor and more than 71 GW of cumulative installed capacity worldwide, Vestas is the world leader in wind energy. Duke Energy media contact: Tammie McGee

800.559.3853 City Utilities of Springfield media contact: Joel Alexander

417.831.8902 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/opening-a-new-frontier-duke-energy-renewables-200-megawatt-oklahoma-wind-project-delivering-power-300404963.html SOURCE Duke Energy

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Rabbis installation at Keneseth Israel will get a boost of student creativity
Friends In Pink is still on the radar and growing every year
Education

Montgomery County Community College will present the spring installment of the interview/talk show program Issues and Insights April 20 from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in Science Center room 214, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The programs will be simulcast to the Colleges West Campus in South Hall room 216, 101 College Drive, Pottstown. Dr. Kolsky will offer a humorous presentation, Carrots, Sticks and Politics: A State of the Nation and the World Message. In this speech, he will provide his interpretation of domestic and international politics and then welcome questions from the audience for discussion. Issues and Insights, is free and open to the public. For information, contact Dr. Thomas Kolsky, professor of political science, at 215-641-6380 or tkolsky@mc3.edu.

Montgomery County Community Colleges STEM Scholars Program will host a STEM Jam! open house April 25 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the Advanced Technology Center at the Colleges Central Campus, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The drop-in event is designed for students interested in learning more about careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Activities will include STEM program information and career advising, STEM speakers throughout the day from industry and academia, micro-helicopter and robotics competitive obstacle courses and demonstrations and static models of STEM student and faculty work. For more information about STEM Jam! or STEM programs at MCCC, contact William Brownlowe at wbrownlowe@mc3.edu or 215-641-6644, or Robin Zuhlke at 215-619-7440 or rzuhlke@mc3.edu.

Temple Ambler, located at 580 Meetinghouse Road, presents the following events:

International Club Global Bazaar April 15 from 5 to 8 p.m. The Ambler Campus International Club invites all students, faculty, staff and the community to celebrate a multitude of diverse cultures, which will be showcased at the organizations Global Bazaar. This family friendly event will highlight cultural traditions and celebrations in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, South American, North America and Africa through music, entertainment, food and informative displays developed and presented by students at the Ambler Campus. Young visitors will be provided with passports, which they may get stamped at each country they visit. Prizes will be awarded to world travelers who talk to cultural representatives, answer questions about the countries theyve visited and take part in fun-filled activities designed to help them learn about the rich diversity of cultures found throughout the world. Refreshments will be served. The event is free. For more information, call 267-468-8108 or e-mail tuc36466@temple.edu.

EarthFest 2011 April 29 from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. More than 75 exhibitors, including the Philadelphia Zoo, The Franklin Institute, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Elmwood Park Zoo and the Insectarium, will take part in EarthFest 2011. School students of all ages are invited to attend and develop displays of their own. EarthFest partner the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society also offers its Kids Grow Expo, featuring the Junior Flower Show, as part of the event. For more information, call 267-468-8108 or e-mail duffyj@temple.edu.

Annual Spring Plant Sale May 7 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The plant sale  an Ambler Campus tradition dating back to the early 1900s  will feature woody plants and perennials in portable sizes, hardy trees, shrubs, and vines, native plants that are attractive to wildlife, herbs, and hanging baskets. There will also be numerous special plants for sale to highlight Amblers special anniversary year. Garden books and garden tools will also be available for sale. Students, staff, and volunteers from the Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture and the Ambler Arboretum Advisory Committee will be available to answer questions. All proceeds from the Spring Plant Sale will support the Ambler Arboretum Fund and the Pi Alpha Xi National Honor Society. Information: 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary.

June Homecoming/Louise Bush-Brown Garden Dedication June 5 from 12:30 to 2 p.m. (June Homecoming), Bright Hall Lounge; 2 p.m. (Garden Dedication), Ambler Campus Formal Perennial Gardens. Tickets  June Homecoming: Participant  $18 per person; Sustainer  $25 per person; Benefactor  $40 per person. The 2011 June Homecoming, sponsored by the School of Environmental Design Alumni Association, will include the Alumni Association annual meeting and luncheon. June Homecoming will be followed by the formal dedication of Temple University Amblers Formal Perennial Gardens as the Louise Bush-Brown Formal Gardens. During this 100th anniversary of the campus, Temple University Ambler and the Ambler Arboretum of the Temple University is honoring Louise Bush-Browns many contributions to the history of the campus by formally dedicating the gardens in her honor. During the program, campus Executive William Parshall will welcome guests, Ambler Arboretum Director Jenny Rose Carey will speak about the Bush-Browns and the history of the garden, and an official ribbon cutting will be held for the Louise Bush-Brown Formal Garden. Following the ribbon cutting, guests are invited to take a tour of the gardens, which will wend their way to the Campus Greenhouse for the School of Environmental Designs annual Plant Auction. Information (Garden Dedication): 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Information (June Homecoming): 215-482-0722. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary.

Northview Garden Tour and Fundraiser for the Ambler Arboretum June 12 from noon to 5 p.m. Call for reservations. Tickets: $15 per person or $20 at the door. In addition to the gardens of the Ambler Arboretum of Temple University, Arboretum Director Jenny Rose Carey has a garden oasis all her own right in Ambler  Northview. Visitors will have the opportunity to take self-guided tours throughout the many gardens, where garden experts will be available to answer questions about the various designs. The Ambler Keystone Chapter of the Womans National Farm and Garden Association will also provide tea and refreshments. All proceeds from the tours will support the Ambler Arboretum of Temple University. Information or to register: 267-468-8001 or judy.shatz@temple.edu. Learn more at www.ambler.temple.edu/anniversary.

The Senior Adult Activities Center of Montgomery County, 536 George Street, Norristown, will hold the following events:

SAAC Adult Day Care, an alternative to Nursing Home Care is available  for information call 610-275-1960

Volunteers are needed for Meals on Wheels Program (call the number above)

SAACs Fifth Avenue Boutique opens Monday through Friday from 10 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

Exercise with Theresa will be held every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 1 p.m.

Dance class is held every Monday at 10 a.m.

Tai Chi is held every Monday at 10 a.m.

Yoga is held every Tuesday at 10:30 a.m.

Line Dancing is held every Thursday at 10:30 a.m.

Dancing with Joan is held every Wednesday at 10:30 a.m.

Sculpture Class is held Wednesdays from 2 to 3:30 p.m.

Why Should I Learn Spanish? will be held Wednesdays at 10:30 a.m.

Generations On-Line computer classes for seniors will be held Monday through Friday from 8 a.m.  4 p.m.  computers are available during those hours.

Health Living will be held every Tuesday at 1 p.m.

Boomer U will hold the following events. Boomer U is located at 45 Forest Avenue, Ambler. Registration & payment is required for all events: 215-619-8863.

Pilates Class is held Wednesdays and Fridays at 9:30 a.m. First class is free; please bring a mat. For information call 610-291-5376.

Blue Bell School of Dance, 921 Penllyn Blue Bell Pike, Blue Bell, hosts Argentine Tango Classes and a Milonga dance party every Friday evening. Lessons start at 8:30 p.m. followed by dancing at 9:30 p.m. Andrew Conway, master Argentine Tango dancer, instructor and performer and his partner Linda Chase will instruct. All levels welcome and no partner is needed. Refreshments will be served. Fee is $12 per person and includes lesson and dancing. Information: 215-634-1101 or www.amoretango.com.

The Montgomery Hospital Medical Center will offer the following classes:

Childbirth Education Class- all parents are invited to participate, including those who are delivering at

other hospitals. For more information on maternity services or classes, call 610-270-2020.

CPR and First Aid Courses are offered for beginners to experiences health care providers. Call 610-270-2313.

The Ambler SAAC (Senior Adult Activities Center), located at 45 Forest Ave in Ambler will hold the following events:

Tai Chi every Monday and Thursday at 11 a.m.

Yoga is every Tuesday at 1 p.m. and Friday at 10:30 a.m.

Strength and balance training every Wednesday at 10 a.m.

Armchair Aerobics is held every Monday at 10 a.m.

Gourmet Weight Wise every Thursday at 12:30.

Fitness Center and Pool Room open daily 8 a.m.-4 p.m.

The Diabetes Education Center will offer day and evening classes each month. Health insurance pays for diabetes education classes. Preregistration is required. Call 610-270-2301.

For Kids & Families

The Ambler Kiwanis Club will host its annual Easter Egg Hunt April 26 at 10 a.m. in Ambler Borough Park, located just off of the intersection of Hendricks Street and Valley Brook Road. Members of the Wissahickon Key Club will assist Kiwanians in hiding thousands of wrapped chocolate eggs in a designated area of the park. Also hidden will be plastic colored eggs, which are redeemed for prizes. Elementary school children are separated by age.

Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation will hold its 21st annual Storybook Egg-Stravaganza April 15 fom 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Upper Dublin Township Building. Toddlers and preschoolers love this annual event where photo opportunities with favorite friends abound! Treasures are collected from UDP&Rs assortment of lifesize cutouts of favorite cartoon characters from Disney, Sesame Street, Nickelodeon and other well-known animation. Children can have their picture taken with Bugsy OHare; bring your own camera. And dont forget a basket for goodies! $7 for UD residents; $12 for non-residents. Pre-register at 215-643-1600 ext. 3443.

Splash Week is a free week-long program that teaches children and families basic swimming skills and water safety practices. All YMCA branches will host multiple classes each day from April 11 to 15. For more information, contact the Ambler Area YMCA at 215-628-9950.

Healthy Kids Day is April 16 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The day is filled with fun, engaging and artistic activities that cultivate healthy living as part of the YMCAs larger efforts to help more kids and families become physically active. All activities are free and open to the community. For more information, contact the Ambler YMCA at 215-628-9950. No reservation is required.

The Ambler Area YMCA has added several new programs for area youngsters. Classes are held late afternoons or evenings on various weekdays. For more information, visit philaymca.org or call 215-628-9950.

Basic Beading: Ages: 10+. Wednesdays 7 to 7:45 p.m. This class will teach you the fundamentals of wiring and stringing along with how color can be used to create unique and vibrant beadwork design. You will create various jewelry including earrings, bracelets, charm pendants and much more! Supplies will be provided. Bringing your own jewelry pliers or tools would be a plus.

Messin with the Masters: Ages: 8-12. Thursdays 7 to 7:45 p.m. Learn about some of the worlds greatest artists. You will be inspired to create your own Starry Night with oil pastels and tempera paints, a tissue paper painted Monet garden, a Picasso head using scraps of paper, a Georgia OKeeffe clay flower bowl and a Rousseau jungle collage.

Super Scientist: Ages: 5-7. Mondays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Well be concocting chemistry experiments such as making slime, mixing potions and having fun with magnet magic. Your budding little scientist will enhance his/her creative thinking and motor skills and to top it off will learn that science can be serious fun.

Wacky Junk Art: Ages: 8-12. Thursdays 6 to 6:45 p.m. Why throw it away! Instead join us to make household junk into aliens from outer space, wacky specs, crazy hats, body masks or a recycled train.

Globe Trotters: Ages: 4-6. Tuesdays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Youre never too young to start thinking globally. Each week, we explore a new country through crafts, games, music, stories and even some taste-testing. A perfect introduction to our great big world!

Crazy about Crafts: Ages: 5-7, Thursdays 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. Let your childs creative juices flow with our fun arts and crafts projects each week. Fine motor skills and creative thinking skills will be enhanced with this crafty class.

Come out and join the Ambler Area YMCAs Teen and Junior Leaders Club. Participants are given the freedom to plan community service projects year round and truly make a difference in the lives of people in need. Those in Teen and Junior Leaders also attend leadership retreats all along the East Coast three times a year and meet other leaders who are doing the same great work in their respective areas. Dont miss out on this inspiring opportunity. Teen Leaders, ages 13-17, meet every Wednesday from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Junior Leaders, ages 10-12, will begin in the spring and will meet every Monday. For more information, contact Mike Miles, Teen Director, 215- 628-9950 x 1540 or mmiles@philaymca.org.

Did you know that the new Ambler Area YMCA holds childrens birthday parties at its site for members and non members as well. The Ambler Y does all the work from start to finish and birthday parties include a personalized cake, ice cream, beverage and paper products. Parties are held on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and include two party hosts to lead activities, set-up, clean-up and assist with serving. You can have a Splash Party for children ages six to 12 in the new zero depth entry pool with water slide and spray fountains. Up to 25 children have exclusive use of the pool area with 30 minutes in the party room. Sports Parties are offered for kids ages four to 12 with age appropriate activities and games, and sports such as floor hockey, soccer, basketball or dodge ball. Children ages three to five years of age will enjoy parties in the Family Active Center with use of the Moon Bounce and organized activities, such as parachute play and songs. For information, 215-628-9950 ext. 1583.

Community Events at the Ambler Y:

-YAchievers YMCA Achievers is a developmentally based, extracurricular, educational and team mentoring program designed to help students in grades five through 12 prepare for fulfilled livelihoods in college and beyond. Participation is free and all students in this program receive a free YMCA membership. Registration for the 2009 program begins now. You do not need to be a YMCA member to utilize these special services. Call 215-628-9950 to register.

Greater Norristown Art Leagues Childrens Weeklong Summer Art Camps will be held at 800 West Germantown Pike in East Norriton, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday throughout the summer. The cost per session is $125 per student for ages 6 and up. Jo Ann Cooksey Bono teaches an introduction to basic drawing skills and techniques from 10 a.m. until the lunch break each day. In the afternoon sessions, Mary Vogel Lozinak involves the students in hands on projects such as collage, papermaking, T-shirt printing, 3D design and sculpy clay. Fridays Graduation Day includes an art show, awards ceremony and reception for parents, siblings, grandparents and friends. All supplies are included. Students provide their own lunch. A refrigerator is available and the building is air-conditioned. This is the 15th year to run this successful program. Both instructors are professional artists with State Police and Child Abuse Clearances. To register, call Jo Ann at 610-279-1008, or register on-line at www.gnal.org.

Health

Dresher Physical Therapy is hosting an interactive seminar discussing its Golf Assessment Progam April 30 from 10 a.m. to noon at Dresher Physical Therapy, 1075 Virginia Drive, Suite 200, Fort Washington. Physical therapist Chris Miller, certified through the Titleist Performance Institute, will discuss why your body may be the most important piece of golf equipment you invest in and how this can drastically improve your game. $10 in advance; $15 at the door. Call 215-619-4545 to reserve your spot.

The Chestnut Hill Center for Enrichment, Center on the Hill and Chestnut Hill Hospital will host a Senior Health and Resource Fair April 14 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Chestnut Hill Presbyterian Church, 8855 Germantown Ave. The event is free. For more information, call 215-248-0180 or e-mail chseniors@cavtel.net.

The Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center is hosting Help Yourself to Health, a new six-week workshop for older adults with ongoing health conditions such as arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, anxiety, heart disease and others. The free workshop will take place at the Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center, 45 Forest Ave. on six Thursdays, May 12 through June 16 from 9:30 a.m. to noon. Although there is no charge to participate, registration is required. To register, call 215-619-8863.

The Ambler Senior Adult Activities Center is sponsoring an eight-week program called A Matter of Balance: Managing Concerns About Falls. Presented by the Montgomery County Health Department, this workshop will be held on Tuesdays, May 3 to June 21 from 10 a.m. to noon at the Ambler Center, 45 Forest Ave. If you pre-register by April 27, the fee is only $5! Registration at the first class is $10. (Checks should be payable to SAAC and will benefit our Meals on Wheels program that serves homebound seniors.) A workbook will be provided and refreshments will be served. Call 215-619-8863 to register or for more information.

Fort Washington Wellness Center classes are ongoing. There are several offered during lunch or right after work, for your convenience: Boot Camp from noon to 1 p.m. on Monday; Zumba is MWF from 11 a.m. to noon and Friday at 4 p.m.; there are 25 cycling classes; Ashtanga and Vinyasana Yoga and Pilates; and a group Womens Strength Training class M-F from 10 to 11 a.m. Questions, call Cathy DeMarco at 215-641-1245.

Following the success of other local area programs, Impact Sports and Upper Dublin Parks and Recreation are delighted to team up again to offer a spring program for the 2011 season! Upper Dublin area children ages 3-5 years old can attend a Sports Program featuring their favorite sports games; soccer, rugby, hockey, track and field, basketball, and more. The program will start on April 27 and run through June 1. Cost for the program is $85 for the six weeks. The classes will be running 12- 1 p.m.; 1- 2 p.m.; 2- 3 p.m. For more info or to register, call Upper Dublin Township on 215 643 1600 or visit their website a http://www.upperdublin.net.

Spring Aquatic Programs  UDHS Pool:

-Summer is just around the corner  Community Aquatic Programs at the UDHS Pool can help get you into shape! Programs begin in March; preregistration is required.

 Shallow Water Aerobics  Two 5-week programs, Wednesday nights, 8-8:45 p.m., $40R/$50NR.

 Adult Swim Instructions  Two 5-week programs, Wednesday nights, 7-8 p.m., $50R/$60NR

-Open Rec Swims are fun for the whole family! Come out on Fridays from 7-9 p.m. or Saturdays from 1-4 p.m. and enjoy use of the pool and diving area. Fridays are offered through June 17; Saturdays are offered March 12-May 21.

-Join a growing group of adult lap swimmers and water walkers. Lanes are set aside evenings and weekends for use; lanes are shared. Monday  Thursday from 7:30-9:30 p.m.; Fridays from 7-9 p.m. and Saturdays (March 12-May 21) from 1-4 p.m.

-Private Swimming & Diving Lessons for ages 3-adult are offered at the UDHS Pool through a partnership with the Upper Dublin Aquatic Club (UDAC). Visit the UDAC website for more information, www.udac.us, and click the link to UDHS Private Lessons.

-Looking for local programs for US Masters Swimming (adults) or Water Polo (all ages)? UDAC and UDSD are working together to develop programs that will be offered at the UDHS Pool. Add your name to Interest Lists by emailing slohoefer@upperdublin.net. emails will be sent about clinics and program start dates.

Questions about Community Aquatic Programs at the UDHS Pool, group use of the pool or pool rental? Contact Susan Lohoefer, Facility & Community Affairs Manager at slohoefer@upperdublin.net or call 215-643-8800 x8994.

SilverSneakers Fitness Program. The Healthyways SilverSneakers Fitness Program is a result-oriented program that enables older adults to take charge of their health. The program is an innovative blend of physical activity, healthy lifestyle and socially oriented programing. Members of the program are eligible for a free YMCA membership, with use of the pool and exercise equipment, along with customized classes designed for older adults who want to improve their strength, flexibility, balance and endurance. If you are a subscriber to Independence Blue Cross (Personal Choice 65 PPO) or Keystone 65 HMO, Bravo Health, or Health Options Programs (HOP), call the Ambler Area YMCA, 215-628-9950 or Hatboro Area YMCA, 215-674-4545. You can also visit www.silversneakers.com.

Zumba Fitness offers Zumba dance/fitness classes at Academy of Dance and Music/BBAD Studio located at 1524 DeKalb Pike in Blue Bell (behind Sherwin Williams). Classes are offered three times a week: Tuesdays at 6 p.m., Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 8 a.m. For a free trial pass for your first class, email us at info@danceandmusic.biz or call 610-277-2557. For more info, visit our site at www.academyofdanceandmusic.org.

Chestnut Hill Health Systems presents the following Health Education Programs:

FITNESS CLASSES

Golden Yoga: A Breathing, Stretching and Relaxation Class. Fridays, 2:30-3:30 p.m. Lea Auditorium, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. Registration for four classes at a time required. Golden Yoga is Classical Yoga, adapted by the SKY Foundation, to accommodate those who have difficulty getting up and down from the floor. The program includes postures, breathing, relaxation and meditation techniques, all performed while sitting in a chair and standing. Registration required. Call 215-247-3029. Cost: $20 for 4 classes per month.

Tai Chi: Tuesdays & Thursdays, 8:30  9:30 a.m. Springfield Residence, 8601 Stenton Ave. Classes, for the novice or beginner/intermediate student, are designed to improve balance, power, posture, coordination, flexibility and mental focus. Slow, gentle movements are modified to most everyones abilities. For more information or to sign up for a free introductory class, call 215-882-2804. Cost: $8 per class/paid monthly.

SUPPORT GROUPS

Weight Loss Surgery Support Group: Fourth Wednesday of the month, 7-8 p.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia. Join us for a monthly get-together where well share information for those interested in weight loss surgery, learn from guest speakers discussing current news on issues including lifestyle modification, nutrition and exercise and provide ongoing support for those who have completed surgery. Registration required. Call 215-753-2000.

Breast Cancer Networking Group: Fourth Tuesday of the month 5:30  7 p.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia. A free, confidential support group for women living with a diagnosis of breast cancer designed to provide a forum for sharing information, feelings and concerns associated with breast cancer. Facilitated by Tish Wakefield, LCSW, Oncology Social Worker. Registration required. To register or for more information, call 215-248-8047.

New Moms Support Groups Tuesdays 10:30 a.m.  12 p.m.; contact Jeanine ORourke, MSW or 2:30  4 p.m.; contact Susan Schack, Ph.D Volunteer Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. The Center for Postpartum Depression at Chestnut Hill Hospital is pleased to offer two new support groups to support new moms. Both groups will be run by experienced mental health professionals who really get it when it comes to new motherhood and juggling relationships, extended family, work/family balance and self-care. If you are experiencing new mom challenges that often heighten anxiety and involve hormonally driven depression, join us for an informative and supportive forum to connect with other moms. Infants are welcome. $30 per session (flexible based on need). Registration is required. Call Dr. Schack, 646-265-2484, or Ms. ORourke, 215-206-2931.

Man to Man Prostate Cancer Support Group Third Thursday of the month 8-9 a.m. Williams Conference Room, Chestnut Hill Hospital, 8835 Germantown Ave. A networking group for men diagnosed with prostate cancer designed to provide education, support and encouragement. Spouses and partners welcome. Harry M. Baer, MD, Chief, Urology Division, will host Ask the Doctor. Registration required. Call 215-248-8325.

Contact the Senior Center by phone 215-248-0180 or email (chseniors@cavtel.net) with your questions about these programs or any of our on-going activities and classes.

Holy Redeemer HomeCare and Hospice seeks compassionate and emotionally mature volunteers to provide support to local hospice patients and their families in Bucks, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties. Volunteers may also assist with pet therapy and administrative work within the hospice department and are requested to have daytime availability. Hospice patient care volunteers visit with patients in their homes or nursing facilities once a week for two to three hours. They provide emotional support and companionship to patients and family members, assist with errands or provide respite for caregivers. Bereavement volunteers support the families of hospice patients following the loss of a loved one, while administrative volunteers assist with typing, mailings and/or filing. Hospice care workers provide a great service to families and loved ones of hospice patients. Many volunteers also report a great deal of personal satisfaction as a result of their services. Patient care and bereavement volunteers complete an application and attend an 18-hour volunteer training program that covers the medical, psychological and spiritual aspects of hospice volunteering. Day and evening training programs are offered. To sign up for volunteer opportunities in Pennsylvania, contact Holy Redeemer Volunteer Coordinator Jean Francis at 215-698-3737 or email jfrancis@holyredeemer.com.

Librarytalk

Upper Dublin Public Library, 805 Loch Alsh Avenue, Ft. Washington, 215-628-8744

www.upperdublinlibrary.org

APRIL CHILDRENS PROGRAMS:

Storytimes: Please register in the library.

o Wee Ones: 0 to 23 months Thursdays and Fridays 10:30 to 10:50 a.m.

o Tiny Tots: age 2. Wednesdays 10:30 to 10:50 a.m. and Fridays 11 to 11:20 a.m.

o Jr. Book Lovers: ages 3 to 6. Tuesdays 10:30 to 11 a.m.

o Bedtime Storytimes: 7 to 7:30 p.m. April 20 and 27. Wear your jammies, bring your teddy & hear Miss Barbara read bedtime stories! For ages 3 to 6.

APRIL TEEN PROGRAMS:

North Hills Library Teens April 28 from 4 to 6 p.m. Movie Matinee

APRIL UDPL ADULT PROGRAMS:

NEW! ESL Conversation Group. Tuesdays from 7 to 8 p.m. Interested in practicing your English in a safe and caring environment? Come to our conversation group and improve your skills! Please register with Kay Klocko at 215-628-8744 or kklocko@mclinc.org.

One-on-One Computer Mentoring. Get personalized assistance from experienced computer volunteers! Sign-up for a one-hour session. Limit one session per month. Please register  contact info above.

Book Groups Please register with Kay Klocko 215-628-8744.

o Daytimers: April 21 at 1:30 p.m. Tired of book groups where you all read the same book? Read any fiction or non-fiction book on this months theme: Explorers. Please register.

Meetings:

Annual Meeting of the Friends of UDPL: April 14 at 1 p.m.

Board of Directors: April 20 at 7 p.m.

Blue Bell Library www.wvpl.org Upcoming Events: The Wissahickon Valley Public Library, 650 Skippack Pike (Route 73) in Blue Bell, is diagonally across from the Blue Bell Inn. Call 215-643-1320 or visit their website at www.wvpl.org.

For children and teens at Blue Bell:

* Story times with guitar music by Miss Michelle, the singing librarian.

* Mondays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages.

* Wednesdays at 4:30 p.m. for all ages.

* Fridays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages.

* Family Movies, new releases, second Saturdays of the month at 1:30 p.m.

* May 14  Despicable Me

* June 11  Alpha and Omega

* Special Events

* April  watch for date of spring/Easter events

* April 14 at 4:30 p.m.  Junior Lego Club for children ages 3 through 5. Parents and caregivers need to stay with children.

* April 14 at 7 p.m.  Jeopardy for ages 11 to 18. Test your book and library knowledge for prizes. Sign up to be a contestant. No sign up to be in the audience. Snacks provided.

* April 16 at 1 p.m.  Adult Mystery Book Group discussing The Beekeepers Apprentice by Laurie King.

* April 16 at 1:30 p.m.  Childrens event for One Book, Every Young Child celebration. Story and craft for book Whose Shoes?

* April 19 at 7 p.m. and April 26 at 1:30 p.m.- Adult book group discusses The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester. Group led by Adam Button.

* April 30 through May 3  Friends book sale with about 10,000 items for sale for children, teens and adults.

* May  sign up for Science in the Summer

* June  sign up for Enrichment Programs for Elementary-Age children

* June  sign up for Summer Reading, all ages

For adults at Blue Bell:

* Daytime Book Discussion Group  fourth Tuesday, Jan  April at 1:30 p.m.

* April 26  The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

* Night-time Book Discussion Group  third Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m.

o April 19  The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

* Art Series with Dr. Sheldon Weintraub, docent at The Barnes and speaker at local colleges

o April 27 at 2 p.m. The Art of Looking at Art-Is She Nude or Is She Naked?

*Mystery Book Discussion Group, third Saturday of the month at 1 p.m.; new mystery theme each month; www.wvpl.org/programs

* Yoga on Mondays at 1:30 p.m. $20 for eight classes; $5 per drop-in class.

* Tai Chi on Mondays at 3 p.m. with Dr. Kurt Findeisen. $20 for eight classes; $5 per drop in class.

* Philadelphia Museum of Art presents class on their Marc Chagall exhibit, April 13 at 2 p.m.

* Giant Book Sale, April 29  May 3

o Starts with almost 10,000 items for children and adults!

o Held during library hours.

o Preview for members of the Friends of the Library, April 28 at 7 p.m.

o Join the Friends and attend the preview sale. Modest fee to join.

* Blooms at Blue Bell Gardening Series

o May 11 at 1 p.m.  Summer Bulbs by PA Horticultural Society

* Knitting group Mondays and Wednesdays at 10 a.m. Work on your project or observe and learn. The groups continue year-round in the community room.

* Socrates Cafe discussion group every Monday at 7 p.m. You pick the topic to discuss each week. No sign-up, nothing to read.

* Bridge every Friday at 12:30 p.m. New players welcome.

* Mah Jong every Wednesday at 1 p.m. New players welcome.

*Chess every Wednesday at 7p.m. for adults and teens 14 and older.

* Movie Matinee showing recent releases every Thursday at 2 p.m. April 14: Maos Last Dancer; April 21: Welcome to the Rileys; April 28: Conviction; May 5: Inception; May 12: Inside Job; May 19 The Kings Speech; May 26 The Fighter; June 2 Rabbit Hole; June 9 Black Swan; June 16 127 Hours

* Ongoing like-new, year-round book sale for adults & children during library hours

* Library opening at 10 a.m. Monday through Saturday!

Ambler Library, a branch of the Wissahickon Valley Public Library, 209 Race St., 215-646-1072. www.wvpl.org. All the following events occur at the Ambler Library.

* Story times with guitar music by Miss Michelle, the singing librarian.

* Tuesdays at 10:30 a.m. for all ages.

* Thursdays at 4:30 p.m. for all ages.

* For adults:

* Beading Group meets the first and third Monday of every month at 1 p.m. Work on your own projects or come to watch and learn.

* Free Family History Lookup with Connie Briggs. Email Connie for an appointment at the Ambler Library. conniebriggs@comcast.net

* Special Events:

* April 14 at 1:30 p.m.  Book Group discusses Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian.

* April 19 at 7 p.m.  Travel to Paris with world traveler Harry Balin. Tea and scones at 6:30 p.m.

* April 21 at 7 p.m.  Art with Sara for children in fourth through seventh grades.

*May 2 at 6:30 p.m.  Discuss the movie Lone Star with Temple Professor Lisa Hawkins. Watch the movie ahead of time.

*May 10  Robert Capucci discusses Art into Fashion. Tea and scones served at 6:30 p.m. Program at 7 p.m.

*May 12 at 1:30p.m.  Book Group discusses The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman.

*May 17  Tour the gardens of Devon and Southwest England with Lois McMullen. Tea and Scones at 6:30 p.m. Program at 7 p.m.

*June 13 at 6:30 p.m.  Discuss the movie Blade Runner with Temple Professor Lisa Hawkins. Watch the movie ahead of time.

Meetings and Lectures

The Unisys Blue Bell Retiree Group will meet in the Church on the Mall in the Plymouth Meeting Mall April 14 at 1:30 p.m. Kathy Sacket Young, director/trainer with the North Penn YMCA, will speak on Keeping Fit in Retirement. For more information, contact Membership Committee Chairperson Jerry Feldscher at 610-275-3538 or President Al Rollin at 215-368-4833.

The next FWBA meeting will be April 28 at the Hilton Garden Inn Fort Washington. Networking begins at 11:30 a.m.; meeting from noon to 1 p.m. Leon Singletary, Principal, First Contact HR and FWBA Executive Board, will present: Social Media: How to Use It To Get More Business. Lunch is provided courtesy of the Hilton Garden Inn Fort Washington. Members are welcome to bring a guest. An RSVP is requested by return email or 215-628-0313.

Big Brothers Big Sisters Southeastern PA is hosting a information sessions over the next few weeks on how to become a Big Brother. The information sessions will take place: April 16 at noon, April 19 at 8 a.m. and April 28 at 6 p.m. All sessions will be held at the groups Norristown Office,t 530 DeKalb St., Norristown. For more information, call 610-277-2200.

The North Penn Chapter of the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) normally meets on the third Tuesday of each month from now until May. Meetings are held at the William Penn Inn on Route 202 and Sumneytown Pike, Upper Gwynedd, PA. Social hour starts at 5:30 p.m., dinner is served at 6:30 p.m., and the technical program begins at 7 p.m. Cost with reservation is $28 for members. Members without reservations and guests pay $30. Students with reservations pay $15. Reservations may be made by noon on the Monday preceding the meeting by phoning 215-371-1854 or emailing the reservation to northpennima@yahoo.com northpennima@yahoo.com. Information about the North Penn Chapter is available at http://northpenn.imanet.org/.

LeTip, a professional organization of men and women who are dedicated to the highest standards of competence and service meets every Tuesday at Cedar Brook Country Club, 180 Penllyn Pike, Blue Bell at 7 a.m. -meeting officially starts at 7:16 a.m. and ends at 8:31 a.m. Our purpose is the exchange of business tips, leads, and referrals. Each business category is represented by one member and conflicts of interest are disallowed. Guests are welcome to visit any of our breakfast meetings.

Every third Thursday of month, Sunrise Assisted Living of Blue Bell (795 Penllyn Pike, Blue Bell, PA 19422, 215-619-2777) serves as a satellite site to 148th Legislative district PA congressman Mike Gerber from 10 a.m. to noon. Stop by for help needed with things such as disability placards and license plates, vehicle registration, utilities issues, birth/death certificates,property tax/rent rebates, etc. Notary services arranged by appointment.

The Eastern Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce is an action-oriented organization dedicated to promoting its members and the economic health of eastern Montgomery county. The Chamber is committed to serving as a catalyst by uniting business, community agencies, government and education to make our county a great place to live and work. For information, call 215-887-5122 or visit www.emccc.org.

Do you have a fear of public speaking? Blue Bell Toastmasters Club can help. We meet from 7 to 9 p.m., on the second and fourth Tuesday at the Marriott Courtyard, located on Route 202, directly across from the Montgomeryville Mall. Learn how to improve communication and leadership skills in a friendly and supportive environment. Guests are welcome. Admission fee: $5. For more info, visit www.bbtoast.org.

The PennSuburban Chamber of Commerce will hold the following meetings (for reservations to any of the following, email info@PennSuburban.org)

-Breakfast News Network, 7:30-8:45 a.m. at Normandy Farm Hotel (1401 Morris Road, Blue Bell, PA 19422) $15 members, includes full buffet breakfast. Join us for a networking program at Normandy Farm Hotel every Thursday morning for breakfast, business news, informative speakers, and plenty of networking. The cost includes a full breakfast buffet. Copies of the business cards will be made available to those who would like them.

The BNI, Fort Washington Chapter meets every Monday at The Hilton Garden Inn, 520 Pennsylvania Ave., Fort Washington for a networking meeting. Meetings are from 11:30 a.m. until 1 p.m. Visitors are welcome. The only cost to attend is the cost of your meal. For information or a reservation to attend, please call Luanne Cram at 215-947-7784, or visit our Internet site at: http://www.BNIDVR.Com and click on the menu item Find a Chapter.

For the past seven years, people have enjoyed participating in WVWAs Adopt-a-Tree program. Individuals can support the Association in its reforestation efforts by purchasing native trees to be planted. Supporters can plant their adopted tree or have WVWA volunteers will plant it. Trees cost $30 each. If you would like to volunteer or purchase a tree(s), please contact: Bob Adams at Bob@wvwa.org or call: 215-646-8866 for more information. Check www.WVWA.org for directions and maps.

Sustainable Upper Dublin, http://sustainableupperdublin.org, meets the first Thursday of each month at 6:30 p.m., at the Upper Dublin Township Building, 801 Loch Alsh Avenue, Fort Washington, PA 19034. Please send any questions to suec@sustainableupperdublin.org or call 610-996-6316. To learn more about Sustainable Upper Dublin, view or join the discussion at http://googlegroups.com/group/sustainableupperdublin.

Special Events

The Mattie N. Dixon Community Cupboard will hold its first nutrition class April 19 at 10 a.m. at the Community Cupboard, 150 N. Main St., Ambler. Lynne Sinclair, a nutritionist from Abington Memorial Hospital specializing in diabetic nutrition, will conduct the class. Topics will include healthy eating, beneficial foods, recipes, making meals with every day foods, and how to use unfamiliar produce. A healthy snack will be provided.The class is is open to all residents in Montgomery County.

The Historical Society of Fort Washington presents The History of Conshohocken April 19 at 8 p.m. at the Clifton House, 473 Bethlehem Pike, Fort Washington. Jack Coll will present an illustrated program on the history of the Borough of Conshohocken. Coll is a longtime resident of Conshohocken and a member of the Conshohocken Historical Society. He is co-author with his son, Brian, of the Arcadia Then and Now Series book Conshohocken. He has also done books Conshohocken and West Conshohocken Sports and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Italian Feast. He has taken many photos for the Conshohocken Record and the Norristown Times Herald. This program is free. Refreshments will be served. For additional information, call 215-646-6065.

Taste of the White House Soiree featuring former White House Chef Walter Scheib will take place April 29 at 6 p.m. at Manufacturers Golf & Country Club in Fort Washington to celebrate HealthLinks 10th anniversary and honor its founders, the Eugene Jackson Family. The evening will heat up with a Chef Meet & Greet, followed by a specially selected presidential menu. Gala tickets are $150 per person. Proceeds benefit HealthLink, a free clinic providing compassionate, quality medical and dental care to uninsured, working adults in Bucks and Montgomery counties who fall in between the health care cracks. Go to http://tasteofthewhitehouse.charityhappenings.org to make reservations online or lend support through sponsorship. For event information, call 267-699-0124 or email jmarushak@healthlinkmedical.org.

The Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association will hold an open house at the Evans-Mumbower Mill April 17 from 1 to 4 p.m. The Mill is at the corner of Swedesford and Township Line Roads in Upper Gwynedd. The open house is free but donations are welcome. For more information, call 215-646-8866 o email info@wvwa.org.

The Eastern Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce will host Breakfast With Your County Commissioners and State Representatives April 21 from 8 to 9:30 a.m. at the Holiday Inn Fort Washington, 432 W. Pennasylvania Ave. Commissioners: James R. Matthews (Chairman), Joseph M. Hoeffel (Vice Chair), State Representatives: Todd Stephens (District 151) and Josh Shapiro (District 153). Register onlineat www.emccc.org. $10 for EMCCC member; $20 for non-members.

Upper Dublins Districtwide Allied Art Show will be held April 27 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. in the Upper Dublin High School Athletic Complex.

The Rev. Alfred Muli, chaplain at Fort Washington Estates, will be the featured speaker at the Kiwanis sponsored breakfast observing the National Day of Prayer May 5 at 7 a.m. at the William Penn Inn. The breakfast is open to the public ($15). Reservations can be made by calling 215-646-4356 or by emailing georgesaurman@Juno.com.

The Upper Dublin Shade Tree Commission invites people to participate in its spring bare root planting events, sponsored in part by Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation and Friends of Robbins Park. On April 9, zix trees will be planted at the Evelyn B. Wright Park & Community Pool, 401 Logan Ave., North Hills, at 9 a.m., followed by the planting of 10 trees at Sheeleigh Park, Loch Alsh Avenue and Douglas Street, Ambler, at 10:15 a.m. On April 29, students from Upper Dublin High School will join the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society to plant 16 trees in Robbins Park, Butler Pike and Meetinghouse Road, Ambler, to help launch the societys Million Trees campaign. This event will occur in conjunction with Temple Amblers EarthFest. Experienced tree-tenders are sought to assist the students. For more information,contact Ron Ayres at 215-653-0421 or 215-483-4348.

The Friends of the Wissahickon and the Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association are teaming up once again to clean the Wissahickon Creek from top to bottom April 30 from 9 a.m. to noon. This spring marks the 41st anniversary of Wissahickon Valley Watershed Associations annual Creek Clean Up, and the second year that FOW has teamed up with WVWA. Volunteers of all ages will clean the creek, the surrounding trails and the many tributaries of the Wissahickon Creek. Armed with bags, volunteers will be assigned to sections of the creek. Following the clean up, all volunteers are invited to WVWAs Talkin Trash picnic in Fort Washington State Park, with food provided by Whole Foods Market of North Wales. The pavilion is located on Mill Road in Flourtown. To help out in Montgomery County, all volunteers must be pre-assigned a section of the Wissahickon Creek to clean. Please contact Bob Adams, WVWA director of stewardship, at 215-646-8866 ext. 14 or bob@wvwa.org. To work with the Friends of the Wissahickon in Philadelphia, meet at the pavilion along Forbidden Drive, a short distance south of the intersection of Forbidden Drive and Northwestern Avenue. Limited parking is available along Northwestern Avenue and other nearby streets. Volunteers are encouraged to bike or carpool to the event. To participate, register at www.fow.org. Contact Kevin Groves with questions at 215-247-0417 ext. 105 or groves@fow.org.

Montgomery County Community Colleges International Club invites the community to the second annual International Festival April 20 from 5 to 9 p.m. at the Central Campus, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The rain date is April 26. The International Club will transform the outside quad area into multicultural celebration with various performances by dancers, singers and musicians. Artists will share their artwork at various display tables. Activities include games, raffles, Easter egg decorating and henna tattoos. Students will have samples of international cuisine at tables representing different countries and will serve food from various local ethnic restaurants. Throughout the evening, volunteers will accept donations and will raffle gift baskets and prizes to raise funds for Habitat for Humanity. Donations of food, international clothes and prizes are needed. Volunteers, including artists and performers, are welcome. For more information or to sponsor an activity, contact Gillian Nel, International Club president, at gnel9277@students.mc3.edu or 267-974-0163.

The Arts and Humanities Division at Montgomery County Community College is partnering with the Philadelphia Writers Conference to host Memoirs Matter: How Life Stories (Including Yours) Can Transform Your Relationship to Literature April 23 from 1 to 3 p.m. in Advanced Technology Center room 101, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell. The event is free and open to the public. In the first part of this two-hour seminar, professor and author Robert Waxler will explain how writing his two memoirs affected his life as well as his relationship to literature. In the second part, blogger and workshop leader Jerry Waxler will present a sequence of steps to help writers find their own story. For information, contact Dana Resente at dresente@mc3.edu.

The Maple Glen Garden Club will hold its fourth annual Plant Sale on May 7 from 8 to 11 a.m. Perennials, shrubs, vegetables and native plants grown by the club members will be sold. The club uses the plant sale proceeds to fund community projects, a college scholarship and community plantings. The sale will be held in the 500 block of Coach Road, Horsham, as part of a neighborhood garage sale. Plants will be sold at bargain prices. For more information, email MapleGlenGardenClub@gmail.com.

The Relay for Life Craft Show is looking for local crafters to participate in show, which will be May 21 from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the Wissahickon High School track, 521 Houston Road, Ambler. There is a $10 entry fee, and 20 percent of sales are donated to the American Cancer Society. Participants will receive a 6-foot table under a tent. For information, contact Joanne at joannescoles@comcast.net or Mindy at mcamsilver@comcast.net.

Spring House Estates is hosting its annual book fair on April 18 from 4 to 7 p.m. and April 9 from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Included will be hardback and paperback used books. Spring House Estates is located at 728 Norristown Road, Lower Gwynedd.

The PennSuburban Chamber of Commerce will present the Penn Suburban/Hatfield Joint Business Card Exchange April 20 from 5 to 7 p.m. at Univest Bank Lansdale Area Financial Service Center, 120 Forty Foot Road, Hatfield. The event is free. To make reservations, visit PennSuburban.org/Events. Join Univest National Bank and Trust Co. for a spring-inspired Business Card Exchange at its newest office in the Hatfield Pointe Shopping Center. Come out and meet members of Univests executive management team while enjoying fine food and beverages.

13th Annual Community Reading Day Kick-off Breakfast Get Together April 26 from 8 to 9:30 a.m. at the North Wales Area Library, 233 Swartley St., North Wales. The event is free. To make reservations, visit PennSuburban.org/Events. For more information, contact the chamber office at 215-362-9200 or info@pennsuburban.org. Join presenting sponsor Verizon, chamber staff and fellow members for the Community Reading Day volunteer get together. The Community Reading Day program allows volunteers to read a designated book to second-grade students throughout 38 area public and private schools and present the book as a gift to each class. Even if you are not a volunteer, you are cordially invited to stop by to network, enjoy coffee and pastries.

Ambler Mennonite Church is hosting a Spring Craft Show and Flea Market May 21 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Rain date will be May 28. The community is invited to shop the great craft booths, find some gifts and deals, as well as enjoy home baked goods and tasty lunch specials. Childrens activities are planned. All vendors are encouraged to contact the church at 215-643-4876 or AmblerMennonite@verizon.net. Advertising, signage, customer parking and a shuttle to auxiliary parking at nearby lots for vendors will be provided. 10 foot by 10 foot spaces can be rented for $5 each and tables for an additional $5 each. All proceeds from space and table rentals go toward school kits for children around the world. The church is located at the corner of East Mt. Pleasant Avenue and North Spring Garden Street, Ambler.

The Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association presents The Life & Times of Aquatic Insects in the Wissahickon Creek April 16 from 1 to 3 p.m. Join WVWA for a hands-on program. RSVP required: www.wvwa.org or 215-646-8866. WVWA member fee: $5 per person / $15 per family. Non-WVWA member fee: $10 per person / $20 per family.

The photography exhibition Natures Palette by photo-artist Judy Miller will run March 18 to May 19 at the Art in the Storefront gallery, 41 E. Butler Pike, Ambler.

JPRN  Networking For People in Transition & People Who Can Help Them  Unemployment remains high. JPRN, the Jarrettown Professional Relationship Network can help. Are you trying to network your way to a new job? Do you have expertise or contacts that can help people in transition? Is your company or organization looking for people in the area? This is a free outreach program to support those seeking work, involve people with contacts and networking know how, and involve local companies. Meetings held monthly at Jarrettown United Methodist Church, Limekiln Pike.

Pennsylvanias Low-Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP) grant program is now open for the 2010-11 heating season. Grants are based on income, family size, type of heating fuel and region. Additional information, such as specific income limits, and applications for LIHEAP grants are available online via the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Access to Social Services (COMPASS) website at www.compass.state.pa.us. Applications are available at most public officals district offices, county assistance offices, local utility companies and community service agencies, such as Area Agencies on Aging or community action agencies.

Begin your holiday shopping at Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation! Entertainment books for 2011, Philadelphia North, are now on sale at $30 each. Regal/United Artists movie tickets are on sale for just $7.50 each, and tickets to the Adventure Aquarium, Baltimore Aquarium, and the Philadelphia Zoo are also available. Discounted ski vouchers to area mountains will be arriving in December; call 215-643-1600 x3443 for more information. Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation office hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

RSVP of Montgomery County and the Wissahickon Valley Public Library have partnered again to offer the public their popular free mock interview sessions. The mock interviews are conducted by RSVP volunteers who are retired professionals, some of whom were in hiring positions themselves. Packets of information which include a sample employment application and interviewing tips with mock interview questions are available at the library to pick up prior to a scheduled mock interview or will be sent via email once the interview is scheduled. To schedule your interview, please contact Janis Glusman at RSVP 610-834-1040, ext. 16. The library is also offering a free resume review service. Bring in your current resume and the professional reference staff will assist you with hints and tips on capturing your work history accurately.

Registration for Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation summer playgrounds, Camp B.I.G. and Small Folks, X-Zone, and sports camps has began. Register online at www.upperdublin.net/store, or at the UDP&R office, 801 Loch Alsh Avenue, Fort Washington. Call 215-643-1600 x3443 for more information.

Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation and Danielles Espresso Cafe presents Mornings at Mondaug Bark Park April 16 and May 21 from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. Meet fellow dog lovers. These events include complimentary coffee, treats for people and pups and raffles/giveaways.

Upper Dublins Annual Spring Flea Market will be held June 4 from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Reserve a table, or come and shop. Tables are $15 for UD residents, $20 for non-residents. This successful event occurs rain or shine. Refreshments available. Call 215-643-1600 ext. 3443 to register for a table.

Regal movie tickets available for purchase at Upper Dublin Township Parks & Recreation. Reduced rate: $7.50 per ticket. Some restrictions apply. Call 215-643-1600 x3443.

Whitpain Township Parks & Recreation movie tickets $7.50 Regal Cinemas, United Artist & Edwards Cinemas on sale throughout the year Monday  Friday from 9 a.m.  4 p.m.

Whitpain Township Parks & Recreation Camp Sign-ups for Stony Creek Day Camp  Stony Creek Tracers and Park n Tots. Register on-line at www.whitpaintownship.org OrCome to Township Building with check or Visa MasterCard Monday  Friday from 9 a.m.  4 p.m. For additional information call 610.277-2400 ext. 374

Upper Dublin Parks & Recreation offers exciting new programs for the fall:

-Returning favorites include UK Elite Petite Soccer, Tiny Dancers, Kiddie Tennis, Fun-nastics, Messy Playtime, Little Chefs, and more. Babysitters Training will be offered in November and December. Continuing Adult Fitness Classes include Cardio Circuit, Core & More, Yoga, Boxing, and Adult G.Y.M. For more information call 215-643-1600 x3443. Register for programs online at www.upperdublin.net/store.

Music and Theater

The community is invited to a Cantors Concert April 16 at 8 p.m. Congregation Beth Or, 239 Welsh Road, Maple Glen. Listen and hum-along to the Yiddish, pop tunes and classical music performed by Congregation Beth Ors own Cantor David Green and his special guest, Cantor Irvin Bell, from Temple Beth Israel in Deerfield Beach, Fla. The cantors will be accompanied by Mark Sobol and his Klezmer musicians. Tickets are $18 in advance and $25 at the door. RSVP with payment to Barb Murtha, 239 Welsh Road, Maple Glen, PA 19002, or call 215-646-5806 ext. 220.

Gwynedd Friends Coffeehouse will host the Jameson Sisters May 14. Doors open at 7:30 pm, performance at 8:00 pm. Gwynedd Friends Coffeehouse is located at the corner of Rte. 202 & Sumneytown Pike, Gwynedd. $5 suggested donation. Light refreshment available at a modest cost. For further information, call 215-393-9576 or visit gwyneddmeeting.org/coffeehouse.html.

Celebrate patriotism through song with Gwynedd-Mercy Colleges choir, the Voices of Gwynedd, as it presents Hear America Singing April 15 at 8 p.m. The choir will perform song selections from all over the country, including Georgia on My Mind, New York State of Mind, and a medley including Philadelphia Freedom and Allentown. The performance will end with When the Saints Go Marching In to acknowledge the choirs upcoming tour in New Orleans. Hear America Singing will take place in the Julia Ball Auditorium, located in St. Bernard Hall. Parking is available in lots A, C and D. Admission is free.

The Choristers will present Anton Dvoraks Stabat Mater April 16 at 7:30 p.m. at Upper Dublin Lutheran Church in Ambler. The choir will be accompanied by a 41-piece orchestra. Tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for senior citizens, $10 for students and children are free. Tickets will be sold in advance or at the door. For more information, call 215-542-7871 or visit TheChoristers.org

Religious News

The Staircase Gallery at Or Hadash: A Reconstructionist Congregation in Fort Washington will feature the work of Emily Ennuat-Lustine. The artist will be showing paintings and graphics inspired by her own personal spiritual journey and quest for meaning. Some of the works to be shown have been inspired by Biblical Psalms and writings. Her work has been shown at Abington Art Center, Cheltenham Arts Center and Old City Gallery of Jewish Art among others. The exhibition is open Friday evenings starting Feb. 18 after Shabbat services. Gallery hours are: Mondays through Thursdays 10-4:30, Fridays 10-3 and following Shabbat Services and Sundays 10-1. The synagogue is located at 190 Camp Hill Road in Fort Washington. For additional information contact the synagogue office at 215-283-0276.

Reunions

St. Matthews High School Conshohocken Class of 1961 is looking for classmates. For details, contact Greg Marincola at 215-646-2239, 215-740-1296 or gregcola@comcast.net.

Olney High School Class of 1971 is Lloking for classmates for a 40th reunion Oct. 28. For details, contact Judy at ohsclassof71@yahoo.com or 215-870-7572.

Abington High School Class of 1961 is seeking classmates for a 50-year reunion to be held Oct. 14-15, 2011.Visit the website, www.abington61.com, for details or call 215-947-1779.

Overbrook High School class of January 1956 is having a 55 year reunion on May 22, 2011 at the Bala Golf Club in Philadelphia. For information please contact overbrookreunion56@comcast.net

Germantown High School Class Of January 1961 is looking for classmates for 50th year reunion to take place in May of 2011. Please contact: 215-362-9148, 856-577-0659 or samdelcomo@comcast.net

The June 1961 class of Germantown High School is holding their 50th reunion on May 15, which will be a brunch. For further details please contact Linda Dorfman Alten at lindaalten@yahoo.com or call 215-441-8411.

Support

New Life Presbyterian Church in Dresher, will host GriefShare, a special seminar and support group which will run on Monday evenings from 7 to 9 p.m., from March 7 through June 6. At each meeting there will be a DVD about the grief process, discussion and reference to a grief workbook. Preregistration is required to secure a place in the group and to purchase a GriefShare notebook (for a one-time fee of $15). The notebook goes along with the 13-week schedule covering such topics as: living with grief, the effects of grief, and stuck in grief. For more information or to register, call: Sandy Elder at 215-884-5149.

PUPS (People Understanding Parkinsons) A self-help group for those adjusting to a new diagnosis or dealing with the early stages of Parkinsons Disease. Meets fourth Tuesday of the month from 1 to 2:30 p.m., at Abington Health Center, Schilling Campus, Willowood Building, 2510 Maryland Road, Suite 251, Willow Grove. For more information or to RSVP, contact Lorna at 215-542-2931.

The North Penn Visiting Nurse Associations Meals on Wheels program is looking for volunteers to pack or deliver meals to the elderly and infirmed. Meals are packed and delivered mornings, Monday through Friday. You can volunteer for as many days per week or month as you would like. Packaging meals requires approximately 2-1/2 hours of your time each day and involves making sandwiches, packaging food into individual serving containers and packing coolers with the meals. Delivering meals requires approximately 1-1/2 hours of your time each day and involves loading coolers into your car and delivering a route of approximately 10 to 15 stops. The Meals on Wheels program is also in need of emergency, winter-weather volunteers to pack and deliver meals in bad weather. North Penn VNA is located at 51 Medical Campus Drive in Lansdale and delivers meals in the Lansdale, North Wales and Blue Bell areas. For more information or to volunteer, please call Bridget, North Penn VNA Meals on Wheels coordinator at 215-855-8296.

Elkins Park Area CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) meets the first Tuesday of every month, 7- 8:30 p.m., at Einstein at Elkins Park Hospital in Elkins Park. For information on CHADD or ADHD, please see our website www.chadd.net/249 or call Claire Noyes at: 215-779-6656.

Center for Loss and Bereavement, 3847 Skippack Pike, Skippack (610-222-4110) www.bereavementcenter.org Offers professional counseling for individuals, couples, children and families dealing with issues of loss and bereavement. Six-week adult support groups: Newly forming young adult grief support group  every other Wednesday, 7  8:15 p.m. (free of charge); Monthly loss of child support  second Mondays, 7-8:15 p.m.; Six-week young loss of spouse/partner  Thursdays, 10-11:15 a.m.; Other groups scheduled as interest is shown for suicide loss support, adult loss of parent, motherless daughters, adult loss of sibling, coping with chronic illness and disability and mens loss of spouse. Nellos Corner Family Bereavement program offers peer grief support groups for ages 4 through teen and their caregivers  Every other Tuesday or Wednesday (free of charge) Local chapter of Parents of Murdered Children also meets at the Center. Registration required. Call for further information.

CHADD is a national organization for children & adults with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder, providing education, advocacy and support for individuals and their families with AD/HD. Einstein at Elkins Park Hospital, 60 Township Line Road, Elkins Park, PA 19027, will host children & adults with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder on the First Tuesday of each month 7  8:30 p.m. Free, no childcare provided.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphias Kehillah of Old York Road is sponsoring a free Caregiver Support Group for individuals who care for an elderly person with cognitive and/or physical impairments. The group meets at SarahCare Adult Day Care Center, 101 Washington Lane, Suite G-6, Jenkintown, Pa., on the first Wednesday of each month. Patty Rich,
February 09, 2017 Its Foreign Greed And Delusion That Kills Yemeni Children Ten-thousands, and soon hundred-thousands die in Yemen as result of zealotry, greed and bureaucratic infighting of foreign countries. The Wahhabi Saudis fight in Yemen against Iranian Shia that ain't there. Under the eyes of the CIA they nurture local al-Qaeda forces to do their bidding. The UAE seeks new ports in Yemen thereby disturbing Saudi pipeline dreams. The Pentagon tussles with the CIA over budgets of special operations. The minor local Yemeni conflicts between the various tribes develop into a war due to foreign interference and financing. Bombing campaigns have replaced tribal mediation. The executive branch of the United Nations is under pressure from the U.S.-Saudi coalition. It is not allowed to report on the real consequences of the devastating war on Yemen. The leads to rather comical assertions. On August 31 2016 the UN coordinator on Yemen Jamie McGoldrick said that 10,000 people had died due to the war on Yemen: Speaking from the capital Sanaa on Tuesday, Jamie McGoldrick, the UN humanitarian coordinator said the new figure was based on official information from medical facilities in Yemen. The number could rise further, McGoldrick said, as some areas had no medical facilities, and people were often buried without any official record being made. "We know the numbers are much higher but we can't tell you by how much," McGoldrick told reporters On January 17 2017 the UN coordinator on Yemen Jamie McGoldrick said that 10,000 people had died due to the war on Yemen: "[T]he estimates are that over 10,000 people have been killed in this conflict and almost 40,000 people injured", UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Yemen Jamie McGoldrick told reporters in the capital Sanaa on Monday. He did not provide a breakdown between civilians and combatants. The UN numbers did not change from August 2016 to January 2017. Despite intense bombing and ravaging famine no one seems to have died. But those numbers are of course mere fantasies. The real death toll due to the war on Yemen is at least ten times higher. The numbers the UN envoy claims are political. He is not allowed to reveal the real ones. In mid 2016 the Saudis pressured the then UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon to take it off a list of countries that are harming children: Muslim allies of Saudi Arabia piled pressure on UN chief Ban Ki-moon over the blacklisting of a Saudi-led coalition for killing children in Yemen, with Riyadh threatening to cut Palestinian aid and funds to other UN programs, according to diplomatic sources. A UN Secretary General with some backbone would not have relented but would have publicly shamed the Saudis and their allies at each possible occasion. Not so Ban Ki-moon: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday he temporarily removed the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen from a U.N. blacklist for violating child rights because its supporters threatened to stop funding many U.N. programs. Ban said he had to consider "the very real prospect" that millions of other children in the Palestinian territories, South Sudan, Syria, Yemen and many other places "would suffer grievously" if U.N. programs were defunded. The United States and Britain actively supported Saudi Arabia in getting its way at the UN and within the UN Security Council. But the UN giving in to blackmail did not save any children. UNICEF, somewhat independent from the General Secretary, reports much higher (though still incomplete) numbers that come nearer to the truth: Yemen has lost a decade's worth of gains in public health as a result of war and economic crisis, with an estimated 63,000 children dying last year of preventable causes often linked to malnutrition, the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday.

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A decade has been lost in health gains," she said, with 63 out of every 1,000 live births now dying before their fifth birthday, against 53 children in 2014.

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Releno later told a news briefing that the rate of severe acute malnutrition had "tripled" between 2014 and 2016 to 460,000 children. "The under-5 mortality rate has increased to the point that we estimate that in 2016 at least 10,000 more children died of preventable diseases," she said. In medical statistic terms these are "excess death". They would not have occurred without the war waged on the country. It is unlikely that these UNICEF numbers are complete. The mountainous north-west of Yemen is the core area of the Zaidi Shia population from which the Houthi militia fighting the Saudis and their proxies derive. It is now mostly cut off from communication and supply channels. Hospitals and schools in the area have been heavily bombed and its main northern city Sadah has been completely destroyed by Saudi air attacks. The Zaidi comprise about 45% of Yemen's 24 million people and up to 1962 Zaidi caliph ruled the country for over 1,000 years. For the Saudi Wahhabi zealots the Zaidi are not real Muslims and deserve to die. Many people in the north west have fled to Yemen's capital Sanaa. But even there food is running out. Hungry children roam the streets begging for food. The Yemenis, and especially the Zaidi, have always been independent minded. They will not give in to Saudi pressure. The Saudis can not defeat them. Together with their U.S. and British allies they have therefore decided on a follow a genocidal strategy. They cut off the country, which usually imports up to 90% of its basic food needs, from the outside world. Saudi ships patrol the coast and the land borders are mostly under Saudi control. Only smugglers and the few official UN convoys provide some relief. But this is obviously far from enough. The ten-thousands "excess death" are a direct consequence of the U.S.-Saudi blockade. Besides the war on the Zaidi, geo-political conflicts are waged in Yemen. The Saudis accuse the Zaidi of being proxy forces of Iran. But there is no evidence for this. No Iranian weapons or Iranian advisor have been seen in Yemen. Iran had warned the Houthi not to expend their rule. Contacts between the Houthi and Iran are now few and superficial. The U.S. navy caught a few smuggling Dau on the way from maybe Iran to Somalia. It claims that the old and few weapons they carried were destined for Yemen which is already overflowing with weapons. No evidence for this claim has been provided. The real geo-political fight is taking place within the U.S.-Saudi coalition. The United Arab Emirates is nominally part of the coalition. They have provided forces and hired mercenaries to fight the Houthi in Yemen. But it is mainly interested in the southern ports of Aden (containers and general cargo) and Mukalla (oil and gas) and supports a southern independence movement. The UAE owned port management company DP World had its exclusive concessions for the ports canceled when the Houthi kicked out the former government. First the Houthi, then al-Qaeda took control over the ports. The UAE now occupies the port cities with the help of south-Yemeni mercenaries and again manages and controls the ports. The Saudis have their own interest in those ports. They have plans for pipelines from their main oilfields up north to Mukalla. The pipelines would allow the Saudi oil exports to circumvent the vulnerable sea lane through the street of Hormuz. But for that they need a port on the Yemeni coast. The Saudis have supported and allied themselves with radical Salafi groups in Yemen. One of these runs under the name al-Qaeda but it is not as tightly joined to the global al-Qaeda organization as it seems. The Saudi supported al-Qaeda groups, originally hired to fight the Houthi, "liberated" the southern ports. They were ordered out when UAE supported forces arrived but intermittently attacks the UAE occupied Aden and, as Yemeni sources claim, also attacks Mukalla under the label ISIS or Islamic State. This murky conflict is again coming to the fore because UAE special forces took part in a recent U.S. raid on an alleged al-Qaeda camp in Yemen. It has been confirmed that 25 civilians, at least 9 of them children, were killed in the raid. The main U.S. target, an alleged al-Qaeda big wig, escaped. The Saudi proxy government in Yemen protested against the raid. It banned further U.S. ground operation in the country (later taken back). Its ambassador explained that al-Qaeda is part of its fight against the Houthi and not a priority enemy. He repeatedly said that the "highest levels" of the U.S. government were informed of this. The raid in Yemen was carried out by the Pentagon, not by the CIA. The U.S. special forces were accompanied by UAE forces. After the raid al-Qaeda in Yemen retook three southern towns and is again threatening the UAE controlled port cities. My recent discussions with Yemeni sources developed around the following speculative picture. In the war on Yemen the Pentagon is mainly allied with UAE and supports its plans for southern Yemen. The CIA is mainly allied with the Saudis, supports their plans and condones their alliance with al-Qaeda. The main target of the U.S. military raid was warned by the Saudis and escaped. The necessary information came from CIA channels. A similar split between the CIA which supports Jihadis like al-Qaeda and the Pentagon which has to fight them occurred in Syria. The CIA provided weapons, paid by the Saudis, to various militant Islamist groups which the Pentagon knows it will later have to fight. The Pentagon tried to sabotage those CIA operations. This conflict is between U.S. Budget Title 10 (the Pentagon) and U.S. Budget Title 50 (the Intelligence Services/the CIA) which has been waged for years. The responsibilities and authorities under these titles are disputed and discussed (pdf) over and over again. Has the CIA the lead in special operations or the Pentagon? Who will be able to claim the victories and who can be blamed for the losses? The Yemeni children, dying of hunger, are the sorry victims of such idiotic fights. Bureaucracy infighting in the U.S. and pissing contests of Arab sheiks over transports routes around the Gulf are deciding their fates. Yesterday the New York Times editors, again drunk on cool aid, revealed their self-delusions to the world: At least in recent decades, American presidents who took military action have been driven by the desire to promote freedom and democracy, ... That lie will surely be solace for the relatives of the kids killed in the special force raid in Yemen which was planned and ordered by two U.S. presidents. It will nourish the millions of children who hunger and ten-thousands who die in Yemen due to lack of food. Freedom and democracy will be valued by those dying from U.S. bombs dropped from U.S. build planes by U.S. trained Saudi pilots with the help of U.S. intelligence. The new U.S. administration plans to double down on such support. As so often in such conflicts the locals are mere pawns in games played by foreign countries. If the foreign powers stayed out, the local conflicts would be solved within weeks and the healing could begin. It would, in the end, be the best solution for all. At the end of the 30 year war in Europe that insight was enshrined in international law. But the valuable experience, paid with blood and devastation, has been discarded. How can it be regained? Posted by b on February 9, 2017 at 17:37 UTC | Permalink Comments next page  next page 
Iredell County Sheriff Darren Campbell said deputies put a halt to an attempt to bring 90 pounds of high-grade marijuana to North Carolina from California during a traffic stop Monday on Interstate 77.

Campbell called the trafficking of the hydroponically grown marijuana buds was a huge, huge operation and big-time drug trafficking.

On Monday, members of the sheriffs interstate patrol team stopped a Buick driven by Long Bina Nguyen, 42, for traffic violations near the 66 mile marker of Interstate 77 South, according to a press release. Nguyen, who said he was traveling from California, reportedly was acting nervous during the stop.

After a K-9 unit indicated a narcotic was inside the car, deputies searched the vehicle. Duffle bags and cardboard boxes were found in the trunk and more bags were discovered on the floor in the back seat, each containing several vacuumed sealed packages of marijuana, said Lt. Gary Simpson of the Interstate Criminal Enforcement team.

Hydroponically grown marijuana is in high demand, particularly in the eastern part of the country, Simpson said, where it can fetch prices more than twice what it can in California. He said each pound could sell for $5,000 in North Carolina  around $450,000 all together for the 70 bags found in Nguyens car.

Campbell said he believed the drug was being taken to Charlotte, which he called a distribution city.

Nguyen, of Sacramento, was taken into custody and charged with trafficking in marijuana by possession, trafficking in marijuana by transport and possession with intent to sell and deliver marijuana. He was also served a fugitive warrant for burglary out of California.

He is being held under an $800,000 secured bond.
Canadians are withdrawing ever-larger amounts from their registered retirement savings plans to cope with the consistent growth of home prices in the countrys most overheated markets, according to a nationwide survey of 1,500 plan holders.



Released on Tuesday (February 7), the fresh study conducted by Pollara for Bank of Montreal found that on average, Canadians have taken $17,213 from their RRSPs last year. This represented a notable increase from the $15,908 average in 2015.



Its concerning to see that so many Canadians are dipping into their RRSPs to meet short-term needs, which should only be considered as a last resort, BMO Wealth Management director of wealth planning publications Chris Buttigieg told the Financial Post.



30 per cent of the respondents mentioned real estate price growth as the main factor driving their decision to dip into their RRSPs.



In B.C., roughly 38 per cent cited housing costs as the leading reason. This is despite the latest update from the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, which stated that the benchmark price for homes (all types) declined by 3.7 per cent over the past half year (down to $896,000).



Respondents from the Atlantic provinces and the Prairies were the only ones who did not cite home purchases as the top reason for withdrawing from their RRSPs. In Atlantic Canada, Canadians too an average of $25,485, with 22 per cent mentioning large purchases other than homes.



The online survey was conducted from December 14 to 19, and is considered accurate to within 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.



Related stories:

TREB chief: Affordability interventions need a reimagining

Existing facts about Torontos housing market sorely lacking - political strategist
A fresh report from Avison Young revealed that vacancy in Metro Vancouver offices is it its lowest since the end of 2014, a development mainly fuelled by what the commercial real estate services firm called healthy absorption levels.



In a February 7 CNW press release, Avison Young announced that vacancy levels in the area dropped to 9.7 per cent by the end of 2016. To compare, the level for the year before was at 10 per cent.



Positive annual absorption of 849,868 sf in 2016 was the second-most annual absorption recorded since 2007 and followed 1.3 [million square feet] plus of absorption registered in 2015. Virtually all new supply delivered since 2015 has been occupied or will be primarily occupied by the first half of 2017, the release stated.



With select exceptions, concerns that vacancy would spike in older class A, B and C properties as companies moved into new developments have not been realized.



Meanwhile, vacancy in the Downtown area dropped to 7.2 per cent. Avison Young officials attributed this to a resilient market.



There was no meaningful movement in rental rates in 2016 and they should remain fairly stable in 2017, although further decreases in the vacancy rate may apply modest upward pressure to net effective rates, Avison Young principal Brian Pearson said.



The outlook for the Downtown core is fairly stable although delivery of the Exchange in late 2017 could add substantial vacant and available inventory to the market, he added. Developers and landlords will be actively preparing in 2017 for the next development cycle, which should be characterized by a stable, balanced Downtown market with reasonable transaction volume and moderate absorption.



The full report can be accessed here.





Related stories:

Financial services firms to sustain demand for Canadian office space

Demand outpacing supply in Vancouvers industrial sector
First-time buyers who are contemplating a purchase in Vancouver must brace themselves for higher initial costs should city authorities enact a proposed bylaw concerning external wall thicknesses of some home types.



The Independent Contractors and Businesses Association cautioned that the approval of the schemewhich would mandate a one-and-a-half-inch increase in the current width of outside walls for new townhomes and buildings less than six storeys tallwill cost new buyers as much as an extra $15,000 per unit.



What the City of Vancouver is offering is getting in the way of affordable housing for first time homebuyers and young families, Association president Chris Gardner told CBCs On the Coast. They're adding on costs, and I think it's the wrong approach.



Gardner added that the proposal, intended to provide more space for insulation, will have to ensure up to 120 years of energy savings for it to be cost-effective. He argued that input from the public is a must before the implementation of such a far-reaching regulatory revision.



They're layering on costs and regulations and bylaws that are going to hurt first time homebuyers in the city, Gardner stated. If they're not talking to residents, if they're not talking to small business owners, to construction companies, they're not going to get the kind of feedback they need to develop policies that are going to work for the City of Vancouver.



[The City of Vancouver] is missing the point, and they're not doing anything to deal with the most pressing issue facing young families  and that's affordability.



If approved, the changes could be enacted as early as March 2018.





Related stories:

Victoria markets overvaluation stemming from supply issues

Vancouver near the bottom of global housing affordability rankings
Among his many bizarre pre-election promises, US President-elect Donald Trump said he was never eating another Oreo again. His reason was that Oreos maker, Mondelez International Inc., was moving some production to Mexico in order to cut down costs.



Trumps biscuit boycott is emblematic of how we misunderstand offshoring as a tactic only available to big businesses, only about cutting costs, and inevitably hurting the business back home. None of these are true; in fact offshoring has evolved and is quickly becoming a viable option for small businesses. MPA, in partnership with



Its important to recognise the differences between offshoring and outsourcing. With offshoring the client has full control of the workflow and of the staff and staff performance, says Michael Galilee, CEO of GBSS, which is based in Manila in the Philippines. While offering both options, GBSS is geared towards offshoring; they hire staff and provide offices, but the staff members are fully part of the companies they work for. Offshoring therefore provides more control, while still involving considerable savings, costing 5060% of an Australian employees wage, Galilee estimates.



Offshoring itself can be divided into three areas, according to Deloitte and Chartered Accountants Australia, who published a report on the future of outsourcing in November 2015. GBSSs model is most similar to captive offshoring, where a business function is moved overseas but remains part of the organisation. There are joint venture models, where organisations form joint ventures with overseas service providers and transfer their functions into the new entity. Finally, offshore outsourcing involves the use of a third party offshore to provide services.



Two companies that have gone down the first route with GBSS are broking franchise



Homeloans was also looking to build a platform for future growth, says general manager of operations Marianne Hannah. The establishment of our operation in Manila has enabled us to achieve efficiencies that would not be possible in Australia. Homeloans team in Manila work across processing and IT. According to GBSS boss Galilee, the most commonly offshored tasks are in IT, such as search engine optimisation, and broker support roles, with some smaller companies having just one or two staff in Manila.



Trumps biscuit boycott is emblematic of how we misunderstand offshoring as a tactic only available to big businesses, only about cutting costs, and inevitably hurting the business back home. None of these are true; in fact offshoring has evolved and is quickly becoming a viable option for small businesses. MPA, in partnership with Galilee Business Support Services (GBSS), investigates why looking abroad can do much more than save you money.Its important to recognise the differences between offshoring and outsourcing. With offshoring the client has full control of the workflow and of the staff and staff performance, says Michael Galilee, CEO of GBSS, which is based in Manila in the Philippines. While offering both options, GBSS is geared towards offshoring; they hire staff and provide offices, but the staff members are fully part of the companies they work for. Offshoring therefore provides more control, while still involving considerable savings, costing 5060% of an Australian employees wage, Galilee estimates.Offshoring itself can be divided into three areas, according to Deloitte and Chartered Accountants Australia, who published a report on the future of outsourcing in November 2015. GBSSs model is most similar to captive offshoring, where a business function is moved overseas but remains part of the organisation. There are joint venture models, where organisations form joint ventures with overseas service providers and transfer their functions into the new entity. Finally, offshore outsourcing involves the use of a third party offshore to provide services.Two companies that have gone down the first route with GBSS are broking franchise Loan Market and non-bank Homeloans. When it came to broker support services Loan Market was faced with a difficult situation, explains COO Stephen Scahill. There was essentially a gap between what existing providers were prepared to accept for these services and what brokers were prepared to pay. By offshoring data-entry and loan packaging services Loan Market was able to reduce its losses while offering brokers a significant discount for these services. Crucially, it did this without compromising its Australian business, Scahill adds. We were not offshoring existing roles  we were broadening our array of services.Homeloans was also looking to build a platform for future growth, says general manager of operations Marianne Hannah. The establishment of our operation in Manila has enabled us to achieve efficiencies that would not be possible in Australia. Homeloans team in Manila work across processing and IT. According to GBSS boss Galilee, the most commonly offshored tasks are in IT, such as search engine optimisation, and broker support roles, with some smaller companies having just one or two staff in Manila.



We were not offshoring existing roles  we were broadening our array of services Stephen Scahill, Loan Market

In the case of Homeloans, the process of outsourcing was a quick one, taking just a number of weeks, explains Hannah. GBSS assisted with the recruitment of staff (advertising, pre-screening), and we performed interviewing via video link. Their Manila team leaders were then flown to Australia for training. Loan Market, on the other hand, talked to several providers, opting for GBSS because if offered security when dealing with client details.



You could of course hire staff yourself, but thats far easier said than done. The Philippines is not an easy place to do business, being ranked 103rd for ease of doing business by the World Bank, behind Saudi Arabia and Nepal (Australia is 13th). Its a very steep learning curve; it took us a few years to really get our head around how it all works, Galilee recalls. Beyond saving on costs, using a company like GBSS helps save on time, he says, which is one of offshorings chief benefits.



Offshore staff may be out of office, but they shouldnt be out of mind, Galilee warns. To ensure good retention you need the client back in Australia or New Zealand to really have good communication with the staff in the Philippines so they feel like an extension of the team. Loan Markets Manila staff attend broker conferences and are doing the Certificate IV in Finance and Mortgage Broking, according to COO Scahill. Subsequently, Loan Markets Australia-based staff have also been able to upskill, as theyve been less burdened with basic tasks.



In fact upskilling  not just cost saving  is at the core of the offshoring proposition, Galilee believes. It specialises your business. It pulls you back to what your business should be doing, the core function of your business. A lot of administration tasks take away from what your staff in Australia should be doing.
Fueled by a growing midstream economy, Midlands BCCK Holding Co. posted a strong year financially in 2016.

Clark Butts, founder of BCCK, said he has seen an upswing in the companys business.

Theres been more drilling, and with more drilling comes more opportunity for midstream treating and processing, he said.

In an effort to leverage a strong 2016 going into 2017, the company decided to seek out a strategic partnership, he said, referring to SCF Partners of Houston, which will provide growth capital to fund expansion opportunities for BCCK.

This is new for us, said Butts, who will remain as chief executive officer and an owner of the business. We havent had the opportunity to sell part of our interest.

While SCF is an equity partner, Butts and his wife, Shirley, who is co-founder, retain an ownership stake with other executives -- Greg Hall, executive vice president, Ben K. Friedman, chief financial officer, Matt Gillis, chief operating officer, and Chase Johnson, vice president, manufacturing.

Butts said it was a good time to take the opportunities offered by an upswing in the market.

We feel bullish on the Permian Basin and on midstream and processing, he said.

He sees the companys expansion opportunities primarily in the U.S., not only in the Midland and Delaware subbasins but the Denver-Julesburg Basin and Oklahomas Stack play. There are also international opportunities, especially in Mexico as new pipelines like the Trans Pecos will increase natural gas shipments to the south.

We see shipping natural gas to Mexico as creating a localized market for natural gas and that will push prices up a little, which will benefit midstream processors, Butts said.

BCCK is actually four entities: BCCK Holdings, which owns BCCK Engineering, the fabrication arm NG Resources and NG Field, the construction arm. It is a true ECP company, offering engineering, procurement and construction, Butts said.

BCCK focuses on midstream oil and natural gas processing applications, known for its nitrogen rejection units, turbo expander cryogenic units, NGL recovery, CO2 removal, helium recovery and oxygen removal.

What were offering to the market is a one-stop shop, Butts said, whether its midstream processing or compressor stations.

With this new strategic partnership, he said the companys growth plans include hiring. The company, which already has more than 200 employees, is now hiring for its fabrication plant and soon will be looking to hire engineers, Butts said.

I think we should start (that) very quickly, he said.

In a statement announcing the partnership, David Baldwin, co-president of SCF -- which focuses on midstream processing opportunities -- said, We are delighted to partner with Clark Butts and the BCCK team. Their expertise in the natural gas processing arena coupled with their patented technologies are parallel to none. This is an exciting time to get exposure to the build-out of natural gas processing capacity across the United States and we look forward to working hand in hand with BCCK to grow the business to the next level.
If youre sidestepping the Valentines celebrations this weekend, there is plenty to do that isnt all roses, hearts and chocolates. But dont let these events stop the romance. Lovey-dovey types who are also big fans of music and comedy can enjoy a big weekend.

PBS Two for the Road stars visit Midland

The stars of Basin PBS travel/adventure show Two for the Road will be in Midland today for an event at Midland College. Nikki and Dusty Green will be meeting with fans from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at MCs Allison Fine Arts Building, McCormick Gallery. A complimentary light lunch will be served as the Greens visit with fans who will also view a screening of their series, which airs 7 p.m. Thursdays.

If you cant make the lunch, meet them at Wall Street Lofts later tonight and join them for a bowl of chili.

6 p.m. at 100 N. Main St. RSVP by calling 432-563-5728.

Gabriel Iglesias at Wagner Noel

The last time the comedian was here, he sold out an unprecedented three nights at the venue. Iglesias 20th anniversary tour -- 2017 Fluffymania World Tour -- stops in the Permian Basin tonight and Friday. Both shows are close to a sellout. Check ticket availability on the website.

8 p.m. at 1310 N. Farm-to-Market Road 1788. $33-$148. wagernoel.com.

Battle Roast Night of Champions at Kamiposi

If Gabriel Iglesias isnt enough comedy for you (or you couldnt get tickets), all is not lost. There will be more jokes and insults at the meanest night of comedy hosted by Tilted Halo Comedy. Previous Roast Night champions will trade off jokes and put-downs at the others expense to see who is still standing after all the burns. Tears and laughs might both be part of the evening.

7:30 p.m. Saturday at 510 S. Big Spring St. $10. 21 and older.

Eric Johnson at Rea-Greathouse Recital Hall

Johnson is considered one of the most respected guitarists in music today. The Grammy-winning musician from Austin heads to Midland for an intimate concert that will get the audience close up to his amazing skills and fretwork. Hes proficient in many genres such as rock, jazz and country, so expect a night of masterful musicianship while also rocking out.

8 p.m. Saturday at 1310 N. FM 1788. $49.50. Wagnernoel.com.

Victor Wainwright and the Wild Roots at DoubleTree

Tall City Blues Fests Wang Dang Doodle will add its own punch of music to the weekend. Tennessee bluesman Victor Wainwright mixes his blues with flavors of honky-tonk, all while tending to the piano with a flair of brilliance and madness. His skills and music even earned him the 2016 B.B. King Entertainer of the Year and Band of the Year.

Doors at 8 p.m. Saturday at DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel, 117 W. Wall St. $15-$25. ticketfly.com.






Mr. Ciruli is the Director of the Crossley Center for Public Opinion Research at the University of Denvers Josef Korbel School of International Studies. He is an adjunct professor teaching public opinion and foreign policy. The Crossley Center conducts research and presents live and virtual programs on foreign policy, politics, public policy and public opinion.





Mr. Ciruli holds a law degree from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and a bachelors degree cum laude in political science from UCLA. He is a member of the American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR), and is the past-president of the Pacific Chapter of AAPOR (PAPOR). Mr. Ciruli is a board member of the Social Science Foundation of the University of Denver Josef Korbel School of International Studies and past-president of the Georgetown Law Alumni Board and the Denver Athletic Club.




There are heroes who walk among us who quietly work to make Central Florida a better place  but they don't wear a cape.

Help us choose our Everyday Hero of the Year for 2016

Watch segments, vote in our poll

RELATED: More Everyday Heroes making a difference in Central Florida



These heroes selflessly donate their time, money or expertise to lift others in our community  with no expectation of anything in return.

In a special segment on News 13 and MyNews13.com each Monday, we shine a light on these Everyday Heroes who are making a difference with their actions, words or beliefs.

Then, as a way of saying "thank you," we recognize these Central Floridians and present a Viewers' Choice Hero of the Year at an annual Salute to Everyday Heroes luncheon.

This is where you come in.

This year, we have four nominees for Viewers' Choice Hero of the Year, and we need your help choosing the winner.

The nominees come from all walks of life  a salon owner, a teenager, a home improvement store employee and retiree.

Read and watch our past segments on our 2016 Hero of the Year nominees:

 Michael Collins : To honor fallen police officers, Eagle Scout Michael Collins decided to raise money to erect a statue at the new Orlando Police Department headquarters on Orange Blossom Trail. The statue would cost $45,000. In the first month, he'd already raised $3,000.

 Gail Benson : Oviedo salon owner Gail Benson has given hundreds of women battling cancer a few moments of joy by providing free beauty treatments  at one point covering much of the costs out of her own pocket. She also held a benefit fundraiser for the national nonprofit Wigs and Wishes.

 Chris Lopez : When a West Melbourne family bought a faulty go-kart for their autistic teen, Chris Lopez and his coworkers at a local Home Depot stepped up, going above and beyond just a quick tune-up.

 Barbara Mandigo : The days aren't long enough for all the things on 101-year-old Barbara Mandigo's plate. At her Altoona retirement community, among other things, she cuts apart old coats, shoes and discarded clothing  and sews them into teddy bears for kids with serious illnesses at Camp Boggy Creek in Eustis.

Other awards we'll present at the luncheon include:

Young Hero of the Year

Volunteer Hero of the Year

Education Hero of the Year

Public Service Hero of the Year



Health Advocate Hero of the Year

Tell us which Everyday Hero you think deserves the Hero of the Year by voting in our poll.* The poll is open for voting until March 3.

Then, tune to News 13 on April 1 to watch our Salute to Everyday Heroes special.

*News 13 reserves the right to make the final selection in Viewers' Choice voting.
Up to 15 inches of snow accumulated in some area towns before letting up early Thursday afternoon. Though the snow stopped early in the day, gusty winds made cleanup and travel difficult.



Snow began to fall in the region about 5:30 a.m., according to Gary Lessor, meteorologist with the Weather Center at Western Connecticut State University. Lessor estimated up to four inches of snow fell each hour between 9 a.m. and early Thursday afternoon.



Thundersnow, snow accompanied by thunder and lightning, was reported throughout the state Thursday morning. Thunder and lighting during snowfall occurs when a storm rapidly intensifies, Lessor said.



Wind chills could cause temperatures to feel like 5 degrees below zero Thursday night, according to the National Weather Service. The high temperature Friday will be about 25 degrees.



There were moderate traffic delays on Interstate 91 and Interstate 691, according to the state Department of Transportation. From 5 a.m. through noon, state police responded to 72 crashes, 232 spin-outs and 601 calls for service.



I think were happy that people, for the most part, are staying in, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said.



As of noon, there was no intention to close the highways, Malloy said, He said more than 600 DOT plows kept highways passable, though visibility remained an issue for much of the day.



This is a pretty nasty storm, but is not a storm anticipated to deliver 30 inches or more to the state, he said.



Accidents were also reported on local roads. As of 1:30 p.m., Meriden police responded to three crashes and assisted 14 disabled motorists. Meriden firefighters also extinguished a snowmobile fire at a city home Thursday morning.



The Department of Motor Vehicle closed all of its branches Thursday morning, and those whose license or registration expired Thursday will now have until Wednesday for renewal.



Amtrak service between New Haven and Springfield, as well as CTtransit and CTfastrak service was suspended. Malloy said he hoped for CTtransit and CTfastrak service to resume Thursday evening.



Malloy activated the states Emergency Operations Center and its cold weather protocol after the storm due to concerns about overnight temperatures. The protocol means personnel will begin looking for homeless individuals and urging them to seek shelter.



About 100 power outages were reported in Southington and about 60 power outages were reported in Cheshire, according to Eversource Energy.



Meriden, Wallingford, Southington and Cheshire school districts announced Wednesday night that school is canceled Thursday.



Meriden public works director Bob Bass said about 25 city plow trucks worked to clear snow late Thursday morning.



Were doing as best we can, Bass said. Obviously were fighting a pretty good size storm.



Cheshire director of public works George Noewatne said about 20 plow trucks worked to clear 152 miles of roads in town beginning about 5:30 a.m.



Its coming down at a good clip at this point, Noewatne said about 10:30 a.m. Were having a hard time keeping up. Weve got all available personnel out.



Ashwini Torres, a third-shift heath care worker at East Ridge on Preston Avenue in Meriden, left work at 7 a.m. Thursday morning when there was only an inch or two of snow on the roads.



She stopped to take care of a patient at Hanover Towers before returning home to Crown Street. The trip home was slick and Torres got stuck in the Crown Village parking lot at 8:30 a.m.



Its really bad, she said, as her husband freed the car.



Service was temporarily suspended at Bradley International Airport while crews cleared snow.



We advise passengers who are scheduled to travel today to confirm their flight status with their airline before they leave for the airport, Bradley International Airport spokeswoman Alisa Sisic said in a statement.



State police asked motorists to drive in vehicle tracks, avoid distractions and increase following distance.



The Red Cross advises preparing an emergency kit consisting of a warm coat, a hat, mittens and other items. Its also recommended to have bottled water, a flashlight and a battery-powered radio accessible.



The Red Cross says avoid over-exertion when shoveling snow. If using a snow blower, keep hands and feet away from moving parts. The Red Cross also said its important to clear snow around nearby fire hydrants in the event of a fire.






Dozens of schools in flood-prone areas throughout Marin County are scheduled to be closed Thursday in advance of another storm expected to wallop the area, officials said.

In all, 40 public schools and 13 private ones were announced as closed just after 5 p.m. Wednesday, according to the Marin County Office of Education. More closures were possible.
Tony Gutierrez/STF

Valentine's Day came a bit early for Southwest Airlines employees, with the carrier announcing Thursday they'll be receiving an additional six weeks of pay through the company's profit-sharing program.

Southwest's nearly 54,000 employees will share in a $586 million profit-sharing payout, just off the record $620 million the carrier doled out last year. Southwest reported a record 2016 profit of $2.24 billion.
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A truck fire Thursday shut down a well site in Apache Corp.s Alpine High field  the big new oil discovery in an scenic and environmentally sensitive corner of West Texas.

No one was injured in the fire and the well was shut in, an Apache spokesman said. The fire happened just north of Interstate 10 in Reeves County.

We can confirm an incident involving a vehicle fire near our Alta location north of I-10 in Reeves County, the company said in a written statement. No one was injured and the well at the location was shut as a precaution, the company said.

Apache activated its crisis response plan, and the fire was extinguished without incident, the company added.

Neta Rhyne, who lives in Toyahvale and owns a scuba and swim shop across the street from the state park, said she could smell a chemical odor from her home.

The smell was horrible, Rhyne said. Im five miles away and I could smell it at my house.

Apache in September announced the discovery of a new shale oil and gas field, the Alpine High. Its technically part of a the states biggest oil field, the Permian Basin, but is tucked into a remote section where theres been little oil and gas activity over the decades.

If Alpine High works, it has been touted as possibly the biggest U.S. unconventional oil and gas find in a decade.

The companys acreage is centered around the desert oasis of Balmorhea State Park, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. Water flows into the park from San Solomon Springs, the largest in a series of interconnected springs in the area, and home to endangered desert fishes, the Pecos gambusia and the Comanche Springs pupfish.

Apache said it has created exclusion zones and wont drill under Balmorhea State Park, although it leased the mineral rights there. It has also promised not to drill inside or under the city limits of Balmorhea.

Alpine High holds an estimated 3 billion barrels of oil and 75 trillion cubic feet of rich gas, the company said, in just two of five geologic zones that are stacked on top of each other like a layer cake. Apache leased 320,000 acres, including roughly 20 percent of Reeves County.

Apache estimates it has 2,000 to 3,000 future drilling locations in Alpine Highs Woodford and Barnett rock formations. The company is working to the west of other companies in Reeves County and in formations where few companies have struck oil.

The Pecos police and fire departments, the Reeves County Sheriffs Department and the Department of Public Safety responded to the accident Thursday.

jhiller@express-news.net

Twitter: @Jennifer_Hiller
Fitch Ratings in New York on Wednesday upgraded San Antonio-based iHeartMedia Inc.s long-term credit rating after the company  which is struggling under $20 billion in debt  extended the maturity of a portion of its bonds due in 11 months.

The upgrade came after a mechanical process downgrade that happens automatically when a company conducts and completes what Fitch calls a distressed debt exchange. IHearts subsidiaries owned $503 million of the bonds, while $235 million of the debt exchanged was held by outside investors.

Fitch said the distressed debt exchange modestly improved the liquidity by reducing the next maturity hurdle coming due in January 2018, but its financial health remains unsustainable, and iHeart could pursue a broader restructuring of its capital structure over the near term, Fitch said in its ratings announcement.

Fitch initially dropped iHeartMedias long-term debt rating to RD from C and then upgraded the rating to CC, one step higher than C.

The rating changes indicate that Fitch believes the debt exchange was successful and improved the companys short-term liquidity, said Fitch analyst Patrice Cucinello on Wednesday.

An iHeartMedia spokeswoman declined comment Wednesday on the Fitch ratings change.

In December, the radio and billboard giant said it was offering holders of $850 million in a priority guarantee note package expiring in 2018 mostly at 10 percent would be available for an exchange of an 11.25 percent rate expiring in 2021. About $503 million of the package already was owned by two iHeartMedia subsidiaries.

The offer expired Friday night, with $235 million of the $347 million owned by the public tendered for the exchange, the company announced Monday.

IHeartMedia has debts totaling $330 million in December. And iHeart faces an $8.3 billion maturity wall in 2019, Fitch noted.

Total iHeartMedia debt is more than $20 billion, stemming mainly from a 2008 leveraged buyout by two Boston-based private-equity firms. The company, which remains 30 percent publicly traded, said Wednesday it will report fourth-quarter 2016 results Feb. 23.

dhendricks@express-news.net
In 2012, Aaron Phillips, chief executive officer of AmpliSine Labs, and David Bateman, chief financial office and chief business officer, were huddled in the dog house of a drilling rig.

They were attempting the first installation of their SitePro automation software.

We developed the system in the field, said Bateman during a recent visit from Lubbock, where AmpliSine is based.

The SitePro system is integrated digital technology that links exploration and production companies, service companies and water and environmental companies to offer real-time field service data, create and track work orders and offer electronic ticketing.

In addition, the company sells hardware  All the different devices used to measure fluids, Bateman said  that can be connected to the automation software.

Its the safety aspect, the prevention of spills, he said, explaining that the company has patented a remote-controlled system that lets users monitor well sites and equipment, monitor tank levels and site conditions. Users can also use the system to open or close valves or shut off pumps, and it alerts field staff to problems such as spills, he said.

Connecting the various companies and helping manage the supply chain results in efficiencies and reduced costs. Combining that and electronic ticketing into one system, customers are saving money  thats the bottom line, that and good service, Bateman said, noting that the companys field personnel who install and support its systems are always on call.

The idea for the company came in 2012 when there was a big shale boom and a lot of horizontal drilling. There was a big need for water disposal and the traditional disposal, and SCADA systems didnt fill the need, Bateman said. So we devised this system to manage fluid services and water disposal.

Drilling a well is different now, he said, and estimated that there are 2,500 to 3,000 truck visits to a drilling site. He said 55 percent of an oil wells life cycle is water. So we address trucking and disposal.

Its a niche the company can really satisfy, he said.

Since its launch in 2012, SitePro has gained 55 customers, primarily E&P and saltwater management companies and some service companies. Customers are primarily in the Permian Basin but also the Bakken, Eagle Ford and in North Texas, according to Bateman.

He credits the industry downturn, in part, to helping the companys growth.

What happened during the boom was there wasnt as much demand, and the downturn created high demand, he said. It was a shift from drilling and new projects to efficiency and optimizing operations. Our big E&P customers tell us they wanted to use the downturn to get processes in place so theyre ready when activity revs up.

While it may seem counterintuitive, we took advantage and decided to raise capital in the middle of a downturn, Bateman said. Capital came from angel investors and strategic individuals.

Bateman said the companys cloud-based platform is a draw when hes making sales pitches, especially to private equity groups backing E&P companies.

They want access to our systems so they can monitor the companies theyre backing, he said.

The company has offices in Lubbock and San Antonio and field staff throughout the Permian Basin, he said.

He estimates the company has 23 employees -- one-third software technicians, half field staff and the remainder business administration.

And were always looking for good people. Were looking for automation technicians in the Delaware and were expanding our sales team in Midland, Houston and Oklahoma City, he said.

The company estimates the SitePro platform has generated more than $150 million in transactions and tracked and billed more than 250 million barrels of fluid.

The oil field is pretty innovative, said Bateman, predicting the companys technology will be accepted. I think technology is changing and the generation thats running companies now is familiar with it, he said.

Were positioning ourselves to be the digital oilfield solution. Its a developing, billion-dollar industry and we want to capture as much of that market as we can.

Beyond that, I can see us moving into areas like water infrastructure that would serve not just oil and gas but municipalities and agriculture, he said.
A Cypress teenager is being held without bail on a charge of capital murder, accused of stabbing a woman in the Habitat for Humanity home she helped build.

Mauricio Navarette-Torres, 18, appeared Thursday before state District Judge Kelli Johnson who heard allegations the teen was burglarizing the house when the stabbing occurred.

According to court records, Navarette-Torres knew where the valuables where because he had been in the house as a friend and coworker of Martinez's children.

On Thursday, his attorney painted him as a shy introvert.

"He's just a scared 18-year-old kid accused of murdering his best friend's mother," said defense attorney Emily Detoto. "He's a pretty shy person who lives with his mother and collects comic books."

Police said Navarette-Torres admitted to the killing in a statement to homicide detectives, which Detoto said is unlikely.

"There's a big difference between a statement and a confession," she said. "I'm really hesitant to call it a confession until I see it or hear it for myself."

The body of 37-year-old Christine Martinez was found about 2 a.m. Friday inside her home in the 19900 block of Great Elms Drive in northwest Harris County.

During the investigation, Harris County sheriff's detectives identified Navarette-Torres as the prime suspect in the case because he knew where to find the valuables that were taken.

On Tuesday, Navarette-Torres was arrested after going to the police station to give a voluntary statement.

Martinez's 20-year-old son told investigators he left the family's home around midnight to pick up his younger brother at work.

When they returned home, the brothers noticed that someone had forced their way inside and stabbed Martinez, a mother of four.

Officials have confirmed the home on Great Elms was constructed under the auspices of Northwest Harris County's Habitat for Humanity chapter.
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When Deer Park resident Nelly Lopez returned from a trip in January, two important members of her family were gone. As it turned out, they were stolen.

"I was out of the country on vacation and my parents were watching my dogs," she said. "When I came back on (Jan. 10), they told me both of the dogs had gotten out."

The parents told her that after putting out fliers, using social media and searching the neighborhoood, they found a neighbor who had seen the male and female Maltese dogs, who are named Rajah and Luna. But the neighbor related something disturbing.

"As the neighbor saw them, another person pulled up in a car and said that she knew where the dogs belonged and that she was going to take them back to their owner," Lopez said. "My neighbor told (the woman in the car) to wait and went inside to get a pen and paper so she could take down the woman's information in case anyone came around asking about my dogs. But when my neighbor came back outside, the woman in the car was gone."

A worried Lopez decided to look on Craigslist to see if anyone had put out an ad to sell the dogs. She didn't see an ad for her dogs but found one ad, and then another, from prospective buyers warning people not to purchase a Maltese from a seller in Houston.

The person trying to sell Lopez's dogs had posted an ad, later taken down, that included an ultrasound image as proof that the female dog was pregnant. The prospective buyers discovered the ultrasound was from the United Kingdom and put out the alerts.

"It was my dog in the (warning) ad," Lopez said. "I got screenshots of everything that I had and I took that information to the police."

Trying to get the dogs back wasn't easy, Deer Park police detective Frank Hart said.

Because the original ad was no longer up, the police department had to subpoena Craigslist to find who posted it. The police hit another roadblock when the phone number used on the ad traced back to a phone without a provider.

"So, the police had to send out more subpoenas to get the thief's real phone number," Lopez said. "After they got that, they tried calling her."

Hart said that after police made initial contact with the suspect, things seemed to be moving along.

"She was cooperative at first and seemed like she wanted to help but very quickly became uncooperative," Hart said. "She claimed she gave the dogs away. She claimed she didn't know who she gave them to."

Several days into the investigation, the detective assigned to the case had to subpoena another phone company in an effort to retrieve the suspect's phone records.

"He worked on that case a little bit every day," Hart said, "cold-calling all of those numbers to see if anyone had the dogs or knew what happened to them."

After dozens of calls, there were a few numbers on the list that hadn't answered. The dogs had been missing for more than three weeks.

"The detective who helped me, Detective (Nick) Thatcher, was so kind and so patient with me," Lopez said. "I know they have other cases and I know he was busy with other things, but he always answered my questions and he was so reassuring. I appreciate him so much."

Eventually Lopez's story was featured on a local television news program. A couple who purchased the dogs with no idea they had been stolen contacted Detective Thatcher to return them to Lopez.

"He went to go pick them up and asked for a description of the person who sold them. That description matched the description of the person my neighbor saw right after the dogs got out of my back yard," Lopez said. "Then he brought Luna and Rajah back to me in Deer Park."

The person accused of stealing and selling the dogs could be charged with a misdemeanor, but as of presstime, charges had not been accepted by the Harris County District Attorney's Office.

Lopez said that she is extremely grateful for the hard work put into the case by the Deer Park police.

"This is a small community, and they went over and beyond to make sure I felt reassured and taken care of," she said. "I know I called a bunch. I was devastated, but they were always so nice and helpful. There is no way I'd have my dogs back if it wasn't for their hard work. My dogs were sold on Jan. 8 and police returned them to me on Jan. 29 - they worked for almost a month for me and my dogs."

Hart said that effort put forth into finding Lopez's dogs is the same effort they put into all of their cases.

"Not every case turns out like this, but our detectives work really hard to make sure that the people who come to us, while they might be victims of a crime, don't walk away feeling victimized," Hart said.

Video: Three-legged dog up for adoption at Houston Humane Society
An almost $400,000 project to upgrade and widen the intersection of Crighton Road and Interstate 45 at the Union Pacific railroad tracks caused sticker shock for the Conroe City Council Wednesday.

Director of Infrastructure Scott Taylor is seeking approval of $13,000 from the council to begin the permit process for the project.

However, it was the cost of the total project that drew questions from the council. Mayor Pro Tem Duke Coon said he needs to review the project and agreement.

The council will take action on the $13,000 permit during at 6 p.m. Thursday in council chambers at 300 W. Davis St.

"This is a pretty large agreement," Coon said before questioning whether the $400,000 is the norm.

Taylor said yes and added that the project will be completed with concrete instead of the more common wooden crossings that tend to sink after use.

"It will improve the smoothness of the crossing," Taylor said.

The project is the last piece of the city's $3.8 million project to widen Crighton Road. That project was complete in late 2015, but the city has been delayed on upgrading and widening the crossing due to the agreement with Union Pacific Railroad.

Funded through a tax increment reinvestment zone, the road-widening project originally was budgeted at $3.3 million, but came in over budget at $3.86 million, according to previous Courier reports.

Crighton Road was widened from I-45 to FM 1314, and a continuous turn lane was added as well as shoulder improvements.

According to a previous Courier article, Taylor said the project added shoulders to make the road wider and added a traffic signal at Ed Kharbat Drive for vehicles traveling through subdivisions in the area.

In other business:

War memorial  The council will consider a resolution supporting the relocation of the Montgomery County War Memorial Park from downtown Conroe to the Conroe Flag Park at FM 2854 and Interstate 45.

School zones  The council will consider an agreement with the Conroe Independent School District to install flashing school zone lights for Travis Intermediate, Houston Elementary, Cryar Intermediate, Giesigner Intermediate, Conroe High School, Conroe High 9th Grade Campus, B.B. Rice Elementary and Runyan Elementary. The cost of the project is $80,000, and CISD will reimburse the city $40,000.
Despite weeks of rain and a growing perception that the California drought is dead or dying, state officials Wednesday largely extended the water regulations that have become the new normal in cities and towns throughout the state.

The rainy season that began in October is still far from over, and little is guaranteed when it comes to weather, regulators argued, adding that the Sierra snowpack that has built up to 154 percent of normal could melt quickly come warmer weather.

The regulations impose conservation on urban suppliers and threaten fines for noncompliance. Among other rules, watering lawns within 48 hours after rainfall is prohibited. Restaurants, meanwhile, are required to ask diners if theyd like a glass of water before serving it.

In an hours-long meeting of the State Water Resources Control Board, dozens of people opposed to the regulations said they had become unnecessary and damaging to public trust, given all the rain thats fallen. But the board was unanimous.

Its a steady as she goes approach, said Max Gomberg, the climate and conservation manager for the board. Steven Moore, a board member, said that the drought could be over, but the need to conserve water is not.

I believe allowing the regulation to expire is like making an airplane landing without deploying the landing gear, Moore said. Well survive, but how will the airplane look?

The rules, which had been set to expire at the end of February, were extended for up to 270 days, but the board plans to revisit the matter in May, a spokesman said.

Felicia Marcus, the water boards chair, made it clear that her agency has been watching the weather, adding that the excellent spate of recent rain  including Californias seventh-wettest January on record, according to the National Weather Service  has been promising.

But she pointed out that many groundwater reserves are not back to normal.

Its an interesting picture, Marcus said. Its a promising picture, and I guess my main point is that reasonable minds actually can and do differ on what we should do next.

Many of Californias reservoirs have filled, leading water suppliers to call on Gov. Jerry Brown to lift his emergency declaration of drought. If Brown lifts the declaration, the restrictions would no longer apply.

Nancy Vogel, a spokeswoman for the California Natural Resources Agency, which monitors drought, noted that one of the states largest reservoirs, Lake Cachuma in Santa Barbara County, was at 13 percent capacity.

Although this year may end up being wet ... we cant say whether its just going to be one wet year in another string of dry ones, Vogel said.

According to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor figures released Feb. 2, about 39 percent of California was without any drought status, compared with 0 percent last year.

About half the state, though, remained in at least moderate drought, with 20 percent in severe drought and nearly 2 percent in extreme drought.

State Sen. Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber (Tehama County), an outspoken opponent of the drought regulations, called the measures draconian.

Michael Bodley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mbodley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @michael_bodley
According to USGS experts, this is even more dangerous than it looks.

But Hawaii native Kawika Singson looks right at home swimming next to the lava zone on Hawaii's Big Island.

The video Singson posted on YouTube shows steam coming off the rocks as the water comes into contact with the hot lava.

Conditions weren't exactly calm that day. As each wave hits, Singson was thrashed around, often getting far too close for comfort to the lava zone.

Experts advise you should never get too close to a lava zone because the steam it emits when it mixes with water can be harmful to your health.

"It's super-heated steam laced with hydrochloric acid from the interaction with the seawater and has shards of volcanic glass," USGS geologist Janet Babb said. "It's something to be avoided."

According to the USGS, lava continually pours into the ocean from Kilauea at East Kupapa'u and Kamoamoa. In January, a "firehose" of lava was seen shooting into the ocean on the southeast side of the Big Island.

The USGS says lava is over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit but surrounding water doesn't reach a boiling point because the volume of water cools the lava very quickly.
A 13-year-old student from Orange was arrested and charged with making a false report of a bomb threat at Edwards-Johnson Memorial Silsbee Middle School on Tuesday, Silsbee ISD announced.

Silsbee Police responded to a threat called in to the school at 7:25 a.m., the district said in a release, and immediately evacuated and searched the campus.
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Two students from New Mexico State University went to a concert in West Texas. By all accounts, it proved to be a great night.

Then, they vanished.

McKinnah Sinclair, 18, and her roommate, 19-year-old Charlie Daniels, posted photos from the show in El Paso, Texas, on Feb. 3, 2017. In the pictures and accompanying comments, the pair appear to be having a good time, dancing, posing with each other and several musicians.

What happened after that, though, is a mystery.

IDENTITY MYSTERY: Found dead in Michigan, the FBI thinks he's from South Texas

Police in Las Cruces, N.M,, believe the two went to Juarez, Mexico, after show. Police say the pair may be in California, but aren't saying what led to that idea or why they may have gone west..

Investigators think the students may be in danger, given the violence in Mexico in recent years. Family and friends have turned to Facebook to publicize the disappearances.

Sinclair, a college cheerleader, is described as 5-feet-2-inches tall and weighing roughly 125 pounds. She has black hair and brown eyes. Sinclair was last seen wearing a black dress.

REWARD OFFERED: Family seeks help in finding Texas man missing for three years

Daniels is 5-feet-3-inches tall and weighs approximately 150 pounds. She has blonde curly hair and brown eyes. Daniels was last known to be wearing a black skirt and blue denim top.

The two rode a red 2012 Ford Focus. Investigators think Daniels may have been driving. The car has New Mexico license plate 533-TAC.

Anyone with information about the two women may call 911 or a local law enforcement agency.

>>>Scroll through the gallery above to see details about McKinnah Sinclair and Charlie Daniels, as well as other missing persons cases in Texas.
The District 8 City Council front-runner pushed back Wednesday on questions about his residency as a rival filed an ethics complaint against him for distributing campaign cupcakes at a city-operated senior center.

In a morning email to supporters, Manny Pelaez called questions about his residency in District 8 a desperate attack.
AUSTIN - Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush got some positive feedback from Senate budget-writers Thursday when he made his pitch for tens of millions of additional state dollars for the Alamo project.

The Senate Finance Committees starting-point budget doesnt come close to the $75 million in state general-revenue dollars that Bush is requesting for the next two years to help restore the shrine known as the cradle of Texas liberty and redevelop surrounding land.
When President Donald Trump signed an executive order that imposed a temporary ban on travelers entering the U.S. from Iraq and six other predominantly Muslim nations, the move reminded Alex Almanza of another presidents fateful decision.

In 2008, five years into the Iraq War, President George W. Bush declared U.S. forces would withdraw from the country by the end of 2011. The news came during Almanzas second tour in Iraq with the Army and elicited a bemused reaction from Iraqi soldiers.

I remember them feeling a sense of betrayal, said Almanza, 48, who retired from the military in 2013 and lives in Edinburg. You could see it in their eyes: Everything weve been doing is for nothing.

Military veterans in South Texas who trained Iraqi troops warned of similar and potentially lasting effects from Trumps actions, even after a federal judges ruling last week suspended the travel order. (An appeals court heard arguments Tuesday and will decide whether to keep or lift the injunction.)

Those who served in Iraq contend the ban and the presidents anti-Islamic rhetoric could erode the resolve of Iraqi troops, deter civilians from cooperating with government forces and supply fresh recruiting fodder for terror groups.

Almanza, who first deployed to Iraq in 2003, recalled the early efforts of U.S. troops to build up the countrys military during the eight-year war. The Americans taught Iraqi soldiers how to fire artillery, set up checkpoints and conduct raids, and the daily interaction forged a kinship born of common purpose.

The Iraqis who fought beside us were just as important to me as my guys, he said. They were willing to die right beside us. Thats the kind of commitment that can only come from hope. But if were now telling them that theyre not welcome in our country, it gives them more reason to doubt our commitment. It will dampen their hope.

Messing with their trust

The U.S. military has 5,000 troops in Iraq to assist the countrys armed forces fighting Islamic State, or ISIS, with most acting as advisers.

Cesar Gutierrez, a Marine veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, asserted that Trump has disregarded the sacrifices of Iraqi soldiers, interpreters and civilian personnel and the hazards they continue to face working with U.S. troops.

They chose to fight alongside us to defeat the enemy, said Gutierrez, 31, who lives in San Antonio. They were very nervous about patrols  not because they werent willing to fight, but because they were alongside Americans. That alone put a price on their heads.

Training Iraqi forces required Americans to confront cultural and language barriers. Discussions with soldiers and local civilian leaders gave Gutierrez an understanding of the country and its people, and he criticized Trumps travel order as rooted in ignorance.

You have to earn their trust and respect. Once you do, theyre with you all the way, he said. But what the ban does is label all Iraqis as the same. Were now messing with their trust  with an entire nations trust, a nation that weve fought for for many years  and thats going to undo a lot of what weve been trying to accomplish.

A desire to bridge the divide between Americans and Iraqis motivated Ibrahim Eesa, a native of Baghdad, to serve as an interpreter for U.S. troops from 2007 to 2009. He received refugee status a year later and arrived in San Antonio, where he now works as a medical support assistant at the Audie Murphy Veterans Affairs Hospital and belongs to the Texas National Guard.

I wanted to educate Americans about the Iraqi people, and I wanted to explain to Iraqis what the soldiers were doing so they would know what was happening in their neighborhoods, said Eesa, 29, who became a U.S. citizen four years ago. I wanted to be that connection.

Given that he risked his life on behalf of Americans in Iraq, Eesa finds Trumps harsh attitude toward Muslims at once insulting and frustrating.

I feel betrayed. Not by the American people; by the new president, he said. Muslims are tired of being labeled terrorists. We want the same things as everyone else: a safe life, jobs, a good economy.

Makes us go backward

The U.S. military invoked a Vietnam-era mantra of winning hearts and minds in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mike Allen served two tours in Iraq during a 20-year Army career, and he insisted that the perils of the mission remain unchanged under Trump.

Theres no way to make the job any more difficult, said Allen, 44, the coordinator of the Crossroads Area Veterans Center in Victoria. Terrorists are driven by ideology, not some silly policy the U.S. puts in place.

But Eddie Rodriguez, who deployed to Iraq with the Marines in 2007 as part of the troop surge that reversed the gains of insurgent groups, faulted Trump for further endangering American forces in combat zones.

Its easy for politicians to do this kind of thing because theyre not the ones who are shaking hands with the people who live in these countries, said Rodriguez, 30, a social worker and veterans advocate in San Antonio. The troops have to do that. What hes doing is contradicting everything weve been trying to do, and it feeds into the propaganda of radical terrorist groups.

Trumps blunt statements about Islam, as much as his executive order, stoke a perception of Americans as hostile toward Muslims. Navy veteran Jeff Hensley, who deployed to Iraq in 2006 as part of a civil affairs team, predicted the presidents tone will dissuade civilians there from aiding U.S. and Iraqi forces.

The biggest effect may be on the ordinary people who have been watching the war for years, said Hensley, 53, who runs an equine therapy program for veterans in Wylie. They may not become jihadists. But theyre definitely not going to trust us or work with us.

In addition to Iraq, Trumps executive order named Syria, Iran, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan. U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-San Antonio, a former undercover CIA officer assigned to the Middle East and South Asia, pointed out that American forces need the support of local populations to combat radical Islamist groups.

Trumps order makes us go backward, and it erodes trust, said Hurd, a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. And you need trust in your friends and allies, especially against a threat like Islamic terrorism.

Postings on pro-ISIS social media accounts in the wake of Trumps order called it a blessed ban and suggested it would bolster the groups recruiting. Paul Miller, associate director of the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin, noted the fallout could complicate U.S. intelligence gathering in the seven countries.

Virtually anything the U.S. does is twisted for jihadist propaganda, said Miller, a former Army and CIA intelligence analyst. In this case, the Trump administration made the jihadists job a little easier by announcing a poorly written and hastily developed policy with obvious and glaring flaws and rolling it out in an especially hack-handed way.

During his two tours, Almanza recalled, Iraqi troops withstood pressure from insurgent groups to shed their uniforms. He expects the coercion to intensify even if the travel ban remains suspended.

The soldiers we worked with got recruited by terrorist groups, but they did not turn, partly because they trusted us, he said. But now, al-Qaida and ISIS and other groups will come after them harder than ever. And if they go to the other side, then in a sense well have been training ISIS fighters.

mkuz@express-news.net

Twitter: @MartinKuz
A San Antonian on trial in the shooting death of a man who was shot in his South Side driveway in 2015 was convicted Wednesday of murder.

It took the Bexar County jury hearing the case of Dustin Lee Osborne, 22, about three hours to find him guilty of murder in the death of Ralph Michael Lopez, 34, who was shot six times Aug. 11, 2015, and later died.
Nell Ferrell Linebarger didnt have an auspicious start in life. Her father abandoned the family, leaving her and her four siblings to endure a hardscrabble life in Staples. She dropped out of high school after the 11th grade to become a chicken farmers wife.

But nothing could stop Linebarger, a woman full of zest and grace who would go on to become a public school teacher in the San Marcos area for almost 30 years. After that, she became a devoted Methodist minister who pastored at small rural churches in Texas for more than a decade.

Linebarger died Feb. 3, a week shy of her 92nd birthday.

She just never quit, said her son, attorney, Dale Linebarger. She was always an optimist, looking on the bright side of things.

Once, when his mother and father, Roger Derham Linebarger, were still raising chickens and turkeys on their dirt farm, the whole lot of chickens died a week before they were due for the market, succumbing to disease over two days.

Most people would have just given up, but not my mother, Dale said. More chickens were procured.

Linebarger was born in Kingsbury, between Luling and Seguin. She married Roger in 1942 and would go on to enjoy 62 years of marriage with him. In 1953, with their three kids in tow, they moved to San Marcos, where hed found a job at a Chevrolet dealer.

More Information Nell Ferrell Linebarger Born:Feb. 11, 1925, Kingsbury Died: Feb. 3, 2017, Staples Preceded by: Husband Roger Linebarger, brother James Pendleton Ferrell Jr., sisters Lorene Lyles and Jean Green; two grandchildren. Survived by: Sister Glenda Reeder; sons Roger Dale Linebarger and daughter-in-law Libby, Glen York Linebarger and daughter-in-law Terri; and her daughter Karen Nell Linebarger; nine grandchildren, 17 great-grandchildren and four great-great-grandchildren. Services: 1 p.m. Saturday at San Marcos United Methodist Church, 129 W. Hutchison St., San Marcos. See More Collapse

Even though shed dropped out of high school, Linebarger was able to attend the then-named Southwest Texas State Teachers College. She taught in rural elementary schools for several years and then for 29 years in the San Marcos School District, earning a masters degree on the side. When she retired, she attended Perkins Theological Seminary of Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Over 11 years, Linebarger served as pastor at small churches in rural Texas, finishing her career as a minister at the churches of her childhood in Staples and Kingsbury.

But Linebarger still wasnt done. At 75, she worked for another decade as an assistant chaplain at Guadalupe Regional Hospital in Seguin, where her soothing presence and strong work ethic prompted the hospital to dedicate its chapel in her honor.

My mother was fortunate in that her health was good until the last six months of her life, said Dale. She was working at the hospital until she was 85, and she was still (officiating) at funerals last year. My sister and I would go with her to steady her, but even when her knees were playing out, shed still keep walking.

Of his mothers many accomplishments, the most valued were the times when former students or parishioners would tell her what a positive impact shed had on their lives, Dale wrote in her obituary.

She was a hell of a woman, it stated.

mstoeltje@express-news.net
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A 24-year-old Blanco man will spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility for parole after taking a plea bargain in the 2016 death of a 1-year-old girl, according to court records.

John Cody Lawrence pleaded guilty to the charge of capital murder of a child under 10 years of age, as well as four counts of assault on a public servant Friday in the 33rd District Court, a news release from the district attorneys office in Blanco County said Thursday.

RELATED: Central Texas mother, boyfriend charged in abuse of 3 children including 1-year-old girl who died

Lawrence was arrested for the death of 15-month-old Sunny Dakota Flade-Bort. The childs mother, Jamie Petronella, was also arrested and charged with multiple felony injury to a child. Those charges are pending in Blanco County.

Police responded to a Blanco apartment on May 3 after Petronella reported her child was not breathing. Officers found Sunny Bort unresponsive on the living room floor.

The child was transported to University Hospital in San Antonio, where she later died, the district attorneys office said in a news release.

Petronella allegedly blamed the childs injuries on another child in the apartment. An extensive investigation ensued and Petronella and her boyfriend, Lawrence, were arrested. The assault on public servant charges stemmed from an incident that occurred after Lawrences arrest.

RELATED: Records: 36 arrested in January on felony drunken driving charges in Bexar County

According to a previous report, the child had suffered injuries consistent with sexual assault. Officers noted bruises on both sides of the childs mouth and a large dried wound on her face.

In published reports at the time of the couple's arrest, Blanco Police Chief Mike Ritchey, was quoted as calling it "the worst child abuse case I've ever seen."

(Lawrence) agreed to life without the possibility of parole," said Blanco County District Attorney Wiley B. "Sonny" McAfee. "He also waived his rights to an appeal, so he will spend the rest of his life in prison."

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SAN ANTONIO  Police are searching for two suspects who allegedly robbed an East Side Church's Chicken restaurant at gunpoint Thursday.

Officers responded to the robbery around 10:10 a.m. In the 1300 block of South W.W. White Road.
The only boy of seven children raised in the Central Texas town of Rockdale, James Robert Jones spent most of his spare time at a neighboring horse farm, where he progressed from cleaning out stalls to exercising horses.

It was a means of escaping all the women in the house, his sister Mindee Poldrack joked.

Barely a teen when he started riding in races at fairgrounds and on the bush track circuit  unregulated race tracks that flourished before pari-mutuel betting became legal in 1987  Jones traveled throughout Texas and to Louisiana before graduating from high school.

Those were some good times back in the 70s and 80s, said longtime friend and fellow horse trainer Randy Mayfield. Youd ride 10 horses a day; when youre in junior high and high school getting $50 a week, that was a lot of money back in those days.

Although too tall to be a jockey by the time he was 16, Jones continued working with thoroughbreds, learning from trainers such as Tommie Morgan, Danny Pish, and John Charles Jack Van Berg.

Moving to Kentucky after graduating from high school, Jones was the assistant trainer for Frank Brothers at the prestigious Claiborne Farm for several years.

He worked with some of the better horses in the industry, said Jackie Morgan, who, along with her late husband Tommie, employed Jones as a teen. He was quite an accomplished horseman.

More Information James Robert Jones Born: Oct. 2, 1964, Baytown Died: Feb. 3, 2017, San Antonio Preceded by: Two brother-in-laws; a nephew. Survived by: Mother Peggy Selden; father Pete Jones and stepmother Barbara; sisters Mindee Poldrack and brother-in-law Carl, Terri Miller and brother-in-law Don, Kay Kay Johanson, Jeanne Whitehead, Michele Hartmann and brother-in-law Mark, and PK "Kate" Jones-Templeton and brother-in-law Ben Templeton; nieces and nephews. Services: Celebration of life at 2 p.m.Saturday at Lone Star Cowboy Church, 21627 Eva St., Montgomery. See More Collapse

Jones, 52, died at home Feb. 3 after a recurrence of multiple myeloma.

Returning to Texas to be closer to his family in about 2000, Jones continued to work for trainers at Retama Park in San Antonio, and in Houston and Dallas.

The lifestyle suited him.

Starting his day at 4 a.m., Jones was often at the race tack until well after dark.

I think he found it all exhilarating, that lifestyle, Poldrack said.

Jones had begun building stables for his own training facility on his familys homestead in Montgomery County when he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2010.

Moving to San Antonio to live with his mother, Jones fought the disease, and was in remission, but had to give up the stable idea, Poldrack said. He was not supposed to get on a horse.

Even so, Jones continued working, getting a job with the Northside Independent School District in the maintenance department.

Nobody ever had anything bad to say about him, Mayfield said. He (saw) the good in everybody.

mheidbrink@express-news.net
The Torres family has rebuffed offers from local developer James Lifshutz and inquiries from Bexar County, which are eyeing the familys 1.3 acres for a road to a new development around the ruins of the Hot Wells resort.

The property offers the easiest access to the ruins, where celebrities and presidents used to soak in the healing sulfuric hot springs more than a century ago. Lifshutz, who owns 21 acres there, wants to build single-family homes and an ice house around the ruins, which would be donated to Bexar County for a public park.
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With more than 20 years of experience in real estate, Missy Stagers decided that a new year was the ideal time to establish her own real estate agency, M. Stagers Realty Partners.

The timing was right, Stagers said. I recently turned 50. I had survived breast cancer. I had raised three children.

It was time to focus on growing myself. I had reached a certain level (in real estate) where I was ready for new challenges.

Early in her real estate career, Stagers worked for a boutique real estate agency and enjoyed the culture where agents could give clients all the personal attention they needed and hold their hand throughout the process if needed. She previously worked in real estate marketing before obtaining her real estate license and subsequently her brokers license.

Before real estate, Stagers served four years in the U.S. Navy, where she met her husband Rick. He is now retired and works in commercial real estate.

A new agency is born

It was important for me that this agency not be a franchise, Stagers said. I am not working for a corporation. I have established my own brand and can take this company in my own direction.

Stagers thrives in the ever-changing nature of the real estate industry and relishes the fact that every client is different and no day is the same. She is glad to be able to help clients make decisions when buying or selling a house, which can be one of the most stressful times in their lives.

We know how to help, she said of her real estate team. Our job is to stay calm and focused and, often, to be the voice of reason.

Although most people think real estate is easy money, it really is a lot of work, she emphasized. There is a lot to keep track of. A Realtor must stay on top of the local real estate market and changing industry regulations. If someone cannot devote 110 percent of their time to the job, they shouldnt be in it.

Stagers has devoted the past two decades to helping clients buy and sell property, racking up more than $550 million in sales and 3,400 transactions. In addition, she served as chairman of the board for the San Antonio Board of Realtors in 2014 and has served as chairman of the Womens Council of Realtors and in various chairman positions on committees with the Texas Association of Realtors.

Most recently, she worked for Coldwell Banker DAnn Harper Realtors for 17 years where she found an awesome mentor in Harper.

Another reason for Stagers to establish her own company was to build a legacy to pass on to her adult children. Her son, Justin Cook, and her daughter, Jessica Stagers, are both Realtors at the new firm.

Built on principles

Every buying and selling experience should be a winning proposition for all involved, Stagers emphasized. She still subscribes to the advice someone once told her: Take care of the client, and the paycheck will follow. Worry about the paycheck, and you will have problems.

Principles such as trust, respect, ethics, pride and loyalty are cornerstones at M. Stagers Realty Partners. The greatest reward, Stagers said, is helping a client reach their goal of finding a place to call home and helping to change the lives of others, one home at a time.

We pride ourselves on doing the right thing, Stagers said. Our decisions are based on what is in the best interest of our clients and those around us, even if it means a loss of business. At the end of the day, we want to go home knowing we did our best.

About the team

The agents and staff at M. Stagers Realty Partners help guide buyers and sellers through every step of the process, working to keep their home purchase or sale on track.

Ara Fesperman, who has worked with Stagers for 13 years, is a broker associate and Realtor. She works with a lot of military and relocation clients.

Justin Cook has been a buyers agent for six years. As a Realtor, he specializes in new and custom-constructed homes.

Lorna Teragouchi is an associate broker and Realtor. She has more than 13 years of experience in real estate, specializing in first-time homebuyers and investors.

Kim Reed is a Realtor, bringing more than 30 years of combined business and real estate experience to the company.

Jessica Stagers is a Realtor and has been part of her mother Missy Stagers team for more than nine years. Currently, she works as a listing coordinator.

Karin Rause is a Realtor and closing coordinator. She acts as a liaison between sellers, title companies, lenders and both listing and buyers agents.

Debra Duran, assisting listing coordinator, joined Stagers team in 2013, bringing with her 26 years of experience in the real estate industry. She is a licensed agent.

Monica Fuentes, buying coordinator, assists the team with making sure buyers have all their paperwork correct, coordinates with inspectors and title companies and makes sure closings go smoothly.

Brianna Heath, marketing assistant, has been around the real estate business for 13 years. She currently does marketing and social media for the company. She is working on her real estate license.

M. Stagers Realty Partners is located at 4630 N. Loop 1604 W., Suite 313, in San Antonio.

Editors Note: This content is made possible by M. Stagers Realty Partners. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of The San Antonio Express-News' or mySanAntonio.com's editorial staff. Learn more about our advertising products at www.hearstmediasanantonio.com.
1 Islamic State conflict: Forces fighting the Islamic militants should be able to retake the Islamic State-held cities of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria within the next six months, according to the top U.S. commander in Iraq. U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend said within the next six months I think well see both (the Mosul and Raqqa campaigns) conclude. Townsend heads the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State.

2 Syria air strikes: A series of air strikes on an opposition-held district in the city of Homs, presumably carried out by Russia or Syria, killed at least nine civilians on Wednesday, local activists said. Pro-government forces shelled the citys al-Waer neighborhood with tank and artillery fire in conjunction with the air strikes, the Local Coordination Committees, an activist network, reported. Government forces have kept the opposition-held neighborhood under siege since 2013, according to Siege Watch in Washington. An estimated 75,000 people are trapped inside. Homs is Syrias third-largest city. Government forces retook most of the city in 2014, effectively ending an antigovernment protest movement that had gripped Homs since 2011.
ALEXANDRIA, Va.  NACS President and CEO Henry Armour is traveling across the United States to share and discuss industry insights, issues and opportunities relevant to convenience and fuel retailers and suppliers at 16 Industry Update Luncheonsand youre invited!

The first luncheon kicked off January 25 in Sacramento, California, with more than 40 retailers and suppliers attending, followed by a luncheon in Newport Beach. On February 1, Armour headed to Texas with luncheons in San Antonio and Houston. This week hes been to Little Rock, Arkansas, and hosts a luncheon today in Columbus, Georgia.

So, what does Armour talk about? First, attendees are given time to network, followed by a seated lunch (after allit is a luncheon). Then Armour delivers an interactive presentation and discussion on topics such as:

Industry performance trends, spotlighting NACS State of the Industry data;

Legislative and regulatory issues and NACS efforts to advocate on behalf of the industry; and

Initiatives that are most topical for retailers, including payments, nutrition and anti-obesity campaigns, motor fuels, tobacco regulations and swipe fees.

After attending the Texas luncheons, NACS Hunter Club member The Pinnacle Corporation noted that the events offered industry insights and professional collaboration opportunities that will help the company anticipate the needs of convenience retailers. Pinnacle was also able to connect with retailers and vendors in a more intimate setting to learn more about how industry challenges and opportunities affect them and their companies.

Leading topics of interest focused on data and payment security, and labor issues including training, efficiency and retention. NACS presented relevant and detailed data in a way that allowed vendors and retailers to make important decisions for 2017 with the most comprehensive information, says Adam Mitchell, marketing manager at Pinnacle.

To attend an upcoming NACS Industry Update Luncheon near you, go to nacsonline.com/IUL and sign up for the city and date you would like to attend. This event is open to all retailers, regardless of their NACS membership status. NACS Hunter Club member companies can send up to two individuals per event as space allows.

Since the program's inception in 2007, luncheons have been held in 75 host cities in 45 host states. In fact, more than 5,300 individuals representing 49 states have attended these popular luncheons. Join us!
The headline comes from Chris Tobe, a former trustee of the corrupt and deeply underfunded Kentucky pension fund turned SEC whistleblower. Tobe deemed the defeat of an incumbent board member of the $21.2 billion San Francisco City & County Employees Retirement System, Herb Meiberger, to be the result of hedge funds successfully ousting a determined critic. While we dont have a smoking gun, heres why that assessment isnt farfetched.

Meiberger was a particularly experienced and well-qualified board member. He had nearly 25 years of experience on the board and previously had been a securities analyst with the pension fund. That would seem to make him difficult to dislodge.

Meiberger became a fierce critic of hedge funds for their opaque fees, which should hardly be a controversial position. We pointed out from the very inception of this website nearly ten years ago that hedge funds were no longer delivering on their promise of delivering alpha, meaning manager outperformance, which was the rationale for their lofty fees. But when CalPERS decided to exit all its hedge funds in late 2014, it sent shock waves through the industry. By the beginning of 2016, hedge fund managers were acknowledging close to a crisis, with widespread doubts about continued underwhelming performance, rising redemptions, and more and more funds offering fee concessions.

Yet the sort of debate that at least the less captured public pension funds were having became a controversy in San Francisco. From Pensions & Investments:

Mr. Meiberger was not the only board members who has issues with Chief Investment Officer William Coaker Jr.s hedge fund investment plan, which was formally unveiled in May 2014. Most board members were opposed to the proposed 15% allocation of the systems assets. But Mr. Meiberger cast the sole dissenting vote when a scaled-down version of the plan was approved in February 2015 that called for investing 5% of system assets in hedge funds.

A retired San Francisco police lieutenant, who had also been on the board but retired in 2012, contested Meibergers seat. Again from Pensions & Investments:

Mr. Meibergerhad made his opposition to hedge funds a prime campaign theme, warning that they were too risky and could cause major financial losses. He maintained that the election of Mr. Casciato.would result in the retirement system expanding beyond its initial $1 billion commitment into hedge funds. Mr. Casciato insisted he was not for or against hedge funds but would judge each investment on its own merits. But Mr. Casciatos political advertisements, which were run on Facebook and YouTube in social media savvy San Francisco, cast Mr. Meiberger as an obstructionist who was costing the retirement system millions of dollars in investment gains because of his no votes on potential investments. Mr. Meiberger.said the ads were false and that he was doing his job acting as a fiduciary in vetting investments. In his own YouTube video, Mr. Meiberger played up his opposition to hedge funds. I have seen San Francisco shift from a community where people help each other into being a playground for the rich, Mr. Meiberger said in the video. Billionaire hedge fund managers are making money off your backs.

Yves here. There are several points worth noting:

The obstructionist claim is the sort of thing youd hear from the pension funds staff. The very use of that frame points to the same role reversal of trustees being deferential to the board that weve seen at CalPERS and other public pension funds.

Unions play a big role in public pension fund elections. The Pension & Investments focus on the social media campaigns seems off base. An almost certainly bigger factor is that a former cop could count on getting the votes of both police unions members and employees of the county sheriffs department. It is not uncommon for unions, who have close if sometimes fractious relationships with public pension executives, to seek to oust troublesome board members at the behest of staff by backing candidates more friendly to staff or even recruiting opponents. And unions tell their members how they should vote in elections and press them to be sure to cast their ballot.

The results are not inconsistent with the police backing being decisive. While the margin of victory superficially looks too large for that to have taken place, with Casciato getting 62% of the vote to Meibergers 32%, policemen and sheriffs department employees probably account for roughly 15% members of the pension system1. While this alone is far from enough to explain the results, an additional factor that would give the union more sway was that turnout in the election was low, with only 27% of the systems members voting. Finally, other unions are likely to have fallen in line with the staff/police union pick.

So here again we see how good governance at public pension funds is stymied. A highly qualified board member with a long record of service is turfed out after he persists in crossing staff on what he regards as a questionable investment decision. This shows how little tolerance pension employees have for nominal supervisors they perceive to be making their life too difficult. And the fact that staff can so easily undermine a critic (and worse, have gotten board members and beneficiaries to internalize their world view) speaks volumes to why public pension funds are deeply corrupt and in desperate need for reform.

1 San Francisco County has 3,461 peace officers versus total employees for San Francisco of roughly 27,000. This list does not include members of the sheriffs department, and it seems likely, given that the county presumably does not deliver much in the way of social services, that enforcement personnel would represent a higher proportion of total employees.
New metamaterial can cool roofs, structures with zero energy consumption (Nanowerk News) A team of University of Colorado Boulder engineers has developed a scalable manufactured metamaterial -- an engineered material with extraordinary properties not found in nature -- to act as a kind of air conditioning system for structures. It has the ability to cool objects even under direct sunlight with zero energy and water consumption.

When applied to a surface, the metamaterial film cools the object underneath by efficiently reflecting incoming solar energy back into space while simultaneously allowing the surface to shed its own heat in the form of infrared thermal radiation.

The new material, which is described today in the journal Science ("Scalable-manufactured randomized glass-polymer hybrid metamaterial for daytime radiative cooling"), could provide an eco-friendly means of supplementary cooling for thermoelectric power plants, which currently require large amounts of water and electricity to maintain the operating temperatures of their machinery.

A team of University of Colorado Boulder engineers has developed a scalable manufactured metamaterial with the ability to cool objects under direct sunlight with zero energy and water consumption.

The researchers' glass-polymer hybrid material measures just 50 micrometers thick -- slightly thicker than the aluminum foil found in a kitchen -- and can be manufactured economically on rolls, making it a potentially viable large-scale technology for both residential and commercial applications.

"We feel that this low-cost manufacturing process will be transformative for real-world applications of this radiative cooling technology," said Xiaobo Yin, co-director of the research and an assistant professor who holds dual appointments in CU Boulder's Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Materials Science and Engineering Program. Yin received DARPA's Young Faculty Award in 2015.

The material takes advantage of passive radiative cooling, the process by which objects naturally shed heat in the form of infrared radiation, without consuming energy. Thermal radiation provides some natural nighttime cooling and is used for residential cooling in some areas, but daytime cooling has historically been more of a challenge. For a structure exposed to sunlight, even a small amount of directly-absorbed solar energy is enough to negate passive radiation.

The challenge for the CU Boulder researchers, then, was to create a material that could provide a one-two punch: reflect any incoming solar rays back into the atmosphere while still providing a means of escape for infrared radiation. To solve this, the researchers embedded visibly-scattering but infrared-radiant glass microspheres into a polymer film. They then added a thin silver coating underneath in order to achieve maximum spectral reflectance.

"Both the glass-polymer metamaterial formation and the silver coating are manufactured at scale on roll-to-roll processes," added Ronggui Yang, also a professor of mechanical engineering and a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

During field tests in Boulder, Colorado and Cave Creek, Arizona, the metamaterial successfully demonstrated its average radiative cooling power larger than 110W/m2 for continuous 72 hours and larger than 90W/m2 in direct, noon-time sunlight. That cooling power is roughly equivalent to the electricity generated using solar cells for similar area, but the radiative cooling has the advantage of continuous running both day and night.

"Just 10 to 20 square meters of this material on the rooftop could nicely cool down a single-family house in summer," said Gang Tan, an associate professor in the University of Wyoming's Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering and a co-author of the paper.

In addition to being useful for cooling of buildings and power plants, the material could also help improve the efficiency and lifetime of solar panels. In direct sunlight, panels can overheat to temperatures that hamper their ability to convert solar rays into electricity.

"Just by applying this material to the surface of a solar panel, we can cool the panel and recover an additional one to two percent of solar efficiency," said Yin. "That makes a big difference at scale."

The engineers have applied for a patent for the technology and are working with CU Boulder's Technology Transfer Office to explore potential commercial applications. They plan to create a 200-square-meter "cooling farm" prototype in Boulder in 2017.

The invention is the result of a $3 million grant awarded in 2015 to Yang, Yin and Tang by the Energy Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).
Tipperary TD, Jackie Cahill has said that unless the crisis in GP provision across the county is addressed, the problems affecting the health care system will continue.

Deputy Cahill was commenting after he spoke in the Dail about the need for the HSE to redouble its efforts to secure GP services around the country.

The local GP is the first port of call for a person who is sick and in need of medical care. If there arent enough of them on the ground, of course we are going to see overcrowding in our Emergency Departments.

Over the past number of weeks, I have been engaging with a number of GPs to find a solution to why so few doctors want to work as GPs, and why those that do, dont want to work in rural counties such as Tipperary.

GPs get a rough deal from the HSE. Unlike doctors working in hospitals, they are self-employed, and receive a pension only a fraction of what is available to hospital doctors.

The contract a GP signs with the HSE commits them to providing 24/7 cover. However, GPs in rural practices, in order to meet this commitment, must contribute to the running costs of out of hours services.

For example, north Tipperary doctors must contribute towards ShannonDoc yet doctors in Dublin have these costs paid for them.

If we are to entice GPs to open surgeries in Tipperary, there needs to be a level playing field.

Finding cover for GPs is next to impossible, quite simply there arent enough people becoming doctors. More places are needed in medical schools such as in UL.

When GPs do secure the services of a locum doctor, especially ones from overseas, the taxation system penalises them. Without addressing the valid concerns of GPs, the often mooted transformation of the health system into one that is centred on the provision of primary care, will never happen, he concluded.
fire in nature . bokeh from the fire . blurred backgrounds . Space views. Ivan Ekushenko www.ivandan.ru/ivandanru - Fotolia

As President Donald Trump settles into the White House, many financial industry executives are looking forward to celebrating what one has termed "the bonfire of the rule books," anticipating candidate Trump's promise to eliminate two existing regulations for every new one that is created. While this "ding-dong-the-witch-is-dead" reaction to the current regulatory environment is understandable, it should be tempered by our memory of the problems excessive deregulation has caused in the past.

No one wants to return to the Wild West environment in which financial institutions could do anything they wanted  and some did  causing a financial crisis that wrecked the economy and the housing industry. There is a need for meaningful financial regulation, but the operative word is "meaningful," which implies both necessary and reasonable. Some of the mortgage regulations in place today are neither necessary nor reasonable.

Take the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act's ban on referrals. The regulation, largely ignored in the past but enforced rigorously by the Obama administration, allows compensation in a mortgage transaction only for tangible products or services provided. It is designed to prohibit elaborate schemes, primarily involving mortgage companies, real estate brokers and title insurers, that provide no benefits to consumers and arguably increase their costs. But the regulation ensnares arrangements that potentially benefit consumers and don't harm them at all.

Members Mortgage Co., for example, originates loans for credit unions, either for their own portfolios or for sale in the secondary market. We help credit union members obtain loans and we pay the credit unions a fee for sending their members to us. The RESPA rule theoretically prohibits this arrangement, but it seems reasonable and justifiable to me.

The credit unions have relationships with their members and an obligation to lend to them. Members Mortgage provides lending expertise the credit unions don't have. The fee we pay simply contributes to keeping their lights on and paying the employees who manage their phones. It does nothing to harm borrowers or to increase their costs. The alternative is for credit unions to do lending they don't know how to do, which isn't going to benefit borrowers or the credit unions.

Regulators will admit, at the ground level, that the failure to accommodate arrangements like Members, in which financial institutions are working with other financial institutions, is a gap in the RESPA regulations. But no one wants to talk about that, so I end up struggling to defend a business model that has served credit unions and their members well for 25 years, with no adverse impact on either.

RESPA's referral ban is only one example of a regulation that sprays innocent industry bystanders with regulatory bullets aimed at others. The regulation that prohibits linking loan originator compensation to the profit on the loan is another.

The concern here is that originators will have a strong incentive to promote higher-priced loans that will produce the greatest compensation for the originators over alternatives that would be better for consumers. One doesn't have to look far beyond the recent Wells Fargo scandal (where bank employees, under pressure to generate fee income for the bank, opened accounts consumers didn't approve) to conclude that this concern is justified.

But does it apply to my operation or many others? Not really. We offer only one product, so my originators can't recommend one loan over another, and they have no discretion to set the loan rate.

We have historically paid originators a percentage of the gross profit on a loan by loan basis. This ensures that we never pay more to originate a loan than we make on it, which seems like a fairly sensible business plan. But under the structure the regulation requires, we have to pay a set fee for a loan regardless of how much we earn on it. While $500 for a loan that generates $1,000 is OK, $1,000 for a $500 loan is not at all OK  at least, not for long if Members intends to remain in business.

There is no question that a compensation structure based on profit can be abused; but just because a practice can be abused doesn't mean it will be. Prohibiting a practice that is abused by a few bad actors but works just fine for others is akin to the teacher keeping an entire class after school because one or two students have violated a rule.

While the regulators were obsessing about the risk that our loan originators might steer people to higher-margined loans we don't offer, Wells Fargo was running an incentive program the regulators never noticed that bilked thousands of consumers out of millions of dollars. This is not what is meant by "reasonable" regulation.

Reasonable regulation should target the abuse, not the practice. If we do anything to harm consumers, regulators should hit us hard. But if a company demonstrates, as Members has, that it can manage this compensation structure without harming consumers, the company should be left alone. Regulators certainly shouldn't force them into a structure that will make it difficult for us to operate profitably.

That's the problem with these one-size-fits-all regulations. They don't make any distinctions between the companies that amass hundreds of consumer complaints, and those that attract hardly any.

Unfortunately, there are bad actors in our industry, as there are in any industry, and they will fill a regulatory void with anti-consumer behavior. But financial regulation in this country has historically been crafted by a pendulum that swings from policies that are too lax or poorly structured at one extreme, spawning abuse that leads to overly restrictive, business-hampering policies at the other extreme.

But somewhere between not nearly enough regulation and far too much of it, there is a middle ground that restrains the individuals and entities who pose a real threat, without choking those who pose no threat at all.

Those of us in the latter category  and I think we are by far the majority  should be hoping not for a regulatory bonfire but for regulatory balance. Whether the Trump administration will achieve that remains to be seen.

Joe Zampitella is president of Members Mortgage Co., which provides mortgage lending services to credit unions throughout New England.
(As delivered)

Thank you very much.

Prime Minister Groysman, welcome to NATO Headquarters. Its a real pleasure and honour to see you here today, sir.

The Secretary General regrets very much being unable unwell today and unable to meet with you today.

We just discussed the serious situation in eastern Ukraine and NATOs support for your country.

Since Russias aggressive actions began three years ago, NATO has stood by Ukraine. This will not change. Last night, I chaired a special meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission where we discussed the latest facts on the ground. Every single Ally took the floor to express strong support for Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity.

NATO does not, and will not, recognise the illegal annexation of Crimea and we condemn Russias continuing destabilisation of eastern Ukraine.

We are deeply concerned by the recent spike in violence. The ceasefire has been violated almost every day for the last two years. But last week, the OSCE, the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe, registered over 10,000 ceasefire violations in a single day. Including with heavy equipment banned under the Minsk Agreements. We have seen the heaviest fighting in the past two years. We must not accept this as the new normal. It is essential that OSCE monitors are granted free access to all of Ukraine. Up to the border with Russia, as required by the Minsk Agreements. So I call on all parties to honour their commitments.

Russia has a special responsibility in this regard. Ukraine is continuing on the path of reform and anti-corruption despite these very difficult circumstances. And the Prime Minister and I just had a very serious discussion about the continuation of the reform process in Ukraine. I commend you on your efforts.

I encourage Ukraine to continue to press ahead with such reforms. NATO will continue to provide political and practical support to Ukraine. Through our Comprehensive Assistance Package, and through Trust Funds.

We are supporting a Regional Airspace Security Programme, to help Ukraine better handle air security incidents.

Our Medical Rehabilitation programme has helped over 150 servicemen and women of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Our Defence Education Programme has trained nearly 800 Ukrainian military personnel last year.

We have provided anti-corruption training and advice to Ukrainian ministries and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau.

And we are helping Ukraine to establish a centre to monitor and investigate cyber security incidents.

Overall, we are also helping Ukraine reform its security and defence institutions.

To enable Ukraine to better defend itself.

And resist the threat of hybrid warfare.

Prime Minister Groysman, again, welcome to NATO, a very warm welcome.

We look forward to continuing to work closely with you and your colleagues.

Please sir, you have the floor.

DYLAN WHITE [Acting Deputy Spokesperson]: Thank you, well go to Unian please.

Q: Good afternoon here, my name is Irina Somer, Ukrainian News Agency Unian. I have a follow up question for Deputy Secretary General. Because you got invitation from Ukrainian Prime Minister to visit Ukraine together with the North Atlantic Council because last time it was hundreds years ago, when do you think this visit can take place? And another question on yesterday NATO Ukraine Commission I saw in the news that it was written that NATO will increase political pressure on Russia. So how exactly you see it to happen? And question for Prime Minister.

[Interpreted]: Prime Minister did you, did you achieve any results in the headquarters? These results that you have expected?

ROSE GOTTEMOELLER (NATO Deputy Secretary General): In terms of our upcoming visit, I support an effort by the North Atlantic Council to visit, to visit Ukraine. It is a matter of scheduling, its something that has to be worked out but I am recommending the visit and it hasnt been a hundred years since I visited Ukraine, its just been actually I think two years ago which is too long, I need to come back again. So Im very much looking forward to a near term visit and I was honoured and pleased to hear an invitation from the Prime Minister not only for the North Atlantic Council which I think is a terrific idea but also for me personally to visit Ukraine and Im looking forward to that opportunity soon. In terms of our support for Ukraine you heard how the, the group around the table yesterday when we had our extraordinary meeting of the NUC, the commission that is the NATO Ukraine special body, we heard unanimity around the table. So at a very high level there is strong support from all the allies to Ukraine and to, to the efforts Ukraine has underway to defend its territorial integrity and sovereignty. I can also say from the point of view of this institution, this institution also supports Ukraine very, very strongly and prominently with the Secretary General himself frequently speaking out in support of Ukraine and Ukraines territorial integrity and sovereignty but also in terms of the many programs that we have underway which I outlined in my remarks. So I think we have not only a kind of moral strength in our support for Ukraine but were backing it up with concrete programs as well.

VOLODYMYR GROYSMAN (Prime Minister of Ukraine): [Interpreted]: I am satisfied with this working meeting. I would like to underline that what we have heard today is that the unanimous full scale support of Ukraine in this difficult times. We appreciate very highly our common cooperation, joint cooperation with NATO in all these spheres and we are grateful for this all around support. I would like to underline that we have an action plan and the government has approved it, the President will sign it soon, it means that we will enhance our cooperation through using different tools including trust funds which are been created today and that have to get support from the allies. Its in the education, education of our military and many others spheres which include our cooperation, we have talked separately today that we will enhance our cooperation in the direction of our emergency services in Ukraine. That I would like to underline that those events that took place in Adviivka, we managed to control, to take control of the situation due to the professionality and competence of the workers of our emergency service. But if we manage to strengthen their technical equipment possibilities, equipment capacity that will help us to resist Russian aggression. And I would like to express again my personal gratitude for this very resultative talk for the fact that Ukraine is constantly in the radar and in the focus of the General Secretary, of you personally, of the North Atlantic Council and we think that after such contacts our task is to enhance our cooperation. We have a very precise plan of action which will allow us to implement reforms and they will be on the NATO standards, according to the NATO standards. So we are going on and our interaction is helping us to provide reforms.

DYLAN WHITE: Danish Media please.

Q: Mina Skau of the Danish News Agency Ritzau. Question for the Prime Minister. After the recent change at the top in Washington and the different political signals from the president and some of his top officials, are you still confident that, and I would say also what President Trump has said about President Putin and Russia, are you still confident that the U.S. stands by Ukraine and you have the unwavering support of the United States?

VOLODYMYR GROYSMAN: [Interpreted]: I am sure that the new president, newly elected President Trump, he is a leader, he will always fight for democracy and democratic values. And I am also certain that he will continue to be a world leader. This is my personal opinion, I believe in that and Im sure it will happen. You know that recently there was a telephone conversation between the President of Ukraine, President Poroshenko with the President of United States, and they have agreed that there will be, the visit from our president to America will take place very soon and I hope it will be very resultative. And I really reiterate that I do believe that the United States of America will always support justice and I think justice is now on the side of Ukraine.

DYLAN WHITE: Thank you. Lady in the front please.

Q: Allana Bromovich (sp?), 112 Ukraine. [Interpreted]: I have a question to both speakers, talking about the changes of the, establishment in USA. Well there are some programs from NATO supporting Ukraine in the context of what Trump said about doubting about NATO and diminishing their financing, would it influence the programs that run with Ukraine? And did you discuss whether the new diminished funding of NATO from United States will diminish support for Ukraine? Did you discuss it today?

ROSE GOTTEMOELLER: President Trump has not been supporting diminished funds for NATO, he has been supporting that all allies step forward and increase defence burden sharing. Meaning that allies who are not at this moment spending two per cent of their gross domestic product or GDP on defence need to up their game as we say. They need to increase their investments in defence and provide additional resources to this alliance. So this is a goal that has been shared by a number of U.S. presidents for as long as I can remember. George W. Bush, President Obama, they all supported this goal and the Secretary General and I, Jens Stoltenberg and I definitely have been pushing this goal as a very, very important one. It was also inscribed in two important summit documents starting in Wales and then again reemphasised at Warsaw just this past summer that this is an area where a number of allies have to pay attention and have to plan for more defence spending. So in answer to your question I think that and I expect and hope that there will be more resources available for the NATO alliance, I cant say what proportion of those would be devoted to programs or projects with Ukraine but I do and I think I laid out the vigorous already agenda of cooperation that we have. So I think that enhanced resources for this alliance can only be helpful to our joint programs and projects with Ukraine.

DYLAN WHITE: If thats, thank you very much thats all we have time for. Thank you.

ROSE GOTTEMOELLER: Thank you.
By Cate Cadell SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Chinese search engine giant Baidu Inc will close some of its medical businesses and fold other health segments into its artificial intelligence and search teams, the firm said in a statement sent to Reuters on Thursday. Baidu has been refocusing its business strategy after Chinese authorities cracked down last year on medical advertising, once a lucrative business sector for the firm, which led to a steep drop in sales in the latter half of 2016. The firm, China's answer to Alphabet Inc's Google, was at the centre of a national media outcry last year when a student with a fatal cancer blamed Baidu averts for directing him to suspect, ultimately ineffectual treatment. Regulators responded by slapping curbs on the firm's healthcare advertising business. Baidu said parts of the medical team would be integrated into the artificial intelligence and search engine teams. "Other health business units will be shut down and their staff will be offered other roles internally in line with the demands of the company's development," the firm said. The artificial intelligence teams would look to develop applications that could be used in the medical field. These could include areas such as drug development and testing, gene sequencing and patient diagnosis. "The most important force that could change the medical field is artificial intelligence", Baidu CEO Robin Li said. In January, Baidu appointed former Microsoft Corp executive Qi Lu as chief operating officer, part of the broader push into artificial intelligence as a new driver for growth. (Reporting by Cate Cadell; Writing by Adam Jourdan; Editing by Stephen Coates)
Thursday, February 09, 2017 by: Daniel Barker Tags: CDC , corporate influence , Whistleblowers This article may contain statements that reflect the opinion of the author

(Natural News) According to its mission statement, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conducts critical science to protect Americans against health threats. But can an agency with deep ties to various industries really conduct research and formulate policy in a critical, unbiased manner?

The Alliance for Natural Health USA (ANH-USA) says no.

In fact, the ANH-USA has repeatedly uncovered evidence of industry influence on the agency  for example, that of food corporation giant Coca-Cola. Barbara Bowman, director of the Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention, recently resigned her post at the CDC after her long-term connection with Coca-Cola was made public. Bowman was once a senior nutritionist at Coca-Cola, and has been accused of granting favors to a lobby group backed by the beverage maker.

According to ANH-USA, Coca-Cola was able  with Bowmans help  to influence the setting of WHO sugar limits.

Now, the ANH-USA reports that a group of ethically-minded scientists within the CDC have sent a letter to the CDC chief of staff voicing their concerns regarding rampant corporate influence over the agency. (RELATED: Find more news about government corruption at Corruption.news)

CDC SPIDER exposes influence from outside parties and rogue interests

The group calls itself CDC Scientists Preserving Integrity, Diligence, and Ethics in Research (CDC SPIDER), and the introduction of their letter reads as follows:

We are a group of scientists at CDC that are very concerned about the current state of ethics at our agency. It appears that our mission is being influenced and shaped by outside parties and rogue interests. It seems that our mission and Congressional intent for our agency is being circumvented by some of our leaders. What concerns us most is that it is becoming the norm and not the rare exception.

The letter describes several troubling examples of conflict of interest and influence from outside the agency, including the Bowman Coca-Cola scandal and others.

The fact that a group of scientists from within the agency found it necessary to take such an action is strong evidence that such influence actually exists, prompting the ANH-USA to ask:

Are vaccine manufacturers influencing CDC leaders concerning childhood vaccinations, as weve long believed? Are potential whistleblowers being threatened and silenced to protect industry interests? How can we put our childrens health in the hands of an agency that has this level of corruption being reported by its own scientist employees?

Valid questions all, and ones which must be addressed by the CDC if the agency expects to be given any credibility at all.

Industry lobbying is nothing new, and a certain level of interaction between various industries and the agencies charged with regulating them is unavoidable  corporations should have some input in the regulatory process, and agencies should not necessarily be in conflict with their interests.

Can Donald Trump fix a rigged regulatory system?

However, the system has been rigged by those with deep pockets who seek to subvert agency agendas to suit their interests. Agencies such as the CDC have been deliberately infiltrated by industry insiders like Barbara Bowman, and the scales have been tipped in industrys favor.

Far from conducting critical science, the CDC provides the research results and regulatory guidelines that corporations such as Coca-Cola pay them for. (See more examples of fake science at FakeScience.news)

Current CDC director, Thomas Frieden, will step down this month, and president-elect Donald Trump has not yet announced his successor. It will be interesting to see how the incoming president handles the appointment and the subsequent management of the agency.

Trump has indicated that he believes vaccines are linked to autism. If he appoints a new CDC director who echoes that sentiment, then the CDC could indeed be headed in an entirely new direction.

The incoming president has a chance to do the right thing in draining the CDC swamp  provided he selects the right person for the job.

Sources:

ANH-USA.org

USRTK.org[PDF]

CDC.gov

NaturalNews.com
Algae will soon take over the Great Barrier Reef, a new study published in the journal Scientific Reports revealed.

According to the research paper, algae proliferation on the world's biggest reef is on the rise. It is estimated that if we do not do something about these weed-like algae, the reef will suffer significantly by 2050 and die off by 2100.

As reported by Deccan Chronicle, as time passes by, the algae and coral will "compete for space." Aside from the spatial concern, the researchers found out that the rapid increase in the amount of CO2 pushes the algae to emit more poisonous chemicals. These are killing the corals at a faster rate.

Natural Science News reports that as high levels of CO2 are emitted to the atmosphere, pH level of ocean decreases. This is a process called ocean acidification. When this occurs, the ability of corals to absorb the amount of calcium necessary to continue building reef is disrupted. In addition, it also promotes the birth of certain types of algae, as what is currently happening in the Great Barrier Reef today.

To learn more about how these algae affect the ocean and the reef-building corals, the researchers at Griffith University in Australia looked at the common algae species found in the Great Barrier Reef -- Canistrocarpus cervicornis, Chlorodesmis fastigiata, and Amansia glomerata.

"What we have discovered is that some algae produce more potent chemicals that suppress or kill corals more rapidly. This can occur rapidly, in a matter of only weeks," Professor Mark Hay, from the Georgia Institute of Technology in the US, said in a press release, obtained by Phys.org.

This poison from the algae weakens the coral and supports the algae in expanding its territory. Based on their study, the most toxic is the brown algae.

The researchers emphasized that the discovery should be a global concern, because one of the algae species, is found in reefs worldwide. A separate study recently revealed that the Great Barrier Reef, was destroyed nearly 125,000 years ago, Tech Times noted.
The redevelopment of the Hunters Point Shipyard could be stalled for more than a year while the Navy investigates new concerns about radiation.

Derek Robinson, the environmental coordinator for the Navy at Hunters Point, confirmed to NBC Bay Area on Wednesday that it is undertaking a comprehensive review of all soil sample data submitted by a former contractor. He said the Navy will also examine specific locations on the shipyard where a former worker admitted to hiding soil samples that may have contained radioactive contamination.

Robinson said the first phase of the investigation would be completed this year and that any additional remediation would be finished next spring.

The decision to reinvestigate the cleanup of the Shipyard stems from revelations made by Anthony Smith, a former radiation control technician who worked at the site on and off from 2002 to 2012. Smith revealed to the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit last year the tactics he said he and his supervisors used to conceal radiation on Hunters Point.

Whenever something like this occurs it is a big deal, Robinson said. It draws into question the validity of the decisions that have been made and its important to resolve that.

The Navy had already investigated the cleanup work of the contractor in question  Tetra Tech  starting in 2012. The company admitted that it had mishandled soil samples and submitted falsified data. Tens of thousands of soil samples were reviewed, the land was resampled and additional cleanup work was performed.

That was supposed to be the end of it. But new information from Smith caused the Navy to launch another investigation into the cleanup performed by Tetra Tech.

We really do feel the 2012 investigation took care of the extent of the issues, Robinson said. As new information arises we have to look at it and thats why we are reopening this investigation to make sure were okay and the property is safe.

The Navy has hired five companies to review the data. Though the Navy has allowed Tetra Tech to fulfill the remainder of its contracts, Tetra Tech will not be performing any part of the new investigation. The company did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

And, while its unclear how much money the investigation will cost, it will be at the expense of taxpayers.

We have to make sure the property is safe for future transfer so its worth taxpayer dollars to ensure the property is safe, Robinson said.

Tetra Tech has won more than $300 million in federal contracts to clean up the Shipyard.

For decades on Hunters Point, the Navy operated a radiological defense lab, performed radiation tests on animals and decontaminated ships exposed to nuclear weapons tests. The prime waterfront real estate is slated for parks, shops, offices and homes.

People are already living in condos at the Shipyard, and more housing units are currently under construction. Robinson said the residential portion of Hunters Point is safe. The Navy is confident that land already turned over to the city for redevelopment has been properly cleaned up.

Greenaction, a local group with an office near the Shipyard, is calling on the Navy for additional community oversight of the new investigation.

We dont trust the Navy, said Bradly Angel, president of the environmental justice organization. We want facts that can be verified by independent community oversight.

In a letter sent to the Navy last fall, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the California Department of Toxic Substances Control reiterated an agreement that the Navy would not propose any further transfers of the property for redevelopment.

San Francisco supervisor Malia Cohen, who represents Hunters Point, said the cleanup of the 800 acre former superfund site alarms her.

Everything about Hunters Point concerns me, she said in an interview with NBC Bay Area last fall. We are watching with laser focus.

Cohen and Mayor Ed Lee sent a letter to the EPA last fall explaining that the city will not accept the transfer of any land until regulators deem the land safe and the citys health department signs off on the decision.

If you have a tip for the Investigative Unit email theunit@nbcbayarea.com or call 888-996-TIPS. Follow Liz on Facebook and Twitter.
At first glance, it may seem like Tony Romo is living the good life  an apartment on a beach overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Mexico. But in fact, the place where the retired Marine now lives has become, for him, a private hell.

I feel left behind. We feel that were basically prisoners of war, he says, of his life in the tiny, run-down apartment in Tijuana, Mexico.

Before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Romo was part of a team that ran secret raids into the country. He was a machine gunner, responsible for keeping his fellow soldiers alive.

He took the job very seriously, and when he left the Marines, the shadows of the battlefield haunted him. I was confused, I couldnt adapt to civilian life, he says. "I guess in a way I was trying to, in some way, die or get killed. He says that emotional pain led him to use drugs, and sell them. When Romo was later arrested for selling drugs, he was stunned to learn that after serving his time, he would be deported to Mexico. He was born in Mexico but came to the United States as a small child. Growing up in the U.S., he always considered himself an American. Having risked his life serving in the U.S. military in Iraq, he assumed he was a citizen.

In fact, the oath of the solider and Marine is strikingly similar to the oath of citizenship.

Now sent to live in Tijuana, he says he lives as a foreigner. I miss the Marine Corps, my country, my dad is over there (in the US), my daughter, my brothers, he says.

Despite his deportation, he still loves and respects the country he fought for. It is a great country, and Id defend it any time, I still would.[[413240163, C]]

Like Romo, there are hundreds of deported veterans around the world - scattered across 36 countries. The Investigative Unit learned that 60 of these vets are scratching out a living in Tijuana, many of them hoping to one day return and reunite with their families back in the U.S.

Richard Avila, a retired Marine, is one of them. He fought in Vietnam.

Have you ever seen the movie, 'Apocalypse Now'? Thats how it was, he says, referring to the madness and the drugs  especially heroin, which was present everywhere.

After leaving the military, Avila was arrested for theft. He admits he was stealing so he could buy drugs.

Any other American citizen arrested of a similar crime would serve their time and be released. But for foreign-born veterans, serving time for even minor crimes is often followed by deportation.

Years after being deported to Mexico, Avila still wonders what hes doing there: Ive never lived in Mexico. Ive been in the United States since I was 1 year old. How can they repatriate me to a country that Ive never lived in?

The reason traces back to the Bill Clinton administration. Immigration laws passed and signed into law by President Clinton increased the number of crimes that could get a noncitizen deported. Even minor offenses like drug possession and failure to appear in court were put on the list and became enough to trigger a deportation order.

For a full discussion of this legislation, see this report by the ACLU:

On the northeast side of Tijuana sits a brick building, which deported veterans have nicknamed The Bunker. Hector Barajas, a deported U.S. Army veteran himself, runs the shelter. There are a few cots for those who dont have a place to sleep, and Barajas helps other deported vets out with job prospects, immigration advice and finding legal contacts.

After an honorable discharge from the Army, Barajas later served two years in prison for discharging a firearm in his hometown of Compton, California. He was deported after his release in 2004.

Since then, hes become the go-to contact person for deported vets in Tijuana. Weve come into contact with veterans who are either in the process of being deported or are already deported - at least 301. Were up to 301, Barajas told NBC Bay Area.

Armando Scott was working as a U.S. Embassy Marine on the deadliest single day in the history of the U.S. Marine Corps. Two truck bombs in Beirut killed 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers.

Scott says hell never forget helping pull the bodies of his friends, fellow Marines - the bombing victims - out of the rubble.

After you raise your right hand and swear to protect a country and defend the flag, thats the way they treat you? Scott asks rhetorically.

Its not right, he says, shaking his head.

Deported from his home in Brooklyn, New York, to his country of origin, Panama, after being arrested for illegal entry, Scott made his way to Tijuana. He now sells knit hats out of the back of an SUV on a busy street there.

NBC Bay Area discovered that out of 70,000 noncitizens who enlisted in the U.S. Military between 2009 and 2016, at least half of them never applied for citizenship, according to the Center for Naval Analyses. That oversight leaves them vulnerable to deportation under these rules.

Many vets we spoke to said they were promised citizenship by their recruiters, and many said they thought they became citizens once they took the oath to serve in the U.S. Military.

Nathan Fletcher, a retired Marine and former California Assemblyman, says he was shocked to learn that anyone who had served in the armed forces would face deportation.

Anyone willing to die for their country should have a country willing to give them citizenship. And it's what they were promised when they joined, Fletcher says.

Fletcher is now lobbying Congress to change the law and allow these veterans back. He argues that automatic citizenship is the agreement the military makes with anyone who takes up arms in the name of the United States.

If we had 300 Americans who are missing in Iraq or Afghanistan, we would stop the gravitational spin of the Earth to bring them home. There is nothing that we wouldn't do, Fletcher says. We would deploy SEAL teams, we would have the CIA scour the Earth for them. We would trade hostages. We'd do anything to get them home. Because we made that commitment that everybody comes home (in the military.)

But here, in this case, we have hundreds of American veterans who are not allowed to come home, Fletcher says.

The Department of Defense has been doing a better job of naturalizing soldiers since the passage of the Basic Training Initiative in 2009, which makes the offer of citizenship automatic for anyone who enlists in military service. Even with that new provision, those volunteering to serve in the military must still apply for citizenship. Many veterans told us that frequently recruits arent informed and dont realize they need to take that extra step of actually applying.

Despite the Pentagons new effort, the Clinton era law leaves many thousands of soldiers facing possible deportation if they get into legal trouble after they leave the armed forces.

Fletcher says the Department of Defense has dropped the ball, and that Pentagon officials need to fix this.

The Department of Defense declined our request for an interview, but Sharon Rummery of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service did agree to answer our questions. USCIS is the federal agency that processes all citizenship applications.

When it comes to noncitizens, Rummery says the law is clear. If youve been convicted of certain offenses, its a deportable act, says Rummery, even for veterans." She added, We dont ask ourselves whats fair or not fair. Were simply here to administer the law. Thats what were charged with. Thats what we do. [[413240833, C]]

Back in Tijuana, Hector Barajas points to a row of dog tags that hang on the wall. These are the dog tags of some of the guys who passed away here in Mexico.

Once a deported veteran dies, the law says they are eligible for a burial in a National Cemetery with full honors anywhere in the United States.

Nathan Fletcher, the retired Marine, points out the irony: We will bring their dead body across the border. We will play 'Taps.' We will fold the flag, and a military officer will hand the flag to the family member and say: A grateful nation appreciates your husbands service.'"

There's no honor in that, says Barajas. There's no honor in allowing these men to return when they die, or when theyre on the point of death.

NBC Bay Area found the grave of one such veteran, Manuel Castano, who had been deported to Juarez, Mexico. Now he is finally back in the U.S., resting in peace at Fort Bliss National Cemetery in El Paso, Texas.

n the debate over immigration, one group of people, once promised citizenship, have found themselves deported from the country they fought for. Foreign-born U.S. military veterans, who fought in Iraq, Afghanistan and even Vietnam, say theyve become prisoners of war in Mexico, often for minor offences

A Clinton-era policy to deport non-citizens convicted of crimes sweeps up veterans who fought in wars for the U.S. and splits families apart.
For those living along the Russian River, flooded roads during rainy weather are pretty much a standard expectation, though it does make life more difficult. But when the water level starts creeping up further, residents get a little unnerved.

Annie Lovell is used to flooded out roads in her Guerneville neighborhood. She's just hoping the water stops there.

"This is expected,' she said, looking at a flood caused by the overflowing Russian River. "You should see our yard; its a lake. Everything is underwater. As long as it doesnt get in our house."

It's not just rising water levels that are causing concern in the North Bay. After days of rain, there is simply nowhere for the water go.

On Wednesday, water made it underneath LoraAnn Thorp's mobile home at Mirabel Park and Campground in Forestville.

She measured the Russian's level 32 1/2 feet last night.

Everyone else in the park moved to higher ground when the river hit 31 feet. She's staying til it hits 36.

"It's taking a risk, yeah, but it is taking a greater risk by moving this big clunker here," she said, referring to her trailer.

Guerneville's Donna Langerman says there is something different about this season's storms that she attributes to years of drought.

"This year, it's been more landslides and the downed trees that have caused more trouble than the actual level of the river," Langerman said.

Along Highway 1 in Sonoma County, part of the road gave way Wednesday.

"There is too much water," said Sgt. Ryan Russell of the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office. "The soil cant stick together, so gravity is taking over."

Russell says the rain has caused mudslides and closed roads along the coast, making it tough for residents to get where they're going.

Resident Joe Riley, who caught a ride with a stanger, says people are helping each other get through it.

"I want it to stop," he said.
Yes, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has a YouTube channel, and its the only federal court in the country that livestreams its audio proceedings, according to David Sellers Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

And while some other federal courts may have their own YouTube channels, Sellers said that only the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco uses the videos for broadcasting actual trials; the others use them for educational videos.

The 9th Circuit launched its YouTube channel in 2010. And the most popular video by far is the travel ban case 17-35105 State of Washington, et al. v. Donald J. Trump et al., which has been seen more than 100,000 times by Thursday morning.

Thats something many non-legal types might not have known, until Tuesday.

#9thcircuit Court of Appeals is the only fed court to livestream oral arguments. Guess which was most popular? https://t.co/A7gz7kD4Sj pic.twitter.com/xPYD1gfczr  Lisa Fernandez (@ljfernandez) February 9, 2017

Probably not too many people knew the #9thCircuit had a @YouTube channel until this week. https://t.co/Zhv98k1uhv pic.twitter.com/PTkXQ3xwq9  Lisa Fernandez (@ljfernandez) February 9, 2017

Many more observers all over the world tuned in to listen to oral arguments made in the now-famous travel ban case, which was also streamed online from the courts website. The live audio was also embedded in several mainstream news sites. The court's stream was so hot on Tuesday afternoon, #9thCircuit was trending on Twitter.

Nothing really touches the travel ban case in terms of YouTube popularity.

The next most popular 9th Circuit video was a case two years ago Johnny Baca v. Derral Adams with 37,000 views, and after that, the Edward Peruta v. the County of San Diego, was seen nearly 19,000 times.
About 50 people protested in Martinez on Wednesday over the Contra Costa County sheriffs decision to meet with newly confirmed U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

The protesters, who mostly came from advocacy group the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, said the meeting represented Sheriff David Livingstons support for the Trump agenda.

With Livingstons collaborations with (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), what we are seeing is that he is the Trump in our own community, Claudia Jimenez, a Richmond resident, said.

Jeff Sessions, who was confirmed as attorney general on Wednesday, met with several other county sheriffs from California. The former Alabama senator has been a leading voice against illegal immigration, roiling protesters who would like to see Contra Costa County become sanctuary territory.

In a statement to NBC Bay Area, Livingston said the meeting was to further public safety in the county, adding that he previously met with officials from the Obama administration.

My meeting with Sessions was neither a political meeting nor an endorsement, he said. I did not offer him one nor did he ask.

The two spoke about public safety and the help the federal government can provide us to make our communities safe, according to the statement.

The protesters rallied outside the sheriff's department shortly after noon and marched up to Livingstons office, where they briefly chanted We dont play nice with ICE, a reference to the departments lucrative contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Their attempts to meet with an official were rebuffed, and they left peacefully, but not satisfied.

Martinez has been the site of several protests in recent days, including one on Tuesday regarding the expansion of the Richmond jail and another regarding the immigrations enforcement contract, in which the county holds undocumented immigrants in the jail at the behest of ICE. That contract, first revealed by East Bay Express, has brought long-simmering tensions between immigrant communities in the county and the sheriff's department to a boil.

Our community doesnt support that (collaboration), Yaquelin Valencia, a Richmond resident, said. (Livingston) doesnt know what its like to be undocumented, he doesnt know what its like to fear that a family member might not be here tomorrow, or that a 5-year-old might be left without a mother or a father.

Alliance members plan to meet with Livingston later this month to discuss their fears.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / February 9, 2017 / BCGold Corp. (BCG.V) ("BCGold" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the appointment of Eduardo (Ed) Baer to serve as Chief Executive Officer and Director. Further to the Company's press release dated January 23, 2017, Gary W. Anderson has ceased acting as interim CEO and will continue to serve as the Executive Chairman of BC Gold's Board.

"This is the perfect time for Ed to become BC Gold's Chief Executive Officer. We've selected a proven leader at a time when the Company is transitioning its focus to its Peruvian projects," states Gary Anderson, Executive Chairman. "Ed is not only Peruvian, but has extensive experience working in Peru, understands the jurisdiction in terms of what it takes to drive mining projects, strengthen existing relationships in the communities where the company operates, including interacting with leaders of these communities and other stakeholders to ensure local support, and preserve the ongoing maintenance of a "social licence" for the advancement of the company's projects."

Mr. Baer brings over 25 years of professional experience encompassing business development, strategic planning, and management expertise in the mining sector. Throughout his career, Mr. Baer was instrumental in advancing the development of TSX, TSXV listed companies. Mr. Baer, in his capacity as interim President and CEO, completed the turnaround of European Goldfields Ltd., served in a senior corporate development capacity to Greystar Resources Ltd., and held senior executive positions with TVX Gold Inc. Mr. Baer is a Director of for-profit and not-for-profit private and public companies, and previously held executive directorships at both European Goldfields and TVX Gold. Mr. Baer holds a Master of Laws (LLM) from Osgoode Hall Law School and a Master of Science (Leadership) with Highest Distinction from Northeastern University. Mr. Baer is a member of the Institute of Corporate Directors and obtained the ICD.D designation in 2009.

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"I am very pleased to join BC Gold's team," expresses Ed Baer. "I look forward to guiding the company's exploration projects through the preliminary economic assessment, pre-feasibility and feasibility phases in collaboration with management and fellow Board members. Working from our asset platform that includes two distinct advanced exploration projects, Pucacorral and Chanape, and that reside some 90 kilometers from Lima, allows us to develop a functional strategy for our mineral projects as we focus on transitioning from exploration to operational capacity in time."

Mr. Baer's appointment is consistent with the Board's implementation of a strategic plan to restructure the Company and direct its primary focus to Peru. Efforts are underway to facilitate financing arrangements, the successful recapitalization of the Company, and the continued advancement of its exploration activities. It is anticipated that in the coming months management will continue to introduce new projects in keeping with the rightful composition of the Company's portfolio of assets.

The Company also wishes to welcome Mr. Victor Jaramillo, M.Sc., P.Geo., to its advisory board. Mr. Jaramillo is an International Exploration and Mining Geologist with over 30 years' experience particularly in precious and base metal type mineral deposits. He has previously held positions with major and junior mining companies as project manager, senior project geologist, chief mine geologist and exploration manager. He has been involved in regional exploration, property assessment, resource estimation & mine operations.

He is author of multiple technical NI 43-101 reports, is perfectly bilingual (English-Spanish) and has several years' experience working throughout Latin America, particularly in Mexico, Chile and Peru, as well as Canada and the U.S.

Mr. Jaramillo supervised the team that discovered the La Langosta porphyry copper-gold prospect in Mexico, and the Las Lomas porphyry copper-gold prospect in Peru. He is a Fellow of the Geological Association of Canada and a Fellow of the Society of Economic Geologists.

Gary Anderson, Executive Chairman, commented: "Mr. Jaramillo's appointment to the advisory board further underlies our commitment to exploration and mining in Peru and South America, and will provide the means to boost our performance and exposure to quality projects in the region."

About BCGold

BCGold is a Vancouver-based junior resource company that has been listed on the TSX Venture Exchange for 10 years, with a focus on copper and gold exploration. The Company acquires prospective gold and copper-gold exploration properties considered to have significant mineral potential by staking, option or purchase agreements. The Company currently has a portfolio of properties in Peru, BC and Yukon with the focus being Peru.

On behalf of the Board of Directors,

Gary W. Anderson,

Executive Chairman

For further information, please contact:

Gary W. Anderson

Executive Chairman

604-857-2556

gwaa123@gmail.com

bcgir@bcgoldcorp.com

Eduardo Baer

Chief Executive Officer

416 783 0503

e.baer@rogers.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.

SOURCE: BCGold Corp.
An Amtrak police officer shot a person about a block south of Union Station on Wednesday night in the West Loop, authorities said.

Emergency crews responded about 8:45 p.m. to the intersection of Van Buren and Canal streets, and a male was taken in critical condition to Stroger Hospital, according to the Chicago Fire Department.

A law enforcement source said an Amtrak police officer opened fire while responding to a robbery. The officer was not hurt.

Chicago Police referred questions to Amtrak police, who did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It was unclear what agency is investigating the shooting.

The shooting occurred in the middle of the block on the east side of Canal, which was blocked to foot and vehicle traffic between Jackson and Van Buren, where about 15 law enforcement officers congregated.

Police vehicles from the Amtrak, Metra and Chicago police departments remained at the scene as of 10 p.m.
An American Airlines plane from Ohio was diverted to St. Louis for a security check Thursday morning.

According to a spokesperson for Lambert-St. Louis Airport, American Airliens Flight 534 from Columbus to to Phoenix made an unscheduled landing at the airport after a security issue, NBC affiliate KSDK reports.

The 118 passengers and crew were taken off the plane and a terminal while authorities sweeped the plane, a statement from the airport read.

Footage from the airport showed crews moving baggage from the plane to the tarmac. Several emergency vehicles were also at the scene.

The airport tweeted it was assisting in a security check of an American Airlines aircraft.

Airport is fully operational, the tweet read.

NBC Columbus affiliate WCMH-TV reported an FBI official in St. Louis confirmed the agency responded to the scene for some kind of threat.

American Airlines reportedly said in a statement the security check was being performed out of an abundance of caution.

We hope to have our passengers on their way soon, the statement read.

Around 10:30 a.m., the aircraft was cleared to move and no credible security threat was found, officials said.

The passengers and crew were expected to re-board the plane and continue to their initial destination.
Gov. Bruce Rauner lauded Education Secretary Betsy DeVos confirmation Tuesday, dismissing criticism about her appointment as overblown emotion.

First of all, I think Betsy DeVos could be a very good secretary of education, Rauner told reporters at a school in Downstate Herrin.

DeVos, who has no experience working in public education, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate Tuesday after Vice President Mike Pence voted in favor of the Michigan billionaire, breaking up a historic 50-50 tie.

The newly-anointed Secretary of Education faced considerable backlash after being nominated by President Donald Trump in December despite receiving an endorsement from Rauner.

During her confirmation hearing last month, DeVos was criticized for her lack of experience and sizable donations to GOP candidates. After being asked by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders whether her family had contributed over $200 million to the Republican Party over the years, DeVos replied, Thats possible.

DeVos family contributed $13,000 to Rauners 2014 gubernatorial campaign. That includes a $1,000 donation from Secretary DeVos, according to the Chicago Tribune. On Tuesday, the governor brushed off DeVos critics.

I think that theres probably some overblown emotion around this appointment and much thats going on in the federal government, the governor said.

Rauner once again signaled support Tuesday for school voucher programs, which DeVos has advocated for.

I personally believe that there should be choice of schools for all parents regardless of whether they have much money or not, the governor said. Every family should be able to choose a school that fits their child the best, regardless of their income.

I think thats a big principle, he added.

The Chicago Teachers Union issued a scathing indictment of DeVos Tuesday, calling the Republican charter school advocate a nightmare.

Its no surprise that Bruce Rauner was among those who endorsed her, because they have a lot in common  such as using their extreme wealth to buy their positions, CTU President Karen Lewis said in a statement. Our union will continue to stand in opposition to them and anyone else who is a threat to public education.

On Tuesday, Rauner pushed for increased public school funding, noting that he has no control over federal education policy.

What we can do in Illinois is make sure that we support our public schools to the utmost degree. And we have not done that, Rauner said. And I have been fighting, working hard to get more state support for our schools so our teachers can have the resources in every district, especially our lower income districts.

Lets focus on what we can do, he added. Lets have the best schools in Illinois ourselves. We can control that. The federal government stuff will take care of itself."
Rep. Cheri Bustos announced Tuesday that she's given herself 30 days to decide whether shell join the 2018 governors race.

Bustos, a downstate Democrat, told the Quad-City Times Tuesday that she's weighing a variety of factors, like whether the governors mansion is the best place for her to affect change.

As I weigh this, it is a matter of where can I make the biggest difference and how I can be a in a position to help our state and region as much as possible, she told the paper.

The congresswoman, who won reelection in November, also voiced concern over whether her brand of politics would appeal to statewide voters.

Does my brand of politics and governing, does it resonate in other parts of Illinois? Bustos asked. Im a downstater. My politics are not the same as perhaps another member of Congress in another part of the state.

Bustos questioned whether she can move Illinois in a new direction amid the ongoing gridlock in Springfield. The state has been without a full budget since July of 2015.

I ask myself, Am I the best person to set our state on a healthier path? and I take that part very, very seriously, she said. And if theres something that keeps me up at night as I make that decision, it is that.

I think about that a lot, she added.

After months of speculation, Chicago Democrat Chris Kennedy announced his candidacy Wednesday in the governors race.

Kennedy, the son of the late Robert F. Kennedy, became the second high-profile Democrat to officially challenge Gov. Bruce Rauner after Ald. Ameya Pawar announced his candidacy last month. In his announcement Wednesday, Kennedy stressed solidarity and touted his business acumen.

Its time for Illinois to again embrace the American Dream  the notion that we are a country and a state where anyone can make it and where unlimited opportunity is the promise of our country, Kennedy said in a statement. Every job Ive had, every organization Ive been a part of, has relied on teams working together and shared leadership, which resulted in shared success.

Together, we can fix the mess and restore the promise of our state, he added.

Shortly after Kennedy's announcement, Billionaire Democrat J.B. Pritzker indicated that hes still seriously considering" a run for governor in 2018.

Ive listened to people throughout Illinois, and its clear that our government isn;t working effectively for them, Pritzker said in a statement. Governor Rauner has failed to address the real needs and concerns facing our state.

We need a new leader with a record of getting results, who wakes up every day thinking about improving the lives of working families and people across Illinois, he added.
Two people were in custody Wednesday after an alleged stolen vehicle incident sent multiple schools on soft lockdown in Elmwood Park, village officials confirmed.

A post on Elmwood Parks Facebook page said the incident occurred at 73rd Avenue and Bloomingdale. Elmwood Park police were assisting Chicago officers, the post said.

Chicago Police and Elmwood Park Police remain in the area, the post reads. Southside Elmwood Park Schools have been placed on Lockdown as a precautionary measure.

Elmwood Elementary, Elm Middle School and Elmwood Park High School were all released from soft lockdown shortly after 3:30 p.m., district officials confirmed.

The Early Childhood Center and John Mills Middle School were also on soft lockdown but have since been released earlier, a school district official said.
A Missouri man has been charged with beating four children and a school administrator Tuesday morning on a playground near an elementary school on the Near North Side.

Tasewell Dugger, 46, entered the restricted playground about 11 a.m. near the Ogden International School of Chicago in the first block of West Walton, according to Chicago Police. He struck four children between 6 and 7 years old as well as a 45-year-old woman working as a school administrator.

The victims were treated at the scene for minor injuries, police said.

Dugger, who lives in the 9200 block of Ellison Drive in St. Louis, was charged with four felony counts of aggravated battery to children under 13 causing great bodily harm, according to police. He was also charged with a misdemeanor count of trespass to state land.

He was expected to appear in bond court Thursday
The family of a man shot and killed by a Forest Park police officer held a press conference at his wake Wednesday night.

A Forest Park officer feared for his life, police said, when he shot and killed Marco Gomez in Oak Park last Friday. Police say Gomez was driving a stolen car and accelerated toward the officer when he was fatally shot.

But Gomezs family and their lawyer say there are conflicting narratives and are demanding more information.

The shooting occurred near the intersection of Jackson Boulevard and Harlem Avenue about 6:20 p.m Friday.

Forest Park police Deputy Chief Mike Keating said the vehicle was reported stolen out of Glendale Heights. He said it was involved in a hit-and-run in Chicago. It was spotted by Chicago police officers near West Adams Street and South Central Avenue headed into Oak Park, Keating said.

A Forest Park police officer saw the vehicle stop at a nearby traffic light, according Keating.

The vehicle turned back eastbound on Jackson in an attempt to elude the officer, Keating said. As the Forest Park Officer approached the vehicle on foot, the suspect vehicle began driving towards the officer, who was in front of the vehicle.

Keating said the officer feared for his life and shot into the moving vehicle striking the suspect, who was later pronounced dead.

A man whose apartment overlooks the stretch of Jackson Boulevard where the shooting occurred, said he heard five shots in rapid succession. He ran to his window to see an officer aiming his weapon at a silver sedan, he said.

Saw the officer with his gun drawn, working his way around the car and yelling, witness Michael De Luc said. He opened the door, pulled the guy out, laid him on the ground right there.

De Luc said police began performing CPR on the person pulled from the car. An ambulance that arrived on the scene left after about 10 minutes.

Jackson Boulevard east of Harlem Avenue was blocked off about 10: 15 p.m.

Oak Park, Forest Park and Illinois State police were all on scene.

No details are available for release at this time as the incident is actively being investigated, Illinois State Police Master Sgt. Jason Bradley said.

The ISP Public Integrity Task Force will be doing an independent investigation into the use of force, Bradley said.
Steven Spielberg's search for the child star of his next movie, "The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara," has landed in Chicago's suburbs this weekend.



"This is a unique role for a truly special boy up for a challenge," the casting call reads. "The story deals with the complexity of an extremely intelligent and gifted childs desire to both return to his family and explore an exciting new world."



Casting directors are looking for a boy between 6 and 9 to play the role of Edgardo, a Jewish child taken from his family in Italy to be raised by the Catholic Church after he was secretly baptized. His parents' attempts to free him led to a power shift in the Church.



The plot was adapted from David Kertzers 1997 book of the same title.



The open casting is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday at the Bernard Weinger Jewish Community Center, 300 Revere Dr., in Northbrook.



The search for the child actor has spanned the globe, according to reports, for taping to begin this spring.



Those who aren't able to appear in person to the casting call can also submit a tape. Feb. 13 is the deadline to submit.
A home care facility for the sick and elderly on Chicagos South Side says it may be forced to close due to the states budget crisis.

Workers with Ashleys Quality Care in the Canaryville neighborhood, along with community and political leaders, held a news conference Wednesday to demand a stop what they say is a war on human services.

The agency could shut its doors in a matter of days, unless the state passes a budget.

Madigan and Rauner are like King Kong and Godzilla wreaking havoc on the poor people of the state of Illinois, Rep. Bobby Rush said at the conference.

CEO Frankie Redditt says $1.5 million dollars in state funds have been withheld since June.

Ive told my staff you have to do what you have to do, Redditt said. I have no money, I have no resources, I have nothing.

Cubicles, which once were full of employees, are now empty due to lack of funds and the company downsized from 60 workers to 20.

Clifford Davis says hasnt given up, he continues to workwithout pay.

What am I supposed to do when I dont have no money? He asked. When I have to get a ride to work every day, but I work every day.

We need this budget passed and we need it passed now, he added.

Clients like Vanessa Cunningham depend on the staff at Ashleys Quality Care.

To assist me with getting into the bath, my life is lived through someone else, she said.

A GoFundMe page has been set up in hopes the community Ashleys has helped for more than 25 years will now help themuntil the budget impasse comes to an end.

Until we get someone to go directly to Madigan and somebody directly to the governor to hear our crythen nothing is being done, Redditt said.
Dennis Muilenburg, CEO of The Boeing Company, speaks to members of the press at Trump Tower in New York City, U.S. January 17, 2017. REUTERS/Stephanie Keith

By Alwyn Scott

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Boeing Co (BA.N) must sell more 777 and 787 jetliners to keep production plans on track, despite a $13.8 billion order that landed earlier on Thursday, its chief executive said.

The order from high-profile customer Singapore Airlines (SIAL.SI) is a strong endorsement of both planes, and could lift sales in a sluggish market if other carriers follow Singapore Air's lead, analysts said.

But the win over rival Airbus (AIR.PA) did not lessen two big risks Boeing faces, Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg said on Thursday at a conference in New York hosted by Cowen and Co.

Sales of Boeing's highly profitable 777s have slowed so much that Boeing is cutting production 40 percent this year to cope as it begins switching to the successor 777X model that Singapore Airlines ordered.

"When I take a look at risk areas, filling out the 777 bridge is the area that we're focused on," Muilenburg said, referring to the production spanning the two models.

Boeing also must sell more 787s so it can proceed with plans to lift output to 14 planes a month from 12 in the next few years, Muilenburg said.

That increase has looked iffy and some investors have worried Boeing would abandon it. Muilenburg said Boeing still plans to lift 787 output and currently does not envision a scenario that would require cutting 787 output below 12 a month.

Boeing shares were up 0.4 percent at $164.42 in afternoon trading.

The Singapore Airlines order is a boost for the 787 assembly line, but it does not help with slow 777 sales, since the order is for the newer 777X model.

Muilenburg said the airplane market is still "very healthy" with passenger traffic growing 5 percent to 6 percent a year, well ahead of GDP rates.

But airlines have deferred delivery of about 2 percent of Boeing's backlog, double the figure Muilenburg cited in July, though well below historical averages.

Boeing has already cut 777 output to 7 planes a month from 8.3, and will trim it to 5 a month in August. Deliveries - which generate the bulk of airline payments - will actually fall to about 3.5 a month as Boeing builds 777X test planes in the next few years, he said.

Story continues

Even with those reductions, Boeing has to sell a few more 777s to fill out production this year and has 10 percent of production unsold in 2018 and 2019. Those figures include the planned sale of 80 planes to Iran, including 15 Boeing 777s, Muilenburg said.

Muilenburg voiced confidence that the Iran sale would go through despite the potential political and bureaucratic hurdles.

"These are airplanes that support American manufacturing jobs," he said. "The economic value to the U.S. is real."

He also saw prospects for more U.S. defense sales, noting "re-emerging strength" in the defense budget. And, he said Boeing's KC-46 aerial tanker for the U.S. Air Force, which has incurred about $2.4 billion in cost overruns, is expected to begin generating positive cash flow next year.

(Reporting by Alwyn Scott; Editing by Tom Brown and Leslie Adler)
An American woman imprisoned in Indonesia for killing her mother has retracted statements made in YouTube videos that her boyfriend, also convicted in the same case, was innocent.

A statement released by Heather Mack and her lawyer Yulius Benyamin Seran on Wednesday said the assertions in the videos were false and recorded under pressure. The statement said Mack, 21, was reading words written by her boyfriend Tommy Schaefer.

In a series of three videos posted last week, Mack says that Schaefer was trying to protect her when he confessed to striking her 62-year-old mother, Sheila von Weise-Mack, in the head with a metal fruit bowl.

Mack's statement said the video was uploaded to YouTube by someone who deliberately created an account in her name.

Bali prison warden Tonny Nainggolan said authorities were investigating who recorded and uploaded the videos. He said neither Mack nor Schaefer had admitted to producing or uploading the videos and blamed each other.

The couple was convicted in April 2015 of premeditated murder, which carries a maximum penalty of death. Schaefer was sentenced to 18 years in prison while Mack, who gave birth during the trial, received a 10-year prison sentence.

Von Wiese-Mack was the widow of highly regarded jazz and classical composer James L. Mack, who died in 2006 at the age of 76.

Schaefer testified at his trial that von Wiese-Mack was angry when she learned about her daughter's pregnancy and tried to strangle him, prompting him to strike her with a metal fruit bowl.

In the videos, Mack said she plotted to kill her mother herself because Schaefer refused to help find someone who would kill her mother for $50,000.

"After that I got this new savage idea in my head that I wanted to kill her in a hotel room because she killed my father in a hotel room," she said. "We were going to Bali, then I began to plot."

Mack, the composer, died in a hotel room in Athens, Greece, after suffering a pulmonary embolism, according to his Chicago Tribune obituary.

Prosecutors said the two discussed killing von Weise-Mack in text messages, but in the videos Mack said that she took Schaefer's phone when he was asleep and sent text messages to her own phone.

"Tommy's an innocent man," said Mack. She said that he only helped her stuff the body in a suitcase and clean up the murder scene because she threatened to tell police that he committed the crime.
NBC Connecticut Responds helped a Guilford man, who is still waiting on an appliance he ordered more than two months ago.

John Coughlin got a great deal on a dishwasher last November for Black Friday. He ordered it, along with a washing machine and a dryer, from Home Depot.

The company set the first delivery date for early December, then missed it, a spokesperson says, because his order wasnt available.

They just did not show up, said Coughlin.

The same thing happened when they rescheduled a second time.

The third time, the delivery company said they were running behind and arrived shortly after Coughlins available window. He wasnt home.

None of these errors are my fault, said Coughlin.

With the holidays fast approaching, Coughlin went to Home Depot directly.

I needed a washer and dryer, said Coughlin. I couldnt wait any longer for that.

He picked up a similar washer and dryer to what he had ordered, at no additional cost. And, since he was there, he scheduled a fourth delivery date for the dishwasher.

When the date arrived, the appliance, again, did not. Home Depot had the wrong address.

I was extremely aggravated because this is now the fourth day that I made available to be home to get appliances that I paid for in November, said Coughlin.

Thats when he reached out to NBC Connecticut Responds.

A Home Depot spokesperson contacted Coughlin right away to apologize, and sent us a statement saying:

Were very sorry for the issues Mr. Coughlin experienced with his order and we appreciate the opportunity to work with our delivery vendor and make it right."

The company also gave Coughlin a 200 dollar gift card, a full reimbursement, plus a fifth, and final, delivery date.

Im going to put my faith in them one more time, said Coughlin. They showed me a sign of good faith by trying to work with me.
An ATM skimming device was found at an ATM at a bank in Manchester, police said.

Manchester Police said they are investigating the device located at the United Bank on 341 Broad Street on Sunday.

The device was described as a green rubberized attachment that was installed over the regular card slot on the ATM machine, according to police.

Anyone who may have witnessed suspicious activity in the area of the United Banks ATM are asked to call police at (860) 645-5510.

Police said several other banks in the state have experienced similiar situations and provided some safety tips for residents:
An aide to President Donald Trump was "counseled" after she urged Americans to "go buy Ivanka's stuff" during a television interview, prompting a wave of backlash for potentially violating ethics rules governing the executive branch.

But House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz says that's not enough, calling what Kellyanne Conway did "wrong, wrong, wrong, clearly over the line, unacceptable."

The Utah Republican congressman said he will join with Democratic Oversight Leader Elijah Cummings to ask the Office of Government Ethics to review the matter. Chaffetz also said he will write a formal letter to the White House lodging his irritation.

He said White House press secretary Sean Spicer's remark that Conway has been "counseled" doesn't go far enough.

"It needs to be dealt with," he said in an interview with The Associated Press. "There's no ifs, ands or buts about it."

The White House says Trump "absolutely" continues to support White House counselor Kellyanne Conway after she promoted his daughter Ivanka Trump's fashion line during a cable interview.

In response to questions from The Associated Press, the White House said the president didn't see Conway's interview on Fox News. But a spokeswoman says Trump "understands she was merely sticking up for a wonderful woman who she has great respect for and felt was treated unfairly."

The White House says Trump also "fully supports his daughter."

The ethics dustup began Wednesday with the president himself.

Reacting to news that a department store had dropped his daughter's line of clothing and accessories, Trump tweeted  and retweeted from the official presidential account  that Ivanka Trump had been treated "so unfairly by @Nordstrom."

Ivanka Trump does not have a specific role in the White House but moved to Washington with her husband, Jared Kushner, who is one of Trump's closest advisers. She followed her father's approach on business ties by handing over operating control of her fashion company but retaining ownership of it.

In a Thursday morning interview with "Fox and Friends" from the White House briefing room, Conway urged people to "go buy Ivanka's stuff," boasting that she was giving the brand "a free commercial here."

While Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are not subject to ethical regulations and laws for federal employees, Conway, who is a counselor to the president, is. Among the rules: An employee shall not use his or her office "for the endorsement of any product, service or enterprise."

"For whatever reason, the White House staff evidently believes that they are protected from the law the same way the president and vice president are," said Stuart Gilman, a former special assistant to the director of Office of Government Ethics.

He called the Conway comments "unbelievable," adding that they risk wrecking the U.S. reputation around the world as a model for government employee ethics.

In addition to the House Oversight Committee, two liberal-funded government watchdogs pounced on Conway's comments, filing ethics violation complaints with the Office of Government Ethics, which advises and oversees federal employees on such issues but is not an enforcement agency.

"Conway's action reflects an ongoing careless disregard of the conflicts of interest laws and regulations by some members of the Trump family and Trump administration," said Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen. The group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington also lodged a complaint.

Spicer said Wednesday that Trump was responding to an "attack on his daughter" when he posted the tweet and that "he has every right to stand up for his family and applaud their business activities, their success."

Ethics lawyers had a different interpretation. The implication, intended or not: Hurt my daughter's business, and the Oval Office will come after you.

"This is a shot across the bow to everybody who is doing business with Trump or his family," said Norman Eisen, who was President Barack Obama's chief ethics counselor. "It's warning them: Don't withdraw their business."

Trump's son Donald Jr. tweeted a link Thursday to a story on the Breitbart conservative news website saying that women across the country are cutting up their Nordstrom cards and planning boycotts after the decision to drop Ivanka Trump's brand.

Though Trump has tweeted about companies such as Boeing, Carrier and General Motors, ethics experts say this time was different because it involved his daughter's business, raising conflict-of-interest concerns.

Ethics experts have criticized Trump's plan to separate himself from his sprawling real estate business by handing managerial control to his two adult sons. The experts want him to sell his company. Most modern presidents have sold their financial holdings and put the cash raised in a blind trust whose investments remained unknown to them.

Eisen joined with other legal scholars and lawyers to sue the president last month for allegedly violating a clause in the Constitution that prohibits government officials from accepting gifts or payments from foreign governments.

Trump and his top aides have repeatedly said that Americans do not care about what Eisen and other ethics critics say. "Prior to the election it was well known that I have interests in properties all over the world," Trump wrote on Twitter Nov. 21.

Nordstrom reiterated Wednesday that its decision was based on the brand's performance, not politics. The company said sales of Ivanka Trump items had steadily declined over the past year, particularly in the last half of 2016, "to the point where it didn't make good business sense for us to continue with the line for now."

Retailers drop brands all the time because of poor performance, said brand consultant Allen Adamson. But given a highly charged political environment, perception is reality for loyal Trump fans.

"It is clearly hard for Nordstrom to tell the story that it is dropping (the brand) for business reasons," said Adamson, founder of the firm Brand Simple.

Associated Press writers Catherine Lucey and Anne D'Innocenzio and Matthew Ott in New York contributed to this report.
On August 1, 1966, a sniper positioned himself in the tower at The University of Texas at Austin and began indiscriminately shooting students, faculty, bystanders and police. When the sun set on that brutally hot Monday, 16 people were dead, and more than 30 people were wounded.

Keith Maitland, the director, producer and editor of Tower, a film about that days events, wanted to look beyond the story of the sniper and reveal the people behind the grim numbers of the nations first mass shooting.

Tower will premiere on PBSs Independent Lens February 14 at 10/9 p.m. CT. The film will be available for online viewing beginning February 15.

Maitland grew up in Plano and learned about the shooting through a witness: his seventh-grade history teacher.

She was on a balcony overlooking Guadalupe Street when she heard sounds, saw people running and hiding, and heard more sounds. Then she saw a man on the tower with a rifle and realized if she could see him, he could see her. What stuck with me was the confusion and then the realization that you are in a crisis. The peace and calm of everyday life has been shattered and you have to decide who you are and what you are going to do, Maitland said.

By the fortieth anniversary of the shooting, Maitland had moved to Austin and he read Pamela Colloffs article 96 Minutes in Texas Monthly. He realized the articles first-person accounts of witnesses, victims and police would be a compelling basis for a film and was surprised to learn no such film had yet been produced.

From 2006 to 2012, he researched the shooting and his friends suggested people to approach about their experience during the shootings. He became frustrated because of 300 web sites he visited, 298 of them were about the sniper and his motives. Maitland was focused on his teachers experience and determined to tell a different side of the story.

He committed to making the film in 2012 and Colloff introduced him to the people featured in her article.

We were very prepared for people to be apprehensive or anxious about talking to us, but we didnt run into that. For the most part, these people were left to process this event without guidance, Maitland said.

After the shooting, the campus closed for one day and the shooting was not mentioned at graduation or in the yearbook. Maitland prioritized creating a safe space for the survivors to revisit the worst day of their lives and worked to make the three hour interviews a positive experience.

I was concerned with the emotional details like what music they were listening to, what clothes they were wearing, and what someone shouted to them across campus, Maitland explained.

Those minute details were crucial to accomplishing Maitlands creative approach to the film. Realizing the university would not grant him permission to stage recreations, Maitland combines animation with footage from that day to reconstruct events from the survivors perspectives.

I wanted the film to be visceral and immediate and authentic, Maitland said. The animation offers a dream-like quality to explore the 50-year-old memories of the films subjects and it invites people to project themselves into the situation.

Maitland hopes the animation will appeal to high school and college students who are accustomed to the news of mass shootings. He wants students to understand the history of this violence and what it feels like to be a survivor.

After extensive research, Maitland settled on telling the story of that day through seven perspectives, including the first person shot, a paperboy shot off his bike, a university bookstore manager who helped the paperboy, two police officers instrumental to ending the shooting, an incoming freshman who was more curious than scared, and a radio news director who broadcast the shooting live.

The film documents how the survivors navigated life, created new dreams, and dwelt on their personal regrets after the shooting.

There was concern that Tower would only appeal to a regional audience, but as the producers screened the film all over the world, its appeal was apparent.

The questions about how to respond to trauma is universal, especially with the increase in mass shootings. Maitland understood The University of Texas at Austin would be apprehensive about the subject matter, but after a screening at SXSW, the university embraced the film.

Maitland received a gracious note from the schools president on the 50th anniversary of the shooting and the film has been screened on campus for students.

Five decades and many mass shootings later, the survivors of the Texas Tower shooting offer their stories to engage a society numb to violence.

Were giving people a chance to discuss whats going on society and culture, Maitland said.

CLICK HERE to learn more about Tower.

Kimberly Richard is a North Texan with a passion for the arts. Shes worked with Theatre Three, Inc. and interned for the English National Opera and Royal Shakespeare Company. She graduated from Austin College and currently lives in Garland with her very pampered cocker spaniel, Tessa.
Two construction workers were injured after being struck by an SUV on Interstate 35E in a reported hit-and-run Wednesday night, police say.

Dallas police said the driver of the SUV crashed into the workers that were in a construction zone on southbound I-35E near Inwood Road at about 11:15 p.m.

The workers were transported to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas in unknown condition.

An SUV with front-end damage was towed from the scene, just past Inwood Road.

No further details have been released.
Four Dallas City Council members have filed a lawsuit to keep retired Dallas police officers and firefighters from withdrawing money from their deferred retirement accounts (DROP accounts) until the pension system and DROP distributions are "deemed actuarially sound" and "would not reduce or otherwise impair the constitutionally protected benefits" of pension system members.

Council members Jennifer Staubach Gates, Scott Griggs, Philip Kingston and Erik Wilson  who each also serve on the pension system's board  filed the lawsuit Wednesday, less than 24 hours before the pension board's February meeting.

Named as defendants in the lawsuit are: the Board of Trustees of the Dallas Police & Fire Pension System, the Dallas Police & Fire Pension System, Samuel Friar, Gerald Brown, Clint Conway, Ken Haben, Brian Hass, Joe Schutz, Ken Sprecher and Tho Tang Ho.

The lawsuit argues that the system's financial situation is so dire that continued withdrawals could do irreparable damage to the system's future financial viability.

"We can tell from math that paying that money out is going to reduce our ability to pay benefits going forward. That's not acceptable," said Councilman Philip Kingston. "Every dollar that goes out is a dollar that I can't use to later pay the regular monthly benefit for some of our oldest and most vulnerable retirees."

The lawsuit also calls for the pension system's assets to be put in receivership for better management. Kingston admits the ongoing fight over the system has put retirees in a tough spot. Proposals to "claw back" some of the deferred retirement money have angered many retirees who want the money they earned while protecting Dallas residents.

"I was loyal to the city of Dallas, and in retirement I expect them to be loyal to me," said retired Dallas Fire-Rescue Lt. Joel Lavender.

Lavender retired in March 2016 after 34 years of service to the fire department. His wife is a Dallas police officer, and they both have DROP accounts. Lavender said he wants the money his loyalty to the city and the department earned him.

"You're starting to shake people's faith," he said. "Not so much faith in the system, but faith in what I have later on. That's a scary thing."

The pension system responded to the lawsuit Wednesday night, accusing the city of playing politics with the retirement of first responders.

"Here they go again. Rather than work collaboratively with state legislators and the pension board to find a long-term solution based on shared sacrifice, the mayor and city officials continue to push a confrontational litigation strategy to get their way," said Sam Friar, chairman of the Dallas Police & Fire Pension System.

Friar also accused the city of moving the goal posts each time the two sides get close to an agreement.

The pension board will meet Thursday morning to continue to discuss the crisis.
Dallas city leaders Wednesday delayed another opportunity to make big progress on the backlog of street problems.

At a special meeting forced by three council members who strongly favor a May bond referendum for street repair, a 10 to 5 council vote closed the meeting and killed the plan.

The referendum would have devoted $476 million to street improvements.

"I think all these people who are up for reelection just handed their opponents a cudgel to be beaten about the head with," said Councilman Philip Kingston, a referendum supporter. "Politically, I'm very unsure about what my colleagues are thinking."

Mayor Mike Rawlings led opposition to the May referendum at the first council meeting attended by new City Manager T.C. Broadnax.

"I've been pushing for a November bond vote, because of the issues we are facing as a city financially, and because Mr. Broadnax is a week old in his job and because a majority of the county could not agree on a bond package," Rawlings said.

A non-binding straw vote against a May referendum was taken at another meeting last month.

The city is currently struggling with a multibillion-dollar Dallas Police and Fire Pension crisis. Pension officials have requested a cash infusion of $1 billion, which could require all of the city's borrowing capacity.

"The explanation that we need to save our money to bail out the pension is completely disingenuous," Kingston said. "This council has no will to spend a billion dollars of the people's money bailing out that pension."

Kingston is also one of four City Council members who serve on the 12 member Police and Fire Pension Board.

Wednesday, those four joined a lawsuit filed last year by Rawlings to block cash savings withdrawals from the fund.

The council members' new filing accuses other pension board members of jeopardizing base pension benefits for retirees by allowing the withdrawals. It seeks a restraining order to once again stop those withdrawals, which were restarted by an 8 to 4 vote of the pension board last month.

Police and fire retirees and employee pension board members complain City Hall is not honoring obligations to them.

City officials have said the lack of street funding from a May bond referendum will allow 100 miles of Dallas streets to fall further into disrepair, requiring more expensive reconstruction instead of repaving later.

"We need the streets now. That's stuff we can't keep putting off," said driver Timothy Clark.

He was picking up his grandchildren at a school on Canada Drive in West Dallas where he said drivers swerve to avoid potholes.

"A lot of cars lose control. When you're coming down the street and you've got your kids with you, that's dangerous," Clark said.

Canada Drive was to receive $4 million for reconstruction from a 2012 bond referendum but the work has not yet begun. The $476 million suggested Wednesday would only address part of the list of other street and transportation needs in Dallas.

Rawlings said the city is not ignoring the problem.

"I think we all want our roads fixed and we want to do that in November," Rawlings said.
Miranda Bennett's first-grade students have had their new classroom furniture for only a week, but the swivel chairs, whiteboard tables, wobbly stools and movable cushions have already changed the way her students engage in the classroom.

"Interestingly enough, I thought it was going to be my really, really squirmy ones, but it's actually my calmer kids who are moving more. I'm getting more out of them, because they're the ones who are usually bored because we need to extend their learning," Bennett said. "I have noticed they're able to focus for longer periods of time rather than just two minutes. It's 10 or 12 minutes now because they're a little more comfortable."

The Waco Tribune-Herald reports her class is one of four flexible learning environments at Midway Independent School District's Spring Valley Elementary School that researchers from Baylor University, Region 12 Education Service Center and Huckabee are using for a semester-long pilot program to follow up on two years of work in the lab.

Huckabee is a Fort Worth-based architecture and design firm that developed the furnishings used in the classrooms.

In fall 2015, Baylor and Region 12 partnered to study how students learn in different flexible environments within the Baylor Research and Innovation Collaborative's Learning Experience Laboratories, or "LEx Labs."

The new study stems from a planning and evaluation phase and observations made during another pilot program with eighth-graders at La Vega Independent School District in those two years, said Todd Buchs, Baylor's assistant vice provost for research.

Known as the Student Engagement Research Project, the study will measure how the environment in each classroom can impact student success and learning levels, Buchs said. Researchers will spend nine weeks in each classroom observing, conducting interviews and more, Buchs said.

The team will evaluate behavioral responses, natural body movement stimulation, psychological engagement and academic engagement, said Jorge Carmona Reyes, assistant director and research coordinator at Baylor's Center for Astrophysics, Space Physics and Engineering Research, which will gather the information in the classrooms through interviews and observation.

"When we started doing the initial research, we were looking at defining what student engagement was because we had conversations with researchers and several people interested in the field. Everybody had their own opinion or interpretation of what student engagement is," Reyes said.

"Part of the research is actually developing the narrative that will help us determine what are those components that make up student engagement in light of what everybody's opinion is and in light of what the literature says about student engagement."

Anecdotal evidence suggests flexible learning environments have a positive impact on students, which led researchers to want to take a closer look in a quantifiable way, Buchs said.

A quick Google search reveals numerous retailers selling flexible classroom furniture and numerous headlines from media outlets throughout the U.S. touting how flexible furniture is helping students stay focused and on task.

"It's actually helped (their social skills) a lot," Bennett said of her new furniture. "I actually have a little boy that doesn't talk a whole lot, but since he's gotten into the red chairs that spin, and they're real tall, I don't know if he feels like he's more at a restaurant, he's just talking away with his friends at his table."

Depending on what researchers discover, the results could change the way teachers operate in the classroom, how schools are designed and even how lawmakers approach student success and academic accountability, Midway ISD spokesperson Traci Marlin said.

The researchers already have gone through their first set of interviews with students, and the findings have made observers even more curious because the students are bringing perspectives to the table that the researchers never would have thought about on their own, Reyes said.

"I'll give you an example: cup holders. We never thought of that being a need for the students at this age, but they were talking about how the tables they have don't hold their cups well," Reyes said. "They sometimes spill it, and it gets in the middle of their work, and, actually, it gets into their neighbor's work. They hadn't seen the furniture at the time of the interview, and they were asking if they were going to have cup holders."

Making changes to the furniture is important but is only one part of the overall effort to measure student engagement, Reyes said. Researchers are just hoping to have a larger scope of understanding about how student success works with flexible learning environments by gathering information from the different professional perspectives involved in the collaboration, he said.

"This is why we think this research is different than anything we've done before, because of this collaborative and all these different perspectives looking at this," Buchs said. "We think we're going to get a very, very holistic view of this.

"When they talk about cup holders, it seems small, but a big part of this is student choice. We have found, again in the literature and other anecdotal evidence, that when children have choice in how their learning environment is presented to them, they start to take ownership of their own learning, which guides us more over to that student-centric learning versus teacher-centric."

The four Spring Valley Elementary classrooms aren't the only flexible learning environments in local public school districts. A few years ago, the Midway ISD also made flexible creative spaces at Speegleville Elementary and Woodgate Intermediate School, which use similar furnishings as their classrooms.

In September, the district also transformed Midway Middle School's 40-year-old library into The Studio, a $500,000 makerspace concept with furniture that helps students focus on the four C's in the district's daily curriculum -- creation, collaboration, communication and critical thinking -- to help build a different kind of student, Marlin said. Overall, the district has about a dozen flexible learning environments, she said.

Farther north in the county, an entire campus in West Independent School District has been decked out with flexible furniture, including sliding walls. Classrooms at the combined West High School and West Middle School building have sliding whiteboard walls that combine or separate rooms for collaboration, and each room also has a whiteboard wall with a projector to give students more interactive capabilities.

Seats and whiteboard desks also are easily movable, and college-like lounge areas with sofas are scattered throughout the campus. The campus also has a science, technology, engineering and mathematics lab that uses flexible furniture to encourage hands-on learning.

At West High School, where students were once conditioned from kindergarten to enter a classroom with a pre-established routine of coming in, sitting down and either turning in homework or listening to a lecture, the atmosphere has changed, Principal Don Snook said. There was an adjustment period, but after the first semester in the new school, students now spill out into the study areas and use the pull-back walls daily, he said.

"What we're trying to do with them and with teachers as well is show that's not how students engage anymore," Snook said. "As teachers, we would love to think they learn from us, but research shows they learn more from each other."
IKEA officials said they submitted a proposal to the City of Fort Worth to open a third North Texas store.

If approved, the Swedish company would begin construction on the store in spring of 2018 and open in the summer of 2019.

"We are thrilled with our success in North Texas since opening our first store 11 years ago, so we are excited to propose a Fort Worth store to grow our Dallas-area reach," IKEA U.S. president Lars Petersson said.

The 289,000-square-foot proposed store would be built on 27 acres near the intersection of Interstate 35W and North Tarrant Parkway, about 10 miles north of downtown Fort Worth.

The store would also feature a supervised children's play area, and a 325-seat restaurant serving Swedish specialties like meatballs with lingonberries.

Officials said more than 500 jobs would be created during the construction phase and at least 250 more when the store opens.

IKEA currently has a store in Frisco and is set to open another in Grand Prairie this fall. The company also opened stores in Houston and Round Rock and is planning to open another in Live Oak in the summer of 2019.

Online: IKEA-USA.com
By Brad Haynes and Alonso Soto

SAO PAULO/BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil opened a formal complaint against Canada at the World Trade Organization (WTO) on Wednesday, accusing the country of distorting the global aerospace industry with subsidies for planemaker Bombardier Inc (BBDb.TO).

Brazil has threatened for months to open the WTO dispute, arguing that support for Bombardier's new CSeries was undercutting the market for commercial jets made by Brazilian rival Embraer SA (EMBR3.SA).

The case builds on decades of antagonism between the two regional jet makers and echoes arguments in the world's largest trade dispute, a transatlantic spat over government support for Boeing Co (BA.N) and Airbus Group SE (AIR.PA).

Brazil's action came on the heels of fresh support for Bombardier on Tuesday in the form of interest-free loans worth C$373 million ($283 million) from the Canadian government. Canada's Trade Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said the loans complied with WTO rules and the government would defend itself against litigation.

Brazil's Foreign Ministry criticized "at least $2.5 billion in government support" for the Canadian planemaker last year and a senior official said the complaint would include the loans announced on Tuesday.

"It is the understanding of Brazil that these Canadian subsidies artificially affect international competitiveness," the ministry said in a statement.

The province of Quebec, where Bombardier is based, injected $1 billion into the company's CSeries program last year. The province's largest pension fund also invested $1.5 billion in the company's rail unit.

Embraer Chief Executive Officer Paulo Cesar Silva said in a statement that the ongoing cash injections "have not only been fundamental in the development and survival of the CSeries program, but have also allowed Bombardier to offer its aircraft at artificially low prices."

STEEP DELTA DISCOUNT

Last year, Bombardier scored an order from Delta Air Lines Inc (DAL.N) for 75 CSeries jets, worth some $5.6 billion at list prices, beating out Embraer's competing E-Jets with below break-even prices, according to the Brazilians.

Story continues

Two sources familiar with the deal said Bombardier offered a roughly two-thirds discount to win the order, its biggest to date for the fledgling CSeries program.

Bombardier booked a $500 million "onerous contract" charge related to that Delta order and a separate deal with Air Canada (AC.TO).

Carlos Cozendey, undersecretary for economic affairs at Brazil's Foreign Ministry, said that subsidies had been key in helping Bombardier win the Delta contract and could influence more sales campaigns this year.

Bombardier pushed back on Wednesday, calling the government support a standard practice in the global aerospace industry.

"All forms of support provided to Bombardier, including the repayable program contributions announced by the federal government yesterday and the investment from the Quebec government... are fully compliant with Canada's international trade obligations," Bombardier said in a statement.

The company compared that funding to loans for Embraer from Brazil's state development bank BNDES and an investment by the Brazilian Air Force in Embraer's new military cargo jet.

"The aerospace industry is heavily subsidized around the world," said lawyer Renata Amaral, head of the international trade practice at Brazilian firm Barral M Jorge & Associates. "The problem is when subsidies reach a degree that starts creating distortions in the market."

Amaral, who has advised Brazil on previous WTO cases, said that a decision on the current dispute was likely to stretch into 2018.

Both countries now have up to 60 days to try to settle the dispute before the WTO convenes a panel of experts to help make a ruling in the case.

BUILDING ON PRECEDENT

The latest WTO standoff follows nearly a decade of sparring between Brazil and Canada over state financing for Embraer and Bombardier's exports in the 1990s.

However, the current dispute is closer in substance to the clash between the United States and the European Union over allegedly unfair support for Boeing and Airbus.

Brazil will aim to build on a partial U.S. victory in that case, which focused on comparing public financing for aircraft development with private-sector benchmarks to determine whether the loans constituted improper subsidies.

The WTO ruled that loans to Airbus were unfair but stopped short of putting them in the worst category of "prohibited" aid. The dispute, which started more than a decade ago, has still not completed a lengthy WTO compliance process.

Cozendey, of Brazil's foreign ministry, said that precedent strengthened the argument against Canadian subsidies.

Brazil will argue that some of Canada's measures are "prohibited" under international trade law, while others are not illegal per se but are "actionable" because the scale of the subsidies are disrupting competition, Cozendey said.

(Reporting by Brad Haynes in Sao Paulo and Alonso Soto in Brasilia; Additional reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal and Tim Hepher in Paris; Editing by Daniel Flynn, Nick Zieminski and Lisa Shumaker)
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas installed a new bishop Thursday in a special mass where he promised to be a good shepherd to the faithful.

The Installation Mass of the Bishop Edward J. Burns took place at the Cathedral Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe in downtown Dallas.

Outside the mass he said the Catholic Church must also serve non-believers and newcomers to America.

"We will not call them Catholic or Protestant. We will not call them Jewish or Muslim. We will not call them rich or poor. We will call them our brothers and our sisters," Bishop Burns said.

Burns, 59, whose most recent post was in Juneau, Alaska, said he has much to learn about Texas but knows undocumented immigrants are a big part of the population, many of them Catholic.

Burns said he will immerse himself in Spanish with study in Mexico to learn the language.

He recalled how the Bible teaches that Jesus and his parents were refugees in Egypt to escape the wrath of King Herod.

"It's important to know that someone in Egypt had to welcome the Holy family," Burns said. "We are called to welcome the immigrants and refugees, as we would welcome Christ."

Cardinal Kevin Farrell, Burns's predecessor as Dallas bishop, attended the installation mass, along with two fellow cardinals and more than 50 bishops from across the country, and several hundred priests and deacons.

Farrell  who left Dallas for Rome Oct. 1 after Pope Francis appointed him the Prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life  spoke at Thursday's mass against insults and the current state of politics in America.

"I would hope that in this period that we're living through and we're going through at the moment, that we would all learn the basic fundamental principal of Christianity. We're all brothers and sisters, and we need to care for each other. And we can have all kinds of disagreements between us, but that doesn't mean that we can't be friends," Farrell said.

Burns said he will spend a great deal of his time as Dallas bishop getting to know the churches and communities of North Texas better, as Farrell did when he first arrived in Dallas.

Burns may find Texans who do not share Catholic views on immigration and refugees, but visitors at the mass were on his side.

People lined up early to get seats at the downtown Dallas cathedral Thursday.

"We're real excited," said visitor Roseanna Baw. "We've heard so much about him, so we're really looking forward to what he can do for the Diocese of Dallas."

Members of an organization called Neocatechumenal Way performed music for people entering the cathedral to help welcome Burns.

"We are saying, 'Hey, we are in communion with you. We back you. We're in support of you. We're here for you,'" said member Guillermo Rodriguez.

The group of devout Catholics works as adults to reconfirm the Baptism they received as infants.

"He will be inspired by the Holy Spirit to do whatever he needs to do," Rodriguez said about his new bishop.

Burns is a native of Pittsburgh and had served as bishop in Juneau since 1999.
Land in the Central Valley is sinking so much from over-pumping of groundwater in the drought that water officials plan to press for new laws to limit well drilling to slow the damage.

Jeanine Jones of the California Department of Water Resources said Thursday that sinking land threatens to limit up to one-fifth of water deliveries to central and Southern California as part of the state's vital north-south water project.

NASA satellite images show the land sinking at a troubling pace.

The 444-mile California Aqueduct provides water to 25 million people and nearly one million acres of farmland. Officials said that since 2015, sections of the concrete canal have dropped more than two feet in places.

"The rates of San Joaquin Valley subsidence documented since 2014 by NASA are troubling and unsustainable," said DWR Director William Croyle. "Subsidence has long plagued certain regions of California. But the current rates jeopardize infrastructure serving millions of people. Groundwater pumping now puts at risk the very system that brings water to the San Joaquin Valley. The situation is untenable."

A previous report prepared by NASA showed record rates of subsidence, the gradual sinking of land, particularly near the Central Valley communities of Chowchilla and Corcoran, according to the DWR. More NASA aerial radar mapping showed the sinking caused by groundwater pumping caused the Aqueduct to drop by more than two feet near Avenal in Kings County, reducing how much water can flow through the segment, according to the DWR.

San Joaquin land subsidence isn't a new problem -- it was first observed in the 1920s -- but authorities have heightened concerns due to the NASA research results and heavy reliance on groundwater for irrigation during California's historic drought. Aqueduct problems due to sinking land have required repairs to canal linings, bridges and other structures along the canal's path.

Drought conditions have eased after January's strong winter storms. Eleven percent of the state remains under severe drought, down from 82 percent at this time last year, according to Thursday's Drought Monitor report.

NBC4's Jonathan Lloyd contributed to this report.
The sister-in-law of one of the shooters responsible for the San Bernardino terror attack has changed her plea to guilty in a marriage fraud case.

Tatiana Farook, 32, of Corona, pleaded guilty Thursday in Riverside to one count of conspiracy to commit immigration fraud, "related to a sham marriage discovered during the investigation" of the San Bernardino attack, according to a statement from the United States Attorney's Office.

She faces a maximum of five years in prison when she is sentenced Nov. 13.

Her husband, Syed Raheel Farook, is the brother of Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the two shooters in the December 2015 attack that killed 14 people.

United States Attorney Eileen M. Decker addressed the plea change in a statement from the United States Attorney's Office Thursday.

"After todays guilty plea, all but one of the defendants charged as a result of the December 2 San Bernardino terrorist attack have been convicted," Decker said. "Specifically, three members of the shooters family now face federal prison. These convictions are a testament to law enforcements ongoing commitment to ensure that everyone related to the terrorist attack are brought to justice."

The marriage-fraud case involves Tatiana Farook's sister, Mariya Chernykh, a Russian immigrant whose alleged sham marriage to a Riverside man was discovered when her husband became part of the shooting investigation.

The marriage charges are unrelated to the attack.

Chernykh pleaded guilty Jan. 26 to conspiracy, perjury and two counts of making false statements on Jan. 26.

Under a plea agreement with prosecutors, Chernykh faces up to 20 years in prison and $1 million in fines. She is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 20.

Chernykh, 26, also faces deportation, and has been in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement since shortly after her arrest.

Syed Raheel Farook, 31, pleaded guilty Jan. 10 to conspiring to commit immigration fraud by setting up his Russian sister-in-law in a sham marriage. He remains free on bail and also faces a maximum of five years in prison when he's sentenced Nov. 13.

Chernykh is married to Enrique Marquez Jr., a family friend of the Farooks accused of supplying guns and explosives used in the San Bernardino attack that killed 14 people and wounded 22 others on Dec. 2, 2015. Marquez has been charged with conspiring to support terrorists, lying about the firearm purchase and participating in a sham marriage.

"The three defendants made false statements in immigration documents, Chernykh paid Marquez for his participation in the scheme, and Chernykh made additional material false statements during interviews with FBI special agents," according to a statement from prosecutors.

Marquez, who is named as an uncharged co-conspirator in the marriage indictment, remains in jail. His trial is scheduled for Sept. 26.

Marquez admitted he was paid $200 a month to marry Chernykh, according to court documents.
Smuggling contraband to a prison can be a creative enterprise.

And with todays technology, drones have become another way criminals have found to smuggle contraband into prison.

Corrections officers at the Federal Correction Institution in Miami believe it's happening there.

Basically, we have drones that fly over our institution, Sam Catchings, the head of the local union for corrections officers. "A person actually crashed their drone in the back side (of the facility).

At the federal facility next to the Miami Zoo, about 1,500 inmates are serving time, some of them are considered to be violent criminals convicted of murders as well as being gang members or having terrorist ties.

The use of drones to smuggle contraband has been seen in other parts of the country.

In Oklahoma, a drone crashed at a prison. It was carrying hacksaw blades, heroin and a cell phone. And two men were arrested in Maryland before they were about to fly their drone over the prison wall to deliver drugs to an inmate waiting for the loot.

They can drop a weapon on our recreation yard, Cathings said. The inmates could be able to grab anything thats dropped into our facility and run away with it so we would not be able to identify the inmate who has it.

Orlando Villaverde, an aviation law enforcement expert, said the drone flights over the prison grounds are a coordinated effort.

They are using these drones for the purpose of transporting contraband across the walls of a correctional facility, Villaverde said. That has to be extremely calculated by the operator and then somebody on the inside.

Union officials said they voiced concerns to FCI-Miami officials. The prisons associate warden said in a statement, "Specific information regarding drones being flown near or over the facility has not been reported to institution management."

The statement also said that drones delivering contraband to state facilities has occurred in recent years but described it as a limited threat at federal prisons.

Regardless, Catchings hopes something can be done to limit the threat.

If anything they should have a no fly zone over a federal prison or a state or county prison, he said.

The NBC 6 Investigators obtained photos showing an array of items the correctional officers are finding inside smuggled by different means.

One item discovered is shaped like a gun that's designed to pick locks. Officers have also found master keys to open doors hidden in speakers, weapons, drugs and cell phones.

If an inmate has a cell phone they are able to make any kind of hit on a judge or make a hit on staff members, which we actually saw done in Puerto Rico, Catchings said.

He says a Miami inmate was involved in a scheme that killed Corrections Officer Osvaldo Albarati. The hit was made on a cell phone call.

A phone allows inmates to continue their criminal activities from inside the prison, he said.
Helicopters were in the air. Well-armed special response police teams searched everywhere. Police dogs were out trying to pick up a scent. All to find an inmate who escaped from a suburban Washington D.C. hospital.

Police said inmate Wossen Assaye overpowered a private security guard and took her gun when her partner went to the restroom. After eight hours of searching, Assaye was taken back into custody.

Assaye has since been convicted of the crime hed been arrested for and is serving time in a federal prison in Florida.

Jose Rojas is the union representative for the federal corrections workers at the prison where Assaye is being housed.

He says he doesnt want to see what happened there to happen here or anywhere.

In my opinion its a life and death issue, Rojas told the NBC 6 Investigators. These inmates are drug dealers, kidnappers, some of them have committed murder with 13 to 15 years left on their sentence. So, thats a heck of an incentive to escape.

Currently, federal corrections officers watch inmates who need medical treatment at South Florida Hospitals, but the officers learned that could soon change.

I just received a letter from our regional director that they are in the process of looking for a guard service, says Sam Catchings, a corrections officer at the prison in Southwest Miami Dade County thats known as FCI Miami.

Catchings, who is the local union leader, said inmates are taken for medical care frequently.

Three or four times a day, he says. Any and all of the hospitals in the Miami-Dade area we are using. 

Catchings wrote a letter to the former US Attorney General to warn about the change to private security guards.

Catchings wrote the plan places the security of the general public at high risk.

Federal buildings throughout the US including in South Florida use contract security guards.

But Rojas believes a hospital is different.

Youve got the nurses. Youve got the doctors. Youve got the regular public out there. You put them in danger, Rojas said. "We get to bring them to the hospital with belly chains, handcuffs, leg irons, with a weapon. We pass them off to the guard services who dont handcuff them. They dont have any weapons and leave them there at the hospital."

The Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed that it is looking to hire private guards to handle inmates inside the hospitals.

But while the federal correctional officers maintain the private guards dont have the proper training, the wardens office at FCI-Miami told us told us the public is not being placed in any danger.

Contract guard services are only used to transport low security individuals. At no time has public safety been in jeopardy with the use of guard services, wrote Stevie M. Knight, the Associate Warden at FCI-Miami. All guard service contracts require training to ensure individuals are properly prepared to maintain the care custody and control of low security inmates.

Rojas told us all of this is being done to cut costs, but he worries about the risk to the public.

Its to save money plain and simple, he says. Why take that chance?

McKnight agreed its being done to save money, but says this is being done responsibly.

Contract guard services allow the facility to maintain public safety and be fiscally responsible with taxpayer funds, he wrote.

The Bureau of Prisons didnt provide specifics about when the private guards would be in place.
A man has pleaded guilty to threatening the owners of two Muslim grocery stores in southwest Florida.

A U.S. Department of Justice news release says 34-year-old James Benjamin Jones pleaded guilty Wednesday to two federal hate crimes.

Authorities say Jones threatened the owners of two markets last summer in the Fort Myers area. Jones told one store owner that he and others ``will blow up all Muslims and get this land back.''

Jones admitted during a plea hearing that he made the threatening remarks.

A sentencing hearing has not yet been set.
A Hialeah man is facing charges after police say he carjacked another man who was selling the car during a test drive.

Julio Ceasar Marquez, 30, was arrested Tuesday on an armed carjacking charge, according to a Miami-Dade Police arrest report.

Marquez appeared in court Wednesday where he was ordered held on $7,500 bond.

Detectives say Marquez called the victim who was selling a car, saying he wanted to go for a test drive back in December. Marquez showed up with a friend to see the car and they went on the test drive.

The arrest report says Marquez, the co-defendant and the victim all got in and drove off, but then the car started making a strange noise. They pulled over and saw a metal object hanging from the muffler. After removing it they drove off again.

But then on 95th Street and Northwest 31st Avenue, Marquez pulled over again, got out of the car and went to the front passenger side where the victim was sitting. Meantime, the co-defendant held something up to the victim's head from behind.

The victim said he was scared for his life and did as the suspects told him to do. Detectives were able to track the cell number used to call the victim to Marquez.

Marquez told detectives that he gave the car to the co-defendant for $50, and then the co-defendant said he was playing a joke on the victim. The co-defendant remains unknown.
A reported bomb threat caused the evacuation of one private school in southwest Miami-Dade Thursday.

Crews from Miami-Dade Police responded to St. John Neumann Catholic School, located off Southwest 107th Avenue and 121st Street. Officers and school officials evacuated all students from the school to a safe area.

Bomb squad members, along with bomb sniffing dogs, conducted a sweep of the school before giving the "all clear" shortly after 11 a.m.
BRASILIA, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Brazil's Presidential Chief of Staff, Eliseu Padilha, said on Thursday the government could submit a bill in April to simplify the country's tax system, as part of broad economic reforms to kindle growth after a deep recession.

Padilha, speaking to reporters, added he was confident the judiciary would confirm the legality of the appointment of Wellington Moreira Franco to a ministerial post. A federal judge suspended on Wednesday the nomination of Moreira Franco, a close ally to President Michel Temer, after he was reportedly named in a massive corruption scandal.

(Reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu)
A 76-year-old Southwest Florida man is behind bars after allegedly shooting his wife of six months  reportedly because she refused to have sex with him.

According to the Bradenton Herald, Donald Royce and his 62-year-old wife had been arguing Saturday in their Lehigh Acres home over the fact they had not had sex since being married. Royce allegedly pulled out a gun and attempted to shoot a mattress in their home in an effort to scare her.

He missed, instead shooting her in the butt and hip.

Royce was arrested and charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. As of Thursday he is still being held on $100,000 bond.

The victim, who has been with Royce for six years, is recovering at a Fort Myers hospital.
If youre a foodie and always looking for a deal on your meal, then Thursday might just be the best day of the year for you to save a little doughon foods made with dough!

February 9th is both National Pizza Day and National Bagel Day, with restaurants and fast food chains across the country offering deals on both food favorites.

Brooklyn Water Bagel, with several locations in Broward and Palm Beach counties, is offering a free egg and cheese bagel pocket with the purchase of another menu item  while Einstein Brothers Bagels will be offering a free bagel and shmear with any purchase. The company will also donate one bagel to a person in need for every one that is sold. For more deals, click this link.

If youre looking for deals on pizza, several chains with South Florida locations  including Dominos, Papa Johns, Hungry Howies and more  have plenty of savings that will make your mouth water. Click on this link to find out where you can save.
At a womens empowerment conference Monday evening, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton urged attendees to dare greatly and lead boldly.

"Despite all the challenges we face, I remain convinced that yes, the future is female," Clinton said in a pre-recorded message at the annual AOL MAKERS 2017 conference.

She urged viewers: You are the heroes and history makers, the glass ceiling breakers of the future.

//

Clinton's virtual presence at the MAKERS conference shows how deeply held her views are about womens rights, according to Jane Campbell, president of the nonpartisan group, Women Impacting Public Policy.

This is about what she wants to do rather than what position she wants to hold, so I really applaud her for staying in the public dialogue at this point, Campbell added. I think shes totally right."

But critics found Clintons message to be vaguely divisive.

Conservative political commentator Charmaine Yoest, senior fellow at American Values and former president and CEO of Americans United for Life, said that the devils in the details, and while there really wasnt anything specifically that she said that anyone would want to disagree with, Yoest took issue with Clintons gender-specific language.

My fundamental concern is that while the future is female may sound like a catchy slogan, what, as a national community, we need to be talking about is a future that is human, she said. By saying that the future is singularly one sex, what does that say about who we are in relationship to others?

Yoest's argument mirrors that of All Lives Matters advocates, who claim that the Black Lives Matter slogan is racist against other demographics. Supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement contend that rationalization minimizes the experiences of being black in America and masks legitimate societal inequity. Similarly, the future is female could be interpreted as a commentary on gender equality and the disadvantages women and girls have long faced in society.

Despite a record sweep in the 2016 election, only 21 female senators out of 100 serve in the upper house. Of the 435 members holding seats in the House of Representatives, only 83 are female. Yet women account for over half of the U.S. population.

Clinton made history by becoming the first woman to accept a major-party presidential nomination. Despite being heavily favored in mainstream polls  and winning the popular vote by almost 2.9 million ballots  Clinton lost the presidency to Republican Donald Trump.

According to Lisa Maatz, vice president of government relations and advocacy at the American Association of University Women, female voters and their male allies have noticed these inequalities. During Clintons presidential bid, women were outraged by what they interpreted as sexist double standards that influenced the election results, Maatz said.

The Christian Science Monitor reported last week that after the 2016 campaigns, women are flooding into political training programs in hopes of getting elected and changing the political discourse.

Though proportionally underrepresented in the American government, women still have powerful voices on both sides of the aisle. Elizabeth Warren, the senior senator from Massachusetts, has emerged as one of the most recognized figures from the Democratic Party. President Trump has appointed women to serve in top positions in his administration, including former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Betsy DeVos, and perhaps most prominently, Kellyanne Conway.

Conway, a senior adviser to the president, made waves in a Jan. 26 interview with the Washington Post, when she dubbed herself a postfeminist.

I dont consider myself a feminist, she told the Post. I think my generation isnt a big fan of labels. My favorite label is mommy.

She continued: I feel like the feminist movement has been hijacked by the pro-abortion movement or the anti-male sentiments that you read in some of their propaganda and writings. Im not anti-male. One does not need to be pro-female and call yourself a feminist, when with it comes that whole anti-male culture where we want young boys to sit down and shut up in the classroom.

Yoest agrees with Conways view, claiming that Trump's campaign manager was speaking to a choice that very many women make to prioritize motherhood over career, that many, many women today feel isnt validated and supported by the modern feminist movement.

What we are seeing continually is that its not about women, Yoest said. Its about a leftist political agenda, using the banner of womens rights to achieve their own political aims in a very divisive and hostile way. Yoest called this agenda the abortion industry.

According to Yoest, the real challenge for the modern feminist movement is accepting conservative and Republican women, who are often shunned for their views.

But proponents of feminism like Maatz do recognize that Conway has made inroads for women in politics by serving as the first female campaign manager to nab a presidential victory.

Even though Clinton didnt win, there was a barrier of sorts that was broken, and thats a good thing, Maatz said.

Though she can appreciate Conways contribution, she also said that Trumps counselor needs to join us in the 21st century, where feminism values everyone.

Being a feminist means youre inclusive about who youre advocating for, Maatz explained. Its not a true feminist analysis if its not intersectional.

She also said that the women's marches around the world after Trump's inauguration speak to the fact that we do not live in a postfeminist period.

Campbell stressed that feminism is about equality between the genders and rejected any anti-male or exclusive interpretation of the movement. She remembered how in the 1970s, feminists were often equated with lesbians and stigmatized for their beliefs. Then, some women decided to reject a mans involvement in their lives, not through an anti-male stance, but to support inter-female relationships, she said. But as the LGBTQ community has been normalized and accepted into our social fabric, theres no need for those divisions.

By my definition of feminist, Kellyanne Conway has just defined herself as a feminist, she added.

Maatz conceded that Conway fills a difficult role, as the main spokesperson for a president whose credibility on gender issues, shall we say, is compromised.

In a Trump era, when officials claim to be postfeminists and after the defeat of a candidate who many believed would be the first female president, women may wonder what their role is in the political sphere. Maatz advised all those who are disillusioned by the Trump administration to start by addressing their local politicians. As an example, she pointed to Virginias Republican representative Dave Brat, who recently told an audience that the women are in my grill no matter where I go.

Theyre holding his feet to the fire, Maatz said of Brat. Thats what we need to do.

I have to tell you, that story made me very happy, she added. You have to be appropriate, but you have to be an advocate.
What to Know A major winter storm is expected to drop more than a foot of snow across large swaths of the Northeast

Rep. Tom Price is expected to be confirmed as health secretary despite Democratic opposition

Trump has been attacking judges deliberating his immigration and refugee executive order; his Supreme Court nominee called it "demoralizing"

Get the top headlines of the day in your morning briefing from NBC 4 New York, Monday through Friday. Sign up for our newsletter here.

Winter Storm Hits Tri-State, Northeast

A densely populated swath of the Northeast was preparing for winter's harshest thump yet, a fast-moving storm that could bring more than a foot of snow, strong winds and coastal flooding, and cripple air and ground travel. "This is going to be a big punch," said Benjamin Sipprell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Airlines were bracing for a troublesome day: As of Thursday morning, more than 2,700 flights were canceled. Snow began falling across the tri-state area around 4 a.m. and heavy flakes were cascading down from New Jersey to Long Island by 6 a.m. Storm Team 4 says up to 15 inches of snow could fall Thursday morning and afternoon. Get up to date with the latest forecast, school closings and commuter conditions. Check school closings and weather alerts or scenic snow photos.

Trump Health Secretary Nears Confirmation

Republicans are ready to overpower Democrats and push another of President Donald Trump's Cabinet nominees through the Senate, the man who will help lead the GOP drive to erase and replace the health care law. The Senate voted 51-48 Wednesday to short-circuit Democratic delaying tactics against Rep. Tom Price, Trump's choice for health secretary. Final approval of Price seemed certain. The debate over Price was coming in a week that has so far seen Democrats, eager to show liberal constituents that they are taking a stand against Trump, ferociously but unsuccessfully opposing two nominees for top administration jobs.

Sessions Confirmed, Senate in Turmoil

The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Sen. Jeff Sessions to be attorney general in the Trump administration despite fierce Democratic opposition to the Alabama Republican over his record on civil rights and immigration. The 52-47 nearly party-line vote capped weeks of divisive battles over Sessions, an early supporter of Trump. Democratic senators fighting to derail Sessions' nomination repeatedly challenged Republicans by reading aloud from a critical letter from Martin Luther King Jr.'s widow, a day after the Republicans silenced Sen. Elizabeth Warren for doing the same. The late-night dust-up quickly spawned the hashtag #LetLizSpeak that was trending on Twitter early Wednesday.

Trump Attacks Judges

President Trump on Wednesday slammed the court that is deliberating his immigration and refugee executive order for having motivations he described as "so political." Speaking to a group of police chiefs and sheriffs, Trump honed in on the language used in a provision detailing his presidential powers. "It was written beautifully," Trump told the attendees, asserting that even "a bad high school student would understand this." U.S. Appeals Court Judge Neil Gorsuch, Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court, has called the president's recent criticism of the judiciary "disheartening" and "demoralizing."

Pentagon Wants to Rent at Trump Tower

The United States military is looking to rent space at Trump Tower for use when President Trump returns to his longtime home in New York City. A Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday that the Department of Defense was looking for the space "in order to meet official mission requirements." Two U.S. officials said that the space will likely be rented from a third party, and not from the president or members of his family. It was not clear how much it would cost the Pentagon to rent space in the 58-story Midtown Manhattan tower, which is owned by the Trump Organization.

Hundreds Indicted on Rioting Charges

A grand jury has indicted more than 100 Inauguration Day protesters on rioting charges in Washington, D.C. In total, 209 people have now been indicted. The indictment, handed up D.C. Superior Court on Wednesday, charged 146 additional protesters with felony rioting  meaning they face a fine of up to $25,000 and a maximum of 10 years in prison. Police arrested 230 people during Trumps inauguration.
Facing 25 years-to-life in prison, the namesake grandson of notorious New York City mobster John Gotti took a plea deal Wednesday in connection to a large-scale prescription drug operation, officials from the Queens District Attorney's Office said.

John J. Gotti, 23, plead guilty to second-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance, conspiracy to commit an A felony and third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance stemming from two 2016 arrests.

Gotti, whose father is Peter Gotti, agreed to forfeit $259,996 in drug proceeds that authorities seized during an arrest on Aug. 4, 2016, and another $7,000 in drug proceeds seized during a Jun. 30, 2016 arrest, officials said.

Like his grandfather, Gotti was brought down by covert listening devices. Investigators intercepted telephone conversations and installed a bug in an Infiniti G35 sedan he used, capturing detailed conversations regarding his Oxycodone trafficking business, authorities said. His grandfather was brought down after the FBI planted listening devices at Gotti hangouts around NYC.

In recorded conversations, Gotti said he sold more than 4,200 pills every month, netting about $100,000 a month in drug sales, and once calculated that his trafficking business generated roughly $1.6 million annually. Authorities said he stated that he stored his drug trafficking records and $200,000 of profits at an associate's house in case cops decided to seize them and take action against him.

According to the charges, Gotti was the main seller of the organization and primarily sold Oxycodone pills for $21 to $30 each, said Queens DA Richard Brown.

Throughout the course of the investigation dubbed "Operation Howard Beach," undercover cops bought about $46,000 worth of pills from Gotti during 11 sales between April and July 2016. Authorities said 10 of the 11 buys were recorded on video and audio.

NYPD Narcotics Borough Queens South members found approximately $52,000 and 480 Oxycodone pills in Gotti's bedroom at the family's Howard Beach home when they picked him up last August, officials said. Police also seized $200,000 and the ledger that contained his drug records from a safe in an associate's apartment.

A month earlier, Gotti was stopped by officers in Howard Beach last June for excessively tinted windows, officials said. When he handed over his license, officers found that he was driving with a suspended license. Officers recovered a Gucci bag with over 200 Oxycodone pills, a bottle of steroids and an assortment of marijuana, Xanax and methadone pills from the car during the stop.

Authorities said police also recovered $5,600 in cash from the vehicle and $2,271 in cash from his pants pocket. More than $7,000 of the money seized had been given to Gotti by an officer during undercover drug buys.

Gotti is expected to be sentenced to eight years in prison and five years probation on his August arrest, as well as a concurrent term of four years in prison and two years in jail on his June arrest, officials said. He's being held in jail on $2 million bail.
What to Know A winter storm could drop 10 to 15 inches of snow on NYC, north-central NJ, the lower Hudson Valley, Connecticut and Long Island on Thursday

A winter storm warning is in effect across the tri-state and a blizzard warning was issued for Suffolk and Nassau counties

NYC schools are closed, thousands of flights are canceled and the area is preparing for slick roads, sluggish commutes and power outages

The monster winter storm that dumped more than a foot of snow in some parts of the tri-state area pulled away Thursday evening, leaving behind a brutal chill in its wake that could make travel dangerously icy into Friday morning.

The snowstorm was blamed for at least one death in New York City. A 59-year-old doorman shoveling snow at a building on 93rd Street slipped on the steps and fell back through a glass window, severely cutting his neck, law enforcement sources say. He died at a hospital.

Blizzard and winter storm warnings, which were in effect for nearly of the tri-state, were discontinued by Thursday evening. Long Island, where residents experienced whiteout conditions, appeared to get the worst of the storm. While snow began tapering off in New Jersey before noon, the last flakes weren't didn't leave Long Island till evening. Storm Team 4 breaks down the timeline here.



Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone declared a state of emergency as Commack recorded a foot of snow by 1 p.m., and thousands were left without power.

Explosive moisture growth created ripe conditions for thundersnow (thunderstorms forming over cool pockets of air) across Nassau and Suffolk counties as the storm surged over the island. Some instances of the rare weather phenomenon were reported in Connecticut, where, by early afternoon, parts of Fairfield County had seen a foot.

Public schools in New York City were closed for just the 11th time in 12 years, but Mayor de Blasio said he anticipated roads to be cleared enough for classes to resume Friday. NBC 4 New York's live cam showed some brave souls trying to hoof it through the Crossroads of the World as others, failing to heed the pleas of city officials, navigated the roads.

Most of the tri-state saw a total of 8 to 13 inches of snow by storm's end. The Fresh Meadows neighborhood of Queens got over 13 inches of snow, while the northwest Bronx saw just over a foot. Midwood, Brooklyn, saw 10 inches, while Central Park recorded 9.4 inches. Alternate side parking is suspended in the city through Saturday, but meter rules remain in effect.

De Blasio urged New Yorkers to stay inside.



"If you need to go out, please dont use your car because we need to let our Sanitation Department clear the roads, he said at a news briefing.



The Jersey Shore, meanwhile, got about 4 to 10 inches. Northern New Jersey saw more accumulation, with more than 9 inches reported in several Bergen County towns.

All New Jersey state offices were closed for non-essential employees, Gov. Christie says. Schools were closed as well. The state's Office of Emergency Management reported nearly 200 accidents before noon, and that number was expected to grow. Connecticut Gov. Malloy also asked non-essential employees to stay home.

The storm crippled travel by ground and air, and over 2,000 flights at area airports were canceled ahead of and during the storm, The Federal Aviation Administration implemented a full ground stop at JFK to allow crews to clear the Queens runways.

According to the National Weather Service, snow fell at incredibly quick rates -- up to 3 inches an hour at LaGuardia and up to 2 inches an hour at JFK. Wind gusts were expected to reach up to 45 miles per hour, with the strongest gusts recorded along the coast. In Suffolk County, 64 mph gusts were recorded in northeast Calverton.

Visibility was only a half- to a quarter-mile at times, making for hazardous travel conditions all day. Unable to get around safely by car and hampered by snowy sidewalks, some New Yorkers got creative. At least one woman used skis to get around.

Black ice could be a potential danger overnight as temperatures plunge into the teens in Manhattan, and into the single digits in the distant north and west of the city.

Temperatures will warm a little this weekend, with highs in the 40s under mostly cloudy skies. Sprinkles are possible Saturday and rain is likely Sunday.
New Jersey State Police are asking for the public's help with identifying a woman who cashed fraudulent checks at two Manhattan banks.

Surveillance cameras caught a woman suspected of cashing two fraulent checks worth more than $1,300, officials from the New Jersey State Police department said in a Facebook post Wednesday.

She allegedly cashed two checks at two separate TD Bank locations in Manhattan Dec. 5, officials said. She allegedly used a fake Connecticut drivers license using the possible alias Karen Polanco.

The woman is also suspected of cashing fraudulent checks in Staten Island and Woodbridge, New Jersey.

New Jersey State Police officials are asking anyone with information to call Trooper Robert Sanchis at 908-689-3101. In their post, the department added a note to viewers who particular about suspect surveillance photos.

"For all of you who hate the grainy, blurry surveillance still pics, this one's for you!"
A New Jersey man has found the person who wrote a message in a bottle.

The Asbury Park Press reports that Vincent Stango has exchanged text messages with Stuart Brown, of Yorkshire, England, since Stango found the bottled note on a beach near his Long Beach Island home about two weeks ago.

The note included United Kingdom phone numbers and read: "Found the bottle? Read this note? I'm Stuart, if you wish, call or mail me. Speak or mail soon. England Stuart."

Brown told the newspaper in a telephone interview Thursday that he recently returned from a world tour aboard the Queen Elizabeth and, for fun, tossed several bottled messages along the way. He said Stango must have found one he tossed about 150 miles out from New York.
A new distillery is opening its doors for the first time next week by hosting a party inside a $4.5 million converted warehouse near The Fillmore music venue.

Philadelphia Distilling and Bluecoat American Gin is taking over at the site of the former Ajax Metal Company, a 15,000-square-foot building that dates to the early 1900s near the intersection of Richmond Street and Frankford Avenue.

The party will be 5:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 16, and allow patrons to tour tasting rooms, new private event spaces, an outdoor patio, bar and lounge.

The new pub features hand-hammered 2500-liter copper pot stills from Scotland that were formerly owned by the Forsyth family, fifth-generation distillers. There are also four open wooden fermentation vessels constructed by the Hall-Woolford Tank Co.
President Donald Trump attacked Sen. Richard Blumenthal on Twitter Thursday, claiming that Blumenthal misrepresented Neil Gorsuch's remarks criticizing Trump's attacks on California's 9th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals. Gorsuch called Trump's attacks on the court "disheartening" and "demoralizing".

President Donald Trump's criticism of the judiciary prompted a rebuke from his nominee for the Supreme Court, who told a senator the president's comments were "demoralizing and disheartening."

Judge Neil Gorsuch, who was nominated by Trump to the nation's high court last week, made the comments Wednesday after Trump accused an appellate court considering his immigration and refugee executive order of being "so political." Over the weekend, the president labeled a judge who ruled on his executive order a "so-called judge" and referred to the ruling as "ridiculous."

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut first relayed Gorsuch's remarks on Wednesday following a meeting with the judge. Trump's own confirmation team for Gorsuch later confirmed he had made those remarks.

But Trump suggested that Blumenthal had misrepresented Gorsuch, tweeting early Thursday, "Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie), now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?"

Sen.Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie),now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2017

Blumenthal faced criticism in the past for saying he had served in Vietnam. Blumenthal served in the Marine Corps Reserves during Vietnam. He apologized in 2010, saying he regretted his misstatements.

A spokesman for the team shepherding Gorsuch's nomination in the Senate confirmed Blumenthal's version of the conversation to NBC News and said Gorsuch did use the words "disheartening" and "demoralizing.

GOP former Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who is helping with Gorsuch's confirmation and was at the meeting, issued a statement saying Gorsuch made clear he was not referring to any specific case. But she said the nominee said he finds any criticism of a judge's integrity and independence to be "disheartening and demoralizing."

Press Secretary Sean Spicer said in a press briefing on Thursday that the President has no regrets about what he said about judges.

Spicer also suggested that Gorsuch's comments were "not about any specific matter," and that in general, Gorsuch doesn't like attacks on judiciary.

Spicer added that the president will continue to speak his mind, referencing Thomas Jefferson and presidents commenting on judicial nominees, and that the idea of "one branch commenting on the other branch is as old as our republic."

Gorsuch's comments came at the end of a week of meetings with members of the Senate, which is considering his nomination. His response may have been aimed at drawing a line of separation from the new president, who has been a politically polarizing figure among Democrats in a highly charged partisan fight over the court.

Prior to the judge's meeting with Blumenthal, Trump criticized the court that is deliberating his immigration and refugee executive order, telling a group of police chiefs his immigration order was "done for the security of our nation."

He quoted from the portion of the immigration law that he said gave him the power to enact the ban, calling it "beautifully written" and saying, "A bad high school student would understand this."

"Courts seem to be so political and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do what's right," he added. "And that has to do with the security of our country, which is so important."

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is weighing the appeal of his executive order on immigration, including a temporary travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries. In a hearing Tuesday, judges on the appeals court challenged the administration's claim that the ban was motivated by terrorism fears, but also questioned an attorney's argument that it unconstitutionally targeted Muslims.

Since a lower-court judge blocked the order last week, Trump has assailed the decision, leading legal experts, Democrats and some Republicans to question whether the president's remarks might jeopardize the independence of the judiciary. Others have expressed fears he may be attempting to use political influence to sway the courts.

The White House late Wednesday posted on its website ethics waivers granted to four ex-lobbyists and numerous others who have joined government.

Blumenthal, a former state attorney general, told reporters Wednesday he had told Gorsuch that he would need to publicly condemn Trump's attacks on judicial independence.

"It needs to be a strong condemnation and that kind of public condemnation is important to establish his independence," Blumenthal said. "Otherwise, the American public will conclude that he is more likely to be a rubber stamp."

In his speech, Trump sought to link his comments about the court battle over his executive order to the law enforcement community in attendance.

"We have to allow you to do your job," he said. "And we have to give you the weapons that you need, and this is a weapon that you need and they're trying to take it away from you."

The president has repeatedly said people are "pouring in" since the ban was put on hold and suggested that blocking the order would be dangerous for U.S. citizens.

On Wednesday morning he tweeted, "Big increase in traffic into our country from certain areas, while our people are far more vulnerable, as we wait for what should be EASY D!"
From Game of Thrones to Hotline Bling, Philadelphia Police have developed a knack for using pop cultural references to remind residents that it's illegal to save parking spots with a cone or chair after shoveling during snowstorms. With heavy snow predicted for Thursday, Philly Police continued the tradition, referencing a now viral clip from "The Dr. Phil Show."

For those unfamiliar, a clip of 13-year-old Danielle and her rebellious antics first aired on "The Dr. Phil Show" last September and quickly gained popularity on social media. One segment of the show where the teen told the studio audience, Catch me outside, how bout that? became the source of countless Internet memes.

Philly Police joined the trend Wednesday, photoshopping a cone over the teens face.

..and we'll takedah.Saving parking spots after shoveling is illegal. Call 911, and we'll take care of it- Howbowdah? #NoSavesies #FellowKids pic.twitter.com/EaN3nAAxjC  Philadelphia Police (@PhillyPolice) February 8, 2017

Philly Police say officers can, and will, confiscate any item used to reserve a parking space on a city street. They also warn residents that using a cone or chair where street parking is scarce is not only illegal but can also potentially cause a dangerous confrontation. They are hoping that if everyone follows the rule after Thursday's snow there will be no threats to "catch anyone outside."
After a storm brought snow to the entire Philadelphia region Thursday morning, bitter cold temperatures and gusty winds took hold as the evening arrived.

A few inches of snow fell on much of the region in a matter of hours as the intense storm quickly moved through the Philadelphia region as temps dropped to freezing and below. Snow first began falling in Berks, Chester, Lehigh and Northampton counties and then spread to Bucks, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties as well as northern Delaware and South Jersey turning from rain to sleet to snow. By late morning, more than 6 inches had fallen in parts of the Lehigh Valley.[[413343353, C]]

Before noon the storm moved out from west to east.

Temperatures should stick below freeing with wind gusts up to 40 mph through the rest of Thursday. The high temp isn't expected to get past the freezing mark Friday and overnight temps should feel like the single digits. [[413290823, C]]

Due to the expected snowfall, all Philadelphia public and archdiocesan schools closed Thursday. (Philly schools will open Friday, officials said.) Hundreds of other area schools also closed ahead of the storm. Philadelphia lifted its snow emergency at noon.

SkyForce10 captured children taking advantage of the day off bu sledding on Belmont Plateau. [[413342543, C]]

New Jersey closed all state offices Thursday for nonessential employees and the snow was expected to linger longer in the Trenton area. Bucks and Montgomery counties also closed offices and courts. In Delaware, all state offices would open as normal as the storm didn't hit as hard.

Some attractions also changed schedules Thursday such as the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, opening late at noon, and the Please Touch Museum in Fairmount Park, which closed for the day. [[413298133, C]]

Speed limit restrictions were put in place on many major highways and bridges and PATCO operated on a special "Snow Schedule."

Precipitation began to fall overnight starting as rain in some areas but changed to sleet, then snow as temperatures cooled before daybreak. The snow led to blinding conditions  less than 1/4-mile visibility  in some areas right around the time of the morning rush. [[413264633, C]]

The intensity of the snow made roads difficult to traverse. Philadelphia International Airport warned travelers that most morning flights were canceled.

Some sun shined late Thursday morning and more could shine in the afternoon but not enough to melt off much of the snow left on the ground. The sun should shine Friday but with freezing temps, not much melt off will happen.The heavy wind combined with the heavy snow also posed a threat for limbs to take down power lines.

A warm-up comes this weekend as temps push into the 40s Saturday.

The NBC10 First Alert Weather Team's forecasts are the most accurate in the Philadelphia area, says WeatherRate.com. The team brings 80 years of combined forecasting skill to NBC10 viewers.
The biggest storm to hit the Northeast this winter dropped a foot or more of snow along the New York-to-Boston corridor Thursday, turning roads treacherous, grounding flights and giving millions of people weather whiplash a day after temperatures soared into the 50s and 60s.

Scores of accidents were reported as drivers confronted blowing snow and slick highways. Stretches of Interstate 95 in Rhode Island were closed in the afternoon after tractor-trailers got stuck.

[NATL] Winter Storm Sweeps Across East Coast

Schools closed in cities big and small, including New York City, Philadelphia and Boston, and government offices told non-essential workers to stay home.

A number of school systems canceled Thursday classes including New York City, Philadelphia and Boston. Airlines scrapped thousands of flights by late Wednesday as a precaution, and FlightAware.com reported 4,337 flights were canceled Wednesday through Friday, including the more than 3,644 on Thursday, and already 206 on Friday.

Port Authority spokesman Steve Coleman says flight activity is expected to pick up again at Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark Liberty as the storm winds down.

A de-icing truck caught fire at Bradley Airport outside Hartford, Connecticut.

Fifty million people from Maine down through Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., are being affected by a winter storm that dumped as much as four inches of snow per hour, according to NBC News.

[NATL] 6 Essential Life Hacks for Surviving Cold Winter Weather

In New York City, a doorman died after falling down a set of stairs and crashing through a plate-glass window while shoveling snow. Police said Miguel Angel Gonzalez, 59, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, suffered cuts on his neck and face.

Massachusetts activated its emergency management bunker in Framingham, where Gov. Charlie Baker was scheduled to provide updates on the storm at midday. Baker urged people to stay off the roads to allow plows and sanders to do their work.

In Rhode Island, they got "thundersnow," with whiteout conditions accompanied by the rumble of thunder.

"It's pretty nuts here," Felecia White said as she and friends hunkered down in a restaurant in Newport, Rhode Island, waiting for the weather to improve. "Even with four-wheel drive, you can't do anything. You can't see across the street."

As of late afternoon, New York's Hudson Valley and parts of Long Island had up to a foot of snow, while New York City recorded about 9 inches.

"The roads are in bad shape ... covered and icy," Suffolk County Police Commissioner Tim Sini said.

[[407080095, C]]

A blizzard warning was posted for a swath of the New England coast, with forecasters saying Boston and Providence, Rhode Island, could get up to a foot and a half by evening. Boston canceled school on Friday, too.

West Hartford, Connecticut, had more than 14 inches by late afternoon, and Ludlow, Massachusetts, had 18 inches. Farther north, Nashua, New Hampshire, received over 13 inches and Berwick, Maine, recorded about a foot.

In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, about 100 people turned out for a snowball fight. Organizer Andrew Bagley said that while there was snow aplenty, it wasn't ideal for snowball making.

"It's just an unsanctioned, family-ish event for people staying home on a snow day," he said. "It's an excuse to come downtown and act like little kids again."

[NATL] Extreme Weather Photos: Record Heat Threatens Europe

In New York City, a group of women in pajamas waited on the sidewalk in the freezing cold to attend a taping of ABC's "The Chew" show, where the day had been proclaimed "Pajama Day."

"It's fun. And it's an experience. Yesterday was 65 degrees, and today, a snowstorm," said Elaine Higgins, a retired educator from Blackwood, New Jersey. "What's life without adventure?"

The storm came midway through a largely snow-free winter in the Northeast and a day after much of the region enjoyed a brief taste of spring, with record-breaking highs in some places. Temperatures then crashed more than 30 degrees as the storm rolled in.

"We were waiting for a good one all year," said Morgan Crum, a manager at Katz Ace Hardware in Glastonbury, Connecticut, where more than 50 people stopped in to buy shovels, ice melt, gas cans and other storm provisions. "We live in New England. This is what we expect."

The storm came midway through a largely snow-free winter in the Northeast and a day after much of the region enjoyed a brief taste of spring, with record-breaking highs in some places. Temperatures then crashed more than 30 degrees as the storm rolled in.

"We were waiting for a good one all year," said Morgan Crum, a manager at Katz Ace Hardware in Glastonbury, Connecticut, where more than 50 people stopped in to buy shovels, ice melt, gas cans and other storm provisions. "We live in New England. This is what we expect."

The snow tapered off in the morning in Philadelphia and was expected to stop in the afternoon in the New York City area, but New Englanders should brace for snowfall through the evening commute.

[NATL] Tornadoes, Hail, Thunderstorms Hit South Louisiana
With recreational use of marijuana set to be legalized for Californians in 2018 and with more cities in San Diego County approving medical use, investors in the marijuana industry are snatching up properties with the hopes of getting a piece of the pot economy.

Some real estate brokers are calling this feeding frenzy the green rush, comparing pot investors to settlers who came to California in the 1800s looking to strike it rich from gold mining.

In November, California voters approved Proposition 64, a measure allowing residents to recreationally consume marijuana.

Once recreational [use] passed, it created a clearly defined path to get to profitability, Jason Klein, a local real estate broker said. It has created a feeding frenzy, just in terms of purchasing and so property owners here are looking to capitalize on the green rush and to be able to cash in.

Klein showed NBC 7 Investigates some of the properties hes been selling to people who say they have plans for future marijuana operations.

Before the passage of Proposition 64, businesses distributing, cultivating or manufacturing marijuana for medical use could only operate on a not-for-profit basis, according to SB 420, the state measure allowing medical marijuana use in California.

Proposition 64 changes this. It allows businesses to sell marijuana, for both medical and recreational use and for a profit. Some marijuana investors are getting a head start by focusing on properties in cities that allow medical marijuana operations, like the City of La Mesa.

There are people coming in from all over the state and outside of the country even, to get properties there in La Mesa because they were able to see clear defined guidelines, Klein said.

One of the properties Klein showed NBC 7 Investigates was a Chinese restaurant on Parkway Drive in La Mesa. He said it is being sought after to sell pot.

According to Klein, the owners were reluctant at first to sell it for use as a marijuana business. But, after La Mesa voters passed an ordinance allowing dispensaries to operate, Measure U, Klein said things changed.

Money started to talk and a Chin's Chinese food restaurant just couldn't compete with the prices that were being offered for medical marijuana dispensary owners, Klein said.

Finding a property for the purpose of selling, growing or manufacturing marijuana or marijuana goods is not like finding a space for your average retail location, according to Klein. A number of factors play a role when finding a location, including zoning and what is located nearby. For the cities of La Mesa and San Diego, city guidelines require a buffer zone between approved dispensaries, so, if a property is purchased in the right zone it can cancel out any other applications in the area.

Klein showed NBC 7 Investigates another property, located on the 8200 block of Commercial Street in La Mesa. Klein said the property was recently purchased with the intention for marijuana cultivation.

For a traditional use, it should be a million dollar property but for medical marijuana, because it's zoned and situated appropriately, [its worth] probably somewhere in the 2.5 to 3.5 million dollar range, Klein said.

Klein said one of his clients, who is from Morocco, hopped on a flight to come to La Mesa, just to look at properties like the one on Commercial Street for the intent to start a marijuana business.

I think a lot of people have the misconception that these businesses are run by a bunch of stoners and what we are seeing now is that these businesses are being run by professionals, said Michael Cindrich, a San Diego attorney who has specialized in medical marijuana defense and representation for nine years.

The money coming in isn't money that was earned from illegal operations, this is institutional money, these are investors from hedge funds, people from Wall Street are coming to California to invest in this industry, Cindrich said.

After La Mesa voters passed Measure U, the city held a workshop on January 9 to explain the application process for the public. The room at the workshop was packed with standing-room only.

So many questions and comments were shared with city officials the city had to delay the process for releasing official applications until city officials could address all of the questions and comments.

On February 6 the City of La Mesa officially began accepting applications for marijuana permits. According to La Mesa Police, some of the entrepreneurs were lining up and camping outside of City Hall in hopes of being one of the first to submit an application for a certain location.

Captain Matt Nicholass with La Mesa Police told NBC 7 Investigates the city decided to hand out line status numbers to avoid people camping out for nights. According to information posted online by the city of La Mesa, the city handed out 81 line status numbers.

Wednesday, the City of La Mesa released a list of locations where marijuana business permits were requested. Each will have to be approved by the City before any operations begin. The approval process could take up to 14 months, according to city officials.

Click here to see the list of requested locations.

For the rest of 2017, marijuana businesses legally operating can only do so with the intent to sell for medicinal use. Recreational-use will not take effect until January 1, 2018.

Alex Traverso with the California Bureau of Medical Cannabis Regulation (BMCR) said the state agency anticipates a large number of businesses applying for recreational permits.

Its safe to say that there is a lot of interest, Traverso told NBC 7 Investigates over the phone.

Traverso also said theres no way of quantifying that interest with data at this point, but his agency is currently working on regulations and BMCR expects to open the door for license applications sometime before 2018.
A man with family ties to a top government official in New Zealand, arrested last year after an attempted bank robbery in Chula Vista using a hammer and flare gun, has now been charged with murdering a fellow inmate in a San Diego jail, NBC 7 has learned.

Aspiring rapper Clinton Thinn, 29, is charged with murdering Lyle Woodward.

Deputies said the attack happened in Dec. 2016, while the two inmates were locked up at San Diego Central Jail downtown.

Woodward died days later from his injuries, prompting Sheriffs officials to declare the death a homicide and submit the case to the San Diego District Attorneys Office.

Thinn pleaded not guilty to first degree murder charges in court Feb. 6, a DA spokesperson said.

No details have been given as to why Thinn was in the United States.

On Wednesday, NBC 7 learned that Thinn is the step brother to Nikki Kaye, who serves as the Minister for Youth and Associate Minister of Education in New Zealand.

Her office issued the following statement:

"This is a difficult and sad time for all those affected by what has happened. As this is before the Courts, I will not be commenting any further."

According to Chula Vista police, in June 2016, Thinn entered the Bank of America on E Street and Third Avenue with a hammer and a flare gun and began to threaten employees.

He demanded money, and at one point, fired a flare toward a guard. Fortunately, none of the employees were hurt.

Thinn was arrested and booked into San Diego Central jail on several felony charges.

After the December incident, Thinn was transferred to George Bailey Detention Facility. Thinn declined an interview request when NBC7 reached out to him on Wednesday.

If convicted, he could face 25 years to life in prison.
A couple in El Cajon who met and fell in love while fighting the war in Iraq now fear that the President's travel ban may keep their families apart.

Amanda Matti was working as a U.S. Navy Intelligence Analyst and her husband was working as an Iraqi Interpreter, when the two met in Baghdad in 2005. Now her husbands family fears the proposed travel ban will keep them separated from loved ones still in the Middle East.

It was love at first sight for both of us, it was pretty amazing, Amanda Matti told NBC 7.

Matti had been in Iraq for only three days and needed an interpreter to help with her work. She said she knew things would never be the same after meeting this man.

For months the pair worked side by side and spent several weeks on the front lines in Iraq near the Syrian border.

His work was dangerous, serving alongside members of the Marine Corps and Army in battles, including the first Battle of Fallujah and in Ramadi, said Matti. He was injured in combat several times, and there were many close calls.

"He was shot in the chest, luckily he was wearing body armor," said Matti.

Interpreters in Iraq also lived under the constant threat of being captured by insurgents.

"They were being systematically targeted -- they were being kidnapped and executed and dumped in street alleys. They were considered traitors to their country," said Matti.

The people of Iraq lived in chaotic fear at that time.

"They've had to sleep you know with AK-47s, and they've watched as their neighbors -- for years and years were good friends with -- suddenly turn on them," Matti told NBC 7.

The U.S. military was quick to question the couple's relationship, which was confusing for Matti because some of the men she worked with in the Navy had relationships with foreign women without any scrutiny.

Their affair resulted in a nine month investigation that kept the pair separated. At one point investigators even looked into whether Matti could be a possible spy, she said.

Matti eventually left the Navy. She said it was all because she fell in love with an Iraqi man.

She returned to the U.S., eventually followed by the Iraqi translator who is now her husband. It took two years of undergoing an extensive vetting process before her husband was able to immigrate to the U.S., where the two married and have two daughters together.

Some of his close family members were also eventually able to immigrate as refugees, but not all.

"A lot of these refugees are simply trying to find a safe haven so they don't have to worry about their children being annihilated by bombs," Matti told NBC 7.

Matti understands the fear of terrorism, but says the country needs to strike a delicate balance between security and liberty.

"The Iraqis and the service members who have served in Iraq have come face-to-face with it," said Matti of terrorism.

Although some people in the community where she lives in El Cajon support the proposed travel ban, she does not.

"It's giving people a false sense of security," said Matti.

"We keep limiting our own liberty here to achieve a sense of safety and there's got to be a balance."
Parents of students in the Chula Vista Elementary School District, concerned about an email sent Tuesday discussing a perceived threat to schools, received a clarification from the superintendent Wednesday.

Superintendent Francisco Escobedo, Ed.D. said in the email that the district was responding to messages believed to be part of a hoax or prank.

The District was advised by our law enforcement partners not to provide specifics of this hoax or prank, as that only encourages more of the same, Escobedo wrote in the email. The intent of our message was to remind our school community to remain vigilant and report any suspicious behavior to school administrators or law enforcement.

On Tuesday, some parents reported receiving a message from the superintendent through the Peach Jar communication system. Other parents received the message early Wednesday.

In this case, perhaps the communication didnt reach immediately as many people as we wanted, but the basic message is, schools are fine, said district spokesperson Anthony Millican.

But parents said the letter was so vague, it was alarming.

Id like to more about it. Whats going on, some information. The communication is probably on the poor side, said parent John Vicente.

In that message, the district said recent messages were believed to be aimed at disrupting classes or the operation of schools. It also suggested parents may see increased security measures.

On Wednesday, Escobedo did not detail the changes in security measures but said, Safety is our top priority. Please be assured that the school district and law enforcement will immediately respond to any real or perceived danger, and communicate accordingly.

A district spokesperson told NBC 7 the district was caught between a rock and a hard place.
Tests revealed high levels of lead, copper and bacteria in the water supply at La Mirada Elementary School, the San Ysidro School District confirmed Wednesday.

On Jan. 23, the school district received the results of water samples that showed slightly elevated levels of lead at eight fountains at La Mirada Elementary school, as well as bacteria at two sinks and a fountain, according to school officials.

Back in October, staff at the school noticed discolored water from the drinking fountains that was described as a cloudy, blue-green color.

The school immediately shut off all water and provided bottled water to students and staff. A professional environmental firm was hired to conduct water quality testing, said school officials.

One faucet had slightly elevated levels of lead, copper and bacteria, according to the test results after the problem was discovered in October. Another faucet had slightly elevated levels of copper. The school promptly replaced the two contaminated faucets and continued testing the aging infrastructure at La Mirada, said school officials.

Further test results released on Jan. 23 found elevated levels of lead at eight more fountains at the school and bacteria at two sinks as well as a fountain.

"It's really terrible that students and employees in the San Ysidro School District have been exposed to such a potentially dangerous situation. As a parent, I expect our schools to take every possible measure to ensure the safety of our students," said Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, the California Assemblywoman (D) for the 80th District, in a statement.

"As a lawmaker, I will be inquiring in to whether the School District pursued money from the State's Pure and Safe Drinking Water Grant for schools that the Governor and Legislature budgeted for this year, as well as what other steps were taken by the School District to prevent this potential public health hazard and to notify parents about their options to test or treat their children once the high lead levels were discovered," continued Fletcher in the statement.

Upon discovering these water quality issues, the San Ysidro School District began working to replace all faucets and fountains at La Mirada as quickly as possible with the goal of Mid-February, according to the district.

Meanwhile, the schools will continue to provide students with bottled water until all the old faucets and fountains are replaced.

The water, provided by the City of San Diego, appears to have been contaminated by aging infrastructure in the plumbing systems, faucets and fountains.

No student, teacher or staff member has reported drinking the contaminated water after the discoloration appeared, said school officials. The school has not received any complaints of illness or symptoms caused by the contaminated water.

In response to the water quality concerns, the San Ysidro School District Superintendent, Julio Fonseca, said, "Student safety is always at the forefront of everything we do -- a secure learning environment is integral to ensuring our children achieve at the highest levels," in a statement.

He says La Mirada was built back in 1973.

"Just like school districts across the country, we're dealing with aging infrastructure. The presence of lead in the plumbing systems, faucets and fountains is not entirely uncommon in older buildings," said Fonseca.

"The San Ysidro School District takes student and staff safety concerns very seriously," said Fonseca.

On Jan. 17, the State of California announced a new initiative to help schools carry out voluntary water sampling. School officials say the District has gone beyond the level of sampling and response the state program recommends.

Back in 1997, voters approved 210 million dollars worth of funding to modernize the aging schools in the district. However, the pipes were not replaced at some schools. In some cases, that money has been spent on settling lawsuits and general operations instead.

Ed. Note: A previous version of this article stated the high levels of lead were found at two schools in the San Ysidro District. We have corrected the information and regret the error.
A Metro PCS store was robbed at gunpoint Wednesday evening in College East, making it the fifth time the same two suspects have targeted stores in the San Diego area.

According to the San Diego Police Department (SDPD), the robbery occurred at 5:22 p.m. on the 6600 block of El Cajon Boulevard.

A man walked into the store and demanded cell phones from the employee at gunpoint. He then ran away after taking cell phones and money.

Police said the suspect is described to a man in his late 20s, approximately 5-feet 6-inches tall and weighing around 125 to 140 pounds. He was wearing a hooded green jacket, red shoes, and a red scarf covering part of his face.

This is the fifth reported robbery at an Metro PCS store in San Diego.

Police confirmed with NBC 7 that Wednesday evening's incident is related to the four other robberies: Kensington, Egger Highlands, Normal Heights, and Clairemont.

Two suspects are wanted in connection to all five robberies.

On Feb. 2, police released surveillance video and photos of the two men.

San Diego police released surveillance video Thursday of one suspect wanted in connection to an armed robberies at three different Metro PCS stores in San Diego.

Anyone with information is asked to call SDPD or Crime Stoppers at (888)580-8477.
Even as California residents debate whether we are free from the drought, local water agencies are looking for ways to increase their water supply.

The Otay Water District is working on a project that would involve desalinated water from a new plant being built in Rosarito, Mexico.

The district wants to build a 3.5 mile pipeline from the U.S-Mexico border to its 36.7 million gallon reservoir in Otay Mesa. The pipeline would transport some of that desalinated water to customers in Spring Valley, La Presa, Rancho San Diego, Jamul and eastern Chula Vista.

The district's plan is outlined here.

Right now, all of the drinking water in the Otay Water District is purchased through the San Diego County Water Authority.

If approved, the cross-border pipeline project would be first of its kind in San Diego County.

"If we can bring desalinated water across, that gives us a very reliable supply," said Mark Watton, general manager for the Otay Mesa Water District. "And we're looking to do that at a price that's comparable to the water that we're purchasing today."

The San Diego County Water Authority confirmed Thursday that drought conditions no longer exist within the county. NBC 7s Steven Luke has more on what that means going forward.

The pipeline to Otay Mesa is projected to cost about $30 million. The price tag includes a disinfection system, a monitoring station, a pump station and other components.

The expense would be later included in customers' water bills, as part of expenses for the district's capital improvement program.

Before construction can begin, the Otay Water District must get two permits: a Presidential Permit from the U.S. Department of State, and a permit from the California Division of Drinking Water.

The Presidential Permit would allow the pipeline to cross the international border.

The district expects to hear if the Presidential Permit is granted, within the next few weeks.

A permit from the California Division of Drinking Water would allow the Otay Water District to put the desalinated water into its water supply.

The state is expected to make a decision on whether to approve the project, within the next year.

"The California Department of Drinking Water certified the water from the desal plant in Carlsbad," said Watton. "They're going to use the exact same criteria for this water coming across the border. No shortcuts. It has to meet every state of California standard."

In the process of qualifying for the Presidential Permit, the Otay Water District held public hearings and went through environmental reviews.

"In Mexico there was public hearings, all the stuff we have here. Nobody showed up," said Watton. "We had all the same public hearings on our project here, the presidential permit, the environmental on the pipeline. We had some comments. I don't think anybody showed up."

Some local environmentalists expressed concern that raw sewage could get into the water being used for the desalination plant.

Watton says the sewer flows in the Imperial Beach area isn't related to the desalination plant.

"The desal plant takes ocean water which is 9 miles away from the discharge that they're worried about," said Watton. "The process of the desal in and of itself is very selective, just like the pure water in the City of San Diego. It's the same process."

Two San Diego environmental groups have expressed concern about the pipeline project.

Unless the State of Baja California cleans up the more than 50 million gallons a day of raw sewage discharged into the surf zone around the proposed desal project, San Diego County residents should not be guinea pigs for the first-ever potable water reuse project in Mexican history, WILDCOAST Conservation Director Zachary Plopper said in a written statement.

Plopper said the project would never be allowed to be built in California if a similar volume of sewage were being discharged in the ocean around it.

Watton said the sewage problem is completely separate from Otay Water Districts Conveyance and Disinfection System project. He added, there will be checks to make sure the water meets California standards.

This new water supply, just as any other potable source including surface water from lakes, rivers, the Carlsbad Desalination Plant, and various Pure Water Programs, will need to meet the same high-quality standards required by the California State Water Resources Control Board Division of Drinking Water, Watton said. We stand strongly in our mission to distribute high-quality potable water to all of our customers.

According to San Diego County Policy Manager Julia Chunn-Heer, the Surfrider organization is also critical of the project.

Chunn-Heer said that the project should have to meet U.S. environmental laws.

Basically water agencies should not be able to skirt our regulations by heading south of the border with projects designed for our benefit, she said.

She went on to say the process of desalination produces significant green house gases.

Watton said environmental impact studies are being prepared for local, state and federal regulatory agencies in Mexico.

Unfortunately, certain U.S.-based groups do not appreciate, do not understand or mischaracterize Mexican environmental regulations, which regulate and address issues in many ways that are similar to the U.S. process, he said.

[NATL-LA-GALLERY UPDATED 11/28] Then and Now: Dramatic Photos of California's Drought and Recovery

If both the state and federal permits clear, construction on the pipeline from the border to the Otay Water District's reservoir could begin in three years.

"Once we get the two critical permits, then we have negotiations. We need to make sure the water is of a price and quality that work," said Watton. "And after all that is done, we can actually commence construction."

If that happens, the desalinated water from Rosarito could go into the Otay water supply in about six years.

Watton says the goal is to be 60 percent dependent on the San Diego County Water Authority for its drinking water supply, instead of 100 percent.

The Otay Water District serves about 222,000 customers.

NBC 7s Katia-Lopez Hodoyan spoke with an avocado farmer in Escondido who says that his monthly water bill would exceed $6,000 if he were to only use city water.
A La Mesa family didnt receive their 2014 tax refund because they said an error on their return led to the money being deposited into the wrong account.

Today more and more people are filing their taxes online. This generally allows for a faster refund but it can also be easier to make a mistake.

As Tami Fitzpatrick found, some mistakes are not easy to resolve.

Tami said she has been doing her family's taxes for years using the popular software TurboTax. She said it usually takes her three or four days. But, when she filed her 2014 tax return, Tami said something wasnt right with the refund she was expecting.

I hope you can help me get the money back, Tami said.

Two months after filing her taxes, Tami said she didn't have her refund. When she checked with the bank, she said she learned her refund of $2,817 had been deposited but not into her account.

I put the wrong account number (on my tax return), Tami said.

Tami said she realized the account number she gave to the IRS belonged to somebody else.

While Tami gave the wrong account number, her name was correct. She banks with Chase. Due to Tamis mistake, the company deposited the money into that wrong account she provided to the IRS.

Chase told NBC 7 Responds that according to industry standards they can "rely solely on the account number regardless if the name on the request is different than the name on the receiving account."

We exhausted our resources so thats why we contacted you, Tami said.

A Chase spokesperson said, by the time they tried to retrieve Tami's money, it had already been withdrawn from the account and there was nothing they could do, leaving Tami without her money.

Representatives of TurboTax say it's a sad lesson to learn.

Whether you took your taxes to someone and gave them those numbers, or did your taxes yourself, you would have to make sure that you take down the right numbers, said Lisa Greene-Lewis with Turbo Tax.

In an email, Suzanne Alexander, Executive Director of Media Relations for J.P. Morgan Chase told NBC 7 Responds, Chase applied the IRS refund to the account according to the instructions we received from the IRS. According to NACHA operating rules, which govern ACH transfers like the one here, we may rely solely on the account number regardless if the name on the request is different than the name on the receiving account. While we processed a recall request from the IRS for the funds, they had already been withdrawn and there weren't sufficient funds remaining in the account to fulfill the request. We encourage all customers to verify that they have used the correct account number before proceeding with a transfer."
Carly Fiorina, the former Republican presidential candidate, is considering challenging Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine next year.

Fiorina spoke Tuesday on a radio show on Virginia politics, "The John Fredericks Show."

Im certainly looking at that opportunity, she said. Its a little early to be making that decision.

The former Hewlett-Packard executive and her husband bought a six-bedroom house in Fairfax County in 2011, Washingtonian reported. The previous year, Fiorina lost a bid for a Senate seat in California.

There is no minimum length of time that a person needs to inhabit a state before running for a Senate seat.

On the radio show, Fiorina expressed a desire for Republicans to redouble their efforts in Virginia, which Hillary Clinton won in the 2016 election by less than 5 percent.

We should be realistic that this is going to be a very, very tough race, she said. Virginia is a purple state. Virginia has two Democratic senators. The Democratic party is going to throw everything they have at defending Tim Kaines seat.

A Senate run would be Fiorinas first run for office since she dropped out of the Republican presidential primary a year ago. She also spent a week as Sen. Ted Cruzs vice presidential candidate before the Texas senator dropped out of the race.

The conservative pundit Laura Ingraham said last month on Fox News that she also is considering challenging Kaine.
A man was found dead in the Potomac River Thursday afternoon after he was seen near the water in Old Town Alexandria, officials say.

The Alexandria Fire Department, a dive team from the D.C. police department and a U.S. Park Police helicopter were called to the scene and searched for the man by land, air and water starting about 1:35 p.m.

The temperature was in the 30s in Alexandria Thursday afternoon.

The man's body was found in the river, the fire department said in an update about 3:20 p.m.

His identity was not released immediately.

An Alexandria fire department representative previously said that witnesses reported seeing a man fall off a tour boat docked at the end of Prince Street.

Police said in an update that they believe the man did not fall from a boat; rather, he was last seen standing near the water. The death is not considered suspicious, police said.

This story has been updated from a previous version.
What to Know Complaint filed with DOJ includes photos of black training mannequin and license plates seemingly offensive about Obama.

Police chief said the plates were removed from the sergeant's vehicle within 72 hours of learning about them.

DOJ reviewed the complaint, interviewing some officers Wednesday.

A complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Justice by dozens of Prince Georges County police officers alleging discrimination within the department includes a training dummy depicting a black man and a sergeants seemingly vulgar anti-President Barack Obama license plates.

The 300-page complaint sent to the Justice Department in October includes a picture of an internal affairs sergeants license plate with letters that seem to stand for go f--- yourself Obama.

At least one officer was concerned the plates reference to the former president is offensive to officers and residents living in a majority black county that largely supported Obama.

Prince George's County Police Chief Hank Stawinski said the license plates were removed from the sergeant's personal vehicle within 72 hours after the chief learned of them. He said it was suggested to him that the letters stood for "good for you Obama," but he immediately rejected that idea and prohibited the vehicle from parking on county property.

"I found that repulsive. Repulsive," Stawinski said. "It does not represent the ideals, the policies and the practices of the Prince George's County Police Department."

The Prince Georges County police chief says its his job to make sure employees feel valued after dozens of officers filed a complaint alleging discrimination within the department. News4 Shomari Stone reports.

The plates were recalled after a citizen complaint, according to the Maryland Motor Vehicles Administration.

In reviewing the records of the Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA), it has come to our attention that Personalized Plate GFYOBMA has been issued in error," a spokesman said in a statement.

The MVA told News4, "MVA records indicate that the personalized plate was not returned, therefore MVA will send a pick up detail from MVA."

A county police spokesman said the sergeant who had the plate is also a private citizen and the plates were issued by the state of Maryland.

The MVA said the personalized plates are often done electronically, allowing offensive plates to slip through sometimes. They said this was an example of that.

Another picture in the complaint shows a training dummy with an Afro and a picture of a black mans face taped to it. It was taken inside a Prince Georges County Police Department training facility.

It was a defensive tactics mannequin that can be used to train for a variety of situations as a suspect or a victim, Stawinski said. At a news conference at 5 p.m. Thursday, he said the wig was a black, curly wig and he showed a picture of it on another mannequin that appeared to be white in a scenario as a victim with a gunman behind it.

Prince Georges County police were not the only officers with access to the facility, a department spokesman said.

Those training materials and that facility are no longer in use, Stawinski said.

The Justice Department reviewed the complaint Wednesday. Representatives with the DOJ's Community Service Division met with officers who filed the complaint and the leadership of the Prince Georges County branch of the NAACP.

There is still no word on whether the Justice Department will officially investigate the filing, which includes up to 90 officers.

The department sent a letter to the Justice Department saying it is eager to assist in the investigation, Stawinski said.

We have been trying diligently to get information to address and weve received nothing, Stawinski said.

Last week, Stawinski announced the creation of a panel to review internal practices and ensure fairness. The panel was not created in reaction to the complaint, police said.

"If we find wrongdoing, we will address it," Stawinksi said Thursday.

The departments independent Inspector General and a representative from Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 89 are co-chairing the panel, which will include union representatives and members of institutions outside the police department.

The officers who signed the complaint are members of the local chapters of the National Hispanic Law Enforcement Association and the United Black Police Officers Association.

Another of their concerns is that complaints filed against minority officers are handled more harshly than complaints filed against white officers, ACLU of Maryland Public Policy Director Toni Holness told News4 last week.
A judge has temporarily rescinded an order barring Fairfax County police from releasing the name of an officer who fatally shot a man following a standoff at a Herndon home.

A hearing on the issue had been scheduled for Thursday in federal court in Alexandria. But Judge T.S. Ellis III canceled the hearing after police indicated they have no immediate plans to release the officer's name anyway.

The officer sued under a John Doe alias, challenging the department's new policy of releasing an officer's name within 10 days when involved in a fatal shooting unless special circumstances exist.

Last month, the officer fatally shot 32-year-old Mohammad Doudzai after a standoff. Police say Doudzai shot two brothers following an argument and walked out of his home armed with a knife.
Amid reports that parents are keeping children home from school because they fear deportation, leaders in Montgomery County, Maryland, are reassuring immigrants that they are welcome and safe.

Hundreds of residents attended a public meeting Wednesday on the county's commitment to "stand up for the Montgomery way."

Service providers and residents said they are arming themselves with information on how to protect themselves under what many see as attacks by President Donald Trump's administration.

"I was never afraid after 9/11, but now I can say I'm afraid. Just the fact that President Donald Trump validated those people to come out and attack us," said business owner Mimi Hassanein, who is part of the county's outreach to Muslims.

"Our Muslim community are living in fear. A lot of them don't want to go out. A lot of them want to take their hijab off. A lot of the womans are so scared to wear their scarf in public. That is really sad," she continued.

County Executive Ike Leggett told the standing room-only crowd that Montgomery County will continue to provide services to everyone, regardless of their immigration status.

"We are not changing. We are not moving back. We are going to stand as the Montgomery way of inclusion," he said.

Leggett said public school officials told him some families have been keeping their children home out of fear that it will be discovered that they are not in the country legally.

Police were on hand at the meeting held in Silver Spring to reinforce their "don't ask" policy on immigration status, and residents were able to get information on their rights and free legal help.

Leggett said information is available to anyone who needs it.

"We want you to simply go, if people need it, to 311. We have the resources in place there to answer the questions," he said.

County officials made it clear they do not consider the county to be a "sanctuary city." Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 25 to to block federal grants from immigrant-protecting sanctuary cities. This could cost localities millions, even billions, of dollars.

"I read the executive order and it said willfully withhold information. We do not willfully withhold information," Montgomery County Council President Roger Berliner said.
Authorities have identified the woman who was fatally struck outside a Northern Virginia shopping center.

Selma Turkoglu, 48, of Ashburn was leaving the shopping center when she was hit about 12:30 p.m., just outside of the TJ Maxx store at 45591 Dulles Eastern Plaza in Sterling, said the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office.

Authorities said the driver of the car, a man, remained at the scene. Police are speaking to him.

So far, no charges have been filed. Authorities said the crash remains under investigation.
Less than 24 hours after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell silenced Sen. Elizabeth Warren during a Senate debate on the nomination of Jeff Sessions for U.S. attorney general, McConnells words have become a rally cry and a business opportunity for savvy entrepreneurs.

The online marketplace Etsy is awash with shirts, mugs, jewelry, bags and more printed with part of what McConnell said Warren did: Nevertheless, she persisted.

The phrase was part of McConnell's explanation for why Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, was silenced when she read part of a letter written by Coretta Scott King, widow of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. The letter called Sessions a disgrace to the Justice Department.

More than 200 items emblazoned with the phrase were listed on Etsy as of Wednesday evening.

One of the sellers, Sierra Koepfle of St. Helens, Oregon, is selling a mug decorated with the phrase in cursive and the colorful silhouette of a woman. She said the item was a symbol of resistance.

Etsy/NorthernCountryGirlD

Im extremely agitated that us as women have taken five steps back from where we were, she said about why she made the design. Ive been in a situation where Ive been shunned by men. Ive worked in male-dominated industries and, unfortunately, the man still has the upper hand. And Im so thankful that women are standing up and they are making statements.

Koepfle said she sold more than a dozen of the mugs in just four hours.

She admitted the popularity of the phrase is a good marketing opportunity, but said she doesnt see herself as cashing in on the latest political drama.

I see it as a statement piece, she said.

Koepfle starting selling mugs and other items on Etsy to help pay off her student loans.

Other sellers, Liza Purcell and Hallie Willis, of Laurinburg, North Carolina, are printing T-shirts bearing the phrase. They started selling political shirts after they printed their own to wear to the Womens March on Washington in January.

ShopDemocraTees/Etsy

With this shirt in particular, we wanted to show our support for Sen. Warren, Purcell said.

Purcell said she and Willis only make shirts they would want to wear.

Sure, this is a business, but were only producing things we really believe in, she said. They listed their shirt Wednesday afternoon and have sold at least seven, she said.

As Warren spoke on Tuesday night, McConnell invoked Rule 19 of the Senate, which prevents senators from attacking the character of other senators.

Sen. Warren was giving a lengthy speech. She had appeared to violate the rule. She was warned. She was given an explanation, he said. Nevertheless, she persisted.

The Senate confirmed Sen. Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican, to be attorney general in a 52-47 vote Wednesday night.
Three suspects have been arrested in connection with a string of robberies that took place in a Shaw's Supermarket parking lot in Canton, Massachusetts over the past two weeks.

Canton police arrested Ihor Havryliv, 30, and Alyssha S. Delellis, 28, on Monday for allegedly approaching shoppers and demanding their purses on three separate occasions.

Stoughton police also arrested Arthur William Peoples for similar incidents at a Shaws in Stoughton, Massachusetts.

Two of the robberies, which took place at the 95 Washington St. location between Jan. 29 and Feb. 8, ended with the victims having their purses forcefully taken. The third victim was able to run inside the market and dial 911.

All three are scheduled to be arraigned in Stoughton District Court on Thursday on multiple charges, including larceny, robbery and assault & battery on a person over 60.

Police said the investigation remains ongoing.
The Maine Republican Party is launching a new effort to flag what they call "fake news" in Maine media.

The Maine GOP Facebook page now livestreams "Fake News Alerts," hosted by Executive Director Jason Savage, who highlights coverage he feels is inaccurate, lacking important facts, or "fake."

"What we're looking for is  is it factually accurate, is it true to the events that occurred?" Savage said. "Or is it presented in a way that it does not present the truth?"

The new GOP website also includes a feature to fill out a media monitoring form to help call attention to particular stories.

"We think that kind of accountability is good," said Savage.

The GOP is also posting a video segment on its website called "News You Can Trust," which features party officials discussing current events.

"We know we're not reporters," Savage says in the video, "but we're telling you the truth."

Media professor at Colby College Dan Shea said it's "healthy for democracy" to have political parties sharing their ideas  and doesn't see this practice by the Maine GOP as a departure from typical party strategy.

"I think a lot of what's happening in Maine is happening around the country," Shea said, seeing similarities between the Maine GOP and Donald Trump's approach to the media and "fake news."

Shea does worry about the long-term effects of a hyper-partisan culture, where consumers tend to read and only trust media reports that fit their world-view.

"If Americans have less faith in the media, in objective reporting, then we're in trouble," said Shea. "Everything is up for debate."

On Wednesday's "Fake News Alert" livestream, the Maine GOP took issue with a report by the Portland Press Herald. Editor Steve Greenlee said the Republican Party never contacted them to ask for a correction to the story, and he stands by his reporter's work.

Greenlee said the GOP is "misappropriating" the term "fake news" to mean any story they dislike or disagree with.
Preparing for the snow in Southbridge, Massachusetts, has some homeowners ready to plow the streets themselves after a developer told the community he could no longer afford to maintain them.

After getting the news in December, neighbors started taking up a collection to hire private contractors when needed. They fear they do not have enough money to cover Thursdays predicted snowfall and will have to ask for money again.

Instead of paying another bill we are paying for snow because its more important, homeowner Elizabeth Hoffman said.

The letter came in early December from developer Jay Pelletz. He never finished the Hunters Ridge development or another one on Hilltop Drive and now he claims he does not have the money to plow them.

So far calls to Pelletz have not been answered.

The town has had meetings with the frustrated residents and says they are taking steps to resolve the issue with the property manager and the bank.

Town Manager Ron San Angelo could not be reached Wednesday, but said back in December that the town could not simply take over the streets.

We cant be put other taxpayers in the town at a liability if we go plow a road that doesnt meet town standards, San Angelo said.

The streets are riddled with potholes and the town wants them fixed beforehand, but so far no one wants to pay to get the job done.

It seems like a never ending battle, homeowner Anthony Mwangi said.

For now, a garbage barrel full of sand sits at the front of the subdivision for anyone who wants to take clean up into their own hands before the money runs out.
The 391st and 389th Fighter Squadrons are playing pivotal roles in Operation Inherent Resolve, the Air Forces current mission in the Southwest Asia region. More than 800 Airmen from the two squadrons spent the better part of 2016 downrange supporting the worlds leading airpower in the war on terror. Inherent Resolve isnt their first rodeo, however. These two squadrons were among the first fighters to deploy in Operation Enduring Freedom after the terror attacks on 9/11.



With a specific focus on striking terrorist networks in Afghanistan, Enduring Freedom allowed the Gunfighters to leap into a territory that would push them to new heights as a premier fighter wing.



After the attacks, the entire (366th Fighter Wing) went into a (Threat Condition) Delta and we were postured to fly home-defense missions over areas in the Pacific Northwest, said Col. David Moeller, Assistant Pacific Command Commander and a former pilot assigned to the 391st. About a week after, we started receiving deployment notices to Afghanistan. I deployed on October 12, 2001, only a few weeks after the attacks.



Moeller explained the U.S. response efforts were fast and powerful. These decisive movements stretched the Air Forces boundaries to meet the needs of the force. Daily flying missions lasted from 10-15 hours, mission preparations lacked a comfortable amount of information and the aircrew often relied on impromptu decision making in the skies. The lack of instruction and precedent allowed the aircrews to set new bars for what defined the F-15.



As a squadron, I would say we performed better than we had expected (in Enduring Freedom), Moeller said. A lot of the tactics and techniques we were performing were new. Talking to a guy on the ground and providing them close air support wasnt something F-15s had typically done.



The 391st and 389th Fighter Squadrons paved the way for single-role aircraft to evolve into more capable resources on the battlefield just as the original Gunfighters did in the Vietnam War.



The old textbooks used to say the Strike Eagle didnt perform close air support. None of the pilots had been trained to do that sort of thing, but it had to be done, said Lt. Col. Joel Pauls, 391st Fighter Squadron commander. For comparison, when my squadron last deployed, three months beforehand we started a very focused training plan where we did nothing but what we were expected to perform down range. At the start of Enduring Freedom, there just wasnt time to do that.



Without the necessary time to train their people and research their area of operation, Moeller and his fellow pilots had to think on the fly.



Its pretty amazing what people like Col. Moeller and his group of Gunfighters did to change the way the Strike Eagle was used downrange, Pauls said. If you compare what we do now to what the Tigers did back then, its pretty remarkable. When the nation needed them to step up, they did, and they did so very well.



Eighteen years later, the 389th and 391st are still answering their nations call in Southwest Asia, but they operate differently than before.



Todays operations are much more intelligence-driven, Moeller said. We are more efficient at allocating aircraft for specific missions and we have become more effective at being able to hit the right targets.



Pauls explained the U.S. presence in Southwest Asia has changed from an active invading military force to a behind-the-scenes coercion factor. The U.S. current goal is to build up the native militaries in the region to be able to self-sustain and control their own environments.



(The Air Force) has gotten very good at sustained operations in the Middle East, Pauls said. A lot of repetition has allowed us to become more efficient and accurate as a community.



A community that has been fighting together since the beginning.



The Gunfighters were kind of the go-to wing in the opening stages of Enduring Freedom, Moeller said. They were the ones immediately delivering airpower over Afghanistan and they are still delivering that airpower today.


T2: Danny Boyles long-awaited sequel to the era-defining Trainspotting

1996s TRAINSPOTTING was, need it be said, one of the last truly generation-defining movie events, remembered for its timeless soundtrack as much as its manic pacing and its unforgettable cast of slackers and scoundrels. Although a great deal of films canbe said to boast one or two classic scenes, Danny Boyles masterpiece was a montage of showstopping sequences (Ewan McGregors

opening monologue, the walk up scenic Leum Uilleim, the worst toilet in Scotland). The hotly-awaited sequel was, lets face it, never going to top all that; at best, the naysayers argued, it was set to merely capitalise upon its predecessors legacy  provided, of course, it did not go out of its way to blaspheme and tarnish it.

As expected, the film reunites the old gang (though Boyle has only been able to squeeze a cameo out of Kelly Macdonald, Trainspottings pseudo-love interest); all your favourite skits are reworked and reimagined here. But that is, of course, the bare minimum we couldve asked for  a good sequel, let alone a great one, requires a cinematic voice and a set of guts it can call its own. Here, T2 finds itself in an awkward place. Its supremely enjoyable in its own right, a nostalgic rollercoaster which,

nevertheless, will not leave younger viewers out in the cold, but there are parts where it struggles to escape the originals shadow. Its hardly, in other words, Big Mommas House 2, but The Godfather: Part II it most certainly aint.

As in Trainspotting, the film does not follow its central antiheroes, it hangs about them and their inevitably dodgy schemes; its greatest triumph, perhaps, is in its channelling of the slummy, surreal Edinburgh-ness that ensured the films cult status, despite that particular incarnation of the

Scottish capital having long since been consigned to the landfill of history. Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) has a meltdown in front of the stunned clientele of an upper-class bistro; the Choose Life speech is granted a surprisingly imaginative reboot (choose Facebook, Twitter, Instagram ). An early, gruesome suicide attempt can leave the audience in no doubt, however, as to what Boyle has in store for us  welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to the filthy world of Mark Renton (McGregor)

Speaking of which, Trainspottings protagonists have amounted to something of a ragbag in the light of Rentons robbing them 20 years back. Spud (Ewan Bremner), formerly the posses comic relief,

has struggled to kick his heroin habit; Sick Boy dreams of opening a brothel, and the psychotic ways of Franco (Robert Carlyle) have landed him a permanent gig in prison.

All bring their personalities back to the table (Spuds jaw-forward lovability, Francos twitchy

instability), but a concerted effort has been made to move these stories forward. Gone, then, is the slapdash laddishness in favour of an excruciating middle-aged anxiety, and all the hard knocks which necessarily come with that.

Alas, nothing here will go down in cinema history, but Boyle hasnt watered down the ink-black

ingenuity of the first film. A key episode, featuring a run-in at a nightclub, recalls the vulgar,

ultraviolent brilliance of Trainspotting; a riff on Scottish sectarianism comes very, very

close to matching it.



More could, arguably, have been done (the female cast, a potentially ripe source of drama untapped by the roundly post-feminist original, remain side-lined in T2), but this is anything but the shameful cash-in we all feared it would be, and the old team still have much to say about masculinity, friendship, addiction and loyalty.
Stream Networks converters replace expensive technology

Stream Networks is proud to offer Berkshire businesses a UK-leading telephony technology to ensure their telephone systems are future-proof.

The newest addition to its StreamCom portfolio features a range of SIP converters that are able to convert expensive and soon- to-be-obsolete ISDN telephony to next generation SIP services.

StreamCom SIP converters are available in seven different variants, ensuring the needs of each and every business is taken care of, and Stream Networks is delighted to offer this service at a UK low cost.

This is all possible without any big changes to your current system.

All that is needed is a simple switchover from the current ISDN service to the StreamCom SIP Converter.

Marketing executive at Stream Networks, Ben Barry, said: We are delighted to welcome the StreamCom SIP converters to the Stream Networks telephony product portfolio.

This solution gives business of all sizes an affordable gateway to the tried-and-tested cost savings that SIP telephony presents without the increased expenditure of a new system.

For more information, or to find out how much money it can save your business, contact Stream Networks on (01635) 884170 or info@stream-networks.co.uk
Surprise anniversary party held at Love Lane

CHILDREN, parents and staff from the past and present gathered at Love Lane Pre-School in Donnington to throw a surprise party for a long-serving staff member.

Pauline Bartholomew this week celebrates 30 years at the pre-school after starting her work as a practitioner in 1987, and was thrilled to share the celebrations with more than 100 guests.

Pre-school manager Amanda Hayton said: We wanted to show our appreciation for Pauline.

The children and staff decided to throw a surprise tea party to show our thanks for all her hard work over the years.

When Mrs Bartholomew started at the pre-school, it was based at Newbury Scout Hut in Speen before it moved to Love Lane Village Hall, where it has been providing child care for children under five for the last 29 years.

It was a long time ago that I started working with children, said Mrs Bartholomew.

>f< But I still love it and feel lucky to have a career I enjoy so much.
Pro-European rally marches through Newbury

MORE than 50 people marched through the streets of Newbury on Saturday in a show of solidarity with Europe.

Led by campaign group West Berkshire Stronger Together, the march through the town centre aimed to put pressure on Newburys representative in Parliament, MP Richard Benyon, as Britain prepares to sever ties with its European neighbours.

Last week, a vote in the House of Commons saw a majority of MPs, including Mr Benyon, back the triggering of Article 50, thus allowing the Government to begin Brexit negotiations.

In response, campaigners gathered at the Clock Tower in The Broadway before marching to the town hall where the crowd heard from a range of pro-EU speakers, including Newbury and West Berkshire Labour Party member Jonny Roberts, Green Party candidate Paul Field and Liberal Democrat candidate Judith Bunting.

Rally co-ordinator Sarah Lowes called for Mr Benyon to represent the democratic voice of the people in West Berkshire  52 per cent of whom voted to remain in Europe in last years referendum.

Campaigners also referenced Theresa Mays recent visit to the US chanting Yes to Europe, no to Trump as the group made their way up Northbrook Street.

After the rally, Ms Lowes said she was pleased with the turnout and the response from the public.

We must keep up the pressure on our MP to make sure the Government is negotiating to get the best possible deal with the EU, for the sake of our countrys, and our childrens, future prosperity, she said.

We do need to keep having this argument  its not about re-hashing the referendum from last year. With a heavy heart we accept there was a leave vote last summer, but a hard or a very hard Brexit has the potential to do a lot of damage to this country.

Theres still a debate to be had about how we move forward.

Mr Benyon was unable to attend the event owing to a prior engagement.

However, the Conservative MP met with the cross-party campaign group before the rally.

Mr Benyon said he welcomed the meeting in which the two parties had some frank discussions.

However, he added: If the ardent Remainers believe there are 52 per cent of people in West Berkshire who share their determination to defy the referendum, Im afraid Im not with them.

We need the Government to get on with it and make sure we get the best deal possible.

Speaking about the meeting, Ms Lowes said: We are very grateful that he agreed to meet with us.

We feel there needs to be a strong voice in Parliament representing the likes of West Berkshire, who voted to remain, and we have given him a strong mandate to do that. Im pleased. I feel we were able to strongly express our concerns and get his opinions face to face.

It was important what we did in making it clear to people that,

Okay, the vote was to leave but the negotiations arent over and we still have to fight for what we believe in.
A decision by the United States to pursue a new breed of nuclear weapons could push China to reconsider its decades-long atomic policy, according to experts.



The U.S. Defense Department recently received a recommendation that the government develop tactical nuclear weapons with "low yield" results that can be deployed within smaller battlefield areas.

Tong Zhao, an associate in the Carnegie Endowment's Nuclear Policy Program based in Beijing, told CNBC Wednesday that this more flexible form of weapon would lower the threshold of nuclear use.

"This will be seen by China as evidence of U.S. contemplating first use of nuclear weapons in a future crisis and will encourage China to consider pursuing similar capabilities that may undermine the no-first-use policy," he said in an email.

China's "no-first-use policy" means Beijing only demands the capability to ensure the launch of a nuclear missile, after being hit first by an enemy nuclear strike.

U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on January 27, requiring Defense Secretary James Mattis to review America's nuclear prowess.



Zhao said U.S. plans to pursue a global missile network, initiated by the Obama administration, may be viewed by China as a threat to its own small deterrent and could mean a switch to a "launch-on-warning" policy, whereby China would retaliate before enemy missiles hit land.

"The new U.S. administration seems very much devoted to developing and deploying a massive global and layered missile defense network that protects not only U.S. homeland, U.S. allies, and friends, but also U.S. bases and troops wherever they are located or deployed.

"To make sure that there would be enough Chinese nuclear weapons to survive a U.S. first strike and not be neutralized by U.S. missile defense, China may have an increasing incentive to adopt the launch-on-warning posture," he said.



Zhao said at present there is no sign that the very top Chinese leaders are changing their attitude toward nuclear capabilities, but he does detect a growing voice among low-level analysts, military scholars and media commentators calling on China to expand its arsenal.

Story continues

M.Taylor Fravel, Associate Professor of Political Science in the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, agreed that China is extremely sensitive to U.S. capabilities and will be watching the Trump administration's next moves closely.

"During the transition, he [Trump] suggested that the U.S. should expand its nuclear forces.



"If so, China may conclude that it needs to accelerate the pace of its nuclear force modernization to ensure that it can deter a first strike by a much larger U.S. force," he said by email Wednesday.

And Taylor Fravel said China may also update its weaponry to ensure it can get past any U.S. missile defense system.

But the co-author of a report on U.S.-China Strategic Stability said there is little sign of a shift in attitude from Beijing just yet.

"China's leaders have historically viewed the role of nuclear weapons as limited to deterring a nuclear attack only.

"The main concern driving China regarding its nuclear capabilities is ensuring the robustness second-strike capability, defined as being able to launch a nuclear attack after being attacked first with nuclear weapons," he said.

Taylor Fravel also said China has long been in a technological position to upgrade its weapons.

"But technology is not destiny, especially with nuclear weapons.

"That China has chosen not to build a large nuclear force despite being able to do so is more revealing about China's intentions than its possession of the capability to upgrade its nuclear weapons," he said.









































More From CNBC


By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: India and Britain have signed an open sky pact to ease restrictions on the number of scheduled flights between the two countries. As a result limits on flights from key Indian cities including Chennai and Kolkata have been scrapped.

In a statement, the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) on Thursday said the pact has opened up all destinations in the Britain for Indian carriers for code share flights, and reciprocally basis.

British carriers can also operate code share flights to any international airport in India, through domestic code share arrangements, MoCA said in a statement.

The pact will also allow for a greater range of flights for passengers while providing a boost for trading and tourism for the Britain and India, it added

The agreement was formally signed by Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati and Aviation Minister of U.K Lord Ahmad of Britain who led the delegation of British companies for the 2017 CAPA India Aviation Summit starting later this month.

Raju, said, the increase in the number of flights between the two countries will bring direct and indirect benefits to many sectors of the economies of our two countries.

Tourism from India makes an important contribution to the British economy. In 2015. There were 4.22 lakh tourists from India to the Britain, bringing more than 433 million to the British economy.

Lord Ahmad said: India is a rapidly expanding and important market for aviation that will allow airlines to develop new services and air routes. The final decision on additional flights between the UK and India is a commercial one for airlines.

NEW DELHI: India and Britain have signed an open sky pact to ease restrictions on the number of scheduled flights between the two countries. As a result limits on flights from key Indian cities including Chennai and Kolkata have been scrapped. In a statement, the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) on Thursday said the pact has opened up all destinations in the Britain for Indian carriers for code share flights, and reciprocally basis. British carriers can also operate code share flights to any international airport in India, through domestic code share arrangements, MoCA said in a statement. The pact will also allow for a greater range of flights for passengers while providing a boost for trading and tourism for the Britain and India, it added The agreement was formally signed by Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati and Aviation Minister of U.K Lord Ahmad of Britain who led the delegation of British companies for the 2017 CAPA India Aviation Summit starting later this month. Raju, said, the increase in the number of flights between the two countries will bring direct and indirect benefits to many sectors of the economies of our two countries. Tourism from India makes an important contribution to the British economy. In 2015. There were 4.22 lakh tourists from India to the Britain, bringing more than 433 million to the British economy. Lord Ahmad said: India is a rapidly expanding and important market for aviation that will allow airlines to develop new services and air routes. The final decision on additional flights between the UK and India is a commercial one for airlines.
By Reuters

Indian shares edged lower on Thursday, dragged down by lenders a day after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) kept its policy rates on hold and said it would shift its stance from "accommodative" to "neutral," signalling an end to any further rate cuts.

Analysts had expected the RBI to cut the repo rate by another 25 basis points, either on Wednesday or at its next review in April, after bringing it down by 175 bps during January 2015 to October last year.

Indian stocks hit four-month highs earlier this week in anticipation of that easing, but analysts said there were still positives from the RBI meeting, including expectations banks would have scope to lower their lending rates if the system remains flush with liquidity.

"The market had already discounted RBI's rate cut decision before it happened," said Mugilan K, deputy manager of research at Cholamandalam Securities.

"With earlier RBI rate cuts not yet fully implemented by banks, the current decision wouldn't have mattered as much."

The Nifty was down 0.26 percent at 8,746.10 as of 0627 GMT, while Sensex was 0.24 percent lower at 28,221.71, on track for its third straight session of losses.

Banking stocks were the biggest laggards on the Nifty with ICICI Bank Ltd and State Bank of India Ltd falling as much as 2.2 percent and 1.3 percent, respectively.

Among gainers, Indraprastha Gas Ltd rose to a record high after posting a 37 percent increase in its December-quarter net profit.

Manappuram Finance Ltd surged 12.8 percent to a three-and-a-half-month high after posting a 100 percent increase in its December-quarter profit.

Indian shares edged lower on Thursday, dragged down by lenders a day after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) kept its policy rates on hold and said it would shift its stance from "accommodative" to "neutral," signalling an end to any further rate cuts. Analysts had expected the RBI to cut the repo rate by another 25 basis points, either on Wednesday or at its next review in April, after bringing it down by 175 bps during January 2015 to October last year. Indian stocks hit four-month highs earlier this week in anticipation of that easing, but analysts said there were still positives from the RBI meeting, including expectations banks would have scope to lower their lending rates if the system remains flush with liquidity. "The market had already discounted RBI's rate cut decision before it happened," said Mugilan K, deputy manager of research at Cholamandalam Securities. "With earlier RBI rate cuts not yet fully implemented by banks, the current decision wouldn't have mattered as much." The Nifty was down 0.26 percent at 8,746.10 as of 0627 GMT, while Sensex was 0.24 percent lower at 28,221.71, on track for its third straight session of losses. Banking stocks were the biggest laggards on the Nifty with ICICI Bank Ltd and State Bank of India Ltd falling as much as 2.2 percent and 1.3 percent, respectively. Among gainers, Indraprastha Gas Ltd rose to a record high after posting a 37 percent increase in its December-quarter net profit. Manappuram Finance Ltd surged 12.8 percent to a three-and-a-half-month high after posting a 100 percent increase in its December-quarter profit.
By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy said that there was a need to use technology to address the challenges being faced by India in the health sector.



Technology needs to be used to address the various health problems being faced in India, as the country lags behind in many health parameters when compared to developing countries and even its smaller neighbours.

Technology can act as interface between physicians and patients, bridge the gaps in healthcare delivery system and address the shortfalls in public health, said Narayana Murthy, speaking at the Bio Asia conference in Hyderabad on Wednesday.

Still 38 per cent of children in our country suffer from stunted growth, we have just 38 per cent of obstetricians and 32 percent of pediatricians needed in country, our immunisation rates are poorer than neighbours like Nepal, Srilanka and Bangladesh. Much needs to be done in health care in the country, if the demographic dividend has to be converted into asset, as most of health problems strike people at a productive age, added Murthy.



He stressed on the need to use Health Information Management System for collecting data, better disease management, spotting early warning signs, prevention of diseases.

HYDERABAD: Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy said that there was a need to use technology to address the challenges being faced by India in the health sector. Technology needs to be used to address the various health problems being faced in India, as the country lags behind in many health parameters when compared to developing countries and even its smaller neighbours. Technology can act as interface between physicians and patients, bridge the gaps in healthcare delivery system and address the shortfalls in public health, said Narayana Murthy, speaking at the Bio Asia conference in Hyderabad on Wednesday. Still 38 per cent of children in our country suffer from stunted growth, we have just 38 per cent of obstetricians and 32 percent of pediatricians needed in country, our immunisation rates are poorer than neighbours like Nepal, Srilanka and Bangladesh. Much needs to be done in health care in the country, if the demographic dividend has to be converted into asset, as most of health problems strike people at a productive age, added Murthy. He stressed on the need to use Health Information Management System for collecting data, better disease management, spotting early warning signs, prevention of diseases.
Rajesh Abraham By

Express News Service

KOCHI:Cambodia and its people have gone through some of the toughest periods in history. The wounds from the Khmer Rouges brutal regime under Pol Pot that led to the deaths of nearly a quarter of the nations seven million people during 1975-79, will remain forever.

When M P Joseph, a civil servant from Kerala, landed up in Cambodia as United Nations chief technical advisor in 2005, the south-east nation had just morphed from a war-torn Communist moth into a fascinating free market butterfly. Joseph, who served in Cambodia till 2012, has just completed his book My Driver Tulong and Other Tall Tales From a Post Pol Pot Contemporary Cambodia.

I would like to call the book a stretched travelogue as it narrates stories through the eyes of the author and the people of Cambodia I met over a period of seven years, he says. Its partly fiction.

Through mesmerizing characters who personify the ancient soul of Cambodia and epitomise s its modernising mind, the author conjures up a vision of contemporary Cambodia and its people. Their lives and loves, their joys and tribulations, their hopes and their anguish, and most of all, their innocence is captured in these inter-connected stories. The characters come alive to etch a never-before known Cambodia.

Joseph, who served as Ernakulam collector and later as Kerala chief labour commissioner, says the book brings out the fortitude of the Cambodian people, their pluck and courage in the face of adversities, their survival skills, as well as the countrys Indian past - both Hindu and Buddist- and its present Indo-Chinese zest are woven into the stories.

India, along with Vietnam, were the first two countries to engage with Cambodia. We should have taken tremendous mileage of our deep cultural and religious commonalities, Joseph says, pointing out the almost near-total Chinese influence of Cambodias economy now. The country is flooded with Chinese goods, infrastructure is built by China and it is the biggest source of foreign direct investment, he says.

The book written in the first-person singular format also brings out the authors own account into the stories at several places. Surely, My Driver and Other Tales.... will be an amusing essay into the modern soul of the ancient land of Cambodia. Now populated by the GenNext, who cannot yet forget their chilling past, the book will be a journey into the heart of its people.

KOCHI:Cambodia and its people have gone through some of the toughest periods in history. The wounds from the Khmer Rouges brutal regime under Pol Pot that led to the deaths of nearly a quarter of the nations seven million people during 1975-79, will remain forever. When M P Joseph, a civil servant from Kerala, landed up in Cambodia as United Nations chief technical advisor in 2005, the south-east nation had just morphed from a war-torn Communist moth into a fascinating free market butterfly. Joseph, who served in Cambodia till 2012, has just completed his book My Driver Tulong and Other Tall Tales From a Post Pol Pot Contemporary Cambodia. I would like to call the book a stretched travelogue as it narrates stories through the eyes of the author and the people of Cambodia I met over a period of seven years, he says. Its partly fiction. Through mesmerizing characters who personify the ancient soul of Cambodia and epitomise s its modernising mind, the author conjures up a vision of contemporary Cambodia and its people. Their lives and loves, their joys and tribulations, their hopes and their anguish, and most of all, their innocence is captured in these inter-connected stories. The characters come alive to etch a never-before known Cambodia. Joseph, who served as Ernakulam collector and later as Kerala chief labour commissioner, says the book brings out the fortitude of the Cambodian people, their pluck and courage in the face of adversities, their survival skills, as well as the countrys Indian past - both Hindu and Buddist- and its present Indo-Chinese zest are woven into the stories. India, along with Vietnam, were the first two countries to engage with Cambodia. We should have taken tremendous mileage of our deep cultural and religious commonalities, Joseph says, pointing out the almost near-total Chinese influence of Cambodias economy now. The country is flooded with Chinese goods, infrastructure is built by China and it is the biggest source of foreign direct investment, he says. The book written in the first-person singular format also brings out the authors own account into the stories at several places. Surely, My Driver and Other Tales.... will be an amusing essay into the modern soul of the ancient land of Cambodia. Now populated by the GenNext, who cannot yet forget their chilling past, the book will be a journey into the heart of its people.
Screen Shot 2017 02 09 at 9.42.13 AM

CNN anchor Chris Cuomo on Thursday said being labeled "fake news" was similar to an "ethnic disparagement."

"It's like an ethnic disparagement," Cuomo said. "We all have these ugly words for people  that's the one for journalists."

Cuomo made the comments after President Donald Trump again suggested that CNN was fake news.

"Chris Cuomo, in his interview with Sen. Blumenthal, never asked him about his long-term lie about his brave 'service' in Vietnam," Trump tweeted on Thursday. "FAKE NEWS!"

After showing the tweet, Cuomo asked his producers to play the clip of the interview he conducted with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, in which he brought up what Trump alleged he did not.

"The president of the United States is saying that you should not be believed because you misrepresented your military record in the past," Cuomo said, to which Blumenthal did not directly respond.

The "New Day" host said it was "really, the first point I made in the interview."

"Once again, the president is off on the facts," he continued. "And that's not something that any of us have any desire to say on a regular basis, but it keeps being true."

Cuomo added that being called "fake news" was "the worst thing you can call a journalist."

"He just said, 'You never asked him about it.' I did," he continued. "He ducked it. And that's OK. Politicians duck things all the time. The truth of the matter asserted is whether this judge said what Blumenthal says he said. His own comms guy says it. Nobody denies it except the president of the United States. And once again, he doubles down when he's wrong."

The "major lie" Trump was referring to came from Blumenthal's 2010 campaign for Senate, when he had to hold a press conference after he said multiple times that he served "in" the Vietnam War, even though he did not, according to Politico. Blumenthal clarified that he meant to say he served "during" the war, as he was a member of the Marine Corps Reserves for six years during the war but did not serve overseas.

Story continues

Trump was given five deferments from the military draft, including one that was a result of his receiving a diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels.

He never served in the military.

Blumenthal came under attack from Trump after he told reporters Wednesday that the president's nominee for the vacant Supreme Court seat, Judge Neil Gorsuch of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, told him in a meeting that Trump's recent attacks on the judiciary were "disheartening" and "demoralizing." A representative for the Supreme Court nomination team confirmed to Business Insider that Blumenthal's retelling of the conversation was accurate.

Watch Cuomo's comments below:

Chris Cuomo responds to President Donald Trump's tweet about him: "The President ... is once again off on the facts" https://t.co/tReOdUwP7y  CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) February 9, 2017

NOW WATCH: Here are all the musicians who declined to perform at Trump's inauguration so far





More From Business Insider


By Express News Service

KOCHI:The infectious disease mortality rate in India is 416.75 per 100,000 persons which is twice as big than the rate prevailing in the United States of America, according to expert doctors who attended a two-day international symposium on Infectious Diseases and Antimicrobial Stewardship, held recently at the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences(AIMS).

Doctors of AIMS and University of Michigan (UM) Medical School, US, attended the symposium.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has emerged as a global health challenge due to the lack of new antibiotics and ever-increasing burden of infections caused by multi-drug resistant pathogens. Some important factors responsible for the rising antibiotic resistance in India are indiscriminate use of antibiotics, over-the-counter availability of antibiotics, lack of regulatory bodies approving antibiotics and public awareness about antibiotic resistance, injudicious use in veterinary practice, overburdened health infrastructure, and inequity in healthcare, said AIMS medical director Dr Prem Nair.

Antimicrobial stewardship and infection control education are essential components of effective healthcare delivery systems.

The symposium followed up on last years meeting with deliberations focused on early and accurate detection and diagnostics in infectious diseases with an evaluation of current capacity, requirements and challenges.

KOCHI:The infectious disease mortality rate in India is 416.75 per 100,000 persons which is twice as big than the rate prevailing in the United States of America, according to expert doctors who attended a two-day international symposium on Infectious Diseases and Antimicrobial Stewardship, held recently at the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences(AIMS). Doctors of AIMS and University of Michigan (UM) Medical School, US, attended the symposium. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has emerged as a global health challenge due to the lack of new antibiotics and ever-increasing burden of infections caused by multi-drug resistant pathogens. Some important factors responsible for the rising antibiotic resistance in India are indiscriminate use of antibiotics, over-the-counter availability of antibiotics, lack of regulatory bodies approving antibiotics and public awareness about antibiotic resistance, injudicious use in veterinary practice, overburdened health infrastructure, and inequity in healthcare, said AIMS medical director Dr Prem Nair. Antimicrobial stewardship and infection control education are essential components of effective healthcare delivery systems. The symposium followed up on last years meeting with deliberations focused on early and accurate detection and diagnostics in infectious diseases with an evaluation of current capacity, requirements and challenges.
Malini Mannath By

Express News Service

Back with a bang is Durai Singam in the third installment of the Singam Franchise. And this time to take on a racketeer in neighbouring Andhra and the connected link in Australia.

Racy, the tempo rarely slowing down, it at times seems like a mad rush by the cop to solve an issue which would have caused hazardous health problems to the people. Suriya eminently watchable is at his energetic best, reveling in the role of the cop who never tires!

The opening caption lets us know that though the setting is in Andhra, the language spoken would be Tamil for the 'convenience' of the Tamil audience. The story opens with Singam deputed to Andhra to investigate into the murder of a top cop.

Brief shots from Singam's earlier encounters ( Singam1 and 2) are depicted, when a character wonders why a cop from Tamil Nadu should be brought in. Singam's stepping down from the train at the railway station in Vizag, sets the tone for the nature of the events to follow. All sound and fury, Singam thrashes over a dozen armed goons lined up for him there. His bete noire this time is Reddy with his illegal businesses and his Australian connection. Suriya's dashing and debonair carries the film on his shoulders with panache. And its his charismatic presence that distracts one from the sense of deja vu one feels throughout. The word 'Singam' reverberates in the background each time the cop takes on his enemies, a lion's form juxtaposed on his.

The director tries to introduce some moments of suspense but breaks them soon enough. A wise move, as the audience could anyway have guessed what the reality was. Like the matter of Singam's estranged wife, and the identity of Vidya the girl who hounds him.

Anushka is calm and sober as the role requires. Shruti 's role almost follows Hansika's from an earlier version, the 'investigative journalist' part just a tag. Post-interval, the story travels to Australia, where Singam goes in search of the kingpin and Reddy's partner in crime.

The Hawala racket, the dumping of hazardous toxic waste on Indian soil all form part of the script. The camera is extremely mobile, as it whirls, zooms in and pans to capture the non-stop action, except when it takes a diversion for some half-hearted comedy or the mandatory dream songs. The action scenes are ably choreographed.

The background score, mostly a high decibel affair, seems appropriate to the mood and feel that Hari has maintained. The slick fast cutting at times seems a tad rushed through. In its 156 minutes of running time, the second half could have been trimmed and made crisper. Unpretentious, action-centric and with a speedy narrative style, 'Si 3' has rarely a dull moment. The cop's antics here are far more entertaining than it was in the 'Singam 2' saga.

Film Si 3 Director Hari Cast Suriya, Anushka, Shruti Haasan, Anoop Thakur Singh, Soori, Radhika.

Back with a bang is Durai Singam in the third installment of the Singam Franchise. And this time to take on a racketeer in neighbouring Andhra and the connected link in Australia. Racy, the tempo rarely slowing down, it at times seems like a mad rush by the cop to solve an issue which would have caused hazardous health problems to the people. Suriya eminently watchable is at his energetic best, reveling in the role of the cop who never tires! The opening caption lets us know that though the setting is in Andhra, the language spoken would be Tamil for the 'convenience' of the Tamil audience. The story opens with Singam deputed to Andhra to investigate into the murder of a top cop. Brief shots from Singam's earlier encounters ( Singam1 and 2) are depicted, when a character wonders why a cop from Tamil Nadu should be brought in. Singam's stepping down from the train at the railway station in Vizag, sets the tone for the nature of the events to follow. All sound and fury, Singam thrashes over a dozen armed goons lined up for him there. His bete noire this time is Reddy with his illegal businesses and his Australian connection. Suriya's dashing and debonair carries the film on his shoulders with panache. And its his charismatic presence that distracts one from the sense of deja vu one feels throughout. The word 'Singam' reverberates in the background each time the cop takes on his enemies, a lion's form juxtaposed on his. The director tries to introduce some moments of suspense but breaks them soon enough. A wise move, as the audience could anyway have guessed what the reality was. Like the matter of Singam's estranged wife, and the identity of Vidya the girl who hounds him. Anushka is calm and sober as the role requires. Shruti 's role almost follows Hansika's from an earlier version, the 'investigative journalist' part just a tag. Post-interval, the story travels to Australia, where Singam goes in search of the kingpin and Reddy's partner in crime. The Hawala racket, the dumping of hazardous toxic waste on Indian soil all form part of the script. The camera is extremely mobile, as it whirls, zooms in and pans to capture the non-stop action, except when it takes a diversion for some half-hearted comedy or the mandatory dream songs. The action scenes are ably choreographed. The background score, mostly a high decibel affair, seems appropriate to the mood and feel that Hari has maintained. The slick fast cutting at times seems a tad rushed through. In its 156 minutes of running time, the second half could have been trimmed and made crisper. Unpretentious, action-centric and with a speedy narrative style, 'Si 3' has rarely a dull moment. The cop's antics here are far more entertaining than it was in the 'Singam 2' saga. Film Si 3 Director Hari Cast Suriya, Anushka, Shruti Haasan, Anoop Thakur Singh, Soori, Radhika.
By Express News Service

Debutante filmmaker-actor Arun Chidambarams upcoming Tamil film Kanavu Variyam has bagged many international honours including the Remi Award. The latest buzz is that, renowned Hollywood production house Warner Bros. Pictures has come forward to distribute the film pan India. Arun says, This is the first Tamil film to be distributed by such a prestigious banner.

I am confident that our association will help the film win at the box-office. Kanavu Variyam is a feel-good entertainer. It will be liked by kids because of the sci-fi elements in it. Theres also humour, sentiments and romance. Kanavu Variyam deals with the power cuts in villages across Tamil Nadu.

The film has a bunch of newcomers in important roles, and Arun plays the lead. Ilavarasu, Gnanasambandan, Yog Japee are also a part of this film. He adds, Just because it has won many international honours, it doesnt mean that its a festival film. Its a film for the masses.

Debutante filmmaker-actor Arun Chidambarams upcoming Tamil film Kanavu Variyam has bagged many international honours including the Remi Award. The latest buzz is that, renowned Hollywood production house Warner Bros. Pictures has come forward to distribute the film pan India. Arun says, This is the first Tamil film to be distributed by such a prestigious banner. I am confident that our association will help the film win at the box-office. Kanavu Variyam is a feel-good entertainer. It will be liked by kids because of the sci-fi elements in it. Theres also humour, sentiments and romance. Kanavu Variyam deals with the power cuts in villages across Tamil Nadu. The film has a bunch of newcomers in important roles, and Arun plays the lead. Ilavarasu, Gnanasambandan, Yog Japee are also a part of this film. He adds, Just because it has won many international honours, it doesnt mean that its a festival film. Its a film for the masses.
Prasanta Mazumdar By

Express News Service

GUWAHATI: After the Nagaland government, the states governor PB Acharya on Thursday declared the urban local bodies (ULBs) elections, which triggered widespread violence, as null and void.

The governor of Nagaland has declared the ongoing process of elections to urban local bodies in Nagaland as null and void. Therefore, the state election commission hereby declares the election programme for the ULBs announced on December 21 and which had been further postponed, as null and void, a notification issued by state election commissioner Sentiyanger Imchen said.

Last week, TR Zeliangs coalition government had annulled the polls in the face of the violent protests unleashed by tribal organisations opposed to the holding of polls with 33 per cent reservation for women. The organisations argued that the quota will infringe upon Article 371 (A) which commits to protect Naga customary laws and rights.

On February 1, a few of the 32 ULBs had gone to polls as per schedule. With protests being triggered, the government was quick to withhold the elections and later, declared them as null and void.

On Tuesday, the Nagaland Tribes Action Committee and the Joint Coordination Committee, which are conglomerates of the protesting organisations, demanded Zeliangs resignation within three days with effect from Wednesday.

They alleged the chief minister sufficiently exhibited unconcern to the sufferings faced by the people and turned a blind eye to their plight to achieve his wishes.

Meanwhile, home minister Y Patton has appealed to the protesting organisations to settle issues through talks.

I appeal to all organisations to come forward for a dialogue so that opinions and views can be shared and (all can) come to an understanding whereby the present face-off can be resolved at the earliest. At the same time, I also urge non-stakeholders not to mislead or misinform, foment and worsen the misunderstanding or threaten anyone from coming forward for positive dialogue, the minister said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Zeliang on Thursday met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh in New Delhi to brief him of the ongoing standoff between the Nagaland Tribes Action Committee and the state government, as well as the resultant bandh that affected the functioning of government offices.

The chief minister explained to the Union Home Minister in detail about how the government, determined to fulfill the Constitutional obligation of holding polls to the urban local bodies, had initiated the process after several tribal organisations expressed their support to the holding of polls with 33 per cent reservation of seats for women, and how these organisations took a U-Turn after the polls were announced, a statement issued by the chief ministers office said.

GUWAHATI: After the Nagaland government, the states governor PB Acharya on Thursday declared the urban local bodies (ULBs) elections, which triggered widespread violence, as null and void. The governor of Nagaland has declared the ongoing process of elections to urban local bodies in Nagaland as null and void. Therefore, the state election commission hereby declares the election programme for the ULBs announced on December 21 and which had been further postponed, as null and void, a notification issued by state election commissioner Sentiyanger Imchen said. Last week, TR Zeliangs coalition government had annulled the polls in the face of the violent protests unleashed by tribal organisations opposed to the holding of polls with 33 per cent reservation for women. The organisations argued that the quota will infringe upon Article 371 (A) which commits to protect Naga customary laws and rights. On February 1, a few of the 32 ULBs had gone to polls as per schedule. With protests being triggered, the government was quick to withhold the elections and later, declared them as null and void. On Tuesday, the Nagaland Tribes Action Committee and the Joint Coordination Committee, which are conglomerates of the protesting organisations, demanded Zeliangs resignation within three days with effect from Wednesday. They alleged the chief minister sufficiently exhibited unconcern to the sufferings faced by the people and turned a blind eye to their plight to achieve his wishes. Meanwhile, home minister Y Patton has appealed to the protesting organisations to settle issues through talks. I appeal to all organisations to come forward for a dialogue so that opinions and views can be shared and (all can) come to an understanding whereby the present face-off can be resolved at the earliest. At the same time, I also urge non-stakeholders not to mislead or misinform, foment and worsen the misunderstanding or threaten anyone from coming forward for positive dialogue, the minister said in a statement. Meanwhile, Zeliang on Thursday met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh in New Delhi to brief him of the ongoing standoff between the Nagaland Tribes Action Committee and the state government, as well as the resultant bandh that affected the functioning of government offices. The chief minister explained to the Union Home Minister in detail about how the government, determined to fulfill the Constitutional obligation of holding polls to the urban local bodies, had initiated the process after several tribal organisations expressed their support to the holding of polls with 33 per cent reservation of seats for women, and how these organisations took a U-Turn after the polls were announced, a statement issued by the chief ministers office said.
By Express News Service

MUMBAI: Captain A. Kathpalia, Air Indias executive director for operations, has been has been rostered off flying duty after skipping breath analyser tests for past few days.



According to sources at Directorate General of Civil Aviation, an enquiry will be ordered into the lapse.



The airline had set up a five-member committee to investigate the allegations, besides reporting the matter to the aviation regulator, Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), after pilot union the Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) sent a legal notice to the DGCA for not taking proper actions against pilots for violation of Breath Analyzer (BA) test.



The tests are conducted before and after flights to ensure that the pilots are not drunk.



The continued inaction by DGCA in this regard attracts both civil and criminal liability on the part of those concerned, ICPA has said.

MUMBAI: Captain A. Kathpalia, Air Indias executive director for operations, has been has been rostered off flying duty after skipping breath analyser tests for past few days. According to sources at Directorate General of Civil Aviation, an enquiry will be ordered into the lapse. The airline had set up a five-member committee to investigate the allegations, besides reporting the matter to the aviation regulator, Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), after pilot union the Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) sent a legal notice to the DGCA for not taking proper actions against pilots for violation of Breath Analyzer (BA) test. The tests are conducted before and after flights to ensure that the pilots are not drunk. The continued inaction by DGCA in this regard attracts both civil and criminal liability on the part of those concerned, ICPA has said.
By IANS

MUMBAI: The censor board has refused to clear a feature film based on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's development agenda. One of the grounds cited is the ongoing assembly elections in five states.

The producer of the medium-budget film, "Modi ka Gaon", Suresh Jha, who has co-directed it with Tushar A. Goel, is crying foul and charged the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) with discriminating against a movie due for release on Friday.

"Censor board officials informed us they found the film objectionable on three main counts. There is no way I can release it tomorrow (Friday). So I am considering moving the court," Jha told IANS.

"They have stipulated conditions which are so difficult to comply with that I might as well forget about releasing the film.

"The golden solution: 'Get a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and Election Commission... I think this must be the first time the PMO or EC are expected to preview a film and clear it before the CBFC certifies it," Jha said.

The CBFC said: "Submit NOC from PMO regarding Prime Minister's portrayal/references through a character in the film resembles... (The film portrays development plans, references to Pakistan's Uri attack, news and speeches related to the PM)."

It has also sought NOC from the EC "as elections are going on in various parts of the country and the film can be treated as promotional material for political campaigns".

The board also orally raised the issue of casting Vikas Mahante as Modi -- the CBFC has objected to the look-alike actor playing the title role, said Jha.

"The film is about Modiji's development agenda and his vision for transforming the country... How can I possibly portray all this with somebody who does not resemble him? If film-makers have to get clearances from other bodies, then what is the need for CBFC?" Jha asked.

He surmised that the CBFC is worried that the Modi look-alike might stoke a fresh row, with the opposition parties targeting the censor board for permitting its release.

Mahante's uncanny resemblance to Modi has made him a crowd puller in his own right and earned him the sobriquet "Modi from Mumbai".

The CBFC has also taken umbrage at a prominent side-character, "Pappu Bihari", in the film, saying the name should be deleted from the movie, including the songs.

Jha's much-anticipated 135-minute feature film completed shooting in December. He applied for CBFC certification in January.

Emphasising that the film was "not a biopic", he said he was planning a mega premiere with the Prime Minister himself.

The film was extensively shot in Mumbai, Patna and Darbhanga, detailing Modi's aim of making all rural and urban centres 'Smart Villages' or 'Smart Cities'.

MUMBAI: The censor board has refused to clear a feature film based on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's development agenda. One of the grounds cited is the ongoing assembly elections in five states. The producer of the medium-budget film, "Modi ka Gaon", Suresh Jha, who has co-directed it with Tushar A. Goel, is crying foul and charged the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) with discriminating against a movie due for release on Friday. "Censor board officials informed us they found the film objectionable on three main counts. There is no way I can release it tomorrow (Friday). So I am considering moving the court," Jha told IANS. "They have stipulated conditions which are so difficult to comply with that I might as well forget about releasing the film. "The golden solution: 'Get a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and Election Commission... I think this must be the first time the PMO or EC are expected to preview a film and clear it before the CBFC certifies it," Jha said. The CBFC said: "Submit NOC from PMO regarding Prime Minister's portrayal/references through a character in the film resembles... (The film portrays development plans, references to Pakistan's Uri attack, news and speeches related to the PM)." It has also sought NOC from the EC "as elections are going on in various parts of the country and the film can be treated as promotional material for political campaigns". The board also orally raised the issue of casting Vikas Mahante as Modi -- the CBFC has objected to the look-alike actor playing the title role, said Jha. "The film is about Modiji's development agenda and his vision for transforming the country... How can I possibly portray all this with somebody who does not resemble him? If film-makers have to get clearances from other bodies, then what is the need for CBFC?" Jha asked. He surmised that the CBFC is worried that the Modi look-alike might stoke a fresh row, with the opposition parties targeting the censor board for permitting its release. Mahante's uncanny resemblance to Modi has made him a crowd puller in his own right and earned him the sobriquet "Modi from Mumbai". The CBFC has also taken umbrage at a prominent side-character, "Pappu Bihari", in the film, saying the name should be deleted from the movie, including the songs. Jha's much-anticipated 135-minute feature film completed shooting in December. He applied for CBFC certification in January. Emphasising that the film was "not a biopic", he said he was planning a mega premiere with the Prime Minister himself. The film was extensively shot in Mumbai, Patna and Darbhanga, detailing Modi's aim of making all rural and urban centres 'Smart Villages' or 'Smart Cities'.
Vikram Sharma By

Express News Service

HARIDWAR: This is the offseason in Haridwar but chaos is constant in Indias largest religious hub. Noxious fumes from garbage mounds assault the nostrils as the rickshaw puller navigates through gridlocked traffic. The roads are broken and encroached upon by kiosks selling Baba Ramdev products to Indian pilgrims and bric a brac to foreign tourists. Stray dogs chase tourists.

This, however, is election time and these things ought to matter. In Haridwar, they dont. The cud-chewing cows in the midst of traffic are indeed the metaphor of the town.

You should see it in the Char Dham season, says Amarnath Jha, manager of a hotel in the Kotwali area. Haridwar is completely choked.

Without being asked, he answers the inevitable question. First-time visitors always ask me why Haridwar is so dirty, he says.

I don't have an answer.''

A walk along the banks of the Ganga might be a spiritual experience but for the beggars, the stray dogs and the filth all around. ''I heard so much about Haridwar. This is my first visit here, says Major Jain, a pilgrim from Delhi who brought his parents to fulfil their lifes wish.

His father, Anand Jain, a 75-year-old adds, I want to leave as soon as possible.

From the ever-present chaos in the streets, it is hard to tell that an election is being fought in this constituency of nearly 1.45 lakh voters. A group of BJP workers march on the choked street, their slogans drowned by the bhajans blaring out of every shop, and their saffron flags lost among the pennants fluttering from flagpoles. If you listened keenly, the jeep leading the group is playing a speech by Narendra Modi, promising to change the face of Uttarakhand.

The BJPs candidate here is a sitting MLA, Madan Kaushik. As a four-time MLA, he makes a valiant case for himself, stressing how Haridwar has developed during his term. His opponent is Brahmaswaroop Brahmachari, who has an impressive resume. Well-known across Uttarakhand, hes the head of a local ashram and has been the vice-chancellor of Uttarakhand Sanskrit University and vice-chairman of the Uttarakhand Sanskrit Academy.

But wheres the Ganga amidst all this chaos? It emerges as a pristine river from the foothills of the Himalayas and leaves Haridwar like a raft of flotsam disgorged by the towns drains. Balkishore Tiwari, an authority on the Ganga, reels off the grim stats: The faecal coliform count of the Ganga at Haridwar ranges from 2.35 million/100 ml to 40.6 million/100 ml. Samples taken at various points of the river showed faecal coliforms counts of 1000, 1500 and 7.5 million per 100 ml, well above the standards set by the Central pollution Control Board.

Nature has its own ways of bringing a balance, says Tiwari, quietly angry. A day will come when something like the Kedarnath tragedy will come.''

HARIDWAR: This is the offseason in Haridwar but chaos is constant in Indias largest religious hub. Noxious fumes from garbage mounds assault the nostrils as the rickshaw puller navigates through gridlocked traffic. The roads are broken and encroached upon by kiosks selling Baba Ramdev products to Indian pilgrims and bric a brac to foreign tourists. Stray dogs chase tourists. This, however, is election time and these things ought to matter. In Haridwar, they dont. The cud-chewing cows in the midst of traffic are indeed the metaphor of the town. You should see it in the Char Dham season, says Amarnath Jha, manager of a hotel in the Kotwali area. Haridwar is completely choked. Without being asked, he answers the inevitable question. First-time visitors always ask me why Haridwar is so dirty, he says. I don't have an answer.'' A walk along the banks of the Ganga might be a spiritual experience but for the beggars, the stray dogs and the filth all around. ''I heard so much about Haridwar. This is my first visit here, says Major Jain, a pilgrim from Delhi who brought his parents to fulfil their lifes wish. His father, Anand Jain, a 75-year-old adds, I want to leave as soon as possible. From the ever-present chaos in the streets, it is hard to tell that an election is being fought in this constituency of nearly 1.45 lakh voters. A group of BJP workers march on the choked street, their slogans drowned by the bhajans blaring out of every shop, and their saffron flags lost among the pennants fluttering from flagpoles. If you listened keenly, the jeep leading the group is playing a speech by Narendra Modi, promising to change the face of Uttarakhand. The BJPs candidate here is a sitting MLA, Madan Kaushik. As a four-time MLA, he makes a valiant case for himself, stressing how Haridwar has developed during his term. His opponent is Brahmaswaroop Brahmachari, who has an impressive resume. Well-known across Uttarakhand, hes the head of a local ashram and has been the vice-chancellor of Uttarakhand Sanskrit University and vice-chairman of the Uttarakhand Sanskrit Academy. But wheres the Ganga amidst all this chaos? It emerges as a pristine river from the foothills of the Himalayas and leaves Haridwar like a raft of flotsam disgorged by the towns drains. Balkishore Tiwari, an authority on the Ganga, reels off the grim stats: The faecal coliform count of the Ganga at Haridwar ranges from 2.35 million/100 ml to 40.6 million/100 ml. Samples taken at various points of the river showed faecal coliforms counts of 1000, 1500 and 7.5 million per 100 ml, well above the standards set by the Central pollution Control Board. Nature has its own ways of bringing a balance, says Tiwari, quietly angry. A day will come when something like the Kedarnath tragedy will come.''
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Union HRD Ministry on Thursday signed a deal with state-owned Canara Bank to set up Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA) that will eventually take over financial powers of the University Grants Commission (UGC).

Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar who was also present when the deal was signed said that the institutions like IIMs that would soon get more autonomy would get funding from HEFA and UGC will only act as a body for certification. Javadekar said the HEFA will start funding higher educational institutions before the start of the next academic session.

Express on February 6 reported that constitution of the HEFA has been hanging on for a year, even as the Union Cabinet in September last year. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced constituting of the agency, HEFA in the last budget. However, in order to curtail funding powers of UGC, that required amendments in the UGC Act.

The move to curb powers of UGC comes as the Modi government is not satisfied with the functioning of UGC with UGC mishandling issues related to deemed universities and has not put in place a proper system for these institutions.

Javadekar said that the IIM Bill tabled in Lok Sabha would go through in the next parliament session. IIM will get funding from HEFA and UGC will only act as a body for certification, he said.

The Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) Bill, which seeks to provide to these 20 prestigious institutes powers to grant degrees. IIMs till now had been registered as societies and unable to grant degrees, including PhD, to their students.

As per the Bill, IIMs would be declared institutions of national importance. The government has been advocating more autonomy to the institutes which excel in their fields and in line with this policy, the IIM Bill, 2017 proposes that the Board of Governors will be the principal executive body of each IIM.

NEW DELHI: The Union HRD Ministry on Thursday signed a deal with state-owned Canara Bank to set up Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA) that will eventually take over financial powers of the University Grants Commission (UGC). Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar who was also present when the deal was signed said that the institutions like IIMs that would soon get more autonomy would get funding from HEFA and UGC will only act as a body for certification. Javadekar said the HEFA will start funding higher educational institutions before the start of the next academic session. Express on February 6 reported that constitution of the HEFA has been hanging on for a year, even as the Union Cabinet in September last year. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced constituting of the agency, HEFA in the last budget. However, in order to curtail funding powers of UGC, that required amendments in the UGC Act. The move to curb powers of UGC comes as the Modi government is not satisfied with the functioning of UGC with UGC mishandling issues related to deemed universities and has not put in place a proper system for these institutions. Javadekar said that the IIM Bill tabled in Lok Sabha would go through in the next parliament session. IIM will get funding from HEFA and UGC will only act as a body for certification, he said. The Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) Bill, which seeks to provide to these 20 prestigious institutes powers to grant degrees. IIMs till now had been registered as societies and unable to grant degrees, including PhD, to their students. As per the Bill, IIMs would be declared institutions of national importance. The government has been advocating more autonomy to the institutes which excel in their fields and in line with this policy, the IIM Bill, 2017 proposes that the Board of Governors will be the principal executive body of each IIM.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: India on Thursday set in motion the process to bring back absconding liquor baron Vijay Mallya to the country as it handed over the extradition request of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to the UK High Commission here.

India, which has an extradition pact with the UK, wants to bring Mallya back to the country and try him for defaulting on huge bank loans and for other financial irregularities.

Today, we handed over the request for extradition of Vijay Vittal Mallya which we received from the CBI to the UK High Commission here. We have requested the UK side to extradite him to face trial in India, said External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup.

A CBI official said the agencys Mumbai branch had issued a court order regarding Mallyas extradition last week and it was later handed over to the External Affairs Ministry through legal channels.

Last year, the UK government had refused to deport Mallya after his Indian passport was revoked by the government to secure his presence for an investigation into money laundering charges against him.

Mallya also faces a non-bailable warrant. Later, Mallyas name figured in the list of 60 people that India handed over to Britan during Prime Minister Theresa Mays visit in November 2016.

In response to a question on whether the request would come through, Swarup said India has a legitimate case against the beleaguered tycoon.

We have made the extradition request in the prescribed format and it is for the UK to deliberate on the request and take further action, he said, adding that the extradition would reflect the UKs sensitivity towards our concerns.

Mallya, also known as the King of Good Times, has been in the dock as his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines has not repaid its more than Rs 9,000 crore debt to various banks.

In another case, he owes Rs 720 crore to IDBI Bank.

As the investigating agencies were closing in on him, the businessman allegedly fled the country and is presently living in Britain.

NEW DELHI: India on Thursday set in motion the process to bring back absconding liquor baron Vijay Mallya to the country as it handed over the extradition request of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to the UK High Commission here. India, which has an extradition pact with the UK, wants to bring Mallya back to the country and try him for defaulting on huge bank loans and for other financial irregularities. Today, we handed over the request for extradition of Vijay Vittal Mallya which we received from the CBI to the UK High Commission here. We have requested the UK side to extradite him to face trial in India, said External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup. A CBI official said the agencys Mumbai branch had issued a court order regarding Mallyas extradition last week and it was later handed over to the External Affairs Ministry through legal channels. Last year, the UK government had refused to deport Mallya after his Indian passport was revoked by the government to secure his presence for an investigation into money laundering charges against him. Mallya also faces a non-bailable warrant. Later, Mallyas name figured in the list of 60 people that India handed over to Britan during Prime Minister Theresa Mays visit in November 2016. In response to a question on whether the request would come through, Swarup said India has a legitimate case against the beleaguered tycoon. We have made the extradition request in the prescribed format and it is for the UK to deliberate on the request and take further action, he said, adding that the extradition would reflect the UKs sensitivity towards our concerns. Mallya, also known as the King of Good Times, has been in the dock as his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines has not repaid its more than Rs 9,000 crore debt to various banks. In another case, he owes Rs 720 crore to IDBI Bank. As the investigating agencies were closing in on him, the businessman allegedly fled the country and is presently living in Britain.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: India on Thursday expressed its strong umbrage to China obstructing the international efforts to shut the door on Jaish-e-Mohammad Chief Masood Azhar by declaring him a terrorist, and demarche was issued Chinese Envoy in Delhi.

Indias reaction has come after China blocked the classic counter-terrorism proposal moved by four of the five permanent members in the United Nations Security Council to ban Masood Azhar that will freeze his assets and curtail his travel.

"It is our understanding that this was a classic counter- terrorism proposal meant to proscribe a dreaded terrorist leader Masood Azhar whose organisation the Jaish-e-Mohammad has already been proscribed by the UN 1267 Committee, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said in a briefing here. The proposal was one of the last decisions of the Obama administration and it was moved on Jan 19.

The issue has already been raised with the Chinese Ambassador in Delhi and the Indian Embassy in Beijing is also issuing a similar demarche, the spokesperson said. Swarup said that all the permanent members of the UNSC, but one, are on the same page on the issue of Masood Azhar.

"We don't view this as a bilateral matter between India and Pakistan but as an issue of global counter-terrorism. We hope that eventually, China will also come around to accepting this view. Obviously, if there is a change in the Chinese position, there will be consensus also," he said.

Earlier, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang had also told a media briefing in Beijing that his government resorted to this move to allow the "relevant parties"  in an oblique reference to India and Pakistan - to reach a consensus.

NEW DELHI: India on Thursday expressed its strong umbrage to China obstructing the international efforts to shut the door on Jaish-e-Mohammad Chief Masood Azhar by declaring him a terrorist, and demarche was issued Chinese Envoy in Delhi. Indias reaction has come after China blocked the classic counter-terrorism proposal moved by four of the five permanent members in the United Nations Security Council to ban Masood Azhar that will freeze his assets and curtail his travel. "It is our understanding that this was a classic counter- terrorism proposal meant to proscribe a dreaded terrorist leader Masood Azhar whose organisation the Jaish-e-Mohammad has already been proscribed by the UN 1267 Committee, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said in a briefing here. The proposal was one of the last decisions of the Obama administration and it was moved on Jan 19. The issue has already been raised with the Chinese Ambassador in Delhi and the Indian Embassy in Beijing is also issuing a similar demarche, the spokesperson said. Swarup said that all the permanent members of the UNSC, but one, are on the same page on the issue of Masood Azhar. "We don't view this as a bilateral matter between India and Pakistan but as an issue of global counter-terrorism. We hope that eventually, China will also come around to accepting this view. Obviously, if there is a change in the Chinese position, there will be consensus also," he said. Earlier, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang had also told a media briefing in Beijing that his government resorted to this move to allow the "relevant parties"  in an oblique reference to India and Pakistan - to reach a consensus.
By PTI

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court today dismissed a petition filed by Rabia Khan, mother of late actor Jiah Khan, challenging the CBI's charge sheet terming Jiah's death as suicide and not homicide, paving the way for trial to commence against Sooraj Pancholi in the case.

Actor Sooraj Pancholi is charged with abetment of Jiah's suicide.

A division bench of Justices R V More and Shalini Pahansalkar-Joshi today dismissed the petition. The bench also said that the intervening application filed by Pancholi does not survive and hence, it too stands dismissed.

The high court's dismissal of Rabia's petition paves way for trial to commence against Sooraj before a lower court.

The HC had earlier stayed the trial pending hearing of Rabia's petition. According to Rabia, Jiah was allegedly murdered by her then boyfriend-actor Sooraj Pancholi.

Rabia, in her petition, had sought formation of a special investigation team and monitoring of the investigation by high court.

She said that her daughter's death on June 3, 2013, was not suicidal, as claimed by CBI, but was homicidal.

Her lawyer had earlier told HC that the investigating agency's claim that Jiah had committed suicide because she was depressed about her career not doing well cannot be accepted. He had also argued that Sooraj's alibi that he was not present at Jiah's residence at the time of the incident is fabricated.

CBI counsel Anil Singh, however, had argued that the agency has CCTV footage of a hotel in Juhu where Sooraj was present on the day of the incident.

Rabia had in her petition also claimed that the injuries on Jiah's body clearly point out to physical abuse.

Sooraj had last year filed an intervening application seeking for stay on the trial to be vacated saying he has every right to face a "free, fair and expeditious trial".

He had claimed in his application that the petitioner (Rabia) has concealed vital information pertaining to Jiah's disturbed childhood and also the fact that she (Jiah) had attempted to kill herself when she was young.

Sooraj was arrested for abetting Jiah's suicide on June 10, 2013, but released on July 2 the same year after the HC granted him bail.

The case was transferred to CBI by HC in July 2014 on Rabia's petition that police was not probing it properly.

Rabia had sought SIT probe alleging that CBI, which is currently investigating the case, had concurred with the findings of Mumbai police that it was a case of suicide and not a homicide.

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court today dismissed a petition filed by Rabia Khan, mother of late actor Jiah Khan, challenging the CBI's charge sheet terming Jiah's death as suicide and not homicide, paving the way for trial to commence against Sooraj Pancholi in the case. Actor Sooraj Pancholi is charged with abetment of Jiah's suicide. A division bench of Justices R V More and Shalini Pahansalkar-Joshi today dismissed the petition. The bench also said that the intervening application filed by Pancholi does not survive and hence, it too stands dismissed. The high court's dismissal of Rabia's petition paves way for trial to commence against Sooraj before a lower court. The HC had earlier stayed the trial pending hearing of Rabia's petition. According to Rabia, Jiah was allegedly murdered by her then boyfriend-actor Sooraj Pancholi. Rabia, in her petition, had sought formation of a special investigation team and monitoring of the investigation by high court. She said that her daughter's death on June 3, 2013, was not suicidal, as claimed by CBI, but was homicidal. Her lawyer had earlier told HC that the investigating agency's claim that Jiah had committed suicide because she was depressed about her career not doing well cannot be accepted. He had also argued that Sooraj's alibi that he was not present at Jiah's residence at the time of the incident is fabricated. CBI counsel Anil Singh, however, had argued that the agency has CCTV footage of a hotel in Juhu where Sooraj was present on the day of the incident. Rabia had in her petition also claimed that the injuries on Jiah's body clearly point out to physical abuse. Sooraj had last year filed an intervening application seeking for stay on the trial to be vacated saying he has every right to face a "free, fair and expeditious trial". He had claimed in his application that the petitioner (Rabia) has concealed vital information pertaining to Jiah's disturbed childhood and also the fact that she (Jiah) had attempted to kill herself when she was young. Sooraj was arrested for abetting Jiah's suicide on June 10, 2013, but released on July 2 the same year after the HC granted him bail. The case was transferred to CBI by HC in July 2014 on Rabia's petition that police was not probing it properly. Rabia had sought SIT probe alleging that CBI, which is currently investigating the case, had concurred with the findings of Mumbai police that it was a case of suicide and not a homicide.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi continued his acrid attack on the Opposition inside Parliament for the second day. His target on Wednesday was former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Even as he claimed that the fight against black money was not political or targeted at any particular party, he tore into the Congress and took on Manmohan Singh for criticising demonetisation.

There were many scams around him, but his own image remained clean. Doctor saab (Manmohan Singh) alone knows the art of taking a bath wearing a raincoat, he said.

The comments provoked the Congress members to stage a walkout. Members of Left, Trinamool Congress and JD(U) also staged a walkout. Manmohan Singh refused to react and said I do not wish to comment. However, senior Congress leader and former finance minister P Chidambaram slammed Modis remarks. It is unbecoming of a Prime Minister to use such language against a former PM. No PM in the past has made such comments about a former PM.

Targeting Singh, Modi claimed that the former Prime Minister had dominated the countrys financial affairs for more than 35 years, during which several scams had taken place. We politicians have a lot to learn from Doctor Sahab. So much happened, but there is not a single blot on him, he said.

If you cross the limits of decorum, then you should have the courage to listen to the response, the Prime Minister told the angry Congress leaders even as they staged a walkout. We have the capacity to pay in the same coin.

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi continued his acrid attack on the Opposition inside Parliament for the second day. His target on Wednesday was former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Even as he claimed that the fight against black money was not political or targeted at any particular party, he tore into the Congress and took on Manmohan Singh for criticising demonetisation. There were many scams around him, but his own image remained clean. Doctor saab (Manmohan Singh) alone knows the art of taking a bath wearing a raincoat, he said. The comments provoked the Congress members to stage a walkout. Members of Left, Trinamool Congress and JD(U) also staged a walkout. Manmohan Singh refused to react and said I do not wish to comment. However, senior Congress leader and former finance minister P Chidambaram slammed Modis remarks. It is unbecoming of a Prime Minister to use such language against a former PM. No PM in the past has made such comments about a former PM. Targeting Singh, Modi claimed that the former Prime Minister had dominated the countrys financial affairs for more than 35 years, during which several scams had taken place. We politicians have a lot to learn from Doctor Sahab. So much happened, but there is not a single blot on him, he said. If you cross the limits of decorum, then you should have the courage to listen to the response, the Prime Minister told the angry Congress leaders even as they staged a walkout. We have the capacity to pay in the same coin.
Fayaz Wani By

Express News Service

SRINAGAR: The normal life in Kashmir was affected by the restrictions imposed by authorities in some parts and shutdown called by separatists on the 4th death anniversary of parliament attack convict Mohammad Afzal Guru.

The shops, business establishments and petrol pumps remained closed in summer capital Srinagar and other parts of the Valley. The public transport was also off the roads. However, two wheelers, three-wheelers and some cabs were plying.

The separatist leaders Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik, who spearheaded the over five-month long agitation in Kashmir last year after July 8 killing of 21-year-old Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani, had called for shutdown today.

In order to maintain law and order and foil anti-government protests, authorities imposed restrictions in some areas of downtown Srinagar and south Kashmirs Shopian town.

The security personnel had also sealed the Gurus home town in Sopore.

The police and paramilitary personnel were deployed in strength in volatile downtown areas and other sensitive parts of the Valley. Armed with a anti-riot gears, the security personnel were maintaining a tight vigil on movement of people to prevent any kind of protests in favour of Afzal Guru.

Guru was secretly hanged and buried in Delhis Tihar jail on February 9, 2013 for his role in 2001 militant attack on Parliament in which 14 people including five attackers were killed.

As a precautionary measure, authorities also suspended the Baramulla-Banihal rail service for the day.

The Indian government should return the mortal remains of Afzal Guru to his family for proper burial. Although it is purely a human issue, India is very reluctant to this demand thereby violating all the principles of morality and constitution and in this way its claim of a largest democracy in the world is getting badly uncovered, the separatist leaders said.

They have also called for shutdown on February 11, the hanging anniversary of JKLF founder Mohammad Maqbool Bhat

Bhat was hanged in Delhis Tihar jail on February 11, 1984 after being convicted for murdering a CID officer. Bhats mortal remains were also not returned to his family.

Meanwhile, police today disallowed a seminar organized by independent MLA Er Sheikh Abdur Rashid on Maqbool Bhat and Afzal Guru in Handwara area of border district of Kupwara.

After being barred from holding seminar, the MLA alongwith his supporters tried to take out a protest march. However, the police men intercepted them and detained MLA alongwith some of his supporters. They were lodged in Police Station Handwara. Later, they were later set free.

Delhi must answer if Maqbool Bhat and Afzal Guru were terrorists? Why people do not forget them after so many years and why Delhi has to impose curfew-like restrictions even in remotest villages on their death anniversaries. While Indian government offered bodies of Ajmal Qasab and Yaqoob Memen to their families but it did not return the mortal remains of Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhat to their families, the MLA said.

Describing Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhat as heroes, Rashid, who is MLA Langate, said, Had Guru and Bhat been terrorists, India would never have been so scared of handing over their bodies to their families. If Raj Guru, Sukh Dev and Bhagat Singh were Indian heroes, how could Afzal Guru, Maqbool Bhat and others be labelled as terrorists.

SRINAGAR: The normal life in Kashmir was affected by the restrictions imposed by authorities in some parts and shutdown called by separatists on the 4th death anniversary of parliament attack convict Mohammad Afzal Guru. The shops, business establishments and petrol pumps remained closed in summer capital Srinagar and other parts of the Valley. The public transport was also off the roads. However, two wheelers, three-wheelers and some cabs were plying. The separatist leaders Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Mohammad Yasin Malik, who spearheaded the over five-month long agitation in Kashmir last year after July 8 killing of 21-year-old Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani, had called for shutdown today. In order to maintain law and order and foil anti-government protests, authorities imposed restrictions in some areas of downtown Srinagar and south Kashmirs Shopian town. The security personnel had also sealed the Gurus home town in Sopore. The police and paramilitary personnel were deployed in strength in volatile downtown areas and other sensitive parts of the Valley. Armed with a anti-riot gears, the security personnel were maintaining a tight vigil on movement of people to prevent any kind of protests in favour of Afzal Guru. Guru was secretly hanged and buried in Delhis Tihar jail on February 9, 2013 for his role in 2001 militant attack on Parliament in which 14 people including five attackers were killed. As a precautionary measure, authorities also suspended the Baramulla-Banihal rail service for the day. The Indian government should return the mortal remains of Afzal Guru to his family for proper burial. Although it is purely a human issue, India is very reluctant to this demand thereby violating all the principles of morality and constitution and in this way its claim of a largest democracy in the world is getting badly uncovered, the separatist leaders said. They have also called for shutdown on February 11, the hanging anniversary of JKLF founder Mohammad Maqbool Bhat Bhat was hanged in Delhis Tihar jail on February 11, 1984 after being convicted for murdering a CID officer. Bhats mortal remains were also not returned to his family. Meanwhile, police today disallowed a seminar organized by independent MLA Er Sheikh Abdur Rashid on Maqbool Bhat and Afzal Guru in Handwara area of border district of Kupwara. After being barred from holding seminar, the MLA alongwith his supporters tried to take out a protest march. However, the police men intercepted them and detained MLA alongwith some of his supporters. They were lodged in Police Station Handwara. Later, they were later set free. Delhi must answer if Maqbool Bhat and Afzal Guru were terrorists? Why people do not forget them after so many years and why Delhi has to impose curfew-like restrictions even in remotest villages on their death anniversaries. While Indian government offered bodies of Ajmal Qasab and Yaqoob Memen to their families but it did not return the mortal remains of Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhat to their families, the MLA said. Describing Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhat as heroes, Rashid, who is MLA Langate, said, Had Guru and Bhat been terrorists, India would never have been so scared of handing over their bodies to their families. If Raj Guru, Sukh Dev and Bhagat Singh were Indian heroes, how could Afzal Guru, Maqbool Bhat and others be labelled as terrorists.
Aishik Chanda By

Express News Service

KOLKATA: Triple-murder accused Udayan Das has revealed he killed his girlfriend Akansha Sharma in a fit of rage over his belief that she committed adultery and was involved with two men from Rajasthan and Mumbai.

However, Bankura police have not taken this account for granted even as the Akanshas call history points at something else.

"Udayan has claimed the motive of the murder was Akansha's multiple relationships with a school-mate in Rajasthan and a social media friend from Mumbai. However, her cellphone records indicate all calls to the men in Rajasthan and Mumbai were made after she was murdered in August last year. So, we doubt Udayan may have himself made those calls to later prove the adultery angle. He is trying to divert the direction of investigation," an investigating officer told Express.

To know more about his past, a Bankura police team will meet his mothers relatives in Bhopal and Gwaliorincluding her sister, three brothers and Udayan's paternal uncles, he added.

The accused was interrogated for over six hours on Wednesday. Asked about his past, Udayan claimed he was taunted for his dark complexion and short height by his school friends in Bhopal.

"Udayan has mentioned two of his school friends who named him 'Brinjal Thief' and taunted him for his dark complexion and short height. That had motivated him to get rich for giving a befitting reply," the officer added.

Police have also revealed that red circle marks and signatures of Akansha Sharma were found on five dates in a calendar at Udayan's Bhopal residence. However, cops are suspicious about the authencity of the signatures, for it's mentioned Akansha is going to the US at one place whereas in reality she never went to the country.

The calendar has been sent for examination to check whether the handwriting belongs to Akansha or Udayan.

KOLKATA: Triple-murder accused Udayan Das has revealed he killed his girlfriend Akansha Sharma in a fit of rage over his belief that she committed adultery and was involved with two men from Rajasthan and Mumbai. However, Bankura police have not taken this account for granted even as the Akanshas call history points at something else. "Udayan has claimed the motive of the murder was Akansha's multiple relationships with a school-mate in Rajasthan and a social media friend from Mumbai. However, her cellphone records indicate all calls to the men in Rajasthan and Mumbai were made after she was murdered in August last year. So, we doubt Udayan may have himself made those calls to later prove the adultery angle. He is trying to divert the direction of investigation," an investigating officer told Express. To know more about his past, a Bankura police team will meet his mothers relatives in Bhopal and Gwaliorincluding her sister, three brothers and Udayan's paternal uncles, he added. The accused was interrogated for over six hours on Wednesday. Asked about his past, Udayan claimed he was taunted for his dark complexion and short height by his school friends in Bhopal. "Udayan has mentioned two of his school friends who named him 'Brinjal Thief' and taunted him for his dark complexion and short height. That had motivated him to get rich for giving a befitting reply," the officer added. Police have also revealed that red circle marks and signatures of Akansha Sharma were found on five dates in a calendar at Udayan's Bhopal residence. However, cops are suspicious about the authencity of the signatures, for it's mentioned Akansha is going to the US at one place whereas in reality she never went to the country. The calendar has been sent for examination to check whether the handwriting belongs to Akansha or Udayan.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Thursday decided to boycott Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Parliament until he apologises for his insulting remarks about his predecessor Manmohan Singh. The party received support from some other Opposition parties which also demanded an apology from PM.

The Congress raised the issue in the House and outside Parliament and got the support from parties like CPM and JD (U). The Opposition forced two adjournments in the Rajya Sabha and demanded an apology from Modi on his taking bath while wearing a raincoat jibe at Manmohan during the reply to the Motion of Thanks to the Presidents Address on Wednesday.

While the Upper House did not function during the morning session, the Opposition allowed the debate on the Budget in the afternoon.

Starting the discussion, former finance minister P Chidambaram said the prime minister should remember that the chair he sat on was used by Jawaharlal Nehru and even Atal Bihari Vajpayee and hence he should use appropriate language.

CPM leader Sitaram Yechury said that the matter will not end here and the Opposition will meet to discuss to carry it forward.

It is very demeaning and undermines parliamentary democracy. The government is accountable to Parliament and Parliament is accountable to the people. But the government has refused to be accountable to people, said Yechury.

Congress leader Anand Sharma said that they will boycott the Prime Minister. We will not listen to him but we will not assault the dignity of the office of the Prime Minister. At the same time, we will continue to protest, we know that he is an obdurate person, he told media representatives.

Meanwhile, the BJP hit out at the Congress party in Parliament, saying it is no longer a conventional political outfit representing certain ideology but a conglomeration believing in divinity and devotion to a family.

However, the sharpest retort to Modis comment perhaps came from the Shiv Sena chief. Though he wore a raincoat, (former Prime Minister) Manmohan Singh at least bathed using water. You (Modi) did not even use water to bathe everybody (in the country). You created fizz without soap, Uddhav Thackeray said, in an apparent reference to hardships caused by the demonetisation.

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Thursday decided to boycott Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Parliament until he apologises for his insulting remarks about his predecessor Manmohan Singh. The party received support from some other Opposition parties which also demanded an apology from PM. The Congress raised the issue in the House and outside Parliament and got the support from parties like CPM and JD (U). The Opposition forced two adjournments in the Rajya Sabha and demanded an apology from Modi on his taking bath while wearing a raincoat jibe at Manmohan during the reply to the Motion of Thanks to the Presidents Address on Wednesday. While the Upper House did not function during the morning session, the Opposition allowed the debate on the Budget in the afternoon. Starting the discussion, former finance minister P Chidambaram said the prime minister should remember that the chair he sat on was used by Jawaharlal Nehru and even Atal Bihari Vajpayee and hence he should use appropriate language. CPM leader Sitaram Yechury said that the matter will not end here and the Opposition will meet to discuss to carry it forward. It is very demeaning and undermines parliamentary democracy. The government is accountable to Parliament and Parliament is accountable to the people. But the government has refused to be accountable to people, said Yechury. Congress leader Anand Sharma said that they will boycott the Prime Minister. We will not listen to him but we will not assault the dignity of the office of the Prime Minister. At the same time, we will continue to protest, we know that he is an obdurate person, he told media representatives. Meanwhile, the BJP hit out at the Congress party in Parliament, saying it is no longer a conventional political outfit representing certain ideology but a conglomeration believing in divinity and devotion to a family. However, the sharpest retort to Modis comment perhaps came from the Shiv Sena chief. Though he wore a raincoat, (former Prime Minister) Manmohan Singh at least bathed using water. You (Modi) did not even use water to bathe everybody (in the country). You created fizz without soap, Uddhav Thackeray said, in an apparent reference to hardships caused by the demonetisation.
P K Balachandran By

For decades before and after Sri Lankas independence in 1948, Indias relations with the island nation were political and adversarial. But since the second half of the 1990s, there has been a gradual shift to trade, development assistance and investment, in that order. While India has been wanting to build bridges with Lanka, veering from two decades of exclusive involvement with the intractable Tamil question, the latter has been exploring government-to-government economic tie-ups with India.

The ice was broken in the mid 1990s when an India-friendly Chandrika Kumaratunga became president on the promise of a rapprochement with Tamils (including the LTTE), and also friendship with India which had backed the Tamil demand for autonomy and imposed the India-Sri Lanka Accord in 1987 to bring it about. Quick negotiations led to the IndiaSri Lanka Free Trade Agreement (ISLFTA) in 1999. What followed was a remarkable increase in bilateral trade, set to reach $5 billion now.

Though the balance of trade is heavily in Indias favour, Lankas exports to India grew from a minuscule $58 million in 2000 to over $600 million in 2015-16, thanks to the agreement. Indias exports to Lanka are much higher at $4 billion, but 70 per cent of it lies outside the FTA. Indias assistance portfolio in Lanka is now nearly $2.6 billion, out of which $436 million is in the form of grants. Even its loans are cheap coming at an interest of 1.75 per cent. Taking the money spent and pledged together, India has extended to Lanka $1 billion for rebuilding its decrepit railways. The 50,000 houses for war-affected Tamils and poor Indian-origin Tamils cost India $270 million. Recently, India gave $20 million for rainwater harvesting in the dry Northern Province; $7.5 million was given for a free ambulance service.

Indian FDI in Lanka totals over $500 million. India has pledged to set up a 500 MW LNG-powered plant at Kerawalapitiya. Indian companies want to invest in the East Container Terminal at Colombo port and the Trincomalee port hinterland development. Indian trans-shipment accounts for 70 per cent of the earnings of the Colombo port which is sustaining the loss-making Chinese- built Hambantota port. However, Indias economic engagement with Lanka has not been an unmixed blessing.

Fear of economic domination by the Big Brother has replaced the earlier fear of political and military dominance. Sri Lankans argue that Indias Non-Tariff Barriers have greatly restricted their exports under the FTA. Fears of an influx of Indian professionals stopped the signing of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement at the last minute. Agitators are now threatening to scuttle talks on Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement (ETCA) though India ruled out movement of natural persons.

Despite an assurance that almost all employees of the $7.5 million Indian ambulance service would be Lankans, it was seen as a Trojan Horse of RAW. India was disappointed when the 500 MW coal-fired power plant project at Sampur was called off after six years of talks. As a compensation for its ouster from Sampur, Colombo said India could set up an LNGbased 500 MW power plant in Kerawalapitya, but it is not known if the offer would stand in the months to come. In violation of an India-Sri Lanka 2003 agreement, the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) has been trying to take over three of the 99 oil tanks in Trincomalee given to the Lanka Indian Oil Corporation (LIOC) for 35 years.

The CPC says it needs the tanks to store diesel for use in power plants. The LIOC is ready to provide the facilities as a joint project, but that is not acceptable to the CPC. Late last month, the Parliamentary Committee on Public Enterprises threw a bombshell by saying that since the LIOC had not signed the lease agreement relating to the tanks within the stipulated six months, Lanka should take over all the 99 tanks. But LIOCs case is that the 2003 pact does not mention the need for a lease agreement, that the LIOC has been paying the stipulated annual leasing fee of $100,000 to the government regularly, and that the local land records show that the owner of the land is the LIOC. Two Indian firms which were to lead an international consortium to build the Colombo ports East Terminal (as per the wishes of the Lankan government), are now out in the cold because Lanka suddenly said the criteria would be revised.

Given past experience with agreements, volatility of local politics and an underlying anti- India sentiment, India is reluctant to rush into the ETCA. Meanwhile, rumours that Lanka is going to ask India to develop the Trincomalee port to balance its deal with China visa- vis the Hambantota port led to spasms of anti-India barbs from the Opposition and the media. This, despite Indian officials denying any interest in the port as it could be a nonperforming asset like the $1.4 billion Hambantota port. Animosity towards Indian government projects and aid programs, with nary a word of thanks, vexed Indian diplomats to such an extent that ex-Indian High Commissioner Y K Sinha publicly expressed his displeasure.

Lankan nationalists however justified their stand saying that India should consider its aid to Lanka not as charity but just reparations for the harm it did by promoting Tamil terror in the 1980s and then trying to divide the country by promoting the Tamil demand for devolution of powers. However, there is a silver lining. Lankan hostility to India is restricted to Indian government projects, not the business ventures of Indias private sector which are welcomed with open arms. Indian companies dominate the vehicles and pharmaceutical markets, and Indians are the single largest contributors to tourism.

P K Balachandran

Correspondent of The New Indian Express in Colombo.

He has been reporting on Sri Lanka since 1997

Email: pkbalachandran11@gmail.com

For decades before and after Sri Lankas independence in 1948, Indias relations with the island nation were political and adversarial. But since the second half of the 1990s, there has been a gradual shift to trade, development assistance and investment, in that order. While India has been wanting to build bridges with Lanka, veering from two decades of exclusive involvement with the intractable Tamil question, the latter has been exploring government-to-government economic tie-ups with India. The ice was broken in the mid 1990s when an India-friendly Chandrika Kumaratunga became president on the promise of a rapprochement with Tamils (including the LTTE), and also friendship with India which had backed the Tamil demand for autonomy and imposed the India-Sri Lanka Accord in 1987 to bring it about. Quick negotiations led to the IndiaSri Lanka Free Trade Agreement (ISLFTA) in 1999. What followed was a remarkable increase in bilateral trade, set to reach $5 billion now. Though the balance of trade is heavily in Indias favour, Lankas exports to India grew from a minuscule $58 million in 2000 to over $600 million in 2015-16, thanks to the agreement. Indias exports to Lanka are much higher at $4 billion, but 70 per cent of it lies outside the FTA. Indias assistance portfolio in Lanka is now nearly $2.6 billion, out of which $436 million is in the form of grants. Even its loans are cheap coming at an interest of 1.75 per cent. Taking the money spent and pledged together, India has extended to Lanka $1 billion for rebuilding its decrepit railways. The 50,000 houses for war-affected Tamils and poor Indian-origin Tamils cost India $270 million. Recently, India gave $20 million for rainwater harvesting in the dry Northern Province; $7.5 million was given for a free ambulance service. Indian FDI in Lanka totals over $500 million. India has pledged to set up a 500 MW LNG-powered plant at Kerawalapitiya. Indian companies want to invest in the East Container Terminal at Colombo port and the Trincomalee port hinterland development. Indian trans-shipment accounts for 70 per cent of the earnings of the Colombo port which is sustaining the loss-making Chinese- built Hambantota port. However, Indias economic engagement with Lanka has not been an unmixed blessing. Fear of economic domination by the Big Brother has replaced the earlier fear of political and military dominance. Sri Lankans argue that Indias Non-Tariff Barriers have greatly restricted their exports under the FTA. Fears of an influx of Indian professionals stopped the signing of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement at the last minute. Agitators are now threatening to scuttle talks on Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement (ETCA) though India ruled out movement of natural persons. Despite an assurance that almost all employees of the $7.5 million Indian ambulance service would be Lankans, it was seen as a Trojan Horse of RAW. India was disappointed when the 500 MW coal-fired power plant project at Sampur was called off after six years of talks. As a compensation for its ouster from Sampur, Colombo said India could set up an LNGbased 500 MW power plant in Kerawalapitya, but it is not known if the offer would stand in the months to come. In violation of an India-Sri Lanka 2003 agreement, the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) has been trying to take over three of the 99 oil tanks in Trincomalee given to the Lanka Indian Oil Corporation (LIOC) for 35 years. The CPC says it needs the tanks to store diesel for use in power plants. The LIOC is ready to provide the facilities as a joint project, but that is not acceptable to the CPC. Late last month, the Parliamentary Committee on Public Enterprises threw a bombshell by saying that since the LIOC had not signed the lease agreement relating to the tanks within the stipulated six months, Lanka should take over all the 99 tanks. But LIOCs case is that the 2003 pact does not mention the need for a lease agreement, that the LIOC has been paying the stipulated annual leasing fee of $100,000 to the government regularly, and that the local land records show that the owner of the land is the LIOC. Two Indian firms which were to lead an international consortium to build the Colombo ports East Terminal (as per the wishes of the Lankan government), are now out in the cold because Lanka suddenly said the criteria would be revised. Given past experience with agreements, volatility of local politics and an underlying anti- India sentiment, India is reluctant to rush into the ETCA. Meanwhile, rumours that Lanka is going to ask India to develop the Trincomalee port to balance its deal with China visa- vis the Hambantota port led to spasms of anti-India barbs from the Opposition and the media. This, despite Indian officials denying any interest in the port as it could be a nonperforming asset like the $1.4 billion Hambantota port. Animosity towards Indian government projects and aid programs, with nary a word of thanks, vexed Indian diplomats to such an extent that ex-Indian High Commissioner Y K Sinha publicly expressed his displeasure. Lankan nationalists however justified their stand saying that India should consider its aid to Lanka not as charity but just reparations for the harm it did by promoting Tamil terror in the 1980s and then trying to divide the country by promoting the Tamil demand for devolution of powers. However, there is a silver lining. Lankan hostility to India is restricted to Indian government projects, not the business ventures of Indias private sector which are welcomed with open arms. Indian companies dominate the vehicles and pharmaceutical markets, and Indians are the single largest contributors to tourism. P K Balachandran Correspondent of The New Indian Express in Colombo. He has been reporting on Sri Lanka since 1997 Email: pkbalachandran11@gmail.com
By Express News Service

VISAKHAPATNAM:A majority of the students learning French, German and Japanese, at department of Foreign Languages in Andhra University take up those courses for better job opportunities in France, Germany and Japan. The department now has plans to open a centre for German and French languages with funds from Germany and France. The department will be expanded to include Chinese and Spanish.

Only French language was offered in 1970s. The department of Foreign Languages was opened in the AU four years back. There is always a good demand for all the three languages, especially Japanese and French. Without knowing the language, no student can communicate. Besides students, teachers, doctors and private sector employees are joining the courses, said DVR Murthy, the incharge HoD of Foreign Languages.

With 40 seats for each language, 30 are filled by the engineering and pharmacy students. Many students enquire about short-term course, which will help them to learn the language before they go for higher studies. The department has plans to introduce 1-2 months course in foreign languages, while it is six-month diploma course at present.

While the Japan Information and Study Centre was set up with the funds of Mitsubishi Corporation, we planned to initiate talks with Germany and France to open a centre for German and French languages, Murthy told the Express.

We want to include Chinese and Spanish, which is in demand by the students. Once we get the faculty, we will start these two languages too, he added.

VISAKHAPATNAM:A majority of the students learning French, German and Japanese, at department of Foreign Languages in Andhra University take up those courses for better job opportunities in France, Germany and Japan. The department now has plans to open a centre for German and French languages with funds from Germany and France. The department will be expanded to include Chinese and Spanish. Only French language was offered in 1970s. The department of Foreign Languages was opened in the AU four years back. There is always a good demand for all the three languages, especially Japanese and French. Without knowing the language, no student can communicate. Besides students, teachers, doctors and private sector employees are joining the courses, said DVR Murthy, the incharge HoD of Foreign Languages. With 40 seats for each language, 30 are filled by the engineering and pharmacy students. Many students enquire about short-term course, which will help them to learn the language before they go for higher studies. The department has plans to introduce 1-2 months course in foreign languages, while it is six-month diploma course at present. While the Japan Information and Study Centre was set up with the funds of Mitsubishi Corporation, we planned to initiate talks with Germany and France to open a centre for German and French languages, Murthy told the Express. We want to include Chinese and Spanish, which is in demand by the students. Once we get the faculty, we will start these two languages too, he added.
By Express News Service

BENGALURU: In yet another controversial statement, home minister G Parameshwara on Thursday blamed African nationals for the drug peddling mafia in Karnataka.

Responding to a question by BJP MLC Ganesh Karnik regarding the drug peddlers menace in educational hubs such as Mangaluru, Bengaluru and Mysuru, the home minister said, Drug peddling is a serious issue. This is because of the foreign nationals, especially from African countries, who control it here."

He added that in 2016, 239 drug related cases were registered in Mangaluru, while the number was 128 in Bengaluru.

Parameshwar added that the government was organising special drives against drug peddlers. Commenting on the sale of drugs over online platforms, Parameshawar said cyber police are monitoring the same.

BENGALURU: In yet another controversial statement, home minister G Parameshwara on Thursday blamed African nationals for the drug peddling mafia in Karnataka. Responding to a question by BJP MLC Ganesh Karnik regarding the drug peddlers menace in educational hubs such as Mangaluru, Bengaluru and Mysuru, the home minister said, Drug peddling is a serious issue. This is because of the foreign nationals, especially from African countries, who control it here." He added that in 2016, 239 drug related cases were registered in Mangaluru, while the number was 128 in Bengaluru. Parameshwar added that the government was organising special drives against drug peddlers. Commenting on the sale of drugs over online platforms, Parameshawar said cyber police are monitoring the same.
By Express News Service

THRISSUR: The management of Nehru College of Engineering & Research Centre, Pampady which is facing the heat over the death of Jishnu Pranoy--a first year engineering student who committed suicide in the college hostel on January 6, suspended four students on Thursday, triggering unrest across the state.

SFI unit secretary Athul Jose, joint secretary Nikhil Antony, executive committee members Ashiq and Sujesh were suspended for staging protests in connection with the death of Jishnu. Also, two cases were registered against them. Suspended students are in the final year of Bachelor of Pharmacy and Diploma in Pharmacy.

The Pharmacy College on the same campus had resumed classes on Wednesday after a meeting between parents and college authorities. Though the four students came to attend classes on Thursday, the management did not allow them to enter the class. Reportedly, the parents of the suspended students were not invited for the meeting.

Jishnu Pranoi was found dead in the college hostel on January 6 allegedly after he was harassed by college authorities. Classes were stopped for last one month after violent protests erupted in the college after the incident.



THRISSUR: The management of Nehru College of Engineering & Research Centre, Pampady which is facing the heat over the death of Jishnu Pranoy--a first year engineering student who committed suicide in the college hostel on January 6, suspended four students on Thursday, triggering unrest across the state. SFI unit secretary Athul Jose, joint secretary Nikhil Antony, executive committee members Ashiq and Sujesh were suspended for staging protests in connection with the death of Jishnu. Also, two cases were registered against them. Suspended students are in the final year of Bachelor of Pharmacy and Diploma in Pharmacy. The Pharmacy College on the same campus had resumed classes on Wednesday after a meeting between parents and college authorities. Though the four students came to attend classes on Thursday, the management did not allow them to enter the class. Reportedly, the parents of the suspended students were not invited for the meeting. Jishnu Pranoi was found dead in the college hostel on January 6 allegedly after he was harassed by college authorities. Classes were stopped for last one month after violent protests erupted in the college after the incident.
By Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:Bahrain will enhance its cooperation with Kerala in various sectors such as culture, education, ayurveda, technology and health.

In the discussions held between Prime Minister of Bahrain Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday it was decided to strengthen bilateral relations.

The Chief Minister, who was on a three-day foreign visit, also discussed setting up of a special investment fund for developmental schemes in the state.

The Bahrain administration has offered to associate with Kerala in human resources and investment. Pinarayi held talks with crown prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa. The Crown Prince said he has been maintaining good relations with Kerala and is ready to cooperate with the state government in all sectors.

Earlier, the Chief Minister was accorded a warm welcome by the Bahrain government.

Talks were held between the Bahrain administration and the Chief Minister regarding setting up a special investment fund in addition to matters related to Islamic Fund and bilateral Chamber of Commerce. The Chief Minister invited the Bahrain administrators to the state.

In his discussions, the Chief Minister also discussed the possibility of setting up an educational complex and formulating health schemes for Keralites in Bahrain. Bilateral cooperation in the industrial sector was also discussed.

Chief Ministers principal secretary Nalini Netto, media advisor John Brittas, industrialists M A Yousuf Ali, Ravi Pillai and Varghese Kurian were present at the meeting.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:Bahrain will enhance its cooperation with Kerala in various sectors such as culture, education, ayurveda, technology and health. In the discussions held between Prime Minister of Bahrain Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday it was decided to strengthen bilateral relations. The Chief Minister, who was on a three-day foreign visit, also discussed setting up of a special investment fund for developmental schemes in the state. The Bahrain administration has offered to associate with Kerala in human resources and investment. Pinarayi held talks with crown prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa. The Crown Prince said he has been maintaining good relations with Kerala and is ready to cooperate with the state government in all sectors. Earlier, the Chief Minister was accorded a warm welcome by the Bahrain government. Talks were held between the Bahrain administration and the Chief Minister regarding setting up a special investment fund in addition to matters related to Islamic Fund and bilateral Chamber of Commerce. The Chief Minister invited the Bahrain administrators to the state. In his discussions, the Chief Minister also discussed the possibility of setting up an educational complex and formulating health schemes for Keralites in Bahrain. Bilateral cooperation in the industrial sector was also discussed. Chief Ministers principal secretary Nalini Netto, media advisor John Brittas, industrialists M A Yousuf Ali, Ravi Pillai and Varghese Kurian were present at the meeting.
(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters)

* http://tmsnrt.rs/2kvrr6j

By Andy Home

LONDON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - The copper market is facing the imminent prospect of the simultaneous closure of the world's two largest copper mines.

Strike action is due to start today at the largest, the Escondida mine in Chile.

There seems little prospect of a last-minute settlement between unions and the mine's majority owner and operator BHP Billiton. The union didn't even bother attending talks on the fifth day of statutory government mediation and the company has started shutting down operations.

In Indonesia, meanwhile, Freeport McMoRan is threatening to partly suspend operations at its Grasberg mine due to the lack of an export permit, the latest turn in the long-running stand-off between the company and the Indonesian government.

At risk is combined production of around 1.7 million tonnes, equivalent to around eight percent of global output last year.

The potential for lost production from one or both may be partly priced into the market, which is currently trading around $5,870 per tonne in London. Fund money has been steadily accumulating since copper's big upside move from below $5,000 last November.

But with copper's notoriously unpredictable supply already back in full focus this year, how well prepared is the market for significant production losses?

Because despite the much-vaunted "wall of supply" coming on stream over the last couple of years, there has been no significant rebuild of refined metal stocks on the world's exchanges.

Indeed, those registered with the London Metal Exchange (LME) are once again shrinking at a fast pace.

DOUBLE IMPACT

Escondida produced around one million tonnes of copper last year in a combination of concentrates and refined metal.

It was a relatively low production year for the world's biggest mine due to low grades. Output in both 2014 and 2015 was around 1.15 million tonnes.

Story continues

Analysts are calculating a loss of around 20,000-25,000 tonnes of metal for each week of strike action.

There were strikes at Escondida in both 2006 and 2011, lasting 25 and 15 days respectively.

It's worth noting that Chilean labour laws mitigate against long walkouts since after 30 days individual union members are allowed to return to work if they chose to, shifting negotiating leverage back to management.

That may limit both the length of a walkout and the resulting production hit.

There is no such comfort for Grasberg, which is facing multiple threats.

The most pressing is the lack of an export licence for the material not sent to the local Gresik smelter for processing. With limited storage capacity Freeport has warned it will be forced to reduce drastically production to the tune of around 32,000 tonnes per month.

A temporary export licence is dependent on ongoing talks with the Indonesian government about a new operating licence, which includes provisions for investment in additional local smelting capacity and, more controversially, the disposal by Freeport of a majority stake to Indonesian investors.

Freeport has been here before. A similar stand-off with the government in 2014 cost around 125,000 tonnes of lost output.

It has also become clear that all is not well at the mine or the existing smelter either with labour unrest, or what Grasberg has termed "productivity" issues, translating into lower mine production over the back end of last year and a walkout at the smelter this year.

So clouded has become the future of Grasberg that Rio Tinto is now openly talking about walking away from its minority investment.

Graphic on global exchange stocks of copper:

http://tmsnrt.rs/2kvrr6j

RESILIENCE?

Just how resilient is copper's supply chain to such imminent production losses?

Not as resilient as it should in theory be given all that "wall of supply" which came on line in 2014 and 2015. Excess supply, after all, was the reason copper was bombed out below $5,000 per tonne until as recently as last November.

Exchange stocks of metal haven't rebuilt in any significant way. The combined tally across the London Metal Exchange, COMEX and the Shanghai Futures Exchange (ShFE) was 565,000 tonnes at the end of last month, little changed from 508,000 tonnes a year earlier.

The relative stability of global stocks has been masked by a convoluted shuffling of metal between the LME and China last year as two trading power-houses slugged it out across the LME spreads.

For sure, there is always more "out there" than just what is sitting in exchange warehouses but it is most likely "out there" in China, which sucked in 3.63 million tonnes of refined copper last year, only marginally off the record pace of 2015.

And right now LME stocks are once again falling fast.

The headline count of 251,525 tonnes has already dropped by 60,300 tonnes, or 19 percent, since the start of January.

That, however, only tells half the story. There are currently 111,200 tonnes awaiting physical load-out from LME warehouses, representing 44 percent of the total.

The "open" tonnage that remains is the lowest it's been since early December and that despite a low seasonal period for copper usage due to the combination of Western and Chinese new year holidays.

DEFICIT NOW?

Copper's double supply trouble is coming against a backdrop of a re-tightening market with some analysts such as Goldman Sachs predicting a return to supply deficit this year.

No-one will be rushing immediately to revise their calculations. Every copper analyst now factors in a "disruption allowance" in their supply calculations, typically around 5 percent globally.

But if both Escondida and Grasberg close, even for a relatively short period of time, a large part of that allowance will already have been used up.

And that's before the potential for further disruption.

Keep an eye on the Las Bambas mine in Peru, another big operator with 330,000 tonnes of production last year. It is facing renewed protests from local residents, who have blocked access to the mine.

It too has been here before. A similar flare-up in local tensions last year stopped shipments and almost stopped the mine.

It's shaping up to be a hot year for copper production. Whether that translates into a hot year for the copper price is going to be dependent on just how much more stock is lying in statistical darkness beyond exchange warehouses.

Because that visible safety cushion is looking a lot leaner than might have been expected.

(Editing by David Evans)
By Online Desk

The past 24 hours have seen a political churning in Tamil Nadu with caretaker chief minister O Panneerselvam revolting against his party leadership and declaring that he was ready to withdraw his resignation if the party cadre and the public wished him to. AIADMK general secretary VK Sasikala, meanwhile garnered the support of a majority of MLAs and hit back at OPS saying the party remained united and that she would certainly become the chief minister of the state. In the latest development she is set to meet Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao on Thursday morning, after he arrives in Chennai, to prove that she has the support of majority of the AIADMK MLAs required for her to stake claim to the chief minister's chair.

Read all about the top 10 developments that took place in the past 24 hours.

Meditation at Marina

Caretaker Chief Minister O Panneerselvam arrived at former chief minister J Jayalalithaa's burial site on Marina beach around 9 PM and sat alone in meditation for about 50 minutes. He took everyone by surprise with his move two days after he tendered his resignation paving the way for party chief V K Sasikala's elevation to the top post. Crowds and the media gathered in anticipation.

OPS' revelations: I was forced to quit as CM

Panneerselvam then raised a banner of revolt, alleging that he had been forced to resign as Chief Minister on Sunday. He said he felt compelled to tell the truth despite acquiescing to pressure from the party MLAs who said it was in the best interested of the AIADMK for him to make way for Sasikala. Addressing the media, Panneerselvam said, "One who can protect the party and the government should become chief minister, even if it's not me...If the people and party cadre wish, I would withdraw my resignation," he said.

OPS will be expelled: Sasikala



Immediately after statements from the caretaker chief minister, AIADMK general secretary VK Sasikala late on Tuesday night held an emergency meeting with senior functionaries and several MLAs of the party. After the meeting, she said there were no problems within the party and that all the MLAs were like one family. Panneerselvam will certainly be expelled from the party. There is DMKs hand behind this, because in those four days when the Assembly was in session, both the chief minister and the opposition leader were too friendly and were complimenting each other, she alleged.

ALSO Read: Deepa Jayakumar dubs turn of events 'shocking'

Panneerselvam removed as party treasurer



The AIADMK then stripped O Panneerselvam of the post of AIADMK treasurer, which was given to him when former chief minister J Jayalalithaa was the general secretary.

AIADMK MLAs meet

The AIADMK convened a meeting of MLAs on Wednesday morning at the party headquarters in Royapettah to discuss further action.

OPS calls a press meet



O Panneerselvam, meanwhile, at his residence addressed the media and said he has always been loyal to his party, and that he was ready to withdraw his resignation. He also clarified that he was not being remote-controlled by the BJP at the Centre and expressed his desire to visit different parts of the state and meet people. He also alleged that he was not allowed to meet Jayalalithaa when she was hospitalised, and said that an inquiry commission headed by Supreme Court judge would be formed to probe into the death of the former chief minister. He also called on the late CMs niece Deepa to join hands with him.

SEE IN PIX: Who and what made the news today as TN's political war intensified

MK hits back at Sasikala's allegations

Responding to the AIADMK general secretary's allegations that he had been overly pally with Panneerselvam in the State Assembly, leader of opposition M K Stalin slammed VK Sasikala and said that even former chief minister J Jayalalithaa used to smile at him, when they met in the House. Stalin also sought a CBI probe into Panneerselvam's allegations that he was forced to resign to make way for Sasikala. He asked Sasikala to not point fingers at his party and accused her of trying to deflect attention from the problems in her party. "Unable to become Chief Minister through a short cut, she has made a fake allegation against DMK just to find a way out of the problems," he said.

Governor stays put in Mumbai



Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao who was rumoured to reach Chennai this morning has, however, stayed back in Mumbai.

Centre refuses to intervene



Calling the developments in Tamil Nadu an internal matter of the AIADMK, Home Minister Rajnath Singh told TV channel India Today that neither the Centre nor the BJP had anything to do with it. Only a Governor is constitutionally empowered to take the final decision in such matters, he clarified.



Damage control: AIADMK MLAs bussed off to secret location

After the AIADMK MLAs met at the party headquarters, general secretary VK Sasikala said she had got wind of Panneerselvam's moves a few days ago itself and asserted that the party remained united and would not be cowed down by such threats. "Betrayal will never win, especially in AIADMKAll these years, I have lived for Amma and will spend the rest of my life fulfilling her dreams," she said. By late noon on Wednesday, a majority of AIADMK MLAs were bussed off together to a hotel, presumably in preparation for a no-trust motion against caretaker chief minister O Panneerselvam. As the State Assembly had only adjourned sine die and was not prorogued, an Assembly session to vote on the motion may be called soon.

The past 24 hours have seen a political churning in Tamil Nadu with caretaker chief minister O Panneerselvam revolting against his party leadership and declaring that he was ready to withdraw his resignation if the party cadre and the public wished him to. AIADMK general secretary VK Sasikala, meanwhile garnered the support of a majority of MLAs and hit back at OPS saying the party remained united and that she would certainly become the chief minister of the state. In the latest development she is set to meet Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao on Thursday morning, after he arrives in Chennai, to prove that she has the support of majority of the AIADMK MLAs required for her to stake claim to the chief minister's chair. Read all about the top 10 developments that took place in the past 24 hours. Meditation at Marina Caretaker Chief Minister O Panneerselvam arrived at former chief minister J Jayalalithaa's burial site on Marina beach around 9 PM and sat alone in meditation for about 50 minutes. He took everyone by surprise with his move two days after he tendered his resignation paving the way for party chief V K Sasikala's elevation to the top post. Crowds and the media gathered in anticipation. OPS' revelations: I was forced to quit as CM Panneerselvam then raised a banner of revolt, alleging that he had been forced to resign as Chief Minister on Sunday. He said he felt compelled to tell the truth despite acquiescing to pressure from the party MLAs who said it was in the best interested of the AIADMK for him to make way for Sasikala. Addressing the media, Panneerselvam said, "One who can protect the party and the government should become chief minister, even if it's not me...If the people and party cadre wish, I would withdraw my resignation," he said. OPS will be expelled: Sasikala Immediately after statements from the caretaker chief minister, AIADMK general secretary VK Sasikala late on Tuesday night held an emergency meeting with senior functionaries and several MLAs of the party. After the meeting, she said there were no problems within the party and that all the MLAs were like one family. Panneerselvam will certainly be expelled from the party. There is DMKs hand behind this, because in those four days when the Assembly was in session, both the chief minister and the opposition leader were too friendly and were complimenting each other, she alleged. ALSO Read: Deepa Jayakumar dubs turn of events 'shocking' Panneerselvam removed as party treasurer The AIADMK then stripped O Panneerselvam of the post of AIADMK treasurer, which was given to him when former chief minister J Jayalalithaa was the general secretary. AIADMK MLAs meet The AIADMK convened a meeting of MLAs on Wednesday morning at the party headquarters in Royapettah to discuss further action. OPS calls a press meet O Panneerselvam, meanwhile, at his residence addressed the media and said he has always been loyal to his party, and that he was ready to withdraw his resignation. He also clarified that he was not being remote-controlled by the BJP at the Centre and expressed his desire to visit different parts of the state and meet people. He also alleged that he was not allowed to meet Jayalalithaa when she was hospitalised, and said that an inquiry commission headed by Supreme Court judge would be formed to probe into the death of the former chief minister. He also called on the late CMs niece Deepa to join hands with him. SEE IN PIX: Who and what made the news today as TN's political war intensified MK hits back at Sasikala's allegations Responding to the AIADMK general secretary's allegations that he had been overly pally with Panneerselvam in the State Assembly, leader of opposition M K Stalin slammed VK Sasikala and said that even former chief minister J Jayalalithaa used to smile at him, when they met in the House. Stalin also sought a CBI probe into Panneerselvam's allegations that he was forced to resign to make way for Sasikala. He asked Sasikala to not point fingers at his party and accused her of trying to deflect attention from the problems in her party. "Unable to become Chief Minister through a short cut, she has made a fake allegation against DMK just to find a way out of the problems," he said. Governor stays put in Mumbai Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao who was rumoured to reach Chennai this morning has, however, stayed back in Mumbai. Centre refuses to intervene Calling the developments in Tamil Nadu an internal matter of the AIADMK, Home Minister Rajnath Singh told TV channel India Today that neither the Centre nor the BJP had anything to do with it. Only a Governor is constitutionally empowered to take the final decision in such matters, he clarified. Damage control: AIADMK MLAs bussed off to secret location After the AIADMK MLAs met at the party headquarters, general secretary VK Sasikala said she had got wind of Panneerselvam's moves a few days ago itself and asserted that the party remained united and would not be cowed down by such threats. "Betrayal will never win, especially in AIADMKAll these years, I have lived for Amma and will spend the rest of my life fulfilling her dreams," she said. By late noon on Wednesday, a majority of AIADMK MLAs were bussed off together to a hotel, presumably in preparation for a no-trust motion against caretaker chief minister O Panneerselvam. As the State Assembly had only adjourned sine die and was not prorogued, an Assembly session to vote on the motion may be called soon.
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: On a day when the politically inclined across the country were closely watching the twists and turns that played out in the State, all eyes were searching for the only person who has the Constitutional powers and responsibility to intervene and defuse the crisis  Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao.

He was not in Chennai to address the crisis at hand, but was instead in Mumbai, attending a convocation on Wednesday evening. This has triggered controversies and conspiracies in equal measure, with many suspecting the involvement of the Centre-ruling BJP in the political crisis.

The absence became all the more curious, as Governor Rao was in Coimbatore on Sunday when Panneerselvam resigned and AIADMK MLAs elected VK Sasikala as the replacement. A fax was sent to the Governors summer house in Ooty where he was stationed that day for which an acknowledgement was received, revealed Sasikala in an interview. Rao was expected to be in the State on Monday to preside over the convocation of Bharatiyar University in Coimbatore.

However, all scheduled programmes were hastily cancelled and he rushed to Delhi that evening. Barring the statement on accepting Panneerselvams resignation, there has not been any word from him ever since, even after the Chief Minister rebelled against the party.

How long can the Governor delay inviting Sasikala to form the government? Citing the verdict in wealth case does not hold water. What if it is reserved for a month? If the MLAs of a party choose someone as their legislative party leader, there is no provision to act against it, a senior legislator told Express.

CHENNAI: On a day when the politically inclined across the country were closely watching the twists and turns that played out in the State, all eyes were searching for the only person who has the Constitutional powers and responsibility to intervene and defuse the crisis  Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao. He was not in Chennai to address the crisis at hand, but was instead in Mumbai, attending a convocation on Wednesday evening. This has triggered controversies and conspiracies in equal measure, with many suspecting the involvement of the Centre-ruling BJP in the political crisis. The absence became all the more curious, as Governor Rao was in Coimbatore on Sunday when Panneerselvam resigned and AIADMK MLAs elected VK Sasikala as the replacement. A fax was sent to the Governors summer house in Ooty where he was stationed that day for which an acknowledgement was received, revealed Sasikala in an interview. Rao was expected to be in the State on Monday to preside over the convocation of Bharatiyar University in Coimbatore. However, all scheduled programmes were hastily cancelled and he rushed to Delhi that evening. Barring the statement on accepting Panneerselvams resignation, there has not been any word from him ever since, even after the Chief Minister rebelled against the party. How long can the Governor delay inviting Sasikala to form the government? Citing the verdict in wealth case does not hold water. What if it is reserved for a month? If the MLAs of a party choose someone as their legislative party leader, there is no provision to act against it, a senior legislator told Express.
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: In her first ever television interview, AIADMK general secretary V K Sasikala said that she was ready to face any inquiry into the treatment and death of former chief minister J Jayalalithaa, hours after O Panneerselvam called for an inquiry commission on the issue.

Im not in the least worried about the probe. The doctors can testify as to how I took care of her at the hospital. My conscience is clear. Only I know the pain that I went through after her death, she said breaking down mid-sentence. Calling Panneerselvam a traitor, she said she was saddened by his statements.

Confident of assuming office as Chief Minister, she said, I told AIADMK cadre that I would take the party forward as guided by Amma and that we will bring back Ammas government.

Denying Panneerselvams claims of resigning under threat, Sasikala said, Panneerselvam had been speaking to me well even after resignation. I dont know why these allegations are cropping up after 48 hours.

Though she said that she did not think political factors were at play behind the Governors delay in not inviting her for swearing-in, she questioned the delay despite her having the support of the majority of MLAs and after multiple requests. I hope the Governor upholds and protects the Constitution, she added.

Suspecting the DMKs hand behind the scenes, Sasikala said that DMK had always looked at OPS not as an AIADMK member, but as one of their own. She quoted DMKs Durai Murugan as saying that Panneerselvam had his backing to continue as Chief Minister.

On the disproportionate assets case, Sasikala said that she would not comment as the case was going on.

CHENNAI: In her first ever television interview, AIADMK general secretary V K Sasikala said that she was ready to face any inquiry into the treatment and death of former chief minister J Jayalalithaa, hours after O Panneerselvam called for an inquiry commission on the issue. Im not in the least worried about the probe. The doctors can testify as to how I took care of her at the hospital. My conscience is clear. Only I know the pain that I went through after her death, she said breaking down mid-sentence. Calling Panneerselvam a traitor, she said she was saddened by his statements. Confident of assuming office as Chief Minister, she said, I told AIADMK cadre that I would take the party forward as guided by Amma and that we will bring back Ammas government. Denying Panneerselvams claims of resigning under threat, Sasikala said, Panneerselvam had been speaking to me well even after resignation. I dont know why these allegations are cropping up after 48 hours. Though she said that she did not think political factors were at play behind the Governors delay in not inviting her for swearing-in, she questioned the delay despite her having the support of the majority of MLAs and after multiple requests. I hope the Governor upholds and protects the Constitution, she added. Suspecting the DMKs hand behind the scenes, Sasikala said that DMK had always looked at OPS not as an AIADMK member, but as one of their own. She quoted DMKs Durai Murugan as saying that Panneerselvam had his backing to continue as Chief Minister. On the disproportionate assets case, Sasikala said that she would not comment as the case was going on.
C Shivakumar By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: More than a week has passed but the family of city-based sailor, who died in the United Arab Emirates after a cargo vessel sank off the coast of Hamriyah, are yet to get his mortal remains due to delay on the part of the ships owner.

The young sailor, P Anbalagan Ram Kumar (32), had joined the ship a month ago as seaman after undergoing two months training in S R Enterprises in Mumbai. On February 3, the cargo ship MV Al Mara sunk off the coast of Hamriyah due to rough weather.

He along with two other Indians died in the accident but the bodies have yet to reach the families.

Talking to Express, Mohan Mani, the uncle of Ram Kumar, said his nephews body was identified by his sisters son, working in Sharjah.

He informed the parents and relatives immediately. We then tried to reach the shipping company but there is no proper response from them.

The ship owner has failed to inform the family members and they are not forthcoming with any information, said V Manoj Joy, coordinator Sailors Helpline. It is learnt that Sailors Helpline has ticked off the Ministry of External Affairs about the delay.

CHENNAI: More than a week has passed but the family of city-based sailor, who died in the United Arab Emirates after a cargo vessel sank off the coast of Hamriyah, are yet to get his mortal remains due to delay on the part of the ships owner. The young sailor, P Anbalagan Ram Kumar (32), had joined the ship a month ago as seaman after undergoing two months training in S R Enterprises in Mumbai. On February 3, the cargo ship MV Al Mara sunk off the coast of Hamriyah due to rough weather. He along with two other Indians died in the accident but the bodies have yet to reach the families. Talking to Express, Mohan Mani, the uncle of Ram Kumar, said his nephews body was identified by his sisters son, working in Sharjah. He informed the parents and relatives immediately. We then tried to reach the shipping company but there is no proper response from them. The ship owner has failed to inform the family members and they are not forthcoming with any information, said V Manoj Joy, coordinator Sailors Helpline. It is learnt that Sailors Helpline has ticked off the Ministry of External Affairs about the delay.
By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Five districts of Telangana will reach the Open Defecation Free (ODF) status by next month, according to Ram Mohan, Director, Swachh Bharat Mission in the state.



Addressing a three-day conclave to prepare an annual roadmap to achieve ODF status and to improve Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) facilities here, Ram Mohan said, The state is making good progress to reach the sanitation target.



Five districts of Telangana will reach ODF status by next month. Telangana governments ambitious flagship programme, Mission Bhagiratha, (scheme to provide piped water supply to every household in the state) will be completed this year, he said.



The official, said, We still have to go the distance in achieving ODF status for the entire state. UNICEF is organising the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Partners Conclave with the participation of experts from state governments and development agencies from the three states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka.



The purpose of this workshop is cross-learning, sharing of best practice and preparation of an annual roadmap to achieve ODF status in districts including improving WASH facilities in institutions, a release from UNICEF said. Snapshots on Sanitation, a booklet containing a compilation of all UNICEF-supported projects in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka, was released at the conclave.

HYDERABAD: Five districts of Telangana will reach the Open Defecation Free (ODF) status by next month, according to Ram Mohan, Director, Swachh Bharat Mission in the state. Addressing a three-day conclave to prepare an annual roadmap to achieve ODF status and to improve Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) facilities here, Ram Mohan said, The state is making good progress to reach the sanitation target. Five districts of Telangana will reach ODF status by next month. Telangana governments ambitious flagship programme, Mission Bhagiratha, (scheme to provide piped water supply to every household in the state) will be completed this year, he said. The official, said, We still have to go the distance in achieving ODF status for the entire state. UNICEF is organising the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Partners Conclave with the participation of experts from state governments and development agencies from the three states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka. The purpose of this workshop is cross-learning, sharing of best practice and preparation of an annual roadmap to achieve ODF status in districts including improving WASH facilities in institutions, a release from UNICEF said. Snapshots on Sanitation, a booklet containing a compilation of all UNICEF-supported projects in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka, was released at the conclave.
By Associated Press

SKOPJE: The European Union's enlargement commissioner is visiting Macedonia to encourage the formation of a new government, with coalition negotiations dragging following December's inconclusive early election.

Johannes Hahn said Thursday there was "no time to waste" in Macedonia, which has long hoped to join the EU.

Conservative leader Nikola Gruevski failed to reach a deal last month with his ethnic Albanian coalition partner and has called for another election.

Gruevski's party won 51 seats in the 120-member parliament in December's election, and had hoped to add the ethnic Albanian DUI party's 10 seats to secure a majority.

The coalition deal failed after the conservatives rejected a DUI demand for Albanian to be recognized as a second official language. About a quarter of the country's population belongs to the ethnic Albanian minority.

SKOPJE: The European Union's enlargement commissioner is visiting Macedonia to encourage the formation of a new government, with coalition negotiations dragging following December's inconclusive early election. Johannes Hahn said Thursday there was "no time to waste" in Macedonia, which has long hoped to join the EU. Conservative leader Nikola Gruevski failed to reach a deal last month with his ethnic Albanian coalition partner and has called for another election. Gruevski's party won 51 seats in the 120-member parliament in December's election, and had hoped to add the ethnic Albanian DUI party's 10 seats to secure a majority. The coalition deal failed after the conservatives rejected a DUI demand for Albanian to be recognized as a second official language. About a quarter of the country's population belongs to the ethnic Albanian minority.
By PTI

BEIJING: Five people were injured and some old houses were damaged after an earthquake measuring 4.9 on the Richter scale hit Ludian county in China's southwestern Yunnan Province, China Earthquake Networks Centre said today.

The quake hit Ludian at 7:11 PM yesterday at a depth of 10 km, according to CENC. All the injured have been rushed to hospital for treatment. Residents living near the epicenter said the tremor was "quite strong," state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

A section of the road to Longtoushan township has been closed due to falling rocks. A magnitude 6.5 earthquake hit Ludian in 2014, killing 617 people and leaving tens of thousands of houses collapsed or severely damaged.

BEIJING: Five people were injured and some old houses were damaged after an earthquake measuring 4.9 on the Richter scale hit Ludian county in China's southwestern Yunnan Province, China Earthquake Networks Centre said today. The quake hit Ludian at 7:11 PM yesterday at a depth of 10 km, according to CENC. All the injured have been rushed to hospital for treatment. Residents living near the epicenter said the tremor was "quite strong," state-run Xinhua news agency reported. A section of the road to Longtoushan township has been closed due to falling rocks. A magnitude 6.5 earthquake hit Ludian in 2014, killing 617 people and leaving tens of thousands of houses collapsed or severely damaged.
By AFP

PARIS: Lawyers for French presidential candidate Francois Fillon on Thursday called on prosecutors to drop their probe into payments made to his wife for a suspected fake job, calling it "illegal".

The lawyers said the two-week-old probe into the payments to Penelope Fillon, who was hired by her husband as a parliamentary aide, was "invalid" and "completely tramples democratic principles".

The investigation dealt a "serious blow to the principle of the separation of powers" between the judiciary and the legislature, lawyer Antonin Levy told a press conference.

Levy and fellow lawyer Pierre Cornut-Gentille argued that Fillon enjoyed discretion in the use of funds available to him as an MP and that the probe into misuse of public money was therefore "totally inapplicable".

"The absence of such an offence makes the financial prosecutor's office incompetent to investigate and the investigation is therefore illegal," Levy said.

He also criticised constant leaks about the investigation to the media which he said were damaging to his client and likely to have an impact on the two-stage presidential election in April and May.

"The financial prosector's office has a responsiblity. It's important that voters don't have their election stolen in April," Levy added.

Fillon's presidential bid has been thrown into turmoil by the revelations that his wife was paid hundreds of thousands of euros over 15 years for a role she is suspected of not having fulfilled.

The conservative former prime minister, who had been leading the race before the story broke, has denied any wrongdoing.

PARIS: Lawyers for French presidential candidate Francois Fillon on Thursday called on prosecutors to drop their probe into payments made to his wife for a suspected fake job, calling it "illegal". The lawyers said the two-week-old probe into the payments to Penelope Fillon, who was hired by her husband as a parliamentary aide, was "invalid" and "completely tramples democratic principles". The investigation dealt a "serious blow to the principle of the separation of powers" between the judiciary and the legislature, lawyer Antonin Levy told a press conference. Levy and fellow lawyer Pierre Cornut-Gentille argued that Fillon enjoyed discretion in the use of funds available to him as an MP and that the probe into misuse of public money was therefore "totally inapplicable". "The absence of such an offence makes the financial prosecutor's office incompetent to investigate and the investigation is therefore illegal," Levy said. He also criticised constant leaks about the investigation to the media which he said were damaging to his client and likely to have an impact on the two-stage presidential election in April and May. "The financial prosector's office has a responsiblity. It's important that voters don't have their election stolen in April," Levy added. Fillon's presidential bid has been thrown into turmoil by the revelations that his wife was paid hundreds of thousands of euros over 15 years for a role she is suspected of not having fulfilled. The conservative former prime minister, who had been leading the race before the story broke, has denied any wrongdoing.
By AFP

GAZA CITY: The Islamic State group said Thursday that it fired rockets at the Israeli resort of Eilat from the Sinai Peninsula in a rare attack on the Jewish state from Egyptian territory.

The Israeli army said there were no casualties from Wednesday evening's rocket fire -- three of the rockets were intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome air defence system and a fourth fell short of the town.

A few hours later, two Palestinians were killed elsewhere in the Sinai. The Islamist Hamas movement which rules Gaza said it was an Israeli air strike. The Israeli army denied carrying out any such action.

"Thanks to God alone, a military platoon fired several Grad rockets yesterday" towards Eilat, the jihadists' Egyptian affiliate said in a statement circulated on social media.

It was the first time since 2015 that rockets had been fired at Israel from Egypt, said Ely Karmon, senior research scholar at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism.

Egypt is one of just two Arab countries that have signed a peace treaty with the Jewish state.

IS has been waging a deadly insurgency against Egyptian security forces in the Sinai but it has rarely attempted attacks against Israel.

A few hours after the rocket attack, two Palestinians died elsewhere in the Sinai near the border with Gaza.

Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs territory, said the two men were hit by an Israeli air strike just inside Egypt.

Israeli army spokesman Peter Lerner denied any involvement in the strike. There was no comment from the Egyptian government.

The vast Sinai Peninsula borders both Israel and Gaza, although more than 200 kilometres (125 miles) separates Eilat from the site of the alleged Israeli strike.

Israel and Egypt have long accused Hamas of providing support to IS in Sinai.

"If indeed the attack on the tunnel was done by Israel then clearly Israel thinks that Hamas has some input in (the rocket attack)," Karmon said.

"Perhaps there is an evaluation that some of these jihadists came from, or weapons were received from, Hamas."

- Smuggling tunnel -

Israel provides intelligence support to Egyptian security forces fighting IS but tries to avoid any public involvement, he added.

The spokesman of Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry, Ashraf al-Qudra, named the two men killed as Hossam al-Sufi, 24, and Mohammed al-Aqra, 38.

Qudra said five others were wounded in what he called an Israeli strike.

A Hamas security source said the men were working in a tunnel used to smuggle goods between Gaza and Egypt when the Egyptian entrance was hit.

In the past, a labyrinth of smuggling tunnels linked the Sinai with Gaza.

But since the 2013 overthrow of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi, Egyptian authorities have moved to destroy them and have set up a wide no-go zone on the Gaza border.

Under the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, there are restrictions on military deployments on the Sinai border monitored by international peacekeepers.

But since the jihadists launched their deadly insurgency in the wake of Morsi's ouster, Egypt has poured troops and police into the peninsula with the blessing of Israel and Western governments.

Hundreds of Egyptian security personnel have been killed, particularly in the north Sinai near the Gaza border.

There have been periodic attacks into Israel.

In 2011, assailants who came from the Sinai killed eight Israelis in a triple ambush north of Eilat. Pursuing Israeli forces killed seven attackers and five Egyptian police.

In 2013, four jihadists were killed by an Egyptian air strike as they were about to fire a rocket at Israel, according to the Egyptian military.

In 2014, two Israeli soldiers on patrol were wounded by unidentified men who fired an anti-tank weapon from the Sinai during an attempted drug-smuggling operation, according to the Israeli military.

And in 2015, rockets fired from the Sinai hit southern Israel without causing any casualties. IS claimed responsibility.

GAZA CITY: The Islamic State group said Thursday that it fired rockets at the Israeli resort of Eilat from the Sinai Peninsula in a rare attack on the Jewish state from Egyptian territory. The Israeli army said there were no casualties from Wednesday evening's rocket fire -- three of the rockets were intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome air defence system and a fourth fell short of the town. A few hours later, two Palestinians were killed elsewhere in the Sinai. The Islamist Hamas movement which rules Gaza said it was an Israeli air strike. The Israeli army denied carrying out any such action. "Thanks to God alone, a military platoon fired several Grad rockets yesterday" towards Eilat, the jihadists' Egyptian affiliate said in a statement circulated on social media. It was the first time since 2015 that rockets had been fired at Israel from Egypt, said Ely Karmon, senior research scholar at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism. Egypt is one of just two Arab countries that have signed a peace treaty with the Jewish state. IS has been waging a deadly insurgency against Egyptian security forces in the Sinai but it has rarely attempted attacks against Israel. A few hours after the rocket attack, two Palestinians died elsewhere in the Sinai near the border with Gaza. Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs territory, said the two men were hit by an Israeli air strike just inside Egypt. Israeli army spokesman Peter Lerner denied any involvement in the strike. There was no comment from the Egyptian government. The vast Sinai Peninsula borders both Israel and Gaza, although more than 200 kilometres (125 miles) separates Eilat from the site of the alleged Israeli strike. Israel and Egypt have long accused Hamas of providing support to IS in Sinai. "If indeed the attack on the tunnel was done by Israel then clearly Israel thinks that Hamas has some input in (the rocket attack)," Karmon said. "Perhaps there is an evaluation that some of these jihadists came from, or weapons were received from, Hamas." - Smuggling tunnel - Israel provides intelligence support to Egyptian security forces fighting IS but tries to avoid any public involvement, he added. The spokesman of Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry, Ashraf al-Qudra, named the two men killed as Hossam al-Sufi, 24, and Mohammed al-Aqra, 38. Qudra said five others were wounded in what he called an Israeli strike. A Hamas security source said the men were working in a tunnel used to smuggle goods between Gaza and Egypt when the Egyptian entrance was hit. In the past, a labyrinth of smuggling tunnels linked the Sinai with Gaza. But since the 2013 overthrow of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi, Egyptian authorities have moved to destroy them and have set up a wide no-go zone on the Gaza border. Under the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, there are restrictions on military deployments on the Sinai border monitored by international peacekeepers. But since the jihadists launched their deadly insurgency in the wake of Morsi's ouster, Egypt has poured troops and police into the peninsula with the blessing of Israel and Western governments. Hundreds of Egyptian security personnel have been killed, particularly in the north Sinai near the Gaza border. There have been periodic attacks into Israel. In 2011, assailants who came from the Sinai killed eight Israelis in a triple ambush north of Eilat. Pursuing Israeli forces killed seven attackers and five Egyptian police. In 2013, four jihadists were killed by an Egyptian air strike as they were about to fire a rocket at Israel, according to the Egyptian military. In 2014, two Israeli soldiers on patrol were wounded by unidentified men who fired an anti-tank weapon from the Sinai during an attempted drug-smuggling operation, according to the Israeli military. And in 2015, rockets fired from the Sinai hit southern Israel without causing any casualties. IS claimed responsibility.
By AFP

NAIROBI: Kenya's High Court today declared as "null and void" the government's decision to close the Dadaab refugee camp -- the world's largest -- and to send Somali refugees home.

"The government decision specifically targetting Somali refugees is an act of group persecution, illegal, discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional," Judge John Mativo ruled.

The shutdown was ordered without proper consultation of people affected, in violation of the constitutional right to fair legal proceedings, Mativo said in his ruling. "Hence the said decision is null and void," he said, adding that sending refugees home would be in breach of Kenya's obligations under international law.

The government can appeal the decision. Dadaab is home to some 256,000 people, the vast majority of them Somalis who fled across the border following the outbreak of civil war in 1991. Authorities initially planned to close Dadaab at the end of November, but delayed the shutdown until May 2017 at the request of the UN refugee agency and against a backdrop of growing accusations of forced refugee returns to Somalia.

The High Court ruling also blocks the government's decision to disband the Department for Refugee Affairs.

The case had been filed by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights and rights group Kituo Cha Sheria, which had both questioned the legality of the decision to close the camp and send refugees home.

The government caught refugees, aid groups, the UN and Kenya's Western partners offguard last May when it announced plans to shut down the huge camp near the border, citing security concerns.

Since sending troops into neighbouring Somalia in 2011, Kenya has come under repeated attack from Shabaab, East Africa's long-time branch of Al-Qaeda.

It has presented Dadaab a security risk, saying Somali Islamists inside the camp planned the Shabaab attacks at Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall in 2013 and the Garissa university attack in 2015, though it has not provided evidence.

NAIROBI: Kenya's High Court today declared as "null and void" the government's decision to close the Dadaab refugee camp -- the world's largest -- and to send Somali refugees home. "The government decision specifically targetting Somali refugees is an act of group persecution, illegal, discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional," Judge John Mativo ruled. The shutdown was ordered without proper consultation of people affected, in violation of the constitutional right to fair legal proceedings, Mativo said in his ruling. "Hence the said decision is null and void," he said, adding that sending refugees home would be in breach of Kenya's obligations under international law. The government can appeal the decision. Dadaab is home to some 256,000 people, the vast majority of them Somalis who fled across the border following the outbreak of civil war in 1991. Authorities initially planned to close Dadaab at the end of November, but delayed the shutdown until May 2017 at the request of the UN refugee agency and against a backdrop of growing accusations of forced refugee returns to Somalia. The High Court ruling also blocks the government's decision to disband the Department for Refugee Affairs. The case had been filed by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights and rights group Kituo Cha Sheria, which had both questioned the legality of the decision to close the camp and send refugees home. The government caught refugees, aid groups, the UN and Kenya's Western partners offguard last May when it announced plans to shut down the huge camp near the border, citing security concerns. Since sending troops into neighbouring Somalia in 2011, Kenya has come under repeated attack from Shabaab, East Africa's long-time branch of Al-Qaeda. It has presented Dadaab a security risk, saying Somali Islamists inside the camp planned the Shabaab attacks at Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall in 2013 and the Garissa university attack in 2015, though it has not provided evidence.
Rattlesnake Hills Property Divestment is now complete

VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / February 9, 2017 / Endurance Gold Corporation (EDG.V) ("Endurance" or the "Company") is pleased to provide an update with respect to the Company's shareholding investment in GFG Resources Inc. (TSX-V:GFG) ("GFG"). GFG owns, subject to underlying royalties, an undivided 100% interest in the Rattlesnake Gold exploration district comprised of unpatented lode mining claims and state fee land leases totaling 33,500 acres in the Rattlesnake Hills District, Natrona County, Wyoming, located approximately 100 kilometres southwest of Casper in central Wyoming, USA.

As announced October 13 2015, the Company's Rattlesnake Hills property was sold to GFG through the payment of US$150,000 in cash and the issuance of 1,400,000 GFG shares to Endurance (850,000 GFG shares were issued on closing and the balance of 550,000 GFG shares were subject to issuance on or before February 7, 2017). The second tranche of 550,000 shares has now been received.

Endurance retains a 2% net smelter returns royalty on Endurance's former federal mining claims (6,997 acres). GFG can purchase one half of the Endurance Royalty on or prior to December 31, 2017 for a cash payment of US$750,000, and thereafter, at any time, for a cash payment of US$1,500,000. Additional bonus share payments totaling 750,000 GFG shares are payable under certain circumstances related to any discovery on Endurance's former property.

About Endurance

Endurance Gold Corporation is a company focused on the acquisition, exploration and development of highly prospective North American mineral properties with the potential to develop world-class deposits. The Company's exploration focus, for projects operated by Endurance, is intrusive-related mineral systems with potential for discovery of major new precious or rare metals deposits, and its business plan offers shareholders exposure to several majority-owned exploration projects with significant discovery potential such as the Elephant Mountain Gold Property in Alaska and the Bandito Rare Earth-Niobium Property in the Yukon. The company also owns a significant shareholding in Inventus Mining Inc.(IVS-TSXV) which controls the entire Pardo paleoplacer gold district near Sudbury, Ontario and GFG Resources Inc (GFG-TSXV) which controls the entire Rattlesnake Hills gold district, Wyoming. Please visit www.endurancegold.com.

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ENDURANCE GOLD CORPORATION

Robert T. Boyd

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT

(604) 682-2707, info@endurancegold.com

www.endurancegold.com

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. This news release may contain forward looking statements based on assumptions and judgments of management regarding future events or results that may prove to be inaccurate as a result of factors beyond its control, and actual results may differ materially from the expected results.

SOURCE: Endurance Gold Corporation
By ANI

ISLAMABAD: Pakistans Supreme Court on Thursday halted crushing operations at three sugar mills owned by the family of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Hearing a case related to the shifting of these mills from north to south Punjab, a three-judge apex court bench headed by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar ordered the temporary halt of crushing operations of the Ittefaq, Chaudhry and Haseeb sugar mills, reports the Dawn.

Lawyers representing the JDW Sugar Mills Ltd told the bench that the shifting of the sugar mills is an illegal move as per a 2006 Punjab government notification that not only banned the creation of new mills, but also the shifting of their locations.

Defence counsel Salman Akram Raja argued that a 2015 amendment in the 2006 notification, overseen by the Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, made provisions for the shifting of sugar mills from one point to another, although the creation of new mills remains illegal.

As the court ordered a halt in the mills' crushing operations, the defence counsel contended that such a move would render thousands of employees jobless and the mills would lose Rs.380 million in revenue.



ISLAMABAD: Pakistans Supreme Court on Thursday halted crushing operations at three sugar mills owned by the family of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Hearing a case related to the shifting of these mills from north to south Punjab, a three-judge apex court bench headed by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar ordered the temporary halt of crushing operations of the Ittefaq, Chaudhry and Haseeb sugar mills, reports the Dawn. Lawyers representing the JDW Sugar Mills Ltd told the bench that the shifting of the sugar mills is an illegal move as per a 2006 Punjab government notification that not only banned the creation of new mills, but also the shifting of their locations. Defence counsel Salman Akram Raja argued that a 2015 amendment in the 2006 notification, overseen by the Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, made provisions for the shifting of sugar mills from one point to another, although the creation of new mills remains illegal. As the court ordered a halt in the mills' crushing operations, the defence counsel contended that such a move would render thousands of employees jobless and the mills would lose Rs.380 million in revenue.
By Associated Press

JERUSALEM: A Palestinian opened fire and stabbed shoppers with a screwdriver near a busy open air market in central Israel on Thursday wounding at least six people, police said.

Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said police confirmed it was a "terror attack" and the 18-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank was arrested soon after at the scene in Petah Tikva.

Channel 10 TV reported that shoppers at the market buying groceries ahead of the Jewish Sabbath overwhelmed the attacker with their bare hands.

Israel's ambulance service said a man and a woman in their 50s and a woman in her 30s were treated for bullet wounds to their lower bodies. A 40-year-old man was stabbed in his upper body, it said.

At least six people were injured, said police spokesman Ami Ben David.

Since 2015, Palestinian attackers have carried out numerous stabbings, shootings and assaults using cars, killing 41 Israelis and two visiting Americans. During the same period, Israeli forces have killed 235 Palestinians. Israel says most of the Palestinians killed were attackers while others died in clashes with Israeli forces.

Israel says the bloodshed is fueled by a Palestinian campaign of incitement, compounded by social media sites glorifying attackers and encouraging violence. Palestinians say it stems from frustration over decades of Israeli rule in territory they claim for a state.

Earlier on Thursday, an explosion killed two Palestinians along the Gaza border with Egypt in what appeared to be a strike on cross-border smuggling tunnels.

Palestinian officials said the blast was caused by an Israeli airstrike, but the Israeli military denied any involvement. Residents said the explosion was on the Egyptian side of the border, raising the possibility of an Egyptian strike.

Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Kidra said the pre-dawn explosion killed two men and wounded five others. Palestinian civil defense workers recovered the bodies and the wounded and transferred them to hospitals in the southern Gaza Strip.

Mohammed Zorob, who lives in the border town of Rafah, said the blast took place on the Egyptian side.

Hamas has been working to improve relations with Cairo in recent months, and recently announced the deployment of additional forces along the border. The Islamic militant group ruling Gaza says the border is more secure and that underground smuggling has ceased.

The Israeli military, which has not struck the Gaza tunnels since the 2014 war, denied it was involved in the blast.

On Wednesday, the military said its missile defense system intercepted several rockets fired by militants in Egypt toward the southern Israeli city of Eilat  a relatively rare occurrence. Islamic State militants in the Sinai Peninsula claimed responsibility for the rocket attack.

Earlier this week, Israel carried out several strikes on Hamas targets after a rocket landed in Israel. Israel holds Hamas responsible for any fire originating from Gaza.

Relatives of Palestinian Muhammed al-Aqraa, who was killed in an explosion in a smuggling tunnel at the border between Gaza and Egypt, mourn at his family house during his funeral, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. (Photo | AP)

JERUSALEM: A Palestinian opened fire and stabbed shoppers with a screwdriver near a busy open air market in central Israel on Thursday wounding at least six people, police said. Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said police confirmed it was a "terror attack" and the 18-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank was arrested soon after at the scene in Petah Tikva. Channel 10 TV reported that shoppers at the market buying groceries ahead of the Jewish Sabbath overwhelmed the attacker with their bare hands. Israel's ambulance service said a man and a woman in their 50s and a woman in her 30s were treated for bullet wounds to their lower bodies. A 40-year-old man was stabbed in his upper body, it said. At least six people were injured, said police spokesman Ami Ben David. Since 2015, Palestinian attackers have carried out numerous stabbings, shootings and assaults using cars, killing 41 Israelis and two visiting Americans. During the same period, Israeli forces have killed 235 Palestinians. Israel says most of the Palestinians killed were attackers while others died in clashes with Israeli forces. Israel says the bloodshed is fueled by a Palestinian campaign of incitement, compounded by social media sites glorifying attackers and encouraging violence. Palestinians say it stems from frustration over decades of Israeli rule in territory they claim for a state. Earlier on Thursday, an explosion killed two Palestinians along the Gaza border with Egypt in what appeared to be a strike on cross-border smuggling tunnels. Palestinian officials said the blast was caused by an Israeli airstrike, but the Israeli military denied any involvement. Residents said the explosion was on the Egyptian side of the border, raising the possibility of an Egyptian strike. Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Kidra said the pre-dawn explosion killed two men and wounded five others. Palestinian civil defense workers recovered the bodies and the wounded and transferred them to hospitals in the southern Gaza Strip. Mohammed Zorob, who lives in the border town of Rafah, said the blast took place on the Egyptian side. Hamas has been working to improve relations with Cairo in recent months, and recently announced the deployment of additional forces along the border. The Islamic militant group ruling Gaza says the border is more secure and that underground smuggling has ceased. The Israeli military, which has not struck the Gaza tunnels since the 2014 war, denied it was involved in the blast. On Wednesday, the military said its missile defense system intercepted several rockets fired by militants in Egypt toward the southern Israeli city of Eilat  a relatively rare occurrence. Islamic State militants in the Sinai Peninsula claimed responsibility for the rocket attack. Earlier this week, Israel carried out several strikes on Hamas targets after a rocket landed in Israel. Israel holds Hamas responsible for any fire originating from Gaza. Relatives of Palestinian Muhammed al-Aqraa, who was killed in an explosion in a smuggling tunnel at the border between Gaza and Egypt, mourn at his family house during his funeral, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017. (Photo | AP)
By Associated Press

CANBERRA: U.S. officials stopped screening refugees for potential resettlement in the United States this week but will return to the Pacific atoll of Nauru to continue working toward a deal that President Donald Trump has condemned as "dumb," an Australian minister said Thursday.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton would not say when U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials would return to Nauru to conduct what Trump describes as "extreme vetting."

Trump made enhanced screening a condition for agreeing to honor an Obama administration deal to accept up to 1,250 refugees refused entry into Australia. Australia pays Nauru and Papua New Guinea to keep more than 2,000 asylum seekers  mostly from Iran, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka  in conditions condemned by rights groups.

The process of "extreme vetting" has yet to be explained.

U.S. officials were sent to Nauru within days of the deal's announcement in November after the U.S. presidential election. But they left this week with arrangements under a cloud.

"I don't have any comment to make in relation to when U.S. officials will be on Nauru next," Dutton told reporters. "There have been officials there who have left ... in the last couple of days and we would expect other officials to be there in due course."

Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul said most of refugees on Nauru who had been accepted by the United States as candidates for resettlement had initial interviews with U.S. officials in what they had been told was a two-step process.

But there have been no second interviews so far, Rintoul said.

Australia has determined that there are 1,600 genuine refugees among 2,077 asylum seekers on Papua New Guinea and Nauru. There could also be refugees among the 370 asylum seekers who came to Australia for medical treatment then took court action to prevent their return to the island camps.

As of last week, Nauru held 1,132 asylum seekers including women and children. The Manus facility in Papua New Guinea housed 818 men with another 127 male asylum seekers living elsewhere in Papua New Guinea.

Australia has said the "most vulnerable" refugees on Nauru would be given priority for U.S. resettlement.

After committing to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull that he would honor the agreement, Trump tweeted that it was a "dumb deal."

Asked last week whether the deal would continue, Trump said: "We'll see what happens."

Papua New Guinea was on Thursday accused of breaching the rights of 60 asylum seekers who have been told they are about to be deported.

The 60 have had their refugee claims rejected and one has already been removed from the men-only Manus facility, said Ben Lomai, a lawyer representing them.

Most of those targeted for deportation were from Iran, with others from Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Bangladesh.

One asylum seeker from Nepal was put on a commercial flight Wednesday night and told he was being returned to his home country, Lomai said.

Lomai was preparing an application for the court in Papua New Guinea on Thursday asking that the deportations be halted. The asylum seekers already have separate court applications pending asking that they be resettled in Australia, and Lomai said it would be unjust to deport them before those matters were heard.

Australian Attorney-General George Brandis defended Papua New Guinea's legal right to deport the men, saying their refugee claims have been investigated and rejected.

The Papua New Guinea government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

CANBERRA: U.S. officials stopped screening refugees for potential resettlement in the United States this week but will return to the Pacific atoll of Nauru to continue working toward a deal that President Donald Trump has condemned as "dumb," an Australian minister said Thursday. Immigration Minister Peter Dutton would not say when U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials would return to Nauru to conduct what Trump describes as "extreme vetting." Trump made enhanced screening a condition for agreeing to honor an Obama administration deal to accept up to 1,250 refugees refused entry into Australia. Australia pays Nauru and Papua New Guinea to keep more than 2,000 asylum seekers  mostly from Iran, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka  in conditions condemned by rights groups. The process of "extreme vetting" has yet to be explained. U.S. officials were sent to Nauru within days of the deal's announcement in November after the U.S. presidential election. But they left this week with arrangements under a cloud. "I don't have any comment to make in relation to when U.S. officials will be on Nauru next," Dutton told reporters. "There have been officials there who have left ... in the last couple of days and we would expect other officials to be there in due course." Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul said most of refugees on Nauru who had been accepted by the United States as candidates for resettlement had initial interviews with U.S. officials in what they had been told was a two-step process. But there have been no second interviews so far, Rintoul said. Australia has determined that there are 1,600 genuine refugees among 2,077 asylum seekers on Papua New Guinea and Nauru. There could also be refugees among the 370 asylum seekers who came to Australia for medical treatment then took court action to prevent their return to the island camps. As of last week, Nauru held 1,132 asylum seekers including women and children. The Manus facility in Papua New Guinea housed 818 men with another 127 male asylum seekers living elsewhere in Papua New Guinea. Australia has said the "most vulnerable" refugees on Nauru would be given priority for U.S. resettlement. After committing to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull that he would honor the agreement, Trump tweeted that it was a "dumb deal." Asked last week whether the deal would continue, Trump said: "We'll see what happens." Papua New Guinea was on Thursday accused of breaching the rights of 60 asylum seekers who have been told they are about to be deported. The 60 have had their refugee claims rejected and one has already been removed from the men-only Manus facility, said Ben Lomai, a lawyer representing them. Most of those targeted for deportation were from Iran, with others from Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Bangladesh. One asylum seeker from Nepal was put on a commercial flight Wednesday night and told he was being returned to his home country, Lomai said. Lomai was preparing an application for the court in Papua New Guinea on Thursday asking that the deportations be halted. The asylum seekers already have separate court applications pending asking that they be resettled in Australia, and Lomai said it would be unjust to deport them before those matters were heard. Australian Attorney-General George Brandis defended Papua New Guinea's legal right to deport the men, saying their refugee claims have been investigated and rejected. The Papua New Guinea government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
By PTI

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has told his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in a letter that he looks forward to developing a "constructive relationship" that benefits both countries, days after his remarks questioning the decades-old 'One China' policy riled Beijing.

Trump wrote the letter to President Xi who had written a congratulatory letter to him after he was sworn in as US President on January 20. "President Donald J Trump today provided a letter to President Xi Jinping of China, thanking President Xi for his congratulatory letter on the occasion of President Trump's inauguration and wishing the Chinese people a happy Lantern Festival and prosperous Year of the Rooster," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said.

"President Trump stated that he looks forward to working with President Xi to develop a constructive relationship that benefits both the United States and China," Spicer said in a statement. After becoming the US President, Trump has spoken with nearly two dozen world leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi. British Prime Minister Theresa May was the first world leader to have met him in the Oval Office.

Later this week, Trump would be hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the White House. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also scheduled to meet him at the White House. Trump, after his election, had stated that the 'One-China' policy on Taiwan is up for negotiation and that he is not fully committed to it.

China had hit back saying one-China policy which stipulates that Taiwan is part of Chinese mainland is "non-negotiable". China regards Taiwan as a breakaway province and insist all countries having bilateral ties with it to abide by the 'One-China' policy.

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has told his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in a letter that he looks forward to developing a "constructive relationship" that benefits both countries, days after his remarks questioning the decades-old 'One China' policy riled Beijing. Trump wrote the letter to President Xi who had written a congratulatory letter to him after he was sworn in as US President on January 20. "President Donald J Trump today provided a letter to President Xi Jinping of China, thanking President Xi for his congratulatory letter on the occasion of President Trump's inauguration and wishing the Chinese people a happy Lantern Festival and prosperous Year of the Rooster," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said. "President Trump stated that he looks forward to working with President Xi to develop a constructive relationship that benefits both the United States and China," Spicer said in a statement. After becoming the US President, Trump has spoken with nearly two dozen world leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi. British Prime Minister Theresa May was the first world leader to have met him in the Oval Office. Later this week, Trump would be hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the White House. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also scheduled to meet him at the White House. Trump, after his election, had stated that the 'One-China' policy on Taiwan is up for negotiation and that he is not fully committed to it. China had hit back saying one-China policy which stipulates that Taiwan is part of Chinese mainland is "non-negotiable". China regards Taiwan as a breakaway province and insist all countries having bilateral ties with it to abide by the 'One-China' policy.
By AFP

WASHINGTON: "Go buy Ivanka's stuff," a top White House adviser urged American shoppers on Thursday, a day after President Donald Trump sharply criticized a department store for dropping his daughter's clothing line.

"I hate shopping," Kellyanne Conway told the Fox network in a televised interview, with the White House seal clearly visible over her left shoulder. But "I'm going to go get some myself today."

"This is just a wonderful line," she added. "I own some of it. I fully -- I'm going to give a free commercial here. Go buy it today, everybody. You can find it online."

To Washington traditionalists, Conway's direct pitch from the White House for a product line sold by the president's child seemed a jaw-dropping use of presidential prestige.

But she was clearly channeling the anger expressed a day earlier by the president himself, when he tweeted that Ivanka had been "treated so unfairly" by Nordstrom, the upscale department store chain that dropped her line. "Terrible," he added.

The message from the White House again fanned debate over the unprecedented level to which the new president -- despite his protestations to the contrary -- has mixed politics, business and family, raising questions about conflicts of interest.

After Trump's tweet, shares in Nordstrom briefly dropped but soon began to rise. Toward midday on Thursday, the company's stock was trading up nearly 7 percent over its closing price from two days earlier.

Since his election in November, Trump has targeted a series of American multinationals by name (General Motors, Ford, Boeing, Lockheed and others) for moving production overseas or for allegedly overcharging the government.

But this was the first time he had complained directly about the business interests of one of his adult children. The tweet appeared both in Trump's personal feed and on that of the official presidential Twitter account, @POTUS.

The Nordstrom group, with 350 stores in the United States and Canada, has repeatedly denied any political motive to its dropping of Ivanka Trump's clothing line, saying it was motivated purely by "performance" considerations. Sales had fallen, particularly in last year's second half.

But products carrying a Trump brand, including Ivanka's, have been boycotted by critics of the new president, leading to his complaint of a political motivation behind Nordstrom's move.

TJX Companies, which operates the clothing store chains TJ Maxx and Marshalls, told AFP on Thursday it had instructed store employees no longer to display Ivanka Trump products separately.

"The communication we sent to TJ Maxx and Marshalls in the US instructed stores to mix this line of merchandise into our racks, not to remove it from the sales floor," a spokesperson told AFP, confirming an earlier report in The New York Times.

WASHINGTON: "Go buy Ivanka's stuff," a top White House adviser urged American shoppers on Thursday, a day after President Donald Trump sharply criticized a department store for dropping his daughter's clothing line. "I hate shopping," Kellyanne Conway told the Fox network in a televised interview, with the White House seal clearly visible over her left shoulder. But "I'm going to go get some myself today." "This is just a wonderful line," she added. "I own some of it. I fully -- I'm going to give a free commercial here. Go buy it today, everybody. You can find it online." To Washington traditionalists, Conway's direct pitch from the White House for a product line sold by the president's child seemed a jaw-dropping use of presidential prestige. But she was clearly channeling the anger expressed a day earlier by the president himself, when he tweeted that Ivanka had been "treated so unfairly" by Nordstrom, the upscale department store chain that dropped her line. "Terrible," he added. The message from the White House again fanned debate over the unprecedented level to which the new president -- despite his protestations to the contrary -- has mixed politics, business and family, raising questions about conflicts of interest. After Trump's tweet, shares in Nordstrom briefly dropped but soon began to rise. Toward midday on Thursday, the company's stock was trading up nearly 7 percent over its closing price from two days earlier. Since his election in November, Trump has targeted a series of American multinationals by name (General Motors, Ford, Boeing, Lockheed and others) for moving production overseas or for allegedly overcharging the government. But this was the first time he had complained directly about the business interests of one of his adult children. The tweet appeared both in Trump's personal feed and on that of the official presidential Twitter account, @POTUS. The Nordstrom group, with 350 stores in the United States and Canada, has repeatedly denied any political motive to its dropping of Ivanka Trump's clothing line, saying it was motivated purely by "performance" considerations. Sales had fallen, particularly in last year's second half. But products carrying a Trump brand, including Ivanka's, have been boycotted by critics of the new president, leading to his complaint of a political motivation behind Nordstrom's move. TJX Companies, which operates the clothing store chains TJ Maxx and Marshalls, told AFP on Thursday it had instructed store employees no longer to display Ivanka Trump products separately. "The communication we sent to TJ Maxx and Marshalls in the US instructed stores to mix this line of merchandise into our racks, not to remove it from the sales floor," a spokesperson told AFP, confirming an earlier report in The New York Times.
Norwegian Air Boeing 787-9

On Thursday, President Donald Trump met with leaders from the airline industry, and it's possible that one of the topics discussed was the controversial arrival of Norwegian Air International.

In December, the US Department of Transportation finalized its decision to grant NAI approval to operate flights into the US.

"This case is among the most novel and complex ever undertaken by the department," the DOT said in its final ruling on the matter. "Regardless of our appreciation of the public policy arguments raised by opponents, we have been advised that the law and our bilateral obligations leave us no avenue to reject this application."

Many in the US airline industry, especially the unions that represent pilots and flight attendants, would like to see the Trump administration overturn the decision. But it's unclear what action, if any, the Trump administration would take against Norwegian.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer indicated on Tuesday that the deal with Norwegian involves the hiring of large numbers of US-based pilots and cabin crew. Spicer also said that as a major customer for Boeing airplanes, Norwegian has significant economic interests in the US.

"We are a big Boeing customer, so I think we do exactly what Trump would like everybody to do," Norwegian Air CEO Bjoern Kjos told Reuters on Wednesday. "Trump wants American jobs. We provide American jobs."

Norwegian currently operates about 120 Boeing 737 and 787 airliners, with another 120 or so Boeing jets on order.

NAI is one of several subsidiaries operating under the Norwegian banner. Unlike the rest of Norwegian, NAI is based in Dublin, instead of in Norway. Critics say this allows NAI to take advantage of Ireland's employment laws, which are significantly less stringent than Norway's. As a result, they say, NAI could hire pilots and cabin crew members from Asia at lower wages to fly transatlantic routes.

The airline operates flights into the US using its Norway-registered Norwegian Long Haul subsidiary with Europe-based pilots and crew.

Story continues

Norwegian Air Boeing 787

In a December statement, Edward Wytkind, president of the AFL-CIO's Transportation Trades Department, wrote:

"Today's decision betrays America's aviation workers by granting a rogue, flag-of-convenience airline a permit to serve the United States. Unless reversed, this decision threatens a generation of US airline jobs and tells foreign airlines that scour the globe for cheap labor and lax employment laws that America is open for business. Clearly, a Norwegian-owned airline that is based in Ireland for the purpose of evading Norway's labor and tax laws, and that will hire crews under Asian contracts, is in violation of these explicit labor protections and should be denied entry into our marketplace."

The Air Line Pilots Association, a union that represents 54,000 US and Canadian pilots, echoed the AFL-CIO's aggravation.

"We are extremely disappointed by the Department of Transportation's decision to run roughshod over the US Open Skies agreement and allow Norwegian Air International to fly to and from the United States," ALPA President Tim Canoll said in a statement. "This decision is an affront to fair competition and will ultimately result in the loss of US jobs and, potentially, significant losses for the US international aviation industry."

Norwegian Boeing Dreamliner Interior

In light of the DOT's ruling, Norwegian announced in December it would ramp up the hiring of American pilots and cabin crew.

"In October this year, Norwegian announced it would open its first US pilot base at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport," Kjos said in a statement. "Now that we finally have our DOT approval for Norwegian Air International, I'm pleased to announce that we will also be opening a second and third pilot base in the US."

The second and third crew bases will be in the New York and Greater Boston areas, Norwegian Air representative Anders Lindstrom told Business Insider. The initial group of 25 US pilots destined for the base in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, will begin training in March to fly the airline's fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliners.

Once the airline's new 737 MAX 8 airliners enter service in the middle of 2017, Norwegian is expected to hire another batch of US pilots for the New York and Greater Boston bases.

According to Lindstrom, all pilots hired for the new US bases are either flying for another US airline or are American pilots flying overseas. Lindstrom also told Business Insider in April that the airline pays all its pilots "almost exactly" the same, regardless of where they are based.

The airline said its New York base would have more than 300 cabin crew members by year's end, while its Fort Lauderdale base would have nearly 200.

Norwegian expects to hire another 150 pilots and cabin crew members in the US in 2017. In 2018, Norwegian is eyeing the possibility of additional pilot and crew bases in Oakland, California, and LAX, Lindstrom said.

Norwegian Air CEO Bjorn Kjos

When the Boeing 737 MAXs arrive later this year, Norwegian will begin offering $69 tickets to Europe from secondary cities in the northeastern US. Norwegian Air CCO Thomas Ramdahl told The Wall Street Journal in December that the airline intends to set up a base at Stewart International Airport in upstate New York, and Bradley International Airport in Hartford, Connecticut, is also under consideration.

In 2017, the airline is expected to receive nine 787s, six 737 MAXs, and 17 737 NGs. Norwegian  which in July was named the best low-cost airline in Europe by Skytrax for the fourth consecutive year  operates 450 routes with 150 destinations around the world.

Skytrax reviewers also named Norwegian the best long-haul low-cost airline in the world.

NOW WATCH: A Norwegian company invented a suitcase that turns into an in-flight bed for kids





More From Business Insider


FILE PHOTO - The ticker and trading information for Blackstone Group is displayed at the post where it is traded on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) April 4, 2016. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

By Greg Roumeliotis and Lauren Hirsch

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Private equity firm Blackstone Group LP (BX.N) has agreed to acquire insurance broker Aon Plc's (AON.N) employee benefits outsourcing business for around $4.8 billion, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

The deal gives Blackstone ownership of a business that processes work benefits for 15 percent of the U.S. population.

It also allows Aon to exit a mature, capital-intensive outsourcing business, allowing it to invest in growth areas beyond its core insurance brokerage operations, such as cyber security and health insurance.

Blackstone prevailed over buyout firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice LLC (CD&R) in an auction for the benefits administration and human resources business process outsourcing platform of Aon, providing assurances it can successfully carve out the unit, the people said. The deal will be announced by Friday, the people added.

The sources asked not to be identified because the negotiations are confidential. Aon and CD&R declined to comment, while Blackstone could not immediately be reached for comment.

Headquartered in London, Aon is an insurance brokerage active in more than 120 countries.

Aon took on the benefits outsourcing unit it has agreed to sell to Blackstone as part of its acquisition in 2010 of Hewitt Associates Inc for $4.9 billion.

"The potential divestiture of the outsourcing business moves Aon away from the most mature and lower growth area of the business. Selling the benefits administration business would therefore be consistent with the actions to improve the business mix," William Blair analysts wrote in a note on Jan. 23, after Reuters reported that Aon was in talks to sell the unit.

Private equity firms have been prolific investors in businesses that help companies cut costs by outsourcing large parts of their administrative functions, since such operations can generate strong cash flows. A few years after they invest, they seek to sell ownership of those assets at a big profit.

Story continues

In September, Canadian pension fund manager Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec said it would acquire a $500 million minority stake in Sedgwick Claims Management Services Inc, which specializes in workers' compensation and is owned by buyout firms KKR & Co LP (KKR.N) and Stone Point Capital LLC.

In another example, Blackstone and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC invested $750 million in 2014 to obtain minority stakes in Kronos Inc, a workforce management solutions company controlled by buyout firm Hellman & Friedman LLC.

(Reporting by Greg Roumeliotis and Lauren Hirsch in New York)
By Sanjeev Miglani and Mike Stone NEW DELHI/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. defense firm Lockheed Martin wants to push ahead with plans to move production of its F-16 combat jets to India, but understands President Donald Trump's administration may want to take a "fresh look" at the proposal. With no more orders for the F-16 from the Pentagon, Lockheed plans to use its Fort Worth, Texas plant instead to produce the fifth generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that the United States Air Force is transitioning to. Lockheed would switch F-16 production to India, as long as the Indian government agrees to order hundreds of the planes that its air force desperately needs. Trump has criticized U.S. companies that have moved manufacturing overseas and which then sell their products back to the U.S. In his first few weeks in office, he has pushed companies, from automakers to pharmaceutical firms, to produce more in the United States. In Lockheed's case, however, the plan is to build the F-16 to equip the Indian Air Force, and not sell them back into the United States. Lockheed said it has been talking to Trump's transition and governance teams as well as the U.S. Congress for several months on its plans, including the proposed sale of F-16 planes to India, a spokesman told Reuters in Washington. "We've briefed the Administration on the current proposal, which was supported by the Obama Administration as part of a broader cooperative dialogue with the Government of India," the spokesman said. "We understand that the Trump Administration will want to take a fresh look at some of these programs, and we stand prepared to support that effort to ensure that any deal of this importance is properly aligned with U.S. policy priorities." India is expected to spend $250 billion on defense modernization over the next decade, analysts say, and there is concern that a veto on making the F-16 in India would not only hit Lockheed, but also threaten other military contracts to come up in India for Boeing , Northrop and Raytheon . The White House did not respond to requests for comment on the plan to build the plane in India. A person close to Lockheed said company officials did not know what the Trump administration planned to do about the proposal to shift F-16 production to India. "They're following it closely and talking with the White House. But if they don't move production to India, there's no way they'll get the India contract," the person said. One argument to be made was that moving to India would preserve some component production in the United States. "Twenty-five percent of something is better than zero percent of nothing," the person said. NO THREAT TO U.S. JOBS Lockheed has said that moving F-16 assembly to India would create 200 engineering jobs in the United States to help support the production line in India. It has also said that about 800 workers in the United States making the non-Lockheed parts for the F-16 would keep their jobs if construction shifts to India. "We are offering to make the F-16 Block-70 aircraft with a local partner in India. This is an offer exclusive to India," Randall L. Howard, head of F-16 business development, told Reuters ahead of India's biggest air show beginning in Bengaluru next week. In India, the F-16 is up against SAAB's Gripen combat aircraft, which the Swedish firm has also offered to make locally, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi drives a Make-in-India campaign to build a domestic aerospace industry and reduce costly imports. The Indian government is expected to decide this year on which company will build a single-engine fighter plane, in collaboration with a local partner. A defense official said the process was at a very early stage. The Indian air force alone needs 200-250 fighters over the next 10 years, its former chief Arup Raha said before he left office in December. Negotiating arms contracts with India can take years, and industry officials said there was no guarantee Lockheed would win the contract even if it moves production to India. Defense ties between India and the United States have grown rapidly, with U.S. arms sales of more than $4 billion in 2012-15, mostly under government-to-government foreign military sales, upstaging long-term supplier Russia and even Israel. Lockheed's executive director for international business development, Abhay Paranjape, said his team has met with representatives from 40 defense and aviation firms in India to help build the ancillary network for the aircraft assembly program. "We want to be prepared, that's why we started the ground work," he said, adding Lockheed has also scouted possible factory sites in India. Lockheed has a joint venture with India's Tata Advanced Systems Ltd to make airframe components for the C-130J Super Hercules transport plane and the S-92 helicopter. "The capability for building components exists here, it's been proven with the C-130s. The challenge now is to pick the right partners," Paranjape said. (Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal in BERLIN; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)
Isobar Compression has today announced it will provide Olympic triathletes Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee with bespoke custom fit compression garments which are crucial for athletes who regularly travel for training and competitions.

The Brownlee brothers will wear Isobar compression socks, which provides cutting-edge technology to protect against medical complications, during frequent travel required by their intense training and competition schedules.

Isobar Compression garments significantly reduce the risk of Deep-Vein Thrombosis (DVT) from long-haul flights by manufacturing precise, custom fit compression garments for professional sportsmen and women as well as for medical, corporate and travel customers.

A 3D scan of the leg or arm is undertaken, with a personalised custom fit garment produced delivering optimal pressure, fit and comfort  the first of its kind on the market.

Double Olympic champion Alistair said:

We train and race all over the world, which involves a massive amount of flying. Coming from a medical family, we know the chance of getting a DVT is not worth the risk and could end our careers. Isobar compression socks fit perfectly therefore we can wear them all day whilst travelling.

Olympic medalist Jonathan added:

The precise compression level is based on clinical research, so we know they work really well and wearing the compression socks gives us reassurance whilst we are frequently travelling.

Barney Haynes, Chief Operating Officer for Isobar Compression said:

The Brownlees are amongst an elite group of athletes, including over 80 British Olympians and Paralympians, who benefit from Isobar compression when they travel. We are delighted to have used our unique technology to support the health of such great Olympians.

Professor Charles McCollum, Professor of Surgery and Head of Academic Surgery at the University of Manchester and Isobar Chief Medical Advisor added:

Now, for the first time, we are able to deliver the precise pressures needed for each indication, whether increasing performance and recovery for elite athletes, DVT prevention, or treating lymphoedema and leg ulcers. This is something that cannot be achieved by any existing compression stocking or bandaging system.

Source: http://www.isobar-compression.com/news/2017/2/3/olympic-medallists-alistair-and-jonathan-brownlee-choose-isobar
According to new research, the key to a successful, long-term relationship is for each partner to adapt to the other's changes over time.

At least, that's what appears to be true for pairs of proteins in bacteria.

A University of Texas at Dallas scientist and his colleagues are developing computer models to predict how mutations  or tiny physical changes  affect the biological performance of pairs of proteins that have co-evolved to work together.

The research, published in a recent issue of the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, has potential applications in synthetic biology and protein engineering, fields that are aimed at designing new proteins or exploiting existing ones to improve human health.

Proteins, which carry out most of life's functions, are made up of sequences of molecules called amino acids. Pairs of proteins successfully communicate with one another by physically interacting at specific points on the amino acid chain.

Such pairs of proteins tend to co-evolve over time: If one acquires a mutation in a key amino acid, the other tends to adapt to maintain the balance. However, some mutations can end the relationship.

"If a mutation changes one of those key amino acids at the interface, the pair may no longer be able to communicate, and the function could be lost," said Dr. Faruck Morcos, assistant professor of biological sciences at UT Dallas and senior author of the article. "The result could adversely affect that organism's survival."

Morcos and his colleagues at Rice University developed a computational model that evaluates every possible combination of mutations at the interface among the amino acid sequences in a pair of proteins found in the bacterium Escherichia coli. The computational model finds combinations that result in couples who continue to communicate and those for whom the connection is gone.

The bacteria proteins served as a test case, but Morcos said the approach can be applied to proteins in other organisms as well, including human proteins.

"This is a mathematical model that we can use to predict how changes in amino acid sequences affect proteins' function," Morcos said.

A research group at MIT had previously carried out experiments in the lab to examine every one of the 160,000 possible combinations in this particular protein pair.

"That effort was amazing. It determined experimentally what the effect was for all of these mutations," Morcos said. "But it was very expensive. We used their results to validate that our model is able to predict not only which mutations will not be able to interact, but also mutations that maintain their intended function."

The computational model also is able to rank the confidence level of the working combinations. Of the 1,600 combinations found to be functional, the model was very confident in the top 100, for example.

"If we can predict something that should work, but is not obvious, we can point experimentalists to try specific mutations, saving time and expense, as opposed to the trial-and-error approach," Morcos said.

Using its model, the research group found something unexpected as well.

"We predicted combinations that should have been functional, but actually weren't in the experimental data," Morcos said. "It turns out that some mutations resulted in pairs that could indeed communicate with their target, but they also interacted with other proteins as well. We think that the relationship wasn't functioning at its full potential because one of the pair became too promiscuous with other proteins."

That result showed that the model could be useful in investigating the effect of mutations not only on communication between partner proteins, but also with other proteins in a cell.

"For scientists who are doing experiments, it can be difficult to assess the effects on the rest of the proteins in a network of proteins," Morcos said. "It's relatively easy with this computational work."

In a subsequent study, published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Morcos and his colleagues at Rice and the Chinese Academy of Sciences used their computational approach to determine the most important physical points at which a pair of proteins interacts.

"This is an important result," Morcos said. "If you know where the 'hot spots' are, the most important point at a protein-protein interface, this could aid in the design of therapeutic drugs to intervene at that point."
Thailand has become the first Asian country to eliminate mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV, thanks to a pragmatic multi-sector response backed by strong political commitment and heavy government investment, a study published in Paediatrics and International Child Health reports.

Such an early, concerted response allowed the country to successfully address the four prongs of the recommended World Health Organization (WHO) elimination strategy. As a result, MTCT rates were reduced from 20-40% in the mid-1990s to 1.9% in 2015 (surpassing the WHO elimination target of <2%).

The WHO strategy focuses on the following four prongs: primary prevention of HIV in women of childbearing age; prevention of unintended pregnancies in women living with HIV; prevention of HIV transmission from an HIV-infected woman to her infant; and provision of appropriate treatment, care and support to women and children living with HIV.

In Thailand, initiatives to promote condom use, provide information about the risk of transmission and introduce testing for pregnant and post-partum women were successfully implemented. For example, the 100% Condom Programme, which promotes 100% condom use by male patrons of commercial sex workers, has played a crucial role in preventing HIV infection in women of reproductive age.

The success of such initiatives resulted in part from strong political leadership - the national AIDS policy of Thailand was transferred from the Ministry of Public Health to the Office of the Prime Minister in 1991 - and greatly increased investment, with government spending on the HIV/AIDS programme rising from US$684,000 in 1988 to US$82 million by 1997.

The high rate of antenatal care provision in Thailand is also key. A voluntary HIV test with same-day results is offered at the first clinic visit, followed by re-testing later in pregnancy for HIV-negative women. For HIV-infected pregnant women, antiretroviral therapy (ART) is provided as soon as possible. Such treatment is now available at much lower cost, thanks to legislative changes which have allowed the non-commercial production of generic ART in Thailand. Counselling services at antenatal clinics also promote the use of dual methods of contraception to prevent unintended pregnancy in women with HIV.

The study's author, Professor Usa Thisyakorn of Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok said: "Thailand has achieved WHO elimination of mother-to-child HIV transmission targets with early and concerted efforts of all sectors of Thai society. This provided numerous lessons learned in working together to safeguard children. Since children are the country's future, how the country responds to the problems created for them indicates how highly the country values its future."
New Delhi: The two biggest banks-Kotak Mahindra and Axis Bank-have rejected merger speculations.



Rumours of the two private banks merging were doing the rounds in the past few weeks, says a report in Times of India.



According to report in Moneycontrol, the merger could be worth around 2.5 lakh crore, the biggest after HDFC.



"A merger deal is being explored by the shareholders of the two banks. Merger would unlock huge synergies, as Kotak Bank has a strong corporate banking franchise while Axis is strong on the retail front, the report quoted a fund manager as saying.



"Axis is one of the strongest financial institutions in the country with a large customer franchise and we do not comment on rumours and speculations, Times of India quotes Axis Bank spokesperson as saying.



We urge you to exercise extreme caution in dealing with this misinformation," Kotak Mahindra Bank spokesperson Rohit Rao told the newspaper.


AIIMS Resident Doctors Association (RDA) on Thursday extended olive branch to the nurses union, relations between whom have frayed over the death of a nurse, assuring that it would not shield the guilty even as it urged that the enquiry committee be allowed to do its work.The RDA also posed some questions to the AIIMS administration wondering why no enquiry committee was formed soon after the death of the nurse, Rajbir Kaur, and also questioned the "lack of resources" in the maternity OT."Who is responsible for lack of manpower like that of a senior resident anaesthesiologist in the labour room for 24 hours?" the RDA statement asked.The doctors' forum said it had "raised concern" as few of its members were "targeted" without proper enquiry. It sought to know as to how the administration acted "only" on the basis of complaint of the nurses' union."We are all brothers and sisters who have to work in the same environment. Please don't spoil it so much that it becomes difficult to look into each other's eyes. We assure you that we are not here not here to defend anyone who is found guilty," the association said.Yesterday, the nurses' union had held a protest over the hospital administration revoking the suspension of five resident doctors in connection with Kaur's death due to alleged negligence at the premier institution.
New Delhi: The Union government has decided to extend NSG cover to Assam Chief Minister Sarbanonda Sonowal citing threats from Northeast-based insurgent groups. Sonowal was first given Z+ category security by the Union Home Ministry, which has now decided that the threat is serious enough to ask India's elite commando force NSG to guard him.



Home Minister Rajnath Singh and 12 other senior political leaders are protected by the NSG. But Sonowal is only the second Chief Minister after UP counterpart Akhilesh Yadav to be given the NSG cover.



A top source in the Home Ministry confirmed the order to CNN-News18 and said, "As Chief Minister of Assam, he is under constant threat from insurgents and jehadi elements and hence the decision to rope in NSG."



Threat perception for two other CMs  Prafulla Mohanta and Tarun Gogoi  was also reviewed and downgraded recently. While Z+ security will continue for these former chief ministers, it will be CRPF and the state police which will guard them and not the NSG. Tarun Gogoi has cried foul after the decision, accusing the BJP government of playing politics over his security. But central government sources say that a regular review of NSG protectee's threat perception is done and the decision to renew or downgrade is taken depending upon the threat assessment.
New Delhi: Assam government has written to Centre seeking repatriation of 6 IPS officers who are posted in IB, CBI and other central agencies.



"There is a shortage of IG level officers in Assam hence a request is made to Centre," a state government official told CNN news18.



Anurag Thankha IG NIA, Harmeet Singh JD IB Srinagar, Deepak Kumar IG SSB are officers who are being relieved by Center with immediate effect.



Deepak Chaudhary, an IB officer posted in Kashmir, AYG Krishna of CBI Hyderabad and Munne Gupta of SPG are other officers whose repatriation has been sought by Assam government.



"It is a normal practice for state government to recall officers from central deputation for state administration. Centre usually does not say no if state governments put such a request," a top government officer told CNN-News18



"One of the IPS officers sought by Assam government is undergoing training at NDCC while another is with an agency which does not report to MHA so their relieving will take time, said an official on the condition of anonymity.



While the repatriation will create vacancies in central agencies, sensitive cases like killing of Italian Marines which was handled by Anurag Thankha in NIA or Intelligence gathering in troubled state of Jammu and Kashmir may have to be temporarily recalibrated.




In a relief of sorts for VK Sasikala, the Supreme Court will not be passing verdict in the Jayalalithaa disproportionate assets case, in which Sasikala is accused number 2, this week. The judgment in all likelyhood is expected to be delivered in the coming week. The judgment was reserved by SC in June 2016.If convicted, Sasikala will not only lose the CMs chair, for which she is currently battling O Panneerselvam, but will also be barred from electoral politics for a fixed duration.Sasikala was on her way to meet the Governor on Thursday evening and she is likely to impress upon the latter that she enjoys the support of majority of MLAs and push for her swearing-in as early as possible.Caretaker Chief Minister O Panneerselvam met Governor and updated him about the political situation in the state and told him that he was forced to resign."Good things are happening and the truth will triumph," he said, adding that good will prevail and "we will come back".The disproportionate assets case was filed in 1996 after BJP leader Subramanian Swamy filed a complaint against Jayalalithaa.Jayalalithaa was booked under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1996, for allegedly amassing unaccounted wealth.In 2015, the Congress government in Karnataka moved the apex court in 2015 after the state high court acquitted her in the case. A special court in Bengaluru had earlier found her guilty and sentenced her to four years of imprisonment along with her close aide Sasikala. Although Jayalalithaa had to temporarily step down as the CM, she soon came back to power in the 2016 Assembly elections.On June 7, 2016, the Supreme Court reserved its judgment on the appeal by Karnataka government challenging the high courts order of acquittal for Jayalalithaa, VK Sasikala, Ilavarasi and VN Sudhakaran.
Patna: Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday announced the cancellation of examination conducted by Bihar State Staff Selection Commission (BSSC) for recruitment of clerks in state government jobs in the wake of alleged paper leak.



"On the basis of the preliminary report of state police chief P K Thakur and recommendation of Chief Secretary Anjani Kumar Singh, the state government has cancelled the BSSC exam for clerical grade appointment," Kumar told reporters.



Kumar, accompanied by CS and other officials, made this announcement after emerging from state Cabinet meeting at Secretariat.



The cancellation comes in the wake of reports of the paper leak before the examination on February 5.



The Chief Minister had on Monday said that he ordered a thorough probe into the paper leak by the CS and DGP.



The annulment of the BSSC exam follows intensive questioning of Commission Secretary Parmeshwar Ram by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) under the supervision of Patna Senior Superintendent of Police Manu Maharaj since late last night.



Taking serious note of allegation of a paper leak in the BSSC test, the Chief Minister had cracked the whip and issued strict instructions to the two top officials to throughly inquire into it following which SIT swung into action.



The latest exam irregularity follows the infamous toppers' scam in the state plus two exam in 2016.



Patna Senior Superintendent of Police Manu Maharaj told PTI that the BSSC Secretary Parmeshwar Ram has been arrested in the paper leak case.



"SIT has arrested Parmeshwar Ram and one another staff of the Commission in this connection," the SSP said.
Thiruvananthapuram: The family of Rasila Raju, who was murdered at her Infosys office in Pune, has demanded a CBI enquiry into her killing.



The family has submitted a memorandum to Kerala DGP stating that the state government should look into the matter to clear all doubts and suspicion about their daughter's murder.



Rasila's father Raju has said that they have several doubts about whether the investigation is going in the right and whether the correct is person arrested.



Raju also alleged that his daughter was facing mental torture at the hands of her manager as she was denied a transfer to Bengaluru and was often asked to put in extra hours of work.



"The security guard whom the police have arrested is not from the same building, then how will he enter her office and the cubicle where she was working. They can only enter there by swiping their ID cards, so how did this security guard manage to reach there. she has been complaining of mental harassment at the hands of her manager. All this torture for her started after she refused to be part of a team lunch. Many times she was asked to work extra hours,"alleged Rasila's father.



The grieving father also said he needs answers on why only his daughter was called to work on a Sunday when no other persons were present in the office.



Raju further said, "Before the incident Rasila was speaking to one of her cousins. She was talking about the difficulties that she is facing at work. Her last words were that someone is entering her cabin and that she will talk later. But that was last I heard about my daughter. Later what we knew was the news of her murder." Rasila's uncle Suresh said that they have several doubts even about the investigation.



"It has been 11 days but till now the police has not contacted us or taken the family's statement. We were busy with all the rituals , now we will go there and find out what is happening. We don't think that a security guard alone can do this crime. We need a clear answer to how all this happened in a highly secured place like this, " Suresh added.



Rasila was found dead in the conference room on the ninth floor of the Infosys building in Pune.



Her Body was found strangulaed with a computer cable. Bhaben Saikia , a security guard, has been arrested in connection with the murder.
Thiruvananthapuram: The 29-day long strike by Kerala Law Academy students was called on Thursday off after the management and students entered into an agreement.



The students were on strike demanding resignation of their principal Lekshmi Nair over alleged unfair internal marks and attendance.



The students also alleged principal gave good marks to her favourite students and verbally abused them.



Education Minister C Raveendranath on Wednesday called a meeting of students and the management to strike a deal.



The agreement between the students and the management stated that Lekshmi Nair will be removed and a new principal will be appointed. The government has agreed to intervene if the management breached the terms of agreement which has been signed by the government, management and students.



The strike by the students was launched under the banner of various students organisations including KSU, AISF, MSF and ABVP.



The strike had its political implications as Opposition Congress and BJP accused the CPM of favouring the principal as she comes from a prominent left affiliated family. Nair's uncle is a prominent leader of the CPM.



Congress and the BJP tried to use students' strike to their advantage.



Congress MLA K Muraleedharan and BJP leaders V Muraleedharan and V V Rajesh sat on a hunger strike in front of the law academy to press for demand of the students. The law academy also witnessed a series of protests that turned violent in the past few days.



CPI played a key role in bringing affected parties to the discussion table as party State Secretary Kanam Rajendran and Minister V S Sunil Kumar held talks with the students.



SFI which has been on the forefront of all student agitations was also criticized for their role in the strike. Striking students said that they were unhappy with the way SFI ended the strike and entered into an agreement with the management.



"We felt that we were betrayed by the SFI. We also felt that the government was not protecting us and our interests initially and was supporting of the management," said a student.



Meanwhile, SFI has denied all allegations saying that the new agreement has nothing more than what they had got from the management on January 31.



Since other political parties wanted to play politics, the strike went on for so many days, SFI added.



"What more do they (students) have in this new agreement than what the SFI had initially entered into with the management. We had raised all the issues faced by the students and got things done from the management. But many were playing politics in the name of students strike and that is why they wanted to extend the strike. At the time we entered into an agreement with management, the students said that they will not call of the strike until principal does not resign. But the principal has not resigned even today. The management has removed her just like what they agreed with us in the initial agreement," Said Vijin, State secretary of the SFI.



But the students have a quick reply to SFI's argument. Students say that in the new agreement they have got an assurance from the state education minster that the government will intervene if the management goes back on the terms.



The unsung heroes of the strike were group of girl students who were without any political affiliation and joined the strike under the banner of `Vidhyardhi Aikyam.



These students, who were mostly hostelers, had joined the strike as they had been at the receiving end of the Principal Lakshmy Nair.



Arya V John, one of the girl students who joined the strike, said that around 150 students who were staying in the hostels had started the strike after erecting a separate pandal in the name of `Vidhyardhi Aikyam.



"There were pressures from various quarters both on the striking girls and their parents to withdraw the strike. The management had also put pressure on the students to ensure that they stay away from the campus during the strike days. However, we were able to successfully withstand such pressures," said Arya.




Bhopal: The Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) of Madhya Pradesh police has arrested 11 persons for allegedly supplying information to Pakistan's spy agency ISI.



ATS chief Sanjiv Shami talking to newsmen in Bhopal on Thursday said that the espionage racket was handled from Paksitan through a private telephone exchange, which could have also been used for transferring Hawala money and lottery fraud.



Five persons from Gwalior, three from Bhopal, two from Jabalpur and one from Satna has been arrested in connection with the spying, said Shami adding that the action was carried out in cooperation with central investigative agencies, J&K intelligence and agencies from UP.



One of the accused arrested from Gwalior is relative of BJP corporator.



The ATS chief informed that RS Pura police station in Jammu had last year arrested Satwindar and Dadu on charges of spying for Pakistani handlers. The duo used to pass on information of strategic camps, bridges, movement of army and central forces to Pakistan based handlers.



The subsequent probe revealed that the two received money from a Satna (Madhya Pradesh) based man Balram, who was handling multiple bank accounts under fictitious names.



Balram used to receive money from private telephone exchanges being operated from multiple places and calls made thorough these exchanges hid the identities of the callers and showed sim card names registered on forged names and addresses.



These exchanges helped Pak handlers in getting in touch with their Indian sources and also carrying out crimes like lottery fraud, said Shami.



Several exchanges, sim box, hundreds of sim cards have been recovered in the raid.



The arrested accused, Jitendra Thakur and Kush Pandit, used to operate private exchanges which were established in connivance with telecom sector staff, officers said Shami. Jitendra is brother-in-law of Gwalior based BJP corporator.



The accused have been charged with treason, violation of Telegraph act and others relevant acts.



IB has sounded an alert for defence manufacturing establishments in Jabalpur following arrest of two persons from the city in connection with espionage racket.
: The Naliya (in Gujarat's Kutch district) sex racket not only exposed the ordeal of the woman who was subjected to sexual exploitation for several months, but also puts the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is looking to retain power in Gujarat in a year, in a fix. Four of the nine accused named in the FIR were local BJP leaders and were suspended from the party.In August 2015, the woman came to her mothers house at Kothara in Kutch from Mumbai, where she was staying with her husband. She was looking for a job and her mother sought help from one Bababhai, who owned a mobile shop in Naliya town. He reportedly assured the family that he would help the woman find a job within a couple of days. He also introduced her to LPG vendor Shantilal Solanki. Solanki offered her a job at Rs 5,500 per month.According to the complaint, she was first raped by three persons, allegedly including Shantil Solanki at his house. She said she had gone to his house to get a salary advance when her cold drink was spiked. In the subsequent months, the woman was allegedly raped in hotels, in moving cars and at houses of other accused.The BJP swung into damage control mode after the names of its office bearers cropped up in the complaint. The party immediately suspended four of the nine accused who were its office bearers. Party leaders hurriedly called a press conference to declare that they had been booted out of the party.While Shantilal Solanki was the Abdasa taluka president of the BJP Baxi Panch, Govind Parumalani and Ajit Ramvani are BJP councillors in the Gandhidham municipality and Vasant Bhanushali is a BJP worker.We have promptly suspended the BJP workers whose names have figured in the FIR. The party very strongly condemns the incident and the guilty should be handed down the strictest possible punishment, said BJP spokesperson Bharat Pandya. State minister Pradipsinh Jadeja said that a high-level SIT has been asked to carry out an investigation.Meanwhile, the opposition parties  Congress and AAP  have alleged that many more accused are involved and the BJP is trying to sweep the matter under the carpet. The Opposition has sought an independent probe by a retired High Court judge, a demand that has not been accepted by the state government.
Congress was livid on Wednesday at Prime Minister Narendra Modis stinging attack on his predecessor Manmohan Singh that despite so many incidents of corruption no taint had stuck to him. The party also demanded an apology from the Prime Minister in the House.

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A BJP legislator's push to alter existing narrative on the outcome of the battle of Haldighati fought in 1576 between Maharana Prataps and Akbar, with Prataps victory over the Mughal forces, has found support in the states education minister Vasudev Devnani.



It was Pratap who won the battle, not Akbar. We have maintained all along that Maharana Pratap has not been accorded his due in history, said Devnani who just a few weeks back and had publicly given cow the distinction of being the only animal which exhales oxygen, referring to a German research.



While Raje government remained eloquently silent throughout the row over Padmavatis portrayal in Sanjay Leela Bhansalis upcoming film after members from a fringe Rajput group attacked the director and his crew in Jaipur.



The proposal to rewrite history in Prataps favour also got the backing of state health minister Kali Charan Saraf.



"Generations of students have been taught a distorted version of history. If there is a proposal to fix it and teach the students that Maharana Pratap actually won the battle, then we welcome it, said Saraf.



Challenging the existing narrative among historians on Maharana Pratap losing the war of 1576 to Akbar, BJP MLA Mohanlal Gupta floated the proposal at Rajasthan University's syndicate where he is a government nominee, last week. Besides rewriting the history of the battle of Haldighati, Gupta also demanded the inclusion of a book titled Maharana Pratap: Kumbhalgarh se Chavand by Prof KS Gupta, a retired professor of history from Udaipurs Mohanlal Sukhadia University which says Maharana Pratap won Haldighati, in the books recommended for Rajasthan Universitys history students.



The syndicate referred the proposal to the Board of Studies of Rajasthan Universitys history department to examine it. While the jury is out on if it will reach the academic council for ratification but ministers from Raje government have already pronounced their verdict in favour of a new outcome for a battle that took place over four hundred and fifty years ago.


New Delhi: India and US have agreed to "sustain the momentum on key bilateral defence efforts" after Defence Secretary James Mattis called his Indian counterpart Manohar Parrikar and expressed commitment to build upon the tremendous progress made in bilateral defence cooperation.



This was the first conversation between the two leaders after Mattis was sworn in as the Defense Secretary of the US President Donald Trump last month.



"In their first conversation, Secretary Mattis committed to build upon the tremendous progress in bilateral defense cooperation made in recent years, underscoring the strategic importance of the US-India relationship and India's role in advancing global peace and security," the Pentagon Press Secretary Capt Jeff Davis said yesterday.



"Secretary Mattis and Minister Parrikar affirmed their commitment to sustain the momentum on key bilateral defense efforts to include the defense technology and trade initiative," Davis said after the phone call between the two leaders which took place yesterday.
New Delhi: On February 9, 2016, a few students gathered in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) allegedly to mark the day Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri held guilty by the Supreme Court for his role in 2001 Parliament attacks, was hanged.



Not aware of the colossal proportions that the event would eventually take - make them the most discussed, debated and hated figures in the nation - the students decided to protest the judicial killing of Guru and (separatist leader) Maqbool Bhat.



A huge uproar followed after video clips showed them raising several anti-India slogans. The Home Minister Rajnath Singh promised strict action against the anti-national elements.



Delhi police swung in action, raiding hostels inside the campus and private residences outside, to nab those who had participated in the event.



Though according to a forensic lab report, a few of these clips had been tampered with, anger against student leaders, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, rose to feverish pitch.



The two went in hiding, and emerged later in a dramatic fashion only to be sent to jail.



The University student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, who was picked up by police, beaten by lawyers, and sent to jail, was released soon after. He lost no time in taking on the Prime Minister, his party, and his policies directly. Anirban and Khalid too addressed crowds in JNU with rousing speeches against the BJP.



Many saw in these students, especially in Kanhaiya Kumar, seeds of promising political leadership.



Now one year later, almost everyone seems to have lost interest in the anti-national elements, including the police department itself.



Having begun investigations in the case in a dramatic fashion, the Delhi police has still not filed chargesheet in the case.



Police officers privately admit that the chances of making any more arrests in the case are quite low.



Kanhaiya has, apart from producing a book about his ordeal - Bihar to Tihar - not really been able to propel his political career. Anirban Bhattacharya has just submitted his PhD thesis and is now quietly working on some research projects. The outspoken Umar Khalid has become more withdrawn, not willing to speak in public without consulting his lawyer.



Senior police officers told this reporter that the investigations in this case seem to have reached a dead end.



Sources also say there is no pressure on the Special Cell to file the chargesheet. There is a debate going on in police Headquarters in Delhi on whether to chargesheet just three students and name others, or arrest other people as well and then file a complete chargesheet.



This case involves voluminous investigation. Therefore, it is taking time, said the officer, adding, Were trying to connect the loose ends. I can assure you that the final report will be balanced, logical, and strong.



According to Kanhaiya Kumar, the case has become a big joke.



JNU was wrongly highlighted in the case. Even after a year there is no chargesheet in the case, which proves the allegations were baseless. If something did happen, then why there is no chargesheet yet? Its a big blot on the system, said Kanhaiya, who is now busy completing his PhD.



Kanhaiya has changed his phone number since being released from the jail.



Talking about his experience in jail, he said, I have learnt the reality of life in jail. Jail has a different kind of restriction but outside the jail (reference to society) there are more restrictions. Its a bigger jail outside.



Another accused, Rama Naga, on the other hand submitted his dissertation in July 2016. Umar presented a conference paper right after coming out of the jail. When contacted by CNN-News18, Umar thought for a while and said he would first consult his lawyer and then speak on the matter.



On being asked if this year Kanhaiya would participate in any such event related to Afzal Guru, Umar clarified, I was not part of the event nor participated in any such event last time. This time also, if any such event happens, I am neither participating nor organising.



Shehla Rashid former JNUSU vice-president, said that the sedition law was misused by the government.



From the beginning we have maintained that the video was doctored and no JNU student raised any slogan. The fact that there is no chargesheet shows how the sedition law was misused.



JNUs ABVP unit, which raked up the issue first, feels the powers-that-be have given a long rope to Kanhaiya and other suspects in this case.



Former Joint Secretary, of JNU students union, Saurabh Sharma, who also is a member of ABVP, said, The role of the JNU administration looks no different and appears toothless when it comes to punishing the wrongdoers. Apart from creating a buzz over the names of a couple of Left activists of JNU, the action by police has not been able to bring into its ambit the real culprits.



Meanwhile, sources in Delhi police said there are high chances that men from the special branch and special cell might be present in the JNU on February 9 to monitor the activity.




Tihar Jail and Pearl Academy have jointly set up a fashion laboratory at the prison under which women inmates will be encouraged to learn life sustaining skills.



Nandita Abraham, Pearl Academy CEO, says she is super excited for this initiative, which seeks to set an example that cages can't curb creativity.



"For 23 years, we have been transforming the lives of young. First time we are doing a project with the Tihar Jail and this project aims at giving livelihood to the inmates," she said.



Offering a unique opportunity to the women prisoners of Tihar Jail to build an holistic and independent life after prison, the Pearl Academy has set up a Fashion Laboratory equipped with all the essential facilities and tools necessary for learning basics of design and construction, in the prison premises.



Furnished with pattern making tools and sewing kits backed by the latest lighting and ventilation facilities, the Lab will provide specialized sewing machines, overlock machines, ironing machines and dress forms pattern tables with cork top.



Furthermore, the Academy will also hold certification programmes with an aim to build self-confidence in the inmates.



Abraham, along with Sudhir Yadav, Director General of Tihar Jail, jointly launched the fashion laboratory.



Extending their support to this unique initiative aimed at skilling and hence empowering the women inmates, Punya Salila Srivastava, Secretary, Directorate of Training and Technical Education, and Abhishek Singh, District Magistrate, New Delhi, were also present on the occasion.



"It is indeed a historical day and we took about four to six months to materialise but I am sure it will pave the way for many such similar initiatives," said Yadav.



The initiative also garnered support from the fashion fraternity of India with the presence of Rina Dhaka, renowned fashion designer, at the launch.



"Human mind has no restrictions and it can think and create some of the most powerful things. I was associated with Delhi Police in the past and I came to see this initiative in the initial phase," Dhaka told IANS.



The inauguration ceremony was followed by a joint fashion show and a cultural programme by the Pearl Academy students and women inmates.



A women inmates also enjoyed the popular dance tracks performed by students of the Pearl Academy and some Tihar inmates.


Veteran designer Manish Arora will visit the Buckingham Palace in London for a special reception being held to mark the beginning of the UK-India Year of Culture.



The designer, who has been bestowed with the prestigious Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur by France, will visit the palace of Queen Elizabeth II on February 27.



Arora says it's an honour for him to represent India.



"It is such an honour and privilege to be chosen by Her Majesty to represent India at the reception celebrating a wonderful initiative. India and the UK have such a deep history and this cultural exchange is a great way to strengthen the relationship between our homelands," Arora said in a statement.



This year, India and Britain are celebrating a major bilateral year of cultural exchange.



The veteran designer added that "this is definitely a dream come true and I couldn't have asked for a better start to the year".
(Adds detail on overallotment option)

By Christine Murray and Alexandra Alper

MEXICO CITY, Feb 8 (Reuters) - The initial public offering for tequila maker Jose Cuervo priced at the top of the expected range at 34 pesos per share, two people said on Wednesday, marking the first Mexican IPO since Donald Trump won the U.S. presidency.

The offer was more than eight times oversubscribed, the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

The pricing of the 476.6 million share offer means the company raised at least 16.2 billion pesos ($791 million).

Combined with a 15 percent "overallotment option", that could allow the company to rake in upwards of $900 million.

Jose Cuervo, the world's biggest and oldest continuously producing tequila maker, did not respond to requests for comment.

The company, officially known as Becle, put its IPO on hold twice last year, as Trump's march to the White House gathered strength, sending the peso currency to a series of record lows.

Trump has threatened to slap a hefty tax on products Mexico sends to the United States to pay for a border wall, as well as tear up a joint trade deal with Mexico.

U.S. protectionist measures against Mexico could hurt Jose Cuervo, which generates 64 percent of its $1.165 billion in sales from American and Canadian consumers.

But investors have expressed strong interest in the IPO, citing Cuervo's strong dollar-based earnings and saying demand for tequila is not heavily dependent on prices.

Started by Jose Antonio de Cuervo in 1758 before Mexican independence from Spain, Cuervo says it is North America's oldest continuous producer of spirits.

Boasting 30 percent of the global tequila market, the business is now controlled by the Beckmann family, which will remain the majority shareholder after the IPO.

Aranda, a subsidiary of Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings Ltd, has said it will take a 20 percent stake in the listing, helping to put a floor under the IPO.

The price range was between 30 to 34 pesos.

Shares of the company should begin trading on Mexico's bourse on Thursday.

($1 = 20.4765 Mexican pesos) (Additional reporting by Roberto Aguilar; Writing by Alexandra Alper; Editing by Bernard Orr and Bill Rigby)
New Delhi: Indian-born American author-actress Padma Lakshmi dubbed American President Donald Trump's immigration ban as a direct blow to the "great American dream".



"The true tragedy of Muslim ban is that it has, with a stroke of pen, annihilated the American idea...the modern American dream, where you can come to America and make a living for yourself without any discrimination. This is what made America exemplary," Lakshmi said.



However, a great believer in the American democracy and its system of checks and balances, the celebrated television host says she is "ready to hit the ground running as soon she reaches back to the States".



"Let the President exercise his executive power, and I'll exercise my American passport. I believe in the instrument of Congress.



"I'll drop my suitcase, feed my daughter, take a bath and will do whatever is required, be it e-mailing the senators, or talking to them. I have to speak louder, and I will," she said.



Lakshmi, who was speaking at a session at the American Centre here, said a "renaissance" in the American culture similar to the Civil Rights Movement is round the corner, and that the present times are "scary".



"You are going to see a renaissance in American culture, which we have never seen since the Civil Rights Movement and it is exactly about civil rights. It is about women rights, the gay rights, marriage equality and what not," she said.



Questioning people's decision to vote for Trump in the 2016 polls, Lakshmi said the marginalised sections of the society might have voted for him with the hope that he will get them jobs, but "the fact is that Trump can't create manufacturing jobs as they are obsolete".



"There are dearth of manufacturing jobs because of the advances made in technology and also for the reason, that there is someone else ready to do the same job for less wages and less benefits.



"If you see, the rich voted for Hillary, while the blue-collared ones voted for Trump. They voted for him for jobs, but they just won't be getting the jobs," she said.



Lakshmi also talked about her latest book, Love, Loss and What We Ate: A Memoir, in which writes about her fallout with former husband and Booker-prize winning author Salman Rushdie.

However, Lakshmi insisted that the section on her marriage and the separation that followed was penned only because she wanted to educate people about "endometriosis" which she was

suffering from, and not merely because Rushdie and she were "public figures".



"I wanted to talk about endometriosis. It comes and develops as part and parcel of your womanhood. Neither of us understood it then, but the disease was a major reason for the breakdown of our marriage.



"It is taxing physically and emotionally. With this, I want to aware the next generation, so they are not left undiagnosed," Lakshmi, who also runs an organisation supporting the cause, said.



She also shared about her experiences from her growing up years during which she straddled between Chennai and the USA, while expressing her longing for "India Gate's street food or Bengali market's gol-gappas".



"I experience the world through my palette. I can tell you what I have eaten every single day of my life.



"Even now I have a laundry list of places I need to visit in Delhi to fulfill my urge for delicious papri chats and golgappas," she said.
Arts and music are essential for a childs success. And to foster life skills like self-confidence, creativity and leadership that are vital for a well-rounded development of a child, Delhi-based NGO Music Basti connects at-risk children with musicians aiming to nurture confidence through a creative and joyful music-led learning experience.Set up in 2008, the program at Music Basti teaches a mixture of musical training, song writing and performing. Crucially, these skills enable the under-privileged and the young kids to engage with a rapidly changing and increasingly complex world.What were trying to instil in them is a sense of confidence and belief that they can do whatever they choose to do with their lives and not feel inhibited, be afraid or constrained by the situations that they are in. It is definitely difficult but possible, says Faith Gonsalves, Founder of Music Basti.All of the programs students live either in slums or in homes that give them shelter from a life off the street. None of them have access to quality education, arts or music training. With the help of Music Basti, they have composed 28 original songs so far.Ankit, a student of Music Basti says, through Music Basti, I have learnt to write songs.I have made friends at Music Basti I cannot live without. Ive learnt music, respect and friendship. At first, I was very shy and now Im less shy, says Parvati, another student at Music Basti.In 2013, Music Basti created the one-year ReSound program. ReSound enables children to write and perform their original songs that tell the story of their communities.This year, ReSound is being held on February 26. Musicians like Vishal Dadlani, Ehsaan Noorani and bands like The Other People and Parikrama have initiated their support to sponsor instruments for the children at the NGO.Since efforts like these need combined support, News18 has partnered with the crowd-funding organisation, BitGiving, to raise funds for Music Basti.While they are doing their bit, heres a chance to make a contribution and bring some difference in the lives of these little learners.To contribute, click here
Year 2017 started off on a good note for Bollywood as Pakistan lifted the ban from screening Hindi films and released Kaabil. Last year, the relations between India and Pakistan took a turn for the worse as Indian Motion Picture Producers' Association gave in to the political pressure and decided to ban all Pakistani artists to work in Hindi films. The ban came as a bane for Pakistani artists enjoying a huge fan base in both the neighbouring countries.Fawad Khan, who starred in two big Dharma Productions Kapoor and Sons and Ae Dil Hai Mushkil recently opened up about the ban, his future in Pakistani films and his stance on political tensions between the countries.In an elaborate interview given to Pakistani website Dawn.com , Fawad explained his distance from media and his presence on social networking sites. The actor said, "I'd rather speak less because I dont consider myself a very intelligent person. So I think rather than being a victim of foot-in-mouth disease one should refrain from talking as much as possible."He further added, "Some people may say its wrong and that you should stand up for whats right, but my argument is: its all so grey, how can you say whats right or wrong? You stand up for one thing and there will always be someone whos an opponent of that idea."Fawad finally voiced his opinion on the ban of Pakistani artists in India and the entire row over his last Bollywood release ADHM. The actor was criticised massively for not speaking about Uri Attacks and India's response to it. The actor said, " The motto of my life is the best advice is no advice at all. Yes, theres a lot of sadness and grief in the world. But my belief is if one wants to take a stand on something, one must be very educated about it."He believes that people today live in a Wikipedia generation and speak without knowing the entire situation which often leads to chaos. He said, "Its a very sad fact that people are not well-versed in subjects and tend to get into heated arguments without knowing the context of things. Ive been a victim of that myself. If Im going to talk about something, I need to be educated about it and I need to have seen all the perspectives."The actor also clarified that he's still very good friends with many people from Bollywood and that they plan to meet sometime in the near future. About his own career, Fawad said, "Wherever the wind blows me, Ill go! My eventual goal is to have enough experience to produce something on my own."On the professional front, Fawad is currently occupied with Pakistani films, one being made by his close friend Bilal Lashari and the other based on the life of Pakistani pop star Alamgir.
The Pakistan Film Producers Association chairman Syed Noor, on 19th December 2016 lifted the self-imposed ban on Indian movies to release in Pakistan which lasted for almost two months. However, the cinema houses owners claimed to not have completely banned the Indian films.



The Director Aadil Mandviwala revoked the suspension as a cinema guild. Ever since the upliftment, the first film to make it through has been Kaabil starring Hrithik Roshan and Yami Gautam in lead roles. Kaabil opened in 2700 cinemas with its release on 25th January 2017. It was screened in Pakistan on 2nd February, 2017, marking the first film after the Uri terror attack and its aftermath.



The second release is to be Amit Roys RunningShaadi.com starring Taapsee Pannu and Amit Sadh. The film is to release on 17th February in India. There is a release on the same date of the film The Ghazi Attack, another movie which has Taapsee Pannu in it. However, RunningShaadi.com is said to mark the second film release after the ban in Pakistan for the movie lovers out there, and a step towards a wider cinema in the neighbouring countries.



Speaking about it, director Amit Roy said, "I think it's a good way forward because just banning all things that the two nations enjoy about each other is not going to move our relationship forward. We enjoy many of the same things and the people of both our nations are made from the same grain. So why let the politics chosen by the select few determine the common man's desire on either side to communicate and enjoy each other's cultures. I completely welcome this decision by our friends in Pakistan to release our film and I hope they enjoy this film".



Adding to his thoughts, co-producer, Vikram Malhotra said, "We are delighted that RunningShaadi.com will release in Pakistan. The film is an endearing entertainer, especially for the youth and I am sure that audience across the world will enjoy this quirky yet meaningful story."
New Delhi: With the political tussle between O Panneerselvam and VK Sasikala reaching fever pitch in Tamil Nadu, resort politics is back with a bang.



Chinamma Sasikala paraded the AIADMKs 134 MLAs before the media and whisked them off to a resort in Kalpakkam to prevent them from being poached.



South India has a rich political tradition of resort politics.



Resorts and five-star hotels in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are always on the alert for political instability as it could result in a windfall for them.



As the leaders slug it in the political game of thrones, the legislators are herded to resorts to ensure their loyalty.



Here is a state wise history of resort politics:



Andhra Pradesh - the pioneer



1984: NT Rama Rao was dismissed and an upstart called Nadendla Bhaskar Rao installed as chief minister in Hyderabad. NTR, as the popular film star turned politician was known, asked for a day to prove his majority while the upstart was given a month by the Governor to prove his. As a precaution, NTR whisked his MLAs to a resort in Mysore, where they were given shelter by then Karnataka Chief Minister Ramakrishna Hegde.



1995: The pioneer of resort politics himself became a victim. In 1995 NTRs son-in-law, Chandrababu Naidu, led a coup and split the Telugu Desam Party. He herded the 200 odd MLAs to a popular five-star hotel in Hyderabad. High drama ensued, with NTR and his then wife Lakshmi Parvati camped outside the hotel gates, which were shut, imploring the MLAs cooped inside to come back. Chappals, rocks, and insults were thrown back and forth. It didnt work and most of the MLAs supported Naidu, who became the chief minister. NTR died a bitter man six months later.



Karnataka - which perfected the art



1990: When Veerendra Patil was deposed as CM, his agriculture minister S Bangarappa whisked Congress MLAs to a resort and duly became the chief minister.



1992: When Verappa Moily was installed as CM to succeed S Bangarappa, several MLAs were again wined and dined in resorts.



2002: Maharashtra chief minister Vilas Rao Deshmukh brought his MLAs to Karnataka and parked them in a resort before a trust vote in his state Assembly.



2008-09: The infamous Reddy brothers from Bellary sent Karnataka MLAs to a post five-star hotel in Hyderabad in order to oust BS Yeddyurappa.



2011: Chief minister BS Yeddyurappa, who had to quit for his alleged involvement in illegal land deals and mining, took 60 legislators to a swanky resort on the outskirts of Bangalore to ensure that his nominee Sadananda Gowda became his successor. In less than six months, Yeddyurappa again resorted to a resort to ensure that Gowda was removed and he reinstated.



2015: Resort politics was resorted to during local body elections. Independent corporators of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike were shipped off to a resort in Kerala to prevent horsetrading for the mayors post. Other councillors were sent to a resort in Madikeri in Kodagu district.






Tehri: Amid the uproar over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'raincoat' barb at his predecessor Manmohan Singh, BJP President Amit Shah on Thursday told Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi to recall what his mother called Modi in the past.



Addressing an election rally, Shah said Rahul Gandhi had no grounds to attack Modi since he himself had humiliated Manmohan Singh by shooting down a cabinet decision when the Congress-led UPA was in power.



Shah's reference was apparently to Congress President Sonia Gandhi's description of Modi, when he was the Gujarat Chief Minister, as "maut ke saudagar" (merchant of death).



Urging the people to vote out what he called a corrupt and inefficient Congress government of Chief Minister Harish Rawat, Shah said the people of the hill state should vote to change the fate of Uttarakhand.



"Vote for the BJP and give us a majority," he told the gathering.
New Delhi: Congress members on Thursday staged a walkout of the Lok Sabha protesting against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's dig at his predecessor Manmohan Singh in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.



Party Leader in the House Mallikarjun Kharge tried to raise the issue as soon as the Zero Hour began but the Speaker disallowed him, saying a matter relating to the other House cannot be raised.



Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar also said the issue cannot be raised.



Whatever Modi has said about Singh is not good for parliamentary democracy, Kharge said before the Speaker cut him off.



With party president Sonia Gandhi looking on, Congress members trooped into the Well demanding that the Prime Minister apologise for his remarks.



An irate Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said they were snatching away the rights of other members as they have got the chance to speak during the Zero after several days today.



Kharge said what Modi had said was an insult to the country.





With the Speaker continuing with Zero Hour proceedings, Congress members staged a walkout.



Taking a dig at Singh, Modi had said he knew the art of taking bath wearing a raincoat as there were many scams during his government but he had remained untainted.


: A day after Narendra Modi's "raincoat" barb at Manmohan Singh, Congress Thursday alleged "multiple scams" under the guard of the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh and said RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and the Prime Minister seem to know the art of "taking bath while wearing a raincoat."Launching a blistering attack, Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee president Arun Yadav alleged the state government has allotted land worth Rs 500 crore to RSS in various cities by circumventing the rules.However, the BJP has termed the allegations "baseless" saying they are fallout of the growing frustration in the opposition party in the wake of a string of electoral defeats. "The state government has allotted land worth Rs 500-crore to RSS (BJP's ideological mentor) in different cities in the gross violation of rules," Yadav said.He claimed the Congress MLAs had asked several questions in this regard in the Legislative Assembly and that the government "didn't reply to the applications filed under RTI in this connection."At the presser, Yadav posed five questions to Bhagwat who is currently on visit of the state. "Bhagwat ji should answer why RSS is on land acquisition spree in the state," he said.Questioning "silence" of Modi and Bhagwat over "various scams" under the state BJP government, he alleged, "Over 150 scams have taken place during the BJP regime in state, including Vyapam, illegal sand mining, Rs 2500-crore Simhastha scam, dams and ponds scam, mid-day meal scam etc. but the PM and the RSS chief are not talking about these scams."...It seems that RSS chief and the PM know the art of taking bath while wearing a raincoat," he said. In a scathing attack in Rajya Sabha, the PM on Wednesday said that one should learn the art of "bathing with a raincoat on" from his predecessor Manmohan Singh as there was not a single taint on him despite so many scams having taken place during his regime.Yadav said whether the RSS chief was supporting thealleged illegal mining by state chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's family members "by keeping silence over the issue". He also asked Bhagwat to speak about "over Rs 1000 crore money laundering racket busted in Katni district of state.""Bhagwat should speak on this issue and inform who were behind this money laundering racket. Were these people belonging to the BJP?" he asked.Yadav also claimed that one of the eleven persons held from different parts of state today in connection with an espionage racket was a relative of a BJP corporator.
"It is very demeaning, and undermines parliamentary democracy. Government is accountable to Parliament and parliament is accountable to the people. But the government has refused to be accountable to people," Yechury said.

: CPI(M) on Thursday thretened it will take the matter concerning the "raincoat" jibe on Manmohan Singh by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the House to its "logical conclusion" in coordination with other parties."The matter will not end here. Opposition will meet to discuss to carry it forward," CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said in New Delhi.Yechury said this when asked about the future course of action as the PM has not withdrawn his remarks on former Prime Minister in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.Replying to a debate on the Motion of Thanks on the President's Address, Modi took a jibe at former the Prime Minister, saying one should learn the art of "taking a bath with a raincoat on" from him as there was not a single taint on him despite so many scams taking place during his regime.Opposition parties on Thursday forced adjournment of Rajya Sabha twice demanding an apology from Modi over his remarks "insulting" his predecessor.He further said, "This will not end here. It will continue when Parliament meets after the recess."Asked whether it is unparliamentary or derogatory to say such things in the House, CPI(M) leader Mohd Salim said, "It is not a question of unparliamentary or derogatory. It is a question of decorum. It is against the decorum to say such things by a person holding such high position."
Chandigarh: Punjabs Revenue Minister and Shiromani Akali Dal candidate from Majitha constituency, Bikram Singh Majithia, who is also the brother-in-law of Punjabs deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal, has no time to relax even after most of Punjab voted on February 4. The reason being the Election Commission ordering repolling at 12 polling stations of Majitha Assembly seat, nine each of Muktsar and Sangrur, one each of Moga and Sardulgarh and 16 polling stations of Amritsar Parliamentary constituency.



"The repolling will take place at 48 polling stations because of the malfunctioning that occurred in some VVPATs and EVMs on the polling day. The repolling will take place on February 9," Punjab Chief Electoral Officer V K Singh said.



Singh said the polling hours shall be from 8 AM to 5 PM and all the voters queued up till 5 PM at the polling stations can cast their votes.



Fighting a tight triangular contest in Punjab, Aam Aadmi Party has expressed concerns over security of EVMs in the state.



EVMs across the state are kept in sealed strong rooms that have a dual security system. The outer ring of security is provided by the Punjab Police while immediately near the strong room the central police forces are tasked with maintaining safety.



The fate of 1145 candidates for the 117-strong Punjab Legislative Assembly is sealed in Electronic Voting Machines in strong rooms across the state.



Punjab CEO said necessary arrangements have been made and election material, EVMs, security and poll staff in adequate numbers have been deputed for this task.



"The central paramilitary force will be deployed at each polling station and no outsider will be allowed to stay," he said.



Despite facing problems in VVPAT, the Election Commission said they will be used during the repoll.



"VVPATs will be used during the repoll. A total of 47 VVPATs will be deployed at the polling stations and sufficient numbers of machines have been kept as reserve," he said.



The problem in VVPAT was witnessed in Majithia, Muktsar and Sangrur assembly segments while EVMs were found faulty in Moga and Sardulgarh segments.



No VVPAT was used in Sardulgarh segment, said CEO.



EC had used VVPAT for the first time in Punjab at 6,668 polling stations in 33 Assembly segments and two segments in Amritsar Lok Sabha seat.



During the mock polls, 538 VVPATs were replaced while during polling 187 VVPATs were replaced.



Polling was affected at 25 polling stations in Majitha and ten each in Sangrur and Muktsar because of VVPAT malfunctioning.



VVPAT generates a receipt and allows people to verify the vote went in favour of the candidate against whose name the button was pressed on the electronic voting machine.



In one polling station each of Moga and Sardulgarh segments, EVMs had displayed the votes cast during mock polls despite the polling beginning at 8 AM.



CEO said the officials at the polling station in Moga and Sardulgrah where problems in EVM surfaced, maintained that they had pressed the 'clear' button to clear the votes polled during mock polls.



"But we shall conduct the post mortem (of machines which malfunctioned) after the counting of votes to know the reason...We will do our internal study," he said.



Asked if any candidate or political party objected to repoll, Singh said nobody has registered any complaint in this regard.



CEO said all the Returning Officers and Observers concerned have been instructed to act accordingly. The political parties and contesting candidates have also been intimated about the repoll as per the directions of Election Commission of India.



The ECI has ordered paid leave wherever the repoll is announced on February 9 to facilitate the voters to exercise their franchise, said Singh.



An official spokesperson of the state election office said canvassing, poll campaigning, election-related meetings and gathering could be done till 5 PM today in the constituency segments where repolls were announced.



Thereafter, candidates can go for door-to-door campaigning.



Notably, the Election Commission had even sought a report from the state election authorities about the malfunctioning of VVPATs which caused the delay in voting.



After VVPATs developed snag, AAP national convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had attacked election commission and tweeted, "Never has any election seen malfunctioning EVMs on such a large scale. Was it mischief done deliberately by or in collusion with EC."



AAP leader Sanjay Singh had even raised the matter with Punjab CEO, demanding extension in time where polling was affected because of VVPAT problem.



In order to make sure the VVPATs function properly and objectively, the machines are installed only by engineers of Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) or Bharat Electronic Limited (BEL). Immediately after a voter has cast the vote on the Electronic Voting Machine, a paper slip is printed on the VVPAT machine showing the same choice as the one made by the voter on the EVM. However, the voter cannot take the slip home and instead it falls into a sealed drop box. In case of a doubt, a candidate can ask the concerned Returning Officer to unseal the printed paper slips and count them manually to tally with the votes cast on the EVM. The decision to do this is the discretion of the Returning Officer.





From Majitha seat, Cabinet minister and Akali candidate Bikram Singh Majithia is locked in a contest against Congress and AAP candidates Sukhjinder Raj Singh Lalli and Himmat Singh Shergill respectively.



From Muktsar, Congress has fielded Karan Kaur while SAD and AAP have fielded Kanwarjit Singh and Jagdeep Singh respectively.



From Sangrur, Congress's nominee is Vijay Inder Singla while SAD has fielded Parkash Chand Garg and AAP has nominated Dinesh Bansal.



In Moga, Congress has fielded Harjot Kamal Singh against Akali candidate Barjinder Singh and AAP candidate Ramesh Grover.



From Sardulgarh seat, the fight is between Congress candidate Ajit Inder Singh, AAP's Sukhwinder Singh and Akali candidate Dilraj Singh.



From Amritsar Lok Sabha seat, the poll fight is between BJP's Rajindermohan Singh Chhina, Congress's G S Aujla and AAP's Upkar Sandhu.
Mohammad Akhter is a carpenter by profession

Sanjeev Rana who was the village Pradhan when the lynching happened says he often assures his Muslim neighbours that nothing will go wrong. But despite assurance the fear lingers. Their fear is understandable. Theyre fewer in number, he says.



But in the same breath he hints at the violence the "hot Hindu blood" can unleash. "Today the youth is very volatile, their blood boils too soon, we have to control their rage and were able to do it when the tension gripped the village few months back. But now there is no problem... hum sab sukh shanti se rehte hain (we live in peace and harmony). Some of the Muslim families have also returned," he says.



As for the larger politics, there is a palpable anti-Akhilesh sentiment among the dominant Hindu community of the village.



Sanjay Rana, whose sons are accused in the lynching case, said, "No matter which party comes, SP will not return." A sentiment that was echoed by many in the village. The majority Thakur community is supporting BJP Nagar, a Gurjar who is likely to get votes of Gurjar community as well.



BSP candidate from Dadri is MLA Satveer Gurjar, who too is a strong candidate.





Former pradhan Sanjeev Rana.



One of the local residents who didn't want to be identified said that immediately after the Akhlaq murder there was some hope the situation would return to normalcy. Driven by this hope against all odds, Mohammad Akhtar, a carpenter, started working on building his new home. Things changed after the 22-year-old accused in Akhlaq murder case, Ravi, succumbed to an ailment in the prison.





Mohammad Akhter's wife. Akhter sold his ancestral home at Bisada at dirt cheap rates.





"That's when tension returned to Bisada and we Muslims realized that life had changed here forever," said Akhtar. He sold his property for Rs 5 lakhs when its real worth he said is Rs 7 lakhs or more. His mother Zareena claims that her two other sons sold their house for Rs 4 lakh. A house that Zareena claims could easily have fetched them Rs 8-10 lakh.



"There are others accused too in the case, what if something happens to them and we are blamed for that? Who will control the crowd? There are individual assurances but crowd frenzy cannot be controlled," said a visitor at Vakeela's home.







Vakeela is seen with a visitor at his residence. Vakeela is the only Muslim person who is residing in Bisada where Mohammed Akhlaq was killed.







Vakeela is the sole Muslim family in the locality where Akhlaq was killed. She is not ready to leave, but says "if I get someone to buy my property I will not think twice.



On the other hand Asghari who has just become a grandmother is fearful but not prepared to leave: "Death has to come anyway, so I am not running away from it. There are people who want my house, they are waiting for me to flee in fear and leave it behind for them. This cannot happen," she said. She added that there is a distinct feeling of mistrust now. "Every time we stand out of the house or if some people come at my place, the other villagers start questioning if we are conspiring against them," she says.



As this reporter prepared to leave the village, a visitor to Akhtar's house asked, "Can media do anything to cement the ties between the two communities? Can the old days return? Maybe trust can return..."



Maybe the next chief minister of UP will have an answer.

: It was on September 28, 2015, that Mohammed Akhlaq was lynched by a mob on suspicions that he had slaughtered and consumed a cow. The incident shook up the nation. But more than a year later, the handful of Muslims living in Dadri's Bisada village  about 50 households with 100 votes out of a total of 5,600 voters  still feel they're being watched over with mistrust and suspicion.The mosque where no loudspeaker is used after the it was banned in a Bisada temple.Several Muslims have moved out of the village since the fateful night. But even now, as the village prepares to go to polls on Saturday, Bisada is buzzing as much with political banter as with threats and counter threats.For those who doubt the political significance of polarisation in western UP, Bisada is a reality check.BJP candidate from Dadri, Tejpal Nagar, recently held a panchayat in Bisada and was booked for violating the Model of Code of Conduct, for making communally provocative statements."Sometimes we're told that once BJP government comes to power, the Hindus can do anything. I hear all this but not without speaking back. When they make such statements I tell them we'll vote Mayawati to power," said Mohammad Shabbir Ahmad, a carpenter.
Hashimpura (Meerut): In April 1987, the city of Meerut was engulfed in deadly communal clashes. By May, just when it looked like the clashes had died out, violence broke out again. On May 22, there was an uneasy calm in the bylanes of Hashimpura, located in the heart of the city, when Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) personnel stormed the locality and allegedly rounded up young Muslim men. 42 of them were loaded onto a truck, driven to Muradnagar Canal in Ghaziabad and shot dead. The dead were then tossed into the canal.



Zulfikar Nassir was 17 years old on that fateful day. He had just finished writing his Class XII exams and was waiting for his result. He was picked up from his house and made to sit in the truck and around 8:30, the truck made a move. The forces stormed the three lanes of the colony around 2:30, when there was a curfew in the entire city, and went from house-to-house. They picked up Muslim men who looked young and loaded them onto the truck. By the time we left Meerut, it was around 8:30 and after 9 pm, we reached Muradnagar. In the cover of darkness, they asked us to get off the truck and took us near the canal and shot the people there. All of us were shot, including me, but thanks to Allah, I somehow survived.



He adds, "I was shot in the side and I pretended to be dead. Then they tossed me into the canal. I kept floating in the canal before I held on to a bush by the bank. I held on to it for around four hours, with only my head above the water. I got help from people in Muradnagar and got back home. That incident changed our lives forever. For years, every time I looked at a man in uniform, my first instinct was to run and hide. They killed all boys my age so I lost all my friends. People in the colony were prosperous but in one fell swoop, almost all the young boys were wiped out. For years, the locality did not see any weddings.



Mohammed Riyazuddin, who was only 16 when the incident took place, says, They took me in a truck to Police Lines in Meeurt and beat me up. I came back home to find that they had taken my brother Mohammed Kamaruddin to the Canal. He never came back home.



2017 marks not only the UP assembly elections but also the 30th anniversary of the Hashimpura massacre. In March 2015, 28 years after the massacre, the Tis Hazari Court in Delhi delivered a verdict in the case. Three of the 19 accused PAC personnel had already died by then and the remaining 16 were let off due to a lack of evidence. Nassir, now 47, went along with other survivors to meet Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. This prompted Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav to file an appeal in the Delhi High Court. For this reason, Nassir says he will stay loyal to the party of Mulayam and Akhilesh.



"When our verdict came in March 2015, only Mulayam and his party came to us to wipe our tears. Behenji (Mayawati) is trying to win our support but nobody from BSP came to our colony. Akhilesh, too, gave us compensation. While compensation will not bring back the dead but SP is the only party we can support.



Riyazuddin agrees, Mayawati was Chief Minister and she didnt lift a finger to help us. We thought that when the BJP came to power, they would help us because the massacre took place when there was a Congress government in the Center and UP. Rajiv Gandhi was Prime Minister and Vir Bahadur Singh was CM. But nearly three years have passed since Modi has been PM and nothing has been done for us.



For the survivors, the blame for the massacre lies solely on the Congress, which was in power at the Center and the state. That is why Akhilesh Yadavs decision to ally with Congress has hurt Hashimpura residents. Rajiv Gandhi was the Prime Minister. When I met Rajiv Gandhi, I asked him why during his visit to Meerut, he never visited Hashimpura. He said nobody told him to visit. Everybody knows that Congress was responsible for the massacre, Nassir says, but he adds, Today, it is not Rajiv Gandhis Congress. We hope that his son and Mulayams son will be better. Rahul Gandhi should be given one chance to correct the mistakes of his father.



For Riyazuddin, all hope is lost. He says he will now vote for SP, the party that has accorded him the respect that he was looking for. We lost the case because we were not given proper legal aid in the beginning. Now, I dont think we will ever win the case or get justice. All parties let us down but at least, the SP gave us respect. When we met Mulayam Singh Ji, he told us that we should have come to him earlier. Even Akhilesh helped us by getting us compensation and appealing against the verdict in the High Court. Just for giving us respect, we will vote for SP.


Tamil Nadus caretaker Chief Minister O Panneerselvam met Governor Vidyasagar Rao on Thursday evening for less than 10 minutes, during which he reportedly sought to withdraw his resignation.I told the Governor that I was forced to resign and want to withdraw my resignation. I told him what happened... Good will prevail. We will come back, he told reporters soon after his meeting with the Governor.Rao reportedly heard him out but gave no commitments. He told Panneerselvam he will arrive at a decision after meeting VK Sasikala at 7.30pm.The meeting came two days after Panneerselvam revolted against AIADMK General Secretary Sasikala, claiming that he was forced to resign from the Chief Minister's post.Accepting Panneerselvam's resignation, the Governor had on February 6 asked him to continue till alternative arrangements were made. After his revolt, Panneerselvam has maintained he was willing to reconsider his resignation if the people desired.However, Rao's absence for the next two days from the state raised eyebrows with Sasikala's supporters demanding that she should have been invited to form the next government.Rao, holding charge of Tamil Nadu in addition to Maharashtra, arrived here from Mumbai late this afternoon and gave appointments to Pannerselvam and Sasikala, who is slated to meet him around 7.30pm.Panneerselvam said he called on Rao along with senior leaders of his camp including, AIADMK Presidium Chairman E Madusudanan. He said they have the "blessings" of late Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.He quoted a popular Tamil verse of nationalist poet Subramanya Bharathi, the import of which is "though dharma could be eclipsed by intrigue, it will be dharma which will triumph ultimately".He, however, did not take any questions and merely gestured with folded hands when asked about his discussions with the Governor.(With PTI inputs)
Lucknow: Strategies of all, including the BJP, BSP and SP-Congress alliance, will be at test, as 15 districts of west UP go to polls in Phase 1 on February 11.



With BSP fielding Muslim Candidates on 18 out of 73 seats and SP-Congress alliance giving a Muslim face in 12 constituencies, it's a bitter battle between the two for wooing the minority vote Bank.



BJP's strategies in the communally sensitive regions of the West have been further put to test by a resurgent RLD of Chaudhary Ajit singh, with the latter trying hard to regain its lost Jat Support.



With the entire election narrative boiling down to attempted consolidation on caste and communal lines on the ground, polling in the so-called Jatland and the suger belt of North India, covering some of the sensitive districts like Muzzafarnagar, Shamli, Merrut, Baghpat, Etah, Agra, Gautam Budhh Nagar and Mathura, will surely be interesting.



It will not just be the litmus test for strategy of all major political players in battleground UP, it will also have a strong potential to set a trend for subsequent phases.



While BSP is primarily banking on its much publicised Dalit-Muslim(DM) unity with the understanding that both these communities have a strong presence on most of the seats going to poll in the first Phase; SP-Congress alliance too has pitched itself strongly as the secular front against the BJP.



With Muslim candidates on 12 seats of Phase 1 and 10 candidates from Gujjar community, the alliance has put Muslim-Gujjar(MG) formula to test.



Gujjars are part of the Backward caste list. The community on its own has a limited appeal as they dominate only on some seats including Kairana, Shamli and parts of Saharanpur, but together with Muslims they can make a difference on far greater number of seats.



In 2012 Assembly polls, BSP won 23 seats while SP was victorious on 24 and Congress on 5 seats.



For the BJP, its a huge task at hand. Phase one, probably, holds the key for it to get back to power in UP after more than 15 years. Also, it has a challenge to defend its electoral performance of 2014 Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh: the BJP won on 71 out of the 80 seats it contested. The 2014 result is in stark contrast to the 2012 Assembly polls when it won on just 9 seats in the region. Its being said that this election will also be judged as referendum on Modi government's decision of demonetisation.



Reflection of grass root political strategy for the BJP can be guessed from its repeated emphasis on alleged exodus of majority community from towns of west UP, especially Kairana.



Also, issues like that of illegal slaughter houses, safeguarding honour of women and daughters and charges of appeasement politics against its opponents, leave no doubt that the party wants a counter polarisation of the majority community in its favour.



With likes of Sangeet Som, Suresh Rana being the party's candidates in electoral fray and leaders like Mahant Adityanath comparing Kairana to Kashmir, the micro strategy is out in the open.



However, BJP's political calculations have been slightly complicated with a seemingly resurgent RLD. While Muslims and larger sections of Dalits remain out of reach for the party, it's RLD which can be a threat to BJP's Jat vote bank calculations.



Being the part of OBC, Jats have a strong presence on several seats in this region also known as the Jatland. In 2014, Jats had voted enmasse for BJP, but a lot has changed since then.



Political observers say that from west UP to Haryana, Jat politics is on the boil. The Jat community feels that their leadership is being increasingly ignored. Appointment of non- Jat as the Chief Minister in Haryana too didn't go in BJP's favour. Hence the community can again look towards Ajit singh of the RLD. The only Jat leader of prominence and who has the honour of being the heir to legacy of most prominent of Jat leader ever: the late Prime Minister Charan singh.



RLD has tried to forge a Jat-Muslim combination. With Muzzafarnagar riots still fresh in the memory, efforts are to rebuild this alliance. That's the reason why RLD too has fielded 5 Muslim candidates in the first phase. In 2012 RLD won 9 seats in this region. This time it has fielded candidates on 59 out of 73 seats of Phase 1.





Apart from the larger deciding battle for the political parties, Phase 1 will also decide fate of some prominent political faces.

There are around 25 VIP seats in the region. These include Noida where Pankaj Singh, son of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, and Atrauli in Aligarh where Sandeep Singh, grandson of former UP CM Kalyan Singh, would be vying for their maiden entry in the UP Assembly.



Similarly, Ms Mriganka Singh, daughter of BJP MP Hukum Singh, is also fighting her first election from Kairana seat on the BJP ticket.



Eyes will also be on the Sardhana seat in Meerut and Thanabhawan seat in Shamli where BJP has yet again put faith in Muzaffarnagar riot accused MLA Sangeet Singh Som and Suresh Rana respectively. While Som has been challenged by UP CM Akhilesh Yadav's confidant SP Candidate Atul Chauhan and BSP's Hafiz Yakoob, it's a Lucknow University Professor Sudhir Pawar who is the SP candidate against Suresh Rana in Thana Bhuwan. BSP again has fielded a Muslim, Abdul Waris Khan, from the seat.



Another high profile contest will be on the Mathura seat.

Incumbent Congress MLA, Pradeep Mathur, has been challenged by BJP national spokesperson Srikant Sharma. Mathur has been winning the Mathura seat for past three consecutive terms.



Eyes will also be on Rahul Yadav, son- in-law of former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, who is contesting on SP ticket from Sikandrabad seat in Gautam Buddha Nagar district. Former BJP UP president Laxmikant Bajpai is also trying his luck from Meerut(city) seat to make a hat trick.
State Governors  serving as well as retired  seemed split on what course Vidyasagar Rao should take in the O Panneerselvam vs VK Sasikala battle, but they were unanimous in that the Tamil Nadu Governor has an unenviable task at hand.



Look, I do not know of any other instance in which a serving Chief Minister has tendered resignation only to claim that he did it under duress. This situation is quite unique. In these circumstances, only the governor knows what choice to make, Uttar Pradesh Governor and former Union minister Ram Naik told News18.



K Rosaiah, who has served as the governor of the state from 2011 to 2016, said the law he knows doesnt let Pannerselvam to withdraw his resignation since it has already been accepted.



Tamil Nadu is anxiously waiting what course would Vidyasagar Rao take when he meets both the factions of AIADMK today. He will meet both Panneerselvam and Sasikala at 5.30 pm and 7 pm respectively in batches of 10. The question looming over him are mainly two: how to handle Panneerselvams claim that he resigned as CM under duress; and whether to wait till the Supreme Court verdict on the disproportionate case against Sasikala or invite her to be the CM immediately. If the Governor ends up accepting Panneerselvams argument that he resigned against his own will, then the matters proceed to assembly where he will be asked take a floor test.



Another serving governor, who did not wish to be named, told News18 that Rao could have easily defused the situation if he had returned to Chennai immediately.



Though I am nobody to advise Rao, I feel that the situation could have been easily avoided if hed chosen to return to Tamil Nadu in time and met the party rank and file. But hes also the governor of Maharashtra. One perhaps also has to take that into account, he said.

Bhisham Narain Singh, who has also served as the governor of Tamil Nadu, gave a thumbs up to Vidyasagar Rao.



He will meet everyone, including Sasikala and Pannerselvam. Governors role in appointing the next Chief Minister is crucial. If he were only the governor of Tamil Nadu, then you couldve raised questions about his absence... But anyways, it is a tricky situation that this governor has got into. I dont think any drastic measure is required. Everything can be decided on the floor of the house, he said.



Rosaiah said the resignation of Panneerselvam has been submitted to the governor and it cannot be withdrawn now. I don't know what action Governor will take. He will surely take legal opinions before taking any decision, he said.



Panneerselvam is a nice man, loyal to his leader Jayalalithaa...Sasikala was not in active politics, she was in background operating...I don't think it's desirable to go for re-elections. This issue can be sorted out. I don't want to comment on political gossips, he said.



One of the staunchest critics of Vidyasagar Raos conduct was Sheila Dikshit, former governor of Kerala, and senior Congress leader.



I must say his absence so far has been quite intriguing. Naturally it is adding to the confusion. A decision, on the appointment of Chief Minister that could have be taken so early is still being delayed, she said.



On the question of the options before him, Dikshit said that Vidyasagar Rao has to select one of the three choices before him: To select the gentleman, the lady or to wind up the assembly altogether. If hes biding time till the Supreme Court verdict, then he should come out and say so.




Alibaba Group Holding Ltd on Thursday alleged that several intellectual property agencies were filing false complaints against vendors on its e-commerce platforms.The company called for a boycott of these IP agencies, also known as "reputation-protection" firms, which are hired by businesses to help manage their IP rights.Alibaba singled out Hangzhou Wangwei Technology Ltd, an IP agency, as an abuser of its system for reporting intellectual property thefts, adding that it would no longer process claims made by the firm.Alibaba's comments come at a time when the Chinese e-commerce company has started cracking down on counterfeiters amid persistent allegations that fake goods are widely available on its sites.Critics, however, have said that counterfeits remain prevalent and argue the company has not done nearly enough.The United States in December returned Taobao, China's most popular consumer-to-consumer shopping website, to its blacklist of "notorious marketplaces" known for the sale of counterfeit goods and violations of intellectual property rights.Alibaba said on Thursday that claims by IP agencies hurt more than a million merchants on the Taobao platform in 2016.The decision to not process claims from Hangzhou Wangwei was a result of an investigation that showed the firm had withdrawn over 60 percent of its complaints that since 2015 after counter-appeals from merchants.Alibaba said it would now investigate claims for merit, and give merchants time to respond before penalizing them.
The Union Cabinet was on Wednesday apprised of the agreement between India and Vietnam on the usage of outer space for peaceful purposes, said an official.The meeting was chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi."Cooperation with Vietnam through this Framework Agreement would lead to the development of joint activity in the field of application of space technologies for the benefit of humanity," said a government statement.The Framework Agreement on cooperation in the exploration and usage of outer space for peaceful purposes was signed during the Prime Minister's visit to Vietnam in September last year.The agreement would enable the two countries to explore the potential interest areas of cooperation in the space science, technology and applications like remote sensing, satellite communication and navigation and other areas.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan's non-profit medical research organisation has announced it will be investing $50 million in its first class of 47 disease investigators in an endeavour to help cure all diseases in our children's lifetime.The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub (CZ Biohub), which aims to create a "planet without disease", funded 47 scientists, technologists and engineers working at University of Stanford, University of California - San Francisco (UCSF) and University of Berkeley -- which includes nearly 50 per cent women and 15 per cent underrepresented minorities."We're investing $50 million in this first class of investigators. This programme will provide five years of funding to some of the most innovative researchers," Zuckerberg was quoted as saying in a Facebook post on Wednesday."This first group includes a Stanford data scientist working to analyze massive quantities of genomic data, a doctor from UCSF looking at how malaria spreads, an engineer from Berkeley who is designing tools to better understand human biology, including a miniature foldable microscope, and more," Zuckerberg added.Each of the CZ Biohub researcher will receive a five-year appointment and up to $1.5 million in funding to conduct life science research in their respective areas of expertise."CZ Biohub investigators share our vision of a planet without disease," said Joseph DeRisi, co-president of CZ Biohub and Professor at UC San Francisco."CZ Biohub Investigators will challenge traditional thinking in pursuit of radical discoveries that will make even the most stubborn and deadly diseases treatable," DeRisi noted.
United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) recently hailed Keralas award-winning Responsible Tourism (RT) initiatives terming it as a model for other destinations to replicate.The worlds foremost international tourism organisation also called for the development of closer ties between Kerala Tourism and UNWTO, emphasising the importance of further association to help take the message of sustainable tourism forward.Responsible Tourism is gaining popularity across the world as the best way to maximize the positive impacts of tourism and minimize the negative ones.Kerala launched the initiative in 2007, in four destinations  Kovalam, Kumarakom, Thekkady and Vythiri on a pilot basis.In 2012, the initiative was extended to three more destinations  Kumbalanghi, Bekal and Ambalavayal.Kumarakom was the first place in the country to successfully implement RT.In 2013, Kerala Tourism was conferred the top United Nations Award - United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) Awards for Excellence and Innovation in Tourism- for its global leadership in creating innovative initiatives for sustainable tourism at Kumarakom. This was the first time India has ever won the recognition.After the successfull implementation of Kumarakom, RT was implemented in other tourist destinations across the State.Moreover, the 'responsible tourism' is helping travellers, the local population and the trade derives the greatest possible benefits from tourism, without causing any ecological or social damage.
Ladakh -- once the hub of the ancient Silk Route -- is aptly described as a place where Buddhist spirituality and its ancient culture reign supreme amidst virgin nature.



It's a cold desert in northern India, dotted by tiny hamlets spread over the Himalayan peaks adjoining Tibet, where one can simultaneously have a close brush with sunburn and frostbite in summer.



Leh, the headquarters of Ladakh, is connected by road -- open only five months a year due to heavy snowfall -- from Srinagar and the distance of 434 km takes two days with a night halt at Kargil town; and almost equidistant from the picturesque Manali tourist resort in Himachal Pradesh via the picturesque Lahaul Valley. The latter route is more treacherous.



Travelling by air is the most convenient way to reach Leh, available round the year.



"It's a place where spirituality and culture co-exist, where traditional life is thriving by adapting green, modern technologies. It's truly called a crown jewel," remarked British tourist Alfred Martin.



For Malaysia-born Michelle Yeoh, famous for her role in Ang Lee's Oscar-winning martial arts love story "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", visiting the "rooftop of the world" is a spiritual journey. The analogy, however, was not exactly appropriate as the expression "Roof of the World" generally refers to Tibet.



"It's a spiritual journey for me every time. This land of high mountain passes always reminds me of a stronghold of Buddhist art, culture and spirituality and this spirit of purity is rarely seen elsewhere in the world," Yeoh told IANS.



She was in Ladakh earlier this month for the week-long Naropa festival, a once-in-12-year celebration of the birth anniversary of the great Indian saint Naropa, at the famed 17th century Hemis monastery, located 40 km from Leh.



"From July till late October is the best period to explore ancient monasteries and trek to a host of mountain passes," remarked tour operator Sonam Dawa in Leh.



Ladakh reported a tourism boom in 2015, attracting 146,501 visitors, including 19,075 foreigners, up more than 25 percent from the previous year, according to the local administration.



This year, till July, it saw 161,444 tourists and a majority of the foreigners were from Israel, France, Britain and the US.



The entire Ladakh region is populated mainly by tribals. The climatic conditions are harsh as much of the land is a cold desert where the mercury remains below minus 30 degrees Celsius in winter for weeks on end.



The staple food is barley, wheat, peas, rice, rapeseed and salted tea mixed with yak butter.



From the world-acclaimed Hemis monastery to Druk Padma Karpo School, also known as "Rancho's School" after the Aamir Khan character in the film '3 Idiots', these places speak about the unique spirit of Ladakh, from an ancient past to the innovative present.



Built in 1630 by Druk Staktsang Raspa, a student of the fifth Gyalwang Drukpa, the monastery holds the Hemis Festival every year in summer in honour of Guru Padmasambhava, the eight century Indian guru revered for spreading Buddhism in the Himalayas.



The monastery's museum is a repository of an astounding 1,500 artefacts, some dating back 1,400 years.



Just an hour's steep uphill hike from the Hemis Monastery takes you to the Gotsang cave and retreat centre, a spiritual journey.



Chemdrey, one of Ladakh's greatest fortress monasteries, is 45 km from Leh, en route to the picturesque Nubra Valley and the world's highest salt water lake Panggong that freezes in winter.



The statute of Padmasambhava is the most important statue in the Chemdrey monastery.



The Shrey Palace, located 15 km south of Leh, houses a 12-foot statute of Buddha in the temple of Shakyamuni, one of the largest metal statues in Ladakh.



The palace, which boasts of a view of 108 stupas , is owned by a royal family of Ladakh. Monks of the Drukpa lineage are taking care of it.



Adventure and thrills lie west of Leh.



The mighty Indus and Zanskar rivers are popular for whitewater rafting. The place where the blue waters of the Zanskar and the green of the Indus join, some 36 km from Leh, is known for its most beautiful views.



There is also the famous Sikh shrine, Gurdwara Patar Sahib, managed by the Indian Army, 20 km from Leh.



Getting to Leh:



How to travel: In summer, by public or private transport. From Manali to Leh via Keylong; From Srinagar to Leh via Kargil.



Leh is connected by air from Delhi and Jammu.



Where to stay in Leh: Small hotels, guest houses and even homestays with local people. Interestingly, there are no houses left in Leh, only guest houses.



Buddhist leader The Gyalwang Drukpa, the spiritual head of the 1,000-year-old Drukpa Order, is promoting homestays among the locals by adopting eco-friendly ways.
Istanbul: A total of 497 earthquakes, mostly minor, have stricken Turkey's northwestern province of Canakkale over the past three days, local media reported on Wednesday.



The first wave of the tremors was recorded early on Monday at Ayvacik district with a magnitude of 5.3 on Ritcher Scale, which left eight people with minor injuries, Xinhua quoted Canakkale governor's office as saying.



The aftershocks, which forced relief agencies to set up container shelters in the region, damaged some 300 houses.



The local residents were then forced to live in tents established by the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority and the Turkish Red Crescent.



As the quakes continued to rock the region on Wednesday, the two relief agencies decided to set up container shelters and move in the victims before sunset to better protect them from cold weather, according to CNN Turkey.



Meanwhile, Mehmet Ozhaseki, Turkey's environment and urbanisation minister, cautioned that some 42 per cent of the country's territory is on active fault lines.


Washington: President Donald Trump renewed his attack on the courts on Wednesday, describing them as "so political" as a panel of judges weighs his executive order barring refugees and visitors from seven mainly Muslim countries.



The contentious ban has been frozen by the courts and has embroiled Trump in an arm wrestle with the judicial branch, less than three weeks into his presidency.



Speaking to police chiefs and sheriffs, Trump expressed "amazement" at a hearing on Tuesday of three federal appeals judges, who are considering whether to reinstate the ban.



Trump said what he heard in proceedings was "disgraceful, just disgraceful."



"I don't ever want to call a court biased, so I won't call it biased and we haven't had a decision yet. But courts seem to be so political," he said.



Trump's comments have sparked a firestorm in a country where such personal and vitriolic attacks by a president on another branch of government are rare.



The uproar extended to Trump's own Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch.



He described Trump's attack on the Seattle judge who froze the ban as "disheartening" and "demoralising" according to spokesman Ron Bonjean.



Trump's ban was suspended nationwide on Friday, after two US states asked it to be overturned on grounds of religious discrimination and that it had caused "irreparable injury."



Taking up the case, the federal court of appeals in San Francisco heard oral arguments Tuesday.



Judges skeptical



A lawyer for Trump's Justice Department argued that the president had clear authority to order the ban on national security grounds.



"This is a traditional national security judgment that is assigned to the political branches and the president," lawyer August Flentje argued.



Critics of the ban claim it violates the constitution by discriminating against people on the basis of their religion.



The judges -- two of whom were appointed by Democratic presidents, and a third by a Republican -- appeared sceptical of the government's case.



"Has the government pointed to any evidence connecting these countries with terrorism?" asked Judge Michelle Friedland, who was appointed by former president Barack Obama.



Flentje said the government had not had an opportunity to present such evidence, given the speed at which the case had moved.



The court must decide whether to maintain the lower court's suspension, modify it, or lift it. Its ruling was expected before the end of the week.



Experts say they believe the argument to reinstate the ban is facing an uphill struggle.



But the case is likely to eventually wind up on appeal in the Supreme Court, which currently is evenly divided between liberal and conservative justices. A tie there would leave in place the appeals court decision.



'Horrible, dangerous and wrong'



Trump vented his frustration in tweets, referring to the ban's suspension as "the horrible, dangerous and wrong decision."



He went further in a rambling speech to the law enforcement chiefs, which at points drew polite applause.



"It's really incredible to me that we have a court case that's going on so long," he said. "Now we're in an area that, let's just say, they are interpreting things differently than probably 100 percent of the people in this room."



"A bad high school student would understand this -- anybody would understand this," he said.



Trump then read out the text of a law -- interspersed with his commentary -- that confers on the president authority to suspend entry to any alien or class of alien deemed detrimental to the interests of the United States.



Trump's decree summarily denied entry to all refugees for 120 days, and travellers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days. Refugees from Syria were blocked indefinitely.



Top administration officials have argued it is needed to keep out Islamic State and Al-Qaeda fighters migrating from Middle East hotspots, insisting time is needed to implement stricter vetting procedures.



Travel analysis firm ForwardKeys says travel bookings to the United States fell 6.5 percent week after the ban, compared to last year, with a sharp drop in numbers from countries subject to the ban: Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Sudan.



Blame shifting



The sudden roll-out and blanket nature of the ban sparked protests and international condemnation. Polls now show eroding public support for it in the United States, amid jubilant scenes at airports of returning immigrants.



Shifting the blame to his security advisers, Trump said he had proposed giving a one-month notice, but his law enforcement experts told him "people will pour in before the toughness."



"I wanted to give like a month. I said, 'What about a week?' They said you'll have a whole pile of people perhaps, perhaps, with very evil intentions coming in before the restrictions."



"I think it's sad, I think it's a sad day. I think our security is at risk today, and it will be at risk until such time as we are entitled and get what we are entitled to as citizens of this country, as chiefs, as sheriffs of this country. We want security."
Days after Americas new President Donald Trump signed an executive order and vowed to make Mexico pay for the wall along the 2000 mile border, Mexican Ambassador to India Melba Pria made it clear that Mexico would never pay for it and the only one who would end up funding Trumps bold campaign promise would be the US taxpayer. Speaking exclusively to CNN-News18, the Mexican envoy said, I dont know who pays for walls in the US but its certainly not going to be Mexico. Taxes pay for infrastructure in all our countries and its the public of the country which has to pay for it.



When asked whether Trumps order on the wall slated to cost a whopping 15 billion dollars would pass the congress scrutiny, Melba Pria said, You will have to ask America. International economics is not a zero sum game. It has to be a win-win situation. I am sure the US public would need many more pieces of infrastructure which is more important than the wall. At the end of the day if they decide they want to spend their money like that its their right but its they who will have to pay for it.



Melba Pria took great pains to explain how Trumps tirade against Mexico for taking away jobs and manufacturing was so much at odds with statistics.





She repeatedly stressed that America wouldnt become great again by just building a wall as the two economies were too closely interlinked. Pria said, Mexican exports have forty percent American components but that forty percent is also creating jobs in the United States. The American association of car makers thinks that six million jobs US are linked to Mexico. So it is a complicated equation. She explained how the auto industry was scared about Trumps policies. A car crosses the US Mexico border 8 times before it is finished. The Ford produced in Mexico costs 22000 dollars to the US consumer. If made in the US the cost goes up to 29000. The auto industry is worried that their cars would become at least 40 percent more expensive than Japanese cars and even Americans wont buy the.







KEY FACTS ON US MEXICO TRADE



Trade between US, Mexico and Canada which comprise the North American Free Trade Association grew from 290 billion in 1993 to 1.1 trillion in 2016



Between US and Mexico, trade grew 630% since 1994



US and Mexico trade at least 1 million per minute and 1.5 billion in a day



As per 2015 figures trade between US & Mexico was 483 billion. Larger than US trade with Japan, Germany and South Korea combined



US Chamber of Commerce suggests that 6 million US jobs depend on Mexico



The White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer had recently suggested that one of the ways to fund the wall was to impose a 20 percent tax on imports from Mexico.



Reacting to it the Mexican envoy said, A piece of machinery such as a car makes 8 crossings, so are we going to tax it 8 times? Why mingle into speculation. This suggestion from the white house had met with a lot of criticism as the burden of building the wall would fall on the US public, the very people who had voted Trump to power.



Pria also disagreed with Trumps muslim ban which has been stayed by a US court. She said,  I honestly dont believe it is conducive to making the world safer but we have different views on this.



In the end, Mexicos senior diplomat urged America to remember that it is an economy that needs migrants and that one cant always win. We all want transactional deals. We all want something out of an agreement but its always better to have a win win deal rather than I win you lose deal. Such type of deals dont exist anymore, she said.




Ankara: Turkey's military says three soldiers were killed in northern Syria in an "accidental" airstrike by a Russian warplane.



The military says 11 other soldiers were wounded in the friendly fire incident on Thursday. The Turkish soldiers were inside a building that was hit by a Russian aircraft, according to a military statement.



The statement said Russia expressed its sorrow and condolences for the incident while President Vladimir Putin called President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.



The incident comes after Turkey and Russia recently repaired ties that were strained by Turkey's downing of Russian jet near the border with Syria two years ago.
Washington: President Donald Trump harshly criticised arguments against his temporary travel ban on Wednesday, discounting a legal challenge to the order as anti-security and lambasting the federal judicial system that's weighing it as overtly political.



Seeking to lend his own legal argument for the order banning travel from certain Muslim-majority countries, Trump insisted that US presidents have wide authority to determine who may enter the United States.



As he read from US immigration law, the President declared that even a "bad high school student" could understand the language and find in his favour.



"I think it's sad, I think it's a sad day," Trump told a group of major city police officers and sheriffs in Washington.



On Tuesday evening, a federal appeals court heard arguments in the legal battle over the travel ban. The California-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will decide soon whether to reinstate the executive order. Until then, his order that temporarily bars all refugees from entering the country, and all immigration from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, is halted.



"I watched last night in amazement and I heard things that I couldn't believe, things that really had nothing to do with what I just read," Trump said during his event Wednesday morning in Washington.



He even offered criticism for his own Justice Department defence, saying: "I listened to lawyers on both sides last night and they were talking about things that had nothing to do with it."



"I listened to a bunch of stuff last night on television that was disgraceful," Trump continued, bemoaning courts he said, "seem to be so political."



But the President dismissed claims that he overstepped his bounds as an ignorant misreading of the law.



"I was a good student. I comprehend very well, OK, better than I think almost anybody," Trump said. "It can't be written any plainer or better."



Trump said his executive order was "written beautifully" and fully within the bounds of US statute.



And he claimed that national security professionals told him he couldn't preview the order before it went into effect since it would lead to terrorists "pouring" into the country.
Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer called Republican gubernatorial candidate Denver Riggleman "inexperienced" on Twitter Wednesday afternoon.

Signer wrote, "Newby Gov candidate @Denver4Governors inexperience is showing. Doesnt he know I voted AGAINST moving Lee statue?!"

Newby Gov candidate @denver4governors inexperience is showing. Doesnt he know I voted AGAINST moving Lee statue?! https://t.co/dCtliHIeYj  Mike Signer (@MikeSigner) February 8, 2017

The tweet was prompted by a press release from Riggleman that read in part, "And if Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer wants to keep poking the rest of Virginia in the eye with this sort of nonsense with our statues and making statements about Charlottesville being the "capital of resistance," he is going to wish that he would be allowed to make Charlottesville a sanctuary city, because I am coming.

The Denver for Governor Twitter account responded writing, "@MikeSigner I lead men. I was responsible for their success or failure. You failed... I won't. I'm not all talk no action #realexperience".

@MikeSigner I lead men. I was responsible for their success or failure. You failed... I won't. I'm not all talk no action #realexperience  Denver for Governor (@Denver4Governor) February 8, 2017

Signer accused the account of trolling, "Love getting trolled by a Gov candidate! Come visit & learn about our 3.9% unemployment & AAA bond rating. Didn't happen thru rhetoric. Thx."

Love getting trolled by a Gov candidate! Come visit & learn about our 3.9% unemployment & AAA bond rating. Didn't happen thru rhetoric. Thx. https://t.co/kCo4tkSeVt  Mike Signer (@MikeSigner) February 8, 2017

Then the candidate's account blamed Signer for starting the spat.

@MikeSigner you tweeted us.. classic example of #hypocrisy of the left. Arent you like the Tsar of the "capital of resistance" or something?  Denver for Governor (@Denver4Governor) February 8, 2017

The account followed up with, "@MikeSigner get your apparatchiks in line". The mayor retweeted that saying, "Just re-tweeting this, oh, for the heck of it:"

Just re-tweeting this, oh, for the heck of it: https://t.co/n1xxcVfmbG  Mike Signer (@MikeSigner) February 8, 2017
A sex offender wanted after he disappeared from a federal prison in Virginia was caught Wednesday in Washington, D.C., police said.

Matthew Ezekiel Stager, 45, was released from federal prison in Petersburg, Virginia, on Feb. 2 and was supposed to fly to a transitional center in Texas that day, but never showed up, the U.S. Marshals for the Eastern District of Virginia said in a statement. On Wednesday, authorities sought the public's help in finding him.

At about 2:40 p.m., D.C. police officers arrested Stager near the Judiciary Square subway station, D.C. Superior Court and D.C. police headquarters.

A spokesman for the U.S. Marshals said Stager was convicted in 1999 in North Carolina for indecent liberties with a minor, a charge that forced him to register as a sex offender.

In 2013, he was convicted of failing to register as a sex offender, a federal crime, and was serving a five-year sentence, the spokesman said.

The Bureau of Prisons allows some offenders to "self-report" when moving from one facility to another, according to the spokesman, but Stager, who was being moved from a medium security facility to a transitional center near Austin, failed to show.

A Bureau of Prisons spokesman said Stager was headed to a residential reentry center, or halfway house, that would provide programming like employment counseling that would ease his transition into the community as the end of his sentence approached.

"The only inmates allowed to move without supervision are considered minimal risk," Jill Tyson, chief public information officer for the agency, said in an email.

The agency's online inmate locator indicates Stager escaped on Feb. 3.

Stager is 5-foot-8, 145 pounds, and has distinctive tattoos and a history of drug abuse and mental illness, authorities said. The tattoos appeared to include peace signs and flowers, and the astrological symbol for Taurus.
Jennifer Farr, 45, of Lynchburg, Va., died Sunday, February 5, 2017. Jennifer was born Wednesday, April 14, 1971 in Richmond, Va., a daughter of Gerald and Linda Edlin. Jennifer was a graduate of E.C. Glass High School and earned a B.S. in Elementary Education from East Tennessee State University. She thoroughly enjoyed her career as an assistant aftercare coordinator at Blue Ridge Montessori. Jennifer was a people person and genuinely enjoyed being around others, especially children and young people. She had a special place in her heart for her dogs, Peaches and Krissley. In addition to her parents, she is survived by her daughter, Sophie Elinor Farr and her father, Jason Farr of Charlottesville, Va., one brother Brian Scott Edlin and wife, Missy of Raleigh, N.C., one sister, Ashley Edlin Johnston of Lynchburg, Va., two nephews, Brian Scott Edlin, Jr. of Raleigh, N.C. and William Clifford Johnston of Lynchburg, Va., one aunt Elinor Roberts of Lake Geneva, Florida and numerous cousins and extended family. A celebration of life will be at 11:30 a.m., Saturday, February 11, 2017 at First Christian Church, 3109 Rivermont Avenue, Lynchburg, VA 24503. In lieu of flowers memorial contributions can be made to the Jennifer Farr Memorial Fund for the development of the Youth Group of First Christian Church, 3109 Rivermont Avenue, Lynchburg, VA. 24503. Tharp Funeral Home & Crematory, Lynchburg, is assisting the family. To send condolences please visit tharpfuneralhome.com.
Heres a tip, if youre going to speak at a Black History Month event: It helps to know a little black history.

President Donald Trump overlooked that advice as he delivered a rambling Black History Month address before engaging in a listening session with African-American professionals at the White House.

It didnt take long for the real estate developer and former star of The Apprentice to start talking about what seems to be his favorite topic, himself.

First, he repeated a worn-out assertion that he keeps making at speaking events that the media deliberately reported falsely that he had removed a bust of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. from the Oval Office. In fact, the Time magazine reporter who was providing pool reports that day realized his mistake within minutes and sent out more than a dozen tweets correcting the mistake and apologizing. White House press secretary Sean Spicer tweeted back, Apology accepted.

Still, Trump, the man who questioned President Barack Obamas birth certificate for five years, talks about the episode as if the reporter misreported on purpose. Why let anything as inconvenient as a lack of evidence impede his running war on the media?

Yet Trump showed less confidence as he dropped names of important African-Americans in history, including one particularly notable orator, activist, journalist and abolitionist.

Frederick Douglass, he said, is an example of somebody whos done an amazing job, that is being recognized more and more, I notice.

Yes, and just about everyone watching him on TV could hear Trumps use of the present tense. Did Trump think that Douglass, who died in 1895, is still alive?

In fairness, Paris Dennard, a black Republican CNN commentator who attended the meeting, defended Trump, saying his remark was actually referring to a Douglass exhibit in the new National Museum of African-American History in Washington. But even if that was his intent, Trumps odd sentence structure leaves me asking, as Dorothy Parker is said to have responded to news of President Calvin Coolidges death, How can you tell?

Press secretary Spicer seemed to be caught completely off-guard by requests at a later news conference to clarify Trumps statement. But he forged ahead, sounding as confident as a man who actually knew what he was talking about, although not quite.

I think he wants to highlight the contributions that he has made, Spicer said. And I think through a lot of the actions and statements that hes going to make, I think the contributions of Frederick Douglass will become more and more.

And more. Yes, as Spicer tried to explain his bosss remarks, he too sounded as though he thought Douglass might still be around.

Where, I wondered, has Douglass been hiding for 122 years? In some warehouse perhaps with the millions of ballots that Trump insists were illegally cast for Hillary Clinton?

As if that were not enough mixed messages for one day, Vice President Mike Pence posted a tweet in which he too recognized the beginning of Black History Month  by honoring a white man:

As #BlackHistoryMonth begins, we remember when Pres. Lincoln submitted the 13th Amendment, ending slavery, to the states #NationalFreedomDay.

Im certain that Pence meant well. I love Lincoln for many reasons, not the least of which is the freeing of my ancestors.

Still, Pence could have avoided this dustup if he had taken the time to find a black American worth honoring, as the name of Black History Month suggests.

For example, do you know who happened to be one of the staunchest, most eloquent and influential voices among those that urged Lincoln to free the sleeves? Frederick Douglass.

And, like most black voters in those days, he was a Republican. I recognize the Republican Party, he wrote in 1888, as the sheet anchor of the colored mans political hopes and the ark of his safety. Those were the days.

So much has changed since then that the two parties have switched places on race, especially since the civil rights revolution of the 1960s, and the divide has only deepened in recent years.

Against that historical backdrop, Donald Trump has promised to be a president for all the people. Great. But as an old saying goes, we need to know where we have been before we can figure out where were going.

Page is a Chicago Tribune columnist. Email him at cpage@chicagotribune.com.
Intel (INTC) announced a new investment in an Arizona factory on Wednesday  and it did so at the Oval Office, not its Santa Clara, Calif. headquarters.

The reason? To show support of the administration's "policies to level the global playing field," especially when it comes to taxes, CEO Brian Krzanich told employees in a company email.

"From a tax and regulatory position we have been disadvantaged relative to the rest of the world where we compete," the email said. "That's why we support the [a]dministration's policies to level the global playing field and make U.S. manufacturing competitive worldwide through new regulatory standards and investment policies."

The factory is not new  it has been in the works for several years, Krzanich said, and was even used by the Obama administration "as a symbol of the future of U.S. manufacturing," before falling vacant, The Arizona Republic reported.

Here's what President Barack Obama said at Intel's construction site for the factory in 2012:

"We have a huge opportunity to create more high-tech manufacturing jobs in the United States, and bring some of these jobs back from overseas. But we're going to have to seize the moment. That starts with changing our tax system."

But the new $7 billion investment to finish the factory reflects support of new policies, Krzanich told reporters on Wednesday. It also reflects the pressure to make smaller, faster chips despite scientific challenges, a principle that "marches on" for the company's business, he said.

"We've held off doing this investment until now," Krzanich told reporters at the announcement. "It's really in support of the tax and regulatory policies that we see the administration pushing forward. That will really make it advantageous to do it in the U.S."

There will be no incentives from the federal government for the Intel project, the White House said.

"Brian called a few weeks ago and said, 'We want to do a big announcement,'" President Donald Trump said at the Wednesday announcement.

Story continues

The factory will eventually employ about 3,000 and support about 10,000 jobs, Intel said. But when asked if Intel would bring back jobs from overseas, Krzanich replied, "This is about expansion  new jobs in the U.S."

Intel has drawn fire from both political sides for some of its actions.

It has been criticized in conservative publications such as Breitbart for laying off thousands of staffers , while simultaneously supporting legislation that would increase the number of foreign worker visas granted each year.

Krzanich was also reportedly planning a fundraiser for Trump during the campaign season which he later canceled.

Neil Campling, senior vice-president and head of global TMT research at Northern Trust Securities, said there will be "massive" technical challenges for Intel to make the chip plant a reality.

"Now this announcement tonight is probably because of the semiconductor demand we have alluded to in great detail in recent weeks, more than it is about [Trump]," Campling wrote in a note. "In this industry, talk is cheap until the production ramps. It is safer/more logical to focus on the companies who follow through with clear strategic plans."



Still, Intel's email to employees said, "When we disagree, we don't walk away."

Here's the full email:

Today I was proud to represent Intel at the White House, where we announced that Intel is investing $7b illion to complete a manufacturing facility that will produce the most advanced computer chips in the world. Fab 42 will create about 3,000 full-time Intel jobs and more than 10,000 jobs in Arizona to run and support the factory.



Fab 42 is an investment in our own future and will help ensure that the United States remains the global leader in the semiconductor industry. The 7 nanometer (nm) chips that we're targeting for this factory  the smallest, most powerful and efficient ever  will power state-of-the-art computers, data centers, and other high-tech devices. They will enable amazing breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, automated driving, medical research and treatment, and the factories of the future.



I would like to take some time to answer some of the questions that are probably on your mind about this investment and the timing. The first question that may come to mind is "why now?" The answer is relatively simple. Intel's business continues to grow, and investment in capacity and R&D ensures that the pace of Moore's Law continues to march on, fueling technology innovations we love and depend on. Leading-edge technologies like 7 nm require an increasing amount of factory space per wafer. These two factors have driven Intel to a point where we must get to work and build out another factory for 7 nm capacity. These state-of-the-art

factories take a couple of years to build out capacity and begin the start-up process. As a result, we made the decision to start the process now. We are excited to begin this journey to build the world's most advanced and complex factory producing Intel's 7 nm technology.



The second question is why did we choose to do this announcement at the White House? Intel is proud of the fact that the majority of our wafer manufacturing and R&D is based in the United States. This is due to the great infrastructure we have at our U.S. sites, our talented and highly skilled workforce and the proximity to our R&D facilities in Oregon. We've maintained this U.S.-based manufacturing even though approximately 80 percent of our product is sold outside the United Stateswe're one of the top 5 exporters and top 2 R&D spenders in the U.S.and despite the fact that from a tax and regulatory position we have been disadvantaged relative to the rest of the world where we compete. That's why we support the Administration's policies to level the global playing field and make U.S. manufacturing competitive worldwide through new regulatory standards and investment policies.



Government policies play a critical role in enabling and sustaining American-driven innovation. At Intel we meet with governments from around the world, discussing and debating issues and policies important to our business, employees and shareholders. When we disagree, we don't walk away. We believe that we must be part of the conversation to voice our views on key issues such as immigration, H1B visas and other policies that are essential to innovation. We are an American innovation company that drives growth and opportunity in the United States and in

every corner of the world. I hope you join me in being proud that Intel, the largest and most advanced semiconductor company in the world, continues to invest and invent to push the boundaries of technology.

I also hope you will join me and several members of my team for an employee open forum and webcast on Thursday. We look forward to discussing this announcement with you in more detail and answering your questions.



Others predict the future. At Intel, we build it. Today's announcement is the latest exciting chapter in our almost 50-year story of innovation that is changing the world.



Brian

 CNBC's Jacob Pramuk and Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report.
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Revisit the founding of the JSA and foreshadow its future in The New Golden Age #1 preview

And see what lies ahead in the future of the DC Universe
By Bernardo Vizcaino

Feb 9 (Reuters) - A global body for Islamic finance has issued a draft standard on centralized sharia boards, aiming to improve corporate governance in the industry and increase the consumer appeal of sharia-compliant financial products.

The proposed rules come at a time when Islamic banks are trying to widen their appeal to consumers in core markets of the Middle East and Southeast Asia, while opening up entirely new ones - particularly across Africa.

Islamic banks have traditionally established internal sharia boards, employing scholars to rule on whether their products are religiously permissible.

Such self-regulation proved useful in the early years of the industry, but the establishment of independent sharia boards at the national level to encourage homogeneous transactions that are cheap and quick to structure is gaining traction.

The Accounting and Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) is seeking industry feedback on the proposed standard until the end of this month, aiming to make the final version effective from January 2018.

Bahrain-based AAOIFI said the standard would encourage convergence of industry practices by avoiding contradictory rulings and fostering consistency across products and services.

"This will, in turn, increase the credibility of the Islamic finance industry and boost the confidence of its clients and investors in Islamic financial institutions and their offerings."

The standard covers the appointment and optimal composition of sharia boards, fit and proper criteria of scholars, as well as steps to ensure the independence of their rulings.

While it does not prescribe term limits for scholars, it does require sharia boards to implement a rotation policy for its members while including members with expertise in areas such as accounting and law.

Sharia boards' functions are largely advisory and reactive in nature, but the standard allows scholars to take a proactive approach under certain circumstances - such as when it deems a major non-compliance event has occurred.

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AAOIFI has revamped its own internal structure by appointing 50 members across three technical boards in late 2015, which included the creation of a board on governance and ethics, which developed the proposed standard.

A centralized model is increasingly being adopted across the industry, with Oman and Bahrain having established national sharia boards in recent years. Morocco and Kenya are also working to establish similar bodies.

Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan have centralised sharia boards, but the way in which they operate can vary. (Reporting by Bernardo Vizcaino; Editing by Eric Meijer)
One of the best defenses in the league, it will have two big losses to the planesOrchard Park, New York...
Phoenix Gas hosts Cuban delegates

In a statement, the company said a delegation, accompanied by Guillermo Vasquez Moreno, Ambassador of the Republic of Cuba to Trinidad and Tobago, met with senior officials of the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries (MEEI) on January 25.

The statement said that one of the main topics of discussion at the meeting was the strengthening of energy relations between the two countries.

The CUPET executives accepted an invitation from Phoenix Park Gas Processors Limited for a reciprocal visit to Trinidad following the attendance of a delegation led by Minister of Trade and Industry, Paula Gopee- Scoon, of Trade and Industry from Trinidad and Tobago to the Havana International Fair 2016.

Among the delegation were various local energy sector interests.

The mandate was to pursue cooperation in the key areas of trade and energy and to outline mechanisms for increased collaboration between both countries. The attendance of the ministerial delegation also allowed for discussions on strengthening the existing infrastructure to facilitate increased trade.

Trinidad and Tobagos attendance at FIHAV 2016 was arranged following a meeting between Prime Minister Dr.

Keith Rowley and Cuban President Raul Castro during the VII Summit of Heads of State of the Association of Caribbean States in June 2016 in Havana, Cuba.

The CUPET executives had a very satisfactory and productive visit and were able to attend the first two days of the Energy Conference which was held at the Hyatt Regency Trinidad on January 23 and 24.
Empowering Urban Women

The project, titled, Empowering Urban Women is a series of seminars with the women of East Port-of-Spain in mind.

Permanand hosted six of the seminars over a period of several months last year. They featured speakers from organisations such as the Ministry of Labour, Eastern Credit Union and First Citizens bank who guided attendees on how to apply for loans and start their own businesses.

I had a lady start a lucrative business, doing embroidery, in her bedroom. She bought the machinery. She has no overhead, shes at home with her family and she is making money, said Permanand.

It also helps develop self-esteem, knowing you can look out for yourself. In one of the sessions we had up in John John, it broke my heart when one of the participants came up to me and said she never felt as though she could achieve anything. I have been fortunate to be able to dream. So many of these women cant

I designed it with helping these women achieve in mind. Because something happened in their lives that stopped it. I dont know what and whatever it is, isnt important. I want them to start again. It is almost like a second start, a second chance.

Permanand says she has been reworking the project with a view to sending it on to the Prime Minister in light of the recent upsurge of violence against women.

I actually see the project as something of the social component of our crime solution, said Permanand.

If we get our women empowered, if we get them to achieve their potential. They will become the role models in their own homes. Their children will now look up to their mother. She will now have the power to send them to school, to listen to them, to talk to them, to be with them.

Permanand said the genesis for the idea came from a UN conference she attended last year on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. She has also lived in and around Port of Spain for most of her life and said her mother grew up in Laventille. This is why she has such an affinity for the communities of East Port of Spain.

She intends to go through with another round of seminars this year, but said that funding remains problematic.

She expects that the first should take place after March.
FATAL DOSE

The baby who loved with her young parents in Egypt Village, spent six days at the Childrens Hospital, before being declared brain dead on Monday. On January 31, the babys young parents went to a pharmacy in Chaguanas and purchased a sleeping drug identified as melatonin with the intention of using the drop in the babys formula to assist her in sleeping.

Newsday understands that at 7.30 pm on January 31, the father added the melatonin to the babys milk and fed his daughter. At 8 pm, the child fell asleep, much to her parents relief as she was experiencing trouble sleeping. Half an hour later, when the mother went to check on her baby, the child was not on the bed.

During a frantic search, the parents found their daughter upside down in a clothes basket and in an unresponsive state. The young mother administered CPR (cardio- pulmonary resuscitation).

The baby was taken to the Chaguanas Health Centre where an initial test carried out revealed three possibilities identified as catastrophic injury, hypoxic injury and retinal haemorrhaging.

The baby was transferred to the Childrens Hospital in Mt Hope where she was placed on a respirator.

On Monday, Dr Persad carried out two brain tests on the baby which revealed she was clinically brain dead. A decision was then taken to pull the respirator plug.

Chaguanas police who interviewed both parents were told melatonin was not prescribed by any doctor and investigations are being carried out to ascertain if the parents are culpable in the childs death.

Contacted yesterday, the Chaguanas pharmacist who sold the Melatonin to the babys parents told Newsday that he remembered the purchase very well because it was the norm for the pharmacist to have conversations with the persons asking for drugs. The pharmacist said he enquired of the father, if the drug was for his use.

The pharmacist said the man indicated the Melatonin was for his daughter who was just under a year old. The pharmacist advised that he should not give the drug to the child because there is no data stating it was safe for use by children.

The father, the pharmacist said, indicated that a paediatrician advised that the child be given the drug, but again he (the pharmacist) insisted with no prescription, the drug would not be sold.

The pharmacist said that the man then indicated he too was having trouble falling asleep and wanted the melatonin for his own use. The drug was sold to the babys father. The pharmacist said he is willing to cooperate with police investigators if need be.

Andrew Rahaman, President of the Council of the Pharmacy Board of Trinidad and Tobago yesterday said he was sorry to learn about the death of the child but stated Melatonin is an over-thecounter drug. He said that based on information surrounding the babys demise, Melatonin may not have been the cause of death, but rather her fall into the clothes basket where she was found upside down.

He said there is no data indicating if Melatonin is safe for use by babies or young children. As a pharmacist, if someone comes to me I will not give Melatonin for use by a child because several questions will have to be asked. I have not experienced people coming to me and saying that their child cannot sleep. It is up to the personal judgement of the pharmacist (to dispense medicine or not), Rahaman said.

According to Wikipedia, Melatonin, also known as N-acetyl- 5-methoxy tryptamine, is a hormone that is produced by the pineal gland in animals and regulates sleep and wakefulness. Melatonin is also produced in plants where it functions as a first line of defense against oxidative stress.

As a medicine, it is used for the treatment of insomnia, however, scientific evidence is insufficient to demonstrate a benefit in this area.[8] Melatonin is sold overthe- counter in the United States and Canada. In other countries, it may require a prescription or it may be unavailable.
Diaz clears the air

Still recovering from a heart attack suffered last month, and admitting to taking 12 pills daily, Diaz denied claims of the non-payment of $1,000 appearance fees to pan players for Carnival 2016; the purchase of two high-end cars and declared Pan Trinbagos accounts have been audited by accounting firm Panell Kerr Foster.

In light of Minister of Community Development, Culture and Arts Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dollys announcement last month of a forensic audit of Pan Trinbago after this years Carnival, Diaz said the organisation was the subject of audits under previous administrations which never uncovered any mismanagement and instead saw Pan Trinbago receiving outstanding monies.

Apart from the uproar among panmen over the fees, Gadsby-Dolly had raised concerns about unaccounted for allocations to Pan Trinbago.

Diaz counters that Pan Trinbago has always shared its accounts with members during annual general meetings, every last Sunday in October.

Pan Trinbagos accounts are also sent to the line ministry, said Diaz suggesting the information is poorly recorded.

I want to state they were all presented to the ministry, it is rather strange in my stewardship as president I have faced nine different permanent secretaries, every one come, you have to resend documents. Documents are piled up somewhere. Diaz hit out at the ministers decision to have the National Carnival Commission (NCC) oversee the gate receipts for the 2017 Panorama, starting this Sunday with the semi-finals for small, medium and large conventional bands.

He insisted it was the ministry which failed to pay the panmens fees, an estimated $7.8 million, and accused Gadsby-Dolly of misrepresenting the facts. People accusing Pan Trinbago of taking the money; everything for all steelbands are in the ministry. We have given the list of names to her ministry, Diaz said.

Given the delay, Pan Trinbago took out a loan in the interim until the ministry released the funds, he explained. We did not have money to pay $7.8 million so we felt we should go and take a loan and pay the whole thing and when we get the allocation we would settle the debt with the bank. Is then you start to hear all kind of things, we thief the money, we put it in some account. Things start to fly and the NCC start to call shots. Giving a breakdown of how its earnings are spent, Diaz explained, We have to pay judges fees, appearance fees, prize money, on road, accommodation for pan people, guest performances, house announcers, pan players remittances ($8-12 million), printing, professional fees, sound system, transport, security and workers wages then we present the audit. Whatever money was allocated (by Government) and this is for Panorama only, we send back the audited accounts. He sought to clarify that Pan Trinbago has not received a subvention since the Basdeo Panday administration (1995-2000) as Carnival stakeholders were instead allowed to keep gate receipts from their shows. This (subvention) was stopped because we were able to pay our bills from the gate receipts. We were able to pay workers salaries, rentals for five offices, stationary, all adding up to a total of $8-9 million per year. Pan Trinbago does not get an annual subvention from government, and they want to know where the money gone, he said.

But Pan Trinbago receives funding for the staging of Panorama, Diaz said confirming the organisation had requested $30 million for Carnival 2016 but got $25 million in tranches by last October 28. On Tuesday, Pan Trinbago issued a statement saying the NCC should be probed, while stating its president had never received a salary of $75,000 with $20,000 in perks.
ROME (Reuters) - Italy's antitrust authority opened an investigation into a broadband joint venture between Telecom Italia (TLIT.MI) and Swisscom (SCMN.S) unit Fastweb for possible violations of competition rules, it said in a statement on Thursday.

The two companies agreed in July to invest 1.2 billion euros (1.02 billion) in a joint venture to speed up the roll-out of an ultrafast broadband network in 29 cities across Italy.

The authority said it had sent finance police to both companies on Thursday to acquire "elements needed for the investigation".

The joint venture "could reduce the intensity of competition" in the broadband and ultrafast broadband sectors, the statement said.

Telecom Italia and Fastweb both stood by the project and said they had behaved correctly. Fastweb said the joint venture was running fibre optic cables to 20,000 new homes each week.

Fastweb "is convinced both in the validity of the industrial project and in the correctness of its operations," the company said in a statement.

(Reporting by Steve Scherer and Gavin Jones, editing by Isla Binnie and Adrian Croft)
Top cops performance rated very good

Labour Minister Jennifer Baptiste- Primus said the non-completion of a 2015 appraisal is unfair to the CoP as its absence denies him the chance to improve his performance. While the PSC looks at world benchmarks for performance, its appraisal of the CoP did not include those standards, nor any targets set beforehand by the PSC for the CoP to reach. PSC Chairman Dr Marie Therese Gomes said the CoP cant be held to global standards as he cannot be placed in a bubble in isolation from the shortcomings of the Judiciary, of legislation and of a lack of resources .

Also, the PSC could not yet give the weighting that constituted each rating, nor explain the difference between a good and a satisfactory grading. Gomes replied to questions to reveal there are neither incentives nor sanctions to prod the CoP to reach any performance targets. Saying the CoP wants more realistic targets set for him, she then blamed crime on technology .

We do look at international standards but we have to recognise that in terms of the crime situation in this country, because we have technology we have galloped in crime. We are almost a barbaric society in the nature of crime, whether it is through technology or the domestic violence crimes or murders .

While we are a developing country we have a gap in terms of wanting to have developed country standards. We dont have what people look at on television and solve crimes very quickly. She said forensics and police training must be beefed up, even as she said the Police Academy syllabi must be redone, adding, There is no magic wand. On the recruitment of a new CoP, Gomes said the PSC has chosen a recruitment firm from the four that sent in offers .

Against the backdrop of a $2.5 million cost to recruit a CoP, Gomes suggested the PSC could recruit its own nominee, not any company. The committee listed its staff salaries ranging from $16,100 for assistant director to $7,000 for business operator .
Fire leaves 8 homeless

Allison Williams who is employed as a security officer with a contractor is now on the street with her children, the oldest being 21 and youngest, only three.

Police reported that at 8.45 am, residents heard loud, crackling sounds and saw the three-bedroom wooden and concrete structure engulfed in flames.

Within minutes, the entire house was fully ablaze. At the time, no one was at home. The house was not wired for electricity and when Newsday visited the scene, no one from the Williams family was present.

A resident said that flames spread so quickly, they had no other choice but to watch the two-storey structure burn. No one was home at the time and I say thank the Lord for that. The house was old, so within minutes everything was completely destroyed, a neighbour said. Along the roadway, there were four cars parked, all of which had to be moved to safety.

Despite the prompt response from officers of the Mon Repos Fire Station (Southern Division Headquarters) they were unable to save the structure as it is already destroyed. Officers of the San Fernando and Marabella Police Stations visited the scene and are investigating.
Time for public to work with police

This service this morning was based on the Northern Division looking to restore a sense of safety and security and in so doing, we dealt with it on three pillars and one of the pillars is the interaction with the community. The church service we had this morning was part of that initiative, Jacob said.

The service was attended by representatives of the Northern Division Police, the Defence Force, the Air Guard, the Fire Service and the Transit Police. Jacob said many of the crimes committed are not just based on organised crime, but based on a lot of negativity and dysfunction within the homes and institutions.

He said the police need to work together with all major foundations and institutions within society to arrest the issues of crime and delinquency.

We want all of the various institutions, family services, the churches, the imams, the pundits...

the people who are involved in dealing with conflict resolution to be a part of this drive as mediators.

We are making this call to everyone to join with us, to join with the nation to solve this crime problem that we are having in Trinidad and Tobago, Jacob said.

Fr Dwight Black, who delivered the homily, said, we are all brothers and sisters under one God.

None of us is without sin and have come short of the Lord at some point. I am sick and tired of what we have created within the community where people are scared of themselves, he said.
Here Are the Most Overrated

Tourist Spots in the US
* Japan says U.S.-Japan alliance unshakeable

* Regional security a focus of Abe-Trump summit

* Japan seeks "win-win" economic ties with Washington (Adds PM adviser quote)

By Yoshifumi Takemoto

TOKYO, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will propose new cabinet level U.S.-Japan talks on trade, security and macroeconomic issues, including currencies, when he meets U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday, a Japanese government official involved in planning the summit said.

Abe heads to Washington later on Thursday hoping promises to help create U.S. jobs and bolster Japan's military will persuade Trump to turn down the heat on trade and currency and stand by the decades-old alliance.

"In a situation in which security relations in the Asia-Pacific region are increasingly severe, it is very important to demonstrate the unshakeable U.S.-Japan alliance at home and abroad," Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference.

"This is the most important theme of the U.S.-Japan leaders summit," he said, adding it was also vital to have constructive discussions on how to create a "win-win" relationship by further strengthening U.S.-Japan economic ties.

Trump has lumped Japan with China and Mexico as big contributors to the U.S. trade deficit, targeted its auto trade as "unfair" and accused Tokyo of using monetary policy to devalue its currency to boost exports.

"We use monetary easing, fiscal policy and structural reform in order to escape from deflation. We don't engage in competitive currency devaluation or target specific levels," Masahiko Shibayama, an adviser to the premier, told Reuters.

"We'll explain based on the fact that Japanese automakers are contributing to U.S. jobs through their local subsidiaries."

During his election campaign, Trump complained Tokyo was not sharing enough of the cost of the U.S. security umbrella although his defense secretary, Jim Mattis, assured Japan the alliance was firm when he visited the country last week.

Story continues

Abe, who will be accompanied by Finance Minister Taro Aso and Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, will bring a package of steps Tokyo says could create 700,000 U.S. jobs through private-public investment in infrastructure such as high-speed trains, government sources say.

Trump, who abandoned the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact championed by his predecessor Barack Obama and Abe as a counterweight to a rising China, has made clear he wants a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) with Tokyo instead.

PLAYING FOR TIME?

Abe has left the door open to FTA talks but Japanese officials worry such negotiations would boost pressure on politically sensitive sectors such as agriculture while yielding few economic benefits for Japan.

The new cabinet level talks, the government official told Reuters, would be a way of buying time rather than opening FTA talks at an early stage.

Tokyo and Washington already have a cabinet-level mechanism for security talks, the so-called "2-plus-2" meetings of defense and foreign ministers.

The new economic framework will be headed by Aso, who is also deputy prime minister, and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, and would address a range of issues, with a focus on crafting trade policies and measures to bolster U.S. employment, said a report in the Nikkei business daily.

Abe is likely to propose crafting highly liberal rules for trade and investment in areas such as intellectual property protection, rules of origin, regulations on state-owned companies and e-commerce, the Nikkei said.

Japan hopes such bilateral rules would be similar to those agreed upon in the TPP and could be extended to cover the Asia-Pacific region to counter China's growing clout, it added.

The two nations are also preparing statements regarding economic cooperation and security to be issued after the summit meeting, the Nikkei said.

Abe and Trump will also play a round of gold in Florida this weekend after the meeting at the White House on Friday and Trump said he will make sure the Japanese leader is his partner in the game, rather than a competitor. [nL1N1FR1H8 ] (Additional reporting by Kaori Kaneko and Tetsushi Kajimoto; Writing by Linda Sieg; Editing by Michael Perry)
More than 50 people are suing a now-closed clinic's former director and its owner, saying they were told they had Alzheimer's or another form of dementia. Most now know it's not true, while a few are awaiting confirmation. Some say they spent months undergoing treatment while planning out their final years. The AP reports some quit their jobs, sold possessions, or took one last special trip. One killed himself. The director at the memory-loss center who diagnosed them didn't have a medical or psychology license. So far, the case has yet to result in any charges against Sherry-Ann Jenkins, who opened the Toledo Clinic Cognitive Center in early 2015 through the Toledo Clinic, a multi-specialty medical center with more than 150 doctors.

The lawsuits say that Jenkins, who has a doctorate degree in physiological science, wasn't authorized to order medical tests and that her husband, a licensed doctor who is a partner in the Toledo Clinic, signed off on the tests and was sometimes listed as the referring physician on billing even though he did not see any of the patients. In court filings responding to the lawsuits, each of which seeks more than $1 million in damages, their attorney did not dispute that Jenkins was unlicensed but denied most of the other allegations. The former patients have sued the Toledo Clinic, as well, saying it should have known Jenkins lacked the training and credentials to treat and diagnose patients. (Read more lawsuit stories.)
Vox has declared a winner in the great Nordstrom-Trump war of 2017, and it isn't the president. After the retailer announced it was dropping Ivanka Trump's clothing line due to poor sales, Trump on Wednesday took to Twitter to share his displeasure. After very briefly dipping, Nordstrom's stock rebounded in a big way. It was up nearly 5% by the end of the daya day when the rest of the market was "essentially flat," the Los Angeles Times reports. A financial reporter for the Seattle Times tweeted that Wednesday was Nordstrom's sixth best day on the market in the past year and ninth best day in the past five years. This despite White House press secretary Sean Spicer calling Nordstrom's decision to drop Ivanka's line a "direct attack" on the president, his policies, and his family that is "not acceptable." (Read more Nordstrom stories.)
The Senate confirmed Jeff Sessions as US Attorney General in a vote Wednesday night, Mediaite reports. Democrats put up what fight they could with late-night sessions on Monday and TuesdayCNN reports they battled Sessions' confirmation for 30 hours on the Senate floorbut in the end it wasn't enough to block his confirmation. The vote, largely split along party lines, was 52-47, according to the AP. Every Republican senator voted for Sessions; Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia was the only Democrat to vote for him.

Democrats attacked Sessions, one of President Trump's earliest backers, on his record on civil rights and immigration, arguing he wouldn't work to protect the voting rights of minorities, the rights of LGBT Americans, or the right of women to an abortion. Sessions has also been accused of being a racist, including in a 1986 letter by Coretta Scott King read by multiple Democrats during the lead-up to the vote. Shortly before Sessions was confirmed, Mitch McConnell called the senator from Alabama a "likable guy" and a "true Southern gentleman." A replacement for Sessions in the Senate is expected to be named as early as Thursday. (Read more Jeff Sessions stories.)
The eighth of Robert F. Kennedy's 11 children is planning a career change from business to politics. Chris Kennedy launched a bid for the Democratic nomination for Illinois governor on Wednesday, saying in a video message that the state is "headed in the wrong direction" and he will restore its economy. The 53-year-old former president of the Merchandise Mart Properties real estate firm is entering the race amid a state fiscal crisis so severe that Illinois has become the first state since the Great Depression to go more than a year without a working budget, the Wall Street Journal reports. He is seeking to unseat Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, who is locked in a budget battle with Democratic House Speaker Mike Madigan, in the 2018 election.

"I've seen from so many different vantage points the potential of the state, then I see the failing of the government," Kennedy said in his video message. "There's growing despair, theres bewilderment." In a tweet, Rauner, a former private equity exec who donated $50 million to his own campaign in December, asked for donations to help defeat Kennedy, describing him as a "crony" of Madigan. Rauner also called Kennedy a "pawn" and a "lap dog" of Madigan in attacks that Kennedy tells the Chicago Tribune are "pathetic" and "an insult to the entire Kennedy family and an insult to the voters of Illinois." (Read more Illinois stories.)
A lucky Australian man credits a yoga pose with saving his life. Daniel Miller was working with an excavating machine in a dam on his remote property Wednesday when the ground gave way. Trapped beneath the machine's roll bar, Miller sank into the muddy bog up to his nostrils. The 45-year-old managed to keep his nose above water for at least two hours until help came. Miller tells Sydney's Daily Telegraph, via the BBC, that he arched his back to breathe and kept "my head up above water using my armsI guess it was the cobra position." (See the position here.) A neighbor eventually heard Miller's cries for help and called for assistance. As a firefighter plunged into the muck, rescuers used hydraulic equipment to drain the dam and free him.

"He's been extremely lucky to survive," a police rep tells 9News. Authorities estimated Miller was stuck for two hours, but Miller's wife, Saimaa, writes on Facebook that it was more like five "with the weight of his excavator on his back, and with the boggy dam ground below him slowly slipping away." She adds that luck had "nothing to do" with her husband's survival. "It was literally sheer mental strength and determination to survive that got him through." Miller was flown to a hospital and treated for hypothermia and minor back injuries. (People are "losing their minds" over goat yoga.)
Jacqueline Kennedy and David Ormsby Gore met frequently during John F. Kennedy's presidency, even taking shared vacations with their spouses. But by 1967, both were widowed and bonding over their shared loneliness. A year later, their relationship had turned romantic, at least on one side. Ormsby Gorea close friend of JFK and a former British ambassador to the USproposed marriage to Jacqueline, who declined and wed Aristotle Onassis instead, reports the New York Times. "If ever I can find some healing and some comfortit has to be with somebody who is not part of all my world of past and pain," she wrote in one of 19 letters to Ormsby Gore to be sold at auction by Bonhams in London next month. "I can find that nowif the world will let us."

In a draft letter, Ormsby Gore described how his "pathetic plans" for the pair had been dashed. "As for your photograph I weep when I look at it," he wrote. After marrying Onassis, Jacqueline replied, "We have known so much & shared & lost so much together. I hope that bond of love and pain will never be cut." A rep for Bonhams says it's rare to find items with "this quantity of insight into Jackies personal life and that level of intimacy." The letters, along with Ormsby Gore's White House pass from the day after JFK's assassination, are among several family heirlooms that will be sold to pay for the upkeep of the Ormsby Gore family's historic home in Wales, reports the Telegraph. The auction is set for March 29. (JFK wrote his own love letters.)
The Pentagon says two US airstrikes near Idlib in northwest Syria killed 11 al-Qaeda operatives, including one with ties to Osama bin Laden and other senior al-Qaeda leaders, the AP reports. Spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said in a statement that a single airstrike on Feb. 3 killed 10 operatives in a building used as an al-Qaeda meeting site. A second strike the next day killed Abu Hani al-Masri, identified by the Pentagon as a "legacy" al-Qaeda terrorist who oversaw the creation and operation of al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s.

Davis said al-Masri had ties to bin Laden and to Ayman al-Zawahiri, who became the top leader of al-Qaeda when bin Laden was killed by US forces in 2011. He "was also one of the founders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the first Sunni group to use suicide bombers in their terror attacks," the Pentagon statement said. "EIJ is responsible for multiple attacks against US and allied facilities and personnel, including a 1998 attempt to blow up the American embassy in Albania." (Thousands of US airstrikes may never have been publicly disclosed.)
In 2006, Oprah Winfrey bought a painting by Austrian master Gustav Klimt for $87.9 million, the auction record for a Klimt painting. Wise move. Last summer, she sold the "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II" for $150 million and made a tidy profit of about $62 million, reports Bloomberg. The 1912 painting depicts the wife of a Vienna art patron, and Winfrey had loaned it to Museum of Modern Art in New York City, per Bloomberg. While on display there, it apparently caught the attention of the unidentified Chinese patron who paid the new price.

The painting now hangs at the Neue Galerie in New York, where it is to be on display until September. What its current owner plans to do with the painting after that time is uncertain, though Hyperallergic notes it may be hidden from public view. Both the "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II" and Klimt's better-known "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I" in gold from 1907 were looted by Nazis and only returned to Bloch-Bauer's heirs in 2006. (The legal battle is told in the Helen Mirren film Woman in Gold.) The Hollywood Reporter notes that Winfrey is known to be a serious art collector, though details of what she owns are scant. (Winfrey has a new TV gigon 60 Minutes.)
More than five years ago, a man's body was found floating in a Florida canal, thousands of dollars crammed into his pockets. That man was 27-year-old Samuel Howell, a robbery suspect who, along with his partner, had allegedly ripped off the home of a Sunrise resident in July 2011, fled the scene, and then jumped into the canal, despite Howell not knowing how to swim, the Sun Sentinel reports. His accomplice, Juan Laherawho reportedly yelled "F--- you!" at Howell as the latter panicked upon realizing his lack of water skillsevaded authorities until November, when he was arrested in Arizona and subsequently extradited to Broward County. Howell's body was found three days after Lahera, also 27 at the time, ditched him in the canal.

During the robbery, the victim's dog was shot by Howell, notes the search warrant for Lahera. After Lahera got to the other side of the canal, he rushed to the roof of a local pizza joint, where he hid while calling a taxi to bring him to the apartment of a female informant. She told cops Lahera appeared at her door drenched and unable to say what had happened to Howell, who she says had made a trip from his New York home to help Lahera with the robbery. Lahera, who'd found a $3,000-a-month job working at a storage facility in Arizona, was charged with home invasion robbery with a firearm and possession of a weapon by a convicted felon. A rep for the Broward state attorney said no proof could be found that Lahera had anything directly to do with Howell's drowning, so no charges are anticipated. (A man who allegedly cursed out a gator didn't live to tell the tale.)
Construction of the Dakota Access pipeline under a North Dakota reservoir has begun and the full pipeline should be operational within three months, the developer said Thursday, even as an American Indian tribe filed a legal challenge to block the work and protect its water supply. The Army granted Energy Transfer Partners formal permission Wednesday to lay pipe under Lake Oahe, clearing the way for completion of the 1,200-mile, $3.8 billion pipeline, the AP reports. ETP spokeswoman Vicki Granado confirmed early Thursday that construction resumed "immediately after receiving the easement." Workers had already drilled entry and exit holes for the crossing, and oil had been put in the pipeline leading up to the lake in anticipation of finishing the project. "The estimate is 60 days to complete the drill and another 23 days to fill the line to Patoka," Granado said.

Work stalled for months due to opposition by the Standing Rock Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux, as well as a prolonged court battle between the developer and the Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees the federal land where the last segment of the pipeline is now being laid. President Trump last month instructed the Army to advance pipeline construction. The Cheyenne River Sioux on Thursday asked a federal judge to stop the Lake Oahe work while a lawsuit filed earlier by the two tribes against the pipeline proceeds. An attorney said in court documents that the pipeline "will desecrate the waters upon which Cheyenne River Sioux tribal members rely." "This is not over. We are here to stay. And there's more of us coming," says Payu Harris, a pipeline opponent who's been at the North Dakota encampment that's been the focus of the pipeline battle since April. (Read more Dakota Access Pipeline stories.)
"Go buy Ivanka's stuff." That was Kellyanne Conway's message to viewers during an interview with Fox & Friends on Thursday after Nordstrom pulled Ivanka Trump's clothing line from its stores. The problem? She might have violated federal ethics rules with the plug. Government workers aren't supposed to endorse products, and Conway not only did so, she wasn't shy about it: "I'm going to give a free commercial here," she said. "Go buy it today, everybody. You can find it online. Per the Hill, this is the rule from the Office of Government Ethics she appears to have run afoul of: "An employee shall not use his public office for his own private gain, for the endorsement of any product, service, or enterprise, or for the private gain of friends, relatives."

It's not clear whether the OGE will investigate, but someone who violates this rule can be suspended or even fired, though the person is likely to receive only a warning for a first offense, reports Politico. "This is jaw-dropping to me," a former acting director of the office tells the Washington Post. It "would seem to be a clear violation." President Trump, of course, has also addressed Nordstrom's move, tweeting, "Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom." White House spokesman Sean Spicer says Trump's tweet "was less about his family's business and an attack on his daughter," per CNNMoney. Nordstrom has said the decision was about declining sales, not politics. (Read more Kellyanne Conway stories.)
The deportation of an immigrant mother in Phoenix who was granted leniency during the Obama administration provides an early example of how President Donald Trump plans to carry through on his vow to crack down on illegal immigration, the AP reports. The case of Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos became a rallying cry Thursday for immigrant groups who believe Trump's approach to immigration unfairly tears apart families. Her arrest prompted a vocal demonstration in downtown Phoenix as protesters blocked enforcement vans from leaving a US immigration office. Seven people were arrested. White House spokesman Sean Spicer referred questions on the matter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which said in a statement on Twitter on Thursday that the agency "will remove illegal aliens convicted of felony offenses as ordered by an immigration judge."

Garcia de Rayos, 35, came to the US from the Mexican state of Guanajuato when she was 14 and has two children who are US citizens, per an immigrant advocacy group; the New York Times reports she had not been back to Mexico since she left. She was among workers arrested years ago in one of then-Sheriff Joe Arpaio's first investigations into Phoenix-area businesses suspected of hiring immigrants who had used fraudulent IDs to get jobs, and accused of using a Social Security number belonging to another person to get a job. She pleaded guilty in March 2009 to a reduced charge of criminal impersonation and was sentenced to two years of probation. She was placed into deportation proceedings but given leniency. On Wednesday, she showed up with her lawyer for what she thought was a routine check-in with ICE officials and was detained instead of being allowed to leave after checking in. She was deported around 10am Thursday from a Nogales border crossing and ICE worked with Mexican consular officials to repatriate her, agency spokeswoman Yasmeen Pitts O'Keefe said in a statement. (Read more illegal immigration stories.)
Opponents of the Dakota Access oil pipeline protest at the San Francisco Federal Building in San Francisco, Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2017. Opponents of the Dakota Access oil pipeline called for protests around the world Wednesday as the Army prepared to green-light the final stage of the $3.8 billion project's construction. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP)  The Latest on the proposed four-state, $3.8 billion Dakota Access oil pipeline (all times local):

7 p.m.

The company building the Dakota Access oil pipeline says it plans to resume work immediately to finish the project.

Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners on Wednesday got final permission from the Army to proceed with a crossing of the Missouri River in southern North Dakota.

The work on the $3.8 billion project had been stalled for months due to opposition by the Standing Rock Sioux, but President Donald Trump last month instructed the Army Corps of Engineers to advance pipeline construction.

The tribe fears a pipeline leak could contaminate its drinking water. ETP says the pipeline is safe.

Company CEO Kelcy Warren has said it will take about three months to finish the river crossing.

___

6:25 p.m.

Members of the North Dakota Congressional delegation say the Army has granted the developer of the Dakota Access pipeline formal pipeline permission to lay pipe under a Missouri River reservoir in North Dakota.

U.S. Sen. John Hoeven and U.S. Rep. Kevin Cramer issued statements Wednesday saying the easement was issued.

The action clears the way for completion of the disputed $3.8 billion project. But the Standing Rock Sioux tribe has promised to challenge it in court.

The tribe worries that a pipeline leak could pollute its drinking water. Dallas-based pipeline developer Energy Transfer Partners says the pipeline is safe.

The crossing under Lake Oahe (oh-AH'-hee) is the final big chunk of work on the pipeline that would carry North Dakota oil to Illinois. The Army had begun further study of the river crossing, but notified Congress on Tuesday that it would stop the effort and grant the easement to ETP.

___

5:35 p.m.

Opponents of the Dakota Access pipeline are protesting around the country in response to the Army saying it will clear the way for completion of the disputed $3.8 billion project to carry North Dakota oil to Illinois.

Story continues

Protesters posted an online list of nearly 50 events nationwide. There are large rallies, including one outside the White House, and smaller efforts, such as one in Des Moines, Iowa.

A group of protesters in Chicago targeted a bank. Another group went to an Army Corps of Engineers office in New York City, but protesters were asked to leave when they started filming without a permit.

Several people were arrested for blocking public access to a federal building in San Francisco.

Opponents worry the pipeline will harm the environment. Developer Energy Transfer Partners disputes that.

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2:40 p.m.

Two Dakota Access pipeline opponents who have camped along the pipeline route in southern North Dakota for nearly a year say there's frustration but also resolve as the Army prepares to clear the way for completion of the $3.8 billion project.

Joye Braun and Payu (PY'-yoo) Harris say they won't stop fighting the project. Braun says protesters plan "prayerful, nonviolent, direct action," but she didn't elaborate.

The Army is poised to give the pipeline developer final permission to lay pipe under the Missouri River near the camp. That's the last major chunk of construction.

The protest camp on federal land once housed thousands but has shrunk to about 150. The government plans to close the land Feb. 22. Braun and Harris say pipeline opponents are establishing other camps on private land.

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11:50 a.m.

Dakota Access pipeline opponents at an encampment in North Dakota aren't talking about their plans now that the Army has said it will soon greenlight completion of the $3.8 billion project.

A few dozen people milling around on a frigid Wednesday appeared tense and wouldn't talk. Two unidentified men ordered an Associated Press reporter to leave.

Opponents worry the pipeline will harm water supply. Developer Energy Transfer Partners disputes that.

There have been nearly 700 protester arrests in the area since August.

The Army is poised to give ETP final permission to lay pipeline under the Missouri River near the camp. That's the last major chunk of construction.

The camp on federal land once housed thousands but has shrunk considerably. The Corps says the land will be closed Feb. 22.

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10:25 a.m.

A group that has helped lead protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline says it's expecting hundreds of people to turn out across the country to protest the Army's approval of the project.

The Army said Tuesday it will allow the pipeline to cross under a Missouri River reservoir in North Dakota, the last big chunk of construction for the $3.8 billion project to move North Dakota oil to Illinois.

Members of the Indigenous Environmental Network and Standing Rock Sioux are calling for protests nationwide. Events are scheduled in many cities, including New York, Washington, D.C., Seattle, Denver and San Francisco.

The Indigenous Environmental Network says opponents are ready to challenge the pipeline "in the courts and in the streets."

Pipeline developer Energy Transfer Partners says it will be safe.

___

9:55 a.m.

An American Indian activist accused of inciting a riot during protests against the Dakota Access pipeline is encouraging project opponents to come to North Dakota to protest its completion.

The Army says it will allow the pipeline to cross under a Missouri River reservoir in North Dakota, the last big chunk of construction. Chase Iron Eyes says that violates the rights of Native Americans.

Iron Eyes says the pipeline goes through land that's sacred to Indians and threatens the water supply of his tribe, the Standing Rock Sioux.

Project developer Energy Transfer Partners says the pipeline is safe. It's unclear when the company will get formal Army permission to begin work.

Iron Eyes was arrested during a protest last week. He says he'll plead not guilty to the felony charge.

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8:20 a.m.

Opponents of the Dakota Access pipeline are calling for protests around the world as the Army prepares to greenlight construction of the final stage of the project.

The Army on Tuesday said it will allow the pipeline to cross under a Missouri River reservoir in North Dakota, clearing the way for completion of the $3.8 billion project to move North Dakota oil to Illinois.

Some opponents who worry the pipeline will harm the environment have dubbed Wednesday "#NODAPL Last Stand" day, and they're calling on social media for "emergency actions." A list shows events planned across the U.S. and in Canada.

The call is coming from Standing Rock Sioux members. The tribe says a pipeline leak could contaminate its drinking water. Project developer Energy Transfer Partners says the pipeline is safe.

___

12:05 a.m.

The developer of the stalled, $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline could get clearance from the Army as early as Wednesday to finish the project.

The Army says it will cancel further study and allow the four-state pipeline to cross under a Missouri River reservoir in North Dakota, the last big chunk of construction for the project to move North Dakota oil to Illinois.

The Standing Rock Sioux gets its drinking water from Lake Oahe and fears a pipeline leak would cause contamination. It has vowed to fight the Army permission in court.

It's unclear when pipeline developer Energy Transfer Partners would begin drilling after getting permission.

CEO Kelcy Warren has said the company should be able to finish the work in a little over three months once it has the go-ahead.
New Delhi:

Mulayam Singh Yadav on Monday took a u-turn, saying he will campaign for SP-Congress alliance in Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, nearly a week after he expressed displeasure over the tie-up and stated he would not canvass for the combine.



Speaking to reporters here, Yadav also dismissed reports of intra-party differences after his brother Shivpal Yadav, who has been sidelined in the party, talked about floating a new outfit post the Assembly polls.



There is no bickering...Akhilesh will be the next Chief Minister...I will campaign (for the alliance) from tomorrow, Yadav told reporters on Parliament premises when asked about his opposition to the alliance and his reluctance to campaign for it.



Yadav also played down reports of Shivpal, who was locked in a bitter battle with Akhilesh over control of SP, planning to form new party post assembly polls in the state.

ALSO READ | Mulayam had cried over phone and pleaded for alliance: RLD's Jayant Chaudhary



No one is unhappy...he (Shivpal) has not spoken to me or anyone in the party. He may have said out of anger...now leave it, there will be no new party, he asked.



The SP patriarch had on January 29 voiced displeasure over the alliance, and said he would not campaign for it.



The Samajwadi Party and Congress have forged a pre-poll alliance in Uttar Pradesh contesting 298 and 105 seats respectively.

Video | UP Elections 2017: Mulayam Singh Yadav gives blessings to SP-Congress alliance



Last week, Shivpal Yadav, unhappy over his supporters being denied party ticket for the high-voltage election, had stated he will form a new party after March 11, when the poll results will be out.



The state goes to poll in seven phases starting February 11.

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Mathura:

Home Minister Rajnath Singh has claimed that there has been not a single corruption charge against the Modi government and targeted Rahul Gandhi, saying the Congress leader is trying to ride a punctured cycle.

Compared to the SP and Congress governments, not even a single charge of corruption has come to light since the Narendra Modi government came to power, he said on Monday while addressing a public meeting.

The BJP leader was speaking in Tarauli village of Chhatta Assembly constituency in favour BJP candidate Laxmi Narain Chaudhary.

Read More| UP polls: Political mud created by SP, BSP will help lotus to bloom, says Rajnath Singh

Taking a dig at Congress-Samajwadi Party alliance, he said the cycle Rahul is using is already punctured and mocked the Congress Vice Presidents Khat Sabha during the campaign quipping, Chunav se pahle hi Rahul ne pakari khat (Rahul has taken ill before the elections could even start).

He said the loan of small farmers would be waived and interest on crop loan would also not be charged if BJP would comes to power in Uttar Pradesh.

He termed demonetisation as a decision taken in the interest of country and said the Prime Minister has tried to bridge the gap between rich and poor.

The backbone of terrorists and Naxalists has been broken through the note ban, he said.

He also claimed that Pakistan has been given a befitting reply to its proxy war in the form of?terrorist activities by the surgical strike in September last year.

Accusing SP and BSP of doublespeak, Singh said, More than 4,000 incidents of loot and 7,600 incidents of communal riots belie Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadavs claim about better law and order situation in the state.

Singh also said the sugar mill in Chhatta would be made functional if BJP comes to power.

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Chennai:

The political turmoil in Tamil Nadu has prompted veteran actor Kamal Haasan to exhort people to become incorruptible themselves rather than blaming politicians.

In a series of tweets, the 62-year-old actor said the entire country is with the state in the ongoing stand-off between AIADMK leaders O Panneerselvam and Sasikala.

Weve wasted our freedom years gambling our fanchise on wrong& corrupt politicians. Lets stop blaming them. Lets become incorruptable (sic).

Dont break TN in to a country. I promise, All India will fight for TN in a civil war of Ahinsa. None might die but the ignorant will come alive, Haasan wrote.

ALSO READ | Tamil Nadu turmoil: Sasikala set to parade 130 AIADMK MLAs before President if Guv Rao refuses to invite her; Guv to reach Chennai tomorrow

A political turmoil was triggered in the state after sacked Treasurer and Chief Minister Panneerselvam revolted against party General Secretary Sasikala saying she has no powers to sack him as Treasurer and she herself was elected on a temporary basis in view of the extraordinary situation faced by the party after Jayalalithaas demise.

Amid the row, 131 MLAs attended Sasikala-chaired meeting to discuss the fallout of the revolt by Panneerselvam.

Don't breakTN in2 a country. I promise, All India will fight 4TN in a civil war of Ahinsa.None might die but the ignorant will come alive  Kamal Haasan (@ikamalhaasan) February 8, 2017

We've wasted our freedom years gambling our fanchise on wrong& corrupt politicians. Let's stop blaming them Lets become incorruptable.  Kamal Haasan (@ikamalhaasan) February 8, 2017

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Martin Shkreli, the controversial pharmaceutical executive and accused securities fraudster, is again asking a judge to let him travel outside New York to speak at a university event.

This time, the 33-year-old Shkreli, who is free on $5 million bond, wants to go to Harvard University to discuss "investing," according to a Facebook post.

In a letter to U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto in Brooklyn, New York, filed in court Wednesday, Shkreli's lawyers say he wants to travel to Massachusetts next Wednesday for a "speaking engagement at Harvard University," and return to New York the following day.

The lawyers said federal prosecutors don't oppose that request, just as they didn't object to his requests last month to travel to two other university speaking events. Neither of those events actually ended up happening, though, because of a backlash about his appearances.

Matsumoto's permission, which ended up being granted Thursday, is needed because Shkreli's travel is restricted as part of the conditions of his release bond, which he posted after being indicted on charges of defrauding his former pharma company Retrophin (RTRX). Those conditions normally bar Shkreli from traveling outside the confines of New York City, Long Island and several counties north of the city.

The group that asked Shkreli to speak this time is the Harvard Financial Analysts Club.

"Martin has been invited to speak at Harvard and so long as he does not discuss his pending case, it's fine with me," his lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, told CNBC.

"We hope the court will approve his travel request," Brafman said. "Whatever else one might say about Martin, nobody doubts his brilliance. Having a young brilliant man speak to a group of brilliant young men and women is a natural fit."

Shkreli announced his planned appearance at Harvard in a Facebook post last Friday.

"I'll be giving a discussion on investing at Harvard University on February 15th at 8:30pm. Open to students!," that post said.



Story continues

Matsumoto last month approved Shkreli's prior request to travel to California and New Jersey for speaking gigs at colleges, and to Washington for President Donald Trump's inauguration.



Shkreli's appearance in mid-January at the University of California, Davis, with fellow Internet provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos was canceled after angry protests surrounding the event, which was to be hosted by the Davis College Republicans.

Shkreli actually was in Davis by the time the event was canceled.

He also was planning to speak this Saturday to the Princeton Entrepreneurship Club. But that gig was canceled right after it was announced in mid-January by the club itself after backlash over the event.



"As we began planning this event last year in November, we knew it would be polarizing, as Mr. Shkreli is a widely criticized and controversial figure," the club said in a Facebook post last month. "However, from his recent acts of sexual harassment and atrocious comments on Twitter, and his subsequent suspension from the platform this week, he has definitively shown he is lacking in character and not the type of person E-Club wants to bring to speak or be associated with our organization."

The club was referring to Shkreli's suspension last month by Twitter (TWTR) for harassing a female journalist.

Shkreli has said he believes he was suspended for "being a Republican," and during an interview on Fox Business Network compared his tweet that had shown his image edited in to appear as if he were lounging with the journalist on a couch to something a "12-year-old would hang in his locker of her beautiful face."

Shkreli, on his Facebook page, has been promoting a Feb. 20 event in New York City dubbed "An Evening with Martin Shkreli."

"Martin will discuss investing, healthcare and politics in a presentation/lecture format for one hour and will take questions," an online notice of that event says. "He will do his best to accomodate [sic] photographs. He may play tracks from his unreleased music collection."



The notice calls Shkreli, "one of America's most successful young entrepreneurs."

Shkreli is accused by Brooklyn federal prosecutors of defrauding Retrophin of millions of dollars to repay investors in his hedge fund whom he likewise was accused of ripping off. He has denied the charges, and is expected to go on trial in late June.

Shkreli first gained public notoriety in the summer of 2015 when news broke that his then-new pharma company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, had hiked the price of a drug used to treat a parasitic condition in pregnant women, babies and HIV patients by more than 5,000 percent, from just $13.50 per pill to $750 per pill.

On Wednesday, CNBC reported that Shkreli was involved in a new software company in New York named Godel Systems that is trying to raise $1 million through a debt offering. Another named executive officer and director of the company is Kevin Mulleady, who has been affiliated with Shkreli at at least three prior companies, including his hedge fund, Retrophin and Turing.

When asked about Godel Systems on Thursday, Brafman said, "Godel has nothing to do with pharmaceuticals. Other than that it would be premature to further discuss this project."





More From CNBC


New Delhi:

Bollywood actor Govinda has admitted that he is open to working with his 'Partner' co-star Salman Khan in a movie. The two superstars have created a magic on the silver screen in movies like 'Partner', 'Deewana Mastana' and 'Salaam-e-Ishq'.

However, it's been a decade that the 'Partner' duo didn't share the screen space.

While Govinda has confessed that he is willing to work with the 'Sultan' actor, he said that there is a condition for that.

"It should happen in a right way. Because I feel if people want Govinda and Salman together, it is important to have the right subject. They would require that kind of energy too," Govinda was quoted saying.

"Risk factor, money issue, that is always there but the choices make you what you are. I'll choose correctly," he added.

Interestingly, Govinda recently collaborated with Salman for one of the special episodes of 'Bigg Boss 10', where he was seen promoting his upcoming movie 'Aa Gaya Hero'.

Salman had also tweeted the promo of Govinda's latest, 'Aa Gaya Hero' by writing, "Aa gaya mera Hero. Mera Partner. Superb Trailer."

Talking about his movie, Govinda stated, "My next move will be very planned. May be they (others) will not look at it like that but it will be well thought. I've come in that state of mind. I can't change, I've always been rigid.

"I do respect others views, I don't comment negatively. You have to come out with your best energy in life.. I am all set for wonderful projects."

While he awaits the release of Dipankar Senapati directed action comedy, Govinda also lauded the work young actors are doing, including his friend Salman.

"Sometimes I feel the younger actors are doing good. Ranveer Singh does films which look nice. Salman is doing very good work, as far as his choices are concerned. More than being a hero he is concentrating on his choices. Everybody is trying and being good," he said.

'Aa Gaya Hero' is scheduled to release on March 3.

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Jaipur:

The former Jaipur royal family has decided to take disciplinary action against the officials for not providing them details about Sanjay Leela Bhansali's film Padmavati, which courted controversy and protests by Karni Sena and giving permission for its shooting at Jaigarh fort here.

The shooting was going on at the Jaigarh fort, owned by the former royal family, when the members of Karni Sena staged a protest and vandalised the set on January 27, accusing Bhansali of distorting the historical facts in the film.

"The department set up to take care of shootings and granting permission did not provide full information to the Royal Family relating to the film and gave permission to shoot it. When it came to the knowledge of the Royal Family, disciplinary action is being taken against the erring officials of the department," a release from the family said tonight.

Former Rajmata Padmini Devi in a statement said that Jaipur Royal Family stands committed to protecting the proud history of Rajasthan.

"Anyone attempting to twist or change the history of Rajasthan will not be tolerated," she said.

She informed that the narration of entire story will be thoroughly checked before giving permission for any shootings taking place in the historic monuments of the family in future.

"Anyone attempting to distort the heritage or the history will not be tolerated at any cost. The Family stands with Shri Rajput Karni Sena and other such national organisations which want to keep alive the rich and proud history of Rajasthan," she said.

Claiming that the upcoming film has a dream sequence showing a love connection between Rani Padmavati (played by Deepika Padukone) and Allauddin Khilji (played by Ranveer Singh), the Sena members has stormed the fort and vandalised the set.

Bhansali was allegedly slapped by the members who next day packed up the shooting.

However, the issue was resolved next day when the Bhansali Productions clarified that there was no dream sequence or any objectionable or romantic scene between Rani Padmavati and Allauddin Khilji.

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New Delhi:

Congress members on Thursday staged a walkout of the Lok Sabha protesting against Prime Minister Narendra Modis dig at his predecessor Manmohan Singh in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday. Party Leader in the House Mallikarjun Kharge tried to raise the issue as soon as the Zero Hour began but the Speaker disallowed him, saying a matter relating to the other House cannot be raised.



Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar also said the issue cannot be raised here. Whatever Modi has said about Singh is not good for parliamentary democracy, Kharge said before the Speaker cut him off.



With party president Sonia Gandhi looking on, Congress members trooped into the Well demanding that the Prime Minister apologise for his remarks. An irate Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said they were snatching away the rights of other members as they have got the chance to speak during the Zero after several days on Thursday.

Kharge said what Modi had said was an insult to the country. With the Speaker continuing with Zero Hour proceedings, Congress members staged a walkout. Taking a dig at Singh, Modi had said he knew the art of taking bath wearing a raincoat as there were many scams during his government but he had remained untainted.

Here are the live updates:

#They (Cong) called PM names & obstructed the house umpteen times. They are the ones who should tender apology: Union Min Venkaiah Naidu



#Rajya Sabha adjourned till 2 PM following uproar by Opposition members, including those from AIADMK



#Rajya Sabha adjourned till 12 pm



#AIADMK MPs also protesting in the well of the house in Rajya Sabha



#Uproar in Rajya Sabha over PM Modi's speech yesterday



#Matter of shame that PM insulted memory of Indira ji by referring to some book, did not even place the book in the house: Anand Sharma, Cong



#Lok Sabha adjourned till 11.30 am after Opposition uproar



#Let us see because this has been done in Rajya Sabha, I'll consult others: Mallikarjun Kharge on seeking apology from PM Modi



#Unfortunate that PM Modi used such language against former PM, condemn such statement: Mallikarjun Kharge on PM's statement on Manmohan Singh



#Meeting of Opposition leaders underway at Ghulam Nabi Azad's office in Parliament

#In fact it is Congress which should tender unconditional apology for not respecting the PM and Parliament: Venkaiah Naidu

#How Congress treated Dr Manmohan Singh should also be discussed, how his ordinance was rejected: Ananth Kumar,Union Minister

On Wednesday, hitting back at Singh, who had called demonetisation an organised loot and legalised plunder, Modi said, He (Manmohan) had perfected the art of bathing under a shower with raincoat on and so there was no blot on him despite all the scams that occurred during his tenure.



This provoked an angry reaction from Congress members who staged a walkout in the midst of the reply by the Prime Minister to a debate on Motion of Thanks to the Presidents Address in the Rajya Sabha.

Members of Left, Trinamool Congress and JD(U) also staged a walkout after the reply, complaining that they were unhappy with Modis statement and wanted to ask questions which were disallowed.



Mounting a scathing attack on Modi for his comments, Congress said those were in extremely poor taste and unbecoming of a Prime Minister. The party also demanded an apology from the Prime Minister in the House.



The Congress also dubbed Modi as arrogant and charged him with bringing the debate to the lowest level.



Within minutes of his speech, he attacked the former Prime Minister in the most unacceptable manner. He said Manmohan Singh occupied various positions and one must learn from him how to take a shower wearing a rain coat.



It was in extremely poor taste. It is unbecoming of a Prime Minister to use such language against a former PM. We are very very disappointed and angry (with) what the Prime Minister said. We expressed our protest by walking out (from the House), senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said.



This is an insult of the House...we have never seen such arrogance. The Prime Minister should think that there is a stature to the post he holds and he does not know what words should be used...We will not tolerate this. We condemn the Prime Ministers remarks. He should apologise to the House for this, he said.



Earlier, targeting Manmohan Singh, Modi said,in this country, perhaps there will be hardly anyone from the economic field who has had dominance on the countrys financial affairs for half of the countrys 70 years of independence. Out of 70 years, for 30-35 years, he has been directly associated with financial decisions.



So many scams occurred... We politicians have a lot to learn from Dr Sahab. So much happened, there is not a single blot on him. Dr Sahab is the only person who knows the art of bathing in a bathroom with a raincoat on.



As Congress members created uproar and staged a walkout, an angry Modi said, If you cross the limits of decorum, then you should have courage to listen to the response. We have the capacity to pay in the same coin. We do so within the limits of decorum and boundaries of the Constitution. They (Congress) dont want to accept the defeat in any form. How long will it continue??



He went on to add, If the person who held such a high post, used the words loot and plunder in the House, they (Congress) also should have thought 50 times (before using those words).Modi also came in for sharp criticism from Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, who said, When a Prime Minister reduces himself to ridiculing his predecessor-years his senior, he hurts the dignity of the parliament &the nation.



He demeans his position and himself more than anyone else. Todays events were saddening and frankly, they were shameful, Gandhi tweeted.

(With inputs from agencies)

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New Delhi:

Protesting formally against Chinas move to block ban a UN ban on Pathankot attack mastermind and Jaish-e-Muhammed leader Masood Azhar, India has issued a demarche (diplomatic missive) to show its stand.

Piling up more pressure on Pakistan, US along with UK and France have also moved the UN for designating Masood Azhar as a global terrorist.

But the move ran into trouble when China showed its opposition. China has put a hold on the US-initiated proposal, which comes barely weeks after Indias bid to get Azhar banned by the UN were scuttled by Beijing last December.

This had prompted India to take up the matter with the Chinese government.

The proposal, which was finalised after consultations between Washington and New Delhi, said JeM is a designated terror outfit and so its leaders cannot go scot-free, sources said. It was submitted just a day before the inauguration of US President Donald Trump, according to officials.

Also read: China opposes US' proposal on Masood Azhar; India takes up matter with Beijing

However, China opposed the US move by putting a hold on the proposal, a source said, adding the Chinese action came just before the expiry of the 10-day deadline for any proposal to be adopted or blocked or to be put on hold.

Asked about Indias reaction, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said, We have been informed of this development and the matter has been taken up with the Chinese government. However, he did not elaborate when and where the issue was taken up with China.

The hold remains for six months and can be further extended by three months. During this period, it can be anytime converted into a block, thereby, ending the life of the proposal.

UN Sanction Committees listing would have forced imposition of asset freeze and travel ban on Azhar by countries including Pakistan.

China has been constantly opposing efforts to get Azhar banned by the UN, which has proscribed his outfit JeM in 2001. The Chinese opposition is also seen by many here as an action taken at the behest of its all-weather ally Pakistan.

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New Delhi:

India on Thursday handed over a request for the extradition of liquor ban Vijay Mallya to the British High Commission.

We have today handed over the request for extradition of Vijay Mallya as received from the CBI to the UK High Commission in New Delhi. We have requested the UK side to extradite him to face trial in India, said Vikas Swarup, the official spokesperson of the ministry.

He owes banks at least $1 billion, fleeing to Britain last March as pressure grew from banks to pay back the loans.

Earlier on Thursday, United Breweries fired indebted Mallya from his non-executive chairman role following an order from the countrys market regulator, it said in a stock exchange filing late Wednesday.

More Details Awaited

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Lucknow:

Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav`s second son Prateek Yadav on Thursday opened up about the controversy surrounding his Rs 5 crore Lamborghini Huracan. Questioning the controversy, he said he bought the car on loan, have complete documents and he also pays income tax.



aI bought the car on loan, have all the papers, and also Income tax, so why this controversy,a Prateek Yadav said. aI have my own business of real estate and gyms. If I had invested Rs 5 crore in property then no one would have said anything,a he added.

Meanwhile, he said he was confident that her wife Aparna Yadav will win the Uttar Pradesh elections. "Aparna will surely win from Lucknow Cantt, she has already done a lot of work for the area," says Prateek.

On SP-Congress tie-up's prospects in the elections, Prateek said, "I think the SP-Congress alliance will win more than 250 seats and can even go up to 300."A

He said he had no interest in politics and he is focussed on his business.

aI am not at all interested in politics, if I had to become a politician I would have long back. I am focused on my business,a he said.

aI have my own business, real estate and gyms.If I had invested 5 crores in property then no one would have said anything,a he said.



A (With ANI inputs)

I have my own business,real estate and gyms.If I had invested 5 crores in property then no one would have said anything:Prateek Yadav pic.twitter.com/wkMtTd73Ai a ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) February 9, 2017

I bought the car(Lamborghini Huracan) on loan, have all the papers,I pay income tax.Why the controversy?:Prateek Yadav(Mulayam's son) pic.twitter.com/OJZrEWBrtO a ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) February 9, 2017

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New Delhi:

Tamil Nadu has been facing the situation of political instability after the demise of J Jayalalithaa. AIADMK general secretary VK Sasikala was elected as legislature party leader by MLAs during a party meeting, paving way for her to become next Tamil Nadu chief minister.

After which the dramatic meditation of OPS at Jayas memorial, the subsequent bombshell of a press meet happened at short notice, and Sasikala

Governor Rao, who was not in the state from last three days, has only increased the clouds of speculations on what steps he will take. On his flight to Chennai also he declined to comment on the issue.

OPS vs Chinnamma Live: Panneerselvam meets supporters; Sasikala stakes claim to form government

The governor has three options to finish the political turmoil in Tamil Nadu-

1) In case there is a situation where both the contenders claim to have the majority then the governor will have to conduct oath of office to one of them as Pannerselvams resignation has been accepted by the governor and it cannot be reversed. However before that, the governor will have to assure the house and people of state that one of them has majority.

2) The governor may wait for the Supreme Court verdict on Sasikalas alleged involvement in corruption and allow Pannerselvam to continue as acting CM for few more days.

3) The governor may ask the house to elect their leader if there is confusion on majority vote over the claims made by both the contenders. UP has gone through similar situation 18 years back when Jagdambika Pal was instated as CM of the state after overthrowing Kalyan Singh government on Feb 21-22 1998.

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New Delhi:

Twitter is buzzing with news alerts from India and rest of the world. Here are the latest updates from the world of Twitter in one scroll:

#10:15 PM

Press Council of India got 600 complaints of paid news against various newspapers forwarded to it by EC, others during 2014 elections: Govt: PTI

10:03 PM

Tamil Nadu: Jallikattu event to be organised in Alanganallur on Friday, Madurai District collector visits site to review arrangements: ANI

#9:30 PM

Have taken up this matter both in New Delhi with the Chinese Ambassador; I understand a similar Demarche being made in Beijing: MEA: ANI

#9:29 PM

If there's a change in the Chinese position, there'll be consensus also: Vikas Swarup, MEA: ANI

#9:27 PM

We don't view this as bilateral matter b/w #India &Pak but as global counter-terrorism; Hope eventually China will accept this view: MEA: ANI

#9:19 PM

Proposal wasn't moved by India bt by 3UNSC members US, UK & France;It was classic counter-terror proposal to proscribe #MasoodAzhar: MEA: ANI

#9:08 PM

British PM Theresa May says Trump immigration order was wrong: Reuters India

#9:07 PM

Pressure bomb planted by Maoists in Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh, later defused by bomb disposal squad: ANI

#9:06 PM

Palestinian opens fire in Israeli crowd, four wounded says police: AFP



#8:47 PM

113% productivity of Lok Sabha in phase I of Budget Session which ended today & 97% in Rajya Sabha: Govt: PTI

#8:46 PM

Accused cannot be subjected to voice spectrography test in absence of any provision for it, rules Gujarat High Court: PTI

#8:39 PM

NATO has shortfall of troops in Afghanistan: US general: AFP

#8:37 PM

Three Turkish soldiers killed accidentally by Russian Syria air strike: Turkey military: AFP

#8:36 PM

Air India scheduled to take delivery of 4 remaining dreamliners (Boeing 787-8) in 2017 with the last one to be delivered in Oct: Govt: PTI

#8:33 PM

Not imposed any restriction on migration to Gulf countries, but advised Indians not to travel to Yemen: Govt: PTI

#8:07 PM

As of Feb 4, 2017, there are 15 extradition requests pending with the #UKgovt which are at various stages of execution: Govt: PTI

#8:06 PM

Madhya Pradesh: Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan performs aarti at Omkareshwar.: ANI

#8:05 PM

Chennai: VK Sasikala leaves Raj Bhavan after meeting TN Governor C Vidyasagar Rao

#7:54 PM

74 missing defence personnel believed to be in custody of #Pakistan but their presence has so far not been acknowledged by it: Govt: PTI

#7:52 PM

O Pannerselvam met public at his residence

#7:50 PM

Chinnamma stakes claim to form Government: AIADMK

#7:38 PM

5 Senior AIADMK leaders accompany Sasikala Natarajan to Raj Bhavan to meet TN Governor C Vidyasagar Rao

#7:27 PM

VK Sasikala reaches Raj Bhavan to meet Governor Vidyasagar Rao

#7:19 PM

Unicredit suffers net loss of 11.8 bn euros in 2016: AFP

#7:18 PM

"I am not on tranquilisers": Pope Francis reveals anti-stress secrets: AFP

#7:18 PM

49 people injured during bull taming sport Jallikattu event organised in Madurai's Palamedu: ANI

#7:17 PM

Bhopal espionage case: ATS produces 6 accused before Bhopal Court; Sends them to police custody - one till Feb 14 and others till Feb 12:ANI

#7:03 PM

Sasikala visited Jayalalithaa's memorial at Marina Beach, got with her letter of support claiming majority, to be submitted to Guv: ANI



#7:01 PM

VK Sasikala visits Jayalalithaa's memorial at Chennai's Marina Beach: ANI



#7:00 PM

NIA Spcl Court orders framing of charges against arrested accused Areeb Ejaz Majeed (ISIL) for conspiring to carry out terrorist acts: ANI

#6:59 PM

NIA Special Court filed charge sheet against two people for indoctrination of Keralite youths to join ISIS; Next hearing on Feb 17: ANI

#6:51 PM

VK Sasikala leaves Poes Garden residence in Chennai



#6:41 PM

Six arrested in connection with Bihar Staff Selection Commission (BSSC) exam paper leak matter: ANI

#6:40 PM

Pakistan claims India is building a "secret nuclear city" and has accumulated a stockpile of nuclear weapons: PTI

#6:28 PM

Romania justice minister quits after anti-graft protests: AFP

#6:23 PM

Azhar steps down as Pakistan ODI captain, Sarfraz to lead

#6:21 PM

Sad that there was earthquake in Uttarakhand, and PM Modi just for publicity, made fun of it in the Parliament: Rahul Gandhi: ANI

#6:19 PM

PM Modi likes to be in news always. It seems that he can't sleep on the day he is not in news: Rahul Gandhi: ANI

#6:17 PM

Tata Steel UK to sell its Specialty Steel Business to Liberty House Group for GBP 100 million: PTI

#6:16 PM

Delhi court directs Cong's Jagdish Tytler to appear tomorrow on a CBI plea seeking his lie detector test in anti-Sikh riots case: PTI

#6:15 PM

UP: 8 dead after a speeding car rammed into a group of women on Kanpur National highway near Jhansi: ANI

#6:14 PM

Maybe PM Modi is the first PM who can't use good words against the other Prime Ministers of the country: R Gandhi on raincoat remark: ANI

#6:11 PM

Whatever the situation is, Manmohan Singh is a democratically elected former PM of the country: Rahul Gandhi in Uttarakhand: ANI

#6:10 PM

Second phase of Budget session will start on 9 March and will end on 12 April: ANI

#6:05 PM

Twitter shares fall 8.6 percent in premarket trading following results: Reuters India

#6:04 PM

At least five patients at a traditional Chinese medicine hospital in China accidentally infected with HIV: AFP

#6:02 PM

CBI seeks court permission to carry out polygraph test on Jagdish Tytler in anti-Sikh riots case, also on arms dealer Abhishek Verma: PTI

#6:01 PM

Aryan, son of Norway-based NRI couple who was allegedly taken custody of by Norway Child Welfare Dept may soon be returned to parents-Sources: ANI

#6:00 PM

Held detailed discussions with Governor on what is happening in Tamil Nadu, says Panneerselvam: PTI

#5:58 PM

When PM Modi says such things about Dr. Manmohan Singh, he isn't saying just about him but every person of the country: Rahul Gandhi: ANI

#5:54 PM

I told PM that raincoat remark was in bad taste; He replied that as others' also use such words, he is forced to follow suit: Kharge, Cong: ANI

#5:45 PM

'Good things will happen,' says TN CM Panneerselvam after meeting Governor Vidyasagar Rao

#5:44 PM

Thank you all who gathered here and supported me - O Pannerselvam



#5:41 PM

Wife of BSF jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav files habeas corpus plea in Delhi HC, says family is unable to contact hm: ANI



#5:35 PM

I briefed Guv about the political developments in the state, want to stress that dharma will win: O Pannerselvam: ANI

#5:33 PM

Entire process of elections to urban local bodies in Nagaland declared null and void by Governor PB Acharya. Naga Protest: PTI

#5:32 PM

Chennai: O Pannerselvam reaches home after meeting governor; to address media shortly: ANI

#5:29 PM

1984 Sikh killings case: CBI seeks permission to conduct a lie detector test on Jagdish Tytler: ANI

#5:27 PM

We continue to engage members of US administration & US Cong on our concerns; Also engaging with internal stakeholders in India-MEA on H1B visa: ANI

#5:24 PM

Cong to boycott PM @narendramodi in Parliament over "raincoat" remark; will coordinate with other parties, says Anand Sharma: PTI

#5:23 PM

Have extradition treaty wth Britain & legitimate case against Mallya; We made request; Now, it's for British authorities to take action-MEA: ANI

#5:22 PM

SA Bukhari, Imaam of Jama Masjid urges Muslims to look for political alternative in UP, says #SP has been cause of frustration for them: ANI

#5:19 PM

Chennai: O Pannerselvam leaves Raj Bhavan after meeting Governor Vidyasagar Rao

#5:18 PM

Explosion at EDF's Flamanville nuclear plant in France, no nuclear risk - official - Reuters India

#5:16 PM

Assam CM Sarbananda Sonowal gets 'Z+' VVIP security cover of NSG black cat commandos owing to threats from insurgents: PTI

#5:15 PM

We've today handed over the request for extradition of Vijay Mallya as received from the CBI to the UK High Commission in New Delhi: MEA: ANI

#5:14 PM

About 2000 CRPF troops are stuck in Jammu since 3 days due to bad weather conditions. CRPF has sought help of IAF to airlift them: ANI

#5:13 PM

Pakistan's claims of India's secret nuclear city baseless; This aims to deflect attention from real issue of terrorism: Vikas Swarup, MEA: ANI

#5:05 PM

Rajya Sabha adjourned till 9 March, 11 am - ANI

#5:01 PM

We're asking for an apology for the personal attack on an honest man(MMS); This wasn't right-Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress on PM's 'raincoat' remark - ANI

#4:59 PM

Govt gives time till June 30 to those not having Aadhaar to get it for availing subsidised foodgrains under Food Law - PTI

#4:55 PM

Govt makes Aadhaar mandatory for receiving subsidised foodgrains from PDS shops. - PTI

#4:54 PM

Turkish state news agency says police seize 24 suicide belts, detain 4 suspected Islamic State members. - AP

#4:42 PM

Allahabad HC asks EC to decide over issue of SP's election manifesto, the petitioner had stated that manifesto is misleading. - ANI

#4:42 PM

Actress Shruti Ulfat, arrested for posing with a Cobra, granted bail by Boriwali court on the surety of Rs.5000 cash bond. - ANI

#4:32 PM

Virat Kohli hits his 16th test century in India Vs Bangladesh test match

#4:19 PM

Lok Sabha adjourned till 9 March, 11 am - ANI

#4:10 PM

After GST implementation, country will have better and efficient tax system: FM in Lok Sabha - ANI

#4:04 PM

Expenditure on Infrastructure is Rs 3,96,000 crore; Rs 1,00,000 crore allocated to railway safety fund: FM in LS - ANI

#3:59 PM

Explosion at French nuclear plant, no contamination risk says official - AFP

#3:59 PM

OP Chautala's disproportionate assets case: Tees Hazari Court allows CBI to submit list of witnesses and documentary evidences - ANI

#3:57 PM

HC to pronounce judgment by next wk on whether Jan7 notification of Delhi LG reg. neighborhood criteria will apply for admissions this year - ANI

#3:56 PM

Car sales gone up, two-wheelers' sales declined: FM Arun Jaitley in Lok Sabha - ANI

#3:55 PM

ED attaches assets worth Rs 132 Crores (Market value Rs 300 Cr) of Biotor Industries Ltd, Vadodara in a Bank Fraud Case - ANI

#3:53 PM

November and December were difficult months, but indirect and direct tax collections increased in December '16: FM in LS -ANI

#3:49 PM

Lakhs and crores of money returned to RBI post demonetisation: FM Arun Jaitley in LS - ANI

#3:49 PM

Governor Vidyasagar Rao refuses to comment on ongoing political turmoil in Tamil Nadu. - ANI

#3:45 PM

We were a high cash economy and this economy leads to tax evasion, corruption and a parallel economy: FM in LS - ANI

#3:41 PM

It was Madhusudanan's proposal, he supported Sasikala as CM.Sad development that he has now turned to pannerselvam:Vaigai Selvan,AIADMK MLA - ANI

#3:41 PM

Your fiscal deficit quality ws poor as you maintained it by cutting expenditr,bt we spent more thn what ws budgeted&upped it in last 2yrs-FM -ANI

#3:35 PM

For inflation, RBI has now targeted 4%; we are currently at 3.6%: FM Arun Jaitley in Lok Sabha - ANI

#3:28 PM

Delhi High Court to hear Vodafone's petition against TRAI challenging Reliance Jio's free promotional offers on February 14. - ANI

#3:27 PM

All AIADMK MLAs are willing to meet the Governor if he wishes to meet as well: Pandiarajan, Tamil Nadu Education Min - ANI

#3:26 PM

We have not overruled any of his suggestions, whatever has been done was after his consent, no pressure tactics: Pandiarajan, Edu Min - ANI

#3:23 PM

MLAs have been staying at their convenience at hotels etc, they have not been forced or compelled to do anything: TN Education Minister - ANI

#3:22 PM

We have letter of support for VK Sasikala from 135 MLAs including Paneerselvam, we still have that letter: TN Education Minister - ANI

#3:18 PM

Actor Shruti Ulfat, arrested for posing with a Cobra, sent to Judicial custody till 16th February by Borivali magistrate court Mumbai - ANI

#2:20 PM

Odisha: 2 PLFI Naxals killed in an encounter with Police in Sundergarh district; Huge cache of arms & ammunition recovered; Search op on-ANI

#1:25 PM



56.83% polling recorded till 1 pm, in re-polling being held in Punjab's Sangrur-ANI

#1:24 PM

I will campaign in my constituency (Raebareli): Congress president Sonia Gandhi

#1:15 PM

Madras HC declines urgent hearing of Habeas Corpus petitions on alleged detention of AIADMK MLAs; Govt says MLAs in hostel, free to move-PTI

#12:43 PM

UP CM Akhilesh Yadav removes minister Sharda Pratap Shukla from his cabinet

#12:42 PM

Mumbai (Maharashtra): Tamil Nadu Governor C Vidyasagar Rao leaves from Governor's House-ANI

#12:37 PM

VK Sasikala and AIADMK MLAs to meet Tamil Nadu Governor at 5 PM-ANI

#12:24 PM

UP minister Sharda Pratap Shukla sacked from Akhilesh Yadav Ministry; he is contesting Assembly polls on RLD ticket-PTI

#12:12 PM

Rajya Sabha adjourned till 1400 hrs following uproar by Oppn members, including those from #AIADMK-PTI

#12:07 PM

SC decides to hear plea filed by Satta Panchayat Iyakkam against appointment of VK Sasikala as Tamil Nadu CM on Friday-ANI

#11:55 AM

SC directs Gopal Ansal to surrender within four weeks to serve the remaining jail term-PTI

#11:31 AM

Uphar cinema matter: SC orders Gopal Ansal to serve one-year jail sentence, of which he had already served four months-ANI

#11:30 AM

Rajya Sabha adjourned till 12 pm on Thursday

#10:53 AM

DMK is not getting involved in these issues, all these are their (AIADMK) internal problems. Its ugly and sad: Kanimozhi, DMK-ANI

#10:51 AM

How Congress treated Dr Manmohan Singh should also be discussed, how his ordinance was rejected: Ananth Kumar, Union Minister-ANI

#10:50 AM

North 24 Parganas (West Bengal): Two persons arrested with 2 pistols and 36 rounds of bullets in Baguiati-ANI

#10:42 AM

Meeting of Opposition leaders underway at Ghulam Nabi Azad's office in Parliament - ANI

#10:41 AM:

Air India Senior Pilot and Executive Director Operation Captain A Kathpalia off duty because of violation/skip in breath analyser (BA) test. - ANI

#10:40 AM:

DMK is not getting involved in these issues, all these are their(AIADMK) internal problems. Its ugly and sad: Kanimozhi, DMK - ANI

#10:38 AM:

How Congress treated Dr Manmohan Singh should also be discussed, how his ordinance was rejected: Ananth Kumar, Union Minister - ANI

#10:37 AM:

Air India Senior Pilot and Director Operation Captain A Kathpalia off duty because of violation/skip in breath analyser (BA) test - ANI

#10:35 AM:

North 24 Parganas (West Bengal): Two persons arrested with 2 pistols and 36 rounds of bullets in Baguiati - ANI

#10:30 AM:

In fact it is Congress which should tender unconditional apology for not respecting the PM and Parliament: Venkaiah Naidu - ANI

#10:20 AM

Senator Jeff Sessions confirmed as US attorney general-PTI

#10:01 AM

I am not at all interested in politics, if I had to become a politician I would have long back. I am focused on my business: Prateek Yadav

#10:00 AM

I think the SP-Congress alliance will win more than 250 seats and can even go up to 300: Prateek Yadav regarding UP polls 2017-ANI

#9:57 AM

Tamil Nadu Govt revokes suspension of Former TN Chief Secretary Ganadesikan and Adul Anand IAS-ANI

#9:15 AM

CBI court orders attachment of property of former minister Baburam Kushwaha and two others in NRHM case-ANI

#9:12 AM

US Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis spoke on telephone today with Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar-ANI

#9:07 AM

I bought the car(Lamborghini Huracan) on loan, have all the papers, I pay income tax.Why the controversy?: Prateek Yadav (Mulayam's son)-ANI

#9:03 AM

India have won the toss and will bat first against Bangladesh in Hyderabad in one-off test

#8:37 PM

British Theresa May wins crucial vote in #UK Parliament, which will give her the authority to officially trigger Brexit-PTI

#8:26 AM

Repolling underway at booth number 39 in Sangrur (Punjab)-ANI

#8:15 AM

Top news of Feb 9 | Boori Boot festival organized in Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh-ANI

#7:50 AM

India to play Bangladesh in one off test match today in Hyderabad-ANI

#7:30 AM

Sania Mirza summoned by service tax department, has been asked to appear on February 16. She has to pay Rs 20 lakhs-ANI

#7:25 AM

Rahul Gandhi is expected to address a rally in Aligarh and two rallies in Uttarakhand (Almora and Sitarganj)-ANI

#7:20 AM

Ready to face any probe over J Jayalalithaa's death, AIADMK chief V K Sasikala says, hoping TN Governor will invite her to take oath as CM-PTI

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is all set up to create a new world record by launching as many as 104 satellites under the much-awaited single mission next week. The space agency has recently confirmed that the launch will take place on February 15.

As reported earlier, 101 out of these 104 satellites belong to foreign countries, while 3 are Indian. ISROs most efficient launcher rocket PSLV-C37 will carry all the satellites and will put them in the lower orbit of the Earth. The satellites will study the planet and its activities.

We want to make optimum use of our capacity. We are launching our three satellites. One is of 730 kgs while other two are 19 kgs each. We had additional space of 600 kgs. So we decided to accommodate 101 satellites, ISRO chairman A S Kiran Kumar said.

ISRO has gone the smart way for this mega launch. How? Well, the space agency will cut down or recover half of the cost of the mission by launching maximum number of satellites. However, Kumar did not reveal how much exactly the mission will cost and what will be saved, but said, Roughly half of our cost will be covered by the foreign satellites we are launching.

With the launch of 104 satellites simultaneously, ISRO looks forward to create a new world record, a feat that no other country in the world has achieved so far.

The official paper of ISRO states that only three of the 104 earth-surveillance satellites belong to India. While 88 spaceships are from US, rest of the 31 belong to foreign countries like Germany, Israel, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates.

As per schedule, the satellites will be blasted off from Earth on February 15 at around 9 am from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.

ISROs home-grown Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle  PSLV-C37  will be used for the launch of 104 satellites.

The satellites and the PSLV-C37 rocket together will weigh around 1500 kilograms. The launch of hundreds of satellites faces various complexities and different angles are required for each satellite. Hence, to avoid any hurdles, ISRO has designed a specific launch stratagem to the launch.



A 320-tonne launcher rocket  PSLV-C37 (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) will mark the discharge of the satellites with a collective weight of 1,500 kg. It also includes a Cartosat-2D which weights 650kg and two nano-satellites called INS-1A and INS-1B, weighing 15 kg each.

Similarly, the combined mass of 100 foreign micro-satellites will be 820 kg in total, said an official of ISRO.

If ISRO successfully conducts the mega-launch mission, then it will become the only space agency to launch the highest number of satellites at one go. Russia currently holds the record of launching greater number of satellites with the launch of 77 spaceships at single go, which it carried out on June 19, 2014.

Prior to Russia, NASA had created history by launching 29 satellites at one go on November 19, 2013.

For all the Latest Science News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Mazar-i-Sharif:

Suspected Islamic State gunmen killed six Afghan employees of the Red Cross delivering relief supplies in snowbound northern Afghanistan, officials said, underscoring the dangers faced by aid workers in the war-battered country.

Two other Red Cross workers were missing following the ambush in the volatile province of Jowzjan, in one of the worst attacks on the international charity in years.

Their convoy, comprising three drivers and five field officers, came under fire while they were carrying much-needed livestock materials to a remote area badly affected in recent days by heavy snowfall, Red Cross said.

"This is a despicable act," said Monica Zanarelli, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Afghanistan.

"Nothing can justify the murder of our colleagues and dear friends." No militant group has so far claimed responsibility for the killings, but Jowzjan police chief Rahmatullah Turkistaniblamed local Islamic State fighters.

"Daesh fighters are active in the area," he said, using the Arabic acronym by which IS is commonly known in Afghanistan.

"We had previously repeatedly warned them not to go to such dangerous areas under Daesh control." Turkistani said the bodies of the six workers had been brought to a provincial hospital. Some of the bodies had multiple bullet wounds and had been shot from close range in the head and chest, Fraidoon Habib, director of the hospital, told AFP.

ICRC president Peter Maurer denounced the killings as a"huge tragedy", saying it appeared to be a deliberate attack on the charity's staff.

"These staff members were simply doing their duty, selflessly trying to help and support the local community, "Maurer said.

"Our thoughts are with the families and loved ones of our colleagues killed and those unaccounted for." The Taliban, the largest militant group in Afghanistan, said they were not behind the attack.

Jowzjan is infested with insurgent groups and rife with armed struggles between competing pro-government militias. The killings come after a Spanish employee of the ICRC was abducted on December 19 when workers from the charity were travelling between the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and the neighbouring volatile Taliban hotbed of Kunduz.

He was released nearly a month later, but ICRC and local officials did not say how he was freed or who was behind the abduction.

The ICRC, which has been operating in Afghanistan for decades, did not say how the latest incident would impact them.

"At this point, it's premature for us to determine the impact of this appalling incident on our operations inAfghanistan," Zanarelli said.







For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Islamabad:

Warships from various countries, including Russia, China and the US, have arrived in the Arabian Sea near Karachi to take part in a multi-nation naval exercise hosted by Pakistan.

Code-named as Aman (peace)-17, the five-day long exercise will start from tomorrow in the north Arabian Sea.

Theme of the exercise is Together for peace, according to Pakistan Navy. A Pakistani naval official said warships from Russia, China and the US have arrived to take part in the exercise.

Water salute was presented for the warships on reaching the Karachi port, he said, adding that it was mega event and the warships from 36 countries will take part in the exercise.

Three war vessels from Russia, four from US, and one each from Indonesia, Australia and Turkey will participate. Japan, Malaysia, Maldives, Sri Lanka and the UK will also participate.

Commander Pakistan Fleets Vice Admiral Syed Arifullah Hussaini said this week that the exercise will help to clear the Arabian Sea of pirates.

These exercises help the participating countries come together and further their relations, he said.

The exercise will feature ships, aircraft, helicopters, Special Operations Forces (SOF), Explosives Ordinance Disposal (EOD), marines and observers from different navies.

Pakistan has been organizing such naval exercises since 2007 every alternate year. The current exercise is the fifth of the series and will be held from 10-14 February.

Previous four exercise were held in 2001, 2009, 2011 and 2013. In 2015, only international maritime conference was held.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
The Granek family

In celebration of her 40th birthday in October 2015, Jennifer and Brian Granek embarked on an adventure-filled trip to Costa Rica. It was the tropical trip they dreamed of, until Jennifer was involved in a horrific accident. We were riding ATVs and hers went off the side of the trail and fell six to eight feet, Brian Granek told Yahoo Finance. She was wearing a helmet, but suffered a traumatic brain injury.

Before the accident, Jennifer was a vibrant and competitive triathlete. After, the mother of three was fighting for her life and unable to walk or talk. Due to the severity of her situation, the couple spent a month in Costa Rica until Jennifer was stable enough to fly back to the US. On the flight home she would need special medical support, and Brian spent many of those early days arguing with their insurance company over who was obligated to pay for Jennifers transportation back to their hometown of Baltimore. Seeing their struggle, a family friend started a campaign on GiveForward, a crowdfunding site designed to raise money for people going through a health setback. The goal was to pull together enough money to get Jennifer home.

Within 48 hours, the GiveForward page raised $100,000.

I was dealing with everything, so I wasnt watching the total rise, said Brian. To see how the community rallied around Jennifer was absolutely amazing.

From funding cancer treatments to helping a family with a sick child, medically-inspired crowdfunding campaigns are gaining in popularity. In fact, GoFundMe, one of the more popular crowdfunding sites, says medical campaigns remain one of their biggest categories and continue to grow year after year. YouCaring says that medical campaigns were their fastest growing category in 2015, raising more than $240 million since 2012.

One explanation for the increase could be the complexities  and deficiencies  of health insurance. Even after the push made by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to mandate coverage and made subsidies available to many consumers, its estimated that 29 million Americans are still uninsured.

Story continues

Come of the active campaigns on GiveForward.

Even so, uninsured people arent the only ones turning to crowdfunding to seek help paying medical bills. In 2015, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported that Americans paid $338 billion in out-of-pocket medical expenses like deductibles, co-pays, and other spending. Which means even those with coverage may have to seek out other avenues to pay their medical bills.

Since launching in 2008, GiveForward has helped users raise more than $136 million through medical campaigns. When it comes to fees, GiveForward and GoFundMe both charge 7.9% plus 30 cents per donation, which can be paid for by the donor and is used to process payments and cover overhead. On GiveForward, organizers can set up fundraisers for everything from education to home repairs. Still, most people use the site to help others going through health setbacks, with nearly 70% of campaigns falling under the medical category.

Everyone at GiveForward works here because we love the mission, said GiveForward CEO Josh Chapman. We get to watch thousands of people receive the support they need when theyre going through a difficult life event.

Impact of ACA repeal on medical crowdfunding

Despite receiving its fair share of criticism, the Affordable Care Act has changed the way we approach healthcare. Under the ACA, patients cant be denied insurance based on a pre-existing condition or charged more based on their gender. In addition, patients also gain access to tests, screenings and other services that can help detect illnesses like colorectal and breast cancer. The Trump administration has promised to repeal and replace Obamacare, as its known, which according to a report by the Urban Institute, could leave up to 30 million people uninsured. The uncertainty could mean even more need for consumers to rely on do-it-yourself fundraising through sites like GiveForward, GoFundMe, YouCaring, and Generosity.

I think it goes back to a bigger question of healthcare in our country. Even with the Affordable Care Act, there was still a need for improvements, Chapman said. If there is a repeal, we know people will lose the insurance they have and we would expect to see an increase in medical campaigns.

In addition to medical bills, Chapman says many of the campaigns on GiveForward also focus on the small but important things that fall by the wayside when someone is sick  like lost wages, child care and transportation.

The Graneks celebrating Jennifers birthday in 2016.

In the case of the Graneks, their insurance company ultimately ponied up the cash to transport Jennifer back to Baltimore, and agreed to pay for her care at an inpatient hosptial where she receives physical, occupational and speech therapy. This allowed Brian Granek to save the money raised for her ongoing care, renovations to make their home wheelchair-accessible and costs associated with caring for their three young children without Jennifer by his side.

Then last November, the Graneks suffered another financial blow. The insurance company decided to discharge Jennifer from the Hebrew Geriatric Center and Hospital, saying that she no longer needed rehabilitation.

They were grouping her with a nursing home patient, who just needed custodial care, said Brian. But she is a healing rehabilitation patient, and all of her doctors and therapists agree that she needs to be in a facility that can help her make improvements.

Without insurance, the family would have to pay $25,000 a month to keep Jennifer in the hospital, an amount that would be impossible to afford even on Graneks eye doctor salary. In response, he started another GiveForward campaign to pay for Jennifer to stay in the hospital while he issued an appeal to the Maryland Insurance Administration. In January, Brian signed Jennifer up for Medicaid, so the hospital is taking care of her until they know exactly what will be covered. In the meantime, the money raised by GiveForward is waiting to be put to good use, either to pay for Jennifers medical bills or to help finance alternative treatments like deep brain stimulation. Either way, Brian continues to fight for his wife, and is comforted by the community of people rallying behind his family.

Ive been emotionally overwhelmed by the support and generosity of friends, family and strangers, he says. Especially at a time when I feel completely abandoned by the people who are supposed to be helping to pay her healthcare.

Brittany is a writer at Yahoo Finance.
DailyFX.com -

Talking Points:

NZ Dollar sinks as RBNZ pours cold water on rate hike outlook

Yen gains, Aussie and Loonie rise as risk appetite firms in Asia

US Dollar may fall if Fed officials hawkish conviction wavers

The New Zealand Dollar slumped in overnight trade following the RBNZ monetary policy announcement, as expected. A cautious policy statement released alongside the decision to keep the cash rate steady at 1.75 percent poured cold water on tightening bets.

Governor Graeme Wheeler predicted that policy will remain accommodative for a considerable period, citing an uncertain in the international outlook. He added thatpolicy may need to adjust accordingly, which might even have been meant to hint at an easing bias.

The Kiwi fell alongside front-end local bond yields, reinforcing the sense that traders interpreted the statement as broadly dovish. Markets priced in at least one hike over the coming 12 months ahead of the RBNZ announcement. OIS rates afterward suggest investors are no longer convinced.

The Japanese Yen likewise traded lower as most Asian stocks advanced, pressuring the standby anti-risk currency. The risk-on mood likewise offered support to the sentiment-sensitive Australian and Canadian Dollars.

The British Pound jumped higher late into the Asian session, erasing losses suffered earlier in the day to post meaningful gains versus all of the G10 FX majors. The move occurred as Gilt rates gapped sharply higher as UK bond trading reopened for the day, offering the currency a bit of yield-based support.

A lackluster offering of economic data puts Fed-speak at the forefront from here. James Bullard and Charles Evans  Presidents of the US central banks St. Louis and Chicago branches, respectively  are due to speak. A sense that fiscal policy uncertainty has officials wavering on rate hikes may hurt the US Dollar.

Did DailyFX analysts get it right so far in the first quarter? See our forecasts and find out!

Story continues

Asia Session

NZ Dollar Slumps on Dovish RBNZ, US Dollar Eyeing Fed Comments

European Session

NZ Dollar Slumps on Dovish RBNZ, US Dollar Eyeing Fed Comments

** All times listed in GMT. See the full DailyFX economic calendar here.

--- 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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Top Clinton lawyer joins Soros super PAC to fight voting laws, defend the New World Order

Marc Elias, a partner at D.C. based Perkins Coie law firm, was a top lawyer for Hillary Clintons presidential campaign. He is generally the go-to guy for Democrats legal needs. Elias has now joined the board of Priorities USA Action, a large Democratic Super PAC that is funded by George Soros. The PAC will absorb the Clinton supporting non-profit Every Citizen Counts and challenge voting laws against state-level Republicans. (RELATED: Read more conservative news at Conservative.news)

Priorities USA are increasing their staff and building a national database of restrictive voting measures. The PAC received $157 million in 2015 alone, with George Soros being a top donor. Soros contributed $9.5 million during the 2016 election season, his son Alex also donated $1 million to the PAC.

This wont be Marc Eliass first rodeo using Soross money to challenge Republican-heavy legislatures states voting laws. He filed lawsuits challenging voter ID laws in North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin; while working for Clintons Campaign, which received millions in support from Soros. Eliass efforts were fought by Public Interest Legal Foundation spokesman Logan Churchwell, who highlighted Elias record showing misplaced priorities. Elias received millions from Soros in efforts to derail voter ID and early voting reform in those states, but he was unsuccessful at changing the publics opinion.

Priorities USA claims to be about voting rights but doesnt make any effort to help voters for their oppositions party. They exist to help George Soros achieve his goal of growing the electorate by 10 million voters. Soros also owns the Open Society Foundation, which aims to advance electoral reform and fight voter suppression. Soros is obviously going after votes which will be cast for his candidate of choice. Last year, he donated $3 million to the Immigrant Voters Win PAC. Their intended goal was to register hundreds of thousands of new voters in swing states prior to the election.

Its important not to let the rich and biased change the way we vote in America when such changes will only benefit their causes. Soros is a philanthropist and globalist with an agenda that is generally in Americas worst interest. Soros provided the bankroll for many of the more sizeable anti-Trump protests and he is doing everything he can to tear our country apart. (RELATED: Learn more about George Soros at Soros.news)

Sources:

FreeBeacon.com

InfoWars.com

Submit a correction >>
Trump Offers To Destroy Career Of Texas State Senator At Meeting With National Sheriffs Assoc.

Earlier today President Trump met with the National Sheriffs Association at the White House. The visit was supposed to be just another friendly meet and greet, but it took a slightly awkward turn when President Trump offered to destroy the career of a Texas state senator who is allegedly promoting a piece of legislation that would benefit Mexican drug cartels.

During the meeting, Rockwall County, Texas, Sheriff Harold Eavenson told President Trump about a piece of asset forfeiture legislation he believes would aid Mexican drug cartelsheres the full conversation:

Eavenson: Theres a state senator in Texas that was talking about legislation to require conviction before we could receive that forfeiture money.

Trump: Do you believe that?

Eavenson: And I told him that the cartel would build a monument to him in Mexico if he could get that legislation passed.

Trump: Who is that state senator? I want to hear his name. Well destroy his career

And here is the conversation caught on tape:

Sheriff tells Trump that state senator is doing something he doesnt like Trump: Do you want to give his name? Well destroy his career. pic.twitter.com/75y3t9zc54  Steve Kopack (@SteveKopack) February 7, 2017

Reached later by The Dallas Morning News, Eavenson declined to identify the lawmaker that he inadvertently threw directly under the bus saying that he didnt take the presidents offer to destroy the senator literally.

He was just being emphatic that he did not agree with that senators position, Eavenson said, adding of the senator in question, Im not into assassinating his character.

He was making a point about how much he opposed that kind of philosophy, the sheriff said. I appreciated what the president said. I can assure you that he is on our side.

Eavenson will become president of the National Sheriffs Association in June. He has been active in the Sheriffs Association of Texas.

As the Dallas Morning News also pointed out, only two Texas state senators have introduced asset forfeiture legislations this year, Republican Konni Burton and Democrat Juan Chuy Hinojosa.

Two Texas senators have offered legislation this year to require conviction before someones assets could be seized. Sen. Konni Burton, a Republican who often pushes civil-liberties legislation to protect personal information and property, was a fierce critic of Trump during the campaign. She and Sen. Juan Chuy Hinojosa, a McAllen Democrat, have formed an unlikely team pushing this asset forfeiture legislation.

Hinojosa said he didnt believe he was the target of Eavensons comments. But he said he wasnt concerned about Trumps promise to wreak havoc on a senators career.

I dont know the sheriff, Hinojosa said. Quite frankly, I dont pay much attention to what Trump says anymore.

Several other senators have also supported this change in the past, including two civil-libertarian Republicans: Bob Hall, whose district includes Rockwall County and Don Huffines of Dallas. Aides to Burton, Hall and Huffines could not immediately be reached for comment.

Never a dull moment in the Trump White House

An honor having the National Sheriffs Assoc. join me at the @WhiteHouse. Incredible men & women who protect & serve 24/7/365. THANK YOU!! pic.twitter.com/9EMTnH0OrF  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 7, 2017

Read more at: zerohedge.com

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DANBURY  Legislation that would regulate sober houses  mostly unregulated apartment buildings that are rented out to people who are recovering from heroin addiction  is moving forward in Connecticuts General Assembly in the wake of several overdose deaths.

Sober houses are intended to help addicts transition back into the community after going to rehab. But theyve come under fire during the past few months after several people staying at sober houses in Torrington died of heroin overdoses.

Danbury resident Kaitlyn Knapp, 21, died of a heroin overdose on Dec. 29, and David Anderson, 29, of Ridgefield, died just a week later, in separate Torrington sober houses.

State Rep. Michelle Cook, a Democrat from Torrington, submitted legislation last month that would require some oversight of sober homes by having the facilities register as a business. The proposal would also require that sober homes have Narcan - an emergency treatment for opioid overdoses - on-site and have employees who are trained to use it.

Danbury State Rep. Robert Godfrey recently signed on to the bill as a co-sponsor.

Lawmakers see the bill as the first step toward providing more oversight. Members of the Public Health Committee are planning a public hearing on the matter, but a date has yet to be set.

This has caught the attention of the entire committee, and they believe its an issue that needs to be explored, said Godfrey, a Democrat who represents Danburys urban core. People who favor the proposal will now have the opportunity to talk to lawmakers about it.

Michelle and I often talk about public health concerns, and she brought the issue of sober homes to my attention, Godfrey said. These can be very helpful facilities for those looking to recover from drug abuse, as long as they arent a fraud.

Cook has claimed that while many sober houses provide support ,including 12-step programs and strict monitoring of their tenants, others are little more than boarding houses with no services. State officials estimate that there are around 240 sober houses in Connecticut, but because they arent regulated, there is no way to no for sure how many there are in the state.

Sober houses are largely unregulated by state and local authorities, partly because they are not considered treatment centers under existing state law, according to a legislative report on the matter completed last year.

Efforts to regulate such homes also have been hampered by fears that measures could run afoul of the Americans With Disabilities Act, since drug-dependent individuals are considered disabled under the law.

We are not trying to violate anyones right; we are trying to save lives, Cook said. The only way we can get a handle on this is if we know where the homes are.

dperrefort@newstimes.com
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BROOKFIELD -- Before it can be fixed, its important to understand what exactly is behind the blue-green algae blooms that have closed beaches on Candlewood Lake in recent years, according to a presentation made before the lake authority Wednesday night.

Robert Kortmann, a well-known limnologist who has been working on Connecticut lakes for decades, discussed cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, and possible treatments, but stopped short of recommending one for Candlewood.

While Candlewood experienced beach closures, Kortmann said the outbreaks were not as bad as other lakes.

Its good that youre not experiencing major blooms, he said. A lot of lakes are, and its harder to restore.

He said the biggest thing is to make sure a strong seedbed is established on the lake floor and a cycle of blooms is established.

Dont let it get to that point, because then it will take a while to break, Kortmann said.

He said there are various factors that contribute to blooms, and its best to determine the one at play in Candlewood before identifying a treatment plan.

Nitrogen, how the water layers in the lake mix, and phosphorus could be factors.

He suggested hiring a limnologist to look at the data collected for the lake and conduct a few more tests to see how the lakes two arms interact and what elements are present in Candlewood. For example, aeration treatments work best with lakes with iron, but arent as effective if iron isnt a factor.

Kortmann said Candlewood Lake is unique. Its considered a hard water lake because its water source is in a hard-water geology, though the lake sits in soft-water geology.

A possible treatment is changing the plunge point for where the water enters the lake from the Housatonic River in the New Milford arm, which could help the water mix better based on different water temperatures.

Another technique is putting equipment in the lake that would help aerate the water.

Kortmann cautioned against using copper sulfate because a higher dose is needed in hard-water lakes and said he doesnt like using it in recreational lakes.

If you look at the research, the organisms that eat the algae are 10 times more susceptible to the copper than the algae it was intended for, he said.

He said non-copper algeacides could work on spots where the cyanobacteria bacteria was germinating, but that could also be difficult.

The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection is reviewing an application from New Fairfield and Solitude Lake Management to apply up to 60 acres of the herbicide Diquat to kill Eurasian watermilfoil and up to 160 acres of copper sulfate to treat blue-green algae when blooms appear or are about to appear.

He also recommended against using sonic devices, which the authority is currently exploring.

Another challenge for Candlewood is its size and how the wind affects the concentrations of cyanobacteria in the lake. There might not be a lot of cyanobacteria when it is spread out throughout the lake, but the wind can blow the cyanobacteria into the shores, where they gather and form large concentrations, resulting in health risks and beach closures.

That beach becomes pea soup, even if in the middle, the lake has two meters of clarity, he said.

He said smaller aeration or circulation devices powered by wind or solar could work at the beaches, but he doesnt recommend them for the entire lake.
TORONTO, Feb. 9, 2017 /CNW/ - With the year-long Canada 150 celebration now underway, CNW and Cision decided to see how engaged Canadians are with this milestone anniversary. The two companies, which joined together in 2016, have initiated a comprehensive share of voice study tracking mentions of the search term "Canada 150".

Initial findings showed that Canada 150 conversations spiked right around New Year's Eve with the official campaign kick-off. Since then, Canada 150 has been mentioned more than 100,000 times online with thousands of mentions per day. Most notably, momentum is building.

View CNW's Content Centre: http://prn.to/2kIwCOK

"We saw a promising start to Canada 150 and wondered if we could contribute to its ongoing success," said Nicole Guillot, President of CNW and Cision Canada. "This led to an offering combining the distribution expertise of CNW with the monitoring and analytics capabilities of Cision Communications Cloud to improve the results of our customers' Canada 150 communications initiatives. In doing so, we hope to help boost the conversation about Canada 150 across the country throughout the year."

CNW and Cision's Canada 150 offering

The companies developed a set of CNW distribution offerings that amplify the prominence of Canada 150 news releases. They then added a monitoring and analytics report from Cision that measures share of voice for a customer's Canada 150 program, compares the program against a competitor's program and benchmarks the program's performance against the total online conversation.

CNW and Cision's Canada 150 offering to customers includes:

New Canada 150 Targeted Industry Lists  distribution lists specific to outlets, journalists and influencers interested in Canada 150 news. (Click here to add yourself to a CNW Canada 150 email list.)





150  distribution lists specific to outlets, journalists and influencers interested in 150 news. (Click here to add yourself to a CNW Canada 150 email list.) Top billing in CNW's Media Daybook  a daily listing for media summarizing all events promoted by a CNW Media Advisory





 a daily listing for media summarizing all events promoted by a CNW Media Advisory A dedicated @CNWCanada150 Twitter feed  a curated account that shares all news releases tagged with Canada's 150 together with other relevant content





 a curated account that shares all news releases tagged with 150 together with other relevant content A CNW News Widget filtered for Canada 150 news release content  CNW News Widgets are updated in real time and can be added to any website (Click here to become a CNW Media Partner and add a widget to your website)





filtered for 150 news release content  CNW News Widgets are updated in real time and can be added to any website (Click here to become a CNW Media Partner and add a widget to your website) Prominence on the newswire.ca homepage within a Canada 150 Hot Topics section  curated for all relevant news releases and multimedia content distributed by CNW





150 section  curated for all relevant news releases and multimedia content distributed by CNW A Canada 150 Cision monitoring and analytics package  tracks share of voice across web, social, print and broadcast media for any Canada 150 initiative, provides competitor analysis and performance against benchmark, shared in four quarterly reports.

The future of monitoring is more than counting media hits

Over the course of its Canada 150 share of voice study, CNW and Cision will also monitor how Canadians respond to a variety campaigns, messages and real-world events, for example, "Which events drew the most attention or controversy," and, "What demographic groups enjoyed the festivities most?"

"Cision is a leader in providing deep contextual business insights based on communications and public commentary," said Guillot. "When we look beyond the number of articles or tweets around an issue and dive into the impact the issue has on population groups, suddenly communicators are equipped with insights that can help them guide their organizations to greater success and prove the value of their work."

To learn more about our Canada 150 offerings, click here.

About CNW

CNW Group Ltd. (a Cision company) gets people talking about our clients online and in the news. We distribute authenticated news releases and multimedia content in the right way and to the right places in order to fulfill disclosure requirements and maximize exposure, engagement and earned media opportunities. CNW also provides professional video, photography and webcast production, translation, regulatory filing services and IR website solutions.

About Cision:

Cision is a leading media communication technology and analytics company that enables marketers and communicators to effectively manage their earned media programs in coordination with paid and owned channels to drive business impact. As the creator of the Cision Communication Cloud, the first-of-its-kind earned media cloud-based platform, Cision has combined cutting-edge data, analytics, technology and services into a unified communication ecosystem that brands can use to build consistent, meaningful and enduring relationships with influencers and buyers in order to amplify their marketplace influence. Cision solutions also include market-leading media technologies such as PR Newswire, CNW, Gorkana, PRWeb, Help a Reporter Out (HARO) and iContact. Headquartered in Chicago, Cision serves over 100,000 customers in 170 countries and 40 languages worldwide, and maintains offices in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and Australia. For more information, visit www.cision.com or follow @Cision on Twitter.

SOURCE CNW Group Ltd.

For further information: Laurie Smith, Vice President Strategic Communications, Media and Audience Relations, E: [email protected], T: (416) 863-5399, C: (416) 388-0711
VANCOUVER, Feb. 9, 2017 /CNW/ - Renaissance Oil Corp. ("Renaissance" or the "Company") (TSX-V:ROE) is pleased to announce it has closed the previously announced acquisition of the 25% interest in the Integrated Exploration and Production Contract for the Amatitlan block in Veracruz, Mexico (the "Amatitlan Contract"). Following this transaction, the balance of ownership in the Amatitlan Contract is 50% indirectly held by LUKOIL and 25% by Marak Capital.

"Renaissance's and LUKOIL's operational objectives are to re-establish production in the shallower Chicontepec formation and to commercialize the potentially prolific Upper Jurassic shale formations," stated Craig Steinke, Chief Executive Officer of Renaissance. "Renaissance is pleased to take the role of lead operator providing the opportunity to apply our proven unconventional resource development expertise in combination with the extensive global expertise of LUKOIL."

ABOUT RENAISSANCE'S PARTNER, LUKOIL

LUKOIL is one of the world's largest vertically integrated oil and gas companies, with publicly listed shares on the Moscow Exchange and London Stock Exchange and over 100,000 employees globally. LUKOIL produces over 2 million barrels of crude oil per day, equating to 2% of global oil production and holds 16.6 billion boe of proved hydrocarbon reserves, equivalent to approximately 1% of global reserves. Headquartered in Moscow, Russia LUKOIL has operations in 35 countries with 2015 revenue in excess of US$ 90 billion.

TRANSACTION OVERVIEW

As consideration for the acquisition, the Company issued a promissory note for US$1,750,000 to Marak, with a payment due date of April 1, 2017. Renaissance entered into separate options agreements to acquire a further 12.5% interest in the Amatitlan Contract from Marak and 25% from LUKOIL. Upon exercise of all options, Renaissance will hold a participating interest of 62.5% in the Amatitlan Contract. The options are exercisable during a sixty-day exclusivity period, commencing upon the migration of the Amatitlan Contract to a Contract of Exploration and Extraction, expected between late 2017 and the first quarter of 2018.

OPERATIONS UPDATE

Renaissance and LUKOIL have agreed to an accelerated 2017 development plan for Amatitlan, utilizing the Company's established operations footprint in Mexico. The program is expected to include workovers of existing wells, drilling of six new wells in the shallower Chicontepec formation and drilling a well targeting the deeper Upper Jurassic shale formations. The Company believes the Upper Jurassic Shales have the potential to be a premier shale play on an international level. Renaissance will take the lead role in operations for Amatitlan and the Company is responsible for 25% of the related capital expenditures, pro-rata to its stake in the project.

The Comision Nacional de Hidrocarburos recently informed Renaissance that the review of development plans for the Mundo Nuevo, Malva and Topen blocks, in Chiapas, Mexico (the "Chiapas Blocks"), is expected to be finalized by approximately the end of March 2017 which, upon approval, will begin the 12 month appraisal period for the Company to perform the work programs for each block. The Company expects to execute the work programs for the Chiapas Blocks between the third quarter of 2017 and early 2018.

MANAGEMENT APPOINTMENTS

Renaissance welcomes Mr. Carlos Escribano to the Company as Chief Financial Officer ("CFO"). Mr. Escribano has previously served as CFO for publicly traded multi-national corporations in Mexico and other Latin American countries. Mr. Escribano is a Chartered Professional Accountant and graduate of the University of British Columbia.

Renaissance extends its appreciation to former CFO, Ms. Harpreet Dhaliwal, for her valuable contribution during her time with the Company and wishes her the best in her future endeavors.

Renaissance is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Wade Spark as Operations Manager for Northern Mexico. Mr. Spark will coordinate the development of the Amatitlan block and has over 30 years experience in the oil and gas industry, with previous senior positions at international oil companies, including Petroamerica Oil Corp., Petrominerales Colombia Ltd., Nexen (Can Oxy) Petroleum Colombia Ltd. and Norcen Energy Resources Limited.

Mr. Spark is fluent in Spanish and has worked extensively throughout Central and South America as well as in North America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Mr. Spark holds a BSc (Honours) in Chemical Engineering from the University of Calgary.

Renaissance continues to make progress on its journey to become a major Mexican energy producer.

For further information, please visit our website at www.renaissanceoil.com.

RENAISSANCE OIL CORP.

Per:

Craig Steinke

Chief Executive Officer

Abbreviations:

bbl or bbls barrel or barrels Mcf thousand cubic feet bbls/d barrels per day Mcf/d thousand cubic feet per day boe barrels of oil equivalent MMcf million cubic feet Mboe thousand barrels Bcf billion cubic feet boe/d barrels of oil equivalent per day MMcf/d million cubic feet per day

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation, including, without limitation, statements with respect to the migration of the Amatitlan Contract to a Contract of Exploration and Extraction, re-establishing production in the shallower Chicontepec formation and commercializing the potentially prolific Upper Jurassic shale formations and the Company becoming a major Mexican energy producer. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts which address events, results, outcomes or developments that the Company expects to occur; they are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "aims", "potential", "goal", "objective", "prospective", and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "can", "could" or "should" occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made and they involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Certain material assumptions regarding such forward-looking statements are discussed in this news release and the Company's annual and quarterly management's discussion and analysis filed at www.sedar.com. Except as required by the securities disclosure laws and regulations applicable to the Company, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.

SOURCE Renaissance Oil Corp.

For further information: Craig Steinke, Chief Executive Officer, Tel: +1 604-536-3637; Kevin J. Smith, Vice President, Business Development, Tel: +1 403-200-9047
IS NETANYAHU FINISHED?



By Chuck Baldwin

February 9, 2017

NewsWithViews.com

[ NOTE: The opinion in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the opinion of NewsWithViews.com, it's employees, representatives, or other contributing writers. NWV supports President Donald Trump and the Jewish State of Israel.]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is one of the most corrupt political leaders on the planet. He is also one of the most heavily financed political leaders on the planet.

In spite of his billionaire friends and supporters, however, he is facing almost certain political destruction. His many crimes are being intensely investigated by Israeli authorities. The only reason he hasn't been removed from office already is due to the immense political and financial support he has from bankers, casino owners, land developers, etc., from other countries--especially in the United States.

But it is doubtful that Bibi will be able to tread water much longer. It appears that his political demise is inevitable. And you haven't heard a word about it from the controlled mainstream media in the U.S., have you? Of course not. The men who own the mainstream media are among Bibi's largest contributors.

Neither have you heard anything about it from the so-called conservative publications, periodicals and websites. There is one common denominator that links the mainstream media with the so-called conservative media: infatuation with the modern State of Israel.

Without a doubt, Netanyahus plummet in popularity at home is one of the reasons (maybe the MAJOR reason) why he is pressuring Donald Trump to ratchet up a war against Iran and why he is mobilizing accelerated (illegal) Israeli settlements on private land owned by Palestinian people. War and military conflict has always been a favored tactic of embattled politicians to increase their popularity and deflect negativity. Neither does it hurt that Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law and presidential adviser, is a MAJOR financial backer of the (illegal) land settlements.

One indicator that Netanyahu will be removed from office soon is longtime Bibi supporter, billionaire Sheldon Adelson, is starting to back away from the embattled Israeli Prime Minister. That's NOT a good sign for Bibi at all.

The removal of Netanyahu from office would be a very good thing for the entire world. The problem is the State of Israel is controlled by about 20 mega-rich Zionist families. To think that these power-brokers would replace Bibi with a truly honest man is as likely as the sun rising in the west tomorrow morning.

Read this honest and objective analysis of what I am talking about here: Netanyahu Scandals Reflect Corruption At The Heart Of Israeli Society

As I often do, I tested this column by writing a brief post on this subject on my Facebook page. I wasnt surprised when Christians came out of the woodwork in a vitriolic attack against me for what I said about Bibi. Many accused me of heresy and vowed to never read my Facebook page again.

Chuck Baldwins Facebook Page

Since my lengthy personal research and study into the Biblical teaching on Israel, I have come to learn this: the entire faith system of many professing Christians depends on their allegiance to the modern State of Israel. These Christian Zionists might recite a pledge of allegiance to the United States of America, but their true allegiance is to the State of Israel.

It is no hyperbole to say that for many professing Christians, the modern State of Israel is every bit as important as Jesus Christ Himself and their own personal salvation. In fact, many of these folks equate their allegiance to the State of Israel with their own personal salvation. And they are quick to condemn anyone to hell who does not share their allegiance to the State of Israel. I find this extremely perplexing. I truly wonder if this cultish infatuation with the modern faux Israel might be the great falling away and devilish deception of the last days. But I digress.

Faithful readers of this column and followers of my ministry know that for most of my adult life I subscribed to dispensational modern-Israel-is-the-fulfillment-of-Bible-prophecy theology. And while I would debate with people holding alternative opinions (as I hold now), I never felt that their differences of opinion on this subject somehow invalidated their Christian faith.

So, why is it that so many Christians are so dependent upon a commitment to the modern State of Israel to the point that it is part and parcel to the very core of their Christian faith? For some nineteen centuries there was no modern State of Israel, and believers were quite cemented and steadfast in the Christian faith. In fact, most Bible scholars who wrote previous to 1948 had an entirely different perspective on the subject. Try reading some of them, and see for yourself.

Today, however, anyone who challenges the scriptural validity of the modern State of Israel is cast off by many professing Christians in the meanest and most vitriolic terms. Why does the modern State of Israel hold such a strong grip on peoples faith? Its as if their faith itself depends on the modern State of Israel, not Christ.

Christians seem oblivious to the fact that Netanyahu is not only a globalist, crook, and murderer, he is also a Talmudist. Not long ago, he promised that Talmudism would be official Israeli law. See the report: Netanyahu Promises Talmud Will Be Israeli Law

If you think the Koran is bad, try reading the Talmud. As a point of reference, the Pharisees that hated Jesus were devout disciples of the Mishnah, the oral traditions which later formed the Talmud. In other words, the Pharisees were Talmudists. And, as you probably know, Jesus strongly condemned them for their devotion to the Mishnah.

Consider, too: Tel Aviv is the international capital of homosexuality. That is no exaggeration. Also, the government of Israel pays for women to receive an abortion at any stage of the babys development. Plus, as seen in Cooks article linked above, Israel is known globally as being a safe haven for all kinds of money laundering for international criminal gangs, especially from Russia. A leaked U.S. embassy cable in 2009 warned that Israel was in danger of becoming a promised land for organised crime.

The Haaretz newspaper observed recently that this underground economy [from the money laundering by international criminal gangs] had become so big  with an annual turnover reaching as much $39 billion  Israel could find itself on the same list as Iran as one of the leading state financiers of global terrorism.

Furthermore, for all intents and purposes, many (if not most) Talmudists are practicing atheists. The Lord Jesus Christ (true Israels Messiah) is scorned and hated as much in the modern State of Israel today as He was during the days when the Pharisees crucified Him. If you think there is religious liberty for Hebrew Christians in Israel today, you couldnt be more wrong.

The last time I was in Israel, I spoke at two Baptist churches. One was in Jerusalem, and the other was in Bethlehem. Take a guess at the composition of the Christians in those churches. They were 99% Palestinian.

In addition, Zionist bankers, casino owners, land developers, media magnates, entertainers, movie producers, etc., are among Christianitys biggest enemies. That is NOT a racist statement at all. That is a cold, hard fact.

You must understand that Zionism has nothing to do with race; it is a political philosophy. At its core, Zionism is communistic and atheistic. Accordingly, it is little wonder that Zionists are found among the liberal/progressive political parties in virtually every Western country. Zionists are found among all races and creeds. This is NOT a racial issue at all.

Plus, you should know that there are many Jews in and out of Israel who are just as opposed to Netanyahu, Talmudism, and Zionism as I am.

Of course, the biggest reason for this unbiblical infatuation with the modern State of Israel is the ubiquitous teaching of pastors and churches that the promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:3 is intended for the State of Israel born on May 14, 1948. And much of this teaching comes from seminaries and colleges such as Dallas Theological Seminary, Liberty University, and many other Christian schools and universities. And much of the teaching of these schools is an outgrowth of the Scofield Reference Bible and the writings of John Darby, Clarence Larkin, Tim LaHaye, John MacArthur, Hal Lindsey, et al. Also joining in this Israel First indoctrination is the vast majority of charismatic televangelists, such as John Hagee, Pat Robertson, Benny Hinn, Jim Bakker, Kenneth Copeland, et al.

One can barely listen to a Bible message on the radio, television, or in a local church without being barraged with the Israel First doctrine that Genesis 12:3 is talking about the modern State of Israel. Christians are also bombarded with the indoctrination that the State of Israel created by the Rothschilds in 1948 is prophetic Israel. I suppose that belief, by itself, wouldnt be so bad, except for the hate, vitriol, animus, and bitterness that accompanies it.

With all of the controversial positions I have taken over my forty-plus years in the ministry, I have NEVER received the hate-filled opposition I am receiving right now because of my position that the modern State of Israel is NOT the Israel of the Bible or the Israel of God. (Galatians 6:16) That position is NOT based on racism or prejudice or anything of the kind. It is based strictly on my study and understanding of the Holy Scriptures.

One would think I had denied the deity of Christ, His virgin birth, His blood atonement, or His bodily resurrection from the dead. I dare say the opposition against me would be LESS if I had. I am NOT making it up when I say that Zionist Christians have vowed to ruin me, thoroughly discredit me, and some have even threatened (more than once) to KILL ME. Can you imagine? Its absolutely true. I guess Muslims arent the only ones who know how to hate.

I also wrote this related post on my Facebook page:

For all of the good things Trump has done thus far, he has wasted no time in beating the war drums against Iran. The rhetoric of Trump and Mattis and Flynn is eerily similar to the rhetoric of Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld back in 2002 & 3.

Iran is being painted as the next Big Bad Wolf that the U.S. must attack in order to save the world. But why?

Iran is condemned because Iran-backed Houthi rebels attacked a Saudi warship and Tehran tested a missile. For this, "American lives are at risk." Really? How so?

The Saudis have been bombing the Houthi rebels and ravaging their country, Yemen, for TWO YEARS. Saudi Arabia is apparently exempt from retaliation from wars it starts. But one act of self-defense by the Yemenis and Donald Trump puts Iran "on notice"-- and generals Mattis and Flynn declare it to be America and the world's greatest threat. Really? Trump has also foolishly reinstated sanctions against Iran. Both Russia and Iran see this as a violation of the 2015 treaty, which now allows Iran to withdraw from the agreement altogether.

Where is the evidence that Iran even had a role in the Houthis attack against the Saudi ship? Plus the UN resolution only forbade Iran from testing nuclear missiles, not conventional ones--which Tehran insists this test was.

Of course, the globalist warmonger Benjamin Netanyahu is cheering Trump on. Perpetual war in the Middle East is Bibi's best friend. Right now, hes counting on it to save his political career.

Furthermore, is it any coincidence that the Saudi king spoke with Trump on Sunday (1/29) and then suddenly the Trump administration is beating the war drums against Saudi Arabia's mortal enemy, Iran? The Sunni Muslim government of Saudi Arabia has long salivated over conquering the Shia Muslim government of Iran.

Trump's public rhetoric and the reinstatement of sanctions make a collision with Iran almost inevitable. Did Trump learn NOTHING from G.W. Bush and Barack Obama? An unnecessary and unprovoked war in Iraq; wars in Libya, Syria, and Yemen costing trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives; not to mention a global harvest of hatred against America that launched Al Qaeda and ISIS. Oh, yes, and there's also the little matter that Iran and Russia are committed allies.

Trump said he wanted a less hostile relationship with Putin's Russia. Well, going to war with Iran is not the way to do it. As this is being written, the U.S. Navy is practicing war games fifty miles off the coast of Iran. This is not good, folks.

Perhaps Trump is listening to the advice of the War Party members that he foolishly appointed to his cabinet. (I tried to warn people about these appointments when they occurred--but I didn't think the bitter fruit of these appointments would ripen in only two weeks after his inauguration.) Convincing Trump to go to war with Iran would be a good way to make him a one-term President.

The American people didn't put Trump in office for him to take the United States into yet another unnecessary and unprovoked Middle Eastern war. But it looks like that is exactly what he is planning to do.

Some of the above I borrowed from Pat Buchanans excellent analysis. Read: The Coming Clash With Iran

And whats at the center of all of this war fever? An Israel-First foreign policy and an Israel-First Christian theology.

Hate me and stone me if you want to: Americans should be all about America-First, and Christians should be all about Christ-First.

In the meantime, unless a U.S.-led war against Iran can save him, it seems that Netanyahus crimes are starting to catch up to him. And if Christians cared anything about truth, righteousness, and justice, they would be happy to hear it. I seem to recall that Gods prophets had something to say about Old Testament Israels wayward kings. Speaking of which, where are Gods prophets today?

P.S. Once again, I invite readers to watch my two-DVD message series explaining my understanding of the scriptural teaching regarding Israel: past, present, and future. The series is called The Church And Israel.

Folks, consider: I had believed, taught, and preached dispensational, Israel-First theology for over thirty years--why would I take an opposite view NOW, after all these years? Why would I risk my ministry, my livelihood, and my familys future? And with the hateful reaction to my position, thats exactly what Ive done.

Continued attacks against me for my position on websites, radio talk shows, periodicals, and newspapers make columns such as this one obligatory. Like my positions or not, I have always tried to be true to my conscience and my beliefs. And if I go to the poor house over this issue, so be it. I will be faithful to the truth as I understand it, regardless.

Order The Church And Israel Combo.

[If you appreciate this column and want to help me distribute these editorial opinions to an ever-growing audience, donations may now be made by credit card, check, or Money Order. Use this link.]

[I also have many books and DVDs available for purchase online. Go to Chuck Baldwin Live Store]
George Friedman is the founder of Stratfor, a geopolitical intelligence firm and author of two books about the global future: The Next Decade and The Next 100 Years, New York Times bestsellers. Prior to joining the private sector, Friedman regularly briefed senior commanders in the armed services as well as the Office of Net Assessments, SHAPE Technical Center, the U.S. Army War College, National Defense University and the RAND Corporation, on security and national defense matters.

In 1991, Friedman wrote a book called the Coming War with Japan The authors argue that with the collapse of the Cold War and with the Soviet Union in disarray, the U.S. will no longer endure Japans economic encroachments. Japan, meanwhile, in order to ensure the influx of raw materials and to secure an export market it can dominate politically, will solidify its trading bloc in Southwest Asia and the Indian Ocean, while challenging U.S. hegemony in the Pacific Basin.

Here was a review of that book about the war with Japan.

This one-sided, sensational book contends that a military confrontation between the United States and Japan is likely within the next 20 years. According to the authors, the issues are the same as they were in 1941: Japan needs to control access to its mineral supplies in Southeast Asia and to have an export market it can dominate. In order to do this, Japan must force the United States out of the western Pacific. There is little effort to explore the substantial differences between the 1940s and the 1990s. One of the authors has published several works of fiction and the other is a national security expert at the Heritage Foundation.

Nextbigfuture thinks that Friedmans newer forecasts will be as accurate as his 1991 book the coming war with Japan.

Nextbigfuture has a similar forecast that Russia will weaken geopolitically to about the level of a combined Pakistan and Saudi Arabia

In the Next 100 years (written in 2009) Friedman predicted Russia and China would fragment.

In the early 2020s, the New Cold War will end when the economic strain and political pressure on Russia, coupled with Russias declining population, and poor infrastructure, cause the Federal government of Russia to completely collapse, much like the Dissolution of the Soviet Union. Other former Soviet Union countries will fragment as well.

Around this time, mainland China (PRC) will politically and culturally fragment as well. George says the rapid economic development of China since 1980 will cause internal pressures and inequalities in Chinese society. Regional tension in the PRC will grow between the prosperous coastal regions and the impoverished interior regions. Friedman gives two possible scenarios: that the government will expel outside interests and rule with an iron fist to keep the country from fragmenting, or that China will fragment, with the central government gradually losing much of its real power and the provinces becoming increasingly autonomous. He works on the assumption that fragmentation is the most likely scenario.

In the 2020s, the collapse of the Russian government and the fragmentation of mainland China will leave Eurasia in general chaos. Other powers will then move in to annex or establish spheres of influence in the area, and in many cases, regional leaders will secede. In Russia, Chechnya and other Muslim regions, as well as the Pacific Far East will become independent, Finland will annex Karelia, Romania will annex Moldova, Tibet will gain independence with help from India, Taiwan (ROC) will extend its influence into mainland China, while the United States, European powers, and Japan will re-create regional spheres of influence in mainland China.

George has a new forecast called the road to 2040

In Europe, the European Union as an institution will collapse or redefine itself as a more modest trade zone encompassing a smaller part of the continent. The current free trade structure is unsustainable because its members, particularly Germany, have grown overly dependent on exports. This dependency makes these economies extremely vulnerable to fluctuations in demand outside of their own borders. Germany is the most vulnerable country and will experience economic decline due to inevitable fluctuations in the export market. Consequently, by 2040, Germany will be a second-tier power in Europe. Other countries in Western Europe will be affected by its decline, leading Central Europe, and Poland in particular, to emerge as a major, active power.

Russia will continue to suffer from the effects of declining oil prices. The revenue from this commodity had been used to sustain internal cohesion. With this revenue now severely drained, Russia will devolve into a confederation or even fragment into secessionist parts by 2040. The future of Russian nuclear weapons will become a crucial strategic issue as this devolution takes place.

In Asia, as the decline of Chinas competitiveness in the export market continues, high unemployment will become a significant challenge to the Chinese president. The regime will attempt to survive the economys downward spiral by tightening its grip on power and sliding back into dictatorship. However, the regional divergences in China are too widespread and not easily suppressed by dictatorship. Therefore, by 2040, China will see a return to regionalism, accompanied by turmoil. As China weakens, a power vacuum will emerge in East Asia, which will be filled by Japan. By 2040, Japan, with its enormous economy and substantial military capabilities, will become the leading East Asian power.

In the Middle East, we do not foresee Islamic State being sufficiently contained in the coming decades. On the contrary, it is likely to expand its territory. Turkey and Iran are the only regional actors with the capability to challenge IS, and Iran is unlikely to do so in any substantial way. Given Islamic States territorial aspirations, Turkey will have to engage militarily to defend its borders. As Turkey asserts its military and economic strength, these developments will effectively bring a return of the Ottoman Empire, thrusting Turkey back into the position as the dominant regional power by 2040.

Friedman expands upon his case that China will become weaker than Japan as a military and economic power.

Nextbigfuture disagrees with Friedman about China and Japan.

China will spend trillions to modernize its manufacturing capability. China has an effort to catch up in automation and robotics with most industrialized countries by 2025.

China is building up the infrastructure for the interior. Again this is a massive effort and China is also connecting to South Asia, Africa, Central Asia and Europe.
The Brazil Embraer Defence and Security Limited disclosed that the Brazilian Government has given approval for the sale of its three serviceable pre-owned Super Tucano A-29 attack aircraft to Nigeria.The acquisition of this aircraft by the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) is expected to boost its operational capabilities in tackling insurgence and militancy in the country. Aside its deployment for Surveillance, Reconnaissance and counter-insurgency missions, the aircraft could also carry a wide array of armaments, including precision guided monitors, advance avionic, communications and sensors. Additionally, the aircraft can also operate in remote and un-paved airfield while the maximum speed of the aircraft is approximately 590 kilometres per hour.Conveying the approval to the Chief of Air Staff (CAS) Air Mshl Sadique Abubakar at the NAF Headquarters Abuja, the Embraer Contract Negotiator, Mr Eneias de Souza Freitas said, the Brazilian Ministry of Defence has informed them that approval for the sell of 3 Super Tucano A-29 aircraft to Nigeria has been given, adding that Brazilian government has authorized its Air Force to transfer the aircraft to Embraer Defence and Security, for onward delivering to the NAF.Mr Freitas further said that the legal requirement and procedures were being finalized by the Brazilian Air Force while promising to facilitate the legal process this is of concerned to us, we will for sure take your message back to the people with the legal procedures to quicken the process. Mr Freitas said.Meanwhile, the CAS disclosed that the idea by the NAF to acquire Super Tucano A-29 aircraft was mooted in 2015 and appropriated in the 2016 Budget. He urged the company to facilitate the procurement process to enable the NAF take delivering of the aircraft within reasonable time.The CAS added that a team of NAF officers would visit Brazil to further inspect the aircraft. Nigeria also intends to purchase new Super Tucano A-29 aircraft from the United State. Mr Freitas was accompanied by the Embraer Director of Business Development, Europe and Africa, Mr Jose Gustavo.
Zimbabwe ruling party, Zanu PF is reportedly looking to spend the whooping sum of $2,5 million on President Robert Mugabe's 93rd birthday party. According to the party's youth secretary, Kudzai Chipanga, he said ten provinces is expected to raise $250,000 towards the birthday party, which is a target of $2.5 million. Despite the country's struggling economy, the ten provinces will raise the money through provincial structures, individuals, private companies, parastatals and local authorities.President Robert Mugabe, who is the oldest president in the World and having ruled for over 30 years, will be 93 on Tuesday, February 21, 2017.
The Department of State Services, DSS, has invited members of the Board of Trustees of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, over a v...

The Department of State Services, DSS, has invited members of the Board of Trustees of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, over a video showing the destruction of some churches in the north east. The video was allegedly being used by Christian leaders to raise funds for the reconstruction of worshipThe video was allegedly being used by Christian leaders to raise funds for the reconstruction of worship centres destroyed by Boko Haram insurgents in the North East.According to the Punch, four key members of CANs BoT, who are also leaders of the National Christian Elders Forum, NCEF, were questioned for four hours on Tuesday evening at the DSS headquarters in Abuja.Those that were interrogated by the DSS included a former Chief of General Staff, Lt. Gen. Joshua Dogonyaro (retd.), representing TEKAN/ECWA bloc of CAN; a retired High Court Judge, Justice Kalajine Anigbogu, representing the Christian Council of Nigeria bloc; Mrs. Osaretin Demuren, representing the Organisation of African Instituted Churches and a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Tunde Lemo, representing the Christian Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria and Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria.Sources told the newspaper that a former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Dame Priscilla Kuye (SAN), representing the Catholic bloc; President of the National Christian Elders Forum, Solomon Asemota, its General Secretary, Bosun Emmanuel and many others would be invited for questioning by the DSS soon.Also to be interrogated include the President of CAN, Dr. Samson Supo Ayokunle and its General Secretary, Dr. Musa Asake.One of the personalities interrogated by the security service disclosed that they were asked to explain why they appeared in the video which showed footages of the carnage and destruction unleashed on churches in the North-East by the members of the Boko Haram Islamic sect, alleging that it was an inciting video.He said, We spent over four hours at the DSS headquarters on Tuesday evening and they were asking us the motive behind the video. The grouse of the DSS was that we appeared in the video soliciting for funds to rebuild churches destroyed by Boko Haram. They specifically told us that the video which showed burnt churches was inciting.They asked us why we produced a video like that having blood and demolished buildings. We are just members of the BoT of CAN Trust Fund. I suspect that they will cajole us to remove the video but that is not possible because we are for Christ, the source stated.The Director of Legal and Public Affairs in CAN, Kwamkur Samuel, while confirming the invitation said, I accompanied them to the DSS headquarters; CAN would be watching as the situation unfolds.When the Christian elders were invited, they wondered why all of them, particularly those who appeared in the video. They drew the attention of the CAN President who directed me to write a letter to the DSS to tell them that those they invited are members of the CAN Trust Fund Board of Trustees.But they didnt reply the letter. If their invitation has anything to do with CAN, they should invite CAN leadership and that was why I went with them to the DSS. We are studying the situation.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday evening called Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara.

@MBuhari called me yesterday evening. He talked about what the Executive/ Legislature must do to to ensure food security for all Nigerians/ February 9, 2017

He said he was pained by the suffering endured by most Nigerians last year and he's resolved not to let events of 2016 repeat themselves/  Rt Hon Yakubu Dogara (@YakubDogara) February 9, 2017

He also asked me to extend his best wishes to all Hon Members  Rt Hon Yakubu Dogara (@YakubDogara) February 9, 2017





President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday evening called Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara.Mr. Buhari, who just extended his vacation in the UK called Speaker Dogara on Wednesday evening.The speaker stated this on his personal twitter handle on Thursday.He said: @MBuhari called me yesterday evening. He talked about what the Executive/ Legislature must do to to ensure food security for all Nigerians."He said he was pained by the suffering endured by most Nigerians last year and he's resolved not to let events of 2016 repeat themselves"He also asked me to extend his best wishes to all Hon Members", he tweeted.Similarly, on Wednesday, the senate president also said the President called him and they joked about working late night.
The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has advised the presidency to release details of the full progress of President Muhammadu Buhar...

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has advised the presidency to release details of the full progress of President Muhammadu Buharis recovery.Buhari is currently in the UK on vacation. He was due to return to the country on Sunday, but he extended his vacation indefinitely.Femi Adesina, his spokesman, had explained that Buharis doctors advised him to stay back to receive the results of a series of tests.In a statement on Thursday, CAN called on all Nigerians to join hands in prayers for the quick and full recovery of Mr. President.President Muhammadu Buhari is human, hence subject to health challenges sometimes. CAN appreciates the anxiety of Nigerians to hear Mr. President speak, but sues for understanding as we await that, read the statement signed by Kwamkur Samuel, director of legal and public affairs.It is very clear that our leader is passing through health challenges. We advise the presidency to update Nigerians on how he is fairing and the full progress of his recovery.We call on all Christians and indeed all God-fearing Nigerians to dedicate time of prayers for our President and the nation. We owe our leaders prayers and support at all times while shunning divisive opinions that only generate strive.CAN also canvassed support for Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, saying he deserves prayers to lead well.We acknowledge that government is a continuum, hence, we call on Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo to be bold in handling critical State matters and not to be distracted by those who do not wish Nigeria well, the statement read.
The music label mogul and lawyer shared the photo above with a heartwarming message on Facebook, writing:





"Happy Anniversary to us. I am lucky to have found a woman who is very beautiful inside, but also looks the part! God is the glue that keeps us and blesses us So we give Him thanks! Zel Umunna Maikori thanks for being there always .Love always."





Audu and Zel met in the university back in 2004 and kicked off a relationship that led to their marriage years after. While Audu hails from Kaduna State and graduated as a lawyer from the University of Jos, Zel is from Amambra State and also graduated as a Medical Doctor from the same university.
BOSTON, MA--(Marketwired - February 08, 2017) - Pieris Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (PIRS), a biotechnology company advancing its proprietary Anticalin biotherapeutic technologies, announced today that President and CEO Stephen Yoder will present a corporate overview of the Company and meet with investors at the Bio CEO & Investor Conference. The conference will take place on February 13-14, 2017 at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City.

Mr. Yoder is scheduled to present on Monday, February 13th at 1:30 pm EST. The presentation will be webcast live and available for replay at http://www.veracast.com/webcasts/bio/ceoinvestor2017/26120145557.cfm and on the investor relations section of the Company's website at www.pieris.com.

Accredited investors are also invited to request a one-on-one meeting with Pieris Pharmaceuticals management during the conference through the 1-on-1 partnering system.

About Pieris Pharmaceuticals:

Pieris Pharmaceuticals is a clinical-stage biotechnology company that discovers and develops Anticalin-based drugs to target validated disease pathways in a unique and transformative way. Our pipeline includes immuno-oncology multispecifics tailored for the tumor micro-environment, an inhaled Anticalin protein to treat uncontrolled asthma and a half-life-optimized Anticalin protein to treat anemia. Proprietary to Pieris, Anticalin proteins are a novel class of protein therapeutics validated in the clinic and by partnerships with leading pharmaceutical companies. Anticalin is a registered trademark of Pieris. For more information visit www.pieris.com.

Forward Looking Statements:

This press release contains forward-looking statements as that term is defined in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Statements in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements include, among other things, references to novel technologies and methods; our business and product development plans and timelines; the timing and progress of our studies, development of therapeutic programs; ability to receive research funding; our liquidity and ability to fund our future operations; our ability to achieve certain milestones and receive future milestone or royalty payments; current or future partnerships; or market information. Actual results could differ from those projected in any forward-looking statements due to numerous factors. Such factors include, among others, our ability to raise the additional funding we will need to continue to pursue our business and product development plans; the inherent uncertainties associated with developing new products or technologies and operating as a development stage company; our ability to develop, complete clinical trials for, obtain approvals for and commercialize any of our product candidates; 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 law. Investors should consult all of the information set forth herein and should also refer to the risk factor disclosure set forth in the reports and other documents we file with the SEC available at www.sec.gov, including without limitation the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2015 and the Company's Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q.
Ekiti State Governor and Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr Ayodele Fayose has hailed the Acting President, Prof Yemi Osin...

Ekiti State Governor and Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr Ayodele Fayose has hailed the Acting President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo for sending the name of Justice Walter Onnoghen to the senate for confirmation as the substantive Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), saying; The action of the Acting President has saved the judiciary in particular and Nigeria in general from unnecessary tension.The governor, who said Nigeria will only be great if institutions were allowed to operate without interference, added that; It is better to build strong institutions that will run on their own than to rely on strong leaders.Look at what is happening in the United States judgment was delivered and no one waited for President Donald Trump to speak before obeying the judgment. That is how things should run in a normal clime.According to a statement issued on Thursday by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, Governor Fayose, while reacting to the submission of Justice Onnoghens name to the Senate by the Acting President, noted that; If President Muhammadu Buhari had listened to wise counsel, things would not have degenerated to this sordid extent.He said inspite of the submission of Justice Onnoghens name to the Senate, those who out of their own selfishness foisted the position of Acting CJN on Nigeria for the first time in the history of the judiciary in the country will answer for their conspiracy one day.The governor maintained that himself and other Nigerians that insisted on the appointment of Justice Onnoghen as the substantive CJN not so, not for Justice Onnoghen as a person, but to uphold the sanctity of the office of the judiciary, which is the last hope of the common man.The governor said; Five days ago, I called on Acting President Osinbajo to do the needful by simply sending Justice Onnoghens name to the Senate as recommended by the NJC and I am glad that Prof Osinbayo, who himself is a lawyer listened to Nigerians and saved the judiciary from crisis.On this one, Prof Osinbajo has shown that he listens, unlike President Muhammadu Buhari that has ruled the country like a military dictator.I salute the Acting President. Speaking further, Governor Fayose said; Like I have maintained, we didnt fight for Justice Onnoghen as an individual. What we fought for and still fighting for is the oneness of Nigeria and the sanctity of the judiciary.
The government of Germany says more than 12,000 Nigerians in its country may be deported in 2018.

The government of Germany says more than 12,000 Nigerians in its country may be deported in 2018.Ralf Sanftenberg, the countrys global head of programme, migration and development, made this known when he visited Abike Dabiri-Erewa, senior special assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on foreign affairs and diaspora.Sanftenberg, who is the leader of delegation from the German ministry of economic cooperation and development, said he was on a site assessment mission for Nigerians who are voluntarily returning to the country.We have over 37,000 Nigerians in Germany and more than 12,000 of them are asylum seekers, he said.There is a little chance for their applications to be moved and they may be forced to come back to Nigeria next year.He said 99% of them would likely be denied asylum status because Nigeria is not among war countries.However, asylum seekers willing to return to Nigeria voluntarily will not be forced back or deported but would be assisted through a support programme organised by Germany.In January, Donald Trump, president of United States placed a temporary visa ban on citizens from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia.Trump explained that the measures would help to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the US.Meanwhile, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, prime minister and vice president of the United Arab Emirates, announced on Sunday that the cabinet has approved a new entry visa system to attract exceptional talent.
Gunmen Thursday morning abducted Secretary of Isheri North Estate, GRA, Lagos State, Dayo Adekoya.

Gunmen Thursday morning abducted Secretary of Isheri North Estate, GRA, Lagos State, Dayo Adekoya.Recall that nine landlords of an estate close to the area were late last year abducted alongside their trainer.Also recently in the area, eight staff and students of the Nigeria Turkish International School were kidnapped and released.On the latest case, Adekoya was abducted at about 1am by gunmen who stormed the estate.Channels tv reports that the assailants shot into the air before taking Adekoya away.Three estate security men were reportedly killed in the operation.Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Fatai Owoseni, has confirmed the incident.
Zimbabwes Constitutional Court has dismissed a case that sought to question the capacity of 93-year-old president, Robert Mugabe.





Zimbabwes Constitutional Court has dismissed a case that sought to question the capacity of 93-year-old president, Robert Mugabe.The court however said the plaintiff could appeal the decision within 30 days. The dismissal centred largely on the premise that due court processes were not followed.An activist with the Takamuka social movement, Promise Mkwananzi, went to court to seek to prove that Mugabe  who turns 93 this February, was unfit to hold office given his advanced age.This is just a convenient excuse for the Constitutional Court to bite the bullet, so we are saying that we are going to reapply within 30 days as prescribed by the rule of the constitutional court and relaunch this issue.Even though most political watchers said they case was bound to fail, he has affirmed that he will appeal todays ruling.This is just a convenient excuse for the Constitutional Court to bite the bullet, so we are saying that we are going to reapply within 30 days as prescribed by the rule of the constitutional court and relaunch this issue, he said.He says there was enough grounds to prove that the President lacked the capacity to occupy the office, citing statements that the president had made. Statements he describes as clearly not in the spirit of the constitution.Mugabe is the only man to hold the office of president in the southern Africa country since its independence from the British. The country heads into elections next year and the ruling party wants him to run. The country has been hit by political protests which peaked last year.A drought in the region has been worsened by a crippling economy which is suffering from acute currency crisis.
The Federal Government spoke yesterday on President Muhammadu Buharis health, saying it is wrong to compare his situation with the late...

Buhari is on vacation in Britain. He has been asked by doctors to extend his stay for some tests.There was secrecy around late President YarAduas health until his situation became critical.Information Minister Lai Mohammed told reporters at the State House after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting in Abuja that the president, who is on vacation, will have a check-up just like any minister does.He said the rumours on the Presidents health were part of the backlash against his anti-corruption war.Those behind his death runours are looters and victims of his anti-graft battle, he said.Mohammed said: I think it was one of the newspapers that said when I was the spokesman of Action Congress (AC) I demanded for hourly bulletin on YarAduas health and that I ought to be giving hourly bulletin as minister of Information on the health of the President. And I said you are comparing apples and oranges. Mr. President is not ill; he is not in hospital. There will be no need to give anybody hourly bulletin about his health  pure and simple.Mr. President, like I said elsewhere, is a victim of his own transparency. He was going on leave; he did what the constitution said he should do. He transmitted a letter to the National Assembly and an acting president was put in place and he said while I am on leave I am going to conduct some medical tests, which all of us do without announcing it. And, of course, less than six hours after he got there he was pronounced dead by some people. Even those who saw him climb the aircraft in Abuja said he was flown by air ambulance.I can assure you that Mr. President is well, he is hale and hearty and no cause for concern. The Acting President speaks to him every day and he told you soI wont blame Mr. President too because this is the third time you are declaring him dead.On whether it was right for the President to go on leave during a recession, the minister said: Absolutely yes. Our constitution guarantees that. Did Obama not go on leave? Do other presidents not go on leave? Mr. President will go on vacation when he has to go on vacation. Do you know how many ministers have gone on vacation this year?To say Mr. President cannot go on vacation that is ridiculous, Mohammed addedWith the Information minister at the briefing were Minister of Power, Works and Housing Babatunde Fashola, Minister of Agriculture Audu Ogbeh, and Minister of Trade and Investment Okechukwu Enelamah.Mohammed said: I think I can say without any equivocation that he is well, he is hale and he is hearty; no question about that. You see on a lighter note, do you think Mr. President will be ill and we will be here and go about our business like this? He (Fashola)was in Anambra two three days ago, I was in Ilorin on Monday, all our ministers are busy. But I want to assure you that Mr. President is well and he is absolutely in no danger.
Members of the Nigeria Labour Congress have gathered at the Unity Fountain in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, to commence the march ...

Members of the Nigeria Labour Congress have gathered at the Unity Fountain in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, to commence the march against what they call the effect of poor governance.As days goes by, they are expected to march on the streets of Abuja.A few days ago, The I stand for Nigeria held a similar march through the streets of Abuja, but were stopped by armed policemen on their way to the Presidential Villa.Leading the Abuja rally, Co-convener of the Bring Back Our Girls campaign (BBOG), Mrs Aisha Yusuf, said the protest is meant for Nigerians to express their anger over the hardship being faced by them.At the National Secretariat of the Nigeria Labour Congress in Yaba, members of NLC have converged and are about to commence their protest against what they call hardship being faced by Nigerians in the country.The members of the NLC will be marching through the streets of Lagos to make their demands known to the government.
Senate President Bukola Saraki addressed the Nigerian Labour Union protesters, promised a review of National Minimum Wage and support for ...

Senate President Bukola Saraki addressed the Nigerian Labour Union protesters, promised a review of National Minimum Wage and support for the executive to get Nigeria out of recession.He said: "We are on the same side, because we all want Nigeria to be better!""I hear you! The exchange rate is high, the tension is high -- the only thing that has stayed low are your salaries.""As we continue with the budget process, we must find palliative measures. We cannot continue like this!".
(Adds comment from government, background)

LIMA, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Protests over public work projects in a remote highland region of Peru have blocked roads used by MMG Ltd to transport copper concentrates from its mine Las Bambas, a representative of the ombudsman's office said on Wednesday.

Hundreds of residents of the town of Challhuahuacho marched on Wednesday for a third consecutive day to demand that the government build a hospital and sewage system, said Artemio Solano of the ombudsman's office in the region of Apurimac.

Protest leaders want centrist President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski to travel to the town, at an altitude of more than 12,000 feet (3,658 meters)in Peru's southern Andes, to negotiate a solution, said Solano.

The government said it was evaluating the situation. "A process of negotiation, of dialogue is being developed with communities," Defense Minister Jorge Nieto told reporters.

Las Bambas did not respond to requests for comment.

Protests in the region last year suspended the mine's shipments of copper from the nearby port of Matarani and nearly halted its operations. One protester was killed in clashes with police who tried to restore transportation on a road that had been used by the mine.

That road has remained blocked by four nearby communities, despite the government's efforts to reach a deal regarding payment for use of it. An alternate route that had been used by the company was blocked on Tuesday, Solano said.

Peru is the world's second biggest copper producer, and it is rife with conflicts over mining in far-flung regions where basic services such as running water and paved roads are scant.

Challhuahuacho's population has grown rapidly in the past decade as the open-pit mine was built, fueling calls for new public work projects to support newcomers in one of Peru's poorest regions.

Las Bambas produced some 300,000 tonnes of copper in the first 11 months of 2016, according to the energy and mines ministry.

(Reporting by Mitra Taj; Editing by Sandra Maler, Toni Reinhold)
Morgan Stanley, UBS, and DBS are chosen as the advisers on the share sale.

According to a report from Bloomberg, Singapore Telecommunications Ltd., the city-states largest phone company, said it has hired three banks as it prepares for an initial public offering to divest more than 75 percent of its wholly-owned fiber broadband network unit NetLink Trust.

Morgan Stanley, UBS Group AG and DBS Group Holdings Ltd. are the advisers on the share sale, Singtel Chief Executive Officer Chua Sock Koong said at a briefing on Thursday. The company said its too early for details on the size or pricing of the proposed offering.

Singtel intends to meet the April 2018 deadline set by the regulator to reduce its stake in NetLink Trust to less than 25 percent, the company said. It may use the proceeds from the share sale for capital management and investments, and could return any excess capital to shareholders, Chua said.

Read full story here.





More From Singapore Business Review


The protests from Silicon Valley and other corners of Corporate America over President Donald Trump 's temporary immigration ban is putting two unrelated issues together, said billionaire Steve Ballmer , former Microsoft (MSFT) CEO and the son of an immigrant.



Three federal appeals court judges may decide as early as Thursday whether to reinstate Trump's executive order, which temporarily suspended travelers from seven mostly-Muslim countries from entering the U.S.

Ballmer, appearing on CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Thursday, sees the debate over the ban as conflating two separate issues.

"One issue is specifically to what should or shouldn't be the situation with respect to seven countries. I think that set of checks and balances is going on," Ballmer said.

"The other issue, which is mostly unrelated, is what should our immigration policy look like for high-skilled workers," who can be important for technology firms and other companies to fill specialized jobs? Ballmer said.

"I'm the son of an immigrant. I do believe there's value to having immigrants come into the country," said Ballmer, whose father was an immigrant from Switzerland.

"And on the other side," he continued, "I do believe it's important to have reasonably secure borders. And I'm glad that dialogue is playing out."

In the CNBC interview, Ballmer also said Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey should focus full-time on the ailing social media brand. Dorsey is also CEO of Square. Ballmer is a major holder of Twitter stock.

 Associated Press contributed to this report.

Correction: This story was revised to recast the headlines to more accurately summarize Ballmer's comments. It also corrected the name of the other company headed by Dorsey. It's Square.









More From CNBC


Press release

English

Swedish

French

German

6 October 2003

The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has today decided to award

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2003 jointly to

Paul C Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield

for their discoveries concerning magnetic resonance imaging

Summary

Imaging of human internal organs with exact and non-invasive methods is very important for medical diagnosis, treatment and follow-up. This years Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine have made seminal discoveries concerning the use of magnetic resonance to visualize different structures. These discoveries have led to the development of modern magnetic resonance imaging, MRI, which represents a breakthrough in medical diagnostics and research.

Atomic nuclei in a strong magnetic field rotate with a frequency that is dependent on the strength of the magnetic field. Their energy can be increased if they absorb radio waves with the same frequency (resonance). When the atomic nuclei return to their previous energy level, radio waves are emitted. These discoveries were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1952. During the following decades, magnetic resonance was used mainly for studies of the chemical structure of substances. In the beginning of the 1970s, this years Nobel Laureates made pioneering contributions, which later led to the applications of magnetic resonance in medical imaging.

Paul Lauterbur (born 1929), Urbana, Illinois, USA, discovered the possibility to create a two-dimensional picture by introducing gradients in the magnetic field. By analysis of the characteristics of the emitted radio waves, he could determine their origin. This made it possible to build up two-dimensional pictures of structures that could not be visualized with other methods.

Peter Mansfield (born 1933), Nottingham, England, further developed the utilization of gradients in the magnetic field. He showed how the signals could be mathematically analysed, which made it possible to develop a useful imaging technique. Mansfield also showed how extremely fast imaging could be achievable. This became technically possible within medicine a decade later.

Magnetic resonance imaging, MRI, is now a routine method within medical diagnostics. Worldwide, more than 60 million investigations with MRI are performed each year, and the method is still in rapid development. MRI is often superior to other imaging techniques and has significantly improved diagnostics in many diseases. MRI has replaced several invasive modes of examination and thereby reduced the risk and discomfort for many patients.

Nuclei of hydrogen atoms

Water constitutes about two thirds of the human body weight, and this high water content explains why magnetic resonance imaging has become widely applicable to medicine. There are differences in water content among tissues and organs. In many diseases the pathological process results in changes of the water content, and this is reflected in the MR image.

Water is a molecule composed of hydrogen and oxygen atoms. The nuclei of the hydrogen atoms are able to act as microscopic compass needles. When the body is exposed to a strong magnetic field, the nuclei of the hydrogen atoms are directed into order  stand at attention. When submitted to pulses of radio waves, the energy content of the nuclei changes. After the pulse, a resonance wave is emitted when the nuclei return to their previous state.

The small differences in the oscillations of the nuclei are detected. By advanced computer processing, it is possible to build up a three-dimensional image that reflects the chemical structure of the tissue, including differences in the water content and in movements of the water molecules. This results in a very detailed image of tissues and organs in the investigated area of the body. In this manner, pathological changes can be documented.

Several Nobel Prizes

The resonance phenomenon is governed by a simple relation between the strength of the magnetic field and the frequency of the radio waves. For every type of atomic nucleus with unpaired protons and/or neutrons, there is a mathematical constant by which it is possible to determine the wavelength as a function of the strength of the magnetic field. This phenomenon was demonstrated in 1946 for protons (the smallest of all atomic nuclei) by Felix Bloch and Edward Mills Purcell, USA. They were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1952.

Other fundamental discoveries concerning magnetic resonance have in recent years resulted in two Nobel Prizes in Chemistry. In 1991, Richard Ernst, Switzerland, was awarded for his contributions to the development of the methodology of high resolution nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. In 2002, Kurt Wuthrich, also Switzerland, was awarded for his development of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy for determination of the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules in solution.

Discoveries of importance to medicine

This years Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine are awarded for crucial achievements in the development of applications of medical importance. In the beginning of the 1970s, they made seminal discoveries concerning the development of the technique to visualize different structures. These findings provided the basis for the development of magnetic resonance into a useful imaging method.

Paul Lauterbur discovered that introduction of gradients in the magnetic field made it possible to create two-dimensional images of structures that could not be visualized by other techniques. In 1973, he described how addition of gradient magnets to the main magnet made it possible to visualize a cross section of tubes with ordinary water surrounded by heavy water. No other imaging method can differentiate between ordinary and heavy water.

Peter Mansfield utilized gradients in the magnetic field in order to more precisely show differences in the resonance. He showed how the detected signals rapidly and effectively could be analysed and transformed to an image. This was an essential step in order to obtain a practical method. Mansfield also showed how extremely rapid imaging could be achieved by very fast gradient variations (so called echo-planar scanning). This technique became useful in clinical practice a decade later.

Rapid development within medicine

The medical use of magnetic resonance imaging has developed rapidly. The first MRI equipments in health were available at the beginning of the 1980s. In 2002, approximately 22 000 MRI cameras were in use worldwide, and more than 60 million MRI examinations were performed.

A great advantage with MRI is that it is harmless according to all present knowledge. The method does not use ionizing radiation, in contrast to ordinary X-ray (Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901) or computer tomography (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1979) examinations. However, patients with magnetic metal in the body or a pacemaker cannot be examined with MRI due to the strong magnetic field, and patients with claustrophobia may have difficulties undergoing MRI.

Especially valuable for examination of the brain and the spinal cord

Today, MRI is used to examine almost all organs of the body. The technique is especially valuable for detailed imaging of the brain and the spinal cord. Nearly all brain disorders lead to alterations in water content, which is reflected in the MRI picture. A difference in water content of less than a percent is enough to detect a pathological change.

In multiple sclerosis, examination with MRI is superior for diagnosis and follow-up of the disease. The symptoms associated with multiple sclerosis are caused by local inflammation in the brain and the spinal cord. With MRI, it is possible to see where in the nervous system the inflammation is localized, how intense it is, and also how it is influenced by treatment.

Examination with MRI is especially valuable for detailed imaging of the brain and the spinal cord.

Another example is prolonged lower back pain, leading to great suffering for the patient and to high costs for the society. It is important to be able to differentiate between muscle pain and pain caused by pressure on a nerve or the spinal cord. MRI examinations have been able to replace previous methods which were unpleasant for the patient. With MRI, it is possible to see if a disc herniation is pressing on a nerve and to determine if an operation is necessary.

Important preoperative tool

Since MRI yields detailed three-dimensional images, it is possible to get distinct information on where a lesion is localized. Such information is valuable before surgery. For instance, in certain microsurgical brain operations, the surgeon can operate with guidance from the MRI results. The images are detailed enough to allow placement of electrodes in central brain nuclei in order to treat severe pain or to treat movement disorders in Parkinsons disease.

Improved diagnostics in cancer

MRI examinations are very important in diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of cancer. The images can exactly reveal the limits of a tumour, which contributes to more precise surgery and radiation therapy. Before surgery, it is important to know whether the tumour has infiltrated the surrounding tissue. MRI can more exactly than other methods differentiate between tissues and thereby contribute to improved surgery.

MRI has also improved the possibilities to ascertain the stage of a tumour, and this is important for the choice of treatment. For example, MRI can determine how deep in the tissue a colon cancer has infiltrated and whether regional lymph nodes have been affected.

Reduced suffering for patients

MRI can replace previously used invasive examinations and thereby reduce the suffering for many patients. One example is investigation of the pancreatic and bile ducts with contrast media injection via an endoscope. This can in some cases lead to serious complications. Today, corresponding information can be obtained by MRI.

Diagnostic arthroscopy (examination with an optic instrument inserted into the joint) can be replaced by MRI. In the knee, it is possible to perform detailed MRI studies of the joint cartilage and the cruciate ligaments. Since no invasive instrument is needed in MRI, the risk of infection is eliminated.

The illustrations were added after the first publication.

To cite this section

MLA style: Press release. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2022. Sun. 6 Nov 2022. 
She named her accused rapist. 4 months later, she waits for NOPD
Orleans Parish Criminal District Court Judge Arthur Hunter has stepped down after 24 years on the bench, filing his resignation letter on Mond
Woman tells NOPD 3 men dragged her to Lower 9th parking lot, tried to rape her
Blue tarps are nailed to a roof off Hammond Street in the aftermath of Tuesday's tornado in New Orleans East on Wednesday, February 8, 2017. (Photo by Michael DeMocker, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)(Michael DeMocker)
Weather Alert

...DENSE FOG ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM MIDNIGHT CDT TONIGHT TO 9 AM CST SUNDAY... * WHAT...Dense fog will reduce visibility to 1 NM. * WHERE...Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas, Mississippi Sound and Lake Borgne. * WHEN...From midnight CDT tonight to 9 AM CST Sunday. * IMPACTS...Low visibility will make navigation difficult. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... If you must navigate, proceed with caution. Use proper fog signals. Make sure all running lights are on. Remember to use your radar and compass. &&
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The Chicago Cubs 2016 World Series trophy wont come to Council Bluffs this weekend.

After initially listing Council Bluffs as a site on its World Series trophy tour, the latest schedule noted Nebraska stops in Lincoln, Gretna and west Omaha, but not Council Bluffs.

Mike Lufrano, vice president of community affairs with the Cubs, said, Were trying to do the best we can to get the trophy to as many places as possible.

Mayor (Matt) Walsh has been a tremendous advocate trying to make it work, he said of the mayors efforts to get Council Bluffs back on the schedule.

Lufrano said the Cubs are working to see if a Council Bluffs date will be possible, but he was unable to say anything with certainty.

We appreciate all the fans we have in Council Bluffs, he said.

The trophy will make three Nebraska stops on Friday. The trophy will be at the Under Armour Factory House at Nebraska Crossing in Gretna, 21209 Nebraska Crossing Drive, from noon to 1:30 p.m., Westside High School, 8701 Pacific St. from 3:30 to 5 p.m. and at Pinnacle Bank Arena, 400 Pinnacle Arena Drive in Lincoln from 8 to 9:30 a.m.

We know we have so many tremendous fans in Council Bluffs. We hope theyll cross the river, Lufrano said.
Sen. Charles Grassley supports the censure of fellow senator who read aloud part of a letter from the widow of Martin Luther King Jr. during debate Tuesday evening.

Grassley, Iowas senior senator and a Republican, cited a long-standing rule as the justification for GOP leadership silencing Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who was speaking against the nomination of Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions.

Sessions was confirmed Wednesday as the next U.S. attorney general. Warren was barred from speaking again during the debate on Sessions confirmation.

Warren read from a 1986 letter from Coretta Scott King, who opposed Sessions ultimately unsuccessful nomination for a federal judgeship. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., determined that doing so constituted a violation of a Senate rule against impugning another senator.

In the letter, King wrote that when acting as a federal prosecutor, Sessions used his power to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens.

Grassley defended that action, which drew criticism from the political left.

Its a violation of the 19th Rule of the U.S. Senate that tries to have a legislative body to maintain decorum, Grassley said during his weekly press conference. Its very specific, and its been a rule for decades, maybe centuries. Its to maintain decorum and respect for one of others.

The rule was created after a fistfight in the Senate chambers in 1902. Other Democratic senators read the letter on the floor of the Senate following the decision to silence Warren.

Grassley argued that debate in the U.S. Senate ought to be civil.

If its not civil, it sends a signal to the rest of the people in this country that you can be less civil, and I think over a long period of time that maybe society has become a little less civil, he said. Whatever we can do in government to set an example, we ought to do it.

What bothered Grassley was McConnells lack of similar action last year against Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, whom Grassley said insulted him daily for not holding Supreme Court nomination hearings as the Senate Judiciary Committee chair.

Sen. Reid said some awful insulting things to me, Grassley said.

Despite much criticism on Sessions, especially on his past, Grassley defended his fellow GOP senator by recalling a statement made by Sen. Arlen Specter just before he died in 2012.

When asked if he regretted any of the thousands of votes he cast during his long Senate career, Specter, according to Grassley, said it was the one in 1986 when he voted against Sessions for a federal judge position.

Specter said, I was wrong. Hes (Sessions) not what people made him out to be at that time, Grassley recalled.

 Assistant Managing Editor Scott Stewart and the AP contributed to this report.
The Walnut school building will continue to serve the people of the Pottawattamie County town.

Officials announced a plan to turn the now-empty building into a community center that will feature a fitness facility, along with event space. Additionally, a portion will be used in a historical capacity in the future.

The school was the center of our community when it was operating as a school. Now that the school is gone, which was out of our hands, we want to keep it alive, Walnut Mayor Gene Larsen said. The community wants to keep this property going.

The high-school portion of the building was built in 1961, with a new gym and classrooms added in 2000. That newest section will be utilized for the community center, Larsen said.

Larsen noted the former band and choir rooms are big enough for use as a fitness center. In addition, the locker room and one of the gymnasiums will be utilized.

The other gym, along with two conference rooms, will be part of the makeup of the events center. Larsen listed off weddings, craft shows, gun shows, antique shows, meetings, reunions and more as potential uses on the events side.

All kinds of things, he said.

The high school will be renovated into office space, which would be leased to area businesses and organizations.

The oldest portion of the complex, built in 1910, will be preserved with an eye toward a historical use in the future. Larsen mentioned a museum as a possibility, though nothing is set in stone yet. The city will maintain the building to make sure it doesnt deteriorate before renovations.

Were not in a big hurry to develop that. A good plan will come along  were sure of that, he said. Walnut is the Antique City. It makes sense to keep the oldest building for historical purposes.

One part of the building that wont be used is the elementary school. In the fall, construction crews demolished and removed the deteriorating portion of the school building.

After 144 years, the last day of classes in the Walnut Community School District came in the spring of 2016. The organization dissolved, and students moved to the newly renamed AHSTW Community School District  short for Avoca, Hancock, Shelby, Tennant and Walnut.

As part of an agreement between the city and school district, the district has been taking care of some improvements before turning the building over to the city.

AHSTW Superintendent Jesse Ulrich said the dissolved Walnut district had $1.3 million in its physical plant and equipment levy account, with $500,000 of that earmarked for work on the building. Ulrich was also the superintendent of Walnut at the time of the districts dissolution.

The elementary demolition was part of that plan, at a cost of about $150,000. Larsen said a key to the community center plan is air conditioning, and the district is working with engineers to determine the logistics and price of the project.

Ulrich said he didnt have a price for the air conditioning work yet, but he guessed it would cross the $135,000 threshold to require a public bid letting process.

We really viewed it as a win-win  for the district and the city of Walnut, Ulrich said of the agreement. No one wants to see a building close. We wanted to make sure we were leaving behind a positive asset for the community.

The city has created an endowment fund through the Pottawattamie Community Foundation to help pay for the upcoming work at the school. To donate, go to ourpccf.org and click Donate to a Charitable Fund.

Walnut has a vision, and its exciting to be a part of it, said Jerry Mathiasen, foundation president and CEO.

Larsen said he anticipates strong support from the Walnut alumni out there.

We have one or two events for alumni each year, and theyre very well attended, he said. We anticipate significant support for short-term and long-term fundraising.

With the office space and event center rentals, Larsen said city leaders expect the undertaking to eventually support itself financially.

If you go to other towns, the school is out on the edge of town. Its easy to ignore a property when its on the edge of town, he said. Our school building is right in the middle of town. You cant ignore it. We have to do something with it; itd be a shame to have it leveled and have a big hole in the middle of town. Itd be a crying shame to let it go.
A Harlan man is back in custody after he didnt return to the Council Bluffs Work Release Facility.

Colton Benson-Blaine, 26, was placed on escape status Sunday following his failure to return after completing his job. The Pottawattamie County Sheriffs Office arrested Benson-Blaine early Wednesday morning, according to the Pottawattamie County Jail.

The Iowa Department of Corrections confirmed his capture. The Pottawattamie County Jail noted he was booked in shortly before 4:30 a.m. Kip Shanks, director of the Fourth Judicial District Department of Correctional Services, said Benson-Blaine was arrested at the Caseys General Store in Avoca.

Benson-Blaine, of Harlan, had been in work release for less than two weeks before his disappearance, according to the Iowa Department of Corrections. He had previously escaped from work release in April 2016.

He was sentenced to 12 years in prison for voluntary manslaughter for his role in a fatal fight in 2011, in addition to charges in Pottawattamie County for operating a motor vehicle without owner consent, voluntary absence and escape of misdemeanant.

 News Editor Mike Brownlee can be reached at (712) 325-5732 or by email at mbrownlee@nonpareilonline.com. Managing Editor John Schreier contributed to this story.
Another Monday brought yet another incorrect, unsubstantiated claim from the White House.

This one could have easily been avoided if President Donald Trump and his administration stopped using so much of its energy on futile attempts to discredit the media and actually paid attention to journalism.

While speaking on national TV at U.S. Central Command headquarters in Florida, Trump erroneously claimed, All over Europe its happening. Its gotten to a point where its not even being reported. And in many cases the very, very dishonest press doesnt want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that.

His press secretary, Sean Spicer, softened the message, stating Trump felt that members of media dont always cover some of those events to the extent that other events might get covered.

The White House then released a list of 78 worldwide attacks executed or inspired by the Islamic State militant group later Monday, claiming they didnt receive significant media attention.

An investigation by Deadspin found footage from national news stations and clippings major daily newspapers reporting on 75 of those 78 attacks. Three minor incidents overseas that injured nobody received only fleeting press in those countries and none stateside.

(Meanwhile, that list had a glaring omission regarding terror attacks that werent committed by Islamic State sympathizers, including mass shootings at a church in South Carolina and a mosque in Quebec. Those, too, received significant coverage.)

Trump is right in claiming ignorance was involved  but hes pointing his finger at the wrong group of people.

Just a cursory look, one that took the website staff less than 24 hours to complete, proved the claim wrong. The Washington Post and CNN, among others, took even less time to debunk the presidents statement to a national sheriffs group that the murder rate was the highest in 45 to 47 years, when its instead near its lowest point.

These lies, which began with absurd claims regarding inauguration crowds, are becoming an unfortunate par for the course for the administration. Its sad.

Accordingly, its more critical than ever to be an informed American, given the misinformation being spread from Washington. Journalists will continue to care about terror attacks and other development from around the world, providing the information you need to be in the know.

Make sure to check your sources and facts before turning to abuse the free press so frequently battered  often incorrectly  by the new administration.
Open letter asks board not to vote to close Crescent

Dear Mr. Troy Arthur and fellow board members:

I am writing to you today in opposition of closing the Crescent Elementary School. I am a resident of the city and my husband and I are business owners in the community. I also chair the Planning and Zoning Commission for the City of Crescent.

If our school is closed, we know the lasting detrimental effects this will leave on our community, city and business owners. The City of Crescents ability to attract new families to the area is largely due to the Crescent Elementary School. In fact, we have the second phase of a new housing development in the planning stages, which would help increase the attendance at the school. Not to mention all the up-and-coming little ones who already live in our community. As an alternate solution to the school closing, I would like to formally request you seek the avenue of bringing back sixth grade to Crescent (national statistics say kids at a sixth grade age dont do well in a middle school setting) and start up a pre-kindergarten program, which has always been needed in Crescent but never provided.

Since pre-K has not been provided, parents have diverted their children to other schools that offer this program. And many of the students, had they started in Crescent, would have stayed in Crescent. We also invite you to bring children from Council Bluffs that might be struggling to learn due to the large size of their current classrooms.

They could possibly thrive in our smaller classroom setting.

Crescent Elementary as a school facility/investment property is in much better shape than many of the current Council Bluffs public school buildings. Therefore it is more energy efficient, easier to maintain and will ultimately last longer as a investment. Not to mention, its located in a safe community.

On a side note, I am greatly disappointed that the Council Bluffs school board kept this plan a secret and didnt give the residents of Crescent time to adequately respond to your plans of closing the school. I have interpreted your action as unprofessional and a strong show of disrespect to the City of Crescent, business owners and the residents of our community.

I strongly urge you to understand the hardship that will befall us all, if the school is closed.

(This is an abbreviated version of a letter Cindy Shea sent to the school board and state agencies).

Cindy Shea, Crescent

Abortion rate would climb if defunding plan OKd

The Iowa Legislatures rabid determination to defund Planned Parenthood belies common sense. Here are some facts to consider:

 No state or federal dollars are used for abortions.

 Medicaid (not the State of Iowa) reimburses Planned Parenthood for providing covered family planning services. Services under that umbrella include birth control, STD testing, pregnancy testing and cancer screenings. Planned Parenthood provides screening for breast cancer and cervical cancer (via Pap testing), as well as uterine and other gynecologic cancers. Again, no state or federal dollars are used for abortions.

 The Iowa Senate has proposed legislation that will prevent Planned Parenthood from receiving reimbursement for the family planning services named in the last paragraph. Again, no state or federal dollars are used for abortions.

 In Iowa, the number of abortions has dropped 23 percent since 2011, as reported by Guttmacher Institute. Nationally the abortion rate is the lowest it has been since passage of Roe v. Wade. Researchers credit the drop in abortions to a rise in the use of contraceptives, especially long-acting reversible contraceptives.

According to the Guttmacher report, the proportion of clients receiving long-acting reversible birth control  which is more effective than other forms  from Title X family planning clinics jumped from 7 percent in 2011 to 11 percent in 2014.

Often, clients who go to Title X facilities, such as Planned Parenthood, are young and low-income  populations that account for a majority of unintended pregnancies, the report said.

Denying affordable, reliable birth control will cause the number of unintended pregnancies to rise. The resulting effect is that the number of abortions will also rise. Bottom line, if the Iowa Legislature passes Senate File 2 and defunds Planned Parenthood, the number of abortions performed in Iowa will rise.

Is this really what anyone wants to see happen? Contact your legislators before its too late.

Kristanne Garrison, Davenport
(Adds details on pipeline construction, protester reaction, adds CANNON BALL, N.D., to dateline)

By Terray Sylvester and Liz Hampton

CANNON BALL, N.D./HOUSTON, Feb 9 (Reuters) - The company building an oil pipeline that has fueled sustained public protests said on Thursday it has started drilling under a North Dakota lake despite a last-ditch legal challenge from a Native American tribe leading the opposition.

Energy Transfer Partners LP is building the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) to move crude from the Northern Plains to the Midwest and then on to the Gulf of Mexico, now saying it could be operational by early May.

The project had been put on hold under the administration of former Democratic President Barack Obama, but new President Donald Trump, a Republican, helped put it back on track.

The federal government this week cleared way for the project to resume, leading the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to file a court challenge on Thursday seeking a temporary restraining order to halt construction and drilling for the pipeline.

The court set oral arguments on the legal challenge for Monday.

Legal experts say the tribe faces long odds in convincing any court to halt construction,

Energy Transfer Partners needs only to cross beneath Lake Oahe, part of the Missouri River system, to connect a final 1,100-foot (335 meter) gap in the 1,170-mile (1,885 km) pipeline, which will move oil from the Bakken shale formation to a terminus in Patoka, Illinois.

From there the oil would flow to another pipeline connecting south-central Illinois to the Gulf of Mexico and that region's numerous oil refineries.

Native American tribes and climate activists have vowed to fight the pipeline, fearing it will desecrate sacred sites and endanger a source of the country's largest drinking water reservoir.

"This administration (Trump's) has expressed utter and complete disregard for not only our treaty and water rights, but the environment as a whole," the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe said on Thursday in a statement on its website.

Story continues

Supporters say the pipeline will be safer than transporting oil by rail or road, and industry leaders have praised the project for creating high-paying jobs

With work on the final tranche now under way, Energy Transfer Partners expects the Dakota Access Pipeline to begin operations in approximately 83 days, according to a company spokeswoman.

"We have started to drill to go beneath Lake Oahe and expect to be completed in 60 days with another 23 days to fill the line to Patoka," spokeswoman Vicki Granado said in an email.

She declined to specify when drilling began except that it was after the company received federal permission on Wednesday.

Public opposition drew thousands of people to the North Dakota plains last year including high-profile political and celebrity supporters. Large protest camps popped up near the site, leading to several violent clashes and some 700 arrests.

A few hardy protesters have remained camped out near the lake, braving sub-freezing temperatures.

Among them is Frank Archambault, 45, who has lived in the camp since August when he left his home on the Standing Rock reservation.

"It angers me. It angers me because people are pushing other people around, breaking laws," Archambault said. "They're trying to kill us off by contaminating the water. We've had enough."

Ptery Light, 55, of Portland, Oregon, who has lived in the main camp since Oct. 31, said he was not giving up hope.

"I just pray that there's no oil spill," Light said. "This is purely about greed."

For now, their hopes are pinned on the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe winning a legal victory.

To obtain the temporary restraining order, the tribe must convince the judge there will be immediate harm suffered and prove it has a strong overall case should its lawsuit to halt the project result in a full trial.

The U.S. district judge in the case, James Boasberg, previously rejected the tribe's request to block the project, ruling in September that the Army Corps of Engineers likely complied with the law in permitting the pipeline to go forward.

(Additional reporting by Daniel Wallis in New York, writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Matthew Lewis)
marijuana medical

As the new head of the Justice Department, Attorney General Jeff Sessions will have sweeping power over how the federal government approaches marijuana under President Donald Trump's administration.

Marijuana currently exists in a legal gray area at the federal level.

The federal government classifies marijuana, which is illegal nationally, as a schedule I drug, meaning that it considers the plant to have no acceptable medical use and a high potential for abuse.

In 2013, however, the Department of Justice issued the "Cole Memorandum," which moved federal resources away from prosecuting individuals operating legally in states that have legalized marijuana.

While it remains to be seen how Trump and Sessions will handle marijuana, some executives who spoke to Business Insider said they are hopeful that Sessions, who has spoken out against legalizing marijuana, will focus his attention on Trump's priorities, like overhauling immigration, rather than picking a fight with legal marijuana industry.

A number of states voted to legalize recreational and medical marijuana on Election Day and 60% of Americans favor outright legalization, according to a recent Gallup poll.

"While its difficult to get excited about an attorney general such as Jeff Sessions, who is outspokenly against marijuana, its tough to deny the fact that the American people want marijuana legalization," Serge Christov, an advisor to Honest Marijuana, a Colorado-based organic marijuana producer, told Business Insider.

Jeff Sessions

'The hidden benefit'

Since marijuana was first legalized in Colorado and Washington in 2012, the legal marijuana industry has existed in a federal gray area. The industry is regulated on a state-by-state basis.

That gray area has made the industry vulnerable to political risk, according to Christov. Without clearly established rules or regulations, a new administration like Trump's could encroach on state-regulated marijuana enterprises.

Story continues

However, marijuana advocates and policy experts say they expect the Trump Administration, and the Sessions-led Justice Department, to respect states' rights to legalize and regulate marijuana without federal interference.

"Picking a fight with the growing number of states that are enacting popularly supported marijuana laws would be a huge distraction that the White House just does not need right now," Tom Angell, of the pro-legalization group Marijuana Majority, told Business Insider.

Robert Capecchi, the director of federal policy for the Marijuana Policy Project, said in a statement that he's "cautiously optimistic" the Trump Administration will refrain from interfering.

President Trump hasn't taken a firm position on the issue yet, though he indicated in past statements that he'd let states lead the charge on regulating marijuana.

Micah Tapman, a partner and managing director at the Colorado-based marijuana incubator and venture capital firm Canopy Boulder, said that there is one "hidden benefit" to the continuation of the federal gray area. Until the federal government clarifies its position, he said it's an opportunity for "smaller and more agile" companies to develop businesses on a state-by-state basis.

"It's not often that a multi-billion dollar industry is dominated by small and mid-size companies but that's exactly what's happening with cannabis," Tapman added.

marijuana pot weed flower bud dispensary store

In Colorado, California, and other legal marijuana states, Sessions' confirmation doesn't appear to be slowing investment in the industry.

Neil Demers, the CEO of Diego Pellicer, a network of retail dispensaries, said that he's "so confident" in the future of the marijuana industry that his company plans to open a flagship outlet in Denver next week.

"I believe the Trump Administration and attorney general Sessions understands that shutting down or consolidating the industry will end up sending jobs back to Mexico's cartels, and I don't believe that Mr. Sessions, nor President Trump, wants that to happen," Demers said.

Morgan Paxhia, a partner at Poseidon Asset Management, told Business Insider that, in his view, the percentage of investors concerned about Sessions is relatively small when considering other reasons to get into the marijuana industry.

"We have talked with numerous cannabis companies this year, and most have noted Sessions as one of the least common reasons for a new investor to hold off," Paxhia added.

Aaron Herzberg, an attorney and a partner at CalCann Holdings, a medical marijuana holding company based in California, said that the marijuana industry has grown too large to "put the cat back in the bag."

Shauntel Ludwig, the vice president of operations at DaVinci, a vaporizer company, said that it would be "difficult to unravel the progression" in states that have chosen to legalize. Ludwig pointed to factors such as tax revenue increases, jobs created by the industry, and decreases in incarceration that would make criminalizing the industry politically unpalatable.

However, Kevin Sabet, of the anti-legalization group Smarter Approaches to Marijuana, told Business Insider that he "wouldn't invest in the marijuana industry right now" pointing to the uncertainty around how the new administration will approach the industry.

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donald trump

President Donald Trump said that in the next few weeks he would release his plan to reform the US tax system.

"We're going to be announcing something over the next, I would say, two or three weeks that will be phenomenal in terms of tax," Trump said at a meeting with airline executives on Thursday.

The president also said he is "lowering the overall tax burden on American businesses, big league."

Trump has long expressed a desire to redo the US's corporate and personal tax systems. The president promised in a meeting with manufacturing executives two weeks ago to cut businesses taxes to between 15% and 20%.

"We're going to be cutting taxes massively for both the middle class and for companies, and that's massively," Trump said at the January 23 meeting.

Among the proposals Trump has floated are slashing taxes for families and imposing a border tax of possibly 20% on imports, particularly those from Mexico.

It's unclear which elements of those proposals would be included in the plan.

A promise to cut taxes was one of the most desirable elements of Trump's platforms. Economists have said slashing corporate taxes could lead to higher profits for large businesses, but that any border tax could be detrimental to the economy.

Trump also said at the Thursday meeting that he plans to defend the airline industry and roll back regulations.

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By Diane Bartz and Caroline Humer (Reuters) - A federal judge on Wednesday ruled against U.S. health insurer Anthem Inc's proposed $54 billion (43 billion pound) merger with smaller rival Cigna Corp , derailing an unprecedented effort to consolidate the country's health insurance industry. The U.S. Justice Department sued in July to stop Anthem's purchase of Cigna, a deal that would have created the largest U.S. health insurer by membership, and Aetna Inc's planned $33 billion acquisition of Humana . The merger would have worsened an already highly concentrated market and is likely to raise prices, Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said while issuing the ruling against Anthem's deal. Last month, a different U.S. judge ruled against Aetna's proposed deal for Humana. Government antitrust officials argued that both deals would lead to less competition and higher prices for Americans. The acquisitions would have reduced the number of large national U.S. insurers from five to three. Jackson had separated the Justice Department's case into two trials. Her ruling focused only on the first one in which the Justice Department argued that the tie-up would hurt the ability of large national employers to get competitive rates for the health coverage they provide workers. The second trial considered overlaps in the two insurers' business selling health benefits to individuals, and administering Medicare Advantage coverage to the elderly. Anthem argued that there was enough competition because large companies with more than 5,000 employees often used multiple smaller players in the national market, but the judge disagreed. "Regional firms and new specialized 'niche' companies that lack a national network are not viable options for the vast majority of national accounts, and they will not ameliorate the anticompetitive effects of this merger," Jackson wrote. Cigna intends to carefully review the opinion and evaluate its options in accordance with the merger agreement, it said in a statement. Anthem said on Thursday that it intends to promptly file a notice of appeal and request an expedited hearing of its appeal to reverse the court's decision. PROTECTING CONSUMERS Acting Assistant Attorney General Brent Snyder of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division said the ruling had prevented American consumers from facing higher health insurance premiums and less innovation. Bill Baer, who was head of the Justice Department's antitrust division when it decided to sue to block both the insurance deals but has since left the agency, also hailed the decision. "Together with the decision on Aetna and Humana, this preserves five large national providers of critically important health insurance products," he said. The fifth player, UnitedHealth Group Inc. was not involved in the deals. Some Wall Street analysts expect all four of the companies to now move on, although Aetna and Humana have not committed to doing so. Their deal expires Feb. 15. "The likelihood of success in an appeal would be very low," said Matthew L. Cantor, a partner in the law firm of Constantine Cannon in New York. He noted points in the judge's order about the concentrated national market, the high barrier to entry for competitors, and the companies' roles as direct competitors. The deals were announced at a time when former President Barack Obama's national healthcare reform law was fully in place and the four insurers were growing in the individual insurance market it established. The insurers said new costs, from higher taxes to investments in new Obamacare products, were driving their need for scale. That landscape is less certain now. Aetna and Humana have cut back Obamacare enrollment for 2017 after losses, and President Donald Trump and fellow Republicans are weighing a "repeal and replace" path for Obamacare. More deals may be in the offing, JPMorgan analyst Gary Taylor said in a research note. "Given Anthem and Cigna's pursuit of Humana in 2015, we think new potential combinations could emerge." He does not expect shares in either Anthem or Cigna to move given that investors had expected this ruling. Cigna is entitled to receive from Anthem a $1.85 billion break-up fee if the deal fails to win regulatory approval, according to the merger agreement. The agreement also requires Cigna to have put forth its best effort on that front. But Anthem and Cigna disagreed about the deal in court, Jackson wrote in her order, with Cigna refusing to sign off on Anthem's interpretation of how the companies could garner savings. Anthem is the largest member of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and operates BCBS plans in 14 states. It and said it could apply its discounts to Cigna members while Cigna said its collaborations with doctors would save money. Pre-merger integration was stalled and incomplete, the judge said. (Additional reporting by Akankshita Mukhopadhyay and Dipika Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Bernard Orr, Leslie Adler, Gopakumar Warrier)
A North Platte woman sustained injuries and her passenger was killed in a Hall County crash near Cairo on Tuesday.

Just after 6:05 p.m., Hall County Sheriffs deputies responded to a report of a two-vehicle car accident east of Cairo, near U.S. Highway 2 and Schauppsville Road, according to a release from the Sherriffs Office.

Investigation determined that a 2002 Pontiac Bonneville, driven by Brandon Salyers, 23, of Grand Island, was driving westbound on the highway when it crossed into the eastbound lane. The Pontiac struck an eastbound 2001 Ford Mustang, driven by Colleen Race, 29, of North Platte. Race was taken to CHI Saint Francis with non-life threatening injuries, according to the release. Salyers and his passenger, Jesse Adams, 22, were also taken to the hospital.

Races passenger, Terrill Sorensen, 41, of Cairo, died at the scene.

According to the release, the crash is under investigation, which includes an accident reconstructionist and an autopsy.
Bill for microbrewery regulation increase faces heavy opposition

As area microbreweries have put up a public fight against a legislative bill they say would kill jobs and diminish small businesses, State Sen. Tyson Larsons office has been swamped with phone calls and inquiries on the proposal.

Larson, of ONeill, introduced the bill, LB 632, which would increase regulation of microbreweries. The bill, which Larson offered a year after he sponsored the states microbrewery law, will receive a public hearing Monday.

Larson and other proponents say the bill is intended to keep brewers from bending distribution rules and even the playing field for brewers. The new bill would require breweries to make beer at all of their tasting rooms or pubs. Beer would also have to go from the brewery to a distributor instead of shipping directly to retail locations.

For Kinkaider Brewing Co. in Broken Bow, this would mean sending beer about 180 miles away to Lincoln, then shipping the beer back to west central Nebraska or to Kinkaiders planned tasting room in Grand Island. While Larson noted that there are also distributors in North Platte and Grand Island, those locations would still create about a 100-mile round trip, said Nate Bell, Kinkaiders production manager.

Bell said it would cost too much to build an on-site brewery and brew beer at the planned Grand Island tasting room  which is set to open roughly in May.

Larson said he proposed this years bill after he heard that some breweries were violating the spirit of the law.

While brewers now are allowed to distribute beer to facilities they own, Larson heard speculation that some brewers became part-owners of a retail location just so they could directly distribute there. He also heard that breweries directly delivered beer to another retail location without a distributors truck, then documented it as a truck shipment.

The distributors dont want to rat out their customers, he said, but they are aware this is happening.

The at-rest portion of Larsons bill  making all shipments check in at a distributor  would regulate that, he said, as would requiring beer to be brewed at tasting rooms.

Hobart Rupe, executive director of the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission, said the commission hasnt taken a stance on the bill yet. But he said the at-rest portion would improve auditing both taxation and the transportation of the beer.

Bell said taxes are documented the minute we invoice distributors for our beer.

Larson is also worried about the current laws constitutionality. He pointed to a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said New York and Michigan could not allow in-state wineries to ship directly to a consumer when out-of-state wineries could not. Bell said that unlike other states, Nebraska doesnt allow breweries to deliver directly to retailers. Even shipments from one business to the other must be on a distributors truck.

Ann Pedersen, a spokesperson for the Associated Beer Distributors of Nebraska, said the legislation doesnt intend to penalize craft breweries but rather to create a level playing field for all industry members.

She and Larson each pointed to the three-tier system in brewing: the brewer, the distributors and retailers. The system aims to separate those who supply the alcohol from those who sell it.

With the proposed legislation, its only fair that Nebraska craft brewers operate under the same rules and regulations as everyone else, Pedersen said.

Area craft brewers expressed confusion as to why Larson worked with them last year and aims to increase regulation this year.

As Paul Oettinger prepares to open Pals Brewing Co. in North Platte, our intention was really to make this our manufacturing home, he said. It was unclear to him whether the proposed legislation would only require a brewer to make one kind of beer at future tasting rooms, or any beer it planned to offer.

It doesnt give details where details are needed, Oettinger said. And they [Larsons office] wont talk to us.

When asked if he planned to meet with microbrewers, Larson said he would meet with a lobbyist who represents a craft brew guild at some point but likely not before Mondays hearing. He said he was too dismayed to meet with craft brewers after hearing reports of rule-breaking from distributors. Breweries reported to have broken the law were often those farther away from the distributor, he said.

Bell said Kinkaider has documentation that it has done everything legally and he would rather the Legislature enforce current law than create a new one.

Public records show that, Larson received $11,475 in 2015 in six contributions from beer or wine distributors and companies, as well as $300 in 2016. Larson said the donations had no influence on his current bill.

Microbreweries across the state have fought the bill with a hashtag, #DontKill-OurCraft, and will host a party at the Platt Duetsche in Grand Island Friday at 4 p.m. Opponents of the bill have already been vocal with state senators, Bell said.

Theyre hearing the phone calls, Bell said, and theyre getting the emails.
ACLU tweet

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued a warning to Jeff Sessions, shortly after he was confirmed as attorney general on Wednesday night.

"Jeff Sessions confirmed as attorney general. If he violates the Constitution, we'll sue," the organization said in a tweet.

The ACLU is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that defends individual rights. The statement follows concerns by lawmakers and civilians who argued that Sessions lacked the judgment to serve as the nation's top cop.

The organization had a similar warning for President Donald Trump after he won the US presidential election in November, promising its "full firepower" should Trump seek to undermine the Constitution or violate Americans' rights with the proposals he campaigned on.

Opponents have pointed to Sessions' record as an Alabama senator and state attorney general  and his vocal support of Trump as indications that he might be a rubber stamp for the Trump administration.

Civil-rights groups and law-enforcement watchdogs contended that Sessions could seek to undo protections for people who engage in lawful protests.

Debate over his nomination culminated in an all-night session on the Senate floor Tuesday, when Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts was forced to sit down when she attempted to read a 1986 letter from the widow of Martin Luther King, Jr., who was critical of Sessions.

Warren put Sessions on notice after his confirmation Wednesday night.

Related:

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On Tuesday, we presented Legislative Bill 595, which would allow teachers disciplinary control of their classrooms. Discipline in the classroom to allow students to focus and learn and teachers to effectively communicate to the entire class is the purpose of LB 595.

The present Student Discipline Act outlines what student behavior may lead to discipline and empowers school boards to adopt additional conduct policies. The act authorizes short- and long-term suspension, expulsion and mandatory reassignment as well as describing the students due process rights.

There is a gap, however, as to what actions teachers and administrators may take to contain a violent incident by an unruly student. LB 595 fills in this gap; it would allow teachers and administrators to use necessary force or physical restraint to subdue the student until such student no longer presents a danger to himself or herself, other students, the teacher or administrator or school property.

The bill also would allow teachers to remove a student who repeatedly interfered with the teachers ability to teach, or whose behavior is so disruptive that it seriously interferes with the classs ability to learn. The administration can then place the student in another classroom, in-school suspension or alternative education programs. The student cannot be returned to the original classroom without the teachers permission.

This bill will give teachers and administrators the assurance that they have control of their classroom without fear of legal action or administrative discipline if they acted in a reasonable manner.

I have gained a higher respect for teachers after receiving a multitude of correspondence as to the violence they are experiencing in Nebraska classrooms. The Nebraska State Education Association testified in favor of the bill, citing an email survey it conducted on the issue last Sunday. They had the largest response they have ever had to a member survey; overwhelmingly, teachers said there is a growing discipline problem in our schools. Eighty percent said classroom violence is increasing; 80 percent said they want more control of their classroom. I now understand why when I ask a former teacher why they retired early, they simply say in some form or another: deterioration of classroom discipline.

LB 595 would enforce learning in a classroom. It not only would allow learning to happen, but would also allow teachers to instruct students that there are behavior boundaries that all citizens should follow. Its a common-sense approach. Were working with all parties to make this work for everyone involved.

You may have noticed recently that there has been a concerted attack on debate points I have made in private conversations. I am undaunted; I take solace in a quote from Mother Teresa: Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable; be honest and transparent anyway.

Upcoming hearing dates:

Wednesday afternoon, Natural Resources Committee:

LB 218  Requiring N-CORPE to sell land while retaining water rights and requiring review of project with public hearing.

LB 488  The Department of Natural Resources would create voluntary irrigation water conservation grants to farm irrigated land as dryland on annual basis. LB 488 would give a common-sense alternative for farmers to conserve groundwater instead of mining it and pumping it into a creek.

Thursday afternoon, Revenue Committee:

LB 640  Cap individual school districts property taxes at 60 percent of total revenue and lower maximum tax rate to $1 per $100 of taxable valuation. This bill is meant to work on property taxes and school finance in a more straightforward way. It restores equity funding to districts that didnt get it. It will take out some of the variables that allowed for property taxes to grow in each district without approval of the local board.

Feb. 21, Urban Affairs Committee:

LB 262  Limits the use of open land for tax increment financing.

LB 489  Removes ambiguous language from TIF statutes.

LB 597  Provides oversight by the Department of Revenue for TIF programs.

The three TIF legislation proposals will give state oversight, remove ambiguous language and clarify the definition of open land in its use in TIF projects.

Please do not hesitate to contact my office, mgroene@leg.ne.gov or 402-471-2729, with any comments, questions or concerns.
U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer deserves our thanks for voting for Betsy DeVos as secretary of education. Fischer has a lifetime of service to our Nebraska public schools as a school board leader and state senator. I know she has the best interest of our kids and schools in mind.

The reality for us in Nebraska is that after two presidencies (from both parties), the federal government has created more and more bureaucracy for our local schools and teachers. Betsy DeVos represents an effort to return local control to parents, teachers and schools.

It is unfortunate that some Nebraskans fell for the Washington, D.C., spin when it came to DeVos and treated her so poorly. Fundamentally, it is the Nebraska values of local control of public education that DeVos is hoping to bring to Washington. Fischer knows that, and Im grateful that she is focused on the issue of quality education and not the rhetoric.

Shawn Boyd

Gothenburg
The Gary/Chicago International Airport will host a public presentation Monday on the ongoing update of its master plan.

The presentation, the first of three that are planned, will be at 6 p.m. at the airport terminal, 6001 Airport Road.

The new master plan will update one completed in 2001. It will assess the short- and long-term needs of the airport based on projections of activity at the airport for the next 20 years.

The Airport Authority engaged transportation and airport planning firm Jacobsen/Daniels in July 2016 to update the master plan. The $870,000 contract calls for the plan to be completed within 18 months.

Attendees at Monday's event will hear a short presentation, then have the opportunity to discuss the project with airport staff and members of the master plan consultant team.
Chuckles C.L. Brady, director of Memorial Opera House's production of The Producers, has an idea of how writer/director Mel Brooks was able to avoid controversy with his beloved film and musical.

Theres ditzy blondes and Nazis and homosexuals in it, but youre laughing with them, he said. Its not malicious in any way, shape or form. Youre poking fun and having fun with them.

Opening Feb. 17 and running through March 5 at Memorial Opera House, Producers is the tale of Max Bialystock, a down-on-his-luck Broadway producer, and Leo Bloom, Bialystocks accountant. To fill Bialystocks empty coffers, the duo hatch a plan, which involves the creation of the intentionally off-putting musical Springtime for Hitler.

Introduced to the masses on the big screen in 1968 and starring Zero Mostel as Bialystock and Gene Wilder as Bloom, Producers was a commercial and critical smash. Brooks received the Academy Award for Best original Screenplay and, near five decades later, is in the upper echelon of many a critics and film institutions best comedy lists.

More than three decades later, Brooks adapted Producers for Broadway. Starring Nathan Lane as Bialystock and Matthew Broderick as Bloom, the stage version Producers, which includes songs such as We Can Do It, When Youve Got It, Flaunt It and That Face, made its debut on the Great White Way in 2001, where it ran for six years and was the recipient of a dozen Tony Awards, including Best Musical.

Its poking fun at an institution that most people dont know about, Brady said of the play. Most people that dont work in the theater dont know how it works, and theres always that fascination about what goes on behind the scenes.

The production of the musical marks the Memorial Opera House directorial debut of Brady, a longtime fixture on both sides of the Region community theater stage.

Its a big space, and I thought that this would be a great opportunity, Brady said. I jumped at the opportunity to direct this. Its (a play that) I enjoy.

Next up for Memorial Opera House is a production of the musical The Drowsy Chaperone, which is scheduled to open April 28.

FYI: The Producers runs at 8 p.m. Feb. 17-18, Feb. 24-25 and March 3-4 and 2 p.m. Feb. 19 and 26 and March 5 at Memorial Opera House, 104 Indiana Ave., Valparaiso. Tickets are $21 for adults, $21 for seniors, students and military. Call (219) 548-9137 or visit MOHLIVE.COM.
HAMMOND  Lake County Sheriff John Buncich will have to carry on without his side arms.

U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Paul R. Cherry denied Wednesday a request by the county's top law enforcement officer for the return of his personal firearms.

Cherry made Buncich surrender them as a condition of releasing him on bond following a federal grand jury indictment alleging the sheriff solicited and received campaign contributions from towing firms in return for business from county police.

Buncich is pleading not guilty to the fraud and bribery counts.

Bryan M. Truitt, who is defending Buncich, argued late last month that Buncich, who has served 40 years in law enforcement and has won election as sheriff four times since 1994, "needs his firearms to carry out his employment."

The U.S. attorney's office stated earlier this month the sheriff hadn't been seen using a gun before his indictment and doesn't need one now. Truitt responded last week the sheriff was carrying concealed weapons.

The judge didn't offer a reason for his decision, which could remain in place until Buncich goes to trial, which could be as early as April 10.

Truitt said Wednesday, "We obviously disagree but respect the judge's decision. We feel a sheriff needs his gun. This isn't Mayberry."

Truitt also requested Wednesday the court order the U.S. attorney's office to provide the sheriff with copies of documents the FBI seized during a raid Nov. 10 of the sheriff's office and home in Crown Point.

Truitt argues the government's refusal to turn over the papers in question, "is making it impossible for (Buncich) to timely prepare and file campaign disclosure forms, income taxes and provide helpful evidence to his attorneys."

Truitt states the government also has yet to identify all of their witnesses against Buncich or release to the defense approximately 45 video and audio discs of evidence.

The judge hasn't ruled on this defense motion.
Police are on the hunt for a Lansing man accused of stabbing a 19-year-old man Sunday in Charleston, Illinois  a city situated about two hours west of Indianapolis.

An arrest warrant is being sought for Christopher Xavier Bickcom, 24, according to a news release from the Charleston Police Department.

Police responded about 2:19 a.m. Sunday to the parking lot near the Olde Town Apartments, in the 1400 block of Sixth Street, for a report of a stabbing. Bickcom was not at the scene and has yet to be located, according to the release.

The victim, who suffered two stab wounds to his upper torso, was transported to a local hospital and later flown to Carle Hospital in Urbana, Illinois. The victim is expected to make a full recovery.

A spokesman with the Lansing Police Department was not immediately available for comment Wednesday night. Bickcom's whereabouts were not immediately known Wednesday.

Anyone with information about Bickcom's whereabouts is encouraged to contact the Charleston Police Department at 217-348-5221 or Coles County Crime Stoppers at 866-345-8488.
VALPARAISO  A big source of the heroin problem plaguing Northwest Indiana may be as close to home as the bathroom medicine cabinet.

Four out of five new heroin users started out misusing prescriptions pain medications, said Kourtnaye Sturgeon, education program director of Overdose Lifeline, an Indianapolis-based nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing opioid deaths and reducing the stigma of addiction.

During an early morning presentation to the Porter County Substance Abuse Council Thursday, Sturgeon discussed the close link between prescription opioids and heroin, which she said affect the body in the same way.

There was a 172 percent increase in the amount of opioid drugs prescribed between 1991 and 2013, she said. Tagging right alongside or exceeding that has been increases in drug overdoses and admissions to treatment centers.

"There's a lot of parallel patterns here," Sturgeon said.

Indiana is hit particularly hard with 109 prescriptions written just a few years ago for every 100 Hoosiers, she said.

The proliferation of drug use is taking a heavy toll across the state. Indiana had the 15th highest overdose rate in the country the last couple of years, Sturgeon said, but now seems to be holding steady after increasing to its current level.

"So we're making some progress," she said.

Sturgeon challenged the group Thursday to name the drug causing the most overdoses. The answer, she said, is not heroin, but rather prescription pain medications. There are now 1,000 cases of opioid misuse showing up each day to emergency rooms around the country.

Prescription drug abuse is fueled in large part by a cultural pattern of immediately reaching for a pill for pain, she said. Pain has now become a fifth vital sign used by healthcare providers alongside body temperature, blood pressure, pulse and respiratory rates.

Injury treatment also leads to abuse of prescription drugs, as does the elderly forgetting if they took medication, and early exposure among young people.

Rethinking the response to pain is needed.

"Are opioids really needed, or can it be Tylenol," she asked.

Sturgeon presented the details of a 45-minute program aimed at sixth to 12th graders, which is called, This is Not About Drugs.

"It's really about the choices that you make," she said.
HOBART  Police are seeking the publics help in finding a 55-year-old Olympia Fields woman accused of stealing a Munster physicians identity and making fraudulent purchases in Illinois, Northwest Indiana and as far south as Indianapolis.

Willi Mae Zollicoffer faces 30 charges in all  six counts each of counterfeit, synthetic identity deception, identity deception, theft and forgery for fraudulent purchases made in stores in Hobart, Highland and the Merrillville area, according to an information affidavit filed this week in Lake County Superior Court.

The charges pertain only to one victims stolen identity in the Region, but Hobart police Lt. James Gonzales said Zollicoffer has been arrested dozens of times in connection with alleged fraud-related activities through several agencies in Illinois and Indiana dating as far back as early 2000.

Records indicate she was processed through the federal department of corrections, but the records did not indicate how long she was incarcerated, Gonzales said.

Gonzales said his investigation began last month when he was contacted by the victims daughter, who said her mother  a Munster physician who lives in Chicago  believes she is a victim of check fraud.

The suspect, later identified as Zollicoffer, allegedly made multiple purchases totaling thousands of dollars in the victims name, court records show. Checks were written Nov. 18 at Michaels, 10323 Indianapolis Blvd., in Highland, a probable cause affidavit states.

Checks were also written Dec. 1 at various Party City and Michaels store locations in Highland and the Merrillville and Hobart areas and the Hobby Lobby at 2782 E. 79th St. in Merrillville.

Gonzales in the probable cause affidavit stated he received anonymous calls Jan. 27, the day after he provided local news outlets surveillance images in an attempt to identify the suspect in the Hobby Lobby incident.

An informant working with the Chicago Heights Police Department advised the suspect was Zollicoffer, Gonzales said.

The money is not coming from the victim's checking account, police said, and the account numbers that appear on the checks are not real. To verify the validity of the checks, the suspect allegedly gave store employees a drivers license with her picture, but a different name and birth date, court records show.

All signatures on the checks written at the three stores were signed with the victims name and appear to have been signed by the same person, the probable cause affidavit stated. The purchases on Dec. 1 were made hours apart and within a three-block radius of one another.
MICHIGAN CITY  Three people are in custody after an investigation by the LaPorte County Drug Task Force uncovered they were allegedly dealing illegal narcotics in the area.

Joey Stone, 31, of Michigan City, faces two counts of dealing heroin, a level 4 felony, while Zachariah Knight, 23, of Michigan City, faces charges of dealing heroin, a level 5 felony, and heroin possession, a level 6 felony.

Candy Miller-Brooks, 35, of Michigan City, has been charged with dealing a controlled substance, a level 5 felony, according to a news release from the LaPorte County Sheriff's Office.

The three were arrested this week after community members reported the illegal sale of narcotics by Stone, Knight and Miller-Brooks, the release stated. Stone and Knight are accused of providing heroin in the Michigan City area and Miller-Brooks is accused of selling a Schedule II substance in the greater Michigan City area.

Anyone with information about criminal activity is asked to contact the LaPorte County Drug Task Force at 219-873-1488 or via social media.
By Fabian Cambero ANTOFAGASTA, Chile (Reuters) - Workers at BHP Billiton's Escondida copper mine in Chile, the world's largest, walked off the job on Thursday in a strike that threatens to disrupt the international supply of the widely used metal. It said no miners arrived for morning work aboard buses that normally carry upwards of 1,200 workers per shift to the vast deposit, which accounted for about 6 percent of global production in 2015. The striking workers are building a campsite right outside the mine. The union has warned it is prepared for a lengthy strike, saying it has stockpiled supplies and provisions for 60 days. Escondida's processing plants, which had begun going offline on Wednesday, have completely stopped, the union said. "If someone suddenly walked into your kitchen and took away your refrigerator, would you just stand there, arms crossed?" asked miner Jose Alcaino, after returning from the night shift. "That's what's happening here. They want to take away our benefits, our money, they want to work us more." BHP said in a statement on Thursday it was focused on maintaining "minimum services" at the mine, which typically consist of small teams of workers maintaining upkeep of equipment and making sure the mine adheres to environmental protocols. The company also said it was continuing work on new construction projects, such as expansions at a concentrator and a desalination plant. It previously said it will not produce copper during the strike. At a makeshift camp near the entrance to Escondida, which is partially owned by Rio Tinto and Japan's JECO <7768.T>, protesting workers settled in throughout Thursday, equipped with stockpiles of gas cylinders, portable cookers and tents to weather the Chilean high desert's scorching sun and frigid nights. The camp on a windy, barren plateau between the surrounding mountains was abuzz with chatter and the sound of hammers hitting nails as some workers began constructing semi-permanent structures out of wood. Among the issues pitting the 2,500-member Escondida No. 1 Union against the company are the distribution of benefits. Workers complain that BHP wants to cut benefits and has not committed to a benefits scheme that places new and longtime employees on equal footing, something the union considers essential. Striking workers also blocked roads at the Coloso port near the dusty city of Antofagasta, where hundreds of thousands of tonnes of copper are shipped annually. "We are united and strong to make sure this is a success," said Claudio Perez, plant worker at Coloso. Fears of the strike had sent copper prices soaring in recent weeks. Prices for the red metal, however, eased on Thursday as some investors cashed in the previous day's gains. Labor negotiations at Escondida, which are seen as a benchmark for the industry at large, have long history of being contentious. About a decade ago workers staged a now infamous 26-day strike that forced the global miner to declare force majeure on copper shipments. A labour conflict in 2011 paralysed the mine for two weeks. The last wage talks, which occurred four years ago when copper prices were 42 percent higher than now, ended with the company offering each worker a bonus of $49,000, the largest in Chilean mining history. This time around the union has asked for a 7 percent salary increase and a $39,000 bonus. Industry analysts are watching the developments at Escondida closely, as they could be a precursor of upcoming labour talks at other mines. Glencore Plc and Anglo American's Collahuasi is one of several copper mines in Chile due for contract negotiations this year. (Additional reporting by Anthony Esposito & Gram Slattery; Writing by Anthony Esposito & Gram Slattery; Editing by Grant McCool and Matthew Lewis)
VALPARAISO  A 16-year-old Valparaiso male was taken into custody Wednesday night after allegedly leading police on a chase through the city that resulted in a crash that caused a brief power outage.

The chase began at 9:50 p.m. when Valparaiso Police Officer Chris Allison said he spotted a black Chrysler 300 on Campbell Street that was reported stolen in the area of a hit-and-run accident in the unincorporated area of the county.

Police attempted to stop the vehicle at Glendale Boulevard and Valparaiso Street, but the driver, who was alone in the vehicle, fled south on Valparaiso Street and then back northbound on Calumet Avenue, police said.

With county police joining in the chase, police followed the vehicle eastbound on Vale Park Road and south on Silhavy Road where it left the roadway and crashed into a utility pole at Boilermaker Drive.

The young driver was treated at Porter Regional Hospital and is being held at the Porter County Juvenile Detention Center.

He faces charges of resisting law enforcement involving a vehicle while fleeing from police and numerous traffic violations, including never obtaining a license, police said.
CANNON BALL, N.D.  Construction of the final segment of the Dakota Access pipeline has begun, and the full system should be operational within three months, the developer of the long-delayed project said Thursday, even as an American Indian tribe filed a legal challenge to block the work and protect its water supply.

The Army granted Energy Transfer Partners formal permission Wednesday to lay pipe under a North Dakota reservoir, clearing the way for completion of the 1,200-mile pipeline. Company spokeswoman Vicki Granado confirmed early Thursday that construction resumed "immediately after receiving the easement."

Workers had already drilled entry and exit holes for the segment, and oil had been put in the pipeline leading up to Lake Oahe in anticipation of finishing the project.

"The estimate is 60 days to complete the drill and another 23 days to fill the line to Patoka," Granado said, referring to the shipping point in Illinois that is the pipeline's destination.

Work was stalled for months due to opposition by the Standing Rock Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes. Both tribes argue that the pipeline threatens their water supply and cultural sites.

In a statement, Cheyenne River Sioux Chairman Harold Frazier said the water "is our life. It must be protected at all costs."

The Cheyenne River reservation in South Dakota borders the Standing Rock reservation, which straddles the North Dakota-South Dakota border. The last piece of the pipeline would pass under the lake on the Missouri River, which marks the eastern border of both reservations.

A separate court battle unfolded between the developer and the Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees the federal land where the last segment is now being laid. President Donald Trump last month instructed the Corps to advance pipeline construction.

The Cheyenne River Sioux on Thursday asked a federal judge to stop the work while a lawsuit filed earlier by the tribes proceeds. Attorney Nicole Ducheneaux said in court documents that the pipeline "will desecrate the waters" that the Cheyenne River Sioux rely on.

Energy Transfer Partners, which maintains the pipeline is safe, did not immediately respond in court to the filing. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg did not immediately rule.

The tribes' lawsuit, filed last summer, has been on hold while the dispute over the final pipeline segment played out. The Cheyenne River Sioux on Thursday told the judge that they also want to make a claim on freedom-of-religion grounds.

"The sanctity of these waters is a central tenet of their religion, and the placement of the pipeline itself, apart from any rupture and oil spill, is a desecration of these waters," Ducheneaux wrote.

Standing Rock Sioux attorney Jan Hasselman has said that tribe will also try to block the construction in court, with likely arguments that further study is necessary to preserve tribal treaty rights.

An assessment conducted last year determined that building the final segment of the pipeline would not have a significant effect on the environment. However, the Army decided in December that further study was warranted to address tribal concerns.

The Corps launched an environmental study on Jan. 18, but Trump signed an executive action six days later telling the Corps to allow the company to proceed with construction. Legal experts have disagreed on whether the Army can change its mind simply because of the change in White House administrations.

An encampment near the construction drew thousands of protesters last year in support of the tribes, leading to occasional clashes with law enforcement and hundreds of arrests.

Granado said she was not aware of any incidents involving pipeline opponents in the area Thursday. The Morton County Sheriff's Office also said it had not responded to any incidents.

Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault said in a statement late Wednesday that the tribe is prepared to keep up the battle in the courts, "to fight against an administration that seeks to dismiss not only our treaty rights and status as sovereign nations, but the safe drinking water of millions of Americans."

In a statement Wednesday, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum urged "cooperation and restraint" from all parties and requested federal law enforcement assistance to keep the peace during construction.

Protesters rallied in several U.S. cities Wednesday. Joye Braun and Payu Harris, two pipeline opponents who have been at the North Dakota protest encampment, said in an interview at a nearby casino that there's frustration but also resolve in the wake of the Army's decision.

"The goal is still prayerful, nonviolent direct action," Braun said.

___

Blake Nicholson reported from Bismarck, North Dakota. Follow him on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/NicholsonBlake .
INDIANAPOLIS  Gov. Eric Holcomb signed an executive order Thursday declaring a disaster emergency for East Chicago's USS Lead Superfund site.

The declaration provides for 30 days of enhanced state assistance for the estimated 100 residents who have yet to relocate from the lead contaminated West Calumet Housing Complex, as well as other lead-impacted citizens in the affected area.

Specifically, the state will aggressively seek $2 million in federal funding to demolish West Calumet, along with additional federal resources to remediate soil and replace lead water pipes in adjacent neighborhoods.

Holcomb also ordered state agencies to seek federal approval for more lead testing sites throughout the city, promote the development of new, affordable rental housing in East Chicago and create a one-stop website for residents to keep up with federal, state and local progress reports.

In addition, the Indiana Department of Homeland Security is empowered to obtain any services needed on an emergency basis from any level of government.

"What I want to do is make sure we get this right," Holcomb said. "Putting a 30-day shot clock on our efforts, I think, will help us not just corral, but (also) focus all of our efforts  the federal, state and local efforts  on it right now."

State Rep. Earl Harris, Jr., D-East Chicago, said he was ecstatic when he learned of Holcomb's emergency declaration.

"I greatly appreciate the fact that Gov. Holcomb sees what's going on in East Chicago and realizes that the citizens need help," Harris said. "I'm so happy to hear that the state is stepping up."

Harris has been working with state Sen. Lonnie Randolph, D-East Chicago, to advance legislation in the General Assembly that would make permanent many of the services included in Holcomb's emergency order and provide additional state funding to the city and East Chicago schools.

East Chicago Mayor Anthony Copeland said in a news release Holcomb's declaration is good news for East Chicago and its residents.

We greatly appreciate Governor Holcombs declaration today, and his compassion for our residents. We are working on ways that we can leverage the citys ... resources with the state of Indianas resources and expertise to efficiently address the problems facing these Hoosier families," Copeland said in the release.

U.S. Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., also lauded Holcomb's decision, saying he looks forward to combining state and federal efforts to help residents affected by the Superfund site.

"It is vitally important that we keep our focus on assisting the impacted families in East Chicago," Donnelly said.

Holcomb's predecessor, now-Vice President Mike Pence, rejected Mayor Copeland's request for an emergency declaration before Pence left office one month ago.

In a letter, Pence's general counsel Mark Ahearn said the state already had provided adequate assistance.

Residents and community groups heavily criticized Pence last year for not meeting personally with those affected by the lead and arsenic contamination. His office periodically had representatives on-site.

Holcomb told The Times that he expects to visit the affected area in East Chicago in the next few weeks.

The Republican said he's also optimistic that the state's emergency response ultimately could prove to be a model for other states or localities to use in similar situations.

"We're not alone, and there could be some good news to come out of this at the end of the day," Holcomb said.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency added the 322-acre site to the Superfund list in April 2009.

Last summer, the city told more than 1,000 residents at the West Calumet Housing Complex  located in the first of three residential cleanup zones  they had to move out after sampling revealed soil in some areas contained more than 200 times the EPA's allowable limit for lead.

Residents living at more than 1,000 properties in zones 2 and 3 have not been told to relocate, and the EPA began excavating contaminated soil from their yards in October.

The EPA has said it does not expect Trump administration changes to affect Superfund resources. However, officials said at a recent open house that funding is not yet in place for indoor cleaning in one of the cleanup zones.

Residents also learned in December that the EPA found elevated lead levels in drinking water at 18 homes in the Superfund site.

While the testing was intended to determine if excavation might cause lead in pipes to become dislodged and enter the water supply, the EPA has said it views the sampling as representative of the city's entire system.

Up to 90 percent of East Chicago's water service lines could be lead, and the EPA has recommended all the city's more than 28,000 residents should use certified water filters.
WASHINGTON  The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Sen. Jeff Sessions to be attorney general in the Trump administration despite fierce Democratic opposition to the Alabama Republican over his record on civil rights and immigration.

The 52-47 nearly party-line vote capped weeks of divisive battles over Sessions, an early supporter of President Donald Trump and one of the Senate's most conservative lawmakers. Epitomizing the sharp-edged partisanship surrounding the confirmation, Sen. Elizabeth Warren was given a rare rebuke Tuesday evening for quoting Coretta Scott King, widow of the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., in her 1986 criticism of Sessions.

After the vote was announced Wednesday, Sessions' Republican colleagues applauded the outcome while barely a handful of Democrats did the same.

Democrats laced into Sessions, casting him as too cozy with Trump and too harsh on immigrants. They asserted he wouldn't do enough to protect voting rights of minorities, protections for gays and the legal right of women to obtain an abortion. They fear immigrants in the country illegally won't receive due process with Session as the top law enforcement officer.

"Any attorney general must be able to stand firm for the rule of law even against the powerful executive that nominated him or her. In this administration I believe that independence is even more necessary," said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va. "His (Sessions') record raises doubts about whether he can be a champion for those who need this office most and it also raises doubts about whether he can curb unlawful overreach" by Trump.

Republicans say Sessions has demonstrated over a long career in public service  and two decades in the Senate  that he possesses integrity, honesty and is committed to justice.

"He's honest. He's fair. He's been a friend to many of us, on both sides of the aisle," Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said. "It's been tough to watch all this good man has been put through in recent weeks. This is a well-qualified colleague with a deep reverence for the law. He believes strongly in the equal application of it to everyone."

Sessions won unanimous backing from Senate Republicans but picked up the support of just one Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

Warren was rebuked Tuesday night as she was reading a letter by Coretta Scott King, opposing Sessions' ultimately unsuccessful nomination to a federal judgeship in 1986. Subsequently several male Democratic senators stood up and read from the same letter but without drawing objections, leading Democratic activists to proclaim that Senate Republicans were interested only in silencing a woman.

King wrote that as an acting federal prosecutor in Alabama, Sessions used his power to "chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens."

McConnell held that the Massachusetts Democrat had run afoul of Senate rules.

McConnell chastised Warren under a little-used Senate regulation, Rule 19, which bars any senator from impugning the motives of any other or imputing "any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming of a senator." The Senate historian's office could not immediately say when the rule was last invoked, but Democrats accused Republicans of selectively enforcing it. They noted the GOP did not apply it when, for example, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas accused McConnell of lying in relation to a dispute over the Export-Import Bank two years ago.

The moment inspired a Twitter hashtag, #LetLizSpeak, and clips from C-SPAN2 went viral. "By silencing Elizabeth Warren, the GOP gave women around the world a rallying cry," fellow Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris of California said over Twitter.

"She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted," McConnell said in words that sparked still more liberal outrage and Twitter hashtags. Hillary Clinton referenced McConnell's comment about Warren persisting, adding in a Tweet: "So must we all."

Sessions' nomination to a federal judgeship was rejected three decades ago by the Senate Judiciary Committee after it was alleged that as a federal prosecutor he had called a black attorney "boy" and had said organizations like the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union were un-American.

At his hearing last month, Sessions said he had never harbored racial animus, saying he had been falsely caricatured.

Next up for the Senate is Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., Trump's pick for health secretary. A final vote on Price could come late Thursday and success seemed certain.
I have known the sheriff for the last six years, during which time I have seen him attend multiple functions. I have never seen him not carry a gun. In fact, he usually carries two.

Apparently the FBI investigators were not very observant. Buncich doesn't only have political enemies, which in some ways are probably the worst kind of enemy to have, but he has literally enraged some of the local gangs with the operations that he has engineered against them over the last 40 years of being a very high-profile cop.
NEW YORK - A nor'easter dumped nearly a foot of snow on New York City Thursday, and cold temperatures will linger throughout the rest of the night and into Friday.

The snow has stopped falling in the city, but residents should watch for falling ice from buildings and bridges as temperatures continue to drop.

As of 5 p.m., the National Weather Service reported 10 inches of snow at LaGuardia, 8.3 inches at JFK and 9.5 inches at Central Park.

The temperature was 25 degrees in the city as of 6 p.m. It is expected to fall into the teens as the night goes on.

Things will stay cold throughout Friday. Temperatures will be in the teens for the morning rush, with wind chills ranging from 5 to 10 degrees. The high for the day will be in the 20s.

In a news conference, Mayor Bill de Blasio urged New Yorkers to be extra careful as temperatures dip overnight, creating slippery hazards on roads and sidewalks.

Governor Andrew Cuomo echoed similar warnings at a press conference earlier in the day in Midtown.

About 2,300 vehicles - plows, salt spreaders and shoveling crews - are hard at work clearing city streets.

Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia says drivers should stay off the roads to let crews do their job.

You can check the city's plowing efforts online at nyc.gov/plownyc

The website allows you to track the cleanup on a street-by-street basis in all five boroughs.

Mayor de Blasio says while public schools are closed Thursday, he expects the city to be fully back up and running Friday.

Schools used to be open on all but the most severe winter days. But this is the sixth snow day in the last seven years. The last one was two years ago on January 27, 2015.

All CUNY campuses are also closed Thursday, and there are closures affecting many businesses and private schools.

Alternate side parking rules have been suspended through Saturday to help with the cleanup.

Garbage and recycling pickup is also suspended to aid cleanup efforts.

Flight cancellations and delays are also expected to continue throughout the day at the area's major airports.

There were delays at both JFK and Newark as of 4 p.m., but flights are on time at LaGuardia.

A ground stop order was previously issued at JFK.

Travelers are urged to check with their carriers before heading to the airport.

Con Edison says it's prepared to deal with any power outages that may occur as a result of today's snowstorm.

While the utility company says it's holding up so far, the harsh winter weather does pose a threat to both overhead and underground electrical systems.

To report a power problem, you can call Con Ed's hotline at 1-800-752-6633 or visit coned.com

New Yorkers are also reminded to never go near a downed power line.

The city's Code Blue program is in effect to help homeless people get out of the weather.

The city is also encouraging people to check on elderly neighbors and help people shovel sidewalks.

Tenants who are experiencing problems with heat or hot water in their buildings should call 311.
Colgan hoping to lock in feature win

Volkstok'n'barrell

Photo: Race Images Palmerston North

Vinnie Colgan is relishing his opportunity to get back aboard one of his Group One favourites - Volkstok'n'barrell - at Te Rapa on Saturday.The six-time New Zealand Derby-winning jockey hasn't ridden Volkstok'n'barrell in New Zealand since his back-to-back Group One double of the Haunui Farm WFA Classic (1600m) at Otaki and New Zealand Stakes (2000m) at Ellerslie last autumn."I'm happy to be back on the old fella," Colgan said."He's won some good races and it's worked out well with Matt Cameron happy to stick with Jon Snow for this race."Saturday's race is the Gr.1 Herbie Dyke Stakes (2000m), for which Volkstok'n'barrell is the TAB's $5.50 third favourite behind three-year-old Savile Row at $3.70 and Gr.1 Zabeel Classic winner Consensus at $4.50."The two three-year-olds [Savile Row and Jon Snow] will be tough to beat and Consensus is racing well but my horse is a good, fit horse and he'll run a strong race," Colgan said."With Saint Emilion, Authentic Paddy and Jon Snow in there, there should be a strong pace in the race and my bloke drawing three is ideal, especially over 2000m at Te Rapa."We'll jump and hold our ground for half a furlong to hold a position but that's a lot better than having to race three wide and try and get in."Colgan has ridden the five-year-old gelding on four occasions and that inside knowledge of the horse could prove the difference between winning and defeat on Saturday."Everything has to go right for him. He can be a bit flat-footed going for home so you have to be ready for that," Colgan said."He can get off the bridle from the 600m to the 400 when they quicken but as long as you don't miss that, he'll get to the line strongly. If everything goes right to that point, he'll be dangerous up the straight."Colgan could shoot for a Group One double later in the card when he rides Natuzzi in the NRM Sprint (1400m).He has ridden the eight-year-old in his past two starts - a win in the Gr.3 Concorde Handicap (1200m) at Ellerslie and fourth in the Gr.1 Railway Stakes (1200m) at the same track."His Concorde win was pretty good but he felt like he needed the Railway run. The step up to 1400m will really suit him. With the pace to suit, he's got a deadly finish. He's drawn two but I won't be pushing him too much early. I'll be keeping my hands down."Natuzzi is on the seventh line of betting with TAB bookmakers at $11 in a market headed by five-time Group One winner Kawi at $3.90 and Railway winner Start Wondering at $5.
navy seal

After the US-led raid in Yemen that resulted in the death of a Navy SEAL and several civilians, Yemen is reportedly barring the US from further special-operation ground missions against terrorists in the region.

The New York Times on Tuesday night cited US officials who said the reaction among Yemenis was strong after the operation left some women and children dead.

The officials said the suspension would not apply to drone attacks or the US military advisers who are already providing intelligence support to the Yemenis.

The January raid against Al Qaeda's Yemeni affiliate, known as AQAP  which was approved by President Donald Trump after a postponement from the Obama administration, which was waiting for a moonless night  unfolded with a 50-minute firefight in which a team of SEALs was met with fierce resistance.

Chief Petty Officer William Owens was killed in the battle.

Though the White House has received some criticism over the raid, the Trump administration has called it a success, saying US forces gathered valuable intelligence.

Update 12:30 p.m. PST: On Wednesday, Yemen foreign minister Abdul-Malik al-Mekhlafi denied the reports that the government requested a halt on US ground operations. Instead, he says he asked for a "reassessment" of the previous US raid.

"Yemen continues to cooperate with the United States and continues to abide by all the agreements," he said.

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL  February 09, 2017  Today, Zacks Equity Research discusses the Industry: Gold, Part 2, including Tahoe Resources Inc. (NYSE:TAHO  Free Report ), Goldcorp Inc. (NYSE: GG  Free Report ), Seabridge Gold, Inc. (NYSE: SA  Free Report ) and Fortuna Silver Mines Inc. (NYSE: FSM  Free Report ).

Industry: Gold, Part 2

Link: https://www.zacks.com/commentary/103283/gold-stocks-placed-well-for-long-term-growth

After years of languishing prices declining output from existing mines, concerns over Brexit and China worries have turned the tables for the yellow metal. There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the gold mining industry for both the short term and the long term. Below, we have discussed what investors in the gold mining sector can look forward to in the coming months and years.

Asia Will Be a Long-Term Growth Drivers

Over the last decade, combined demand for gold from India and China has soared 71%. These two markets roughly account for 54% of consumer gold demand, up from 33% in 2005. This figure is expected to go up to 60% in 2017. Asia is now less economically dependent on the West and has shown relatively strong growth since the global financial crisis, despite persistently weak growth in the US and Europe.

India has a strong tradition of investing in gold, mainly in jewelry. Demand mostly increases around the wedding and festive seasons, which begin from mid-to-late August and continue until January. Expenditure on gold can account for almost 30% of the total wedding cost. This gives a boost to local currency demand and raises gold prices.

In China, people view gold, whether in the form of bars, coins or jewelry, as a natural vehicle for savings and diversification. Gold is embedded in Chinas culture and the Chinese New Year and weddings are key events for the countrys gold consumption. In China, although demand might drop from the highs of 2013, growth remains intact.

Story continues

A continuous shift toward higher-margin products has lately been observed in the Chinese jewelry market. Gem-set and 18-carat gold items are becoming increasingly popular, with the latter largely gaining popularity among the younger generation. Producers are also playing a key role in promoting these products given their higher margins.

The World Gold Council anticipates demand from China to grow at least another 20% by 2017. While Chinas middle class is expanding, India has a comparatively low level of per capita gold holdings. The powerful combination of increasing urbanization and strong cultural affinity for gold bodes well for the metals demand in both these countries.

Chinas central bank also continues to purchase the precious metal on a monthly basis, as it sees value in diversifying in gold. Peoples Bank of China (PBOC) now holds a total of 57.18 million ounces of gold. Currently, Chinas gold reserves are ranked fifth in the world, behind the U.S., Germany, Italy and France.

U.S Markets Hold Promise

Demand for gold jewelry in the first half of 2016 in the U.S at 48.6 tons was the strongest since 2009. Consistent, albeit moderate economic growth, improving employment levels and growth in consumer confidence are supporting demand.

Revived Appetite for Acquisitions

Canadas Kirkland Lake Gold will buy Newmarket Gold Inc. in a bid to create a new company with a market capitalization of C$2.4 billion ($1.83 billion) with the capability to produce over 500,000 ounces of gold annually.

Vancouver-based Tahoe Resources Inc.s (NYSE: TAHO  Free Report ) acquisition of Lake Shore Gold Corp. will address challenges faced by both companies. The transaction added Timmins West and Bell Creek mines in Timmins, Ontario, to Tahoe's holdings, which include mines in Guatemala and Peru. The combined entity is expected to produce 370,000430,000 ounces of gold in 2016 at total cash costs of $675$725 per ounce and all-in costs of $950$1,000 per ounce. Last year, Tahoe had bought a smaller rival Rio Alto Mining to expand its presence in Latin America.

Goldcorp Inc. (NYSE:GG  Free Report ) has acquired Kaminak Gold Corp. Kaminak's primary asset is the wholly owned Coffee Gold project  a hydrothermal gold deposit located at Yukon. This project has considerable potential for near-mine discoveries, with mineralization remaining open along strike and at depth.

The Coffee gold deposit currently has total indicated gold mineral resources of 3 million ounces and total inferred gold mineral resources of 2.2 million ounces. The acquisition is in sync with Goldcorps strategy of aligning with smaller exploration companies to identify and develop mining districts with large exploration potential that can grow its net asset value per share.

Seabridge Gold, Inc. (NYSE: SA  Free Report ) acquired SnipGold and its Iskut project which is a gold-silver-copper project with measured and indicated resources of 2.16 million ounces of gold, 13.17 million ounces of silver, and nearly 502.7 million pounds of copper. Fortuna Silver Mines Inc. (NYSE: FSM  Free Report ) acquired Goldrock Mines and its Lindero gold project in Argentina. The project contains 1.15 million ounces of gold.

Strong Stocks that Should Be in the News

Many are little publicized and fly under the Wall Street radar. They're virtually unknown to the general public. Yet today's 220 Zacks Rank #1 "Strong Buys" were generated by the stock-picking system that has nearly tripled the market from 1988 through 2015. Its average gain has been a stellar +26% per year. See these high-potential stocks free >>.

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Southern Californias brief respite from winter weather continues Thursday before a one-day storm blows in Friday  likely dropping a burst of rain that afternoon, forecasters said.

Orange, Los Angeles and Riverside counties will see mostly sunny skies today, with some morning fog in coastal areas. Temperatures are expected to be about 10 degrees above normal for this time of year, said Brett Albright, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Coastal Orange County will likely hover around the mid-60s, while inland Orange and Los Angeles counties will see the mid- to upper-70s. In Riverside, the mercury could shoot to the low 80s.

We dont swing much around here, Albright said of temperature variations. So anything above 10 degrees is a lot.

But by the evening, clouds will again start rolling in.

A quarter- to a half-inch of rain is expected to fall throughout the region Friday, Albright said. Parts of Los Angeles and Riverside counties could get some rain by the end of the morning commute, but most of the region wont see rain until late afternoon.

And when it comes, it will come fast.

Itll be pretty quick, Albright said.

The quick strike could cause large puddles and some streets to fill up in urban areas, Albright said, but there shouldnt be any risk of flash flooding.

Sunny weather will return by Saturday, though some areas could see showers in the morning, he said.

Santa Ana winds are expected to blow in on Sunday. Winds could push to 60 mph in the mountain areas and 30 to 35 mph in the foothills.

There is the potential for a wind advisory, Albright added, but mostly in the wind corridors below the Cajon Pass or the Santa Ana Mountains.

Contact the writer: 714-796-6979 or chaire@scng.com
Even if the waves were too big and messy to paddle out, Lee Beistline could be found at his favorite beach.

On any given day, Beistline, of Lakewood, would hang around his 1960s VW bus, lined up with other old-school buses, shooting the breeze between surf sessions at Bolsa Chica State Beach.

But his favorite spot was in the water taking waves. Thats where he was Jan. 17, when he had a heart attack. He passed away Jan. 23 at age 71.

A paddle-out memorial is planned for 10 a.m. Sunday at Bolsa Chica State Beach, near tower 18, the surf spot where Beistline rode waves for decades.

Ive known him a long time, said friend Richard Angeo, of Long Beach. To me, he always looked the same.

Beistline was born in San Diego and spent his early years in Long Beach, picking up surfing in his teenage years. He served in the military, was deployed to Vietnam, but never talked about his war days, said Angeo.

He had an unassuming nature, Angeo said. He was a surfer who also had a passion for Harleys, playing billiards and bowling. He traveled the world chasing waves.

Angeo said the day Beistline had the heart attack, there was a big swell. He opted to surf near tower 25 because waves were a bit smaller than at his usual spot.

I think he was trying to make it over a wave, Angeo said.

Friends, including a retired firefighter, got him to the sand and gave him CPR. He was taken to Hoag Hospital, where he was on life support for a few days before he passed away.

He clearly loved surfing, that was his passion, Angeo said. He loved going out, it just brought a smile to his face. As long his went out, he was happy. Hed come back grinning.

Beistline is survived by his wife, Kay, and their two children, Michelle and Mark.

Contact the writer: lconnelly@scng.com
A five-bedroom house in Orange by mid-century developer Joseph Eichler has fetched $1.025 million in a private sale.

The price is a record for an Eichler home in Southern California, according to Kelly Laule of Better Living SoCal, the listing agent and an Eichler home specialist.

The City of Orange has nearly 340 Eichler houses, she said; Granada Hills and Thousand Oaks each have about 100.

None of them have ever hit $1 million, Laule said. We just made history.

Eichler homes reflect his signature exposed post-and-beam construction, open-air atriums, sliding doors and integrated indoor and outdoor spaces.

At 2,074 square feet, the house at 852 S. Oakwood St. is one of the rarest and largest models built in Southern California, the agent said.

The home has a split-wing design with the master bedroom and retreat on one side of the home and secondary bedrooms on the other. An open kitchen separates the bedrooms and living areas.

Built in 1960, the house has gone through an extensive renovation, but still adheres to its Eichler roots. For one thing, it has only two bathrooms.

Added in the redo were terrazzo floors, custom grain-matched walnut cabinetry, an under-counter microwave and push-button drawers, eliminating the need for optically-disruptive handles, Laule said.

The home was foreclosed in 2016 and purchased at auction by an investor, she said. A Long Beach family, longtime clients of hers, were interested in the house, and entrusted her to do the renovation and select the finishes.

Stephen Meade, her partner at the firm, represented the buyers, who signed the contract in November; the sale closed Jan. 31.

Other agents in the city of Orange, contacted Wednesday, immediately confirmed a local record was set.

This is a first for an Eichler, said veteran real estate broker Al Ricci.

Realtor Chris Merritt, who works at First Team Real Estate and also sells Eichler homes in Orange, said he knew of no other Eichler in the county to close at $1 million. It is a record-setting sale as far as I know, he said.

At SoCal Modern Group, Realtor Douglas Kramer agreed. To the best of my knowledge there has never been another Eichler in Orange County that has sold for greater than $1 million, he said.

Laule entered the sale amount into the Multiple Listing Service, so it can be used as a comparable sale for other Eichler listings.

Were all thrilled about it, Merritt said.

While Eichers were originally designed as affordable homes that average families could buy, theyve become a big draw for midcentury modern aficionados.

And there are a finite number of Eichlers, Merritt noted.

These are speciality homes, he said. Theyre not making any more Eichlers. They are unique.

Note: This post was updated to include Douglas Kramers statement and corrected to reflect Joseph Eichlers occupation.
Amid the rapid-fire jokes and lively animated action in The Lego Batman Movie, theres a family story at the heart of the film that snaps right into place. Batman has been this self-involved, narcissistic guy who has a lot of things going for him, but he doesnt have people in his life, explains the films director, Chris McKay, who describes himself as a supernerd about everything related to the Caped Crusader. He even has a tattoo of Catwoman on his forearm.

He is a guy who is completely out of touch with his own emotional life, adds Michael Cera, who voices Robin, an orphan who Bruce

Wayne accidentally adopts in the film  and then wants to get rid of.

McKay says that despite the many Batman stories over the years, none have been about him trying to get over the loss of his parents. In the comic-book canon, they were shot down when he was a kid and that drives him for revenge.

So hes been afraid if he develops relationships with people that something bad may happen, McKay says. His emotional growth was stunted at the point his parents were killed.

Speaking of Arrested Development, Will Arnett, an alum of that acclaimed show, once again provides the voice of Batman. In 2014s highly successful The Lego Movie, the Dark Knight was a scene-stealing co-star, not the focus. In this new film, its his world.

When the producers were looking for someone for Robin, they asked Arnett to contact Cera, who was also on the series. McKay says they loved the innocence in his voice and the indefatigable positivity he can bring to the table.

At the time, the actor had done very little voice work. So they werent sure he would even be interested.

As it turned out, Cera had gone to the first Lego Movie on a lark and liked it so much more than I anticipated. It had this really fast, great joke rate to it. Thats why I was excited to get to do this one.

In The Lego Batman Movie, which opens Friday, Batman faces his biggest challenge  every villain that you can think of  and some you cant. If that seems like an overstatement, it isnt.

First, the producers of the new film raided the DC Comics closet and pulled out anybody that Batman has battled in 70 years, including such obscure baddies as Gentleman Ghost and Crazy Quilt.

But as usual, the head of the villains is Batmans longtime archnemesis, The Joker, voiced in the film by Zach Galifianakis.

After that, they started looking elsewhere for villains, some that the kids would know, some they wouldnt and some from outside the DC realm that they included just for the adults and nerds they knew would be watching.

Among the many more are Sauron from The Lord of the Rings, King Kong, the Wicked Witch from Wizard of Oz and He Who Must Not Be Named  Lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter books and movies.

We wanted The Jokers plan to be bigger, bolder, and we liked the idea of the Phantom Zone being the place where all the history of cinema and comic books bad guys are kept, McKay says. (The Phantom Zone is sort of a supermax prison from another DC property  Superman.)

What kids might not get is that Voldemort was portrayed in the movies by British actor Ralph Fiennes, who in Lego Batman is the voice of the Dark Knights tough-love-dispensing butler, Alfred. He keeps trying to push his boss out in the world, especially after he becomes love-struck upon seeing the red-headed Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawson).

But Bruce/Batman is completely clueless about what to do, even though he spends his off-hours watching romantic comedies and syrupy stuff. He doesnt really get it.

McKay saw Batman as kind of the archetype of the guy in such romantic comedies as Jerry Maguire or About a Boy or The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou.

It was fun to play with an emotional story, he says. The one enemy Batman truly hasnt wrestled with is his fears.

By the way, the filmmakers dont make it easy for their guy. A career woman, Barbara isnt falling for Bruces or Batmans charm  or lack of it.

If anybody completes the Dark Knight, its The Joker. Its something that he recognizes but Batman repudiates, says McKay, which was why they wanted Galifianakis.

Zachs comedy is unpredictable, even dangerous, and at the same time really vulnerable, McKay says. We wanted our Joker to be a little of both. Zach is a great combination of scary and wonderful.

The director isnt getting a break anytime soon from the Lego movie world. He just finished Batman a couple of weeks ago while at work producing The Lego Ninjago Movie, a kung-fu spinoff film slated for later this year. And a 2019 follow-up to the Batman movie is already in the works.

While the family story gives some heft and depth to Lego Batman, the film has the same madcap humor that brought in audiences of all ages to the first one.

McKay sees their approach as something of a combination of Warner Bros., Looney Tunes and Airplane!

Were fans of putting out a lot of jokes really fast, he says. Its like punk rock where the inmates have taken over the asylum and where we suddenly can cut to live-action footage or where we can do an absurd joke right up against some grounded storytelling and flip-flop the tone quickly.

Growing up, McKay says that he always was trying to age up. Whenever he went to the movies or listened to music, he always wanted to understand what the older kids were listening to and watching.

I loved movies like Raiders, E.T., Superman and Alfred Hitchcock films, things that were meant for mass audiences to go to and have a great time.

Hes hoping kids will hear some references in Lego Batman and will be interested enough to look them up or find out.

Thats what Lucas and Spielberg movies did for me, he says. They led me to (Martin) Scorsese who led me to (Japanese film director Akira) Kurosawa or John Ford. For me, its about making a movie for everybody.
With a broken leg, five broken ribs and a punctured lung, Warren Muldoon sat on a ledge above a 40-foot waterfall in a remote canyon on Mount Baldy. It was about noon Feb. 1, and hed already fallen down four smaller waterfalls in an attempt to reach safety after getting lost while hiking down from the summit.

He looked up to his dog Dakota, who looked down at him from a shelf about 30 feet above. Shed fallen twice with him and was too scared to go any farther.

Muldoon was freezing. No one knew where he was  there was no cell coverage. His phone was broken and water-logged anyhow.

Thats it, Lord, I think Im going to die, the 62-year-old Christian man from Whittier recalled thinking.

Suddenly, he looked to the valley below. Some people were looking up at him. He yelled and waved, and one man ran closer. He was still far away, and they couldnt hear one another over the sound of falling water, so the man signed a question with his hands: Do you need a helicopter? Muldoon nodded yes.

That exchange set in motion Muldoons hoist rescue by a San Bernardino County sheriffs helicopter shortly before 1:45 p.m. My dogs down there, he said he told his rescuers, but they said they had to worry about him, because he was hypothermic  Muldoons body temperature was 88 degrees  and they could lose him.

Dakota watched them fly away toward Loma Linda University Medical Center.

I could see Dakota just standing there looking at me, Muldoon said. It just broke my heart to leave her.

  

When Muldoon left home about 6 a.m. Wednesday, he told his wife, Connie, of his plan to hike the Ski Hut Trail to Mount Baldy summit, so she would know where hed be and when to expect him home.

Usually, when he goes to the top, hes gone for quite a few hours, she said.

About 4:50 p.m. Connie Muldoon was thinking her husband and Dakota should be home soon when a social worker at Loma Linda University Medical Center called and said Warren Muldoon was there being treated for injuries.

Connie Muldoon rushed to the hospital, not knowing the full story. After she arrived at her husbands bedside, she learned about his rescue  and that Dakota had been left behind.

Dakota, a 3-year-old German shepherd mix, had belonged to their son James since she was 3 months old. He named her after North Dakota, where years before James Muldoon was stationed in the Air Force.

(Dakota) was the one thing that he absolutely loved, Connie Muldoon said. He would have laid his life down for that dog.

Last Aug. 9, while riding his motorcycle in Whittier, James Muldoon, 32, was struck by a car that ran a red light. He was placed in critical care, his brain severely injured, and he had many broken bones. His condition was grim, and soon deteriorated.

Some time before the collision, James Muldoon asked his parents if they could care for Dakota should anything happen to him.

We said, yes, absolutely, Connie Muldoon recalled.

On Aug. 17, James Muldoon died, and the Muldoons took over Dakotas parenting.

Connie Muldoon broke down by her husbands bedside after hearing that Dakota was alone and lost on the mountain.

Shes the last piece that I have of my son, Connie Muldoon said. I wasnt ready to say goodbye.

  

Warren Muldoon and Dakota go everywhere together, he said, often running or hiking. Side by side, theyve summited Mount Baldy many times, but Wednesday was the first time they had done so in the snow.

They reached the top with no problem, Muldoon said. But on the descent, the wind kicked up, covering the trail and the tracks they made on the ascent. He took a wrong turn, and it got worse from there.

The spikes he wore on his hiking boots didnt stop him from tumbling. Dakota stumbled too, as she followed him. Muldoon knew they were in trouble, and decided to follow the sound of running water in hopes of finding a way down.

They reached a little stream, which turned into a big stream, which turned into waterfalls. Man and dog fell down the first waterfall and then the second. Muldoon fell down the third waterfall, breaking his ribs. Dakota was too scared to follow.

Dakota, you gotta come with me, Muldoon recalled saying. I cant leave you here. The rocks were too slippery for him to go back to her.

After pleading with Dakota for about 15 minutes, Muldoon felt he had to press on without her. Scared, cold and resigned, he moved forward and soon came upon another waterfall.

I said (to myself), this is bad, this is real bad, but I couldnt go (back) up, he recalled. So I got on my butt, and I just went down so fast and my foot hit the rock in the water and I heard (my leg) snap.

Muldoon crawled over to the ledge where he thought he would die.

  

That Wednesday night, Connie Muldoon posted to Facebook about Dakotas plight. Please watch for her, she wrote. The post went locally viral, shared among various group pages and even Craigslist.

The following morning, Meg Moran of Yorba Linda was on Facebook, catching up on community news, when she learned about the lost dog. (My husband Patrick) spends every weekend hiking and I spend every weekend doing dog rescue, Meg Moran said. I knew we were the perfect people to jump into action.

Patrick Moran browsed the Angeles National Forest website, where he found the log entry for Warren Muldoons rescue. Something didnt look right to him, he said  the GPS coordinates didnt match the location description.

Having been on the mountain over a hundred times myself, I know it like the back of my hand, he said.

Moran wanted to help find the dog but didnt want to be hasty.

I want to know all the details before I start putting out (on social media) where something is, because you could wander around in that snow forever and not find her, he said.

Moran asked his wife to find someone via Facebook he could speak with and get a better idea of where Dakota might be. Within a few hours, she found Connie Muldoons phone number and learned that Warren Muldoon was at Loma Linda University Medical Center.

Moran couldnt reach Connie Muldoon, but he soon had her husband on the phone from his hospital bed and pressed him for details. It turned out he knew exactly where Warren Muldoon and Dakota had fallen  San Antonio Canyon  because he had rappelled there before.

Its a technical area, he said. You better know your stuff.

He told Muldoon that his wrong turn was a common error hikers make in whiteout conditions, leading to a drainage with no safe trail, and that Dakota was likely still trapped there.

Moran hung up and logged into Facebook. He cut and pasted a post to numerous hiking groups and pages: Dakota was probably between the second and third waterfalls in San Antonio Canyon. He also posted photos Connie Muldoon provided of Dakota hiking with her husband and standing next to her son.

Chris Simpson, an experienced mountaineer, soon sent Moran a message saying he would go look for Dakota.

Simpson recapped what happened next in a Facebook post.

I headed up Ski Hut Trail around 4:30 p.m. and called out for the dog, he wrote. With no luck, I called it quits after 2 hrs or so.

On his descent, he saw a familiar face on the other side of the waterfalls. It was Ricardo Soria Jr. of Glendora, another experienced hiker who not only was also looking for Dakota, but he had also just seen her.

I made it past the second tier (of the falls) where I peered over a ledge and let out a few whistles, Soria recounted in a post to Instagram. Within moments, a set of eyes popped up.

Problem was, there was a pretty technical rock section in between him and the dog, Simpson wrote.

Simpson continued: I reached the falls area where I met a San Bernardino Search and Rescue volunteer (John Bishop) who was shining his light on the second tier of the falls when it picked up a reflection of 2 eyes. (Ricardo) confirmed it was Dakota.

Simpson and Bishop hatched a plan to reach Dakota  Soria headed back for the car knowing that they had it under control  and after gearing up they climbed up toward her.

I was the first to reach her and offered up a fresh package of salami which she downed in one bite, Simpson wrote.

Dakota was too scared to jump the short distance from the snow slope where she stood, so Simpson lured her closer with the empty salami package until he was able to bear hug her and set her on flat ground, he wrote.

The two men tied a safety rope to Dakota and escorted her off the mountainside.

  

Connie Muldoon was visiting her husband at the hospital the evening of Feb. 2 when she learned Dakota was safe and being fed and watered at Mt. Baldy Lodge.

She broke down when she heard they found Dakota, Warren Muldoon said.

Connie Muldoons friend Melissa Vosberg of Long Beach offered to retrieve Dakota and take her to a veterinarian. The vet hydrated the dog intravenously and stapled a cut on a hind paw. Dakota was bruised, but her blood work checked out and no bones were broken.

Vosberg brought Dakota home about 1:15 a.m. Friday.

Oh my goodness, she was a sight for sore eyes, Connie Muldoon said. She was a little skittish, but she was really happy to be home and just loved on.

  

Health complications delayed Warren Muldoon and Dakotas reunion. At first, he expected to go home Saturday or Sunday, but bleeding in his chest kept him in the hospital. After seeing Dakota acting restless at home, confused about her companions absence, Connie Muldoon got the OK to bring in Dakota for a visit at Warren Muldoons hospital wing Wednesday.

You wont ever go hiking with me ever again will you, Warren Muldoon asked a tail-wagging, body-wriggling Dakota shortly after noon.  I aint getting out of the car,  he responded on her behalf. Quietly, he said, That was a bad day.

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Dakota bounced back and forth between her humans. She licked at the compression bandage that wrapped the cast on Warren Muldoons lower left leg, and happily ate crackers that nurses brought as snacks.

This is the famous dog weve been hearing about, they said.

Two days after his rescue, Warren Muldoon readily accepted responsibility for his and Dakotas ordeal.

I was just way over my element, he admitted. I ended up in a spot I shouldnt have been.

On Wednesday he was thankful for the people who risked their own safety to save both of them, and happy they both were alive.

I truly dont know how Id live the rest of my life if she died up there, he said.
BUENA PARK  City officials will close a homeless shelter at First Southern Baptist Church as early as Thursday, they said, for allegedly failing to address health, fire and occupancy violations found early last year.

Wiley Drake, 73, the churchs longtime pastor, vowed to keep the city away and the doors open.

On Jan. 30, in the wake of the Oakland warehouse tragedy, the city revoked an occupancy permit it granted Drake in 1999 to use a building as a temporary dormitory. The pastor was instructed to vacate the shelter by Thursday and remove or demolish the building by early March.

This is about the well-being of those (homeless) individuals, said Aaron France, assistant to the city manager. We care about our homeless neighbors.  This is a matter of safety.

City officials said the building has no proper emergency exits, no certified fire alarm or smoke detection system, and a hazardous electrical system. Drake disputed the findings.

The shelter has 52 beds, showers, tables, lockers, WiFi and television. Meals are offered in a kitchen on the lot twice a day.

A couple of dozen residents range in age from 6 to 80.

William Ruffin, 64, has lived in the shelter for 23 years. He handles security on the lot and helps with Bible study.

This place gives me a sense of peace, he said. A lot of people come here afraid. Theyve slept under bridges, on streets. They come here  and feel secure.

Lisa Pollard joined the community six weeks ago, living out of her car on the lot.

I walked in here and it was the first time I knew I was safe, the 54-year-old said.

Many of the men and women in the shelter have part-time jobs, Drake noted, but cant afford to live elsewhere.

In 1995, First Southern Baptist Church, at Western Avenue and Melrose Street, was used as a shelter for 235 residents  some homeless  displaced by a flood.

Three dozen men and women continued living on the lot after relief efforts, and in 1997, a judge ordered Drake to either move those individuals to another location or build another structure.

Temporary industrial-style buildings were donated to the church in 1999, Drake said. The city that year granted the pastor a temporary occupancy permit with the understanding that a permanent shelter would be built. Every few years, the city extended the temporary permit.

But no permanent building has been erected.

In March, city representatives inspected the property, and Police Chief Corey Sianez provided Drake a list of fire and life-safety issues to address.

After the December warehouse fire that killed 36 in Oakland, Buena Park officials returned to the churchs shelter on Jan. 24 and found few improvements at the buildings that have been melded together.

We respect what Pastor Drake is doing here, said Gigi Zanganeh, the director of programs for CityNet, a nonprofit the city contracts for homeless outreach, but we care a lot about client safety. Given the situation in Oakland, this (relocation) is probably for the best.

Last week, Drake, who once filed a lawsuit challenging the legitimacy of former President Barack Obamas birth certificate and twice ran for president, refused to let any city personnel onto his property.

City officials planned to obtain a warrant so they can go onto the property as soon as Thursday and declare the building unsafe to occupy.

The pastor can appeal the citys decision to a board, consisting of three independent building officials or engineers. But the shelter must remain vacant during an appeal.

Drake said if his shelter is shuttered, hell move the homeless into the church itself.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7724 or bwhitehead@scng.com
BUCHAREST, Romania  Corruption cant be stopped, but it must be controlled, even in a country where the abuse of power is a legacy of communist days. Thats the message of Romanias president after a tumultuous week of protests derailed a government plan to weaken corruption laws by decree.

Klaus Iohannis told The Associated Press Wednesday that the fight to contain corruption in his country shows the ugly face of politics and praised protesters for standing up to block a government measure that would have eased up on public officials who abuse their power.

Massive street protests have for the moment halted the emergency decree that would have removed penalties for some graft if the amount involved was less than about $48,500.

Iohannis, 57, said he was pleased that protesters made their opposition known in peaceful demonstrations that spread from the capital Bucharest to other parts of the country.

I was surprised by the size of the crowd, he said. Having over 200,000 people in Piata Victoriei (Victory Square) is something extraordinary.

On Wednesday evening, several thousand braved a snowstorm to demonstrate against the government for the ninth day in a row in a central square.

A smaller, pro-government protest took place outside the presidential palace. Iohannis briefly interacted with protesters while aides offered them hot tea.

Iohannis, who was elected in 2014 by direct vote, was chairman of the opposition Liberal Party until he quit to seek the presidency, a post with limited powers.

He has been critical of the government headed by Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu, which came into being after the December parliamentary elections.

He said widespread corruption is a stubborn remnant of the countrys communist past, which ended with the 1989 popular uprising that toppled dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

Its certainly not going to finish in a year or two or four, Iohannis said at the ornate 17th Century presidential palace. Intense anti-corruption fighting is not something nice. It brings up the ugly face of society we want to eradicate. But it takes time.

He said corruption would never stop but it could be greatly slowed, with fewer politicians and public employees tempted to exploit their positions in the face of increased prosecution and public resistance.

Iohannis seems to have emerged from the crisis in a stronger position. Grindeanus center-left government appears to have miscalculated the publics response to its late night emergency decree last week.

It did survive a vote of no-confidence Wednesday, reflecting its continued support in Parliament.

The win had been expected because the Social Democratic Party and its junior partner, the Alliance of Democratic Liberals, enjoy a solid majority in Parliament even though analysts say their standing with the public has dropped in the past week.

The massive protests were the largest seen since communism collapsed in Romania in 1989.

Iohannis said the protests in Romania, a member of the European Union, serve democracy well.

Its a very good way to say Europe is alive, its alert, and basically positive, he said.

In Brussels, EU officials said they back Romanias anti-corruption effort, which has gained pace in recent years, threatening many entrenched interests and leading to the failed attempt to impose the emergency decree.

Frans Timmermans, EU rule-of-law chief, said Romania should maintain its pursuit of wrongdoers.

He said that Romanian authorities should continue this fight which has been successful so far so it can reach the point of no return.

Timmermans said the EU is on their side to make this happen.
SAN FRANCISCO  A federal appeals court refused Thursday to reinstate President Donald Trumps ban on travelers from seven predominantly Muslim nations, unanimously rejecting the administrations claim of presidential authority, questioning its motives and concluding that the order was unlikely to survive legal challenges.

The three judges of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the argument that the ban targets Muslims raised serious allegations and presented significant constitutional questions, and they agreed that courts could consider statements by Trump and his advisers about wishing to enact such a ban.

Moments after the ruling, Trump tweeted, SEE YOU IN COURT, adding that THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!

In response, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat who leads one of the states that challenged the ban, said: Mr. President, we just saw you in court, and we beat you.

The panel declined to block a lower-court ruling that suspended the ban and allowed previously barred travelers to enter the U.S. But it did not shy away from the larger constitutional questions raised by the order.

The judges sided with the states on every issue except for one technical matter. They rejected the administrations argument that courts did not have the authority to review the presidents immigration and national security decisions. They said the administration failed to show that the order met constitutional requirements to provide notice or a hearing before restricting travel. And they said the administration presented no evidence that any foreigner from the seven countries was responsible for a terrorist attack in the U.S.

Despite the district courts and our own repeated invitations to explain the urgent need for the Executive Order to be placed immediately into effect, the Government submitted no evidence to rebut the States argument that the district courts order merely returned the nation temporarily to the position it has occupied for many previous years, the panel wrote.

The court battle is far from over. The lower court still must debate the merits of the ban, and an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court seems likely. That could put the decision in the hands of a divided court that has a vacancy. Trumps nominee, Neil Gorsuch, cannot be confirmed in time to take part in any consideration of the ban.

The appellate judges noted compelling public interests on both sides.

On the one hand, the public has a powerful interest in national security and in the ability of an elected president to enact policies. And on the other, the public also has an interest in free flow of travel, in avoiding separation of families, and in freedom from discrimination.

The Justice Department said that it was reviewing the decision and considering its options. Its the first day on the job for new Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was sworn in at the White House earlier Thursday by Vice President Mike Pence.

Last week, U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle issued a temporary restraining order halting the ban after Washington state and Minnesota sued. The ban temporarily suspended the nations refugee program and immigration from countries that have raised terrorism concerns.

Justice Department lawyers appealed to the 9th Circuit, arguing that the president has the constitutional power to restrict entry to the United States and that the courts cannot second-guess his determination that such a step was needed to prevent terrorism.

The states said Trumps travel ban harmed individuals, businesses and universities. Citing Trumps campaign promise to stop Muslims from entering the U.S., they said the ban unconstitutionally blocked entry to people based on religion.

The appeals court sided with the administration on just one issue: the argument that the lower courts temporary restraining order could not be appealed. While under 9th Circuit precedent such orders are not typically reviewable, the panel ruled that due to the intense public interest at stake and the uncertainty of how long it would take to obtain a further ruling from the lower court, it was appropriate to consider the federal governments appeal.

Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law in Houston, said the million-dollar question is whether the Trump administration would appeal to the Supreme Court.

That could run the risk of having only eight justices to hear the case, which could produce a tie and leave the lower-court ruling in place.

Theres a distinct risk in moving this too quickly, Blackman said. But were not in a normal time, and Donald Trump is very rash. He may trump, pardon the figure of speech, the normal rule.

Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School, said the ruling was thoughtful and supported by a great deal of legal precedent. More important, though, it was unanimous despite the fact that the panel included judges appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents.

Its a very important message that judges are not just politicians in robes and not just political hacks, Levinson said. The role of the judge is to transcend politics. Thats why theyre appointed for life, so they dont worry about whats popular. They worry about whats legally correct.

After the ban was put on hold, the State Department quickly said people from the seven countries  Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen  with valid visas could travel to the U.S. The decision led to tearful reunions at airports around the country.

The ban was set to expire in 90 days, meaning it could run its course before the Supreme Court would take up the issue.
KABUL, Afghanistan  Six employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross were killed and two others were missing Wednesday after an attack in northern Afghanistan that officials attributed to local affiliates of the Islamic State group.

This is a despicable act. Nothing can justify the murder of our colleagues and dear friends, said Monica Zanarelli, the head of the Red Cross delegation in Afghanistan. At this point, its premature for us to determine the impact of this appalling incident on our operations in Afghanistan.

The Taliban, who still inflict the largest share of violence in the 15-year war that has escalated in recent years, quickly denied that they were behind the attack.

The Red Cross has a 30-year history of helping war victims in Afghanistan, providing crucial medical aid to areas near the battlefield, among other things. The insurgency also relies on Red Cross volunteers to retrieve the bodies of its dead in large parts of the country and to help families of its detainees communicate with them in prison.

But in a recent report, the Red Cross expressed concerns about the shrinking access of humanitarian aid workers in numerous parts of the country because of the intensification of conflict related violence.

The governor of Jowzjan province, Lutfullah Azizi, blamed affiliates of the Islamic State group for the attack.

Azizi said the Red Cross had begun a mission to distribute livestock material in the Qush Tepah area of Jowzjan province, where the attack happened, but that its work was paused by recent avalanches. When workers went to resume giving out aid, they were targeted.

They were a team of eight people in three vehicles, including three drivers and five staff, Azizi said. Islamic State attacked the convoy, killed the three drivers and three staff members on the spot and took two staff members with them.

Azizi said Qush Tepah, about 37 miles from the provincial capital, is rife with militant groups, including five Islamic State group factions with about 200 fighters total.

In recent weeks, officials in northern Afghanistan also have expressed concern about an increase in foreign fighters there, many of them suspected of affiliation with the Islamic State group.

Sarwar Hussaini, a spokesman for the northern police zone, said there were about 600 foreign fighters in five northern provinces.
A list of 78 terror attacks considered by the Trump administration to be under-reported includes the Dec. 2 attack in San Bernardino. Sort of.

The citys name is misspelled San Bernadino in the White House-distributed list of attacks from September 2014 to December 2016. Also misspelled are the words attacker  attaker  and attackers, spelled in the document as attakers.

Inland congressional Democrats, including Pete Aguilar of Redlands, who represents San Bernardino, took to Twitter to denounce the list and its spelling errors.

.@POTUS You cant even spell #SanBernardino but you exploit our community to justify your #muslimban.  Rep. Pete Aguilar (@RepPeteAguilar) February 7, 2017

If White House didnt know how to spell San Bernardino they shouldve read one of thousands of heartbreaking articles remembering victims.  Mark Takano (@RepMarkTakano) February 7, 2017

The list followed President Donald Trumps assertion this week that the media deliberately do not report on acts of terrorism. The San Bernardino attack by a radicalized Islamic couple, which killed 14 people, received extensive press coverage, as did other attacks on the list.

Besides being dinged for its spelling, the list also is being criticized for focusing on Western nations and ignoring terror attacks targeting Muslims, like the one in Quebec City last month that killed six Muslims at a mosque.
WASHINGTON  On her first day on the job, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos plunged into her initial assignment: mending fences with her opponents following a bruising confirmation battle. Parents across the country looked for clues as to whether she will fulfill their hopes or reinforce their fears.

Addressing several hundred Education Department staff members, DeVos, a wealthy Republican donor and school choice champion, vowed to work with everyone, including her critics, in ensuring the best education in the nations schools.

I am committed to working with everyone and anyone  from every corner of the country, from every walk of life, from every background and with those who supported my nomination and those who did not  to protect, strengthen and create new world-class education opportunities for Americas students, DeVos said.

Many remain to be convinced.

Jessica Helton, a mother of three young children from the Cincinnati suburb of Mariemont, said she worries that there will be reduced support for and access to services like the specialized reading help her daughter gets in kindergarten and the weekly speech therapy provided at a public school for her 4-year-old son.

My fear is that schools who are no longer forced to provide these services wont, and either they wont have the funding to pay for it or theyll decide to use the funds for other projects or for other needs, she said.

But others are more optimistic.

Rabbi A.D. Motzen, a school-choice advocate and the Cincinnati-based national director of state relations for the Orthodox Jewish group Agudath Israel of America, said he has known DeVos for a decade and worked with her organizations.

Whatever the policies that come out of the Department of Education, shes going to have a fresh perspective, and I guarantee you it will be focused on parents and children, and less about where they attend school and where they live, he said by phone.

DeVos secured confirmation in the Senate on Tuesday by the slimmest possible margin. Vice President Mike Pence had to cast a historic tie-breaking vote after two Republican senators opposed her, concerned that she would not support traditional public schools.

Opinions still differ on exactly how DeVos might go about trying to transform American schools.

After an unusually divisive confirmation process, in which DeVos opponents jammed congressional phone lines, some education specialists say both the panic of her detractors and the joy of her supporters may be exaggerated. As Education secretary DeVos has limited authority to drastically overhaul what goes on in classrooms.

With the federal government accounting for about 10 percent of education spending and with most federal budget decisions requiring congressional approval, DeVos will have little financial influence. She will however, be able to shape policy discussion, initiate and promote various innovations and affect civil rights matters.

Itss likely not as big as the hysteria alludes, said Mike Hansen, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution. The champions and detractors of secretary DeVos are likely overstating the influence that the positon will likely have in practice.

Andrea Jackson, a college adviser in her sons high school in Detroit, disagrees and says she was in tears following the DeVos confirmation.

Im super frustrated. Im afraid, Jackson told the AP on Wednesday. I think its not going to take us in the direction we need to go.

At the top of Jacksons list of complaints is that DeVos is not a product of a public schools system and has never worked in one.

She has no expertise to be able to make decisions in public education, said Jackson.
Donald Trump issued an executive order on his first day that showed hes sincere about fixing the Affordable Care Act. But this is simply the first step for the more complex fix of the unpopular law that will repair and restore the U.S. health care system.

The laws inability to control costs has been well-covered. According to S&P, costs increased by 38 percent between the years 2013 and 2014  followed by yet another 23 percent increase the following year. 2017 is looking to be no different. Premiums for ACAs benchmark plan are expected to increase by an average of 22 percent. These cost increases are largely a result of the ACAs hundreds of regulations and taxes that drive up the cost of providing care.

Less discussed is the laws impact on small businesses and their employees. Roughly 150 million Americans receive their health care through employer-provided plans. But not all employers are affected by increasing health care costs equally. Big business is often able to mitigate rising health care costs by leveraging their lofty employee count to negotiate cheaper, group prices. The economies of scale generated by a high employee count allows health care coverage to be provided at a cheaper bulk rate, where risk is spread out over a large pool of employees. For instance, a survey done by the National Business Group on Health shows that premiums for employees on large group plans will increase by only 6 percent in 2017.

However, small businesses do not have this luxury. In fact, a survey by Level Funded Health concluded that 87 percent of small businesses who offered group plans had premium hikes of 25 percent  with 12 percent of small businesses seeing jumps closer to 50 percent.

The ACA requires businesses with 50 or more employees to provide their staff with coverage. But market pressure and conscientious employers mean that tens of thousands of businesses with fewer employees than this threshold also offer coverage. Given that small businesses employ roughly half of employees in the country, and provide livelihoods for 85 million people, this is an important concern.

Not only are small businesses unable to negotiate the health care discounts that large businesses can, but they often have much smaller profit margins  think restaurants, day cares, laundromats, etc.  than big businesses. As a result, large health care premium increases can quickly make small businesses unprofitable. As slim profit margins are slashed, fewer resources are available to go toward company expansion or salary increases.

The ACA includes a provision that was designed to help small businesses with fewer than 50 employees attain coverage, but in order to qualify they must have fewer than 25 workers with average salaries of less than $50,000 a year. The Congressional Budget Office predicted more than 1 million small business employees to be enrolled in the program by the end of 2015, but in practice less than one-tenth of that number is participating.

Small businesses are also hit harder by ACA requirements because they compel health plans to include a wide array of benefits like dental and vision care, or even expensive mental health services even if enrollees dont want them. These inclusions drive up the price disproportionately for smaller health insurers, which have traditionally covered small business employees. Consequently, these insurers are pushed out of the health insurance marketplace. In fact, a majority of counties in 12 states will only have one health care carrier in 2017. This reduces the effect of the key mechanism that keeps health care prices under control  competition.

As ACA costs continue to rise, small business creation rates continue to fall. As a result, employees are left with fewer job opportunities and lower wages. The small business community and the 55 million people they employ eagerly await replacement legislation.

Alfredo Ortiz is the president and CEO of the Job Creators Network.
Whole Foods Market Inc., facing its worst sales slump in more than a decade, is taking a step that would have been unthinkable in its highflying days: shrinking the size of the chain.

The grocer is closing nine locations, including two small-format stores in Davis and Encinitas. Two more will close in Colorado, along with outlets in Chicago, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona and Georgia. The company confirmed California closures in news reports at the The Sacramento Bee and The Coast News Group.

Whole Foods plans to open six stores during the current quarter, including two relocations. The closures were the most announced by the chain since the last recession was underway in 2008. The company, which about 440 U.S. stores, also said it was abandoning its ambitious growth target and no longer plans to reach 1,200 locations as it tries to get expenses under control.

The company also plans to open its 365 concept, a smaller and less expensive brand. A store opened last spring in Silver Lake and another is planned for Los Alamitos.

Six straight quarters of declining same-store sales  a closely watched measure  have forced the organic-food grocer to tighten its belt. Whole Foods also gave a forecast for the current year that offered little hope of a quick recovery.

This is a company that owned the space for a long time, but theres way too much competition now, said Brian Yarbrough, an analyst at Edward Jones. Theyve done several things to try and drive sales, and its just not working.

Same-store sales dropped 2.4 percent last quarter, worse than the 1.7 percent decrease predicted by analysts. The company now expects sales on that basis to decline as much as 2.5 percent this year, compared with an earlier forecast that was closer to break-even.

People were hoping there would be some improvement, said Jennifer Bartashus, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. Its a bit concerning theres not a reversal happening there.

Mainstream competition

Whole Foods has struggled to ward off competition from mainstream supermarkets, including Kroger Co. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which began offering more organic fare in recent years. And a bout of food deflation has put additional pressure on the entire industry.

Some on Wall Street have been pushing Whole Foods to rein in its growth plans, and the store plan was received warmly. The stock gained 2 percent percent to $29.91 at 10:02 a.m. in New York on Thursday. Prior to the drop, it was down 4.7 percent in 2017.

Responsibility for the turnaround is now squarely on John Mackey, a co-founder of the company who retook sole leadership last year. He had served as co-chief executive officer with Walter Robb until November.

He has an uphill fight ahead. Same-store sales declined 3.2 percent in the current quarter through Feb. 5, a sign its troubles are worsening. The Austin, Texas-based company also said it would no longer be reporting quarter-to-date figures in future reports, meaning investors will have less to go on.

Activist threat?

Whole Foods struggles have fueled speculation that an activist investor could take on the chain, and one of its largest shareholders is said to have to discussed agitating for sweeping changes.

For years, Whole Foods offered products that were tough to find elsewhere, and the shares gave investors exposure to the fast-growing market for organic and natural food. But that advantage has eroded in recent years. With sales growth stagnating last year, Whole Foods announced $300 million in cost cuts.

But the company is still ramping up spending elsewhere, including on marketing and technology, and thats expected to offset the cutbacks. It also introduced a new store concept last year aimed at younger, budget-conscious consumers. So far, only three of the 365 locations have opened on the West Coast. The company announced on Wednesday it has signed leases for new 365 stores in Brooklyn, New York, and Oakland.

The concept, named after the companys private-label brand, is seen as a way for Whole Foods to connect with shoppers who perceive the chains conventional stores as too pricey.

Whole Foods considered turning some of the stores it was closing into 365 locations, but it wasnt practical, Mackey said. In some cases the company wanted to thin out its presence in a particular market, with the hope that it benefits Whole Foods locations nearby. Some of the stores had leases coming up in 2017, and management decided to accelerate the process and close them now.

The decision to shutter the nine stores will help boost profits and comparable sales, Mackey said on a conference call. The company is taking a more disciplined approach to growth but still has 80 stores in the pipeline, he said.

We cleaned up the stores we needed to clean up for the time being, and were looking forward to moving forward, Mackey said.
LOS ANGELES  The City of Los Angeles agreed Wednesday to pay $1.5 million to the family of a mentally ill black man who was shot and killed in 2014 by Los Angeles police during a struggle over an officers gun.

The settlement in a civil rights lawsuit brought by the family of Ezell Ford, 25, came two weeks after prosecutors said the two Los Angeles Police Department officers acted lawfully and in self-defense when they shot and killed Ford in August 2014. More than a year ago, a police oversight board found the officers had no legal reason to stop Ford, violating department policy.

The Los Angeles City Council approved the settlement with Fords family on Wednesday with a 10-2 vote.

Los Angeles prosecutors said Officers Sharlton Wampler and Antonio Villegas were in fear for their lives when they shot Ford on Aug. 11, 2014, as Ford struggled with Wampler over the officers holstered gun. The shooting happened days after that of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and led to a series of Black Lives Matter protests in Los Angeles.

Authorities said the officers had approached Ford, whose family has said he struggled with an array of mental illnesses, after seeing him in a known gang area, but said Ford walked away and the officers believed he was trying to discard an illegal substance.

Prosecutors said Wampler had placed his hands on Fords shoulders before Ford spun around and grabbed the officer at the waist. Ford fell to the ground with the officer and the two started tussling as Ford tried to grab Wamplers gun from the holster on his waist, prosecutors said.

Villegas shot Ford twice during the struggle, but Ford continued to fight with Wampler, Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey said last month. Wampler was eventually able to retrieve his backup weapon, which was affixed to his bulletproof vest, reached around Fords body and shot him once in the back, she said.

After prosecutors reached their determination in the case, Fords mother, Tritobia Ford, told reporters there would be no justice for her son. She said the officers just got away with murder.

The Los Angeles Police Commission ruled in June 2015 that the officers had no reason to stop and question Ford, and that violation of department policy led to an altercation that ended with Fords death. The commission found that Wampler was unjustified in shooting Ford and Villegas was wrong to draw his weapon but acted appropriately in firing it because he believed Wamplers life was in danger.

The officers have been on administrative duty since the shooting.
As tasting experiences go, this one was kind of surreal: listening to a Scotsman tell me all about his gin.

Yet here I was, facing a knowledgeable and personable young man, Adam Hannett, born and raised on Islay, the Mecca of Scotch, with the brogue to prove it. And he wasnt just some random island boy, but the head distiller at Bruichladdich, one of Scotlands most famous makers of fine Scotch.

A Scotsman making gin, Englands national spirit  isnt that like a Canadian trying his hand at bourbon instead of sticking to rye? The Scots, like Canadians, take pride in distinguishing themselves from their larger, louder neighbors.

Hannett chuckled at the thought. Look, if youre a Scotch drinker, you know about Bruichladdich. We recognize theres a rising market for gin, and we think we have an excellent product that reflects who we are.

Hannett is talking about The Botanist, a premium gin that has been popular on O.C. bar shelves for a few years; its definitely one of the go-to gins for mixologists these days. And its reflective of a trend among new gin-makers to get local by capturing the scents and flavors of their place of origin.

The Botanist began with an unlucky demise and a lucky find. Another Scottish distillery, Inverleven, shut down in 1991. Word got around in 2003 that it was slated for demolition. We were able to get some interesting things: pipework, heat exchanger, a mash tun, three stills, old pumps, Hannett said. Some of it dated back to the early 19th century, but it was all perfectly serviceable.

Bruichladdich also grabbed something called a Lomond still. Invented in 1955 by Alistair Cunningham of Hiram Walker, it has three perforated plates that can be cooled independently, allowing the distiller to create different kinds of whisky simultaneously.

Its quite an ugly thing, Hannett said. It looks like a huge (garbage can).

At first, the Bruichladdich team didnt know quite what to do with the eyesore. But Jim McEwan, Bruichladdichs famous master distiller, came up with something ingenious.

Jim started thinking it would be perfect for making gin. And Jim being Jim, while he was fixing it he was learning how to make gin and selecting his first botanicals. McEwan designed a basket for the neck of the still, a place where all the vapors pass through. Placed in a sack and inserted into the basket, the botanicals gently impart their flavors in a 17-hour process. The smell is stunning, Hannett said.

One of The Botanists special properties is its unique botanicals  the herbs, roots and flowers that are infused into the spirit and create its taste signature. When we decided to create a gin, we went to two botanists who live on the island, Hannett said. We wanted to do something unique and exciting.

Hannett and his colleagues envisioned a gin that captured Islays spirit. When you walk on the beaches or in the hills of Islay, you get these amazing smells  heather and other plants.

Besides juniper and the other botanicals used by makers of London dry gin, the local botanists supplied 22 ingredients that are unique to Islay. Following McEwans instructions, they are abundant enough to be hand-picked sustainably. As the gins popularity grows, Hannett and his co-workers are keeping a close eye on that. Someone asked me, Well, how much gin can you make? We dont know yet, actually. We have to harvest the local botanicals responsibly and find out.

What are they using from Islays hallowed soil? Thats a trade secret, said Hannett, with a Mona Lisa smile.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7979 or phodgins@scng.com
ORANGE  Walking hurriedly under the Chapman Avenue bridge through jagged rocks and sand, Heidi Yrigoyen yelled across the Santa Ana River, warning her fellow homeless: Bulldozers are here!

They coming and they serious this time, said the 31-year-old, who has lived along the Santa Ana River Trail for three years.

Yrigoyen urged the homeless who have set up elaborate encampments and makeshift dwellings on the east side of the riverbed to move to the other side as OC Public Works on Wednesday began a six-month project to stockpile heavy boulders and material for flood control.

Heavy rains had delayed the start of the project earlier this week.

Before dump trucks came in with the first load of boulders Wednesday morning, a crew of about 10 maintenance workers helped the homeless separate their belongings and clear trash from the river bank along Chapman Avenue near Anita Street. Four or five people were asked to relocate their tents away from the project area the first morning, said Carrie Braun, public information officer for the county of Orange.

They were offered free transportation to homeless shelters in Santa Ana and Fullerton.

Our health agency outreach and the sheriffs homeless liaison team came out today and asked for voluntary compliance, Braun said. There have been signs posted since Jan. 25 informing those who are encamped in the area of the project.  They have offered them resources providing them an opportunity to stay in a shelter. Some decided to take that opportunity and some didnt.

Several hundred people have lined the eastern side of the riverbed with camps, adjacent to the 57 freeway and Angel Stadium. They will have to move.

The county will use the eastern stretch of the rivers banks to store 5,100 tons of riprap and sand. A larger fence will be built to protect the materials being stockpiled in case of future flooding. The project stretches from Orangewood Avenue in Anaheim to just south of the 22 freeway near Hesperian Way in Santa Ana.

Flood control channels are not a safe place to live, said Braun, adding that outreach teams will regularly visit the area to assist the homeless as the project moves forward.

Fifteen to 20 advocates and protesters stood above the bridge holding signs, Protect your neighbors from eviction and They have nowhere to go. Some cars honked in support. Other motorists flipped them off, protesters said.

Orange County Sheriff Department deputies guarded the entrance gate to an access road as maintenance workers cleared the nearby encampment.

Sheriff deputies had to forcibly remove a protester, Mohammed Aly, after the Santa Ana attorney held on to a gate and fence in the construction area. Aly was arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor obstructing officers and trespassing, Sheriffs Department Lt. Mark Stichter said.

This is inhumane treatment of our homeless, said Heidi Zimmermann, a longtime homeless advocate. If we dont help them, well lose our humanity.

Tammy Schuler, 41, was one of the homeless asked to relocate. Schuler said shes cooperating with the county.

Im in the wrong. They are in the right, she said. She has been homeless for six years. Im going to set up on the other side until I find something else.

Rasheeda Dickerson, 40, came down to help Schuler and other friends move their belongings. Dickerson said she lived in the same riverbed for three years before finding help. She now lives with her fiance in Orange.

When I stayed here, it never used to be like this, Dickerson said. There are a lot more people here than when I was homeless. A lot of the homeless from Santa Ana and other cities have come here and set up.

Carrying blankets and walking above the Chapman Avenue bridge, Sarah Watts, 37, made a preemptive move to the western side of the riverbed next to a Motel 6 and a bike trail where cyclists cruised. Watts said the countys project is only going to make the homeless situation in the county worse. Shes lived in a tent along the riverbed for a year.

They are pushing us out, but its not like were going to disappear, she said. Were just going to move somewhere else.

Staff Writer Scott Schwebke contributed to this story.

Contact the writer: 714-796-2443 or jpimentel@scng.com or follow on Twitter @OCDisney
Why is the left going nuts over President Trumps nominee for the Supreme Court? Because the left sees its power ebbing. Former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, complained that Judge Gorsuchs record reveals [that] he holds radical views far outside the mainstream of American legal thought. And ABC News reported that Obamas former secretary of Labor, Tony Perez, said, [s]imply put, a Justice Gorsuch on the Supreme Court is intolerable and its up to Democrats to block his nomination.

Democrats were shrewdly split by Trump. Judge Gorsuch fulfills one of the two criteria for a modern-day philosopher-king. Gorsuch has stellar educational credentials, but he so far lacks the Nietzschean will to rule over and dominate others. This is the progressive ideal, born of the 1789 French Revolution. That virus traveled to German universities in the late 19th century, where wealthy Americans acquiring Ph.D.s brought it back home. Progressives believe that the common man must be ruled by his superiors. Not out of the duty of noblesse to look after the average Joe, but because ruling is their right. They see us as interchangeable cogs in a societal machine that is to be fine-tuned by the smartest.

Trumps nominee, despite a Columbia, Harvard Law and Oxford pedigree, is committed to deferring to the wisdom of our Constitution. That 1787 document clearly spells out a short list of what government may do, and concludes with a broad list of what government may not do. The original U.S. Constitution chains down and forbids governmental action not included in its list of 17 enumerated powers. If an action is not authorized by the original meaning of the Constitutions text, then the government may not do it. Period. Such a view reflects deference to the accumulated wisdom of the founders of our republic.

Judge Gorsuchs view is that judges should only interpret law, not make it. Making law is reserved for elected officials, who can be held accountable. If politicians make a mistake, they can correct it by a later vote. Judicial self-restraint also vindicates the principle of prudence. A judge going rogue, ecstatically inventing a new positive right, causes societal upheaval. Conservatives view innovation with great skepticism. Does your wisdom really surpass that of George Mason, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson?

Even worse, from the leftist view, Judge Gorsuch implicitly recognizes the natural law. The natural law says that some things are not up for deciding. Euthanasia, for example, is evil because of the intrinsic worth of each person. A positive law inventing a new right to euthanasia may not be made. This is a recognition that an objective right and wrong exists, and has existed, across all times and cultures. It was the basis for convicting Nazis after World War II, as their state-approved acts were inherently evil.

Judge Gorsuchs views that judges should only judge, and let Congress legislate, is entirely mainstream. Judicial restraint was followed in England and the United States for 700 years. The alternative view that whatever a judge thinks is best is no standard at all. It is the very definition of tyranny. A far-sighted anti-federalist judge, writing under the pen name Brutus, noted: there is no power above them that can control their decisions, or correct their errors. He correctly predicted in 1788 that we would gradually lose our liberties due to Supreme Court justices temptation to extend government power.

Today, a majority of Supreme Court justices believe that its not what the Constitution means, its what we say it means. They routinely impose their views of how we should live. Indeed, states may not even experiment with gradual changes: One size must fit all.

The British Lord Acton famously warned that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Judge Gorsuch will soon sit on the Supreme Court. Time will tell whether he will be seduced by power or remain a judge faithful to the original meaning of the Constitution.

Scott Feldmann is a partner in a national law firm.
If you go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, one of the first things they offer you, after the stale coffee, is a copy of the Serenity Prayer, which states, God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference.

In essence, theyre reminding you to take responsibility for what you can control, but not worry about things that are out of your hands.

If the Democratic National Committee were smart, it would print this prayer everywhere that it has the space. It could put it on the stationary, biodegradable cups, Chuck Schumers forehead  everywhere.

The DNC needs help and it needs help badly. Right now, its leaders arent just living in denial, theyre doing it while tying off a vein and injecting some Michael Moore logic directly into their bloodstream.

The Democratic Party establishment is aware that it has a train wreck on its hands, but its hell-bent on blaming the Republicans and Donald Trump for all of its problems.

While speaking to the Los Angeles Times Washington bureau, Congressman Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, vented, The radical nature of this government is radicalizing Democrats, and thats going to pose a real challenge to the Democratic Party, which is to draw on the energy and the activism and the passion that is out there, but not let it turn us into what we despised about the Tea Party.

Schiff also fretted, Theres a whole new element, which is the reaction to the Trump administration, that makes this different in kind, certainly different in intensity, than I think weve ever seen after an election.  The more radical the administration is, the more radicalized our base becomes, which just feeds the Breitbart crowd, and who knows where that ends.

To summarize, Schiff thinks the Democratic Party base has gone crackers and may eventually act out in anger against their elected officials, but if they do its all Trumps fault.

I guess party people never change.

But lets be clear. Vocal elements of the Democratic Party were headed in a radical direction long before Donald Trump became the Republican nominee for president.

Occupy Wall Street began railing against capitalism in Zuccotti Park in New York City back in September 2011, setting up squatter camps while Trump was still taping The Apprentice for NBC.

In 2012, while then-Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was booed off the stage at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., when he tried to include God and Israel in the party platform, Trump was busy launching Trump International Realty, a luxury residential real estate firm.

Black Lives Matter began in the summer of 2013 after George Zimmermans acquittal in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin and gained steam after the 2014 deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner in New York City. The protests, marred by violence and the destruction of property, soon followed. On Trumps calendar in 2014? Feuding with Rosie ODonnell, who had just returned to ABCs The View.

But Schiff thinks that the Democrats held it together until Trump descended down those gilded escalators at Trump Tower in June 2015 and announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States.

Democrats were perfectly fine with radicals when they thought that they could fold them into the tent and turn their anger into electoral victory.

But that plan blew up in their face like a hillbillys rifle.

Now they are looking for someone to blame. My advice is to look in the mirror  and maybe have a stiff drink.

John Phillips is a CNN political commentator and can be heard weekdays at 3 p.m. on The Drive Home with Jillian Barberie and John Phillips on KABC/AM 790.
Remember Buy.com, the Orange County e-commerce company that sold everything from socks to computers?

The 20-year-old Aliso Viejo online retailer, called Rakuten USA since 2013, is pulling up stakes and heading north.

Rakuten will lay off 73 people by the end of March at its Orange County headquarters as it moves to Silicon Valley. The layoff notices were filed this month in a worker adjustment notice to the state.

This is a strategic move, as Rakuten is making a significant investment in bringing Rakuten.com to Silicon Valley, where the business can be better aligned with other Rakuten USA companies, spokesperson Patrick Dixon said in a statement.

Rakuten USA, with offices in San Mateo, says it offers more than 18 million products online and has served more than 20 million customers.

The Tokyo-based company, considered the Japanese equivalent to Amazon, first landed in the U.S. after it bought Buy.com in 2010 for $250 million. At the time, Rakuten was on an ambitious plan to compete with Amazon, expanding into the U.S. and across Europe.

Recently the company announced plans to contract its online presence, pulling out of three European countries (the UK, Spain and Austria).

Contact the writer: hmadans@ocregister.com or Twitter: @HannahMadans
The Irvine Company has dropped a lawsuit in which it accused supporters of the 25-story Museum House condominium project of circulating petitions on its shopping center properties without permission and bothering shoppers.

The action comes about two weeks after the petition by political action group Line in the Sand challenging the Newport Beach City Councils approval of the project was certified by the OC Registrar of Voters. On Tuesday, the council is expected to decide whether to stand by its decision or bring it to a public vote this year or in 2018.

The suit, filed in December, sought unspecified damages and a restraining order against Museum House developer Related California from going onto Irvine Co. properties for anything other than commercial activity.

We always want to ensure our guests have an enjoyable experience at our retail centers, while also allowing for free-speech activities under our content-neutral rules, the company said in a statement released Wednesday. With the signature-gathering process over, we have dropped the lawsuit but reserved the right to re-file if our free-speech rules are ignored in the future,

Related California called the suit meritless.

Related California spent more than $435,000 in an effort to halt the referendum drive, compared to the $91,645 Line in the Sand spent on its petition drive.

In a separate statement, the developer said people connected to another group opposed to the 25-story project, Citizens Against High Rise Urban Towers (CAHRUT), provided the bulk of money used to spur the referendum.

Sean Matsler, an attorney representing Related California, contends that family members of Dennis DeSnoo, a consultant who has worked for elected officials across Orange County and led a unsuccessful campaign in favor of an unsuccessful development measure in the city, are part of CAHRUTs leadership.

The developer also alleged DeSnoo works for the Irvine Co.

I dont work for them and theyre not a client, DeSnoo told the Register.

Related California officials have criticized CAHRUT for not disclosing its backers. The group donated $47,500 to the political action committee Newport 1st, which in turn made an in-kind donation of $46,506 to Line in the Sand, the PAC responsible for the successful petition against the project.

Attorney Mark Rosen, spokesman for CAHRUT, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. He previously declined to reveal the groups donors.

We undertook a very public process and complied with all requirements and approvals in an open and transparent manner, said Gino Canori, executive vice president for Related California. Transparency always serves the public interest and we would expect all interested parties to conduct themselves in the same manner.

The 100-unit condominium is slated to replace the Orange County Museum of Art, which will use the proceeds from the sale of the land to fund a move to Costa Mesa.

The art museum has asked an Orange County court to toss the petition, saying it does not meet state elections code requirements.

Contact the writer: 714-796-2478 or lcasiano@scng.com
FULLERTON  A Cal State Fullerton instructor had a run-in with three members of the CSUF Republicans during a protest on campus Wednesday, police say.

Investigators are looking into what happened because one of the three Republicans wants to press charges, said Capt. Scot Willey of the Cal State Fullerton Police Department.

The university is withholding the name of the instructor, a part-time lecturer, said university spokesman Jeff Cook.

It was unclear if the instructor was part of the protests, Willey and Cook said.

About 45 members of the school-sanctioned club Students for Justice in Palestine held a rally and march mid-day Wednesday opposing President Donald Trumps executive order temporarily barring immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries.

BREAKING: Protesters move back to Humanities, chant Let them in, kick Trump out! pic.twitter.com/5aY3yAjvwS  Daily Titan (@thedailytitan) February 8, 2017

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CSUF Republicans, another campus group, held a counter-protest that Cook described as substantially smaller.

Both groups had permission to gather, Willey said.

At one point, while those opposing Trumps order marched near the campus bookstore  with the Republicans following along  the instructor had the run-in with the three counter-protesters, Willey said.

Two of the Republicans involved were students, while the third was not, he said. No one was injured.

A man claiming to be a professor has assaulted one of our protesters. We are in contact with the police.  CSUF Republicans (@CSUFGOP) February 8, 2017

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Police were trying to figure out exactly what happened and whether charges or citations are warranted, Willey said.

There were no other issues, the captain said. Everything was peaceful, if somewhat boisterous, on both sides.

Contact the writer: 714-796-6979 or chaire@scng.com
Scott Schwebke is an investigative reporter for the Orange County Register and the Southern California News Group. A native of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., he was previously a breaking news and multimedia reporter for the Ogden, Utah, Standard-Examiner. Scott has also worked at newspapers in Utah, Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia covering everything from methamphetamine trafficking cops to hurricanes. He has also accompanied police on undercover drug buys and also provided an award winning, eyewitness account of the execution of a North Carolina death row inmate. Scott was part of the OC Registers investigative team that in 2017 produced the year-long, award winning Rehab Riviera series, examining problems in Southern Californias drug rehabilitation industry. He also teamed up with reporter Joe Nelson in 2019 on Bad Apples, an award winning investigation that exposed years of sex abuse cover up in the Redlands Unified School District. Having spent two years living in England including Liverpool, he is an avid Beatles fan and memorabilia collector.
WASHINGTON  The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Jeff Sessions as the next attorney general, following a bitter debate in the chamber that saw Republicans formally rebuke Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., for the manner in which she criticized her colleague from Alabama.

Sessions, a four-term U.S. senator, was the first senator to endorse Trump in February 2016, and his conservative, populist views have shaped many of the administrations early policies, including on immigration.

The vote, 52-47 in favor of confirmation, ran largely down party lines.

Republicans accused Democrats of seeking to undercut Trump by attempting to derail his cabinet choices. Its no secret that our Democrat colleagues dont like the new president and are doing what they can to undermine the new administration, said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the Judiciary Committee chairman.

He expressed disappointment in colleagues who, he said, suggested Sessions wont be able to put aside his policy preferences and enforce the law. This is especially troubling after he specifically committed to us during his confirmation hearing that, if hes confirmed, he will follow the law, regardless of whether he supported the statute as a policy matter, Grassley said.

Leading Democrats have argued that Trumps criticisms of the federal courts over his immigration order makes the need for an attorney general who will be willing to disagree with the president even more urgent.

What weve seen is a president who belittles judges when they dont agree with him, said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. What weve seen is a president who is willing to shake the roots of the Constitution and a fundamental premise  no religious test  thats embodied in our Constitution within his first few weeks in office, Schumer said. We certainly need an attorney general who will stand up to that president . . .. But Sessions is not, if you can say one thing about him, hes not independent of Donald Trump.

Sessions, 70, advanced out of the judiciary committee last week after a vote along party lines. The hearing took place after then-acting Attorney General, Sally Yates, an Obama administration holdover, had ordered the departments lawyers not to defend Trumps immigration order on grounds that she was not convinced it was lawful. Within hours, Trump fired her.

In his confirmation hearing last month, Sessions repeatedly vowed to put the law above his personal views. He said he would abide by the Supreme Court decision underpinning abortion rights and a court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. He said he understood that the waterboarding of terrorism suspects to elicit information is absolutely improper and illegal and, though he voted against it, he would uphold a law banning the governments bulk collection of phone records.

He also declared that he would recuse himself from Justice Department probe of Hillary Clintons email practices or her familys charitable foundation, mindful that his previous comments could place my objectivity in question.

But he has repeatedly declined to say whether he would recuse himself from any investigation involving Trump associates and possible links to Russias interference in the presidential election, saying he would seek the recommendations of department ethics officials and value them significantly in making a decision.

Sessions confirmation leaves a vacancy that will be filled by Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, a Republican. That term ends in 2018.

A measure of the hostility that has permeated the confirmation process for Trumps cabinet nominees was reflected in the rare censure of Warren after she read from a letter written by the late Coretta Scott King in opposition to Sessions nomination to the federal bench in 1986.

The senator has impugned the motives and conduct of our colleague from Alabama, said Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., of Warren, before the Senate voted along party lines to bar the Massachusetts senator from speaking during the remainder of the nomination debate.

Sessions, who came of age in the Deep South during the darkest days of the civil rights movement, has struggled to reconcile the charged racial politics of his region with the changing national discourse that has lifted longstanding legal barriers for minorities. His career has long been shadowed by charges that he is racially insensitive, which doomed his bid to become a federal judge.

His supporters have pointed to his prosecution as U.S. Attorney of two Ku Klux Klan members for killing a black youth, and his co-sponsoring of legislation to honor civil rights activist Rosa Parks with the Congressional Gold Medal. To underscore the point, Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., on Tuesday went to the floor and put on display an enlarged photograph of a governmental award of excellence given to Sessions in 2009 by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples Alabama chapteran award that he said Sessions forgot to tell us about. The plaque was engraved with the words for the outstanding work you do.

Said Graham: His biggest crime is, I think, that hes very conservative. That to me is not a disqualifier, any more than being liberal is a disqualifier.

McConnell on Wednesday said, Its been tough to watch all this good man has been put through in recent weeks. This is a well-qualified colleague with a deep reverence for the law. He believes strongly in the equal application of it to everyone.

But Sessions critics point to his record on voting rights, same-sex marriage, gender equality and immigration and say they fear he will work to restrict civil rights. They point to his prosecution of voting rights activists in Alabama in the 1980s that resulted in an acquittal for all three defendants, and which was the basis of Kings letter charging him with attempting to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters.

He has voted at least twice against comprehensive immigration reform, which was supported by members of his own party. They note he was one of just four senators in 2015 to oppose a Senate resolution affirming that the United States must not bar individuals from entering into the United States based on their religion.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, said on the floor that her office had received 114,000 calls and emails regarding Sessions, with more than 98 percent opposed. She quoted from constitutents who deeply oppose this president and this nominee and have hit the streets in protest. One doctor, she said, marched because of the thousands of patients Ive seen in the community, people of color, immigrants from all over the globe, who are terrified about the loss of their rights and the dramatic explosion of racially and culturally-focused hate crimes were reading about.

She questioned how Sessions would handle the governments investigation of Russian interference in the election, which could lead to the prosecution of individuals who helped hack the Democratic party in an effort to help Trump win.

It obviously has the potential to create embarrassment for the president and his people, and to implicate people involved in the campaign, she said. Can Sessions be independent of the White House? I do not believe he can.
SACRAMENTO  Amid nationwide legal battles over the presidents temporary refugee ban, California lawmakers are taking steps to make their state more welcoming to people fleeing war, persecution or disasters in their home countries.

Assembly Democrats announced bills Wednesday to grant refugees in-state tuition at public colleges and provide money to school districts with large child refugee populations. The bills would also give refugees with Special Immigrant Visas who served the U.S. Armed Forces or State Department in Iraq or Afghanistan priority enrollment in public colleges and help them apply foreign work experience toward a professional license.

These SIV individuals pretty much are veterans, said Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento. They served alongside our vets on the front line and so we want to honor and recognize their service.

The announcement comes as the federal government is fighting in court to reinstate a temporary suspension of the countrys refugee program and a 90-day travel ban on residents of seven Muslim-majority countries.

Were not taking part in this fear mongering and this hatred, and in fact were going to do the opposite, said Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, D-San Diego. Were going to open our arms. Were going to continue to find ways to support them and say, You are welcome.

The plan would also provide $5 million dollars to school districts with large child refugee populations. Cost estimates of the other proposals are not yet available.

McCarty said he does not expect the cost of providing in-state tuition to refugees to be insurmountable, particularly because refugees already become eligible for in-state tuition after living in the state for a year. He said he expects the bill would apply mostly to community colleges.

California took in nearly 8,000 refugees last year, McCarty said.

President Donald Trump signed the executive order on immigration and refugees Jan. 27. A week later, a federal judge in Seattle ordered a halt to enforcement of the ban, which the federal government is appealing. That filing is currently playing out in a San Francisco federal appeals court.

A refugee himself, Assemblyman Adrin Nazarian, D-Los Angeles, immigrated to the U.S. from Iran as a child.

Thats who were closing our doors on right now, Nazarian said. Im not going to stand for that, and Im glad to see that my colleagues also will not stand for that.
Its been a good while since Sting strapped on his bass for a straight-ahead rock n roll tour, but thats how fans found him on Wednesday for the first of two nights at the Hollywood Palladium, salting songs from his new album, 57th & 9th, perhaps the catchiest pop collection hes done in two decades, between older solo hits and a healthy dose of classics by the Police.

At 65, the British rocker has written his musical, done his classical album, even gone through the late-career lute phase that most rockers do  kidding!  and now seems perfectly happy to go back to the basics for a bit, with a show that revisited all of the irresistible melodies laid atop rock and reggae and jazz and pop that long ago made your favorite Police chief a star in the first place.

And with 22 songs scattered across an hour and 45 minutes, the crowd in the sold-out Palladium surely got to hear most of what of what they came for, the eight new tunes matched with eight Police songs, the rest of the set made up of solo songs and a Bowie cover.

Of course many the crowd probably only heard 21, because if you didnt know the structure of the night  Sting serving not only as headliner but host and cheerleader, too  you might not have been there when he strolled out on stage by himself at a few minutes after 8 p.m. to play a new number, Heading South On The Great North Road, a lyric based on the only road out of his northern England hometown, before the opening band, the Last Bandoleros, arrived for their set.

Before he played it, though, he told the first of many stories by way of introducing songs and their history, remembering how he and the Police had first played Los Angeles at the Whisky A Go Go in March 1979, and how this Englishman in L.A. flipped out over the first palm tree hed ever seen.

I said, Guys, stop the van! and they looked at me like I was crazy because I got out and hugged the palm tree, Sting said.

When he returned an hour later hed shed the dapper jacket and acoustic guitar for a T-shirt, jeans and his usual well-worn bass, jumping right into the past with a pair of Police hits, Synchronicity II and Spirits In The Material World, which as weve already noted, showed hed come to rock and rock hard.

His current band features longtime guitarist Dominic Miller, whos played with Sting for nearly three decades now, Millers guitarist son Rufus, whos been in the band at least since the last rock show Sting played here, a short run at the Wiltern Theatre in 2011, and Orange Countys Josh Freese on drums proving himself more than up to the challenge set by Police drummer Stewart Copelands work on the original versions of these songs.

Stings activism on various fronts is well-known but with one or two exceptions he stayed away from explicit commentary on recent changes in American leadership. That said, There is no political solution, the opening line of Spirits In The Material World got a huge cheer from the crowd, as did other lyrics in that song, and his introduction to One Fine Day, a climate change-inspired song from the new record, made clear what the rock star thinks of policies affecting that aspect of the worlds health.

I would love to live in that world where climate change is a hoax, Sting said. I would happily be wrong in what I have believed for the last 30 years  but its a (bleeping) joke. William Blake, the great English poet said a man who persists in his folly will one day become wise. Lets (bleeping) hope hes right.

Other high points early in the set include the older solo tune Englishman In New York, which opened with a slinky reggae-fired bass line from Sting, and the new single, I Cant Stop Thinking About You.

Various members of the Last Bandoleros sang backing vocals with Stings son Joe Sumner throughout the set, and the accordionist for that band of young San Antonio musicians also popped out periodically to add a touch of Tex-Mex to Stings sound.

Im So Happy I Cant Stop Crying, a country song Sting wrote a few years back, resurfaced in a reggae arrangement. Country reggae probably isnt going to be the next big genre but it was fun to see him experimenting with the different sounds that long have interested him.

New song Petrol Head rocked harder than anything hes done in decades and 50,000  a song he wrote after the death of Prince last year, which was preceded by a cover of David Bowies Ashes to Ashes sung by Joe Sumner  was a touching commentary on the mortality of aging musicians from the rock stars point of view.

Shape of My Heart from the 1993 album Ten Summoners Tales featured the delicate guitar picking of Dom Miller and on Wednesday filled a spot in the set where earlier stops on this tour the equally gentle Fragile was played.

But other than the Arabic-tinged Desert Rose, thrilling in its percussive abandon, the last stretch of the show offered one fast-paced rock number after another, classic police hits such as Walking On The Moon, So Lonely, and the set-closing mash-up of Roxanne and Bill Withers Aint No Sunshine.

The first encore kept that fast pace with the early Police number Next To You after which arrived Every Breath You Take, one of that bands biggest hits. Both earned huge sing-alongs from the crowd, as did many songs in the night.

After another very short break, Sting returned to stage by himself for a final song, sitting down to play acoustic guitar and sing The Empty Chair, the just-nominated candidate for the Oscar for best song, a composition he wrote for the documentary Jim, which tells the story of James Foley, the American journalist murdered by ISIS.

This guy was a true American hero, Sting said in introducing the number. Compassionate, inclusive, kind.

The Last Bandoleros opened with a rousing set of roots-based rock and roll, often with touches of the Tejano music that flourishes in their hometown of San Antonio. They were a whole lot of fun and seem poised for bigger things, and the belief that Sting has in them was reflected when he and his entire band came out to join in on their debut single, Where Do You Go, Sting singing backing vocals into a mic shared with the Bandoleros bass player.

Joe Sumner, whose band Fiction Plane had a few albums out over the past decade, played a solo acoustic set of three songs, mentioning as he introduced his song You You You that the lyrics it shares with the Polices De Do Do Do De Da Da Da were his childhood invention.

Thats true, Sting said later in his set, grinning at his oldest son. He never did get any royalties, though, he said. Its too late now, the statute of limitations has run out.
WASHINGTON  The White House on Thursday counseled Kellyanne Conway, one of President Donald Trumps top advisers, in an unusual show of displeasure after she urged consumers to buy fashion products marketed by Ivanka Trump, the presidents daughter. Legal experts said Conway might have violated a federal ethics rule against endorsing products or promoting an associates financial interests.

Go buy Ivankas stuff is what I would say, Conway said in a Thursday morning interview with Fox News, speaking from the White House briefing room. Im going to give a free commercial here: Go buy it today, everybody; you can find it online.

Sean Spicer, the presidents press secretary, would not elaborate on what the counseling entailed.

Jason Chaffetz, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said Conways comments were wrong, wrong, wrong, and theres no excuse for it. Chaffetz  who so far had not acted on calls since Election Day to investigate ethics issues related to Donald Trump  and the panels ranking Democrat, Elijah Cummings, formally asked the Office of Government Ethics for an inquiry.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and Public Citizen, nonprofit advocacy groups, sent their own requests to the ethics office to investigate whether Conways comments went over the line. The director of the office, Walter M. Shaub Jr., has said publicly that the president needs to do more to separate himself from his businesses.

Federal ethics rules state that an employee of the governments executive branch cannot use public office for personal gain or to endorse products or services on behalf of friends or relatives. Legal experts said Conway, whose title is counselor to the president, appeared to have violated that and possibly other conflict-of-interest rules, which do not apply to the president and vice president, but do apply to their staffs.

The president and the Trump Organization continue to be targets of criticism  and formal requests for investigation by Democrats in Congress  over potential conflicts of interest because of their global business operations. A particular focus of Democratic lawmakers in Congress is Donald Trumps lease with the federal government on the Old Post Office building in Washington, redeveloped as the Trump International Hotel. The hotel and Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trumps club in Palm Beach, Florida, are among the Trump properties critics see as profiting from a surge in interest because of his presidency.

A lawsuit is also pending in federal court in New York, alleging that Trump is violating the Constitution by accepting payment from foreign governments at his hotels and golf courses around the world. It is one of dozens of lawsuits filed against him in recent weeks.

The Trumps argue that they have taken major steps to avoid potential conflicts, including withdrawing from more than a dozen planned international deals. But the family is moving ahead with other plans, like the launch of a new hotel brand, Scion, which they hope will develop about 30 hotels around the United States, requiring approval from local governments that rely on federal aid.

Conway was responding to a Trump family clash with Nordstrom, the department store chain, which has dropped Trumps line. On Wednesday, the president used his personal and White House Twitter accounts to lash out at Nordstrom, saying that the company had treated his daughter so unfairly. Those comments are the latest in a series of ethical questions about the relationship between his official role and his familys interests.

Conways remarks amounted to using your government position as kind of a walking billboard for products or services offered by a private individual, said Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard. She is attempting quite crudely to enrich Ivanka and therefore the presidents family.

Ordinarily, such conduct might be handled with a letter of reprimand, though it could lead to termination, legal experts said, but those decisions are largely up to the individual agency.

I think this is a violation, but Id like to hear an argument as to why its not, said Lawrence M. Noble, general counsel of the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit advocacy group, who was formerly the top lawyer and ethics officer at the Federal Election Commission. She was speaking on behalf of the White House, in her official position, which makes it more serious.

Richard W. Painter, chief ethics counsel under President George W. Bush, said Conways conduct would not have been tolerated in that administration.

Recent events show that the president and the people close to him do not intend to make meaningful distinctions between his official capacity as president and the Trump family business, he said. Of Donald Trumps aides, Painter said, Instead of trying to push him back on this, theyre jumping in this and shilling for the businesses alongside him.

Nordstrom, one of several retailers to reduce or eliminate its ties to Ivanka Trumps line of clothes, jewelry and accessories, said its decision to do so was based purely on sales performance. But deep division in views of Donald Trump have put retailers in a bind. Critics of the presidents have called for a boycott of Trump-branded products and the stores that sell them, while his supporters have called for a boycott of stores that drop them.

Conway said that Ivanka Trump was being targeted by people who disliked her father. Theyre using her to get to him, Conway said on Thursday.

with industry and government leaders, and her husband, Jared Kushner, is an adviser to the president. Acting as a surrogate for her father, she has drawn free attention to the Ivanka Trump-branded products  sheath dresses, heels and jewelry  that she sometimes wears.

That commingling has created a thicket of ethical issues that have become more pointed since the election.

The dress she wore at the Republican National Convention, for example, was among the items presented to apparel buyers in Japan last year, as Ivanka Trumps company was finalizing a deal with a Japanese clothing company whose largest shareholder is a government-owned bank. That deal was in its final stages when Ivanka Trump joined her fathers meeting with Japans prime minister, Shinzo Abe, in November.

And in November, after her fathers election and the day after she appeared on 60 Minutes, Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry sent an email to fashion journalists with a photo from the interview, alerting them that the gold-and-diamond bangle she wore in the picture was available for $10,800. The jewelry line later apologized.
SANTA ANA  A Newport Coast man has been charged with forgery and elder abuse for stealing more than $500,000 from a 95-year-old woman with dementia, authorities said on Wednesday.

Thomas Chapman Hood, 69, was charged Tuesday with 21 felonies, including forgery, residential burglary and theft from an elder.

Hood worked as a part-time assistant for the 95-year-olds trustee, working out of the home office of the trustees secretary in Orange, according to the Orange County District Attorneys Office. The trustee handled the womans affairs.

Prosecutors allege that on March 1, 2015, Hood took the womans check books from the Orange office while the secretary was in another room. The 95-year-old woman was in a senior-care facility.

Hood is suspected of forging the trustees signature on dozens of checks, totaling at least $534,850, prosecutors said. Investigators believe he used the money for personal expenses, including credit-card bills, and for a two-week vacation to Paris.

The trustee discovered the alleged fraud when a payment from the womans bank to her assisted-living home was denied because of insufficient funds, the District Attorneys Office said. The trustee then contacted the Sheriffs Department.

Contact the writer: semery@ocregister.com
A Newport Beach celebrity dentist, who starred on the plastic surgery makeover TV series The Swan, has been barred from practice after the California Dental Board called her an immediate danger to patients.

Sherri Worths license was suspended Feb. 3 pending the outcome of the boards disciplinary action against her, according to legal documents. Her attorney, Fredrick Ray, through an assistant, declined to comment Wednesday, but documents show that he and Worth agreed to the interim suspension.

According to legal documents filed this month by the dental board, Worth has committed repeated acts of negligence, fraud, incompetence, overdiagnosis and overtreatment. Examples cited include: billing more than $11,000 for two patients for laser surgery that was never provided; falsifying dental records; and Photoshopping a digital x-ray to cover up two defective crowns.

The papers say she repeatedly overtreated perfectly healthy teeth with extensive, expensive and unnecessary restorations. In one case, a 28-year-old woman who was treated by Worth in 2016 paid almost $40,000 for months of unnecessary and damaging treatments that have caused excruciating pain and will require spending more than $30,000 to have Worths work repaired.

In another instance, the documents describe Worth placing crowns on a patients two pristine molars which were free of decay, fractures or fillings, as nothing short of battery. The teeth ultimately required root canals after they were mutilated by Worth.

According to documents, Worth came to the attention of the dental board after a malpractice insurer reported paying $641,441 in 2012 to a patient who experienced relentless pain after receiving a mouthful of botched crowns. The patient, Ingrid Valdez and her husband, Barry Cosgrove, who live in Laguna Beach, sued Worth for dental malpractice in 2010.

In 2015, the dental board filed an accusation aimed at disciplining Worth. It has since been updated five times as more patients have come forward.

Cosgrove, on Wednesday, said he and his wife are relieved that Worth can no longer practice, but are upset the process took so long.

It really is an example of justice working but way too late, Cosgrove said. I just feel so badly for the people that had to be injured since we cautioned people to stay away.

On Wednesday, Worths website was down but it has previously featured testimonials from celebrities including drummer Tommy Lee and actress Anna Kendrick, as well as TV appearances on Access Hollywood, The Swan, Dr. Phil and Tyra, among others.

To view a dentists disciplinary record, go to breeze.ca.gov/datamart/searchByName.do.

Contact the writer: cperkes@scng.com, 714-796-3686
CAIRO  Yemens foreign minister said Wednesday his country has asked for a reassessment of a U.S. raid last month that killed several women and children, but denied reports that his government has requested a suspension of American ground operations.

Abdul-Malik al-Mekhlafi said that Yemen continues to cooperate with the United States and continues to abide by all the agreements. He added that the government is involved in talks with the U.S. administration on the latest raid.

He said reports that Yemen has demanded a halt to U.S. special operations are not true.

The Jan. 28 raid against al-Qaida militants in central Yemen killed several women and children. A Navy SEAL was also killed in the raid, and six U.S. soldiers were wounded.

In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman, Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, said: We are not aware of any such ban, and in fact have seen reports of Yemeni officials disputing this report.

 The government of Yemen under President Hadi has been a strong partner in the fight against AQAP, and we continue to closely coordinate our operations with them, he added.
Alexander Batyokhtin, a 41-year-old man from the Siberian village of Sosnovka, spent six weeks shaping around 12 cubic meters of fresh snow into a three-meter high church, where his fellow villagers can now to say a prayer and light a candle.

There is no real church in Sosnovka, or in any of the nearby villages, for that matter, and people who want to visit a place of worship have to drive for tens of kilometers to the city of Omsk. This is often an impossible task for the sick and the elderly, and it was this unfortunate situation that inspired Alexander to use the most abundant resource in his village to build a temporary church. He had worked in construction for years, and even though he was forced to retire after being diagnosed with a serious illness, the man was determined to offer Sosnovka a place to celebrate Christmas and Epiphany in properly.

Photo: Natalia Graf/RG

Last year, as soon as the first snowflakes started to fall, Alexander started drawing up the plans for his epic snow church, and after the first serious snow, he got to work. Lucky for him, there was plenty of snow to work with this winter. He first laid the foundation, then moved to the walls, before completing the twelve arches symbolizing the 12 apostles, and an impressive church tower complete with a giant cross. He worked on it every day for six weeks, even when temperatures dropped below -30 degrees Celsius, and he managed to finish it in time for the holidays. The three-meter-high church is still around today, and is expected to last until early spring.

The snow church only has enough room to accommodate two or three people at a time, but no has complained about the lack of room so far. On the contrary, locals were so thrilled to finally have their own church, that they all brought icons and crosses to decorate its walls and altar. Alexander sees their gesture as the biggest miracle. He simply went home one day, and when he returned, the church was full of icons, some of them brought from as far as Spain or Jerusalem.

Photo: video screengrabs

As word of the snow church of Sosnovka, the only one in Russias Azov region, spread, more and more people came by to see it for themselves. Both Alexander and his fellow villagers have been overwhelmed by the attention, even though that just like the church, its only temporary.

News of the snow church has even reached the bishop of Azov, who congratulated Batyokhtin on his work and drawing attention to the fact that there are no churches in that area of Siberia. Hopefully, work on a real church will begin in spring, he said.

Source: RG
In the face of what the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) describes as 'chronic overcrowding and understaffing in our hospitals, residential care and community settings' the INMO Executive Council rejected staffing, recruitment, retention proposals put forward by the HSE, as being 'totally inadequate'.

The INMO will now serve notice of nationwide action commencing on Tuesday, March 7, 2017. The action will take the form of an immediate and continuous work to rule involving nurses and midwives working to contract resulting in a ban on overtime, cross cover and redeployment.

"In considering the proposals, Executive Council members presented numerous examples of nurses and midwives unable to provide full care to their patients, working beyond the end of their shift without pay, unable to take meal breaks and facing unmanageable workloads because of the appalling conditions, and inadequate staffing they now face every day said Martina Harkin-Kelly, INMO President.

SEE ALSO: 27 patients awaiting a bed in Tullamore Hospital (February 8)

Executive Council members considered the proposals put forward as 'completely inadequate' in terms of retaining staff and recognising the reality of the workplace endured by nurses and midwives. On recruitment, the proposals were regarded as 'too little too late' and still not competing with that being offered in the private sector and in other countries.

INMO General Secretary, Liam Doran said, the clear message received from INMO members is that their workplaces are now unsafe and dangerously overcrowded. All areas are understaffed and the services are at breaking point which will require radical solutions to take the pressure off struggling nurses and midwives. We need to attract and retain nurses and midwives in sufficient numbers to provide safe care and the current proposals contain no adequate remedies for this.

The rejection of the proposals, which emerged from late night talks on Tuesday, February 7, will now lead to the INMO exercising the 90% mandate it received in a ballot of its members prior to Christmas.

In addition, the Organisation will commence a series of rolling stoppages if the dispute is not resolved.

Tullamore Hospital had 27 patients awaiting admission yesterday (February 8) according to INMO figures.
Fifteen months ago, a former Bellevue city councilman told a woman a joke at a pool hall.

On Thursday, a Sarpy County judge was not amused.

Chuck Fredrick, 82, was sentenced to 30 days in jail on a misdemeanor charge of disturbing the peace. Sarpy County Judge Stefanie Martinez said Fredrick could serve that time on house arrest.

The charge stemmed from an incident at The Crook in Bellevue on Nov. 7, 2015. Fredrick and a woman had been playing poker together at the pool hall, at 908 Fort Crook Road.

They went outside to the smoking patio, officials said, and Fredrick asked the woman if she wanted to hear a joke. She agreed and Fredrick told her the joke, which had a punchline that involved touching the womans breasts.

In July, a jury of five women and one man found Fredrick guilty of disturbing the peace. He was acquitted of third-degree sexual assault.

Fredricks attorney, James Martin Davis, said after the sentencing that the punishment was excessive. And while the judge called Fredricks behavior intolerable, Davis said he thought it was understandable given Fredricks age.

Its just like young kids have no sense of judgment; when people get older they lose that same sense of judgment, Davis said.

The maximum punishment for disturbing the peace, a misdemeanor, is three months in jail and a $500 fine.

Deputy Sarpy County Attorney Scott Earl had asked the judge to sentence Fredrick to 30 days of house arrest.

I dont know how he thinks any woman on Earth could take that as a joke, Earl said.

Davis asked for probation or a fine for his client. He reminded the court that Fredrick was acquitted of the sexual assault charge.

Im sorry you lost, Davis said to Earl, referring to the sexual assault charge. But Im glad we won.

Davis compared Fredricks case to that of another former Bellevue city official convicted of disturbing the peace, Dan Berlowitz. Berlowitz, the citys former administrator, was given a $50 fine.

Berlowitz initially was charged with misdemeanor third-degree assault, second-degree trespassing and disturbing the peace after a disturbance at a Bellevue dentists office. The assault and trespassing charges later were dropped.

Earl, who handled both cases, said they were different.

Fredrick said in a statement that what he did was wrong. He said that if he knew that the woman was offended he would have apologized. The statement also noted the personal toll the court case had taken on Fredrick and his family.

Martinez said from her reading of the presentence report, it didnt appear that Fredrick had taken responsibility for his actions.

The facts surrounding this case and the behaviors displayed are intolerable in this community, Martinez said before sentencing Fredrick. I dont believe a term of probation would be appropriate. I dont think a fine would be appropriate.

Fredrick was elected to the Bellevue City Council in 1998 and gave up the seat to run unsuccessfully for mayor in 2002. He most recently ran for mayor in 2014 and lost to Mayor Rita Sanders in the general election.

Fredrick attends almost every City Council meeting and speaks during the public comment portion.
The owner of a northwest Omaha restaurant questioned Wednesday why charges were filed in the first place after a jury decided he had not obstructed a government operation last summer.

On Aug. 13, John Horvatinovich, the owner of Salt 88, tweeted out photos of two teens with the comment, Omaha restaurant peeps: These two are trying to ruin your night w/ sting operations in town.

The teens had gone into the restaurant at 3623 N. 129th St. and attempted to buy beer as part of the Nebraska State Patrols alcohol compliance checks. The teenagers were denied after presenting their real IDs, according to trial testimony.

If he had been convicted of the misdemeanor charge, Horvatinovich could have faced up to a year in jail, a $1,000 fine, or both.

I think it was an absolute waste of taxpayer money, Horvatinovich said outside the courtroom after the verdict. Horvatinovich has said the last six months have been difficult as he has spent less time at the restaurant and sales are down.

The six-member jury reached a verdict after deliberating 2 hours Tuesday afternoon and less than an hour more on Wednesday morning.

My argument is still that we have freedom of speech and that he was well within his rights to send this tweet out, said Carolyn Wilson, Horvatinovichs attorney.

Project Extra Mile, an organization that works to prevent underage drinking, and law enforcement agencies have been doing the compliance checks since 1997.

The question before the jury was whether Horvatinovich knew the teens were a part of the compliance checks and intentionally chose to hinder the government operation.

Assistant City Prosecutor Makayla Maclin said Horvatinovichs tweet impeded the compliance checks. After the tweet was sent, a sergeant told the teens to return to the office for their safety. The two 17-year-olds and two troopers didnt complete checks on the seven remaining businesses on their list.

Wilson said the tweet was a public service announcement to remind fellow restaurateurs to check IDs.

Horvatinovich and Wilson both questioned how the compliance checks are conducted and said they hoped this case would lead to changes.

Wilson said she had concerns about the involvement of State Patrol family members  one of the teens is the cousin of a trooper involved in the case  and the use of minors in the checks.

That was the big issue here. Who put their safety in jeopardy? Was it my client or the Nebraska State Patrol? Wilson said.

Horvatinovich said that while he doesnt think the compliance checks should be eliminated, he does think Project Extra Miles involvement with the checks should be eliminated.

Diane Riibe, executive director of Project Extra Mile, said the organizations involvement is administrative. She said they provide paperwork for the checks but do not pick the restaurants or the minors involved.

And Riibe said the checks work. When the checks started in 1997 Omaha had a noncompliant rate of 41 percent, which is now down to 6 percent, according to Project Extra Mile.

City Prosecutor Matt Kuhse said the use of a relative in the checks did not strike him as odd as investigators look for people who would be willing to cooperate and do those types of investigations.

I dont think theres anything wrong with seeking out family members or friends of family and things like that, Kuhse said.

The charges were filed, he said, because thats how the legal system works. If theres evidence to charge someone with a crime, then its a prosecutors obligation to move on those charges.

And people like Mr. Horvatinovich have an absolute right to have a trial and let a jury decide whether the charge fits or not, Kuhse said.
KEARNEY, Neb.  Two 15-year-old girls are in custody after allegedly stealing a car in Kearney on Wednesday and leading police on a chase through Kearney and Gibbon and then on Interstate 80 at speeds of up to 120 mph.

About 7:25 p.m., the Kearney Police Department received a report that a 2002 Oldsmobile Alero had been stolen. Shortly afterward, Sgt. Derek Luke said officers spotted the car and tried to stop the vehicle, but a pursuit began.

The driver led officers south through Kearney to I-80, then to Gibbon, where the pursuit went through neighborhoods, then back on to I-80 eastbound, where road spikes were deployed. The teens were stopped 3 miles east of the Shelton interchange.

Luke said I-80 was closed briefly because the teens had stopped in the middle of the eastbound lanes. The girls were taken into custody without incident, and no injuries were reported.

Earlier Wednesday, the teens allegedly left Boys Towns Grand Island office, Luke said, stole a 2000 Chevrolet Cavalier and came to Kearney, where they abandoned the vehicle in a Target parking lot.

On Thursday, the girls were being held at the Lancaster County Youth Services Center in Lincoln. Police were asking the Buffalo County Attorneys Office to file a juvenile petition against one girl on willful reckless driving and felony flight to avoid arrest and petitions against both girls on theft of a motor vehicle.

A juvenile petition is used to bring minors before the court to answer to charges that, if they were adults, would be a crime.

The Buffalo County Sheriffs Office, the Grand Island Police Department, the Hall County Sheriffs Office and the Nebraska State Patrol assisted Kearney police in the incident.
HANCOCK, Iowa  The 24th annual Maple Tree Tapping event at Botna Bend Park will be held on March 4.

Every year young and old alike come out to tap the silver maples at the park in Hancock, Iowa, getting hands-on experience drilling, collecting sap and discovering how the process of making real maple syrup begins.

Its a good kick-off for spring, said Jon Fenner, Botna Bend park ranger. In the wintertime, theres not a lot of outdoor projects to do. Im excited to get out there and tap the trees and involve others in the process.

The event will host three tappings this year, open to all ages, according to Pottawattamie County Conservation. Events will start at Olsen Lodge on the Botna Bend grounds at 9, 10 and 11 a.m. Each program will last about 45 minutes.

Additionally, the park will host a KinderNature event in conjunction with the tree tapping. The Childrens Maple Tree Tap is for children 7 years old and younger and will start in the craft house at Olsen Lodge at 10 a.m.

Space in the tappings  both the public tappings and KinderNature  is limited and preregistration is required by Wednesday, March 1, the conservation department said. Call (712) 545-3283 or go to pottcoconservation.com to register.

Individuals that have not pre-registered may be admitted on the day of the event only if space is still available, the department said in a release.

There is no cost for the event, though free will donations will be accepted to support continued programming.

Participants must pay the daily park fee of $2 or have an annual permit, which costs $10. Pottawattamie County Conservation encouraged individuals to dress for the weather.

Botna Bend is located at 42926 Mahogany Road, just off U.S. Highway 59 in Hancock, Iowa.
LINCOLN  It wasnt hard to tell the supporters from the opponents at a Wednesday public hearing on Gov. Pete Ricketts proposal to cut Nebraskas top income tax rate.

Legislative Bill 337 drew enthusiastic support from business interests and free-market advocates arguing that the cuts would help the state grow.

Opponents included groups saying property tax cuts should take priority or raising concerns about the tax plans impact on schools and other state services.

But the lines were blurred on the governors other tax initiative this year  a separate bill to change how Nebraska values ranch and farmland for property tax purposes.

Whether speaking as proponents or opponents, people testifying on LB 338 said it would take a step in the right direction but not do enough for farmers and ranchers.

The Revenue Committee heard both bills Wednesday at a hearing that filled all available seats and lasted more than seven hours.

Even so, many opponents of the income tax bill left unhappy after Sen. Jim Smith of Papillion cut off testimony before they could speak. Smith is committee chairman and introduced LB 337 on the governors behalf.

Sen. Burke Harr of Omaha complained that, even without counting the unlimited time given to Ricketts and Tax Commissioner Tony Fulton, backers of the proposal got more time to speak.

LB 337 would cut Nebraskas top individual income tax rate from 6.84 percent to 5.99 percent in eight steps.

The bill would use a trigger mechanism to phase in the cuts. Projections of state revenue growth exceeding 3.5 percent would trigger each step.

The first step could occur in 2020, depending on growth in state tax revenues.

Ricketts and Fulton acknowledged that, as shown by a World-Herald analysis, cuts could be triggered when actual revenues fall far short of projections.

They said the reverse could happen as well, that projections would not trigger a cut while actual revenues turn out to meet that level.

Projections tend not to be precise in hindsight, Fulton said.

But Sen. Mike Groene of North Platte wondered whether a different type of trigger might be better.

I would like to see tax cuts, but I want it done right, he said.

Sen. Paul Schumacher of Columbus asked whether the potential tax savings would be enough to encourage economic growth in the state.

He calculated that a small business netting $300,000 in income could save about $2,550 with the plan, which he said was not enough to create a new job.

But Fulton said passing the tax cut plan would send a message to businesses, as would lawmakers doing nothing about the top tax rate.

Brian Gubbels, who is on the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce Small Business Assistance Council, said the savings might be small but lower tax rates would help attract people to the state.

This is a long-term game, he said.

On the other side, Mark Fahleson of the group Reform for Nebraskas Future said Nebraskans want meaningful property tax relief before looking at income taxes.

Other opponents said LB 337 would direct the biggest benefits to the wealthiest Nebraskans while making it more difficult for the state to adequately fund government services.

State revenue officials estimate that the plan would reduce state income tax revenue by $288 million per year when fully implemented.

The top income tax rate applies to the portion of an individuals income, after deductions, that exceeds $29,830 per year. For married couples, the rate applies to the portion of income after deductions that exceeds $59,660.

On the other bill, Sen. Lydia Brasch of Bancroft, the Agriculture Committee chairwoman, said she introduced it because farmers and ranchers are crying for help.

I think this is a sound, long-term, stable solution that will bring farming into the future, she said.

Under LB 338, ag land would no longer be valued based on sale prices for land. Instead, valuations would be based on the income that the land could potentially produce.

State officials estimate that it would shave 2 percent off statewide ag land valuations if it were applied this year. The bill also would impose a 3.5 percent annual cap on statewide ag land valuation increases.

Both proponents and opponents generally said they like the concept behind the bill. But they also said it would not address the property tax burdens on farmers and ranchers, which some called a crisis.

We need tax relief now, said Mary Lou Block, a cow-calf operator from Custer County who spoke in opposition to LB 338.

This is a start or a part of the total solution, said Al Juhnke of the Nebraska Pork Producers Association. We need reform for the long-term and relief in the short-term.

Ricketts suggested that lawmakers could combine his ag land plan with other ideas.

Senators and testifiers alike raised numerous questions about the complex process for calculating the new valuations. LB 338 leaves many details to be worked out by the state property tax administrator.

It looks like we found something more complicated than TEEOSA (the state school aid formula), Schumacher said.
The writer is an assistant professor of interdisciplinary leadership at Creighton University.

President Donald Trumps Jan. 27 executive order  now on hold as it works its way through the courts  temporarily bans refugees from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

The stated purpose is to prevent terrorists from entering the U.S. It is Trumps most controversial executive order.

This executive order affects refugees and, in practice, other individuals who are traveling from (not necessarily born in) the seven countries.

In 2015, the last year for which complete data are available, the U.S. accepted roughly 70,000 refugees from around the world. As one might suspect, these refugees came from a variety of troubled countries. About 28,000 of these refugees were from countries on the banned list, according to the Migration Policy Institute. This brief analysis explores the logic of the executive order.

 Was the threat of terrorism considered? The executive order mentions that war, strife, disaster, and civil unrest increase the likelihood that terrorists will use . . . means . . . to enter the United States. Most of the seven countries subject to the executive order  all but Iran  were among the top 10 countries suffering from high incidents of terrorism in 2015, according to the Institute of Economics and Peace.

However, a number of other countries that also suffer from terrorism are not affected, including Afghanistan (second), Nigeria (third), and Egypt (fifth). This suggests that policymakers did not exclusively use the prevalence of terrorism as a criterion for inclusion on the banned list.

 Are these state sponsors of terrorism? Perhaps a reputation as a government sponsor of terrorism was a rationale.

This makes sense for some (Iran, Somalia, Sudan and Syria) but not others on the banned list. Moreover, Afghanistan, Egypt and Pakistan reportedly have histories of intelligence and military services that support terrorism. This didnt seem to be a consideration for policymakers.

 Was conflict a factor? As noted, war and strife . . . and civil unrest are discussed in the executive order. Insurgencies are present in most of the countries affected.

However, several other high-terrorism incidence countries present insurgencies: Afghanistan, Nigeria, Thailand and Ukraine, among others. This doesnt appear to a central factor for inclusion on the banned list.

 Is the policy xenophobic? The banned countries are populated mostly by Muslims of various denominations. However, many high-terrorism rate countries that arent on the banned list also have large Muslim populations.

Like the countries affected by the executive order, many high-terrorism and conflict-prone countries are non-Christian majority and are ethnically diverse.

As such, the executive order does not appear to be motivated by a racial or religious bias.

 Whats the role of trade? Some might ask: Whats the potential cost to banning refugees and discouraging travel to and from countries on the banned list? The president appears to value export trade  he may be less likely to endanger valuable trade relationships, all else being equal.

A review of U.S. export relationships provided by the Census Bureau reveals that Iraq has the most valuable export relationship among the banned countries, purchasing roughly $1.6 billion in US goods in 2015  59th among our trade relationships.

The other banned countries fell well below that. For context: The U.S. exported $280 billion in goods to our largest trading partner, Canada, in 2015.

Thus, the prevalence of terrorism, the state support of terrorism, or an insurgency within a country do not appear to be criteria. However, all the banned countries are minor U.S. trade partners, suggesting that the cost to U.S. exporters was a consideration.

The creation of government policies involves many complex inputs. Not all are analyzed here. However, given what we know, the executive order contains a list of well-known suspects that dont trade much with the U.S.

The executive order seems more a low-cost publicity venture created to meet a campaign promise than a serious policy designed to enhance domestic security.
The wrong person to chair Ed Committee

State Sen. Mike Groenes email stated ever since the cowardly draft dodgers of the sixties hid behind deferments and infested our public education system, our public schools have weakened (Blunt on education, and now in position of power,  Feb. 5 World-Herald).

He did not identify any of these cowardly draft dodgers, though. How about these three: Donald Trump, Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh. They could be Americas poster boys for cowardly draft dodgers. They have certainly tried to weaken Americas public education system, just not from any classroom.

What set Groene off on this tirade? Seeing a mention of the correlation between poverty and low educational achievement, a correlation found time and again in numerous sociological studies. If Groene believes that is what we all say around the kitchen table, he needs to visit more kitchen tables.

In this surreal political climate of 2017, an agricultural equipment salesman who wrote that teachers are lazy and second rate and should be grateful that Walmart is hiring is the head of the Education Committee in the Nebraska Legislature.

Rick Behrens, Omaha

Ricketts plan offers little relief

Our lawmakers will consider a policy that gives tax cuts to the wealthiest Nebraskans while giving little relief for the rest of us (Reaction is mixed on Ricketts tax-cut plans, Jan. 13 World-Herald). Legislative Bill 337 also would siphon money away from proven programs that support our high quality of life. It would drain hundreds of millions of dollars needed to support schools, health care and other essential services.

This proposal comes at a time when our state is facing a nearly $1 billion budget gap. I urge state senators to oppose LB 337. Its not good for Nebraska.

Anne Hindery, Omaha

Wheres that Bacon outreach to public?

I find it curious that Don Bacon has not yet held or apparently scheduled a district town hall meeting. During the campaign he accused Rep. Brad Ashford of not holding town hall meetings and not listening to the people.

But Ashford held information session every few weeks throughout the district for two years.

Is Bacon afraid to meet the voters? Perhaps the barrage of phone calls to his offices tells him more than he wants to know.

Peg ODea Lippert, Papillion

A Muslim ban by any other name

Kevin Rooneys Feb. 6 Public Pulse letter misses the mark. It is quite true that the Obama administration identified the seven countries in question  Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Libya and Sudan  as troublesome. But it never instituted a travel ban. Requiring visas is not a travel ban.

Rooney fails to call President Donald Trumps ban what it really is  a ban on Muslims. Were it not intended to be that, Trump wouldnt have consulted Rudy Giuliani about how to make a Muslim ban legal.

This country does not have a religious test. Such a test is unconstitutional.

Rooney also doesnt seem to realize that protests are constitutional, too. This is the United States, not North Korea.

Mary M. Roeser, Omaha

Trump is only keeping his promises

During his campaign, Donald Trump said he would abandon the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He has. During his campaign, Donald Trump said he would go after the North American Free Trade Agreement. He is.

The TPP would have benefited Nebraska farmers and ranchers, and NAFTA already does. So, after reading the Feb. 6 World-Herald article, Nebraska farmers, ranchers wary of Trump ending NAFTA, which has quadrupled U.S. ag exports, I am in disbelief.

Nebraskas agricultural community overwhelmingly voted for President Trump, and now it is starting to grumble that he is going to do just what he said he would.

Eli Hoke, Omaha

Planned Parenthood serves everyone

I would like to publicly thank the Northwest Health Center and Planned Parenthood of Omaha for services provided to me while I was home over winter break. Everyone  from the security guard to the doctor to the nurses to the people working the front desk  was polite, respectful and professional during my entire visit.

As elected officials consider cutting funding for Planned Parenthood centers across the country, I encourage everyone to seriously think about what such a move would do. Planned Parenthood provides invaluable, cost-efficient health care to everyone  not just women.

Pete Fey, Lawrence, Kan.

One little cigarette, one big forest fire

A recent fire in a Virginia forest was due to a carelessly discarded cigarette. Since most new vehicles no longer come with an ash tray, smokers should carry a small tin can with them in which to discard their used cigarettes.

When they throw them out the window, they are littering and creating conditions for a possible fire. Please respect the environment.

Bill Gaughan, Omaha
Why PM Modi has urged everyone to visit Nadabet, the 'Wagah of Gujarat'

Amit Shah reminds Sonia called Modi maut ka saudagar

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Tehri, Feb 9: Amid the uproar over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'raincoat' barb at his predecessor Manmohan Singh, BJP President Amit Shah on Thursday told Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi to recall what his mother called Modi in the past.

Addressing an election rally here, Shah said Rahul Gandhi had no grounds to attack Modi since he himself had humiliated Manmohan Singh by shooting down a cabinet decision when the Congress-led UPA was in power.

Shah's reference was apparently to Congress President Sonia Gandhi's description of Modi, when he was the Gujarat Chief Minister, as "maut ka saudagar" (merchant of death).

Urging the people to vote out what he called a corrupt and inefficient Congress government of Chief Minister Harish Rawat, Shah said the people of the hill state should vote to change the fate of Uttarakhand. "Vote for the BJP and give us a majority," he told the gathering.

IANS

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Story first published: Thursday, February 9, 2017, 15:24 [IST]
Anupam Kher says his mother now 'healthy', will be quarantined at home

'More to life than just image-building': Anupam Kher criticises Centre's Covid management strategy

Anupam Kher says Rahul has insulted Manmohan Singh the most

India

oi-PTI

Mumbai, Feb 9: Veteran actor Anupam Kher has slammed Rahul Gandhi for attacking Narendra Modi for his 'raincoat' jibe at Manmohan Singh, saying the Congress vice president has insulted the former prime minister the most.

Modi had said that one should learn the art of 'bathing with a raincoat on' from Manmohan Singh as there was not a single taint on him despite so many scams having taken place during his regime.

A post on Gandhi's official Twitter handle read, "When a Prime Minister reduces himself to ridiculing his predecessor-years his senior,he hurts the dignity of the parliament & the nation".

Gandhi's comments seems to have not gone down well with Kher.

"Sorry but nobody has insulted the prime minister more than you. Remember tearing the ordinance in press conference. Unless you think you are royalty," Kher posted on Twitter.

Continuing his tirade against the Prime Minister for his 'raincoat' jibe a, Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said Narendra Modi should learn manners and respect former prime ministers.

Addressing a rally in poll bound Uttarakhand, Rahul said Modi has not only insulted Manmohan Singh but the entire nation.

PTI
Central team roped in as dengue cases in Bihar rise to over 5000

Bihar's Gopalganj by-poll to see a tough fight between BJP and RJD

Bihar govt cancels BSSC exam in wake of paper leak reports

India

oi-PTI

Patna, Feb 8: Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday announced cancellation of examination conducted by Bihar State Staff Selection Commission for recruitment of clerks in state government jobs in the wake of alleged paper leak.

"On the basis of preliminary report of state police chief P K Thakur and recommendation of chief secretary Anjani Kumar Singh, the state government has cancelled the BSSC exam for clerical grade appointment," Kumar told reporters in Patna.

Kumar, accompanied by CS and other officials, made this announcement after emerging from state cabinet meeting at secretariat. The cancellation comes in the wake of reports of paper leak before the examination on February 5.

The chief minister had on Monday said that he ordered a through probe into the paper leak by the CS and DGP. The annulment of the BSSC exam follows intensive questioning of commission secretary Parmeshwar Ram by the Special Investigation Team under supervision of Patna senior superintendent of police Manu Maharaj since late last night.

Taking serious note of allegation of paper leak in the BSSC test, the chief minister had cracked the whip and issued strict instructions to the two top officials to throughly inquire into it following which SIT swung into action.

The latest exam irregularity follows the infamous toppers' scam in the state plus two exam in 2016.

Patna Senior Superintendent of Police Manu Maharaj told PTI that the BSSC Secretary Parmeshwar Ram has been arrested in the paper leak case.

"SIT has arrested Parmeshwar Ram and one another staff of the Commission in this connection," the SSP said.

PTI
Congress demands apology from Modi for 'raincoat' jibe

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, Feb 9: Congress on Thursday stuck to its demand for an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his remarks against his predecessor Manmohan Singh in the Rajya Sabha, describing his jibe as "unheard of in Indian Parliamentary democracy".

"We are very very disappointed by what the PM said on Wednesday. I do not think in the history of Indian parliamentary democracy, we have ever heard the PM insulting his predecessor in such a manner using bathroom analogy. This is simply not heard of (before)," Congress MP Sashi Tharoor said outside Parliament. Seeking withdrawal of the statement, he said, "In politics, there can be differences but you will never find this kind of statement in our Parliamentary debate.

PM should withdraw such remarks. There are political differences in our country. In election campaign, people say rude things to each other. But in the House, certain decorum must be maintained. We feel strongly that it should not have happened." "We have asked for an apology because he has not withdrawn it so far. If he withdraws it, then the matter will end. But if he does not withdraw, then apology is the only way in which he can make up for the hurt he has caused unnecessarily," the former Union minister said.

Replying to a debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President's Address in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, Modi had attacked Congress and taken on Singh who had described demonetisation as 'organised loot' and 'legalised plunder', saying 'the art of bathing in a bathroom with a raincoat on' is known only to the former prime minister as there is no blot on him despite all the scams. This provoked an angry reaction from Congress members who staged a walkout in the midst of the reply by the prime minister.

PTI
Tuesday is now No Meeting Day in Haryana and officers to be with people on Friday

Haryana: Jat stir continues peacefully

India

oi-PTI

Chandigarh, Feb 9: The ongoing jat reservation stir in Haryana, which entered its 12th day on Thursday, remained peaceful while modalities are being worked out by the government-appointed panel which is likely to engage in talks with the protesters soon.

No untoward incident occurred anywhere and movement of traffic remained undisturbed. Modalities were being worked out for the talks, officials said in Chadigarh on Thursday. Additional chief secretary of home department, Ram Niwas, said all sections of the society have cooperated in maintaining peace.

He said a five-member committee has been constituted under the chairmanship of the chief secretary recently to hold dialogues with the agitators. The first meeting of the panel members was held on Thursday.

"Open invitation has been issued to all parties for dialogue. Whoever wants to interact with this committee can send their request to the office of the chief secretary, after which time and date of meeting would be decided," Niwas said, adding similar invitation had been issued through the media earlier as well.

Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had recently indicated that the issues could be resolved through dialogue for which the government's doors are always open. The All India Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti headed by Yashpal Malik, which is spearheading the stir, has said it is willing to hold talks with the committee, though they have put a condition that these should be held in Rohtak or a place near where the protesters were holding sit-ins.

INLD, the main opposition party in the state, has come out in support of the agitating Jats this time and asked the government to meet their demands. The Jats have announced that February 19 would be observed as 'Balidan Divas' in memory of those who lost their lives during last year's agitation.

During the fresh round of the agitation, the protesters have been staging dharnas at various places in the state amid elaborate security arrangements. Paramilitary forces have been deployed in sensitive areas, while police are maintaining strict vigil.

During last year's stir, 30 people were killed and property worth crores of rupees was damaged at many places. Apart from reservations in education and government jobs, the demands of the Jats include release of those jailed during last year's agitation, withdrawal of cases slapped during the protest and government jobs for the kin of those killed and injured while taking part the stir.

There is also a demand of action against BJP MP from Kurukshetra, Raj Kumar Saini, for his alleged anti-Jat rants. The chief minister had earlier said the government had accepted the demand of Jats of giving jobs to the next of kin of those who had lost their lives during the stir last year.

Of the 2,100 cases registered during last year's violent stir, about 1,350 have been withdrawn and hearing is going on in the remaining ones.

PTI
India will have its first hypersonic missile in five to six years: BrahMos Aerospace CEO

In Pics: TROPEX 2017 - combat effectiveness of Indian Navy

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

As part of TROPEX 2017 Admiral Sunil Lanba Chief of the Naval Staff witnessed a host of exercises namely, Gunnery shoots, Surface to Air missile engagements, Brahmos firing and operations of the combined Fleet in a complex multi threat environment including sub-surface and air threats.

The high-point of the exercise was Large Force Engagement by the Fleet units against threat simulated by air element from Indian Air Force comprising AWACS, SU 30s, Jaguars and IL 78.

These threats emanated from different directions and were neutralised by using Beyond Visual Range missile capabilities of MiG 29Ks, the integral air arm of the Indian Navy, operating from INS Vikramaditya in coordination with other Fleet units. All these exercises validated the combat effectiveness of Indian Navy platforms.

Here are some breathtaking images from TROPEX 2017:

Ready to blow the target to pieces IL38 SD successfully fires KH 35 anti shipping missile - a maiden firing at that. Panther on the prowl somewhere in the Indian Ocean The area of operations for TROPEX 2017 exercise spans across the vast expanse of the Arabian Sea and North Central Indian Ocean. Safety first Keeping a sharp lookout - an alert seaman on watch Magnificent take off MiG29K taking off from INS Vikramaditya Flawless landing MiG29K landing on board INS Vikramaditya Special Forces in action As a part of the exercise, niche capabilities of the Marine Commandoes (MARCOs) and Army Special Forces, including Airborne Assault and Combat Free Fall were undertaken from IAF C-130 aircraft. More action TROPEX 2017 serves an opportunity to validate the Indian Navy's Concepts of Operation. A discussion onboard INS Vikramaditya Admiral Sunil Lanba Chief of the Naval Staff embarked ships of the Indian Fleet (both Western & Eastern) over the last two days to review the Annual Theatre level Readiness and Operational Exercise (TROPEX) 2017. He was accompanied by General Bipin Rawat Chief of the Army Staff and Vice Admiral Girish Luthra Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Naval Command.
Failed to take any steps:

Despite directing to clear encroachments around the tomb of Afzal Khan, who had served the Adil Shahi dynasty of Bijapur as commander, located at Pratapgad fort in Satara district, the forest department failed to initiate the necessary procedures.

HC order on forest dept over 9-yr-old order

Bombay High Court asked the state government to remove encroachments around Afzal Khan's grave or send forest officials permanently to the forest if they can't do their duty.

1000 sq. ft. unauthorised construction

The Afzal Khan's tomb is surrounded by unauthorised construction of 1,000 sq ft. There are also several number of other constructions which has been occupied near the fort which belongs to the forest department.

Where is Pratapgad fort located:

Pratapgad is a large fort located in Satara district, in the Western state of Maharashtra which is a popular tourist destination.
India-France to sign agreement to foster technology exchange

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, Feb 9: The Union Cabinet was apprised on Wednesday of the signing of agreement between India and France to ensure exchange of best practices and technology.

The Cabinet meeting was chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. According to a release, a Memorandum of Understanding of Cooperation will be signed between Technology Development Board, India, and Bpifrance, a public investment bank of France.

"The agreement will ensure exchange of best practices and setting up of coordinated measures to foster technological exchanges in the field of science, technology and innovation through collaboration between companies, organisations and institutions of France and India," read a release.

TDB, which comes under the Department of Science & Technology, has been constituted to promote development and commercialisation of indigenous technology and adaptation of imported technology for wider application.

As per the release, this agreement is aimed carrying out activities related to exchange of best practices in the field of science & technology through the TDB and Bpifrance.

IANS

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Story first published: Thursday, February 9, 2017, 12:04 [IST]
India sends extradition request to UK for Vijay Mallya

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

India sent an extradition request for liquor baron Vijay Mallya on Thursday. The request has been sent to the British high commission and the ministry for External Affairs said that it has an extraordinary treaty with the United Kingdom and there is a legitimate case against Mallya.

India wants Mallya to be extradited as he is facing multiple cases. Several courts have issued non-bailable warrants against him after banks have complained about non-payment of loans. The Central Bureau of Investigation too filed a case against Mallya and others in connection with the IBDI loan case. It may be recalled that the United Breweries had on February 8 asked Mallya to step down as its non-executive chairman following a Sebi order which barred the embattled businessman from holding directorship in any listed company.

In January, the SEBI had banned Mallya and six other officials of the USL from the securities markets in a case related to illegal fund diversions.

Last year when India had sent out an extradition request, the UK had said that the better route to be adopted was through the Mutual Assistance Legal Treaty. India however says that now that an extradition request can be sent out since a chargesheet has been filed against Mallya.

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Story first published: Thursday, February 9, 2017, 18:13 [IST]
Israeli technology to help clean Yamuna

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, Feb 9: The Delhi government on Thursday decided to employ Israeli technology to clean the Yamuna river for a cleaner environment and water, the Israeli Embassy here said.

Ayala Water and Ecology Ltd. will focus on a stretch of eight km of sewage which drains into Yamuna River as an initial step towards cleaner water and environment. On the joint partnership in Delhi, Daniel Carmon, Ambassador of Israel in India, said: "I commend the Israeli company Ayala Water & Ecology on their work in India, and is now reaching New Delhi. Addressing the challenges of water and environment is a challenge both India and Israel share. I am proud to see this partnership in action."

"As we celebrate 25 years of growing partnership, we are glad that Israeli technology is integrated in government initiatives for the benefit of the Indian citizen. This is another example of the multifaceted partnership between India and Israel," he added. Ayala is also partnering with other Indian cities, including Hyderabad and Chennai, offering Israeli technology to help address water and ecological challenges. Israel, in addition to being one of the major exporter of weapons to India, is also contributing in the areas of agriculture and horticulture, among others.

Israeli drip irrigation technologies are now widely used in India. The two countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in Water Resources Management, as well as a Declaration of Intent to further cooperation in agriculture during the visit of Israeli President Reuven Rivlin to India in November 2016.

IANS

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Story first published: Thursday, February 9, 2017, 17:48 [IST]
Not farmers, we're responsible for stubble burning in Punjab, says Kejriwal

Kejriwal now claims BJP offered to spare Sisodia, Jain if AAP backs out of Gujarat polls

Kejriwal says BJP more corrupt than Congress

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, Feb 9: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday termed demonetisation a 'Rs 8 lakh crore scam' and added that the BJP had surpassed even the Congress in terms of corruption.

Kejriwal's remarks came in response to BJP President Amit Shah's statement that after two-and-a-half years of the BJP government, the opposition had 'failed' to make any allegation of corruption against it.

"False! (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi took bribe from Sahara and Birla. Demonetisation is Rs 8 lakh crore worth scam. In terms of corruption, you (BJP) even surpassed the Congress," Kejriwal tweeted.

The Aam Aadmi Party leader has repeatedly accused Modi of accepting bribes from big corporates like the Sahara and Birla groups when he was the Gujarat Chief Minister.

After Modi announced demonetisation of 500 and 1,000 rupee notes on November 8, Kejriwal called it a scam worth Rs 8 lakh crore done to write off bad loans worth the same amount.

IANS
Let me withdraw my resignation: Panneerselvam tells governor

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

"Justice will prevail," said Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam who met with Governor Vidyasagar Rao in Chennai on Thursday evening. Panneerselvam, who addressed the media for a short while, did not give out details of what exactly transpired between him and Rao. He thanked the people for their support and ended the presser by saying, "Dharma will win." He said that the governor had assured that justice would be done.

Panneerselvam, during his meeting with the Rao said that he wished to withdraw his resignation. He said that he wanted to continue as the Tamil Nadu chief minister. The governor is however understood not to have commented on the issue. Rao is scheduled to meet Sasikala Natarajan at 7.30 pm.

Panneerselvam also told Rao that the people were with him. He added that Sasikala had taken the MLAs to an undisclosed location and had kept them hostage. He explained the situation that led him to resigning in the first place. He said that he was humiliated in the party which led to his resignation. OPS further said that the people want him as the CM and hence he wanted to withdraw his resignation.

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Story first published: Thursday, February 9, 2017, 17:53 [IST]
Meet Prateek, 2nd son of Mulayam, who loves cars, not politics

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Lucknow, Feb 9: He is an exception in the family of Mulayam Singh Yadav, the founder of ruling Samajwadi Party in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh. Meet 28-year-old Prateek, the second son of Mulayam Singh, who does not want to join politics. His interest lies in cars and Prateek is also a fitness freak.

The Lucknow-based businessman runs a couple of gyms in the city. In Mulayam Singh's family, almost all are in politics--eldest son and chief minister of UP Akhilesh and two daughters-in-law Dimple (wife of Akhilesh) and Aparna (wife of Prateek).

While Dimple is a Member of Parliament, Akhilesh and Aparna are contesting the upcoming assembly polls in the state.

"I am not at all interested in politics. If I had to become a politician I would have long back. I am focused on my business," Prateek told ANI. However, he definitely keeps a tab on the political developments in the state.

Prateek said that he was confident that the newly-formed SP-Congress alliance will win the UP polls. "I think the SP-Congress alliance will win more than 250 seats," he added.

The businessman said that he was sure that even his wife will win the elections. "Yes, Aparna will surely win from Lucknow Cantonment constituency. She has already done a lot of work for the area," added Prateek.

Regarding the controversy surrounding his luxury car, Prateek said there was nothing illegal about it. "I bought the car (Lamborghini Huracan) on loan. I have all the papers and I pay income tax. Why the controversy?" he asked. "I have my own business. If I had invested Rs 5 crores in property then no one would have said anything," Prateek added.

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Story first published: Thursday, February 9, 2017, 12:18 [IST]
Why PM Modi has urged everyone to visit Nadabet, the 'Wagah of Gujarat'

Modis raincoat jibe: Angry opposition creates uproar in Parliament; demands apology

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

New Delhi, Feb 9: The Opposition continued its attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his 'raincoat' jibe for the second day in a row on Thursday. Both Houses of Parliament witnessed tension as the Congress-led opposition members demanded an apology from the government over PM Modi's 'raincoat' barb against his predecessor Manmohan Singh made in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.

The Congress members staged a walkout from the Upper House of Parliament on Wednesday. Even leaders of Trinamool Congress, Communist Party of India (Marxist) and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam protested against PM Modi's 'shameful' remark.

"It is unfortunate that PM Modi used such language against former PM Singh. We condemn such statement," said Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge.

Replying to a debate on the motion of thanks to the President's address in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, Modi tore into the Congress and took on Singh who had described demonetisation as 'organised loot' and 'legalised plunder', saying 'the art of bathing in a bathroom with a raincoat on' is known only to the former prime minister as there is 'no blot on him' despite 'all the scams'.

Another senior Congress leader Anand Sharma condemned the PM and called his comments ''shameful''. Earlier Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and former finance minister P Chidambaram lambasted the PM for his 'ugly remarks'.

It is not only the Opposition that is demanding an 'apology' from the Union Government. Now, the Bharatiya Janata Party also wants an 'apology' from the Congress.

Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said it is the opposition party which should apologise for disrupting the Prime Minister's speech. Javadekar said that Congress should apologise for repeatedly disrupting Modi's speech. "It was undemocratic on the part of #Cong members to repeatedly disrupt speech of @narendramodi in Rajya Sabha. Cong must apologise to PM," the HRD minister tweeted.

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Story first published: Thursday, February 9, 2017, 13:23 [IST]
Why PM Modi has urged everyone to visit Nadabet, the 'Wagah of Gujarat'

Modi's raincoat jibe: Now, BJP demands an apology from Congress

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, Feb 9: With Congress raising objections over Narendra Modi's raincoat jibe at his predecessor Manmohan Singh, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said it is the opposition party which should apologise for disrupting the Prime Minister's speech.

Javadekar said that Congress should apologise for repeatedly disrupting Modi's speech. "It was undemocratic on the part of #Cong members to repeatedly disrupt speech of @narendramodi in Rajya Sabha. Cong must apologise to PM," the HRD minister tweeted.

Earlier, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday hit out at Prime Minister Modi for his raincoat jibe at former prime minister Singh, terming it as 'saddening and shameful'.

Hitting back at Modi for his remarks on former prime minister Singh, the Congress on Wednesday said it was 'unbecoming of a Prime Minister' to use such language. The Congress also dubbed Modi as 'arrogant' and charged him with bringing the debate to 'the lowest level'.

PTI
COLUMN: No Holy Cows in democracy please

India

oi-Oneindia

By Smita Mishra

In another typically disproportionate reaction, the Congress has tried to create much hype against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's left-handed comments on former prime minister Manmohan Singh. Modi's jibe was meant to expose the Teflon-coating enjoyed by his predecessor and how no uncharitable questions were raised against him even as he presided over one of the most corrupt and paralysed govt ever.

Much as senior Parliamentarians like Anand Sharma cry hoarse, the fact remains that Modi resorted to no abuse except a slightly sarcastic remark about nothing 'stuck' with the former PM. To be fair, even this barb would have never come had Singh not used words like 'monumental failure', 'organised loot and legalised plunder' on the floor while slamming a bold like decision demonetisation. While these high sounding phrases were quoted widely by the national and international media, Singh or his Congress colleagues have yet to present data supporting any of these words.

To watch Congressmen now raise questions on Parliamentary decency seems like a singular case of 'selective memory'. Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi's tweet about dignity of the Prime Minister's Office is even more ironical when one remembers the tearing of the 'criminalisation of politics' Bill in Press Club of India which could have been a truly comical scene had the situation not been so tragic.

So what exactly is the Congress party upset about? If it is the language, there wasn't a single un-Parliamentary word in Modi's short sentence. Presuming the anger is against targeting MMS, even if one forgets the Rahul episode, it should be clear by now there cannot be any holy cows in a democracy. A prime minister (even if he comes through Rajya Sabha) can hardly expect to be spared forever when his regime has set a record of sorts in 'monumental plunder' and 'organised loot'. However, coming from the Congress, it is hardly a surprise. The party has always maintained the 'holy Cow' argument when it comes to 'The Family'.

The question then is why the same touchiness for Manmohan Singh? The only argument that seems plausible is because a direct attack on the former PM may eventually lead to those who actually commanded and directed the UPA regime. Therefore, while Rahul may be allowed to tear the PM's Bill to shreds, all hell breaks lose if Narendra Modi makes even a left-handed barb.

Of course, the Congress leaders' record in making personalised remarks on Modi (before and after his assuming charge in Delhi) calls for an entire chapter. From impotent to rat to Ravana to maut ka saudagar (merchant of death) and khoon ki dalali (blood-broker), top Congress persons can put a two-bit Bollywood potboiler's writer to shame.

In a case of definite overkill, the Congress has now decided to boycott Modi in Parliament if he does not apologise for his words. The impact of this strategy will only be visible in the post-recess segment of the Budget session. But if the opposition sticks to its stand, this may just serve as the icing for the BJP's election cake. Party supporters who may be feeling a bit complacent till now are likely to gear up with the personal targetting of their leader and may just pull up their socks for the big fight in UP.

(Smita Mishra, advisor, Prasar Bharati)

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Story first published: Thursday, February 9, 2017, 16:34 [IST]
No plan to tax cash transactions above Rs 50,000

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, Feb 9: The government has not taken any decision with regard to introducing a tax on bank transactions, though it has received a set of recommendations from the Committee of Chief Ministers, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das said on Thursday.

"The government is carefully examining the report. No decision has been taken so far... as and when a decision is taken, naturally the government will give it out," Das said at the 96th annual function here of the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India. The committee of Chief Ministers on digital payments, headed by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, had submitted an interim report to the government suggesting a banking cash transaction tax on deals amounting to Rs 50,000 and above in order to curb the use of cash.

The panel said the government must tax cash transactions above Rs 50,000, abolish banks' interest on credit card transactions, give tax refund to consumers on digital payments and extend Rs 1,000 subsidy on smartphones to income-tax non-payees to promote a less-cash digital economy. The high-powered panel was asked to suggest measures to enable all sections of the population to migrate to digital payments, and recommend measures to leapfrog to the advanced digital payment systems of global standards.

It was constituted on November 30 last year after the government demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. Highlighting India's strong fiscal foundation, Das said: "Fiscal deficit has gradually been brought down, it is necessary to find the right balance between requirements of public expenditure and fiscal consolidation by targeting those sectors of economy where you need to spend more."

The government has certain fiscal constraints and it will be difficult for the government to reduce corporate tax rates to 25 per cent overnight because fiscal cost will be very high and government will not be able to do justice to various other sectors of the economy -- agriculture, rural infrastructure and other areas, he added.

Das said though the world scenario remains uncertain, the outlook for India's growth is very positive. "We would expect the growth to be upwards of seven per cent on the back of various policy measures taken by the government both before and during the Budget and which the government will continue to take in the coming months," the Economic Affairs Secretary said.

"Our growth is premised on creating more job opportunities through increased infrastructure spending by carrying out reforms and new policy initiatives in sectors like -- textiles, leather, footwear and other similar sectors by taking tax reform measures, by continuing with the policy of reforms," he added. With regard to taxation, he said the government is committed to ensuring that the administration is taxpayer-friendly.

"Emphasis of the government is on honouring the honest. The Revenue Department, Central Board of Excise and Customs and Central Board of Direct Taxes are taking steps to ensure that there is no misuse of power," he said. "The annual performance reports of officers in the tax departments together with orders passed by officers of income tax are also being gone through by senior level officers," he added.

"While from the government side, we are taking steps, I think from the private sector and industry side we would encourage similar steps to be taken. The tax administration at the highest level, in the Ministry is working towards bringing about greater accountability and transparency," he added. Highlighting the strong and robust reforms undertaken by the government, he said the reform agenda of the government will continue as spelt out by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the Budget.

On the issue of transfer of technology, Das said India has to use its low-cost manufacturing capabilities to ensure that there is domestic manufacturing. "We have to spend more on research and developing own technological capabilities," he added.

IANS

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Story first published: Thursday, February 9, 2017, 18:40 [IST]
PM's 'raincoat' jibe: Robert Vadra comes out in support of Manmohan Singh

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, Feb 9: Terming as "extremely shameful" Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'raincoat jibe' on his predecessor Manmohan Singh, Robert Vadra on Thursday said the former premier is "an epitome of grace and maturity".

"It is extremely shameful for the entire nation that a senior and graceful politician like Manmohan Ji had to bear the brunt of our Prime Minister Narendra Modi's jibes," the son-in-law of Congress president Sonia Gandhi said in a Facebook post. "His remarks, 'the art of taking bath wearing a raincoat must be learnt from Manmohan Singh' were extremely demeaning," he said.

Vadra said, "Manmohan Ji is an epitome of grace and maturity that he even refused to respond to our PM". He recalled that a day before, Modi took jibes at Rahul Gandhi and made fun of earthquake that hit Uttarakhand. "It is sad to see our PM making such derogatory statements hurting sentiments of people," Vadra said.

Replying to a debate on 'Motion of Thanks' on the President's Address in Rajya Sabha, Modi took a jibe at Singh, saying one should learn the art of "bathing with a raincoat on" from him as there was not a single taint on him despite many scams taking place under his regime. This angered the Congress which staged a walkout from the Rajya Sabha and hit out at Modi.

PTI

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Story first published: Thursday, February 9, 2017, 12:48 [IST]
Truth has come out, says Sasikala in reaction to OPS's remark before panel

Setback for Sasikala as Chennai court rejects her plea on AIADMK post

Never interfered in medical treatment of Jayalalithaa: Sasikala denies all allegations levelled by panel

Sasikala stakes claim to form govt in TN

India

oi-Vicky

Among chants of long live Chinamma, Sasikala Natrajan reached the Raj Bhavan in Chennai to meet with Governor Vidyasagar Rao on Thursday. During the meeting, Sasikala told Rao that she should be invited to form the government in Tamil Nadu.

She showed the governor letters of support and said that she had the numbers to form the government and also take over as the chief minister.

Earlier, Sasikala paid tributes at Jayalalithaa's memorial at Marina Beach before heading to Raj Bhavan.

Prior to this O Panneerselvam met with Rao and told him that he wished to withdraw his resignation.

OneIndia News
TN Governor to arrive in Chennai, may meet Sasikala and Panneerselvam

India

oi-PTI

Mumbai, Feb 9: Tamil Nadu Governor C Vidyasagar Rao, who had kept away from Chennai for the last three days amid a bitter war of words between AIADMK General Secretary VK Sasikala and Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, will leave for the state capital on Thursday afternoon.

The governor's decision to return to Chennai has triggered speculation about whether he will swear in Sasikala after she mustered an overwhelming majority of AIADMK MLAs against a rebellious Panneerselvam, who claimed he has their backing. "The Governor will be taking the 1.25 PM Jet Airways flight to Chennai from Mumbai," a Raj Bhavan official told PTI.

The official, however, declined to comments on reports that Rao will meet legislators after landing in Chennai. Asked if Rao has consulted legal and constitutional experts on political situation in Tamil Nadu, the official said, "the Governor did not call anyone specific for talks." Raj Bhavan sources said Rao may have discussed the legal and constitutional ramifications of the TN tangle, while he was in Delhi on Monday.

"The Governor has also been in touch with a senior official at Chennai Raj Bhavan, via phone," the sources said. The Supreme Court had recently indicated it could deliver a judgement soon in a disproportionate assets case against Sasikala, who became the general secretary of AIADMK after the death of J Jayalalithaa.

A conviction after being sworn-in could result in Sasikala having to step down as chief minister. A PIL was also filed in the apex court seeking to restrain Sasikala from being sworn-in as the chief minister, claiming in the event of her having to resign if she is convicted in the DA case there could lead to law and order problem in the state.

Sasikala was elected leader of the AIADMK legislature party on Sunday, clearing the decks for her elevation as the chief minister.

PTI

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Story first published: Thursday, February 9, 2017, 11:38 [IST]
Why is the DMK continuing to oppose the imposition of Hindi? - 50 years of struggle and the truth!

TN political crisis: Guv to send report to Centre

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Tamil Nadu Governor Vidyasagar Rao, who met both Sasikala and Panneerselvam on Thursday, will send a report to the Centre on the political crisis in the state, said sources. The Centre will take a call on the issue based on Rao's report.

Sources say that AIADMK cadres are now fearing if the government would be dissolved.

Rao, who met Panneerselvam first after reaching Chennai, assured the chief minister that justice would be done. Panneerselvam told Rao that he wished to withdraw his resignation. Panneerselvam did not give out details of what exactly transpired between him and Rao, but thanked the people for their support and said 'Dharma will win.'

Later, Sasikala Natrajan reached the Raj Bhavan in Chennai to meet the Governor. During the meeting, Sasikala told Rao that she should be invited to form the government in Tamil Nadu.

She also showed the governor letters of support and said that she had the numbers to form the government.

#WATCH: #Sasikala pays tribute at Jayalalithaa's memorial at Chennai's Marina Beach, brings with her letter of support claiming majority pic.twitter.com/Lndz82OJCN  ANI (@ANI_news) February 9, 2017

OneIndia News
Eight of nine women candidates fielded by AAP emerge victorious in Delhi poll

UP assembly elections: Campaigning for first phase ends

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Lucknow, Feb 9: Campaigning for the 73 assembly segments that go to polls in the first phase of the crucial Uttar Pradesh assembly elections on February 11 came to an end on Thursday evening.

All political parties threw in their best on the last day of canvassing to rally support for their respective candidates.

The star campaigners on Thursday included Union home minister Rajnath Singh, state Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, his MP wife Dimple Yadav, Rajya Sabha member of the Samajwadi party Jaya Bachchan, Gorakhpur MP Mahant Yogi Adityanath, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, cine actress Naghma and former state minister and close Mayawati aide Naseemuddin Siddiqui.

Police officials, meanwhile, have braced themselves for the polls in the western Uttar Pradesh, which an official conceded would be tough.

A few incidents of poll violence, including an attack on BSP candidate and two murders, have already cast an ominous shadow on elections in the region as the place is already a communal tinderbox.

The Election Commission has said all preparations are in place for the elections. Chief Election Commissioner Naseem Zaidi has assured of best arrangements for the crucial phase of polling.

About 2.57 crore voters, including 1.17 crore women, will exercise their franchise in the first phase. Of the 2.57 crore eligible voters, over 24 lakh are in the age group of 18-19.

BJP leaders said they were confident of sweeping the region as they did in the Lok Sabha polls in 2014.

IANS
How the numbers add up in UP: This is what BJP's win percentage was

UP elections: Parties bombard ECI with complaints

India

oi-Vicky

Lucknow, Feb 9: Officers of the Election Commission of India were bombarded with questions during their visit to Uttar Pradesh. The Samajwadi Party, BJP, BSP all had questions and complains. The BJP sought to know why no assurance was being given by the EC for the protection of Hindus who migrated from Kairana, Meerut and Muzzafarnagar.

SP, on the other hand, complained about the BJP and BSP for raking up communal feelings during the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. The BJP also complained that the state police chief Javed Ahmed had been delaying permission for their campaign.

BJP alleged that Ahmed being close to the SP, had intentionally delayed permission for their candidates to campaign during the UP elections. They also sought his removal from the post till the polls were completed.

The BJP also said that the SP had given tickets to candidates with a criminal background. There are candidates who are even contesting from behind bars, the BJP also complained. The Congress urged the ECI to implement a single window system to give permission for campaigning. The Rashtriya Lok Dal urged the ECI to allow polling agents to present in the booths on election day to avoid impersonation.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Thursday, February 9, 2017, 9:29 [IST]
Pastor Vijay Masih arrested in UP for illegally converting Hindus to Christianity

UP: Five dead after bus hits dozen vehicles

2 dead, dozen injured in a bus-tanker collision in UP

UP ATS picks up two more accused in Al-Qaeda radicalisation case

UP: 4 dead, 4 severely injured in road accident on Yamuna Expressway

UP minister sacked for contesting on RLD ticket

India

oi-PTI

Lucknow, Feb 9: Uttar Pradesh Minister Sharda Pratap Shukla, who is contesting Assembly polls on a Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) ticket, was on Thursday sacked by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.

"Minister of State for Higher Education (Independent charge), Sharda Pratap Shukla, has been sacked by Governor Ram Naik on recommendations of the Chief Minister," a Rajbhawan officer said.

Shukla, a sitting MLA from Sarojni Nagar seat in the state capital, was denied SP ticket after which he filed nomination on RLD ticket. SP has given ticket to Mulayam's nephew Anurag Yadav from this seat.

Samajwadi Party chief Spokesman Rajendra Chowdhury, when contacted, said Shukla has also been expelled from the party for indulging in anti-party activities.

PTI
What would OPS, Sasikala tell the governor?

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

All eyes would be on Tamil Nadu Governor Vidyasagar Rao who is scheduled to meet with both Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and AIADMK interim general secretary Sasikala Natarajan on Thursday. While OPS is scheduled to meet with Rao at 5 pm, the meeting with Sasikala has been fixed for 7.30 pm.

Sasikala will tell the governor that she has the requisite strength to form the government. Sources however indicate that she is not in favour of a floor test for now. She would say that she has been elected as the leader of the legislature party and her MLAs have backed her in large numbers. She would also tell the governor that she had written a letter to this effect, but the same was not acted upon.

Panneerselvam however would want the governor to call for a floor test. He has been saying in the media that during a floor test many MLAs would back him. He would say that such a decision can be taken only through a floor test. He would also tell Rao that Sasikala was not the choice of the people and hence she not be allowed to form the government in Tamil Nadu.

The governor has several options before him. In such a situation, the governor normally orders a floor test. He is however expected to Sasikala to wait till the Supreme Court delivers the verdict in the Disproportionate assets case. This is the same advice that was given to her by leaders in Delhi who are closely monitoring the situation.

Meanwhile the governor has told Sasikala that she can take only 10 members to the Raj Bhavan. This effectively means she cannot parade her MLAs before the Governor.

OneIndia News
Why Tamil Nadu does not have a governor

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Tamil Nadu has witnessed one crisis after another and each time the million-dollar question asked is why doesn't such an important state have a full-time governor. C Vidyasagar Rao, who is the acting governor of the state also holds full charge of Maharashtra.

Appointing a governor is the discretion of the government and no one in the power corridors of the National Capital have been able to give a concrete explanation as why this treatment has been meted out to Tamil Nadu.

It has been half a week since O Panneerselvam stepped down as chief minister of TN. His resignation was accepted by Rao and OPS was told continue as a care-taker CM. The AIADMK has chosen a new leader, Sasikala Natarajan, but she has not been invited to form the government.

In the midst of this, OPS dropped a bombshell stating that he was forced to resign. Although he does not have the numbers, he still feels that he is a contender to the post. Where is the governor in all this? He is scheduled to arrive at 2 pm on Thursday and the fate of the AIADMK lies in his hand.

When the crisis was playing out, the governor was 1,300 kilometres away at a convocation ceremony in Mumbai.

Why does TN not have a governor?

Tamil Nadu has a population of 8 crore. It is known as the gateway to India from South. It is a politically-charged state which has two key parties which have always had a say in national politics.

In such an event it is important to note that the state has had an in-charge governor since September 2016. In today's scenario the governor is the most important functionary in the state. He is the head of the government and in his absence a lot of things come to a stand-still especially during a political crisis.

Had he been in Chennai, this crisis would not have played out for so long. All that the governor has to do in such a scenario is call upon the persons with the major support to form the government. In case there is no clarity, he will have to either direct the parties to test their strength on the floor of the house and if that fails, impose President's Rule.

In August 2016, there was speculation that a full-time governor would be appointed in Tamil Nadu. However, the Centre decided to give Rao additional charge of the state.

None in Delhi are able to explain why such a decision was taken. Is it because the Bharatiya Janata Party has no presence in Tamil Nadu? The party is nurturing ambitions of gaining entry into the state, but that does not appear to be a reality for long. Moreover, Rao's services would be used more in Maharashtra where the BJP has a good standing; and Rao's presence in Maharashtra is important today in the event of the Shiv Sena threatening to pull out of the government.

OneIndia News
Donald Trump lashes out at retailer for dropping daughter's clothing line

International

oi-PTI

Washington, Feb 9: Donald Trump has lashed out at department store chain Nordstrom for dropping his daughter's clothing line, again spotlighting the intermingling of the US presidency with Trump family businesses. The public rebuke on Wednesday, which the White House later defended, called renewed attention to the potential tangle of business interests Trump brought with him on taking office last month.

In a tweet posted moments after he wrapped up an address to US law enforcement, Trump hit out at the high-end retailer for announcing last week it had decided to discontinue sales of Ivanka Trump's fashion line due to poor sales. "My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by Nordstrom," Trump wrote. "She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!"

My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2017

Since his surprise victory in the November presidential election, Trump has used his Twitter feed to lambast individual companies -- from General Motors to Boeing -- be it for off-shoring jobs or allegedly overcharging the federal government for aircraft. But the latest tweet was different in that it sought to defend part of Trump's family business empire, which critics have said could be a source of profound conflicts of interest for the White House.

Trump made sure to give his message on Ivanka maximum reach by posting it both on his personal handle @realDonaldTrump and on the official account of the US presidency @POTUS. Since his November victory, Trump has touted an effort to remove himself from running his business empire, transferring corporate control to his sons. But he has resisted divesting, as a government ethics watchdog had called on him to do.

Critics say the Trump businesses still pose a significant ethical quandary. Further playing into the running debate, Pentagon officials said on Wednesday they were looking to rent space in Trump Tower, Trump's flagship Manhattan luxury building, to accommodate equipment and staff who accompany the president during his stays there. That came on the heels of a lawsuit filed by Melania Trump in New York, which claimed that damaging rumors reported by a British tabloid had interfered with her "unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to earn millions of dollars due to her raised profile as first lady.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Wednesday defended Trump's Nordstrom tweet, saying the president was standing up for a family member. "There's clearly efforts to undermine that name based on her father's issues or particular policies," Spicer told reporters.

PTI
India in a bright spot compared to almost every other country slowing: IMF

IMF chief: Data transparency will increase resilience of economy

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Washington, Feb 9: International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde said that greater data transparency could help increase the resiliency of the economy.

"Greater data transparency -- promoted through the IMF data standard initiatives-leads to a 15 percent reduction in the spreads on emerging market sovereign bonds," Lagarde on Wednesday revealed the result of a new IMF policy paper at an event held by the Atlantic Council.

She called on members to improve data transparency, which could help increase economic resiliency, Xinhua news agency reported. She said that IMF tries to be "ruthless truth tellers" in its assessment of Greece's economic prospects.

In its recent economic assessment for Greece's economy, IMF said that its debt was still unsustainable after years of austerity. It called on Greece to continue push forward reforms of its pension, tax and banking systems, which drew opposition from Greek government.

IANS

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Story first published: Thursday, February 9, 2017, 12:39 [IST]
India, US vow to give impetus to defence ties

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Washington/New Delhi, Feb 9: India and the US have agreed to maintain the pace and momentum of their partnership, particularly in the defence ties, after US secretary of defense Jim Mattis spoke over phone with Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, American and Indian officials said on Thursday.

Spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said it was the 'first conversation' between Mattis and Parrikar.

"Secretary Mattis committed to build upon the tremendous progress in bilateral defence cooperation made in recent years, underscoring the strategic importance of the US-India relationship and India's role in advancing global peace and security," Davis said after the two leaders spoke on Wednesday.

Mattis and Parrikar, Davis said, also 'affirmed their commitment to sustain the momentum on key bilateral defence efforts to include the defence technology and trade initiative'.

The Defence Ministry in a statement in Delhi said the two leaders 'expressed satisfaction at the progress in defence cooperation between India and the United States, especially in recent years and noted its significance in the regional and global context'.

It said Mattis and Parrikar 'emphasised the special significance and high priority placed by both countries to the relationship, and resolved to work together to further consolidate and expand this partnership in the future'.

IANS
Proposal to cut number of legal immigrants to the US by half within a decade

International

oi-PTI

Washington: Two US senators have proposed a legislation to cut the number of legal immigrants to the US by half within a decade, a move that could adversely hit those aspiring to get a green card or permanent residency in the US, including a large number of Indians.

The Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment, or RAISE Act, introduced by Republican senator Tom Cotton and David Perdue from the Democratic Party, seeks to alter the US immigration system to significantly reduce the number of foreigners admitted into the country without a skills-based visa.

The bill proposes to reduce the number of green cards, or permanent residencies issued every year, from about a million currently to half a million within a decade.

The passage of the legislation, which is said to have the support of the Donald Trump administration, will have a major impact on hundreds and thousands of Indian Americans, who are currently waiting to get their green cards on employment-based categories.

The current waiting period for an Indian to get a green card varies between 10 years and 35 years and this wait could increase if the proposed bill becomes a law.

The bill does not focus on H-1B visas.

Cotton argued the growth in legal immigration in recent decades has led to a "sharp decline in wages for working Americans" and that the bill represented an effort to move the US "to a more merit-based system like Canada and Australia".

"It's time our immigration system started working for American workers," said Cotton.

"The RAISE Act would promote higher wages on which all working Americans can build a future-whether your family came over here on the Mayflower or you just took the oath of citizenship," Cotton added.

The RAISE Act would lower the overall immigration to 637,960 in its first year and to 539,958 by its tenth year, a 50% reduction from the 1,051,031 immigrants who arrived in 2015.

"We are taking action to fix some of the shortcomings in our legal immigration system," Perdue said.

"Returning to our historically normal levels of legal immigration will help improve the quality of American jobs and wages," he added.

The RAISE Act, among other things, will retain immigration preferences for spouses and minor children of US citizens and legal permanent residents while eliminating preferences for certain categories of extended and adult family members. It also proposes to eliminate the diversity visa lottery.

"The diversity lottery is plagued with fraud, advances no economic or humanitarian interest, and does not even deliver the diversity of its namesake. The RAISE Act would eliminate the 50,000 visas arbitrarily allocated to this lottery," the legislation said.

The Diversity Immigrant Visa Program (DV Program) makes up to 50,000 immigrant visas available annually, drawn from a random selection among all entries to individuals who are from countries with low rates of immigration to the US.

The legislation also proposes to place responsible limits on permanent residency for refugees. It seeks to limit refugees offered permanent residency to 50,000 per year, in line with a 13-year average.

PTI

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Story first published: Thursday, February 9, 2017, 18:09 [IST]
International news brief: Series of earthquakes rattle Hawaii and more

Turkey holds off on Finland and Sweden in NATO

Syria: 'Accidental' airstrike by Russia kills 3 Turkish soldiers

International

oi-PTI

Ankara, Feb 9: Turkey's military said three soldiers were killed in northern Syria in an 'accidental' airstrike by a Russian warplane.

The military says 11 other soldiers were wounded in the friendly fire incident on Thursday. The Turkish soldiers were inside a building that was hit by a Russian aircraft, according to a military statement.

The statement said Russia expressed its sorrow and condolences for the incident while President Vladimir Putin called President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The incident comes after Turkey and Russia recently repaired ties that were strained by Turkey's downing of Russian jet near the border with Syria two years ago.

PTI
Theresa May wins crucial vote in UK Parliament to trigger Brexit

International

oi-PTI

London, Feb 9: British Prime Minister Theresa May has won a crucial vote in the United Kingdom Parliament, which will give her the authority to officially trigger Brexit and start negotiations for leaving the 28-member European Union.

The European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill had its final debate and vote last night to allow the British PM to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to begin a two-year period of negotiations for the UK's new deal as a non-member of the European Union by 2019.

The draft legislation was approved by 494 votes to 122, and now moves to the House of Lords. Shadow business secretary Clive Lewis was one of the 52 Labour MPs to defy party orders to back the bill and he resigned from the front bench.

The Commons debated the last set of amendments to the Bill, including on key principles for the negotiation process, before the bill went on to its third and final reading for the vote. So far the bill had passed two days of debate in the Lower House of the UK Parliament without being altered.

The Opposition Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, had instructed his MPs to vote in favour of the bill whether any amendments are made or not. However, he faced a second round of party rebellion after over 49 MPs had defied the whip at the last vote earlier this month.

Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott, who missed last week's initial vote on the bill, backed it this time. May herself faced a rebellion of up to a dozen of her Conservative MPs, who are expected to defy the party's whip and vote for the rights of EU citizens living in the UK to be guaranteed before Brexit negotiations begin.

She managed to minimise the Tory rebellion on Tuesday by promising a Commons vote on the Brexit agreement before it is finalised. Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, welcomed this as an important concession but others have dismissed it as a "take it or leave it" offer.

Now that the bill had passed the Commons, it will be debated in the House of Lords after it returns from recess on February 20, where it is expected to be given the final nod. The bill was tabled last month after the Supreme Court ruled that MPs and peers must have a say before Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty could be triggered.

It rejected the UK government's argument that May had sufficient executive powers to trigger Brexit without consulting Parliament. David Davis, UK minister for exiting the European Union, had opened the debate in the House of Commons with a clear message to MPs that they must implement a decision made by the people in the June 2016 referendum--with 51.9 per cent wanting to leave the EU and 48.1 per cent wanting to remain within the 28-nation economic bloc.

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Komfie Manalo, Opalesque Asia:

Goldman Sachs is shutting down its London hedge fund and has told its team there to pack their bags and move to New York, the Financial Review said citing a Reuters report.

Goldman Sachs Investment Partners (GSIP), one of the biggest hedge fund launches in history, started trading in 2008. Four sources told Reuters that the eight staff members comprising the London office were advised to report to Goldman Sachs headquarters in Battery Park City in Lower Manhattan or look for a new job in the bank.

A spokesman for Goldman has confirmed the reports while dismissing speculations that the move was triggered by the eventual Brexit.

The spokesman said, "This is a discrete decision for reasons specific to GSIP, one investment team within Goldman Sachs, and shouldn't be construed as anything but that," without providing other details.

However, the closure of the London hedge fund unit could have been the result of the decision by Nick Advani, the fund's managing director and head of operations who announced in June he would step down from his role.

Advani is currently serving as an advisory director at Goldman and is expected to vacate his post and leave the company later this year, according to sources who asked not be named because there were not a......................

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Woman's March

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For Donald Trump, this has got to hurt: Less than two weeks after his inauguration, the people who took to the streets to protest his policies have outstripped him in popularity.

And, given his rich history of "locker room banter" and other sexist comments, it must be especially humiliating for Trump to know that the biggest mobilizations of protesters who bested him were led by women.

The numbers are irrefutable. Trump's approval rating has sunk to a historically low 42 percent, according to Gallup, yet 60 percent of the public approved of the women's marches, a Washington Post poll found. Only 29 percent of those polled disapproved of the anti-Trump marchers yet 54 percent disapproved of Trump's performance as president. In an even more startling finding, Public Policy Polling found in late January that 40 percent of voters thought Trump ought to be impeached.

They don't like you, Mr. President. They really don't like you.

The marchers were also more than twice as popular as the tea party was when it first appeared. Sixty percent of those polled approved of the women's marches in the days following those nationwide events, and 33 percent strongly approved. By contrast, only 27 percent of the public approved of the tea party at the height of its popularity in early 2010, and only 17 percent strongly approved.

That's especially impressive when you consider the fact that the tea party was very well funded and was heavily promoted by the Fox News media empire. Right-wing rants to the contrary, there was no big money behind the women's marches, not even from George Soros.

Predictably, Trump responded to his humiliating numbers with a tweet dismissing them as "fake news, just like the CNN, ABC, NBC polls in the election."

He was wrong. Most polls accurately predicted that Hillary Clinton would achieve a relatively narrow but significant popular vote victory. The news failure in the run-up to the election was one of interpretation, not data. The media failed to comprehend the distribution of those votes or the potential shifts in voting patterns that could take place in a few swing states.

With a few notable exceptions like his intentions to spike and renegotiate trade deals and ramp up infrastructure spending, Trump's policies are as unpopular as he is. Trump is moving to gut the Environmental Protection Agency and he has appointed a climate-change-denying fossil fuel lobbyist named Scott Pruitt to run it. But more than 60 percent of Americans want to see the EPA's regulatory powers maintained or strengthened. An equal share of us opposes Trump's plans to increase oil drilling on public lands.

As Trump staffs his Goldman Sachs-rich administration, nearly 60 percent of Americans polled last year believed (correctly) that Wall Street was still a threat to the economy. As he moves to cut bank regulations, it should be noted that 89 percent of Republicans in that poll supported regulating the financial industry. Trump is moving to reduce the power of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at a time when 56 percent of those polled want to maintain or increase its authority.

Recent polling by CNN/ORC International also shows that 60 percent of Americans oppose Trump's plan to build a wall between the United States and Mexico, and 53 percent oppose his plans to halt refugee arrivals and ban immigrants and visitors from seven Muslim-majority nations. Even his Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, lags in popularity behind Obama pick Merrick Garland by a seven-point margin, according to Gallup.

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Master / Automation

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Whatever problems the administration may have in bringing back good jobs for some of its supporters, we all have a challenge rearranging society to deal with automation. To what extent have jobs already gone not only to low-wage workers in foreign countries but also to robots? And is the administration attempting to bring back jobs only to see some of them being given to machines?

Magical thinking makes for a good political rally based on "alternative facts," but reality strikes back. Some angry people are about to learn, painfully, some basic economics.

Rather than paying wages higher than abroad, won't firms speed up the process of automation whenever it's cheaper than paying domestic workers? Meanwhile, isn't the administration's promise to bring back good jobs an incentive to corporations to trade plans to offshore production for financial incentives from the public purse (delivered, for example, by tax relief, subsidies, contracts)?

Unlike human workers, as the incoming secretary of labor has pointed out, machines don't take days off, require medical care, expect pensions, file suits for discrimination for sexual assault, or need to sleep.

Consider the political situation faced by the new administration. Big pats of it own party, which controls Congress, has sought for decades to reduce government control over industry. How long will it stand for Federal manipulation of the economy?

Apart from automation, somebody would have to pay for the higher compensation package, so firms would have to increase prices. This would reduce their exports, and also sales at home. In other words, domestic consumers would pay for the higher compensation packages.

Given sloppiness of understanding, will a distinction be observed between (a) stopping some firms from exporting eve more jobs, and (b) inducing them to hire more domestic workers with higher compensation packages? Who will pay for any actions to manipulate the economy? domestic consumers? taxpayers?

Does the administration here, as in healthcare, expect benefits to be free? Why? Will it try to sell the line that private firms are always more efficient than "government"? What is the evidence? It's hard not to think of the notoriously ignorant Tea Party sign, "government keep your hands off my Medicare."

Keeping the focus on employment, the administration appears to be trapped. To the extent that they succeed in manipulating the "free market," as noted above they would violate a basic GOP principle. To the extent they provide more good jobs, who pays, once people realize that benefits can't be conjured up by magic? Once U.S. officials start imposing tariffs, what happens when other countries strike back?

The automation discussion is old, going back at least to the 1960s. For example, the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions issued a report on "the triple revolution" in 1964. Like many visions of the future, it was ahead of its time, but that should make is praise the foresight, not chuckle complacently at the half century during which we have largely neglected the issue while seeking cheap labor abroad.

Looking ahead, the report called for a guaranteed basic income detached from employment as a replacement for "welfare" and as a way of spreading some of the wealth to be generated by automation. If the economy increasingly fails to provide jobs for humans, but everyone needs the basics of life, what is the solution? A patchwork of so-called "safety net" arrangements?

Usually a factory does not convert wholly from human labor to machines. The loss of jobs for people happens step by step, starting with the jobs easiest to automate. The process may unfold slowly. Also, it's a mistake to think in terms of existing factories. What about entirely new facilities, such as Amazon warehouses?

The effort to bring back good jobs will fail, even to the extent it's not paid for by taxes on the rest of us or tax breaks for firms. Ultimately we face, if not a jobless future, then one with fewer jobs. We should be having a discussion not about restoring economic arrangements that are lost forever, but about how to support people displaced by machines. If this was debated during the recent Presidential campaign, I missed it, along with serious discussion of climate change and nuclear danger.

We are often reassured that the system is working. But the system isn't working. Then major issues of our time are either denied or misunderstood or underestimated or left for later, whether it's nuclear danger or climate change or the welfare of citizens (such as via basic income). For example, how is a good society arranged in which robots do an increasing share of the work?
The Democrats will remain a failure and out of power unless they change their leadership, tactics and strategy.

Since the Dems don't know the methods to gain power, or prefer not to use them, very little will change.

Why is it the Republicans can block the Dems most of the time? They stole elections in 2000, and 2004. They obstructed Obama for eight years; he couldn't even get a justice for SCOTUS! Nor would he make a two-year temporary appointment to fill the seat. Why are the Republicans successful out of power or in power, and the Dems not?

Isn't there anyone on the Dem side that knows how to use the rules, make laws and get people elected? Why is it that the GOP at every juncture figures out HOW to win?

Why is this so one-sided?

The Dems are wimps. They do not know how to use strategy, or prefer not to be too pushy for fear of offending potential voters. The voters called for decisiveness. They voted for a strong but flawed candidate. They chose making a stand over the content. They chose strong but likely wrong. They will so choose the Dems if they are strong, but the Dems are too scared. The electorate feels this.

There is a solution.

Since Dems can't, won't, or haven't figured out how to gain power, then copy a system that has worked.

It is very simple. Do what the Republicans do.

With all due respect to Michelle Obama, and I hope she runs for prez, the line I heard last night was, "when they go low, we go lower". This may be distasteful to many, but we are not talking feel-good Dem warm and fuzzies; we are talking about achieving power, which the Dems avoid because they may dirty their hands. Well, then, cry on the sidelines with clean hands and be steamrolled by the folks who simply do not care about your feelings, and who know how to use procedural rules, laws and anything else to their benefit.

From the legislative perspective, do as they do. Do as they have done. It is no coincidence that Karl Rove, Cheney and, now, Bannon won. They are ruthless, yes, but they win and we lose.

THEY HAVE THE POWER.

Power means they can gerrymander, restrict voting, and count the votes on their machines. They manipulate the system to their ends, and their goal is power. Which the Dems do not have or know how to attain.

Before every and any decision of any kind, just ask one question: WWBD?

What Would Bannon Do?

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From Alon Ben-Meir Website

Attaining a major breakthrough from a potentially disastrous fallout

Should President Trump fulfill his campaign promise to relocate the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, it would have major regional and international repercussions. The Trump administration is currently reevaluating the implications of such a move and no final decision has been made. Given the sensitivity and far-reaching consequences, if he nevertheless decides to relocate the embassy it is critical that he concurrently takes a balancing act to prevent the potentially disastrous fallout. This could profoundly change the dynamic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the better while preserving the two-state solution.

Trump should use the occasion of Prime Minister Netanyahu's visit to Washington on February 15th to make it clear that relocating the American Embassy to Jerusalem has a price tag: a) it cannot infringe on the prospect of a two-state solution; b) the US will recognize that East Jerusalem will be the capital of the future state of Palestine; c) the expansion of the settlements cannot continue unabated; and d) Israel must not begin the implementation of the new law that retroactively legalizes scores of illegal settlements built on private Palestinian land, which in any case the Israeli Supreme Court will more than likely overturn.

Relocating the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem unconditionally will be a de facto recognition of Jerusalem, east and west, as the capital of Israel. Since the Israeli government insists that Jerusalem is the eternal united capital of the state, the move would suggest that the United States recognizes the Israeli position.

To put things in perspective, it is necessary to first assess the fallout of such a unilateral move on the part of the Trump administration.

First, the Arab states led by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan -- which is the custodian of the holy Muslim shrines, the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock -- will view such a move as a flagrant assault on Islam itself. Even though the Israelis will make a special provision that will allow Jordan to continue to administer its custodianship over these holy places, under no circumstances would the Arab states allow Israel to have sovereignty over Haram Al-Sharif (the Temple Mount), with the exception of the Wailing Wall (a part of the outer wall of the Second Temple).

Second, such a move will, for all intents and purposes, put an end to the prospect of peace based on a two-state solution. Indeed, for the Palestinians, the establishment of an independent state with its capital in East Jerusalem is non-negotiable. This is not merely a symbolic demand; it is a requirement which is at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No one should dismiss the potential breakout of ferocious violence between Israel and the Palestinians joined by other Arab extremist groups if the Palestinians are denied the establishment of their capital in East Jerusalem. Such violence would be incomparable to any such conflagration that we have witnessed in the past.

Third, the United States' standing and credibility in the Middle East, which has eroded since the Iraq War, would suffer another major setback in its relations with its Arab allies in the region. The US must reassert its position and lead with the support of its European and Arab partners to bring about an end to the many conflicts sweeping the region. The US cannot simply provide more openings for Russia, which is eager to capitalize on US setbacks as President Putin is poised to take full advantage of the prevailing chaotic conditions throughout the region.

Fourth, the move could have an extraordinarily adverse effect on Israel's future as this would foreclose any prospect of an Arab-Israeli peace. The move would also embolden the right-wing Netanyahu government to annex more Palestinian territories and further expand the settlements, scuttling any prospect of peaceful Israeli-Palestinian coexistence. While the Trump move appears on the surface to help Israel realize its long-held dream, it will in fact severely undermine Israel's relations with Egypt and Jordan and jeopardize their peace treaties, which is central to containing regional instability and limiting the threat against Israel's national security.

Fifth, the move would further alienate the European community, which feels the most affected by continuing turmoil in the Middle East and views the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a major contributor to the upsurge of extremism. They view the rise of Hamas, Hezbollah, and other extremist groups as a direct result of the Israeli occupation. For the EU, relocating the American embassy to Jerusalem is another, if not the final, nail in the coffin of a two-state solution, which would instigate increasing regional violence from which Europe will continue to suffer.

Attaining breakthrough from the potentially disastrous outcome:

Should President Trump still decide to relocate the American embassy, he can convert the prospective disastrous consequences of such a move into a historic breakthrough that could change the nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and cement the prospect of peace based on a two-state solution.

Given that the US purchased land in West Jerusalem on which to build the American embassy, which has been postponed by successive American administrations, Trump can announce that the US will soon begin the building of the new embassy in the western part of the city.

In conjunction with that, Trump must reemphasize the US' traditional support for the two-state solution and the establishment of the Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, provided that the Palestinians move quickly and steadily toward negotiating peace with Israel. The US ought to make it clear that relocating the American embassy to West Jerusalem does not constitute recognition of Israel's sovereignty over East Jerusalem.

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From Civil Arab



Sam Harris and Bill Maher on Real Time

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It is quite easy to identify the Islamophobia of Donald Trump and many on the right. The "Muslim Ban," manufactured rage about sharia law, Muslim registries ... these things are quite simple to get worked up about. Civil rights organizations, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, rightly point these things out and criticize them roundly.

But these things are not our main problem. We can build coalitions against such in-your-face bigotry (one of the positive offshoots of Trump, if I'm looking for any). Countering blatant Islamophobia is necessary. But it is not a brave exercise. The challenge is how to deal with the latent sort, the brand of Islamophobia that cloaks itself in liberalism.

We all remember Hillary Clinton pronouncing in presidential debates that we need "to work with American Muslim communities who are on the front lines to identify and prevent attacks." She went further, telling us that "we need American Muslims to be part of our eyes and ears on our front lines." Her liberal framing of Muslims solely in terms of national security and their usefulness in the fight against "terrorism" is in many ways more dangerous than blatant Trumpian Islamophobia, mainly because it is more difficult to identify, while being just as treacherous.

We all remember Clint Eastwood's widely lauded "American Sniper," a film that basically consisted of a white American serviceman shooting Muslims for two hours. It was our country's highest grossing film of 2014 to the tune of $350 million. The main character's moral crisis was when he labored over whether or not to shoot a child (spoiler alert: he did). It was nominated for five Oscars and celebrated by the American left.

Sam Harris and Bill Maher serve as the intellectual, pop-culture kings of this liberal strand of Islamophobia. Last Friday, Harris sat down with Maher to discuss jihadism, Islamism, terrorism, and all things related. Harris started out with, "We have to win a war of ideas with the Muslim world." This is the go-to mantra of those who believe in the tired idea of a "clash of civilizations." In other words, that Islam is, per se, incompatible with "Western"/American life.

Guys, by the way, this "clash of civilizations" stuff is so dated. Anyone who still talks in those terms might as well be wearing an Ed Hardy t-shirt.

Harris went to say that Muslim world needs to rid itself of the stain of extremism, and that "only secular, liberal, and former Muslims can police this for us." In other words, only Muslims far from anything traditional, or better yet those who have rejected the faith altogether, can save Islam. "For us," of course.

He used the way-out-of-style catchphrase "moderate Muslims." "We need to reach out to them." Maher, of course, ate it all up, adding, "We are never going to defeat terrorism if we don't reform Islam." He added his own colorful analysis of Muslim societies, with some really insightful commentary on female Islamic wear, telling us that "Muslims blame women for men's horniness." Of course, patriarchy and misogyny are not the exclusive domains of any one society, and they are surely not foreign to America. Brock Turner, anyone?

Let me talk about this "moderate Muslims" trope for a second. There is never any recognition by anyone who uses it that "moderate Muslim" means something totally different to a Muslim than it does to Harris and Maher. In fact, the "moderate Muslims" Harris is attempting to refer to (I think), namely activists, intellectuals, opposition figures, secularists, don't use the term at all. Except Harris uses the term, he invokes people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, individuals who have rejected the faith and culture altogether.

Ultimately, what Harris and Maher are saying is that the problem with the Muslim world is, simply, Islam. This is reductionist, undeveloped, and just plain stupid. It demonstrates a blatant ignorance of any history of Islam or the Arab world. And this should not be surprising, as neither has any advanced degrees in the area. Harris is a neuroscientist, and Maher is Maher. They are not scholars of the subject, self-taught or otherwise. And it shows. Maher's simplistic discussions of the hijab and Harris' facile paradigm of Muslims as jihadists, Islamists, and conservatives display a juvenile misunderstanding of Muslims and their sensibilities.

But what's most damaging is that these two are celebrated as sophisticated, enlightened commentators, as liberal critics of Islam. Hey guys, I like my whiskey. I eat bacon sometimes (I'm American, after all). A sheikh would not approve of many of my lifestyle choices. I can diagnose all the individual ills of the Arab/Muslim world that you can. I see the need for reform. I hate ISIS (I thought I would just say that for the record). I see myself as part of the greater Muslim fabric. I'm a secular liberalist who dislikes religion in governance. But I can never get on board on with you.

As long as you continue to assert that the problem with my homeland is my heritage itself, you're just blowing hot air. When it comes to talking about Islam or the Arab world, it's amateur hour with you two. It's almost as if you've never read reformers like Ali Shariati, Fatima Mernissi, and the like, who have invoked the egalitarian traditions of Arab and Muslim societies as the way forward. To paraphrase Bill Clinton, I believe that there is nothing wrong with my people that cannot be fixed by what's right with my people. And I'm not alone. So, if your objective is to get leftie Arabs like me on your side, you're failing terribly. If your goal is to talk about about my people in no more advanced terms than Donald Trump, then you're doing a great job.
From Wallwritings

The Merriam-Webster dictionary has just announced that more than 1,000 new words have been added to its latest edition.

One of those new words -- snollygoster -- arrives just in time to apply to Republican members of Congress, who shut down Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) as she was reading a letter from Coretta Scott King on the Senate floor.

According to Merriam-Webster, a snollygoster is "a shrewd, unprincipled person". The word has a history in American English as far back as 1846.

The dictionary cites one use by former President Harry Truman who "lamented that Dwight Eisenhower had given in to congressional 'snollygosters' -- unprincipled politicians."

One of the darker moments in this one-sided cabinet battle in a Republican controlled Senate, came when Senator Warren was not allowed to participate further in the Senate debate over Senator Jeff Sessions, to become Attorney General.

Following a second straight all-night session, Warren's Democratic colleagues came to her support. Several male senators took to the floor to read the letter. They were not shut down for "breaking Rule 19."

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a floor speech Wednesday, "I think Leader McConnell owes Senator Warren an apology." He joined other Democrats who "were particularly chagrined that a Senate rule could be invoked to prevent a member from criticizing someone who is up for confirmation before the body."

National Public Radio covered the story Wednesday:

"A day after Senate Republicans invoked a conduct rule to end Sen. Elizabeth Warren's speech against the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions as U.S. attorney general, a 1986 letter from Coretta Scott King urging the Senate to reject Sessions' nomination as a federal judge is gaining new prominence. "Warren was reading aloud from the letter by King, the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., when she was interrupted by the presiding chair of the Senate, who warned her of breaking Rule 19, which forbids members from imputing to a colleague 'any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.' "The warning mentioned Warren's earlier quote of Sen. Edward Kennedy, who had called Sessions, then a U.S. attorney, a disgrace. But it was King's letter that -- more than 10 minutes after Warren finished reading it aloud Tuesday night -- prompted Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to call her out of order. That resulted in Warren being silenced on the Senate floor."

King's letter was posted online by The Washington Post.

When Senator Sessions was confirmed Wednesday night 53-47, in a party-line vote, his confirmation was the second narrow confirmation. The only Democrat who supported him was Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a state that voted 67.9% for Trump and 26.2% for Hillary Clinton.

Betsy DeVos, an anti-public school, billionaire fund-raiser, from Michigan, who has never attended a public school nor sent her children to a public school, became Secretary of Education by an unprecedented single vote (for a cabinet member) cast by Vice President Mike Pence.

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When the Republican majority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, used Senate Rule XIX to silence Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren because of her reading a letter from Coretta Scott King opposing Jeff Sessions from Alabama to be a federal judge, the Senate evoked a strategy first used in Congress when the slave power was at its peak of control over the federal government.

King's 1986 letter alleged: "Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters." No information could be more relevant to the credentials required by an attorney general in 2017. We live in an era when the Supreme Court revived the slave-power doctrine of equal sovereignty in violation of the 15th amendment in Chief Justice Roberts' infamous Shelby County decision gutting the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The country desperately needs a Department of Justice capable of standing up to such rulings and fighting in the courts to preserve the Constitution and laws that protect equal voting rights as the foundation of democracy. King is a reliable source of information that Sessions flagrantly fails that test for leading the DoJ.

Wishing to ignore the evidence that their preferred choice for such leadership is a southern racist with a record of violating equal voting rights, Republicans ruled that Warren's reading of King's letter would "impute to another Senator ... conduct ... unbecoming a Senator" in violation of the Senate's rules. But the three-decades-old letter was written about Sessions' conduct long before Sessions became a Senator. His offensive and racist conduct prior to becoming a Senator could not be "unbecoming a Senator." The point of reading the letter was to evidence past conduct contrary to that expected of an attorney general who will equally enforce the laws. After all, most Republican Senators do not care whether Sessions committed racist acts against black Alabama voters just as they have refused to overturn John Roberts' shabby decision discriminating against many more black voters in Shelby County.

King's allegation of racial discrimination, far from being unusual or unbecoming, in the dictionary sense of "unsuitable," is rather typical of the average member of the current Senate majority's views toward equal voting rights. Their vote approving Sessions shows his brand of racism suits the Senate just fine. Warrens' point was obviously not to object to Sessions' conduct as unsuitable for a Republican Senator, which in the Trump era would present a very low bar indeed on matters of white privilege.

The contemporary southern party has overreached by censoring Warrens' further debate of an apparent white supremacist's suitability to be attorney general on grounds that she violated Rule XIX. That rule does not seem to apply to Warren's rejection of Session's qualifications for an altogether different post which makes a greater demand on character than does that of a Senator.

By stimulating this debate over equal voting rights, Senator Warren steps into the shoes of a former great politician from Massachusetts. President John Quincy Adams, after his subsequent election to Congress, led the newly organizing abolitionist forces in Congress by introducing various anti-slavery petitions. In 1836 Congress responded with a "gag rule" to prevent any discussion of slavery in Congress. This gag rule became the first target of abolitionist forces in the national government, as one of the brilliant abolitionist strategies created by Adams and his remarkable legislative assistant Theodore Weld (husband of pathbreaking anti-slavery orator Angelina Grimke, "first woman in American history to appear before a legislative body," Miller 316).

William Lee Miller, Arguing about slavery: the great battle in the United States Congress (1996) 48, tells this story "about the first tiny steps toward ... extending democracy to black persons" by Adams' resistance to the gag rule.

Miller writes, 260, that "the right of slaves to petition -- was, according to Adams, 'the most important question that ever came before the House since its first origin'" because it would determine the question whether slaves were persons having constitutional rights. To slaveowners, the idea that slaves might have the constitutional right to petition could lead to their constitutional right to sue in court (like Dred Scott did), or even to vote. That slippery slope leads to the end of chattel slavery.

When the Supreme Court's Dred Scott (1857) decision attempted to settle the question that Adams thought most important by ruling that slaves were property not persons, thereby misrepresenting the express language of the Constitution, Lincoln made this ruling the leading issue in his sustained campaign for the presidency. James Madison had found it "wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men." So it did not. The Supreme Courts' lie in Dred Scott that it did, "in effect, assured the Election of 1860 to Lincoln" and led to secession, since "a Republican President would mean no more proslavery appointments to the Court. It would mean a veto of any legislation likely to add a slave territory or a slave state to the Union." Harry V. Jaffa, Dred Scott Revisited, 31 Harvard J. of Law & Pub. Pol. 197, 211, 217 (2008).

A generation earlier Adams gathered support for the abolitionist cause by first fighting the gag rule. His fight against the rule eventually resulted in a censure motion comparable to the one that the Senate approved to silence Warren. Adams' extended defense of his censure resulted in a vote of 97-25 against the slaveowners' objection to Adams speaking about slavery. This was, according to Miller, 444 "the first clear-cut victory in the American House of Representatives against the forces of the slaveholding South."

That vote led to the formal repeal of the gag rule in 1844, the same year abolitionists formed a precursor to the Republican Party to run a presidential campaign. But 12 years later one of Massachusetts' greatest Senators, Charles Sumner, a protege of Adams, was beaten nearly to death in an attempted assassination committed on the floor of the Senate for giving his anti-slavery speech "Crime Against Kansas" there. This violent version of the gag rule led to civil war. See S. Puleo, The Caning: The Assault That Drove America to Civil War (2012).

Adams fought against the gag rule on first amendment grounds. The King letter was in the tradition of the abolitionist petitions Adams claimed were protected by the First Amendment. Warren's reading of King's letter about voting rights on the floor of Congress was similar to JQ Adams' efforts to read petitions against slavery to Congress. And her censure by a partisan vote was comparable to the censure of Adams by the Slave Power, resistance to which led to repeal of the gag rule.

Slavery was replaced, after its formal abolition and a brief Reconstruction Era, by the slavery by another name of Jim Crow terrorism that depended upon the denial of equal voting rights. A. Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II (2009).

After the great migration, the right to vote empowered a brief civil-rights era that ended the old Jim Crow. A New Jim Crow now appears in an era when the value of the right to vote has been vastly depreciated by systemic political corruption imposed by Supreme Court rulings equally illegitimate as Dred Scott. Those who gag Warren are the same politicians who advocate a nominee to the Supreme Court who will reliably perpetuate that disfranchisement by political corruption and further suppression of voting rights for all but plutocrats who pay. The gag rule to prevent honest discussion of equal voting rights draws a line where it is necessary for patriots to take a stand against oppression, in the tradition of JQ Adams and the abolitionists.

A proper response to the censorship of Senator Warren should come from the state of Massachusetts. So long as Warren remained censored, the citizens of the state of Massachusetts were denied their equal representation in the Senate, contrary to what the Supreme Court held to be constitutional law in Shelby County. If the 15th Amendment cannot stand in the way of sovereign equality then surely a vague rule about decorum in debate cannot.

The Massachusetts legislature and its Governor Charles D. Baker should lodge a formal protest against the Senate's gag rule of its U.S. Senator. Censorship of honest and relevant debate and the right of a state's citizens to be represented in that debate should not be a partisan issue. The Constitution denies a partisan faction in Congress "authority to exclude any person, duly elected by his constituents, who meets all the requirements for membership expressly prescribed in the Constitution" on such flimsy grounds. Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486, 522 (1969).

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Globalresearch, which has a reputation of both being a leading leftist organ of dissent and a silly exercise in right wing paranoia, calling global warming a hoax and dismissing the claims of Russian intervention in the US election on side of Trump, has an article by the expert on the Deep State by the man who originated the term, Peter Dale Scott.

This is required reading for all those seeking to understand how to connect the seemingly random dots that describe the ascent of Donald Trump. I will quote just a few key claims, which are backed up by daunting evidence int he Scott article, and then provide the link:

"As I write, there have been a series of charges that, if substantiated, would seem to link Trump not only to an element of the American deep state, but also to an element of the Russian deep state......

In short, the Trump team connections to the Russian state and deep state -- both overt (through Exxon) and covert (through Manafort and Alfa) would appear to link Trump to a shady larger network or networks connected also to the same Washington swamp he promised to drain. Such networks led me in the Preface to the French edition of this book to talk of a supranational milieu of the super-rich, just eighty of whom are now said to own nearly as much as the 3.5 billion people who occupy the bottom half of the world's income scale.[74] Thanks to the enormous increase in global wealth in recent years, the "global power elite" who meet annually at Davos now have far more influence on how the world will be governed than those who meet annually at the United Nations General Assembly.

Those at Davos do not need to give instructions to the American deep state, which is already structured around responsiveness to the requirements of extreme wealth in Wall Street and elsewhere. And some of them are members of what have been called "shadow elites, those whose influence stems from illicit or unconventional means."

"The "New, New World Order" may be said to represent the mavericks of the international deep state, eager to dispense with the regulations of the old insiders. But they are still part of the nexus of uncontrolled big money, even if drawn more from the under-reported shady underside of that superclass.

As I write after just one week of Trump in office, it already seems clear that we can expect a "Trump revolution," one that will almost certainly attempt to reflect and repeat the major features (deregulation, anti-abortion measures, a defense spending buildup, tax cuts for the rich, and deficit financing) of the Reagan revolution before it. And it should not be too surprising if the Trump revolution, just like the Reagan revolution before it, turns out to have been not just financed, but partly plotted, at the levels of the American and the international deep state."

In this essay, Scott connects the Deep State to an international elite of bankers, secretive intelligence agencies such as the CIA, FBI, and their foreign counterparts and the battle among the billionaires between "new wealth" and "old wealth" as well as how the Deep State has been the means by which Trump, heavily funded by financial elites in both the US and Russia, China, and Turkey, has come to power.

My articles that claimed a Deep State connection to Trump, both in his selection, and in his service as a distracting figurehead, met with some mocking by the cynics, but his article by Scott confirms almost everything I was guessing at, with daunting logic and evidence. It is essential reading for anyone seeking to dig beneath the surface circus that distracts us from the deeper operations which rule the world...or destroy it in the attempt.

SEE:

click here

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Congress Switchboard: 202-224-3121

"You have something special and important here. Somehow you manage to teach and suggest and introduce the reader to concepts in a way that feels inclusive. Like, we're thinking about it together. Partly it might be because the subject, bottom-up, is innately understood by all of us and so it feels like you're stirring up stuff we already know. But also I think it's because you truly are practiced at connection consciousness and so it's natural for you (I'm guessing) to write about it with a desire to include us. As a reader I was learning more because it feels like you're inviting me to think with you."



Tsara Shelton, author
Congress Switchboard: 202-224-3121

"Bottom-Up is a direct and logical look at how we live our lives, conduct our business, manage our societies, and, most importantly, communicate with each other. Author Rob Kall explains it all in plain English. But don't let the readability of this book fool you into thinking that it's not important. Kall cuts to the heart of the most critical issues in communication today. This book is as important as game theory. And people will take notice."



John Kiriakou, former CIA officer and author of The Reluctant Spy and Doing Time Like a Spy
Congress Switchboard: 202-224-3121

"There's no dispute that we now live in a hyper-connected, globalized world--but plenty of argument over the type of globalization that's best for our collective future. In this timely work, Rob Kall makes a persuasive case for 'trickle-up' globalization from below and that the truest, best, and most long-lasting fundamental change always comes from the bottom up. Read this bookthen act on it!"



Rory O'Connor, award-winning filmmaker and author of Friends, Followers, and the Future: How Social Media are Changing Politics, Threatening Big Brands, and Killing Traditional Media
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From Reader Supported News



Supporters of Bernie Sanders and the Green Party march with Cornel West in Philadelphia, PA, during the Democratic National Convention.

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Donald Trump is uniting the left. I hear you -- he's the great divider as well, dividing the country into racial, religious and gender factions. He is, however, also uniting the left. Of course, I would rather have a real uniter like Bernie Sanders lead the way (good thing he is). But that doesn't mean there isn't a role to be played for someone like Trump. I wish it hadn't come to this, but Trump is clearly motivating unity on the left.

Bernie-crats, greeners, Clinton supporters, and even anarchists are together in the streets protesting Trump's policies. We need to build on this unity, strengthening coalitions in our outside strategy. Of course, down the road we will have to fight it out to decide who takes on Trump in 2020, but until that time let's work together.

We've had our time to blame each other. While many of us won't admit it, we all had a part in electing Trump. I could list things all of us could have done differently. I guess we could learn from them, but I think we've already blamed each other enough. There is plenty of blame to go around, and those willing to learn have taken responsibility. It's time to move forward and leave the past behind.

During the next primary season, we will battle it out again and hopefully unite under one flag to beat Trump and take back Congress. In the meantime, primary your congressperson if you think we can put someone in who will do a better job. That's politics. That is the inside game; the outside strategy can be less competitive. We don't have to agree on everything, just the issue we're protesting that day.

You don't have to oppose all pipelines to be against the use of eminent domain to seize a farmer's land. Environmentalists and farmers can unite against the Dakota Access Pipeline. You don't have to support abortion to be for funding women's health.

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From Paul Craig Roberts Website



Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin

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If you want to be an American TV talking head or a Western presstitute, you are required to be braindead and integrity-challenged like Bill O'Reilly, CNN, MSNBC, and the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and all the rest.

In an interview with President Donald Trump, O'Reilly said: "Putin is a killer."

O'Reilly is indifferent to the fact that thermo-nuclear war is a killer of planet Earth. For O'Reilly, President Trump's desire to normalize relations with Russia is an indication that the President of the US is comfortable making deals with killers, as if America's last three presidents have not been mass killers comfortable with their destruction in whole or part of many countries and millions of peoples.

President Trump's response to O'Reilly's was: "We've got a lot of killers. What do you think -- our country's so innocent?"

The only thing wrong with President Trump's response is that it implicitly accepts that Putin is no different from Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. Yet there is no evidence that Putin is a "killer." This accusation is an assertion from those who prosper from having a "Russian threat" to keep the money and power flowing to themselves.

As Finian Cunningham shows, Trump should have reprimanded O'Reilly for his unsupported and undiplomatic accusation against the president of a country with which President Trump hopes to restore normal relations.

President Trump's statement of an obvious fact was quickly branded "defense of a killer" by congressional Republicans, Hillary Democrats, the liberal, progressive, left-wing, and the Western presstitutes.

Even online sites, such as politico.com, jumped in to criticize "Donald Trump's defense of Vladimir Putin's homicidal history." Allegations of "Putin's homicidal history" are astonishing after 24 years of Washington's genocide against Muslins in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, and Syria, and non-Muslims in Yugoslavia and the Russian regions of Ukraine. Washington ranks as one of the worst mass murderers in human history, but the Western presstitutes brand Putin as the one who is homicidal.

Listen to these members of Congress who represent Americans in Washington:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, Ky) said referring to the thrice elected President of Russia: "He's a thug." McConnell has gone along with Washington's mass murder of peoples for 15 years, and this accomplice to mass murder said that Washington's murder of countless millions, which have sent refugees all over the Western world, are not evidence against America. In his response to Trump's statement, McConnell actually said: "We don't operate in any way the way the Russians do. I think there's a clear distinction here that all Americans understand, and I would not have characterized it that way."

The Republican senator from Florida, Marco Rubio, said: "We are not the same as Putin." Of course we aren't. We are mass murderers.

The Republican senator from Nebraska, Ben Sasse, said, and this is a level of ignorance hard to believe even for Americans, that "Putin is an enemy of political dissent. The U.S. celebrates political dissent and the right for people to argue free from violence about places or ideas that are in conflict [as at Cal Berkeley]. There is no moral equivalency between the United States of America, the greatest freedom loving nation in the history of the world, and the murderous thugs that are in Putin's defense of his cronyism."

The Wall Street Journal's Bret Stephens said: "Trump puts US on moral par with Putin's Russia. Never in history has a President slandered his country like this."

No Bret, you have it backwards. No US president has ever slandered Russia like this. There is no moral equivalency between Washington and Moscow. Washington is totally devoid of all morality. Russia is not. It is not Russia that has murdered, maimed, and displaced peoples in at least nine countries in the last 15 years, sending refugees all over the Western world, some of whom no doubt bear legitimate grudges.

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From American Conservative

Inspired by fringe theories about Islamic civilization, Michael Flynn is leading Trump down a dangerous path.

The United States is adding new sanctions on Iran over that country's alleged misdeeds, and nearly all of those allegations are either out-and-out lies or half-truths. It has a familiar ring to it, as demonizing Tehran has been rather more the norm than not since 1979, a phenomenon that has included fabricated claims that the Iranians killed American soldiers after the U.S.'s armed interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. This time around, the administration focused on the perfectly legal Iranian test of a non-nuclear-capable, medium-range ballistic missile and the reported attack on what was initially claimed to be a U.S. warship by allegedly Iranian-backed Yemeni Houthi fighters. The ship was later revealed to be a Saudi frigate.

Donald Trump's national-security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, "officially" put Iran "on notice" while declaring that "The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate Iran's provocations that threaten our interests. The days of turning a blind eye to Iran's hostile and belligerent actions toward the United States and the world community are over."

Ignoring the fact that Iran cannot actually threaten the United States or any genuine vital national interests, the warning and follow-up action from the White House also contradict Donald Trump's campaign pledge to avoid yet another war in the Middle East, which appears to have escaped Flynn's notice. The increase in tension and the lack of any diplomatic dialogue mean that an actual shooting war might now be a "false flag," false intelligence report, or accidental naval encounter away.

If it all sounds like a reprise of the baseless allegations and intentionally unproductive negotiations that led to the catastrophic Iraq War, it should. What "belligerent actions against the United States" Flynn was referring to, generally speaking, were not completely clear, but that lack of precision may have been intentional, to permit instant vilification of anything Tehran attempts to do to counter the hostility coming out of Washington.

Hating Iran has a considerable pedigree. I must confess to being of a generation in the federal government, like Flynn and others, where saying something derogatory about Iran was in the DNA, welcomed by all and sundry. I nursed a personal and specific grudge relating to the mullahs, as an Iranian government agent tried to kill me in Turkey in the 1980s. But more often the animosity was generic, sometimes expressed humorously at CIA Station staff meetings. I recall how one fellow officer who was undercover at a consular office would positively gloat as he described how many Iranian visa applicants he had turned down in the past week and everyone would bang their fists on the conference table, signifying their approval. Of course, we all felt fully justified in our Iranophobia due to the 1979-80 embassy hostage crisis, which was still very fresh in our minds.

But my rancor toward Iran has long since faded. I have Iranian friends and have come around to the view that Iran has much more been sinned against than sinned in its relationship with the United States. With the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in July 2015, I even began to believe that the two nations might well be able to resume something like normal diplomatic relations, which would benefit everyone involved. Alas, such hopes appear to be scuppered by a recent wave of Iran hysteria that bids fair to eclipse the Russian panic that has consumed the media and chattering class during the past six months.

I should have seen it coming. In December 2015, I was present at a conference in Moscow where General Flynn explained his concept of 21st-century geo-economic-political strategy. At least I think that was what he was talking about, though one can understand the frustration of the interviewer, Sophie Shevdernadze, as she tried to get him to explain what he meant during a largely incoherent presentation.

At the time I knew little about Flynn and his views, but I was particularly taken aback by a random shot he took at the Iranians, stating very clearly that they were responsible for "fueling four proxy wars in the Middle East." He was presumably referring to Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen. The audience, which included a number of international journalists and genuine foreign-policy experts, became somewhat restless and began to mutter. I was standing in the back of the room and witnessed Flynn's son, Michael G. Flynn, responding to the expressions of disbelief, waving his arms around and shouting "Right! Right! Check the intel!"

Two minutes later, the elder Flynn returned to the theme, mentioning the "terrible nuclear deal with Iran." Now, I am accustomed to hearing nasty things about Iran, but they usually come from Israeli partisans who persist in falsely describing the Iranians as a global threat. It is in their interest to do so, and many pliable American politicians and media talking heads have picked up the refrain, so much so that a U.S. attack on Iran would likely be endorsed overwhelmingly by Congress and applauded in the media.

But I believed that Flynn was not particularly in with that group, consisting largely of neoconservatives, and his disdain for Iran seemed to be at least somewhat sincere in that it appeared to be rooted in his own experience as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). But I was wrong and should have paid more attention to the people Flynn was talking to.

Sources of Flynn's Worldview

A long-time foe of Iran, Michael Ledeen believed that invading the country should have been the first priority in 2003 rather than Iraq. He believes that "everything traces back to Tehran" and that Iran manipulates both sides of the Shi'ite-Sunni conflict, leading reviewer Peter Beinart to note that his "effort to lay virtually every attack by Muslims against Americans at Tehran's feet takes him into rather bizarre territory."

Even as Flynn was speaking in Moscow he was collaborating with Ledeen on a book called The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies, which appeared in July 2016. The book has two basic premises. First, the entire "civilized world" is engaged in a life-and-death struggle with a perverted form of Islam that has produced the phenomenon referred to as "radical Islamic terrorism," a phrase that may have been embraced by the Trump administration largely thanks to Flynn. Flynn insists on the tag including the Islamic part because of his belief that the Muslim religion is itself intrinsic to the very nature of the conflict. In fact, he prefers to call Islam a political ideology rather than a religion and even describes it as a political ideology that has "metastasized" into "malignant cancer." He once tweeted that "Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL," linking to a false claim that Islam wants 80 percent of humanity enslaved or exterminated.

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Hillary Trump et Donald Clinton

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I posted a brief comment on Facebook. It's brought quite a few comments and likes:

I replied to some remarks that Bernie was not a Democrat:

For all the HIllary people-- yes it screamingly obvious-- Bernie is more of Democrat, based on how he walks his talk, than most Democrats in congress, certainly more than John Corzine, (the county Dem Chair in Bucks County for those of you on this thread who are not local) who is a classic example of the kind of Democrat who has to go, who was a central part of the reason the Repugs now control the senate and the White House.

As far as the Hillary defenders who blame the current situation on people who voted for Jill Stein or stayed home, Ana Panait added a reply to the thread, saying,

"You can't blame those who voted third party because they didn't like Hillary, who should have never run. You certainly can't blame those who stayed home because they were discouraged. If a candidate is put forth and that candidate can't win over the electorate it's the candidate and the establishment's fault. Not the voters. Voters are there to be won over, not frightened into voting for a candidate they don't support. That strategy needs to change, it failed. Voters have a right to exercise their vote however they want if they want. Voters do not OWE anyone their vote. You want someone's vote as a politician, you need to earn it, she did not earn people's trust, and therefore she lost their votes."

And Bill Homans, AKA Watermelon Slim added,

"Bernie was polling 15-25% over Trump. It would have been a landslide on the scale of Nixon-McGovern, because the American People would not have had to seriously consider the possibility that Bernie was in the race to feather his own nest, as 97% of the American electorate was sure of with regard to the candidates they voted for (Johnson and Stein accounted for 3% of the vote, I voted for the latter in conscience). These were very rich people who GET OFF-- especially The Donald-- on self-aggrandizement. Bernie would have shamed Trump under the pavement, and if "Locker Room Talk" had arisen when he was the candidate, not Clinton, who had a well-publicized philandering husband, Trump might have lost by 30%. There could have been no Republican dirty trick by an FBI Director about mishandled emails. Sanders has never done anything financially to report on, and has been morally squeaky clean. WTF, those who just want to move on? The only future possible by men and women of good will is resistance, in every way that we intellectually, economically and physically can. There can be no business-as-usual with this president and his cabal. One problem is that it will have to be the Republicans themselves who actually understand that no matter how attractive the short-term political and economic benefits to them and their owner-class handlers-- uh, donors-- may be, the damage it will do to the people who need to keep buying things is such that he must be removed, legally. However, I would expect the Pence organization-- and you know there is one, he was a Governor, and he had pros working for him-- to already have formulated contingency plans for the transition. We would then at least have to have a cabinet reset. Pence is a right-wing social conservative. But Bannon, and Mnuchin, and Perry, and Pruitt, and Tillerson, and Kushner, and Friedman, would all be gone. Sessions and DeVos would stay. And this might wreak havoc with the Senate's getting anything meaningful done for several months, but the American People would have to stand in the streets and require it. Just as we're going to have to stand in the streets and require everything and ANYTHING we want, or want to save (I am 67 and receive Medicare).

If we don't restore the Presidency to someone mentally and intellectually, and by experience, fit for the job, someone who does not make American foreign policy moot by conducting it over Twitter, the damage to the future of the United States of America will continue to be done at an exponential rate. Do you have children like this one? Resist for them, and make sure they resist too. It is appropriate that our children engage in thoughtful and meaningful resistance. It is their planet too."

Anyone who says Bernie would have lost because he was a democratic socialist is also an obvious Hillary Primary supporter who bought the Clinton lies. ALL the polls showed Bernie doing a lot better than Hillary against Trump. Bernie's not being a regular Democrat was a strong asset in attracting independents. He drew 70% of Independents in Vermont. People need to wake up to the reality that the reason we have the situation we have was because of horrendous, crooked Democratic party leadership at all levels. And it can be changed. Progressives have already taken over in California and Washington. Look at Seattle where they've just taken billions from Western Union because of it's funding DAPL. Face it, Hillary primary supporters. You were duped and deceived Wake up, help take back the Democratic party from the corporatists who don't look out for our interests. It is the ONLY Way we have a chance in 2018 and 2020.

Wayne Kenton commented on the thread,

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The United Nations and humanitarian organizations Wednesday (February 8) launched an international appeal for $2.1 billion to provide humanitarian assistance to 18.8 million Yemenis. This is more than two thirds of the total population of 27.4 million of the war-devastated Yemen. At least 12 million people in Yemen need life-saving assistance in 2017, the UN sources said.

"Two years of war have devastated Yemen. Without international support, they may face the threat of famine in the course of 2017 and I urge donors to sustain and increase their support to our collective response," said UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O'Brien in a press release on the launch of the Humanitarian Response Plan for Yemen in Geneva.

"Humanitarian partners are ready to respond. But they need timely, unimpeded access, and adequate resources, to meet the humanitarian needs wherever they arise," said Mr. O'Brien, who is also the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs.

He noted that since March 2015, violent conflict and disregard by all parties to the conflict for their responsibility to protect civilians have created a vast protection crisis in Yemen and millions of people face threats to their safety and basic human rights every day. In addition, deliberate war tactics are accelerating the collapse of key institutions and the economy, thereby exacerbating pre-existing vulnerabilities.

This has left an alarming 18.8 million people -- more than two-thirds of the population -- in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which also estimates that 10.3 million people are acutely affected and nearly 3.3 million people -- including 2.1 million children -- are acutely malnourished.

In 2016, 120 national and international partners including UN agencies and non-governmental organizations working out of humanitarian hubs in Aden, Al Hudaydah, Ibb, Sana'a, and Sa'ada assisted more than 5.6 million people with direct humanitarian aid, according to UN sources.

10,000 civilians killed in Yemen conflict

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs' Jamie McGoldrick said last month that the civilian death toll in the nearly two-year conflict has reached 10,000, with 40,000 others wounded.

This announcement marks the first time a U.N. official has confirmed such a high death toll in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest nation. Earlier, the U.N. reported 4,200 civilians were killed in the war.

In addition, many more are indirect victims of the conflict, including those who suffer from chronic diseases, including high blood pressure and diabetes, and are unable to get treatment, McGoldrick said. For example, a cancer clinic in Sana'a that used to treat 30,000 patients has closed, he said. Inevitably, those suffering from chronic disease "will die sooner than they should," he said.

The UN official also noted that more than 400,000 children under the age of five suffer from malnutrition, raising serious concern about their development and Yemen's future.

"This once more underscores the need to resolve the situation in Yemen without any further delay," U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said in New York. "There's been a huge humanitarian cost."

The Yemen conflict pits Houthis and allied forces against a Saudi-led coalition that is trying to re-install the government of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. The coalition began brutal air strikes in March 2015 to restore Hadi's government that fled the country after Houthis seized the capital Sana'a in 2014.

US commando operation in Yemen

The UN appeal for massive humanitarian assistance came days after a UN commando operation in Yemen in which one Navy SEAL was killed.

According to New York Post, the team was choppered in Saturday (Jan 28) to target a key al Qaeda headquarters in Yemen -- the first U.S. strike in the region since 2014 -- and ended up killing 14 militants, including senior leaders Abdulraoof al-Dhahab, Sultan al-Dhahab and Seif al-Nims, in an ensuing gun battle that lasted nearly an hour.

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From Consortium News

If you wanted to bring sanity to a U.S. foreign policy that has spun crazily out of control, there would be some immediate steps that you -- or, say, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson -- could take, starting with a renewed commitment to tell the truth to the American people.

Instead of the endless "perception management" or "strategic communication" or "psychological operations" or whatever the new code words are, you could open up the files regarding key turning-point moments and share the facts with the citizens -- the "We the People" -- who are supposed to be America's true sovereigns.

For instance, you could release what the U.S. government actually knows about the Aug. 21, 2013 sarin gas attack in Syria; what the files show about the origins of the Feb. 22, 2014 coup in Ukraine; what U.S. intelligence analysts have compiled about the July 17, 2014 shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine. And those are just three examples of cases where U.S. government propagandists have sold a dubious bill of goods to the American and world publics in the "information warfare" campaign against the Syrian and Russian governments.

If you wanted to base U.S. foreign policy on the firm foundation of reality, you also could let the American people in on who is actually the principal sponsor of the terrorism that they're concerned about: Al Qaeda, Islamic State, the Taliban -- all Sunni-led outfits, none of which are backed by Shiite-ruled Iran. Yet, all we hear from Official Washington's political and media insiders is that Iran is the chief sponsor of terrorism.

Of course, that is what Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and Israel want you to believe because it serves their regional and sectarian interests, but it isn't true. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are the ones arming and financing Al Qaeda and Islamic State with Israel occasionally bombing Al Qaeda's military enemies inside Syria and providing medical support for Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate operating near the Golan Heights.

The reason for this unsavory network of alliances is that Israel, like Saudi Arabia and the Sunni-led Gulf states, sees Iran and the so-called "Shiite crescent" -- from Tehran through Damascus to Beirut -- as their principal problem. And because of the oil sheiks' financial wealth and Israel's political clout, they control how pretty much everyone in Official Washington's establishment views the Middle East.

But the interests of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are not in line with the interests of the American people -- nor the average European -- who are not concerned about militant Shiites as much as militant Sunnis. After all, the worst terror attacks on Europe and the U.S. have come from Sunni extremists belonging to or inspired by Al Qaeda and Islamic State.

This gap between the reality of Sunni-extremist terrorism and the fantasy of Official Washington's "group think" fingering Shiite-ruled Iran explains the cognitive dissonance over President Trump's travel ban on people from seven mostly Muslim countries. Beyond the offensive anti-Muslim prejudice, there is the fact that he ignored the countries that produced the terrorists who have attacked the U.S., including the 9/11 hijackers.

This bizarre feature of Trump's executive order shows how deep Official Washington's dysfunction goes. Trump has picked a major constitutional battle over a travel ban that targets the wrong countries.

But there's a reason for this dysfunction: No one in Official Washington can speak the truth about terrorism without suffering severe political damage or getting blacklisted by the mainstream media. Since the truth puts Israel and especially Saudi Arabia in an uncomfortable position, the truth cannot be spoken.

Hope for Trump

There was some hope that President Trump -- for all his irascibility and unpredictability -- might break from the absurd "Iran is the principal source of terrorism" mantra. But so far he has not.

Nor has Trump moved to throw open the files on the Syrian and Ukraine conflicts so Americans can assess how the Obama administration sought to manipulate them into supporting these "regime change" adventures.



Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland during a press conference at the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, Ukraine, on Feb. 7, 2014.

(Image by (U.S. State Department photo)) Details DMCA



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Worldwide Positive Airway Pressure Devices Market Trends & Industry Forecast by 2016 - 2024

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The U.S. accounted for the largest market share in positive airway pressure devices market. This is due to the increasing healthcare awareness for sleep apnea, improving healthcare infrastructure, rising disposable incomes, increasing obesity adding to the pool of sleep apnea patients and economic growth favored by broadening insurance coverage. Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) provides cover for sleep apnea products, including a capped rental on CPAP/BiPAP equipment and other supplies. As per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 36% of the adults in the U.S. were obese in 2010, and nearly 42% will be obese by the year 2030. Furthermore, according to National Sleep Foundation, in 2012, around 40 Mn Americans were reported to suffer from chronic sleep disorder.Positive airway pressure devices keep pressured air flowing through the airways of the throat and is one of the common treatments for sleep apnea. The patient wears a face mask which is attached with a tube and a machine that blows pressurized air through the mask into the airway to keep it open. The air acts like a balloon holding the relaxed muscles of the throat open. Positive airway pressure (PAP) is a treatment method that uses mild air pressure to keep the airways sufficiently open. PAP devices are specially used by patients that have breathing issues, such as sleep apnea. These devices are broadly categorized as continuous positive airway pressure devices (CPAP), bi-level positive airway pressure (BiPAP), and automatic positive airway pressure devices (APAP). The growing prevalence of sleep apnea and co-morbidities related to PAP have propelled the use of positive airway pressure devices. The global positive airway pressure devices is anticipated to witness a trend of devices that are compact and comfortable through 2024.Download Complete Healthcare Analytical Brochure:Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a chronic medical condition requiring night application of therapy to efficiently limit the number of apneas and hypopneas that would occur without intervention. The gold-standard treatment for OSA is continuous positive airway pressure therapy (PAP), which offers a pneumatic splint of the soft tissue in the upper airway. PAP devices can measure and record airflow and pressure levels whenever the device is worn. They contain internal, proprietary algorithms that identify breathing disturbances and whether these disturbances are due to persistent obstructive or non-obstructive events. Generally, the average duration of CPAP use is approximately five hours per night across numerous studies. Studies indicate that greater than six hours per night results in normal levels of objectively measured and self-reported daytime sleepiness, as well as significantly improved memory and daily functioning.Variable positive airway pressure (VPAP) or bi-level positive airway pressure (BiPAP), is a newer type of machine that reduces the amount of pressure when a person breathes out. The device uses an electronic circuit to monitor the person's breathing. Having less pressure in the moment when a person is exhaling may make it more comfortable for the person with sleep apnea. This type of machine is used for people who have other breathing problems or who can't sleep if they have to breathe out against a stream of air.Geographically, North America occupies the substantially larger market share, which is followed by Europe. The high attentiveness level in this region will lead the expansion of positive airway pressure devices market significantly. However, affordability has become a restraining factor for the global market in developing regions such as, Asia Pacific and Latin America. Asia Pacific is expected to demonstrate healthy CAGR in the global positive airway devices market. Increase in disposable income, rising aging population, and growing awareness level are some of the key factors driving the Asia Pacific market. The Asian market is expected to witness entry of higher number of new players compared to those in developed regions.Some of the market players who are competing to bring new technologically advanced products in the market are CareFusion Corporation, GE Healthcare, Philips Healthcare, ResMed, Inc., Teleflex, Inc., and othersThe report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.Browse Full Research Report on Positive Airway Pressure Devices Market:About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a 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. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Browse market research blog:
Global Acetic Anhydride Market to Reach 3.2 Million Tons by 2022

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Acetic anhydride, also known as ethanoic anhydride, is a clear, free-flowing and highly combustible liquid with a strong pungent smell. It is an important acetylation agent and solvent, widely used in the synthesis of various organic compounds. Some of the products manufactured using acetic anhydride include cellular acetate, acetylsalicylic acid, acetanilide, nitrofurans, modified starches, artificial sweeteners, bleach activators, bakery additives, etc.According to a new report by Expert Market Research, the global acetic anhydride market reached a volume of 2.5 Million Tons in 2016 and is further expected to reach a volume of around 3.2 Million Tons by 2022.The market is currently being driven by the demand for acetic anhydride from its various end-use industries, particularly for the manufacturing of cellulose acetate, which is further used to produce cigarette filters, textiles and clothing, tool handles, personal care products, etc. Other end-use industries of acetic anhydride include pharmaceuticals, TAED manufacturing, polymers & resins, flavours & fragrances, dyes, modified starches, etc.To request a sample copy or view summary of this report, click on the link:Key findings from the report:Major end-use industries of acetic anhydride are cellulose acetate flake, pharmaceuticals and Tetraacetylethylenediamine (TAED). In 2016, the cellulose acetate flake industry represented the largest end-user of acetic anhydride accounting for the majority of total global consumption. It was followed by the pharmaceuticals industry and TAED manufacturing industry.Region-wise, North America represented the largest producer of acetic anhydride accounting for more than a third of the total global production. It was followed by China, Western Europe, Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia.The acetic anhydride market is consolidated in nature with a number of global players dominating it. Some of the key global players include Celanese, BP Chemicals, Eastman Chemical Company, BASF and Jubilant Life Sciences.These players are expanding their production capacities and exploring new application areas of acetic anhydride, in order to increase their market share.Click here for view the summary of report:Expert Market Research has analysed the global acetic anhydride market according to end-use, major regions and top players:Market breakup by End-UseCellulose Acetate FlakesPharmaceuticalsTetraacetylethylenediamine (TAED)Market breakup by RegionNorth AmericaChinaWestern EuropeNorth East AsiaSouth East AsiaMiddle East & AfricaEastern EuropeTop playersCelaneseBP ChemicalsEastman Chemical CompanyBASFJubilant Life SciencesDuPontSABICPetroChina Ltd.Sasol LimitedDaicelSipchemRhodiaWe are always open on call and email (24*7) to your queries and very clean with the business methodology.For more follow us@Linkedin:Facebook:Twitter:Find more reports related to Chemical & Materials Market Research @Expert Market Research (EMR) is a market research and consultancy firm providing syndicated and custom research along with consultancy services to a wide clientele base which includes Fortune 1000 companies as well as small and medium enterprises. With our tailored approach, the clients gain valuable and unbiased insights that help to improve their competitive edge and realize sustainable growth.With a keen focus on the qualitative aspect as well as accuracy of the reports, we align our resources and services as per the clients requirement and offer a flexible engagement model that best suits their needs. We offer market intelligence across a range of industry verticals which include Pharmaceuticals, Food and Beverage, Technology, Retail, Chemical & Materials, Energy & Mining, Packaging and Agriculture.Expert Market Research85 Broad StNew York, NY 10004United StatesWebsite:Email: sales@expertmarketresearch.comUS & Canada Phone no: +1-415-325-5166UK Phone no: +44-702-402-5790
United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia Cloud Managed Services Market Size, Status and Forecast 2021

Notes:Production, means the output of Cloud Managed ServicesRevenue, means the sales value of Cloud Managed ServicesThis report studies the global Cloud Managed Services market, analyzes and researches the Cloud Managed Services development status and forecast in United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia. This report focuses on the top players in global market, likeIBM technologiesHuaweiAlcatel-LucentHP enterpriseCisco Systems...Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversUnited StatesEUJapanChinaIndiaSoutheast AsiaMarket segment by Type, Cloud Managed Services can be split intoPrivatePublicMarket segment by Application, Cloud Managed Services can be split intoBFSITelecom & ITRetail and consumer goodsHealthcare and life sciencesManufacturing and high techGovernment and public sectorEnergy and utilitiesOthersTable of ContentsUnited States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia Cloud Managed Services Market Size, Status and Forecast 20211 Industry Overview of Cloud Managed Services1.1 Cloud Managed Services Market Overview1.1.1 Cloud Managed Services Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global Cloud Managed Services Market Size and Analysis by Regions1.2.1 United States1.2.2 EU1.2.3 Japan1.2.4 China1.2.5 India1.2.6 Southeast Asia1.3 Cloud Managed Services Market by Type1.3.1 Private1.3.2 Public1.4 Cloud Managed Services Market by End Users/Application1.4.1 BFSI1.4.2 Telecom & IT1.4.3 Retail and consumer goods1.4.4 Healthcare and life sciences1.4.5 Manufacturing and high tech1.4.6 Government and public sector1.4.7 Energy and utilities1.4.8 Others2 Global Cloud Managed Services Competition Analysis by Players2.1 Cloud Managed Services Market Size (Value) by Players (2015-2016)2.2 Competitive Status and Trend2.2.1 Market Concentration Rate2.2.2 Product/Service Differences2.2.3 New Entrants2.2.4 The Technology Trends in Future3 Company (Top Players) Profiles3.1 IBM technologies3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 Cloud Managed Services Revenue (Value) (2011-2016)3.1.5 Recent Developments3.2 Huawei3.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.2.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.2.4 Cloud Managed Services Revenue (Value) (2011-2016)3.2.5 Recent Developments3.3 Alcatel-Lucent3.3.1 Company Profile3.3.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.3.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.3.4 Cloud Managed Services Revenue (Value) (2011-2016)3.3.5 Recent Developments3.4 HP enterprise3.4.1 Company Profile3.4.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.4.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.4.4 Cloud Managed Services Revenue (Value) (2011-2016)3.4.5 Recent Developments3.5 Cisco Systems3.5.1 Company Profile3.5.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.5.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.5.4 Cloud Managed Services Revenue (Value) (2011-2016)3.5.5 Recent DevelopmentsQYResearchReports.com is an unimpeachable source of market research data for clients that comprise acclaimed SMEs, Chinese companies, private equity firms, and MNCs. We provide market research reports on various categories such as Energy, Chemicals, Alternative and Green Energy, Manufacturing, Machinery, Pharmaceuticals and Materials, and Glass.QYResearchreportsContact Us1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United States+1-518-621-2074866-997-4948USA-Canada Toll freesales@qyresearchreports.com
Global Hearing Aid Devices Market Research Report 2016

Notes:Production, means the output of Hearing Aid DevicesRevenue, means the sales value of Hearing Aid DevicesThis report studies Hearing Aid Devices in Global market, especially in North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia and India, focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, coveringSonovaWilliam DemantSiemensReSoundStarkeyWidexHansatonBeltoneIntertonAudinaCoselgiAudio ServiceAST HearingLisoundNew SoundHuierBanglijianMarket Segment by Regions, this report splits Global into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue, market share and growth rate of Hearing Aid Devices in these regions, from 2011 to 2021 (forecast), likeNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaSplit by product type, with production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, can be divided intoType IType IIType IIISplit by application, this report focuses on consumption, market share and growth rate of Hearing Aid Devices in each application, can be divided intoApplication 1Application 2Application 3Table of ContentsGlobal Hearing Aid Devices Market Research Report 20161 Hearing Aid Devices Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Hearing Aid Devices1.2 Hearing Aid Devices Segment by Type1.2.1 Global Production Market Share of Hearing Aid Devices by Type in 20151.2.2 Type I1.2.3 Type II1.2.4 Type III1.3 Hearing Aid Devices Segment by Application1.3.1 Hearing Aid Devices Consumption Market Share by Application in 20151.3.2 Application 11.3.3 Application 21.3.4 Application 31.4 Hearing Aid Devices Market by Region1.4.1 North America Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.2 Europe Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.3 China Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.4 Japan Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.5 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.6 India Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of Hearing Aid Devices (2011-2021)2 Global Hearing Aid Devices Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Hearing Aid Devices Production and Share by Manufacturers (2015 and 2016)2.2 Global Hearing Aid Devices Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2015 and 2016)2.3 Global Hearing Aid Devices Average Price by Manufacturers (2015 and 2016)2.4 Manufacturers Hearing Aid Devices Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area and Product Type2.5 Hearing Aid Devices Market Competitive Situation and Trends2.5.1 Hearing Aid Devices Market Concentration Rate2.5.2 Hearing Aid Devices Market Share of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers2.5.3 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion3 Global Hearing Aid Devices Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2011-2016)3.1 Global Hearing Aid Devices Production by Region (2011-2016)3.2 Global Hearing Aid Devices Production Market Share by Region (2011-2016)3.3 Global Hearing Aid Devices Revenue (Value) and Market Share by Region (2011-2016)3.4 Global Hearing Aid Devices Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.5 North America Hearing Aid Devices Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.6 Europe Hearing Aid Devices Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.7 China Hearing Aid Devices Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.8 Japan Hearing Aid Devices Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.9 Southeast Asia Hearing Aid Devices Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)3.10 India Hearing Aid Devices Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2011-2016)4 Global Hearing Aid Devices Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2011-2016)4.1 Global Hearing Aid Devices Consumption by Regions (2011-2016)4.2 North America Hearing Aid Devices Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2011-2016)4.3 Europe Hearing Aid Devices Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2011-2016)4.4 China Hearing Aid Devices Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2011-2016)4.5 Japan Hearing Aid Devices Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2011-2016)4.6 Southeast Asia Hearing Aid Devices Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2011-2016)4.7 India Hearing Aid Devices Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2011-2016)QYResearchReports.com is an unimpeachable source of market research data for clients that comprise acclaimed SMEs, Chinese companies, private equity firms, and MNCs. We provide market research reports on various categories such as Energy, Chemicals, Alternative and Green Energy, Manufacturing, Machinery, Pharmaceuticals and Materials, and Glass.QYResearchreportsContact Us1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United States+1-518-621-2074866-997-4948USA-Canada Toll freesales@qyresearchreports.com
Global Cardiovascular Disease Market 2016 Industry, Analysis, Research, Share, Growth, Sales, Trends, Supply, Forecast to 2021

The Global Cardiovascular Disease Industry 2016 Market Research Report is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Cardiovascular Disease industry.Firstly, the report provides a basic overview of the industry including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure. The Cardiovascular Disease market analysis is provided for the international market including development history, competitive landscape analysis, and major regions development status.Secondly, development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures. This report also states import/export, supply and consumption figures as well as cost, price, revenue and gross margin by regions (United States, EU, China and Japan), and other regions can be added.Then, the report focuses on global major leading industry players with information such as company profiles, product picture and specification, capacity, production, price, cost, revenue and contact information. Upstream raw materials, equipment and downstream consumers analysis is also carried out. Whats more, the Cardiovascular Disease industry development trends and marketing channels are analyzed.Finally, the feasibility of new investment projects is assessed, and overall research conclusions are offered.In a word, the report provides major statistics on the state of the industry and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the market.Table of Contents1 Industry Overview of Cardiovascular Disease1.1 Definition and Specifications of Cardiovascular Disease1.1.1 Definition of Cardiovascular Disease1.1.2 Specifications of Cardiovascular Disease1.2 Classification of Cardiovascular Disease1.3 Applications of Cardiovascular Disease1.4 Industry Chain Structure of Cardiovascular Disease1.5 Industry Overview and Major Regions Status of Cardiovascular Disease1.5.1 Industry Overview of Cardiovascular Disease1.5.2 Global Major Regions Status of Cardiovascular Disease1.6 Industry Policy Analysis of Cardiovascular Disease1.7 Industry News Analysis of Cardiovascular Disease2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Cardiovascular Disease2.1 Raw Material Suppliers and Price Analysis of Cardiovascular Disease2.2 Equipment Suppliers and Price Analysis of Cardiovascular Disease2.3 Labor Cost Analysis of Cardiovascular Disease2.4 Other Costs Analysis of Cardiovascular Disease2.5 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Cardiovascular Disease2.6 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Cardiovascular Disease3 Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Cardiovascular Disease3.1 Capacity and Commercial Production Date of Global Cardiovascular Disease Major Manufacturers in 20153.2 Manufacturing Plants Distribution of Global Cardiovascular Disease Major Manufacturers in 20153.3 R&D Status and Technology Source of Global Cardiovascular Disease Major Manufacturers in 20153.4 Raw Materials Sources Analysis of Global Cardiovascular Disease Major Manufacturers in 20154 Capacity, Production and Revenue Analysis of Cardiovascular Disease by Regions, Types and Manufacturers4.1 Global Capacity, Production and Revenue of Cardiovascular Disease by Regions 2011-20164.2 Global and Major Regions Capacity, Production, Revenue and Growth Rate of Cardiovascular Disease 2011-20164.3 Global Capacity, Production and Revenue of Cardiovascular Disease by Types 2011-20164.4 Global Capacity, Production and Revenue of Cardiovascular Disease by Manufacturers 2011-20165 Price, Cost, Gross and Gross Margin Analysis of Cardiovascular Disease by Regions, Types and Manufacturers5.1 Price, Cost, Gross and Gross Margin Analysis of Cardiovascular Disease by Regions 2011-20165.2 Price, Cost, Gross and Gross Margin Analysis of Cardiovascular Disease by Types 2011-20165.3 Price, Cost, Gross and Gross Margin Analysis of Cardiovascular Disease by Manufacturers 2011-2016QYResearchReports.com is an unimpeachable source of market research data for clients that comprise acclaimed SMEs, Chinese companies, private equity firms, and MNCs. We provide market research reports on various categories such as Energy, Chemicals, Alternative and Green Energy, Manufacturing, Machinery, Pharmaceuticals and Materials, and Glass.QYResearchreportsContact Us1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United States+1-518-621-2074866-997-4948USA-Canada Toll freesales@qyresearchreports.com
Worldwide Precision Medicine Market Share by Industry Research 2016 - 2024

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The market for precision medicine has been segmented on the basis of type of technology, application and geography. Based on type of technology, the market has been segmented into drug discovery, companion diagnostics, sequencing, bio-informatics and big data analytics. The companion diagnostics and drug discovery segments are anticipated to lead the market in terms of revenue share owing to a greater utilization rate of these technologies in congruence with precision medicine. For instance, in 2012, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a new cystic fibrosis medication called Kalydeco (ivacaftor). The approval of Kalydeco was noteworthy since it was a precision medicine based approach which targeted one of the causal genetic mutations of the disease rather than a more traditional approach focused on symptom relief.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.Download Complete Healthcare Analytical Brochure:Precision medicine is an upcoming disease treatment approach which is devised based on individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person. Often the term is used interchangeably with personalized medicine, however, precision medicine is not the same as simple individualized medicine, but rather a medicine mode which combines standardization with individualization. The benefit rendered by such a treatment approach is the accurate prediction of the treatment and prevention strategies for a particular disease will work in particular groups of people. The standard medicines available in the market, often present the limitation of a one-size fits-all approach, which may not be suitable for every individual due to genetic differences. Precision medicine is an answer to this limitation. Precision medicine is a completely new concept and technology which has been gaining momentum in the past few years, and by doing so, has become a promising domain for business investment for major pharmaceutical companies. Precision medicine makes possible the diagnosis and treatment of diseases by relying on genomics and specific biomarker techniques. A precision based approach to formulating medicine could lead to new insights into disease biology and occurrence whose applications may be population wide. By doing so it is likely to be easier for doctors to select the right drugs, optimal dose and time for medicine usage along with the least side effect. The enhancement in popularity of precision medicine in the recent past can be gauged by the increase in research pertaining to precision medicine during the past few years. For instance, in 2015, there were 1737 papers with the term precision medicine on Pubmed versus just a single paper mentioning precision medicine in 2005. Moreover, rising awareness regarding the benefits of adapting to precision medicine as promoted by the Precision Medicine Initiative by President Obama in January 2015. The overall market for precision medicine shall be driven by increase in research, coupled with unmet needs in several diseases, especially oncology. The market growth shall be bolstered by favorable government regulations and support, especially in developed countries. However, the high cost of these therapies is anticipated to restrain market growth.Based on application, the market has been segmented into oncology, hematology, Infectious disease, cardiology, neurology, endocrinology and others. The others segment includes ophthalmology, nephrology, rare diseases and pulmonary diseases). The oncology segment is anticipated to witness high revenue share owing to the rise in cancer incidence, prevalence and suitability of precision medicine for the same. Patients with several forms of cancer, such as breast, lung, and colorectal cancers, as well as leukemias and melanomas, regularly undergo molecular testing as part of patient care and treatment regime, and this enables physicians to select treatments that increase chances of survival at the same time reducing exposure to adverse side effects.Based on geography, the market has been segmented into the following regions: North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East and Africa. North America is expected to be the leading markets in the precision medicine market, owing to greater adoption to leading edge technologies coupled with a favorable legal environment created through grants and initiatives by the government. For instance, in January 2015, the President of the U.S., Mr. Barrack Obama launched the Precision medicine initiative which included an increased funding request of US$ 215 million in the 2016 federal budget. Moreover, initiatives for precision medicine research and its implementation are already underway at major centers in the U.S., which shall fuel the market growth in the region. For instance, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Womens Hospital, Boston Childrens Hospital, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard formed the Joint Center for Precision Cancer Medicine. This collaboration aims to create precision medicine pathways for patients with advanced cancers, thus enabling the fast development of personalized therapies.The major players operating in the precision medicine market include F-Hoffmann La Roche, Pfizer, Inc., Teva Pharmaceuticals, Novartis AG, Qiagen, Inc., Medtronic, Illumina, Inc. and Quest Diagnostics.Browse Full Research Report on Precision Medicine Market:About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a 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. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Browse market research blog:
Transcatheter Embolization and Occlusion Devices Market to Exceed US$ 4.5 Billion by 2024

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New York, February 08: Market Research Engine has published a new report titled as Transcatheter Embolization and Occlusion Devices Market By Product Type (Embolization Coils, Embolization Particles, Coiling Assist Devices, Flow Diverter Devices, Liquid Embolics, and Accessories); By Application (Peripheral Vascular Disease, Neurology, Oncology, Urology); By End-users - Global Industry Analysis and Forecast 2016 - 2024How Big is the Transcatheter Embolization and Occlusion Devices Market?The Transcatheter Embolization and Occlusion Devices market is expected to exceed more than US$ 4.5 Billion by 2024; Growing at a CAGR of more than 7.5% in the given forecast period.Browse Full Report:Transcatheter embolization is a method of insertion synthetic material or medication called embolic agent into blood vessel during catheter to block the blood flow in the direction of a specific area of the body. Embolization is a very efficient method to prevent anomalous bleeding and is simply enveloping as compared to open surgery. The transcatheter embolization and occlusion devices market have observed physically powerful development in the past few years because of the increasing focus on improvement, resulting in superior product approvals and product launches around the word. The market is also differentiating by considerable research and progress leading to numerous technological innovations.The major driving factors of Transcatheter Embolization & Occlusion devices market are as follows: Increasing prevalence of cancer Rising approval of minimally invasive surgeriesThe restraining factors of Transcatheter Embolization and Occlusion devices market are as follows: High rate of the products. Need of skilled professionalsThe transcatheter embolization and occlusion devices market is segmented on the lines of its product, end user, application and regional. Product is further segmented into accessories, embolization particles, embolization coils, liquid embolics and flow diverter devices. Accessories consist of catheters, guidewires and others. Under embolization particles segmentation it covers drug eluting beads, microspheres, radio embolization particles and others. Under embolization coils segmentation it covers balloon assisted coiling, stent assisted coiling, coiling assist devices, detachable and pushable. Based on end user segmentation it covers hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers and clinics. Based on application segmentation it covers peripheral vascular disease, neurology, oncology, urology and others. The transcatheter embolization and occlusion devices market on geographic segmentation covers various regions such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa. Each geographic market is further segmented to provide market revenue for select countries such as the U.S., Canada, U.K. Germany, China, Japan, India, Brazil, and GCC countries.Download Free Sample Report:This report provides:1) An overview of the global market for transcatheter embolization and occlusion devices and related technologies.2) Analyses of global market trends, with data from 2013, estimates for 2014 and 2015, and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2024.3) Identifications of new market opportunities and targeted promotional plans for transcatheter embolization and occlusion devices.4) Discussion of research and development, and the demand for new products and new applications.5) Comprehensive company profiles of major players in the industry.REPORT SCOPE:The scope of the report includes a detailed study of global and regional markets for Transcatheter Embolization and Occlusion Devices Market with the reasons given for variations in the growth of the industry in certain regions.The report covers detailed competitive outlook including the market share and company profiles of the key participants operating in the global market. Key players profiled in the report include St. Jude Medical, Inc., Abbott Laboratories,Medtronic plc, BTG plc, Boston Scientific Corporation, Cook Medical, Inc., Edwards Lifesciences, Johnson & Johnson, Merit Medical Systems, Inc., Penumbra, Inc., Pfizer, Inc., Sirtex Medical Limited, Stryker Corporation, and Terumo Corporation. Company profile includes assign such as company summary, financial summary, business strategy and planning, SWOT analysis and current developments.The Top Companies Report is intended to provide our buyers with a snapshot of the industrys most influential players.The Transcatheter Embolization & Occlusion Devices Market has been segmented as below:By Product Segment Analysis Accessorieso Catheterso Guidewireso Others Embolization particleso Drug eluting beadso Microsphereso Radioembolization particleso Others Embolization coilso Balloon assisted coilingo Stent assisted coilingo Coiling assist deviceso Detachableo Pushable Liquid embolics Flow diverter devicesBy End-user Analysis Hospitals Ambulatory Surgical Centers ClinicsBy Application Analysis Peripheral Vascular Disease Neurology Oncology Urology OthersBy Regional AnalysisNorth AmericaEuropeAsia-PacificRest of the WorldAbout MarketResearchEngine.comMarket Research Engine is a global market research and consulting organization. We provide market intelligence in emerging, niche technologies and markets. Our market analysis powered by rigorous methodology and quality metrics provide information and forecasts across emerging markets, emerging technologies and emerging business models. Our deep focus on industry verticals and country reports help our clients to identify opportunities and develop business strategies.Media ContactCompany Name: Market Research EngineContact Person: John BayEmail: john@marketresearchengine.comPhone: +1-855-984-1862, +91-860-565-7204Country: United StatesWebsite:Address: 3422 SW 15 Street, Suite #8942, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442, United States
Calcium Carbonate Market to Reach US$ 28.5 Billion Globally by 2021

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New York, February 08: Market Research Engine has published a new report titled as Calcium Carbonate Market (GCC and PCC) for Paper, Plastic, Building & Construction and Other Applications - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2015 - 2021.As per this exploration report, the worldwide calcium carbonate market remained at US$15.6 Billion in 2012. Growing at a CAGR of 7.0% from the 2013-2019 period, the overall business sector is prone to reach US$25 Billion before the end of the estimate period.Browse Full Report here:Calcium carbonate that is CaCO3 is chemical component found in nature as aragonite and calcite, in pearls, plant ashes, chalk, marble, shells of marine organisms, bones and eggs. Calcium carbonate particularly used for making Portland cement, lime and gastric antacid. It is energetic element in agricultural lime which is created by combine reaction of calcium ions in hard water with carbonate ions. Calcium carbonate is used in paints and coating application and in cement for constructing and building industry. It also used in pharmaceutical and medical industry as a calcium supplement. Calcium carbonate is found all over the world.How Big is the Calcium Carbonate Market?The calcium carbonate market is expected to exceed more than US$ 28.5 Billion by 2021; Growing at a CAGR of more than 7.0% in the given forecast period.The major driving factors of calcium carbonate market are as follows:Growing demand from plastic divisionRising paper industry marketIncreasing demand from construction industry and building industryThe restraining factors of calcium carbonate market are as follows:Undesirable effects of extreme utilization of calcium carbonatesDownload Free Sample Report:The calcium carbonate market is segmented on the lines of its product, application and geography. Under application segmentation it covers building and construction, plastic, paper, agriculture and pharmaceutical. The calcium carbonate market is segmented on the lines of its product like precipitated calcium carbonate and ground calcium carbonate. The calcium carbonate market is geographic segmentation covers various regions such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa. Each geography market is further segmented to provide market revenue for select countries such as the U.S., Canada, U.K. Germany, China, Japan, India, Brazil, and GCC countries.This report provides:1) An overview of the global market for calcium carbonate and related technologies.2) Analyses of global market trends, with data from 2013, estimates for 2014 and 2015, and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2021.3) Identifications of new market opportunities and targeted promotional plans for calcium carbonate.4) Discussion of research and development, and the demand for new products and new applications.5) Comprehensive company profiles of major players in the industry.REPORT SCOPE:The scope of the report includes a detailed study of global and regional markets for various types of coatings with the reasons given for variations in the growth of the industry in certain regions.The report covers detailed competitive outlook including the market share and company profiles of the key participants operating in the global market. Key players profiled in the report include Excalibar Minerals, Great Lakes Calcium Corp., Imerys, Huber Engineered Materials, Minerals Technologies Inc., Maruo Calcium Co. Ltd., Mississippi Lime Co., Omya Ag, Okutama Kogyo Co.Ltd., Schaefer Kalk GMBH & Co. KG, Solvay S.A., and Shiraishi Kogyo Kaisha Ltd.. Company profile includes assign such as company summary, financial summary,business strategy and planning, SWOT analysis and current developments.The Top Companies Report is intended to provide our buyers with a snapshot of the industrys most influential players.The Calcium Carbonate Market has been segmented as below:By Product Segment AnalysisGround Calcium Carbonate (GCC)Precipitated Calcium Carbonate (PCC)By Application AnalysisPaperPlasticBuilding & ConstructionOthers (Pharmaceutical, agriculture, etc.)By Regional AnalysisNorth AmericaEuropeAsia-PacificRest of the WorldAbout MarketResearchEngine.comMarket Research Engine is a global market research and consulting organization. We provide market intelligence in emerging, niche technologies and markets. Our market analysis powered by rigorous methodology and quality metrics provide information and forecasts across emerging markets, emerging technologies and emerging business models. Our deep focus on industry verticals and country reports help our clients to identify opportunities and develop business strategies.Media ContactCompany Name: Market Research EngineContact Person: John BayEmail: john@marketresearchengine.comPhone: +1-855-984-1862, +91-860-565-7204Website:Address: 3422 SW 15 Street, Suite #8942, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442, United States
Hydraulic Fluid Connectors Market - North America to Dominate the Market by 2020

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New York, February 08: Market Research Engine has published a new report titled as Hydraulic Fluid Connectors Market - Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2015 - 2022The Hydraulic fluid connectors market is expected to exceed more than USD$4.70 billion by 2020.Browse Full Report:Hydraulic fluid connectors technologies are used in different hydraulic applications for power transmission from one place to another place. Varity of techniques are used for power transmission such as fluid power, electrical power and mechanical power. Couplings, hoses, manifolds are some fluid connectors equipments used in the industry. Hydraulic fluid is transfer through the device to different hydraulic cylinders and hydraulic motors, then develops forced according to the resistance exists. Mobile hydraulic and industrial hydraulic are two types of hydraulic fluid connectors. The non-stationary applications are uses mobile hydraulic fluid connectors includes agriculture equipment, trucks and aerospace. Industrial hydraulic fluid connectors are used in stationary a application, which contains gas, oil and petroleum.The major driving factors of Hydraulic fluid connectors market are as follows:Growing demand for hydraulic fluid connectors from the aerospace businessIncrease of the North American manufacture equipment industryThe restraints factors of Hydraulic fluid connectors market are as follows:Increasing competition from pneumatic fluid power technologyDownload Free Sample Report:The hydraulic fluid connectors market is segmented on the lines of its product segment and application. Under product segmentation the hydraulic fluid connectors market covers mobile hydraulic and industrial hydraulic. The hydraulic fluid connectors market is segmented on the lines of its application like aerospace, agriculture, construction equipment, material handling, marine, heavy truck and mining. The hydraulic fluid connectors market is geographic segmentation covers various regions such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa. Each geography market is further segmented to provide market revenue for select countries such as the U.S., Canada, U.K. Germany, China, Japan, India, Brazil, and GCC countries.This report provides:1) An overview of the global market for Hydraulic fluid connectors and related technologies.2) Analyses of global market trends, with data from 2013, estimates for 2014 and 2015, and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2020.3) Identifications of new market opportunities and targeted promotional plans for Hydraulic fluid connectors4) Discussion of research and development, and the demand for new products and new applications.5) Comprehensive company profiles of major players in the industry.REPORT SCOPE:The scope of the report includes a detailed study of global and regional markets for various types of coatings with the reasons given for variations in the growth of the industry in certain regions.The report covers detailed competitive outlook including the market share and company profiles of the key participants operating in the global market. Key players profiled in the report include Cameron International Corporation, Eaton Corporation plc, Gates Corporation, Parker Hannifin Corporation, Manuli Hydraulics, Kurt Hydraulics, RYCO Hydraulics Pty. Ltd., ITT Corporation and SPX Corporation. Company profile includes assign such as company summary, financial summary, business strategy and planning, SWOT analysis and current developments.The Top Companies Report is intended to provide our buyers with a snapshot of the industrys most influential players.The Hydraulic fluid connectors Market has been segmented as below:By Product Segment AnalysisMobile hydraulicIndustrial hydraulicBy Application AnalysisAerospaceAgricultureConstruction equipmentMaterial handlingOthers (Marine, heavy truck, mining, etc.)By Regional AnalysisNorth AmericaEuropeAsia-PacificRest of the WorldAbout MarketResearchEngine.comMarket Research Engine is a global market research and consulting organization. We provide market intelligence in emerging, niche technologies and markets. Our market analysis powered by rigorous methodology and quality metrics provide information and forecasts across emerging markets, emerging technologies and emerging business models. Our deep focus on industry verticals and country reports help our clients to identify opportunities and develop business strategies.Media ContactCompany Name: Market Research EngineContact Person: John BayEmail: john@marketresearchengine.comPhone: +1-855-984-1862, +91-860-565-7204Country: United StatesWebsite:Address: 3422 SW 15 Street, Suite #8942, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442, United States
Pharmacy Benefit Management Market -Trends, Outlook, and Opportunity Analysis, 2016-2024

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Some of the major players present in the global pharmacy benefit management market include Express Scripts, CVS Caremark, Prime Therapeutics, United Health / OptumRx, Catamaran Corporation, Humana Pharmacy Solutions and MedImpact. Express Scripts acquired Medco Health Solutions for US$ 29.1 billion in April 2012, making it a leader with a significant share in the global pharmacy benefit management market. With increasing competition, industry consolidation is expected to be a prevalent trend in the near future.Get Free PDF Research Brochure for more Professional and Technical Insights :Pharmaceutical drug prices continue soaring up and contribute significantly to total healthcare expenditure worldwide. The cost of drugs has risen more than any of the healthcare expenditure. As per the insurance consultants at Milliman, drug costs were merely 16% of the overall health costs in 2015, which rose by 102% over a decade and accounted for around 14% in 2015. Rising drug prices and increasing consumer spending on prescription drugs drives demand for pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). The pharmacy benefit management system is operated by third party administrators (TPAs) who act as a liaison between pharmacists, insurance providers (payers), and drug manufacturers. There are established companies offering these services who aid in reducing drug prices by negotiating with retail pharmacies and drug manufacturers. Patients who have enrolled in various health plans and those uninsured can get the benefits of pharmacy benefit management system. Health plans collaborate with the pharmacy benefit managers to offer medications at a lower price than those available at retail pharmacies.Moreover, PBMs also aid in planning and managing the formulary as per customer needs, negotiating discounts and rebates with drug manufacturers, contracting with pharmacies, and processing the prescription claims. To manage the cost of prescription drugs and improve the customer value, PBMs use various tools such as pharmacy networks, mail-service pharmacies, drug formulary, e-prescribing, manufacturers discount, disease management, drug utilization review, and pharmacy discount cards (for the uninsured). To manage these tools and the PBMs account, there are various prescription claim software/systems marketed worldwide.Pharmacy Benefit Management Market TaxonomyThe global pharmacy benefit management market can be analyzed on the basis of the beneficiaries of these services i.e. the healthcare providers, employers, and drug manufacturers. A major population in the U.S. receives healthcare benefits from their employers. Therefore, employers are also seeking to reduce their costs and opt for pharmacy benefit management services. The providers of pharmacy benefit management services also manage the prescription drug claims i.e. act as a link between the payers and health insurers.The Pharmacy Benefit Management Market is Highly Concentrated in Developed MarketsThe global pharmacy benefit management market is analyzed across five major regions - North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East, and Africa. Presence of PBM is concentrated in the developed economies of North America and Europe. Increase in subscribers of Medicare prescription drug program is projected to fuel demand for PBMs in the U.S. Besides, the pharmacy benefit managers also aid in deciding whether a generic or branded product would benefit the patient. Patents for around 40 blockbuster brands worth US$ 155 billion are expected to expire by 2020. Generics have a good profit margin, which can benefit the pharmacy benefit managers/management companies, thus favorably shaping the pharmacy benefit management market outlook. Similar scenario is observed in the Europe pharmacy benefit management market.Browse Global Strategic Business Report :Challenges faced in the Pharmacy Benefit Management MarketWith the introduction of expensive treatments/drugs for chronic diseases such as cancer, and hepatitis, demand for PBMs is projected to increase significantly. However, even with the presence of major players in this industry, the PBMs have been ineffective in curbing the drug price hike. Further, with the advent of Affordable Care Act and the constant endeavor of governments to reduce and cap the drug prices, profitability of this industry is expected to be significantly impacted in the near future.ABOUT USCoherent Market Insights is a global market intelligence and consulting organization focused on assisting our plethora of clients achieve transformational growth by helping them make critical business decisions. We are headquartered in India, having office at global financial capital in the U.S. Our client base includes players from across all business verticals in over 150 countries worldwide. We are uniquely positioned to help businesses around the globe deliver practical and lasting results through various recommendations about operational improvements, technologies, emerging market trends and new working methods. We offer both customized and syndicated market research reports that help our clients create visionary growth plans to provide traction to their business. We meticulously study emerging trends across various industries at both the global and regional levels to identify new opportunities for our clientele. Our global team of over 100 research analysts and freelance consultants provide market intelligence from the very molecular country level and also provide a global perspective of the market. Our team is of the most vital cog in our robust machinery that gives us the ability to deliver independent insight relying on our cognitive defusion training module.This allows for an objective and unbiased assessment of the market. We pride ourselves in my constantly striving to update our extremely in-depth understanding of the market by closely monitoring and analyzing markets, trends, and emerging best practices, across allfathomable industries under the sun. This enables us to equip our valued clientele with key decisive inputs to capitalize on lucrative growth opportunities in the market and to follow firmly position themselves on a high growth path in the future.CONTACT USRaj ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Email: sales@coherentmarketinsights.comWebsite:Visit Blog :
Peyronies Disease Treatment Market - Trends, Outlook, and Opportunity Analysis, 2016-2024

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Peyronie's disease (PD) is condition wherein the penis is curved or bent due to development of plaque or a fibrous scar tissue inside the penis. This condition can cause painful erections and the penis gets bent while it is erected. The bent is towards the side where plaque is being formed i.e. either downwards or upwards. The condition is identified by a major bend or pain. In a few people Peyronie's disease may go away on its own. However, in most cases it may remain stable or worsen. Hence, it is advisable to visit an urologist to avoid consequences in future. Treatment may be needed if the curvature prevents successful sexual intercourse.Get Free PDF Research Brochure for more Professional and Technical Insights :Peyronies disease is a rare condition observed in about 6 out of 100 men in the age group of 40 to 70 years. Moreover, the Urology Care Foundation also estimates that the number of people affected by this condition can be higher than this as many men are embarrassed and do not see their healthcare provider. It is mostly at times when the men visit the healthcare practitioner for erectile dysfunction treatment and the healthcare practitioner may notice Peyronies disease. Lack of awareness among patients has resulted in under reporting of this condition.Peyronie's Disease Treatment OptionsThe exact cause of plaque formation is not known. Hence, treatment is done with the available research and knowledge of plaque formation. There are various treatment options followed for Peyronie disease basis on which the market is analyzed. These include drugs, surgery and devices. The drugs market can be analyzed based on the administration route i.e. oral and injectable. Drugs prescribe through oral route include Vitamin E, Potassium amino-benzoate ("Potaba"), Tamoxifen, Colchicine, and Carnitine. Similarly, the injectable drugs include Verapamil, Interferon, and Collagenase. Use of oral drugs is limited as none of the studies conducted so far for Peyroniees disease have shown positive results of these drugs over the placebo.On the other hand injectables show some positive outcomes over placebo. However, more studies are required to establish the efficacy. Studies with collagenase have shown positive outcomes for its use in Peyronie's disease. Therefore, Xiaflex (Collagenase clostridium histolyticum) from BioSpecifics Technologies Corporation is the only FDA approved product indicated for Peyronie's disease in adult men. Approved in 2013, Xiaflex is marketed in the U.S. by Endo International plc. In Europe, Collagenase clostridium histolyticum is available by the brand name Xiapex.A penile prosthetic device is another good treatment option for Peyronie's disease and moderate-to-severe ED. This device helps straighten the penis. Surgical procedure on the other hand involves grafting the space being emptied on removal of the plaque.Browse Global Strategic Business Report :With Xiaflex the only FDA approved product for this disease, Endo dominates the marketThe market is dominated by a single player, Endo International plc who sells the only FDA approved Peyronies disease product. In May 2015, the American Urological Association presented the first ever treatment guidelines for Peyronies disease recommending the use of Xiaflex. Furthermore, the company is creating awareness through its Ask About the Curve campaign. Also, reimbursement from the U.S. insurance providers will boost the demand for this product. The product is estimated to generate USD 100 million in revenue for Peyronies disease by 2018. In Japan, BioSpecifics Technologies Corp. has granted Asahi Kasei Pharma the rights to develop and market XIAFLEX in Japan for Peyronie's disease. Further, the company is also partnering with global companies in Canada, Europe, Mexico, and Brazil for commercializing XIAFLEX for PD.With increasing awareness and research on this disease, new drug molecules could be made available in the market.ABOUT USCoherent Market Insights is a global market intelligence and consulting organization focused on assisting our plethora of clients achieve transformational growth by helping them make critical business decisions. We are headquartered in India, having office at global financial capital in the U.S. Our client base includes players from across all business verticals in over 150 countries worldwide. We are uniquely positioned to help businesses around the globe deliver practical and lasting results through various recommendations about operational improvements, technologies, emerging market trends and new working methods. We offer both customized and syndicated market research reports that help our clients create visionary growth plans to provide traction to their business. We meticulously study emerging trends across various industries at both the global and regional levels to identify new opportunities for our clientele. Our global team of over 100 research analysts and freelance consultants provide market intelligence from the very molecular country level and also provide a global perspective of the market. Our team is of the most vital cog in our robust machinery that gives us the ability to deliver independent insight relying on our cognitive defusion training module.This allows for an objective and unbiased assessment of the market. We pride ourselves in my constantly striving to update our extremely in-depth understanding of the market by closely monitoring and analyzing markets, trends, and emerging best practices, across allfathomable industries under the sun. This enables us to equip our valued clientele with key decisive inputs to capitalize on lucrative growth opportunities in the market and to follow firmly position themselves on a high growth path in the future.CONTACT USRaj ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Email: sales@coherentmarketinsights.comWebsite:Visit Blog :
Advanced (3D/4D) Visualization Systems Market 2016 - 2024; North America held the largest share in the global market

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Transparency Market Research has published a new market report titled, Advanced (3D/4D) Visualization Systems Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024. According to the report, the global advanced (3D/4D) visualization systems market was valued at US$ 1.8 Bn in 2015 and is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 6.4% from 2016 to 2024 to reach US$ 3.2 Bn in 2024.Advanced (3D/4D) visualization systems have propelled the imaging technology market into a positive direction with the several innovative techniques and advantages it has to offer to clinicians worldwide. These systems not only provide a 3D/4D view of the image for accurate result interpretation, but also enable easy editing, storing, sharing, and archiving of patient data in a highly organized and precise manner. The global advanced (3D/4D) visualization system market is expected to grow rapidly in the near future due to cumulative effect of several factors such as advancements in computer technology, rapidly improving health care infrastructure across the globe, rising number of patients and geriatric population, and growing demand for better imaging technology. Advanced visualization systems mandate the integration of imaging modalities with picture archiving and communication system (PACS) with dedicated workstations. Moreover, adoption of thin client server that has become practicable due to the success of cloud computing technology has led to increased installation of image processing software and applications at the client site.Read Full Report:This report analyzes the global advanced visualization systems market based on platform, application, end-user, and geography. Based on platform, the market has been segmented into ultrasound advanced visualization system (US) AVS, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) AVS, computed tomography (CT) AVS, positron emission tomography (PET) AVS, and others (radiotherapy AVS and nuclear medicine AVS). The introduction of innovative advanced imaging technologies such as MRI and PET has made advanced imaging a vital part of the diagnostic procedures over the past few years. Ultrasound has been the most commonly used imaging technology in medicine owing to its lower procedure cost and minimal exposure to radiations. Companies such as Philips, Toshiba, GE, and Siemens Healthcare market ultrasound AVS that not only provide advanced applications such as quantification, archiving, and reporting, but also offer clinicians 3D and 4D images with real time monitoring.On the other hand, MRI and CT AVS have become the preferred choice for clinicians owing to the accuracy and ease these provide to the clinicians for diagnosis. Despite the many advantages MRI AVS offers, high cost of the system and procedure is one of the major restraints of the MRI AVS market in developing nations. CT scan is also the preferred choice of imaging for the clinicians worldwide. CT scans use multiple X-ray images projected together to generate a detailed view of various parts of the body. Innovations in the MRI and CT technology provide clinicians with detailed 3D/4D images for quick, reliable, and accurate interpretation of results. The developments in these technologies are expected to drive the advanced visualization systems market in the near future.Download exclusive Sample of this report:The global advanced visualization systems market has been analyzed by key applications such as cardiology, oncology, neurology, and others (orthopedics, gastrointestinal, gynecology, etc.). Rapidly rising incidence of neurological and cardiovascular disorders, increasing cancer cases, and growing geriatric population are expected to boost market growth during the forecast period. Based on end-user, the market has been segmented into hospitals, diagnostic labs, and academics & research. Hospitals was the largest end-user segment of the advanced (3D/4D) visualization systems market. Major drivers of AVS technology in hospitals are increasing number of patients and the convenience of diagnosis and treatment at the same site. Moreover, non-invasiveness of the technology along with accurate results has been driving the market. Other major end-users of advanced visualization technology are diagnostic labs and academics & research. Increasing demand of clinicians for in-house diagnosis has affected the market for diagnostic labs. Advanced (3D/4D) visualization systems have become one of the major tools for academics and research institutes to train researchers and students in latest medical developments. The market for these systems in institutes is expected to grow in the near future due to increasing private and government investments in research and development.Key players profiled in this market report include Carestream Health, Inc., CONMED Corporation, Fujifilm Holding America Corporation, GE Healthcare, Intelerad Medical Systems Incorporated, Philips Healthcare, Qi Imaging, LLC, Siemens Healthcare, Terarecon, Inc., Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation, Visage Imaging, and Visualization Sciences Group.The global advanced (3D/4D) visualization systems market has been segmented as follows:Advanced (3D/4D) Visualization Systems Market, by PlatformUltrasoundMRICTPETOthersAdvanced (3D/4D) Visualization Systems Market, by ApplicationCardiologyOncologyNeurologyOthersAdvanced (3D/4D) Visualization Systems Market, by End-userHospitalsDiagnostic LabsAcademics & ResearchAdvanced (3D/4D) Visualization Systems Market, by GeographyNorth AmericaU.S.CanadaEuropeGermanyU.K.Rest of EuropeAsia-PacificChinaJapanRest of Asia PacificLatin AmericaBrazilMexicoRest of Latin AmericaMiddle East & AfricaSouth AfricaRest of Middle East & AfricaTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a U.S.-based provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Non Destructive Testing (NDT) Market - North America to Dominate the Market by 2022

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Florida, February 08: Market Research Engine has published a new report titled as Non Destructive Testing (NDT) Market by Method, End-User, Technique, Application & Region  Global Industry Analysis by Size, Share, Trends, Growth and Forecast 2015  2022The Global Non Destructive testing market is projected to reach USD 22.20 Billion by 2022, at a CAGR of 7.80% from 2015 to 2022.Browse Full Report here:Non Destructive Testing (NDT) is viewed as an essential need in commercial ventures, for example, in aviation industry, oil and gas industry, petroleum industry, and in construction sector. Developments in the NDT equipment market have expanded economically after the presentation of cutting edge X-ray equipment, for example, micro focus X-ray apparatuses, integrated X-ray tubes, glass X-ray tubes with window, radiation protected X-ray tools, etc.Over the past few years, demand for Non Destructive Testing (NDT) services has expanded rapidly. As the US economy has recovered from the depths of the recession and as a result of it corporate profit margins have expanded and fueled capital expenditure. NDT sector will get future boost from the growing technological innovation and as a result NDT services will become more cost effective and efficient for end users.Additionally, the forecast period offers huge potential growth for technologies such as computed tomography, phased array ultrasonic testing, and data management tools as these techniques are more efficient in terms of deriving accurate results.This report provides qualitative and quantitative information about the global NDT market. It identifies the market application gaps, emerging technologies, the need for new product launches, and high potential geographic regions and countries. It also provides a segmentation of the market, tracking the market size, market share, revenue projections, and financial portfolio, covering a broad spectrum of the different methods, end-user, applications, and techniques of NDT industry.Who should buy this report?Aerospace & Defense IndustryAutomotive IndustryOil & Gas IndustryPower PlantsNDT Equipment ManufacturersOriginal Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs)Software Solution ProvidersComponent SuppliersTurbine ManufacturersShip Hull Manufacturers etc.Scope of the ReportThis research report categorizes the NDT market into the following segments and sub-segments:Global NDT Market, By Method Ultrasonic testing Radiography testing Liquid Penetrant testing Magnetic particle testing Eddy-current testing Visual inspectionGlobal NDT Market, By End-User Oil & gas industry Aerospace & Defense industry Automotive industry Infrastructure Industry Power generation industryGlobal NDT Market, By Technique Surface Examination technique Volumetric Examination Technique Condition Monitoring technique Integrity Examination technique Other non-destructive techniquesGlobal NDT Market, By Application Flaw detection Leak detection Dimensional measurement Estimation of physical properties Chemical Composition Determination Stress & Structure AnalysisGlobal NDT Market, By Geography G7 Nationso U.S.o Canadao Japano Italyo Franceo Germanyo U.K. BRICSo Brazilo Russiao Indiao Chinao South Africao U.K. Rest of the Worldo South Koreao Saudi Arabiao OthersAbout MarketResearchEngine.comMarket Research Engine is a global market research and consulting organization. We provide market intelligence in emerging, niche technologies and markets. Our market analysis powered by rigorous methodology and quality metrics provide information and forecasts across emerging markets, emerging technologies and emerging business models. Our deep focus on industry verticals and country reports help our clients to identify opportunities and develop business strategies.Media ContactCompany Name: Market Research EngineContact Person: John BayEmail: john@marketresearchengine.comPhone: +1-855-984-1862, +91-860-565-7204Website:Address: 3422 SW 15 Street, Suite #8942, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442, United States
Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator Market - Advanced Technologies & Growth Opportunities in Global Industry by 2024

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An implantable cardioverter defibrillator is a device that monitors a person's heart rate post its implantation in patients with heart failure. The device continuously monitors your heartbeat and sends electrical pulses to repair a normal heart rhythm when necessary. Implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) or automated implantable cardioverter defibrillators can save patients from arrhythmias by regulating the irregular heartbeats.Download Exclusive Sample of this Report:The device is used in treating sudden cardiac arrest caused due to cardiac arrhythmias, particularly ventricular fibrillation and pulseless ventricular tachycardia. Invention of the implantable cardioverter defibrillator was started by Michel Mirowski in the late 1960s after one of his close friends death who was also his mentor and had been admitted to hospital with recurrent ventricular tachyarrhythmias.The most important factors driving the global implantable cardioverter defibrillators market are increasing incidences of cardiovascular disorders, increasing demand for implantable cardioverter defibrillator from emerging countries of Asia-Pacific and the Middle-East as cardiovascular disorders are increasing and awareness about the disease also increases in these countries, increasing number of training and awareness programs across the globe for Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators. These training and awareness programs are conducted for the patients as well as the surgeons by Mayo Clinic US.The implantable cardioverter defibrillators governs the appropriate therapy for returning your heartbeat to a normal heart rhythm. Doctor programs the implantable cardioverter defibrillators to deliver functions such as anti-tachycardia pacing (ATP) and cardio. A series of small electrical impulses are delivered to the heart muscle to restore a normal heart rate and rhythm. In cardio, a low energy shock is delivered at the same time as your heartbeat to restore a normal heart rhythm. Defibrillation means when the heart is beating dangerously fast, a high-energy shock is delivered to the heart muscle to restore a normal rhythm. Bradycardia pacing means when the heart beats too slow, small electrical impulses are sent to stimulate the heart muscle to maintain a suitable heart rate.The American Heart Association recommends some guide lines for the person to be eligible for an implantable cardioverter defibrillator. The arrhythmia in question must be life threatening and the correctable causes of arrhythmia (acute myocardial infarction, myocardial ischemia, electrolyte imbalance and drug toxicity) have been ruled out by doctors have ruled out correctable causes of the arrhythmia.Implantable cardioverter defibrillators market can be segmented by product types, by procedure type, and end user type. Implantable cardioverter defibrillator are categories into single chambered, dual chambered and biventricular implantable cardioverter defibrillators on product types. Based on implantation region ICDs are categorized into trans-venous implantable cardioverter defibrillators and subcutaneous implantable cardioverter defibrillators.The subcutaneous ICD (S-ICD) is placed without inserting the leads inside the heart. The device is placed under the skin below the left axilla, or armpit along the rib cage, and not inserting in the standard location near the collarbone. The lead which is connected to the device is burrowed under the skin rather than inside the heart. The advantages of the S-ICD are that it do not show any of the immediate or long-term complications followed due to placing a lead into the heart, such as perforation of the heart and collapse of the lung.Subcutaneous Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators is the key driver for the ICD market as it have very less complications and easy implantable procedure. Based on end user type the ICDs are divided into hospital and super specialty hospitals, home users, cardiac catheterization laboratory users and electrophysiology laboratory users. Geographically, the market has been categorized in five main regions: North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia pacific and the Middle East and Africa.View Full Research Report:The key implantable cardioverter defibrillators manufacturer companies include Boston Scientific Corporation, Imricor Medical Systems, Inc., LivaNova PLC Company, Mayo Clinic US, Medtronic plc, MicroPort Scientific Corporation, MRI Interventions, Inc., St. Jude Medical, Inc.,About UsTransparency 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. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Contact UsTransparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Small Scale LNG Terminals Market: Skangass AS, Linde AG, Prometheus Energy and Plum Energy

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New York, February 08: Market Research Engine has published a new report titled as Small Scale LNG Terminals Market by Technology (Liquefaction and Regasification) and by Type (Onshore and Offshore) - Global Industry Analysis and Forecast 2016 - 2022How Big is the Small Scale LNG Terminals Market?The small scale LNG terminals market is expected to exceed more than 102 MMTPA by 2022; Growing at a CAGR of more than 10.0% in the given forecast period.Browse Full Report:LNG is progressively rising as one of the most preferred fuels worldwide. It is being used by various end user businesses. The main benefits of utilizing LNG as a fuel are its clean burning nature that considerably lowers emissions as compared to alternative fossil fuels. Presently there is a discrete variance in the global natural gas development with key manufacturers exporting a bulk of their creation and main customers being heavily dependent on imports. In such a situation, there is an increasing need for LNG transportation globally. Since transportation of natural gas in liquid form is regularly cheaper and mainly cost effective than construction pipelines. Although huge amount of LNG terminals have been preferably built across the globe till todays date the emergence of little demand centers for natural gas within small geographies is steadily changing the focal point towards miniaturizing LNG infrastructure.The major driving factors of small scale LNG terminals market are as follows:1) Security of gas provide in small order centers and expansion of small gas fields has led to investment in small scale LNG.2) Preference of huge long term vehicle fleet owners towards adopting LNG as an alternate fuel supply.3) Slumping energy costs are currently attracting a lot of investment in small LNG terminals above the super projects.The restraining factors of small scale LNG terminals market are as follows:1) Infrastructure expansion issues and need of constant order from end user section.The small scale LNG terminals market is segmented on the lines of its type and regional. Based on type segmentation it covers liquefaction terminals and regasification terminals. Liquefaction terminals and Regasification terminals are further segmented into onshore and offshore type. The small scale LNG terminal markets geographic segmentation covers various regions such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa. Each geographic market is further segmented to provide market revenue for select countries such as the U.S., Canada, U.K. Germany, China, Japan, India, Brazil, and GCC countries.Download Free Sample Report:This report provides:1) An overview of the global market for small scale LNG terminals and related technologies.2) Analyses of global market trends, with data from 2013, estimates for 2014 and 2015, and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2022.3) Identifications of new market opportunities and targeted promotional plans for small scale LNG terminals.4) Discussion of research and development, and the demand for new products and new applications.5) Comprehensive company profiles of major players in the industry.REPORT SCOPE:The scope of the report includes a detailed study of global and regional markets for Small Scale LNG Terminals with the reasons given for variations in the growth of the industry in certain regions.The report covers detailed competitive outlook including the market share and company profiles of the key participants operating in the global market. Key players profiled in the report include Skangass AS, Linde AG, Prometheus Energy and Plum Energy. Company profile includes assign such as company summary, financial summary, business strategy and planning, SWOT analysis and current developments.The Top Companies Report is intended to provide our buyers with a snapshot of the industrys most influential players.The Small Scale LNG Terminals Market has been segmented as below:By Type AnalysisLiquefaction terminals by typeOnshoreOffshoreRegasification terminals by typeOnshoreOffshoreBy Regional AnalysisNorth AmericaEuropeAsia-PacificRest of the WorldAbout MarketResearchEngine.comMarket Research Engine is a global market research and consulting organization. We provide market intelligence in emerging, niche technologies and markets. Our market analysis powered by rigorous methodology and quality metrics provide information and forecasts across emerging markets, emerging technologies and emerging business models. Our deep focus on industry verticals and country reports help our clients to identify opportunities and develop business strategies.Media ContactCompany Name: Market Research EngineContact Person: John BayEmail: john@marketresearchengine.comPhone: +1-855-984-1862, +91-860-565-7204Country: United StatesWebsite:Address: 3422 SW 15 Street, Suite #8942, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442, United States
Medical Automation Market Worldwide Industry Volume By Region 2024

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Medical Automation Market: OverviewIn a highly competitive pharmaceutical industry, automation can prove to be a massive operational advantage and a key differentiator for players of all sizes. The future of the healthcare industry is increasingly being defined by the advent of faster, more accurate, and easy-to-use devices that are riding high on the wave of medical automation. With a massive number of people crossing the 60-year threshold, the healthcare industry is facing a pressing need to scale up resources and brace for a spike in healthcare needs. This is where automation is expected to be the real game changer.There are several market dynamics that are collectively creating a need for more automation in the medical industry. According to an article published in Health Affairs, there will be a shortage of 260,000 registered nurses by 2025 in the U.S. The scenario wont be drastically different in other developed countries where the workforce is aging rapidly. With fewer humans available to carry out all of the tasks in the healthcare industry, healthcare institutions and pharmaceutical companies are focusing on automation to get redundant and repetitive tasks done. However, as has been the case with several other industries, automation is regarded as a job killer and has been opposed in several countries worldwide.These push and pull factors will decide how this market shapes up in the coming years. This is what the report aims to assess. The report creates segments of the global medical automation market based on criteria such as applications, end-users, and geography.Download Exclusive Global Strategic Business Report:Global Medical Automation Market: Drivers and RestraintsCompanies and medical institutions are channeling more funds into medical automation systems and software enticed by benefits such as cost containment, increased speed, greater transparency in processing, and reduction in errors. This thus lays a strong foundation for the growth of the global medical automation market. Another change that is driving the adoption of medical automation is the high degree of interest in point-of-care testing devices for pregnancy, blood glucose levels, blood pressure, and HIV.On the flip side, the lack of widespread standardization and a heterogeneous regulatory environment will create several obstacles for companies operating in the medical automation market. Moreover, not all healthcare institutions can afford medical automation. It will be a few years before developing countries wholly embrace this trend.The top trends that are shaping the global medical automation market are affordable automation software and systems that make everyday tasks easier. There is a massive market that hitherto remains untapped in emerging countries, where the healthcare sector is heaving under the burden of obsolete machinery and techniques. This gap could provide a window of opportunity for companies offering medical automation software and solutions.Global Medical Automation Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe global market for medical automation can be segmented broadly based on the following fronts: End user, application, and geography. The key application areas of medical automation are therapeutic automation, lab automation, pharmacy automation, and medical automation. The segment of medical automation is composed of automated imaging and analysis and point of care testing market. The market for therapeutic automation can similarly be split into surgical and non-surgical automation. Each of these sub-segments can be further segmented based on the automation devices.Likewise, the market for lab automation can be classified into liquid handling, automated storage systems, robots and informatics, and microplate readers. The market for pharmacy automation can be further split into automated dispensaries, automated pharmaceutical packaging, and automated/smart medication compounding. The key end users in the global medical automation market are: Research labs, pharmacies, hospital and diagnostic centers, and home care centers.Using geography as a criteria, the global medical automation market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World. The market for medical automation is currently the largest in North America. It is also well-established in Europe. The rising demand for medical automation solutions and software in Asian countries such as Taiwan and China will be a crucial turning point for the market.Companies that are currently at the forefront of the global medical automation market are: Carefusion Corp, Medtronic, Inc., GE Healthcare, Intuitive Surgical Inc., Roche Holding AG, Omnicell, Inc, Siemens Healthcare, Philips Healthcare, Stryker Corporation, St. Jude Medical, Inc., and others.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.Browse Full Research Report on Medical Automation Market:About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a 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. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Browse market research blog:
Rosacea Therapeutics Market - Market Trends, Technological Improvements & Industry Analysis By 2024

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Rosacea Therapeutics Market: Region-wise OutlookThe global market for rosacea therapeutics can be geographically segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World. North America and Europe presently dominate the overall market, powered primarily by the U.S. The National Institutes of Health states that rosacea is a condition more common in people of western and northern European descent and as a result is prevalent mostly in the European Union and the U.S. There is a high level of awareness among end users as well as patients regarding rosacea and its various treatment options and this has significantly driven the uptake of rosacea therapeutics in Europe and North America. Greater purchasing power and higher expenditure on healthcare have also contributed to the growth of these regional markets. Better product availability and an increasing number of companies investing in the field also bode well for the rosacea therapeutics market in North America and Europe.For Any Queries Get Solutions With A PDF Sample :The Asia Pacific rosacea therapeutics market is likely to expand at a rapid pace over the coming years and offers key players lucrative opportunities. Despite the fact that the awareness level regarding the skin condition is lower in this region than in developed regions, the market holds immense promise owing to a massive consumer base. This, in addition to a thriving medical tourism industry, has attracted manufacturers from around the world to invest in the APAC rosacea therapeutics market.Companies mentioned in the research reportPlayers making a significant contribution to the rosacea therapeutics market include Delenex Therapeutics AG, TWi Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Merz Pharma GmbH & Co. KgaA, Foamix Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Hovione FarmaCiencia SA, Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc., Promius Pharma, LLC, Allergan Plc, and Amorepacific Corporation.Rosacea Therapeutics Market: Trend and OpportunitiesRosacea has been a common yet rather poorly understood skin disorder and this has, in the past, limited the scope of the rosacea therapeutics market. However, as the condition became increasingly widespread across the North American and European regions, patients have become more aware of the signs and symptoms. The growing penetration of smartphones and the Internet enables the quick, easy, and effective dissemination of information and this has also contributed significantly to the growing awareness levels. As a result, the uptake of rosacea therapeutics has received a boost.Personal appearance is important to almost every individual and the social, psychological, and occupational side effects of rosacea also form a key factor driving the global rosacea therapeutics market. In a survey conducted by the National Rosacea Society in the U.S., it was found that over 90.0% of the patients afflicted by this chronic skin ailment suffered from low self-esteem and self-confidence. The survey also found that rosacea has adversely impacted the professional as well as social interactions of the patient. The rising emotional burden of this condition has therefore led to the decision of opting for therapeutic treatment.Rosacea Therapeutics Market: OverviewThe American Academy of Dermatology states that over 14 million people are currently living with rosacea in the U.S. alone. The Canadian Dermatology Association reports that this chronic skin condition affects over two million people in the country, while the British Skin Foundation finds that more than eight million people in the U.K. suffer from various skin conditions, including rosacea. The rising incidence of this skin disease has greatly boosted the demand for rosacea therapeutics.Rosacea can be of four types: papulopustular rosacea, erythematotelangiectatic rosacea, ocular rosacea, and phymatous rosacea. Symptoms of this condition range from redness in the face and flushing of the skin to swelling and acne-like breakouts. Considering that rosacea does not resolve on its own, there are a number of therapeutic options recommended by dermatologists. These include topical agents such as Metronidazole and Tretinoin; antibiotics, which can be both oral and topical; steroid creams; oral agents such as Isotretinoin; sulfur and sodium sulfacetamide; camouflage make-up; and cosmetic surgeries such as laser therapy.View exclusive Global strategic Business report :The report studies the various segments and sub-segments in depth and offers a detailed assessment of their current, historical, and future performance. The factors driving and hampering the rosacea therapeutics market and recommendations on how to overcome the challenges have also been highlighted in the study. With the help of the latest industry tools, such as Porters Five Forces analysis model, SWOT analysis, value chain analysis, and market attractiveness, readers are given a 360-degree overview of where the rosacea therapeutics market stands today and where it is headed in the coming years.About UsTransparency 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:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Subsea Manifold Market: ABB Limited, Aker Solutions ASA, Baker Hughes Incorporated

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New York, February 08: Market Research Engine has published a new report titled as Global Subsea Manifolds Market (By Application - Production, and Injection) - Industry Analysis, Trends, and Forecast 2016  2023The subsea manifold market is expected to exceed more than US$ 4.0 billion by 2023 growing at a CAGR of more than 5.5% in the given forecast period 2016 and 2023.Browse Full Report:A subsea manifolds are huge in structures, greatly in shape, size and metal equipment used to transfer gas, oil, water or chemicals from wellheads into a pipe line. Subsea manifolds consists of branched valves, headers and pipes carrying gas, oil, chemicals and more. Subsea machineries are designed, consider the harsh working situation in deepwater areas and can be modified depends on the soil property. It forms an important element of subsea production systems as they allow machinists to adapt to varying operating conditions. In many offshore basins, manufacture companies can mount double header manifolds according to their necessities. Subsea manifolds are designed flexibly based on requirement of companies. So that operators connect future subsea part effectively, when parts of subsea manifolds are not working properly then it minimize the production loss.The major driving factors of Subsea Manifolds market are as follows:Require to enlarged oil recovery from composite offshore reservoir important for growth of cost efficient subsea manifoldsReducing onto land reserves has lead investigation and production groups to focus on expansion of offshore basinsCapability to adapt to varying operating conditions is a key element of subsea manifold systems. `The restraints factors of subsea manifold market are as follows:Indecision in crude oil costs would impact productivity of offshore workerDownload Free Sample Report:The subsea manifold market is segmented on the lines of its application and regional. Under application segmentation the subsea manifold market covers production manifolds and injection manifolds. The subsea manifold market is geographic segmentation covers various regions such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa. Each geography market is further segmented to provide market revenue for select countries such as the U.S., Canada, U.K. Germany, China, Japan, India, Brazil, and GCC countries.This report provides:1) An overview of the global market for subsea manifold and related technologies.2) Analyses of global market trends, with data from 2013, estimates for 2014 and 2015, and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2023.3) Identifications of new market opportunities and targeted promotional plans for subsea manifold4) Discussion of research and development, and the demand for new products and new applications.5) Comprehensive company profiles of major players in the industry.REPORT SCOPE:The scope of the report includes a detailed study of global and regional markets for various types of coatings with the reasons given for variations in the growth of the industry in certain regions.The report covers detailed competitive outlook including the market share and company profiles of the key participants operating in the global market. Key players profiled in the report include ABB Limited, Aker Solutions ASA, Baker Hughes Incorporated, Dril-Quip Inc., FMC Technologies Inc., General Electric, ITT Bornemann GmbH, OneSubsea, Siemens AG, Subsea 7 S.A. and Technip S.A. Company profile includes assign such as company summary, financial summary, business strategy and planning, SWOT analysis and current developments. The Top Companies Report is intended to provide our buyers with a snapshot of the industrys most influential players.The Subsea Manifold Market has been segmented as below:by Application AnalysisProduction ManifoldsInjection Manifoldsby Regional AnalysisNorth AmericaEuropeAsia-PacificRest of the WorldAbout MarketResearchEngine.comMarket Research Engine is a global market research and consulting organization. We provide market intelligence in emerging, niche technologies and markets. Our market analysis powered by rigorous methodology and quality metrics provide information and forecasts across emerging markets, emerging technologies and emerging business models. Our deep focus on industry verticals and country reports help our clients to identify opportunities and develop business strategies.Media ContactCompany Name: Market Research EngineContact Person: John BayEmail: john@marketresearchengine.comPhone: +1-855-984-1862, +91-860-565-7204Country: United StatesWebsite:Address: 3422 SW 15 Street, Suite #8942, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442, United States
Carbohydrase Market - Trends, Outlook, and Opportunity Analysis, 2016-2024

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Transparency Market Research presents this most up-to-date research on "Carbohydrase Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024"Global Carbohydrase Market: OverviewEnzymes make up an essential part of the human digestive system as they help in the breakdown of large and insoluble food components into small soluble molecules. These little soluble molecules can be easily and effectively absorbed by the human digestive system. These digestive enzymes can be classified as carbohydrase, lipase, and protease. Protease enables the breakdown of protein molecules and thus improves protein digestion. In a similar way, lipase quickens the digestion of bulky molecules by breaking them down into smaller lipids. Additionally, carbphydrase breaks down carbohydrates into simple sugar in order to fasten digestion. Basically, carbohydrases are found in the pancreas but in general their process occurs in the stomach. Carbohydrases help in producing several types of syrups such as inverted sugar syrups, glucose syrup, and fructose syrup. Moreover, isomaltulose and prebiotics are also formed with the aid of carbohydrates. Carbohydrase has applications in animal feeds, pharmaceutical, and food and beverages among others. In 2012, the leading application segment was the food and beverages segment owing to the rising demand for high quality food products.Download Exclusive Brochure of This Report :This industry study is an evaluation of the growth prospects and historical tract of the global carbohydrase market. It deals with the assessment of the facets that are projected to sway the expansion of the market both negatively and positively. Further, the key trends have also been indicated in the publication. The research study further presents a wide outlook on the seller landscape of the market with reference to Porters five forces analysis. The research report deals with the R&D activities, mergers, acquisitions, and particulars on certifications and partnerships. The report reviews the approaches related to shares, publicity, and product range of the key accomplices in the global carbohydrase market.Global Carbohydrase Market: Trends and ProspectsThe global market for carbohydrase is anticipated to expand at a steady CAGR over the forecast period of 2013-2019. The growth of the global carbohydrase market can be attributed to the development of advance technologies such as enzyme engineering. Through enzyme engineering, carbohydrase can be produced chemically and not via animals or plants. Moreover, the progress of the global pharmaceutical industry is also expected to further accentuate the comsumption of carbohydrase across several pharmaceutical companies, thus propelling the growth of the market. However, inefficiency in terms of action at a high pH is likely to hamper the adoption of carbohydrase.Browse Global Strategic Business Report:In terms of sources of extraction, the global carbohydrase market can be segmented into animals, plants, and microorganisms. Currently, the chief source of extraction of carbohydrase are microorganisms and animals. This is mainly because of the fact that they comprise large volumes of the enzyme catalyst. Further, reducing the burden on plants through various human activities may increase the utilization of animals and microorganism for the purpose of extraction of carbohydrase.Global Carbohydrase Market: Regional OutlookNorth America held the leading share in 2012 owing to the prevalence of numerous food and beverage producers in the region. Furthermore, a sizeable number of manufacturers of carbohydrase domiciled in this region, thus bolstering the growth of the market here. Rising government initiatives in the U.S. are also likely to trigger the growth of the market in the near future.Global Carbohydrase Market: Companies Operating in the MarketThe leading participants in the market are Advanced Enzymes, Royal DSM, Novozymes, Verenium, AB Enzymes Gmbh, Specialty Enzymes, Dyadic International, Inc., E.I. Dupont De Nemours & Co. (Dupont) Msds, and Amano Enzyme Inc.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a 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. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Future of Cell Counting Market: 2016 - 2014

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Transparency Market Research presents this most up-to-date research on "Cell Counting Market by Product - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024"The growing number of cancer patients across the globe is propelling the demand for cell counting products. Cell counting products such as cell counters, flow cytometers, hematology analyzers, and spectrophotometers are used extensively by research institutions, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies. Cell counting proves to be an important step in various experimental workflows by researchers to help them maintain cell cultures and prepare cells for transfection and downstream experiments.The global cell counting market is segmented on the basis of product, end user, and geography. By end user, the market is segmented into research institutions, hospitals, diagnostic laboratories, biotechnology companies, and pharmaceutical companies. On the basis of product, the global cell counting market is segmented into instruments and consumables and accessories. The consumables and accessories segment is further categorized into reagents, assay kits, accessories, microplates, and others. Further, the instruments segment is categorized into spectrometers, flow cytometers, hematology analyzers, and cell counters.The report on the global cell counting market comprises value chain and stakeholder analysis, supply and demand analysis, and the competitive landscape. The report gives the current, historical, and future size of the market in terms of volume and value. The market shares of key vendors and strategies implemented by them to grow in the market have been evaluated in detail. The assessment of the trajectory of the market and emerging opportunities and trends are also included in the report.Download Exclusive Brochure of This Report :Overview of the Cell Counting Market by ProductThe high prevalence of cancer and AIDS across the globe has led to a surge in the global demand for cell counting products. The introduction of enhanced data visualization and analysis software is encouraging the markets growth. The increasing expenditure on stem cell research has given a rise to the demand for cell counting products. Moreover, government support and participation through funding is also driving the adoption of cell counting products worldwide. On the other hand, the lack of proper research and healthcare infrastructure, especially in emerging economies, is limiting the growth of the market. The lack of skilled professionals and the high cost of cell counting products are other restraining factors impacting the growth of the market.On the basis of geography, the global cell counting market is segmented into Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, and the Rest of the World. Of these, North America and Europe are currently leading in the market by revenue. The prominence of cell counting product manufacturers in these regions is the major reason behind the growth of the market in North America and Europe. Other factors contributing to the growth of the market include an increasing number of cell-based and stem cell research programs initiated by the government and the presence of highly developed healthcare systems.Asia Pacific is projected to be the fastest growing region in the coming years owing to a rise in research collaboration, growing geriatric population, and the expanding healthcare sector. The rising focus of leading companies on Asia Pacific countries and the growing demand for cutting-edge technology are also behind the regions significant growth. Other factors driving the demand for cell counting products in Asia Pacific include the rapid expansion of private sector hospitals in rural areas and the increasing expenditure on R&D.Companies Mentioned in the ReportKey companies operating in the global cell counting market have been profiled in the report. They are: Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., GE Healthcare, Tecan Group Ltd., PerkinElmer Inc., Biotek Instruments Inc., Becton, Dickinson, and Company, Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc., Danaher Corporation, Merck Millipore, and Agilent Technologies Inc.Browse Global Strategic Business Report:About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a 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. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Oligonucleotide Synthesis Market Share, Growth , Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2013

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Transparency Market Research presents this most up-to-date research on "Oligonucleotide Synthesis Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2023"Global Oligonucleotide Synthesis Market: OverviewOligonucleotide synthesis refers to the process of synthetically producing nucleic acid biomolecules with definite sequences. The process holds immense promise for a number of research and development activities across the life sciences industry, including medical diagnosis, drug manufacture, and several applications in the food and agriculture industry.This report on the global oligonucleotide synthesis market presents a thorough assessment of the present growth dynamics of the market and its key elements. The report includes verifiable projections pertaining to the future growth prospects of the market and includes qualitative and quantitative details pertaining to historical data, growth drivers, restraints, trends, and opportunities. The report also includes detailed insights into the regulatory scenario at regional and global levels, and analyzes the impact of several policies, plans, rules, and regulations on several decisions and developments in the global oligonucleotide market.Global Oligonucleotide Synthesis Market: SegmentationThe report segments the global oligonucleotide synthesis market on the basis of criteria such as product, end-user, application, and geography.On the basis of product, the market is broadly classified into probe, reagent, primer, equipment, and synthesized oligonucleotide. Of these, the segment of synthesized oligonucleotides expected to register growth at the most promising pace over the reports forecast period, chiefly owing to a vast rise in its applications in the fields of research, therapeutics, and diagnostics. The rising demand for custom oligonucleotides is also expected to boost the growth prospects of this product segment.On the basis of end-users, the market is further segmented into diagnostic laboratory, academic research institutes, and pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Of these, the market is expected to witness an increased level of demand from the diagnostic laboratories sector over the forecast period, chiefly owing to the adoption of advanced technologies such as real time polymerase chain reaction, DNA microarrays, and polymerase chain reaction for a number of operations in diagnostic labs.Download Exclusive Brochure of This Report :Global Oligonucleotide Synthesis Market: Trends and OpportunitiesSome of the key factors driving the global oligonucleotide synthesis market are the rising set of applications of oligos in synthetic biology and molecular diagnostics, a vast rise in R&D spending in the fields of pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, and rising prominence of RNA-interference oligonucleotides in therapeutics and diagnostics. Several governments are also actively investing funds with the view of ramping up the capacity of oligonucleotides synthesis. The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), for instance, invests nearly US$1.5 bn every year to encourage R&D activities in oligonucleotide-based applications, including, but not limited to manual manipulation of DNA.Oligonucleotide Synthesis Market: Geographical DynamicsFrom a geographical perspective, the global oligonucleotide synthesis market has been examined for Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, and Rest of the World (RoW). Of these, the Asia Pacific market has emerged as one of the most promising markets for oligonucleotide synthesis, chiefly owing to a significant rise in the demand for synthesized oligos, the vast rise in R&D activities in life sciences, and increased funding for R&D activities in the region. An increasing number of leading companies in the global oligonucleotide synthesis market are entering the market via manufacturing units to exploit the vast opportunities that the region offers.Global Oligonucleotide Synthesis Market: Companies Profiled in the ReportThe market has witnessed a significant rise in the level of competition owing to the entry of a large number of new vendors. The increased number of companies in the market has led to intense price pressures, compelling many leading vendors to strategically cut down certain service/product arms and focus on a niche sector. Qiagens recent decision to trade off its nucleic acid synthesis unit and retain the high growth and high margin RNAi segment is an instance.Some of the key companies operating in the global oligonucleotide synthesis market are BioAutomation Corporation, TriLink Biotechnologies, Inc., Agilent Technologies, Inc., Eurofins Genomics, GE Healthcare, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., Link Technologies, Ltd., Integrated DNA Technologies, Inc., Nitto Denko Avecia, Inc., Glen Research, Eurogentec, BioSearch Technologies, Inc., GenScript USA Inc., Gene Link, Inc., Sigma-Aldrich Co. LLC, GeneDesign, Inc., and Qiagen.Browse Global Strategic Business Report:About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a 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. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Cell Washing Centrifuge Market: Evolving Market Trends & Dynamics 2023

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Transparency Market Research presents this most up-to-date research on "Cell Washing Centrifuge Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2023"Cell Washing Centrifuge Market: OverviewCentrifuge is a medical device widely utilized in every biomedical research laboratories across the globe. The process by which a centrifuge separates the component of a complex mixture is called as centrifugation. Cell washing centrifuge is mostly utilized in immune hematology laboratories in which the instrument is used to separate and prepare cells and serum for further diagnostic testing purpose. In the blood banks and transfusion centers, it is often performing the compatibility between donor and recipient blood prior to every blood transfusion.Cell washing centrifuge is considered as an ideal instrument for the above mentioned application. A number of cells washing centrifuge is available in the market that are capable of washing small quantities of erythrocytes automatically. These instruments are considered as a backbone of the research laboratories when the erythrocytes have to wash number of times such as for antiglobulin test and for few enzyme techniques. The cell washing centrifuge requires several washing cycles to clean the red blood cells from the plasma particles. In an automated cell washing centrifuge the washing cycle is continued automatically and in every washing cycle an appropriate amount of saline solution is filled in the tubes of the rotor. Cell washing centrifuge is also widely utilized in antibody search and differentiation applications. Gradually number of laboratories are adopting cell washing centrifuge due to high accuracy and reliability of the instrument.Download Exclusive Brochure of This Report :Cell Washing Centrifuge Market: DriversCell washing centrifuge instrument provides accurate and effective result in diagnostic test. Growing public awareness about cell washing centrifuge and its effectiveness in the developed nations would derive the global market demand for cell washing centrifuge instruments. Likewise, the number of blood transfusion is increasing rapidly in recent times. Thus, above mentioned factor would also accentuate the global market demand for cell washing centrifuge instruments. Furthermore, rise in healthcare infrastructure and increasing disposable income of people in developing nations would also significantly accentuate the market growth. However, high costs and technical complexities associated with the cell washing centrifuge instruments may hinder the market growth majorly in the developing countries.Cell Washing Centrifuge Market: Region-wise OutlookNorth America represents the largest regional market for cell washing centrifuge primarily due to strong demand of the device and increasing awareness among people about cell washing centrifuge. Europe accounts for the second largest market for cell washing centrifuge after the U.S. Rising aging population and longer life expectancy has been majorly drive the growth of cell washing centrifuge market in Europe.The Asia-Pacific region comprises countries such as India, Australia, China, Malaysia, and Japan. In 2013, Japan and China collectively accounted for the largest stake in the cell washing centrifuge market among the Asia-Pacific countries due to robust demand and increasing awareness about cell washing centrifuge. In addition, technological advancements would further aid the markets growth in these particular regions. Rest of the World (RoW) comprises the markets of Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. The market for cell washing centrifuge in RoW is primarily spurred by the steady development of the healthcare infrastructure in Brazil and Mexico.Cell Washing Centrifuge Market: Key PlayersMajor market players dominant in the global cell washing centrifuge instruments market include Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Hettich AG, Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., Helmer Scientific, Centurion Scientific Ltd., Shanghai Centrifuge Institute Co. Ltd., Sino Pharmaceutical Equipment Development (Liaoyang) Co., Ltd., Sichuan Shuke Instrument Co., Ltd, Lab Essentials, Inc., among others.The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to categories such as market segments, geographies, types and applications.Browse Global Strategic Business Report:About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a 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. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
IGZO Display Market Regulations and Competitive Landscape Outlook to 2025

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IGZO Display Market OverviewIndium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) is a transparent, crystalline, thin film transistor (TFT), comprising semiconductor materials such as Indium, Gallium, Zinc and oxygen. IGZO display is considered as one of the most efficient thin film transistor to be used in flat panel displays and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panels. The IGZO display is able to overcome the traditional limitations posed by silicon technology, resulting in high resolution with low power consumption. IGZO technology is increasingly adopted for display devices like smartphones, tablets, laptops and TVs which have ever rising demand for power efficiency, reliability and high resolution.Request Free Report Sample@The IGZO display is being touted as the technology that will drive next generation flat panel displays. Besides offering high resolution with low power consumption, IGZO display,Supports high electron mobility as compared to amorphous siliconCan be made smaller in size to achieve same performanceOffers better battery life and supports touch sensitive displays for devices like smartphones and tablets.Although IGZO technology is still at a nascent stage, it is expected to drive the market for next generation displays.IGZO Display Market DriversIGZO displays are affordable, and this is one of the major factors for their increased demand. As the demand for high resolution, touch sensitive and power efficient display devices like, smartphones, tablets, laptops, televisions etc. increases, the demand for IGTO displays will eventually increase. IGZO technology based displays can easily replace existing silicon based displays with very little modifications. On other hand, IGZO displays face slow and negative market growth in some segments due to adoption of low-temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS) and other competitive display technology. The global IGZO display market is expected to exhibit double-digit growth in next five years for primary applications in smartphones and other displays.IGZO Display Market SegmentationThe global IGZO display market is segmented on the basis of product type, application, and geography. On the basis of product type, the global IGZO display market is categorized into smartphones, television, tablets, laptops, wearable devices, monitors, wall size displays and others. On the basis of key applications, the global IGZO display market is categorized into  home application, consumer application, industrial application, automotive healthcare and others. On the basis of geography, global IGZO display market is segmented into  North America, Latin America, Easter Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan and Middle East & Africa.Request For TOC@Innovative advancement in IGZO displays are continuously focusing on making it more efficient and on increasing its performance on different applications. IGZO displays with High sensitivity sensors are driving new opportunities in various fields. IGZO displays are powering various displays that are used in medical devices such as high sensitivity sensors that can transform X-ray images into high resolution images. IGZO display technology is receiving recognition all over the world for its unbeatable capabilities and future scope.IGZO Display Market: Key PlayersSharp Corporation (Japan), Sony corporation (Japan), Apple Inc. (U.S.), Asus (Taiwan), Samsung Group (South Korea), LG Electronics (South Korea), Fujitsu (Japan), AU Optronics (Japan) are some of the top players in the global IGZO display market. Sharp Corporation was the first company who started mass production of LCD IGZO-TFT LCD panels in 2012.The basic strategy adopted by the top players in global IGZO display market is diversification and product innovation. With the continuous introduction of new innovative products and exploitation of wide range of possibilities in next generation displays, IGZO displays will dramatically transform future display market.ABOUT US :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.compress@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Magnetic Materials Market Growth, Trends and Value Chain 2015-2025 by FMI

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Magnetic material are objects that can be magnetized or naturally hold magnetic properties. According to the ease of magnetization, magnetic materials can be classified into hard and soft. Hard magnetic materials retain their magnetism even in the absence of an applied magnetic field. Hard magnetic materials are difficult to magnetize and demagnetize. On the other hand, soft magnetic materials can be easily magnetized and demagnetized. They lose their magnetism when an external magnetic field is removed.Demand for effective utilization of electricity and faster transmission of data, and decreasing size of technological devices have provided an impetus to the magnetic material market.Request Free Report Sample@Magnetic Materials Market: Drivers & RestraintsEnvironmental concerns, government support & incentives, increasing demand from end use industries, such as demand in automotive industry for electric vehicles, demand in medical devices for body scanners and others are the driving factors for the growth of the magnetic material market. Additionally, rapid industrialization, specifically in emerging economies and demand for alternative power sources, such as water turbine and wind mill are also driving the demand for magnetic material market. However, the variation in the price of raw material can be a restraining factor in the growth of the magnetic material market.Magnetic Materials Market: SegmentationOn the basis of types, the global magnetic material can be broadly segmented into soft magnetic material and hard or permanent magnet. In 2014, permanent magnet accounted for more than fifty percent of market share of the global magnetic materials market in terms of volume.On the basis of application, the global magnetic material market has largest applications in automotive, industrial and electronics segment. The automotive segment is projected to have the highest growth rate during the forecast period.Magnetic Materials Market: Region-wise OutlookIn terms of region, Asia Pacific is anticipated to have an attractive growth for magnetic material market as various multinational companies shifting their manufacturing set-ups to this region. China has the highest automobile production rate according to the 2014 automobile production rate of OICA which, in turn, is a factor behind the growing demand of magnetic material market. China and India are projected to be the dominant countries for the global magnetic material market.Request For TOC@Magnetic Materials Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players for magnetic material market are Arnold Magnetic Technologies, Hitachi Metals Ltd., Molycorp Inc., Electron Energy Corporation, Lynas Corporation Ltd., Tengam Engineering Inc. and many others.ABOUT US :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.compress@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Global Color Detection Sensors Market Set for Rapid Growth And Trend, by 2025

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Global color detection sensors market includes advanced sensors which apart from differentiating light produced by the target, also helps in recognizing various colors of the light. Global color detection sensors market find its application in monitoring consistency in color which is useful in case of production of plastics, textiles and various other processes. Global color detection sensors market has become a necessity for the accomplishment of industrial automation. The increasing technological advancements and rise in industries is leading to the increase in demand for global color detection sensors market. For further enhancing the global color detection sensors market, players are offering customization, easy-to-use and portability of the product as well as mechanization of the product.Color Detection Sensors Market: Drivers & RestraintsThe increase in global automation industry is the major driving factor for the growth of global color detection sensors market. Automation of various processes in the industries, increasing demand from the end users such as packaging, food & beverage, petrochemicals, hardware, chemicals, textiles, etc., being more cost effective, faster and easier to replace than image sensors, technological advancements, global investments outlines are some of the reasons for the growth of global color detection sensors market. The cost and increasing requirement for more features and accuracy are some of the challenges for the growth of global color detection sensors market.Request Free Report Sample@Color Detection Sensors Market: SegmentationOn the basis of product type, global color detection sensors market can be segmented into:Color sensingRGB sensorsLuminescence sensorsContrast sensorsBrightness sensorsOthersOn the basis of market verticals, global color detection sensors market can be segmented into:AutomotiveFood & BeveragePackagingTextilesPharmaceuticalProduction unit automationChemicalLighting & signageOthersOn the basis of end-user industry, global color detection sensors can be segmented into:HealthcarePrintingConsumer electronicsLighting and signageIndustrial automationFluid analysisOthersColor Detection Sensors Market: Region-wise OutlookAsia-Pacific region is anticipated to have a robust growth in global color detection sensors market due to increasing demands from various industries establishing their plants in these regions and requiring automation of the processes such as extraction of oil & gas, healthcare industries, wastewater treatment, etc. in the developed countries due to continuous technological advancements and innovations, the demand for global color detection sensors market is stable. Global detection sensors market is expected to grow with compound annual growth rate of single digit during the forecast period.Request For TOC@Color Detection Sensors Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players in global color detection sensors market include SICK AG, Banner Engineering Corp., SensoPart Industriesensorik GmbH, Rockwell Automation, Inc., ifm electronic gmbh, Hamamatsu photonics K.K., Pepperl+Fuchs GmbH, Omron Corporation and Keyence Corporation.ABOUT US: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.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comPress: press@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Global Protein Ingredient Market Trends, Regulations And Competitive Landscape Outlook to 2025

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Proteins are polymers of amino acids joined together by peptide bonds. Proteins are the building blocks of body tissue, and can also serve as a fuel source. Proteins are constantly synthesized and degraded in living entities through metabolic processes for energy recovery and storage. Proteins play very important role in living organisms by participating in every process within cells. With the increased attention on health and body building the number of gyms and health clubs are increasing over a world. Protein ingredients are widely consumed in health and wellness food in the form of pre workout fuel, post workout replenishment. In addition, it is also used in food and beverages, pharmaceuticals and some cosmetic products.Protein Ingredient Market: SegmentationProtein ingredient market is segmented on the basis of source as animal protein and plant protein. Overall demand for plant protein is growing in market as its a cost effective solution and dose not causes any intolerance in kids. Animal protein is sub-segmented as dairy protein, egg protein and gelatin. Dairy protein ingredient account for largest market share in forecast period in animal protein market. Dairy proteins are categorized as whey and casein. Among these categories whey protein market is expected to grow during forecast period. Furthermore, plant protein is sub-segmented into soy protein, wheat protein and other (pea). Among these sub-segments soy protein ingredient is contributing highest market share in terms of value and pea protein ingredient share is expected to grow at a moderate rate during forecast period.Request Free Report Sample@Protein ingredient market is segmented on basis of application such as food and beverage, animal feed, pharmaceutical and other (cosmetics and personal care). Among these segments food and beverage is expected to grow at faster rate during forecast period. Food and beverage is sub-segmented as food, beverages and supplements. The supplement sub-segment is expected to grow at healthy CAGR during forecast period. Animal feed and cosmetics and personal care products are found to be emerging segments.Protein Ingredient Market: Region-wise OutlookProtein ingredient market is segmented on the basis of region includes North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan and Middle East and Africa. The protein ingredient market is expected to witness healthy CAGR by 2025 due to the rising demand for healthy and convenience food across the globe. North America contributes higher market share and expected to exhibit healthy CAGR during forecast period.Protein Ingredient Market: DriversIncreased demands for processed food and healthy food product is driving the protein ingredient market as, protein provides all essential amino acids. Growing application of protein ingredients in nutraceuticals, food and beverage, and health supplement is expected to fuel the market growth in the coming years. With the increasing number of health conscious consumers, growing number of fitness centers and health clubs, and rising demand for health supplements, energy drinks and processed foods is expected to fuel protein ingredients market. Consumers are looking for a great product with palatable taste, with high national value, so manufacture are investing on research and development of new products. For instance in 2013 PepsiCo has launched new protein rich product especially for women.Request For TOC@Protein Ingredient Market: Key PlayersThe key international players operating in Protein Ingredient Market includes Archer Daniels Midland Company, CHS Inc., Cargill, Incorporated, Arla Foods Ingredients Group P/S., Axiom Foods Inc., Kerry Group plc., Amco Proteins, and E. I. du Pont de Nemours and CompanyABOUT US: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.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comPress: press@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
FMI Releases New Report on the Savory Ingredient Market 2015-2025

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Savory ingredients are kind of flavor enhancer which possess the property to modify flavors in food without contributing to any separate flavor of their own. Savory flavors are primarily used while manufacturing processed savory products such and snacks, frozen savory meal and others. Savory ingredient enables to provide pleasant sense of taste and smell especially by reason of effective seasoning. Savory ingredient play an important role in enhancing the umami flavor of the product which is supporting its growth in the current scenario.Savory Ingredient Market SegmentationSavory ingredient market is segmented on the basis of form which includes liquid, powder, paste and spray dried. Among all these segments powder is expected occupy the major position on the pie. Easy usage and mixing properties with other ingredient is expected to drive its growth during the forecast period. Moreover, liquid is expected to show healthy growth in savory ingredient market in the near future. In addition spray dried savory ingredient is currently an emerging product in savory ingredient market, however it is expected to account for substantial growth within next five to six years.Request Free Report Sample@Savory ingredient is also segmented on the basis of ingredient type which includes yeast extract, hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP), hydrolyzed animal protein (HAP), monosodium glutamate (MSG), nucleotides and others. Among all these segments monosodium glutamate is expected to contribute highest in terms of revenue. Monosodium glutamate properties such as it act as thickening and stabilizing agent in food products. Moreover it is cost effective which are supporting monosodium glutamate growth in the near future. In addition, yeast extract act as a fermenting ingredient. It also enables to reduce salt level from food content. Thus yeast extract is expected to account for substantial growth in next five to six years.Savory ingredient market is further segmented on the basis of application which includes food Industry pet food industry, others. Among all these segments food industry is expected to have a strong presence in savory ingredient market as compared to remaining segments. Increased consumption of processed savory and culinary food products across the globe is expected to be the prime factor driving the growth of savory ingredient market during the forecast period. Also, pet food industry is expected to show a substantial growth in the near future. Food industry is further sub-segment as dips, soups, instant noodle & sauces, meat & seafood, bakery products & savory snacks, others (baby food). Among all these sub- segment meat and sea food is expected to be dominant in terms of revenue contribution followed by savory snacks. Increased consumption of frozen and processed meat and sea food is predicted be the major factor contributing to the market growth of savory ingredient.Geographically, North America is expected to be the major contributor in terms of value followed by Europe. However these region is predicted to show a stable growth in the near future. Increasing awareness among the consumer regarding the ill effects of consuming processed food may affect the growth of savory ingredient in these regions. In developing countries of Asia Pacific region China is expected to dominate the market in terms of savory product consumption followed by India. Moreover Japan is expected to show a substantial growth during the forecast period. High volume consumption of sauces and noodles is predicted to be the supporting factor in the growth of savory ingredient market across the country.Savory Ingredient Market DriversRising disposable income in developing regions has led the consumer to get inclined towards processed savory and culinary food product which is predicted to support the growth of savory ingredient market in the near future. Moreover, savory ingredient is cost effective, due to which manufacturers is using it various reason such as stabilizer, emulsifier, thickening agent and others in food products which also expected to fuel its growth during the forecast period.Request For TOC@Savory Ingredient Market Key PlayersSome of the key companies operating in savory ingredient market includes Tate & Lyle PLC, Kerry Group Plc., Lesaffre Group, Royal DSM, Synergy Flavors and Diana Group among others.ABOUT US: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.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comPress: press@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Point of Use Water Purifier (POU) Market in MENA to Witness a CAGR of 7.6% by 2020

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Future Market Insights (FMI) announced the release of a latest report titled, POU Water Purifiers Market: MENA Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2014 - 2020. FMI estimates that the Point of Use (POU) water purifier market in Middle East and North Africa is expected to reach US$ 471 Mn at a CAGR of 7.6% from 2014 to 2020.Residential water purification system includes point of use water purifiers (POU), point of entry (POE) water purifiers, portable water purifiers. Moreover, the demand for POU water purifiers is high among consumers in MENA region as compared to POE and portable water purifiers.In the POU water purifiers market, products with high purification capabilities such as combination of reverse osmosis (RO) and Ultraviolet (UV) technologies are more preferred. It has also been observed that a majority of the demand is coming from urban centres in GCC when compared to the entire MENA region.Market SegmentsThe POU water purifiers market is segmented on the basis of technology which includes RO, UV and media-based. RO technology based water purifiers segment is estimated to account for slightly over 40% of the total POU water purifiers market in MENA region in 2014. Media-based water purification, which is a conventional water purification technology has also witnessed technological advancements, and is estimated to display a CAGR of 9.3% during the forecast period, in terms of volume. The third technology, UV based water purifiers, is estimated to exhibit a sluggish growth rate during the forecast period due to its limitation in removing only organic contaminants from water. Additionally, UV-based water purifiers are also priced higher in comparison to media-based water purifiers and hence the product preference for UV based water purifiers is comparatively low.Request Free Report Sample@Region-wise, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), United Arab Emirates (UAE), Turkey, Israel, Egypt and Algeria are the promising markets for POU water purifiers. In addition, a cumulative scenario has been highlighted for rest of MENA (includes smaller countries like Kuwait, Jordan etc.). Among the aforementioned regions, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is estimated to be the prominent market for POU water purifiers, followed by Turkey, due to its growing population and rapid urbanization, and increasing awareness for safe drinking water forecast period.In addition, penetration of bottled water is a challenge for the POU water purifiers market in Anatolia. As a result, Anatolia is estimated to demonstrate a sluggish growth rate in the near future. Furthermore, POU water purifiers market in UAE is anticipated to reach 149.2 thousand units by 2020, exhibiting a CAGR of 10% between 2014 and 2020.Drivers and RestraintsDeteriorating water quality, rising cost of bottled water, increasing population coupled with increasing per capita income are some of the prominent factors which will catalyse the point of use water purifiers in the region. Though the MENA market is attractive in terms of absolute dollar opportunity, low awareness about safe drinking water and product unavailability are major challenges for the MENA POU water purifier market.Send An Enquiry@Competitive LandscapeKey players operating in the MENA water purifier market are LG, Eureka Forbes, Strauss Water, Panasonic, WaterLife and Coolplex. The report sheds light on their key growth strategies and recent developments. In addition, the report also discusses the value chain followed by multinational companies in MENA for POU water purifiers.ABOUT US: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.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Global Mobile Payment Transaction Market on Track to US$ 2,849,231.4 Mn in the year 2020

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The mobile payment is an integrated system linked by various components of value chain which typically includes the merchant, the consumer, the financial institution involved and not to forget the payment gateway and the telecom network.In terms of revenue, the global mobile payment transaction market revenues valued at US$ 549,917.7 Mn in 2015 will possibly reach US$ 2,849,231.4 Mn in the year 2020.A sample of this report is available upon request @Mobile payment transaction volume will grow by a massive 41.7% during the forecast period 2015-2020. In terms of volume, the global mobile payment transaction market volume was 18,969.8 million transactions in the year 2015 and this is projected to increase by 106,001.5 million transactions by the year 2020.Persistence Market Research forecasts the global mobile payment transaction market to register a CAGR of 39.1% through 2020 and reach US$ 2.89 trillion in revenues.Even though there will be tremendous growth in mobile payment transactions market, there are many challenges that are obstructing the growth of this market. A major challenge is the slow adoption of smartphone compatible POS systems by the retailers. If taken at face value, a 41.7% volume growth looks amazing, but there is something to be concerned about. One of the major concerns is that apart from few countries, consumers havent fully accepted the concept of mobile payments, even though the facility is much more secure. However, given the inherent nature of the product, it wouldnt be long before consumers all over the world use the facilities provided by mobile payments, as per the research report of Persistence Market Research.By technology, SMS and WAP/WEB will continue to account for most of the transactions conducted worldwide. Mobile payments conducted through SMS will witness a robust CAGR of 24.5% over the forecast period. In the year 2015, the revenue from the SMS segment was US$ 238,884.3 Mn and this is going to be at the value of US$ 678,117.1 Mn by 2020 end.Mobile payments conducted through WAP/WEB will witness a CAGR of 48.0% during the forecast period. In the year 2015, the revenue from the WAP/WEB segment was US$ 164,386.1 Mn and this is going to be valued at US$ 1,725,209.6 at the end of the forecast period in the year 2020.Money transfer and merchandise purchases account for over 90% revenue share of the global mobile payment transaction market on the basis of end-use purpose. Mobile payments made for merchandise purchases will be worth US$ 323.73 Bn in 2016, up from US$ 228.32 Bn in 2015. Money transfer, the largest end-use purpose in the mobile payment transaction market, will grow by over 38% to surpass US$ 381 Bn in revenues.The market for mobile payments will continue to be robust in APEJ and Africa, as majority of people there dont own a credit card, in contrast of the situation in Europe and United States. So, consumers in APEJ and Africa are making a direct shift from using cash to using mobile payments. Growth in the mobile payments market will be particularly strong in China. This is due to the entry of major market players like Apple and Samsung in the Chinese market, making the competition more fierce and interesting.Due to a strong showing in China, the market for mobile payment will continue to grow in the Asia Pacific region and this region will be the leading market in the world in terms of volume. However, in terms of value, it is Africa that will maintain its number one position in the mobile payment transaction market. This is due to the spectacular success of M-Pesa in Kenya and this has influenced consumers and businesses in other regions of Africa to adopt the technology of mobile payments. This has boosted the market of mobile payment transaction market in Africa. Currently, Africa has nearly 32% revenue share of the global mobile payment market, and boasts of a subscriber base of over 100 million. Other than Asia Pacific and Africa, Western Europe and United States are other lucrative regions for mobile payment transaction market the world over.Request to view Table of Content @Leading players operating in the global mobile payment transaction market are PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, Google Wallet, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Alipay.To Buy Full Report for a Single User @About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a 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. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each PMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With a wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports strive to serve clients and satisfy their overall research requirement.For information regarding permissions, contact:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway,7th FloorNew York City, NY 10007United StatesTel: +1 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWebsite:media@persistencemarketresearch.com
Global Security-as-a-Service (SaaS) Market on Track to US$ 16,445.4 Million by 2026

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Adopting the business model of Security-as-a-Service (SaaS) has become a pragmatic choice for companies looking at integrating security with their business infrastructure. Furthermore, emerging technological trends related to the Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud-computing will continue to compel more businesses towards implementation of a Security-as-a-Service business model, which will incidentally benefit them through cost savings. Persistence Market Researchs report on the global Security-as-a-Service market titled Global Market Study on Security-as-a-Service: IT & Telecom and BFSI Industry Segments Major Adopters of Security-as-a-Service Solutions , includes a comprehensive study that has predicted the market to attain US$ 3.3 billion in value by the end of 2016. Over a ten-year forecast period of 2016-2026, the global Security-as-a-Service market is projected to expand at a staggering CAGR of 17.1%.A sample of this report is available upon request @Telecom & IT remains the largest industry for SaaS. Healthcare, Retail & Consumer Goods, and BFSI are the other prominent industries for the global SaaS market. The risks of data loss in the healthcare industry can disrupt dozens of associated businesses such as insurance reimbursement and drug development, and with it, compromise the health of millions of patients. Cloud computing is being merged in the global finance industry, but protection of electronic transactions has necessitated the need for amalgamating a Security-as-a-Service business model. By the end of the forecast period, Healthcare and BFSI industries will account for a market value share of 20.3% and 17.7% respectively, with the global IT & Telecom sector accounting for a revenue share of nearly 30%.Providing security services to large enterprises remains a lucrative revenue-generation business model for leading players. By 2026, large enterprises such as conglomerates or multinational corporations will procure about 50% share of global market value, higher than the collective revenue share of small and medium enterprises. Meanwhile, companies in the global Security-as-a-Service market have transformed from being service providers, software developers, and security platform providers to managed security service providers and integrators of Security-as-a-Service for client enterprises. Some of the leading market players profiled in this report include Intel Security, Oracle Corporation, Cisco Systems, Inc., Gemalto NV, Qualys Inc., Alert Logic Inc., Trend Micro Inc., Proofpoint Inc., Zscaler, Inc., and Okta, Inc.The Need for Subscription-based Security Keeps SurgingInterlinked businesses within a company or within multiple corporations are exposed to the threats of network breach, now that cybercrime is at large. As a countermeasure, business operations need to be integrated with security services that safeguard the companies, not just at the firewall level, but at an out-and-out networking parameter. Fusing a security-based business model in an existing and complicated corporate structure can be really formidable for companies, considering the added expenditure of developing an individual security service.Additionally, companies are not looking to further implicate their operational accountabilities by gaining a total ownership of such developed security services. Ergo, the growth of the global market for Security-as-a-Service will be primarily driven by increasing partnerships of companies with service providers offering subscription-based security. So, cost advantages of integrating a Security-as-a-Service business model will encourage more companies to upgrade security measures of their businesses.Request to view Table of Content @Cloud-based security services are proliferating the US corporate world; from budding startups to established conglomerates. North Americas robust Telecom and IT infrastructure aids the extension of its Security-as-a-Service market, which is anticipated to garner revenues worth US$ 8 billion by 2026-end. With an estimated global market revenue share of 36.4% in 2016, North Americas Security-as-a-Service market will account for nearly half of the global market by the end of 2026, growing at the fastest CAGR among all the regions. Meanwhile, the Security-as-a-Service market in Western Europe will expand gradually, generating an opportune incremental value of an estimated US$ 3,059.6 million over the forecast period. Other regions analyzed in the report include Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa (MEA).To Buy Full Report for a Single User @About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a 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. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each PMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With a wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports strive to serve clients and satisfy their overall research requirement.For information regarding permissions, contact:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway,7th FloorNew York City, NY 10007United StatesTel: +1 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWebsite:media@persistencemarketresearch.com
Continuous Glucose Monitoring Systems Market Poised to Reach US$ 788.4 Mn by 2020

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Future Market Insights (FMI) announces the release of its latest report titled, Continuous Glucose Monitoring Systems Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2015 - 2020. According to the report, the global continuous glucose monitoring systems market was valued at US$ 402.0 Mn in 2014 and is expected to reach US$ 788.4 Mn by 2020, registering a CAGR of 12.1% during the forecast period, 2015 to 2020.Global continuous glucose monitoring systems market is driven by increasing number of diabetic patients and growing number of geriatric people across the world. Moreover, usage of advanced technologies such as artificial pancreas in continuous glucose monitors and increasing awareness of people towards diabetes are driving growth of the continuous glucose monitoring systems market. However, high prices of continuous glucose monitors and inadequate reimbursement policies pose a challenge for growth of the global continuous glucose monitoring systems market.The global continuous glucose monitoring systems market is segmented on the basis of end use sector, components and geography. Moreover, company wise market share has also been indicated in the report. By end use sector, global continuous glucose monitoring systems market is sub-segmented into household and hospital & diagnostic centers. Household is a larger segment as compared to hospital & diagnostic centers and is expected to dominate the continuous glucose monitoring systems market throughout the forecast period exhibiting a CAGR of 11.9%. The household segment held 68.5% market share in 2014 and expected to account for US$ 538 Mn by 2020, owing to the convenience and ease of use offered by continuous glucose monitors at home. Hospitals & diagnostic centers sub-segment accounted for approximately 31.5% of the global continuous glucose monitoring systems market value share in 2014, and is expected to gain market share to account for 31.8% of the global market by 2020.Request Free Report Sample@On the basis of component, the global continuous glucose monitoring systems market is sub-segmented into transmitter & monitors, sensors and insulin pumps. Among the aforementioned sub-segments, transmitter & monitors is expected to dominate the global continuous glucose monitoring systems market with over 39% market share throughout the forecast period. Owing increasing trend of sedentary lifestyle in some developing and developed economies such as India, China and Japan, and increasing obesity rate globally, demand for continuous glucose monitoring is expected to increase significantly in the near future.Value wise share in the report has been provided for key players in the market, which includes Medtronic, Dexcom, Abbott and cumulative share of other players. Medtronic dominated the global continuous glucose monitoring systems market in 2014 and is expected to continue its dominance over the forecast period, expanding at a CAGR of 11.2%.Geography-wise, North America was dominant, accounting for over 50% of the global continuous glucose monitoring systems market in 2014 in terms of revenue. However, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ) is foreseen to witness a relatively high CAGR during the forecast period.Competitive LandscapeKey players considered in the continuous glucose monitoring systems market include Medtronic, Dexcom, Abbott, OmniPod, Animas, Glysens, Roche, Ypsomed and Bayer.Send An Enquiry@ABOUT US: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.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Tobacco Packaging Market Analysis, Future Growth, Business Prospects and Global Forecast to 2021

Tobacco Packaging Market

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Marketing Scenario:Over the past few years, the tobacco packaging manufacturers have seen a substantial growth in the global market due to the rapid increasing in the number of smokers and it has been anticipated that the market growth will remain continue during the forecast period. The demand for tobaccos such as cigarettes, cigar and other products has increased significantly which has resulted in increasing growth of tobacco packaging. The other driving factors include growing population, technological advancements, changing life styles and increasing popularity of cigarettes. On the other hand, the government initiatives for organizing anti-tobacco campaigns and diseases caused by tobacco are hindering the growth of global market. Introducing of E-Cigarette is one of the major trend in the global tobacco packaging market. Geographically, Asia-Pacific is expected to be the leading market followed by other regions.Request a Sample Copy @Key Players of Tobacco Packaging Market: Amcor Innovia Films ITC International Paper Philips Morris International China National Tobacco Corporation Siegwerk Druckfarben AG & Co. KGaASegmentation:As per MRFR analysis, the global tobacco packaging market has been segmented into:By Product Types: cigarette, cigar, and othersBy Materials: paper box, films and others.Study Objectives of Tobacco Packaging Market: To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 5 years of various segments and sub-segments of the Global Tobacco Packaging Market. To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth. To analyze the global tobacco packaging market based on various factors- price analysis, supply chain analysis, porters five force analysis etc. To provide historical and forecast revenue of the market segments and sub-segments with respect to four main geographies and their countries- North America, Europe, APAC, and Rest of the World (RoW). To provide country level analysis of the market with respect to the current market size and future prospective. To provide country level analysis of the market for segment by types and materials. To provide strategic profiling of the key players in the market, comprehensively analyzing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market. To track and analyze competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the Global Tobacco Packaging Market.Browse Full Report @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.Contact:Akash AnandMarket Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Global Polyoxymethylene Market Revenue Predicted To Go Up by 2022

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Polyoxymethylene (also known as POM) is a high performance engineering plastic that is derived from formaldehyde. It finds its applications in various end user industries such as electrical and electronics, automotive industry, consumer goods and electronics, and others. Polyoxymethylene is a preferred material in the category of high performance engineering plastics due to its various desirable properties such as excellent dimensional stability, impact resistance, fatigue resistance, and high strength. Polyoxymethylene is majorly used in electrical & electronics industry to make insulators, capacitors and various other electronic components. The use of this material makes the product more efficient and effective to deliver better performance.A sample of this report is available upon request @Polymers are considered as an important material in the food industry due to factors such as mechanical strength, low cost and ease in manufacturing and processing. As a result, the demand for plastic from the food industry is expected to strengthen the market for Polyoxymethylene, thereby creating new opportunities in the coming years. Polyoxymethylene is also used as a replacement for metal as it weighs lighter than metal and also possesses high impact strength.Polyoxymethylene is an engineering thermoplastic that is used because of its excellent physical properties which make it a metal replacing light weight material. The drivers for this market include superior properties, increasing demand in end use industries, and replacement for plastics among others. New applications in the food packaging industry along with non-crude oil derivate based raw materials would act as opportunities for Polyoxymethylene. Use of Polyoxymethylene in various industries such as automotive, electrical and electronics, others in the form of metal replacement plastic due to its light weight and high strength is expected to drive growth of the Polyoxymethylene market.Polyoxymethylene manufacturers are investing heavily in plant capacity expansion or regional expansion by creating new subsidiaries to penetrate into new markets and to improve the reach of their products in various regions. Major players in this market are engaged in R&D efforts to develop newer applications and new products to fulfill the demand from various end use industries. Also, the companies are engaged in new product launch, and mergers & acquisitions. The companies are expanding their geographical footprints by setting up plants at new locations. These strategies are helping the companies to increase their market share and expand their reach.The global Polyoxymethylene market is estimated to witness significant growth for the forecast period (2015 to 2025). Asia-Pacific is the leading market in terms of consumption and it accounts for nearly half of the total market for Polyoxymethylene. Western European market for polyoxymethylene is also expected to grow at moderate rate in the coming years. According to FMIs forecasts, this market in Asia-Pacific is expected to show the fastest CAGR over the forecasted period as huge amount of investment are made in this region.Request to view Table of content @Some of the major players of the global Polyoxymethylene market are: E. I. Du Pont De Nemours and Company, BASF SE, A. Schulman, Korea Engineering Plastics, Asahi Kasei Chemicals Corp., Celanese Corporation, Mitsubishi Engineering-Plastics Corporation, and others.About UsPersistence 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.Persistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd.305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com
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Global Wall Bed Market, by Single Wall bed, by Double Wall bed, by Application - Forecast to 2027

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Market Synopsis of Wall Bed MarketStorage plays very important role in any house and as most of people around world owns only single house, it becomes difficult for them to manage all the items in one place. Home furniture takes lots of space, where a bed can utilize more than 40-50% of the area. The new option is coming in format of Wall Bed. Wall bed is a concept which is becoming more popular these days. According to study, wall bed increases the available area by more than 20% which can be utilized for some other purpose.Key Players Murphy (U.S.), The London Wallbed Company (UK), Clei UK (UK), Costco Wholesale Corporation (U.S.), The WallBed Company (Australia), SICO Inc. (U.S.), FlyingBeds International (U.S.), Wall Beds Manufacturing (U.S.) among others.Request a Sample Copy @This report includes a study of marketing and development strategies, along with the product portfolio of leading companies.Market SegmentationSegmentation by Single Wall bed: 2ft, 2.5ft, 3ft, 3.5ftSegmentation by Double Wall bed: 4ft, 5ft, More than 5ft.Segmentation by Application: Residential Non-Residential (Guest Houses, Hospitals, Restaurants among others).Taste the market data and market information presented through more than 50 market data tables and figures spread in 110 numbers of pages of the project report. Avail the in-depth table of content TOC & market synopsis on Global Wall Bed Market Research Report- Global Forecast 2027Study Objective of Wall Bed Market To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast of the various segments and sub-segments of the Global Wall Bed Market To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth To analyze the Wall Bed Market based on various factors- price analysis, supply chain analysis, porters five force analysis etc. To provide historical and forecast revenue of the market segments and sub-segments with respect to four main geographies and their countries- North America, Europe, Asia, and Rest of the World (ROW) To provide country level analysis of the market with respect to the current market size and future prospective To provide country level analysis of the market for segment by Single Wall bed, by Double Wall bed, by application sub-segments. To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analyzing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market To track and analyze competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the Global Wall Bed Market.The report gives the clear picture of current market scenario which includes historical and projected market size in terms of value, technological advancement, macro economical and governing factors in the market. The report provides details information and strategies of the top key players in the industry. The report also gives a broad study of the different market segments and regions.Table of Content (TOC), Figures @The reports also covers brief analysis of Geographical Region includes:Americas North America US CanadaEurope Western Europe Germany France Italy Spain U.K Rest of Western Europe Eastern EuropeAsia Pacific Asia China India Japan South Korea Rest of Asia PacificThe Middle East& AfricaKey questions answered in this report What will the market size be in 2027 and what will the growth rate be? What are the key market trends? What is driving this market? What are the challenges to market growth? Who are the key vendors in this market space? What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?Related reportGlobal Hospital Bed Market Information by Usage (General, Birthing, Pediatrics and others), by Power (Electric, Semi Electric, and Manual),- Forecast to 2027.Know more about this report @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Telecom Tower Market to Record an Impressive Growth Rate by 2026

Telecom Tower Market, Telecom Tower, Telecom Towers Market

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Telecom Tower Market: IntroductionMobile telecom industry has witnessed significant growth rate in last decade and it is expected to grow consistently over different generations of network communications. Starting from 0G mobile telecom service (MTS) to current long term evolution (LTE) 4G, the mobile telecommunication has turned as necessity to everyone. The second generation (2G) mobile telecommunication gave a major boost to the mobile telecom industry as it surprised consumers with internet browsing offering on mobile phones along with clear voice calling facilities. Now, most of the countries possess 4G connectivity which is a highly dense networking system providing real time voice calling and enhanced data transfer rate. Also, few countries like Japan and U.S. are implementing 4.5G and in development of 5G network communications.TOC of this report is available upon request @The telecom tower are the arteries of any mobile telecommunication system. The telecom tower is a structure hosting a transceiver unit to maintain connection with thousands of mobile phones and The Mobile Telephone Switching Office (MTSO). The telecom tower offers wide range of multi-channel frequencies to thousands of cell phones in the network zone. The main advantage of multichannel frequency is that it can offer tens of mobile phones in single network like conference calling, where many devices are connected to single network and can transmit and receive at same time. Also, it offers better data transfer rates and connectivity. The telecom tower are tall steel structures with transceiver unit at the top to cover maximum possible area.Telecom Tower Market: DynamicsThe telecom tower market is primarily dependent on mobile subscriber density and number of telecom service providers in any region. The increasing reach of mobile phones to almost every remote area, increasing competition among service provider for better network coverage are some of the current drivers of telecom tower market. Also, permissible height limits in any area restricts service provider to install multiple towers in small zones. Moreover, increasing the number of telecom service providers, internet providers, Wi-Fi and broadband providers are expected to drive the telecom tower market in the forecast period.Whereas, the harmful effects of high frequency radio waves or microwaves on human and environment is expected to limit telecom tower market. Also, regulations from government and telecom authorities is expected to put restraints on telecom tower market. Moreover, high installation cost, high operational costs and squeezing space are some other factors which can suppress telecom tower market growth.Recent trends have shown high prospective of strengthening of telecom tower network, where multiple new technologies are liable to grow. Ongoing researches on Internet of Things (IoT), real time security devices monitoring and accessibility, remote health care services, etc. are some emerging technologies projecting to increase the burden on telecom tower in coming years.Telecom Tower Market: SegmentationThe telecom tower market can be segmented in two categories based on type of tower and mounting area. On the basis of type of tower the telecom tower market can be segmented as  Lattice tower, Guyed tower, Monopole tower, Camouflage towers and Mobile (vehicle mounted) tower.On the basis of mounting area the telecom tower market can be segmented as  Green Field Tower (mounted on ground or suitable foundation) and Roof Top Tower (mounted on roof of any building).Telecom Tower Market: Key PlayersThe telecom towers are generally installed either by telecom service provider or third party infrastructure providers. Some examples of telecom service providers are China Mobile Ltd., Verizon Communications Inc., AT&T Inc., Vodafone Group Plc, Bharti Telecom Ltd., China Unicom Ltd., Telenor Group, MTN Group and Telstra Corp. Ltd.Whereas some examples of third party tower erection and service providers includes  Indus Towers Ltd., 3Z Telecom, GTL Infrastructure Limited, Tower Systems, Inc., American Tower Corporation, Reliance Infratel Limited, LeBLANC Communications (M) Sdn.Bhd., ATC IP LLC., and Vertical Bridge, LLC.The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to market segments such as geography, technology and applications.The report covers exhaustive analysis on: Market Segments Market Dynamics Market Size Supply & Demand Current Trends/Issues/Challenges Competition & Companies involved Technology Value ChainRegional analysis includes North America (U.S., Canada) Latin America (Mexico. Brazil) Western Europe (Germany, Italy, France, U.K, Spain, Nordic countries, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg) Eastern Europe (Poland, Russia) Asia Pacific (China, India, ASEAN, Australia & New Zealand) Japan Middle East and Africa (GCC Countries, S. Africa, Nothern Africa)The report is a compilation of first-hand information, qualitative and quantitative assessment by industry analysts, inputs from industry experts and industry participants across the value chain. The report provides in-depth analysis of parent market trends, macro-economic indicators and governing factors along with market attractiveness as per segments. The report also maps the qualitative impact of various market factors on market segments and geographies.Sample of this report is available upon request @Report Highlights: Detailed overview of parent market Changing market dynamics in the industry In-depth market segmentation Historical, current and projected market size in terms of volume and value Recent industry trends and developments Competitive landscape Strategies of key players and products offered Potential and niche segments, geographical regions exhibiting promising growth A neutral perspective on market performance Must-have information for market players to sustain and enhance their market footprintAbout UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Global Human Coagulation Factor VIII Market Professional Survey Report 2017

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Global Human Coagulation Factor VIII Market Professional Survey Report 2017  The Report covers current Industries Trends, Worldwide Analysis, Global Forecast, Review, Share, Size, Growth, Effect.Ask for a sample Copy of Report @Scope of the Report @This report studies Human Coagulation Factor VIII in Global market, especially in North America, China, Europe, Southeast Asia, Japan and India, with production, revenue, consumption, import and export in these regions, from 2011 to 2015, and forecast to 2021.This report focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, coveringBaxterBayerPfizerCSL BehringGrifolsOctapharmaBPLKedrionFor Report Enquire @By types, the market can be split intoRecombinant Factor VIIIPlasma-derived Factor VIIIBy Application, the market can be split intoHemophilia ASpontanous + TraumSurgicalBy Regions, this report covers (we can add the regionscountries as you want)North AmericaChinaEuropeSoutheast AsiaJapanIndiaPurchase a copy of report & Get Discount on Global Human Coagulation Factor VIII Market Professional Survey Report 2017 @ at USD 3500 (Single User License):Contact us:5933 NE Win Sivers Drive,#205, Portland, OR 97220United StatesDirect : + 1-503-894-6022Toll Free : + 1-800-910-6452Email: help@bigmarketresearch.comWeb:With the arsenal of different search reports, we help you here to look and buy research reports that will be helpful to you and your organization. Our research reports have the capability and authenticity to support your organization for growth and consistency.With the window of opportunity getting open and shut at a speed of light, it has become very important to survive in the market and only the fittest and competent enough can do so. So, we try and provide with latest changes in the market that can suit your needs and help you take decision accordingly.5933 NE Win Sivers Drive, #205
4G LTE Devices Market on Track to US$ 926.1 Bn by 2024 End

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Persistence Market Research delivers key insights on the global 4G (LTE) devices market in a new publication titled Global Market Study on 4G (LTE) Devices: Single Brand Store Distribution Channel Segment Expected to Witness Significant Growth Between 2016 and 2024 In terms of value, the global 4G (LTE) devices market is projected to register a healthy CAGR of 13.1% during the forecast period owing to various factors, regarding which Persistence Market Research offers vital insights in detail.A sample of this report is available upon request @Consumers are increasingly becoming inclined towards technological advancements in networking solutions and are adopting devices that operate smoothly and with intelligent features. The features in devices such as low network latency rate, better battery backup, and screen resolution are attracting consumers to switch to 4G (LTE) devices thus fueling the demand for 4G (LTE) devices worldwide. Convenience, affordability, and attractive data packages offered by network operators in collaboration with device manufacturers are factors encouraging consumers to try 4G (LTE) devices. This, in turn, is increasing the penetration of 4G (LTE) devices globally.Device manufacturers at international and domestic levels are playing an important role in the global 4G (LTE) devices market by innovating in different ways. For instance, manufacturers are collaborating with network providers to provide a better service and make it more affordable for their customers. Government initiatives in some regions to encourage deployment of advanced network data consumption is impacting the global 4G (LTE) devices market positively. Traffic for online high-quality video content is increasing, making consumers opt for advanced network operating devices featuring high-speed data. Besides other factors, increasing data consumption per person per day is anticipated to drive revenue growth of the global 4G (LTE) devices market.The global 4G (LTE) devices market is segmented on the basis of Device Type (Smartphones, Tablets); Pricing (Low, Low-Mid, Mid-High, Premium); Distribution Channel (Multi-brand Store [Organized, Independent], Single brand Store, Online); and Region (North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Middle East & Africa). Globally, the single brand store distribution channel segment is expected to witness significant growth over the forecast period as compared to the multi-brand store and online distribution channel segments, which are expected to witness relatively flat growth rates over the forecast period. In terms of value, the low price range segment in the Asia Pacific 4G (LTE) devices market accounted for 37.6% share in 2015. The developing countries in this region showcase the huge potential for low-end 4G (LTE) smartphones and tablets due to the advancements in network infrastructure.This report covers trends driving each segment and offers analysis and insights into the potential of the global 4G (LTE) devices market in specific regions. The 4G (LTE) devices market in Asia Pacific and North America is expected to register high growth rates between 2016 and 2024. In terms of value, Asia Pacific is expected to create an incremental opportunity of US$ 315.0 Bn between 2016 and 2024. Europe has a relatively small but significant market share in the global 4G (LTE) devices market, as mobile device manufacturers in this region are relatively less prominent. The 4G (LTE) devices market in Asia Pacific is expected to gain substantial market share owing to a high demand from consumers based in countries such as China, Indonesia, and India. The 4G (LTE) devices market in Asia Pacific accounted for 35.9% market share in 2016 and is expected to gain 1,145 BPS to account for 47.4% market value share by 2024. The 4G (LTE) devices market in North America is expected to continue being the second largest market over the forecast period as there is maximum mobile device penetration in that region.Request to view Table of Content @The report profiles some of the leading players operating in the global 4G (LTE) devices market such as Apple Inc., Samsung Electronics, ZTE Corporation, Huawei Technology Company Limited, Lenovo Group Limited, ASUSTeK Computer Inc., Xiaomi Inc., and LG Electronics Inc. Top market companies are focusing on increasing their offline presence by partnering with local retailers and are also making a swift strategic transition from 3G to 4G cellular data consumption.To Buy Full Report for a Single User @About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a 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. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each PMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With a wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports strive to serve clients and satisfy their overall research requirement.For information regarding permissions, contact:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway,7th FloorNew York City, NY 10007United StatesTel: +1 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWebsite:media@persistencemarketresearch.com
Building Automation Systems Market to Raise at a CAGR of 11.1% During the Projected Period

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In reference to a new report published by Persistence Market Research, the global building automation systems market will showcase significant growth between 2016 and 2026. Manufacturers of building automation systems are rapidly adopting new regulations set across the globe and they are also lining up new products to meet rising market demand. The Persistence Market Research report titled, Building Automation Systems Market: Global Industry Analysis & Forecast, 2016-2026, talks in detail about the market psyche and also scrutinizes the market drifts which are expected to impact the future of the global building automation systems market. The global building automation systems market was valued more than US$ 43 Bn in 2015 and is expected to mint better revenue by the end of 2016, reaching approximately US$ 48 Bn. The market will continue its journey towards expansion and the market worth will reach US$ 141.1 Bn towards the end of 2026. The global building automation systems market will record a CAGR of 11.1% during the projected period.A sample of this report is available upon request @Global Building Automation Systems Market: Factors and Trends Impacting GrowthGovernments around the globe are rolling out different precautionary measures to cut down the wastage of energy. Different new regulatory methods are adopted to reduce the consumption of energy. This is a massive booster for the global building automation systems market. Several big economies around the globe such as Europe, US and Japan have already curated some restrictive methods to revise the previous trends. This opens a new window of opportunity for the global building automation systems market. A slew of new technologies that are eroding this market are actively affecting the global canvas of the market. Better and more advanced technologies are enhancing the end-user experience and also increasing market outreach. The introduction of smart web-based, cloud-based control networks backed by the Internet of Things (IOT), mobile technologies, integrated building systems and facility management solutions are expanding the periphery of the global building automation systems market. Last but not the least, the urgent need for consolidated security solutions is also pushing ahead the market growth of the global building automation systems market. These key factors will complement the all-round development of the market within the forecast period but there are also certain key factors that might barricade the normal development of the market within the period of forecast. Building automation systems come with a high price tag and this is expected to impact their widespread adoption. The absence of skilled manpower is another market growth deterrent.Global Building Automation Systems Market: Revenue ForecastThe rising incidences of security violations across the globe are likely to impact the growth of the security and surveillance segment in the global building automation systems market. The security and surveillance segment will exhibit a robust growth in terms of revenue and will overshadow the market within the forecast period. The commercial segment will contribute notably to the global building automation systems market. Towards the end of the projected period, the commercial segment will touch a market worth of more than US$ 63 Bn and will record a CAGR of 10.9%. Apart from this the government and residential segments will also project promising growth trends by 2026 end. North America will lure maximum investors, as the building automation systems market in this region will exceed a whopping value of US$ 55 Bn by the close of 2026.Request to view Table of Content @Global Building Automation Systems Market: Top ContendersThe global market for building automation systems is crowded with several players. The Rheem Manufacturing Company, United Technologies, General Electric, Lennox International, Philips Lighting Holding B.V., Ingersoll-Rand Plc. Honeywell International Inc., Johnson Controls are some of the major players contributing to the growth of the market. They are establishing smart IT backed platforms to provide advanced building automation systems to their customers.To Buy Full Report for a Single User @About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a 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. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each PMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With a wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports strive to serve clients and satisfy their overall research requirement.For information regarding permissions, contact:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway,7th FloorNew York City, NY 10007United StatesTel: +1 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWebsite:media@persistencemarketresearch.com
Wet Waste Management Market Explores New Growth Opportunities By 2026

Wet Waste Management Market, Wet Waste Management

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Global Wet Waste Management Market: IntroductionWet waste refers to the organic waste usually heavy in weight due to dampness and can be segregated on the basis of biodegradable and non-biodegradable waste. Wet waste generally consist of vegetable waste, food waste, tea leaves, shredded newspaper etc. Wet waste management on the other hand is the process of compositing the waste to use it as manure, biogas etc. Further, compositing is the process of shattering down the organic matter in the presence of water and air, using small insects and microorganisms present in the air. The end product, called compost, is usually rich in readily usable plant nutrients forming a part of healthy soil. Moreover, removing waste from public areas helps in reducing risks associated to health, decreasing exposure to biohazards and also reduces infestation of pests. Wet waste management also yields waste energy which can further be deployed in generating electricity.TOC of this report is available upon request @Global Wet Waste Management Market: SegmentationThe global wet waste management market can be segmented on the basis of source, service and type of waste. On the basis of source, the global wet waste management market can be segmented into municipal, industrial, commercial, healthcare and others (glues, construction, solvents etc.). On the basis of service, the global wet waste management market can be segmented into collection and transportation equipment, storage equipment, sorting equipment, processing equipment and disposal equipment. On the basis of type of waste, the global wet waste management market can be segmented into meat & bones, food waste, agricultural waste, medical waste, shredded paper and others.Global Wet Waste Management Market: DynamicsRising awareness for wet waste management is a key factor driving the global wet waste management market. Moreover, introduction of new wet waste management technologies such as waste to energy solutions is another major factor fuelling the growth of the overall wet waste management market. Increasing environmental sustainability and growing usage of eco-friendly fuels is a key element driving the growth of the global wet waste management market. Increasing government initiatives to spread wet waste management awareness among the individuals is further expected to enhance the overall market during the forecast period. However, lack of participation from industries and other sectors such as commercial, food and healthcare is expected to hamper the overall global wet waste management market growth during the forecast period. Moreover, lack of treatment plants and landfill sites is another factor which is expected to rise up as a challenge to the global wet waste management market over the forecast period.Global Wet Waste Management Market: Region-wise OutlookOn the basis of region, the global wet waste management market is divided into seven key regions including North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific excluding Japan, Middle East & Africa and Japan. In terms of market growth, North America is expected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period followed by Asia-Pacific and Western Europe. Moreover, high waste generation from medical and industrial sectors as well as strict regulations by European Commission is expected to drive the demand for wet waste management in the Western Europe region.Global Wet Waste Management Market: Key PlayersMajor companies involved in the wet waste management are Clean Harbors Inc., Remondis SE & Co. KG, Waste Management Inc., Republic Services Inc., Veolia Environment S.A., Suez Environment, Progressive Waste Solution Ltd., Republic Services Inc., Stericycle, Advanced Disposal among others.The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to categories such as market segments, geographies, types and applications.The report covers exhaustive analysis on: Market Segments Market Dynamics Market Size Supply & Demand Current Trends/Issues/Challenges Competition & Companies involved Value ChainRegional analysis includes: North America Latin America Asia Pacific Japan Western Europe Eastern Europe Middle East & AfricaThe report is a compilation of first-hand information, qualitative and quantitative assessment by industry analysts, inputs from industry experts, and industry participants across the value chain. The report provides an in-depth analysis of parent market trends, macroeconomic indicators and governing factors, along with market attractiveness within the segments. The report also maps the qualitative impact of various market factors on market segments and various geographies.Sample of this report is available upon request @Report highlights: Detailed overview of parent market Changing market dynamics in the industry In-depth market segmentation Historical, current and projected market size in terms of volume and value Recent industry trends and developments Competitive landscape Strategies of key players and products offered Potential and niche segments, geographical regions exhibiting promising growth A neutral perspective on market performance Must-have information for market players to sustain and enhance their market footprintAbout UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Global LTE Metrocells Market 2016 - KVH, RigNet, VT iDirect, EMC, ViaSat

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Global LTE Metrocells Market 2016, presents a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the LTE Metrocells market globally, providing basic overview of LTE Metrocells market including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure, LTE Metrocells Market report provides development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures. LTE Metrocells market size, share and end users are analyzed as well as segment markets by types, applications and companies.The Current global LTE Metrocells Analysis and opportunities are also taken into consideration in LTE Metrocells industry study. LTE Metrocells market report provides the feasibility of new investment projects is assessed, and overall research conclusions are offered.Download Sample Report @This report studies LTE Metrocells in Global market, especially in North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia and India, focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer.Covering ManufacturersHarris CaprockHughesInmarsatKVHRigNetVT iDirectViaSatEMCMarket Segment by Regions, this report splits Global into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue, market share and growth rate of LTE Metrocells in these regions, from 2011 to 2021 (Forecast)Split by product type,Type IType IIType IIISplit by application,Application 1Application 2Application 3Access Full Report With TOC @Table of ContentsGlobal LTE Metrocells Market Research Report 20161 LTE Metrocells Market Overview2 Global LTE Metrocells Market Competition by Manufacturers3 Global LTE Metrocells Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2011-2016)4 Global LTE Metrocells Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2011-2016)5 Global LTE Metrocells Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type6 Global LTE Metrocells Market Analysis by Application7 Global LTE Metrocells Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis8 LTE Metrocells Manufacturing Cost Analysis9 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers10 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders11 Market Effect Factors Analysis12 Global LTE Metrocells Market Forecast (2016-2021)Fior Markets is a leading market intelligence company that sells reports of top publishers in the technology industry.Our extensive research reports cover detailed market assessments that include major technological improvements in the industry. Fior Markets also specializes in analyzing hi-tech systems and current processing systems in its expertise.We have a team of experts that compile precise research reports and actively advise top companies to improve their existing processes. Our experts have extensive experience in the topics that they cover.Fior Markets provides you the full spectrum of services related to market research, and corroborate with the clients to increase the revenue stream, and address process gaps.Contact UsMark StoneSales Manager2566, Lincoln StreetPrinceton,New Jersey 08540USAPhone: (201) 465-4211Email: sales@fiormarkets.comWeb:Blog:
Worldwide "Wind Power" Energy 2017 Usage in Asia pacific & Europe, North America, Middle East & African Countries

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Albany, New York, Feb 09, 2017"Wind Power Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2017 - 2019" The Report covers current Industries Trends, Worldwide Analysis, Global Forecast, Review, Share, Size, Growth, Effect.Description-Wind power is defined as the transformation of wind energy into electrical energy using wind turbines. Wind is a kind of solar energy and is caused by the irregular heating of the atmosphere by the sun. This wind energy is utilized by the turbine to generate electricity. In this process turbines convert the kinetic energy of the wind into mechanical energy to generate electricity. This energy is further used in lighting, water pumping etc. Wind energy is a renewable source of energy and is present in abundance in atmosphere so no restriction of the usage as ample amount will be present in future. Wind energy is also a clean non polluting source of generating electricity. Unlike conventional generation of electricity wind plants emits no water & air pollutants or green house gases. In addition being a key source in reduction of emission wind power uses no water to generate electricity which makes it a great opportunity in the fresh water constrained world. As an alternative to fossil fuel wind power is plenteous and widely distributed and uses slight land during operations. The outcome on environment is comparatively less problematic than those from other power generation resources.Get Sample Report With TOC @Globally demand for power is rising at a massive rate. The growth for the wind market is abundantly driven by drivers like supply and demand mismatch, hike in the environmental issues mainly changes in climate, development in technology and less maintenance cost. As wind power generation is completely dependent on wind so the output of the turbines varies with time and geographical location thus making it difficult to integrate with grid. High initial investment and difficulty in obtaining financial aid as low as available for other conventional sources is also the restraints in the development of the global power market. As the output is not consistent from wind turbines affecting the stability of grid the concept of backup using storage devices can be a major option for future and new technologies like offshore can play a crucial role in the enhancement of wind power market.Wind power market is basically segmented into two types Wind farms & Small winds. Winds farms provide electricity to large utilities or major consumers like industries. Large wind farms consist of hundreds of turbine and cover an area of hundreds of square kilometers. Whereas small winds consist of single or few turbines providing power to small or individual customers. Wind turbines are formed by blend of various components in order to generate electricity through the conversion of kinetic energy. Wind strikes the pitch of the blade producing rotational energy and made the blade to rotate. This rotational energy is received by the connected generator shaft and is transferred to the generator and finally gets converted into electrical energy. This generated energy is the form of direct current and is converted into the alternating current using invertors according to the requirements. Wind power is used to generate electricity at remote areas, electrification of villages, heating and pumping water.Asia pacific & Europe are the regions utilizing their maximum wind potential followed by North America. Exponential growth is seen in their capacity addition from wind. Middle East & African countries have started utilizing their potential but at a slower rate. The wind energy potential in many developed and developing countries is present in abundance creating an opportunity to replace conventional generation from fossil fuels.Some of the key players in wind power market are Gamesha, E.ON, Vestas, Siemens, Iberdrola Renowables, General Electric, NextEra, Sinovel, Suzlon, Nordex and Regen Powertech among others. This research report analyzes this market depending on its market segments, major geographies, and current market trends. Geographies analyzed under this research report includeNorth AmericaAsia PacificEuropeRest of the World This report provides comprehensive analysis ofMarket growth driversFactors limiting market growthCurrent market trendsMarket structureMarket projections for upcoming yearsThis report is a complete study of current trends in the market, industry growth drivers, and restraints. It provides market projections for the coming years. It includes analysis of recent developments in technology, Porters five force model analysis and detailed profiles of top industry players. The report also includes a review of micro and macro factors essential for the existing market players and new entrants along with detailed value chain analysis. Reasons for Buying this ReportThis report provides pin-point analysis for changing competitive dynamicsIt provides a forward looking perspective on different factors driving or restraining market growthIt provides a technological growth map over time to understand the industry growth rateIt provides a seven-year forecast assessed on the basis of how the market is predicted to growIt helps in understanding the key product segments and their futureIt provides pin point analysis of changing competition dynamics and keeps you ahead of competitorsIt helps in making informed business decisions by having complete insights of market and by making in-depth analysis of market segmentsIt provides distinctive graphics and exemplified SWOT analysis of major market segmentsResearchMoz is the worlds fastest growing collection of market research reports worldwide. Our database is composed of current market studies from over 100 featured publishers worldwide. Our market research databases integrate statistics with analysis from global, regional, country and company perspectives. ResearchMozs service portfolio also includes value-added services such as market research customization, competitive landscaping, and in-depth surveys, delivered by a team of experienced Research Coordinators.Researchmoz Global Pvt. Ltd.90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United States,Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free),Tel: +1-518-621-2074
Hydrogen Bromide Market Is Expected to Witness a Steady Growth

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Hydrogen Bromide (HBr), is a water soluble gas also available in the form of aqueous solution, which can be produced by the chemical reaction between bromine and hydrogen. It is used as a catalyst in reactions and as a reducing agent. Hydrogen Bromide when mixed with water forms hydrobromic acid, it is a strong acid which is mainly used for industrial uses. Hydrobromic acid is used to add desirable properties in any chemical compound, it is also used in the production of terephthalic acid, inorganic bromides, organobromines and bromides of Zinc, Sodium and Calcium. Global hydrogen bromide market is anticipated to witness a single digit CAGR growth rate in the forecast period because of its applications in the industries like automotive, construction, Electronics Etc.A sample of this report is available upon request @The Global hydrogen Bromide market is expected to boost in near future owing to the favourable regulations on the use of bromine, due to its harmless nature in the atmosphere. Hydrogen bromide finds its application in the activities of oil and gas drilling, so the growing oil and gas industry is expected to increase the global hydrogen bromide market. The major application of hydrogen bromide is in flame retardant segment and in biocide, both of these segments are anticipated to have a modest growth in the forecasted period leading to significant growth in global hydrogen bromide market.Hydrobromic acid is a strong acid and needs to be handled carefully, also there are chances of occupational hazards which can hamper the global hydrogen bromide market. The transportation of hydrobromic acid is expensive owing to its strong acidic nature and caution needed to handle the acid, which hinders the global hydrogen bromide market. Heating of hydrogen bromide increases the pressure and leads to bursting, also on contact with metal there is a risk of explosion and fire due to the formation of hydrogen, all these factors can affect the global hydrogen bromide market.The global hydrogen bromide market can be divided into seven regions, namely North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan and Middle East and Africa. Asia pacific is having a maximum share in the global hydrogen bromide market and is growing at a significant rate. India and China are the countries in Asia Pacific region witnessing booming market of flame retardant, which leads to the increase of market share in global hydrogen bromide market of Asia Pacific region. North America is anticipated to be the next big player in global hydrogen bromide market owing to its recovering construction segment due to the turnaround in its economy. Europe is an emerging region in global hydrogen bromide market because of the established automotive sector in this region. Middle East and Africa, Latin America are at a nascent stage and are expected to have a good market size in near future.Some of the key players in global hydrogen bromide market are Albermarle Corporation, Tosoh Corporation, Gulf Resources, Inc., Tata Chemicals Ltd., Triveni Interchem Pvt. Ltd, SONTARA ORGANO INDUSTRIES, Bhavika Chemicals Corporation.Request to view Table of content @The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to market segments such as geography, technology and applications.About UsPersistence 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.Persistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd.305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com
Emerging Opportunities in Fortified Food Market with Current Trends Analysis 2015-2025

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Foods are fortified with vitamins and minerals in order to make it more nutritious. There are many types of food fortification such as mass fortification which is mandated by the govt.; targeted fortification for instance fortification in biscuits in order to reduce malnutrition among the school students in South Africa; market driven fortification is totally based on the commercial companies performance and activities over fortified foods according to the market demand; bio-fortification where foods such as fruits and vegetables are injected or fortified and house hold and other commercial food fortification, where food is prepared specially for children. The global fortified foods market is showing tremendous progress and also expected to witness highest growth during next five to six forecast years. Fortified foods enjoyed huge popularity among health conscious people. In developed countries it has large market share, in emerging economies it gaining popularity owing to increasing awareness. Food fortification is one of the strategies of World Health Organization (WHO) and Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) to decrease the rate of malnutrition. There are other many organizations helping poor from the countries such as Nigeria, India by bridging the gap between nutritional and agriculture. North American, Western Europe and Japan are the target market for the fortified milk and milk producer companies which are the largest market share holder of fortified foods.Fortified food market segmentation:On the basis of food types fortified food market is segmented into cereals and cereal based products, milk products, fats and oils, confectionaries, infant formulas and others includes tea. On the basis of basic nutrients the fortified food market is segmented into vitamin and minerals. Further vitamin and mineral segment is categorized by the ingredient of nutrition, for instance vitamin segment is sub segmented with vitamin A, vitamin D, Vitamin C and others, and minerals segment is sub segmented with iron, zinc, copper, iodine, Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), selenium, folic acid and others.Geographically fortified milk and milk market is segmented into North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Japan and Middle East & Africa.Request Free Report Sample@Fortified Food Market Dynamics:Health consciousness in developed countries is driving the market, moreover, enhancement of livelihood among the consumers of emerging economies set a new benchmark for fortified food market. Awareness is another driving factor that has high impact on Asia pacific and Middle East. The cost of fortified food is making the market restraint since the production of fortified food requires high expenditure. However, intensifying the economic stability among Asian countries builds huge opportunities for fortified food, also there is an opportunities over developed regions for instance North America and Japan that can be more penetrated in order to increase more market share.Fortified Food Market Key Players:Some the key players operating in fortified food market are Nestle SA, Kellogg Co., Dean Foods, Unilever, RFM CORPORATION and others.Visit For TOC@The report covers exhaustive analysis on:Fortified Food Market SegmentsFortified Food Market DynamicsHistorical Actual Market Size, 2012 - 2014Fortified Food Market Size & Forecast 2015 to 2025Supply & Demand Value ChainFortified Food Market Current Trends/Issues/ChallengesCompetition & Companies involvedTechnologyValue ChainFortified Food Market Drivers and RestraintsABOUT US: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 trends616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Global Natural Fiber Composites Market to Record an Impressive Growth By 2022

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With the increasing concern due to the recyclability and biodegradability composites such as glass and carbon, natural fiber composites serves as perfect replacement. Attributing to added properties such as high durability, low density, lightweight and cost effectiveness, natural fiber composites have gained significant traction. Natural fiber composites are reinforced matrices structure formed using natural fibers. Natural fiber such as coir, jute, bagasse, cotton, bamboo, hemp are used to manufacture high strength and stiff composite structures that can be used for various application. The natural fibers can be used to reinforce both thermosetting and thermoplastic matrices. Natural fiber composites are relatively lighter and have more strength than conventional fibers and therefore find extensive application in automotive industry for interior and exterior application. In the construction industry natural fiber composites are used in applications such as railings, window frames and door panels. Similarly natural fiber composites are also used for packaging and electrical industry. Natural fiber composites are manufactured using two methodsinjection and compression moulding. Natural fiber composites are manufacture predominantly by compression moulding technique as compared to injection.A sample of this report is available upon request @The natural fiber composites market is expected to witness a significant growth over the forecasted years owing to the rising environmental concern over the production and utilization of non-biodegradable synthetic fibers. Stringent regulation regarding non-biodegradable composites in regions such as Europe and North America have opened new opportunities for natural fiber composites materials in these regions. With increasing demand for sustainable natural fibers composites in emerging economies for automotive, constructions and textile industry the outlook for natural fiber composites looks positive for the forecast years. Although the demand for natural fiber composites is increasing the market is restrained by the presence of semi synthetic fiber composites. Inherent properties of relatively high moisture absorption and limited chemical reactivity also hinder the growth of natural fiber composites market.Global natural fiber composites market can also be segmented on the basis of regions North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East & Africa, Asia Pacific. In terms of natural fiber composites demand, the largest market is Europe owing to extensive demand of natural fiber composites automotive application. Key market in Europe include UK and Germany. Followed by Europe, North America and Latin America are the key markets for natural fiber composites. High demand in infrastructure and constructions applications are attributed to the high demand in these regions. Asia Pacific is anticipated to be the largest market for natural fiber composites for the forecasted years, with emerging market of India and China contributing significantly in the market dynamics. The escalating demands from regions such as Middle East & Africa are anticipated to influence the natural fiber composites market in the coming years due to the increasing demands from construction and electronics industry.Request to view Table of content @Some of the key players identified in the global natural fiber composites are: Greengran B.V FlexForm Technologies LLC., FiberGran GmbH & Co. KG Tecnaro GmbH, Kafus Bio-Composites Inc. Stemergy, Procotex Corporation SA, and Bast Fiber LLCAbout UsPersistence 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.Persistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd.305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com
Global Flavor and Fragrance Market 2017- Symrise, Frutarom, Sensient, Takasago, WILD Flavors

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Global Flavor and Fragrance Market 2016, presents a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Flavor and Fragrance market globally, providing basic overview of Flavor and Fragrance market including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure, Flavor and Fragrance Market report provides development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures. Flavor and Fragrance market size, share and end users are analyzed as well as segment markets by types, applications and companies.The Current global Flavor and Fragrance Analysis and opportunities are also taken into consideration in Flavor and Fragrance industry study. Flavor and Fragrance market report provides the feasibility of new investment projects is assessed, and overall research conclusions are offered.Download Sample Report @The report titled Flavor and Fragranceis an in-depth and a professional document that provides a comprehensive overview of the global Flavor and Fragrance market.The report provides an executive-level blueprint of the Flavor and Fragrance market beginning with the definition of the market dynamics. The analysis classifies the Flavor and Fragrance market in terms of products, application, and key geographic regions. With focus on presenting a detailed value chain analysis, the study evaluates the set of region-specific approaches forged by the industry. To determine the market potential for Flavor and Fragrance in the international scenario, the study delves into the competitive landscape and development landscape exhibited by the key geographic regions.Development plans and policies significantly impact the market dynamic. The report therefore studies in detail the impact of the strategies, plans, and policies adopted by leading vendors of the Flavor and Fragrance market. Manufacturing cost of products and the pricing structure adopted by the market is also evaluated in the report. Other parameters crucial in determining trends in the market such as consumption demand and supply figures, cost of production, gross profit margins, and selling price of product and services is also included within the ambit of the report.Access Full Report @To provide a detailed analysis on the competitive landscape, the report profiles the key players in the Flavor and Fragrance industry. Information present in these chapters includes details of products manufactured by the leading companies, product specification and price, and production capacity. Using reliable analytical tools, the report evaluates the information sourced from both primary and secondary research. Results obtained through the detailed analysis helps in presenting refined forecasts regarding growth prospects of the Flavor and Fragrance market. Apart from this, the analysts have also conducted upstream raw materials and equipment and downstream demand analysis to compile and present an exhaustive study on the Flavor and Fragrance market.A detailed segmentation evaluation of the Flavor and Fragrance market has been provided in the report. Detailed information about the key segments of the market and their growth prospects are available in the report. The detailed analysis of their sub-segments is also available in the report. The revenue forecasts and volume shares along with market estimates are available in the report.Fior Markets is a leading market intelligence company that sells reports of top publishers in the technology industry.Our extensive research reports cover detailed market assessments that include major technological improvements in the industry. Fior Markets also specializes in analyzing hi-tech systems and current processing systems in its expertise.We have a team of experts that compile precise research reports and actively advise top companies to improve their existing processes. Our experts have extensive experience in the topics that they cover.Fior Markets provides you the full spectrum of services related to market research, and corroborate with the clients to increase the revenue stream, and address process gaps.Contact UsMark StoneSales Manager2566, Lincoln StreetPrinceton,New Jersey 08540USAPhone: (201) 465-4211Email: sales@fiormarkets.comWeb:Blog:
Global Fiber Optic Market 2017- CommScope, LEMO, Hirose, Amphenol, Molex

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Global Fiber Optic Market 2016, presents a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Fiber Optic market globally, providing basic overview of Fiber Optic market including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure, Fiber Optic Market report provides development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures. Fiber Optic market size, share and end users are analyzed as well as segment markets by types, applications and companies.The Current global Fiber Optic Analysis and opportunities are also taken into consideration in Fiber Optic industry study. Fiber Optic market report provides the feasibility of new investment projects is assessed, and overall research conclusions are offered.Download Sample Report @The report, titled Fiber Optic is an in-depth analysis of the Fiber Optic market across the world. A brief historic overview of the Fiber Optic market has been mentioned in the report, followed by the present scenario of the market. The report analyses the size of the market and forecasts the valuation and the growth rate of the market in the span of next couple of years. Key drivers and restraints of the overall market has been pointed out. The report cites the various opportunities to favor the growth of the Fiber Optic market during the forecast period. It also indicates the key market trends shaping up the market.The Fiber Optic market has certain distinct aspects. The report throws light on each of these aspects and studies the various segments of the market in detail. The growth of each of the market segments during the forecast horizon has been analyzed in the report. The present state of the Chinese economy has lowered the demand from every market. The report discusses the impact of the various initiatives taken by the government in China to revive the economy and how this would impact the demand from Fiber Optic market in the nation. The report also takes note of the various micro- and macro-economic factors governing the overall market in rest of the world.Access Full Report @Discussing about the key players operating in the Fiber Optic market, the report provides crucial information about them. The Fiber Optic market has become very competitive worldwide. The report profiles the key players and analyzes their growth in the next couple of years. The report serves as a useful tool for enterprises looking out to invest in projects in the Fiber Optic market.Various analytical tools are applied in the analysis on the Fiber Optic market to achieve an accurate understanding of the market players into the potential development of this market. These tools include feasibility analysis, investment return analyses, as well as SWOT analysis of the major market players.Fior Markets is a leading market intelligence company that sells reports of top publishers in the technology industry.Our extensive research reports cover detailed market assessments that include major technological improvements in the industry. Fior Markets also specializes in analyzing hi-tech systems and current processing systems in its expertise.We have a team of experts that compile precise research reports and actively advise top companies to improve their existing processes. Our experts have extensive experience in the topics that they cover.Fior Markets provides you the full spectrum of services related to market research, and corroborate with the clients to increase the revenue stream, and address process gaps.Contact UsMark StoneSales Manager2566, Lincoln StreetPrinceton,New Jersey 08540USAPhone: (201) 465-4211Email: sales@fiormarkets.comWeb:Blog:
Antithrombin III Deficiency Testing Market is Expecting Worldwide Growth by 2021  Persistence Market Research Study

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Antithrombin deficiencies are mainly divided into two types: type I and type II. The type I antithrombin deficiency is characterized by an inadequate amount of normal antithrombin present in the bloodstream. In this condition, there is simply not enough antithrombin present to inactivate the coagulation factors. The type II antithrombin deficiency is characterized by adequate amount of antithrombin present in the bloodstream. However, it does not function properly and is unable to carry out its normal functions.A sample of this report is available upon request @Antithrombin III is a non-vitamin, K-dependent protease that naturally blocks abnormal blood clot formation in the bloodstream. Deficiency of antithrombin III causes various blood clot disorders in the human body. For instance, congenital antithrombin III deficiency is a common antithrombin deficiency, which usually occurs when individuals receive the abnormal antithrombin III gene from their parents. This abnormal gene causes abnormal blood clots in the human body which block blood flow and damage organs.The major symptoms of blood clotting include fainting, coughing up blood, shortness of breath, pain when taking deep breaths, and swelling of legs. In addition, some physical symptoms of blood clots are abnormal lung sounds, fast breathing, swollen foot or leg, and fast heart rate.The global antithrombin III deficiency testing market is categorized on the basis of various types of deficiencies, diagnostic procedures, and end users. Based on the type of deficiencies, the report covers type I antithrombin deficiency and type II antithrombin deficiency. Based on the type of technology, the report covers monoclonal antibodies, molecular diagnostics, differential light scattering, immunoassays, flow cytometry, chromatography, gel micro droplets, diagnostic imaging, and others. Based on end users, the report covers commercial or private labs, physician offices, hospitals, public health labs, and academic research institutes.In terms of geography, North America dominates the global antithrombin III deficiency testing market. This is due to increased government funding on healthcare infrastructure in the region. In addition, technological advancement in antithrombin III diagnostic procedures has also propelled the market in North America. The U.S. represents the largest market for antithrombin deficiency testing in North America, followed by Canada. In Europe, Germany, France, and the U.K. hold the major shares of the antithrombin III deficiency testing market. The antithrombin III deficiency testing market in Asia is also expected to show high growth rates in the next five years. This is due to the various initiatives undertaken by governments to increase awareness about blood clotting disorders in the region. In addition, increased investments by many foreign diagnostic instrument companies have also propelled the growth of the antithrombin III deficiency testing market in the region. India, China, and Japan are expected to be the fastest-growing markets for antithrombin III deficiency testing in Asia.Advanced applications of antithrombin deficiency diagnostic instruments and increasing prevalence of blood clot disorders are the key drivers for the global antithrombin III deficiency testing market. Also, increased government support in the form of funding and rapid technological advancements have fueled the growth of this market.An increasing number of mergers and acquisitions involving diagnostic consumables manufacturing companies and rapid product launches are the key trends in the global antithrombin III deficiency testing market.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @The major companies operating in this market are Abbott Laboratories, Avocet Medical Inc., Axis-Shield plc, Beckman Coulter Inc., Becton, Dickinson and Company, Trinity Biotech PLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., Siemens AG, Roche, Chrono-log Corporation, Sysmex Corporation, Hyphen Biomed and American Diagnostica GmbH.About UsPersistence 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.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Molecular Sieves Market Sizing with Competitive Landscape by 2022

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Molecular sieves are the material with small pores of uniform size. Diameter of molecular sieves measured in angstrom or nanometers (nm). Molecular sieves can be micro porous (2nm), macro porous (50< nm) and mesoporous (2 nm- 50 nm). Molecular Sieves are crystalline alumino- silicates known as Zeolites. Molecular sieves crystals characterized by three-dimensional pore systems along with same crystals identified together. The basic Molecular sieves types A and X are commercially used absorbents. Molecular sieves are used as absorbents for fluids (gas and liquids). Molecular sieve absorbents have ability to separate fluids on the basis of molecular size and polarity. In case of hydrocarbon parafines, straight molecules fit into pores and get adsorbed. The branched molecules cant fit into pores and pass through sieve bed. Molecular sieves play important role in unit processes such as dehydration, purification and unit operations like drying, adsorption. Catalysis is application field of molecular sieves. Molecular sieves are used in petroleum catalytic cracking.A sample of this report is available upon request @Environmentally friendly behavior of molecular sieves across their lifecycle has promoted them as a substitute for hazardous chemicals throughout various industrial application, so the demand for molecular sieves will be increasing during forecast period. Regulatory stringent laws for waste water treatment chemicals will drive molecular sieves market. Government agencies through the world are making strict regulations for municipal as well as industrial effluents over environmental issues such as dead areas in water body and ground water toxicity.Molecular Sieves smoothly trap nuclear ions from effluent. Due to these factors nuclear industry is anticipated to boost Molecular sieves market. Additionally, molecular sieves are used in detergents. So detergent industry is expected to drive molecular sieves market especially in developing countries. Molecular Sieves are used as substitute for phosphate and these phosphates are banned in developed countries. Government agencies and awareness among the people supported the demand for Molecular Sieves. It is also used as catalysts in petroleum and petrochemical industries. Aluminum Chloride and Phosphochloric Acid were used as catalyst in these industries. But Aluminum Chloride and Phosphochloric Acid are not easily disposable. So Molecular sieves are being substituted traditional catalysts in petroleum and petrochemical Industries. Therefore, huge demand is expected for molecular sieves from these industries.The global Molecular sieves market has been divided into seven key geographical regions which includes, North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. Asia Pacific will be the major market for Molecular Sieves market. Increasing demand in surfactants and major role of molecular sieves in nuclear industries to remove nuclear waste will boost the molecular sieves in Asia Pacific region. China, India will be major consumers of molecular sieves. Demand in these region dominated by consumption in surfactant industry. Asia Pacific is followed by North America and Eastern Europe. Developing countries in these region will dominate the molecular sieves market due to increasing consumption of molecular sieves in detergents Industry. Middle East and Africa will be emerging market for molecular sieves. Demand in this region is dominated by Petrochemical and Petroleum Industries. There will be increasing demand for molecular sieves in Latin America and Western Europe.Some of the key players identified in the Molecular Sieves market are Arkema, BASF SE, Honeywell International Inc., Tosoh Corporation, Bear River Zeolite Company, Blue Pacific Mineral Limited, ZEOX Corp, W.R. Grace and Company, Clariant Corp, Zeolyst International Inc., Tricat Inc.Request to view Table of content @The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to categories such as market segments, geographies, types, technology and applications.About UsPersistence 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.Persistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd.305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com
Global Engineering Plastics Market Snapshots by 2024

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Engineering plastics are a group of plastic materials which have better thermal and mechanical properties than the normal regular use plastics such as polythene PVC, polystyrene and polypropylene. These plastics are produces in less quantity and are more expensive than normal plastics, these plastics are used in low volume applications such as mechanical parts. Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, polycarbonates are some example of engineering plastics.A sample of this report is available upon request @Growth in the End-user Industries, Growth in the Developing Regions Increasing the Demand, Engineering Plastics Replacing Traditional Materials in End-user Applications and Growth in the End-user Industries are some of the driving forces for engineering plastic market. With Increasing Raw Material Prices and Competition from other Polymers are some factors that are restraining the growth of this market. This market is expected to have double figure CAGR growth with APAC as the growing market.Engineering plastic market is segmented in the basis of product type as Polycarbonates (PC), Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS), Polyamides, Thermoplastic polyesters and polyacetals (POM). On the basis of application of the plastics the market is segmented as automotive and transportation, electrical and electronics, consumer and appliances and other applications. On the basis of geography the market is segmented as North America, Europe, APAC and rest of the world (RoW).Request to view Table of content @BASF SE, Bayer Material Science, CHI MEI Corp., DSM N.V., DuPont, Evonil Industries, Invista, Lanxess AG., Mitsubishi Engineering Plastics Corp., Polyplastics Co. Ltd., Rhodia SA, Sabic Innovative Plastics, Teijin Ltd., The DOW Chemical Company Ticona GmbH. And Yunnan Yuntianhua Co. Ltd. are some of the key players in Plastic Engineering market.About UsPersistence 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.Persistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd.305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com
Future of the Danish Defense Procurement Market Dynamics Industry and Forecasts to 2022

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Albany, New York, February 09, 2017: Market Research Hub has recently announced the addition of a new report to it broad database titled as Future of the Danish Defense Industry - Market Attractiveness, Competitive Landscape and Forecasts to 2022. This report provides readers with detailed analysis of both historic and forecast defense industry values, factors influencing demand, the challenges faced by industry participants, analysis of industry leading companies, and key news.Request for Sample Report:Key FindingsDenmarks military expenditure, valued at US$3 billion in 2017, registered a declining growth rate of -7.96% during 20132017. The weak national fiscal condition and Europes sluggish recovery from the economic slowdown has affected the growth rate of the market; and is expected to do so for the next two years. The Danish Defense Agreement 20132017 mandated the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to save US$0.5 billion annually on military expenditure during 20152017, in an effort to reduce the countrys debt. Over the forecast period, the countrys defense budget is expected to further decrease to US$2.8 billion in 2022, reflecting a CAGR of -1.20%.On a cumulative basis, the country is expected to invest US$14.3 billion for defense purposes, of which US$1.4 billion is earmarked for capital expenditure to fund defense procurements. The governments well-defined military modernization plans to counter influence of Russia and its duties with respect to NATO are expected to corner significant part of investment.The MoD is expected to invest in fighters & multi-role Aircraft, Armored Personnel Carrier (APC), and Military-IT & Networking over the coming years.Make an Enquiry:SynopsisThis report offers detailed analysis of the Danish defense industry with market size forecasts covering the next five years. This report will also analyze factors that influence demand for the industry, key market trends, and challenges faced by industry participants.In particular, it provides an in-depth analysis of the following:The Danish defense industry market size and drivers: detailed analysis of the Danish defense industry during 20182022, including highlights of the demand drivers and growth stimulators for the industry. It also provides a snapshot of the countrys expenditure and modernization patternsBudget allocation and key challenges: insights into procurement schedules formulated within the country and a breakdown of the defense budget with respect to the army, navy, and air force. It also details the key challenges faced by defense market participants within the countryPorters Five Force analysis of the Danish defense industry: analysis of the market characteristics by determining the bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, threat of substitution, intensity of rivalry, and barriers to entryImport and Export Dynamics: analysis of prevalent trends in the countrys imports and exports over the last five yearsMarket opportunities: details of the top five defense investment opportunities over the next 10 yearsCompetitive landscape and strategic insights: analysis of the competitive landscape of the Danish defense industry. It provides an overview of key players, together with insights such as key alliances, strategic initiatives, and a brief financial analysisGet Full Info. With TOC:Reasons To BuyThis report will give the user confidence to make the correct business decisions based on a detailed analysis of the Danish defense industry market trends for the coming five yearsThe market opportunity section will inform the user about the various military requirements that are expected to generate revenues during the forecast period. The description includes technical specifications, recent orders, and the expected investment pattern by the country during the forecast periodDetailed profiles of the top domestic and foreign defense manufacturers with information about their products, alliances, recent contract wins, and financial analysis wherever available. This will provide the user with a total competitive landscape of the sectorA deep qualitative analysis of the Danish defense industry covering sections including demand drivers, Porters Five Forces Analysis, Key Trends and Growth Stimulators, and latest industry contractsAbout Market Research HubMarket Research Hub (MRH) is a next-generation reseller of research reports and analysis. MRHs expansive collection of market research reports has been carefully curated to help key personnel and decision makers across industry verticals to clearly visualize their operating environment and take strategic steps.MRH functions as an integrated platform for the following products and services: Objective and sound market forecasts, qualitative and quantitative analysis, incisive insight into defining industry trends, and market share estimates. Our reputation lies in delivering value and world-class capabilities to our clients.Contact90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (US-Canada)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Email: press@marketresearchhub.comWebsite:
Learn details of the Advances in LED Lighting Market Forecast and Segments, 2015-2025

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LED light is a light-emitting diode product which is accumulated into the utilization in lighting fixtures. It is basically a semiconductor lighting source operate in different applications such as automotive lighting, general as well as backlighting. It has been noticed that LEDs are smaller and have a lengthier operating life as well as lower cost of ownership as compared to previous technologies in the similar area. The prices of LEDs have reduced to a point where such type of lighting is becoming the economic choice in every application. The acceptance of LED lighting is escalating in almost all major end uses such as industrial buildings, residential and commercial buildings, as well as outdoor application areas. The LED lighting systems provide more energy efficiency and longer life span. The LED light provides a lifetime of nearly 50,000 hours of brightness and work effectively by using only a fraction of energy as is utilized by traditional bulbs and CFLs. The LED lights compete with old and traditional bulbs on various parameters which include longer lifetime, energy efficiency, enhanced environmental friendliness, better durability, lower heat and smaller size. The Global LED lighting market has showcased rapid growth over the past few years. The Global LED lighting market is anticipated to grow at a stupendous CAGR over the period 2015-2025 with a substantial revenue in 2025. Thus, the revolution in LED is gaining traction in terms of market dynamics.Global LED Lighting: Market SegmentationThe Global LED lighting market is segmented on the basis of organizational structure such as organized and unorganized. The Global LED lighting market is further bifurcated by application areas such as automotive, general and backlighting. The LED lighting market in automobile industry is rising as LEDs are initiating to be used in mass market automobiles. The Global LED lighting market is also divided on the basis of end-user segment such as commercial, general, residential, industrial, outdoor and architectural. The Global LED lighting market is further segmented by technology which includes ultraviolet LEDs, basic LEDs, high brightness LEDs, polymer LEDs and organic LEDs.Request Free Report Sample@Global LED Lighting Market: Growth DriversThe global LED lighting market is influenced by various factors such as macroeconomic conditions which is impacting the new construction and subsequently new lighting installations. Less replacement, less heat as well as the lower price are fostering the demand for LED lights across the globe and strengthening the market of global LEDs. Such factors along with inclining demand for cost efficient lighting systems from communities and buildings will intensify the market for global LED lighting from 2015-2025. Besides this, innovation and change in technology along with different product designs by LED light manufacturers are anticipated to bolster the global LED lighting market. The rising government initiatives for conservation of energy is also fostering the growth of global LED lighting market.Global LED Lighting Market: Regional OutlookGeographically, the Global LED Lighting industry can be divided by major regions which include North America, Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific region, Japan, Middle East and Africa. In 2014, Asia Pacific captured the highest share in the global LED lighting market due to significant population growth, huge private sector LED lighting projects as well as the suitable government policies. The LED lighting has become popular in Japans educational institutions, retail stores and hospitals. Followed by it, Europe stood at second position in the revenue of global LED lighting market as the demand for LED lights are gaining traction especially for architectural and commercial lighting functions. Apart from this, U.S. holds third position in the global LED lighting market.Visit For TOC@Global LED Lighting Market: PlayersSome of the top vendors identified across the value chain of the global LED lighting market include Cree Corporation, International Light technologies, American Bright Optoelectronics Corporation, Philips Lumileds Lighting company, Samsung Electronics Limited and OSRAM Licht AG. It has been noticed that new companies from consumer electronics as well as from semiconductor segments are entering the LED lighting. Thus, the LEDs showcases a higher opportunity for service providers as well as the component manufacturers to enhance their activities in the areas of LED lighting.ABOUT US: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:
Battery Material Market Sizing with Competitive Landscape by 2024

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Battery is an electric cell that generates electricity from chemical reaction. Battery materials provide characteristic according to its application and manufacturing requirements in end products. The demand for battery materials are high owning to its increasing industrial application and expected to grow at a considerable rate in near future.A sample of this report is available upon request @The total market is segmented by types, application, and geography. The major types for battery material include anode, cathode, electrolyte and separators. The applications segment include following verticals such as notebooks/laptops, mobile phones, household devices, defense and security, automotive, power tools and others. The geography segment covers the four main regions the include North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the World. Asia pacific is the fastest growing region followed by North America and Europe. Japan is a major global hub for battery materials in Asia pacific and major market players are headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.Government efforts to decrease the fuel consumption without any change in driving habits have resulted the demand of electric hybrid vehicles. In developing countries, increasing industrialization, growing demand of laptops and mobile phones and automotive industry would act as a driver for this market. However, increasing raw material prices such as cobalt, magnesium lead and lithium are the challenges for this market. The manufacturer can offer good opportunity in global market by improving efficiency and quality in terms of storage and energy.Battery material market is expected to show the double digit growth in CAGR by 2019. The growing demand in industries such as consumer electronics and automotive would increase overall battery material consumption. The electric vehicle are expected to act as a revenue generator for this market globally.Request to view Table of content @The major key players for this market include Celgard, Hitachi Chemicals, Umicore, GS Yuasa Corp., Coda Energy, Panasonic Corporation, Envia System Inc., Duracell International Inc., GP Batteries international Ltd., Ford Motor Company and Toda Kogyo among others.About UsPersistence 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.Persistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd.305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com
Metal Detectors Market Expecting Worldwide Growth by 2026

Metal Detectors Market, Metal Detectors, Metal Detector Market, Metal Detector

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Global Metal Detectors Market: IntroductionMaxwells concept of electromagnetism has helped in the extraction of major treasures in the past, detection of mining locations and now it stands as the backbone of security screening for public as well as military applications in the form a device called metal detector. Metal detectors are devices with high archaeological, mining and military importance. Metal detectors in archaeological application form the basis of detecting the remains of past, buried beneath the earth. Apart from archaeology, mining industry highly relies on metal detectors, particularly for detection of precious metals. The precious metal industry, which includes metals such as gold and platinum is significantly large in terms of value, and substantial demand for these metals in the market increases the demand for novel and robust metal detection technology. The precious metal detection technologies incur relatively higher costs and hence their market is expected to witness a slower annual growth rate over the forecast period. Apart from archaeological and mining application, security screening falls as a major area of application for metal detection technology with a large variety of products available depending upon the level of security required. Increasing terror related activities across the globe has made organisations to improve their security infrastructure through adoption of proper equipment and technology. Metal detectors can easily be seen at premium hotels, public shopping malls, parks, zoos, government building, etc. Manufacturers of metal detectors focus on developing robust, handy and cost effective products to leverage the existing opportunity in the metal detectors for security screening market. The global metal detector market is expected to witness steady growth over the next decade and will be mainly driven by advancement in technology.TOC of this report is available upon request @Global Metal Detectors Market: Market DynamicsThe global metal detectors market is expected to be significantly driven by increasing government investments in security owing to the rising violence and conflicts worldwide. Furthermore, ongoing infrastructural development across countries to develop new airports, stadiums and other such infrastructures will create demand for metal detectors. Security application is expected to hold a major share of the demand for metal detectors and witness robust growth over the forecast period. The global metal detectors market has also witnessed increased adoption of metal detectors in industrial application.Moreover, day-by-day general public is understanding the importance of security equipment and as a result systems such as metal detectors are also being increasingly deployed in residential buildings/apartments/townships so as to ensure safety of residents.One of the factors restraining growth is the higher cost, however this factor has only a moderate impact over the growth of the market. Government regulations in some of the countries, which ban the use of metal detectors for applications such as precious metal detection is expected to hamper market growth.Global Metal Detectors Market: Market SegmentationOn the basis of technology, the metal detectors market can be segmented into; Beat frequency oscillations Pulse induction OthersOn the basis of product type, the metal detectors market can be segmented into; Walk-through metal detector (WTMD) Hand-held metal detector (HHMD)On the basis of application, the metal detectors market can be segmented into; Mining Archaeological Food Processing Security Screeningo Airportso Government Buildingso Commercial & Public Spaceso Residentialo Other IndustrialGlobal Metal Detectors Market: Region-wise OutlookAsia Pacific is expected to remain a major market for metal detectors over the forecast period. The region is expected to generate significant demand for metal detectors for security screening application owing to the ongoing infrastructural developments in the countries such as China and India. North America and Europe are expected to be the next big markets for metal detectors. These regions are expected to witness significant CAGR over the forecast period. Latin America and Middle East & Africa are estimated to expand at a slower growth rate as compared to Asia Pacific, North America and Europe.Global Metal Detectors Market: Market ParticipantsExamples of some of the market participants identified in the global metal detectors market are; Fisher Research Laboratory Garrett Metal Detectors Minelab XP Metal Detectors Barska DetectorPro Nokta Metal Detectors Tesoro Metal Detectors E.I.A. S.p.A. Makro Metal Detectors Metal Detectors, Inc.The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to market segments such as geographies, application, and industry.The report covers exhaust analysis on: Market Segments Market Dynamics Market Size Supply & Demand Current Trends/Issues/Challenges Competition & Companies involved Technology Value ChainRegional analysis includes: North America (U.S., Canada) Latin America (Mexico. Brazil) Western Europe (Germany, Italy, France, U.K., Spain) Eastern Europe (Poland, Russia) Asia Pacific (China, India, ASEAN, Australia & New Zealand) Japan Middle East and Africa (GCC Countries, S. Africa, Northern Africa)The report is a compilation of first-hand information, qualitative and quantitative assessment by industry analysts, inputs from industry experts and industry participants across the value chain. The report provides in-depth analysis of parent market trends, macro-economic indicators and governing factors along with market attractiveness as per segments. The report also maps the qualitative impact of various market factors on market segments and geographies.Sample of this report is available upon request @Report Highlights: Detailed overview of parent market Changing market dynamics in the industry In-depth market segmentation Historical, current, and projected market size in terms of volume and value Recent industry trends and developments Competitive landscape Strategies of key players and products offered Potential and niche segments, geographical regions exhibiting promising growth A neutral perspective on market performance Must-have information for market players to sustain and enhance their market footprintAbout UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
$11.34 Bn for Global Hyperspectral Imaging System Market by 2022

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According to the report, published by Zion Market Research, the global hyperspectral imaging system market accounted for around USD 6.51 billion in 2016 and is expected to reach approximately USD 11.34 billion by 2022, growing at a CAGR of around 10.9% between 2017 and 2022.Hyperspectral imaging technology is a combination of spectroscopy and imaging techniques to acquire the spectral and spatial information of an object. Hyperspectral imaging, also called imaging spectrometry or imaging spectroscopy, provides physical and geometrical features of products such as size, shape, appearance, and color, along with the chemical composition of the product through spectral analysis.Request Sample copy of Research Report @The major factor responsible for the growth of hyperspectral imaging system market is increasing use of hyperspectral imaging system technology in research. Hyperspectral imaging technology is now being used in industry and research to determine temperatures, moisture, chemical compositions, sugar content and fat in the food industry as well for a range of applications in biology, defense, forensics, pharmaceuticals and industrial inspection. In addition, emerging technologies for the hyperspectral imaging system is largely contributing to the growth hyperspectral imaging system market. On the other hand, high cost and reimbursement issues are majorly affecting the growth of hyperspectral imaging system market. However, untapped market and increasing investment by the manufacturer are expected to generate new opportunities in forecast period for hyperspectral imaging system market.Based on the component type, hyperspectral imaging system market has been classified into hyperspectral cameras and accessories. In 2015, hyperspectral cameras segment had a strong hold on market with largest market share and this is due to increase demand for hyperspectral imaging system technology in research areas such as biology, defense, forensics, pharmaceuticals and industrial inspection. Thus in coming years, hyperspectral cameras segment is projected to grow at Based on the application type hyperspectral imaging system market has been segmented as military surveillance, remote sensing, life sciences & medical diagnostics, machine vision/optical sorting and others.With highest market share, military surveillance segment dominated the market in 2016 and is expected to grow at the fastest market growth rate in the forecast period.Browse detail report with in-depth TOC @Based on the geography, the hyperspectral imaging system market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Middle East & Africa. North America dominated the market with more than 50% market share in 2016due to the high adoption of hyperspectral imaging systems in research and growth in research expenditure. The Asia-Pacific region is estimated to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period.Key operating players in hyperspectral imaging system market include Headwall Photonics, Inc. (U.S.), Resonon (U.S.), Corning Incorporated (U.S.), Telops (Canada), NorskElektroOptikk AS (Norway), Applied Spectral Imaging (U.S.), BaySpec Inc. (U.S.), Surface Optics Corporation (U.S.), SPECIM, Spectral Imaging Ltd. (Finland) and ChemImage Corporation (U.S.).Request a customized copy of report @This report segments the hyperspectral imaging system market as follows:Hyperspectral Imaging Systems Market: By ComponentHyperspectral camerasAccessoriesHyperspectral Imaging Systems Market: By ApplicationMilitary SurveillanceRemote SensingLife Sciences & Medical DiagnosticsMachine Vision/Optical SortingOtherHyperspectral Imaging Systems Market: By Regional Segment AnalysisNorth AmericaU.S.EuropeGermanyFranceU.K.Asia PacificJapanChinaIndiaLatin AmericaBrazilMiddle East & AfricaAbout UsZion Market Research is an obligated company. We create futuristically, cutting edge, informative reports ranging from industry reports, a company reports to country reports. We provide our clients not only with market statistics unveiled by avowed private publishers and public organizations but also with vogue and newest industry reports along with pre-eminent and niche company profiles. Our database of market research reports comprises a wide variety of reports from cardinal industries. Our database is been updated constantly in order to fulfill our clients with prompt and direct online access to our database. Keeping in mind the clients needs, we have included expert insights on global industries, products, and market trends in this database. Last but not the least, we make it our duty to ensure the success of clients connected to usafter allif you do well, a little of the light shines on us.Contact US:Zion Market Research4283, Express Lane,Suite 634-143,Sarasota, Florida 34249, United StatesTel: +49-322 210 92714USA/Canada Toll-Free No.1-855-465-4651Email: sales@zionmarketresearch.comWebsite:
Contrast Sensors Market Analysis By Application, Price Trends And Segment Forecasts To 2021

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Global Contrast Sensors Industry 2021 Market Research Report analysed the current state in the definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure. The report also focuses on the development trends as well as history, competitive landscape analysis, and key regions etc in the international markets.Global Contrast Sensors Industry 2021 Market Research Report is a professionally prepared report comprising of in-depth information as well as knowledge which is helpful to the new entrants and the established players. Key statistics on the state of the industry and the complete demand analysis of the industry is showcased in the report.Get the Exemplified Analysis for the Products of Contrast Sensors at:The development policies, plans as well as the bill of materials, cost structures are well studied and explained within the report for a better understanding. It also includes the study of the sales, import/export consumption, supply and demand Figures, cost, price, revenue and gross margins. Also, the complete analysis of the prices, revenue share, growth rate etc.Through combining the well-integrated data with the deep analytical skills valid findings are detected. It gives out a strong prediction about the growth of the Contrast Sensors industry in the future years to come. Furthermore, each and every important variable which is responsible for shaping the Global Contrast Sensors Industry in the incorporated during the preparation process of the report.The report begins with the industry overview furnishing the details about the specifications, classification, applications, industry chain structure as well as gives out the policy analysis of the industry. It moves further on towards determining the manufacturing cost structure analysis, technical data as well as the manufacturing plant analysis. A lot of insightful predictions about the production, export/import, and consumption is provided in the report.For Sample Copy, click here:Future Development Trends in the Global Contrast Sensors Company through the market share, SWOT analysis, revenue, gross margin is indicated through the report. Apart from it the report also provides great prospects of the new projects investments, SWOT analysis of the new projects, details about the key consumers with the complete contact details for the new entrants to engage in better opportunities.The competitive landscape of the market state showcases the study of the most renowned players in the China markets in the field of Global Contrast Sensors industry. A detailed and thorough analysis of the company profiles, production as well as consumption, traders, marketing distributors along with the impact is covered throughout the report. The overall research conclusions with the investment avenues are prevalent in the report. Through the report, the new entrants are able to get the complete overview of the current state of the Global Contrast Sensors which will be beneficial for them.Ask for Discount @About Us:Market Reports Center is an e-commerce platform obliging the needs of knowledge workers, experts, professionals who are subject to market research information for their work, or to make strategic business decisions. Market Reports Centers team consistently works to update and extend our existing repository of market research reports by partnering with new publishers and adding their studies to our website.Contact for more details:Sam Collins303, Astral Court,Aundh, Pune,MH - 411045, IndiaEmail: info@marketreportscenter.comWeb -
Emerging Trends of Elevation Gimbal System Market, 2026

Elevation Gimbal System Market, Elevation Gimbal System, Elevation Gimbal Systems Market

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Elevation Gimbal System Market: IntroductionTracking systems are used to measure the relative position and velocity of the target, which in turn, is monitored by keeping track of their future values. Elevation gimbal system is concerned with generation of targets angular position in the elevation and azimuth coordinates through continuous measurements. The elevation gimbal system incorporates a mirror that is used for characterization of precision optical sensors, target tracking and laser based qualification. The system provides high accuracy, movement and direct-reading rotary encoders over the full travel range due to features such as RV Series Rotation Stages. The major application of elevation gimbal system is in military and commercial use. In military use, elevation gimbal systems are used for missile guidance and fire control. Other than this, these tracking systems finds commercial usage in civilian airport traffic control depicting the incoming and departing airplanes.TOC of this report is available upon request @Elevation Gimbal System Market: DriversFor efficient & effective monitoring of the terrorists, a proper elevation gimbal system is a much necessary device. It will be more convenient for armies to fight with the terrorists using elevation gimbal systems. The aforementioned reason is expected to boost the demand for elevation gimbal system and thus in turn, propel the growth of elevation gimbal system market. Moreover, since its precise mechanical design, motion and fabrication control meet the requirements of customer, these features are anticipated to fuel the demand of elevation gimbal system market in near future.Elevation Gimbal System Market: RestraintsInaccuracy of device and its inability to work in critical environmental conditions remain as one of the major challenges to the elevation gimbal system market for target tracking. Further, high initial cost of the system is also restraining the growth of the elevation gimbal system market. These reasons are expected to hinder the growth of elevation gimbal system market.Elevation Gimbal System Market: SegmentationThe global elevation gimbal system market can be segmented on the basis of axis, operation type, weight, range, application and regions. On the basis of axis, the market can be segmented into single axis and double axis. On the basis of operation type, the global elevation gimbal system market can be segmented into manual operation and automatic operation. On the basis of weight, the market can be segmented into super lightweight (less than 1 lb), light weight (1 lb  10 lb), medium weight (10 lb -50 lb) and heavy weight (more than 50 lb). On the basis of range, the market can be segmented into long slant range and short slant range. On the basis of application, the global elevation gimbal system market can be segmented into defence and military and commercial vehicles. On the basis of regions, the global elevation gimbal system market can be segmented into North America, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Japan and Middle East & Africa.Elevation Gimbal System Market: Region wise OutlookBased on regions, North America is expected to be the most promising revenue generating region for global elevation gimbal system market. However, during the forecast period, this region is expected to witness sluggish growth owing to reduction in the defence budget of many countries. Asia Pacific is forecasted to witness significant growth in near future due to continuous increase in the defence budget of many countries. Moreover, China dominates the worlds in terms of troops. This, coupled with the increasing adoption of elevation gimbal system is expected to fuel the growth of elevation gimbal system market in APAC. Europe is expected to show steady growth over the forecast period. Middle East & Africa is anticipated to witness significant growth in near future.Elevation Gimbal System Market: Market ParticipantsSome of the prominent players identified in the global elevation gimbal system market are as follows: 3 Axis Inc. Icecam Gimbal DJI Embention Moog Inc. Deplot Octopus ISR Systems Aerotech Inc.The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections done using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to categories such as market segments, geographies, type, machine size and end use.The report covers exhaustive analysis on: Market Segments Market Dynamics Market Size Supply & Demand Current Trends/Issues/Challenges Competition & Companies involved Technology Value ChainRegional analysis includes North America Latin America Europe Asia Pacific Middle East and AfricaThe report is a compilation of first-hand information, qualitative and quantitative assessment by industry analysts, inputs from industry experts and industry participants across the value chain. The report provides an in-depth analysis of parent market trends, macro-economic indicators, and governing factors, along with market attractiveness as per segments. The report also maps the qualitative impact of various factors on market segments and geographies.Sample of this report is available upon request @Report Highlights: Detailed overview of parent market Changing market dynamics in the industry In-depth market segmentation Historical, current and projected market size in terms of volume and value Recent industry trends and developments Competitive landscape Strategies of key players and products offered Potential and niche segments, and regional markets exhibiting promising growth A neutral perspective on market performance Must-have information for market players to sustain and enhance their market footprintAbout UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Global Fragrances Market - Future Trends and Opportunities 2018

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Fragrances, once regarded as frivolous and non-essential commodities, have seamlessly transformed themselves into essential day-to-day products that form a significant part of personal grooming. Fragrances are today a vital and mainstream element of the cosmetics industry and have gained much attention from consumers across the globe.Get Sample PDF for In-depth Analysis :Fragrances are a way of expressing personal style and individuality, thereby making it a consumer-driven industry. The fragrances market is also dictated by fickle and ever-changing fashion trends. This means that manufacturers in the industry are on a constant lookout for exciting, unique, and new fragrances to attract different consumer segments worldwide.The research report is an attempt to understand the fragrances market and provide clients with an unmatched and invaluable evaluation of the overall industry. Delving deeper into the fragrances market and its various nuances, this comprehensive publication discusses the factors governing the global and regional industrial landscape. The report, with the help of accurate and insightful statistics, throws light on the size, volume, and share of the global fragrances market and also provides strategic recommendations to help improve businesses.Overview of the global fragrances marketAs mentioned earlier, fragrances have achieved much importance among personal care and grooming products. As might be expected, the womens fragrances segment dominates the overall market and as a result, a majority of the innovations and product differentiations are targeted at this segment. However, even though fragrances for the fairer sex have long since captured the market, perfumes and fragrances for men have, of late, grabbed the attention of industry players. This has had a transformational impact on the global market and has set the pace for rapid expansion in the coming years.Another factor that governs the fragrances market is the trend of celebrity-inspired perfumes. These include fragrances endorsed by leading personalities in various walks of life as well as signature scents used by celebrities as a self-promotion campaign. Fragrances such as these garner much hype among certain sections of the consumer base. This trend has been observed across regions such as North America, Europe, and some countries in the Asia-Pacific region. However, market analysts state that this fad was met with negative response in the United Arab Emirates owing to vast diversity in population. People living in the UAE may or may not associate with celebrities from countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Spain, and Italy, which leaves the fragrances market relatively unchanged when it comes to celebrity-inspired scents.Premium brands account for a major share of the fragrances market in UAE owing to exceptional per capita incomes. In other parts of the world, this segment has gained demand in recent years thanks to rising disposable incomes and improving economies. Chanel, Gucci, Calvin Klein, Christian Dior, Prada, Yves Saint Laurent, and Louis Vuitton are some of the premium companies that have established themselves in the fragrances market.About TMRTMR 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 TMR90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Carpets And Rugs Market - Evolving Trends & Key Insights by 2018

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The research report on the global carpets and rugs market offers a granular view of this market using industry leading methodologies and analytical tools. The report identifies the key growth propellers and restraints in the global carpets and rugs market, and provides recommendations for growth based on these very factors. Our analysts offer you an eagles view of the overall market in the executive summary. The report then studies the rugs and carpets market on the basis of materials, product type and applications. The data from these analyses will prove useful for both new and existing market players. Another highlight of the report is the use of models such as Porters five forces, which helps determine the future bargaining power of buyers and suppliers, and the threat from alternatives and degree of competition.Get Sample Report Copy:The report is a valuable supplementary resource for marketing, sales, and financial teams of manufacturers and suppliers alike. It can be used for formulating robust marketing, sales, and expansion strategies in the regional or global carpets and rugs market. Our analyses and forecasts also prove useful for formulating financial and investment models.Overview of the global carpets and rugs marketCarpets and rugs are used for their aesthetic and functional properties. In addition to covering floors and further improving the overall appeal of home or office decor, rugs and carpets lend a protective layer to floors. In regions with a predominantly cold climate, rugs and carpets are used for keeping the floor getting too cold. Until a few decades ago, the demand for carpets and rugs was the highest in developed economies. However, this trend has changed in the last few years, with more and more consumers spending more money on bringing about aesthetic improvements to their homes or office spaces.This demand has, to some extent, also been stoked by the easing economic crisis, which has led to a renewed demand for carpets and rugs. Construction activity in emerging economies is on an upswing; this has fuelled a demand for construction materials and floor and wall covering alike. Carpets and rugs are a segment within the larger floor and wall covering industry. However, the floor coverings market also comprises other hard flooring materials, which directly compete with the carpets and rugs market. Yet, the threat from hard floor coverings will not significantly dent the carpets and rugs market. Almost all segments within this market-such as woven carpets, tufted carpets, and others-are experiencing a surge in demand. All of these factors create a favorable environment for the carpets and rugs industry.Opportunities for the carpets and rugs market primarily lie in the research and manufacturing technology development domains. Heightened awareness about the benefits of using environment-friendly materials in carpet and rug manufacturing is another opportunity that can be profitably harnessed by companies in the carpets and rugs market.Segmentation of the global carpets and rugs marketBy product, the carpets and rugs market can be segmented as: Tufted, needle-punched, woven, and knotted.By market/application type, the carpets and rugs market is classified as: Non-residential buildings, residential buildings, and transportation equipment.The carpets and rugs market can also be classified on the basis of material as: adhesives, face fibers, secondary backing, and primary backing.Companies mentioned in the global carpets and rugs market research reportAbbey Carpet, Armstrong World Industries Inc., Amoco Fabrics and Fiber Co., Beaulieu Industries Inc., Couristan Inc., Burlington Industries Inc., Foamex International Inc., Honeywell Inc., Home Depot Inc., IKEA International Inc., INVISTA, Interface Flooring Systems Inc., Kraus Carpet Mills Ltd., Mannington Mills Inc., Lowes Companies Inc., Milliken & Co., Mohawk Industries Inc., Royalty Carpet Mills Inc., Nylon Business, Springs Industries Inc., Stark Carpets, The Dixie Group Inc, and Tarkett Inc.About TMRTMR 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 TMR90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Laser Warning System Market Revenue Predicted To Go Up by 2026

Laser Warning System Market, Laser Warning System, Laser Warning Systems Market, Laser Warnings, Laser Warning market

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Laser Warning System Market: IntroductionTodays battlefields are more than guns and soldiers, numerous support systems are being adopted in the battlefield supporting soldiers to be alert, reduce war casualties and stay one step ahead of the enemies. The use of advanced military technology has increased over the years aiding the soldiers in making crucial tactical decisions, avoid sudden enemy ambushes and minimize damage. One such technology that has been prevalent in the modern warfare is the use of laser warning system. A laser warning system or a laser detection system is a small cautionary device equipped with a laser receiver and a warning system that detects, analyses and alerts its user of laser rays emitted by the rangefinders and guidance system of the enemy. The increased use of electronics in weapon guiding systems is the reason for the improvement in the laser warning system market in order to counter the threat projected by the enemy quickly and effectively. Some of the latest advancements made in the laser warning system include automatic countermeasure systems integrated into the laser warning system that deploys smoke screens, dazzlers, laser jammers and others upon the detection of laser rays.TOC of this report is available upon request @Laser Warning System Market: DynamicsLaser warning system market is driven by the increased need of protection of the soldiers in the battle ground. Military officers who are constantly engaged in the battlefield for defensive and offensive activities always find themselves in need for continuously understanding the tactics employed by the enemy and take the necessary evasive manoeuvres to gain an upper hand. This is achieved through the use of laser warning system, which in turn positively influences the growth of the market over the forecast period. Though not limited to its usage in an active battlefield only, a laser warning system is also being increasingly employed for border protection also. As tensions are prevalent at the border of two countries, laser warning system have been increasingly installed at the borders in order to alert the officers beforehand about the threat and undertake defensive actions quickly. The market players associated with manufacture of laser warning systems are very limited in number against the backdrop of steadily increasing demand and stagnant military budget, which has forced the manufacturers to keep the competition with each other and share expertise and resources for more value added products. One crucial restraint associated with laser warning system market is the usage of beam-riders for guiding missiles, these guidance systems are more difficult to detect and has been increasingly purchased by the Middle Eastern forces. Complications associated with tightening and limiting military funding by various governments of the countries can also dent the market sales of laser warning system.Laser Warning System Market: SegmentationOn the basis of Range Coverage or Azimuth, Laser Warning System can be segmented as: 0 to 90 90 to 180 180 to 360On the basis of threat detection type, the market can be segmented as: Laser Rangefinder Laser Guidance Systems Others (Laser Designator etc.)On the basis of End Users, the market can be segmented as: Ground Force Maritime Force Air Force Others (Border Security Forces etc.)Laser Warning System Market: Regional OutlookThe Global Laser Warning System market can be segmented into seven geographical regions such as Asia Pacific excluding Japan, North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Japan and Middle East & Africa. The U.S. in the North America region is likely to fare better in the laser warning system market than other countries in other regions owing to slightly higher military funding. Western Europe and Japan are also better prospects for the sales of laser warning systems market in the forecast period owing to improvement in military funding and infrastructure while the market in China in the Asia Pacific region for laser warning system is also likely to witness steady growth over the forecast period.Laser Warning System Market: ParticipantsExamples of some of the participants identified in the manufacture of Laser Warning System market are Thales Group Ferranti Technologies Ltd. Elbit Systems Ltd. PCO S.A. Metrodat s.r.o. Global Industrial & Defence Solutions Aselsan A.?. UTC Aerospace Systems Excelitas Technologies Corp. Saab AB Northrop Grumman Corporation BAE Systems Plc Airbus Defence and SpaceThe research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to categories such as market segments, geographies, types and applications.The report covers exhaustive analysis on: Market Segments Market Dynamics Market Size Supply & Demand Current Trends/Issues/Challenges Competition & Companies involved Value ChainRegional analysis includes: North America Latin America Asia Pacific Japan Western Europe Eastern Europe Middle East & AfricaThe report is a compilation of first-hand information, qualitative and quantitative assessment by industry analysts, inputs from industry experts, and industry participants across the value chain. The report provides an in-depth analysis of parent market trends, macroeconomic indicators and governing factors, along with market attractiveness within the segments. The report also maps the qualitative impact of various market factors on market segments and various geographies.Sample of this report is available upon request @Report highlights: Detailed overview of parent market Changing market dynamics in the industry In-depth market segmentation Historical, current and projected market size in terms of volume and value Recent industry trends and developments Competitive landscape Strategies of key players and products offered Potential and niche segments, geographical regions exhibiting promising growth A neutral perspective on market performance Must-have information for market players to sustain and enhance their market footprintAbout UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
PMR Report- Spandex Market Expected to Reach US$ 8,704.6 Million by 2021

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According to a new market report published by Persistence Market Research titled, Global Market Study on Spandex Market: High demand for stretchable fabrics in clothing sector to drive growth, the global spandex market has been estimated to reach US$ 4,834.8 Mn in 2015, and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 10.3% over 2015-2021, to reach US$ 8,704.6 Mn by 2021.A sample of this report is available upon request:According to the U.S Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Spandex is a manufactured fiber in which the fiber-forming substance is a long-chain synthetic polymer comprising at least 85% of segmented polyurethane. This fiber, also called elastane, is a synthetic long-chain polyurethane-polyurea copolymer composed of rigid diisocyanate segments and flexible macro-glycol segments arranged in a specific order. The fiber is characterized by exceptional stretch and recovery properties, with the elongation at break of around 400% to 600%. These characteristics entail its wide-scale use in a diverse set of applications in textile & clothing and healthcare industries. Some prominent areas of application for spandex fibers include sportswear, casual clothing, home furnishings, and undergarments. Medical and healthcare-related applications of spandex fibers include diapers, compression stockings & hoses, and bandages.In the recent past, there has been a steady increase in demand for spandex-based stretchable clothing & apparel in developing regions. Steadily rising population, coupled with increasing disposable income, in these regions is expected to drive the growth of the global spandex market over the forecast period. Besides, increasing demand from healthcare-related applications is another major factor driving the growth of the global spandex market during the forecast period. On the contrary, relatively slower economic growth in some major clothing & apparel-importing countries is expected to act as a deterrent to the growth of the global spandex market over the forecast period. Revenue from the global spandex market is expected to increase from US$ 4,834.8 Mn in 2015 to US$ 8,704.6 Mn by 2021, expanding at a CAGR of 10.3% over the forecast period.In terms of market value, Asia-Pacific is expected to dominate the global spandex market during the forecast period, whereas the Middle East & Africa, Latin America, Europe, and North America are expected to account for a relatively smaller share in the global spandex market value during the forecast period. Asia Pacific is expected to register a CAGR of 11.0% in terms of market value over the forecast period.On the basis of application, the medical segment is slated to expand at a relatively faster CAGR during the forecast period. Growth in this segment is primarily driven by increasing demand for medial textiles & apparel and rising demand for diapers from certain regions. In terms of market value, a medical segment is expected to expand at a CAGR of 10.8% over the forecast period. In terms of overall market value, clothing segment is expected to dominate the global spandex market throughout the forecast period.Request to view Table of Content:Hyosung Corporation, INVISTA, Asahi Kasei Corporation, and Zhejiang Huafon Spandex Co. Ltd are leading players in the global Spandex market. Other players in the market include Yantai Tayho Advanced Materials Co., Ltd, TK Chemical Corp., Taekwang Industrial Co. Ltd., Jiangsu Shaungliang Spandex Co., Ltd, Xiamen Lilong Spandex Co., Ltd, and Indorama Industries Limited.To Buy Full Report for a Single User:About UsPersistence 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.Persistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd.305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA - Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com
Air Fresheners Market - Key Projection on the Future of Worldwide Industry

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Air freshener is an aerosol spray that is used in homes or offices or any other commercial environments to emit fragrance, get rid of nasty odors and freshen the air. Air fresheners or room fresheners are largely becoming popular due to their availability in varied fragrances. The global market for air fresheners is witnessing significant growth due to changing demographic trends. The worldwide market for air fresheners is expected to reach the value of USD 8.2 billion by 2015. This growth is expected to be driven by increasing consumer inclination towards various fragrant products such as candles, fragrance gels, sprays, and others.Download PDF Brochure:Growing importance of aroma therapy is also expected to propel the growth of air fresheners in the global market. Rising living standards and growing income levels are also expected to fuel the growth of the air fresheners market in the coming years. Moreover, changing propensity of consumers to spend more amounts of time and funds in creating an ideal atmosphere at home is also contributing to the growth of the air fresheners industry.Role of aromatherapy has been significant in driving the air fresheners industry. The concept of aromatherapy tends towards use of different types of fragrances to enhance the mood and health of an individual.Europe is the largest regional market for air freshener products due to the growth in disposable incomes and high living standards. Europe and US together account for the lions share in the global air fresheners market.Worldwide market for air fresheners was affected by economic recession in the past, however, with the recovery in global economy, this industry is reporting significant growth rates in most of its segments. The major segments this market includeGels & CandlesSprays/AerosolsCar Air FreshenersElectric Air FreshenersOther Household Air FreshenersSome of the major players of air fresheners market include Church & Dwight Co. Inc., California Scents, Ada Electrotech (Xiamen) Co. Ltd., Car Freshener Corporation, Godrej Household Products Ltd., Air Delights Inc., Procter & Gamble, ACS Giftware Industrial Ltd., Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc., and others.About TMRTMR 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 TMR90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Suture wire Market Trends, Consumption, Drivers, Strategies, Applications and Competitive Landscape 2027

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Study Objectives of Suture wire Market To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 10 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the global suture wire market To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth To analyze the suture wire market based on various factors- price analysis, supply chain analysis, porters five force analyses etc. To provide historical and forecast revenue of the market segments and sub-segments with respect to four main geographies and their countries- Americas, Europe, Asia, and Middle East & Africa. To provide country level analysis of the market with respect to the current market size and future prospective To provide country level analysis of the market for segment by type, by application, by end users and its sub-segments. To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analyzing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the marketMarket ScenarioGlobally the market for Suture wire is increasing rapidly; the major factor that derives the growth of suture wire is the increasing development in suture wire in various materials. The various other factors that derive the growing edentulous population, increasing incidences of dental caries and other periodontal diseases, growth in dental industry and others.Request a Sample Copy @Key Players B Braun (Germany), Johnson & Johnson (U.S), Henry Schein (U.S), Medline (U.S), Ethicon (U.S), Teknimed (France), Arthrex (U.S), Depuy Synthes (U.S), Covidien (Dublin) othersSegmentsOn the basis of type : absorbable non-absorbable.On the basis of applications : general surgery application, veterinary applications, dental surgery and others.On the basis of end users hospitals, clinics, dental clinics.Make an Enquiry @Reasons to Purchase this report:From an insight perspective, this research report has focused on various levels of analysesindustry analysis (industry trends), market share analysis of top players, supply chain analysis, and company profiles, which together comprise and discuss the basic views on the competitive landscape, emerging and high-growth segments of the Global Suture wire Market, high-growth regions, and market drivers, restraints, and opportunities.Related ReportsGlobal Spinal needles Market Information by Type (Atraumatic needle tips, Directional spinal needles, Pencil-point needles, others), By Application (Orthopedic surgery, Vascular surgery, others) By End Users (hospitals, clinics, dental clinics) - Forecast to 2027.Know more about this report @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Global Access Control As A Service Market Will Grow Steadily At A CAGR Of 24.58% During The Period 2016-2020.

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Access Control Market 2016-2020" to its huge collection of research reports.Mobile devices are increasingly being used by enterprises and consumers alike and are becoming preferred devices for web browsing, e-mailing, corporate data access, social networking, and applications. The consequences of hackers gaining access to personal information on these devices can be disastrous and irreparable. ACaaS broadly encompasses the protection of mobile devices from malware, data theft, unauthorized access, viruses, spyware, hacking attempts, online identity theft, and accidental loss.ACaaS solutions ensure a secure identity-based access to corporate information on mobile devices from any location in a multi-technology environment. These solutions help enterprises secure information and critical data by permitting employee access with a single sign-on (SSO) password.Technavios analysts forecast the global ACaaS market to grow at a CAGR of 24.58% during the period 2016-2020.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global ACaaS market for 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from the sale of ACaaS solutions, including network ACaaS and data ACaaS. The technology is used in mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The market is divided into the following segments based on application:Network ACaaSData ACaaSTechnavio's report, Global Access Control as a Service (ACaas) 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 vendorsCiscoIBMMicrosoftSymantecOther prominent vendorsBrivoCentrifyDatawatch SystemsDigital HandsGemaltoForcefield SystemsKastle SystemsKeyscanMarket driverIncreased adoption of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy in enterprisesFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challengeData security concernsFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trendEmergence of identity-as-a-service (IDaaS)For a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this reportWhat will the market size be in 2020 and what will the growth rate be?What are the key market trends?What is driving this market?What are the challenges to market growth?Who are the key vendors in this market space?What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?Make an Enquiry of this report @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
The Connected Car Ecosystem Market Share and Forecast 2015 - 2030 | Now Available at Researchmoz.us

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "The Connected Car Ecosystem: 2015 - 2030 - Opportunities, Challenges, Strategies & Forecasts" to its huge collection of research reports.The growing proliferation of embedded in-vehicle connectivity and smartphone integration platforms has made connected cars one of the fastest growing segments of the IoT (Internet of Things) market. Keen to establish recurring post-sale service revenue streams, all major automotive OEMs are investing in connected car programs. Other ecosystem players, such as mobile operators and telematics specialists, are also vying to gain a larger share of the opportunity. In fact, many mobile operators have expanded beyond their traditional role as connectivity providers, to offer end-to-end connected car platforms directly to automotive OEMs and aftermarket suppliers.By 2020, SNS Research estimates that connected car services will account for nearly $40 Billion in annual revenue, driven by a host of applications, including but not limited to infotainment, navigation, fleet management, remote diagnostics, automatic crash notification, enhanced safety, UBI (Usage Based Insurance), traffic management and even autonomous driving.The ""Connected Car Ecosystem: 2015  2030  Opportunities, Challenges, Strategies & Forecasts"" report presents an in-depth assessment of the connected car ecosystem including OEM connected car programs, enabling technologies, key trends, market drivers, challenges, key applications, collaborative initiatives, regulatory landscape, standardization, opportunities, future roadmap, value chain, ecosystem player profiles and strategies. The report also presents market size forecasts for connected car services from 2015 through to 2030. The forecasts are segmented for 3 connectivity models, 5 application categories, 5 regions and 17 leading countries.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The report comes with an associated Excel datasheet suite covering quantitative data from all numeric forecasts presented in the report.Topics CoveredThe report covers the following topics:- Connected car ecosystem- Market drivers and barriers- Enabling technologies and key trends- Connected car programs and platform offerings- Embedded, tethered and integrated connectivity models- Analysis of key applications and opportunities- Regulatory landscape, collaborative initiatives and standardization- Industry roadmap and value chain- Profiles and strategies of over 230 leading ecosystem players, including automotive OEMs, mobile operators and connected car platform specialists- Strategic recommendations for ecosystem players- Market analysis and forecasts from 2015 till 2030Historical Revenue & Forecast SegmentationConnected car installed base and service revenue forecasts are provided for each of the following submarkets and their subcategories:Connectivity Model- Embedded- Tethered- IntegratedApplication Category- Communications & Infotainment- Navigation & Location Services- Vehicle Management- Safety & Security- Driver Assistance & Autonomous DrivingEmbedded Car Connections- GSM- CDMA-2000- W-CDMA- TD-SCDMA- LTE- Satellite & Other TechnologiesTethered Car Connections- Wireless- WirelineIntegrated Car Connections- Apple CarPlay- Android Auto- MirrorLink- OthersRegional Markets- Asia Pacific- Europe- Middle East & Africa- North America- Latin & Central AmericaCountry Markets- Brazil- Canada- China- Egypt- France- Germany- India- Indonesia- Italy- Japan- Mexico- Russia- Saudi Arabia- South Africa- South Korea- UK- USAKey Questions AnsweredThe report provides answers to the following key questions:- How big is the connected car opportunity?- What trends, challenges and barriers are influencing its growth?- How is the ecosystem evolving by segment and region?- What will the market size be in 2020 and at what rate will it grow?- Which countries and submarkets will see the highest percentage of growth?- Who are the key market players and what are their strategies?- How will connected cars drive investments in Big Data, cloud computing, analytics and other technologies?- What are the growth prospects of embedded, tethered and integrated connectivity options?- How do government mandates and initiatives impact the adoption of embedded connectivity?- What are the future prospects of self-driving cars and cooperative V2X applications?- Do LTE and 5G technologies pose a threat to the 802.11p standard for V2X communications?- What strategies should automotive OEMs, mobile operators and connected car platform specialists adopt to remain competitive?Key FindingsThe report has the following key findings:- By 2020, SNS Research estimates that connected car services will account for nearly $40 Billion in annual revenue, driven by a host of applications- The proportion of connected car service revenue for driver assistance systems and autonomous driving applications is expected to dramatically increase from merely 5 percent in 2014 to over 11 percent by 2020- Largely driven by connected car services, Big Data and analytics technology investments in the automotive sector are expected to reach $5 Billion by 2020, following a CAGR of over 14% between 2015 and 2020- The connected car ecosystem continues to consolidate, with larger players investing in acquisitions to increase their market share, capability, revenue and geographic reach- Many mobile operators have expanded beyond their traditional role as connectivity providers, to offer end-to-end connected car platforms directly to automotive OEMs and aftermarket suppliersMake an Enquiry of this report @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
Global Learning Management Systems (LMS) Market:Effective Learning Enabled by LMS a Major Growth Booster

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Learning Management Systems (LMS) Market: SnapshotIn recent years, the increased efficiency of the Internet has promoted e-teaching and e-learning practices worldwide. This, coupled with advancements in networking technologies has enabled improved communication and integration, thereby resulting in flawless online learning and training sessions. This has had a significant impact on the emergence as well as development of learning management systems (LMS).The global LMS market is projected to witness steady growth over the forecast period. This can be attributed to factors such as the increasing preference for distance learning, developing network infrastructure in developing regions, the adoption of cloud-based LMS by SMEs, and corporate sectors offering online trainings to its employees.The market for learning management systems is projected to amount to US$18.8 bn by 2024, rising from a valuation of US$3.4 bn in 2015. If these values hold true, the market is expected to develop at an impressive CAGR of 19.9% therein.Hosted Deployment of LMS to Surpass On-premise Deployment by 2024On the basis of deployment, on-premise deployment dominated the market in 2015, especially in the Middle East and Africa and South America. This can be primarily attributed to the adoption of learning management systems by large enterprises. However, analysts predict that hosted deployment is expected to lead the market in the coming years, with the increasing adoption of LMS by small and medium enterprises due to its cost benefits over on-premise deployment.Get More Information :By user group, the education and corporate sectors account for nearly the same share in the global LMS market and are likely to witness high growth during the forecast period. In recent years, corporate sectors have been emphasizing on online corporate trainings and orientation programs for employees. On the other hand, growing educational awareness in developing countries and government initiatives to provide quality education is expected to benefit the education segment of the global LMS market.Rapid Adoption of Learning Management Systems in Developing Countries of APACLearning management systems are predominantly adopted in education and corporate sectors in North America, because of which, the region accounted for the leading share in the global LMS market in 2015. The U.S. has been the major contributor to the LMS market in North America, considering the established network facilitating e-learning in the country. The presence of a large number of universities offering online courses also contributes to the high adoption of LMS in the U.S. The rise in technological investments in the corporate sector has also supported the rapid adoption of online training and subsequently learning management systems. The proliferation of smart devices such a smartphones, laptops, and tablets has further influenced the LMS market in North America.The Asia Pacific market for LMS is projected to present high scope for growth during the forecast period. Developed countries such as Japan are the leading contributors in terms of the adoption of learning management systems in the region. Ongoing network infrastructure developments in India and Philippines and growing investments in the commercial sector are also anticipated to favor the LMS market in Asia Pacific. Government initiatives to promote digital education is another factor expected to create potential opportunities for LMS vendors in the coming years.The major companies in the global LMS market include ACS Technologies Group, Inc., Blackboard Inc., Cornerstone Ondemand, Inc., IST AB, IBM Corporation, McGraw-Hill Education, Oracle Corporation, Saba Software, Inc., SAP SE, Skillsoft Limited, Upside Learning Solutions Pvt. Ltd., and Instructure, Inc.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a 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. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Capacitive Stylus Market-Global Industry Analysis, Market Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Key Players by 2027

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Market ScenarioThe major growth driver of Capacitive Stylus Market includes growing demand of smartphones and tablets, and growing demand for large screen size of smart devices among others. Hence the market for Capacitive Stylus Market is expected to grow at XX% CAGR However, growing competition, and high power consumption are the factors which are hindering the growth of Capacitive Stylus Market.Market SegmentationSegmentation by Materials - Hunt wave Industry, ACE pen, Hanns Touch Solution, A&L Manufacturing Corporation and others.Segmentation by Application - Monitors, Portable media devices, Cellular handsetRequest a Sample Report @Key Players of Global Capacitive Stylus Market Research Report: Hunt wave Industry ACE pen Ltd. Hanns Touch Solution A&L manufacturing corp. DIY network Wesco enterprises Ltd. Box wave corp.Regional Analysis of Capacitive Stylus Market:Asia-Pacific dominated the Global Capacitive Stylus Market with the largest market share due to growing presence of smartphone and tablets manufacturers in the region, and therefore accounting for $XX million and is expected to grow over $XX billion by 2027. Capacitive Stylus Market in North America market is expected to grow at CAGR of XX% from $ XX million in 2016 to $XX million by 2027. The European market for Capacitive Stylus Market is expected to grow at XX% CAGR (2016-2027).Test the market data and market information presented through more than 50 market data tables and figures spread over 110 numbers of pages of the project report. Avail the in-depth table of content TOC & market synopsis on Capacitive Stylus Market Research Report- Global Forecast to 2027TOC of Capacitive Stylus Market1 Report Prologue2 Introductions3 Research Methodolgy4 Market Factor Analysis5 Capacitive Stylus Market - by Type5.1 Art5.2 Fine Trip6 Capacitive Stylus Market -by Application6.1 Monitors6.2 Portable Media Devices6.3 Cellular handset7 Capacitive Stylus Market - by CountryContinuedBrowse full TOC, Tables, Figures and Companies mentioned @Americas North America US CanadaEurope Western Europe Germany France U.K Rest of Western Europe Eastern EuropeAsia China India Japan South Korea Rest of Asia PacificAbout Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Contact:Akash AnandMarket Research FutureMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Automated Cell Culture Market Segments, Key Players, Industry News, Competitive landscape & Forecast to 2027

Automated Cell Culture Market

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Synopsis of Automated Cell Culture MarketMarket SegmentationFor the better understanding of Automated Cell Culture market, this report has been segmented:On the Basis of Application: Drug development and screening Engineering of tissues and development of medicines Stem cell Biopharmaceutical (Drug improvement, Vaccine production, toxicity, others)On the Basis of Consumables: Media Sera ReagentsOn the Basis of Instruments: Automated Cell Culture Storage Equipment Automated Cell Culture Vessels Automated Cell Culture Supporting Instruments BioreactorsMarket DriversThe main market driver for the automated cell culture market is the growth in the life science industry. As this industry is growing by adapting the new technologies, it is driving all the sub-segments of life science industry to positive direction. Cell culture is very important part of discovering the new technologies and solutions in the life science industry and as the new diseases are being reported in the hospital with no proper vaccines and solutions, it is forcing the research institutions to grow and develop new elucidations in order to keep the people healthy and fit.Request a Sample Report @Automated Cell Culture Market Key PlayersThe key players in the market of Automated Cell culture are following: Becton, Dickinson and Company Tecan Hamilton Company TAP Biosystems Sigma-Aldrich Corporation Biospherix Promocell GmbH EMD Millipore Sartorius AG Merck KGAA Eppendorf AG VWR International, LLCAccess the market data and information presented through data tables and figures spread 126 pages of the project report Global Automated Cell Culture MarketBrowse Report Details @Market OverviewAutomated Cell Culture is a process of technicality that carries the steps which are involved in the growth and maintenance of cell culture. Cell culture is a process of extracting the cells from the source and helps to grow under the specified technical environment involving advanced machineries which are outside of natural environment. Cell culture development is very expensive process and involves the equipments like incubators, cell culture hoods, cell counters, refrigerators & freezers, microscopes, liquid nitrogens N2, water baths etc. This market has seen tremendous growth in the Asia-Pacific region as most of the international companies are turning their business segment to this region.Latest Trends in Global Automated Cell Culture MarketThe latest trend for the market for Automated Cell Culture Market is the latest development in the technologies. Companies are manufacturing different equipments for the Automated Cell Culture Market which is helping the research institutions to study more effective. As these products are entering in the market, it is eliminating the various risks, saving the time and money and draw the conclusion which is accurate and useful.Request Table of Contents and List of Figures @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Industrial Floor Scrubbers Market to Reach US$3.1 bn by 2020, Fuelled by Green Cleaning Trend

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An industrial floor scrubber deploys a system that works in stages. First, it usually involves spraying the floor with a mix of cleaning chemicals. Secondly, scrubbing off the floor to break up the spill, residue, and dirt is carried out. Then, a squeegee-vacuum absorbs the used water, leaving the floor dry and clean. Floor scrubbers used in industries inject the cleaning solution with water, and scrub as well as lift the residue from the floor. Moreover, with the ongoing advancement in the robotics field, autonomous floor scrubbing robots are presently available in the market.Download Research Brochure PDF@The global industrial floor scrubbers market is driven by the shift towards maintenance-free batteries. Moreover, trends such as chemical-free cleaning and green cleaning will also drive the global industrial floor scrubbers market. The rising demand for small-sized floor scrubbers will also propel the global industrial floor scrubbers market. Another trend that will benefit the global industrial floor scrubbers market is the increasing demand for affordable floor scrubbers and floors scrubbers that operate noiselessly.Broadly, the global industrial floor scrubbers market is segmented on the basis of product type, end use, and geography. By product type, the global industrial floor scrubbers market is bifurcated into walk-behind floor scrubbers and ride-on floor scrubbers. The walk-behind floor scrubbers segment dominated the global industrial floor scrubbers market in 2013. These floor scrubbers are popular among consumers due to their low price.According to end use, the global industrial floor scrubbers market is divided into retail and food, manufacturing and warehousing, hospitality, education, government, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, and transportation. In 2013, the manufacturing and warehousing segment held the highest share of 43.6% in the global industrial floor scrubbers market.By region, the global industrial floor scrubbers market is classified into Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, and Rest of the World (RoW). In 2013, North America led the global industrial floor scrubbers market. The United States majorly contributes to North Americas dominance in the global industrial floor scrubbers market. In the U.S., the elevated adoption of industrial floor scrubbers in the retail, pharmaceutical, healthcare, and food industries is supporting the market for industrial floor scrubbers. On the other hand, Asia Pacific is projected to expand at the fastest rate during the coming few years.The trend of automation is presenting significant growth opportunities to players in the market. Furthermore, this trend is projected to bring about an evolution in floor scrubbing methods. The key players operating in the global industrial floor scrubbers market are Factory Cat, Comac, Tornado Industries, Hako Holding, Tennant Company, Bortek Industries.Key segments of the global industrial floor cleaners marketIndustrial Floor Scrubbers Market, by TypeWalk-behindRide-onIndustrial Floor Scrubbers Market, by End-use IndustryTransportationHealthcare and PharmaceuticalsGovernmentEducationHospitalityManufacturing and WarehousingRetail and FoodBrowse Full Report@About Us:-Transparency Market Research 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:-Transparency 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
Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery Market - Comprehensive Evaluation of The Market Via In-Depth Qualitative Insights

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The lithium iron phosphate battery (LFP) battery refers to rechargeable lithium-ion battery which uses LiFePO as a cathode material. The energy density in LiFePO batteries are lower as compared to that of have common LiCoO design available in consumer electronic. However, better power density and longer lifetimes and safety are some of the benefits associated with these batteries.. Lithium Iron Phosphate, also known as LFP has various features such as long cycle life, high safety and high temperature resistance. Lithium iron phosphate batteries find application in power tools, electric vehicles, energy storage devices and electric bicycles among others. But as of now, the main use of Lithium Iron Phosphate battery is its use power batteries for electric vehicles.The Lithium Iron Phosphate battery market is expected to grow as a result of various factors such as the ever increasing population due to which there has been a significant depletion of fossil fuel reserves. This has led to a shift in the focus on the part of various countries towards have renewable power generation. Therefore, as a result of increasing focus towards renewable energy to address the serious concern of climate change and also improving upon the energy conservation is expected to contribute to the growth of the Lithium Iron Phosphate battery market during the forecast period. Moreover, there has also been a growing focus towards the integration of renewable energy resources with power grid networks which in turn is fuelling the growth of the market. These hybrid power systems and power grids use lithium iron phosphate batteries as a backup.PDF Sample For Complete Analysis @As per trends it has been observed that the various manufacturers of Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries are continuously engaged in research and development activities. The market requires extensive investments and return on investment is a time taking process. This has resulted in the manufacturers to be heavily dependent on government funding in order to expand their their facilities. Moreover, as a result of favorable government policies in countries such as Japan, South Korea and China among others is helping the market to flourish. The government in these countries are in support of green and eco-friendly technologies, which is bound to result in many manufacturers to enter the market and develop their own manufacturing units. Currently, the Lithium Iron Phosphate battery market is highly competitive and product quality, brand recognition, durability, reliability, pricing and energy density are of prime importance for the manufacturers in order to stay afloat in the competition. Furthermore, manufacturers offering better quality products at a competitive price are expected to prefer.The lithium iron phosphate battery (LFP) battery on the basis of application can be segmented into; EVs and HEVs (electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicle), Renewable power and Consumer electronics. The EVs and HEVs is expected to dominate the market in terms of revenue. Unconventional energy storage systems that have the capability to enhance the performance and vehicle efficiency are an important area of focus for the EV manufacturers. As a result of long cycle time and high energy density, lithium iron phosphate batteries are expected to be the most preferred choice as far as alternative energy storage systems are concerned. Therefore, the growth in the demand for EVs in countries such as China is expected to fuel the demand for lithium iron phosphate battery (LFP) batteries.Geographically, the lithium iron phosphate battery (LFP) battery market can be segmented into five regions, namely, North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa and Latin America.Some of the key players operating in the lithium iron phosphate battery (LFP) battery market are BYD, A123, Electrical Vehicle Power System Technology, OptimumNano Energy, K2Energy, Pihsiang Energy Technology and Victory Battery Technology among others.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.Transparency Market Research90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Feminine Hygiene Products Market - Asia Pacific Industry Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast For 2020

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http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/asia-pacific-feminine-hygiene-products-market.html

Feminine hygiene products are used for maintaining personal hygiene during menstruation, menstrual discharge, cleaning internal body parts and for removing unwanted hair over skin. Some of the major feminine hygiene products are internal cleansers and sprays, tampons, sanitary pads, pantiliners and shields, and disposable razors and blades. Sanitary pads, pantiliners and shields are available in many varieties with different sizes and absorbency level. The feminine hygiene products market has experienced diversified trends across different countries such as China, Japan, India, Australia, South Korea, New Zealand, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore.Download Research Brochure PDF@The Asia Pacific feminine hygiene products market is expected to witness rapid changes due to fast changing lifestyle across all the countries. In Asia Pacific region, the feminine hygiene products market is expected to grow significantly, mainly due to growing demand from leading markets such as China and Japan among others. Currently India is comparatively smaller market as compared to other developed countries; however this market is expected to witness a tremendous growth during the forecast period. The emerging markets such as South Korea, Australia, Hong Kong, Philippines and Thailand among others are expected to witness growth in demand for feminine hygiene products. At present, rising awareness towards sanitation and urbanization are some of the major drivers for the Asia Pacific feminine hygiene products market. Moreover, increasing demand for sanitary products, such as ultra size sanitary pads, high capacity to absorb and special side leakage protection are also supporting the growth of Asia Pacific feminine hygiene products market.In addition, due to changing consumers preferences, fast moving life, increasing consumer health concerns, consumers prefer to use easy and convenient sanitary products in their menstruation days. Keeping in mind the market trend, the manufacturers are investing a huge amount in advertising campaigns of feminine hygiene products to attract the women consumers. They launch new feminine hygiene products with added quality like high capacity to absorb, special leakage protection, ultra thin napkin and many more to capture the major chunk of the market.The demand for feminine hygiene products are expected to grow in the markets such as China and Japan among others due to rising awareness towards sanitation and personal hygiene. Major developed markets such as China and Japan are expected to witness the rising demand for sanitary pads over the next six years. Feminine hygiene products are available in almost all the distribution channels such as dollar stores, variety stores & general merchandise retailers, supermarkets and hypermarkets, department store, convenience stores health and beauty stores, drug stores and pharmacies among others. However, improving lifestyles in emerging and developed countries are expected to support the growth of supermarkets and hypermarket in the next six years.The Asia Pacific feminine hygiene products market is worth USD 12,733.7 million in 2014 and it is expected to reach USD 20,414.2 in 2020. The Asia Pacific feminine hygiene products market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 8.2% from 2014 to 2020. The growth in the market is mainly attributed to growing demand for sanitary protection products in developed markets such as China, Japan, India, Australia, and Hong Kong. Sanitary pads are preferred over other feminine hygiene products across the Asian countries.By country, China held the largest market share followed by Japan in 2014. The demand for feminine hygiene products in these countries is driven by busy lifestyle of people and their awareness towards sanitation. The usages of feminine hygiene products are expected to increase in countries such as India, Australia, South Korea, New Zealand, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore by 2020.The market size of feminine hygiene products for China and Japan is expected to grow at a higher CAGR than that of other Asia Pacific countries. However, developed markets are expected to witness the trend for feminine hygiene products due to busy life style and changing perception towards sanitation and personal hygiene.Browse Full Report@About Us:-Transparency Market Research 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:-Transparency 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
Autonomous Cars/Driverless Cars Market Witnessing Increased Competition Due To The Entry of Technology Firms.

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Global Autonomous Cars/Driverless Cars Market: OverviewThe concept of autonomous cars/driverless cars is being enthusiastically explored only now. However, the development of this market took root in the late 1970s. The first version of an autonomous car was unveiled by S. Tsugawa and his team back in 1977. The car had two cameras that implemented analog computer technology for signal processing. However, Ernst Dickmanns, a German aerospace engineer, is widely recognized as the pioneer of the autonomous car due to his series of projects in the field in the 1980s. The Carnegie Mellon University introduced an autonomous car, NavLab 5, and drove it from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles in 1995.Autonomous cars/driverless cars, however, received a commercial boost from technology giant Google, Inc. when the company introduced a fleet of seven autonomous Toyota Prius hybrids in 2010. The companys driverless car program has been termed as the turning point in the history of the autonomous/driverless cars market. The entry of a technology firm changed the competitive landscape of the market.Global Autonomous Cars/Driverless Cars Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe concept of autonomous cars/driverless cars has intrigued car enthusiasts and manufacturers alike as it nullifies human involvement in driving and navigation. An estimated 90% of road accidents across the world are caused due to human error. Hence, adoption of autonomous cars/driverless cars can significantly reduce the number of road accidents. Furthermore, autonomous cars will make it possible for visually impaired and senior citizens to commute safely. Driverless cars will also ensure better management of traffic flow and parking spots. All these factors are anticipated to support the growth of the global autonomous/driverless cars market.PDF Sample For Latest Industry Happenings @However, certain restraining factors challenge the concept of driverless cars. For example, car enthusiasts might find it unappealing to give up driving their own vehicle. High cost of autonomous cars and reliance on GPS satellites for navigation are likely to hamper the growth of the market. Recent accidents associated with the testing of driverless cars have raised concerns about the safety of drivers.Global Autonomous Cars/Driverless Cars Market: Region-wise OutlookGeographically, the global autonomous cars/driverless cars market has been segmented into Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World. The U.S. has been the leading the autonomous cars/driverless cars market in North America. Early adoption of the innovative technology and presence of key market players have boosted the growth of the market in the region. Government support in terms of amendments in traffic regulations and funding of research projects on autonomous/driverless cars is also expected to augment the market in the region. Major players in the automotive industry in Europe are working on novel technologies regarding the development of autonomous cars. Changes in traffic regulations by governments across countries such as Sweden, the Netherlands, and Germany are anticipated to support the market. Countries such as Japan, Singapore, and China are the key markets for driverless cars in Asia Pacific.The global autonomous cars/driverless cars market is witnessing increased competition due to the entry of technology firms. While automotive companies such as Tesla Motors, The Volvo Group, and Nissan Motor Company are working on the development of driverless cars, technology firms such as Google, Inc. and Baidu, Inc. are also exploring the opportunities in the autonomous cars market. Google, Inc. has tested its autonomous cars across Texas, Washington D.C., California, and Arizona.Tesla Motors has been among the pioneers in the development of autonomous cars. In 2015, the company launched its semi-autonomous cars Tesla Model X and Model S, and aims to introduce driverless cars by 2020. Several of these automobile manufacturers are collaborating with technology firms for the development of autonomous cars.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.Transparency Market Research90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Muliplexers Market 2017 : Maxim, SwitchBee, ON Semiconductor & Microchip Technology

Muliplexers

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The survey report by Market Research Store is an overview of the global Muliplexers market. It covers all the recent trends including key developments in the global market in present and in future. Analyses of the global Muliplexers market trends along with the projections of CAGRs (compound annual growth rates) are provided in the research report.Further, an evaluation of the history of the global market and the basic information of the global market is included in the report. A developmental perspective of the industry is also documented in the report. Competitive profiles of the key players in the industry are also discussed.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The research report provides both an assessment of recent developments in the industry along with forecasts examining the industry from the perspective of major competitors, present players and prospective end users in the Muliplexers market.Forecasts are generated on the basis of region, type, product, supply, demand, and other vital factors of the global market. The research report analyzed the major factors driving the global Muliplexers market in various countries with a satisfactory and manufacturing and structure of the global market. Forecasts are also provided region-wise in the research report.The research report comprises several chapters, tables, figures, graphs, and various other presentations formats so as to provide a precise overview of the market. The sequence of the report is maintained in such a way that highlights the overall flow of the global market. Recent developments in the global market are further described in the research report. The report also summarizes latest trends along with abstracts of the Muliplexers market. Major competitors of the global market including commercial and non-commercial participants in the global market are also covered in the report.Inquiry For Bying Report @Thus, the research report provides in-depth analysis covering all the major regions, competitors, and vital aspects of the Muliplexers industry.About Us:MarketResearchStore.com 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.Contact US:Joel JohnSuite #8138, 3422 SW 15 Street,Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442United StatesToll Free: +1-855-465-4651 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-386-310-3803
New TR4 series eases monitoring of constantly changing temperature data

Wireless Bluetooth data loggers facilitate real-time supervision via mobile devices

Niddatal (Germany), January 2017  T&D Corporation, Japanese market leader for wireless data loggers, presents the new TR4 series for temperature monitoring. Operating with low energy Bluetooth 4.0 and without the need for pre-registration, loggers within the communication range are instantly detected and automatically refreshed by mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Records can be monitored or stored in the free of charge, cloud-based T&D WebStorage Service with the help of two apps, available for iOS and Android.The TR4 series comprises three competitively priced models, two of them waterproof. Each model provides different sensor types and measurement ranges to serve diverse application requirements: the TR41 covers temperature measurements from -40 to 80C (waterproof, internal sensor); the TR42 measures from -60 to 155C (waterproof, external sensor), while the TR45 for industrial use is available for thermocouple types K, J, T, S covering -199 to 1.700C or for types Pt 100/Pt 1000 with a range of between -199 and 600C. For easy monitoring, the automatically collected data is displayed in neatly arranged graphs by the ThermoRec app or can be uploaded and shared with the ThermoStorage app. Simultaneous data collection from multiple loggers is possible. Each logger can be set to 15 different recording intervals, from one second to 60 minutes, and has a logging capacity of up to 16.000 readings. Battery life is up to one and a half years.Their high precision and wide range measurement abilities combined with their flexibility makes the TR4 data loggers ideal for use in private, industrial or public areas. They can be utilized, for example, for heating control in housing or agricultural sites as well as to safeguard refrigerators, sales cabinets and storage facilities. Additionally, they are ideal for supervising transportation of sensitive goods like fresh or frozen food or products for medical use.The Japanese T&D Corporation was founded 1986 in Matsumoto. The company name derives from try and develop and emphasizes the companys ambition to create innovative products with a high degree of practical usefulness. Having started out developing electronic products mainly for the automotive aftermarket, today the company is the Japanese market leader for data loggers. A team of about 50 specialists are engaged in developing data logger systems for industrial, public and private demands. Production takes place in a high-tech site in Matsumoto, Japan, and since 2003, T&D Corporation has been exporting its wireless data loggers worldwide. The company is represented through a European Sales Office located in Niddatal near Frankfurt and a sales office in the USA.Company contact:T&D CorporationEuropean Sales OfficeMinoru ItoGronauer Str. 161194 NiddatalTel.: +49 6034 93 09 70Fax: +49 3212 68 41 958europe.office@tandd.dePress Contact:akp public relationsChristina FahrtmannTannenstr. 1a69469 WeinheimGermanyTel.: +49 6201 188 98 10Fax: +49 6201 188 98 20fahrtmann@akp-pr.de
Global Fire Extinguishers Market 2016 Projection of Each Major Segment Over The Forecast Period By 2021

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The Market Research report "Global Fire Extinguishers Market 2016" by QY Research Group is a market-oriented, technical, and commercial research analysis of the Fire Extinguishers market. The analysis is completed using a wide range of secondary sources, databases and directories in order to identify and assemble market data. Primary sources included for the analysis include preferred suppliers, industry experts from core and associated industries, manufacturers, service providers, distributors, and organizations allied to the entire segments of the industry supply chain.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The research report analyzes, tracks, and presents the global market size of the major players in every region around the world. Furthermore, the report provides data of the leading market players in the Fire Extinguishers market.To estimate the overall market size of Fire Extinguishers, its application, and regionsin terms of value and volumethe bottom-up approach is followed. On the other hand, to corroborate the overall Fire Extinguishers market sizeagain in terms of value and volumethe top-down approach is followed. Following the method of data triangulation and data validation via primaries, the precise values of the parent market and individual market in terms of size are calculated and established in the report.This market research report provides the client with comprehensive market analysis of the Fire Extinguishers market over the forecast period. In addition, it also furnishes a general idea of the challenges, drivers, and restraints that have direct or indirect impact on the industry. It further highlights the market, the industry, and latest technology trends currently existing in the Fire Extinguishers market. All this precise, accurate and comprehensive data will help the clients to make appropriate and practical decisions so as to gain maximum profit in the global market.Overall, the report is a one-stop destination and a valuation report to grab all the necessary information regarding the global Fire Extinguishers market.Browse Complete Report with TOC @About Us:QYResearch Group is a single destination for all the industry, company and country reports. QYResearch Group also carries the capability to assist you with your customized market research requirements including in-depth market surveys, primary interviews, competitive landscaping, and company profiles. We feature large repository of latest industry reports, leading and niche company profiles, and market statistics. QYResearch Group is the comprehensive collection of market intelligence products and services available on air.Contact US:Joel John3422 SW 15 Street, Suit #8138,Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442,United StatesTel: +1-386-310-3803GMT Tel: +49-322 210 92714USA/Canada Toll Free No. 1-855-465-4651Email: sales (@) qyresearchgroup (dot) com
Asia Pacific Surfactants Market - Growth, Trends and Forecast By 2016 - 2024

Surfactants Market

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The Asia Pacific surfactants market is highly fragmented due to the presence of several players with small shares. An assessment of the competitive landscape by Transparency Market Research states that the entry for new players is relatively difficult. To remain ahead of the competition key players are expected to focus on product innovation. Development of bio-based surfactants also remains underway as several manufacturers are noticing the demand for safer raw materials for personal care products. Some of the leading players in the market are The Dow Chemical Company, Archer Daniels Midland Company, Akzo Nobel N.V., and Galaxy Surfactants Limited.According to the research report, the Asia Pacific surfactants market is expected to be worth US$6.3 bn by the end of 2024 as compared to US$4.1 bn in 2015. Between the forecast years of 2016 and 2024, the global surfactants market expected to expand at a CAGR of 5.0%.DOWNLOAD INDUSTRY RESEARCH REPORT BROCHURE FOR MORE PROFESSIONAL AND TECHNICAL INSIGHTS:China Emerges as Leading Nation in Asia Pacific Surfactants MarketOn the basis of product, the global surfactants market is segmented into cationic, non ionic, anionic, and amphoteric. Of these, non ionic surfactants segment is expected to show remarkable progress in the coming years. By the end of 2024, the non ionic surfactants segment is expected to acquire a share of 34.2% in the overall market. The rising application of these surfactants in sectors such as oilfield chemicals, chemicals, textiles, and agrochemicals are expected is expected to drive the growth in the coming years.The Asia Pacific surfactants market is segmented into countries such as China, Thailand, Australia, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, South Korea, and Rest of APAC. Of these, China dominated the overall market in 2015. The country is expected to retain its stance in the coming years as it is slated to acquire a share of 39.4% in the Asia Pacific surfactants market by the end of 2024.Rising Awareness about Beauty Products in Asia Pacific Boosts Regional MarketThe Asia Pacific surfactants market has been witnessing a rise since couple of years due to their increasing adoption in a wide range of personal care products. The diversity of personal care industry has offered the surfactants market several lucrative opportunities for growth. Increasing number of mouth wash, toothpaste, and hair care brands have been making significant usage of surfactants in their products. Furthermore, growing sales of bathing and shaving products are also expected to augment the demand for surfactants across Asia Pacific. Non-iconic, amphoteric, and cationic are the three types of surfactants that will be predominantly used in the near future.The increasing awareness about beauty, aesthetics, and hygiene are also expected to drive the growth of the Asia Pacific surfactants market in the near future. The changing lifestyles, increasing disposable incomes, and shifting perceptions toward improving the standard of living are also expected to have a positive impact on the trajectory of the Asia Pacific surfactants market during the forecast period.Side-effects of Chemically-obtained Surfactants to Restrain Market GrowthDespite the soaring demand for beauty products, the Asia Pacific surfactants market is being restrained by the growing concerns amongst consumers about the usage of synthetic raw materials and oleo-chemicals in cosmetics. Surfactants manufactured using synthetic sources can lead to side-effects such as irritation to the skin and eye, damage beyond repair, and neurotoxicity amongst others. The introduction of organic products and worries about irreparable damage to the skin due to the use of surfactants are expected to hamper the growth of the Asia Pacific surfactants market.This review is based on Transparency Market Researchs report, titled Surfactants Market - Asia Pacific Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a 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. TMR's experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.Contact Us:-Transparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Carboxylic Acid-based Esters Market: Rising Use of Printing Inks Drives Demand, Market Growth By 2023

Carboxylic Acid Based Esters Market

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The global carboxylic acid-based esters market is dominated by companies such as INEOS AG, Jinyimeng Group Co. Ltd., Yips Chemical Holdings Ltd. (Jiangmen Handsome), Celanese Corporation, and Jiangsu Sopo (Group) Co. Ltd. According to Transparency Market Research (TMR), these five companies collectively accounted for 45.1% of the global carboxylic acid-based esters market in 2014. Other leading players in the carboxylic acid-based esters market are Showa Denko, Wuxi Baichuan Chemical, BASF SE, Shanghai Wujing Chemical Co. Ltd., Sipchem, and Oxea.The global carboxylic acid-based esters markets valuation was US$8.4 bn in 2014 and is expected to exhibit a steady CAGR of 5.3% from 2015 to 2023. The markets final valuation is likely to be US$13.4 bn.GET PDF BROCHURE FOR MORE PROFESSIONAL AND TECHNICAL INDUSTRY INSIGHTS:Ethyl Acetate to Remain Leading Revenue GeneratorThe global carboxylic acid-based esters market is dominated by ethyl acetate, n-butyl acetate, and methyl acetate, which are likely to remain the markets leading product segments through the 2015-2023 forecast period. Ethyl acetate alone accounts for around 30% of the carboxylic acid-based esters market and is likely to be the leading contributor in the coming years. In addition to these, esters such as eugenyl acetate, geranyl propionate, phenethyl acetate, and phenethyl propionate represent low-volume product segments that nevertheless offer a good profit margin due to their high prices.By application, the paints and coatings industry dominated the demand from the global carboxylic acid-based esters market in 2014 and is likely to remain the leading contributor in the coming years. The segments 40% share in the carboxylic acid-based esters market in 2014 was due primarily to the use of a mixture of ethyl acetate and butyl acetate as a solvent for many paint and coating formulations.Geographically, Asia Pacific is the leading market for carboxylic acid-based esters. Due to the growth of the manufacturing sector in countries such as China, India, Taiwan, South Korea, the demand for paints and coatings has risen steadily, driving the carboxylic acid-based esters market. The share of Asia Pacific in the global market for carboxylic acid-based esters is expected to rise to 59.3% by the end of 2023.Rising Demand for Paints in Booming Construction Industry Vital for Carboxylic Acid-based Esters MarketOne of the prime drivers for the global carboxylic acid-based esters market is the steady expansion of the construction industry, particularly in developing economies. Being relatively safe from the recent global economic crises, the rising disposable income of consumers in emerging regions such as Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East has driven the construction industry at a strong rate. The need for paints in new construction projects has thus become a key driver for the carboxylic acid-based esters market in the last few years.The booming packaging industry, driven by the globalization of the food and beverage industry and the growing popularity of online shopping websites, has also played a key role in the growth of the carboxylic acid-based esters market in the last few years. Like paints and coatings, printing inks also need a stable solvent. The printing inks industry has thus become another key application area for the carboxylic acid-based esters market.On the other hand, the unstable pricing structure of the global oil and gas industry has been a key restraint on the carboxylic acid-based esters market. While the petroleum industry is showing no signs of settling down, the development of carboxylic acid-based esters derived from more easily available biobased sources is likely to help the carboxylic acid-based esters industry overcome the effect of fluctuations in the petroleum industrys pricing in the coming years.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a 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. TMR's experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.Contact Us:-Transparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Executive Channel Network Germany moves to new headquarters at Tetragon Frankfurt

Executive Channel Network (ECN)

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Frankfurt, 9 February 2017  Executive Channel Network Germany, which is a part of Executive Channel Holdings (ECH), launched in Germany in 2016. ECNs smart office digital communication platform enables real time communication between commercial office owners / managers and their tenants (occupiers).As a result of rapid business growth in Germany, ECN () has moved to a larger office, which is located at the Tetragon Frankfurt, Mainzer Landstrae 51  in the heart of the central banking district. ECN also convinced the Tetragon landlord, CONREN Land AG (CONREN Land) of the various benefits of an installation of its smart office digital communication product: No investment was required from Tetragon, The digital display was installed within a few weeks, Tetragons internal content is controlled online via its own Content Management System (CMS), Tetragon can update and change its internal communications within minutes.Executive Channel Networks installation in the lobby of the Tetragon Frankfurt is a free standing unit of 65 inches. ECNs display solutions are designed to suit the individual building's architectual interior. Apart from the latest German news and local weather, the new ECN installation in Frankfurt runs internal communications for Tetragon such as welcome messages and any other local building information which Tetragon might like to communicate.Christian Praulich, Director Business Development Real Estate I Germany: We are very pleased that ECN's business in Germany is developing so well. We continue to grow because owners and asset managers of premium office properties are increasingly aware of digital signage and realize the benefits of internal real estate digital communication for an increase of value for their property  just like recently our own landlord Conren Land.Executive Channel Network () offers a simple, effective and free-to-use model with digital solutions that span over 10 years of international experience. ECN was launched in Australia in 2005 and then expanded to London in 2009 and to Paris in 2012. ECN has also been active in Germany since 2016.About Executive Channel Network:ECNs () vision is to make office buildings smarter with its real-time digital technology throughout major UK and European cities. ECNs digital technology solutions can be found in lobby areas and inside elevator cabins. In real-time, the digital video network offers a mixture of up-to-date news and internal building-related content. ECN Germany is part of Executive Channel Holdings (ECH). The European network consists of around 300 installations in the most important office buildings in Europe.Media Contact Executive Channel Network Germany:Gors CommunicationsReal Estate PR and MarketingDaniel GorsGertrudenkirchhof 1020095 HamburgTel: +49 40 325074582E-Mail: info (at) goers-communications.deContact Executive Channel Network Germany:Christian PraulichDirector Business Development Real Estate I GermanyTetragon, Mainzer Landstrae 51,60329 Frankfurt am MainTel: +49 69 380 7660 59E-Mail: Christianp (at) executivechannelnetwork.deFollow @ECNDE (
Concrete Block and Brick Manufacturing Market - Global Industry Analysis By 2017 - 2025

Concrete Block Brick Manufacturing Market

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The global concrete block and brick industry is in a mature stage with numerous players  both branded and non-branded  manufacturing concrete blocks, bricks, and pipes. The market has weathered the economic downturn resulting from the 2008 financial meltdown to expand at a steady pace, particularly in the emerging economies of the world. Going forward, it is expected to continue its impressive growth pace in the developing nations. The market is predicted to see a solid growth on the back of industrial applications.Concrete bricks and blocks, on account of their high tensile strength, have supplanted conventional bricks to a great extent in the construction of different types of building structures. They are also known as concrete masonry units (CMUs). They are available in the market as cellular blocks, hollow blocks, and fully solid blocks that find application in different areas. A report by Transparency Market Research offers key insights into the global concrete block and brick manufacturing market after an exhaustive primary and secondary research. It furnishes information on the current market size by factoring in revenues and sales. It presents a thorough peek into the present competitive scenario by discussing the various growth drivers and restraints and by profiling the key players.GET PDF BROCHURE FOR MORE PROFESSIONAL AND TECHNICAL INDUSTRY INSIGHTS:Global Concrete Block and Brick Manufacturing Market: Trends and OpportunitiesThe rapid pace of industrialization and the tremendous growth in the IT sector, especially in the emerging economies of the world, has brought about a construction boom, which in turn has substantially boosted the global market for concrete block and brick manufacturing. Sweeping changes in the industrial sector leading to the overall development of infrastructure of many regions too has filliped the market. On account of their durable nature, concrete blocks and bricks have seen swifter uptake compared to conventional bricks. Another important factor driving growth in the market is the lower cost of manufacturing that has egged developers to quickly adopt the construction material which needs reduced processing compared to conventional materials.Regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Greenpeace to counter global warming, however, serve as a major bottleneck to the current growth of the market. The rising use of concrete blocks and bricks has been blamed for upping temperatures globally. This is because the heat gets arrested in concrete structures effecting a rise in temperature. The rise in temperature results in higher usage of air conditioners, bringing about a heat island effect, which further aggravates the pace of warming. Hence, restrictions have been placed on the use of concrete blocks and bricks.Global Concrete Block and Brick Manufacturing Market: Regional OutlookGeographically, the global market for concrete block and brick manufacturing can be segmented into Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, and the Rest of the World. Among them, North America, powered by the U.S., is the leading market. This is because of the huge pool of discerning consumers in the region who prefer durable raw materials while constructing their homes and other commercial structures. Asia Pacific is also considered a lucrative market on account of the massive upswing in construction activities in its densely populated developing economies, particularly India and China. Besides, the rising income of people in the emerging economies has brought about an uptick in renovation activities using sustainable building materials, thereby further boosting demand.Companies Mentioned in ReportTo offer an accurate and detailed assessment of the competition prevailing in the global market for concrete block and brick manufacturing, the report profiles players such as Supreme Concrete, Brickwell, and SK Exim.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a 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. TMR's experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.Contact Us:-Transparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
The Wireless Network Infrastructure Ecosystem Industry Analysis and Forecast 2015 - 2020 | Now Available at Researchmoz.us

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "The Wireless Network Infrastructure Ecosystem: 2015 - 2020 - Macrocell RAN, Small Cells, C-RAN, RRH, DAS, Carrier WiFi, Mobile Core, Backhaul & Fronthaul" to its huge collection of research reports.The term Wireless Network Infrastructure has conventionally been associated with macrocell RAN (Radio Access Network) and mobile core network infrastructure. However, the scope of the term is expanding as wireless carriers increase their investments in Heterogeneous Network or HetNet infrastructure such as small cells, carrier WiFi and DAS (Distributed Antenna System) nodes, to cope with increasing capacity and coverage requirements.In addition, wireless carriers are keen to shift towards a C-RAN (Centralized RAN) architecture, which centralizes baseband functionality to be shared across a large number of distributed radio nodes. In comparison to standalone clusters of base stations, C-RAN provides significant performance and economic benefits such as baseband pooling, enhanced coordination between cells, virtualization, network extensibility and energy efficiency.Despite an ongoing decline in traditional macrocell RAN spending, the wider wireless network infrastructure market encompassing macrocell RAN, small cells, C-RAN, RRH, DAS, mobile core, backhaul and fronthaul infrastructure will continue to witness growth over the coming years. By the end of 2020, the market is expected to account for over $92 Billion in revenue. Complimenting this growth would be over $5 Billion worth of annual R&D investments on 5G mobile technology funded by regional, national government, wireless carrier and vendor initiatives.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The Wireless Network Infrastructure Ecosystem: 2015  2020 - Macrocell RAN, Small Cells, C-RAN, RRH, DAS, Carrier WiFi, Mobile Core, Backhaul & Fronthaul report presents an in-depth assessment of 10 individual submarkets of the wireless network infrastructure opportunity. Besides analyzing key market drivers, challenges, enabling technologies, investment trends, operator revenue potential, regional CapEx commitments, network rollout strategies, future roadmap, 5G R&D initiatives, value chain, vendor assessment and market share, the report also presents revenue and unit shipment forecasts for 10 submarkets from 2015 to 2020 at a regional as well as a global scale. Historical figures are also provided for 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2014.Key Findings:The report has the following key findings:- Despite an ongoing decline in traditional macrocell RAN spending, the wider wireless network infrastructure market will continue to witness growth over the coming years. By the end of 2020, the market will account for over $92 Billion in revenue- Vendors are increasing their focus on profit margins. Many are already cutting staff, embracing operational excellence, evolving their new business models, acquiring niche businesses and expanding their managed services offerings- New CapEx commitment avenues such as HetNet infrastructure and virtualization will continue to usher industry restructuring, and market consolidation- As wireless carriers look to migrate towards scalable centralized baseband architectures, C-RAN investments will grow at a CAGR of 23% between 2015 and 2020. By the end of 2020, C-RAN investments will account for nearly $14 Billion- Developing market growth will be a significant factor during the forecast period, with China and India seeing some of the highest levels of growth, both in terms of shipments and in the size of their installed base- Due to investments in a single RAN technology, future LTE investments will cost much less than early investments of the technology- Supplemented with a drive towards C-RAN and virtualization, a limited amount of hardware installation will be needed when wireless carriers upgrade to LTE-Advanced and 5G networks in the future- By 2020, VoLTE subscriptions will surpass 700 Million, while nearly 60% of all LTE subscriptions will be served by LTE-Advanced networks- Driven by regional, national government, wireless carrier and vendor initiatives, we expect 5G R&D and trial investments will account for nearly $5 Billion by 2020, following a CAGR of nearly 40% over the next 5 yearsTopics Covered:The report covers the following topics:- Up-to-date coverage of market dynamics allowing wireless network infrastructure vendors to analyze opportunities and challenges of selling to wireless carriers in different regional markets- Analysis of demand and supply of wireless infrastructure. Research includes quantitative and qualitative market assessments as well as the forecasts of investment trends, technology requirements and deployment strategies for antenna, RAN, mobile core, backhaul and fronthaul deployments- Market analysis and forecasts for 10 individual submarkets and their subcategories: Macrocell RAN, small cell RAN, C-RAN BBU (Baseband Unit), RRH (Remote Radio Head), DAS (Distributed Antenna System), carrier WiFi, mobile core, macrocell backhaul, small cell backhaul and mobile fronthaul- Company profiles and strategies of over 350 ecosystem players including infrastructure vendors and enabling technology providers. The report also covers vendor market share for macrocell RAN, small cell RAN, C-RAN, DAS, carrier WiFi, mobile core and backhaul- Wireless network infrastructure value chain and future roadmap. The report also provides an assessment of the emerging 5G ecosystem, including key enabling technologies, R&D initiatives, investment commitments, vendor strategies and forecasts- Review of mobile network CapEx commitments, network subscriptions, traffic projections and service revenue, by technology and region- Market outlook for key technologies including TD-LTE, LTE-Advanced, VoLTE, RCS, LTE-Broadcast and LTE-UHistorical Revenue & Forecast Segmentation:Market forecasts and historical revenue/unit shipment figures are provided for each of the following submarkets and their subcategories:- Submarkets- Macrocell RAN- Small Cell RAN- C-RAN BBU (Baseband Unit)- RRH (Remote Radio Head)- DAS (Distributed Antenna System)- Carrier WiFi- Mobile Core- Macrocell Backhaul- Small Cell Backhaul- Mobile FronthaulThe following regional and technology markets are also covered:- Regional Markets- Asia Pacific- Eastern Europe- Latin & Central America- Middle East & Africa- North America- Western Europe- Technology Markets- GSM- CDMA/CDMA2000/EV-DO- W-CDMA/HSPA- LTE FDD- TD-LTE- WiMAX- WiFiKey Questions Answered:The report provides answers to the following key questions:- How is the 2G, 3G & 4G wireless network infrastructure market evolving by segment and region? What will the market size be in 2020 and at what rate will it grow?- What trends, challenges and barriers are influencing its growth?- How will the market shape for small cell, C-RAN and DAS deployments?- Is Ethernet a feasible solution to for C-RAN fronthaul?- What are the future prospects of millimeter wave technology for backhaul, fronthaul and RAN deployments?- How will carrier WiFi fit into future mobile network architectures for access and offload?- Who are the key vendors in the market, what is their market share and what are their strategies?- What strategies should be adopted by wireless carriers and infrastructure vendors to remain a dominant market force?- Which 2G, 3G & 4G technology constitutes the highest amount of spending and how will this evolve overtime?- How will LTE deployments proceed, and how long will GSM, W-CDMA/HSPA and CDMA technologies co-exist with LTE?- When will WiMAX infrastructure spending diminish?- What is the global and regional outlook for each individual sub-market including macrocell RAN, small cells, C-RAN, RRH, DAS, carrier WiFi, mobile core, macrocell backhaul, small cell backhaul and mobile fronthaul?- What is the outlook for TD-LTE, LTE-Advanced, VoLTE, RCS, LTE-Broadcast and LTE-U technologies?- Do emerging virtualization technologies such as NFV (Network Functions Virtualization) pose a threat to traditional wireless infrastructure vendors?- How much will vendors and operators invest in 5G R&D?Make an Enquiry of this report @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
Researchmoz.us : The Mobile Phone Insurance Ecosystem Industry Analysis and Forecast Research Report 2015 - 2020

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "The Mobile Phone Insurance Ecosystem: 2015 - 2020 - Opportunities, Challenges, Strategies & Forecasts" to its huge collection of research reports.Given the increasing prevalence of expensive household goods, cars and consumer electronics, insurance has become an unavoidable and often necessary cost in modern life. Mobile phones, and smartphones in particular are no exception to this trend.Most major wireless carriers, insurance specialists, device OEMs, retailers and even banks now offer insurance plans that cover theft, loss, malfunctions and damage of mobile phones. Many policies now also integrate enhanced technical support and additional protection features such as data backup facilities, allowing users to securely backup their phone data online.The global mobile phone insurance market is expected to account for nearly $31 Billion in revenue by the end of 2015. The market is further expected to grow at a CAGR of nearly 10% over the next five years, eventually accounting for over $48 Billion in revenue by the end of 2020.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The "Mobile Phone Insurance Ecosystem: 2015 - 2020 - Opportunities, Challenges, Strategies & Forecasts" report presents an in-depth assessment of the mobile phone insurance ecosystem including market drivers, challenges, opportunities, value chain, future roadmap, case studies, ecosystem player profiles and strategies. The report also presents market size forecasts from 2015 through to 2020. The forecasts are segmented for 6 regional and 64 country level markets.Table of ContentChapter 1: Introduction1.1 Executive Summary1.2 Topics Covered1.3 Historical Revenue & Forecast Segmentation1.4 Key Questions Answered1.5 Key Findings1.6 Methodology1.7 Target Audience1.8 Companies & Organizations MentionedChapter 2: An Overview of Mobile Phone Insurance2.1 The Role of Insurance in Our Daily Lives2.2 Why Have Mobile Phone Insurance?2.3 What Risks Are Typically Covered?2.3.1 Accidental, Malicious or Liquid Damage2.3.2 Electrical or Mechanical Breakdown2.3.3 Theft or Loss2.3.4 Unauthorized Calls & Usage2.3.5 Data Backup Facilities2.3.6 Overseas Cover2.3.7 Accessories2.3.8 Others2.4 Distribution Channels for Insurance Plans2.4.1 Wireless Carrier Branded2.4.2 OEM-Provided2.4.3 Associated with Bank Accounts2.4.4 Retailers2.4.5 Other Direct-to-Consumer2.5 Market Drivers2.5.1 Growing Penetration of Smartphones2.5.2 BYOD: Perfect Candidates for Insurance2.5.3 Reducing Service Disruption2.5.4 Proliferation of Large Screen Devices2.5.5 Packaged Policies2.5.6 Strong Support of Tier 1 Wireless Carriers2.5.7 Growth of Mobile Payments: Creating New Opportunities for Insurance2.6 Market Barriers2.6.1 Consumer Disbelief in Insurance2.6.2 Unclear Terms & Conditions2.6.3 Fraud2.6.4 Slow & Unfair Claims Handling2.6.5 Time Limitation to Purchase PolicyChapter 3: Value Chain & Future Roadmap3.1 Value Chain3.1.1 Wireless Carriers3.1.2 Mobile Device OEMs3.1.3 Banks3.1.4 Retailers3.1.5 Underwriters & Insurance Administrators3.2 Future Roadmap: 2015 - 20203.2.1 2013 - 2015: The Rise of Shared Plans with Home, Travel & Bank/Card Insurance3.2.2 2015 - 2017: Integration of Other Connected Devices3.2.3 2017 - 2020: Growing Proliferation in Developing EconomiesChapter 4: Case Studies4.1 Telefonica Insurance: A Wireless Carrier Owned Insurance Company4.2 Asurion: Dominance in North America4.3 eSecuritel: Increasing Insurance Revenue for a Rural Carrier4.4 MTN: Innovating Insurance Programs in Africa4.5 Microsoft: Alliances with Local Insurance Regulators4.6 NTT DoCoMo: Pioneering Mobile Phone Insurance in JapanChapter 5: Key Market Players5.1 ACE European Group5.2 Allianz Insurance5.3 AmTrust International Underwriters5.4 Assurant5.5 Asurion5.6 Aviva5.7 Brightstar Corporation (eSecuritel)5.8 Carphone Warehouse5.9 Geek Squad5.10 GoCare Warranty Group5.11 Hollard Group5.12 iQmetrix5.13 Liberty Mutual Insurance Group5.14 Mobile Rhino (Stuckey & Company)5.15 NIA (New India Assurance)5.16 NQ Mobile5.17 Pier Insurance Managed Services5.18 ProtectCELL5.19 Protect Your Bubble5.20 SPB5.21 Safeware5.22 SquareTrade5.23 Supercover Insurance5.24 Telefonica InsuranceMake an Enquiry of this report @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
The TD-LTE Ecosystem Market Infrastructure, Devices, Subscriptions & Operator Revenue Research Report 2015 - 2020

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "The TD-LTE Ecosystem: 2015 - 2020 - Infrastructure, Devices, Subscriptions & Operator Revenue" to its huge collection of research reports.FDD still remains the prevalent standard for LTE deployment as a natural progression path for GSM, W-CDMA and CDMA network operators. However, unpaired TDD spectrum costs significantly less per MHz/population than its FDD equivalent and is more widely available.Driven by the technologys lower deployment costs and spectrum availability, the industry has witnessed several prominent TD-LTE network deployments across the globe including SoftBank in Japan, Sprint in the U.S. and Bharti Airtel in India. In particular, China Mobiles TD-LTE network launch has enabled the TD-LTE ecosystem to reach a significant scale of economy, boosting further infrastructure and device investments in TD-LTE technology.More than a hundred operators have committed to deploy TD-LTE networks throughout the globe. Furthermore, all major device OEMs, including smartphone leaders Apple and Samsung, have commercially launched TD-LTE compatible devices. A large proportion of these devices support both TDD and FDD modes of operation, over multiple frequency bands.Driven by the thriving ecosystem, TD-LTE operator service revenue is expected to account for over $230 Billion by the end of 2020. By this period, TD-LTE networks will serve nearly 1 Billion subscribers worldwide.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The TD-LTE Ecosystem: 2015  2020  Infrastructure, Devices, Subscriptions & Operator Revenue report presents an in-depth assessment of the TD-LTE market including key market drivers, challenges, operator revenue potential, infrastructure/device deployment commitments, future roadmap, value chain, vendor strategies and strategic recommendations. The report also presents revenue and shipment market size and forecasts for both infrastructure and devices, along with subscription and service revenue projections for the LTE market as a whole, as well as separate projections for the TD-LTE and LTE FDD sub-markets from 2015 through to 2020. Historical figures are also presented for 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.The report comes with an associated Excel datasheet suite covering quantitative data from all numeric forecasts presented in the report.Key Findings:The report has the following key findings:- TD-LTE infrastructure investments on macrocell and small cell equipment are expected to grow at a CAGR of 15% over the next 5 years, eventually surpassing $12 Billion by the end of 2020- TD-LTE operator service revenue is expected to account for over $230 Billion by the end of 2020. By this period, TD-LTE networks will serve nearly 1 Billion subscribers worldwide- Utilizing 3.5 GHz and above TDD spectrum bands can significantly improve network performance and help operators in leveraging new technologies such as LTE Hotspot Improvements (LTE-Hi)- 2015 continues to see a significant improvement in the scale of economy for the TD-LTE ecosystem, and tighter integration between TDD and FDD- Huawei and ZTE lead the TD-LTE infrastructure market share, largely due to domestic contracts in China. However, Nokia, Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson are expected to capitalize on upcoming deployments opportunities in both Europe and AsiaTopics Covered:The report covers the following topics:- TD-LTE infrastructure- TD-LTE devices- TD-LTE spectrum- TD-LTE subscriptions and service revenues- TD-LTE network deployment case studies- Market drivers and barriers- TD-LTE infrastructure and device vendor assessment- Wireless network infrastructure industry roadmap and value chain- Company profiles and strategies of TD-LTE ecosystem players- Market analysis and forecasts from 2015 till 2020- Strategic recommendations for TD-LTE operators, infrastructure and device vendorsHistorical Revenue & Forecast Segmentation:Market forecasts and historical revenue/unit shipment/subscription figures are provided for each of the following submarkets and their subcategories:- LTE Infrastructure Shipments & Revenue- TD-LTE Macrocell eNodeBs (eNBs)- LTE FDD Macrocell eNBs- LTE FDD Small Cells- TD-LTE Small Cells- EPCLTE Device Shipments & Revenue- TD-LTE- LTE FDD- Form Factor (Embedded Cards, Consumer Gadgets, Netbooks, PCs, Routers, Smartphones, Tablets and USB Dongles)LTE Subscriptions and Operator Service Revenue- TD-LTE- LTE FDDThe following regional and country markets are also covered:Regional Markets- Asia Pacific- Eastern Europe- Latin & Central America- Middle East & Africa- North America- Western EuropeTop 20 Country Markets- Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, UK and USAKey Questions Answered:The report provides answers to the following key questions:- How big is the TD-LTE ecosystem?- How is the TD-LTE ecosystem evolving by segment and region? What will the market size be in 2020 and at what rate will it grow?- What trends, challenges and barriers are influencing its growth?- Who are the key TD-LTE vendors and what are their strategies?- What strategies should be adopted by wireless carriers, infrastructure and device vendors to remain a dominant market force in the TD-LTE ecosystem?- How much are vendors and operators investing in TD-LTE?- How low is the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) of a TD-LTE deployment in comparison to a FDD LTE network?- What opportunities exist for TD-LTE small cells in the 3.5 GHz and above spectrum bands?- How will TD-LTE ARPU evolve overtime?- Which countries will see the highest number of TD-LTE subscriptions?- Will all WiMAX operators transition to TD-LTE?List of Companies Mentioned- 21 Vianet Group- 2K Telecom- 3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Project)- 7Layers- Accelleran- Acer- Adax- ADIV- Aero2- Affirmed Networks- Afrimax- AINMT Holdings- Airbus Defence & Space- Airspan Networks- Airvana- AKM (Asahi Kasei Microdevices)- Alcatel-Lucent- Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell Company- Altair Semiconductor- Altiostar Networks- Amdocs- America Movil- Amethon- Anite- Anritsu Corporation- Antares- Apple- APT- Arcadyan Technology Corporation- Argela- Aria spa- Arieso- ARItel- Asia Express- AsiaTelco- ASOCS- ASTRI (Applied Science and Technology Research Institute)- Athena Wireless Communications- ATL (A Test Lab Techno Corporation)- Augere- Avago Technologies- Axxcelera- AzqtelMake an Enquiry of this report @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
2017 Epoxy Furan Resin Industry Global Size, Share, Demand & Applications

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2017 Market Research Report on Epoxy Furan Resin Industry was a professional and depth research report on Epoxy Furan Resin industry that you would know the world's major regional market conditions of Epoxy Furan Resin industry, the main region including North American, Europe and Asia etc., and the main country including United States ,Germany ,Japan and China etc..The report firstly introduced Epoxy Furan Resin basic information including Epoxy Furan Resin definition classification application and industry chain overview; Epoxy Furan Resin industry policy and plan, Epoxy Furan Resin product specification, manufacturing process, cost structure etc.. Then we deeply analyzed the world's main region market conditions that including the product price, profit, capacity, production, capacity utilization, supply, demand and industry growth rate etc.Request a sample of this report @In the end, the report introduced Epoxy Furan Resin new project SWOT analysis, investment feasibility analysis, and investment return analysis and Epoxy Furan Resin industry.In a word, it was a depth research report on Epoxy Furan Resin industry. And thanks to the support and assistance from Epoxy Furan Resin industry chain related technical experts and marketing experts during Research Team survey and interviews.Browse the complete report @The report including six parts, the first part mainly introduced the product basic information; the second parts mainly analyzed the Asia Epoxy Furan Resin industry; the third part mainly analyzed the North American Epoxy Furan Resin industry; the fourth part mainly analyzed the Europe Epoxy Furan Resin industry; the fifth part mainly analyzed the market entry and investment feasibility; the sixth part was the report conclusion chapter.Place a purchase order of this report @Major Points from Table of Content:Part I Epoxy Furan Resin Industry OverviewChapter One Epoxy Furan Resin Industry OverviewPart II Asia Epoxy Furan Resin IndustryChapter Two Asia Epoxy Furan Resin Product History of DevelopmentChapter Three Asia Epoxy Furan Resin Key Manufacturers AnalysisChapter Four 2012-2017 Asia Epoxy Furan Resin Productions Supply Sales Demand Market Status and Forecast AnalysisChapter Five Epoxy Furan Resin Industry Development TrendPart III North American Epoxy Furan Resin IndustryChapter Six North American Epoxy Furan Resin Product History of DevelopmentChapter Seven North American Epoxy Furan Resin Key Manufacturers AnalysisChapter Eight 2012-2017 North American Epoxy Furan Resin Productions Supply Sales Demand Market Status and Forecast AnalysisChapter Nine Epoxy Furan Resin Industry Development TrendPart IV Europe Epoxy Furan Resin Industry AnalysisChapter Ten Europe Epoxy Furan Resin Product History of DevelopmentChapter Eleven Europe Epoxy Furan Resin Key Manufacturers AnalysisChapter Twelve 2012-2017 Europe Epoxy Furan Resin Productions Supply Sales Demand Market Status and Forecast AnalysisChapter Thirteen Epoxy Furan Resin Industry Development TrendPart V Epoxy Furan Resin Marketing Channels and Investment FeasibilityChapter Fourteen Epoxy Furan Resin Marketing Channels AnalysisChapter Fifteen Epoxy Furan Resin Development Environmental AnalysisChapter Sixteen Epoxy Furan Resin SWOT Analysis and New Project Investment Feasibility AnalysisPart VI Global Epoxy Furan Resin Industry ConclusionsChapter Seventeen 2012-2017 Global Epoxy Furan Resin Productions Supply Sales Demand Market Status and Forecast AnalysisChapter Eighteen Epoxy Furan Resin Industry Development TrendChapter Nineteen Global Epoxy Furan Resin Industry Research SummaryContact sales@orbisresearch.com for more information.Orbis Research (orbisresearch.com) is a single point aid for all your market research requirements. We have vast database of reports from the leading publishers and authors across the globe. We specialize in delivering customized reports as per the requirements of our clients. We have complete information about our publishers and hence are sure about the accuracy of the industries and verticals of their specialization. This helps our clients to map their needs and we produce the perfect required market research study for our clients.Hector CostelloSenior Manager  Client Engagements4144N Central Expressway,Suite 600, Dallas,Texas - 75204, U.S.A.Phone No.: +1 (214) 884-6817; +912064101019Follow Us on LinkedIn:
Ghana: The launch of 4G and Expansion of Fiber Network will Support Telecom Growth | New Release

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Ghana: The launch of 4G and Expansion of Fiber Network will Support Telecom Growth." to its huge collection of research reports.The telecom services revenue in Ghana is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 5.4% during 2016-2021, primarily driven by growth in mobile data revenue. Mobile voice will be the largest revenue-contributing segment until 2019. Mobile data will be the fastest-growing segment in the telecom market and is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 16.3% during 2016-2021, primarily driven by operators' investments in 3G and 4G network coverage and attractive data bundles offered by telcos. Going forward, operators look to invest in 3G/4G network upgradation, extend coverage and fiber-optic network deployments to improve and extend broadband connectivity in the country, which will provide significant opportunities for vendors and investors.Key Findings- The overall telecom service revenue in Ghana will grow at a CAGR of 5.4% during 2016-2021, mainly driven by growth in the mobile data segment.- Mobile revenue will account for 97.0% of the total telecom revenue in 2021; mobile data will be the fastest growing segment and will grow at a CAGR of 16.3% over the forecast period 2016-2021.- 2G will be the most adopted mobile technology through 2021. However, its share in overall mobile subscriber base will decline over the forecast period 2016-2021, owing to rising adoption of 3G and 4G services over the coming years.- The top two operators, MTN Ghana and Vodafone Ghana, will account for 76.7% share of overall service revenue in 2016, owing to strong 3G and 4G network coverage. We expect competition to intensify further as operators focus on competitive pricing plans and service innovation to further increase their market share.- Operators will continue to focus on investments in 3G network expansion and launch of 4G services, fiber deployments to increase connectivity and cater to the rising data demand.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Synopsis"Ghana: Launch of 4G and Expansion of Fiber Network to Support Telecom Growth" is a new Country Intelligence Report by GlobalData, provides an executive-level overview of the telecommunications market in Ghana today, with detailed forecasts of key indicators up to 2021. Published annually, the report provides detailed analysis of the near-term opportunities, competitive dynamics and evolution of demand by service type and technology/platform across the fixed telephony, broadband, and mobile, as well as a review of key regulatory trends.The Country Intelligence Report provides in-depth analysis of the following:- Regional context: telecom market size and trends in Ghana compared with other countries in the region.- Economic, demographic and political context in Ghana.- The regulatory environment and trends: a review of the regulatory setting and agenda for the next 18-24 months as well as relevant developments pertaining to spectrum licensing, national broadband plans, number portability and more.- A demand profile: analysis as well as historical figures and forecasts of service revenue from the fixed telephony, broadband, mobile voice, and mobile data markets.- Service evolution: a look at changes in the breakdown of overall revenue between the fixed and mobile sectors and between voice, data and video from 2016 to 2021.- The competitive landscape: an examination of key trends in competition and in the performance, revenue market shares and expected moves of service providers over the next 18-24 months.- In-depth sector analysis of fixed telephony, broadband, mobile voice, and mobile data services: a quantitative analysis of service adoption trends by network technology and by operator, as well as of average revenue per line/subscription and service revenue through the end of the forecast period.- Main opportunities: this section details the near-term opportunities for operators, vendors and investors in Ghana telecommunications markets.Reasons To Buy- This Country Intelligence Report offers a thorough, forward-looking analysis of Ghanas telecommunications markets, service providers and key opportunities in a concise format to help executives build proactive and profitable growth strategies.- Accompanying GlobalDatas Forecast products, the report examines the assumptions and drivers behind ongoing and upcoming trends in Ghanas mobile communications, fixed telephony, broadband markets, including the evolution of service provider market shares.- With more than 20 charts and tables, the report is designed for an executive-level audience, boasting presentation quality.- The report provides an easily digestible market assessment for decision-makers built around in-depth information gathered from local market players, which enables executives to quickly get up to speed with the current and emerging trends in Ghanas telecommunications markets.- The broad perspective of the report coupled with comprehensive, actionable detail will help operators, equipment vendors and other telecom industry players succeed in the challenging telecommunications market in Ghana.Make an Enquiry of this report @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
The growth in end users in the Phenylbutazone Market is expected to occur at an optimistic rate

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Global Phenylbutazone Market: OverviewPhenylbutazone is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug meant to provide short-term relief from fever and pain. The drug is currently banned in the U.S. and the U.K. for human use, and therefore is largely meant for animal uses. The ban on phenylbutazone was approved due to its severely debilitating side-effects such as reducing the rate of production of white blood cells and causing aplastic anemia. It was originally used in humans for the treatment of gout and rheumatoid arthritis till 1949 and is now commonly used on horses for the treatment of antipyresis and analgesia.Phenylbutazone can be administered intravenously or orally but is essentially should only be injected into a vein or administered intramuscularly. Edema and tissue damage may occur if the drug is injected repetitively into the same vein. Side-effects also include oral lesions, blood dyscrasia, kidney damage, GI ulcers, and internal hemorrhage. The drug should also not be used in combination with vitamin K antagonists including warfarin due to the amplifying nature of phenylbutazone on the anticoagulant effect of the antagonists.Request a Brochure of the Report @Global Phenylbutazone Market: Key Trends and Growth ProspectsThe growth in end users in the global phenylbutazone market is expected to occur at an optimistic rate over the coming years, owing to an increase in the consumption of the drug in the growing veterinary medicine industry. In addition, the rising demand for NSAIDs in the emerging economies of Asia Pacific and Latin America is also expected to boost the demand for phenylbutazone over the coming years. However, the high availability of substitutes and the heavy restrictions imposed on the use of phenylbutazone could hamper the growth of this market. Harpagophytum can replace phenylbutazone for treatment of fever and pain in horses.Global Phenylbutazone Market: Geographical PerspectiveAsia Pacific is expected to be the leading consumer of phenylbutazone in the world, followed by North America and Europe. China and India are the top consumers of phenylbutazone in Asia Pacific due to presence of highly established end users. Phenylbutazone manufacturers from developed economies are also shifting their base to emerging ones due to the greater availability of government subsidies, land, cheap labor, and a more relaxed regulatory framework. Mongolia, the Republic of Korea, Australia and New Zealand are expected to be key consumers of phenylbutazone in the future. North America and Europe are expected to experience a moderate rate of growth in demand. The demand for phenylbutazone is also expected to increase in Latin American nations due to an increasing demand for veterinary drugs, namely in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Peru.Request for TOC of the Report @Global Phenylbutazone Market: Players Mentioned in the ReportSome of the leaders in the global phenylbutazone market so far, have been Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Inc., Hangzhou Hyper Chemicals Limited, Baoji Guokang Bio-Technology Co., Ltd., Wuhan Yitongtai Science and Technology Co., Ltd., Afine Chemicals Limited, Shanghai Win-Win Biochemical Co., Ltd., Shaanxi TOP Pharm Chemical Co., Ltd., Hangzhou Hyper Chemicals Limited, Hangzhou Ruijiang Chemical Co., Ltd., Dalian Launcher Fine Chemical Co., Ltd., Croma Life Science Pvt. Ltd., Swati Chemicals, Suchem Laboratories, Uni-med India, Afton Pharma, and Hefei TNJ Chemical Industry Co., Ltd.Read Complete Report @About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact :Rohit BhiseyHead - Internet MarketingTel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Sodium Aluminum Hydride Market - Global Industry Analysis 2016 - 2024

Sodium Aluminum Hydride Market

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Sodium aluminum hydride (SAH), with the chemical formula NaAlH4, is commonly known as sodium alanate. It is a white colored solid crystal, used as a multipurpose reducing agent extensively for the reduction of non-functional groups such as amides, esters, aldehydes, nitriles, and ketones.SAH is produced by reacting aluminum chloride with sodium hydride in tetrahydrofuran (THF). It is easily soluble in solvents such as 1.2-dimethoxyethane (DME) and THF. SAH solution is obtained by dissolving it in DME or THF, where THF is the preferred choice.SAH reduces almost every kind of functional groups as efficiently as lithium aluminum hydride and diisobutylaluminium hydride to certain extend, which are strong reducing agents and are being used on a large scale in organic chemistry. The reduction reactions carried out by SAH can be associated with slight increase in temperature in order to achieve adequate results, this in turn can effectively help in reducing the cooling costs involved in reactions at commercial scale.GET PDF BROCHURE FOR MORE PROFESSIONAL AND TECHNICAL INDUSTRY INSIGHTS:Market TrendsSAH is used for the preparation of other chemicals by the process of reduction. It carries out efficient reduction compared to other reducing agents such as sodium borohydride. SAH has weaker and polar Al-H bonds compared to the B-H bonds of sodium borohydride.The low cost and easy handling of SAH makes it a suitable alternative to lithium aluminum hydride in organic chemistry in the present day scenario.SAH has recently achieved lot of recognition as an appropriate chemical for the purpose of storing hydrogen in fuel cells by incorporating titanium as a catalyst. Storage of hydrogen requires high pressure tank and/or the use of a solid substance in which hydrogen molecule can be easily absorbed. SAH satisfies the second criteria efficiently. Hence, it is widely used for storing hydrogen gas.The SAH market is expected to grow in the near future due to its usage in applications which are essential in industrial processes.SAH is highly inflammable and is vulnerable to moisture, hence does not react in dry air when placed in normal room temperature. Special care must be taken for its storage and handling as it catches fire instantly once it is exposed to or when dissolved in water. SAH is toxic and causes acute effects such as irritation of the eyes and skin. It can even lead to coughing or sneezing if it is inhaled.The usage of SAH in the market seems to overpower its drawbacks such as its toxicity and the storage precautions, leading to a steady growth of the market currently.Region-wise OutlookThe market for SAH is spread mostly in Asia Pacific, North America, and Europe. The use of SAH as a reagent for the synthesis of various compounds is an important factor for its market to flourish in these regions. The rate of industrialization is high as these regions have more developed as well as developing countries. China is one of the leading producers as well as consumers of sodium aluminum hydride currently owing to the presence of its high end-use applications.In Middle East and Asia, the utilization of SAH for various applications is not as much as other regions due to the use of compounds which are similar to SAH (e.g., lithium aluminum hydride, sodium borohydride, etc.).Key PlayersOne of the major players operating in the market of sodium aluminum hydride is Albemarle Corporation headquartered in the U.S.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a 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. TMR's experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.Contact Us:-Transparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Phthalocyanine Pigments Market is expected to lead in terms of growth rate in revenue generation and demand

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Global Phthalocyanine Pigments Market: OverviewThe global phthalocyanine pigments market comprises metallic complexes with a diverse array of applications. The five polymorphic crystal types are beta phthalocyanine, epsilon phthalocyanine, alpha phthalocyanine, gamma phthalocyanine, and delta phthalocyanine. Only beta and alpha phthalocyanine pigments have so far been commercialized. Phthalocyanine pigments form coordination complexes with a lot of elements. These complexes are intensely colored and are commonly used as dyes or pigments. However, phthalocyanine pigments consist of smaller primary particles that have a tendency to flocculate, resulting in a loss of overall color strength.Global Phthalocyanine Pigments Market: Leading ApplicationsPhthalocyanine pigments have applications in photovoltaics, ink manufacture, and quantum computing. They can also be used in coatings and plastic coloring due to their excellent chemical stability. It is currently a standard pigment in the packaging industry and in the manufacture of printing inks. Phthalocyanine pigments have low solubility rate in organic solvents and many of their compounds are thermally stable. They do not melt but can be sublimed in the presence of inert gases. Phthalocyanine pigments are structurally similar to porphyrins and other macrocyclic pigments. Either pigment types hold four pyrrole-like subunits that are joined together to form a ring with 16 members. Phthalocyanine pigments can also be used for organic solar cell research in photovoltaic industry or even in quantum computing due to the length of time its electrons can exist in a state of quantum superposition.Request a Brochure of the Report @The global phthalocyanine pigments market ultimately depends on its principal end user, the textiles industry, for revenue. The demand can also come from a growing consumer preference for environmental friendly color pigments as well as the capability of phthalocyanine pigments to meet the increasingly stringent government regulations and performance standards. The increasing demand from emerging economies of Asia Pacific is expected to boost consumption of phthalocyanine pigments over the coming years. However, the global phthalocyanine pigments market is currently being stifled by raw material price volatility and high production costs.Global Phthalocyanine Pigments Market: Regional AnalysisAsia Pacific is expected to lead the global phthalocyanine pigments market in terms of growth rate in revenue generation and demand in the coming years, due to a rapidly expanding manufacturing base and a thriving economy. There has been a migration of manufacturing facilitates from the U.S. and Europe to the emerging markets of Asia Pacific due to the stringent environmental regulations in the former regions. China is likely to continue to be an exceptionally fruitful market for phthalocyanine pigments players due to its high consumption rate in the local textile industry. Over the years, China has emerged as the leader in manufactur and consumption of phthalocyanine pigments. India is expected to come second in the Asia Pacific phthalocyanine pigments market due to government concessions to small and medium sized establishment. In addition, the industry has witnessed massive export opportunities because of shutting down of manufacturing facilities in the Europe and U.S. following strict enforcement of environment regulations by the government.Request for TOC of the Report @Global Phthalocyanine Pigments Market: Competitive LandscapeSome of the key players in this market are Vibfast Pigments Pvt. Ltd., Sinocolor Chemical, BASF, Kiri Industries Ltd., CPS Color AG, E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, Flint Group, Huntsman Corporation, LANXESS AG, Rockwood Holdings Inc., Unilex Colours & Chemicals Limited, Sudarshan Chemicals, ECKART GmbH, Clariant International Ltd., Jagson Colorchem Limited, Royce Associates, and Atul Ltd.Read Complete Report @About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact :Rohit BhiseyHead - Internet MarketingTel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Passive Optical Network (PON) Equipment Market - An Array Of Graphics And Analysis Of Major Industry Segments

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Passive optical network (PON) ensures connectivity from one access point to multiple end users. It is a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network and therefore rise in the number of FTTH subscribers coupled with increasing demand for energy conservation are bolstering the growth of PON equipment market in India. In addition, high return on investments, low cost of ownership, optimized connectivity, simplified network operations and advanced security are the other major factors driving the PON equipment market. The passive optical network is categorized into two types in terms of its structure  Gigabit passive optical network (GPON) and Ethernet passive optical network (EPON).GPON terminal devices offer high-speed voice, video and data services to business and residential subscribers. Reliability and last-mile long-reach connection further reinforces the exceptionally high bandwidth of GPON technology. GPON reduces the quantity of active switching devices used in a computer network. In addition, GPON has been a prominent approach for defense services, owing to high bandwidth and advanced security provided by the network.EPON aids service providers to offer IPTV and voice services, residential broadband, enterprise services, such as time division multiplexing (TDM), Internet and voice connectivity. In addition, 3G, and 4G mobile backhaul carriage services are also offered by EPON. The new EPON is fully compatible with the existing Ethernet standards so no alteration is required while linking to the existing Ethernet-based networks at both ends. As Ethernet is the key networking approach used in metro-area networks (MANs) and local area networks (LANs), no protocol conversions are required.PDF Sample For Latest Industry Happenings @OLT and ONT, both are used in GPON as well as EPON. OLT is placed at the central office, while the ONT at the subscribers premises. The OLT functions as the Local Area Network (LAN) combination unit for assimilating data, video and voice services into a single fiber structure. The ONT terminates the passive optical network and provides different local service interfaces to the user, such as voice, data, video and telemetry. Leveraging the influence of all internet protocol/Ethernet architecture and fiber optics, GPON offers scalable, secure and high-bandwidth networks for business, military and campus applications.This market research study analyzes the passive optical network equipment market in India and provides estimates in terms of revenue (USD Million) from 2013 to 2020. It recognizes the drivers and restraints affecting the industry and analyzes their impact over the forecasted period from 2014 to 2020. Moreover, it identifies the significant opportunities for market growth in the years to come.The report segments the market based on structure which includes gigabit passive optical network (GPON) and Ethernet passive optical network (EPON). Furthermore, gigabit passive optical network has also been segmented on the basis of components which include optical line terminal (OLT) and optical network terminal (ONT). The OLT and ONT segments have also been estimated on the basis of revenue and volume in USD million and million units, respectively.In order to ensure a clear understanding of the India passive optical network equipment market, we have given a detailed analysis of the value chain. Moreover, a detailed Porters five forces analysis has been given for a better understanding of the intensity of competition present in the market. Furthermore, the study comprises of a market attractiveness analysis, where the equipment are benchmarked based on their market scope, growth rate and general attractiveness.The report provides company market share analysis of the various industry participants. Key players have also been profiled on the basis of company overview, financial overview, business strategies and key developments. Major market participants profiled in this report include Alphion India Pvt. Ltd., Adtran Inc., Broadcom Corporation Inc., Calix Inc., Ericsson Inc., Freescale Semiconductors Inc., Hitachi, Ltd., Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Motorola Solutions Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. among others.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.Transparency Market Research90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
United States Healthcare IT Solutions Market Report Size,Share,Trends,Innovation and Forecast 2017

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MarketResearchReports.biz has recently announced the addition of a market study  United States Healthcare IT Solutions Market Report 2017 , is a comparative analysis of the global market.Notes:Sales, means the sales volume of Healthcare IT SolutionsRevenue, means the sales value of Healthcare IT SolutionsThis report studies sales (consumption) of Healthcare IT Solutions in United States market, focuses on the top players, with sales, price, revenue and market share for each player, coveringMcKesson (U.S.)Allscripts Healthcare Solutions (U.S.)athenahealth (U.S.)Epic Systems (U.S.)GE Healthcare (U.K.)Siemens Healthcare (Germany)Cerner (U.S.)Carestream Health (U.S.)Market Segment by States, coveringCaliforniaTexasNew YorkFloridaIllinoisSplit by product types, with sales, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, can be divided intoHERPACSInteroperabilityHealthcare AnalyticsTelemedicineCRMDownload The sample Copy Of This Report:Split by applications, this report focuses on sales, market share and growth rate of Healthcare IT Solutions in each application, can be divided intoHospitalClinicTable Of ContentUnited States Healthcare IT Solutions Market Report 20171 Healthcare IT Solutions Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Healthcare IT Solutions1.2 Classification of Healthcare IT Solutions1.2.1 HER1.2.2 PACS1.2.3 Interoperability1.2.4 Healthcare Analytics1.2.5 Telemedicine1.2.6 CRM1.3 Application of Healthcare IT Solutions1.3.1 Hospital1.3.2 Clinic1.4 United States Market Size Sales (Volume) and Revenue (Value) of Healthcare IT Solutions (2012-2022)1.4.1 United States Healthcare IT Solutions Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2022)1.4.2 United States Healthcare IT Solutions Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2022)2 United States Healthcare IT Solutions Competition by Manufacturers2.1 United States Healthcare IT Solutions Sales and Market Share of Key Manufacturers (2015 and 2016)2.2 United States Healthcare IT Solutions Revenue and Share by Manufactures (2015 and 2016)2.3 United States Healthcare IT Solutions Average Price by Manufactures (2015 and 2016)2.4 Healthcare IT Solutions Market Competitive Situation and Trends2.4.1 Healthcare IT Solutions Market Concentration Rate2.4.2 Healthcare IT Solutions Market Share of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers2.4.3 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion3 United States Healthcare IT Solutions Sales (Volume) and Revenue (Value) by States (2012-2017)3.1 United States Healthcare IT Solutions Sales and Market Share by States (2012-2017)3.2 United States Healthcare IT Solutions Revenue and Market Share by States (2012-2017)3.3 United States Healthcare IT Solutions Price by States (2012-2017)4 United States Healthcare IT Solutions Sales (Volume) and Revenue (Value) by Type (2012-2017)4.1 United States Healthcare IT Solutions Sales and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)4.2 United States Healthcare IT Solutions Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)4.3 United States Healthcare IT Solutions Price by Type (2012-2017)4.4 United States Healthcare IT Solutions Sales Growth Rate by Type (2012-2017)5 United States Healthcare IT Solutions Sales (Volume) by Application (2012-2017)5.1 United States Healthcare IT Solutions Sales and Market Share by Application (2012-2017)5.2 United States Healthcare IT Solutions Sales Growth Rate by Application (2012-2017)5.3 Market Drivers and OpportunitiesMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.State Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074USA: Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948Website:Email: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Global Endodontics Treatments Market Research Report Size,Share,Trends,Innovation and Forecast 2017

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MarketResearchReports.biz has recently announced the addition of a market study  Global Endodontics Treatments Market Research Report 2017 , is a comparative analysis of the global market.Notes:Production, means the output of Endodontics TreatmentsRevenue, means the sales value of Endodontics TreatmentsThis report studies Endodontics Treatments in Global market, especially in North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia and India, focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with capacity, production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, coveringDanaherColtene HoldingDentsply InternationalUltradent ProductsBrasseler USAKerrDMGDENTSPLYMarket Segment by Regions, this report splits Global into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue, market share and growth rate of Endodontics Treatments in these regions, from 2011 to 2021 (forecast), likeNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaSplit by product type, with production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, can be divided intoRoot Canal TherapyFixing Broken TeethDental TraumaDownload The sample Copy Of This Report:Split by application, this report focuses on consumption, market share and growth rate of Endodontics Treatments in each application, can be divided intoHospitalsDental ClinicTable Of ContentGlobal Endodontics Treatments Market Research Report 20171 Endodontics Treatments Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Endodontics Treatments1.2 Endodontics Treatments Segment by Type1.2.1 Global Production Market Share of Endodontics Treatments by Type in 20151.2.2 Root Canal Therapy1.2.3 Fixing Broken Teeth1.2.4 Dental Trauma1.3 Endodontics Treatments Segment by Application1.3.1 Endodontics Treatments Consumption Market Share by Application in 20151.3.2 Hospitals1.3.3 Dental Clinic1.4 Endodontics Treatments Market by Region1.4.1 North America Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.2 Europe Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 India Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of Endodontics Treatments (2012-2022)2 Global Endodontics Treatments Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Endodontics Treatments Production and Share by Manufacturers (2015 and 2016)2.2 Global Endodontics Treatments Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2015 and 2016)2.3 Global Endodontics Treatments Average Price by Manufacturers (2015 and 2016)2.4 Manufacturers Endodontics Treatments Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area and Product Type2.5 Endodontics Treatments Market Competitive Situation and Trends2.5.1 Endodontics Treatments Market Concentration Rate2.5.2 Endodontics Treatments Market Share of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers2.5.3 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion3 Global Endodontics Treatments Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2012-2017)3.1 Global Endodontics Treatments Production and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.2 Global Endodontics Treatments Revenue (Value) and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.3 Global Endodontics Treatments Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.4 North America Endodontics Treatments Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.5 Europe Endodontics Treatments Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.6 China Endodontics Treatments Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.7 Japan Endodontics Treatments Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.8 Southeast Asia Endodontics Treatments Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.9 India Endodontics Treatments Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)4 Global Endodontics Treatments Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2012-2017)4.1 Global Endodontics Treatments Consumption by Regions (2012-2017)4.2 North America Endodontics Treatments Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.3 Europe Endodontics Treatments Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.4 China Endodontics Treatments Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.5 Japan Endodontics Treatments Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.6 Southeast Asia Endodontics Treatments Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.7 India Endodontics Treatments Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)MarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.State Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074USA: Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948Website:Email: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
The Telesurgery Market is anticipated to display exponential growth over the forecast period

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Global Telesurgery Market: Brief OverviewTelesurgery, commonly known as remote surgery, is an advanced technology that helps the doctors in performing a surgical procedure without being physically present in the operation theater. Telesurgery is achieved employing technologically advanced robots that execute preferred purposes with the help of preinstalled programs and a high-speed communication technology. The foundation of telesurgery is based on the principle of robotics and advanced communication technology. Surgical robots comprise a master console, one or multiple surgical arms, and an advanced sensory system. Generally, with the use of management information system technology and communication technology, a surgeon controls the functions of the surgical robots that perform the surgery. In spite the technology being innovative and dependable in nature, a surgeon is always present with the telesurgery system to control the malfunctions of the systems and further address complications.The market intelligence report is a comprehensive review of the growth trail in terms of current, historical, and future scenarios of the global telesurgery market. It offers an evaluation of the aspects that are expected to influence the development of the market and the primary trends have also been specified in the research study. The research study also offers a broad lookout on the vendor landscape of the market through Porters five forces analysis. The research publication provides references of mergers and acquisitions, the research and development activities, specifics on licensing and collaborations. The report probes into the strategies related to marketing, shares, and product portfolio of the key participants in the global telesurgery market.Request a Brochure of the Report @Global Telesurgery Market: Key TrendsThe telesurgery market is anticipated to display exponential growth over the forecast period. The growth of the market can be attributed to factors such as rising number of surgeries across the globe, time and cost efficiency, growing prevalence of chronic diseases such as cancer, orthopedic diseases, and increasing innovations in technology. A large number of surgeries worldwide is considered as one of the most valuable factors contributing to the market growth of the global telesurgery market. For instance, according to the U.S. Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (C.D.C.), over 51 million surgeries were performed in the U.S. in 2010.On the basis of applications, the market has been classified into pediatric surgeries, gynecological operations, esophageal fundoplication, pancreatectomy, liver transplant, liver resection, cardiothoracic surgeries, and cancer surgery.Request for TOC of the Report @Global Telesurgery Market: Geographical AnalysisRegion-wise the global telesurgery market has been segmented into Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, and the Rest of the World. Currently, North America is leading the market with the maximum number of shares owing to rising technological advancements and growing incidences of chronic diseases, such as cancer, orthopedic diseases, and liver disorders. Nevertheless, Europe and some of the countries in Asia-Pacific such as India, Japan, Australia, and China are projected to exhibit lucrative growth in the upcoming years owing to incessantly growing technological innovations and rising surgical practices.Global Telesurgery Market: Insight into Key ParticipantsPrime companies engaged in the development and commercialization of the telesurgery system are TransEnterix, Inc. (Flex Ligating Shears advanced energy device), Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (da Vinci surgical system), and SRI Intentional (M7) among others.Read Complete Report @About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact :Rohit BhiseyHead - Internet MarketingTel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
The Therapeutic Homecare Devices Market promises profitable business opportunities during the forecast period

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Global Therapeutic Homecare Devices Market: Inclusive InsightTherapeutic homecare devices are defined as the devices or equipment that a patient uses post-surgery. Therapeutic homecare devices are designed for the purpose of helping people to recover from any ailment in an easy and effective manner. Generally, these devices are prescribed to patients after any major orthopedic surgery such as hip or knee replacement, cardiac surgeries or in surgeries after which the patient faces difficulty in performing daily activities. Based on devices, therapeutic homecare devices market has been segmented into custom-made beds, walking aids, bath safety, and wheelchairs.The market intelligence report is a comprehensive review of the growth trail in terms of current, historical, and future scenarios of the global therapeutic homecare devices market. It offers an evaluation of the aspects that are expected to influence the development of the market and the primary trends have also been specified in the research study. The research study also offers a broad lookout on the vendor landscape of the market through Porters five forces analysis. The research publication provides references of mergers and acquisitions, the research and development activities, specifics on licensing and collaborations. The report probes into the strategies related to marketing, shares, and product portfolio of the key participants in the global therapeutic homecare devices market.Request a Brochure of the Report @Global Therapeutic Homecare Devices Market: Trends and ProspectsThe therapeutic homecare devices market promises profitable business opportunities during the forecast period owing to increasing demand for home healthcare, rising technological advancements, and abundance of cost-effective alternatives as compared to hospital modalities. Factors such as growing geriatric population and increasing prevalence of chronic diseases along with orthopedic disorders are further augmenting in the therapeutic homecare devices market growth. According to the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, most of the patients who undergo knee replacement belong to the age group from 50 to 80 years. Furthermore, the number of hospital discharges with knee replacement among people of 65 years of age and above has been observed to be continuously increasing every year. Around 90 people in every 10,000 were reported to have undergone a knee replacement surgery in the U.S. in 2009 as against 58 people per 10,000 in 1997. Growing number of orthopedic surgeries has further accelerated the adoption of therapeutic homecare devices among patients who have undergone orthopedic surgeries, hence driving the market.Request for TOC of the Report @Global Therapeutic Homecare Devices Market: Regional OutlookRegion-wise, North America dominates the global therapeutic homecare devices market trailed by Europe. Favorable reimbursement policies, growing number of small scale home healthcare services providers, high prevalence of orthopedic and cardiovascular diseases, and rising investments by the government bodies towards home healthcare market are the prime dynamics stimulating the growth of therapeutic homecare devices in these two regions. Asia Pacific is estimated to emerge as the one of the most opportunistic market for therapeutic homecare devices vendors. The introduction of new technologies, continuous product launch by market players and growing awareness about home healthcare among patients and doctors are some of the factors that are expected to bolster the growth of the market in the region.Global Therapeutic Homecare Devices Market: Vendor LandscapeThe key market players of therapeutic homecare devices market are Pride Mobility Products Corporation, Invacare Corporation, Ottobock Healthcare GmbH, National Pain Care, Sunrise Medical, Inc., GF Health Products, Inc., Levo AG, and Merits Health Product Co. Ltd.Read Complete Report @About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact :Rohit BhiseyHead - Internet MarketingTel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Q&A's Released on Combat Vehicle C4ISTAR from Military Leaders Ahead of Armoured Vehicles Situational Awareness 2017

Future Armoured Vehicles Situational Awareness 2017

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www.armouredvehicles-sa.com/prcom

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SMi Group release exclusive new interviews with the Norwegian Armed Forces, Spanish Army, Royal Netherlands Army and PSM GmbHSMi Group have released an exclusive set of interviews ahead of the only conference dedicated to combat vehicle C4ISTAR, Future Armoured Vehicles Situational Awareness 2017. Growing from strength to strength, the popularity of the event highlights the imminent need to prepare today's mechanised and armoured forces for the challenges of tomorrow within the broader set of C4ISTAR requirements for contemporary operations.With expert insight and topical debate surrounding key issues such as vetronic architectures, sensor integration, CIS and battle management, this years agenda has been designed for those looking to deliver a new generation of information superiority to their armoured vehicle.The Q&A's released with 4 of the keynote speakers are available to read in the event download centre ahead of their talks next month. Based upon the answers given it is apparent that Situational Awareness means different things to different people.QUESTION: Situations - Who should we be aware of what, how quickly, how reliably, for how long?Major Wouter Samson, Doctrine C4I, Manoeuvre Centre of Knowledge, Manoeuvre Centre of Excellence, Royal Netherlands Army:ANSWER: "This is something that will require more studying since how we fight conflicts is changing. In a certain way total war is back because attack on civilian systems are back, for example cyber-attacks. These changes also happen in the military environment and it certainly is not always clear who the enemy is."Colonel Manuel Jesus De Hoyos Sanchez, Head of 8x8 VCR Programme, Spanish Army:ANSWER: "Three types of factors may be identified for the adequate operation of a ground vehicle. (1) The Chief of the vehicle in charge of the overall management of the vehicle and responsible for the success of the assigned mission, (2) the driver in charge of the driving of the vehicle, and (3) the shooter in charge of the weapon stations...nevertheless, it may be considered that there are some critical data that need to be provided with stringent requirements...data feeding the systems that may affect the safety of the crew, other units and the civilian population."Major Ola Petter Odden, Norwegian Army Combat Lab, Norwegian Army Land Warfare Centre, Norwegian Armed Forces:ANSWER: "The need for information and the ability/ opportunity to absorb information varies greatly in different situation. During a battle day you might have long periods of relative calm where you can access a lot of information. But when in enemy contact, you only worry about your immediate surroundings and survival. So the system must be able to switch modes."Martin Roder, Project Manager IT Department, PSM:ANSWER: "Every commander has to know everything about his team and the tactical situation they are in. There are the status of his vehicle, the condition of his crew, the tactical situation in near range and the position of his platoon members. The platoon leader has in addition to interact with his bataillion. The batailion has to know the tactical situation on high-level range to deploy the platoons at its best. Real time information are the most valuable source informations for all these purposes. The challenge is to exchange the right level of information between the different operation layers."The full interviews are available to read atFor a detailed conference agenda and full speaker line-up featuring other notable speakers such as the United States Army, French MoD, German MoD, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin and Thales, visitFuture Armoured Vehicles Situational Awareness29th & 30th Mar 2017London, UKSponsored by: Galleon Embedded Computing, Instro Precision Ltd, Kent Modular Electronics, Lockheed Martin, Microflown Avisa, Palomar Display Products, Pleora Technologies Inc, RFEL, Safran Electronics and Defence---- END ----About SMi Group: Established since 1993, the SMi Group is a global event-production company that specializes in Business-to-Business Conferences, Workshops, Masterclasses and online Communities. We create and deliver events in the Defence, Security, Energy, Utilities, Finance and Pharmaceutical industries. We pride ourselves on having access to the worlds most forward thinking opinion leaders and visionaries, allowing us to bring our communities together to Learn, Engage, Share and Network. More information can be found atContact information:1 Westminster Bridge Rd, London SE1 7XWor media enquiries contact Teri Arri on Tel: +44 20 7827 6162 / Email: tarri@smi-online.co.ukTo register onto the event visitor contact James Hitchen on Tel +44 (0) 207 827 6054 / Email jhitchen@smi-online.co.ukFor sponsorship packages contact Justin Predescu Tel: +44 (0) 207 827 6130 / Email: jpredescu@smi-online.co.uk
The report provides in-depth region wise and country wise analysis of the Toxic Shock Market

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Global Toxic Shock Market: Inclusive InsightToxic shock is a rare complication of certain bacterial infections. The main causative agents are Staphylococcus and Streptococcus. This infection is generally associated with the use of tampons, thus, the prevalence is higher in women. Supposedly, the rayon used in tampons causes the toxic shock syndrome, dryness, and ulcerations of the vaginal tissues. However, toxic shock syndrome can also affect men and children. The infection sets when the bacteria enters the body through an opening in the skin such as a cut, sore, or a deep wound. The common symptoms of toxic shock comprises high fever, rapid fall in blood pressure, rashes on body, diarrhea, vomiting, redness of eyes, vagina, and mouth, and seizure. Untreated toxic shock syndrome might also cause organ failure.The market intelligence report is a comprehensive review of the growth trail in terms of current, historical, and future scenarios of the global toxic shock market. It offers an evaluation of the aspects that are expected to influence the development of the market and the primary trends have also been specified in the research study. The research study also offers a broad lookout on the vendor landscape of the market through Porters five forces analysis. The research publication provides references of mergers and acquisitions, the research and development activities, specifics on licensing and collaborations. The report probes into the strategies related to marketing, shares, and product portfolio of the key participants in the global toxic shock market.Request a Brochure of the Report @Global Toxic Shock Market: Insight into Advancements and InnovationsEarly diagnosis of the disease guarantees proper cure. However, delay in the diagnosis or ignorance of the symptoms may lead to organ failure and eventually death. Several initiatives have been commenced for suitable birth control measures in order to avoid staphylococcal and streptococcal infections. Treatment of toxic shock syndrome involves prescription of antibiotics against Streptococcus and Staphylococcus. Cephalosporin, clindamycin, penicillin, gentamicin and vancomycin may be prescribed for treatment of toxic shock syndrome.Although at present the majority of the market is dominated by generic antibiotics, introduction of newer therapy will add more products to the market, thus increasing market potential. Research and development activities are being directed towards the discovery of alternative treatment modes. In one approach, scientists are also trying to develop monoclonal antibodies in order to treat patients with toxic shock syndrome. Peptides can also be targeted to block the activation of T cells by the bacterial toxins. Government initiative for increased awareness for appropriate use of tampons has restricted the prevalence rate of toxic shock syndrome. However due to lower rates of literacy and under developed medical facilities in rural parts of developing countries the prevalence of toxic shock syndrome is higher.Request for TOC of the Report @Global Toxic Shock Market: Focus on Key RegionsThe markets in North America and Europe have reached the saturation almost. Statistics published by Medscape, a U.S. healthcare website suggests that above 90% of the toxic shock syndrome cases in women are in the age group of 15 to 20 years. Although rates of menstrual toxic shock syndrome have declined since ban on hyperabsorbent tampons, incidences due to cross infections still pose a threat. India has a higher percentage of young population as compared to other countries.Read Complete Report @About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact :Rohit BhiseyHead - Internet MarketingTel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Genomics Market is expected to grow exceptionally due to the increased demand for genetically modified animals & plants and rise in the use of Genomics in research and development of new drug classes

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The global genomics market features a vast number of companies from the healthcare industry and several educational institutions, which are enriching the field through their research activities and innovative technologies that could present a more efficient analysis of genomes. Some of the key companies operating in the market are Bayer AG, Affymetrix Inc., Agilent Technologies, Inc., Genomatix Software Inc., Navigenics, Inc., Roche Diagnostics, Myriad Genetics, Inc., QIAGEN, Inc., Illumina, Inc., and GE Healthcare.The market has been examined on regional and global levels and vast qualitative and quantitative details pertaining to key aspects of the market have been included in the study. The report also presents a detailed analysis of the competitive landscape of the market, wherein details for aspects such as profiles of key vendors, recent developments, financial data (wherever available), growth strategies, and association with activities such as mergers and acquisitions are covered.Download a sample copy of Research Report -The global genomics market is chiefly driven by the intensifying level of competition in the global pharmaceutical industry and the increased use of genomics in research and development of new drug classes. An increased demand for genetically modified animals and plants and the constantly reducing prices of genetic procedures are also leading to significant developments in the global genomics market through a rising scope for research and innovation.The use of genomics concepts in the field of synthetic biology, to study gene sequences of plants and living organisms, is expected to leverage the progress made in the field of synthetic cells and DNAs in the near future. Such rise in applications is also expected to lead to vast traction to the global genomics market in the future.The report presents an overview of the market for genomics across regions such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East and Africa. Developed regions such as North America and Europe presently lead the global genomics market owing to the availability of abundant funds and the presence of a large number of companies undertaking research in the field of molecular biology. In Europe, vast initiatives undertaken by the European Union to encourage research in the field of genomics has spurred the rate of growth of the market.In the next few years, the market is expected to witness the most significant development across Asia Pacific owing to strengthening economies of developing countries such as India and China and the increased focus of the respective governments on encouraging research in the field of genomics. Furthermore, the fact that China hosts the worlds largest genomic research institute, the Beijing Genomics Institute, is also helping the Asia Pacific genomics market to sustain its growth rate.Read Related Report:Genomics Personalized Health Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024Genomics in Cancer Care Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024Pharmacogenomics Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2014 - 2020About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a 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. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Magneto Resistive RAM (MRAM) Market - Product Type, Value Chain Analysis, Industry Evolution 2024

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Global Magneto Resistive RAM (MRAM) Market: OverviewMRAM or Magneto-resistive random-access memory technology has been under development since the 1990s. MRAM is a non-volatile random access memory technology that utilizes magnetic charges for storing data instead of electric charges as in the case of DRAM (dynamic random access memory) and SRAM (static random access memory) technologies. Unlike DRAM and SRAM technologies, that requires constant flow of electricity to maintain data integrity, MRAM retains data even if power is turned off and requires very less amount of electricity in order to store data bits in it.MRAM, by combining the inherent advantages of both DRAM in terms of density and SRAM in term of read and write speed has the potential of becoming a universal memory in the coming years. The global MRAM market is predicted to have tremendous growth opportunity in the coming years as a nonvolatile solid state memory in order to replace other electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM) and flash memory where high write endurance is required.Get More Information :Surge in the demand of flexible and wearable electronics market is the primary factor predicted to boost the demand of MRAM during the forecast period from 2016 to 2024. Currently rapid technological advancements is taking place in the field to flexible and wearable consumer electronics. Flexible magnetic memories forms an integral part of the flexile and wearable consumer electronic devices for storing and processing data.Moreover, the major challenge of fabricating high performing memory chips on soft flexible substrates without reducing the performance is also eliminated by technologically advanced MRAM technology. MRAM outperforms the traditional NAND memory used in wearable and flexible electronics in terms of data retention capacity after power cut off, low power consumption along with increased processing speed. In addition, MRAM has the capability of operating in extreme temperature condition and can resist very high radiation. Thus, MRAM is also predicted to witness huge demand from various aerospace and military applications in the coming years.Global Magneto Resistive RAM (MRAM) Market: SegmentationFor the purpose of providing detailed study of the market, the global MRAM market has been segmented on the basis of product type, application and geography. MRAM is available in two different product types including toggle MRAM and second generation MRAM (STT-MRAM). In order to track the market accurately, the third generation MRAM that is predicted to get commercialized by the beginning of 2019, has also been considered within the scope of research. MRAM also finds its application across different product segments such as consumer electronics, robotics, automotive, enterprise storage, aerospace and defense and others. The others segment includes application of MRAM in sensing devices, medical devices and smart meters.Geographically, the market has been segmented into Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, Latin America and Middle-East and Africa (MEA). In terms of revenue and growth, the Asia Pacific region is anticipated to drive the market of MRAM in the coming years due to rapid growth in computationally intensive applications and rising demand for highly scalable memory solutions. Global MRAM market report provides an in-depth study of the current market trend and future forecast during the period from 2016 to 2024 in terms of revenue (USD Million).Global Magneto Resistive RAM (MRAM) Market: Competitive LandscapeThis report also provides an exhaustive study of the global MRAM market including the key strategies adopted by leading players, market attractiveness analysis by product type, value chain analysis, industry evolution and comparative advantage of MRAM over other memory solutions.Moreover, the penetration rate of MRAM across various industry verticals during the period from 2014 to 2018 is also highlighted in this report. In addition, detailed analysis of the drivers, restraints and opportunities that are predicted to affect the market in the coming years is provided in this report. Some of the major players operating in the global MRAM market includes Everspin Technologies Inc. (U.S), Avalanche Technologies (U.S) and Spin Transfer Technologies (U.S) among others.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a 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. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Stretch and Shrink Film Market 2017 - 2024

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Stretch and Shrink Film Market: SnapshotThe global stretch and shrink films market was valued at US$14.1 bn in 2015 and is projected to reach US$21.1 bn by 2024. The sales revenue is expected to rise at a CAGR of 5.2% during the forecast period, owing to the increased demand for packaged foods and beverages. Over the last few years, the industry has witnessed the emergence of multiple players operating globally. However, Transparency Market Research has found that there is an increasing shift in dynamics towards market consolidation.TMR Predicts Limited Growth for Stretch and Shrink Films in Food and Beverages SectorBy product type, the stretch and shrink films market is led by shrink films and the segment is estimated to be most preferred product type throughout the forecast period owing to the rising applications of light-weight packaging films.Get PDF Brochure for more Professional and Technical industry insightsThe low density polyethylene (LDPE) material segment is the leading contributor to the growth of stretch and shrink films market. However, it is projected to lose significant market share to other materials such as PVC, linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE), and polypropylene.Based on end use, the food and beverages sector leads the stretch and shrink films market but is expected to lose market share by the end of the forecast period owing to the mature nature of the industry when it comes to the use of stretch and shrink films.North America, Europe to Lose Market Share to Asia Pacific by 2024On the basis of geography, the global stretch and shrink films market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa (MEA).Asia Pacific is expected to lead the market throughout the forecast period and also register the fastest growth. The stretch and shrink films markets in North America and Europe are rather mature and are expected to lose a significant share of the global market to Asia Pacific. Asia Pacific offers new opportunities for players engaged in manufacturing stretch and shrink films as the region has been witnessing an increase in investments in the manufacturing sector, rapid pace of urbanization, and rising disposal income. Key players operating in developed stretch and shrink films markets such as North America and Europe are focusing on APAC in order to multiply their revenue by optimally utilizing the cheap resources available in India and several ASEAN countries.Europe is expected to witness sluggish growth over the forecast period. Nevertheless, Germany and France are expected to continue contributing to the overall sales of stretch and shrink films in the region. The presence of organized retail outlets in the region is the key factor driving sales in Europe.In MEA, the sales of stretch and shrink films are expected to witness moderate growth during the forecast period, with most of the demand stemming from GCC countries.Key participants in the stretch and shrink film market include Anchor Packaging, Berry Plastics, AEP Industries Inc., Bemis Company Inc., Dow Chemical Company, E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Co (DuPont), FUJI Seal International Inc, and Intertape Polymer Group Inc.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a 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. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Data Center Cooling (DCC) Solutions Market 2016-2020: Global Market Trends, Survey and Opportunities

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Albany, NY, Feb 09, 2017: Cooling solutions are used in data centers worldwide to lower the heat generated by IT equipment. Data centers operate CRAC and CRAH units, including air conditioners, chillers, cooling towers, economizers, humidifiers, and modern containment systems that offer rack cooling. These cooling units involve the use of air and liquid-based cooling techniques. As the cooling process accounts for 40% of the power consumed in data centers, vendors are innovating and testing techniques to reduce the operational expenditure associated.The global data center cooling solutions market to grow at a CAGR of 12.05% during the period 2016-2020. The report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global data center cooling market for 2015-2020. To calculate the market size, the report considers revenue generated from the investments made in new data centers and the renovation of existing ones.The market is divided into the following segments based on cooling technique:- Air-based cooling- Liquid-based coolingGet a Sample Research PDF with TOC:Technavio's report, Global Data Center Cooling Solutions 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- 3M- 4Energy- Alfa Laval- Black Box Network Services- Daikin Industries- Eaton- ebm-papst- Emerson Network Power- Rittal- Schneider Electric- STULZOther prominent vendors- AIRSYS- Asetek- Chatsworth Products- ClimateWorx- Colt- Denso (MOVINCool)- Ecosaire- Fuji Electric- Huawei- Motivair- QCooling- Tripp-LiteEnquiry at:Key questions answered in this report- What will the market size be in 2020 and what will the growth rate be?- What are the key market trends?- What is driving this market?- What are the challenges to market growth?- Who are the key vendors in this market space?- What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?- What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?ResearchMoz is the worlds fastest growing collection of market research reports worldwide. Our database is composed of current market studies from over 100 featured publishers worldwide. Our market research databases integrate statistics with analysis from global, regional, country and company perspectives. ResearchMozs service portfolio also includes value-added services such as market research customization, competitive landscaping, and in-depth surveys, delivered by a team of experienced Research Coordinators.Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn at:
Global Vegetable-based Mould Release Oil Market- BP Plc, Cargill, Eurol BV and FUCHS PETROLUB AG

Vegetable-based Mould Release Oil

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This report studies Vegetable-based Mould Release Oil in Global market, especially in North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia and India, focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with capacity, production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, coveringBP Plc (UK)Cargill, Incorporated (US)Chevron Corporation (US)Eurol BV (The Netherlands)ExxonMobil Corporation (US)FUCHS PETROLUB AG (Germany)Henkel AG & Co. KGaA (Germany)KAJO Chemie GmbH (Germany)The market research report by QY Research provides detailed study on the overall Vegetable-based Mould Release Oil market size, its financial positions, its unique selling points, key products, and key developments. This research report has segmented the Vegetable-based Mould Release Oil market based on the segments covering all the domains in terms of type, country, region, forecasting revenues, and market share, along with analysis of latest trends in every sub-segment.Request for FREE SAMPLE ReportThe qualitative segmentation of Vegetable-based Mould Release Oil market covered in the report gives in-depth information of the overall market. Furthermore, the market size, share, forecast trends, analysis, sales, supply, production, demand, major manufacturers, end-users, and many other vital factors are comprised in the Market Research Vegetable-based Mould Release Oil report by QY Research. By these comprehensive data, it is simple to take and make precise and accurate decisions taking into consideration the present market situation and the forecasts of the global market, which in turn may result into profitable step for our clients.A competitive landscape that identifies the major competitors of the global market and their market share are further highlighted in the research report. A deliberate profiling of major competitors of the Vegetable-based Mould Release Oil market as well as a inclusive analysis of their current developments, core competencies, and investments in each segment are also elaborated in the research report.Browse Full Report at @The overall information of the Vegetable-based Mould Release Oil market provided in the report helps our client to make precise and accurate decisions in order to gain maximum profit in this cutthroat competition in the global market. The report comprises various elements such as table, figure, charts, TOCs, chapters, and so on so as to provide a crystal clear data to the client giving a brief of the market and its trends. Thus, the report provides in-depth information of the Vegetable-based Mould Release Oil market in terms of revenue, value, volume, region, and many more.About Us:QYResearch Group is a single destination for all the industry, company and country reports. QYResearch Group also carries the capability to assist you with your customized market research requirements including in-depth market surveys, primary interviews, competitive landscaping, and company profiles. We feature large repository of latest industry reports, leading and niche company profiles, and market statistics. QYResearch Group is the comprehensive collection of market intelligence products and services available on air.Contact US:Joel John3422 SW 15 Street, Suit #8138,Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442,United StatesTel: +1-386-310-3803GMT Tel: +49-322 210 92714USA/Canada Toll Free No. 1-855-465-4651
Global Palm Oil Market- Ivomas, IOI, Genting Group, KLK, London Sumatra and WILMAR

Palm Oil

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This report studies Palm Oil in Global market, especially in North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia and India, focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with capacity, production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, coveringFelda Global VenturesSime Darby PlantationGolden Agri ResourcesIvomasRGE PteIOIGenting GroupBumitama AgriThe market research report by QY Research provides detailed study on the overall Palm Oil market size, its financial positions, its unique selling points, key products, and key developments. This research report has segmented the Palm Oil market based on the segments covering all the domains in terms of type, country, region, forecasting revenues, and market share, along with analysis of latest trends in every sub-segment.Request for FREE SAMPLE ReportThe qualitative segmentation of Palm Oil market covered in the report gives in-depth information of the overall market. Furthermore, the market size, share, forecast trends, analysis, sales, supply, production, demand, major manufacturers, end-users, and many other vital factors are comprised in the Market Research Palm Oil report by QY Research. By these comprehensive data, it is simple to take and make precise and accurate decisions taking into consideration the present market situation and the forecasts of the global market, which in turn may result into profitable step for our clients.A competitive landscape that identifies the major competitors of the global market and their market share are further highlighted in the research report. A deliberate profiling of major competitors of the Palm Oil market as well as a inclusive analysis of their current developments, core competencies, and investments in each segment are also elaborated in the research report.Browse Full Report at @The overall information of the Palm Oil market provided in the report helps our client to make precise and accurate decisions in order to gain maximum profit in this cutthroat competition in the global market. The report comprises various elements such as table, figure, charts, TOCs, chapters, and so on so as to provide a crystal clear data to the client giving a brief of the market and its trends. Thus, the report provides in-depth information of the Palm Oil market in terms of revenue, value, volume, region, and many more.About Us:QYResearch Group is a single destination for all the industry, company and country reports. QYResearch Group also carries the capability to assist you with your customized market research requirements including in-depth market surveys, primary interviews, competitive landscaping, and company profiles. We feature large repository of latest industry reports, leading and niche company profiles, and market statistics. QYResearch Group is the comprehensive collection of market intelligence products and services available on air.Contact US:Joel John3422 SW 15 Street, Suit #8138,Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442,United StatesTel: +1-386-310-3803GMT Tel: +49-322 210 92714USA/Canada Toll Free No. 1-855-465-4651
Global Nitrophosphate Fertilizer Market- Fatima Fertilizer, DFPCL, GNFC, Tianji and Jinkai

Nitrophosphate Fertilizer

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This report studies Nitrophosphate Fertilizer in Global market, especially in North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia and India, focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with capacity, production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, coveringFatima FertilizerDFPCLGNFCTianjiGuizhou KailinJinkaiThe market research report by QY Research provides detailed study on the overall Nitrophosphate Fertilizer market size, its financial positions, its unique selling points, key products, and key developments. This research report has segmented the Nitrophosphate Fertilizer market based on the segments covering all the domains in terms of type, country, region, forecasting revenues, and market share, along with analysis of latest trends in every sub-segment.Request for FREE SAMPLE ReportThe qualitative segmentation of Nitrophosphate Fertilizer market covered in the report gives in-depth information of the overall market. Furthermore, the market size, share, forecast trends, analysis, sales, supply, production, demand, major manufacturers, end-users, and many other vital factors are comprised in the Market Research Nitrophosphate Fertilizer report by QY Research. By these comprehensive data, it is simple to take and make precise and accurate decisions taking into consideration the present market situation and the forecasts of the global market, which in turn may result into profitable step for our clients.A competitive landscape that identifies the major competitors of the global market and their market share are further highlighted in the research report. A deliberate profiling of major competitors of the Nitrophosphate Fertilizer market as well as a inclusive analysis of their current developments, core competencies, and investments in each segment are also elaborated in the research report.Browse Full Report at @The overall information of the Nitrophosphate Fertilizer market provided in the report helps our client to make precise and accurate decisions in order to gain maximum profit in this cutthroat competition in the global market. The report comprises various elements such as table, figure, charts, TOCs, chapters, and so on so as to provide a crystal clear data to the client giving a brief of the market and its trends. Thus, the report provides in-depth information of the Nitrophosphate Fertilizer market in terms of revenue, value, volume, region, and many more.About Us:QYResearch Group is a single destination for all the industry, company and country reports. QYResearch Group also carries the capability to assist you with your customized market research requirements including in-depth market surveys, primary interviews, competitive landscaping, and company profiles. We feature large repository of latest industry reports, leading and niche company profiles, and market statistics. QYResearch Group is the comprehensive collection of market intelligence products and services available on air.Contact US:Joel John3422 SW 15 Street, Suit #8138,Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442,United StatesTel: +1-386-310-3803GMT Tel: +49-322 210 92714USA/Canada Toll Free No. 1-855-465-4651
Speedy Innovations in Artificial Intelligence Technology to Drive Worldwide Chatbot Market

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he global chatbot market is expected to gain a tremendous momentum owing to the rapid developments made in the field of artificial intelligence over the last few years. Large end-user enterprises are benefitting from the easy implementation of high-end artificial intelligence in common consumer electronics, which is allowing them to attain a wider consumer base than before.On the flip side, there are several key hosting issues associated with chatbots, including chatbot monitoring, management, integration, and security and are yet to be resolved despite technological advancements. The inability of hosts to offer appropriate solutions for these facilities is deterring several enterprises from capitalizing the growth of the global chatbot market.Get More Information :According to a report by Transparency Market Research (TMR), the opportunity in the market was pegged at US$113.0 mn in 2015 and is poised to reach US$994.5 mn by 2024, expanding at a noteworthy CAGR of 27.8% between 2016 and 2024.Proliferation of Chatbot-as-a-service to Offer Immense Growth PotentialThe global chatbot market is receiving a significant boost from the proliferation of online messaging applications and the overall rising scope of applications found for chatbots across various industries. The increasing adoption of chatbot-as-a-service is anticipated to become a key area of opportunities for companies operating in the market. The rising and seemingly irreplaceable involvement of cloud-based services across the majority of industry verticals is creating an imperative need for incorporating it within the global chatbot market.Browse Latest Report atHigher Pace of Technological Advancements to Fuel Growth of North AmericaNorth America will continue to account for the dominant share in revenue pie until 2024, with the U.S. being the leading contributor. Due to rapid technological advancements, the region is estimated to lead the market in terms of growth rate in demand as well during the forecast period. Asia Pacific is likely to exhibit a significant growth in its demand for chatbot, due to the robust growth of the ICT infrastructure within its emerging economies such as India and China. The rising penetration of smartphones is another factor augmenting the growth of the region.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a 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. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Alcohol Market to be driven by surging demand for Ethanol and Methanol

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Alcohol refers to compounds that have a minimum of one hydroxyl group that is attached a single bonded alkane. The global alcohol market is a continuously growing one, with its increasing applications across various industries. Biological fermentation, hydration reactions, and oxo processes are the three main methods that are used extensively in the production of alcohol.The demand for alcoholic beverages is on the rise and is expected to surge in the years to come. The key companies operating in the global alcohol market are Glacial Lakes Energy LLC, Absolute Energy LLC, Aventine Renewable Energy-Pekin, and Methanex Corporation.View exclusive Global strategic Business report:Demand for Ethanol to drive the Global Alcohol MarketThe global alcohol market is segmented on the basis of type of alcohols, applications, and geography. On the basis of type of alcohol, this market is categorized into ethanol, butanol, methanol, sorbitol, xylitol, ethylene glycol, and pentanol. The market for ethanol is by far the largest, since it is the most widely used variety of alcohol all over the world. 100 billion liters is the global consumption of ethanol, out of which more than 80 billion liters is used as fuel. The high demand for ethanol can be attributed to it being considered a renewable fuel and also the fact that it is used as a substitute for gasoline.High demand for ethanol as a fuel is a key factor that drives the global alcohol market. Much of the demand for ethanol also comes from industries such as cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and alcoholic beverages. In the healthcare sector, ethanol is used as a skin disinfectant for invasive procedures and injections. Also, because of its highly volatile nature, ethanol is a crucial ingredient in hand sanitizers and soaps. Based on applications, the global alcohol market is segmented into antiseptics, antifreeze, preservatives, fuels, solvents, and alcoholic beverages.Expanding Automotive and Pharmaceuticals Markets to Propel the Methanol MarketAnother extensively used type of alcohol in the industrial segment is methanol. Over the past couple of years, the market for methanol has been expanding significantly. Methanol is an important component of formaldehyde that is used extensively in industries such as wood and resins, pharmaceuticals, and automotive. The other chemicals that use methanol as an intermediate component are acetic acid, dimethyl terephthalate, methyl chloride, and methyl methacrylate.High demand for methanol from several end-use industries drives the global market for alcohol. Acetic acid is mainly used in industries such as adhesives and fleece, and paints and coatings. The demand for dimethyl terephthalate comes from the market for recyclable plastic bottles. Methyl chloride is used in the production of silicone, which is used in medical applications, lubricants, sealants, and adhesives.North America: Dominant Regional MarketGeographically, the global alcohol market is segmented into Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Africa, and the Middle East. Brazil, Europe, and the U.S. are by far the largest consumers of ethanol as a fuel. The demand for ethanol in the Asia Pacific market is expected to increase substantially in the forecast period. Also, the demand for alcoholic beverages is increasing in Asia Pacific and is projected to increase in the forthcoming years as well.In terms of production, North America holds the highest share in the global alcohol market. The other prominent regional players in the global alcohol market are Asia Pacific, Europe, and South America. Also, Brazil and the U.S. are the largest manufacturers of ethanol in the global alcohol market.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a 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. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Bottled Water Market Market sales is growing USD 280.0 Bn by 2020

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Zion Research has published a new report titled Bottled Water (Still, Carbonated, Flavored and Functional Bottled Water) Market: Global Industry Perspective, Comprehensive Analysis, and Forecast, 2014 - 2020. According to the report, the global bottled water market was valued at approximately USD 170.0 billion in 2014 and is expected to reach approximately USD 280.0 billion by 2020, growing at a CAGR of around 8.5% between 2015 and 2020. In terms of volume, global bottled water market stood at around 290.0 billion liters in 2014.Request Sample Report:Water is an incredibly important aspect of daily lives. Bottled water is a necessary and reliable way to deliver safe drinking water. There are various types of bottled water such as spring water, purified water, mineral water, ground water and others. Bottled water is packaged in plastic or glass bottles. Bottled water can be carbonated or not. Bottled water offers good taste, quality, and convenienceThe global bottled water market is mainly driven by increased health awareness and changing consumer life style. The bottled water market is expected to witness rapid growth fueled by strong demand for clean, flavored and hygienic drinking water. Other important factors driving the bottled water market are advancement in user friendly packaging. Strong growth of tourism industry and portability of hygienic bottled water is also expected to trigger demand of bottled water. However, stringent regulations regarding packaging of water and bottled water standards is expected to hamper the growth of the market to some extent. Moreover, easy availability of tap water and rising concerns with regarding increasing plastic waste is expected to present challenge for industry participants.Browse the full "Bottled water (Still, Carbonated, Flavored and Functional Bottled Water) Market: Global Industry Perspective, Comprehensive Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Segment, Trends and Forecast, 2014  2020" report atStill, carbonated, flavored and functional bottled water are the key product segments of the bottled water market. The still bottled water product segment held the largest share in the global bottled water market and accounted over 60% share in overall consumption in 2014. However, still bottled water segment is expected to exhibit moderate growth during the forecast period. Carbonated was the second largest segment of the bottled water market in 2014. Carbonated bottled water is expected to witness slight decline in its market share in the years to come. Flavored and functional water segment are also expected to witness rapid growth during the forecast period. Rapid growth of bottled water market can be attributed to rising concern regarding health & wellness.Asia Pacific was the leading regional market for bottled water, with over 30% share of total consumption in 2014. Huge population, strong economical growth, increasing disposable income, coupled with changing lifestyle has been resulted into strong growth of bottled water market in Asia Pacific region. Asia Pacific is expected to remain major regional market for bottled water during the next five years. North America and Europe are expected grow at a moderate pace forecast period. However, North America and Europe are expected to experience decline its market share during the forecast period. Latin America and Middle East are also expected to witness robust growth of bottled water market in the years to come.Do Inquiry before buying:Some of the key players in the global bottled water market include Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo, Inc., Nestle Waters, Ajegroup SA, Groupe Danone, CG Roxane, LLC, Fonti Di Vinadio S.P.A., LLC, Icelandic Water Holdings ehf., Suntory Beverage & Food Ltd, HassiaWaters International GmbH & Co. KG, Grupo Vichy Catalan and Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co., Ltd.This report segments the global bottled water market as follows:Global Bottled Water Market: Product Segment AnalysisStillCarbonatedFlavoredFunctionalGlobal Bottled Water Market: Regional Segment AnalysisNorth AmericaU.S.EuropeGermanyFranceUKAsia PacificChinaJapanIndiaLatin AmericaBrazilMiddle East and AfricaAbout UsZion Market Research is an obligated company. We create futuristic, cutting edge, informative reports ranging from industry reports, company reports to country reports. We provide our clients not only with market statistics unveiled by avowed private publishers and public organizations but also with vogue and newest industry reports along with pre-eminent and niche company profiles. Our database of market research reports comprises a wide variety of reports from cardinal industries. Our database is been updated constantly in order to fulfill our clients with prompt and direct online access to our database. Keeping in mind the clients needs, we have included expert insights on global industries, products, and market trends in this database. Last but not the least, we make it our duty to ensure the success of clients connected to usafter allif you do well, a little of the light shines on us.Contact US:Joel John3422 SW 15 Street, Suit #8138Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442United StatesToll Free: +1-855-465-4651 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-386-310-3803Email: sales@marketresearchstore.comWebsite:
New Study Reveals Global Pharmaceutical Excipients Market Analysis 2017-2021 | Researchmoz

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Pharmaceutical Excipients Market 2017-2021" to its huge collection of research reports.Technavios analysts forecast the global pharmaceutical excipients market to grow at a CAGR of 6.53% during the period 2017-2021.Pharmaceutical excipients are inert substances that are generally used to manufacture different forms of drugs and are present in the finished products. Excipients help in providing long-term stability and make solid formulations bulkier. They also improve the functionality of drugs and make them safer.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global pharmaceutical excipients market for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report considers the sales of pharmaceutical excipients based on their functionalities, which include binders and fillers, coating agents, disintegrants, flavoring agents and colorants, glidants and lubricants, preservatives and antioxidants, sweeteners and others.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:AmericasAPACEMEATo Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Technavio's report, Global Pharmaceutical Excipients Market 2017-2021, 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 vendorsADMAshlandBASFEvonik IndustriesDow ChemicalOther prominent vendorsAssociated British FoodsFMCLubrizolRoquette PharmaMarket driverGrowth in the pharmaceutical industryFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challengeDecreasing R&D expendituresFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trendDemand for new excipients to develop easily consumable drugsFor a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this reportWhat will the market size be in 2021 and what will the growth rate be?What are the key market trends?What is driving this market?What are the challenges to market growth?Who are the key vendors in this market space?What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?Make an Enquiry of this report @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
Ecosomb Technologies Announced To Offer WebRTC Client Solution for Corporate World

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Ecosmob Technologies is a well-known name in the VoIP industry. The company has its headquarter in Ahmedabad city of Gujarat, India. The company has been offering different services and solutions in the VoIP industry for more than 9 years. The company is also renowned for its contribution, and expertise in the VoIP industry. The WebRTC technology has been one of the areas where the company excels. This is evident from the published interviews with the director, Ruchir Brahmbhatt, of the company on different news media sites. The company has been offering industry specific solutions in WebRTC. Recently, spokesperson of Ecosmob Technologies has announced to offer the custom WebRTC client solution development for the corporate world.The WebRTC client solution is a browser to browser communication solution which can be used by corporate offices and enterprises to provide quick and flexible communication channel to their staff, customers, prospects, vendors and other business entities. As per the details shared by the spokesperson of Ecosmob Technologies, the corporate world faces the need of massive communication. The WebRTC client solution will not only satisfy this communication need but also remove the communication cost. As this solution uses the browser to browser calling which is absolutely free. Even for international calls, corporate companies will not need to invest a single penny. Moreover, the WebRTC client solution for corporate world offers different modes of communication including:Audio callVideo callInstant messagingThis will provide all required mode of communication to the companies.The WebRTC client solution for corporate world has brought amazing benefits to this industry vertical. All offered communication features along with screen sharing and image sharing. This helps in offering complete communication software to corporate industry. They will be empowered to offer not only internal communication among their staff members, but will also be able to use this communication channel to provide demonstrations and Knowledge Transfer of their products to their clients and prospects. This WebRTC client solution can work amazingly for all required communication of any corporate office or company. Also, this solution supports remote communication in real time. This further helps in improving productivity. Now, the employees of the company can communicate with each other even from home or from the location of their business tour., shared spokesperson of Ecosmob Technologies.The company offers custom development service of WebRTC Client solution for the corporate world. To know more about this solution and offering,visit:As a leading Business VoIP solutions provider Ecosmob Technologies Pvt. Ltd started in 2007 with a focused approach to serve best-in-class IT solutions and services. With profound expertise in different technologies, Ecosmob renders huge assortment of solutions, services and products.407 Queensbridge Rd., #1018Arlington, TX 76014USA: +1-303-997-3139
Global Butter And Margarine Market to Grow Fast till 2023 Driven by High Margarine Consumption

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According to World Obesity, over 33% of men and nearly 36% of women in the United States are obese. This factor is expected to heavily influence consumer dynamics in the global butter and margarine market.The global butter and margarine market is poised to be in a better position in the next eight years. Market analysts expect that the increased consumption of margarine will lead to the steady growth of the global butter and margarine market from 2015 to 2023.The global butter and margarine market has seen a major transformation in the first half of 2015. Margarine, which is used as a perfect alternative to butter, is preferred by people across the globe. Though the properties of margarine differ from that of butter, it has been in demand since the past few years. While butter is made up of proteins, butterfat, and water, margarine consists of refined vegetable oil. For cooking and baking, margarine is becoming the favorite choice amongst many people across the globe as it is perceived to be less fatty than butter.View exclusive Global strategic Business report:Margarine Driving Global Butter and Margarine MarketMargarine has clearly been the driving factor for the global butter and margarine market. A fast-growing food industry has helped the global butter and margarine market to grow further. Product innovation from across all Asia Pacific regions is another important factor that has driven the market. The global butter and margarine market is especially strong in countries such as Asia Pacific, U.K., North America, and Latin America. Changing consumer habits from across all these regions has resulted in the growth of the global butter and margarine market.According to recent report, China leads the Asia Pacific market for butter and margarine. There have been drastic changes in consumer preferences. People now prefer natural food over processed food. As margarine is prepared from natural vegetable oil, it has been globally accepted and preferred over butter. The global butter and margarine market has also been driven by increasing home baking trends.Products with Natural Ingredients Present Massive Opportunity in Butter and Margarine MarketObesity is emerging as a major problem in several countries. As obesity leads to many health issues, people have become health conscious. In the backdrop of rising obesity rates, the demand for butter and margarine has reduced in most of the developed countries. Health awareness programs spread across all regions have made people realize the importance of healthy living. To support the health management programs, governments have placed many regulations on the consumption of butter and margarine. Companies in the global butter and margarine market are coming up with natural-extract products to beat the market restraints. With ingredients such as natural vegetable oil, the global butter and margarine market is set to grow during the forecast period.The global butter and margarine market, according to usage, is segmented into two types, namely spreadable and non-spreadable market. On the basis of products, the global butter and margarine market is categorized into cream butter, whipped, uncultured butter, liquid margarines, cultured butter, and butter margarines.The global butter and margarine market is dominated by small companies that introduce health products to match the needs of health conscious people. Farmers Co-operative Creamery, Kraft Foods, Amul India, Friesland Campina, Deam Foods Company, and Arla Foods are some of the players that operate in the global butter and margarine market.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a 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. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Winning Imperatives of the Key Players in the Artificial Intelligence Market

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The global artificial intelligence (AI) market has been expanding in leaps and bounds thanks to its rising applications in deep learning, image recognition, querying method, gesture control, speech recognition, cyber security, smart robots, digital personal assistant, language processing, video analysis, and context aware processing. These applications are poised to drive the global artificial intelligence market to increase from a value of US$126.2 bn in 2015 to US$3,061.3 bn by 2024 at an astounding 36.10% CAGR between 2016 and 2024.Despite the many advantages that AI offers, there are several challenges that hamper the growth of the market. These include the difficulties in accumulating funds for early-stage research and development, the low upfront investments across the globe, and the dearth of skilled workforce with highly technical abilities.Get More Information :Concerned Researchers Explore Risks of Artificial IntelligenceArtificial intelligences foray into almost every facet of society is evident from its presence in the area of workplace machine learning and automation and several other enterprise applications such as automotive and mobile. And while this venture of AI into different verticals of various industries has been both predicted and remarkable, it has also caused a certain degree of trepidation among particular groups of researchers and scientists.Inability to Improve Living Conditions: A recent survey of various artificial intelligence and cognitive science researchers has revealed that the most disturbing long- and short-term risks of artificial intelligence are the mismanagement of AI by human beings and the economic and financial harm that it may cause. Dr. Joscha Bach of the Harvard Program for Evolutionary Dynamics and the MIT Media Lab explains that even though automation through artificial intelligence will enhance productivity, it will not improve the living conditions. In fact, it might hasten resource exhaustion and pollution if appropriate regulations are not in place.AI a Threat to Human Workforce: A professor emeritus at Stanford University Dr. Nils Nilsson warns that considering the way artificial intelligence has crept into almost every sphere of the workplace, the next industrial revolution might very well be the last one ushered in by humans with their own direct doing. Dr. Nilsson states that machines would soon be singing the song, Anything you can do, I can do better.Mismanagement of AI by Human Beings: Yet another risk that researchers are worried about is the general mismanagement of artificial intelligence and this is evident by the US$1 bn investment into supporting OpenAI. OpenAI is a non-profit research organization that explores the positive impact of AI technologies on humans. Associate professor at Simon Fraser University, Philippe Pasquier says that the risks of malfunction with negative consequences have been increasing as artificial agents are being deployed at a much faster rate with way more responsibilities than is deemed necessary.Browse Press Release:It is extremely difficult to fathom how much damage artificial intelligence could do if it is built or used incorrectly. This concern is one of the most damning challenges that the global artificial intelligence market faces today.About UsTransparency 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.Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
New report analyses the US Market for Smart Home Controller Platforms.

https://www.reportsworldwide.com/report/smart-home-controllers-platforms-competitive-analysis

https://www.reportsworldwide.com/enquiry?report_id=3608

The Market Research Report Smart Home Controllers: Competitive Analysis provides an analysis of the smart home controller market by controller segment, distribution channel, and capabilities. The report identifies trends, drivers, and inhibitors as well as offering current sales numbers and forecasts through 2020. In addition, the report provides competitor information for a set of representative smart home controller manufacturers and providers.Smart Home Controllers focus is the U.S. marketplace. As this point in time, the U.S. is the region with the most activity in smart home systems, in large part the result of the markets active pursuit by U.S. security manufacturers and providers.To view a detailed description and Table of Contents please visit:Key topics covered in this report:1.0 Report Summary1.1 Purpose of Report1.2 Scope of Report1.3 Research Approach/Sources1.4 Smart Home Definitions2.0 Smart Home Technology Overview2.1 Smart Home Value Chain3.0 Smart Home Controller Market Overview3.1 Market Drivers and Inhibitors3.1.1 Drivers3.1.2 Inhibitors3.2 Market Segments3.3 The Role of Distribution for Smart Home Controllers3.4 Market Trends4.0 Profiles of Selected Custom-Installed Smart Home Systems4.1 Savant (Q3 2016)4.2 Lutron (Q3 2016)4.3 Control4 (Q3 2016)4.4 RTI Corp (Q3 2016)4.5 ElanPart of CORE Brands, a Nortek Company (Q3 2016)4.6 Comcast Xfinity (Q3 2016)4.7 AT&T Digital Life (Q3 2016)4.8 ADT Security (Q3 2016)4.9 Samsung SmartThings (Q3 2016)4.10 Wink (Q3 2016)4.11 Logitech Harmony (Q3 2016)5.0 Consumer Adoption of Home Control Systems5.1 Demographics6.0 Forecast6.1 Forecast Methodology and Assumptions6.2 Forecast of Smart Home Controllers7.0 RecommendationsCEDIA (Custom Installers/Systems integrators) Channel RecommendationsMass-market Recommendations8.0 Appendix8.1 Glossary8.2 Index8.3 Image SourcesTo Enquire about this Report please visit @About ReportsWorldwide.comReportsWorldwide.com is a leading provider of global market intelligence reports and services. With research reports from top publishers, consulting and advisory firms, ReportsWorldwide.com offers instant online access to a growing database of expert insights on global industries, companies, products, geographies and trends.Press Contact:Abigail CrastoSenior Vice President101, Arch StreetBoston, MA 02110USPhone +1 (617) 398-4994Fax +1 (617) 398-4995abigail@reportsworldwide.com
Are you prepared for overvoltage? KACO new energy equips inverters with additional safety function.

blueplanet 20.0 TL3: well-prepared for surge protection requirements.

www.kaco-newenergy.com

www.kaco-newenergy.com

Neckarsulm, 9. February 2017  Increased measures against overvoltage will be required from photovoltaic systems in future. In preparation for this, German inverter manufacturer, KACO new energy GmbH, is extending its product range in the medium power class. Three inverters are equipped as standard for fitting with overvoltage protection of Type 1+2.To protect photovoltaic systems against damage caused by overvoltage, KACO new energy GmbH offers three inverters with the corresponding safety function. These inverters are supplied as standard with an SPD (Surge Protection Device) socket. The appropriate device for overvoltage protection can be fitted into the socket as required. Type 1+2 SPDs are also available to order from KACO new energy. Installers can easily and safely insert them into the SPD socket as a plug-and-play solution when installing the inverter.Two of the inverters are the existing models, Powador 12.0 TL3 and blueplanet 20.0 TL3, and will be available as SPD versions from March 2017 onwards. The third inverter is the new blueplanet 15.0 TL3, which will be supplied with the pre-fitted socket from its market launch in July 2017. If the decision for protection against overvoltage is only made after initial installation, the combined SPD fitting can also be ordered and retrofitted later. There is also no downside for buyers if the surge protection device is not used: the socket is included at no additional charge.With this move, the German inverter manufacturer is extending its range of products which integrate overvoltage protection: Inverters of higher power classes, up to 60 kilowatts, have already been available in SPD versions for some time.The rising demand for lightning and overvoltage protection is due to the fact that insurance providers increasingly require protective measures for solar power systems on rooftops and solar farms. In addition, national regulations governing overvoltage protection are already in place in several European countries  including the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland.About KACO new energyKACO new energy is one of the worlds largest manufacturers of inverters for grid feed-in of solar power. Its product range covers the full power spectrum, from systems designed for a single family home to those for solar parks that produce megawatts of electricity. Since 1999, KACO, based in Neckarsulm, Germany, has supplied inverters with a cumulative power output of nine gigawatts. KACO new energy is the first company in the photovoltaic industry to achieve CO2-neutral production. Our technology offering extends from grid- and battery-connected solar inverters to inverters for combined heat and power plants and concentrator modules, as well as energy storage systems for solar power systems. In 2014 the firm celebrated the 100th birthday of the original parent company that, at the end of the 1930s, was one of first ever inverter manufacturers.More atContact:KACO new energy GmbHKornelia LauserHead of Global MarketingCarl-Zeiss-Str. 174172 Neckarsulm, GermanyGermanyTel. +49 7132 3818-0Fax +49 7132 3818-703pr@kaco-newenergy.de
Cultured Sugar/Vinegar Market Global Analysis by 2026

http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/12229

http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/12229

http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com

Cultured sugar/ Vinegar is a food additives used in variety of food products, from meat, poultry products to salad dressing, and it is used to extend shelf life. Vinegar is often used as a natural preservative in poultry items and processed meat. Processing of different types of meats for feeding the global population has paced up speedily because of the rapid increase in globalization. Demand for high protein food and trend for ready to eat meat products are driving the global cultured sugar/vinegar market.in developing countries rise in the income of middle class consumers is growing the demand for convenience foods and ultimately driving the cultured sugar/vinegar market. To increase the consumer appeal many food producers are preferring the use of cultured sugar/ vinegar for obtaining food safety and prolonged shelf life. This application of cultured sugar/vinegar is good for consumers and extended shelf life in such products will optimize the supply chain efficiency and costs too. Increase in beverage industry across the globe is also anticipated to drive the cultured sugar/vinegar market as it prevents microbial spoilage in beverages.Rising popularity of bakery products due to changing food consumption trends will benefit the cultured sugar/vinegar market as cultured sugar is used for a function of mold inhabitation in baked goods. Also growth in market for culinary such as dressing and dips, sauces, salad and sandwich spreads etc. is likely to drive the cultured sugar/ vinegar market in near future. Cultured sugar/vinegar is used as agent which helps in suppressing bacteria and pathogens in food. However lack of awareness about the processing technology and modern methods in developing countries are the main hindrances in the growth of global cultured sugar/ vinegar market. in addition to this economic crises faced by many countries of the world and health risk associated with the processed foodstuffs are the factors which act a restraints for cultured sugar/vinegar market.A sample of this report is available upon request @In terms of geography, the global cultured sugar/vinegar market has been divided in to five key regions including North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Middle East & Africa. The global cultured sugar/vinegar market is expected to register healthy CAGR during the forecast period. North America is anticipated to be the dominant market for global cultured sugar/vinegar market followed by Asia Pacific and Europe. The market in Asia-Pacific region is expected to grow at highest CAGR over the forecast period.Some of the key players in the global cultured sugar/vinegar market are Corbion, PROTERIA etc.Request to view table of content @The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections done using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to categories such as market segments, geographies, type, machine size and end use.About UsPersistence 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.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Honey Powder Market Expand Their Businesses With New Investments

http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/12328

http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/12328

http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com

Honey powder which can be used as a sweetener, is just a powder form of liquid honey. The powder is easier to maintain and can preserve well than a liquid honey. The powder form of honey is preferred to be used while making cakes, pastries and other sweet edible items. It is always a better option than a sticky liquid honey and sugar free powders particularly, which credibility is still questionable. An interesting thing about honey powder is, it has long preserving life, if it stored properly. The global honey powder market is projected to show sustained growth during the 10-year period owing to several factors and trends likely to positively impact the performance of the global honey powder market.Honey powder can be used in bath and beauty products like facial masks, scrub, soap, lotions etc. It can be sprinkled over cereal or fruit and cakes. Its antiseptic properties heals the small injuries. The most beneficial factor of honey is, it has medicinal quality. As honey powder is better in dissolving in almost any food items so it can also be used in medicines, especially cough syrups. The honey powder has low calories, therefore, it can be added in a cup of tea or a coffee or even in a green tea rather than sugar powders which are less trustworthy. It is completely organic and natural, hence better than artificial sweeteners. Honey powder is slightly cheaper than its liquid form, which can be easily available in a bag in almost all grocery shops.A sample of this report is available upon request @The organic lifestyle is a fast growing trend. The consumers prefer easy, healthy and environment friendly organic food and natural beauty products. United States, Germany, France, Canada and United Kingdom are some of the countries which have largest market for organic foods. Even the various e-commerce companies are preferring to sell variety of gourmet products and honey powder is one of them. Consumers love for bakery products like cake, muffins, cookies and bread is increasing the demand of honey powder in global market. Not only this, its natural quality of smoothening the skin is also attracting the beauty product manufacturers to make more beauty products using honey powder. Although honey powder is fairly new to the American food market, it has been used in Korean kitchens since long time. It is used as sugar substitute in Korea. These are the main trends likely to be observed in the global honey powder market.Request to view table of content @Chanel, PIAS, Anna Sui, Benefit Cosmetics, Laura Mercier, Guerlain, Max Factor, Shu Uemura, ABLE C & C are the major manufacturers of honey powder.About UsPersistence 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.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Food Colorants Market Expecting Worldwide Growth by 2024

http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/12349

http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/12349

http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com

Food colorants are coloring additives also known as dye or pigments which are added to food or beverages to impart color and give an attractive appearance to the food and beverages. Food colorants are added in the food and beverages to maintain and improve safety, freshness, nutritional value, taste, texture and appearance of foods and beverages. Natural colorants segment is expected to hold a significant market share in terms of value owing to easily availability of fruits and vegetables. The global food colorants market is anticipated to witness significant CAGR during the forecast period.Easily availability of raw materials such as fruits and vegetables and edible plants, coupled with rising consumer demand for natural colorants, which is driving the growth of global food colorants market. Furthermore, increasing applications of food colorants in food and beverage industry is expected to boost the consumption of food colorants. In addition, increasing consumer demand for processed foods leads to increase consumption of food colorants.However, stringent and expensive certifications and regulations regarding use of food colorants, and side effects associated with synthetic colors on health are expected to limit the growth of global food colorants market.A sample of this report is available upon request @Based on the geographies, the global food colorants market is segmented into five key regions, namely North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. North America is anticipated to dominate among all the regions owing to increasing demand for food colorants in US and Canada. Europe is expected to hold the market share of global food colorants market at a second position in terms of value. This is attributed to increasing consumer awareness for natural products coupled with regulatory support for coloring food stuff in European countries. Owing to the increase in consumption of processed and ready to eat foods in India and China, the Asia-Pacific market is anticipated to contribute significantly to the global food colorants market. The Latin America and MEA regions are expected to contribute collectively in the global food colorants market.This is due to the increasing disposable incomes coupled with changing lifestyles in Brazil, GCC countries and South Africa which is fuelling the consumption of processed foods, resulting in an increase in demand for food colorants.Request to view table of content @Some of the major players identified in the global food colorants market includeCargill IncorporatedBASF SEKoninklijke DSM N.V.FMC CorporationDDW The Colour HouseHansen Holding A/SGNT GroupNaturexLycoredSan-Ei Gen F.F.I., Inc.Sensient Colors LLCSethness Caramel ColorWILD Flavors and Specialty IngredientsRIKEN VITAMIN Co., Ltd.About UsPersistence 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.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Get Ready for PittCon 2017 in March

http://pittcon.org/pittcon-2017/!

www.DataLoggerInc.com

T&D Wireless Technologies Save Labs Cost and TimeGetting ready for Pittcon 2017 March 5th-9th in Chicago this year? If so, come visit CAS DataLoggers and T&D at T&D Booth #4836! Were showing visitors the latest Lab Automation technologies to save lab workers time and cost. Monthly cloud subscriptions have become expensive, but with T&Ds Free WebStorage cloud storage service, you now have 24/7 access to your data at no charge!This year, CAS DataLoggers Sales Manager Peter Martin is attending along with Steve Knuth of T&D, Japans #1 manufacturer of temperature and humidity dataloggers. Check out whats in store for this years show atThe Worlds Largest Laboratory Tradeshow!If your work involves: Lab science Lab management Analytical chemistry Sample storage for life science or healthcare Or related lab tasks--then Pittcon is the show for you! Pittcon is the worlds biggest annual conference and exposition on laboratory science. With visitors from over 90 countries, Pittcon 2017 offers you tons of opportunities for networking and lab management solutions!Your laboratory can benefit from T&Ds wireless dataloggers, which fully automate lab monitoring and help users to reduce risk and cost in the Laboratory, Food & Beverage, Pharma, Enviro, and Healthcare industries.Lab technicians and managers use these durable and reliable data loggers to monitor and record Temperature, Humidity, CO2, Voltage, Current and more! T&D is popular for standalone and remote data collection, with models sending real-time data and text/email alarms via USB, Ethernet or WiFi.Wireless System Logs Lab Measurement ValuesT&Ds bestselling RTR-500 Series Wireless data loggers remotely log nearly any lab value, automatically sending data and alarms via cellular phone networks. A Wireless USB Base Station collects and transmits all logger readings. These data loggers will also send users a 'Back to Normal' message if temperatures go back to safe levels, which can save users a trip to the lab at 3am! Affordable Solutions for Labs and Clinics Manage your Data Anytime, Anywhere! Wireless Capability Remote Alarm Functionality Expandable Wireless RangeIf you also need to monitor carbon dioxide, T&Ds CO2 Temperature Humidity Data Logger covers all three measurement values.The Simplicity of WiFi!Fully automate your labs temperature and humidity data collection today with T&D TR-7wf Thermo WiFi series data loggers! These Wireless LAN devices record and send data online to the T&D WebStorage service. For local notification, these models feature a large LCD display showing current values, recording status, and memory capacity. Additionally, all readings are stored to internal memory so you wont lose data during power outages or network downtimes!Free Cloud Storage Service!While most manufacturers charge a monthly fee for their cloud storage services, T&D's Free Cloud WebStorage Service saves your lab considerable cost. The WebStorage Service provides up to 20MB of long-term cloud storage for customers files. Now you can remotely view, save, and print your data at any time, from any location!For example, if your lab storage freezer suddenly fails, youll instantly get a text or email alarm no matter where you are. You can also graph downloaded data as graphs and charts for proof of best practices. Additionally, the T&D Thermo App for iOS and Android lets you view and download data right from your smartphone or tablet!To learn more about T&D Wireless Data Loggers, or to find the ideal solution for your application-specific needs, contact a CAS DataLoggers Application Specialist at (800) 956-4437 or visit our website atComputer Aided Solutions, LLC. dba CAS Data Loggers is a distributor of data loggers, paperless recorders and data acquisition equipment.Computer Aided Solutions8437 Mayfield RoadChesterland, OH 44026(440) 729-2570
Lucintel Identifies and Prioritizes Opportunities for Growth in Global Glass Fiber Textile Market by Application, Product Form, and Region

Insights that Matter

www.lucintel.com

According to a new market report published by Lucintel, the future of the glass fiber textile market looks good with opportunities in electrical & electronics, wind energy, construction, and marine. The global glass fiber textile market is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 5.2% from 2015 to 2020. The major driver for market growth is the rise in demand for end products, such as printed circuit board (PCBs), wind turbine blades, pipes and tanks, and boat hulls.In this market, woven roving, multi-axials, fabric, and continuous filament mat (CFM) / continuous strand mat (CSM) are used for various applications. Lucintel predicts that the demand for CFM/CSM in glass fiber textiles will experience the highest growth in the forecast period, supported by growing demand in end-use industries. On the basis of its comprehensive research, Lucintel forecasts that construction and marine industries will show above average growth during the forecast period.Within the glass fiber textile market, the electrical & electronics industry is expected to remain as the largest market by value and the second largest market by volume consumption after wind energy. Growth of the printed circuit boards (PCBs) in the electrical & electronic industry is expected to spur growth for this segment over the forecast period.Asia Pacific is expected to remain the largest market due to the growth in end use industries, such as electrical & electronics and wind energy. Asia Pacific and North America are expected to grow significantly over the forecast period because of the recovery of the wind energy industry in North America and Asia Pacific. A high demand for PCBs in the Asia Pacific market is also driving the growth.For market expansion, the report suggests innovation and new product development, where the unique characteristics of glass fiber textiles can be capitalized.An emerging trend, which has a direct impact on the dynamics of the industry, is the high performance textiles for wind energy and thinner textiles for PCB applications. Owens Corning, SAERTEX, CPIC Fiberglass, Jushi Group, and Taishan Fiberglass are among the major suppliers of glass fiber textiles. Some companies are opting for merger and acquisition as a strategic initiative for driving growth.Lucintel, a leading global strategic consulting and market research firm, has analyzed opportunities for glass fiber textiles in the global market by application, product form, and region and has come up with a comprehensive research report, Growth Opportunities in Global Glass Fiber Textiles Market 20152020: Trends, Forecast and Opportunity Analysis. The Lucintel report serves as a springboard for the growth strategy as it provides a comprehensive data and analysis on trends, key drivers, and directions. The study includes a forecast for glass fiber textile in the global market through 2020, segmented by application, product form, and region as follows:By Application [volume (million pounds) and value ($ million) from 2009 to 2020]- Marine Wind Energy Aerospace/Defense Construction Electrical/Electronics OthersBy Product Form [volume (million pounds) and value ($ million) from 2009 to 2020]- Woven Roving Multi-Axials Fabric CFM/CSMBy Region [volume (million pounds) and value ($ million) from 2009 to 2020]- North America Europe Asia Pacific Rest of the WorldThis 212-page research report will enable you to make confident business decisions in this globally competitive marketplace. For a detailed table of contents contact Lucintel at +1-972-636-5056 or helpdesk@lucintel.com. Lucintel offerings include Advanced Materials Reports, Composite Materials Market Report, Opportunity Screening and Analysis, Capital Investment Feasibility and SWOT Analysis.Lucintel, the premier global management consulting and market research firm, creates winning strategies for growth. It offers market assessments, competitive analysis, opportunity analysis, growth consulting, M & A and due diligence services to executives and key decision-makers in a variety of industries. For further information, visitLucintel222 Las Colinas Blvd West, Suite 1650, Irving, TX 75039, USAPh: +1-972-636-5056 Fax: +1-877-883-5140marketing@lucintel.com
Global Lancet Market is Expected to Reach Around USD 2,882.6 Million by 2022 with CAGR of 11.3%

Lancet Market

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/2078

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/lancet-market

https://marketresearchfuture.com/reports/connected-healthcare-market

Global lancet market is expected to witness precipitous growth post 2016. The Lancet is expected to grow at a CAGR of 11.3%. The market is boosted due to increasing need of home care treatments and growing technological advancements in the home healthcare industry.The global market for lancet is growing at a rapid pace and expected to reach around US$ 2,882.6 Million by the end of the forecasted period 2016-2022.Market HighlightsThe global lancet market has been evaluated as swiftly growing market in the coming future and it is expected that the market will have high demand globally. The global Lancet Market is undergoing a rapid change. Current discussions and proceedings have brought into examinations the competence of existing regulatory frameworks for medical devices in developed and developing regions to guarantee the performance, quality and safety of devices. Medical device regulation must be enhanced and improved to safeguard public/patient health and ensure that effective technologies and high-quality products reach patients. The mounting number and complexity of medical devices have introduced regulatory challenges. These challenges differ from the types of medical devices, commonly there are three types of medical devices which require medical approvals and these are classified into type I medical devices, type II medical devices and type III medical devices. These devices are differentiated on the basis of complexity of use and risk involved while using. Further one of the major application or the major functioning areas of lancets is to monitor diabetes in diabetic population. According to WHO, 8.5% of adults aged 18 years and older had diabetes in 2014. In 2012, diabetes was the straight cause of 1.5 million deaths and high blood glucose was the cause of additional 2.2 million deaths.Global Lancet Market Players: F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, Becton Dickinson and Company Greiner Bio One International GmbH Improve Medical Technology Co. Ltd Terumo Medical Corporation Bayer Cropscience Limited HTL-STREFA S.A Sarstedt AG & CoRequest a Sample Report @Therefore, if the current trends in diabetes prevalence continues over the coming years, the number of diabetic patients would be tremendous after a decade. With increasing diabetic prevalence, the demand of lancets is expected to be enormous, thus resulting in the increasing demand for devices and products to monitor and control diabetes, eventually leading to increased consumption of lancets.Regional Analysis:Depending on geographic region, Lancet market is segmented into four key regions: Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. Europe is the largest market for Lancet. Germany is the leading market in the European region. Asia Pacific is the second-largest market in the global Lancet market which is expected to continue its growth in the coming future.Browse Report @Further Safety lancets have captured major share of the global lancets market of around XX% whereas personal lancets have covered the rest of the market. Based on the historical trends and market scenario, safety lancets are expected to be the fastest growing segment of this market during 2016-2022.Segmentation:Global Lancet market has been segmented on the basis of types which comprises of personal and safety lancets. On the basis of end users, the market is segmented into Hospitals & Clinics, Diagnostic Centers and Pathology Laboratories, Home Diagnostics and others.Related ReportThe global market for Connected Healthcare is expected to reach USD 105.33 billion by the end of the forecasted period and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 30.2%About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research Future+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Artificial Intelligence Market - Value of US$ 3,061.35 Bn in 2024

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=4674

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Artificial intelligence is a fast emerging technology, dealing with development and study of intelligent machines and software. This software is being used across various applications such as manufacturing (assembly line robots), medical research, and speech recognition systems.It also enables in-build software or machines to operate like human beings, thereby allowing devices to collect, analyze data, reason, talk, make decisions and act The global artificial intelligence market was valued at US$ 126.24 Bn in 2015 and is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 36.1% from 2016 to 2024 to reach a value of US$ 3,061.35 Bn in 2024.The global artificial intelligence market is currently witnessing healthy growth as companies have started leveraging the benefits of such disruptive technologies for effective customer reach and positioning of their services/solutions.Market growth is also supported by an expanding application base of artificial intelligence solutions across various industries. However, factors such as low funding access or high upfront investment, and demand for skilled resources (workforce) are presently acting as major deterrents to market growth.On the basis of types of artificial intelligence systems, the market is segmented into artificial neural network, digital assistance system, embedded system, expert system, and automated robotic system. Expert system was the most adopted or revenue generating segment in 2015.This was mainly due to the extensive use of artificial intelligence across various sectors including diagnosis, process control, design, monitoring, scheduling and planning.Request A Sample Of This Report:Based on various applications of artificial intelligence systems, the market has been classified into deep learning, smart robots, image recognition, digital personal assistant, querying method, language processing, gesture control, video analysis, speech recognition, context aware processing, and cyber security. Image recognition is projected to be the fastest growing segment by application in the global artificial intelligence market.This is due to the growing demand for affective computing technology across various end-use sectors for better study of systems that can recognize, analyze, process, and simulate human effects.North America was the leader in the global artificial intelligence market in 2015, holding approximately 38% of the global market revenue share, and is expected to remain dominant throughout the forecast period from 2016 to 2024.High government funding and a strong technological base have been some of the major factors responsible for the top position of the North America region in the artificial intelligence market over the past few years.Middle East and Africa is expected to grow at the highest CAGR of 38.2% throughout the forecast period. This is mainly attributed to enormous opportunities for artificial intelligence in the MEA region in terms of new airport developments and various technological innovations including robotic automation.About TMRTMR 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 TMR90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email:sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Emerging Markets Forum: OTC Pharma go-to-market strategies, partnerships and market access

www.empharma-forum.com/AS1112CPCeshsen

www.empharma-forum.com/AS1112CPCeshen

13  14 March 2017Kempinski Hotel Bristol, Berlin, GermanyOn March 13th & 14th 2017, OTC & Pharma global industry leaders will gather at the Kempinski Hotel in Berlin, to attend the Emerging Markets Forum. This unique two-day event, which is the biggest of its kind, will have a focus on the economic outlook for emerging markets, global product portfolio strategies and global go-to-market strategies for pharma and over-the-counter (OTC) products. Attendees include Pharma Executives, Key Regional Distributors, Area Managers and Market Access Executives amongst many others.Over the two days there will be presentations and case studies given by different expert speakers from Russia, CIS, CEE, South Africa, Mexico and Caucasus. Reiner Christensen, CEO of Chameleon Pharma Consulting (Forum Knowledge Partner of the Emerging Markets Forum), is amongst the panel of speakers.The forum will discuss how the MENA market is handling price declines and how these affect market access into the MENA region. Case studies will be presented and analysed for Latin American regions, namely Mexico. Market updates and overviews will be provided for Russia, EAEU and CEE. And there is also a segment planned for the South African market.Not only does the event offer the opportunity to hear from a diverse range of industry experts, it also serves as a networking forum with business lunches and a cocktail reception inclusive in the event package. Additionally there is the possibility of having 1-to-1 meetings (must be pre-scheduled) with potential partners, local companies and country specific distributors.-> Learn more about our speakers here:-> The agenda is available to download:Chameleon Pharma Consulting is a healthcare consultancy firm that provides clients with a wide range of Pharma and Healthcare Consulting Services in Strategy & Marketing, Establishing International Business, Licensing and M&A, Regulatory and Registration, Publications, Executive Searches and more.CPC's mission is to be a trusted advisor on global understanding of industry opportunities and challenges in the healthcare industry of the Emerging Markets in Asia, Latin America, CIS, Middle East, as well as in the European region.Chameleon Pharma ConsultingAm Tempelhofer Berg 610965 Berlin GERMANYReiner Christensen, CEOpro@chameleon-pharma.com+49 30 648 35 164
Media Lounge Team Up With Vospers

Media Lounge Team Up With Vospers

www.medialounge.co.uk

Media Lounge are thrilled to announce that they have teamed up with Vospers  one of the UKs leading multi-franchise dealerships for new and used vehicles. Alongside the sales of cars, vans, motability and fleet vehicles, Vospers specialise in selling specific parts for a large array of vehicles and that is exactly where Media Lounge come in!Media Lounge were tasked with redesigning their current eCommerce store from the ground up, building and developing a new site which offers a frictionless user experience, allowing customers to easily find the exact parts needed for their vehicle! The Media Lounge team have created a site that not only looks fantastic, but feels fantastic to use.The new eCommerce store was created using Magento where Media Lounge designed a clean and clear user interface. This was achieved by combining bold whites, contrasting navy blues and eye catching pops of yellow throughout the site. Having a clean and easy to navigate site was crucial in order for the user experience to be as simple as possible. In addition to this user friendly approach, the new Magento eCommerce store has some fantastic features to help and assist users in finding the exact parts they are searching forMedia Lounge designed a unique feature where the user can enter a vehicle registration number which automatically shows all the available parts for that exact vehicle. On top of that, the site is programmed to remember each registration number that was used for later visits. Alongside this, Media Lounge added a Make / Model / Year filter system where the user can search for the exact parts of a specific vehicle. Both these features were created to help simplify the user experience making it as quick and stress-free as possible. To complete the parts searching process, we developed an advanced search bar which utilises an auto complete feature and an automated related products system making it easier for users to find what they are searching for.Not only did these features have to work flawlessly on desktop but they had to be just as effective on all devices. To achieve this Media Lounge used a fully responsive design meaning that users could easily utilise these features no matter what device they are using. Whether the user is using desktop, tablet or mobile, the clean look of the site and navigation features work seamlessly.To build upon the easy to use approach used across the site, Media Lounge created a simple and streamlined checkout process meaning that users could safely purchase products with no hiccups. To do this they teamed up with OneStepCheckout to create a payment section that only has one page, meaning that the user can view all sections of the checkout process at once making for a hassle free experience.With the new eCommerce store on their site, Vospers are striving to become the leading distributor of car and vehicle parts in the UK!About Media Lounge:We are an experienced Magento Development Company based in the UK providing Magento eCommerce development at an affordable price. Weve been working with Magento development since its release in 2008 and weve now built over 200 bespoke Magento websites.Were different from most Magento Developers because our team doesnt just include a Magento expert our whole team are proficient in every aspect of Magento. Our designers understand the functionality of Magento and how the design might impact the usability, our programmers understand how to get the most out of Magento for search engine optimisation and our support team are experts in how to ensure your business gets the most from your Magento website. We believe that Magento is the benchmark ecommerce solution so its the only ecommerce solution we offer.First Floor, 8-10 Christchurch RoadBournemouthDorsetBH1 3NAEngland
Global Electro-Mechanical Tool Market  Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2017-2025

http://www.indexbox.co.uk/store/world-electro-mechanical-tools-drills-of-all-kinds-saws-or-other-market-report-analysis-and-forecast-to-2020/

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IndexBox has just published a new report "World: Electro-Mechanical Tools - Market Report. Analysis and Forecast to 2025" ().This report has been designed to provide a detailed analysis of the global electro-mechanical tool market. It covers the most recent data sets of quantitative medium-term projections, as well as developments in production, trade, consumption and prices. The report also includes a comparative analysis of the leading consuming countries, revealing opportunities opened for producers and exporters across the globe. The forecast outlines market prospects to 2025.From 2007 to 2015, global consumption in the electro-mechanical tool market grew annually by +2.8%. The highest annual rates of growth with regard to electro-mechanical tools (drills of all kinds, saws or other) consumption from 2007 to 2015, were recorded in China, with a +3.4% growth, and the U.S., with a +3.3% growth.With nearly 6,077 million USD of electro-mechanical tools (drills of all kinds, saws or other) consumed in 2015, the U.S. became the world's leading electro-mechanical tools (drills of all kinds, saws or other) consuming country. Per capita electro-mechanical tools (drills of all kinds, saws or other) consumption in the U.S. was the highest and estimated at 18.9 USD/year, six times higher than the global average (3.0 USD/year).A high level of electro-mechanical tools (drills of all kinds, saws or other) consumption was also registered in Japan (14.3 USD/year), France (14.0 USD/year), Germany (12.2 USD/year) and the U.K. (11.1 USD/year). China (3.3 USD/year) had the lowest levels of electro-mechanical tools (drills of all kinds, saws or other) consumption.In the U.K., per capita electro-mechanical tools (drills of all kinds, saws or other) consumption remained relatively stable at 11.1 USD/year (2015 data, 10.4 USD/year in 2007). Population growth induced a slight increase in consumption, which reached 719 million USD of electro-mechanical tools (drills of all kinds, saws or other) in 2015, an increase of 13% against the previous period.In China, electro-mechanical tools (drills of all kinds, saws or other) consumption has grown rapidly in recent years. In 2015, China's per capita consumption reached 3.3 USD/year (close to the world-average of 3.0 kg/year), against 2.6 USD/year in 2007.TABLE OF CONTENTS1. INTRODUCTION1.1 REPORT DESCRIPTION1.2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY2.1 KEY FINDINGS2.2 MARKET TRENDS3. MARKET OVERVIEW3.1 MARKET VOLUME AND VALUE3.2 CONSUMPTION BY COUNTRY3.3 MARKET OPPORTUNITIES BY COUNTRY3.4 MARKET FORECAST TO 20254. PRODUCTION4.1 PRODUCTION IN 2007-20154.2 PRODUCTION BY COUNTRY5. IMPORTS5.1 IMPORTS IN 2007-20155.2 IMPORTS BY COUNTRY5.3 IMPORT PRICES BY COUNTRY6. EXPORTS6.1 EXPORTS IN 2007-20156.2 EXPORTS BY COUNTRY6.3 EXPORT PRICES BY COUNTRY7. PROFILES OF MAJOR PRODUCERSDownload a free sample of the report now!IndexBox is a leading market research publisher in the world. We conduct market research and publish reports.You can find more than 25,000 research reports in our web store, which cover global industries and regional markets. All the worldwide marketing data you need is at your fingertips.We collect this data from hundreds of highly reliable sources, verify it and carry out market analysis, uncovering new business opportunities and empowering you with actionable insights.The structure of our reports is intuitive and clear. We do our best to allow you to make strategic decisions and take immediate action. If you want to go further and be a step ahead of the market, just tell us your goals and we will tailor a report to your needs.Company Name: IndexBoxContact Person: Kirill BezverhiEmail: kirill.bezverhi@indexbox.co.ukPhone: +44 20 3239 3063Adress: United Kingdom, 44 Main Street, Douglas, South Lanarkshire, Scotland, ML11 0QWWebsite:
Kinase-Targeted Therapeutics Market : Future Demand and Growth Analysis

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Kinase-Targeted Therapeutics Market: OverviewKinase is an enzyme class that helps to transfer phosphate groups to certain substrate from high energy molecules such as adenosine triphosphate (ADP). This phenomenon of phosphate group transfer is termed as phosphorylation. Kinases control various cellular activities such as cell signaling, cellular transport, protein regulation, secretory processes and cellular metabolism. Based on the molecule on which kinases act, they can be categorized as: protein kinase, lipid kinase, carbohydrate kinase and other kinase (thymidine kinase and riboflavin kinase). Protein kinases include mitogen activated protein kinases and cyclin dependent kinases. Lipid kinases include sphingosine kinases and phosphatidylinositol kinases.Protein kinase acts on tyrosine, serine, histidine or threonine content of protein and modify the protein functionality by either increasing or decreasing their activities. Lipid kinase acts on the cell or plasma membrane along with organelles membrane. Activity of kinase on membrane helps alter reactivity of lipids and hence result in signal transmission. Carbohydrate kinases (hexokinase and phosphofructokinase) act on bisphosphoglycerate and other carbohydrate molecule to release energy. Among all the aforementioned kinases, protein kinases therapeutics accounts for the largest share of the total market owing to their wider application area coupled with their large utilization in developing and manufacturing therapeutic drugs.Many diseases are caused due to inappropriate activities of kinases. Aberrant kinase activities also results in proliferative or inflammatory responses for the diseases such as cancer and rheumatoid arthritis. Kinase activities have also resulted in cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and neurological disorders. Hence, any disruption in the activities of any of the kinase may result in adverse effects on the people. Kinase-targeted therapeutics include all those drugs that act on the kinases that are affecting negatively to the people. These drugs enable the physicians to treat the disease from the root cause and help eliminating the adverse effects of the disease.Browse full report on Kinase-Targeted Therapeutics Market -Kinase-Targeted Therapeutics Market: Driving ForcesOwing to rising incidences of diabetes the population, the market for kinase-targeted therapeutics is poised to grow at a significant CAGR from the period 2013 to 2019. The World Diabetes Foundation (WDF) has estimated that nearly 285 million populace lived with diabetes in the year 2010 that accounted for 6.4% of the worlds youth population in the same year. This number is poised to grow to 438 million by 2030, corresponding to 7.8% of the worlds adult population. The National Diabetic Fact Sheet of the U.S., which was released in January 2011, states that 25.8 million children and adults suffer from diabetes which accounts for 8.3% of the total U.S. population.Almost 1.9 million new cases were diagnosed in people aged 20 years and above in the U.S. alone. Similarly, increasing number of cancer patients across the globe also augments the growth of kinase-targeted therapeutics market. It has been estimated by the World Cancer Research Fund International that by 2030 around 21 million people will suffer from cancer worldwide.Kinase-Targeted Therapeutics Market: Regional DynamicsIn 2012, North America accounted for the largest share of global kinase-targeted therapeutics market owing to presence of large geriatric population. Elder people are prone to various diseases such as cardiovascular diseases and other that can be easily treated by the uptake of kinase-targeted therapeutic drugs.Similarly, domicile of big manufacturers of kinase-targeted therapeutic drugs in the region has further supported the large market size of kinase-targeted therapeutics market. The major players operating in kinase-targeted therapeutics market include Abbott Laboratories, Eli Lilly and Company, Array BioPharma, Inc., Avila Therapeutics, Inc. and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co amongst other significant players.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.Request for brochure of this report -About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a 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. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Aesthetic Services Market : Future Demand and Growth Analysis

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North America Aesthetic Services Market: SnapshotThe North America market for aesthetic services has been experiencing a tremendous increase in its size and valuation. The increasing aesthetic consciousness and the growing interest of people towards self-grooming in this region are the key factors behind the growth of this market. Apart from this, the alarming rise in the obese population and, consequently, increased demand for liposuction procedure are also boosting this market substantially.Going forward, the growing awareness pertaining to skin rejuvenation, increasing per capita income, and the rising preference for minimally invasive surgical procedures are likely to drive this market substantially over the forthcoming years. However, the lack of an appropriate reimbursement scenario may obstruct the growth trajectory of this market in the near future.In 2015, the North America aesthetic services market presented an opportunity worth US$14.4 bn. Swelling at a CAGR of 7.70% between 2016 and 2024, the market is likely to attain a value of US$28.1 bn by the end of 2024.Browse full report on Aesthetic Services Market -Dermatology Clinics and Cosmetic Centers to Remain Key End Users of Aesthetic Services in North AmericaHospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, and dermatology clinics and cosmetic centers have surfaced as the main end users of aesthetic services in North America. Among these, the demand for these services from dermatology clinics and cosmetic centers is greater than other end users. Expanding at a CAGR of 8.60% during the period from 2016 to 2024, the demand from this end-use segment is expected to continue to lead over the next few years.On a similar note, the demand from ambulatory surgery centers is also projected to increase significantly in the near future, thanks to the growing popularity of ambulatory surgery centers as a favorable setting for facial and scar treatments.U.S. to Continue its Leading StreakOn the basis of geography, the North America market for aesthetic services is categorized into the U.S. and Canada. With a share of 95%, the U.S. led the overall market in 2015. Analysts project the U.S. market for aesthetic services to continue its leading streak over the forthcoming years. The increasing awareness among consumers in the U.S. pertaining to aesthetic services, coupled with the improvement in the medical and healthcare infrastructure and the growing prevalence of skin diseases, is likely to boost this domestic market in the years to come.Apart from this, the increasing demand for aesthetic treatments from the male population and the easy availability of user-friendly aesthetic devices are also expected to fuel the growth of this market in the U.S in the near future.At the forefront of the North America aesthetic services market are Advanced Dermatology and Cosmetic Surgery, Dermatology solutions group, Riverchase Dermatology and Cosmetic Surgery, The Plastic Surgery Clinic, The MedSpa Southwest Plastic Surgery, Cosmetic & Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Clinic, Toronto, Riverside Plastic Surgery, DCDermDocs, Marina Plastic Surgery, and Quatela Center for Plastic Surgery.Request for sample of this report -About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a 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. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
E-Learning a Highly Lucrative Investment Avenue for Players in Medical Education Market, reports TMR

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The global medical education market has a handful of players such as Apollo Hospitals, TACT Academy for Clinical Training, Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Inc. (Zimmer Institute), Olympus Corporation, Gundersen Health System, GE Healthcare, and Medical Training College. Transparency Market Research identifies Apollo Hospitals as the leading contributor to the growth of the overall market owing to its extensive course portfolio, strong market penetration in countries in Asia Pacific, and vast scope for practical hospital experience.Download Exclusive Brochure of This Report :Geographical expansion in several developing countries has been Apollo Hospitals leading growth strategy, in addition to the acquisition of smaller local players, finds the lead author of the TMR study.In July 2016, Apollo Hospitals Group signed MoUs with Kenyatta National Hospital and Airtel Kenya to not just focus on capacity building in the Kenyan healthcare sector but to also conduct educational lectures and training programs in the country. In the same month, the company signed an agreement with Hainan Ecological Smart City Group in China to develop a highly integrated modern healthcare service facility in the Hainan province, which is likely to lend nursing, medical, and paramedical colleges in the island city tremendous support.Advantages of Online Training over Traditional Modes of Education a Driving FactorThe demand for medical education is primarily driven by the growing preference for online education. Online education is a highly lucrative investment avenue, a TMR analyst observes. The exposure to modern technologies around the world and the increasing penetration of the internet has greatly fueled the preference of students for online education. Moreover, online training presents several advantages over traditional modes of education, including variation in training and educational programs, lower cost, comfortable and flexible learning programs, and opportunities for improved technical skills.In line with this growing trend, TMR predicts that the emergence of e-learning markets in several developing countries will be a major opportunity for players in the medical education market.High Tuition Fee a Major RoadblockThe cost of higher education, especially in developed countries, continues to pose a key challenge for low-income students. Medical education is one of the most expensive fields and the tuition fee for classroom courses as well as on-campus training is extremely high. This acts as a major barrier for the medical education market, the author of the study says.In addition to this, the declining preference for distance education in medicine and paramedical training is likely to restrict the growth of the medical education market to an extent.Steady Growth in Store for Medical Education MarketExpanding at a 4.3% CAGR over the course of the forecast period, the global medical education market is poised to rise from a value of US$25.9 bn in 2015 to US$38.4 bn by 2024. By mode of education, the medical education market is led by on-campus training. Changing student preferences will restrict the demand for distance training by 2024, TMR predicts. However, online training is fast emerging as a lucrative mode of medical education and this segment is likely to register the highest CAGR of 7.29% from 2016 to 2024.By type of training, the demand for cardiothoracic training has surpassed the rest, while training in radiology presents the highest scope for growth. By geography, North America led the overall medical education market with Asia Pacific as the most rapidly expanding regional segment through the forecast period.Browse Research Report on Medical Education Market :On a whole, the global pain management therapeutics market is expected to expand at a 3.7% CAGR over the period between 2016 and 2024. At this pace, the market is expected to rise from a valuation of US$60.2 bn in 2015 to US$83.0 bn by 2024.About Us:Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a U.S. based provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMR's global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Contact:Transparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United States.Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Blog:
Healthcare BI Platform Market - Increasing Demand for Fast, Diverse Analytics using Decentralized Data

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Business Intelligence (BI) platforms help build BI applications by providing competences in analysis, platform integration, and information delivery. As healthcare organizations are realizing the untapped potential of huge amounts of data, they are implementing solutions that utilize business intelligence to help collect, sort, and mine valuable insights from this data.The complex data gathered from numerous sources (operational, patient data) is analyzed and used by healthcare providers with the aid of BI platforms for the larger population.This research report provides a detailed analysis of trends in the healthcare BI platform market. It also comprises a broad analysis of the industry drivers, restraints, and opportunities.The report also provides a comprehensive assessment of key market player strategies. The market for healthcare BI platform has been segmented into various functions: clinical analytics, financial analytics, operational analytics, and others.Financial analytics is expected to be the largest healthcare BI platform function over the forecast period, whereas clinical analytics is expected to be the fastest growing functional segment over the forecast period. The global healthcare BI platform market has been extensively analyzed on the basis of deployment type into on-premise and cloud.Cloud is expected to be the fastest growing healthcare BI platform segment by deployment type over the forecast period. On the basis of model type, the healthcare BI platform market is segmented as self-service BI and corporate BI. Self-service BI is the latest trend in the BI market and is expected to be the fastest growing segment over the forecast period.Request A Sample Of This Report:The market size and forecasts in terms of revenue (US$ Mn) for each of these segments have been provided for the period 2013 to 2023, considering 2013 and 2014 as the base years. The report also provides the compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) for each segment of the market for the forecast period 2015 to 2023.The healthcare BI platform market is segmented based on geography into North America, Europe, Middle-East and Africa, Asia Pacific, and Latin America, and a detailed regional analysis is provided. A country-level analysis is also included in the report, covering the countries in each region.North America is expected to be the largest and fastest growing healthcare BI platform market among all regions. Europe is one of the mature markets for healthcare BI platform, whereas Asia Pacific is expected to be one of the most attractive markets in the near future.Market estimates for the healthcare BI platform have been assessed considering different political, environmental, social, technological, economic, and legal factors. The share of leading players of the global healthcare BI platform market is provided for the year 2014.Company profiles (CPs) of market leaders elucidate on details such as company overview, segmentation, recent developments, business strategies, and financial information in the healthcare BI platform market.Companies profiled in the report include SAP SE, Oracle Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, SAS Institute, Inc., IBM Corporation, OpenText Corporation, and Information Builders. The report would allow healthcare organizations and research and development agencies to make informed decisions about healthcare BI platforms, and thus gain competitive advantage in the market.About TMRTMR 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 TMR90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email:sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
The rising interest for combining energy storage with utility scale solar PV systems is the prime factor driving Grid Connected PV Systems Market

Global Grid Connected PV Systems Market

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Global Grid Connected PV Systems Market: OverviewA grid connected photovoltaic power system is a solar PV system connected to utility grid that generates electricity using solar power. A grid connected PV system comprises solar panels, a power conditioning unit, grid connection equipment, and one or many inverters. These systems can range from commercial rooftop systems and small residential units to large utility-scale solar power stations. Unlike standalone solar power equipment, grid connected systems seldom constitute any integrated battery solutions. During favorable conditions, a grid connected PV system supplies superfluous power to the utility, beyond what is required for consumption of the connected load.Download the Exclusive Report Sample Here :The global grid connected PV systems market is expected to exhibit considerable growth between 2014 and 2023. These systems render easy installation, high efficiency, and improved flexibility and reliability. Due to such intrinsic advantages that grid connected PV systems offer, their demand is poised to surge exponentially in the near future. PV systems integrated with various storage technologies, such as direct load control and battery energy, offer cost efficiency and higher reliability in terms of deriving energy from solar power. More than 40 countries worldwide are expected to install over 100 MW of new solar power photovoltaic capacity, signaling the true emergence of solar power into traditional energy generation ambit.The report studies the growth trajectory likely to be exhibited by the grid connected PV systems market during the forecast period. Factors influencing the demand and supply forces in the market are analyzed in detail. The impact of the prevailing government policies and competitive pressure on the market operations is also studied in detail. The report includes exhaustive information obtained from trusted industrial sources. Insights from industry experts are also referred to for the purpose of the study.Global Grid Connected PV Systems Market: Key Opportunities and ThreatsThe utilities scale sector accounted for the largest volume of installation in 2015, and is expected to remain the leading application segment over the forecast period. In the same years, both residential and commercial sectors are likely to exhibit significant increase in installations. The technological advancements introduced to promote power generation from renewable sources are expected to offer numerous economic and environmental benefits.Grid connected PV systems are mainly installed in inverters to offer holistic power solutions. These systems are ideal to be installed in small solar energy systems deployed in the residential sector or for providing combined solutions to an industrial complex. Grid connected PV systems are user-friendly and ensure high performance at minimum expenditure.The rising interest for combining energy storage with utility scale solar PV systems to enable integration into a grid is the prime factor driving the global grid connected PV systems market. However, the entry of market players is restricted in areas with high penetration of renewable energy sources and island grids. This, in turn, challenges the grids steadiness.Global Grid Connected PV Systems Market: Region-wise OutlookEnterprises operating in the U.S. grid connected PV systems market are witnessing significantly rising demand. The U.S. is expected to account for the largest share in the global grid connected PV systems market by 2023. Additionally, the U.K. and Australia are also expected to deploy grid connected PV systems in their residential sectors on a large scale.Other nations such as Germany and Japan are also expected to encourage large-scale deployment of grid connected PV systems over the next few years.Global Grid Connected PV Systems Market: Vendor LandscapeTo present a comprehensive view on the prevailing competitive landscape, the report profiles companies such as Sunpower Corporation, KYOCERA Corporation, CODA Energy, Green Charge Networks, and others. Enterprises such as CODA Energy, Stem Inc., and Green Charge Networks offer their systems to consumers at no upfront cost, which is subsequently expected to amplify the demand from the market.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.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.TMRs data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With extensive research and analysis capabilities, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques to develop distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.Contact TMR :Transparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Visit Blog :
Real Time Location Systems Market Magnify Accuracy & High Location Precision

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Advanced features such as enhanced quality of care, cost savings, increased efficiency, and asset and workflow management offered by Real Time location Systems (RTLS) are fueling the adoption of RTLS across various industries.RTLS help enterprises to track, identify and manage important assets such as tools, personnel and equipment in real time by putting a badge/tag on them. Badges/tags utilize wireless technologies such as infrared, ultrasound, Wi-Fi, ZigBee and RF signals for communication between readers and tags and send signals to the location sensors/readers.These sensors/readers then communicate with software/middleware platform that analyzes the data and correlates useful information to improve staff productivity and operational efficiency in an enterprise.Optimum utilization of resources and asset management with RTLS solutions is expected to drive demand for RTLS solutions during the forecast period. Moreover, due to decreasing prices of RTLS components and government support encouraging the use of RTLS is expected to increase adoption during the forecast period.In terms of technology, RFID led the global RTLS market with highest revenue share in 2013. This was mainly due to advanced features of RFID technology such as high accuracy, low cost, long battery life of tags, and low maintenance costs as compared to WI-Fi.However, ZigBee and UWB are emerging technologies with tremendous market potential, mainly due to long battery life, enhanced accuracy and high location precision.One of the most significant advantages of Wi-Fi in RTLS is the ease of deployment. Wi-Fi based RTLS systems are mostly deployed in organizations with an existing Wi-Fi network.Request A Sample Of This Report:In 2013, North America held the largest market share and accounted for 45.4% of the global RTLS market revenue. Applications in healthcare industry have primarily driven the demand for RTLS solutions in the North American market.Due to the existing healthcare-IT infrastructure in North America, companies in this market were able to gain leverage and deploy RTLS solutions in the healthcare industry. Furthermore, a key factor playing pivotal role in driving the growth of RTLS market in North America is government support.In 2013, U.S. government Veteran Affairs deployed RTLS from Hewlett Packard in several medical centers across the U.S. The Asia Pacific region is expected to be the fastest growing regional market for RTLS solutions.One of the key factors driving market growth in the Asia Pacific region is the rise in demand from countries such as Japan, Singapore and South Korea. Other factors such as rising customer awareness and high industrial growth will also propel the adoption of RTLS in Asia Pacific region.About TMRTMR 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 TMR90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email:sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Executive Channel Network Germany moves to new headquarters at Tetragon Frankfurt

Executive Channel Network (ECN)

Frankfurt, 9 February 2017  Executive Channel Network Germany, which is a part of Executive Channel Holdings (ECH), launched in Germany in 2016. ECNs smart office digital communication platform enables real time communication between commercial office owners / managers and their tenants (occupiers).





As a result of rapid business growth in Germany, ECN ( www.executivechannelnetwork.de ) has moved to a larger office, which is located at the Tetragon Frankfurt, Mainzer Landstrae 51  in the heart of the central banking district. ECN also convinced the Tetragon landlord, CONREN Land AG (CONREN Land) of the various benefits of an installation of its smart office digital communication product:



 No investment was required from Tetragon,

 The digital display was installed within a few weeks,

 Tetragons internal content is controlled online via its own Content Management System (CMS),

 Tetragon can update and change its internal communications within minutes.



Executive Channel Networks installation in the lobby of the Tetragon Frankfurt is a free standing unit of 65 inches. ECNs display solutions are designed to suit the individual building's architectual interior. Apart from the latest German news and local weather, the new ECN installation in Frankfurt runs internal communications for Tetragon such as welcome messages and any other local building information which Tetragon might like to communicate.



Christian Praulich, Director Business Development Real Estate I Germany: We are very pleased that ECN's business in Germany is developing so well. We continue to grow because owners and asset managers of premium office properties are increasingly aware of digital signage and realize the benefits of internal real estate digital communication for an increase of value for their property  just like recently our own landlord Conren Land.



Executive Channel Network ( www.executivechannelnetwork.com ) offers a simple, effective and free-to-use model with digital solutions that span over 10 years of international experience. ECN was launched in Australia in 2005 and then expanded to London in 2009 and to Paris in 2012. ECN has also been active in Germany since 2016.

Diese Pressemeldung wurde auf openPR veroffentlicht.

Media Contact Executive Channel Network Germany:



Gors Communications

Real Estate PR and Marketing

Daniel Gors

Gertrudenkirchhof 10

20095 Hamburg



Tel: +49 40 325074582

E-Mail: info (at) goers-communications.de

www.goers-communications.de





Contact Executive Channel Network Germany:



Christian Praulich

Director Business Development Real Estate I Germany

Tetragon, Mainzer Landstrae 51,

60329 Frankfurt am Main

Tel: +49 69 380 7660 59



E-Mail: Christianp (at) executivechannelnetwork.de

executivechannelnetwork.de/contact-us

Follow @ECNDE ( twitter.com/ECNDE )

xing.com/companies/ecn-executivechannelnetwork

About Executive Channel Network:



ECNs (executivechannelnetwork.com) vision is to make office buildings smarter with its real-time digital technology throughout major UK and European cities. ECNs digital technology solutions can be found in lobby areas and inside elevator cabins. In real-time, the digital video network offers a mixture of up-to-date news and internal building-related content. ECN Germany is part of Executive Channel Holdings (ECH). The European network consists of around 300 installations in the most important office buildings in Europe.

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Bills release multiple artist renderings of new stadium The morning of Oct. 27 was a day Buffalo Bills fans have been patiently waiting for  a reveal of what the new stadium will potentially look like. The team...

County officials, law firm representatives host public hearing on new stadium SEQR Erie County officials, representatives from Phillips Lytle LLP, power players for a new stadium and interested Buffalo Bills fans packed into one of the community rooms of the Brush Mountain...
The 'it's not a Muslim ban' Muslim ban.Muslim mom rejected at U.S. border after questions on Trump, mosque shootingA Moroccan-Canadian woman says she was turned back from the Vermont border after four hours of interrogation, including questions about her mosque attendance, thoughts on the Quebec City shooting and opinion about U.S. President Donald Trump.Fadwa Alaoui, who has lived in Canada for more than 20 years and holds a Canadian passport, said she was on a day trip with her children and a cousin on Saturday when she faced the intense questioning.AdvertisementWhen grilled about Trump, the Montreal woman said she told the guards it's not in my interest -- he has the right to do whatever he wants in his country.Alaoui said she was forced to hand over her phone and the guards inquired about a prayer on her phone written in Arabic.She said she was eventually told she could not enter the U.S. due to videos and concerns.The National Council of Canadian Muslims said Alaouis experience is evidence of racial profiling and discrimination by border guards, a phenomenon that has become more common since Trump became president on Jan. 20.The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency would not comment on the specific case but issued a statement saying it does not discriminate on the entry of foreign nationals  based on religion, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation.The NCCM is encouraging Muslims to report incidents to them.Alaoui said shes now worried that she will not be able to visit family, including her parents, who are American citizens living in Chicago.
Curious Cdn said: Scotland becomes a sovereign country and stays with the EU, as is their democratic right. Click to expand...

Cannuck said: As I've said before, it's only a matter of time before Scotland leaves. Click to expand...

Bar Sinister said: Brexit pretty much played right into the hands of Scottish nationalists. Click to expand...

Expect another referendum within a few years, and this time one in which the Scots will vote to leave. Click to expand...

You can't be a soveriegn country and be within the EU at the same, just as you can't be a sovereign country and be within the UK.Scotland will only truly be an independent state if it's outside the UK AND the EU. The SNP aren't true Scottish nationalists. They merely want to swap rule from London for rule from Brussels and Strasbourg, which strikes me as a bit odd.Had Scotland voted to leave the UK in 2014 it'd now be out of the EU, too. And there'd be no guarantee that'd be back in. It wouldn't have been able to quickly re-enter the EU. It would have been at the back of the queue of second-rate nations wishing to join the EU gravy train, and Spain would likely veto an independent Scotland's entry into the EU because it has its own seccessionists to deal with, such as the Catalans. Even if Scotland then re-entered the EU eventually it would have to join the troublesome, economy-wrecking euro.By the way, Scotland does 67% of its trade with the rest of the United Kingdom. Economically, the United Kingdom is far more important to Scotland than the European Union is.The SNP keep saying they want the UK to remain inside the EU because "44% of UK's trade is with the EU", yet at the same time they want Scotland to leave the UK, even though 67% of Scotland's trade is with the UK. They're very confused people.The Scottish "nationalists" have to be careful. Within Scotland, a higher proportion of voters of Scottish "nationalist" party SNP voted for Brexit than did voters of any other party. These Brexit-supporting Scotttish nationalists are the TRUE Scottish nationalists, wanting a sovereign, independent Scotland outside the UK and the EU. So the irony is that any scuppering of the Brexit vote will hurt the SNP Scottish "nationalists" in Scotland more than it'll hurt any other party.Well we keep hearing this. We were told during the referendum campaign that if the UK as a whole votes to leave the EU but Scotland votes to remain then all of a sudden there'd be a massive clamouring for "independence" in Scotland. But no such thing has happened. In fact, the Scots are still opposed to breaking away from the UK. Despite the Brexit result, just 27% of Scots want another EU referendum.
Its very traumatizing and Im sure it made them feel extremely vulnerable so they deserve our support.



what's with these backwards scumbags?the west best sort itself out.A 39-year-old man has been charged in connection with several sexual assaults that occurred at the West Edmonton Mall World Waterpark over the weekend.Police were called to the waterpark at around 10:30 p.m. Saturday.Officers said a man inappropriately touched multiple teenage girls while they were swimming at the waterpark.The girls were very courageous in coming forward and talking to the lifeguard, thats not always the case, EPS spokesperson Scott Pattison said.Police arrested a man on scene and took him into custody.The waterpark was booked out by the Non-Academic Staff Association (NASA) at the time. The association represents non-academic staff working on the University of Alberta campus.Nancy Furlong with NASA said the man was not a member of the association. She also said that while the organization had the waterpark booked, there were other people at the facility at the time who were not part of their group.Furlong said a note was sent out to everyone who purchased tickets through NASA informing them of what happened.Soleiman Hajj Soleiman, a Syrian refugee and father of six, has since been charged with six counts of sexual assault and six counts of sexual interference.The Edmonton Police Service Zebra Child Protection Section has taken over the investigation.Pattison said police believe there are other complainants and hes urging them to come forward.They will be dealt with discreetly and their allegations will be thoroughly investigated.related:and on and on and on...
An autograph signing is being held by two of the lead actors involved in the upcoming film "12 Days of Giving" currently being shot in Fremont through Feb. 18, information released from The Digg Site Productions says.

The event is being held from 1-3 p.m. Thursday at Polymath Cyber Cafe, and actors Ashley Jones and Preston Hillier will be present to sign autographs.

Anybody interested in attending must pick up free tickets at the cafe by 8 p.m. Wednesday night.

For additional information people are encouraged to email info@polymathcybercafe.com.
Wednesday 8 February 2017 1:21pm



Dr Tamlin Conner of the Department of Psychology

Lifting your intake of fruit and vegetables can make a difference to the way you feel in just a couple of weeks, a University of Otago study has found.

A team of five academics, led by Dr Tamlin Conner of the Department of Psychology, investigated the effects of increasing fruit and vegetable consumption on changes in psychological well-being.

Their study involved 171 young adults aged 18-25, split into three groups. Over a fortnight, they either continued eating as normal, or were encouraged by text reminders and pre-paid vouchers to eat more fruit and vegetables, or were personally given two extra daily servings of fresh produce (carrots, kiwifruit, apples and oranges).

Those in the last group reported significant improvements to their psychological well-being, with boosts in vitality and motivation.

However, those reminded by text and given $10 vouchers did not show a similar improvement and, when surveyed, were found more likely to have eaten cooked vegetables in casseroles or mixed in with other meals.

The group given fresh fruit and vegetables mostly ate them uncooked.

The study has just been published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Dr Conner says it was encouraging that increased healthy eating could improve feelings of well-being in just two weeks.

The message from this study is we should be giving people more fruits and vegetables to eat, not simply reminding people to eat their 5+ a day.

People in dormitories, children in daycare centres, patients in hospitals, employees in the workplace, could be provided with fresh fruits and vegetables on a regular basis.

Further research would be needed to address whether eating more fresh produce might make differences to peoples ill-being, including conditions such as depression.

These changes might take longer to happen, Dr Conner says.

For more information, please contact:

Dr Tamlin Conner

University of Otago

Department of Psychology

Tel: 03 479 7624

Email: tconner@psy.otago.ac.nz
February in Fremont is dreary.

Wind, snow and freezing temperatures dominate the forecast day after day, leaving most residents wishing for a trip to the beach.

For those who cant afford a plane ticket to Hawaii, however, there is an easier way to get a taste of island fun without leaving Fremont.

Fremont Middle School will be hosting its annual Feast and Fanfare fundraiser event on Feb. 25, and this years theme is Hawaiian Luau.

The event features two performances by FMS and JCAC student ensembles, which includes singing, dancing and acting in what released information refers to as a musical and theatrical extravaganza.

All the kids will be wearing Hawaiian shirts and lays, and all of the performances will be with the luau theme in mind, FMS parent and organizer Heidi Huss said.

The performances will be held in the FMS gym at 5 and 7 p.m., and show tickets are $4 which can be purchased through the FMS music department.

Those who purchase a ticket to the show will also be automatically entered into a raffle to win a drone as well as other prizes. Attendees will be able to purchase additional raffle tickets for $1 at the event.

The feast portion of the event will be a chili feed, with meal tickets costing $3.

It will be chili with all the toppings, cinnamon rolls and there will be a concession stand for the show as well, Huss said.

All proceeds from the event will go to the FMS and JCAC music departments for travel and entry fees to contests as well as equipment.

Organizers encourage those interested in attending to purchase tickets in advance through Feb. 17 in an effort to ensure enough food is prepared. Tickets can be purchased by calling FMS at 402-727-3114.

It is a huge event, a lot of people come out and its junior high kids performing and just having fun, so it should be a great time, Huss said.
Cellist Patrick Owen, who will perform with the Midland Symphony Orchestra at its Saturday concert, said he feels a special connection to Brahms Double Concerto, which he will perform with violinist and colleague Amanda Wang.

He partly wrote this piece to reconnect with an old friend, Owen said in a phone interview this week. Im playing it in Midland where Im going to be seeing all kinds of old friends.

The concert is at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Midland Center for the Arts auditorium.

Owen, a Midland native, has some connections with the orchestra  his father Peter, also a cellist, played in the MSO for a while. One of his cello teachers during his youth is current MSO principal cellist Cathy White.

He also credited his mom, Ellen, for giving him a lot of help in his music studies and noted that another of his local cello teachers was Lois Palen.

Owen and Wang were in Midland in November 2014 as part of their Ellipsis Trio, which performed at the Grove Music Festival.

There were some of my teachers from grade school  I saw all kinds of people I hadnt seen in a long time, Owen said.

Wang, who had early success in music, earned a degree in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at age 19. She returned to music and received first prize in the New England International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition. Among her recent performances have been engagements with the Music Festival at Walnut Hill, the Rockport Music Festival and Killington Music Festival.

The concerto which Owen and Wang will play was initially conceived by Brahms as a cello concerto, Owen said, but the composer made it a double concerto in an attempt to repair a rift with violinist Joseph Joachim, a longtime friend.

The program also includes another piece by Brahms, Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn, and Debussys Afternoon of a Faun.

In addition to the trio and various solo performances, Owen is a member of the Portland (Maine) String Quartet. That ensemble is planning summer workshops with kids and adults, as well as festival performances and a river cruise in France in October.

He also is a frequent guest performer with the Boston Philharmonic, the Boston Lyric Opera and the Rhode Island Philharmonic.

I travel all over New England, Owen said. Its an interesting way to make a living.

In his teens, a summer at Interlochen Arts Academy led to his attending there his senior year of high school. From there, he went to the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., and on to studies with Harvey Shapiro  a member of the NBC Symphony Orchestra under Arturo Toscanini  at the Juilliard School.

Owen says he got a great start in musical studies in his hometown.

The opportunities I got in Midland were really good, he said, noting the community of music teachers, the scholarships he received to attend Interlochen as well as the predominance of classical music at the MATRIX:MIDLAND festival during his youth and the chance to hear such legendary musicians as violinists Itzhak Perlman and Yehudi Menuhin.

People in Midland are always so supportive, he said.

Tickets for Saturdays concert are $34 and $43 for adults and $15 for students. A special student rush ticket of $5 will be available the day of the concert only. Tickets are available at the MCFTA ticket office, 800-523-7649, and online at www.mcfta.org
The following list includes recent reports from the Midland County Sheriffs Office and the Midland Police Department.

Tuesday, Feb. 7

8:48 a.m.  Deputies investigated a hit and run traffic crash in Lincoln Township.

1:19 p.m.  Deputies are investigating a report of a verbal altercation involving a woman, 21, her boyfriend, 29, and another man, 25, at an adult education center in Homer Township.

3:41 p.m.  A Saginaw County woman, 23, was arrested for five outstanding warrants from Isabella and Saginaw counties after a traffic stop for speeding in Lee Township. The driver, a man, was cited for speeding.

9:45 p.m.  A deputy was sent to a Jerome Township home after Child Protective Services reported a suspicious situation. The case is being investigated.
Years ago, many businesses in the private sector realized that the pension plans they had so generously offered employees for years were going to in the long term break the bank and force them into financial difficulties if not bankruptcy.

Those businesses continued to honor the pension plans that had been earned by employees, both past and present, but closed off the benefit to future hires, instead providing new employees with a 401(k)-type plan, often with some type of an employer match of employee contributions toward their retirement.
To the editor

Obamacare is indefensible! So says Cathy Leikhim, chair of the Midland County Republican Party in her Jan. 29 editorial column. In our current highly tribal political climate, its easy to reach that conclusion when youre a Midland Republican, and the only people you talk to are predisposed to agree with you. As an 18-year Midland resident who has actually benefited from Obamacare, I would like to offer a different perspective.

For 16-1/2 years I worked at Michigan Molecular Institute (MMI) as a Ph.D. research scientist, enjoying commensurate pay and benefits. However, in February 2015 a number of MMI staff members were laid off as a cost saving measure, including me. I received a good severance package, and was able to keep my existing healthcare coverage through COBRA benefits while searching for a new job. However, in July 2015 MMI ceased operation, and as a consequence of this, my monthly healthcare premium shot up from roughly $500 to $1,200, which was excessive. Healthcare coverage was essential at that time because my wife was battling Stage 4 lung cancer, and was taking costly cutting edge oral chemotherapy drugs for treatment. Their full cost typically ranged from $8,000 to 16,000 per month. Still unemployed and looking for alternative healthcare coverage, I went to the Healthcare.gov website, filled out the online form, and soon learned that I qualified for expanded Medicaid. Before signing up, I inquired whether Zykadia would be covered  a recently approved targeted therapy that was keeping my wife alive at the time. The answer was yes, so I eagerly dived in.

Splitting my time between being a caregiver for an ill spouse and an elementary school age child, all the while continuing my search for a new job wasnt easy. From the time I was first laid off in 2015, it took nearly two years to find a job, and as a consequence of this I stayed on Medicaid for 1-1/2 years. Throughout that period my experience was overwhelmingly positive. Expanded Medicaid completely covered routine primary care physicians visits for me and my family, as well as my wifes continuous oncology appointments. It also completely covered routine dental cleanings and vaccinations, including yearly flu shots. Having a spouse with Stage 4 cancer, the ban on coverage denial due to pre-existing conditions was a lifesaver, as was the elimination of a lifetime benefits ceiling. With Medicaid, our monthly Zykadia copayment was $5. Sadly, my wife passed away from pneumonia that was exacerbated by the cancer in March 2016. However, I have no doubt that the Xalkori, Zykadia and Lorlatinib targeted therapies kept her around long enough to allow her to see her youngest child reach his 9th and 10th birthdays, which was a very big deal.

Some people might label me a moocher for going on Medicaid. Prior to losing my job, however, I worked for 29 years, all the while paying federal income, Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes. The way I see it, I have earned these benefits. After many months of struggle and grief, I finally landed a research scientist position in Ann Arbor, with excellent pay and benefits in December 2016. However, my new healthcare coverage will not kick in until March 2017. No problem  Medicaid will continue to cover me during the interim period. Luckily, my job benefits include an affordable Blue Cross plan partially subsidized by my employer. For others who are down on their luck, or are not so fortunate as to have an advanced degree in a marketable STEM field, the fate of their healthcare rests in the hands of U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar and his Republican Congressional majority cohorts. Mr. Moolenaar would have us believe that everything will be fine once Obamacare is repealed and replaced. Anybody want to bet their life and health on that? Fortunately for me, I wont have to.

STEVEN KAGANOVE

Midland
Several B-1B Lancers and Airmen with the 7th Bomb Wing from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, deployed to Andersen AFB, Feb. 6 in support of U.S. Pacific Commands Continuous Bomber Presence mission.

The 9th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron, deployed from Dyess AFB, Texas, is taking over U.S. Pacific Commands CBP operations from the 34th EBS, assigned to Ellsworth AFB, S.D.

This marks the second deployment of B-1s to Guam in over a decade. The first deployment of B-1s arrived in August 2016 and took over CBP operations from the B-52 Stratofortress bomber squadrons from Minot AFB, N.D., and Barksdale AFB, La.

The B-1s will continue to support USPACOM in conducting routine, strategic deterrence and regional training missions. Incorporating the B-1 into PACOM operations exercises the Air Forces ability to integrate a unique capability with regional allies and partners in various parts of the world.

Since 2004, U.S. Air Force bombers such as the B-1, B-52 Stratofortress and B-2 Spirit have been in continuous rotations providing non-stop stability and security in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region.

Air Force Global Strike Command continues to routinely deploy bombers to Guam, which provides opportunities to strengthen regional alliances and long-standing military-to-military partnerships throughout the Indo-Asia-Pacific region.

The B-1 units bring a unique perspective and years of repeated combat and operational experience from the Central Command theater to the Pacific. They will provide a significant rapid global strike capability that enables readiness and commitment to deterrence, offers assurance to the U.S. allies and strengthens regional security and stability in the region. Training in a different part of the world allows the B-1 aircrews the opportunity to integrate with Pacific partners to enhance interoperability and regional cooperation.
More than 300 Airmen assigned to the 7th Bomb Wing deployed to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, to execute the first-ever Block 16 deployment for the B-1B Lancer Jan. 31.

Aircrew, maintenance and support personnel will generate B-1 sorties to demonstrate the continuing U.S. commitment to stability and security in the Indo-Asia-Pacific Region, providing commanders with a strategic power projection platform.

The Block 16 makes the B-1 an all-round more capable aircraft, said Capt. Matt*, 9th Bomb Squadron member. With the upgrades, we are able to have a say in the fight and increase the connectivity between aircraft on a built-in network, making the B-1 more lethal, more deadly.

This enhanced capability not only aids the crew of the B-1, but allows other military assets to be better prepared against enemy threats.

The mission of the 9th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron on this deployment is to project combat airpower for U.S. Pacific Command and to work with our allies within the region, said Maj. Eric*, 7th Operation Support Squadron member. Theyll fly a mixture of local training missions and power projection sorties, while also conducting coalition training to enhance the warfighting ability in the PACOM area of responsibility.

The Airmen were joined by several B-1s and personnel later in the week, replacing Airmen assigned to the 34th Bomb Squadron at Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota.

7th Bomb Wing Airmen have been training for several months by taking part in major large force exercises across the U.S. to prepare for this deployment.

Every deployment and mission is different, Maj. Eric* said. The importance of this missionthis deploymentis to project American airpower and work with our allies within PACOM. Well be training together and improving those relationships.

The Airmen of Team Dyess are tasked to bring long-range capability, speed, flexibility and modern defense avionics systems to the fight. As a multi-role heavy bomber, the B-1 can fly more than 900 miles per hour and carry more than 75,000 pounds of munitions.

This deployment is a completely new mission for us, said Master Sgt. Dawn Garza, 7th Maintenance Group plans and scheduling section chief. After contributing to Air Combat Command for several years, this is our first deployment under Air Force Global Strike Commands mission.

Garza said it was a huge difference going from ACC, who trains, equips and maintains combat-ready forces, to AFGSC who provides the combat-ready forces through strategic nuclear deterrence and global strike operations.

At the conclusion of this rotation, Team Dyess Airmen are scheduled to be replaced by the 37th Bomb Squadron assigned to Ellsworth AFB.

The 7th BW did a fantastic job in a short amount of time to get everyone out the door, said Maj. Justin Croteau, 9th BS chief of mobility. Without the hard work of the wing and the base as a whole, the objectives we are supporting in the PACOM region wouldnt have been possible.

*Editors note: Members rank and first name given, last name is withheld for security purposes.
Approximately 130 Airmen and multiple F-16 Fighting Falcons departed Misawa Air Base, Japan, Feb. 7 and 8, to participate in Exercise COPE NORTH 2017.

CN17 is a multilateral U.S. Pacific Air Forces-sponsored field training exercise, originating here in 1978, now conducted annually at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. The mission focuses on air combat tactics and large force employment in an effort to enhance interoperability among U.S., Australian and Japanese forces. CN17 is scheduled from Feb. 15 through Mar. 3.

COPE NORTH gives us the opportunity to enhance U.S. relations with our regional allies and partners by demonstrating our resolve to promote security and stability throughout the Indo-Asia-Pacific, said Col. Travis Rex, 35th Fighter Wing vice commander.

CN17 provides the opportunity for tri-lateral field training exercises which improves combat readiness, develops synergistic humanitarian assistance and/or disaster relief operations, and increases interoperability between the U.S., Royal Australian Air Force and Japanese Air Self-Defense Force, concentrating on coordination of air tactics, techniques, and procedures.

Having the opportunity to use the Farallon de Medinilla range at Guam affords our pilots critical training on scenarios they dont encounter here at Draughon Range, said Maj. John Tolk, 35th Operations Support Squadron assistant director of operations. Being able to drop live ordnances as well as shoot the AGM-88 high-speed anti-radiation missile provides our pilots mission critical training, better preparing us for crisis scenarios.

The exercise features a full spectrum of fighter, bomber, airlift, tanker, rescue and command and control aircraft, including its first integration of the B-1B Lancer into the display of combat airpower.

The exercise will increase combat readiness among our allied nations using fighter versus fighter air combat tactics and air-to-ground strike mission training over the Farallon de Medinilla range, explained Rex. This large force employment training will enhance our air superiority, interdiction, electronic warfare, tactical airlift and aerial refueling capabilities.
Airmen and aircraft assigned to the 119th Fighter Squadron from the New Jersey Air National Guard began a deployment here on Feb. 5.

The guardsmen, who are deployed from the 177th Fighter Wing at Atlantic City Air National Guard Base, are filling a theater security package at the request of U.S. Pacific Command and Pacific Air Forces, providing an opportunity to work with and train alongside active duty forces.

In addition to the assigned PACAF objectives, we expect to successfully integrate into the mission employment exercise and validate our ability to conduct combat operations off station commensurate with our active duty counterparts, said Lt. Col. Matthew Crill, 119th FS commander.

TSP units are assigned to Osan to augment the bases capabilities to project air power across the Korean Peninsula and strengthen the U.S. Forces Koreas ability to deter regional threats while strengthening regional stability.

Our brothers and sisters in the ANG are invaluable to have over here at Osan, said Col. Cary Culbertson, 51st Fighter Wing vice commander. The skill and knowledge they have collected over their years of service offer our active duty Airmen, whether theyre aircrew or support, priceless advice on how to complete the task at hand.

The skills and knowledge Culbertson refers to come from the 119th FS long history, dating back nearly 100 years to its activation in June 1917 as the 5th Aviation School Squadron. The unit has undergone a variety of designation changes and bounced back and forth between federal and state service after World War II before settling under the authority of the New Jersey ANG in 1969.

I am grateful for the opportunity to command these citizen airmen who volunteer to serve, in a Drill Status Guardsman, Technician or Active Guard and Reserve status, on active duty in an AOR that has significant strategic importance, said Crill. I look forward to ensuring that our citizen airmen have the necessary resources to generate airpower in support of the defense of the United States and our allies.
While my boat, thankfully, doesnt need six bilge pumps like the system above, four months of serious testing has left me deeply impressed with the Nautic Alert bilge, battery and GPS precision sensor platform. Yes, it also manages one pump or many  probably better than any us ever will  and it clearly informs a skipper of problems whether youre on board or off. Finally, Nautic Alert regularly assures me that all is well, and its ripe for expansion. I think Im in love

First, lets meet the developers. Nautic Alert is part of a family-run company called Market Spectrum, Inc. where the family trade is information technology (IT), while the family passion is boating. One key chapter to the story is how the father, Fernando Velado, lost his sailboat to an untended fire on a nearby vessel, even though he made a weekly two-hour roundtrip to the marina to make sure his own boats systems were working properly. Second was when the son, Nick, left his position as a BIOS engineer in the IBM SystemX server group to join his dad full time and create the protective system hes showing off at the 2016 NMEA conference above.

Actually, at NMEA I already knew that Nick Velado had been working on the Nautic Alert platform for at least two years, and that helped explain the stellar level of smart and reliable detail I later encountered in my testing. However, it was only last week that I learned he once helped design the critical Basic Input/Output Software for a well-known line of critical servers, but that certainly makes sense, too.

Ill also mention how motivated my Nautic Alert testing has been. Just as I was about to install the system, various events indicated that I had gotten quite sloppy about what is arguably the most basic tenet of successful seamanship. There I was happily thinking of Gizmo as a dry boat with a good redundant automatic bilge pump system  thats the primary deep in the aft bilge above, and theres a larger fully independent backup pump forward of the engine. But, in fact, I was operating for at least a few weeks last summer with neither bilge pump functional and a dripless shaft seal that was about to let go in a very wet way.

What happened and what I learned in the diagnostic and repair process are worth the planned future entry, I suspect, but for now just please remember what I forgot: Boats can figure out many ways to leak and bilge pumps many ways to fail.

There are two main hardware components to the full Nautic Alert platform, and the Nevata bilge pump switch and controller can be used by itself. My photo shows the ultrasonic sensor that constantly watches the water level, and also the heavy duty cables that connect to a boats 12, 24 or 32 volt supply and to the bilge pump. Actually thats the $449 Nevata 2R model that can manage two pumps, but in either case replacing existing pump switches should not be hard, and this one is not just solid state. Its intelligent, faithful, and well spoken.

Nevatas may well be the most expensive bilge pump switches in the world, but dont presume a value judgment until you understand all they can do. Once Id completed this temporary install in Gizmos aft bilge, I easily used the switchs button and LED interface to invoke the Auto Calibrate mode, which meant it used its abilities to hear the water level and sense the current passing through the pump to establish its precise pump-dry level. (14.0 inches is the distance between the Nevata and the bilge water level or floor, and the screen can be set to show either that value, water height or accumulated pump cycles.)

Lucky guy that I am, Gizmos semi-failed shaft seal remained dripless under about 7 knots, and so for a few days I was able to sit about where I took this photo (holding the camera beneath the prop shaft) and easily control a steady flow of water into the bilge. Thats how I became confident that the Nevata can consistently measure water depth to 0.1 inch accuracy, and I also watched several times as it responded instantly to the (customizable) 2-inch pump-on level by running the pump exactly to when it started sucking air.

Theres much more the Nevata can do, especially when the internal that little down-pointing (ZigBee) wireless antenna is talking to a Nautic Alert Insight display and offboard communicator, but Ill add one note before we leave Gizmos bilge area. Ive been underway a few times since this install and during one fast, bumpy run the Nautic Alert generated some false high bilge level alarms. Thats when I learned about the anti-slosh logic that Nick Velado engineered into the Nevata and also that I had installed it wrong. Observe that the whole device is on center, when actually the ultrasonic sensor should be centered for the cleanest, least splashy view of this narrow bilge area. I could also add a tube to accomplish the same goal, but Im pretty confident that refastening the Nevata in the right place will end false alarms. {Correction: the little visible antenna is the temperature sensor, which also used to calibrate the speed of sound from the ultrasonic transducers.}

I can imagine using a Nevata standalone, especially if it could be installed in a more visible location than mine, but I have to add that when I recently sent this test Nautic Alert Insight in for a firmware update, I missed it every single day of the roundtrip. The Insight adds yet more intelligence to the Nevata bilge management, plus GPS and battery monitoring, plus data display, louder alarming onboard, and remote alarming with a service plan. That is a 95dB siren on the backside, which makes a lot more noise than whats typically built into MFDs and other displays, and an external audio alarm is also supported (and both can be muted).

In this photo you can also see the GPS and Verizon 4G LTE cellular antennas that come stock with the $750 Insight (prices updated 7/17), though higher performance antennas are possible. But that Satellite port is just a dummy. While there will soon be an Iridium model of the Insight, and it will use the same case with similar service plan choices, customers will have to choose between cell or satellite communications at purchase.

The Insights 4.3-inch, 480 x 272 pixel touchscreen is hard to photograph but great to use, and I also find the interface very friendly. Note, for instance, that when I selected this Nevata bilge screen, its button immediately flipped to Manage mode so two taps would have gotten me to the sensors setup screen, and all use my AftBilge custom Nevata name. I have a more interesting main Nevata screen further down, but note for now that when attached to the Insight, the Nevata delivers bilge temperature as well as water level.

That temperature  also available via phone texting or on my Nautic Alert web portal  has been very valuable to me, trying as I am to keep my boat commissioned through a Maine winter, and worried as I am about how a freeze/break/thaw seacock scenario could sink my beloved boat almost as fast as a 4G text message. And given the wild climate fluctuations that have so far made my experiment nearly pleasurable, remote bilge temperature might be valuable in places where winter in-water storage is more common, but so are polar vortexes.

I did have a small problem with the ZigBee wireless connection between the Nevata and the Insight, but thats mainly because my install meant that it had to pass diagonally and lengthwise through a substantial 450hp Volvo Penta diesel to reach the helm spot where I first mounted the display. It worked most of the time, but sometimes alerted me to short disconnects. But it was easy to move the Insight to the aft corner of the main cabin, where it also got a direct power connection to Gizmos battery bank  better for DC monitoring  and where it and its antennas can hide behind the curtains in case some bad hombre tries to violate my geofence. (Also the latest Insight firmware adjusts the wireless heartbeat message timeout parameters to reduce spurious disconnect alerts.)

Incidentally, throughout this process I could check on the Insights precise wireless connection to the Nevata, even by phone. In fact, I can tell you that the signal strength is a solid 61% right now. Thats the Velado way.

The Insights interface is pleasantly consistent throughout, except that the Manage Nevata screen understandably mimics the sensor/controllers own interface. So I can manually run the pump from here, as well as autocalibrating, setting the pump-on level (Alert is 1 inch higher), and more. Plus, I can set the Critical Alert level and what I think is the critical Runtime Fault value.

A situation that has sunk boats despite high water alarms, cycle counters, and even remote monitoring, is when a pump starts running for long periods trying to keep up with a sudden leak and eventually kills the battery. But if Gizmos primary pump runs more than 5 minutes continuously, my phone is going to vibrate and chime with the alert and/or Ill hear the Insight siren fire off (especially if I install the remote alarm on the flybridge).

This is Nautic Alerts own screen photo and I believe its showing the six-bilge-pump system diagrammed at the top of the entry. The three Nevatas should and could be named for the sections of the boat where they preside, but you can see how the primary pump controlled by Nevata 2 has failed, allowing bilge water to rise above the Pump and Alert levels, but that the backup pump is now taking care of itall automatically.

I dont know exactly how that (test?) pump failed (after 33,429 cycles, at least since the last Nevata auto calibration), but I do know that the Nevata can detect over and under current situations as well as the fact that a running pump really isnt pumping. It also tests the one or two pumps its managing weekly, and it knows not to try pumping frozen water. When we Sail magazine judges gave Nautic Alert a 2017 Pittman Award, I wrote that its like having a tireless mate who constantly minds the bilge, manages the pumps intelligently, and lets you know whats happening and I hope youre convinced.

Nautic Alert Insight battery bank monitoring is also sweet, and again my winter in-water experiment provided a good testing situation. I only recently was able to borrow the tool needed to adjust Gizmos Victron MultiPlus inverter/charger to provide the correct float voltage to her new Firefly battery bank, so Ive only been using shore power when I was on the boat. Its like when she is on the mooring; I want to be alerted about low voltage, and I also want to be able to check from wherever I am if Im concerned. This is not as simple as it sounds, but Nautic Alert delivers.

The Insight can be easily configured for one of several standard battery types or you can custom set Full, Alert, and Critical thresholds. Moreover, to avoid false alerts and alarms due to transitory voltage spikes  an annoyance Ive seen with other monitoring systems  Nick programmed in 30-second continuous voltage averaging before a threshold transition is declared. And once he came across an obsessive battery watcher (me), he added that customizable filter, which can be set from 10 seconds to 30 minutes. Finally, he recently added a six-hour voltage trend feature to the Nautic Alert web portal that each owner gets, and Im already using it to diagnose a possible issue.

But I dont mean to make the Nautic Alert sound overly complex. In fact, its darn easy to set up and use. But if you do poke around under the hood, I think that you, too, will be pleased with how much careful engineering has been done. And that applies to power consumption as well. The Nevata is rated at 20 milliamps (0.02 amps) maximum draw on 12 volts, and I have verified that the Insight in my real situation uses significantly less than its rated 200mA with screen on (at 680 nit maximum) and 80mA with screen (automatically) off.

So its no surprise that the Nautic Alert geofencing is also sophisticated. Specifically, the software watches the GPS receivers perceived accuracy and adjusts the minimum geofence radius set to avoid false alerts. Of course, I had to push that concept, too, as a reliable remote anchor dragging alarm would be very nice indeed.

Interestingly, when set to the minimum 50 feet  less than recommended without Nautic Alerts external GPS receiver, which I dont have  I got a geofence alert that soon cleared itself at about the same time every morning while Gizmo was at her fixed fall berth. We concluded that the changing satellite constellation and the many local obstacles managed to align just enough to foil Nicks algorithms, so he modified them in the latest firmware. The real test will come with spring and a chance to anchor out (at least where there is cell service). Im quite hopeful and love the concept of one anchor alarm that will work whether Im sound asleep up forward, hiking an island, or at a restaurant.

Ill note that geofence alarming does not have to be precise to catch a boat thief, that it can also be useful if your boatyard moves or launches your boat without telling you, and that Nautic Alert will soon add tracking to its bag of tricks.

I could go on and on, but heres a photo illustrating how a Nautic Alert platform user sets up a phone for text alerting and data inquiries. Its done right, of course,  the system sends the phone a verification code that has to be entered on the Insight  but its easy via the general setup menu always available under the gear icon. In this particular case the phone number had already been set up once, hence the early January conversations, but I had to do it again after the firmware update.

Tip useful for any text-based monitoring system: The phone number Im using here is actually a free Google Voice number, not my cell phone number. That way I can also converse with the Nautic Alert via email, using my phone or most any connected device, and my phone texting is a separate thing (unless I also register its number).

Heres a collage illustrating what I can see and do on My Insight portal, which just went live recently. Note that it is a web app, no downloads necessary, and it works fine on my phone, tablet or PC. The time stamping of the six-hour DC Voltage Trend adjusts itself if you have not tapped the green button to request an update recently, but in this case I had just come home from a boat project session during which I ran the engine  mostly for warmth, the dang boiler still isnt completely installed  and then the charger.

Obviously, Im a big fan of boat monitoring generally and Nautic Alert specifically. So Im quite excited about whats unfolding this year. Since this October Panbo discussion, Ive installed the very impressive GoFree Track hardware system, am seeing solid WiFi performance (the global cell service doesnt include Camden, but Camden is quite odd that way), and Im keen to test the soon-to-beta Vessel service beyond the very basic WiFi SD level. I also hope to try the Verizon version of Yacht Protector (right, the global GSM version doesnt work here), and while Siren Marines MTC Connected Boat was delayed, its purportedly in production now and I will get to test it. Plus, Ive reinstalled Boat Command and it remains a reliable and notably cost effective remote system. Gizmo may become the most monitored vessel on the planet?

If remote monitoring is as valuable as I think it is, all this activity has got to have an effect in the marketplace. Still, though, some of these developers dont get one easy aspect I find highly desirable. Maybe it makes more sense emotionally than rationally, but Im convinced that a good system doesnt just tell you when things go wrong; it delivers the good news, too. Hence, the last Nautic Alert phone screen below. The top message is a regular alert (and speaks to the power issue Im trying to diagnose). The second text is simply the Im OK message I can get automatically every day simply by texting Status On to the Insight once at the time of day I prefer. It makes me feel good.

Finally, if not already obvious, the Nautic Alert Platform could be easily extended to sensors beyond the essential bilge, GPS, and battery. In fact, if youre coming to the Miami International Boat Show next week, you can ask Nick Velado about that yourself. Hell be demonstrating his excellent work at booth C284 in the electronics area, thanks to the good folks at Atlantic Radio/SatPhone Store.
BLOOMINGTON  Three suspects face felony charges related to 14 pounds of marijuana and $29,000 in cash seized during an investigation by McLean County sheriff's police into what was described as a large-scale drug operation.

Cameron McCormick, 24, of the 100 block of Kings Mill Road in Normal is charged with unlawful possession of marijuana and calculated criminal drug conspiracy. The man described by prosecutors as "the primary in the organization" was jailed in lieu of posting $20,035.

The operation allegedly was run from the rental home McCormick shared with his girlfriend, Gabriella Lavoie, 20, who faces similar charges. Lavoie was jailed in lieu of posting $5,035.

A third suspect, Andrew Parker, 23, of Hoffman Estates was charged Tuesday with delivery and possession of marijuana and criminal drug conspiracy.

McLean County Sheriff Jon Sandage estimated the street value of the drugs at $42,000. It was a county investigation that led to the house in Normal.

In a statement read in court Wednesday, Assistant State's Attorney Jeff Horve said sheriff's detectives found evidence of a sophisticated drug business operating in the county, including packaging materials and a large amount of cash, in the $1,100-a-month rental home.

"He was making so much on drugs he had a money counter in his room," said Horve.

The defendants are due in court Feb. 17 for arraignments.
BLOOMINGTON  Fire damaged an older two-story house converted into apartments Wednesday evening on Bloomington's west side, displacing about nine people, firefighters said.

Firefighters were called at 7:20 p.m. to 812 W. Washington St., where flames could be seen on the west side of the building and smoke was coming out the windows and along the roof.

There were no injuries, but the American Red Cross was called to assist five children and three or four adults, firefighters said.

The cause and extent of the damage remained under investigation, Firefighters said.

The building had two apartments upstairs and one downstairs, said first-floor resident Eboni Coppage.

She said she came home with four of her children to find her 13-year-old daughter, who was home alone, doing homework in a cold apartment. Soon after she turned up the heat, there was a burning smell, Coppage said.

"It smelled like incense," she said, noting the smell became more intense and then some sort of alarm started beeping.

"I said, 'Everybody get out! The house is on fire!'"

Her family dashed out to her minivan, she said, noting they fled so fast, she left barefoot.

Washington between Allin and Howard streets was blocked during the firefighting effort.

Normal firefighters also were called to the scene.
BLOOMINGTON  Gov. Bruce Rauner expressed optimism on Wednesday about an agreement being reached on a balanced budget for Illinois, but he declined to speculate on when that might happen.

I don't think anybody knows, Rauner said during a meeting with The Pantagraph's editorial board, but he added, I'm heartened by  for the first time  both sides of the aisle acknowledging we should have significant structural change to have a balanced budget.

They're talking about the right issues, including pension reform, workers' compensation, property taxes and a new school funding formula, he said.

He applauded a measure recently passed by the Illinois House that would freeze property taxes unless voters approve an increase.

Describing it as real tax reform, Rauner said, I hope it gets to my desk.

Without such reforms to control government growth and increase economic growth, Illinois cannot sustain a balanced budget, said Rauner, repeating what he said earlier in the day at a news conference at Heartland Community College in Normal.

It's simple math, he said.

We could get a balanced budget through cuts, said Rauner, but, it would be very painful. It's not my first choice, and it wouldn't be a long-term solution.

We can't cut our way to faster economic growth, he said. We can't tax our way out.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan recently filed a motion in court to stop payment of state employees until a budget has been approved. Employees have continued to be paid under a preliminary court injunction Madigan is seeking to have dissolved.

Rauner is urging Comptroller Susana Mendoza to fight against Madigan's move, as her predecessor, Rauner appointee Leslie Munger, did. But so far, Rauner said, he hasn't seen much of a commitment to do so from Mendoza.

Munger, who lost the November election to Mendoza, was named a deputy governor last week by Rauner.

Blocking state employee pay likely would lead to a government shutdown.

A shutdown would be terrible, said Rauner. It would play into the hands of those who want a stopgap budget and a big tax hike.

Meanwhile, the Rauner administration still has been unable to reach a contract agreement with the state's largest employee union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31. The council's approximately 35,000 members are in the midst of a strike-authorization vote.

Although a state labor board ruled that the two sides are at an impasse, which would allow the state to implement its last contract offer, union officials blocked that in court.

Rauner said the delay is costing the state $2.3 million to $2.9 million a day.

The governor has reached agreements with most of the other state employee unions and said the contract offered to AFSCME is similar to those offered to other unions.

In explaining the standoff, he said AFSCME "is used to getting their way."
NORMAL  Walking quickly through uptown Normal on Wednesday morning, Illinois State University junior Ryan Mitchell wasn't wearing a coat and was wearing jeans cut off just below the knee.

Yesterday, I would have been comfortable, but today, not so much, he said. Yesterday, I believed in global warming. Today, not so much. Yesterday, I thought spring was on the way. Again, today, not so much.

Mitchell, like many others, was caught somewhat off guard by a winter storm system that dropped about 4 inches of snow in the Twin City area  the first measurable snowfall in a month.

Sometimes, forecasting snowstorms can be difficult, said Eric Laufenberg, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Lincoln. That was very true with a fast-moving system like this which created just enough lift to drop more snow than what we originally expected.

Forecasters on Sunday were predicting snow showers for Wednesday, but with each day, as the system moved closer, the snowfall forecast slowly increased. By the time snow began falling in downtown Bloomington after 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, the NWS had issued a winter weather advisory, with a chance for 2 to 4 inches.

As the snow continued to fall, officials in Bloomington-Normal considered if and when to initiate parking bans, which typically are enacted after 2 inches of snow are recorded to make it easier to plow the streets.

In Normal, no parked cars are permitted on any streets and must be moved off the streets to a driveway, garage or parking lot. In Bloomington, parking is not allowed on snow routes, and residents are asked not to park on streets.

This was a difficult decision because the temperatures are expected to rise again on Friday and the pavement temperatures were actually warm going into this event, said Bloomington Public Works Director Jim Karch. Quite a bit of the snow on side streets did melt already. So this was not as easy of a decision to plow the entire city as it normally is.

The town of Normal initiated the ban about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. Bloomington made the call about an hour later.

Police departments for Bloomington, Normal and McLean County reported a number of minor accidents and vehicles in ditches in rural areas.

In Heyworth, a school bus driver who had just finished her route was injured when her bus rolled over into a ditch before hitting a power pole at 2:23 p.m. at McLean County roads 700 North and 1550 East.

No students were aboard. School had been dismissed early because of the snow.

The driver was taken to Advocate BroMenn Medical Center, Normal, with what appeared to be minor injuries, said Heyworth Superintendent Lisa Taylor.

She was pretty shook up, and very worried about the bus, which should have been the least of her worries, Taylor said.

The storm also caused a delay in a visit by Gov. Bruce Rauner and Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti to Heartland Community College in Normal.

It's dangerous out there, Rauner said after arriving about 15 minutes late.

Before Wednesday, the Twin City area has recorded just 0.7 of an inch of snow since Jan. 1, making it the eighth-least snowy January on record. Normally, about 7 inches are recorded that month.

Historically, Bloomington-Normal receives about 5.5 inches of snow in February.

After the snowstorm clears, the forecast calls for a mostly sunny Thursday, though it will remain cold with a high of 25 degrees.

Another warm-up arrives on Friday with a high near 50 that day, said the weather service.
Is it too early to declare outright that our current American president is a serial liar?

I think we have waited long enough. It turns out that President Donald Trump's bogus challenge to President Barack Obama's birth certificate was only the beginning of the former reality TV star's whoppers.

For weeks, political journalists and their editors have debated whether it is proper to use the L-word to describe a peculiar habit of President Donald Trump. He says things that are demonstrably false and yet insists they are true -- and threatens to hurl insults at you if you insist on seeing something like evidence.

"Falsehood," "misstatement" or "untruth" doesn't cut it when "bogus," "baseless" or my old favorite "bulljive" hit closer to the point.

The staid, reserved New York Times raised many eyebrows by using the L-word in a front-page headline, no less, on Jan. 23 to say Trump repeated "an election lie" during a meeting with congressional leaders, no less, at the White House.

The lie was Trump's often repeated allegation that he would have won the popular vote in November but for "millions of people who voted illegally."

Jaw meet floor. That whopper must have been breathtaking for congressional leaders from both parties, whether they said it out loud or not.

Yet, when questioned about it, the best Trump and his team have come up with is the thousands of dead people who are still on the rolls or the many live people who are improperly registered in more than one state because they moved.

But alas, there's no evidence that anyone voted in their names. Trump would rather undermine the credibility of our democracy than admit he's grandstanding again.

Trump is only getting bolder. After recent CNN and Gallup polls said he had the lowest approval ratings of any new president in the history of polling  and that more than half disapproved of his controversial travel order as an attempt to keep Muslims out of the country  Trump tweeted on Monday that "Any negative polls are fake news, just like the CNN, ABC, NBC polls in the election. Sorry, people want border security and extreme vetting."

"Fake news?" Look who's talking.

Trump's selective dismissal of polls he does not like reminds me of Evillene, the grumpy witch in the musical "The Wiz" who sang, "Don't Nobody Bring Me No Bad News." Trump simply calls it "fake news" and moves on.

But, of course, we the people want border security, extreme vetting and any other serious measures that will make us safer. But that doesn't excuse the rushed, raggedy and downright cruel way that Team Trump wrote and executed his travel ban, igniting televised chaos, confusion and protests at airports.

Which makes it all the more ironic that his counselor and frequent spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway in at least three interviews referenced "the Bowling Green massacre," which, as you probably have heard, never happened. At least she acknowledged her mistake later. I'm still waiting for her boss to say the same about Obama's birth certificate. (That's right, Mr. Trump, some of us will never forget.) Trump reached new heights of lowdown media bashing in a speech Monday at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida in which he accused the media of deliberately minimizing coverage of Islamic State terrorists.

"It's gotten to a point where it's not even being reported," Trump told his military audience. "And in many cases, the very, very dishonest press doesn't want to report it. They have their reasons and you understand that." What reasons?

No, Mr. Trump, I don't understand that. Neither do the hardworking journalists who have been covering the Islamic State terror story, some at the cost of their lives.

Asked for evidence to back up Trump's claim, the White House released a list of 78 attacks since September 2014. Sure enough, all were covered by U.S. and international media, some for days on end. The terror list became one more Trump mess for his staff to clean up.

Yes, it would be courteous and respectful to say that, at best, our current president plays fast and loose with facts. But one of my father's favorite lines is closer to the point: "Maybe the truth just ain't in him."
Crimes  even minor ones  can carry a sentence long beyond any prison term imposed by a judge. Ask any of the estimated 70 million people who have a record.

They often find out the hard way as they try to make their way back into society after being released from jail or prison, or as they begin parole. Several local programs are among many that help people who want to start a new life after committing a crime.

The Jobs Partnership program in Bloomington offers a twice-weekly meeting for people trying to make that change. As reported Sunday and Monday by Edith Brady-Lunny, it's a place for discussion, learning, tips, sharing and support. Programs also are offered through Project Oz and Seeds of Hope Outreach Ministry.

The jobs program, sponsored by Joy Care Center, has had success: More than 700 men and women have participated and only 15 have returned to the Department of Corrections, Brady-Lunny wrote. The participants have an 89 percent employment rate, with the agency working with about 70 local employers.

People in programs like those are the lucky ones: A criminal record can keep you out of the voting booth, out of a decent job, out of volunteering, or away from activities that involve interaction with children, seniors, money or legal drugs. Some convictions also keep you from jobs that require professional certification.

Illinois, as of June 2015, had 47,165 people in its prisons, according to statistics from the Illinois Department of Corrections. The average age was 37; the bulk of those prisoners had a high school diploma or GED. Given their age and schooling, they likely would have a hard time finding a good job even without the stain of their criminal background.

With the Ban the Box rule, they have a slightly better chance. As Brady-Lunny wrote, the law has been adopted by more than 150 cities and counties in 25 states.

In Illinois, only three complaints about the law have been filed since 2015; the law bars employers from asking about a person's criminal background on applications, or during the early part of the recruiting process.

Key to the law's success are a few salient points: It applies to companies with 15 or more employees, does not require a firm to hire a person with a criminal background and does not apply to those hired under the state's Emergency Medical Services System Act. It also doesn't cover positions that must follow requirements of state and federal law.

It is not society's job to find a job for people who willingly messed up their lives by breaking the law. But helping them find their way toward success  either through post-jail programs, rehab or job retraining  can help society.
Jason Derulo! is claiming racial discrimination by American Airlines, who allegedly called 15 police offices on him over a baggage dispute.

Confused? Same. Apparently Jason Derulo!, a American Airlines concierge member, reportedly tried to check 19 bags, well surpassing the limit of free check-able bags for members (three). American Airline told Jason Derulo! this would cost $4000, Jason Derulo! did not like this one bit and chaos reportedly ensued.

".@americanair I spent millions on your airline throughout the past ten years between myself and my entire staff but have still experienced racial discrimination today at miami airport!!!" Derulo wrote on Instagram. "Called 15 police officers on me as if I'm a criminal! It's not ok that when you find out who I am the gears change! Fuck that!! I want answers #conciergekey #conciergekeymember #thecaptainneedstoshowrespecttoo cause he could #cashmeoutsidehowboutdat #notypo #ifiwasanyoneelseiwouldhavebeenarrested"

"We'd never paid for our bags because of our statuswith all of our milesso we'd never paid for bags," Jason Derulo later explained to People . "So $4,000 is obviously a huge sum. We were like, 'No, we're not paying that. We've got to turn the plane around."

From what I can gather the plane then turned around, after Jason Derulo! learned of the extra cost, so he and his crew could travel with their checked bags on a later flight. To get to this stage there was allegedly a whole lot of disrespect and Jason Derulo! will not be "dropping the issue."

What a nonsensical saga for Jason Derulo!
Earlier this year, the producers of the forthcoming US live action remake of Japanese anime classic Ghost in the Shell, came under fire for casting Scarlett Johansson in the lead role. However, Johansson has stayed silent on the subject until now...well, kind of.

In a new interview with Marie Claire, the actress skirted around the issue, making an odd argument that sounds like, "Hey, at least the lead's a woman. Feminism!" Which doesn't really address the issue of whitewashing at hand, but okay.

"I certainly would never presume to play another race of a person. Diversity is important in Hollywood, and I would never want to feel like I was playing a character that was offensive," she said. "Also, having a franchise with a female protagonist driving it is such a rare opportunity. Certainly, I feel the enormous pressure of thatthe weight of such a big property on my shoulders."



However, the Internet had a pretty lukewarm to Johansson's diversion of an answer.

I need you to know, white people, that comments like hers just read to me as "Asian-Americans don't really deserve acknowledgement." https://t.co/1SSbNmWXcd

 Shaun | No, Totally! (@NoTotally) February 9, 2017

"We cast Scarlett Johansson because women of colour don't bring a return at the box office."

 https://t.co/jcr3itwt40

 Danielle DASH (@DanielleDASH) February 9, 2017

Scarlett Johansson will call you a misogynist if u point out that she playing a Japanese character is insulting bc she's white. & a Zionist https://t.co/2piTvwd8dN

 Hot For Houthis (@commietantric) February 9, 2017

"I certainly would never presume to play another race of a person"



-Scarlett Johansson#AlternativeFacts pic.twitter.com/5V73Ytntpv

 '87 Stick Up Kids (@MonkeyBlood) February 9, 2017

Smh.

[h/t Marie Claire]

photo by Rob Berry/BFA.com


Ahead of the official March premiere of Danny Boyle's highly-anticipated Trainspotting sequel, T2 and Boiler Room are joining forces to throw a rave in Berlin that will supposedly "be a straight up love letter to the 90s" this Friday. And while the line-up's currently under lock-and-key, if you live in Berlin (or if you can afford to get there in two-days time), we highly advise planning your Friday wisely and RSVPing here.








The Women's March against United States President Donald Trump has triggered a public debate. Should mothers bring their children to protest actions such as this one? Most American moms agree that recent political and social developments have given rise to a new type of parenting.

Some parents, however, believe that bringing children to protest actions is tantamount to using them to further the parents' cause. Sometimes, it is difficult to balance the inculcation of these values while maintaining children's independence.

Exposing kids to socio-political activism seems appropriate, except when they are already being used to fight their parents' own wars, according to Patheos. The ultimate test would be the parent's motivation in bringing the child to a protest rally. It would also depend on the age and social awareness of the child.

Some children are already passionate about certain advocacies even at a young age, as per YEA Camp. It is understandable for the adults to bar their children from participating in such advocacies for fear that it would be detrimental to their development. But no matter how parents look at child activism, one could not help but be amazed at how young children can be so enthusiastic about certain causes.

Activism among the youth is nothing new but there is a need for parents to address their children's learning, according to Freechild. More than encouraging kids to be social activists, it is important to empower them so they would be able to appropriately use their skills to pursue their advocacies. Young people can help change the world but they should get all the help they need from their support groups including their parents.

Parents can encourage their children's advocacies by helping them channel their idealism to useful campaigns and information dissemination. When young people are not able to express themselves through appropriate campaigns, they tend to look for other methods such as protests. It is important to keep an open communication line to make sure their youthful enthusiasm is properly guided.
Arkansas has approved a new law on abortion that will give husbands the right to block their wives' plan to terminate the pregnancy. Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed the new law, which will take effect in mid-2017. It has once again incited a debate between pro-life and pro-choice supporters.

Buried under the "Unborn Child Protection From Dismemberment Abortion Act," is a clause that allows for husbands to sue the doctors performing the abortion. The law also doesn't exempt cases of pregnancy due to marital rape or incest. As long as the father can prove that the child is his, he can file a suit to stop the doctors from doing the procedure.

Pro-choice advocates believe this new abortion law puts women at a disadvantage. It's as if the burden and punishment are for the women, especially in cases of rape or incest.

"I find it highly embarrassing and highly insulting that any such a thought could come across anyone's mind," Democrat Sen. Joyce Elliot of Little Rock said, according to Arkansas Matter. "Then to put it into a law and have so many people go along with it makes it even harder."

Elliot revealed the deliberation in the Senate happened swiftly, so she wasn't able to question some of the clauses. Another Arkansas senator, however, defended the husband's right to sue or stop the abortion. "I think a woman does have control over her own body, but when you have created a life, you created a life with someone else," Republican Sen. Missy Irvin of Mountain View said.

A spokesperson from the governor's office clarified that the law doesn't grant rights for criminal acts. According to Snopes, a rapist who fathers a child cannot sue the mother for damages. The mother doesn't also have any civil liabilities if she was to "receive a dismemberment abortion" in this case.

Dismemberment abortion usually involves dilation and evacuation (D & E) procedures or the removal of the fetus through surgery. It's usually done if the pregnancy is between 14 to 16 weeks.
Graduations don't take place until late spring but a teen from Long Beach High School was granted early graduation rites for his dad's sake. Alfred Le'Cap, 69, watched his son, Noah Le'Cap, graduating in their driveway as the rest of the family, teachers and school administrators watched. Le'Cap is dying and might not live long to see Noah get his high school diploma in May.

Alfred has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and was told by doctors he doesn't have much time. One of his biggest concerns was about Noah's graduation so his older daughters, Marissa "Ana" Hannah and Sita Le'Cap, made arrangements with Noah's school to grant their father this gift. The school administrators did not hesitate.

"They put everything together on their end in like, under five days," Sita said, according to Sun Herald. Their father's hospice center, Notre Dame Ministries, also helped mount the family event.

On Friday, Feb. 3, Alfred witnessed Noah's graduation in their garage. Principal Larry Ramsey also gave his commencement speech and Noah, who wore his toga, got to do his graduation toss.

The teenager also received his diploma, which he offered on his dad's lap along with his mortar board. There were no dry eyes among those in attendance. "Considering the circumstances, I felt like if we can bring a little joy to a family, then we're happy to do that," the principal said, according to CNN.

Noah said he's having a difficult time processing his father won't be there to see him off to college, or land his first job, or get married. He admitted he couldn't focus in school but he knew he needed to work hard for his father.

"I'm supposed to graduate for him," the teenager said. Next school year, Noah plans to study nursing at the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, according to WLOX.
A mother has been charged for the death of her 4-year-old daughter. The Montgomery County Police Department in Maryland filed a case of child abuse and assault against Iris Hernandez Rivas, 20, for what happened to her daughter, Nohely, who passed away Feb. 1.

Police reports revealed that Hernandez Rivas called 911 on Jan. 26 at around noontime to seek medical assistance, citing her daughter was unresponsive, according to The Washington Post. Hernandez Rivas recounted that Nohely went to the bathroom at around 11:30 a.m. and then the mom apparently heard a noise some 20 minutes later.

Hernandez Rivas told police she found her daughter in the bathtub with her face down. She decided to make the 911 call an hour after the incident.

Further investigations at the hospital showed the Nohely had several bruises in her body. Doctors at the Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. assessed the 4-year-old might have been a victim of child abuse, which eventually resulted in her death.

Major Crimes has been called in for the case and the mother confessed to what actually happened. On Jan. 26, she admitted to kicking her daughter out of anger because Nohely refused to brush her teeth.

Fox News reports that the girl hit her head when she fell backward after the kick. The mom also confessed that the bruises were from a belt beating that took plays several days earlier. Nohely was already lethargic and she had been showering when her mom found her in unresponsive in the bathroom.

The exact cause of the 4-year-old's death is still undetermined. Scans and tests taken when she was first admitted showed that she had a brain injury and a small liver contusion, which could have been incurred from a blunt force.

The mom is currently at the Montgomery County jail. Immigration officers have also been called to the case as she will likely be deported.
A North Carolina mom is hoping the police will put a daycare worker in jail. Kaycee Oxendine is furious after watching in a surveillance video that showed her 3-month-old son was being breastfed without her permission.

Oxedine claims her son became sick because of what happened. The family rushed to the UNC Hospital because Oxedine's baby, who is lactose intolerant, was throwing up.

"Not only did you put your breast to my son, you also made my son sick because he's lactose intolerant," Oxedine said addressing the culprit, according to ABC 11. "So you've put something in his body that his body can't digest."

The incident happened on Friday, Feb. 3, at the Carrboro Early School where Oxedine also worked as a teacher. She was advised that her baby was constipated and one substitute working at the nursery asked if breastfeeding her baby would help. Oxedine said she refused the suggestion two times.

When the mom stepped out of the nursery, however, the substitute, who also has a baby boy, picked up Oxedine's baby to breastfeed him. Another staff saw what happened and reported the incident to daycare director Daron Council.

The substitute was fired that same day. Council also reported the incident to the Department of Health and Human Services of North Carolina, according to WNCN. The director also told other parents, especially those with kids in the nursery, about what happened.

The substitute is believed to be a licensed childcare worker and also served at the Orange Chatham Early Schools. Both facilities with superior ratings have no prior incidents involving erring employees.

Oxedine is grateful for how Council handled the situation in the facility but she wants the substitute liable criminally. "I do hope that there's justice for my son," she said.

Police could treat the case as misdemeanor child abuse. The substitute, who remains unidentified, has not been charged as of press time.
Betsy DeVos was confirmed as the Secretary of Education despite two Republican Senate members casting a vote against her. The vote was 50-50, so Vice President Mike Pence stepped in to cast a tie-breaking vote leading to the win of DeVos.

CNN reported Senate Democrats debated the win of DeVos in an attempt to prevent her from seating as the Secretary of Education with the help of Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins. Their attempts, however, were not enough as DeVos was sworn into office. Pence administered the oath of office and commented about the casting of the tie-breaking vote as the easiest vote he has done.

DeVos' confirmation caused an uproar from public school supporters and teachers unions. DeVos was opposed by many since the day it was announced she is President Donald Trump's pick for the Secretary of Education post.

For one, many do not like her persistence when it comes to school vouchers as well as her suggestion that public schools should be abolished. Others believe her lack of experience will not make her lead the Education department successfully.

Senator Chris Murphy expressed his disappointment of the confirmation. He said DeVos lacks the compassion and the knowledge of federal laws, so she will not be able to protect the students. He continued to say DeVos is not someone who should be the Secretary of Education.

Despite the disapproval of many, DeVos took to Twitter to talk about her confirmation and wrote, "I appreciate the Senate's diligence & am honored to serve as @usedgov Secretary. Let's improve options & outcomes for all US students." She expressed in the past that she did not want to abolish the whole public school system, but said she wants to support only the performing public schools in order to give better education to students.

As for her other plans, Daily Signal reported it is being projected she wants parents in the District of Columbia to have expanded choices. She might have plans to propose education savings accounts for military-connected children, eliminate formula and competitive grant programs and ease the cost of college.

What do you think about DeVos being the new Secretary of Education? What are your suggestions regarding her plans in order to improve United States' education system? Let us know in the comments below!
Former Vice President Joe Biden just announced his first academic role after leaving government office. He just sealed a deal with the University of Delaware and University and Pennsylvania in connection to advancing foreign and domestic policies.

USA Today reported the University of Delaware will launch the new Biden Institute soon. This site is a research facility and policy center that will focus on developing domestic policy issues and finding solutions for a host of world and local problems. Biden's role will be the founding chair of the institute, which will also focus on subjects like civil rights, criminal justice, economic reform, environmental sustainability and women's rights.

"Every day of my career in public service has been motivated by the desire to ensure that every American is treated with dignity and gets a fair shot," Biden said in a statement in announcing the Biden institute. With the addition of the facility at the Delaware campus 15 faculty members have been tapped on top of the 24 who come from the School of Public Policy and Administration.

As for the University of Pennsylvania deal, Newsday reported Biden was named as the Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor. He will be leading the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement.

The said collaboration will focus on diplomacy, foreign policy,and national security. Two offices will be set up for this project -- one in Washington, D.C. and one in Philadelphia. The former VP said he looks forward to his collaboration with University of Pennsylvania regarding promoting and protecting the post-World War II international order that keeps the country safe and strong.

Although Biden did not attend University of Pennsylvania, his children, Beau, who recently passed away, and Ashley, were graduates from the Ivy League university. His granddaughter Naomi also attended the university.
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Good for him. Judge Gorsuch criticized President Trumps smack down of federal judges. Im glad. If someone could muzzle the President, that alone would be worth a vote.

Meanwhile, on the mafia side of the Joker, we have Elizabeth Warren throwing her hat in the 2020 ring by first flipping the bird at a fellow Senator, and then crying like a baby because she got punished for flipping the bird at a fellow Senator.

And in the Did they hate Trump because he was a vulgar, loudmouthed bully, or did they hate him because he was a vulgar, loud mouthed bully on the wrong ticket? side, a Pennsylvania senator puts his toe in the expletive pool to see how it feels. I wonder how many Catholics who bemoaned Trumps vulgarities will cheer this fellow.

All of this would be an excellent chance for people of good will on both sides to step up and say, ENOUGH!

Find what is good, reject what is bad. I had no use for Trumps vulgarities, and if someone could stop his schoolyard bully responses to the institutions of our country, Id be all for it. But the same goes for the Left. One of the reasons I didnt vote for Trump was because of his finger in the eye, no rules-just win approach. Democrats going the same way will not impress me, and I hope it doesnt impress anyone else who criticized Trumps tactics.

The American Catholic has a good piece about consistency in light of Trumps FOX interview. How many Conservatives have gone to the mat for Trumps USA=Russia dig? How many of the same went bonkers when Obama would remind the world of Americas sins, or frame any problems with Islam against the Crusades or Inquisition?

Same for those liberals who cheered on Obamas but America has as many sins rhetoric. They have no choice but disagreeing with Trumps statement on some nuance of delivery, but not substance.

Kudos for those Conservatives, like Rubio, who called out Trump just the way he would have called out Obama. If we could get everyone to keep saying right is right, wrong is wrong, and it matters not who does it, imagine how Washington might change.
Heres some coverage of the Wednesday evening meeting that I participated in with Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) up in Salt Lake City along with some of the greater Salt Lake areas Muslim leaders:

KUTV: Rep. Chaffetz meets with Utah Muslims about Presidents order viewed as anti-Muslim

Fox13: Rep. Jason Chaffetz meets with Utah Muslims to discuss immigration order

Salt Lake Tribune: Chaffetz meets with Utah Muslims to address Trumps ban

The meeting was called by Rep. Chaffetz just this morning. I was invited to attend, and was happy to do so. It was interesting, and there were some very heartfelt statements both of love for America and of deep concern.

You can see my gray, bald head in some of the shots. But, alas, because I had to race back down to Utah Valley in order to teach my weekly Institute class, I didnt do any interviews after the meeting. The media probably wouldnt have asked me for one anyway, of course, as they were more interested (for obvious reasons) in talking to the Congressman and the Muslim leaders than in speaking with me. But well never really know, and, in any case, television audiences were unable to further contemplate my telegenic good looks.

Incidentally, my Institute lesson tonight was #19 in the new Book of Mormon manual, which focuses on Defending Religious Freedom. It went really well with the meeting that Id just had in Salt Lake.
The Home School Legal Defense Association has seized on rumors that Trump may withdraw the U.S. from a number of U.N. treaties. HSLDA argues that the United States should not be party to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Why?

These treaties tend to seek to solve problems by undermining parental authority and granting more power to the government. Children are harmed when their parents are not free to make the best decisions for their education and wellbeing.

HSLDA has been making this argument for decades now, but what they never mention is that these treaties actually give children the right to be raised by their biological parents, ensure that parents will not have their children unjustly taken from them, and expand parents ability to access resources for their children. Lets look at the Convention on the Rights of the Child by way of example.

Article 28 requires governments to [m]ake primary education compulsory and available free to all, to make secondary education available and accessible to every child, and to [m]ake higher education accessible to all on the basis of capacity. Consider what this provision means for parents, especially poor parents or those in poor countriesit ensures that they will be able to provide their children with an education. This isnt about undermining parental authority and granting more power to the government, its about requiring the government to empower parents by giving them the means to see that their children receive a good education.

And then theres this, in Article 30:

In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities or persons of indigenous origin exist, a child belonging to such a minority or who is indigenous shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of his or her group, to enjoy his or her own culture, to profess and practise his or her own religion, or to use his or her own language.

How does this undermine parental authority? Its the opposite! A century and more ago, the United States government took Native American children away from their parents and sent them to boarding schools where they were deprived of of their culture and their religioneven their language. The Convention on the Rights of the Child prohibits such government overreaches, enabling parents to raise their children within their distinct cultural and religious communities.

Thats rightthe treaty actively limits government interference in families.

Article 14 states that States Parties shall respect the right of the child to freedom of thought, conscience and religion and that States Parties shall respect the rights and duties of the parents and, when applicable, legal guardians, to provide direction to the child in the exercise of his or her right in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the child. Thats right, the treaty protects parents rightand it does use that wordto provide their children with religious instruction and training.

Now yes, the treaty does state that the government has the authority to remove children from their parents care in specific circumstances. Article 9 states that:

States Parties shall ensure that a child shall not be separated from his or her parents against their will, except when competent authorities subject to judicial review determine, in accordance with applicable law and procedures, that such separation is necessary for the best interests of the child. Such determination may be necessary in a particular case such as one involving abuse or neglect of the child by the parents, or one where the parents are living separately and a decision must be made as to the childs place of residence.

Note the requirement about judicial reviewgovernments are prohibited from separating children from their parents without proper proof and room for review.

This same article also states the following:

Where such separation results from any action initiated by a State Party, such as the detention, imprisonment, exile, deportation or death  of one or both parents or of the child, that State Party shall, upon request, provide the parents, the child or, if appropriate, another member of the family with the essential information concerning the whereabouts of the absent member(s) of the family 

In other words, if a child is imprisoned, the parent has the right to know where the child is, and so forth. The treaty prioritizes keeping families together, and recognizes that as a positive good. When a child is removed from the family, Article 20 requires that foster care or adoption considerations be made due regard  to the desirability of continuity in a childs upbringing and to the childs ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic background. If the U.S. had signed this treatyand it has notmore could perhaps be done about Native American communities in South Dakota whose children are being placed in foster care outside of the community rather than within it.

Article 23 grants parents access to accommodations for their childrens special needs:

2. States Parties recognize the right of the disabled child to special care and shall encourage and ensure the extension, subject to available resources, to the eligible child and those responsible for his or her care, of assistance for which application is made and which is appropriate to the childs condition and to the circumstances of the parents or others caring for the child. 3. Recognizing the special needs of a disabled child, assistance extended in accordance with paragraph 2 of the present article shall be provided free of charge, whenever possible, taking into account the financial resources of the parents or others caring for the child, and shall be designed to ensure that the disabled child has effective access to and receives education, training, health care services, rehabilitation services, preparation for employment and recreation opportunities in a manner conducive to the childs achieving the fullest possible social integration and individual development, including his or her cultural and spiritual development

Consider how these provisions change the circumstances of poor parents struggling to raise children with expensive disabilities. HSLDA would have their followers believe that the treaty strips parents of their rights, but here it protects parents ability to raise children with special needs by giving them the right to the resources they need.

Article 24 similarly gives parents access to medical care for their children:

States Parties recognize the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health and to facilities for the treatment of illness and rehabilitation of health. States Parties shall strive to ensure that no child is deprived of his or her right of access to such health care services.

Consider the concerns of poor parents, or parents in poor countries, worried that they will not be able to obtain the medical care their children need. The Convention on the Rights of the Child empowers these parents, giving them grounds to demand and freedom to expect medical care for their children.

And take a look at Article 27, on childrens standard of living:

1. States Parties recognize the right of every child to a standard of living adequate for the childs physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development. 2. The parent(s) or others responsible for the child have the primary responsibility to secure, within their abilities and financial capacities, the conditions of living necessary for the childs development. 3. States Parties, in accordance with national conditions and within their means, shall take appropriate measures to assist parents and others responsible for the child to implement this right and shall in case of need provide material assistance and support programmes, particularly with regard to nutrition, clothing and housing.

This is not undermining parental authority. This is supporting parents.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child does not undermine parental authority and grant power to the government; rather, it requires the government to provide parents with the resources they need to raise their children and limits government authority. And yet, HSLDA decries this treaty as a dire threat to parental rights. Imagine, if you will, what it would be like to be a low income parent without a government willing to back up and support childrens right to an education, to medical care, to adequate food and shelter. Imagine what it would be like to be an indigenous parent, or a member of a minority religion, in a country where the government felt it could remove your children and, through them, eradicate your culture.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child protects and empowers parents, too. Childrens rights are not diametrically opposed to parents rights. In many cases, backing up childrens rights means expanding the resources and opportunities available to parents, and childrens right to their culture protects parents right to raise children within religious or ethnic communities. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is not at all what conservativesand especially organizations like HSLDAwould have you believe it is.

I grew up reading HSLDAs publications and listening to HSLDA speakers. I remember the rhetoric, and there was a time I, too, was convinced the treaty was a threat to familieswithout ever having read the treaty myself. Today, as a mother of two children, I am angry. I am angry that HSLDA distorts reality to scare and mislead people. I am angry that the U.S. has never ratified this treaty.

I am angry that my childrens rights mean so little.
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Jailed Iranian Swedish Physician Sentenced to Death in Iran

02/08/17

Source: Radio Zamaneh

Iranian physician Ahmadreza Jalali, who was arrested in Iran ten months ago, has been reportedly sentenced to death. Although charges have not yet been announced publicly by Iranian Judiciary, Jalili's wife maintains that they are political and include the charge of "collaborations with enemy states".



Ahmadreza Jalali

Jalali resides in Sweden with his family and news of his sentencing was confirmed by his wife Vida Mehrannia. He is an expert and researcher in the field of medical disaster management and has published extensively on the topic.



Mehrannia has told Zamaneh that following a transfer from ward 7 to ward 209 of Evin Prison on January 31, Jalali had a meeting with Judge Salavati who confirmed that a death sentence has been issued in his case.



She added that the Judge has asked him to end his hunger strike which Jalali has declined.

Meanwhile Caroline Pauwels director of University of Brussels, which has collaborated in the past with Ahmadreza Jalali, has told the media that Jalali has been sentenced to death and that the sentence may be executed within two weeks.



The news was reported on the Persian Radio France which has also quoted his peers saying that his arrest may be linked to his communications with the international academic community including Israeli scientists.



Since December 26, Ahmadreza Jalali has been on a hunger strike in protest to his imprisonment conditions, the pressures in prison and his lack of proper and timely access to an attorney.



His spouse reports that up until last Tuesday the jailed physician had already lost twenty kilos in weight. She indicates that they the family have had no news of Jalali since the announcement of his sentence and expressed grave concern regarding his mental and physical wellbeing.



The charges against Jalali are not clear yet, but his spouse maintains that he has reportedly been charged with "collaboration with enemy countries".



She added that the interrogators in Evin prison have also told Jalali that because he has allegedly refused to fully cooperate with the investigation, they will slap him with an additional charge of "enmity against God" - this charge carries a death sentence with it.



Mehrannia has emphasized that her husband has completely denied the charge of collaboration with enemy countries.



Jalali's access to counsel has been precarious. His attorney has been allowed to sit in some interrogation sessions but he has been denied access to his full case file.



Jalali has also been told by Judge Salavati that his choice of attorney is not acceptable by the court.

Mehrannia has confirmed that the Government of Sweden, Italy and Belgium as well as EU officials have been making an effort to secure the release of Jalali.



She expressed hope that in his coming trip to Iran, the Norwegian Prime Minister, Stefan Lofven could press for concrete action regarding the case of her husband.
Iran's Intelligence Ministry Cracks Down on Alleged "Anti-Revolutionary" Telegram Channels

02/09/17

Source: International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran

In the latest crackdown by hardliners against popular social media applications in Iran, the Intelligence Ministry has detained several channel administrators of Telegram. Hardline domestic news outlets have subsequently aired admins' alleged video "confessions."



A screenshot of the heavily edited alleged video "confession" of a man identified as "Shahin."



Telegram is a mobile instant messaging application that also allows users to create membership-based online content channels and groups.

The ultra-conservative Fars News Agency, which first reported the arrests on February 2, 2017, claimed the crackdown was aimed at breaking up a ring of "domestic agents" (indirect reference to "spies") in several Iranian provinces.

Fars, which is closely aligned with the Revolutionary Guards, also claimed that one of the targeted Telegram channels, Guard-e-Javidan (Immortal Guards), was being directed by "anti-revolutionaries" (dissidents) based abroad.

The Immortal Guards were a unit of ancient Persia's military forces; the Telegram channel's name suggests that whoever created it favors a secular government for Iran.

The same day the arrests were reported, the hardline Young Journalists Club, a branch of Iran's state-funded broadcasting organization (also known as IRIB), posted a video of the alleged "confession" of a man introduced as "Shahin."

In the blurry, heavily edited video, a man appears to be telling someone not filmed by the camera that he is an administrator of the Immortal Guards Telegram channel based in Khuzestan Province.

Televised forced "confessions" in politically motivated cases, often extracted under the threat of or actual torture, are a common practice in Iran.

The latest attempt by hardliners to counter the growing popularity of Telegram, which is used by an estimated more than 20 million people in Iran, comes amid intensifying criticism by hardliners of President Hassan Rouhani's government for allegedly failing to properly censor online content.





cartoon by Amin Montazeri





Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi, a conservative senior cleric in Qom, claimed on January 30, 2017 that Rouhani has "no serious intention" of limiting access to anti-Islamic content on the Internet. He also called for the improvement of the Islamic Republic's recently launched domestic Internet.

"We must increase the National Information Network's (domestic internet's) bandwidth and decrease (access to the world wide web) so that it would be harder to access places like Instagram or Telegram," said Shirazi.

"We need serious determination to combat this problem, but I don't see it coming from the top (Rouhani administration)," he added. "We even have a "Working Group to Determine Instances of Criminal Content" on the internet, but they are not showing that they care."

The Campaign for Human Rights in Iran has also learned that Rouhani has been asked by ultra-conservative Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi to ban Telegram ahead of the upcoming presidential election scheduled for May 19, 2017.

Rouhani has yet to respond to the request, an informed source told the Campaign, but his administration refused to comply with similar pressure from hardliners to block popular apps, including Telegram, ahead of the country's February 2016 elections for Parliament and the Assembly of Experts.

Since 2014, the Office of the Supreme Leader, the Judiciary, the Qom Theological Seminary and the police have called on the Rouhani government to limit or ban access to Telegram because it allows users to share content deemed by hardliners as "anti-revolutionary," "immoral" and "anti-religious."

In other words, hardliners have been trying to counter Telegram's popularity because they believe it enables domestic political dissent.
Kuwait welcomes prospects for cooperation between Iran, Persian Gulf Arab states

02/09/17

Source: Press TV





Kuwaiti Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled al-Jarallah has welcomed prospects for cooperation between Iran and the Persian Gulf Arab countries to help resolve conflicts in the region.



Dialogue between Iran and the Persian Gulf Arab countries would "contribute effectively to containment of many areas of tension in the region, whether in Yemen or in Syria or anywhere else in our region," Kuwait's state news agency, KUNA, quoted Jarallah as saying at a reception at Iran's embassy in the Arab country.



"This is indeed what we are looking for," the Kuwaiti official added, noting that dialogue would serve the interests of both Iran and those of the Persian Gulf Arab countries.



The senior Kuwaiti diplomat made the comments in response to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif's comments on the country's relations with regional states, including those in the Persian Gulf region.



In remarks made in a Tuesday interview with Iranian daily Ettela'at, Zarif said Iran was ready for cooperation with all countries, especially its neighbors.



"The policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran is based on constructive cooperation with all, particularly the neighboring countries. And once our neighbors accept the fact that we need to cooperate given the commonalities our nations share, including history and geography, and the common threats facing us all, the region will have a true partner like Iran," Zarif said.



He referred to a letter sent last month to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani by the Kuwaiti emir on relations between Iran and the Persian Gulf Arab countries, and said Tehran hoped the message would indicate the Persian Gulf states' "resolve" for cooperation.



"We hope that the Kuwaiti emir's message, in which he expressed his readiness and that of the other rulers of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council, will show [their] firm determination. In that case, Iran will demonstrate that resolve too," he said, stressing that all should look to a different future.



On January 25, Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Khalid al-Hamad al-Sabah paid a visit to Iran to deliver Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah's message to President Rouhani.



The Kuwaiti diplomat's one-day visit to Iran was the first by a senior official of a Persian Gulf Arab state to the Islamic Republic after relations between Tehran and some of the Arab countries of the strategic region became tense when Saudi Arabia unilaterally severed its diplomatic ties with Iran.



On Tehran-Riyadh relations, Zarif again stressed that the two countries could work together once the Arab kingdom changed its policy.



We are ready for dialogue once they change their view and come to the conclusion that fueling violence and extremism in Syria and Yemen is not in their interests, the top Iranian diplomat said.
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Evernote decided last year that it wanted to move away from running its own data centers and start using the public cloud to operate its popular note-taking service. On Wednesday, it announced that the lions share of the work is done, save for some last user attachments.

The company signed up to work with Google, and as part of the migration process, the tech titan sent a team of engineers (in one case, bearing doughnuts) over to work with its customer on making sure the process was a success.

Evernote wanted to take advantage of the cloud to help with features based on machine learning that it has been developing. It also wanted to leverage the flexibility that comes from not having to run a data center.

The move is part of a broader trend of companies moving their workloads away from data centers that they own and increasingly using public cloud providers. While the transition required plenty of work and adaptation, Evernote credited Google for pitching in to help with the migration.

Why move to the cloud?

There was definitely plenty of work to do. Evernotes backend was built on the assumption that its application would be running on the companys twin California data centers, not in a public cloud. So why go through all the work?

Many of the key drivers behind the move will be familiar to cloud devotees. Evernote employees had to spend time maintaining the companys data center, doing things like replacing hard drives, moving cables and evaluating new infrastructure options.

While those functions were key to maintaining the overall health and performance of the Evernote service, they werent providing additional value to customers, according to Ben McCormack, the companys vice president of operations.

We were just very realistic that with a team the size of Evernotes operations team, we couldnt compete with the level of maturity that the cloud providers have goton provisioning, on management systems, et cetera, McCormack said. We were always going to be playing catch-up, and its just a crazy situation to be in.

When Evernote employees thought about refreshing a data center, one of the key issues that they encountered is that they didnt know what they would need from a data center in five years, McCormack said.

Evernote had several public cloud providers it could choose from, including Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, which are both larger players in the public cloud market. But McCormack said the similarities between the companys current focus and Googles areas of expertise were important to the choice. Evernote houses a large amount of unstructured data, and the company is looking to do more with machine learning.

You add those two together, Google is the leader in that space, McCormack said. So effectively, I would say, we were making a strategic decision and a strategic bet that the areas that are important to Evernote today, and the areas we think will be important in the future, are the same areas that Google excels in.

Machine learning was a highlight of Googles platform for Evernote CTO Anirban Kundu, who said that higher-level services offered by Google help provide the foundation for new and improved features. Evernote has been driving toward a set of new capabilities based on machine learning, and Google services like its Cloud Machine Learning API help with that.

While cost is often touted as a benefit of cloud migrations, McCormack said that it wasnt a primary driver of Evernotes migration. While the company will be getting some savings out of the move, he said that cost wasnt a limitation for the transition.

The decision to go with Google over another provider like AWS or Azure was driven by the technology team at Evernote, according to Greg Chiemingo, the companys senior director of communications. He said in an email that CEO Chris ONeill, who was at Google for roughly a decade before joining Evernote, came in to help with negotiations after the decision was made.

How it happened

Once Evernote signed its contract with Google in October, the clock was ticking. McCormack said that the company wanted to get the migration done before the new year, when users looking to get their life on track hammer the service with a flurry of activity.

Before the start of the year, Evernote needed to migrate 5 billion notes and 5 billion attachments. Because of metadata, like thumbnail images, included with those attachments, McCormack said that the company had to migrate 12 billion attachment files. Not only that, but the team couldnt lose any of the roughly 3 petabytes of data it had. Oh yeah, and the Evernote service needed to stay up the entire time.

McCormack said that one of the Evernote teams initial considerations was figuring out what core parts of its application could be entirely lifted and shifted into Googles cloud, and what components would need to be modified in some way as part of the transition.

Part of the transformation involved reworking the way that the Evernote service handled networking. It previously used UDP Multicast to handle part of its image recognition workflow, which worked well in the companys own data center where it could control the network routers involved.

But that same technology wasnt available in Googles cloud. Kundu said Evernote had to rework its application to use a queue-based model leveraging Googles Cloud Pub/Sub service, instead.

Evernote couldnt just migrate all of its user data over and then flip a switch directing traffic from its on-premises servers to Googles cloud in one fell swoop. Instead, the company had to rearchitect its backend application to handle a staged migration with some data stored in different places.

The good news is that the transition didnt require changes to the client. Kundu said that was key to the success of Evernotes migration, because not all of the services users upgrade their software in a timely manner.

Evernotes engagement with Google engineers was a pleasant surprise to McCormack. The team was available 24/7 to handle Evernotes concerns remotely, and Google also sent a team of its engineers over to Evernotes facilities to help with the migration.

Those Google employees were around to help troubleshoot any technical challenges Evernote was having with the move. That sort of engineer-to-engineer engagement is something Google says is a big part of its approach to service.

For one particularly important part of the migration, Googles engineers came on a Sunday, bearing doughnuts for all in attendance. More than that, however, McCormack said that he was impressed with the engineers collaborative spirit.

We had times whenwe had written code to interface with Google Cloud Storage, we had [Google] engineers who were peer-reviewing that code, giving feedback and it genuinely felt like a partnership, which you very rarely see, McCormack said. Google wanted to see us be successful, and were willing to help across the boundaries to help us get there.

In the end, it took roughly 70 days for the whole migration to take place from the signing of the contract to its final completion. The main part of the migration took place over a course of roughly 10 days in December, according to McCormack.

Lessons learned

If there was one thing Kundu and McCormack were crystal clear about, its that even the best-laid plans require a team thats willing to adapt on the fly to a new environment. Evernotes migration was a process of taking certain steps, evaluating what happened, and modifying the companys approach in response to the situation they were presented with, even after doing extensive testing and simulation.

Furthermore, they also pointed out that work on a migration doesnt stop once all the bytes are loaded into the cloud. Even with extensive testing, the Evernote team encountered new constraints working in Googles environment once it was being used in production and bombarded with activity from live Evernote users.

For example, Google uses live migration techniques to move virtual machines from one host to another in order to apply patches and work around hardware issues. While that happens incredibly quickly, the Evernote service under full load had some problem with it, which required (and still requires) optimization.

Kundu said that Evernote had tested live migration prior to making the switch over to GCP, but that wasnt enough.

When an application is put into production, user behavior and load on it might be different from test conditions, Kundu said. And thats where you have to be ready to handle those edge cases, and you have to realize that the day the migration happens or completes is not the day that youre all done with the effort. You might see the problem in a month or whatever.

Another key lesson, in McCormacks opinion, is that the cloud is ready to handle any sort of workload. Evernote evaluated a migration roughly once every year, and it was only about 13 months ago that the company felt confident a cloud transition would be successful.

Cloud has reached a maturity level and a breadth of features that means its unlikely that youll be unable to run in the cloud, McCormack said.

Thats not to say it doesnt require effort. While the cloud does provide benefits to Evernote that the company wasnt going to get from running its own data center, they still had to cede control of their environment, and be willing to lose some of the telemetry theyre used to getting from a private data center.

Evernotes engineers also did a lot of work on automating the transition. Moving users attachments over from the services on-premises infrastructure to Google Cloud Storage is handled by a pair of bespoke automated systems. The company used Puppet and Ansible for migrating the hundreds of shards holding user note data.

The immediate benefits of a migration

One of the key benefits of Evernotes move to Googles cloud is the companys ability to provide reduced latency and improved connection consistency to its international customers. Evernotes backend isnt running in a geographically distributed manner right now, but Googles worldwide networking investments provide an improvement right away.

We have seen page loading times reducing quite significantly across some parts of our application, McCormack said. I wouldnt say its everywhere yet, but we are starting to see that benefit of the Google power and the Google reach in terms of bridging traffic over their global fiber network.

Right now, the company is still in the process of migrating the last of its users attachments to GCP. When thats done, however, the company will be able to tell its users that all the data they have in the service is encrypted at rest, thanks to the capabilities of Googles cloud.

From an Evernote standpoint, the companys engineers have increased freedom to get their work done using cloud services. Rather than having to deal with provisioning physical infrastructure to power new features, developers now have a whole menu of options when it comes to using new services for developing features.

Essentially, any GCP functionality that exists, theyre allowed to access, play with  within constraints of budget, obviously  and be able to build against.

In addition, the cloud provides the company with additional flexibility and peace of mind when it comes to backups, outages and failover.

What comes next?

Looking further out, the company is interested in taking advantage of some of Googles existing and forthcoming services. Evernote is investigating how it can use Google Cloud Functions, which lets developers write snippets of code that then run in response to event triggers.

Evernote is also alpha testing some Google Cloud Platform services that havent been released or revealed to the public yet. Kundu wouldnt provide any details about those services.

In a similar vein, Kundu wouldnt go into details about future Evernote functionality yet. However, he said that there are a couple of new features that have been enabled as a result of the migration.
This week on The Full Nerd, Gordon Mah Ung, Brad Chacos, and Adam Patrick Murray are joined by special guest Ryan Schlieper of Creative Labs as we dig into the greatest mystery of all: Who really killed PC gaming audio?

Schlieper and the crew also cover the state of the audio API wars, why 3D positional audio suddenly matters again, and ponder the future of dedicated soundcards.

Finally, Gordon tells us why using the front panel plug on your PC just sucks. Have a question? Drop it in the comments or email thefullnerd@pcworld.com and well answer it in the next episode. Watch the Full Nerd Episode 16 on YouTube right here or just click the Play button below.

If you prefer just the audio, you can also listen to the Full Nerd on Soundcloud.com.

You can subscribe to The Full Nerd in iTunes, where you can review us right here. Were also on Stitcher, Google Play, or you can point your favorite podcast-savvy RSS reader to: http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:226190044/sounds.rss

To find previous episodes of The Full Nerd, go here or visit our SoundCloud page for the audio edition. And you can always send us feedback about anything you hear on the show.
Perhaps the next iPhone 8 will be Apples next shot at achieving greatness in China.

The current iPhones arent helping Apple gain market share in China, according to Canalys. Markets like China and India are at the top of Apples agenda to grow the iPhone business.

China accounts for a third of worldwide smartphone shipments. Buyers in the market are leaning toward local brands like Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi, which formed the top four smartphone vendors in China in 2016, according to Canalys.

Apple was in the fifth spot, and Samsung doesnt figure in the top five.

In 2016, Apples phone shipments in China totaled 43.8 million units, a drop of 18.2 percent compared to 2015. Its not looking any better for Apple in 2017.

This year, the outlook remains bleak for Apple to get its China performance back to its heyday of 2015, said Jessie Ding, a research analyst at Canalys.

The decline in China hit Apples worldwide shipments hard, with a net effect of about a 7 percent decline in the number of iPhones shipped globally, Ding said.

But the Chinese buyers are awaiting the 10th anniversary of the iPhone with very high expectations, Ding said.

The iPhone 8 may succeed, but it may not change a long-term trend of Chinese smartphone buyers buying local brands.

In many smaller Chinese cities, Huawei, Vivo, and Oppo smartphones are selling well. Those companies are also investing heavily in branding in top-tier cities, posing a further threat to Apple, Ding said.

Apple faces a similar problem in India. The iPhone brand awareness is limited to urban areas, and the handsets are priced too high for most of the population. Apple recently made a move to start assembling smartphones in India.

Many Chinese companies are launching new handsets this year with a focus on cameras and screens. One such smartphone is Huaweis Mate 9 Pro, which was shown at CES. Huaweiknown for networking gearalso makes its own chips, like Apple and Samsung.

Other Chinese brands like LeEco are also emerging and growing internationally. LeEco has particularly interesting smartphone designs. The company came out with a smartphone without a headphone jack ahead of Apple.

Its a tight race among the top three Chinese smartphone makers. Huawei in 2016 shipped 76.2 million units, Oppo shipped 73.2 million units, and Vivo about 63.2 million units. Xiaomis market share tumbled, declining by 21 percent to 51.4 million units.

A survey released by IDC this week also noted a down market for iPhone in China, but placed the company in the fourth spot, ahead of Xiaomi. According to IDC, total smartphone shipments in China were 467 million units in 2016, growing by 8.7 percent.

But Apples shipments declined by 23.2 percent that year, totaling 44.9 million units. The top three Chinese smartphone makers were Oppo, Huawei, and Vivo, according to IDC.
Not sure what your phone is collecting about you? A free Android app is promising to simplify the privacy settings on your smartphone, and stop any unwanted data collection.

The English language app, called Privacy Assistant, comes from a team at Carnegie Mellon University, whove built it after six years of research studying digital privacy.

Its very clear that a large percentage of people are not willing to give their data to any random app, said CMU professor Norman Sadeh. They want to be more selective with their data, so this assistant will help them do that.

Their Privacy Assistant is designed to automatically modify your phones privacy settings for you, based on your views about certain types of data collection.

For instance, when the app first starts up, itll ask you three to five questions to gauge your privacy preferences. How do you feel about your social media accessing your camera? Or what about game apps pulling your location data?

Norman Sadeh

From those answers, the app will recommend a particular set of privacy settings you should consider. Users can then approve the recommendations or alter them, accordingly.

The assistant may sound enticing, but it comes with a catch. The software only works with Android 5.x and 6.x phones that have been rooted  which most Android users havent done.

Rooting a phone means gaining root access to the Android operating system, opening it up to full customization. But the act can also void your phones warranty or brick the phone, if done improperly.

Computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon have previously published research, showing that users are often alarmed when they learn their smartphone apps have been collecting their private data like locations.

Users, however, can face a cumbersome task when modifying their phones privacy settings or the app permissions.

A typical Android user has between 50 and 100 apps, and these apps can require three permissions, Sadeh said. So you do the math, and the number of permissions can be overwhelming.

Many apps are also collecting private user data when they dont really need it, he said. The Privacy Assistant is designed to revoke those permissions, without causing any malfunctions with the offending app.

As the user downloads more software, the Privacy Assistant will continue to work in the background, recommending what new app permissions should be approved or denied.

Norman Sadeh

With root access, the CMU teams Privacy Assistant app is able to automatically apply new permission settings to the phone. However, Sadeh estimates that only about 25 percent of all Android smartphones in the world are rooted and many of those are located in Asia.

He doesnt recommend people root their phone just to use this app. But Sadeh believes his teams Privacy Assistant will attract a sizable population of existing users who are concerned about their online privacy.

The app is also part of the researchers larger efforts to streamline privacy settings. The hope is that Google, Apple, and device manufacturers will notice the benefits offered by their Privacy Assistant and incorporate the technology into their products.

Google is among those funding the universitys work on online privacy, Sadeh said.

People like this stuff, he added. A smartphone manufacturer would have an advantage over your competitors if you ended up putting this on the smartphone you sell to customers.
Its been a whirlwind for Ontario International Airport Authority CEO Kelly Fredericks since Ontario regained local control of the airport Nov. 1.

Beyond some of the more visible changes  new signs and a coffee cart in the terminals  in taking over 1,700 acres of property, theres bound to be changes the traveling public doesnt necessarily see.

There have also been a lot of firsts and unknowns during the authoritys first 100 days, a milestone reached Wednesday.

Fredericks and members of his staff are busy finalizing a branded logo for the airport, looking into allowing ride-sharing services such as Lyft and Uber, attending frequent meetings with air carriers and concessionaires, as well as restructuring the pet therapy program.

As a startup company, we are doing a lot of the foundational stuff. We are preparing an employee handbook, were working on compliance issues, Fredericks said.

He acknowledged some decisions will be carried out in phases, which may take as many as five years.

One of the more important behind-the-scenes tasks  which the public wants to see  is getting new flights, Fredericks said.

This is by far and away the most aggressive air service development program that Ive been a part of, said Fredericks, who has previously worked at the T.F. Green Airport in Providence, R.I., and Erie Municipal Airport Authority in Colorado.

The focus of the authority will be to add service to cities such as Miami, Washington, D.C., and New York but also to attract international carriers that fly to London, Germany and Paris, among other destinations.

That means trying to persuade carriers like JetBlue to return, current carriers to add routes or entirely new carriers that havent served ONT, Fredericks said.

Which in part is why the authority decided to give its front door an overhaul. Over the holidays, the lobby of the administrative office on the south end of the airport was gutted and replaced with new flooring and enclosed in glass, Fredericks said. The authority was cost-conscience, even purchasing items from Craigslist. The work was completed in January.

We made some modest improvements because we expect presidents and industry leaders to visit, he said.

The after-purchase inspection was revealing for Chief Operating Officer Bruce Atlas.

We indeed did purchase a fixer-upper and were in the process of fixing her up, he said.

Atlas, who oversees the day-to-day operations at the Inland airport, said it took the recent severe weather storms for him to gauge the conditions of the roofs.

Im pleased to say they are in better condition than we thought they were, he told airport commissioners at their monthly meeting in late January.

Meanwhile, authority Chief Financial Officer Jeff Reynolds learned LAWA did not transfer any of its accounting systems over to the authority, leaving him to start from scratch.

We didnt have the time or the ability to review systems, so we decided to go with Quickbooks just so we could get up and running and at least print checks, he told the authority at a Jan. 23 meeting.

RELATED

Many worked to make transfer of ONT happen

Will the Los Angeles Metro Gold Line ever make it to Ontario?

Learn Ontario International Airports plans to expand

Why Ontarios control of airport will also benefit LAX

Contact the writer: lmarquez@scng.com orTwitter: @JournaLiset
The sister-in-law of one of the San Bernardino shooters on Thursday, Feb. 9, became the third person with ties to the attackers to admit to immigration fraud resulting from an elaborate fake-marriage scheme.

Tatiana Farook pleaded guilty to one felony count of conspiracy to commit immigration fraud in U.S. District Court in Riverside. Judge Jesus G. Bernal set sentencing for Nov. 13.

Farook, 32, faces a maximum of five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine. She is not in custody.

Federal authorities say Farook; her husband, Syed Raheel Farook; Tatianas sister, Mariya Chernykh; and Enrique Marquez Jr., a friend of terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook, sought permanent U.S. residency for Chernykh, a Russian citizen, by fraudulently claiming that Marquez married Chernykh.

The fake marriage was discovered during the wide net cast by federal authorities investigation into the Dec. 2, 2015 attack on a San Bernardino County Division of Environmental Health Services holiday party at the Inland Regional Center by a co-worker, Syed Rizwan Farook, and wife Tashfeen Malik that killed 14 people and wounded 22 others. Rizwan Farook and Malik were killed hours later in a shootout with police.

Tatiana Farook, Raheel Farook and Chernykh have not been charged with any crimes related to the attack. Tatiana and Raheel Farook are both U.S. citizens.

Chernykh entered the country July 2, 2009 and long overstayed her three-month visa. The family had tried legal means to allow Chernykh to stay in the U.S. but they had run into numerous roadblocks, Tatiana Farooks attorney, Dyke E. Huish of Mission Viejo, said after Thursdays hearing. Huish would not elaborate on the roadblocks.

The prosecution of Tatiana was never about the hateful things done by others, but the mistakes made by two sisters out of a sense of family commitment and love, Huish said. Her motive was for the family to remain together.

After Tatiana Farook told Bernal that she understood the charges against her and the consequences of pleading guilty to a felony, the judge asked for her plea.

Guilty, your honor, she said.

During the hearing, Tatiana Farook told the judge that she was studying nursing at a college in San Bernardino and that she was seeing a psychiatrist. She said she was taking medication for depression and post traumatic stress disorder.

She left the court house without commenting.

Two guilty pleas

Tatiana Farooks sister Chernykh on Jan. 26 pleaded guilty to conspiracy, perjury and two counts of making false statements. Chernykh faces up to 20 years in prison and $1 million in fines. She is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 20.

She is in custody at a federal immigration detention facility in Adelanto. She is a Russian citizen whose family lives in Israel.

Raheel Farook, older brother of attacker Rizwan Farook, on Jan. 10 pleaded guilty to one felony charge of conspiracy. His sentencing is set for Nov. 13. He faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years supervised release.

Marquez is in federal custody, accused of supplying guns and explosives used in the San Bernardino attack. He is charged with conspiring to support terrorists, lying about the firearm purchase on federal documents and visa fraud in the marriage-sham case.

Before Bernal accepted Tatiana Farooks plea on Thursday, the judge had Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Robinson read the steps that prosecutors say were taken to portray a marriage. The steps included:

Raheel Farook asked Marquez to marry Chernykh so she could get legal status in the United States and agreed to pay Marquez $200 per month.

Marquez and Chernykh never had a marriage ceremony, but claimed to have one on Nov. 29, 2014, at the Islamic Society of Corona-Norco.

Raheel and Tatiana Farook signed a marriage license that said they witnessed a marriage ceremony that never happened.

Raheel Farook took photos of Marquez and Chernykh at a party that was described as a post-wedding reception to show officials at an immigration hearing.

Marquez and Chernykh signed immigration documents saying they lived together on Forum Way in Corona. That is actually where Raheel and Tatiana Farook live. One document they signed, a Petition of Alien Relative, warns that (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) seeks criminal prosecutions when family relationships are falsified to obtain visas.

Raheel Farook created a false legal agreement for the fake couple that said they lived on Forum Way. Marquez actually lived in Riverside and Chernykh lived in Ontario with her boyfriend, with whom she had a child.

Raheel Farook told Chernykh not to post photos of herself and her boyfriend.

Marquez changed his address on his drivers license to Forum Way.

To keep up appearances, Tatiana Farook and Chernykh shopped for a wedding ring for Chernykh, buying one for $50.

With all of that planning, Marquez and Chernykh still were no-shows for their immigration hearing in late 2015, and their request to allow Chernykh to remain in the U.S. was denied.

That hearing had been scheduled for Dec. 3.
Survivors of the Dec. 2, 2015, terrorist attack are seeking help from President Donald Trump.

The group has started a petition to ask the president to issue an executive order making it illegal for San Bernardino County to use whats called a utilization review for survivors and mandate that the county approve, retroactively and in the future, all treatment for attack survivors.

Utilization review is a process by which independent doctors review treatment proposals made by patients physicians, said David Wert, a county spokesman.

Fourteen people were killed and 22 were wounded that day during a combined holiday and training event at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino.

The gunshot survivors and many of those who attended the training event but were not shot have been suffering from an array of psychological and physical disorders.

The petition seeking Trumps help needs at least 100,000 signatures by Feb. 22 to get a response from the White House, says the groups website.

This isnt about politics. We are just trying to raise awareness at a national level, said Amanda Gaspard, 32, a former environmental health specialist for San Bernardino County.

The petition reads: The County of San Bernardino has delayed/denied medical treatment, physical therapy, antibiotics, medications, and mental health care to survivors of the Dec. 2, 2015, terrorist attack. Because injuries are work-related, private insurance refuses to cover treatment and survivors are required to go through the Countys self-administered workers compensation, and utilization review (UR).

That allegation has been denied by San Bernardino County officials.

The State of California stated that treatments can be approved by the County instead of UR. But the County insists on using UR and continues to delay/deny care, says the petition, posted on the sbsurvivors.com website.

The survivors are requesting people sign the petition on their behalf.

After signing, you must check your email account  the White House will send an email to confirm your signature. You must confirm your signature, or it will not be counted.

The survivors also ask that supporters share the petition link via email and social media with friends, family, colleagues and other contacts.

The link to the petition is: http://bit.ly/2k55fMI

Gaspard, who now stays with her parents in southwestern New Hampshire, lives with constant leg pain after taking two bullets in her upper right thigh.

One bullet exited through the knee, but the other is lodged in her thigh, along with many bullet fragments, she said Wednesday.

Additionally, there are hundreds of pieces of (bullet fragment) shrapnel in me  right leg, left leg, right arm  and skull between my right eye and ear, Gaspard said in an telephone interview.

Like many other shooting victims, Gaspard said she has battled for payments to fund her physical therapy, visits with a psychologist and leg surgeries.

But San Bernardino County defended its record Wednesday of taking care of the attack victims.

Employees who are injured on the job, especially those who are the victims of terror, deserve the best in care without delays or red tape, and in no instance has the county delayed or denied necessary care, Wert said.

The state-mandated utilization review process requires decisions on proposed treatments to be rendered within five days. In the December cases, decisions have been rendered within two to three days, he said.

The delays that have occurred were caused by the treating caregiver failing to provide justification for the proposed treatments. Many denials were caused by a lack of information provided by employees doctors.

If an employees doctor fails to provide information, utilization review has no choice but to issue a denial. Treatment can be reconsidered once the treating physician submits the necessary information, Wert said in a statement.

To ensure the Dec. 2 survivors get the attention they deserve, the county assigned contract case managers to each of the survivors still undergoing treatment. These case managers have focused on ensuring the treating physicians submit paperwork for utilization review in a timely manner, and since these case managers have come on board the county has noticed a sharp decrease in the number of survivors reporting delays or denials. Some of the most vocal critics have sent notes to the county telling us they are now getting the treatment they desire, he said.

Yes, the state did say that the county could bypass utilization review, which would take medical decisions out of the hands of doctors and place them in the hands of county risk managers. The state has also said that it requires employers to have utilization review plans to protect injured workers from being taken advantage of by their care providers through excessive, inappropriate and harmful treatment.

The county maintains utilization review has served our employees well based on the following: 775 treatments have been requested on behalf of the December 2 victims, and only 12 percent were denied by utilization review doctors. Of that 12 percent, only about one-third were appealed to the state. State physicians upheld 32 of the 33 denials that were appealed to them, proving that the denials were based on sound medical review, not anyone trying to save money, the countys statement said.

To walk without extreme pain, Gaspard said she needs bone and cartilage transplants in her leg.

This week, she was approved for this third surgery and was told it must be done by March 18.

But no money has been allocated for the surgery.

For an exploratory hospital procedure, she said, it took her from August to December to get funding, and it was only $3,500.

This third procedure will be much more expensive.

According to published reports, first responders to the Sept. 11, 2001, attack struggled years later to be funded for needed medical and psychological services, Gaspard said.

And there are more recent survivors, such as those from the Florida nightclub attack June 12 that killed 49 and wounded more than 50, she said.

Given the numbers of Americans who have not recovered from domestic terrorist attacks, Gaspard said, it is important to broaden recognition of the problem by going to the White House.

We are not making a political statement, we are asking for help, she said.

Contact the writer: jsteinberg@scng.comTwitter: @JamesDSteinberg
Col. Ryuji Toyota, commander of the Western Army Infantry Regiment of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, said Monday that he was looking forward to learning more about the Marine Corps and Navys capabilities for amphibious assaults.

That opportunity started this week and continues for a month, as 500 Marines from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton train with soldiers from the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force at the base and at San Clemente Island in an annual exercise known as Iron Fist. The U.S. and Japan have been key allies in the Pacific Rim since 1952.

U.S. Navy sailors and two ships will also participate in the training scenario to address some of Japans growing concerns over Chinas increasing military might and an ongoing conflict between the two countries over the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.

On Saturday, in his first foreign trip as defense secretary, retired Marine Gen. James Mattis visited Japan, where he reaffirmed U.S. support in defending Japan and the islands.

A dispute over control of the uninhabited islands has fueled tensions between Japans and Chinas naval and air forces.

In 2012, Japan nationalized the islands, which are near rich fishing grounds and untapped natural gas.

I made clear that our longstanding policy on the Senkaku Islands stands  the U.S. will continue to recognize Japanese administration of the islands and, as such, Article 5 of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty applies, Mattis said in a news conference with Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada.

On Monday, command staff from both nations held an opening ceremony at Camp Pendleton to celebrate the collaboration and kick off the training.

The event, planned to be held on an outside parade deck at the base, was moved into a gymnasium because of rain.

The Iron Fist exercise  in its 12th year  is meant to improve U.S. and Japanese collaboration. It trains the Japanese soldiers in Marine Corps strategies of operations from the air, land and sea.

Exercises start with a joint strategy planning to simulate an invasion, using combined arms, live-fire, amphibious assault and explosive ordnance training.

Each year we continue to learn from each other and increase our interoperability and work on our military-to-military relationship, said Col. Chandler Nelms, commander of the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit. It is essential we have key understanding on how we plan and execute an amphibious assault.

This year, the Marines will focus on training the Japanese in the use of the amphibious assault vehicle  a critical component of the Marine Corps sea-to-land assaults because it allows Marines and sailors to respond anywhere from a naval sea base.

This training is very important to us because we are going to establish a new amphibious brigade, Toyota said.

Amphibious assault vehicles travel at 6-8 knots and are powered by water jet propellers.

Marines will teach the Japanese soldiers how to drive the amphibious assault vehicles and do beach assaults.

The training will help the Japanese not only with assaults but also with the use of amphibious assault vehicles for humanitarian aid.

The current model of amphibious assault vehicle could be obsolete in a decade.

The U.S. has plans for a new model that is faster and less of a target than the current one, military officials have said. That new vehicle could deploy within 10 years.

Contact the writer: 714-796-2254 or eritchie@scng.com Twitter: @lagunaini
Related Articles 26 years in prison for fatal brawl in Highgrove

Jury selection got underway Wednesday, Feb. 8 for the trial of a Fontana man accused of fatally stabbing a 20-year-old man during a fight that erupted at a Highgrove home.

Brayan Guicho Avila, 22, could face 16 years to life in state prison if convicted of second-degree murder, assault resulting in great bodily injury and a sentence-enhancing allegation of using a deadly weapon in the commission of a felony.

Avila is being held in lieu of $1 million bail at the Robert Presley Jail in Riverside.

Riverside County Superior Court Judge Bernard Schwartz summoned several panels of prospective jurors to the Riverside Hall of Justice for screening as to their suitability and availability. Opening statements in the trial are expected Tuesday.

According to a trial brief filed by Deputy District Attorney Elan Zekster, Fidel Solano had come to the aid of a friend when he was knifed in the predawn hours of Oct. 28, 2013.

The defendant and his older brother, Walter Guicho Avila, had gone to the house at 3273 Viola Drive to pick up their sister, identified in court documents only as L.A., who had contacted their mother following an argument with her boyfriend, identified only as Carlos.

According to the brief, L.A. and Carlos were quarreling more than an hour before the fatal confrontation, and a sheriffs deputy had been summoned to the residence but found no evidence of a physical assault or threat and left.

When the Avila brothers arrived at the house with two male friends about 1 a.m., they approached Carlos in his driveway and tried to bait him into a fight, throwing a beer bottle at him, Zekster alleged.

The prosecutor said Carlos called for Solano, who was relaxing in the house, to assist him as the Avilas approached with their two cohorts, whose identities have not been determined.

A brawl erupted, with Brayan Avila and one of the other men pouncing on Solano, while Carlos tried to fend off punches from Walter Avila and the fourth suspect, the prosecutor alleged.

Zekster alleged that Brayan Avila stabbed Solano, who collapsed onto the driveway, mortally wounded. According to the prosecutor, Carlos was assaulted until he was beaten down, after which the defendants fled.

Solano was transported to Riverside Community Hospital, where he died less than an hour later.

Sheriffs detectives arrested the Avila brothers hours later without incident.

In September 2014, Walter Avila pleaded guilty to three counts of felony assault and was sentenced to six years in state prison.
Police on Tuesday, Feb. 7, arrested a 53-year-old Corona man who they suspect made inappropriate comments toward two teen girls at a park.

Steven Waters was arrested on suspicion of child annoyance and booked at the Corona police station, according to police. They say he was later released on a notice to appear.

Police say they went to Corona Heights Community Park after receiving a report of the alleged annoyance.

They say two teen girls were at the park when they were approached by a man who used vulgar language and made sexually suggestive comments.

Waters was then taken into custody.

Police are asking anyone who has any information about the investigation, or similar incidents, to contact Senior Det. Andy Bryant by calling 951-279-3572 or emailing Andy.Bryant@DiscoverCorona.com.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9693, agroves@scng.com or @AlexDGroves on Twitter.
An Alvord school board member tonight will hear from community members who want him to quit because of what they call racist posts on his Facebook page.

Joseph Barragan says his account was hacked, he did nothing wrong and he wont resign from the board he joined in December.

Parents and others have mounted a campaign using fliers with screen shots of comments about undocumented immigrants, blacks and Muslims. They plan to attend the Alvord Unified School District board meeting Thursday, Feb. 9, at 7 p.m.

Barragan, 21, said the Alvord Educators Association is coordinating the effort to remove him because he wanted Superintendent Sid Salazar to resign. The association denied that. Salazar and the teachers association have condemned the remarks.

RELATED: Alvord school trustee asked to resign over alleged racist Facebook posts

According to images on the flier, the Facebook posts support a wall like the one Israel has to keep Muslims out and call for population control by performing surgical procedures on prisoners so when they get out they cant have kids. We dont need kids with stupid genes.

Another message states, We wonder why life was better when we had slaves. They were actually tamed like animals. Another post threatens to run over Black Lives Matter protesters if they block traffic in Baltimore.

The meeting is in the board room at Alvord Unified School District headquarters, 9 KPC Parkway, Corona.
With a broken leg, five broken ribs and a punctured lung, Warren Muldoon sat on a ledge above a 40-foot waterfall in a remote canyon on Mount Baldy. It was about noon Feb. 1, and hed already fallen down four smaller waterfalls in an attempt to reach safety after getting lost while hiking down from the summit.

He looked up to his dog Dakota, who looked down at him from a shelf about 30 feet above. Shed fallen twice with him and was too scared to go any farther.

Muldoon was freezing. No one knew where he was  there was no cell coverage. His phone was broken and water-logged anyhow.

Thats it, Lord, I think Im going to die, the 62-year-old Christian man from Whittier recalled thinking.

Suddenly, he looked to the valley below. A group of people were looking up at him. He yelled and waved, and one man ran closer. He was still far away, and they couldnt hear one another over the sound of falling water, so the man signed a question with his hands: Do you need a helicopter? Muldoon nodded yes.

That exchange set in motion Muldoons hoist rescue by a San Bernardino County sheriffs helicopter shortly before 1:45 p.m. My dogs down there, he said he told his rescuers, but they said they had to worry about him, because he was hypothermic  Muldoons body temperature was 88 degrees  and they could lose him.

Dakota watched them fly away toward Loma Linda University Medical Center.

I could see Dakota just standing there looking at me, Muldoon said. It just broke my heart to leave her.

  

When Muldoon left home about 6 a.m. Wednesday, he told his wife, Connie, of his plan to hike the Ski Hut Trail to Mount Baldy summit, so she would know where hed be and when to expect him home.

Usually, when he goes to the top, hes gone for quite a few hours, she said.

About 4:50 p.m. Connie Muldoon was thinking her husband and Dakota should be home soon when a social worker at Loma Linda University Medical Center called and said Warren Muldoon was there being treated for injuries.

Connie Muldoon rushed to the hospital, not knowing the full story. After she arrived at her husbands bedside, she learned about his rescue  and that Dakota had been left behind.

Dakota, a 3-year-old German shepherd mix, had belonged to their son James since she was 3 months old. He named her after North Dakota, where years before James Muldoon was stationed in the Air Force.

(Dakota) was the one thing that he absolutely loved, Connie Muldoon said. He would have laid his life down for that dog.

On Aug. 9, while riding his motorcycle in Whittier, James Muldoon, 32, was struck by a car that ran a red light. He was placed in critical care, his brain severely injured and many bones broken. His condition was grim, and soon deteriorated.

Some time before the collision, James Muldoon asked his parents if they would care for Dakota should anything happen to him.

We said, yes, absolutely, Connie Muldoon recalled.

James Muldoon died Aug. 17.

Connie Muldoon broke down by her husbands bedside after hearing that Dakota was alone on the mountain.

Shes the last piece that I have of my son, Connie Muldoon said. I wasnt ready to say goodbye.

  

Warren Muldoon and Dakota go everywhere together, he said, often running or hiking. Theyve climbed to the Mount Baldy summit many times, but Wednesday was the first time they had done so in the snow.

They reached the top with no problem, Muldoon said. But on the descent, the wind kicked up, covering the trail and the tracks they made on the ascent. He took a wrong turn, and it got worse from there.

The spikes he wore on his hiking boots didnt stop him from tumbling. Dakota stumbled too, as she followed him. Muldoon knew they were in trouble, and decided to follow the sound of running water in hopes of finding a way down.

They reached a little stream, which turned into a big stream, which turned into waterfalls. Man and dog fell down the first waterfall and then the second. Muldoon fell down the third waterfall, breaking his ribs. Dakota was too scared to follow.

Dakota, you gotta come with me, Muldoon recalled saying. I cant leave you here. The rocks were too slippery for him to go back to her.

After pleading with Dakota for about 15 minutes, Muldoon felt he had to press on without her. Scared, cold and resigned, he moved forward and soon came upon another waterfall.

I said (to myself), this is bad, this is real bad, but I couldnt go (back) up, he recalled. So I got on my butt, and I just went down so fast and my foot hit the rock in the water and I heard (my leg) snap.

Muldoon crawled over to the ledge where he thought he would die.

  

That Wednesday night, Connie Muldoon posted Dakotas plight on Facebook. Please watch for her, she wrote. The post went locally viral, shared among various group pages and even Craigslist.

The following morning, Meg Moran of Yorba Linda was on Facebook, catching up on community news, when she learned about the lost dog. (My husband Patrick) spends every weekend hiking and I spend every weekend doing dog rescue, Meg Moran said. I knew we were the perfect people to jump into action.

Patrick Moran browsed the Angeles National Forest website, where he found the log entry for Warren Muldoons rescue. Something didnt look right to him, he said  the GPS coordinates didnt match the location description.

Having been on the mountain over a hundred times myself, I know it like the back of my hand, he said.

Moran wanted to help find the dog but didnt want to be hasty.

I want to know all the details before I start putting out (on social media) where something is, because you could wander around in that snow forever and not find her, he said.

Moran asked his wife to find someone via Facebook he could speak with and get a better idea of where Dakota might be. Within a few hours, she found Connie Muldoons phone number and learned that Warren Muldoon was at Loma Linda University Medical Center.

Moran couldnt reach Connie Muldoon, but he soon had her husband on the phone from his hospital bed and pressed him for details. It turned out he knew exactly where Warren Muldoon and Dakota had fallen  San Antonio Canyon  because he had rappelled there before.

Its a technical area, he said. You better know your stuff.

He told Muldoon that his wrong turn was a common error hikers make in whiteout conditions, leading to a drainage with no safe trail, and that Dakota was likely still trapped there.

Moran hung up and logged into Facebook. He cut and pasted a post to numerous hiking groups and pages: Dakota was probably between the second and third waterfalls in San Antonio Canyon. He also posted photos Connie Muldoon provided of Dakota hiking with her husband and standing next to her son.

Chris Simpson, an experienced mountaineer, soon sent Moran a message saying he would go look for Dakota.

Simpson recapped what happened next in a Facebook post.

I headed up Ski Hut Trail at around 4:30 p.m. and called out for the dog, he wrote. With no luck, I called it quits after 2 hrs or so.

On his descent he saw a familiar face on the other side of the waterfalls. It was Ricardo Soria Jr. of Glendora, another experienced hiker who not only was also looking for Dakota but had just seen her.

I made it past the second tier (of the falls) where I peered over a ledge and let out a few whistles, Soria recounted in a post to Instagram. Within moments, a set of eyes popped up.

Problem was, there was a pretty technical rock section in between him and the dog, Simpson wrote.

Simpson continued: I reached the falls area where I met a San Bernardino Search and Rescue volunteer (John Bishop) who was shining his light on the second tier of the falls when it picked up a reflection of 2 eyes. (Ricardo) confirmed it was Dakota.

Simpson and Bishop hatched a plan to reach Dakota  Soria headed back for the car knowing that they had it under control  and after gearing up they climbed up toward her.

I was the first to reach her and offered up a fresh package of salami which she downed in one bite, Simpson wrote.

Dakota was too scared to jump the short distance from the snow slope where she stood, so Simpson lured her closer with the empty salami package until he was able to bear hug her and set her on flat ground, he wrote.

The two men tied a safety rope to Dakota and escorted her off the mountainside.

  

Connie Muldoon was visiting her husband at the hospital the evening of Feb. 2 when she learned Dakota was safe at the Mt. Baldy Lodge.

She broke down when she heard they found Dakota, Warren Muldoon said.

Connie Muldoons friend Melissa Vosberg of Long Beach offered to retrieve Dakota and take her to a veterinarian. The vet hydrated the dog intravenously and stapled a cut on a hind paw. Dakota was bruised, but her blood work checked out and no bones were broken.

Vosberg brought Dakota home about 1:15 a.m. Friday.

Oh my goodness, she was a sight for sore eyes, Connie Muldoon said. She was a little skittish, but she was really happy to be home and just loved on.

  

Health complications delayed Warren Muldoon and Dakotas reunion. At first, he expected to go home Saturday or Sunday, but bleeding in his chest kept him in the hospital.

After seeing Dakota acting restless at home, confused about her companions absence, Connie Muldoon got the OK to bring in Dakota for a visit at Warren Muldoons hospital wing Wednesday.

You wont ever go hiking with me ever again will you, Warren Muldoon asked a tail-wagging, body-wriggling Dakota shortly after noon. I aint getting out of the car, he responded on the dogs behalf.

Quietly, he said, That was a bad day.

Warren Muldoon, who is now home from the hospital, accepts responsibility for the ordeal.

I was just way over my element, he admitted. I ended up in a spot I shouldnt have been.

Contact the writer: jblodgett@scng.comTwitter: @BlodgettJohnM
A man who suffered a seizure on a Rancho Mirage hiking trail on Wednesday, Feb. 8, was hospitalized after being rescued by members of the Cal Fire/Riverside County Fire Department.

The incident was reported about 12:19 p.m. on Bump and Grind Trail in the city, according to a Cal Fire/Riverside County Fire Department news release.

Rescuers hiked to the mans location before requesting that a helicopter come and pick him up, according to the release.

Officials say the man was brought to the hospital in moderate condition.

Contact the writer: 951-368-9693, agroves@scng.com or @AlexDGroves on Twitter.
CAMP PENDLETON  Harold Wadley has many memories of serving with then Cpl. Reckless at the Vegas Outpost during the Korean War.

But the scene hell never forget is the horses silhouette on the ridge as she carried ammunition to Marines as incoming and return fire collided over her head. Then hed see her return  alone from the front lines  carrying wounded Marines.

During her time with the 5th Marines at the outpost, on one day alone, during the Battle of Outpost Vegas, Reckless made 51 trips covering 35 miles.

God made all horses, said Wadley, 83, from Indian Mountain, Idaho. Only on Reckless, hed placed an angel that rode her those nights at Vegas. I dont know how she lived through it except for that.

On Wednesday, Wadley was in dress blues recounting his story for more than 600 people who had come to Camp Pendleton for the dedication of a bronze statue in the mares honor. The dedication marked exactly 64 years to the day Reckless joined the Marine Corps.

Wadley was among dozens of Korean War veterans, Marine Corps command staff, Marine veterans and community members who came to salute the small chestnut Mongolian mare purchased by Lt. Erick Pederson, leader of the 5th Marine Regiments recoilless rifle platoon, for $250 at a Seoul racetrack.

The statue  created by Jocelyn Russell  is similar to one unveiled in honor of Reckless in July 2013 at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Virginia, a day before the 60th anniversary of the end of the Korean War.

A collaboration between Robin Hutton, a Camarillo-based author, and retired Marine Col. Richard B. Rothwell, president of the Camp Pendleton Historical Society  the statue was dedicated in a ceremony at the Pacific Views Event Center. Four Marine Corps horses and their Marines flanked Reckless statue as the ceremony closed with the playing of Taps.

For Hutton, who uncovered the horses story and in 2014 wrote a book, Sgt. Reckless: Americas War Horse, the ceremony was the culmination of a 10-year mission to make sure Reckless would never be forgotten.

I need to thank you for just being Reckless, Hutton said, overcome by emotion. This is an amazing journey youve taken us on. Youve changed my life forever. Reckless wasnt just a horse, she was a Marine.

Lt. Col. Rafael Candelario, executive officer of the 5th Marine Regiment, accepted the Korean War Veteran Medal posthumously for Reckless.

This is an important legacy of the Regiment, he said. We have all types of heroes. Reckless is more than a horse. She contributed to the success and livelihood of Marines and sailors. She displayed courage in the face of extreme danger, something any Marine can emulate.

For the Korean War veterans, Reckless is a symbol of the often-forgotten conflict. She is the only horse to be buried with full military honors at the Stepp Stables on the base. She also was awarded two Purple Hearts and is the only animal ever awarded an official rank in the Marine Corps. Her final rank of staff sergeant was given to her in 1959 by Gen. Randolph McCall Pate, then commandant of the Marine Corps.

In Marine jargon, recoilless rifles were known as reckless rifles. And thats how the mare got her name. The Marines trained her to carry 75 mm recoilless rifle rounds. Pederson trained Reckless to lie down during incoming fire and pick her way through barbed wire.

Reckless would go into mess halls and eat pancakes with maple syrup, and shed hang out with Marines in tents and drink beer. She earned more than her stripes when the Chinese attacked the Vegas outpost about 60 miles north of Seoul in March 1953.

Seeing Reckless statue brought back a flood of memories to Debbie McCain. Her father, Col. G.M. Jinx McCain, served as a captain with Reckless in Korea.

At 6 years old, Debbie McCain wanted nothing more than to meet the mare she had heard so much about. When her father was transferred to Camp Pendleton, her dream came true.

We got out here and the first thing we did was go to the stables and visit Reckless, McCain, 67, said following the ceremony.

McCain, of Fallbrook, spent every weekend with Reckless, then at the base stables at Camp Pendleton.

I brushed her, put ribbons on her and loved on her, she said. When I had my birthday, my mother made one cake for me and one for Reckless.

Later, as a teen, McCain was back at Camp Pendleton. Her father had been wounded in the Vietnam War and was recovering on base.

Between her visits with him, McCain would got to the stables to see Reckless.

Whenever she saw me, shed nicker and come running over, McCain said.

McCain was there in May 13, 1968 when Reckless, at 20, died after getting a severe infection.

She was down and the vet was working on her, she said. I went and said goodbye.

She gave her whole life to the Marines. When they bought Reckless, history was made and a Marine was born. If it hadnt been for her, theres literally a generation of families that wouldnt be here today. All because of a little horse.

Contact the writer: 714-796-2254 or eritchie@scng.com
Stephanie Salas, the owner of Main Street Deli in Corona, is doing her part to honor first responders: She recently unveiled a hand-painted mural stretching across her wall that portrays Coronas finest doing their jobs.

Theres so much negativity going on so I decided to honor our police and firefighters, Salas said.

Featured on the wall are Corona Fire Capt. Jim Steiner and Victoria Smitherman, a 15-year-old girl who died from brain cancer; Salas had helped raise funds for the family.

The Smitherman family was moved by the mural, Salas said.

Aside from the mural being a touching tribute, Salas said she wants it to help create a tighter-knit community.

Out there, theres so much going on, when customers walk in, I want them to feel like theyre part of a community, she said.

The mural was unveiled during a ceremony Jan. 31 celebrating the delis reopening on its third anniversary. A previous mural featured the city of Corona.

More than 300 people attended the ceremony.

The mural took about two months to finish and was a collaborative effort involving Salas, professional muralist Alex Garcia and Sean William, a DJ and graphic designer.

Garcia, who has painted large-scale murals across the country, offered his services for free due to Salas philanthropic efforts.

Once I learned how much she contributes to the community, I felt compelled to help her, Garcia said.

In addition to being a small-business owner, Salas works with Helping Hands, an organization that donates meals to needy families, and volunteers at Trauma Intervention Program, a nationwide nonprofit organization that works with local police and fire departments to aid people who have been traumatized after a devastating event.

For all of her work for the community, the California Senate awarded Salas a Certificate of Recognition. The deli also received a Certificate of Recognition from Riverside County.

Salas wants to continue working for the community and wants others to be noticed as well.

At the deli, patrons can nominate a person who has made contributions to better the city by filling out a brief form and slipping it into a dropbox. At the end of every quarter, Salas will select an individual and have their name engraved on a plaque, which will be displayed on the deli wall.

As a child, Salas would accompany her mother on her Meals on Wheels deliveries to the elderly.

I remember the joy on their faces when they got their meal, she said.

Reflecting on all of her hard work, Salas had this to say: If I can do it, I will do it, I wish the community was more active.

With the mural in place, patrons will be reminded of the great work of the people of the city and the departments who serve them.

Contact the writer: community@pressenterprise.com
San Bernardino City Manager Mark Scott is a candidate for a job in another city as his contract shifts to month-to-month status.

Scott, whose one-year contract with San Bernardino ended Wednesday,confirmed Friday that he agreed to be interviewed for city manager in Reno.

Candidates have been asked not to make comments to the media, so I will only say of that recruitment that I am on the list of potential interviewees, Scott said in an email. My primary focus is still San Bernardino.

The San Bernardino City Council discussed the city managers contract in closed session Jan. 21, and directed staff to prepare a month-to-month contract, a staff report stated.

The Mayor & Council know that to do this job, I have been living apart from my wife for the last year, which is why I am only able to sign a month-to-month contract, Scott said. I very much love working in San Bernardino with all the people I get to work with. Im proud of our communitys collective achievements. I could happily work on our local mission for the rest of my career, but sooner or later I want and need a personal solution that lets me live with my wife of 43 years.

Moving to Reno would allow him to live with her, he said.

Scott said he only recently agreed to be interviewed but has spoken to the Reno recruiter for some time, which he said is common in his business.

The agenda for Renos City Council meeting held Wednesday shows that Scott is one of five candidates that the council was to consider inviting for an interview.

According to Renos KTVN/2, 40 candidates applied for the job. The news station published a copy of Scotts application, dated Jan. 19, which addresses his current position.

I knew the City was working toward solutions to their bankruptcy problems, but I anticipated correctly that no one capable was going to apply for the vacancy, Scott wrote in his cover letter. Over time, San Bernardino had had a nearly complete breakdown in both its governance and management operations. However, the Mayor and City Council were sincere in their efforts, and both staff and community were very deserving. I joined their small team and have been very much rewarded by our collective successes. We are on the verge of exiting bankruptcy, we have righted the ship financially, and the community passed a new Council-Manager charter in the November election.

The San Bernardino council unanimously chose Scott in December 2015 to replace Allen Parker, whose negotiated resignation took effect at the end of that year.

San Bernardino had terminated their previous City Manager last year just weeks before the terrorist attack, Scott wrote to the consultant overseeing the search.

Scotts one-year contract began Feb. 8, 2016, with Police Chief Jarrod Burguan filling in during the interim.

Scotts salary in San Bernardino works out to $248,076 per year. Other benefits include a housing allowance of $1,500 per month, which Scott uses to rent an apartment in the city.

The lack of severance was intentional, Scott said in October.

I would never make the public pay for me to go away, he said. Its important that I can be held accountable.

Scott also said he signed on under the hope that voters would approve a change in the charter, which restricted San Bernardino city managers in ways not found in other cities.

I have used the phrase several times that I dont think I can succeed in the future under the current charter, Scott said before the November vote that approved charter changes. I havent wanted it to be a threat or like Im campaigning, but I think the charter gets in the way of any city manager succeeding.

Voters overwhelmingly approved the new charter, but city officials estimate it may take one to two years for a consultant to help them implement all aspects of it.

San Bernardinos city manager just before it entered bankruptcy, Charles McNeely, came to the city from Reno.

Renos population is 233,000, or about 15,000 people more than San Bernardino.

Contact the writer: rhagen@scng.comTwitter: @rmhagen
The Syrian civil war and its ramifications for the United States will be the subject of a talk by a retired American diplomat Thursday, Feb. 16 at UC Riverside.

George Novinger, who served as deputy chief of mission in Damascus from 2008 to 2010, will offer his views on how the conflict started and what can be done to improve the situation in Syria and the Middle East.

The event is organized by the World Affairs Council Inland Southern California and UCR Office of International Affairs.

Novinger will discuss how the United States should deal with the Syrian refugee crisis, which is part of a battle between President Donald Trump and foes of his Jan. 27 executive order indefinitely barring Syrian refugees from entering the country.

Novingers talk is set to start at 6:15 p.m, with a reception at 5:30 p.m.

The event is at the Alumni & Visitors Center, 3701 Canyon Crest Drive, Riverside.

Admission is $30 for World Affairs Council members and $35 for non-members. Students are free.

Reservations: http://wacinlandsocal.org

Information: worldaffairscsusb@gmail.com

Contact the writer: 951-368-9292, stwall@scng.com, @pe_swall

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State water officials extended drought-triggered water savings measures on Wednesday, Feb. 8, with mixed reactions from Southern California water suppliers even as statewide conservation appears to remain relatively high.

While many agencies including the Municipal Water District of Orange County and Eastern Municipal Water District urged state officials to drop or shorten an extension, others including the city of Los Angeles and the Laguna Beach County Water District supported an extension.

Board members indicated plans to revisit the matter in May after the normal end of the rainy season.

Laguna Beach County Water District General Manager Renae Hinchey told the State Water Resources Control Board at its Sacramento meeting that the district continues sending customers the message that conservation must be a way of life.

Were going to be in drought cycles and we need to live with that, she said at the Cal/EPA building Wednesday afternoon.

The Sierra Nevada snowpack water content is already at 127 percent of the April 1 average, yet half the state is locked ina sixthyear of drought.

After about an hour of public comment on both sides of the issue, the five-member board unanimously extended an amended statewide emergency water conservation regulation for 270 days.

Hydrologists and drought experts have the knowledge that the drought may be coming to a close, board member Steven Moore said.

But only Gov. Jerry Brown, who declared California was in a drought state of emergency in January 2014, can declare that emergency over.

The entire state needs to work together to reduce water use, which can impact climate change, Moore added.

The drought could be over, but the need to conserve water is not, he said a day after more than a foot of snow fell in the Sierra Nevada and Southern California continued soaking up rain.

Under the resolution, Californians still would be expected to reduce drinking water use and more than 400 of the states largest water suppliers must report the savings monthly to the board.

But 3,000 small suppliers will no longer have to reportmonthly,after half werent doing so, board Climate and Conservation Manager Max Gomberg told the board.

In addition, water customers must continue avoiding wasteful practices outlined in the original regulation, such as hosing down sidewalks and driveways, washing cars with hoses not equipped with shut-off nozzles, creating landscaping runoff, or watering landscaping within 48 hours of measurable rain.

Earlier in the meeting, Gomberg said statewide cumulative water savings from June 2015 through December 2016, compared to the same period in 2013, was 22.5 percent  a slight dip from Novembers cumulative 22.6 percent.

With cumulative savings at 22.8 for October and 23 for September, conservation has virtually leveled off.

Conservation numbers have remained incredibly strong, Gomberg said.

The current cumulative savings amount to 793 billion gallons or 2,434,323 acre-feet of water saved.

State residents saved 20.6 percent more water in December than the same month in 2013.

The Sierra snowpack water content, which creates spring and summer runoff that help build water supplies, sits at 184 percent of normal for Feb. 8 and the south Sierra snowpack measures 208 percent of normal.

Yet 51 percent of the state  including most of Southern California and part of Northern California  remain in a drought, although with less intensity than recent years.

Since at least Jan. 24, Northwestern Los Angeles County, parts of Santa Barbara and Kern counties, and most of Ventura County are now the only part of Southern California, and the state, to remain in extreme drought.

The California Department of Water Resources announced Wednesday that, according to new NASA radar satellite maps, groundwater pumping is causing areas of the San Joaquin Valley to sink rapidly  threatening state and federal aqueducts and flood control structures.

On Wednesday, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti urged the regions residents to save water to help the environment, which he said would also save money.

The drought is not over, especially here in Southern California, he said at a City Hall press conference on another issue.

Even as we have reservoirs that will get close to filling up, remember, the true reservoirs are the ones in the ground, and were still pretty bone-dry in most of our aquifers in the city, Garcetti added.

At the board meeting, Eastern Municipal Water District General Manager Paul Jones was among many suppliers who said current hydrologic conditions and precipitation levels dont rise to the level of an emergency any longer.

Board chairwoman Felicia Marcus supported taking another look at the regulation after the rainy season.Decision makershave to consider the needs of all communities, and some remain in pain, she said.

What does statewide mean? Are we one state, or are we multiple states? Marcus added.

 Staff Writer Elizabeth Chou contributed to this report.

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The Chief of Prestea-Hemang, Nana Nteboa Prah IV, has appealed to Golden Star Bogoso/Prestea Limited, a gold mining company in the region to do well to employ qualified indigenes of Prestea in the company to ensure peaceful coexistence between the company and the people.



According to the traditional ruler, the mining company had been a major source of employment in the area hence, majority of the indigenes who had graduated from the various universities and other tertiary institutions are looking forward to be employed in the company.



Speaking to DAILY GUIDE, the chief pointed out that there had been a community agreement indicating that qualified youth in the companys catchment areas would be given the highest quota when it came to employment.



It is however disheartening to note that even though most of the youth in Prestea had the requisite qualification, the mining company had been employing more people from outside the catchment areas and this is creating tension in Prestea, he asserted.



He spoke to DAILY GUIDE after the mining company presented a tractor and two hydraulic trailers for the people of Prestea and adjoining communities in the companys catchment area for the evacuation of wastes in the communities to a final dumping site.



The youth keep on blaming the traditional leaders for not doing enough to help them get jobs in the mining company. They have threatened several times to embark on demonstrations but we have to restrain them, he added.



Mr Nyanzu Agyabu, Environmental Services and Safety Manager of the mining company indicated that the equipment were purchased with funds from the peoples share of the companys community development fund.



The Prestea community has a challenge with waste management to the extent that some water bodies were being contaminated. This is because the assemblys compacter has developed some faults, he noted.



So the Community Consultation Committee (CCC) in the area agreed that part of their share of the fund be used to purchase the items, he said at a brief ceremony to officially hand over the equipment to the chiefs of Prestea.



He pointed out that the residents would be charged a token for the services rendered unto them for the maintenance of the machines and the payment of salaries of the operators.



Mr Robert Gyamfi, Community Affairs Manager of Golden Star Resources Limited indicated that the donation would help the people to have the capacity to move wastes out of the Prestea area to a safe dumping site.

Source: Daily Guide









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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The Minister of Energy and Petroleum, Mr. Boakye Agyarko, has disclosed that the immediate past National Democratic Congress (NDC) government bedeviled his ministry with a whopping $2.4 billion in debt.



According to him, this is a huge challenge, and in order to tackle it head on, he needed civil servants who are not politically biased to work with.



Mr. Boakye Agyarko has, therefore, suggested to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government, of which is he is part, to retire civil servants who are found to have affinity towards the National Democratic Congress (NDC).



Those who are below their retirement age, he suggested, should be widely dealt with to to the line of the state and government of the NPP.



"It is important for us, as a party, to work hard and expose and shame any NDC civil servant who will dare do any dubious thing to make the NPP government unpopular," he said, adding: "What do you think will happen to me and the state, if I should continue to have some NDC civil servants in certain critical positions?"



Promising that his Ministry would tackle the debt head on, Mr. Agyarko said he had plans of negotiating some of the contract agreements the NDC government entered into with the government's partners, In order to save the state from any form of judgement debt.



Principal agencies subset of the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum are the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), Bulk Oil and Storage Transport (BOST) and Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), and going forward, Mr. Agyarko said he would hold constant checks and surveillance on all those agencies, to prevent some of the dubious contractual arrangements that went on there.



In view of this, Boakye Agyarko vowed not to make himself a prey to cronies who think they can use his sector to satisfy their financial greed and personal desires.



The NPP government, he said, would ensure that it has protected and preserved the sovereignty of the State, through prudency and contracts that would bring value for money.



Appearing on Oman FM's night political talk show-Boiling Point-on Tuesday this week, Mr. Agyarko said the NPP should safeguard the interest of its loyal party faithful, by getting them to occupy the positions, such as those of the civil servants whose party ideologies and beliefs are divergent from that of the NPP government.



"Most of our loyalists in the civil service were humiliated by the administrations of Mills and Mahama, and so for me, we have to urgently cater for such victims. We can't disregard the vigorous efforts of the grassroots who have given us the power," he noted.







Source: The Chronicle









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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Steps to champion elderly care in Ghana has commenced under the auspices of the Denmark Government.



Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyemang-Manu has said government will provide quality health care delivery for the aged in the country.



He said conditions for the aged and the vulnerable is a key responsibility and needs government intervention.



Speaking in Koforidua at the opening ceremony of a 5-day workshop on training of trainers workshop on the Eldercare project, Mr. Agyeman Manu indicated that, quality health delivery is a priority of the government and also needs a collective commitment for progressive achievement.



The programme which is funded by the Denmark government called (LO-FTF) and organised by the Health Service Workers Union(HSWU) aims at training members of the Health Workers Union to improve upon the eldercare arrangement in Ghana and patner civil society, government and its agencies to implement the national ageing policy.



General Secretary of the Health Workers Union, Reynolds Tenkorang figured out that, most elderly in the country suffers from poverty,lonelinesses and neglected by the society and family members due to their dependency and aging challenges.



Mr.Tenkorang said it is relevant for the government to implement the national ageing policy to enhance economic and cultural integration of the older person into the mainstream society.



He pledges commitment of the TUC and HSWU's to utilize the LO-FTF opportunity to attain a higher goal in the eldercare liberty.















Source: Ayeh Ebenezer/UTV Eastern Regional Correspondent









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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The Chief Executive Officer of Kingdom Herbal, one of Ghanas leading producers of herbal medicine has recalled how former CEO of Ghana Cocoa Board Stephen Opuni marred his relationship with the Late President Evans Attah Mills leading to the loss of over three million dollars worth of drugs.



According to Jonathan Amofa, the then Food and Drugs Authority boss Stephen Opuni was politically biased to the extent that he saw members of the opposition as threats and did everything to destroy them.



The CEO who made this revelation in an interview with Atinka AM Drive host, Ekourba Gyasi on Tuesday mentioned that Dr Opuni, who was sacked by the Akufo-Addo government recently, seized two containers of his Kingdom garlic product, with the excuse that the medicine had expired.



Mr. Jonathan Amofa added that he could not fathom why a surgeon like Opuni could be that wicked and full of bitter thoughts.



He simply could not understand why the late President Attah Mills was my friend and spreading rumours that I am an NPP sympathizer and so I will feed the NPP with information on the NDC. Opuni personally told me on countless occasions that he will torment me till I leave the country.



I cannot curse him, but one thing I am sure of is that he will suffer more than he is currently experiencing . God will punish Opuni for the harm he caused me and some other persons, he charged.

Source: atinkaonline.com









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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Maverick politician and Member of Parliament (MP) for Assin Central Constituency in the Central region Kennedy Agyepong has heaped praises on the Minority Leader in parliament Haruna Iddrisu for showing good leadership.



He believes that the Tamale South legislator has over the years proven to be on top of his job and risen very fast in his current position.



Haruna is a very intelligent young man and has learnt a lot on the job. I was not surprised he was made the minority leader because this is someone who knows what he is about and can do a lot to help his side in parliament, he emphasised.



Mr Kennedy Agyepong is, however, alleging that some elements within the minority are trying to undermine his leadership for which reason they cooked up the Boakye Agyarko bribery story to make him look as though he is not on top of the job.



While stating that the bribery saga was instigated within the NPP itself by aggrieved supporters who have not been given positions, he promised their claim will fall flat and they will not succeed in their bid to destroy Nana Addos administration.



On his involvement in giving out bribe monies, Kennedy Agyepong said he knows nothing about it and will not hesitate to drag his accusers to court.

Source: mynewsgh.com









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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Former Ag. Executive Director of the National Service Scheme (NSS), Michael Kpessah-Whyte appears scandalized by actions taken by the current management of the scheme to withdraw the appointment of persons who were employed at the secretariat under his watch.



So far, 205 persons have been affected by the decision. New managers of the scheme have advised persons affected by this decision to look forward to a new opportunity to have the staff recruitment properly carried out.



In a statement signed by newly appointed Executive Director of the National Service Scheme, Ussif Mustapha, he noted that upon the advice of Minister of Education, management of NSS has withdrawn the appointment of persons who were employed at the secretariat towards the end of the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC) government in December 2016.



Ussif Mustapha insists the former Ag. Executive Director was advised to halt the recruitment process until the matter was properly resolved. The advice was however ignored and the appointment letters were issued to some persons on 15th December, 2016.



But speaking on Radio Gold on Thursday, Mr. Kpessah-Whyte raved at the decision, noting that it is quite devastating and frustrating watching his successors destroy good measures he put in place.



He noted that before power was handed over to the new NPP administration, he established contacts with a point person who was part of the NPPs transition team and briefed him about the recruitment.



According to him, under the administration of former President Mahama, the NSS suffered a dip in reputation but did everything he could to bring transparency when he took over the reins of leadership.



He continued that before the 205 persons were recruited, the NSS engaged the services of experts who interviewed the recruits before they were shortlisted.



I am at a lost- the NPP administration is taking steps to criminalize steps taken by previous government. Ghana would suffer he warned.



He therefore urged the victims to hurriedly head to court and sue the NSS for the revocation of their service contracts.



They (sacked recruits) must use the court approach as a break, to clip the recklessness of the NPP, he noted.



He surmised that the rampant dismissal of persons from institutions belonging to government is a shadow of worse things to come under the new NPPs administration.



He was emphatic that the NPP administration would run into a ditch if they fail to manage affairs of the NSS well.



The place can create havoc for the NPP and it can make or unmake the nation, he noted.

Source: Chris Joe Quaicoe/ email: [email protected]









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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The Management of the National Service Scheme (NSS) has withdrawn the appointment of persons who were employed at the Secretariat by the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) in December 2016.



The NSS employed some personnel in December 2016 but on the advice of the Minister of Education, has laid them off.



A statement from the National Service Scheme signed by newly appointed Ag. Executive Director, Ussif Mustapha, indicated that the former Ag. Executive Directive, Michael Kpessah-Whyte was asked by the Public Services Commission to halt the recruitment process but he (Kpessah-Whyte) ignored it.



Speaking on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo' in relation to the issue, Atik Mohammed, General Secretary of the People's National Convention (PNC), has sympathized with the affected persons.



According to him, the withdrawal of their appointment was far-fetched because the former Ag. Executive Directive didn't do due diligence before employing them.



He said it appeared as though he (Kpessah-Whyte) was in a haste to tender their appointments before the elapse of the erstwhile NDC regime, and so believed in his quest to do that may have breached some laws.



Atik Mohammed however was empathetic towards the affected employees and urged them not to "give up because there will be an opportunity for you to reapply, if only you want to work with the National Service Secretariat.



He further wondered whether the NSS Human Resource Department was incapacitated to effectively recruit new hands, hence employing people only for their appointments to be revoked.



Is it that the HR showed incapacity to deliver? Or was it the case that the Head didnt have confidence in that department or the department, itself, proved unable to do the work? Because, I dont understand it. Its not that the people did it for free. Theyve been paid. Meanwhile, we have people who regularly, theyre paid by the State to do their job and their work is they do these recruitments. And yet, you leave them behind and recruit new personnel to do the job that people have already been paid to do; so we make another payments. All of these things add to the building of the huge cost of running government, he said.





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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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I am constrained to correct yet another distortion about the whereabouts of vehicles belonging to the Presidency.

On Wednesday, Eugene Arhin, Director of Communications at the Flagstaff House, in a widely circulated interview, claimed that 200 vehicles in the pool at the presidency were missing.



He also claimed that the supposed disappearance of these vehicles has created an acute shortage compelling President Akufo Addo to resort to the use of 2007 model BMW vehicles and in some instances his own cross-country vehicle for official duties.



The claims of Eugene Arhin are false, baseless without merit. They represent a continuation of the distortions and bad faith that have characterised the conduct of the NPP side of the Transition team.



As part of the transition process, both the Assets and Logistics Committee on the NPP side were given a detailed list of all vehicles in the pool at the Presidency.



More importantly, a total of 641 vehicles were listed and properly accounted for. This was duly captured in the handing over notes. The breakdown of the vehicles are indicated in the table below;

It is befuddling that several weeks after the NPP administration begun this campaign of disinformation and harassment of members of the immediate past government, it has as yet failed to put out an iota of evidence to back these claims.



If the NPP government was sincere about these claims,it would have published a full list of all allegedly missing vehicles and provide specific information on each of them.



I also found astonishing, the claim by Eugene Arhin that President Akufo Addo cannot find decent vehicles to use and has had to rely on 2007 model BMWs for his movements since becoming President.



It must be placed on record that the use of the BMWs and his personal vehicle, if it is true, is not due to the non-availability of presidential vehicles. It is clearly a choice that he made on his own accord.



Among the vehicles handed over to the NPP team were two bulletproof salon cars and two bulletproof cross country vehicles specifically dedicated to the use of the President. Both sets of bulletproof vehicles are relatively new and in good condition for the transportation of the President.



Added to this is a fleet of almost new Mercedes Benz vehicles. Surely if President Akufo Addo can use 10 year old vehicles, he should be able to use vehicles that are relatively new and in good condition.



The attempt therefore by Eugene Arhin to create the impression of scarcity and use same as a pretext to justify the unwarranted falsehood about missing vehicles belonging to the Presidency is disingenuous and unbecoming of a public official whose actions must be guided by integrity and candour.



It is obvious from the foregoing that Eugene Arhins intervention is part of a grand scheme by the Akufo Addo/Bawumia government to demonise members of the previous administration for cheap partisan propaganda purposes.



In the interest of transparency and candour, a detailed inventory of all vehicles accounted for during the transition process has been attached to this statement.



The onus now lies squarely on the Akufo Addo/Bawumia government to provide very specific details of the supposedly missing vehicles out of the list provided below.



JOHNNY OSEI KOFI



FORMER DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF



Thursday, 9th February, 2017

Source: Peacefmonline.com









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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22-year-old Aussie Thomas Keating has today pleaded guilty to recklessly causing death, after he and his girlfriend, Emily Collie, collided on their jetskis during a holiday in Thailand.

Keating appeared at Karon provincial police station in Phuket, along with family members, and relatives of Collies.

Police said that it was the first time Keating had driven a jetski, and his previous statements indicate that sunlight bouncing off the water temporarily blinded him moments before the collision.

Collies family have released a collective statement, saying that they do not place any blame on Keating for the tragic accident, and that they wished to grieve for her together.

We do not place any blame on Tom Keating, who we care about very much and who we know loved Emily deeply. We are all heartbroken beyond words, and at this extremely sad time, we wish to be together with our family, with Tom, and with other loved ones to grieve and celebrate Emilys life.

Currently, Tom is not detained, but is banned from leaving the country until the court process is completed, which is expected to take around 2 weeks.

Keating is facing a maximum of 10 years in jail, but Phuket Polices Colonel Sanya Thongsawad said he expects he will receive a suspended sentence of two years or less, which would then allow him to leave the country.

Well keep you updated as more information arises.

Photo: Facebook.
The Queensland town of Deception Bay has revived an ongoing debate regarding the towns name, with some vocal locals campaigning to change it to Summer Bay.

Yeah, the fictional setting of Home and Away. That Summer Bay.

Deception Bay was so named because in 1823, some berk named Lt John Oxley sailed in and thought it was a river (it wasnt). The area got something of a bad reputation during the 80s and 90s, and the nickname Depression Bay has kind of stuck, so its understandable that some locals  or more accurately, some recently acquired locals  are a bit off it.

OG D-Bay resident and former mayor of Caboolture Shire Tom McLoughlin is not impressed by the recent swell of support behind picking a new name. He told the Courier Mail:

I have noticed that nearly every time new people come to live here they want to change the name. The name Deception Bay has been in existence for nearly 250 years.

One of those newcomers is Sam Dearlove, who said:

I understand the historical significance. I just hear the tone when people mention Deception Bay or as its more commonly known, Depression Bay.

The debate has been going back and forth since at least 2007, when locals floated a name change (suggestions included Endeavour Bay and Discovery Bay) to coincide with a council merger, but obviously to no avail.

And I mean, look, sure, I understand not wanting to live in a town with a downer name  but maybe instead of changing your localitys moniker to something lifted directly from Australias second-longest running soap opera, you should ask the residents of Accident, Arse, Cockburn, Boring, Nowhere Else, or Bell End how they deal with it.

Or even better: call the place Quandamooka, the Indigenous word for the Moreton Bay area. I see your 250 years, Mr McLoughlin and raise you several thousand. Problem solved.

Source: Courier Mail.

Image: Seven Network.
Friends, we live in a world where the President of the United States of America dropping an accidental dick joke is only, like, the fourteenth worst thing hes done today.

In case you missed it, President Donald Trump decided to hurl some more venom at the American judiciary for deliberating over the legality of his ban on migrants from seven majority-Muslim nations.

Is that a pretty shitty look on its own? Sure. But this was the message he used to cap off his petulant Twitter rant:

Big increase in traffic into our country from certain areas, while our people are far more vulnerable, as we wait for what should be EASY D!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2017

We can pretty safely assume the man was referring to easy defence. Whether his ban constitutes easy or defence remains up for debate. Still, that argument has taken a back seat to the fact HE MADE A WILD, HORNY FREUDIAN SLIP ON TWITTER.

You better believe the cheekiest of the internets denizens vigorously grabbed the message:

Another tribe took a slightly different tack, wondering what the potential real-world fallout of this message could be for his staff. Outside of, you know, a flood of 2am u up for some Easy D? messages headed their way:

OVERHEARD in Senate press gallery: What does Easy D mean?  Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) February 8, 2017

SPICER: I cant do it. Theres no way to make easy D sound presidential. KELLYANNE CONWAY: *smoking two cigarettes at once* Hold my beer.  Carlos Maza (@gaywonk) February 8, 2017

Im told that D is abundant and of low value, period. Next question. pic.twitter.com/CB1soGXh0X  Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) February 8, 2017

The third interpretation focuses on Trumps apparent career-change and rising rap career:

@realDonaldTrump What the hell is an EASY D? Is that Easy Es orange brother?  Kristina Wong ?? (@mskristinawong) February 8, 2017

We have the leaked tracklist and lyric samples for @realDonaldTrumps rap debut as Easy D https://t.co/WQ6NkEqUHS pic.twitter.com/0Z6dO1Y9wX  Playboy (@Playboy) February 8, 2017

At this point, nearly every permutation of this joke has been played out, but fuck: for one glistening moment, the planet allowed itself to chuckle at something stupid from this colossally dangerous dingus.

hahahahaha EASY D! Guys! He said EASY D! hahaha. Hes the president but he doesnt realise that D is slang for dicks. Guys!  Josh Thomas (@JoshThomas87) February 9, 2017

log on to twitter

something something easy d

log off twitter  Oliver Willis (@owillis) February 8, 2017

Source: @realDonaldTrump / Twitter.

Photo: Win McNamee / Getty.
In case you havent noticed, its really bloody hot right now, and unfortunately its going to get hotter. While you and I might have access to a fridge full of cold ones and the occasional foray into blessed public air-con (hands up whos spending the weekend at the movies), spare a thought for our four-legged mates who cant take off their jackets.

Two dogs and two birds have died of heat stress in Queensland within the last week, and thats not counting the tragic death of police dog Waco. The Queensland RSPCA has been fielding hundreds of calls about distressed animals  some in hot cars, but many without adequate water and shade.

One dog died after her tether became tangled around a clothesline and she was unable to make it back into the shady laundry. Its almost too heartbreaking.

RSPCA Inspector Sharni Statham was the person who responded to the call about the doggo who got tangled, but she arrived about 20 minutes too late.

She advised pet owners to make sure their yard is secure, rather than tying up a dog that will be left alone during the day. She also suggested putting weights in any water bowls  a brick in a water bucket is a good one  to stop them being accidentally tipped over.

RSPCA spokesperson Michael Beatty told the Brisbane Times:

We would also recommend that there are at least two to three containers of water in case one gets knocked over.

Statham also cautioned against leaving a dog in a spot that seemed shady in the morning.

Remember the Earth turns so a shady area in the morning would likely be exposed to sun in the afternoon.

Keep those pooches cool, my friends. The RSPCA has more tips on caring for hot puppers right here.

Source: Courier Mail.

Image: Giovani Cordioli / Getty.
How good is having a career. You feel like such a boss having an official title and all that shit. And then you get business cards and its like, hi hello I am a super fancy successful human who definitely never eats microwaved pizza three days in a row.

Business cards are kind of the first-impression-on-a-date element of a job. Say you meet an ~important client~ out at an event. You make some smooth af small talk, nail the business spiel, and just before moving on to your next networking target, you whip out your card. What impression is it giving? Does it say wow, this company is cool and fancy, I want to give them money, or does it say welp, they clearly got the bulk option at their local newsagency.

Gone are the days when your business card had to be plain, boring white with some black print on it. These days you can get your deets on everything from cotton to bloody wood. And we are 100% here for it  especially if youre running your own thang and want to make a really solid impression. Here are some of our fave companies in Oz doing pretty schmick things in the stationery design space.

PRINT ON WOOD



As said before, wood is just one of many materials you can get stuff printed on. And depending on your business, playing with materials is a surefire way to make a statement about your vibe. Like, do you have your own architecture or landscaping thing going on? How cool are wooden business cards for that. Print On Wood obviously prints on wood. But theyre also absolute guns at it, as evidenced below:





STITCH PRESS





IMHO everything should just be foiled, it makes any single thing look 5479% fancier. Theres something really high-end about gold or bronze foiled business cards, and if youre in anything from the design field, to fashion or art, they really express your commitment to the finer things in life  like details, which is good coz thats what your entire jobs about, right? Stitch Press is an Aussie design and fine stationery company, and the do a mean business card.





THE DISTILLERY



You could just have writing on your cards like every moite in the world. Or, you could get yours letterpressed for a more lush finish. Whatever your business is, letterpressed cards scream I am fancy and have lots of leather-bound books.

So if you want to be putting out into the networking world that youre in charge and way confident, go the embossed route, k? You might have heard of The Distillery  theyre a Syd-based company that specialise in branding and stationery, so of course their business cards are off the chain both in materials used and the designs they whiz up.





TAYLORD PRESS





Laser cut cards are easily the most boss business move. The added detail of lil peek-a-boo holes shouldnt really add as much swish as it does. But goddamn, it really does. VIC company Taylord Press do some naaice work with laser cut, like these which use a top layer, which has then been fused to the yellow to make that ~3D effect~. They also branch out with some really sweet designs in general, and love a pop of colour.

MOO





Say it with us. No. More. Flimsy. Business. Cards. Theyre 100% the worst, they bend and look crap even when you carefully slide them into your wallet, so most of the time they give off a really meh impression. Go instead for thick card versions, like these from Moo. Theyll keep their shape for ages, and feel really lush when you press them firmly into some important clients hand. Not in a creepy way, though, ok.

Cant decide between all these swag details? Consider the business you work for or own first. Whats the important element  is it that you are creative and will be helping others with their creative stuff? Maybe you work with materials. Or do you simply need to be seen as the most knowledgable, intelligent and confident human in existence. Then, think about what that vibe would look like in business card form, and go forth and get em made.

No guarantees youll magically become Don Draper, Aussie version though. But just sayin, it could happen.

Images: Supplied.
101NorthQueenStreet

Pictured is a rendering of the future building at 101 N. Queen St., Lancaster.

(Rendering provided.)

A Pittsburgh-based developer is hoping to bring a vacant Lancaster building back to life.

Zamagias Properties plans to renovate the 150,000-square-feet, four-story building at 101 N. Queen St. The developer has plans for retail, restaurants and office space.

Luxury condominiums are also planned for the top floor, according to a Central Penn Business Journal report. The building which was once a former department store has been vacant since 2008 when Bulova Technologies, a one-time subsidiary of the Bulova Watch Co., moved out, according to the Business Journal.

On February 8, Zamagias Properties and PPM Real Estate, who is leasing space for the property, hosted a special reveal event for the development project, 101NQ. Renderings produced by LeFevre Funk Architects were on display.

Renovations are to begin in this year with occupancy slated for early 2019.

PENN BUSINESS IN 2017
There remains many answered questions in the case of a woman found stabbed to death, her dead body covered by a sleeping bag inside a room above a Philadelphia tattoo parlor. But a suspect has been charged with her homicide.

The body of Amanda O'Donnell, 36, of Philadelphia, was found Tuesday on the third floor above Danny's Philly Inc. tattoo shop on Kensington Avenue in Philly, according to NBC-10.

Her stabbed body was covered by a sleeping bag, and she was pronounced dead at the scene, the news station reports.

On Wednesday, Philadelphia police arrested and charged 46-year-old Joseph Kent with homicide in the case.

NBC-10 reports Kent met police as they arrived on the scene, responding to the report of the stabbing.

At last report, Kent remained jailed without bail.

However, there were no immediate details on any motive in the case, nor on the relationship between the victim and suspect. And it remained unclear if there was any connection to the tattoo parlor.

The investigation continues.
Valentine's Day occurs annually on Feb. 14.

This year, it falls on Tuesday.

So when should you celebrate? Plenty of activities are happening Friday through Sunday, but the actual holiday also has options.

Why do we celebrate Valentine's Day?

The holiday's origins are muddy, but Valentine's Day may have been adapted from the ancient Roman feast of Lupercalia, during which naked men whipped women with dog and goat hides, thinking such actions would make them fertile. This festival occurred through the fifth century.

Another theory rests on the story of Saint Valentine. While there are a handful of martyred saints by that name, Feb. 14 commemorates the execution of Saint Valentine of Rome. The third century saint was arrested and executed for performing Christian marriages.

Authors Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare are credited with the spread of Saint Valentine's story and association with love.

According to Dartmouth English professor Peter Travis:

"[It] is quite possible that in the 14th century Geoffrey Chaucer--best known for his 'Canterbury Tales'--actually invented our present-day idea of this special day in his dream-vision poem The Parliament of Fowls."

The poem about love ends with praising Saint Valentine, clearly connecting the two.

Shakespeare also had a part in shaping our modern idea of the holiday. In "Hamlet," Ophelia sang about wanting to be Hamlet's valentine.

More Valentine's Day coverage:
Update: Medical condition among the factors under consideration in crash

A truck driver died Thursday after the tractor-trailer he was driving was blown off the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, according to multiple reports.

The man, who was not named, died on the way to the hospital after being rescued by a Navy helicopter, a bridge-tunnel official told the Virginian-Pilot.

NEW: Photo of the tractor-trailer that went over the side of Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnelhttps://t.co/W90fdejTAI



(Courtesy John Wray) pic.twitter.com/oyYnsgfjcJ  The Virginian-Pilot (@virginianpilot) February 9, 2017

At the time of the accident, around 12:30 p.m., the bridge-tunnel experienced wind conditions of up to 40 mph, according to an Associated Press report.

Thomas Anderson, deputy director of finance and operations for the bridge and tunnel district in Virginia, told The Associated Press that the driver was alive right after it fell into the bay. He was standing on the floating truck.

The truck was headed southbound near the Eastern Shore side of the tunnel when wind gusts knocked it into the water at the 15-mile marker, Anderson told the Virginian-Pilot.

Read more of the Pilot's report here.
Screen Shot 2017-02-09 at 4.57.22 AM.JPG

(National Weather Service)

Most of central and eastern Pennsylvania is expected to be hit with anywhere from 4 to 8 inches of snow by late Thursday morning, according to forecasters.

As of 4:30 a.m. Thursday, the storm system moving into the area was beginning to strengthen, according to David Martin, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service at State College.

"It looks like the heaviest is moving in right now," Martin said. "We're looking at about an inch per hour for the next several hours."

Martin said the storm system is expected to be out of the area by 10 or 11 a.m. Thursday.

A winter storm warning is in effect for the area until 10 a.m. Thursday.

Thursday's high is expected to be around 31, with wind gusts as high as 28 mph. The low at night will near 18.

The snow should start melting this weekend, high temperatures are expected to be near 50 from Saturday through Monday.

FRIDAY: Cloudy, with a high near 30. Low around 27.

SATURDAY: Mostly cloudy, with a high near 46. Low around 38. There will be a 40 percent chance of rain at night.

SUNDAY: A 50 percent chance of rain. Cloudy, with a high near 51. Low around 38.

MONDAY: Mostly sunny, with a high near 48. Low around 31.

For the latest forecasts, visit PennLive's weather page.

You can see live weather updates via the National Weather Service and other Twitter sources below.

Tweet us at @pennlive with photos of inclement weather at your place, incidents you see on your commute or send a submission to submissions@pennlive.com.
An Elizabethtown man is charged with two armed robberies in Ocean City, Md. last month.

Christopher Jones-Rivera

Ocean City police issued warrants for Christopher Jones-Rivera, 18, who was taken into custody Feb. 8 by Elizabethtown police.

He is accused of a robbery at 10 p.m. Jan. 28 in a parking lot at 79th Street and Coastal Highway, and at 10:30 p.m. at a municipal bus stop near 138th Street and Coastal Highway. Victims said the robber had pointed a silver semi-automatic handgun at them and gave descriptions of the suspect.

Jones-Rivera is charged with three counts each of armed robbery, using a firearm while committing a violent felony and first- and second-degree assault; and two counts of theft. Elizabethtown police charged him with arrest prior to requisition, and placed in Lancaster County prison in lieu of $250,000 bail, awaiting extradition to Maryland.
Officials of a national organization of men's fraternities on Thursday praised members of Penn State University's frats with joining the university in a moratorium on parties and other social events where alcohol is available.



The moratorium was announce by Penn State officials and its Interfraternity Council in response to last week's death of a student who was injured during a party at the Beta Theta Pi fraternity house.



School and greek officials said the ban will be in place while they develop guidelines to increase safety.



Heather Matthews Kirk, spokeswoman for the North-American Interfraternity Conference, contacted PennLive after the news site asked the national organizations of several Penn State fraternities for comment on the moratorium.



"We are proud to see Penn State fraternity leaders working in concert with the university to evaluate social policies and practices in their community," Kirk said. "The way these students have pulled together in a trying time shows commitment to student safety and self-governance."



Penn State officials couldn't immediately be reached for comment on the reaction to the moratorium or whether this is the first time such a step has been taken.



In announcing the ban, university and fraternity officials cited the death of 19-year-old sophomore Timothy Piazza of Lebanon, N.J. Investigators said he died from injuries suffered when he fell on stairs after drinking at a party at the Beta Theta Pi house. Police said 12 hours passed before medical aid was sought for Piazza. His death remains under investigation.



Penn State officials also cited growing allegations of misconduct in these (fraternity) organizations, including hazing and sexual assault," as grounds for instituting the moratorium.



No date has been set for lifting the ban. It applied to all 46 of the university's greek organizations.




PHILADELPHIA -- Lawyers for 19 people killed or injured in a Philadelphia building collapse reached a $227 million settlement with several defendants Wednesday during the damages phase of a five-month trial.

Six people were killed and 13 injured when a towering brick wall left unbraced during a demolition project crushed an adjacent Salvation Army store on June 5, 2013. The jury had found the Salvation Army and building owner Richard Basciano, a New York real estate speculator, largely responsible.

"We can't always expect government to protect us from ourselves. Safety begins with the business owners, with contractors, with developers," said lawyer Steven Wigrizer, who represented the family of Roseline Conteh, 52, who was killed while shopping on the thrift store's midweek sale day to send clothes back to her native Sierra Leone.

Two unqualified demolition contractors are serving long prison terms for involuntary manslaughter convictions. Basciano was never charged, and his architect, who hired a longtime food truck owner as the lead demolition contractor at a cut-rate price, got immunity for his cooperation. The victims sought damages from all four of them -- although the jailed contractors are penniless -- along with the Salvation Army.

Basciano's lawyer, Thomas Sprague, called the collapse "a terrible tragedy" and said his client was pleased for everyone's sake the case has been resolved. Lawyers for Marinakos and the Salvation Army did not immediately return calls for comment.

The victims' lawyers called the sum the largest personal injury settlement in state court history. Lawyer Robert Mongeluzzi called it "a powerful deterrent" to businesses that try to cut corners and put lives at risk. The jury had taken just four hours before finding the defendants liable for damages on Jan. 31.

"Since May 10, the Salvation Army received emails warning of a threat to life and limb, and that there could be an uncontrollable collapse. And despite that, they never did anything to protect their employees and customers," said Mongeluzzi, who faulted the charity for keeping the thrift store open. The store was at the edge of the downtown business district.

Some of the survivors were left permanently injured, including one woman who lost both legs.

The 91-year-old Basciano, once dubbed the porn king of Times Square, was hoping to redevelop a block of seedy properties he had held for 20 years. The contractors, promised just $112,000, took the four-story brick building down from the inside -- leaving the brick walls unsupported -- instead of taking it down floor by floor. The Salvation Army, meanwhile, had denied them access to their roof for the work.

An arbitrator will determine how much each of the 19 plaintiffs receives in the settlement. The amount to be paid by each defendant will remain confidential. Lawyers for the defendants did not immediately return calls for comment.

A city building inspector who worked in the neighborhood killed himself days after the collapse, although no evidence surfaced of any wrongdoing.

The victims' lawyers said the city is safer today because of reforms initiated in the wake of the collapse, including tougher rules for obtaining demolition permits.

The other victims include two young women, both 24, shopping and dropping off clothes, and a store worker who had talked in the morning with one of the now-jailed contractors, Sean Benscop. Benscop was operating machinery at the site despite being on painkillers for an injury that left him with a cast on his hand.

Conteh had been a teacher in Sierra Leone before felling the war-torn country 10 years earlier. She worked two shifts a day as a nursing assistant and became a U.S. citizen, her family said.

"It's a typical immigrant story -- coming to America, you come for a better life and safety. It's just unfortunate that this happened to her," said her son, Aiah Gbessaya, standing at a press conference Wednesday beside two brothers, an aunt and his mother's husband. "She was the cornerstone for me. It's very tough."
Rick Saccone

State Rep. Rick Saccone has filed paperwork for a race against U.S. Sen. Robert Casey in 2018.

This post was updated at 2:19 p.m. with comments from Rep. Saccone.

A state representative from Allegheny County has filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission signalling a run for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Sen. Robert Casey Jr.

Rep. Rick Saccone, a Republican from Elizabeth, told PennLive Thursday he will formally announce his bid later this month. He becomes the first candidate to take official steps to challenge Casey, who will be up for a third term in 2018.

"I thought our country was going in the wrong direction, and I was going to step up and do something about it," Saccone said. "I want to be there to help our new president secure the agenda that our people voted for."

He likely will not be the last.

Several other Republicans are thought to be mulling statewide runs next year, including prospects like House Majority Leader Dave Reed, a Republican from Indiana County, and Montgomery County businessman Jeff Bartos.

Some members of Pennsylvania's Congressional delegation are also keeping their options open.

But for the moment, Saccone - who promoted his run during last week's winter meeting of the Pennsylvania Republican State Committee - appears to have the formal field to himself.

Just last week, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported another higher-profile contender, U.S. Rep. Pat Meehan, of Delaware County, will stay in the House, where he is gaining seniority on the influential Ways and Means Committee.

The 59-year-old Saccone was a career Air Force officer serving in its Office of Special Investigation and, more recently, has served on the faculty at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe.

He also served as a civilian employee of the Army in Iraq in 2004-05.

First elected to the state House in 2010, Saccone is considered one of most conservative members of the majority Republican caucus.

A staunch gun rights advocate, he's also made waves at times with legislation he sponsored to declare 2012 the "Year of the Bible" in Pennsylvania, or to have all public school buildings display the motto, "In God We Trust."

After President Donald Trump's victory in Pennsylvania in 2016, Casey's seat is being eyed by national Republicans as a potential target to flip their way in 2018 as the GOP seeks to grow its 52-48 majority.

In the coming Senate campaign cycle, Democrats must defend 25 of the 33 seats up for election, including 10 in states, like Pennsylvania, where Trump won the presidential vote.
Donald Trump

FILE - In this Jan. 20, 2017, file photo,President Donald Trump, flanked by Vice President Mike Pence and Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, signs his first executive order.

(AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

By Corey M. Brooks

In the Trump Administration's first full weekend, its executive order restricting immigration and eliminating refugee resettlement sparked widespread outrage, mass protest, and a flurry of legal challenges.

Days later, most congressional Republicans, however, have still failed to raise their voices in criticism of the president's rash, immoral, and anti-American actions.

Much like in the 1840s and early 1850s, few congressional politicians have had the courage to defy their own party's president. The reticence and cowardice of all but a handful of Republican officeholders, calls to mind the many northerners who refused to challenge slaveholders' demands, even to the detriment of the rights and opportunities of their northern constituents.

In 1820, as Northern and Southern representatives disputed whether slavery in Missouri should be gradually abolished or allowed to persist indefinitely as it prepared for statehood, Virginia Representative John Randolph gloated that those northern congressmen who acquiesced were "scared at their own dough faces."

While contemporaries puzzled whether he meant they were cowardly like a "doe" or malleable like "dough," or something else entirely, the eccentric slaveholder's (this was a man who brought hunting dogs onto the House floor) cryptic insult quickly became the most popular abolitionist slur against northern politicians eager to do the bidding of slaveholding colleagues.

As the slavery controversy escalated in the 1840s and 1850s, northern presidents, cabinet officers, senators, and congressmen who caved to proslavery demands to secure southern political support attracted increasing ire.

Antislavery activists outside the government and a slowly growing minority of antislavery voices within Congress smeared Northerners who voted for proslavery policies as dishonest, immoral, and opportunistic, willing to trade their own, and their constituents', principles for access to power.

Eventually the timid acquiescence of northern Whig and Democratic politicians became intolerable for most northern voters.

With the threat of slavery's westward expansion into California in the late 1840s, hundreds of thousands of Northern voters rebelled against "doughfaced" politicians. After the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act eliminated due process for any northern blacks alleged to be runaway slaves, mass protests, legal challenges, and mob violence ensued.

And in the mid-1850s, when Senator Stephen Douglas and Presidents Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan conspired with southern slaveholders to promote slavery's growth in Kansas, the majority of Northerners revolted.

As they abandoned their old parties, they came together in a new moderate antislavery organization called the Republican Party, which six years later elected Abraham Lincoln President of the United States.

We must now hope that today's Republicans will soon shed the cowardice that the first incarnation of their party rose up to defeat.

It is time for Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and the men and women they lead to stand up for the American Constitution and democratic norms by rebuking Trump on immigration, asylum, and prejudice and on his reshuffling of the National Security Council.

By privileging his controversial political adviser Stephen Bannon over the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of National Intelligence, Trump has prioritized political gain over our basic national interests, and far more Republican politicians need to say so.

If Speaker Ryan, Senator McConnell, and most other Republicans are too fearful to denounce the President's dangerous and unconstitutional agenda in hopes of securing their personal policy goals or protecting their own political office, American history will remember how they compromised their integrity because they too were "scared at their own dough faces."

Only time will tell if these modern-day doughfaces will face a revolt like the one that founded the Republican Party over a century and a half ago.

Corey M. Brooks is an associate professor of history at York College of Pennsylvania and author of Liberty Power: Antislavery Third Parties and the Transformation of American Politics.
Donald Trump

President Donald Trump (Associated Press photo)

(Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

By Julian Zelizer

Is President Donald Trump in the process of imploding? Some see reason to think so.

Julian Zelizer (Washington Post Photo)

Given the major fallout over his travel ban, ranging from the spontaneous protests that have broken out worldwide to a federal judge ruling that the ban needed to be stopped, it seems as though Trump is struggling.

Over the past few days, many commentators have pointed to the president's abysmally low approval ratings, with 53 percent of Americans unhappy with the way that he has handled the job, as evidence that his power may be vastly limited by his unpopularity. With Trump madly (and impotently) tweeting about "so-called" judges, the weekend has offered a real sense that this president can be stopped.

Yet his opponents probably should not start uncorking the champagne bottles just yet.

Ronald Reagan, whose approval ratings fell from 51 percent in his first year as president to a meager 34 percent by 1982, was also the focus of international and domestic fury.

Reagan triggered an international uproar when he insisted on the deployment of 572 intermediate-range nuclear force missiles in Western Europe, fulfilling a NATO agreement that had been finalized in 1979. When Reagan moved this plan forward, there was an outcry from New York to the streets of Paris.

Tens of thousands of moderate and left-wing Europeans demonstrated against these new weapons on the grounds that they would escalate the threat of nuclear war. Within the United States, the nuclear freeze movement ramped up into high gear, warning that this deployment was just one among many things that Reagan had done to bring the world to the brink of nuclear war.

On July 12, 1982, almost a million people came to a protest in New York City to express their support for freezing the production of nuclear weapons and to state their anger about Reagan.

"My belief," said then-Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Massachusetts, "is that Reagan was not put on Earth by God to bring us supply-side economics. His role is to sit down with Brezhnev and end the arms race, to do for nuclear arms what Nixon did for China.My role is to create the atmospherics, the public and congressional support, that will make Reagan the greatest man who ever lived. He can reject, it, of course, but we will have tried."

The freeze movement drew millions of adherents, while in Congress, the House passed amendments that prohibited the administration from sending any more assistance to anti-communist forces overseas. The protests would continue over the following year, and Reagan's approval ratings would remain low until 1984 (reaching 41 percent in January 1983).

But it wouldn't matter.

The problem was that Reagan's support among Republicans kept growing.

While Democrats saw a renegade president whose bombast threatened to trigger a nuclear war, many Republicans saw a heroic leader who was standing up to the evils of communism and taking on all of his opponents, whether they were in Congress, on the streets, or in the media.

Reagan found a way to use the protesters filling the streets to his advantage, depicting them as one more opponent to the national interest that he was willing to take on. He also proposed his Strategic Defense Initiative (which critics dubbed "Star Wars"), a hypothetical missile shield that would protect the United States from attack, as a muscular, aggressive alternative to freezing production of nuclear weapons.

Many were shocked when Reagan sailed to a landslide reelection victory in 1984 against Walter Mondale. After all, Reagan came off as unpredictable, aggressive and unschooled, not to mention suffering from a low approval rating throughout his first term and facing popular protests, just like Trump.

Trump governs in a different era than Reagan. Trump's electoral college victory, while losing the popular vote, is much narrower than Reagan's, and the electorate is much more polarized, meaning it is more difficult now to switch large blocs of votes from blue to red.

Nonetheless, Trump could still capitalize on the same tough-man tactic Reagan did, and spin protests and outcry in his favor. So far, even as Trump's approval ratings drop, his base remains engaged. In reviewing the approval polls released last weekend, it is important to note the partisan divide: While 10 percent of Democrats approve of Trump, 90 percent of Republicans do; 88 percent of Democrats oppose the executive order on refugees, while 88 percent of Republicans support it.

Atlantic Editor Ron Brownstein pointed out that 59 percent to 38 percent of non-college-educated whites, the heart of the Trump coalition, approve of what he is doing. In other words, the coalition that won him the election in 2016 isn't signaling displeasure with its pick, which bodes well for Trump's chances in 2020.

Protests, even as they diminish Trump's overall approval ratings, are unlikely to budge that either, and may well cement it.

Trump never intended, nor does he intend, to be a uniter. He is a president who is the ultimate product of our partisan age.

His strategy appears tailored to play upon divisions, solidifying support among Republicans and retaining the support of those slivers of the Democratic electorate who were enchanted by his economic arguments and his national security bombast.

If he can do that, even with the kind of controversy and pushback that flared over the past several days, he may be able to keep the Republican Congress on his side. And in that case, he can show Americans that he is a man of his word and a man of action, all the while maintaining the base of electoral support that won him the presidency.

Julian Zelizer is a political historian at Princeton University and a fellow at the New America Foundation. He is the author of "The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society."
A public thank you to Rep. Sheryl Delozier and her staff. It is a comfort to know some of the people we elect to office do serve the people they represent.

Last June, I received a statement from the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue demanding almost $1,000.00. After calming down, I took time to read what was said, pulled my copy of what I had submitted to them in March. I attempted to correct my error. I am retired since May 2011. I do not work. There is no way I owed this amount of money.

My copy of what I had submitted in March reflected my confusion on how to correctly complete their form so I tried again. Approximately six days later, again I received a demand letter for the almost $1,000.00. I don't have that kind of money. Plus they included a card which reflected how much interest they could charge if I did not pay.

This time they sent me different forms to complete. I tried and tried reaching the Department of Revenue. I have no computer - tried using the computer at the library - frustration. Phone calls got me in the queue. I would be call five. Then after waiting for 10 minutes I was finally caller two and then I became caller seven.

I decided to reach out to Delozier's office in Camp Hill. Delozier's staff member - Derek - was so patient. He was able to speak to the Department of Revenue via the computer, understand what I had done wrong and completed fresh adjusted paperwork. Derek was always courteous - even when I came by - no appointment. Finally - adjustment completed.

Thank you Derek and Rep. Delozier.

ESTHER PAGE, New Cumberland
BERKELEY FREE SPEECH GRAFFITI

By Angela Kirkland

The University of California at Berkeley made international headlines for being awash in chaos for hours last Wednesday.

Angela Kirkland (PennLive file)

Milo Yiannopolous, a famous white supremacist and internet troll, was sponsored by Berkeley's Republican student organization to come and give a speech. In response, hundreds of students descended upon the campus to protest Yiannopolous' contemptible rhetoric.

The march and rally was initially what one would describe as peaceful.

Later, about one hundred people, dressed all in black and masked, showed up and the action intensified. They smashed windows with barricades, started a bonfire and set off smoke bombs and fireworks.

Yiannopolous was swiftly escorted out of the student union by police before being able to utter a single word of his speech, and he later ranted on Facebook, saying that the left is dead set on suppressing viewpoints that don't align with theirs.

Those leftists demonstrated at Berkeley from a desire to drum out hate that has left a trail of violent repression against innocent people on Yiannopolous' university tour.

At the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, he outed a transgender student by prominently showcasing their photo and mocking them by calling them a "tranny", to the laughter of those in attendance.

The school's chancellor made a statement after the event; paying lip service to inclusiveness and acceptance, he wrote that attacks on students will never be tolerated.

However, students at UM-Milwaukee had been pressuring the school to drop Yiannopolous from the event schedule for at least a month prior to his appearance, and they had refused, citing free speech principles.

In the days after the Berkeley riot, it was learned that Yiannopolous planned to out undocumented students and instruct attendees on how to contact ICE to get them deported, as he had done at previous campus stops around the country.

But also in the wake of the protest that successfully shut Yiannopolous down, several Berkeley officials maintained that it was "sad" free speech was being suppressed, and that all viewpoints should be welcomed, regardless of whether or not people may feel attacked by them.

Due to the fact that some campus organizations and officials are still welcoming this deplorable human to spew his white supremacist, transphobic, Islamophobic, anti-immigrant bile and are upset at his events getting cancelled, it is clear "free speech" has been twisted into the insistence of allowing everyone to say what they want without consequence.

Speech for those like Yiannopolous and those who share his values-- President Trump, Steve Bannon, et al-- has always been free. The white male elite has always had resources that allow for massive influence. Free speech has always been an issue for those who Yiannopolous and his cronies are working to exterminate.

The concept of free speech is about marginalized people being empowered enough to speak on and fight against their suffering in a system that is built to harm them and keep them silent about it.

The protesters at Berkeley and other campuses acted on the original belief that free speech should not be about legitimizing violence against people whose oppression is institutionalized.

Yiannopolous has been quoted as saying "There is a big difference between words and action."

But despite his claim of words being largely unimportant, he spends much of his time writing for Breitbart News, the alt-right website, and speaking at college events when they aren't getting cancelled by administrators who wised up to his disgusting antics.

The systematic killing of Native Americans and theft of their land began with words.

The rationalization and proliferation of chattel slavery began with words on how black people were inferior to whites and were lucky to be in bondage.

The slaughter of millions of Jews and others in a tragedy known as the Holocaust began with words.

Yiannopolous knows the effect his words have on his supporters. He knows his words enact and justify physical harm and endangerment of other human beings who have the misfortune of not being born white and male in America, and the too-common belief that free speech is merely an end unto itself enables his incredulity about his impact.

Those at Berkeley and other colleges around the country who stood up to the violent hatred inherent in Yiannopolous' words should be lauded and encouraged.

They have saved lives. We will need many more like them in these trying times.

Angela Kirkland, of Harrisburg, is a PennLive Opinion contributor. Her work appears biweekly.
Here, there, everywhere  why car washes seem to be on every corner
OPEC could need more oil cuts to re-balance market

Akos Stiller/Bloomberg



Qatar's Energy Minister Mohammed Al Sada said We kept it open

to reconsider the rollover, and rollover is an option if needed,...

NEW YORK/ TEHRAN/DUBAI

Petroleumworld.com 02 09 2017

OPEC and other major crude-producing nations may need to extend output cuts into the second half of the year to re-balance the market, oil ministers for Iran and fellow group member Qatar said.

Global oil supplies have decreased as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and producers outside the group comply with a six-month deal to curb output that took effect on Jan. 1, Qatar's Energy Minister Mohammed Al Sada said Wednesday at a news briefing in Doha. It's too early to make a judgement, he said, adding that markets may re-balance in the third quarter.

We kept it open to reconsider the rollover, and rollover is an option if needed, Al Sada told Bloomberg TV in Qatar's capital.

In principle, OPEC will have to cut output in the second half, Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said, according to the Fars news agency. The issue needs further study before the group can make a decision, Zanganeh said, after meeting in Tehran with his counterpart from Venezuela, also an OPEC member.

The organization agreed in November to impose quotas on its members for the first time in eight years, in an effort to stem a supply glut that had depressed crude prices. OPEC enlisted support from 11 other producers on Dec. 10 in an historic deal to remove as much as 1.8 million barrels of oil a day from the market. OPEC expects to decide whether to extend the cuts at its bi-annual meeting in Vienna in May.

Benchmark Brent crude fell as much as 61 cents in London on Wednesday and was trading at $54.86 a barrel at 1:06 p.m. local time, on course for a third daily decline after industry data showed U.S. stockpiles surged.

Most OPEC members are happy with a crude price of about $60 a barrel, Zanganeh said, according to the Tasnim news agency. OPEC's compliance with the accord on output has been very good, and non-OPEC producers have begun cutting production and pledged to reach their targets quickly, the Oil Ministry's Shana news service reported him as saying. Iran is the third-biggest producer in OPEC, behind Saudi Arabia and Iraq, while Qatar ranks 11th.

A committee in charge of monitoring compliance with the deal is due to release its first report on Feb. 17, disclosing January production levels for participating countries, Qatar's Al Sada said. The five-member committee, led by Kuwait, will use as many as six sources of data to measure output, he said.

Last month, Saudi Arabia's Energy and Industry Minister Khalid Al-Falih said an extension of the agreement probably wouldn't be necessary, given high levels of compliance and expectations of strong demand. Nonetheless, all players have indicated their willingness to extend, if necessary, he said on Jan. 16 in Abu Dhabi.

The oil market would be re-balanced when global inventories, currently near record highs, approached their five-year average level, Al Sada said. The third quarter of this year would be a good estimate for when this is likely to happen, he said.

Investment in the oil industry has tumbled during the past three years, and a failure to reverse this trend could hurt future supply and cause a shortage three years from now, Al Sada said. Current oil demand is healthy and will increase by 1.1 million to 1.2 million barrels a day in 2017, he said.






U.K. to receive its first America's LNG shipment from Peru, not the U.S .



LNG tanker Gallina en route to UK via Panama Canal, expansion has cut journey distance by two-thirds

WARSAW/ LONDON

Petroleumworld.com 02 09 2017

Almost a year after the first liquefied natural gas cargo left the Gulf of Mexico, the U.K. is still waiting to claim a slice of American supply. By the end of the month it will, but it won't be made in the U.S.

Peru LNG loaded a vessel on Monday destined for England, according to Lima-based Perupetro SA's website. It's the first of the plant's 401 cargoes to head to the U.K. and the first into the liquid markets of northwest Europe since 2010, not counting a shipment in August to France's Dunkirk used to cool down a new import terminal.

Map showing the Gallina on route to England from Peru

That a South American supplier beat the U.S. to Britain's energy market highlights changes in the way gas is being shipped and traded worldwide. While Peruvian LNG has a more natural home in nearby markets, it now has to compete with fuel from the U.S., which is expanding its export capacity. At the same time, an expansion of the Panama Canal means the shipping distance to Europe has shrunk.

Geographically you would think this is a strange deal, said Nick Campbell, energy risk manager at Inspired Energy Plc in Preston, England. The U.K. may be the perfect spot to move the cargoes on to more lucrative destinations such as southern France. The expanding LNG trade means the illogical can become logical.

The Gallina will arrive in Britain on Feb. 21 assuming an average speed of 17 knots, according to shipping website sea-distances. It is the seventh tanker to load at the Hunt Oil Co.-operated Peru LNG facility this year, with the other six vessels going to Spain.

"Peru LNG produces the liquefied natural gas and sells the cargoes to traders, like Shell in this case, and doesn't decide the final destination," Sara Rivera, the company's spokeswoman, said in a phone interview from Lima.

Peru's biggest market has traditionally been Mexico, which received 34 of the 71 tankers it loaded in 2016, the last in October, and has boosted imports from the U.S. Of this year's Peru LNG cargoes, all but two are traveling via the Panama Canal.

While U.K. LNG imports may have plummeted from the highs in 2011, the nation has boosted reloads of previously imported LNG and Trafigura Group plans to reopen an import terminal as new supply is expected to lead to a glut.

LNG Imports Into U.K. (Billion Cubic Meters)

Cheniere Energy Inc. has exported almost 70 cargoes from its Sabine Pass facility in Louisiana, none of which have yet to reach northwest Europe. Ineos Group Ltd. has been shipping shale gas to Europe in the form of ethane, a feedstock for chemical production that is carried on far smaller vessels than the LNG tankers that supply methane used for heating and power generation.

The shipment to England on the Gallina was priced using the U.K.'s National Balancing Point, where front-month gas cost about $7 a million British thermal units on Tuesday. That compares with $3.13 a million Btu on the U.S. Henry Hub and $7.22 a million Btu for spot LNG in Singapore.

The U.K. unloaded just two LNG tankers last month, both from Qatar, compared with more than six a year earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. LNG imports fell 18 percent from a year earlier in 2016 through November, to about 25 percent of total foreign supply, the latest government data showed. More than 90 percent of that came from Qatar, with the rest from countries including Norway, Algeria and Trinidad & Tobago.






Vegan eating has skyrocketed in popularity over the course of recent decades, with more than 1,400 plant-based restaurants opening all across the US. While Philadelphia is historically known for cheesesteaks, countless vegan restaurants now call the city home. This is
Shawn Theodore, better known to his 67,000 Instagram followers as _XST (pronounced "Exist"), opened his first exhibition at the African American Museum in Philadelphia called "Church of Broken Pieces," a photographic exploration of changing identities of black America.

Theodore's work contextualizes and collaborates with black Americans who represent different parts of distinctly black neighborhoods, even as displacement, gentrification, socioeconomic disparity, and violence threaten to halt progress.

Often collage-like and set in high-contrast color, his intimate street portraits have garnered much attention for a particular style of conceptual photography. What's special about Temple grad and Philly native Theodore is his dedication to connecting deeply with the people he's photographing -- they often become friends.

Your Instagram description reads: "Scattered moments and observations as seen across a vanishing landscape of African American neighborhoods."

My initial concept was to come from a preservationist approach. I don't do it as a documentarian or a photojournalist, but rather in an artistic style. I like the idea of capturing photographs of people in spaces that are uniquely African American in many ways. It may not be completely apparent to anyone who's not African American but there's a subtle language of color and harmony, some types of architecture you only see in black neighborhoods. These areas are shrinking due to all sorts of huge transformations, be it socioeconomic shifts, or gentrification, and people are being pushed out of the neighborhoods in which I like to shoot. The canvas has become smaller every year.

Describe your artistic process.

What we have here in America, and in particular with African American neighborhoods, are commonalities of how we express ourselves in our neighborhoods. If you were to place a certain set of colors together and asked a few people what they were reminded of, then someone might say that it looks familiar, something they've seen before. Color, texture, and architecture are meaningful to any culture. So I can go from one city to another city looking for those commonalities and come out with work that is similar across the board, not only geographically but also across time. So when I'm out shooting, these are the things that I am looking for. I want to shoot and preserve the images of the people I encounter. Their stories often intertwine with what I do.

What's the inspiration for the name of your exhibition?

Church of Broken Pieces is an actual church out in West Oak Lane. I've always loved that name. I thought it was the most amazing name to name a church. I have a friend who's a pastor there, and she explained to me that the name was a nod to the Baptist tradition of the church creating ministries that would break away and form new churches. For me the name was a nod to my own neighborhood, to let them know that I still care.

Do you feel that there is an underrepresentation in black art?

I do believe we are on the tail end of underrepresentation of black artists and black art and black media. I hope to speak for some of my peers on this because it's something we all have in our hearts. We are most concerned with identity and agency and proper representation of the myriad of ideas around blackness. Just being able to say this is what blackness is and this is what it's not is the bigger problem. One of the bigger problems in street photography is that there are odd overexposures to two extremes, and not enough in the middle. You have street photography that represents some aspects, like poverty and crime, and on the other end you see a lot of sexual exploitation. I don't think we're ever going to see a time where we're all going to be happy and that's OK, too. But as long as there are black artists creating conscientious work that's honest about what's in our conversations, then I think that's when we'll see a lot of the change we're invested in and hopeful about.

Would you say that your photography is primarily political?

I will say this: Being black in America, being in black skin is political even if you don't want it to be. It's political simply because we exist. Had my subjects been white or Asian, my photographs would have had a different political overtone. Not to say I'd never do it, but staying true to putting forth what I want to represent and believe in for my family, my daughter, and my community is important to me.

Ive heard that youve been shot and wounded by a gun. Has much of your art been informed by this?

Being in Philadelphia, you're acutely aware of the violence on the streets. There's a lot of people that are aggressive for no really good reason whatsoever. The impact of being shot in the city, and then staying in the city was big, because the No. 1 thing that everybody wanted me to do was leave. "You should leave, it's not good here." And I took that opportunity to change that point of view. You can get shot, and you can bounce back, and you can make something of what's left. I was shot in 1998, 28 years old when this happened, and I was robbed, then shot. It was the worst thing you can imagine happening to you. It took a long time for me to get to a place where I could say I still loved this city. But it was all about making the right choices; it was about taking the right steps to love this city again. I don't usually bring it up to a lot of people, but it's something that I try to tell people about, how it made me a better person. I became more driven, way more engaging with life; I just wanted to live every day much more fully than I had. It didn't really impact my art, it more so impacted me. I definitely don't include political statement about anti-guns in my art, given that I'm a victim of that kind of crime, but I just wanted my life to stand for what happens afterward, and I hope other people can feel that as an inspiration.
Linda Vertlieb of Philadelphia says slime is low-cost fun for her children Alex, 4, and Sophia, 9 Read more

Drugstores are struggling to keep glue  yes, ordinary white schoolhouse glue  on the shelves. Parents are keeping a wary eye on the upholstery. And children are selling bags of an odd, glue-based concoction recently banned by at least one elementary school in Kansas.

This can only mean one thing.

Slime is back.

It goes by several names, and the recipes vary, but the main ingredients are glue, water, and borax. The result is a gloriously gloppy mess, customizable with glitter, food coloring, and other add-ins.

Alicia Hebert's first clue came a few months ago, when she wanted to do the laundry in her Chadds Ford home but could not find the detergent. Her daughter Hana, 10, turned out to be the culprit  as detergent contains borax, also known as sodium borate.

"I go into her room, and there's this slime everywhere," Hebert said. "I had to put a stop to that."

She now allows slime in uncarpeted areas of the house -- but Hana needed more glue. The family struck out at Target, Walmart, and Michaels, then finally ordered some online, Hebert said.

They have plenty of company. The makers of Elmer's Glue report a slime-related increase in sales in the second half of 2016, with a particular spike in December, when retail sales of liquid glue more than doubled, compared to the same month a year earlier. Hoboken, N.J.-based Newell Brands has stepped up production to meet the demand, and has been impressed by the evidence of creativity on social media sites, spokeswoman Caitlin Watkins said.

"We've seen a variety of slime recipes oozing through cyberspace over the past few weeks," she said.

The company posted its own version a few days ago, calling it "glitter gak." On Instagram, there are 1.7 million posts with the hashtag #slime. And for the 12 weeks ending Jan. 22, unit sales of glue were up 15 percent at major retailers compared to the same period a year earlier, according to IRI, a Chicago-based market research firm.

But why? A lingering effect of the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot? A yearning for simpler times?

The resurgent craze has prompted amusement among educators who have been making it for years. Pattie DiTomaso, who conducts science demonstrations at the Franklin Institute, said the enduring appeal lies in its simplicity.

"In this digital age, it's basic stuff," she said. "It's good chemistry."

Under another name, the science museum also has used the substance for a lesson on the immune system, said Mickey Maley, assistant director of public programs. A few years back, someone made a big model of a nose to simulate how it filters pollen and other allergens, complete with black pipe-cleaners to represent nose hairs.

Particles of pollen were represented by confetti, blown through the "nose" by a leaf-blower. Initially, most of the confetti blew right through. But when slime was added  dubbed "mucus" for this purpose  the nose blocked confetti much better, Maley said.

"The mucus was pouring out of the nose," he said. "Great visual."

Slime also is a great way to teach chemistry, said Mickey Sarquis, a professor emerita of chemistry at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

The basic principle is simple, she said. Glue is basically a mixture of water and polyvinyl acetate, a type of polymer. These long, stringy molecular chains slip and slide past each other like cooked spaghetti in a pot of water, she said.

But when you add borax, it forms chemical bonds between the "spaghetti" much like the rungs on a ladder, she said. The polymer strands can no longer slip and slide, and the result is gooey and stretchy. (Technical term: a cross-linked polymer.)

Sarquis taught teachers how to use slime as a classroom tool, though back in the 1980s she called it "gluep," and published several related papers in the Journal of Chemical Education. Pro tip: when mixing borax powder in water, do it in a ventilated area, she said. (see recipe at end)

For Sarquis, the term slime meant a different substance, in which the glue was replaced by polyvinyl alcohol. Not to be confused with Slime, the commercial product made by Mattel in the 1970s, which contained a substance called guar gum.

Sarquis devised classroom demonstrations in which students joined hands to mimic the long chains of polymers. Once, she did a slime workshop with Amish students in Indiana, and posed a question that she immediately regretted.

"You don't ask a bunch of farm kids what it reminds you of, because you'll get answers you don't want to hear," she said.

Others riding the slime train include a blogger at babycenter.com, who wrote that her child's Kansas elementary school had banned slime because it was a distraction, and Good Housekeeping, which chimed in this week with its own recipe.

Though to us, it seems a bit like bad housekeeping. Getting the stuff out of your carpet is murder.

Not to worry, said Miami's Sarquis. If you catch it before it dries, slime can be removed with a few dabs of vinegar  an acid that dissolves the cross-linked chemical bonds.

Linda Vertlieb, who blogs at www.frugalphillymom.com, likes the activity for her children, Sophia, 9, and Alex, 4, because of the inexpensive ingredients, and advises stocking up on glue during back-to-school sales.

The low cost helps for those slime-makers who are capitalists as well as chemists, said Hebert, the Chadds Ford mom.

Her daughter's friends have been selling it to each other for $1 per container.

But not Hana.

"She thought that wasn't fair," Hebert said, "so she gives it away."

How to make your own slime

Measure 1 tablespoon of glue (such as Elmer's) into a cup. Add 2 teaspoons of water and stir well. Add 2 teaspoons of borax solution (that's 1 tablespoon of borax dissolved in a cup of warm water) and stir the mixture.

Your slime will be sticky for about a minute. Pull it out of the cup and knead it with your fingers until it feels drier and less sticky. Store it in a sealed bag, in the refrigerator.

SOURCE: Franklin Institute
Matt Stewart was 25 when he died suddenly and tragically. He was buried at All Saints Cemetery in Newtown. His parents, Jim and Rosemary, selected a gravesite right next to the access road so they could easily find their son in the decades to come. They believed it would be his final resting place.

But because of a mistake by All Saints, the Stewarts had to move Matt's casket to a different grave nine months after his burial.

"They made a horrible time worse for us," says Jim, 56, speaking for his wife, Rosemary, 56, and their surviving children - Danielle, 24, and Erin, 21.

The Stewarts prefer not to discuss the circumstances of Matt's death on Dec. 13, 2015, but they speak at length about their funny, loving, complicated first-born child. "Matt wasn't black and white; he was gray, like me," says Rosemary. "We could talk about everything. We argued all the time, and he drove us crazy. But he was ours."

The Stewarts chose to bury Matt at All Saints, a mile from their home. It's one of 12 cemeteries owned by the Philadelphia Archdiocese but run by publicly traded StoneMor Partners LP, which owns or manages 317 cemeteries nationwide. All Saints is practically new; Matt's burial was among the cemetery's first.

The Stewarts say an All Saints saleswoman pushed them hard to buy additional family plots when they arranged Matt's burial. (Local families complained last year to the Inquirer about StoneMor's sales tactics.) They purchased two double plots for themselves and their daughters, right next to Matt's single plot.

Two months after Matt's funeral, the Stewarts selected an upright monument for his grave from Beechwood Memorials in Doylestown. Through a Beechwood rep, they learned that All Saints' rules forbade upright monuments close to the road because of potential damage from vehicles.

The Stewarts say they were adamant from the start that they wanted a monument large and beautiful enough to honor Matt and that the saleswoman never told them it wasn't permitted.

For months, they negotiated with All Saints. But every commonsense, compassionate option they suggested was rejected.

Last July, the Stewarts agreed to a miserable compromise: They would move Matt's casket from his single plot into half of a double plot they had bought. All Saints agreed to buy back the single plot where Matt had been buried. But that left the family short one grave for future needs. However, they were not permitted to purchase a new single plot next to their other purchases; it had to be a double. So they now own one more plot than they'll need.

"It's all about money to them," says Jim.

The Stewarts wanted advance notice of Matt's disinterment so they could be present for it. They also wanted time alone with his casket before it was reburied.

But on Aug. 1, they were given just hours' notice. They scrambled to rearrange work schedules - Jim is an IT manager, Rosemary is a nanny  but by the time they got to the site, Matt's casket had been moved. And they never got time alone with their son: Four All Saints employees hovered nearby the whole time.

"We were too exhausted to argue anymore," says Rosemary.

Matt's headstone was at last placed in December, and the Stewarts are now ready to go public about how they were treated. They want other grieving families to be warned.

"All Saints refused to be reasonable. They took advantage of our grief," says Jim.

A StoneMor executive told me he had not known about the Stewarts' problem and felt terrible about it.

"We just want to reiterate that we fully acknowledge our mistake and we truly apologize," says Jonathan Ger, a regional vice president of sales. "We are working hard to do all we can to address this."

What might help in these cases, says Joe Hevener, co-owner of Beechwood Memorials, is advocacy from the Philadelphia Archdiocese when families run into cemetery trouble.

"The archdiocese owes it to [families] to hear their grievances," says Hevener. "These people are entering into contractual agreements at a very vulnerable time in their lives. They need the archdiocese to back them up."

Archdiocesan spokesman Kenneth Gavin says cemetery complaints can be directed to the archdiocese's general services number  215-587-3633. Callers will then be referred to the right person for help.

When Jim Stewart left his message with someone in that office last year, though, a StoneMor employee called him back. And the heartache resumed.

"Losing Matthew broke our hearts," he says. "Dealing with All Saints broke them all over again."
What do you get when you take the three gnarliest courses from the California Enduro Series, add a $24,000 Pro Purse, and make it a series? The CES Golden Toura pro triple crown set to showcase the series' top talent and most challenging venues.

Registration Opens

The Venues

China Peak Enduro

July 1, China Peak Mountain Resort in Lakeshore July 1, China Peak Mountain Resort in Lakeshore

Northstar Enduro

August 26-27, Northstar California Resort in Truckee August 26-27, Northstar California Resort in Truckee

Kamikaze Bike Games Enduro

September 14-17, Mammoth Mountain in Mammoth Lakes September 14-17, Mammoth Mountain in Mammoth Lakes

See you this season for the best of California gnar!

The 2017 Golden Tour will showcase the three most aggressive stops on this season's CES schedule: China Peak Enduro on July 1, Northstar Enduro on August 2627, and Kamikaze Bike Games Enduro on September 14-17.The tour is a triple crown series within a series intended to spotlight top talent and events. This elite series will serve as a stepping stone to international competition for new riders and help established riders maintain a high average level of competition throughout the year. Boasting a $24,000 overall prize list for the three events, each race is awarded a $4,000 cash purse to the top ten for both Pro Men and Pro Women categories.New for 2017, the three Golden Tour events are also Enduro World Series (EWS) Qualifier Events. Points from your top three EWS Qualifiers this season can earn you a spot on the reserve list for first priority registration for the 2018 EWS seasonand CES has three of them on the schedule! More details about the EWS Qualifier can be found on the EWS website. You need to be an EMBA membership to earn EWS Qualifier points.March 1, 2017 for Kamikaze Bike Games Enduro March 13, 2017 for China Peak Enduro June 4, 2017 for Northstar Enduro The China Peak Enduro will kick off the Golden Tour with a real test of skill and endurance. The event is well known as one tough test of endurance and technical skill with race times coming in at around four hours and nearly 6,000 feet of climbing. The dusty, loose course features some of the fastest and rockiest racing the Sierra has to offer on hand-dug rustic trails.The Northstar Enduro offers a memorable two-day race on tough courses featuring meticulously carved berms, steep rocky sections, huge jumps, and plenty of off-camber challenges.The Kamikaze Bike Games Enduro's technical courses on Mammoth Mountains legendary kitty litter terrain will challenge the best of the best, pushing top athletes to the limit in their push to the podium.
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The company that owns Plymouth's enormous Beckley Point student block says it is keeping an eye on the city and considering whether to build more flats  as the city is expected to attract more foreign students.

But GSA/The Student Housing Company is looking to create a 300bed tower in Exeter next, and has revealed it is now a "global" company with student flats going up in Germany, Australia, Japan and China, among other locations as part of a 1.5billion US dollar portfolio.

And the firm's bosses, who were in Plymouth for the topping out ceremony at the peak of the 23-storey, 507-bed Armada Way skyscraper, said Plymouth still only has 5,000 students in purpose-built flats, from an overall population of about 25,000.

It said that with the global student body expected to grow from the current 200 million to more than 300 million by 2025, there is an opportunity for more foreign students to study in the city.

Tim Mitchell, chief executive of GSA in Europe, said only about nine per cent of Plymouth's student population were from overseas, as compared with about 23 per cent for the UK as a whole.

He said: "We will see a changing mix of domestic and international students  Plymouth included.

"It makes the university sector very resilient and more people will seek higher education."

Mr Mitchell said Beckley Point, which GSA acquired when it bought The Student Housing Company in 2016, was an attractive asset due to its location close to Plymouth University in a city with a sizable student population.

It will be open in September 2017 and he didn't rule out future development in the city, but said: "We are developing a scheme for 300 bed spaces in Exeter, but we like Plymouth.

"We want to launch this building (Beckley Point) and see where we go in 2018  but we intent to keep Plymouth under review."

He added: "We are a global player, with developments in the UK, Dublin and around the world. We are committed to open 8,500 bed spaces around the UK, which makes us the tenth largest UK company.

"We have 3,000 bed spaces in Dublin and developing a portfolio in Germany, we are in Australia, have our first project in Tokyo, and recently opened a Beijing campus.

"We are truly global."

And he said Plymouth has "a big opportunity" to build its population of students from abroad.

"There is a long-term sustained demand for higher education globally," he said. "There are 200million full-time students globally and that is forecast to increase to over 300million by 2025.

"The UK is the best provider of great quality higher education and the global picture is very strong indeed."
A Jacksonville Beach, FL, police chief sent a warning to all police department personnel after a restaurant owner reportedly said that employees spit in law enforcement employees' food, reports WSOC TV.

Chief of Police Patrick Dooley sent a warning to his colleagues on Feb. 6 urging them to use caution when eating at Cruisers Grill in Jacksonville Beach.

Dooley's letter said that the owner of Cruisers, Robert Handmaker, indicated that his employees have in the past, or will in the future, spit in law enforcement employees' food.

Jacksonville Beach police became aware of the possibility after Handmaker reportedly told an officer, "I have been made aware for quite some time now that some of my employees have been spitting in officers' food, and now I know why, because you are all bullies."

According to a police report, Handmaker made the comment to officers after they responded to the business for a false fire alarm and one of them told him he couldn't resolve his complaint about receiving a traffic ticket.

"While I will not issue an order prohibiting patronization of Cruisers, please use caution for health and safety reasons if you choose to eat at this establishment," Dooley said in the letter.
For most people, cortisol, the vital hormone that controls stress, increases when they wake up. It's the body's way of preparing us for the day.

But in police officers who've experienced intense stress on the job, cortisol functions much differently, according to recent research from the University at Buffalo and funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

A study of more than 300 members of the Buffalo Police Department suggests that police events or conditions considered highly stressful by the officers may be associated with disturbances of the normal awakening cortisol pattern. That can leave the officers vulnerable to disease, particularly cardiovascular disease, which already affects a large number of officers, reports Medical Xpress.

"We wanted to look at what stressors most affect police officers in their work and what affect that has in the dysregulation of this awakening cortisol pattern," said John Violanti, PhD, research professor of epidemiology and environmental health in UB's School of Public Health and Health Professions.

"Past studies haven't really looked at the intensity of the stressor and how it affected this cortisol pattern. Here we looked at actual intensity," adds Violanti, lead author on the paper, published in the January issue of the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.

The study included 338 Buffalo officers who were enrolled in the Buffalo Cardio-Metabolic Occupational Police Stress (BCOPS) study, a long-term study Violanti began in 1999.
Chief Alan Rodbell of the Scottsdale (AZ) Police Department (Photo: Scottsdale PD)

Chief Alan Rodbell of the Scottsdale (AZ) Police Department has been named the first Arizona Police Chief of the Year by the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police, reports azcentral.com.

Rodbell said he thought it was "pretty cool" to be named the inaugural winner, and said he didn't know they had started the award.

"I'm very flattered and humbled by this," Rodbell said. "You don't get this far without a lot of people behind you."

AACOP is an organization that works to promote coordination between police and the public in Arizona. Its membership base includes chiefs down through commanders.

Jan Strauss, executive director of AACOP, said the board chose Rodbell as the inaugural winner after it looked at the nominees' accomplishments in the department and community and their outreach with the community. They also looked at how well-respected the chiefs are by their departments and communities.

Strauss said Rodbell is an active member of AACOP and several professional organizations, boards and commissions. He is involved in community outreach, helped get Scottsdale accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies and mentors people looking to be in other positions. All of this helped contribute to his selection as Chief of the Year.
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If you were wondering if Democratic Minority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer had it in him to fight the surreal attacks on democracy courtesy of the Trump administration, wonder no more.

Senator Schumer took a flamethrower to Majority Leader Mitch McConnells use of Rule XIX to silence Senator Elizabeth Warren Wednesday on the Senate floor.

Schumer blasted McConnell for the Republican double standard, their undermining of free speech, and charged that their selective enforcement of a rarely used rule in an effort to silence Senator Elizabeth Warren was the only violation of the spirit of mutual respect and comity in this body that occurred last night.

Watch here:

.@SenSchumer: "What they did to Senator Warren was selective enforcement." pic.twitter.com/rfqqOLlWcg  CSPAN (@cspan) February 8, 2017

Mr. President, there is a shocking double standard here when it comes to speech  and unfortunately it is not constrained by the four walls of this chamber, Schumer began.

Schumer tied Republican attempts to silence free speech last night to the Trump administrations war on free speech, While the Senator from Massachusetts has my Republican colleagues up in arms by simply reciting the words of a civil rights leader, my Republican colleagues can hardly summon a note of disapproval for an Administration that insults a federal judge; tells the news media to shut up; offhandedly threatens a state legislators career; and seems to invent new dimensions of falsehood each and every day.

I certainly hope that this anti-free-speech attitude is not traveling down Pennsylvania Avenue to our great Chamber. Especially, Mr. President, when the only speech being stifled is speech that Republicans dont agree with  Even speech that is substantive, relevant, on point to the matter this body is considering, and appropriate and measured in tone.

And Id make a broader point. This is not what America is about  silencing speech, especially in this chamber. What we do here is debate: debate fiercely and forcefully, but respectfully.

(E)very member on the other side of the aisle ought to realize that what they did to Senator Warren was selective enforcement. It was the most selective enforcement of a rarely-used procedure to interrupt herto silence her.

Boom goes the dynamite, And it was the only violation of the spirit of mutual respect and comity in this body that occurred last night.

Factcheck: True.

Americans who are paying attention are growing increasingly concerned as Republicans try to thug their way out of transparency, accountability, and democracy.

Senate Democrats might not have known what they were up against in the beginning, but it seems we have a warrior spirit in Sen Schumer, who is not afraid to respectfully but forcefully take a flamethrower to the shameful tactics of Senate Republicans.

Schumers full remarks:

Mr. President, we here in the Senate have a tradition of mutual respect among our fellow Senators. We have a spirit of comity. Its a tradition that I hold in high esteem.

Last night, that tradition was violated and the Senate went in a very bad direction.

My Republican colleagues, I believe, were far too zealous in trying to enforce that tradition, and in doing so, were guilty of the exact same thing they were trying to police.

My friend the Senator from Massachusetts was reading a letter written by Mrs. Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King Jr. to the Judiciary Committee  her testimony about then-nominee Jeff Sessions to be a federal judge.

For that, the Chair and my friend the Majority Leader interrupted her remarks, invoked Rule XIX, and forbid her from continuing. The Chair directed the Senator to take her seat.

In my view, it was totally, totally uncalled for.

Sen. Warren wasnt hurling wild accusations, she was reading a thoughtful and considered letter from a leading civil rights figure.

Mr. President, anyone who watches the Senate floor on a daily basis could tell you that what happened last night was the most selective enforcement of Rule XIX.

My friend the Senator from Massachusetts was here when one of her colleagues called the leadership of my dear friend Senator Reid, cancerous, and that he doesnt care about the safety of our troops. That was not enforced as a Rule XIX violation.

But reading a letter from Coretta Scott King  that was too much.

Suggesting that the distinguished Majority Leader had repeatedly lied to the press, a comment made by a fellow Republican by the way  that was fine.

Reading the letter of a civil rights icon? At least to the other side  unacceptable.

Mr. President, just last week I heard a friend from the other side accuse me of an engaging in a tear-jerking performance that belonged at the Screen Actors Guild awards.

It was only the second time that week I had been accused of fake tears on the floor of the Senate, but I didnt run to the floor to invoke Rule XIX.

But when my friend from Massachusetts read a piece of Congressional testimony by Coretta Scott King  she was told to sit down.

Why was my friend from Massachusetts cut off when these other  much more explicit, much more direct, much nastier  attacks were disregarded?

Mr. President, there is a shocking double standard here when it comes to speech  and unfortunately it is not constrained by the four walls of this chamber.

While the Senator from Massachusetts has my Republican colleagues up in arms by simply reciting the words of a civil rights leader, my Republican colleagues can hardly summon a note of disapproval for an Administration that insults a federal judge; tells the news media to shut up; offhandedly threatens a state legislators career; and seems to invent new dimensions of falsehood each and every day.

I certainly hope that this anti-free-speech attitude is not traveling down Pennsylvania Avenue to our great Chamber. Especially, Mr. President, when the only speech being stifled is speech that Republicans dont agree with  Even speech that is substantive, relevant, on point to the matter this body is considering, and appropriate and measured in tone.

And Id make a broader point.

This is not what America is about  silencing speech, especially in this chamber.

What we do here is debate: debate fiercely and forcefully, but respectfully. The founders of the Republic and titans of the early Senate  Webster, Clay, and Calhoun  debated until they were blue in the face! From time to time, they probably had tough words for one another.

Were not afraid of tough words in America. We dont look to censure speech. The Rule is only intended to keep Senators on the facts; to keep them from making baseless accusations about anothers character. My friend from Massachusetts was following the letter and spirit of the Rule last night. She was engaging in that tradition of forceful but respectful debate when she was cut off.

Thats not what the Senate is about. Thats not what our country is about.

Mr. President, every member on the other side of the aisle ought to realize that what they did to Senator Warren was selective enforcement. It was the most selective enforcement of a rarely-used procedure to interrupt herto silence her.

And it was the only violation of the spirit of mutual respect and comity in this body that occurred last night.



Image: Screen cap via CSPAN
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The Democratic base is not in the mood to compromise with racism and misogyny, let alone cater to Republicans after their unprecedented theft of the right and responsibility to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant last February. After eight years of deliberate obstruction under President Obama, the base overwhelmingly wants Senators to block Trumps Supreme Court nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch.

According to a YouGov survey, Democrats want senators to block Trumps nominee by 52/13.

Poll  Democrats SHOULD/SHOULD NOT filibuster Gorsuch Total: 29/33 Dem: 52/13

Ind: 22/32

Rep: 12/59 Liberals: 56/12

18-29s: 34/19 pic.twitter.com/3QhglucFk8  Will Jordan (@williamjordann) February 8, 2017

Independents are neutral on the topic at 22/32 and Republicans 12/59.

Liberals want the block by 56/12 and 18-29s want it 34/19.

The country deserved to have President Obamas nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, but Republicans decided to make up a new rule to excuse not even giving this man, who is respected on both sides of the aisle, a hearing last March.

Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) shamed himself and his party by falsely claiming the people should be allowed to weigh in by waiting for the next president to fill the seat. This was the reason for his refusal to allow Obama the legitimacy of his landslide election, and indeed his denial of the peoples choice.

But of course if that were true, then McConnell would not now allow Trump to choose a Supreme Court nominee, since the people spoke loud and clear and they did not choose Trump. An additional fault with McConnells logic is that the people had already chosen Obama, and in his choice of Garland he rewarded their faith in him. But the Republicans destroyed that, not content to even give a hearing to a true independent.

The conservative LA Times is among a majority of papers who were appalled by the Republican theft of Obamas right to fill this seat. In January of this year, they wrote, When the GOP stole Merrick Garlands Supreme Court seat, they set the stage for a miserable battle.

The outrageous obstruction of Merrick Garlands nomination to the Supreme Court  the 10-month-long stonewall by Senate Republicans that not only stymied the high courts ability to do its job but effectively stole the nomination of a new justice from President Obama  is now delivering its rewards to the cynical politicians who carried it out.

The issue here is that Republicans have given Democrats no choice. If Democrats cave on this, they are saying there is no cost to Republicans violating rules and tradition, undermining democracy when it suits them.

What is at issue here is not just the Supreme Court, so in that sense it wouldnt matter who Trump picked. The issue here is that Republicans have shown they will not do their jobs and will not respect any power a Democrat holds. This is to say that Republicans have become anarchists, as the country wasnt designed for single party rule for good reason.

Democrats have no choice but to block Trumps nominee for two years. Republicans made this mess, and Democrats cant fix it. All they can do is stand up for democracy by refusing to enable the theft.

Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has shown an unusual fitness for the position of moral resistance, so it is possible that this Democratic Party is not the Democratic Party of before. If they fight this as a unit, Democrats will be sending a warning shot that the days of Democrats giving in to Republican thefts because they value cooperation are over.

One does not cooperate with thieves, especially thieves with approval ratings in the toilet.
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Just minutes after the Senate approved Jeff Sessions as the new U.S. Attorney General, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) pledged to take the new AG to court if he violates the Constitution.

In a tweet, the ACLU said, If he violates the Constitution, well sue.

Tweet:

BREAKING: Jeff Sessions confirmed as attorney general. If he violates the Constitution, well sue. pic.twitter.com/le02tuG2Pg  ACLU National (@ACLU) February 9, 2017

Judging from the groups swift response to the Sessions confirmation, which was a devastating blow for civil rights advocates, its clear that the ACLU remains on the front lines in the battle to resist the new administration and ensure they are held accountable for any civil rights violations.

Just last month, in fact, it was the ACLU that successfully challenged Donald Trumps immigration ban, prompting a federal court to halt parts of the presidents unpopular executive order, which targets Muslims and refugees but also wrongly denied legal visa holders entry into the U.S. and wreaked havoc at airports across the country.

Following the presidents executive order, the ACLU raised $24.2 million  a record amount of money for the organization in such a short period of time.

With Sessions confirmation as attorney general, their work is even more imperative going forward, as its clear Sessions will be more adamant about defending Donald Trump than he will be about protecting the civil rights of all Americans. Not only will the new attorney general work to undo the progress of the Obama years, but he will likely attempt to set the civil rights clock back by decades.

With Sessions now holding this key post, the attorney general  at least under this administration  will no longer be an independent check on the executive branch. Instead, Sessions, one of Trumps earliest supporters during the campaign, will likely let Trump have his way.

The ACLU is already proving that they will fill the accountability vacuum left behind and hold the new administration responsible for its inevitable Constitutional violations.

It hasnt even been a day, and Jeff Sessions is already on thin ice.
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Just moments after the Senate declared war on civil rights by confirming Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, they voted to advance the nomination of Congressman Tom Price  Donald Trumps anti-Obamacare pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

By a 51 to 48 vote, the Senate moved to proceed toward a final confirmation vote for Price, likely to be held on Friday.

Price is among the most dangerous of Trumps cabinet picks, particularly because the GOPs desired destruction of the Affordable Care Act relies heavily on whether he gets confirmed to lead HHS.

As the Hill noted on Wednesday, Republicans say their plans to repeal the landmark 2010 Affordable Care Act depend largely on Price taking control of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), as many policy changes can be made administratively.

One Republican member of Congress called Prices nomination more important than Trumps other picks because it will allow their healthcare reform plans to move ahead, according to the Hill.

In other words, Price as head of the Department of Health and Human Services will make the GOP attempt to take health insurance from millions of Americans much easier.

Prices policy positions arent the only reason he should be denied this cabinet post. Hes also someone who has shown that he will use his power to benefit his own financial interests over those of the people hes meant to serve.

Just hours before Prices nomination moved forward in the Senate, the USA TODAY released an analysis raising new questions about Prices past stock purchases.

More from the report:

President Trumps choice to be the top U.S. health official bought and sold health care company stocks often enough as a member of Congress to warrant probes by both federal securities regulators and the House ethics committee, former government ethics lawyers say.

A USA TODAY analysis of stock trade reports by Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., also shows he often misstated the timing of stock purchases or failed to report them altogether.

These include disclosures related to his much-publicized investment in the Australian biotech company Innate Immunotherapeutics, which gave him preferential treatment for a private stock offering he learned of through another member of Congress who is the companys biggest shareholder.

Price also invested in more health care companies that could benefit from legislation he introduced than previously reported.

Ultimately, there is very little in Price that makes him worthy of leading this critical cabinet post. Not only are his ethics questionable (at best), but his support of destroying the Affordable Care Act and gutting Medicare and Medicaid make him an unacceptable nominee.

Democrats should unite in opposition to his confirmation and urge any courageous Republicans  if there are any left  to do the same.

Health insurance coverage for millions of Americans is at stake.
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President Trumps Supreme Court nominee Neal Gorsuch has confirmed that he called Trumps attack on the judiciary branch of the US government disheartening and demoralizing.

Judge Gorsuchs spokesperson confirmed the nominees comments:

Gorsuch spox Ron Bonjean confirms SCOTUS nom called Trump's "so-called judge" tweet "disheartening" & "demoralizing" in convo w/ Blumenthal  Jeremy Diamond (@JDiamond1) February 8, 2017

There are a few different ways to examine Gorsuchs comments, and they all could be true. Judge Gorsuch could be angling for Democratic votes. This is likely, but also as a judge, Gorsuch could be legitimately troubled by the Presidents comments. Donald Trump has gone out of his way to attack judges, and it is obvious that this behavior would serve to make him unpopular with that profession.

The reality is that saying a few things about Trump has opened the door for Democrats to grill Gorsuch his alignment with the views of the president. Democrats are going to filibuster Gorsuch no matter what, so the goal appears to be for the nominee to pick the nine Democratic votes that he will likely need to be confirmed.

If Gorsuch wants to pick up Democratic support, he is going to need to do a lot more than mouth some words about Trumps comments being disheartening and demoralizing.

It speaks volumes about a Trump presidency that is sinking under the weight of its own self-inflicted wounds and failure that a Supreme Court nominee would be placed in a position where he had to say something negative about the man who nominated him.

For Democrats, actions speak louder than words. The actions of Judge Gorsuch from the bench are those of a man that no Democrat should be able to support.
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We have all been waiting with breathless anticipation for Trump to address the terrorist attack by a white Trump supporter in Quebec against Muslims. So far, nothing has been forthcoming from the otherwise prolific Tweeter-in-chief

The explanation offered by counselor and purveyor of alternative facts Kellyanne Conway is that He doesnt tweet about everything.

Trump might not notice Muslims murdered by a Trump supporter but he did take notice of the alleged mistreatment  and resultant diminishment of her profits  of his daughter Ivanka by Nordstroms:

My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person  always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2017

Obviously, she is not pushing him hard enough. Terrible is Muslims murdered by a Trump supporter in a terrorist attack. If this is the help she is giving him, his administration can do without it.

Also terrible is Melania Trumps assertion, revealed by her lawsuit against The Daily Mail, that she sees her current role as less First Lady and more a unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get rich because of her new fame.

Trumps fact checker, the Toronto Stars Daniel Dale, noticed the moral ambiguity of Trumps choice of twitter content:

Perfect, says Dale. He can whine about Ivanka but he cant address Muslims murdered by one of his supporters. If that is not offensive enough, there is Trump using the power of the presidency to attack a retailer.

This prompted Norm Eisen, President Obamas ethics czar and co-founder of CREW to tweet,

Outrageous. @nordstrom, others injured should consider suing, incl. under CA Unfair Comp Law, forbidding "any unfair biz act." I will help! https://t.co/Y18Lml3rXk  Norm Eisen (@NormEisen) February 8, 2017

And yes, Trump tweeted this complaint from his @POTUS Twitter account as well. In his official position as president, he is complaining about a perceived slight to his daughter.

As President George W. Bushs press secretary Ari Fleischer pointed out,

This is something a father would say. It's not the type of thing a President of the United States should say. https://t.co/1l24LouFP0  Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) February 8, 2017

T.J. Maxx and Marshalls are also giving Ivanka the Nordstroms treatment, with the Times Rachel Abrams tweeting the news that Scoop: TJ Maxx/Marshalls told employees not to display Ivanka Trump products and to throw her signs in the trash.

It is only a matter of time before Trump tries to destroy their stocks as well.
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After one of the most heated battles over an attorney general nominee in the nations history, the Senate voted to confirm Sen. Jeff Sessions and set into motion a Trump war on civil rights.

The final vote was along party lines, 52-47 with 1 vote present in favor of confirmation.

It was telling that throughout the Republican remarks on the Senate floor before the vote there was no discussion of Sen. Sessions record on civil rights. Instead, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell came to the Senate floor to tell stories about what a good old boy Sessions is. McConnell was sure to mention Sessions favorite flavor of Blizzard from Dairy Queen, but he made no mention of the Senator from Alabamas opposition to civil rights legislation for minorities, women, and the LGBT community.

Senate Democrats spoke high and low about their fears that Sessions would not be an independent attorney general who could act as a check on Donald Trump. Democrats put up a fantastic fight, but in the end, the numbers won.

What the reality of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General means for the United States is that the country is about to take a huge step backward in the enforcement and protection of civil rights. Those who care about civil liberties had best prepare for war because Jeff Sessions will never check Donald Trump. Sessions will turn the Justice Department into a Trump enablement operation.
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Donald Trumps decision to wage a Twitter attack on Nordstrom on Wednesday appears to have been a massive failure as the companys stocks took a grand total of four minutes to recover from the .5 percent dip immediately following his tweet  and they closed the day with a gain of more than 4 percent.

While Trump was clearly hoping to do some damage to a company that dropped his daughters brand, he may have had the unintended consequence of doing them a favor.

In other words, being on the receiving end of Trumps Twitter tantrums is apparently good for business.

Tweet:

In todays battle of Trump vs @Nordstrom, Nordstrom is the overwhelming winner: shares up nearly 5% at the closing bell  pic.twitter.com/hne3FFpv8j  Joshua Green (@JoshuaGreen) February 8, 2017

Its clear that some companies  after perhaps showing an initial reluctance to get on the bad side of the erratic, Twitter-happy president  are beginning to realize that the American people, also known as consumers, dont like Trump.

The latest Gallup poll shows that a majority  52 percent  of Americans do not approve of the job hes done over the past several weeks. As I noted yesterday, 60 percent dont even think hes level-headed enough to hold the office.

Thus, resisting Trump, as Nordstrom and other companies are doing, isnt just consistent with how voters feel toward the president  its a good business decision, too.

If companies want to see their financial prospects improve, they shouldnt throw money at expensive advertising. All they need to do is stand up to Donald Trump.
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After Trump had tweeted an inaccurate statement about an interview that the cable news network had just concluded, CNN responded to the Presidents false statement by playing the tape and tearing into the President for calling the network fake news.

Video:

https://youtu.be/8lnFxmBM1II?t=2m47s

Transcript via CNN:

CUOMO: Chris Cuomo in his interview with Senator Blumenthal never asked him about his long-term lie about his brave service in Vietnam. Fake news. Lets just please show the top of the interview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: The president of the United States saying you should not be believed because you misrepresented your military record in the past.

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D), CONNECTICUT: Theres no question that judge Gorsuch said to me that he found these attacks on the judiciary by the president 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Really, the first point that I made in the interview. The president, with all due respect, is once again off on the facts. Thats not something that any of us have any desire to say on a regular basis, but it keeps being true.

Fake news is the worst thing you can call a journalist. Its like an ethnic disparagement. We all have these ugly words for people. Thats the one for journalists.

David, he just keeps doubling down when the facts dont favor his position. He just said you never asked him about it. I did. He ducked it, and thats OK. Politicians duck things all the time.

The truth of the matter asserted is about whether or not this judge says what Blumenthal says he said. His own coms guy says. Nobody denies it except the president of the United States and once again he doubles down when hes wrong.

CNN showed how every network should handle Trumps attempts to bully the media through his Twitter account. The networks have an advantage over Trump. If they choose to do so, they can respond in real time, and fact check the President.

President Trump thinks he is at war with the media. He seems to believe that bellowing or tweeting fake news is going to cause the networks to buckle in fear.

The media isnt backing down. With each Trump false statement, the scrutiny is growing.

Trump picked a fight with the media, and the free press is demolishing his lies and false statements.
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On Tuesday, DHS Secretary John Kelly said its very possible the Department of Homeland Security will require social media, passwords and financial records before they will allow visitors, refugees and immigrants from certain countries to enter the United States.

Kelly also said taking the word of visitors, immigrants or refugees is unacceptable to him and especially to Mr. Trump. This was on the same day, the DOJ tried to convince the 9th Circuit Trumps Muslim ban isnt really a Muslim ban. So of course, Kelly made a point of saying that while these proposals are only under consideration, the intent behind them isnt about religion. Its a point he tried to reinforce during an interview with NPR. During that interview, Kelly said the seven countries  Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Somalia, Libya and Yemen cant vet their citizens to provide DHS with information that were comfortable with. He went on to say it is possible residents of those countries could be required to provide the information so officials can get on those websites to see what theyre looking at.

America knows a great deal about the concerns with taking someones word on their background and finances. Donald Trump continues to refuse to release tax returns for America to vet his financial history and who he has financial ties to. Mitch McConnell whined about Democratic obstructionism, the fact is several of Trumps cronies refused to provide the standard information for responsible Senators to assess their suitability for the positions they were seeking.

To be fair, the possibility of requiring visitors to submit passwords was considered and never adopted by top officials at DHS under the Obama Administration. It was also a less intrusive scope than the policy currently under consideration.

According to an internal department memo obtained by MSNBC in 2015 and tweeted by Ari Melber at the time, the scope was limited to purposes of verifying information related to applications and petitions. Thats very different from seeing what visitors are looking at on the internet.

READ new leaked memo showing Homeland Security plan to vet social media for visas in 2011:https://t.co/bnzWY1ByBB pic.twitter.com/tuPcW3m6af  Ari Melber (@AriMelber) December 17, 2015

The claim that this is about vetting people because they come from countries where governments dont keep suitable records or because there is a presence of terrorist organizations might be credible if not for the previously stated intent to ban Muslims.

Rudolph Giulianis admission that Trump asked him how to ban Muslims legally and the omission of Saudi Arabia in Trumps EO, where 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers came from make Trumps intent in his EO obvious to anyone with a functioning brain.

Even with a documented history of the DHS attempt to narrower version of a similar proposal, Kellys denials of the obvious religious connection are no more persuasive than those of Trump or anyone else in the administration.

Kelly, like Mike Pence, is Trumps rhetorical janitor. Cleaning up the messes that come with Trumps hate filled statements. No matter how hard Kelly tries, the stench of Trumps hatred for Muslims cant be camouflaged.

This should be enough for anyone with an understanding of American values or simple human decency to be concerned.

.

As it stands, Trumps anti-Muslim travel ban is taking a toll on tourism. Limited data on tourism to the United State shows that of 122 countries, Russia is the only one where demand for flight searches to visit the United States has gone up. According to Hoppers data, weekly international U.S.-bound flight searches decreased 17% in 94 of the 122 countries after the travel ban was announced. Its doubtful a possibility that visitors will have to hand over social media, passwords, website reading lists and financial records will help.

Trump may be fooling his most ardent followers and his inner circle. However, most of America knows this has everything to do with a likely unconstitutional discrimination toward Muslims.
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When asked on MSNBC if Congress is heading for four more years of stalemate, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) dropped a truth bomb and said that she doesnt expect Trump to be in office for four years because he is vulnerable to impeachment.

Video:

Rep. Maxine Waters on Trump: "I certainly dont intend for him to be around for 4 yearsI do be that he is vulnerable to impeachment." pic.twitter.com/l33zcC8eFZ  Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 9, 2017

She said, I dont think so because hes not going to be there for four years. He has disregarded constitutional questions. Were still digging into his conflicts of interest. His relationship to Putin and the Kremlin. I think theres a lot there. I dont intend to work with him or try to work with him, but I certainly dont intend for him to be around for four years. A lot people dont want to hear this. Theyre saying youre saying this, and youre talking about a president who has only been in office for a short period of time, but I do believe that hes vulnerable to impeachment.

Rep. Waters said that she expects that if Republicans find any collusion between Putin and Trump, they are going to back off of him, and impeachment will be possible. Waters also said that Republican Senators are nervous about Trump and his constant defenses of Putin and the Kremlin.

Impeachment becomes a lot more likely if Democrats take back the House, Senate, or both in 2018 because one of their first acts will be to launch a full-scale investigation into the Trump administration.

The stench of corruption is so strong around President Trump that members of Congress are discussing impeachment less than a month into his first term. For those of you who are worried about Vice President Pence taking over if Trump is impeached, dont be. Pence has welded himself to Trump with repeated defenses of the Presidents comments about Putin and Russia. If Trump goes down, Pence is going with him.

Many in Congress are afraid to say the I-word out loud, but they are thinking. Rep. Waters said what many are thinking. The odds are higher than for most other presidents that Donald Trump ends up impeached/
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A complaint has been filed with the Homeland Security Office of Inspector General urging an investigation into Kellyanne Conways illegal promotion of Ivanka Trumps clothing line on Fox News.

The Democratic Coalition Against Trump announced the complaint against Conway in a statement to PoliticusUSA:

The Democratic Coalition Against Trump filed a complaint on Kellyanne Conway with the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General for promoting Ivanka Trumps businesses today. According to the website of the Office of Inspector General, the department is responsible for investigating corruption of Federal employees including ethics violations.

The complaint is based on comments Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Trump, told Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy today: Go buy Ivankas stuff, Ivanka Trump has a wonderful line, Conway adds. I own some of it. I fully, Im gonna just going to give a free commercial here. Go buy it today everybody. You can find it online.

Conway potentially violated multiple rules and federal laws governing a federal employees misuse of their position. Kellyanne Conway is a federal employee, and her open use of the White House to help a member of the Trump family make money has sparked outrage on both sides of the aisle.

Kellyanne Conway has finally gone too far. She got away with alternative facts and the Bowling Green Massacre but using the White House to help the Trump family make more money has landed her in potentially career ending hot water.
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South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham once worried that Were not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term, has changed his tune now that Republicans have an angry white guy in the White House.

Now, as Graham tells a radio audience it is past time Elizabeth Warren be silenced in violation of every accepted norm by a room full of angry white guys, he is talking as though it is Democrats who are the endangered species.

He took the opportunity Wednesday on the Mike Gallagher Show that,

The bottom line is, it was long overdue with her. I mean, she is clearly running for the nomination in 2020.

Listen courtesy of CNN:

Yes, Lindsey Graham mansplained Elizabeth Warrens silencing by a room full of angry white men as though it was justified by a belief she will run for president in 2020.

Thats rich coming from a guy who ran in 2016 and was already out of the race in 2015. There may be a bit of sour grapes in Grahams disdain.

Needless to say, there is no Senate rule covering future presidential candidates. Grahams colleague Orrin Hatch has already assured us telling the truth about somebody is no excuse.

Graham then explained to his audience that it was not Republicans who were running out of angry white men (Trump has a cabinet full of them to match those in the Senate chamber after all) but Democrats who dont have enough extreme voices:

The Democratic Party is being pushed really hard by the most extreme voices in their community, and they just dont know how to handle it. If they empower her, then I think the Democratic Party is gonna lose way with the vast majority of the American people.

Yes. This is the angry Southern male telling his Yankee counterparts they need to handle their women before their women get them in trouble.

Graham, like Trump, is missing the part where the Democrats won the popular vote and that the angry white guys only won because they got help from Americas enemy Vladimir Putin, a tainted FBI director, and the voter suppression efforts alluded to in the letter Warren was reading when they silenced her.

Bullies are ever so brave when theyre in a gang, and that is what those 49 Republicans were the other night in the Senate: A gang of bullies emboldened by their own numbers and by the misogynistic attitudes of the pussy-grabber in the White House who validates their disdain for women.

Grahams words about angry white guys was a stark admission of the obvious that without the angry white guy base there would be no Republican Party. Come 2015 and Graham was running for president against Donald Trump. Graham seemed to be pointing to the angry white guy vote then too when he complained of Trumps lead, saying it was the dark side of politics that Mr. Trump is appealing to.

Graham was right about Donald Trump when he spoke on that long-ago Tuesday in August, even if he was wrong about beating his brains out:

He called Trump a showman whose policy positions are complete gibberish. Facts born out within the first few days of Trumps administration. Graham also said of Trump that,

He is shallow, he is ill-prepared to be commander-in-chief, he doesnt know what he is talking about in terms of how our laws work, he says the worst things possible about immigrants and women, and hes a complete idiot when it comes to Mideast policy.

Graham said. So I think over time, common sense will prevail.

Common sense did not prevail. And Lindsey Graham was not the answer to or the antithesis of the dark side of politics that Trump is appealing to, or, as his own foolish statements about one woman in particular prove, a hero on a white horse come to save women.

Lindsey Graham knows a few things about foolish statements about women, having just told one to shush and let the men-folk speak.

The dark side instead has now come to roost in the White House and on Capitol Hill and Lindsey Graham is part of it. To paraphrase the central character on the BBC-FX show Taboo, Graham knows what evil Trump does, because he is part of it.

He is part of that dark side in politics. And like that character, he can never wash his hands clean of that accountability and responsibility for those foul acts.
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*The following is an opinion column by R Muse*

There is an unspoken rule every print and broadcast journalist on the planet knows almost innately and it is particularly true in America. The rule is if it bleeds, it leads and what should be self-explanatory is that if there is any kind of bloodshed, especially from shootings, it is like click-bait material for far too many alleged news sites and certain to garner a lot of attention.

When Trump told the audience at Central Command that the American media was deliberately not reporting or publicizing terror attacks, they knew he was lying. Because although they are not journalists, they do closely monitor the news and know that if it bleeds, it leads and that no media outlets or platforms failed to report terrorist attacks anyplace; it is just too profitable not to report death and destruction.

After being called on his lie, Trump released a list of terror attacks he claimed were never reported to the public. Of course, like everything issuing forth from the Trump, his list was a monumental lie in that the events were well-reported and remembered by anyone conscious over the past few years. But one specific thing stood out more than the questionable number of terror attacks listed; every last one of those events on the list were reported, worldwide.

Although it was a long list, one couldnt help but notice that it omitted a fair number of terror attacks against American citizens on American soil. It is no coincidence that they were all the omissions were committed by white males not remotely affiliated with the Muslim religion or Islamic community.

The list even left off the most recent attack on a Mosque; the one by a Trump fanatic in Canada against Muslim men. There is really only one reason the Trump left out several other acts of terror committed by white extremists against other Americans and it is part and parcel of the Trump-Bannon domestic policy founded on a religious war against one particular religion in America, Islam.

The deliberate omission is necessary for Trump to convince Americans that the only one thing they have to fear is Islam and its adherents. Forget all the mass theater and school shootings, certainly terror attacks, or the racist massacre at an African American church, or the religious attack on a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic because they were committed by white extremists, not Muslims.

Just recently, a Republican from Wisconsin actually tried to defend the omission of white extremist terror attacks from Trumps list. Sean Duffy (R-WI) said no matter the viciousness or bloodletting, when a white extremist, usually also religious, goes on a terror rampage, its just different than when an extremist affiliated with Islam kills people. It is noteworthy that there is nothing but eternal damnation waiting for any Muslim who sheds innocent blood; extremists may claim affiliation with Islam, but they are not adherents of the Muslim faith.

Trumps omission is not an oversight; it is not only preparing the nation for the White Houses domestic crusade against Islam, it is part of a program meant to allow white extremists to launch terror attacks, usually against Muslims or people of color with impunity. Dont believe it?

There is a federal program the Trump administration wants drastically altered to absolve white extremist terrorism called Countering Violent Extremism (CVE). CVEs stated aim is deterring groups or potential lone attackers through community partnerships and educational programs or counter-messaging campaigns in cooperation with companies. If king Steve Bannon and his vapid meat puppet Donald Trump have their way, CVE will no longer be allowed to target, monitor or investigate evangelical-linked groups such as white supremacists who have also carried out bombings and shootings in the United States. The Trump-Bannon goal is deeming Muslims as the only threat to Americans lives despite the fact that the contrary is true; a fact that team Trump-Bannon is well aware of.

According to a very well-publicized study released in 2015, American people are seven times more likely to be killed by a right-wing extremist than a Muslim attacker.

Recent mass shootings in the U.S., like the murder of nine African American worshippers at the historically black Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston in June 2015 and the murder of three people at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs a few months later were committed by white [Christian, not Muslim] men linked to extremist [religious or racist] ideologies. Or what dirty Don Trump calls the real Americans he wants law enforcement and Homeland Security officials to stop targeting despite they pose a seven-time greater threat to American citizens lives than an extremist claiming affiliation with Islam.

Since just prior to Trump election and still ongoing, there has been a plethora of attacks on Muslims by proud Trump supporters and the media has been woefully remiss to report them; a fact Trump omitted from his attack on the media. Two Muslim women pushing baby strollers in New York were viciously attacked by a woman saying they dont belong in her America. Two Muslim men, including a Imam, were brutally gunned down in New York with hardly a mention by the media. A female airport employee who is a Muslim was savagely attacked by a Trump supporter; simply because Trumps here now and he will get rid of all of you.

Add to those unreported and unlisted terror attacks against Muslims by white people the two Islamic mosques that were burned to the ground within a month in Texas. This is Trumps America and his domestic religious war against Islam is well underway with his citizen warriors setting the stage for the attacks under the aegis of Trump.

If the media has been a failure, it has failed to report adequately the attacks against Muslims by white people emboldened by the Trump. However, they have spent an inordinate amount of time covering radicalized Muslim attacks no matter where they occur.

It is likely that even Trump zealots know he is lying about the media trying to help the terrorists by not reporting their crimes against humanity, but like any accomplished propagandist, if Trump repeats the lie long and loud enough, there is a very good chance his domestic religious crusade against Islam may gain some traction and support from the masses, and that is one frightening thought.

**The above commentary is the sole opinion of its author**
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While meeting with airline executives, President Trump went on a rant that was based on stuff his personal pilot told him that was both unpresidential and made zero sense.

Video:

According to the White House pool report as provided to PoliticusUSA Trump said:

Im thrilled to welcome the leaders of the airline industry to the White House.

POTUS congratulated airlines at succeeding despite the bad equipment that the airport gives you, in many cases

I have a pilot whos a real expert, POTUS said, noting that his pilot has said airlines are often provided with the wrong stuff.

Lets order the right equipment. Probably the wrong equipment cost more. POTUS said.

We want the traveling public to have the greatest customer service and with an absolute minimum of delays.

We spent six trillion dollars in the Middle East, we got nothing. POTUS continued.

And we have an obsolete plane system, we have obsolete airports.

Every day in the White House plays like a bad Alec Baldwin SNL parody. Trump is calling all of these meetings with industry CEOs, but instead of talking about policy, which he seems to know nothing about, he brags about how great his rich guy stuff is, or he rants about how crappy everything in the US is compared to the $6 trillion spent on wars in the Middle East.

Trumps whole infrastructure argument is that we should have spent the money rebuilding America instead of Iraq and Afghanistan, which is a point that a lot of Americans would agree with, but Donald Trump is the president now, so it is up to him to actually provide a plan for how to rebuild US infrastructure with a Republican-controlled Congress that doesnt want to allocate and spend the money.

The reason why President Trump is flopping is that he is treating the presidency as a political campaign. There is no concept of governing in the mind of Trump. The President is still using his same campaign talking points and offering no solutions. Telling airline execs to order the right equipment is incoherent gibberish.

Trumps rants may work well for his fans as tweets, but they make for lousy policy when it comes to running the country.
On the floor below, Alexandra Bachzetsis, the expert dancer, was dancing in front of a player piano, performing a ballet titled "Massacre: Variations on a Theme." Or rather she was performing it on a large video and the player piano was performing it, live, if you could call it that. At some points, she would arrive to perform it live herself; bleachers were set up for these occasions, warnings posted of their potential for nudity. "A feverish interchange between violent physical movement and excessive mechanical repetition," the museum guide reads. The piano's clanging chords rang out like hymnals playing in that dream you have that you're falling as I entered A Revolutionary Impulse: The Rise of the Russian Avant-Garde, immediately confronting an untitled collage of shapes (1916-17) by Lyubov Popova, that was either a cannon shooting into the sky or a telescope peering down into the earth. Or something else completely.

Popular interest in late Czarist and early Soviet art nominally falls into a few categories. The armchair art historian is interested in where the constructivist cut-cup collages of Popova and El Lissitzky fit into the greater narrative of abstractions within the history of western art. Kazimir Malevich's seminal Black Square (1915), for instance, is known to predate Robert Rauschenberg's very similar looking series of Black Paintings (1951-53) by a solid thirty or so years. (Black Square isn't owned by MoMa and, thus, isn't on display in Revolutionary Impulse but some of his earlier forays into cubism are: Samovar (1913) strikingly towers over much of the exhibit's first display room.) Revolutionary Impulse is more or less, arranged chronologically, for this type of visitor. The effect, early on, is that of thin impressions chalked against white wall, framing decisions give the exhibit sleek modernist shrine.

But check out Win Butler and Regine Chassagne's Soviet porcelain doll get up, circa Funerals. That stuff just looks cool. All art is elevated when we call it art, that' Duchamp 101, but the elevation of art with distinctly political overtones sticks right at the heart of what ol' Patty Buchanan once laid out as the "war going on in our country for the soul." Last week, The Guardian's Jonathan Jones played churl-in-chief on MoMa's retrospective (and a similarly themed one going on simultaneously at the Royal Academy in London). Old man Jones complained:

It struck me as intellectually lazy for this museum, so remote from everything the Russian revolution stood for, to apolitically celebrate its art, as if constructivism and suprematism were just cool aesthetic discoveries rather than utopian projects from an age of struggle and violence.

While this critique of MoMa for being, uh, a museum of modern art that will never be able to stay true, whatever that means, to anything short of a Jeff Koons retrospective, this is only the ground before which his argument sits: that the art of Soviet Russia is simply an immoral pile of wallop because of its association with the violent Soviet regimes of Lenin and, later, Stalin. He cites, for example, the veneration that Lissitzky's Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (1919), a pop classic that the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston has curiously not begrudged either MoMa or the Royal Academy with, being used for a Franz Ferdinand album, among other things. The red in that poster is blood! That isn't cool!

Previous Next Natalia Goncharova: Rayonism, Blue-Green Forest (1913) Previous Next Lyubov Popova: Untitled (1916-17) Previous Next Posters, utopias, etc.

But he's wrong. It is very cool. To be unmoved by the sheer amount of Euro art history both distilled and absconded, adopted and then turned into something beyond any theorist's dreams requires an incredible amount of self-deceit. Natalia Goncharova, one of the artists well represented in Revolutionary Impulse, traverses in the few two or three rooms alone. Both Forest (1913) and Rayonism, Blue-Green Forest (1913) are works that would be remarkable if they were the lifelong opuses of two painters; that they come both the same hand, in the same year and are really among Goncharova's minor works, make them their appearance impressions of genius, explosions that rustle out of cubist dogma and buzz with inner life, clinging to shadows.

But this is all very pre-Revolution talk, Revolutionary Impulse gives a solid amount of space to the latter promise of its title. Playing in one room was the stair scene from Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (1925) on a five minute-loop, an apoltical, if iconic, choice from the Russian propogandist. Elsewhere, bales of hay were being gathered in similar increments, as captured by Alexander Dovzhenko in his masterpiece Earth (1930). It a piece of agit-prop about Stalin's brutal collectivization program, a genocidal move that starved millions and one that old man Jones said he would be thinking about instead of rushing to opening day. Whatever. The five minute clip looks so pretty.

But in one of the final rooms of the show, a set of late 20s-early 30s propaganda posters were collected on an otherwise bare blue wall, in front of a few perfectly designed models of buildings that were never built. But they would fit nicely in my room.

How else does one live in these dreadful times?





A Revolutionary Impulse: The Rise of the Russian Avant-Garde runs until March 12th!
Watchdog and Public Service reporter

Thad Moore is a reporter on The Post and Couriers Watchdog and Public Service team and a graduate of the University of South Carolina. To share tips securely, reach Moore via ProtonMail at thadmoore@protonmail.com or on Signal at 843-214-6576.
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Partly cloudy early with increasing clouds overnight. Low around 70F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph.
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As Laffittes case has moved toward trial, it has helped shed new light on Alex Murdaughs alleged financial crimes. His trial is poised to unpack them in the finest detail yet. Read moreEx-SC banker Russell Laffitte set to face trial in first Murdaugh case to be heard by jury
DES MOINES | Most Iowans believe it is legal to make a double right or double left turn on a red light onto another street or a one-way street with multiple lanes in Iowa if it does not interfere with cross traffic or pedestrians.

Wrong, says officials with the state Department of Transportation. The single right turn or single left turn onto a one-way roadway is permissible, but DOT officials said Wednesday there is sufficient confusion that they are asking the Legislature to a driver confronted with a red light to make a right turn from the right lane of traffic or another lane designated for right turns and to allow a driver on a one-way street that is turning to another one-way street to turn left on a red light from the left lane of traffic or another lane designated for left turns.

DOT official Steve Gent said the provisions of House Study Bill 71 and Senate Study Bill 1037 that got legislative consideration Wednesday were viewed as clean up bills to codify what generally is a common practice but one that a motorist occasionally gets ticketed for as a violation.

Gent noted that even some state troopers werent aware that double turns are illegal since so many motorists do it.

LOCAL OPTION FOR CITIES: A House Ways and Means subcommittee agreed Wednesday to adopt a provision that would allow cities in Dallas, Johnson and Polk counties to seek voter approval for a 1 percent local-option sales and services tax increase that would only be imposed in cities that passed the assessment rather than applying a countywide standard.

House Study Bill 43 was crafted to only affect those three counties because Iowas other 96 counties have successfully achieved the 50 percent plus one voter majority needed to impose the local option tax.

Proponents say the change is needed so cities seeking more revenue for infrastructure or other uses will not be thwarted when other smaller communities vote to reject the countywide tax.

Critics say the change could set up a situation where businesses at city limits between municipalities would be placed at a disadvantage if they had to assess a tax that a competitor across the street did not have to impose.

Jim Henter of the Iowa Retail Federation referred to the bill as the annual money grab for cities in opposing the bill, which passed to the full House Ways and Means Committee for further consideration.

SLOW BURN FOR TANNING SALONS: Commercial tanning facilities operating in Iowa would be prohibited from allowing minors under the age of 17 from using tanning devices.

Representatives from various medical and safety organizations supported House File 143, which passed out of subcommittee to the House Human Resources Committee.

However, Joe Levy of the American Sun Tanning Association, said the bill would produce the opposite of what backers intended by driving young people to more aggressive outdoor tanning or to use tanning beds in unregulated facilities such as apartment complexes.

He argued the ban would hurt about 150 businesses in Iowa already stung by a 10 percent tax imposed under the Affordable Care Act. He said Iowans between the ages of 16 and 17 represented about 5 percent of the tanning market.

Rep. Rob Taylor, R-West Des Moines, said the measure was needed to protect teens from habitual overuse of tanning devices. The measure would carry a penalty of up to $1,000 and injunctive restraints for violators.

HANDS-FREE DAY: Iowa lawmakers will have the opportunity to get a hands-on lesson in distracted driving Feb. 15 when a coalition of law enforcement, insurers and wireless service providers brings AT&Ts distracted driving simulator to the Capitol.

From 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Room 102 of the Capitol legislators will be able to experience the dangers of distracted driving, which research has shown is six times more dangerous than drunk driving.

Texting while driving is a secondary offense, but a spike in traffic fatalities and an increase in distracted driving-related crashes has prompted lawmakers to consider bills to prohibit drivers from using hand-held communication devices such as cellphones.

TROOPERS NEEDED: Iowa Public Safety Commissioner Roxanne Ryan told lawmakers the department is planning to hold a basic academy every years for at least 10 years to maintain trooper numbers in the Iowa State Patrol.

There are between 15 and 20 troopers eligible for retirement each year for the next decade, Ryan told the Justice Systems Appropriations Subcommittee Wednesday.

It takes about two years from the time an ISP applicant is recruited to being road-ready, she said. Ideally, she would like to have 20 to 25 cadets each year. Trooper numbers have declined steadily from about 455 in the late 1990s to about 350 today.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: I do not control the sun, but in this bill I can control the habit of tanning.  Rep. Rob Taylor, R-West Des Moines, in supporting a bill that would bar minors under the age of 17 from using tanning devices.
The oft-told story of a frog perishing in a pot as the water slowly warms and then cooks him is not actually based in fact; the metaphor persists because it describes something that is true: We are less aware of change that occurs gradually than when it happens all at once. Read moreEditorial: Referendums based on slow evolution: Berkeley, Dorchester aren't so rural anymore
Nearly 13 percent of registered voters in South Carolina have already cast ballots for the 2022 general election after the state opened up no excuse early voting to all for the first time. More than 438,000 votes were in as of the end of Thursday, which was the 10th day of early voting, according to statistics from the South Carolina Election Commission. Read more13% in SC have already cast ballots with new early voting
Several weeks ago, Wade Carlson and Ali Smarzyk took a trip to the Dominican Republic.

Gorgeous beaches. Balmy weather. Spending time with a couple who had first introduced Wade and Ali. It seemed like the perfect place to propose marriage.

But an elaborate plan like the one that Wade had concocted requires a degree of subterfuge. When the couple went through customs at the Dominican Republic, Wade made sure that Ali went through first  just in case officials searched his carry-on bag and found the ring inside.

When they got to the hotel, he waited until she wasn't looking and placed the ring in a room safe, behind a manila envelope.

Then, Wade bided his time. And waited. And waited.

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Several days later, Wade and Ali were walking along a beach when he spied what he thought would be the perfect setting. The sun was setting. Not a cloud in the sky. The beach was sparsely populated. Perfect.

Up until then, the only people who were in on the secret were Ali's mom and dad, whom he had formally asked for their daughter's hand.

The next day, as he and Ali were getting ready for dinner, the bell boy dropped off a fruit basket. Ali asked if he had tipped the guy. Wade said no, providing the perfect pretext to finalize his plans. He tipped the guy, then went to the hotel room of the other couple, whom Wade wanted to have photograph the moment.

They went down to the beach and began taking pictures. But just as Wade was about to ask, the camera wouldn't work and mild panic set in. Then it began to work again, and Wade turned to Ali and asked the question.

"She started crying right away and put her hands over her face and was trying to catch her breath," he said

Wade is a commercial loan officer at Alliance Bank in Lake City and Ali works as a medical secretary at Mayo Clinic. Marriage plans are set for the summer of 2018.

In the process, people learned a valuable lesson: Never doubt Wade Carlson's ability to keep a secret.

"That's what I keep hearing," Wade said. "When we got home, everyone was saying that, too."
DEAR HELOISE:I have a document titled "WIP" (Work In Progress) that I've saved on the "quick launch" bottom of my computer desktop.

Whenever I order something, transfer money or pay a bill online, I take a "snapshot" of the screen and then open my WIP and "paste" the snapshot into that document and save. If the transaction doesn't happen or I need the confirmation number, I can refer back to -- and even print, if necessary -- that page of the WIP document. -- Valerie E., via email

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Good hint for saving paper, especially if you want to keep these documents on your computer. If this is something you'd like to start but aren't sure how, do an Internet search for "screen shots" for your type of computer. You'll get step-by-step instructions. -- Heloise

DEAR HELOISE:Before going on road trips with my children, I give them a shoebox-size container to fill with activities, games, books or simple crafts that they want with them during the trip. Once full, nothing more can be taken, which makes them choose wisely.

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Many stores stock "travel type" games. I've purchase some of their favorite ones. Travel games are designed with magnetic boards and pieces to keep them from getting lost in the car. They take up very little space.

My children might not play with everything, but at least they have choices. It makes our travel experience much more enjoyable. -- Glenda W. in Houston

DEAR HELOISE:Help. My old butcher block is in dire need of a good cleaning. I don't want to ruin it. My dad made it for my mom shortly after they got married, and now I have it. What do you suggest? -- Henrietta B., San Clemente, Calif.

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Baking soda to the rescue. This will clean and deodorize your block. Make a paste by wetting a sponge and sprinkling on some baking soda. Apply the "magic" paste to the block, and scrub. Rinse well and, if needed, lightly oil using mineral oil (not vegetable oil). Wipe with a paper towel, and your block will be good to go. -- Heloise

DEAR HELOISE:Why am I supposed to get my tires rotated, and how often should I do it? -- Veronica in Shreveport, La.

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Good question, Veronica. Rotating your tires helps them to wear evenly, improves gas mileage and performance, and makes your tires last longer.

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Check your car's owners manual to see how often the manufacturer recommends rotating your tires. If you cannot find a recommendation, professionals often recommend rotating them about every 6,000 miles, or a good rule of thumb is to rotate your tires every time you get your oil changed. -- Heloise
Lourdes High School One Act Play cast won the section finals and is heading to the state competition this weekend.

The team's performance of "The Waiting Room," earned them the spot in the state competition, where they'll compete against seven other finalists at 11:45 a.m. Friday in the O'Shaughnessy Auditorium at St. Catherine University in St. Paul.

The Class A Section 1 Finals of the Minnesota State High School League competition took place on Feb. 4.

"The Waiting Room is a story about family and relationships, a story of an elderly couple who, while sitting in a waiting room, reminisce about their life together through a series of vignettes," said Lourdes High school play director and author, Mary Bruns Pyfferoen.

The cast and crew have been practicing the performance since December.

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"This is the second time Lourdes has qualified to participate at the state festival; the last time was in 1999. We are thrilled and excited to be recognized for the hard work of our students and to be able to touch the hearts of others through the telling of this story," Pyfferoen said.

The event is open to the public; tickets will be sold at O'Shaughnessy Ticket Office at St. Catherine University, but won't be available in advance of the event. Tickets will be sold $10 for adults and students for two sessions, or $15 for all eight plays.
ST. PAUL  Minnesota State announced Thursday that it has chosen Devinder Malhotra as its interim chancellor.

The Board of Trustees, the governing body that oversees Minnesota State, voted unanimously to appoint Malhotra. This comes after Chancellor Steven Rosenstone announced his intention to retire last year , upon the completion of his contract in July 2017. Rosenstone has served as chancellor since 2011.

The board conducted an "extensive search," but concluded it had "not yet identified the right individual to serve as chancellor on a permanent basis," according to a Minnesota State news release.

Malhorta will serve as interim chancellor until a permanent one is named. Details on the continuation of the search aren't yet available.

"I am very pleased that Devinder Malhotra has agreed to serve in this critical role," said Michael Vekich, chair of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities Board of Trustees, calling him a "gifted leader with the experience, the understanding of our system, and the collaborative skills required to leader the system while the search continues."

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Malhotra has served as a leader at two Minnesota State universities: Metropolitan State University as interim president from 2014 until his 2016 retirement, and at St. Cloud State University as provost and vice president for academic affairs from 2009 to 2014.

Before that, he was a dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Southern Maine from 2005 to 2009, associate dean of Butchel College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Akron. He was a tenured professor of economics for more than three decades, and served as a faculty member at the University of Southern Maine and the University of Akron.

He holds a bachelor's degree and a master's from the University of Delhi, and a doctorate from Kansas State University. He also completed the Management Development Program of the Harvard Institutes for Higher Education.

"I appreciate the confidence that Chair Vekich and the Board of Trustees has placed in me," said Malhotra, "and I look forward to once again serving the students of Minnesota State as we continue our critical work."

Rochester Community and Technical College's interim president, Mary Davenport, said she's worked with Malhotra at St. Cloud State University and Metropolitan State.

"He is a kind and compassionate champion for student success," Davenport said. "Having been a part of the Minnesota State system, he understands the opportunities and challenges facing our system and the state."
CHATFIELD -- Spark or fire?

More than 200 people gathered Wednesday in Chatfield's Potter Auditorium for a presentation and discussion of chronic wasting disease in deer and how Minnesota is responding to the outbreak in Southeast Minnesota. After three hours, one key question dominated all others: Is Minnesota dealing with a small "spark-up" of CWD that could be eliminated by aggressive action? Or is the CWD outbreak already a "fire" that will never be extinguished?

The event, sponsored by the Minnesota Deer Farmers Association and the Iowa Deer Farmers Association, featured Dr. James Kroll, professor emeritus of forest wildlife management at Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas, and Dr. Clifford F. Shipley, of the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine.

Neither pulled their punches when asked what the future holds for southeastern Minnesota now that eight wild deer have tested positive for CWD.

"It's endemic," Shipley said. "It's in the wild population. The genie is out of the bottle. Maybe you can eradicate it here for five years. Or 10 years. Or 20. But it's coming back. I can unequivocally guarantee that."

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Kroll agreed. "Eradication has never worked," he said. "Ten years from now, the situation is not going to have changed much at all."

Lessons from Wisconsin

Kroll, who long has argued that CWD actually poses little threat to the nation's deer herd, is a veteran of the CWD wars. He was hired by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in 2011 to oversee and evaluate the effectiveness of that state's 10-year fight against CWD. Under his leadership, Wisconsin gave up fighting the main "fire" areas hit hardest by CWD and instead focused on detecting and attempting to extinguish new "spark-ups" of the disease in previously unaffected regions.

The Minnesota DNR is spearheading a more aggressive approach in the Preston/Lanesboro area. More than 1,000 deer have been shot since Dec. 31 in an attempt to determine the extent of the disease and to reduce the probability that it will spread  an approach Kroll says cost tens of millions of dollars in Wisconsin and ultimately proved ineffective.

Several members of the audience asked Kroll and Shipley whether Minnesota is dealing with a "fire" or a "spark."

"Killing 1,000 deer is not fighting a spark," Kroll responded. "One thousand deer is not a spark."

But in an interview after the meeting, DNR Wildlife Research Manager Lou Cornicelli said Kroll misrepresented what's happening in the CWD zone.

"You kill the 1,000 deer to help determine whether you're dealing with a spark or a fire," Cornicelli said. "You detect, you investigate and then you concentrate your efforts. Those 1,000 deer were spread out over 500 square miles, so that's about two deer per square mile. That let us determine that we probably have an infection in a localized area, so now we can concentrate our efforts on that area. And we're going to do that."

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Kroll also suggested when a CWD outbreak is discovered, state officials shouldn't necessarily be the ones who determine the course of action.

"What I would do in the places where these deer have been found, I'd get the local people involved," he said. "I'd get out there with them, say 'Hey, here are some ideas. What do you think we can do?'"

Cornicelli agreed, but only up to a certain point.

"I think it's extraordinarily important to get the local community engaged, and I think we're doing a good job doing that," he said. "But do you relinquish management control to private entities? No. That's what they do in Texas, where individuals control tens of thousands of acres of land behind high fences. Here, we bring people along and engage with them, but ultimately it's the agency that has to make the decisions. Deer are a public resource in Minnesota, so we can't relinquish that decision-making authority."

Despite these disagreements, Kroll didn't entirely discount the DNR's efforts to combat CWD. "It's worth trying," he said. "Every case is different. I don't think we should do nothing."

Cornicelli and Kroll agreed that when an outbreak of CWD can be narrowed down to specific family groups of deer in a small area, it's wise to attempt to eradicate those groups.

Jim Byrne, an elk farmer from Pine Island and president of the Minnesota Elk Breeders Association, said he was encouraged by the meeting.

"I think Dr. Kroll and Dr. Shipley did a very good job of covering everything without playing the blame game," he said. "They turned it around and said CWD is the responsibility of everyone who is interested in deer to join the effort to get this under control."
Iowa Republicans seeking to overhaul the state's collective bargaining law are following in the footsteps of states such as Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan by carving out major exemptions for unions predominantly representing police officers, firefighters and other public safety workers.

However, the 68-page proposal isnt uniformly positive for the men and women who fight fires and crime. Nor does it cover all who engage in dangerous work.

In fact, some critics of the proposal say it removes major workplace protections that prevent supervisors from dismissing firefighters and police officers on a whim.

It moves us to an at-will employee. We have no protections whatsoever, said Doug Neys, president of Iowa Professional Firefighters, which represents nearly 1,600 firefighters across the state.

The new proposal changes the standard for disciplinary action for employees who are covered by civil service rules. It would allow employers to take action against workers for any act or failure to act that they think makes an employee "unsuitable or unfit" for the job.

Neys said that's not fair to workers, nor is it good for public safety. He said debriefings after fire calls are an opportunity to speak frankly about performance and procedural issues, even to superiors. However, the new threshold would make it difficult to do that, he said, and would have a huge negative effect on public safety.

The change still would allow for disciplinary action to be appealed to a civil service commission, but it eliminates the right to appeal to the court, which Neys said is pivotal.

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, who has long called for a revamp of the states collective bargaining law, has praised the House and Senate proposals.

His spokesman, Ben Hammes, said the bill goes to great lengths exempting public safety employees who risk their lives on a daily basis. But he added that, with respect to the change in civil service rules, unionized employees still would have the same protections that are available to public workers who arent in unions. He also says there are federal and state-level protections in place to prevent discrimination and retaliation.

The most notable exemption in the bill for unions that predominantly represent public safety workers is that they still will be able to bargain on such things as health insurance, vacation and other matters of interest as they do today. But non-public safety workers would be able to bargain on base wages, but not on health insurance and other items that now are on the table.

Proponents say the limits will benefit the taxpayer. And they say the reason for the exemption for public safety unions is that police, firefighters and state troopers risk their lives in the work they do.

"The people that put on the uniform to go out there and protect the lives and safety of each of us every day, I think theres a reason to treat them different," the governor said at a news conference Tuesday. He noted there is a different pension system for police and firefighters.

Neys, of the firefighters association, said he appreciates that part of the proposal, although his group still opposes the plan overall. Meanwhile, other union leaders say that some public workers who deal with a dangerous element are left out.

An example is corrections officers, said Danny Homan, president of AFSCME, Local 61. He added that some unions, while not representing predominantly public safety officials, still cover some of them. The Republican proposal provides exemptions on mandatory bargaining items for unions who have a majority of members from the public safety field.

I think theyre using this to divide the labor movement, Homan said.

Critics of such exemptions also point to federal Department of Labor data that say non-public safety workers suffer more fatalities on the job. In 2015, the rate of fatalities for police officers and sheriffs patrol officers was 4.3 and 11.7 per 100,000 full-time workers, according to Department of Labor data. For grounds maintenance workers, however, it was 15 per 100,000, and for transit and ground transportation workers, the rate was at 9 per 100,000.

Branstad: Iowa collective bargaining law 'antiquated' DES MOINES  Labor issues continued to churn at the Statehouse Monday with Senate Republican

Still, 2016 did see a sharp increase in police officers killed on the job. The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund said 135 officers suffered job-related deaths through Dec. 28, about a 10 percent increase, including a 56 percent jump in those who were killed by gunfire.

Several states have enacted, or tried to enact, major changes to collective bargaining laws in recent years. Wisconsin is perhaps the most well known. Act 10, which was passed in 2011, drew tens of thousands of people to Madison, the state capital, to protest.

Wisconsin largely exempted police and firefighters from the provisions of Act 10. So have other states that had narrowed collective bargaining laws.

"If you're going to attack any group, the ones you're least likely to attack are first responders," says Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute, which has studied changes in collective bargaining laws across the country.

Not all states have done that, however. In Ohio, voters in 2011 rejected an attempt to curtail collective bargaining rights. There, police and firefighters who would have seen their rights limited played a key role in a referendum defeating the proposal.

Backers of Iowa's law say that, for taxpayers, there needs to be some balance in the relationship between workers and management.

"The provisions in the bill are meant to restore more control and discretion to local office holders and decision makers. We want the people who are handling tax dollars to be the ones who are most answerable to the people who elected them," said Sen. Jason Schultz, R-Schleswig, chairman of Senate Labor and Business Relations Committee.
Two and a half years after its first meeting, the Destination Medical Center Corp. board is tweaking its process.

With the number of regular meetings was reduced to four this year, the board supported proposals Wednesday to add informal meetings and form an executive committee to provide direction between the quarterly meetings.

The executive committee is authorized under the original DMC legislation, and Wednesday's resolution puts Lt. Gov. Tina Smith, Board Vice Chairman R.T. Rybak and Treasurer Jim Bier on the committee, which can act on behalf of the full board between regular meetings to avoid delays.

"I think it will help ensure our board operates effectively and efficiently," said Smith, who is the board's chairwoman. She noted any executive committee meeting will be posted as public.

Board members also voiced support for planning informal meetings to take deeper looks into key issues. While the creation of the executive committee was on the agenda for Wednesday's meeting, the proposal to add informal meetings was prompted by the amount of data given to the board days before its meeting.

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Board member Susan Park Rani noted she felt more time was needed to study the approximately 120 pages related to transportation studies, which was already condensed from more than 1,000 pages of gathered information.

The need for more detailed discussion was highlighted as board members discussed the limited capacity on some streets into downtown Rochester.

Jim Bier, the Olmsted County Board representative on the DMCC board, said he understands the push for encouraging alternate modes of transportation to move more people into the city, but he objects to reducing lanes of traffic.

"I don't think it's realistic to assume the number of cars coming into Rochester is going to go down," he said.

He added: "I don't think we should eliminate existing lanes. We should add things but not at the expense of existing lanes."

Rani, however, sought an alternate perspective, noting that the future workforce will likely want more flexible options.

"You are going to have to have some bikes, and you may have to do it at the expense of some cars," the president of Rani Engineering said.

Rochester Public Works Director Richard Freese noted it doesn't have to be an either-or decision. He agreed with Bier that the number of cars may not drop, but he said the goal is to increase the percentage of people who bike or bus into the center of the city.

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In the end, Bier noted the topic is ideal for the proposed informal meetings.

"I think this is a discussion we need to have in smaller groups," he said,

Rybak also suggested using the time to help narrow options based on data. Among such options are where potential transit routes would exist to move people throughout downtown.

Freese suggested taking First and Second avenues out of discussion for north-south routes, but Rybak said he believes First Avenue could be ideal to move people through downtown with some sort of circulating transportation.

Freese raised concerns about cutting through the Heart of the City subdistrict, but Rybak said he hasn't seen evidence that a problem would exist.

"Let's use the data to take options off the table," he said.

Smith indicated such discussions should proceed in a timely manner.

"I think the onus is on us to get together to discuss all this data we have," she said, again noting any meeting would be posted as public.

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In other business, the DMCC board:

 Approved the Urban on First project as a public infrastructure project, making it eligible for tax-increment financing. The $38 million, six-story mixed commercial and residential development by Titan Real Estate and Investments and Opus Group will include 156 apartments on First Avenue, south of the U.S. Bank branch on Fourth Street Southwest.

 Held a public hearing on expanding the DMC district for the Alatus project on Second Street Southwest. The expansion was approved, making way to include the 23-story mixed-use project in DMC efforts.

 Approved the report to the Minnesota Legislature, which will be presented Feb. 15.

 Received updates on the Mortenson Project in the Discovery Square subdistrict and design efforts related to the Heart of the City subdistrict
David Smith stepped into political territory Tuesday morning, openly admitting he's making life difficult for Mayo Clinic.

Dr. Smith, who co-chaired Tuesday's 17th Biennial Celebration of Research, informed 230 local students that an inaugural "March for Science" has been planned for April 22, which is also Earth Day. He and his family plan to march in Washington, D.C., at the National Mall, but there's also a march being planned in Rochester; local details are still being finalized, including the venue.

The march bills itself as a nonpartisan event, but the national website takes specific aim at the Trump administration  without mentioning him by name. Its stated intent is to "hold our leaders  both in science and in politics  accountable to the highest standards of honesty, fairness, and integrity." The march's national committee includes powerful academics from throughout the country, including leaders from Columbia University, University of Michigan and the University of New Mexico, among others.

Smith told the gathered group of teens in Rochester that there's now a "war against the environment," echoing national concerns that "recent policy changes have caused heightened worry among scientists," according to March for Life's official website.

Like the national campaign, Smith also avoided identifying Trump by name. Others haven't been so shy, noting the new president's skepticism of global warming and other examples to make their point. Michael Eisen, a Democrat and evolutionary biologist in California, is planning a U.S. Senate campaign around the slogan: "Liberty, Equality, Reality."

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As a leader in Mayo's Experimental Pathology Laboratory and chairman of the Technology Assessment Committee, which works for the Center for Individualized Medicine, Smith's words also carry significant weight within the suddenly mobilized science community.

While Smith's comments on the march were a tangent to Tuesday's activities, he expanded on those thoughts afterward.

"We have got to get involved or we are in trouble," Smith said. "If you don't learn from history, you're doomed to repeat it. If you don't get involved now, you only have yourself to blame."

Smith said he's still working to recruit additional public support from friends and colleagues in the Rochester area, but Mayo Clinic was quick to distance itself from the politically-charged march.

Hours after Smith's comments to local students, Mayo spokesman Robert Nellis released the following statement about the March for Science:

"Mayo Clinic has no position on the planned March for Science in Washington, D.C., and has no connection to the organizers. Mayo Clinic does support research-driven, evidence-based medicine to meet the unmet needs of patients everywhere."

It's the latest example of Mayo treading carefully as political controversies proliferate around President Donald Trump. Mayo CEO/President John Noseworthy has met with Trump twice in the last six weeks  including Tuesday  but released few details while not being made available for interviews.

Mayo also released a mild-mannered statement about Trump's travel ban, which some have criticized for not being more direct.

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Additionally, 350 organizations sent Trump a letter this week expressing serious concerns about his views on autism being linked to vaccines. Two local organizations signed on to the petition at the urging of Mayo Clinic's Robert Jacobson, but Mayo is not officially linked with that letter. The Rochester Epidemiology Project, where Mayo plays a key role, debunking the link between autism and vaccines in a 2005 study.
ST. PAUL  Rochester Rep. Tina Liebling wants voters to decide whether to legalize marijuana for recreational use in Minnesota.

The DFL lawmaker said she plans to introduce a bill for a proposed constitutional amendment allowing people to grow and buy marijuana for personal use. Liebling said she favors this approach, giving citizens the chance to make the decision.

"It's the kind of thing that people really want to weigh in on, and they should be able to do that. I'm not really a fan of putting every old thing in the constitution, but I think this is a big enough change. It's a matter of people having the right to do something they don't have the right to do now," she said.

Liebling is expected to join other Democrats during a Capitol press conference this morning to discuss bills being introduced to legalize recreational marijuana. Rep. Jon Applebaum, DFL-Minnetonka, announced he also plans to introduce a marijuana legalization bill.

These measures likely face an uphill climb in the Republican-led Legislature. Rep. Greg Davids, R-Preston, said there is very little support among his caucus to legalize marijuana for recreational use. He said he is strongly opposed to the idea.

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"No way. It's a federally recognized illegal drug, and I think this whole marijuana thing  we're going down the wrong track," Davids said.

In 2014, Minnesota approved one of the strictest medical marijuana programs in the nation. That law prohibits qualified patients from smoking the plant, instead only allowing it to be used in pill, liquid or oil form.

DFL Gov. Mark Dayton has also said he opposes allowing marijuana for recreational use. However, a proposed constitutional amendment does not need the governor's OK to be placed on the ballot.

Liebling said her proposal goes beyond simply putting the question before the voters. She said she is also putting together a policy proposal so voters know exactly what legalization would look like in the state. For instance, she said she would require sellers of marijuana to be licensed so buyers know what they are getting and that it is not contaminated. She would also set a minimum age of 18 to smoke marijuana. She said some might see that as being too young, but she argues that young people are the ones buying marijuana on the black market.

In addition, Liebling is proposing that sales of marijuana be taxed. Money raised from the tax would go towards chemical dependency and mental health education and treatment. She said she realizes that using marijuana is not without risk of harm but said it is less of a danger than alcohol.

"Alcohol is a much more harmful drug than cannabis, and we allow people to use it. We don't allow children to use it, but we allow adults to use it, and it has some very bad effects on society. But we've learned through our history that prohibiting it is worse," she said.

And while Liebling acknowledges her proposal likely faces a tough fight at the Capitol, she said it is a proposal that Republicans should be able to get behind.

"(Republicans) say they are for individual freedom and individual responsibility and all of that" she said. "And I think part of this is about individual freedom. If adults want to use a substance that is intoxicating and they make a choice to use it, why should government say no?"
ST. PAUL  A local lawmaker is seeking $6.5 million to help build a medical facility in Austin aimed at providing care for low-income residents.

Rep. Jeanne Poppe, DFL-Austin, recently introduced a bill to help fund the project. The money would allow Mankato-based Open Door Health Center to open a satellite office in Austin. The center's CEO Douglas Jaeger Jr. said helping fuel the push is a lack of dental services for low-income individuals in the area.

"It's an area that has been high on our radar for several years now because of the huge need in and around Mower County, so we want to try and help take care of those services," Jaeger said.

Under the proposal, the nonprofit center is hoping to get $6.5 million from the state that it would match to build the clinic. The facility would have 18 dental chairs and also provide medical and behavioral health services to clients. Jaeger estimates more than 10,000 patients could be treated at the clinic each year, and it would have 50 to 100 employees. A site for the project has not yet been selected.

The center already has a mobile clinic that visits Austin twice per month to provide medical care.

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"All of our appointment slots have been full each of those times. We're averaging upwards of 10 visits a day," Jaeger said.

So why such a big demand for care, especially dental treatment? Jaeger said it has to do with the low reimbursement rates for Medicaid. Private practice dentists in the region simply can't afford to take on more low-income patients.

"I talked with some of the local dentists last year who said there is so much of a need there (in Austin) that they would love for us to be able to take care of the needs in that community," Jaeger said.

The Austin clinic would be a "federally qualified health care center," making it eligible for additional state and federal dollars to help with the cost of serving low-income patients.

In order for the proposal to move ahead, the center needs to partner with the city of Austin to get the state dollars. Austin City Administrator Craig Clark said the center approached officials a couple of weeks ago about the idea. The city would serve as the fiscal agent for the project.

"They've really taken the initiative on their end of things. We're just trying to help facilitate it," Clark said.

Center leaders are expected to attend an upcoming Austin City Council work session to talk more with city officials about it.

The proposal also will have to compete with billions of dollars in requests for other construction projects across the state. Gov. Mark Dayton has said he would like to see lawmakers pass a $1.5 billion bonding bill this year. The Senate is moving ahead with a $1 billion bonding proposal left over from last year. The House has yet to put a plan forward.

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Poppe said she will be pushing hard to get a bonding bill this year and arguing this is a worthy project to fund. She also expects DFL Sen. Dan Sparks to sponsor a bill for the project.

She added, "Hopefully, we can move it along and get some dollars."
Gen. John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, testified today that Russia is helping the Taliban. He told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Russia has been publicly legitimizing the Taliban by claiming that it fights Islamic terrorists while the Afghan government does not.

At the hearing, Nicholson declined to say whether Russia is providing material support  e.g., arms, training, etc.  for the Taliban (who, themselves, are Islamic terrorists). Later, he explained that addressing this question would require reference to classified intelligence.

If Russia is confining itself to talking up the Taliban, thats bad enough. Such talk undermines the U.S. and NATO as it attempts to stave off these terrorists.

If Russia is aiding the Taliban in more concrete ways, the U.S. needs to retaliate. We have more than 8,000 troops in Afghanistan. They conduct counterterrorism operations against Taliban insurgents and train the Afghan army.

Americans are still dying at the hands of the Taliban. Indeed, within the past week, a U.S. special forces soldier was severely wounded in fighting Thursday in southern Afghanistan.

Liberal talking points notwithstanding, President Trump has not shown himself to be pro-Russia. He says hes waiting to see how he gets along with Vladimir Putin and I see no evidence of a tilt towards Russia.

Its understandable that Trump would take a wait-and-see approach. But our stance towards Russia should be based less on the personal relationship and more on how Putin behaves. Presumably the two things will be related, but they are not the same.

If reliable information shows that Russia is backing the Taliban militarily, it will be time for Trump to get off the fence and support our troops by doing whatever it takes to make the Russians reverse this policy.
Yesterday, in writing about the Senates rebuke and silencing of Elizabeth Warren for disparaging Jeff Sessions, I discussed the rule invoked by Mitch McConnell to accomplish this. Rule 19 provides that Senators are not allowed to directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.

I suggested that Rule 19 is an anachronism. It seemed to me that, while perhaps useful at one time in curbing dueling or caning or something, Rule 19 now just curbs robust speech for no very good reason. I also suggested that McConnells action made Warren a victim.

It turns out that Rule 19 was adopted in the post-dueling, post-caning era in response to a fight on the Senate floor in 1902. According to the Washington Post:

It was February 1902 and a feud was escalating between the two Democratic senators from South Carolina. Benjamin Tillman, the senior senator and something of a political boss in the state, had grown angry that John McLaurin, his protege, was allowing Senate Republicans to court him on some issues, including the annexation of the Philippines. Furious that McLaurin was colluding with the other side of the aisle, Tillman used a Feb. 22, 1902, speech on the Senate floor to harangue the younger senator. Gesturing toward McLaurins empty chair, Tillman accused his counterpart of treachery and corruption, saying he had succumbed to improper influences, according to a Senate history of the dispute. When McLaurin caught wind of Tillmans remarks, he rushed into the chamber and shouted that Tillman was telling a willful, malicious and deliberate lie. A fistfight erupted. As Senate historians recounted, The 54-year-old Tillman jumped from his place and physically attacked McLaurin, who was 41, with a series of stinging blows. Efforts to separate the two combatants resulted in misdirected punches landing on other members. Rule 19 (sections 2 and 3, to be precise) was adopted later that year.

I doubt that these days Rule 19 is needed to prevent fist fights. In any event, the statements Warren made about Sessions (actually quotations from what others said years ago) were considerably less inflammatory than the insults hurled by Pitchfork Ben Tillman and John McLaurin. Her remarks did not remotely threaten to produce fisticuffs in the 21st century Senate.

What about the politics of McConnells invocation of Rule 19? There can be little doubt that he turned Warren into a victim in the eyes of many. But did doing so help or hurt Republicans?

I heard Hugh Hewitt say that McConnells move will help the GOP by turning the left-wing Massachusetts Senator into the face of the Democratic party. I dont know that this episode will be sufficient to accomplish that (though Warren may attain that status). What it will accomplish, I think, is to make her into a more sympathetic figure in the eyes of many  and not just leftists. Being slammed and silenced for quoting Martin Luther Kings widow can have that effect.

In addition, it may well make McConnell, who is the face of the GOP in the Senate, a less sympathetic figure in the eyes of many  and not just leftists. Slamming and silencing a Senator for quoting Martin Luther Kings widow can have that effect. Doing it to a female Senator may reinforce the Democrats war on women narrative.

Finally, a footnote on South Carolina. Sens. Tillman and McLaurin were from there. So was Rep. Preston Brooks, the man who caned Sen. Charles Sumner, nearly killing the Massachusetts man.

So was Sen. Strom Thurmond, who in 1964 wrestled Sen. Ralph Yarbourough to the floor outside a committees room in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. This bout, though related to the fight to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which Thurmond vehemently opposed, apparently was semi-friendly. Nonetheless, it was unbecoming two 61 year-old Senators.

I dont quite see Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott living up to the Brooks-Tillman-McLaurin-Thurmond battling tradition. So I believe Rule 19 can safely be revoked.
Africas leading Internet platform, Silvertree Internet Holdings, has acquired Nigerian price comparison site, TopCheck, for an undisclosed amount.

A statement jointly signed on Wednesday by TopChecks founder, Thomas Pilar, and his Silvertree counterpart, Manuel Koser, stated that the website recorded fast growth in 2016, processing up to 3 billion Naira (10 million USD) in Gross Application Value per month.

TopCheck, the statement said, is Nigerias leading price comparison site for financial services offering free online comparison for insurance products, loans, and broadband internet plans. It was founded in 2014, and headquartered in Lagos and Berlin.

According to the statement, the start-up that dubs itself the Money supermarket of Africa, had raised 1 million Euros in venture capital in 2015.

Silvertree Internet Holding is a Cape Town based Internet holding company which owns and operates Internet assets across Africa. TopCheck will join Silvertrees subsidiary Compare Africa Group (CAG). CAG is active in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria, and offers online price comparison of goods and services through various websites, the statement said.

The group owns financial services websites Compareguru, as well as

product comparison site PriceCheck, which was recently acquired from Naspers.

According to the statement, Silvertree has been very active in acquiring Nigerian tech companies in the past, having taken over Nigerian insured (dot)ng from Spark in 2015 and deals site Dealdey from Kinnevik in 2016.

The TopCheck team is excited to join forces with Compare Africa Group. Together, we are forming Africas undisputed leader in price comparison, said TopCheck founder, Thomas Pilar.

While our two companies had been competitors before, our strategies are completely in line: to be the number one online destination to acquire financial services in Africa. With TopChecks market position in Nigeria, and Silvertrees wide reach throughout Africa, we look forward to further accelerating the companys growth across the continent.

On his part, Manuel Koser, co-founder and MD of Silvertree, said, We want to replicate the success of Check24 in the German financial services and insurance comparison space. TopCheck joining our

portfolio is another step in building Africas largest comparison conglomerate.

The statement added that Christian Wiesner and Thomas Pilar will step aside as managing directors, but will continue to work with CAG as advisors. Ryan Marx, CAGs MD, will be heading TopCheck with immediate effect.

The development is the latest in the acquisition of Nigerian Tech start-ups by foreign business owners and investors.

It could be recalled that in 2015, Apple Inc. bought Nigerias Chinedu Echeruos HopStop.com.

Founded in 2005, HopStop.com made mobile applications for both iOS and Android that covered over 300 cities and that helped people get directions or find nearby subway stations and bus stops.

Similarly, in June 2016, Andela, a Nigerian start-up company based in Lagos and New York, received a $24 million Series B funding round from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative founded by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

Andela, a start-up coding school, brought a brand new approach to education on the African continent, with campuses in Nigeria and Kenya.

Reacting to the development, Adekeye Adeyinka, a Tech entrepreneur, said, the acquisition is a welcome development. It goes a long way to confirm that Nigerian start-ups are good enough and are world class standard to attract such investment.

Mr. Adeyinka, who also runs a Tech hub, said the developments should make the Federal government pay attention to Tech start-ups as they stand the chance of attracting Foreign Direct Investments, FDI, that can help grow the nations economy.

This will also go a long way to give start-up founders the confidence that if they do it right, there is a brighter future for them. It is also a challenge to our local investors to support the start-ups in seed funds to grow them for future investment, he added.

It also will reduce the unemployment rate as more graduates come together to form start-ups rather than look for jobs. This will grow the start-up ecosystem and better our economy.

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DES MOINES  Iowa House Democrats Thursday were concerned swapping state road funds for federal dollars awarded to local governments would not meet wage requirements and "buy American" provisions.

Rep. Gary Worthan, R-Storm Lake, told lawmakers it would make dollars go further, as the DOT would assume responsibilities that come with federal dollars.

Local governments that might do one or two projects a year with federal funds dont have the same level of expertise in complying with federal regulations as the DOT, he said, who has people who regularly deal with those issues.

Democrats were skeptical of the savings, which the Legislative Services Agency said cannot be determined at this time.

Im concerned with the use of Chinese steel, Rep. Dave Jacoby, D-Coralville, said as Chinese students from Cornell College filed into the House gallery. Theres no buy American, so there is a good chance well being having a lot of bridges in Iowa with Chinese steel.

If this is Iowa taxpayers money, we darn well better be buying American products, he said.

Retired union steel worker Rep. Jerry Kearns, D-Keokuk, voted against the bill for the same reason, explaining that but said he was kind of like Donald Trump on the issue.

We should buy American-made when were doing it with American taxpayers money, Kearns said.

Worthan wished Democrats had looked over their shoulders when they were talking in derogatory terms about Chinese steel as Chinese students looked on.

That brought a protest from House Minority Leader Mark Smith, D-Marshalltown, who earlier asked whether the money swap would allow the funds to be used for heated bike trails.

If we want to go to the absurd, yes it could, sir, Worthan answered.

In the end, the House approved HF 203 54-41.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, said on Thursday that one of its refining subsidiaries, the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company Limited, KPRC, has been losing an average of N2.2 billion annually to illegal tapping of its raw water pipeline.

The pipeline, which conveys water from Kaduna River to generate power used in running the refinery, serves as coolant for its equipment. The water is equally deployed to combating fire outbreaks in the facility.

But, following a series of illegal tapping, the refinery management said it was now spending more on diesel and other material inputs in the maintenance of its generators and other equipment.

KRPC Managing Director, Idi Mukhtar, said in Kaduna that the consumption of raw water from the tapped pipes by settlers who encroach on the refinery premises was imposing additional burden on the refinerys industrial requirements.

Mr. Mukhtar said other forms of losses due to the illegal tapping on the pipeline was slowing down the build-up rate of water in the reserve tanks, which endangers the refinery.

To consider safe for operations, the plant requires a certain minimum level of water, the Managing Director explained.

Blaming the illegal acts mostly on Janruwa, Kamazo, Namaigero and Mahuta communities in Kaduna metropolis, located along the pipelines right of way, Mr. Mukhtar called on the relevant state government agencies to intervene and urgently resolve it.

We require a particular amount of water sufficient enough to generate steam and other industrial consumption needs, Mr. Mukhtar said. But, because of the illegal tapping of our water pipeline from the adjoining communities, we need to put more effort to meet our industrial requirements as well as satisfy the appetite of illegal tappers.

Noting the promise by the Kaduna State government to find lasting solutions to the challenge, Mr. Mukhtar said the Kaduna State Urban Planning and Development Authority and Kaduna State Water Board had also been contacted to address the issue of land encroachment on KRPC Right of Way.

Urging illegal tappers from the water pipeline to desist, the MD warned that untreated raw water was not fit for human consumption.

KRPCs Executive Director Operations, Shehu Malami, also expressed the fear that if the problem was not resolved urgently, it could ultimately affect the smooth operation of critical units of the plant.

Mr. Malami however assured that the encroachment would not affect the NNPCs plan to co-locate refineries.

The Executive Director Services, Abdullahi Idris, said the refinery was currently operating at 65 per cent capacity, producing 1.7 million litres of petrol, 1.7 million litres of diesel and 700, 000 litres of kerosene, daily.

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Twitter users have had a field day trolling Chude Jideonwo, the publisher of YNaija magazine, who said God revealed to him that He would change Nigeria, suggesting President Muhammadu Buhari could be the change.

A recirculated 2015 article by Mr. Jideonwo which coincided with nationwide protest against the Buhari government sent hundreds of mostly Peoples Democratic Party supporters into a fury, with most directing vitriolic jeers at him.

Mr. Jideonwo, 31, disclosed details of his divine interaction in an article published May 30, 2015 when Mr. Buharis inauguration was being celebrated across the country.

He started the article with a recollection of how his public communication firm, StateCraft Inc., supervised Mr. Buhari and the All Progressives Congress media strategy during the campaign.

He described the electioneering as the most emotional in his life during which he and his associates had sleepless night devising strategies for the APC.

But the part that attracted his detractors was Mr. Jideonwos anecdote of how his support for Mr. Buhari and the APC was largely a matter of personal and spiritual move rather than strictly business.

One day, as we prayed, in an office on the Lagos Island, I was so overwhelmed with despair I fell down on the floor and began to speak in frenzied tongues, tears streaming from my face, banging furiously on the cabinet in front me.

My heart was desperate; just desperate for something to give way.

I didnt know my friend, Kola, had the gift to interprete (sic) tongues. But then he began to interpret what I was saying. And it frightened me, because he was absolutely right.

He captured the fears in my heart, and the requests I was making. He said, paraphrased, God says He will change Nigeria. It looks like it wont happen, but He will do a new thing and it will spring forth. We wont understand how He will do it, but He will, Mr. Jideonwo wrote at the time.

But with minimal progress recorded for the nearly two years since Mr. Buhari assumed office, critics now wonder if Mr. Jideonwo was honest with the article or if he was suffering from the hangover of the campaign platitudes.

Other than the lingering economic crisis, the anxiety that has gripped nation after the president extended his medical vacation until further notice also prompted Mr. Jideonwos critics to dig out the article and use its content to launch disparaging remarks against him.

The attacks came almost exclusively from PDP members and supporters.

A Twitter user, @nigeriasbest, was amongst the initial PDP handles that recirculated link to the article on the microblogging platform days ago.

Of all the reasons Ive heard for supporting Buhari, I never knew there was one that involved speaking in tongues and interpretation of tongues, the user said in a February 6 tweet.

Another critic, Onye Nkuzi, said Mr. Jideonwos piece highlighted how inexperienced he was.

The best spin on this article is that it exposes the dangerous naivete of young Nigerian social media influencers, Onye Nkuzi, who tweets under the handle @cchukudebelu, said.

He also accused Mr. Chude of pretending to be an advocate of youth development in Africa when, in actual fact, he had been sucking up to politicians for financial gains.

You cant collect large sums of money from corrupt politicians for image laundering; then promote yourself as the turning point generation,' Onye Nkuzi said in an apparent reference to Mr. Jideonwos 2014 book titled: Are We The Turning Point Generation?: How Africas Youth Can Drive Its Urgently Needed Revolution.

As the attacks raged, Mr. Jideonwo shared on Twitter a new article he authored in which he appeared to decry the emergence of older generation in recent elections from Africa to America.

Mr. Jideonwo told PREMIUM TIMES the piece actually defended the emergence of older people in recent elections and noted that it is inevitable for now, until the youth get resources.

But critics saw the piece as not only hypocritical but an attempt by Mr. Jideonwo to strategically reposition himself as the face of the younger generation for financial gains ahead of 2019 elections.

This is because Mr. Jideonwo supported a 72-year-old Mr. Buhari two years ago, he also worked for the septuagenarian Ghanaian president, Nana Akufo-Addo, as recent as December 2016.

Mr. Jideonwo dismissed the allegations as senseless, stating that he only expressed disappointment in the Buhari administration but not necessarily regrets for backing the APC.

The attack just doesnt make sense, Mr. Jideonwo told PREMIUM TIMES by telephone Wednesday night. I am disappointed in the way things have turned out since this government came to power, but I have no regrets for subscribing to the change message in 2015.

Mr. Jideonwo said although he usually separates professional activities of his firm from his own choices, in 2015, the interests collided.

What we usually do is to take clients that meet our companys values and keep our personal interests out, Mr. Jideonwo said while declining to comment on the speaking in tongues controversy. But with the Buhari and change message, the interests collided.

While defending himself against attacks on social media, Mr. Jideonwo had an unusual ally in Ayokunle Odekunle, a social media enthusiast.

Mr. Odekunle, known for his strong anti-Buhari views on Twitter, said Mr. Jideonwo should not be harangued for his legitimate business decisions.

I am going to get a mouthwatering brief from Buharis family and Ill turn it down because I dont like Buhari abi, Mr. Odekunle said. It is business, not personal.

Some briefs are too good to turn down. If not for the money but for boosting your companys profile. These briefs come once in years, Mr. Odekunle added.

Editors Note: This report was updated to reflect Mr. Jideonwos comment about an article he shared.

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Russian airstrike mistakenly killed three Turkish soldiers and injured 11 in Syrias al-Bab town, the Turkish Armed Forces said in a statement on Thursday.

A Russian warplane, conducting airstrikes against Islamic State (IS) targets in Syria, mistakenly hit a building where Turkish soldiers were placed.

Russian officials explained that the incident was an accident and offered condolences.

Russian President Vladimir Putin talked to his Turkish counterpart and expressed sorrow, the army said.

Investigation regarding the incident is being carried out by both parties.

(Xinhua/NAN)

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Hours after the presidency confirmed that Walter Onnoghens name had been sent to the Senate for confirmation as Nigerias Chief Justice, the National Judicial Council, NJC, asked that he remains in acting capacity until his confirmation.

Mr. Onnoghen was due to vacate his role as acting chief justice on February 10 unless he was confirmed as substantive chief justice or his acting role was renewed based on a recommendation of the NJC.

The NJC after its meeting on Wednesday wrote to Acting President Yemi Osinbajo seeking continuation of Mr. Onnoghens role as acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, multiple officials sources told PREMIUM TIMES.

The NJC recommendation will enable Mr. Onnoghen continue in acting position pending his confirmation as substantive Chief Justice by the Senate.

The NJC wrote to the acting president today in order to beat the deadline of the expiration of the previous letter and for him to continue acting as the CJN while awaiting confirmation by the Senate, a top judiciary official told PREMIUM TIMES Wednesday night.

Earlier in the day, Mr. Osinbajo dispatched a notice of Mr. Onnoghens nomination to the Senate.

Hon. Justice W.S. Onnoghens name has been sent to the Senate for confirmation as the next CJN, the presidency said in a tweet shortly before noon Wednesday.

The announcement came four months after Mr. Onnoghen was first recommended to Mr. Buhari as the next head of the countrys judiciary.

The president had until February 10 to recommend Mr. Onnoghen as substantive chief justice or the latter loses the position based on a constitutional provision.

The presidents delay in nominating Mr. Onnoghen as substantive chief judge despite the NJC recommendation fuelled allegations of ethnic bias and criticisms against Mr. Buhari.

NO PLAN TO CUT SHORT RECESS SENATORS

Although, like many Nigerians, the Senate keenly anticipated Mr. Onnoghens nomination for weeks, it will not reconvene to quickly deliberate on his fate, sources said.

The Senate embarked on a three-week recess on January 26 to give members extra time to work on the 2017 budget which is still under consideration in both chambers of the parliament.

But multiple senators in separate interviews with PREMIUM TIMES acknowledged that the Senate received the presidents letter on Mr. Onnoghen, but his confirmation hearing could wait until lawmakers returned from recess on February 21.

Today is Wednesday and no message has gone out to senators that they must reconvene by tomorrow, the source said. Clearly, that tells you that we wont be doing anything about it this week.

The letter we received will not be read on the floor of the Senate until February 21.

Another senator said there was no need to expedite the process, especially as the NJC had written to the presidency seeking an extension of Mr. Onnoghens role as acting chief justice.

I learnt that the NJC already wrote to the president that the judge should continue acting until we confirm him, the source said. Frankly, I dont see the need for any rush.

The Senate had also refused to cut short its recess despite receiving a letter from President Buhari to extend his medical vacation in the UK.

Senate spokesperson Aliyu Sabi said the lawmakers would only discuss the presidents letter after their resumption on February 21.

Poised for confirmation

A member of Senate judiciary committee told PREMIUM TIMES Mr. Onnoghen will most likely be confirmed because we know him as an incorruptible and upright judge.

He is qualified to head the Supreme Court and we will give him all the support he needs to scale through, the source said.

Mr. Onnoghens nomination is likely to be forwarded to the Senate Judiciary Committee for initial actions, PREMIUM TIMES learnt.

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A former minister of finance, Nenadi Usman, is at the risk of losing her life to breast cancer if not granted urgent leave to travel abroad, Abiodun Owonikoko, her lawyer, told a federal court in Lagos on Wednesday.

Mrs. Usman is facing a 17-count charge bordering on conspiracy, stealing, and money laundering alongside Femi Fani-Kayode, a former aviation minister; Danjuma Mohammed; and Jointrust Dimensions Nigeria Limited amounting to over N38 billion.

The accused pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

Amidst a charged atmosphere on Wednesday, Mr. Owonikoko reminded the judge he had, at the last hearing date (December 2, 2016), filed an application seeking to retrieve his clients international passport to enable her keep her medical appointment abroad.

The defence lawyer urged the court that the application be heard first.

But Rotimi Oyedepo, counsel to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, noted that the defence team had already filed an application challenging the jurisdiction of the court.

I am thinking that on the face of the motion, it has lapses, Mr. Oyedepo said of the defence lawyers request.

The issue first should be that the court handles the application challenging the jurisdiction of the court which is more urgent, except if my learned colleague wants to strike out that application and then we can handle this issue.

I think its tidy, logical and legal to determine the propriety of our appearance before our Lordship before any other matter.

Mr. Owonikoko responded that the motion for medical leave was filed first before the application challenging the courts jurisdiction.

The defendant has already missed her previous appointment in hospital and this is very serious because she has breast cancer which is threatening her life and we only ask that there be an unconditional release of her passport.

There was no application opposing this motion, we have brought her medical reports and it was not opposed. Even the president of the country sought for ten days medical leave but we all know where we are now.

Mr. Oyedepo objected to the defence lawyers claims saying that it was not in his position to give evidence.

With all due respect to the counsel, the jurisdiction of the judge is being challenged and I think that its urgent.

But a visibly angry Mr. Owonikoko replied, Why do we talk like this? If this defendant is bed-ridden, will this case go on?

Justice Muslim Hassan asked Mr. Owonikoko, If my jurisdiction is being challenged, shall I go ahead and hear any other case without first determining my jurisdiction?

Responding, Mr. Owonikoko said, It is not going to be palatable for a lady with breast cancer to be flying down from Abuja to Lagos, lodge in a hotel for a case that happened in Abuja.

Mr. Oyedepo noted that the court sat during vacation and that there was no affidavit of urgency filed alongside the defences application.

During your Lordships leave, this was not sought and obtained during the vacation bearing in mind that the defendant was supposed to fly on 20th December, Mr. Oyedepo said.

So the question to be asked is when does the application suddenly become urgent? The time for the defendant to fly has elapsed which was supposed to take place 20th December, 2016, and 20 January, 2017.

When there are two issues before the court with one challenging the jurisdiction of the court and another on health issue, I only ask, which one should the court take first? Is it not lawful that the court handles the one challenging its jurisdiction.

In his ruling, the judge held that he could not attend to the application seeking for medical leave while there is another application challenging his jurisdiction by the same applicant.

He then adjourned the case till March 1, 2017.

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The Federal Government on Thursday took over Arik Airlines and announced the appointment of a new management in a bid to save the countrys aviation industry from total collapse.

Under the new arrangement, Roy Ilegbodu, a veteran aviation expert, has been named to take over the management of the airline under the receivership of Oluseye Opasanya, a senior advocate of Nigeria.

Besides, the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria, AMCON, said the government would give a lifeline to support the financially-distressed Arik Airlines continue as a going concern in the aviation industry.

AMCON spokesperson, Jude Nwauzor, said the governments decision to intervene clearly underscores a commitment to instill sanity in the country aviation sector to prevent a major catastrophe in the country.

The development will afford Arik Airlines, which is the largest local carrier in the country, to go back to regular and undisrupted operations, avoid job losses, protect investors and stakeholder funds as well as ensure safety and stability in the already challenged aviation sector, Mr. Nwauzor said.

Arik, which controls about 55 per cent of the countrys passenger traffic, has for some time faced threat of liquidation as a result of heavy financial debt burden, weak corporate governance, operational difficulties, bad management and inability to pay staff regularly.

Apart from backlog of accumulated staff salaries, AMCON said the airline has the most demotivated workforce in the sector, while being in constant default in its lease payments and insurance, resulting in aircraft getting confiscated by lessors.

Besides, the airline has been operating extremely erratic schedules not good for a strategic carrier, with its flights routinely either delayed or cancelled without explanations to customers.

Other corporate issues, which have eroded Arik brand reputation include negligence of operational regulations, luggage pilfering or outright disappearances, poor corporate governance, and disregard for safety procedures.

The Minister of State for Aviation, Hadi Sirika, said the governments decision to take over the management of Arik Airlines would stabilise its operations, enhance its long term economic value, revitalise its ailing operations, and sustain safety standards, in view of its pivotal role in the Nigerian aviation sector.

The Minister pledged the support of the Federal Ministry of Aviation for the new management to make Arik remain a strategic carrier, saying the intervention was in the best interest of the general public, workers, creditors and other aviation interest groups.

All necessary steps have been taken to ensure that there would be no undue disruption on Ariks regular business operations or activities of other stakeholders, on account of the recent changes in the leadership and management of Arik Airline, the minister said.

Meanwhile, the new management of the airline has assured both the staff and other interest groups that it would work to add value to its operations, improve customer experience, and sustain the safety, reliable and secure operational history it was known.

Prior to the takeover, operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Wednesday, stormed the head office of the airline, to meet with its Chairman, Joseph Arumemi-Ikhide.

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From 5,369 in 2013, the number of vessels that berthed at ports in Nigeria dropped to 4,025 in 2016, representing the lowest in four years.

The National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, made this known in its 2013-2016 Shipping and Port Related Activities Data released on Wednesday.

According to the bureau, the number of vessels dropped from 5,369 in 2013 to 5,349 in 2014. In 2015, the figure dropped to 5,090 and reduced drastically to 4,025 in 2016.

Similarly, the report said the Gross Registered Tonnage at the ports peaked at 146,820,488 in 2014 and dropped to 144,207,122 in 2015 before sliding to 122,186,758 in 2016.

Statistics for the Apapa Port show the extent of decline in vessels over the last three years.

From 1,510 in 2013, the number of vessels that berthed at the Apapa Port dropped to 1,097 in 2016.

According to the bureau, the number of vessels dropped from 1,510 in 2013 to 1, 503 in 2014. In 2015, the figure dropped to 1,399 and reduced to 1,097 in 2016.

Similarly, the report said the Gross Registered Tonnage at the Apapa port peaked at 37,041,879 in 2014 and dropped to 36,142,339 in 2015 before sliding to 31,032,377 in 2016.

The data revealed that ship traffic statistics at Nigerian ports also reflected that a total number of 19,833 vessels berthed at the various ports between 2013 and 2016. Similarly 543,842,425 tonnages were registered within the period under review.

Further analysis of the report showed that the year 2014 recorded the highest number of vessels berthed as well as tonnages registered while the least were recorded in 2016.

Tin Can Island Port handled the most ships accounting for 33 percent of total number of ships that berthed in all ports and 32 percent of total tonnage registered in all ports. It is closely followed by Apapa port which accounted for 28 per cent of ships that berthed and 25 per cent of total tonnage registered ; and Onne port which accounted for 15 per cent of ships that berthed and 30 per cent of total tonnage registered.

According to the report, cargo traffic statistics revealed a total of 312,185,808 cargo traffic was recorded at all Nigerian ports between 2013 and 2016. 196,851,236 of the cargo traffic were inwards while 115, 334572 were outward.

Apapa port handled the most number of inward cargoes accounting for 39 per cent of total inward cargoes and closely followed by Tin Can Island and Delta ports accounting for 31 per cent and 11 per cent respectively.

Calabar port accounted for 4.29 per cent to record the least.

Similarly, Onne port handled the most number of outward cargoes accounting for 80 per cent of total outward cargoes; closely followed by Delta and Apapa port accounting for 10.63 per cent and

3.52 per cent respectively.

The Calabar port accounted for 0.05 percent, to record the least.

Meanwhile, the number of passenger traffic within the period under review was put at 52,262.

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At least three persons were killed following an attack by gunmen on Rungumawa, a village in Tsafe Local Government Area of Zamfara State.

The Zamfara police spokesperson, Muhammad Shehu, told the News Agency of Nigeria, in Tsafe that the bandits rode into the village on motorcycles, around 7.30 p.m. on Wednesday.

The bandits invaded the village in large numbers, shot and killed three persons instantly, before escaping, he said.

Mr. Shehu said that the command immediately deployed armed personnel, who pursued the attackers, but did not make any arrest.

But we want to assure members of the public that the attackers will soon be apprehended, he said.

The police officer, however, appealed to communities in the state to resist the temptation to take the law into their hands.

No one should constitute a law unto himself; we should rather give vital information to the police for prompt action, he said.

The latest killing occurs a fortnight after one person was killed when armed bandits attacked Magazu village, also in Tsafe Local Government.

Attacks by armed persons were prevalent in Zamfara in 2016.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how about 40 people were killed on November 7 when gunmen on motorcycles stormed a mining site in Gidan Ardo Village of Maru Local Government Area, killing anyone on site.

Two weeks later on November 20, gunmen stormed Dole, Tudun Bugaje and Kwangwami communities in Zurmi Local Government Area killing about 25 people.

The killings have continued unabated even after the state government initiated peace overtures during which some bandits denounced their criminal activities.

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Nigerias main opposition party, PDP, said on Wednesday that it is in talks with seven other political parties for potential alliance ahead of the 2019 general elections.

Jerry Gana, a former Minister of Information and member of Ahmed Makarfi-led faction, said during the presentation of a report by the PDPs strategy committee in Abuja, that the party had been in talks with only the political parties that have strong democratic tenets.

Mr. Gana, who expressed optimism that the APC will be defeated in 2019, said preliminary outreach by the PDP yielded positive responses from seven people-focused and social democratic parties.

Mr. Gana said the alliance will not culminate in a mega party as being rumoured in some quarters but will instead be a separate and highly principled initiative of the PDP.

The PDP dominated Nigerian government at the centre since 1998 until it was voted out in 2015 general elections. A protracted leadership crisishad left the party rudderless for several months.

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WATERLOO  A second person has been arrested in connection with a mobile home fire allegedly sparked by a prone torch in January.

Waterloo police arrested Richard Neil Wilson, 28, Feb. 3 for child endangerment and reckless use of fire. He was late released from jail.

Authorities allege Wilson was high while using a propane torch to light cigarettes and hash oil and had used the torch before placing it on the floor by his front door Jan. 16.

Officials said heat from the torch started a fire at the home around 6 a.m.

Damage was limited, but a 2-year-old boy who lived at the mobile home was taken to a hospital for smoke inhalation.

Court records allege that Wilsons actions endangered the safety of the boy and 29-year-old Brenna Folkers, who was also in the home. Folkers was arrested Jan. 30 for misdemeanor child endangerment.

Jeff Reinitz writes for the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, another Lee Enterprises newspaper. Reach him at jeff.reinitz@wcfcourier.com.
The family of a Nigerian woman who died in Poland has raised suspicion over her death following the cremation of her remains at the instance of her Polish husband without the familys permission.

The family of Oluwashola Atunrayo Gaska (nee Adefolalu), in a statement on Wednesday, condemned the decision of Jakub Gaska to cremate his wife despite their protest over her sudden death in circumstances they deem as suspicious.

The news of the death of Oluwashola Atunrayo Gaska (nee Adefolalu), fondly known as Sholly, came as a rude shock to her family and friends back home in Nigeria, said the family lawyer, Bunmi Omeke, a cousin of the deceased.

More devastating was the effect of the report of her cremation by her husband, just a few days after her death, to the eldest sister of the deceased, Mrs. Bola Salt Essien-Nelson.

According to the statement, none of the family members (immediate or extended) was allowed to pay their last respects to Sholly, or sight her body.

The only reason given by her husband was that he was fulfilling his wifes wishes.'

According to the statement, the deceaseds elder sister, Mrs. Essien-Nelson, received a phone call about her sisters death at about 11.00a.m. on December 28.

The sister said the call came just days after a chatty and lively phone conversation on December 24 with the deceased in Poland.

During the call, there was no suggestion of any serious ailment, Mrs. Essien-Nelson said.

To date, the only proof of Shollys death is a scanned copy of the death certificate with the alleged cause of death being secondary anaemia and tumour on the uterus.'

According the statement, Mr. Gaska claimed that his wife fell ill on December 28. He reportedly said that he rushed her to a hospital and had his sister look after her while he went back to work from where he got the news of his wifes death early on Wednesday morning.

Mrs. Essien-Nelson said she had commenced travel arrangements along with her husband to pay her last respects to her late sister when Mr. Gaska informed them that their late sister had requested that her body be cremated after her death and that Mrs. Essien-Nelson should be the only one to see her body before cremation.

Yet, he refused to wait for her to travel to Poland to do so, the family added.

The late womans family alleged that several calls were made to Mr. Gaska by the Adefolalu family and friends, Nigerians in Poland and even the Nigerian Embassy in Poland to no avail.

His final words on the matter were that the cremation will proceed as planned and there is nothing anyone can do about it, the family stated.

In spite of these several pleas, he went ahead to cremate his dead wife on January 2, 2017. Not only that, he held a burial service to bury the ashes on January 7, 2017 without officially informing any member of her Nigerian family.

The deceaseds family said it suspected foul play in the death of their daughter.

We understand Jakub has the final say over the funeral rites for late Sholly and as shocking as the cremation request was, we were willing to honour her supposed wishes, the family said.

What we could not understand was why her husband has deprived our family of the opportunity of paying our last respects to our daughter, sister, niece, cousin and aunt. We want to know why Jakub was in such a hurry to cremate our sister.

We want to know how he came about Shollys death wish since he was not with her at the time of passing. We want to know if death certificate is enough evidence of the cause of Shollys death. Where is the autopsy report? We want to know exactly what caused Shollys death.

The deceased, 36, traveled to Poland to study Architecture in 2000 where she met Mr. Gaska.

They got married in 2010.

The family is calling on the Polish authorities as well as the Nigerian Embassy in Poland, the Federal Government and relevant agencies to investigate the sudden and suspicious death of their daughter and circumstances surrounding the handling of her corpse.

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Emmanuel Ogebe, a U.S.-based Nigerian lawyer and social welfare campaigner, has slammed a $5 million libel lawsuit against the Nigerian government, court filings showed.

Mr. Ogebe, who took 10 rescued Chibok girls to study in the United States in 2014, filed the lawsuit at the Federal High Court of Abuja on January 27 against the Minister of Women Affairs, Aisha Alhassan.

Mr. Ogebe also joined the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation in the suit.

Mr. Ogebe said Ms. Alhassan, in a press briefing in September 2016, accused him of exploiting his position as the guardian of rescued Chibok girls in the U.S. to extort money from donors.

We got the information that the girls were being used as tools for making money  not prostitution  but in the sense that they will be taken here and there where they go and relay their experiences during the insurgency, especially the invasion of Chibok town by Boko Haram and how they were abducted.

After that, people used them to ask for donations; by so doing they make money out of it. So the girls became fed up; and started complaining that they were taken to U.S. on an arrangement that they were going to send them to school and that they were going to pay for their school. But unfortunately they said they were not allowed to remain in school, Ms. Alhassan told reporters in Maiduguri on September 9, 2016.

Ms. Alhassan made the statement a few months after Nigerian government sacked Mr. Ogebe as the guardian of the girls and took them away from him.

In his lawsuit, Mr. Ogebe said the government led a malicious campaign to tarnish his image and demanded that apologies be published in major newspapers in addition to the $5 million compensation.

Mr. Ogebe said he deserved praise for the kindness he showed towards the girls who could barely speak English before he took them to the U.S. for learning rather than scorn.

Salisu Isah, the spokesman for Attorney-General Abubakar Malami, told PREMIUM TIMES his principal will respond to the lawsuit when he returned from a trip abroad.

He is not in the country for now, Mr. Isah said. Ill get back to you with his response to the libel claims as soon as he gets back.

Hassan Dodo, spokesperson for the Ministry of Women Affairs, did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday afternoon.

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Adeogun Phillips, the prosecution counsel in a federal lawsuit against a Supreme Court Judge, Nwali Ngwuta, who is accused of corruption, has stepped down from the case.

Mr. Phillips withdrew from the case at the Federal High Court, Abuja, on Thursday, the News Agency Nigeria reports.

Reasons for the decision were not immediately clear.

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Sources close to Italian law enforcement on Wednesday confirmed that they have requested that Shell, Eni and several Eni senior executives including the current CEO Claudio Descalzi, be sent to trial for alleged international corruption offences over the 2011 purchase of the massive Nigerian OPL 245 oil block.

Italian prosecutors also requested that former Nigerian Oil Minister, Dan Etete, and several other individuals be sent to trial. They are also seeking seperate charges against four senior Shell executives including the current Shell Foundation Chairman Malcolm Brinded, who at the time of deal was head of Global Exploration and Production.

In 2011, Shell and Eni paid $1.1 billion to Malabu Oil and Gas, a front company secretly owned by Mr. Etete. Prosecutors have alleged that over $500 million went to fronts for (former) President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria.

This crooked deal deprived Nigerias people of a sum worth 80 per cent of its 2015 healthcare budget. Shell and Eni have always denied that they knew the money would go to Malabu, but documents seen by Global Witness show that the companies constructed the deal knowing that the money would flow ultimately to Mr. Etetes company.

Mr. Jonathan has denied the allegations, saying in a statement that he has never used fronts to seek favour or collect any gratification on his behalf.

This request demonstrates that major international companies and their senior executives are not above the law. Shell and Eni look now to be finally facing a trial over these matters, and others need to wake up to the new reality where corrupt deals and the actions that lead to them cannot stay hidden behind closed doors. Global Witness has campaigned for decades to carve out transparency in this secretive sector; this case proves that the age of accountability is dawning. said Simon Taylor of Global Witness.

Global Witness, Re:Common and The Corner House have campaigned and exposed the corruption around the OPL 245 deal for several years.

In January 2017 Nigerian authorities seized the block, pending the prosecution of the oil companies involved. Nigerian anti-graft commission, EFCC, labeled the oil block proceeds of crime and stated that they are seeking charges of Conspiracy, Bribery, Official Corruption and Money Laundering against Shell and Eni subsidiaries in Nigeria.

In his reaction to the Italian prosecutors actions, Nick Hildyard of The Corner House said, It is excellent to see the Nigerian and Italian authorities together seeking justice and tackling the fantastic corruption that the Global North promotes and benefits from.

Antonio Tricarico of Re:Common said, The Italian Government and other Eni shareholders must ask if Enis board has been asleep at the wheel over the companys governance? Enis board should not be reappointed in April this year with an impending trial over serious alleged criminality by the CEO and other senior executives?

In a press release on Wednesday, Enis board of directors commented that Eni is entirely free of any involvement in the alleged corrupt conduct subject to investigation. The Board of Directors also confirms its total confidence that the companys CEO, Claudio Descalzi, was not involved in any way in the conduct under investigation, and maintains their upmost support for him as CEO.

No comment was immediately available from Shell. Shell has previously stated that we hope to show that there is no basis to prosecute Shell. Shell takes this matter seriously and is co-operating with the authorities.

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Speaker Yakubu Dogara said on Thursday that he had a telephone discussion with President Muhammadu Buhari, who he said called him Wednesday night.

@MBuhari called me yesterday evening. He talked about what the Executive/ Legislature must do to ensure food security for all Nigerians, Mr. Dogara said.

Mr. Dogaras spokesperson, Turaki Hassan, said in an emailed statement that the two leaders spoke on Wednesday at about 9 p.m.

The Speaker is the first public official outside of the State House to confirm hearing from Mr. Buhari, who has not been seen since departing the country nearly three weeks ago.

It followed several statements from top officials of the administration beginning with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

Amid speculations over the presidents health, Mr. Osinbajo said on Tuesday that the president was hale and hearty and that he spoke to him by phone.

Let me first say the president is hale and hearty, Mr. Osinbajo told reporters in the State House. I spoke to him just this afternoon and we had a fairly long conversation, he is in good shape and very chatty.

The position was reiterated on Wednesday by the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed.

I can say without any hesitation that Mr. President is well, is hale and hearty. No question about that, Mr. Osinbajo said.

Mr. Buhari departed Nigeria on January 19 on the grounds that he was embarking on a 10-day leave, but has not been seen since then.

The concerns of Nigerians were further compounded when Mr. Buhari wrote to the National Assembly seeking extension of his leave.

But Mr. Dogara said it was the president who was actually worried about the plight of Nigerians.

He said he was pained by the suffering endured by most Nigerians last year and hes resolved not to let events of 2016 repeat themselves, Mr. Dogara said in a follow up tweet at 2:08 p.m.

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The State House has just posted new pictures President Muhammadu Buhari meeting with a APC leaders, Bola Tinubu and Bisi Akande, Thursday afternoon.

The presidency, using @NGRPresident official Twitter handle, said the meeting took place in Nigerian government official residence in London.

President @MBuhari currently receiving party leaders, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Chief Bisi Akande, in Abuja House, London, it said.

About half an hour later, the handle posted another picture saying the president and his guests just finished meeting.

The pictures come just as Speaker Yakubu Dogara said he spoke to the president by phone on Wednesday. Mr. Dogara said the president expressed deep worries about food security and other challenges facing the country.

The Senate President, Bukola Saraki, also said he spoke with the presidentand affirmed he was hale and hearty.

Mr. Saraki made this known on his Twitter page.

Happy to have spoken with @NGRPresident @MBuhari tonight. He was in good spirit and joked about my working late into the night, as usual.  @Bukolasaraki on twitter Wednesday 8th of February 2017, 11:35pm, Mr. Saraki tweeted.

President Buharis health has been a matter of serious concern amongst Nigerians since he left the country about three weeks ago on a 10-day vacation.

A day before he was due to return to the country on February 6, the president wrote to the National Assembly seeking indefinite elongation of his leave in order to complete a cycle of medical examinations by his doctors.

But administration officials insist the president is doing fine and Nigerians apprehension is unnecessary.

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Two main religious coalitions in Nigeria have called for prayers for President Muhammadu Buhari.

The Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, and the Jamaatul Nasril Islam, JNI, made the calls in separate statements on Thursday.

In its statement, signed by Kwamkur Samuel, Director of Legal and Public Affairs, CAN said it is deeply concerned about the ongoing national conversation on the absence of the President due to ill- health.

We wish to call on all Nigerians to join hands in prayers for the quick and full recovery of Mr. President and his safe return to Nigeria instead of dwelling on the needless rumour mongering on the Presidents health.

The coalition of Nigerian Churches said it is very clear that our leader is passing through health challenges.

It asked the presidency to update Nigerians on how he is fairing and the full progress of his recovery.

We call on all Christians and indeed all God-fearing Nigerians to dedicate time of prayers for our President and the nation. We owe our leaders prayers and support at all times while shunning divisive opinions that only generate strive, Mr. Samuel said.

In its statement, the JNI called on Muslim clerics to lead special prayers for the health of President Muhammadu Buhari at Friday Jumaat prayers,

We call on all Jumuah Imams to include the matter in their respective Friday sermons tomorrow and beyond. Because in prayers we find consolation, the organisation said in a statement on Thursday from Kaduna by its Secretary General, Abubakar Khalid.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, had reiterated the federal governments stance that President Buhari is not sick, despite seeking an extended medical vacation.

The presidency and Senate President Bukola Saraki had also dismissed rumours that some governors were mounting pressure on Mr. Osinbajo to step down as acting president.

The JNI condemned any call for the resignation of Mr. Osinbajo, saying whatever the intent may be, we see such calls as callous, mischievous and unpatriotic.

Moreover, why must that vacuum be created now, if not for sinister motives? the group said in the statement by Mr. Khalid.

CAN had also called on Nigerians to give Mr. Osinbajo full support and prayers to lead well.

We acknowledge that government is a continuum, hence, we call on Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo to be bold in handling critical state matters and not to be distracted by those who do not wish Nigeria well, the Christian body said.

In its statement, the JNI cautioned Muslims against joining the bandwagon of rumour mongers and unpatriotic elements wishing the President dead.

Interestingly, those who wish him death will certainly not live till eternity. Arent we supposed to wish each other well-being, let alone, the President of the country?

Describing as unnecessary the controversy over the delay in Mr. Buharis return to Nigeria, the group implored Nigerians, particularly Muslims to persistently supplicate on daily basis for his safe return, restoration of good health and piloting Nigeria to greater heights with his team.

It should, however, be noted that as with every mortal, illness is inevitable, likewise life and death. Thus, JNI is very concerned about the pandemonium over the President and the dimension it is unfortunately taking. Does that mean he can no longer get ill?

We must as patriots be cautioned on spreading inaccurate information, the JNI stated.

President Buhari had on Sunday written to the Senate to extend his 10-day medical vacation. The Senate later confirmed to reporters the extension was indefinite as the president did not indicate his return date.

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The Oba of Lagos, Rilwan Akiolu, visited Acting President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday in Abuja.

Mr. Akiolu, who spoke with State House correspondents, said he decided to use the opportunity created by the postponement of a security meeting to which he was invited by the National Assembly, to convey his message to Mr. Osinbajo.

I am a traditional ruler and I am a servant of the people, I am here to see the Acting President.

We had a meeting here, I was invited by the Senate and the House of Representatives on Tuesday, we were supposed to have another security meeting tomorrow (Friday).

But unfortunately, it was cancelled and I decided to spend that time to see my former law lecturer to wish him and once more to convey to him the wishes and prayers of Lagos State people.

That, by the Grace of God, the Almighty Allah our President will return to us hale and hearty.

And all will be well with us in this country, provided all of us are sincere to cooperate with the government and tell the government what we feel: constructively and not destructive criticism that is all.

Absolutely, patience and useful suggestions will move the country forward.

The monarch described the orchestrated reactions to President Muhammadu Buharis vacation as very funny.

By the grace of God, our President will be back to all of us.

Mr. Akiolu said he told the Acting President that God blessed him more than he expected.

He is very quiet, easy going and always with his Bible; see what God has done for him.

He was not interested in any political base but God has destined that he will be the number two man.

All of us should pray for the two of them and for Nigeria to be very successful, provided we are patient, close to God and absolutely honest in what we are doing.

All will be well with us, the monarch added.

President Buhari had written to the National Assembly notifying members of his plan to proceed on a 10-day annual leave during which he would undergo routine medical check-ups.

The President was scheduled to resume on February 6 but did not.

Instead, he again wrote the National Assembly on February 5 and informed members of his desire to extend his ten-day vacation in the United Kingdom citing health reasons.

Since then, reports that the President had died in London have gone viral.

This in spite of efforts by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, some ministers and Buharis aides to dispel the rumoured death of the President.

(NAN)

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Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has applauded leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and the Trade Union Congress, TUC, for joining the ongoing anti-corruption campaign in the country.

Mr. Osinbajo gave the commendation when leaders of the NLC and TUC visited him and jointly presented an 18-point demand to the Federal Government.

While calling on all Nigerians to continue to support the fight against corrupt practices in the society, the acting President reassured that government would continue to ensure due process and rule of law in the fight against corruption.

I really want to commend the NLC and the TUC for seeing the need to fight corruption and for seeing the need for good governance especially for the campaign you have undertaken.

There is no question that the rule of law is important. Sometimes in governments efforts you find infringement of the rule of law. But it takes a strong system to be able to see those problems and resolve them.

But I want to say to you that the government is very committed to ensuring the process of the rule of law.

The President, Im sure that many of us may know, is a process-driven person of the rule of law.

The members of the NLC and TUC had on Thursday staged a peaceful protest around the federal secretariat, near the Presidential Villa, Abuja, in a show of support for the ongoing campaign against corruption and the promotion of good governance.

The acting president frowned at the situation where some Nigerians used ethnic or geo-political sentiments to cover up their corrupt practices.

According to him, it is wrong for anybody or group to use religion or primordial sentiments in justifying misappropriation or stealing of public funds.

The kind of comments you get sometimes, `aah, it is a witch hunt only these people are being punished, only that is being punished if evidence points to you, you should not have the excuse that you are being witch hunted.

Today, if you steal N10,000, lets even say you steal a goat in the market, when they catch you and deal with you, you are not going to be able to argue that is because you are a Yoruba man or from the Southwest that is why I was caught, no.

The person whose chicken or goat you have stolen is not going to listen to your story even if you are from his local government area or his town and that is the way we should look at this issue of the fight against corruption,

I believe that we have a very serious battle in our hands and that if we dont win that battle this country will never get on to the path of sustainable development.

Mr. Osinbajo, who described corruption as a serious problem, maintained that the looting of the nations resources remained a major problem the country had suffered.

According to him, the problem of corruption must be addressed if the country must achieve sustainable development.

He said: The major problem that this country has suffered so far is the looting of its resources, that is a major problem.

We are investigating $15billion in defence contracts. External reserve is $30billion that is almost half of the external reserve of the country.

How does any country survive when that is going on. But it is so easy to say let us fight corruption aah why is life so hard? Why are things so hard?

Earlier, the President of the NLC, Ayuba Wabba, said they were in the presidential villa to present 18-point demands to the federal government.

He commended the efforts of the President Buhari-led administration aimed at ensuring a corrupt-free society.

Mr. Wabba, however, said the anti-corruption fight should go down to the state and local government levels to check diversion of public funds by some government officials.

(NAN)

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The Nigeria Customs Service has handed over seized items, including food and clothes and toiletries, as relief materials to internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Adamawa state.

Presenting the items at a ceremony Thursday in Yola, the chairman of National Logistics Committee on Internally Displaced Persons, Abdulkadir Azarema, said the donation was the third so far to the state.

Today, the National Logistics Committee on Distribution of Relief Items to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) is handing over items that we strongly believe will boost the ongoing efforts to resettle IDPs in their ancestral homes, Mr. Azarema said.

He lauded the state government for footing the bills for transporting the items from the Services warehouses across the country.

We also commend the efforts of Local Organizing Committee for collaborating with National Committee and the State Government to ensure smooth distribution of the relief materials.

Mr. Azarema, an Assistant Controller General of Customs, tasked those involved in distributing the assistance to ensure transparency.

Speaking at the event, the Deputy Governor of the state, Martins Babale, who is also the chairman of Adamawa State Emergency Management Agency, lauded the gesture which he said would go a long way in assisting the IDPs.

Mr. Babale assured that the state government would use the materials for the purpose intended.

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CHARLES CITY | The Iowa Court of Appeals Wednesday upheld a Charles City man's conviction and prison sentence for indecent contact with a child.

Jeff Allen DeVries, 53, was sentenced in August 2015 to up to two years in prison. He was ordered to serve 10 years of supervised release after the end of his prison term and to register as a sex offender.

CC man sentenced to prison for indecent contact with child CHARLES CITY | A Charles City man was sentenced to up to two years in prison Monday for inde

The indecent contact occurred when DeVries was watching a girl under the age of 12 at his home in 2013, according to court records.

DeVries pleaded guilty in April 2015 in Floyd County District Court.

In his appeal he claimed the district court erred in denying his request to withdraw his guilty plea before sentencing and by considering alleged conduct he did not admit to when sentencing him.

The appeals court ruling stated the defendant's unhappiness with the information on conduct he was not charged with that appeared in the pre-sentence investigation report did not affect his understanding of his guilty plea, and the district court did not consider those portions of the report in sentencing.

 Mary Pieper
Two out of the five Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, members in Jigawa State House of Assembly, JSHA, have defected to the ruling party, the All Progressive Congress, APC, the News Agency of Nigeria reports.

The Speaker of the House, Idris Isa, announced during plenary on Thursday that the two members had submitted their separate letters to him stating their intention to change their party.

I received letters from two of our Honourable colleagues stating their change of party (PDP to APC) with effect from today.

The members are Honourable Ibrahim Sulaiman Gwiwa (Gwiwa Constituency) and Honourable Shuaibu Inuwa Fagam (Fagam Constituency), Mr. Isa announced.

Governor Muhammad Badaru of the state was at the house to witness the defection but declined comment even after the speaker requested him to do so.

Speaking to journalists, Mr. Fagam said that he left his party due to its leadership crisis.

I left the PDP for APC, and I did so because my former party lacked one leadership.

Even the PDPs national headquarters had been under lock and key for the past one year.

I also moved to APC because of prudent management of the states resources by the present administration under Gov. Badaru, he said.

Also, commenting, Mr. Gwiwa told journalists that he joined the APC because the state government had continued with all projects abandoned by immediate past administration in his constituency.

There were over N4 billion worth of projects abandoned in my constituency and this administration has continued to execute most of these projects.

We were also being carried along in all activities in House despite the fact that we were PDP members.

Again, as opposition party members, we were members of sensitive committees of the House. So these are some of the reasons why I joined the APC, he said.

The two defectors denied allegations that they were given money to abandon their former party.

Nobody gave us kobo to join APC, I joined the party based on the reasons I told you earlier, Mr. Fagam said.

Also Mr. Gwiwa said: Looking at my age and experience, you will believe that there is nothing monetary in my defection to APC.

(NAN)

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Governor Nyesom Wike has constituted a panel to investigate emergence of black carbon that recently took over the atmosphere across Port-Harcourt and its environs.

Several people have recently taken to social media with complaints about black soot in the oil-rich city.

Pictures circulated online include ones that depict black smokes painting peoples bodies, household furniture.

If the soot is doing this much visible damage to physical objects, imagine what its doing to the respiratory systems of the people in PHC! Charles Ohia, an environmental analyst, tweeted Thursday.

The outrage saw #Stopthesoot trending on Twitter throughout Thursday, with many blaming the situation on refineries being operated by major oil companies as against illegal ones speculated by the government.

Mr. Wike in a statement Thursday said he raised the investigative committee Wednesday after being inundated with reports from Port Harcourt and other parts of Rivers State.

The committee, which will be backed by technical experts, will liaise with major stakeholders to resolve the environmental challenges posed by the black soot, Mr. Wike said.

Its members include Commissioners for Environment, Special Duties and Information, Roseline Konya, Emeka Onowu, Austin Tam-George, respectively.

According to experts, black carbon emissions are formed through the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, biofuel, and biomass, and is emitted in both anthropogenic and naturally occurring soot. Black carbon causes human morbidity and premature mortality. In climatology, black carbon is a climate forcing agent.

Author and environmentalist Nnimmo Bassey weighed in on the controversy on his blog Thursday, saying residents of Port Harcourt, Ekpan and the Niger Delta as a whole deserve a breath of air that is fresh and devoid of soot and black carbon.

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Governor Nyesom Wike has constituted a panel to investigate the emergence of dangerous back carbon that recently took over the atmosphere across Port-Harcourt and its environs.

Several people have recently taken to social media with complaints about black soot in the oil-rich city.

Pictures circulated online include ones that depict black smoke on peoples bodies and household furniture.

If the soot is doing this much visible damage to physical objects, imagine what its doing to the respiratory systems of the people in PHC! Charles Ohia, an environmental analyst, tweeted Thursday.

The outrage saw #Stopthesoot trending on Twitter throughout Thursday, with many blaming the situation on refineries being operated by major oil companies as against illegal ones speculated by the government.

Mr. Wike in a statement Thursday said he raised the investigative committee Wednesday after being inundated with reports from Port Harcourt and other parts of Rivers State.

The committee, which will be backed by technical experts, will liaise with major stakeholders to resolve the environmental challenges posed by the black soot, Mr. Wike said.

Its members include Commissioners for Environment, Special Duties and Information, Roseline Konya, Emeka Onowu, Austin Tam-George, respectively.

Carbon emissions form during incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, biofuel, and biomass, and can be emitted as soot.

It is toxic and can cause respiratory problems and even death.

Environmental activist, Nnimmo Bassey, weighed in on the controversy on his blog Thursday, saying residents of Port Harcourt, Ekpan and the Niger Delta as a whole deserve a breath of air that is fresh and devoid of soot and black carbon.

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Foreign policy goals have been achieved because "Poland has been strengthening its position in the region and the EU", President Andrzej Duda said in the Sejm on Thursday.

The president made the statement after Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski had delivered a keynote speech on Poland's foreign policy in 2017.

"Undoubtedly, Poland has been strengthening its position both in the region and in the EU", the president said, stressing that especially the recent meetings with foreign leaders, including the visit by the German chancellor to Poland on Tuesday, confirmed this.

According to the president, the reinforcement of Poland's security was among the most important achievements of Polish foreign policy.

"This included the issue of military security, namely the NATO summit, cooperation within NATO, strengthening the Alliance's presence on the eastern flank and above all ... in Poland", President Duda said.

The decisions of last year's Warsaw summit were very satisfactory for Poland: "We achieved all the goals we had set ourselves and right now NATO's presence in Poland is being implemented", Andrzej Duda remarked.

He underlined that Poland had long been vying for non-permanent UN Security Council membership and that this was a very important objective for 2017. "I hope that the goal of Poland being a member of the UN Security Council in 2018-2019 will be achieved", the president said.

Energy security was another important element in the foreign minister's foreign policy speech, according to the president, who expressed satisfaction that the gas terminal in Swinoujscie (north-west Poland) had been opened and the first deliveries of gas from Qatar had arrived in Poland.

"This has definitely improved our energy security", President Duda remarked.

Regional cooperation is also very important for Poland's foreign policy, the president said. "The Visegrad Group is working very intensively, our activity in the Visegrad Group is very strong. I really want to underline this: the Visegrad Group today is reckoned with", Andrzej Duda pointed out.

The president also mentioned that Poland wanted broader regional cooperation and that this purpose was served by the "Three Seas format encompassing (countries on the) Baltic, Adriatic and Black seas".

"We will do our utmost to make relations between Poland and the US, as well as transatlantic relations between the US and the EU the best possible", Duda also said, underlining that much could be done in this respect, especially "when the new US president has just assumed office".

The president added that one great task facing Polish diplomacy and himself as the president was the consolidation of ties and cooperation with the US "which undoubtedly is the world's greatest economic and military superpower".

President Andrzej Duda expressed satisfaction that the keynote address also "highlighted good relations and frequent contacts with German partners". "This intensity of contacts shows that it is a good neighbourhood and even if there are contentious issues, like the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline ... (they) do not affect the essence of this cooperation, which is good-neighbourly and partner-like", he remarked.

The foreign minister's speech showed that "Polish foreign policy is consistent, it has defined goals, it is being implemented calmly and with great concern for the interests of Poland and the Polish people", accordng to President Duda. (PAP)
CLEAR LAKE | The Clear Lake School Board has approved amended 2017-18 personnel sharing agreements with Mason City.

The board Wednesday voted to accept the same agreement the Mason City School Board approved Monday. The agreements are reviewed on an annual basis.

Clear Lake has been sharing IT director Jason Christenson and food service director Lora Jenson with Mason City for six years. Clear Lake pays 40 percent of their salaries while Mason City pays 60 percent.

Terminations, payouts discussed as Mason City approves personnel sharing agreements MASON CITY | Mason City School Board members approved amended annual personnel sharing agree

The amended agreement states if Clear Lake gives either of them a raise, it all comes out of Clear Lake's budget. They are Clear Lake's employees.

Clear Lake Superintendent Doug Gee said he questioned that, but since sharing the positions has saved the district about $56,000 a year, he recommended the School Board approve the amended agreement.

The agreement has saved Mason City around $283,000 the past six years, Business Manager John Berg told the Globe Gazette earlier this week.

The amended agreement also states either party can terminate the contract at any time. Whichever district terminates the contract pays 50 percent of the salary remaining for the contract year if no cause is given for termination.

The terminating party would have to give a 30-day written notice.

Former Mason City Superintendent Anita Micich received at least $285,000 as a settlement last year after the School Board approved ending her contract a year early.
Kathy Griffin has offended so many people in Hollywood that she tells me, you may be my best friend, at the end of our 20-minute phone conversation.

No ones off the hook, not my mom, not my boyfriend, not my family. And thats why I dont have any friends, she adds with a laugh.

A master of snark and storytelling, stepping on celebrities Louboutin-clad toes is Griffins specialty. Her new book Kathy Griffins Celebrity Run-Ins: My A-Z Index does just that, chronicling the good, the bad and the ugly interactions shes had with celebrities from Woody Allen to Demi Lovato. Her library of irreverent stories is also the inspiration behind her Celebrity Run-Ins tour, which comes to Borgata Hotel Casino & Spas Event Center 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 17. But dont think that means shell recite the same old tales on stage that exist in her book.

I love playing the Borgata Event Center. Ive done it many times, but I swear on my life this is going to be all new material, Griffin says. I dont care if youve seen me six years ago or six months ago. Trust me, Ive got two hours of new stuff, and theres so much crazy going on I can barely keep up.

Griffin, an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump and an avid LGBT rights activist, has had a lot of new material to process recently, thanks to a never-ending onslaught of news courtesy of some hasty executive orders.

Im obviously not going to do a whole political show, but theres just so much going on that everyones aware of, Griffin says. When I was in San Francisco, I actually marched in the Womens March in the rain at 5 oclock and then I did a show at 8 oclock. I said, all right, I gotta flip the switch from concerned citizen to inappropriate comedian, and it was so easy.

People really like to go see a show where they can blow off steam, so I have made the executive decision to be more heinous than I have ever been. Ive been talking to a lot of other comics and were all struggling with the same thing. The world is so topsy-turvy and so crazy, how do you then attack two hours of comedy by acknowledging the things that are frightening and also working in whats funny about them.

While she assures that her Borgata act will have something for everybody, she also gives fair warning: If youre wearing a MAGA (Make America Great Again) hat right now and if you think Donald Trump is an amazing president, you should probably just send your wife to the show, and you can just stay at the tables.

Besides Trump, Griffin has prepped an arsenal of hilarious stories starring the princes and princesses of Hollywood. Stories of Christina Aguilera dressed up like Santa Claus, Alec Baldwin telling her shes not just the funniest woman out there, but also sexy, and the always-controversial Kim Kardashian and Kanye West  who are, much to her delight, Griffins new neighbors.

My act moved in next door, she exclaims.

Griffins watchful eyes and sharp tongue are certainly a reminder to celebrities to be on their best behavior around her, or risk winding up in her act. But fortunately for Griffin, the vast majority of celebs cant seem to help themselves, ensuring her fresh material for years to come.

Youll flip for Flip Like Wilson As cover bands have come and gone, Philadelphia-based Flip Like Wilson has endured, continui

What celebrities dont get, Griffin explains, is that I can be the biggest fan in the world, but Im still going to make fun of you if you do something crazy.
ATLANTIC CITY  Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno hit on a wide variety of subjects in a Thursday speech to the New Jersey State Agriculture Convention, but her own growing campaign for governor wasnt one of them.

Guadagno, the apparent early frontrunner in the Republican primary to succeed Gov. Chris Christie, gave a pep talk to the farmers and growers at the annual gathering, this year at Waterfront Conference Center at Harrahs Resort.

She let them know that Blue Apron, the meal-ingredients delivery company, announced a day earlier that its setting up a 500,000-square-foot, 2,000-employee operation in New Jersey. That could be a prime new market for their products, Guadagno advised her audience.

And she reminded the crowd their state is logistically located, saying New Jersey is within one tank of gas of $3 trillion worth of consumer buying power.

But Guadagno never brought up the subject of politics, even on a day when the Fairleigh Dickinson University Public Mind Poll reported she leads the field in the race to be the Republican candidate for governor. The states first lieutenant governor led the field with 18 percent in a survey conducted late last month, the pollsters said.

Former Saturday Night Live comic Joe Piscopo came in second, at 12 percent. But Krista Jenkins, the Public Mind director, said 52 percent of the people who answered are undecided about the candidates in the June 6 primary.

Guadagno, who officially announced her candidacy for governor last month, only mentioned the race Thursday in response to a question on her way out of the room.

This is not the room, she said, when asked why it didnt come up in her talk.

Guadagno knows one thing that concerns South Jersey farmers.

Believe me, I know Progresso is closing, she said, referring to the Vineland soup plant whose corporate owner, General Mills, announced last year it plans to shut down production there this spring. But she added state and local officials are working to get the plant to be filled before it actually closes.

That came after Guadagno promoted New Jersey as the top foodie state in the country, in part because of its food-production industry. That now includes Blue Apron, which plans to move into Linden, in Union County.

The company buys fresh food. It wants you, Guadagno said. Theres absolutely no reason in the world theyre not going to use Jersey Fresh, the states produce brand.

And even though she wasnt talking politics, she got a loud round of applause and good reviews from her agriculture-interested audience.

It was fabulous, said Dave Van Vorst, co-owner of Plantation Beach Plums in Upper Township and president of the Cape May County Board of Agriculture. It was down to earth, it was the true story of agriculture in New Jersey.  We are the third-largest industry in New Jersey.

Al Natali, the owner of Natali Vineyards in Middle Township, was formally elected Thursday to the state Board of Agriculture.
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Dozens of parents sat in the auditorium of the Tighe School Middle school in Margate Jan 28., with the same concern: how do I know what my child is doing online?

According to a 2015 Pew Research Center study, 92% of teens said they go online daily. The availability of smart phones and internet-connected mobile devices has increased how often kids can access social media sites like Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram.

FBI Special Agent Daniel Garrabrant said during his seminar that while parents may post once or twice a day, kids are likely to post multiple times on various social media apps and websites.

While dog filters and status updates can be a fun way to use social media, Garrabrant, a parent himself, warned of the social media sites that parents may not have known about.

Mircoblogging, secret apps and meet up apps are growing in popularity and include apps like Kik, Tumblr, Whisper and Houseparty, a group video chat app that one parent mentioned was beginning to get popular with her kids.

Its all about being aware of whats going on, Garrabrant said your at home kid is not the same as your online kid.

Garrabrant cited issues the FBI sees online with kids includes cyberbullying, pornography, communicating with possible predators and sextortion, a form of extorting or blackmailing with sexual material by threatening to share it with other.

But how do parents monitor their kids actions online?

In a 2016 survey of parents of teens ages 13 to 17, the Pew Research Center found 61% of parents checked the websites their teens visited. 60% of parents check their teens social media profiles.

Garrabrant suggested parents should ask for all the usernames and account passwords to the social media sites their child may be using.

Tracking apps are good, but only do so much, Garrabrant said. With messages, photos and videos being shared daily, Garrabrant explained that tracking apps may not be able to catch everything and if messages are being sent or received from outside the U.S., authorities may not have jurisdiction.

Mary Brown lives in Margate and has two kids, ages 11 and 14. She attended the seminar and said it was very eye opening to dangers online. I check my kids accounts, but you know, you can never be too safe Brown said.

Research cyberbullying and teen internet usage continues as it

The FBI has several websites for parents on internet safety at www.fbi.gov/resources/parents.
MICHELLE BRUNETTI POST

Staff Writer

The Pinelands Commission has again changed the date and location of a meeting that is expected to attract a large crowd of supporters and opponents of the proposed South Jersey Gas pipeline.

On Tuesday, the commission postponed its Feb. 10 meeting to Feb. 24, and changed the location from its headquarters in Pemberton Township to the Grand Ballroom of the Crown Plaza Philadelphia-Cherry Hill, which can seat 1,500.

Its headquarters meeting room only seats 70 to 80 audience members, commission spokesman Paul Leakan said.

It is the latest in a long string of meeting cancellations and location changes, as the commission again takes on the task of deciding whether South Jersey Gas should be allowed to build a transmission pipeline to the B.L. England plant in Upper Township.

Jeff Tittel, director of longtime pipeline opponent New Jersey Sierra Club, said he expects the commission to take a vote.

They are moving to a much larger venue to try to make up for deliberately having their last meeting in a small venue to keep all of the opposition out, Tittel said. They should be using this new venue to re-open the comment period, have a real public hearing and allow the public to be heard.

The extended public comment period on the project ended Wednesday, so if commission staff is able to prepare a recommendation report for the 15-member board it could take a vote Feb. 24.

But it is not known yet if it will, Leakan said.

In addition, the commissions March 10 meeting has been cancelled, according to the commissions website.

In January 2014, the commission narrowly voted down a previous application. But since then the makeup of the commission has changed.

The proposed 22-mile route from Maurice River Township to the Upper Township power plant goes along and under roadways through about 10 miles of protected Pinelands forest area, so it needs the permission of the commission to proceed.

On Jan. 24, the commission held a meeting to take public comment on the project. It lasted eight hours, with hundreds of people each taking a three-minute block of time. The audience was made up of both supporters and opponents, but the opponents spoke more.

The crowd that came out was so big, more than 100 people could not get into the building to speak because of fire codes. The room could legally hold about 250.

Last weekend about 80 people came out for a rally in Beesleys Point against the pipeline.

IF YOU GO:

WHAT: Pinelands Commission Regular Meeting

WHEN: 9:30 a.m. Feb. 24

WHERE: Crowne Plaza Philadelphia-Cherry Hill in the Grand Ballroom, 2349 West Marlton Pike, Cherry Hill.
MASON CITY | Frances Hoffman is being remembered Thursday as being an intelligent, resourceful person who was a "bright and gentle spirit" in the lives of many.

Hoffman, 65, died Tuesday in Mason City.

She had a long career in health care and hospital administration. At one time she served as executive director of Hospice of North Iowa and later as executive director of Healing House in Clear Lake.

Her volunteer work included coordinator of the IRIS reading program at KCMR radio  a service of reading newspaper and magazine articles to the visually impaired; chairwoman of Northern Lights Alliance for the Homeless; president of the board of Francis Lauer Youth Services; and board member of Namaste free medical clinics.

Frances M. Hoffman, Mason City MASON CITY  Frances M. Hoffman passed away on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2017, after experiencing a h

"She was probably one of the brightest women I have ever met," said Ann MacGregor, founder and first executive director of Hospice of North Iowa, whom Hoffman succeeded. "I'm sure she got straight A's all through school. She was very determined in everything she did."

Bill Schickel, general manager of KCMR radio, knew Hoffman well through her work with the station's IRIS program.

"Frances was a bright and gentle spirit," he said. "She meant the world to all of us here at KCMR Radio and our reading service for the blind. She had a beautiful, sweet yet professional voice and personality. She was often requested and featured as the voice of our most popular KCMR programs.

"She also had the mind of a businesswoman and assisted with our strategic planning and station management. She had such a gift for always being an intelligent and calming presence."

Hoffman was a straight-A student at Mason City High School and graduated cum laude from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, with a degree in English literature.

Local content will remain on IRIS MASON CITY | North Iowa content will continue to be part of an informational audio service f

She received a master's degree in teaching from the University of Iowa in 1978 but set her sights on working in business administration.

Hoffman worked as an administrative associate at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics' nursing department from 1978 to 1986. During that time she wrote a book on budgeting and financial management in nursing that was awarded Book of the Year from the Journal of Nursing Administration.

From 1986 to 1990, she served as director of administrative services at the University of Iowa Hospital School. She then moved to Mason City to be closer to family and became director of planning at what is now Mercy Medical CenterNorth Iowa. In 1993, she became administrator at Franklin General Hospital in Hampton.

She returned to Mason City in 1996 and worked in various capacities at Mercy before succeeding MacGregor at Hospice of North Iowa in 1999, a position she held until 2005.
SOMERS POINT  The school district will begin random locker and desk checks for weapons after knives were brought to a school dance and other incidents.

School officials also will implement an app called STOPIT for students to anonymously report problems on their smartphones.

Interim Superintendent Thomas Baruffi said at a school-safety forum at the Jordan Road School on Wednesday night the incident at the school dance Dec. 16 led to questions about security. Other incidents since increased the concerns, he said.

School bus knife incident reported by Hamilton Township elementary school HAMILTON TOWNSHIP  A student was injured Tuesday morning when another student brought a kni

It was not just the dance incident, he said. Kids are bringing knives into school. Kids knew that other kids were bringing knives into schools. We have to recognize that we dont know as much as we think we do.

Police Chief Michael Boyd said officers are assigned to visit all schools on a daily basis. That led to questions about whether the district should consider having its own full-time officer in the school or metal detectors. Baruffi said the school board would decide.

Baruffi said the district could have done more to inform parents about the dance incident, but he said they also have to maintain the student confidentiality required by law.

Boyd said no one was injured, but one student was charged with aggravated assault, possession of a weapon and terroristic threats following the dance incident, and others received other discipline.

About 50 people attended Wednesdays forum.

The climate has changed, Baruffi said. We are not taking this lightly.

The app would be provided free through the Atlantic County Joint Insurance Fund administered by Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. Area Vice President Scott Tennant said they see it as a way to reduce problems and litigation for participating school districts.

Parents Richard and Jennifer Panas questioned if there was security at the dance and what will be done going forward both for student safety and to avoid potential lawsuits.

Baruffi said there was no security and that the district is reviewing and tightening its own procedures to include checking backpacks and monitoring how many students are in the bathroom at one time.

He said they also are looking at new anti-bullying procedures and other measures to address the overall school climate.
What started as a simple, inexpensive way for a community to show its support of local police unfortunately seems to be a regulatory violation and possibly illegal.

Starting last fall, many New Jersey towns  including Avalon and Ocean City  painted a blue line down a local street, typically at or near the police or public-safety building. The blue filled in the unpainted space between two solid yellow lines that indicate no passing of vehicles in either direction.

A Somerset County engineer in December asked the U.S. Department of Transportations Federal Highway Administration about such blue lines. The agency said it appreciated and understood the desire to do something to convey support for law-enforcement officers. Painting blue between the yellow lines, however, was contrary to a couple of provisions of the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways. Modifying the yellow lines could cause confusion, accidents and fatalities, the agency said.

The manual specifies the space between the yellow lines should remain unpainted, except in cases where light-colored pavement offers too little contrast and black paint can correct that. The rules also designate that blue paint is reserved for marking handicapped parking spaces.

Some blue-line advocates have characterized these objections as absurd, saying for example that a driver briefly confused by such a line is just a generally confused person. Others joked that roads with blue lines wouldnt be mistaken for handicapped parking spaces.

Theyre wrong if they think that considering whether the line-painting rules have merit is somehow against honoring police. And theres a bit of irony in choosing to honor those who uphold the law by doing something that is contrary to established highway-safety practices.

We think any initial confusion over blue lines probably would disappear as drivers became familiar with them. If anything, drivers would recognize theyre near a police station and probably drive more carefully.

And while enhancing awareness of handicapped parking is a good idea and using a unique color helps, we wonder how much that effect would be diminished by an additional police-honoring use. But were not traffic engineers, so we think blue lines should be authorized in one of two ways.

The Federal Highway Administration could consider the matter and decide to allow blue lines for this particular use  probably with limits such as line length and speed limit of the road.

Or a federal law could be passed permitting the lines, which probably would require the agency to include implementation guidelines in the manual of traffic control devices. Two N.J. congressmen have introduced such a bill.

Expressions of support for police are welcome, especially after a tough 2016 that saw 135 on-duty officers killed across the nation. Many more towns would paint a blue line to do so if its compliance with traffic-safety standards were clear.

And if blue lines arent authorized, it shouldnt be considered any kind of slight to these public servants. Surely another, probably better and more appropriate way will be found for communities to honor their law enforcers.
DUBUQUE  James N. Jim Majerus, 89, of Dubuque, Iowa, passed away on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2017, at home surrounded by his loving family.

Funeral service will be at 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017, at Leonard Funeral Home & Crematory, 2595 Rockdale Road, Dubuque, with the Rev. Donald Bakewell officiating.

Committal prayers and military honors by the Dubuque Marine Corps League will follow at Mount Olivet Cemetery.

Family and friends may gather after 10 a.m. Saturday at the funeral home until time of service.

Among the survivors is Sue (Vern) Pedelty, of Mason City, Iowa, and their family.
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.




MASON CITY | Three state legislators will stage a rally Saturday in Mason City to protest proposed changes to Iowa's collective bargaining laws.

The Rally for Iowa Working Families will be held at noon in Central Park.

It will be hosted by Rep. Sharon Steckman, D-Mason City; Rep. Todd Prichard, D-Charles City; and Sen. Amanda Ragan, D-Mason City.

The rally will protest legislation, House Study File 84 and Senate File 213, which would limit what workers  with the exception of some public-safety workers  can bring to the bargaining table, charge arbitration rules and alter how unions are certified.

It also bans unions from collecting dues via payroll deductions.

The legislation, which Gov. Terry Branstad supports, has been fast-tracked and is expected to be debated next week.

Labor activitists flooded the state capital in Des Moines this week to protest the legislation.

 Molly Montag
MASON CITY | Construction on a new natural gas pipeline in Mason City will continue through the winter.

The owner of the pipeline, Alliant Energy, had previously planned to stop for the season Jan. 31 and resume in spring.

The company is building pipeline along both sides of Pierce Avenue from 12th Street Northwest to 19th Street Southwest.

Alliant Spokesman Justin Foss said the company believes working through the winter, rather than pulling crews off until spring, will shorten the length of the project.

Originally slated for completion in December, the project has hit multiple delays.

"After doing some more study, talking with more folks, we are continuing to work through (the winter) right now," Foss said. "This will allow us to get the pipe installed, so that when the weather is warm well be able to fix the yards and roads right away as opposed to using those warm days to install pipe and waiting even longer to fix the roads."

Crews completed a major hurdle earlier this month when they installed a pipe underneath First Street Northwest.

The intersection, which had been blocked for months, reopened on Friday, Feb. 3.

The next milestone is getting two lengths of pipe underneath Highway 122.

The work will require lane closures on Highway 122, but it will not close the intersection, Foss said.

The lanes were expected to be blocked for a few days this week so crews could do core sampling.

Foss said they'll be blocked again 3-5 times when workers slide the pipes underneath the road.

He said the lane closures will allow workers to drill holes in the road so they can monitor the installation process underneath.

That's expected to happen sometime during Feb. 13-27.

Construction is now expected to be done in May.
DUBAI, UAE, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

MEE 2017

14-16 February Dubai

Stand H7-C26

Modular UPS system for critical power protection from 30 to 900kVA

Advanced energy saving design for reduced total cost of ownership

Data Center and Light Industrial specific versions

AEG Power Solutions, a global provider of power supply systems and solutions for all types of critical and demanding applications, will be showing its latest Modular Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), the Protect Plus M600, at the MEE 2017 event in Dubai on February 14th to 16th.

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/466546/AEG_Protect_Plus_M600.jpg )

AEG Power Solutions has extended its range of uninterruptible power supplies with the addition of its latest modular UPS system - the Protect Plus M600. The new modular UPS is ideal for critical power applications within datacentres, server rooms and light industrial applications.

The Protect Plus M600 UPS has a highly flexible modular architecture in a compact footprint cabinet that can be easily extended using 30kVA UPS modules up to a total capacity of 900kVA. The UPS is designed to operate at high efficiencies of over 95% in on-line double conversion mode and features a smart user interface and battery management system.

The Protect Plus M600 UPS range offers two cabinets sizes that can take up to six or 10 times 30kVA UPS modules giving a total cabinet power capacity of 180kVA and 300kVA. The state-of-the-art modular technology allows the user to right-size their day-one operating capacity, incorporate N+X redundancy and easily expand to meet future load changes through the addition of further UPS modules. The compact footprint, high operating efficiency and reliability of the Protect Plus M600 UPS systems makes it the ideal choice to protect critical loads in data centers, transportation, retail or light industrial applications.

"Protect Plus M600, is a unique combination of state-of-the-art technology, flexibility, efficiency and interactivity," explains John Lynch, Regional Director, Middle-East. "In addition to all its specific advantages, the product also benefits from AEG Power Solutions' service expertise 24/7 around the globe. It's a great opportunity for us to showcase it at MEE 2017 as our customers are more familiar with our industrial range."

AEG Power Solutions has built a strong reputation within the industrial power solutions side of its business to meet the most stringent international standards for mission-critical applications in power generation, Oil and Gas or transportation. The Industrial Power Solutions range includes the Protect 8 UPS range as well as the Protect RCS family of chargers.

Protect 8 UPS is designed to ensure the continuous availability of power and safe operations for all types of critical applications in the harshest environments. Protect 8 is adapted to be rugged, and to cope with extremes in temperature and humidity, as well as dust and sand. The Protect RCS series of robust industrial rectifiers, chargers and DC systems use proven microprocessor-controlled thyristor technology to provide highly reliable power supply and battery charging capabilities. Protect RCS comes in a range of standard models or can be easily customized and is available in an outdoor IP 65 version.

About AEG Power Solutions

AEG Power Solutions (AEG PS) Group is a global provider of power electronics systems and solutions for all industrial and demanding commercial power requirements offering one of the most comprehensive product and service portfolios in the area of uninterruptible power supply and power management.

Thanks to its distinctive expertise bridging both AC and DC power technologies and spanning the worlds of both conventional and renewable energy, the company creates innovative solutions for next generation distributed power generation.

AEG Power Solutions Group is the sole subsidiary of the holding company 3W Power S.A. (WKN A114Z9) / ISINLU1072910919), based in Luxembourg. The Group is headquartered in Zwanenburg in the Netherlands. The shares of 3W Power are admitted to trading on Frankfurt Stock Exchange (ticker symbol: 3W9K).

For more information, visit http://www.aegps.com.

This communication does not constitute an offer or the solicitation of an offer to buy, sell or exchange any securities of 3W Power. This communication contains forward-looking statements which include, inter alia, statements expressing our expectations, intentions, projections, estimates, and assumptions. These forward-looking statements are based on the reasonable evaluation and opinion of the management but are subject to risks and uncertainties which are beyond the control of 3W Power and, as a general rule, difficult to predict. The management and the company cannot and do not, under any circumstances, guarantee future results or performance of 3W Power and the actual results of 3W Power may materially differ from the information expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. As a result, investors are cautioned against relying on the forward-looking statements contained herein as a basis for their investment decisions regarding 3W Power.

3W Power undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement contained herein.

AEG is a registered trademark used under license from AB Electrolux

SOURCE AEG Power Solutions
MILAN, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Azcom Network In a Box (NIB) supports mission critical workforce management system

Azcom Technology, a leading player in advanced wireless communication is planning to showcase its latest products and featured wireless solutions at the Mobile World Congress to be held in Barcelona, Spain between Feb 27th and March 2nd, 2017.

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/466568/Azcom_World_Mobile_Congress_2017.jpg )

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150909/264753LOGO )

Mission critical operations, like public safety, involves the prevention of and protection from events that could endanger the safety of people from significant danger, injury/harm, or damage, such as crimes or disasters (natural or man-made). Public and Private safety organizations are mandated to deliver a certain level of service to society, performing Mission Critical Operations. Public safety services like reliable and fail-safe utilities and transport systems require broadband wireless networks to provide effective and time-critical services. Law enforcement officers, fire fighters and paramedics are in real need for high bandwidth, reliable mobile broadband infra structure and applications to maximize their service performance.

Azcom Technology provides all the key 4G mobile broadband infrastructure components and solutions essential to build a state-of-art deployable 4G mission critical network. This includes Network In a Box (NIB), Small Cells, C-RANs and Evolved Packet Core (EPC).

Azcom Network In a Box

The Azcom AZN-IIF-2200 uses the latest generation multi-core SoCs to offer a powerful, flexible, compact, highly portable and cost effective solution with the option to use a pluggable card to run an EPC module that enables NIB capabilities. The product comes with a passive casing that is deployment ready with IP67 compliance. The AZN-IIF-2200 can be readily deployed for mission critical, public safety, defense, surveillance, remote coverage and other private applications.

"The Azcom NIB has the essential features to host and enable mission critical and public safety applications", said Dr. Satish Ananthaiyer, EVP Business Development. "The NIB offers plug and play set-up that can enable critical services very quickly when needed".

The Azcom physical layer and protocol stack software are fully integrated on the NIB platforms and end-to-end tested with commercial HSPA+ and LTE UEs. All major functional blocks of this solution are Azcom intellectual property and are licensable separately. This has significant value for customers with application specific requirements needing customization and/or development of additional features, particularly in defense, public safety and large utilities with private networks.

Leveraging the Azcom NIB platform, Azcom, Pontiradio and ecom will demonstrate a professional communication platform for the management of mission critical workforce.

The SNS PoC service implemented by Pontiradio is based on TASSTA SW application platform and offers a modern Push-To-Talk solution which uses all technical capacities of standard smartphones. The solution can be provided on the "cloud" or "on premises" and offers a complete package of individual, group and priority calls, messages and data transfer, voice recording, GPS and indoor tracking, alarm and many more features. This can be deployed in hazardous environments like oil/gas/chemical plants, mines etc.

"The TASSTA PTT application is fully featured to offer services on the 4G-LTE NIB offered by Azcom Technology", said Kaveh Hosseinzadeh, TASSTA Managing Director.

The PTT application is installed on ecom's ultra-rugged LTE / WiFi / Android smartphone ATEX certified that has unrivalled features such as special touch screen for direct sunlight and gloves use, extremely loud speakers, extraordinary powerful battery, water and drop resistance and much more. Smart-Ex product line has been especially developed for Harsh and Dangerous environments like Oil & Gas, Chemical and Pharmaceuticals production plants.

"The ecom handset is interoperable with the Azcom NIB to provide end-to-end PTT services even in potential explosive areas", said Mauro Stefani, Managing Director of ecom Italian subsidiary.

By employing Azcom NIB platform, TASSTA SW application and ecom devices, Pontiradio provides services for design, implementation, and management of mobile broadband networks for day-to-day mission critical operations.

"The Azcom NIB with TASTA PTT is a fully-featured mission critical service that will benefit our customers", said Ruggero Cerizza, President of Pontiradio.

Azcom is demonstrating this end-to-end solution at MWC. The Azcom booth is located in Hall 7 Stand G21. For meeting requests, please send email to sales@azcom.it

About Azcom Technology

Azcom Technology, a leader in wireless communications with two decades of experience, provides a complete suite of software/hardware products with customization and design services to build LTE/HSPA+ wireless networks for tactical, public safety, mission critical, IoT and 5G applications. To address the evolving IoT market, Azcom is collaborating with many industry leading players to develop NB-IoT PHY/stack both for the network and the device. Azcom provides LTE traffic generator and testing solutions for NB-IoT and eMTC applications. In the automotive and avionics sectors, Azcom is working with several companies to build connectivity solutions and cloud based applications for data processing/storage. Azcom is headquartered in Milan, Italy with a design center in Gurgaon, India.

For more information, please visit www.azcom.it

About Pontiradio PR

Since more than 50 years Pontiradio PR is a leading provider of services for design, implementation, and management of networks for professional mobile radio communications for major multinational, public authorities and industrial customers. The head office is located in Peschiera Borromeo (MI), while a network of service centers all over Italy allows the Company to provide a nationwide coverage and capability of intervention. To offer professional users of PMR communications a set of innovative outsourced service solutions called "SNS - Smart Network Sharing", Pontiradio has created an extensive and advanced infrastructure for Mission Critical Communications (towers - access network - transmission network - NOC - cloud servers). This implement the concept of Radiocomms as a Service, which does not require the user to build and operate its own dedicated infrastructure, avoiding the related investments for the construction, management, and maintenance of the network.

For more information, please visit www.pontiradiopr.it

About ecom

Globally, ecom instruments is the leading provider of mobile solutions and devices for use in explosive areas, whether including chemicals and petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, oil and gas production, mining or energy and the environment. For more than 30 years, ecom has set the standards and gathered comprehensive expertise in explosion protection for daily use in hazardous industrial areas across the globe. In its four core disciplines of communication, mobile computing, portable hand lamps and measurement calibration, ecom instruments offers a huge variety of innovative and proven solutions.

For more information, please visit www.ecom-ex.com

About TASSTA

TASSTA is a modern and young software development company, with a background of radio system integration and a strong extensive expertise in the professional mobile radio (PMR) market, which has developed an innovative communication system which enables companies from various industries to experience a highest level of communication. It consists of different types of components: T.LION (communication server), T.COMMANDER (configuration and administration tool), T.RECORDER (secure recording), T.FLEX (client application ), T.RODON (command & control center) and T.BRIDGE (gateway to other existing networks). Customers enjoy a complete package of individual, group and priority calls, messages including data transfer, voice recording, GPS and in house tracking, alarming meeting all requirements for lone worker protection and a lot more features. TASSTA combines all advantages of traditional mobile radio with all that modern smartphones must offer.

For more information, please visit www.tassta.com

Media Enquiries

For further information, please contact:

Claudio Canosi

Business Development Manager

claudio.canosi@azcom.it

+39-02-82-45-0325

SOURCE Azcom Technology
"Bacardi's commitment to being corporately responsible extends into every aspect of our business," said Rick Wilson, senior vice president of Corporate Responsibility for family-owned Bacardi. "From the critical importance of quality ingredients and how we source our materials to the impact we leave on the world around us and the need to reduce alcohol-related harm, we actively strive to fulfill our broader responsibilities to society at large."

The 2016 CR Report showcases the Bacardi accomplishments in five strategic pillars focusing on where our business impacts society most: 1) Marketplace; 2) Environment; 3) Responsible Sourcing; 4) People; and 5) Philanthropy & Community Investment. Achievements in the Bacardi Limited 2016 CR Report include:

Continued to work with industry members on the Beer, Wine and Spirits Producers' Commitments to Reduce Harmful Drinking, in line with the World Health Organization's goal to reduce harmful consumption of alcohol. As part of these Producers' Commitments, Bacardi achieved 100% compliance with marketing agency contracts in responsible marketing.

Through our work with the International Alliance on Responsible Drinking (IARD) and local Social Aspect Organizations, piloted drunk driving prevention and underage drinking educational campaigns in key markets reaching more than 1.6 million underage individuals through more than 100 programs.

The ambitious "Good Spirited" global environmental sustainability initiative has led the way in our sourcing, packaging and operational efficiency strategies and exceeded many of our 2017 targets, including improvement in water use efficiency by 1.8% over FY15 to 46.4% and a reduction in greenhouse gas emission intensity by 20% to an overall 49% of FY06 baseline (achieved 50% in November 2016 ).

). Achieved 0.59% waste to landfill ratio; on track to achieve Zero Waste to Landfill by 2022 as seven of 29 facilities have already achieved such status.

Reached target of 40% of sugarcane-derived products from sustainably certified sources -- a full twelve months early than our original goal of end of FY17. Of note, we are on track to achieve our 2020 goal of 100% of sugarcane-derived products from sustainably certified sources by the end of 2017.

Achieved 79% of global direct suppliers and 96% of global point of sale suppliers linked to Bacardi through Sedex, a non-profit membership organization dedicated to driving improvements in responsible and ethical business practices in global supply chains.

In FY16, 33% of our senior management roles were held by women, a testament to our Women in Leadership program.

In Safety, we continued the implementation of our Safety First program and reported our lowest ever rate of Total Recordable Incidents with the number of accident-free sites increasing from 14 to 19 out of 30, as we move closer to our vision for an accident-free Bacardi.

Bacardi is committed to the communities in which we live and work. We encourage employees to volunteer their time in programs and activities to support local charitable organizations, and we support the many worthwhile charities in our towns working to better our communities. This past year our employees volunteered more than 9,000 hours in 30 countries.

As part of the "Roar for Life" drunk driving prevention social campaign, our iconic Italian MARTINI brand donated US$120,000 to support activities to promote local nonprofit organizations in Russia , Poland , Ukraine , and Kazakhstan .

"By living our values every day, we also commit ourselves to contributing to a more sustainable future for all. By caring deeply and passionately about our business and the world around us, we excel in creating brands consumers can trust," adds Wilson. "Our actions are making an impact as once again Bacardi was named among the most reputable companies in the world by Forbes. An honor we proudly accept."

To read more about Corporate Responsibility within Bacardi, including how Bacardi is the only major spirits company certified to be operating in accordance with the world's most recognized management standards for quality (ISO 9001), environment (ISO 14001) and health and safety (OHSAS 18001), visit the Corporate Responsibility section of www.BacardiLimited.com.

About Bacardi Limited

Bacardi Limited, the largest privately held spirits company in the world, produces and markets internationally recognized spirits and wines. The Bacardi brand portfolio comprises more than 200 brands and labels, including BACARDI rum, GREY GOOSE vodka, DEWAR'S Blended Scotch whisky, BOMBAY SAPPHIRE gin, MARTINI vermouth and sparkling wines, CAZADORES 100% blue agave tequila, and other leading and emerging brands.

Founded 155 years ago in Santiago de Cuba on February 4, 1862, family-owned Bacardi manufactures its brands at 29 facilities and sells in more than 160 countries. Bacardi Limited refers to the Bacardi group of companies, including Bacardi International Limited.

Media Contacts

Amy Federman, +1.441.294.1110, afederman@bacardi.com

K.C. Kavanagh, +1.441.298.1053, kckavanagh@bacardi.com

ENJOY RESPONSIBLY.

 2017 BACARDI

BACARDI, THE BAT DEVICE AND OTHER MARKS ARE TRADEMARKS OF BACARDI & COMPANY LIMITED OR OF OTHER SUBSIDIARIES OF BACARDI LIMITED.

Photo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/466275/Bacardi_CR_Report_FY16_Cover_FINAL.jpg

Logo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/466274/Bacardi_Logo.jpg

Related Links

https://www.bacardilimited.com



SOURCE Bacardi Limited
STOCKHOLM, Feb 09, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The residential team of investment manager Catella Real Estate has acquired a total of 650 residential units in Germany, Spain and the Netherlands for its Catella Wohnen Europa property fund. The overall purchase price was some EUR 84.45 million.

In Germany, 96 business apartments in the centre of Mainz were acquired for EUR 13 million. In addition, 84 units were acquired in St. Augustin, located between Bonn and Cologne, for some EUR 11 million.

The Spanish portfolio has been extended with 216 residential units in Madrid, acquired for EUR 23.45 million.

The Netherlands was the target of an acquisition of 254 residential units, bought for some EUR 37 million in Almere, east of Amsterdam and Den Bosch, the capital of the North Brabant province.

"Demand among our investors for attractive property investments in these markets remains high. We are therefore delighted to have secured these attractive core properties for the fund. We continue to see appealing opportunities in the European residential markets, and will focus on securing further attractive assets for our clients. In this way, we can ensure that the fund generates sustainable cash flow for our investors," says Markus Wiegleb, Portfolio Manager at Catella.

The Catella Wohnen Europa fund is a property fund that has acquired a volume of EUR 339.8 million and is managed by Catella's residential team in Berlin.

"We want our fund to achieve a broad diversification within Europe. Conducting investments in Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark, and with the investment focus in Germany, we have already been able to minimise the risks in the asset class," says Xavier Jongen, head of Catella's initiative in residential property funds.

For more information, please contact:

Xavier Jongen

Head of Residential Funds

Tel: +49 89-189-16-65-37

E-mail: xavier.jongen@catella.de

Press contact:

Ann Charlotte Svensson

Head of Group Communications

Tel:+46 8-463-32-55, +46 72-510-11-61

E-mail: anncharlotte.svensson@catella.se

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/catella---property-investment-management/r/catella-wohnen-europa-fund-acquires-residential-properties-in-germany--spain-and-the-netherlands,c2183961

The following files are available for download:

http://mb.cision.com/Main/9880/2183961/625854.pdf Press release http://news.cision.com/catella---property-investment-management/i/mainz-1,c2072334 Mainz 1 http://news.cision.com/catella---property-investment-management/i/denbosch3,c2072335 DenBosch3 http://news.cision.com/catella---property-investment-management/i/pinto,c2072336 Pinto

SOURCE Catella - Property Investment Management
LIBOURNE, France, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

2016 was a year of sustained organic growth and major acquisitions. Consolidated sales reached 912m as the Ceva Group continued to achieve double-digit growth.

Virtuous growth consolidated

Consolidated sales of the Ceva Group reached 912 million in 2016, demonstrating growth of 10% compared to 2015 at constant scope and exchange rate.

Group sales by region were as follows: Europe (36%); AMEET (Africa, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey) (23%); North America/Pacific (17%); Asia (11%) and Latin America (12%). Ceva experienced good growth in all markets.

Ceva's product portfolio performed well across all species, especially poultry and swine.

"2016 was a significant year for Ceva with double-digit growth achieved once again, testifying to the soundness of our business model. With the acquisition of some key products from Merial and reinforcement of our position in key strategic markets, we have the responsibility to deliver more value from these excellent new assets." Dr Marc Prikazsky, Ceva's Chairman & CEO

2016: year of strategic acquisitions

Since its inception in 2000, Ceva has acquired more than 30 companies, providing the group with a strong foothold in key markets and boosting its product portfolio and expertise. This year, the group deployed an aggressive external growth strategy, concluding several major acquisitions across the globe:

In November, Ceva made its first entry into India with the acquisition of Polchem . The country is a strategic market for Ceva, especially for poultry production (5 th largest global producer) and with significant growing demand for vaccines (+10% per year).



with the acquisition of . The country is a strategic market for Ceva, especially for poultry production (5 largest global producer) and with significant growing demand for vaccines (+10% per year). In December, with the acquisition of two Brazilian companies, Hertape and Inova, Ceva became the 5th largest animal health company in France and aims to become a global specialist in the dairy sector, reinforcing its presence in the ruminant vaccines market.

In its home market of France, the group made further acquisitions:

The acquisition of Biovac allows Ceva to propose an integrated offering, including autogenous vaccines in the swine and poultry sectors.



allows Ceva to propose an integrated offering, including autogenous vaccines in the swine and poultry sectors. Following the acquisition of iD Projects in July, (via Ecat, a subsidiary company), Ecat-iD was formed and is already showing to be a world leader in smart automation of hatcheries (ranked no. 1 in France and no.2 internationally).

Finally, with the purchase of several former Merial products in late January 2017, Ceva will consolidate its position in the international swine vaccines market and develop its range of non-steroidal anti-inflammatories.

"The challenge now is to consolidate these acquisitions to make sure they are all successful. In 2017 we will pursue our international ambitions, most likely through new acquisitions. After India and South America, we should be strengthening our position in Asia," Dr Prikazsky added.

Ceva to invest heavily in 2017 to reach the top 5 by 2020

"Our priority for 2017 is to continue our virtuous growth cycle, to deliver more value for our customers, for the society in which we live and ultimately for Ceva," affirmed Dr. Prikazsky.

While developing our foothold in various markets, Ceva will also continue to make significant investment in its industrial facilities. In 2017 the Group plans to devote more than 90 million to enlarge its main production sites.

ABOUT CEVA SANTE ANIMALE

Ceva Sante Animale is a global veterinary health company, focused on research, development, production and sales of pharmaceutical products and vaccines for companion animals, livestock, swine and poultry.

Present in 110 countries, Ceva Sante Animale employs more than 4,500 people around the world.

http://www.ceva.com

https://www.facebook.com/CevaFrance/?fref=ts

https://mobile.twitter.com/Ceva_France

https://www.linkedin.com/company/ceva-sante-animale

https://www.youtube.com/user/CevaTV1

Ceva Sante Animale - Martin Mitchell - Group Communication Director - Tel. +33-05-57-55-40-80 - martin.mitchell@ceva.com



SOURCE Ceva Sante Animale
LAGOS, Nigeria, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The attention of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has been drawn to speculations in a section of the media and a Press Statement from the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) to the effect that the Agency is opposed to the establishment of the Maritime University at Okerenkoko, in Warri South West Local Government Area of Delta State.

This assertion is far from the truth and it has become necessary to clarify the issue as the Federal Government is committed to the actualization of the project which the Agency conceived. It is pertinent to note that NIMASA is supporting every aspect of the law in its determination to fulfill its obligations.

In addition, the National Assembly recently held a public hearing on the matter and it is expected that the funding of the institution and other aspects of running it will be specified in the Act setting up the University.

For the avoidance of doubt, at no time did the Director General, Dr. Dakuku Peterside say anything contrary to the Federal Government's position on the issue and we solidly stand behind the Federal Government on its determination to actualize the project.

The benefits derivable from the setting up of the institution will be quite numerous. Apart from becoming a citadel for knowledge and development of human capital, job opportunities will be created to the Nigerian people, particularly the community.

SOURCE NIMASA
FRANKFURT, Germany, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

- FRA's passenger growth trend continues - Strong rise also in cargo tonnage

Dear Sir and Madam.

Due to a technical error, the January 2017 traffic figures have been prematurely distributed to the capital market. Contrary to the generally valid publication dates, we therefore are now distributing these traffic figures to representatives of the press. Thank you for your understanding.

FRA/er-rap - Some 4.2 million passengers used Frankfurt Airport (FRA) in January 2017, resulting in an increase of about 75,000 passengers (up 1.8 percent) and a new January monthly record at FRA. Thus, this continues the passenger growth trend set during the last two months of 2016. FRA's cargo volume rose briskly by 5.6 percent to 168,556 metric tons. The growing global demand for goods and the timing of the Chinese New Year encouraged these dynamic developments at the beginning of 2017.

Accumulated maximum takeoff weights (MTOWs) at FRA dropped slightly by 1.6 percent to about 2.2 million metric tons. Aircraft movements also decreased slightly by 1.0 percent to 33,900 takeoffs and landings.

Fraport's international airport portfolio reported the following traffic performance in January 2017. Ljubljana Airport (LJU) in the capital of Slovenia achieved a noticeable 21.5 percent rise in traffic to 89,396 passengers. At Lima Airport (LIM) in the Peruvian capital, traffic advanced by 11.8 percent to 1.7 million passengers. Fraport's Twin Star Airports of Varna (VAR) and Burgas (BOJ) on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast together welcomed 39,326 passengers, down 4.5 percent year-on-year. With 675,991 air travelers, Antalya Airport (AYT) on the Turkish Riviera also experienced a slight decline of 1.9 percent. In contrast, in northern Germany, Hanover Airport (HAJ) received 300,722 passengers, up 1.7 percent. St. Petersburg Airport (LED) in Russia reported a noticeable 29.8 percent jump in traffic to some one million passengers. In China, Xi'an Airport (XIY) recorded a strong 19.2 percent surge in traffic to more than 3.3 million passengers in the reporting month.

Print-quality photos of Fraport AG and Frankfurt Airport are available for free downloading via the photo library located in our Press Center on the Fraport Web site. For TV news and information broadcasting purposes only, we also offer free footage material for downloading.

If you wish to meet a member of our press team when at Frankfurt Airport, please do not hesitate to contact us. Our contact details are available here.

Fraport AG

Robert A. Payne

International Spokesman

Press Office, Corp.Communications

60547 Frankfurt, Germany

Telephone: +49-69-690-78547

E-mail: r.payne@fraport.de

Internet: http://www.fraport.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/FrankfurtAirport

For further information about Fraport AG please click here.

Fraport Traffic Figures January 2017 Fraport Group Airports[1] January 2017 Fraport Passengers Cargo* Movements Fully-consolidated airports share (%) Month DELTA Month DELTA Month DELTA % % % FRA Frankfurt Germany 100,00 4,227,110 1.8 165,835 5.8 33,900 -1.0 LJU Ljubljana Slovenia 100,00 89,396 21.5 861 14.6 2,212 12.1 LIM Lima Peru[2] 70,01 1,681,625 11.8 25,217 3.2 15,072 4.3 Fraport Twin Star 60,00 39,326 -4.5 1,741 22.6 600 -4.5 BOJ Burgas Bulgaria 60,00 10,506 -19.3 1,644 16.3 209 - VAR Varna Bulgaria 60,00 28,820 2.4 97 > 100.0 391 7.1 At equity consolidated airports[2] AYT Antalya Turkey 51,00 675,991 -1.9 n.a. n.a. 5,093 1.7 HAJ Hanover Germany 30,00 300,722 1.7 1,619 2.4 4,788 0.5 LED St. Petersburg Russia 25,00 1,018,295 29.8 n.a. n.a. 10,828 20.7 XIY Xi'an China 24,50 3,310,411 19.2 22,278 -3.3 25,650 11.4

Table continues...

Fraport Traffic Figures January 2017 Fraport Group Airports[1] Year to Date (YTD) 2017 Passengers Cargo Movements Fully-consolidated airports YTD DELTA % YTD DELTA % YTD DELTA % FRA Frankfurt Germany 4,227,110 1.8 165,835 5.8 33,900 -1.0 LJU Ljubljana Slovenia 89,396 21.5 861 14.6 2,212 12.1 LIM Lima Peru[2] 1,681,625 11.8 25,217 3.2 15,072 4.3 Fraport Twin Star 39,326 -4.5 1,741 22.6 600 -4.5 BOJ Burgas Bulgaria 10,506 -19.3 1,644 16.3 209 -20.5 VAR Varna Bulgaria 28,820 2.4 97 > 100.0 391 7.1 At equity consolidated airports[2] AYT Antalya Turkey 675,991 -1.9 n.a. n.a. 5,093 1.7 HAJ Hanover Germany 300,722 1.7 1,619 2.4 4,788 0.5 LED St. Petersburg Russia 1,018,295 29.8 n.a. n.a. 10,828 20.7 XIY Xi'an China 3,310,411 19.2 22,278 -3.3 25,650 11.4

Frankfurt Airport[3] January 2017 Month DELTA % YTD 2017 DELTA % Passengers 4,227,368 1.8 4,227,368 1.8 Cargo (freight & mail) 168,556 5.6 168,556 5.6 Aircraft movements 33,900 -1.0 33,900 -1.0 MTOW (in metric tons)[4] 2,194,930 -1.6 2,194,930 -1.6 PAX/PAX-flight[5] 134.2 3.0 134.2 3.0 Seat load factor (%) 73.9 73.9 Punctuality rate (%) 72.0 72.0 Frankfurt Airport PAX share DELTA %[6] PAX share DELTA %[6] Regional Split Month Month Continental 57.9 2.6 57.9 2.6 Germany 11.2 0.9 11.2 0.9 Europe (excl. Germany) 46.7 3.0 46.7 3.0 Western Europe 38.9 3.5 38.9 3.5 Eastern Europe 7.8 0.6 7.8 0.6 Intercontinental 42.1 0.7 42.1 0.7 Africa 4.9 7.0 4.9 7.0 Middle East 6.9 6.9 6.9 6.9 North America 12.5 -2.5 12.5 -2.5 Central & South America 5.2 2.8 5.2 2.8 Far East 12.6 -2.3 12.6 -2.3 Australia 0.0 n.a. 0.0 n.a.

SOURCE Fraport AG
ZEIST, The Netherlands, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The Global Alliance for Banking on Values (GABV), a network of the world's leading values-based banks, is proud to announce that this year's GABV Annual Meeting will be organized in Kathmandu, Nepal (7-9 March). The co-organizer of the meeting is a local GABV member NMB Bank Nepal. This three-day event will gather CEOs and Senior Executives from more than 40 Banks and financial institutions (who have embraced value based banking) operating in countries across Asia, Africa, Australia, Latin America, North America and Europe.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160725/392614LOGO )



The theme of the Meeting in Nepal "Shifting the Financial Paradigm - Courage to Act Together" captures the work of the Global Alliance aimed at changing the world of finances to put people before profit. The members of GABV are putting their efforts in the strengthening of the local communities and supporting local entrepreneurs to become self-reliant. With this meeting, we hope to show the existence of banks who are working for the local communities, who are not driven by profit and who are #BankingOnValues.

"The Global Alliance is enthusiastic to gather the CEOs of member banks at one place and discuss and advance the shared mission of using finance to deliver sustainable economic, social and environmental development. We will focus on the way we all create and support new systemic realities by practising values-based banking. We will hear stories of our bankers on how they foster these new realities in South East Asia: Nepal, Bangladesh, and elsewhere. We will think together on how we can strengthen our individual and collective capacities as "systemic changers", and how values-based banking and the Global Alliance family can become a relevant instrument to achieve a more sustainable economy" stated Dr. Marcos Eguiguren, GABV Executive Director.

"Shifting the Financial Paradigm - Courage to Act Together" is a call for action and joint effort in the areas of the Values-Based Banking for the advancement of the Real Economy.

About the GABV

The Global Alliance for Banking on Values is a not-for-profit organisation and independent network of banks and banking cooperatives with a shared mission to use finance to deliver sustainable economic, social and environmental development. Founded in 2009, the GABV comprises 39 financial institutions and four strategic partners operating in countries across Asia, Africa, Australia, Latin America, North America and Europe. Collectively we serve more than 24 million customers, hold up to $110 billion USD of combined assets under management, and we are supported by more than 42,000 co-workers. Learn more about the GABV and how we're working to build a growing, global, values-based banking movement. Latest news:

CEMS and GABV join efforts to strengthen value based banking education

GABV Welcomes Three New Members

Real Economy - Real Returns: A Continuing Business Case for Sustainability-focused Banking

20 Million For #WorldValuesDay And #BankingOnValues Collaboration

Building A Global Brand To Build The #BankingOnValues Movement

Media Relations

Jasmin Panjeta

E: jasmin.panjeta@gabv.org

T: +31-61-525-4228

#BankingOnValues



SOURCE Global Alliance for Banking on Values (GABV)
NEW YORK, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

In the report, titled "Global Market Study on Medical Oxygen Systems: Liquid Oxygen Systems Product Type Segment to Witness Sustained Growth in the Latter Half of the Forecast Period," Persistence Market Research projects that North America will exhibit its dominance in the global medical oxygen system market by accounting for more than 35% revenue share by end of assessment period.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161114/438683LOGO )

Demand for medical oxygen systems is expected to witness continued consolidation across global healthcare industry. The pronounced need for providing oxygen to patients undergoing medical operations compels healthcare device manufacturers from around the world towards delivering faultless medical oxygen systems. An analytical study of global medical oxygen system market, published by Persistence Market Research, estimates that global revenues secured from sales of medical oxygen systems reached an estimated US$ 2 billion by the end of 2016. Apropos this study, the global medical oxygen system revenues will soar at 8% CAGR to reach US$ 3.89 billion by the end of 2024.

US-based companies such as GF Health Products, Inc., Keen Compressed Gas Co., Cryofab Inc., Inogen, Inc. and Invacare Corporation are recognized as leading players in the global medical oxygen system market. Meanwhile, Terumo Corporation is a Japanese medical device manufacturer that is known for engineering products with higher practicability and better safety.

View Report Table of Contents, Figures, and Tables@http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/medical-oxygen-systems-market/toc

Subsequent to North America, Europe's medical oxygen system market is anticipated to showcase fastest growth by registering a 7.8% CAGR through 2024. Atlas Copco, Koninklijke Philips N.V., and Medtronic plc, are leading manufacturers of medical oxygen systems profiled in the report.

Soaring Demand for Liquid Oxygen Systems

In 2016, compressed oxygen cylinders worth over US$ 800 million were sold globally, while oxygen concentrators accounted for 30% of global medical oxygen system revenues. Over the forecast period, liquid oxygen systems will emerge to be fastest-growing product in global medical oxygen system market, registering a stellar 9.4% CAGR. By the end of 2024, global medical oxygen system revenues will be split with almost equal revenue share accounted by compressed oxygen cylinders, oxygen concentrators as well as liquid oxygen systems.

Method of medically-delivering oxygen also plays an instrumental role in determining the projections for global medical oxygen systems market. Fortunately, manufacturers of medical oxygen systems can continue extending their product portfolio uniformly for both, standalone and portable medical oxygen systems. While the demand for portable medical oxygen systems is projected to incur a slight dip, both modalities will be splitting the global market revenues equally through 2024.

View full Medical Oxygen Systems Market overview@ http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/medical-oxygen-systems-market.asp

Home Care Settings - Largest End-user of Medical Oxygen Systems

This report predicts that consumption of medical oxygen systems will remain marginally high in home care settings. Hospitals will unarguably continue using a lot of medical oxygen systems and products, but their stake in global medical oxygen systems revenues by 2024 will experience a downtrend. Emergency medical centers and ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs) will also be key end-users of medical oxygen systems. In 2016, more than US$ 1 billion worth of medical oxygen systems were used by ASCs and emergency medical centers from around the world. Nevertheless, home care settings are projected to be largest end-user of medical oxygen systems in the world. By the end of 2024, revenues amassed from home care settings will reach US$ 1 billion - soaring at the highest CAGR of 9.5% and procuring nearly 30% of the global market value.

A sample of this report is available upon request@ http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/3740

PMR Overview

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.

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Persistence Market Research

U.S. Sales Office:

305 Broadway, 7th Floor

New York City, NY 10007

United States

USA - Canada Toll-Free: 800-961-0353

Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com



Web: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com



SOURCE Persistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd.
MINSK, Belarus, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

On February 2, CEE Business Media, a publisher of the Central and Eastern Europe Shared Services and Outsourcing Directory, announced the winners of the CEE Shared Services and Outsourcing Awards. IBA Group - http://www.ibagroupit.com - and its project Promotion of IT in Belarus among People with Disabilities was selected the winner in the category Top CSR initiative of the Year.

Implemented by IBA Institute, a member of IBA Group, the project Promotion of IT in Belarus among People with Disabilities was the first IT education project for disabled people in Belarus. A group of 120 disabled was trained in system administration, including 89 remotely. Following the course, IBA Group organized a national contest in system administration for people with disabilities with 45 course graduates joining the competition and ten qualifying for the final. After the project was completed, former students volunteered transfer of their competencies to peers and six graduates, including the contest winner, were offered IT jobs.

Vladimir Dyubkov, Chancellor of IBA Institute, said that thanks to the project he met very brave and firm people who taught him to overcome problems in his life.

Sergei Levteev, IBA Group Chairman, commented: "I would like to express my gratitude to the organizers and judges of the CEE Shared Services and Outsourcing Awards for selecting our CSR project a winner. The project contributed to the creation of a barrier-free environment for disabled people. It revealed that IT opens great opportunities for all, irrespective of age, gender, background, and physical health."

To see the winner list, visit the contest's website at http://ceeoutsourcingawards.com/2017/winners.html

About IBA Group

IBA Group is one of the largest IT service providers in Eastern Europe. Headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic, IBA Group has offices and development centers in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Czech Republic, Belarus, South Africa, Cyprus, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Slovakia. IBA Group focuses on mainframe systems, enterprise applications, web solutions, SAP, business analytics, and cloud and mobile applications. IBA Group is recognized by the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) as one of The Global Outsourcing 100 in the Leaders Category and ranks as one of the world's largest software companies in the Software Magazine's Software 500. The company is a winner of the Global Sourcing Association Awards and of the IT Europa's European IT & Software Excellence Awards.

SOURCE IBA Group
Chinese drone manufacturer MMC has introduced a total drone solution for power line stringing, including services by a team of professional drone operators.

SHENZHEN, China, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Chinese drone manufacturer MMC is introducing their one-stop solution for power line stringing in rugged terrain: the Spider.

The MMC Spider package is an innovation in the drone industry, providing not only a high-powered industrial drone but pre-sales training, project and flight planning, operation by a professional team of pilots, and full after-sales service.

"The need is clearly there," says MMC's CTO Mr. Lu. "By offering a total solution, we allow teams that have less experience with drone technology to reap the benefits that drones offer for power line stringing - it's lower cost, better for the environment, and better for people."

The Spider drone is made specifically for power line stringing, offering a comprehensive set of features for projects in all terrains:

Intelligent drop device, with obstacle avoidance;

Longer flight endurance and higher payload, accommodating standard 3mm leading line;

Autonomous flight features;

Grade 5 wind resistance and a rain resistant, carbon fiber option;

A plug-and-play system of interchangeable payloads.

The Spider solution's low cost and low environmental impact has been used in many regions rushing to provide electricity to remote areas. With a large team of pilots based across Asia, MMC has helped power companies complete projects across the continent.

Many of the projects had been delayed for years before partnering with MMC, due to problems seemingly insurmountable. "Usually, a workman must climb a man-made bamboo scaffolding to bring the lead rope across the active electricity line," explains PLN Stringing Expert Mr. Bambang. "It is hard for our workman to maintain balance on the scaffolding while keeping the lead rope at the correct tension -- there is high risk the lead rope might drop onto the active line and cause a short-circuit." With the MMC Spider solution, the team was able to complete the project within weeks.

MMC is a leading manufacturer of commercial and industrial drone solutions, providing innovative and cost-effective commercial designs, including the use of ecofriendly hydrogen cell energy.

To learn more about the Spider solution for power line stringing, visit: http://www.mmcuav.com/drones/spider-solution-of-power-line-stringing/

Press Contact:

Spring

Phone: +86-755-8607-4603

Email: info@mmcuav.com

SOURCE MicroMultiCopter Aero Technology Co., Ltd.
DUBLIN, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Mucopolysaccharidosis-II (MPS-II) Hunter Syndrome Forecast in 26 Major Markets 2017-2027" report to their offering.

Mucopolysaccharidosis-II, also known as MPS-II or Hunter syndrome, is part of the Mucopolysaccharidoses (MPS) disorders - a group of rare genetic disorders caused by deficiencies of lysosomal enzymes. MPS II is caused by deficiency of the lysosomal enzyme iduronate-2-sulphatase (IDS gene) leading to progressive accumulation of glycosaminoglycans in nearly all cell types, tissues and organs. It is a progressively debilitating disorder; however, the rate of progression varies among affected individuals.

Unlike other MPS disorders, MPS-II nearly exclusively affects males since it is an X-linked disorder. Few cases of females have been noted; however these cases tend to milder and very rare. MPS-II is typically classified as Severe (with neurological / cognitive impairment) or attenuated / mild (without neurological / cognitive impairment).

This report provides the current prevalent population for MPS-II across 26 Major Markets (USA, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK, Ireland, Brazil, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, China, India, Australia, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Turkey, Portugal, Bulgaria, Poland, Estonia, Russia and Czech Republic) split by 5-year age cohort. Along with the current prevalence, the report also contains a disease overview of the risk factors, disease diagnosis and prognosis along with specific variations by geography and ethnicity.

Main symptoms and co-morbidities for MPS-II include:

Severe airway obstruction

Skeletal deformities

Cardiomyopathy

Neurological decline

Hearing loss and otitis

Reasons to Buy:



Able to quantify patient populations in global MPS-II market to target the development of future products, pricing strategies and launch plans.

Gain further insight into the prevalence of the subdivided types of MPS-II and identify patient segments with high potential.

Delivery of more accurate information for clinical trials in study sizing and realistic patient recruitment for various countries.

Provide a level of understanding on the impact from specific co-morbid conditions on MPS-II prevalent population.

Identify sub-populations within MPS-II which require treatment.

Gain an understanding of the specific markets that have the largest number of MPS-II patients.

Key Topics Covered:

1. Introduction



2. Cause of the Disease



3. Risk Factors & Prevention



4. Diagnosis of the Disease



5. Variation by Geography/Ethnicity



6. Disease Prognosis & Clinical Course



7. Key comorbid conditions/Features associated with the disease



8. Methodology for quantification of patient numbers



9. Top-line prevalence for MPS-II



10. Features of MPS-II patients



11. Abbreviations used in the report



12. Patient-Based Offering



13. Online Pricing Data and Platforms



14. References



15. Appendix

For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/cwqnpd/mucopolysaccharido

Media Contact:

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
SOLNA, Sweden, Feb 09, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Today, NCC has signed a contract with the energy company E.ON to build a new cogeneration installation as part of a closed-loop facility at Hogbytorp, in the Municipality of Upplands-Bro, in north Stockholm. The total order value is SEK 750 million.

"The investment at Hogbytorp will enable us to satisfy demand for energy produced from sustainable sources from a growing Stockholm region and to contribute to developing the Municipality of Upplands-Bro," says Stefan Hakansson, Acting CEO of Customer Solutions and Head of E.ON operations in Sweden.

The project will be implemented on a partnering basis; a form of cooperation whereby the key participants jointly resolve issues by means of an open dialog focusing on the best interests of the project.

"NCC wants to be part of building a sustainable society. The facility in Upplands-Bro will be the closed-loop facility of the future and we are pleased that E.ON has chosen NCC as partner to carry out the earthworks and construction contract for the project," says Svante Hagman, Business Area Manager for NCC Infrastructure.

The assignment comprises earthworks, concreting works and civil engineering works as well as construction and installation work in conjunction with the construction of the new cogeneration installation and also earthworks for a biogas facility. The facilities will produce electricity, district heating and biogas.

The total order value is expected to amount to approximately SEK 750 million and will be registered during the first quarter of 2017 with 70 percent in the NCC Infrastructure business area and 30 percent in the Building business area.

For further information, please contact:

Bertil Schmidt,

Head of Department, NCC Infrastructure,

Tel: +46 (0)73 809-39-30



Matti Virkki,

Business Manager, NCC Building,

Tel: +46 (0)70 236-39-14

Anna Trane,

Head of Corporate Media Relations, NCC,

Tel: +46 (0)70 884-74-69

NCC's media line

Tel: +46 (0)8 585-519-00

E-mail: press@ncc.se

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/ncc/r/ncc-to-build-closed-loop-facility-for-e-on,c2183997

The following files are available for download:

SOURCE NCC
HAMILTON, Bermuda, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

OIL announced to its shareholders on February 7, 2017 that commencing on January 1, 2018 the company will no longer offer Offshore Gulf of Mexico Designated Named Windstorm (DNW) coverage. It will continue to offer windstorm coverage for onshore areas in the Gulf of Mexico, and in all other onshore and offshore areas of the Atlantic Basin and the world.

Bertil C. Olsson, President & CEO, commented that "For the past few years, membership participation in the Offshore DNW pool has appreciably declined as a result of decreased demand for this product. Increasingly, many companies have come to the conclusion that retaining this risk on their balance sheet or selectively insuring individual assets in the commercial market is a better alternative to insuring their entire portfolio of Offshore Gulf of Mexico named windstorm exposed assets with OIL. As a result, OIL has determined that this geographic risk class no longer fits well within a mutual framework."

George F. Hutchings, Senior Vice President & COO, further added that "OIL considered several product alternatives to the existing Offshore GOM windstorm product and conducted a membership survey to seek the memberships' input. Two thirds of the membership didn't believe that Offshore GOM windstorm risk should be offered by OIL and a significant portion of the membership didn't believe that this risk should be mutualized across all members as one of the options to maintain this coverage. In light of the fact that alternatives had either limited value in the context of the mutual or were expensive, the survey feedback did not favor continued underwriting of this risk and membership demand for the product is low, the decision was taken to discontinue the Offshore GOM DNW coverage."

For more information about OIL's property coverages and related value go to https://www.oil.bm/.

Oil Insurance Limited (OIL) insures over $3.0 trillion of global energy assets for more than fifty members with property limits up to $400 million totaling more than $19 billion in total A- rated property capacity. Members are medium to large sized public and private energy companies with at least $1 billion in physical property assets and an investment grade rating or equivalent. Products offered include Property (Physical Damage), Windstorm, Non Gradual Pollution, Control of Well, Terrorism, Cyber, Construction and Cargo. The industry sectors that OIL protects include Offshore and Onshore Exploration & Production, Refining and Marketing, Petrochemicals, Mining, Pipelines, Electric Utilities and other related energy business sectors.

SOURCE Oil Insurance Limited
STOCKHOLM, Feb 09, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Financing will support development of Radspherin, a novel radiotherapeutic treatment for peritoneal carcinomatosis

Oncoinvent announced today the closing of a 210 MNOK (approx. 25 MUSD) private placement of ordinary shares. Large privately owned investment companies joining the Company as new investors include Geveran Trading Co. Ltd., Canica AS, CGS Holding AS, Helene Sundt AS and Must Invest AS. Oncoinvent AS is developing therapeutics to combat various cancers based on delivery of tumour-cell killing doses of radiation and/or immunotargeting of tumor cells.

"We are pleased at the response that we have received from the investment community regarding our private placement. The round was heavily oversubscribed. With this financing round we now have, in addition to the new funding, a shareholder base in the company that will enable Oncoinvent to bring Radspherin to a clinical proof of concept." said Jan A. Alfheim, Oncoinvent's CEO.

About Radspherin

Radspherin is a novel alpha-emitting radioactive microsphere designed for treatment of metastatic cancers in body cavities. The radium based therapeutic, Radspherin has shown strong and consistent anticancer activity without any visible signs of product related toxicity in preclinical studies. It is anticipated that the product can potentially treat several forms of metastatic cancer. The first clinical indication for Radspherin will be treatment of peritoneal carcinomatosis originating from ovarian cancer. Peritoneal carcinomatosis is one of the most serious complications of gastrointestinal and gynecological malignancies.

About Oncoinvent

Oncoinvent AS is a privately held Norwegian company based in Oslo, Norway. The company is committed to developing new innovative products in order to provide better treatment options to cancer patients.

The company's founders started Oncoinvent in 2010 with a view to designing better cancer treatments by applying known physical and chemical principles of selected novel materials in new ways in order to maximize their medical benefit while minimizing potential safety concerns. This approach has allowed the company to develop a rich development pipeline and to explore multiple technological avenues before selecting a lead product candidate for preclinical testing.

For further information, please contact:

Jan A. Alfheim, Chief Executive Officer

Cell: +47-46-44-00-45

Email: Alfheim@oncoinvent.com

IR enquiries:

Ole Peter Nordby, Acting Chief Financial Officer

Cell: +47-41-28-71 -9

Email: nordby@oncoinvent.com

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/oncoinvent-as/r/oncoinvent-closes---25-million-private-placement,c2183254

The following files are available for download:

SOURCE Oncoinvent AS
LONDON, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

PharmaBoardroom today releases its new 52 page Healthcare & Life Sciences Review Philippines 2017.

This report offers companies, investors, policymakers, and stakeholders crucial insight into the Philippines; one of the most promising pharmaceutical markets in the Asia-Pacific region with a population of over 100 million, an annual GDP growth rate of around 6.5%, and a new administration committed to expanding healthcare access to all sections of the population. The report tackles the issues surrounding the current government's unpredictability and highlights the country's successes in areas such as drug accessibility, manufacturing capabilities, and even digital solutions.

The report features in-depth exclusive interviews with leading figures from public institutions and private companies, comprehensive articles, and up-to-date facts and figures on the Philippine healthcare and pharma sectors.

Features

Featured topics include:

Expanding healthcare coverage

Drug Accessibility

Digitalization

Manufacturing

PPPs

Interviews

The report features in-depth interviews with:

Paulyn Ubial , Secretary of Health

, Secretary of Health Ramon Aristoza, PhilHealth

Cheryl Maley , Novartis

, Novartis Kuntal Baveja , Sandoz

, Sandoz Jose Augusto Pascual , PascualLab

, PascualLab Beaver Tamesis, MSD

J. de Ruyter "Toto" C. Oroceo, Delex Pharma

Javish Abichandani , AGlobal Care

, AGlobal Care Nestor Lumanas, Sannovex

Quotes

"In the last survey that was released, we saw that 30 percent of Filipinos die without ever seeing a doctor. I want to decrease that number to zero."

Paulyn Ubial, Secretary of Health



"There remain opportunities to broaden access via structural investments for the population to reach healthcare professionals"

Theresa Martinez, Roche



"The generics industry would not be able to thrive without innovation, and this is something that the average citizen sometimes does not understand."

Reiner Gloor, Pharmaceutical & Healthcare Association of the Philippines (PHAP)



"We Filipinos are capable and competent in terms of manufacturing, research, and distribution."

J. de Ruyter "Toto" C. Oroceo, Delex Pharma

Click here to register and download the report.

SOURCE PharmaBoardroom
MATTERSBURG, Austria, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The Innovation Leading and Multiple Industry Awarded Technology Solutions Provider Unpacks its Showcase Portfolio for the Upcoming Mobile World Congress 2017

I-New Unified Mobile Solutions is one of the fastest growing technology solutions-provider in the digital communication industry. From offices, across the globe the company is capable of providing, implementing and running state-of-the-art products and services for successful digital business transformation over next generation platforms.

Solutions reinforcing Mobile Network Operators

Today, many Network Operators face the increasing market pressure to master the complexity of efficiency, time-to-market and ever-changing demands in flexibility. In recent years, I-New became the preferred business support partner of established Network Operators to enable the digital business transformation over lightweight and full digital Business Support Solutions. In cooperation with the operators the company already operates digital service hubs in the Americas, Europe and Asia successfully and reinforces MNOs to transform or launch MVNOs or b-brands swiftly, gain additional market shares, pass regulatory or market based challenges and - most important - to unleash from cumbersome, inflexible and expensive legacy systems.

Solutions Enabling Digital Transformation

The company's comprehensive modular system of highly competitive products and services - named 'Telco in a Box' enables the full digitalization of most modern communication, customer relations and transaction models. The E2E-solution covers the complete customer journey, from the initial idea to the successful business operation. In this way, I-New ensures the full digitalization of subscriber experience and service management. In short: I-New platform solutions enable to deliver innovation, gain flexibility and to save costs significantly. Consequently, the lightweight BSS also allow to service digital businesses beyond the mobile or telco horizon - any disruptive business model welcome.

Industry Leading. Fast Growing.

I-New Unified Mobile Solutions got multiple awarded as Best MVNO/E Solutions and Best Services to Telecoms from the global mobile and communication industry. The company also recently launched its Channel Partner Program inviting professional System Integrators to act as certified sales, CSI and managed services partner in dedicated countries or regions and to sustainably profit from I-New's global growth dynamics (http://www.i-new.com/partner).

I-New's complete showcase portfolio will be presented at the 2017 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Get connected in hall 5, booth 5i15 (http://www.i-new.com/mwc2017).

About I-New:

I-New Unified Mobile Solutions is one of the fastest growing technology solutions-provider in the digital communication industry. With offices and service hubs all across the globe, the Austria based company is capable of providing, implementing and running state-of-the-art products and services for successful digital business transformation over next generation platforms. I-New's comprehensive module system of highly competitive products and services enable the full digitalization of most modern communication and transaction models. Multiple awarded as Best MVNO/E Solutions and Best Services to Telecoms from the global mobile and communication industry.

Contact:

I-New Unified Mobile Solutions AG

Global Marketing & Corporate Communication

Herbert Reinisch

+43-(680)-124-1210

marketing@i-new.com



http://www.i-new.com

SOURCE I-New Unified Mobile Solutions AG
LONDON, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Truphone, the world's first global mobile network, and The Plan B Company, the IoT automotive pioneers, announced today they have partnered to build services for the connected car for leading Asian automotive manufacturer, Kia. The Plan B Company plans to connect thousands of cars with the Truphone SIM covering Europe during 2017.

The combined solution intelligently connects the car to new services creating new possibilities for the driver and passenger. It is made possible by Truphone's multi-country connectivity and The Plan B Company's strength in turning data into insights.

"We are delighted to be partnering with Plan B to enable them to create enhanced and intuitive services for Kia's connected car programme," said Steve Alder, Truphone Chief Business Development Officer.

Kia wanted a car that could give drivers real-time information and location based offers, anywhere in the world. The Plan B Company will leverage Truphone's global SIM and IoT Connectivity Management Platform to create the car of the future that can tell you when it needs a service, recommend a parking spot, and pay for it.

Truphone's unique global network delivers an unparalleled local service. This means that The Plan B Company can provision cars with the Truphone SIM anywhere in the world and future-proof its solution as the cars roll out across Europe.

With Truphone, The Plan B Company has one supplier to deliver quality connectivity in over 220 countries. This, combined with Truphone's industry-leading IoT platform that provides life cycle management, via comprehensive rules engine and REST API enables rapid deployment and over the air reconfiguration to suit the service required.

Patrick Ten Berge, co-founder at The Plan B Company says: "Like us, Truphone is a leader in providing future-proof solutions. We chose them because they delivered the best quality connectivity with predictable costs across many countries."

Truphone and The Plan B Company will be speaking about Kia's connected car programme at Mobile World Congress 2017, taking place from 27 February to 2 March 2017. For more information, visit Truphone.com/mwc17

About Truphone

We're changing the way the world communicates and in doing so creating a whole new set of possibilities. Our global network and patented SIM technology powers connectivity for any device anywhere. We deliver game-changing products and services: mobile recording for compliance, international mobile business plans and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions. Nine of the world's leading investment banks trust Truphone for their mobile recording compliance. More than 3,500 companies choose us as their business mobile provider. Headquartered in London, Truphone has 12 offices worldwide.

To learn more, visit http://www.truphone.com

About The Plan B Company

Based in the Netherlands, The Plan B Company is an integrator who mediates between suppliers and companies that want to start in the field of Connected Car. The Plan B Company supports finding the right suppliers in the areas of hardware, software and connectivity to match the needs of the client throughout the entire process. In addition, Plan B supports proposition development based on the obtained data. The Plan B Company provides its services already to several car manufacturers, national sales companies, companies with medium-sized fleets and leasing companies. The Plan B Company has been compliant in the field of security and privacy of customer data and already complies with the EU Data Protection Directive in 2016.

To learn more, visit http://www.theplanbcompany.com

Media Contact

Catherine Gibbon

+44(0)7408811675

catherine.gibbon@truphone.com



SOURCE Truphone
LifeFlow is an easy-to-use device that allows health care providers to rapidly and efficiently deliver fluids to critically ill patients with conditions such as sepsis and shock. LifeFlow allows a user to deliver 500 milliliters of fluid to a patient in less than two and a half minutes.

"We know that early and aggressive fluid therapy can be one of the most important interventions in life-threatening illnesses like sepsis," said Dr. Mark Piehl, co-founder and chief medical officer at 410 Medical and pediatric intensivist at WakeMed. "Our most common infusion methods are often slow and ineffective in emergency situations, and currently available rapid infusion techniques are complex and expensive. The LifeFlow Rapid Infuser offers an intuitive and affordable solution to this critical challenge."

LifeFlow was cleared by the FDA in 2016. WakeMed Health & Hospitals, a 919-bed hospital system in Raleigh, North Carolina, was selected as an early evaluation partner and pilot site for the LifeFlow Rapid Infuser, and a limited market release was initiated in November 2016. Early feedback from users has been extremely positive.

"I had a chance to use LifeFlow today to treat a critically ill two-year-old. The child presented lethargic, with high temperature and heart rate; basically, compensated shock," said Scott Connelly, MD, FAAP, of Wake Emergency Physicians, PA. "The heart rate dropped into the normal range in front of my eyes as the nurse pushed two fluid boluses within minutes. It was amazing. I have never seen that dramatic a reduction in heart rate with fluid boluses."

Dr. Connelly was one of the physicians who used the LifeFlow Rapid Infuser during the evaluation study. Wake Emergency Physicians, PA is a 136-provider, independent physician practice staffing nine emergency departments in North Carolina.

Based on the success of the early evaluation program, 410 Medical is broadening LifeFlow's market release to a larger group of hospitals nationwide.

"We are thrilled by the initial success of the LifeFlow Rapid Infuser," said Kyle Chenet, chief executive officer at 410 Medical. "We believe LifeFlow is a transformative product that will make a profound contribution to the well-being of children and adults with sepsis and other life-threatening conditions."

About 410 Medical, Inc.

Founded in 2013, 410 Medical is a medical device company dedicated to developing innovative products that enable frontline medical providers to improve care for critically ill patients. 410 Medical's first product, LifeFlow, is designed to enhance the speed and efficiency of fluid resuscitation, improving care for patients with life-threatening illnesses such as sepsis. LifeFlow was cleared by the FDA for human use in August 2016. For more information, visit www.410medical.com.

SOURCE 410 Medical, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.410medical.com


LOS ANGELES, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- In honor of National Cancer Prevention Month, 60out Escape Rooms, Los Angeles' most popular escape rooms, announced today its partnership with FCancer, a nonprofit organization, in its "Escape from Cancer" campaign during the month of February. For the entire month, $10 of every game booked at the escape rooms will be donated to the organization.

Customers will have the option of donating additional monies, purchasing FCancer merchandise and learning about ways to help prevent cancer at each escape room location. 60out Escape Rooms is also offering one community member and a friend a chance to "escape from cancer" and experience one of the escape rooms. In support of this campaign, FCancer will be releasing helpful tips on ways to prevent cancer on social media, at escape room locations and on its website.

60out Escape Rooms offers unique and interactive live-action adventure games. Players become active participants in stories and must work as a team to solve intriguing problems, escape from precarious situations and unravel the plot before time runs out in 60 minutes. The company currently has 12 rooms in four locations in West LA, Marina Del Rey, Hollywood and West Hollywood with plans to open at least 8 additional rooms within the next year. 60out Escape Rooms was rated the best escape room in Los Angeles by Forbes Magazine and has attracted the interest of A-list celebrities, athletes and large corporations.

"We are thrilled to be working with this worthwhile cause and to partner with FCancer to help support those afflicted with cancer and their families who are affected by it." said Operations Manager, Damian Bosiacki. "60out Escape Rooms is honored to contribute to the education of cancer prevention during National Cancer Prevention Month in February."

Since inception in 2009, FCancer has raised over $2 million and is dedicated to early detection, prevention and providing support to those affected by cancer. Its mission is to prevent, detect, and unite through digital initiatives, programs and events that will change the way people think and talk about cancer and ultimately improve health outcomes. The organization believes that people diagnosed with cancer, their families and support network should have equitable access to early detection, prevention, and psychosocial support.

"We could not be more excited for this creative collaboration to Escape from Cancer with 60out Escape Rooms. Collaborations like these are what help us carry out our mission and run programs," said Heather Kun, Executive Director of FCancer.

The LIVE digital donation meter can be found at www.60out.com.

About 60out

Founded in 2015, 60out Escape Rooms is a Los Angeles-based company with locations in West Los Angeles, Marina Del Rey, Hollywood, and West Hollywood. The company provides interactive live-action adventure games for people of all ages and incomes. With a team of 2-6 players, the goal is to solve puzzles by working together, using clues and uncovering passcodes in 60 minutes. For more information, visit www.60out.com.

About FCancer

FCancer is dedicated to the prevention and early detection of cancer; it is a movement that creates a raw and authentic space by harnessing the cumulative experience of their community, Generation Connected. FCancer is a tax-exempt 501(c) 3 registered charity co-founded by Yael Cohen Braun and Julie Greenbaum. For more information, visit LetsFCancer.com or follow @letsfcancer.

Contact:

Brooke Cockrell

[email protected]



SOURCE 60out Escape Rooms

Related Links

http://www.60out.com


"ZERGRAND Stitchlite is our newest elegant innovation as we continue our quest to reimagine and reinvent the definition of dress footwear," says Jack Boys, Chief Executive Officer at Cole Haan. "We are excited to deliver this outstanding shoe to customers that is as comfortable in the office as they are about town."

Cole Haan has artfully constructed the men's and women's ZERGRAND Stitchlite as the next frontier in innovative wingtips; versatile, lightweight and understatedly elegant. The men's ZERGRAND Stitchlite Wingtip Oxford arrives just in time for Spring, with an array of vibrant colorways like Burnt Orange, Optic White and Marine Blue. With a nod to the storied heritage of Cole Haan, subtle leather details accompany the men's styles. For women, the shoes come in Optic White Knit/Vapor grey, Ironstone Knit/Tropical Peach and Marine Blue Knit/Optic White.

"This groundbreaking oxford features zonally designed dynamic stitching and static tight gauge-stitching to create a customized, foot-hugging fit while open, pointelle-stitching details improve breathability and moisture control" says Scott Patt, Vice President of Design & Innovation at the Cole Haan Global Innovation Center in New Hampshire. "The upper design of the ZERGRAND Stitchlite Wingtip Oxford works in harmony with an anatomically engineered outsole mimicking the natural motion of the foot." Rubber pods on the forefoot and heel allow for an improved grip on any surface while a signature Grand.S energy foam footbed and unit sole provide cushioning for the ultimate in comfort.

The ZERGRAND Stitchlite collection is available now on www.ColeHaan.com and in US and international Cole Haan Stores.

About Cole Haan

Cole Haan LLC, with its Global Headquarters in Greenland, New Hampshire and Creative Center in New York City, is an iconic American lifestyle accessories brand and retailer of premium men's, women's and children's footwear, handbags, leather accessories, outerwear and eyewear. Cole Haan stands for its commitment to craftsmanship, timeless style and design innovation. For more information, visit ColeHaan.com and follow @ColeHaan.

For more information, contact:

Kimry Blackwelder, Cole Haan

Phone: +1 (212) 763-3060

E-mail: [email protected]

SOURCE Cole Haan

Related Links

http://www.colehaan.com


CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Aegon Asset Management U.S. announces the closing of Garnet LIHTC Fund XLVIII, LLC, a $105 million national, low-income housing tax credit fund. This is the 51st fund offering sponsored by Aegon USA Realty Advisors, LLC ("AURA"), a member company of Aegon Asset Management, and the global investment management division of the Aegon Group. In addition to sponsoring the fund, AURA will also provide ongoing fund oversight and asset management services for the life of the fund.

With this latest closing, capital raised for institutional tax credit fund investments by AURA now exceeds $2.75 billion. This fund was the last of six funds offered by AURA in 2016, closing a successful year with more than $700 million of capital raised. Lynn Ambrosy, Head of Real Estate Distribution and Client Management for AURA stated "2016 was an exceptional year for AURA's tax credit syndication group. We continue to attract new institutional investors to our platform and the partnership with our affiliate companies remains strong. The tax credit syndication group's sustained expansion is a byproduct of the level of service and investment discipline AURA provides to its clients." AURA has closed funds with 34 institutional investors.

The fund is expected to be comprised of investments in 12 properties located in six states across the country. The fund is closed to new investors. The investor composition included both banks and insurance companies, including an affiliate of AURA. Bank of America Merrill Lynch acted as placement agent for the fund.

About Aegon USA Realty Advisors, LLC (AURA):

AURA is a fully-integrated real estate asset manager, with $18 billion in assets under management (as of September 30, 2016), and has provided real estate investment services to institutional clients since 1983. AURA provides real estate asset management and advisory services  including tax credit investments, commercial mortgage loans, affordable housing debt, and other private equity and debt products  to affiliated and unaffiliated institutional clients. AURA has a distinguished reputation in the real estate industry for its diverse real estate expertise and strong investment performance. AURA is not a registered investment adviser with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and is not regulated by any federal agency. AURA is part of Aegon Asset Management, which is an international organization headquartered in The Hague, with offices across North America, Europe, and Asia. For more information, please visit www.aegonrealty.com.

About Aegon Asset Management:

Aegon Asset Management is a global, active investment manager. Aegon Asset Management uses its investment management expertise to help people achieve a lifetime of financial security. Investors worldwide entrust Aegon Asset Management to manage approximately $378 billion on their behalf (as of September 30, 2016.)

Positioned for success in its chosen markets (North America, the UK, Continental Europe and Asia), Aegon Asset Management's specialist teams provide high-quality investment solutions across asset classes. Its clients benefit from the extensive international research capabilities and in-depth local knowledge of Aegon Asset Management, as well as Kames Capital, its UK investment team, and TKP Investments, its fiduciary and multi-manager investment team in the Netherlands.

Aegon Asset Management is part of Aegon, one of the world's leading financial services organizations, providing life insurance, pensions and asset management. For more information, please visit www.aegonassetmanagement.com.

Media inquiries

Stacey Jones

U.S. Communications Manager

Aegon Asset Management

Phone: (+1) 319-355-6642

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Aegon Asset Management

Related Links

http://www.aegonassetmanagement.com


WASHINGTON, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Asian & Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund (APIASF), the nation's largest non-profit organization devoted to providing college scholarships for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs), is ringing in the Lunar New Year with a $50,000 grant from Wells Fargo. To commemorate the New Year, APIASF and Wells Fargo will be honoring APIASF/Wells Fargo Scholars on Thursday, February 9th at the Chinese Cultural Center to kick off San Francisco's Lunar New Year festivities, culminating in the largest celebration of Asian culture outside of Asia and San Francisco tradition  the Chinese New Year Parade.

Since 2006, APIASF and Wells Fargo have joined together to support access, persistence, and success for AAPI students and their families through scholarships, financial education, mentorship, college tours, and national events supporting student success. To date, Wells Fargo has generously donated over $6.5 million and funded over 1,300 scholarships. In this past year, 70% of APIASF/Wells Fargo Scholars lived at or below the poverty line and 73% were the first generation in their families to attend college.

"Through our decade-long relationship, Wells Fargo has been a committed supporter of APIASF, our Scholars, families, and the greater AAPI community," said Neil Horikoshi, President and Executive Director of APIASF. "We are honored to have Wells Fargo's continued support to increase opportunities for underserved students nationwide."

"Wells Fargo is delighted to celebrate the Year of the Rooster with the Asian American community. We believe education and our ongoing support for organizations like APIASF are among the many ways in which Wells Fargo invests in the growth of our communities," said Arati Randolph, Wells Fargo senior vice president, corporate communications and APIASF board member. "Wells Fargo is committed to working together with our communities because we value higher education and believe strongly that education is the pathway to a brighter future for many Asian-American families."

For details about APIASF's events and to learn more about our scholarship programs and our work to strengthen communities, visit us at www.apiasf.org. Also, follow APIASF on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

About APIASF

Based in Washington, D.C., the Asian & Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund (APIASF) is the nation's largest non-profit organization devoted to providing college scholarships for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI). APIASF works to create opportunities for students to access, complete, and succeed after post-secondary education; thereby developing future leaders who will excel in their career, serve as role models in their communities, and will ultimately contribute to a vibrant America. Since 2003, APIASF has distributed over $110 million in scholarships to deserving AAPI students. APIASF manages three scholarship programs: the APIASF General Scholarship, the APIASF Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander - Serving Institutions (AANAPISI) Scholarship, and the Gates Millennium Scholars/Asian Pacific Islander Americans funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

CONTACT

Leilani Pimentel

[email protected]

202.715.0273

SOURCE Asian & Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund

Related Links

http://www.apiasf.org


PLANO, Texas, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Home Decor Superstore Celebrates Grand Opening

At Home Group Inc. (NYSE: HOME), the home decor superstore, announces the opening of the Mobile, Ala., location on Thursday, Feb. 9. The 114,000 square-foot store, located at 312 Schillinger Road South, Mobile, Ala., marks the fourth store in Alabama for the big-box specialty retailer of home decor products.

Following the store opening, the Mobile location will host a grand opening ribbon-cutting Friday, Feb. 17 at 9 a.m. with the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce. At Home will offer mystery gift cards to customers who visit the store Saturday, Feb. 18 beginning at 9 a.m. At Home can help customers decorate their homes with seasonal items in a variety of styles to help shoppers reflect their unique personalities.

At Home allows customers to express their personal style with any budget by choosing from an expansive selection of more than 50,000 items  including wall art and decorative accents, rugs, housewares, patio furniture, home furnishings, seasonal and holiday decor. Employing an everyday low pricing model, At Home is dedicated to allowing customers to affordably make their house into a home.

This new location brings 25 jobs to Mobile and surrounding communities. Other Alabama At Home stores can be found in Birmingham, Hoover and Huntsville.

ABOUT AT HOME:

At Home, the home decor superstore, is focused on providing customers with the broadest assortment of home decor products to suit any style, at any budget, for any reason to redecorate. With a wide assortment of 50,000 items throughout our stores, At Home enables customers to express themselves and create a home that reflects their personality and style, in ways big and small. At Home is headquartered in Plano, Texas, and currently operates 123 stores in 30 states. For more information, visit the company on http://www.athome.com or find us on Facebook (AtHomeStores), Instagram (AtHomeStores) or Pinterest (AtHomeStores).

SOURCE At Home Group Inc.

Related Links

http://www.athome.com


According to TechSci Research report, "Australia and New Zealand Light Commercial Vehicle Market By Vehicle Type, Competition Forecast & Opportunities, 2011 - 2021", the market for light commercial vehicles in Australia and New Zealand is projected to cross $14 billion and $4 billion, respectively, by 2021, on the back of booming demand for pickups, followed by increasing use of vans and growing transportation through light buses. In addition, transportation and logistics sectors are the major demand generators of light commercial vehicles across both the oceanic countries. In 2015, the freight and logistics industry held a share of more than 9% in the overall GDP of Australia. A major demand for vans was observed to emanate from the indicated industry of the country during the same year. A wide demand for pickups was witnessed to emerge from the youth population of New Zealand, mainly, falling in the age group of 15 to 54 years. Over 53% of New Zealand population was witnessed to be between the age of 15 years to 54 years in 2015.

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Browse 9 market data Tables and 30 Figures spread through 109 Pages and an in-depth TOC on

"Australia and New Zealand Light Commercial Vehicle Market "

https://www.techsciresearch.com/report/australia-and-new-zealand-light-commercial-vehicle-market-by-vehicle-type-pickups-vans-and-light-buses-competition-forecast-and-opportunities/902.html

Escalating average selling price of LCVs coupled with the increase in sales of such vehicles the market for light commercial vehicles from Australia and New Zealand light is likely to expand during the forecast period. Light commercial vehicle market was witnessed to be largely concentrated in three regions of Australia, i.e. New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria in 2015. Pickups dominated Australia and New Zealand overall LCV market, followed by vans and light buses in 2015. Dominating presence of various multinational companies such as Toyota, GM Holden, Ford, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Hyundai, etc., intensified the Australia and New Zealand light commercial vehicle market during the same year. Besides that, constant incorporation of various additional features in the prominent models of LCV is expected to result in a moderate price hike of such vehicles in both the countries.

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"Increasing government initiatives, growing small and medium enterprises and steady demand arising from logistics industry are anticipated to push light commercial vehicles sales in Australia and New Zealand. Moreover, increasing demand for personal transportation and growing preference among the youth population of both the oceanic countries is expected to lead pickups segment during the forecast period. All the stated factors are projected to drive Australia and New Zealand light commercial vehicle market through 2022.", said Mr. Karan Chechi, Research Director with TechSci Research, a research based global management consulting firm.

"Australia and New Zealand Light Commercial Vehicle Market By Vehicle Type, Competition Forecast & Opportunities, 2011 - 2021" has evaluated the future growth potential of Australia and New Zealand light commercial vehicle market and provides statistics and information on market structure, size, share and future growth. The report intends 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 present in Australia and New Zealand light commercial vehicle market.

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SOURCE TechSci Research
Traffic cameras  the bane of libertarian-minded motor-heads  is sitting shotgun in the Iowa Legislature. There's a sound bill running on reason and facts and another that speeds headlong into a fiery ideological crash.

The motoring enthusiasts among us understand Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Brad Zaun's frustrations with the increasingly prevalent enforcement devices. Drivers allegedly blowing a traffic light or speeding down a highway never even get to face their accuser. Instead, a ticket shows up in the mail. So much for due process.

Head to court and face the photos. Zaun's bill would end all that by banning traffic cameras statewide.

There's also legitimate concerns about the purpose of traffic cameras in many instances. Cities throughout Iowa have realized they are a relatively cheap method of generating revenue without having to add more cops. There are few better ways to erode public trust in police than the monetization of law enforcement. Add to that a slew of questionable deals with the private firms that operate the systems, and Zaun's general aversion is easily justified.

But not every traffic camera was installed simply as a cash-grab, a fact Iowa Department of Public Transportation admits. Many, including in Davenport, are demonstrably linked to fewer crashes at problematic intersections. It's a case local police chiefs and mayors have effectively made in defense of the oft-grumblesome technology.

Zaun, R-Urbandale, hopes to put the hammer down. A better competing bill, authored by Senate Transportation Committee Tim Kapucian, R-Keystone, isn't so fast and loose.

Kapucian's legislation would finally provide state oversight over where traffic cameras are installed. Iowa DOT would approve locations, presumably based on crash and safety statistics. In effect, Kapucian's legislation would strip cities of the practice of setting up speed traps designed to pump money in to local coffers. Yet it wouldn't rob police of a tool that, the data show, has saved lives and money.

Police chiefs from Iowa's largest cities are strongly backing Kapucian's approach. The oversight the bill provides is but one piece. It also would require the more than $10 million in fines collected annually to be used on infrastructure. In so doing, speed traps would no longer be a quick and easy way to plug holes in the city budget.

Kapucian's started its journey Wednesday through the state Senate. Zaun's outright ban waits for a full vetting in the Judiciary Committee.

But, already, it's obvious that Kapucian's compromise deals in the facts. Zaun's is a matter of political ideology.

There's a legitimate argument about the constitutionality of traffic cameras. But they're yet to be successfully challenged. The questions about due process are a matter for the courts. So far, traffic cameras have a middling record at state-level courts throughout the country. Federal courts have yet to render a defining blow one way or another.

Kapucian's legislation grapples with that reality. It correctly asserts that, in too many cases, traffic cameras have been abused. But it also acknowledges the technology's upside.

Zaun's proposed ban lacks the legal foundation to justify the loss.

This editorial was published in the Feb. 2 edition of the Quad-City Times, another Lee Enterprises publication.
Azcom Technology, a leading player in advanced wireless communication is planning to showcase its latest products and featured wireless solutions at the Mobile World Congress to be held in Barcelona, Spain between Feb 27th and March 2nd, 2017.

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/466568/Azcom_World_Mobile_Congress_2017.jpg )

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Mission critical operations, like public safety, involves the prevention of and protection from events that could endanger the safety of people from significant danger, injury/harm, or damage, such as crimes or disasters (natural or man-made). Public and Private safety organizations are mandated to deliver a certain level of service to society, performing Mission Critical Operations. Public safety services like reliable and fail-safe utilities and transport systems require broadband wireless networks to provide effective and time-critical services. Law enforcement officers, fire fighters and paramedics are in real need for high bandwidth, reliable mobile broadband infra structure and applications to maximize their service performance.

Azcom Technology provides all the key 4G mobile broadband infrastructure components and solutions essential to build a state-of-art deployable 4G mission critical network. This includes Network In a Box (NIB), Small Cells, C-RANs and Evolved Packet Core (EPC).

Azcom Network In a Box

The Azcom AZN-IIF-2200 uses the latest generation multi-core SoCs to offer a powerful, flexible, compact, highly portable and cost effective solution with the option to use a pluggable card to run an EPC module that enables NIB capabilities. The product comes with a passive casing that is deployment ready with IP67 compliance. The AZN-IIF-2200 can be readily deployed for mission critical, public safety, defense, surveillance, remote coverage and other private applications.

"The Azcom NIB has the essential features to host and enable mission critical and public safety applications", said Dr. Satish Ananthaiyer, EVP Business Development. "The NIB offers plug and play set-up that can enable critical services very quickly when needed".

The Azcom physical layer and protocol stack software are fully integrated on the NIB platforms and end-to-end tested with commercial HSPA+ and LTE UEs. All major functional blocks of this solution are Azcom intellectual property and are licensable separately. This has significant value for customers with application specific requirements needing customization and/or development of additional features, particularly in defense, public safety and large utilities with private networks.

Leveraging the Azcom NIB platform, Azcom, Pontiradio and ecom will demonstrate a professional communication platform for the management of mission critical workforce.

The SNS PoC service implemented by Pontiradio is based on TASSTA SW application platform and offers a modern Push-To-Talk solution which uses all technical capacities of standard smartphones. The solution can be provided on the "cloud" or "on premises" and offers a complete package of individual, group and priority calls, messages and data transfer, voice recording, GPS and indoor tracking, alarm and many more features. This can be deployed in hazardous environments like oil/gas/chemical plants, mines etc.

"The TASSTA PTT application is fully featured to offer services on the 4G-LTE NIB offered by Azcom Technology", said Kaveh Hosseinzadeh, TASSTA Managing Director.

The PTT application is installed on ecom's ultra-rugged LTE / WiFi / Android smartphone ATEX certified that has unrivalled features such as special touch screen for direct sunlight and gloves use, extremely loud speakers, extraordinary powerful battery, water and drop resistance and much more. Smart-Ex product line has been especially developed for Harsh and Dangerous environments like Oil & Gas, Chemical and Pharmaceuticals production plants.

"The ecom handset is interoperable with the Azcom NIB to provide end-to-end PTT services even in potential explosive areas", said Mauro Stefani, Managing Director of ecom Italian subsidiary.

By employing Azcom NIB platform, TASSTA SW application and ecom devices, Pontiradio provides services for design, implementation, and management of mobile broadband networks for day-to-day mission critical operations.

"The Azcom NIB with TASTA PTT is a fully-featured mission critical service that will benefit our customers", said Ruggero Cerizza, President of Pontiradio.

Azcom is demonstrating this end-to-end solution at MWC. The Azcom booth is located in Hall 7 Stand G21. For meeting requests, please send email to [email protected]

About Azcom Technology

Azcom Technology, a leader in wireless communications with two decades of experience, provides a complete suite of software/hardware products with customization and design services to build LTE/HSPA+ wireless networks for tactical, public safety, mission critical, IoT and 5G applications. To address the evolving IoT market, Azcom is collaborating with many industry leading players to develop NB-IoT PHY/stack both for the network and the device. Azcom provides LTE traffic generator and testing solutions for NB-IoT and eMTC applications. In the automotive and avionics sectors, Azcom is working with several companies to build connectivity solutions and cloud based applications for data processing/storage. Azcom is headquartered in Milan, Italy with a design center in Gurgaon, India.

For more information, please visit www.azcom.it

About Pontiradio PR

Since more than 50 years Pontiradio PR is a leading provider of services for design, implementation, and management of networks for professional mobile radio communications for major multinational, public authorities and industrial customers. The head office is located in Peschiera Borromeo (MI), while a network of service centers all over Italy allows the Company to provide a nationwide coverage and capability of intervention. To offer professional users of PMR communications a set of innovative outsourced service solutions called "SNS - Smart Network Sharing", Pontiradio has created an extensive and advanced infrastructure for Mission Critical Communications (towers - access network - transmission network - NOC - cloud servers). This implement the concept of Radiocomms as a Service, which does not require the user to build and operate its own dedicated infrastructure, avoiding the related investments for the construction, management, and maintenance of the network.

For more information, please visit www.pontiradiopr.it

About ecom

Globally, ecom instruments is the leading provider of mobile solutions and devices for use in explosive areas, whether including chemicals and petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, oil and gas production, mining or energy and the environment. For more than 30 years, ecom has set the standards and gathered comprehensive expertise in explosion protection for daily use in hazardous industrial areas across the globe. In its four core disciplines of communication, mobile computing, portable hand lamps and measurement calibration, ecom instruments offers a huge variety of innovative and proven solutions.

For more information, please visit www.ecom-ex.com

About TASSTA

TASSTA is a modern and young software development company, with a background of radio system integration and a strong extensive expertise in the professional mobile radio (PMR) market, which has developed an innovative communication system which enables companies from various industries to experience a highest level of communication. It consists of different types of components: T.LION (communication server), T.COMMANDER (configuration and administration tool), T.RECORDER (secure recording), T.FLEX (client application ), T.RODON (command & control center) and T.BRIDGE (gateway to other existing networks). Customers enjoy a complete package of individual, group and priority calls, messages including data transfer, voice recording, GPS and in house tracking, alarming meeting all requirements for lone worker protection and a lot more features. TASSTA combines all advantages of traditional mobile radio with all that modern smartphones must offer.

For more information, please visit www.tassta.com

Media Enquiries

For further information, please contact:

Claudio Canosi

Business Development Manager

+39-02-82-45-0325

Media Enquiries

For further information, please contact:

Claudio Canosi

Business Development Manager

[email protected]

+39-02-82-45-0325

SOURCE Azcom Technology
BOSTON, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- In the next five years, 81.3% of business-to-business (B2B) companies expect to invest more in their brand strategies, according to new research published by Boston-based brand strategy consultancy Spencer Brenneman.

Most expect a modest increase of up to 20% or a larger one between 21-40%. That is on top of the increased spend that took place over the past five years: 86.7% cited an increase in spending. Half of them at a rate of 20% or less, according to the study.

Impact of continual research on brand strategy effectiveness

"There was lots of data out there on how B2C companies were investing in their brands, but very little for B2B. So, we set out to find it," said Douglas Spencer, Spencer Brenneman president. "We wanted to quantify the connection between strong B2B business performance and the right brand strategy. Even we were surprised by the results."

According to the study, those bigger budgets generated real results for most, as 82.3% of the organizations that increased their spending saw the larger investments pay off. The biggest area where this payoff occurred was increasing sales and landing additional customers, which was true for 56% of those who cited a specific payoff.

"Another clear trend we saw was with research," said Spencer. "It pays off. Those who increased spending showed improvement, but those who increased spending and conducted continual research did even better." (See graph.)

Spencer said that those companies with an established verbal identity also fared better, citing a 12% increase in shareholder value as compared to those brands without a distinct voice.

Working with Connecticut-based market research firm Great Blue Research, Spencer Brenneman surveyed 150 B2B marketing executives who consider themselves ultimately responsible for or an expert on their organization's brand strategy.

A new white paper explains these results and more. It is available free-of-charge on the Spencer Brenneman website, http://sbsb.us/SBPR217.

About Spencer Brenneman, LLC

Spencer Brenneman helps brands in transition. Whether that's creating a new brand from scratch, retooling one that's been around for a couple of years, or bringing together two established ones, we show companies how to grow their businesses with the right brand strategy. For more information, visit spencerbrenneman.com.

For more information:

Douglas Spencer

+1-774-260-5560

[email protected]

SOURCE Spencer Brenneman, LLC

Related Links

http://www.spencerbrenneman.com


"Bacardi's commitment to being corporately responsible extends into every aspect of our business," said Rick Wilson, senior vice president of Corporate Responsibility for family-owned Bacardi. "From the critical importance of quality ingredients and how we source our materials to the impact we leave on the world around us and the need to reduce alcohol-related harm, we actively strive to fulfill our broader responsibilities to society at large."

The 2016 CR Report showcases the Bacardi accomplishments in five strategic pillars focusing on where our business impacts society most: 1) Marketplace; 2) Environment; 3) Responsible Sourcing; 4) People; and 5) Philanthropy & Community Investment. Achievements in the Bacardi Limited 2016 CR Report include:

Continued to work with industry members on the Beer, Wine and Spirits Producers' Commitments to Reduce Harmful Drinking, in line with the World Health Organization's goal to reduce harmful consumption of alcohol. As part of these Producers' Commitments, Bacardi achieved 100% compliance with marketing agency contracts in responsible marketing.

Through our work with the International Alliance on Responsible Drinking (IARD) and local Social Aspect Organizations, piloted drunk driving prevention and underage drinking educational campaigns in key markets reaching more than 1.6 million underage individuals through more than 100 programs.

The ambitious "Good Spirited" global environmental sustainability initiative has led the way in our sourcing, packaging and operational efficiency strategies and exceeded many of our 2017 targets, including improvement in water use efficiency by 1.8% over FY15 to 46.4% and a reduction in greenhouse gas emission intensity by 20% to an overall 49% of FY06 baseline (achieved 50% in November 2016 ).

). Achieved 0.59% waste to landfill ratio; on track to achieve Zero Waste to Landfill by 2022 as seven of 29 facilities have already achieved such status.

Reached target of 40% of sugarcane-derived products from sustainably certified sources -- a full twelve months early than our original goal of end of FY17. Of note, we are on track to achieve our 2020 goal of 100% of sugarcane-derived products from sustainably certified sources by the end of 2017.

Achieved 79% of global direct suppliers and 96% of global point of sale suppliers linked to Bacardi through Sedex, a non-profit membership organization dedicated to driving improvements in responsible and ethical business practices in global supply chains.

In FY16, 33% of our senior management roles were held by women, a testament to our Women in Leadership program.

In Safety, we continued the implementation of our Safety First program and reported our lowest ever rate of Total Recordable Incidents with the number of accident-free sites increasing from 14 to 19 out of 30, as we move closer to our vision for an accident-free Bacardi.

Bacardi is committed to the communities in which we live and work. We encourage employees to volunteer their time in programs and activities to support local charitable organizations, and we support the many worthwhile charities in our towns working to better our communities. This past year our employees volunteered more than 9,000 hours in 30 countries.

As part of the "Roar for Life" drunk driving prevention social campaign, our iconic Italian MARTINI brand donated US$120,000 to support activities to promote local nonprofit organizations in Russia , Poland , Ukraine , and Kazakhstan .

"By living our values every day, we also commit ourselves to contributing to a more sustainable future for all. By caring deeply and passionately about our business and the world around us, we excel in creating brands consumers can trust," adds Wilson. "Our actions are making an impact as once again Bacardi was named among the most reputable companies in the world by Forbes. An honor we proudly accept."

To read more about Corporate Responsibility within Bacardi, including how Bacardi is the only major spirits company certified to be operating in accordance with the world's most recognized management standards for quality (ISO 9001), environment (ISO 14001) and health and safety (OHSAS 18001), visit the Corporate Responsibility section of www.BacardiLimited.com.

About Bacardi Limited

Bacardi Limited, the largest privately held spirits company in the world, produces and markets internationally recognized spirits and wines. The Bacardi brand portfolio comprises more than 200 brands and labels, including BACARDI rum, GREY GOOSE vodka, DEWAR'S Blended Scotch whisky, BOMBAY SAPPHIRE gin, MARTINI vermouth and sparkling wines, CAZADORES 100% blue agave tequila, and other leading and emerging brands.

Founded 155 years ago in Santiago de Cuba on February 4, 1862, family-owned Bacardi manufactures its brands at 29 facilities and sells in more than 160 countries. Bacardi Limited refers to the Bacardi group of companies, including Bacardi International Limited.

Media Contacts

Amy Federman, +1.441.294.1110, [email protected]

K.C. Kavanagh, +1.441.298.1053, [email protected]

ENJOY RESPONSIBLY.

 2017 BACARDI

BACARDI, THE BAT DEVICE AND OTHER MARKS ARE TRADEMARKS OF BACARDI & COMPANY LIMITED OR OF OTHER SUBSIDIARIES OF BACARDI LIMITED.



SOURCE Bacardi Limited

Related Links

https://www.bacardilimited.com


IRVINE, Calif., Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Banc of California, Inc. (the "Company") (NYSE: BANC) today announced that the Special Committee of its Board of Directors (the "Board") has received the final report of the independent investigation into previously disclosed blogger allegations. The report concludes that there was no violation of law and that Jason Galanis had no indirect or direct control or undue influence over the Company.

Chairman of the Board Robert D. Sznewajs said, "We are pleased to have this investigation behind us and look forward to continuing to fulfill our mission as California's Bank."

As previously reported, on October 18, 2016, an anonymous blog post raised questions about related party transactions and other issues with respect to the Company. Also, as previously disclosed, in response to these allegations, the Board formed a Special Committee which commenced a process to identify and engage an independent law firm to review the allegations. Shortly thereafter, on October 27, 2016, the Company's independent auditor, KPMG, sent a letter to Mr. Sznewajs in his capacity as Chair of the Company's Joint Audit Committee (the "KPMG Letter") raising concerns about allegations of "inappropriate relationships with third parties" and "potential undisclosed related party relationships."

The Special Committee retained WilmerHale, a law firm with no prior relationship with the Company, to conduct an independent investigation to address certain issues raised by the blog post, and items identified by the Special Committee, as well as questions raised by the KPMG Letter. In accordance with the KPMG Letter, WilmerHale has made a final report to the Special Committee and KPMG and has confirmed its earlier conclusion that the inquiry has not found any violation of law. In addition, as previously stated, contrary to the claims in the blog post, WilmerHale did not find evidence that Jason Galanis has had any direct or indirect control or undue influence over the Company. Furthermore, the inquiry did not find that any loan, related party transaction, or any other circumstance had impaired the independence of any director.

As set forth in the Company's statement on January 23, 2017, while the Special Committee inquiry did not identify any violation of law, the Special Committee found that a press release issued by the Company on October 18, 2016, contained certain inaccuracies relating to a prior review of issues that were raised in the blog post.

Mr. Sznewajs added: "We've taken steps in recent weeks to improve governance and enhance our Board, and we are committed to continuing this effort. We are also well underway with our search for the best internal or external candidate to lead the Company and will provide updates as appropriate."

About Banc of California, Inc.

Banc of California, Inc. (NYSE: BANC) provides comprehensive banking services to California's diverse businesses, entrepreneurs and communities. Banc of California operates over 100 offices in California and the West. The Company was recently recognized by Forbes for the second straight year as one of the 100 Best Banks in America for 2017.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the "Safe-Harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are necessarily subject to risk and uncertainty and actual results could differ materially from those anticipated due to various factors, including those set forth from time to time in the documents filed or furnished by Banc of California, Inc. with the Securities and Exchange Commission. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and Banc of California, Inc. undertakes no obligation to update any such statements to reflect circumstances or events that occur after the date on which the forward-looking statement is made.

Investor Relations Inquiries: Media Inquiries: Banc of California, Inc. Abernathy MacGregor Timothy Sedabres, (855) 361-2262 Ian Campbell / Joe Hixson / Kristin Cole (213) 630-6550 [email protected] / [email protected] / [email protected]

SOURCE Banc of California, Inc.

Related Links

http://bancofcal.com


MIAMI, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- John Siracusa, founder of #BankSocial Media Conference (http://www.banksocialmediaconference.com/) wishes to extend a big "thank you" to the sponsors of this year's event, which looks to build on the success of the inaugural event last April. #BankSocial 2017 is taking place in Miami from April 4th and 5th with optional pre & post conference workshops, and early bird registration is still open.

"This growing list of fabulous sponsors proves the growing need for #BankSocial in the credit union and retail banking industry, and sponsorship makes it possible for us to organize a truly one-of-a-kind event," says Siracusa. "So, I want to say how appreciative I am of Credit Union Times, Aimclear, Social Assurance, Pannos Marketing, Mills Marketing and Level5  we couldn't have done this without you."

"CU Times believes in the power of connecting communication strategies on all platforms and we're happy to bring it all together for the #BankSocial event. In-person, online and on social media  it's how we're all connected every day," said Michael Ogden, executive editor for CU Times.

"We're eager to dig into advanced marketing tactics with top banking and financial services pros at #BankSocial 2016," said Marty Weintraub, founder at Minnesota-based Aimclear. "We'll show marketers how to layer amazing creative with precise psychographic audience targeting, so they can reach the right audiences then convert prospects through solid strategies and great content."

"The first year for Bank Social was a phenomenal experience with tremendous speakers and attendees that took ownership in the conference. I'm excited to see the growth and expansion for 2017. This is a conference you don't want to miss," said Ben Pankonin, Social Assurance CEO and co-founder.

"We're excited to be part of #BankSocial 2017! Based on the level of engagement at the #BankSocial inaugural event, we anticipate a great opportunity for collaboration with banking professionals and industry experts alike. #BankSocial is an excellent way for bankers to learn how digital marketing relates to banking and how it can be used to support their business goals," says Jim Pannos of Pannos Marketing.

"As consumer behavior continues to evolve, so does banking. The integration of digital channels, including social media, and the physical branch are huge components to enabling consumers to make connections that improve their businesses and lives. #BankSocial marries the leaders in all three categories," says Anthony Burnett, Customer Experience Director at LEVEL5.

"We are so excited to be a part of this conference - for the second year! #BankSocial is truly unique and delivers content and idea sharing opportunities you can't get anywhere else in the industry." - Sarah Bacehowski  President, Mills Marketing

The #BankSocial 2017 agenda has something to offer everyone in the bank and credit union community. Attendees can learn the ins and outs of social media marketing from recognized authorities and experts, and go back to their respective institutions armed with a set of tools and practices for optimizing consumer engagement across all channels.

About #BankSocial

Banking isn't like every other industryregulations have made social media a nerve racking territory. That's why #BankSocial was created to inspire bank and credit union marketers and executives to be the best at exceeding customer's expectations, while navigating through the red tape. Whether you're a social media rock star or a beginner, you'll gather a wealth of knowledge from industry leaders through content innovation, open discussions, networking, and so much more. Learn more at http://banksocialmediaconference.com.

Contact:

Ally Davis

#BankSocial

201-941-1458 ext. 703

[email protected]

http://banksocialmediaconference.com

SOURCE #BankSocial
DALLAS, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading legal education provider BARBRI today announced a strategic agreement with Delaware Law School to purchase the school's state bar review course in its entirety.

Building on a unique partnership of many years, the agreement effectively integrates the school's existing Delaware bar review materials and course with BARBRI's multistate materials and best practice-oriented resources. BARBRI's Delaware bar review is the only one endorsed by the school, and is also the only Delaware bar review offered at the school -- the site of the Delaware bar exam.

Under the agreement, the comprehensive Delaware bar review program will continue to leverage the strategic advisory resources, local practitioners and professors long associated with the course and school. In addition, students will now benefit from BARBRI's continuous improvement process, expertly curated and integrated state-specific and multistate materials, lectures, questions, and customer support. BARBRI continues to be the only bar review course offered in all 50 states.

"We consider the agreement a major win for our students as well as those around the country seeking admission to the Delaware Bar," said Rod Smolla, Dean of the law school. "We've long enjoyed a successful relationship with BARBRI in serving our law students and look forward to this next phase."

"We are extremely excited about this next chapter of our longstanding strategic relationship with Delaware Law School," added BARBRI President Mike Sims. "This agreement will ensure the power and resources for which BARBRI is known are accessible and easily leveraged by those planning to sit for the Delaware bar exam."

About The BARBRI Group

The BARBRI Group companies meet the legal education needs of law students and attorneys throughout their careers. At the core of The BARBRI Group Companies is BARBRI Bar Review, which has helped more than 1.3 million U.S. lawyers pass the exam. The company also provides specialized ongoing skills training and certifications in areas such as financial crime, eDiscovery, and cyber awareness, security and protection. The BARBRI Group affiliated companies work to improve legal and professional learning in the United States and around the world by providing superior opportunities for law schools and law firms as well as law- and finance-related businesses to prosper. Founded in 1967, The BARBRI Group is headquartered in Dallas with offices throughout the United States and around the world.

Contact: Cindy Parks

913-526-6912

[email protected]

SOURCE BARBRI
NEW YORK, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Hummustir, a new take on deconstructed hummus, was recently awarded first place for most innovative product at the first-ever Front Burner Foodservice Pitch Competition. The event occurred in San Francisco at the 42nd Winter Fancy Food Show, and was hosted by the Foodservice Council of the Specialty Food Association.

Hummustir provides the consumer with cooked chickpea puree, toasted tahini, and simple spices in a 12-ounce container, or in 3- to 5-pound sizes for foodservice. Flavors include Classic, Mediterranean, and Village. The product was launched in mid-2016 by Baruvi Fresh LLC co-founders Alon Kruvi, Rakesh Barmecha and Vineet Bokaria. "We are a brand new company, we just launched, and this is very exciting for us," said Kruvi, who gave the pitch to the judges. "It's been a few years to make this innovative product come to life and we couldn't be more proud. We're very grateful to the Specialty Food Association for allowing us to have this opportunity."

"The Front Burner Competition gave new brands, like Hummustir, the opportunity to get real world business building experience," said Phil Kafarakis, President, Specialty Food Association. "We were all incredibly impressed and excited with Alon Kruvi's product and presentation and look forward to seeing them for years to come in the industry."

Kruvi and Hummustir were among three finalists who went through a rigorous application and presentation process. The panel of judges included such foodservice experts as Massimiliano Conti, Chef and Owner of La Ciccia; Todd Carell, VP of Sales and Procurement for Food Innovations; Kim Alter, Chef and Owner of Nightbird and Linden Room; and Clark Guittard, International Director and Brand Manager of Guittard Chocolates. Criteria included innovation, quality and readiness for the foodservice industry.

About the Specialty Food Association:

The Specialty Food Association is a thriving community of food artisans, importers and entrepreneurs. Established in 1952 in New York, the not-for-profit trade association provides its 3,400 members in the U.S. and abroad with resources, knowledge and connections to champion and nurture their companies in an always-evolving marketplace. The Association owns and produces the Winter and Summer Fancy Food Shows, and presents the sofi Awards honoring excellence in specialty food. Learn more at specialtyfood.com.

Facebook: facebook.com/craftcarejoy

Twitter: twitter.com/craftcarejoy

LinkedIn: Specialty Food Industry Group

Pinterest: pinterest.com/craftcarejoy

Instagram: specialtyfoodassociation

SOURCE Specialty Food Association

Related Links

http://www.specialtyfood.com


"We built the best customer experience out there; the one we would want for ourselves, our friends and family," said Vishal Garg, Founder and CEO of Better. "With over half a billion dollars in loans originated in our first yearmore than any other fintech startup in its initial year of launchconsumers have confirmed that we are onto something extraordinary."

According to Ellie Mae's December 2016 Originations Insight Report, the average time to close a loan was 50 days and 23% of home purchase applications did not close. The Mortgage Bankers Association cites total loan production expenses of nearly $7,000 in the third quarter of 2016 and a recent report by the former chairperson of the MBA noted that an average closing package numbers 806 pages. Consumers feel the pain; the average Net Promoter Score of the three largest banks in the mortgage business is negative 12. "We could say that the mortgage industry is broken, but the numbers speak for themselves, and almost anyone who has ever dealt with a typical mortgage company as a consumer like we did will tell you pretty much the same ---- so rather than just build another website on top of the existing backend process, we fixed it from the ground up and built something that delights consumers and investors," added Erik Bernhardsson, CTO of Better.

Better eliminates the jargon, complexity and commissions of the traditional mortgage process, and aligns incentives, provides consumers real advice and service, when and where consumers want it. Consumers can get transparent rate quotes in seconds, and get approved and lock a rate in minutes online at Better.com 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, all without ever speaking to a single commissioned mortgage broker. Better takes the thousands of dollars in savings from digitization and passes them onto the consumer, in the form of better rates and better process and service.

"Better is a breakthrough for consumers in the mortgage market," said Noah Knauf, General Partner at Kleiner Perkins, the venture capital firm that invested in tech greats Amazon and Google. "The next generation of homebuyers will expect a customer experience that none of the current industry players are equipped to deliver, and we're very excited to join Goldman Sachs and Pine Brook in helping Better transform the market."

"Technology has upended personal finance, replacing expensive middlemen with intuitive and transparent online processes," said Nicholaos Krenteras, Partner at Pine Brook. "The exception has been the mortgage origination business, which has been sheltered by onerous capital, regulatory, and operating requirements. Innovation in the industry has been defined by traditional players patching together third-party services, leading to poor borrower experiences and runaway costs. In contrast, Better built a seamless digital platform from the ground up."

Better Mortgage operates in California, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Washington, Oregon, Connecticut, Illinois and Washington D.C., and plans to continue expanding its licensed geographic footprint in 2017. In June 2016, Better announced a $30 million Series A investment round led by Goldman Sachs, Pine Brook, KCK Group, 1/0 Capital and IA Ventures.

About Better Mortgage

Better is a direct mortgage lender dedicated to reengineering the home finance process from the ground up to make it simple, fast, and transparent. By giving customers access to home loan products that meet their needs and arming them with powerful tools and support, Better empowers Americans to achieve their financial goals. We're using technology to change the way people finance their homes, for the better. For more information, visit Better.com.

About Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers



Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) partners with the brightest entrepreneurs to turn disruptive ideas into world-changing businesses. The firm has helped build pioneering companies like Amazon, Electronic Arts, Genentech, Google, Nest, Netscape, and Twitter. KPCB offers entrepreneurs years of operating experience, puts them at the center of a vast and influential network, and accelerates their success through expertise and support in recruiting, product design and delivery, business development, strategic partnerships, and brand building. KPCB invests in all stages from seed and incubation to growth companies and operates from offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, Shanghai and Beijing. For more information, follow @kpcb or visit https://www.kpcb.com.

About Goldman Sachs Principal Strategic Investments

The Goldman Sachs Principal Strategic Investments Group (NYSE: GS) seeks to make long-term strategic investments in fast growing technology companies that are uniquely positioned to benefit from a deeper business relationship with Goldman Sachs.

About Pine Brook

Pine Brook is an investment firm that manages more than $6.0 billion of limited partner commitments that makes "business building" and other equity investments, primarily in energy and financial services businesses. Pine Brook's team of investment professionals collectively has over 300 years of experience financing the growth of businesses with equity, working alongside talented entrepreneurs and experienced management teams to build businesses of scale without relying on acquisition leverage. Learn more at www.pinebrookpartners.com.

Follow Better Mortgage on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

SOURCE Better Mortgage
"Early literacy is the foundation for building the highly skilled workforce required for our knowledge-based economy," said SAS CEO Jim Goodnight, who led BRT's CEO task force that developed the report. "Current low reading proficiency among young students is deeply troubling; we must take steps now to address the problem."

Joining Goodnight in the campaign are:

Venessa Harrison , President, AT&T North Carolina

, President, AT&T North Carolina Dale Jenkins , CEO, Medical Mutual Insurance Company of North Carolina

, CEO, Medical Mutual Insurance Company of Mike Lamach , CEO, Ingersoll Rand

, CEO, Brian Moynihan , CEO, Bank of America, N.A.

, CEO, Bank of America, N.A. Tom Nelson , CEO, National Gypsum Company

, CEO, National Gypsum Company Jim Whitehurst , CEO, Red Hat , Inc.

According to the BRT report, the "skills gap" is only expanding:

Nearly 98 percent of BRT CEOs report challenges finding workers with the right skills.

Experts predict a nationwide shortfall of 5 million workers to fill jobs requiring postsecondary education or training by 2020.

In North Carolina , 67 percent of jobs will require postsecondary education or training by 2020 .

How do you fill these jobs when our country's future workforce cannot read proficiently? As the report outlines:

Students who cannot read proficiently by the end of third grade are four times more likely to leave school without a diploma than those with better reading skills.

Students with strong reading skills at the end of third grade are much more likely to seek post-secondary education or training.

seek post-secondary education or training. Only one in three American students currently demonstrates reading proficiency on national assessments of educational progress in fourth grade; rates are even worse for minority and low-income students.

If nothing changes, it will take another 30 years for even half of American fourth graders to read proficiently.

The full report, along with the complete set of pragmatic solutions proposed by America's CEOs, are available here.

Goodnight and his fellow NC business leaders see the BRT report, and its recommendations, as particularly salient for their state. North Carolina's "Read to Achieve" legislative initiative aims at the same target of reading proficiency by the end of third grade. Toward that goal, BRT's North Carolina CEOs are pressing for three policies:

A comprehensive, coordinated system that ensures accountability and alignment of birth-through-age-8 programs needed to achieve literacy.

Connected data systems that track children's progress and enable early interventions.

Expanded access to NC Pre-K to create the foundation for literacy skills.

Later today, these CEOs will present their policy recommendations to North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger, Speaker of the House Tim Moore and other members of the General Assembly. "We will make every effort to convince North Carolina's political leaders to embrace the BRT's recommendations and use them to benefit our children and our economy," Goodnight concluded.

The CEOs visited a local elementary school to speak to the press about the report:

Charles Bowman , Bank of America Market President for North Carolina and Charlotte , representing Moynihan: "We need a comprehensive birth-through-age-8 system designed to maximize program, funding and administrative efficiencies, with clear accountability for implementation and operation."





, Bank of for and , representing Moynihan: "We need a comprehensive birth-through-age-8 system designed to maximize program, funding and administrative efficiencies, with clear accountability for implementation and operation." Venessa Harrison , President, AT&T North Carolina: "Extensive, rigorous research  all detailed in the Business Roundtable report  demonstrates that high-quality pre-K programs, delivered at scale to thousands of children, can significantly improve student readiness for kindergarten."





, President, AT&T North Carolina: "Extensive, rigorous research  all detailed in the Business Roundtable report  demonstrates that high-quality pre-K programs, delivered at scale to thousands of children, can significantly improve student readiness for kindergarten." Dale Jenkins , CEO, Medical Mutual Insurance Company of North Carolina : "Public education is the path forward. The recommendations we are making here today will strengthen our entire education system  in both our urban and rural areas."





, CEO, Medical Mutual Insurance Company of : "Public education is the path forward. The recommendations we are making here today will strengthen our entire education system  in both our urban and rural areas." Tom Nelson , CEO, National Gypsum Company: "We recognize that increasing access to high-quality pre-K has a significant cost. But when such extensive research shows that these programs get children on the path to reading proficiency, it is money well spent."





, CEO, National Gypsum Company: "We recognize that increasing access to high-quality pre-K has a significant cost. But when such extensive research shows that these programs get children on the path to reading proficiency, it is money well spent." Jim Whitehurst , CEO, Red Hat : "In order to ensure North Carolina children are on track to reading at grade level by third grade, we need to understand all of the indicators that research tells us impact early literacy."

About BRT

Established in 1972, Business Roundtable is an association of chief executive officers of leading US companies working to promote sound public policy and a thriving US economy. Business Roundtable CEOs lead companies with more than $6 trillion in annual revenues and nearly 15 million employees.

SOURCE SAS Institute

Related Links

http://www.sas.com


From 2008 to 2015, wireline broadband speeds have increased 700 percent, while broadband prices in California have declined as much as 76 percent. During the same time period, VoIP connections in the state increased by 220 percent, 9.5 million wireless subscriptions were added, and, around the country, the average monthly wireless bill fell 14 percent.

Characterizing California's communications market as "hyper-competitive", Dr. Sosa identifies a wide range of benefits for consumers, such as tele-health and assistive technology applications, IP and wireless-based public safety tools, and lower prices and higher levels of adoption across the state, including California's rural and low income communities.

Given the "amazing technological and service advances" produced by the market, Dr. Sosa finds that California's reliance on competition, rather than regulation, in state policy has been key to promoting innovation and investment in the state. The result has been nothing less than a technological revolution that has led to decreasing prices and a wide array of choices for California consumers.

"Technology must work for everyone, and this study shows that the state's balanced approach to telecommunications policy and a smart regulatory environment are paying off for all Californians," said Kish Rajan, chief evangelist for CALinnovates. "Governor Brown's emphasis on transparency and right-sized oversight in telecommunications innovations is paying dividends: the sizable increase in wireless California homes is a strong indicator that more Californians are getting the up-to-date technology they need to live and work in 2017."

"Consumers have embraced wireless technologies and advanced services, benefitting from decreasing prices and a wide array of choices," said David Sosa, author of Consumer-Driven Competition in California Communications Market study. "With the technological revolution and pro-innovation state policy, the market has evolved to provide solutions that improve consumers' lives and address business needs. California's broadband developments of the past decade indicate that Californians will be well served by policies designed to foster competition and innovation."

Additional findings in the study demonstrate how online habits are changing:

55 percent of Californians get healthcare information online.

53 percent of Californians do their banking online.

63 percent of California parents use the internet to connect with their children's school.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. David Sosa (Ph.D., University of California, Davis) specializes in the economics of network industries, law and economics, and industrial organization. He has consulted to telecommunications and electric utility clients on a broad range of litigation and regulatory issues, including industry restructuring, technical standardization, operational and financial benchmarking, mergers and acquisitions, market power analysis, and competitive strategy. Dr. Sosa has served as an expert witness before several state and federal agencies, and has supported testifying experts in assessing the economic impacts of several high-profile mergers in the telecommunications industry. In other telecommunications work, Dr. Sosa has analyzed spectrum license acquisitions, wireless technology standards, and voice and data roaming markets. He is a frequent public speaker and has published a number of articles in industry and professional journals, including Public Utilities Fortnightly, the Journal of Legal Studies, and the Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review. He is a member of the American Economic Association and Federal Communications Bar Association. Before joining Analysis Group, he consulted to the California Energy Commission and Telcordia.

ABOUT CALINNOVATES

CALinnovates is a group of non-partisan policy and technology experts who are bridging the gap between Silicon Valley, Sacramento and Washington DC.

SOURCE CALinnovates
The election isn't over. It's just beginning.

Wisconsin's spring primary is only two weeks away on Feb. 21, followed by the April 4 election.

If you want to influence your leaders, vote. Far too many people fail to cast ballots if the White House or governor's office isn't at stake. Local elections and the candidates who win will influence your community and state, which influences Washington. So don't skip this opportunity.

Voters this spring will pick a state school superintendent and local school board members with lots of say over public education here.

Voting will influence even those elected officials who aren't on the spring ballot. That's because every election sends a message about the mood of the electorate.

About 75,000 to 100,000 people packed the Capitol Square in Madison Jan. 21  the day after President Trump's inauguration  as part of a global Women's March. It was an impressive show of people power. Yet if that many people showed up at the polls in Dane County Feb. 21, it would shatter the record for turnout and easily decide who wins.

Public demonstrations have the potential to change history. Yet giant protests at the statehouse in 2011 failed to stop Gov. Scott Walker's union restrictions and helped turn him into a national conservative hero.

Call your representatives with your concerns. Send a personal letter. Or better yet, attend a town hall meeting or district office hours to visit with them in person. Be polite, succinct and sincere.

Follow your representatives on social media and comment on what they post.

Join a group. Donate to causes or candidates. Volunteer for campaigns or run for public office yourself.

Read the newspaper to stay well informed, and write a letter to the editor.

Harness the power you have locally to impact your community and world.

This editorial appeared in the Feb. 5 edition of the Wisconsin State Journal, another Lee Enterprises publication.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- CareDash.com, the online healthcare portal transforming the doctor review industry, today announces it has secured nearly $1 million in venture debt financing and an additional $1 million line of credit led by Link Ventures, a Cambridge-based investment firm focused on internet and technology companies.

With this new investment, the company will increase consumer awareness of the brand as a resource dedicated to transparency in the doctor review industry with a steadfast promise to reject payments from doctors seeking to remove and hide negative reviews, a widely-used industry practice. Notable CareDash investors include former Chairman and CEO of Thomson Financial, Jeff Parker; former Chairman of McGraw-Hill Publishing, Ron Schlosser; and founder of the Food Network, Joe Langhan.

"We started CareDash with the mission to arm patients with the transparent information they need to take charge of their healthcare," said Ted Chan, founder and CEO, CareDash.com. "It's one thing to eat a bad meal at a restaurant because a review was suppressed in exchange for compensation; it's quite another to manipulate the healthcare information available to patients." This latest round of funding from Link Ventures builds upon an exceptional year for CareDash which saw exponential growth of ratings and reviews, in addition to several key executive appointments. Link Ventures' focus on market intelligence and corporate services will enable CareDash to continue improving the patient healthcare experience."

"Ted and his team at CareDash have achieved impressive growth," said David Blundin, Managing Partner, Link Ventures and Chairman of the Board of CareDash. "We see tremendous potential in the CareDash model of harnessing the power of consumer-generated content to solve a real need for authentic information in the healthcare space. We look forward to this continued partnership."

CareDash has also expanded its Board of Directors as the company moves to optimize its mobile healthcare experience, recently adding veteran mobile analytics expert, Mira Wilczek. Mira's expertise advising Fortune 500 companies on consumer and mobile behavior will be instrumental in addressing the more than 50% of CareDash users who currently access the website via mobile devices. Ted Chan was also recently named to the Board of Directors.

Launched in June 2016, CareDash currently features more than 30,000 reviews and ratings. The company generated $6.7 million in revenue in 2016 and previously raised $500,000 in seed capital.

About CareDash.com:

Headquartered in Cambridge, MA, CareDash.com is an online healthcare portal transforming the doctor review industry to make it more transparent and accessible for all patients regardless of their socio-economic background. Unlike other doctor review sites, CareDash does not influence, suppress or remove negative reviews in exchange for payment from providers. Unbeknownst to patients, existing doctor review sites accept payments from doctors to remove and hide negative reviews. CareDash also services more patients in the low-to-middle income range than leading patient review sites  many of whom have traditionally been ignored and underrepresented in this space.

About Link Ventures:

Link Equity Partners, LLC is a venture capital firm dedicated to investing in internet and technology companies with a capital-efficient road to profitability. Founded in 2006 by Managing Partner, David Blundin, Link Ventures success is rooted in its ability to identify unique business opportunities and to partner with portfolio companies to drive rapid growth through the application of cutting-edge internet traffic generation techniques in combination with sophisticated mathematical modeling and behavioral analysis.

SOURCE CareDash

Related Links

https://www.caredash.com


PARIS and STOCKHOLM, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Laboratoire Fleur de Santes new Champagne Collection uses Extrait de Champagne, fueled by grape seed Phyto-StemCell's Resveratrol, for the ultimate antioxidant protection and photo-aging prevention. By reinforcing the skin's structural matrix (collagen and elastin) and stimulating its natural regeneration process, this powerful antioxidant postpones skin aging and leaves it smooth and even toned. One more reason to love Champagne!

"Antioxidant rich, Champagne extract is used in our products because it's incredibly effective at protecting and nourishing your skin. We believe that beautiful, healthy skin is worth celebrating every day," says Mathias Tonnesson, CEO of Laboratoire Fleur de Sante. "Our products are made from love, so when I'm asked who my audience is, that's simple - it's the love of my life. My wife Johanna," says Mathias Tonnesson, CEO Laboratoire Fleur de Sante.

"Antioxidant rich, Champagne extract is used in our products because it's incredibly effective at protecting and nourishing your skin. We believe that beautiful, healthy skin is worth celebrating every day," says Mathias Tonnesson, CEO of Laboratoire Fleur de Sante.

Champagne takes on a whole new meaning in skin care

The most famous sparkling wine in the world isn't just for drinking any more.

Fleur de Sante has captured its essence for the ultimate global anti-aging range of products. Extremely rich in antioxidants (Resveratrol), Champagne is one of the most beneficial ingredients protecting skin from free radicals and stress to which we are exposed every day by breathing in pollution or being unprotected from UV light.

By counteracting these factors, Champagne extract reduces the damaging marks photo-aging leaves on your skin (wrinkles, sagging skin, dark spots). It works by restoring the skin's structural tissue  collagen and elastin to make it more resistant to various environmental aggressors. Antioxidants, which Champagne owes to grape seed extract, are of the highest potency, being at least 20 times more powerful than Vitamin C or E. In Fleur de Sante products, the exclusive Extrait de Champagne is further enhanced by grape seed Phyto-StemCell Infusion, which together deliver tremendously strong anti-aging force.

For more information about Fleur de Sante Champagne Collection, visit www.fleurdesante.com/products/

What makes phyto-stem cells so special?

Phyto-stem cells counteract the negative effect of the UV light, help maintain skin stem cell's functions and reinforce their capacity to grow, which in turn slows down the skin aging process. On top of this, they accelerate regeneration and the tissue building functions of skin, resulting in restoration of firmness and wrinkle reduction.

About Laboratoire Fleur de Sante

Fleur de Sante was founded in 1980, with the distinction of being the only brand in the world to utilize Swedish and French medicinal flowers in their beneficial formulations. The tradition continues as the brand is experiencing a re-birth with CEO Mathias Tonnesson. His passion to create skin care with "every detail considered" sees the latest clinically proven collections containing antioxidant-rich Champagne extract, plant stem cell-boosted flowers, and airless packaging that makes every formulation more effective. 95% natural and never tested on animals, Fleur de Sante is more than premium skin care  it is the result of one man's passion to create products made from love.

Visit: www.fleurdesante.com

Contact:

Mathias Tonnesson

CEO, Laboratoire Fleur de Sante

+1 (646) 893-4100 Ext: 100

[email protected]

SOURCE Laboratoire Fleur de Sante

Related Links

http://www.fleurdesante.com


MOUNT PROSPECT, Ill., Feb. 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Acumatica announced at their 2017 annual conference that Crestwood Associates has been named Partner of the Year for 2016 in North America. "This year, we are honored to recognize the expertise and commitment from Crestwood Associates and name them as the Acumatica Partner of the Year in 2016," said Jon Roskill, CEO Acumatica. This prestigious designation was awarded to Crestwood for demonstrating business excellence and customer satisfaction in delivering innovative Acumatica systems. The Partner of the Year Award recognizes license growth and innovation, as well as Crestwood's deep technical expertise, and their ability to drive adoption and help customers get results with Acumatica's cloud-based ERP solution. This year, the race to Partner of the Year was a nail-biter, with over 250 partners competing for the title.

Brian McGuckin, partner at Crestwood offered, "I deeply value the recognition from Acumatica, and I would like to call out the tireless efforts and outstanding talent of our internal Acumatica implementation team. They set the bar high. We would not be here without them."

Additionally, two of Crestwood's employees earned the prestigious Acumatica MVP Award. Mike Aichinger and Jeff Williams, both Senior Acumatica Consultants at Crestwood Associates, were recognized as leaders in the industry. The Acumatica MVP award honors people in the Acumatica community who share their expertise, knowledge and dedication to the platform and product.



About Crestwood Associates

Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Mount Prospect, Illinois, Crestwood Associates is a premier Gold Certified Microsoft Dynamics Partner and 10-time Presidents Club Award Winner. Crestwood delivers a variety of business solutions, including: Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Microsoft Dynamics CRM (now called Dynamics 365), Acumatica Cloud ERP, and Greentree applications. From accounting and financial reporting, to CRM, manufacturing, distribution, payroll and human resources, Crestwood Associates provides the tools and quality services that help businesses perform above and beyond the competition. The Crestwood team is comprised of over 45 certified professionals who provide in-depth industry experience and functional expertise.

About Acumatica

Acumatica is a leading provider of cloud business management software that empowers small and mid-size businesses to unlock their potential and drive growth. Built on the world's best cloud and mobile technology and a unique customer-centric licensing model, Acumatica delivers a suite of fully integrated business management applications such as Financials, Distribution, CRM and Project Accounting, powered by a robust and flexible platform.

Photos:

https://www.prlog.org/12618660

Press release distributed by PRLog

SOURCE Crestwood Associates LLC

Related Links

http://www.crestwood.com/


In separate events in Dallas and Houston hosted at Texas Woman's University (TWU) campuses, DWF President and CEO Roslyn Dawson Thompson and TWU Chancellor Carine Feyten led panel discussions of the jointly sponsored new research, and discussed steps that can be taken to address the economic challenges outlined in the report.

Thompson said, "Of the 14 million females in Texas, 17 percent  or 2.89 million  live in poverty, compared to 14 percent of men and boys. Our goal is that this study will lay out the challenges, solutions and what we've accomplished so far in education, child care, health insurance and housing, so that community leaders, officials, nonprofit organizations, businesses and donors will work together to improve economic security for Texas women."

Education: A Pathway to Economic Security

Education is a pathway to economic security, yet financial insecurity creates challenges that make it less likely for low-income female students to complete a higher education degree or credential.

Findings:

Hispanic women (25 percent) and Black women (34 percent) have much lower rates of higher education attainment than White (55 percent) or Asian (75 percent) women.

Texas women earn more with every step up in their education. The median earnings of women with a bachelor's degree are $17,000 higher than women with some college or an associate's degree. However, women with a bachelor's still earn $20,000 less than Texas men with a bachelor's degree.

women earn more with every step up in their education. The median earnings of women with a bachelor's degree are higher than women with some college or an associate's degree. However, women with a bachelor's still earn less than men with a bachelor's degree. A third of jobs are "middle-skill," requiring some postsecondary training, such as a certificate or industry credential, but not necessarily a bachelors' degree. Twenty-two percent of Texas women have some college education, but no degree.

Recommendations:

Dual enrollment courses in high school, so students can also earn college credit.

Help women get training for middle-skill jobs where they will earn more than minimum wage.

Child Care: A Critical Work Support for Families

The average yearly cost of full-time child care in Texas is between $7,000 to $9,000nearly the average annual cost of college in Texas. Access to child care helps women improve their employment, wages, job stability and advancement opportunities.

Findings:

62 percent of Texas moms are in the paid labor force.

moms are in the paid labor force. The majority of Texas children are part of families where both parents work outside the home, or one parent if in a single-parent family. This describes 59 percent (1.3 million) of children under age 6, and 62 percent (1.7 million) of children ages 6 to 12.

children are part of families where both parents work outside the home, or one parent if in a single-parent family. This describes 59 percent (1.3 million) of children under age 6, and 62 percent (1.7 million) of children ages 6 to 12. Fewer than 10 percent of eligible children receive child-care subsidies.

Recommendations:

State legislators can build off of existing Pre-K programs and provide additional funding to support full-day programs.

Texas can increase the amount of funding available to subsidize child-care costs for those who qualify.

can increase the amount of funding available to subsidize child-care costs for those who qualify. Employers can institute family-friendly policies and work options, such as paid family leave, dependent care reimbursement accounts, flex time, telecommuting and greater employee choice in managing work hours.

Health Insurance: A Financial Shield for the Unexpected

About 16 percent (2.2 million) women and girls in Texas do not have health insurance.

Findings:

In Texas , 2.2 million women and girls (16 percent) are effectively left out of the health care system because they do not have health insurance, which puts their health and their family's financial security at risk.

, 2.2 million women and girls (16 percent) are effectively left out of the health care system because they do not have health insurance, which puts their health and their family's financial security at risk. From 2013 to 2015, the female uninsured rate in Texas decreased by five percentage points, from 21 to 16 percent. The male uninsured rate also decreased by five percentage points in Texas , from 23 to 18 percent.

Recommendations:

State legislators can craft a health insurance option that closes the Coverage Gap for low-income adult women.

Businesses and state legislators can make paid sick leave an earned benefit that is available to more working women.

Housing: The Anchor of Economic Security

For most women, housing represents the single largest cost in their budgets. When women have access to affordable housing, they have more resources for investment in education, child care and health insurance, but that is not the case in the state.

Findings:

The first is a situation called housing cost burdened, which disproportionately impacts single women and women of color. The rule of thumb for housing costs being too high is when a household spends 30 percent or more of its income on housing. About 45 percent of all female headed families are housing cost burdened compared to 31 percent of male headed families.

Women are at higher risk for eviction than men.

Recommendations:

State legislators can allow cities to pass local ordinances that protect low-income renters who use vouchers  the vast majority of whom are women  from housing discrimination.

Local governments should invest in legal services for women and families facing eviction.

The study was produced by Dallas Women's Foundation, authored by Center for Public Policy Priorities and supported by Texas Woman's University. Sources include U.S. Census Bureau data, federal and state agency data and academic research.

To see the full report and findings for each building block, visit https://www.dallaswomensfdn.org/economicissues

Dallas Women's Foundation is the largest regional women's fund in the world. With the support of its donors, the Foundation unlocks resources to advance women's economic security and women's leadership through research, grantmaking and advocacy. The Foundation's work improves education and quality of life, gives voice to issues affecting women and girls, and cultivates women leaders for the future. Since its founding in 1985, Dallas Women's Foundation has granted more than $32 million total, and over $4.2 million annually to help create opportunities and solve issues for women and girls. Visit www.dallaswomensfdn.org.

SOURCE Dallas Womens Foundation

Related Links

http://www.dallaswomensfdn.org


VALLEY COTTAGE, New York, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Advanced imaging systems are becoming the crux of all intricate medical procedures, especially for methods that treat ailments of sensitive body parts & organs. Widefield imaging systems are known to play a similar role in treatment of various eye disorders and diseases. One wrong touch to the naked eye can, not only irk the patient, but also give rise to tremendous physical discomfort and lead to undue exposure to infectious diseases. Medical professionals, hence, are promoting the use of widefield imaging technologies for assisting the imaging purposes in treatment of ocular oncology, diabetic retinopathy and other retinal diseases. A recent study conducted by Future Market Insights illustrates that diabetic retinopathy accounted for over one-third of global widefield imaging systems revenues in 2016.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161020/430874LOGO )



According to Future Market Insights -

The global market for widefield imaging systems, which is presently valued at US$ 385.8 million , will soar at 8% CAGR and bring in revenues worth US$ 834.5 million by the end of 2026.

, will soar at 8% CAGR and bring in revenues worth by the end of 2026. Diabetic Retinopathy will account for over US$ 320 million revenues by 2026-end, procuring nearly 40% of the global market value.

revenues by 2026-end, procuring nearly 40% of the global market value. Demand for widefield imaging systems will be high for treatment of glaucoma, registering an increment at 9.2% CAGR.

Request a Sample Report with Table of Contents: http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-1732

Apropos the report titled "Widefield Imaging System Market: Global Industry Study and Opportunity Assessment, 2016-2026," North America is projected to account for more than 40% of global revenues throughout the forecast period. Sales of widefield imaging systems in Asia-Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) region will surpass US$ 130 million by 2026-end. Latin America and the Middle East & Africa (MEA) regions are likely to exhibit sluggish growth, compared to Western Europe and Eastern Europe's widefield imaging system market. Meanwhile, Japan's widefield imaging systems sales will surpass US$ 65 million revenues by the end of forecast period.

European medical device manufacturers are observed to play key role in the global widefield imaging system market. Some of the leading manufacturers of widefield imaging systems include Centervue SpA (Italy), Optos plc, Carl Zeiss Meditec (Germany) and Heidelberg Engineering GmbH (Germany). US-based companies Visunex Medical Systems, Inc. and Clarity Medical Systems, Inc. are also observed as key players in the global market for widefield imaging systems.

Preview Analysis on Global Widefield Imaging Systems Market Segmentation By Indication - Diabetic Retinopathy, Retinopathy of Prematurity, Pediatric Retinal Diseases, Retinal Vein Occlusion, Ocular Oncology, Uveitis, Chorioretinal Diseases, Glaucoma; By Component - Instruments, Software (Image Viewing & Data Analysis and Interpretation Software); By Modality - Standalone, Portable; By End User - Specialty Clinics, Hospitals, Ambulatory Surgical Centres: http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/wide-field-imaging-systems-market

Highlights of the research on global widefield imaging system market include:

Hospitals will remain the largest end-user of widefield imaging systems, accounting for global revenues worth over US$ 300 million by 2026-end

by 2026-end Throughout the forecast period, demand for standalone widefield imaging systems will remain higher. Although, portable modality of using widefield imaging systems will gain traction.

While sales of instruments will remain higher compared to software used in widefield imaging systems, data analysis & interpretation software are likely to witness higher demand over the forecast period

More From FMI's Cutting-edge Intelligence:

Automated CPR Devices Market : http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/automated-cpr-devices-market

: http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/automated-cpr-devices-market Continuous Glucose Monitoring Systems Market : http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/continuous-glucose-monitoring-systems-market

: http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/continuous-glucose-monitoring-systems-market Ophthalmic Diagnostic Equipment Market: http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/ophthalmic-diagnostic-equipment-market

About Us

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 and an aerial view of the competitive framework and future market trends.

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SOURCE Future Market Insights
MOSCOW, February 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

ElcomSoft Co. Ltd. updates Elcomsoft Phone Breaker, the company's mobile acquisition tool. Version 6.40 gains the ability to recover deleted Safari browsing history records from multiple sources, including deleted records stored in iCloud. ElcomSoft has discovered that Safari browsing records marked as "deleted" are actually still being stored in the cloud, and managed to pull these records with its mobile acquisition tool. The tool extracts full information about each record including the date and time on which the record was last accessed as well as the date and time the record has been deleted.

In addition, ElcomSoft updates Elcomsoft Phone Viewer, the company's lightweight forensic tool to help experts view and analyze information extracted with Elcomsoft Phone Breaker. The updated Viewer adds the ability to filter existing and deleted browsing history records.

"In this release, we added the ability to pull Safari browsing records going back more than one year, and this includes records that've been deleted a long time ago", says Vladimir Katalov, ElcomSoft CEO. "The user does not have a chance to see these records anywhere on their device or in the cloud, and may not have a clue they even exist."

"Any data that's supposed to be deleted but can still be extracted is always interesting, especially for the law enforcement", adds Per Thorsheim, a renowned security expert and organizer of the PasswordsCon conference.

Access to Synced Data

Apple has an option to sync certain types of data across devices sharing the same Apple ID. Information such as phone calls, contacts, Safari tabs, browsing history and favorites can be synchronized across devices. Unlike daily cloud backups, syncing works near instantly with little or no delay.

Many users disable iCloud backups for privacy reasons. However, those same users rarely disable cloud sync as there is no clear way to do this. Most users rely on iCloud for their daily activities, and they have synchronization enabled by default.

Safari Browsing History

Safari is the default browser in Apple's mobile and desktop operating systems, iOS and macOS. Safari syncs its browsing history across devices that are registered with the same Apple ID. This sync is optional and can be disabled by the user; however, it is enabled by default. Safari sync allows seamless transition between the user's devices, allowing to access Web sites opened on the user's iPhone on their Macbook or iPad, and vice versa. This sync is completely separate from iCloud backups, and works in real-time. Once the user deletes a certain entry, that entry disappears from all other synced devices (assuming they are online).

The browsing history goes back to as long as one month; at least this is what the user sees on their iPhone or iPad. While the actual browsing database may keep more records (ElcomSoft tests show 3 to 4 months' worth of browsing records available in a local SQLite database pulled via iTunes or iCloud backup), this is not the point.

The point is that Apple keeps synced Safari browsing history in the cloud for much longer than one, three or four months - even for deleted entries. ElcomSoft researchers were able to access records that've been deleted more than a year ago, which means that deleted records are not actually cleaned up from iCloud.

Elcomsoft Phone Breaker 6.40 adds the ability to extract deleted browsing history records from iCloud, while Elcomsoft Phone Viewer 3.25 receives the ability to view those records and apply filters for existing and deleted browsing history items. Two timestamps are extracted along with the Web link: information about the date and time on which the record was last accessed as well as the date and time on which the record has been deleted.

What Else Is New

The complete changelog for Elcomsoft Phone Breaker 6.40:

added password recovery for encrypted iTunes 10.2 backups

fixed an issue with synced "open tabs" data

fixed an issue with downloading and decrypting data from iCloud Drive (some files were missing)

unified password cracking engine (same as in Distributed Password Recovery)

bug fixes and performance improvements

About Elcomsoft Phone Breaker

Elcomsoft Phone Breaker is an all-in-one mobile acquisition tool to extract information from a wide range of sources. Supporting offline and cloud backups created by Apple, BlackBerry and Windows mobile devices, the tool can extract and decrypt user data including cached passwords and synced authentication credentials to a wide range of resources from local backups. Cloud extraction with or without a password makes it possible to decrypt FileVault 2 containers without lengthy attacks and pull communication histories and retrieve photos that've been deleted by the user a long time ago.

Pricing and Availability

Elcomsoft Phone Breaker 6.40 is available immediately for both Windows and Mac OS X. Home, Professional and Forensic editions are available. iCloud recovery is only available in Professional and Forensic editions, while password-free iCloud access as well as the ability to download arbitrary information from iCloud and iCloud Drive are only available in the Forensic edition. Elcomsoft Phone Breaker Pro is available to North American customers for $199. The Forensic edition enabling over-the-air acquisition of iCloud data and support for binary authentication tokens is available for $799. The Home edition is available for $79. Local pricing may vary.

System Requirements

Elcomsoft Phone Breaker 6.40 supports Windows Vista, Windows 7, 8, 8.1, and Windows 10 as well as Windows 2003, 2008 and 2012 Server. The Mac version supports Mac OS X 10.7 and newer. Elcomsoft Phone Breaker operates without Apple iTunes or BlackBerry Link 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), Intel Premier Elite Partner and member of NVIDIA's CUDA/GPU Computing Registered Developer Program.

SOURCE ELCOMSOFT Co. Ltd.
ROCKLEDGE, Fla., Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Elev8 Brands, Inc. (OTC Pink: VATE) a company with a new premium hemp seed coffee blend, that also plans to bring to market hemp water products and supplements, all of which will focus on the health and fitness markets, announces it has entered into an acquisition agreement with 02 Breathe, LLC, a Florida Limited Liability Company. As part of the Transaction Elev8 Brands, Inc. acquired all of the membership interest in 02 Breathe, LLC and Ms. Tina Aldrich has become the new Marketing Manager of Elev8 Brands, Inc.

02 Breathe, LLC was founded by Tina Aldrich in 2010 as Orlando's first mobile oxygen bar. Since then she's expanded the business to cover many large festivals, concerts, and other events around the state of Florida. 02 Breathe has serviced trade shows and private events for major clients such as Kaspersky, Gaylord Palms, House of Blues, Hard Rock, Garret Leather, Papa John's, Merritage Homes, Salix Pharmaceuticals, Symantec, and more.

In 2015, Ms. Aldrich opened a small shop to coincide the various locations the oxygen bars are found and to expand the product lines that her health-conscious following was looking for. At the shop, you'll be able to find numerous products in the health, beauty, and wellness industry ranging from aromatherapy inhalers to a full line of massagers. As the demand for CBD and hemp based products began to grow, Ms. Aldrich introduced her following to the health benefits of hemp and CBD through various oils in late 2015.

Elev8 Brands, Inc. is in the process of finding the right individuals to bring on to its management team. As both companies share the same passion for life and health, Tina Aldrich has accepted a position as the Marketing Manager for Elev8 Brands, Inc.

"We are beyond excited to acquire 02 Breathe, LLC and diversify our company," stated Ryan Medico, CEO of Elev8 Brands, Inc. "We are going to be aggressive in our continued pursuit of acquisitions that help add tremendous value to our Company. I am also thrilled to announce Ms. Aldrich will be joining our Management Team, bringing over 10 years of experience with her. She will be an invaluable asset to Elev8 Brands."

"I am so happy to join the Elev8 Brands Team," stated Tina Aldrich, Marketing Manager of Elev8 Brands, Inc. "Our paths crossed at the perfect time. Everything just fell into place. I had just looked at three locations with more space to open a coffee shop when Ryan approached me about his company. I couldn't be more excited about how parallel our brands are. It just makes sense to do business together."

The Company would also like to announce that its revolutionary hemp coffee made with high-quality South American sourced coffee beans, has been shipped to Elev8 Brands warehouse and will soon be available for sale on Amazon.com.

About Ms. Tina Aldrich:

Tina Aldrich is the founder of 02 Breathe, LLC, a company that brings the health and wellness industry to the next level through mobile oxygen bars, aromatherapy inhalers, CBD oils, and now a premium hemp coffee.

Before developing 02 Breathe, Tina spent over 10 years developing skills in sales and marketing, management, event planning, and consulting. From engaging audiences of thousands, to gorilla marketing, Tina has successfully done it all.

Please visit, www.elev8hemp.com for more information

Safe Harbor Statement:

The information posted in this release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You can identify these statements by use of the words "may," "will," "should," "plans," "expects," "anticipates," "continue," "estimate," "project," "intend," and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, general economic and business conditions, effects of continued geopolitical unrest and regional conflicts, competition, changes in technology and methods of marketing, delays in completing various engineering and manufacturing programs, changes in customer order patterns, changes in product mix, continued success in technological advances and delivering technological innovations, shortages in components, production delays due to performance quality issues with outsourced components, and various other factors beyond the Company's control.

SOURCE Elev8 Brands, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.elev8hemp.com


SAN FRANCISCO and NEW YORK, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- EPIC Insurance Brokers and Consultants, a retail property, casualty insurance brokerage and employee benefits consultant, announced today that Bill Cosgrove, Managing Principal & Practice Leader, EPIC Financial Risk Solutions, will moderate a panel on Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) exposures at Advisen's Cyber Risk Insights Conference on Wed., Feb. 15 at 2 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Ballroom in San Francisco, Calif.

The Cyber Risk Insights Conference will focus on the new vulnerabilities caused by an increasingly connected world and how the insurance market is responding to cyber risk and security threats through creative solutions. An expert faculty comprised of leading security, regulatory, risk management and cyber insurance authorities will provide their insights into the critical privacy, network security and insurance coverage issues now facing organizations and their insurers.

Cosgrove will moderate a panel discussing where SME's are most vulnerable, alongside Winston Krone, managing director at Kivu and Jordan Rankell, assistant vice president and West Coast Regional Underwriting Manager at NAS. This panel will look at SME claims, cyber security protocols, and ask how the insurance market can grow in this sector.

Click here to view the full agenda: http://www.advisenltd.com/events/conferences/02/14/2017-cyber-risk-insights-conference-san-francisco/agenda/.

About Bill Cosgrove, Managing Principal & Practice Leader, Financial Risk Solutions, EPIC Insurance Brokers & Consultants:

Bill Cosgrove is a managing principal and practice leader for the Financial Risk Solutions Practice, based in New York. Cosgrove brings 30 years of insurance industry underwriting, production, marketing, client service, management and executive leadership experience to the firm.

Cosgrove is a specialist in the areas of cyber risk, fiduciary liability, directors and officers liability, employment practices risk, crime insurance, transactional risk, as well as trade and structured credit.

Cosgrove and his team have created several bespoke products for EPIC clients across the product mix, including EPICyber - a proprietary Cyber Risk and Insurance Platform, tailored to the unique needs of small and mid-sized businesses that are increasingly the most desirable targets of Cyber-attacks. Ref: http://www.epicbrokers.com/press/epic-launches-cyber-risk-insurance-platform-for-small-and-mid-sized-businesses/.

Prior to joining EPIC, Bill spent eight years with Willis Group Holdings, where he held various leadership roles in their Financial Institutions practice, most recently as executive vice president, Financial Institutions Group.

Bill also served in director and practice leader positions at Frank Crystal & Company and USI Insurance Holdings, Inc. for six years. Earlier in his career, he was regional underwriting manager at ACE USA (formerly CIGNA Corporation), where he was responsible for specialty risk products throughout a sixteen-state region on the East Coast.

About Cyber Risk Insight Conference:

Advisen will present a full day and a half of learning and networking for risk managers, CISOs, CROs, insurance brokers, insurance underwriters, reinsurers and other risk professionals. Day 1 of this day-and-a-half program will focus on the new vulnerabilities caused by an increasingly connected world and devices. Panelists will discuss the Internet of Things and its relevance to Cyber and beyond.

On Day 2, the sessions will focus on Cyber Risk and Security Threats and how the insurance market is responding and working with the InfoTech sector to develop creative solutions. An expert faculty comprised of leading security, regulatory, risk management, and cyber insurance authorities will provide their insights into the critical privacy, network security and insurance coverage now issues facing organizations and their insurers.

About EPIC:

EPIC is a unique and innovative retail property and casualty and employee benefits insurance brokerage and consulting firm. EPIC has created a values-based, client-focused culture that attracts and retains top talent, fosters employee satisfaction and loyalty and sustains a high level of customer service excellence. EPIC team members have consistently recognized their company as a "Best Place to Work" in multiple regions and as a "Best Place to Work in the Insurance Industry" nationally.

EPIC now has more than 850 team members operating from offices across the U.S., providing Property Casualty, Employee Benefits, Specialty Programs and Private Client solutions to more than 13,000 clients.

With more than $200 million in revenues, EPIC ranks among the top 20 retail insurance brokers in the United States. Backed by the Carlyle Group, the company continues to expand organically and through strategic acquisitions across the country. For additional information, please visit http://www.epicbrokers.com/.

*PHOTO for Media: Send2Press.com/mediaboom/16-0609-Bill-Cosgrove-300dpi.jpg

*LOGO for media: Send2Press.com/mediaboom/16-0308-epic-insurance-300dpi.jpg

This release was issued through Send2Press, a unit of Neotrope. For more information, visit Send2Press Newswire at https://www.Send2Press.com

SOURCE EPIC Insurance Brokers and Consultants

Related Links

http://www.epicbrokers.com/


"The Club's Once-in-a-Lifetime Journeys truly set us apart," says Cathy Ross, CEO. "Our 2018 Collection was designed to encourage new connections between friends and family, and those from different cultures along the way. We take care of the hard stuff, making even the most off-the-beaten path places more accessible so you and your family can focus on what matters mosttime together."

Designed exclusively for ER Members, each Journey is accompanied by one of the Club's dedicated guides alongside award-winning tour partners. 2018 destinations include:

Tanzania  This nine-day immersive tour begins with a private chartered bush flight to Lake Manyara followed by a visit to a local school and banana plantation, an excursion in Ngorongoro Crater, a safari throughout the Serengeti and a couple relaxing beach days in Zanzibar .

 This nine-day immersive tour begins with a private chartered bush flight to Lake Manyara followed by a visit to a local school and banana plantation, an excursion in Ngorongoro Crater, a safari throughout the Serengeti and a couple relaxing beach days in . Yucatan  Swim within arm's reach of the biggest fish in the seathey can reach 45 feet in length and weigh up to 15 tonson this six-day Journey featuring a whale shark tour and exciting whale shark encounter, topped off with a secluded beachside cocktail reception.

 Swim within arm's reach of the biggest fish in the seathey can reach 45 feet in length and weigh up to 15 tonson this six-day Journey featuring a whale shark tour and exciting whale shark encounter, topped off with a secluded beachside cocktail reception. Mekong River  Amble down the Mekong and enjoy a tour of Ho Chi Minh City's top sites, followed by a private cooking lesson, cultural immersion with a local Vietnamese family, silk weaving experience, market tour in Phnom Penh and archeological exploration of Angkor Wat.

 Amble down the Mekong and enjoy a tour of top sites, followed by a private cooking lesson, cultural immersion with a local Vietnamese family, silk weaving experience, market tour in and archeological exploration of Angkor Wat. Argentina  Uncover the flavor of Argentina with a private tango lesson, an exclusive boating excursion at Lake Nahuel Huapi, a polo lesson at a top polo estate and ice trekking around Los Glaciares National Park.

 Uncover the flavor of with a private tango lesson, an exclusive boating excursion at Lake Nahuel Huapi, a polo lesson at a top polo estate and ice trekking around Los Glaciares National Park. Australia  Discover the beauty and culture of Australia on this 12-day Journey featuring snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef, a tour of Janbal Art Gallery and a climb up the Sydney Harbor.

 Discover the beauty and culture of on this 12-day Journey featuring snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef, a tour of Janbal Art Gallery and a climb up the Sydney Harbor. Canadian Rockies  This nine-day family expedition tours the Canadian Rockies making pit stops for white water rafting at Kicking Horse River, bike riding in Banff, heli-hiking over Bow River and a farm-to-table dinner at Sky Bistro.

 This nine-day family expedition tours the Canadian Rockies making pit stops for white water rafting at Kicking Horse River, bike riding in Banff, heli-hiking over Bow River and a farm-to-table dinner at Sky Bistro. Danube River Cruise  Float along the stunning Danube, stopping along the way to wander around Budapest followed by beer tasting in Krems, savor a private viewing of Gustav Klimt's 'The Kiss' in Vienna and finish up with a bike ride through the picturesque Wachau Valley.

 Float along the stunning Danube, stopping along the way to wander around followed by beer tasting in Krems, savor a private viewing of Gustav Klimt's 'The Kiss' in and finish up with a bike ride through the picturesque Wachau Valley. France  Eat and drink your way through France during this eight-day gastronomic journey featuring a private dinner cruise down the Seine, a tour of Paris' famous food markets, a champagne tasting in Hautvillers and a wine tour of the Medoc Wine Region.

To date, the Club's Vacation Collection extends across more than 120 of the world's best destinations.

About Exclusive Resorts:

Fleeting dinner table talks are about as close as many of us get to family bonding in our hectic day-to-day lives. At Exclusive Resorts, we craft one-of-a-kind experiences to share with family and friends, strengthening our bonds with loved ones. Whether craving R&R on the beach or an off-the-grid adventure, our portfolio of 400+ luxury residences and experiences is diverse by design, aimed to help you relax, recharge, and reconnect. We plan every detailfrom the five-star amenities in your luxury residence to custom itinerariesso you can enjoy a hassle-free vacation. Your only demand of the day is to have fun. Founded in 2002 and acquired by Steve Case and Revolution Places in 2004, the Club has delivered more than 200,000 vacations for its 4,200 discerning Members. For more information about Exclusive Resorts, visit exclusiveresorts.com or call 844.609.8684, and follow Exclusive Resorts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Media Contact:

Katie Archambault

Nike Communications

[email protected]

646.654.3421





SOURCE Exclusive Resorts

Related Links

http://www.exclusiveresorts.com